displays perspicuity in his appreciation of character, and the power of tracing the motives of other's actions, gives him a command and influence over all who approach him. His observations and remarks are given ordinarily in short, terse, incoherent phrases, or in the shape of interrogatories. He has great power of dissimulation, and under the greatest frankness of manner, and even familiarity of intercourse, can veil subtle designs and even treachery. In action he is personally brave and collected; but his plans have displayed no boldness or adventurous hazard. His fertility in expedients has been wonderful. His uniform career and conduct through life prove him to be selfish, sensual, and licentious in the extreme, regardless of all ties of affection, blood or friendship, in the pursuit of ambition or pleasure; he is represented as profligately greedy, plundering and reducing to misery, without the slightest feeling of remorse, widows, orphans, and families. But, however, he is not blood-thirsty, for he has never taken life, even under circumstances of great aggravation. Runjeet Singh is not therefore altogether a barbarian: indeed his laws prohibit the punishment of death. A criminal sometimes has his nose or his ears cut off, but never his head. It is also not uncommon to cut off the hands of criminals; but in serious cases, and where the culprit has again committed the crime for which he has been once already punished, the tendon of the Achilles [the sinew which connects the heel of the foot with the leg] is cut through. But even here, Runjeet Singh shews mercy; for he allows a pension to all unhappy wretches whom justice has put out of a condition of gaining a livelihood, but not at the expense of others. Although this remarkable man is a man of known courage, he hitherto has not had sufficient to warrant him in abolishing the frightful custom whereby the Lahore women burn themselves upon the funeral pile of their husbands. With the aid of his confidential officer, General Allard, he has brought his army into the finest state of skill and subordination; but his troops still wear the turban. Duelling is not known in his army; the soldiers settle their disputes with their fists-a far better mode of adjusting differences than that of stabbing, a cowardly means of revenge, and which is spreading rapidly in what is called refined societies!-the fist is far more manly than the stiletto. A his dominion. Spies were sent out in order to inform the Rajah of the existence of the horse, and the exact spot where it was to be found. These two points being ascertained, a troop of ten thousand men were sent to seize the animal: they traversed many provinces, spent much money, fought their way to the stable of the horse, and did not rest until it was added to the stud of the Rajah. He also obtained possession of probably the finest diamond in the world by similar means. A neighbouring petty king was said to be the possessor of a diamond, which had belonged to the Great Mogul, the largest and purest that was ever known. This of course was coveted by Runjeet Singh, and accordingly he invited the prince to his court, and being master of his person, he demanded his diamond. The king pretended to resist; but after many manoeuvres he yielded possession. The delight of Runjeet Singh was extreme; he gave it to a lapidary to mount it; but what was his surprise and fury when the man informed him that this pretended diamond was only a piece of crystal! Runjeet Singh caused the palace of this king to be invested: his soldiers ransacked it from top to bottom. Their researches were all in vain for a long time: at length a slave of the king having sold the secret of his master, the diamond was found among the ashes of a fire. Runjeet Singh has ever since worn it as a trophy of victory, set in a bracelet of gold. On state days he wears, in chaplets round his head, many other diamonds of extraordinary size and beauty. It is said that the jewels of Runjeet Singh are the richest and finest in the world; and the riches and magnificence of his court and palace, the splendour of his travelling equipage, and of all his equipments, exceed probably all that we hear of among oriental princes. His stature is low, and the loss of an eye from the small pox takes away from his appearance, which, however, is still far from being unprepossessing; for his countenance is full of expression and animation, and is set off with a handsome flowing beard, grey, at fifty years of age, and tapering to a point below his breast. He is now so emaciated and weak as to be compelled to adopt a singular method of mounting the tall horses on which he loves to ride: a man kneels down before him, and he throws his leg over his neck, when the man rises with the Maha Rajah mounted on his shoulders. He then ap proaches his horse, and Runjeet Singh putting his right foot in the stirrup, and holding by the mane, throws his left leg over the He man's head and the back of the horse into the stirrup on the other side.