Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, fifth series, no. 130, vol. III, June 26, 1886
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Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, fifth series, no. 130, vol. III, June 26, 1886

Author: Various

Release date: August 27, 2023 [eBook #71498]

Language: English

Original publication: Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers, 1853

Credits: Susan Skinner, Eric Hutton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 130, VOL. III, JUNE 26, 1886 ***

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

CONTENTS

BLOCKADES AND BLOCKADE-RUNNERS.
IN ALL SHADES.
THE ASCENT OF CLOUDY MOUNTAIN, NEW GUINEA.
TREASURE TROVE.
THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.
JACK, THE BUSHRANGER.
THE BIRDS AT SOUTH KENSINGTON.
THE LINDSAY’S BRIDAL.

No. 130.—Vol. III.

Price 1½d.

SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1886.

BLOCKADES AND BLOCKADE-RUNNERS.

For three-quarters of a century, England differed from the other great maritime states of Europe as to the way in which blockade should be defined. To begin with, it may be enough to explain that a territory is said to be blockaded when access to or egress from its seaports is prevented by the naval forces of another state. When a state, for purposes of its own, fiscal or hygienic, declares that certain of its own ports shall be closed against foreign vessels, that decree must be respected by other states to whose notice it is duly brought, provided that those ports are really under the control of the executive of that state. But that is not a blockade; it is a mere closure of ports, which any government, in virtue of its inherent sovereignty within the borders of its own territory, is quite entitled to announce. Blockade is essentially a war measure. When the President of the United States, in April 1861, proclaimed that a forcible blockade of the Southern States would be forthwith instituted, England and France immediately declared their neutrality, and although that meant that they recognised the Confederates as belligerents, and not as rebels, their action was unobjectionable, because, whenever the Northern States issued that proclamation, they by implication admitted that they were engaged in war, and not merely in the suppression of a rebellion. In recent times, however, recourse has been had to what has been termed ‘pacific blockade;’ thus, the coasts of Greece were blockaded in 1827 by the English, French, and Russian squadrons, although all three powers professed to be at peace with Turkey (under whose dominion Greece then was); and from 1845 to 1848, France and England prevented access to La Plata, although no war was declared. To admit such procedure as legitimate would simply mean that one state might put in force against another measures destructive of the trade of neutral countries, and yet expect those countries to view the whole operations as pacific. This objection might not apply to that pacific blockade which we have this year seen put in force against Greece, for we know that every vessel flying the flag of any other state than Greece has been unmolested. But the liberty allowed to other nations did nothing to mitigate the coercion applied to Greek trading-vessels, and had the object of the blockaders been merely to divert to their own merchantmen the carrying trade of the Archipelago, they could scarcely have devised a measure better fitted to attain that end. Lord Palmerston at least had a decided opinion as to how far such action was in accordance with law: his own words are: ‘The French and English blockade of the Plata has been from first to last illegal.’ In truth, pacific blockade is a contradiction in terms. In practice, it is enforced by the same methods as blockade between belligerents; and a recent Dutch writer has well pointed out that the sole reason why it has not yet met with the unanimous disapproval of European powers is that hitherto it has been levelled against only the weakest states.

It had from time out of mind been reckoned a perfectly regular proceeding to declare a port or a territory under blockade, and to affix penalties to the violation of that declaration, although, in point of fact, not a single vessel should be present to enforce its observance. But gradually this tenet met with less toleration; and in 1780, when America and France were combined against England, the three great powers of the North, Russia, Denmark, and Sweden, entered into a league known as the ‘Armed Neutrality,’ with the object of evading the severe but ancient method of dealing with neutral commerce which Great Britain adopted. One of the articles which this confederacy agreed upon was: ‘A port is blockaded only when evident danger attends the attempt to run into it’—a principle which boldly denied the right of any power to close by a mere edict a single hostile port. But Britain doggedly persisted in the exercise of a right which had undoubtedly the sanction of custom; and the maritime powers of Europe were to wrangle and recriminate through still darker years before agreement could be reached. On the 21st of November 1806, Napoleon promulgated the famous Berlin Decree, which announced that every port in Great Britain was blockaded; and by an Order in Council, issued a year afterwards, the British government declared France and all the states which owned her supremacy to be subject to the same embargo. However far short the English performance might fall of their announced intention, the egregious pretentiousness of the French decree will be apparent enough to any one who remembers Macaulay’s saying of the Emperor: ‘The narrowest strait was to his power what it was of old believed that a running stream was to the sorceries of a witch.’ Yet, both governments were only carrying to its logical issue the old doctrine which neither had renounced—that a valid blockade might be constituted by mere notification. It was only in 1856 that, with the express purpose of removing as far as possible the uncertainty which hung over the rules of naval war, the great powers concurred in the Declaration of Paris, which has been called ‘a sort of doctrinal annex’ to the treaty of that year. Important as has been the operation of all the rules contained in that Declaration, the only one which concerns us here is the fourth: ‘Blockades in order to be binding must be effective—that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy.’ This being practically an adoption of the principle for which the neutrals of 1780 had so strenuously contended, was an argumentative victory for them; but it was far more; it was a triumph for those thinkers who have always maintained that all law must rest upon a basis of fact, that except in so far as law declares the relation which ought to subsist between facts which a previous analysis has ascertained, it is useless, and even mischievous.

The first fifteen years of the present century were marked by all that turbulence which had characterised the closing years of that which went before, and there were not wanting in both periods instances of blockades perseveringly prosecuted and gallantly resisted. In the beginning of 1800, for example, Genoa was the only city in Italy held by the French; the Austrian troops invested it by land, and English war-ships blocked the passage seaward. The beleaguered Genoese saw the usual incidents of an old-fashioned blockade. From time to time, one of the light privateers which lay behind the little island of Capraja, north-east of Corsica, would succeed in eluding all the vigilance of Admiral Keith’s squadron, and carry in provisions enough to prolong for a while the desperate resistance of Massena’s garrison; and now the blockaders would retaliate by ‘cutting out’ a galley from beneath the very guns of the harbour. One day a gale might drive the jealous sentinels to sea; but on the next, they were back at their old stations, there to wait with patience until pestilence and famine should bring the city to its doom. Sixty years later and in another hemisphere, the maritime world was to see how far the new appliances of elaborate science had altered the modes in which blockades were to be enforced and evaded.

On the 27th of April 1861, President Lincoln issued a proclamation in which the following announcement appeared: ‘A competent force will be posted so as to prevent the entrance and exit of vessels from the ports’ of the Southern States. ‘If, therefore, with a view to violate such blockade, any vessel shall attempt to leave any of said ports, she will be duly warned; and if she shall again attempt to enter or leave a blockaded port, she will be captured.’ All Europe was prepared to watch and to deride this attempt to lock up a coast-line of thirty-five hundred miles against the intrusion of traders, whose appetite for gain would be whetted to the keenest by artificially raised prices. Already, indeed, the scheme had been ridiculed as a ‘material impossibility’ by European statesmen, who pointed to the fact that not one of all the blockades established during the preceding seventy-five years had succeeded in excluding trade even where the coast to be watched was comparatively limited. But as a set-off against the long and broken stretch of coast which lay open to the operations of the blockade-runners, there were difficulties in their way which were at the outset of the struggle too lightly esteemed. Almost the whole extent of the seaboard was protected by a treacherous fringe of long low islands, scarcely rising above the surface of the water; the channels between and behind these were winding and intricate; and when these obstacles were passed, there still remained the crucial bar to imperil the entrance to every harbour.

The conditions of the impending conflict were new, and sagacious men foresaw that under them the risk of neutral powers being entangled in disputes with the belligerents was immensely increased. The agency of steam was to be employed for the first time to enforce a blockade on a gigantic scale. It was plain that a blockading squadron was no longer liable to be blown off the port it was watching by continued gales; but it was not so easy to say how far this new motive-power would alter the chances of the blockade-runners. The naval strength of the Northern States was at the beginning of the war so puny that the blockade when first instituted was little better than one of those ‘paper blockades’ which the voice of international law had condemned at Paris seven years before; for many months, indeed, the trade of the Confederacy with Europe was but little affected. It was in view of this that the New York Tribune urged Lincoln’s government to economise their sea-force, and close entrance channels by means of sunken hulks. This plan was adopted at Charleston, and carried out under the superintendence of an officer whose aim was ‘to establish a combination of artificial interruptions and irregularities resembling on a small scale those of Hell-gate,’ that rock which so long impeded the navigation to New York harbour, and which was removed only a few months ago.

In Europe, both military critics and Chambers of Commerce protested against this barbarous method of making good a blockade; but the stone-laden whale-ships sunk at Charleston did no permanent damage to the port, for before the war closed, the hulks broke up, and the harbour was filled with floating timber. But it was quickly felt that only an adequate fleet could render the blockade effective, and in response to the ceaseless activity of the dockyards, the northern war-ships multiplied with marvellous rapidity. The blockade grew strict. Gradually, the pressure of diminished imports began to tell on the resources of the Southern States; iron, liquors, machinery, articles of domestic use, medicinal drugs and appliances of all kinds became scarce. In Richmond, a yard of ordinary calico which was formerly sold for twelve and a half cents, brought thirty dollars; a pair of French gloves was worth one hundred and fifty dollars; and the price of salt had risen to a dollar a pound. The export trade, too, was being slowly strangled; immense stores of cotton and tobacco lay waiting shipment at every port. A bale of cotton worth forty dollars at Charleston would have brought two hundred at New York; and some idea of the price it might have yielded at Liverpool may be obtained from a consideration of the fact that half a million of English cotton-workers were subsisting only upon charity.

But the war sent trade into new channels. Nassau, the capital of New Providence, one of the Bahamas group, became one huge depôt for the goods which sought a market in the forbidden ports. Articles of household economy and of field equipment lay piled in heterogeneous masses on her wharfs, the cotton which had escaped the grasp of the Federals lay in her warehouses for reshipment to Europe; her coal-stores overflowed with the mineral which was to feed the greedy furnaces of the blockade-runners lying at anchor in the bay, and the patois of every seafaring people in Europe could be daily heard upon her quays. Hardly less numerous and varied were the groups of sailors, merchants, adventurers, and spies, who discussed the fortunes of the war upon the white-glancing terraces of Hamilton in the Bermudas.

