mother); I listened for some minutes | children were walking in the Bois de to the conversation which took place in Boulogne, escorted by our French the drawing-room, but getting intensely bonne. I was bounding along, in frout bored, I made my way out to the of the small detachment, looking out dining-room. The cloth was laid, and for wild flowers. I discovered a bush in a corner of the table was a little dish of white hawthorns, and was in the act filled with long, vermilion pods. I had of tugging unsuccessfully with a branch, never seen them before; they fasci- when a short gentleman with small nated and puzzled me; were they good grey eyes, and a moustache much to eat, I wondered. An irresistible im- waxed at the corners, suddenly stood pulse seized me. I would just taste in front of me, broke off a large spray one, to see what it was like. I picked and handed it to me, with a charmput it in my mouth. Oh! how ing smile and courteous manner, that it burned. I was going to spit it out, deeply impressed me. Then gazing at when to my utter dismay I saw Mr. me, exclaimed (in French) to two other Thackeray looking at me, with a broad gentlemen who were standing behind smile on his face. I must have looked him : "Ah quelle figure de prospethe picture of woe. rité!" Then he patted my fat, rosy

one

"A chili in her poor little mouth!"cheeks, saying, "Quelle bonne santé” he exclaimed. "How it must burn! Very funny, very funny," he kept on murmuring.

(what good health). Then perceiving my brothers and sisters approaching, he remarked: "Quel troupeau de beaux It was a cruel moment for me. enfants Anglais " (what a flock of fine There I stood before him, my cheeks English children). When the three bulging out, tears of pain in my eyes. gentlemen had passed on, our bonne It was getting unbearable. exclaimed excitedly, “Mon Dieu ! c'est Evidently Mr. Thackeray felt sorry ❘ l'Empereur avec ses aides-de-camps.” for me; he left the room; I then As she uttered this, we saw a handcoughed up and got rid of the demoniacal pickle. No, never again would I taste of the forbidden fruit. Mr. Thackeray returned shortly afterwards, holding a pencil and a piece of paper. He had sketched me with the chili in my mouth. The grimace, the bulgingout cheeks were so admirably rendered that I laughed heartily; but I begged Mr. Thackeray not to tell any one, especially his mother, that I had tasted the chili.

He promised, saying, “It will be our little secret." Except, now and then, mimicking the grimace I had made when burned by the Indian product, Mr. Thackeray kept his word.

some carriage and pair, with servants decked in the imperial livery, drive up; it stopped at a quiet corner, and the emperor and his suite got inside.

That following winter my parents gave me a great treat. They took me one evening to the Opéra des Italiens. It was the first time I had ever been inside a theatre, and never can I forget the vivid impressions of wonder and delight. Driving to the opera I must have felt as excited as Cinderella probably felt when she approached the prince's palace on the night of the eventful glass slipper ball.

Going up the grand staircase, I took a peep at my small self in one of the To be noticed by an emperor, though tall mirrors. No, alas! I was not like ever so slightly, cannot but make an Cinderella; only a plump little girl, impression upon a little girl's mind; with fat cheeks the color of red apples, and though it is so long ago, the inci-my thick brown hair plaited in two big dent stands out from the blurred past pig-tails which hung down my back to with almost photographic clearness.

It was on a lovely morning in May. I remember how exquisitely green and fresh the vegetation looked, lit up by a delicious Paris sunshine. We five

my waist. I wore a pink poplin, striped with black; and was conscious that I was not in keeping with the gorgeous surroundings.

As we entered, the Emperor Louis

Napoleon and the Empress Eugénie "Vive l'Empereur ! Vive l'Impérawere taking their seats in a box oppo-trice !" They entered their carriage, site ours. The music, the lights, the which had an escort of soldiers on glittering jewels, the shimmering dra- horseback; more shouts of "Vive peries of the ladies, the perfume of the l'Empereur ! " bouquets, transported me with delight. I stood up between my father and mother in a state of great excitement, the upper half of my body hanging out of the box. I was in dreamland. A tap on my shoulder aroused me from my reverie.

