We strolled under the great dyke which surrounds the Zuyder Zee with a rampart of Norway stone, and holds its waters as in a gigantic cup above the surrounding land, and we heard the waves breaking above our heads on the other side of the dyke. some rain sent us swishing along with the lee decks awash, and as close-hauled as we could go, until the beautiful watergate of Hoorn, with its lofty tower, came in sight, and then we had to tack up the harbor, sounding carefully with a pole on each tack, and sailed into the pretty treebordered basin which forms the inner We left Hoorn at eight o'clock on a harbor of Hoorn. Here we were quietly sunny morning, but had not gone half a and safely moored for two days. There mile when a fog came on so thick that we is plenty to see at and near Hoorn. The could not see the bowsprit end. As there city itself is so delightfully ancient, with was a good and fair breeze, we kept on, its pointed and ornate gables leaning this hoping the fog would soon clear, but way and that in defiance of the laws of taking the precaution to set the log and a architectural gravity; its weigh-house, proper compass course; but the fog thickwhere the cheese-weighers attached to ened, and we could hardly see each other. the huge scales wear different-colored hats We were bound to Amsterdam, twentyas a distinctive mark for the cheese of seven miles to the southward, but wished each district; the market-place, where the to touch Marken, thirteen miles off. On country chariots were drawn up, and the we sailed, peering anxiously with straincheeses spread upon the ground in readi-ing eyes for the schuyts which we knew to ness for the morrow's market, protected by tarpaulins and canvas in case of rain during the night; the busy modern Dutch life, which is yet as quaint and distinctive as the ancient life, and is still well fitted to the ancient streets; the English shield from a war-ship hung as a trophy outside the town hall, all is interesting in the extreme, and makes every step in Hoorn a pleasant one. We revisited Enkhuisen, which we had remembered to have been the deadest of the dead cities, but where we now found a large new harbor with steamers to Friesland, running in connection with trains which entered a brand-new and sumptuous station. The harbors were crowded with fishingcraft, and the channels between the main land and the sand were thronged with sailing-craft-great tjalks laden high with peat or hay, or the brushwood used for repairing dykes, unwieldy, floating stacks which yet managed to sail well. The streets were less grass-grown than before, and the dead city is awaking from its long sleep. We went to Zaandam, with its broad and beautiful river, and its three hundred and sixty-five windmills, sawing wood, grinding flour, and turning out money for the wealthy Zaandammers. We strolled through the bright green meadows, where the black-and-white cows were milked by blue-bloused men into red milk-pails, and the milk was carried in green-and-white boats, along green dykes to green-and-red farms, within squares of green and yellow stemmed trees; and all | under a blue-and-white sky and a blazing sun; all bright, pronounced color, and never a half-tone anywhere. be near us. A gigantic shape would suddenly loom up and quickly disappear, and we knew that we had passed within a very few yards of a schuyt, or a tall pole would glide past within a few inches of the bulwark, showing that we were among the long lines of sticks to which the eel-fishers fasten their eel-lines and nets. The average depth of the southern part of the Zuyder Zee is but eight feet, and it is this shoalness which makes its seas dangerous in a storm. There were momentary lightenings of the fog and then dense smotherings of it, until we could hardly see the compasscard; of all sea troubles short of an actual gale a fog is the worst, and to a well-found and strong yacht a fog in crowded waters is perhaps worse than a gale. Our eyes ached and our heads grew dizzy peering through the darkness. As the skipper said, "One can see anything in a fog," meaning that the strange shapes of the rolling mist are deceptive, and show untruthfully ship or buoy or land, while hiding the reality. After a couple of hours of this unpleasant and dangerous state of things, we hauled the log, and found that we had run the entire distance to Marken. We at once sounded, and found that we were in five feet of water-only three inches to spare. In another five minutes we should have been ashore on Marken Island. We stood off to six feet and in to five, carefully and continually sounding, until the land loomed overhead. We kept as close to the shadow of it as we dared until we heard the sound of the fog-bell off the harbor, and not deeming it prudent to land, we stood on for Amsterdam. All at once the fog lifted, giving us a good view of the island. In another half-hour every | each eager to inscribe a new client's name vestige of fog had disappeared, and we in his books. Even the government were ramping along under a brilliant sun allowed each student in the college to and blue sky; the sea covered with schuyts through which we had come safely in a somewhat marvellous manner. We distanced all craft bound in the same direction, sailed briskly up to the great sluices at Schellingwoude, which connect the Y with the Zuyder Zee, passed through in company with many vessels and yachts, left them all astern, and arrived at our old berth at Amsterdam early in the after noon. There was a gorgeous and most successful regatta on the Friday at sea off Ymuiden, on the Saturday on the Y, on the Sunday on the Zuyder Zee, and a week's cruise of yachts in company round the Zuyder Zee, which must have been most charming; but imperative business called us back to England on the Saturday, and we missed most of the fun. G. CHRISTOPHER DAVIES. From Longman's Magazine. OLD COLLEGE DAYS IN CALCUTTA. THE old college of Haileybury in England was only the stepping-stone to the College of Fort William in Calcutta, in which the young civilians attached to the Bengal Presidency were required to qual ify themselves for the public service in India by a further study of the native languages. The College of Fort William was established by the great proconsul, the Marquis Wellesley, at the beginning of the present century. He housed it in a spacious range of pillared and porticoed edifices known until lately as Writers' Buildings, close to the site of the famous Black Hole of Calcutta. He endowed the college to the best of his official power with professorships and with prizes. The young writers were encouraged to believe that on their conduct, during their proba- | tion as students in the College of Fort William, the success of their career in the public service would depend. But though the institution was excellent in theory, it failed in practice. Jeshurun had waxed fat and he kicked. Let it be understood that each student who was expected to submit himself to the pupillar state in the College of Fort William, was a young man receiving about four hundred pounds a year from the Treasury, with unlimited credit in the shops of Calcutta, and with a tribe of native money-lenders, borrow four hundred pounds from it, in the hope that by doing this it would antici pate and outbid the native money-lenders. The result may be easily imagined. Extravagance took every form; and it be came almost the rule for each student to get a lakh of rupees (10,000%.) in debt, before he passed out of college. No wonder that reforms were soon introduced. The students were removed from their rooms in Writers' Buildings, and all that remained of the college was an examination hall, a principal, and two professors, with a large staff of moonshees and pundits to teach the languages to the young writers. It would be useless to describe the several changes that were made from time to time. I will only try to give some account of the college as it existed in 1844, when I went out to India to join the Bengal Civil Service. The young civilians destined for Bengal had to find their own way to Calcutta. The overland route was then a novelty, and most of my contemporaries went round the Cape in a sailing-vessel. I and. some others took the overland route, and I never regretted it. For it seemed to me that by going overland we were never so completely severed from England as those were who went round the Cape. My idea was that we could have found our way back to England like the children in the fairy tale, by the pebbles or crumbs that we had dropped. Our journey to Calcutta was accomplished in about eight weeks, which was good time in those days; and when we arrived there we were welcomed as bringing the latest news from England with us, whilst we had to wait for nearly three months before our friends who had voyaged round the cape put in their appearance. On reaching Calcutta we reported our. selves to the secretary to the College of Fort William, and were enrolled as students. The secretary, who was also a professor, put us through a brief examina. tion to find out usually how little we knew, but there were instances on record where a student was found qualified at once to pass at least in one language. A moonshee or pundit was then assigned to each of us to prepare us for the regular monthly examination, at which every student was expected to show some progress. There were also special examinations for men who went up for prizes and honors; and the secretary was supposed to keep a sort of general supervision over the young | selves on turning out in good style, both men, and no one could leave Calcutta without his permission. Most of us on our arrival were hospitably received by friends. But this only lasted a short time, and then we set up for ourselves in chummeries. Sometimes a man filled a vacancy in an existing chummery. For myself and three others it was settled that we should form a fresh chummery of our own, and we hired a large empty house in Chowringhee, with a good compound and extensive stabling, and furnished our abode in the manner suitable to our social position. For it must be understood that the young civilians, who numbered about twenty in each year in Calcutta, were regarded as an important section of the community. They were the salt of fashionable society. They had the latest ideas and the last new fashions from England. The ball of fortune was at their feet, and any one of them might eventually rise to the highest appointments in the service of government. Each young man had an income of about four hundred rupees a month, and unlimited credit. He found that he was regarded as • a prize in the matrimonial market, "three hundred pounds a year, dead or alive," being his well-known proverbial appraisement. Even if he died his widow would get 300l. a year from the civil fund, to which he was bound to subscribe. Four of us set up housekeeping together. We kept something like open house. At breakfast, at lunch, and at dinner we expected friends to drop in uninvited; and the Khansamah was under an engagement to provide enough for ten persons at every meal. Occasionally we gave grand dinner parties, inviting the rich merchants, the regimental officers, the high civilian officials, and others whose hospitality we had enjoyed. I