text: .\k } / X Ik \ 1 ' jyl ,/ ,fK A v >» Ml <wi\. ifjflL s| Il tB/v JBO lOtiW*yOi®>w< <i!l® r W< ■ > C 1?- - ; -V ,,,? '7 •;. 'LoFjl - * <ll ~ JRJjW ' "w- <n .. - ’ /rn IB \ML 11" - m \- - >- Sgt W•' • '■'•'■'• /‘ ; ' ; "' ’ ' n !2i.‘ • ■?--■-' - ~ ---" - : VOLUME 3. NO. 3. Entered according to the Act of Congress, by IVilliamson Eurns. FRANK CARTER; ©r, Ciliiucnturcs of an (Enthusiast In the City and the Wilderness. BY THE AUTHOR OF “JA6K LONG; OR SHOT IN THE EYE." CHAPTER IV. THE ENTHUSIAST AGAIN-THE WILDERNESS | -A GLIMPSE OF ADVENTURE. We are off! and far through the illimitable evening are “ flying an eagle’s flight—bold and forth on!” Swiftly the cities of men are left behind our daring way, and then as we swing, flap ping with tireless pinions through the mid air—brushing fleecy edges of clouds away— the towns seem lessening into villages, and these are sown broad-cast now, dotting the hill or river-side, the forest, valley, and plain. Now the little farms are scattered widely, and here and there a “ settlement” flecks the unbroken wild, at broad intervals, with open ings that let in the sun. On ! on! The forests darken—the hills, the river, and the prairies look more solemn Here and there a hunter’s lodge seems to crouch from loneliness beneath their shadows, and then the thin blue column of a camp-fire smoke soars upward. Now, there is a wide interval of dark and unrelieved repose. The shadows look as if they never had been crossed—so still are they upon the smoothly gliding surface of wide, swift rivers—so still are they upon the ripening edges of broad, ocean-like prairies, whose green surfaces are bowed and lifted, wave-like, as the winds go by—so still are they, flung down from abrupt cliffs into the dim hushed valleys—so still are they, flung down in golden chequered work beneath the tangles of Old Forests— "The nodding-horror of whose shady brows" had else been threatening—so dark, on the abyss of cataracts, flashing as they leap, that even the thunder of their fall is awed and does not wake the Ancient Silence. Now again, columns of smoke pillar the clouds at far intervals, but they ascend from the fires of another race. By the bed of the great Missouri or along its many arms, the Arabs of the continent have planted their tents of buffalo hide, and from their blazing fires ascend the steams of incense to Him they worship as Manitou—the Great Spirit and Essence of all Things! There they are! Half naked—decked with dyed horsehair and feathers—bearing long lances, quivers and short bows! They go scudding to and fro, like swallows on the wing, upon their swift and mottled horses—wild and tameless knights are they! Ho! for the prairie chivalry! This is towards the south—but on the northern side of the terrible River the smokes of a different race ascend. They live in villages, and are wholly clothed in garments of dressed skins, and these are made most picturesque by long fringes and figures, worked with a rude art by the fingers of their swarthy maidens. Then their frightful necklaces of the claws of grizzly bears—their plucked crowns, with the long scalp-lock tufted in eagle feathers, and their paint-begrimed faces, remind us of the stern and more ferocious north. They, too, have quivers, bows, and lances like their neighbors with the darker skins, but each is on a larger, heavier scale, and then they have the ugly knotted war club of the North. They too, have the white man’s most terrible weapon, the rifle, here and there amongst them. They are horsemen too—but not such centuries as their Southern neighbors are, for with them the horse and man is one—alike agile, tireless and fleet. Here the Kansas River, after a long and weary way from out the sterile country of the Arrapahoes, comes bounding on to meet the wild Missouri—and farther yet above, the cold and swift Nebraska is hurled like a shining lance—down from the strange and snow-capped mountain tangles of the “Three Parks” into that remorseless bourne. Amidst these wilds we find a group of wanderers. They come from civilization. There are six of them, and they are all stalwart men—big boned and stout—like the old warriors of the steel harness and steel grieve. These are not errant knights in the old sense, though they be wandering gentians or nomadic. vagabonds in the modern sense. They have evidently been “sent out to grass,” as they phrase it in the South, when they would dispose of useless, loaferish and unproductive persons for the time. Whether these people had ever been useful to others or not, they seemed to be entirely—nay, even supremely contented with the utility of their own lives. There was a cool and confident air about this apprehension which belongs peculiarly to the South—its audacity could not be mistaken. These men rode as if they felt that this wide wilderness they were traversing, belonged to themselves individually, by natural right of birth, if not by the secondary right, of occupancy and possession. They were armed as people of sense at this