As I was standing on the opera steps, waiting for my parents, Le Comte Alfred de Vigny (author of "CinqMars,' "Chatterton," etc., etc.), who was a great friend of my father and mother, exclaimed upon seeing me : "Ah, Henriette d'Angleterre (he

"The emperor and empress are look-always called me thus), "and so this is ing at you," whispered my father. your first night at the opera. Now, He evidently remembered the little little girl, you have had a treat which girl he had met in the Bois. I looked you will never forget." He was right, at his Majesty; he smiled and nodded. I can never forget that brilliant night. I nodded back. Then my mother I felt that I had had a peep into fairytugged at my dress, and made me sit HENRIETTE CORKRAN. down; interchange of nods had been noticed by the majority of the audience. An army of opera-glasses were levelled at our box.

land.

From Chambers' Journal.

The Empress Eugénie was a vision TREASURE ISLANDS IN THE POLAR SEA. of loveliness. I had never beheld such PARAGRAPHS appear in the newsa being. She was in white tulle, spark-papers from time to time, and down to ling with pearls and diamonds. What the present year of grace, 1894, about an exquisite neck and shoulders! Her a wealth of mammoth-ivory on the golden hair was worn turned back à desert coasts and islands of northern l'Eugénie. Her eyes were so blue, that Siberia; but many people seem to rethe atmosphere around seemed per-gard such tales as more or less fabumeated with blue. The opera must lous, and may be glad to have a have been particularly tragic, for there connected account of what is really was a great deal of weeping and blow-known about New Siberia and its ing of noses. mammoth tusks.

"What a concert of pocket-handkerchiefs," I remarked to my mother, who also was crying.

On June 13, 1881, the American steamer Jeannette was crushed by the ice, and sank in the Arctic Ocean to When the curtain dropped, there was the north of Siberia. This disaster wild applause and cries of "Vive l'Em-occurred at a considerable distance to pereur! Vive l'Impératrice!" I rushed the north-east of the New Siberian out of the box, ran down the corridor, Islands, which lie in the Polar Sea, for I wanted to have another peep at about two hundred miles to the north my friendly emperor. of the mouth of the Lena. The crew I was just in time to hear his Maj- of the Jeannette, under Captain De esty exclaim, while looking at me with Long, escaped in boats, and attempted a kindly smile: "This little English to reach the Siberian coast; but before girl, with her rosy cheeks, does rejoice they reached the mainland, a gale The empress smiled at me. I divided them into two companies. watched her, open-mouthed with won-One party reached the Russian settleder at her dazzling beauty. When she ments; but the other, under Captain moved, her walk was undulating and so De Long, wandered amidst the icy graceful, she reminded me of a white wastes in the delta of the Lena, aud swan. I ran down the stairs; there ultimately in this dreary wilderness all was a great crowd, and more cries of perished except two seamen. Their

me."

sorrowing companions afterwards found | brief summer, snowstorms are of contheir bodies, and reverently buried stant occurrence; and the icy winds them. are of such keenness that it is difficult to face them, and the birds often fall on the ground dead through the cold. To the north-east of the New Siberiau Islands vast masses of packed ice occur, which are never melted, and it was amidst these fields of everlasting ice that the Jeannette was destroyed.

This melancholy disaster drew attention to the New Siberian Islands, and interest in them has been further excited by the projects of Dr. Nansen. This gallant explorer intended to put his vessel, the Fram, into winter quarters amidst the New Siberian Islands, and there to pass the coming winter, The honor of discovering and of surprevious to commencing his great drift veying this icy sea belongs to the Rustowards the North Pole. Altering his sians, for, until Nordenskiold's voyage, plaus, he determined to winter in the other European nations sailed no fardelta of the Lena. If he passes ther than the Kara Sea, where they through the New Siberian Islands, he were stopped, either by the cold or by may be expected to bring back valuable the immense masses of floating ice. scientific information concerning them. The Russians, however, accustomed to But it is not the connection of the endure the severest cold, voyaged New Siberian Islands with the sinking along the whole northern coast of Siof the Jeannette, or with the voyage of beria, and descended the Obi and Lena Nansen, that gives to them their chief in vessels constructed at Tobolsk and interest, but the fact that they contain, Irkutsk; and from the mouths of these in extraordinary abundance, relics of a great rivers they explored the coasts in world which has long passed away. all directions. The hardships encounHere, amidst icy solitudes, and sur-tered by the Russians in these voyages rounded by a sea covered with floating icebergs, wrapped for months of the year in perfect darkness, illuminated only by the red glare of the Aurora, there has been found a mine of wealth which constitutes these dreary islands perfect treasure-houses in the frozen ocean. Few stretches of the Polar Sea are more dismal and dangerous than that portion of it which lies to the north of Siberia. For eight months in the year it is fast frozen, and its surface then presents great sheets of ice, which are in many places crossed by long, icy ridges, or heaped up into towering hummocks of ice. In the summer, when the ice-sheets have melted, the navigation is dangerous in the extreme. Fleets of monstrous icebergs, of the most fantastic forms, float through the water, and often when gales arise, these great icy masses are hurled against each other with terrific force and thundering roar. Along the low shore icebergs lie stranded in vast numbers; and the coasts of the islands are surrounded by sheets of ice, which extend far out into the sea, and make elephants' bodies had been received. landing During the Some declared that the mighty mam