Blockade-running had now become a business speculation. But the great bulk of the trade was in very few hands, for the risks were great, and the capital involved was large. The initial cost of a blockade-runner was heavy; the officers were highly paid; a pilot well acquainted with the port to be attempted often demanded one thousand pounds for his services; and besides all this, it is to be remembered that on a fair calculation not above one trip in four was successful. It is computed that in three years there were built or despatched from the Clyde no less than one hundred and eleven swift steamers specially designed for the adventurous trade with the Confederate ports. Almost any day in August 1864, one of these vessels might have been seen cruising about at the Tail of the Bank, preparing to try her speed against the swiftest passenger steamers of the river. The Douglas was in those days the fastest boat on the Mersey; but one of the new blockade-runners, named the Colonel Lamb, easily beat her, attaining on the trial a speed of sixteen and three-quarter knots (or about nineteen miles) per hour. A careful observer might almost have guessed the character of the enterprise for which a blockade-runner was designed by a scrutiny of her build. Two taper masts and a couple of short smoke-stacks were all that appeared above the deck; her object was to glide in the darkness past her watchers, and the tall spars of a heavily-rigged ship would have been too conspicuous a mark for eager eyes. Her hull was painted white, for experience showed that on dark nights or in thick weather that colour most easily escaped observation. Although she had considerable stowage-room, her draught was light, and she was propelled by paddle or side wheels, in order that she might turn readily in narrow or shallow waters. To aid their war-vessels in capturing and destroying light-heeled cruisers such as this, the Federal government built twenty-three small gunboats. They, too, drew but little water, and rarely exceeded five hundred tons burden. For armament they carried one eleven-inch pivot-gun and three howitzers—two of twenty-four pounds, and one of twenty pounds—well-chosen weapons for the work they had to do. Their weak point was their rate of speed, which did not amount to more than nine or ten knots an hour. So deficient were they in this respect, that a blockade-runner has been known to run out, get damaged, and sail round a gunboat into port again.

There was so much in blockade-running that was attractive to the adventurous, that we are hardly surprised to learn that officers of our navy engaged in the work, wholly forgetful of the neutral position to which their country’s policy bound them. The remonstrances, however, which were made to our government on that subject, and the Gazette Order which they elicited, would probably prevent those who had an official status from taking their capture so phlegmatically as the youth who took his passage out in a blockade-runner with the intention of enjoying a tour through the Southern States, and who, when the vessel was captured, wrote home saying that he would now explore the Northern States, ‘which would do quite as well.’ One can well imagine the tiptoe of expectation to which every one on board would rise as the Bermudas sank into the distance, and the time drew near which was to decide the fortune of their enterprise. How warily they lie off until the evening favours their approach, and then, with every light but the engine-fires extinguished, speed quietly but rapidly past the large looming hulls of the outer blockaders. But they have yet to run the gantlet of the inner cordon of gunboats, and now comes the real crisis of their venture. Shall they steam with cunning effrontery slowly and ostentatiously close past a gunboat? The plan offers a chance of success, for some of their watchers have once been blockade-runners themselves, and in the darkness the similarity of build might deceive. No; they perceive what seems to be a practicable gap in the line, and driving their engines to their utmost pitch, they rest their fate upon their speed. Yet they are detected: there goes a heavy swivel gun; the alarm is raised, and now a perfect fusillade rages round the intruder. But everything is against good practice; only one shot takes effect in her hull, that going clean through the bow; and with little other damage, the daring vessel steams into Wilmington with a valuable cargo of liquors, leather, and iron.

Blockade-running soon became almost as much an art as a trade, and there were some grumblers in this country who made it a ground of complaint that no English officers had been sent to observe the new development in this branch of naval warfare. The most ingenious expedients were resorted to on both sides. A system of signalling by means of blue lights and rockets was in many cases established between the forts and their friends in the offing. The steamer Hansa ran into Wilmington while Fort Fisher was being bombarded, and prevented pursuit by boldly sailing close past the powder-ship, which shortly afterwards blew up. Occasionally, a furious cannonade was begun from some adjacent fort, so as to draw off the blockading squadron, and leave the entrance free, if only for a few hours. The blockaders had their tricks too. Sometimes heavy smoke was seen rising as from a ship on fire; but when the blockade-runner steered to render help, she found out too late that the supposed burning vessel was a Federal cruiser, which had resorted to this device in order to bring the swifter craft within range of her guns. One dark rainy night the Petrel ran out of Charleston, and shortly afterwards fell in with what appeared to be a large merchant vessel. Hoping to crown a successful run with the capture of a valuable prize, she gave chase, and fired a shot to bring the stranger to. The reply was a single broadside, so well directed that there was no need for another. The supposed merchantman was the frigate St Lawrence. A favourite ruse of the privateer Jeff Davis was to hoist the French flag of distress, and when a ship bore down in response to this appeal, she would, under pretence of handing in a letter, send aboard a boat’s crew armed to the teeth.

But of all the remarkable incidents of this remarkable blockade there was none more noteworthy than the voyage of the British ship Emily St Pierre. The story rivals the inventions of a sea-romancer. This vessel left Calcutta with orders to make the coast of South Carolina and see if the blockade of Charleston was still in force. Now, although this was a proceeding not in any way illegal, she was nevertheless captured by a Federal warship; a prize crew of two officers and thirteen men was put on board; and her own crew, with the exception of the master, the cook, and the steward, was taken out of her. Thus manned, she was being steered for a northern port, when her deposed captain persuaded his cook and steward to assist him in making one effort to regain possession of the ship. They caught the mate asleep in his berth, ironed and gagged him; the prize-master they found on deck, and treated similarly; three seamen who had the watch on deck were asked to go down into the scuttle—a storeroom near the helm—for a coil of rigging. The captain gave them this order as if he had accepted the inevitable, and was aiding the captors to navigate the ship. As soon as the three leaped down, the hatch was closed, and they were prisoners. The remainder of the prize crew, who were in the forecastle, were shut down and liberated one by one; but those who would give no promise of help to their new master were confined beside the unfortunates in the scuttle. Three, indeed, consented, but only one of them was a sailor; and with this crew of five, a vessel of eight hundred and eighty-four tons was brought to Liverpool through thirty days of bad weather. It is only a fitting conclusion to such a tale of daring to record that the intrepid seaman who conceived and carried out the enterprise was a native of the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, which had already numbered among her sons the renowned Paul Jones.

IN ALL SHADES.

CHAPTER XXXII.

‘This is awkward, Tom, awfully awkward,’ Mr Theodore Dupuy said to his nephew as they rode homeward. ‘We must manage somehow to get rid of this man as early as possible. Of course, we can’t keep him in the house any longer with your cousin Nora, now that we know he’s really nothing more—baronet or no baronet—than a common mulatto. But at the same time, you see, we can’t get rid of him anyhow by any possibility before the dinner to-morrow evening. I’ve asked several of the best people in Trinidad especially to meet him, and I don’t want to go and stultify myself openly before the eyes of the whole island. What the dickens can we do about it?’

‘If you’d taken my advice, Uncle Theodore,’ Tom Dupuy answered sullenly, in spite of his triumph, ‘you’d have got rid of him long ago. As it is, you’ll have to keep him on now till after Tuesday, and then we must manage somehow to dismiss him politely.’

They rode on without another word till they reached the house; there, they found Nora and Harry had arrived before them, and had gone in to dress for dinner. Mr Dupuy followed their example; but Tom, who had made up his mind suddenly to stop, loitered about on the lawn under the big star-apple tree, waiting in the cool till the young Englishman should make his appearance.

Meanwhile, Nora, in her own dressing-room, attended by Rosina Fleming and Aunt Clemmy, was thinking over the afternoon’s ride very much to her own satisfaction. Mr Noel was really after all a very nice fellow: if he hadn’t been so dreadfully dark—but there, he was really just one shade too dusky in the face ever to please a West Indian fancy. And yet, he was certainly very much in love with her! The very persistence with which he avoided reopening the subject, while he went on paying her such very marked attention, showed in itself how thoroughly in earnest he was. ‘He’ll propose to me again to-morrow—I’m quite sure he will,’ Nora thought to herself, as Rosina fastened up her hair with a sprig of plumbago and a little delicate spray of wild maiden-hair. ‘He was almost going to propose to me as we came along by the mountain-cabbages this afternoon, only I saw him hesitating, and I turned the current of the conversation. I wonder why I turned it? I’m sure I don’t know why. I wonder whether it was because I didn’t know whether I should answer “Yes” or “No,” if he were really to ask me? I think one ought to decide in one’s own mind beforehand what one’s going to say in such a case, especially when a man has asked one already. He’s awfully nice. I wish he was just a shade or two lighter. I believe Tom really fancies—he’s so dark—it isn’t quite right with him.’

Isaac Pourtalès, lounging about that minute, watching for Rosina, whom he had come to talk with, saw Nora flit for a second past the open window of the passage, in her light and gauze-like evening dress, with open neck in front, and the flowers twined in her pretty hair; and he said to himself as he glanced up at her: ‘De word ob de Lard say right, “Take captive de women!”’

At the same moment, Tom Dupuy, strolling idly on the lawn in the thickening twilight, caught sight of Pourtalès, and beckoned him towards him with an imperious finger. ‘Come here,’ he said; ‘I want to talk with you, you nigger there.—You’re Isaac Pourtalès, aren’t you?—I thought so. Then come and tell me all you know about this confounded cousin of yours—this man Noel.’

