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+Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459
+       Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: William Chambers
+        Robert Chambers
+
+Release Date: January 2, 2008 [EBook #24128]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. Shiffer and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                     CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL
+
+  CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
+  INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
+
+
+  No. 459. NEW SERIES.   SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1852.   PRICE 1-1/2_d._
+
+
+
+
+THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD.
+
+
+We all know that there are certain conventional laws by which our
+social doings and seemings are regulated; but what is the power which
+compels the observance of these laws? There is no company police to
+keep people moving on, no fines or other penalties; nobody but the
+very outrageous need fear being turned out of the room; we have every
+one of us strong inclinations and strong will: then, how comes it that
+we get on so smoothly? Why are there no outbreaks of individual
+character? How is it that we seem dovetailed into each other, as if we
+formed a homogeneous mass? What is the influence which keeps up the
+weak and keeps down the strong, and spreads itself like oil upon the
+boiling sea of human passion? We have a notion of our own, that all
+this is the work of an individual of the female sex; and, indeed, even
+the most unconscious and unreflecting would appear to assign to that
+individual her true position and authority, in naming her the Woman of
+the World.
+
+Society could never exist in a state of civilisation without the woman
+of the world. The man of the world has his own department, his own
+_métier_; but She it is who keeps up the general equilibrium. She is a
+calm, quiet, lady-like person, not obtrusive, and not easily put out
+of the way. You do not know by external observation that she is in the
+room; you feel it instinctively. The atmosphere she brings with her is
+peculiar, you cannot tell how. It is neither warm nor chill, neither
+moist nor dry; but it is repressive. You do not move in it with
+natural freedom, although you feel nothing that could be called
+_gêne_. Her manner is generally sweet, sometimes even caressing, and
+you feel flattered and elevated as you meet her approving eye. But you
+cannot get into it. There is a glassy surface, beautiful but hard, of
+which you can make nothing, and presently you feel a kind of
+strangeness come over you, as if you were not looking into the eye of
+a creature of your own kind. What you miss is sympathy.
+
+It is to her want of sympathy the woman of the world owes her
+position. The same deficiency is indispensable in the other
+individuals--such as a great monarch, or a great general--who rule the
+fate of mankind; but with this difference, that in them it is partial
+and limited, and in her universal. In them, it bears relation to their
+trade or mission; in her, it is a peculiarity of her general nature.
+She is accused of inhumanity; of sporting with the feelings of those
+about her, and rending, when they interfere with her plans, the
+strings of the heart as ruthlessly as if they were fiddlestrings. But
+all that is nonsense. She does not, it is true, ignore the existence
+of strings and feelings; on the contrary, they are in her eyes a great
+fact, without which she could do nothing. But her theory is, that they
+are merely a superficial net-work surrounding the character, the
+growth of education and other circumstances, and that they may be
+twisted, broken, and fastened anew at pleasure by skilful fingers. No,
+she is not inhumane. She works for others' good and her own greatness.
+Sighs and tears may be the result of her operations; but so are they
+of the operations of the beneficent surgeon. She dislikes giving pain,
+and comforts and sustains the patient to the best of her power; but at
+the most, she knows sighs are but wind, and tears but water, and so
+she does her duty.
+
+Although without sympathy, the woman of the world has great
+sensitiveness. She sits in the room like a spider, with her web
+fitting as closely to the whole area as the carpet; and she feels the
+slightest touch upon the slightest filament. So do the company: not
+understandingly like her, but instinctively and unconsciously, like a
+fly who only knows that somehow or other he is not at freedom. The
+thing that holds him is as soft and glossy and thin and small as silk;
+but even while dallying with its smoothness and pleasantness, a misty,
+indefinite sensation of impending danger creeps over him. Be quiet,
+little fly! Gently--gently: slip away if you can--but no defiance, no
+tugging, no floundering, or you are lost!
+
+A mythic story is told of the woman of the world: how in early life
+she was crossed in love; how she lost faith in feelings that seemed to
+exist exceptionally only in her own solitary bosom; and how a certain
+glassy hardness gathered upon her heart, as she sat waiting and
+waiting for a response to the inner voices she had suffered to burst
+forth--
+
+    The long-lost ventures of the heart,
+    That send no answers back again!
+
+But this is a fable. The woman of the world was never young--not while
+playing with her doll. She grew just as you see her, and will suffer
+no change till the dissolution of the elements of her body.
+Love-passages she has indeed had like other women; but the love was
+all on one side, and that side not hers. It is curious to observe the
+passion thus lavished in vain. It reminds one of the German story of
+the Cave of Mirrors, where a fairy damsel, with beckoning hand and
+beseeching eyes, was reflected from a thousand angles. The pursuing
+lover, endeavouring to clasp his mistress, flung himself from one
+illusory image to another, finding only the sharp, polished,
+glittering glass in his embrace, till faint, breathless, and bleeding,
+he sank upon the ground.
+
+The woman of the world, though a dangerous mistress, is an agreeable
+friend. She is partial to the everyday married lady, when presentable
+in point of dress and manners, and overwhelms her with little
+condescending kindnesses and caresses. This good lady, on her part,
+thinks her patroness a remarkably clever woman; not that she
+understands her, or knows exactly what she is about; but somehow or
+other she is _sure_ she is prodigiously clever. As for the everyday
+young lady, who has a genius for reverence, she reveres her; and these
+two, with their male congeners, are the dress-figures the woman of the
+world places about her rooms like ivory pieces on a chessboard.
+
+This admirable lady is sometimes a mother, and she is devotedly fond
+of her children, in their future. She may be seen gazing in their
+faces by the hour; but the picture that is before her mind's eye is
+the fulfilment of their present promise. An ordinary woman would
+dawdle away her time in admiring their soft eyes, and curly hair, and
+full warm cheeks; but the woman of the world sees the bud grown into
+the expanded flower, and the small cradle is metamorphosed into the
+boudoir by the magic of her maternal love. And verily, she has her
+reward: for death sometimes comes, to wither the bud, and disperse the
+dream in empty air. On such an occasion, her grief, as we may readily
+suppose, is neither deep nor lasting, for its object is twined round
+her imagination, not her heart. She regrets her wasted hopes and
+fruitless speculations; but the baby having never been present in its
+own entity, is now as that which has never been. The unthinking call
+her an unnatural mother, for they make no distinction. They do not
+know that death is with her a perfectly arranged funeral, a marble
+tablet, a darkened room, an attitude of wo, a perfumed handkerchief.
+They do not consider that when she lies down to rest, her eyes, in
+consequence of over-mental exertion, are too heavy with sleep to have
+room for tears. They do not reflect that in the morning she breaks
+into a new consciousness of reality from the clinging dreams of her
+maternal ambition, and not from the small visionary arms, the fragrant
+kiss, the angel whisper of her lost babe. They do not feel that in
+opening upon the light, her eyes part with the fading gleam of gems
+and satin, and kneeling coronets, and red right hands extending
+wedding-rings, and not with a winged and baby form, soaring into the
+light by which it is gradually absorbed, while distant hymns melt and
+die upon her ear.
+
+The woman of the world is sometimes prosperous in her reign over
+society, and sometimes otherwise. Even she submits, although usually
+with sweetness and dignity, to the caprices of fortune. Occasionally,
+the threads of her management break in such a way, that, with all her
+dexterity, she is unable to reunite them: occasionally, the strings
+and feelings are too strong to rend; and occasionally, in rending, the
+whole system falls to pieces. Her daughter elopes, her son marries the
+governess, her husband loses his seat in parliament; but there are
+other daughters to marry, other sons to direct, other honours to win;
+and so this excellent woman runs her busy and meritorious career. But
+years come on at last, although she lingers as long as she can in
+middle life; and, with her usual graceful dignity, she settles down
+into the reward the world bestows on its veterans, an old age of
+cards.
+
+Even now, she sometimes turns round her head to look at the things and
+persons around her, and to exult in the reputation she has earned, and
+the passive influence her name still exercises over society; but, as a
+rule, the kings and queens and knaves take the place of human beings
+with this woman of genius; the deepest arcana of her art are brought
+into play for the odd trick, and her pride and ambition are abundantly
+gratified by the circumvention of a half-crown.
+
+The woman of the world at length dies: and what then? Why, then,
+nothing--nothing but a funeral, a tablet, dust, and oblivion. This is
+reasonable, for, great as she was, she had to do only with the
+external forms of life. Her existence was only a material game, and
+her men and women were only court and common cards; diamonds and
+hearts were alike to her, their value depending on what was trumps.
+She saw keenly and far, but not deeper than the superficial net-work
+of the heart, not higher than the ceiling of the drawing-room. Her
+enjoyments, therefore, were limited in their range; her nature, though
+perfect in its kind, was small and narrow; and her occupation, though
+so interesting to those concerned, was in itself mean and frivolous.
+This is always her misfortune, the misfortune of this envied woman.
+She lives in a material world, blind and deaf to the influences that
+thrill the bosoms of others. No noble thought ever fires her soul, no
+generous sympathy ever melts her heart. Her share of that current of
+human nature which has welled forth from its fountain in the earthly
+paradise is dammed up, and cut off from the general stream that
+overflows the world. None of those minute and invisible ducts connects
+it with the common waters which make one feel instinctively, lovingly,
+yearningly, that he is not alone upon the earth, but a member of the
+great human family. And so, having played her part, she dies, this
+woman of the world, leaving no sign to tell that an immortal spirit
+has passed: nothing above the ground but a tablet, and below, only a
+handful of rotting bones and crumbling dust.
+
+
+
+
+MARIE DE LA TOUR.
+
+
+The basement front of No. 12 Rue St Antoine, a narrow street in Rouen,
+leading from the Place de la Pucelle, was opened by Madame de la Tour,
+in the millinery business, in 1817, and tastefully arranged, so far as
+scant materials permitted the exercise of decorative genius. She was
+the widow of a once flourishing _courtier maritime_ (ship-broker),
+who, in consequence of some unfortunate speculations, had recently
+died in insolvent circumstances. At about the same time, Clément
+Derville, her late husband's confidential clerk, a steady,
+persevering, clever person, took possession of the deceased
+ship-broker's business premises on the quay, the precious savings of
+fifteen years of industrious frugality enabling him to install himself
+in the vacant commercial niche before the considerable connection
+attached to the well-known establishment was broken up and distributed
+amongst rival _courtiers_. Such vicissitudes, frequent in all trading
+communities, excite but a passing interest; and after the customary
+commonplaces commiserative of the fallen fortunes of the still
+youthful widow, and gratulatory good-wishes for the prosperity of the
+_ci-devant_ clerk, the matter gradually faded from the minds of the
+sympathisers, save when the rapidly rising fortunes of Derville, in
+contrast with the daily lowlier ones of Madame de la Tour, suggested
+some tritely sentimental reflection upon the precariousness and
+instability of all mundane things. For a time, it was surmised by some
+of the fair widow's friends, if not by herself, that the considerable
+services Derville had rendered her were prompted by a warmer feeling
+than the ostensible one of respect for the relict of his old and
+liberal employer; and there is no doubt that the gentle, graceful
+manners, the mild, starlit face of Madame de la Tour, had made a deep
+impression upon Derville, although the hope or expectation founded
+thereon vanished with the passing time. Close, money-loving,
+business-absorbed as he might be, Clément Derville was a man
+of vehement impulse and extreme susceptibility of female
+charm--weaknesses over which he had again and again resolved to
+maintain vigilant control, as else fatal obstacles to his hopes of
+realising a large competence, if not a handsome fortune. He succeeded
+in doing so; and as year after year glided away, leaving him richer
+and richer, Madame de la Tour poorer and poorer, as well as less and
+less personally attractive, he grew to marvel that the bent form, the
+clouded eyes, the sorrow-sharpened features of the woman he
+occasionally met hastening along the streets, could be those by which
+he had been once so powerfully agitated and impressed.
+
+He did not, however, form any new attachment; was still a bachelor at
+forty-five; and had for some years almost lost sight of, and
+forgotten, Madame de la Tour, when a communication from Jeanne Favart,
+an old servant who had lived with the De la Tours in the days of their
+prosperity, vividly recalled old and fading memories. She announced
+that Madame de la Tour had been for many weeks confined to her bed by
+illness, and was, moreover, in great pecuniary distress.
+
+'_Diantre_!' exclaimed Derville, a quicker and stronger pulse than
+usual tinging his sallow cheek as he spoke. 'That is a pity. Who,
+then, has been minding the business for her?'
+
+'Her daughter Marie, a gentle, pious child, who seldom goes out except
+to church, and,' added Jeanne, with a keen look in her master's
+countenance, 'the very image of the Madame de la Tour we knew some
+twenty years ago.'
+
+'Ha!' M. Derville was evidently disturbed, but not so much so as to
+forget to ask with some asperity if 'dinner was not ready?'
+
+'In five minutes,' said Jeanne, but still holding the half-opened door
+in her hand. 'They are very, very badly off, monsieur, those
+unfortunate De la Tours,' she persisted. 'A _huissier_ this morning
+seized their furniture and trade-stock for rent, and if the sum is not
+made up by sunset, they will be utterly ruined.'
+
+M. Clément Derville took several hasty turns about the room, and the
+audible play of his fingers amongst the Napoleons in his pockets
+inspired Jeanne with a hope that he was about to draw forth a
+sufficient number for the relief of the cruel necessities of her
+former mistress. She was mistaken. Perhaps the touch of his beloved
+gold stilled for a time the agitation that had momentarily stirred his
+heart.
+
+'It is a pity,' he murmured; and then briskly drawing out his watch,
+added sharply: 'But pray let us have dinner. Do you know that it is
+full seven minutes past the time that it should be served?'
+
+Jeanne disappeared, and M. Derville was very soon seated at table. But
+although the sad tidings he had just heard had not been able to
+effectually loosen his purse-strings, they had at least power utterly
+to destroy his appetite, albeit the _poulet_ was done to a turn.
+Jeanne made no remark on this, as she removed the almost untasted
+meal, nor on the quite as unusual fact, that the wine _carafe_ was
+already half emptied, and her master himself restless, dreamy, and
+preoccupied. Concluding, however, from these symptoms, that a fierce
+struggle between generosity and avarice was going on in M. Derville's
+breast, she quietly determined on bringing an auxiliary to the aid of
+generosity, that would, her woman's instinct taught her, at once
+decide the conflict.
+
+No doubt the prosperous ship-broker _was_ unusually agitated. The old
+woman's news had touched a chord which, though dulled and slackened by
+the heat and dust of seventeen years of busy, anxious life, still
+vibrated strongly, and awakened memories that had long slept in the
+chambers of his brain, especially one pale Madonna face, with its
+soft, tear-trembling eyes that---- '_Ciel_!' he suddenly exclaimed, as
+the door opened and gave to view the very form his fancy had conjured
+up: '_Ciel_! can it be---- Pshaw!' he added, as he fell back into the
+chair from which he had leaped up; 'you must suppose me crazed,
+Mademoiselle--Mademoiselle de la Tour, I am quite certain.'
+
+It was indeed Marie de la Tour whom Jeanne Favart had, with much
+difficulty, persuaded to make a personal appeal to M. Derville. She
+was a good deal agitated, and gladly accepted that gentleman's
+gestured invitation to be seated, and take a glass of wine. Her errand
+was briefly, yet touchingly told, but not apparently listened to by
+Derville, so abstracted and intense was the burning gaze with which he
+regarded the confused and blushing petitioner. Jeanne, however, knew
+whom he recognised in those flushed and interesting features, and had
+no doubt of the successful result of the application.
+
+M. Clément Derville _had_ heard and comprehended what was said, for he
+broke an embarrassing silence of some duration by saying, in a pleased
+and respectful tone: 'Twelve Napoleons, you say, mademoiselle. It is
+nothing: here are twenty. No thanks, I beg of you. I hope to have an
+opportunity of rendering you--of rendering Madame de la Tour, I mean,
+some real and lasting service.'
+
+Poor Marie was profoundly affected by this generosity, and the
+charming blushfulness, the sweet-toned trembling words that expressed
+her modest gratitude, were, it should seem, strangely interpreted by
+the excited ship-broker. The interview was not prolonged, and Marie de
+la Tour hastened with joy-lightened steps to her home.
+
+Four days afterwards, M. Derville called at the Rue St Antoine, only
+to hear that Madame de la Tour had died a few hours previously. He
+seemed much shocked; and after a confused offer of further pecuniary
+assistance, respectfully declined by the weeping daughter, took a
+hurried leave.
+
+There is no question that, from the moment of his first interview with
+her, M. Derville had conceived an ardent passion for Mademoiselle de
+la Tour--so ardent and bewildering as not only to blind him to the
+great disparity of age between himself and her--which he might have
+thought the much greater disparity of fortune in his favour would
+balance and reconcile--but to the very important fact, that Hector
+Bertrand, a young _menuisier_ (carpenter), who had recently commenced
+business on his own account, and whom he so frequently met at the
+charming _modiste's_ shop, was her accepted, affianced lover. An
+_éclaircissement_, accompanied by mortifying circumstances, was not,
+however, long delayed.
+
+It occurred one fine evening in July. M. Derville, in passing through
+the _marché aux fleurs_, had selected a brilliant bouquet for
+presentation to Mademoiselle de la Tour; and never to him had she
+appeared more attractive, more fascinating, than when accepting, with
+hesitating, blushing reluctance, the proffered flowers. She stepped
+with them into the little sitting-room behind the shop; M. Derville
+followed; and the last remnant of discretion and common-sense that had
+hitherto restrained him giving way at once, he burst out with a
+vehement declaration of the passion which was, he said, consuming him,
+accompanied, of course, by the offer of his hand and fortune in
+marriage. Marie de la Tour's first impulse was to laugh in the face of
+a man who, old enough to be her father, addressed her in such terms;
+but one glance at the pale face and burning eyes of the speaker,
+convinced her that levity would be ill-timed--possibly dangerous. Even
+the few civil and serious words of discouragement and refusal with
+which she replied to his ardent protestations, were oil cast upon
+flame. He threw himself at the young girl's feet, and clasped her
+knees in passionate entreaty, at the very moment that Hector Bertrand,
+with one De Beaune, entered the room. Marie de la Tour's exclamation
+of alarm, and effort to disengage her dress from Derville's grasp, in
+order to interpose between him and the new-comers, were simultaneous
+with several heavy blows from Bertrand's cane across the shoulders of
+the kneeling man, who instantly leaped to his feet, and sprang upon
+his assailant with the yell and spring of a madman. Fortunately for
+Bertrand, who was no match in personal strength for the man he had
+assaulted, his friend De Beaune promptly took part in the encounter;
+and after a desperate scuffle, during which Mademoiselle de la Tour's
+remonstrances and entreaties were unheard or disregarded, M. Derville
+was thrust with inexcusable violence into the street.
+
+According to Jeanne Favart, her master reached home with his face all
+bloody and discoloured, his clothes nearly torn from his back, and in
+a state of frenzied excitement. He rushed past her up stairs, shut
+himself into his bedroom, and there remained unseen by any one for
+several days, partially opening the door only to receive food and
+other necessaries from her hands. When he did at last leave his room,
+the impassive calmness of manner habitual to him was quite restored,
+and he wrote a note in answer to one that had been sent by
+Mademoiselle de la Tour, expressive of her extreme regret for what had
+occurred, and enclosing a very respectful apology from Hector
+Bertrand. M. Derville said, that he was grateful for her sympathy and
+kind wishes; and as to M. Bertrand, he frankly accepted his excuses,
+and should think no more of the matter.
+
+This mask of philosophic indifference or resignation was not so
+carefully worn but that it slipped occasionally aside, and revealed
+glimpses of the volcanic passion that raged beneath. Jeanne was not
+for a moment deceived; and Marie de la Tour, the first time she again
+saw him, perceived with woman's intuitive quickness through all his
+assumed frigidity of speech and demeanour, that his sentiments towards
+her, so far from being subdued by the mortifying repulse they had met
+with, were more vehemently passionate than ever! He was a man, she
+felt, to be feared and shunned; and very earnestly did she warn
+Bertrand to avoid meeting, or, at all events, all possible chance of
+collision with his exasperated, and, she was sure, merciless and
+vindictive rival.
+
+Bertrand said he would do so; and kept his promise as long as there
+was no temptation to break it. About six weeks after his encounter
+with M. Derville, he obtained a considerable contract for the
+carpentry work of a large house belonging to a M. Mangier--a
+fantastic, Gothic-looking place, as persons acquainted with Rouen will
+remember, next door but one to Blaise's banking-house. Bertrand had
+but little capital, and he was terribly puzzled for means to purchase
+the requisite materials, of which the principal item was Baltic
+timber. He essayed his credit with a person of the name of Dufour, on
+the quay, and was refused. Two hours afterwards, he again sought the
+merchant, for the purpose of proposing his friend De Beaune as
+security. Dufour and Derville were talking together in front of the
+office; and when they separated on Bertrand's approach, the young man
+fancied that Derville saluted him with unusual friendliness. De
+Beaune's security was declined by the cautious trader; and as Bertrand
+was leaving, Dufour said, half-jestingly no doubt: 'Why don't you
+apply to your friend Derville? He has timber on commission that will
+suit you, I know; and he seemed very friendly just now.' Bertrand made
+no reply, and walked off, thinking probably that he might as well ask
+the statue of the 'Pucelle' for assistance as M. Derville. He was,
+naturally enough, exceedingly put out, and vexed; and unhappily betook
+himself to a neighbouring tavern for 'spirituous' solacement--a very
+rare thing, let me add, for him to do. He remained there till about
+eight o'clock, and by that time was in such a state of confused
+elation from the unusual potations he had imbibed, that Dufour's
+suggestion assumed a sort of drunken likelihood; and he resolved on
+applying--there could not, he thought, be any wonderful harm, if no
+good, in that--to the ship-broker. M. Derville was not at home, and
+the office was closed; but Jeanne Favart, understanding Bertrand to
+say that he had important business to transact with her master--she
+supposed by appointment--shewed him into M. Derville's private
+business-rooms, and left him there. Bertrand seated himself, fell
+asleep after awhile, woke up about ten o'clock considerably sobered,
+and quite alive to the absurd impropriety of the application he had
+tipsily determined on, and was about to leave the place, when M.
+Derville arrived. The ship-broker's surprise and anger at finding
+Hector Bertrand in his house were extreme, and his only reply to the
+intruder's stammering explanation, was a contemptuous order to leave
+the place immediately. Bertrand slunk away sheepishly enough; and
+slowly as he sauntered along, had nearly reached home, when M.
+Derville overtook him.
+
+'One word, Monsieur Bertrand,' said Derville. 'This way, if you
+please.'
+
+Bertrand, greatly surprised, followed the ship-broker to a lane close
+by--a dark, solitary locality, which suggested an unpleasant
+misgiving, very pleasantly relieved by Derville's first words.
+
+'Monsieur Bertrand,' he said, 'I was hasty and ill-tempered just now;
+but I am not a man to cherish malice, and for the sake of--of
+Marie--of Mademoiselle de la Tour, I am disposed to assist you,
+although I should not, as you will easily understand, like to have any
+public or known dealings with you. Seven or eight hundred francs, I
+understood you to say, the timber you required would amount to?'
+
+'Certainly not more than that, monsieur,' Bertrand contrived to
+answer, taken away as his breath nearly was by astonishment.
+
+'Here, then, is a note of the Bank of France for one thousand francs.'
+
+'Monsieur!--monsieur!' gasped the astounded recipient.
+
+'You will repay me,' continued Derville, 'when your contract is
+completed; and you will please to bear strictly in mind, that the
+condition of any future favour of a like kind is, that you keep this
+one scrupulously secret.' He then hurried off, leaving Bertrand in a
+state of utter amazement. This feeling, however, slowly subsided,
+especially after assuring himself, by the aid of his chamber-lamp,
+that the note was a genuine one, and not, as he had half feared, a
+valueless deception. 'This Monsieur Derville,' drowsily murmured
+Bertrand as he ensconced himself in the bed-clothes, 'is a _bon
+enfant_, after all--a generous, magnanimous prince, if ever there was
+one. But then, to be sure, he wishes to do Marie a service by secretly
+assisting her _futur_ on in life. _Sapristie!_ It is quite simple,
+after all, this generosity; for undoubtedly Marie is the most
+charming--charm--cha'----
+
+Hector Bertrand went to Dufour's timber-yard at about noon the next
+day, selected what he required, and pompously tendered the
+thousand-franc note in payment. 'Whe-e-e-e-w!' whistled Dufour, 'the
+deuce!' at the same time looking with keen scrutiny in his customer's
+face.
+
+'I received it from Monsieur Mangier in advance,' said Hector in hasty
+reply to that look, blurting out in some degree inadvertently the
+assertion which he had been thinking would be the most feasible
+solution of his sudden riches, since he had been so peremptorily
+forbidden to mention M. Derville's name.
+
+'It is very generous of Monsieur Mangier,' said Dufour; 'and he is not
+famous for that virtue either. But let us go to Blaise's bank: I have
+not sufficient change in the house, and I daresay we shall get silver
+for it there.'
+
+As often happens in France, a daughter of the banker was the cashier
+of the establishment; and it was with an accent of womanly
+commiseration that she said, after minutely examining the note: 'From
+whom, Monsieur Bertrand, did you obtain possession of this note?'
+
+Bertrand hesitated. A vague feeling of alarm was beating at his heart,
+and he confusedly bethought him, that it might be better not to repeat
+the falsehood he had told M. Dufour. Before, however, he could decide
+what to say, Dufour answered for him: 'He _says_ from Monsieur
+Mangier, just by.'
+
+'Strange!' said Mademoiselle Blaise. 'A clerk of Monsieur Derville's
+has been taken into custody this very morning on suspicion of having
+stolen this very note.'
+
+Poor Bertrand! He felt as if seized with vertigo; and a stunned,
+chaotic sense of mortal peril shot through his brain, as Marie's
+solemn warning with respect to Derville rose up like a spectre before
+him.
+
+'I have heard of that circumstance,' said Dufour. And then, as
+Bertrand did not, or could not speak, he added: 'You had better,
+perhaps, mademoiselle, send for Monsieur Derville.'
+
+This proposition elicited a wild, desperate cry from the bewildered
+young man, who rushed distractedly out of the banking-house, and
+hastened with frantic speed towards the Rue St Antoine--for the moment
+unpursued.
+
+Half an hour afterwards, Dufour and a bank-clerk arrived at
+Mademoiselle de la Tour's. They found Bertrand and Marie together, and
+both in a state of high nervous excitement. 'Monsieur Derville,' said
+the clerk, 'is now at the bank; and Monsieur Blaise requests your
+presence there, so that whatever misapprehension exists may be cleared
+up without the intervention of the agents of the public force.'
+
+'And pray, monsieur,' said Marie, in a much firmer tone than, from her
+pale aspect, one would have expected, 'what does Monsieur Derville
+himself say of this strange affair?'
+
+'That the note in question, mademoiselle, must have been stolen from
+his desk last evening. He was absent from home from half-past seven
+till ten, and unfortunately left the key in the lock.'
+
+'I was sure he would say so,' gasped Bertrand. 'He is a demon, and I
+am lost.'
+
+A bright, almost disdainful expression shone in Marie's fine eyes. 'Go
+with these gentlemen, Hector,' she said; 'I will follow almost
+immediately; and remember'---- What else she said was delivered in a
+quick, low whisper; and the only words she permitted to be heard were:
+'Pas un mot, si tu m'aime' (Not a word, if thou lovest me).
+
+Bertrand found Messieurs Derville, Blaise, and Mangier in a private
+room; and he remarked, with a nervous shudder, that two gendarmes were
+stationed in the passage. Derville, though very pale, sustained
+Bertrand's glance of rage and astonishment without flinching. It was
+plain that he had steeled himself to carry through the diabolical
+device his revenge had planned, and the fluttering hope with which
+Marie had inspired Bertrand died within him. Derville repeated slowly
+and firmly what the clerk had previously stated; adding, that no one
+save Bertrand, Jeanne Favart, and the clerk whom he first suspected,
+had been in the room after he left it. The note now produced was the
+one that had been stolen, and was safe in his desk at half-past seven
+the previous evening. M. Mangier said: 'The assertion of Bertrand,
+that I advanced him this note, or any other, is entirely false.'
+
+'What have you to say in reply to these grave suspicions?' said M.
+Blaise. 'Your father was an honest man; and you, I hear, have hitherto
+borne an irreproachable character,' he added, on finding that the
+accused did not speak. 'Explain to us, then, how you came into
+possession of this note; if you do not, and satisfactorily--though,
+after what we have heard, that seems scarcely possible--we have no
+alternative but to give you into custody.'
+
+'I have nothing to say at present--nothing,' muttered Bertrand, whose
+impatient furtive looks were every instant turned towards the door.
+
+'Nothing to say!' exclaimed the banker; 'why, this is a tacit
+admission of guilt. We had better call in the gendarmes at once.'
+
+'I think,' said Dufour, 'the young man's refusal to speak is owing to
+the entreaties of Mademoiselle de la Tour, whom we overheard implore
+him, for her sake, or as he loved her, not to say a word.'
+
+'What do you say?' exclaimed Derville, with quick interrogation, 'for
+the sake of Mademoiselle de la Tour! Bah! you could not have heard
+aright.'
+
+'Pardon, monsieur,' said the clerk who had accompanied Dufour: 'I also
+distinctly heard her so express herself--but here is the lady
+herself.'
+
+The entrance of Marie, accompanied by Jeanne Favart, greatly surprised
+and startled M. Derville; he glanced sharply in her face, but unable
+to encounter the indignant expression he met there, quickly averted
+his look, whilst a hot flush glowed perceptibly out of his pale
+features. At her request, seconded by M. Blaise, Derville repeated his
+previous story; but his voice had lost its firmness, his manner its
+cold impassibility.
+
+'I wish Monsieur Derville would look me in the face,' said Marie, when
+Derville had ceased speaking. 'I am here as a suppliant to him for
+mercy.'
+
+'A suppliant for mercy!' murmured Derville, partially confronting her.
+
+'Yes; if only for the sake of the orphan daughter of the Monsieur de
+la Tour who first helped you on in life, and for whom you not long
+since professed regard.'
+
+Derville seemed to recover his firmness at these words: 'No,' he said;
+'not even for your sake, Marie, will I consent to the escape of such a
+daring criminal from justice.'
+
+'If that be your final resolve, monsieur,' continued Marie, with
+kindling, impressive earnestness, 'it becomes necessary that, at
+whatever sacrifice, the true criminal--whom assuredly Hector Bertrand
+is not--should be denounced.'
+
+Various exclamations of surprise and interest greeted these words, and
+the agitation of Derville was again plainly visible.
+
+'You have been surprised, messieurs,' she went on, 'at Hector's
+refusal to afford any explanation as to how he became possessed of the
+purloined note. You will presently comprehend the generous motive of
+that silence. Monsieur Derville has said, that he left the note safe
+in his desk at half-past seven last evening. Hector, it is recognised,
+did not enter the house till nearly an hour afterwards; and now,
+Jeanne Favart will inform you _who_ it was that called on her in the
+interim, and remained in the room where the desk was placed for
+upwards of a quarter of an hour, and part of that time alone.'
+
+As the young girl spoke, Derville's dilated gaze rested with
+fascinated intensity upon her excited countenance, and he hardly
+seemed to breathe.
+
+'It was you, mademoiselle,' said Jeanne, 'who called on me, and
+remained as you describe.'
+
+A fierce exclamation partially escaped Derville, forcibly suppressed
+as Marie resumed: 'Yes; and now, messieurs, hear me solemnly declare,
+that as truly as the note was stolen, _I_, not Hector, was the thief.'
+
+''Tis false!' shrieked Derville, surprised out of all self-possession;
+'a lie! It was not then the note was taken; not till--not till'----
+
+'Not till when, Monsieur Derville?' said the excited girl, stepping
+close to the shrinking, guilty man, and still holding him with her
+flashing, triumphant eyes, as she placed her hand upon his shoulder;
+'not till _when_ was the note taken from the desk, monsieur?'
+
+He did not, could not reply, and presently sank, utterly subdued,
+nerveless, panic-stricken, into a chair, with his white face buried in
+his hands.
+
+'This is indeed a painful affair,' said M. Blaise, after an expectant
+silence of some minutes, 'if it be, as this young person appeared to
+admit; and almost equally so, Monsieur Derville, if, as I more than
+suspect, the conclusion indicated by the expression that has escaped
+you should be the true one.'
+
+The banker's voice appeared to break the spell that enchained the
+faculties of Derville. He rose up, encountered the stern looks of the
+men by one as fierce as theirs, and said hoarsely: 'I withdraw the
+accusation! The young woman's story is a fabrication. I--I lent, gave
+the fellow the note myself.'
+
+A storm of execration--'_Coquin! voleur! scélérat!_' burst forth at
+this confession, received by Derville with a defiant scowl, as he
+stalked out of the apartment.
+
+I do not know that any law-proceedings were afterwards taken against
+him for defamation of character. Hector kept the note, as indeed he
+had a good right to do, and Monsieur and Madams Bertrand are still
+prosperous and respected inhabitants of Rouen, from which city
+Derville disappeared very soon after the incidents just related.
+
+
+
+
+CHEAP MINOR RAILWAYS.
+
+
+'On the day that our preamble was proved, we had all a famous dinner
+at three guineas a head--never saw such a splendid set-out in my life!
+each of us had a printed bill of fare laid beside his plate; and I
+brought it home as quite a curiosity in the way of eating!' Such was
+the account lately given us by a railway projector of that memorable
+year of frenzy, 1845. A party of committee-men, agents, engineers, and
+solicitors, had, in their exuberance of cash, dined at a cost of some
+sixty guineas--a trifle added to the general bill of charges, and of
+course not worth thinking of by the shareholders.
+
+These days of dining at three guineas a head for the good of railway
+undertakings are pretty well gone; and agents and counsel may well
+sigh over the recollection of doings probably never to return.
+
+'The truth is, we were all mad in those times,' added the individual
+who owned so candidly to the three-guinea dinner. And this is the only
+feasible way of accounting for the wild speculations of seven years
+ago. There was a universal craze. All hastened to be rich on the
+convenient principle of overreaching their neighbours. There was
+robbery throughout. Engineers, landholders, law-agents, and jobbers,
+pocketed their respective booties, and it is needless to say who were
+left to suffer.
+
+Looking at the catastrophe, the subject of railway mismanagement is
+somewhat too serious for a joke, and we have only drawn attention for
+an instant to the errors of the past in order to draw a warning for
+the future. It must ever be lamented that the introduction of so
+stupendous and useful a thing as locomotion by rail, should have
+become the occasion of such widespread cupidity and folly; for
+scarcely ever had science offered a more gracious boon to mankind. It
+is charitable to think that the foundation of the great error that was
+committed, lay in a miscalculation as to the relation between
+expenditure and returns. We can suppose that there was a certain faith
+in the potency of money. To spend so much, was to bring back so much;
+and it became an agreeable delusion, that the more was spent, the
+greater was to be the revenue. Unfortunately, it does not seem to have
+occurred to any one of the parties concerned, that all depends on how
+money is spent. There are tradesmen, we imagine, who know to their
+cost, that it is quite within the bounds of possibility to have the
+whole of their profits swept away by rent and taxes. Curious, that
+this plain and unpleasant and very possible result did not dawn on the
+minds of the great railway interests. And yet, how grave and
+calculating the mighty dons of the new system of locomotion--men who
+passed themselves off as up to anything!
+
+Wonderfully acute secretaries; highly-polished chairmen; directors
+disdainful of ordinary ways of transacting business. A mystery made of
+the most common-place affairs! We may be thankful that the world has
+at last seen through these pretenders to superhuman sagacity. With but
+remarkably few exceptions, the great railway men of the time have
+committed the grossest blunders; and the stupidest blunder of all, has
+been the confounding of proper and improper expenditure; just as if a
+shopkeeper were to fall into the unhappy error of imagining that his
+returns were to be in the ratio, not of the business he was to do, but
+of his private and unauthorised expenses.
+
+The instructive fact gathered from railway experience is, that there
+is an expenditure which _pays_, and an expenditure that is totally
+wasteful. Directors have made the discovery, that costly litigation,
+costly and fine stations, fine porticos and pillars, fine bridges, and
+finery in various other things, contribute really nothing to returns,
+but, on the contrary, hang a dead weight on the concern. No doubt,
+fine architecture is a good and proper thing in itself; but a railway
+company is not instituted for the purpose of embellishing towns with
+classic buildings. Its function is to carry people from one place to
+another on reasonable terms, with a due regard to the welfare of those
+who undertake the transaction. How carriages may be run well and
+cheaply, yet profitably, is the sole question for determination; and
+everything else is either subordinate or positively useless. A
+suitable degree of knowledge on these points would, we think, tend
+materially to restore confidence in railway property. Could there be
+anything more cheering than the well-ascertained fact, that _no
+railway has ever failed for want of traffic_? In every instance, the
+traffic would have yielded an ample remuneration to the shareholders,
+had there been no extravagant expenditure. Had the outlays been
+confined to paying for the land required, the making of the line, the
+laying down of rails, the buying locomotives and carriages, and
+working the same, all would have gone on splendidly; and eight, ten,
+twenty, and even a higher per cent., would in many instances have been
+realised. At the present moment, the lines that are paying best are
+not those on which there is the greatest amount of traffic, but those
+on which there was the most prudent expenditure. In order to judge
+whether any proposed railway will pay, it is only necessary to inquire
+at what cost per mile, all expenses included, it is to be produced. If
+the charge be anything under L.5000 per mile, there is a certainty of
+its doing well, even if the line be carried through a poorly-populated
+district; and up to L.20,000 per mile is allowable in great
+trunk-thoroughfares; but when the outlay reaches L.50,000 or L.100,000
+per mile, as it has done in some instances, scarcely any amount of
+traffic will be remunerative. In a variety of cases, the expenditure
+per mile has been so enormous, that remunerative traffic becomes a
+physical impossibility. In plain terms, if the whole of these lines,
+from end to end, were covered with loaded carriages from morning to
+night, and night to morning, without intermission of a single moment,
+they would still be carried on at a loss! Gold may be bought too
+dearly, and so may railways.
+
+As there seems to be an appearance of a revival in railway
+undertakings, it will be of the greatest importance to keep these
+principles in view; and we are glad to observe that, taking lessons
+from the past, the promoters of railway schemes are confining their
+attention mainly to plans of a simple and economical class. Hitherto,
+railways have, for the most part, been adapted to leading
+thoroughfares, by which certain districts have been overcrowded with
+lines, leaving others destitute. Branch single lines of rail appear,
+therefore, to be particularly desirable for these forgotten
+localities. These branch-lines may prove exceedingly serviceable, not
+only as regards the ordinary demands of trade and agriculture, but
+those of social convenience. Among the prominent needs of our time, is
+ready access for the toiling multitudes to places rendered interesting
+by physical beauty and romantic association--fit objects for holiday
+excursions. The _excursion train_, suddenly discharging its hundreds
+of strangers at some antique town or castle, or in the neighbourhood
+of some lovely natural scenery, is one of the wonders of the day--and
+one, we think, of truly good omen, considering the importance that
+seems to be connected with the innocent amusements of the people. We
+rejoice in every movement which tends to increase the number of places
+to which these holiday-parties may resort, as we thoroughly believe,
+that the more of them we have, our people will be the more virtuous,
+refined, and happy.
+
+We lately had much pleasure in examining and learning some particulars
+of a short branch-railway which has added the ancient university city
+of St Andrews, with its many curious objects, to the number of those
+places which may become the termini of excursion trains. We find from
+Lord Jeffrey's Life, that in this town, fifty years ago, only one
+newspaper was received; a number (if it can be called a number) which
+we are assured, on the best authority, is now increased to _fifteen
+hundred per week_! Parallel with this fact, is that of its having, ten
+years ago, a single coach _per diem_ to Edinburgh, carrying six or
+seven persons, while now it has three trains each day, transporting
+their scores, not merely to the capital, but to Perth and Dundee
+besides. Conceiving that there is a value in such circumstances on
+account of the light which they throw on the progress of the country,
+we shall enter into a few particulars.
