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

CONTENTS

SIGNALLING AT SEA.
IN ALL SHADES.
THE LAND OF FURS.
A GOLDEN ARGOSY.
‘IN AT THE DEATH.’
OCCASIONAL NOTES.
BONNIE DRYFE.

Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art. Fifth Series. Established by William and Robert Chambers, 1832. Conducted by R. Chambers (Secundus).

No. 107.—Vol. III.

Price 1½d.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 1886.

SIGNALLING AT SEA.

The wonderful improvements which have been effected in modes of communication during the latter part of the present century have resulted in bridging over space, and bringing the dwellers on this planet into closer and more constant intercommunion. Submarine cables, telegraphs, and telephones have each contributed their aid towards the realisation of Puck’s idea of putting ‘a girdle round the earth;’ and, as might have been expected, the inventive faculty has been directed, in some measure at least, towards enabling those ‘who go down to the sea in ships’ to communicate with each other on the ocean highways with such facility as might be found practicable under the ever-varying conditions which obtain at sea.

At no very remote date, the appliances at the command of a shipmaster who might desire to convey a request to a passing vessel consisted mainly of a pair of strong lungs and a speaking-trumpet. A variation was occasionally attempted by the introduction of a plank and a lump of chalk. The writer remembers having seen an English brig in the South Atlantic, during a strong gale, attempting to convey to a stately frigate an intimation that the brig’s chronometer was broken, and that, in consequence, her worthy captain was at sea, in more senses than one. The brig, which had been running before the wind, braced up on the port tack, and ran as close under the frigate’s stern as was deemed prudent under the circumstances. The captain, clinging to the weather main rigging with one hand, and using the other as a speaking-trumpet, yelled forth a sentence or two which met the fate of most utterances under similar conditions. ‘I’—‘of’—and ‘the’ were faithfully re-echoed from the hollow of the frigate’s mainsail, but the vital words of the message were borne away on the wings of the gale. A similar attempt failed; and finally it occurred to the skipper to write with chalk upon a tarpaulin hatch-cover the words, ‘Chronometer smashed, bound Table Bay.’ The tarpaulin with the foregoing legend was exhibited over the side for a few brief seconds, till a fiercer blast than usual whirled it high in air, and then bore it away to leeward. Fortunately, the purport of the writing had been understood on board the frigate, and no time was lost in displaying a black board with the latitude, longitude, and magnetic course for Table Bay inscribed thereon. Now, if the brig had been provided with the International Code of Signals, the trouble and delay involved in the attempts to communicate by hailing or by written signs, would have been obviated; and whilst holding on her course, the hoisting of a few flags would have completed the entire business in less than five minutes. The Code was certainly in existence at the date referred to, but its use was neither general nor compulsory.

The peculiar requirements of the service upon which ships of war are engaged, and the practice of cruising together in fleets or squadrons, necessitate the establishment of a system of signalling which shall be both rapid and effective. Such a system has been in operation in the Royal Navy for many years. Numerous modifications have been made latterly in the Admiralty signal books; those changes being rendered necessary by the altered conditions of naval warfare and the scientific precision which is desirable in the movements of a fleet of warships. An admiral in command of a fleet has now at his disposal such an effective equipment and complete organisation as would enable him to manœuvre his ships in presence of the enemy with almost mathematical exactitude. The ‘signal staff’ on board the ship which carries the flag of the commander-in-chief consists of about twenty persons, officers and men, whose duty it is to convey the admiral’s orders to the captains under his command by the varied systems of signalling prescribed for use in Her Majesty’s ships. The ‘staff’ is divided into ‘three watches;’ and by day and night, in harbour and at sea, a vigilant ‘lookout’ is kept, not only on board the flagship, but on every vessel in the fleet. Each ship on being commissioned is provided with a General Signal Book, Vocabulary Signal Book, and a semaphore. For use at night, a flashing lamp, and recently, an electrical apparatus, are supplied. By an ingenious arrangement, any of the signals contained in the books may be made during thick weather by the steam whistle or the fog-horn.

Before putting to sea, a ‘fleet number’ is assigned to each ship, the admiral’s ship being No. 1, the remaining numbers being distributed according to the seniority of the respective captains. If the commander-in-chief wishes his squadron to sail in one line, he makes the signal, ‘Single column in line ahead,’ by means of three ‘numeral’ flags. This signal, like every other evolutionary signal, is kept flying at the mast-head until the signal officer reports, ‘All answered, sir.’ The fact that the admiral’s signal is seen and understood is signified, in the case of tactical orders, by each ship repeating the flags. When the proper moment arrives for executing the movement, the flagship’s signal is swiftly hauled down, the helms are put ‘hard over,’ the ships swing round in the admiral’s wake, and the evolution is complete.

Communication between the vessels of the fleet is effected at night by means of the flashing light worked on the short and long flash principle, invented by Captain Colomb, R.N. There are few sights more suggestive of the advance in modes of communication and the development of the inventive faculty than that of the admiral ‘talking’ to his captains by means of the flashing lamp in the darkness of the night and far out on the trackless ocean. It may be necessary during the night to alter the course of the squadron. If the course indicated at sunset be due north, and it be required to alter the direction to west, all lights on board the flagship, except the flashing light, are carefully obscured, and the brilliant rays of a solitary lamp leap through the darkness conveying the order, ‘Alter course to west.’

The instructions contained in the General Signal Book are varied and comprehensive. Upwards of a thousand separate signals, adapted to every probable change of condition and circumstance in times of peace and in the exigences of battle, are concisely set forth, every tactical order being elucidated by diagrams showing the direction to be taken and the position to be assumed by each ship. The Vocabulary Signal Book, as its name indicates, is a sort of dictionary, but possessing also the character of a lexicon, as not only words in alphabetical order, but phrases under their proper heading, are methodically arranged in its pages. For example, under the heading of ‘Admiral,’ which word is represented in ‘flag language’ by A.H.V., will be found, ‘Admiral desires,’ ‘Admiral intends,’ and the cheerful announcement, ‘Admiral requests the pleasure of your company to dinner.’

It will be seen from the foregoing observations that the signal system adopted in the Royal Navy approaches as near to perfection as is possible under the circumstances; and therefore, when the occasion arose for a revision of the mercantile signal code, the Committee appointed by the Board of Trade for that purpose had recourse to the Admiralty Codes as a basis for the International Code of Signals, which is now used by most of the maritime countries of the world. This Code is the universal means of communication between the ships and signal stations of all nations. Translations of it have been made by France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, and Norway. The captain of a British vessel being desirous of conveying a message to an Italian ship, for example, may do so by simply hoisting the flags indicating the letters which are found opposite the words that express his meaning in the Code; and, similarly, vessels of any nationality may communicate with the utmost facility, although the parties so signalling may be totally unacquainted with any language but their own. For signalling purposes, eighteen flags and a copy of the Code are required. The combinations which are possible with that number of flags amount to the extraordinary number of seventy-eight thousand six hundred and forty-two, using two, three, and four flags at one hoist. The Code is divided into four parts: (1) Brief signals; (2) vocabulary; (3) distant and boat signals; (4) an appendix containing the distinguishing letters of every vessel to which a Code signal has been allotted. ‘Urgent signals’ are made by means of two flags only, and in the following manner: J.D., You are standing into danger; N.S., I have sprung a leak; H.M., Man overboard; P.C., Want assistance; mutiny. The square shape of the uppermost flag, and the number of flags used, indicate the urgent character of the message, and its specific meaning is ascertained by reference to the book. Latitude and longitude, geographical and time signals, are made by three flags. A vocabulary message is transmitted by using four flags, thus: D.R.Q.L., If you do not carry sail, we shall part company.

The vocabulary section of the Code is frequently used for messages which do not strictly refer to matters maritime. The valedictory ‘Farewell’ or the cheerful ‘Welcome’ may be transmitted with quite as much ease as the purely nautical ‘Square your mainyard.’ Even in departments of human activity so far removed from marine affairs as art or politics, the Signal Code may find some application. During the summer cruise of the British fleet in the Mediterranean in 1869, and whilst the ships were steaming through the Straits of Messina, a steamer flying the Turkish flag was sighted steering towards the harbour. The Code ‘pennant’ hoisted under her ensign indicated a desire to communicate; and on the signal being answered from the flagship of the commander-in-chief, the Turkish vessel made the following communication: D.G.N.H. = Irish; C.P.B.R. = Church; C.S.L.P. = dislocated; D.J.K.P. = Her Majesty’s government; D.M.G.T. = surplus. This being rendered into the vernacular, was understood to mean that the Irish Church Disestablishment Act had been passed by a large majority. The captain of the steamer, who was an Englishman in all probability, was laudably anxious to communicate a piece of information which could not fail to be full of interest to the people of the English squadron. His use of the verb ‘dislocated’ was forced upon him by the absence of the word ‘disestablished’ from the Code; and a similar reason necessitated the substitution of ‘surplus’ for ‘majority.’ Having regard to the circumstances, it will probably be admitted that the courteous captain’s arrangement, if not strictly syntactical, was certainly apposite.

Strenuous efforts have been made by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the Board of Trade, and the Committee of Lloyd’s Registry to instruct the officers of the mercantile marine in the use of the International Code. The Admiralty has ordered that all men belonging to the Royal Naval Reserve shall receive instruction in its use; and all candidates for officers’ certificates of competency are required by the Board of Trade to pass a satisfactory examination in signalling. Notwithstanding these regulations, there is good reason for believing that many officers in the merchant service are not so well acquainted with the working of the Code as they ought to be. Blunders are frequently committed, either in selecting the wrong signal or confusing the flags, which lead to serious inconvenience, not to say danger. A very superficial acquaintance with the Signal Book led the captain of an English steamer to neglect the ‘vocabulary’ part of the Code, and have recourse to the singular expedient of using the flags as a medium for spelling his communication. As read on board the New York liner to which the signal was directed, it took the cabalistic form of ‘MCHDRGDWNTW.’ As no flags denoting the vowels are contained in the Code, the difficulties of spelling were obviously increased; and it was only by the ingenuity of a passenger on board the liner that a translation was effected in the shape of, ‘Machinery deranged; want tow.’ On another occasion, the master of a timber-laden ship bound from Quebec to Liverpool had been prevented by foggy weather from taking solar observations for the purpose of verifying his position, and having sighted a steamer bound to the westward, he hoisted the prescribed signal, asking the steamer to indicate the latitude and longitude at the time of meeting. Either through carelessness in manipulating the flags or from an imperfect acquaintance with the Code, a position was signalled which located the ship in the immediate vicinity of Mont Blanc!

