Chambers_s Edinburgh Journal_ No. 452 Various 61601 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Chambers's Edinburgh
Journal, No. 452
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will
have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
this eBook.

Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452

Author: Various

Editor: Robert Chambers
William Chambers

Release date: July 31, 2007 [eBook #22187]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22187

Credits: Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. Shiffer and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S
EDINBURGH JOURNAL, NO. 452 ***

CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH
JOURNAL

CONTENTS
THE BETROTHAL.
THE CONTINENTAL 'BRADSHAW' IN 1852.
A SEARCH FOR ROBIN HOOD.
SNOW-STORM IN THE SAHARA.
THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.
THE SHIP'S FIRST VOYAGE.
THE HARE AND THE LION: AN INDIAN
POLITICAL LIBEL.

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS,
EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,'
'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.

No. 452. New Series. SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 1852. Price 1½d.

THE BETROTHAL.
Return to Table of Contents

Frances Seymour had been left an orphan and an heiress very early in life.
Her mother had died in giving birth to a second child, which did not survive
its parent, so that Frances had neither brother nor sister; and her father, an
officer of rank and merit, was killed at Waterloo. When this sad news
reached England, the child was spending her vacation with Mrs Wentworth,
a sister of Mrs Seymour, and henceforth this lady's house became her home;
partly, because there was no other relative to claim her, and partly, because
amongst Colonel Seymour's papers, a letter was found, addressed to Mrs
Wentworth, requesting that, if he fell in the impending conflict, she would
take charge of his daughter. In making this request, it is probable that
Colonel Seymour was more influenced by necessity than choice; Mrs
Wentworth being a gay woman of the world, who was not likely to bestow
much thought or care upon her niece, whom she received under her roof
without unwillingness, but without affection. Had Frances been poor, she
would have felt her a burden; but as she was rich, there was some éclat and
no inconvenience in undertaking the office of her guardian and chaperone—
the rather as she had no daughters of her own with whom Frances's beauty
or wealth could interfere; for as the young heiress grew into womanhood,
the charms of her person were quite remarkable enough to have excited the
jealousy of her cousins, if she had had any; or to make her own fortune, if
she had not possessed one already. She was, moreover, extremely
accomplished, good-tempered, cheerful, and altogether what is called a very
nice girl; but of course she had her fault like other people: she was too fond
of admiration—a fault that had been very much encouraged at the school
where she had been educated; beauty and wealth, especially when
combined, being generally extremely popular at such establishments. As
long, however, as her admirers were only romantic schoolfellows and
calculating school-mistresses, there was not much harm done; but the
period now approached in which there would be more scope for the
exercise of this passion, and more danger in its indulgence—Frances had
reached the age of seventeen, and was about to make her début in the world

of fashion—an event to which, certain as she was of making numerous
conquests, she looked forward with great delight.

Whilst engaged in preparations for these anticipated triumphs, Mrs
Wentworth said to her one day: 'Now that you are coming out, Frances, I
think it is my duty to communicate to you a wish of your father's, expressed
in the letter that was found after his death. It is a wish regarding your choice
of a husband.'

'Dear me, aunt, how very odd!' exclaimed Frances.

'It is rather odd,' returned Mrs Wentworth; 'and, to be candid, I don't think it
is very wise; for schemes of this sort seldom or never turn out well.'

'Scheme! What scheme is it?' asked Frances with no little curiosity.

'Why, you must know,' answered her aunt, 'that your father had a very
intimate friend, to whom he was as much attached all his life as if he had
been his brother.'

'You mean Sir Richard Elliott. I remember seeing him and his son at
Otterby, when I was a little girl; and I often heard papa speak of him
afterwards.'

'Well, when young Elliott got his commission, your papa, in compliance
with Sir Richard's request, used his interest to have him appointed to his
own regiment, in order that he might keep him under his eye. By this
means, he became intimately acquainted with the young man's character,
and, I suppose, as much attached to him as to his father.'

'And the scheme is, that I should marry him, I suppose?'

'Provided you are both so disposed, not otherwise; there is to be no
compulsion in the case.'

'It is a scheme that will never be realised,' said Frances; 'for, of all things, I
should dislike a marriage that had been planned in that way. The very idea
of standing in such an awkward relation to a man would make me hate him.'

'That's why I think all such schemes better let alone,' returned Mrs
Wentworth; 'but as your father desires that I will put you in possession of
his wishes before you go into the world, I have no choice but to do it.'

'It does not appear, however, that this Mr Elliott is very anxious about the
matter, since he has never taken the trouble of coming to see me. Perhaps he
does not know of the scheme?'

'O yes, he does; but, in the first place, he is abroad with his regiment; and,
in the second, he abstains upon principle from seeking to make your
acquaintance. So Sir Richard told me, when I met him last year at Lady
Grantley's fête. He said that his son's heart was yet perfectly free, but that
he did not think it right to throw himself in your way, or endeavour to
engage your affections, till you had had an opportunity of seeing something
of the world. The old gentleman had a great desire to see you himself; and
he would have called, but he was only passing through London on his way
to some German baths, and he was to start the next morning.'

'And what sort of a person is this Mr Elliott?'

'I really don't know, except that his father praised him to the skies. He's
Major Elliott now, and must be about eight-and-twenty.'

'And is he the eldest son?'

'He's the eldest son, and will be Sir Henry—I think that's his name—by and
by. But he's not rich; quite the contrary, he's very poor for a baronet; and I
incline to think that is one of the reasons that influenced your father. Being
so fond of the Elliotts, he wished to repair, in some degree, the dilapidation
of their fortunes by yours.'

'So that I shall have the agreeable consciousness of being married purely for
my money. I am afraid poor dear papa's scheme will fail; and I wish, aunt,
you had never told me of it.'

'That was not left to my discretion; if it had been, I should not have told you
of it, I assure you.'

'Well, I can only hope that I shall never see Major Elliott; and if he ever
proposes to come, aunt, pray do me the favour to assure him, from me, that
it will not be of the smallest use.'

'That would be foolish till you've seen him. You may like him.'

'Never; I could not like a man whom I met under such circumstances, if he
were an angel.'

Thus, with a heart steeled against Major Elliott and his attractions, whatever
they might be, Frances Seymour made her début; and, however brilliant had
been her anticipations of success, she had the satisfaction of finding them
fully realised. She was the belle of the season—admired, courted, and
envied; and by the end of it, she had refused at least half-a-dozen proposals.
As she was perfectly independent, she resolved to enjoy a longer lease of
her liberty, before she put it in the power of any man to control her
inclinations.

Shortly after the termination of the season, some family affairs called Mr
and Mrs Wentworth to St Petersburg; and as it was not convenient that
Frances should accompany them, they arranged that she should spend the
interval in visiting some families of their own connection residing in the
country, who promised to take due charge of her.

The first of these, by name Dunbar, were worthy people enough, but,
unfortunately for Frances, desperately dull; and the few neighbours they
had happened to be as dull as themselves. There were neither balls nor routs
to keep up the spirits of the London belle; and a tiresome drive of six or
eight miles to an equally tiresome dinner-party, was but a poor substitute for
the gaieties which the late season had given her a taste for.

Frances was not without resources. She was a fine musician, and played and
sang admirably; but she liked to be told that she did so. At Dunbar House,
nobody cared for music, nobody listened to her, and her most recherchées
toilettes delighted nobody but her maid. She was aux abois, as the French
say, and had made some progress in the concoction of a scheme to get away,
when an improvement took place in her position, from the arrival of young
Vincent Dunbar, the only son of the family. He was a lieutenant in a

regiment of infantry that had lately returned from the colonies, and had
come, as in duty bound, to waste ten days or a fortnight of his three months'
leave in the dull home of his ancestors. As he was an extremely handsome,
fashionable-looking youth, Frances, when she went down to dinner, felt
quite revived by the sight of him. Here was something to dress for, and
something to sing to; and although the young lieutenant's conversation was
not a whit above the usual standard of his class, it appeared lively and witty
when compared with that of his parents. His small colonial experiences
were more interesting than Mrs Dunbar's domestic ones; and his account of
a tiger hunt more exciting than his father's history of the run he had had
after a fox. Frances was an equally welcome resource to him. Here was an
opportunity, quite unexpected, of displaying his most fashionable ties and
most splendid waistcoats; here was a listener for his best stories, and one
who did not repay him in kind, as his father did; and here were a pair of
bright eyes, that always looked brighter at his approach; and a pair of pretty
lips, that pouted when he talked of going away to fulfil an engagement he
had made to meet some friends at Brighton.

As was to be expected, under circumstances so propitious, the young man
fell in love—as much in love as he could be with anybody but himself;
whilst his parents did not neglect to hint, that he could not do better than
prosecute a suit which the young lady's evident partiality justified. Pleased
with the prospect of their son's making so good a match, they even ventured
one day a dull jest on the subject in the presence of Frances—a jest which,
heavy as it was, aroused her to reflection. Flirting with a man, and angling
for his admiration, is one thing; loving and marrying him, is another. For
the first, Vincent Dunbar answered exceedingly well; but for the second, he
was wholly unfit. In spite of her little weaknesses, Frances had too much
sense not to see that the young lieutenant was an empty-headed coxcomb,
and not at all the man with whom she hoped to spend her years of discretion
—when she arrived at them—after an ample enjoyment of the delights that
youth, beauty, and wealth are calculated to procure their possessor. Her eyes
were opened, in short; and the ordinary effect of this sort of awakening
from an unworthy penchant—for attachment it could not be called—
ensued: the temporary liking changed into aversion, and the attentions that
had flattered her before became hateful. In accordance with this new state
of her feelings, she resolved to alter her behaviour, in order to dissipate as

quickly as possible the erroneous impression of the family; whilst, at the
same time, she privately made arrangements for cutting short her visit, and
anticipating the period of her removal to the house of Mrs Gaskoin, betwixt
whom and the Dunbars the interval of her friends' absence in Russia was to
be divided. In spite of her stratagem, however, she did not escape what she
apprehended. Vincent's leave had nearly expired too; and when the moment
approached that was to separate them, he seized an opportunity of making
his proposals.

There is scarcely a woman to be met with in society, who does not know,
from experience, what a painful thing it is to crush the hopes of a man who
is paying her the high compliment of wishing to place the happiness of his
life in her keeping; and when to this source of embarrassment is added the
consciousness of having culpably raised expectations that she shrinks from
realising, the situation becomes doubly distressing. On the present occasion,
agitated, ashamed, and confused, Frances, instead of honestly avowing her
fault, which would have been the safest thing to do, had recourse to a
subterfuge; she answered, that she had been betrothed by her father to the
son of his dearest friend, and that she was not free to form any other
engagement. Of course, Vincent pleaded that such a contract could not be
binding on her; but as, whilst she declared her determination to adhere to it,
she forbore to add, that were she at liberty his position would not be
improved, the young man and his family remained under the persuasion,
that this premature engagement was the only bar to his happiness; and with
this impression, which she allowed him to retain, because it spared him and
herself pain, he returned to his regiment, whilst she, as speedily as she
could, decamped to her next quarters, armed with a thousand good
resolutions never again to bring herself into such an unpleasant dilemma.

Mrs Gaskoin's was a different sort of house to the Dunbars'. It was not gay,
for the place was retired, and Mrs Gaskoin being in ill health, they saw little
company; but they were young, cheerful, and accomplished people, and in
their society Frances soon forgot the vexations she had left behind her. She
even ceased to miss the admiration she was accustomed to; what was
amiable and good in her character—and there was much—regained the
ascendant; her host and hostess congratulated themselves on having so
agreeable an inmate as much as she did herself on the judicious move she

had made, till her equanimity was disturbed by learning that Mr Gaskoin
was expecting a visitor, and that this visitor was his old friend and brother-
officer, Major Elliott, the person of all others, Vincent Dunbar excepted, she
had the greatest desire to avoid.

'I cannot express how much I should dislike meeting him,' she said to Mrs
Gaskoin, to whom she thought it better to explain how she was situated.
'You must allow me to keep my room whilst he is here.'

'If you are determined not to see him, I think you had better go back to the
Dunbars for a little while,' answered the hostess; 'but I really think you
should stay, and let things take their course. If your aversion continues, you
need not marry him; but my husband tells me he's charming; and in point of
character, I know no one whom he estimates so highly.'

But Frances objected, that she should feel so embarrassed and awkward.

'In short, you apprehend that you will appear to a great disadvantage,' said
Mrs Gaskoin. 'That is possible, certainly; but as Major Elliott is only
coming for a day or two, I think we might obviate that difficulty, by
introducing you as my husband's niece, Fanny Gaskoin. What do you say?
You can declare yourself whenever you please, or keep the secret till he
goes, if you prefer it.'

