vessel lying in the harbour, the hatches of which were guarded by fifteen Brazilian soldiers. The following graphic description of this occurrence is given by Mr. Kidder in his work on Brazil, who derived it from creditable Portuguese authority :-"Crowded until almost unable to breathe, and suffering alike from hunger and thirst, the poor wretches attempted to force their way on deck, but were repulsed by the guard, who, after firing upon them, and fastening down the hatchway, threw a piece of ordnance across it, and effectually debarred all egress. The stifling sensation caused by this exclusion of air drove the suffering crowd to utter madness, and many are said to have lacerated and mangled each other in the most horrible manner. Suffocation, with all its agonies, succeeded. The aged and the young, the strong and feeble, the assailant and his antagonist, all sunk down exhausted, and in the agonies of death. In the hope of alleviating their sufferings, a stream of water was at length let into the hold, and towards morning the tumult abated; but from a cause which had not been anticipated. Of all the two hundred and fifty-three, four only were found alive, who had escaped destruction by concealing themselves behind a water-butt."

All that can be said in extenuation of this deplorable catastrophe is, that it proceeded more from carelessness and gross ignorance than from deliberation or design.

The present condition of Para is exceedingly auspicious. Peace and quiet now prevail throughout its extensive wilds, undisturbed by the sounds of warfare, or the shouts of infuriated savages. Nature seems to have lavished upon this favoured province her choicest gifts, her most alluring charms. Here bloom the gayest flowers, distilling their fragrance on the air around. Here flourish the loftiest trees, whose feathery branches wave in the softest breeze. Where can be found more picturesque and romantic scenery, or a purer and sweeter atmosphere. Her mammoth rivers, flowing rapidly from the lofty mountains in which their childhood was nurtured, wander through the recesses of a forest of unrivalled grandeur, distributing their fertilizing influence on every side. No sound now breaks their pervading stillness save the voices of occasional wanderers, or the notes of happy birds.

But this repose has not always existed. No longer ago than the year 1835 this lovely province was the scene of a violent commotion. Massacre, with her bloody hand, brandished over the city her glittering weapon, stained with human gore. The war-shouts of revengeful Indians rung through the silent avenues of the forest. Strange echoes startled the solitudes of the groves, and the innocent birds fled affrighted from their sylvan homes, to seek for themselves a place of greater security in the very heart of the wilderness.

It was on the 14th of August that a large body of Indians, provoked beyond measure at the numerous injuries which they had sustained from the government of Para, and instigated by the example of a number of mutinous soldiers, who had assassinated the president of the province, together with several others in authority, suddenly descended to revenge their many wrongs, by taking immediate possession of the capital.

This outbreak was wholly unexpected, and the inhabitants were therefore but poorly prepared to sustain so vigorous an attack. For three days, however, a brave, though useless, resistance was manifested by the citizens, who barricadoed some of the strongest houses, and having fortified the windows by means of large cotton-bales, they kept up a continual fire upon their ruthless invaders.

The commander of an English man-of-war at anchor in the harbour sent ashore a body of marines, to assist in the defence of the city. On account, however, of the pusillanimous conduct of the new president these were soon withdrawn; but the guns of the vessel were turned towards the city, and a destructive fire kept up incessantly against the insurgents.

But, notwithstanding all efforts, resistance proved futile; force and numbers finally prevailed, and the city itself was abandoned to the destruction of the enemy. The lives and property of foreigners had been respected by the Indians, and no women or children were slaughtered during the conflict. This fact discloses a trait in the character of the natives, which is certainly worthy of commendation. It shows, moreover, that they were not instigated by cruelty, but only by a natural desire to redress the manifold insults which had been heaped upon them by their persecutors.

The citizens betook themselves to the different vessels in the harbour, which conveyed them to Maranham, a flourishing seaport, distant about four or five hundred miles from Para.

For nine months the Indians held undisturbed possession of the city; at the expiration of which time it was retaken by a body of imperial soldiers, under the command of General Andrea. Great changes, however, had been wrought during this period of anarchy and repose. The houses had been pillaged of everything that was valuable; flourishing plantations had been destroyed by fire; and the streets of the city were so filled up with gigantic weeds as to be almost impassable, while hundreds of human skeletons, blanched to a chalky whiteness by the rays of the sun, lay glistening among the grass. These were all collected together into an immense pile, and burnt in one of the public squares of the city.

Since this period no disturbances have occurred; and probably none will, until fresh cruelties on the part of the Portuguese shall again rouse the dormant passions of the Indians, and excite them to revenge.

PATRICK O'ROURKE ;

OR, THE LOVES OF MISTHRESS BIDDY O'KELLY AND THE PRINCE FROM FURRIN PARTS.

BY E. C. MURRAY.

ONCE upon a time, as the story-tellers say, there was a little, redheaded, rascally Moor, named Absalom Esoosy, who travelled between Tangier and Gibraltar with cargoes of fowls and other provisions destined for the town and garrison.

Many were the weary voyages that Absalom (who had moreover a true Moslem horror of the sea) made in the little Spanish mysticos that traded between these ports; coarse was his fare, old and rusty his gebab, and sharper and sharper grew the taunts of his two wives, -for an amorous man was Esoosy,-when he returned and displayed his scanty profits.

It began also to be whispered about, that, when at Gibraltar, Seedy Absalom had been seen in a state which argued at least a temporary oblivion of the prophet's injunction against wine, and this, added to some other things, formed so excellent a theme for his wives to harangue upon, that Seedy Absalom, though at heart as merry a little fellow as could be found between Mechnaz and Timbuctoo, became under these accumulated woes the most miserable dog alive.

It happened when Esoosy's cup of bitterness was full to overflowing, that an Irish regiment, the gallant -th arrived in quarters at Gibraltar, and among the newly enlisted privates was one Patrick O'Rourke, from Tipperary, as tight a boy as ever kissed a purty gal, or drank success to "O'Connell and Repale" in a bumper of whiskey. Now Pat had enlisted while in a fit of jealousy and anger with one Molly Macqueen, his sweetheart in the ould counthry, but the drillings of the awkward squad, the marchings and counter-marchings, added to his narrow escape from a flogging on several occasions, were by no means to Pat's liking, and bitterly he lamented the day when he had taken the king's bounty, and enlisted in the gallant-th.

One day, after parade, as Pat, in a disconsolate mood, was leaning against a post on the quay, and looking wistfully over the salt seas in the direction in which he supposed Ireland to be, his attention was attracted by a little red-headed man, dressed in what appeared to Pat a curious kind of sheet, and who, leaning also against a neighbouring post, was gazing upon the sea with a look something similar to his own, but the red-headed man had the advantage of Pat, for every now and then, he drew a wooden flask from beneath the sheet, and took a long thirsty pull.

"Bedad," says Pat O'Rourke, to himself, "but that's a quare customer anyhow. Is it a man or a woman? Arrah, now, boy, an' don't ye see the crather's got a beard, an' a mighty red one it is too? Sure an' it may be the king of the counthry near here as I've heerd so much talk about. I'll spake to him anyhow." And so Pat, sidling up to the Moor, who was no other than Seedy Absalom Esoosy, opened the conversation. "It's a mighty fine day this, yer hanner,"

said Pat.

"Want any fowls to dai, sa," returned the Moor (who had picked

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PP

up this phrase in his professional journeys to Gibraltar, and like most of his brethren thought it the customary salutation among Englishmen) at the same time nodding his head pleasantly and extending the wooden bottle, for he was a convivial little man.

"Be the powers an' ye'r a sthrange little fellow. Here's to yer hanner's health, an' long life to yes," said Pat, taking a long pull at the bottle, which he found contained excellent brandy.

Now Pat and little Absalom were two spirits formed after each other's own hearts in the self same model, and they soon became mighty pleasant and communicative,-for good brandy is an excellent interpreter between such kindred spirits,-and they were so pleased with each other that they had agreed to meet again the next day before the call of the trumpet summoned Pat back to the barracks. "He's a broth of a boy that, a jew'l of a sinner," said Pat, as he staggered home to barracks, where he received a sharp reprimand from his officer. "What, drunk again, Pat," said he, you must go on guard to-morrow, and if I find you so again for a month, I'll have you put in the black hole."

Pat groaned in spirit, but as even his punishment would not interfere with his meeting his new friend on the next day, he solaced himself with the hope of drowning his cares in the brandy-bottle of the jolly little Mussulman, like a true Irishman, careless of the consequences.