Upwards of thirty signal stations have been established at various points on the coasts of the British Isles, where messages may be transmitted from passing vessels by means of the International Code; and there are twenty stations in various parts of the world, as widely apart as Aden, Ascension, Malta, St Helena, the Cape of Good Hope, and Skagen in Denmark, where communication may be effected by the same means. Many of these stations have direct telegraphic connection with London, so that shipowners may be kept acquainted with the movements of their vessels, and may also transmit instructions for the guidance of their captains. It is matter for wonder and regret, notwithstanding the existence of a carefully elaborated system of signals and a world-wide network of shore stations, that the use of the Signal Code is not in any sense compulsory on the part of shipowners. Considering the innumerable advantages which a speedy means of communication must afford to all concerned, it is with surprise that one learns, from a note prefixed to the official Maritime Directory for the past year, that ‘cases have been reported in which officers at the signal stations have hoisted the International Code Signals warning ships of danger, and the ships have been afterwards lost, from the inability of the masters to read the signals.’ This is a state of affairs which ought not to be permitted to continue in the interests of the men whose lives are at stake. Another and still more serious defect in a system which is admirable in many respects, is the total absence from the Code of any method of signalling at night. As we have seen, Her Majesty’s ships are provided with appliances for this purpose which are skilfully adapted to the end in view; but merchant vessels are absolutely without the power of communicating after darkness sets in. It is true that by private arrangement with the shore stations on several parts of the coast, the steamers belonging to the great Companies may by the use of certain lights indicate their names and the Company to which they belong; but this cannot, save in the most elementary sense, be regarded as a satisfactory method of communication. It is probable that the night signals in use in the Royal Navy are too complicated in character to permit of their being learned and worked efficiently without much more study and practice than can reasonably be expected from the master of a merchant vessel. Still, it ought to be within the power of science to suggest some plan for enabling a vessel to signal to ship or shore during the hours when the perils of the sea are rendered more terrible by darkness.

In these days, when our ocean highways and harbours are crowded with shipping, a collision between two of our large iron or steel vessels, which might happen at any time, would send one of them to the bottom in a few minutes. Two vessels, each going at a speed of twenty miles an hour, and sighting one another at two miles off, with this joint speed of forty miles an hour, would meet in about three minutes. Hence the importance of a ready and efficient method of signalling.

By the present system, red and green lights are placed on each side of the vessel, a green light on the starboard side, and a red light on the port side, with a board shutting off each light from the opposite side. An officer seeing a coloured light at a distance of two miles has no indication what course the vessel is steering. Hence the importance of the apparatus invented by The Right Hon. J. H. A. Macdonald, Q.C., M.P., Edinburgh, an Associate of the Society of Telegraph Engineers and Electricians, which he calls the Electric Holophote Course-indicator, for the prevention of collisions at sea.

By means of a powerful electric light, the approach of another vessel is indicated, and information is given at the same time as to what course she is on and what course she intends to hold to. The light is also useful for illuminating the water immediately before the ship, and is also valuable when passing down a river, through shoals, or close to a lee shore. The instrument consists of a strong reflector, with an arc light placed in the middle of it, which is affected by every movement of the helm. As long as the helm is amidships, the handle cannot be moved at all, but is held firm by two pegs. But if the helm is moved from amidships, an electric circuit is formed, which actuates an electro-magnet, and thereby removes one of the pegs. When the helm is ported, the reflector is set free by the removal of one of the pegs, so that by working the handle, the light can be swept from amidships over the starboard bow, and brought back again. If the helm be starboarded, the reflector is freed from the other peg, so that the light can be swept from amidships over the port bow and back again. But as this is a mere side-to-side movement, means are provided for giving more intelligible information, such as a driver gives when waving his hand to indicate his course, by a shutter connected with the reflector in such a way that when the beam has completed its side-movement, the shutter rises up and obscures the light, and does not drop again until the reflector has been turned back to its middle position. The shutter then falls down; and the light being again exposed, the process of sweeping round to starboard, screening, and bringing back to amidships, can be repeated as long as the helm remains at port. When the helm is starboarded, the light can be swept round to port in the same way. The light is immovable when the helm is amidships, and can be swept only over the starboard bow when the helm is ported, and only over the port bow when the helm is starboarded. In order to guard against the risk of the reflector being carelessly worked by not completing its sweep either way, the instrument is provided with two tell-tale bells, which will enable the officer on the bridge to check the working of the reflector.

In foggy weather, when the light would be ineffective, two steam whistles can be shunted into action by the reflector handle, one giving off a succession of short shrill notes, the other a succession of deep long notes, according as the helm is to starboard or port. This invention has been awarded a medal at three Exhibitions, including the Inventories; while Admiral Bedford Pim, one of the nautical jurors, has styled it an ‘excellent course indicator.’

IN ALL SHADES.

CHAPTER IV.

It was a brilliant, cloudless, tropical day at Agualta Estate, Trinidad; and the cocoa-nut palms in front of the pretty, picturesque, low-roofed bungalow were waving gracefully in the light sea-breeze that blew fresh across the open cane-pieces from the distant horizon of the broad Atlantic. Most days, indeed, except during the rainy season, were brilliant enough in all conscience at beautiful Agualta: the sun blazed all day long in a uniform hazy-white sky, not blue, to be sure, as in a northern climate, but bluish and cloudless; and the sea shone below hazy-white, in the dim background, beyond the waving palm-trees, and the broad-leaved bananas, and the long stretch of bright-green cane-pieces that sloped down in endless succession towards the beach and the breakers. Agualta House itself was perched, West India fashion, on the topmost summit of a tall and lonely rocky peak, a projecting spur or shoulder from the main mass of the Trinidad mountains. They chose the very highest and most beautiful situations they could find for their houses, those old matter-of-fact West Indian planters, not so much out of a taste for scenery—for their mental horizon was for the most part bounded by rum and sugar—but because a hilltop was coolest and breeziest, and coolness is the one great practical desideratum in a West Indian residence. Still, the houses that they built on these airy heights incidentally enjoyed the most exquisite prospects; and Agualta itself was no exception to the general rule in this matter. From the front piazza you looked down upon a green ravine, crowded with tree-ferns and other graceful tropical vegetation; on either side, rocky peaks broke the middle distance with their jagged tors and precipitous needles; while far away beyond the cane-grown plain that nestled snugly in the hollow below, the sky-line of the Atlantic bounded the view, with a dozen sun-smit rocky islets basking like great floating whales upon the gray horizon. No lovelier view in the whole of luxuriant beautiful Trinidad than that from the creeper-covered front piazza of the white bungalow of old Agualta.

Through the midst of the ravine, the little river from which the estate took its Spanish name—curiously corrupted upon negro lips into the form of Wagwater—tumbled in white sheets of dashing foam between the green foliage ‘in cataract after cataract to the sea.’ Here and there, the overarching clumps of feathery bamboo hid its course for a hundred yards or so, as seen from the piazza; but every now and again it gleamed forth, white and conspicuous once more, as it tumbled headlong down its steep course over some rocky barrier. You could trace it throughout like a long line of light among all the tangled, glossy, dark-green foliage of that wild and overgrown tropical gully.

The Honourable James Hawthorn, owner of Agualta, was sitting out in a cane armchair, under the broad shadow of the great mango-tree on the grassy terrace in front of the piazza. A venerable gray-haired, gray-bearded man, with a calm, clear-cut, resolute face, the very counterpart of his son Edward’s, only grown some thirty years older, and sterner too, and more unbending.

‘Mr Dupuy’s coming round this morning, Mary,’ Mr Hawthorn said to the placid, gentle, old lady in the companion-chair beside him. ‘He wants to look at some oxen I’m going to get rid of, and he thinks, perhaps, he’d like to buy them.’

‘Mr Dupuy!’ Mrs Hawthorn answered, with a slight shudder of displeasure as she spoke. ‘I really wish he wasn’t coming. I can’t bear that man, somehow. He always seems to me the worst embodiment of the bad old days that are dead and gone, Jamie.’

The old gentleman hummed an air to himself reflectively. ‘We mustn’t be too hard upon him, my dear,’ he said after a moment’s pause, in a tone of perfect resignation. ‘They were brought up in a terrible school, those old-time slavery Trinidad folk, and they can’t help bearing the impress of a bad system upon them to the very last moment of their existence. I think so meanly of them for their pride and intolerance, that I take care not to imitate it. You remember what Shelley says: “Let scorn be not repaid with scorn.” That’s how I always feel, Mary, towards Mr Dupuy and all his fellows.’

Mrs Hawthorn bit her lip as she answered slowly: ‘All the same, Jamie, I wish he wasn’t coming here this morning; and this the English mail-day too! We shall get our letter from Edward by-and-by, you know, dear. I hate to have these people coming breaking in upon us the very day we want to be at home by ourselves, to have a quiet hour alone with our dear boy over in England.’

‘Here they come, at anyrate, Mary,’ the old gentleman said, pointing with his hand down the steep ravine to where a couple of men on mountain ponies were slowly toiling up the long zigzag path that climbed the shoulder. ‘Here they come, Theodore Dupuy himself, and that young Tom Dupuy as well, behind him. There’s one comfort, at anyrate, in the position of Agualta—you can never possibly be taken by surprise; you can always see your visitors coming half an hour before they get here.—Run in, dear, and see about having enough for lunch, will you, for Tom Dupuy’s sure to stop until he’s had a glass of our old Madeira.’

‘I dislike Tom Dupuy, I think, even worse than his old uncle, Jamie,’ the bland old lady answered softly in her pleasant voice, exactly as if she was saying that she loved him dearly. ‘He’s a horrid young man, so selfish and narrow-minded; and I hope you won’t ever ask him again to come to Agualta. I can hardly even manage to be decently polite to him.’

