Chapter II: Part 2

No man, except he be a white settler’s servant, ever carries a burden. When an ‘induna’ or chief is ‘on the track,’ he rides a sorry nag, resting only the point of his great toe in the stirrup, like the Abyssinians. He is followed by his ‘tail’ or great men, who carry bundles of sticks and keep up with the ambling steed. Then come the wives, bearing heavy loads on their heads; but walking with firm erect carriage, their shapely arms and legs bare, their bodies, from shoulder to knee, clothed in some coarse stuff, which they drape in exquisite folds. Lady Barker describes the Kaffir women as looking neither oppressed nor discontented, but healthy, happy, jolly, lazy, and slow to appreciate any benefit from civilisation, except the money, concerning which they, in common with most savages, display a keenness of comprehension hardly to be improved upon.

A dozen miles from Maritzburg, on the road which forms the first stage of the great overland journey to the Diamond Fields, is the little town of Hawick, on the river Umgeni, which widens down just beneath it to an exquisitely beautiful fall. Over the brink goes the wide, smooth, waveless sheet of water, in an absolutely straight descent of three hundred and twenty feet. From the highest point of the road above the river, the Drakensberg Mountains, snow-covered, except in the hottest summer, are visible, and though majestic, they are disappointing. They are a splendid range of level lines, far up beyond the floating clouds. ‘I miss,’ says the author, ‘the serrated peaks of the Southern Alps and the grand confusion of the Himalayan range. This is evidently the peculiarity of the mountain formation of South Africa; I noticed it first in Table Mountain at Cape Town; it is repeated in every little hill between Durban and Maritzburg, and carried out on a gigantic scale in this splendid range.’

Lady Barker made an interesting excursion of over one hundred miles into the Bush, where she saw real savage Kaffir life, splendid forest scenes, and came on traces of the wild animals, which are being rapidly exterminated. With one forest picture we regretfully take leave of this interesting volume: ‘The tall stately trees around, with their smooth magnificent boles, shoot up straight as a willow wand for sixty feet and more before putting forth their crown of leafy branches; the more diminutive undergrowth of gracefulest shrubs and plumy tufts of fern and lovely wild-flowers, violets, clematis, wood anemones, and hepaticas, shewing here and there a modest gleam of colour. But indeed the very mosses and lichens at our feet are a week’s study, and so are the details of the delicate green tracery creeping close to the ground. Up above our heads the foliage is interlaced and woven together by a perfect network of “monkey-ropes,” a stout and sturdy species of liane, which are used by the troops of baboons which live in those great woods, coming down in armies when the mealies are ripe, and carrying off the cobs by armfuls.’ It is spring-tide (September) when Lady Barker lays down her pen; soon, we hope, to resume it, and tell us of the growth of the colony. ‘Everything is bursting hurriedly and luxuriantly into bloom. The young oaks are a mass of tender green, and even the unpoetical blue gums try hard to assume a fresh spring tint. The fruit-trees look like large bouquets of pink blossom, and the loquot trees afford good sport in climbing and stone-throwing amid their cluster of yellow plums. On the _veldt_ the lilies are pushing up their green sheaths and white or scarlet cups through the yet hard ground, and the black hill-slopes are turning a vivid green, and the flowers are springing up in millions all over my field like flower-beds. Spring is always lovely everywhere, but nowhere is it lovelier than in fair Natal.’

A PERILOUS POSITION.

IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER I.

‘Now, look here, Fred; you’ve exactly an hour and a half to get back in,’ said Mr Middleton after luncheon. ‘I shall be at the mill by three precisely. Are you sure you can manage it?’

‘Oh, quite certain of it, sir,’ was my confident reply. ‘Why, I could go to M—— and back within the hour, easy riding. I’ll not keep you waiting, depend upon it.’ So saying, I vaulted the low sill of a window which stood wide open, and approached a couple who were strolling upon the lawn in front of Holm Court, the aristocratic-looking dwelling I had quitted.

Of this couple, one was a young lady, very fair and, in my eyes at least, very beautiful. She was the elder child and only daughter of the Mr Middleton already mentioned; a mill-owner who had realised a gigantic fortune by manufacturing; and in three days she was to be my wife. I for my part was a young man of good family, possessed of an independent fortune, in my twenty-second year, and ardently attached to my intended bride. That this attachment was mutual, I was, moreover, well assured; and on that delicious summer afternoon life opened before me full of brilliant promise. So happy indeed did I feel, that it was with difficulty I could restrain my jubilation within bounds, and compel myself to walk along the ground at a reasonable and gentlemanly pace, instead of running or leaping as, in my ecstasy, inclination prompted.

