phant upon which was Lady Day, one of the females of the party, and was at its tail, with jaws distended, and in the act of rising upon his hind paws to fasten on her, when, fortunately, she cleared the jungle; and a general discharge from the hunters having forced him to give up the chase, he returned to his shelter. The danger, I believe, was not very great; but it terrified her very much, and was sufficient to determine her against ever again being present at a tiger hunt.

"The chase being over, we returned in triumph to our encampment, and were followed by the spoils of the morning, and by a great multitude of the peasants from the neighbouring villages, who pressed round an open tent in which we sat at breakfast, with congratulations, blessings, and thanksgivings. The four tigers were laid in front; the natives viewed them with terror, and some with tears. There was a very affecting incident, which so fastened upon the imagination of a gentleman present, and so touched his heart, that he means to give it a principal place in a picture which he meditates upon the subject.An old woman, looking earnestly at the largest tiger, and pointing at times to his tusks, and at times lifting his fore-paws, and viewing his talons, her aged cheeks bathed in tears, in broken and moaning tones narrated something to a little circle composed of three brahmins and a young woman with a child in her arms. No human misery could pierce the phlegm and apathy of the brahmins. With them there was not a feature softened; but

horror and sorrow were alternately painted in the face of the female: and from her clasping at times her child more closely to her breast, I guessed the subject of the old woman's story, and, upon inquiry, I found that I was right in my conjecture. She was widowed and childless; she owed both her misfortunes to the tigers in that jungle, and most probably to those which then lay dead before her (for they, it was believed, had recently carried off her husband, and her two sons grown up to manhood); and now she wanted food. In the frenzy of her grief she alternately described her loss to the crowd, and in a wild scream demanded her husband and her children from the tigers. Indeed it was a piteous spectacle!"

ADVENTURES OF MADAME GODIN

IN THE COUNTRY OF THE AMAZONS.

MADAME GODIN was the wife of one of the French mathematicians who were sent to Peru, in South America, about the middle of the last century, for the purpose of making some observations there, which should improve our knowledge of geogra phy. She set out from Rio-bamba, the place of her residence, with the design of joining her husband at Cayenne, a distance of thirteen or fourteen hundred leagues. The thought of such a long journey, dangerous and fatiguing as she knew it

must be, did not deter this courageous woman. She was accompanied by two of her brothers, and by a physician, who proposed to travel the same road; she had also a male negro servant, several mulatto and Indian women, and a band of thirtyone Indians for carrying her baggage. With this company she arrived at the village of Cannellos, situated on the banks of a small river that falls into the river of the Amazons. This place she found almost deserted; for the small-pox, a very fatal disease among the Indians, had made its appearance, and carried off great numbers of the inhabitants, while those who escaped the infection had removed from the place. At that time the mode of preventing this disorder, by scratching the arm with a sharp instrument previously dipped in the matter of a cow-pock sore, which is communicated from the udder of the cow, was not known. Here the Indians of the escort, who had been paid in advance, left her and returned. What was to be done in this unfortunate situation ? To return without a body of men to defend her was impossible; and even had it been possible, yet the hope of reaching the river of the Amazons, where she might find a vessel to convey her to her husband, whom she had not seen for many years, encouraged her to brave all dangers; and she resolved, as did also her companions, to continue the journey.

Only two Indians remained in the village. They had not a canoe, but offered to make one, and conduct the travellers in it to the settlement

B

of Andoas, a hundred and fifty leagues farther down the river. In a short time the canoe was finished, and they embarked; but after sailing two days, having gone ashore to pass the night, the two Indians, who had received their payment before they set out, abandoned the enterprise like the others. In the morning the unfortunate company re-embarked; and, though without a pilot, the first day passed over without any accident. Next day, towards noon, they fell in with a canoe, in which was an Indian who had just recovered from a severe disorder, and who consented to serve them as a pilot; but this poor man, endeavouring to pick up the doctor's hat, which had fallen into the water, fell overboard, and his late malady having left him in a very weak state, he was unable to swim, and soon went to the bottom. The canoe, being now in the hands of people who could not manage it, soon filled with water; and the travellers were compelled to land, where they built a small rude hut, to shelter them from the weather.

They were now about six days' journey from Andoas, and the doctor offered to go thither and procure assistance. He accordingly set off, accompanied by a French servant belonging to himself, and Madame Godin's faithful negro.

After waiting upwards of three weeks, no tidings of the doctor were heard, and the lady and her brothers gave up every hope of succour from that quarter. But being still resolved to proceed, they constructed a raft upon the river, on which they embarked with some provisions and effects,

intending to prosecute their journey by water, because they were afraid of losing themselves in the woods. The raft, however, being ill-conducted, struck against the sunken branch of a tree, overset, and plunged the whole cargo into the river; but as this accident happened close to the bank, no person perished.

Madame Godin, deprived of all her effects by this sort of shipwreck, now found herself in a more melancholy situation than ever she had been before. The company now determined to travel on foot along the banks of the river; and they returned to the hut, took the provisions they had left in it, and departed. They had not gone far, when they found that the windings of the river lengthened their road very much; and to avoid this, they endeavoured to find a passage through the woods, but soon lost their way. Fatigued with so long a march, their feet bruised, their clothes and bodies torn with the briers and thorns, their provisions exhausted, and nothing to allay their hunger and thirst but some wild fruits, their strength failed, and they sat down on the ground, looking for nothing but death. Their expectations were realized, and in a few days they expired one after another, leaving Madame Godin the sole survivor.

The heroic lady lay for forty-eight hours in the midst of the dead bodies, stupified with grief, and in a state of insensibility. At last she recovered her senses, and found herself tormented with an ardent thirst. Providence, however, gave her