The two strangers slowly wound their way up the interminable zigzags that led along the steep shoulders of the Agualta peak, and emerged at last from under the shadow of the green mango grove close beside the grassy terrace in front of the piazza. The elder of the two, Nora’s father, was a jovial, round-faced, close-shaven man, with a copious growth of flowing white hair, that fell in long patriarchal locks around his heavy neck and shoulders; a full-blooded, easy-going, proud face to look at, yet not without a certain touch of gentlemanly culture and old-fashioned courtesy. The younger man, Tom Dupuy, his nephew, looked exactly what he was—a born boor, awkward in gait and lubberly in feature, with a heavy hanging lower jaw, and a pair of sleepy boiled fish eyes, that stared vacantly out in sheepish wonder upon a hopelessly dull and blank creation.

Mr Hawthorn moved courteously to the gate to meet them. ‘It’s a long pull and a steep pull up the hill, Mr Dupuy,’ he said as he shook hands with him. ‘Let me take your pony round to the stables.—Here, Jo!’ to a negro boy who stood showing his white teeth beside the gateway; ‘put up Mr Dupuy’s horse, do you hear, my lad, and Mr Tom’s too, will you?—How are you, Mr Tom? So you’ve come over with your uncle as well, to see this stock I want to sell, have you?’

The elder Dupuy bowed politely as Mr Hawthorn held out his hand, and took it with something of the dignified old West Indian courtesy; he had been to school at Winchester forty years before, and the remote result of that half-forgotten old English training was still plainly visible even now in a certain outer urbanity and suavity of demeanour. But young Tom held out his hand awkwardly like a born boor, and dropped it again snappishly as soon as Mr Hawthorn had taken it, merely answering, in a slow drawling West Indian voice, partly caught from his own negro servants: ‘Yes, I’ve come over to see the stock; we want some oxen. Cane’s good this season; we shall have a capital cutting.’

‘Is the English mail in?’ Mr Hawthorn asked anxiously, as they took their seats in the piazza to rest themselves for a while after their ride, before proceeding to active business. That one solitary fortnightly channel of communication with the outer world assumes an importance in the eyes of remote colonists which can hardly even be comprehended by our bustling, stay-at-home English people.

‘It is,’ Mr Dupuy replied, taking the proffered glass of Madeira from his host as he answered. Old-fashioned wine-drinking hospitality still prevails largely in the West Indies. ‘I got my letters just as I was starting. Yours will be here before long, I don’t doubt, Mr Hawthorn. I had news, important news in my budget this morning. My daughter, sir, my daughter Nora, who has been completing her education in England, is coming out to Trinidad by the next steamer.’

‘You must be delighted at the prospect of seeing her,’ Mr Hawthorn answered with a slight sigh. ‘I only wish I were going as soon to see my dear boy Edward.’

Mr Dupuy’s lip curled faintly as he replied in a careless manner: ‘Ah, yes, to be sure. Your boy’s in England, Mr Hawthorn, isn’t he? If I recollect right, you sent him to Cambridge.—Ah, yes, I thought so, to Cambridge. A very excellent thing for you to do with him. If you take my advice, my dear sir, you’ll let him stop in the old country—a much better place for him in every way, than this island.’

‘I mean to,’ Mr Hawthorn answered in a low voice. ‘God forbid that I should ever be a party to bringing him out here to Trinidad.’

‘Oh, certainly not—certainly not. I quite agree with you. Far better for him to stop where he is, and take his chance of making a living for himself in England. Not that he can be at any loss in that matter either. You must be in a position to make him very comfortable too, Mr Hawthorn! Fine estate, Agualta, and turns out a capital brand of rum and sugar.’

‘Best vacuum-pan and centrifugal in the whole island,’ Tom Dupuy put in parenthetically. ‘Turned out four hundred and thirty-four hogsheads of sugar and three hundred and ninety puncheons of rum last season—largest yield of any estate in the Windward Islands except Mount Arlington. You don’t catch me out of it in any matter where sugar’s in question, I can tell you.’

‘But my daughter, Mr Hawthorn,’ the elder Dupuy went on, smiling, and sipping his Madeira in a leisurely fashion—‘my daughter means to come out to join me by the next steamer; and my nephew Tom and I are naturally looking forward to her approaching arrival with the greatest anxiety. A young lady in Miss Dupuy’s position, I need hardly say to you, who has been finishing her education at a good school in England, comes out to Trinidad under exceptionally favourable circumstances. She will have much here to interest her in society, and we hope she will enjoy herself and make herself happy.’

‘For my part,’ Tom Dupuy put in brusquely, ‘I don’t hold at all with this sending young women from Trinidad across the water to get educated in England—not a bit of it. What’s the good of it?—that’s what I always want to know—what’s the good of it? What do they pick up there, I should like to hear, except a lot of trumpery fal-lal, that turns their heads, and fills them brimful of all sorts of romantic topsy-turvy notions? I’ve never been to England myself, thank goodness, and what’s more, I don’t ever want to go, that’s certain. But I’ve known lots of fellows that have been, and have spent no end of a heap of money over their education too, at one place or another—I don’t even know the names of ’em—and when they’ve come back, so far as I could see, they’ve never known a bit more about rum or sugar than other fellows that had never set foot for a single minute outside the island—no, nor for that matter, not so much either. Of course, it’s all very well for a person in your son’s position, Mr Hawthorn; that’s quite another matter. He’s gone to England, and he’s going to stay there. If I were he, I should do as he does. But what on earth can be the use of sending a girl in my cousin Nora’s station in life over to England, just on purpose to set her against her own flesh and blood and her own people? Why, it really passes my comprehension.’

Mr Dupuy’s forehead puckered slightly as Tom spoke, and the corners of his mouth twitched ominously; but he answered in a tone of affected nonchalance: ‘It’s a pity, Mr Hawthorn, that my nephew Tom should take this unfavourable view of an English education, because, you see, it’s our intention, as soon as my daughter Miss Dupuy arrives from England, to arrange a marriage at a very early date between himself and his cousin Nora. Pimento Valley, as you know, is entailed in the male line to my nephew Tom; and Orange Grove is in my own disposal, to leave, of course, to my only daughter. But Mr Tom Dupuy and I both think it would be a great pity that the family estates should be divided, and should in part pass out of the family; so we’ve arranged between us that Mr Tom is to marry my daughter Nora, and that Orange Grove and Pimento Valley are to pass together to them and to their children’s children.’

‘An excellent arrangement,’ Mr Hawthorn put in, with a slight smile. ‘But suppose—just for argument’s sake—that Miss Dupuy were not to fall in with it?’

Mr Dupuy’s brow clouded over still more evidently. ‘Not to fall in with it!’ he cried excitedly, tossing off the remainder of his Madeira—‘not to fall in with it!—Why, Mr Hawthorn, what do you mean, sir? Of course, if her father bids her, she’ll fall in with it immediately. If she doesn’t—why, then, sir, I’ll just simply have to make her. She shall marry Tom Dupuy the minute I order her to. She should marry a one-eyed man with a wooden leg if her father commanded it. She shall do whatever I tell her. I’ll stand no refusing and shilly-shallying. Let me tell you, sir, if there’s a vice that I hate and detest, it’s the vice of obstinacy. But I’ll stand no obstinacy.’

‘No obstinacy in those about you,’ Mr Hawthorn put in suggestively.

‘No, sir, no—not in those about me. Other people, of course, I can’t be answerable for, though I’d like to flog every obstinate fellow I come across, just to cure him of his confounded temper. O no, sir; I can’t endure obstinacy—in man or beast, I can’t endure it.’

‘So it would seem,’ Mr Hawthorn replied drily. ‘I hope sincerely, Miss Dupuy will find the choice you have made for her a suitable and satisfactory one.’

‘Suitable, sir! Why, of course it’s suitable; and as to satisfactory, well, if I say she’s got to take him, she’ll have to be satisfied with him, willy-nilly.’

‘But she won’t!’ Tom Dupuy interrupted sullenly, flicking his boot with his short riding-whip in a vicious fashion. ‘She won’t, you may take my word for it, Uncle Theodore. I can’t imagine why it is; but these young women who’ve been educated in England, they’ll never be satisfied with a planter for a husband. They think a gentleman and a son of gentlemen for fifty generations isn’t a good enough match for such fine ladies as themselves; and they go running off after some of these red-coated military fellows down in the garrison over yonder, many of whom, to my certain knowledge, Mr Hawthorn, are nothing more than the sons of tradesmen across there in England. I’ll bet you a sovereign, Uncle Theodore, that Nora’ll refuse to so much as look at the heir of Pimento Valley, the minute she sees him.’

‘But why do you think so, Mr Tom,’ their host put in, ‘before the young lady has even landed on the island?’

‘Ah, I know well enough,’ Tom Dupuy answered, with a curious leer of unintelligent cunning. ‘I know the ways and the habits of the women. They go away over there to England; they get themselves crammed with French and German, and music and drawing, and all kinds of unnecessary accomplishments. They pick up a lot of nonsensical new-fangled notions about Am I not a Man and a Brother? and all that kind of humbug. They think an awful lot of themselves because they can play and sing and gabble Italian. And they despise us West Indians, gentlemen and planters, because we can’t parley-voo all their precious foreign lingoes, and don’t know as much as they do about who composed Yankee Doodle. I know them—I know them; I know their ways and their manners. Culture they call it. I call it a precious lot of trumpery nonsense. Why, Mr Hawthorn, I assure you I’ve known some of these fine new-fangled English-taught young women who’d sooner talk to a coloured doctor, as black as a common nigger almost, just because he’d been educated at Oxford, or Edinburgh, or somewhere, than to me myself, the tenth Dupuy in lineal succession at Pimento Valley.’

‘Indeed,’ Mr Hawthorn answered innocently—no other alternative phrase committing him, as he thought, to so small an opinion on the merits of the question.—‘But do you know, Mr Tom, I don’t believe any person of the Dupuy blood is very likely to take up with these strange modern English heresies that so much surprise you.’