have seen whist played in our house by some of our eminent guests, where many thousands of rupees changed hands in a night, at gold mohur points with heavy bets. We our selves abstained from such high play, but many an evening ended in a round game of cards with some small gambling. We seldom made a very late night of it, for we usually wanted to be up at an early hour in the morning. The fact is that we thought a great deal of our horses and our morning rides, and, as most people know, the time for riding in India in the hot season is rather before than after sunrise. We each of us kept two horses and a buggy. Some of us had more than two horses, and we piqued our for a morning gallop round the racecourse, and also of an evening among the ladies in their carriages at the band-stand. Although we had good horses, we prudently abstained from joining in the regular race-meetings, in which animals of a much higher stamp were engaged. We occasionally made matches between our horses, and the young civilians' hurdle race was an annual event in society. We used occasionally to go out with the hounds which were kept to hunt jackals. But it was doubtful if the game was worth the candle; for the hounds usually met at a distance of seven or eight miles from Calcutta, a little before sunrise, so that there was a long drive in the dark, and sometimes our syces did not take the horses to the right place. More than once, however, after a ball and late supper we went home and changed our evening dress for breeches and top-boots, and started on a long drive before daylight to meet the hounds. Of course, being inexperienced, we were liable to be "stuck" in our horse-dealing. There was one beautiful Arab, which passed from hand to hand several times among my companions in college. It had been trained for racing. This was in fact the cause of its being sold for a price much less than its original value. Its mouth had been ruined in training; and though it went quietly enough on the road, the moment that it got on the racecourse, or on the Maidaun, it was off like a shot, and no one could hold it. It was said that it had killed one of its former owners, by running against one of the mile-posts on the race-course; but that was before my time. At last one of my friends put it in his buggy, and drove it regularly. But one day, after a big dinner at the Bengal Club, my friend's buggy and horse were missing. The syce had probably gone to sleep, or something had frightened the horse, for it had bolted out of the club compound, and nothing could be heard of it until the next morning, when the horse and the buggy were found in one of the tanks or reservoirs on the Maidaun. The horse was dead. But I must not forget that we were not merely owners of horses, but students or undergraduates of the College of Fort William, preparing to pass the prescribed examination in two of the native languages. A period of two years was fixed as the term within which this must be done, or the student would forfeit his appointment and be sent back to England. To each of read for honors he was always eager to assist them in acquiring a thorough knowl. edge of the books and the written and conversational work. The honors and prizes in the college were numerous. A gold medal was given to any man who passed his two languages in a stated time. By way of honors there was first an examination in each language for high proficiency with a prize of eight hundred rupees attached to it; and next there was a higher standard, called a degree of honor, with sixteen hundred rupees reward. But I regret to say that the us a moonshee or pundit was assigned from the college free of charge. These gentlement were government-paid servants, and none of them would talk English, though some of them had a slight smattering of it. The moonshees, who taught us Persian or Hindustani, were usually Mahomedan gentlemen with grey beards and huge turbans, some of them magnificently robed, and nearly all of them addicted to snuff. The pundits, who instructed us in Bengali and Sanskrit, were Hindoos of high caste, and of much reputed learning in their own religion and philosophy; but their garments | government acted meanly in this matter, were scanty, and almost indecent, being chiefly made of fine white muslin. Their heads were bare, and shaven, save as to one small scalp-lock; whilst they decorated their foreheads and noses with those marks of sacred clay which are almost an offence to an inexperienced Englishman. I regret to state that we did not appreciate or venerate our teachers. We were rather afraid of the moonshees at first, as they looked so imposing. As to the pundits, they probably despised and disliked us as much as we objected to them. They usually turned up at our house between ten and eleven, and were kept waiting until it was our pleasure to read with them. But many a day and oft when the arrival of the moonshee was announced, he was summarily told that he might go away, and he departed with very little reluc tance. But our behavior was entirely different to two, if not three, of the teachers of languages, who understood English well, and knew also how to teach the native languages. Raj Chunder and Harry Mohun knew all the college languages as well as English, and their services were in great demand. Out of the twenty students in college, at least six employed Raj Chunder, and six engaged Harry Mohun, whilst the third man, whose name I have forgot ten, got a few pupils. Raj Chunder was my coach, and I was entitled to a sixth part of his time during the day of six hours, for he was not so imprudent as to overwork himself. The