makes rebellion successful. At any time | of two equally-matched combatants, but it the Hung League might turn the day by is as an instrument and not as a principal throwing in its weight on the side of one that its action will be felt. 666 A CORRESPONDENT writes to us: 'Young Bengal is apt to boast of its acquirements in the direction of European literature, and is especially proud of its skill and potency in drawing from the well of English pure and undefiled.' There can be no doubt that the Calcutta University annually bestows numer. ous B.A. and M.A. degrees upon Bengali students, who have a marvellous talent of repeating and adapting phrases from our most eloquent writers, whether in prose or verse, but especially in the latter; though, when they are called upon to arrange their own ideas in homely English, they utterly and entirely fail to write even common sense. At this moment I have lying before me a letter addressed by an educated Bengali youth to a deputy commissioner, asking for employment, with an evidently complacent faith in his peculiar qualifications for serving the government. It runs as follows: 'I, the student entrance class of the school, undersigned, most respectfully beg to offer myself a Candidate for a Service under your Mortified feeling, which I have a clear hope, and entirely out of secret errors in my mind, will not fail to enlist my name. It will not be out of its place to add here regarding my qualification that I appeared last year in the university examination. Let me Conclude, adding that if I be so fortunate as to have the post for I hope, I will not fail to give you very satisfaction in the faithful discharge of the duties that will confer upon Pall Mall Budget. me. SNAKES THAT EAT SNAKES. - One of these creatures, which is now at the gardens of the Zoological Society, has, during its stay in this climate, devoured an enormous number of common English snakes. We learn from an American contemporary that some years ago Professor Cope described the snake-eating habits of the Oxyrrhopus plumbeus (Weid), a rather large species of snake which is abundant in the intertropical parts of America. Al specimen of it from Martinique was observed to have swallowed the greater part of a large fer-de-lance, the largest venomous snake in the West Indies. The Oxyrrhopus had seized the. fer-de-lance by the snout, thus preventing it from inflicting fatal wounds, and had swallowed a greater part of its length, when caught and preserved by the collector. More recently a specimen was brought by Mr. Gabb from Costa Rica, almost five feet in length, which had swallowed nearly three feet of a large harmless snake (Herpetrodryas carinatus) about six feet in length. The head was partially digested, while three feet projected from the mouth of the Oxyrrhopus in a sound condition. The Oxyrrhopus is entirely harmless, although spirited and pugnacious in its manners. Professor Cope suggests that its introduction into regions infested with venomous snakes, like the island of Martinique, would be followed by beneficial results. The East Indian snake-eater, Naja elaps, is unavailable for this purpose, as it is itself one of the most dangerous of venomous snakes. Popular Science Review. SINGULAR CUSTOM ADOPTED BY A TREEFROG. - Professor Peters has lately described the mode of deposit of its eggs employed by a species of tree-frog (Polypedates) from tropical western Africa. This species deposits its eggs, as is usual among batrachians, in a mass of albuminous jelly; but instead of placing this in the water, it attaches it to the leaves of trees which border the shore and overhang a water-hole or pond. Here the albumen speedily dries, forming a horny or glazed coating of the leaf, inclosing the unimpregnated eggs in a strong envelope. Upon the advent of the rainy season, the albumen is softened, and with the eggs is washed into the pool below, now filled with water. Here the male frog finds the masses, and occupies himself with their impregnation. Popular Science Review. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & GAY. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. THE CRUCIFIX. BY THE AUTHOR OF "CHRONICLES OF THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY." "Into thy hands I commend my spirit." [This very ancient crucifix is sculptured on the exterior wall of the Abbey Church of Romsey. Its characteristic is a hand reaching down from the clouds, over the cross. It is said to be unique.] IN a quiet nook it standeth, Low within reach it standeth, Low on the wall, that never The dimmest eyes may miss, That humble, simple image, Wrought by the hands of old; Born of the heart of old In the common stone rude-carven, You may search the wide world over Quite like this only one. Deep, deep the nails are driven And over the head, so weary, An open hand down-reaching Forth from the clouded sky. Dear Lord, our hearts grow bolder; We dare to ask much more, Knowing the more we ask thee, Thou art but pleased the more. Give us to be that image By the common paths like this: Low, where the dimmest vision, The features need not miss; Low, where the lips of the children May reach to cling and kiss. Where the nails to the cross which fix us, A humble, simple image, Cut in the common stone; Like thee, yet like no other, Because thy very own. Sunday Magazine. LOVE AND THE VIOLET. FROM out a wintry sky did sudden gleam Of sunshine reach a violet where it grew, That grateful sprang to meet the tender beam, Unfolding all her leaves of delicate hue, And shedding perfume in a fragrant stream. But ere her beauty opened to the view Descending clouds dispelled such blissful dream, Nor ever, more than that caress she knew. And thus doth love awake the slumbering heart To quick response: it opens like a flower Whilst thousand aspirations yet unknown Burst into life in one all-tremulous hour. They shall not die! but higher aims inspire, And flow in noble deeds, though love hath flown. Sunday Magazine. AUSTRALIA. LAST