she did not know how her mistress would | did not even know the gentleman; but, take the offer; she was eager, because again, imagination went to work and she had not touched the piano since she showed her that he was endeavoring to left Hanford, and her soul was one that hungered and thirsted for music, a soul that could only find its full expression in pain or pleasure through music. Thus it came about that Richard Cable heard her sing on the night he was lingering under the trees of the park.

get into a government situation. Miss Otterbourne knew and was connected with persons of position and influence, and might possibly induce them to get him a secretaryship or a colonial appointment. The kind little heart made its plans; the letters were thought out, and the list of | those to whom application was to be made was drawn up; all that Miss Otterbourne needed to know to put all her engines in play was the name and position of the man. But when she approached the subject, however delicately, Josephine winced, changed color, trembled, and entreated permission to leave the room.

"There is no help for it," said Miss Otterbourne to herself; "I must wait till I have gained her confidence. Poor young people! Poor dear girl! She is growing thin and pale here. I can see the change in her. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick. It is only hope deferred, not extinguished. I am clever in these matters; I will make all right in time."

The little old lady was not without that atmosphere of romance hanging about her heart that enlarged and transformed common objects and gave them ephemeral and fantastic values and shapes. She thought about what Mrs. Sellwood had told her of Josephine, and as she had taken a great fancy for Josephine, she wanted to learn more. She wrote for particulars to her sister, but unsuccessfully, and every attempt to wrest her story from the girl equally failed. As she had so few facts on which to build, she fell back on conjecture, and speedily came to treat her conjectures as assured realities. There could be no question that Josephine was a lady, the child of gentlefolks, who had been suddenly ruined so she sup- Miss Otterbourne was warmly attached posed by the failure of the great Coast to her nephew, Captain Sellwood, who of Guinea Bank, which had recently would succeed to Bewdley after her debrought down so many families. She was cease, when he would assume by royal an orphan, and had lost everything, and license the name and arms of Otterbourne she had fled her old home and its associa- in addition to Sellwood. The old lady tions owing to a love-affair with a gentle- had much family pride in her, and loved man of position to whom she had been to talk of the family greatness, its achieveengaged, but who, having no resources ments and its matches in the past. It himself, had broken off the match on her was a sad thing that Cholmondely Otterlosing her fortune. Miss Otterbourne had bourne, her brother, had died early, and in former days had several offers; but as that thus the direct male representation she never could assure herself that the ceased. As the old lady loved to talk, suitors were not in love with her estate and loved especially to talk of her nephew, rather than herself, she had refused them on whom her ambition concentrated, she all; and now, in her old age, had a long-was not silent with Josephine. ing for a little romance, and a desire to take some part in the great concert of love that bursts from all creation, if she were only to play a little feeble accompaniment to the song of another. What a flutter it produces in an old heart on which hopes and loves have flashed and flickered and died out to white dust to be able, before the last death-chill falls, to assist at the kindling, or to fan when lighted, or to sit by and hearken to the roar of a lovefire! So poor old Miss Otterbourne having made out to her own satisfaction and sincere conviction that Josephine was in love, and had been badly treated, turned the matter about in her mind, and schemed whether it were possible for her to take up the broken engagement and hammer and weld it together again. How she was to do this, she did not know. She

66

I suppose you have seen him, Cable?" she said. If you know Mrs. Sellwood, you have no doubt seen the captain. He is a very fine man, and has such splendid eyes, like those of an ox. I wish he would marry. I am getting to be an old woman, and I want to see the young generation settled, and another rising about it. I should be happy, I think, quite happy, with little grandnephews and nieces, nephews especially, trotting about these passages, and up and down the stairs. I am afraid that Captain Sellwood must have met with a disappointment. You have not heard of such a rumor, have you, Cable?"

"There has been no such tale, Miss Otterbourne, as far as I am aware.' "I cannot conceive of a girl refusing him, he is so handsome, so dignified, and

head-hunting propensities of some of the | searches in micro-organisms, by every sacred

axiom of medicine, we can confidently predict the certain death of every inhabitant in the course of the next two or three days, although, with the habitual caution of a physician, we strongest lingering until the end of the week. may admit the possibility of one or two of the But next day everything is as usual, and the

little boats that in China do duty for coffins, does not seem to be suffering from any par ticular press of business.

Formosans being as keen as those of any Dyak." In 1867 the United States consul at Amoy concluded a treaty with Tok-etok, the chief of the southern tribes, by which the latter engaged to protect any stranger who might land, and to permit the erection of a fort as a refuge for ship-fat old gentleman who constructs the queer wrecked mariners. In 1881 a lighthouse was erected at Nan-sha, the extreme south of the island, and this part of Formosa, we are told, "may now be considered tolThe island of Formosa, a third part of erably safe, but for any one in search of which only lies within the tropics, is about adventure the east coast still remains two hundred and ten miles long and sev open. It is more than doubtful, however, enty broad. The soundings in the Forwhether the results of the explorer's ex-mosa Strait, which separates the island periences would ever be given to the world." The gorges and precipices on the east coast of Formosa must be extremely grand.

from the mainland of China opposite Foo-
chow, show the island to be connected
with the mainland by a submarine bank
submerged to a depth of not more than
twenty to forty fathoms. The eastern
face of the island, on the contrary, abuts
immediately upon a deep sea, soundings
of more than a thousand fathoms being
found within a short distance of its shores.
Here, then, we have "the eastern limit of
the vast continent with which at no very
remote geological period the islands of
Borneo and Sumatra were also united."
The zoology of Formosa leads to the same
conclusion. The study of the Formosan
avi-fauna "shows that this tendency to
Indian and Malayan rather than to Chi-
nese forms is most striking." In Formosa
there are forty-three species peculiar to
the island - an enormous number, as our
author says, considering the fact that the
Chinese coast is barely sixty miles dis
tant- and of these twenty are represen-
tatives of regions other than the adjacent
mainland. The same tendency is notice-
These facts,
able among the mammals.
as the late Mr. Swinhoe and the illustrious
Mr. Wallace have shown, would lead us to
conclude that

Keelung and Tamsui in the north of the island are the principal harbors; the former town partly owes its prosperity to the proximity of some coal beds, which the Chinese have for a long time worked "in the most primitive fashion;" shafts were abandoned from having become flooded. English miners were imported in 1876, and since that time the output has been steadily increasing, as much as five hundred tons per diem being an estimated Formosa should be classed among the recent quantity. The country round Keelung is continental islands, and also that at the time charming in its rich green dress of bam- of its connection with the mainland the anboo groves and paddy; but the odors of cestors of the Formosan, Indian, and Malayan the town, which Mr. Tainter has stig-forms were equally dispersed throughout the matized as the "filthiest town in the universe," are probably unrivalled.

Japan in summer is unpleasant; China more then occasionally oversteps the limits of our powers of endurance; but for breadth and expression, for solidity, tone, and execution, the perfumes of Keelung must rank far above those of either. Here the sanitary imspector existeth not, and carbolic is a thing unknown. No respectable disease can complain of not having a fair field. By all the laws that modern science has taught us, by all our re

intervening, and at that time undivided, continent. After the separation of Formosa and the Malayan Islands, the altered geological and climatological conditions were such as to cause the disappearance of many forms of animal life, except in localities where the required conditions, such as dense forests or high mountain ranges, still remained. The immense number of peculiar species, however, tends to show that Formosa must have become detached from the mainland at some tolerably remote period, for we know, from a consideration of our own as well as of other

ter.

islands, that the progress of formation of a | various kinds, does not hold out any inspecies is one of a by no means rapid charac- ducement as a place of home residence; "the visitor, unless he be a naturalist, will subscribe to the opinion once expressed before the Geographical Society by a distinguished traveller, that Formosa, like Ireland, is a very good country to live out of."

govern

There are no active volcanoes in Formosa, but constant evidences of volcanic action throughout the island show that it forms a link in the great chain which runs from Kamschatka southward to the Philippine Islands. Hot springs and solfataFrom Formosa the Marchesa proceeded ras are found near Tamsui, and sulphur, to the Liu-Kiu (Loochoo) group of islands, though forbidden by the Chinese which lie two hundred and fifty miles ment, is produced and exported to Hong- E.N E. of Formosa. These islands have kong. The three or four millions of been seldom visited by Europeans, as Chinese that people Formosa gain their they lie far out of the beaten track, and living chiefly as cultivators of the varied the inhabitants are disinclined to permit vegetable products of the rich soil. They the exploration of their country. They are not a mining people. The country were visited by Captain Basil Hall in produces enormous quantities of rice in 1816, who gives the first detailed account the plains and also sugar; in jute, indigo, in later times, in his "Voyage of the tobacco, tea, grass cloth fibre, rattans, and Alceste and Lyra;" he describes the inrice-paper so called,* a considerable trade habitants as a quiet and peace-loving race, is carried on. The dense primeval for- to whom traders, rum, guns, and other ests of Formosa produce an almost inex-implements of civilization are practically haustible supply of camphor. The tree unknown, and whose natural tendencies which yields the camphor of commerce is seem to be towards virtue rather than vice. a kind of laurel (Camphora officinarum), The voyagers of the Marchesa were curiand the Chinese inhabitants of Formosa ous to know how far the changes of threesteadily advance in their search for this quarters of a century had served to destroy valuable wood, which fetches high prices the many charms of the self-styled "nation at Hongkong and other Chinese ports, that observes propriety;" and happily, but the export of late years has steadily as Dr. Guillemard says, they were not diminished owing to the hostility of the doomed to be disenchanted. Commodore natives, for additional ground "is only Perry, an American, whose account, howgained at the cost of many a Chinaman's ever, of the character of the inhabitants head." Formosa, though not strictly trop- does not tally with that given by Captain ical, is extremely hot; the rainfall in the Basil Hall-for he says the people are visited north and east is very heavy during the ignorant, cunning, and insincere prevalence of the north-eastern monsoon. this group of islands in 1854, and spent From November to the end of April more several months in Okinawa-sima, the than one hundred inches fall at Tamsui, largest island of the archipelago; he esdue to the Kurosiwo, or Japanese current, tablished a treaty between the two counthe Gulf Stream of the East. As the tries, in which the Liu-Kiuans agreed to monsoon blows over this heated water, show all courtesy to vessels sailing under and comes in contact with the great moun- the American flag. These islands are tain ranges in the north and centre of the partially volcanic, and "form one of the island, a surcharge of moisture is precip- links in the great plutonic chain that itated, and to the eastern coasts of China skirts the eastern shores of Asia, and, "Formosa acts as a sort of umbrella," and passing southward through the Philip the winter and spring in those Chinese pines and Moluccas, joins the southern districts are a period of almost uninter- and yet more remarkable belt which travrupted sunshine. Notwithstanding its erses Sumatra, Java, and the islands to pleasant European name, Formosa, being the eastward." Landing at Napha-Kiang no stranger to climatic eccentricities of on an excellently built pier in the inner harbor, the voyagers were beset by crowds of natives whom curiosity had attracted. It was with the utmost difficulty that they were able to make way through the dense mass of humanity which surrounded them, but there was "no disorder or horseplay, such as would have been the case in England;" not a single woman was visible, but children perched on their fathers'

The so-called rice-paper used by the Chinese for painting on is the pith of a plant of the ivy family, the Aralia papyrifera of Sir William Hooker. Dr. Guillemard says it is peculiar to Formosa, and grows wild in many parts of the island. "It is pared concentrically by hand, and the thin sheets produced are moistened and joined at the edges, and finally pressed and dried, when it is ready for the Chinese artist to depict upon it the discords in red and green he so generally

affects,"

shoulders regarded the visitors with solemn infantine wonder and quiet approval. The streets have a most peculiar appearance, for the houses are built in little compounds, separated from the street and from one another by massive walls composed of large blocks of coralline limestone, eight to fourteen feet in height and of great thickness, sloping outwards at the base like those of the old feudal castles of Japan, and beautifully built. They seem to be of great antiquity, and the islanders do not continue to build them at the present day; they were originally constructed for purposes of defence. Every man's house is literally his castle, the entrance to which is through a narrow and easily defended door in the high wall.

Within the scene changes, and in a second of time one is transported to another country. The houses, built entirely of wood, and dark brown with age, display their interior with the inviting hospitality so characteristic of Japan. The inmates, ignorant of the chairs and tables of Western civilization, recline peacefully on the thick oblong mats of plaited rice-straw, and play at shattering their nerves with the contents of liliputian teacups and still more liliputian pipes. Outside is the familiar garden that all of us, whether from books or from actual experience, know so well. The pebbly paths leading to miniature bridges over embryonic lakes, the little stone lanterns, the quaintly clipped trees-all are Japanese; and as one makes a rapid passage back to the LiuKiu Islands through the gate, not a shadow of doubt remains in one's mind as to the justice, ethnographically speaking, of their having fallen under the dominion of the Mikado.

The vice-governor of the islands was invited on one occasion to dine on board the Marchesa, and he accepted the invitation; he was accompanied by the secretary of the governor, and a little Japanese doctor called Uyeno, who, "possessed of a vocabulary of some thirty or forty English words and nearly as many French," acted as interpreter. "The conversation at first hung fire, but the champagne being very much approved of, it became more lively as dinner went on, and before long everything was progressing swimmingly.' Though knives and forks were almost unknown to the visitors, they managed them with praiseworthy dexterity after watching the right mode of using them.

one of the few things that Englishmen eat with their fingers, and, with the habitual goodbreeding of his race, endeavored to follow his host's example. Seizing the vegetable by its head, he was at first somewhat dismayed to find it come off in his fingers; but, nothing daunted, he again returned to the charge, got a firm hold lower down, and commenced operations. There are doubtless many things in the cuisine of our country which are more interesting than the butt-end of a shoot of tinned asparagus, and he was munching it with a comical air of mingled wonder and resignation, when one of us, whose gravity was least disturbed by the proceeding, took compassion on him, and mildly suggested that in general there was more nutriment to be obtained at the soft end. His advice was at once adopted, but the sudden change of expression to one of complete satisfaction and approval was so irresistibly comic that we were one and all convulsed with suppressed laughter.

Shiuri, the capital of Okinawa-sima, possesses remarkable fortifications, which include within their three lines a vast area; the masonry is almost Cyclopean in character, and the blocks of stone are joined with wonderful accuracy. Besides the three distinct lines of irregularly constructed fortifications, "there is a perfect labyrinth of smaller walls, among which it would have been no difficult matter to lose one's self; while the citadel within the inner line rises here and there into picturesque towers and battlements, delightful to an artist's eye." Some of the walls are more than sixty feet high and of enormous thickness, and in the old days of bow-and-arrow and hand-to-hand fighting must have been impregnable.

At the south end of the courtyard of the castle of Shiuri is the entrance to the ancient palace of the kings of Liu-Kiu, a holy of holies into which no European appears to have penetrated previously to Dr. Guillemard's visit. We can imagine the interest with which our author passed between the two huge stone dragons that guarded the entrance, and found himself within the sacred precincts. But, alas! there was nothing but damp and dismal "memorials of past Liu-Kiuan glory; as the visitor passed through room after room, through corridors, reception halls, women's apartments, through a perfect labyrinth of buildings, he witnessed only a state of indescribable dilapidation.

Among the many dishes that must have been new to them was asparagus, and it evi

dently puzzled them to guess its origin. Uyeno's first essay at eating it was not very successful. Looking nonchalantly around, he discovered-and, doubtless, made a mental note of the fact that this was apparently

The visit to these islands resulted in

very little in the way of curiosities or zoological specimens; there seems to be great paucity of bird life; but the shortness of the visit and the crowds by which our travellers were surrounded, prevented