‘Quite true, sir,’ Mr Dupuy the elder answered with prompt self-satisfaction, mistaking his host’s delicate tone of covert satire for the voice of hearty concurrence and full approval. ‘You’re quite right there, Mr Hawthorn, I’m certain. No born Dupuy of Orange Grove would ever be taken in by any of that silly clap-trap humanitarian rubbish. No foolish Exeter Hall nonsense pertains to the fighting Dupuys, sir, I can assure you—root and branch, not a single ounce of it. It isn’t in them, Mr Hawthorn—it isn’t in them.’

‘So I think,’ Mr Hawthorn answered quietly. ‘I quite agree with you—it isn’t in them.’

As he spoke, a negro servant, neatly dressed in a cool white linen livery, entered the piazza with a small budget of letters on an old-fashioned Spanish silver salver. Mr Hawthorn took them up eagerly. ‘The English mail!’ he said with an apologetic look towards his two guests. ‘You’ll excuse my just glancing through them, Mr Dupuy, won’t you? I can never rest, the moment the mail’s in, until I know that my dear boy in England is still really well and happy.’

Mr Dupuy nodded assent with a condescending smile; and the master of Agualta broke open his son’s envelope with a little eager hasty flutter. He ran his eye hurriedly down the first page; and then, with a sudden cry, he laid down the letter rapidly on the table, and called out aloud: ‘Mary, Mary!’

Mrs Hawthorn came out at once from the little boudoir behind the piazza, whose cool Venetian blinds gave directly upon the part where they were sitting.

‘Mary, Mary!’ Mr Hawthorn cried, utterly regardless of his two visitors’ presence, ‘what on earth do you think has happened? Edward’s coming out to us—coming out immediately. Oh, my poor boy, my poor boy, this is too unexpected! He’s coming out to us at once, at once, without a single moment’s warning!’

Mrs Hawthorn took up the letter and read it through hastily with a woman’s quickness; then she laid it down again, and looked blankly at her trembling husband in evident distress; but neither of them said a single word to one another.

The elder Dupuy was the first to break the ominous silence. ‘Not by the next steamer, I suppose?’ he inquired curiously.

Mr Hawthorn nodded in reply. ‘Yes, yes; by the next steamer.’

As he spoke, Tom Dupuy glanced at his uncle with a meaning glance, and then went on stolidly as ever: ‘How about these cattle, though, Mr Hawthorn?’

The old man looked back at him half angrily, half contemptuously. ‘Go and look at the cattle yourself, if you like, Mr Tom,’ he said haughtily.—‘Here, Jo, you take young Mr Dupuy round to see those Cuban bullocks in the grass-piece, will you? I shall meet your uncle at the Legislative Council on Thursday, and then, if he likes, he can talk over prices with me. I have something else to do at present beside haggling and debating over the sale of bullocks; I must go down to Port-of-Spain immediately, immediately—this very minute.—You must please excuse me, Mr Dupuy, for my business is most important.—Dick, Isaac, Thomas!—some one of you there, get Pride of Barbadoes saddled at once, very fast, will you, and bring her round here to me at the front-door the moment she’s ready.’

‘And Tom,’ the elder Dupuy whispered to his nephew confidentially, as soon as their host had gone back into the house to prepare for his journey, ‘I have business, too, in Port-of-Spain, immediately. You go and look at the bullocks if you like—that’s your department. I shall ride down the hills at once, and into town with old Hawthorn.’

Tom looked at him with a vacant stare of boorish unintelligence. ‘Why, what do you want to go running off like that for,’ he asked, open-mouthed, ‘without even waiting to see the cattle? What does it matter to you, I should like to know, whether old Hawthorn’s precious son is coming to Trinidad or not, Uncle Theodore?’

The uncle looked back at him with undisguised contempt. ‘Why, you fool, Tom,’ he answered quietly, ‘you don’t suppose I want to let Nora come out alone all the way from England to Trinidad in the very same steamer with that man Hawthorn’s son Edward? Impossible, impossible!—Here, you nigger fellow you, grinning over there like a chattering monkey, bring my mare out of the stable at once, sir, will you—do you hear me, image?—for I’m going to ride down direct to Port-of-Spain this very minute along with your master. Hurry up, there, jackanapes!’

THE LAND OF FURS.

In 1867, the United States government, for a payment to Russia of about a million and a half pounds sterling, received in exchange the strange isolated country in the far north known as Alaska, separated by one thousand miles of British colonial territory from the republican frontier. For some years there were constant conflicts with the Indians, and altogether the early history of the American occupation of Alaska is not a bright one. The San Franciscan speculators who had been attracted by hopes of gold and of untold wealth in forests and fisheries were wofully disappointed, and the majority of them gradually cleared out again.

A mere glance at the map hardly gives one an idea of the enormous superficial extent of this outlying possession of our American cousins. According to the special Report of the United States Census Commissioners—to which we are mainly indebted for the facts given in this article—the total area of Alaska is five hundred and thirty-one thousand four hundred and nine square miles, or about one-sixth of the entire area of the United States. But one hundred and twenty-five thousand two hundred and forty-five square miles are wholly within the arctic circle, an area which has rarely been traversed by the white man, and upon the coast-borders of which are a few Eskimo villages. The natives of these, it is sad to learn, are becoming rapidly deteriorated by commerce with the crews of the whalers which resort in summer to the neighbourhood, and seek only to barter what natural produce, in the shape of furs, or oil, or ivory, they can collect for the means of intoxication. The immense area of the northern division of Alaska is left to the bear, the fox, the reindeer, and other polar animals, and to somewhere about three thousand degraded Eskimos.

The largest geographical division of Alaska is that which the United States officials have named the Yukon section. It is so called because it comprises the valley of the river Yukon, said to be the largest river in America, if not in the world, and which discharges into Behring’s Sea a volume of water estimated at about one-third more than that of the Mississippi. The Yukon division contains one hundred and seventy-six thousand seven hundred and fifteen square miles, and is peopled by four thousand two hundred and seventy-six Eskimos, two thousand five hundred and fifty-seven Athabaskan Indians, eighteen whites, and nineteen creoles—total, six thousand eight hundred and seventy. The occupation of the natives is entirely in hunting fur-skinned animals, which they barter with the whites for sugar, flour, tea, cloth, hardware, &c. The money value of the skins bartered is said to be about fifteen thousand pounds annually. Foxes are the chief wealth-yielders of this district, and they are found of all shades, from silver-gray and black to red and snow-white. Next to these in importance are the skins of the martens (or sables) and land-otters; and then, but in a much smaller degree, those of the black and brown bears. The moose-skins and deerskins are all retained by the natives for their own purposes, for clothing, bedding, &c.

The principal trading-post is called Saint Michael, and here are kept stocks of coal for the use of the whaling-steamers which force their way into the arctic seas every year.

The third largest geographical division is called the Kuskokvim division, from the river which intersects it. The Kuskokvim division lies to the south of the Yukon division, is bounded on the east by a range of mountains, on the west by Behring’s Sea, and it comprises the valleys of three large rivers and an intervening system of lakes. There is a trading-station called Kalmakovsky, from which are brought down from the unknown interior, by the natives, skins of beaver, marten, and fox, which all appear to be very plentiful. This trade is carried on by a race which appears to be a mixture of the Eskimos and Indians; but below Kalmakovsky, down to the sea, and along the coast, the Eskimos alone appear. These Eskimos support themselves mainly by seal and salmon fishing. The salmon are caught in traps, and are dried upon poles, which line both banks of the lower river from June to August. The estuary is very wide, and the tide rushes in with tremendous force, the rise and fall being very great, sometimes over fifty feet when the wind is from the south-west.

The houses of the natives are much the same in all the divisions of Alaska. These dwellings are thus described: ‘A circular mound of earth, grass-grown and littered with all sorts of household utensils, a small spiral coil of smoke rising from the apex, dogs crouching, children climbing up or rolling down, stray morsels of food left from one meal to the other, and a soft mixture of mud and offal surrounding it all. The entrance to this house is a low irregular square aperture, through which the inmate stoops, and passes down a foot or two through a short low passage on to the earthen floor within. The interior generally consists of an irregularly shaped square or circle, twelve or fifteen feet in diameter, receiving its only light from without, through the small smoke-opening at the apex of the roof, which rises, tent-like, from the floor. The fireplace is directly under this opening. Rude beds or couches of skin and grass mats are laid, slightly raised above the floor, upon clumsy frames made of sticks and saplings or rough-hewn planks, and sometimes on little elevations built up of peat or sod. Sometimes a small hall-way with bulging sides is erected over the entrance, where, by this expansion, room is afforded for the keeping of utensils and water-vessels and as a shelter for dogs. Immediately adjoining most of these houses will be found a small summer kitchen, a rude wooden frame, walled in and covered over with sods, with an opening at the top to give vent to the smoke. These are entirely above ground, rarely over five or six feet in diameter, and are littered with filth and offal of all kinds; serving also as a refuge for the dogs from the inclement weather. In the interior regions, where both fuel and building material are more abundant, the houses change somewhat in appearance and construction; the excavation of the coast-houses, made for the purpose of saving both, disappears, and gives way to log-structures above the ground, but still covered with sods. Living within convenient distance of timber, the people (inland) do not depend so much upon the natural warmth of mother-earth.’

All the islands in Alaskan waters are mountainous, some of the elevations rising from four thousand to eight thousand feet; but the entire division is devoid of trees. The soil is a mixture of loam, clay, and volcanic detritus; and grasses of all kinds grow in great abundance. Coal has been discovered in the island of Ounga; but this is the only mineral riches yet disclosed, although ‘prospecting’ has been carried on for years. The coal is of very poor quality. The climate of this division is more temperate than that of the other districts, and at one time it was thought that the rich grasses might allow of cattle-breeding on a considerable scale. The long winters, however, have shown this to be impracticable; and it has been found that hay, even, can be imported from San Francisco cheaper than it can be grown and cured on the spot. The only part where cattle are kept by the priests and white traders is at Oonalashka, and the fact is interesting as indicating the danger of trusting to poetic descriptions of places. Thomas Campbell, it may be remembered, speaks of ‘the pilot’ guiding his bark where

Cold on his midnight watch the breezes blow

From wastes that slumber in eternal snow;

And waft across the wave’s tumultuous roar,

The wolf’s long howl from Oonalashka’s shore.

