OLD HUMPHREY ON WALKING-STICKS. Ir is a common saying, "When a ship gets under weigh, no one can tell the port she will make;" and something like this is true of general readers, for the contents of the books, pamphlets, and paragraphs they read, are often very different to their titles, and lead them where they never expected to go to. In reading a newspaper, we never can be sure that the announcement, "The British Parliament," will not introduce to our notice, "Parr's Life Pills;" "A national discovery," lead the way to the clothing establishment of "Moses and Son;" and "The greatest fact of the age," end in "Holloway's Ointment." as the embellishments of architecture, though they add nothing to the strength of an edifice, greatly enrich it, and add to its beauty. It is possible, nay, indeed, highly probable, that this paper or chapter, "Old Humphrey on Walking-Sticks," may branch out a little in the same way. the investigation of light and colour, to quicken his faculties and enable him to fix his attention, he confined himself all the time to a small quantity of bread, with a little sack and water, without any regulation, except that he took a little whenever he felt his animal spirits flag. Here we witness true philosophy at work to facilitate its own labours; and we do not wonder to find that the man who, when checked in his researches by the imperfection of his instruments, sets about inventing and manufacturing new ones with his own hands, should also resort to the best means for sustaining the functions of his brain when determined to use it to the extent of its power; and although Celsus informs us that imbecilli Sometimes, however, we are agreeably stomacho penè omnes cupidi literarum surprised when a book or paper branches sunt, he knew full well that a bad di- out into unexpected subjects of interest, gestion was by no means a real corrobo- giving an unlooked-for fulness and variety rant of the rational faculties, and how-to the topic under consideration, just ever morbidly greedy of books, like the sickly devourers of circulating libraries, dyspeptic individuals might become, their weak stomachs but little aided to strengthen their judgments, or to render them the better qualified to administer to the vigorous growth of other minds. Yet, doubtless, as the same authority observes, obesus venter non parit subtilem intellectum, an excessive stomach comports with an empty head; not that a man of fair rotundity, like Shakspeare's Justice, cannot, occasionally, think with sufficient clearness for peaceful and epicurean purposes, but simply because the soul of a man fully alive to the great policies of existence, must move his affections and his intellect too busily in their working on his nerves, and expend the vitality of his blood too rapidly, to allow him to take his ease at long meals, and to accumulate a burden of flesh to impede alike both his body and his mind. The happy medium which Newton endeavoured to maintain, was just that which would preserve the blood in the fittest state for the purposes of the mind while intently acting on the brain; and probably not a little of the splendid clearness of his demonstrations may be attributed to the success with which he controlled all his bodily propensities, by the moderation which he invariably observed in the management of his stomach.-Dr. George Moore. Many of my readers may care but little about walking-sticks, and I, perhaps, running into the opposite extreme, value them beyond their real worth. Certain it is, that I cannot take into my hand the walking-stick of a friend who has quitted the world before me, without some emotion: an inclination to muse and meditate on the past comes over me, and a desire to recal those seasons in which we have walked together, and taken counsel one of another. Call it a weakness if ye will; but the walkingstick of one whom I have respected and loved, has much influence over me. There are some relics that I prize. Were the staff in existence, and in my possession, with which father Jacob passed over Jordan, it would be estimated by me very highly. A man who uses a walking-stick, has a quick eye in observing the walkingsticks of his neighbours. Not easily would you pass me with a stick or staff of any kind in your hand, without a glance of inquiry. One man walks with a stick close under his arm; another carries it horizontally, poising it by the middle; a third holds it up as a soldier on duty holds up his sword; a fourth bears it on his shoulder, as though it were a log of timber; a fifth twirls it round and round by the hook; a sixth walks with it so that it is up in the air and down on the ground alternately, every fourth step; while a seventh, who really stands in need of its support, sets it firmly on the earth every second step that he takes, looking narrowly before him, lest inadvertently he should place it on a piece of orange peel, or other substance, of a slippery kind. What a variety of pictures, connected with walking-sticks, are now flitting before me! An old gentleman, with highquartered shoes, and the flaps of his embroidered waistcoat half down his thighs, is grasping his gold-headed cane as he walks up the hill to the parish church. An old lady in ruffles and stiff brocade is holding her high walking-stick a full foot from the top, as she takes her way to the alms-houses, her heart beating with kindness towards the poor. A venerable man, in a loose coat, with white flowing hair, is talking kindly to a party of boys, and pointing with his staff to the setting sun. And a cottager, as he is passing by the skirt of the coppice, pulls down a nut-bough with the hook of his stick, for a group of ragged children. But we must not be satisfied in thus treating on walking-sticks generally; let us enter more into particulars: for as there is a great difference between a hazel and a holly-stick, an ash-plant and a Malacca cane, a whangee and a warted crab, a bamboo and a blackthorn, so every sort has its kindred associations. Try to fancy yourself standing with me in the shop of a stick-seller, with an assortment of walking-sticks spread out before us, from the thin cane that would delight a child, to the club almost suited to the grasp of a giant. The different bundles around, of sticks of all kinds, excite my fancy. Listen to the thoughts that they call up in my mind. The carved-headed, old, oaken staff reminds me of the fine carved oaken chimney-pieces that I have seen, and the beautiful carved stalls and screens in cathedrals. It reminds me of Damory's oak, more than threescore feet round the stem, and of the tree in which king Charles concealed himself from his pursuers. It brings before me the oak, under which the angel of the Lord sat, when he appeared unto Gideon; and it brings, too, the oaks of Bashan, and English forests, to my fancy. I see the woodman wielding his sharp axe, while the dry, white chips fly around him; and I hear the crash of the mighty trunk and the splintering of its goodly branches. I go to the dockyard, and gaze on the building of ships. I see the launching of a noble vessel; and accompany it through all the changes of an eventful voyage. At one time it is in the calm, sitting motionless on the waters; and at another, in the storm, seemingly the sport of angry ocean! Now it is among the icebergs of the north, and now passing the line under the burning beams of the meridian sun. Yesterday it was proudly ploughing its way through the foaming waves, and to-day, dismasted and wrecked, it is beating its shattered hull against the pointed rocks. The twisted vine, scraped and varnished as it has been, is very unlike the stem and the branch of the tree that bears the grape, but it fails not to remind me of the countries where vines abundantly grow-light-hearted France; and Spain, and Portugal, troubled with intestine broils, where, for years, friend has been alienated from friend, and brethren, alas! have scabbarded their swords in each other's hearts! It reminds me, also, of the Holy Land, where the once highly-favoured, but now widely-scattered Jewish people, sat in safety under their own vines and fig-trees. It brings to my memory the words of the Redeemer, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman," John xv. 1; and it presents to my remembrance the picture of many a peaceful English cottage, standing on a sunny slope, with neatness and simplicity inside, and outside a clustered vine, running up the whitewashed wall. The gold-headed cane, with the silk tassel, is certainly a noble-looking walking-stick; but the precious metal of the handle is more eloquent than the cane itself, though the latter, coming as it does from Malacca, says much to me of the tawny, black-haired Malay, usually classed among the most treacherous, the most fierce, and the most ferocious of the human race. Gold! gold! What crimes and what cruelties have been committed to obtain thee! Thou art called worthless gold, sordid gold, and guilty gold, thus bearing on thine innocent head the guilt of those who misuse thee. How often do we require to have the words sounded in our ears, "Labour not to be rich;" "If riches increase, set not your heart upon them;" "Better is a little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure and trouble therewith;" | and, "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Matt. xvi. 26. Gold has been found in many countries; but we now look to the New World, as America is called, for the golden treasures of the earth. Mexico, Brazil, Peru, and Chili, are the principal storehouses of the precious metals. Gold is found in grains, lumps, and veins; but were it found in masses equal in size to the mountains, it would not repay the miseries which its guilty gainers have inflicted on the world. As I look on that gold-headed Malacca cane, I cannot but think it would be well, could the earth, with its yawning mouth, swallow up, for ever, every atom of the gold possessed by mankind, could it, at the same time, cancel the accusing scroll, written in tears and blood, that is is now lying before the throne of the Eternal. The dark walking-stick, in the corner bundle, is formed of whalebone. It has been taken from the huge leviathan of the mighty deep in the midst of the Frozen Ocean. What dreary scenes of ice and snowy peaks, and seals and walrusses, are in my fancy gathering round. True, there is some variety even here; for at one time all is motionless, while at another, the boats from the ship with the frozen rigging, are seen in pursuit of a whale struck by the harpooners. For a season the energies of the exiled crew are taxed to the utmost, and all is life, effort, and animation; but this subsides, and round the headland is a wide expanse, where solitude and silence prevail, unbroken by the sight and sound of living thing, save of the polar bear, who, on an iceberg borne onwards from the distant shore, is moaning as he raises himself on his hind legs to gaze around, The white, shaggy king of the keen, northern clime, his cares! For hark! as he floats to the ocean profound, lanterns, and Chinese junks, and pagodas are flitting before me. There is the grand canal yonder, the great wall, and the bare-headed, long-tailed followers of Confucius. The inhabitants of the celestial empire are all around. You have seen on a fan or a tea-chest, no doubt, Well! the pictures and sober-faced people, so odd, Their figures mid gardens and temples drawn out; Are as like one another as peas in a pod. Yes! the sight of that bamboo has called up to my imagination three hundred millions of Holy-Scriptureless, sabbathless, and Saviourless beings! What a thought! Enough to bring me down on my knees to the very dust in prayer, on account of their destitution, and to raise my heart to the very heaven of heavens in praise for my own mercies. That blackthorn bludgeon has an ugly look, nor would I willingly meet a man carrying such an unsightly weapon, in a narrow, retired lane, after sunset. It sets me thinking of vice and villany-of crime and cruelty-of highway robbery and deeds of violence. Oh that we could all cast aside anger, and hatred, and malice, and uncharitableness, and violence, and live together in quietness, in peace, and in love! What an oriental medley of Hindoos and brahmins-lascars and sepoys—rajahs and rupees-priests and pagodasdoes the ivory-hooked handle of that high walking-cane, obtained as it has been from the tusk of an elephant, set before me! I see bungalows and budgerows-swamps and alligators-thick jungles and striped tigers-elephants_and hooded snakes-without number. Ignorance, superstition, and idolatry, have a wide domain. Under their influence the brahmin is bowing down to his wooden god, the deluded devotee flinging himself beneath the wheels of Juggernaut, and the Hindoo widow burning herself on her husband's funeral pile. I see Madras, with its batteries and bastions, and the high surf beating on the shore; Calcutta, with its citadel, Fort William; and Bombay, with its oriental trees, and inhabitants from different countries. The sight of that bamboo cane takes me at once to China, into the very presence of his celestial majesty, Taoukwang, or Reason's Glory, and his proud mandarins. I seem to see at the same moment, Pekin and Canton, Amoy, Foochoo, Ningpo, and Shanghae; and tea, and opium, and vermilion, and sycee silver, and parasols, and umbrellas, and For a bride from Circassia is visible now. The spreading banana and cocoa-nut rise, And the tall Tara palm lifts its head to the skies; The turbanned Mohammedan, long-tailed Chinese, mere, The Fakir and Arab horse-dealer are there; And the Hindoo looks round, with his caste on his brow, With that ivory-hooked, high walking- | cane before me, I could prate for an hour of India and Indian affairs. The sight of that mottled hazel stick surrounds me with waving woods, the rich garniture of glowing fields, and witching visions of coppice scenery, wherein bowery branches, and sequestered nooks, and clustered nuts, and wild strawberries, and field flowers, and feathered songsters, are strangely blended. Something more than "the time of the singing of birds is come," when the voice of the turtle is heard in the land, for autumn's sun is in the skies, and autumn's manytinted foliage is on the trees. I walk abroad; I roam the coppice; I revel amid the hazel bowers; I breathe the sweet air of heaven, and burst into a song of joy and thanksgiving. A hazel stick is a cheerful text from which I preach myself many a sunny sermon of green fields, glowing foliage, waving woods, and kindling skies. Hardly would I wish, when I wanted to discourse freely, for a better subject to excite my sympathies than that of walking-sticks; for it would awake my fancy, send my thoughts round the world, and call up in my heart a general interest for all mankind. And think you that a Christian man can get no good from his walking-stick? no lesson of humility, when he finds himself fain to lean on the perishing branch of a tree to steady his steps? no suggestion of cautiousness, when it keeps his faltering foot from falling? no emotion of thankfulness, when it reminds him of the sustaining power of the Eternal, and almost puts into his mouth the words, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me,' Psa. xxiii. 4. And no holy resolution to lean more unreserv edly on the promises of the Most High, and to walk more humbly, heartily, and confidingly before God in the land of the living? A disciple of the Redeemer knows, from holy writ, that neither a fading leaf, a grain of mustardseed, nor even the dust of the balance, is too small a thing to impart to him profitable instruction; and therefore he will not undervalue any useful admonition or encouragement that may be suggested to his mind, by the staff that sustains his steps. You have now seen, by my remarks, that walking-sticks may suggest much that That may be profitable to their owners. an oak stick may remind us of the oaks of Bashan, and the forest trees of England conduct us to the dockyard, and pilot us over the world of waters; a vine present us with lovely cottage pictures, and be our guide to the Holy Land; a gold-headed cane reprove our covetousness, and remind us of riches that are eternal; a whalebone walking-stick paint the dreary scene of the Frozen Ocean, and the harpooning of the huge leviathan of the deep; a bamboo direct our attention to China, with its three hundred millions of Holy-Scriptureless, sabbathless, and Saviourless people; a blackthorn excite our abhorrence of violence, and call forth an inclination to peace, kind-heartedness, and love; a stick with an ivory top discourse largely on India; and a hazel conjure up before our eyes rural delights, that call up within us emotions of joyousness and praise. You have been shown that I have scriptural authority for my belief, that nothing in the world is too trivial to be made a means of imparting to us profitable instruction; and now it remains for such of my readers as carry walking-sticks, in common with myself, to remember, that we shall not make the most of the staffs that sustain us, if we get not from them lessons of humility, emotions of thankfulness, and hearty desires, in all earnestness and sincerity, to "walk before God in the land of the living," Psa. lvi. 13. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HOT CLIMATES. THE physiological fact of the intense degree of cold which man is capable of enduring is truly wonderful, the temperature of his blood remaining all the time at the standard degree of 98°. His power of sustaining heat with that temperature scarcely, if at all changed, is equally, if not more wonderful. This has been proved by many experiments. Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Fordyce, and others, remained many minutes in rooms heated to between 196° and 212°, the degree at which water boils. If they breathed on the thermometer it sunk several degrees, and every exposure felt cold to the scorched nostrils. The thermometer under the tongue still continued at 98. Sir C. Blagden remained eight minutes in an apartment heated to 260°. For seven minutes his breathing was natural, but | anxiety and oppression then came on: the sensible heat of the body varied but little. Dr. Dobson went into a room heated to 224°, and felt no very oppressive heat, though every metal about him was too hot to be touched. In these rooms eggs on a tin plate are said to have been roasted hard in twenty minutes, beefsteaks were cooked in thirty-three minutes, and, if the air was impelled upon them, they were cooked dry in about thirteen minutes. Jillet and Du Hemel, in France, bore a heat of 290° for above five minutes. The chief agents in maintaining this extraordinary capability, are the skin and the lungs. The cooling effect of evaporation from these surfaces is alone sufficient to counteract the augmented heat. Hence we see that the human frame is adapted to bear the heat of a vertical sun no less than the icy rigours of the pole. In a temperate condition of the atmosphere no more heat is produced than is rapidly carried off by insensible perspiration from the skin and lungs by contact with colder air; but in a heated condition-such as is constantly present in hot climates-their surfaces are constantly bedewed with fluid, and a corresponding desire exists for liquids, by which the secretion may be kept up to a sufficient degree. The quantity of fluid evaporated from the skin during profuse perspiration is such, that 5lbs. weight have been lost by this means in a single hour-a cooling process quite sufficient to carry off the largest amount of superfluous heat that can ever be present. Another provision for moderating heat is the darkening effect that the sun's rays have upon the skin. The seat of colour is a mucous web between the true skin and the outer cuticle, and upon this the sun in hot climates appears to act in a twofold manner; first, by the direct affinity of his calorific rays with the oxygen of the blood, which it detaches, leaving carbon behind; and next, by the indirect influence which it has upon the liver, stimulating it to a secretion of more abundant bile, and of a darker hue. The inhabitants of the tropics are, without exception, of a colour more or less dark; and even the descendants of Europeans, when transferred to the equatorial regions, assume the black tint after the lapse of a few generations. Bishop Heber remarked in hisIndian tour, how all whites-Persians, Greeks, Tartars, Turks, and Arabians in a very little time, even without any intermarriage with Hindoos-assume the olive tint little less dark than the negro, which seems natural to the climate. The Portuguese have, during three hundred years' residence in India, become as black as Caffres. The very exception proves the rule. The Abyssinians have a much less deep colour than the negro race. And why? Because, although their geographical latitude is nearly the same, their climate differs essentially; their country is much higher, and its temperature in consequence far lower. Many distinct tribes have lately been discovered in the interior of Africa, in the midst of the black tribes, having nothing more than a red or copper hue; but it is now known that the interior of Africa rises in successive terraces, so that the central parts are much higher and cooler than the coasts. The children of negroes born in temperate climates, it is very true, retain the black hue. When once established, it will not wear away for successive generations; but this does not prove its origin to have been other than that just mentioned. Now, although a black surface absorbs, it is equally true that it radiates far more heat than any other colour. If therefore, the temperature of the atmosphere is at all below that of the body, as, with the exception of the hottest part of the day, it usually is even in tropical climates, we see in this circumstance a provision for the rapid abstraction of heat, just the reverse of that which obtains in cold countries, where a white complexion is so prevalent for the purpose of preventing the escape of animal heat in the greatest possible degree. In connexion with the complexion of the skin, we may likewise notice the thick and fleecy hair by which the natives of very torrid countries are effectually sheltered from the burning heat of the sun. The negroes who inhabit the hottest regions of the globe are so sensible of its accommodation to this purpose, that they never employ any head-dress as a substitute. If the natives of India, who are as black, did not wear turbans, which give their hair the facility of expanding, they would probably be furnished with the same natural convenience. Still, however, hot climates have an enervating and relaxing effect on the human frame, and predispose to many diseases - some of a very formidable character-to which the inhabitants of colder countries are not exposed. And we have here again to look not merely to |