—The portrait of the Maha Rajah is from Mr. Princep's work, on the Origin of the Sikh Power, &c., as given in that interesting periodical, the India Review, kindly transmitted to us from Calcutta, by its talented editor, F. Corbyn, Esq. Runjeet Singh has many expensive tastes, one of which, if fully gratified, would ruin any other than an immensely rich man. is attached to the chase, as conducted in the East. He has an ardent passion for precious stones and fine horses. He learnt one day that there was a very fine horse in one of the neighbouring provinces, in a part of the kingdom of Cabul not yet brought under THE RESURRECTION. (For the Mirror.); "So they went and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch."-St. Matthew, chap. xxvii, ver. 66. THE watch is set,-the stone is seal'd, Wan stars their lustre have reveal'd, No sound breaks on the tranquil hour, All dimly on each tree and flower, And silence reigns, the watch is set,- And they, with measured steps before They tread the dewy pathway o'er,' And still they see the sealed-stone, Why do the strong ones turn so pale, And all too bright to gaze upon, ls one beside the stone. His face as heaven's own lightning gleams, The floating robe around him seems, Is the all radiant being there, And to the earth they bow. Away! and tell your fearful tale, 'Ere the first streak of morning pale, Not Punch the animating, but Punch the animated. HAIL noble Punch! thou of the nose and chin, Thy stoic bearing. Would I had thy nack To parry fortune's thrusts-to creep from scrapes Unscathed!-as thou substantial forms dost thwack, So might 1 battle with aerial shapes, And scare blue devils as thou scarest the black! W. L. B. THE ATMOSPHERE. (Concluded from page 164.) : LAND-ANIMALS, being surrounded by the atmosphere, may be said to live in an ocean; but they cannot, like fishes, rise up in it at pleasure. Birds can rise to a great height; but they cannot reach the top. The atmosphere is proved to have the common properties of matter, by resisting other bodies that would take its place; as may be seen by putting an inverted tumbler into water; when the inclosed air prevents the tumbler being filled. It is a fluid; for bodies move through it easily, and it presses equally in all directions. The ancients were aware of its properties; for they had great air-guns, and pearl-divers had an inverted pot on their heads. Air has weight and elasticity; and the effects of these properties were formerly ascribed to nature's abhorrence of a vacuum; which is a good expression of a property. As the atmosphere was found to support a column of water only thirty-four feet high, Toricelli thought it would support another fluid only to a height containing the same weight on the same base; and this was found to be the case. Hence the earth supports a weight of air equal to a body of water thirty. four feet deep, or of mercury twenty-nine inches; and we sustain the same weight as if we were at the bottom of a lake thirtyfour feet deep. A man supports a weight of about fourteen tons; but as it presses in all directions equally, and the air is freely admitted to the lungs, and other parts in the interior of the body, a man suffers no more pressure than does a wet sponge on being plunged into water. As the barometer changes, however, considerable effect is produced on the human body. Persons at unusually elevated stations, feel oppression and dyspuca from the attenuated atmosphere. Humboldt, on the Andes, had bleeding from the eyes, gums, &c, Saussure found that men bear a rarefied atmosphere better than horses. Mules sometimes die suddenly, when driven high up the Andes. It is said that people living in elevated regions are pale, and that their wounds heal slowly. Guy Lussac reached a height of twenty-three thousand feet above the level of the sea; which is the greatest height ever attained by man. His respiration was affected; his pulse accelerated; and his thirst great. No doubt man might be habituated to dwell at an elevation equal to that of Mont Blanc. In America there are cities eight thousand feet above the level of the sea; and Humboldt mentions a hamlet which is placed thirteen thousand feet above it. Others still higher are mentioned. Intensity of sound diminishes as we ascend; and a deep silence reigns at the tops of mountains. On Mont Blanc, a pistol discharged makes no more noise than a cracker in a room. As the atmosphere surrounds the whole globe, if it remained at rest, of course it would settle into a sphere; but from the centrifugal force produced by the rotation of the earth on its axis, the atmosphere must be an oblate spheroid. The greater power of the sun at the equator would assist in producing this figure. Many attempts have been made to ascertain the height of the atmosphere; and it would not be difficult if the atmosphere had everywhere the same density. If it were throughout of the same density as at the surface of the earth, it would be five miles high. It has been proposed to obtain the height of the atmosphere, by the length of the