As a matter of fact, the country here is neither ‘wastes,’ nor does it ‘slumber in eternal snow.’ The summer is warm; the vegetation, as we have said, is rich; and it may be doubted if the ‘wolf’s long howl’ has ever been heard by the oldest inhabitant. At anyrate, we can find no mention of wolves there now, although foxes are abundant enough. The Aleutian islands are well peopled; and the people are semi-civilised, the Russians having had relations with them and settlements and missions among them for more than a century. There are now schools at which both English and Russian are taught, and ‘stores’ at which the natives can provide themselves with the clothing of civilisation. The Aleutian ladies, indeed, whose lords have grown rich with their seal-fishing, can even sport silks on great occasions, and at all times display a fondness for ribbons and ‘trade’ jewellery. Only the exceptionally rich, however, can afford bonnets or hats; and the Russian-peasant fashion of tying a handkerchief over the head is the prevailing one. The men are especially fond of the broad-crowned, red-banded caps of the Russian uniforms, which were the first examples of civilised clothing ever seen on their shores. While the men devote themselves to the fishing, the women make mats, baskets, cigar-cases, and other articles of grass-cloth; and they turn out some very delicate and beautiful work. The waters are rich in fish of all kinds; but the most important industry is the seal-fishing that is now conducted under leases from the United States government, which retains the monopoly.

The south coast of the eastern half of the Alaska peninsula, with the adjacent islands and a portion of the mainland, forms another geographical division called the Kadiak section. It comprises altogether some seventy thousand eight hundred and eighty-four square miles, and has a population of four thousand three hundred and fifty-two, of which thirty-four are whites, and nine hundred and seventeen creoles. This district is mountainous, well watered, abounds in fur-clad animals, and the men, when not hunters, are fishers. Several settlements and missions were founded by the Russians in various parts of this district; and at one time there was even a ship-building establishment in Resurrection Bay. The forests are dense, and some of the timber is of immense size, especially the spruce.

A narrow strip of coast running from Mount St Elias to the boundary-line of British Columbia, forms the last or south-eastern division of Alaska. It covers twenty-eight thousand nine hundred and eighty square miles, and it forms a wedge of some five hundred miles in length between Canada and the western sea. In character, this section of Alaska differs from all the rest, and is essentially similar to that of the British possessions. It is mountainous and densely wooded; the forests come quite down to the sea-line, and are very valuable; the coast is indented by countless bays and fiords, and is sheltered the greater portion of its length by a chain of islands, forming the Alexander Archipelago. The spruce and the yellow cedar are the most valuable of the forest-trees, and the timber of these is annually exported in considerable quantity. Coal exists on several of the islands, and at some places on the mainland, but has not been worked yet to any great extent. Both copper and gold are known to exist, and have been and are to some extent being mined. Other minerals are supposed to exist, and the Americans expect that this division of Alaska will in time become a great mining field. Already the mining industry has thrown the fur-trade into the second place, and yet the yield of fox, marten, otter, bear, and beaver skins is annually very considerable. The hunting is carried on by the natives, who are of the Thlinket Indian race; the rest of the population of seven thousand seven hundred and forty-eight being made up of two hundred and ninety-three whites and two hundred and thirty creoles. Salmon, halibut, and herring fishing are carried on along the coast; and there are two or three salting and canning establishments. There are also factories for the production of oil from the herring, the dog-fish, and the shark; and on the islands there is some seal-fishing.

The climate of this division is not very cold, the average mean temperature being forty-three degrees twenty-eight minutes; but the rainfall is heavy, ranging from eighty to one hundred inches per annum. The principal settlement of this district is Sitka. Here are the headquarters of the United States naval station for Alaska, and here also resides the collector of customs, who is the civil representative of the government of Washington in the territory. In the time of the Russians, there were several schools and churches at Sitka, but now there is only one church, and the teaching is left practically to the missionaries of the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic bodies.

The total population of the whole of the enormous country called Alaska is computed at only 33,426, and of this number, only four hundred and thirty are whites; creoles number 1756; Eskimos, 17,617; Aleuts, 2145; Athabaskans, 3927; Thlinkets, 6763; and Hydas, 788. Of the habits, customs, and beliefs of these curious peoples, we may tell something on another occasion.

To sum up, it may be said that the acquisition of Alaska by the Americans has been a good deal of a disappointment to them. They thought it would be an excellent district for extensive settlement for agricultural purposes, and the country, as we have seen, is quite unsuited almost everywhere for such purposes. Then they had glowing dreams of rich mineral deposits; but although gold and silver and coal have been found, and are being partially worked, the mining industry is a secondary feature in Alaskan wealth. The extent of the forests, however, has been found greater than was expected. On this point, the United States Commissioner thus enlarges: ‘The timber of Alaska ... clothes the steep hills and mountain sides, and chokes up the valleys of the Alexander Archipelago and the contiguous mainland: it stretches, less dense, but still abundant, along the inhospitable reach of territory which extends from the head of Cross Sound to the Kenai peninsula, where, reaching down to the westward and south-westward as far as the eastern half of Kadiak Island, and thence across Shelikhof Strait, it is found on the mainland and on the peninsula bordering on the same latitude; but it is confined to the interior opposite Kadiak, not coming down to the coast as far eastward as Cape Douglas. From the interior of the peninsula, the timber-line over the whole of the great area of Alaska will be found to follow the coast-line at varying distances of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles from the seaboard, until the section of Alaska north of the Yukon mouth is reached, where a portion of the coast of Norton Sound is directly bordered by timber as far north as Cape Denbigh. From this point to the eastward and north-eastward, a line may be drawn just above the Yukon and its immediate tributaries as the northern limits of timber to any considerable extent. There are a number of small watercourses rising here, that find their way into the Arctic, bordered by hills and lowland ridges, on which some wind-stunted timber is found, even to the shores of the Arctic Sea.

But although the tree-clothed area is thus enormous, the market value of the timber is not so great as one might imagine. The most valuable is the yellow cedar; but this is not nearly so abundant as the spruce or fir, and even that is not of the very best quality.

More important than the timber is the produce of the waters, for it is said that in the seas which wash the shores of Alaska there are no fewer than seventy-five species of food-fishes. Many of these, however, are only considered as suitable for bait wherewith to catch the richer kinds. The chief of these is the cod, which abounds off the whole of the southern coasts, and the catching and curing of which promises to become an important industry. The quality is said to be quite equal to the cod of the North Atlantic. We have already spoken of the salmon, the herring, and halibut, all of which swarm in the waters in shoals of countless myriads; and there are also many valuable white-fishes, which at present are caught for native consumption only. Fish, indeed, is the chief diet in Alaska, and the consumption is enormous.

But the real wealth at present of Alaska rests in the abundance of its fur-skinned animals. It was for the fur-trade that the Russians occupied the country after it had been discovered by Behring, and it was mainly for the fur-trade that the Americans acquired it from Russia. The extent of the trade has proved greater even than was expected at the time of the transfer. The shipments of sea-otter and fur-seal skins alone have more than doubled since 1867, and now average annually about three hundred thousand pounds in value. Of land-furs, as they are called, the list is a long one, and in the order of wideness of distribution may be thus given: land-otter, beaver, brown bear, black bear, red fox, silver fox, blue and white fox, mink, marten, polar bear, lynx, and musk-rat. Rabbits, marmots, and wolverines are also common, but the skins are retained by the natives. The annual value of the furs, sea and land, now obtained from Alaska is estimated to average about half a million sterling, and there is no sign of decrease in the yield. On the contrary, the competition of the traders for skins has stimulated the natives to greater industry in hunting; while the prices now paid to the hunters are from four to ten times more than were current during the Russian rule.

A GOLDEN ARGOSY.

A NOVELETTE.

CHAPTER IV.

Queen Square, Bloomsbury, is a neighbourhood which by no means accords with the expectation evoked by its high-sounding patronymic. It is, besides, somewhat difficult to find, and when discovered, it has a guilty-looking air of having been playing hide-and-seek with its most aristocratic neighbours, Russell and Bloomsbury, and lost itself. Before Southampton Row was the stately thoroughfare it is now, Queen Square must have been a parasite of Russell Square; but in time it seems to have been built out. You stumble upon it suddenly, in making a short-cut from Southampton Row to Bedford Row, and wonder how it got there. It is quiet, decayed—in a word, shabby-genteel—and cheap.

On the south side, sheltered by two sad-looking trees of a nondescript character, and fronted by an imposing-looking portico, is a decayed-looking house, the stucco of which bears a strong likeness to the outside of a Stilton cheese. The windows are none too clean, and the blinds and curtains are all deeply tinged with London fog and London smoke. For the information of the metropolis at large, the door bears a tarnished brass plate announcing that it is the habitation of Mrs Whipple; and furthermore—from the same source—the inquiring mind is further enlightened with the fact that Mrs Whipple is a dressmaker. A few fly-blown prints of fashions, of a startling description and impossible colour, support this fact; and information is further added by the announcement that the artiste within lets apartments; for that legend is inscribed, in runaway letters, on the back of an old showcard which is suspended in one of the ground-floor windows.

From the general tout ensemble of the Whipple mansion, the most casual-minded individual on lodgings bent can easily judge of its cheapness. The ‘ground-floor’—be it whispered in the strictest confidence—pays twenty-five shillings per week; the honoured ‘drawing-rooms,’ two pounds; and the slighted ‘second-floors,’ what the estimable Whipple denominates ‘a matter of fifteen shillings.’ It is with the second-floors that our business lies.

The room was large, and furnished with an eye to economy. The carpet was of no particular pattern, having long since been worn down to the thread; and the household gods consisted of five chairs and a couch covered by that peculiar-looking horsehair, which might, from its hardness and capacity for wear, be woven steel. A misty-looking glass in a maple frame, and a chimney-board decked with two blue-and-green shepherdesses of an impossible period, completed the garniture. In the centre of the room was a round oak table with spidery uncertain legs, and at the table sat a young man writing. He was young, apparently not more than thirty, but the unmistakable shadow of care lay on his face. His dress was suggestive of one who had been somewhat dandyish in time gone by, but who had latterly ceased to trouble about appearances or neatness. For a time he continued steadily at his work, watched intently by a little child who sat coiled up in the hard-looking armchair, and waiting with exemplary patience for the worker to quit his employment. As he worked on, the child became visibly interested as the page approached completion, and at last, with a weary sigh, he finished, pushed his work from him, and turned with a bright smile to the patient little one.