Frances said she should like it very much; the scheme would afford them a
great deal of amusement, and any expedient was preferable to going back to
Dunbar House. Neither, as regarded themselves, was it at all difficult of
execution, since they always addressed her as Fanny or Frances; the danger
was with the servants, who, however cautioned to call the visitor by no
other name than Miss Fanny, might inadvertently betray the secret. Still, if
they did, a few blushes and a hearty laugh were likely to be the only
consequences of the disclosure; so the little plot was duly framed, and
successfully executed; Major Elliott not entertaining the most remote
suspicion that this beautiful, fascinating Fanny Gaskoin was his own
fiancée.

Whether they might have fallen in love with each other had they met under
more prosaic circumstances, there is no saying. As it was, they did so

almost at first sight. It is needless to say, that Major Elliott extended his
visit beyond the day or two he had engaged for; and when Mr and Mrs
Gaskoin saw how matters were going, they recommended an immediate
avowal of the little deception that had been practised, lest some ill-timed
visitor should inopportunely let out the secret, which had already been
endangered more than once by the forgetfulness of the servants: but Frances
wished to prolong their diversion till she should find some happy moment
for the dénouement; added to which, she had an extreme curiosity to know
how Major Elliott intended to release himself from the engagement formed
by Colonel Seymour, in which he had tacitly, if not avowedly, acquiesced. It
was certainly very flattering that her charms had proved sufficiently
powerful to make him forget it; but that he should have yielded to the
temptation without the slightest appearance of a struggle, did somewhat
surprise her, as indeed, from their knowledge of his character, it did Mr and
Mrs Gaskoin. Not that they would have expected him to adhere to the
contract, if doing so proved repugnant either to himself or the young lady;
but under all the circumstances of the case, they would have thought his
conduct less open to exception, if he had deferred entering into any other
engagement till he had seen Miss Seymour. It was true, that he had not yet
offered his hand to his friend Gaskoin's charming niece; but neither she, nor
any one else, entertained a doubt of his intention to do so; and Frances
never found herself alone with him, that her heart did not beat high with the
expectation of what might be coming.

The progress of love affairs is no measure of time: where the attrait, or
magnetic rapport (for perhaps magnetism has something to do with the
mystery), is very strong, one couple will make as much way in a fortnight
as another will do in a year. In the present instance, Major Elliott's
proclivity to fall in love with Frances may have been aided by his
persuasion that she was the niece of his friend. Be that as it may, on the
thirteenth day of his visit, Major Elliott invited his host to join him in a
walk, in the course of which he avowed his intention of offering his hand to
Miss Gaskoin, provided her family were not likely to make any serious
objection to the match. 'My reason for mentioning the subject so early is,'
said he, 'that, in the first place, I cannot prolong my visit; I have already
broken two engagements, and now, however unwillingly, I must be off: and,
in the second place, I felt myself bound to mention the subject to you before

speaking to Miss Gaskoin, because you know how I am situated in regard to
money-matters; and that I cannot, unfortunately, make such a settlement as
may be expected by her friends.'

'I don't think that will be any obstacle to your wishes,' answered Mr
Gaskoin, with an arch smile. 'If you can find Fanny in the humour, I'll
undertake to answer for all the rest. As for her fortune, she'll have
something at all events—but that is a subject, I suppose, you are too much
in love to discuss.'

'It is one there is no use in discussing till I am accepted,' returned Major
Elliott; 'and I confess that is a point I am too anxious about to think of any
other.'

'Prepare yourself,' said Mrs Gaskoin to Frances: 'Major Elliott has declared
himself to my husband, and will doubtless take an opportunity of speaking
to you in the course of the evening. Of course, now the truth must be
disclosed, and I've no doubt it will be a very agreeable surprise to him.'

When the tea-things were removed, and Frances, as usual, was seated at the
pianoforte, and Major Elliott, as usual, turning over the leaves of her music-
book, she almost lost her breath with agitation when the gentle closing of a
door aroused her to the fact, that they were alone. Mr and Mrs Gaskoin had
quietly slipped out of the room; and conscious that the critical moment was
come, she was making a nervous attempt to follow them, when a hand was
laid on hers, and—— But it is quite needless to enter into the particulars:
such scenes do not bear relating. Major Elliott said something, and looked a
thousand things; Frances blushed and smiled, and then she wept, avowing
that her tears were tears of joy; and so engrossed was she with the
happiness of the moment, that she had actually forgotten the false colours
under which she was appearing, till her lover said: 'I have already, my dear
Fanny, spoken on this subject to your uncle.'

'Now, then, for the dénouement!' thought Frances; but she had formed a
little scheme for bringing this about, which she forthwith proceeded to put
in execution.

'But, dear Henry,' she said, as, seated on the sofa hand in hand, they dilated
on their present happiness and future plans—'dear Henry, there is one thing
that has rather perplexed me, and does perplex me still, a little—do you
know, I have been told you were engaged?'

'Indeed! Who told you that?'

'Well, I don't know; but I'm sure I heard it. It was said that you were
engaged to Miss Seymour—the Miss Seymour that lives with Mrs
Wentworth'——

'Do you know her?' inquired Major Elliott, interrupting her.

'Yes, I do—a little.'

'Only a little?'

'Well, perhaps I may say I know her pretty well. Indeed, to confess the truth,
I'm rather intimate with her.'

'That is extremely fortunate,' returned Major Elliott.

'Then you don't deny the engagement?' said Frances.

'Colonel Seymour, who was my father's friend and mine, very kindly
expressed a wish, before he died, that, provided there was no objection on
either side, his daughter and I should be married; but you see, my dearest
Fanny, as there happens to be an objection on both sides, the scheme,
however well meant, is defeated.'

'On both sides!' reiterated Frances with surprise.

'Yes; on both sides,' answered he smiling.

'But how do you know that, when you've never seen Miss Seymour—at
least I thought you never had?'

'Neither have I; but I happen to know that she has not the slightest intention
of taking me for her husband.'

'Oh,' said Frances, laughing at the recollection of her own violent antipathy
to this irresistible man, who, after all, had taken her heart by storm—'I
suppose you have somehow heard that she disliked the idea of being
trammelled by an engagement to a person she never saw, and whom she had
made up her mind she could not love; but remember, Henry, she has never
seen you. How do you know that she might not have fallen in love with you
at first sight?—as somebody else did,' she added playfully.

'Because, my dear little girl, she happens to be in love already. She did not
wait to see me, but wisely gave away her heart when she met a man that
pleased her.'

'But you're mistaken,' answered Frances, beginning to feel alarmed; 'you are
indeed! I know Frances Seymour has no attachment. I know that till she
saw you—I mean that—I am certain she has no attachment, nor ever had
any.'

'Perhaps you are not altogether in her confidence.'

'O yes, I am indeed.'

Major Elliott shook his head, and smiled significantly. 'Rely on it,' he said,
'that what I tell you is the fact; but you have probably not seen Miss
Seymour very lately, which would sufficiently account for your ignorance
of her secret. I am told that she is extremely handsome and charming, and
that she sings divinely.'

Five minutes earlier, Frances would have been delighted with this testimony
to her attractions; and would have been ready with a repartee about the loss
he would sustain in relinquishing so many perfections for her sake; but now
her heart was growing faint with terror, and her tongue clove to the roof of
her mouth. Thoughts that would fill pages darted through her brain like
lightning—dreadful possibilities, that she had never foreseen nor thought
of.

Vincent Dunbar's regiment had been in India; she knew it was one of the
seventies; but she had either never heard the exact number, or she had not
sufficiently attended to the subject to know which it was. Major Elliott's

regiment had also been in India; and it was the 76th. Suppose it were the
same, and that the two officers were acquainted—and suppose they had met
since Vincent's departure from Dunbar House! The young man had
occasionally spoken to her of his brother-officers; she remembered Poole,
and Wainright, and Carter; the name of Elliott he had certainly not
mentioned; but it was naturally of his own friends and companions he
spoke, not of the field-officers. Then, when she told him that she had been
betrothed by her father, she had not said to whom; but might he not, by
some unlucky chance, have found that out? And might not an explanation
have ensued!

Could Major Elliott have distinctly discovered the expression of her
features, he would have seen that it was something more than perplexity
that kept her silent; but the light fell obscurely on the seat they occupied,
and he suspected nothing but that she was puzzled and surprised.

'I see you are very curious to learn the secret,' he said, 'and if it were my
own, you should not pine in ignorance, I assure you; but as it is a young
lady's, I am bound to keep it till she chooses to disclose it herself. However,
I hope your curiosity will soon be satisfied, for I have ascertained that Mr
and Mrs Wentworth are to be in England almost immediately—they have
been some time on the continent—and then we shall come to a general
understanding. In the meantime, my dearest Fanny'——

But Frances, unable longer to control her agitation, took advantage of a
slight noise in the hall, to say that Mr and Mrs Gaskoin were coming; and
before he had time to finish his sentence, she started to her feet, and rushed
out of the room.

On the other side of the hall was Mrs Gaskoin's boudoir, where she and her
husband were sitting over the fire, awaiting the result of the tête-à-tête in
the drawing-room.

'Well?' said they, rising as the door opened and a pale face looked in. 'Is it
all settled?'

'Ask me nothing now, I beseech you!' said Frances. 'I'm going to my room;
tell Major Elliott I am not well; say I'm agitated—anything you like; but

remember, he still thinks me Fanny Gaskoin'——

'But, my dear girl, I cannot permit that deception to be carried any further; it
has lasted too long already,' said Mr Gaskoin.

'Only to-night!' said Frances.

'It is not fair to Major Elliott,' urged Mrs Gaskoin.

'Only to-night! only to-night!' reiterated Frances. 'There! he's coming; I hear
his step in the hall! Let me out this way!' and so saying, she darted out of a
door that led to the backstairs, and disappeared.

'She has refused him!' said Mrs Gaskoin. 'I confess I am amazed.'

But Major Elliott met them with a smiling face. 'What has become of
Frances?' said he.

'She rushed in to us in a state of violent agitation, and begged we would tell
you that she is not well, and is gone to her room. I'm afraid the result of
your interview has not been what we expected.'

'On the contrary,' returned Major Elliott, 'you must both congratulate me on
my good-fortune.'

'Silly girl!' said Mr Gaskoin, shaking his friend heartily by the hand. 'I see
what it is: she is nervous about a little deception we have been practising on
you.'

'A deception!'

'Why, you see, my dear fellow, when I told Frances that you were coming
here, she objected to meeting you'——

'Indeed! On what account?'

'You have never suspected anything?' said Mr Gaskoin, scarcely repressing
his laughter.

'Suspected anything? No.'

'It has never by chance occurred to you that this bewitching niece of mine
is'——

'Is what?'

'Your betrothed lady, for example, Frances Seymour?'

Major Elliott's cheeks and lips turned several shades paler; but the candles
were not lighted, and his friends did not remark the change.

'Frances Seymour!' he echoed.

'That is the precise state of the case, I assure you;' and then Mr Gaskoin
proceeded to explain how the deception came to be practised. 'I gave into
it,' he said, 'though I do not like jests of that sort, because I thought, as my
wife did, that you were much more likely to take a fancy to each other, if
you did not know who she was, than if you met under all the embarrassment
of such an awkward relation.'

During this little discourse, Major Elliott had time to recover from the
shock; and being a man of resolute calmness and great self-possession—
which qualities, by the way, formed a considerable element in his
attractions—the remainder of the evening was passed without any
circumstance calculated to awaken the suspicions of his host and hostess,
further than that a certain gravity of tone and manner, when they spoke of
Frances, led them to apprehend that he was not altogether pleased with the
jest that had been practised.

'We ought to have told him the moment we saw that he was pleased with
her; but, foolish child, she would not let us,' said Mr Gaskoin to his wife.

'She must make her peace with him to-morrow,' returned the lady; but, alas!
when they came down to breakfast on the following morning, Major Elliott
was gone, having left a few lines to excuse his sudden departure, which, he
said, he had only anticipated by a few hours, as, in any case, he must have
left them that afternoon.

