The

Prémond, made her first real confession, | long enough to witness Mrs. Canning's for till now confession had been a mere death, and Sister Eugenia's election as form, and next day, the Feast of the As superior. She witnessed also the most sumption, received the sacrament for the flourishing period of the school. first time since her confirmation. She presence of girls bearing great historic became a regular communicant, and was names had swelled the number of pupils tractable, albeit still not studious. The to seventy or eighty, by attracting the nuns remarked the change with satisfac- daughters of manufacturers and tradestion, but without inciting her to increased men, whose mothers set store on contact austerity, and Sister Eugenia became even with patricians. These plebeians were stricter with her now that her failings equally polished, and cleverer or more could no longer be attributed to high spir- studious; but the grand ladies took alarm, its. One day, indeed, to the amazement and began to transfer their girls to the of the class, Saint Aurore, as she was Sacred Heart, or the Abbaye-aux-Bois. styled, having in a reverie failed to hear a It is beyond our present purpose to command, was invested with the nightcap. relate how Aurore gradually renounced She found a congenial mind in a humble | Catholicism, and how she made an unlay sister, Helen Whitehead, a Scotch- happy marriage. Five years later, the woman, who had given up kindred and mother of two little children, but jaded in country for the sake of an irresistible mind and body, she consulted the chapvocation, who did the most menial duties, and who had consequently been despised, if not loathed, by Aurore as by the other pupils. Helen's example and conversation, though she was ignorant of French, and spoke English incorrectly, made Aurore resolve on becoming a nun. Sister Alicia, made a confidant of this determination, merely smiled, told her she did not know her own mind, was sure her grand-even allowed her infant, Maurice, to be mother would not consent, insisted that a good wife and mother made as many daily sacrifices as a nun, and assured her that if she desired trials life would give her plenty of them. But for these wise counsels Aurore, like some girls in a similar state of mind, would have made a tacitness. When Baroness Dudevant, as she vow. They counteracted Helen's encouragements and assurances that the difficulty of admitting a French girl into an English nunnery might be overcome. Sis. ter Alippia's sudden death, and the natural reaction from this state of exaltation, brought on religious melancholy, till the chaplain roused her by some sound advice, and bade her join again in her comrades' games.

A happy year followed. The three categories fused, the romps sobered down, the staid were enlivened. Charades were acted, and then plays, consisting of Aurore's recollections of Molière; the nuns, and even the superior, being amused by these amateur theatricals. Aurore thinks that, Molière being a forbidden book, the nuns credited her with the authorship of these plays; but they were probably wiser, though more reticent, than she supposed. Meanwhile, her grandmother had indirectly learnt of her still fixed intention | of taking the veil, and at a month's notice fetched her home. Aurore remained just

lain, who advised her to spend a short time at the convent, and obtained the new superior's permission. She was warmly welcomed, found some old schoolfellows, though so grown that she had to be told who they were, and was tempted to regret that she had ever left. Sister Alicia consoled her, urging that, with her children, she ought to be happy. The kind nuns

brought for the day to the convent, where so unusual a visitor was caressed and spoiled by all. Sister Helen, however, struck a discordant note, reproaching Aurore with her fall from grace and her contentment with merely temporal happi

now was, pointed proudly to her ruddycheeked boy, Helen had even the cruelty to suggest that the flush was that of consumption. Aurore, in alarm, took a cab, passed the night with the child, and sent for a doctor. He laughed at her fears; but the maternal instinct was now irrepressible. She would not sleep under a different roof from her children, and went back to the convent, only to say farewell. The school had now dwindled down to seven or eight pupils, but gradually revived, and four years ago celebrated its fifth jubilee at Neuilly. Although Aurore never visited it after 1825, and but rarely met in society any of her old companions, she retained a liking for English_educa. tion, and sent her daughter to an English lay school in Paris. The nuns, too, cherished an interest in her, widely as she had diverged from their standard of faith and morals.