very difficult.

were very great; often whole parties died from hunger and cold, and their little vessels were frequently wrecked amidst the icy solitudes. The earliest voyages undertaken were made by traders for the discovery of valuable furs; and on land as well as on sea the fur-hunters carried on extensive explorations all through the seventeenth century. About the year 1734, however, more scientific expeditions were undertaken, and the reign of the Empress Anna marked the commencement of a new era in Siberian discovery. Larger vessels were built, the coasts were carefully surveyed, and scientific examinations were carried on throughout the whole extent of the voyages.

For a long time before this, the Russians had known of the vast amount of - the bones of the fossil elephant mammoth

which abounded all over northern Siberia, and an extensive trade in fossil ivory had been carried on for a considerable period. But up to this time no authentic account of the discovery of these great fur-clad

moth lived underground in vast cav-| of black objects approaching over the erus, and that it came forth only at ice from the north, and perceiving that night; others affirmed that it wandered they were reindeer, he concluded that along the shores of the icy sea and fed they were returning to Siberia from on the dead bodies; and others, again, some unknown land to the north. He said that it was to be seen on the banks at once started in a sledge drawn by of lonely lakes in the uncertain light of dogs over the ice; and after he had early dawn, but that as soon as it was followed the tracks of the reindeer for discerned, it plunged into the water sixty miles, he came to an island, where and disappeared. he passed the night. Next day, he followed the tracks to the north, and discovered another island smaller than the first. The reindeer track still continued to the north; but immense hummocks of ice rendered the further progress of the bold explorer impossible. Liakoff obtained from the Russian government permission to call the islands by his name, and — what was far more important he obtained the sole right to collect mammoths' bones and the skins of stone-foxes in the newly discovered islands.

While voyaging along the shores of Siberia, the Russians from time to time caught glimpses of islands in the sea far to the north; but none landed on them or laid them down on the map with accuracy. In 1760, a Yakut

named Eterikan saw a large island to the north-east of the mouth of the Lena, and his account raised the interest of the fur-hunters. Amongst these zealous traders, none was more active and more successful than an adventurer Liakoff or Liachov, who for a long time had been collecting mammoths' bones and tusks on the barren plains of northern Siberia. In 1750 Liakoff had gathered great quantities of this fossil ivory from the dreary wastes between the rivers Chotanga and Anadyr ; and during his wanderings he had heard vague rumors of islands in the Arctic Ocean. In the spring of 1770 he was at Svaiatoi Noss or the Holy Cape -a bold promontory running out into the Polar Sea, about two hundred miles east of the mouth of the Lena. This headland had long been the terror of the Russian navigators, and they had declared that it was impossible to sail round it, owing to the enormous masses of ice which were piled up against its cliffs, and to the sheets and hummocks of ice which stretched out from its extremity for a long distance into the sea. But in 1739, Demetrius Lapteff doubled the dreaded headland, and sailed safely to the east along the icy shore as far as the mouth of the Kolyma.

