CHAPTER XII.

As the company assembled in the drawing-rooms, Mr. Egerton introduced

Randal Leslie to his eminent friends in a way that greatly contrasted

the distant and admonitory manner which he had exhibited to him in

private. The presentation was made with that cordiality, and that

gracious respect by which those who are in station command notice for

those who have their station yet to win.

"My dear Lord, let me introduce to you a kinsman of my late wife's (in

a whisper)--the heir to the elder branch of her family. Stranmore,

this is Mr. Leslie, of whom I spoke to you. You, who were so

distinguished at Oxford, will not like him the worse for the prizes he

gained there. Duke, let me present to you, Mr. Leslie. The duchess is

angry with me for deserting her balls; I shall hope to make my peace,

by providing myself with a younger and livelier substitute. Ah, Mr.

Howard, here is a young gentleman just fresh from Oxford, who will

tell us all about the new sect springing up there. He has not wasted

his time on billiards and horses."

Leslie was received with all that charming courtesy which is the _To

Kalon_ of an aristocracy.

After dinner, conversation settled on politics. Randal listened with

attention and in silence, till Egerton drew him gently out; just

enough, and no more--just enough to make his intelligence evident,

without subjecting him to the charge of laying down the law. Egerton

knew how to draw out young men--a difficult art. It was one reason why

he was so peculiarly popular with the more rising members of his

party.

The party broke up early.

"We are in time for Almack's," said Egerton, glancing at the clock,

"and I have a voucher for you; come."

Randal followed his patron into the carriage. By the way, Egerton thus

addressed him--

"I shall introduce you to the principal leaders of society; know them

and study them; I do not advise you to attempt to do more--that is, to

attempt to become the fashion. It is a very expensive ambition; some

men it helps, most men it ruins. On the whole, you have better cards

in your hands. Dance or not, as it pleases you--don't flirt. If you

flirt, people will inquire into your fortune--an inquiry that will do

you little good; and flirting entangles a young man into marrying.

That would never do. Here we are."

In two minutes more they were in the great ball-room, and Randal's

eyes were dazzled with the lights, the diamonds, the blaze of beauty.

Audley presented him in quick succession to some dozen ladies, and

then disappeared amidst the crowd. Randal was not at a loss; he was

without shyness; or if he had that disabling infirmity, he concealed

it. He answered the languid questions put to him, with a certain

spirit that kept up talk, and left a favorable impression of his

agreeable qualities. But the lady with whom he got on the best, was

one who had no daughters out, a handsome and witty woman of the

world--Lady Frederick Coniers.

"It is your first ball at Almack's, then, Mr. Leslie?"

"My first."

"And you have not secured a partner? Shall I find you one? What do you

think of that pretty girl in pink?"

"I see her--but I cannot _think_ of her."

"You are rather, perhaps, like a diplomatist in a new court, and your

first object is to know who is who."

"I confess that on beginning to study the history of my own day, I

should like to distinguish the portraits that illustrate the memoir."

"Give me your arm, then, and we will come into the next room. We shall

see the different _notabilites_ enter one by one, and observe without

being observed. This is the least I can do for a friend of Mr.

Egerton's."

"Mr. Egerton, then," said Randal,--(as they threaded their way through

the space without the rope that protected the dancers)--"Mr. Egerton

has had the good fortune to win your esteem, even for his friends,

however obscure?"

"Why, to say truth, I think no one whom Mr. Egerton calls his friend

need long remain obscure, if he has the ambition to be otherwise. For

Mr. Egerton holds it a maxim never to forget a friend, nor a service."

"Ah, indeed!" said Randal, surprised.

"And, therefore," continued Lady Frederick, "as he passes through

life, friends gather round him. He will rise even higher yet.

Gratitude, Mr. Leslie, is a very good policy."

"Hem," muttered Mr. Leslie.

They had now gained the room where tea and bread and butter were the

homely refreshments to the _habitues_ of what at that day was the most

exclusive assembly in London. They ensconced themselves in a corner by

a window, and Lady Frederick performed her task of cicerone with

lively ease, accompanying each notice of the various persons who

passed panoramically before them with sketch and anecdote, sometimes

good-natured, generally satirical, always graphic and amusing.

By-and-by Frank Hazeldean, having on his arm a young lady of haughty

air, and with high though delicate features, came to the tea-table.

"The last new Guardsman," said Lady Frederick; "very handsome, and not

yet quite spoiled. But he has got into a dangerous set."

_Randal._--"The young lady with him is handsome enough to be

dangerous."

_Lady Frederick_, (laughing.)--"No danger for him there,--as yet at

least. Lady Mary (the duke of Knaresborough's daughter) is only in her

second. The first year, nothing under an earl; the second, nothing

under a baron. It will be full four years before she comes down to a

commoner. Mr. Hazeldean's danger is of another kind. He lives much

with men who are not exactly _mauvais ton_, but certainly not of the

best taste. Yet he is very young; he may extricate himself--leaving

half his fortune behind him. What, he nods to you! You know him?"

"Very well; he is nephew to Mr. Egerton."

"Indeed! I did not know that. Hazeldean is a new name in London. I

heard his father was a plain country gentleman, of good fortune, but

not that he was related to Mr. Egerton."

"Half-brother."

"Will Mr. Egerton pay the young gentleman's debts? He has no sons

himself."

_Randal._--"Mr. Egerton's fortune comes from his wife, from my

family--from a Leslie, not from a Hazeldean."

Lady Frederick turned sharply, looked at Randal's countenance with

more attention than she had yet vouchsafed to it, and tried to talk of

the Leslies. Randal was very short there.

An hour afterwards, Randal, who had not danced, was still in the

refreshment room, but Lady Frederick had long quitted him. He was

talking with some old Etonians who had recognized him, when there

entered a lady of very remarkable appearance, and a murmur passed

through the room as she appeared.

She might be three or four and twenty. She was dressed in black

velvet, which contrasted with the alabaster whiteness of her throat

and the clear paleness of her complexion, while it set off the

diamonds with which she was profusely covered. Her hair was of the

deepest jet, and worn simply braided. Her eyes, too, were dark and

brilliant, her features regular and striking; but their expression,

when in repose, was not prepossessing to such as love modesty and

softness in the looks of woman. But when she spoke and smiled, there

was so much spirit and vivacity in the countenance, so much

fascination in the smile, that all which might before have marred the

effect of her beauty, strangely and suddenly disappeared.

"Who is that very handsome woman?" asked Randal.

"An Italian--a Marchesa something," said one of the Etonians.

"Di Negra," suggested another, who had been abroad; "she is a widow;

her husband was of the great Genoese family of Negra--a younger branch

of it."

Several men now gathered thickly around the fair Italian. A few ladies

of the highest rank spoke to her, but with a more distant courtesy

than ladies of high rank usually show to foreigners of such quality as

Madame di Negra. Ladies of a rank less elevated seemed rather shy of

her;--that might be from jealousy. As Randall gazed at the Marchesa

with more admiration than any woman, perhaps, had before excited in

him, he heard a voice near him say--

"Oh, Madame di Negra is resolved to settle amongst us, and marry an

Englishman."

"If she can find one sufficiently courageous," returned a female

voice.

"Well, she is trying hard for Egerton, and he has courage enough for

any thing."

The female voice replied with a laugh, "Mr. Egerton knows the world

too well, and has resisted too many temptations, to be--"

"Hush!--there he is."

Egerton came into the room with his usual firm step and erect mien.

Randal observed that a quick glance was exchanged between him and the

Marchesa; but the Minister passed her by with a bow.

Still Randal watched, and, ten minutes afterwards, Egerton and the

Marchesa were seated apart in the very same convenient nook that

Randal and Lady Frederick had occupied an hour or so before.

"Is this the reason why Mr. Egerton so insultingly warns me against

counting on his fortune?" muttered Randal. "Does he mean to marry

again?"

Unjust suspicion!--for, at that moment these were the words that

Audley Egerton was dropping forth from his lips of bronze--

"Nay, dear Madam, do not ascribe to my frank admiration more gallantry

that it merits. Your conversation charms me, your beauty delights me;

your society is as a holiday that I look forward to in the fatigues of

my life. But I have done with love, and I shall never marry again."

"You almost pique me into trying to win, in order to reject you," said

the Italian, with a flash from her bright eyes.

"I defy even you," answered Audley, with his cold hard smile. "But to

return to the point: You have more influence at least over this subtle

Ambassador; and the secret we speak of I rely on you to obtain me. Ah,

Madam, let us rest friends. You see I have conquered the unjust

prejudice against you; you are received and _feted_ every where, as

becomes your birth and your attractions. Rely on me ever, as I on you.

But I shall excite too much envy if I stay here longer, and am vain

enough to think that I may injure you if I provoke the gossip of the

ill-natured. As the avowed friend, I can serve you--as the supposed

lover, No--" Audley rose, as he said this, and, standing by the chair,

added carelessly, "Apropos, the sum you do me the honor to borrow will

be paid to your bankers to-morrow."

"A thousand thanks!--my brother will hasten to repay you."

Audley bowed. "Your brother, I hope, will repay me in person, not

before. When does he come?"

"Oh, he has again postponed his visit _to_ London; he is so much

needed in Vienna. But while we are talking of him, allow me to ask if

Lord L'Estrange is indeed still so bitter against that poor brother of

mine?"

"Still the same!"

"It is shameful," cried the Italian with warmth; "what has my brother

ever done to him, that he should intrigue against the Count in his own

court?"

"Intrigue! I think you wrong Lord L'Estrange; he but represented what

he believed to be the truth, in defence of a ruined exile."

"And you will not tell me where that exile is, or if his daughter

still lives?"

"My dear Marchesa, I have called you friend, therefore, I will not aid

L'Estrange to injure you or yours. But I call L'Estrange a friend

also; and I cannot violate the trust that--" Audley stopped short, and

bit his lip. "You understand me," he resumed, with a genial smile, and

took his leave.