Sister Alicia's remark we have already quoted, and George Sand herself wrote:

"My religion has never varied at bot

tom. The forms of the past have van- | fessor went last winter to investigate on ished, for me as for the age, by the light the spot before writing the address for of reflection; but the everlasting doctrine of believers the good God, the immortal soul, and the hopes of a future state behold what has resisted all scrutiny, all discussion, and even intervals of despair. ing doubt."

Aurore, indeed, held fast to theism, though some of her political associates became materialists. So good a judge as Flaubert declared her school-day chapters the best part of the autobiography published in 1854, and it is interesting for us to reflect that this great, though unequal and too prolific novelist, this virtual subminister of the interior in 1848, spent three of her most plastic years under English training. J. G. ALGER.

PROFESSOR SAYCE'S DESCRIPTION OF it.

THE Victoria Institute of London held its annual meeting at Adelphi Terrace on July 1st. An immense audience crowded the hall in every part, the president, Sir George Stokes, Bart., president of the Royal Society, took the chair. The proceedings were commenced by mentioning that the emperor of Brazil had sent a message expressing special interest in the Institute's Journal, and desiring to obtain it regularly for translation. The_report for the past year was then read by Captain Francis Petrie, the honorary secretary, by which it appeared that the number of home, foreign, and colonial members had increased to over thirteen hundred, and there had been an important advance in the practical work of the Institute in investigating philosophical and scientific questions, especially any questions used by those who unhappily sought to attack | religion in the name of science.

The adoption of the report was moved by Sir Henry Barkly, G.C.B., F.R.S., and seconded by Admiral Sir Leopold McClintock, F.R.S., after which it was announced that family matters, consequent on the death of his father, prevented Professor Sayce's presence, and he had chosen the Rev. Dr. Wright, author of "The Hittites," to read the address. It gave an historical description of what has become known in regard to the conquests of Amenophis III., as shown by the archives of his palace, which have only lately been discovered, and which the pro

the Victoria Institute. Of the tablets and
inscriptions, he said: "From them we
learn that in the fifteenth century before
our era, a century before the Exodus,
| — active literary intercourse was going on
throughout the civilized world of western
Asia, between Babylon and Egypt, and
the smaller states of Palestine, of Syria,
of Mesopotamia, and even of eastern Kap-
padokia. And this intercourse was carried
on by means of the Babylonian language,
and the complicated Babylonian script.
This implies that, all over the civilized
East, there were libraries and schools
where the Babylonian language and litera-
ture were taught and learned. Babylonian
appeared to have been as much the lan-
guage of diplomacy and cultivated society
as French has become in modern times,
with the difference that, whereas it does
not take long to learn to read French, the
cuneiform syllabary required years of hard
labor and attention before it could be ac-
quired. We can now understand the
meaning of the name of the Canaanitish
city which stood near Hebron, and which
seems to have been one of the most im-
portant of the towns of southern Palestine.
Kirjath-Sepher, or Book-town,' must have
been the seat of a famous library, con.
sisting mainly, if not altogether, as the
Tel el-Amarna tablets inform us, of clay
tablets inscribed with cuneiform charac-
ters. As the city also bore the name of
Debir, or 'Sanctuary,' we may conclude
that the tablets were stored in its chief
temple, like the libraries of Assyria and
Babylonia. It may be that they are still
lying under the soil, awaiting the day
when the spade of the excavator shall re-
store them to the light. The literary
influence of Babylonia, in the age before
the Israelitish conquest of Palestine ex-
plains the occurrence of the names of
Babylonian deities among the inhabitants
of the west. Moses died on the summit
of Mount Nebo, which received its name
from the Babylonian god of literature, to
whom the great temple of Borsippa was
dedicated; and Sinai itself, the mountain
of Sin, testifies to a worship of the Baby-
lonian moon-god, Sin, amid the solitudes
of the desert. Moloch or Malik, was a
Babylonian divinity like Rimmon, the air-
god, after whom more than one locality in
Palestine was named, and Anat, the wife
of Anu, the sky-god, gave her name to
the Palestinian Anah, as well as to Ana-
thoth, the city of the 'Anat goddesses.'