day, who venture into dangerous neighborhoods, are always armed. Each man carried two of Colt’s revolving pistols at his belt, and a steel-barreled rifle that told at nearly a quarter of a mile, with fatal accuracy. This they carried before them, across the pummel of their saddles. The heavy and terrible bowie knife, with its keen broad polished blade, hung too at their sides in a short leather sheath. Their dress was a strange comminglement of the two extremes of civilized and savage costume. It was of grey cloth, but faced—or “foxed” as the frontier term is, with buckskin—that is, those portions of it which were particularly liable to abrasion in the circumstances of their rough life, were covered by this stout defense, stitched onto the cloth. They carried long lariats of platted raw hide, coiled and hung by a slight thong to the horn of their Mexican saddles—across the deep seats of which the blankets that covered the riders at night, were folded. Beneath these, a small bag of provisions was slung on either side, and behind were tied a tin cup and water gourd. They were all well mounted, but he who led the party, seemed to be superlatively so. The airy-necked and light-limbed mare that carried him, stepped as if she were shod with wings. The rider was a tall young looking man, whose slight and graceful proportions corresponded singularly well with these of the animal he rode. We have said that all these men were "big-boned and stout," and so was he, as all the Saxons are. But he was tall and the perfect symmetry of his form made him seem less vigorous—or at least less heavy than he really was. His hair was dark and his forehead under his foraging cap, seemed broad. You could see that his eye-brows sprung upward with an almost womanly grace. His eyes were large, wide apart, gray or blue—you could not well decide which, and very calm and clear. His nose was classically prominent and his mouth expressed remarkable placidity and gentleness. He rode his spirited and high-blooded animal veritably as though its "corporal motion," were "governed by his spirit." The person at his side was a smaller figure, yet there was something exceedingly springy and cat-like, expressed in his alert bearing and gray glittering eye. The face was what silly young ladies would call "plain," for there was nothing peculiar about it, except the mouth and eyes. The former was something wide for the size of the face. With the lips, the upper one of which—even in profound repose, was curved in a perpetual sneer. The square under jaw expressed immense and inexorable energy of will. Over all the face there was an expression that irresistibly attracted you, while it left you uneasy and dissatisfied with the fascination. The other persons of the party were rude athletic men who revealed at once, that they were frontier’s men and hunters, by the incessant and restless habit of turning their heads to look in all directions as they advanced. “Frank Carter, I am tired of this whim of yours!” said the smaller man, in a pettish voice. “I am sorry for it. Nownon! But is it certainly a whim that has made us stronger by a hundredfold than we were before?” “Pshaw! I am not particularly emulous of the seven labors of Hercules, and do not care to be able to grapple hand to claw with a grisly bear or pummel a panther to death with my fists! I am strong enough already—so far as brute strength goes!” “Ah! But Newnon you are as usual uncandid, if we do not have, literally to battle in brute strength with the seven labors of Hercules, yet we have it to do spiritually with a far greater number—and we cannot escape the unfortunate accident, that the spiritual and physical lives are so mutually dependent, that one must be toned by the other. So I shall regard you an ingrate if you do not pronounce in the solemn Presence of this vast prairie wilderness, your infinite obligations to its free airs and rude accidents which have renewed your lungs, your digestion, and your nerves, far beyond any previous capacity of either!” “I do not need the lungs of a Camanche, the digestion of an alligator, or the nerves of a horse, for I only set up to be a simple gentleman and had as I conceive quite enough of all these before.” “But, Newnon, you must confess to having had the opportunity of letting off your spleen in several hearty fights which I thought at the time you seemed to relish very much. “Why! my good fellow, how you mistake me? I am no warrior any more than I am an alligator. I consider the idea of chivalry...” To be most broadly burlesqued in our firing at these poor naked rascals with our terrible and resistless weapons. I should never have brought myself to do murder upon them but that I found in the first camp we sacked, that they only carried parched wheat with them on their expeditions. I accordingly set them down as the primitive originators of all those Grahamish sins of light diet which sent you out here an aimless wanderer and therefore gave them my pistol balls with peculiar