Isaac Pourtalès, nothing loth, poured forth at once in Tom Dupuy’s listening ear the whole story, so far as he knew it, of Lady Noel’s antecedents in Barbadoes. While the two men, the white and the brown, were still conversing under the shade of the star-apple tree, Nora, who had come down to the drawing-room meanwhile, strolled out for a minute, beguiled by the cool air, on to the smoothly kept lawn in front of the drawing-room window. Tom saw her, and beckoned her to him with his finger, exactly as he had beckoned the tall mulatto. Nora gazed at the beckoning hand with the intensest disdain, and then turned away, as if perfectly unconscious of his ungainly gesture, to examine the tuberoses and great bell-shaped brugmansias of the garden border.

Tom walked up to her angrily and rudely. ‘Didn’t you see me calling you, miss?’ he said in his harsh drawl, with no pretence of unnecessary politeness. ‘Didn’t you see I wanted to speak to you?’

‘I saw you making signs to somebody with your hand, as if you took me for a servant,’ Nora answered coldly; ‘and not having been accustomed in England to be called in that way, I thought you must have made a mistake as to whom you were dealing with.’

Tom started and muttered an ugly oath. ‘In England,’ he repeated. ‘Oh, ah, in England. West Indian gentlemen, it seems, aren’t good enough for you, miss, since this fellow Noel has come out to make up to you. I suppose you don’t happen to know that he’s a West Indian too, and a precious queer sort of one into the bargain? I know you mean to marry him, miss; but all I can tell you is, your father and I are not going to permit it.’

‘I don’t wish to marry him,’ Nora answered, flushing fiery red all over (‘Him is pretty for true when him blush like dat,’ Isaac Pourtalès said to himself from the shade of the star-apple tree). ‘But if I did, I wouldn’t listen to anything you might choose to say against him, Tom Dupuy; so that’s plain speaking enough for you.’

Tom sneered. ‘O no,’ he said; ‘I always knew you’d end by marrying a woolly-headed mulatto; and this man’s one, I don’t mind telling you. He’s a brown man born; his mother, though she is Lady Noel—fine sort of a Lady, indeed—is nothing better than a Barbadoes brown girl; and he’s own cousin to Isaac Pourtalès over yonder! He is, I swear to you.—Isaac, come here, sir!’

Nora gave a little suppressed scream of surprise and horror as the tall mulatto, in his ragged shirt, leering horribly, emerged unexpectedly, like a black spectre, from the shadows opposite.

‘Isaac,’ the young planter said with a malicious smile, ‘who is this young man, I want to know, that calls himself Mister Noel?’

Isaac Pourtalès touched his slouching hat awkwardly as he answered, under his breath, with an ugly scowl: ‘Him me own cousin, sah, an’ me mudder cousin. Him an’ me mudder is fam’ly long ago in ole Barbadoes.’

‘There you are, Nora!’ Tom Dupuy cried out to her triumphantly. ‘You see what sort of person your fine English friend has turned out to be.’

‘Tom Dupuy,’ Nora cried in her wrath—but in her own heart she knew it wasn’t true—‘if you tell me this, trying to set me against Mr Noel, you’ve failed in your purpose, sir: what you say has no effect upon me. I do not care for him; you are quite mistaken about that; but if I did, I don’t mind telling you, your wicked scheming would only make me like him all the better. Tom Dupuy, no real gentleman would ever try so to undermine another man’s position.’

At that moment, Harry Noel, just descending to the drawing-room, strolled out to meet them on the lawn, quite unconscious of this little family altercation. Nora glanced hastily from Tom Dupuy, in his planter coat and high riding-boots, to Harry Noel, looking so tall and handsome in his evening dress, and couldn’t help noticing in her own mind which of the two was the truest gentleman. ‘Mr Noel,’ she said, accepting his half-proffered arm with a natural and instinctively gracious movement, ‘will you take me in to dinner? I see it’s ready.’

Tom Dupuy, crest-fallen and astonished, followed after, and muttered to himself with deeper conviction than ever that he always knew that girl Nora would end in the longrun by marrying a confounded woolly-headed mulatto.

(To be continued.)

THE ASCENT OF CLOUDY MOUNTAIN, NEW GUINEA.

BY CAPTAIN CYPRIAN BRIDGE, R.N.

The Rev. James Chalmers—known all along the southern coast of New Guinea, throughout the original British protectorate in fact, as ‘Ta-ma-té’—will always be held responsible for the first ascent of Cloudy Mountain. Taking advantage of the presence of Commodore Erskine’s squadron at South Cape, he instilled into the minds of some of the officers a desire to get to the summit. With the persuasive eloquence of which his many friends know him to be a master, he expatiated on the honourable nature of the enterprise, dwelling on the fact that no white man had as yet attempted it. It is not wonderful that he excited considerable enthusiasm; nor is it, perhaps, wonderful that, as the climate is a moist one and as the warm tropical season was well advanced, some of the enthusiasm had greatly decreased when the day for starting arrived. It was interesting to observe how many pressing engagements happened to prevent some of the more eager aspirants for alpine honours from attempting Cloudy Mountain, when the expedition was definitely determined on. One had arrears of correspondence to make up; another had promised to join a friend in a shooting excursion; whilst a third wisely took into consideration the fact of his being no longer young. It would have been well for at least one of the party that afterwards made the ascent if he also had remembered that the middle age is not the best time of life at which to try climbing almost precipitous elevations through trackless forests in the atmosphere of a hothouse.

On Friday, the 21st of November, the union-jack had been hoisted, and the British protectorate over the southern coast of New Guinea had been proclaimed with imposing ceremonies on Stacey Island, South Cape. Time, which is usually deficient when naval officers visit places from which interesting excursions can be made, did not allow of the start for the summit of the mountain being deferred till the following day. It was compulsory to get away as soon as possible after the ceremony. Mr Chalmers, whom no exertion can tire, made arrangements for collecting a body of native carriers. He advised each excursionist to take a change of clothes, a blanket, and enough food for twenty-four hours. By about eleven A.M. there were assembled at the village of Hanod, at the head of Bertha Lagoon, the following: Captain C. Bridge; Lieutenants R. N. Ommanney and M. Thomson; R. Millist, captain’s steward, of H.M.S. Espiègle; Commander W. H. Henderson; Lieutenant T. C. Fenton; Mr Glaysher, engineer; Mr T. W. Stirling, midshipman; four blue-jackets, and one R.M. artilleryman of H.M.S. Nelson; Lieutenant John L. Marx, commanding H.M.S. Swinger; Sub-lieutenant A. Pearson, of H.M.S. Dart; and Mr Stuart of Sydney, New South Wales.

The tribes inhabiting the country about South Cape are of the dark race, and were cannibals, until their recent renunciation of the practice, under the influence of the missionaries. They are a much merrier and more talkative people than the non-cannibal light-coloured race, which dwells farther to the westward. The work of selecting carriers proceeded with much vociferation; the carriers themselves, their friends, and all the ladies of the village—in this part of New Guinea the influence of woman is great—considering it necessary to address lengthy speeches in a loud tone to the white strangers. That not one of these understood a sentence of what was being said to them, by no means discouraged the eloquence of the villagers. ‘Ta-ma-té’s’ extraordinary faculty of influencing the natives in a cheery way soon introduced order into what looked very much like hopeless confusion. With the aid of the teacher Biga, who could speak both the Motu and the South Cape languages, he chose a sufficient number of carriers, appointed as guide an elderly native who professed to have been to the top of the mountain, and set about distributing the loads to be carried. The wages agreed upon were a small ‘trade’ knife and three sticks of tobacco, value in all about eightpence per man. Some biscuit and a little extra tobacco were given afterwards, to keep up the spirits of the party during the journey.

Though not much troubled with clothes, our new friends were, at all events relatively to the western tribes, decently clad. The women wear a becoming petticoat of leaves and fibre, coming down to the knee. They often put on several of these garments one above the other, the effect being much the same as that of a capacious crinoline. In New Guinea, the women are tattooed from forehead to ankles, occasionally in very elaborate patterns. The name Papua given to New Guinea is said to mean ‘woolly-headed,’ and the appellation has been well bestowed. The men of both races ‘tease’ their hair out into a prodigious mop. So do the girls. Married women cut theirs short. The bushy wig which many of the natives of this region seem to be wearing decidedly improves their appearance. When their hair is cut short, the similarity of their features to those of African negroes becomes more obvious. They are not tall; but they have well-shaped limbs, and many of them are sturdy fellows. The usual weight for a native carrier is twenty-five pounds. But, as the number of travellers likely to ascend Cloudy Mountain had greatly fallen off, we found ourselves with more carriers than we could supply loads for. The result was that some at all events had very light burdens. One man, for instance, carried an empty tin case for specimens of plants; another, a few sheets of blotting-paper between two thin pieces of board provided for the same purpose.

When officers land in the South Sea Islands, nicety of dress is not much attended to. A helmet or straw-hat, a shirt, a pair of flannel trousers, and boots or shoes more remarkable for utility than elegance, are found quite sufficient. In a moist hot climate, the less clothing the better; and in countries in which there are no roads, not many paths, and where, as a rule, progress is only possible through thick forest and over muddy ground, the fewer garments worn, the fewer there are to be cleaned at the end of an excursion.

For the first half-hour after leaving the village on Bertha Lagoon, the way ran across a mangrove swamp of soft mud, interspersed with pools of black-looking water, and studded with the peculiar and aggravating knobs that the roots of the mangrove bush delight to form. It was worth while to note the care with which most of the excursionists began to pick their way; some even evinced a desire not to wet their boots. To keep the nether garments clean was clearly in general considered an object worth trying for. But after a few rapid and involuntary descents from slippery logs, seductively resembling bridges, placed across the most forbidding sloughs, a determination to push on straight and discontinue efforts to circumvent puddles, became universally apparent. When the swamp had been left behind some distance, our carriers, who belonged to a humorous race, kindly informed us, through the interpreters—their faces beaming with delight as the information was imparted—that they could have taken us by a route which would have avoided it altogether. This statement was proved to be true on our return, as some of the party escaped traversing the swamp a second time by taking a path which led to the westward of it, and others descended in canoes the lower part of a river that discharges itself into the lagoon. When asked why they had not let us know of the existence of a more agreeable road, our native friends made the unanswerable reply, that none of our party had suggested to them any wish to avoid the mangroves.

