now cum!" with which obsarvashun she | sake; and as she happened to have ten shilhitched away from me. "I wish thar was winders to my Sole," sed I, "so that you could see some of my feelins. There's fire enough in here," sed I, strikin my buzzum with my fist, "to bile all the corn beef and turnips in the naberhood. Versoovius and the Critter ain't a circumstans!" She bowd her hed down and commenst chawin the strings to her sun bonnet. "Ar could you know the sleeplis nites I worry threw with on your account, how vittles has seized to be attractiv to me & how my lims has shrunk up, you wouldn't dowt Gase on this wastin form and these 'ere sunken cheeks-" me. Washington, D. C., Oct. 6th, 1861. The horse was the swarthy Arab's bosom friend, the red Indian's solitary companion, and the circus proprietor's salvation. One of these noble animals was presented to me last week by an old-maid relative, whose age I once guessed to be "about nineteen." The glorious gift was accompanied by a touching letter. She honoured my patriotism, and the self-sacrificing spirit that had led me to join the gallant Mackerel Brigade, and get a furlough as soon as a rebel picket appeared. She loved me for my mother's lings about her, she thought she would buy a horse with it for me. Mine affectionately, Tabitha Turnips. Ah! woman, glorious woman! what should we do without thee? All our patri otism is but the inspiration of thy proud love, and all our money is but the few shillings left after thou hast got through buying new bonnets. Oh, woman! thoughtful woman the soldier thanks thee for sending him the pies and cakes that turn sour before they leave New York; but don't send any more Havelocks, or there'll be a crisis in the linen market. It's a common thing for a sentry to report, "Eighty thousand more Havelocks from the women of America." But to return to the horse which woman's generosity has made me own-me be-yuteous steed. The beast is fourteen hands high, fourteen hands long, and his sagacious head was shaped like an old-fashioned pickaxe. Viewed from his rear his style of architecture is Gothic, and he has a gable-end, to which his tail is attached. His eyes are two pearls set in mahogany, and before he lost his sight they were said to be brilliant. I rode down to the Patent Office the other day, and left him leaning against a post while I went inside to transact some business. Pretty soon the Commissioner of Patents came tearing in like mad, and says he "I'd like to know whether this is a public building belonging to the United States, or a second-hand auction shop?" "What mean you, sirrah?" I asked majestically. "I mean," says he, "that some enemy to his country has gone and stood an old mahogany umbrella-stand right in front of the office." To the disgrace of his species, be it said, he referred to the spirited and fiery animal for which I am indebted to woman's generosity. I admit that when seen at a distance the steed somewhat resembles an umbrellastand; but a single look into his pearly eyes is enough to prove his relations with the animal kingdom. I have named him Pegasus, in honour of Tupper, and when I mount him, Villiam Brown, of Company 3, Regiment 5, Mackeral Brigade, says that I remind him of Santa Claus sitting astride the roof of a small Gothic cottage, holding on by the chimney. Villiam is becoming rather too familiar, and I hope he'll be shot at an early day. CROCODILE SHOOTING ON THE NILE. 31 man who detected a crocodile, and the crew At an early hour yesterday morning, while yet the dew was on the grass, and on every thing else green enough to be out at that matinal hour, I saddled my Gothic steed Pegasus, and took a trot for the benefit of my health. Having eaten a whole straw bed and a piece of an Irishman's shoulder, during the night, my architectural beast was in great spirits, and as he snuffed the fresh air, and unfurled the remnants of his warlike tail to the breeze of heaven, I was reminded of that celebrated Arabian steed which had such a contempt for the speed of all other horses that he never would run with them, in fact he never would run at all. Having struck a match on that rib of Pegasus which was most convenient to my hand, I lit a cigar, and dropped the match, still burning, into the right ear of my fiery charger. Something of this kind is always necessary to make the sagacious animal start; but when once I get his mettle up he never stops, unless he happens to hear some crows cawing in the air, just above his venerable head. I am frequently glad that Pe-waddled to the water, all but one, the most gasus has lost his eyesight, for could he see the expression on the faces of some of these same crows, when they get near enough to squint along his backbone, it would wound his sensibilities fearfully. R. H. NEWELL, CROCODILE SHOOTING ON THE NILE. [As a traveler, novelist, and historical writer, MR. ELIOT WARBURTON, an English barrister (1810-1852), was a popular author. He had a lively imagination and considerable power of description, but