ma'am, they're all gone now.' This, it must be confessed, was rather a 'sell' for the lady; however, the fact being undeniable, all she could do under the circumstances was to say that it was a very good thing she had got rid of them, and that she was very glad of it."

And so we take leave of Mr. Simeon, with only one regret that his charming book is not longer.The scene changes; we are in the city again. The "dusty roar" (which we claim to be an equally correct expression as the American one of "blue thunder") bursts on our ears again. Shall we take another excursion? Very well. We beg to introduce you to Mr. Cliffe,1 who we can promise you will take you a very pleasant excursion indeed.

Presto! we are soon on the ground. Here is a change indeed. An awful grey wilderness of tumbled stone, and scanty yellow grass. A black deep lake, with here and there a sullen gleam of light across its surface, where some flaw of wind strikes down a cleft in the black mountain, which hangs all around a giant curtain against the sun. Before us, scarce a quarter of a mile off, is a perpendicular cliff, nine hundred feet high, deep in whose side is riven a black chasm, from which a slender torrent of water, chafing among the fallen boulders, awakens the only sound in this terrible solitude, and makes the grim silence around the more perceptible.

This is Llyn Idwal, in Carnarvonshire, where Prince Idwal was pushed into the water by his cruel uncle-a legend equalling in authenticity that of the more generally received and accredited one of Willikins. What a place for a ghost! Hush, did you hear that? What was that wild shriek that came faintly echoing back from the cliff, followed by a sound like distant thunder? Was that

"Young Idwal's drowning cry,"

as spoken of by the poet Gray, in "the Bard?" No, my dear sir; it was only the Holyhead express going through the Britannia tubular bridge, ten miles to the north there, carrying a couple of

1 Cliffe's Notes and Recollections of an Angler. Hamilton, Adams, and Co.

hundred people on at racing pace towards that mad, prosperous, warm-hearted oppressed nationality of Paddyland, whose faint blue mountains you may see from the top of that mountain before

us.

You will be kind enough to take off your shoes, and, putting them in your and, if you are a nervous man, keep your pocket, follow the guide up over the cliff; eye on the guide's back, feeling every step as you go, and not looking at the ghastly blue lake which you see between your legs five hundred feet below. Having at the risk of your neck gathered Rhodiola rosea, Mecanopsis Cambrica, and as we affirm, though corrected by authorities—that rare little fern Woodsia hyperborea, pull on your shoes again, and, sloping down through Then, casting one glance down the rock Cwm Fynnon, come into the great road. walls of the pass of Llanberis, turn along the little mine road at Gorphwysfa, and wind along through the mountain solitude, till wild glorious Llydaw spreads his broad calm sheet of green water before you, and the Wydfa, the highest peak of Snowdon, throws up his black ribbed peak among the flying clouds.

To many pleasant places will Mr. Cliffe take you. At one time you will

stand blinded and stunned under the falls of the Llugwy, or Conway, where the green water comes spouting through a thousand arteries, and makes the summer leaves quiver with the shock. At another, on lonely Llyn Adar, bark on their solitary island through where the breeding gulls cackle and the long summer day. Over wastes of tumbled stone, over dizzy precipices by lonely mountain pools. But wherever you go with him, I think you will find him a pleasant intelligent companion, with a very good power of describing scenery. I think, as he says on his title-page, that he has

this beautiful verse. We shall not follow his example, being of opinion that the reckless habit of allowing literal translations to great classical works has gone far to ruin all real scholarship amongst us.

But we must say good-bye to Mr. Cliffe in his turn, and his Welsh scenery, for we have to go further afield still. go further afield still. Sir James Alexander1 takes us away to Canada, and gives us a large book on the salmon fishing there-edited by Sir James, but apparently written by an Irish clergyman-which contains a great deal of information on a subject but little known. It has often surprised us that summer fishing-expeditions to Canada were not oftener made: this book appears in some measure to account for it. The difficulties in getting at the water are great; the hardships undergone are very severe; and the sport, we suggest, by no means what it should be, considering the expense incurred.