In a careful reading of the tablets Canon

Sayce came upon many ancient names and incidents known up to the present only from their appearance in the Bible. All these he carefully described, as well as several references in the tablets to the Hittites.

In regard to another point, he said: "Ever since the progress of Egyptology made it clear that Rameses II. was the Pharaoh of the oppression, it was difficult to understand how so long an interval of time as the whole period of the eighteenth dynasty could lie between him and the 'new king' whose rise seems to have been followed almost immediately by the servitude and oppression of the Hebrews. The tablets of Tel el-Amarna now show that the difficulty does not exist. Up to the death of Khu-en-Aten, the Semite had greater influence than the native in the land of Mizraim."

FUNGI.

From The Month.

IN admitting that the odor of the major. ity of fungi is far from pleasing, and that some are so offensive as to be unbearable even to the most powerful olfactory nerves, still a disgusting smell must not be set down as a universal mark of fungi. On the contrary, some emit the agreeable fragrance of mellilot, anise, violets, and cinnamon. The author of "British Fungi informs us of a lady who had found a beautiful, as well as rare, specimen of the latticed stinkhorn, which she wished to sketch. But the lady's determination, combined with the beauty of the specimen, was no match for its offensive odor, and the rarity was ordered away before the sketch was completed. The same writer tells us of a gentleman who cleared a railway carriage of its occupants by having in Referring to those who have formed his sandwich-box a specimen of the comopinions as to the non-historical character | mon stinkhorn, and nothing but a resolute of the Pentateuch, Professor Sayce said: "The Tel el-Amarna tablets have already overthrown the primary foundation on which much of this criticism has been built."

determination to make a drawing of the fungus could have prevented this enthu siast in the cause of science from throwing plant and sandwich-box out of the window.

Professor Sayce closed his paper with Considering what has been said, it will a peroration of passing eloquence as to no doubt seem very illogical to say that the duty of searching for the rich libraries mankind is benefited more by fungi than that must lie buried beneath the sands of by any other species of the cryptogamic Syria and Palestine, a matter the impor- family. The devastation of dry-rot, of tance of which has been urged in the ubiquitous mildew, are very generally Victoria Institute's Journal more than known; yet the benefits conferred by the once, especially in the last volume, pre- fungi far outweigh their destructive prosented to all its supporters. A vote of pensities. This is a fact that we too thanks was passed to Professor Sayce for easily pass over because we will look at his splendid address, and to Dr. Wright the dark side of things, and altogether forfor reading it. This was moved by the get, or at least fail to appreciate, the good lord chancellor in a speech of great in- which is on the other side. To them may terest, in which he said there was nothing be rightly given the expressive name more interesting in the literary history of which has been applied to insects, that of mankind than such discoveries as those the "scavengers of nature," for their work alluded to in the address, which he con- is similar to that of insects, viz., the residered a perfect mine of wealth. M. moval- and that, too, with a marvellous Naville, the Egyptian discoverer, having rapidity of what is not merely a useless expressed his admiration of the labors of tenant of the earth, but an injurious Professor Sayce, and declared the dis- neighbor, such as refuse and decaying covery the greatest one of the present organic matter. We have no idea of the century, a vote of thanks to the president numberless diseases that arise from the was then moved by Sir Risdon Bennett, noxious exhalations of decomposing matF.R.S., seconded by Admiral Sir Erasmus ter, from which we are freed by the help Ommanney, F.R.S., and conveyed to the of these little plants. It is true their president by Captain Creak, F.R.S. This germs fill the air, but they are then the closed the proceedings, and the members" unemployed," and are only waiting for and their guests adjourned to the Museum, where refreshments were served.

the desired material. As soon as such a substance is exposed, the "scavengers fall upon and cover the unsightly object with a variety of fungoid growths which multiply and develop themselves with an astonishing fertility.

