players on a side, who advanced from their respective lines with bats in their hands, into the centre of the play-ground. Of this number about twenty were stationed at the end land-marks, to guard the passage of the ball. The players who were to begin were apparently mingled promiscuously together. All things being thus ready, a beautiful maiden, richly dressed in the native costume of her people, wearing a red tiara plumed with eagle's feathers, and glittering with bracelets and other ornaments of silver, came bounding like a gazelle into the area, with the ball, which she placed upon the ground in the centre. Instantly the welkin rang with the shouts of the whole multitude of spectators, and the play began; while the bright-eyed maiden danced back, and joined her own circle among the surrounding throng. The match was begun by two of the opposing players, who advanced to the ball, and with their united bats raised it from the ground to such an elevation as gave a chance for a fair stroke; when, quick as lightning, it was sped through the air almost with the swiftness of a bullet. Much depends upon the first stroke, and great skill

is exerted to obtain it.

"The match was played with great spirit, and the display of agility and muscular strength was surprising. Every nerve was strung; and so great were the exertions of the players, that each set was relieved by fresh hands every fifteen or twenty minutes; thus alternating, and allowing every player of the whole number to perform his part, until the game was finished. The scene was full of excitement and animation. The principal chief entered fully into the enjoyment, and by his explanations to his guest heightened its interest, which, of itself, the latter declared to have afforded him a greater degree of satisfaction than any game or pastime that he had ever beheld. The contest was continued three days, at the end of which, after a severe struggle, the Senecas were proclaimed the victors, sweeping the stakes, to the great mortification of the proud-spirited Mohawks, the head of the confederacy."

THE MAGICIAN'S VISITER.

It was at the close of a fine autumnal day, and the shades of evening were beginning to gather over the city of Florence, when a low quick rap was heard at the door of Cornelius Agrippa, and shortly afterwards a stranger was introduced into the apartment in which the philosopher was sitting at his studies. The stranger, though finely formed and of courteous demeanour, had a certain indefinable air of mystery about him, which excited awe, if, indeed, it had not a repellent effect. His years it was difficult to guess, for the marks of youth and age were blended in his features in a most extraordinary manner. There was not a furrow in his cheek or a wrinkle on his brow; and his large black eye beamed with all the brilliancy and vivacity of youth; but his stately figure was bent, apparently beneath the weight of years; his hair, although thick and clustering, was grey; and his voice was feeble and tremulous, yet its tones were of the most ravishing and soulsearching melody. His costume was that of a Florentine gentleman; but he had a staff like that of a palmer in his hand; and a silken sash-inscribed with Oriental characters--was bound around his waist. His face was deadly pale; but every feature of it was singularly beautiful, and its expression was that of profound wisdom, mingled with poignant sorrow.

"Pardon me, learned sir," said he, addressing the philosopher, "but your fame has travelled into all lands, and has reached all ears; and I could not leave the fair city of Florence without seeking an interview with one who is its greatest boast and ornament."

You are right welcome, sir," returned Agrippa; "but I fear that your trouble and curiosity will be but ill repaid. I am simply one, who, instead of devoting my days, as do the wise, to the acquirement of wealth and honour, have passed long years in painful and unprofitable study, in endeavouring to unravel the secrets of nature, and initiating myself in the mysteries of the occult sciences."

"Talkest thou of long years!" echoed the stranger, and a melancholy smile played over his features: thou, who hast scarcely seen fourscore since thou left'st thy cradle, and for whom the quiet grave is now waiting, eager to clasp thee in her sheltering arms! I was among the tombs to-day, the still and solemn tombs: I saw them smiling in the last beams of the setting sun. When I was a boy, I used to wish to be like that sun; his career was so long, so bright, so glorious. But to-night I thought it was better to slumber amongst those tombs than to be like him. To-night he sank behind the hill, apparently to repose; but to-morrow he must renew his course, and run the same dull and unvaried, but toilsome and unquiet race. There is no grave for him, and the night and morning dews are the tears that he sheds over his tyrannous destiny."

Agrippa was a deep observer and admirer of external nature, and of all her phenomena, and had often gazed upon the scene which the stranger described; but the feelings and ideas which it awakened in the mind of the latter were so different from anything which he had himself experienced that he could not help, for a season, gazing upon him in speechless wonder. His guest, however, speedily resumed the discourse.

"But I trouble you, I trouble you ;-to my purpose in making you this visit. I have heard strange tales of a wondrous mirror, which your potent art has enabled you to construct, in which whosoever looks may see the distant or the dead on whom he is desirous again to fix his gaze. My eyes see nothing in this outward visible world which can be pleasing to their sight. The grave has closed over all I loved. Time has carried down its stream everything that once contributed to my enjoyment. The world is a vale of tears; but among all the tears which water that sad valley, not one is shed for me: the fountain in my own heart, too, is dried up. I would once more again look upon the face which I loved. I would see that eye more bright, and that step more stately, than the antelope's; that brow, the broad smooth page on which God had inscribed his fairest characters. I would gaze on all I loved and all I lost. Such a gaze would be dearer to my heart than all the world has to offer to me, except the grave-except the grave."

The passionate pleading of the stranger had such an effect upon Agrippa (who was not used to exhibit his miracle of art to the eyes of all who desired to look in it, although he was often tempted by exorbitant presents and high honours to do so), that he readily consented to grant the request of his extraordinary visiter. "Whom wouldst thou see?" he inquired.

"My child, my own sweet Miriam," answered the stranger. Cornelius immediately caused every ray of the light of heaven to be excluded from the chamber, placed the stranger on his right hand, and commenced chanting in a low soft tone, and in a strange language, some lyrical verses, to which the stranger thought he heard occasionally a response; but it was a sound so faint and indistinct, that he hardly knew whether it existed anywhere but in his own fancy. As Cornelius continued his chant, the room gradually became illuminated; but whence the light proceeded it perceived a large mirror which covered the whole of the extreme was impossible to discover. At length the stranger plainly end of the apartment, and over the surface of which a dense haze or cloud seemed to be rapidly passing.

"Died she in wedlock's holy bands?" inquired Cornelius. "She was a virgin spotless as the snow."

"How many years have passed away since the grave closed over her?"

A cloud gathered on the stranger's brow, and he answered somewhat impatiently, "Many, many; more than I now have time to number."

"Nay," said Agrippa, "but I must know. For every ten years that have elapsed since her death once must I wave this wand; and when I have waved it for the last time, you will see her figure in yon mirror."

46

"Wave on, then," said the stranger, and groaned bitterly: wave on, and take heed that thou be not weary."

1840.]

THE LONDON SATURDAY JOURNAL.

pendous piles which Nature reared up when the rocks were torn from their bases, rent asunder and parted into fragments of every kind of form and size. The decomposing effect of the atmosphere has reduced the smaller ones to sand and soil, which the water has carried towards the sea, and spread them out into plains for the cultivation of rice, herbs, and various kinds of grain. The larger pieces have been able to lose much by the corroding effects of We readily perceive the reason of that time, without losing all. process which reduced the rock to shivers, that they might by further reduction afford a pabulum for the growth of vegetables; but we do not see at once why these huge boulders should still be But if left to encumber the ground which they cannot fertilise. our pursuit should happen to be after plants and flowers, we should not be long in finding out how greatly we were indebted to the protecting shade of these dishevelled masses; for wherever they lie in any abundance, there we find something to requite the toil of the botanist. They are not unfrequently heaped together so as to form a labyrinth, into which I have sometimes forced my way, and picked up something that was lost to all, save to the "prying What was said of the miner, applies in eye" of the botanist. some sort to him: "He setteth an end to darkness, and searcheth out all perfection." (Job, xxviii. 3.) These stones, which seemed to have been thrown about at random, without any regard to utility, are thus found to be the benefactors and patrons of the "weeds " and shrubs that flourish under their protection. They shelter them effectually from the north-east wind, one of the most The pines or sweeping breezes" that I ever encountered. mountain fir of Southern China (Pinus sinensis), and a few grasses, alone seem able to endure its biting edge. The eye of the Creator in gracious forecast was directed to this fact, and he has made an arrangement for counteracting its effects in the wild strewment of boulders upon which we have been commenting. Among these rocky fragments, and the herbs that grow between, At the sight of a foreigner he starts, the buffalo often browses. rears his head, and stands in a steadfast and most suspicious gaze. It is obvious that this is the effect of fear; but whether this fear will prompt the animal to flee from the supposed danger, or to forestall it by an assault, is what perplexes the mind of the stranger. He stands in doubt, unwilling to retreat, afraid to go forward. The buffalo is in the same predicament, and cannot decide whether he ought to turn his face or his back towards the unwelcome visitor. He seems to have taken a hint from the rulers of his country, who are afraid of that from which they have nothing to apprehend, and put on the air and attitude of menace and defiance, while their hearts quail within them. I am half serious when I say he seems to have taken a hint from the rulers of his country; for in other places the buffalo grazes amidst the long and stiffculmed grass, unmindful of the stranger, with all the tranquillity of the cow or the ox among ourselves, and seldom puts on a threatening aspect unless he is disturbed when luxuriating in a slough or mud plash: for this creature resembles the swine or wild-boar in its fondness for water; and this instinctive love of moisture is so great, that it matters not at all whether the pool be The Chinese, whose systems of sweet or fetid, clear or foul. zoology are somewhat eccentric, often select the most characteristic feature in the shape or habit of an animal, and give it a prominent place in their descriptions. In this, the lover of Nature will allow, consists the true genius of the zoologist; for his art lies not in the enumeration of a multitude of particulars, but in The Chinese, for example, the choice of such as are essential. call the buffalo the water-kine, in allusion to the propensity just mentioned, and say, by way of defining its chief characteristic, that it walks stooping, on account of the comparative shortness of the

fore-feet. Owing to this circumstance it runs with a peculiar leaping motion, and with great speed, though the constrained manner in which it progresses when advancing slowly might not prepare us to look for it. A friend who saw a buffalo and a tiger encounter in some public spectacle at Java told me, that when the tiger was in the act of bounding upon the buffalo, the latter tossed him to a great height into the air, and then ere the discomfited creature could reach the ground he received a second rebuff from the head of his nimble antagonist. I need not remind the reader that the swiftness of the hare is not a little aided by the comparative shortness of the fore-legs, which allows the hind ones to strike the ground with an elastic spring like the recoil of a bow.

A little boy is often set to watch a herd of buffaloes, and to prevent their straying to a distance. Sometimes we see him tending a single animal, holding it by a cord which is attached to a ring At the sight of the fan kwei, or that passes through the partition between the nostrils, the septum narium of the anatomist. foreigner, the buffalo rears his head, and his little keeper begins to cry out as if the knife of the assassin were held at his throat. He is afraid that the creature, in a wild fit of terror, should hurry away regardless of the "hook in his nose," or "the crying of the driver." At this the good-natured traveller retires behind a fence, or the jutting shade of some boulder; and so the boy and his buffalo are at once released from their fears, and fall into the same repose of thought in which they were when the ill-boding phenomenon made its appearance.

Upon this island of which I am speaking, many a time has the foreigner smarted from the sturdy strokes of the well-plied bamboo; but not a few times have I strayed alone and never met with anything in the shape of ill-usage. Chinese who met in these rambles would sometimes caution me against going too far, and tell me that bad men would assault and beat me. My answer to these monitory hints was uniformly, "The Chinese are not bad men, they are not strangers to what propriety requires," and then pursued my way to let them see that I felt no fear, because I meant no harm. Arm yourself with gentleness and good will, and let men see that your courage and confidence are founded upon the feelings which belong to these qualities, and in China, and many other places where it has been my lot to travel, you will have a panoply that will repei in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred any attack upon your person.

In one of my early visits to the island, I encountered a person of great courtesy and polish on his return from a little hamlet in the neighbourhood. Seeing that I was in quest of plants, his curiosity was awakened to ask for what purpose I gathered them. Instead of directly answering his question, I asked him the names of several in my bag; but not being much skilled in such matters, he called some peasants to settle the points for him. By way of letting him see what I wanted in the way of information, I took a flying sketch of a tree hard by, and then asked its native name, which he most obligingly wrote down among my memoranda. In return for this kindness I gave him two or three volumes that lay at the bottom of the bag. With these he seemed extremely pleased, and explained to the bystanders, who now began to flock around us, in what way he had obtained them. "I," said he, gave the stranger a few hints respecting the names and uses of herbs, and in requital he gave me these books." And then, as if determined not to be outdone in kindness, he conducted me to the cottage of some acquaintance, and asked them to give me tea and such hospitality as their means could afford. They brought me some tea and a cigar: the latter I declined, and the former I sipped at my leisure; for although I easily conform to the China

man's usage of drinking tea without milk or sugar when presented How nicely then has God adapted the disposition of the animal for at the house of the more wealthy, fuming with a most grateful the nature of the work for which it is required! Foreknowledge, aroma, I do not feel the same relish when it has long been "brew-acting upon a system, is seen from the beginning to the end. The ing" upon the well-soddened leaves. But a thorough-paced tra- streams of water tumbling down the deep ravines and dells, sweep veller always accepts the will for the deed, and thanks the kind large quantities of earth with them, which is deposited at the bothostess with all his heart who offers him a dish of tea which she tom of some withdrawing nook, and through the accumulating has just warmed over a smoking fire of dried grass. And I may force of time produces a wide-spread alluvium for the fields of rice. just remind the reader that in southern parts of China, where wood The ground is appropriated by the perseverance of man, laid out is scarce, and consequently very dear, the poor people fetch the in numerous plots by means of banks and terraces, and then, as the long grass from the sides and brows of the mountains, bind it up water still continues to descend, a stone is always at hand for a in bundles, and stack it for a store of winter fuel. As the houses copious irrigation. To help him in the work, the buffalo comes to are not provided with a chimney, the smoke, which rises from the his aid, with a strength of body and a peculiarity of instinct or smouldering grass in prodigious quantities, curls and rolls wher- habitude that exactly fit him for it. ever it lists, to the great discomfort of the industrious housewife. One of the greatest nuisances a traveller meets with in many The writer was once telling a circle of country friends, that in the parts of China, as well as upon the island which is supposed now different countries upon the west side of the American continent, to be the sphere of our imaginary excursion, is met in the everthe houses had no such provision as a tube, flue, or chim- lasting "yelping" of the cowardly curs that haunt almost every ney to let out the smoke. "Where does the smoke go, then? dwelling. Fierce without courage, and fearful without the sagacity they all asked at once with the most eager curiosity. "Why, of kindness, they keep up an incessant barking from the time of into your eyes, to be sure,” was the reply. There was a good deal your appearance till long after you are out of sight. Neither the of banter but some truth in this reply, for the moisture distributed threats of the master, nor the proffered friendship of the stranger, over the eyeballs attracts the smoke and condenses it upon the can pacify them for a moment. Amidst the noise thus made, the surface of that organ, and hence the reason of that apparent guest and the host can scarcely hear each other speak; and someeagerness to insinuate itself into a place where it can least be en- times this is so intolerable, that I have cut short my visit and dured. But, in adverting to the inconvenience of the smoke, I had departed very abruptly. Some who have visited similar situations nearly forgotten the bestowment of the fuel. The hills, from ex- have dealt blows among, or hurled stones at these peace-breakers, posure to winds and the hungry nature of the soil, produce which affronts the Chinaman without taming his dog;-a practice nothing in the shape of a tree save a few stunted pines, which are I seldom adopted, for fear of undoing all that gentleness and good never meddled with by the poor, but by a kind arrangement they are humour might have done for me. Now and then I would pursue made to yield a plenteous crop of tall and sturdy grasses (chiefly the terror-stricken brutes with my hat or my bag, as if I meant to of the Andropogon family), which the needy find an excellent sub-carry them off, which generally excited a good deal of mirth among stitute for wood. How hard would it be to find a spot where some lively marks of the Creator's goodness are not to be seen! The earth is indeed "full of his goodness."

We have just referred to a kind arrangement; let us allude to an instance of adaptation. Rice, as the reader in all probability knows, is cultivated in a soil covered with water, or, in different words, in mud, well prepared by stirring and manure for its reception. In the early part of the year a fertile spot of ground is chosen, into which the seed is poured with an unsparing hand. After it has germinated and the sprouts have attained a length of about six inches, it is dug up and parted into tufts for transplanting. These plants are set in lines, at proper intervals from each other, by the hands of workmen, who execute their business with great despatch and adroitness. The bed into which these are thrust consist, as we have intimated, of soil well mixed and covered with water. In the labour of bringing the ground to this state, the buffalo performs no unimportant part, as he draws a plough of rude and original mechanism, in many a tedious bout, from one side of the field to the other. The plough stirs up and parts the sluggish glebe, while the feet of the animal assist not a little in its subacting, and its incorporation with the water. The wading in mud from morn to noon, and from noon to dewy eve, is not a work for which either our horse or our ox is calculated, as those know who are familiar with the history and habits of these invaluable animals. The horse often lets the most casual observer see that he has no predilection for moisture; for if a raised terrace happens to cross the field where he pastures, and the night be wet, he stations himself upon the path where it is driest, though the shelter of tree or fence might seem to invite him to a different situation. But the buffalo, the water-kine of the Chinese, is "in his element" while at this work, and therefore takes pleasure in what the horse or the beeve would feel pain and inconvenience.

the bystanders, and alleviated the nuisance of these unwelcome salutations. As these dogs are not trained for any purpose, nor caressed or educated as pets, one is ready to ask, what are they good for? To this the Chinaman replies, by telling you, that when young and delicately fed they compose a dish more savoury and tender than a young pig. Besides this, they are excellent alarums, and never omit to give notice of danger: thus they warn their owners by their fear, though they cannot protect them by their courage.

In the island of which we are speaking there is a romantic valley, remarkable for the rugged steepness of the slopes, and the crystal stream that rolls at the bottom. A Chinaman of an enterprising turn of mind contrived to direct a part of this stream, and so to guide it, by the application of conduits, as to obtain a fall of water to work his water-mill. The workmanship was rudely finished, but the ingenuity of invention was fully adequate to the purpose. The water-wheel was what is called an overshot wheel, or the ficats or buckets so contrived as to receive the water that fell from above.

Upon the same shaft was a vertical wheel, with pegs instead of teeth; these teeth acted upon a horizontal wheel, which was mortised to the upper end of the axis on which the millstone turned. By this mechanical arrangement the water communicated its motion to the upper millstone, and was the first in the chain of instrumental causation in the business of grinding the corn. The hopper or vessel for dispensing the corn to the mill was very simple; it was a square chest with a hole in the centre, and, resting upon the top of the axle, revolved round with the millstone. The reader is aware that if a vessel be filled with grain it will not part freely with it, though there be many holes in the bottom, while it remains without shaking. To make the wheat run freely through the hole at the bottom of the Chinaman's hopper, was a matter that required a little contrivance; a requirement which he has fulfilled