As I neared her my darling stepped forward to meet me; and after a few words upon another subject, she administered an anxious caution apropos of an adventure in which I was about to join, and to which I shall advert immediately. I assured her in return that there was no danger connected with it; and with an affectionate temporary adieu, we parted. Looking back as I prepared to mount my horse, which, held by a groom, stood ready saddled before the hall door, I saw my sweet girl rejoined by the companion, who, upon my approach, had sauntered away from her to some short distance. This companion was a Mr Marmaduke Hesketh, a fine-looking handsome man, about thirty-five, second-cousin to Mr Middleton, and lately returned from America. That this gentleman entertained towards my humble self feelings of a no very friendly character, I was well aware, although he had never addressed to me a single discourteous word; and the cause of his antipathy I had divined. He too was in love with Clara Middleton; I was sure of it, although he had never told her so; and although Clara herself, when I mentioned my impression to her, laughed at me for it, and called me a ‘fanciful goose.’ Her rallying, however, did not shake my conviction of the truth, and I felt very sorry for the poor man. As his successful rival, I could afford to pity him; and I had too much confidence in Clara’s affection to feel an atom of jealousy, even when, as now, I left him alone in her company.

My foot in the stirrup, I was preparing for a spring to the saddle, when my name, called eagerly from behind, arrested the action; and turning, I saw Clara’s brother—a nice-looking lad of twelve or so—running breathlessly down the broad steps of the entrance-hall.

‘I say, Mr Carleton,’ he panted on reaching my side, ‘mamma wants you, please, to get her a bottle of chloroform from Pennick’s the druggist when you’re passing. And I say; mind you don’t forget my string, will you? It’s to be as strong as ever you can get it, you know, for it’s such a big kite; and two balls, mind—big ones. You’ll be sure and remember?’

‘Oh, I’ll remember, Charlie, safe enough,’ I returned, smiling. ‘String and chloroform—two important commissions. I’ll not forget. Bye-bye, my boy.’ And giving my horse his head, I trotted down the avenue, passed the lodge gates, and turned in the direction of the busy manufacturing town of M——.

My errand there was to see the clergyman who was to officiate at the marriage, and to arrange with him some slight alteration in the hour previously appointed for the ceremony. On my return from this visit I was, according to agreement, to meet Mr Middleton and Mr Hesketh on the site of a large cotton-mill in process of erection by the former. Of this mill one portion was already completed, namely, an enormous chimney—the broadest and tallest by far of any in the county. Mr Middleton, exceedingly proud of his chimney, and considering it a masterpiece of enterprise, had determined beforehand to ascend to its summit as soon as it should be finished; and in this expedition he had invited Mr Hesketh and myself to accompany him. The scaffolding used in building it having been removed, the ascent was to be made by means of a bucket or car (similar to those employed in the descent of coal-pits), affixed to two strong chains, passing over pulleys which ran on pins built into the chimney at the top; and the car was to be worked by a windlass.

It wanted exactly five minutes to three when I arrived at the rendezvous—my business at M—— transacted, and the chloroform and string I had been commissioned to purchase in my pocket. Giving my horse into the charge of one of Mr Middleton’s employés, of whom there were several about, I walked towards the subterranean entrance to the chimney, near which I perceived Mr Marmaduke Hesketh standing. He looked rather pale, I thought, as courteously advancing on my approach, he imparted to me the information that Mr Middleton had just received a telegram summoning him to the bedside of his brother, Captain Middleton. That gentleman, it appeared, had been taken suddenly and dangerously ill; and full of anxiety, Mr and Mrs Middleton had already started off for F—— Junction, in order to catch the first train thence to the town, some twenty miles distant, where the captain was stationed with his regiment. Mr Middleton had, however, my informant proceeded, expressed, before leaving, a desire that we would not allow his absence to interfere with our project of ascending the chimney; and he, Mr Hesketh, concluded by hoping that I would not object to accompany him alone, as he very much wished to see the view from the top, and would not, as I knew—for he was leaving Holm Court the next day—have another opportunity of doing so.

Young and fond of adventure, I had rather enjoyed the prospect of this enterprise, and though disappointed not to carry it out in my intended father-in-law’s company, I saw no reason for declining Mr Hesketh’s proposal to go with him alone. Accordingly, signifying my assent to it, we proceeded to enter the chimney together. Some half-dozen men were waiting within, in readiness to turn the crank of the windlass; and a moment later, swaying and vibrating in mid-air, we were slowly ascending through the gradually narrowing aperture of the great chimney. On gaining the top I was the first to step from the bucket; but Mr Hesketh was speedily by my side. The stone coping being fully two feet in width and having a narrow parapet a foot in height, presented a perfectly safe footing. I had a strong head, and had not expected to feel dizzy; yet, as I now gazed from that tremendous height, a singular feeling of insecurity seized upon me.

‘Will you not walk round?’ said my companion when we had stood together for a few seconds on the spot where we had alighted.

‘Oh, certainly,’ I replied with an assumption of boldness, but an inward shrinking from the ordeal; and with Mr Hesketh at my heels, I commenced the circuit.

About half the short distance was accomplished, when a hand laid on my arm arrested my steps. ‘We’ve a fine view from here—haven’t we?’ observed Mr Hesketh as I stopped, a sensation of dread thrilling through my nerves at his touch. ‘You see Holm Court there, down to the right, don’t you?’

‘Of course, quite plainly,’ I returned, clearing my throat to cover the strange nervous uneasiness I was experiencing.

‘So glad I persuaded you to come and see the view,’ he remarked next in a very peculiar tone, and at the same time tightening his grasp upon my arm. ‘But it’s an awful height, isn’t it; I hope you don’t feel giddy?’

‘Not at all,’ I replied, endeavouring to keep my composure as I gazed downwards at the long perpendicular wall of smooth brick, but feeling that I was trembling perceptibly.

‘And yet there is but a step between us and death,’ he pursued with a sneer. ‘Hollo! I’m quoting Scripture, I declare. You wouldn’t have expected that of me; would you?’

‘Oh, anybody can quote Scripture, you know,’ I responded with a ghastly attempt at airiness. ‘But I say, Hesketh, let go my arm, will you? You’re hurting me.’

‘Hurting you, am I? Ha, ha! I beg your pardon, I’m sure,’ he laughed, increasing instead of diminishing the vice-like pressure of his fingers. ‘I wouldn’t hurt you for the world; O no! But now, if you’ve quite finished with the scenery, Mr Frederick Carleton, I’ll trouble you to give me your attention for a moment. I’m going to ask you a question, which you may perhaps consider somewhat curiously timed. I am not a vain man, that I know of; but I should like to have your opinion respecting my personal appearance. Should you feel justified now, for instance, in describing me as a well-built, powerful kind of man?’

Considering that he was upwards of six feet in height, broad and stout in proportion, with well-developed sinewy limbs, the description would have been accurate; and I said so.

‘If you feel any doubt of it,’ he resumed, still in the same peculiar tone, ‘oblige me by examining that muscle.’ And he stretched out for my inspection an arm that could have felled an ox—firm and strong as a bar of iron.

‘I am quite satisfied of your muscular strength and powerful physical development, Mr Hesketh,’ I said, with an effort to appear unconcerned and amused, which I was conscious was a dead failure. ‘And now, with your permission, I think we had better descend.’

‘Not just this moment, my precious little bantam cock,’ was the startling rejoinder. ‘Sorry to detain you, believe me, but I must trouble you with another question. Supposing, now, that you and I, dear friend, were to have a tussle at the top of this chimney, and that each of us was trying to throw the other over, which, should you think, would have the better chance of accomplishing his purpose?’

Summoning to my aid all the manliness of which I was possessed, I courageously declined to answer this question—asserting that the case was not a supposable one, seeing that I entertained towards him no feelings of enmity, and that I felt sure he had no desire to injure me.

‘Look in my face and see if I haven’t!’ he rejoined in loud fierce accents, very different from those he had hitherto employed. ‘Look in my face, Mr Frederick Carleton, and see if I haven’t!’

I did look, and my heart died within me—for on the face of the man who still retained my arm in his iron grip on the top of that terrible chimney, I saw an expression of fiendish hate and malignance, of the like of which I could not have believed a human countenance capable.

As my eyes fell before the awful glare of his, he laughed. ‘You have read your answer, I see,’ he said. ‘And now, listen. Seat yourself upon the parapet exactly where you now stand; observe as closely as you please what I am about to do; but stir one step to hinder it, and as I live, I will hurl you below!’

The threat, I knew, was no vain one; the man who uttered it overtopped me by the head and shoulders, and possessed double my strength. Resistance, therefore, would have been entirely useless; and trembling in every limb, I obeyed the command, and seated myself. And this was what I then beheld. Approaching the mass of machinery against which rested the wooden box or car wherein we had ascended, Mr Hesketh leaned over the edge of the chimney, and deliberately lifted this up from one of the two strong iron hooks upon which it hung suspended. Then slipping the loosened chain over the pulley, he sent it clattering towards the ground below. A horrified shout from the men who stood by the windlass greeted this act, coming up hoarse and discordant from the distance; and bending forwards I answered that shout with an imploring cry for aid—a wild vain cry! The men, of course, could not help me; and with sickening despair I watched them retreating to the subterranean passage, to save themselves from danger—as mounted now upon the projecting machinery, Mr Hesketh loosened the remaining hook of the car and precipitated it into the abyss beneath.

MISPRINTS.

Misprints, errors of the press, printers’ blunders, typographical mistakes—call them what we may—are so numerous that every reader meets with them occasionally. Budgets of ludicrous examples are now and then given in the popular journals; and these budgets might be greatly extended. Our _Journal_ gave its quota more than thirty years ago; and the matter was again touched upon in the volume for 1872.

Many errors consist in the omission of a single letter in a single word, altering the sense most materially. Thus, an omission of the letter _t_, in a work by Dr Watts, made immortal into _immoral_; and other grotesque instances of this kind of error could be given. The heedless substitution of one letter for another, without exceeding or falling short of the proper number of letters in the word, is a very frequent form of blunder. ‘Bring him to look’ is a poor version of ‘bring him to _book_.’ A candidate at an election certainly did not mean, as a newspaper implied, that he fully expected to come in ‘at the top of the _pole_.’ A compositor, perhaps a learner, being unable to make out a Greek word of three letters, set them down as the three numerals to which they bore some resemblance in shape, namely 185. At a public demonstration the mob rent the air with their _snouts_. Dr Livingstone’s cap, as worn when Mr Stanley met him in the heart of Africa, was said in one of the papers to have been ‘_famished_ with a gold-lace band.’ In old English printing, the syllable _con_ was often contracted to something like the shape of the figure 9; and this numeral is to be found in many books, even standard works, where it has no right whatever; in one edition of the _Monasticon Anglicanum_ for instance, the word conquest is represented as _9quest_. There are both a wrong letter used and a letter omitted in the startling statement, that a right reverend prelate was highly pleased with some ecclesiastical _iniquities_ shewn to him.

A useful question has been asked, and to some extent discussed, whether several of the above-cited misprints of single letters, or others similar to them, may not be due to the arrangement of the compositor’s working apparatus? Mr Keightley suggested, a few years ago, that possibly some of the varied readings of passages in Shakspeare might be due to the compositor dipping his fingers into the wrong cell, and others to the fact that wrong types have got into the right cell. Most persons who have visited any of the printing establishments are aware that the compositor’s types are placed in flat cases provided with a number of small cells or receptacles, each for one particular letter of one particular class of type. There are two cases, one called the _upper_ and the other the _lower_; the former being for the capitals, the latter for the small letters. Both cases are placed before the compositor, inclining upwards from front to back, the upper more inclined than the lower. The cells are not ranged in regular alphabetical order, but in such manner that those containing the letters most wanted shall be grouped together near the compositor’s hand, leaving such letters as _j_, _k_, _q_, _x_, _z_, &c. to occupy cells near the margin of the case. May not some types fall out of an overfilled cell into the one just below it; or may not the filling of a pair of cases with new type be so carelessly managed that a few fall over into the wrong cells; or may the compositor, in distributing the type after printing, now and then drop a type into a wrong cell?

A practical printer will answer such a question in the affirmative. The letters _b_ and _l_, for instance, being in contiguous cells, one may fall or slip down into the cell belonging to the other, which might be the cause of ‘bring him to _book_’ being changed into ‘bring him to _look_.’ The old form of type for the double letter _st_ is believed to have led to many misprints—such as nostrils being expressed _stostrils_, in a Bible printed in the early part of the present century. Whether the types were arranged in the cases a hundred or two hundred years ago in the same order and manner as at present, might be worth a little investigation—in so far as any change of arrangement may have rendered either more or less frequent such misprints as would arise from the falling over of some of the types into wrong cells. There are now something like a hundred and fifty cells in a pair of cases for ordinary book and newspaper printing; even if there were the same number in former times, it does not necessarily follow that the arrangement of the rank and file would be the same.

Benjamin Franklin, when a young man, refused to give ‘garnish’ or ‘pay his footing,’ on being placed in a room of compositors; because he had already responded to a demand for similar blackmail in another department of the printing-office. They took a peculiar method of punishing him, by disarranging some of the types in his cells when he was out of the room. Very likely this technical tribulation may have led him inadvertently to the committal of numerous misprints. Several years ago Mr H. Martin, of Halifax, adverted to a typographical error in a former communication of his to one of the journals, and added: ‘Upwards of thirty years’ experience in connection with the press has taught me to be very lenient towards misprints. The difficulty of detecting typographical errors is much greater than the uninitiated are inclined to believe. I have often observed that, even if the spelling be correct, a wrong word is very apt to remain undetected.’ He notices an instance in an edition of Shakspeare’s _Merchant of Venice_, where Portia’s lines—

Young Alcides when he did redeem
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy—

were converted into nonsense by the simple change of Troy into _Tory_. ‘In a short biographical notice of Pope which I compiled for an edition of his poems, I briefly enumerated his prose works, among which I named his _Memoirs of a Parish Priest_; when the proof came before me, I found that the compositor had set it Memoirs of a _Paint Brush_.’ It is possible that this blunder may have arisen from a cause to which we shall presently advert, obscure writing in the author’s manuscript; but Mr Martin also took notice of the matter mentioned above, namely the partial disarrangement of some of the types in the cells, as a cause of typographical bewilderment.

This misplacing of types in cells would fail, however, to account for a multitude of blunders. The author, the compositor, and the ‘corrector of the press’ must be responsible on other grounds for ‘A silver medal given to a florist for _stealing_ geraniums;’ and for putting a wrong date on the tops of some of the pages of a newspaper—such as the _Daily News_ in one of its issues, which put ‘Monday July 18th’ on the top of one page, and ‘Tuesday July 18th’ on the top of all the others; and in a quite recent instance in the _Illustrated London News_, where on the top of one page Saturday was assigned to a date that certainly did not belong to it. At the Duke of Wellington’s funeral in 1852, Sir Peregrine Maitland was one of the pall-bearers. A statement appeared in some of the journals to the effect that when Sir Archibald Alison published the last volume of his _History of Europe_, the name of Sir Peregrine Maitland appeared as Sir Peregrine _Pickle_; and it was remarked that such a misprint could not have been otherwise than intentional, a poor attempt at a joke on the part of the compositor, or the ‘corrector.’ In the only copy which we have consulted, this absurdity does _not_ appear—a negative testimony so far as it goes in favour of the compositor.

The wrong placing of words in lines, and lines in columns or pages, is an instance of careless ‘making-up,’ for which the compositor in the first place is clearly responsible, but which as certainly ought to be detected in the proof by the corrector. Nevertheless, the examples of this are manifold. Sometimes a whole line is transferred higher up or lower down the page than the proper place; and at others one single word makes an excursion to a line where no reader would look for it. We notice, for instance, in one of the magazines for September 1877 the word _see_ is used where it has no meaning; twelve lines lower down occurs the word _They_ where it has no meaning; but on transposing the two words, nonsense becomes converted into sense. A practical printer could tell us how such an error might arise in the technical management of his ‘composing-stick’ and ‘form;’ but to outsiders it is well-nigh incomprehensible.

It was a little too bad in the printers of a Cambridge Bible, published some years back, that such a line should appear as ‘I will never _forgive_ thy precepts.’ Here there was no writer nor transcriber concerned; the compositor made the blunder, and the press-reader passed it without detection; because as new editions of the Bible, unless newly annotated, are copied from the print of a previous edition, no manuscript is needed. A somewhat trifling error, though puzzling in its result, occurs in spacing the words: the last letter or syllable of one word is inadvertently placed at the beginning of the next, or else the first is placed at the end of the preceding word. When a lady is said, in a recent novel, to ‘rush down-stairs _without stretched_ arms,’ we know what is meant; but the corrector ought not to have passed such a slip unnoticed. On one occasion—perhaps one among many—a foot-note is incorporated in the body of the page, throwing the whole sense of a paragraph into utter confusion. A printer will know how this may occur, in arranging his lines into pages; but what is the corrector about?

The most trying part perhaps of a compositor’s duty is to decipher the writing of some authors whose manuscripts have to be set up in type. No one can conceive, merely judging from the interchange of ordinary letters between relations and acquaintances, the large amount of badly written manuscript which reaches the printing-offices. And it is known that some of our most eminent authors, whose veritable words are regarded as more important than those of other men, are great sinners in this respect; they torment the compositor with specimens of the art of penmanship almost hopelessly unintelligible. Our readers will find this part of the subject—that is the misprints that are due wholly to the bad writing of the author or amanuensis, and not to carelessness shewn by the compositor or the corrector—fully illustrated by examples in the article ‘Wretched Writers’ in this _Journal_ for March 14, 1874. The late Horace Greeley, the distinguished American, is pictured in that article as about the worst penman that ever disturbed the peace of a compositor.

A word or two about correctors and correcting. When the compositor has set up and arranged matter enough for say a sheet, a ‘proof’ is pulled at the hand-press, and the ‘first reader’ is employed to examine it closely for the detection of any technical errors; then, with the aid of a ‘reading-boy,’ he compares the paragraphs, one after another, with the author’s manuscript, corrects as he goes on by means of marginal marks on the proof, and queries any doubtful word or passage to which he wishes to draw the author’s attention. The compositor makes all the corrections suggested by this ‘first reader,’ and for common cheap kinds of printing this is enough; but for better work, a ‘second reader’ is employed to correct not merely the compositor but to advise even the author in regard to badly chosen words or badly arranged sentences—an intellectual revision, in fact, often performed by men who sometimes themselves afterwards rise to distinction as authors. The perplexities that beset the printer’s reader were pretty fully set forth thirteen years ago in the _Journal_; and we need say nothing more on that subject. What with the reading-boy, the first reader, and the second reader, we see that there are many possible responsibilities for misprints besides those due to the author, the copyist or amanuensis, and the compositor. An impartial distribution of blame is hence desirable so far as it can be done.

NATURE’S TEACHINGS.

In a curious and instructive book which we have just read, entitled _Nature’s Teachings_, by Mr Wood, we are shewn that scientific inventions, no matter how original and ingenious they may _appear_ to be, have each and all been anticipated in the world of nature.

Countless inventions have been made by man without his having any knowledge of the fact that the machine which in its first idea sprang from a single brain, and was afterwards, during the progress of time, slowly improved and perfected perhaps by many successive generations of inventors, had been in use in nature in a more perfect form than art could accomplish, for ages before man existed on the earth. There is scarcely a principle or part in architecture that has not its natural parallel—walls, floors, towers, doors and hinges, porches, eaves, and windows; thatch, slates, and tiles, girders, ties, and buttresses, bridges, dams, the pyramid, and even mortar, paint, and varnish, are all there. The Eskimo snow-house is an exact copy of the dwelling the seal builds for her tender young; the wasp’s nest is composed of several stories supported on numerous pillars. The well-known instance of the building of the Crystal Palace on a ‘new principle,’ by Sir Joseph Paxton, is mentioned by the author, and is one of the many cases where man has confessedly copied nature in art; for that beautiful structure of iron and glass is simply an adaptation of the framework of the enormous leaves of the Victoria regia plant, which, owing to its formation, combines great strength with great apparent fragility. The present Eddystone lighthouse, which has so long withstood the force of the waves, was constructed in 1760 by Smeaton on an entirely new idea, the model being taken from a tree trunk, and the stones of which it was built being strengthened by being dovetailed into one another, as is the case with the sutures of the skull.

The study of the eye of man, as well as of birds, quadrupeds, and insects, has shewn how the most beautiful and gradually improved inventions, such as the telescope, microscope, pseudoscope, stereoscope, multiplying glass, &c., had already been perfected in nature for ages. By the combination of a few prisms and a magnifying glass, is produced that most wonderful of all optical instruments, the spectroscope, which equally reveals to us the constituents of the most distant stars or the colouring matter of the tiniest leaf; and yet the prismatic colours developed by this marvellous instrument have existed equally within the glorious arch of the rainbow and in the tiniest dew-drop as it glitters in the rising sun, ever since the sun first shone and the first rain fell.

In the arts of peace, we must look to the animal world for the most perfect specimens of tools for digging, cutting, or boring. No spade is equal to the foot of the mole; and our hammers and pincers look clumsy indeed beside the woodpecker’s beak or the lobster’s claw. Moreover, the dwellings in the construction of which such tools are employed, are models of beauty and ingenuity. Symmetrically shaped pottery made of moulded mud or clay is found in Nature in the form of birds’ and insects’ nests; in the jaws of the skate is found the crushing-mill, and in the tooth of the elephant the grindstone. In the ichneumon fly and the grasshopper was perfected from the first the modern agricultural improvement on the hand-dibble, the seed-drill. It is only of late years that the use of the teasel has been superseded by machinery; and brushes and combs, buttons, hooks, eyes, stoppers, filters, &c. are all found in Nature. The principle of the diving-bell and air-tube exists in varieties of insects; birds make beds and hammocks and even sew, and the bower-bird emulates us in the construction of ornamental bowers and gardens. Graceful fans exist in plants and insects, cisterns in the traveller’s tree and the camel’s stomach, and natural examples of the balloon and parachute.

In other varieties of art, Nature has stolen a march on man; certain insects make paper of different textures; the art known as ‘nature-printing’ was anticipated in the coal measures. Star-stippling, as now used in engraving to produce extra softness of effect, exists in utmost perfection in every flower petal. The caddis-worm, common in all our fresh waters, constructs for itself a circular window-grating which admits the water and yet protects the pupa from injury, an apparatus exactly like the wheel-windows of a Gothic building. There is a bird in South Africa, the Sociable Weaver-bird, which may be looked upon as a dweller in cities, each pair, up to the number of perhaps three hundred, building its own nest; while the whole community unite to form a common roof or covering of thatch made from a coarse kind of grass, to protect their habitations from the heavy tropical rains. The Driver-ants, also found in Africa, are so sensitive to the fierce heat of the sun, that when on their marches they are obliged to cross open ground, ‘they construct as they go on, a slight gallery which looks very much like the lining of a tunnel stripped of the surrounding earth;’ and if they come to thick grass which makes a shelter for them, they take advantage of it, and only resume the tunnel when they emerge on the other side. Not less wonderful than any of these are the Trap-door spiders, of which mention has been before made in this _Journal_. In making their nests, they begin by sinking a shaft in the ground; it is then lined with a silken web, and closed by a circular door, which can scarcely be distinguished from the moss and lichens which grow around. The hinges are most exactly fitted, and the spider has an extraordinary power of closing his door from the inside, and resisting all intrusion.

It is curious that as we _advance_ in the scale of creation these wonderful dwellings cease. Strange to say, the creature which roams at will through the forest, and has no settled resting-place, is higher in the scale of life—according to the recognised scheme of naturalists—than the animal that is mechanically capable of constructing the most perfect abode!

Mr Wood reminds us that though the march of Science has destroyed much of our belief in the sweet old tales of fairyland, yet she has given us ample compensation, inasmuch as the ‘fairy tales of science’ are in reality more full of grace and poetry than any of the myths that delighted our childhood. And many of the forms which meet us, if we apply ourselves to the study of natural history, are more full of quaint or graceful fancy than the wildest tales that have ever stirred the imagination of an Eastern story-teller. What can be more beautiful than the little Velella, a sea-creature like a circular raft, with an upright membrane answering to a sail; ‘semi-transparent, and radiant in many rainbow-tinted colours.’ What more grotesque than the Archer-fish, ‘which possesses the curious power of feeding itself by shooting drops of water at flies, and very seldom fails to secure its prey;’ or the Angler-fish, which is endowed by Nature with a rod and bait ready adjusted. This remarkable creature has an enormous mouth; on the top of its head are certain prolonged cane-like filaments, beautifully set in a ring and staple joint, so as to turn every way; and at the end of these singular appendages is a little piece of flesh, which when waved about, looks like a living worm, and attracts the fish, which is then ingulfed in the huge jaws of this natural angler.

Many interesting forms come to us from the water-world, suggestive of rafts, boats, oars, and anchors. An insect called the Water-boatman is itself both boat and oars, besides being its own passenger; the legs with which it rows are fashioned in most exact resemblance to the blade of an oar; or we should rather say that the blade of an oar resembles the leg of this Water-boatman. That fragile creature the Portuguese Man-of-war, which traverses the surface of the ocean like a bubble, and can at pleasure distend itself with air and float, or discharge the air and sink, shews us the principle of the life-dress in which Captain Boyton made his daring passage across the Channel. Cables too we have in plenty: the Pinna, a kind of mussel, anchors itself to some rock or stone with a number of silk-like threads spun by itself; and the Water-snail moors itself, perhaps to a water-lily leaf, by means of a gelatinous thread, slight, almost invisible, yet very strong, which it can elongate at pleasure.

In connection with this there is a very curious account of a spider, which shews a marvellous power of adaptation. Its wheel-like net was in danger from a high wind. ‘The spider descended to the ground, a depth of about seven feet, and instead of attaching its thread to a stone or plant, fastened it to a piece of loose stick, hauled it up a few feet clear of the ground, and then went back to its web. The piece of stick thus left suspended, acted in a most admirable manner, giving strength and support, and at the same time yielding partly to the wind. By accident the thread became broken, and the stick, which was about as thick as an ordinary pencil, and not quite three inches in length, fell to the ground. The spider immediately descended, attached another thread, and hauled it up as before. In a day or two, when the tempestuous weather had ceased, the spider voluntarily cut the thread and allowed the then useless stick to drop.’ The plan here adopted by the spider is frequently followed by fishermen who during stormy weather at sea, ride out the gale by attaching the boat to their yielding nets.

It is natural to expect that in the arts of war and self-defence Nature should shew us an infinite variety; and man has not been slow in using his powers to adapt the same principles to his own use. If man has armed himself with spears or daggers, if he has dug pitfalls or set traps in hunting, his most deadly contrivances are but feeble adaptations of the weapons, offensive and defensive, with which Nature has endowed her offspring. We are prepared to find the serpent’s fang a terrible instrument; and we are not surprised that the piercing apparatus and sheaths of gnats and fleas, or the lancets of mosquitoes when magnified, are dangerous and blood-thirsty; but it is curious to find how many of these deadly weapons belong to the vegetable world. The sword-grass has a notched blade which, when magnified, is almost exactly the same as the shark-tooth sword of Mangaia. There are nettles whose sting is sufficiently venomous to cause violent pain, inflammation, cramp, and even death; and it is well known that some of the most graceful of plants, such as Venus’s Fly-trap, which is common in the Carolinas, and the Drosera or Sundew, one of our British plants, are in fact nothing but skilful traps to catch and digest unwary insects.

Some of the most curious of natural defences are those which simulate some form quite different from the true character of the creature. We are tempted to think of the Mighty Book of Michael Scott, in which was

Much of glamour might,
Could make a ladye seem a knight,
The cobwebs on a dungeon wall
Seem tapestry in lordly hall.

And Nature, in her turn exercising her powerful glamour, can make a caterpillar seem a twig, or a moth look exactly like a withered leaf. The Spider-crab might be taken for a moving mass of zoophytes and corallines, so thickly is its shell covered with extraneous growths. The Leaf-insects are so exactly like leaves that the most experienced eye can scarcely distinguish them from the leaves among which they are placed. We must all have noticed other instances in which the colours of insects, and also the plumage of birds, harmonise in a wonderful way with the scenes in the midst of which they are placed. Indeed there seems no end to the resemblance which may be traced between the works of Nature and those of man. Many of the most obvious of these strike us with fresh surprise when we find the comparison carefully drawn out. What a freak of Nature, for instance, are the aphides, the milk-cows of a species of ant; or the tailor-bird, ‘which sews leaves together by their edges, and makes its nest inside them!’ It is sufficiently strange too, to remember that the elaborate process of paper-making was carried on by the wasps, ages before it was known to the Chinese.

One of the most powerful of all natural forces is that of electricity; and it is at present so little understood, and so full of mystery, that we may perhaps suppose that many of the most important discoveries of the future must lie in that direction. But Nature has known how to turn this as well as her other powers to her own use. She has her living galvanic batteries, such as the torpedo and the electric eel, both of which secure their prey by paralysing it with their electric discharges. And the light of the glow-worm and that of the fire-fly, though hitherto it has been a puzzle to naturalists, may, there is little doubt, be referred to animal electricity.

After a careful perusal of the book, we are convinced that the more closely the connection between Nature and human inventions is observed, the more perfect and the more numerous will further discoveries be. Endowed with high moral capabilities of truth and justice, and benevolence; gifted with reasoning faculties, which enable him to observe, to argue, to draw conclusions, it is for man himself to work according to the same laws which, unconsciously to themselves, govern the organisations of the lower animal, and the vegetable world.

WASTE SUBSTANCES.

CIGAR-ENDS.

Probably few people in this country are aware that that usually wasted substance a cigar-end is utilised in Germany to a large extent, and with even beneficent results.

We can imagine many of our readers wondering what can be the object of collecting these small ends; and we will therefore briefly explain that they are sold for the purpose of being made into snuff, and that the proceeds of such sales are devoted to charitable purposes. There is in Berlin a society called the ‘Verein der Sammler von Cigarren Abschnitten,’ or the Society of Collectors of Cigar-cuttings, which has been in existence some ten years, and has done much good. Every Christmas the proceeds of the cigar-ends collected by this Society and its friends are applied to the purchase of clothes for some poor orphan children. In 1876 about thirty children were clothed by this Society, each child being provided with a shirt, a pair of good leather boots, a pair of woollen stockings, a warm dress, and a pocket-handkerchief. In addition to this, a large well-decorated Christmas-tree is given for their entertainment, and each child is sent home with a good supply of fruit and sweetmeats. Altogether more than two hundred poor orphan children have been clothed by this Society simply by the proceeds of such small things as cigar-ends.

The success of the Society at Berlin has induced further enterprise in the same direction, and it is now proposed to erect a building to be called the ‘Deutsches Reichs-Waisenhaus’ (Imperial German Orphan Home), where orphans who are left unprovided for may be properly cared for, clothed, and instructed. The site proposed for this institution is at Lahr in Baden, where there are a number of snuff manufactories, and it is therefore well adapted to the scheme, which we can only hope may be successfully carried out. Although the directors of this Home propose to have a plan prepared for a large building, only a small part of it will at first be erected, to which each year or two more rooms may be added, in accordance with the original plan, in proportion to the success which is found to attend the undertaking. It will be readily understood that a good many difficulties beset this scheme, for it requires the most perfect co-operation of the smoking community and some assistance also from the non-smokers; but much can be done by friends who will undertake the duty of collecting, and some of the most energetic of these are not unfrequently of the fair sex.

The system of collection, which is extended over a large part of Germany, is generally undertaken by one or two ladies or gentlemen in each town, who collect now and then from their smoking friends the ends which they have been saving up. These collectors either send on the cigar-ends to the central Society, or sell them on the spot and transmit the proceeds. This latter plan, when it can be worked, is preferable, as saving expenses in carriage and packing. It is proposed that the number of children which each town shall have the privilege of sending to the Home shall be regulated according to the amount which they have contributed to the Society.

To insure the success of this institution, it will be absolutely necessary for all to unite and work together; each one must not leave it for his neighbour, thinking that one more or less can make no difference. To shew, however, what might be accomplished by a thorough unity in this matter, let us say that there are at least some ten millions of smokers in Germany; or to be very much within the mark, we will take only five million smokers who will give themselves the trouble, if such it is, of saving up their cigar-ends; and assuming that the cigar-ends of each person during one week are worth only a quarter _Pfennig_ (ten Pfennig = one penny English), we have a total revenue for the year of six hundred and fifty thousand marks, or thirty-two thousand five hundred pounds. Now, these thirty-two thousand five hundred pounds, which, as a rule, are thrown away and wasted, can be used to provide a Home for at least thirteen thousand poor orphan children. Further, if the five million smokers would contribute but once a year the value only of a single cigar, say in Germany one penny, this would make an additional five hundred thousand marks, or twenty-five thousand pounds, which would clothe another ten thousand children.

Now we ask, is it not worth while to be careful in small things, and to save up these usually wasted cigar-ends, when we see what great things might result? We can only conclude by wishing success to this remarkable institution, which has taken for its motto the most appropriate words, ‘Viele Wenig machen ein Viel;’ or in the words of the old Scottish proverb, ‘Many a little makes a mickle.’

LONG AGO.

He gave me his promise of changeless truth,
(Down in the wood where the ivy clings);
And the air breathed rapture, and love, and youth,
(And yon tree was in bud where the throstle sings).

He said he was going across the sea,
(Far from the wood where the ivy clings),
And would bring back riches and jewels for me;
(But brown leaves shake where the throstle sings).

Hope made Life like a summer morn;
(Sweet was the wood where the ivy clings);
Now my heart is cold, and withered, and worn,
(And the bough is bare where the throstle sings).

Days are dreary, and life is long;
(Yet down in the wood the ivy clings),
And the winds they moan a desolate song,
(And there’s snow on the bough where no throstle sings).

Spring will come with its buds and leaves
(Back to the wood where the ivy clings);
But ’tis winter cold for the heart that grieves,
(And I hear not the song that the throstle sings).

J. C. H.

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