‘You’ve been a very good little girl, Nelly.—Now, what is it you have so particularly to say to me?’ he said.

‘Is it a tale you are writing, papa?’ she asked.

‘Yes, darling; but not the sort of tale to interest you.’

‘I like all your tales, papa. Uncle Jasper told mamma they were all so “liginal.” I like liginal tales.’

‘I suppose you mean original, darling?’

‘I said liginal,’ persisted the little one, with childish gravity. ‘Are you going to sell that one, papa? I hope you will; I want a new dolly so badly. My old dolly is getting quite shabby.’

‘Some day you shall have plenty.’

The child looked up in his face solemnly. ‘Really, papa! But do you know, pa, that some day seems such a long way off? How old am I, papa?’

‘Very, very old, Nelly,’ he replied with a little laugh. ‘Not quite so old as I am, but very old.’

‘Yes, papa? Then do you know, ever since I can remember, that some day has been coming. Will it come this week?’

‘I don’t know, darling. It may come any time. It may come to-day; perhaps it is on the way now.’

‘I don’t know, papa,’ replied the little one, shaking her head solemnly. ‘It is an awful while coming. I prayed so hard last night for it to come, after mamma put me in bed. What makes mamma cry when she puts me to bed? Is she crying for some day?’

‘Oh, that’s all your fancy, little one,’ replied the father huskily. ‘Mamma does not cry. You must be mistaken.’

‘No, indeed, papa; I’se not mistook. One day I heard mamma sing about some day, and then she cried—she made my face quite wet.’

‘Hush, Nelly; don’t talk like that, darling.’

‘But she did,’ persisted the little one. ‘Do you ever cry, papa?’

‘Look at that little sparrow, Nelly. Does he not look hungry, poor little fellow? He wants to come in the room to you.’

‘I dess he’s waiting for some day papa,’ said the child, looking out at the dingy London sparrow perched on the window ledge. ‘He looks so patient. I wonder if he’s hungry? I am, papa.’

The father looked at his little one with passionate tenderness. ‘Wait till mamma comes, my darling.’

‘All right, papa; but I am so hungry!—Oh, here is mamma. Doesn’t she look nice, papa, and so happy?’

When Eleanor entered the dingy room, her husband could not fail to notice the flush of hope and happiness on her face. He looked at her with expectation in his eyes.

‘Did you think mother was never coming, Nelly? and do you want your dinner, my child?’

‘You do look nice, ma,’ said the child admiringly. ‘You look as if you had found some day.’

Eleanor looked inquiringly at her husband, for him to explain the little one’s meaning.

‘Nelly and I have been having a metaphysical discussion,’ he said with playful gravity. ‘We have been discussing the virtues of the future. She is wishing for that impossible some day that people always expect.’

‘I don’t think she will be disappointed,’ said Mrs Seaton, with a fond little smile at her child. ‘I believe I have found it.—Edgar, I have been to see Mr Carver.’

‘I supposed it would have come to that. And he, I suppose, has been poisoned by the sorceress, and refused to see you?’

‘O no,’ said Eleanor playfully. ‘We had quite a long chat—in fact, he asked us all to dinner on Sunday.’

‘Wonderful! And he gave you a lot of good advice on the virtues of economy, and his blessing at parting.’

‘No,’ she said; ‘he must have forgotten that: he gave me this envelope for you with his compliments and best wishes.’

Edgar Seaton took the proffered envelope listlessly, and opened it with careless fingers. But as soon as he saw the shape of the inclosure, his expression changed to one of eagerness. ‘Why, it is a cheque!’ he exclaimed excitedly.

‘O no,’ said his wife laughingly; ‘it is only the blessing.’

‘Well, it is a blessing in disguise,’ Seaton said, his voice trembling with emotion. ‘It is a cheque for twenty-five pounds.—Nelly, God has been very good to us to-day.’

‘Yes, dear,’ said his wife simply, with tears in her eyes.

Little Nelly looked from one to the other in puzzled suspense, scarcely knowing whether to laugh or cry. Even her childish instinct discerned the gravity of the situation.

‘Papa, has some day come? You look so happy.’

He caught her up in his arms and kissed her lovingly, and held her in one arm, while he passed the other round his wife. ‘Yes, darling. Your prayer has been answered. Some day—God be thanked—has come at last.’ For a moment no one spoke, for the hearts of husband and wife were full of quiet thankfulness. What a little it takes to make poor humanity happy, and fill up the cup of pleasure to the brim!

Round the merry dinner-table all was bright and cheerful, and it is no exaggeration to say the board groaned under the profuse spread. Eleanor lost no time in acquainting her husband with the strange story of her uncle’s property, and Mr Carver’s views on the subject—a view of the situation which he felt almost inclined to share after a little consideration. It was extremely likely, he thought, that Margaret Boulton would be able to throw some light on the subject; indeed, the fact of her strange rescue from her self-imposed fate pointed almost to a providential interference. It was known that she had a long conversation with Mr Morton the day he died, a circumstance which seemed to have given Miss Wakefield great uneasiness; and her strange disappearance from Eastwood directly after the funeral gave some colouring to the fact.

Margaret Boulton had not risen that day owing to a severe cold caught by her exposure to the rain on the previous night; and Edgar and his wife decided, directly she did so, to question her upon the matter. It would be very strange if she could not give some clue.

‘I think, Nelly, we had better take Felix into our confidence,’ said Edgar, when the remains of dinner had disappeared in company with the grimy domestic. ‘He will be sure to be of some assistance to us; and the more brains we have the better.’

‘Certainly, dear,’ she acquiesced; ‘he should know at once.’

‘I think I will walk to his rooms this afternoon.’

‘No occasion,’ said a cheerful voice at that moment. ‘Mr Felix is here very much at your service. I’ve got some good news for you; and I am sure, from your faces, you can return the compliment.’

CHAPTER V.

Mr Felix was much struck by the tale he heard, and was inclined, in spite of the dictates of common-sense, to follow the Will-o’-the-wisp which grave Mr Carver had discovered. In a prosaic age, such a thing as the disappearance of a respectable Englishman’s wealth was on the face of it startling enough; and therefore, although the thread was at present extremely intangible, he felt there must be something romantic about the matter. Mr Felix, be it remembered, was a man of sense; but he was a dreamer of dreams, and a weaver of romance by profession and choice; consequently, he was inclined to pooh-pooh Edgar’s half-deprecating, half-enthusiastic view of the case.

‘I do not think you are altogether right, Seaton, in treating this affair so cavalierly,’ he said. ‘In the first place, Miss Wakefield is no relation in blood to your wife’s uncle. If the property was in her hands, I should feel myself justified in taking steps to have the existing will set aside; but so long as there is nothing worth doing battle for, it is not worth while, unless Miss Wakefield has the money, and is afraid of proceedings’——

‘That is almost impossible,’ Eleanor interrupted. ‘You have really no conception how fond she is of show and display, and I know no such fear would prevent her indulging her fancy, if she had the means to do so.’

‘So long as you are really persuaded that is the case, we have one difficulty out of the way,’ Felix continued. ‘Then we can take it for granted that she neither has the money nor has the slightest idea where it is.—Now, tell me about this Margaret Boulton.’

‘That is soon told,’ Eleanor replied. ‘Last night, shortly alter eleven, I was crossing Waterloo Bridge’——

‘Bad neighbourhood for a lady to be alone,’ interrupted Felix, with a reproachful glance at Seaton.—‘I beg your pardon. Go on, please.’

‘I had missed my husband at Waterloo Station, and I was hurrying home as quickly as I could’——

‘Why did you not take a cab?’ exclaimed Felix with some asperity. Then seeing Eleanor colour, he said hastily: ‘What a dolt I am! I—I am very sorry. Please, go on.’

‘As I was saying,’ continued Eleanor, ‘just as I was crossing the bridge, I saw a woman close by me climb on to one of the buttresses. I don’t remember much about it, for it was over in less than a minute, and seems like a dream now; but it was my old nurse, or rather companion, Margaret Boulton, strange as it seems. Now, you know quite as much as I can tell you.’

Felix mused for a time over this strange history. He could not shake off the feeling that it was more than a mere coincidence. ‘Seriously,’ he said, ‘I feel something will come of this.’

‘I hope so,’ answered Eleanor with a little sigh. ‘Things certainly look a little better now than they did; but we need some permanent benefit sadly.’

‘I thought some day had come, mamma,’ piped little Nelly from her nest on the hearthrug.

‘Little pitchers have long ears,’ said the novelist. ‘Come and sit on poor old Uncle Jasper’s knee, Nelly, and give him a kiss.’

‘Yes, I will, Uncle Jasper; but I’m not a little pitcher, and I’ve not dot long ears.—Mamma, are my ears long?’

‘No, darling,’ replied her mother with a smile. ‘Uncle Felix was not speaking of you.’

‘Then I will sit upon his knee.’ Whereupon she climbed up on to that lofty perch, and proceeded to draw invidious distinctions between Mr Felix’ moustache and the hirsute appendage of her father, a mode of criticism which gave the good-natured literary celebrity huge delight.

‘Now,’ continued Felix, when he had placed the little lady entirely to her satisfaction—‘now to resume. In the first place, I should particularly like to see this Margaret Boulton to-day.’

‘I do not quite agree with you, Mr Felix. It would be cruel, with her nerves in such a state, to cross-examine her to-day,’ Mrs Seaton said with womanly consideration. ‘You can have no idea what such a reaction means.’

‘Precisely,’ Felix replied grimly. ‘Do you not see what I mean? Her nervous system is particularly highly strung at present—the brain in a state of violent activity, probably; and she is certain to be in a position to remember the minutest detail, and may give us an apparently trivial hint, which may turn out of the utmost importance.’