By the same morning's post there arrived a letter from Vincent Dunbar,
addressed to Miss Seymour. Its contents were as follow:—

'My dearest, dearest Frances—I should have written to you ten days ago
to tell you the joyful news—you little guess what—but that I had applied
for an extension of leave on urgent private affairs, and expected every hour
to get it. But they have refused me, be hanged to them! So I write to you,
my darling, to tell you that it's all right—I mean between you and me. I'm
not a very good hand at an explanation on paper, my education in the art of
composition having been somewhat neglected; but you must know that old
Elliott, whom your dad wanted you to marry, is our senior major. Well,
when I came down here to meet Poole, as I had promised—his governor
keeps hounds, you know; a capital pack, too—I was as dull as ditch-water; I
was, I assure you; and whenever there was nothing going on, I used to take
out the verses you wrote, and the music you copied for me, to look at; and
one day, who should come in but Elliott, who was staying with his governor
on the West Cliff, where the old gentleman has taken a house. Well, you
know, I told you what a madcap fellow Poole is; and what should he do, but
tell Elliott that I was going stark mad for a girl that couldn't have me
because her dad had engaged her to somebody else; and then he shewed
him the music that was lying on the table with your name on it. So you may
guess how Elliott stared, and all the questions he asked me about you, and
about our acquaintance and our love-making, and all the rest of it. And, of
course, I told him the truth, and shewed him the dear lock of hair you gave
me; and the little notes you wrote me the week I ran up to London; for
Elliott's an honourable fellow, and I knew it was all right. And it is all right,
my darling; for he says he wouldn't stand in the way of our happiness for
the world, or marry a woman whose affections were not all his own. And
he'll speak to your aunt for us, and get it all settled as soon as she comes
back,' &c. &c.

The paper dropped from poor Frances Seymour's hands. She comprehended
enough of Major Elliott's character to see that all was over. But for the
unfortunate jest they had practised on him, an explanation would
necessarily have ensued the moment he mentioned Vincent's name to her;
but that unlucky deception had complicated the mischief beyond repair. It
was too late now to tell him that she did not love Vincent; he would only

think her false or fickle. A woman who could act as she had done, or as she
appeared to have done, was no wife for Henry Elliott.

There is no saying, but it is just possible, that an entire confidence placed in
Mr Gaskoin might have led to a happier issue; but her own conviction that
her position was irrecoverable, her hopelessness and her pride, closed her
lips. Her friends saw that there was something wrong; and when a few lines
from Major Elliott announced his immediate departure for Paris, they
concluded that some strange mystery had divided the lovers, and clouded
the hopeful future that for a short period had promised so brightly.

Vincent Dunbar was not a man to break his heart at the disappointment
which, it is needless to say, awaited him. Long years afterwards, when Sir
Henry Elliott was not only married, but had daughters coming out in the
world, he, one day at a dinner-party, sat next a pale-faced, middle-aged lady,
whose still beautiful features, combined with the quiet, almost grave
elegance of her toilet, had already attracted his attention in the drawing-
room. It was a countenance of perfect serenity; but no observing eye could
look at it without feeling that that was a serenity not born of joy, but of
sadness—a calm that had succeeded a storm—a peace won by a great
battle. Sir Henry felt pleased when he saw that the fortunes of the dinner-
table had placed him beside this lady, and they had not been long seated
before he took an opportunity of addressing her. Her eyelids fell as she
turned to answer him; but there was a sweet, mournful smile on her lip—a
smile that awoke strange recollections, and made his heart for a moment
stand still. For some minutes he did not speak again, nor she either; when
he did, it was to ask her, in a low, gentle voice, to take wine with him. The
lady's hand shook visibly as she raised her glass; but, after a short interval,
the surprise and the pang passed away, and they conversed calmly on
general subjects, like other people in society.

When Sir Henry returned to the drawing-room, the pale-faced lady was
gone; and, a few days afterwards, the Morning Post announced among its
departures that Miss Seymour had left London for the continent.

THE CONTINENTAL 'BRADSHAW' IN 1852.
Return to Table of Contents

Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide—the square, pale-yellow, compact,
brochure which makes its appearance once a month, and which has doubled
its thickness in its brief existence of five years—is suggestive of a multitude
of thoughts concerning the silent revolution now passing over Europe.
Presidents may have coups d'état; kings may put down parliaments, and
emperors abrogate constitutions; Legitimists may dream of the past, and
Communists of the future; but the railways are marking out a path for
themselves in Europe which will tend to obliterate, or at least to soften, the
rugged social barriers which separate nation from nation. This will not be
effected all at once, and many enthusiasts are disappointed that the
cosmopolitanism advances so slowly; but the result is not the less certain in
being slow.

Our facetious contemporary Punch once gave a railway map of England, in
which the face of the land was covered with intersecting lines at mutual
distances of only a mile or two. A railway map of Europe has certainly not
yet assumed such a labyrinthine character; still, the lines of civilisation (for
so we may well term them) are becoming closer and closer every year. The
outposts of Europe, where the Scandinavian, the Sclavonian, the Italian, and
the Spaniard respectively rule, are scanty in their exhibition of such lines;
but as we gradually approach the scenes of commercial activity, there do
railways appear in greater and greater proximity. France strikingly
exemplifies its own theory, that 'Paris is France,' by shewing how all its
important railways spring from the metropolis in six directions. Belgium
exhibits its compact net-work of railways, by which nearly all its principal
towns are accommodated. The phlegmatic Dutchman has as yet placed the
locomotive only in that portion of Holland which lies between the Rhine
and the Zuiderzee. Rhineland, from Bâle to Wiesbaden, is under railway
dominion. North Germany, within a circle of which Magdeburg may be
taken as a centre, is railed pretty thickly; and Vienna has become a point
from which lines of great length start. Exterior to all these are solitary lines,

the pioneers of the new order of things, pointing in directions which will
one day come within the yellow covers of Bradshaw. There is one line
straggling out to Rostock; another to Stettin and Bromberg, on its way to
Danzig; another to Warsaw, on its way to meet the czar at St Petersburg;
another to Pesth, whence it will be carried through the scenes of the late
Hungarian war; another to the neighbourhood of the Adriatic; others from
Central Germany southward to the Swiss highlands, which bar further
progress; and a very modest little group in North Italy.

It is instructive to mark the steps by which these continental railways have
been brought into existence. The English practice of undertaking all such
great works, is very little understood abroad; there is not capital enough
afloat, and the commercial audacity of the people has not yet arrived at such
a high-pressure point. Almost the whole of the railways now under notice,
have been constructed either by the governments of the respective
countries, or by companies which require some sort of government
guarantee before they can obtain their capital.

Belgium was the first continental country to follow the railway example of
England. Very soon after King Leopold was seated securely on his throne,
he initiated measures for the construction of railways in Belgium; and a law
was passed in 1834, sanctioning that compact system which, having
Mechlin as a centre, branches out in four directions—to Liege, Antwerp,
Brussels, and Ostend; and there were also lines sanctioned to the Prussian
frontier, and the French frontier—the whole giving a length of about 247
English miles. Three years afterwards, a law was passed for the
construction of 94 additional miles of railway—to Courtrai, Tournay,
Namur, and other towns. In the western part of Belgium, the engineering
difficulties were not of a formidable character; but towards the Prussian
frontier, the bridges, cuttings, and embankments are so extensive, as to have
rendered the works far more costly than in the average of continental
railways. The Belgian Chambers provided the money, or rather authorised
the government to borrow it, year after year. The first portion of railway
was opened in 1835, and every year from thence till 1843, witnessed the
opening of additional portions; until at length, in this last-named year, all
the 341 miles mentioned above were opened for traffic. The cost varied
from L.6140 per mile (near Courtrai), to L.38,700 per mile (near Liege); the

entire cost of the whole, including working-plant, was within L.17,000 per
average mile. While these railways were progressing, private companies
were formed for the construction of other lines, to the extent of about 200
additional miles, most of which are now open—the Namur and Liege being
opened in 1851. These various railways are said to have yielded, on an
average, about 3½ per cent. on the outlay.

It was of course impossible for France to see its little neighbour, Belgium,
advancing in its railway course, without setting a similar movement on foot;
but various circumstances have given a lingering character to French
railway enterprise. It was in 1837 that the short railway from Paris through
Versailles to St Germain—the first passenger line in France—was opened.
In the next following year, two companies, aided by the government in
certain ways, undertook the construction of the railways from Paris to
Rouen, and from Paris to Orleans. The French government, having a strong
taste for centralisation in national matters, formed in 1842 that plan which
has since, with some modifications, been carried into execution. The plan
consisted in causing the great lines of communication to be surveyed and
marked out by government engineers, and then to be ceded to joint-stock
companies, to be constructed on certain conditions. There were to be seven
such lines radiating from Paris: to the Belgian frontier; to one or more ports
on the Channel; to the Atlantic ports; to Bordeaux; to the Spanish frontier;
to Marseille; and to Rhenish Prussia. The government has had to concede
more favourable conditions to some of these companies than were at first
intended, to get the lines constructed at all. The first and second of the
above lines of communication are now almost fully opened; the third is
finished to Chartres; the fourth, to Nantes and Poitiers; the fifth, to
Chateauroux; the sixth, to Chalons, with another portion from Avignon to
Marseille; while the seventh, or Paris and Strasbourg Railway, is that of
which the final opening has been recently celebrated with so much firing of
guns, drinking of healths, blessing of locomotives, and speechifyings of
presidents. At the close of 1851, the length of French railway opened was
about 1800 miles; while the portion since opened, or now in progress or
projected, amounts to about as much more. In the president's speech to the
National Assembly in 1851 (of course, before the coup d'état), it was
announced that the length of French railway to be finished and opened in

1851 would be 516 kilomètres (about 320 miles); and in 1852, about 330
kilomètres (205 miles.)

Prussia loves centralisation little less than France in other matters; but in
railway enterprise she has allowed mercantile competition to have freer
scope. Private companies have constructed nearly all the Prussian railways;
but in cases where the traffic appeared likely to be small, the government
has rendered aid in one of three or four modes. The government will not
permit any parallel or competing lines; and it holds the power of purchasing
the railways after a lapse of thirty years, on certain specified terms. On this
principle have been constructed the railways which radiate from Berlin in
five different directions—towards Hamburg, Hanover, Saxony, Silesia, and
the Baltic; together with minor branches springing out of them, and also the
railways which accommodate the rich Rhenish provinces belonging to
Prussia. The Prussian railways open and at work at the close of 1851 appear
to have been about 1800 miles in length.

In the heterogeneous mass of states which constitute Germany, the railways
have for the most part been constructed by, and belong to, the respective
governments. Such is the case in Baden, Hanover, Brunswick, Würtemberg,
Bavaria, and many of the petty states; and such is also the case in the
imperial dominions in Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and Styria.
There may be some among these lines of railway which belong to
companies, but, as a general rule, they constitute government property. If
we include Prussia and the Austrian dominions in the general name of
Germany, we find the railways very unequally distributed. An oblong
quadrangular district, measuring about 400 miles from east to west, and 200
from north to south, and lying eastward of the Netherlands, contains a net-
work of railways which contrast remarkably with those of east, south, and
central Germany; it includes Hamburg, Berlin, Leipsic, Dresden,
Magdeburg, Brunswick, Hanover, Bremen, and a busy knot of other
important towns. Although the various German railways twist about in more
tortuous forms than those of England—for the engineers have studied
economy by going round hills rather than through them—and although they
are broken up into many different proprietorships by passing through so
many petty states, yet there may be traced certain great lines of
communication which run nearly or entirely across the whole of Germany.

Starting from Cologne, we find one line running through Elberfeld, Minden,
Hanover, Brunswick, Berlin, to Bromberg and Posen; another from Cologne
—with a short break not yet completed in Westphalia—to Cassel, Gotha,
Weimar, Leipsic, Dresden, Breslau, and Cracow; a third from Hamburg,
through Magdeburg, Leipsic, Dresden, Prague, Presburg, and Pesth, into the
heart of Hungary; a fourth from the Baltic at Stettin, through Berlin,
Leipsic, Nürnberg, Augsburg, to the vicinity of the Lake of Constance; and
a fifth from Warsaw, through Vienna, to the vicinity of the Adriatic. Dr
Lardner has estimated, that if we include the Netherlands and the Austrian
and Prussian dominions within the German group, the German railways at
the beginning of 1851 were about 5100 miles in length, with 3000 miles
more either in progress or decided on—making a total of between 8000 and
9000 miles. Many hundred miles of railway have been opened since the
date to which this estimate refers.

Our Bradshaw leaves us little to notice on the continent beyond the groups
of railways included under the above four systems. The Dutch have given a
curious serpentine line of railway, about 150 miles in length, from
Rotterdam through Schiedam, Delft, The Hague, Leyden, Haarlem,
Amsterdam, and Utrecht, to Arnhem—an economical mode of linking most
of the chief towns together. Holstein, the recent field of struggle between
the Danes and the Germans, has its humble quota of about 100 miles of
railway, from Altona to Glückstadt, Rendsburg, and Kiel, connecting the
German Ocean with the Baltic in a very convenient way. Russia has a
railway in its Polish dominions from Warsaw to Cracow; a short bit from St
Petersburg to Tsarkoé-soélo; portions of the projected great lines from St
Petersburg to Moscow and to Warsaw, and a horse railway connecting the
Don with the Volga. Italy has a few bits of railway—perhaps quite as much
as we could yet expect in so strangely governed a country; one from Venice
through Padua, Vicenza, and Verona, to Mantua; another from Treviglio to
Milan, Monza, and Como; a Piedmontese line from Genoa to Alessandria
and Turin; a Tuscan web which connects Florence, Sienna, Pistoja, Lucca,
Pisa, and Leghorn, in a roundabout way; and a few miles of Neapolitan
railway, to connect Naples with Pompeii, Portici, Castel-a-mare, and Capua.
Rome, behindhand in most things, is behindhand in railways. Switzerland
has its little railway of twenty-five miles, from Zurich to Baden. Spain has
its two small lines, from Madrid to Aranjuez, and from Barcelona to

Mataro. Turkey and Greece, in the south-east; Portugal, in the south-west;
Sweden and Norway,[1] in the bleak north, have yet to become members of
the great European railway system.

