Chapter V (3)

"No, sweet Alexis, we are not; we are going to Empoli: the train will go no further. Look you, little fox; we shall arrive at the junction one minute before the Sienna goods train, and there the engine will break down just where the rails cross; for two blows of a hammer will convert an engine into a log; I shall get out to examine it; that will take a little time; I shall explain to the count the nature of the injury; that will take a little time; and then the goods train will have arrived; and as it does not stop there, this train will go no further than Empoli, and I shall be Count Spezzato to-morrow. How do you like my scheme, little fox? Is it not worthy of your pupil? Oh, it will be a beautiful accident; it will fill the papers. That beast of an English who begged his place in the train will be fortunate; he will cease, for goods trains are heavy. Eh! but it's a grand scheme-- the son, the mother, the servant, the stranger, the engine-driver, all shall tell no tales."

"And the stoker?" said the courier.

"Oh, you and he and I shall escape. We shall be pointed at in the street as the fortunate. It is good, is it not, Alexis, my fox? I have told him that the count is the man who betrayed his sister. He believes it, and is my creature. But, little fox, it was not my cousin, it was myself, that took his Beatrix from her home. Is it not good, Alexis? Is it not genius? And Atkinson--he, the driver--is now stupid: he has drunk from his can the poppy juice that will make him sleep for ever. I will be a politician. I am worthy of office. I will become the Minister of a Bourbon when I am count, my dear fox, and you shall be my comrade again, as of old."

I was, for a time, lost to every sensation save that of hearing. The fiendish garrulity of the man had all the fascination of the serpent's rattle. I felt helplessly resigned to a certain fate.

I was aroused by something white slowly passing the closed window of the carriage. I waited a little, then gently opened it and looked out. The stoker was crawling along the foot-board of the next carriage, holding on by its handles, so as not to be seen by the occupants, and holding the signal lantern that I had noticed at the back of the last carriage in his hand. The meaning of it struck me in a moment: if by any chance we missed the goods train from Sienna, we should be run into from behind by the train from Florence.

The cold air that blew in at the open window refreshed me, and I could think what was to be done. The train was increasing its pace rapidly. Evidently the stoker, in sole charge, was striving to reach Empoli before the other train, which we should follow, was due: he had to make five minutes in a journey of forty-five, and, at the rate we were going, we should do it. We stopped nowhere, and the journey was more than half over. We were now between Segua and {205} Montelupo; another twenty minutes and I should be a bruised corpse. Something must be done.

I decided soon. Unfastening my bag, I took out my revolver, without which I never travel, and looking carefully to the loading and capping, fastened it to my waist with a handkerchief. I then cut with my knife the bar across the middle of the window, and carefully looked out. I could see nothing; the rain was falling fast, and the night as dark as ever. I cautiously put out first one leg and then the other, keeping my knees and toes close to the door, and lowered myself till I felt the step. I walked carefully along the foot-board by side steps, holding on to the handles of the doors, till I came to the end of the carriages, and was next the tender. Here was a gulf that seemed impassable. The stoker must have passed over it; why not I? Mounting from the foot-board on to the buffer, and holding on to the iron hook on which the lamps are hung, I stretched my legs to reach the flat part of the buffer on the tender. My legs swung about with the vibration, and touched nothing. I must spring. I had to hold with both hands behind my back, and stood on the case of the buffer-spring, and, suddenly leaving go, leaped forward, struck violently against the edge of the tender, and grasped some of the loose lumps of coal on the top. Another struggle brought me on my knees, bruised and bleeding, on the top. I stood up, and at that moment the stoker opened the door of the furnace, and turned toward me, shovel in hand, to put in the coals. The bright red light from the fire enabled him to see me, while it blinded me. He rushed at me, and then began a struggle that I shall remember to my dying day.

He grasped me round the throat with one arm, dragging me close to his breast, and with the other kept shortening the shovel for an effective blow. My hands, numbed and bruised, were almost useless to me, and for some seconds we reeled to and fro on the foot-plate in the blinding glare. At last he got me against the front of the engine, and, with horrible ingenuity, pressed me against it till the lower part of my clothes were burnt to a cinder. The heat, however, restored my hands, and at last I managed to push him far enough from my body to loosen my pistol. I did not want to kill him, but I could not be very careful, and I fired at his shoulder from the back. He dropped the shovel, the arm that had nearly throttled me relaxed, and he fell. I pushed him into a corner of the tender, and sat down to recover myself.

My object was to get to Empoli before the Sienna goods train, for I knew nothing of what might be behind me. It was too late to stop, but I might, by shortening the journey seven minutes instead of five, get to Empoli three minutes before the goods train was due.