‘Still, it seems the refinement of cruelty,’ said Eleanor, her womanly kindness getting the better of her curiosity. ‘She is in a particularly nervous state. Naturally, she is inclined to be morbidly religious, and the mere thought of her attempted crime last night upsets her.’

‘Yes, perhaps so,’ Felix said; ‘but I should like to see her now. We cannot tell how important it may be to us.’

‘I declare your enthusiasm is positively contagious,’ laughed Seaton.—‘Really, Felix, I did not imagine you were so deeply imbued with curiosity. My wife is bad enough, but you are positively girlish.’

‘Indeed, sir, you belie me,’ said Eleanor with mock-indignation. ‘I am moved by a little natural inquisitiveness; but I shall certainly not permit that unfortunate girl to be annoyed for the purpose of gratifying the whim of two grown-up children.’

‘Mea culpa,’ Felix replied humbly. ‘But I should like to see the interesting patient, if only for a few minutes.’

Eleanor laughed merrily at this persistent charge. ‘Well, well,’ she said, ‘I will go up to Margaret and ascertain if she is fit to see any one just yet; but I warn you not to be disappointed, for she certainly shall not be further excited.’

‘I do not think the curiosity is all on our side,’ Felix said, as Eleanor was leaving the room.—‘You are a fortunate man, Seaton, in spite of your troubles,’ he continued. ‘A wife like yours must make anxiety seem lighter.’

‘Indeed, you are right,’ Edgar answered earnestly. ‘Many a time I have felt like giving it up, and should have done so, if it had not been for Eleanor.’

‘Strange, too,’ said Felix musingly, ‘that she does not give one the impression of being so brave and courageous. But you never can tell. I have been making a study of humanity for twenty years, and I have been often disappointed in my models. I have seen the weakest do the work of the strongest. I have seen the strongest, on the other hand, go down before the first breath of trouble. I have seen the most acid of them all make the most angelic of wives.’

‘I wonder you have never married, Felix.’

‘Did I not tell you my model women have always been the first to disappoint me?’ he replied lightly. ‘Besides, what woman could know Jasper Felix and love him?’

‘Your reputation alone’——

‘Yes, my reputation—and my money,’ Felix said bitterly. ‘Twenty years ago, when I was plain Jasper Felix, I did—— But bah! I don’t want to discuss faded rose-leaves with you.—Let us change the subject. I have some good news for you. In the first place, I have sold the article you gave me.’

‘Come, that is cheering. I suppose you managed to screw a guinea out of one of your friends for me?’

‘On the contrary, I sold it on its merits,’ Felix replied, ‘and ten pounds was the price.’

‘Ten pounds! Am I dreaming, or am I a genius?’

‘Neither; which is true, if not complimentary. There is the cheque to prove you are not dreaming; and as to the other thing, you have no genius, but you have considerable talent.—But I have some further news for you. I have had a note from the editor of Mayfair, to whom I showed your work. Now, Baker of the Mayfair is about the finest judge of literary capacity I know. He says he was particularly struck with your descriptive writing; and if you like to undertake the work, he wants you to visit the principal of the foreign gambling clubs in London, and work up a series of gossiping articles for his paper. The work will not be particularly pleasant; but you will have the entrée of all these clubs, and the golden key to get to the working part of the machinery. The thing will be hard and somewhat hazardous; but it is a grand opportunity of earning considerable kudos. Will you undertake it?’

‘Undertake it!’ said Seaton, springing to his feet. ‘Will I not? Felix, you have made a new man of me. Had it not been for you, I don’t know what would have become of us by this time. I cannot thank you in words, but you know that I feel your kindness.’

‘I do not see why this should not lead to something like fortune; anyway, it means comfort and ease, if I do not mistake your capacity,’ said Felix, totally ignoring the other’s gratitude. ‘If I were in your place, I should not tell my wife I was doing anything dangerous.’

‘Poor child, how thankful she will be! But you are perfectly right as regards the danger—not that I fear it particularly, though there is no reason to make her anxious.’

‘What mischief are you plotting?’ said Eleanor, entering the room at that moment. ‘You look on particularly good terms with yourselves.’

‘Good news, Nelly, good news! I have actually got permanent work to do. You need not ask whose doing it is.’

‘No, no,’ said Felix modestly. ‘It is your own capability you must thank.—What about the patient?’

‘I really must ask you to postpone your inquiry for the present,’ she replied; ‘she is incapable of answering any questions just now. Indeed, I am so uneasy, that I have sent for a doctor.’

‘Indeed! Well, I suppose we must wait for the present.—And now, I must tear myself away,’ said Felix, as he rose and proceeded to button his overcoat.—‘Seaton, you must hold yourself in readiness for your work at any moment.—No thanks, please,’ as Eleanor was about to speak. ‘Now, I must go.—Good-night, little Nelly; don’t forget to think of poor old Uncle Jasper sometimes.’

‘Good-night, Felix,’ said Edgar with a hearty hand-shake. ‘I won’t thank you; but you know how I feel.—Good-night, dear old boy!’

‘IN AT THE DEATH.’

There were three of us chumming together in a solitary little hole in the jungle, not so very far—as one counts distance in India—from Secunderabad. We were Cooper’s Hill young men; and fate and the government had given us a chance of distinguishing ourselves, and extinguishing our fellow-creatures, by the making of a branch railway including a bridge and a tunnel. So there were three of us; and a right jolly time we had on the whole. Our bungalow was a real work of art, covered with creepers, by which I do not mean to insinuate centipedes, of which, however, there were also a good few, but jessamine, plumbago, a climbing moss—which one of us had rescued from the tangle of the jungle, and coaxed to live in a more civilised position—besides many other lovely specimens. To save our valuable time, we generally addressed each other by our initials. Mine, unfortunately, spelt M. A. G., to which my companions, in moments of hilarity, sometimes added a second course of P. I. E. I was the eldest of the trio.

We had not been very long at our branch-line work, when I was laid low with an exhausting attack of jungle fever and ague. My friends E. S. P. and H. F. by turns nursed me with a tenderness and care for which I can never be sufficiently grateful. I pulled through, thanks to them; but since that time, have been subject to rather severe fits of ague, from one of which I was recovering, at the time the incident happened I wish to tell you about.

It had been an absolutely broiling day, and we had been driven to the verge of insanity between the heat and the flies. We were reclining, after our day’s work, on our basket sofas, on the veranda, in the cool of the evening, puffing away solemnly and silently at our brier-root pipes, when it suddenly struck us that a group of native workmen, who were superintending the cooking of their evening meal in a corner of our very improvised sort of compound, must have received some exciting intelligence. Being young and sportively inclined, we were all three fellows of one idea, and that idea was, ‘tigers.’

‘Just call to that gaping fool and ask him what’s up,’ suggested I, in a washed-out voice.

‘St John!’ shouted E. S. P., whose voice carried farther than either of ours, clapping his hands loudly at the same time, to attract the attention of the gabbling group; and up came the tallest, thinnest native to be met in a very long day’s ride. We had christened this man ‘St John,’ first, because he wore the most fearfully and wonderfully made camel’s-hair garment that civilised eyes ever looked upon; and secondly, because he was so desperately lean and lanky, we were certain that he must feed on either locusts or grasshoppers, which are both supposed to be a very anti-fat diet.

Up, then, came this mysterious coolie; and, with many salaams, much gesticulation and showing the whites of his eyes, he informed us that there was a most bloodthirsty man-eater lurking in the neighbourhood, close by, at our very door! I looked nervously round, not enjoying the idea of being caught by Monsieur Maneater armed only with a brier-wood pipe. E. and H. at once appeared to be seized with St Vitus’s dance, so absurdly and hysterically active had they suddenly become.

‘Where was he last seen?’ ‘How large was he?’ ‘What village was the scene of his last meal?’ ‘How many people was he known to have eaten?’ ‘Who brought the news?’ ‘Send him up to be questioned!’

St John went away; and in a few minutes reappeared, accompanied by a native postman, who, it seemed, knowing that the railway Sahibs were partial to tiger, had kindly dropped in with the intelligence. We found out all we could from the man, and rewarded him with some money and tobacco.

The last victim was a poor native woman, who had crept into the corner of the veranda of a bungalow some miles away, and fallen asleep, from which, poor soul, she was roughly awakened, and then half-carried, half-dragged to a clump of thick jungle-grass and bushes about two and a half miles from where we were. The postman’s eyes and teeth glistened with sympathetic pleasure, as he saw how keen and eager the other two fellows were to be after the brute. I was out of it altogether, as I could not trust my shaky hands with a rifle in such a case of life or death, so I looked on and listened to all their suggestions and arrangements with the deepest interest.

‘That poor old bag of bones is not likely to have afforded him much of a “gorge,”’ said H. ‘He may turn up on our veranda to-night, boys, to see if he can find some light refreshment here.’

‘He will get some black pepper which may not agree with him,’ said E. S. P., who had gone into what we called our armoury and brought out his rifle, which he began to clean and make ready for very active service.

By this time darkness had closed in round us, with that small respect for twilight which so bothers the enterprising traveller in foreign lands. The servants and workmen had dispersed to their various habitations, and our white-headed native factotum was standing before us announcing dinner.

‘Hush!’ said H., putting his finger up in a commanding way and listening intently. ‘Didn’t either of you hear something leap over the wall?’

‘Oh, bother your imagination—I’m off to dinner,’ said I, rising abruptly, and disappearing through the open window. The other fellows followed, and were soon busily employed in making the most of the meal of the day and arranging about the morrow’s sport.

When ‘To Tum,’ as we irreverently called our venerable butler, brought me my tea and biscuits at six the next morning, I had much to ask him, for E. and H. had gone off without waking me, probably thinking that the sight of them with two rifles in their hands, and a tiger in the bush, would be too exciting and tantalising for me. I found that the Massa Sahibs had departed after a very hasty breakfast, and had taken St John with them, carrying a third gun, in case of accident. A railway coolie reported distant shots, heard about an hour after the Sahibs had left the bungalow; but nothing had since been seen or heard of men or man-eater.