VERSES WRITTEN BY MORTIMER COLLINS. I HAVE been sitting alone All day while the clouds went by, While moved the strength of the seas, While the wind with a will of his own, A poet out of the sky, Smote the green harp of the trees. Alone, yet not alone, For I felt as the gay wind whirled, As the cloudy sky grew clear, The touch of our Father half-known, Who dwells at the heart of the world, Yet who is always here. Athenæum written by others. With infinite trouble he has brought the ore to the surface, and piled it up in full faith that it will undergo eventually those processes by which the dross is purged away, and pass current as the bright metal of history. His aim is modest, and implies true nobility of mind. THERE is no field of inquiry more fascinating to the student of human progress than that offered by the great continent of America, in which the native races, shut off from contact with the old- The book is remarkable in many ways. world civilization for an untold number of Its author, a bookseller in San Francisco, centuries, have found room for develop- when he set himself to his work in 1859, ment in various directions. In it the the- found that the necessary books and manuories of civilization, as propounded by Mr. scripts existed in no library in the world, Buckle and others, may be brought to a and he therefore began with characteristic practical test, for it presents us with peoples energy to secure everything within his in each of the different stages which con- reach in America. He then spent two nect the rude savage with the culture of years in obtaining all available materials Mexico and Central America. Man may be in Europe, being singularly favored by studied as a hunter, fisherman, farmer, as fortune in his enterprise. On the disa rude and unlettered worshipper of fet-persal of the library of the unfortunate ishes, or as the possessor of an elaborate emperor Maximilian, he obtained three literature, burdened with as complex a thousand volumes; in 1869 his library had ritual as that of the Egyptians, and developed into sixteen thousand books, bound fast by strict rules and observances manuscripts, and pamphlets, irrespective in every phase of social life. In that of maps and newspapers, in English, vast continent, at the time of the Spanish French, German, Spanish, Latin, and conquest, there was represented every Mexican; and he soon discovered that the phase of progress through which man in materials for history which he sought Europe has passed in emerging from a condition of the rudest savagery to the comparatively high culture exemplified in the bronze age of the Etruscans. The subject has excited the imagination of many writers, and many have been the speculations regarding the derivation of the native tribes and of the American civilizations, in which, for the most part, each writer has accommodated his facts to his prejudices. It has been reserved for Mr. Bancroft to collect together for the first time, in the five bulky volumes before us, the facts necessary for a preliminary inquiry into these questions. His work is a most laborious encyclopædia of all that is known up to to-day of the native races of the Pacific States, and it embraces all the inhabitants of the region to the west of the Mississippi from the Arctic Sea to the Isthmus of Panama. were so copiously diluted with trash, that it would be impossible to follow his different subjects in the manner in which he proposed with but one lifetime to devote to the work." In this emergency he devised a system of indexing the facts in such a manner that all the authorities could be brought to bear on any given point. This was done by employing a large staff of assistants to read the books and write down references on little cards labelled according to the subject. When we visited him in San Francisco, in 1875, we saw the work in full operation, and were struck with astonishment at the "factcatalogue" of the library, which consisted of packs of cards, each under its own view of the whole subject with the neces-. heading, and each giving a bird's eye In this manner Mr. sary references. His aim, Bancroft has collected materials which as he tells us in his preface, is not so would have taken one man, so he tells us, much to write history as to provide materials out of which it may be eventually * The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America. By HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT. 5 vols. 8vo. London: 1875-76. about sixty years to bring together, and these he has used in the books before us, which are remarkable not merely for the vast number of facts which are recorded, but for the singular manner in which they 1 have been collected together by the in- history must be seized now, or it will be lost forever. "To us," says our author, Prehistoric Man, ii. 302. The interest which Mr. Bancroft's book has for us does not lie so much with the rapidly vanishing savage tribes as with the evidence as to the origin of the American tion which was crushed in Mexico, Central America, and Peru under the heel of the ignorant and bigoted Spaniard. In discussing these points we shall use the materials collected together by Professor Wilson in his last edition of "Prehistoric Man;" an admirable work, in which the history of the American tribes and civilization lies hidden under a misleading title. The first point which offers itself for examination is the vexed question of the origin of the American peoples: The problem [writes Mr. Bancroft] of the origin of the American aborigines is, in my opinion, enveloped in as much obscurity now as it ever was; and when I consider the close proximity of the north-western and northeastern extremities of America to Asia and Europe; the unthought-of and fortuitous circumstances that may at any time have cast any people upon the American coasts; the mighty convulsions that may have changed the whole face of the earth during the uncounted years that man may have dwelt upon its surface; |