The Italian's brows met as her eye followed him; then, as she too

rose, that eye encountered Randal's. Each surveyed the other--each

felt a certain strange fascination--a sympathy--not of affection, but

of intellect.

"That young man has the eye of an Italian," said the Marchesa to

herself; and as she passed by him into the ball-room, she turned and

smiled.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Continued from page 557, vol. iii.

[9] If, at the date in which Lord L'Estrange held this conversation

with Mr. Egerton, Alfred de Musset had written his comedies, we should

suspect that his lordship had plagiarized from one of them the

whimsical idea that he here vents upon Audley. In repeating it, the

author at least cannot escape from the charge of obligation to a

writer whose humor, at least, is sufficiently opulent to justify the

loan.

From the London Examiner.

IMAGINARY CONVERSATION AT WARSAW.

NICHOLAS AND NESSELRODE.

BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

_Nicholas._--God fights for us visibly. You look grave, Nesselrode! is

it not so? Speak, and plainly.

_Nesselrode._--Sire, in my humble opinion, God never fights at all.

_Nicholas._--Surely he fought for Israel, when he was invoked by

prayer.

_Nesselrode._--Sire, I am no theologian; and I fancy I must be a bad

geographer, since I never knew of a nation which was not Israel when

it had a mind to shed blood and to pray. To fight is an exertion, is

violence; the Deity in His omnipotence needs none. He has devils and

men always in readiness for fighting; and they are the instruments of

their own punishment for their past misdeeds.

_Nicholas._--The chariots of God are numbered by thousands in the

volumes of the Psalmist.

_Nesselrode._--No psalmist, or engineer, or commissary, or

arithmetician, could enumerate the beasts that are harnessed to them,

or the fiends that urge them on.

_Nicholas._--Nesselrode! you grow more and more serious.

_Nesselrode._--Age, sire, even without wisdom, makes men serious

whether they are inclined or not. I could hardly have been so long

conversant in the affairs of mankind (all which in all quarters your

majesty superintends and directs) without much cause for seriousness.

_Nicholas._--I feel the consciousness of Supreme Power, but I also

feel the necessity of subordinate help.

_Nesselrode._--Your majesty is the first monarch, since the earlier

Caesars of Imperial Rome, who could control, directly or indirectly,

every country in our hemisphere, and thereby in both.

_Nicholas._--There are some who do not see this.

_Nesselrode._--There were some, and they indeed the most acute and

politic of mankind, who could not see the power of the Macedonian king

until he showed his full height upon the towers of Cheronoea. There

are some at this moment in England who disregard the admonitions of

the most wary and experienced general of modern times, and listen in

preference to babblers holding forth on economy and peace from

slippery sacks of cotton and wool.

_Nicholas._--Hush! hush! these are our men; what should we do without

them? A single one of them in the parliament or town-hall is worth to

me a regiment of cuirassiers. These are the true bullets with conical

heads which carry far and sure. Hush! hush!

_Nesselrode._--They do not hear us: they do not hear Wellington: they

would not hear Nelson were he living.

_Nicholas._--No other man that ever lived, having the same power in

his hands, would have endured with the same equanimity as Wellington,

the indignities he suffered in Portugal; superseded in the hour of

victory by two generals, one upon another, like marsh frogs; people of

no experience, no ability. He might have become king of Portugal by

compromise, and have added Gallicia and Biscay.

_Nesselrode._--The English, out of parliament, are delicate and

fastidious. He would have thought it dishonorable to profit by the

indignation of his army in the field, and of his countrymen at home.

Certainty that Bonaparte would attempt to violate any engagement with

him might never enter into the computation; for Bonaparte could less

easily drive him again out of Portugal than he could drive the usurper

out of Spain. We ourselves should have assisted him actively; so would

the Americans; for every naval power would be prompt at diminishing

the preponderance of the English. Practicability was here with

Wellington; but, endowed with it a keener and a longer foresight than

any of his contemporaries, he held in prospective the glory that

awaited him, and felt conscious that to be the greatest man in England

is somewhat more than to be the greatest in Portugal. He is

universally called _the_ duke; to the extinction or absorption of that

dignity over all the surface of the earth: in Portugal he could only

be called king of Portugal.

_Nicholas._--Faith! that is little: it was not overmuch even before

the last accession. I admire his judgment and moderation. The English

are abstinent: they rein in their horses where the French make them

fret and curvett. It displeases me to think it possible that a subject

should ever become a sovran. We were angry with the Duke of Sudermania

for raising a Frenchman to that dignity in Sweden, although we were

willing that Gustavus, for offences and affronts to our family, should

be chastized, and even expelled. Here was a bad precedent. Fortunately

the boldest soldiers dismount from their chargers at some distance

from the throne. What withholds them?

_Nesselrode._--Spells are made of words. The word _service_ among the

military has great latent negative power. All modern nations, even the

free, employ it.

_Nicholas._--An excellent word indeed! It shows the superiority of

modern languages over ancient; Christian ideas over pagan; living

similitudes of God over bronze and marble. What an escape had England

from her folly, perversity, and injustice! Her admirals had the same

wrongs to avenge: her fleets would have anchored in Ferrol and Coruna;

thousands of volunteers from every part of both islands would have

assembled round the same standard; and both Indies would have bowed

before the conqueror. Who knows but that Spain herself might have

turned to the same quarter, from the idiocy of Ferdinand, the

immorality of Joseph, and the perfidy of Napoleon?

_Nesselrode._--England seems to invite and incite, not only her

colonies, but her commanders, to insurrection. Nelson was treated even

more ignominiously than Wellington. A man equal in abilities and in

energy to either met with every affront from the East India Company.

After two such victories in succession as the Duke himself declared

before the Lords that he had never known or read of, he was removed

from the command of his army, and a general by whose rashness it was

decimated was raised to the peerage. If Wellington could with safety

have seized the supreme power in Portugal, Napier could with greater

have accomplished it in India. The distance from home was farther; the

army more confident; the allies more numerous, more unanimous. One

avenger of _their_ wrongs would have found a million avengers of

_his_. Affghanistan, Cabul, and Scinde, would have united their

acclamations on the Ganges: songs of triumph, succeeded by songs of

peace, would have been chanted at Delhi, and have re-echoed at

Samarcand.

_Nicholas._--I am desirous that Persia and India should pour their

treasures into my dominions. The English are so credulous as to

believe that I intend, or could accomplish, the conquest of Hindostan.

I want only the commerce; and I hope to share it with the Americans;

not I indeed, but my successors. The possession of California has

opened the Pacific and the Indian seas to the Americans, who must,

within the life-time of some now born, predominate in both. Supposing

that emigrants to the amount of only a quarter of a million settle in

the United States every year, within a century from the present day,

their population must exceed three hundred millions. It will not

extend from pole to pole, only because there will be room enough

without it.

_Nesselrode._--Religious wars, the most sanguinary of any, are stifled

in the fields of agriculture; creeds are thrown overboard by commerce.

_Nicholas._--Theological questions come at last to be decided by the

broadsword; and the best artillery brings forward the best arguments.

Montecuculi and Wallenstein were irrefragable doctors. Saint Peter was

commanded to put up his sword; but the ear was cut off first.

_Nesselrode._--The blessed saint's escape from capital punishment,

after this violence, is among the greatest of miracles. Perhaps there

may be a perplexity in the text. Had he committed so great a crime

against a person so highly protected as one in the high-priest's

household, he never would have lived long enough to be crucified at

Rome, but would have carried his cross up to Calvary three days after

the offence. The laws of no country would tolerate it.

_Nicholas._--How did he ever get to Rome at all? He must have been

conveyed by an angel, or have slipt on a sudden into a railroad train,

purposely and for the nonce provided. There is a controversy at the

present hour about his delegated authority, and it appears to be next

to certain that he never was in the capital of the west. It is my

interest to find it decided in the negative. Successors to the

emperors of the east, who sanctioned and appointed the earliest popes,

as the bishops of Rome are denominated, I may again at my own good

time claim the privilege and prerogative. The cardinals and their

subordinates are extending their claws in all directions: we must

throw these crabs upon their backs again.

_Nesselrode._--Some among the Italians, and chiefly among the Romans,

are venturing to express an opinion that there would be less of false

religion, and more of true, if no priest of any description were left

upon earth.

_Nicholas._--Horrible! unless are exempted those of the venerable

Greek church. All others worship graven images: we stick to pictures.

_Nesselrode._--One scholar mentioned, not without an air of derision,

that a picture had descended from heaven recently on the coast of

Italy.

_Nicholas._--Framed? varnisht? under glass? on panel? on canvas? What

like?

_Nesselrode._--The Virgin Mary, whatever made of.

_Nicholas._--She must be ours then. She missed her road: she never

would have taken her place among stocks and stones and blind

worshipers. Easterly winds must have blown her toward a pestilential

city, where at every street-corner is very significantly inscribed its

true name at full length, _Immondezzaio_. But I hope I am guilty of no

profaneness or infidelity when I express a doubt if every picture of

the Blessed Virgin is sentient; most are; perhaps not every one. If

they want her in England, as they seem to do, let them have her ...

unless it is the one that rolls the eyes: in that case I must claim

her: she is too precious by half for papist or tractarian. I must

order immediately these matters. No reasonable doubt can be

entertained that I am the visible head of Christ's church. Theologians

may be consulted in regard to St. Peter, and may discover a manuscript

at Novgorod, stating his martyrdom there, and proving his will and

signature.

_Nesselrode._--Theologians may find perhaps in the _Revelations_ some

Beast foreshadowing your Majesty.

_Nicholas._--How? sir! how?

_Nesselrode._--Emperors and kings, we are taught, are designated as

great beasts in the Holy Scriptures ... (_Aside_) ... and elsewhere.

SECOND CONVERSATION.

_Nicholas._--We have disposed of our brother, his Prussian Majesty,

who appeared to be imprest by the apprehension that a portion of his

dominions was in jeopardy.

_Nesselrode._--Possibly the scales of Europe are yet to be adjusted.

_Nicholas._--When the winds blow high they must waver. Against the

danger of contingencies, and in readiness to place my finger on the

edge of one or other, it is my intention to spend in future a good

part of my time at Warsaw, that city being so nearly central in my

dominions. Good Nesselrode! there should have been a poet near you to

celebrate the arching of your eyebrows. They suddenly dropt down again

under the horizontal line of your Emperor's. Nobody ever stared in my

presence; but I really do think you were upon the verge of it when I

inadvertently said _dominions_ instead of _dependencies_. Well, well:

dependencies are dominions; and of all dominions they require the

least trouble.

_Nesselrode._--Your Majesty has found no difficulty with any,

excepting the Circassians.

_Nicholas._--The Circassians are the Normans of Asia; equally brave,

more generous, more chivalrous. I am no admirer of military trinkets;

but I have been surprised at the beauty of their chain-armor, the

temper of their swords, the richness of hilt, and the gracefulness of

baldric.

_Nesselrode._--It is a pity they are not Christians and subjects of

your Majesty.

_Nicholas._--If they would become my subjects, I would let them, as I

have let other Mahometans, become Christians at their leisure. We must

brigade them before baptism.

_Nesselrode._--It is singular that this necessity never struck those

religious men who are holding peace conferences in various parts of

Europe.

_Nicholas._--One of them, I remember, tried to persuade the people of

England that if the bankers of London would negotiate no loan with me

I could carry on no war.

_Nesselrode._--Wonderful! how ignorant are monied men of money

matters. Your Majesty was graciously pleased to listen to my advice

when hostilities seemed inevitable. I was desirous of raising the

largest loan possible, that none should be forthcoming to the urgency

of others. At that very moment your Majesty had in your coffers more

than sufficient for the additional expenditure of three campaigns.

Well may your Majesty smile at this computation, and at the blindness

that suggested it. For never will your Majesty send an army into any

part of Europe which shall not maintain itself there by its own

prowess. Your cavalry will seize all the provisions that are not

stored up within the fortresses; and in every army those are to be

found who for a few thousand roubles are ready to blow up their

ammunition-wagons. We know by name almost every discontented man in

Europe.

_Nicholas._--To obtain this information, my yearly expenses do not

exceed the revenues of half a dozen English bishops. Every

_table-d'hote_ on the continent, you tell me, has one daily guest sent

by me. Ladies in the higher circles have taken my presents and

compliments, part in diamonds and part in smiles. An emperor's smiles

are as valuable to them as theirs are to a cornet of dragoons. Spare

nothing in the boudoir and you spare much in the field.

_Nesselrode._--Such appears to have been the invariable policy of the

Empress Catharine, now with God.

_Nicholas._--My father of glorious memory was less observant of it. He

had prejudices and dislikes; he expected to find every body a

gentleman, even kings and ministers. If they were so, how could he

have hoped to sway them? and how to turn them from the strait road

into his?

_Nesselrode._--Your Majesty is far above the influence of antipathies;

but I have often heard your Majesty express your hatred, and sometimes

your contempt, of Bonaparte.

_Nicholas._--I hated him for his insolence, and I despised him alike

for his cowardice and falsehood. Shame is the surest criterion of

humanity. When one is wanting, the other is. The beasts never indicate

shame in a state of nature; in society some of them acquire it;

Bonaparte not. He neither blushed at repudiating a modest woman, nor

at supplanting her by an immodest one. Holding a pistol to the

father's ear, he ordered him to dismount from his carriage; to deliver

up his ring, his watch, his chain, his seal, his knee-buckle;

stripping off galloon from trouser, and presently trouser too: caught,

pinioned, sentenced, he fell on both knees in the mud, and implored

this poor creature's intercession to save him from the hangman. He

neither blushed at the robbery of a crown nor at the fabrication of

twenty. He was equally ungrateful in public life and in private. He

banished Barras, who promoted and protected him: he calumniated the

French admiral, whose fleet for his own safety he detained on the

shores of Egypt, and the English admiral who defeated him in Syria

with a tenth of his force. Baffled as he often was, and at last

fatally, and admirably as in many circumstances he knew how to be a

general, never in any did he know how to be a gentleman. He was fond

of displaying the picklock keys whereby he found entrance into our

cabinets, and of twitching the ears of his accomplices.

_Nesselrode._--Certainly he was less as an emperor than as a soldier.

_Nicholas._--Great generals may commit grievous and disastrous

mistakes, but never utterly ruinous. Charles V., Gustavus Adolphus,

Peter the Great, Frederic of Prussia, Prince Eugene, Marlborough,

William, Wellington, kept their winnings, and never hazarded the last

crown-piece. Bonaparte, when he had swept the tables, cried _double or

quits_.

_Nesselrode._--The wheel of Fortune is apt to make men giddier, the

higher it rises and the quicklier it turns: sometimes it drops them on

a barren rock, and sometimes on a treadmill. The nephew is more

prudent than the uncle.

_Nicholas._--You were extremely wise, my dear Nesselrode, in

suggesting our idea to the French President, and in persuading him to

acknowledge in the face of the world that he had been justly

imprisoned by Louis Philippe for attempting to subvert the existing

powers. Frenchmen are taught by this declaration what they may expect

for a similar crime against his own pretensions. We will show our

impartiality by an equal countenance and favor toward all parties. In

different directions all are working out the design of God, and

producing unity of empire "on earth as it is in heaven." Until this

consummation there can never be universal or indeed any lasting peace.

_Nesselrode._--This, lying far remote, I await your Majesty's commands

for what is now before us. Your Majesty was graciously pleased to

express your satisfaction at the manner in which I executed them in

regard to the President of the French Republic.

_Nicholas._--Republic indeed! I have ordered it to be a crime in

France to utter this odious name. President forsooth! we have directed

him hitherto; let him now keep his way. Our object was to stifle the

spirit of freedom: we tossed the handkerchief to him, and he found the

chloroform. Every thing is going on in Europe exactly as I desire; we

must throw nothing in the way to shake the machine off the rail. It is

running at full speed where no whistle can stop it. Every prince is

exasperating his subjects, and exhausting his treasury in order to

keep them under due control. What nation on the continent, mine

excepted, can maintain for two years longer its present war

establishment? And without this engine of coercion what prince can be

the master of his people? England is tranquil at home; can she

continue so when a foreigner would place a tiara over her crown,

telling her who shall teach and what shall be taught. Principally,

that where masses are not said for departed souls, better it would be

that there were no souls at all, since they certainly must be damned.

The school which doubts it is denounced as godless.

_Nesselrode._--England, sire, is indeed tranquil at home; but that

home is a narrow one, and extends not across the Irish channel. Every

colony is dissatisfied and disturbed. No faith has been kept with any

of them by the secretary now in office. At the Cape of Good Hope,

innumerable nations, warlike and well-armed, have risen up

simultaneously against her; and, to say nothing of the massacres in

Ceylon, your Majesty well knows what atrocities her Commissioner has

long exercised in the Seven Isles. England looks on and applauds,

taking a hearty draught of Lethe at every sound of the scourge.

_Nicholas._--Nesselrode! You seem indignant. I see only the cheerful

sparks of a fire at which our dinner is to be dressed; we shall soon

sit down to it; Greece must not call me away until I rise from the

dessert; I will then take my coffee at Constantinople. The crescent

ere long will become the full harvest-moon. Our reapers have already

the sickles in their hands.

_Nesselrode._--England may grumble.

_Nicholas._--So she will. She is as ready now to grumble as she

formerly was to fight. She grumbles too early; she fights too late.

Extraordinary men are the English. They raise the hustings higher than

the throne; and, to make amends, being resolved to build a new palace,

they push it under an old bridge. The Cardinal, in his way to the

Abbey, may in part disrobe at it. Noble vestry-room! where many

habiliments are changed. Capacious dovecote! where carrier-pigeons and

fantails and croppers, intermingled with the more ordinary, bill and

coo, ruffle and smoothen their feathers, and bend their versicolor

necks to the same corn.

From Bentley's Miscellany for July.

LONDON, PARIS, AND NEW-YORK.

Standing in the City Hall, New-York, and drawing from that point a

circle whose radius shall be three miles, we embrace a population of

three-quarters of a million. We say this at the outset, by way of

securing respect for our theme.

New-York is a mere Jonah's gourd or Jack the Giant-killer's beanstalk

compared with London. London was London when St. Paul was a prisoner

in Rome, ten years before the destruction of Jerusalem. Sixteen

hundred years afterwards, when New-York was but just named, London

lost some seventy thousand inhabitants by the plague, and more than

thirteen thousand houses by the Great Fire, and hardly missed them.

Before this period, however, the little Dutch town of Niew Amsterdam,

called by the aborigines Manahatta, or Manhattan, had commenced a

dozing existence, under the government of Walter the Doubter and Peter

the Headstrong, celebrated by that great chronicler, Diedrich

Knickerbocker. Some consider this a mythic period, and class the

legends of Wilhelmus Van Kieft's wisdom, and Peter Stuyvesant's valor,

with the stories of Romulus and Remus, and the Horatii and Curiatii.

But to cast any doubt upon a historian like Knickerbocker--the Grote

of colonial history--at once minute and philosophical, just and

enthusiastic--is surely unwise. His picture of the portly burghers of

Niew Amsterdam, their habits and manners, pursuits, politics, and

laws, is verified by the impress left on their descendants. All the

foreign floods that have swept over the city have not been able to

wash out the footsteps of the original settlers; and Walter the

Doubter and Peter the Headstrong still figure, it is said, in the

Assembly of the City Fathers, though the voluminous nether

habiliments, which characterized them of old, have dwindled to the

modern pantaloon.

Casting our eyes backward for a moment, let us imagine the condition

of things before English innovation had interfered with the quiet

current of Dutch ideas in the metropolis of the West. "The modern

spectator," says our historian, "who wanders through the streets of

this populous city, can scarcely form an idea of their appearance in

the primitive days of the Doubter. The grass grew quietly in the

highways; bleating sheep and frolicksome calves sported about that

verdant ridge where now the Broadway loungers take their morning

stroll. The cunning fox and ravenous wolf skulked in the woods where

now are to be seen the dens of the righteous fraternity of

money-brokers. The houses of the higher class were generally

constructed of wood, excepting the gable end, which was of small black

and yellow Dutch bricks, and always faced the street. The house was

always furnished with abundance of large doors, and small windows on

every floor; the date of its erection was curiously designated by iron

figures on the front, and on the top of the roof was perched a fierce

weathercock, to let the family know which way the wind blew. The front

door was never opened, except on marriages, funerals, New Year's days,

the festival of St. Nicholas, or some such great occasion * * *. A

passion for cleanliness was the leading principle in domestic economy.

The whole house was constantly in a state of inundation, under the

discipline of mops and brooms, and scrubbing-brushes; and the good

housewives of that day were a kind of amphibious animal, delighting

exceedingly to be dabbling in water; insomuch, that many of them grew

to have webbed fingers like a duck. In those happy days a

well-regulated family always rose with the dawn, dined at eleven, and

went to bed at sundown. Fashionable parties were confined to the

higher class, or _noblesse_; that is to say, such as kept their own

cows or drove their own wagons. The company commonly assembled at

three o'clock, and went away about six; unless it was winter-time,

when the fashionable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies

might get home before dark. At these tea-parties the utmost propriety

and dignity of deportment prevailed. No flirting or coquetting; no

gambling of old ladies, nor chattering and romping of young ones; no

self-satisfied strutting of wealthy gentlemen with their brains in

their pockets," &c.

Speaking further of the ladies, Mr. Knickerbocker says: "Their hair,

untortured by the abominations of art, was scrupulously pomatumed back

from their foreheads with a candle, and covered with a little cap of

quilted calico. Their petticoats of linsey-woolsey, were striped with

a variety of gorgeous dyes, and all of their own manufacture. These

were the honest days, in which every woman stayed at home, read the

Bible, and wore pockets, and that too of a goodly size, fashioned with

patch-work of many curious devices, and ostentatiously worn on the

outside. Every good housewife made the clothes of her husband and

family," &c.

Such and so homely was the germ of the present goodly town that sits,

like a queen, throned between two mighty streams, with a magnificent

bay at her feet. Marks of her Dutch origin were numerous a few years

since, and are still to be found, though sparely. Of the national

customs enumerated and described by the veracious Diedrich, we find at

the present day but few. The last of the gable-fronted houses, with

curious steps in the brickwork on the sides of the peak, disappeared

some years since. Calves never frisk in Broadway now, though they

sometimes pass through it tied in carts, in defiance of humanity and

decency. The year of building is no longer written in iron on the

fronts of the houses, for

"Panting Time toils after us in vain,"

and chronology is out of date. Large doors have now large windows to

keep them company, and weather-cocks are rendered unnecessary by the

arrival of vessels from some part of the earth with every wind that

blows. The front door is now opened to every body but the master of

the house, who goes out of it in the morning not to see it again till

evening. The practice of daily inundation is now nearly limited to the

street, since Kidderminster, Brussels, and Wilton, conspire to cover

every inch of floor; but the annual house-cleaning is still in full

vogue, and no amount of slop, discomfort, destruction, and

self-sacrifice, is considered too great in the accomplishment of this

civic festival. As to rising with the dawn, the citizen of to-day

considers breakfast-time daybreak; and the dinner-hour is as various

as the fluctuations of business and pleasure. "Fashionable society"

has, at present, no very decided limits, as few of the inhabitants

keep a cow, and many of the highest pretenders to _bon ton_ do not

drive their own wagons--getting home before dark! New-York ladies make

a point of getting home before light; and if they assemble at three

o'clock it is for a _dejeuner_, or a _matinee dansante_. As for Mr.

Knickerbocker's further characterization of the genteel manners of the

olden time, it would be unhandsome in us to pursue our

counter-picture; but this we will say, in mere justice, and all joking

aside, that there are no gambling ladies in New-York, either young or

old.

Thinking of New-York in her early life, we were about to say that from

1614 to 1674 she was a mere shuttlecock between the Dutch and English;

but the recollection that neither of the contending parties ever

tossed her towards the other, spoiled our figure, and we find her more

like the unfortunate baby whom it took all Solomon's wisdom to save

from utter destruction between rival mothers. The Dutch certainly had

the prior claim; but that circumstance, though something in a case of

maternity, seems far from conclusive in the matter of adoption. The

little Dutch city had accumulated a thousand inhabitants, and wrenched

from the home government leave to govern itself, by the aid of a

schout, burgomasters, and schepens, when King Charles II., of pious

memory, coolly gave a grant of the entire province to his brother

James, Duke of York, who forthwith proved his right (that of the

strongest), and put an English governor in place of Peter Stuyvesant,

called by Knickerbocker, "a tough, valiant, sturdy, weather-beaten,

mettlesome, obstinate, leathern-sided, lion-hearted, generous-spirited

old governor," who nearly burst with rage when obliged to sign the

capitulation, and who finished by dying of sheer mortification on

hearing that the combined English and French fleets had beaten the

Dutch under De Ruyter. Nine years after, the tables were turned, and

Dutch rule once more brought in sour-krout and oly-koeks; but, in

1674, New-York became English by treaty, and so remained until

November, 1783.

Since that epoch, although growth and prosperity have been the general

rule, yet the island city has had her ups and downs, by means of fire,

pestilence, war, embargo, mobs, &c., quite enough to stimulate the

energy of her sons and ripen the wisdom of her councils. In 1825, the

completion of the Erie Canal, which united the Atlantic with the great

lakes, gave a prodigious impulse to trade. In 1832 came the cholera,

threatening utter desolation; and in 1835 a fire, which consumed

property worth twenty millions of dollars. Yet, in 1842, the Great

Aqueduct was finished, at a cost of thirteen million dollars. Thus

much premised, let us look at New-York of to-day.

"She has no time

To looken backe, her eyne be fixed before."

In describing American towns, if we would make our picture a likeness,

we must

"Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of the minute."

The New-York of 1851 resembles her of fifty years ago scarcely more

than the West End of London resembles Birmingham or Bristol. In 1800,

one might easily believe the old story, that the streets were

originally laid out by the cows, as they went out to pasture and

returned at evening. Streets running in all sorts of curves crossed

each other at all conceivable angles, making a maze without a plan,

through which strangers needed to drop beans, like the children in the

fairy-tale, to avoid being wholly lost. Fortunately, the city is not

very wide, so that Broadway, which always ran lengthwise through the

centre, has served as a tolerable clue from the beginning. Great

sacrifices have been made for the sake of regularity, and there is now

a tolerable degree of it, even in the old, or south part of the city,

cross streets running from Broadway to either river with an approach

to parallelism. In the early time, the town presented no bad

resemblance in shape to the phenomenon called a "mackerel sky,"

Broadway representing the spine, and the streets running to either

river the ribs, while northward and southward was a tapering off; on

the south, where the Battery juts into the bay, and on the north,

where the uppermost houses gradually narrowed till Broadway came to an

end, with few buildings on either side of it. But in these later days,

when Knickerbocker limits no longer confine the heterogeneous

thousands that have pushed the old race from their stools, sixteen

great avenues, each a hundred feet wide, run parallel with Broadway

and the rivers, cut at right angles by wide streets, lined with costly

dwellings, churches, schools, and other edifices. As is usual in great

commercial towns, the lowest portion of the population haunt the

neighborhood of the wharfs; and, in New-York, the eastern side of the

city in particular attracts this class. But, perhaps, no city of the

size has fewer streets of squalid poverty, although the encouragement

given to immigration is such that there must necessarily be great

numbers of wretched immigrants who have neither the will nor the power

to live by honest industry. It is in truth for this class of persons

that hospitals and penitentiaries are here built, foreigners supplying

at least nine-tenths of the inmates of those institutions in New-York.

As to clean and healthy streets, the upper and newer part of the city

has, of course, the advantage. It is laid out with special attention

to drainage, for which the ridged shape of the ground affords great

facility; the island on which New-York is built being highest in the

middle, and sloping off, east and west, towards the Hudson and East

Rivers.

Manhattan island is about fourteen miles long, with an average breadth

of one mile and a half, the greatest width being two and a half miles.

At the southerly point of the island, where the Hudson unites with the

strait called the East River, lies one of the finest harbors in the

world, affording anchorage for ships of the largest size, and

surrounded by cultivated land and elegant residences. Several

fortified islands diversify this bay, and numerous forts occupy the

points and headlands on either side. The general appearance of the bay

is that of great beauty, of the milder sort. The shores are rather

low, but finely wooded, and the approach to the city from the ocean

very striking. The battery, a promenade covered with fine old trees,

offers a rural front, but the forests of masts stretching far up

either river attract the stranger's attention much more forcibly. The

_coup d'oeil_ is here magnificent. Brooklyn, on Long Island, a large

city, whose white columned streets gleam along the heights, giving a

palatial grandeur to the view, is just opposite New-York, on the

south-east, and divided from it by so narrow a strait that it appears

more truly to be a part of it than the Surrey side of the Thames to

belong to London, although the rush of commerce forbids bridges. On

the west side, the banks of the Hudson are lined with towns, an

outcrop of the central metropolis.

Entering the city from any quarter, we are sure to find ourselves in

Broadway, long the pride of the inhabitants, though its glories are

rather traditional than actual, as compared with the greatest

thoroughfares of commerce in older cities. It extends, eighty feet in

width, two miles and a half in a straight line, northward from the

Battery; and then, making a slight deflection at Union Park, runs on,

_ad infinitum_, though it is at present but sparely built after

another mile or so. Nearly all the best shops in the retail trade are

in this street, some of them comparable to the richest of London and

Paris, and the whole affording means for every device of elegant

decoration and boundless expenditure. Residences here are

comparatively few, especially in the lower part, the din of business

and the ceaseless thunder of omnibuses having driven far away every

family that has the liberty of choice. Many churches still exist in

Broadway, which, on Sunday, is as quiet as any other street. Other

architectural decorations there are few. The City Hall, a costly

building of white marble, too long and low to make a dignified

appearance, but standing in a well-wooded park, of some eleven or

twelve acres in extent, has a certain beauty, especially when seen

gleaming through the spray of a fountain, which sends up a tall jet at

some distance in front of the building. Farther on is a hospital, of

rather ancient date for this western world--built in 1775, and now

surrounded by venerable trees, and clothed in the richest ivy. After

this, scarcely a break in the line of dazzling shops, until we reach

the vicinity of Union Square, a pretty oval park, with a noble

fountain in the midst, and lofty and handsome houses all round,

situated on perhaps the highest ground on this part of the island.

Half a mile beyond is Madison Square, a green expanse, about which

wealthy citizens are now building elegant residences of brown

freestone, with some attempt at architectural display. Near this,

still northward, is the lower or distributing reservoir of the Croton

Aqueduct, standing on high ground, and looking something like a

fortress--no great ornament, perhaps, but an object of much interest.

Fifth Avenue, on the west of Broadway, stretching north from

Washington Square--an inclosure of about ten acres, well planted with

elms and maples--it is the Belgravia of New-York--in the estimation of

those who inhabit it; a paradise of marble, upholstery and cabinet

work, at least; not much dignified, as yet, by works of high art,

though the region boasts a few specimens, ancient and modern; but in

luxury and extravagance emulating the repudiated aristocracy of the

old world. This is, and is to be, a street of palaces and churches

throughout its whole extent, always provided that the changeful

current of Fashion do not set in some other direction too soon,

carrying with it all the _millionaires_ that are yet to arise within

the century. In that event, the costly mansions of Fifth Avenue will

inevitably become hotels and boarding-houses,--a reverse which so many

grandly intended houses of elder New-York have already experienced.

The distinction of East and West is marked in New-York as in London,

though for different reasons. In London, the prevalence of westerly

winds drives the surge waves of coal-smoke eastward, blackening every

thing; in New-York the western part of the town is cleaner, because

newer and built on a better plan. Broadway is the dividing line; and

it is a violent strain upon one's standing in fashionable life to live

eastward of it, below Union Square, even in the most expensive style.

But the eastward world has its own great thoroughfare, wider than

Broadway, though not as long, running nearly parallel with the main

artery of the grander world. The Bowery--so called when it was the

high road leading through the public farms or _Boweries_--is a sort of

exaggerated Bishopsgate-street and Shoreditch united; more trades and

callings, more articles offered for sale in the open air, more noise,

more people, and at least as much natural, undisguised, vulgar life. A

railway for horse-carriages passes through it, and hundreds of

omnibuses and stage coaches, not to speak of carts and country wagons

without number. A "rowdy" theatre or two, a hay-market, great

clothing-shops, and livery-stables, a riding-school, an anatomical

museum--such are its ornaments. Not a church countenances its entire

length, nor any other public building aiming at elegance or dignity.

The goods displayed in the windows are of a secondary quality, at

best; and the people who throng the pavements are people who want

second-rate articles. Yet the Bowery is worth walking through by a

stranger, little as it is known or valued by the native citizen, whose

lot has been cast in choicer neighborhood. The common pulse of

humanity beats audibly and visibly there, wrapped in no cloak of

convention or pseudo-refinement. The fundamental business of life is

carried on there as being confessedly the main business; not, as in

Broadway, as if it were a thing to be huddled into a corner to make

way for the carved-work and gilding, the drapery and color of the

great panorama. There is another reason why the Bowery has a claim on

our attention. Strange as it may seem, it is from the people who haunt

the Bowery that the United States take their character abroad.

Foreigners insist upon considering the "Bowery b'hoys,"--a class at

once an enigma and a terror to the greater portion of their

fellow-citizens,--as distinctive specimens of Americanism, much to the

horror of their more fastidious countrymen. This we think a great

mistake, though truly there are worse people in the world than the

"Bowery b'hoys," who are noted for a sort of _bonhomie_, in the midst

of all their coarseness.

As to parks and public promenades, New-York is lamentably

deficient--the whole space thus appropriated being hardly more than

eighty acres, for the refreshment of a population which will soon

cease to be counted by hundreds of thousands. "Eight million dollars

worth of land," say the city fathers, "is as much as we can afford!"

The penurious estimate which has resulted in this miserable deficiency

has been long and ably combated by patriotic and clear-headed

citizens, but their influence has as yet proved wholly unavailing.

Public meetings have been now and then held, with a view of exciting a

general interest in this important matter, but they invariably end in

fruitless resolutions. The island still affords good sites for public

gardens, but there is scarce a gleam of hope that any of them will be

reserved. The few breathing spaces that now exist, are thronged, and

by the very people who most need them--children and laboring people.

The vicinity of the fountains is full of loiterers, quietly watching

the play of the bright water, and growing, we may hope, milder and

better by the gentle influence. At certain hours of the day whole

troops of merry children, with their attendants, make the walks alive

and resounding. The hoop, the ball, the velocipede, the skipping-rope,

rejoice the grass and sunshine, and the eyes of the thoughtful

spectator, who sees health in every bounding motion, and hears joy in

every tiny shout. It is strange that the citizens do not, one and all,

cry aloud for the easy and happy open-air extension of their too often

crowded homes. London is the world's example in this thing.

A park suited to riding and driving is especially needed because of

the wretched pavement which still disgraces the greater portion of

New-York. The first thing that strikes an American returning from

Europe is the inferiority of the pavements of the Atlantic cities; and

New-York, in particular, is, in this respect, hardly a whit before the

far-famed corduroy roads of the wild West. In 1846 a great improvement

was begun, called, after the inventor, the Russ pavement, and thus far

seeming to meet all the difficulties of the case, including the severe

frosts and sudden changes of the climate. The plan is, however, so

expensive that it will probably be long before it is fully adopted. It

requires square blocks of stone, about ten inches in depth, laid

diagonally with the wheel-track, and resting on a substructure of

concrete, which again rests upon a foundation of granite chips, the

whole forming a consolidated mass, eighteen inches thick, so arranged

as to be lifted in sections to afford access to the gas and water

pipes. This has been largely tried in Broadway, and has stood the test

for six years.

Foreigners are apt to complain, not only, as they justly may, of the

bad pavements of New-York, but, somewhat unreasonably, of the

obstructions in the street, caused by incessant building, laying

pipes, &c. They say, "Will the city never be finished?" Not very soon,

we think. It is difficult to do in fifty years the work of five

hundred, without a good deal of bustle and inconvenience. Rapid growth

in population and wealth necessitates continual improvement in

accommodation. We may, indeed, be allowed to fret a little, when the

street is for weeks or months encumbered by the building materials of

a merchant, who sees fit to pull down a very good house in order to

erect one that shall cost a quarter of a million, merely because his

neighbor has contrived to outshine him in that particular. But when

sewers and gas, and Croton water, are in question, we must not

grumble. These great public blessings are spreading into every

quarter, carrying health and decency with them. The great sewers are

arched canals of hard brick, from three to nine feet in diameter, and

laid in mortar in the most durable manner. Above them are the

gas-pipes, an immense net-work; and nearly on a level with these last

are the huge veins and arteries, by means of which the Croton supplies

life and health to the inhabitants, once half-poisoned by water which

shared every salt that enters into the subsoil of a great city.

Analysis shows the Croton water to be of great purity--holding in

solution the salts of lime and magnesia in proportions hardly

appreciable, only about two and eight-tenths of a grain to the gallon.

The river springs from granitic hills, and flows through a clear

upland region, free from marsh, and covered with grazing farms.

When the Aqueduct was undertaken, New-York numbered but two hundred

and eighty thousand inhabitants, so that the supply provided was a

magnificent gift to the future. The work was completed within five

years, years of great commercial difficulty; and what is more

remarkable, the whole cost came _within_ the estimate of the chief

engineer. The abundance of water may be guessed from the fact that two

of the city fountains throw away more water than would suffice for the

consumption of a large city. The solidity of the structure is such

that none but slight repair can be needed for centuries to come.[10]

This great work was opened, with appropriate ceremonies, and a

splendid civic festival, on the 14th of October, 1842. The British

consul, in accepting the invitation of the Common Council, to assist

at this festival, justly remarked, "Tyrants have left monuments which

call for admiration, but no similar work of a free people, for

magnitude and utility, equals this great enterprise." Public feeling

was very warm on this occasion. Of the procession of the trades, &c.,

which was three hours passing a given point, an enthusiastic citizen

declared in print, that he "watched and scrutinized it closely, and

could discover neither a drunkard nor a fool from first to last." It

might be a difficult matter to decide on the moral and intellectual

condition of the individuals composing such a procession, but we may

concede that drunkards and fools are not the persons most likely to

join in rejoicing for the introduction of pure water without stint or

measure.

The great Aqueduct is forty-one miles in length, commencing with a dam

across the Croton river, six miles above its mouth. This raises the

water one hundred and sixty-six feet above tide level, forming a lake

or reservoir of four hundred acres in extent, containing five hundred

million gallons, above the level that would allow the Aqueduct to

discharge thirty-five million gallons per day. From the Croton Dam to

Harlem River, something less than thirty-three miles, the Aqueduct is

an uninterrupted conduit of hydraulic masonry, of stone and brick; the

greatest interior width, seven feet five inches; the greatest height,

eight feet five inches; the floor an inverted arch. The commissioners

and chief engineers passed through its whole length on foot, as soon

as it was completed; and, when the water was admitted, traversed it

again in a boat built for the purpose. It crosses the Harlem River by

a bridge of stone, fourteen hundred and fifty feet long, and one

hundred and fourteen feet above high-water mark. At the Receiving

Reservoir forty miles from the Dam, the masonry gives place to iron

pipes, through which the water is conveyed two miles further, to the

distributing reservoir, from which point it runs, by means of several

hundred miles of pipes, to every corner of the city. On the line of

the Aqueduct are one hundred and fourteen culverts, and sixteen

tunnels, and ventilators occur at the distance of one mile apart

throughout the route. The Receiving Reservoir covers thirty-five

acres, and contains one hundred and fifty million imperial gallons.

The Distributing Reservoir has walls forty-nine feet in height, and

contains twenty million gallons. The supply to each citizen is at

present almost unlimited, and afforded at a very moderate annual

rate. The managers complain to the Common Council of the enormous

waste during the summer, when "sixty imperial gallons each twenty-four

hours to every inhabitant," are delivered. But even at this enormous

rate the quantity is ample, and it can be increased at will by new

reservoirs. No decent house is now constructed without a bath, an

advantage to the health and comfort of the city, hardly to be

over-rated. Fountains adorn almost all the public places of any

importance, and although in few instances as yet dignified by

sculpture, these tastes and glimpses of Nature are in themselves

invaluable, offering to the people at large a continual reminder of

beauty, tranquillity, and innocent pleasure in the open air. There

remains yet to be added those public vats for the use of poor women in

washing, that may be found in so many European towns.

The facilities afforded by this abundance of water for the

extinguishment of fires, are such as can hardly be over-rated. We have

no space for details on this point, nor does it need. It will easily

appear that, with an unlimited supply of water, and plenty of

fire-plugs, a few moments suffice to bring into action whatever is

needed in case of conflagration--a glorious contrast to the tardy

succor of former days, when water was laboriously pumped from the

rivers on either side the city, and conveyed by means of hose to the

scene of danger. The perfection of the London Fire Brigade is yet to

be accomplished for New-York; but promptness, or rather zeal of

service, distinguishes the corps of firemen, who make their business a

passion, and the perfection of their instruments their pride and

glory. They receive no remuneration except exemption from military and

jury duty.

After these few words on the supply of pure and life-preserving water,

we may turn, by no very violent transition, to the facilities extended

by New-York to her children in the matter of education,--a point on

which she is naturally and justly somewhat vainglorious. The number of

public, and absolutely free schools, is one hundred and ninety-nine;

embracing fifteen schools for the instruction of colored children.

More than one hundred thousand scholars attend in the course of the

year; though the average for each day is something less than forty

thousand. All is gratuitous at these schools--instruction, books,

stationery, washing-apparatus, fuel, &c. Besides these, there are

fifteen evening schools, for those who cannot avail themselves of the

other public schools, and whose only leisure time is after the close

of the labors of the day. The ages of the scholars in these schools

vary from twelve to forty-five years.

This magnificent offer of instruction by the city to her children is

confined to no class, country, sect, nor fortune. Every child, without

exception, is received, taught, and furnished with all the requisites

for a good school education. Not content with this, a free academy for

the classics, modern languages, natural sciences, and drawing, was

established in 1848, with fourteen professors, and proper appliances,

including a handsome and commodious building. This academy receives

male pupils from the common schools, after due examination; and

retains them for a four years' course, or longer, if desirable. It is

contemplated to establish a free high school for females, on a

corresponding plan.

It is not to be supposed that the benefit of the public school system

is shared only by the necessitous. The children of respectable

citizens, of the plainer sort, make up a large part of the attendance.

It is computed that only about twenty thousand children of both sexes

are found in private schools. There are many free schools of private

charity, some of which receive by law a certain share of public money,

as the school of the House of Refuge, various orphan asylums, &c.,

including, in all, about three thousand five hundred children. The

Roman Catholics have some free schools of their own, but most Roman

Catholic children are educated at the public schools. The prodigious

amount of immigration (on the day on which we write, we happen to know

that the number of steerage passengers arrived in the city is

seventeen hundred and seventy-nine, and, on another, within a week,

three thousand)--makes this provision for education doubly important;

since a large portion of the hordes thus emptied on these hospitable

shores are entirely unable to pay any thing for the instruction of

their children.

This fact gives added lustre to the no less munificent provision by

the city for the gratuitous care of the sick and indigent--a care

almost monopolized by foreigners, because comparatively few Americans

are in a condition to need it. All accidental cases are provided for

at the New-York Hospital; the attendant physicians and surgeons of

which, selected from the most eminent of the profession, give their

services without pecuniary remuneration. A branch of this institution

is the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane. The New-York Dispensary

provides some thirty thousand patients annually with advice,

medicines, and vaccination, gratis. The Almshouse Department maintains

five establishments, which, together, support about seven thousand

persons, and afford weekly aid to some three thousand others. The

Nursery Branch of this department maintains and instructs more than a

thousand children of paupers and convicts. The Institution for the

care of deaf mutes has about two hundred and fifty pupils, of whom one

hundred and sixty are supported at the expense of the State. The

Asylum for the Blind, originally established by a few members of the

Society of Friends, has about one hundred and fifty pupils. Besides

these, private charity has opened refuges for almost every form of

human misery and destitution, so that it may safely be said that no

one of any age, sex, nation, or character _need_ suffer, in New York,

for lack of Christian kindness in its ordinary manifestations. Among

these beneficent offers of relief and aid, we may mention one in

particular, whose worth is not as fully appreciated by the public as

that of some others, though none is more needed. The Prison

Association takes care of the interests of accused persons, whose

poverty and ignorance make them the easy prey of the designing and

heartless; attends to them while in prison, and after their release,

holds out the helping hand, and provides relief, occupation, and

countenance for all those who are willing to reform. A house with

matrons is provided for discharged female convicts, who are instructed

and initiated into various modes of employment until they have had

time to prove themselves fit to be recommended to places. The success

of this most benign and difficult charity has been very encouraging.

It would be vain to attempt, in this desultory sketch, any account of

the means of morals and religion in New-York. In these respects she

differs but little from English commercial towns. The number of places

of worship is something under three hundred, and each form of

religious benevolence has its appropriate society, as elsewhere.

Sabbath Schools are very popular, and attended by the children of the

first citizens. An immense number of persons are associated as Sons

and Daughters of Temperance, who present a strong front against that

vice which turns the wise man into a fool. But as there is nothing

distinctive in these and similar associations, we pass them by. A

puritan tone of manners prevails; that is to say, with the mass of the

well-to-do citizens, puritan manners are the beau-ideal of propriety

and safety. Yet New-York is fast assuming a cosmopolitan tone which

will make it difficult, before very long, to speak of any particular

style of manners as prevailing. Representatives of every nation, and

tongue, and kindred, and people, meeting on a footing of perfect

equality of political advantages, must in time produce a social state,

differing in some important particulars from any that the world has

yet seen. The population of New-York will, at the past rate of

increase, be in ten years greater than that of Paris, and in thirty

equal to that of London. How can one speculate on a social state

formed under such circumstances? The present aspect of what claims to

be New-York society is certainly rather anomalous.

An exceptional American--John Quincy Adams--in some patriotic speech,

mentioned, among other occasions of thankfulness to Heaven, that

excellent gift, "a heritable habitation;" but there is nothing which

the prosperous citizen of New-York so much despises. If he read

Ruskin, he thinks the man benighted when he utters such sentiments as

these: "There must be a strange dissolution of natural affection; a

strange unthankfulness for all that homes have given and parents

taught; a strange consciousness that we have been unfaithful to our

father's honor, or that our lives are not such as would make our

dwellings sacred to our children, when each man would fain build to

himself, and build for the little revolution of his own life only * *

* *. Our God is a household god, as well as a heavenly one. He has an

altar in every man's dwelling; let men look to it when they rend it

lightly, and pour out its ashes!"

If ever there were any substantial tenements of stone and brick on

which might well be written the motto "Passing away!" it is those of

the great commercial metropolis of the western world. The material

substance is enduring enough to last many generations; their soul is a

thing of the moment. After it has inhabited its proud apartments, and

looked out of its beautiful windows for a few years, it departs, to

return no more for ever, and its deserted home becomes at once the

receptacle of a soul of lower grade, and its destiny is to pass down,

and down, and down, in the scale, as time wears on, and "improvement"

sanctifies new regions. One might suppose the pleasure and pride of

building would be quite killed by the idea that as soon as one's head

is laid in the dust, all the achievements of taste, all the devices of

ingenious affection, all the personality, in short, of one's dwelling

would be turned out to the gaze and comment of the curious world now

so carefully shut out; exposed, depreciated, contemned, and sold to

the highest bidder, under circumstances of inevitable degradation. But

the ruling spirit of the New World progress seems to reconcile even

the reflective to these things. They shrug their shoulders, and say it

cannot be helped! Truly, these seem the days "when every man's aim is

to be in some more elevated sphere than his natural one, and every

man's past life is his habitual scorn; when men build in the hope of

leaving the places they have built, and live in the hope of forgetting

the years they have lived; when the comfort, the peace, and the

religion of home have ceased to be felt." In these particulars,

however, the severity of the New World is in a state of transition.

Under circumstances so novel, it is not to be wondered at that no

leisure has yet been found for the complete harmonization of the

social theory in all its parts.

Whether the universal and incessant subdivision of estates will ever

be found to allow the addition of the charm of poetic associations to

the possession of wealth is a question not yet determined. When all

passes under the hammer, what becomes of heir-looms, and whatever

else in which family life and interest are bound up? And why should

splendor prepare for perpetuity when that which supports it is to be

shared among half a dozen or a dozen descendants? Will a rich man be

likely to collect works of art under the consciousness that, when

"cutting up" time comes, not one of his children will probably be rich

enough to retain possession of these treasures that bring no tangible

income? Truly, republicans ought to be philosophers, caring only for

things of highest moment, and capable of saying to all others--"Get ye

behind me!"

But the denizens of New-York Belgravia are not philosophers, at least

not philosophers of this stamp. Content with the good things of

to-day, they leave the morrow to take care of itself; and many of them

live in a style which, even to those who have seen European splendor,

seems no less than superb. Their dwellings are unsurpassed in

convenience of arrangement and luxury of appliance; their

entertainments are of regal magnificence, so far as regal magnificence

is purchasable; and for dress and equipage they pour out money like

water. In cultivation and accomplishments, they are of course very

unequal; for, in a country where the great field of competition has a

thousand gates, all opened wide to all comers, and moneyed magnates

come from every class in society, and bring with them, to the new

sphere, just what of a strictly personal kind they possessed in the

old. He that was refined is refined still, and he that was sordid is

sordid still. If the gentleman enjoys the power of indulging his

tastes, and choosing his pursuits, so does the vulgarian; and,

unhappily, no Belgravia, English or American, has yet been found

capable of inspiring its inmates with dignified tastes or elevated

aims. There is no permanent nucleus of elegant society in New-York; no

reservoir of indisputable social grace, from which succeeding sets and

advancing circles can draw rules and imbibe tastes. There is not, even

at any one time, an acknowledged first circle, to whose standard

others are willing to refer. This being so, the most incongruous

manners often encounter in the social arena; and it is only in very

limited association that any appreciable degree of congeniality is

expected. Wealth always fraternizes with wealth to a certain extent.

The maxim announced here on a certain public occasion, that "the

possession of wealth is always to be received as evidence of the

possession of merit of some kind," is conscientiously acted upon; but

beyond this, social affinity is very limited as yet. Conversation has

no recognized place among accomplishments, and of course only a

doubtful one among pleasures. Coteries are unknown, and the continual

shifting of circles precludes the pleasure of long-ripened

intellectual intercourse. Many there are who regret this state of

things in a society in which there is in reality so great a share of

general good feeling; but they are found not among the rich, who

possess some of the means of remedying the evil, but among those who,

removed from the temptations which riches, suddenly acquired, array

against intellectual pleasures, lack, on the other hand, the means of

uniting with those pleasures, the _agremens_ which are at the command

of easy fortune. In Paris, intellect and cultivation can draw together

those who value them, even though the place of meeting be a shabby

house in the suburbs; in New-York it is not yet so, nor could it be

expected. No social _pose_ has yet been attained; and each is too much

absorbed in making good his general claims to consideration, to have

leisure for the calmer enjoyments that might be snatched during the

contest. Ostentation is, as yet, too prominent in the entertainments

of the rich; and the not rich, with republican pride, will rather

renounce the pleasures and advantages of society than receive company

in an inexpensive way. Even public amusements are not fashionable.

Large numbers, it is true, attend them, but not of the fashionable

classes. The Opera, alone, has a sort of popularity with these, but it

is as an elegant lounger, and a chance of distinction from the vulgar.

A low-priced opera, like those of the Continent, with music as the

main object, and magnificent costume put out of the question by

twilight houses, is yet to be tried in New-York. In the opinion of

some, this is one day to be the touchstone of American musical taste.

A passion for popular music the Americans certainly have. The Negro

Melodists, numerous as they are, draw throngs every night; and their

music, whether gay or sad, has all the charm that could be desired for

the popular heart. But the people of any pretensions enjoy this kind

of music, as it were by stealth, not considering that the pleasure it

gives is in fact a test of its excellence. Many of the negro airs are

worthy of symphonies and accompaniments by Beethoven or Schubert, but

until they have been endorsed by science the New-Yorker would rather

not be caught enjoying them.

If we should venture to suggest what it is that New-York society most

lacks, we should say Courage--courage to enjoy and make the most of

individual tastes and feelings. The spirit of imitation robs social

life of all that is picturesque and poetical. Living for the eyes of

our neighbors is stupefying and belittling. It gives an air of

hollowness and tinsel to our homes, stealing even from the heartiness

of affection, and sapping the disinterestedness of friendship. It

tends to the general impoverishment of home-life, the privacy of which

is the soil of originality and the nursery of accomplishments. It is

hardly consistent with the pursuit of literature or art for its own

sake, since a desire to do what others do, and avoid what others

contemn, excludes private and independent choice, except where the

natural bias is irresistibly strong. There is, in truth, very little

relish for home accomplishments in New-York. Music is too much a thing

of exhibition, and drawing is scarcely practised at all. Two or three

of the modern languages are taught at every fashionable school; but

the use of these is seldom kept up in after life, even by reading. No

people are so poorly furnished with foreign tongues as the Americans,

and New-York forms no exception to the general remark.

We shall not venture to touch that most sensitive of all topics,

native art, on which no opinion can be expressed with safety, Suffice

it to say, that New-York has a National Academy of Design; the nucleus

of a free gallery; an Art-Union, largely patronized; an Artists'

Association, with a gallery of its own; and various exhibitions of

European pictures. Lessing's Martyrdom of Huss has been for some time

exhibiting in a collection of paintings of the Duesseldorf school.

Statuary is as yet comparatively rare; for, although American art has

sprung at once to high excellence in this direction, the sculptors

generally reside abroad, for the sake of superior advantages for

execution. The present year sees the _debut_ of a young sculptor of

New-York, named Palmer, who has just finished a work of great promise,

for this spring's exhibition of the National Academy, an exhibition

most cheering to the friends of American art, from its marked

superiority in many respects to any that have gone before it. A

Home-Book of Beauty is in progress, for which a young English artist,

son of the celebrated Martin, is making the portraits. This promises

to be very popular, since the reputation of American female beauty is

world-wide.

These slight notices of New-York as she is, are intended rather to

give foreign visitors a hint what _not_ to expect, than to serve as

any thing deserving the name of a description of one of the commercial

centres of the world. It is quite possible to come to New-York with

such letters of introduction as shall open to the stranger society as

intelligent and well-bred as any in Europe; but as this is composed of

people who never run after notabilities as such, it is often unknown

and unsuspected by the visitor from abroad, who, consequently, returns

home with such broad views as we have been attempting, quite satisfied

that there is nothing more worth seeking. It is noticeable that the

most favorable accounts of American manners have been given by the

best-bred and highest-born foreign travellers; while disparagement and

abuse have been the retaliation of those who have, to their surprise,

found the Americans quite capable of distinguishing between snobs and

gentlemen. The intelligent traveller must know how to take New-York

for what she is, and he will not undervalue her for not being what she

is not. She is a magnificent city--a city of unexampled growth and

energy; of the noblest public works, of unbounded charity, of a most

intelligent providence in the instruction of her children, of fearless

liberality in the reception and treatment of foreigners, and of a

growing interest in all the arts which adorn and harmonize society.

Those who visit her prepared to find these traits will not be

disappointed; those who will accept nothing in an American city of

yesterday but the tranquil and delicate tone of an assured

civilization, should not come westward. Yet in real, essential

civilization, that city cannot be far behindhand, in which the duties

of a street police are almost nominal, and where every ill that can

afflict humanity is cared for gratuitously, and in the most humane

spirit. Justly proud of these proofs of her preparation for the

outward gloss of manners which is all in all to the superficial

observer, New-York can well afford to invite the scrutiny of the

intelligent citizen of the world.

As we began our little sketch with some Knickerbocker reminiscences,

so we feel bound, before we close, to say a word or two of the traces

that still remain of the honored origin of much of the wealth and

respectability of New-York. Whatever we may allow for our English

superstructure, we cannot forget that the Dutch foundation was most

excellent. "The Batavians," says Tacitus, "are distinguished among the

neighboring nations for their valor;" and in the seventeenth century

the countrymen of Van Tromp and De Ruyter had not degenerated from

their Batavian ancestors; and in the gentler qualities of peace,

industry, perseverance, energy, honesty, and enterprise, the

States-General were surpassed by no European community. For their

notions of law, we may consult Grotius; for their taste for art, the

exquisite works which constitute a school of their own. The Dutch

masters of New-York were people of high tone and character, and to

this day there lingers a flavor of nobility and dignity about the very

names of Van Rensselaer, Van Cortlandt, Van Zandt, Brinkerhoff,

Stuyvesant, Rutgers, Schermerhorn, &c., represented by families who

still retain much of their ancient wealth, and a great deal of their

ancient aristocratic feeling. Many jokes have been founded upon the

unwillingness of these lords of the soil to be disturbed; one of the

best of which is Washington Irving's story of Wolfert Webber, who

thought he must inevitably die in the almshouse, because the

Corporation ruined his cabbage-garden by running a street through it.

But they make excellent citizens, and their aversion to change has

been but a much needed balance to the wild go-ahead restlessness of

the full-blooded Yankee, who sees nothing but the future. The Dutch

have customs, and, of course, manners; while the tendency of modern

New-York life is adverse to both. The citizen of to-day cannot help

looking on the Dutch spirit as "slow," but he has an instinctive

respect for it, notwithstanding.

One single Dutch custom still maintains its ground triumphantly, in

spite of the hurry of business, the selfishness of the commercial

spirit, and the efforts of a few paltry fashionists, who would fain

put down every thing in which a suspicion of heartiness can be

detected. It is the custom of making New Year visits on the first day

of January, when every lady is at home, and every gentleman goes the

rounds of his entire acquaintance; flying in and flying out, it is

true, but still with an expression of good-will and friendly feeling

that is invaluable in a community where daily life is so much under

the control of that cabalistic word--business. Ladies are in high

party-trim, and refreshments of various kinds are offered; but the

main point and recognized meaning of the whole is the interchange of

friendly greetings.

No one, not to the manor born, can estimate the glow of feeling that

characterizes these flying visits. "As iron sharpeneth iron, so doth

the countenance of a man his friend." The mere looking into each

other's faces is good for human creatures; and when the sincere even

though transient light of kindly feeling beams from the eyes that thus

encounter, something is done against egotism, haughty disregard and

blank oblivion. Many a coolness dies on New Year's Day, under a

battery of smiles; many a hard thought is shamed away by the good

wishes of the season. Old friends, who are inevitably separated most

of the time, thus meet at least once a year, for the enthusiasm of the

hour is potent enough to make the valetudinarian forsake his easy

chair, and the cripple his crutches. Visiting hours are extended so as

to include all the hours from ten in the morning until ten at night,

and, in order to make the most of these, the gentlemen take carriages

and scour the streets at the true American pace, so as to lose as

little time as possible on the way. If a storm occur, it is considered

quite a public misfortune, since it lessens, though it never

altogether prevents the fulfilment of the annual ceremony. It is true

that both ladies and gentlemen are death-weary when bed-time comes,

but that for once a year is no great evil. It is true that some young

men will take more whisky-punch, or champagne, than is becoming; but

for one who does this, there are many who decline "all that can

intoxicate," except smiles and kind words. In some houses the blinds

are closed, the gas lighted, and a band of music in attendance; and

each batch of visitors inveigled into polkas, or kedowas, for which

the lady of the house has taken care to provide partners. But this is

considered a degeneracy, and voted _mauvais ton_ by those who

understand the thing. To "throw a perfume o'er the violet," bespeaks

the French _coiffeur_ or the _parvenu_; the simplicity of the ancient

Dutch custom of New Year visits is its dignity and glory. Long may it

live unspotted by vulgar fashion! Well were it for the island city if

she had kept a loving hold on many another quaint festivity of her

ancestors on the other side of the water. Her prosperity would be none

the worse of a respectful reference to the good things of the past.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Among the causes of decay in the Roman aqueducts, was the strong

concretion formed on the bottom and sides by matter deposited by the

water. No such deposit is made by the water of the Croton.

From Fraser's Magazine.

A JUNGLE RECOLLECTION.

BY CAPTAIN HARDBARGAIN.

The hot season of 1849 was peculiarly oppressive, and the irksome

garrison duty at Cherootabad, in the south of India, had for many

months been unusually severe. The colonel of my regiment, the

brigadier, and the general, having successively acceded to my

application for three weeks' leave, and that welcome fact having been

duly notified in orders, it was not long before I found myself on the

Coimbatore road, snugly packed guns and all, in a country

bullock-cart, lying at full length on a matress, with a thick layer of

straw spread under it.

All my preparations had been made beforehand; relays of bullocks were

posted for me at convenient intervals, and I arrived at Goodaloor, a

distance of a hundred and ten miles, in rather more than forty-eight

hours.

Goodaloor is a quiet little village, about eleven miles from

Coimbatore;--but don't suppose I was going to spend my precious three

weeks there.

After breakfasting at the traveller's bungalow, we started off again.

The bungalow is on the right hand side of the road; and when we had

proceeded about two hundred yards, the bullock-cart turned into the

fields to the left, and got along how it could across country, towards

some low rocky hills, which ran parallel, and at about three miles

distance from the Coimbatore road.

After about two miles of this work, sometimes over fallow ground,

sometimes through fields of growing grain, (taking awful liberties

with the loose hedges of cut brambles, which, however, we had the

conscience to build up again as we passed them,) sometimes over broken

stony ground, and once or twice lumbering heavily through a rocky

watercourse, we at last found ourselves on the grassy margin of a

pretty little stream. Fifty yards beyond it, under the shade of a fine

mango-tree, my little tent was already pitched; in five minutes I lay

stretched on my bed, listening with ravished ears to the glorious

accounts of my old Shikaree, who had just come in, hot and tired, from

the jungle. He had much to tell,--how since he had been out, three

days, he had tracked the tiger every morning up and down a certain

nullah; how the brindled monster had been seen by different shepherds;

and what was still more satisfactory, how he had but yesterday killed

a cow near the spot where the hut had been built. It was now

midday;--how to spend the long hours till sunset?

After making the tired man draw innumerable sketch-maps in the sand,

with reiterated descriptions of the hut, &c., I allowed the poor

wretch to go to his dinner; and in anticipation of a weary night's

watch, I squeezed my eyes together and tried to sleep.

The sun begins to acquire his evening slant, and I joyfully leave my

bed to prepare for my nocturnal expedition. The cook is boiling fowl

and potatoes; they are ready; and now he pours his clear strong coffee

into the three soda-water bottles by his side; everything is ready, in

the little basket, not forgetting a bottle of good beer. Now then

commences the pleasing task of carefully loading our battery.

Come, big "Sam Nock," king of two-ouncers, what is to be the fate of

these two great plumbs that you are now to swallow? Am I to cut them

out of the tiger's ribs to-morrow?--or are they idly to be fired away

into the trunk of a tree, or drawn again?

All loaded, and pony saddled, let us start: the two white cows and

their calves; the matress and blanket rolled up and carried on a

Cooly's head: Shikaree, horsekeeper, and a village man with the three

guns, while I myself bring up the rear. Over a few ploughed fields,

and past that large banian-tree, the jungle begins.

What is this black thing? and what are those people doing? That

hideous black image is the jungle god, and to him the villagers look

for protection for their flocks.

How they stare at the man dressed in his mud-colored clothes, who has

come so far, and sacrifices sleep and comfort, to sit and watch at

night for the evil genius of their jungles. Children are held up to

look at him--at the English jungle-wallah, who drinks brandy as they

drink milk, and who is on his way to the deepest fastnesses of the

wooded waste, to watch for the tiger alone--a man who laughs at gods

and devils--a devil himself. The Shikaree, who had been earnestly

engaged in conversation with the oldest looking man of the group, now

ran up and informed me that the Gooroo had given him to understand

that the Sahib would certainly kill the tiger this night, and that it

was expected that he would subscribe fifteen rupees to the god, in the

event of the prediction proving true. Come, we have no time for

talking. Hurry on, cows and guns, hurry on! through the silent jungle,

along the narrow path. How much farther yet. Not more than a quarter

of a mile; we are close to it. And now the people who know the

whereabouts stop and look smilingly on one another, and then at the

Sahib, whose practised eye has but just discovered the well-built

ambush.

In a small clump of low jungle, on the sloping bank of a broad, sandy

watercourse, the casual passer-by would not have perceived a snug and

tolerably strong little hut,--the white ends of the small branches

that were laid over it, and the mixture of foliage, alone revealing

the fact to the observant eye of a practised woodman. No praise could

be too strong to bestow on the faithful Shikaree; had I chosen the

spot myself, after a week's survey of the country, it could not have

been more happily selected. The watercourse wound its way through the

thickest and most _tigerish_ section of the jungle, and had its origin

at the very foot of the hills, where tigers were continually seen by

the woodcutters and shepherds. There was little or no water within

many miles, except the few gallons in a basin of rock, which I could

almost reach from my little bower; and, to crown all, there were the

broad, deep _puggs_ of a tiger, up and down the nullah, in the dry

sand, near the water's edge, of all ages, from the week, perhaps, up

to the unmistakable fresh puggs of last night.

Let us get off the pony, and have a look at the hut. Pulling a few dry

branches on one side, the small hurdle-door at the back is exposed to

view, hardly big enough to admit a large dog; down on your knees and

crawl in. Five feet long, four feet wide, and four feet high in the

centre, is the extent of the little palace; a platform, a foot from

the ground, occupies the whole extent to within a foot of the front

end facing the bed of the watercourse. On this platform the matress is

laid, and some big coats and the blankets make a very comfortable

pillow. Remove that little screen of leaves, and you look through a

window, ten inches square, that commands a view fifty paces up and

down the sandy nullah. Sitting on the end of the bed-place, just

behind the window, with your feet on the ground, nothing can be more

comfortable; and when tired, you only have to draw up your legs, and

curl yourself on the matress to enjoy a short nap, if your prudence

cannot conquer sleep. Into this hut which I have endeavored to

describe, did I now crawl; the matress was arranged, the handsome and

carefully loaded battery was next handed in, and each gun placed ready

for action; the cold fowl and bottle of Bass were in the mean while

disposed of, and the soda-water bottles of cold coffee were stowed

away in cunning corners.

The sun is resting on the hill-tops, and will soon disappear behind

them; the peafowl and jungle-cock are noisily challenging amongst

themselves, and the latest party of woodcutters have just passed by,

showing, by their brisk pace and loud talking, that they consider it

high time for prudent men to quit the jungle.

To the deeply-rooted stump of a young tree on the opposite bank, one

of the white cows has been made fast by a double cord passed twice

round her horns. Nothing remains to be done; the little door is

fastened behind me, the prickly acacia boughs are piled up against it

on the outside, and my people are anxious to be off. The old Shikaree

makes his appearance in the nullah, and wishing me success through the

window, asks if "all is right?" "Every thing; get home as fast as you

can: if you should hear three shots in succession before dark, come

back for me,--otherwise, bring the pony at six to-morrow morning,--and

a cup of hot coffee, tell the cook."

They are gone; I still hear them every now and then, as they shout to

one another, and as the pony is scrambling through some loose stones

in the bed of a [missing words/letters] through which the road lies.