trees. A little girl, whose remarkably grace- again there, don't tell anybody; for, you ful movements had caught my attention, know," this she said in a whisper, "they suddenly exclaimed with a laugh and a wont let children play." shout: "Oh, beautiful! The voice was identical-I could not mistake it with that of the little old woman of the Cursaal. I was determined to be convinced of the fact, and when I again looked at the perfectly childish creature of eleven years old, I could not believe her to be the same. I rose from my seat as she came near, but was rather puzzled how to accost her. I have an odd sort of shyness with children, I feel so afraid of encountering either of the two extremes of shyness or pertness. At last I bethought me of the umbrella. "Stop, my little lady!" said I, very timidly. She looked round wondering, and with the softest blue eyes in the world. "Have you not lost something lately the other evening in the Cursaal " Poor little thing! all her fun and frolic were gone. She blushed and hung her head, and I saw the ready childish tears swelling under her eyelids. "I don't know, I"-she murmured; and I felt so guilty in tempting her to an untruth, that I said at once: "You dropped your umbrella when you were dressed up the other evening." She came quite close up to me; all her shyness was gone. "O sir," she said, "if you have found me out, don't tell upon me, pray, don't. Never mind the umbrella; and, sir, if you should see me again, so, dressed like an old woman, don't take any notice." "But, my dear little girl, or my dear old lady, I cannot promise any thing, because I am sure I should laugh. What can be the reason of such a disguise?" She had not the shadow of a smile as she answered: "I cannot and may not tell you; and perhaps I was wrong not to say at once, 'No, it was not my umbrella'—and yet that would be a story. It is so hard to know what is right; isn't it, sir, sometimes ?" Her companions here came to call her to play, but she said in German-which she spoke like a native-"No, I must go home now. Then turning to me with a sort of involuntary confidence, she said: "There is nobody but me now to attend to poor papa, and it was very wrong indeed of me to stay playing here.' "I wish," said I, "you would tell me something more of yourself; I might help you, perhaps, and your papa too." She went away out of the garden with a sedate step, and her face, thin and pale when not animated, had lost its childish expression. I watched her, and longed to follow and know what the mystery was. She stopped, and looked back hesitating, and I instantly joined her. "Shall I send your umbrella," said I, "or bring it you here tomorrow?" "Never mind that," she said. "If you will only tell me where you live-I may-I don't know; but papa wont let anybody come, and we may-O sir, we may want a friend!" She burst into tears, and then, with an effort to repress her sobs, said: "Tell me where you live?" I readily gave her my card, and pressed her slight little hand as she ran away. A few days after that, in the Cursaal, I again saw the strange little figure. I went and stood opposite to her, but I believe she did not see me. She had, as before, a double Frederick d'or, which she changed into silver, and began to play first cautiously, and consulting some written directions, and winning every time; she then staked gold pieces, and again won. Then grew more reckless, and placed high stakes on a single number-she lost; staked again-lost again, and then her last remaining gold pieces were raked off. I could not see her face for the absurd disguise, but as I saw her glide from the table, I instinctively followed. rushed down the steps, and into the garden. When I came up, she had thrown herself on a garden-seat, had torn off her disguise, and with her childish hands covering her face, was sobbing in the bitterest despair. When she looked up, on hearing my step, it was sad to see such wild sorrow in a child's face. My poor child," said I, going up to her, "what is it?" She "O sir, O sir," she sobbed, "that cruel man!" Then a sudden idea seized her; she sprang up. "Don't you think, for once, only once, he would give me back a little money, and let me try again ?" "I think not," I said. "How is it that you do this, and know so little? Tell me all, and let me perhaps help you." She looked wistfully in face. "If you would lend me a Frederick d'or, I should be sure to win this time." 66 my 'I will lend it to you," I said, "but not to play-take it home." "I dare She hung back, and blushed. She shook her head sadly. "I dare not," not-I cannot go home." Then she burst she said. "It would vex him so much that into a passion of sobs, exclaiming: "Oh, he might die. We don't want any thing no; papa would die: it would kill him to see now-just now, I mean; only, if you see meme come home with nothing-all lost!" "I am a doctor; if your father is ill, I may be of use to him." "Let me go home with you," said I. features; his hands also were delicately formed. He was making efforts to speak, and tried to point still to the table, when Alice's quick eye fell on a letter which he must have received in her absence. She held it out to him. I saw the hectic mount to his cheek; and with a flash of the eye and a violent effort to raise himself and to seize it, he exclaimed: "Thank God! I have not ruined my little Alice. It's all her luck, and she deserves it all." The effort brought on a return of the bleeding; he fell back exhausted, and never spoke again. She hesitated, and then, with a sudden resolution, took my hand, and led me on. It was a turning not far from the Cursaal, down a lane, and into a yard, where there was a stand of donkeys at one end, and a washerwoman at the