+
+The St Andrews Railway is a branch of the Edinburgh, Perth, and
+Dundee, and extends somewhat less than five miles. Formed with a
+single line only, over ground presenting scarcely any engineering
+difficulties, and with favour rather than opposition from the
+proprietors of the land, it has cost only L.25,000, or about L.5000
+per mile. The main line agrees to work it, and before receiving
+payment, to allow the shareholders 4-1/2 per cent. for their money;
+all further profits to be divided between the two companies, after
+paying working expenses. It was opened on the 1st July last, and
+hitherto the appearances of success have been most remarkable. On an
+assumption that the traffic inwards was equal to that outwards, the
+receipts for passengers during each of the first six weeks averaged
+L.52, 14s. This was exclusive of excursion trains, of which one
+carried 500 persons, another between 500 and 600, a third 1500; and so
+on. It was also exclusive of goods and mineral traffic, which are
+expected to give at least L.1000 per annum. The result is, that this
+railway appears likely to draw not much under L.4000 a year--a sum
+sufficient, after expenses are paid, to yield what would at almost any
+time be a high rate of percentage to the shareholders, while, in the
+present state of the money-market, it will be an unusually ample
+remuneration.
+
+We have instanced this economically-constructed line, because we have
+seen it in operation, and can place reliance on the facts connected
+with its financial affairs. Other lines, however, more or less
+advanced, seem to have prospects equally hopeful. A similar branch is
+about to be made from the same main line to the town of Leven. One is
+projected to branch from the Eskbank station of the North British line
+to Peebles--a pretty town on the Tweed, which, up till the present
+time, has been secluded from general intercourse, and will now, for
+the first time, have its beautiful environs laid open to public
+observation. The entire cost of this line, rather more than 18 miles
+in length, is to be only L.70,000, or about L.3600 per mile. Another
+branch from the same line is projected to go to Lauder. One, of the
+same cheap class, is to connect Aberdeen with Banchory on the Dee.
+Another will be constructed between Blairgowrie and a point on the
+Scottish Midland. For such adventures, St Andrews is a model.[1]
+
+The time is probably not far distant when single branch-lines will
+radiate over the country, developing local resources, as well as
+uniting the whole people in friendly and profitable intercourse. To be
+done rightly, however, rational foresight and the plain principles of
+commerce must inspire the projectors. It will be necessary to avoid
+all parliamentary contests; to do nothing without a general movement
+of the district in favour of the line, so that no parties may be
+sacrificed for the benefit of others; to hold rigorously to an
+economical principle of construction; to launch out into no
+extravagant plans in connection with the main object contemplated.
+These being attended to, we can imagine that, in a few years hence,
+there will be a set of modest little railways which will be the envy
+of all the great lines, simply because they enjoy the distinction
+denied to their grander brethren, of _paying_, and which will not only
+serve important purposes in the industrial economy of the country, but
+vastly promote the moral wellbeing of the community, in furnishing a
+means of harmless amusement to those classes whose lot it is to spend
+most of their days in confinement and toil.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Since the materials of this brief paper were obtained, another
+short line has been opened, extending between Elgin and Lossie-mouth.
+It is said to have also enjoyed in its first few weeks an amount of
+traffic far beyond the calculations of the shareholders.
+
+
+
+
+THE HUMOUR OF SOUTHEY.
+
+
+Some of the critics of 'Robert the Rhymer, who lived at the lakes,'
+seem to be of opinion, that his 'humour' is to be classed with such
+nonentities as the philosopher's stone, pigeon's milk, and other
+apocryphal myths and unknown quantities. In analysing the character of
+his intellect, they would assign to the 'humorous' attribute some such
+place as Van Troil did to the snaky tribe in his work on Iceland,
+wherein the title of chapter xv. runs thus: 'Concerning Snakes in
+Iceland' and the chapter itself thus: 'There are no snakes in
+Iceland.' Accordingly, were they to have the composition of this
+article, they would abbreviate it to the one terse sentence: 'Robert
+Southey had no humour.' Now, we have no inclination to claim for the
+Keswick bard any prodigious or pre-eminent powers of fun, or to give
+him place beside the rollicking jesters and genial merry-makers, whose
+humour gives English literature a distinctive character among the
+nations. But that he is so void of the comic faculty as certain potent
+authorities allege, we persistently doubt. Mr Macaulay affirms that
+Southey may be always read with pleasure, except when he tries to be
+droll; that a more insufferable jester never existed; and that, often
+as he attempts to be humorous, he in no single occasion has succeeded
+further than to be quaintly and flippantly dull. Another reviewer
+warned the author of the _Doctor_, that there is no greater mistake
+than that which a grave person falls into, when he fancies himself
+humorous; adding, as a consolatory corollary to this proposition, that
+unquestionably the doctor himself was in this predicament. But Southey
+was not so rigorously grave a person as his graver writings might seem
+to imply. 'I am quite as noisy as ever I was,' he writes to an old
+Oxford chum, when in sober manhood. 'Oh, dear Lightfoot, what a
+blessing it is to have a boy's heart! it is as great a blessing in
+carrying one through this world, as to have a child's spirit will in
+fitting us for the next.' On account of this boyish-heartedness, he is
+compared by Justice Talfourd to Charles Lamb himself: 'In a certain
+primness of style, bounding in the rich humour which overflowed it,
+they were nearly akin; both alike reverenced childhood, and both had
+preserved its best attributes unspotted from the world.' In the
+fifty-fifth year of his age, he characterised himself as a man
+
+                ----by nature merry,
+    Somewhat Tom-foolish, and comical, very;
+    Who has gone through the world, not unmindful of pelf,
+    Upon easy terms, thank Heaven, with himself,
+    Along bypaths, and in pleasant ways,
+    Caring as little for censure as praise;
+    Having some friends, whom he loves dearly,
+    And no lack of foes, whom he laughs at sincerely;
+    And never for great, nor for little things,
+    Has he fretted his guts[2] to fiddle-strings.
+    He might have made them by such folly
+    Most musical, most melancholy.
+
+No one can dip into the _Doctor_ without being convinced of this
+buoyancy of spirit, quickness of fancy, and blitheness of heart. It
+even vents its exuberance in bubbles of levity and elaborate trifling,
+so that all but the _very_ light-hearted are fain to say: Something
+too much of this. Compared with our standard humorists--the peerage,
+or Upper House, who sit sublimely aloft, like 'Jove in his chair, of
+the sky my lord mayor'--Southey may be but a dull commoner, one of the
+third or fourth estate. But for all that, he has a comfortable fund of
+the _vis comica_, upon which he rubs along pleasantly enough,
+hospitably entertaining not a few congenial spirits who can put up
+with him as they find him, relish his simple and often racy fare, and
+enjoy a decent quantum of jokes of his own growing, without pining
+after the brilliant banquets of comedy spread by opulent barons of the
+realm.
+
+To support this apology for the worthy doctor by plenary proof, would
+involve a larger expenditure of space and letter-press than befits the
+economy of a discreet hebdomadal journal. We can but allude, and hint,
+and suggest, and illustrate our position in an 'off-at-a-tangent' sort
+of way. Look, for instance, at his ingenious quaintness in the matter
+of _onomatology_. What a name, he would say, is Lamb for a soldier,
+Joy for an undertaker, Rich for a pauper, or Noble for a tailor; Big
+for a lean or little person, and Small for one who is broad in the
+rear and abdominous in the van; Short for a fellow six feet without
+his shoes, or Long for him whose high heels barely elevate him to the
+height of five; Sweet for one who has either a vinegar face, or a foxy
+complexion; Younghusband for an old bachelor; Merryweather for any one
+in November or February, a black spring, a cold summer, or a wet
+autumn; Goodenough for a person no better than he should be; Toogood
+for _any_ human creature; and Best for a subject who is perhaps too
+bad to be endured. Amusing, too, are the doctor's reasons for using
+the customary _alias_ of female Christian names--never calling any
+woman Mary, for example, though _Mare_, being the sea, was, he said,
+too emblematic of the sex; but using a synonyme of better omen, and
+Molly therefore was to be preferred as being soft. 'If he accosted a
+vixen of that name in her worst mood, he _mollified_ her. Martha he
+called Patty, because it came pat to the tongue. Dorothy remained
+Dorothy, because it was neither fitting that women should be made
+Dolls nor Idols. Susan with him was always Sue, because women were to
+be sued; and Winifred Winny, because they were to be won.' Or refer to
+that pleasant bit of erudite trifling upon the habits of rats,
+beginning with the remark, that wheresoever Man goes Rat follows or
+accompanies him, town or country being equally agreeable to him;
+entering upon your house as a tenant-at-will--his own, not
+yours--working out for himself a covered-way in your walls, ascending
+by it from one storey to another, and leaving you the larger
+apartments, while he takes possession of the space between floor and
+ceiling, as an _entresol_ for himself. 'There he has his parties, and
+his revels, and his gallopades--merry ones they are--when you would be
+asleep, if it were not for the spirit with which the youth and belles
+of Rat-land keep up the ball over your head. And you are more
+fortunate than most of your neighbours, if he does not prepare for
+himself a mausoleum behind your chimney-piece or under your
+hearthstone, retire into it when he is about to die, and very soon
+afford you full proof that though he may have lived like a hermit, his
+relics are not in the odour of sanctity. You have then the additional
+comfort of knowing, that the spot so appropriated will thenceforth be
+used as a common cemetery or a family-vault.' In the same vein, homage
+is paid to Rat's imitation of human enterprise: shewing how, when the
+adventurous merchant ships a cargo for some foreign port, Rat goes
+with it; how, when Great Britain plants a colony at the antipodes, Rat
+takes the opportunity of colonising also; how, when ships are sent out
+on a voyage of discovery, Rat embarks as a volunteer; doubling the
+stormy Cape with Diaz, arriving at Malabar with Gama, discovering the
+New World with Columbus, and taking possession of it at the same time,
+and circumnavigating the globe with Magellan, and Drake, and Cook.
+
+Few that have once read will forget the Doctor's philological
+contributions towards an amended system of English orthography.
+Assuming the propriety of discarding all reference to the etymology of
+words, when engaged in spelling them, and desirous, as a philological
+reformer, to establish a truly British language, he proposes
+introducing a distinction of genders, in which the language has
+hitherto been defective. Thus, in anglicising the orthography of
+_chemise_, he resolves that foreign substantive into the home-grown
+neologisms, masculine and feminine, of Hemise and Shemise. Again, in
+letter-writing, every person, he remarks, is aware that male and
+female letters have a distinct sexual character; they should,
+therefore, be generally distinguished thus--Hepistle and Shepistle.
+And as there is the same marked difference in the writing of the two
+sexes, he proposes Penmanship and Penwomanship. Erroneous opinions in
+religion being promulgated in this country by women as well as men,
+the teachers of such false doctrines he would divide into Heresiarchs
+and Sheresiarchs. That troublesome affection of the diaphragm, which
+every person has experienced, is, upon the same principle, to be
+called, according to the sex of the patient, Hecups and Shecups;
+which, upon the above principle of making our language truly British,
+is better than the more classical form of _Hicc_ups and _Hoe_ccups;
+and then in its objective use we have Hiscups and Hercups; and in like
+manner Histerics should be altered into Herterics, the complaint never
+being masculine.
+
+None but a 'humorist' would have announced the decease of a cat in
+such mingled terms and tones of jest and earnest as the
+following:--'Alas! Grosvenor,' writes Southey to his friend Mr Bedford
+(1823), 'this day poor old Rumpel was found dead, after as long and
+happy a life as cat could wish for, if cats form wishes on that
+subject. His full titles were: "The Most Noble the Archduke
+Rumpelstiltzchen, Earl Tomlemagne,[3] Baron Raticide, Waowhler and
+Skaratch." There should be a court mourning in Catland; and if the
+Dragon [a cat of Mr Bedford's] wear a black ribbon round his neck, or
+a band of crape _à la militaire_ round one of the fore-paws, it will
+be but a becoming mark of respect.... I believe we are, each and all,
+servants included, more sorry for this loss than any of us would like
+to confess. I should not have written to you at present had it not
+been to notify this event.' The notification of such events, in print
+too, appears to some thinkers _too_ absurd. Others find a special
+interest in these 'trifles light as air,' because presenting
+'confirmation strong' of the kindly nature of the man, taking no
+unamiable or affected part in the presentment of _Every Man in His
+Humour_. His correspondence is, indeed, rich in traits of quiet
+humour, if by that word we understand a 'humane influence, softening
+with mirth the ragged inequalities of existence'--the very 'juice of
+the mind oozing from the brain, and enriching and fertilising wherever
+it falls'--and seldom far removed from its kindred spirit, pathos,
+with which, however, it is _not_ too closely akin to marry; for pathos
+is bound up in mysterious ties with humour--bone of its bone, and
+flesh of its flesh.
+
+Nor can we assent to the assertion, that in his ballads, metrical
+tales, and rhyming _jeux-d'esprit_, Southey's essay to be comic
+results in merely 'quaint and flippant dulness.' Smartly enough he
+tells the story of the Well of St Keyne, whereof the legend is, that
+if the husband manage to secure a draught before his good dame, 'a
+happy man henceforth is he, for he shall be master for life.' But if
+the wife should drink of it first--'God help the husband _then_!' The
+traveller to whom a Cornishman narrates the tradition, compliments him
+with the assumption that _he_ has profited by it in his matrimonial
+experience:--
+
+    'You drank of the well, I warrant, betimes,'
+      He to the Cornishman said;
+    But the Cornishman smiled as the stranger spake,
+      And sheepishly shook his head.
+
+    'I hastened as soon as the wedding was done,
+      And left my wife in the porch;
+    But, i' faith, she had been wiser than me,
+      For she took a bottle to church.'
+
+And with all their extravagances of expression and questionable taste,
+the numerous stories which Southey delighted to versify on themes
+demoniac and diabolical, from the _Devil's Walk_ to the _True Ballad
+of St Antidius_, are fraught with farcical import, and have an
+individual ludicrousness all their own. That he could succeed
+tolerably in the mock-heroic vein, may be seen in his parody on
+Pindar's _ariston men hydor_, entitled _Gooseberry Pie_, and in some
+of the occasional pieces called _Nondescripts_. Nor do we know any one
+of superior ingenuity in that overwhelming profusion of epithets and
+crowded creation of rhymes, which so tickle the ear and the fancy in
+some of his verses, and of which we have specimens almost unrivalled
+in the celebrated description of the cataract of Lodore, and the
+vivaciously ridiculous chronicle of Napoleon's march to Moscow.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] Southey was no purist in his phraseology at times. The not very
+refined monosyllable in the text may, however, be tolerated as having
+a technical relation to the fiddle-strings by hypothesis.
+
+[3] This patrician Bawdrons is not forgotten in Southey's verse;
+thus--
+
+    Our good old cat, Earl Tomlemagne,
+      Is sometimes seen to play,
+    Even like a kitten at its sport,
+      Upon a warm spring-day.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TRACKS OF ANCIENT ANIMALS IN SANDSTONE.
+
+
+Many of our readers must have heard of the interest excited a few
+years ago by the discovery, that certain marks on the surface of slabs
+of sandstone, raised from a quarry in Dumfriesshire, were the
+memorials of extinct races of animals. The amiable and intelligent Dr
+Duncan, minister of Ruthwell, who had conferred on society the
+blessing of savings-banks for the industrious poor, was the first to
+describe to the world these singular chronicles of ancient life. The
+subject was afterwards brought forward in a more popular style by Dr
+Buckland, in his lively book, the Bridgewater Treatise on Geology.
+Since then, examples of similar markings have been found in several
+other parts of Europe, and a still greater number in America.
+
+Dumfriesshire is still the principal locality of these curious objects
+in our island; and they are found not only in the original spot--the
+quarry of Corncockle Muir, but in another quarry at Craigs, near the
+town of Dumfries. Ample collections of them have been made by Sir
+William Jardine, the famed naturalist, who happens to be proprietor of
+Corncockle Quarry, and by Mr Robert Harkness of Dumfries, a young
+geologist, who seems destined to do not a little for the illustration
+of this and kindred subjects. Meanwhile, Sir William Jardine has
+published an elegant book, containing a series of drawings, in which
+the slabs of Corncockle are truthfully represented.[4]
+
+The Annandale footmarks are impressed on slabs of the New Red
+Sandstone--a formation not long subsequent to the coal, and remarkable
+for its comparative deficiency of fossils, as if there had been
+something in its constitution unfavourable to the preservation of
+animal remains. It is curious to find that, while this is the case, it
+has been favourable to the preservation of what appears at first sight
+a much more accidental and shadowy memorial of life--the mere
+impression which an animal makes on a soft substance with its foot.
+Yet such fully appears to be the fact. The sandstone slabs of
+Corncockle, lying in their original place with a dip of about 33
+degrees to the westward, and separating with great cleanness and
+smoothness, present impressions of such liveliness, that there is no
+possibility of doubt as to their being animal foot-tracks, and those
+of the tortoise family. A thin layer of unctuous clay between the beds
+has proved favourable to their separation; and it is upon this
+intervening substance that the marks are best preserved. Slab after
+slab is raised from the quarry--sometimes a foot thick, sometimes only
+a few inches--and upon almost every one of them are impressions found.
+What is very remarkable, the tracks or series of footprints pass,
+almost without exception, in a direction from west to east, or upwards
+against the dip of the strata. It is surmised that the strata were
+part of a beach, inclining, however, at a much lower angle, from which
+the tide receded in a westerly direction. The animals, walking down
+from the land at recess of tide, passed over sand too soft to retain
+the impressions they left upon it; but when they subsequently returned
+to land, the beach had undergone a certain degree of hardening
+sufficient to receive and retain impressions, 'though these,' says Sir
+William, 'gradually grow fainter and less distinct as they reach the
+top of the beds, which would be the margin of drier sands nearer the
+land.' He adds: 'In several instances, the tracks on one slab which we
+consider to have been impressed at the same time, are numerous, and
+left by different animals travelling together. They have walked
+generally in a straight line, but sometimes turn and wind in several
+directions. This is the case in a large extent of surface, where we
+have tracks of above thirty feet in length uncovered, and where one
+animal had crossed the path of a neighbour of a different species. The
+tracks of two animals are also met with, as if they had run side by
+aide.'
+
+With regard to the nature of the evidence in question, Dr Buckland has
+very justly remarked, that we are accustomed to it in our ordinary
+life. 'The thief is identified by the impression which his shoe has
+made near the scene of his depredations. The American savage not only
+identifies the elk and bison by the impression of their hoofs, but
+ascertains also the time that has elapsed since the animal had passed.
+From the camel's track upon the sand, the Arab can determine whether
+it was heavily or lightly laden, or whether it was lame.' When,
+therefore, we see upon surfaces which we know to have been laid down
+in a soft state, in a remote era of the world's history, clear
+impressions like those made by tortoises of our own time, it seems a
+legitimate inference, that these impressions were made by animals of
+the tortoise kind, and, consequently, such animals were among those
+which then existed, albeit no other relic of them may have been found.
+From minute peculiarities, it is further inferred, that they were
+tortoises of different species from any now existing. Viewing such
+important results, we cannot but enter into the feeling with which Dr
+Buckland penned the following remarks:--'The historian or the
+antiquary,' he says, 'may have traversed the fields of ancient or of
+modern battles; and may have pursued the line of march of triumphant
+conquerors, whose armies trampled down the most mighty kingdoms of the
+world. The winds and storms have utterly obliterated the ephemeral
+impressions of their course. Not a track remains of a single foot, or
+a single hoof, of the countless millions of men and beasts whose
+progress spread desolation over the earth. But the reptiles that
+crawled upon the half-finished surface of our infant planet, have left
+memorials of their passage, enduring and indelible. No history has
+recorded their creation or destruction; their very bones are found no
+more among the fossil relics of a former world. Centuries and
+thousands of years may have rolled away between the time in which
+those footsteps were impressed by tortoises upon the sands of their
+native Scotland, and the hour when they were again laid bare and
+exposed to our curious and admiring eyes. Yet we behold them, stamped
+upon the rock, distinct as the track of the passing animal upon the
+recent snow; as if to shew that thousands of years are but as nothing
+amidst eternity--and, as it were, in mockery of the fleeting,
+perishable course of the mightiest potentates among mankind.'
+
+The formation of the slabs, and the preservation of the footprints,
+are processes which the geologist can easily explain. A beach on which
+animals have left the marks of their feet, becomes sufficiently
+hardened to retain the impressions; another layer of sand or mud is
+laid down by perhaps the next tide, covering up the first, and
+protecting it from all subsequent injury. Thousands of years after,
+the quarryman breaks up the layers, and finds on the one surface the
+impression of the animal, while the lower face of the superincumbent
+layer presents a cast of that impression, thus giving us in fact a
+double memorial of one event. At Wolfville, on the Bay of Fundy, Sir
+Charles Lyell some years ago observed a number of marks on the surface
+of a red marly mud which was gradually hardening on the sea-shore.
+They were the footprints of the sand-piper, a bird of which he saw
+flights daily running along the water's edge, and often leaving thirty
+or more similar impressions in a straight line, parallel to the
+borders of the estuary. He picked up some slabs of this dried mud, and
+splitting one of them up, found a surface within which bore two lines
+of the same kind of footprints. Here is an example before our living
+eyes, of the processes concerned in producing and preserving the
+fossil footprints of the New Red Sandstone.
+
+Some years after the Annandale footprints had attracted attention,
+some slab surfaces of the same formation in Saxony and England were
+found bearing an impression of a more arresting character. It
+resembled the impression that would be made by the palm and extended
+fingers and thumb of the human hand, but a hand much thicker and
+flabbier than is commonly seen. The appropriate name of
+_Cheirotherium_ was proposed for the unknown extinct animal which had
+produced these marks. The dimensions in the several examples were
+various; but 'in all cases the prints of what appear to have been the
+hind-feet are considerably larger than those of the fore-feet; so much
+so, indeed, that in one well-preserved slab containing several
+impressions, the former measures eight inches by five, and the latter
+not more than four inches by three. In this specimen, the print of the
+fore-foot is not more than an inch and a half in advance of that of
+the hinder one, although the distance between the two successive
+positions of the same foot, or the length of a pace of the animal, is
+fourteen inches. It therefore appears, that the animal must have had
+its posterior extremities both much larger and much longer than the
+anterior; but this peculiarity it possessed in common with many
+existing species, such as the frog, the kangaroo, &c.; and beyond this
+and certain appearances in the sandstone, as if a tail had been
+dragged behind the animal, in some sets of footsteps, but not in
+others, there is nothing to suggest to the comparative anatomist any
+idea of even the class of Vertebrata to which the animal should be
+referred.'[5] Soon after, some teeth and fragments of bones were
+discovered, by which Professor Owen was able to indicate an animal of
+the frog-family (Batrachia), but with certain affinities to the
+saurian order (crocodiles, &c.), and which must have been about the
+size of a large pig. It has been pretty generally concluded, that this
+colossal frog was the animal which impressed the hand-like
+foot-prints.
+
+At a later period, footprints of birds were discovered upon the
+surfaces of a thin-bedded sandstone belonging to the New Red formation
+on the banks of the Connecticut River, in North America. The birds,
+according to Sir Charles Lyell, must have been of various sizes; some
+as small as the sand-piper, and others as large as the ostrich, the
+width of the stride being in proportion to the size of the foot. There
+is one set, in which the foot is nineteen inches long, and the stride
+between four and five feet, indicating a bird nearly twice the size of
+the African ostrich. So great a magnitude was at first a cause of
+incredulity; but the subsequent discovery of the bones of the Moa or
+Dinornis of New Zealand, proved that, at a much later time, there had
+been feathered bipeds of even larger bulk, and the credibility of the
+_Ornithichnites Giganteus_ has accordingly been established. Sir
+Charles Lyell, when he visited the scene of the footprints on the
+Connecticut River, saw a slab marked with a row of the footsteps of
+the huge bird pointed to under this term, being nine in number,
+turning alternately right and left, and separated from each other by a
+space of about five feet. 'At one spot, there was a space several
+yards square, where the entire surface of the shale was irregular and
+jagged, owing to the number of the footsteps, not one of which could
+be distinctly traced, as when a flock of sheep have passed over a
+muddy road; but on withdrawing from this area, the confusion gradually
+ceased, and the tracks became more and more distinct.'[6] Professor
+Hitchcock had, up to that time, observed footprints of thirty species
+of birds on these surfaces. The formation, it may be remarked, is one
+considerably earlier than any in which fossil bones or other
+indications of birds have been detected in Europe.
+
+In the coal-field of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, there were
+discovered in 1844, slabs marked with footprints bearing a
+considerable resemblance to those of the Cheirotherium, and believed
+to have been impressed by an animal of the same family, though with
+some important points of distinction. The hind-feet are not so much
+larger than the fore; and the two on each side, instead of coming
+nearly into one row, as in the European Cheirotherium, stand widely
+apart. The impressions look such as would be made by a rudely-shaped
+human hand, with short fingers held much apart; there is some
+appearance as if the fingers had had nails; and a protuberance like
+the rudiment of a sixth finger appears at the side. This was the
+first indication of reptile life so early as the time of the
+coal-formation; but as the fossil remains of a reptile have now been
+found in Old Red Sandstone, at Elgin, in Scotland, the original
+importance of the discovery in this respect may be regarded as
+lessened.
+
+Last year, some slabs from Potsdam, in Canada, were brought to
+England, and deposited in the museum of the Geological Society.
+Belonging as these slabs do to a formation coeval with those in which
+the earliest fossils were hitherto found, it was startling to find
+them marked with numerous foot-tracks of what appeared to have been
+reptiles. It seemed to shew, that the inhabitants of the world in that
+early age were not quite so low in the scale of being as had
+previously been assumed from the facts known; and that all attempts to
+describe, from positive knowledge, anything like a progression of
+being on the face of our globe, were at least premature. Professor
+Owen had, at first, scarcely any hesitation in pronouncing the
+footprints to be those of tortoises; but he afterwards changed his
+views, and expressed his belief that the impressions had been produced
+by small crustacean animals. Thus the views previously entertained
+regarding the invertebrate character of the _fauna_ of the Silurian
+epoch, have ultimately remained unaffected, so far as these Potsdam
+slabs are concerned.
+
+Slabs of sandstone and shale often retain what is called the
+ripple-mark--that is, the corrugation of surface produced by the
+gentle agitation of shallow water over sand or mud. We can see these
+appearances beneath our feet, as we walk over the pavement of almost
+any of our cities. Such slabs are also occasionally marked by
+irregular protuberances, being the casts of hollows or cracks produced
+in ancient tide-beaches by shrinkage. In many instances, the
+footprints of animals are marked by such lines passing through them,
+shewing how the beach had dried and cracked in the sun after the
+animals had walked over it. In the quarries at Stourton, in Cheshire,
+some years ago, a gentleman named Cunningham observed slab surfaces
+mottled in a curious manner with little circular and oval hollows, and
+these were finally determined to be the impressions produced by
+rain--the rain of the ancient time, long prior to the existence of
+human beings, when the strata were formed! Since then, many similar
+markings have been observed on slabs raised from other quarries, both
+in Europe and America; and fossil rain-drops are now among the settled
+facts of geology. Very fine examples have been obtained from quarries
+of the New Red Sandstone at Newark and Pompton, in New Jersey. Sir
+Charles Lyell has examined these with care, and compared them with the
+effects of modern rain on soft surfaces of similar materials. He says,
+they present 'every gradation from transient rain, where a moderate
+number of drops are well preserved, to a pelting shower, which, by its
+continuance, has almost obliterated the circular form of the cavities.
+In the more perfectly preserved examples, smaller drops are often seen
+to have fallen into cavities previously made by larger ones, and to
+have modified their shape. In some cases of partial interference, the
+last drop has obliterated part of the annular margin of a former one;
+but in others it has not done so, for the two circles are seen to
+intersect each other. Most of the impressions are elliptical, having
+their more prominent rims at the deeper end [a consequence of the rain
+falling in a slanting direction]. We often see on the under side of
+some of these slabs, which are about half an inch thick, casts of the
+rain-drops of a previous shower, which had evidently fallen when the
+direction of the wind was not the same. Mr Redfield, by carefully
+examining the obliquity of the imprints in the Pompton quarries,
+ascertained that most of them implied the blowing of a strong westerly
+wind in the triassic period at that place.' A certain class of the
+impressions at Pompton are thought to be attributable to hail, 'being
+deeper and much more angular and jagged than the rain-prints, and
+having the wall at the deeper end more perpendicular, and occasionally
+overhanging.'[7]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] _Ichnology of Annandale._ Lizars, Edinburgh. 1851.
+
+[5] _Ansted's Introduction to Geology_, i. 303.
+
+[6] _Lyell's Travels in North America_, i. 254.
+
+[7] _Quarterly Journal of Geological Society_, April, 1851.
+
+
+
+
+AITON'S TRAVELS.
+
+
+A work in any department of general literature rarely appears from the
+pen of a clergyman in the Church of Scotland, and therefore that to
+which we are about to refer, under the title noted beneath,[8] is in
+some respects a curiosity. The writer, a minister settled in a
+mountainous parish in Lanarkshire, may be said to have made a
+remarkable escapade for one in his obscure situation and reverend
+calling. With an immense and unclerical flow of animal spirits,
+evidently as fond of travelling as old William Lithgow, and as
+garrulous as Rae Wilson, of whose class he is a surviving type, Dr
+Aiton is quite the man to take a journey to the Holy Land; for no
+difficulty in the way of toil, heat, hunger, creeping or winged
+insects, wild beasts, or still wilder savages, disturbs his
+equanimity. He also never hesitates to use any expression that comes
+uppermost. He explicitly observes, that 'no man with the capacity of a
+hen,' should fail to contribute such information as he possesses on
+the sacred regions he has traversed. Alluding to some circumstances in
+the voyage of St Paul, he says he has 'no desire to cook the facts.'
+He talks of a supposition being 'checkmated.' And in going along the
+coast of Spain, he mentions that he took care to have 'a passing
+squint at Cape St Vincent.' Many similar oddities break out in the
+course of the narrative; not that we care much about them one way or
+other; it is only to be regretted that the author has by this
+looseness of expression, and his loquacious dragging in of passages
+from Scripture on all occasions, also by his inveterate love of
+anecdotic illustration, done what he could to keep down a really
+clever book to an inferior standard of taste. We would hope, however,
+that candid readers will have a kindly consideration of the author's
+intentions, and pass over much that is prosy and ridiculous for the
+sake of what is original and interesting. Traversing lands that have
+been described a hundred times before, it might be supposed that
+little was left for Dr Aiton to pick up; yet every traveller has his
+own method of observation. In justice to the doctor, it must be
+acknowledged that he made a judicious use of time during his travels
+in the East, and has told us many amusing particulars of what he saw.
+There is, at least, always a certain graphic painting in his off-hand
+descriptions; as, for instance, his notice of an incident that
+occurred on his arrival in Egypt.
+
+'On landing at Alexandria I saw a ship unloading, and box by box were
+being handed to the lighter, according to the number each respectively
+bore. Some mistake, more or less important, had apparently been made
+by one of the native operatives on the occasion. Instantly two sticks
+were laid on his head with dreadful effect. The poor fellow seemed to
+be stunned and stupified for a time. On this account it probably
+happened, that he fell into a second similar blunder, when a stick was
+thrown, not horizontally, but perpendicularly, and so aimed that it
+struck the socket of the eye. In one moment he lost the sight of it,
+and the ball hung by a ligament on his cheek. He uttered a hideous
+yell, and staggered; notwithstanding of which other two cudgels were
+applied to his arm while he had the power to hold it up in protection
+of his head. Horror of horrors! I thought, verily in the fulfilment of
+prophecy, God has been pleased to curse this garden and granary of the
+world, and to permit foreigners terribly to tyrannise over its
+degraded people.' Proceeding onward to Cairo: 'What a hurry-skurry
+there was in the dark in getting into the vans at the hotel-door to
+be conveyed to the Mahmoudie Canal! When I arrived, I found the barge
+in which we were to be conveyed both very confined and dirty. But it
+proceeded at tolerable speed, drawn by horses which were pursued by
+well-mounted Arabs yelling, lashing, and cracking with their whips. We
+all passed a fearful night of suffocation and jambing, fasting and
+feasted on by millions. Some red-coated bedlamites, unfortunately
+infatuated with wine, had to be held from jumping overboard. The
+ramping and stamping, and roaring and scrambling for room to sit or
+lie, was horrific. At last the day dawned, when matters were not quite
+so bad; but we moved over our fifty miles of ditch-water to Atfeh in a
+manner the most uncomfortable any poor sinners ever suffered.'
+
+The account given of his entry to Cairo is also strikingly faithful.
+'When I landed at Boulac, another Oriental scene of novelty was
+presented. Crowds of men and women, all in their shirts only--lazy
+looking-on watermen calling for employment, porters packing luggage on
+the camels, donkey-boys, little active urchins, offering their asses,
+crying: "Here him best donkey"--"you Englese no walk"--"him kick
+highest"--"him fine jackass"--"me take you to Cairo." There were also
+plenty of custom-house folks demanding fees to which they had no
+right, and sturdy rascals seeking buckshish, and miserable beggars
+imploring alms. Walking through this promiscuous crowd, with all the
+dignity they could muster, there were venerable sheiks, or Egyptian
+oolema, with white turbans, and long silvery beards, and tawny
+sinister faces. And there were passengers not a few, with a carpet-bag
+in the one hand and a lady hanging on the other arm, crowding from the
+deck to the shore.
+
+'The moment I mounted the stair at the pier of Boulac, I found myself
+in the red dusky haze of an Egyptian atmosphere. It was near noon, and
+the rays of the hot sun trembled over the boundless Valley of the Nile
+on to the minarets of Cairo, and further still to the sombre Pyramids.
+Now, indeed, the scene before me presented a superb illusion of
+beauty. The bold range of the Mockattam Mountains, its craggy summits
+cut clearly out in the sky, seemed to run like a promontory into a sea
+of the richest verdure; here, wavy with breezy plantations of olives;
+there, darkened with acacia groves. Just where the mountain sinks upon
+the plain, the citadel stands on its last eminence, and widely spread
+beneath lies the city--a forest of minarets, with palm-trees
+intermingled, and the domes of innumerable mosques rising and
+glittering over the sea of houses. Here and there, green gardens are
+islanded within that ocean, and the whole is girt round with
+picturesque towers, and ramparts occasionally revealed through vistas
+of the wood of sycamores and fig-trees that surround it. From Boulac I
+was conveyed to the British Hotel at Cairo, the Englishman's home in
+Egypt, conducted by Mr Shepherd, the Englishman's friend in the East.
+The approach to Grand Cairo is charming and cheering, and altogether
+as fanciful as if I had been carried with Aladin's lamp in my hand
+through a fairy region to one of the palaces mentioned in the _Arabian
+Nights of Entertainment_. I passed along a broad level path, full of
+life and fancy, amid groves and gardens, and villas all glittering in
+grandeur. At every turn, something more Oriental and magnificent than
+anything I had yet seen presented itself. Along the level, broad
+highway, a masquerading-looking crowd was swarming towards Cairo.
+Ladies, wrapped closely in white veils, were carrying water on their
+heads. Long rows of dromedaries loaded with luggage were moving
+stately forward. Donkeys at full canter, one white man riding, and two
+black men driving and thumping the poor brutes most unmercifully with
+short thick sticks, were winding their way through the throng. Ladies
+enveloped in flowing robes of black silk, and veiled up to the eyes,
+were sitting stride-leg on richly-caparisoned asses, shewing off with
+pomp a pair of yellow morocco slippers, which appeared on their feet
+from under their flowing robes. And before these, clearing the way,
+there were eunuch slaves crying: "Darak ya Khowaga-riglak! shemalak!"
+which probably may mean: "Stand back, and let her ladyship pass!"
+There were walkers and water-carriers, with goat-skins full on their
+back; and fruit-sellers and orange-girls; and ourselves and others
+driving at full gallop, regardless of all the Copts, Abyssinians,
+Greeks, Turks, Parsees, Nubians, and Jews, which crowded the path. But
+curiosity of this sort is soon satisfied, and these novelties are
+passed, when I find myself in the midst of the city, more full of mud
+and misery, dark, dirty twisting lanes, arched almost over by
+verandas, and wretchedly paved or not paved at all, full of smells and
+disgusting sights--such as lean, mangy dogs, and ragged beggars
+quivering with lice, and poverty-stricken people; all this more than
+the whole world can produce anywhere else, not excepting even the
+Jewish city of Prague; which astonished me beyond comparison till I
+saw the poorer portions of Cairo.'
+
+During his stay in Cairo, the doctor visited the Great Pyramid of
+Gizeh, the short journey being performed early in the morning, and
+with a guide. The toils and pleasures of the excursion are fairly
+described. 'I had read so much of the bulk of the Pyramids, and they
+now appeared so positively insignificant in their dimensions, that I,
+felt mortified; but I remembered that I had the same impression many
+years ago when first approaching the Alps; and I began to consider,
+that as the extreme clearness of the atmosphere gave them the
+appearance of proximity in the far distance, so it would also partly
+account for the diminutive aspect they persisted in presenting. I
+dismounted, and scrambled up the bold ledge of rock, and found myself
+already a hundred feet above the level of the Nile. Here my Arab guide
+produced cold fowl, bread, wine, and Nile water in plenty at the foot
+of this mountain of stone, which now began to indicate its colossal
+magnitude. Standing beside the pyramid, and looking from the base to
+the top, and especially examining the vast dimensions of each separate
+stone, I thus obtained an adequate impression of the magnitude of its
+dimensions, which produced a calm and speechless but elevated feeling
+of awe. The Arabs, men, women, and children, came crowding around me;
+but they seemed kind and inoffensive. I was advised to mount up to the
+top before the sun gained strength; and, skipping like chamois on a
+mountain, two Arabs took hold of me by each wrist, and a third lifted
+me up from behind, and thus I began, with resolution and courage, to
+ascend the countless layers of huge stones which tower and taper to
+the top. Every step was three feet up at a bound; and, really, a
+perpendicular hop-step-and-leap of this sort was no joke, move after
+move continuing as if for ever. I found that the Arabs did not work so
+smoothly as I expected, and that one seemed at a time to be holding
+back, while another was dragging me up; and this soon became very
+tiresome. Perceiving this, they changed their method, and I was
+directed to put my foot on the knee of one Arab, and another pulled me
+up by both hands, while a third pushed me behind; and thus I bounded
+on in my tread-mill of tedious and very tiresome exertion. I paused
+half-way to the top, and rested at the cave. I looked up and down with
+a feeling of awe, and now I felt the force of Warburton's remark, when
+he calls it the greatest wonder in the world. But in the midst of
+these common-place reflections, a fit of sickness came over me.
