captain's glance. Suddenly, however, Hugo, manifesting unexpected life and motion, caught Captain Blake's hand and rapidly said, 'And if it be that the young man is Charles Stuart, what then?' Thy duty is to deliver him up,' answered the captain. "What! For nothing?' asked Hugo, elevating his eyebrows. 'For a rich reward,' replied Captain Blake, rather contemptuously. If thou spillest his blood-his life bloodon the green sward, a rich harvest of gold will be thence raised up to thee.' While Captain Blake thought the young woodcutter was but a mercenary patriot after all, old Peter, though at first astonished, more acute from the difference between his and the captain's knowledge of Hugo's character, perceived this to be a ruse to which his son had resorted. Hugo meditated for a while, with his eyes fixed on the ground, but suddenly, with a flush upon his countenance, and a bright sparkling in his dark eyes, he started back free from Captain Blake, and the soldier who stood behind him, and nervously grasping his hatchet, raised it with a flourish, exclaiming Your gold perish with you! It will never make me a traitor; no, though I had the opportunity in my power. Begone with your canting, snuffling soldiery, and leave honest men alone at their inoffensive work!' The suppressed emotions of his spirit seemed collected and expressed at length on a legitimate object. Old Peter crowed with triumph over the bravery of his son; and Captain Blake, astonished, and taken unawares, gave back a pace before the impetuous young man. The soldier had his eye fixed on his captain, expecting the signal which was to bring down the fatal stroke of his battle-axe; and that signal was about to be given, when suddenly the report of a pistol rattled among the trees, a momentary flash was seen, and the soldier, formerly so immovable and statue-like, sprang high into the air, and groaning, fell with his face to the ground. Captain Blake sprang on Hugo, dashed aside his hatchet, and closed with him in a fierce struggle; the trooper guarding old Peter, imitating his captain, seized the old man rudely by the collar. Immediately a sudden shout issued from the forest all round, and bullets pattered thick and fast on the mailed jackets of the troopers, who gathered into a close body in order to afford mutual protection. After one or two turns, Captain Blake threw Hugo to the ground, and rolled over above him. In the struggle he had been uncasqued. Just then a gallant, handsome young man bounded from the shade of a tree hard by, and after two sharp strokes beat the soldier, who had seized old Peter, to the ground. At the same moment a young girl of beauteous form and feature, her fair brow flushed, and her blue eye flashing brilliantly, leaped into the open space from the other side, and with a stout hazel branch she bore, struck well and true on Captain Blake's uncovered head; the next moment the exhausted Hugo rose above his stunned and senseless antagonist. There was a pistol aimed by a trooper at the maiden's bosom, but when just the finger was about to pull the trig ger, a tall dark-visaged person of no common mien, struck up the weapon, and then struck the soldier down. It was now hand to hand. Peasants, one or two in the garb of royal soldiers, all with various arms, rushed into the small and now bloody arena, from the shade of every tree. The Cromwellians fought doggedly and stoutly, but were falling fast among the shouts and huzzas of their motley oppo nents; when the tall dark man who acted as leader of the assailants, and the gallant youth previously mentioned, both of whom had done a great deal more than match each his man since the beginning of the combat, simultaneously refrained and called a truce. At the same moment a nobleman (from his appearance), newly arrived and panting with haste, rushed on the scene, followed by one or two well-armed men; and his voice was heard seconding those of the two cavaliers. After considerable exertion, a pause in the fight ensued, and the tall dark man spoke: We are the king's liegemen,' he began (A merry voice in the crowd: There's a liegewoman in the com pany!')- and,' with a frown, 'it ill befits us farther to be hewing and hacking these poor men, who cannot keep their own; thereby breaking his majesty's character, for mercy and a generous disposition. My Lord Wilmot,' he added, turning to the nobleman, it does, in my opinion, befit us better to be giving quarter than to be taking away life. We ought to show Roundheads, that with us men in the tents of wickedness there is such a thing as mercy towards a fallen enemy-a quality these same Puritan troopers have not been anxious to display since the battle of Worcester, for all their religious creed tells them on the subject. And who knows, my Lord of Wilmot, and you, good friends,' he continued, as if he had caught a bright idea, but mercy may conquer in the end, as, with all my roughness and love of broken heads, I think it generally does? These hardy rascals