twilight. We see the sun while it is yet eighteen degrees below the horizon; and from that circumstance it is calculated that the atmosphere must be between forty and fifty miles high. One of our greatest living mathematicians calculates that it must be at least fifty miles high. If the atmosphere pervaded all space, it would accumulate around the sun, moon, and other celestial bodies; but Dr. Wollaston found that there was no atmosphere about the sun; and thinks it ceases at a height above the earth where its gravity overcomes its elasticity. But a more effective argument is the decrease of temperature as we ascend; for at a height of about fifty miles, the temperature must be at zero; and there must there be a limit to expansion. Other planets seem to have atmospheres; and there are arguments tending to shew that the sun has one also. The moon has one; but it is much rarer than ours. Dr. Brinkley says it is a thousand times more so. As we ascend in the atmosphere, we find firs of different kinds clothing the mountains at different heights. In lakes that are within a thousand feet above the level of the sea, pike and perch are found; but not in lakes above that height. This is called the first "zone." The second zone reaches to fourteen hundred feet; and abounds with the Scotch fir. Oats will not ripen in it; but potatoes and turnips ars grown there, though not to a large size. The third zone reaches to two thousand two hundred feet above the level of the sea. Its characteristic tree is the birch; which becomes much distorted and dwarfish;-not being, at the upper limit, higher than a man. The lakes abound in chard, or Alpine trout. The fourth zone reaches to two thousand eight hundred feet. The fifth reaches to three thousand four hundred feet; and has the dwarf birch only a few inches high, and creeping. The sixth zone reaches to four thousand feet; and the seventh to four thousand two hundred; and is generally covered with perpetual snow; as are all the parts above. There is a bird which is sometimes found in the Alps of * Lapland above the snow-line; and therefore lives higher than any other animal. The Scotch fir, in some mountains of the Pyrenees, may be traced to some thousands of feet above the level of the sea. In this coun try, we have no mountain that reaches the snow-line; for in order to do that it must be six thousand four hundred feet high; which is many times the height of Arthur's Seat, at Edinburgh ;-the latter being eight hundred feet high. N. R. The Nobelist. THE TIGER HUNT. (Concluded from page 267.) TWICE had the old Rajah's jars received their annual tribute of ottar from the valley, and its rose thickets were flushed with blossoms for the third season, when a solitary woman entered the gorge, and bent her way up the path which led to the old man's dwelling. Her features were youthful, but hardened with the impress of strong, severe, and fully matured passions. There was something heart-chilling in the stern, cold look of resolute daring settled upon a face of such transcendant beauty. She paused a moment at the scene of the tiger's death, and when she resumed her course, a smile was on her lips, but it was one of those mocking smiles which distil a bitterness over the whole face. It was fierce and painful to look upon. She reached the Rajah's dwelling, and entered his sleeping-room through the veranda. With a quiet, stealthy tread, she moved across the room, and sat down by the divan where the old man lay asleep. "Father," she said, in a voice thrillingly sweet, yet which had something in its tone that fell strangely on the ear. "Father, awake-thy child would speak with thee." The old man started from his repose, and looked with an expression of sleepy wonder upon his daughter. Before he had time to welcome her, she spoke again, as if careless what her reception might be. "Thy child returns an outcast, old man her lord has thrust her forth from his heart, and another, a creature beautiful as the sunshine, one of his own people, has taken her place. Shall she not have vengeance ?" "My The old musselman folded his arms on his bosom, and with his eyes half closed, sat as if unconscious of her presence. Lord, the governor, has been very bountiful," he at length muttered, but without looking on the pale, stern creature by his side. "Has my father received his usual gifts since the Englishman chose a wife at Calcutta? Will the heart continue bountiful which has wearied of that for which it paid? See, I have brought thee gifts more precious than thou cans't ever hope from him; they were his-why should they not purchase rest to my soul ?" She removed the jewels from her head and bosom, and unclasping the golden brace lets from her arms and ankles, laid them at her father's feet. The old miser stooped down and clutched the glittering mass in his bony hand. "My daughter has but to speak and her will shall be done," he replied, thrusting the jewels into his bosom, but without lifting his subtle eyes from the floor. "There is a poison known to my father