Chapter I: Part 1

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

Fourth Series

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.

NO. 711. SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1877. PRICE 1½_d._]

CHARLES KINGSLEY AT HOME.

All who had the pleasure of knowing the Rev. Charles Kingsley, author of _Hypatia_, _Westward Ho_, and _Alton Locke_, will acknowledge that however great he was as a parish clergyman, poet, novelist, naturalist, sportsman, he was greater still at home. And how was this greatness shewn? By his self-denying efforts to give joy to his wife and children, and chivalrously to take away from them whatever was painful. No man ever excelled him in the quality of being 'thoroughly domesticated.' In actual life we fear this is a rare attainment, for it is nothing less than the flower that indicates perfectly developed manhood or womanhood. This flower beautified and sweetened Canon Kingsley's life. He _was_ a hero to those who had greater opportunities of knowing him than have most valets. Whatever unheroic cynics may say of the disenchanting power of intimacy, there was an exception in his case. How much such an example should teach us all! Not one in ten thousand can hope to become the many-sided man Kingsley was, but none of us need despair of making that little corner of the world called 'home' brighter and happier, as he made Eversley Rectory. We can all make our homes sweet if, when company-clothes are doffed, we clothe the most ordinary and commonplace duties of home-life with good temper and cheerfulness.

Because the Rectory-house was on low ground, the rector of Eversley, who considered violation of the divine laws of health a sort of acted blasphemy, built his children an outdoor nursery on the 'Mount,' where they kept books, toys, and tea-things, spending long happy days on the highest and loveliest point of moorland in the glebe; and there he would join them when his parish work was done, bringing them some fresh treasure picked up in his walk, a choice wild-flower or fern or rare beetle, sometimes a lizard or a field-mouse; ever waking up their sense of wonder, calling out their powers of observation, and teaching them lessons out of God's great green book, _without their knowing_ they were learning. Out-of-doors and indoors, the Sundays were the happiest days of the week to the children, though to their father the hardest. When his day's work was done, there was always the Sunday walk, in which each bird and plant and brook was pointed out to the children, as preaching sermons to Eyes, such as were not even dreamt of by people of the No-eyes species. Indoors the Sunday picture-books were brought out, and each child chose its subject for the father to draw, either some Bible story, or bird or beast or flower. In all ways he fostered in his children a love of animals. They were taught to handle without disgust toads, frogs, beetles, as works from the hand of a living God. His guests were surprised one morning at breakfast when his little girl ran up to the open window of the dining-room holding a long repulsive-looking worm in her hand: 'O daddy, look at this _delightful_ worm!'

Kingsley had a horror of corporal punishment, not merely because it tends to produce antagonism between parent and child, but because he considered more than half the lying of children to be the result of fear of punishment. 'Do not train a child,' he said, 'as men train a horse, by letting anger and punishment be the _first_ announcement of his having sinned. If you do, you induce two bad habits: first, the boy regards his parent with a kind of blind dread, as a being who may be offended by actions which to _him_ are innocent, and whose wrath he expects to fall upon him at any moment in his most pure and unselfish happiness. Next, and worst still, the boy learns not to fear sin, but the punishment of it, and thus he learns to lie.' He was careful too not to confuse his children by a multiplicity of small rules. 'It is difficult enough to keep the Ten Commandments,' he would say, 'without making an eleventh in every direction.' He had no 'moods' with his family, for he cultivated, by strict self-discipline in the midst of worries and pressing business, a disengaged temper, that always enabled him to enter into other people's interests, and especially into children's playfulness. 'I wonder,' he would say, 'if there is so much laughing in any other home in England as in ours.' He became a light-hearted boy in the presence of his children, or when exerting himself to cheer up his aged mother who lived with him. When nursery griefs and broken toys were taken to his study, he was never too busy to mend the toy and dry the tears. He held with Jean Paul Richter, that children have their 'days and hours of rain,' which parents should not take much notice of, either for anxiety or sermons, but should lightly pass over, except when they are symptoms of coming illness. And his knowledge of physiology enabled him to detect such symptoms. He recognised the fact, that weariness at lessons and sudden fits of obstinacy are not hastily to be treated as moral delinquencies, springing as they so often do from physical causes, which are best counteracted by cessation from work and change of scene.

How blessed is the son who can speak of his father as Charles Kingsley's eldest son does. '"Perfect love casteth out fear," was the motto,' he says, 'on which my father based his theory of bringing up children. From this and from the interest he took in their pursuits, their pleasures, trials, and even the petty details of their everyday life, there sprang up a friendship between father and children, that increased in intensity and depth with years. To speak for myself, he was the best friend--the only true friend I ever had. At once he was the most fatherly and the most unfatherly of fathers--fatherly in that he was our intimate friend and our self-constituted adviser; unfatherly in that our feeling for him lacked that fear and restraint that make boys call their father "the governor." Ours was the only household I ever saw in which there was no favouritism. It seemed as if in each of our different characters he took an equal pride, while he fully recognised their different traits of good or evil; for instead of having one code of social, moral, and physical laws laid down for one and all of us, each child became a separate study for him; and its little "diseases au moral," as he called them, were treated differently according to each different temperament.... Perhaps the brightest picture of the past that I look back to now is the drawing-room at Eversley in the evenings, when we were all at home and by ourselves. There he sat, with one hand in mother's, forgetting his own hard work in leading our fun and frolic, with a kindly smile on his lips, and a loving light in that bright gray eye, that made us feel that, in the broadest sense of the word, he was our father.'

