but as vast horizon; the little nautilus skimmed by, and the dolphins with hues of deepest green; also many a day the whales, spouting the water like an enormous fountain issuing from the fish's head, were seen at difference distances. No hope of making any land before they reached their destination now, the seamen said, "We have good sea room in the Indian Ocean, and no fear in such a tight sea boat as this." The days passed away one as the other. The soldiers were paraded regularly on deck in the morning with their trousers tucked up to their knees; and at mid-day, after dinner, to drink the rum raw from the cask, that vile decoction from molasses pregnant with noxious ingredients, shattering to the nerves, and but too frequently the dram which, given to the young soldier as a daily dose, is the first initiation to making him become a dram-drinker. The afternoons they mostly passed away in boisterous games-buffet the bear, or others of that kind-and in joking and singing. This was the employment of those on watch, but two-thirds had to keep below under hatches, and what they could do except sleep seemed quite an enigma. The worst infliction apparently on the numerous majority of fellow-beings which constitute the working mass is that they are frequently now, in these days, as devoid of mental pursuits and the elevation of character, which becomes man as compared with other animals, as the brutes that perish. This, I say, is even now sometimes observable, but at the time that I describe during this voyage the condition of the common order of soldiers and sailors"veluti pecora quæ natura finxit prona atque in obedientia ventri" -was almost always so; at that time nine-tenths of the soldiers in a regiment could neither read or write. Mrs. Green had been very much disappointed in her search for new fashions at Capetown, and after dinner the first fine day after they had left the harbour and were all sitting on deck, she began deploring her hard lot to her husband, and the principal part of her grief was the idea of losing the society of the people with whom he was accustomed to associate. To do her justice, she began sotto voce with her complaints, but the querulous voice and the fastidious toss of her head were duly noticed and mentally recorded by Mrs. Boreham, who shortly afterwards commenced a counter-attack, principally addressed to her husband, or to any of the officers who might chance to be standing near him, relative to "Some people being so fond of giving themselves airs," "How lucky it is to have a host of grand friends," "It would be delightful if Lord Some One"-naming some well-known character"would come out and pay us a visit to Ceylon." And this sort of wordy battle would have brought on worse consequences if, luckily, Captain Green had not had influence enough over his wife to keep her in order. In point of fact, though nothing could have been more unobtrusive or quiet than his conduct, it was he that The had the grand relatives of whom Mrs. Green so frequently spoke, and of whom, as a man of sense, he never said a word. officers cared little for such disputes, but could scarcely help being amused at the demeanour of these fair combatants. It is certainly a truth that idleness, which is the worst of all evils, is the fertile source of the dissension and the bad feeling which so frequently exists where women are thrown together. The duties of the watch seemed light now to the officers, as indeed the whole night might have been passed on deck, so mild was the climate. The days became rather hot, but an awning thrown over the quarter-deck kept off the glare of the sun. In reading mostly the officers passed away their time; and Williams, who was a rare instance of an officer devoting himself greatly to study, also was the means of inducing Clare to turn his thoughts to the grand object of every man's love in this life-the love of the Saviour and in putting before him the great truths of the gospel, that inestimable benefit which, whoever is unconscious of, is dead while he liveth. Together they often studied the New Testament, and daily and nightly knelt down to prayer in secret. At first, this occasioned several gibes and jests from their companions, particularly when Jones was on board, who was much opposed to all that was religious. But when they left Halstead and him at Madeira, their only companions remaining in the omnibus were the doctor and Prose. The latter was not of a demonstrative character; the former, though he did not join them in their reading, or follow their example in their practice of prayer, allowed them to go on their own way without remarking upon it. Thus the days and nights passed on, and about six weeks after they had left the harbour of Capetown-having had during all the time a fair wind and made good progress a man at the mainmast head gave notice of seeing Adam's Peak. This is that lofty mountain which stands in the centre of Ceylon, and of which native tradition asserts that Adam and Eve, after having been exiled from Paradise, fled hither. Then indeed ensued commotion and excitement to every soul on board. By degrees the outline of the coast became faintly visible. The high lands of Buona Vista, which stand over the town of Point de Galle, loomed like a large crescent covered with forests of cocoa-nut trees, and the ground gradually descending to the level of the town, looked in the distance like a series of gardens or orchards, where every shade of foliage was seen. The breezes, fraught with odour, wafted the scent of cinnamon, mace, and hosts of other balmy treasures indigenous to the soil, which have roused the cupidity of European traders. They are the produce of the groves of spice that here bloom so plenteously in the grounds of the most productive island that lies in the Indian ocean. Dutch fort appeared, with its bastions imposing and of strong con The struction, which overlooked the harbour, and stood on a rock like a tower of strength, to awe any foreign sail which might approach. The quaint Dutch buildings could be traced, as they approached nearer, with their low verandahs, and the gardens surrounding them stocked with bread-fruit trees, plantains, and all the numerous plants for which Ceylon is famous. In the harbour the outrigged canoes, that curious craft peculiar to this island, were skimming along before the wind with prodigious swiftness-the body of the canoe being made of one solid tree, and though long, like the cigar ship, only broad enough for one man to sit in, and having benches ranged along separately for five; the huge sail, which had its sheet and tack held by one of the men inside, and for its boom a beam of wood laid on the water outside the canoe equal to it in length, and parallel, at the distance of about two feet. I pass over the detail of what gave the major and the three captains and officers the greatest part of their care. This was getting the troops up on deck, parading them in proper order, and apportioning them their places in the different shore boats, which were to take them by companies across. But though this procedure, conducted as it was by those having command of young soldiers, the proper disposing of whom with due regularity involved a world of trouble, especially as the going ashore in that most tempestuous harbour required that they should keep their seats and trim the boats most steadily, it was effected without accident; and I shall ask the reader to picture a description of the scene himself to his own fancy, and, as Don Quixote said to Sancho, when the latter asked him to keep an account carefully of the number of goats that passed over the river, to imagine them all passed over at once, and officers, troops, and all installed in their quarters at the fort of Point de Galle. Then they saw the native modliars, with their long hair dressed up behind like a woman's (bedecked either with pearls or precious stones), a huge comb of tortoiseshell stuck, surmounting the back of their heads; their long blue coats, with their double range of gilt buttons, larger than are seen in any other garment worn by any one, or in any coat; their curious kilt, which looks like a petticoat. The simply dressed, copper-coloured, and slender bodied natives brought in assortments of numerous sorts of precious stones, sapphires, cinnamon-stone, garnets, rubies, topazes, beautifully polished. Their long black hair, their mild dark eyes, their soft and feminine features, their glossy white teeth as they smiled in offering their trays of stones and their specimens of workmanship to the European strangers, were all objects to strike the fancy of the foreigner. The exquisite workmanship of the cases, the writing-desks, the specimens of ornamental work, the boxes made of porcupines' quills, of elephants' grinders, the neatness of their execution, the models of primitive ingenuity, which not any workman in civilised Europe could ever compete with. The cunning of hand which the Asiatic craftsman had been bequeathed by his father, who had it from his, and which had come down in descent from time immemorial in its rude integrity unimpaired by any shortcomings in those who practised it, and unimproved by the introduction of any foreigner's invention, was shown in all the specimens of Cinghalese ornaments, here in abundance displayed to view. ECHO AND NARCISSUS. OVID'S METAMORPHOSES, BOOK III. BY ISIDORE G. ASCHER. A WHIRLING, heedless wind, that wastes its strength Resting above in loveliness of calm, The golden-tinted ears of crested wheat, Waving beneath the breath of fervid June, And through her soul there swept unresting cares, Far from the breathless calm of happy fields-- Where mad winds break the teeth of splintered stones, The weary-hearted Echo tarried long, To hide her woe from heaven's azure eyes, The stony steeps were not so dark or bare The mail which Patience shields a woman's heart, By living in serenity of soul, Deep rooted to a constant, vigorous aim, And unfrequented rocks, and hollow steeps. Jan.-VOL. CXLIV. NO. DLXXVII. I |