For an hour we had now to move along through a well-timbered country, occasionally passing small cultivated patches, where yams, bananas, and taro were grown. The path in most places was not difficult; but it lost itself from time to time in a stream of clear water, whose frequent rapids showed that we had begun to ascend. Repeated wadings had at all events the advantage of removing all traces of our passage across the swamp. The scenery was highly picturesque, especially at some of the reaches of the little river. The pebbly banks were crowned with a rich vegetation; the number and variety of the trees and shrubs—amongst which the wild plantain, palms of various kinds, and the pandanus were conspicuous—were at least as great as in most tropical lands. Glimpses of lofty wooded heights were frequently obtained. A few tuneful birds were heard, and we saw some azure-hued kingfishers. But, as a rule, particularly as the lower country was left, the music of the woods was monopolised by screeching white cockatoos. The scene was greatly enlivened by the number and beauty of the butterflies which flitted amongst the bushes. One of our party had provided himself with a net; and, though occasional bad shots at some peculiarly nimble lepidoptera were made, his ‘bag’ turned out a very good one. On a broad stretch of gravel and pebbles by the side of the water, towards one o’clock, a halt was made for luncheon. The spot was fairly shady, and the heat, considering our position, was not excessive. A biscuit or two was handed to the carriers, and—what delighted them still more—a few small fragments of tobacco. The New Guinea fashion of smoking is peculiar. The pipe is a bamboo tube about two feet long and two inches in diameter, with one end closed. Near this end, a small hole like the mouth-hole of a flute is made, and in it a piece of leaf, twisted into a pointed cup or ‘horn’ containing a little tobacco, is inserted. Applying a light to the tobacco, the smoker sucks vigorously at the open end of the tube; when this is filled with smoke, he puts his lips to the small hole and takes several ‘draws,’ after which the tobacco has to be replenished and the pipe relighted. Politeness flourishes throughout the south-western Pacific Isles; even the naked cannibals of New Britain exhibit to friends that true courtesy which consists in doing as one would be done by. The New Guinean who lights the pipe, when he has filled it with smoke, usually hands it to some one else to have the first whiff. On the present occasion, the pipe was offered first to the white man, to whom, so long as he behaves to them becomingly, Pacific Island natives are almost invariably polite.

The lateness of our start rendered any but a short halt impossible, so the repast was a hasty one. The increasing steepness showed that we had begun the ascent in earnest. A path there certainly was, but, as a rule, it was not easily discerned amid the thick growth of tropical shrubs. As far as the density of the forest would allow us to examine the country to any distance, we appeared to be mounting the ridge of a spur of the main mountain mass. A deep valley lay on either hand, at the bottom of which we could hear the rumbling of a stream. The number of cockatoos increased as we got higher, and some were shot for culinary purposes subsequently. We saw some handsome pigeons, and at least one small flight of the large beaked bird called toucan, though probably it differs from the South American bird to which that name rightly belongs. Ignorance of ornithology made some of us doubt if it were the hornbill or buceros, one of which we heard afterwards overhead puffing like a locomotive, on our way down. The profusion of ferns, palms, orchids, and flowering shrubs was striking. The ascent was really a climb, as the hands had to be used nearly as much as the feet. At one or two points, the face of a steep water-worn rock had to be scaled. Frequent short halts became absolutely necessary; and the head of our long and straggling line of white men and carriers usually resumed the work of ascending as the rear reached the point at which the former had rested. When the afternoon had well advanced—the only watch in the company having been broken at a specially stiff bit of climbing, the exact time could not be told—we had reached a comparatively open space, which our guide declared to be the summit. The impossibility of this being so was demonstrated by the appearance of the true summit, of which a temporary break in the clouds usually hiding it, now permitted a glimpse. Our guide thereupon asserted that it was the only summit which he knew; that no native of the country had ever attempted to mount higher; and that, anyhow, no path was to be found farther on. These assertions were probably true. The correctness at least of the last was soon established beyond the chance of doubt; subsequent progress disclosed the fact that the path, which for the last hour had been scarcely visible by the naked eye, ceased altogether.

When the rear of the line came up, these questions were being debated: Should arrangements be made for camping for the night on the spot then occupied? or should a further attempt to reach the summit be made? Lieutenant Fenton and Mr Stirling settled the matter as far as they were concerned by pushing on with the determination of crowning the mountain by themselves, if no one else cared to follow them. ‘Ta-ma-té’ reviewed the situation in a short and fitting address, which closed with a reminder that not even a native, it was now proved, had ever got to the top. This was enough to prevent any flagging of the enthusiasm necessary to carry the travellers higher. Even the oldest member of the party, who had already begun to doubt the wisdom of joining in such an enterprise by one who had years ago qualified as a member of the ‘senior’ United Service Club, unhesitatingly gave his vote for a continuance of the ascent and for the conquest of the virgin height.

It had been held that the previous part of the journey had afforded instances of some rather pretty climbing. It was child’s play to what followed. Path there was none; the vegetation became if possible denser; and the only practicable line of advance ran along the edge of a ridge nearly as ‘sharp and perilous’ as the bridge leading to the Mohammedan Paradise. This ridge was so steep that, thickly clothed as it was with trees, shrubs, and creepers, it was frequently impossible to advance without pulling one’s self up by one’s hands. In selecting something to lay hold of to effect this, great care had to be exercised. The ‘lawyer’ palm, which sends out trailing shoots admirably adapted to the purpose of tripping up the unwary, is studded with thorns in the very part where it is most natural for a climber requiring its aid to seize it. In the most difficult places, there flourished an especially exasperating variety of pandanus. This tree has many uses, and in this instance it seemed to have been purposely placed just where it might best help the ascending traveller. The pyramid of stalks or aërial roots, which unite several feet above the surface of the soil to form the trunk, always looked so inviting to those in want of a ‘lift,’ that no experience was sufficient to prevent repeated recourse to its assistance. Unhappily, each stalk of a diameter convenient for grasping by the hand was studded with sharp prickles, almost invariably hidden by a coating of deliciously soft moss. It was not until the weight of the body was thrown on the hand encircling one of these deceptive stalks, that the situation was fully realised. In the absence of a path, it was of some advantage to keep amongst the rearward members of the party. A few persons in front quickly made a trail, which was not very often lost, particularly when the leaders had had the forethought to break branches off adjacent shrubs, so that the fractures served as guideposts to those following. The great steepness of the sides of the spur on the ridge of which was the line of advance, rendered it most desirable not to stray from the path, as serious injury, if not complete destruction, would in such case have been inevitable. Sometimes a climber dislodged a stone that went crashing amongst the thick growth with which the precipitous sides were covered, downwards for hundreds of feet, till the noise of its fall died away in the distance.

Clouds were collecting about the mountain, and the sun was about to set, when at length the whole party stood upon the summit. There was a comparatively level space, perhaps thirty feet square, thickly overgrown with trees and shrubs. The moist heat on the way up had been great enough to render every one’s clothes dripping wet, even had not occasional thick mists drenched our scanty garments. It was so late, that no time was to be lost in making arrangements for spending the night on the top of the mountain. Tomahawks were brought into requisition, and several trees were felled and laid one on another along two sides of a small square, thus forming a low wall, under shelter of which a bivouac might be formed. Many showers had fallen on the higher parts of the mountain during the day, and so general was the humidity that it was difficult to light a fire. When this was at length accomplished, a meal was prepared, and soon despatched. The kindling of a fire incited the native carriers to do the same on every available spot, amongst others at a point dead to windward of the bivouac, to the grievous annoyance of the travellers’ eyes, till a more suitable place was substituted.

With leaves and twigs plentifully strewed under the lee of the felled logs, the white men had managed to get themselves ‘littered down’ for the night. The small rain which had been falling nearly ever since the summit had been reached, turned into sharp showers, and showed symptoms of continuing. The supply of water was found to be very short, as, trusting to the statements of the natives before it was ascertained that their knowledge of the country did not extend beyond the termination of the path, it was thought unnecessary to carry a large supply to the end of the journey, where, it was anticipated, it would be found in abundance. The prospect for the night was not cheering. Those who had brought a change of clothing now put it on in place of the dripping garments hitherto worn, and rolling themselves in their blankets, lay down to sleep, or to try to sleep. Many things conspired to prevent slumber. It was soon discovered that some of the party had no blanket. Mr Chalmers at once set himself to rectify this, and did so in characteristic fashion. He borrowed a knife, and, cutting his own blanket in two, insisted upon its being accepted by a companion who had none. It is related of one of the several Saints Martin—on board men-of-war, we cannot be expected to be very familiar with the hagiology, so it will be well not to attempt to specify which of them it was—that seeing a beggar in want of a cloak, he gave him his own. Now, seriously, without in the least desiring to disparage the charity of the saint, it may be pointed out that beggars are usually met with in the streets of towns, and that to give away a cloak therein is at the best not more meritorious than giving to a companion half of your only blanket at the beginning of a rainy night on the summit of a distant mountain. But this was not all. It was decided that the best protection against rain would be the erection of some sort of tent. ‘Ta-ma-té’ was soon employed in helping to construct this shelter, and in spite of all opposition, persisted in contributing the remaining portion of his blanket to form the roof.

Contenting himself with as much of a companion’s blanket as could be spared to him, he made himself, as he protested, extremely comfortable; and that all might be as merry as possible, started a musical entertainment by favouring the company with Auld Langsyne. His jollity was contagious. There was a succession of songs. When these had been concluded with a ‘fore-bitter’ of formidable length on the death of Lord Nelson by a seaman of H.M.S. Nelson gifted with a fine voice, the natives were invited to take up the singing. They complied without much hesitation. They sang in a low and rather plaintive tone, with a curious deep tremolo uttered from time to time in unison. At length, as some began to grow sleepy, Mr Chalmers asked for silence, so that the teacher Biga might be able to conduct the evening devotions. This he did in an extempore prayer, attentively followed by the natives, and, if not understood, at all events reverently listened to, by the white men. To one at least of the latter, sleep was impossible. Fatigue must be indeed overwhelming which will enable one to slumber when, in the midst of the only available sleeping-place, a point of rock is so situated that it almost forces a passage between the ribs. Luckily, there were no mosquitoes or other voracious insects. But there was an unpleasant many-legged black slug four or five inches long which evinced an unconquerable predilection for crawling over the naked human body. It was far from pleasant to find this animal just effecting a passage between the neckband of the shirt and the skin, or trying to coil itself round the ear of the side which happened to be uppermost. A careful member of our party, before lying down, had stretched a line between two trees, and on it had hung his wet clothes. Looking about him in the night, he discovered that the clothes had disappeared, and his announcement of this discovery elicited from a companion the intelligence that the natives were wearing them. This statement, so to speak, brought down the house. The natives heartily joined in the hilarious applause with which it was received. The same reception was extended to occasional ejaculations from other companions of the bivouac, such as, ‘By Jove! there’s a native with my shirt on!’ Subsequent reflections convinced the owners that it was fortunate that the temporary borrowing of their clothes by their native friends had been looked upon as part of the fun of the excursion. Had any one been so ill-conditioned as to maltreat or scold the merry, intelligent carriers, they would, almost to a certainty, have stolen away in the night, and have left the white men to get themselves and their things home as best they could. One native gentleman displayed so much ingenuity in the mode of wearing one of the more unmentionable garments, which he somehow or other succeeded in converting into a kind of sleeved waistcoat, that the appreciative owner made him a present of it. The new possessor had a proper pride in this acquisition, and wore it in his village after the descent; indeed, he had the honour of being introduced to the commodore whilst clad in it.

‘Ta-ma-té,’ who, with universal assent, had established a genial despotism over the bivouac, issued a decree that every one should make a joke, and that the joke adjudged the best should be sent to a newspaper for publication. Either this was trying the loyalty of his contented subjects too severely, or the labour of incubating jokes was too great for wearied mountaineers, for, after one or two feeble endeavours to comply with his edict, a general silence fell upon the company.

In the morning, after a not absolutely perfect night’s rest, deficiency of water rendered abstaining from even an attempt at breakfast compulsory. There was little, therefore, to delay the ceremony of hoisting the union-jack—providently brought for the purpose by Lieutenant Fenton—upon the newly crowned summit. A suitable tree was cut down and lopped; the flag was secured to it; and a hole having been dug in which to insert it, the flagstaff was reared amidst a very good imitation of three cheers from the natives, and the real thing from the white men. The descent then began; and much of it was effected by a different route from that of the ascent. Orchids, ferns, and other plants were collected on the way. Sore hands, barked shins, added to want of sleep and to a long fast, made the descent seem to some even more fatiguing than the climb of the day before. The interval before water was reached appeared excessive, and before a halt could be made for breakfast, interminable. By two P.M. the travellers were back on board their ships, proud of the distinction of being the first to ascend a mountain summit in Eastern New Guinea.

TREASURE TROVE.

A STORY IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAP. IV.

Upon Jasper Rodley’s entrance into the house, Bertha had retired to her own room, pleading that she was suffering from the excitement, the fatigue, and the exposure she had undergone; but she could hear a conversation kept up in the dining-room until a late hour, and instinctively felt that Rodley had not come again without a reason. To her surprise, the next morning she found that both her father and his visitor were already downstairs, Jasper Rodley looking out of the window and whistling to himself, the captain with evident agitation marked on his movements and face.

‘Bertha,’ he said, without even giving her the usual morning greeting, ‘Mr Rodley has come here especially to say that from information he has received, it will be necessary for you at once to decide what course you intend to adopt. There is a chance, he says, that the great evil hanging over our heads may be averted, but it depends upon your answer.’

‘Mr Rodley must give me until this evening to think over the matter. I am going into Saint Quinians, if possible to see Harry—that is, Mr Symonds, for even Mr Rodley will admit that plighted troths are not to be broken in this abrupt manner. I shall be home before dark.’

‘Then I will see you on your road,’ said Rodley, ‘as I am going into the town.’

‘You need not trouble,’ said Bertha. ‘The road is quite familiar to me, and I have no fear of being molested.’ Then, without waiting to hear whether Jasper Rodley objected or not to the arrangement, she left the house.

In exactly an hour’s time, she walked into the town. At the old gate she was confronted by rather a pretty girl, who laid a hand gently on her arm, and said: ‘You are Miss West, I believe?’

Bertha replied in the affirmative.

‘You are in an unhappy and terrible position, and you have very little time to spare, I think?’ added the girl.

Bertha looked at her wonderingly, for she could not recall ever having seen her before.

‘I mean,’ explained the girl, who observed that Bertha was surprised at this acquaintance on the part of a stranger with her affairs—‘I mean with regard to that man, Jasper Rodley.—Yes, I know all about it; and I want, not only to be your friend, but to see that evil-doing meets with its just reward.’

The girl was poorly dressed; but her accent and mode of expression were those of an educated woman, and, moreover, she had such a thin, sorrow-lined face, that Bertha felt she could trust her.

‘Let me be with you to-day,’ continued the girl, ‘and you may thank me for it some day. I have long wanted to see you, and have waited here for you often. Never mind who I am—that you shall find out later.’

‘Very well,’ said Bertha, who naturally clung to the friendship of one of her own sex. ‘I am going to see Mr Symonds—my betrothed.’

‘The gentleman who was obliged to leave Faraday’s Bank, four years ago; yes, I remember,’ said the girl.

They crossed the market-place together, and were soon at Harry Symonds’ lodgings. The servant, in reply to Bertha’s inquiries, said that the young man was so far recovered as to be able to sit up, but that the doctor had ordered him to keep perfectly quiet and to be free from all excitement. So Bertha wrote him a note describing all that had taken place, and begging for an immediate answer. In the course of twenty minutes, the servant handed her a piece of paper, on which was scrawled as follows:

My dearest Love—This is written with my left hand, as my right is yet in a sling. I wish I could say all that I want to; but as every moment is of value to you, I will simply keep to business. Take a postchaise home; get the money out of the cavern, and send it here. John Sargent the fisherman is to be trusted; let him come back with it in the postchaise. I will return it to the bank, making up out of my savings whatever difference there is from the original amount stolen. Lose no time, my darling, and God bless you!—Ever your affectionate

Harry.

Bertha and the girl hurried away; and just as they entered the Dolphin Inn to order the chaise, they espied Jasper Rodley entering the town watchhouse, the local headquarters of the civil force which in those days performed, or rather was supposed to perform, the duties of our modern constabulary.

‘Miss West,’ said the girl, ‘I had better remain in the town for the present. At what hour to-day is Jasper Rodley coming to your house?’

‘I said I would be home by dark. He will be there before then, to receive my final answer.’

‘Very well, then; I will be there about that time,’ continued the girl.

‘Will you not even tell me your name?’ asked Bertha.

‘Yes. My name is Patience Crowell. Till to-night, good-bye. Keep up your spirits; all will end well.’

In a few minutes the postchaise was ready, and in order to escape the notice of Jasper Rodley, was driven round to the town gate, where Bertha jumped in. She stopped at John Sargent’s cottage, and mentioned her errand.

‘Why,’ said the old fisherman, ‘I’m too glad to do anythin’ for Master Symonds. He saved my life once at Saint Quinians’ jetty, and I’ve never had no chance of doin’ suthin’ for him in return like.—Come along, miss; if it’s to the end of the world, come along!’

As Jasper Rodley might pass by at any moment, Bertha thought it best to keep the chaise out of sight, whilst she and the fisherman, provided with a large net-basket, proceeded to the cliffs. In half an hour’s time the bags of coin were safely stowed away in the postchaise; John Sargent jumped in, the chaise rattled off; and Bertha, with a light heart and a heightened colour, returned home.

The captain was stumping up and down the little gravelled space in his garden, which from the presence there of half-a-dozen old cannon and a flagstaff, he delighted to call the Battery. When he beheld Bertha, he welcomed her with a sad smile, and putting her arm in his, said: ‘Bertha, lass, I’ve been thinking over this business ever since you went away this morning, and the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve called myself a mean, cowardly, selfish old fool.’

‘Why, father?’

‘Because, look here. I’ve been telling you to make yourself miserable for life by marrying a man you despise and dislike, just so that I may get off the punishment that’s due to me. I’m an old man, and in the ordinary course of things, I can’t have many years before me. You’re a girl with all your life before you, and yet I’m wicked enough to tell you to give up all your long life so that my few years shouldn’t be disturbed.’

‘But father’—— began Bertha.

‘Let me speak!’ interposed the old man. ‘I’ve been doing a wicked thing all these four years; but I know what’s right. When this man asks you to be his wife to-night, you say “No;” mind, you say “No.” If you don’t, I will; and you won’t marry without my permission.’

‘Dear father, you leave it to me. I do not promise anything except that by no act of mine shall one hair of your head be touched.—Let us talk of other things, for Jasper Rodley will be here soon.’

So they walked up and down until the sun began to sink behind the hills inland and the air grew chilly. They had scarcely got into the house, when Jasper Rodley appeared. He bowed formally to Bertha, and offered his hand to the captain, which was declined. ‘Miss West,’ he said, ‘I think I have given you fair time for decision. I have not been so exacting as circumstances justified.’

Bertha said nothing in reply, but sat in a chair by the window, and looked out on the sea as if nothing unusual was taking place.

So Jasper Rodley continued: ‘I will speak then at once, and to the point. Miss West, will you accept me for your husband?’

‘No, I will not,’ replied Bertha, in a low, firm voice.

Mr Rodley was evidently unprepared for this, and looked at her with open mouth. ‘That is your final answer?’ he asked, after a pause. ‘You are prepared to see your father, whom you love so dearly, taken from here in custody to be brought up as a common felon?’

‘Yes. That is, Mr Rodley, if you can prove anything against him. Of what do you accuse him?’

‘I accuse him of having lived during the past four years upon money which was not his, but which was stolen from Faraday’s Bank in Saint Quinians, which was taken off in a vessel called the Fancy Lass, the said vessel being wrecked off this coast.’

‘Very well,’ continued Bertha. ‘What is your proof that he knows anything about this money?’

‘One moment before I answer that. You refuse to marry me if I can bring no proof. You will marry me if I do?’

‘Show me the proof first,’ answered Bertha.

‘You must follow me, then.’

‘Not alone.—Father, you must come with me.’

So the trio proceeded out into the dusk, and, conducted by Jasper Rodley, followed the path leading to the cliffs. Bertha observed that they were followed at a little distance by a man closely enveloped in a long coat, and as they ascended the ledge of rock communicating with the shore, noticed two other figures—those of a man and a woman—watching them.

‘It’s a very nice little hiding-place,’ remarked Rodley, when they arrived at the bushes—‘a very nice little hiding-place, and it seems almost a pity to make it public property; but a proof is demanded, and sentimental feelings must give way.’ He smiled as he said this, and kicked the bush aside with his feet, thus uncovering the cavern entrance. They entered the hole, which was now quite dark; but Rodley had come prepared, and struck a light. He then rolled away the stone, and without looking himself, gave Bertha the light and bade her satisfy her doubts.

‘There is nothing here,’ she said.

‘Nothing!’ exclaimed Rodley, taking the light from her hand and examining the cavity. ‘Why!—Gracious powers! no more there is! There has been robbery! Some one has been here and has sacked the bank!’ His face was positively ghastly in the weird light as he said this, and under his breath he continued a fire of horrible execrations.

‘Well, Mr Rodley,’ said Bertha, smiling, ‘and the proof?’

Rodley did not answer, but moved as if to leave the cavern, when a woman’s figure confronted him at the entrance, and a ringing voice said: ‘Proof! No! He has no proof!’

Rodley staggered back with a cry of rage and surprise. ‘Patience! Why—how have you got here? I left you at Yarmouth!—Ha! I see it all now!’

‘Yes,’ cried the girl, ‘of course you do. I gave you fair warning, when I found out that you were beginning to forsake me for another; but not until after I had begged and entreated you, with tears in my eyes, to remember the solemn protestations of love you had made me, and the solemn troth which we had plighted together.’

‘Let me go!’ roared Rodley; ‘you’re mad!’

‘No, no—not so fast!’ cried the girl. She made a signal to some one without, and a man entered.

‘Jasper Rodley,’ continued Patience, ‘this constable has a warrant for your apprehension on the charge of having been concerned in the bank robbery four years ago.—Yes, you may look fiercely at me. I swore that the secret in my keeping should never be divulged. I loved you so much, that I was ready even to marry a thief. But as you have broken your faith with me, I consider myself free of all obligations.—Captain West, it was this man who planned the robbery, who had the coin conveyed to his boat, the Fancy Lass, and who alone was saved from the wreck.’

Rodley made a desperate rush for the cave entrance; but the constable held him fast, and took him off.

‘There, Miss West!’ cried the girl; ‘I have done my duty, and I have satisfied my revenge. My mission is accomplished. Good-bye, and all happiness be with you.’ And before Bertha could stop her, she had disappeared.

Jasper Rodley was convicted on the charge of robbery, and received a heavy sentence, which he did not live to fulfil. Harry Symonds paid in to the bank the entire sum stolen, the authorities of which offered him immediately the position of manager, which he declined. He and Bertha were married shortly afterwards; but they could not induce the old captain to move to the house they had taken, for he could not get over the shame of the exposure, and declared that he was only fit for the hermit life he had chosen; but no one outside the little circle ever knew that he had been indirectly concerned in the robbery; and neither Harry nor Bertha alluded to it after.

Of Patience Crowell, who had so opportunely appeared on the scene, nothing was ever known.

THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.

Dr Gustav Jaeger, whose sanitary clothing reform made some little stir a year or two back, seeks to apply the principle involved in his theory to furniture. This theory teaches that cotton, linen, and other stuffs of vegetable origin retain a power of absorbing those noxious animal exhalations which as plants they digest. Dead fibre, or wood, will, he maintains, act in the same manner, and will throw off the deleterious matter, to the prejudice of living beings, whenever there is a change of temperature. This, he holds, is the reason why a room which has been shut up for some days has an unpleasant odour attaching to it, and which is very apparent in German government offices, which are fitted with innumerable shelves and pigeon-holes made of plain unpainted wood. For sanitary reasons, therefore, the back and unseen parts of furniture should be varnished, painted, or treated with some kind of composition, to fill the pores of the wood; hence it is that so-called sanitary furniture has in Germany become an article of commerce, and is likely to find its way to this and other countries.

Such large quantities of ice are now made by various artificial processes, that ice is no longer a luxury which can only be procured by the rich, but is an article of commerce which can be purchased at a very low price in all large towns in the kingdom. It is not generally known that the artificial product is far purer than natural ice, but such, according to M. Bischoff of Berlin, who has made a scientific analysis of specimens, is the case.

All honest persons rejoice greatly when a notorious evil-doer is run to earth, and much the same satisfaction is experienced when science points with unerring finger to the source of disease, for then the first step has been taken in its eradication. Many, therefore, will rejoice when they read the recently issued Report of Mr W. H. Power, the Inspector of the Local Government Board, concerning an epidemic of scarlatina which occurred in London last year. The story is most interesting, but too long to quote in full. Suffice it to say that the disease in question has, after the most painstaking inquiries, been traced to the milk given by certain cows which were affected with a skin disease showing itself in the region of the teats and udders. We know to our cost that certain diseases can be transferred from the lower animals to man. ‘Woolsorters’ disease’ is traced to the same germ which produces splenic fever in cattle and sheep, a malady which has been so ably dealt with by M. Pasteur. The terrible glanders in horses is transferable to man. Jenner was led to the splendid discovery of vaccination from observing the effects of cowpox on milkmaids; and now we have scarlatina traced directly to the cowhouse. Dr Klein, the famous pathologist, has been engaged to report upon this new revelation concerning milk, and we may reasonably hope that his researches will bear fruitful results.

A new method of etching on glass has been devised. The ink is of a waxy composition, and requires to be heated to render it fluid. It is applied to the glass with a special form of pen, which can be kept in a hot condition by a gas or electrical attachment. When the drawing is complete, the plate is etched by fluoric acid, which of course only attacks and dissolves those portions not covered by the protective ink. The result is a drawing in raised lines, which can be made to furnish an electrotype, or can, if required, be used direct as a block to print from.

Springs in mid-ocean are not unknown, and, if we remember rightly, there is more than one of the kind at which ships have endeavoured to renew their stores of fresh water. But an ocean oil-well is certainly a rarity. The captain of a British schooner reports that in March last, while bound for New Orleans, his vessel passed over a submarine spring of petroleum, which bubbled up all round the ship, and extended over the surface of the sea for some hundred yards. It seems to be a moot-point whether this phenomenon is a mere freak of nature, or whether it is caused by the sunken cargo of some ill-fated oil-ship. In the latter case, the gradual leakage of casks would account for the strange appearance.

Inventors of gas apparatus should note that the municipal authorities of Brussels have decided upon holding a competition, with a view to ascertain the best means of using gas for heating and cooking purposes. A large sum is to be offered in prizes to the successful competitors. Apparatus for trial must be forwarded not later than September next, and all particulars regarding the matter may be obtained from the chief engineer, M. Wybauw, Rue de l’Etuve, Brussels.

In the island of Skye, large deposits of the very useful mineral called diatomite have recently been found. Under the German name of kieselguhr, this absorbent earth has been extensively used in the manufacture of dynamite, which consists of nitro-glycerine rendered more safe for handling by admixture with this porous body. It is also used as a non-conducting compound for coating the exterior of steam-pipes and boilers, as a siliceous glaze for pottery, for the manufacture of silicate paints, and for many minor purposes. In this particular deposit the varieties of diatoms are singularly few, only sixteen species of these wonderful microscopic organisms being represented. The deposit is estimated to yield a total of between one and two hundred tons.

At a recent meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Dr A. B. Griffiths read a most instructive paper on ‘The Effect of Ferrous Sulphate in destroying the Spores of Parasitic Fungi.’ The value of this salt—the common ‘green vitriol’ of commerce—as a plant-food has long ago been established; but Dr Griffiths points out the important antiseptic property it possesses in destroying certain low forms of plant-life. As a preventive of potato disease, it is most effectual, although the spores of that fungus possess such vitality that they may be kept as dry dust for eight months without losing their power for mischief. Dr Griffiths also notes that in damp warm weather, the potato disease is actually encouraged by the use of potash manures. He advocates the treatment of manure with a weak solution of the iron salt before its application to the land. Wheat when treated with the sulphate is rendered proof against mildew.

A clever method of damascening metals by electrolysis is described in a French technical journal. The process consists of two distinct operations, and is based on the well-known fact, that when two copper plates are hung in a bath of sulphate of copper and connected with the opposite poles of a battery, a transfer of metal from one to the other will take place. In the case before us, a copper plate is covered with a thin layer of insulating material, as in the etching process, and this is drawn upon with an etching needle so as to lay bare the metal beneath. This is now submitted to the action of the electric current, so that the metal is eaten away to a certain depth in the exposed parts. The plate is next washed with acid, to remove all traces of oxide of copper in the bitten-in lines, and is then transferred to another bath by which metallic silver or nickel is deposited in the etched parts, with the result that the sunk lines are ultimately completely filled with the new metal. When the plate is relieved of its waxy coating and is polished, it is impossible to say whether or not the beautiful inlaid appearance has been produced by a mechanical process or by skilled handiwork.