other. The door of a mean house stood open, and my little guide asked me to stop at the bottom of the stairs, while she first went up to her father. I watched her light step, and saw her open a door very cautiously; then a shriek of alarm and horror rang through the house, and I waited no further summons to rush to the room. The sight that presented itself was indeed appalling on the bed lay a man apparently lifeless, the pillow and the sheets covered with blood. I immediataly raised his head, and found the bleeding proceeded from the mouth and nose he had broken a bloodvessel. The shrieks of the child had brought more assistants than enough, and by dismissing some, and making use of others, I succeeded at last in restoring consciousness to the invalid, and calmness to his poor little daughter. The letter, whose perusal had so strongly affected him, proved to be the announcement of a considerable fortune, which had been long in litigation, having been adjudged to him, and at his death, to his daughter Alice. His name and family were discovered by this and other papers. The rest we could only guess; his fatal propensity to gambling, his illness, and his sending his child, when unable to go to the table himself-living thus, by what he had called her wonderful luck, sometimes in ease, sometimes on the verge of starvation; and the end of the feverish, fitful life coming as I have said. Poor, desolate little Alice did not now want friends; aunts and cousins who had ignored her existence, and avoided her gambling father, now disputed with each other so violently her bringing up, that she stood a chance of being torn up by the roots altogether. While applying remedies, I was obliged to stop every attempt to speak on the part of the patient; but he smiled at Alice, whose every faculty seemed absorbed in watching him, and turned his eyes towards the table by the side of the bed. On the table were a pack of cards and a pair of much-used dice, a note-book to prick the numbers, and another with a pencil by its side, and filled with calculations. The man's face was haggard and emaciated, evidently in the last stages of consumption, but of finely chiselled enbourg. I did not lose sight of her; and when, many years after, I met the graceful, somewhat pensive girl-for she always retained a shade of melancholy-she had never forgotten her friend the doctor of Bad-Schlôss CHEAP MEAT.-A foreign provision broker, acceptable. Really good salt beef of last seaat Liverpool writes to the Times as follows: "In reference to the high prices of fresh meat, which have called forth the combined resistance of the consumers at Bristol, it fortunately happens that the United States of America have supplied us this year with a double quantity of really excellent salt beef at prices which, when fairly known by the British public, will be most son's cure can be purchased wholesale at from two and a half pence to five pence per pound, with a large proportion of prime joints. This and confer a great boon on the community. The might be sold in retail at threepenco to sixpence, meat is considered quite good enough for our soldiers and sailors, and only requires a fair trial to become an article of regular home consumption." From The Literary Gazette. THE modern story of arctic enterprise equals in variety, and perhaps surpasses in interest, any tale of heroic adventure of which the world has yet heard. It is spiritstirring, in these days of luxurious habits and of smooth, easy living, to know that there are men yet among us of the grand old stamp-men who are ready to face any danger, to undergo any fatigue, to forsake friends, and home, and country, in order to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge, to increase the stores of science, and to satisfy that thirst for enterprise which seems so peculiarly a feature of the Saxon race. The sickly and timid counsel of utilitarians, who, after Manchester fashion, deprecate any risk which is incurred without the prospect of an immediate and obvious advantage, will never weigh with men of the class to which we are alluding. And it is well that this is the case; for the love of knowledge for its own sake, the capability of enduring hardships and the readiness to submit to them, the generous ardor which is unacquainted with fear, and can calmly look death in the face, the belief in the ultimate gain which will compensate for all present suffering, form the main elements of a noble character and the basis of all that is truly illustrious in national history. The narratives of arctic adventure, like the enterprises themselves, are now extremely numerous, and, with the exception of mere compilations, there is not one of them which will not repay perusal. How curious it is, by the aid of a good map, to follow out the different lines of discovery; and even the map itself, apart from any other record, has a strange tale of its own to tell. Look at the names which have been given to the bays, capes, and islands discovered in that ultima thule. Almost every one of them has a touching significance and meaning. Some recall the history of past adventures, and the names of arctic sea-kings, which are dear to Englishmen; others land one on some pleasant spot of the home country, and betray by no dubious token the heim-weh of their discoverers; while others, again, like Fury Beach, Point Anxiety, Cape Desolation, and Cape Farewell, seem at once to reveal a tale of endurance and of suffering. The "Boat Journey now before us is a record of hardships and of dangers incurred by eight brave men who formed a portion of Dr. Kane's party on the second Grinnell expedition. In the autumn of 1854, the alternative of being ice-bound for a second winter in Rensselaer