When Liakoff was at the Holy Cape, the ocean was fast frozen, and presented a dreary prospect of ice, ridged here and there by gigantic icy furrows and hummocks. As he looked over the vast frozen expanse, he saw a long line

Three years afterwards he revisited the islands, accompanied by a friend named Protodiakonoff, and as it was now summer, they made the voyage in a five-oared boat. They found the first island to be simply packed full of the bones and tusks of mammoths, and Liakoff's joy at the discovery of this vast store of fossil ivory may be imagined. Then they voyaged to the next island, where they found cliffs of solid ice. Leaving this, they steered boldly to the north, and after a voyage of one hundred miles, they reached a large island (afterwards named Kotelnoi), which was also full of the remains of fossil elephants (mammoths).

For thirty years Liakoff enjoyed the complete monopoly of carrying away these wonderful stores of ivory. His agents and workmen went every year to the islands in sledges and boats, and on the first of the islands he had discovered they built huts and formed a great magazine.

In 1775 the Russian government, hearing of the riches of the islands, sent Chwoinoff, a surveyor, to examine them. He found that the first of the islands-containing the huts of the ivory diggers - was of considerable size, and contained such amazing quan

tities of the tusks and teeth of ele- absolutely covered with the bones, phants, that it seemed to be composed of these remains, cemented together with sand and gravel! In the middle of the island was a lake with banks formed of slopes of solid ice, and in the brief summer, these ice-banks split open by the action of the sun; and on looking down into these great cracks, it could be seen that they were full of the tusks of elephants and of the horns of buffaloes!

On Liakoff's death, the Russian government, in 1805, granted the monopoly of the trade in the ivory islands to Sirovatskoi, a merchant who had settled at Yakutsk, who sent his agent Sannikoff to explore the islands and to try to discover new deposits of fossil ivory. Sannikoff discovered to the east of Kotelnoi another large islaud, which he called Fadeyeffskoi; and in 1806, Sirovatskoi's son discovered a third large island, still farther to the east, which was afterwards called New Siberia. These newly discovered islands were like the former-full of fossil ivory; and it was thus proved that there were two groups of ivory islands: the Liakoff Islands, near the shore; and the New Siberian Islands, which lay in the Arctic Ocean, two hundred miles north of Siberia.

tusks, and teeth of elephants, rhinoceroses, aud buffaloes, which must have lived there in countless numbers, although the island is now au icy wilderness, without the slightest vegetation. They also found that in New Siberia the most eastern of the islands quantity of mammoth ivory was still more abundant, and in 1809 Sannikoff brought away ten thousand pounds of fossil ivory from New Siberia alone !

the

In

When we reflect that at present these islands are mere icy wastes, with no vegetation, and with only a few foxes and bears wandering over them, we see at once that a complete change of climate must have taken place since the time when vast herds of elephants and rhinoceroses inhabited them. This conclusion is supported by the fact that in Kotelnoi and New Siberia the remains of extensive forests have been found, in which the trees are standing upright, but are perfectly dead. other places in the same islands, great heaps of trees, called "The wood-hills," are piled up on the desolate hillsides. The ivory-hunters frequently spent the winter in the islands, and the hardships they then endured were often most extreme. For a long time in the depth of winter they were wrapped in In 1809, Count Romanzoff sent M. darkness lighted only by the red glare Hedenström to explore the islands, fit of the Aurora, and by the brilliant ting him out at his own expense. He- flashing of its flickering streamers. denström reached Liakoff's first island, The silence at that time was profound, and was amazed at the prodigious for the sea was noiseless, being fast stores of fossil ivory it contained; for frozen, and the only sound was the although the ivory-hunters had for moaning of the icy blasts amidst the forty years regularly carried away each snow-covered hills. Sometimes the year large quantities of ivory from the snow did not melt before July, and in island, the supply of ivory in it many places it lay on the ground all appeared to be not in the least dimin- the year; the ground was also permaished! In about half a mile, Heden-nently frozen only a foot or two below ström saw ten tusks of elephants the surface, and beneath, there was sticking up in the sand and gravel; and often found solid and perpetual ice. a large sandbank on the west coast of Notwithstanding these difficulties, the island was always covered with enormous quantities of ivory were still elephants' tusks after a gale, leading taken every year from these wonderful him to hope that there was an endless islands. In 1821-22 Lieutenant Aujou amount of ivory under the sea! He- surveyed the islands, but does not seem denström and Sannikoff went on to to have noticed any remains of mamKotelnoi and New Siberia, and they moths. A most striking story was refound the hills in the former island lated by Sannikoff, who declared that