+Everything turned dark before me; and now for a moment my courage
+failed me; and when looking at my three savage companions--for my
+guide and his friend were sitting below finishing the fragments of my
+breakfast, and the donkeys were munching beans--I felt myself alike
+destitute of comfort and protection; and when they put forth their
+hands to lift my body, I verily thought myself a murdered man. When I
+came out of my faint, I found that they had gently turned me on my
+belly, with my head flat upon the rock, and that they had been
+sprinkling my face and breast with water. A profuse perspiration broke
+out, and I felt myself relieved. I rested ten or fifteen minutes, and
+hesitated for a moment whether to go up or down; but I had determined
+that I should reach the top, if I should perish in the attempt. I
+resumed, therefore, the ascent, but with more time and caution than
+before; and fearing to look either up or down, or to any portion of
+the frightful aspect around, I fixed my eye entirely on each
+individual step before me, as if there had been no other object in the
+world besides. To encourage me by diverting my attention, the Arabs
+chanted their monotonous songs, mainly in their own language,
+interspersed with expressions about buckshish, "Englese good to
+Arabs," and making signs to me every now and then how near we were
+getting to the top. After a second _dwam_, a rest and a draught of
+water prepared me for another effort at ascending; and now, as I
+advanced, my ideas began to expand to something commensurate with the
+grandeur and novelty of the scene. When I reached the top, I found
+myself on a broad area of about ten yards in every way of massive
+stone-blocks broken and displaced. Exhausted and overheated, I laid me
+down, panting like a greyhound after a severe chase. I bathed my
+temples, and drank a deep, cool draught of Nile water. After inhaling
+for a few minutes the fresh, elastic breeze blowing up the river, I
+felt that I was myself again. I rose, and gazed with avidity in fixed
+silence, north and south, east and west. And now I felt it very
+exhilarating to the spirit, when thus standing on a small, unprotected
+pavement so many hundred feet above the earth, and so many thousand
+miles from home, to be alone, surrounded only by three wild and
+ferocious-like savages. The Arabs knew as well as I did that my life
+and property were in their power; but they were kind, and proud of the
+confidence I had in them. They tapped me gently on the back, patted my
+head, kissed my hand, and then with a low, laughing, sinister growl,
+they asked me for buckshish, which I firmly refused; then they
+laughed, and sang and chatted as before. In calmly looking around me,
+one idea filled and fixed my mind, which I expressed at the time in
+one word--magnificence!... I remained long at the top of the pyramid,
+and naturally felt elevated by the sublimity of the scenery around,
+and also by the thought, that I had conquered every difficulty, and
+accomplished my every purpose. The breeze was still cool, although the
+sun was now high in the sky. I laughed and talked with the Arabs; and
+advanced with them holding my two hands, to the very edge, and looked
+down the awful precipice. Here again, with a push, or a kick, or
+probably by withdrawing their hands, my days would have been finished;
+and I would have been buried in the Desert among the ancient kings, or
+more likely worried up by hungry hyænas. I looked around at my
+leisure, and began carefully to read the names cut out on the stones,
+anxious to catch one from my own country, or of my acquaintance, but
+in this I did not succeed. Seeing me thus occupied, one of the Arabs
+drew from his pocket a large murderous-looking _gully_, and when he
+advanced towards me with it in his hand, had I believed the tenth part
+of what I had heard or read, I might have been afraid of my life. But
+with a laughing squeal, he pointed to a stone, as if to intimate that
+I should cut out my name upon it. Then very modestly he held out his
+hand for buckshish, and I thought him entitled to two or three
+piasters.... In coming down, I felt timid and giddy for awhile, and
+was afraid that I might meet the fate of the poor officer from India,
+who, on a similar occasion, happened to miss his foot, and went
+bouncing from one ledge of stone to another, towards the bottom, like
+a ball, and that long after life was beaten out of him. Seeing this,
+the Arabs renewed their demand for buckshish, and with more
+perseverance than ever; but I was equally firm in my determination
+that more money they should not have till I reached the bottom. At
+last they took me by both hands as before, and conducted me carefully
+from step to step. By and by I jumped down from one ledge to another
+without their assistance, till I reached the mouth of the entrance to
+the interior. I descended this inlet somewhat after the manner of a
+sweep going down a chimney, but not quite so comfortable, I believe.
+In this narrow inclined plane, I not only had to encounter sand-flies,
+and every variety of vermin in Egypt, but I was afraid of serpents.
+The confined pass was filled, too, with warm dust, and the heat and
+smoke of the lights we carried increased the stifling sensation. In
+these circumstances, I felt anxious only to go as far as would enable
+me to fire a pistol with effect in one of the vaults. This is well
+worth while, inasmuch as the sound of the explosion was louder than
+the roar of a cannon. In fact, it almost rent the drum of my ears, and
+rolled on like thunder through the interior of the pyramid, multiplied
+and magnified as it was by a thousand echoes. The sound seemed to
+sink, and mount from cavity to cavity--to rebound and to divide--and
+at length to die in a good old age. The flash and the smoke produced,
+too, a momentary feeling of terror. Having performed this marvellous
+feat, I was nowise ambitious to qualify myself further for giving a
+description of the interior.'
+
+After visiting Suez, the author returned to Cairo, descended to the
+coast of the Levant, and took shipping for Jaffa, on the route to
+Jerusalem. Every point of interest in the holy city is described as
+minutely as could be desired. Next, there was a visit to the Dead Sea,
+regarding which there occur some sagacious remarks. The doctor
+repudiates the ordinary belief, that the waters of this famed lake are
+carried off by exhalation. Six million tons of water are discharged
+every day by the Jordan into the Dead Sea; and to suppose that this
+vast increase is wholly exhaled, seems to him absurd. He deems it more
+likely that the lake issues by subterranean passages into the Red Sea.
+The only remark that occurs to us on this point is, that the saltness
+of the lake must be held as a proof that there is at least a large
+exhalation from the surface.
+
+Dr Aiton also visited Bethlehem, where he saw much to interest him;
+and had the satisfaction of being hospitably entertained by the
+fathers of the Greek convent. 'I left the convent,' he says, 'soothed
+and satisfied much with all that I had seen, and went round to take a
+parting and more particular view of the plain where the shepherds
+heard the angels proclaim: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
+peace, good-will towards men!" The plain is still mainly under
+pasture, fertile and well watered, and there I saw shepherds still
+tending their flocks. These shepherds have great influence over their
+sheep. Many of them have no dogs. Their flocks are docile and
+domestic, and not as the black-faced breed of sheep in Scotland,
+scouring the hills like cavalry. The shepherd's word spoken at any
+time is sufficient to make them understand and obey him. He sleeps
+among them at night, and in the morning he leadeth them forth to drink
+by the still waters, and feedeth them by the green pastures. He walks
+before them slow and stately; and so accustomed are the sheep to be
+guided by him, that every few bites they take they look up with
+earnestness to see that he is there. When he rests during the heat of
+the day in a shady place, they lie around him chewing the cud. He has
+generally two or three favourite lambs which don't mix with the flock,
+but frisk and fondle at his heel. There is a tender intimacy between
+the Ishmaelite and his flock. They know his voice, and follow him, and
+he careth for the sheep. He gathereth his lambs, and seeketh out his
+flock among the sheep, and gently leadeth them that are with young,
+and carrieth the lambs in his bosom. In returning back to Jerusalem, I
+halted on a rugged height to survey more particularly, and enjoy the
+scene where Ruth went to glean the ears of corn in the field of her
+kinsman Boaz. Hither she came for the beginning of barley harvest,
+because she would not leave Naomi in her sorrow. "Entreat me not to
+leave thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest,
+I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where
+thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to
+me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." How simple
+and tender! Here, when looking around me, honoured I felt for ever be
+her memory, not only for these touching sentiments, worthy of our race
+even before the fall, and when the image of God was not yet effaced;
+but also in respect that she who uttered these words was the
+great-grandmother of David, and as of the generation of Jesus. Here
+also I looked back to the city of Bethlehem with lingering regret,
+uttering a common-place farewell to the scene, but never to its
+hallowed recollections.'
+
+We may conclude our extracts with a passage descriptive of the
+doctor's departure from the Holy Land, from which it will be seen that
+he was not indisposed to keep his part when necessity demanded. 'The
+steamer _Levant_ was ordered to sail at midnight on the day it arrived
+at Jaffa, and there was a vast crowd and great confusion at the
+embarkation. All the villainy of the Arab watermen was in active
+operation. With the assistance of Dr Kiat's Italian servant, an
+arrangement had been made that I and my friend were to be taken out to
+the steamer for a stipulated sum; but while all the boats of the
+natives were going off; ours was still detained at the pier under a
+variety of flimsy pretences. Then a proposal was made to carry the
+luggage back to the shore, and to take away the boat somewhere else, a
+promise being given by the Arabs that they would return with it in
+plenty of time to take us on board before midnight. By this time, I
+was too old a traveller amid ruffians of this sort to permit so simple
+a fraud to be perpetrated. The crew insisted on taking hold of the
+oars, and my friend and I persisted in preventing them. We soon saw
+that nothing but determined courage would carry the day. I therefore
+did not hesitate to grasp the skipper firmly by the throat till I
+almost choked him, threatening to toss him headlong into the sea. We
+also threatened loudly to go back to the English consul, and to have
+them punished for their conduct. Awed a little, and seeing that we
+were not to be so easily done as they expected, notwithstanding that
+we had been so simple as to pay our fare before we started, they did
+at last push off the boat; but it was only after a fashion of their
+own. Every forty yards their oars struck work, and they demanded more
+money. The sea was rough even beyond the breakers, and the gravestone
+which I had seen in the garden at Jaffa was enough to convince me,
+that the guiding of a boat by savages in the dark, through the neck of
+such a harbour, with whirling currents and terrifying waves, was a
+matter of considerable danger. There was no remedy for it, but
+continuing to set the crew at defiance, knowing that they could not
+upset the boat without endangering their own lives as well as ours.
+They wetted us, however, purposely, with the spray, and did their best
+to frighten us, by rocking the boat like a cradle. First one piaster
+(about twopence-halfpenny) was given to the skipper, then the boat was
+advanced about a hundred yards, when the oars were laid down once
+more. Another row was the consequence, at the end of which another
+piaster was doled out to him, and forward we moved till we were fairly
+within cry of the ship, when I called out for assistance, and they
+pushed us directly alongside, behind the paddle-box. Here again they
+detained the luggage, and demanded more buckshish; but I laid hold of
+the rope hanging down from the rails of the steamer, and crying to my
+companion to sit still and watch our property, I ran up the side of
+the ship and called for the master, knowing that the captain was on
+shore. Looking down upon them, he threatened to sink them in the ocean
+if they did not bring everything on deck in a minute. When I saw the
+portmanteaus brought up, and my friend and I safely on board, I
+thought that all was well enough, although we had got a ducking in the
+surf; but in a little, my friend found that he had been robbed of his
+purse, containing two sovereigns and some small money; but nobody
+could tell whether this had been done in the crowd on the pier, or
+when he was in the boat, or when helped up the side of the ship. The
+anchor was weighed about midnight, and we steamed along the coast of
+Samaria, towards the once famous city and seaport of Herod.'
+
+Having taken the liberty to be jocular on the doctor's oddities of
+expression, we beg to say, that notwithstanding these and other
+eccentricities, the work he has produced is well worthy of perusal,
+and of finding a place in all respectable libraries.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] _The Lands of the Messiah, Mahomet, and the Pope, as Visited in
+1851_. By John Aiton, D.D., Minister of Dolphinton. Fullarton & Co.
+1852.
+
+
+
+
+GLEANING IN SCOTLAND.
+
+BY A PRACTITIONER.
+
+
+Like most other ubiquitous customs, corn-gleaning has been frequently
+described by the painter and the poet, yet I much question whether in
+any case the picture is true to nature. A certain amount of idealism
+is infused into all the sketches--indeed, in the experience of numbers
+of readers, this is the sole feature in most of them. Such a defect is
+easily accounted for. Those who have depicted the custom were
+practically unacquainted with its details, and invariably made the
+sacred story the model of their picture, without taking into
+consideration the changes induced by time or local peculiarity. Even
+the beautiful and glowing description of English corn-gleaning given
+by Thomson, is felt by practical observers to be greatly too much of
+the Oriental hue, too redolent of the fragrance of a fanciful Arcadia.
+It is a pity that this interesting custom is not more faithfully
+transcribed into our national poetry; and it is with the hope that a
+future Burns may make the attempt, that the writer of this article
+ventures to give a short history of his gleaning-days, believing the
+subject to be interesting enough to engage the attention of the
+general reader.
+
+Though born amid the grandeur and sublimity of Highland scenery, I
+was, at a very early age, brought to reside in a small village on the
+east coast--small now, but once the most famous and important town in
+that part of Scotland. Among the scenes of these times, none stand out
+more vividly than the 'gathering-days'--the harvest of the year's
+enjoyment--the time when a whole twelvemonth's happiness was
+concentrated in the six weeks' vacation of the village-school. I do
+not recollect the time when I began to glean--or _gather_, as it is
+locally termed--probably I would, when very young, follow the others
+to the near farms, and gradually become, as I grew older, a regular
+gleaner. At that time the gleaners in our district were divided into
+two gangs or parties. One of these was headed by four old women, whose
+shearing-days were past; and as they were very peaceable, decent
+bodies, it was considered an honour to get attached to their band. The
+other was composed of the wilder spirits of the place, who thought
+nothing of jumping dikes, breaking hedges, stealing turnips, and
+committing other depredations on the farms which they visited.
+Fortunately, my quiet disposition, and supposed good character,
+procured my admittance into the more respectable gang; and I had the
+honour of sharing its fortunes during the five or six years I
+continued a gleaner. I was surprised to see one of these old ladies
+toddling about the village only a few weeks ago, though her
+gathering-days are long since past. She is the last survivor of the
+quorum, and is now fast fading into dotage.
+
+Although the two gleaning-parties never assumed a positive antagonism,
+they took care to conceal their movements from each other as well as
+possible. When one of our party received information of a field being
+'ready,' the fact was secretly conveyed to all the members, with an
+injunction to be 'in such a place at such an hour' on the following
+morning; and the result generally was, that we had a considerable
+portion of the field gleaned before the other gang arrived. But we did
+not always act on previous information. Many a morning we departed on
+the search, and frequently wandered all day without 'lifting a head.'
+These were the best times for us young ones, whose hearts were too
+light to care for more than the fun of the thing, as we then had a
+glorious opportunity of getting a feast of bramble-berries and wild
+raspberries in the woods and moors; but to the older members of our
+party the disappointment was anything but pleasant.
+
+I have spoken of a field being _ready_. Now, to some readers, this may
+convey a very erroneous idea. We learn that in early times not only
+were the gleaners admitted among the sheaves, or allowed to 'follow
+the shearers,' as the privilege is now termed, but, in a certain
+instance, the reapers were commanded to leave a handful now and then
+for the gleaner. Now, that custom is entirely changed: the sheaves are
+all taken away from the field; and instead of the reapers leaving
+handfuls expressly for the gleaners, the farmer endeavours by raking
+to secure as much as possible of what they accidentally leave on the
+stubble. I am not inclined to quarrel with the condition that requires
+the stocks to be removed ere the gleaners gain admittance; because
+many would be tempted to pilfer, and besides, the ground on which they
+stand could not be reached. But there is no doubt that the custom of
+gleaning was originally a public enactment; while the fact that it has
+spread over the whole earth, and descended to the present time, shews
+that it still exists on the statute-book of justice, in all the length
+and breadth of its original signification; and it amounts almost to a
+virtual abrogation of the privilege when the stubble is thus gleaned.
+At all events, if these sentiments are not in consonance with the new
+lights of the day, let them be pardoned in a _ci-devant_ gleaner.
+
+Upon arriving at a field, our first object was to choose a locality.
+If we were first on the ground, we took a careful survey of its
+geographical position, and acted accordingly. When the field was
+level, and equally exposed, it mattered little to what part we went;
+but in the event of its being hilly, or situated near a wood, we had
+to consider where the best soil lay, and where the sun had shone most.
+It was in the discovery of these important points that the sagacity
+and experience of our aged leaders were most brilliantly displayed,
+and gave to our party an immense superiority over the other, whose
+science was much more scanty; it therefore happened that we had
+generally the largest quantity and best quality of grain. These
+preliminaries being settled--and they generally took less time than I
+have done to write--we began work, commencing, of course, at the end
+of the field by which we entered, and travelling up or down the rigs.
+
+The process of gleaning may be generally considered a very simple one;
+but in this, as in everything else, some knowledge is necessary, and
+no better proof of this could be had, than in the quantities gathered
+by different persons in the same space of time. A careless or
+inexperienced gatherer could easily be detected by the size and
+_shape_ of his single. The usual method practised by a good gleaner
+was as follows:--Placing the left hand upon the knee, or behind the
+back, the right was used to lift the ears, care being taken to grasp
+them close by the 'neck.' When the right hand had gathered perhaps
+twenty or thirty ears, these were changed into the left hand; the
+right was again replenished from the ground; and this process was
+continued till the left was full, or rather till the gleaner heard one
+of his or her party exclaim: 'Tie!' when the single was obliged to be
+completed. Thus it is clear that a good eye and a quick hand are
+essential to a good gleaner.
+
+Whenever one of the members of the party found that the left hand was
+quite full, he or she could compel the others to finish their singles
+whether their hand was full or not, by simply crying the
+afore-mentioned word 'Tie!' At this sound, the whole band proceeded to
+fasten their bundles, and deposit them on the rig chosen for their
+reception. The process of 'tying' it is impossible to explain on
+paper; but I can assure my readers it afforded great scope for taste
+and ingenuity. Few, indeed, could do it properly, though the singles
+of some were very neat. The best 'tyer' in our party, and indeed in
+the district, was a little, middle-aged woman, who was a diligent,
+rapid gatherer, and generally the first to finish her handful. Her
+singles were perfectly round, and as flat at the top as if laid with a
+plummet. Having finished tying, we laid down our singles according to
+order, so that no difficulty might be felt in collecting them again,
+and so proceeded with our labour.
+
+When we got to the end of the field, the custom was, to finish our
+handfuls there, and retrace our steps for the purpose of collecting
+the deposits, when each of us tied up our collected bundles at the
+place from which we originally started. To the lover of the
+picturesque, the scene while we sat resting by the hedge-side, was one
+of the most beautiful that can be imagined. Spread over the field in
+every direction were the gleaners, busily engaged in their cheerful
+task; while the hum of their conversation, mingling with the melody of
+the insect world, the music of the feathery tribes, and the ripple of
+the adjoining burn, combined to form a strain which I still hear in
+the pauses of life.
+
+On our homeward road from a successful day's, gathering, how merry we
+all were, in spite of our tired limbs and the load upon our heads!
+Indeed it was the load itself that made us glad; and we should have
+been still merrier if that had been heavier. How sweet it was to feel
+the weight of our industry--no burden could possibly be more grateful;
+and I question much whether that was not the happiest moment in Ruth's
+first gleaning-day, when she trudged home to her mother-in-law with
+the ephah of barley, the produce of her unflagging toil.
+
+When harvest was over, and the chill winds swept over cleared and
+gleaned fields, our bond of union was dissolved, each retired to his
+respective habitation, and, like Ruth, 'beat out that he had gleaned.'
+In many cases, the result was a sufficient supply of bread to the
+family for the ensuing winter. It was singular that, during the rest
+of the year, little or no intercourse was maintained between those who
+were thus associated during harvest. They lived together in the same
+degree of friendship as is common among villagers, but I could never
+observe any of that peculiar intimacy which it was natural to suppose
+such an annual combination would create. They generally returned to
+their ordinary occupations, and continued thus till the sickle was
+again heard among the yellow corn, and the _stacks_ were growing in
+the barn-yard. Then, as if by instinct, the members of the various
+bands, and the independent stragglers, left their monotonous tasks,
+and eagerly entered on the joys and pleasures of the gathering-days.
+
+I might add many reminiscences of the few seasons I spent in this
+manner; but I am afraid that, however interesting they might prove in
+rural districts, they are too simple to interest the general reader.
+Let me observe, however, before concluding, that the great majority of
+the farmers at the present day are decidedly unfavourable to gleaning,
+although the veneration that is generally entertained for what is
+ancient, and the traditionary sacredness which surrounds this
+particular custom, prevent them from openly forbidding its
+continuance. They have introduced, however, laws and rules which
+infringe sadly its original proportions, and which, in many instances,
+are made the instruments of oppression.
+
+
+
+
+WOMEN IN SAVAGE LIFE.
+
+
+The division of labour between the man and wife in Indian life is not
+so unequal, while they live in the pure hunter state, as many suppose.
+The large part of a hunter's time, which is spent in seeking game,
+leaves the wife in the wigwam, with a great deal of time on her hands;
+for it must be remembered that there is no spinning, weaving, or
+preparing children for school--no butter or cheese making, or a
+thousand other cares which are inseparable from the agricultural
+state, to occupy her skill and industry. Even the art of the
+seamstress is only practised by the Indian woman on a few things. She
+devotes much of her time to making moccasons and quill-work. Her
+husband's leggins are carefully ornamented with beads; his shot-pouch
+and knife-sheath are worked with quills; the hunting-cap is garnished
+with ribbons; his garters of cloth are adorned with a profusion of
+small white beads, and coloured worsted tassels are prepared for his
+leggins. In the spring, the corn-field is planted by her and the
+youngsters, in a vein of gaiety and frolic. It is done in a few hours,
+and taken care of in the same spirit. It is perfectly voluntary
+labour, and she would not be scolded for omitting it; for all labour
+with Indians is voluntary.--_Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes_.
+
+
+
+
+LANGUAGE OF THE LAW.
+
+
+If a man would, according to law, give to another an orange, instead
+of saying, 'I give you that orange,' which one would think would be
+what is called in legal phraseology 'an absolute conveyance of all
+right and title therein,' the phrase would run thus:--'I give you all
+and singular my estate and interest, right, title, and claim, and
+advantage of and in that orange, with all its rind, skin, juice, pulp,
+and pips, and right and advantages therein, with full power to bite,
+cut, suck, and otherwise eat the same, or give the same away, as fully
+and as effectually as I, the said A. B., am now inclined to bite, cut,
+suck, or otherwise eat the same orange or give the same away, with or
+without its rind, skin, juice, pulp, or pips, anything heretofore or
+hereinafter, or in any other deed or deeds, instrument or instruments,
+of what nature or kind soever, to the contrary in anywise
+notwithstanding;' with much more to the same effect. Such is the
+language of lawyers; and it is gravely held by the most learned men
+among them, that by the omission of any of these words, the right to
+the said orange would not pass to the person for whose use the same
+was intended.--_Newspaper paragraph_.
+
+
+
+
+CHANCES OF LIFE IN AMERICA.
+
+
+10,268 infants are born on the same day and enter upon life
+simultaneously. Of these, 1243 never reach the anniversary of their
+birth; 9025 commence the second year; but the proportion of deaths
+still continues so great, that at the end of the third only 8183, or
+about four-fifths of the original number, survive. But during the
+fourth year the system seems to acquire more strength, and the number
+of deaths rapidly decreases. It goes on decreasing until twenty-one,
+the commencement of maturity and the period of highest health. 7134
+enter upon the activities and responsibilities of life--more than
+two-thirds of the original number. Thirty-five comes, the meridian of
+manhood, 6302 have reached it. Twenty years more, and the ranks are
+thinned. Only 4727, or less than half of those who entered life
+fifty-five years ago, are left. And now death comes more frequently.
+Every year the ratio of mortality steadily increases, and at seventy
+there are not 1000 survivors. A scattered few live on to the close of
+the century, and at the age of one hundred and six the drama is ended;
+the last man is dead.--_Albany Journal_.
+
+
+
+
+A SONG.
+
+
+    The little white moon goes climbing
+      Over the dusky cloud,
+    Kissing its fringes softly,
+      With a love-light, pale as shroud--
+    Where walks this moon to-night, Annie?
+    Over the waters bright, Annie?
+      Does she smile on your face as you lift it, proud?
+    God look on thee--look on thee, Annie!
+      For I shall look never more!
+
+    The little white star stands watching
+      Ever beside the moon;
+    Hid in the mists that shroud her,
+      And hid in her light's mid-noon:
+    Yet the star follows all heaven through, Annie,
+    As my soul follows after you, Annie,
+      At moon-rise and moon-set, late and soon:
+    Oh, God watch thee, God watch thee, Annie,
+      For I can watch never more!
+
+    The purple-black sky folds loving,
+      Over far sea, far land;
+    The thunder-clouds, looming eastward,
+      Like a chain of mountains stand.
+    Under this July sky, Annie,
+    Do you hear waves lapping by, Annie?
+      Do you walk, with the hills on either hand?
+    Oh, God love thee, God love thee, Annie,
+      For I love thee evermore!
+
+
+
+
+LONGEVITY OF QUAKERS.
+
+
+Quakerism is favourable to _longevity_, it seems. According to late
+English census returns, the average age attained by members of this
+peaceful sect in Great Britain is fifty-one years, two months, and
+twenty-one days. Half of the population of the country, as is seen by
+the same returns, die before reaching the age of twenty-one, and the
+average duration of human life the world over is but thirty-three
+years; Quakers, therefore, live a third longer than the rest of us.
+The reasons are obvious enough. Quakers are temperate and prudent, are
+seldom in a hurry, and never in a passion. Quakers, in the very midst
+of the week's business--on Wednesday morning--retire from the world,
+and spend an hour or two in silent meditation at the meeting-house.
+Quakers are diligent; they help one another, and the fear of want does
+not corrode their minds. The journey of life to them is a walk of
+peaceful meditation. They neither suffer nor enjoy intensity, but
+preserve a composed demeanour always. Is it surprising that their days
+should be long in the land?--_National Intelligencer_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh.
+Also sold by W. S. ORR, Amen Corner, London; D. N. CHAMBERS, 55 West
+Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. M'GLASHAN, 50 Upper Sackville Street,
+Dublin.--Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to
+MAXWELL & Co., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all
+applications respecting their insertion must be made.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459, by Various
+
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+
+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459
+       Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: William Chambers
+        Robert Chambers
+
+Release Date: January 2, 2008 [EBook #24128]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. Shiffer and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL</h1>
+
+<h2><a name="Contents" id="Contents">CONTENTS</a></h2>
+
+<div class="contents">
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p class="left">
+<a href="#THE_WOMAN_OF_THE_WORLD"><b>THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#MARIE_DE_LA_TOUR"><b>MARIE DE LA TOUR.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHEAP_MINOR_RAILWAYS"><b>CHEAP MINOR RAILWAYS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_HUMOUR_OF_SOUTHEY"><b>THE HUMOUR OF SOUTHEY.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#TRACKS_OF_ANCIENT_ANIMALS_IN_SANDSTONE"><b>TRACKS OF ANCIENT ANIMALS IN SANDSTONE.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#AITONS_TRAVELS"><b>AITON'S TRAVELS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#GLEANING_IN_SCOTLAND"><b>GLEANING IN SCOTLAND.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#WOMEN_IN_SAVAGE_LIFE"><b>WOMEN IN SAVAGE LIFE.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#LANGUAGE_OF_THE_LAW"><b>LANGUAGE OF THE LAW.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHANCES_OF_LIFE_IN_AMERICA"><b>CHANCES OF LIFE IN AMERICA.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#A_SONG"><b>A SONG.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#LONGEVITY_OF_QUAKERS"><b>LONGEVITY OF QUAKERS.</b></a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[pg 241]</a></span></p>
+
+<img src="images/banner.png"
+          width="100%"
+          alt="Banner: Chambers' Edinburgh Journal" />
+
+<h4>CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
+INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &amp;c.</h4>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<table width="100%"
+        summary="Volume, Date and Price">
+<tr>
+<td align="left"><b><span class="sc">No.</span> 459.&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="sc">New Series.</span></b></td>
+<td align="left"><b>SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1852.</b></td>
+<td align="right"><b><span class="sc">Price</span> 1&frac12;<i>d</i>.</b></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+
+<h2><a name="THE_WOMAN_OF_THE_WORLD" id="THE_WOMAN_OF_THE_WORLD"></a>THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">We</span> all know that there are certain conventional laws by which our
+social doings and seemings are regulated; but what is the power which
+compels the observance of these laws? There is no company police to
+keep people moving on, no fines or other penalties; nobody but the
+very outrageous need fear being turned out of the room; we have every
+one of us strong inclinations and strong will: then, how comes it that
+we get on so smoothly? Why are there no outbreaks of individual
+character? How is it that we seem dovetailed into each other, as if we
+formed a homogeneous mass? What is the influence which keeps up the
+weak and keeps down the strong, and spreads itself like oil upon the
+boiling sea of human passion? We have a notion of our own, that all
+this is the work of an individual of the female sex; and, indeed, even
+the most unconscious and unreflecting would appear to assign to that
+individual her true position and authority, in naming her the Woman of
+the World.</p>
+
+<p>Society could never exist in a state of civilisation without the woman
+of the world. The man of the world has his own department, his own
+<i>m&eacute;tier</i>; but She it is who keeps up the general equilibrium. She is a
+calm, quiet, lady-like person, not obtrusive, and not easily put out
+of the way. You do not know by external observation that she is in the
+room; you feel it instinctively. The atmosphere she brings with her is
+peculiar, you cannot tell how. It is neither warm nor chill, neither
+moist nor dry; but it is repressive. You do not move in it with
+natural freedom, although you feel nothing that could be called
+<i>g&ecirc;ne</i>. Her manner is generally sweet, sometimes even caressing, and
+you feel flattered and elevated as you meet her approving eye. But you
+cannot get into it. There is a glassy surface, beautiful but hard, of
+which you can make nothing, and presently you feel a kind of
+strangeness come over you, as if you were not looking into the eye of
+a creature of your own kind. What you miss is sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>It is to her want of sympathy the woman of the world owes her
+position. The same deficiency is indispensable in the other
+individuals&mdash;such as a great monarch, or a great general&mdash;who rule the
+fate of mankind; but with this difference, that in them it is partial
+and limited, and in her universal. In them, it bears relation to their
+trade or mission; in her, it is a peculiarity of her general nature.
+She is accused of inhumanity; of sporting with the feelings of those
+about her, and rending, when they interfere with her plans, the
+strings of the heart as ruthlessly as if they were fiddlestrings. But
+all that is nonsense. She does not, it is true, ignore the existence
+of strings and feelings; on the contrary, they are in her eyes a great
+fact, without which she could do nothing. But her theory is, that they
+are merely a superficial net-work surrounding the character, the
+growth of education and other circumstances, and that they may be
+twisted, broken, and fastened anew at pleasure by skilful fingers. No,
+she is not inhumane. She works for others' good and her own greatness.
+Sighs and tears may be the result of her operations; but so are they
+of the operations of the beneficent surgeon. She dislikes giving pain,
+and comforts and sustains the patient to the best of her power; but at
+the most, she knows sighs are but wind, and tears but water, and so
+she does her duty.</p>
+
+<p>Although without sympathy, the woman of the world has great
+sensitiveness. She sits in the room like a spider, with her web
+fitting as closely to the whole area as the carpet; and she feels the
+slightest touch upon the slightest filament. So do the company: not
+understandingly like her, but instinctively and unconsciously, like a
+fly who only knows that somehow or other he is not at freedom. The
+thing that holds him is as soft and glossy and thin and small as silk;
+but even while dallying with its smoothness and pleasantness, a misty,
+indefinite sensation of impending danger creeps over him. Be quiet,
+little fly! Gently&mdash;gently: slip away if you can&mdash;but no defiance, no
+tugging, no floundering, or you are lost!</p>
+
+<p>A mythic story is told of the woman of the world: how in early life
+she was crossed in love; how she lost faith in feelings that seemed to
+exist exceptionally only in her own solitary bosom; and how a certain
+glassy hardness gathered upon her heart, as she sat waiting and
+waiting for a response to the inner voices she had suffered to burst
+forth&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The long-lost ventures of the heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That send no answers back again!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But this is a fable. The woman of the world was never young&mdash;not while
+playing with her doll. She grew just as you see her, and will suffer
+no change till the dissolution of the elements of her body.
+Love-passages she has indeed had like other women; but the love was
+all on one side, and that side not hers. It is curious to observe the
+passion thus lavished in vain. It reminds one of the German story of
+the Cave of Mirrors, where a fairy damsel, with beckoning hand and
+beseeching eyes, was reflected from a thousand angles. The pursuing
+lover, endeavouring to clasp his mistress, flung himself from one
+illusory image to another, finding only the sharp, polished,
+glittering glass in his embrace, till faint, breathless, and bleeding,
+he sank upon the ground.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[pg 242]</a></span>The woman of the world, though a dangerous mistress, is an agreeable
+friend. She is partial to the everyday married lady, when presentable
+in point of dress and manners, and overwhelms her with little
+condescending kindnesses and caresses. This good lady, on her part,
+thinks her patroness a remarkably clever woman; not that she
+understands her, or knows exactly what she is about; but somehow or
+other she is <i>sure</i> she is prodigiously clever. As for the everyday
+young lady, who has a genius for reverence, she reveres her; and these
+two, with their male congeners, are the dress-figures the woman of the
+world places about her rooms like ivory pieces on a chessboard.</p>
+
+<p>This admirable lady is sometimes a mother, and she is devotedly fond
+of her children, in their future. She may be seen gazing in their
+faces by the hour; but the picture that is before her mind's eye is
+the fulfilment of their present promise. An ordinary woman would
+dawdle away her time in admiring their soft eyes, and curly hair, and
+full warm cheeks; but the woman of the world sees the bud grown into
+the expanded flower, and the small cradle is metamorphosed into the
+boudoir by the magic of her maternal love. And verily, she has her
+reward: for death sometimes comes, to wither the bud, and disperse the
+dream in empty air. On such an occasion, her grief, as we may readily
+suppose, is neither deep nor lasting, for its object is twined round
+her imagination, not her heart. She regrets her wasted hopes and
+fruitless speculations; but the baby having never been present in its
+own entity, is now as that which has never been. The unthinking call
+her an unnatural mother, for they make no distinction. They do not
+know that death is with her a perfectly arranged funeral, a marble
+tablet, a darkened room, an attitude of wo, a perfumed handkerchief.
+They do not consider that when she lies down to rest, her eyes, in
+consequence of over-mental exertion, are too heavy with sleep to have
+room for tears. They do not reflect that in the morning she breaks
+into a new consciousness of reality from the clinging dreams of her
+maternal ambition, and not from the small visionary arms, the fragrant
+kiss, the angel whisper of her lost babe. They do not feel that in
+opening upon the light, her eyes part with the fading gleam of gems
+and satin, and kneeling coronets, and red right hands extending
+wedding-rings, and not with a winged and baby form, soaring into the
+light by which it is gradually absorbed, while distant hymns melt and
+die upon her ear.</p>
+
+<p>The woman of the world is sometimes prosperous in her reign over
+society, and sometimes otherwise. Even she submits, although usually
+with sweetness and dignity, to the caprices of fortune. Occasionally,
+the threads of her management break in such a way, that, with all her
+dexterity, she is unable to reunite them: occasionally, the strings
+and feelings are too strong to rend; and occasionally, in rending, the
+whole system falls to pieces. Her daughter elopes, her son marries the
+governess, her husband loses his seat in parliament; but there are
+other daughters to marry, other sons to direct, other honours to win;
+and so this excellent woman runs her busy and meritorious career. But
+years come on at last, although she lingers as long as she can in
+middle life; and, with her usual graceful dignity, she settles down
+into the reward the world bestows on its veterans, an old age of
+cards.</p>
+
+<p>Even now, she sometimes turns round her head to look at the things and
+persons around her, and to exult in the reputation she has earned, and
+the passive influence her name still exercises over society; but, as a
+rule, the kings and queens and knaves take the place of human beings
+with this woman of genius; the deepest arcana of her art are brought
+into play for the odd trick, and her pride and ambition are abundantly
+gratified by the circumvention of a half-crown.</p>
+
+<p>The woman of the world at length dies: and what then? Why, then,
+nothing&mdash;nothing but a funeral, a tablet, dust, and oblivion. This is
+reasonable, for, great as she was, she had to do only with the
+external forms of life. Her existence was only a material game, and
+her men and women were only court and common cards; diamonds and
+hearts were alike to her, their value depending on what was trumps.
+She saw keenly and far, but not deeper than the superficial net-work
+of the heart, not higher than the ceiling of the drawing-room. Her
+enjoyments, therefore, were limited in their range; her nature, though
+perfect in its kind, was small and narrow; and her occupation, though
+so interesting to those concerned, was in itself mean and frivolous.
+This is always her misfortune, the misfortune of this envied woman.
+She lives in a material world, blind and deaf to the influences that
+thrill the bosoms of others. No noble thought ever fires her soul, no
+generous sympathy ever melts her heart. Her share of that current of
+human nature which has welled forth from its fountain in the earthly
+paradise is dammed up, and cut off from the general stream that
+overflows the world. None of those minute and invisible ducts connects
+it with the common waters which make one feel instinctively, lovingly,
+yearningly, that he is not alone upon the earth, but a member of the
+great human family. And so, having played her part, she dies, this
+woman of the world, leaving no sign to tell that an immortal spirit
+has passed: nothing above the ground but a tablet, and below, only a
+handful of rotting bones and crumbling dust.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="MARIE_DE_LA_TOUR" id="MARIE_DE_LA_TOUR"></a>MARIE DE LA TOUR.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">The</span> basement front of No. 12 Rue St Antoine, a narrow street in Rouen,
+leading from the Place de la Pucelle, was opened by Madame de la Tour,
+in the millinery business, in 1817, and tastefully arranged, so far as
+scant materials permitted the exercise of decorative genius. She was
+the widow of a once flourishing <i>courtier maritime</i> (ship-broker),
+who, in consequence of some unfortunate speculations, had recently
+died in insolvent circumstances. At about the same time, Cl&eacute;ment
+Derville, her late husband's confidential clerk, a steady,
+persevering, clever person, took possession of the deceased
+ship-broker's business premises on the quay, the precious savings of
+fifteen years of industrious frugality enabling him to install himself
+in the vacant commercial niche before the considerable connection
+attached to the well-known establishment was broken up and distributed
+amongst rival <i>courtiers</i>. Such vicissitudes, frequent in all trading
+communities, excite but a passing interest; and after the customary
+commonplaces commiserative of the fallen fortunes of the still
+youthful widow, and gratulatory good-wishes for the prosperity of the
+<i>ci-devant</i> clerk, the matter gradually faded from the minds of the
+sympathisers, save when the rapidly rising fortunes of Derville, in
+contrast with the daily lowlier ones of Madame de la Tour, suggested
+some tritely sentimental reflection upon the precariousness and
+instability of all mundane things. For a time, it was surmised by some
+of the fair widow's friends, if not by herself, that the considerable
+services Derville had rendered her were prompted by a warmer feeling
+than the ostensible one of respect for the relict of his old and
+liberal employer; and there is no doubt that the gentle, graceful
+manners, the mild, starlit face of Madame de la Tour, had made a deep
+impression upon Derville, although the hope or expectation founded
+thereon vanished with the passing time. Close, money-loving,
+business-absorbed as he might be, Cl&eacute;ment Derville was a man of
+vehement impulse and extreme susceptibility of female
+charm&mdash;weaknesses over which he had again and again resolved to
+maintain vigilant control, as else fatal obstacles to his hopes of
+realising a large competence, if not a handsome <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[pg 243]</a></span>fortune. He succeeded
+in doing so; and as year after year glided away, leaving him richer
+and richer, Madame de la Tour poorer and poorer, as well as less and
+less personally attractive, he grew to marvel that the bent form, the
+clouded eyes, the sorrow-sharpened features of the woman he
+occasionally met hastening along the streets, could be those by which
+he had been once so powerfully agitated and impressed.</p>
+
+<p>He did not, however, form any new attachment; was still a bachelor at
+forty-five; and had for some years almost lost sight of, and
+forgotten, Madame de la Tour, when a communication from Jeanne Favart,
+an old servant who had lived with the De la Tours in the days of their
+prosperity, vividly recalled old and fading memories. She announced
+that Madame de la Tour had been for many weeks confined to her bed by
+illness, and was, moreover, in great pecuniary distress.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Diantre</i>!' exclaimed Derville, a quicker and stronger pulse than
+usual tinging his sallow cheek as he spoke. 'That is a pity. Who,
+then, has been minding the business for her?'</p>
+
+<p>'Her daughter Marie, a gentle, pious child, who seldom goes out except
+to church, and,' added Jeanne, with a keen look in her master's
+countenance, 'the very image of the Madame de la Tour we knew some
+twenty years ago.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ha!' M. Derville was evidently disturbed, but not so much so as to
+forget to ask with some asperity if 'dinner was not ready?'</p>
+
+<p>'In five minutes,' said Jeanne, but still holding the half-opened door
+in her hand. 'They are very, very badly off, monsieur, those
+unfortunate De la Tours,' she persisted. 'A <i>huissier</i> this morning
+seized their furniture and trade-stock for rent, and if the sum is not
+made up by sunset, they will be utterly ruined.'</p>
+
+<p>M. Cl&eacute;ment Derville took several hasty turns about the room, and the
+audible play of his fingers amongst the Napoleons in his pockets
+inspired Jeanne with a hope that he was about to draw forth a
+sufficient number for the relief of the cruel necessities of her
+former mistress. She was mistaken. Perhaps the touch of his beloved
+gold stilled for a time the agitation that had momentarily stirred his
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>'It is a pity,' he murmured; and then briskly drawing out his watch,
+added sharply: 'But pray let us have dinner. Do you know that it is
+full seven minutes past the time that it should be served?'</p>
+
+<p>Jeanne disappeared, and M. Derville was very soon seated at table. But
+although the sad tidings he had just heard had not been able to
+effectually loosen his purse-strings, they had at least power utterly
+to destroy his appetite, albeit the <i>poulet</i> was done to a turn.