Harbor, or of risking a *An Arctic Boat Journey in the Autumn of 1854. By Isaac J. Hayes. Richard Bentley. voyage of nine hundred miles in open boats, was proposed to his companions by Dr. Kane. For himself, he said, it was a simple duty of honor to remain by the brig; come what might, he would share her fortunes. Twenty-four hours were allowed for deliberation, and at the close of that time eight men resolved to remain with their commander and nine agreed to incur the desperate risk of a voyage to Upernavik (one of these men, however, soon returned to the ship). In either case, the chances of life were extremely small. For the whole company to have remained in the brig, would have been to convert the vessel into an hospital, if not into a grave. In attempting the southward: voyage, there was at least the possibility of success, while those remaining with Dr. Kane would have augmented means of health and comfort. The story of this expedition, and of its ultimate failure, is related by Mr. Hayes in a simple and unaffected style, without the slightest attempt at fine writing. But a book of this kind would gain nothing whatever by the craft of the littérateur. The interest is too intense, the incidents too varied, to require any heightening of the effect. Mr. Hayes has succeeded in bringing the scenes of arctic life before us in all their terrible reality, and his minute but not wearisome details enable his readers to form a lifelike picture of the arctic world. And a marvelfous picture it is-gloomy enough in the background to have afforded fresh images of horror to Dante or Milton: while the light and warmth surrounding the "figure pieces" bring out in exquisite relief the human interest of the landscape. We shall not attempt to track the steps of Mr. Hayes and his party through the devious windings of their course, and to describe the difficulties with which they had to contend; but we shall endeavor to give our readers some idea of the life led by these brave men during a portion of the time that they were absent from the "Advance." The hope of reaching an open sea, and thus of escaping to Upernavik, stimulated them for a while, and sustained them through almost incredible hardships. Sometimes a storm threatened to engulph them, sometimes the masses of floating ice appearing likely to crush the boats, they were compelled to haul them up upon the floë; anon, a crack in the ice divided the cargo from its masters; or blankets, bread-bags, and buffalo robes became soaked in the water. On they went, sometimes almost starved, often drenched with rain and spray, with the thermometer at twenty-one degrees, and their clothes stiffening on them like pasteboard:" still on-now hauling their boats on the rocks; 66 now dodging through the packs; now fearing that they should be frozen up and perish; now hoping against hope that they would yet gain the open sea. teams, I returned to the hut. The blinding snow which battered my face, made me insensible to every thing except the idea of getting out of it; and thinking of no danger, I was in the act of stooping to enter the doorway, when a "That we should feel despondent under the sudden noise behind me caused me to look circumstances was, perhaps, quite natural; but around, and there, close at my heels, was the now, as on other occasions, there was exhibited whole pack of thirteen hungry dogs, snarling, in the party a courago which triumphed over snapping, and showing their sharp teeth like a the distressing fortunes of the day. Stories, drove of ravenous wolves. It was fortunate such as sailors alone can tell, followed the cof- that I had not got down upon my knees, or they fee, and interrupted the monotonous chattering would have been upon my back. In fact, so imof teeth; and Godfrey, who had a penchant for petuous was their attack, that one of them had negro melodies, broke out from time to time already sprung when I faced round. I caught with scraps from Uncle Ned,' in all its varia-him on my arm and kicked him down the hill. tions, Susannah,' and 'I'm off to Charlestown, The others were for the moment intimidated by a little while to stay.' Peterson recited some the suddenness of my movement, and at seeing chapters from his boy-life in Copenhagen and the summary manner in which their leader had Iceland; John gave us some insight into a run- been dealt with; and they were in the act of ner's' life in San Francisco and Macao; Whip-sneaking away, when they perceived that I was ple told some horrors of the forecastle of a Liverpool packet; but Bonsall drew the chief applause, by Who, wouldn't sell a farm and go to sca?"" powerless to do them any harm, having nothing in my hand. Again they assumed the offensive; they were all around me; an instant more and I should be torn to pieces. I had faced death in sevThere were greater perils in store for them. cral shapes before, but never had I felt as then; At length they found that they could go no the red throats of a pack of wolfish dogs had my blood fairly curdled in my veins. Death down further; to retreat was as impossible as to something about it peculiarly unpleasant, Conadvance. The shore on which they were scious of my weakness, they were preparing for cast was more barren than any they had yet a spring; I had not time even to halloo for help seen. "The hills were covered with snow; -to run would be the readiest means of bringthe valleys were filled with drift; the streams ing the wretches upon me. My eye swept round were all dried up; the sea was shrouded in the group, and caught something lying halfits gloomy mantle. Night-the long arctic buried in the snow, about ten feet distant. night-was setting in; already the sun was Quick as a flash I sprang, as I never sprang