insect and fungous life, in the creation of which nature has been so prodigal. A scanty number of minute individuals, only to be detected by careful research, are ready in a few days or weeks to give birth to myriads which may check or remove the nuisances referred to. But no sooner has the commission been executed than the gigantic power becomes dormant ; each. of the mighty host soon reaches the term of its transient existence; and when the fitting food lessens in quantity, when the offal to be removed diminishes, then fewer of the spores find soil on which to germinate; and when the whole has been consumed, the legions, before so active, all return to their latent state-ready how. ever, at a moment's warning, again to be developed, and when labor is to be done again, again to commence their work. In almost every season there are some species, but especially in autumn there are many which in this manner put forth their strength, and then, like the spirits of the poet which thronged the spacious hall, "reduce to smallest forms their shapes

The fungi have therefore a right to share in the praises accorded by naturalists to insects, and what has been said of the work these tiny animals perform for man's benefit, is equally applicable to their representatives in the vegetable world. The peculiarity of their agency consists in their power of suddenly multiplying their numbers to a degree which could only be accomplished in a considerable lapse of time by any larger beings; and then as instantaneously relapsing, without the intervention of any violent disturbing cause, to their former insignificance. If for the sake of employing on different but rare occasions a power of many hundreds or thousands of horses, we were under the necessity of feeding all these animals at a great cost in the inter vals when their services were not required, we should greatly admire the invention of a machine, such as the steam engine, which should be capable at any moment of exerting the same degree of strength without any consumption of food during the periods of inaction; and the same kind of admiration is strongly ex-immense." cited when we contemplate the powers of

A RIVAL TO DELAGOA BAY.

While Portugal is greedily seizing upon the results created by British capital at Delagoa Bay, the Boers are striving to break through Swaziland to a port on native territory, outside the Portuguese limits, which has just been the scene of surveys by English engineers. The Delagoa Bay Railway, as is well known, has to traverse an extremely difficult mountain range before it can enter the Transvaal, which is one of the chief reasons for the delay in extending it, while the coast on which its sea outlet is situated is ravaged by malarial fever. This has led the Boers to seek some other route, with the result that they have secured from the king of Swaziland a concession for a monopoly of the railways in his country, and are now striving to bring it completely under their rule. From Swaziland there is an easy pass over the Lebomba range into a strip of flat littoral country, controlled by native chiefs, fifty miles wide, having in Sordwana Bay a port which would prove a dangerous rival to Delagoa Bay, if properly developed. The government has recently had a survey made of this port, and it is probably to prevent the Boers getting down to it that a British commissioner has been sent to examine affairs in Swaziland. No fever-haunted mangrove swamp exists within thirty miles of Sordwana Bay. Protected by a bluff and a coral reef, a channel communicates with a lake or lagoon capable of giving accommodation to all the

This

shipping commerce might attract to that quar
ter, if the channel be enlarged for a short dis-
tance where it traverses a sandy spit.
would not be a work of very great magnitude,
from the engineering point of view, and even
if it were, the minimum of obstacles existing
along the whole railway route to the Transvaal
from Sordwana would justify a large expendi-
ture, to say nothing of the line passing through
country outside the limits of Portuguese rule.
Such a line would traverse flat country as far
as the Lebomba Mountains, where it would
penetrate to Swaziland by the easy Umgovuma
Gorge, the ascent being of a very gradual
character. From the king's kraal in Swazi-
land the line would follow, by easy gradients,
the course of the little Usutu to the high
plateau of the Transvaal. Great expectations
have been formed at the Cape of this route,
and politicians are anxiously watching whether
the Boers, who have found out its advantages,
will be allowed to appropriate it, or whether
England, leaving Delagoa Bay to the Portu.
guese, will annex and open it up herself. Such
a result would be rather a surprise for the
Portuguese and might prove a simpler solu-
tion of the present difficulty than is commonly
imagined to be possible. If England had a
railway of her own to the Transvaal, within
seventy-five miles of Delagoa Bay, the com-
petition would be of a character that no Por-
tuguese line could stand.

Engineering.

VII. THE MARRIAGE OF THE CHINESE EMPEROR, Asiatic Quarterly Review,
VIII. PILGRIMS TO MECCA,

Cornhill Magazine,

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