+Jeanne made no remark on this, as she removed the almost untasted
+meal, nor on the quite as unusual fact, that the wine <i>carafe</i> was
+already half emptied, and her master himself restless, dreamy, and
+preoccupied. Concluding, however, from these symptoms, that a fierce
+struggle between generosity and avarice was going on in M. Derville's
+breast, she quietly determined on bringing an auxiliary to the aid of
+generosity, that would, her woman's instinct taught her, at once
+decide the conflict.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt the prosperous ship-broker <i>was</i> unusually agitated. The old
+woman's news had touched a chord which, though dulled and slackened by
+the heat and dust of seventeen years of busy, anxious life, still
+vibrated strongly, and awakened memories that had long slept in the
+chambers of his brain, especially one pale Madonna face, with its
+soft, tear-trembling eyes that&mdash;&mdash; '<i>Ciel</i>!' he suddenly exclaimed, as
+the door opened and gave to view the very form his fancy had conjured
+up: '<i>Ciel</i>! can it be&mdash;&mdash; Pshaw!' he added, as he fell back into the
+chair from which he had leaped up; 'you must suppose me crazed,
+Mademoiselle&mdash;Mademoiselle de la Tour, I am quite certain.'</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed Marie de la Tour whom Jeanne Favart had, with much
+difficulty, persuaded to make a personal appeal to M. Derville. She
+was a good deal agitated, and gladly accepted that gentleman's
+gestured invitation to be seated, and take a glass of wine. Her errand
+was briefly, yet touchingly told, but not apparently listened to by
+Derville, so abstracted and intense was the burning gaze with which he
+regarded the confused and blushing petitioner. Jeanne, however, knew
+whom he recognised in those flushed and interesting features, and had
+no doubt of the successful result of the application.</p>
+
+<p>M. Cl&eacute;ment Derville <i>had</i> heard and comprehended what was said, for he
+broke an embarrassing silence of some duration by saying, in a pleased
+and respectful tone: 'Twelve Napoleons, you say, mademoiselle. It is
+nothing: here are twenty. No thanks, I beg of you. I hope to have an
+opportunity of rendering you&mdash;of rendering Madame de la Tour, I mean,
+some real and lasting service.'</p>
+
+<p>Poor Marie was profoundly affected by this generosity, and the
+charming blushfulness, the sweet-toned trembling words that expressed
+her modest gratitude, were, it should seem, strangely interpreted by
+the excited ship-broker. The interview was not prolonged, and Marie de
+la Tour hastened with joy-lightened steps to her home.</p>
+
+<p>Four days afterwards, M. Derville called at the Rue St Antoine, only
+to hear that Madame de la Tour had died a few hours previously. He
+seemed much shocked; and after a confused offer of further pecuniary
+assistance, respectfully declined by the weeping daughter, took a
+hurried leave.</p>
+
+<p>There is no question that, from the moment of his first interview with
+her, M. Derville had conceived an ardent passion for Mademoiselle de
+la Tour&mdash;so ardent and bewildering as not only to blind him to the
+great disparity of age between himself and her&mdash;which he might have
+thought the much greater disparity of fortune in his favour would
+balance and reconcile&mdash;but to the very important fact, that Hector
+Bertrand, a young <i>menuisier</i> (carpenter), who had recently commenced
+business on his own account, and whom he so frequently met at the
+charming <i>modiste's</i> shop, was her accepted, affianced lover. An
+<i>&eacute;claircissement</i>, accompanied by mortifying circumstances, was not,
+however, long delayed.</p>
+
+<p>It occurred one fine evening in July. M. Derville, in passing through
+the <i>march&eacute; aux fleurs</i>, had selected a brilliant bouquet for
+presentation to Mademoiselle de la Tour; and never to him had she
+appeared more attractive, more fascinating, than when accepting, with
+hesitating, blushing reluctance, the proffered flowers. She stepped
+with them into the little sitting-room behind the shop; M. Derville
+followed; and the last remnant of discretion and common-sense that had
+hitherto restrained him giving way at once, he burst out with a
+vehement declaration of the passion which was, he said, consuming him,
+accompanied, of course, by the offer of his hand and fortune in
+marriage. Marie de la Tour's first impulse was to laugh in the face of
+a man who, old enough to be her father, addressed her in such terms;
+but one glance at the pale face and burning eyes of the speaker,
+convinced her that levity would be ill-timed&mdash;possibly dangerous. Even
+the few civil and serious words of discouragement and refusal with
+which she replied to his ardent protestations, were oil cast upon
+flame. He threw himself at the young girl's feet, and clasped her
+knees in passionate entreaty, at the very moment that Hector Bertrand,
+with one De Beaune, entered the room. Marie de la Tour's exclamation
+of alarm, and effort to disengage her dress from Derville's grasp, in
+order to interpose between him and the new-comers, were simultaneous
+with several heavy blows from Bertrand's cane across the shoulders of
+the kneeling man, who instantly leaped to his feet, and sprang upon
+his assailant with the yell and spring of a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[pg 244]</a></span>madman. Fortunately for
+Bertrand, who was no match in personal strength for the man he had
+assaulted, his friend De Beaune promptly took part in the encounter;
+and after a desperate scuffle, during which Mademoiselle de la Tour's
+remonstrances and entreaties were unheard or disregarded, M. Derville
+was thrust with inexcusable violence into the street.</p>
+
+<p>According to Jeanne Favart, her master reached home with his face all
+bloody and discoloured, his clothes nearly torn from his back, and in
+a state of frenzied excitement. He rushed past her up stairs, shut
+himself into his bedroom, and there remained unseen by any one for
+several days, partially opening the door only to receive food and
+other necessaries from her hands. When he did at last leave his room,
+the impassive calmness of manner habitual to him was quite restored,
+and he wrote a note in answer to one that had been sent by
+Mademoiselle de la Tour, expressive of her extreme regret for what had
+occurred, and enclosing a very respectful apology from Hector
+Bertrand. M. Derville said, that he was grateful for her sympathy and
+kind wishes; and as to M. Bertrand, he frankly accepted his excuses,
+and should think no more of the matter.</p>
+
+<p>This mask of philosophic indifference or resignation was not so
+carefully worn but that it slipped occasionally aside, and revealed
+glimpses of the volcanic passion that raged beneath. Jeanne was not
+for a moment deceived; and Marie de la Tour, the first time she again
+saw him, perceived with woman's intuitive quickness through all his
+assumed frigidity of speech and demeanour, that his sentiments towards
+her, so far from being subdued by the mortifying repulse they had met
+with, were more vehemently passionate than ever! He was a man, she
+felt, to be feared and shunned; and very earnestly did she warn
+Bertrand to avoid meeting, or, at all events, all possible chance of
+collision with his exasperated, and, she was sure, merciless and
+vindictive rival.</p>
+
+<p>Bertrand said he would do so; and kept his promise as long as there
+was no temptation to break it. About six weeks after his encounter
+with M. Derville, he obtained a considerable contract for the
+carpentry work of a large house belonging to a M. Mangier&mdash;a
+fantastic, Gothic-looking place, as persons acquainted with Rouen will
+remember, next door but one to Blaise's banking-house. Bertrand had
+but little capital, and he was terribly puzzled for means to purchase
+the requisite materials, of which the principal item was Baltic
+timber. He essayed his credit with a person of the name of Dufour, on
+the quay, and was refused. Two hours afterwards, he again sought the
+merchant, for the purpose of proposing his friend De Beaune as
+security. Dufour and Derville were talking together in front of the
+office; and when they separated on Bertrand's approach, the young man
+fancied that Derville saluted him with unusual friendliness. De
+Beaune's security was declined by the cautious trader; and as Bertrand
+was leaving, Dufour said, half-jestingly no doubt: 'Why don't you
+apply to your friend Derville? He has timber on commission that will
+suit you, I know; and he seemed very friendly just now.' Bertrand made
+no reply, and walked off, thinking probably that he might as well ask
+the statue of the 'Pucelle' for assistance as M. Derville. He was,
+naturally enough, exceedingly put out, and vexed; and unhappily betook
+himself to a neighbouring tavern for 'spirituous' solacement&mdash;a very
+rare thing, let me add, for him to do. He remained there till about
+eight o'clock, and by that time was in such a state of confused
+elation from the unusual potations he had imbibed, that Dufour's
+suggestion assumed a sort of drunken likelihood; and he resolved on
+applying&mdash;there could not, he thought, be any wonderful harm, if no
+good, in that&mdash;to the ship-broker. M. Derville was not at home, and
+the office was closed; but Jeanne Favart, understanding Bertrand to
+say that he had important business to transact with her master&mdash;she
+supposed by appointment&mdash;shewed him into M. Derville's private
+business-rooms, and left him there. Bertrand seated himself, fell
+asleep after awhile, woke up about ten o'clock considerably sobered,
+and quite alive to the absurd impropriety of the application he had
+tipsily determined on, and was about to leave the place, when M.
+Derville arrived. The ship-broker's surprise and anger at finding
+Hector Bertrand in his house were extreme, and his only reply to the
+intruder's stammering explanation, was a contemptuous order to leave
+the place immediately. Bertrand slunk away sheepishly enough; and
+slowly as he sauntered along, had nearly reached home, when M.
+Derville overtook him.</p>
+
+<p>'One word, Monsieur Bertrand,' said Derville. 'This way, if you
+please.'</p>
+
+<p>Bertrand, greatly surprised, followed the ship-broker to a lane close
+by&mdash;a dark, solitary locality, which suggested an unpleasant
+misgiving, very pleasantly relieved by Derville's first words.</p>
+
+<p>'Monsieur Bertrand,' he said, 'I was hasty and ill-tempered just now;
+but I am not a man to cherish malice, and for the sake of&mdash;of
+Marie&mdash;of Mademoiselle de la Tour, I am disposed to assist you,
+although I should not, as you will easily understand, like to have any
+public or known dealings with you. Seven or eight hundred francs, I
+understood you to say, the timber you required would amount to?'</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly not more than that, monsieur,' Bertrand contrived to
+answer, taken away as his breath nearly was by astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>'Here, then, is a note of the Bank of France for one thousand francs.'</p>
+
+<p>'Monsieur!&mdash;monsieur!' gasped the astounded recipient.</p>
+
+<p>'You will repay me,' continued Derville, 'when your contract is
+completed; and you will please to bear strictly in mind, that the
+condition of any future favour of a like kind is, that you keep this
+one scrupulously secret.' He then hurried off, leaving Bertrand in a
+state of utter amazement. This feeling, however, slowly subsided,
+especially after assuring himself, by the aid of his chamber-lamp,
+that the note was a genuine one, and not, as he had half feared, a
+valueless deception. 'This Monsieur Derville,' drowsily murmured
+Bertrand as he ensconced himself in the bed-clothes, 'is a <i>bon
+enfant</i>, after all&mdash;a generous, magnanimous prince, if ever there was
+one. But then, to be sure, he wishes to do Marie a service by secretly
+assisting her <i>futur</i> on in life. <i>Sapristie!</i> It is quite simple,
+after all, this generosity; for undoubtedly Marie is the most
+charming&mdash;charm&mdash;cha'&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Hector Bertrand went to Dufour's timber-yard at about noon the next
+day, selected what he required, and pompously tendered the
+thousand-franc note in payment. 'Whe-e-e-e-w!' whistled Dufour, 'the
+deuce!' at the same time looking with keen scrutiny in his customer's
+face.</p>
+
+<p>'I received it from Monsieur Mangier in advance,' said Hector in hasty
+reply to that look, blurting out in some degree inadvertently the
+assertion which he had been thinking would be the most feasible
+solution of his sudden riches, since he had been so peremptorily
+forbidden to mention M. Derville's name.</p>
+
+<p>'It is very generous of Monsieur Mangier,' said Dufour; 'and he is not
+famous for that virtue either. But let us go to Blaise's bank: I have
+not sufficient change in the house, and I daresay we shall get silver
+for it there.'</p>
+
+<p>As often happens in France, a daughter of the banker was the cashier
+of the establishment; and it was with an accent of womanly
+commiseration that she said, after minutely examining the note: 'From
+whom, Monsieur Bertrand, did you obtain possession of this note?'</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[pg 245]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Bertrand hesitated. A vague feeling of alarm was beating at his heart,
+and he confusedly bethought him, that it might be better not to repeat
+the falsehood he had told M. Dufour. Before, however, he could decide
+what to say, Dufour answered for him: 'He <i>says</i> from Monsieur
+Mangier, just by.'</p>
+
+<p>'Strange!' said Mademoiselle Blaise. 'A clerk of Monsieur Derville's
+has been taken into custody this very morning on suspicion of having
+stolen this very note.'</p>
+
+<p>Poor Bertrand! He felt as if seized with vertigo; and a stunned,
+chaotic sense of mortal peril shot through his brain, as Marie's
+solemn warning with respect to Derville rose up like a spectre before
+him.</p>
+
+<p>'I have heard of that circumstance,' said Dufour. And then, as
+Bertrand did not, or could not speak, he added: 'You had better,
+perhaps, mademoiselle, send for Monsieur Derville.'</p>
+
+<p>This proposition elicited a wild, desperate cry from the bewildered
+young man, who rushed distractedly out of the banking-house, and
+hastened with frantic speed towards the Rue St Antoine&mdash;for the moment
+unpursued.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour afterwards, Dufour and a bank-clerk arrived at
+Mademoiselle de la Tour's. They found Bertrand and Marie together, and
+both in a state of high nervous excitement. 'Monsieur Derville,' said
+the clerk, 'is now at the bank; and Monsieur Blaise requests your
+presence there, so that whatever misapprehension exists may be cleared
+up without the intervention of the agents of the public force.'</p>
+
+<p>'And pray, monsieur,' said Marie, in a much firmer tone than, from her
+pale aspect, one would have expected, 'what does Monsieur Derville
+himself say of this strange affair?'</p>
+
+<p>'That the note in question, mademoiselle, must have been stolen from
+his desk last evening. He was absent from home from half-past seven
+till ten, and unfortunately left the key in the lock.'</p>
+
+<p>'I was sure he would say so,' gasped Bertrand. 'He is a demon, and I
+am lost.'</p>
+
+<p>A bright, almost disdainful expression shone in Marie's fine eyes. 'Go
+with these gentlemen, Hector,' she said; 'I will follow almost
+immediately; and remember'&mdash;&mdash; What else she said was delivered in a
+quick, low whisper; and the only words she permitted to be heard were:
+'Pas un mot, si tu m'aime' (Not a word, if thou lovest me).</p>
+
+<p>Bertrand found Messieurs Derville, Blaise, and Mangier in a private
+room; and he remarked, with a nervous shudder, that two gendarmes were
+stationed in the passage. Derville, though very pale, sustained
+Bertrand's glance of rage and astonishment without flinching. It was
+plain that he had steeled himself to carry through the diabolical
+device his revenge had planned, and the fluttering hope with which
+Marie had inspired Bertrand died within him. Derville repeated slowly
+and firmly what the clerk had previously stated; adding, that no one
+save Bertrand, Jeanne Favart, and the clerk whom he first suspected,
+had been in the room after he left it. The note now produced was the
+one that had been stolen, and was safe in his desk at half-past seven
+the previous evening. M. Mangier said: 'The assertion of Bertrand,
+that I advanced him this note, or any other, is entirely false.'</p>
+
+<p>'What have you to say in reply to these grave suspicions?' said M.
+Blaise. 'Your father was an honest man; and you, I hear, have hitherto
+borne an irreproachable character,' he added, on finding that the
+accused did not speak. 'Explain to us, then, how you came into
+possession of this note; if you do not, and satisfactorily&mdash;though,
+after what we have heard, that seems scarcely possible&mdash;we have no
+alternative but to give you into custody.'</p>
+
+<p>'I have nothing to say at present&mdash;nothing,' muttered Bertrand, whose
+impatient furtive looks were every instant turned towards the door.</p>
+
+<p>'Nothing to say!' exclaimed the banker; 'why, this is a tacit
+admission of guilt. We had better call in the gendarmes at once.'</p>
+
+<p>'I think,' said Dufour, 'the young man's refusal to speak is owing to
+the entreaties of Mademoiselle de la Tour, whom we overheard implore
+him, for her sake, or as he loved her, not to say a word.'</p>
+
+<p>'What do you say?' exclaimed Derville, with quick interrogation, 'for
+the sake of Mademoiselle de la Tour! Bah! you could not have heard
+aright.'</p>
+
+<p>'Pardon, monsieur,' said the clerk who had accompanied Dufour: 'I also
+distinctly heard her so express herself&mdash;but here is the lady
+herself.'</p>
+
+<p>The entrance of Marie, accompanied by Jeanne Favart, greatly surprised
+and startled M. Derville; he glanced sharply in her face, but unable
+to encounter the indignant expression he met there, quickly averted
+his look, whilst a hot flush glowed perceptibly out of his pale
+features. At her request, seconded by M. Blaise, Derville repeated his
+previous story; but his voice had lost its firmness, his manner its
+cold impassibility.</p>
+
+<p>'I wish Monsieur Derville would look me in the face,' said Marie, when
+Derville had ceased speaking. 'I am here as a suppliant to him for
+mercy.'</p>
+
+<p>'A suppliant for mercy!' murmured Derville, partially confronting her.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes; if only for the sake of the orphan daughter of the Monsieur de
+la Tour who first helped you on in life, and for whom you not long
+since professed regard.'</p>
+
+<p>Derville seemed to recover his firmness at these words: 'No,' he said;
+'not even for your sake, Marie, will I consent to the escape of such a
+daring criminal from justice.'</p>
+
+<p>'If that be your final resolve, monsieur,' continued Marie, with
+kindling, impressive earnestness, 'it becomes necessary that, at
+whatever sacrifice, the true criminal&mdash;whom assuredly Hector Bertrand
+is not&mdash;should be denounced.'</p>
+
+<p>Various exclamations of surprise and interest greeted these words, and
+the agitation of Derville was again plainly visible.</p>
+
+<p>'You have been surprised, messieurs,' she went on, 'at Hector's
+refusal to afford any explanation as to how he became possessed of the
+purloined note. You will presently comprehend the generous motive of
+that silence. Monsieur Derville has said, that he left the note safe
+in his desk at half-past seven last evening. Hector, it is recognised,
+did not enter the house till nearly an hour afterwards; and now,
+Jeanne Favart will inform you <i>who</i> it was that called on her in the
+interim, and remained in the room where the desk was placed for
+upwards of a quarter of an hour, and part of that time alone.'</p>
+
+<p>As the young girl spoke, Derville's dilated gaze rested with
+fascinated intensity upon her excited countenance, and he hardly
+seemed to breathe.</p>
+
+<p>'It was you, mademoiselle,' said Jeanne, 'who called on me, and
+remained as you describe.'</p>
+
+<p>A fierce exclamation partially escaped Derville, forcibly suppressed
+as Marie resumed: 'Yes; and now, messieurs, hear me solemnly declare,
+that as truly as the note was stolen, <i>I</i>, not Hector, was the thief.'</p>
+
+<p>''Tis false!' shrieked Derville, surprised out of all self-possession;
+'a lie! It was not then the note was taken; not till&mdash;not till'&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Not till when, Monsieur Derville?' said the excited girl, stepping
+close to the shrinking, guilty man, and still holding him with her
+flashing, triumphant eyes, as she placed her hand upon his shoulder;
+'not till <i>when</i> was the note taken from the desk, monsieur?'</p>
+
+<p>He did not, could not reply, and presently sank, utterly subdued,
+nerveless, panic-stricken, into a chair, with his white face buried in
+his hands.</p>
+
+<p>'This is indeed a painful affair,' said M. Blaise, after an expectant
+silence of some minutes, 'if it be, as this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[pg 246]</a></span>young person appeared to
+admit; and almost equally so, Monsieur Derville, if, as I more than
+suspect, the conclusion indicated by the expression that has escaped
+you should be the true one.'</p>
+
+<p>The banker's voice appeared to break the spell that enchained the
+faculties of Derville. He rose up, encountered the stern looks of the
+men by one as fierce as theirs, and said hoarsely: 'I withdraw the
+accusation! The young woman's story is a fabrication. I&mdash;I lent, gave
+the fellow the note myself.'</p>
+
+<p>A storm of execration&mdash;'<i>Coquin! voleur! sc&eacute;l&eacute;rat!</i>' burst forth at
+this confession, received by Derville with a defiant scowl, as he
+stalked out of the apartment.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know that any law-proceedings were afterwards taken against
+him for defamation of character. Hector kept the note, as indeed he
+had a good right to do, and Monsieur and Madams Bertrand are still
+prosperous and respected inhabitants of Rouen, from which city
+Derville disappeared very soon after the incidents just related.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHEAP_MINOR_RAILWAYS" id="CHEAP_MINOR_RAILWAYS"></a>CHEAP MINOR RAILWAYS.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p>'<span class="sc">On</span> the day that our preamble was proved, we had all a famous dinner
+at three guineas a head&mdash;never saw such a splendid set-out in my life!
+each of us had a printed bill of fare laid beside his plate; and I
+brought it home as quite a curiosity in the way of eating!' Such was
+the account lately given us by a railway projector of that memorable
+year of frenzy, 1845. A party of committee-men, agents, engineers, and
+solicitors, had, in their exuberance of cash, dined at a cost of some
+sixty guineas&mdash;a trifle added to the general bill of charges, and of
+course not worth thinking of by the shareholders.</p>
+
+<p>These days of dining at three guineas a head for the good of railway
+undertakings are pretty well gone; and agents and counsel may well
+sigh over the recollection of doings probably never to return.</p>
+
+<p>'The truth is, we were all mad in those times,' added the individual
+who owned so candidly to the three-guinea dinner. And this is the only
+feasible way of accounting for the wild speculations of seven years
+ago. There was a universal craze. All hastened to be rich on the
+convenient principle of overreaching their neighbours. There was
+robbery throughout. Engineers, landholders, law-agents, and jobbers,
+pocketed their respective booties, and it is needless to say who were
+left to suffer.</p>
+
+<p>Looking at the catastrophe, the subject of railway mismanagement is
+somewhat too serious for a joke, and we have only drawn attention for
+an instant to the errors of the past in order to draw a warning for
+the future. It must ever be lamented that the introduction of so
+stupendous and useful a thing as locomotion by rail, should have
+become the occasion of such widespread cupidity and folly; for
+scarcely ever had science offered a more gracious boon to mankind. It
+is charitable to think that the foundation of the great error that was
+committed, lay in a miscalculation as to the relation between
+expenditure and returns. We can suppose that there was a certain faith
+in the potency of money. To spend so much, was to bring back so much;
+and it became an agreeable delusion, that the more was spent, the
+greater was to be the revenue. Unfortunately, it does not seem to have
+occurred to any one of the parties concerned, that all depends on how
+money is spent. There are tradesmen, we imagine, who know to their
+cost, that it is quite within the bounds of possibility to have the
+whole of their profits swept away by rent and taxes. Curious, that
+this plain and unpleasant and very possible result did not dawn on the
+minds of the great railway interests. And yet, how grave and
+calculating the mighty dons of the new system of locomotion&mdash;men who
+passed themselves off as up to anything!</p>
+
+<p>Wonderfully acute secretaries; highly-polished chairmen; directors
+disdainful of ordinary ways of transacting business. A mystery made of
+the most common-place affairs! We may be thankful that the world has
+at last seen through these pretenders to superhuman sagacity. With but
+remarkably few exceptions, the great railway men of the time have
+committed the grossest blunders; and the stupidest blunder of all, has
+been the confounding of proper and improper expenditure; just as if a
+shopkeeper were to fall into the unhappy error of imagining that his
+returns were to be in the ratio, not of the business he was to do, but
+of his private and unauthorised expenses.</p>
+
+<p>The instructive fact gathered from railway experience is, that there
+is an expenditure which <i>pays</i>, and an expenditure that is totally
+wasteful. Directors have made the discovery, that costly litigation,
+costly and fine stations, fine porticos and pillars, fine bridges, and
+finery in various other things, contribute really nothing to returns,
+but, on the contrary, hang a dead weight on the concern. No doubt,
+fine architecture is a good and proper thing in itself; but a railway
+company is not instituted for the purpose of embellishing towns with
+classic buildings. Its function is to carry people from one place to
+another on reasonable terms, with a due regard to the welfare of those
+who undertake the transaction. How carriages may be run well and
+cheaply, yet profitably, is the sole question for determination; and
+everything else is either subordinate or positively useless. A
+suitable degree of knowledge on these points would, we think, tend
+materially to restore confidence in railway property. Could there be
+anything more cheering than the well-ascertained fact, that <i>no
+railway has ever failed for want of traffic</i>? In every instance, the
+traffic would have yielded an ample remuneration to the shareholders,
+had there been no extravagant expenditure. Had the outlays been
+confined to paying for the land required, the making of the line, the
+laying down of rails, the buying locomotives and carriages, and
+working the same, all would have gone on splendidly; and eight, ten,
+twenty, and even a higher per cent., would in many instances have been
+realised. At the present moment, the lines that are paying best are
+not those on which there is the greatest amount of traffic, but those
+on which there was the most prudent expenditure. In order to judge
+whether any proposed railway will pay, it is only necessary to inquire
+at what cost per mile, all expenses included, it is to be produced. If
+the charge be anything under L.5000 per mile, there is a certainty of
+its doing well, even if the line be carried through a poorly-populated
+district; and up to L.20,000 per mile is allowable in great
+trunk-thoroughfares; but when the outlay reaches L.50,000 or L.100,000
+per mile, as it has done in some instances, scarcely any amount of
+traffic will be remunerative. In a variety of cases, the expenditure
+per mile has been so enormous, that remunerative traffic becomes a
+physical impossibility. In plain terms, if the whole of these lines,
+from end to end, were covered with loaded carriages from morning to
+night, and night to morning, without intermission of a single moment,
+they would still be carried on at a loss! Gold may be bought too
+dearly, and so may railways.</p>
+
+<p>As there seems to be an appearance of a revival in railway
+undertakings, it will be of the greatest importance to keep these
+principles in view; and we are glad to observe that, taking lessons
+from the past, the promoters of railway schemes are confining their
+attention mainly to plans of a simple and economical class. Hitherto,
+railways have, for the most part, been adapted to leading
+thoroughfares, by which certain districts have been overcrowded with
+lines, leaving others destitute. Branch single lines of rail appear,
+therefore, to be particularly desirable for these forgotten
+localities. These branch-lines may prove exceedingly serviceable, not
+only as regards the ordinary demands of trade and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[pg 247]</a></span>agriculture, but
+those of social convenience. Among the prominent needs of our time, is
+ready access for the toiling multitudes to places rendered interesting
+by physical beauty and romantic association&mdash;fit objects for holiday
+excursions. The <i>excursion train</i>, suddenly discharging its hundreds
+of strangers at some antique town or castle, or in the neighbourhood
+of some lovely natural scenery, is one of the wonders of the day&mdash;and
+one, we think, of truly good omen, considering the importance that
+seems to be connected with the innocent amusements of the people. We
+rejoice in every movement which tends to increase the number of places
+to which these holiday-parties may resort, as we thoroughly believe,
+that the more of them we have, our people will be the more virtuous,
+refined, and happy.</p>
+
+<p>We lately had much pleasure in examining and learning some particulars
+of a short branch-railway which has added the ancient university city
+of St Andrews, with its many curious objects, to the number of those
+places which may become the termini of excursion trains. We find from
+Lord Jeffrey's Life, that in this town, fifty years ago, only one
+newspaper was received; a number (if it can be called a number) which
+we are assured, on the best authority, is now increased to <i>fifteen
+hundred per week</i>! Parallel with this fact, is that of its having, ten
+years ago, a single coach <i>per diem</i> to Edinburgh, carrying six or
+seven persons, while now it has three trains each day, transporting
+their scores, not merely to the capital, but to Perth and Dundee
+besides. Conceiving that there is a value in such circumstances on
+account of the light which they throw on the progress of the country,
+we shall enter into a few particulars.</p>
+
+<p>The St Andrews Railway is a branch of the Edinburgh, Perth, and
+Dundee, and extends somewhat less than five miles. Formed with a
+single line only, over ground presenting scarcely any engineering
+difficulties, and with favour rather than opposition from the
+proprietors of the land, it has cost only L.25,000, or about L.5000
+per mile. The main line agrees to work it, and before receiving
+payment, to allow the shareholders 4&frac12; per cent. for their money;
+all further profits to be divided between the two companies, after
+paying working expenses. It was opened on the 1st July last, and
+hitherto the appearances of success have been most remarkable. On an
+assumption that the traffic inwards was equal to that outwards, the
+receipts for passengers during each of the first six weeks averaged
+L.52, 14s. This was exclusive of excursion trains, of which one
+carried 500 persons, another between 500 and 600, a third 1500; and so
+on. It was also exclusive of goods and mineral traffic, which are
+expected to give at least L.1000 per annum. The result is, that this
+railway appears likely to draw not much under L.4000 a year&mdash;a sum
+sufficient, after expenses are paid, to yield what would at almost any
+time be a high rate of percentage to the shareholders, while, in the
+present state of the money-market, it will be an unusually ample
+remuneration.</p>
+
+<p>We have instanced this economically-constructed line, because we have
+seen it in operation, and can place reliance on the facts connected
+with its financial affairs. Other lines, however, more or less
+advanced, seem to have prospects equally hopeful. A similar branch is
+about to be made from the same main line to the town of Leven. One is
+projected to branch from the Eskbank station of the North British line
+to Peebles&mdash;a pretty town on the Tweed, which, up till the present
+time, has been secluded from general intercourse, and will now, for
+the first time, have its beautiful environs laid open to public
+observation. The entire cost of this line, rather more than 18 miles
+in length, is to be only L.70,000, or about L.3600 per mile. Another
+branch from the same line is projected to go to Lauder. One, of the
+same cheap class, is to connect Aberdeen with Banchory on the Dee.
+Another will be constructed between Blairgowrie and a point on the
+Scottish Midland. For such adventures, St Andrews is a model.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>The time is probably not far distant when single branch-lines will
+radiate over the country, developing local resources, as well as
+uniting the whole people in friendly and profitable intercourse. To be
+done rightly, however, rational foresight and the plain principles of
+commerce must inspire the projectors. It will be necessary to avoid
+all parliamentary contests; to do nothing without a general movement
+of the district in favour of the line, so that no parties may be
+sacrificed for the benefit of others; to hold rigorously to an
+economical principle of construction; to launch out into no
+extravagant plans in connection with the main object contemplated.
+These being attended to, we can imagine that, in a few years hence,
+there will be a set of modest little railways which will be the envy
+of all the great lines, simply because they enjoy the distinction
+denied to their grander brethren, of <i>paying</i>, and which will not only
+serve important purposes in the industrial economy of the country, but
+vastly promote the moral wellbeing of the community, in furnishing a
+means of harmless amusement to those classes whose lot it is to spend
+most of their days in confinement and toil.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Since the materials of this brief paper were obtained,
+another short line has been opened, extending between Elgin and
+Lossie-mouth. It is said to have also enjoyed in its first few weeks
+an amount of traffic far beyond the calculations of the shareholders.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="THE_HUMOUR_OF_SOUTHEY" id="THE_HUMOUR_OF_SOUTHEY"></a>THE HUMOUR OF SOUTHEY.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Some</span> of the critics of 'Robert the Rhymer, who lived at the lakes,'
+seem to be of opinion, that his 'humour' is to be classed with such
+nonentities as the philosopher's stone, pigeon's milk, and other
+apocryphal myths and unknown quantities. In analysing the character of
+his intellect, they would assign to the 'humorous' attribute some such
+place as Van Troil did to the snaky tribe in his work on Iceland,
+wherein the title of chapter xv. runs thus: 'Concerning Snakes in
+Iceland' and the chapter itself thus: 'There are no snakes in
+Iceland.' Accordingly, were they to have the composition of this
+article, they would abbreviate it to the one terse sentence: 'Robert
+Southey had no humour.' Now, we have no inclination to claim for the
+Keswick bard any prodigious or pre-eminent powers of fun, or to give
+him place beside the rollicking jesters and genial merry-makers, whose
+humour gives English literature a distinctive character among the
+nations. But that he is so void of the comic faculty as certain potent
+authorities allege, we persistently doubt. Mr Macaulay affirms that
+Southey may be always read with pleasure, except when he tries to be
+droll; that a more insufferable jester never existed; and that, often
+as he attempts to be humorous, he in no single occasion has succeeded
+further than to be quaintly and flippantly dull. Another reviewer
+warned the author of the <i>Doctor</i>, that there is no greater mistake
+than that which a grave person falls into, when he fancies himself
+humorous; adding, as a consolatory corollary to this proposition, that
+unquestionably the doctor himself was in this predicament. But Southey
+was not so rigorously grave a person as his graver writings might seem
+to imply. 'I am quite as noisy as ever I was,' he writes to an old
+Oxford chum, when in sober manhood. 'Oh, dear Lightfoot, what a
+blessing it is to have a boy's heart! it is as great a blessing in
+carrying one through this world, as to have a child's spirit will in
+fitting us for the next.' On account of this boyish-heartedness, he is
+compared by Justice Talfourd to Charles Lamb himself: 'In a certain
+primness of style, bounding in the rich humour which overflowed it,
+they were nearly akin; both alike <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[pg 248]</a></span>reverenced childhood, and both had
+preserved its best attributes unspotted from the world.' In the
+fifty-fifth year of his age, he characterised himself as a man</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">&mdash;&mdash;by nature merry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Somewhat Tom-foolish, and comical, very;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who has gone through the world, not unmindful of pelf,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon easy terms, thank Heaven, with himself,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Along bypaths, and in pleasant ways,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Caring as little for censure as praise;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Having some friends, whom he loves dearly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And no lack of foes, whom he laughs at sincerely;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And never for great, nor for little things,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has he fretted his guts<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> to fiddle-strings.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He might have made them by such folly<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Most musical, most melancholy.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>No one can dip into the <i>Doctor</i> without being convinced of this
+buoyancy of spirit, quickness of fancy, and blitheness of heart. It
+even vents its exuberance in bubbles of levity and elaborate trifling,
+so that all but the <i>very</i> light-hearted are fain to say: Something
+too much of this. Compared with our standard humorists&mdash;the peerage,
+or Upper House, who sit sublimely aloft, like 'Jove in his chair, of
+the sky my lord mayor'&mdash;Southey may be but a dull commoner, one of the
+third or fourth estate. But for all that, he has a comfortable fund of
+the <i>vis comica</i>, upon which he rubs along pleasantly enough,
+hospitably entertaining not a few congenial spirits who can put up
+with him as they find him, relish his simple and often racy fare, and
+enjoy a decent quantum of jokes of his own growing, without pining
+after the brilliant banquets of comedy spread by opulent barons of the
+realm.</p>
+
+<p>To support this apology for the worthy doctor by plenary proof, would
+involve a larger expenditure of space and letter-press than befits the
+economy of a discreet hebdomadal journal. We can but allude, and hint,
+and suggest, and illustrate our position in an 'off-at-a-tangent' sort
+of way. Look, for instance, at his ingenious quaintness in the matter
+of <i>onomatology</i>. What a name, he would say, is Lamb for a soldier,
+Joy for an undertaker, Rich for a pauper, or Noble for a tailor; Big
+for a lean or little person, and Small for one who is broad in the
+rear and abdominous in the van; Short for a fellow six feet without
+his shoes, or Long for him whose high heels barely elevate him to the
+height of five; Sweet for one who has either a vinegar face, or a foxy
+complexion; Younghusband for an old bachelor; Merryweather for any one
+in November or February, a black spring, a cold summer, or a wet
+autumn; Goodenough for a person no better than he should be; Toogood
+for <i>any</i> human creature; and Best for a subject who is perhaps too
+bad to be endured. Amusing, too, are the doctor's reasons for using
+the customary <i>alias</i> of female Christian names&mdash;never calling any
+woman Mary, for example, though <i>Mare</i>, being the sea, was, he said,
+too emblematic of the sex; but using a synonyme of better omen, and
+Molly therefore was to be preferred as being soft. 'If he accosted a
+vixen of that name in her worst mood, he <i>mollified</i> her. Martha he
+called Patty, because it came pat to the tongue. Dorothy remained
+Dorothy, because it was neither fitting that women should be made
+Dolls nor Idols. Susan with him was always Sue, because women were to
+be sued; and Winifred Winny, because they were to be won.' Or refer to
+that pleasant bit of erudite trifling upon the habits of rats,
+beginning with the remark, that wheresoever Man goes Rat follows or
+accompanies him, town or country being equally agreeable to him;
+entering upon your house as a tenant-at-will&mdash;his own, not
+yours&mdash;working out for himself a covered-way in your walls, ascending
+by it from one storey to another, and leaving you the larger
+apartments, while he takes possession of the space between floor and
+ceiling, as an <i>entresol</i> for himself. 'There he has his parties, and
+his revels, and his gallopades&mdash;merry ones they are&mdash;when you would be
+asleep, if it were not for the spirit with which the youth and belles
+of Rat-land keep up the ball over your head. And you are more
+fortunate than most of your neighbours, if he does not prepare for
+himself a mausoleum behind your chimney-piece or under your
+hearthstone, retire into it when he is about to die, and very soon
+afford you full proof that though he may have lived like a hermit, his
+relics are not in the odour of sanctity. You have then the additional
+comfort of knowing, that the spot so appropriated will thenceforth be
+used as a common cemetery or a family-vault.' In the same vein, homage
+is paid to Rat's imitation of human enterprise: shewing how, when the
+adventurous merchant ships a cargo for some foreign port, Rat goes
+with it; how, when Great Britain plants a colony at the antipodes, Rat
+takes the opportunity of colonising also; how, when ships are sent out
+on a voyage of discovery, Rat embarks as a volunteer; doubling the
+stormy Cape with Diaz, arriving at Malabar with Gama, discovering the
+New World with Columbus, and taking possession of it at the same time,
+and circumnavigating the globe with Magellan, and Drake, and Cook.</p>
+
+<p>Few that have once read will forget the Doctor's philological
+contributions towards an amended system of English orthography.
+Assuming the propriety of discarding all reference to the etymology of
+words, when engaged in spelling them, and desirous, as a philological
+reformer, to establish a truly British language, he proposes
+introducing a distinction of genders, in which the language has
+hitherto been defective. Thus, in anglicising the orthography of
+<i>chemise</i>, he resolves that foreign substantive into the home-grown
+neologisms, masculine and feminine, of Hemise and Shemise. Again, in
+letter-writing, every person, he remarks, is aware that male and
+female letters have a distinct sexual character; they should,
+therefore, be generally distinguished thus&mdash;Hepistle and Shepistle.
+And as there is the same marked difference in the writing of the two
+sexes, he proposes Penmanship and Penwomanship. Erroneous opinions in
+religion being promulgated in this country by women as well as men,
+the teachers of such false doctrines he would divide into Heresiarchs
+and Sheresiarchs. That troublesome affection of the diaphragm, which
+every person has experienced, is, upon the same principle, to be
+called, according to the sex of the patient, Hecups and Shecups;
+which, upon the above principle of making our language truly British,
+is better than the more classical form of <i>Hicc</i>ups and <i>H&oelig;</i>ccups;
+and then in its objective use we have Hiscups and Hercups; and in like
+manner Histerics should be altered into Herterics, the complaint never
+being masculine.</p>
+
+<p>None but a 'humorist' would have announced the decease of a cat in
+such mingled terms and tones of jest and earnest as the
+following:&mdash;'Alas! Grosvenor,' writes Southey to his friend Mr Bedford
+(1823), 'this day poor old Rumpel was found dead, after as long and
+happy a life as cat could wish for, if cats form wishes on that
+subject. His full titles were: "The Most Noble the Archduke
+Rumpelstiltzchen, Earl Tomlemagne,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Baron Raticide, Waowhler and
+Skaratch." There should be a court mourning in Catland; and if the
+Dragon [a cat of Mr Bedford's] wear a black ribbon round his neck, or
+a band of crape <i>&agrave; la militaire</i> round one of the fore-paws, it will
+be but a becoming <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[pg 249]</a></span>mark of respect.... I believe we are, each and all,
+servants included, more sorry for this loss than any of us would like
+to confess. I should not have written to you at present had it not
+been to notify this event.' The notification of such events, in print
+too, appears to some thinkers <i>too</i> absurd. Others find a special
+interest in these 'trifles light as air,' because presenting
+'confirmation strong' of the kindly nature of the man, taking no
+unamiable or affected part in the presentment of <i>Every Man in His
+Humour</i>. His correspondence is, indeed, rich in traits of quiet
+humour, if by that word we understand a 'humane influence, softening
+with mirth the ragged inequalities of existence'&mdash;the very 'juice of
+the mind oozing from the brain, and enriching and fertilising wherever
+it falls'&mdash;and seldom far removed from its kindred spirit, pathos,
+with which, however, it is <i>not</i> too closely akin to marry; for pathos
+is bound up in mysterious ties with humour&mdash;bone of its bone, and
+flesh of its flesh.</p>
+
+<p>Nor can we assent to the assertion, that in his ballads, metrical
+tales, and rhyming <i>jeux-d'esprit</i>, Southey's essay to be comic
+results in merely 'quaint and flippant dulness.' Smartly enough he
+tells the story of the Well of St Keyne, whereof the legend is, that
+if the husband manage to secure a draught before his good dame, 'a
+happy man henceforth is he, for he shall be master for life.' But if
+the wife should drink of it first&mdash;'God help the husband <i>then</i>!' The
+traveller to whom a Cornishman narrates the tradition, compliments him
+with the assumption that <i>he</i> has profited by it in his matrimonial
+experience:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'You drank of the well, I warrant, betimes,'<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He to the Cornishman said;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the Cornishman smiled as the stranger spake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And sheepishly shook his head.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'I hastened as soon as the wedding was done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And left my wife in the porch;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But, i' faith, she had been wiser than me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For she took a bottle to church.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And with all their extravagances of expression and questionable taste,
+the numerous stories which Southey delighted to versify on themes
+demoniac and diabolical, from the <i>Devil's Walk</i> to the <i>True Ballad
+of St Antidius</i>, are fraught with farcical import, and have an
+individual ludicrousness all their own. That he could succeed
+tolerably in the mock-heroic vein, may be seen in his parody on
+Pindar's <i>ariston men hydor</i>, entitled <i>Gooseberry Pie</i>, and in some
+of the occasional pieces called <i>Nondescripts</i>. Nor do we know any one
+of superior ingenuity in that overwhelming profusion of epithets and
+crowded creation of rhymes, which so tickle the ear and the fancy in
+some of his verses, and of which we have specimens almost unrivalled
+in the celebrated description of the cataract of Lodore, and the
+vivaciously ridiculous chronicle of Napoleon's march to Moscow.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Southey was no purist in his phraseology at times. The
+not very refined monosyllable in the text may, however, be tolerated
+as having a technical relation to the fiddle-strings by hypothesis.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> This patrician Bawdrons is not forgotten in Southey's
+verse; thus&mdash;
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Our good old cat, Earl Tomlemagne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Is sometimes seen to play,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even like a kitten at its sport,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Upon a warm spring-day.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="TRACKS_OF_ANCIENT_ANIMALS_IN_SANDSTONE" id="TRACKS_OF_ANCIENT_ANIMALS_IN_SANDSTONE"></a>TRACKS OF ANCIENT ANIMALS IN SANDSTONE.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Many</span> of our readers must have heard of the interest excited a few
+years ago by the discovery, that certain marks on the surface of slabs
+of sandstone, raised from a quarry in Dumfriesshire, were the
+memorials of extinct races of animals. The amiable and intelligent Dr
+Duncan, minister of Ruthwell, who had conferred on society the
+blessing of savings-banks for the industrious poor, was the first to
+describe to the world these singular chronicles of ancient life. The
+subject was afterwards brought forward in a more popular style by Dr
+Buckland, in his lively book, the Bridgewater Treatise on Geology.
+Since then, examples of similar markings have been found in several
+other parts of Europe, and a still greater number in America.</p>
+
+<p>Dumfriesshire is still the principal locality of these curious objects
+in our island; and they are found not only in the original spot&mdash;the
+quarry of Corncockle Muir, but in another quarry at Craigs, near the
+town of Dumfries. Ample collections of them have been made by Sir
+William Jardine, the famed naturalist, who happens to be proprietor of
+Corncockle Quarry, and by Mr Robert Harkness of Dumfries, a young
+geologist, who seems destined to do not a little for the illustration
+of this and kindred subjects. Meanwhile, Sir William Jardine has
+published an elegant book, containing a series of drawings, in which
+the slabs of Corncockle are truthfully represented.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Annandale footmarks are impressed on slabs of the New Red
+Sandstone&mdash;a formation not long subsequent to the coal, and remarkable
+for its comparative deficiency of fossils, as if there had been
+something in its constitution unfavourable to the preservation of
+animal remains. It is curious to find that, while this is the case, it
+has been favourable to the preservation of what appears at first sight
+a much more accidental and shadowy memorial of life&mdash;the mere
+impression which an animal makes on a soft substance with its foot.
+Yet such fully appears to be the fact. The sandstone slabs of
+Corncockle, lying in their original place with a dip of about 33
+degrees to the westward, and separating with great cleanness and
+smoothness, present impressions of such liveliness, that there is no
+possibility of doubt as to their being animal foot-tracks, and those
+of the tortoise family. A thin layer of unctuous clay between the beds
+has proved favourable to their separation; and it is upon this
+intervening substance that the marks are best preserved. Slab after
+slab is raised from the quarry&mdash;sometimes a foot thick, sometimes only
+a few inches&mdash;and upon almost every one of them are impressions found.
+What is very remarkable, the tracks or series of footprints pass,
+almost without exception, in a direction from west to east, or upwards
+against the dip of the strata. It is surmised that the strata were
+part of a beach, inclining, however, at a much lower angle, from which
+the tide receded in a westerly direction. The animals, walking down
+from the land at recess of tide, passed over sand too soft to retain
+the impressions they left upon it; but when they subsequently returned
+to land, the beach had undergone a certain degree of hardening
+sufficient to receive and retain impressions, 'though these,' says Sir
+William, 'gradually grow fainter and less distinct as they reach the
+top of the beds, which would be the margin of drier sands nearer the
+land.' He adds: 'In several instances, the tracks on one slab which we
+consider to have been impressed at the same time, are numerous, and
+left by different animals travelling together. They have walked
+generally in a straight line, but sometimes turn and wind in several
+directions. This is the case in a large extent of surface, where we
+have tracks of above thirty feet in length uncovered, and where one
+animal had crossed the path of a neighbour of a different species. The
+tracks of two animals are also met with, as if they had run side by
+aide.'</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the nature of the evidence in question, Dr Buckland has
+very justly remarked, that we are accustomed to it in our ordinary
+life. 'The thief is identified by the impression which his shoe has
+made near the scene of his depredations. The American savage not only
+identifies the elk and bison by the impression of their hoofs, but
+ascertains also the time that has elapsed since the animal had passed.
+From the camel's track upon the sand, the Arab can determine whether
+it was heavily or lightly laden, or whether it was lame.' When,
+therefore, we see upon surfaces <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[pg 250]</a></span>which we know to have been laid down
+in a soft state, in a remote era of the world's history, clear
+impressions like those made by tortoises of our own time, it seems a
+legitimate inference, that these impressions were made by animals of
+the tortoise kind, and, consequently, such animals were among those
+which then existed, albeit no other relic of them may have been found.
+From minute peculiarities, it is further inferred, that they were
+tortoises of different species from any now existing. Viewing such
+important results, we cannot but enter into the feeling with which Dr
+Buckland penned the following remarks:&mdash;'The historian or the
+antiquary,' he says, 'may have traversed the fields of ancient or of
+modern battles; and may have pursued the line of march of triumphant
+conquerors, whose armies trampled down the most mighty kingdoms of the
+world. The winds and storms have utterly obliterated the ephemeral
+impressions of their course. Not a track remains of a single foot, or
+a single hoof, of the countless millions of men and beasts whose
+progress spread desolation over the earth. But the reptiles that
+crawled upon the half-finished surface of our infant planet, have left
+memorials of their passage, enduring and indelible. No history has
+recorded their creation or destruction; their very bones are found no
+more among the fossil relics of a former world. Centuries and
+thousands of years may have rolled away between the time in which
+those footsteps were impressed by tortoises upon the sands of their
+native Scotland, and the hour when they were again laid bare and
+exposed to our curious and admiring eyes. Yet we behold them, stamped
+upon the rock, distinct as the track of the passing animal upon the
+recent snow; as if to shew that thousands of years are but as nothing
+amidst eternity&mdash;and, as it were, in mockery of the fleeting,
+perishable course of the mightiest potentates among mankind.'</p>
+
+<p>The formation of the slabs, and the preservation of the footprints,
+are processes which the geologist can easily explain. A beach on which
+animals have left the marks of their feet, becomes sufficiently
+hardened to retain the impressions; another layer of sand or mud is
+laid down by perhaps the next tide, covering up the first, and
+protecting it from all subsequent injury. Thousands of years after,
+the quarryman breaks up the layers, and finds on the one surface the
+impression of the animal, while the lower face of the superincumbent
+layer presents a cast of that impression, thus giving us in fact a
+double memorial of one event. At Wolfville, on the Bay of Fundy, Sir
+Charles Lyell some years ago observed a number of marks on the surface
+of a red marly mud which was gradually hardening on the sea-shore.
+They were the footprints of the sand-piper, a bird of which he saw
+flights daily running along the water's edge, and often leaving thirty
+or more similar impressions in a straight line, parallel to the
+borders of the estuary. He picked up some slabs of this dried mud, and
+splitting one of them up, found a surface within which bore two lines
+of the same kind of footprints. Here is an example before our living
+eyes, of the processes concerned in producing and preserving the
+fossil footprints of the New Red Sandstone.</p>
+
+<p>Some years after the Annandale footprints had attracted attention,
+some slab surfaces of the same formation in Saxony and England were
+found bearing an impression of a more arresting character. It
+resembled the impression that would be made by the palm and extended
+fingers and thumb of the human hand, but a hand much thicker and
+flabbier than is commonly seen. The appropriate name of
+<i>Cheirotherium</i> was proposed for the unknown extinct animal which had
+produced these marks. The dimensions in the several examples were
+various; but 'in all cases the prints of what appear to have been the
+hind-feet are considerably larger than those of the fore-feet; so much
+so, indeed, that in one well-preserved slab containing several
+impressions, the former measures eight inches by five, and the latter
+not more than four inches by three. In this specimen, the print of the
+fore-foot is not more than an inch and a half in advance of that of
+the hinder one, although the distance between the two successive
+positions of the same foot, or the length of a pace of the animal, is
+fourteen inches. It therefore appears, that the animal must have had
+its posterior extremities both much larger and much longer than the
+anterior; but this peculiarity it possessed in common with many
+existing species, such as the frog, the kangaroo, &amp;c.; and beyond this
+and certain appearances in the sandstone, as if a tail had been
+dragged behind the animal, in some sets of footsteps, but not in
+others, there is nothing to suggest to the comparative anatomist any
+idea of even the class of Vertebrata to which the animal should be
+referred.'<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Soon after, some teeth and fragments of bones were
+discovered, by which Professor Owen was able to indicate an animal of
+the frog-family (Batrachia), but with certain affinities to the
+saurian order (crocodiles, &amp;c.), and which must have been about the
+size of a large pig. It has been pretty generally concluded, that this
+colossal frog was the animal which impressed the hand-like
+foot-prints.</p>
+
+<p>At a later period, footprints of birds were discovered upon the
+surfaces of a thin-bedded sandstone belonging to the New Red formation
+on the banks of the Connecticut River, in North America. The birds,
+according to Sir Charles Lyell, must have been of various sizes; some
+as small as the sand-piper, and others as large as the ostrich, the
+width of the stride being in proportion to the size of the foot. There
+is one set, in which the foot is nineteen inches long, and the stride
+between four and five feet, indicating a bird nearly twice the size of
+the African ostrich. So great a magnitude was at first a cause of
+incredulity; but the subsequent discovery of the bones of the Moa or
+Dinornis of New Zealand, proved that, at a much later time, there had
+been feathered bipeds of even larger bulk, and the credibility of the
+<i>Ornithichnites Giganteus</i> has accordingly been established. Sir
+Charles Lyell, when he visited the scene of the footprints on the
+Connecticut River, saw a slab marked with a row of the footsteps of
+the huge bird pointed to under this term, being nine in number,
+turning alternately right and left, and separated from each other by a
+space of about five feet. 'At one spot, there was a space several
+yards square, where the entire surface of the shale was irregular and
+jagged, owing to the number of the footsteps, not one of which could
+be distinctly traced, as when a flock of sheep have passed over a
+muddy road; but on withdrawing from this area, the confusion gradually
+ceased, and the tracks became more and more distinct.'<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> Professor
+Hitchcock had, up to that time, observed footprints of thirty species
+of birds on these surfaces. The formation, it may be remarked, is one
+considerably earlier than any in which fossil bones or other
+indications of birds have been detected in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>In the coal-field of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, there were
+discovered in 1844, slabs marked with footprints bearing a
+considerable resemblance to those of the Cheirotherium, and believed
+to have been impressed by an animal of the same family, though with
+some important points of distinction. The hind-feet are not so much
+larger than the fore; and the two on each side, instead of coming
+nearly into one row, as in the European Cheirotherium, stand widely
+apart. The impressions look such as would be made by a rudely-shaped
+human hand, with short fingers held much apart; there is some
+appearance as if the fingers had had nails; and a protuberance like
+the rudiment of a sixth finger appears at the side. This was the first
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[pg 251]</a></span>indication of reptile life so early as the time of the
+coal-formation; but as the fossil remains of a reptile have now been
+found in Old Red Sandstone, at Elgin, in Scotland, the original
+importance of the discovery in this respect may be regarded as
+lessened.</p>
+
+<p>Last year, some slabs from Potsdam, in Canada, were brought to
+England, and deposited in the museum of the Geological Society.
+Belonging as these slabs do to a formation coeval with those in which
+the earliest fossils were hitherto found, it was startling to find
+them marked with numerous foot-tracks of what appeared to have been
+reptiles. It seemed to shew, that the inhabitants of the world in that
+early age were not quite so low in the scale of being as had
+previously been assumed from the facts known; and that all attempts to
+describe, from positive knowledge, anything like a progression of
+being on the face of our globe, were at least premature. Professor
+Owen had, at first, scarcely any hesitation in pronouncing the
+footprints to be those of tortoises; but he afterwards changed his
+views, and expressed his belief that the impressions had been produced
+by small crustacean animals. Thus the views previously entertained
+regarding the invertebrate character of the <i>fauna</i> of the Silurian
+epoch, have ultimately remained unaffected, so far as these Potsdam
+slabs are concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Slabs of sandstone and shale often retain what is called the
+ripple-mark&mdash;that is, the corrugation of surface produced by the
+gentle agitation of shallow water over sand or mud. We can see these
+appearances beneath our feet, as we walk over the pavement of almost
+any of our cities. Such slabs are also occasionally marked by
+irregular protuberances, being the casts of hollows or cracks produced
+in ancient tide-beaches by shrinkage. In many instances, the
+footprints of animals are marked by such lines passing through them,
+shewing how the beach had dried and cracked in the sun after the
+animals had walked over it. In the quarries at Stourton, in Cheshire,
+some years ago, a gentleman named Cunningham observed slab surfaces
+mottled in a curious manner with little circular and oval hollows, and
+these were finally determined to be the impressions produced by
+rain&mdash;the rain of the ancient time, long prior to the existence of
+human beings, when the strata were formed! Since then, many similar
+markings have been observed on slabs raised from other quarries, both
+in Europe and America; and fossil rain-drops are now among the settled
+facts of geology. Very fine examples have been obtained from quarries
+of the New Red Sandstone at Newark and Pompton, in New Jersey. Sir
+Charles Lyell has examined these with care, and compared them with the
+effects of modern rain on soft surfaces of similar materials. He says,
+they present 'every gradation from transient rain, where a moderate
+number of drops are well preserved, to a pelting shower, which, by its
+continuance, has almost obliterated the circular form of the cavities.
+In the more perfectly preserved examples, smaller drops are often seen
+to have fallen into cavities previously made by larger ones, and to
+have modified their shape. In some cases of partial interference, the
+last drop has obliterated part of the annular margin of a former one;
+but in others it has not done so, for the two circles are seen to
+intersect each other. Most of the impressions are elliptical, having
+their more prominent rims at the deeper end [a consequence of the rain
+falling in a slanting direction]. We often see on the under side of
+some of these slabs, which are about half an inch thick, casts of the
+rain-drops of a previous shower, which had evidently fallen when the
+direction of the wind was not the same. Mr Redfield, by carefully
+examining the obliquity of the imprints in the Pompton quarries,
+ascertained that most of them implied the blowing of a strong westerly
+wind in the triassic period at that place.' A certain class of the
+impressions at Pompton are thought to be attributable to hail, 'being
+deeper and much more angular and jagged than the rain-prints, and
+having the wall at the deeper end more perpendicular, and occasionally
+overhanging.'<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Ichnology of Annandale.</i> Lizars, Edinburgh. 1851.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <i>Ansted's Introduction to Geology</i>, i. 303.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Lyell's Travels in North America</i>, i. 254.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Quarterly Journal of Geological Society</i>, April, 1851.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="AITONS_TRAVELS" id="AITONS_TRAVELS"></a>AITON'S TRAVELS.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">A work</span> in any department of general literature rarely appears from the
+pen of a clergyman in the Church of Scotland, and therefore that to
+which we are about to refer, under the title noted beneath,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> is in
+some respects a curiosity. The writer, a minister settled in a
+mountainous parish in Lanarkshire, may be said to have made a
+remarkable escapade for one in his obscure situation and reverend
+calling. With an immense and unclerical flow of animal spirits,
+evidently as fond of travelling as old William Lithgow, and as
+garrulous as Rae Wilson, of whose class he is a surviving type, Dr
+Aiton is quite the man to take a journey to the Holy Land; for no
+difficulty in the way of toil, heat, hunger, creeping or winged
+insects, wild beasts, or still wilder savages, disturbs his
+equanimity. He also never hesitates to use any expression that comes
+uppermost. He explicitly observes, that 'no man with the capacity of a
+hen,' should fail to contribute such information as he possesses on
+the sacred regions he has traversed. Alluding to some circumstances in
+the voyage of St Paul, he says he has 'no desire to cook the facts.'
+He talks of a supposition being 'checkmated.' And in going along the
+coast of Spain, he mentions that he took care to have 'a passing
+squint at Cape St Vincent.' Many similar oddities break out in the
+course of the narrative; not that we care much about them one way or
+other; it is only to be regretted that the author has by this
+looseness of expression, and his loquacious dragging in of passages
+from Scripture on all occasions, also by his inveterate love of
+anecdotic illustration, done what he could to keep down a really
+clever book to an inferior standard of taste. We would hope, however,
+that candid readers will have a kindly consideration of the author's
+intentions, and pass over much that is prosy and ridiculous for the
+sake of what is original and interesting. Traversing lands that have
+been described a hundred times before, it might be supposed that
+little was left for Dr Aiton to pick up; yet every traveller has his
+own method of observation. In justice to the doctor, it must be
+acknowledged that he made a judicious use of time during his travels
+in the East, and has told us many amusing particulars of what he saw.
+There is, at least, always a certain graphic painting in his off-hand
+descriptions; as, for instance, his notice of an incident that
+occurred on his arrival in Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>'On landing at Alexandria I saw a ship unloading, and box by box were
+being handed to the lighter, according to the number each respectively
+bore. Some mistake, more or less important, had apparently been made
+by one of the native operatives on the occasion. Instantly two sticks
+were laid on his head with dreadful effect. The poor fellow seemed to
+be stunned and stupified for a time. On this account it probably
+happened, that he fell into a second similar blunder, when a stick was
+thrown, not horizontally, but perpendicularly, and so aimed that it
+struck the socket of the eye. In one moment he lost the sight of it,
+and the ball hung by a ligament on his cheek. He uttered a hideous
+yell, and staggered; notwithstanding of which other two cudgels were
+applied to his arm while he had the power to hold it up in protection
+of his head. Horror of horrors! I thought, verily in the fulfilment of
+prophecy, God has been pleased to curse this garden and granary of the
+world, and to permit foreigners terribly to tyrannise over its
+degraded people.' Proceeding onward to Cairo: 'What a hurry-skurry
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[pg 252]</a></span>there was in the dark in getting into the vans at the hotel-door to
+be conveyed to the Mahmoudie Canal! When I arrived, I found the barge
+in which we were to be conveyed both very confined and dirty. But it
+proceeded at tolerable speed, drawn by horses which were pursued by
+well-mounted Arabs yelling, lashing, and cracking with their whips. We
+all passed a fearful night of suffocation and jambing, fasting and
+feasted on by millions. Some red-coated bedlamites, unfortunately
+infatuated with wine, had to be held from jumping overboard. The
+ramping and stamping, and roaring and scrambling for room to sit or
+lie, was horrific. At last the day dawned, when matters were not quite
+so bad; but we moved over our fifty miles of ditch-water to Atfeh in a
+manner the most uncomfortable any poor sinners ever suffered.'</p>
+
+<p>The account given of his entry to Cairo is also strikingly faithful.
+'When I landed at Boulac, another Oriental scene of novelty was
+presented. Crowds of men and women, all in their shirts only&mdash;lazy
+looking-on watermen calling for employment, porters packing luggage on
+the camels, donkey-boys, little active urchins, offering their asses,
+crying: "Here him best donkey"&mdash;"you Englese no walk"&mdash;"him kick
+highest"&mdash;"him fine jackass"&mdash;"me take you to Cairo." There were also
+plenty of custom-house folks demanding fees to which they had no
+right, and sturdy rascals seeking buckshish, and miserable beggars
+imploring alms. Walking through this promiscuous crowd, with all the
+dignity they could muster, there were venerable sheiks, or Egyptian
+oolema, with white turbans, and long silvery beards, and tawny
+sinister faces. And there were passengers not a few, with a carpet-bag
+in the one hand and a lady hanging on the other arm, crowding from the
+deck to the shore.</p>
+
+<p>'The moment I mounted the stair at the pier of Boulac, I found myself
+in the red dusky haze of an Egyptian atmosphere. It was near noon, and
+the rays of the hot sun trembled over the boundless Valley of the Nile
+on to the minarets of Cairo, and further still to the sombre Pyramids.
+Now, indeed, the scene before me presented a superb illusion of
+beauty. The bold range of the Mockattam Mountains, its craggy summits
+cut clearly out in the sky, seemed to run like a promontory into a sea
+of the richest verdure; here, wavy with breezy plantations of olives;
+there, darkened with acacia groves. Just where the mountain sinks upon
+the plain, the citadel stands on its last eminence, and widely spread
+beneath lies the city&mdash;a forest of minarets, with palm-trees
+intermingled, and the domes of innumerable mosques rising and
+glittering over the sea of houses. Here and there, green gardens are
+islanded within that ocean, and the whole is girt round with
+picturesque towers, and ramparts occasionally revealed through vistas
+of the wood of sycamores and fig-trees that surround it. From Boulac I
+was conveyed to the British Hotel at Cairo, the Englishman's home in
+Egypt, conducted by Mr Shepherd, the Englishman's friend in the East.
+The approach to Grand Cairo is charming and cheering, and altogether
+as fanciful as if I had been carried with Aladin's lamp in my hand
+through a fairy region to one of the palaces mentioned in the <i>Arabian
+Nights of Entertainment</i>. I passed along a broad level path, full of
+life and fancy, amid groves and gardens, and villas all glittering in
+grandeur. At every turn, something more Oriental and magnificent than
+anything I had yet seen presented itself. Along the level, broad
+highway, a masquerading-looking crowd was swarming towards Cairo.
+Ladies, wrapped closely in white veils, were carrying water on their
+heads. Long rows of dromedaries loaded with luggage were moving
+stately forward. Donkeys at full canter, one white man riding, and two
+black men driving and thumping the poor brutes most unmercifully with
+short thick sticks, were winding their way through the throng. Ladies
+enveloped in flowing robes of black silk, and veiled up to the eyes,
+were sitting stride-leg on richly-caparisoned asses, shewing off with
+pomp a pair of yellow morocco slippers, which appeared on their feet
+from under their flowing robes. And before these, clearing the way,
+there were eunuch slaves crying: "Darak ya Khowaga-riglak! shemalak!"
+which probably may mean: "Stand back, and let her ladyship pass!"
+There were walkers and water-carriers, with goat-skins full on their
+back; and fruit-sellers and orange-girls; and ourselves and others
+driving at full gallop, regardless of all the Copts, Abyssinians,
+Greeks, Turks, Parsees, Nubians, and Jews, which crowded the path. But
+curiosity of this sort is soon satisfied, and these novelties are
+passed, when I find myself in the midst of the city, more full of mud
+and misery, dark, dirty twisting lanes, arched almost over by
+verandas, and wretchedly paved or not paved at all, full of smells and
+disgusting sights&mdash;such as lean, mangy dogs, and ragged beggars
+quivering with lice, and poverty-stricken people; all this more than
+the whole world can produce anywhere else, not excepting even the
+Jewish city of Prague; which astonished me beyond comparison till I
+saw the poorer portions of Cairo.'</p>
+
+<p>During his stay in Cairo, the doctor visited the Great Pyramid of
+Gizeh, the short journey being performed early in the morning, and
+with a guide. The toils and pleasures of the excursion are fairly
+described. 'I had read so much of the bulk of the Pyramids, and they
+now appeared so positively insignificant in their dimensions, that I,
+felt mortified; but I remembered that I had the same impression many
+years ago when first approaching the Alps; and I began to consider,
+that as the extreme clearness of the atmosphere gave them the
+appearance of proximity in the far distance, so it would also partly
+account for the diminutive aspect they persisted in presenting. I
+dismounted, and scrambled up the bold ledge of rock, and found myself
+already a hundred feet above the level of the Nile. Here my Arab guide
+produced cold fowl, bread, wine, and Nile water in plenty at the foot
+of this mountain of stone, which now began to indicate its colossal
+magnitude. Standing beside the pyramid, and looking from the base to
+the top, and especially examining the vast dimensions of each separate
+stone, I thus obtained an adequate impression of the magnitude of its
+dimensions, which produced a calm and speechless but elevated feeling
+of awe. The Arabs, men, women, and children, came crowding around me;
+but they seemed kind and inoffensive. I was advised to mount up to the
+top before the sun gained strength; and, skipping like chamois on a
+mountain, two Arabs took hold of me by each wrist, and a third lifted
+me up from behind, and thus I began, with resolution and courage, to
+ascend the countless layers of huge stones which tower and taper to
+the top. Every step was three feet up at a bound; and, really, a
+perpendicular hop-step-and-leap of this sort was no joke, move after
+move continuing as if for ever. I found that the Arabs did not work so
+smoothly as I expected, and that one seemed at a time to be holding
+back, while another was dragging me up; and this soon became very
+tiresome. Perceiving this, they changed their method, and I was
+directed to put my foot on the knee of one Arab, and another pulled me
+up by both hands, while a third pushed me behind; and thus I bounded
+on in my tread-mill of tedious and very tiresome exertion. I paused
+half-way to the top, and rested at the cave. I looked up and down with
+a feeling of awe, and now I felt the force of Warburton's remark, when
+he calls it the greatest wonder in the world. But in the midst of
+these common-place reflections, a fit of sickness came over me.
+Everything turned dark before me; and now for a moment my courage
+failed me; and when looking at my three savage companions&mdash;for my
+guide and his friend were sitting below finishing the fragments of my
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[pg 253]</a></span>breakfast, and the donkeys were munching beans&mdash;I felt myself alike
+destitute of comfort and protection; and when they put forth their
+hands to lift my body, I verily thought myself a murdered man. When I
+came out of my faint, I found that they had gently turned me on my
+belly, with my head flat upon the rock, and that they had been
+sprinkling my face and breast with water. A profuse perspiration broke
+out, and I felt myself relieved. I rested ten or fifteen minutes, and
+hesitated for a moment whether to go up or down; but I had determined
+that I should reach the top, if I should perish in the attempt. I
+resumed, therefore, the ascent, but with more time and caution than
+before; and fearing to look either up or down, or to any portion of
+the frightful aspect around, I fixed my eye entirely on each
+individual step before me, as if there had been no other object in the
+world besides. To encourage me by diverting my attention, the Arabs
+chanted their monotonous songs, mainly in their own language,
+interspersed with expressions about buckshish, "Englese good to
+Arabs," and making signs to me every now and then how near we were
+getting to the top. After a second <i>dwam</i>, a rest and a draught of
+water prepared me for another effort at ascending; and now, as I
+advanced, my ideas began to expand to something commensurate with the
+grandeur and novelty of the scene. When I reached the top, I found
+myself on a broad area of about ten yards in every way of massive
+stone-blocks broken and displaced. Exhausted and overheated, I laid me
+down, panting like a greyhound after a severe chase. I bathed my
+temples, and drank a deep, cool draught of Nile water. After inhaling
+for a few minutes the fresh, elastic breeze blowing up the river, I
+felt that I was myself again. I rose, and gazed with avidity in fixed
+silence, north and south, east and west. And now I felt it very
+exhilarating to the spirit, when thus standing on a small, unprotected
+pavement so many hundred feet above the earth, and so many thousand
+miles from home, to be alone, surrounded only by three wild and
+ferocious-like savages. The Arabs knew as well as I did that my life
+and property were in their power; but they were kind, and proud of the
+confidence I had in them. They tapped me gently on the back, patted my
+head, kissed my hand, and then with a low, laughing, sinister growl,
+they asked me for buckshish, which I firmly refused; then they
+laughed, and sang and chatted as before. In calmly looking around me,
+one idea filled and fixed my mind, which I expressed at the time in
+one word&mdash;magnificence!... I remained long at the top of the pyramid,
+and naturally felt elevated by the sublimity of the scenery around,
+and also by the thought, that I had conquered every difficulty, and
+accomplished my every purpose. The breeze was still cool, although the
+sun was now high in the sky. I laughed and talked with the Arabs; and
+advanced with them holding my two hands, to the very edge, and looked
+down the awful precipice. Here again, with a push, or a kick, or
+probably by withdrawing their hands, my days would have been finished;
+and I would have been buried in the Desert among the ancient kings, or
+more likely worried up by hungry hy&aelig;nas. I looked around at my
+leisure, and began carefully to read the names cut out on the stones,
+anxious to catch one from my own country, or of my acquaintance, but
+in this I did not succeed. Seeing me thus occupied, one of the Arabs
+drew from his pocket a large murderous-looking <i>gully</i>, and when he
+advanced towards me with it in his hand, had I believed the tenth part
+of what I had heard or read, I might have been afraid of my life. But
+with a laughing squeal, he pointed to a stone, as if to intimate that
+I should cut out my name upon it. Then very modestly he held out his
+hand for buckshish, and I thought him entitled to two or three
+piasters.... In coming down, I felt timid and giddy for awhile, and
+was afraid that I might meet the fate of the poor officer from India,
+who, on a similar occasion, happened to miss his foot, and went
+bouncing from one ledge of stone to another, towards the bottom, like
+a ball, and that long after life was beaten out of him. Seeing this,
+the Arabs renewed their demand for buckshish, and with more
+perseverance than ever; but I was equally firm in my determination
+that more money they should not have till I reached the bottom. At
+last they took me by both hands as before, and conducted me carefully
+from step to step. By and by I jumped down from one ledge to another
+without their assistance, till I reached the mouth of the entrance to
+the interior. I descended this inlet somewhat after the manner of a
+sweep going down a chimney, but not quite so comfortable, I believe.
+In this narrow inclined plane, I not only had to encounter sand-flies,
+and every variety of vermin in Egypt, but I was afraid of serpents.
+The confined pass was filled, too, with warm dust, and the heat and
+smoke of the lights we carried increased the stifling sensation. In
+these circumstances, I felt anxious only to go as far as would enable
+me to fire a pistol with effect in one of the vaults. This is well
+worth while, inasmuch as the sound of the explosion was louder than
+the roar of a cannon. In fact, it almost rent the drum of my ears, and
+rolled on like thunder through the interior of the pyramid, multiplied
+and magnified as it was by a thousand echoes. The sound seemed to
+sink, and mount from cavity to cavity&mdash;to rebound and to divide&mdash;and
+at length to die in a good old age. The flash and the smoke produced,
+too, a momentary feeling of terror. Having performed this marvellous
+feat, I was nowise ambitious to qualify myself further for giving a
+description of the interior.'</p>
+
+<p>After visiting Suez, the author returned to Cairo, descended to the
+coast of the Levant, and took shipping for Jaffa, on the route to
+Jerusalem. Every point of interest in the holy city is described as
+minutely as could be desired. Next, there was a visit to the Dead Sea,
+regarding which there occur some sagacious remarks. The doctor
+repudiates the ordinary belief, that the waters of this famed lake are
+carried off by exhalation. Six million tons of water are discharged
+every day by the Jordan into the Dead Sea; and to suppose that this
+vast increase is wholly exhaled, seems to him absurd. He deems it more
+likely that the lake issues by subterranean passages into the Red Sea.
+The only remark that occurs to us on this point is, that the saltness
+of the lake must be held as a proof that there is at least a large
+exhalation from the surface.</p>
+
+<p>Dr Aiton also visited Bethlehem, where he saw much to interest him;
+and had the satisfaction of being hospitably entertained by the
+fathers of the Greek convent. 'I left the convent,' he says, 'soothed
+and satisfied much with all that I had seen, and went round to take a
+parting and more particular view of the plain where the shepherds
+heard the angels proclaim: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
+peace, good-will towards men!" The plain is still mainly under
+pasture, fertile and well watered, and there I saw shepherds still
+tending their flocks. These shepherds have great influence over their
+sheep. Many of them have no dogs. Their flocks are docile and
+domestic, and not as the black-faced breed of sheep in Scotland,
+scouring the hills like cavalry. The shepherd's word spoken at any
+time is sufficient to make them understand and obey him. He sleeps
+among them at night, and in the morning he leadeth them forth to drink
+by the still waters, and feedeth them by the green pastures. He walks
+before them slow and stately; and so accustomed are the sheep to be
+guided by him, that every few bites they take they look up with
+earnestness to see that he is there. When he rests during the heat of
+the day in a shady place, they lie around him chewing the cud. He has
+generally two or three favourite lambs which don't mix with the flock,
+but frisk and fondle at his heel. There is a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[pg 254]</a></span>tender intimacy between
+the Ishmaelite and his flock. They know his voice, and follow him, and
+he careth for the sheep. He gathereth his lambs, and seeketh out his
+flock among the sheep, and gently leadeth them that are with young,
+and carrieth the lambs in his bosom. In returning back to Jerusalem, I
+halted on a rugged height to survey more particularly, and enjoy the
+scene where Ruth went to glean the ears of corn in the field of her
+kinsman Boaz. Hither she came for the beginning of barley harvest,
+because she would not leave Naomi in her sorrow. "Entreat me not to
+leave thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest,
+I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where
+thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to
+me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." How simple
+and tender! Here, when looking around me, honoured I felt for ever be
+her memory, not only for these touching sentiments, worthy of our race
+even before the fall, and when the image of God was not yet effaced;
+but also in respect that she who uttered these words was the
+great-grandmother of David, and as of the generation of Jesus. Here
+also I looked back to the city of Bethlehem with lingering regret,
+uttering a common-place farewell to the scene, but never to its
+hallowed recollections.'</p>
+
+<p>We may conclude our extracts with a passage descriptive of the
+doctor's departure from the Holy Land, from which it will be seen that
+he was not indisposed to keep his part when necessity demanded. 'The
+steamer <i>Levant</i> was ordered to sail at midnight on the day it arrived
+at Jaffa, and there was a vast crowd and great confusion at the
+embarkation. All the villainy of the Arab watermen was in active
+operation. With the assistance of Dr Kiat's Italian servant, an
+arrangement had been made that I and my friend were to be taken out to
+the steamer for a stipulated sum; but while all the boats of the
+natives were going off; ours was still detained at the pier under a
+variety of flimsy pretences. Then a proposal was made to carry the
+luggage back to the shore, and to take away the boat somewhere else, a
+promise being given by the Arabs that they would return with it in
+plenty of time to take us on board before midnight. By this time, I
+was too old a traveller amid ruffians of this sort to permit so simple
+a fraud to be perpetrated. The crew insisted on taking hold of the
+oars, and my friend and I persisted in preventing them. We soon saw
+that nothing but determined courage would carry the day. I therefore
+did not hesitate to grasp the skipper firmly by the throat till I
+almost choked him, threatening to toss him headlong into the sea. We
+also threatened loudly to go back to the English consul, and to have
+them punished for their conduct. Awed a little, and seeing that we
+were not to be so easily done as they expected, notwithstanding that
+we had been so simple as to pay our fare before we started, they did
+at last push off the boat; but it was only after a fashion of their
+own. Every forty yards their oars struck work, and they demanded more
+money. The sea was rough even beyond the breakers, and the gravestone
+which I had seen in the garden at Jaffa was enough to convince me,
+that the guiding of a boat by savages in the dark, through the neck of
+such a harbour, with whirling currents and terrifying waves, was a
+matter of considerable danger. There was no remedy for it, but
+continuing to set the crew at defiance, knowing that they could not
+upset the boat without endangering their own lives as well as ours.
+They wetted us, however, purposely, with the spray, and did their best
+to frighten us, by rocking the boat like a cradle. First one piaster
+(about twopence-halfpenny) was given to the skipper, then the boat was
+advanced about a hundred yards, when the oars were laid down once
+more. Another row was the consequence, at the end of which another
+piaster was doled out to him, and forward we moved till we were fairly
+within cry of the ship, when I called out for assistance, and they
+pushed us directly alongside, behind the paddle-box. Here again they
+detained the luggage, and demanded more buckshish; but I laid hold of
+the rope hanging down from the rails of the steamer, and crying to my
+companion to sit still and watch our property, I ran up the side of
+the ship and called for the master, knowing that the captain was on
+shore. Looking down upon them, he threatened to sink them in the ocean
+if they did not bring everything on deck in a minute. When I saw the
+portmanteaus brought up, and my friend and I safely on board, I
+thought that all was well enough, although we had got a ducking in the
+surf; but in a little, my friend found that he had been robbed of his
+purse, containing two sovereigns and some small money; but nobody
+could tell whether this had been done in the crowd on the pier, or
+when he was in the boat, or when helped up the side of the ship. The
+anchor was weighed about midnight, and we steamed along the coast of
+Samaria, towards the once famous city and seaport of Herod.'</p>
+
+<p>Having taken the liberty to be jocular on the doctor's oddities of
+expression, we beg to say, that notwithstanding these and other
+eccentricities, the work he has produced is well worthy of perusal,
+and of finding a place in all respectable libraries.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <i>The Lands of the Messiah, Mahomet, and the Pope, as
+Visited in 1851</i>. By John Aiton, D.D., Minister of Dolphinton.
+Fullarton &amp; Co. 1852.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="GLEANING_IN_SCOTLAND" id="GLEANING_IN_SCOTLAND"></a>GLEANING IN SCOTLAND.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY A PRACTITIONER.</h3>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Like</span> most other ubiquitous customs, corn-gleaning has been frequently
+described by the painter and the poet, yet I much question whether in
+any case the picture is true to nature. A certain amount of idealism
+is infused into all the sketches&mdash;indeed, in the experience of numbers
+of readers, this is the sole feature in most of them. Such a defect is
+easily accounted for. Those who have depicted the custom were
+practically unacquainted with its details, and invariably made the
+sacred story the model of their picture, without taking into
+consideration the changes induced by time or local peculiarity. Even
+the beautiful and glowing description of English corn-gleaning given
+by Thomson, is felt by practical observers to be greatly too much of
+the Oriental hue, too redolent of the fragrance of a fanciful Arcadia.
+It is a pity that this interesting custom is not more faithfully
+transcribed into our national poetry; and it is with the hope that a
+future Burns may make the attempt, that the writer of this article
+ventures to give a short history of his gleaning-days, believing the
+subject to be interesting enough to engage the attention of the
+general reader.</p>
+
+<p>Though born amid the grandeur and sublimity of Highland scenery, I
+was, at a very early age, brought to reside in a small village on the
+east coast&mdash;small now, but once the most famous and important town in
+that part of Scotland. Among the scenes of these times, none stand out
+more vividly than the 'gathering-days'&mdash;the harvest of the year's
+enjoyment&mdash;the time when a whole twelvemonth's happiness was
+concentrated in the six weeks' vacation of the village-school. I do
+not recollect the time when I began to glean&mdash;or <i>gather</i>, as it is
+locally termed&mdash;probably I would, when very young, follow the others
+to the near farms, and gradually become, as I grew older, a regular
+gleaner. At that time the gleaners in our district were divided into
+two gangs or parties. One of these was headed by four old women, whose
+shearing-days were past; and as they were very peaceable, decent
+bodies, it was considered an honour to get attached to their band. The
+other was composed of the wilder spirits of the place, who thought
+nothing of jumping dikes, breaking hedges, stealing turnips, and
+committing other depredations on the farms which they visited.
+Fortunately, my quiet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[pg 255]</a></span>disposition, and supposed good character,
+procured my admittance into the more respectable gang; and I had the
+honour of sharing its fortunes during the five or six years I
+continued a gleaner. I was surprised to see one of these old ladies
+toddling about the village only a few weeks ago, though her
+gathering-days are long since past. She is the last survivor of the
+quorum, and is now fast fading into dotage.</p>
+
+<p>Although the two gleaning-parties never assumed a positive antagonism,
+they took care to conceal their movements from each other as well as
+possible. When one of our party received information of a field being
+'ready,' the fact was secretly conveyed to all the members, with an
+injunction to be 'in such a place at such an hour' on the following
+morning; and the result generally was, that we had a considerable
+portion of the field gleaned before the other gang arrived. But we did
+not always act on previous information. Many a morning we departed on
+the search, and frequently wandered all day without 'lifting a head.'
+These were the best times for us young ones, whose hearts were too
+light to care for more than the fun of the thing, as we then had a
+glorious opportunity of getting a feast of bramble-berries and wild
+raspberries in the woods and moors; but to the older members of our
+party the disappointment was anything but pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>I have spoken of a field being <i>ready</i>. Now, to some readers, this may
+convey a very erroneous idea. We learn that in early times not only
+were the gleaners admitted among the sheaves, or allowed to 'follow
+the shearers,' as the privilege is now termed, but, in a certain
+instance, the reapers were commanded to leave a handful now and then
+for the gleaner. Now, that custom is entirely changed: the sheaves are
+all taken away from the field; and instead of the reapers leaving
+handfuls expressly for the gleaners, the farmer endeavours by raking
+to secure as much as possible of what they accidentally leave on the
+stubble. I am not inclined to quarrel with the condition that requires
+the stocks to be removed ere the gleaners gain admittance; because
+many would be tempted to pilfer, and besides, the ground on which they
+stand could not be reached. But there is no doubt that the custom of
+gleaning was originally a public enactment; while the fact that it has
+spread over the whole earth, and descended to the present time, shews
+that it still exists on the statute-book of justice, in all the length
+and breadth of its original signification; and it amounts almost to a
+virtual abrogation of the privilege when the stubble is thus gleaned.
+At all events, if these sentiments are not in consonance with the new
+lights of the day, let them be pardoned in a <i>ci-devant</i> gleaner.</p>
+
+<p>Upon arriving at a field, our first object was to choose a locality.
+If we were first on the ground, we took a careful survey of its
+geographical position, and acted accordingly. When the field was
+level, and equally exposed, it mattered little to what part we went;
+but in the event of its being hilly, or situated near a wood, we had
+to consider where the best soil lay, and where the sun had shone most.
+It was in the discovery of these important points that the sagacity
+and experience of our aged leaders were most brilliantly displayed,
+and gave to our party an immense superiority over the other, whose
+science was much more scanty; it therefore happened that we had
+generally the largest quantity and best quality of grain. These
+preliminaries being settled&mdash;and they generally took less time than I
+have done to write&mdash;we began work, commencing, of course, at the end
+of the field by which we entered, and travelling up or down the rigs.</p>
+
+<p>The process of gleaning may be generally considered a very simple one;
+but in this, as in everything else, some knowledge is necessary, and
+no better proof of this could be had, than in the quantities gathered
+by different persons in the same space of time. A careless or
+inexperienced gatherer could easily be detected by the size and
+<i>shape</i> of his single. The usual method practised by a good gleaner
+was as follows:&mdash;Placing the left hand upon the knee, or behind the
+back, the right was used to lift the ears, care being taken to grasp
+them close by the 'neck.' When the right hand had gathered perhaps
+twenty or thirty ears, these were changed into the left hand; the
+right was again replenished from the ground; and this process was
+continued till the left was full, or rather till the gleaner heard one
+of his or her party exclaim: 'Tie!' when the single was obliged to be
+completed. Thus it is clear that a good eye and a quick hand are
+essential to a good gleaner.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever one of the members of the party found that the left hand was
+quite full, he or she could compel the others to finish their singles
+whether their hand was full or not, by simply crying the
+afore-mentioned word 'Tie!' At this sound, the whole band proceeded to
+fasten their bundles, and deposit them on the rig chosen for their
+reception. The process of 'tying' it is impossible to explain on
+paper; but I can assure my readers it afforded great scope for taste
+and ingenuity. Few, indeed, could do it properly, though the singles
+of some were very neat. The best 'tyer' in our party, and indeed in
+the district, was a little, middle-aged woman, who was a diligent,
+rapid gatherer, and generally the first to finish her handful. Her
+singles were perfectly round, and as flat at the top as if laid with a
+plummet. Having finished tying, we laid down our singles according to
+order, so that no difficulty might be felt in collecting them again,
+and so proceeded with our labour.</p>
+
+<p>When we got to the end of the field, the custom was, to finish our
+handfuls there, and retrace our steps for the purpose of collecting
+the deposits, when each of us tied up our collected bundles at the
+place from which we originally started. To the lover of the
+picturesque, the scene while we sat resting by the hedge-side, was one
+of the most beautiful that can be imagined. Spread over the field in
+every direction were the gleaners, busily engaged in their cheerful
+task; while the hum of their conversation, mingling with the melody of
+the insect world, the music of the feathery tribes, and the ripple of
+the adjoining burn, combined to form a strain which I still hear in
+the pauses of life.</p>
+
+<p>On our homeward road from a successful day's, gathering, how merry we
+all were, in spite of our tired limbs and the load upon our heads!
+Indeed it was the load itself that made us glad; and we should have
+been still merrier if that had been heavier. How sweet it was to feel
+the weight of our industry&mdash;no burden could possibly be more grateful;
+and I question much whether that was not the happiest moment in Ruth's
+first gleaning-day, when she trudged home to her mother-in-law with
+the ephah of barley, the produce of her unflagging toil.</p>
+
+<p>When harvest was over, and the chill winds swept over cleared and
+gleaned fields, our bond of union was dissolved, each retired to his
+respective habitation, and, like Ruth, 'beat out that he had gleaned.'
+In many cases, the result was a sufficient supply of bread to the
+family for the ensuing winter. It was singular that, during the rest
+of the year, little or no intercourse was maintained between those who
+were thus associated during harvest. They lived together in the same
+degree of friendship as is common among villagers, but I could never
+observe any of that peculiar intimacy which it was natural to suppose
+such an annual combination would create. They generally returned to
+their ordinary occupations, and continued thus till the sickle was
+again heard among the yellow corn, and the <i>stacks</i> were growing in
+the barn-yard.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[pg 256]</a></span> Then, as if by instinct, the members of the various
+bands, and the independent stragglers, left their monotonous tasks,
+and eagerly entered on the joys and pleasures of the gathering-days.</p>
+
+<p>I might add many reminiscences of the few seasons I spent in this
+manner; but I am afraid that, however interesting they might prove in
+rural districts, they are too simple to interest the general reader.
+Let me observe, however, before concluding, that the great majority of
+the farmers at the present day are decidedly unfavourable to gleaning,
+although the veneration that is generally entertained for what is
+ancient, and the traditionary sacredness which surrounds this
+particular custom, prevent them from openly forbidding its
+continuance. They have introduced, however, laws and rules which
+infringe sadly its original proportions, and which, in many instances,
+are made the instruments of oppression.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="WOMEN_IN_SAVAGE_LIFE" id="WOMEN_IN_SAVAGE_LIFE"></a>WOMEN IN SAVAGE LIFE.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p>The division of labour between the man and wife in Indian life is not
+so unequal, while they live in the pure hunter state, as many suppose.
+The large part of a hunter's time, which is spent in seeking game,
+leaves the wife in the wigwam, with a great deal of time on her hands;
+for it must be remembered that there is no spinning, weaving, or
+preparing children for school&mdash;no butter or cheese making, or a
+thousand other cares which are inseparable from the agricultural
+state, to occupy her skill and industry. Even the art of the
+seamstress is only practised by the Indian woman on a few things. She
+devotes much of her time to making moccasons and quill-work. Her
+husband's leggins are carefully ornamented with beads; his shot-pouch
+and knife-sheath are worked with quills; the hunting-cap is garnished
+with ribbons; his garters of cloth are adorned with a profusion of
+small white beads, and coloured worsted tassels are prepared for his
+leggins. In the spring, the corn-field is planted by her and the
+youngsters, in a vein of gaiety and frolic. It is done in a few hours,
+and taken care of in the same spirit. It is perfectly voluntary
+labour, and she would not be scolded for omitting it; for all labour
+with Indians is voluntary.&mdash;<i>Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="LANGUAGE_OF_THE_LAW" id="LANGUAGE_OF_THE_LAW"></a>LANGUAGE OF THE LAW.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p>If a man would, according to law, give to another an orange, instead
+of saying, 'I give you that orange,' which one would think would be
+what is called in legal phraseology 'an absolute conveyance of all
+right and title therein,' the phrase would run thus:&mdash;'I give you all
+and singular my estate and interest, right, title, and claim, and
+advantage of and in that orange, with all its rind, skin, juice, pulp,
+and pips, and right and advantages therein, with full power to bite,
+cut, suck, and otherwise eat the same, or give the same away, as fully
+and as effectually as I, the said A. B., am now inclined to bite, cut,
+suck, or otherwise eat the same orange or give the same away, with or
+without its rind, skin, juice, pulp, or pips, anything heretofore or
+hereinafter, or in any other deed or deeds, instrument or instruments,
+of what nature or kind soever, to the contrary in anywise
+notwithstanding;' with much more to the same effect. Such is the
+language of lawyers; and it is gravely held by the most learned men
+among them, that by the omission of any of these words, the right to
+the said orange would not pass to the person for whose use the same
+was intended.&mdash;<i>Newspaper paragraph</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHANCES_OF_LIFE_IN_AMERICA" id="CHANCES_OF_LIFE_IN_AMERICA"></a>CHANCES OF LIFE IN AMERICA.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p>10,268 infants are born on the same day and enter upon life
+simultaneously. Of these, 1243 never reach the anniversary of their
+birth; 9025 commence the second year; but the proportion of deaths
+still continues so great, that at the end of the third only 8183, or
+about four-fifths of the original number, survive. But during the
+fourth year the system seems to acquire more strength, and the number
+of deaths rapidly decreases. It goes on decreasing until twenty-one,
+the commencement of maturity and the period of highest health. 7134
+enter upon the activities and responsibilities of life&mdash;more than
+two-thirds of the original number. Thirty-five comes, the meridian of
+manhood, 6302 have reached it. Twenty years more, and the ranks are
+thinned. Only 4727, or less than half of those who entered life
+fifty-five years ago, are left. And now death comes more frequently.
+Every year the ratio of mortality steadily increases, and at seventy
+there are not 1000 survivors. A scattered few live on to the close of
+the century, and at the age of one hundred and six the drama is ended;
+the last man is dead.&mdash;<i>Albany Journal</i>.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="A_SONG" id="A_SONG"></a>A SONG.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="sc">The</span> little white moon goes climbing<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Over the dusky cloud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kissing its fringes softly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With a love-light, pale as shroud&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where walks this moon to-night, Annie?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over the waters bright, Annie?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Does she smile on your face as you lift it, proud?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God look on thee&mdash;look on thee, Annie!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For I shall look never more!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The little white star stands watching<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Ever beside the moon;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hid in the mists that shroud her,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And hid in her light's mid-noon:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet the star follows all heaven through, Annie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As my soul follows after you, Annie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">At moon-rise and moon-set, late and soon:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, God watch thee, God watch thee, Annie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For I can watch never more!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The purple-black sky folds loving,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Over far sea, far land;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The thunder-clouds, looming eastward,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Like a chain of mountains stand.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Under this July sky, Annie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do you hear waves lapping by, Annie?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Do you walk, with the hills on either hand?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, God love thee, God love thee, Annie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For I love thee evermore!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="LONGEVITY_OF_QUAKERS" id="LONGEVITY_OF_QUAKERS"></a>LONGEVITY OF QUAKERS.</h2>
+
+<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of
+    Contents</a></p>
+
+<p>Quakerism is favourable to <i>longevity</i>, it seems. According to late
+English census returns, the average age attained by members of this
+peaceful sect in Great Britain is fifty-one years, two months, and
+twenty-one days. Half of the population of the country, as is seen by
+the same returns, die before reaching the age of twenty-one, and the
+average duration of human life the world over is but thirty-three
+years; Quakers, therefore, live a third longer than the rest of us.
+The reasons are obvious enough. Quakers are temperate and prudent, are
+seldom in a hurry, and never in a passion. Quakers, in the very midst
+of the week's business&mdash;on Wednesday morning&mdash;retire from the world,
+and spend an hour or two in silent meditation at the meeting-house.
+Quakers are diligent; they help one another, and the fear of want does
+not corrode their minds. The journey of life to them is a walk of
+peaceful meditation. They neither suffer nor enjoy intensity, but
+preserve a composed demeanour always. Is it surprising that their days
+should be long in the land?&mdash;<i>National Intelligencer</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p>Printed and Published by W. and R. <span class="smcap">Chambers</span>, High Street, Edinburgh.
+Also sold by <span class="smcap">W. S. Orr</span>, Amen Corner, London; <span class="smcap">D. N. Chambers</span>, 55 West
+Nile Street, Glasgow; and <span class="smcap">J. M'Glashan</span>, 50 Upper Sackville Street,
+Dublin.&mdash;Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to
+<span class="smcap">Maxwell</span> &amp; Co., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all
+applications respecting their insertion must be made.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459, by Various
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459
+       Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: William Chambers
+        Robert Chambers
+
+Release Date: January 2, 2008 [EBook #24128]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. Shiffer and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                     CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL
+
+  CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
+  INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
+
+
+  No. 459. NEW SERIES.   SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1852.   PRICE 1-1/2_d._
+
+
+
+
+THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD.
+
+
+We all know that there are certain conventional laws by which our
+social doings and seemings are regulated; but what is the power which
+compels the observance of these laws? There is no company police to
+keep people moving on, no fines or other penalties; nobody but the
+very outrageous need fear being turned out of the room; we have every
+one of us strong inclinations and strong will: then, how comes it that
+we get on so smoothly? Why are there no outbreaks of individual
+character? How is it that we seem dovetailed into each other, as if we
+formed a homogeneous mass? What is the influence which keeps up the
+weak and keeps down the strong, and spreads itself like oil upon the
+boiling sea of human passion? We have a notion of our own, that all
+this is the work of an individual of the female sex; and, indeed, even
+the most unconscious and unreflecting would appear to assign to that
+individual her true position and authority, in naming her the Woman of
+the World.
+
+Society could never exist in a state of civilisation without the woman
+of the world. The man of the world has his own department, his own
+_metier_; but She it is who keeps up the general equilibrium. She is a
+calm, quiet, lady-like person, not obtrusive, and not easily put out
+of the way. You do not know by external observation that she is in the
+room; you feel it instinctively. The atmosphere she brings with her is
+peculiar, you cannot tell how. It is neither warm nor chill, neither
+moist nor dry; but it is repressive. You do not move in it with
+natural freedom, although you feel nothing that could be called
+_gene_. Her manner is generally sweet, sometimes even caressing, and
+you feel flattered and elevated as you meet her approving eye. But you
+cannot get into it. There is a glassy surface, beautiful but hard, of
+which you can make nothing, and presently you feel a kind of
+strangeness come over you, as if you were not looking into the eye of
+a creature of your own kind. What you miss is sympathy.
+
+It is to her want of sympathy the woman of the world owes her
+position. The same deficiency is indispensable in the other
+individuals--such as a great monarch, or a great general--who rule the
+fate of mankind; but with this difference, that in them it is partial
+and limited, and in her universal. In them, it bears relation to their
+trade or mission; in her, it is a peculiarity of her general nature.
+She is accused of inhumanity; of sporting with the feelings of those
+about her, and rending, when they interfere with her plans, the
+strings of the heart as ruthlessly as if they were fiddlestrings. But
+all that is nonsense. She does not, it is true, ignore the existence
+of strings and feelings; on the contrary, they are in her eyes a great
+fact, without which she could do nothing. But her theory is, that they
+are merely a superficial net-work surrounding the character, the
+growth of education and other circumstances, and that they may be
+twisted, broken, and fastened anew at pleasure by skilful fingers. No,
+she is not inhumane. She works for others' good and her own greatness.
+Sighs and tears may be the result of her operations; but so are they
+of the operations of the beneficent surgeon. She dislikes giving pain,
+and comforts and sustains the patient to the best of her power; but at
+the most, she knows sighs are but wind, and tears but water, and so
+she does her duty.
+
+Although without sympathy, the woman of the world has great
+sensitiveness. She sits in the room like a spider, with her web
+fitting as closely to the whole area as the carpet; and she feels the
+slightest touch upon the slightest filament. So do the company: not
+understandingly like her, but instinctively and unconsciously, like a
+fly who only knows that somehow or other he is not at freedom. The
+thing that holds him is as soft and glossy and thin and small as silk;
+but even while dallying with its smoothness and pleasantness, a misty,
+indefinite sensation of impending danger creeps over him. Be quiet,
+little fly! Gently--gently: slip away if you can--but no defiance, no
+tugging, no floundering, or you are lost!
+
+A mythic story is told of the woman of the world: how in early life
+she was crossed in love; how she lost faith in feelings that seemed to
+exist exceptionally only in her own solitary bosom; and how a certain
+glassy hardness gathered upon her heart, as she sat waiting and
+waiting for a response to the inner voices she had suffered to burst
+forth--
+
+    The long-lost ventures of the heart,
+    That send no answers back again!
+
+But this is a fable. The woman of the world was never young--not while
+playing with her doll. She grew just as you see her, and will suffer
+no change till the dissolution of the elements of her body.
+Love-passages she has indeed had like other women; but the love was
+all on one side, and that side not hers. It is curious to observe the
+passion thus lavished in vain. It reminds one of the German story of
+the Cave of Mirrors, where a fairy damsel, with beckoning hand and
+beseeching eyes, was reflected from a thousand angles. The pursuing
+lover, endeavouring to clasp his mistress, flung himself from one
+illusory image to another, finding only the sharp, polished,
+glittering glass in his embrace, till faint, breathless, and bleeding,
+he sank upon the ground.
+
+The woman of the world, though a dangerous mistress, is an agreeable
+friend. She is partial to the everyday married lady, when presentable
+in point of dress and manners, and overwhelms her with little
+condescending kindnesses and caresses. This good lady, on her part,
+thinks her patroness a remarkably clever woman; not that she
+understands her, or knows exactly what she is about; but somehow or
+other she is _sure_ she is prodigiously clever. As for the everyday
+young lady, who has a genius for reverence, she reveres her; and these
+two, with their male congeners, are the dress-figures the woman of the
+world places about her rooms like ivory pieces on a chessboard.
+
+This admirable lady is sometimes a mother, and she is devotedly fond
+of her children, in their future. She may be seen gazing in their
+faces by the hour; but the picture that is before her mind's eye is
+the fulfilment of their present promise. An ordinary woman would
+dawdle away her time in admiring their soft eyes, and curly hair, and
+full warm cheeks; but the woman of the world sees the bud grown into
+the expanded flower, and the small cradle is metamorphosed into the
+boudoir by the magic of her maternal love. And verily, she has her
+reward: for death sometimes comes, to wither the bud, and disperse the
+dream in empty air. On such an occasion, her grief, as we may readily
+suppose, is neither deep nor lasting, for its object is twined round
+her imagination, not her heart. She regrets her wasted hopes and
+fruitless speculations; but the baby having never been present in its
+own entity, is now as that which has never been. The unthinking call
+her an unnatural mother, for they make no distinction. They do not
+know that death is with her a perfectly arranged funeral, a marble
+tablet, a darkened room, an attitude of wo, a perfumed handkerchief.
+They do not consider that when she lies down to rest, her eyes, in
+consequence of over-mental exertion, are too heavy with sleep to have
+room for tears. They do not reflect that in the morning she breaks
+into a new consciousness of reality from the clinging dreams of her
+maternal ambition, and not from the small visionary arms, the fragrant
+kiss, the angel whisper of her lost babe. They do not feel that in
+opening upon the light, her eyes part with the fading gleam of gems
+and satin, and kneeling coronets, and red right hands extending
+wedding-rings, and not with a winged and baby form, soaring into the
+light by which it is gradually absorbed, while distant hymns melt and
+die upon her ear.
+
+The woman of the world is sometimes prosperous in her reign over
+society, and sometimes otherwise. Even she submits, although usually
+with sweetness and dignity, to the caprices of fortune. Occasionally,
+the threads of her management break in such a way, that, with all her
+dexterity, she is unable to reunite them: occasionally, the strings
+and feelings are too strong to rend; and occasionally, in rending, the
+whole system falls to pieces. Her daughter elopes, her son marries the
+governess, her husband loses his seat in parliament; but there are
+other daughters to marry, other sons to direct, other honours to win;
+and so this excellent woman runs her busy and meritorious career. But
+years come on at last, although she lingers as long as she can in
+middle life; and, with her usual graceful dignity, she settles down
+into the reward the world bestows on its veterans, an old age of
+cards.
+
+Even now, she sometimes turns round her head to look at the things and
+persons around her, and to exult in the reputation she has earned, and
+the passive influence her name still exercises over society; but, as a
+rule, the kings and queens and knaves take the place of human beings
+with this woman of genius; the deepest arcana of her art are brought
+into play for the odd trick, and her pride and ambition are abundantly
+gratified by the circumvention of a half-crown.
+
+The woman of the world at length dies: and what then? Why, then,
+nothing--nothing but a funeral, a tablet, dust, and oblivion. This is
+reasonable, for, great as she was, she had to do only with the
+external forms of life. Her existence was only a material game, and
+her men and women were only court and common cards; diamonds and
+hearts were alike to her, their value depending on what was trumps.
+She saw keenly and far, but not deeper than the superficial net-work
+of the heart, not higher than the ceiling of the drawing-room. Her
+enjoyments, therefore, were limited in their range; her nature, though
+perfect in its kind, was small and narrow; and her occupation, though
+so interesting to those concerned, was in itself mean and frivolous.
+This is always her misfortune, the misfortune of this envied woman.
+She lives in a material world, blind and deaf to the influences that
+thrill the bosoms of others. No noble thought ever fires her soul, no
+generous sympathy ever melts her heart. Her share of that current of
+human nature which has welled forth from its fountain in the earthly
+paradise is dammed up, and cut off from the general stream that
+overflows the world. None of those minute and invisible ducts connects
+it with the common waters which make one feel instinctively, lovingly,
+yearningly, that he is not alone upon the earth, but a member of the
+great human family. And so, having played her part, she dies, this
+woman of the world, leaving no sign to tell that an immortal spirit
+has passed: nothing above the ground but a tablet, and below, only a
+handful of rotting bones and crumbling dust.
+
+
+
+
+MARIE DE LA TOUR.
+
+
+The basement front of No. 12 Rue St Antoine, a narrow street in Rouen,
+leading from the Place de la Pucelle, was opened by Madame de la Tour,
+in the millinery business, in 1817, and tastefully arranged, so far as
+scant materials permitted the exercise of decorative genius. She was
+the widow of a once flourishing _courtier maritime_ (ship-broker),
+who, in consequence of some unfortunate speculations, had recently
+died in insolvent circumstances. At about the same time, Clement
+Derville, her late husband's confidential clerk, a steady,
+persevering, clever person, took possession of the deceased
+ship-broker's business premises on the quay, the precious savings of
+fifteen years of industrious frugality enabling him to install himself
+in the vacant commercial niche before the considerable connection
+attached to the well-known establishment was broken up and distributed
+amongst rival _courtiers_. Such vicissitudes, frequent in all trading
+communities, excite but a passing interest; and after the customary
+commonplaces commiserative of the fallen fortunes of the still
+youthful widow, and gratulatory good-wishes for the prosperity of the
+_ci-devant_ clerk, the matter gradually faded from the minds of the
+sympathisers, save when the rapidly rising fortunes of Derville, in
+contrast with the daily lowlier ones of Madame de la Tour, suggested
+some tritely sentimental reflection upon the precariousness and
+instability of all mundane things. For a time, it was surmised by some
+of the fair widow's friends, if not by herself, that the considerable
+services Derville had rendered her were prompted by a warmer feeling
+than the ostensible one of respect for the relict of his old and
+liberal employer; and there is no doubt that the gentle, graceful
+manners, the mild, starlit face of Madame de la Tour, had made a deep
+impression upon Derville, although the hope or expectation founded
+thereon vanished with the passing time. Close, money-loving,
+business-absorbed as he might be, Clement Derville was a man
+of vehement impulse and extreme susceptibility of female
+charm--weaknesses over which he had again and again resolved to
+maintain vigilant control, as else fatal obstacles to his hopes of
+realising a large competence, if not a handsome fortune. He succeeded
+in doing so; and as year after year glided away, leaving him richer
+and richer, Madame de la Tour poorer and poorer, as well as less and
+less personally attractive, he grew to marvel that the bent form, the
+clouded eyes, the sorrow-sharpened features of the woman he
+occasionally met hastening along the streets, could be those by which
+he had been once so powerfully agitated and impressed.
+
+He did not, however, form any new attachment; was still a bachelor at
+forty-five; and had for some years almost lost sight of, and
+forgotten, Madame de la Tour, when a communication from Jeanne Favart,
+an old servant who had lived with the De la Tours in the days of their
+prosperity, vividly recalled old and fading memories. She announced
+that Madame de la Tour had been for many weeks confined to her bed by
+illness, and was, moreover, in great pecuniary distress.
+
+'_Diantre_!' exclaimed Derville, a quicker and stronger pulse than
+usual tinging his sallow cheek as he spoke. 'That is a pity. Who,
+then, has been minding the business for her?'
+
+'Her daughter Marie, a gentle, pious child, who seldom goes out except
+to church, and,' added Jeanne, with a keen look in her master's
+countenance, 'the very image of the Madame de la Tour we knew some
+twenty years ago.'
+
+'Ha!' M. Derville was evidently disturbed, but not so much so as to
+forget to ask with some asperity if 'dinner was not ready?'
+
+'In five minutes,' said Jeanne, but still holding the half-opened door
+in her hand. 'They are very, very badly off, monsieur, those
+unfortunate De la Tours,' she persisted. 'A _huissier_ this morning
+seized their furniture and trade-stock for rent, and if the sum is not
+made up by sunset, they will be utterly ruined.'
+
+M. Clement Derville took several hasty turns about the room, and the
+audible play of his fingers amongst the Napoleons in his pockets
+inspired Jeanne with a hope that he was about to draw forth a
+sufficient number for the relief of the cruel necessities of her
+former mistress. She was mistaken. Perhaps the touch of his beloved
+gold stilled for a time the agitation that had momentarily stirred his
+heart.
+
+'It is a pity,' he murmured; and then briskly drawing out his watch,
+added sharply: 'But pray let us have dinner. Do you know that it is
+full seven minutes past the time that it should be served?'
+
+Jeanne disappeared, and M. Derville was very soon seated at table. But
+although the sad tidings he had just heard had not been able to
+effectually loosen his purse-strings, they had at least power utterly
+to destroy his appetite, albeit the _poulet_ was done to a turn.
+Jeanne made no remark on this, as she removed the almost untasted
+meal, nor on the quite as unusual fact, that the wine _carafe_ was
+already half emptied, and her master himself restless, dreamy, and
+preoccupied. Concluding, however, from these symptoms, that a fierce
+struggle between generosity and avarice was going on in M. Derville's
+breast, she quietly determined on bringing an auxiliary to the aid of
+generosity, that would, her woman's instinct taught her, at once
+decide the conflict.
+
+No doubt the prosperous ship-broker _was_ unusually agitated. The old
+woman's news had touched a chord which, though dulled and slackened by
+the heat and dust of seventeen years of busy, anxious life, still
+vibrated strongly, and awakened memories that had long slept in the
+chambers of his brain, especially one pale Madonna face, with its
+soft, tear-trembling eyes that---- '_Ciel_!' he suddenly exclaimed, as
+the door opened and gave to view the very form his fancy had conjured
+up: '_Ciel_! can it be---- Pshaw!' he added, as he fell back into the
+chair from which he had leaped up; 'you must suppose me crazed,
+Mademoiselle--Mademoiselle de la Tour, I am quite certain.'
+
+It was indeed Marie de la Tour whom Jeanne Favart had, with much
+difficulty, persuaded to make a personal appeal to M. Derville. She
+was a good deal agitated, and gladly accepted that gentleman's
+gestured invitation to be seated, and take a glass of wine. Her errand
+was briefly, yet touchingly told, but not apparently listened to by
+Derville, so abstracted and intense was the burning gaze with which he
+regarded the confused and blushing petitioner. Jeanne, however, knew
+whom he recognised in those flushed and interesting features, and had
+no doubt of the successful result of the application.
+
+M. Clement Derville _had_ heard and comprehended what was said, for he
+broke an embarrassing silence of some duration by saying, in a pleased
+and respectful tone: 'Twelve Napoleons, you say, mademoiselle. It is
+nothing: here are twenty. No thanks, I beg of you. I hope to have an
+opportunity of rendering you--of rendering Madame de la Tour, I mean,
+some real and lasting service.'
+
+Poor Marie was profoundly affected by this generosity, and the
+charming blushfulness, the sweet-toned trembling words that expressed
+her modest gratitude, were, it should seem, strangely interpreted by
+the excited ship-broker. The interview was not prolonged, and Marie de
+la Tour hastened with joy-lightened steps to her home.
+
+Four days afterwards, M. Derville called at the Rue St Antoine, only
+to hear that Madame de la Tour had died a few hours previously. He
+seemed much shocked; and after a confused offer of further pecuniary
+assistance, respectfully declined by the weeping daughter, took a
+hurried leave.
+
+There is no question that, from the moment of his first interview with
+her, M. Derville had conceived an ardent passion for Mademoiselle de
+la Tour--so ardent and bewildering as not only to blind him to the
+great disparity of age between himself and her--which he might have
+thought the much greater disparity of fortune in his favour would
+balance and reconcile--but to the very important fact, that Hector
+Bertrand, a young _menuisier_ (carpenter), who had recently commenced
+business on his own account, and whom he so frequently met at the
+charming _modiste's_ shop, was her accepted, affianced lover. An
+_eclaircissement_, accompanied by mortifying circumstances, was not,
+however, long delayed.
+
+It occurred one fine evening in July. M. Derville, in passing through
+the _marche aux fleurs_, had selected a brilliant bouquet for
+presentation to Mademoiselle de la Tour; and never to him had she
+appeared more attractive, more fascinating, than when accepting, with
+hesitating, blushing reluctance, the proffered flowers. She stepped
+with them into the little sitting-room behind the shop; M. Derville
+followed; and the last remnant of discretion and common-sense that had
+hitherto restrained him giving way at once, he burst out with a
+vehement declaration of the passion which was, he said, consuming him,
+accompanied, of course, by the offer of his hand and fortune in
+marriage. Marie de la Tour's first impulse was to laugh in the face of
+a man who, old enough to be her father, addressed her in such terms;
+but one glance at the pale face and burning eyes of the speaker,
+convinced her that levity would be ill-timed--possibly dangerous. Even
+the few civil and serious words of discouragement and refusal with
+which she replied to his ardent protestations, were oil cast upon
+flame. He threw himself at the young girl's feet, and clasped her
+knees in passionate entreaty, at the very moment that Hector Bertrand,
+with one De Beaune, entered the room. Marie de la Tour's exclamation
+of alarm, and effort to disengage her dress from Derville's grasp, in
+order to interpose between him and the new-comers, were simultaneous
+with several heavy blows from Bertrand's cane across the shoulders of
+the kneeling man, who instantly leaped to his feet, and sprang upon
+his assailant with the yell and spring of a madman. Fortunately for
+Bertrand, who was no match in personal strength for the man he had
+assaulted, his friend De Beaune promptly took part in the encounter;
+and after a desperate scuffle, during which Mademoiselle de la Tour's
+remonstrances and entreaties were unheard or disregarded, M. Derville
+was thrust with inexcusable violence into the street.
+
+According to Jeanne Favart, her master reached home with his face all
+bloody and discoloured, his clothes nearly torn from his back, and in
+a state of frenzied excitement. He rushed past her up stairs, shut
+himself into his bedroom, and there remained unseen by any one for
+several days, partially opening the door only to receive food and
+other necessaries from her hands. When he did at last leave his room,
+the impassive calmness of manner habitual to him was quite restored,
+and he wrote a note in answer to one that had been sent by
+Mademoiselle de la Tour, expressive of her extreme regret for what had
+occurred, and enclosing a very respectful apology from Hector
+Bertrand. M. Derville said, that he was grateful for her sympathy and
+kind wishes; and as to M. Bertrand, he frankly accepted his excuses,
+and should think no more of the matter.
+
+This mask of philosophic indifference or resignation was not so
+carefully worn but that it slipped occasionally aside, and revealed
+glimpses of the volcanic passion that raged beneath. Jeanne was not
+for a moment deceived; and Marie de la Tour, the first time she again
+saw him, perceived with woman's intuitive quickness through all his
+assumed frigidity of speech and demeanour, that his sentiments towards
+her, so far from being subdued by the mortifying repulse they had met
+with, were more vehemently passionate than ever! He was a man, she
+felt, to be feared and shunned; and very earnestly did she warn
+Bertrand to avoid meeting, or, at all events, all possible chance of
+collision with his exasperated, and, she was sure, merciless and
+vindictive rival.
+
+Bertrand said he would do so; and kept his promise as long as there
+was no temptation to break it. About six weeks after his encounter
+with M. Derville, he obtained a considerable contract for the
+carpentry work of a large house belonging to a M. Mangier--a
+fantastic, Gothic-looking place, as persons acquainted with Rouen will
+remember, next door but one to Blaise's banking-house. Bertrand had
+but little capital, and he was terribly puzzled for means to purchase
+the requisite materials, of which the principal item was Baltic
+timber. He essayed his credit with a person of the name of Dufour, on
+the quay, and was refused. Two hours afterwards, he again sought the
+merchant, for the purpose of proposing his friend De Beaune as
+security. Dufour and Derville were talking together in front of the
+office; and when they separated on Bertrand's approach, the young man
+fancied that Derville saluted him with unusual friendliness. De
+Beaune's security was declined by the cautious trader; and as Bertrand
+was leaving, Dufour said, half-jestingly no doubt: 'Why don't you
+apply to your friend Derville? He has timber on commission that will
+suit you, I know; and he seemed very friendly just now.' Bertrand made
+no reply, and walked off, thinking probably that he might as well ask
+the statue of the 'Pucelle' for assistance as M. Derville. He was,
+naturally enough, exceedingly put out, and vexed; and unhappily betook
+himself to a neighbouring tavern for 'spirituous' solacement--a very
+rare thing, let me add, for him to do. He remained there till about
+eight o'clock, and by that time was in such a state of confused
+elation from the unusual potations he had imbibed, that Dufour's
+suggestion assumed a sort of drunken likelihood; and he resolved on
+applying--there could not, he thought, be any wonderful harm, if no
+good, in that--to the ship-broker. M. Derville was not at home, and
+the office was closed; but Jeanne Favart, understanding Bertrand to
+say that he had important business to transact with her master--she
+supposed by appointment--shewed him into M. Derville's private
+business-rooms, and left him there. Bertrand seated himself, fell
+asleep after awhile, woke up about ten o'clock considerably sobered,
+and quite alive to the absurd impropriety of the application he had
+tipsily determined on, and was about to leave the place, when M.
+Derville arrived. The ship-broker's surprise and anger at finding
+Hector Bertrand in his house were extreme, and his only reply to the
+intruder's stammering explanation, was a contemptuous order to leave
+the place immediately. Bertrand slunk away sheepishly enough; and
+slowly as he sauntered along, had nearly reached home, when M.
+Derville overtook him.
+
+'One word, Monsieur Bertrand,' said Derville. 'This way, if you
+please.'
+
+Bertrand, greatly surprised, followed the ship-broker to a lane close
+by--a dark, solitary locality, which suggested an unpleasant
+misgiving, very pleasantly relieved by Derville's first words.
+
+'Monsieur Bertrand,' he said, 'I was hasty and ill-tempered just now;
+but I am not a man to cherish malice, and for the sake of--of
+Marie--of Mademoiselle de la Tour, I am disposed to assist you,
+although I should not, as you will easily understand, like to have any
+public or known dealings with you. Seven or eight hundred francs, I
+understood you to say, the timber you required would amount to?'
+
+'Certainly not more than that, monsieur,' Bertrand contrived to
+answer, taken away as his breath nearly was by astonishment.
+
+'Here, then, is a note of the Bank of France for one thousand francs.'
+
+'Monsieur!--monsieur!' gasped the astounded recipient.
+
+'You will repay me,' continued Derville, 'when your contract is
+completed; and you will please to bear strictly in mind, that the
+condition of any future favour of a like kind is, that you keep this
+one scrupulously secret.' He then hurried off, leaving Bertrand in a
+state of utter amazement. This feeling, however, slowly subsided,
+especially after assuring himself, by the aid of his chamber-lamp,
+that the note was a genuine one, and not, as he had half feared, a
+valueless deception. 'This Monsieur Derville,' drowsily murmured
+Bertrand as he ensconced himself in the bed-clothes, 'is a _bon
+enfant_, after all--a generous, magnanimous prince, if ever there was
+one. But then, to be sure, he wishes to do Marie a service by secretly
+assisting her _futur_ on in life. _Sapristie!_ It is quite simple,
+after all, this generosity; for undoubtedly Marie is the most
+charming--charm--cha'----
+
+Hector Bertrand went to Dufour's timber-yard at about noon the next
+day, selected what he required, and pompously tendered the
+thousand-franc note in payment. 'Whe-e-e-e-w!' whistled Dufour, 'the
+deuce!' at the same time looking with keen scrutiny in his customer's
+face.
+
+'I received it from Monsieur Mangier in advance,' said Hector in hasty
+reply to that look, blurting out in some degree inadvertently the
+assertion which he had been thinking would be the most feasible
+solution of his sudden riches, since he had been so peremptorily
+forbidden to mention M. Derville's name.
+
+'It is very generous of Monsieur Mangier,' said Dufour; 'and he is not
+famous for that virtue either. But let us go to Blaise's bank: I have
+not sufficient change in the house, and I daresay we shall get silver
+for it there.'
+
+As often happens in France, a daughter of the banker was the cashier
+of the establishment; and it was with an accent of womanly
+commiseration that she said, after minutely examining the note: 'From
+whom, Monsieur Bertrand, did you obtain possession of this note?'
+
+Bertrand hesitated. A vague feeling of alarm was beating at his heart,
+and he confusedly bethought him, that it might be better not to repeat
+the falsehood he had told M. Dufour. Before, however, he could decide
+what to say, Dufour answered for him: 'He _says_ from Monsieur
+Mangier, just by.'
+
+'Strange!' said Mademoiselle Blaise. 'A clerk of Monsieur Derville's
+has been taken into custody this very morning on suspicion of having
+stolen this very note.'
+
+Poor Bertrand! He felt as if seized with vertigo; and a stunned,
+chaotic sense of mortal peril shot through his brain, as Marie's
+solemn warning with respect to Derville rose up like a spectre before
+him.
+
+'I have heard of that circumstance,' said Dufour. And then, as
+Bertrand did not, or could not speak, he added: 'You had better,
+perhaps, mademoiselle, send for Monsieur Derville.'
+
+This proposition elicited a wild, desperate cry from the bewildered
+young man, who rushed distractedly out of the banking-house, and
+hastened with frantic speed towards the Rue St Antoine--for the moment
+unpursued.
+
+Half an hour afterwards, Dufour and a bank-clerk arrived at
+Mademoiselle de la Tour's. They found Bertrand and Marie together, and
+both in a state of high nervous excitement. 'Monsieur Derville,' said
+the clerk, 'is now at the bank; and Monsieur Blaise requests your
+presence there, so that whatever misapprehension exists may be cleared
+up without the intervention of the agents of the public force.'
+
+'And pray, monsieur,' said Marie, in a much firmer tone than, from her
+pale aspect, one would have expected, 'what does Monsieur Derville
+himself say of this strange affair?'
+
+'That the note in question, mademoiselle, must have been stolen from
+his desk last evening. He was absent from home from half-past seven
+till ten, and unfortunately left the key in the lock.'
+
+'I was sure he would say so,' gasped Bertrand. 'He is a demon, and I
+am lost.'
+
+A bright, almost disdainful expression shone in Marie's fine eyes. 'Go
+with these gentlemen, Hector,' she said; 'I will follow almost
+immediately; and remember'---- What else she said was delivered in a
+quick, low whisper; and the only words she permitted to be heard were:
+'Pas un mot, si tu m'aime' (Not a word, if thou lovest me).
+
+Bertrand found Messieurs Derville, Blaise, and Mangier in a private
+room; and he remarked, with a nervous shudder, that two gendarmes were
+stationed in the passage. Derville, though very pale, sustained
+Bertrand's glance of rage and astonishment without flinching. It was
+plain that he had steeled himself to carry through the diabolical
+device his revenge had planned, and the fluttering hope with which
+Marie had inspired Bertrand died within him. Derville repeated slowly
+and firmly what the clerk had previously stated; adding, that no one
+save Bertrand, Jeanne Favart, and the clerk whom he first suspected,
+had been in the room after he left it. The note now produced was the
+one that had been stolen, and was safe in his desk at half-past seven
+the previous evening. M. Mangier said: 'The assertion of Bertrand,
+that I advanced him this note, or any other, is entirely false.'
+
+'What have you to say in reply to these grave suspicions?' said M.
+Blaise. 'Your father was an honest man; and you, I hear, have hitherto
+borne an irreproachable character,' he added, on finding that the
+accused did not speak. 'Explain to us, then, how you came into
+possession of this note; if you do not, and satisfactorily--though,
+after what we have heard, that seems scarcely possible--we have no
+alternative but to give you into custody.'
+
+'I have nothing to say at present--nothing,' muttered Bertrand, whose
+impatient furtive looks were every instant turned towards the door.
+
+'Nothing to say!' exclaimed the banker; 'why, this is a tacit
+admission of guilt. We had better call in the gendarmes at once.'
+
+'I think,' said Dufour, 'the young man's refusal to speak is owing to
+the entreaties of Mademoiselle de la Tour, whom we overheard implore
+him, for her sake, or as he loved her, not to say a word.'
+
+'What do you say?' exclaimed Derville, with quick interrogation, 'for
+the sake of Mademoiselle de la Tour! Bah! you could not have heard
+aright.'
+
+'Pardon, monsieur,' said the clerk who had accompanied Dufour: 'I also
+distinctly heard her so express herself--but here is the lady
+herself.'
+
+The entrance of Marie, accompanied by Jeanne Favart, greatly surprised
+and startled M. Derville; he glanced sharply in her face, but unable
+to encounter the indignant expression he met there, quickly averted
+his look, whilst a hot flush glowed perceptibly out of his pale
+features. At her request, seconded by M. Blaise, Derville repeated his
+previous story; but his voice had lost its firmness, his manner its
+cold impassibility.
+
+'I wish Monsieur Derville would look me in the face,' said Marie, when
+Derville had ceased speaking. 'I am here as a suppliant to him for
+mercy.'
+
+'A suppliant for mercy!' murmured Derville, partially confronting her.
+
+'Yes; if only for the sake of the orphan daughter of the Monsieur de
+la Tour who first helped you on in life, and for whom you not long
+since professed regard.'
+
+Derville seemed to recover his firmness at these words: 'No,' he said;
+'not even for your sake, Marie, will I consent to the escape of such a
+daring criminal from justice.'
+
+'If that be your final resolve, monsieur,' continued Marie, with
+kindling, impressive earnestness, 'it becomes necessary that, at
+whatever sacrifice, the true criminal--whom assuredly Hector Bertrand
+is not--should be denounced.'
+
+Various exclamations of surprise and interest greeted these words, and
+the agitation of Derville was again plainly visible.
+
+'You have been surprised, messieurs,' she went on, 'at Hector's
+refusal to afford any explanation as to how he became possessed of the
+purloined note. You will presently comprehend the generous motive of
+that silence. Monsieur Derville has said, that he left the note safe
+in his desk at half-past seven last evening. Hector, it is recognised,
+did not enter the house till nearly an hour afterwards; and now,
+Jeanne Favart will inform you _who_ it was that called on her in the
+interim, and remained in the room where the desk was placed for
+upwards of a quarter of an hour, and part of that time alone.'
+
+As the young girl spoke, Derville's dilated gaze rested with
+fascinated intensity upon her excited countenance, and he hardly
+seemed to breathe.
+
+'It was you, mademoiselle,' said Jeanne, 'who called on me, and
+remained as you describe.'
+
+A fierce exclamation partially escaped Derville, forcibly suppressed
+as Marie resumed: 'Yes; and now, messieurs, hear me solemnly declare,
+that as truly as the note was stolen, _I_, not Hector, was the thief.'
+
+''Tis false!' shrieked Derville, surprised out of all self-possession;
+'a lie! It was not then the note was taken; not till--not till'----
+
+'Not till when, Monsieur Derville?' said the excited girl, stepping
+close to the shrinking, guilty man, and still holding him with her
+flashing, triumphant eyes, as she placed her hand upon his shoulder;
+'not till _when_ was the note taken from the desk, monsieur?'
+
+He did not, could not reply, and presently sank, utterly subdued,
+nerveless, panic-stricken, into a chair, with his white face buried in
+his hands.
+
+'This is indeed a painful affair,' said M. Blaise, after an expectant
+silence of some minutes, 'if it be, as this young person appeared to
+admit; and almost equally so, Monsieur Derville, if, as I more than
+suspect, the conclusion indicated by the expression that has escaped
+you should be the true one.'
+
+The banker's voice appeared to break the spell that enchained the
+faculties of Derville. He rose up, encountered the stern looks of the
+men by one as fierce as theirs, and said hoarsely: 'I withdraw the
+accusation! The young woman's story is a fabrication. I--I lent, gave
+the fellow the note myself.'
+
+A storm of execration--'_Coquin! voleur! scelerat!_' burst forth at
+this confession, received by Derville with a defiant scowl, as he
+stalked out of the apartment.
+
+I do not know that any law-proceedings were afterwards taken against
+him for defamation of character. Hector kept the note, as indeed he
+had a good right to do, and Monsieur and Madams Bertrand are still
+prosperous and respected inhabitants of Rouen, from which city
+Derville disappeared very soon after the incidents just related.
+
+
+
+
+CHEAP MINOR RAILWAYS.
+
+
+'On the day that our preamble was proved, we had all a famous dinner
+at three guineas a head--never saw such a splendid set-out in my life!
+each of us had a printed bill of fare laid beside his plate; and I
+brought it home as quite a curiosity in the way of eating!' Such was
+the account lately given us by a railway projector of that memorable
+year of frenzy, 1845. A party of committee-men, agents, engineers, and
+solicitors, had, in their exuberance of cash, dined at a cost of some
+sixty guineas--a trifle added to the general bill of charges, and of
+course not worth thinking of by the shareholders.
+
+These days of dining at three guineas a head for the good of railway
+undertakings are pretty well gone; and agents and counsel may well
+sigh over the recollection of doings probably never to return.
+
+'The truth is, we were all mad in those times,' added the individual
+who owned so candidly to the three-guinea dinner. And this is the only
+feasible way of accounting for the wild speculations of seven years
+ago. There was a universal craze. All hastened to be rich on the
+convenient principle of overreaching their neighbours. There was
+robbery throughout. Engineers, landholders, law-agents, and jobbers,
+pocketed their respective booties, and it is needless to say who were
+left to suffer.
+
+Looking at the catastrophe, the subject of railway mismanagement is
+somewhat too serious for a joke, and we have only drawn attention for
+an instant to the errors of the past in order to draw a warning for
+the future. It must ever be lamented that the introduction of so
+stupendous and useful a thing as locomotion by rail, should have
+become the occasion of such widespread cupidity and folly; for
+scarcely ever had science offered a more gracious boon to mankind. It
+is charitable to think that the foundation of the great error that was
+committed, lay in a miscalculation as to the relation between
+expenditure and returns. We can suppose that there was a certain faith
+in the potency of money. To spend so much, was to bring back so much;
+and it became an agreeable delusion, that the more was spent, the
+greater was to be the revenue. Unfortunately, it does not seem to have
+occurred to any one of the parties concerned, that all depends on how
+money is spent. There are tradesmen, we imagine, who know to their
+cost, that it is quite within the bounds of possibility to have the
+whole of their profits swept away by rent and taxes. Curious, that
+this plain and unpleasant and very possible result did not dawn on the
+minds of the great railway interests. And yet, how grave and
+calculating the mighty dons of the new system of locomotion--men who
+passed themselves off as up to anything!
+
+Wonderfully acute secretaries; highly-polished chairmen; directors
+disdainful of ordinary ways of transacting business. A mystery made of
+the most common-place affairs! We may be thankful that the world has
+at last seen through these pretenders to superhuman sagacity. With but
+remarkably few exceptions, the great railway men of the time have
+committed the grossest blunders; and the stupidest blunder of all, has
+been the confounding of proper and improper expenditure; just as if a
+shopkeeper were to fall into the unhappy error of imagining that his
+returns were to be in the ratio, not of the business he was to do, but
+of his private and unauthorised expenses.
+
+The instructive fact gathered from railway experience is, that there
+is an expenditure which _pays_, and an expenditure that is totally
+wasteful. Directors have made the discovery, that costly litigation,
+costly and fine stations, fine porticos and pillars, fine bridges, and
+finery in various other things, contribute really nothing to returns,
+but, on the contrary, hang a dead weight on the concern. No doubt,
+fine architecture is a good and proper thing in itself; but a railway
+company is not instituted for the purpose of embellishing towns with
+classic buildings. Its function is to carry people from one place to
+another on reasonable terms, with a due regard to the welfare of those
+who undertake the transaction. How carriages may be run well and
+cheaply, yet profitably, is the sole question for determination; and
+everything else is either subordinate or positively useless. A
+suitable degree of knowledge on these points would, we think, tend
+materially to restore confidence in railway property. Could there be
+anything more cheering than the well-ascertained fact, that _no
+railway has ever failed for want of traffic_? In every instance, the
+traffic would have yielded an ample remuneration to the shareholders,
+had there been no extravagant expenditure. Had the outlays been
+confined to paying for the land required, the making of the line, the
+laying down of rails, the buying locomotives and carriages, and
+working the same, all would have gone on splendidly; and eight, ten,
+twenty, and even a higher per cent., would in many instances have been
+realised. At the present moment, the lines that are paying best are
+not those on which there is the greatest amount of traffic, but those
+on which there was the most prudent expenditure. In order to judge
+whether any proposed railway will pay, it is only necessary to inquire
+at what cost per mile, all expenses included, it is to be produced. If
+the charge be anything under L.5000 per mile, there is a certainty of
+its doing well, even if the line be carried through a poorly-populated
+district; and up to L.20,000 per mile is allowable in great
+trunk-thoroughfares; but when the outlay reaches L.50,000 or L.100,000
+per mile, as it has done in some instances, scarcely any amount of
+traffic will be remunerative. In a variety of cases, the expenditure
+per mile has been so enormous, that remunerative traffic becomes a
+physical impossibility. In plain terms, if the whole of these lines,
+from end to end, were covered with loaded carriages from morning to
+night, and night to morning, without intermission of a single moment,
+they would still be carried on at a loss! Gold may be bought too
+dearly, and so may railways.
+
+As there seems to be an appearance of a revival in railway
+undertakings, it will be of the greatest importance to keep these
+principles in view; and we are glad to observe that, taking lessons
+from the past, the promoters of railway schemes are confining their
+attention mainly to plans of a simple and economical class. Hitherto,
+railways have, for the most part, been adapted to leading
+thoroughfares, by which certain districts have been overcrowded with
+lines, leaving others destitute. Branch single lines of rail appear,
+therefore, to be particularly desirable for these forgotten
+localities. These branch-lines may prove exceedingly serviceable, not
+only as regards the ordinary demands of trade and agriculture, but
+those of social convenience. Among the prominent needs of our time, is
+ready access for the toiling multitudes to places rendered interesting
+by physical beauty and romantic association--fit objects for holiday
+excursions. The _excursion train_, suddenly discharging its hundreds
+of strangers at some antique town or castle, or in the neighbourhood
+of some lovely natural scenery, is one of the wonders of the day--and
+one, we think, of truly good omen, considering the importance that
+seems to be connected with the innocent amusements of the people. We
+rejoice in every movement which tends to increase the number of places
+to which these holiday-parties may resort, as we thoroughly believe,
+that the more of them we have, our people will be the more virtuous,
+refined, and happy.
+
+We lately had much pleasure in examining and learning some particulars
+of a short branch-railway which has added the ancient university city
+of St Andrews, with its many curious objects, to the number of those
+places which may become the termini of excursion trains. We find from
+Lord Jeffrey's Life, that in this town, fifty years ago, only one
+newspaper was received; a number (if it can be called a number) which
+we are assured, on the best authority, is now increased to _fifteen
+hundred per week_! Parallel with this fact, is that of its having, ten
+years ago, a single coach _per diem_ to Edinburgh, carrying six or
+seven persons, while now it has three trains each day, transporting
+their scores, not merely to the capital, but to Perth and Dundee
+besides. Conceiving that there is a value in such circumstances on
+account of the light which they throw on the progress of the country,
+we shall enter into a few particulars.
+
+The St Andrews Railway is a branch of the Edinburgh, Perth, and
+Dundee, and extends somewhat less than five miles. Formed with a
+single line only, over ground presenting scarcely any engineering
+difficulties, and with favour rather than opposition from the
+proprietors of the land, it has cost only L.25,000, or about L.5000
+per mile. The main line agrees to work it, and before receiving
+payment, to allow the shareholders 4-1/2 per cent. for their money;
+all further profits to be divided between the two companies, after
+paying working expenses. It was opened on the 1st July last, and
+hitherto the appearances of success have been most remarkable. On an
+assumption that the traffic inwards was equal to that outwards, the
+receipts for passengers during each of the first six weeks averaged
+L.52, 14s. This was exclusive of excursion trains, of which one
+carried 500 persons, another between 500 and 600, a third 1500; and so
+on. It was also exclusive of goods and mineral traffic, which are
+expected to give at least L.1000 per annum. The result is, that this
+railway appears likely to draw not much under L.4000 a year--a sum
+sufficient, after expenses are paid, to yield what would at almost any
+time be a high rate of percentage to the shareholders, while, in the
+present state of the money-market, it will be an unusually ample
+remuneration.
+
+We have instanced this economically-constructed line, because we have
+seen it in operation, and can place reliance on the facts connected
+with its financial affairs. Other lines, however, more or less
+advanced, seem to have prospects equally hopeful. A similar branch is
+about to be made from the same main line to the town of Leven. One is
+projected to branch from the Eskbank station of the North British line
+to Peebles--a pretty town on the Tweed, which, up till the present
+time, has been secluded from general intercourse, and will now, for
+the first time, have its beautiful environs laid open to public
+observation. The entire cost of this line, rather more than 18 miles
+in length, is to be only L.70,000, or about L.3600 per mile. Another
+branch from the same line is projected to go to Lauder. One, of the
+same cheap class, is to connect Aberdeen with Banchory on the Dee.
+Another will be constructed between Blairgowrie and a point on the
+Scottish Midland. For such adventures, St Andrews is a model.[1]
+
+The time is probably not far distant when single branch-lines will
+radiate over the country, developing local resources, as well as
+uniting the whole people in friendly and profitable intercourse. To be
+done rightly, however, rational foresight and the plain principles of
+commerce must inspire the projectors. It will be necessary to avoid
+all parliamentary contests; to do nothing without a general movement
+of the district in favour of the line, so that no parties may be
+sacrificed for the benefit of others; to hold rigorously to an
+economical principle of construction; to launch out into no
+extravagant plans in connection with the main object contemplated.
+These being attended to, we can imagine that, in a few years hence,
+there will be a set of modest little railways which will be the envy
+of all the great lines, simply because they enjoy the distinction
+denied to their grander brethren, of _paying_, and which will not only
+serve important purposes in the industrial economy of the country, but
+vastly promote the moral wellbeing of the community, in furnishing a
+means of harmless amusement to those classes whose lot it is to spend
+most of their days in confinement and toil.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Since the materials of this brief paper were obtained, another
+short line has been opened, extending between Elgin and Lossie-mouth.
+It is said to have also enjoyed in its first few weeks an amount of
+traffic far beyond the calculations of the shareholders.
+
+
+
+
+THE HUMOUR OF SOUTHEY.
+
+
+Some of the critics of 'Robert the Rhymer, who lived at the lakes,'
+seem to be of opinion, that his 'humour' is to be classed with such
+nonentities as the philosopher's stone, pigeon's milk, and other
+apocryphal myths and unknown quantities. In analysing the character of
+his intellect, they would assign to the 'humorous' attribute some such
+place as Van Troil did to the snaky tribe in his work on Iceland,
+wherein the title of chapter xv. runs thus: 'Concerning Snakes in
+Iceland' and the chapter itself thus: 'There are no snakes in
+Iceland.' Accordingly, were they to have the composition of this
+article, they would abbreviate it to the one terse sentence: 'Robert
+Southey had no humour.' Now, we have no inclination to claim for the
+Keswick bard any prodigious or pre-eminent powers of fun, or to give
+him place beside the rollicking jesters and genial merry-makers, whose
+humour gives English literature a distinctive character among the
+nations. But that he is so void of the comic faculty as certain potent
+authorities allege, we persistently doubt. Mr Macaulay affirms that
+Southey may be always read with pleasure, except when he tries to be
+droll; that a more insufferable jester never existed; and that, often
+as he attempts to be humorous, he in no single occasion has succeeded
+further than to be quaintly and flippantly dull. Another reviewer
+warned the author of the _Doctor_, that there is no greater mistake
+than that which a grave person falls into, when he fancies himself
+humorous; adding, as a consolatory corollary to this proposition, that
+unquestionably the doctor himself was in this predicament. But Southey
+was not so rigorously grave a person as his graver writings might seem
+to imply. 'I am quite as noisy as ever I was,' he writes to an old
+Oxford chum, when in sober manhood. 'Oh, dear Lightfoot, what a
+blessing it is to have a boy's heart! it is as great a blessing in
+carrying one through this world, as to have a child's spirit will in
+fitting us for the next.' On account of this boyish-heartedness, he is
+compared by Justice Talfourd to Charles Lamb himself: 'In a certain
+primness of style, bounding in the rich humour which overflowed it,
+they were nearly akin; both alike reverenced childhood, and both had
+preserved its best attributes unspotted from the world.' In the
+fifty-fifth year of his age, he characterised himself as a man
+
+                ----by nature merry,
+    Somewhat Tom-foolish, and comical, very;
+    Who has gone through the world, not unmindful of pelf,
+    Upon easy terms, thank Heaven, with himself,
+    Along bypaths, and in pleasant ways,
+    Caring as little for censure as praise;
+    Having some friends, whom he loves dearly,
+    And no lack of foes, whom he laughs at sincerely;
+    And never for great, nor for little things,
+    Has he fretted his guts[2] to fiddle-strings.
+    He might have made them by such folly
+    Most musical, most melancholy.
+
+No one can dip into the _Doctor_ without being convinced of this
+buoyancy of spirit, quickness of fancy, and blitheness of heart. It
+even vents its exuberance in bubbles of levity and elaborate trifling,
+so that all but the _very_ light-hearted are fain to say: Something
+too much of this. Compared with our standard humorists--the peerage,
+or Upper House, who sit sublimely aloft, like 'Jove in his chair, of
+the sky my lord mayor'--Southey may be but a dull commoner, one of the
+third or fourth estate. But for all that, he has a comfortable fund of
+the _vis comica_, upon which he rubs along pleasantly enough,
+hospitably entertaining not a few congenial spirits who can put up
+with him as they find him, relish his simple and often racy fare, and
+enjoy a decent quantum of jokes of his own growing, without pining
+after the brilliant banquets of comedy spread by opulent barons of the
+realm.
+
+To support this apology for the worthy doctor by plenary proof, would
+involve a larger expenditure of space and letter-press than befits the
+economy of a discreet hebdomadal journal. We can but allude, and hint,
+and suggest, and illustrate our position in an 'off-at-a-tangent' sort
+of way. Look, for instance, at his ingenious quaintness in the matter
+of _onomatology_. What a name, he would say, is Lamb for a soldier,
+Joy for an undertaker, Rich for a pauper, or Noble for a tailor; Big
+for a lean or little person, and Small for one who is broad in the
+rear and abdominous in the van; Short for a fellow six feet without
+his shoes, or Long for him whose high heels barely elevate him to the
+height of five; Sweet for one who has either a vinegar face, or a foxy
+complexion; Younghusband for an old bachelor; Merryweather for any one
+in November or February, a black spring, a cold summer, or a wet
+autumn; Goodenough for a person no better than he should be; Toogood
+for _any_ human creature; and Best for a subject who is perhaps too
+bad to be endured. Amusing, too, are the doctor's reasons for using
+the customary _alias_ of female Christian names--never calling any
+woman Mary, for example, though _Mare_, being the sea, was, he said,
+too emblematic of the sex; but using a synonyme of better omen, and
+Molly therefore was to be preferred as being soft. 'If he accosted a
+vixen of that name in her worst mood, he _mollified_ her. Martha he
+called Patty, because it came pat to the tongue. Dorothy remained
+Dorothy, because it was neither fitting that women should be made
+Dolls nor Idols. Susan with him was always Sue, because women were to
+be sued; and Winifred Winny, because they were to be won.' Or refer to
+that pleasant bit of erudite trifling upon the habits of rats,
+beginning with the remark, that wheresoever Man goes Rat follows or
+accompanies him, town or country being equally agreeable to him;
+entering upon your house as a tenant-at-will--his own, not
+yours--working out for himself a covered-way in your walls, ascending
+by it from one storey to another, and leaving you the larger
+apartments, while he takes possession of the space between floor and
+ceiling, as an _entresol_ for himself. 'There he has his parties, and
+his revels, and his gallopades--merry ones they are--when you would be
+asleep, if it were not for the spirit with which the youth and belles
+of Rat-land keep up the ball over your head. And you are more
+fortunate than most of your neighbours, if he does not prepare for
+himself a mausoleum behind your chimney-piece or under your
+hearthstone, retire into it when he is about to die, and very soon
+afford you full proof that though he may have lived like a hermit, his
+relics are not in the odour of sanctity. You have then the additional
+comfort of knowing, that the spot so appropriated will thenceforth be
+used as a common cemetery or a family-vault.' In the same vein, homage
+is paid to Rat's imitation of human enterprise: shewing how, when the
+adventurous merchant ships a cargo for some foreign port, Rat goes
+with it; how, when Great Britain plants a colony at the antipodes, Rat
+takes the opportunity of colonising also; how, when ships are sent out
+on a voyage of discovery, Rat embarks as a volunteer; doubling the
+stormy Cape with Diaz, arriving at Malabar with Gama, discovering the
+New World with Columbus, and taking possession of it at the same time,
+and circumnavigating the globe with Magellan, and Drake, and Cook.
+
+Few that have once read will forget the Doctor's philological
+contributions towards an amended system of English orthography.
+Assuming the propriety of discarding all reference to the etymology of
+words, when engaged in spelling them, and desirous, as a philological
+reformer, to establish a truly British language, he proposes
+introducing a distinction of genders, in which the language has
+hitherto been defective. Thus, in anglicising the orthography of
+_chemise_, he resolves that foreign substantive into the home-grown
+neologisms, masculine and feminine, of Hemise and Shemise. Again, in
+letter-writing, every person, he remarks, is aware that male and
+female letters have a distinct sexual character; they should,
+therefore, be generally distinguished thus--Hepistle and Shepistle.
+And as there is the same marked difference in the writing of the two
+sexes, he proposes Penmanship and Penwomanship. Erroneous opinions in
+religion being promulgated in this country by women as well as men,
+the teachers of such false doctrines he would divide into Heresiarchs
+and Sheresiarchs. That troublesome affection of the diaphragm, which
+every person has experienced, is, upon the same principle, to be
+called, according to the sex of the patient, Hecups and Shecups;
+which, upon the above principle of making our language truly British,
+is better than the more classical form of _Hicc_ups and _Hoe_ccups;
+and then in its objective use we have Hiscups and Hercups; and in like
+manner Histerics should be altered into Herterics, the complaint never
+being masculine.
+
+None but a 'humorist' would have announced the decease of a cat in
+such mingled terms and tones of jest and earnest as the
+following:--'Alas! Grosvenor,' writes Southey to his friend Mr Bedford
+(1823), 'this day poor old Rumpel was found dead, after as long and
+happy a life as cat could wish for, if cats form wishes on that
+subject. His full titles were: "The Most Noble the Archduke
+Rumpelstiltzchen, Earl Tomlemagne,[3] Baron Raticide, Waowhler and
+Skaratch." There should be a court mourning in Catland; and if the
+Dragon [a cat of Mr Bedford's] wear a black ribbon round his neck, or
+a band of crape _a la militaire_ round one of the fore-paws, it will
+be but a becoming mark of respect.... I believe we are, each and all,
+servants included, more sorry for this loss than any of us would like
+to confess. I should not have written to you at present had it not
+been to notify this event.' The notification of such events, in print
+too, appears to some thinkers _too_ absurd. Others find a special
+interest in these 'trifles light as air,' because presenting
+'confirmation strong' of the kindly nature of the man, taking no
+unamiable or affected part in the presentment of _Every Man in His
+Humour_. His correspondence is, indeed, rich in traits of quiet
+humour, if by that word we understand a 'humane influence, softening
+with mirth the ragged inequalities of existence'--the very 'juice of
+the mind oozing from the brain, and enriching and fertilising wherever
+it falls'--and seldom far removed from its kindred spirit, pathos,
+with which, however, it is _not_ too closely akin to marry; for pathos
+is bound up in mysterious ties with humour--bone of its bone, and
+flesh of its flesh.
+
+Nor can we assent to the assertion, that in his ballads, metrical
+tales, and rhyming _jeux-d'esprit_, Southey's essay to be comic
+results in merely 'quaint and flippant dulness.' Smartly enough he
+tells the story of the Well of St Keyne, whereof the legend is, that
+if the husband manage to secure a draught before his good dame, 'a
+happy man henceforth is he, for he shall be master for life.' But if
+the wife should drink of it first--'God help the husband _then_!' The
+traveller to whom a Cornishman narrates the tradition, compliments him
+with the assumption that _he_ has profited by it in his matrimonial
+experience:--
+
+    'You drank of the well, I warrant, betimes,'
+      He to the Cornishman said;
+    But the Cornishman smiled as the stranger spake,
+      And sheepishly shook his head.
+
+    'I hastened as soon as the wedding was done,
+      And left my wife in the porch;
+    But, i' faith, she had been wiser than me,
+      For she took a bottle to church.'
+
+And with all their extravagances of expression and questionable taste,
+the numerous stories which Southey delighted to versify on themes
+demoniac and diabolical, from the _Devil's Walk_ to the _True Ballad
+of St Antidius_, are fraught with farcical import, and have an
+individual ludicrousness all their own. That he could succeed
+tolerably in the mock-heroic vein, may be seen in his parody on
+Pindar's _ariston men hydor_, entitled _Gooseberry Pie_, and in some
+of the occasional pieces called _Nondescripts_. Nor do we know any one
+of superior ingenuity in that overwhelming profusion of epithets and
+crowded creation of rhymes, which so tickle the ear and the fancy in
+some of his verses, and of which we have specimens almost unrivalled
+in the celebrated description of the cataract of Lodore, and the
+vivaciously ridiculous chronicle of Napoleon's march to Moscow.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] Southey was no purist in his phraseology at times. The not very
+refined monosyllable in the text may, however, be tolerated as having
+a technical relation to the fiddle-strings by hypothesis.
+
+[3] This patrician Bawdrons is not forgotten in Southey's verse;
+thus--
+
+    Our good old cat, Earl Tomlemagne,
+      Is sometimes seen to play,
+    Even like a kitten at its sport,
+      Upon a warm spring-day.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TRACKS OF ANCIENT ANIMALS IN SANDSTONE.
+
+
+Many of our readers must have heard of the interest excited a few
+years ago by the discovery, that certain marks on the surface of slabs
+of sandstone, raised from a quarry in Dumfriesshire, were the
+memorials of extinct races of animals. The amiable and intelligent Dr
+Duncan, minister of Ruthwell, who had conferred on society the
+blessing of savings-banks for the industrious poor, was the first to
+describe to the world these singular chronicles of ancient life. The
+subject was afterwards brought forward in a more popular style by Dr
+Buckland, in his lively book, the Bridgewater Treatise on Geology.
+Since then, examples of similar markings have been found in several
+other parts of Europe, and a still greater number in America.
+
+Dumfriesshire is still the principal locality of these curious objects
+in our island; and they are found not only in the original spot--the
+quarry of Corncockle Muir, but in another quarry at Craigs, near the
+town of Dumfries. Ample collections of them have been made by Sir
+William Jardine, the famed naturalist, who happens to be proprietor of
+Corncockle Quarry, and by Mr Robert Harkness of Dumfries, a young
+geologist, who seems destined to do not a little for the illustration
+of this and kindred subjects. Meanwhile, Sir William Jardine has
+published an elegant book, containing a series of drawings, in which
+the slabs of Corncockle are truthfully represented.[4]
+
+The Annandale footmarks are impressed on slabs of the New Red
+Sandstone--a formation not long subsequent to the coal, and remarkable
+for its comparative deficiency of fossils, as if there had been
+something in its constitution unfavourable to the preservation of
+animal remains. It is curious to find that, while this is the case, it
+has been favourable to the preservation of what appears at first sight
+a much more accidental and shadowy memorial of life--the mere
+impression which an animal makes on a soft substance with its foot.
+Yet such fully appears to be the fact. The sandstone slabs of
+Corncockle, lying in their original place with a dip of about 33
+degrees to the westward, and separating with great cleanness and
+smoothness, present impressions of such liveliness, that there is no
+possibility of doubt as to their being animal foot-tracks, and those
+of the tortoise family. A thin layer of unctuous clay between the beds
+has proved favourable to their separation; and it is upon this
+intervening substance that the marks are best preserved. Slab after
+slab is raised from the quarry--sometimes a foot thick, sometimes only
+a few inches--and upon almost every one of them are impressions found.
+What is very remarkable, the tracks or series of footprints pass,
+almost without exception, in a direction from west to east, or upwards
+against the dip of the strata. It is surmised that the strata were
+part of a beach, inclining, however, at a much lower angle, from which
+the tide receded in a westerly direction. The animals, walking down
+from the land at recess of tide, passed over sand too soft to retain
+the impressions they left upon it; but when they subsequently returned
+to land, the beach had undergone a certain degree of hardening
+sufficient to receive and retain impressions, 'though these,' says Sir
+William, 'gradually grow fainter and less distinct as they reach the
+top of the beds, which would be the margin of drier sands nearer the
+land.' He adds: 'In several instances, the tracks on one slab which we
+consider to have been impressed at the same time, are numerous, and
+left by different animals travelling together. They have walked
+generally in a straight line, but sometimes turn and wind in several
+directions. This is the case in a large extent of surface, where we
+have tracks of above thirty feet in length uncovered, and where one
+animal had crossed the path of a neighbour of a different species. The
+tracks of two animals are also met with, as if they had run side by
+aide.'
+
+With regard to the nature of the evidence in question, Dr Buckland has
+very justly remarked, that we are accustomed to it in our ordinary
+life. 'The thief is identified by the impression which his shoe has
+made near the scene of his depredations. The American savage not only
+identifies the elk and bison by the impression of their hoofs, but
+ascertains also the time that has elapsed since the animal had passed.
+From the camel's track upon the sand, the Arab can determine whether
+it was heavily or lightly laden, or whether it was lame.' When,
+therefore, we see upon surfaces which we know to have been laid down
+in a soft state, in a remote era of the world's history, clear
+impressions like those made by tortoises of our own time, it seems a
+legitimate inference, that these impressions were made by animals of
+the tortoise kind, and, consequently, such animals were among those
+which then existed, albeit no other relic of them may have been found.
+From minute peculiarities, it is further inferred, that they were
+tortoises of different species from any now existing. Viewing such
+important results, we cannot but enter into the feeling with which Dr
+Buckland penned the following remarks:--'The historian or the
+antiquary,' he says, 'may have traversed the fields of ancient or of
+modern battles; and may have pursued the line of march of triumphant
+conquerors, whose armies trampled down the most mighty kingdoms of the
+world. The winds and storms have utterly obliterated the ephemeral
+impressions of their course. Not a track remains of a single foot, or
+a single hoof, of the countless millions of men and beasts whose
+progress spread desolation over the earth. But the reptiles that
+crawled upon the half-finished surface of our infant planet, have left
+memorials of their passage, enduring and indelible. No history has
+recorded their creation or destruction; their very bones are found no
+more among the fossil relics of a former world. Centuries and
+thousands of years may have rolled away between the time in which
+those footsteps were impressed by tortoises upon the sands of their
+native Scotland, and the hour when they were again laid bare and
+exposed to our curious and admiring eyes. Yet we behold them, stamped
+upon the rock, distinct as the track of the passing animal upon the
+recent snow; as if to shew that thousands of years are but as nothing
+amidst eternity--and, as it were, in mockery of the fleeting,
+perishable course of the mightiest potentates among mankind.'
+
+The formation of the slabs, and the preservation of the footprints,
+are processes which the geologist can easily explain. A beach on which
+animals have left the marks of their feet, becomes sufficiently
+hardened to retain the impressions; another layer of sand or mud is
+laid down by perhaps the next tide, covering up the first, and
+protecting it from all subsequent injury. Thousands of years after,
+the quarryman breaks up the layers, and finds on the one surface the
+impression of the animal, while the lower face of the superincumbent
+layer presents a cast of that impression, thus giving us in fact a
+double memorial of one event. At Wolfville, on the Bay of Fundy, Sir
+Charles Lyell some years ago observed a number of marks on the surface
+of a red marly mud which was gradually hardening on the sea-shore.
+They were the footprints of the sand-piper, a bird of which he saw
+flights daily running along the water's edge, and often leaving thirty
+or more similar impressions in a straight line, parallel to the
+borders of the estuary. He picked up some slabs of this dried mud, and
+splitting one of them up, found a surface within which bore two lines
+of the same kind of footprints. Here is an example before our living
+eyes, of the processes concerned in producing and preserving the
+fossil footprints of the New Red Sandstone.
+
+Some years after the Annandale footprints had attracted attention,
+some slab surfaces of the same formation in Saxony and England were
+found bearing an impression of a more arresting character. It
+resembled the impression that would be made by the palm and extended
+fingers and thumb of the human hand, but a hand much thicker and
+flabbier than is commonly seen. The appropriate name of
+_Cheirotherium_ was proposed for the unknown extinct animal which had
+produced these marks. The dimensions in the several examples were
+various; but 'in all cases the prints of what appear to have been the
+hind-feet are considerably larger than those of the fore-feet; so much
+so, indeed, that in one well-preserved slab containing several
+impressions, the former measures eight inches by five, and the latter
+not more than four inches by three. In this specimen, the print of the
+fore-foot is not more than an inch and a half in advance of that of
+the hinder one, although the distance between the two successive
+positions of the same foot, or the length of a pace of the animal, is
+fourteen inches. It therefore appears, that the animal must have had
+its posterior extremities both much larger and much longer than the
+anterior; but this peculiarity it possessed in common with many
+existing species, such as the frog, the kangaroo, &c.; and beyond this
+and certain appearances in the sandstone, as if a tail had been
+dragged behind the animal, in some sets of footsteps, but not in
+others, there is nothing to suggest to the comparative anatomist any
+idea of even the class of Vertebrata to which the animal should be
+referred.'[5] Soon after, some teeth and fragments of bones were
+discovered, by which Professor Owen was able to indicate an animal of
+the frog-family (Batrachia), but with certain affinities to the
+saurian order (crocodiles, &c.), and which must have been about the
+size of a large pig. It has been pretty generally concluded, that this
+colossal frog was the animal which impressed the hand-like
+foot-prints.
+
+At a later period, footprints of birds were discovered upon the
+surfaces of a thin-bedded sandstone belonging to the New Red formation
+on the banks of the Connecticut River, in North America. The birds,
+according to Sir Charles Lyell, must have been of various sizes; some
+as small as the sand-piper, and others as large as the ostrich, the
+width of the stride being in proportion to the size of the foot. There
+is one set, in which the foot is nineteen inches long, and the stride
+between four and five feet, indicating a bird nearly twice the size of
+the African ostrich. So great a magnitude was at first a cause of
+incredulity; but the subsequent discovery of the bones of the Moa or
+Dinornis of New Zealand, proved that, at a much later time, there had
+been feathered bipeds of even larger bulk, and the credibility of the
+_Ornithichnites Giganteus_ has accordingly been established. Sir
+Charles Lyell, when he visited the scene of the footprints on the
+Connecticut River, saw a slab marked with a row of the footsteps of
+the huge bird pointed to under this term, being nine in number,
+turning alternately right and left, and separated from each other by a
+space of about five feet. 'At one spot, there was a space several
+yards square, where the entire surface of the shale was irregular and
+jagged, owing to the number of the footsteps, not one of which could
+be distinctly traced, as when a flock of sheep have passed over a
+muddy road; but on withdrawing from this area, the confusion gradually
+ceased, and the tracks became more and more distinct.'[6] Professor
+Hitchcock had, up to that time, observed footprints of thirty species
+of birds on these surfaces. The formation, it may be remarked, is one
+considerably earlier than any in which fossil bones or other
+indications of birds have been detected in Europe.