‘You can open that blind, To Tum,’ said I, pointing to one of the windows looking towards the north, for I thought I should probably see the conquering heroes returning that way, covered with glory and thorn scratches. The butler had departed and left me to my meditations, and good intentions of performing my toilet and going to see what was doing on the line. I continued to lie, looking dreamily out of the window, the jalousie of which To Tum had thrown back. It was not much of a view, consisting only of a corner of the compound wall and the jungle beyond; but a soft pinky haze beautified everything; and, fanned by a most delicious cool breeze, I closed my eyes again and dozed for a few minutes, utterly and blissfully ignorant that sudden death had just cleared that compound wall, and was making, stealthily and wearily, straight for my open window. I heard—in a dream as it were, so did not heed—a curious scratching noise, followed by soft limping footsteps across the veranda; then heavy breathing, almost gasping, which seemed so unpleasantly near, that I opened my sleepy, dreamy eyes just in time to see his most Serene Highness the Bengal tiger throw himself in an utterly done-for condition by the side of my bed!

Here was a situation! My very marrow seemed to freeze in my bones, and every hair on my head was alive with electrified fright. I lay as still as a corpse, and in my heart thanked a considerate providence which had made the beast turn its back to me, instead of its villainous face. I was too paralysed even to think of what I could do to get out of the room, which, perhaps, was fortunate. The animal had evidently run far and fast, as its panting sides and foam-flaked jaws plainly showed; so there was just a feeble chance of its going to sleep, and then would be the time to cautiously escape. Its great murderous-looking paws were stained with blood; and, though I could see that one of them was wounded, the idea would take possession of my weak and agitated mind, that it was the blood of one of my companions, and not the tiger’s own. Suddenly, to my horror, the brute lifted its head from its paws, pricked up its ears, and listened intently. I also listened as well as I could; but every nerve was throbbing, and the sound in both ears was as the surging of stormy waves on a pebbly beach. I, too, however, caught a distant ‘click,’ very faint and indistinct, and I could not make out what it was. The tiger again composed itself to sleep or watch; it was impossible to see if its eyes were open or shut. After a lifetime of miserable sensations, I guessed, by the even rise and fall of its sides, that it must be having what might not be more than the proverbial forty winks; so now was my time, or never! Not once taking my eyes off the object of my terror, I slipped out of the bed, which gave a gentle creak, that, to my fevered imagination, sounded like a death knell. He did not move! I wished I had more on, I felt so defenceless. I crept slowly to the door, not taking one foot off the ground till I had carefully steadied myself on both. I reached the only thing that divided me from comparative safety, softly turned the handle. The door was locked! For one second I had taken my steady gaze from the sleeping brute; when I looked again, what a change! Head thrown back, ears flat, eyes glaring savagely, and flanks trembling and quivering with the stealthy movement of an animal about to spring! But not at me! I followed the tiger’s glance, and caught a glimpse of the barrel of a rifle, just one second—then a flash—a roar—a struggle—and I fell senseless on the floor.

When I came to myself, I was lying wrapped in my dressing-gown on a sofa in the sitting-room. E. S. P. was kneeling beside me with a bottle of something in his hand, and H. F. was standing at my feet with an expression of the greatest solicitude.

‘Don’t talk just yet, old fellow,’ said he; ‘wait till you feel stronger, and we’ll tell you all about it. By Jove! you had a narrow escape.’

After a few minutes’ quiet, my curiosity awoke in full force. ‘Tell me,’ said I—‘did you kill him straight off?’

‘O yes,’ answered E. S. P. ‘He’s as dead as mutton. But we had no idea that you were there. To Tum told us that you had gone to the line ages ago; and we tracked the brute through your open window, where he had taken refuge. H. wounded him in the off hind-leg, when we got our first sight of him in the jungle; and instead of coming at us, he bolted, and led us a precious dance. To Tum bolted your door on the outside, thinking it would stand a charge better, in case the tiger made one; but he thought that you were safe off the premises.’

‘Well,’ said I, shuddering at the recollection, ‘I really don’t think I am more cowardly than most people, but may I never spend another such mauvais quart d’heure!’

OCCASIONAL NOTES.

A NEW LIGHT.

The rise and progress of the mineral-oil industry are too well known to need any special comment. In this and other countries, the supply of hydro-carbon oils, both from shale-beds and springs, has of late years received remarkable development. Nor will surprise be expressed, viewing the enormous quantities of this material brought into the market, and the low figure at which it can be supplied, that efforts are continually being made, and experiments carried out, to utilise in new forms the heat and light giving properties so eminently possessed by this commodity.

Some little time back, we touched on heat-production from hydro-carbon oil, and pointed out its adaptability for raising steam on board ships, and similar cases where saving in space and weight forms an important desideratum. Since then, matters have advanced considerably, and the late voyage of a vessel in British waters propelled entirely by oil-fed furnaces, sufficiently testifies to the progress already made.

Hydro-carbon oils promise, however, to find employment in another direction—namely, for lighting purposes, and already at the great Forth Bridge works a considerable number of the new lights are in regular operation, and giving results in every respect satisfactory. The essential principle involved in this method of lighting consists in forcing air, compressed to about twenty pounds on the square inch, through the heavy hydro-carbon oil. The oil issues from the burner in a fine spray, which burns with a remarkably steady and brilliant light, the oxygen of the air being thoroughly consumed. The absence of smoke and smell is particularly noticeable. The oil is stored in circular tanks of galvanised iron, holding some twenty gallons, or about ten hours’ supply. A vertical tube extends upwards from the tank and carries the burner; whilst an ingeniously contrived shade, arranged to turn around the burner according to the direction of the wind, affords shelter to the flame. A safety-valve is fitted to the tank to obviate any undue increase of pressure in the air. The whole apparatus is mounted on a stand some fifteen to twenty feet high, and sheds a brilliant light for at least two hundred yards.

It may be added that the well-diffused light of the new system contrasts very forcibly with the black dense shadows cast by the electric light, and forms a strong argument in favour of the former. The power required to supply air is not large, about one-eighth horse-power being found sufficient for each light. Thus, a small air-compressor of five horse-power can readily produce abundant pressure for forty lights. When employed on a large scale, and laid down permanently, other economies and conveniences can be effected, as, for example, the erection of a central tank arranged to feed all the burners.

Turning now to the oil employed, it may be noted that almost any oil may be utilised, the crude and waste products of oil and gas works being found to yield excellent results. This fact alone, enabling products of small value to be rendered serviceable, should advance the light in no small degree. There is beyond all question a large field for any illuminating agent, which can be readily erected in goods-sheds, ship-yards, or engineering works, and can be worked at moderate cost. Whether or not this adaptation of hydro-carbon oil will fulfil all the conditions necessary to render it a commercial success and lead to its wide development, time alone can tell. We have, however, shown that it has already done good work, and promises well for the future.

MR G. A. SALA ON LABOUR IN AUSTRALIA.

Mr G. A. Sala, recently addressing the representative of an Australian journal, said: ‘I recognise that labour is needed everywhere in Australia—more working men, more domestic servants, more young men, more intelligent men, more Scotsmen—as many more as ever you like. I think I have also been able to discern the people who are not required here. These are the black-sheep of good families, loafers, idlers, young men who come out and spend their money, drift into dissolute habits, get remittances to take them home again, where they do nothing but abuse the colonies, of which they know nothing, and in which their presence was likely to do more harm than good. I have been preaching lay sermons for a good many years; and were I not too old and too wicked, I would get into some pulpit at home and preach as a minister, for certainly ministers have more influence over their congregations than lecturers have over audiences. I would say to my hearers: “My capable, hard-working, shrewd, intelligent brethren, go out to Australia. You and your wives and your children, go out, work hard; and be assured that, with or without capital, you will, by hard working, frugality, and sobriety, greatly better your condition. Not only that, but you will also better those whom you leave behind. You will give more and more backbone, more and more muscle, more and more red blood, to the body politic of Australia.” But I would also add: “My idle brethren, my stupid brethren, my wicked, needy brethren, my vicious brethren, my drunken brethren, stop at home and gravitate to your natural refuge, the poorhouse. Do not go out to Australia to become a nuisance and a pest there.” Then, in more forbearing language, I would amicably advise young men in England of mere clerical attainments, who can at best only hope to be bookkeepers or shop assistants, to think twice, nay thrice, before they travel thirteen thousand miles to find a country where the native youths equal, if they do not excel them in the ability demanded by the requirements of the counting-house and shop-counter.’

FOREIGN COMPETITION.

Sir John Brown, of the well-known firm of John Brown & Co., has said that he ‘feared England had almost, if not altogether reached the summit of her prosperity, and that she must not again look for any material prosperity such as the last thirty or forty years had displayed.’ English trade was being nibbled right and left by Germany, Austria, Prussia, and the United States. Illustrating this, Sir John stated that his large ship-building Company at Hull had recently taken their supplies of steel plates from Germany at prices varying from ten shillings to twenty shillings per ton below the prices at which Sheffield could supply the material. The same was true of ship-building firms at Newcastle and other places. Notwithstanding the cost of carriage, rails were sent more cheaply from Germany, by Antwerp and the German Ocean, to Hull and Newcastle than they could be made in England. A process of cold-rolling is known only to certain French and American houses; and it is curious, but not altogether creditable to ourselves, that steel is sent to Paris to be cold-rolled, and is afterwards returned to this country.

BONNIE DRYFE.

Bonnie Dryfe, my native stream,

I have loved thee lang and dearly,

Glancing in the sunny beam,

Glinting through the bracken clearly.

Wayward, wandering, mountain bairn,

Dancing down thy glen so grassy,

Leaping light by cliff and cairn,

Gleesome as a muirland lassie.

Singing by the Roman moat,

Neighbours ye’ve been lang together,

Sadd’ning memories vex thee not,

Lilting blithely through the heather.

Seaward wandering, bright and free,

Dreaming not of Old World story;

Fallen empire’s nought to thee,

Older thou than Roman glory.

I have roamed by silver Tweed,

Stately Clyde majestic rushing,

Strayed where Highland rivers speed

O’er their rocky channels gushing.

Nane can sing a sang like thine,

Nane can dance so light and airy,

Nane can cheer this heart o’ mine

Like thee, thou merry mountain fairy.

William Gardiner.

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

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