difficulty was to get a good hour with him. There was always much competition for the morning hour from seven to eight, but from eleven to twelve was the most coveted period, and some men paid a little extra to get it. His ordinary charge was thirty rupees a month. He was an excellent teacher, and he knew all the little tricks and dodges for cramming a student up to the point just sufficient for a pass; whilst for those who for the man who gained a degree of honor and claimed his sixteen hundred rupees learnt to his dismay that the eight hundred rupees he had received for high proficiency counted as part of the sixteen hundred. I only tried for one degree of honor. The books for the high-proficiency standard were comparatively easy and few. For the higher standard or degree of honor in Bengali we were expected to know the whole of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, besides some tough prose works. I confess that I did not read through the whole of those great, but sadly overrated poems, but it was necessary to read a good part of them, so as to become familiar with their style and tenor. In the examination for honors as well as for an ordinary pass, there was supposed to be a certain amount of intrigue. If a student read for honors it was said that he must keep on good terms with his college moonshee or pundit, because they were somehow or other connected with the moonshee or pundit who sat by the side of the college examiners, and an unfriendly suggestion from their lips might be fatal. I do not remember to have perceived any sort of intrigue in this quarter in the honor examinations. But the case was different where a young man had been idle, and was in a state of desperation about passing. The test was in reading and writing, so that each student was obliged to be able to read and to write the vernacular character for himself. But it is much easier to read a passage of a book which has been well studied, than to be put on at hazard; and so it came to pass that, owing to some mysterious underground influence, the examiner's book would open, or be opened for him, at a particular page which the candidate had carefully studied beforehand. With the written composition a different course was adopted. The examiners had a stock of old papers, suppers, and every sort of affectionate which had been in use for years, and it During our life in college we had the enjoyment of the best society that Calcutta could afford. Lord Ellenborough, who was governor-general, was rather hard on some young civilians, but he was personally very civil to me at some of the Government House entertainments. The deputy governor of Bengal patronized all of us, and, being president of the Asiatic Society, he liked to enrol us as members, for which, to our disgust, we had to pay two hundred rupees each. The judges of the High Court, with Sir Lawrence Peel at their head, exercised unbounded hospital. ity to us and to the military cadets alike. It recalls too tender memories to think of some of the great houses, where there were young and charming daughters. There was one young lady whose bright eyes had, to my own knowledge, slain several young civilians, one after the other, though she did not marry any of them. I lately heard her story told; that her college admirers numbered twenty, and that she amused herself by asking each of them privately to attend a ball, wearing a blue rosette in her honor; but this did not happen in my day. At length the time came when we were tired of study, and the college examiners reported us as duly qualified for the public service. Then came the painful parting from old companions for we all knew that henceforth hundreds or thousands of miles might separate us, and that it was a great chance that we might never meet again. There were farewell dinners, and farewell From The National Review. LAND-LEAGUE BALLADS. THAT the land agitation in Ireland should be accompanied by a ballad literature of its own was a foregone conclusion. The Irish are, and always have been, a The ballads in which the peasantry find vent for their feelings, though often rude and rough, are still interesting, because, like the "Corn-Law Rhymes," they are the genuine outcome of popular emotion at the time. The laws of rhythm and rhyme are frequently set at nought. For these no one cares a straw; doggerel does just as well, or even better, than the most poetic diction; the great aim is to catch the fleeting impulses which ripple over the surface of the popular mind, and to throw in a little salt of advice from a Land League point of view. If we saunter down the principal street of an Irish town on a fair-day, we are almost sure to see two ballad-singers. They generally draw up in the centre of the town after the business of the day is over. Their stock in trade consists of a handful of sheet ballads. The lady vocalist usually has a shawl thrown over her head, and her hair, which never seems to have made acquaintance with brush or comb, hangs over her eyes in a tangled mass. She begins by droning out the first verse of a political ballad, or "ballat," as it is generally pronounced, in a shrill, monotonous treble: her companion chimes in a second with a nasal drawl, and this goes on for at least seven verses, sometimes with the accompaniment of a concertina, sometimes not. By this time a crowd has assembled round the singers, and if the ballad is approved of, every one is eager to pay a halfpenny to secure a copy of it. These copies are carried away to many a farm by the lonely mountain-side, or to the depths of many a sheltered glen, and there, by the turf fires, during the long |