I had never been on an engine before in my life, but I knew that there must be a valve somewhere that let the steam from the boiler into the cylinders, and that, being important, it would be in a conspicuous position. I therefore turned the large handle in front of me, and had the satisfaction of finding the speed rapidly increased, and at the same time felt the guard putting on the break to retard the train. Spite of this, in ten minutes I could see some dim lights; I could not tell where, and I still pressed on faster and faster.

In vain, between the intervals of putting on coals, did I try to arouse the sleeping driver. There I was, with two apparently dead bodies, on the foot-plate of an engine, going at the rate of forty miles an hour, or more, amidst a thundering noise and vibration that nearly maddened me.

At last we reached the lights, and I saw, as I dashed by, that we had passed the dread point.

As I turned back, I could see the rapidly-dropping cinders from the train which, had the guard's break been sufficiently powerful to have made me {206} thirty seconds later, would have utterly destroyed me.

I was still in a difficult position. There was the train half a minute behind us, which, had we kept our time, would have been four minutes in front of us. It came on to the same rails, and I could hear its dull rumble rushing on toward us fast. If I stopped there was no light to warn them. I must go on, for the Sienna train did not stop at Empoli.

I put on more fuel, and after some slight scalding, from turning on the wrong taps, had the pleasure of seeing the water-gauge filling up. Still I could not go on long; the risk was awful. I tried in vain to write on a leaf of my note-book, and after searching in the tool-box, wrote on the iron lid of the tank with a piece of chalk, "Stop everything behind me. The train will not be stopped till three red lights are ranged in a line on the ground. Telegraph forward." And then, as we flew through the Empoli station, I threw it on the platform. On we went; the same dull thunder behind warning me that I dare not stop.

We passed through another station at full speed, and at length I saw the white lights of another station in the distance. The sound behind had almost ceased, and in a few moments more I saw the line of three red lamps low down on the ground. I pulled back the handle, and after an ineffectual effort to pull up at the station, brought up the train about a hundred yards beyond Pontedera.

The porters and police of the station came up and put the train back, and then came the explanation.

The guard had been found dead on the rails, just beyond Empoli, and the telegraph set to work to stop the train. He must have found out the failure of his scheme, and in trying to reach the engine, have fallen on the rails.

The driver was only stupefied, and the stoker fortunately only dangerously, not fatally, wounded.

Another driver was found, and the train was to go on.

The count had listened most attentively to my statements, and then, taking my grimed hand in his, led me to his mother.

"Madam, my mother, you have from this day one other son: this, my mother, is my brother."

The countess literally fell on my neck, and kissed me in the sight of them all; and speaking in Italian said--

"Julian, he is my son; he has saved my life; and more, he has saved your life. My son, I will not say much; what is your name?"

"Guy Westwood."

"Guy, my child, my son, I am your mother; you shall love me."

"Yes, my mother; he is my brother, I am his. He is English too; I like English. He has done well. Blanche shall be his sister."

During the whole of this time both mother and son were embracing me and kissing my cheeks, after the impulsive manner of their passionate natures, the indulgence of which appears so strange to our cold blood.

The train was delayed, for my wounds and bruises to be dressed, and I then entered their carriage and went to Leghorn with them.

Arrived there, I was about to say "Farewell."

"What is farewell, now? No; you must see Blanche, your sister. You will sleep to my hotel: I shall not let you go. Who is she that in your great book says, 'Where you go, I will go?' That is my spirit. You must not leave me till--till you are as happy as I am."

He kept me, introduced me to Blanche, and persuaded me to write for leave to stay another two months, when he would return to England with me. Little by little he made me talk about Alice, till he knew all my story.

"Ah! that is it; you shall be unhappy because you want L500 every year, and I have so much as that. I am a patriot to get rid of my money. So it is that you will not take money. You have saved my life, and you will {207} not take money; but I shall make you take money, my friend, English Guy; you shall have as thus." And he handed me my appointment as secretary to one of the largest railways in Italy. "Now you shall take money; now you will not go to your fogland to work like a slave; you shall take the money. That is not all. I am one of the practice patriots--no, the practical patriots--of Italy. They come to me with their conspiracies to join, their secret societies to adhere to, but I do not. I am director of ever so many railways; I make fresh directions every day. I say to those who talk to me of politics, 'How many shares will you take in this or in that?' I am printer of books; I am builder of museums; I have great share in docks, and I say to these, 'It is this that I am doing that is wanted.' This is not conspiracy; it is not plot; it is not society with ribbons; but it is what Italy, my country, wants. I grow poor; Italy grows rich. I am not wise in these things; they cheat me, because I am an enthusiast. Now, Guy, my brother, you are wise; you are deep; long in the head; in short, you are English! You shall be my guardian in these things--you shall save me from the cheat, and you shall work hard as you like for all the money you shall take of me. Come, my Guy, is it so?"