which is sudden and deadly; but which kills with little pain. I would that in exchange for those gems he give me a flask of this poison." The Rajah went to a lattice, and pointed to the ravine which we have spoken of as opening into the gap beneath. "Thy father's limbs are getting old, and he dare not trust his secret with a slave; in yonder hollow his child will find small blue flowers, with a drop of gold colour in the heart of each, on stalks which droop to the earth with the slightest touch-let her bring me some of those flowers." The daughter turned away and went down to the ravine. The flowers grew in small delicate tufts along the crevices of the precipice. She gathered of them, and returned to her father. He received the sweet burthen at her hands, and went out. In about an hour he returned, bearing a small crystal flask filled with a purplish liquid, and carefully sealed. "Put a few drops of this in his drink, and his death-sleep will soon follow," he whispered, placing it in her hand. "And is there not enough for more than one?" she inquired with stern impatience. "For more than one? Allah be praised! there are twenty deaths in that little flask." "It is well." The young Hindoo bowed her pale face for a moment, and left the room with the vial grasped tightly in her small hand. All was silent in the dwelling occupied by the provincial governor. Master and slave were asleep, when a female form might have been seen stealing cautiously through the shrubbery of the garden toward a private entrance. A poor travel-worn creature she appeared in the dim light; her long hair fell in disordered braids over her soiled garments; her silken slippers were torn, and hung in damp tatters from her small feet, and every thing about her spoke of the long and weary road which she had travelled. As she entered the dwelling her step became firmer, but more cautious of sound, and she paused to listen more than once as she traversed the sumptuous apartments. She found the door of the governor's sleeping chamber. Her hand lingered for a moment on the latch, and then she entered. Her face looked stern and strangely corpse like, and her eyes had a deadly gleam in their black depths, as she passed by a night-lamp which shed its faint rays through the apart ment. She glided with a noiseless step over the snowy matting to a large divan which stood in the centre of the room. A cloud of silvery gauze fell from a canopy over it, and through its transparent folds, the outlines of two recumbent persons were discernible as in a mist. On a small table at the head of the divan, stood a cup of gilded chrystal, containing a night-draught for the sleepers. The midnight intruder drew back the cur tain, and with her pale, steady hand emptied a small vial into the goblet. She did not look upon the two persons whose mingled breath floated over her hand, but a shiver ran through her frame as the drapery fell back. The heavy golden fringe and bullion tassels which weighed it to the floor, swept with a grating noise over the matting. It was the only sound that had marked her deadly progress. The murderess moved to a dark corner, and there, with her pale lips motionless and partly open, and her hands clasped tightly in her lap, sat watching the divan. An hour of intense stillness reigned through the building; then a soft murmur stole from the divan. A delicate form half rose from the pile of cushions-a little hand was extended, and the lifted goblet gleamed through the curtains. The Hindoo clasped her hands till the blood started to the nails, and bent more earnestly forward as the deadly draught was swallowed. "Will you not drink, love, the sherbet is very cool?" breathed a soft, sweet voice from beneath the drapery. Another form started from the cushions, and the goblet again flashed before the distended eyes of the wretched watcher. She started up, then sunk back with a faint gasp, and all was still again. A solemn hour swept on, and then a deep groan arose from the couch. A faint, shuddering cry followed, as if heart and limb were rent in twain by a fierce fang. The snowy covering was tossed about among the cushions, and the whole mass of drapery shivered, as in a high wind, from the convulsed writhings of a stout form in its death agony. The large black eyes of the Hindoo dilated fearfully; her lips grew deathly pale, and her face gleamed out in the dim light like the head of a Judith. She neither moved nor seemed to breathe. Another moment of intense stillness, and then death again began its ravages. A small hand clutched the curtain-its fingers worked among the gauzy folds a moment, and then fell heavily down. A sob-one quick, deep gasp-another-and silence reigned as before. A few minutes passed, and then the Hindoo went to the divan and lifted the drapery from the scene of death. She gazed on the murdered pair for the space of a moment, and then grasped the goblet and drained it to the dregs, resolutely, and without the least sign of hesitation. When the attendants entered their master's room late in