Accordingly, night after night, whenever the little red-headed Moslem was at Gibraltar, he and Pat met together and passed their time in such a manner as generally to ensure some punishment to the latter on his return to quarters.

In their frequent meetings it was not long before Patrick O'Rourke picked up enough "Hairyback," (Arabic,) and little Absalom enough Irish to understand each other extremely well, and in a very short time they were mutually informed that they were heartily sick of their respective conditions, and accordingly the following plan was agreed on between them, as a means of improving their fortunes.

It was proposed that Seedy Absalom Esoosy and three other of his friends should go to England, and exhibit themselves in London, as some of their countrymen, who had already done so, made a great deal of money, and Pat was to accompany them as their guide and counsellor.

As it was not convenient, however, to the parties to find money sufficient to purchase Pat's discharge, they contrived that a disguise should be provided for him similar to their own, namely, the dress of a Portuguese Jew, for habited as Moors they would not have been able to get away so easily.

Accordingly Pat's head having been shaved and his chin dignified with a long black beard, purchased from a Jew, he was smuggled by his companions into the hold of a merchant ship bound for London, and highly elated with the success of their stratagem, the whole party started in high glee for London, that rendezvous for fortunehunters of all nations.

On their arrival they found little difficulty in obtaining an engagement from one of the purveyors of human curiosities for the discerning public, for what they had to shew was really curious. Many of our readers will recollect them; one of their feats was standing all five one above another, the topmost man waving a dag

ger, which post being that of ease and honour, Pat, who was habited in a complete Moorish costume, usually contrived should be his.

When they had ended their engagement in London, they proceeded to Edinburgh, and lastly to Dublin, and found no difficulty in obtaining an engagement as before.

It happened, no one ever knew how, during their residence in Dublin that little Absalom contrived to make the acquaintance of a certain Misthress Biddy O'Kelly, an Irish widow, who kept a snug grocer's shop in that fair city, and the widow and he soon became on terms of the closest intimacy.

A pleasant thing it was to see the little red-headed Moor surrounded by a bevy of Irish dames, acquaintances of the widow, relating his adventures in Irish-English with an Arabic accent, for a polite man had Esoosy become, with his wheedling ways, "Bai yer lave, marm,” ," "Bee dadd an' ye'rr a swate leetee weedee," "Bee dee powers an' eet's meesel datt can't shleept von veenk vor teenkeen off yee."*

These were pleasant days for the little infidel, and he got on so well with the widow, that, to the envy of all her acquaintance, within a month from their acquaintance she married the great prince from "furrin parts," as she declared the little rascal to be; and selling the shop, they commenced living in grand style.

Redder and redder waxed the red face of the infidel under the influence of the widow's smiles and the good cheer with which he daily regaled himself; and scornfully looked his wife upon her old acquaintances, for money came plentifully in, and the party were yet engaged to make a tour of the provinces, even when the Dublin public, who nightly flocked to see them, were satisfied.

As philosophers of all time have observed, a man, however prosperous, is never satisfied till he has displayed his grandeur and consequence to his early friends, and little Absalom began to think what an important personage he should now be among his countrymen with all the wealth he had acquired among the Christian dogs; and this thought grew upon him the more strongly since the widow sometimes made him taste a little of the domestic discipline to which a Moslem husband is happily a stranger.

Visions of little red-headed counterparts of himself, too, that he had left behind in his fatherland, came before his mental eye, especially the next morning after he had partaken a little too freely of whiskey punch, and accordingly he communicated these thoughts to his companions, who had perhaps their own reasons for entering into them more warmly than he had expected. So one fine morning this troop of foreign princes absconded from their various lodgings, forgetting to pay the rent, but taking away everything belonging to them with a marvellously accurate memory, and some things that did not, shewing, on the latter occasion, a great deal of curious discernment in the value of metals, inasmuch as they took away any articles of gold or silver that lay about, and religiously left such as were only gilt or plated.

For fear the gentle reader should be unable to decypher the precise meaning of this dialect, we beg to say that Anglicè it means," By your leave, madam!" "By my father's beard, you are a sweet little widow !""By the powers, it is myself that cannot sleep a wink for thinking of you!" which serve to shew the forcible and original style of compliments used by the lady-killing Moslem.