Of this son, when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge, his father (then Professor of History) writes: 'Ah! what a blessing to be able to help him at last by teaching him something one's-self.' And to a learned 'F.G.S.' he says very seriously: 'My eldest son is just going off to try his manhood in Colorado, United States. You will understand, therefore, that it is somewhat important to me just now whether the world be ruled by a just and wise God or by 0. It is also important to me with regard to my own boy's future, whether what is said to have happened to-morrow (Good Friday) be true or false.' In this way Kingsley educated his heart and became truly wise. For no matter how extensive may be our stock of information, we cannot be called wise unless heart become to head a helpmate.

And how well he used his matrimony--a state that should be to all the means of highest culture, or 'grace.' Sympathising with a husband's anxiety, he once wrote to a friend: 'I believe one never understands the blessed mystery of marriage till one has nursed a sick wife, nor understands either what treasures women are.' He believed in the eternity of marriage. 'So well and really married on earth' did he think himself, that in one of his letters he writes: 'If I do not love my wife body and soul as well there as I do here, then there is neither resurrection of my body nor of my soul, but of some other, and I shall not be I.' And again in another letter: 'If immortality is to include in my case identity of person, I shall feel to her for ever what I feel now. That feeling may be developed in ways which I do not expect; it may have provided for it forms of expression very different from any which are among the holiest sacraments of life.... Will not one of the properties of the spiritual body be, that it will be able to express that which the natural body only tries to express?'

Kingsley and his future wife met for the first time when he was only twenty years of age in Oxfordshire, where he was spending his college vacation. 'That was my real wedding-day,' he used always to say. The Cambridge undergraduate was at the time going through the crisis in a young man's life that may be called without irreverence 'moral measles.' He was then full of religious doubts; and his face, with its unsatisfied hungering look, bore witness to the state of his mind. He told her his doubts, and she told him her faith; and the positive, being stronger than the negative, so prevailed that he was no longer faithless but believing. Hitherto his peculiar character had not been understood, and his heart had been half asleep. It woke up now, and never slept again. For the first time he could speak with perfect freedom, and be met with answering sympathy. And gradually, as the new friendship deepened into intimacy, every doubt, every thought, every failing, every sin was laid bare. Counsel was asked and given; and as new hopes dawned, the look of hard defiance gave way to a wonderful humility and tenderness, which were his characteristics, with those who understood him, to his dying day. 'My memory often runs back,' writes an early friend of his, 'to the days when I used to meet dear Kingsley in his little curate rooms; when he told me of his attachment to one whom he feared he should never be able to marry.' But things turning out brighter than he expected, the same friend records how, calling at his cottage one morning, 'I found him almost beside himself, stamping his things into a portmanteau. "What is the matter, dear Kingsley?"--"I am engaged. I am going to see her _now_--to-day."'

His chivalrous idea of wedlock was only natural, for he always attributed to Mrs Kingsley's sympathy and influence his success, saying that never but for her would he have become a writer. Writing to a friend on the subject of marriage, he says that it is his duty to hold the highest and most spiritual views, 'for God has shewed me these things in an eventful and blissful marriage history, and woe to me if I preach them not.'

Writing to his wife from the sea-side, where he had gone in search of health, he says: 'This place is perfect; but it seems a dream and imperfect without you. Kiss the darling ducks of children for me. How I long after them and their prattle. I delight in all the little ones in the street, for their sake, and continually I start and fancy I hear their voices outside. You do not know how I love them; nor did I hardly till I came here. Absence quickens love into consciousness.'--'Blessed be God for the rest, though I never before felt the loneliness of being without the beloved being whose every look, and word, and motion are the key-notes of my life. People talk of love ending at the altar.... Fools! I lay at the window all morning, thinking of nothing but home; how I long for it!'--'Tell Rose and Maurice that I have got two pair of bucks' horns--one for each of them, huge old fellows, almost as big as baby.'

Writing from France to 'my dear little man,' as he calls his youngest son (for whom he wrote the _Water Babies_), he says: 'There is a little Egyptian vulture here in the inn; ask mother to shew you his picture in the beginning of the Bird book.' When smarting from severe attacks on his historical teaching at Cambridge, he could write to his wife: 'I have been very unhappy about your unhappiness about me, and cannot bear to think of your having a pang on my account.' From America he writes: 'My digestion is perfect, and I am in high spirits. But I am home-sick at times, and would give a finger to be one hour with you and G. and M.'

From such things; which, though they may appear little, are really the great things of life, or at least its _heart's ease_, Canon Kingsley got power to do and to suffer.

Coming out from service in Westminster Abbey, he caught a cold; but he made light of it, for he could think of nothing but the joy of returning with his wife to Eversley for Christmas and the quiet winter's work. No sooner had they returned home than Mrs Kingsley became seriously ill. On being told that her life was in the greatest danger, Kingsley said: 'My own death-warrant was signed with those words.' His ministrations in his wife's sick-room shewed the intensity of his faith, as he strengthened the weak, encouraged the fearful speaking of an eternal reunion, of the indestructibility of that married love, which if genuine on earth, could only, he thought, be severed for a brief moment.

At this time Kingsley was himself ill, and on the 28th December he had to take to his bed, for symptoms of pneumonia came on rapidly. The weather was bitter, and he had been warned that his recovery depended on the same temperature being kept up in his bedroom and on his never leaving it; but one day he indiscreetly leaped out of bed, came into his wife's room for a few moments, and taking her hand in his, he said: 'This is heaven; don't speak;' but after a short silence, a severe fit of coughing came on, he could say nothing more, and they never met again. For a few days the sick husband and wife wrote to each other in pencil, but it then became 'too painful, too tantalising,' and the letters ceased. A few days after this, the preacher, poet, novelist, naturalist died, January 23, 1875, and was universally lamented, for England had lost one of her most estimable men--not great, in the ordinary sense of the word, for Kingsley could lay no claim to be a profound thinker. His philanthropy confused his perceptions, as when in his writings he denounced large towns and mill-owners, and proposed to restore the population to the land. Such 'socialism' as this would throw us back into ignorance and poverty, instead of solving the difficult modern problem of rich and poor. Kingsley was great only as regards the feelings. There he may be said to have made his mark.

How many of Charles Kingsley's works will last? Some (with whom he himself would probably have agreed) think that _Hypatia_ and a few songs, such as the _Sands of Dee_ and _Three Fishers_, are his only contributions to English literature likely to endure. It may be that he had too many irons in the fire for any of them to become white-hot. We prefer to think of him as a minister of the Gospel, who not only preached piety but shewed it at home, by being a dutiful son, a wise father, and a husband whose love during thirty-six years 'never stooped from its lofty level to a hasty word, an impatient gesture, or a selfish act, in sickness or in health, in sunshine or in storm, by day or by night.'

'He was a true and perfect knight,' is our verdict, on rising from the perusal of his biography. It is surely a great encouragement to think that all who cultivate their hearts may, without his genius, hope to imitate the home-virtues of one who, however great in other respects, was, in our opinion, greater at home.

THE LAST OF THE HADDONS.

CHAPTER XXXVI.--WAGES.

After the bride and bridegroom were gone, occurred the first slip in my behaviour. The rest of the company had returned to the house, and I suppose I must have stood in the road--gazing in the direction the carriage had taken, the sound of the distant bells floating faintly towards me in the summer air--so long as to be unconscious of the lapse of time, when gently and lightly a hand was laid upon mine, and it was drawn under Robert Wentworth's arm.

'You are wanted up there, Mary,' he said cheerfully. 'Mrs Tipper does not, I think, find herself quite equal to Mrs Dallas and Mrs Trafford; to say nothing of two discontented bride's-maids, and a father who came here under protest, and was only allowed to perform half the duty he came to perform. You took that out of his hands, you know; the giving away was virtually yours.' Going on to talk amusingly of the incongruous materials which went to make up the wedding-party, and so giving me time to recover my self-command. It was very soon put to the test. There was, to begin with, some pretty banter from Mrs Chichester to parry, when we reached the green terrace, where the guests were sitting, to enjoy the air and lovely view, and from which I suddenly remembered they could see the part of the road where I had been standing.

'We began to fear you must be ill, Miss Haddon, seeing you stand so long motionless in the road. It was quite a relief to see you move at last when Mr Wentworth joined you--it really was!'

Probably Robert Wentworth considered that this kind of thing was what I required, for he left me to it, and devoted himself to the not very easy task of trying to reconcile the two pretty bride's-maids; gravely listening to their assurances that the whole affair had been shockingly mismanaged from first to last! I soon had enough to do to reply to the patter of questions with which I was assailed from Marian and Mrs Chichester.

Where in the world had I been hiding myself all these months? Had I really come into a large fortune, and turned Mr Dallas off, as people said; or was it the other thing? As I did not know what 'the other thing' was, I could not answer for that; but acknowledged to having been fortunate; smiling to myself as I wondered what they would think of my idea of good fortune. Of course they would know what my real position was in time; but for the present I was mischievous enough to let them imagine any improbable thing they pleased. But there was one thing which they must not be allowed to have any doubt about, and that was my regard for Philip and Lilian, and hearty concurrence in the marriage.

'I am _so_ glad--so very glad; because we can now speak very decidedly upon the point. People are so terribly unkind and censorious; are they not, Miss Haddon?'

'Some are, Mrs Chichester; yet I think, on the whole, censorious people do a great deal less mischief than they are supposed to do. My experience is happily small in such matters; but I believe that censorious people are generally well known to be so, and therefore they are not capable of doing much harm.'

'Then it was _not_ true, Miss Haddon; I am so very pleased to be able to say so!'

'What was not true, Mrs Chichester?'

'Oh, I would rather not repeat, really.'

'Well, I only know Caroline says she's heard it said over and over again that you ran away in despair, because you found that Mr Dallas and Lilian were untrue to you,' said Marian, less scrupulous about repeating than the other.

'That is really too ridiculous!' I ejaculated.--'But you will be able to tell your friend or friends that you did not see a love-lorn damsel to-day, Mrs Chichester;' gazing at her with steady calm eyes.

'You certainly don't look a bit love-lorn,' candidly said Marian.

'O no,' chimed in Mrs Chichester. 'If you will pardon the jest, I might say you looked a great deal more as though you had _found_ a lover, than lost one!' with a meaning glance in Robert Wentworth's direction.

'Will you excuse my asking if you had that dress direct from Paris, Miss Haddon?' inquired Marian.

'Paris? No; it came from Madame Michaux,' I replied, happily recollecting that Jane had mentioned that name.

'Oh, that is the same thing; isn't it? She charges enormously; but one is quite sure of having just the right thing from her. I suppose you have all your dresses from her now?'

'No; not all,' I said, smiling at the remembrance of my every-day attire.

'They say brown is to be the new colour: the Duchess of Meck--Meck---- (What's her name, Caroline? those German names are _so_ absurd)--is wearing nothing else but brown at Homburg.'

'I have been wearing brown some time,' I replied, almost laughing outright.

'Some people always contrive to be in advance of the fashions,' she said a little disconcertedly.--'Are they going away already, Caroline; just inquire if the carriage is there, will you?--I see you have drab liveries, Miss Haddon; ours is changed to claret; the Marchioness of'---- Breaking off to make a reply to a few words from the little bride's-maids, who with their father were taking themselves off from the uncongenial atmosphere. 'O yes; went off very nicely indeed; did it not? I wanted them to have the breakfast at Fairview, or at anyrate to have two or three of the men-servants to wait. But the party is small certainly, and everything has been very well contrived. No one is inclined to be very critical at such times. I hope you will be able to come down to Fairview before you return to Cornwall; any time which may suit you best. You need not write; we are always prepared for visitors.'

Both sisters hurriedly explained that their stay in town would be very short, and that there was not the _slightest_ chance of their having a spare day.

Then there was one other little trial of my nerves--the few words which had to be spoken to Mr and Mrs Dallas; but pride came to my assistance, and I got through it pretty well, bearing their curious looks and gracious speeches with at anyrate apparent stoicism. Under other circumstances, I might have been somewhat amused by Mr Dallas's remark, that for his part he wished I had not thrown Philip over; accompanied as it was by a comprehensive glance at 'my carriage' waiting in the road below.

As soon as they left, I felt at liberty to whisper a loving good-bye to dear old Mrs Tipper, with a promise to see her and clear up all mysteries on the morrow, and take my departure. In a matter-of-course way, Robert Wentworth walked with me down the path, talking in the old pleasant easy fashion until he had put me into the carriage. Then just as I was bending forward to say the one word 'Home,' he gave the order 'Greybrook Hall.'

'Wait, John.'

The man stood aside; and I added to Robert Wentworth: 'You know then?'

'Of course I know,' he replied with a quiet smile.

I shrank back. He made a gesture to the footman, gave me the orthodox bow, and I was driven away.

Not a little agitated, I asked myself how much more did he know--all? If he recognised me that night in the wood, he did know not only what I had done, but what it had cost me to do it! I was no heroine; I have shewn myself as I was on Philip's wedding-day; but I had not won my peace without many a weary struggle for it. Once--three months after my departure from the cottage--I had stolen down in the darkness of evening to watch the shadows on the blinds, and perhaps catch the sound of a voice still so terribly dear to me. I saw Philip and Lilian together, and recognised that they were lovers, and then I knew that the victory was not yet won.

An hour later some one stooped over me as I lay crouched in the woods. 'Are you ill? What is the matter with you, good woman?' said the familiar voice of Robert Wentworth, as he laid his hand upon my shoulder. 'It is bad for you to be lying here this damp night.'

I shrank away, drawing the hood of my cloak more closely round my face, which I kept turned away. He stood still a few moments, and then without another word passed on. I had hitherto always persuaded myself that he had not recognised me; but now my cheeks grew uncomfortably hot with the suspicion that he did know me, and that the passing silently on was the very thing which a delicate consideration for me would prompt him to do. I was only surprised that it had not occurred to me before. I never had succeeded in throwing dust into Robert Wentworth's eyes when I had tried so to do. I knew now that it was to him Jane Osborne had alluded when she jested about a certain friend of hers who was so interested in all that concerned me, and whom I was to know more about by-and-by. I had sometimes a little murmured in my heart at having to give up Robert Wentworth's friendship with other things, knowing the worth of it, and he had been watching over me all the time! He had traced me at once; but respecting my desire to be lost to them all for a time, he had not obtruded himself upon me, contenting himself with obtaining an introduction to Jane Osborne and making friends with her.

That I had been watched over, had been shewn to me in more ways than one. I could almost smile now, holding the key, as I recollected many a little speech from Jane Osborne which seemed to breathe some stronger spirit than her own. Tenderly anxious about me, and inclined to pet me as she was, she would now and again spur me on to my work with a few words, which puzzled me extremely from her lips, but which I now could see she had been instigated to speak by one who knew me better than she did. But I had not much time for reflection; the drive was only three miles, and the ground very quickly got over by a couple of spirited horses. It seemed but a few moments after I had left Robert Wentworth in the road before I was at home.

It is now time to explain what has doubtlessly suggested itself to the reader, that I had been acting as superintendent of the Home for the last twelve months. Nancy had given me a hint that Mrs Gower had sent in her resignation of the office, having amassed a comfortable independence. My visit to town the day before I left the cottage had been for the purpose of seeing Mrs Osborne, the foundress of the Home, and I had the good fortune to find favour in her sight. She saw that it was a crisis in my life, and was inclined to be my friend had we two not needed each other. I went to stay with her a couple of days until Mrs Gower's departure, and then was duly installed in the latter's place.

As I expected that Lilian would hope to trace me through Nancy, the latter was drafted into Jane Osborne's establishment for a few weeks. Consequently, when Lilian made her appearance at the gates, she was informed that Nancy had gone to some lady whose address the portress for the nonce was not acquainted with. As I hoped she would, Lilian jumped to the conclusion that _I_ was the lady alluded to, and was thus thrown off the scent as to my whereabouts.

What shall I say--what ought I to say about _my_ management of the Home? I think as little as possible. But I will say that my success has been greater than I dared to hope for, although I have had a great deal to unlearn as well as learn. All sorts of objections were in the outset made to what were termed my innovations, and perhaps they were rather daring; but I was beginning to be able to reply to objectors by more cogent means than words.

As to myself--could anything have been more delightfully refreshing to a wearied spirit than was the greeting which I received on entering the long room on my return that afternoon, a welcome from twenty smiling faces! It is the long room to which the reader has been previously introduced, with a difference; the high brick wall before the windows is gone, and a light palisading marks the boundary of the grounds, without obstructing the view, a very fine one, of the most beautiful part of Kent. Moreover, the room was to-day _en fête_; decorated with flowers and evergreens, and with a feast, almost as grand as that I had just been a guest at, spread upon the long tables in honour of my sister's wedding-day. I do not like to write the kind words of 'Welcome home' pattered out around me. Jane Osborne and I went to my room; and whilst I threw off my finery and slipped on my brown dress (the only badge of distinction between me and my protégées on ordinary days was my mother's ring), I set her mind at rest as to the state of mind in which I had returned.

After tea we had a reading. Reading aloud or music on certain evenings of the week, whilst the inmates worked, was another of my innovations. That night too we had a new arrival. As I afterwards learned, she had been sought out specially to be brought down there, and a new-comer was always under my particular care, and slept in the place of honour--a little room adjoining my own. Not a little astonished seemed the poor waif when ushered into our gaily bedecked room, and received as a welcome guest to our evening's entertainment. Perhaps my few words to that poor girl when I bade her good-night was as good a termination to Philip's wedding-day as could be desired for me.

A VISIT TO AMAZONIA.

The Amazon, as is pretty well known, is a river of great length and more wonderful for its breadth in South America, entering the Atlantic between Brazil and Guiana. I am going to speak of Pará, a Brazilian port not far from the sea, to which I paid a visit, by what is known as the Pará estuary. The blue ocean had been left the day before. Passing some islands bearing clumps of palms, anchor was dropped in front of the city of Pará, a gun fired from the bridge, and immediately a fleet of shore-boats came off, keeping at a respectable distance, however, until the board of health, customs, and other formalities usual upon entering a Brazilian port had been observed; but no sooner had permission been given, than the deck was swarming with men seeking fares.

'You wan a boat go ashore, sir?' inquired a demure swarthy man about fifty, who stood twirling his cap in hand; 'cos I take you for five shillins, carry what you got to hotel; an if you like to give me anything afterwards, much obliged.'

'That will do!' I returned. And in a few minutes we were speeding towards the landing-place--a flight of wooden steps, crowded with men and boys, anxious to know the latest home prices of india-rubber and other products. The heat was excessive. Not a breath of air stirred on shore; and although longing to ramble through the town, I felt it advisable to rest a while first; so we went direct to the Hotel de Commercio in the Rua da Industria, kept by M. Leduc, an enterprising Frenchman. Here, single rooms with food run from ten to fifteen shillings per diem. The food is excellent, everything considered; but the rooms are dirty and unfurnished, having each but one chair--invariably broken--a hammock slung in a corner, and a hard bed and straw bolster covered with but one sheet. The sanitary arrangements too are far from perfect.

Most places are celebrated for something; Pará is celebrated amongst other things for its bats. Enormous specimens, a foot or two across the wings, may be seen banging to and fro about the veranda and bedrooms; beetles and cockroaches abound too; but there are places up the river where these are an infinitely greater plague.

The town of Pará is situated about seventy miles from the Atlantic. It has several spacious squares, such as the Praças do Cuartel, marine arsenal, government palace, and Mercado. If clangour of bells and cracking of rockets above steeples at high mass are indicative of religious enthusiasm, the Paraenses ought to be very devout. They certainly are not badly off for churches, of which I counted a considerable number.

The streets in this Brazilian town are laid out at right angles, upon the American block plan; half-a-dozen are paved with limestone from Lisbon--brought as ballast, which is cheaper than getting it from Rio Janeiro; and facing the river are a number of houses three stories high, some with staffs from upper balconies, from which droop consular flags. Elsewhere, dwelling-houses are usually one and two stories only. The favourite colour of Brazilians is green, and doors and windows, in fact every kind of wood-work, are as verdant as the forests that surround the town. Few shops boast of glass windows, on account of the deteriorative action of the sun upon goods exposed; but some wholesale firms exhibit a considerable variety of merchandise in their tunnel-shaped stores, where clerks are seen poring over ledgers in their shirt-sleeves. A seawall running the whole length of the river-frontage is in course of construction; and when finished, and the intervening space between it and the shore is filled up and built upon or paved, the appearance of the city will be decidedly enhanced, and its sanitary condition improved; for until recently, every kind of filth and rubbish was shot into the river, where at low-tide it generated a miasma enough to breed a pestilence.

Brazilians of social position rarely bring up their sons to trade, but strive to gain them government employ or entrance into one of the learned professions. It happens, however, that a university career is essential for the acquisition of a diploma; and as a large percentage of Brazilian youth entertain a hearty detestation for books, indulgent parents openly resort to influence, patronage, and intrigue, to enable their high-spirited though wonderfully delicate sons to live on the imperial exchequer. Paraense tradesmen are chiefly Portuguese; and it really is astonishing how rapidly one of these worthies gets on after his arrival in Pará; for he usually leaves the steerage of an English vessel with nothing but the clothes on his back, a strong constitution, and a bag of consecrated charms suspended from a string round his neck. Accustomed to hard work and poor fare at home, he considers himself well off with two mil reis or four shillings per diem; and as shibé or farinha and water is very filling, and goes down with a gusto if seasoned with an onion, he soon saves enough to purchase a horse and cart, or maybe send to Lisbon for a stout boat painted green and red. By thrift and economy his pile of mil rei notes steadily increases in dimensions; and one fine morning he opens a provision store and taberna, and begins to see his way to fortune. How complacently he smiles as he pours out vintems-worth of cashaça to negro labourers! How carefully he weighs bacalhão and farinha for stout Cafuza women (half Indian and negro), who balance basins upon the head, smoke short wooden-stemmed black-bowled pipes, and walk about bare-footed with light print skirts and no body! He knows the reckless native has no thought for the morrow, but spends his money as fast as it is received.

Shortly after my arrival in Pará I was invited by Mr Henderson, a Scotch merchant, to take up my quarters in his charming roçinha at the outskirts of Nazaré, where I remained a little over three months. Our house was large and roomy, with immense wooden window-shutters, which were kept open from early morning till we retired at night, so as to admit as much fresh air as possible. The rainy season had set in, and every day we were favoured with a tropical thunderstorm of more or less violence. I often watched the approach of these storms from the dining-room balconies of Leduc's hotel, which command a splendid view of the river. Distant peals of thunder herald the coming storm, and gusts of wind that rattle shrunken doors and whistle through crazy windows, impart a welcome freshness to the sweltering stagnant air. Steamships at anchor have their funnels covered with snowy conical caps, to keep out the deluge; barges taking in or giving out cargo are hastily covered with tarpaulin; streets become deserted, except by vehicles drawn by miserable horses, that firmly compose themselves for a doze till the down-pour passes over; while clouds of vultures fly against the gale, to inhale as much fresh air as possible after their ghastly repast. A steady approaching line of dense gray clouds with a ragged blue fringe diminishes the horizon; thunder-claps grow louder and more frequent; big drops patter upon the red-tiled roofs; and then falls a deluge upon house-tops, that rolls into the streets below in a perfect cascade. Anything beyond ejaculatory conversation is quite out of the question, for the noise is simply deafening; and although, from the vivid flashes of lightning, we know it is thundering big-guns, we hear nothing beyond the crash of rain.

While the tempest lasts we tumble into our hammocks and endeavour to escape drops that trickle between the tiles; and in half an hour proceed to the balcony to see how matters look outside. The storm has passed over, and the horizon grows clearer; the islands in front are lit up with rays of golden sunshine, that stream through rifts in the leaden clouds upon the emerald expanse of forest; sleepy horses are awoke by drivers, who hit them over the nose with a stick and inquire what is ailing; foot-passengers with coloured umbrellas pick their way tiptoe amid miniature lakes, seas, and channels that flood the road; steamboats are the cleaner for their washing; vultures stand upon houses, palacios, and churches, with wings outstretched to dry; and by-and-by in the azure heavens float mountains of fleecy clouds that playfully emit flashes of lightning as they collide, until night draws near; and as the sun sinks beneath the western forests, pale stars peep forth, proclaiming the close of another day.

Mr Henderson's house was so far distant from Pará that no noise reached us from the city excepting the occasional crack of a rocket, a faint bugle-call, or gun-fire of a boat announcing the arrival of a foreign mail. The noise of insect life, especially during the middle watches of the night, imparted a sense of loneliness, of being shut out from the world. There was an incessant hum, chirp, burr, and whir, and every now and then a bull-frog would 'Woof, woof!' smaller frogs shout 'Hoy, hoy, hoy!' night-birds fly over the roof, emitting weird shrill cries; and what with the kissing conversation of bats, bites of sanguinary carpanás or mosquitoes, the tickling sensation of jiggers in my toes, and the fear of being wound up by a scorpion, centipede, tarantula, or maybe poisonous snake, I frequently kept awake till towards morning, when thoroughly overcome with watching and fatigue, I would fall into a profound and refreshing sleep.

At daybreak we always had a cup of delicious fragrant black coffee; and while the heavy dew spangled every leaf and blade of grass, I frequently went for a walk down the newly cut roads into the forest, when I would be sure to be overtaken by the early train going out with female slaves and batches of children of all shades of black, white, and copper colour, to breathe the cooler air of the forest glades. In anticipation of the probable extension of the city, an immense area of forest has been divided into blocks by spacious parallel avenues, to be intersected by streets at equidistant right angles. The open spaces are covered with short capim or grass; but however much one may delight to stroll about in the shade, he is sure to have his legs covered with an almost invisible mite called moquim, that causes an itch almost enough to drive one frantic, especially at night; and very likely a number of carrapatos into the bargain. It is dangerous to scratch where moquim have settled, for running sores difficult to heal usually follow. I have seen Europeans and North Americans from the States with legs in a frightful condition, in fact lamed through scratching the skin till sore. An immediate, agreeable, and effectual remedy against moquim, though they be ever so numerous, is to sponge the body with cashaça, the common white rum of the country. Carrapatos differ in size. These tiny pests are about as large as a pin's head; and the horse tick about three or four times larger still. Both settle upon the clothes, or crawl up the legs, laying hold of the flesh with serrated fangs, and adhering so tenaciously that it is impossible to remove them entire; and to leave a portion sticking to the skin is certain to produce an ugly sore. The best way to get rid of this loathsome acaride is to sponge it well with spirits of any kind, when it will soon drop off; a hint which may be useful to Europeans who are pestered with harvest-bugs.

The forest round Pará naturally strikes a European as superlatively grand. It is only, however, upon interior high lands that vegetation attains the height, dimensions, and luxuriance that captivate and bewilder the senses. It wholly differs from anything found in temperate climes; and the stranger never tires of new forms of life and beauty that momentarily meet his gaze, and indicate an exuberance and prodigality surpassing his grandest ideal home conceptions. Accustomed only to individual forms as seen in home conservatories, the mind becomes bewildered when countless specimens of equatorial growth are massed together. Instead of gnarled and knotted oaks whose venerable appearance denote centuries of battle against fierce autumn storms and icy northern blasts, there is a lithe youthfulness even about veritable giants; and though a tree may be dead and hollow within, luxuriance of verdant parasitical plants lends a charming illusion, and hides the fact from view. Light, heat, air, and moisture are essential for the proper development of the richer forms of parasitical life; hence on water frontage and in some of the quiet avenues where I loved to stroll, I observed exhibitions of lavish profusion which rather resembled the dreams of fairyland than the realities of actual life. In one spot, a compact mass of tiny foliage would drape a number of lofty trees to the ground; in another, eccentrically arranged festoons and garlands sprinkled with occasional scarlet and violet passion-flowers decorated some hundreds of feet without a single break; while further on, endless picturesque, artistic, and graceful combinations ravished the sight, and awoke reverential and exquisitely happy emotions.

On both sides of avenues near the trees the ground is closely covered with beautiful lycopodium moss. Its favourite place of growth is on shady clearings, though it seems to grow best where timber has been burned on the ground. A foreigner desirous of learning how to take forest bearings without a compass cannot do better than cut his way into one of the furthest blocks in the district beyond Nazaré. He knows he cannot be lost, from the fact of roads existing on every side; hence he may go to work deliberately, and be under no apprehension as to result. In these spots where undergrowth has not been touched will be found solitary specimens of the curuá, a pretty ground-palm that shoots a number of long fronds from the centre, in which stands a smooth slender spathe, employed in thatching. The broken stems of slim palms shew where young assaís have been cut down for the sake of bunches of cherry-looking fruit employed in the manufacture of a refresco. Assaí is drunk by everybody in Amazonia when they can get it, at all hours of the day and before and after meals. Five or six gallons of the fruit, each about the size of a marble, are usually piled in a large iron basin containing a requisite proportion of water; the mass is then worked over and over till the outer pulpy skin is worked off; the bare kernels are taken out, and at the bottom remains a rich violet-coloured liquid, that may be imbibed _ad lib._ It is best mixed with farinha seca and sugar, and eaten with a spoon. A liking for it is soon acquired, and it is not considered good taste to refuse a cuya or calabash of assaí when offered by a lady.

Every shrub, plant, and tree, and almost every blade and leaf of grass, is covered with insect life. Ants are the most common, and meet the eye everywhere. It is impossible to go far without coming across tumuli of hard mud four feet high; and huge coffee-coloured excrescences standing out upon the trunks of trees indicate where copim or white ants have taken up their abode. A few days after my arrival at Mr Henderson's, I noticed the front of our house was covered with what appeared to me to be streaks of mud; and feeling convinced they had not been there the day before, I proceeded to examine them, and found the lines were neatly constructed covered-ways. Myriads of white ants were travelling backwards and forwards; and no doubt a colony had made up its mind to devour as much of the wood-work as possible, and by way of change, shew students how to rapidly get through and digest good books. I saw two volumes of _Chambers's Information_ which had been drilled by these indefatigable workers as neatly as though the holes had been punched by an awl. The covered-way hides the workers from quick-sighted insectivorous birds, especially woodpeckers. Domestic fowls, lizards, toads, armadillos, and tamanduas destroy vast numbers. The largest and most numerous ants I have seen were in the Campos between the Xingú and Tapajóz. Near the hill-slopes a few miles from Santarem, it is simply impossible to preserve a house from attack, and very frequently a huge nest actually hangs from the ridge-pole. The ant, however, which attracts most attention is the saúba. It marches in columns, each member carrying a triangular or circular section of a leaf larger than itself. The only way to turn them from a garden is by sweeping the track with a flaming branch for a distance of forty or fifty yards; but as new excursions will probably be made during the night, one often finds that they have paid a visit and departed, leaving perhaps a favourite orange tree entirely denuded of foliage. A big ant called the tucandera is very common just outside Pará; indeed it is hardly possible to walk many yards in the forest without meeting it: the bite inflicts excruciating agony. I have never been stung by a scorpion or bitten by a centipede; but I have been nipped by a tucandera, and can quite believe that the pain inflicted is more severe than that of either of the two former.

What with the uproar of çicadas, chirping of grasshoppers, screaming of parrots, cawing of aráras or macaws (the cry of this splendidly plumaged bird closely resembles ára, arára, hence its name), plaintive notes of japím and toucans, and numerous other indescribable sounds, the attention of the new-comer is kept continually upon the _qui vive_ until eleven o'clock, when the intense oven-like heat warns him it is time to return. Emerging from the forest into one of the avenues the sun will be found nearly overhead; lizards of all sizes--that is to say from three inches to four feet in length--dart across the path and scuttle into the bush; and here and there a snake has to be guarded against, and if need be killed, with the short sapling which every pedestrian ought to carry. Upon reaching home I usually took a bath, had a substantial breakfast, and rested till the unfailing thunderstorm cooled the atmosphere.

A QUEER CLUE.

IN TWO CHAPTERS.--CHAPTER II.

I had left the police altogether, and was living very comfortably, my good lady and I, up at Islington, in the same street with my married daughter, who was doing very comfortably too, her husband having a good berth in the City. I had always been of a saving turn, and had bought two or three houses; so with a tidy pension, which I had earned by thirty years' service, I could afford to go about a bit and enjoy myself. Of course in all that time I had made the acquaintance of a good many professional people; and there were very few theatres or exhibitions that I couldn't get admission to. We--my wife and I, I mean--made it a rule to go everywhere that we could get tickets for; and whether it was the launch of a ship, the charity children at St Paul's, or Sam Cowell at the Canterbury Hall, it didn't matter to us; we went. And it was at the Canterbury I first had the Combestead murder more particularly recalled to my mind.

I was there by myself, the old lady not being willing to leave my married daughter--because, well, it was in consequence of her being a married daughter--so I went by myself. There was a young woman who sang a comic version of _There's a good Time coming_ splendidly; and as I was always of a chatty turn, I couldn't help remarking to the person that was sitting next to me how first-class she did it, when he exclaimed: 'Hollo! why, never! Superintendent Robinson?' And then he held out his hand.

It was young Lytherly, but so stout, and brown, and whiskery--if I may say so--that I didn't know him.

'Mr Lytherly!' I exclaimed, 'I didn't expect to see _you_; and you're right as to my being Robinson, although police officer no longer. Why, I thought you were in the army.'

'So I was,' he returned; 'but I'm out of it now; and I'll tell you how it was.'

It seems he had been to India, and got some promotion after three years' service; and had the good fortune to save his colonel from drowning, or what was more likely in those parts, being taken down by a crocodile, under circumstances of extraordinary bravery. He did not tell me this last bit, but I heard so afterwards. Lytherly was always a wonderful swimmer, and I remembered his taking a prize at London. The exertion or the wetting brought on a fever, and he was recommended for his discharge. The colonel behaved most liberally. But what was the best of all, the old fellow who kept the canteen at the station died about this time, and Lytherly had been courting his daughter for a good bit, more to the girl's satisfaction than that of her father; so then they got married, and came home to England, and he was tolerably well off. He naturally talked about the Combestead murder, and said frankly enough, that--except the people with whom he lodged, and _they_ were suspected, he said, of perjury--he thought I was the only person in the town who did not believe him guilty of the murder.

'But murder will out, Mr Robinson,' he said; 'and you will see this will be found out some day.'

'Well, I am sure I hope it will, Mr Lytherly,' I answered him. 'But as for "murder will out" and all that, I don't think you will find any policeman or magistrate who will agree with you there; and there was less to help us when you had got out of the scrape in this Combestead business, than any affair I was ever concerned in.'

'I don't care,' he says; 'it will come out, Mr Robinson. I dream of it almost every night; and my wife consulted some of the best fortune-tellers in India, and they all told her it would be discovered.'

'Hum!' I said; 'we don't think much of fortune-tellers here, you know.'