there now looking so grim, might be fairly overcome, not, as old Tutor Digby said, vi et armis, but by gentleness and good offices. My Lord of Wilmot, human nature is such-and I am sure if his gracious majesty were here, he would agree with me-that-' Dont speechify, like a good fellow, Careless!' exclaimed a voice, merry and laughing over head. His majesty's here, and he agrees with you in every thing.' And as the bewildered crowd, and Careless not the least bewildered, raised their eyes, the branches were parted asunder above them, and there stood Charles on a branch, and holding by another, gay and smiling, not like a king certainly, as to dress and appearance, but a king notwithstanding in eye, in mouth, and in reality. The universal shout was upraised, 'The king! the king!' and down upon the green sward each man knelt, Lord Wilmot and Careless fervently showing the example. There the loyal crowd knelt, some laughing, others praying, others weeping, others shouting, and most stretching out hard-clasped hands. And there above them, in his throne of green leaves, stood the fugitive monarch, enjoying homage, than which homage was never more spontaneously or sincerely given to sovereign. The grim troopers were seen infected by the spirit of the moment, and could not avoid taking off their casques. Captain Blake likewise, who, having partially recovered the effect of the blow he had received, was sitting with his back to the trunk of the tree, after putting the thumb and forefinger of his right hand dubitatingly to the corners of his mouth, involuntarily bowed the head, when Charles, by a series of short springs, had lighted at his feet, and looked laughingly in his face, uttering the monosyllable, Friend!' Charles embraced Lord Wilmot and Colonel Careless; both of whom, under the most serious apprehensions for his safety, urged him to fly instantly, now that an unobstructed passage was open. 'Colonel Lane is waiting at his residence to receive your majesty,' Lord Wilmot was urging. Then he must wait half an hour longer,' broke in Charles. Help me here, my Lord of Wilmot, and you friend Careless, or careless friend, shall it be? 'I have not worn my name suitably for the last twentyfour hours at all events, your majesty,' replied the colonel. Thank you, Master Careful,' said Charles, with a kind smile. But to go on. How came you in this direction with these good friends of mine, and so well fitted on too?' 'I took refuge yesterday, your majesty, in the cottage of a man, who goes by the name of Hazel Hubert; a brave old man 'Where I got this morning, Careless,' said Lord Wilmot, 'just after you had left. I found you out by the firing.' 'Over night,' continued Careless, 'yon fair maid you see cowering timidly behind the aged peasant at the back of the holly, came in haste and informed us that your majesty was at her father's cottage, and surrounded by troopers. So I and Hazel Hubert's son (there he is, that fine young fellow, with his limbs but half healed since Worcester) got all the good peasants you see here together, after an infinite degree of trouble, and along we came under the guidance of the pretty maid I mentioned. We were marching silently on, when we happened so luckily on these iron fellows.' And that reminds me, Careless,' said Charles, stepping forward with a dignified step. He motioned to old Peter Pinderell and Annie (who, we need hardly say, was the heroine of Carless's narrative), who, not daring to hesitate, though much inclining to do so, came forward with humble and trembling countenances and steps. The crowd of people instinctively gave way. 'My good maiden,' said Charles, with a noble smile, and laying his hand on the kneeling Annie's fair ringlets, 'you would like Hugo for a husband, would you not?' and engaged in signing to the gloomy woodcutter, who had been looking on moodily from a distance, Charles did not note that Annie's countenance had grown excessively pale. Hugo came forward, but when he heard the monarch's proposition, he drew up proudly and said, 'When the heart is not to give, I cannot take the hand.' Charles was offended, and old Peter exclaimed in his throat in deep wonder, Hugo!' But Lord Wilmot solved the problem, by whispering in the king's ear, 'It's the youth with the fair hair and blue eyes, standing off there with the doubting look on his countenance.' Colonel Careless, despising all rules for guarding the feelings, said aloud, 'It's Hazel Hubert's son, your majesty, that's the lucky man! See how the maiden blushes at his name. Come hither Hubert!' Hubert came, and his majesty, who liked romantic adventures, demanded how a clergyman could be procured. There was the fugitive episcopal priest of the district in the crowd, and though utterly informal, the ceremony of marriage between Annie and Hubert was instantly performed, Charles giving away the fluttered weeping bride. Careless looked at Wilmot and Wilmot looked at Careless, but no one thought of baulking the monarch in his fancy. The ceremony over, Charles, after promising a mitre to the priest when the king should enjoy his own again, marched up with the step of majesty to Captain Blake, who was once more on his upright legs, and intimated to him that he and his men were at liberty to go where they pleased. The captain, putting himself at the head of his bumbled detachment, with a low bow marched them away among the trees, Charles greeting them with a shout, which was repeated by those around him till all the echoes rang; and at length the crowd, for a minute or so, rather sur prised and dubitating as to the proceedings of the last quarter of an hour, carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, raised Annie and her newly-made husband on a litter of branches, and, bearing them along, shouted and again shouted. Old Peter Pinderell was borne along by the current. Charles, and Lord Wilmot, and Colonel Careless, accompanied them on part of their way. With laughter, mirth, and song, no rest the echoes knew.' The last sound had died away, the last figure had disappeared, and there stood Hugo, the woodcutter's son, at the foot of the huge oak. He was alone, desolate, and deserted; hope had departed for ever, and he was to look now on the black page of life. But, no; a soothing thought came over his gloomy spirit: he had nobly done his duty; the God of heaven, a hope that would never fail, was with him; and he would do his duty to the end. He drew his rough hand across his eye, for a tear dimmed his vision, and then, with his hatchet over his shoulder, he walked silently away in the direction of his father's cottage. Old Peter Pinderell died, and left his son still a woodcutter in the forest. King Charles regained his throne at last; and, befriending Hazel Hubert's son, raised him to a considerable rank in his army, and largely dowered the pretty Annie, to whom Hubert had been formally united. But there, in the depth of the forest, lived the humble Hugo still; ever avoiding to see her to whom he had once been betrothed, he lived on humbly and unambitiously. The ungrateful Charles, when solicited to do him service, remarked (spurred on by a petty resentment of Hugo's boldness of demeanour towards himself) that Hugo deserved nought, because of the alarm he had caused his own lawful sovereign when he had so traitorously parleyed with the Puritan captain about the money offered for his sacred person, dead or alive, on the morning of his concealment in the tree; and, with a light laugh, the monarch laughed the subject away. Assuredly, neither princes nor the sons of men are to be trusted. And thus Hugo, the woodcutter's son, continued a woodcutter till the day of his death. THE BLOODHOUND. IN our recent chapters of adventure in the Savannahs of Cuba, the attention of the reader was directed to the use made of the bloodhound in hunting down the natives. In remarking on the similar purposes for which this animal has been employed during various periods, and in different countries, the Rural Cyclopædia' observes, that this va riety of the dog was formerly much used and highly prized, on account of its exquisite scent and extraordinary perseverance, for tracking and seizing depredators and other obnoxious persons. A British bloodhound of pure blood is now comparatively rare, and, excepting in a few instances, for the seizing of sheep-stealers, is kept only as an object of ornament and curiosity. He is compact, muscu lar, and strong; his height is about twenty-eight inches; his prevailing colour is a reddish tan, gradually darkening from the sides to the back, and there becomes blackish; his forehead is broad; his face toward the muzzle is narrow; his nostrils are wide and fully developed; his ears are large and pendulous; his tail is long; his aspect is sagacious and calm; and his voice is deep, sonorous, and powerful. Previous to the union of the English and Scot tish crowns, great numbers of bloodhounds were kept by the warrior population of the borders, and employed in feuds against moss-troopers, and even against princes; and, under the name of sleuth-hounds, they mingle in the romantic story of Bruce, of Wallace, and of many a border chieftain. The bloodhound of Cuba closely resembles the old British bloodhound in habits and instinct, but very considerably differs from him in shape. This animal is still employed by the Cubans to pursue felons and mur derers, and possesses an appalling notoriety in history as a principal auxiliary of the Spaniards in their atrocious conquest of America, and of the West Indian colonists in their inhuman warfare with the revolted Maroons of Ja maica. Regarding the different species, we glean the fol lowing particulars from a writer in the Dublin Medical Journal:' 'There are three dogs at present known under the name of bloodhound, which, though by some consider ed distinct from one another, I am disposed to regard as varieties of the same animal, the difference in their appear ance being probably owing to climate, if not, indeed, to some intentional or accidental cross. These varieties are the African, the Cuban or Spanish, and the British. The first, viz., the African, I am inclined to regard as the origi nal whence the others sprang. The Cuban seems to have a dash of the greyhound in him; and the British would appear to have been improved by the intermixture of the old English Talbot, which I take to be a far more genuine as well as more ancient animal. The African bloodhound is very seldom to be seen in this country. He sometimes resembles a very large and raw-boned Spanish pointer. His ears are pendulous and fine in texture, about the length of a foxhound's; coat very fine, and skin apparently thin; colour generally dark liver-colour clouded with black, yet sometimes tan; muzzle nearly always black, as also the tips of his ears; head pretty large, and shaped like a pointer's; eyes placed towards the front; tail fine, and carried rather horizontally than erect. The appearance and manners of this dog are ferocious in the extreme; he stands about twenty-six inches high at the shoulder, often less, but seldom more. I now come to one somewhat better known-one, at all events, concerning which information is more easily obtained-viz., the Cuban or Spanish. This animal does not differ so greatly in form from the former-described variety as at first sight might be supposed. It is in general much taller, is of a slighter make, bears its head higher, and is altogether a more imposing-looking dog than the preceding. It is said to be inferior in smell, which I conceive must be the case from the for mation of the head and nose; but what it wants in scent it makes up in speed, being in this respect little inferior to mankind which European discovery has found inhabiting many greyhounds. This dog is to be found in greatest countries we are accustomed to call new, have been exterperfection at present in South America; many are brought minated by the cruelty of conquerors, or withered away from the West Indian Islands also, but are scarcer there by the introduction of new vices and maladies, with all their than on the continent. This is a very tall dog, being fre- peculiar arts, traditions, and improvable capabilities, which, quently twenty-seven to twenty-eight inches high at the under better auspices, must have contributed to increase shoulder: in his general shape he resembles a smooth the yet small amount of human knowledge and progress. lurcher, or a cross between a greyhound and a mastiff; The natives of Van Diemen's Land, the Caribs of the West his head is thick across the temples; muzzle long and Indies, and several tribes of the American continent, might rather fine, yet by no means so small as a greyhound's; be cited as melancholy examples; but though not less unears something like a greyhound's, but larger and much fortunate, and much more interesting, as possessed of a more pendulous. This dog's neck is long, and as he higher degree of civilisation, the aborigines of the Canary carries his head well up, he has, when a good-sized speci- Isles are a people regarding whom less has been known or men, a very noble appearance; his tail is moderately long, written. The fine group of isles which they inhabited are and tapers to the extremity; it is very slightly villous situated near the north-west coast of Africa, in the geobeneath; colour generally tan shaded with black above-graphical limits of which they have always been included, sometimes liver-colour and occasionally mouse-coloured and within a few days' sail of Portugal and Spain, to each or silver-grey; the muzzle and tips of his ears are gene- of which they have been by turns subject for the last three rally darker than the rest of his body, often black. This centuries. They were celebrated in classic times as the dog, be it observed and I state it on the authority of a Fortunate Isles, probably on account of their rich soil, native of South America-is never seen mottled or of two common to all lands of volcanic origin, which the Canaries colours; that is to say, speckled or streaked, or black and evidently are, and their genial climate, where the scorchwhite, &c. When such is the case, rest assured that the ing heat of Africa is continually tempered by breezes from dog is not by any means well-bred, but has probably had the Western Ocean. In modern geography, they are noted for one of his parents a boar-hound or Danish dog. The on account of the first meridian being fixed at Ferro, the eyes of this dog are placed very much towards the front most westerly of the group, and famous throughout Europe of the head, and very close together, which I conceive for the supply of three well-known articles, canary-birds, mast tend in some measure to confine his vision to ob- filtering stones, and Teneriffe wine, which latter is comjects more immediately in front. This is the well-known memorated by our old poets and romance writers, particudog rendered so famous, or rather infamous, from his larly Shakspeare, under the name of 'sack.' It is believed having been employed by the Spaniards in their cruel that the Canaries were peopled from the adjacent coast of and exterminating conflicts with the Americans; the Africa; but neither history nor tradition can definitely insame, also, which has since been frequently used in the form us whether it was by the Berbers, a savage race, who capture of runaway slaves in the West Indies. I have in far remote times inhabited the north of the African been informed that on such occasions a small dog of the continent, which derived from them its old appellation of spaniel breed should be used, called a finder, as the blood- Barbary-the Moors, who subsequently conquered the hound is slow at hitting off the trail unless so aided, not western part of it, hence called by the Romans Mauripossessing the same nicety of smell that is displayed by tania—or the Vandals, who, on the ruin of the Roman emthe two other varieties. He is a dog of extreme courage; pire, took possession of the whole of Barbary, in the early is capable of much affection; seldom exhibits treachery part of the fifth century. Though close upon the seats of unless to entrap a declared foe or a strange beggar-man, early civilisation, those isles seem to have always occupied on which occasion he has been known to simulate sleep, an obscure position, and been comparatively little known and thus induce the unsuspecting man to pass within even to neighbouring nations. Juba II., king of Maurireach, on whom he would certainly spring were he so un-tania, has left us a Latin description of them, written in wary. Their manner of seizing and biting closely resem- the days of Julius Cæsar, and Pliny, the Roman naturalist, bles the practice of the bull-dog (C. molussus); they never another, about a century later; but, though tolerably falet go their hold when they have once fastened, but increase miliar to the Romans, they were entirely lost to the retheir mouthful continually, making every effort to tear collection of Europe for several ages after the Gothic inaway the bit, which they not unfrequently do. Let them vasion, till re-discovered by a Portuguese navigator some once fasten on the throat of their foe, and, whether upper- years before Columbus made his first voyage to America. most or undermost, the battle is their own. One of these Ever since, they have been, with the exception of some dogs killed a good-sized bull-dog in about ten minutes, short intervals of Mahomedan rule, under the authority never having changed the hold he got at first. I saw one of Portugal and Spain, especially the latter kingdom, beof these dogs opposed to a bear, on which occasion he did fore whose colonies the aborigines have long ago disapvery well, but Bruin having ripped the skin off his shoulder, peared. At whatever period, and from whatever race the he declined further combat, and resigned the field of bat- isles received their first inhabitants, the Guanchios, as the tle in favour of a young boar-hound, son of his Grace the Spaniards called them, probably in imitation of the native Duke of Buccleuch's dog Hector,' which, though barely term, seem to have been a people whose singular customs eighteen months old, pinned the shaggy monster by the and extraordinary arts were assimilated in some degree nose, hurled him to the ground, and punished the poor with those of the ancient Egyptians. bear so severely, that in a few minutes the brute howled for quarter, and was glad to yield, 'rescue or no rescue.' I feel it my duty to remark, en parenthèse, before going any farther, that although I may thus mention combats des animaux, or even minutely describe them, yet I condemn them in toto-as cruel and degrading to human nature. I saw many such scenes when a much younger man than I am now. My blood was warmer than it is at present, and in the excitement of the scenes I witnessed, I forgot for a long while to reflect upon their barbarity.' THE NATIVES OF THE CANARY In glancing at the present population of the earth, di- The most striking account of these peculiarities was given in an old philosophic work, published in 1702. The article is called A Relation of the Pico Teneriffe, received from some considerable merchants, and men worthy of credit, who went to the very top of it.' After a minute description of the peak, which is well known to be a great but extinguished volcano, rising nearly 13,000 feet above the level of the sea, comes the following account, given to the company by a British resident, whom they style a judicious and inquisitive man, living in Teneriffe, as physician and merchant, for more than twenty years:- September the 3d, about twelve years since, he took his journey from Guimar, a town inhabited for the most part by such as derive themselves from the old Guanchios, in the company of some of them, to view their caves and the bodies buried in them. This was a favour they seldom or never permit to any, having in great veneration the bodies of their ancestors, and likewise being most ex- Lastly, he says, that bodies are found in the caves of the tremely against any molestation of the dead; but he had Grand Canaria, in sacks, and quite consumed, not as these done several eleemosynary cures amongst them-for they in Teneriffe. Thus far of the bodies and embalming. are generally very poor, yet the poorest thinks himself too Anciently, when they had no knowledge of iron, they good to marry the best Spaniard-which endeared him made their lances of wood, hardened as before, some of to them exceedingly; otherwise, it is death for any stranger which the doctor hath seen. He hath also seen earthen to visit these caves or bodies. These bodies are sewed up pots so hard that they cannot be broken; of these some in goatskins with thongs of the same, with great curiosity, are found in the caves and old bavances, and used by the particularly in the incomparable exactness and evenness poorer people that find them to boil meat in. Likewise of the seams, and the skins are made very close and fit to they did curar stone itself, that is to say, a kind of slate the body. Most of the bodies are entire, the eyes closed, called now tabona, which they first formed to an edge or hair on the head; ears, nose, teeth, lips, beard, all per- point, as they had occasion to use it, either as knives or fect, only discoloured and a little shrivelled. He saw about lancets to let blood withal. Their corn is barely roasted, three or four hundred in several caves; some of them are and then ground with little mills, which they make of standing, others lie on beds of wood, so hardened by an stone, and mix it with milk and honey; this they still feed art they had (which the Spaniards call curar-to cure a on, and carry it on their backs in goatskins. To this piece of wood), as no iron can pierce it or hurt it. He day they drink no wine, nor care for flesh. They are says, that one day, being hunting, a ferret (which is much generally very lean, tall, active, and full of courage. He in use there), having a bell about his neck, ran after a himself hath seen them leap from rock to rock from a very cony into a hole, where they lost the sound of the bell; prodigious height till they came to the bottom, somethe owner, being afraid he should lose his ferret, seeking times making ten fathoms deep at one leap. The manabout the rocks and shrubs, found the mouth of a cave, ner is thus: First, they tertitate their lance, which is and, entering in, was so affrighted that he cried out. It about the highness of a half-pike, that is, they poise it in was at the sight of one of these bodies, very tall and large, their hand, then they aim the point of it at any piece of a lying with his head on a great stone, his feet supported rock upon which they intend to light, sometimes not half with a little wall of stone, the body resting on a bed of a foot broad. At the going off, they clap their feet close wood, as before mentioned. The fellow, being now a little to the lance, and so carry their bodies in the air. The out of his fright, entered it, and cut off a great piece of the point of the lance first comes to the place, which breaks skin that lay on the breast of this body, which, the doctor the force of their fall; then they slide gently down by the says, was more flexible and pliant than ever he felt any kid staff, and pitch with their feet upon the very place they leather glove, and yet so far from being rotten that the first designed, and from rock to rock, till they come to man used it for his flail many a year after. These bodies the bottom. Their novices sometimes break their necks are very light, as if made up of straw; and in some broken in learning. He added several stories to this effect, of limbs he observed the nerves and tendons, and also some their activity in leaping down the rocks and cliffs, and strings of the veins and arteries very distinctly. His great how twenty-eight of them made an escape from the battlecare was to inquire of these people what they had amongst ments of an extraordinary high castle in the island, when them of tradition concerning the embalming and preserva- the governor thought he had made sure of them. He told tion of these bodies. From some of the eldest of them, also, and the same was seriously confirmed by a Spaniard, above one hundred and ten years of age, he received this and another Canary merchant then in the company, that account, that they had of old one particular tribe of men they whistle so loud as to be heard five miles off; and that had this art amongst themselves only, and kept it as that to be in the same room with them when they whistle a thing sacred, and not to be communicated to the vul- were enough to endanger the breaking the tympanum gar. These mixed not with the rest of the inhabitants the ear, and added, that he, being in company of one that nor married out of their own tribe, and were also their whistled his loudest, could not hear perfectly for fifteen priests and ministers of religion. That upon the conquest days after, the noise was so great. He affirms also, that of the Spaniards, they were most of them destroyed, and they throw stones with a force almost as great as that of the art lost with them; only they held some traditions a bullet, and now use stones in all their fights, as they did yet of the few ingredients that were made use of in this anciently.' business. They took butter of goats' milk-some said hogs' grease was mingled with it, which they kept in the skins for this purpose;-in this they boiled certain herbs: first, a sort of lavender which grows there in great quantities on the rocks; secondly, an herb called lara, of a very gummy and glutinous consistence, which now grows there under the tops of the mountains only; thirdly, a kind of cyclamen; fourthly, wild sage, growing plentifully in this island. These, with others, bruised and boiled in the butter, rendered it a perfect balsam. This prepared, they first unbowelled the corpse, and in the poorer sort, to save charges, they took out the brain behind, and these poor were also sewed up in skins with the hair on; whereas the richer sort were, as said before, put up in skins so finely dressed as they remain most rarely pliant and gentle to this day. After the body was thus ordered, they had in readiness a livixium, made of the bark of pine trees, with which they washed the bodies, drying it in the sun in summer, and in stoves in winter, this repeating very often. Afterward they began their unction with the balsam, both without and within, drying it again as before. This they continued till the balsam had penetrated into the whole habit, and the muscles in all parts appeared through the contracted skin, and the body became exceeding light; then they sewed them up in the goatskins, as was mentioned already. He was told by these ancient people, that they have above twenty caves of their kings and great persons, with their whole families, yet unknown to any but themselves, and which they will never discover. Such are the uncertain and scanty notices remaining to us of this remarkable people, who, even at the period of the good doctor's account, appear to have been the remnant of a once populous but almost perished race. Some points of his detail, indeed, bear evident marks of exaggeration, especially that relating to their whistling exploits; but the greater part of the physician's statements are tolerably well authenticated by the testimony of contemporary travellers. The most striking part of the relation regards the Guanchios' disposal of their dead, and seems to have been a fact well known to all acquainted with the isles. Matters of this description must ever be interesting to the inquiring mind, as they serve to illustrate in some respects the ideas of nations concerning the mystery that enwraps our common nature, and are proved by universal custom to be peculiar to mankind. That a people so deficient in art as to be unacquainted with the use of iron, should have understood and practised the difficult process of embalming bodies, would appear scarcely credible, if evidence of the existence of similar knowledge among the equally rude ancestors of European nations had not been discovered in the ancient sepulchres of Italy, France, and even England. Mummies are not entirely confined to Egypt; but it is curious that a comparatively savage race, at the opposite extremity of Africa, and at the distance of some two thousand years, should have so closely resembled the builders of the pyramids in the most special of their institutions. The similarity of the embalming process as practised by the Guanchios to the custom of the Egyp: tians described by ancient authors, must occur to every intelligent reader. In both cases, the most important particulars were unknown except to a priestly and privileged order, to whose hands the dead were invariably committed, and who kept the secret of preservation as one of the supporting pillars of their office. Could this resemblance have been the indication of a common origin? There is no voice to answer the inquiry; for the natives of the Fortunate Isles, as well as the ancient Egyptians, have long ceased to be reckoned among the tribes of the earth, and the most striking memorials of their material and mental existence are the mummy pits beside the Nile, and the sepulchres excavated in the lava rocks of the great western Pico. TWO SATURDAYS. I HAVE often thought that two Saturdays in my life, in which I was connected with the same individuals, were so remarkably different from each other that they might be worth describing. I one morning heard a knock at the door of my chamber, some hours earlier than my usual time for rising, and on demanding who was there, a female voice replied in a low tone 'It's only Mrs Hadley. You will have the goodness not to forget that this is Saturday, You know what is to take place to-day.' Certainly, madam,' said I; 'you will see me down stairs |_ directly.” And I meant what I said, for the business of the day was really of some interest. Mrs Hadley, who had disturbed my repose, had done so that I might not rise too late to give away her daughter, in the character of father, to my friend Rollins, who had long been her admirer. It was the whim of the parties, though all the world approved of the match, to have the affair managed as slyly as if there had been the regular dramatic array of avaricious fathers, snarling uncles, and angry guardians opposed to it. Such being the case, we slipped out without any extraordinary preparation, made a pedestrian advance to the nearest coach-stand, whence we were presently transported to a church in the suburbs, where the young lady, as I took upon myself facetiously to remark, soon lost her good name. I afterwards added, in the course of the same day, with equal felicity, that Miss Hadley was no more. I remember being much amused by the dignified satisfaction of the clergyman, the smirking glee of the clerk, and, still descending, the significant merriment of the sexton and the pew-opener (all of whom graced the ceremony with their presence), at the liberal donations which were severally appropriated to their use and benefit by the jocund bridegroom; and I also recall the laugh which burst forth in honour of the great presence of mind which I displayed, when, having trespassed on the train of the young lady, I, in begging her pardon, accosted her as Mrs Rollins' for the first time. Our retreat from the church was effected as quietly as our advance to it had been. We met at the dinner-table other members of the family who were not in the secret. The mother, the daughter, and the husband were highly amused by some witticisms, alluding to the business of the morning, which I ventured to throw out, and which must have been exceedingly clever, as they did not even produce a smile from the rest of the company, so nicely did I manage to keep the jest in them from being too obvious. We got through the day without exciting any suspicion. On the next the marriage appeared in the papers, and the bride, her cake, and husband, were honoured in the usual way. Time, whose haste no mortal spares,' rolled on, and the population of the country had been increased by some eight or nine individuals in consequence of the union described, when, early in January last, I received a note from Rollins, announcing the death of his lady, and inviting me to her funeral on the ensuing Saturday, whom, seventeen years be 191 fore, he had received from me at the altar. I was shocked at the intelligence, but, having a little recovered myself, I returned the usual polite answer, that I was sorry for his loss, but should have great pleasure in following his wife to the grave.' teresting. Under the same roof where, on the former SaturI accordingly attended. The scene to me was highly inday, suppressed mirth sat on every countenance of the four who were in the secret, occasionally breaking loose in a laugh at the comedy we were acting, now two only metone mourning for his wife and the mother of his children, mented by the group of youthful mourners who attended, the other for a much respected friend. My grief was augnone of whom were present on the former Saturday. Could we have foreseen on that day,' thought I, 'that such a train of sorrowing orphans would have been produced by it, how greatly would our satisfaction have been abated by such friends of the family, whom I had been in the habit of meetafflicting prescience.' Other individuals met my eye, old ing at the period of the marriage. Two of these who were then mere lads, now came before me as set men of thirty. One, now a barrister, exhibited all that solemnity of deAt the former period, they were romping, careless boys. portment which the people at the bar call dignity, the other all the stern examining air properly belonging to a comwho, at the time to which I referred, was a medical pupil, missioner of the excise. I also recognised a gentleman, who had now become a physician of eminence, and another, well-disciplined attorney. then a young married stripling clerk, had grown into a parties. The conversation was at first general. A sort has given me up.' 'And she, I suppose, is alive.' sician, who had attended our deceased friend through her have been quite natural for the doctor to make such a re- I could not help noticing the agility with which the physiOur hatbands, cloaks, and gloves were now supplied. cian put on his cloak, and the superior dignity and grace with which he wore it. To me it was quite clear that he had had great practice. We got into our coaches. I looked out of the window, and I saw the train which followedthe nodding plumes on the horses' heads, and the attendants on either side. I reflected, we had none of this display on the former Saturday, and felt all the difference Mrs Hadley, too, was not with us on this occasion. She waited entered the church, and the clergyman commenced his |