the morning, they found him lying upon the divan, composed as if in sleep, but dead. A pale, lifeless form lay by his side; one arm was flung over his bosom, and a mass of golden hair gleamed with painful contrast against his ashy cheek. The drapery was rent away from the canopy, and there on the floor, entangled in its folds, as the agonies of death had left her, lay the Rajah's daughter. LAUREL HILL CEMETERY, IT has hitherto (observes an American writer,) been the custom among us to bury the dead out of our sight, in the damp vaults of churchyards which the spirit of speculation or improvement may invade in a day; separating the remains of sisters and brothers, or parents and children, from each other, and desecrating the sacred order and decency of the tomb. To prevent as far as possible such distressing scenes, the Laurel Cemetery has been fashioned and adorned. Art and nature will render it pleasing to the most choice and delicate mind: the verdure of spring, the calmness of summer, the many-coloured gorgeousness of autumn will be there; and even the dreari ness of winter will be dispelled by the evergreen. The passion for rural repose, may here be indulged to the freest extent. It is this passion which has bent the pious osier over so many tumuli in England; which has em balmed her hoary minsters and solemn cathedrals in perpetual verdure. There the peer, the templar, and the peasant, lie near each other, in the final equality of the grave; and though the mourners of the former may visit them in the vaults of the abbey, beneath the banners they have won, the bard of the latter, as he looks at the place of his rest among his lowly kindred, exclaims : "Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect, "Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse, The place of elegy and fame supply: And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die." If such be the influences of rude and uncultured cemeteries, how much more abiding will they be, where the hand of art lifts the urn or the cenotaph, while nature showers her garlands over the mounds of the dead; and around them "Unfolds her tender mantle green, DISCOVERY OF THE TEA-PLANT IN BRITISH INDIA. (Concluded from page 265.) NEXT day the leaves are all sorted into large, middling, and small; sometimes there are four sorts. All these, the Chinese informed me, become so many different kinds of teas; the smallest leaves they called Pha-ho, and the second Pow-chong, the third Su-chong, and the fourth, or the largest leaves, Tay-chong. After this assortment, they are again put in the sieve in the drying basket (taking great care not to mix the sorts) and on the fire, as on the preceding day; but now very little more than will cover the bottom of the sieve is put in at one time, the same care of the fire is taken as before, and the same precaution of tapping the drying basket every now and then. The tea is taken off the fire with the nicest care, for fear of any particle of the tea falling into it. Whenever the drying basket is taken off, it is put on the receiver, the sieve in the drying basket taken out, the tea turned over, the sieve replaced, the tap given, and the basket placed again over the fire. As the tea becomes crisp, it is taken out and thrown into a large receiving basket, until all the quantity on hand has become alike dried and crisp; from which basket it is again removed into the drying basket, but now in much larger quantities. It is then piled up eight and ten inches high on the sieve in the drying basket; in the centre a small passage is left for the hot air to ascend; the fire, that was before bright and clear, has now ashes thrown on it to deaden its effect, and the shakings that have been collected are put on the top of all; the tap is given, and the basket with the greatest care is put over the fire. Another basket is placed over the whole, to throw back any heat that may ascend. Now and then it is taken off, and put on the receiver, the hands, with the fingers wide apart, are run down the sides of the basket to the sieve, and the tea gently turned over; the passage in the centre again made, &c., and the basket again placed on the fire. is from time to time examined, and when the leaves have become so crisp that they break with the slightest pressure of the fingers, it is taken off, when the tea is ready. All the different kinds of leaves underwent the same It operation. The tea is now, little by little, put into boxes, and first pressed down with the hands and then with the feet (clean stockings having been previously put on). There is a small room inside of the teahouse, seven cubits square and five high, having bamboos laid across on the top to support a network of bamboo, and the sides of the room smeared with mud to exclude the air. When there is wet weather, and the leaves cannot be dried in the sun, they are laid out on the top of this room on the netW. G. C. work, on an iron pan, the same as is used to And pranks the sod in loving mood, Or tunes Eolian strains between." |