bebelow the horizon during the greater part stood before me; and the next instant I was fore or since, over the back of a huge fellow who of each twenty-four hours, and in a short time he would sink to rise no more." With whirling about me the lash of a long whip, cutfood enough to last them for one fortnight, before my blows and the fury of my onset, ting to the right and left. The dogs retreated and with only fuel sufficient to cook their and then sullenly skulked behind the rocks. food and melt water, they commenced a des- The whip had clearly saved my life; there was perate struggle for existence. The first thing nothing else within my reach; and it had been to be done was to build a hut. Fortunately, dropped there quite accidentally by Kalutunah they had an ice-chisel with which they could as he went down to the sledges." loosen the frozen stones, which they carried on their shoulders. These were cemented with sand, shovelled up with a tin dinnerplate into a a discarded bread-bag. Their oars served for rafters, over which the boat's sails were stretched out and secured by heavy stones. To thatch the canvas they were compelled to search beneath the snow for moss. All this consumed a weary time, and the prospect of starvation was upon them. Fox-traps were set, but the animals refused to be caught; they tried to eat the rocklichen, but though it kept off the sensation of hunger, it made them ill. Their condition is fast approaching the horrible." A visit from the Esquimaux affords some immediate relief; they bring with them frozen meat and blubber. In connection with this visit, Mr. Hayes has a tale to relate which we must let him do in his own words : "Leaving the hunters to look after their Their main hope now is in the savages, but the supply of food from them is very uncertain. Often the verge of starvation is reached-a few days more, and all will be over; but again food is brought them juicy bear's meat, puppy chops, and birds. Their spirits revive; and the perusal of Walter Scott's "Fair Maid of Perth," or "Ivanhoe," coupled, spite of Dean Close's anathgenial warmth in that snow-imbedded hut. Havana," infuse a ema, with a genuine One of the visitors to the hut is deserving of mention. She was a widow lady, and her husband's soul having passed for a time into the body of a walrus, she was, of course, prohibited from dining off that animal. But as the walrus happened to be the only food then in season, she was compelled to satisfy herself with frozen birds, which had been killed the previous summer. However neither grief nor hard fare appear to have affected the widow's appetite, since she how once again they sallied forth on the would manage to eat six birds for supper, each as large as a young pullet. Starvation from cold and hunger was not the only enemy to be feared in this desolate region. The Esquimaux, like all savages, were treacherous; and had it not been for fear of the strangers' guns, they would doubtless have destroyed the whole party. One or two hair-breadth escapes are recorded; but these risks were viewed very calmly by men whose chance of life was lessening every day. How they made a desperate effort to escape from their icy tomb; how they were driven back again in despair; sledges of the Esquimaux-having left the owners asleep under the effects of opium; how they were overtaken by the savages; and how, with the courage that desperation alone can give, they compelled them to drive onward to the brig; is all described by Mr. Hayes with great vividness and power. A narrative so interesting as this "Arctic BoatJourney" does not often fall into the hands of a reviewer. Mr. Hayes is about to start on another expedition. He will assuredly carry with him the good wishes of all his friends and readers. THE CONVEYANCER'S PUPIL'S LAMENT. From many a sharp attorney's den; One gleam breaks through the clouds of ill, And breathing once fresh air again. The time draws on to'ards half-past four; The briefless here, a sturdy band, And miss the court's applause. To aid their country's cause. One law inspires, one badge each cap bedecks, "Tis salus populi suprema lex. But ah! no bugle's sound that frays -Punch. WE close our list of American books with "The Cottages of the Alps, or Life and Manners in Switzerland," "by a Lady," of whom we shall only say that, if we had the option, we should most respectfully decline to travel through Switzerland or any other part of the world in her company. "THE Sand-Hills of Jutland," by Hans Christian Andersen, is a small volume comprising eighteen tales, most of which owe their existence to that faculty which their author is known to possess, of interpreting the language spoken by birds, beasts, trees, winds, waters, and even of things commonly supposed to be inanimate, such as an inkstand or the neck of a bottle. THE third volume of M. Guizot's "Memoirs to Illustrate the History of My Time" comprehends the interval between the opening of the session of 1832, M. Guizot being Minister of Public Instruction, and the dissolution of the cabinet on the 22d of February, 1836, when it was succeeded by that of which M. Thiers was president. "THE Glaciers of the Alps," a work comprising the results of three years' personal observation, by Professor Tyndale, is announced as forthcoming by Mr. Murray. AN "Account of the chief fibre-yielding products of India," by Dr. Forbes Watson, is about to be published by Messrs. Bell and Daldy. Portions of this work were read by the author before the Society of Arts during the past month. THE well-known German author and traveller, J. Gerstaecker, has brought out two fresh volumes, descriptive of his voyages in the Pacific and Polynesia, and entitled, "Die Inselwelt" (The Island World). |