Need I say that it was so? The count and his Blanche made their honeymoon tour in England. They spent Christmas day with Alice and myself at Mr. Morton's, and when they left, Alice and I left with them, for our new home in Florence.

------

From The Cornhill Magazine.

THE WINDS.

O wild raving west winds....
Oh! where do ye rise from, and where do ye die?

The question which is put in these lines is one which has posed the ingenuity of all who have ever thought on it; and though theories have repeatedly been propounded to answer it, yet one and all fail, and we again recur to the words of him who knew all things and said, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth."

However, though we cannot assign exactly the source whence the winds rise or the goal to which they tend, the labors of meteorologists have been so far successful as to enable us to understand the causes of the great currents of air, and even to map out the winds which prevail at different seasons in the various quarters of the globe. The problem which has thus been solved is one vastly more simple than that of saying why the wind changes on any particular day, or at what spot on the earth's surface a particular current begins or ends. Were these questions solved, there would be an end to all uncertainty about weather. There need be no fear that the farmer would lose his crops owing to the change of weather, if the advent of every shower had been foretold by an unerring guide, and the precise day of the break in the weather predicted weeks and months before. This is the point on which weather-prophets--'astro-meteorologists' they call themselves now-a-days--still venture their predictions, undismayed by their reported and glaring failures. {208} It has been well remarked that not one of these prophets foretold the dry weather which lasted for so many weeks during the last summer; yet, even at the present day, there are people who look to the almanacs to see what weather is to be expected at a given date; and even the prophecies of "Old Moore" find, or used to find within a very few years, an ample credence. In fact, if we are to believe the opinions propounded by the positive philosophers of the present day, we must admit that it is absurd to place any limits on the possibility of predicting natural phenomena, inasmuch as all operations of nature obey fixed and unalterable laws, which are all discoverable by the unaided mind of man.

True science, we may venture to say, is more modest than these gentlemen would have us to think it; and though in the particular branch of knowledge of which we are now treating daily prophecies (or 'forecasts,' as Admiral Fitzroy is careful to call them) of weather appear in the newspapers, yet these are not announced dogmatically, and no attempt is made in them to foretell weather for more than forty-eight hours in advance. We are not going to discuss the question of storms and storm-signals at present, so we shall proceed to the subject in hand--the ordinary wind-currents of the earth; and in speaking of these shall confine ourselves as far as possible to well-known and recorded facts, bringing in each case the best evidence which we can adduce to support the theories which may be broached.

What, then, our readers will ask, is the cause of the winds? The simple answer is--the sun. Let us see, now, how this indefatigable agent, who appears to do almost everything on the surface of the earth, from painting pictures to driving steam-engines, as George Stephenson used to maintain that he did, is able to raise the wind.

If you light a fire in a room, and afterward stop up every chink by which air can gain access to the fire, except the chimney, the fire will go out in a short time. Again, if a lamp is burning on the table, and you stop up the chimney at the top, the lamp will go out at once. The reason of this is that the flame, in each case, attracts the air, and if either the supply of air is cut off below, or its escape above is checked, the flame cannot go on burning. This explanation, however, does not bear to be pushed too far. The reason that the fire goes out if the supply of air is cut off is, that the flame, so to speak, feeds on air; while the sun cannot be said, in any sense, to be dependent on the earth's atmosphere for the fuel for his fire. We have chosen the illustration of the flame, because the facts are so well known. If, instead of a lamp in the middle of a room, we were to hang up a large mass of iron, heated, we should find that currents of air set in from all sides, rose up above it, and spread out when they reached the ceiling, descending again along the walls. The existence of these currents may be easily proved by sprinkling a handful of fine chaff about in the room. What is the reason of the circulation thus produced? The iron, unless it be extremely hot, as it is when melted by Mr. Bessemer's process, does not require the air in order to keep up its heat; and, in fact, the constant supply of fresh air cools it, as the metal gives away its own heat to the air as fast as the particles of the latter come in contact with it. Why, then, do the currents arise? Because the air, when heated, expands or gets lighter, and rises, leaving an empty space, or vacuum, where it was before. Then the surrounding cold air, being elastic, forces itself into the open space, and gets heated in its turn.

From this we can see that there will be a constant tendency in the air to flow toward that point on the earth's surface where the temperature is highest--or, all other things being equal, to that point where the sun may be at that moment in the zenith. Accordingly, if the earth's surface were either {209} entirely dry land, or entirely water, and the sun were continually in the plane of the equator, we should expect to find the direction of the great wind-currents permanent and unchanged throughout the year. The true state of the case is, however, that these conditions are very far from being fulfilled. Every one knows that the sun is not always immediately over the equator, but that he is at the tropic of Cancer in June, and at the tropic of Capricorn in December, passing the equator twice every year at the equinoxes. Here, then, we have one cause which disturbs the regular flow of the wind-currents. The effect of this is materially increased by the extremely arbitrary way in which the dry land has been distributed over the globe. The northern hemisphere contains the whole of Europe, Asia, and North America, the greater part of Africa, and a portion of South America; while in the southern hemisphere we only find the remaining portions of the two last-named continents, with Australia and some of the large islands in its vicinity. Accordingly, during our summer there is a much greater area of dry land exposed to the nearly vertical rays of the sun than is the case during our winter.

Let us see for a moment how this cause acts in modifying the direction of the wind-currents. We shall find it easier to make this intelligible if we take an illustration from observed facts. It takes about five times as much heat to raise a ton weight of water through a certain range of temperature, as it does to produce the same effect in the case of a ton of rock. Again, the tendency of a surface of dry land to give out heat, and consequently to warm the air above it, and cause it to rise, is very much greater than that of a surface of water of equal area. Hence we can at once see the cause of the local winds which are felt every day in calm weather in islands situated in hot climates. During the day the island becomes very hot, and thus what the French call a _courant ascendant_ is set in operation. The air above the land gets hot and rises, while the colder air which is on the sea all round it flows in to fill its place, and is felt as a cool sea-breeze. During the night these conditions are exactly reversed: the land can no longer get any heat from the sun, as he has set, while it is still nearly as liberal in parting with its acquired heat as it was before. Accordingly, it soon becomes cooler than the sea in its neighborhood; and the air, instead of rising up over it, sinks down upon it, and flows out to sea, producing a land-wind.

These conditions are, apparently, nearly exactly fulfilled in the region of the monsoons, with the exception that the change of wind takes place at intervals of six months, and not every twelve hours. In this district--which extends over the southern portion of Asia and the Indian ocean--the wind for half the year blows from one point, and for the other half from that which is directly opposite. The winds are north-east and south-west in Hindostan; and in Java, at the other side of the equator, they are south-east and north-west. The cause of the winds--monsoons they are called, from an Arabic word, _mausim_, meaning season--is not quite so easily explained as that of the ordinary land and sea breezes to which we have just referred. Their origin is to be sought for in the temperate zone, and not between the tropics. The reason of this is that the districts toward which the air is sucked in are not those which are absolutely hottest, but those where the rarefaction of the air is greatest. When the air becomes lighter, it is said to be rarefied, and this rarefaction ought apparently to be greatest where the temperature is highest. This would be the case if the air were the only constituent of our atmosphere. There is, however, a very important disturbing agent to be taken into consideration, viz., aqueous vapor. There is always, when it is not actually raining, a quantity of water rising from the surface of {210} the sea and from every exposed water-surface, and mingling with the air. This water is perfectly invisible: as it is in the form of vapor, it is true steam, and its presence only becomes visible when it is condensed so as to form a cloud. The hotter the air is, the more of this aqueous vapor is it able to hold in the invisible condition.

We shall naturally expect to find a greater amount of this steam in the air at places situated near the coast, than at those in the interior of continents, and this is actually the case. The amount of rarefaction which the dry air on the sea-coast of Hindostan undergoes in summer, is partially compensated for by the increased tension of the aqueous vapor, whose presence in the air is due to the action of the sun's heat on the surface of the Indian ocean. In the interior of Asia there is no great body of water to be found, and the winds from the south lose most of the moisture which they contain in passing over the Himalayas. Accordingly the air is extremely dry, and a compensation, similar to that which is observed in Hindostan, cannot take place. It is toward this district that the wind is sucked in, and the attraction is sufficient to draw a portion of the south-east trade-wind across the line into the northern hemisphere. In our winter the region where the rarefaction is greatest is the continent of Australia; and accordingly, in its turn, it sucks the north-east trade-wind of the northern hemisphere across the equator. Thus we see that in the region which extends from the coast of Australia to the centre of Asia we have monsoons, or winds which change regularly every six months. As to the directions of the different monsoons, we shall discuss them when we have disposed of the trade-winds--which ought by rights, as Professor Dove observes, rather to be considered as an imperfectly developed monsoon, than the latter to be held as a modification of the former.

The origin of the trade-winds is to be sought for, as before, in the heating power of the sun, and their direction is a result of the figure of the earth, and of its motion on its axis. When the air at the equator rises, that in higher latitudes on either side flows in, and would be felt as a north wind or as a south wind respectively, if the earth's motion on its axis did not affect it. The figure of the earth is pretty nearly that of a sphere, and, as it revolves round its axis, it is evident that those points on its surface which are situated at the greatest distance from the axis, will have to travel over a greater distance in the same time than those which are near it. Thus, for instance, London, which is nearly under the parallel of 50, has only to travel about three-fifths of the distance which a place like Quito, situated under the equator, has to travel in the same time. A person situated in London is carried, imperceptibly to himself, by the motion of the earth, through 15,000 miles toward the eastward in the twenty-four hours; while another at Quito is carried through 25,000 miles in the same time. Accordingly, if the Londoner, preserving his own rate of motion, were suddenly transferred to Quito, he would be left 10,000 miles behind the other in the course of the twenty-four hours, or would appear to be moving in the opposite direction, from east to west, at the rate of about 400 miles an hour. The case would be just as if a person were to be thrown into a railway carriage which was moving at full speed; he would appear to his fellow-passengers to be moving in the opposite direction to them, while in reality the motion of progression was in the train, not in the person who was thrown into it. The air is transferred from high to low latitudes, but this change is gradual, and the earth, accordingly, by means of the force of friction, is able to retard its relative velocity before it reaches the tropics so that its actual velocity, though still considerable, is far below 400 miles an hour.

This wind comes from high latitudes and becomes more and more easterly {211} reaching us as a nearly true north-east wind; and as it gets into lower latitudes becoming more and more nearly east, and forming a belt of north-east wind all round the earth on the northern side of the equator. In the southern hemisphere, there is a similar belt of permanent winds, which are, of course, south-easterly instead of north-easterly. These belts are not always at equal distances at each side of the equator, as their position is dependent on the situation of the zone of maximum temperature for the time being. When we reach the actual district where the air rises, we find the easterly direction of the wind no longer so remarkable, as has been noticed by Basil Hall and others. The reason is, that by the time that the air reaches the district where it rises, it has obtained by means of its friction with the earth's surface a rate of motion round the earth's axis nearly equal to that of the earth's surface itself.

The trade-wind zones, called, by the Spaniards, the "Ladies' Sea"--_El Golfo de las Damas_--because navigation on a sea where the wind never changed was so easy, shift their position according to the apparent motion of the sun in the ecliptic. In the Atlantic the north-east trade begins in summer in the latitude of the Azores; in winter it commences to the south of the Canaries.

In the actual trade-wind zones rain very seldom falls, any more than it does in these countries when the east wind has well set in. The reason of this is, that the air on its passage from high to low latitudes is continually becoming warmer and warmer. According as its temperature rises, its power of dissolving (so to speak) water increases also, and so it is constantly increasing its burden of water until it reaches the end of its journey, where it rises into the higher regions of the atmosphere, and there is suddenly cooled. The chilling process condenses, to a great extent, the aqueous vapor contained in the trade-wind air, and causes it to fall in constant discharges of heavy rain. Throughout the tropics the rainy season coincides with that period at which the sun is in the zenith, and in this region the heaviest rain-fall on the globe is observed. The wettest place in the world, Cherrapoonjee, is situated in the Cossya hills, about 250 miles northeast of Calcutta, just outside the torrid zone. There the ram-fall is upward of 600 inches in the year, or twenty times as much as it is on the west coasts of Scotland and Ireland. However, in such extreme cases as this, there are other circumstances to be taken into consideration, such as the position of the locality as regards mountain chains, which may cause the clouds to drift over one particular spot.

To return to the wind: When the air rises at the equatorial edge of the trade-wind zone, it flows away above the lower trade-wind current. The existence of an upper current in the tropics is well known. Volcanic ashes, which have fallen in several of the West Indian islands on several occasions, have been traced to volcanoes which lay to the westward of the locality where the ashes fell, at a time when there was no west wind blowing at the sea-level. To take a recent instance: ashes fell at Kingston, Jamaica, in the year 1835, and it is satisfactorily proved that they had been ejected from the volcano of Coseguina, on the Pacific shore of Central America, and must consequently have been borne to the eastward by an upward current counter to the direction of the easterly winds which were blowing at the time at the sea-level.

Captain Maury supposes that when the air rises, at either side of the equator, it crosses over into the opposite hemisphere, so that there is a constant interchange of air going on between the northern and southern hemispheres. This he has hardly sufficiently proved, and his views are not generally accepted. One of the arguments on which he lays great stress in support of his theory is that on certain occasions dust has fallen in {212} various parts of western Europe, and that in it there have been discovered microscopical animals similar to those which are found in South America. This appears to be scarcely an incontrovertible proof; as Admiral Fitzroy observes: "Certainly, such insects may be found in Brazil; but does it follow that they are not also in Africa, under nearly the same parallel?"

This counter-current, or "anti-trade," as Sir J. Herschel has called it, is at a high level in the atmosphere between the tropics, far above the top of the highest mountains; but at the exterior edge of the trade-wind zone, it descends to the surface of the ground. The Canary islands are situated close to this edge, and accordingly we find that there is always a westerly wind at the summit of the Peak of Teneriffe, while the wind at the sea-level, in the same island, is easterly throughout the summer months. Professor Piazzi Smyth, who lived for some time on the top of that mountain, making astronomical observations, has recorded some very interesting details of the conflicts between the two currents, which he was able to observe accurately from his elevated position. In winter the trade-wind zone is situated to the south of its summer position in latitude, and at this season the southwest wind is felt at the sea-level in the Canary islands. Similar facts to these have been observed in other localities where there are high mountains situated on the edge of the trade-wind zone, as, for instance, Mouna Loa, in the Sandwich islands. There can, therefore, be no doubt that the warm, moist west wind, which is felt so generally in the temperate zones, is really the air returning to the poles from the equator, which has now assumed a south-west direction on its return journey, owing to conditions the reverse of those which imparted to it a north-east motion on its way toward the equator. This, then, is our south-west wind, which is so prevalent in the North Atlantic ocean that the voyage from Europe to America is not unfrequently called the up-hill trip, in contradistinction to the down-hill passage home. These are the "brave west winds" of Maury, whose refreshing action on the soil he never tires of recapitulating.

The south-west monsoons of Hindostan, which blow from May to October, and the north-west monsoons of the Java seas, which are felt between November and April, owe their westerly motion to a cause similar to that of the anti-trades which we have just described. To take the case of the monsoons of Hindostan: we have seen above how the rarefaction of the air in Central Asia attracts the southeast trade-wind of the southern hemisphere across the equator. This air, when it moves from the equator into higher latitudes, brings with it the rate of motion, to the eastward, of the equatorial regions which it has lately left, and is felt as a south-west wind. Accordingly, the directions of the monsoons are thus accounted for. In the winter months the true north-east trade-wind is felt in Hindostan; while in the summer months its place is taken by the south-east trade of the southern hemisphere, making its appearance as the south-west monsoon. In Java, conditions exactly converse to these are in operation, and the winds are south-east from April to November, and north-west during the rest of the year.

The change of one monsoon to the other is always accompanied by rough weather, called in some places the "breaking out" of the monsoon; just as with us the equinox, or change of the season from summer to winter, and _vice versa_, is marked by "windy weather," or "equinoctial gales."

The question may, however, well be asked, why there are no monsoons in the Atlantic Ocean?

In the first place, the amount of rarefaction which the air in Africa and in Brazil undergoes, in the respective hot seasons of those regions, is far less considerable than that which is {213} observed in Asia and Australia at the corresponding seasons.

Secondly, in the case of the Atlantic ocean, the two districts toward which the air is attracted are situated within the torrid zone, while in the Indian ocean they are quite outside the tropics, and in the temperate zones. Accordingly, even if the suction of the air across the equator did take place to the same extent in the former case as in the latter, the extreme contrast in direction between the two monsoons would not be perceptible to the same extent, owing to the fact that the same amount of westing could not be imparted to the wind, because it had not to travel into such high latitudes on either side of the equator. A tendency to the production of the phenomena of the monsoons is observable along the coast of Guinea, where winds from the south and south-west are very generally felt. These winds are not really the south-east trade-wind, which has been attracted across the line to the northern hemisphere, They ought rather to be considered as of the same nature as the land and sea breezes before referred to, since we find it to be very generally the case, that in warm climates the ordinary wind-currents undergo a deflection to a greater or less extent along a coast-line such as that of Guinea, Brazil, or north of Australia.

Our readers may perhaps ask why it is, that when we allege that the whole of the winds of the globe owe their origin to a regular circulation of the air from the Polar regions to the equator, and back again, we do not find more definite traces of such a circulation in the winds of our own latitudes? The answer to this is, that the traces of this circulation are easily discoverable if we only know how to look for them, In the Mediterranean sea, situated near the northern edge of the trade-wind zone, the contrast between the equatorial and polar currents of air is very decidedly marked. The two conflicting winds are known under various names in different parts of the district. The polar current, on its way to join the trade-wind, is termed the "tramontane," in other parts the "bora," the "maestral," etc.; while the return trade-wind, bringing rain, is well known under the name of the "sirocco." In Switzerland the same wind is called the "Fohn," and is a warm wind, which causes the ice and snow to melt rapidly, and constantly brings with it heavy rain.

In these latitudes the contrast is not so very striking, but even here every one knows that the only winds which last for more than a day or two at a time are the north-east and the south-west winds, the former of which is dry and cold, the latter moist and warm. The difference between these winds is much more noticeable in winter than in summer, inasmuch as in the latter season Russia and the northern part of Asia enjoy, relatively to the British Islands, a much higher temperature than is the case in winter; so that the air which moves from those regions during the summer months does not come to us from a climate which is colder than our own, but from one which is warmer.

So far, then, we have attempted to trace the ordinary wind-currents, but as yet there are very many questions connected therewith which are not quite sufficiently explained. To mention one of these, we hear from many observers on the late Arctic expeditions, that the most marked characteristic of the winds in the neighborhood of Baffin's Bay, is the great predominance of north-westerly winds. It is not as yet, nor can it ever be satisfactorily, decided how far to the northward and westward this phenomenon is noticeable. The question then is, Whence does this north-west wind come?

As to the causes of the sudden changes of wind, and of storms, they are as yet shrouded in mystery, and we cannot have much expectation that in our lifetime, at least, much will be done to unravel the web. Meteorology is a very young science--if it deserves {214} the title of science at all--and until observations for a long series of years shall have been made at many stations, we shall not be in the possession of trustworthy facts on which to ground our reasoning. It is merely shoving the difficulty a step further off to assign these irregular variations to atmospheric waves. It will be time enough to reason accurately about the weather and its changes when we ascertain what these atmospheric waves are, and what causes them. Until the "astro-meteorologists" will tell us the principles on which their calculations are based, we must decline to receive their predictions as worthy of any credence whatever.

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From The Month.

EUGENIE AND MAURICE DE GUERIN.

The life of Eugenie de Guerin forms a great contrast with those which are generally brought before the notice of the world. Not only did she not seek for fame, but the circumstances of her life were the very ones which generally tend to keep a woman in obscurity. Her life was passed in the deepest retirement of a country home. The society even of a provincial town was not within her reach. Poverty placed a bar between her and the means for study in congenial society. The routine of her life shut her out from great deeds or unusual achievements. In fact, her life, so far from being a deviation from the ordinary track which women have to tread, was a very type of the existence which seems to be marked out for the majority of women, and at which they are so often wont to murmur. The want of an aim in life, the necessity of some fixed, engrossing occupation, and the _ennui_ which follows on the deprivation of these, forms the staple trial of thousands of women, especially in England, where there is much intellectual vigor with so little power for its exercise. That the reaction from this deprivation is shown by "fastness," or an excessive love of dress and amusement, is acknowledged by the most keen observers of human nature. But to the large class of women who, disdaining such means of distraction, bear their burden patiently, Eugenie de Guerin's _Journal et Lettres_ possess an intense interest. Her life was so uneventful that it absolutely affords no materials for a biography, but her character is so full of interest that her name is now a familiar one in England and France.

Far away in the heart of sunny Languedoc stands the chateau of Le Cayla, the home of the de Guerins. They were of noble blood. The old chateau was full of reminiscences of the deeds of their ancestors. De Guerin, Bishop of Senlis and Chancellor of France, had gone forth, with a valor scarcely befitting his episcopal character, to animate the troops at the battle of Bouvines; and from the walls of Le Cayla looked down from his portrait de Guerin, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta in 1206. A cardinal, a troubadour, and countless gallant and noble soldiers filled up the family rolls--the best blood in France had mingled with theirs; but now the family were obscure, forgotten, and poor. But these circumstances were no hindrances to the happiness of Eugenie's early life.

"My childhood passed away like one long summer-day," said she {215} afterward. Thirteen happy years fled by. There was the father, cherished with tender, self-forgetting love; the brother Eranbert; the sister Marie, the youngest pet of the household; the beautiful and precocious Maurice; and the mother, the centre of all, loving and beloved. But a shadow suddenly fell on the sunny landscape, and Madame de Guerin lay on her death-bed, when, calling to her Eugenie, her eldest child, she gave to her especial charge Maurice, then aged seven, and his mother's darling. The dying lips bade Eugenie fill a mother's place to him, and the sensitive and enthusiastic girl received the words into her heart, and never forgot them.

From that day her childhood, almost her youth, ended; and it is without exaggeration we may say that the depth of maternal love passed into her heart. Henceforth Maurice was the one object and the absorbing thought of her heart, second only to one other, and that no love of earth. Sometimes, indeed, that passionate devotion to Maurice disputed the sway of the true Master, as we shall hereafter see, but it was never ultimately victorious. It was not likely that their lives should for long run side by side. The extraordinary brilliancy of Maurice's gifts made his father determine upon cultivating his mind. As soon as possible, he was sent first to the _petit seminaire_ at Toulouse, and then to the college Stanislaus at Paris.

Maurice de Guerin was a singularly endowed being. He possessed that kind of personal beauty so very rare among men, and which is so hard to describe--a spiritual beauty, which insensibly draws the hearts of others to its possessor. Added to this, he had that sweetness of tone and manner, that instinctive power of sympathy, that sparkling brilliance which made him idolized by those who knew him, which rendered him literally the darling of his friends. "_Il etait leur vie_," said those who spoke of him after he was gone from earth.

The early and ardent aspirations of this gifted being were turned heavenward. His youthful head was devoutly bowed in prayer. The country people called him "_le jeune saint_;" and his conduct at the _petit seminaire_ gave such satisfaction that the Archbishop of Toulouse, and also the Archbishop of Rouen, offered to take the whole charge of his future education on themselves; but his father refused both. The temptations of a college life had left him scathless, and the longing of his soul was for the consecration of the priesthood. What he might have been, had he fallen into other hands, cannot now be known. Whether there was an inherent weakness and effeminacy in the character which would have unfitted him for the awful responsibilities of the priestly office, we know not. At all events, he was attracted, as many minds of undoubted superiority were at that time, by the extraordinary brilliancy and commanding genius of de Lamennais; and Maurice de Guerin found himself in the solitude of La Chesnaie, a fellow-student with Hippolyte Lacordaire, Montalembert, Saint-Beuve, and a group of others. Here some years of his life were spent, divided between prayer, study, and brilliant conversation, led and sustained by M. de Lamennais. Maurice, of a shy and diffident disposition, does not seem to have attached himself to Lamennais, although he admired and looked up to him, and although the insidious portion of his teaching was making havoc with his faith.

And now, it may be asked, what of Eugenie? Dwelling in an obscure province, with no other living guide than a simple parish cure, with a natural enthusiastic reverence for genius, and a predilection for all Maurice's friends, was she not dazzled from afar off by this great teacher of men's minds, this earnest reformer of abuses? The instinct of the single in heart was hers. Long ere others had discerned the canker eating away the fruit so fair to look on, Eugenie, with prophetic voice, was warning Maurice. {216} Lacordaire's noble soul was yet ensnared. Madam Swetchine's remonstrances had not yet prevailed; while this young girl in the country, whose name no one knew, was watching and praying for the issue of the deliberations at La Chesnaie.

At length the break-up came--the memorable journey to Rome was over. Submission had been required, and Lacordaire had given it. "Silence is the second power in the world," he had said to Lamennais; and he had withdrawn with him to La Chesnaie for a time of retreat, where he was soon undeceived as to Lamennais' intentions. And these two great men parted--one to reap the fruits of patient obedience in the success of one of the greatest works wrought in his century, to gain a mastery over the men of his age, and to die at last worn out by labors before his time, the beloved child of the Church, whose borders he had enlarged, whose honor he had defended; the other, to follow the course of self-will, and to quench his light in utter darkness.

The students of La Chesnaie went away, and Maurice was thrown on the world with no definite employment. An unsuccessful attachment deepened the natural melancholy of his sensitive nature. He went to Paris, and was soon in the midst of the literary world. He wrote, and obtained fame; he was admired and sought after; but the beautiful faith of his youth faded away like a flower, and the innocent pleasures of his childhood, and the passionate love of his sister, had no attractions for him compared to the brilliant circles of Parisian society.

And thus was Eugenie's fate marked out. From afar off her heart followed him; and, partly for his amusement, partly to relieve the outpourings of her intensely-loving heart, she kept a journal, intended for Maurice's eye only. A few letters to Maurice and one or two intimate friends make up the rest of the volume, which was, after her death, most fortunately given to the world. In these pages her character stands revealed, and no long description of her mode of life could have made us more thoroughly acquainted with her than these words, written sometimes in joy, sometimes in sorrow, in weariness and depression, in all weathers, and at all times; for, believing that she pleased her brother, nothing would prevent her from keeping her promise of a daily record of her life and thoughts. Its chief beauty lies in that she made so much out of so little. "I have just come away very happy from the kitchen, where I stood a long time this evening, to persuade Paul, one of our servants, to go to confession at Christmas. He has promised me, and he is a good boy and will keep his word. Thank God, my evening is not lost! What a happiness it would be if I could thus every day gain a soul for God! Walter Scott has been neglected this evening; but what book could have been worth to me what Paul's promise is? . . . _The 20th_.--I am so fond of the snow! Its perfect whiteness has something celestial about it. To-day I see nothing but road-tracks, and the marks of the feet of little birds. Lightly as they rest, they leave their little traces in a thousand forms upon the snow. It is so pretty to see their little red feet, as if they were all drawn with pencils of coral. Winter has its beauties and its enjoyments, and we find them every-where when we know how to see them. God spreads grace and beauty everywhere. ... I must have another dish to-day for S.R., who is come to see us. He does not often taste good things--that is why I wish to treat him well; for it is to the desolate that, it seems to me, we should pay attentions. No reading to-day. I have made a cap for a little child, which has taken up all my time. But, provided one works, be it with the head or the fingers, it is all the same in the eyes of God, who takes account of every work done in his name. I hope, then, that my cap has been a charity--I have given my time, a little material, and a thousand interesting lines that I could {217} have read. Papa brought me yesterday _Ivanhoe_, and the _Siecle de Louis XIV_. Here are provisions for some of our long winter evenings."

Then she had a keen sense of enjoyment, and a wonderful faculty of making the best of things. Thus a simple pleasure to her was a source of delight. Here is her description of Christmas night in Languedoc: