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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49191 ***</div>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">{353}</a></span></p>


<h1>CHAMBERS'<br />
EDINBURGH JOURNAL</h1>

<h2>CONTENTS</h2>

<p class='center'>

<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->

<a href="#KNOWLEDGE">KNOWLEDGE.</a><br />
<a href="#WORLDLY_WISDOM">WORLDLY WISDOM.</a><br />
<a href="#THE_TAMARIND-TREE">THE TAMARIND-TREE.</a><br />
<a href="#TRACINGS_OF_THE_NORTH_OF_EUROPE">TRACINGS OF THE NORTH OF EUROPE.</a><br />
<a href="#LONDON_GOSSIP">LONDON GOSSIP.</a><br />
<a href="#A_CHEAP_CLASS_OF_RAILWAYS">A CHEAP CLASS OF RAILWAYS.</a><br />
<a href="#CURIOUS_PECULIARITY_IN_THE_ELEPHANT">CURIOUS PECULIARITY IN THE ELEPHANT.</a><br />
<a href="#DIG_DEEP_TO_FIND_THE_GOLD">DIG DEEP TO FIND THE GOLD.</a><br />
<a href="#SCOTLAND_IN_ENGLAND">SCOTLAND IN ENGLAND.</a><br />

<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->

</p>


<hr class="full" />

<div class="figcenter">
<img src="images/header.jpg" width="600" height="123" alt="" />
</div>

<p class="center small"><b>CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR
THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &amp;c.</b></p>

<hr class="full" />

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<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""  width="85%">
<tr><td align="left"><b><span class="smcap">No. 310. New Series</span></b></td><td align="center"><b>SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1849.</b></td><td align="right"><b><span class="smcap">Price</span> 1½<i>d.</i></b></td></tr>
</table></div>

<hr class="full" />

<div>

<h2><a name="KNOWLEDGE" id="KNOWLEDGE">KNOWLEDGE.</a></h2>

<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was for a long time the custom to recommend knowledge
to the attention of the people by depicting the
material advantages and pleasures incident to its pursuit.
Glowing and attractive pictures were exhibited of
the career and progress of meritorious and successful
persons, who had been elevated by their intelligence to
positions of consideration and distinction. Universal
history and biography were ransacked to furnish instances
of a persevering and well-rewarded prosecution
of knowledge 'under difficulties;' and the general mind
was invited to contemplate and reflect on these, as
worthy exemplars for its imitation. The inference,
moreover, that was almost uniformly intended to be
drawn, was such a one as was naturally acceptable to
the crude and undisciplined understanding&mdash;the obvious
purpose of all such representations being to stimulate
the energies and enterprise of the ambitious, by the
offer or indication of material rewards, and to make intelligence
respected and desirable for the sake of its
sensible compensations.</p>

<p>There might perhaps be reasons adducible to justify
the employment of such incitements, as there may
doubtless be circumstances under which the cultivation
of knowledge might, for a time, be more effectually advanced
by means of interested considerations, than by
an appeal to motives more strictly rational, and accordant
with a disinterested reverence for its spiritual
worth and dignity. There are evidently stages of
human progress when a regard for their personal interests
has a more powerful efficacy in urging men into
improvement, than any of the finer influences of which
they are susceptible, or which an advanced culture
would probably awaken. Thus, as an exoteric or introductory
intimation of the value and desirableness of
knowledge, it may not be amiss to attract a people,
otherwise indisposed to its acquirement, by an exhibition
of the conventional advantages and distinctions
which it may contribute, more or less successfully, to
realise. And though it cannot be allowed that the culture
of the intellect is to be subordinated to the acquisition
of any of the temporal benefits of life, yet inasmuch
as an increase of intelligence and sagacity may
be reasonably applied to the promotion of such comforts
and conveniencies as tend to enhance the rational satisfactions
of existence, it is not to be questioned that
the latter may be innocently, and even serviceably,
urged upon the attention, as reasons and motives for
stimulating the slothful or indifferent mind to an appropriate
activity, whensoever higher and worthier considerations
may have been found to be ineffectual, or
are in any likelihood of being imperfectly apprehended.
The sole condition needful to be observed by those who
thus endeavour to promote the education and enlightenment
of the people, is a clear and firm persuasion in
themselves that such a method of interesting men in
the pursuits of literature or science, can only be considered
as initiatory, and preparatory to something
higher, and that at last knowledge must stand recommended
to the mind by its own intrinsic charms, and
by its grand and native tendency to further a man's
spiritual advancement.</p>

<p>It is scarcely to be doubted that the oversight of this
has greatly contributed to occasion the failure of many
of those popular schemes and institutions which have
had for their object the intellectual improvement of the
people. Starting with the flattering assumption that
literary and scientific information possessed the power
of raising men to social consequence, it was presently
perceived that the result was not answerable to the
expectations which had been excited, and that the
more generally intelligence was spread, the greater
was the competition for the advantages in view, and
the less the chance of attaining them. By being
taught to regard their education as a means or process
whereby they might be more readily and securely
inducted into positions of emolument and honour, not
only were the people misdirected with respect to the
real and authentic signification of manly culture, but
even the inducements held out as the encouragements
of their efforts were found to end mainly in disappointment.
The generality were not, and could not
be enriched, nor very sensibly elevated in the estimation
of the world; they did not usually attain to what
they had been taught to aim after, which was, in most
cases, antecedence of their fellow-men, distinction and
exalted notice in the eyes of accredited respectability.
The conditions of society to which they were subjected
limited most of them to their old employments and
pursuits, and it only occasionally happened that a man's
personal fortunes were very materially promoted by the
intelligence he had gained through studious exertion.
If, by some favourable concurrence of circumstances,
one might chance to attain eminence, or realise any considerable
share of the substantial possessions of life, for
every individual thus fortunate, there has probably been
a thousand whose efforts were utterly unproductive of
any such success. Upon the whole, it is evident that
the more universally the benefits of instruction are extended
among a people, the casual prizes which were
formerly accessible to rare examples of ability and intelligence
become less and less easy of attainment, and
have an eventual tendency to become distributed altogether
without reference to that intellectual superiority
which, when education was less general, more invariably
commanded them. The peculiar distinctions which
knowledge is competent to confer must be looked for in
other directions than those which are supposed to lead
to the acquisition of wealth or mere conventional<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">{354}</a></span>
reputability&mdash;must be sought, indeed, among the inner
laws and necessities of the human mind. The power
which we ascribe to intelligence must be exercised for
ends and objects which have hitherto been too commonly
overlooked, and the purposes and aims of education
will need to be more intimately adjusted to the
essential demands of character.</p>

<p>A notorious consequence of the popular instruction
most prevalent within the last twenty years, has been
the elicitation of a certain superficial cleverness, valuable
principally for marketable or ostentatious purposes,
and no more indicative of intellectual elevation than the
frivolous accomplishment of rope-dancing. It is for the
most part an affair of memory, a mere mechanical agility,
expertness in acts of routine; and in its superior
developments takes most commonly the shape of a keen
vulpine perspicacity, which may very readily be cultivated
independently of any coincident development of
the reflective reason or the moral attributes. The practical
understanding, being trained into separate activity,
and exercised apart from its constitutional connection,
may obviously be used like an implement, in subordination
to the propensities or the will, and for the accomplishment
of purely selfish, or even discreditable ends.
Thus, while it is perfectly true that a liberal and complete
education&mdash;using the word in its largest and strictly
philosophical significance&mdash;is the sole and certain means
of human elevation, it is not to be denied that very considerable
acquisitions of information, and much intellectual
ability and shrewdness, may subsist together
with a manifest unscrupulousness or depravity of disposition.
And hence it is evident that the power of
knowledge is good or evil according as it is used; and
so long as its cultivation is enjoined out of motives involving
a primary regard to worldly advantages and
promotions, there will never be wanting persons to pursue
it out of mercenary, and in other respects questionable
considerations. The entire grounds of the common
advocacy of education must be abandoned; we must
ascend from the low places of expediency and selfish
benefit to the nobler platform of that universal and inborn
necessity in man, which demands a circular and
simultaneous culture of his whole nature&mdash;that essential
and inward law of being whose perfect and successful
development shall be answerable to the destination
contemplated in the origin and intention of the human
constitution.</p>

<p>The true reason for individual cultivation is undoubtedly
to be sought for in the native requirements
of the soul. The essential worth of knowledge lies not
so much in its adaptations to our temporal conveniencies
or ambition, as in the service it performs in promoting
spiritual enlargement. What we more especially understand
by education is a progressive process whereby
the intellectual and moral powers are expanded and developed
to the extent of their capabilities, and directed
towards objects of action and speculation which have a
tendency to advance the effectual wellbeing of the individual&mdash;a
wellbeing whose character is not to be
determined arbitrarily by opinion, or considered as consisting
in conditions accordant with mere conventional
preconceptions of mortal happiness, but one which pre-exists
as an ideal prefigurement in human nature. That
only is a right and sufficient education which aims at
the perfect culture of the man&mdash;which, as far as is possible
with objective limitations, educes and invigorates
his latent aptitudes and gifts, to the end that he may
employ them in a manner which is consistent with the
pure idea of his own being. The consideration to be
kept continually in view is, what is a man by natural
capacity destined to become?&mdash;what heights of intellectual
and moral worth is he capable of attaining to?&mdash;and,
on the whole, what courses of discipline and personal
exertion are most suitable, as the means of raising
him to that condition wherein he will most admirably
fulfil the design of his creation? To instruct and educate
him with respect to this design is the highest and
ultimate purpose of all knowledge. It has thus a grander
aim than the mere promotion of the conveniencies of our
material life. Prosecuted with reference to this loftier
end, it is exalted into the appropriate guide of a man's
endeavours&mdash;acquainting him with the laws and relations
of his existence, and shaping for him the authentic
course of his sublunary conduct.</p>

<p>It is accordingly obvious, that in order to obtain its
lasting and most prizable advantages, the pursuit of
knowledge must be entered on and followed as a <i>duty</i>.
A man must esteem his personal culture as the noblest
end of his existence, and accept his responsibility in
regard to it as the most paramount of obligations. To
this one pre-eminent aim all other aims and aspirings
must be held as inconsiderable and subordinate. Let
him know, and lay earnestly to heart, that all his efforts
at cultivation are to be everlasting in their results&mdash;fruitful
for ever in blessed consequences to himself and
to the world, or otherwise miserably and perpetually
abortive, according to the character and spirit of his
activity. All learning and experience have an intimate
and natural respect to the progressive perfection of the
human soul. The original idea of a man&mdash;what he individually
ought to <i>be</i> and <i>do</i>&mdash;that is the basis whereon
he is to found and build up his entire being. He must
therefore prosecute knowledge with a reverent and religious
earnestness, strive diligently to comprehend the
relations in which he stands to God and his fellow-men,
and sedulously endeavour to fulfil his true and peculiar
destination, which is, to make his temporal existence
correspondent with the inner laws of his own soul, and
to leave behind it in the spiritual world an imperishable
and eternal consequence.</p>

<p>This view of the intrinsic worth and significance
of knowledge must be admitted to be far more exalting
and salutary to the mind than any which has
reference exclusively or principally to its agency in
simply secular affairs. It leads a man inevitably to
respect the integrity and rightful exercise of his capacities,
by discountenancing all employment of them
which might tend in anyway to invalidate or impair
the natural supremacy of the moral sentiment. Considered
as the power whereby he may cultivate and
enlarge his being, knowledge is invested with a lofty
and perennial momentousness, which cannot, and may
not, be disregarded without derogation to our highest
interests as human and spiritual intelligences. It is
indeed a revelation, in all its manifold departments, of
that vital and sustaining element of things which is
designated Truth, and whereon every effort that can
reasonably be expected to be lastingly successful is
most intimately dependent. As man liveth not by bread
alone, but by every gracious word that proceedeth from
the mouth of God, by every just and everlasting law
which He has established for the guidance and edification
of mankind, so assuredly is it of primary concern to
men to be qualified to interpret those sublime utterances,
and to apprehend their import and significancy, in relation
to the aims and hopes of life. This is the great
and inestimable excellency of knowledge, that it acquaints
us with something of the reality and nature of
the mysterious frame of things wherein we live, and
are necessitated constantly to work, and unfolds for us
the laws and reasons of that obedience which we are
constrained to yield to the established economy wherewith
our existence and essential welfare are connected.
The highest and most binding obligation for us to know
anything at all, is our natural need of intellectual enlightenment&mdash;the
soul's unquestionable necessity for an
intimacy with Truth, and the joy and satisfaction which
it finds in its contemplation. And thus it is that all
knowledge is eminently sacred, as being the stream
through which a human mind draws insight from the
central source of all intelligence; as being that which
informs us of self-subsistent Law and Power, and consciously
connects us with their reality and operations.
That baneful divorce between intelligence and holiness
which a sceptical and frivolous age has so disastrously
effected, will need to be set aside as altogether founded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">{355}</a></span>
on a serious mistake; and indeed men are already beginning
to apprehend that no pure faith can be sustained,
no sound or abiding virtue inculcated and established,
which is not deeply grounded in that mental
certainty and assurance which clear, indisputable knowledge
alone can furnish.</p>

<p>Let knowledge, then, be recognised as a primary
indispensability for the mind, the natural and appropriate
inheritance of every human soul; and let us
esteem it as a sufficient and authentic plea for its universal
dissemination, that it is ever needful for the
soul's health and welfare; and condescend not to demand
it on any inferior pretext. If there is one right
of man more essentially sacred than another, it is his
right to as complete and perfect an education as his
own capacity, and the attainments and adaptations of
the age he lives in, are adequate to supply him with;
and again, if there is one human duty more paramount
and obligatory than the rest, it is that which
enjoins upon a man the use of his best energies and
efforts to advance himself in intellectual and moral
vigour, and to turn every talent and capability most
honestly to account; since upon the depth and extent
of his own inward force will depend the essential worth
of his subsequent performances. The rational enlargement
of the individual is indeed the one great end of
life. Nothing has so high a claim on us as the cultivation
of ourselves. 'It is most true,' as a vigorous and
thoughtful modern writer has remarked&mdash;'it is most true,
and most fitting to be said to many in our day, that a
man has no business to cut himself off from communion
with so rich and manifold a world as ours, or arbitrarily
to harden and narrow his life on any of the sides on
which it is open and sensitive. But it is also no less
necessary, and perhaps in this time more required to
urge, that a man's first vocation is to be a man&mdash;a
practical, personal being, with a reasonable and moral
existence, which must be kept strong, and in working
order, at all expense of pleasure, talent, brilliancy, and
success. It is easy to lose one's self, or, as the Scripture
has it, one's own soul, in the midst of the many and
glittering forms of good which the world offers, and
which our life apprehends: but to know any of these
as realities, it is necessary to begin by being real in our
own human ground of will, conscience, personal energy.
Then will the world also begin to be real for us; and
we may go on through eternity mining deeper and
deeper, and in endless diversities of direction, in a
region of inexhaustible realities.'<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>

</div><div>

<hr class='chap' />

<h2><a name="WORLDLY_WISDOM" id="WORLDLY_WISDOM">WORLDLY WISDOM.</a></h2>

<p class='ph3'>A TALE.</p>


<p><span class="smcap">Mr</span> and <span class="smcap">Mrs Davenant</span> especially prided themselves on
their worldly wisdom and on their strong good sense&mdash;excellent
qualities undoubtedly, but susceptible of being
carried to an injurious excess. If it be true that in our
faults lie the germ of virtues, no less true is it that
almost every virtue is capable of being exaggerated into
vice. Thus was it with the Davenants: in their code
everything was made subservient to <i>worldly wisdom</i>: all
their own and their friends' actions were measured by
that standard; consequently every generous aspiration
was checked, every noble, self-denying action decried, if
it could not be reconciled to their ideas of wisdom. In
course of time Mr and Mrs Davenant grew cold-hearted,
calculating, and selfish; and as their fortunes flourished,
more and more did they exult in their own wisdom, and
condemn as foolish and Quixotic everything charitable
and disinterested. To the best of their power they
brought up their children in the same principles, and
they succeeded to admiration with their eldest daughter,
who was as shrewd and prudent as they could wish.
Mrs Davenant would often express her maternal delight
in her Selina: there never was a girl possessing such
strong good sense&mdash;such wisdom. Some people might
have thought that in Miss Selina's wisdom the line
was somewhat faint that divided it from mere cunning;
but mothers are rarely very quick-sighted with
regard to their children's faults, and Mrs Davenant never
saw the difference.</p>

<p>With their other daughter they were not so successful.
When Lucy Davenant was but five years old, a relation
of her mother's, a maiden lady residing in Wales, had, at
her own earnest request, adopted the younger daughter.
Miss Moore was very rich, and her fortune was entirely
at her own disposal, so Mr and Mrs Davenant at once
acceded to her request, never doubting that she would
make Lucy her heiress. Lucy remained with Miss Moore
till that lady died; but although she left her nothing in
her will but a few comparatively valueless mementos,
she owed more to her care and teaching than thousands
could repay. Under the influence of her precepts, and
the admirable example she afforded, Lucy became generous,
unselfish, open-hearted, and truthful as the day.
But her parents, unhappily, were blind to these virtues,
or rather they deemed that, in possessing them, their
child was rather unfortunate than otherwise. Lucy was
utterly astonished when she came home from Wales
after her kind friend's death, at the strange manner and
stranger conversation of her parents and her sister. Her
father had accompanied her from Pembrokeshire, and he
had scarcely spoken a word to her during the whole of
the journey; but, in the innocence of her heart, she attributed
this to his grief at the loss of his relation. But
when she arrived at her father's house in the city of
B&mdash;&mdash;, where he was the principal banker, she could not
avoid perceiving the cause. Her mother embraced her,
but did not pause to gaze on her five-years-absent child;
and as she turned to her sister Selina, she heard her
father say, 'Lucy hasn't a farthing in the will.'</p>

<p>'You don't mean it?' cried Mrs Davenant. 'Why,
how in the world, child, have you managed?' turning to
Lucy. 'Did you offend Miss Moore in anyway before
she died?'</p>

<p>'Oh no, mamma,' murmured Lucy, weeping at the
thought of her aunt's illness and death thus rudely conjured
up.</p>

<p>'Then what is the reason?' began her mother again;
but Mr Davenant raised a warning finger, and checked
her eager inquiries. He saw that Lucy had no spirit at
present to reply to their questions, so he suffered the
grieved girl to retire to rest, accompanied by her sister;
but with Selina, Lucy was more bewildered than ever.</p>

<p>'My dear Lu,' said that young lady, as she brushed
her hair, 'what is the meaning of this mysterious will?
We all thought you would be Miss Moore's heiress.'</p>

<p>'So I should have been,' sobbed Lucy; 'but'&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>'But what? Don't cry so, Lucy: what's past can
never be recalled,' said Selina oracularly; 'and as you're
not an heiress'&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>'Oh, don't think I am vexed about <i>that</i>,' said Lucy,
indignant at the idea, and drying her eyes with a determination
to weep no more. 'I have no wish to be an
heiress: I am very glad, indeed, I am not; and I would
rather, much rather, not be enriched by the death of
any one I love.'</p>

<p>'Very romantic sentiments, my dear Lu, but strangely
wanting in common sense. All those high-flown ideas
were vastly interesting and becoming, I daresay, among
your wild Welsh mountains; but when you come into
the busy world again, it is necessary to cast aside all
sentiment and romance, as you would your old garden-bonnet.
But, seriously, tell me about this will: how did
you miss your good-fortune?'</p>

<p>'Miss Moore had a nephew, a barrister, who is striving
very hard to fight his way at the bar: he has a mother
and two sisters entirely depending on him, and they are
all very poor. All my aunt's property is left to him.'</p>

<p>'Well, but why at least not shared with you?'</p>

<p>'I did not want it, you know, Selina, so much as they
do. I have a home, and papa is rich, and so'&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>'And so, I suppose, you very generously besought
Miss Moore not to leave her fortune to you, but to her
nephew?' said Selina with a scornful laugh.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">{356}</a></span></p>

<p>'No, no; I should not have presumed to speak on the
subject to my kind, good aunt. But one day before she
had this last attack of illness she spoke to me about my
prospects, and asked me if papa was getting on very well,
and if he would be able to provide for me when I grew
up'&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>'And I've no doubt in the world,' interrupted Selina,
staring with excessive wonderment in her sister's face,
'that you innocently replied that he would?'</p>

<p>'Of course, sister,' replied Lucy calmly; 'I could say
nothing else, you know; for when I came to see you five
years ago, papa told me that he meant to give us both
fortunes when we married.'</p>

<p>'And you told Miss Moore this?'</p>

<p>'Certainly. She kissed me when I told her,' continued
Lucy, beginning to weep again as all these reminiscences
were summoned to her mind, 'and said that I had eased
her mind very much, her nephew was very poor, and
her money would do him and his family great service;
and it is never a good thing for a young girl to have
much money independent of her parents, my aunt said;
and I think she was quite right.'</p>

<p>'Well,' said Selina, drawing a long breath, 'for a
girl of nineteen years and three months of age I certainly
do think you are the very greatest simpleton I
ever saw.'</p>

<p>'Why so?' inquired Lucy in some surprise.</p>

<p>'Why, for telling your aunt about the fortune you
would have: you might have known that she would not
make you her heiress if you were rich already.'</p>

<p>'But she asked me the question, Selina.'</p>

<p>'That was no reason why you should have answered
as you did.'</p>

<p>'How could I have answered otherwise after what
papa had told me?'</p>

<p>Lucy was imperturbable in her simplicity and guilelessness.
Selina turned from her impatiently, despairing
of ever making her comprehend how foolishly she had
behaved.</p>

<p>The next morning Mr and Mrs Davenant were informed
by their eldest daughter of Lucy's communications
to her respecting Miss Moore's property. Selina
was surprised to find that they exhibited no signs of
great anger or disappointment, but contented themselves
with inveighing against Lucy's absurd simplicity, and her
fatal deficiency in worldly wisdom.</p>

<p>'Not that it matters so <i>very</i> much this time,' said Mrs
Davenant philosophically; 'for it appears that the amount
of Miss Moore's fortune was very much exaggerated. Still,
Lucy might as well have had her three thousand pounds
as Arthur Meredith; and it grieves me&mdash;the entire affair&mdash;because
it shows how very silly Lucy is in these matters.
She sadly wants common sense I fear.'</p>

<p>Similar verdicts were pronounced with regard to poor
Lucy almost every hour in the day, until she would
plaintively and earnestly inquire, 'What <i>could</i> mamma
mean by worldly wisdom?' Certainly it was a branch of
knowledge which poor Miss Moore, with most unpardonable
negligence, had utterly neglected to instil into her
young relative's mind. But though it was greatly to be
feared that Lucy would <i>never</i> possess wisdom, according
to her mother's definition of the word, she could not
avoid, as in course of time she became better acquainted
with the principles and practices of her family, perceiving
<i>what</i> it was that her parents dignified by so high-sounding
a name. It made her very miserable to
perceive the system of man&#339;uvring that daily went on
with regard to the most trivial as well as the more important
affairs of life. She could not help seeing that
truth was often sacrificed for the mere convenience of an
hour, and was never respected when it formed an obstacle
to the execution of any plan or arrangement.</p>

<p>She felt keenly how wrong all this was, but she dared
not interfere. On two or three occasions, when she had
ventured, timidly and respectfully, to remonstrate on the
subject, she had been chidden with undue violence, and
sent sad and tearful to her own room. With Selina she
was equally unsuccessful; only, instead of scolding, her
lively, thoughtless sister contented herself with laughing
loudly, and contemptuously affecting to pity her 'primitive
simplicity and ignorance.'</p>

<p>'It's a thousand pities, Lu, that your lot was not cast
in the Arcadian ages. You are evidently formed by
nature to sit on a green bank in shepherdess costume,
twining flowers round your crook, and singing songs to
your lambs. Excuse me, my dear, but positively that's
all you are fit for. I wonder where I should be if I possessed
your very, <i>very</i> scrupulous conscience, and your
infinitesimally nice notions of right and wrong? I daresay
you'd be highly indignant&mdash;excessively shocked&mdash;if
you knew the little <i>ruse</i> I was forced to resort to in
order to induce cross old Mrs Aylmer to take me to
London with her last year. Don't look alarmed; I'm
not going to tell you the whole story; only remember
there <i>was</i> a ruse.'</p>

<p>'Surely, Selina, you don't exult in it?' said Lucy,
vexed at her sister's air of triumph.</p>

<p>'Wait a minute. See the consequences of my visit to
London, which, had I been over-scrupulous, would never
have taken place. Had I been <i>too</i> particular, I should
not have gone with Mrs Aylmer&mdash;should not have been
introduced to her wealthy and fashionable friends&mdash;should
not have met Mr Alfred Forde&mdash;<i>ergo</i>, should not
have been engaged to be married to him, as I have at
present the happiness of being.'</p>

<p>'My dear Selina,' said Lucy timidly, but affectionately,
laying her hand upon her arm, and looking up into her
face, 'are you sure that it is a happiness? Are you quite
sure that you <i>love</i> Mr Forde?'</p>

<p>Selina frowned&mdash;perhaps in order to hide the blush that
she could not repress&mdash;and then peevishly shook off her
sister's gentle touch.</p>

<p>'No lectures, if you please,' she said, turning away.
'Whatever my feelings may be with regard to my future
husband, they concern no one but him and myself. Be
assured I shall do my duty as a wife far better than half
the silly girls who indulge in hourly rhapsodies about
their love, devotion, and so forth.'</p>

<p>Lucy sighed, but dared not say more on the subject.
She was aware that Selina classed her with the 'silly
girls' she spoke of. Some time before, when her heart
was bursting with its own weight of joy and love, Lucy
had been fain to yield to the natural yearning she felt
for some one to whom she could impart her feelings, and
had told her sister of her own love&mdash;love which she had
just discovered was returned. What an icy sensation she
experienced when, in reply to her timid and blushing
confession, Selina sneered undisguisedly at her artless
ingenuousness, and 'begged to know the happy individual's
name!' And when she murmured the name of
'Arthur Meredith,' with all the sweet, blushing bashfulness
of a young girl half afraid of the new happiness that
has arisen in her heart&mdash;and almost fearing to whisper
the beloved name even to her own ears&mdash;how crushing,
how cruel was the light laugh of the other (a girl, too,
yet how ungirlish!), as she exclaimed half in scorn, half
in triumph, 'I thought so! No wonder Miss Moore's
legacy was so easily resigned. I did not give you credit,
Lu, for so much skill in man&#339;uvring.' Lucy earnestly
and indignantly disclaimed the insinuation; but Selina
only bade her be proud of her talents, and not feel
ashamed of them; and she could only console herself by
the conviction that, in her inmost heart, Selina did not
'give her credit' for the paltriness she affected to impute
to her.</p>

<p>A short time afterwards, Arthur Meredith presented
himself at B&mdash;&mdash;, and formally asked Mr Davenant's
consent to his union with Lucy. The consent was granted
conditionally. Arthur was to pursue his profession for
two years, at the end of which time, if he was in a position
to support Lucy in the comfort and affluence she had
hitherto enjoyed, no further obstacle should be placed in
the way of their marriage. Arthur and Lucy were too
reasonable not to perceive the justice of this decision, and
the young barrister left B&mdash;&mdash; inspirited by the consciousness
that on himself now depended his own and her
happiness.</p>

<p>The time passed peacefully and happily with Lucy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">{357}</a></span>
even after he was gone. She heard from him frequently;
and his letters were always hopeful, sometimes exulting,
with regard to the prospect which was opening before
him. Selina used to laugh at her when she received one
of those precious letters, and ran away to read it undisturbed
in her own room. Little cared she for the
laugh&mdash;she was too happy; and if she thought at all
about her sister's sneers or sarcasms, it was to pity her,
sincerely and unfeignedly, that she could not comprehend
the holiness of the feeling she mocked and derided.
Selina's destined husband meanwhile was absent on the
continent. He had an estate in Normandy, and was compelled
to be present during the progress of some improvements.
On his return they would be married, and Selina
waited till then with considerably less patience and
philosophy than Lucy evinced. Fifty times a day did
she peevishly lament the delay; but not, alas! from any
excess of affection to the man she was about to marry:
it was always <i>apropos</i> of some small inconvenience or
privation that she murmured. If she had to walk into
the town, she would sigh for the time 'when, as Mrs
Forde, she would have a carriage at her own exclusive
command;' or if she coveted some costly bauble, the
name of Alfred was breathed impatiently, and a reference
to 'pin-money' was sure to follow. The marriage might
have taken place by proxy with singular advantage: if
Mr Forde had sent a cheque on his banker for half the
amount of his income, Miss Selina would have married
it with all the complacency in the world!</p>

<p>Mr Davenant's worldly affairs at this juncture were not
in such a prosperous state as a man of his wisdom had a
right to expect. In fact he was involved in considerable
difficulties, from which he scarcely saw a way of extricating
himself, when most fortunately, as he averred, an
old uncle of his, from whom he had what is called 'expectations,'
voluntarily proposed visiting him at B&mdash;&mdash;.
The night before his arrival, the <i>wise</i> portion of the Davenant
family sat in solemn conclave, discussing the
proper method of turning this visit to account. Lucy
sat in a corner, silent and unnoticed, quietly sewing,
while the family council went on.</p>

<p>Of course Mr Davenant never thought for an instant
of pursuing the truthful and straightforward course of
stating his difficulties to his relation, and honestly asking
him for assistance.</p>

<p>'If old Atkinson suspected my affairs were in the disorder
in which they unfortunately are,' said Mr Davenant
gravely, 'he would instantly alter his will, and leave the
considerable sum, which I know he intends for me, to
some one who is not so <i>imprudent</i>, as I suppose he would
call it, as I have been. I shall not easily forget his
anger when my Cousin John ran into debt, and applied to
him for the money to save him from prison. He gave him
the money; but you'll see John wont have a sixpence
more: so much for being candid and sincere, as the silly
fellow said to me.'</p>

<p>At length it was arranged that Mr Davenant should
ask his uncle to lend him L.5000, in order to make a
singularly-profitable investment which was then open.</p>

<p>'I shall tell him,' said Mr Davenant, 'that I could
easily command the money without troubling him, by
calling in part of my capital, but that I scarcely think
that a prudent course at the present juncture, because I
expect soon to be called upon to pay the girls' marriage
portions. He will be pleased at my <i>prudence</i>, and the
last thing he will suspect will be that I really need the
money: so that will do excellently.'</p>

<p>'Dear papa,' ventured Lucy, bent on making one
attempt to induce him to adopt the simpler course of
conduct&mdash;'dear papa, are you sure this is really your
most politic plan? Would it not be <i>safer</i> to tell Mr
Atkinson your position, and ask him to assist you? Indeed&mdash;indeed&mdash;the
<i>truth</i> is the best and surest policy.'</p>

<p>'Doubtless,' said her father contemptuously, 'my
<i>candid</i> Cousin John found it so, and will find it so when
Mr Atkinson's will is read and he sees his name is struck
out. Leave me alone, child; you understand nothing of
such things&mdash;you haven't the least idea of worldly wisdom.'</p>

<p>Thus was poor Lucy always repulsed when she attempted
to advise. She could only comfort herself with
the hope that one day perhaps her parents would think
and act differently.</p>

<p>Mr Atkinson came the next day: he was a cheerful,
pleasant-looking, silver-haired old man, and was cordial
and affectionate to the whole family. Sincere and truthful
himself, he was perfectly unsuspicious of deceit or
design in others. Thus everything promised well for Mr
Davenant's plan, more especially as the old man had
rapidly become much attached to the two girls: Selina,
with her liveliness and spirit, amused; and Lucy, gentle,
and ever anxious for the comfort of all about her, interested
him.</p>

<p>On the fourth day, therefore, Mr Davenant commenced
operations. He alluded to a particular foreign railway,
the shares of which were then much below par, but which
were certain, at a future and no very distant period, to
arrive at a considerable premium. He said that he would
willingly invest L.5000 in these shares, certain that in a
short time he should quadruple the sum, if it were not
for the payment of his girls' marriage portions, for which
he should soon be called on. And after a great deal of
preparatory 'beating about the bush,' he <i>candidly</i>, as he
said, asked his uncle if he would lend him this L.5000
for twelve months.</p>

<p>Mr Atkinson looked grave, which his nephew observing,
<i>he</i> looked grave also.</p>

<p>'You see, Samuel,' said the old man, 'if it were really
to do you a service, you should have the money. If your
<i>business</i> required it&mdash;if you were in temporary embarrassment,
and needed these thousands to help you out of it&mdash;<i>they
should be yours</i>; but'&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>He paused, and fixed his eyes on the ground in deep
thought. Mr Davenant started, and coloured as he
listened; and involuntarily he thought of poor Lucy's
slighted advice. Her earnest words, 'Indeed&mdash;indeed&mdash;the
<i>truth</i> is the best and surest policy,' rung clearly in
his ears, and he felt now that she was <i>right</i>: but it was
too late now (or at least <i>he</i> thought so) to repair his
error, and return to the straight path. He had made a
point, ever since his uncle's arrival, of boasting to him of
his improved prospects, of the solid basis on which his
fortune stood, and of the flourishing state of his business.
He could not now retract all he had said, and lay bare his
difficulties&mdash;his necessities. Besides, even now perhaps
that would not be <i>prudent</i>: old Atkinson might be but
<i>trying</i> him after all. Mr Davenant's little moment of
right feeling soon passed away, and he was, alas! 'himself
again' by the time his uncle again began to speak.</p>

<p>'I don't like these speculations, Samuel,' said he;
'they are dangerous things: if once you get involved in
them, you never know when to leave off: besides, they
distract your attention from more legitimate objects:
your business might suffer. The business of a man prone
to speculate in matters he is unused to deal with rarely
flourishes.'</p>

<p>Mr Davenant inwardly acknowledged the truth of
these remarks. It was by <i>speculation</i> that he was brought
to his present embarrassments; but he said nothing.</p>

<p>'Take my advice, Sam,' continued Mr Atkinson, placing
his hand impressively on his nephew's arm, 'and
have nothing to do with these railways. Whether you
gain or lose by them, they distract your attention, you
see, from your business, and so you lose one way at all
events. Don't meddle with them.'</p>

<p>Mr Davenant felt it imperative to make one grand
effort more.</p>

<p>'Nay, my dear uncle,' he said smiling, 'whether you
can accommodate me with this sum or not, it's of no use
trying to persuade me out of my scheme. I am determined
to invest the money, but shall not afterwards
trouble myself more about it. I shall purchase the
shares; and whether I eventually make or lose money by
them, I shall not worry myself respecting them. At a
fitting opportunity I shall turn them into money again,
and whatever they produce is (but this is <i>entre nous</i>, you
understand) to be divided equally between my two girls.'</p>

<p>Mr Atkinson's face brightened. 'Oh, I begin to see,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">{358}</a></span>
he exclaimed; 'I perceive&mdash;it is for your two dear children.
You are a good fellow, Davenant: forgive me
that I misinterpreted your object. Certainly, if ever
speculation is justifiable, it would be in such a case,'
continued the old man in a ruminative tone; 'and you
shall not lose your object, Sam; your girls shall have
the chance; the L.5000 shall be invested, and they shall
have whatever it may produce. Don't you trouble yourself;
don't in the least embarrass or inconvenience yourself
in order to raise this sum; leave it to me&mdash;leave it
to me: I'll arrange it for the dear girls' sake.'</p>

<p>Mr Davenant, never doubting that a cheque for L.5000
would soon be forthcoming, was profuse in his acknowledgments,
and the uncle and nephew parted mutually
satisfied&mdash;the one to enjoy his matitutinal walk, the other
to exchange congratulations with his wife, and receive
proper praise for his successful diplomacy.</p>

<p>Still, he could not but wonder, and feel somewhat uncomfortable,
as the day appointed for Mr Atkinson's
departure drew nigh, and he had yet heard nothing of the
L.5000. At length he grew so very apprehensive, that it
had been forgotten, or that something would interfere with
his possession of it, that as the money was becoming every
day of more vital importance to his interests, he ventured
again to speak to his uncle on the subject. His first
words were checked; and the old man, by rapidly speaking
himself, prevented his saying more.</p>

<p>'Rest easy&mdash;rest easy,' said he; 'it is all right: I
haven't forgotten anything about the affair, I can assure
you. You shall hear from me on the subject after I get
home; meanwhile make your mind <i>quite</i> easy. The girls
shall have their railway shares, Sam; don't worry yourself.'</p>

<p>With this Mr Davenant was fain to be content; yet it
was not without sundry uncomfortable feelings of doubt
and perplexity that he watched his uncle enter his travelling-carriage,
and waved his hand to him, as two post-horses
rapidly whirled him away from B&mdash;&mdash;. A fortnight
passed, and excepting a hasty letter, announcing
his safe arrival in Gloucestershire, nothing was heard
from Mr Atkinson. Mr Davenant's creditors were clamorous,
and would no longer be put off; a complete
exposure of his affairs appeared inevitable; and in this
extremity he wrote to his uncle, saying that he wished to
purchase the shares in the &mdash;&mdash; Railway immediately,
as it was a desirable opportunity, and every day might
render it less advantageous. Therefore he intreated him
to enclose a draft for the amount, that he might forward
it to his broker, and obtain the shares.</p>

<p>By return of post an answer arrived:&mdash;</p>

<p>'<span class="smcap">My Dear Sam</span>,' ran the letter, 'you need not be so
very impatient. I was only waiting till the whole affair
was concluded to write to you. I have heard this morning
from the broker I have employed. The purchase of
the shares is concluded, and very advantageously I
think. Your dear girls may expect, I think, pretty fortunes
in time; but don't <i>say a word about it to them</i>, in
case of disappointment. I've transacted the whole business
without you, because I don't want you to turn your
thoughts from your own affairs, and, more or less, your
attention would have been distracted from them by dabbling
in these railway matters. I've managed it all very
well. The broker I employ is, I am told, an honest,
trustworthy fellow, and I have given him orders to <i>sell
out</i> when the shares are at what he considers a fair premium.
So you will have nothing to do with the matter,
you see, which is what I wish, for I fear you are rather
disposed to speculate; and if once you get into the way
of these railways, perhaps you may be led on further
than you originally intended. And you needn't be disappointed;
for instead of <i>lending</i> you the money, I <i>give
it</i> to the two dear girls, and all that may accrue to it
when these shares are sold. I hope it will be a good
sum: they have my blessing with it; but, as I said
before, don't <i>say a word to them</i> till you give them the
money. Enclosed are the documents connected with the
shares.&mdash;Yours faithfully,</p>

<p>
<span class="smcap">Samuel Atkinson</span>.'<br />
</p>

<p>Poor Mr Davenant! This letter, with the enclosed
documents (which he had fondly hoped were cheques for
the L.5000)&mdash;documents utterly useless of course to him
to aid him in his present difficulties&mdash;this letter drove
him to despair. Mrs Davenant and Selina were likewise
confounded: Lucy, by her father's express request, was
not informed of their defeated plans.</p>

<p>But matters now grew worse with Mr Davenant, and
bankruptcy was looming in the distance. His affairs were
now more involved than ever; and even the L.5000, had
he obtained it, would not now have availed to restore his
sinking credit. In this dilemma he proposed raising
money on the security of the railway shares, but here
Selina showed the result of her education in <i>worldly
wisdom</i>.</p>

<p>'Nonsense, papa,' was her dutiful remark in reply to
this suggestion; 'it will do you no good, you know, and
only render me and Lucy poorer. I am of age; and as
the shares are mine, you can't sell them, you know,' she
added in some confusion; for even her selfishness could
not quite supply her with a proper amount of <i>nonchalance</i>
in thus speaking to her father.</p>

<p>'I can sell them with your permission, of course?' said
Mr Davenant, hardly comprehending the full extent of
her meaning.</p>

<p>'Yes, I know. But you see, papa, it's bad enough for
me as it is: I shall not have the fortune I was always
taught to expect; and really, as it wont do you any real
good, I think I should be very unwise to let you sell them.'</p>

<p>'You refuse your permission then?' exclaimed the
father. Selina bowed her head, and left the room. Mr
Davenant clasped his hands in anguish, not at the failure
of this last hope, but at the agonizing ingratitude of his
favourite child, and wept; and while he yet groaned aloud
in his misery, Lucy entered the room. It is always a sad
thing to behold a man weep; but to Lucy, who now, for
the first time in her life, beheld her father under the influence
of feeling, it was a great and painful shock. But
it is one of the first instincts of woman to console, and in
a moment she was kneeling by his side, her arms wound
about his neck, her tears mingling with his. All his
harshness to her&mdash;the little affection he had ever shown
her&mdash;the many times her love had been repulsed&mdash;all
was forgotten; she only remembered that he was her
father, and in trouble, and either of these ties was
sufficient to insure her affectionate sympathy. Mr Davenant
felt deeply the ingratitude of Selina; but yet more
intensely did the tenderness of his youngest child cut
him to the soul. It was a lesson which he never forgot;
and from that day he was a better, if not, according to
his former creed, a <i>wiser</i> man. He told Lucy the whole
story of the railway shares, and his impending ruin.
Lucy intreated him to use <i>her</i> portion of the shares immediately;
and though his recent grief had humbled him,
and rendered him less selfish&mdash;and he was unwilling to
take advantage of her generosity&mdash;yet as she assured him
that she would never accept the money which was originally
intended for his use, he at length consented. But
the tide of ruin was not to be so easily stemmed, and
the stricken man and his bewildered wife now patiently
listened to their only remaining daughter; for Selina had
gone with some friends, and with her 'shares' in her
pocket, to Normandy, there to join Mr Forde, and be
married to him before he became aware that his bride's
father was a ruined man. Lucy advised her father to
go to Mr Atkinson, tell him the <i>whole truth</i>, and intreat
his assistance. 'He is so kind-hearted, dear papa, that
he <i>will</i> do what you want: he will lend you sufficient
money to relieve you from these embarrassments, and
then you will do very well.'</p>

<p>Mr Davenant clung to this hope like a drowning man
to a frail plank. He set off instantly for Gloucestershire.
With what intense anxiety Mrs Davenant and Lucy
awaited his return may be imagined. They received no
letter from him; but three days after his departure he
returned, looking pale, weary, and hopeless.</p>

<p>Mr Atkinson had died a few days before he had arrived
at his house. He had been present at the reading of the
will, which was dated only a month back. In it he bequeathed
the bulk of his property to that same 'candid
Cousin John' whose <i>wisdom</i> Mr Davenant had so decried.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">{359}</a></span>
'Because,' said the will, 'I have reason to know that he
is in difficulties; and as he has a wife and family depending
on him, he must need the money more than my other
nephew, Samuel Davenant, whom I visited a short time
since for the express purpose of seeing if his affairs were
prosperous. I have reason to suppose that they are so, and
that any increase to his means, so far from adding to his
prosperity, would induce him to speculate, and perhaps
so lose all he has acquired by years of industry. Therefore
I revoke a former bequest to him of L.20,000, and
bequeath it instead to my third nephew, George Charles
Atkinson,' &amp;c. &amp;c.</p>

<p>'You were right, Lucy!' exclaimed Mr Davenant
penitently; 'the truth <i>is</i> the safest, surest policy.'</p>

<p>Fortitude and perseverance were among the virtues of
both Mr Davenant and his wife. They met their difficulties
steadily and firmly, and got ultimately through
them with credit. But they were now too old to commence
life anew, and gladly availed themselves of the
affectionate intreaty of Lucy and her husband&mdash;for
Arthur Meredith was now a flourishing barrister&mdash;to take
up their house with them.</p>

<p>Selina was not happy in her marriage. Her husband's
large property was all imaginary; he was, in fact, a
ruined spendthrift; and all they had to subsist on after
they were married was the money arising from those oft-named
railway shares. Selina could not reproach her
husband for deceiving her, for she had deceived him. Not
till they had been three weeks wedded did Mr Forde
know that his bride's father was ruined, and that he
need expect no marriage portion further than that she
already had. 'Had you told me the truth,' he said to
her, when one day she reproached him with his poverty,
'I would have told <i>you</i> the truth. But I thought you
would be a rich woman, and that your fortune would be
sufficient to support us both.' Selina could not reply.</p>

<p>Mr and Mrs Davenant, when they contrast the melancholy
accounts of the end of Selina's scheming with the
happy married life of their younger daughter, cannot
but own how superior was the <i>wisdom</i> of the latter; and
they now cordially acknowledge the veracity of that
golden sentiment of one of our modern sages&mdash;'One who
is always <i>true</i> in the great duties of life is nearly always
wise.'</p>



<hr class="chap" />
</div><div>

<h2><a name="THE_TAMARIND-TREE" id="THE_TAMARIND-TREE">THE TAMARIND-TREE.</a></h2>


<p><span class="smcap">Everybody</span> knows the agreeable tamarind preserve we
receive from the West Indies; everybody has occasionally
produced by its aid a cooling and welcome beverage;
and everybody (at least in Scotland) has conferred,
by its means, upon the insipid gruel recommended
for a cold a finely-acidulated taste. Everybody likewise
knows that the tamarind is pretty largely employed in
our Materia Medica, and that its effect, when eaten uncompounded,
is gently aperient: but for all that, very
few persons are acquainted with certain curious particulars
connected with the tree which produces this popular
fruit.</p>

<p>The tamarind-tree is one of the <i>fabaceæ</i>, or order of
leguminous plants; 'an order,' says Lindley, 'not only
among the most extensive that are known, but also one
of the most important to man, whether we consider the
beauty of the numerous species, which are among the
gayest-coloured and most graceful plants of every region,
or their applicability to a thousand useful purposes.' To
give an idea of the wide extension of this order, we may
say that it includes the acacia, the logwood and rosewood
of commerce; the laburnum, the furze, and the broom;
the bean, pea, vetch, clover, trefoil, indigo, gum-arabic,
and other gums and drugs. There are two species of
tamarinds&mdash;the East and the West Indian&mdash;exhibiting
some considerable difference, more especially in the pods,
which are much shorter in the latter species, and the
pulp less rich and plentiful. In the West Indies, the
shell is removed, and the legume preserved, by being
placed in jars intermixed with layers of sugar; or else the
vessel is filled up with boiling sugar, which penetrates to
the bottom. The Turks and Arabs use this fruit, prepared
either with sugar or honey, as an article of food;
and for its cooling properties it is a favourite in journeys
in the desert. In Nubia it is formed into cakes, baked in
the sun; and these are afterwards used in producing a
cooling drink. In India, likewise, it is used both as food
and drink; but there it is never treated with sugar,
but merely dried in the sun. When eaten as food, it is
toasted, soaked in water, and then boiled, till the taste,
it is said, resembles that of the common bean.</p>

<p>In India the tamarind-tree is a very beautiful object,
its spreading branches flinging even with their tiny leaves
an extensive shade. In one season its pretty straw-coloured
flowers refresh the eye; and in another its long
brown pods, which are shed plentifully, afford a more
substantial refreshment to the traveller. The Hindoos,
however, prize it chiefly as a material for cleaning their
brass vessels, although they likewise use it as a condiment
for their curries and other dishes, and likewise
make it into pickles and preserves. For the last-mentioned
purpose a red variety is the most esteemed, both
the timber and the fruit being of a sanguine hue. The
tamarind, however, is chiefly planted by the roadside,
or on the rising banks of a tank; and in the lower parts
of Bengal, where it grows in the natural forests of the
Sunderbunds, it is the most common kind of firewood,
being never used for any more dignified purpose. The
native never chooses this beautiful tree, as he does the
palm, the neem, or the mourungosh, to overshadow his
hut; and it is never admitted into the mango groves
sacred to the gods, although the silk-cotton and the
mouwha are not forbidden that consecrated ground.</p>

<p>But the prejudice goes further still. No <i>khitmutgar</i>,
or cook, will hang a piece of meat on a tamarind-tree:
he believes that meat thus exposed does not keep well,
and that it becomes unfit for salting. A traveller, though
very willing to eat of the fruit, will not unload his pack
or rest under its branches; and a soldier, tired as he may
be with a long march, will rather wander farther on than
pile his arms in its shade. There is an idea, in fact, at
least in Bengal, that there is something unlucky or unhealthy,
some antique spell or some noxious vapour,
surrounding this beautiful tree; although we are not
aware that science has yet discovered that there is anything
really hurtful in its exhalations.</p>

<p>Another strange notion connected with the tamarind-tree
is thus mentioned by a correspondent:&mdash;'Often have
I stood as a youngster gazing with astonishment at a
couple of bearers belabouring a large knotty root, of some
eight feet in girth, with their axes, making the chips fly
off in every direction; which, upon picking up, I used to
find covered over with unintelligible scribbles, which the
bearers gravely told me was the writing of the gods.'</p>

<p>Here we have our tree in a new light: this outcast
from the sacred groves is inscribed with holy characters!
Who shall interpret their meaning? Are they like the
mark set upon the forehead of Cain? Or is the legend
intended as a perpetual consolation under the prejudices
and indignities of men? All we know is, that the white
fir-like grains of the tamarind wood are written over in
an unknown tongue by means of a small thread-like vein
of a black colour.</p>

<p>There is a similar superstition connected with another
Indian tree, the kulpa briksha, or silver-tree, so called
from the colour of the bark. The original kulpa, which
now stands in the garden of the god Indra in the first
heaven, is said to have been one of the fourteen remarkable
things turned up by the churning of the ocean by the
gods and demons. But however this may be, the name of
Ram and his consort Seeta is written upon the silvery
trunks of all its earthly descendants! Colonel Sleeman,
when travelling in Upper India, had the curiosity to
examine many of these trees on both sides of the road;
and sure enough the name of the incarnation of Vishnu
mentioned was plainly enough discernible, written in
Sanscrit characters, and apparently by some supernatural
hand&mdash;'that is, there was a softness in the impression, as
if the finger of some supernatural being had traced the
characters.' The traveller endeavoured to argue his
attendants out of their senses; but unluckily he could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">{360}</a></span>
find no tree, however near or distant, without the names;
the only difference being in the size of the letters, which
in some cases were large, and in others small. At length
he observed a kulpa in a hollow below the road, and
one on a precipice above, both in situations accessible
with such difficulty, that he was sure no mortal scribe
would take the trouble to get at them. He declared
confidently his opinion that the names would not be
found on these trees, and it was proved that he was
right. But this was far from affecting the devout faith
of his Hindoo followers. 'Doubtless,' said one, 'they
have in some way or other got rubbed off; but God will
renew them in His own time.' 'Perhaps,' remarked another,
'he may not have thought it necessary to write at
all upon places where no traveller could decipher them.'
'But do you not see,' said the traveller, losing patience,
'that these names are all on the trunk within reach of a
man's hand?' 'Of course they are,' replied they, 'since
the miracle could not be distinguished by the eyes of
men if they were written higher up!'</p>

<p>A shrub called the trolsee is a representation of the
same goddess Seeta, and is every year <i>married</i> with great
ceremony to a sacred stone called Saligram, a rounded
pebble supposed to represent the good Vishnu, of whom
Ram was an incarnation. On one occasion described, the
procession attending this august ceremony consisted of
8 elephants, 1200 camels, and 4000 horses, all mounted
and elegantly caparisoned. Above 100,000 persons were
present at this pageant, at which the little pebble was
mounted on the leading elephant, and thus carried in
state to his tree goddess. All the ceremonies of a Hindoo
marriage were gone through, and then the god and
goddess were left to repose together till the next season
in the temple of Sudora.</p>

<p>Indian trees, however, it must be said, are, from all
accounts, much more worthy of the honours of superstition
than those of less fervid climes. A traveller mentions
an instance of the 'sentient principle' occurring
among the denizens of an Indian forest. Two trees, he
tells us, of different kinds, although only three feet apart,
had grown to the height of fifty or sixty feet, when one
of them took the liberty of throwing out a low branch in
such a way as to touch the trunk of his neighbour, and
thus occasion much pain and irritation. 'On this the
afflicted tree in turn threw out a huge excrescence, which
not only enveloped the offending branch, but strangled it
so completely as to destroy it utterly; the ends of the
deadened boughs projecting three or four feet beyond the
excrescence, while the latter was carried on a distance of
three feet across to the shaft of the tree, so as to render
all chances of its future movement wholly impossible!'
This appears to our traveller to display as much forethought
and sagacity as taking up an artery for aneurism,
or tying splints round a broken bone.</p>

<p>But in a country where trees are the objects of such
veneration, and where those that are neither holy nor
sagacious are admitted without scruple to the best arborical
society, how comes it that the beautiful, the umbrageous,
and the beneficent tamarind is looked upon as
the outlaw of the plantation, the pariah of the forest?
This is a very puzzling circumstance, and one that, in the
present state of our knowledge, we can only set down to
the caprice and ingratitude of man.</p>



<hr class="chap" />

</div><div>
<h2><a name="TRACINGS_OF_THE_NORTH_OF_EUROPE" id="TRACINGS_OF_THE_NORTH_OF_EUROPE">TRACINGS OF THE NORTH OF EUROPE.</a></h2>

<p class='ph3'>CHRISTIANIA TO LAURGAARD.</p>



<p><span class="smcap">A land</span> journey of 334 English miles, which usually
occupies five or six days, was now before me. The
road passes along one of the finest as well as most
extensive valleys in Norway, and is further distinguished
by crossing the celebrated range of mountains
called the Dovre Field [Dovre pronounced <i>Dovra</i>],
which may be called the backbone of the country, as
the Grampian range is that of the Scottish Highlands.
Along this road, as usual, there is a series of stations,
but none of them is of so high a character as to present
the luxury of wheaten bread. One of my duties, therefore,
on the last day of my stay in Christiania, was to
obtain a bag of biscuits for use on the way. Being
anxious to secure a passage in a steamer which was to
leave Trondheim on the 18th July, I allowed seven
days for the journey, and started at one o'clock on the
11th, thus allowing an extra day for any accidental
delay upon the road.</p>

<p>The first two or three stages being across certain intermediate
valleys, we have much up-hill and down-hill
work along roads by no means good. It was pitiable to
see the little heavy-laden carts of the peasantry toiling
up the steep ascents, each with its forked pike trailing
behind it, on which to rest the vehicle, while the horse
should stop a few minutes at a time to recover breath
and strength. Many were conducted by women; and I
could not but admire the hardy, independent air of these
females, as they sat, whip in hand, urging their steeds
along, though, as might be expected from such a rough
out-of-door life, their figures exhibit little of the attractions
of their sex. At many places I found rock-surfaces
with dressings generally in a north and south
direction, being that of the valleys. It is not unworthy
of remark that two of the rivers are crossed by modern
wooden bridges, where a pontage is paid; and these
were the only charges approaching to the character of
a toll to which I was subjected throughout the whole of
my travels in Scandinavia. Of the valleys, one is full
of sandy, a second of clay terraces, marking some decided
difference in the former submerged condition of
the two districts. On passing into a third at Trygstad,
we find a vast plateau composed of clay below and pure
sand above, bearing magnificent pine-forests, and which
extends, without any intermission, to the foot of the
Miösen Lake. It would be a curious study to any native
geologist to examine this formation, and to trace its
source, and the circumstances under which it was deposited.
There are remarkable generalities about such
things. Instructed by what I had seen in Scotland, as
soon as I observed the valley filled with sand up to a
certain height a few miles below where I knew a lake
to be, I mentally predicted that this formation would
terminate at the foot of the lake, and that there would
be no terraces on the hill-sides above that sheet of
water. Such proved to be the case.</p>

<p>A short stage before reaching the foot of the Miösen
Lake, we pass one of those objects so extraordinary in
Norway&mdash;a country mansion; that is to say, a handsome
house adapted for the residence of a family in
affluent circumstances. It is called Eidsvold, and was
once the property of a family named Anker, but now
belongs to the public, in consequence of the interesting
distinction conferred on it in 1814, when a national assembly
sat here and framed the constitution under which the
country is now so happily placed. The purchase of this
house by a national subscription is an agreeable circumstance,
as it marks that deep and undivided feeling
which the Norwegian people entertain regarding their
constitution&mdash;a feeling perhaps more important than
the character of the constitution itself, as it is what
mainly secures its peaceful working. This constitution
has now stood for thirty-five years, with a less amount
of dissent and dissatisfaction on the part of the people
than has happened in the case of any other experiment
of the same kind in modern Europe. It is entitled to be
regarded as a successful experiment; and, as such, of
course may well be viewed with some interest by the rest
of Europe, especially at a time when so many political
theories are on their trial, and so few seem likely to stand
good. The main fact is the election, every three years,
of a body called the Storthing, which separates itself into
an Upper and Lower House, enacts and repeals laws,
and regulates all matters connected with the revenue.
The royal sanction is required for these laws; but if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">{361}</a></span>
the people are bent upon any measure disapproved of by
the king, they have only to re-introduce and pass it in
two more successive Storthings, when it would become
law without the royal assent. Thus the Norwegians
may be said, in Benthamian language, to <i>minimise</i> the
monarchical principle. But how is the Storthing constituted?
The right of voting depends on a low property
qualification. The qualified voters in small districts
elect persons called election-men, who again meet
by themselves, and elect, usually, but not necessarily,
out of their own number, representatives of larger districts,
who in turn form the Storthing, the whole numbers
of which are somewhat under a hundred. It is a system
of universal suffrage, exclusive only of the humblest
labouring-class. It may be said to be a government of
what we call the middle-classes, and all but a pure democracy;
but it is essential to observe that the bulk of
the people of Norway are of the kind which we recognise
as a middle-class, for of hereditary nobility they
have none, and the non-electors are a body too humble
in circumstances, and too well matched in numbers by
the rest, to have any power for good or evil in the case.
There are other important considerations: land is held
in Norway, not upon the feudal, but the <i>udal</i> principle,
which harmonises much better with democratic forms;
there being no right of primogeniture, estates are kept
down at a certain moderate extent; in the general circumstances
of the country, there can be no massing of
wealth in a few hands, and therefore little of that species
of influence. The apparently ultra-liberal system of
Norway being thus adapted to many things more or less
peculiar to the country, it may have attained a success
here which it would not obtain elsewhere, or at least
not till a proper groundwork had been laid in social
arrangements. This is a proposition which seems to
derive much support from recent political failures in
Germany, Italy, and, shall we add, France? The abrupt
decreeing of a democratic constitution, in supersession
of a government which has been absolute for centuries,
is seen to be an absurdity, though one, perhaps, which
nothing but experiment could have demonstrated.</p>

<p>It was still far from night when I arrived at Minde,
at the foot of the Miösen Lake. This sheet of water,
sixty-three English miles in length, terminates here in
a curve formed in the sandy plateau, through which its
waters have made for themselves a deep trench. The
little inn nestles under the steep bank on the west side
of the outlet, commanding from its back-windows a
view along the lake. As the point where the river
must be ferried, and whence the steamers start on their
course along the lake, it is a place of some importance.
It has even been proposed to have a railway from Christiania
to Minde, and the ground has been surveyed by Mr
Robert Stephenson; but this is not likely to be realised
for some years to come. I found the porch of the inn
filled with guests enjoying their pipes; two or three of
them were officers, and one of these, I was told, had the
duty of superintending the post stations of a certain
district. Amongst others was one of those dirty young
men of the student genus who are so prevalent on the
continent; travelling with only a little satchel slung
from their shoulders, and thus evidently unprovided
with so much as a change of linen or a set of night-clothes,
yet always sure to be found lugging along a
tobacco-pipe half as big as themselves, together with a
formidable pouch of tobacco depending from a button-hole.
The inn consisted of two floors, in the lower of
which was a good-sized public room, gay with prints of
the royal family and such-like; from this on one side
went off two bedrooms; on the other adjoined a kitchen,
and other family apartments. Stables, sheds, and storehouses
of various denominations stood near by, so as
to form what Allan Ramsay calls a rural square. It
was a comfortable establishment, and the females who
conducted it were respectable-looking people. There
was also a landlord, who was always coming in, apparently
under an anxiety to do something, but never did
it. I had a good meal served up in the public room,
and enjoyed the evening scene on the lake very greatly,
but found the occasional society of the other guests in
this apartment disagreeable, in consequence of their
incessant smoking, and their habit of frequent spitting
upon the floor. It is seldom that I find associates in
inns who come up to my ideas of what is right and
proper in personal habits. The most of them indulge,
more or less, in devil's tattooing, in slapping of fingers,
in puffing and blowing, and other noises anomalous and
indescribable, often apparently merely to let the other
people in the room know that they are there, and not
thinking of anything in particular. Few seem to be
under any sense of the propriety of subduing as much
as possible all sounds connected with the animal functions,
though even breathing might and ought to be
managed in perfect silence. In Norway the case is
particularly bad, as the gentlemen, in addition to everything
else, assume the privilege of smoking and spitting
in every room of every house, and even in the presence
of ladies.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> To a sensible and wellbred person all such
things are as odious as they are unnecessary. It is
remarkable throughout the continent how noisily men
conduct themselves. They have not our sense of quietness
being the perfection of refined life. At Minde a
gentleman over my head made an amount of noise with
his luggage and his personal movements which astonished
me, for it created the idea of a vast exertion
being undergone in order to produce it, as if it had been
thought that there was some important object to be
served by noise, and the more noise the better.</p>

<p>I had intended to proceed next morning by the
steamer along the lake, but I had been misinformed as
to the days of sailing, and found it necessary to spend
my reserve day at Minde. It was less of a hardship to
me than it might have been to others, as I found more
than enough of occupation in examining the physical
geography of the district. The sandy plain runs up
to the hills on both sides at an exceedingly small angle
of inclination, and perfectly smooth. On the east side,
near a place called &#338;vre, there is, close to the hills,
a stripe of plain of higher inclination, and composed
of gravel, so that the whole is exceedingly like that
kind of sea-beach which consists partly of an almost
dead flat of sand, and partly of a comparatively steep
though short slope of gravel, adjoining to the dry
land. That the sea did once cover this plain, and rise
against the gravel slope, I could have no doubt: the
whole aspect of the objects spoke of it. There were
also terraces in the valley below, indicating pauses in
the subsidence (so to speak) of the sea. It was of some
importance, since the point formerly reached by the sea
could here be so clearly marked, to ascertain how high
that point was above the present sea-level. My measurements,
which were conducted with the level and
staff, using the lake as a basis, set it down as just about
656 feet above the sea, being, as it chances, the height
of an ancient sea-terrace at Bardstadvig, on the west
coast of Norway, and also that of certain similar terraces
in Scotland.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> This coincidence may be accidental,
but it is worthy of note, as possibly a result of causes
acting to a general effect, more especially as it is not in
this respect quite solitary.</p>

<p>The dinner presented to me on the day of my stay
at Minde might be considered as the type of such a
meal bespoken at a tolerable country inn in Norway.
It consisted of a dish of fried trout from the lake, with
melted butter-sauce, and something like Yorkshire
pudding to take with it: no more animal food, but
a dish of cream prepared in a manner resembling
<i>trifle</i>, and accompanied by a copious supply of an over-luscious
warm jelly; finally, a salad. It is common in
small Norwegian inns to put down, with one dinner-like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">{362}</a></span>
dish, a large bowl of what we call in Scotland <i>lappered
milk</i>, but bearing a creamy surface, along with sugar:
it seems to be a favourite regale with the natives; but
I never could get into a liking for it. In the clear
warm day which I spent in the Minde inn, the lake
presented a beautiful placid scene; a boat was now and
then seen rowing lazily across its mirror-like surface;
but more generally nothing studded the silver sheet but
the image of a passing summer cloud.</p>

<p>In my rambles to-day I saw many of the peasantry,
and the interiors of a few of their houses. The women
are poor-looking creatures, dressed in the most wretched
manner. They want the smart taste seen even among
the poorest young females farther south, as is particularly
evidenced in their head-dress, which consists
merely of a coarse handkerchief tied under the chin&mdash;a
sort of apology for a hood rather than a head-dress.
There are great differences in the interiors of
the peasants' houses; but certainly many of them are
miserable little cabins. As yet, I see few symptoms
of a prosperous life for the labouring-class in Norway.
It is different with the peasant proprietors or
yeomen, called <i>bonder</i> in their own country. The house
of a <i>bonde</i> is a long, double-storeyed, wooden house,
painted a dull red or yellow, with gauze window-curtains,
and very neatly furnished within. The life of
this class&mdash;the leading class of Norwegian society&mdash;seems
generally comfortable, though not to the degree
which is alleged in the glowing pages of Mr Laing; for
they are very often embarrassed by debt, mostly incurred
in order to pay off the claims of brothers and
sisters to their inheritance. At present, the labouring-class
are leaving Norway in considerable numbers to
settle in America. There is one particular district in
Wisconsin which they flock to, and which, I am told,
contains at least 6000 of these poor people. A government
officer, whom I conversed with at Christiania,
says it is owing to the superabundant numbers of the
people. The land, he alleges, has been brought to the
utmost stretch of its productive power. Meanwhile, to
use his expression, there is <i>trop du mariage</i>: the food
being insufficient for the constantly-increasing numbers,
they must needs swarm off. There is a like emigration
of the humbler class of peasantry from Sweden.
Thus we see that equally in the simple state of things
which prevails in Scandinavia, and in the high-wrought
system of wealthy England, there is but a poor life for
the hireling unskilled labourer. Nowhere does it afford
more than a bare subsistence; often scarcely gives this.</p>

<p>The weather was now becoming very warm, while,
with the increasing latitude, the day was sensibly
lengthening. On the evening of the 12th of July I
went to bed at ten o'clock under a single sheet, with
the window fully up, and read for an hour by the
natural light. Next morning at six I went on board
the Jernbarden steamer, and was speedily on my way
along the Miösen Lake. A raft behind contained my
own and another carriage. It proved a pleasant day's
sailing, though there is nothing very striking in the
scenery of the lake. The gentlemen sauntered about, or
sat upon deck, constantly smoking from their long
pipes. There were a few ladies, who seemed not at all
discomposed by the smoke, or any of its consequences.
A tall old general of infantry, in a dark cloak, exhausted
I know not how many pipes, and his servant seemed to
have little to do but to fill the tube afresh from a <i>poke</i> of
chopped tobacco not much less than a nose-bag. Notwithstanding
these barbarian practices, there is a vast
amount of formal politeness among the native gentlemen
and ladies; there is an incessant bowing and taking
off of hats; and whenever one is to leave the vessel,
he bids adieu to the company, though he perhaps never
met one of them before. The captain could converse in
English, as is the common case in steamers throughout
Norway and Sweden, this gift being indeed held as an
indispensable qualification for the appointment. I had
also some conversation with the engineer, an intelligent
German, who had been some years in England. Along
with these circumstances, the idea that the engines
had been made in Glasgow caused me to feel more at
home on the Miösen Lake than I could have expected.
We had, however, a more tedious voyage than usual, in
consequence of the drag upon the vessel's movements
which we carried behind us, and we consequently did
not reach the landing-place beneath the town of Lillehammer
till four o'clock.</p>

<p>This being the only town between Christiania and
Trondheim, I was desirous of stopping at it; but we
had left ourselves barely enough of time to reach the
station of a steamer at the foot of a second and smaller
lake a few miles onward, by which I hoped to make out
a hundred miles of travelling before we should sleep,
and thus leave myself comparatively at ease about the
remainder of the journey. I therefore reluctantly
drove through this pleasant-looking little place. Soon
after leaving Lillehammer, the hills, which as yet had
been low and rather tame, became steep and rough.
We pass along the left bank of the <i>Laug</i>, a large, fierce,
and rapid stream, of that green colour which indicates
an origin among snow-clad mountains. My journey
might now have been described by a line from a Scottish
poet&mdash;'By Logan's streams that run sae deep'&mdash;for,
by the usual affix of the article <i>en</i>, the name of
this river is sounded Logan, and thus is identical with
a name attached to more than one stream in Scotland.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>
Nor is this, by the way, a solitary case. The river
which enters the sea at Trondheim is the Nid, identical
with the Nith of Dumfriesshire fame. Even the generic
name for a river in Norway, <i>elv</i>, or, with the
article, <i>elven</i>, appears in our numerous tribe of Elvans,
Alwynes, Allans, Evans, and Avons.</p>

<p>About a couple of miles before reaching Mosshuus,
the first station from Lillehammer, we meet a steep
rough barrier, which crosses the valley, curving outwards
from the hill-face towards the river, and leaving
only a narrow space between itself and the opposite
hills for the stream to pass. On mounting to the top,
we find that it has a flat surface of considerable extent.
It is composed of blocks of stone of all sizes, up to that
of a cottage, mixed with a pale clay. Presently another
such mass appears, in a terrace-like form, on the
opposite bank of the river. A very little reflection,
aided by the recollection of some Swiss observations of
the preceding summer, enabled me to detect in these
strange objects the fragments of an ancient <i>moraine</i>. A
glacier had once poured down the valley, terminating
at this place, and here depositing the loose materials
which it had carried along with it from the higher
grounds. Such loose materials come to form what is
called the terminal <i>moraine</i> of the glacier. Norway
must have then had a much colder climate than now,
for there is not permanent snow in this district except
upon the tops of the mountains&mdash;though in Western
Norway there are still glaciers which descend almost
to the level of the sea. On an improved temperature
becoming prevalent, the glacier of the Logan valley
had shrunk back, leaving its moraine as a memorial of
the point it had once reached. In connection with this
object, it is important to remark that the exposed rock-surfaces
in the bottom, and a little way up the sides of
the valley, are smoothed; but the higher parts of the
hill-sides are extremely rough and angular, and have
evidently never been subjected to the action of ice.
So far there is a difference between this glen and the
southern parts of the country. In the latter, where the
eminences are low, the ice has passed over hill and vale
in its own proper direction. Any ice that has been
here has, on the contrary, followed the direction of the
valley, forming in it one local and limited stream.</p>

<p>While Quist waited for fresh horses at Mosshuus, I
walked on before to examine the country. I found the
rocks to be of a schistous character, generally having
their sharp angular sides presented to the road. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">{363}</a></span>
contrast which they presented to the smoothed surfaces
lower down, and to the general surface of Sweden and
Southern Norway, was striking, and such as to leave no
doubt that the one set of objects had been exempted from
a mechanical agency which had powerfully affected the
other. Amidst the thin woods of pine and birch which
clothed the hill-sides I found abundance of the wild
strawberry, and made my acquaintance with this pleasant
fruit for the first time. Here and there were piles
of cut wood, and the woodman's stroke sounded through
the glades. The declining sun threw the one side of
the valley into deep shade, and brought out the other
into equally strong light. Now and then a wain was
heard moving up the steep parts of the road, cheered
by the voices of a rustic cortège, whose red cowls would
have been keenly appreciated by the eye of a painter.
It was a beautiful scene, and a beautiful season&mdash;one of
those opportunities which the heart sometimes finds to
fall in upon itself in perfect satisfaction and repose. I
was glad, however, when, after what I thought a too
long delay, my carriage made its appearance. We
pushed rapidly on towards the bottom of the lake, and
were fortunate enough to reach it just as the steamer
was about to move off, about nine o'clock.</p>

<p>It was a small and plainly-furnished vessel, which
seemed to have exceedingly little custom, for there
were not more than three other passengers; and as I
only paid about 1s. 8d. for myself, servant, and carriage,
the general receipts must be very small. The
vessel is, however, conducted on so economical a principle,
that comparatively few passengers must suffice
to make it pay. A chatty old gentleman, who seemed to
be the sole or chief owner, took me down to the engine-room,
and showed me the pile of wood required for one
of its voyages (sixteen English miles); it measured a
fathom each way, and cost 4s. 6d. English! A good-looking,
middle-aged woman, attended by a daughter,
was there to furnish refreshments, and I supped at an
expense ludicrously trifling. While light served, the
view from the deck was fine, the immediate banks of
the lake presenting slopes of intense green, divided into
small farms, each provided with its snug little suite of
wooden buildings; while over these spaces rose the
dark, steep mountains, shaggy with rock and scrub.
A little before midnight we arrived at the landing-place
under Elstad station, which is situated pretty far
up the hill-side, and to which it was necessary to send
for horses to take up the carriage. Walking on before, I
soon found myself at the house, but had some difficulty
in attracting attention, as the inmates were all in bed.
After a little trouble, a stout lass came and bustled
about for the preparation of a couch in a very plain
upper chamber, and I consigned myself to Morpheus
with all possible despatch, as it was necessary that I
should be on the road at an early hour on the morrow.</p>

<p>Rising between six and seven, I found Elstad picturesquely
situated on a prominence commanding extensive
views of the valley. The house is black with
age: the date 1670 appears by the door-check, showing
that these wooden edifices are more durable than might
be supposed. There is, however, no observable difference
between this and more modern houses as regards
the internal arrangements or the size of the apartments.
All such things are stereotyped in Norway.
We started at seven, and had a fine morning drive along
the valley, which is enlivened by some cataracts of the
river, and by the inpouring of two fierce side streams&mdash;the
Vola and Fyre. At Oden, while they were procuring
fresh horses, I obtained breakfast with some
difficulty, using some tea of my own, but indebted to
the house for sugar, eggs, and butter. The charge for
all, besides Quist's breakfast, was a mark (9½d.); and
it probably would have been less if I had not been
regarded as an Englishman. In the space between this
station and the next, at a place called Toostamona
(spelt as pronounced), I found a detrital barrier across
the valley, very much like that at Mosshuus, but so
little charged with large blocks, that I felt doubtful
whether it was a second moraine, the mark of a second
position of the skirt of the glacier, or the spoils of some
side stream, the product of a later though still ancient
time. Things are now becoming very simple. The
internal economy of the stations is manifestly getting
more rude. When, after a stage is done, I give, at
Quist's dictation, four or five skillings to the man who
has come to take back the horses&mdash;and four or five
skillings are only about three-halfpence&mdash;the poor fellow
takes off his cowl, thrusts a huge coarse hand into
the carriage to shake mine, and utters his 'Tak, tak'
(thanks, thanks) with an <i>empressement</i> beaming in his
honest visage which affects while it amuses me, it
being impossible to see a fellow-creature so profoundly
gratified by anything so trifling, without at once seeing
that his share of the comforts of life must be small
indeed, and feeling contrite at the recollection of the
very slight impression which blessings incomparably
greater make upon myself.</p>

<p>At Sletsvig occurs an undoubted ancient moraine,
exactly like that at Mosshuus, being composed of huge
angular blocks mixed with clayey matter. As it lies
opposite a side valley, which here comes in from the
west, it may have been a product of that valley; though
I am inclined to regard it rather as the accumulation
left by the glacier of the Logan vale after it had shrunk
up to this point. On the inner side, looking up the
main valley, there is a bed of sand, evidently laid down
by water, and which it seems allowable to regard as the
memorial of a time when this moraine served as a
barrier, confining the waters of the river in the form of
a lake. In this part of the valley there is a system of
irrigation extensively practised by means of wooden
troughs laid down along the hill-sides. The cheapness
of the material makes it of course highly available.
On my journey to-day I met few persons of any kind:
amongst these were children offering little platefuls
of the wild strawberry for sale. A couple of skillings
for a plateful was evidently received as a great prize.
Owing apparently to a change in the stratification, the
valley makes a rectangular bend at <i>Viig</i>&mdash;a word, by
the way, expressive of a <i>bend</i>, being identical with Wick,
which so often occurs in Britain in names of places
signifying a bay. The Viig station, which is a superior
one, is said to contain in its walls some of the timbers
of the house in which St Olaf was born&mdash;a fact strange
if true, seeing that this saint, who was a king of Norway,
lived in the tenth century.</p>

<p>Having sent on no forebud to-day, I experienced some
delay at each station while fresh horses were procuring
from the neighbouring farmers. Leaving Quist to bring
on the carriage from Solheim, I walked forward to
examine at leisure the scene of a remarkable historical
event in which some countrymen of mine were concerned.
Above the junction of a tributary from the
west, the valley of the Logan becomes still more contracted
than formerly. The hill-side, steep to an unusual
degree, and rough with large blocks fallen from above,
descends to the left bank of the river, leaving no level
stripe to form a road. The public road is, in fact, by a
preference of circumstances, conducted along the hill-face
fully a hundred feet above the stream. In the year
1612, when the king of Denmark and Norway was at
war with the king of Sweden, a Colonel Mönnichhofen
was despatched to Scotland to hire troops for the assistance
of the latter sovereign. He, with 1400 men, landed
near Trondheim, and after an ineffectual attempt to
surprise that city, made his way through Norway by
Stordalen into Sweden. A second party of 900 men,
under Colonel George Sinclair, landed a fortnight later
at Romsdalen, and endeavoured to pass into Sweden
by a different path. As all regular troops had been
draughted away from Norway to fight the king of
Denmark's battles, there seemed little likelihood of any
difficulty being encountered on the march. The peasantry,
however, became exasperated by the extortion
of free provisions, and those of three parishes in this
district assembled for the purpose of opposing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">{364}</a></span>
Scotch. According to a Norwegian ballad, which has
been spiritedly translated by David Vedder&mdash;</p>

<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;'the news flew east, the news flew west,<br /></span>
<span class="i2">And north and south it flew;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Soon Norway's peasant chivalry<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Their fathers' swords they drew.<br /></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The beacons blazed on every hill,<br /></span>
<span class="i2">The fiery cross flew fast;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">And the mountain warriors serried stood,<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Fierce as the northern blast....<br /></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The boors of Lessie, Vaage, and Froen,<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Seized axe, and scythe, and brand&mdash;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">"Foredoomed is every felon Scot<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Who stains our native land!"'<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a><br /></span>
</div></div>

<p>A guide in the interest of the peasants conducted the
Scottish party towards the narrow defile which has
been described. The peasants themselves were gathered
in force on the mountains above. As it was impossible
for them to see what was going on in the pass, they
caused a man mounted on a white horse to pass to the
other side of the river, and move a little way in front of
the advancing enemy, that they might know when he
was near at hand. At the same time a girl was placed
on the other side of the Logan, to attract the attention
of the Scots by sounding her rustic horn. When the
unfortunate strangers had thus been led to the most
suitable place, the boors tumbled down huge stones
upon them from the mountain-top, destroying them, to
use their own expression, like potsherds. Then descending
with sword and gun, they completed the destruction
of the Scots. There is a romantic story, which seems
far from likely, that Sinclair had been accompanied on
this occasion by his wife. It is added that a young
lady of the neighbourhood, hearing of this, and anxious
to save an innocent individual of her own sex, sent her
lover to protect the lady in the impending assault. Mrs
Sinclair, seeing him approach, and mistaking his object,
shot him dead. Some accounts represent the immediate
destruction of the Scottish party as complete, excepting
only that two men escaped. One more probable states
that sixty were taken prisoners, and kept by the peasants
till next spring, when, provisions failing, and the
government making no movement in the matter, the
poor captives were put into a barn and murdered in
cold blood, only two escaping, of whom one survived
to be the progenitor of a family still dwelling in these
wilds. Such were the circumstances of the bloody
affair of Kringelen, to commemorate which a little
wooden monument has been erected on the wayside,
at the precise spot where the Scottish party was surprised.
The grave of Sinclair is also pointed out in the
neighbouring churchyard of Quham. An inspection
of the scene of the massacre gives a thrilling sense of
the utterly desperate circumstances of the Scottish
troops when beset by the Norwegian boors. One looks
round with horror on the blocks scattered along the
hill-side, every one of which had destroyed a life.
'Now all is peaceful, all is still,' on the spot where this
piece of savage warfare was acted, save that which
only marks the general silence&mdash;the murmur of the
river. Resting here for a while, I could not but enter a
mental protest against the triumphant spirit with which
the affair is still referred to by the Norwegians, seeing
that the assailants fought at such advantage, not to
speak of the safety in which they fought, that nothing
but the grossest misconduct could have failed to give
them a victory. The grace of a generous mercy would
have been worth twice their boast. I walked on
about a mile to a hamlet where there is a sort of
rustic museum, devoted to keeping certain relics of
the Scottishmen. In the inner chamber of a little
cottage a woman showed me, ranged along a wall, five
matchlocks, two of them very long, two Highland
dirks, a broadsword, a spur, two powder flasks, the
wooden tube of a drum, and a small iron-hooped box.
The sight of these objects so near the scene of the
slaughter helps wonderfully to realise it; and it is impossible
for a Scotsman at least to look on them without
emotion. I thought, however, of the mercy of
Providence, which causes the waves of time to close
over the most terrible and the most distressing things,
sweeping away all the suffering&mdash;exhaling calamity,
as it were, into air&mdash;and leaving only perhaps a few
tangible objects to remind us by association that 'such
things were.'</p>

<p>In the evening I arrived at Laurgaard, where it was
necessary to spend the night.</p>

<p class='right'>
R. C.
</p>

<hr class='chap' />
</div><div>

<h2><a name="LONDON_GOSSIP" id="LONDON_GOSSIP">LONDON GOSSIP.</a></h2>


<p class='right'>
<i>November, 1849.</i>
</p>

<p><span class="smcap">The</span> long vacation is over&mdash;cholera has flown away, or
gone into winter quarters&mdash;the raising of blinds and unclosing
of shutters in stylish streets indicate the return
of families whose absence has been prolonged by fears of
contagion&mdash;business, long stagnant, is reviving&mdash;street-traffic
is resuming its wonted density&mdash;the new Lord
Mayor has 'showed' himself, as of old&mdash;the November
fogs are entombing us in their fuliginous darkness&mdash;all of
which, whether fact, figure, or fancy, is an intimation
that we are in the advent of another London season.</p>

<p>Butchers and bakers are of course busy under the influx
of mouths, and not they alone, for booksellers are
'looking up,' and making proclamation of literary supplies.
Some famous names are already announced&mdash;Guizot,
Grote, and Lord Campbell in matters of history;
Washington Irving in a trio of biographies of individuals
so opposite in character&mdash;Washington, Mohammed, Goldsmith&mdash;as
to make one imagine that Knickerbocker must
have written all three at once, on the principle that
change of work is as good as play. Reprints are in force;
travels and adventures are not lacking; while fiction is
as copious as ever, or more so, for we are promised a re-publication
of the works of two well-known writers of
romance in shilling and eighteenpenny volumes. Quite
a boon this for travelling readers who love the exciting,
and patronise railway libraries. Besides these, there is
the usual inundation of pocket-books, almanacs, <i>et id
genus omne</i>, which for a time urges printing-presses into
preternatural activity. 'Cooking up an almanac,' as the
old song has it, must be a profitable business: the 'throwing
off' of that delightful periodical vouched for by
'Francis Moore, physician,' to the extent of hundreds of
thousands, is divided among three of our 'city' printers&mdash;no
small item in the Christmas bill. The wide sale of
a work relying on credulity for its success is no compliment
to the intelligence of the age; yet, as I myself
know, there are hundreds of people, especially in rural
districts, who would rather give up fifty pages of their
Bible, than forego the almanac with its annual prognostications.
Power-presses are kept constantly at work for
weeks to supply the multifarious demand.</p>

<p>Among other literary gossip is Fredrika Bremer's visit
to the United Stales. Perhaps the contrast to Scandinavian
manners which she will there perceive, may have
the effect of giving her a new inspiration, which by and by
will awaken the sympathies of thousands on both sides of
the Atlantic and in Northern Europe. Talking of the
United States, reminds me that Mr Bancroft has taken up
his residence in New York, and intends to devote himself
to the completion of his history, in which, like our own
Macaulay, he may possibly win higher honours, and
effect more lasting good, than in active political life.</p>

<p>You have heard of the sultan's generosity towards a
celebrated French writer. A large tract of land in
the vicinity of Smyrna has been granted by his highness
to M. de Lamartine, and it is said the author
of a 'Voyage en Orient' will go out to take possession.
A fact highly honourable to M. de Lamartine has
lately come to my knowledge, and as it illustrates a
point of character, I may communicate it. You are
aware that the extemporised minister of foreign affairs
has been compelled to sell his family estate of Macou
to satisfy his creditors. Some of our members of the
Peace Congress proposed, on their return home, to get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">{365}</a></span>
up a subscription on this side the Channel, which should
enable them to purchase the paternal acres, and restore
them to their late owner. M. de Lamartine was written to
on the subject, but declined to accept the proffered generosity,
being 'determined to rely solely on his own
literary exertions for the re-establishment of his affairs.'
Such a resolution is worthy of all respect.</p>

<p>Some very curious and instructive facts have come to
light in the evidence taken before the late parliamentary
committee on public libraries; and the 'blue book' in
which that is reproduced is one of the most valuable that
have of late been published 'by authority.' Certain results
come out which are said to make unfavourably
against our country. For instance, the proportion of
books in public libraries to every hundred of the population
is, in Great Britain and Ireland, 63; while Russia
and Portugal show from 76 to 80; Belgium, Spain, and
Sardinia, 100; France, 129; Italy, 150; Austria and
Hungary, 167; Prussia, 200; Sweden and Norway, 309;
Denmark, 412; some of the smaller German states, 450.
There has been a good deal of talk about this; but those
who point to British deficiencies omit to inquire whether
the books in countries so liberally furnished are really
read by the people. The presence of books does not
necessarily imply much reading; and if it were possible
to poll real readers, there is reason to believe that the
balance would be on the other side. We Britons are a
domestic race; we like to see books on our own shelves,
and to read them at home. It does not follow that a
comparatively small number of public books betokens a
deficient number of readers.</p>

<p>With the return of short days and long nights come
the season's pursuits, pleasures, and recreations. Our
twenty-two theatres are doing somewhat in the way of
amusement: casinos, saloons, bowling-alleys (an importation
from the United States), and exhibitions, are getting
into full swing. Music&mdash;concerts and oratorios&mdash;is
liberally furnished, of good quality, and at little cost.
The improvement of public taste in the matter of sweet
sounds within the past two or three years is not less
striking than gratifying. But with the decline of coarseness,
care must be taken to avoid the creation of a censorious
fastidiousness: a willingness to be amused is by no
means an unfavourable trait of character.</p>

<p>Mechanics' Institutes are publishing their programmes,
and in several of these there are also signs of improvement.
A course of fifteen or twenty lectures on as many different
subjects is no longer considered as the most improving
or desirable. Real instruction is not to be conveyed
by such means; and now two or three suitable topics
are to be chosen, and each discussed in a series of four,
five, or six lectures. In this way we may hope that
hearers will be able to carry home with them clear and
definite ideas, instead of the meagre outline hitherto
furnished.</p>

<p>Apropos of lectures: a striking characteristic of the
time must not be overlooked. The attempts recently
made towards a just acknowledgment and recognition of
the worth and <i>status</i> of the working-classes in society
have aroused similar efforts here in the metropolis. To
mention only one instance: a course of lectures to working-men
is to be delivered during the month of November,
by gentlemen whose name and character are a
guarantee for the value of their teachings. The subjects
are&mdash;On the advantages possessed by the working-classes
for their social advancement&mdash;On the importance of this
advancement to the nation at large&mdash;On the franchise as
a public trust&mdash;and On the favourable influence of religion
on the intelligence, liberty, virtue, and prosperity of
states. Each lecture, after having been given at the
London Mechanics' Institute, Chancery-Lane, will be
repeated the same week at Finsbury. The topics are
good ones; and if the working-classes do really feel an
upward tendency, now is the time to prove it.</p>

<p>Another fact which I must not forbear to notice is the
'Evening Classes for Young Men in London,' first set on
foot last winter by several public-spirited clergymen and
others. A few passages from the prospectus will not only
explain the objects, but serve as a guide to those who
may wish to bestir themselves in similar efforts in other
places. 'The range of subjects,' thus it proceeds, 'will
be nearly the same as that adopted at King's College
London; but, generally speaking, of a more elementary
character, so as to suit the requirements of young men
whose time is otherwise much engaged. All young men
of the metropolis and suburbs are admissible on producing
a note of introduction from a clergyman, a subscriber,
or a respectable householder, and paying 2s. 6d. per term
for each class.... The year of study will be divided into
three terms&mdash;Michaelmas, Lent, and Trinity; that is
from October to July, with short vacations at Christmas
and Easter. A record of the attendance of pupils will be
kept in each class: certificates of regular attendance can
be obtained; and these may be found very useful in
after-life, as indicative of steadiness of conduct, and of a
wise application of leisure time.' There is a liberal spirit
in this programme, which is no unimportant essential
towards a realisation of the promoters' aim. As soon as
twenty young men in any part of the metropolis unite to
form a class, a teacher is appointed for them. For the
present (Michaelmas) term there are more than forty
such classes, the subjects of study being Hebrew, Greek,
Latin, French, English; history, general, Scriptural, and
ecclesiastical; natural philosophy, chemistry, mathematics,
drawing, writing, and singing. When I tell you
that Dr M'Caul conducts the Hebrew, and the Rev. C.
Mackenzie the Greek class, you will be able to form a fair
idea of the value of the instruction imparted. Besides
the weekly class-lesson, a lecture, free to all the members,
is given on two evenings of the week. Those who have
long laboured to prove the rectifying and elevating influence
of education, will take courage from the facts which
I have here set down.</p>

<p>After this long discourse about learning and literature,
I may turn to a few minor subjects of gossip. One is the
Westminster improvements: the new line of street by
which it is proposed to connect the royal palace at Pimlico
and Belgravia with the grand centre of law and
legislation, is now laid open nearly in its whole length. It
is to be 80 feet wide; and with a view doubtless to its
becoming the royal route, a good breadth of building-land
has been reserved on each side. The making of this
avenue has removed a mass of squalid dwellings, nests of
filth and fever, which is of course a public benefit; but it
is hard to imagine what becomes of the late squalid occupants;
one can only suppose that they force themselves
into dismal districts already too thickly peopled. Southey
discovered the 'lost tribes,' and a few others, in London;
and it would not be difficult to find a Dismal Swamp
here as well as in Virginia.</p>

<p>Besides this, there is again talk of a new bridge at
Westminster, to be built a little lower down the stream
than the present unsightly structure, by which means a
better view than at present will be obtained of the nine-acre
legislatorial palace. We shall perhaps learn something
definite on this pontine business when Sir John
Burgoyne's report comes out. Meantime a 'lion' is not
lacking; for sight-seers go to look at Mr Hope's new mansion
at the corner of Dawn Street, Piccadilly. It is a
magnificent building, in the Renaissance style, and makes
one long to see whole streets of such architectural innovations
on the dreary uniformity of West-end thoroughfares.
With slight exceptions, the whole of the works
have been executed by foreign workmen. Some silver-plate
for the dining-rooms was 'on view' at the last exhibition
by the Society of Arts, and was greatly admired
by those who love revivals of ancient art.</p>

<p>Of course you have heard of the dismissal of the first
Sewers' Commission, and the appointment of a new one,
with Lord Ebrington as chairman? we must hope not
without an intention of <i>real</i> work. The call for competing
drainage-plans was answered by not less than 148
projects being sent in, among which no single one is found
efficient; the schemes, in fact, comprise all sorts of possibilities
and impossibilities. A good many are mere modifications
or reproductions of the plan proposed by Mr
J. Martin many years ago, which included a continuous
sewer on each side of the Thames from Vauxhall to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">{366}</a></span>
Rotherhithe, to be surmounted by a terrace to serve
as a public thoroughfare. Could this noble scheme be
realised, Londoners would have what has long been a
desideratum&mdash;a river promenade. Cleaning of streets
and water-supply come in as part of the same subject:
in some parishes bands of 'street orderlies,' as they are
called, have been set to work. They wear a broad-brimmed,
black-glazed hat, and a blue blouse, and in
appearance remind one of the 'cantonniers' who work on
the roads in France. The orderlies are provided with a
broom and shovel, and remove all litter as fast as it
accumulates. So well do they do their work, that crossing-sweepers
are not needed in their districts. As regards
water, it is a prime subject of discussion at present, and
it is to be hoped that something will come of it. Several
schemes are advocated: to bring water from the Thames
at Henley, some thirty miles distant; to tap Bala Lake,
and so introduce the pure element from North Wales;
to bore Artesian wells. If Bala will give us all we want,
in name of the Naiads let us have it! for those who are
learned in subterrane matters declare the Artesian supply
to be an impossibility, and we don't want to drink the
out-poured refuse of Reading or Henley. At all events,
the Duke of Wellington has authorised the sinking of an
Artesian well within the precincts of the Tower, that the
garrison may, for once in their lives, know the taste of
good water. It will be a proud day for Cockneydom
when it ceases to drink the superflux of sewers and cesspools!</p>

<p>Touching miscellaneous matters, there is the machine
for making envelopes lately invented at Birmingham,
where it was exhibited to several members of the British
Association. It is constructed on the pneumatic principle,
is beautifully simple and effective, and can be produced
at a cost of L.25. You are to imagine the prepared
sheets of which the envelopes are to be formed
placed in a small chamber or receptacle, upon which a
bellows-box descends, lifts off the upper sheet, transfers
it to a mould, which gives the size, and pinches the corners;
then, instead of metallic thumbs to rub down each
angular flap, a blast of air enters and effects the purpose;
away goes the envelop to be gummed, and drops finished
into the receiver, at a rate, it is said, exceeding anything
yet accomplished. Then there are Professor Schroeter's
experiments on phosphorus, producing what he calls the
'allotropic condition.' In few words, when exposed to
light and heat of different temperatures, phosphorus
undergoes remarkable changes; no real chemical alteration
takes place, yet there seems to be an entire conversion
into other substances. One effect of the modifications is
to render the manipulation of phosphorus harmless without
destroying its properties; and the professor, more fortunate
than scientific men generally, has received a liberal
sum from a Birmingham manufacturer as the price of
his discovery. And <i>last</i>, what think you of a mechanical
leech, to supersede the little black snake which so often
makes patients shudder? A scientific instrument with
such a name has been invented by M. Alexander, a civil
engineer in Paris. It has been tried in some of the hospitals,
and according to the reports, is a more effectual
leech than the natural one.</p>

<p>In a former 'gossip' I mentioned Dr Mantell and his
iguanodon: he (the doctor, not the reptile) has a batch
of new 'Wonders of Geology.' An arm-bone of a <i>saurian</i>,
nearly five feet in length, the original possessor of which
must have been as much larger than the iguanodon as
the latter is than a modern crocodile: the monster is to
be called the <i>Colosso-saurus</i>. In addition there is a 'consignment'
of <i>dinornis</i> bones from New Zealand, still
further exemplifying the gigantic scale of pre-Adamite
creation. They will doubtless be brought before the
public in some of the doctor's popular lectures.</p>

<p>The return of Sir James Ross and Sir John Richardson
from the Arctic regions without any intelligence of
Franklin and his adventurous band of explorers has
created both surprise and pain. Sir James, it appears,
was driven home by ice-drifts against his will and against
his instructions, and the consequence will be another
expedition next spring, should nothing in the meantime
be heard of Sir John Franklin by way of Behring's Straits
or Russia. Notwithstanding the sums already lavished
on these next to useless expeditions, a search must still
be made for the party who have now been four years
exposed to polar frosts.</p>



<hr class="chap" />
</div><div>


<h2><a name="A_CHEAP_CLASS_OF_RAILWAYS" id="A_CHEAP_CLASS_OF_RAILWAYS">A CHEAP CLASS OF RAILWAYS.</a></h2>


<p><span class="smcap">A short</span> time ago (October 13) we took occasion, in speaking
of the present railway system, to hint at the possibility
of constructing a class of useful railways, auxiliary
to the great lines, at a very moderate expense. Our
observations have drawn the attention of the conductors
of 'Herapath's Railway Journal' to the subject, which is
discussed by them in two able articles (Nov. 3 and 10),
of which we take the liberty of offering an analysis, along
with some general remarks.</p>

<p>The first thing noticed by Herapath is the unnecessarily
large cost at which most of the existing railways have
been constructed. While the railway mania lasted, cost
was of inferior consideration. In the inordinate hurry of
the moment, engineers gave only a rapid glance at the
proposed route; they thought nothing of tunnelling hills
and crossing deep valleys, rather than go a mile or two out
of their way; and then, to avoid local opposition, or to
promote local jobbing in land, enormous sums were recklessly
promised or expended. 'To show how lines are
projected,' says Herapath, 'we remember that there was
one for which a bill was actively and zealously prosecuted
in parliament in the eventful year 1845, which
tunnelled and cut nearly all the way from Liverpool to
Leeds. From the extent of its works, this line, though
not a very long one, would have taken fifteen or twenty
years to make. At the head of this hopeful project was
an engineer ranking high amongst the talents of the day,
a gentleman who had made one of our longest railways,
and in support of it as a feasible project it numbered
amongst its directors or committeemen gentlemen of the
first respectability. It narrowly escaped the sanction of
the legislature, which would no doubt have been granted
had not a strong opposition been raised to it by parties
interested in a competing line. But even where there is
opposition to expose merits and demerits, it is not always
that parliament can be depended upon to sanction the
better of two lines proposed; the best line remains most
likely undiscovered by engineers. In the case of the
Brighton line, of three proposed, parliament actually
selected the worst, the most expensive, and the shortest
only by a trifling distance. There was a route proposed,
which, passing through a natural gap in the hills, avoided
the necessity of tunnelling, and the enormous outlay and
permanent inconvenience consequent upon it. This superior
route parliament discountenanced, and favoured the
present long-tunnelled and costly line.' The parliamentary
expenses, caused by the opposition of rival companies
and landowners, told also most seriously on the initiatory
cost of the lines. 'There probably never was a bill passed
without having to encounter great opposition, because
there probably never was a bill for a railway prosecuted
in quiet ordinary times. There must be, it would seem,
a <i>mania</i> to bring forth railways, and then all the world
comes out with railway schemes. It is opposition which
engenders expense; and a mania is the hotbed for the
raising of opposition. One of our railway companies had
to fight so hard for their bill, that they found, when at
length they reached the last stage&mdash;namely, that of receiving
the royal assent&mdash;that their parliamentary expenses
had mounted up to half a million of money. Half
a million of money spent in barely acquiring from parliament
the <i>right</i> of making a line of railway which is to
confer a benefit on the nation! Such is the fact. Without
opposition, the same bill would have been passed into
an act at a cost not worth naming by the side of that
enormous sum.'</p>

<p>The result of all this was, that the cost of constructing
railways went far beyond what was warranted by prospects
of traffic; and in point of fact, had the traffic not
turned out to be greater than was contemplated by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">{367}</a></span>
projectors, scarcely a railway in the country would ever
have paid a shilling of profit. The usual expense of construction
and putting in working order&mdash;all outlays included&mdash;was
L.30,000 to L.40,000 per mile; some lines
were executed at L.20,000 per mile; but in several instances
the cost was as high as L.300,000 per mile. The
mere parliamentary expenses of some lines were L.5000
per mile; and a railway got well off at L.1000 per mile for
expenses of this nature. But the primary cost of railways
is only one element of calculation as respects the chances
of profit: another large item is the expense of working.
It is now discovered that a railway cannot be worked, to
be at all efficient, under the present heavy locomotive
system, at a less cost than L.700 per mile per annum.
'Several branch lines owned by wealthy companies,' says
Herapath, 'do not receive more than L.500 per mile per
annum, while the expense of working them cannot be
less than L.700 per mile per annum. Here the loss is
L.200 per mile per annum in addition to the loss of the
capital expended' for construction. 'The [present] locomotive
railway system is of too costly a character to admit
of every town having its railway. It is too costly in
<i>working</i> as well as in <i>construction</i>. A vast number of
places have not traffic sufficient to support railways,
though the capital cost of them should be nothing. The
working of trains is too expensive to allow of any profit
being derived from the traffic conveyed.'</p>

<p>The announcement of these truths brings us to the
consideration of a new and cheaper kind of railway
system. It will naturally occur to every one that there
are towns and districts which might find a paying traffic
for some species of thoroughfare superior to what is
afforded by a common road. A road is a general pathway
on which so many cart-loads of stones are laid down to
be ground to mud annually, at great labour to horses,
and no small pain and loss of time and money to passengers.
The way they are supported by toll-bar exactions
is in itself a pure barbarism. It is not an
advance beyond the rudest stage of social economy.
We pity towns that are cut off from the general intercourse
of the world by so miserable a class of thoroughfares;
and the question we propound is&mdash;whether something
better, yet not so stupendous as ordinary railways,
could be brought into operation? We think there could;
yet only provided certain concessions were made. The
following is what we propose:&mdash;</p>

<p>Railways to be constructed with only one line. The
rails to be of a somewhat lighter make than those ordinarily
employed. The routes to be accommodated, as
far as possible, to the nature of the country. Tunnels,
deep cuttings, high embankments, and expensive viaducts,
to be avoided. The best levels to be chosen, even
although the route should be some miles divergent.
No sidings of any kind, so that local superintendence
to shift points would be altogether avoided. Small
locomotives, of not more than ten-horse power, to be
employed. Light omnibuses for passengers, and light
wagons for goods, only to be used. On the supposition
that the lines of this nature shall be made only of from
ten to twenty miles in length (larger lines not being
immediately contemplated), there ought on no account
to be more than one locomotive in use: if there were a
second, it should only be as a reserve in case of accidents.
This rule for locomotives to form a main feature in the
whole plan. The locomotive, with its one or two omnibuses
for passengers, or its short train of wagons, or with
omnibuses and wagons mixed, to be kept almost constantly
going. Instead of standing during long intervals
doing nothing, with its steam ineconomically escaping,
and its driver idle, let it be on the move, if necessary,
the whole twenty-four hours. As soon as it comes in at
one terminus, let it return to the other. Let it, in short,
do all the work that is to be done; and as by this means
there can be only one train at a time in operation, so
there can never be any collisions, and sidings would be
useless. The speed to be regulated according to circumstances.
Trains with coal, lime, or other heavy articles,
may go at the rate of six or eight miles an hour; those
with passengers may proceed at an accelerated rate of
twelve to fifteen miles, which we anticipate to be a sufficient
maximum speed for railways of this kind, and
more would not be expected. The width or gauge might
be that commonly employed, and the lines might be in
connection with the existing railways. But we would
not consider it indispensable for the light trains here
spoken of to run into the main lines. It might be proper
to run the same wagons on both; but the shifting of passengers
would be of less importance. At present, people
shift into stage-coaches at certain stations, and they
would have no greater trouble in shifting into the omnibuses
on the single branch lines. To leave nothing untried
as regards saving in the working expenses, it might
be preferable to have no station clerks. Stations need
only be covered sheds, to afford shelter from the weather;
and instead of a class of clerks and porters fixed to a
spot, a conductor to sell tickets, and a porter as an assistant,
might travel with every train.</p>

<p>Such are the leading features of a plan for establishing
cheap railways. If no fallacy lurk under our calculations,
the expense of working such lines would be comparatively
small. The number of attendants would be
on the most moderate scale, and so likewise would be the
amount of the engines and carriages in active operation.
Possibly, in some instances, horse-power would be preferable
to that of steam; but on this point it is needless
to say much, for the question would be determined
by circumstances. Herapath seems to indicate that
horse-power might be deemed sufficient in the first instance.
He observes, 'It is probable that on railways of
the character recommended for local purposes the average
traction would be about one-tenth of the common
road traction. One horse on a local railway would
therefore draw as much as ten on a common road, perhaps
more. But even this gives a great advantage over
the common road. Horses, in the room of the heavy
locomotives now in use, would effect great saving, in
carrying a limited amount of traffic, in working, as well
as in the repairs of the permanent way. Should the
traffic of these local lines increase much, it may then become
advisable to put on light locomotives equal to the
duty. Improvements are every day being made in the
locomotive; and it is highly probable that in course of
time we shall have light locomotives fit for the working
of branch lines, where there is but a meagre supply of
traffic, and where the expense of the giant locomotive
now in use cannot be borne.'</p>

<p>The only matters remaining to be discussed are the
mode and cost of construction. It may be as well to
say at once, that unless the landowners and general inhabitants
of a district cordially concur in establishing
such lines, they cannot be made, and the whole project
falls to the ground. It must be regarded in every
instance as assumed, that the parties locally interested
wish for the lines, and will earnestly, and without selfishness,
promote their execution. It will, we believe, be
very generally found that on a line of ten to twenty
miles in length there are not more than six to eight
principal landowners. We could mention instances in
which lines would go six miles over one person's property.
In a variety of cases the lines might run for certain
distances alongside the public roads, so as to cause
the least possible damage to property or general amenity.
In any case, supposing that nothing more than the fair
price of the land taken is to be paid for&mdash;no contest
in parliament, and no great works to be attempted&mdash;it
is reasonable to conclude that the first cost of the lines
would be little more than a tenth of what is ordinarily
charged. According to Herapath&mdash;'instead of L.30,000,
L.40,000, or L.50,000 a mile, the cost of a town's or landowner's
branch line, constructed on the above principle,
would only be a few thousands&mdash;probably as low as
L.2000, L.3000, or L.4000 a mile. The expense, however,
would vary according to the nature of the country to be
traversed. Where the ground is flat and sound (not
boggy) the expense would be lightest. But in each case
an estimate could ascertain&mdash;not to a nicety, but nearly&mdash;what
a line would cost. We should advise that, prior
to entering upon the construction of a line, the parties<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">{368}</a></span>
should carefully estimate the cost of construction, the
charges for working&mdash;say by horses&mdash;and thus see, before
they commenced, that there was no chance of their being
on the wrong side. We imagine that lines constructed
and worked so cheaply as these would be, would pay well;
in dividend far outrival their more costly connections,
the great locomotive lines. A wide field is here opened
for legitimate and safe speculation; for benefiting all
parties, if it be only properly carried out. To raise funds
for this purpose, the townspeople and landowners could
form themselves into partnerships or companies. We
have no doubt they would amply benefit their pockets in
a direct manner, by the profitable return such a railway
would make upon its capital, as well as obtain railway
communications which would enhance the value of their
estates and the importance of their towns.'</p>

<p>With these explanations, the subject may be left in
the hands of the public. Only one obstacle seems to
present itself&mdash;and that is the present disheartened condition
of the country respecting all railway schemes whatever.
On this account projects such as we speak of would
have a difficulty in obtaining a hearing. At the same
time, the penalties of neglecting opportunities must be
borne in mind. To conclude in the words of Herapath:&mdash;'The
local parties interested in lines of this description
should not delay directing their attention to the subject;
for while they are waiting and dreaming, the trade of
their towns may permanently pass away from them, and
centre in places provided with railway accommodation.
Trade remains with a place for a long time after another
place has possessed itself of superior advantages
for carrying it on; but when it <i>has</i> passed away, owing
to neglect to retain it, it is almost impossible to regain
it. Certainly, it may be said, the sooner the inhabitants
of isolated places in want of railway communication bestir
themselves in this matter, the better for their own interests.
In self-defence they will be called upon in the
course of years to do so; when they find their trade slipping
through their fingers they <i>must</i> have railways; and
as railway companies will never be allowed to do it for
them, they must needs make the lines themselves. Is
it not better to set about this work before it is a matter
of necessity, before they lose their business, and before
others take it away? To our mind there is not a doubt
of the propriety of local parties attending to this notice
at once; not in haste, but with deliberate judgment,
reviewing the local position in which they stand, the
capability of forming a cheap line, and the advantages
of it both directly and indirectly to themselves.'</p>

<p class='right'>
W. C.
</p>

<hr class='chap' />

</div><div>

<h2><a name="CURIOUS_PECULIARITY_IN_THE_ELEPHANT" id="CURIOUS_PECULIARITY_IN_THE_ELEPHANT">CURIOUS PECULIARITY IN THE ELEPHANT.</a></h2>


<p>The Bombay Times notices a paper by Dr Impey in the
'Transactions of the Bombay Medical and Physical Society,'
containing an account of the rise of a malignant pustule
from contact with the flesh of a dead elephant. It furnishes
a curious new fact in the natural history of the
animal. 'It is so seldom,' says the Bombay Times, 'that
tame elephants amongst us die from natural causes, or
under such circumstances as permit of dissection, that this
peculiarity of the carcase has not, we believe, till now been
described, though perfectly well known to the natives. A
baggage elephant accompanying the third troop of horse
artillery having died on the march betwixt Mhow and
Poona at the commencement of the hot season of 1846,
the elephant was cut up by some of the artillerymen and
attendants, under the supervision of Dr Impey, to see, if
possible, to determine the cause of its death. The
<i>mochee</i> was ordered to work amongst the rest, but could
not be induced to touch the carcase until he had smeared
his hands and arms with oil, assigning as the reason of his
aversion the certainty of disease supervening, and its liability
periodically to attack those who had once suffered
from it. This at the time was heartily ridiculed; but the
laugh was on the mochee's side when every man employed
in the dissection but himself was two days afterwards
attacked with acute disease. The character of this was at
first purely local: the pain felt like that arising from the
bite of a venomous insect; it was accompanied by slight
local inflammation. This soon extended, and became a sore.
These deepened to the bone, and extended on all sides,
manifesting a remarkable degree of sluggishness and inactivity.
Fever accompanied the earlier symptoms, exhibiting
a remittent type, and being most severe towards the
evening. After a fortnight, secondary fever appeared, and
three weeks elapsed before the sores could be healed up.
The patient had by this time become emaciated, sallow,
and enervated, so that active dietetic measures required to
be taken for his restoration.'</p>



<hr class="chap" />
</div><div>

<h2><a name="DIG_DEEP_TO_FIND_THE_GOLD" id="DIG_DEEP_TO_FIND_THE_GOLD">DIG DEEP TO FIND THE GOLD.</a></h2>


<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Dost</span> thou seek the treasures hidden<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Within earth's rocky bed,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">The diamond for beauty's tresses,<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Gems for the queenly head?<br /></span>
<span class="i0">'Tis not on the dewy surface<br /></span>
<span class="i2">That they their rays unfold,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">But far in the distant hollows&mdash;<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Dig deep to find the gold.<br /></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Dost thou long thy fields should brighten<br /></span>
<span class="i2">With golden harvest ears,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">And thy pastures yield in verdure<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Riches for coming years?<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Then dream not that while you linger<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Earth's bounty you'll behold;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">But <i>strive</i>, and win her treasures&mdash;<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Dig deep to find the gold.<br /></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Dost thou sigh for wealth of knowledge,<br /></span>
<span class="i2">The riches of ages past,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">And o'er the bright world of science<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Thy longing glances cast?<br /></span>
<span class="i0">With love and zeal undaunted,<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Seek for the wealth untold,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">In the soul-lit mines of genius<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Dig deep to find the gold.<br /></span>
</div></div>

<p class='citation'>
C. T.
</p>

<hr class='chap' />

</div><div>


<h2><a name="SCOTLAND_IN_ENGLAND" id="SCOTLAND_IN_ENGLAND">SCOTLAND IN ENGLAND.</a></h2>


<p>The great annual Caledonian Ball is soon to come off
with its accustomed splendour; the Scottish National
pastimes and fêtes are to be celebrated under the most
influential auspices; and the [late] Scotch Lord Mayor
continues to keep up the national character for hospitality
with unwonted liberality and <i>éclat</i>. A Scotch nobleman
has won the Derby, an achievement surpassing, in the estimation
of the Cockneys, all the exploits of Lord Gough.
Another Scotch nobleman has added the splendid territory
of the Five Rivers to the British empire in India; and a
third is wisely, and ably, and approvingly, suppressing
rebellion in Canada. Two Scotch noblemen made the best
speeches, <i>pro</i> and <i>con</i>, on the Navigation-laws. The temporary
absence from illness of one Scotch member (Hume)
from the Commons is generally lamented. Scotch music is
heard and applauded in the streets despite of the <i>dilettanti</i>
and tramontane attractions of Alboni and Lablache; and
Scotch steamers are universally allowed to be the finest
models of marine architecture in the river. From the stone
bridges over the Thames&mdash;nearly all built [of Scotch stones]
by Scotchmen&mdash;you are perpetually reminded of the genius
of James Watt. Scotch banking is getting more into
vogue, and is trenching on the originally Scotch organised
Bank of England. Scotch cakes, Scotch shortbread, Scotch
gingerbread, Edinburgh buns, and Selkirk bannocks, Scotch
whisky, ale, salmon, herrings, haddocks, and oats, maintain
their accustomed supremacy. Scotch plaids and tartans
are in the windows of every clothier, draper, and
tailor's shop; and you scarcely meet a smart female in the
streets without some part at least of her person being decorated
in tartan array. In the printshop windows you see
the departure of the 'Highland Drove'&mdash;the Illicit Still on
the mountain side&mdash;the Stag at Bay&mdash;the Lassie herding
Sheep, in juxtaposition with her Majesty the Queen and
her Court at the Coronation.&mdash;<i>London Correspondent of
Inverness Courier.</i></p>

<p>[Might we be permitted to add, in the most delicate way
possible, that little is now read but Scotch periodicals!
The only thing which seems to keep patriotically at home
is Scotch sectarianism.]</p></div>


<hr class="tb" />

<div class="end_blockquot">

<p>Published by <span class="smcap">W. &amp; R. Chambers</span>, High Street, Edinburgh. Also
sold by <span class="smcap">D. Chambers</span>, 20 Argyle Street, Glasgow; <span class="smcap">W. S. Orr</span>,
147 Strand, London; and <span class="smcap">J. M'Glashan</span>, 21 D'Olier Street,
Dublin.&mdash;Printed by <span class="smcap">W. &amp; R. Chambers</span>, Edinburgh.</p></div>

<hr class="chap" />

<div class="footnotes"><p class='ph3'>FOOTNOTES:</p>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Sterling's Sayings and Essayings.</p></div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> I am told that these habits do not exist in good society at
Christiania.</p></div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The greatest summer height of the Miösen Lake is 430 feet; the
winter height, 410. Finding the level at this time ten feet below
the mark considered as that of highest water, I considered the lake
as being now 420 feet above the sea.</p></div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Laug in Norwegian signifies <i>water</i>. It is a generic term here
specially applied.</p></div>


<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> See Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, September 1837, where the
original ballad is also given.</p></div>


</div>

<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49191 ***</div>
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