In comparing all these continental railways with those of our own country,
we find many instructive differences. In the first place, the engineering, as
we lately remarked, is much less daring; there is not so much capital at
command, and the engineers, therefore, bend to difficulties instead of
cutting through them. Still, there are not wanting engineering works of great
magnitude. One such is the great railway bridge over the Vistula, near
Bromberg, the first stone of which was laid with much form by the king of
Prussia some short time back, and which will form one link in the chain
from Berlin to Königsberg. Another is the double railway bridge over the
Elbe at Dresden, opened in April 1852, having a railway on its eastern half,
and an ordinary roadway on its western. The stupendous Cologne Bridge
will be for the future to talk about: at present, not a single railway bridge,
we believe, crosses the Rhine; so that Western Europe is, in fact, not yet
connected by the iron pathway with Eastern. Among the many thousand
miles of continental railway, there must, of course, be numerous
constructions of great skill and magnitude; but the ratio is small compared
with those of England.

Another feature, is the great prevalence of single lines of rail. In England,
there is so much wrangling against single lines, and so great a tendency
among directors to think that there ought to be traffic enough for more, that
double lines prevail almost everywhere. In the German railways, double
lines are laid down only in places of great traffic—single lines being the
rule, and the others the exception. Where there are only three or four
departures per day, which is the case on most German railways, one line,
with carefully-managed sidings, is amply sufficient. 'Express trains,' and
'first-class trains,' and 'special trains,' and anything which disturbs the
steady jog-trot mode of proceeding, are very little known in Germany; the
general speed, including stoppages, is about twenty miles an hour. Although
the first-class fares are only a fraction above 1-1/2d. per mile, and the
second-class just over 1d., yet the Germans travel so cheaply, and mix
among each other with so little exclusiveness, that it is said only 3½ per
cent. of the whole number of passengers travel by first-class, and 74 per

cent. by third-class; the ratios in England being 14 and 46 per cent.
respectively. One apparent effect of these very low fares is, that although
the railways are for the most part cheaply constructed, the net profits are not
supposed to exceed 3 per cent. on an average; but if the fares were higher,
perhaps the number of passengers would be so reduced as to lessen the net
profit.

Whatever else may be the superiority of English railways over those of the
continent, assuredly it is not apparent in the carriages. The public press has
made an onslaught on the English railway carriages for twenty years, but
with very little success. Let those whose bones ache with the ill-conditioned
wooden seats of our second-class carriages, think wishfully of the
cushioned seats, and the easily-opened windows shielded with sun-blinds,
and the useful hat-hooks found in many of the French second-class
carriages; let those who shiver under English arrangements, think of the
hot-water tin cases beneath the feet of the first-class French passengers; and
let those who wish to be usefully employed while travelling, think of the
little table, and the pen and ink, provided in some of the Prussian carriages.
The truth is, we spend money on magnificent stations which ought to be
expended on carriages. The cramped-up position of passengers on English
railways is much reprobated by foreigners. In America, and in many parts
of the continent, it is customary to have carriages long, broad, and high,
with an avenue down the middle, and short seats for two persons each on
either side of the avenue; every person looks towards the engine, and there
is a plentiful supply of window on both sides. In America, these short seats
are not only cushioned, but each seat has its two elbows and its cushioned
back.

Another English annoyance, is the ticket-taking. If all the wrath which is
poured out on the heads of the railway directors during this formality could
take effect, they would be among the most miserable and unfortunate of
mortals. Arrived at Euston Station, we will say, by the last train from the
north—some sleepy, some hungry, and all tired—the passengers are anxious
to wend their several ways as quickly as possible; instead of this, the train is
brought to a stand-still, the man with his bull's-eye lantern pokes his head
into one doorway after another, and all are kept waiting until all the tickets
are collected. One passenger may have dropped his ticket, and then comes a

search among the hat-boxes and carpet-bags beneath the seats; another may
have underpaid his fare, or overridden the power of his ticket, and then
occurs the fuss of paying up the difference; a third may be sleeping
weariedly in the further corner of the carriage, and then comes the process
of waking him, followed, perhaps, by a search for the ticket in an
incalculable number of pockets. All this is nicely ill-managed! The larger
size of many of the continental carriages, and the avenue through the centre,
enable the ticket-taker to enter the carriage easily while the train is yet in
motion, and to collect the tickets by the time of arrival at the station. On one
of the Austrian railways, the carriages have an exterior gangway extending
the whole length of the train, by which a guard can obtain easy access to all
the passengers: shortly before arriving at a station, he enters the carriages,
calls out the name of the station about to be approached, and takes the
tickets of those who are to alight at that station. There is one oddity about
the railway management abroad. In England, a railway smoker commits a
high crime and misdemeanour, for which he is frowned at by his
neighbours, and threatened by the guard; but on the continent, not only do
the passengers smoke abundantly, but we were once rather struck at seeing
a ticket-taker enter the carriage with a meerschaum in his mouth; one
passenger, whose pipe was out, asked the customary German question:
'Haben sie feuer?' and the official gave him a light accordingly. We believe,
however, that there is a wish at head-quarters to keep down this habit of
smoking on the continental railways.

There are two sources of embarrassment which the Englishman is spared in
his own country, but which press upon him in full force while travelling by
rail abroad—namely, the different kinds of distance measurement, and the
different kinds of money employed. Accustomed to English charges varying
from three farthings to threepence per mile, he is frequently thrown out of
his reckoning by the absence of miles abroad. The French kilomètre and the
German meile are not English miles; the former equals 1093 yards, and is
therefore a troublesome fraction of an English mile; while the German
meile is as long as about four and a half English miles.

But this, however, is a minor inconvenience; for our 'Continental Bradshaw'
gives most of the measurements in English miles. Not so in respect to the
current coinage abroad. Although there was a 'railway congress' held a few

years ago, to determine on a plan for facilitating the intercourse between
country and country, yet this plan did not go so far as to assimilate the
moneys of the different states; the tourist speedily discovers that this is the
case, and he becomes perplexed with a multiplicity of cares. So long as he
is in France or Belgium, the franc (9-1/2d.), with its multiples and
submultiples, are easily managed; but when he gets beyond the Rhine, his
troubles begin. If in Holland, he has to manage with the guilder (1s. 8d.)
and its fractional parts in cents. If in the neighbourhood of Hamburg, he has
to pay by means of the mark (14-1/2d.), and certain strange-looking
schillings or skillings, of which sixteen equal one mark. Going south and
east into Prussia, he finds the ruling coin to be the thaler (3s.), divisible into
thirty groschen. and each of these into twelve pfennige; but if he be
hovering in the frontiers of Prussia and Saxony, he will find that the neu-
groschen of the latter country is worth a little more than the silber-groschen
of the former, and that there is some difficulty in getting rid of either in the
country of the other. Getting further south, to the regions belonging to or
adjoining Austria, he will find his thalers and groschen no longer welcome;
he has to attend to the florin (2s.), and its divisions into sixty kreutzers. If he
travels north-east, to the few miles of railway yet existing in Poland, he will
have to pay in rubles (3s. 3d.) and kopecks, which rank at 100 to the ruble.
On the little Zurich and Baden Railway, the only one yet in Switzerland, our
traveller meets again with his old acquaintance the franc; but this is worth
14-1/2d., instead of 9-1/2d., and, moreover, it is divided into ten batzen,
each of which is worth ten rappen. If he crosses the Alps to Austrian Italy,
he finds that his fare is reckoned in Austrian lire (about 8d.) In many cases,
the different states take money from through passengers in the coin of either
country; but the traveller who makes frequent stoppages, soon finds the
embarrassment of the different moneys. A railway has lately been
completed from Dresden to Prague—the capitals of the two kingdoms of
Saxony and Bohemia—along the banks of the Elbe; it is no great distance,
and yet the fees north of the frontier are charged in thalers and neu-
groschen, while those south of it are in florins and kreutzers.

There have been very busy and important railway enterprises agreed upon
or discussed within the last year or two, in various parts of the continent,
which augur favourably for the future of Europe. We shall shortly pass these

in review, to shew what may possibly be the aspect presented by the
'Continental Bradshaw' in 1862.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] A line of about forty-five miles, from Christiania to the end of the Miösin
Lake, is surveyed, and in course of preparation.—Ed.

A SEARCH FOR ROBIN HOOD.
Return to Table of Contents

The adventures of an amateur in search of a picture, of a foundling in search
of his father, and even of a dog in search of his master, have been severally
recorded by skilful pens for the amusement of the public. But, however
entertaining or romantic these narratives may be considered, they can
hardly surpass in interest the curious history which has just been disclosed
of the adventures of an antiquary in search of a ballad-hero. We owe our
knowledge of the facts to one of a series of Critical and Historical Tracts,
by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, now in course of publication. Mr Hunter is an
assistant-keeper of the public records, and is well known, by his other
publications, as one of the most laborious and most judicious elucidators of
mysterious passages in our national history. But the evidences of industry,
of minute knowledge, and of logical acuteness, contained in his little
treatise concerning 'the ballad-hero, Robin Hood,' are really surprising. The
story of an obscure outlaw, who chased deer and took purses in a northern
forest five hundred years ago, has been investigated with the painstaking
sagacity of a Niebuhr; and a strong light has been unexpectedly thrown on
the state of public sentiment and manners existing at that period. Mr Hunter,
it is proper to say, dwells in his treatise chiefly upon results, and says little,
and that very modestly, of the labours by which they were obtained. He
even seems to fear that his subject may be considered trivial, and that he
may possibly receive 'the censure of being one who busies himself with the
mere playthings of antiquity.' Dr Percy, when he compiled his invaluable
Reliques, had similar apprehensions, which were then not altogether
groundless; but it may reasonably be hoped, that the race of pedants, who
wondered how a man of learning could be interested in a bundle of old
ballads, is now extinct.

Departing a little from the method and order observed by Mr Hunter in his
tract, we will endeavour not only to state in a condensed form the
remarkable conclusions at which he has arrived, but also to follow, as
accurately as his references will enable us to do so, the ingenious processes

of investigation which led to these results. The object of the inquiry was to
determine, in the first place, whether such a person as Robin Hood ever
existed; and, in the second place, to ascertain who and what he was, and to
what extent the ballads of which he was the hero were based upon actual
occurrences. What a vast amount of uncertainty there was to clear up, may
be inferred from the wide differences of opinion among writers of the
highest credit who preceded Mr Hunter in this inquiry. The celebrated
historian of the Norman Conquest, M. Thierry, supposes Robin Hood to
have been the chief of a small body of Saxons, who, in their forest
strongholds, held out for a time against the domination of the Norman
conquerors. On this point, as confessedly on others, the French historian
seems to have derived his opinions from the suggestive scenes in Scott's
splendid romance of Ivanhoe. Another writer conjectures, that the outlaws
of whom Robin was the leader, may have been some of the adherents of
Simon de Montfort, whose partisans were pursued to extremity after the
fatal battle of Evesham, in the year 1264. Others, still, have denied
altogether the existence, at any period, of such a person as Robin Hood.
They make him either a mere hero of romance—the 'creation of some
poetical mind;' or else, led by a similarity of names, they discover in him
merely one of the embodiments of popular superstitions—a sylvan sprite, a
Robin Goodfellow, or a Hudkin. Only two years ago, a historical writer of
no small acumen, Mr Thomas Wright, published his opinion, that Robin
Hood, in his original character, was simply 'one amongst the personages of
the early mythology of the Teutonic people.'

But Mr Hunter could not concur in these views, or be satisfied with the
mode of reasoning by which they were maintained. In his opinion, Robin
Hood was neither a Saxon malcontent nor the hero of a poet's romance; nor
yet was he 'a goblin or a myth.' He was, in all probability, exactly such a
person as the popular songs described him—an English yeoman, an outlaw
living in the woods, and noted for his skill in archery. Previous researches
had proved, that many of our old ballads are merely rhyming records of
historical events. Mr Hunter had already rescued one ballad-hero, Adam
Bell, from the 'danger of being reduced to an abstraction or a myth;' and it
now remained for him to undertake the same good office for a more
renowned freebooter.

The first thing to be done was, of course, to examine carefully the ballads
themselves, and to ascertain the amount and value of the evidence they
afforded, as to the epoch and the real story of their hero. It appeared, then,
that 'three single ballads are found in manuscript, which cannot be later than
the fourteenth century.' There is also a poem of considerable length, entitled
The Lytel Geste of Robyn Hood, which was printed by Winkyn de Worde, in
or about the year 1495. It is 'a kind of life' of the outlaw, and is composed of
several ballads, strung together by means of a few intermediate stanzas,
which give continuity to the story. The language of these ballads is that of
the preceding century—being, in fact, the same as that of the ballads in
manuscript. Thus the date of the songs themselves is carried back as far as
the fourteenth century. It is, moreover, in the middle of this century that the
first allusion to Robin Hood occurs in any work of undoubted authority. In
Longland's poem, entitled The Vision of Pierce Ploughman, the date of
which is between 1355 and 1365, mention is made of 'rymes of Robyn
Hood and Randolph Earl of Chester,' the outlaw and the earl being
apparently both regarded as historical personages, about whom songs had
been written. It may be observed, that if the Robin Hood ballads were much
older than this date, it must be considered surprising that no earlier allusion
to them should be found, since in the subsequent century they were referred
to by many writers.

According to the story contained in the Lytel Geste, Robin Hood was at the
head of a band of outlaws, who made their head-quarters in Bernysdale, or
Barnesdale—once 'a woody and famous forest,' on the southern confines of
Yorkshire, in the neighbourhood of Doncaster, Wakefield, and Pontefract;
and who infested the woodlands and the highways from thence as far as
Sherwood and Nottingham, near which ancient town some of their boldest
exploits were performed. They slew the king's deer, and plundered rich
travellers, but spared the humble, relieved the distressed, and were
courteous to all who did not offend them.

Robyn was a proude outlaw
Whyles he walked on ground;
So curtyse an outlaw as he was one,
Was never none yfound.

All the ballads agree in ascribing to the outlaw chief a manly bearing and a
generous disposition, such as might be expected to distinguish a respectable
yeoman of a class somewhat above the ordinary, whom the fortune of war
had driven from his home to a lawless life in the forest. That this was Robin
Hood's condition, may be inferred from the general language of the ballads;
but the important question is, whether any other testimony can be found to
confirm this conjecture, and to give us any definite and authentic
information about the fact. This is the question which Mr Hunter has
undertaken to answer. The clue which first catches his experienced eye, is
the name of an English king. One of the most remarkable adventures which
the ballads record of Robin Hood, is his meeting with the king, who
induced him, for a time, to take service in his household. The king,
according to this authority, was exasperated with Robin and his men chiefly
on account of the destruction which they had made of his deer. Finding that
it was impossible to capture the outlaw by force, the king consented to
practise a stratagem, suggested by a forester who was well acquainted with
the outlaw's habits. He disguised himself as an abbot, and with five knights
habited as monks, and a man leading sumpter-horses, rode into the
greenwood. A wealthy abbot's baggage, and his ransom, would be just the
bait most tempting to Robin and his men. The king, as he had expected, was
seized by them, and led away to their lodge in the forest. The outlaws,
however, behave courteously as usual; and when the abbot announces that
he comes from the king at Nottingham, and brings a letter from his majesty,
inviting Robin to come to that town, the latter receives the information
joyously, and declares that 'he loves no man in all the world so well as he
does his king.' Presently the monarch discovers himself, and the outlaw
chief and his men kneel, and profess their loyalty—Robin at the same time
asking for mercy for him and his. The king grants it on condition that Robin
will leave the greenwood, and will come to court and enter his service. We
quote the following after Mr Hunter, merely modernising the orthography:
—

'Yes, fore God!' then said our king,
'Thy petition I grant thee,
With that thou leave the greenwood,
And all thy company;

'And come home, sir, to my court,
And there dwell with me.'
'I make mine avow to God,' said Robin,
'And right so shall it be:

'I will come to your court
Your service for to see.'

Accordingly, Robin left the greenwood and his company, entered the king's
household, went with him to the court at London, and remained in his
service for a year and three months. Having by that time become weary of
this uncongenial mode of life, he obtained permission from the king to pay
a visit to his old residence at Barnesdale. Here he resumes once more his
former way of life 'under the greenwood-tree,' and becomes again chief of
the outlaws of Barnesdale and Sherwood.

Now if, among the adventures ascribed to Robin by the old ballads, there is
one far more improbable than all the rest, and one which an ordinary
commentator would set down at once as a pure fiction of the poet, it is
certainly that which has just been related. Mr Hunter, however, is not an
ordinary commentator. If the story is a strange one, he doubtless reflected,
'truth is stranger than fiction;' and if it is intrinsically and evidently
improbable, that is the very reason why a poet would not have invented it.
Mr Hunter, therefore, did what no other inquirer had before thought of
doing—he examined the historical and documentary evidence which might
throw light upon the subject. The ballad, fortunately, gives the name of the
king who was concerned in this singular adventure. He is repeatedly spoken
of as 'Edward, our comely king'—a phrase, by the way, which clearly
implies that the ballad was composed while the monarch was still living.
This circumstance is not noticed by Mr Hunter, but it is one of some
importance, inasmuch as a poet would hardly have ventured to introduce
the name of the reigning monarch into a purely fictitious narrative. But
there are three Edwards—the first, second, and third of the name, among
whom it is necessary to distinguish the one to whom the poet referred. Now,
according to the ballad, this 'comely king,' before he fell in with Robin, had
journeyed through the county of Lancaster:

All the pass of Lancashire,

He went both far and near,
Till he came to Plumpton Park,
He failed [missed] many of his deer.

The question then arises, which of the three Edwards did travel in that
county? To this question, Mr Hunter's researches fortunately enable him to
return a decisive answer. King Edward I. never was in Lancashire after he
became king. King Edward III. was not in Lancashire in the early years of
his reign, and probably never at all. But King Edward II. did make a
'progress' in Lancashire, and only one. The time was in the autumn of 1323,
the seventeenth year of his reign, and the fortieth of his age. By the dates of
the royal writs, and by other documents, Mr Hunter is enabled to trace the
king's route and his various removes on this occasion with great
minuteness. He follows him, for example, from York to Holderness; thence
to Pickering, to Wherlton Castle, to Richmond and Jervaulx Abbey, and to
Haywra Park, in the forest of Knaresborough. In this forest is situated
Plumpton Park, which is mentioned in the ballad as having been visited by
the king, who here became aware of Robin's depredations. King Edward
proceeded thence by way of Skipton, and several other towns, to Liverpool,
and, continuing his progress, arrived on the 9th of November at
Nottingham, where he remained till the 23d of that month; and it was from
Nottingham, it will be remembered, that the king set out in disguise to look
for Robin Hood.

But if the 'proud outlaw' on this occasion actually took service in the king's
household, his name would be likely to appear among those of the royal
attendants, if any list of these is preserved. This consideration occurred to
Mr Hunter. The result of his search must be told in his own words. 'It will
scarcely be believed,' he observes, 'but it is, nevertheless, the plain and
simple truth, that in documents preserved in the Exchequer, containing
accounts of expenses in the king's household, we find the name of "Robyn
Hode," not once, but several times occurring, receiving, with about eight-
and-twenty others, the pay of 3d. a day, as one of the "valets, porteurs de la
chambre" of the king. Whether this was some other person who chanced to
bear the same name, or that the ballad-maker has in this related what was
mere matter of fact, it will become no one to affirm in a tone of authority. I,
for my part, believe it is the same person.' Mr Hunter then quotes the words

of the original record, which is in Norman-French. It recites the names of
the twenty-four 'portours'—as the word is here spelled—who received pay
from the 24th of March to the 21st of April 1324; and among these are the
names of 'Robyn Hod' and 'Simon Hod.' These names do not occur in any
previous document. The date of the record, it will be observed, is in the
spring of the year following that in which the king made his progress
through Lancashire, and stayed for some time at Nottingham on his return
southward.

The office of valet, or porteur de la chambre, in those days, was probably
similar to that of the present groom of the chamber, and if so, was a highly
respectable and confidential post. In the ballad, Robin Hood is represented,
while at court, as spending his money freely with knights and squires. His
profusion, indeed, soon exhausted his purse, which the daily pay of 3d.,
however munificent it may have been at that period, could not replenish.
Robin became, observes Mr Hunter, moody and melancholy:

'Alas!' then said good Robin,
'Alas, and well-a-day I
If I dwell longer with the king,
Sorrow will me slay.'

At last, he petitions the king for permission to pay a visit to his chapel at
Barnesdale; declaring, that for seven nights he has not been able to sleep,
nor for seven days to eat or drink, so sore is his longing to see Barnesdale
again. The king consents, but only for a se'nnight; 'in which,' says Mr
Hunter, 'I suspect a corruption, for there was no Great Northern in those
days.' Probably the leave of absence was for seven weeks instead of days.

Now, it is remarkable, that in the Exchequer pay-lists, the new porteur's
name continues to appear (once under the form of Robert Hood) until the
22d of November 1324. Under this date appears an entry, which Mr Hunter
has given in the original Norman-French, but which we prefer to translate:
'Robyn Hod, heretofore one of the porteurs, because he could no longer
work, received as a gift, by command, 5s.' After this, we are told, his name
does not again appear. The 22d of November 1324, was just a year from the
time when the king was at Nottingham, where he arrived on the 9th of
November 1323. Robin Hood, if he then took service, would have been in

the royal household about a twelvemonth. The ballad, however, makes his
service last for a year and three months. The discrepancy is not great; and it
may, perhaps, be explained by the circumstance, that when Robin left the
court, it was at first merely on leave of absence; and he would,
consequently, still regard himself as in the king's service until he had finally
determined to renounce it, which would probably not be until at least his
term of leave had expired. The remarkable expression in the record,
'because he could no longer work,' seems, as Mr Hunter remarks, to
correspond with Robin's declarations in the ballad, that he could neither eat,
drink, nor sleep; and if he remained longer at court, sorrow would kill him.
This apparent coincidence, the author adds, 'may be but imagination; but it
looks like a reality.' It must be admitted, that if the Robyn Hod, or Robert
Hood, of the Exchequer records be not Robin Hood the outlaw, then all
these singular agreements of names, of dates, and of circumstances, will
make together a far greater marvel than any that is to be found in the ballad-
story itself, which some sceptics would require us to disbelieve.

This, however, is only the commencement of Mr Hunter's researches, which
we cannot here follow in the same detail. The ballads relate that Robin
Hood, after continuing twenty-two years in the greenwood, died—through
some foul play—at the convent of Kirklees, the prioress of which was
nearly related to him. On this hint, Mr Hunter seeks to discover, through
this relationship, the original social position and family connections of the
outlaw. He finds reason for believing, that the prioress of Kirklees at that
period was a certain Elizabeth de Staynton, a member of a family of some
note, established near Barnesdale. The Stayntons were tenants in chief of
both the 'honours' of Tickhill and Pontefract. One of them was prior of
Monk Bretton, and two were incumbents of churches in that vicinity. If
Robin Hood was nearly related to this family, the connection would raise
him somewhat above the rank of an ordinary yeoman; it might, as the
author observes, 'give him that kind of generous air in which he is invested,
and qualify him for his station among the valets of the crown.'

But if Robin Hood was a person of good condition, his name might perhaps
be found in the law-records of the local courts; and, in fact, Mr Hunter has
found, in the court-rolls of the manor of Wakefield, the name of 'Robertus
Hood,' as that of the defendant in a suit relative to a small piece of land, in

the ninth year of Edward II. He again appears in a subsequent year, when he
is described as being of Wakefield; and the name of his wife, Matilda, is
mentioned. Here is another curious coincidence. Mr Hunter says: 'The
ballad testimony is—not the Lytel Geste, but other ballads of uncertain
antiquity—that the outlaw's wife was named Matilda, which name she
changed for Marian when she joined him in the greenwood.'

But what cause could have driven a respectable yeoman like Robin Hood,
along with so many others, apparently not much below him in rank, to the
fastnesses of the forest? It is evident that only a great civil convulsion could
have made, in one district, so large a number of outlaws of this peculiar
character. Now, the rising of the discontented barons under the Earl of
Lancaster, provoked by the king's favouritism and misgovernment, took
place in the early part of the year 1322. By the battle of Boroughbridge,
fought on the 16th of March in that year, the insurrection was suppressed. It
was punished with great severity. The Earl of Lancaster and many of his
adherents were beheaded, and their property was confiscated. Some
offenders—probably persons who were not conspicuous in the outbreak—
escaped with heavy fines; and among these are mentioned two members of
the Staynton family, Robin Hood's supposed connections. We may thence
infer the part which he himself probably took in the movement. From his
skill with the bow, and from the personal esteem in which he was held, it is
likely that he would be a leader of the archers in the rebel force, and would
consequently be of importance enough to become specially obnoxious to
the king's party. Many others—perhaps the whole company which followed
him to the battle—might be in the same plight. If so, it would account not
only for their outlawry, but for the goodwill with which they were regarded
by the people of their neighbourhood, who were generally favourable to the
cause of the Earl of Lancaster, and looked upon him as a martyr. The battle
of Boroughbridge, it should be observed, was fought in the year preceding
that in which the king made his progress through the north, and rested for a
fortnight at Nottingham.

Mr Hunter, in conclusion, sums up the results of his investigation in what
he cautiously styles his 'theory' concerning the career of the famous ballad-
hero. He considers that Robin Hood was one of the 'contrariantes,' or
malcontents, of the reign of King Edward II., and that he was still living in

the early years of King Edward III.; but that his birth must 'be carried back
into the reign of King Edward I., and fixed in the decennary period, 1285 to
1295; that he was born in a family of some station and respectability, seated
at Wakefield or in villages around; that he, like many others, partook of the
popular enthusiasm which supported the Earl of Lancaster, the great baron
of those parts, who, having attempted in vain various changes in the
government, at length broke out into open rebellion, with many persons,
great and small, following his standard; that when the earl fell, and there
was a dreadful proscription, a few persons who had been in arms not only
escaped the hazards of battle, but the arm of the executioner; that he was
one of these; and that he protected himself against the authorities of the
time, partly by secreting himself in the depths of the woods of Barnesdale
or of the forest of Sherwood, and partly by intimidating the public officers
by the opinion which was abroad of his unerring bow, and his instant
command of assistance from numerous comrades as skilled in archery as
himself; that he supported himself by slaying the wild animals which were
found in the forests, and by levying a species of blackmail on passengers
along the great road which united London with Berwick, occasionally
replenishing his coffers by seizing upon treasure as it was being transported
on the road; that there was a self-abandonment and a courtesy in the way in
which he proceeded, which distinguishes him from the ordinary
highwayman; that he laid down the principle, that he would take from none
but those who could afford to lose, and that, if he met with poor persons, he
would bestow upon them some part of what he had taken from the rich: in
short, that in this respect he was the supporter of the rights or supposed
reasonable expectations of the middle and lower ranks—a leveller of the
times; that he continued this course for about twenty months—April 1322
to December 1323—meeting with various adventures, as such a person
must needs do, some of which are related in the ballads respecting him; that
when, in 1323, the king was intent upon freeing his forests from such
marauders, he fell into the king's power; that this was at a time when the
bitter feeling with which the king and the Spencers had first pursued those
who had shewn themselves such formidable adversaries, had passed away,
and a more lenient policy had supervened—the king, possibly for some
secret and unknown reason, not only pardoned him all his transgressions,
but gave him the place of one of the valets, porteurs de la chambre, in the
royal household; which appointment he held for about a year, when the love

for the unconstrained life he had led and for the charms of the country
returned, and he left the court, and betook himself again to the greenwood
shade; that he continued this mode of life we know not exactly how long;
and that at last he resorted to the prioress of Kirklees, his own relative, for
surgical assistance, and in that priory he died and was buried.'

These conclusions must of course be looked upon at present merely as a
series of probable suppositions. Mr Hunter does not pretend to have placed
them within the domain of authentic history. But it is by no means unlikely,
that future researches will produce evidence of the indubitable truth of some
of them. To Mr Hunter is due the credit of having first pointed out the
direction in which this evidence must be sought, and of having, at the same
time, indicated by his example the true value of such researches in the light
which they cast on the politics and social life of the period to which they
refer.

SNOW-STORM IN THE SAHARA.
NOTES FROM THE JOURNAL OF A MILITARY
SURGEON.
Return to Table of Contents

When it was determined by the French government in the spring of 1847, to
undertake several military expeditions simultaneously into the deserts to the
south of Algeria, it was my lot to accompany the column of General
Cavaignac, both in a medical and scientific capacity. The western route,
being the most difficult and dangerous, was that assigned to him. He was to
penetrate the hitherto unexplored regions traversed by the Hamian-garabas
—a powerful tribe, who could bring 2000 horsemen into the field, and
among whom the various tribes that had at different times sworn allegiance
to the French government always found willing allies whenever they chose
to break their treaties and throw off the yoke. He was to destroy every
village throughout this region that refused submission; and thus it was
hoped that the retreats of Abd-el-Kader might be cut off, and that by a
speedy termination of the war, the country might become settled, and its
commerce be restored.

We were a motley and grotesque-enough-looking caravan; for our six
battalions of infantry and four squadrons of cavalry were accompanied by
3000 camels laden with provisions and attended by Arab drivers, besides
500 mules carrying water-barrels, and cacolets—jointed arm-chairs—for
the sick. It was not deemed desirable to observe the strictest military
regularity in our march; so that French uniforms and Arab burnooses,
military chargers, camels of the desert, and pack-saddled mules travelled
side by side, pretty much as fancy dictated.

It was nearly three weeks before we reached the enemy's country. We had
meanwhile met with the usual adventures incident to these regions. We had
set fire to the forests of the Little Atlas Mountains, and been obliged to raise
our camp, and fly in terror from the conflagration. We had crossed the

dreary solitudes of Goor and Shott, through which our daily march had been
enlivened by songs, or beguiled by listening to the wild legends of our Arab
guides; and night after night we had encamped, like the vagabond tribes of
Sahara, either round the mouths of wells, or without water in the open
plains, each man receiving a scanty supply from the barrels, while the
beasts were left to bear their thirst as they could. But now, after passing the
basins of the Shott, and gaining the slight elevation beyond, we entered on a
tract of desert as yet untrodden by European feet, and met with trials of a
nature the least of all expected.

The wide wastes which lay before us appeared uniform and level as far as
the eye could reach, but somewhat diversified by verdant patches of halfa
(coarse grass of the desert), and by deceitful appearances of sheets of water,
produced by the reflection of the light in the undulating vapours rising from
the burning sand. In the distance, something like blue waves appeared: it
was part of the great Atlas chain; but close at hand, to our right, was a long
line of dunes. These eminences, smooth and sterile as marble domes, were
apparently as solid too; but we knew that, if the desert wind should blow,
they would be shaken into moving clouds of sand, overwhelming all before
them.

Our column proceeded in silence. The soft sand yielded no echo to the
tread. Every one appeared thoughtful and abstracted. This place has terrors
even for the Arabs; they tell a thousand stories of the Pass of Sidi-
Mohammed-el-Aoori: it was there, in times remote, that great armies were
overpowered and slain by hostile bands, or destroyed by the scarcely less
merciless elements; there many travellers have disappeared in the storm, or
fallen under the hand of the murderer. It is the 'gate' of the desert; and the
tutelar genii have placed the terrific dunes as a hieroglyphic warning to
those who rashly approach. They seem to say, 'here begins the empire of
Sterility and Death; enter if thou darest!' Doubtless the Arab tales had some
influence on our minds, increasing the well-grounded fears inspired by the
natural features of these arid wastes. Several of us mentally repeated that
melancholy line from Dante—

Lasciate ogni speranza voi che entrate;[2]

and not a few pictured to themselves a body of troops visiting these sands
half a century later, and finding the bones of Cavaignac's army scattered
here and there over the plains.

Hitherto the atmosphere had always been perfectly clear, but now it was
thick and cold, the horizon wearing that gray, heavy aspect which in Europe
precedes a fall of snow. No one, however, ventured to pronounce this word;
it appeared an occurrence so unlikely in the plain, at such a season and
under such a latitude. What, then, was our surprise, on awaking on the
morning of the 19th of April, to find the tents covered with a thick sheet of
snow, and to see the vast expanse of the desert white to the verge of the
horizon, like the frozen steppes of Siberia! The general ordered the camp to
be raised immediately, for the bivouac afforded very scanty materials for
fire, and he hoped there might be wood in the mountains if he could reach
them. The snow continued to fall in large flakes; the troops, anxious and
sorrowful, described a thousand circuits and made a thousand useless
turnings, for our Arab guides were utterly at fault. During three or four
months previous to the expedition, Cavaignac had been selecting and
retaining as guides whatever Saharians he could find acquainted with that
part of the desert he intended to traverse. The Arabs are gifted with
remarkable dexterity in steering without compass, recognising a footstep
imperceptible to the common eye, scenting the water at a distance, and
finding their way by marks which would escape the most observant
European. A Saharian once affirmed to Colonel Daumas: 'I am not
considered remarkably sharp-sighted, but I can distinguish a goat from a
sheep at the distance of a day's journey; and I know some who smell the
smoke of a pipe, or of broiled meat, at thirty miles! We all know each other
by the track of our feet in the sand, for no one tribe walks like another, nor
does a wife leave the same footprint as an unmarried woman. If a hare has
passed, we know by its footprint whether it is male or female, and, in the
latter case, whether it is with young. If we see the stone of a date, we know
the particular tree that produced it.'

Our conductors, though not pretending to all this sagacity, were
nevertheless far in advance of some of us who proudly called ourselves 'old
Africans,' and considered ourselves wonderfully expert in tracking the
desert paths. But now the landmarks on which they depended had

disappeared beneath the snow; and the atmosphere was so surcharged with
it, that the mountain summits could no longer be descried. At length the
guides abandoned the hopeless effort, and declared that they had entirely
lost the way, and knew not in what direction to proceed. At this juncture,
Cavaignac, remembering that the mountains had appeared due south on the
preceding evening, seized his compass, and boldly ordered the troops in that
direction. It was the only hope; but the march became so fatiguing, and the
natives gave so little encouragement to the expectation of finding the
mountains wooded, that a halt was ordered, and a bivouac on the snowy
plain.

Many were the miseries that attended this encampment. The rattling of arms
was heard on every side, for the soldiers were shivering to such a degree
that they could not hold their guns steadily. What would they not now have
given for some of the wood they had so wantonly destroyed in the forests of
the Tell! But the bivouac was not even supplied with chiah—one of the
commonest plants in Sahara, having a ligneous root, which had hitherto
served us for fuel when everything else failed. Nothing was to be found but
halfa, green, and steeped in snow; and the most skilful kindlers succeeded
only in amusing themselves for a time with poor, little fires, that emitted
more smoke than flame. The men, of course, could not make their soup; but
the general ordered them rations of biscuit and coffee. For my own part, not
being able to make a fire of wet halfa, I was looking disconsolately at a bit
of biscuit, and a little morsel of cheese, which was to compose my dinner,
when Lieutenant N—— sent word that his fire-makers had been more
successful, and that they offered me a corner. In a few minutes, I sat down
to two boiled eggs, which appeared delicious. Meanwhile, the night drew
on. The soldier's bed out-of-doors is a sheepskin laid on the bare ground,
under a tent so small that he cannot stand upright in it. Now, as the earth
was very damp, those who did not take the precaution of choosing a little
mound, and removing a portion of the wet soil, soon found themselves
literally in the mud, and were obliged to get up, and walk about all night.

The snow continued to fall thick and fast, the thermometer marking 7
degrees below the freezing-point during the night. Some days before, it had
been 125 degrees Fahrenheit in the sun; so that we were doomed, as in the
Purgatory of Dante—

A sofferir tormenti caldi e geli;

from which, by the way, Milton has obviously borrowed his idea of infernal
torment:

—— And feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more
fierce,
From beds of raging fire, to starve in ice
Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine
Immovable, infixed, and frozen round,
Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire.

At the sound of the morning watch-gun, the camp presented a most
distressing spectacle. The Arabs and negroes of the convoy were lying
motionless in the open air, rolled in their burnooses. Many of these poor
creatures were but lightly clad, and had the lower limbs entirely naked.
They were so benumbed and stupified with cold, that they refused to rise
and load the camels; they begged to be allowed to lie still and die in peace.
The cattle also were in a sad condition, not only from cold, but hunger; for
the snow-covered ground afforded them no pasture. As part of the
provisions had been damaged, it was now asked in dismay, what would
become of the army if the beasts should perish? The recollection of the
disaster at Boo-Taleb, where the column of General Levasseur left so many
men in the snow, occurred to the stoutest hearts. But even darker shades
mingled in the prospects of our troops; for 'General Levasseur,' said they,
'was only thirty miles from a post occupied by French troops, and the
neighbouring tribes raised and reanimated those whom they found alive,
though benumbed on the plain; but we, in the midst of the desert, far from
any human dwelling, what will become of us? Hunger, thirst, and the
enemy, will soon finish the remains of our unfortunate army.'

But the officers are on foot, setting the example of vigorous exertion, and
striving to comfort and encourage the men; while the calm and quiet
prudence of the general inspires every one with confidence in endeavouring
to obey his orders, as the only hope of deliverance. We begin our march: the
snow is now falling only at intervals; it lies two feet deep in the hollow
plains, and above a foot on the level and rising ground.

Some of the men, however, remained as if nailed to the soil—not only their
limbs benumbed, but their mental energies so paralysed as to be incapable
of acting on the physical; the mind inaccessible to moral incentives, and the
body insensible to the influence of outward stimulants. By and by they
found energy to beg that they might be hoisted on the arm-chairs; but this
was peremptorily refused. Since Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, and the
recent work of Dr Shrimpton on the disaster at Boo-Taleb, every one knows
the consequence of indulging this deceitful stupor.

But we found we must do more than talk; so we set the drums and trumpets
about the ears of the sleepers, and made their comrades shake them with all
their might. It was not till after an hour's march, in which coaxing, scolding,
and pushing, stimulants to laughter and provocatives to anger, had been
incessantly employed in turn, that the vital powers appeared to be in
tolerably full play. There was one man more obstinate than the rest, who, in
order to get a place on one of the cacolets, threatened every minute to lie
down on the ground. I slid among the ranks, and began telling one of his
comrades all the horrible stories I knew of those who, yielding to sleep in
the cold, had awaked no more; adding, with affected indifference: 'I am
afraid we shall have to leave some of our poor men as a supper for the
hyenas to-night. There are two or three of them so benumbed and stupified,
that they will perish if they halt for a single instant.' In a few minutes, I
learned that the soldier had done begging to be carried; he said his strength
was returning.

In the midst of so much human distress, it seems almost like trifling to
advert to the poor swallows. On awaking in the morning, I had found two
under my bed-cover. They allowed themselves to be taken, and either could
not, or would not fly away when I tried to banish them. So I put them in the
hood of my cloak, and allowed it to fall down my back, while I raised over
my head that of the ample burnoose which I wear in the cold above all my
other garments. The swallows travelled thus for several hours, and
gradually recovered in their warm nest. When the sun emitted some genial
rays, I took them out, and set them free. They fluttered for some time round
my horse, uttering a little cry, which I took for an expression of gratitude
before taking flight into the mountains.

Other companies of them had taken shelter under the matted hair which
hangs from the flanks of the camel; and when the pitiless driver persisted in
dislodging them, they departed with a plaintive cry, to seek an asylum with
a camel whose driver was more hospitable. A sentinel had found one in his
pocket during the night, but it paid dearly for its lodging—he roasted it for
his supper! These poor birds had fled from the rigours of a European winter,
to find cold as severe in the heart of Africa. Alas! how many of us felt that,
like the swallows, we had exiled ourselves to improve our fortunes, and
were now in danger of perishing. How gladly would we have resigned all
our hopes of glory and advantage for the fireside of the modest paternal
dwelling!

But before night we encamped in the shelter of the mountains; the chiah,
which grew in abundance around us, enabled us to kindle fires, and a
salutary reaction took place in the spirits of the troops. According to a
common practice of mine, I invited to supper the man whose life I had
saved by frightening him into exertion. After swallowing a glass of warm
wine, well sugared, and spiced with tincture of cinnamon, he licked his lips,
sucked the edges of his glass, and said: 'Thank ye, doctor; but for you I
should have been dead,' with a naïveté which I can never forget, and which
even now mingles pleasing associations with the thoughts of those days of
suffering.

The next day nearly 200 of the men were affected with partial or total
blindness. Some had merely a sensation like fatigue of the visual organs,
with heaviness, watering, and inflammation of the conjunctive membrane.
But with others the pain was acute, the eye much inflamed, and the cornea
covered with minute ulcerations. Those who were more slightly affected,
marched like persons enveloped in a cloud of smoke, and trying to see their
way out of it; they took a few steps with their eyes shut, then half opened
them with evident pain to reconnoitre the ground before them, and quickly
closed them again. But many had for the time wholly lost their sight; they
stumbled on the tufts of halfa, and rolled on the ground, so that we were
obliged to hoist them on the cacolets. The general, in a state of much
uneasiness, called a council of such members of the military corps of health
as were found in his column. Some were of opinion that this epidemic was
occasioned by the sudden cold, others that it was attributable to the smoke

of the chiah; but the truth is, that, both before and after this period, we had
experienced nearly as great extremes of heat by day and cold by night
without any such consequences, and that some, who had not approached the
chiah fires were as severely affected as those who had. It was concluded,
with every appearance of reason, that the real cause was the dazzling light
reflected from the snow during our march on the 20th of April. I recollect
one artilleryman, who was conducting his gun, when suddenly, as the sun
broke out afresh, he stopped, rubbed his eyes, turned his head in every
direction, and exclaimed: 'I cannot see; I am quite blind!' Although we had
not expected snow in the plains of Sahara, the general had anticipated the
effects of the reflection of light from the sand, and the possibility of small
particles of it getting into the eyes; and with this view each man had been
provided with a green gauze veil. But the soldier dislikes anything out of
his regular routine as much as the most ignorant peasant; so when the order
was given that these veils should be worn,[3] the soldiers wore them to be
sure—in their pockets. I insisted that each man should fasten his on his
helmet, and this, too, was done; but it was allowed to fly like a streamer
behind, instead of being drawn over the eyes. Happily the epidemic was but
temporary, and none permanently suffered the loss of sight as the
punishment of his folly.

FOOTNOTES:
[2] All hope abandon ye that enter here.

[3] Porter, to carry, is the word by which the French express to wear a thing, so
that the error of Cavaignac's soldiers was somewhat more excusable than it
would have been in Englishmen.

THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.
August 1852.
Return to Table of Contents

The great heat, which has been more talked about than anything else, if it
does not prove that the meteorologists, who predicted that this summer was
to bring a return of the warm cycle, were right in their conclusions, at least
coincides with their vaticinations. Not least remarkable was the suddenness
with which we plunged into it, as though the cause which had produced a
precisely similar effect in the United States a month earlier, had slowly
crossed the Atlantic for our benefit.

It follows, when 'everybody' is going out of town, that the number of those
who stay behind to talk must be greatly diminished; and to see that the
things to be talked about undergo a collapse at this season, it is only
necessary to look at the newspapers. A new actor, or an out-door place of
amusement, is treated to a whole column of criticism, whereas, at other
times, they would be dismissed in a brief paragraph. Penny-a-liners of
lively imagination, find their reports less subjected to curtailment.
Emigration comes in for a considerable share of notice, and the statements
put forth of the numbers who sail weekly for Australia and the 'Diggins,'
must be taken as decided evidence of a desire to better their condition on
the part of a large section of the population. It is easy to foresee that
thousands will be disappointed, if they are not made of that stuff which can
brave hardship, and triumph over the wild work of pioneer colonisation.
Now and then we see accounts of unsuspecting emigrants having been
deluded and robbed by a mock 'company,' whose ships are perhaps in the
moon, for they are never seen in terrestrial seas; but with so many facilities
as now exist for getting a passage in a straightforward, business-like way, it
is not easy to understand how it is that people should persist in giving their
money to swindlers. It would appear that to some the verbum sap. never
suffices. Means are not lacking for putting the unwary on their guard,
among which the conferences and group-meetings held by the indefatigable

Mrs Chisholm are especially to be commended. At these meetings, those
who desire to expatriate themselves are informed of the most economical
mode of effecting their purpose, and counselled as to what they should do
during the voyage. Whatever be the result to those who go, there are
indications that the labour-market is bettered for those who stay; in
connection with which a noteworthy fact may be mentioned, which is, that
in the southern, western, and midland counties, scarcely an Irish labourer is
to be seen; and who is there that does not remember what troops of the
ragged peasantry used to come over for haymaking and the harvest?

The lovers of the picturesque, who are apt to become migratory at this
period of the year, will be glad to hear of Earl de Grey's announcement to
the Society of British Architects, that he has repaired Fountains' Abbey—
one of the beautiful ruins for which Yorkshire is famous—without
modernising its appearance or altering its character. It is to be hoped that so
praiseworthy an attempt to preserve a relic of the olden time from decay
will find many imitators. Pilgrims will thank his lordship for many a
generation to come. And, to leave the past to the present; metropolitan
promenaders are about to have a cause of satisfaction, for the embankment
of the Thames from Vauxhall Bridge to Chelsea Gardens is at last to be
commenced; and London will cease to be the only capital in Europe which
cannot obtain a view of its river. If the authorities could be persuaded to
extend this beneficial work through the whole length of the city, what
popularity would be theirs!

An official notice from the Post-office states, that from the first of the
present month London is to be placed on the same footing, with respect to
letters, as the rest of the country—that is, they must either be stamped
before being posted, or sent unpaid. This is a measure which will materially
diminish the labour of keeping accounts at the central office; and the more
that labour is saved, the more will there be left to facilitate postal
communication. Books and periodicals can now be sent to most of our
colonies at the rate of a shilling a pound—a fact which those who have
hitherto sent their parcels at any one's trouble and expense but their own,
will do well to bear in mind. Ocean Penny Postage is growing into favour,
and is talked about in such a way as to shew that the project will not be left
to take care of itself.

The French are going to send a new Scientific Exploring Expedition to
South America, chiefly for researches in Brazil and Paraguay. Perhaps the
veteran Bonpland, who was so long detained by the dictator Francia, may
be induced to come home in it, as he has written to express his desire of
returning to France. And something has been said at Washington, about
sending a couple of frigates to survey the great river Amazon, in which, as
the official document states, there is a sufficient depth of water to float a
large ship at the foot of the Andes, 1500 miles from the sea. America will
surely be well known some day. Meanwhile, we are extending our
knowledge of Africa; a map of that country is about to be published,
comprising the whole region from the equator to 19 degrees of south
latitude. In this the recent discoveries will be laid down, and we shall see
Mr Galton's route of 1600 miles from Walfish Bay to Odonga, near a large
river named the Nourse, and to the country of the Ovampo, described as an
intelligent tribe of natives. We shall find also, that the snow-peaked
mountains seen by the German missionaries, and considered to be the
source of the White Nile, are not more than about 300 miles distant from
the eastern coast; and it is said that no more promising enterprise could be
undertaken, than an attempt to ascend and explore them, starting from
Mombas. Barth and Overweg were at the eastern end of Lake Tchad when
last heard from; and we are told that the slave-traders, finding their
occupation decreasing on the western coast, have lately, for the first time,
penetrated to the interior, and tempted many of the natives to sell their
children for showy European goods. Lieutenant Macleod, of the Royal
Navy, proposes to ascend the Niger in a steam-launch, and when up the
country, to cross over to, and descend the Gambia, with a view to discover
new sources of trade; and Mr Macgregor Laird is still ready to carry a
vessel up any river of the western coast to which government may please to
send him. Besides the travellers mentioned, there are others pushing their
way in different parts of the south; and the French are not idle in the north
—they have added to our information concerning Abyssinia, and the
countries bordering on the Great Desert. But in addition to African
geography, all these explorations have added to our knowledge of African
geology. A vast portion of the interior is supposed to have been an inland
sea, of which Ngami and other lakes are the remains; fossil bones of most
peculiar character have been found, but only of terrestrial and fresh-water
animals. A name is already given to a creature of a remote secondary

period; Professor Owen, from the examination of a few relics, pronounces it
to be a Dicynodon. According to Sir B. Murchison, such have been the main
features of Africa during countless ages; 'for the old rocks which form her
outer fringe, unquestionably circled round an interior marshy or lacustrine
country, in which the dicynodon flourished at a time when not a single
animal was similar to any living thing which now inhabits the surface of our
globe. The present central and meridian zone of waters, whether lakes,
rivers, or marshes, extending from Lake Tchad to Lake Ngami, with
hippopotami on their banks, are, therefore, but the great modern, residual,
geographical phenomena of those of a mesozoic age.'

The publication of special scientific works is going on under the auspices of
different European governments. The Batavian Society of Rotterdam have
just issued an elaborate illustrated Report on the best method of improving
permanently the estuary of Goedereede—a question of considerable
moment to the merchants of Rotterdam. The French government have had a
new fount of Ethiopic types cast, to enable M. d'Abbadie to prepare a
catalogue of African manuscripts. And our Secretary of State for the Home
Department has presented various libraries and public institutions with two
portly folios, entitled Liber Munerum Publicorum Hiberniæ, or the
Establishments of Ireland, from the Nineteenth of King Stephen to the
Seventh of George IV., which we may accept as an addition to the
Memorials of History, commenced two or three years since. Then, as a
private enterprise, we have a scheme for a new edition of Shakspeare, in
twenty volumes folio, which is to be completed in six years, with all that
can be required in the way of illustration, be it archæological, philological,
historical, or exegetical. Mr Halliwell is to be the editor; and it is said that
not more than 150 copies will be printed. Another birth for the spirit of the
dust that lies in the tomb at Stratford.

Research is as active as ever in France. M. Bernard, who is well known as a
physiologist and anatomist, after a careful study of the salivary glands, finds
that each of the three, common to nearly all animals, furnishes a different
secretion. The saliva from the sublingual gland is viscous and sticky, fit to
moisten the surface of substances, but not to penetrate them, giving them a
coat which facilitates their being swallowed. That from the parotid gland,
on the contrary, is thin and watery, easily penetrates substances taken into

the mouth, and thereby favours their assimilation; while the saliva from the
submaxillary gland is of a nature between these two. These facts were
verified by soaking portions of the membrane in water, as well as by
experiments on the living subject; the liquid in which they were soaked
presented the same character as that of the secretions.

The varying of the parotid secretion with the nature of the food taken, is
considered by M. Bernard to be a proof that this secretion is especially
intended to favour mastication. A horse kept on perfectly dry food gives out
a far greater quantity than when the food is moistened. Experiments on the
dog and rabbit supplied similar results; and, extraordinary as it may appear,
the gland will secrete saliva in the course of an hour weighing eight or ten
times as much as its own tissue. A striking example this of the rapidity with
which saliva can be separated from the blood under certain circumstances,
and of the fallacy of founding conclusions on the quantity secreted within
the twenty-four hours.

The sublingual gland is inert during mastication, and only begins to act as
swallowing commences, when it envelops or lubricates the chewed
substance with a fluid that assists its passage to the stomach. The function
of the submaxillary has much to do with taste; the fluid which it pours out
dilutes and diminishes the pungent flavour of sapid substances, and at the
same time weakens the energy of their contact. The three organs are
identical in texture, though so different in their secretions; 'each gland,' as
M. Bernard says, 'having a special act, its function is exercised under
separate and independent influences. Notwithstanding their discharging into
and mixing in the mouth, their use remains distinct,' as above stated. To
complete this brief summary of an interesting subject, it may be added, that
birds and reptiles have but one kind of saliva, answering to the viscous in
mammalia.

M. Vogt, in a communication to the Académie, adds to the proofs that what
is called the spontaneous generation of certain worms, is due to natural
causes. For instance, a worm, which has no reproductive organs, is often
found in the body of the stickle-back; this worm, however, is known to
breed, but it does so only when the stickle-back happens to be eaten by a
bird; the worm is then placed in the proper condition for development, 'for

it is then only that its segments become filled with eggs, which, egested by
the bird, pass into the bodies of other fishes;' in a way more in accordance
with natural operations than spontaneous generation.

Again, of two kinds of worms which infest human beings, the
Bothriocephalus is found among the Poles, Swiss, and Dutch, while the
Tenia, or tape-worm, is common among the French and Germans. If,
however, the latter reside in Switzerland, they also become infested with the
first-named worm, the reason given being, that in Switzerland liquid
excretæ from cesspools are largely used for manuring vegetables, and that,
in the eating of these vegetables, the eggs of the worms are taken into the
body, and become hatched by means of the intestinal warmth. These
investigations, which are to be continued, are important, seeing that they
have a bearing on the phenomena of health and disease.

There are some curious facts, too, concerning oysters. M. Dureau de la
Malle states, that 100,000,000 of these bivalves are collected annually from
a bank off the port of Granville; and that, by a proper course of feeding,
white oysters have been converted into a much esteemed green sort, which
sell at a high price. And further, a physician at Morlaix has succeeded in
crossing a big, tough species with one that is small and delicate, and has
obtained 'hybrids of large size and of an excellent quality.'

M. Verdeil informs the Académie, that he has proved the chlorophyll, or
resinous green colouring-matter of plants, to be 'a mixture of a perfectly
colourless fat, capable of crystallising, and of a colouring principle which
presents the greatest analogies with the red colouring principle of the blood,
but which has never yet been obtained in a perfectly pure state.' He has
isolated a quantity for experiment and examination by a chemical process,
and has added another fact to the list of those which shew a relation
between animal and vegetable functions. It has been known for some time,
that certain functions of the liver are similar to those of certain plants.

M. Marcel de Serres shews, that marine petrifactions are not necessarily of
ancient date, for they are formed at the present day in existing seas; that
shells are now being petrified in the Mediterranean. All that is required for
the result, is the presence of certain calcareous salts in the water; repose
even is not essential, for the process goes on below, though the surface may

be stormy. These petrifactions are not, as some suppose, to be regarded as
fossils, the latter designation belonging only to 'those organic remains
which are found in geological deposits.'

Apropos of the burning of the Amazon: M. Dujardin relates, that a fire
broke out a short time since in a spinning-mill at Douai. It penetrated to the
carding-room; destruction seemed inevitable, and the engines were sent for,
when it was proposed to fill the blazing room with steam. A steam tube
traversed the apartment; it was broken by a stroke with an axe, the steam
rushed out, 'and in a few minutes the conflagration was extinguished as if
by enchantment.'

Attempts are still being made towards aërial navigation. M. Prosper Meller,
of Bordeaux, proposes to construct an aërial locomotive 200 mètres in
length, 62 wide, and 60 high, the form to be cylindrical, with cone-shaped
ends, as best adapted for speed. The outer case is to be varnished leather,
which is to be filled with gas, and to contain five spherical balloons. A net,
which covers the whole, is to support sixteen helices by ropes, eight on each
side; and to these two galleries are to be attached, one for the machinery, the
other for passengers. The affair looks well on paper; but there is little risk in
saying, that the days of flying machines are not yet come, neither is the
scheme for aërial railways—a series of cables stretched from one high
building to another—to be regarded as any more promising.

THE SHIP'S FIRST VOYAGE.
BY MRS ALARIC WATTS.
Return to Table of Contents

That ship was nought to me, nor I to her,
But I pursued her with a lover's look.
Wordsworth.

A stranger in a foreign land,
Soft music met mine ear—
O Richard, O mon roi, struck up
In flute-notes wild and clear:
And scarce had died that plaintive strain,
When lo! how could it be?
Thy thunder pealed above the tide,
'Britannia rules the sea!'
I knew not whence the magic came,
But sought the distant shore,
And there a stately pageant lay
Unseen, undreamt before:
A gallant vessel newly dressed
With flags and streamers gay,
An untried wanderer on the wing,
To cleave an untried way.

And joy was with the multitude,
And gladness on the earth,
The tongue of every living thing
Rang with a sound of mirth.
All that stern Wisdom could desire,
Or Fancy fair engage—
Danger-defying youth was there,
And calm experienced age.

It seemed as though earth's very best
To that brave barque were given—
Science for nature's mysteries,
And childlike faith for Heaven.

How strangely is sensation formed,
How mingled hope and fear,
Since Mirth herself can oft repel
And Sadness' self endear!
Whence is it that a sigh can soothe,
And sweetest sounds may jar?
Those wingèd words my thoughts had sent
A thousand leagues afar.
I listened to the thrilling strain,
Unbidden tears would start,
The sound fell lightly on the ear,
But heavy on the heart.
The low breath of the summer wind
Seemed but the siren's voice,
In vain I chid my coward fears,
And struggled to rejoice!

Her gallant hearts were numbered,
Her snowy wings were set,
Her pilot's hand was on the helm,
But there she lingered yet.
The ringing laugh suspended,
The voice of mirth was hushed,
When the twilight's holy anthem
In a burst of music gushed.
Warm hearts of many nations
Were blended in that prayer,
And the incense that went up to heaven,
Was surely welcomed there.
Like rain upon the thirsting earth
Was that sweet chant to me,
Like a cool breeze in a desert—

Like a gale from Araby.
And the mental clouds, late veiling
The charm of sea and shore,
Rolled off like mist before the sun,
And I was sad no more.
Slow sailed the stately vessel,
And slowly died the strain;
But I knew that God was with it,

THE HARE AND THE LION: AN INDIAN
POLITICAL LIBEL.
Return to Table of Contents

Who knows not this story? Nevertheless we publish it; for even as the hare
conquered the lion, so does the Bengalee overcome the Englishman:—A
hare sat in the jungle with his wife, and he said: 'There is our king, the lion,
come into the wood, and he will devour our children.' 'No,' said the little
hare, 'for I will go to confront him, and conquer the great lion, the king of
the beasts.' Then her husband laughed, and said: 'Intellect is power; we can
die but once; let us see what you can do.' Then the little hare, taking her
little son in her paws, jumped and jumped till she came to the lion. Then she
put down her son before his face, and put her two paws together in all
humility, and said: 'Lo! king of kings, I have brought you a nuzzurana;
oblige me by eating it. Also, I have some news to give you.' Then the lion
looked at the hare's baba, and saw it was soft and juicy, and was pleased in
his soul, and laughed, and his laugh was as the roar of the thunder of Indro.
Then he asked her news, and the little hare replied: 'You are the sovereign
of the forest, but another has come who calls himself king of the beasts, and
demands tribute.' Then the roar of the lion shook the forest, and the little
hare nearly died with fear as he asked: 'Where is the scoundrel? Can you
shew him to me?' Then the little hare leaped along with the lion till she
came to an old well. The well was nearly full, but had no wall. And she
said: 'Look, he is hiding there in fear.' Then the lion, craning his neck,
looked and saw his own shadow, and with a fearful roar, leaped into the
well. So the little hare, with a glad heart, took up her son, and went to her
husband, and said: 'Lo! intellect is power: I have killed the lion, the king of
the beasts.'—From the Sumochar Durpun, a Bengalee newspaper, of the 2d
August 1851.

Just Published,

Price 2s. 6d. sewed, 3s. Cloth, lettered,

LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS.—Volume IV. Edited by Robert
Chambers. This work is now completed.

Price 6d. Paper Cover,

CHAMBERS'S POCKET MISCELLANY: forming a Literary Companion
for the Railway, the Fireside, or the Bush.

VOLUME IX.

To be continued in Monthly Volumes.

Printed and Published by W. and E. Chambers, High Street, Edinburgh.
Also sold by W. S. Orr, Amen Corner, London; D. N. Chambers, 55 West
Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. M'Glashan, 50 Upper Sackville Street, Dublin.
—Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to Maxwell &
Co., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all applications
respecting their insertion must be made.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S
EDINBURGH JOURNAL, NO. 452 ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be
renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law
means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the
Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States
without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying
and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the
PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a
registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook,
except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying
royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge
anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is
very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg
eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do
practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by
U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license,
especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any
other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you
agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg License
available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing
Project Gutenberg electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg electronic work,
you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the
terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright)
agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement,
you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg
electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy
of or access to a Project Gutenberg electronic work and you do not agree to
be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on
or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be
bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can
do with most Project Gutenberg electronic works even without complying
with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a
lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg electronic works if you
follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to
Project Gutenberg electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation”
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual
work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are

located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works
based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are
removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg
mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing
Project Gutenberg works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for
keeping the Project Gutenberg name associated with the work. You can
easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg License when you
share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a
constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the
laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before
downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating
derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg work.
The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status
of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg work (any work on which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied
or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the
world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License included with this eBook or
online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to
check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is derived from
texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice
indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the
work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without

paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a
work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on
the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs
1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is posted with the
permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply
with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed
by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project
Gutenberg License for all works posted with the permission of the
copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg License
terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any
other work associated with Project Gutenberg.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently
displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or
immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg work in a format other than “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the
official Project Gutenberg website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no
additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of
exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work
in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format
must include the full Project Gutenberg License as specified in paragraph
1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing,
copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg works unless you comply
with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to
or distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the
use of Project Gutenberg works calculated using the method you
already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the
owner of the Project Gutenberg trademark, but he has agreed to donate
royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days
following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to
prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly
marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about
donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does
not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You
must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works
possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all
access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution
of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in
this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3
below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works
not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and
the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as,
but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription
errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or
damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that
damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except
for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to
you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE
THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT
EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE
THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY
DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE
TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL,
PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE
NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you
discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you
can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the
defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund.
If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to
you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work
electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you
may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the
problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in
paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR
FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or
limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable
to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum
disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity
or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that
arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause
to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg work, (b)
alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg
work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project
Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic
works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including
obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the
efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of
life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance
they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg’s goals and ensuring
that the Project Gutenberg collection will remain freely available for

generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for
Project Gutenberg and future generations. To learn more about the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations
can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)
(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of
Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service.
The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541.
Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax
deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s
laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 41 Watchung Plaza #516,
Montclair NJ 07042, USA, +1 (862) 621-9288. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and
official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the
number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment
including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are
particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States.
Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort,
much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these

requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not
received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or
determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have
not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against
accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us
with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any
statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the
United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods
and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including
checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit:
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg
electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with
anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg
eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions,
all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a
copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in
compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility:
www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg, including how
to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation,

how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email
newsletter to hear about new eBooks.