The salmon rivers of Lower Canada all flow in on the northern shore of the St. Lawrence, at points extending from. Quebec to Labrador, a distance of 500 miles. These are the only streams which produce salmon in any quantity. Those of Upper Canada are, like those of the United States, utterly ruined by the insane stupidity of the millers, in not leaving steps for the salmon, and by the various slaughterous exterminating poaching villanies which are carried on. Indeed, salmon appear to be rarities in Upper Canada, while the United States are supplied from Lower Canada. The rivers we speak of are on the Hudson Bay territory; and it is the opinion of Dr. Adamson, in his able paper read to the Canadian Institute, that if the protection of the Hudson's Bay Company were withdrawn for one year, the salmon would be extinct in Canada.

The plan for the salmon fisher in Canada is as follows:-To go fishing at all, you must either own a yacht or hire a schooner. A schooner may be hired

Salmon Fishing in Canada. By a Resident. Edited by Colonel Sir James E. Alexander, K. H. With Illustrations. Two vols. Longman & Co.

from one of the brokers in Quebec at the cost of about a pound a day; which covers the wages and provisions for the crew, the owner acting as skipper. And, if you pursue this plan, as soon as you are encamped on the river you mean to fish, you can send your vessel away for fresh provisions. You must lay in a good stock of provisions to start with, an awful array of servants, a couple or so of canoes, tents, beds, blankets, &c.; and when you have got all these things together, have beat in over the river bar, have disembarked and lit your fires, pitched your tents and had your supper, then, if you are human, you will begin to wish you had died in infancy, or had stayed safe in Quebec, or Jericho, or anywhere else, instead of coming after these miserable salmon. For the torture of the flies and mosquitos exceeds human belief. Next to the Orinoco, Canada bears the palm against the world for the plague of flies. Listen to this :—

"The voice was the voice of our friend, but the face was the face of a negro in convulsions. To account for this, it may be well to state that the assault of the black fly is generally sudden and unexpected; that the first indication you have of his presence is the running of a stream of blood over some part of your face, which soon hardens there. These assaults being renewed ad infinitum, soon render it difficult for his nearest and dearest female relation to recognise him. The effect during the night following an attack of this kind is dreadful. Every bite swells to the size of a filbert; every bite itches like a burn and agonizes like a scald-and if you scratch it only adds to your anguish. The whole head swells, particularly the glandular and cellular part, behind and under the ears, the upper and lower eyelids, so as in many cases to produce inability to see. The poison is imbibed and circulated through the whole frame, producing fever, thirst, heat, restlessness, and despondency."

Really we must beg leave to doubt whether the best salmon-fishing in the world is worth having under such circumstances, although we may consider salmon-fishing to stand first among all sports. But, with regard to what amount of sport one may expect, we give an abstract of some days' fishing in the Godbout, which may be considered as about the ne plus ultra of what any

2 rods, 5 fish.

18th, 2 rods, 3 fish.

19th,

2 rods, 6 fish.

20th, 4 rods, 6 fish. 21st, 21st, 2 rods, 2 fish. 22d, 4 rods, 4 fish. 23d, 4 rods, 3 salmon, and a great many seatrout. 24th, 2 rods killed 13 salmon."

No more account of specific days' fishing is given, but it is stated that the party remained till the 11th July, "killing four, six, ten, eleven, and thirteen fish every day." We purposely quote the exact words of the book, because for seventeen days only five days seem accounted for. There is no doubt that this is good sport enough; but this was considered exceptional in 1853. So, according to Dr. Adamson, the salmonfishing in Canada should be in a poor

way now.

The book before us has considerable merits, but also great defects. It is too excursive. It is hard to pick the wheat (of which there is really plenty) from the "chaff,” of which there is considerably too much, and that not of the best quality. One thing more about it is remarkable, the great power the author seems to have of writing comic poetry. The lay of "Sir Joram à Burton," at page 34, is quite worthy of Barham himself. And the verses on "Navigation," at page 212, are very far above the average of that sort of composition. We cannot conceal from ourselves that the Appendix, by Dr. Adamson, Mr. Henry, and Sir James Alexander himself, contains the most valuable information; but the book itself is very readable, and there is also considerable humour to be found in the vignettes.

One more excursion, reader, before we part. We are going very very far a-field this time. Mr. Dunlop,1 C.B. (of

1 "Hunting in the Himalayas. With notices of Customs and Countries, from the Elephant Haunts of the Dehra Doon to the Bunchowr

whom, unless I mistake, we heard as a volunteer in the Indian mutiny), is to be our guide. Let us suppose him to possess a magic carpet. We will seat ourselves on it along with him, and then up and away, to where the everlasting snow lies deep over pass and summit. Where have we got to now? To the Alps The Alps! Mont Blanc, the monarch of mountains, lies an insignificant peak 3,000 feet below us. And yet overhead the grim crystalline Aiguilles range up peak over peak in the deep blue firmament, like lofty piled thunder-clouds upon a summer's evening. We are among the Ghats of the Himalaya!

And what is Mr. Dunlop doing up here, in the name of goodness? Well, he is going to shoot a Bunchowr. If you are not above asking what a Bunchowr is, we will inform you that a Bunchowr, as far as we can discover, is the grandfather of all Buffalo bulls, with a sheepskin mat nailed on his stern instead of a tail. Add to this, that he is desperately shy, and horribly vicious, and that he has to be hunted on foot, up to your knees in snow, and you will get some idea of what Bunchowr shooting in the Himalayas is like.

Mr. Dunlop is an Indian sportsman ; and of all Indian sportsmen he has written the pleasantest, most readable book. Putting Tennent's "Ceylon" out of the question, we have met no book superior; a bold assertion, but one we will stand by. It is, like all good books, too short, but should be read by every man who cares not only for natural history, but for the little queer odds and ends of society and manners in that furthest limit of the great empire.

He begins with the elephants. He takes us along the great boulder precipices of the Sewalik (the débris, we presume, of the great mountains above), and shows us the tracks where the wild elephants have passed through the jungle in single file among the rank grass up

Tracks in eternal snow. By R. H. W. Dunlop, C.B., B.C.S., F.R.G.S., late Superintendent of the Dehra Doon." Bentley.

spread out to feed, ripping the boughs and the bark from the trees, in herds sometimes seventy strong. Then he gives us his experience of shooting elephants, which, in the Doon, where you have to go after them on foot, appears very ticklish work indeed. The best plan seems to be, to get as near your elephant as possible, to take aim, to shut your eyes and blaze away, and then, as a Londoner would say, to "hook it" for your bare life. If you are so fortunate as not to be overtaken and pounded into little bits by the infuriated animal, you may, after a considerable period, venture cautiously to return, and pick up your bird. In confirmation of this, Mr. Dunlop tells

us:

"I had determined to go down the most precipitous bank I could find, if my shot did not prove fatal, and started back directly I had 'fired to where my Ghoorka Shikaree was standing, within thirty paces of us. A tremendous crashing of trees followed the sound of my gun, and I caught sight of the Brinjara, who had just been giving me such valorous counsels, flying across country in a horrible fright."

Decidedly wise on the part of the Brinjara!

"As I was unpursued, I returned, and saw the elephant lying dead a little way down the bank."

A commissariat elephant with whom Mr. Dunlop was acquainted, took it into its head to kill an old woman as she was filling her pitcher at the watercourse. Much as we may regret the accident to the poor old body, we must be forgiven in roaring with laughter at the following letter, in which the circumstance was reported to him by one of his native writers, who prided himself on the correctness of his English. He gives it pure et simple.

posity, of the story told by the talented authoress of "Letters from Calcutta." She was jumping her new-born baby up and down, and saying, “Baby, why don't you speak to me?" when her moonshee approached her with a salaam, and said solemnly, "Madam, it is my duty to inform you that that child cannot, as yet, speak. He will not "speak, madam, till he is two years old or more."

66

Mr. Dunlop gives us two chapters on elephants, both highly interesting, the second of which is devoted to the subject of hunting and killing that smallbrained but sagacious brute. He uses a double rifle, sixteen bore, weighing nineteen pounds, and carrying as much as eight drams of powder. With this handy little toy-just the sort of thing to learn one's position drill with-he fires at the centre of an imaginary line, drawn from the orifice of the ear to the eye, which will exactly penetrate the brain," the only spot a sportsman can "save his life by, when the elephant "charges him, protecting the brain by curling up the trunk." Miss that, and you will find your name in the first column of the Times pretty quickly. But, to conclude this subject, we, from all we have read about elephant-hunting, would give this piece of advice to those who intend to practise it-Unless you happen to have the nerve of one man out of fifty-Stay at home.

Hush! There is a sound abroad upon the night-wind besides the gentle rustling of the topmost forest boughs,— a deep reverberating moan, low rolling like the sound of distant guns, which causes the Europeans to take their cigars from their mouths and look at one another, and the native servants to converse in frightened whispers. royal tiger is abroad in the jungle, and the forest is hushed before the majesty of his wrath!

A

We should conceive that the sound made by the great carnivorous animals, when in search of food, must be one of the finest things in nature. We alas! have only heard it from behind prison

bars; yet even there the snarl of the hungry "painter," like the brattling of some wild war drum, moves one's blood strangely. Mr. Dunlop has been face to face with the tigress in her lair, as have many other of our Indian officers; but Mr. Dunlop, unlike some of our Indian writers, gives us a really graphic idea of what the situation must be like. He singularly confirms a remark we made just now, when speaking of Mr. Simeon's book, that the evidence of uneducated persons must be taken with caution. He says

"At the first sharp turn in the course of the trench, an animal rose out of it, and stood for a second on the opposite bank, within sixty yards of our line. I heard one of RGhoorkas deliberately pronounce the animal before us to be a calf, carelessly assuming it to be that which he thought most likely to be met with on the spot, though in truth a fullgrown tigress."

His account of the startling appearance of a tiger in the very middle of the fair at Hurdwar in 1855,-in the middle of a crowd of from two to three millions of people,-is most graphically told, and illustrated by an excellent sketch of Mr. Wolf's. But we must pass on to notice shortly the other parts of the book, which treat of subjects less known to the European reader.

The Doon is a tract of country lying about 100 miles north of Meerut; bounded east and west by the heads of the Jumna (the Delhi river) and the Ganges, north by the rapidly-rising ranges of the Himalaya, and south by the plains. Lying at the foot of the hills, it seems to be composed of the débris of the great mountains above,— the highest ranges in the planet,-and consists of clay and boulders. It is covered with jungle and forest, and swarms with game. From hence Mr. Dunlop, following the heads of the Ganges, crossed into Thibet, over a pass 18,000 feet above the sea, to the heads of the Sutledge, killing a vast quantity and variety of game on his way,-sambah, the largest of Indian deer, cheetul, hog-deer, para, porcupine, "pig," peacocks, partridges, quail, and floriken.

"Cocks and hens," too, under the native name of Moorghee, are very abundant, though treated with contempt; while the natives use to hawk at curlew and herons with the "baz," and with the "behree" at peacocks, hares, and even antelope.

The fish in this part of the world must be spoken of with reverence. The "Musheer"-the salmon of the conntry is caught with spinning tackle. A ten-pounder is nothing. He runs up to 80 and 100 pounds weight. He is

a mountain-fish, living in the highly aërated waters among the rocks, never descending to the plains. Your tackle must be strong, for the villain "Gowch," or fresh-water shark, whose weight is often 120 pounds, lies in wait for the unwary angler, and causes him to swear by taking his bait, playing much the same game as a five-pound pike does with a fine set of gut tackle.

Before taking us away to the hills, Mr. Dunlop tells us a sad story, which casts a gloom over an otherwise pleasant chapter, and is especially worthy of note, as illustrating military life in India, and for the wise remarks he makes on the necessity of providing amusement for the men, in the hot, dismal, pestilential plains. So great

an

was the horror of our soldiers at the dull detestable misery of their situation, that it became the habit to commit some trifling assault on officer, in order to get transported to Australia. The thing must be stopped, and orders went forth that the next man who did it should die! Shortly after, a common soldier, an utter stranger to the officer, threw his cap at an assistant-surgeon, who was driving into Meerut, with no earthly object but to be transported. He was condemned to death, and ordered for execution, in spite of the surgeon's intercession. The law is that, should the man not be found dead after the volley is delivered, the sergeant shall give him the coupde-grace. On this occasion, when the rattle of the rifles died away, the man was still kneeling, blindfold, by his coffin, unhurt. A terrible alternative