relish. It is a ludicrous mistake, though, to suppose that there is knighthood or valor in fighting at any odds such a pitable foe. It is vastly chivalric—first to see your enemy starved and then to strike him because he is too feeble to lift his arm! I judge you will find out before we are done with these ‘ naked rascals’ as you call them, that there is something sufficiently formidable and annoying in their enmity to make them if not ‘ Foemen worthy of our steel’ in the chivalric sense—at least worthy of the common sense! Not a bit of it. I only shudder with apprehension for the poor wretches—since every time we meet them I expect to see you ‘ spiritually moved’ to deliver them a homily upon the sin and consequences of meat eating, and to find the tawney reprobates so moved by your apostolic eloquence that they will eschew the ‘ flesh pots’ forthwith and make such a descent upon the gardens and graineries of civilization as will quite astound your benevolence! My benevolence or philosophy looks to no such results. I have eaten meat myself since we came out here and should continue to do so, if I had it in my power to use other food. I shall conform to the conditions of savage life so long as I have no means or power elating it—but what is morally and physically true of the life here is not necessarily so of the higher life of civilization. It may be well enough for the warrior whose trade is blood to live upon the death Of red-blothed animals—but for the philosopher who deals with the lofty themes of pure intellect to congest and fever the clear-eyed calm of his benignant purpose with such gross and bestial juices is to me revolting. I am quite conscious that I live the life of a brute and a savage now, but that does not decrease my aspiring veneration for the highest possibilities of our development. The machinery of society is oiled by compromises and this is one I am willing to make! "Do you know, Frank, I pity you greatly! You have evidently been born too late. The time of the law-givers, prophets and reformers is long since past. You are not a Mahomet or a Mases—therefore, you clearly belong to the modern type of fanatics, and they have so emphatically secured the contempt of civilization, that I am not surprised you should take refuge amidst the simplicity of savage life. You have some chance here — for you can at least preach to the deer and buffalo—provided they will condescend to stop and listen to you." "Whether the deer and buffalo pause or not, it is very certain that 'Humanity' will at some time listen to this idea. But, however, the dark is coming on, and here, in this green meadow, beside that stream, is a beautiful place for camping!" "Agreed." Upon a swift and narrow branch of the arrowy Platt, this company of wanderers took up their lodgment for the night. The shadows settled over them, and dark night rested there. The night was closed like other nights, and the sleep of the tired travelers was even more profound than usual, but when the morning came, they looked around in vain for their horses, which had been staked out to graze at some distance around the camp. They looked over the prairie until their eyes ached—they turned toward the forest, along the bank of the stream, but its dark shadows revealed nothing. Poor fellows! Could it be, on foot in this vast and remote wilderness! What can they do? How can they ever get back to civilization? Mariners left by their wrecked vessel on some desert island would scarcely have been more desolate than they. They rubbed their eyes—they stared and stared about them, but it was of no avail—the thing was done! Their horses had been “stampeded,” during the night, and were now far enough away, scurrying over the wide prairie before some band of Indian plunderers. Our friend Clenny rages and fumes. It is an alternative he had never calculated upon. His contempt for “the half-naked rascals” was somewhat ameliorated, when he came to recognize fully the extent and amount of the mischief done by their silent prowess. The hunters had scattered in every direction in the bootless search, and the two young men were left “alone” in the camp, and in “the glory” of their solitude. They stood together on the border of the prairie, and looked out upon its blank and vast perspective with a forlorn and hopeless expression that was almost ludicrous. “Frank, may the devil take you and your scatter-brain projects! But for your eccentric babyisms, we should be comfortably secure now, instead of having the unrelieved perspective of some thousand miles or so over valley, hill and plain on foot, with the sure alternative of starvation to comfort us.” “Good! good! I thought just now that these half-clad savages were in every sense too contemptible to intercept in the slightest degree, the calm equanimity of your common life.” The case is bad enough I must confess, and we have the prospect of trudging back home on foot. But ho! What is that coming towards us with the swiftness and directness of an arrow out of the vague distance over the prairie?” “It is some wild animal.” “No! no! It is my gentle and dear Celeste! She has escaped from the rude brutes and is coming back to me!” As the young man spoke, the beautiful mare came rushing past all the rest, right up to him and thrust her small head against his bosom. “Beautiful Celeste,” said the young man, as he gently patted the glistening neck of his returned favorite—“you would not stay with the greasy barbarians. Welcome, welcome! Come, thou faithful pet, we will go back to the wilderness again, and search for some means of rescuing our poor forlorn comrades.” It required but a few moments to equip the willing animal, and then bounding into the saddle, Frank Carter gaily waved adieu to his disheartened friends and darted off across the plain, to search for horses or help in any form. For hours and hours his gallant mare kept on towards the west with speed that did not flag. The rider was even more weary than she seemed to be, and still they both urged on. He had seen nothing yet that looked like help and out of the wide prairie he rushed beneath the deep shadows of a heavy forest, skirting a stream. He now held up the pace of his horse, and as the last rays of the setting sun fell down through the great armed trees, he for the first time realized that he was lost. He had in his hurry become confused as to the direction he had come, and now was utterly confounded with regard to the course back to camp. All the day he had chased the shadow of a vague hope, and now even that had vanished; not even the thousandth and one chance of meeting with some wandering fragment of a friendly Indian tribe remained, as it seemed to him. All was unrelieved and gloomy, and the gallant mare he rode dragged her elastic feet heavily along, as she slowly and at random threaded the aisles of the old Forest. Here and there the solemn farewell of the day broke through in golden splendor, illuminating the huge trunks even up to their summits and minutest twigs, and down to the most delicate mosses and flower-bells at their feet. Though the young man was weary and heart sick, yet the glory of the dying day fell across his spirit, though it was with a forlorn smile, for he was now hopeless. He had no craven fears, for had he been capable of such his arms made him secure against prodigious odds—but he was sad because his friends expected him to come back with help to them, and he could not go, for he was now as helpless as if a thousand miles intervened. His beautiful mare walked with her fine ears laid back, and with an expression of utter weariness that entirely corresponded with his condition. Ho! Her ears are pricked forward, and she starts with a bound and a clear neigh. Her fine senses have discovered something friendly in the savage forest. The young man spurs forward. There, beneath a grand old beach tree, a young girl is mounted on a black and glossy horse, that moves as if inspired with all volatile essences of grace. Our wanderer pauses, for a slight check will stop his weary Celeste. This is a strange, extravagant sight to start from out the depths of the savage wilderness, yet it is no less real. She is there—the young girl with golden hair, and it is not less golden that the mellow sunset mingles with its glistening threads—and that shining horse of hers goes quickly into shadow and comes glancing into light again as he circles round the great old tree. But what is there in the great old tree, that she should go round it so upon her glossy horse, and snap her fingers, gaily singing as she whirls? In the first fork of the old tree there is a spotted congar couched. His ears are laid close back upon head, his long tail is waving to and fro, and he is ready for the spring. Still that young girl gallops round and round him, disturbing the aim of his gathered spring by the swift movements of her glossy horse—and still she taunts the yellow glare of those fierce eyes, snapping her white fingers gaily in their angry gleam as she goes by. [To be continued.] Nothing promotes the growth of wisdom so rapidly as sorrow; it is, in truth, the hot-bed of all knowledge, but while it forces it weakens; and such rapidly acquired “reason,” like a hot-house plant, is unfit for the changes and breezes of ordinary existence. Often those who are best acquainted with sorrow know least how to support it; their wisdom has not sprung from the right seed. “My good woman,” said an evangelist, as he offered a tract, “have you got the gospel here?” “No, sir, we haven’t,” replied the old crone, “but they’ve got it.” It is awfully down to New Orleans.” NEW YORK, SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 19, 1847. The Village Church. BY ELIZA COOK. The village church is passing gay, The bells gush out in merry tune, A flag is over the turret grey. The porch holds all the flowers of June, For Youth and Beauty come to wed, With bounding form and beaming eye— With all the rapture Love can shed, And all the hope that Gold can buy; And children twine with noisy glee, White favors round the cypress tree. An old man sitteth on a grave. His steps no more are firm and fast: And slenderly his white locks wave, As breeze and butterfly go past. A gentle smile lights up his face. And then he turns to gaze around; For he has come to choose the place Where he shall sleep in hallowed ground: “Just by yon daisy patch.” said he, “’Tis there, ’tis there I’d have it be.” The bridal hearts in triumph glow. With all the world before them yet; The old man’s pulse beats calm and slow, Like sun rays, lengthening as they set. They see the fancied hours to come, He sees the real days gone by; They deem the earth a fairy home. He thinks it well that man should die. Oh, goodly sight—it should be so— Youth glad to stay—Age fit to go! [Original.] Woman; HER HISTORY, CHARACTER, CONDITION, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, IN ALL AGES AND NATIONS. PART THREE. Female Beauty. What is beauty? Voltaire answered this question with characteristic sophism, and in a manner quite unworthy a great philosopher; which in many respects he was. He says: — "Ask a toad what is beauty, the supremely beautiful, the To-kalon? He will answer you that it is his female, with two large round eyes projecting out of its little head; a broad and flat neck, yellow belly and dark brown; back. Ask a Guinea negro; and with him beauty is a greasy black skin, hollow eyes and a flat nose." This may be wit—but it is very far from being the truth. The laws of beauty exist in nature, and men are so formed as to recognize them. Our notions are warped somewhat by conventionality and fashion; but a beautiful object is recognized as such all over the world. Whatever may be the private opinion of the toad, of that of the negro there is no question. Until he sees a fairer being, the women of his own color are doubtless charming; but no negro would prefer a statue of Venus in ebony nor have her painted with lamp-black. Making due allowance for slight differences in taste and habit; men do not much differ in opinion as to the beautiful, in woman, or any other natural production. When a man can be found who will pronounce a toad-stool to be as beautiful as a rose, who will prefer a paving stone to a pearl, who thinks the sorry donkey a handsomer animal than the noble horse, and a sooty thick lipped negress more lovely than a New York belle, we may admit that there is some truth in the quotation from the sarcastic savant. In bestowing this general ideal of the beautiful nature has wisely given some diversity in taste; as otherwise there could not be that variety, necessary to the beauty of a whole, or there could be little contentment. Were all women of the same size, form and complexion, the want of identity and the monotony would be alike insupportable. Even ugliness seems necessary, for variety. Tastes are happily as various as forms and complexions. One man admires a tall woman, another does upon a short one. This prefers the blonde, that thinks the brunette enchanting. The Greeks praised the slender and graceful figure—the Moors prize fatness to obesity; and their women are fatted for marriage as our turkeys are for Thanksgiving or Christmas. We may notice here that provision of Nature in these varieties of taste which makes the sexes seek their opposites. The dark match with the light, the tall with the short, the slender with the stout, and in the reverse order, by which provision of Nature the race is preserved in its medium, and prevented from running into monstrosities. It is probable that this association of opposite qualities of mind and person depends chiefly upon the ennui of sameness, or what is the same thing, the love of variety. Nor is it confined to the relations of the sexes; for it is usual and natural to see a tall man associating with a short one, and the dwarf and giant are proper travelling companions. A man satiated with his own qualities, seeks in another those of an opposite character. But these various tastes have their limits. Place one of the beaux ideals of the painter or sculptor in a crowd, and all will pronounce it beautiful—yet a great number would have it somewhat different. It is the general beau ideal—not the particular. One would have the Venus a little shorter, another a little taller. One thinks the complexion a shade too light, another too dark; but no one, not even a hot tentot will pretend that the Hottentot Venus is as beautiful as Titian’s or Canova’s. Observation gives us many proofs of this. Throughout central and western Asia, and northern Africa, the Circassian females are most prized for their beauty; while in Europe they, and those most closely resembling them, are counted as being nearest perfection. In many savage nations, of Africa, south eastern Asia, and Polynesia, men, overcoming their natural jealousy, have promoted an intercourse between their women, and European voyagers, expressly to improve their race. This striking fact is stated by many independent authorities. Lastly, though there is in our race everywhere, a variety reaching from extreme beauty to extreme deformity; one is never mistaken for the other, by any person in his proper senses. In considering the general question of female beauty, there arise some of the most difficult questions that have perplexed the philosophic world. Did the whole human race come from one original pair? Those who answer this question in the negative, say there are no causes in nature which could, in the confessedly limited duration of the human race, have produced its strongly marked varieties. Three thousand years ago, the Chinese had square heads, yellow complexions and little queerly shaped eyes. As far back as our researches go, we find the Negro as black as now, and with the same peculiarities; moreover, we find in South Africa, in Australia, and in America, races differing from all the others. The arguments on the other hand are of great weight. Aside from this question which is full of difficulties, we have the commonly received opinion of the creation of a single pair, in a state of high perfection from which the miserable and savage races, scattered over the earth have degenerated; and the great theory of progressive development which supposes that mankind are the result of the progressive improvement and perfection of the animal races, and that from the orangutan, the bushmen, or savage dwarfs of South Africa — the Australians, the Negro races, man has gradually ascended to his highest existing type in the Caucasian race; in which he has attained to the highest degree of beauty, energy, and genius, ever yet developed. Each way the difficulties seem insurmountable. The great races, so strongly marked in some localities, are found in others to run into each other, by insensible gradations, so that from the most perfect Circassian beauty, to the most horrible fright of a female Australian, we can go step by step, and find it exceedingly difficult to trace the lines of dem Arrangements. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine how any difference of circumstances or any kind or continuance of cultivation should ever develop the models of Grecian Art from the Hottentot, or reduce the beautiful Greek to the appearance of the frightful females of Terra del Fuego. The primitive history of our race, contained in the book of Genesis, does not solve these difficulties. The whole race of Adam is there said to have been destroyed by an universal deluge. Now, sur histories go back almost to the date of that event. The monuments of Egypt, and the annals of China, date back to the lifetime of the Patriarch Noah. In all that time, mankind have not been much changed by circumstances. Barbarous nations have grown civilized but they have not changed their color or form. Helen, who caused the ten years' siege and destruction of Troy by her beauty and perfidy, and who was so supremely enchanting that her bitterest enemies were incapable of revenging their injuries when they saw her—Helen, who, three thousand years ago, was so beautiful, still has her representatives in modern Greece. Other nations have, under all changes of circumstances, preserved the same features and appearance. When, then, did this deterioration occur—when did these changes happen, and what causes produced them? These are matters in regard to which we know very little. But in spite of these great differences in the human race, there are in all, those who approach nearer than others to the standard of perfection. Travellers assure us that among the gaunt, filthy, and disgusting inhabitants of Australia and Southern Africa, there are not wanting individuals who approach to something like symmetrical forms. In Central Africa there are females whose shapes might be models for the sculptor. There are females of considerable beauty among the North American Indians, and in some of the islands of the Pacific, there are women who, in physical beauty, compare favorably with the finest in Europe. Throughout Asia, beauty in woman is considered the supreme good; and it is everywhere sought after and cultivated. It is an article of commerce and monopoly. From the time of Solomon, and perhaps ages before, the choice beauties of the empire were culled for the sovereign—and distant States paid tribute in beauty. Next came the rich and great personages, who were served in this respect only less luxuriously than their monarch. Then, and in all times to the present day, women were snubbed up in Harem's, prisoners, reconciled by custom to their condition, and educated to think it the most desirable on earth. In the East the customs of today are those of three thousand years ago, and the description given of the harem of Ahasuerus, in the book of Esther, would answer well for a Persian seraglio of the present day. But it is in Europe that woman's beauty has exerted the greatest power. Her empire came from the North; and it was the barbarians of Germany who gave the world chivalry and romance — placed woman upon her proper eminence, and by this means gave an impulse to civilization. In savage nations, beauty is subordinate to uselulness. A strong wife, and especially an industrious one, is preferred to a pretty one. In Oriental nations, beauty languishes in chains. The chains are worn willingly and happily, but man is not less the tyrant; and his power is his weakness. In ancient Greece, the influence of beauty appears to have been confined to a few, and the most celebrated Grecian women were such as we should style notorious. In Rome, women occupied more nearly their true position, and had a considerable, and at first a favorable influence in the state. At last the sex and the nation grew corrupt together, acting reciprocally on each other. In the heart of Europe, woman and beauty ruled supreme. This state of things, and its results, we shall notice hereafter. [Original.] Skeidjes by the Captain. NUMBER TWENTY-TWO. Stuttering- Dick. Hoi? Richard Atkins, who was one of the cleverest fellows in the world, but who stuttered abominably, ever became master of a ship—thorough sailor as he was—is one of those mysteries which I leave ship-owners and underwriters to solve. When I first made his acquaintance, he commanded a fine vessel, of which he was justly proud, and which he was very fond of “handling” himself, although he could not give an order without hesitating and struggling with his words and syllables in a manner ludicrous beyond all description. He had for his first officer, an excellent sailor, who understood Captain Dick and anticipated his orders—else, when the Captain took it into his head to exercise his men, or personally direct the management of the vessel, confusion and disaster must have followed. An order would be half executed before Dick had got it out of his mouth. “W-w-w-ell d-d-d-d-one m-m-my 1-1-lads,’’ Dick would exclaim—"d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d Grog in his cabin, to probe him on the subject. Dick would have much preferred any other subject to stutter on, but I kept to the point and finally brought out the confession. Dick had been in love, but “the cursed imp-pediment in my speech.” “She was my third or fourth cousin,” said Dick, (I must tell the story without the stuttering accompaniment of my friend,) “an orphan, taken into our family at a very early age. We were playmates, and loved each other very dearly. Her eyes were as blue as the summer skies, which bent over our dear valley of the Kennebec, and that lovely river never mirrored a fairer face than hers. At fifteen I went to sea, leaving her a child of twelve. The old sea-god took a dislike to me from the start, for by wrecking our ship, and throwing other abstacles in the way, I was eighteen years of age before I saw my home again. As I walked up the green slope to the old homestead, a beautiful girl stood in the porch, gazing earnestly towards me. The next moment a white pair of arms was clasped around my neck, and lips pressed close to my own, whispered—“Dick, my own dear Dick.” It was my little cousin, it was Molly, the sweet creature, who welcomed me. I was at home three weeks, during which time I had a thousand opportunities of telling my love. But when I came to that word, I stuttered and could not get it out. I went away and again returned —again attempted to overcome my nervous prejudice against that dear letter Z, but it was of no use. It stuck between me and me. My teeth; it made my tongue pirouette like a dancing girl on one leg; it ran up my nostrils, then fell back into my throat, then hid under the roof of my mouth, but it would not come out. Away to sea I went, and returned to find my sweet cousin only a little more cold. I made another desperate effort to give expression to the passion that filled my heart. I walked into the woods and practiced all day, but when at night I stood by Molly’s side, the devil that fastened upon me had resumed his power; the fiend entered again into my tongue, and all was chaos. To sea once more. As I shook hands with Molly, I tried to look the love I could not speak, but Molly was either not impressible though the eye, or my eyes were as unintelligible as my tongue. She did not take, dear girl, and when I came back I found she had been taken. A land-shark of a lawyer, who could do nothing but talk, had woed and won her. “Molly,” I cried in vexation and disappointment, and without nailing on a syllable, “You have broken my heart.” “Rather say, dear cousin Jack,” she replied, turning up mine her heavenly eyes, in which there was more of tenderness than rebuke, “rather say that I have loosened your tongue — too late,” and I thought she sighed as she spoke. “Just to think of it,” concluded Jack as he passed the bottle of rum, “just to think that my inability to get over that cursed letter and be damned to it, cost me one of the gentlest hearts that ever beat.” Poor Dick Atkins! His heart had no room for another love. He died a few years afterward, and her name was last on his lips.— From the violence of delirium, he had sunk into a deathly stupor, when suddenly rousing himself, and stretching his out arms as though about to embrace some beloved object, he exclaimed—“d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d- who is held by all classes in great veneration. The Druses glory chiefly in the title of Unitarians, and they believe in Hakem. He is, say they, the creator of heaven and earth; the only adorable God in heaven, and the only Lord on earth; the one, the solitary who is without wife and children; who begets not and is not begotten; the beginning and the end of all things, the powerful, the excellent, the victorious. Under this great animating spirit of the universe they acknowledge seven law-givers — Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mahomet, and Said. But the being next to Hakem, or God, is Hamsah; who has had seven revelations by metempsychosis — that is to say, the spiritual Hamsah, has appeared seven times, in as many different bodies. In the time of Adam he was called Shatuil; in that of Noah, Fitagurus — in the time of Jesus he was Lazarus. As Lazarus, Hamsah endeavored to teach Jesus, but the latter having rejected his doctrine, he incited the Jews against him and caused him to be crucified. The Druses have a very bad opinion of Mahomet, maintaining that he was an evil demon sent to deluge the world; they believe the four Evangelists of the New Testament; but insist that all Christians are mistaken in regard to these gospels, and that they relate, not to Jesus, but to Hamsah, who was the true Messiah, as Jesus was the false. Hakem appeared on the earth, the Druses teach, in the 400th year of the Hegira, and again in 408 when his Divine nature was manifested. He will appear again at the day of judgment, the time of which is not accurately known; but the sign of its near approach will be the conquest of the Mahometans by the Christians. At this judgment, the Druses or Unitarians will be rewarded with the dominion and treasures of the earth, and shall reign over it as Emirs, Pashas, and Sultans—or Governors, Kings, and Emperors; but Apostates and Mahometans will be terribly punished, but Jews and Christians less severely. The Druses can scarcely be called a Christian sect, since they consider Jesus as the false Christ, and make the gespets to relate to another. There is in this idea a little obscurity and apparent confusion—but from these no religious system that we know of is entirely free. Even pure Deism has its unanswered difficulties; as witness the discussions of the philosophers as to the nature and origin of evil, and the theories of Hobbes and Spinosa. The initiated of the Druses hold their secret meetings at night. Their Sabbath is Thursday. They have been accused, as have many other sects, of making these night gatherings the scenes of licentious orgies—but the evidence is the other way; since it is notorious that the young Druses, after initiation, become more moral in their deportment, at least outwardly. In their worldly affairs, the Druses have some pleasing characteristics. They live in the same towns with Christians in perfect harmony; though they do not intermarry. Their houses are well built, with marble floors and fountains, and their rooms are elegantly furnished, with rich draperies and divans. They manufacture silk in considerable quantities. The palace of the Emir of the Druses, in the city of Bleddin, is like a small town, or a Fourier Phalanx. Two thousand persons of every description live in its extensive apartments; soldiers, scribes, carpenters, bricklayers, blacksmiths, horse-breakers, cooks, to bacconists—all in perfect harmony; and notwithstanding the blunders they mutually accuse each other of in respect to the Gospel, Druses and Christians all live sociably and comfortably with each other; probably because the Druses keep their religious opinions to themselves and do not meddle with those of their neighbors; who have had the excellent good taste to follow their example. Whatever may be thought of their faith—and it appears to be a kind of Free Masonry; there is no doubt that the Druses are a remarkably brave, hospitable, and industrious people—their country is a refuge from the oppressions of the surrounding nations, and they are in many respects models which the rest of the world would do well to follow. Youth and Age. [The following beautiful lines originally appeared in the Etonian, a periodical started about twenty years ago, by the boys of Eton College. For truth, tenderness and melody, they are incomparable.] I often think each tottering form That limps alone in life’s decline, Once bore a heart as young, as warm, As full of idle thoughts as mine; And each has had its dream of joy, His own unequalled pure romance; Commencing when the blushing boy First thrills at lovely woman’s glance. And each could tell his tale of youth, Would think its scenes of love evince More passion, more unearthly truth, Than any tale before or since. 