Two remarkable finds of old coins have lately occurred—one at Milverton, a suburb of Leamington; and the other at Aberdeen. In the first case, some labourers were digging foundations, when they found a Roman amphora, which they immediately smashed to ascertain its contents. It contained nearly three hundred coins in silver and copper. These were of very early date, and in a state of excellent preservation. The Aberdeen treasure trove came to light in excavating Ross’s Court, one of the oldest parts of the city. Here the labourers found a bronze urn filled with a large number of silver coins. These coins also are well preserved. They are all English, and are mostly of the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. Some of these coins are of extreme rarity, and the discovery has great antiquarian interest.

The largest installation of the electric light, worked from a central point, which this country has yet seen has been recently completed at the Paddington terminus of the Great Western Railway. The lights, which are equivalent to thirty thousand ordinary gas jets, are distributed between the Paddington passenger and goods stations, the ‘Royal Oak,’ and Westbourne Park Stations, the terminus hotel, and all the various offices, yards, and approaches to the railway Company’s premises. The district covers no fewer than sixty-seven acres of ground, and is one mile and a half long. The two Gordon dynamos which are used to generate the current weigh forty-five tons each, and give sufficient power to serve four thousand one hundred and fifteen Swan glow lamps, each of twenty-five candle-power; ninety-eight arc lamps, each of three thousand five hundred candle-power; and two of twelve thousand candle-power each. The current is kept on day and night, except for a few hours on Sunday morning, and each individual lamp is under separate control by a switch, so that it can be turned off and on just like a gas jet. Every detail has been well thought out, and the vast scheme is a success in every way. We understand that the contractors, the Telegraph Maintenance and Construction Company, have undertaken to supply the light at the same price as would have been charged for gas lamps giving the same light-value.

From a paper read by Mr C. Harding before the Royal Meteorological Society on ‘The Severe Weather of the Past Winter,’ we learn that the cold lately experienced has been of the most exceptional character. The persistency with which frost continued for long periods was quite remarkable. In south-west England, there was not a single week from October to the end of March in which the temperature did not fall below the freezing-point; and in one town in Hertfordshire, frost occurred on the grass on seventy-three consecutive nights. Since the formation of the London Skating Club, nearly sixty years ago, the past season has been the only one in which skating has been possible in each of the four months December to March. We therefore must note that we have just passed through an unusually severe season.

Fresh fruit from the antipodes, of which two large consignments have recently reached London, is now being daily sold to eager purchasers in the Australian fruit-market at the Indian and Colonial Exhibition. Grapes, apples, pears, and other fruits, in splendid condition, and with their flavour unaltered by their long separation from their parent stems, can now be conveyed by the shipload, packed in cool chambers, in the same way that meat is imported from the same distant lands. The success of the enterprise opens up a wide field of promise to those in temperate lands who have been dazzled by the reports of travellers as to the luscious nature of foreign fruits, which hitherto have been quite out of reach of stay-at-home Britons. We seem to be fast coming to the time when fairy tales will be considered tame and uninteresting, from being so far eclipsed by current events.

A correspondent of the Times notes a most important means of escape from suffocation by smoke, a fatality by which many lives are lost annually. He points out that if a handkerchief be placed beneath the pillow on retiring to rest so as to be within easy reach of the hand, it can, in case of an alarm of fire, be readily dipped in water and tied over the mouth and nostrils. As an amateur fireman, he has gone through the densest smoke protected in that manner, and he alleges that such a respirator will enable its wearer to breathe freely in an otherwise irrespirable atmosphere.

Professor Dewar lately exhibited at the Royal Institution, London, the apparatus he employs for the production of solid oxygen. If we refer to the physical text-books of only three or four years back, we find oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen described as permanent gases, for no one had ever produced either in any other form. At length all three had to give way before scientific research, and they were by special appliances reduced to the liquid state. Professor Dewar is the first experimenter who has taken the further step of producing one of these gases in a solid form. His method consists in allowing liquid oxygen to expand into a partial vacuum, when the great absorption of heat which accompanies the operation causes the liquid to assume a solid state. It is said to resemble snow in appearance, with a temperature greatly below the freezing-point of water. It is believed that a means of producing such a degree of cold will be of great service to experimental chemistry.

Mr W. Thomson, F.R.S.E., has devised a new process for determining the calorific power of fuel by direct combustion in oxygen, which promises to supersede, by reason of its greater accuracy, the methods hitherto in use. The process consists in placing a gramme of the coal or fuel to be tested in a platinum crucible covered with an inverted glass vessel. The whole arrangement is placed under water in a suitable receptacle; and the fuel, burnt in oxygen, burns away in a very few minutes, giving off much heated gas, which escapes through the water. The temperature of the water, compared with its temperature before the operation, gives the data upon which the heating power of the coal can be calculated. The question of heat-value in fuel is of course one of first importance to railway Companies and other large consumers of coal. It is, too, in a minor way of importance to householders, who often find, by painful experience, the little heat-value of the fuel which has been shot into their cellars. If coal-merchants were to furnish some guarantee based on a scientific test as above described, they would find it to their own profit, as well as to the advantage of their customers.

We do not hear very much in these days of mummy wheat and barley, but many people firmly believe that the seeds of both plants found with Egyptian mummies, and supposed to be three or four thousand years old, will sprout if put in the ground. A few years ago, such wheat was commonly sold as a curiosity; and we believe that many purchasers succeeded in raising a small crop from it. Professor Bentley, who has recently commenced a series of lectures on the Physiology of Plants, asserts most emphatically that no grains which with certainty have been identified as contemporaneous with the deposit of the mummified corpse, have ever come to life. In cases where the so-called mummy wheat has germinated, it has been introduced into the coffin shortly before, or at the time of discovery of the body. Professor Bentley does not name a limit to the time during which seeds retain their vitality, but he says that very few will germinate after being three years old.

Dr Kosmann of Breslau has designed a safety cartridge for use in fiery mines, but it has not yet passed the ordeal of practical employment. It depends for its efficiency upon the sudden evolution of a large volume of hydrogen gas, which is brought about by the action of dilute acid upon finely divided zinc. The ‘cartridge’ consists of a glass cylinder pinched into a narrow tube at the centre, so that interiorly it is divided into two compartments. One of these contains the powdered zinc, and the other the dilute acid, the passage between them being closed by a rubber cork. The borehole into which it is inserted is first of all made gas-tight by a lining of clay; then the cartridge is put in position, with an iron rod in connection with it so placed that, when struck with a hammer from the outside of the hole, it will drive in the rubber cork, and so bring the acid into contact with the zinc. We shall be interested to hear how the method answers in practice.

JACK, THE BUSHRANGER.

AN AUSTRALIAN REMINISCENCE.

Reading in your Journal (writes a correspondent) an article headed, ‘A Bushranger Interviewed,’ recalls to my memory a strange incident which occurred some years ago to my own brother, when on his way from Sydney to the gold-fields, and for the accuracy of which I can vouch.

At the time of his arrival in Australia, the country was in a state of panic: a reign of terror existed, caused by the daring outrages committed on parties on the journey to and from the diggings. Robbery with violence, escorts shot down, and large consignments of gold carried off, were of daily occurrence. The bush was infested by a gang of desperate bushrangers, whose leader, under the cognomen of ‘Jack,’ seemed to bear a charmed life. For years he had evaded all the efforts made to capture him, though the military scoured the bush. No sooner was an outrage perpetrated, than all trace of the perpetrators was lost, as if the ground had swallowed them. He had a perfect knowledge of the most secret movements of the parties he attacked. He seemed ubiquitous, outrages occurring in such rapid succession and far apart. Such an air of mystery hung about him, that a superstitious feeling mingled with the moral terror he inspired. He was represented by some persons who had seen him, as a fine powerful-looking man, with nothing forbidding in his appearance.

Even the mad thirst for gold could not induce the bravest persons to undertake the journey alone. The gold-seekers travelled in large cavalcades, well armed, and determined to fight for their lives and property; one of these parties my brother joined. He was a fine handsome young fellow, all fun and love of adventure, and he soon became a general favourite. The ‘track’—for there were no roads at that time—ran for the greater distance through the bush, some parts of which were so dense as scarcely to admit daylight. Every man was well armed. My brother had brought with him a first-class revolver, purchased in London. This he kept with other valuables carefully hidden on his person, his other belongings being stowed away in one of the wagons. When they bivouacked for the night, care was taken that it should be in an open space, where a good look-out could be kept, to make sure against a sudden surprise. The wagons were placed in the middle, sentries posted, and scouts placed so that the flight of a bird or the fall of a leaf could not pass unnoticed. All were on the qui vive. For some days all went well, nothing unusual or alarming occurring. They were then well into the bush, and consequently, if possible more vigilant, believing that even a mouse could not intrude itself amongst them.

One morning it was found that, during the night, they had been, spite of all their vigilance, mysteriously and unaccountably joined by a stranger, who stood in their midst as if one of themselves. No one could imagine how or whence he came, and utter astonishment prevailed. He was a fine portly man, from thirty-five to forty years of age, with an open, prepossessing countenance and good address—one who, under other circumstances, would have been looked upon as an acquisition to the party. Not in the least taken aback or abashed by the scant welcome he received or the undisguised surprise his presence created, he came forward boldly, and told a most plausible story, to the effect that he was a stranger making his way to the gold-fields, that, notwithstanding the stories he had heard in Sydney of ‘Jack’ and his comrades, he had ventured so far alone; but as he got farther into the bush he lost heart, and determined to join the first party he met.

It looked strange that he had no luggage of any kind, not even provisions, or anything to indicate that he was bound for a long journey. He made no attempt to account for his mysterious appearance, entered into the arrangements of the cavalcade, and made himself quite at home. Every man amongst them, with the exception of my brother, believed that no one but ‘Jack’ himself could have so taken them by surprise, the general belief being, that it could only be from personal experience the terrible bushranger derived the perfect knowledge he displayed when making his raids.

The party agreed that the wisest course would be to await the progress of events, watch his every movement, and let him see that they were prepared to sell their lives dearly, if driven to do so.