these were not always under the regulation of taste or judgment. His gallant or most gorged of the party. He lay still until I was within a hundred yards of him; then slowly rising on his finlike legs, he lumbered towards the river, looking askance at me with an expression of countenance that seemed to say: "He can do me no harm; however, I may as well have a swim." I took aim at the throat of this supercilious brute, and, as soon as my hand steadied, the very pulsation of my finger pulled the trigger. Bang! went the gun; whiz! flew the bullet; and my excited ear could catch the thud with which it plunged into the scaly leather of his neck. His waddle became a plunge, the waves closed over him, and the sun shone on the calm water, as I reached the brink of the shore, that was still indented by the waving of his gigantic tail. But there is blood upon the water, and he rises for a moment to the surface. "A hundred piasters for the timseach!" I exclaimed, and a half-a-dozen Arabs plung There! he rises again, and the blacks dash at him as if he hadn't a tooth in his head. Now he is gone, the waters close over him, and I never saw him since. From that time we saw hundreds of crocodiles of all sizes, and fired shots enough at them for a Spanish revolution; but we never could get possession of any, even if we hit them, which to this day remains uncertain. I believe each traveler, who is honest enough, will make the same confession. first work, "The Crescent and The Cross, or Romance and ductions. Mr. Warburton thus describes his first shot at a crocodile, which, he said, was an epoch in his life.] We had only now arrived in the waters where they abound, for it is a curious fact that none are ever seen below Mineyeh, though Herodotus speaks of them as fighting with the dolphins at the mouths of the Nile. A prize had been offered for the first THE GREEK MOTHER. BY HENRY G. BELL "Nay, shrink not, girl! look out! look out! It is thy father's sword! And well know they-that Moslem routThe temper of its lord! He fights for all he loves on earth, And Heaven his shield will be, He fights for home and household hearth, For Greece and liberty! "See! see! wherever sweeps his hand The fearful combat's doubtful close, "I'd rather be thy father, child, In sight of God this hour, Than holiest hermit self-exiled From earthly pomp and power; The gleam of patriot sword will rise As fast as prayer to heaven, And he who for his own land dies O! never dies unshriven!" "God help us! if our father falls," Irene whispered low; "Ruin will light upon our walls, And o'er them grass will grow! Weak as I am, I would not shrink From what my fate may be, But, mother! I grow mad to think What will become of thee! "Hark! nearer rolls the battle shout! Our island band gives way! I dare not any more look out,— It is not good for thee to gaze "I see him in that fiery maze, I see my husband, child!" Then out the young Alexis spoke, "I would this arm could deal one stroke, That I, in pride and joy, Might stand beside my father now, And slay a Moslem foe, Then see him turn with smiling brow To thank me for the blow!" "Hush, boy! he is hemmed in-beset! Thy father fights alone; A moment-but a moment yet, And then thou may'st have none!"- One breathless moment-and the next "Dead! dead! I saw the gushing gore- And now they trample o'er and o'er The mightiest of them all! Dead! dead! and what are children now, Let the red tide of slaughter flow- THE KELP-GATHERER. The stranger who wanders along the terrific masses of crag that overhang the green and foaming waters of the Atlantic on the western coasts of Ireland feels a melancholy interest excited in his mind as he turns aside from the more impressive grandeurs of the scene, and gazes on the small stone heaps that are scattered over the moss on which he treads. They are the graves of the nameless few whose bodies have been from time to time ejected from the bosom of the ocean, and cast upon those lonely crags to startle the early fisherman with their ghastly and disfigured bulk. Here they meet, at the hands of the pitying mountaineers, the last offices of Christian charity—a grave in the nearest soft earth, with no other ceremonial than the humble peasant's prayer. Here they lie, uncoffined, unlamented, unclaimed by mourning friends, starting like sudden spectres of death from the depths of the ocean, to excite a wild fear, a passing thought of pity, a vain inquiry in the hamlet, and then sink into the earth in mystery and in silence, to be no more remembered on its surface. The obscurity which envelops the history of those unhappy strangers affords a subject to the speculative traveller, on which he may give free play to the wings of his imagination. Few, indeed, can pass these deserted sepulchres without endeavouring for a moment to penetrate in fancy the darkness which enshrouds the fate of their mouldering tenants; without beholding the progress of the ruin that struck from beneath the voyager's feet the firm and lofty fabric to which he had confidently trusted his existence; without hearing the shrieks of the despairing crew, and the stern and horrid their advantage. Among those who emigrated was the family under whom the Reardons held their little cottage; and with them it was that burst of the roused-up ocean, as it dealt the last stroke upon the groaning timbers of the wreck, and scattered the whole pile far and wide, in countless atoms, upon the boiling sur-the young man determined to try his fortune face of the deep. And again, without turning in thought to the far-away homes at which the tale of the wanderers was never told-to the pale young widow that dreamed herself still a wife, and lived on, from morn to morn, in the fever of a vain suspense-to the helpless parent, that still hoped for the offices of filial kindness from the hand that was now mouldering in a distant grave; and to the social fireside, over whose evening pastimes the long silence of an absent friend had thrown a gloom, that the certainty of woe or gladness could never re move. in a happier region. Having arranged their affairs so as to secure his widowed parent against absolute poverty, they separated with many tears, the mother blessing her son as she committed him to the guardianship of Providence, and the son pledging himself to return to her assistance so soon as he had obtained the means of providing her the comforts necessary for her old age. His success, though gradual, was complete. The blessings of the young Tobias fell upon the work of his hands, and his industry, because well directed, was productive, even beyond his expectations. Instead of lingering like many of his fellow-exiles in the sea-port towns, where they were detained by idleness and that openmouthed folly which persuades men that fortune may be found without the pain of seeking, young Reardon proceeded at once into the new settlements, where human industry is one of the most valuable and valued commodities. In a little time he was enabled to remit a consider and continued, from time to time, to increase his contributions to her comfort, until at length the abundance of his prosperity was such as to enable him to relinquish the pursuit of gain, and to fulfil the promise he had made at parting. Among those nameless tombs, within the space of the last few years, the widow of a fisherman, named Reardon, was observed to spend a great portion of her time. Her husband had died young, perishing in a sudden storm which swept his canoe from the coast side into the waste of sea beyond it; and his wife was left to inhabit a small cottage near the crags, and to support, by the labour of her hands, an only child, who was destined to in-able portion of his earnings to his poor mother, herit little more than the blessing, the virtue, and the affections of his parent. The poor widow endeavoured to procure a subsistence for her boy and for herself by gathering the kelp which was thrown upon the crags, and which was burned for the purpose of manufacturing soap from its ashes; while the youth employed his yet unformed strength in tilling the small garden that was confined by a quickset hedge at their cottage side. They were fondly attached, and toiled incessantly to obtain the means of comfort, rather for each other than for themselves; but, with all their exertions, fortune left them in the rearward of her favour. The mother beheld, with a mother's agony, the youthful limbs and features of her boy exhibit the sickly effects of habitual privation and habitual toil; while the son mourned to see the feebleness of a premature old age begin to steal upon the health and vigour of his parent. In these difficulties a prospect of certain advantage and probable good fortune induced the young man to leave his mother and his native country for some years. The distresses and disturbances which agitated that unhappy land pressed so heavily upon the fortunes of many families of the middle as well as the lower rank, that great numbers were found to embrace the opportunity of improvement which the colonization of the New World held out for VOL. VIII. He did not return alone. With the full approbation of the poor widow, he had joined his fate to that of a young person in the settlement where he dwelt, whose dispositions were in every way analogous to his own, and who only excelled him in the superior ease and comfort of her circumstances. Previous to his return he wrote to the poor widow, to inform her that in less than two months from that time, with the blessing of Providence, her daughter-in-law, her two grand-children, and her son, would meet beneath the roof of her ancient dwelling. Fancy, if you can, the anxiety with which the poor widow looked out for this long-expected time. The assistance which the affectionate exile had been able to afford her was such as to raise her to a state of comparative affluence in her neighbourhood, and to render her independent of the hard and servile toil by which she had been accustomed to gain a livelihood. Her cottage was wholly changed in its appearance, and had the honour of being frequently selected for a night's lodging by her landlord's agent and other great men who passed 172 through that lonely district. A few flowers sprang up in her sally-fringed garden, which were not the less tenderly cherished that the seeds from which they grew were transmitted from the emigrant's garden in the other hemisphere. Her life up to the moment when she received this joyous letter, had been calmly and sadly happy. She looked forward with a serene feeling of mingled hope and resignation to the day of her son's return, and never once suffered the eagerness of her affection to outstep her gratitude to Heaven and her entire dependence upon the divine will. But, forgive a mother's fondness!-There are few hearts in which the affections of the world and of nature are so entirely held under subjection by the strong hand of reason and faith, that they cannot be moved to a momentary forgetfulness of duty by a sudden and startling occasion. After the widow had heard the letter read in which her son announced his approaching return, the quiet of her life was for a time disturbed. She thought of heaven, indeed, and prayed even more fervently than before; but the burning fever that possessed her heart showed that its confidence was qualified. In the hours of devotion she often found her thoughts wandering from that Being whose breath could still or trouble the surface of the ocean, far over the wide waters themselves, to meet the vessel that was flying to her with the tidings of bliss. She shuddered as she went, morn after morn, to the cliff-head and cast her eyes on the graves of the shipwrecked voyagers which were scattered along the turf-mountain on which she trod. In the silence of the night, when she endeavoured to drown her anxieties in sleep, imagination did but overact the part with which it had terrified her waking. Stormy seas and adverse winds--a ship straining against the blast, her deck covered with pale and affrighted faces, among which she seemed to detect those of her son and of his familywinds hissing through the creaking yardsand waves tossing their horrid heads aloft and roaring for their prey. Such were the visions that beset the bed of the longing mother, and made the night ghastly to her eyes. When she lay awake, the rustling of a sudden wind among the green boughs at her window made her start and sit erect in her bed; nor would she again return to rest until she had opened the little casement, and satisfied herself, by waving her hand abroad in the night air, that her alarm was occasioned by one of its fairest and most favourable motions. So indeed it was. The Almighty, as though to convince her how far she was from conjecturing aright the quarter from which calamity might visit her, bade the winds blow during the whole of that period in the manner which, had they been in her own keeping, she would have desired. Her acquaintances and neighbours all seemed to share in her anxiety. The fishermen, after they had drawn up their canoes at evening, were careful, on their way homeward, to drop in at the widow Reardon's door, and let her know what vessels had entered the neighbouring river in the course of the day, or had appeared in the offing. She was constantly cheered with the assurance that fairer weather for a homeward-bound ship, or more likely to continue, was never known before. Still, nevertheless, the poor woman's heart was not at peace, and the days and nights lagged along with an unaccustomed heaviness. One night in particular, towards the end of the second month, appeared to linger so very strangely, that the widow thought the morn would never dawn. An unusual darkness seemed to brood over the world; and she lay awake, gazing with longing eyes toward the little window through which the sun's earliest rays were used to greet her in her waking. On a sudden she heard voices outside the window. Alive to the slightest circumstance that was unusual, she arose, all dark as it was, threw on her simple dress in haste, and groped her way to the front door of the dwelling. She recognized the voice of a friendly neighbour, and opened the door, supposing that he might have some interesting intelligence to communicate. She judged correctly. "Good news! good news! Mrs. Reardon; and I give you joy of them this morning. What will you give me for telling you who is in that small boat at the shore?" "That small boat?-what?-where?" "Below there, ma'am, where I'm pointing my finger. Don't you see them coming up the crag towards you?" "I cannot-I cannot-it is so dark-" the widow replied, endeavouring to penetrate the gloom. "Dark! And the broad sun shining down upon them this whole day!" "Day! The sun! O my Almighty Father, save me!" "What's the matter? Don't you see them, ma'am?" "See them?" the poor woman exclaimed, placing her hands on her eyes and shrieking aloud in her agony-"Oh! I shall never see him more !-I am dark and blind!" The peasant started back and blessed him. |