+
+In the coal-field of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, there were
+discovered in 1844, slabs marked with footprints bearing a
+considerable resemblance to those of the Cheirotherium, and believed
+to have been impressed by an animal of the same family, though with
+some important points of distinction. The hind-feet are not so much
+larger than the fore; and the two on each side, instead of coming
+nearly into one row, as in the European Cheirotherium, stand widely
+apart. The impressions look such as would be made by a rudely-shaped
+human hand, with short fingers held much apart; there is some
+appearance as if the fingers had had nails; and a protuberance like
+the rudiment of a sixth finger appears at the side. This was the
+first indication of reptile life so early as the time of the
+coal-formation; but as the fossil remains of a reptile have now been
+found in Old Red Sandstone, at Elgin, in Scotland, the original
+importance of the discovery in this respect may be regarded as
+lessened.
+
+Last year, some slabs from Potsdam, in Canada, were brought to
+England, and deposited in the museum of the Geological Society.
+Belonging as these slabs do to a formation coeval with those in which
+the earliest fossils were hitherto found, it was startling to find
+them marked with numerous foot-tracks of what appeared to have been
+reptiles. It seemed to shew, that the inhabitants of the world in that
+early age were not quite so low in the scale of being as had
+previously been assumed from the facts known; and that all attempts to
+describe, from positive knowledge, anything like a progression of
+being on the face of our globe, were at least premature. Professor
+Owen had, at first, scarcely any hesitation in pronouncing the
+footprints to be those of tortoises; but he afterwards changed his
+views, and expressed his belief that the impressions had been produced
+by small crustacean animals. Thus the views previously entertained
+regarding the invertebrate character of the _fauna_ of the Silurian
+epoch, have ultimately remained unaffected, so far as these Potsdam
+slabs are concerned.
+
+Slabs of sandstone and shale often retain what is called the
+ripple-mark--that is, the corrugation of surface produced by the
+gentle agitation of shallow water over sand or mud. We can see these
+appearances beneath our feet, as we walk over the pavement of almost
+any of our cities. Such slabs are also occasionally marked by
+irregular protuberances, being the casts of hollows or cracks produced
+in ancient tide-beaches by shrinkage. In many instances, the
+footprints of animals are marked by such lines passing through them,
+shewing how the beach had dried and cracked in the sun after the
+animals had walked over it. In the quarries at Stourton, in Cheshire,
+some years ago, a gentleman named Cunningham observed slab surfaces
+mottled in a curious manner with little circular and oval hollows, and
+these were finally determined to be the impressions produced by
+rain--the rain of the ancient time, long prior to the existence of
+human beings, when the strata were formed! Since then, many similar
+markings have been observed on slabs raised from other quarries, both
+in Europe and America; and fossil rain-drops are now among the settled
+facts of geology. Very fine examples have been obtained from quarries
+of the New Red Sandstone at Newark and Pompton, in New Jersey. Sir
+Charles Lyell has examined these with care, and compared them with the
+effects of modern rain on soft surfaces of similar materials. He says,
+they present 'every gradation from transient rain, where a moderate
+number of drops are well preserved, to a pelting shower, which, by its
+continuance, has almost obliterated the circular form of the cavities.
+In the more perfectly preserved examples, smaller drops are often seen
+to have fallen into cavities previously made by larger ones, and to
+have modified their shape. In some cases of partial interference, the
+last drop has obliterated part of the annular margin of a former one;
+but in others it has not done so, for the two circles are seen to
+intersect each other. Most of the impressions are elliptical, having
+their more prominent rims at the deeper end [a consequence of the rain
+falling in a slanting direction]. We often see on the under side of
+some of these slabs, which are about half an inch thick, casts of the
+rain-drops of a previous shower, which had evidently fallen when the
+direction of the wind was not the same. Mr Redfield, by carefully
+examining the obliquity of the imprints in the Pompton quarries,
+ascertained that most of them implied the blowing of a strong westerly
+wind in the triassic period at that place.' A certain class of the
+impressions at Pompton are thought to be attributable to hail, 'being
+deeper and much more angular and jagged than the rain-prints, and
+having the wall at the deeper end more perpendicular, and occasionally
+overhanging.'[7]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] _Ichnology of Annandale._ Lizars, Edinburgh. 1851.
+
+[5] _Ansted's Introduction to Geology_, i. 303.
+
+[6] _Lyell's Travels in North America_, i. 254.
+
+[7] _Quarterly Journal of Geological Society_, April, 1851.
+
+
+
+
+AITON'S TRAVELS.
+
+
+A work in any department of general literature rarely appears from the
+pen of a clergyman in the Church of Scotland, and therefore that to
+which we are about to refer, under the title noted beneath,[8] is in
+some respects a curiosity. The writer, a minister settled in a
+mountainous parish in Lanarkshire, may be said to have made a
+remarkable escapade for one in his obscure situation and reverend
+calling. With an immense and unclerical flow of animal spirits,
+evidently as fond of travelling as old William Lithgow, and as
+garrulous as Rae Wilson, of whose class he is a surviving type, Dr
+Aiton is quite the man to take a journey to the Holy Land; for no
+difficulty in the way of toil, heat, hunger, creeping or winged
+insects, wild beasts, or still wilder savages, disturbs his
+equanimity. He also never hesitates to use any expression that comes
+uppermost. He explicitly observes, that 'no man with the capacity of a
+hen,' should fail to contribute such information as he possesses on
+the sacred regions he has traversed. Alluding to some circumstances in
+the voyage of St Paul, he says he has 'no desire to cook the facts.'
+He talks of a supposition being 'checkmated.' And in going along the
+coast of Spain, he mentions that he took care to have 'a passing
+squint at Cape St Vincent.' Many similar oddities break out in the
+course of the narrative; not that we care much about them one way or
+other; it is only to be regretted that the author has by this
+looseness of expression, and his loquacious dragging in of passages
+from Scripture on all occasions, also by his inveterate love of
+anecdotic illustration, done what he could to keep down a really
+clever book to an inferior standard of taste. We would hope, however,
+that candid readers will have a kindly consideration of the author's
+intentions, and pass over much that is prosy and ridiculous for the
+sake of what is original and interesting. Traversing lands that have
+been described a hundred times before, it might be supposed that
+little was left for Dr Aiton to pick up; yet every traveller has his
+own method of observation. In justice to the doctor, it must be
+acknowledged that he made a judicious use of time during his travels
+in the East, and has told us many amusing particulars of what he saw.
+There is, at least, always a certain graphic painting in his off-hand
+descriptions; as, for instance, his notice of an incident that
+occurred on his arrival in Egypt.
+
+'On landing at Alexandria I saw a ship unloading, and box by box were
+being handed to the lighter, according to the number each respectively
+bore. Some mistake, more or less important, had apparently been made
+by one of the native operatives on the occasion. Instantly two sticks
+were laid on his head with dreadful effect. The poor fellow seemed to
+be stunned and stupified for a time. On this account it probably
+happened, that he fell into a second similar blunder, when a stick was
+thrown, not horizontally, but perpendicularly, and so aimed that it
+struck the socket of the eye. In one moment he lost the sight of it,
+and the ball hung by a ligament on his cheek. He uttered a hideous
+yell, and staggered; notwithstanding of which other two cudgels were
+applied to his arm while he had the power to hold it up in protection
+of his head. Horror of horrors! I thought, verily in the fulfilment of
+prophecy, God has been pleased to curse this garden and granary of the
+world, and to permit foreigners terribly to tyrannise over its
+degraded people.' Proceeding onward to Cairo: 'What a hurry-skurry
+there was in the dark in getting into the vans at the hotel-door to
+be conveyed to the Mahmoudie Canal! When I arrived, I found the barge
+in which we were to be conveyed both very confined and dirty. But it
+proceeded at tolerable speed, drawn by horses which were pursued by
+well-mounted Arabs yelling, lashing, and cracking with their whips. We
+all passed a fearful night of suffocation and jambing, fasting and
+feasted on by millions. Some red-coated bedlamites, unfortunately
+infatuated with wine, had to be held from jumping overboard. The
+ramping and stamping, and roaring and scrambling for room to sit or
+lie, was horrific. At last the day dawned, when matters were not quite
+so bad; but we moved over our fifty miles of ditch-water to Atfeh in a
+manner the most uncomfortable any poor sinners ever suffered.'
+
+The account given of his entry to Cairo is also strikingly faithful.
+'When I landed at Boulac, another Oriental scene of novelty was
+presented. Crowds of men and women, all in their shirts only--lazy
+looking-on watermen calling for employment, porters packing luggage on
+the camels, donkey-boys, little active urchins, offering their asses,
+crying: "Here him best donkey"--"you Englese no walk"--"him kick
+highest"--"him fine jackass"--"me take you to Cairo." There were also
+plenty of custom-house folks demanding fees to which they had no
+right, and sturdy rascals seeking buckshish, and miserable beggars
+imploring alms. Walking through this promiscuous crowd, with all the
+dignity they could muster, there were venerable sheiks, or Egyptian
+oolema, with white turbans, and long silvery beards, and tawny
+sinister faces. And there were passengers not a few, with a carpet-bag
+in the one hand and a lady hanging on the other arm, crowding from the
+deck to the shore.
+
+'The moment I mounted the stair at the pier of Boulac, I found myself
+in the red dusky haze of an Egyptian atmosphere. It was near noon, and
+the rays of the hot sun trembled over the boundless Valley of the Nile
+on to the minarets of Cairo, and further still to the sombre Pyramids.
+Now, indeed, the scene before me presented a superb illusion of
+beauty. The bold range of the Mockattam Mountains, its craggy summits
+cut clearly out in the sky, seemed to run like a promontory into a sea
+of the richest verdure; here, wavy with breezy plantations of olives;
+there, darkened with acacia groves. Just where the mountain sinks upon
+the plain, the citadel stands on its last eminence, and widely spread
+beneath lies the city--a forest of minarets, with palm-trees
+intermingled, and the domes of innumerable mosques rising and
+glittering over the sea of houses. Here and there, green gardens are
+islanded within that ocean, and the whole is girt round with
+picturesque towers, and ramparts occasionally revealed through vistas
+of the wood of sycamores and fig-trees that surround it. From Boulac I
+was conveyed to the British Hotel at Cairo, the Englishman's home in
+Egypt, conducted by Mr Shepherd, the Englishman's friend in the East.
+The approach to Grand Cairo is charming and cheering, and altogether
+as fanciful as if I had been carried with Aladin's lamp in my hand
+through a fairy region to one of the palaces mentioned in the _Arabian
+Nights of Entertainment_. I passed along a broad level path, full of
+life and fancy, amid groves and gardens, and villas all glittering in
+grandeur. At every turn, something more Oriental and magnificent than
+anything I had yet seen presented itself. Along the level, broad
+highway, a masquerading-looking crowd was swarming towards Cairo.
+Ladies, wrapped closely in white veils, were carrying water on their
+heads. Long rows of dromedaries loaded with luggage were moving
+stately forward. Donkeys at full canter, one white man riding, and two
+black men driving and thumping the poor brutes most unmercifully with
+short thick sticks, were winding their way through the throng. Ladies
+enveloped in flowing robes of black silk, and veiled up to the eyes,
+were sitting stride-leg on richly-caparisoned asses, shewing off with
+pomp a pair of yellow morocco slippers, which appeared on their feet
+from under their flowing robes. And before these, clearing the way,
+there were eunuch slaves crying: "Darak ya Khowaga-riglak! shemalak!"
+which probably may mean: "Stand back, and let her ladyship pass!"
+There were walkers and water-carriers, with goat-skins full on their
+back; and fruit-sellers and orange-girls; and ourselves and others
+driving at full gallop, regardless of all the Copts, Abyssinians,
+Greeks, Turks, Parsees, Nubians, and Jews, which crowded the path. But
+curiosity of this sort is soon satisfied, and these novelties are
+passed, when I find myself in the midst of the city, more full of mud
+and misery, dark, dirty twisting lanes, arched almost over by
+verandas, and wretchedly paved or not paved at all, full of smells and
+disgusting sights--such as lean, mangy dogs, and ragged beggars
+quivering with lice, and poverty-stricken people; all this more than
+the whole world can produce anywhere else, not excepting even the
+Jewish city of Prague; which astonished me beyond comparison till I
+saw the poorer portions of Cairo.'
+
+During his stay in Cairo, the doctor visited the Great Pyramid of
+Gizeh, the short journey being performed early in the morning, and
+with a guide. The toils and pleasures of the excursion are fairly
+described. 'I had read so much of the bulk of the Pyramids, and they
+now appeared so positively insignificant in their dimensions, that I,
+felt mortified; but I remembered that I had the same impression many
+years ago when first approaching the Alps; and I began to consider,
+that as the extreme clearness of the atmosphere gave them the
+appearance of proximity in the far distance, so it would also partly
+account for the diminutive aspect they persisted in presenting. I
+dismounted, and scrambled up the bold ledge of rock, and found myself
+already a hundred feet above the level of the Nile. Here my Arab guide
+produced cold fowl, bread, wine, and Nile water in plenty at the foot
+of this mountain of stone, which now began to indicate its colossal
+magnitude. Standing beside the pyramid, and looking from the base to
+the top, and especially examining the vast dimensions of each separate
+stone, I thus obtained an adequate impression of the magnitude of its
+dimensions, which produced a calm and speechless but elevated feeling
+of awe. The Arabs, men, women, and children, came crowding around me;
+but they seemed kind and inoffensive. I was advised to mount up to the
+top before the sun gained strength; and, skipping like chamois on a
+mountain, two Arabs took hold of me by each wrist, and a third lifted
+me up from behind, and thus I began, with resolution and courage, to
+ascend the countless layers of huge stones which tower and taper to
+the top. Every step was three feet up at a bound; and, really, a
+perpendicular hop-step-and-leap of this sort was no joke, move after
+move continuing as if for ever. I found that the Arabs did not work so
+smoothly as I expected, and that one seemed at a time to be holding
+back, while another was dragging me up; and this soon became very
+tiresome. Perceiving this, they changed their method, and I was
+directed to put my foot on the knee of one Arab, and another pulled me
+up by both hands, while a third pushed me behind; and thus I bounded
+on in my tread-mill of tedious and very tiresome exertion. I paused
+half-way to the top, and rested at the cave. I looked up and down with
+a feeling of awe, and now I felt the force of Warburton's remark, when
+he calls it the greatest wonder in the world. But in the midst of
+these common-place reflections, a fit of sickness came over me.
+Everything turned dark before me; and now for a moment my courage
+failed me; and when looking at my three savage companions--for my
+guide and his friend were sitting below finishing the fragments of my
+breakfast, and the donkeys were munching beans--I felt myself alike
+destitute of comfort and protection; and when they put forth their
+hands to lift my body, I verily thought myself a murdered man. When I
+came out of my faint, I found that they had gently turned me on my
+belly, with my head flat upon the rock, and that they had been
+sprinkling my face and breast with water. A profuse perspiration broke
+out, and I felt myself relieved. I rested ten or fifteen minutes, and
+hesitated for a moment whether to go up or down; but I had determined
+that I should reach the top, if I should perish in the attempt. I
+resumed, therefore, the ascent, but with more time and caution than
+before; and fearing to look either up or down, or to any portion of
+the frightful aspect around, I fixed my eye entirely on each
+individual step before me, as if there had been no other object in the
+world besides. To encourage me by diverting my attention, the Arabs
+chanted their monotonous songs, mainly in their own language,
+interspersed with expressions about buckshish, "Englese good to
+Arabs," and making signs to me every now and then how near we were
+getting to the top. After a second _dwam_, a rest and a draught of
+water prepared me for another effort at ascending; and now, as I
+advanced, my ideas began to expand to something commensurate with the
+grandeur and novelty of the scene. When I reached the top, I found
+myself on a broad area of about ten yards in every way of massive
+stone-blocks broken and displaced. Exhausted and overheated, I laid me
+down, panting like a greyhound after a severe chase. I bathed my
+temples, and drank a deep, cool draught of Nile water. After inhaling
+for a few minutes the fresh, elastic breeze blowing up the river, I
+felt that I was myself again. I rose, and gazed with avidity in fixed
+silence, north and south, east and west. And now I felt it very
+exhilarating to the spirit, when thus standing on a small, unprotected
+pavement so many hundred feet above the earth, and so many thousand
+miles from home, to be alone, surrounded only by three wild and
+ferocious-like savages. The Arabs knew as well as I did that my life
+and property were in their power; but they were kind, and proud of the
+confidence I had in them. They tapped me gently on the back, patted my
+head, kissed my hand, and then with a low, laughing, sinister growl,
+they asked me for buckshish, which I firmly refused; then they
+laughed, and sang and chatted as before. In calmly looking around me,
+one idea filled and fixed my mind, which I expressed at the time in
+one word--magnificence!... I remained long at the top of the pyramid,
+and naturally felt elevated by the sublimity of the scenery around,
+and also by the thought, that I had conquered every difficulty, and
+accomplished my every purpose. The breeze was still cool, although the
+sun was now high in the sky. I laughed and talked with the Arabs; and
+advanced with them holding my two hands, to the very edge, and looked
+down the awful precipice. Here again, with a push, or a kick, or
+probably by withdrawing their hands, my days would have been finished;
+and I would have been buried in the Desert among the ancient kings, or
+more likely worried up by hungry hyaenas. I looked around at my
+leisure, and began carefully to read the names cut out on the stones,
+anxious to catch one from my own country, or of my acquaintance, but
+in this I did not succeed. Seeing me thus occupied, one of the Arabs
+drew from his pocket a large murderous-looking _gully_, and when he
+advanced towards me with it in his hand, had I believed the tenth part
+of what I had heard or read, I might have been afraid of my life. But
+with a laughing squeal, he pointed to a stone, as if to intimate that
+I should cut out my name upon it. Then very modestly he held out his
+hand for buckshish, and I thought him entitled to two or three
+piasters.... In coming down, I felt timid and giddy for awhile, and
+was afraid that I might meet the fate of the poor officer from India,
+who, on a similar occasion, happened to miss his foot, and went
+bouncing from one ledge of stone to another, towards the bottom, like
+a ball, and that long after life was beaten out of him. Seeing this,
+the Arabs renewed their demand for buckshish, and with more
+perseverance than ever; but I was equally firm in my determination
+that more money they should not have till I reached the bottom. At
+last they took me by both hands as before, and conducted me carefully
+from step to step. By and by I jumped down from one ledge to another
+without their assistance, till I reached the mouth of the entrance to
+the interior. I descended this inlet somewhat after the manner of a
+sweep going down a chimney, but not quite so comfortable, I believe.
+In this narrow inclined plane, I not only had to encounter sand-flies,
+and every variety of vermin in Egypt, but I was afraid of serpents.
+The confined pass was filled, too, with warm dust, and the heat and
+smoke of the lights we carried increased the stifling sensation. In
+these circumstances, I felt anxious only to go as far as would enable
+me to fire a pistol with effect in one of the vaults. This is well
+worth while, inasmuch as the sound of the explosion was louder than
+the roar of a cannon. In fact, it almost rent the drum of my ears, and
+rolled on like thunder through the interior of the pyramid, multiplied
+and magnified as it was by a thousand echoes. The sound seemed to
+sink, and mount from cavity to cavity--to rebound and to divide--and
+at length to die in a good old age. The flash and the smoke produced,
+too, a momentary feeling of terror. Having performed this marvellous
+feat, I was nowise ambitious to qualify myself further for giving a
+description of the interior.'
+
+After visiting Suez, the author returned to Cairo, descended to the
+coast of the Levant, and took shipping for Jaffa, on the route to
+Jerusalem. Every point of interest in the holy city is described as
+minutely as could be desired. Next, there was a visit to the Dead Sea,
+regarding which there occur some sagacious remarks. The doctor
+repudiates the ordinary belief, that the waters of this famed lake are
+carried off by exhalation. Six million tons of water are discharged
+every day by the Jordan into the Dead Sea; and to suppose that this
+vast increase is wholly exhaled, seems to him absurd. He deems it more
+likely that the lake issues by subterranean passages into the Red Sea.
+The only remark that occurs to us on this point is, that the saltness
+of the lake must be held as a proof that there is at least a large
+exhalation from the surface.
+
+Dr Aiton also visited Bethlehem, where he saw much to interest him;
+and had the satisfaction of being hospitably entertained by the
+fathers of the Greek convent. 'I left the convent,' he says, 'soothed
+and satisfied much with all that I had seen, and went round to take a
+parting and more particular view of the plain where the shepherds
+heard the angels proclaim: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
+peace, good-will towards men!" The plain is still mainly under
+pasture, fertile and well watered, and there I saw shepherds still
+tending their flocks. These shepherds have great influence over their
+sheep. Many of them have no dogs. Their flocks are docile and
+domestic, and not as the black-faced breed of sheep in Scotland,
+scouring the hills like cavalry. The shepherd's word spoken at any
+time is sufficient to make them understand and obey him. He sleeps
+among them at night, and in the morning he leadeth them forth to drink
+by the still waters, and feedeth them by the green pastures. He walks
+before them slow and stately; and so accustomed are the sheep to be
+guided by him, that every few bites they take they look up with
+earnestness to see that he is there. When he rests during the heat of
+the day in a shady place, they lie around him chewing the cud. He has
+generally two or three favourite lambs which don't mix with the flock,
+but frisk and fondle at his heel. There is a tender intimacy between
+the Ishmaelite and his flock. They know his voice, and follow him, and
+he careth for the sheep. He gathereth his lambs, and seeketh out his
+flock among the sheep, and gently leadeth them that are with young,
+and carrieth the lambs in his bosom. In returning back to Jerusalem, I
+halted on a rugged height to survey more particularly, and enjoy the
+scene where Ruth went to glean the ears of corn in the field of her
+kinsman Boaz. Hither she came for the beginning of barley harvest,
+because she would not leave Naomi in her sorrow. "Entreat me not to
+leave thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest,
+I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where
+thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to
+me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." How simple
+and tender! Here, when looking around me, honoured I felt for ever be
+her memory, not only for these touching sentiments, worthy of our race
+even before the fall, and when the image of God was not yet effaced;
+but also in respect that she who uttered these words was the
+great-grandmother of David, and as of the generation of Jesus. Here
+also I looked back to the city of Bethlehem with lingering regret,
+uttering a common-place farewell to the scene, but never to its
+hallowed recollections.'
+
+We may conclude our extracts with a passage descriptive of the
+doctor's departure from the Holy Land, from which it will be seen that
+he was not indisposed to keep his part when necessity demanded. 'The
+steamer _Levant_ was ordered to sail at midnight on the day it arrived
+at Jaffa, and there was a vast crowd and great confusion at the
+embarkation. All the villainy of the Arab watermen was in active
+operation. With the assistance of Dr Kiat's Italian servant, an
+arrangement had been made that I and my friend were to be taken out to
+the steamer for a stipulated sum; but while all the boats of the
+natives were going off; ours was still detained at the pier under a
+variety of flimsy pretences. Then a proposal was made to carry the
+luggage back to the shore, and to take away the boat somewhere else, a
+promise being given by the Arabs that they would return with it in
+plenty of time to take us on board before midnight. By this time, I
+was too old a traveller amid ruffians of this sort to permit so simple
+a fraud to be perpetrated. The crew insisted on taking hold of the
+oars, and my friend and I persisted in preventing them. We soon saw
+that nothing but determined courage would carry the day. I therefore
+did not hesitate to grasp the skipper firmly by the throat till I
+almost choked him, threatening to toss him headlong into the sea. We
+also threatened loudly to go back to the English consul, and to have
+them punished for their conduct. Awed a little, and seeing that we
+were not to be so easily done as they expected, notwithstanding that
+we had been so simple as to pay our fare before we started, they did
+at last push off the boat; but it was only after a fashion of their
+own. Every forty yards their oars struck work, and they demanded more
+money. The sea was rough even beyond the breakers, and the gravestone
+which I had seen in the garden at Jaffa was enough to convince me,
+that the guiding of a boat by savages in the dark, through the neck of
+such a harbour, with whirling currents and terrifying waves, was a
+matter of considerable danger. There was no remedy for it, but
+continuing to set the crew at defiance, knowing that they could not
+upset the boat without endangering their own lives as well as ours.
+They wetted us, however, purposely, with the spray, and did their best
+to frighten us, by rocking the boat like a cradle. First one piaster
+(about twopence-halfpenny) was given to the skipper, then the boat was
+advanced about a hundred yards, when the oars were laid down once
+more. Another row was the consequence, at the end of which another
+piaster was doled out to him, and forward we moved till we were fairly
+within cry of the ship, when I called out for assistance, and they
+pushed us directly alongside, behind the paddle-box. Here again they
+detained the luggage, and demanded more buckshish; but I laid hold of
+the rope hanging down from the rails of the steamer, and crying to my
+companion to sit still and watch our property, I ran up the side of
+the ship and called for the master, knowing that the captain was on
+shore. Looking down upon them, he threatened to sink them in the ocean
+if they did not bring everything on deck in a minute. When I saw the
+portmanteaus brought up, and my friend and I safely on board, I
+thought that all was well enough, although we had got a ducking in the
+surf; but in a little, my friend found that he had been robbed of his
+purse, containing two sovereigns and some small money; but nobody
+could tell whether this had been done in the crowd on the pier, or
+when he was in the boat, or when helped up the side of the ship. The
+anchor was weighed about midnight, and we steamed along the coast of
+Samaria, towards the once famous city and seaport of Herod.'
+
+Having taken the liberty to be jocular on the doctor's oddities of
+expression, we beg to say, that notwithstanding these and other
+eccentricities, the work he has produced is well worthy of perusal,
+and of finding a place in all respectable libraries.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] _The Lands of the Messiah, Mahomet, and the Pope, as Visited in
+1851_. By John Aiton, D.D., Minister of Dolphinton. Fullarton & Co.
+1852.
+
+
+
+
+GLEANING IN SCOTLAND.
+
+BY A PRACTITIONER.
+
+
+Like most other ubiquitous customs, corn-gleaning has been frequently
+described by the painter and the poet, yet I much question whether in
+any case the picture is true to nature. A certain amount of idealism
+is infused into all the sketches--indeed, in the experience of numbers
+of readers, this is the sole feature in most of them. Such a defect is
+easily accounted for. Those who have depicted the custom were
+practically unacquainted with its details, and invariably made the
+sacred story the model of their picture, without taking into
+consideration the changes induced by time or local peculiarity. Even
+the beautiful and glowing description of English corn-gleaning given
+by Thomson, is felt by practical observers to be greatly too much of
+the Oriental hue, too redolent of the fragrance of a fanciful Arcadia.
+It is a pity that this interesting custom is not more faithfully
+transcribed into our national poetry; and it is with the hope that a
+future Burns may make the attempt, that the writer of this article
+ventures to give a short history of his gleaning-days, believing the
+subject to be interesting enough to engage the attention of the
+general reader.
+
+Though born amid the grandeur and sublimity of Highland scenery, I
+was, at a very early age, brought to reside in a small village on the
+east coast--small now, but once the most famous and important town in
+that part of Scotland. Among the scenes of these times, none stand out
+more vividly than the 'gathering-days'--the harvest of the year's
+enjoyment--the time when a whole twelvemonth's happiness was
+concentrated in the six weeks' vacation of the village-school. I do
+not recollect the time when I began to glean--or _gather_, as it is
+locally termed--probably I would, when very young, follow the others
+to the near farms, and gradually become, as I grew older, a regular
+gleaner. At that time the gleaners in our district were divided into
+two gangs or parties. One of these was headed by four old women, whose
+shearing-days were past; and as they were very peaceable, decent
+bodies, it was considered an honour to get attached to their band. The
+other was composed of the wilder spirits of the place, who thought
+nothing of jumping dikes, breaking hedges, stealing turnips, and
+committing other depredations on the farms which they visited.
+Fortunately, my quiet disposition, and supposed good character,
+procured my admittance into the more respectable gang; and I had the
+honour of sharing its fortunes during the five or six years I
+continued a gleaner. I was surprised to see one of these old ladies
+toddling about the village only a few weeks ago, though her
+gathering-days are long since past. She is the last survivor of the
+quorum, and is now fast fading into dotage.
+
+Although the two gleaning-parties never assumed a positive antagonism,
+they took care to conceal their movements from each other as well as
+possible. When one of our party received information of a field being
+'ready,' the fact was secretly conveyed to all the members, with an
+injunction to be 'in such a place at such an hour' on the following
+morning; and the result generally was, that we had a considerable
+portion of the field gleaned before the other gang arrived. But we did
+not always act on previous information. Many a morning we departed on
+the search, and frequently wandered all day without 'lifting a head.'
+These were the best times for us young ones, whose hearts were too
+light to care for more than the fun of the thing, as we then had a
+glorious opportunity of getting a feast of bramble-berries and wild
+raspberries in the woods and moors; but to the older members of our
+party the disappointment was anything but pleasant.
+
+I have spoken of a field being _ready_. Now, to some readers, this may
+convey a very erroneous idea. We learn that in early times not only
+were the gleaners admitted among the sheaves, or allowed to 'follow
+the shearers,' as the privilege is now termed, but, in a certain
+instance, the reapers were commanded to leave a handful now and then
+for the gleaner. Now, that custom is entirely changed: the sheaves are
+all taken away from the field; and instead of the reapers leaving
+handfuls expressly for the gleaners, the farmer endeavours by raking
+to secure as much as possible of what they accidentally leave on the
+stubble. I am not inclined to quarrel with the condition that requires
+the stocks to be removed ere the gleaners gain admittance; because
+many would be tempted to pilfer, and besides, the ground on which they
+stand could not be reached. But there is no doubt that the custom of
+gleaning was originally a public enactment; while the fact that it has
+spread over the whole earth, and descended to the present time, shews
+that it still exists on the statute-book of justice, in all the length
+and breadth of its original signification; and it amounts almost to a
+virtual abrogation of the privilege when the stubble is thus gleaned.
+At all events, if these sentiments are not in consonance with the new
+lights of the day, let them be pardoned in a _ci-devant_ gleaner.
+
+Upon arriving at a field, our first object was to choose a locality.
+If we were first on the ground, we took a careful survey of its
+geographical position, and acted accordingly. When the field was
+level, and equally exposed, it mattered little to what part we went;
+but in the event of its being hilly, or situated near a wood, we had
+to consider where the best soil lay, and where the sun had shone most.
+It was in the discovery of these important points that the sagacity
+and experience of our aged leaders were most brilliantly displayed,
+and gave to our party an immense superiority over the other, whose
+science was much more scanty; it therefore happened that we had
+generally the largest quantity and best quality of grain. These
+preliminaries being settled--and they generally took less time than I
+have done to write--we began work, commencing, of course, at the end
+of the field by which we entered, and travelling up or down the rigs.
+
+The process of gleaning may be generally considered a very simple one;
+but in this, as in everything else, some knowledge is necessary, and
+no better proof of this could be had, than in the quantities gathered
+by different persons in the same space of time. A careless or
+inexperienced gatherer could easily be detected by the size and
+_shape_ of his single. The usual method practised by a good gleaner
+was as follows:--Placing the left hand upon the knee, or behind the
+back, the right was used to lift the ears, care being taken to grasp
+them close by the 'neck.' When the right hand had gathered perhaps
+twenty or thirty ears, these were changed into the left hand; the
+right was again replenished from the ground; and this process was
+continued till the left was full, or rather till the gleaner heard one
+of his or her party exclaim: 'Tie!' when the single was obliged to be
+completed. Thus it is clear that a good eye and a quick hand are
+essential to a good gleaner.
+
+Whenever one of the members of the party found that the left hand was
+quite full, he or she could compel the others to finish their singles
+whether their hand was full or not, by simply crying the
+afore-mentioned word 'Tie!' At this sound, the whole band proceeded to
+fasten their bundles, and deposit them on the rig chosen for their
+reception. The process of 'tying' it is impossible to explain on
+paper; but I can assure my readers it afforded great scope for taste
+and ingenuity. Few, indeed, could do it properly, though the singles
+of some were very neat. The best 'tyer' in our party, and indeed in
+the district, was a little, middle-aged woman, who was a diligent,
+rapid gatherer, and generally the first to finish her handful. Her
+singles were perfectly round, and as flat at the top as if laid with a
+plummet. Having finished tying, we laid down our singles according to
+order, so that no difficulty might be felt in collecting them again,
+and so proceeded with our labour.
+
+When we got to the end of the field, the custom was, to finish our
+handfuls there, and retrace our steps for the purpose of collecting
+the deposits, when each of us tied up our collected bundles at the
+place from which we originally started. To the lover of the
+picturesque, the scene while we sat resting by the hedge-side, was one
+of the most beautiful that can be imagined. Spread over the field in
+every direction were the gleaners, busily engaged in their cheerful
+task; while the hum of their conversation, mingling with the melody of
+the insect world, the music of the feathery tribes, and the ripple of
+the adjoining burn, combined to form a strain which I still hear in
+the pauses of life.
+
+On our homeward road from a successful day's, gathering, how merry we
+all were, in spite of our tired limbs and the load upon our heads!
+Indeed it was the load itself that made us glad; and we should have
+been still merrier if that had been heavier. How sweet it was to feel
+the weight of our industry--no burden could possibly be more grateful;
+and I question much whether that was not the happiest moment in Ruth's
+first gleaning-day, when she trudged home to her mother-in-law with
+the ephah of barley, the produce of her unflagging toil.
+
+When harvest was over, and the chill winds swept over cleared and
+gleaned fields, our bond of union was dissolved, each retired to his
+respective habitation, and, like Ruth, 'beat out that he had gleaned.'
+In many cases, the result was a sufficient supply of bread to the
+family for the ensuing winter. It was singular that, during the rest
+of the year, little or no intercourse was maintained between those who
+were thus associated during harvest. They lived together in the same
+degree of friendship as is common among villagers, but I could never
+observe any of that peculiar intimacy which it was natural to suppose
+such an annual combination would create. They generally returned to
+their ordinary occupations, and continued thus till the sickle was
+again heard among the yellow corn, and the _stacks_ were growing in
+the barn-yard. Then, as if by instinct, the members of the various
+bands, and the independent stragglers, left their monotonous tasks,
+and eagerly entered on the joys and pleasures of the gathering-days.
+
+I might add many reminiscences of the few seasons I spent in this
+manner; but I am afraid that, however interesting they might prove in
+rural districts, they are too simple to interest the general reader.
+Let me observe, however, before concluding, that the great majority of
+the farmers at the present day are decidedly unfavourable to gleaning,
+although the veneration that is generally entertained for what is
+ancient, and the traditionary sacredness which surrounds this
+particular custom, prevent them from openly forbidding its
+continuance. They have introduced, however, laws and rules which
+infringe sadly its original proportions, and which, in many instances,
+are made the instruments of oppression.
+
+
+
+
+WOMEN IN SAVAGE LIFE.
+
+
+The division of labour between the man and wife in Indian life is not
+so unequal, while they live in the pure hunter state, as many suppose.
+The large part of a hunter's time, which is spent in seeking game,
+leaves the wife in the wigwam, with a great deal of time on her hands;
+for it must be remembered that there is no spinning, weaving, or
+preparing children for school--no butter or cheese making, or a
+thousand other cares which are inseparable from the agricultural
+state, to occupy her skill and industry. Even the art of the
+seamstress is only practised by the Indian woman on a few things. She
+devotes much of her time to making moccasons and quill-work. Her
+husband's leggins are carefully ornamented with beads; his shot-pouch
+and knife-sheath are worked with quills; the hunting-cap is garnished
+with ribbons; his garters of cloth are adorned with a profusion of
+small white beads, and coloured worsted tassels are prepared for his
+leggins. In the spring, the corn-field is planted by her and the
+youngsters, in a vein of gaiety and frolic. It is done in a few hours,
+and taken care of in the same spirit. It is perfectly voluntary
+labour, and she would not be scolded for omitting it; for all labour
+with Indians is voluntary.--_Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes_.
+
+
+
+
+LANGUAGE OF THE LAW.
+
+
+If a man would, according to law, give to another an orange, instead
+of saying, 'I give you that orange,' which one would think would be
+what is called in legal phraseology 'an absolute conveyance of all
+right and title therein,' the phrase would run thus:--'I give you all
+and singular my estate and interest, right, title, and claim, and
+advantage of and in that orange, with all its rind, skin, juice, pulp,
+and pips, and right and advantages therein, with full power to bite,
+cut, suck, and otherwise eat the same, or give the same away, as fully
+and as effectually as I, the said A. B., am now inclined to bite, cut,
+suck, or otherwise eat the same orange or give the same away, with or
+without its rind, skin, juice, pulp, or pips, anything heretofore or
+hereinafter, or in any other deed or deeds, instrument or instruments,
+of what nature or kind soever, to the contrary in anywise
+notwithstanding;' with much more to the same effect. Such is the
+language of lawyers; and it is gravely held by the most learned men
+among them, that by the omission of any of these words, the right to
+the said orange would not pass to the person for whose use the same
+was intended.--_Newspaper paragraph_.
+
+
+
+
+CHANCES OF LIFE IN AMERICA.
+
+
+10,268 infants are born on the same day and enter upon life
+simultaneously. Of these, 1243 never reach the anniversary of their
+birth; 9025 commence the second year; but the proportion of deaths
+still continues so great, that at the end of the third only 8183, or
+about four-fifths of the original number, survive. But during the
+fourth year the system seems to acquire more strength, and the number
+of deaths rapidly decreases. It goes on decreasing until twenty-one,
+the commencement of maturity and the period of highest health. 7134
+enter upon the activities and responsibilities of life--more than
+two-thirds of the original number. Thirty-five comes, the meridian of
+manhood, 6302 have reached it. Twenty years more, and the ranks are
+thinned. Only 4727, or less than half of those who entered life
+fifty-five years ago, are left. And now death comes more frequently.
+Every year the ratio of mortality steadily increases, and at seventy
+there are not 1000 survivors. A scattered few live on to the close of
+the century, and at the age of one hundred and six the drama is ended;
+the last man is dead.--_Albany Journal_.
+
+
+
+
+A SONG.
+
+
+    The little white moon goes climbing
+      Over the dusky cloud,
+    Kissing its fringes softly,
+      With a love-light, pale as shroud--
+    Where walks this moon to-night, Annie?
+    Over the waters bright, Annie?
+      Does she smile on your face as you lift it, proud?
+    God look on thee--look on thee, Annie!
+      For I shall look never more!
+
+    The little white star stands watching
+      Ever beside the moon;
+    Hid in the mists that shroud her,
+      And hid in her light's mid-noon:
+    Yet the star follows all heaven through, Annie,
+    As my soul follows after you, Annie,
+      At moon-rise and moon-set, late and soon:
+    Oh, God watch thee, God watch thee, Annie,
+      For I can watch never more!
+
+    The purple-black sky folds loving,
+      Over far sea, far land;
+    The thunder-clouds, looming eastward,
+      Like a chain of mountains stand.
+    Under this July sky, Annie,
+    Do you hear waves lapping by, Annie?
+      Do you walk, with the hills on either hand?
+    Oh, God love thee, God love thee, Annie,
+      For I love thee evermore!
+
+
+
+
+LONGEVITY OF QUAKERS.
+
+
+Quakerism is favourable to _longevity_, it seems. According to late
+English census returns, the average age attained by members of this
+peaceful sect in Great Britain is fifty-one years, two months, and
+twenty-one days. Half of the population of the country, as is seen by
+the same returns, die before reaching the age of twenty-one, and the
+average duration of human life the world over is but thirty-three
+years; Quakers, therefore, live a third longer than the rest of us.
+The reasons are obvious enough. Quakers are temperate and prudent, are
+seldom in a hurry, and never in a passion. Quakers, in the very midst
+of the week's business--on Wednesday morning--retire from the world,
+and spend an hour or two in silent meditation at the meeting-house.
+Quakers are diligent; they help one another, and the fear of want does
+not corrode their minds. The journey of life to them is a walk of
+peaceful meditation. They neither suffer nor enjoy intensity, but
+preserve a composed demeanour always. Is it surprising that their days
+should be long in the land?--_National Intelligencer_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh.
+Also sold by W. S. ORR, Amen Corner, London; D. N. CHAMBERS, 55 West
+Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. M'GLASHAN, 50 Upper Sackville Street,
+Dublin.--Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to
+MAXWELL & Co., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all
+applications respecting their insertion must be made.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459, by Various
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