The stranger seemed to have an unlimited supply of money, and to be generous about it, paying his way freely. He took at once to my brother, and the liking was mutual; in diggers’ parlance, they became mates, chummed, walked, and smoked together. My brother found him a well-informed, agreeable companion, a vast improvement on their rough associates; and he seemed thoroughly to enjoy the society of the jovial young Irish gentleman. A sincere friendship sprung up between them, notwithstanding the disparity in years.

The other members of the party became very anxious, fearing the man would take advantage of my brother’s unsuspicious, trusting nature to obtain information that would be useful to him when forming his plans for the attack which was hourly expected, in fact looked upon as imminent. Nor were their fears allayed when, after a little, he would leave the beaten track and walk into the bush, remaining away for hours, and returning at the most unexpected times and places; showing a thorough knowledge of the bush and all its intricacies and short-cuts, quite inconsistent with the story he had told on joining.

One thing struck my brother as strange, but without exciting any suspicion on his part. When walking together, he would suddenly stand, become quite excited, and say: ‘Oh, it was here such an outrage occurred.’ ‘It was on the spot on which we are standing that the escort was shot down and a large consignment of gold carried off. They did fight like demons.’ He seemed to take the greatest pleasure in giving minute details of the different outrages as they had occurred, and always spoke as if he had been an eye-witness. But so thorough was my brother’s belief in his new friend, that even this did not shake his faith.

When within a few days of the journey’s end, the stranger suddenly and quite unexpectedly declared his intention of parting company. He offered no explanation as to his reason for doing so, though all through he had seemed anxious to impress it on them that he intended to go the entire way to the diggings with them. No questions were asked.

After a general and hearty leave-taking, which, however, did not inspire much confidence, as they were still within range of a possible attack, he asked my brother to take a last walk with him, and led the way into the bush farther than he had ever brought him before, and a long distance from the beaten track. The first words the stranger said were: ‘Mate, don’t you carry a revolver?’

The answer was: ‘Yes, and a first-class one. Not such as is got out here. I brought it from home.’

‘Show it to me,’ said the stranger; ‘I love a real good weapon;’ and without the slightest hesitation, my brother handed him the revolver, which he examined carefully, and saw that the chambers were loaded. He remarked that it was the ‘prettiest weapon’ he had handled for a long time.

He walked a few steps in advance, and turning round suddenly, he presented the revolver at my brother’s head, calling out in a commanding tone, ‘Stand!’ his countenance so changed as scarcely to be recognised.

At last my brother felt that he stood face to face with the terrible bushranger, but did not lose his presence of mind.

For a moment there was a profound silence, first broken by the stranger saying: ‘Is there anything on earth to prevent my blowing out your brains with your own weapon, placed in my hands of your own free-will? The wild bush round us, I know its every twist and turn. The man is not living who could track my footsteps through its depths, where I alone am lord and master. Speak, man! What is there to prevent me?’

With a throbbing heart and a quickened pulse my brother answered: ‘Nothing but your sense of honour.’

The man’s face brightened, and his voice resumed its friendly tone, and handing back the revolver, he said; ‘We stand now on equal footing. You hold my life in your hands, as I held yours a moment ago. Yes, boy; and your own fortune too. But I trust you, as you trusted me. I would not hurt a hair of your head, and I have spared others for your sake. How, you will never know; but they owe you a deep debt of gratitude. You are a noble-hearted fellow; and through the rest of my stormy life, I will look back with pleasure on the time we have passed together. But, mate, you are the greatest fool I ever met. I brought you here to-day to give you a lesson, which I hope you will bear in mind. You are going amongst a rough, lawless crew; never, as long as you live, trust any man as you have trusted me to-day. Where you are bound for, your revolver will be your only true friend; never let it out of your own keeping, to friend or foe. You are far too trusting. There was not a man but yourself amongst those from whom I have just parted who did not believe from the moment I joined that I was Jack the bushranger. Well, mate, I am not going to tell you who or what I am, or how or why I came amongst you; but of this rest assured, that you have no truer friend. You will never know what I have done for your sake.—Now, mate, good-bye for ever. We will never meet again in this world, and it is best for you it should be so.’ Then leading him back to the track by which he could rejoin his party, he wrung my brother’s hand, turned and walked quickly into the bush, leaving no doubt upon my brother’s mind that the friend he had so loved and trusted was indeed the dreaded bushranger.

They never did meet again. My brother came home to die; and unless my memory deceives me, Jack was shot dead in a skirmish with the military.

THE BIRDS AT SOUTH KENSINGTON.

South Kensington has of late years been so inseparably identified with Art, that it will seem natural to the readers of this article for Art to form its subject; but it will probably surprise the frequenters of these buildings to be asked to bend their steps towards the Natural History Department—which one naturally supposes devoted to scientific objects—to examine works of art quite equal in their way to any to be found in the building devoted ostensibly to that purpose.

Many must have been struck by the artistic and natural grouping of the birds, with their nests and young, in imitation of the surroundings they frequent while living. How much more one is impressed with the beauty of the creatures, when one sees them arranged in the positions they assume in a state of nature, than when placed in the old-fashioned style, mounted on boards or badly imitated stumps of trees! Justly, this admirable grouping calls forth exclamations of delight from the beholder; yet there is a fact connected with this artistic grouping that is as well worthy of the admiration of the visitor as the scientific facts here intended to be represented.

The surrounding of each of these nests is a work of art in itself, constructed, with the most painstaking regard to accuracy of detail, by a lady, whose name, though not appearing in this connection, is not unknown to fame. The sods—if the bird be a ground-builder—are dug up with the nest and surroundings as they are found, and are submitted at once for the modeller to copy the various weeds and flowers exactly as they grow. The sods are then dried and cleaned, and the modeller fixes into them the flowers and weeds she has constructed, and paints up the grass, to restore it to its original colour. They are then deposited in the places they are destined to occupy in the Museum.

The material employed for making these artificial flowers and weeds has been called by the inventor, who is also the modeller, the ‘New Kensington Art Material.’ Boughs of trees, the minutest flowers and weeds, even the hair-like filaments that many flower-stems possess as a protection against the ravages of insects, are copied with such scrupulous accuracy as to defy detection by ordinary means; and the union between the real wood and its artificial representation is concealed with the same regard to reality. The secret of the manufacture of the material is strictly preserved.

At the International Exhibition of 1851, Mrs Mogridge—then Miss Mintorn—in conjunction with others of her family, took the first prize for models of wax-flowers; notably a model of ‘Victoria Regia’ lilies, taken from the first to bloom in England, by permission of Her Grace the Duchess of Northumberland. Of late years, Mrs Mogridge has used the new Art Material in place of wax, on account of its superior strength, and indestructibility, it being unaffected by heat, the great enemy to all work in wax. Moreover, it admits of more perfect colouring; no shade being unattainable in this composition, and permitting of the most brilliant effects of pigmentation.

It is adaptable to all artistic decorations on account of its greater strength; and flowers made in it can be mixed with living foliage so as to be a perfect deception, when the real flowers are unattainable. It may be interesting to notice that naturalists will find a ready means of enhancing the value of their collections, not only of birds, as before noticed, but of insects. Lord Walsingham, we are told, has a large collection of butterflies and moths which are mounted in this way, surrounded by the smallest weeds and plants on which they feed.

Botanical specimens for all purposes, particularly in schools, &c., where botany is taught, may be made of this material with advantage, as the natural specimens are so easily destroyed with handling. Its value for designs for china-painting, where the choice flowers, such as orchids, &c., cannot be procured in their natural state, will be easily appreciated; and models made of it are, in fact, already used by the artists at the Royal Porcelain Works at Worcester for this purpose, as all the detail is faithfully carried out, from the flower of the common nettle to the large oak-bough.

THE LINDSAY’S BRIDAL.

[The first marriage of Colin, Earl of Lindsay and Balcarres, to Maurizia de Nassau, took place in extreme youth, at the court of James II., under the circumstances and with the result narrated.]

In blithe London Town
Ne’er such bridal was known
As this of Earl Colin the Lindsay so gay:
O’er the Border, in sooth,
Never came bonnier youth,

And the king’s self shall give the fair lady away.

The bridemaids and bride

Are here in their pride,

But why ere the rite this long pause and delay?

’Tis for Colin they wait—

The ‘Light Lindsay’ is late:

The bridegroom forgetteth his own marriage-day!

The envoy was meet,
And the bridegroom is fleet,
He stands at the altar in bridal array:
But what lacks he now?
Why this cloud on his brow?—

The ring that should make her his countess for aye!

Oh, a ring’s easy found

’Mid the guests standing round!

And a borrowed ring served on that strange marriage-day:

But when spoke was the oath
That united them both,
She looked on the ring, and she fainted away.

’Twas a ring with a tomb

And a legend of gloom,

And she wist that to death she was wedded that day.

They cheered her amain;

But, alas, ’twas in vain!

And she drooped and she died ere a year was away.

Jetty Vogel.

The Conductor of Chambers’s Journal begs to direct the attention of Contributors to the following notice:

1st. All communications should be addressed to the ‘Editor, 339 High Street, Edinburgh.’

2d. For its return in case of ineligibility, postage-stamps should accompany every manuscript.

3d. To secure their safe return if ineligible, All Manuscripts, whether accompanied by a letter of advice or otherwise, should have the writer’s Name and Address written upon them IN FULL.

4th. Offerings of Verse should invariably be accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope.

If the above rules are complied with, the Editor will do his best to insure the safe return of ineligible papers.

Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Paternoster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.

All Rights Reserved.

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Table of Contents

- CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

- CONTENTS

- BLOCKADES AND BLOCKADE-RUNNERS.

- IN ALL SHADES.

- CHAPTER XXXII.

- THE ASCENT OF CLOUDY MOUNTAIN, NEW GUINEA.

- TREASURE TROVE.

- CHAPTER IV.

- THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.

- JACK, THE BUSHRANGER.

- THE BIRDS AT SOUTH KENSINGTON.

- THE LINDSAY’S BRIDAL.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE