Political epitaphs are but occasionally met with; their houses, or hold intercourse with each other; that such as Here lies NED HYDE, Because he died. If it had been his sister, We should have missed her. It had been his father; Or, for the good of the nation, Perhaps the most witty and satirical of all epitaphs These walls, adorned with monumental bust, all weapons should be surrendered; that all keys to all These orders were obeyed without opposition. Jorgensen took possession of the governor's house, broke open his office, seized the archives and other public documents, and established a 'government office for Iceland.' A KING FOR SIX WEEKS. THE brief and cursory_notice that writers on Iceland have given to King Jorgen Jorgensen has led me to think that a more detailed account of his extraordinary and unparalleled usurpation might be interesting. The proclamations and other documents I have translated from official sources nearly verbatim. In the beginning of the present century, the Ice- To commemorate his reign, Jorgensen set at liberty landers had lost every trace of the old warlike spirit the prisoners that were in the town jail. He made for which their ancestors had been celebrated. Under the merchants sell their goods at fixed prices, conthe encroachments of the king of Denmark, every spark fiscating everything he could lay hands on 'to the of independence seems to have become extinguished state chest.' On June 26, he issued a proclamation, amongst them, and without power or energy to resist, giving notice that the goods of some merchants who they sank into a state of apathy and servile submission. had displeased him were to be confiscated. The Forbidden to trade with foreign nations, they were proclamation ran as follows: We, R. J. Jorgensen, compelled to draw all their supplies from the mother-protector and chief commander of Iceland by land country. In the year 1809, consequently, when Eng- and sea, hereby make known,' &c. land and Denmark were at war, the poor Icelanders were very badly off, and in want of even the necessaries of life, as the vigilance of the English cruisers prevented any supplies being sent over the North Sea. The approach, therefore, of a merchantman under American colours was hailed with delight; but unfortunately the law was plain, and an application to trade with the inhabitants was refused, upon which the vessel changed her nationality, and hoisted the union jack. Amongst those on board was Jorgen Jorgensen, the future king of Iceland. By extraction, he was the son of a watchmaker in Copenhagen, and had travelled in the ship in question in the capacity of interpreter. By dint of threats, Jackson-such was the captain's name extorted permission to trade from the authorities. The cargo was unloaded, and left under the charge of a subordinate, while the vessel sailed away, bearing with it Jorgen Jorgensen. The word 'R.' seems to insinuate that Jorgensen was about to assume all the titles and privileges of a crowned head, for he at this time appointed a body-guard, consisting of the prisoners he had released from jail, in all eight men. Under his orders, Einardsen, judge of the supreme court, was arrested, and imprisoned in Reikiavik for ten days, because he had omitted to follow out some of Jorgensen's orders. The following day, another proclamation was issued, containing seventeen paragraphs of a very original character. 'According to our proclamation of June 26, 1809, ordering the representatives of the nation to assemble, in order to take into their consideration matters relating to the public weal, and as we find that such orders have not been followed out, we, no longer able to set ourselves against the wishes of the community mer-after their frequent solicitations that I would take on myself the administration of affairs, and who have flocked in hundreds without the least compulsion, and have offered to enlist themselves in their country's service-do hereby declare that we, Jorgen Jorgensen, have taken on ourselves the government of the country as its protector, until a regular constitution be formed, with full powers to declare war and make peace with foreign potentates. On June 21st following, however, an armed chantship, of ten to twelve guns, arrived at Reikiavik. The ship's name was the Margaret and Ann, from London, having on board a man named Phelps, Jorgen Jorgensen, and others. On Sunday, June 25, after the conclusion of divine service, the governor's (Count Trampe) house was suddenly surrounded by about a dozen armed sailors, and the governor himself, notwithstanding his protestations, taken prisoner. Jorgensen seems now to have played the most prominent part amongst his confederates, for we find him informing the towns-people that he should hold Iceland in possession for England, until such time as an English fleet should relieve him, when a bank would be established, with a capital of a hundred thousand rix-dollars, that would speedily set the island in a flourishing condition.' The following day, two proclamations were issued, signed Jorgen Jorgensen,' who, like other monarchs, styled himself 'We.' The following is a brief summary of their contents. "That allegiance to Denmark was at an end, and that Iceland was from henceforth free; that the Danes residing in the island should not be permitted to leave 'The Icelandic flag shall be blue, with three white stock-fish, and we take upon ourselves to maintain its honour with our body and our blood. "The governor's seal is no longer valid. All public documents must be sealed with my seal (J. J.). The country shall be put in a complete state of defence without the imposition of further taxes. All English subjects shall have liberty to reside on, and trade with, the island, and all persons insulting the above shall be punished. All Danish property shall be confiscated, and any one found concealing such shall be punished. For our own dignity's sake, we are compelled not to permit the least want of respect towards ourselves, nor that any one should transgress the least article in our proclamation, which only has in view the interests of the country; wherefore we do solemnly declare that the first who endeavours to disturb the general peace, shall be straightway capitally punished, with out trial by the civil law. 'Given under our hand and seal, J. J., 'Protector of all Iceland, and Commanderin-chief by Sea and Land.' Thus were the Icelanders forced to submit to a state of things representing all the miseries of the most unlimited despotism. In the meantime, Jorgensen and his myrmidons went about confiscating property to the state chest, and placing the town in a state of defence. Accordingly, a battery was built close to the town, named Phelps' Fort, after one of Jorgensen's companions, and manned with some old cannon which had been sent to the island one hundred and fifty years before. Jorgensen continued his depredations, at one time making excursions into the interior with his bodyguard, in order to overawe the refractory officials, and seizing all documents and public moneys in their possession; at another, imprisoning different merchants who incurred his displeasure. Even trading vessels, provided with English letters of marque, were not safe from his clutches, but were seized by the crew of the Margaret and Ann, and their cargoes confiscated for the use of the insatiable 'public chest.' There is little doubt (for England was at war, and Denmark was in a crippled state, and without a fleet) that Jorgensen would have lived and died king of Iceland, and the unfortunate governor have ended his days in prison, but that one fine morning an English man-of-war, the Talbot, arrived at Reikiavik, to the great joy of the poor Icelanders, and intense dismay of the usurper. They felt convinced that Englishmen would never countenance such enormities, and so they repaired forthwith on board, and laid the case in the hands of the commander, who at once set the governor at liberty, pulled down the Icelandic flag, demolished the battery, and restored to every one his lawful office and rights. It is needless to add that Jorgen Jorgensen was taken prisoner. Count Trampe did not again take the office of governor. He felt it incumbent on him to lay the case before the British government, and seek compensation for the depredations that had been committed on public and private property. After meeting with some reverses on the voyage to England, the vessel conveying the governor and Jorgensen and others at length arrived safely; but it does not appear that Jorgensen received any punishment for his piratical invasion of Iceland, or that Count Trampe succeeded in obtaining the slightest compensation. The hero of our tale passed a miserable life in London, and at length we find him, in 1824 or 1825, convicted for robbery, and sentenced to transportation in Botany Bay. Count Trampe was subsequently appointed amtmand in Trondhjem, where he ended his days in 1832, retaining to the last a lively and painful recollection of his governorship in Iceland. Thus ended the Jorgensian usurpation, having lasted one and a half months, from June 25 to August 9. It may perhaps appear almost incredible, that a whole island should be taken possession of by such a handful of men-that the governor should be seized in broad daylight, and imprisoned, without the inhabitants of the capital offering any resistance. It is, however, true, and does not, perhaps, speak very highly for the courage of the Icelanders. But the fact was, they were completely awe-struck; and the threat of the town being bombarded by the Margaret and Ann seems to have made them think that it was more prudent to submit, and bide their time. There is little doubt, indeed, that the town could very speedily have been demolished, for it was built entirely of wood, with the exception of the church and the house of correction. Count Trampe seems also to have feared this, and to have dreaded the effusion of any blood for his sake, and therefore used all the means in his power to persuade the towns-people to submit quietly, and even whilst in prison, wrote to Bishop Vidalin, praying him to beg the people to make no disturbance, neither to risk their lives for him.' Moreover, it could scarcely be expected that people who had not been accustomed to the use of weapons for many ages could make any resistance against the armed and comparatively disciplined crew of the invader; and one should bear also in mind that at that period, with the exception of Reikiavik and some few trading places, every family lived isolated, so that no organised plan of attack could have been well devised. THE CHILD AND THE DEW-DROPS. 'Он, dearest mother, tell me, pray, Why are the dew-drops gone so soon? Or on the fields till noon?' The mother gazed upon her boy, Earnest with thought beyond his years; She felt a sharp and sad annoy, Which meddled with her deepest joy, But she restrained her tears. 'My child, 'tis said such beauteous things, To their frail loveliness. 'Behold yon rainbow, brightening yet, To which all mingled hues are given ! There are thy dew-drops, grandly set In a resplendent coronet Upon the brow of Heaven. 'No stain of earth can reach them there; The boy gazed upward into space With eager and inquiring eyes, While o'er his fair and thoughtful face Came a faint glory, and a grace Transmitted from the skies. Ere the last odorous sigh of May, That child lay down beneath the sod; Like dew, his young soul passed away, To mingle with the brighter day That veils the throne of God. Mother, thy fond foreboding heart Truly foretold thy grief and pain, But thou didst choose the Christian part Of resignation to the smart, And owned thy loss his gain. J. C. P. Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH Also sold by all Booksellers. THE PLAGUES OF INDIA. 'I PROTEST,' says Mr Arthur Pendennis, 'the great ills of life are nothing: the loss of your fortune is a mere fleabite; the loss of your wife-how many men have supported it, and married comfortably afterwards? It is not what you lose, but what you have daily to bear that is hard.' And the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette is right. Toothache, tight boots, a bluebottle buzzing about one's study on a melting day in June, a hurdy-gurdy played before one's window at eleven o'clock at night, and the rest of the everyday vexations that fall to the lot of mortals to endure, cause more misery in the aggregate than the two or three overwhelming calamities that mark the grand epochs of human existence; and for this reason: those great and crushing griefs that prematurely streak a man's hair with silver, and his face with wrinkles, are gradually obliterated by succeeding years; but raging teeth, shooting corns, distracting bluebottles, and execrable organ-grinders, follow each other in such rapid succession, that the irritation produced by them has no time to subside, and assumes a decidedly chronic and alarming character. In India, the small ills of life are more particularly harassing. It is not so much the intense heat or the unhealthy climate that renders a residence there so trying to the European, as the constant series of petty persecutions which keep the unfortunate exotic in a perpetual simmer of fever and excitement. He may get over a coup de soleil, or an attack of cholera, and feel almost as well as ever again till the next one; but he has no escape from the small woes and infinitesimal vexations that unceasingly afflict a native of the temperate zone transplanted to the tropics. In this country, according to Mr Henry Mayhew, the greatest plagues of one's life are servants. In India, they are mosquitoes. The peninsula of Hindustan would be positively uninhabitable by our gallant countrymen, if the terrible plentifulness of mosquitoes was not in some measure counterbalanced by a corresponding abundance of rupees. It is some consolation to the tingling soldier or the smarting civilian, when, on rising from his sleepless couch, he ruefully contemplates his inflamed cuticle, to reflect that on the first of every month he will receive from a sympathising government a bag of silver coin, presenting an equally swollen appearance. Those fortunate persons who live at home at ease PRICE 14d. can form no idea of the inveterate malignity of these little black beasts' of our eastern empire. Their own experience can, happily for them, furnish no parallel infliction. Even the dweller in a London lodging-house, who, I fancy, runs the whole gantlet of British carnivora, suffers less during an entire season, than the inhabitant of a Bengal bungalow has to endure in one night. Let the Cockney, therefore, abuse his landlady, but be thankful. In the incessant warfare waged between man and the mosquitoes, it is melancholy to reflect how unequal is the contest. No amount of clothing permitted by the climate is sufficient to repel their attacks. White trousers of the stoutest duck seem only to sharpen their appetites; and leather, notwithstanding its proverbial efficacy, is, if manufactured by native tanners, powerless to withstand such determined assailants. Even in the improbable case of a man's outer works being sufficiently strong to resist their regular assaults, there are undefended spots in his intrenchments which these skilful little sappers and miners discover with unerring sagacity and success. With a gallantry worthy of a better cause, they insinuate themselves between his neck and his shirtcollar, they reconnoitre the interior of his coatsleeves, they make foraging excursions up the legs of his pantaloons, and otherwise take advantage generally of those weak points which must exist in every system of fortification. The only consolation under these distressing circumstances is, that such assaults are usually forlornhopes. The enemy is in a cul de sac from which there is no retreat. Directly the breach is made, a sharp blow with the palm of the hand on the spot attacked places the assailant hors de combat; the consequence of this manoeuvre is, that the sufferer, on disrobing at night, has the melancholy satisfaction of seeing the carpet strewed with the flattened corpses of adventurous mosquitoes, weltering, alas, in his blood! To the prostrate and panting martyr melting away on a fervid night, there are two means of protection from his pitiless foes: one is the punkah. The mosquito, though so formidable an assailant, is physically a trifle, light as air. He can only enjoy his meal in a perfect calm. Carrying so little ballast, the slightest breeze upsets him; consequently, a well-worked punkah creates a small tempest against which he can make no headway, and at the same time fans the weary frame of the gasping mortal into a us. smooth as ivory, rose up fiery red masses of volcanic eruptions. Our own mothers would not have known The exquisite irritation consequent upon a first night with the mosquitoes is beyond description, and the irresistible desire to seek digital relief, is intensified by the knowledge that such treatment will inevitably prolong the inflammation. In our case, our suffering was aggravated by the profuse application of limejuice, which some monster in human form had recommended as a balm for our sorrows. As the insidious acid penetrated into our already inflamed tissues, tears of agony streamed from our eyes, we writhed, we howled, we danced involuntary war-dances, and eventually we lay down on the matting, and rolled with anguish. At this crisis, some good Samaritan, ought to have poured oil into our wounds. Luckily, one of our number had a dozen of Rowland in his trunk, and when our aching bodies had been plentifully lubricated with that incomparable oil Macassar!' we experienced some slight mitigation of our excruciating torments. soothing slumber. Unfortunately, the machine is not self-acting; and the gentle exertion necessary to keep it in motion has an equally soothing effect upon the frame of the punkah-puller. The result is obvious. The tempest-tost mosquitoes who have been beating to and fro in expectation of a lull settle down upon their prey as thickly as crows upon a dead camel. Protection number two is a gauze safe that fits on to the victim's bedstead. Here he lies secure from annoyance, while his baffled antagonists buzz furiously outside his muslin fortress, and dash themselves hopelessly against its flimsy walls. This at least is the theory of mosquito curtains. In practice, it is almost impossible to exclude such airy nothings as mosquitoes, and one inside the safe is as bad as a hundred. The knowledge of his presence is so irritat-pitying our condition, told us that, instead of acid, we ing, and his confounded hum is such an intense nuisance, that no peace can be hoped for till a candle be lit, and the intruder annihilated. By that time, the annihilator has worked himself into a state of fever that nothing but a punkah can abate. But supposing he is fortunate enough to close his safe so hermetically as to find himself the sole occupant, to enjoy such immunity from perforation, he must give up all hopes of sleep. Not a breath of air can get through his enclosure, and punkahs and curtains are incompatible. The complicated arrangement of ropes and hooks necessary to swing the one is impracticable in the limited space enclosed by the other. I once knew a voluptuous little lady who combined the two luxuries, but she was the wife of a commissioner, and her dormitory arrangements were on the same extensive scale as her husband's income. Only a Burra Mem Sahib, or very great lady, could afford or find room for such a gigantic sleeping apparatus. Individually, I prefer the punkah. Sleep at the expense of an ounce or two of blood, is preferable to a whole skin and suffocation. Besides, instances have been known of a cooly taking only two or three short naps during his tour of duty. Even then, if he be an old hand, he will continue to give mechanical tugs at his rope as regularly as if he were wide awake. Indeed, I have generally found that a boot or other light article occasionally thrown at the offender's head, has served to keep the punkah in a very satisfactory state of oscillation till gunfire. Never shall I forget the agonies I endured on the first night of my sojourn in India. Mosquitoes, it is well known, prefer the rich oily flavour of the imported Briton, to the insipid farinaceous taste of the home-fed Hindu. But it is upon the plump and juicy cadet that the dainty little epicures love most to feast. Young and tender as a spring chicken, I arrived at Madras in the very height and fury of the hot season. I was lodged, in company with half-adozen of my fellow-passengers, in a tumble-down old bungalow used by government as a store for spare cadets. Here unfledged ensigns and callow cornets were packed indiscriminately together, ready for use, and the mosquitoes knew it. We could hear them humming all about us, as if they were congratulating each other on the delicious feast prepared for them. As vultures may be seen circling round and round an expiring buffalo, waiting for the final kick of the poor brute to announce that dinner is served, so did those ravenous little imps, swarming in thousands over our heads, take any attempt on our part to go to sleep as a signal to fall to. Curtains we had none, punkahs we had none, and the maximum, or rather minimum of clothing which the awful heat permitted us to wear, was no more defence against their keen-edged carving implements, than is a sheep's wool from the knife of the butcher. All night long resounded through that steaming bungalow loud slaps and deep groans, telling of cruel tortures and futile attempts at retribution. The result may be imagined. At daylight next morning, we who had lain down with skins white and Such is the plain unvarnished tale of the manner in which I was treated by the Indian mosquitoes on my arrival in their inhospitable country. Nor is my case a singular one. For years and years do the unconscionable little gluttons take a shameful advantage of the flimsy nature of tropical costume, and drink deep of the lifeblood of their defenceless victim. When they have sucked him as dry as a squeezed orange, then and then only do they leave him for a later and more juicy arrival. By that time, the skin of the wretched man has assumed the colour and consistency of parchment, and he has attained that happy indifference to the process of scarification which eels are said to exhibit under somewhat similar circumstances. From mosquitoes to flies is an easy transition. Though free from the stain of blood-guiltiness, the latter, as a means of annoyance, are scarcely less effective than their more malignant accomplices. Equal, if not superior in point of numbers, their persecution differs only in intensity. To a sensitive man, it is as disagreeable to be tickled with a feather as to be pricked with a pin. Ugo Foscolo was not far wrong when he classed flies among the three great miseries of human life. In England, at the end of a hot summer, they are sufficiently troublesome; but in India, by their numbers, their ubiquity, and their pertinacity, they become a serious and intolerable nuisance. At meal-times, they congregate in thousands, and levy a kind of black-mail upon everything that is placed upon the table. An Indian sugar-basin is a perfect mine of flies. Extract a lump in the usual way, and a black cloud rises with a fierce hum, as if to resent the intrusion. A pat of butter becomes an unintentional fly-trap, upon which dozens are caught alive O in an exceedingly disagreeable manner. The Anglo-Indian is particularly partial to home-made preserves, but he cannot indulge his partiality without a fierce battle with legions of flies, who are equally fond of jam. Others, in their indiscriminate voracity, drown themselves by scores in his soup, in his tea, in his wine, in his bitter beer. Everything eatable, unless it be continually covered up, is literally black with flies, and any crumb or drop of gravy that may fall from a dish is immediately rendered invisible by a swarm of hungry combatants. Disabled insects who have escaped from the butter or jam-pot, or have been ejected from the teacup or soup-plate, stagger helplessly about the table-cloth, while their greedy brethren surround and hustle them, for the sake of the substance, oleaginous or sticky, that may adhere to their clogged wings. When the meal is finished, and the viands have been removed, the flies transfer their attention to the owner of the feast. In him they possess a never-failing source of entertainment. If, in the figurative language of Hindustan, he be destitute of choppa,' or thatch, their enjoyment is redoubled; a bald head seems to possess attractions which no ordinarily constituted house-fly can resist. The proprietor of such a shiny disc is continually kept at bay, as it were, by a pack of buzzing, prying insects, who wade across his humid brow, make phrenological examinations of his bumps, get entangled in any little hair he may have left, and struggle violently in his whiskers, as if they were cobwebs. If he tries to read, a dozen flies settle on the very paragraph he is reading; if he attempts to write, they crawl over the ink before it is dry; and if he endeavours to forget their persecution in sleep, they do their best to prevent him, by tickling his hands, holding consultations on his nose, and wandering over the most sensitive parts of his face. That ingenious but disgusting invention, the fly. paper, has not yet found its way to India, but several contrivances are used to mitigate the plague of flies which constitutes one of the ordinary conditions of Anglo-Indian existence. Silver covers are placed over wine-glasses and tea-cups, to prevent that reckless suicide I have before mentioned. Cold meat, when placed on the sideboard, is protected by wire-gauze covers, constructed on the principle of Sir Humphry Davy's safety-lamp. During meals, native servants continually wave napkins and chowrees about their master's head, to disperse the swarm of flies that hover, like hawks, over his plate. Some people establish a flapper. This is a piece of leather tied to the end of a stick, by which flies are flattened as they wander in happy ignorance across the table-cloth. The unerring precision that may be attained in the use of this instrument, and the fatal rapidity with which it can be made to descend upon a doomed insect, is very remarkable. On social grounds, however, this mode of executing flies is objectionable. The victims of its operations, in their post-mortem condition, are not pleasant to look on, and its constant use degenerates into a habit, which grows upon the executioner, until it exercises a horrible fascination which he cannot resist. If he once gives in to this malignant influence, he becomes as great a nuisance as the one he is labouring to remove. The sole purpose of his life is the wholesale extermination of flies. With his weapon over his shoulder, the infatuated man wanders about the house in search of sport; when he views his game, he stalks it as cautiously as a Highlander works up to leeward of a red deer, and presently a sounding flap announces to his distracted comrades that he has added another fly to his bag. I once joined a breakfast mess, the president of which was an enthusiastic fly-stalker. Directly we sat down, his battue commenced. Whenever a fly settled on a loaf or other convenient spot, down came the inevitable leather upon the offender's body, like a flash of lightning. The carcasses of the killed and wounded flew about like hail, and the table-cloth was strewed with their mutilated corpses. Two or three grewsome bodies dropped into my plate, others disappeared into my teacup. Presently, the mangled remains of a fly were transfixed on iny marmalade. This was too horrible. I rushed from the room, and determined in future to share a solitary meal with whole armies of flies, rather than purchase immunity from their persecutions by breakfasting with a gentleman who habitually made use of a flapper. One mode of clearing a room of flies is to exclude all light from it except a small ray, which is allowed to enter through an aperture of about the size of a pea. The flies, who hate darkness, crowd to the only outlet left, and pass through in single file, as sheep rush through a gap in a hedge. This plan, though capital in theory, fails entirely when reduced to practice. The difficulty consists in procuring the total darkness necessary for the success of the operation. The ingenious reader may here suggest that the shutters might be closed, and a hole bored through them with a gimlet. That is another plan theoretically excellent, but practically impossible; in India, there are no shutters. The only really effectual method is to summon the household, and actually turn the flies out of the house. In India, a room has at least half-a-dozen doors; all of these are carefully closed, except one, which leads to the verandah. A brigade of servants, armed with towels, is marshalled in line opposite the open door. At a given signal, they charge steadily down the room, waving their weapons in every direction. The enemy, alarmed by this unusual demonstration, retreats gradually before the advancing phalanx, and is eventually driven ignominiously out of the bungalow. The door is then closed, and peace reigns in the dwelling. Next on the list of tropical evils come the ants. India is the ant's paradise. It is literally alive with them; of all colours, sorts, and sizes, black ants and red, brown ants and white; some less than the British emmet, and others larger than the British earwig. They are the lords of the soil, and the owners of the houses. They undermine the ground; they inhabit the walls; they people the roofs. In the bungalow of the Anglo-Indian they are omnipresent. He walks upon ants, he eats ants, he drinks ants, he wears ants in his clothes, and but for a very simple contrivance, he would sleep with ants. They can run, and in certain stages of their existence, some of them can fly, but fortunately for the long-suffering Briton, they are unable to swim. Water being a non-conductor of ants, as well as other crawling and venomous insects, he isolates himself by placing each leg of his bedstead in an earthenware footbath, and thus places an impassable gulf between himself and his otherwise inseparable companions. It is difficult to give the English reader a fair idea of the myriads of ants that exist in every part of India. They swarm so thickly over the cracked and blistered ground, that it is impossible for the most humane man to walk without crushing dozens of them. Long lines of great black fellows, more like spiders than ants, may be seen traversing walls and roofs; no individual of the thousands that pass and repass during the day, wandering a hairbreadth from the beaten track. Single in cts, with large nippers, prowl leisurely over floor-cloths in search of plunder, unnoticed and unmolested. Round everything eatable, they collect as eagerly as street-boys round an empty sugar-cask. Should an open jam-pot be incautiously left on a sideboard that has not its legs defended by the pediluvia I have described, the consequences are fatal. In an incredibly short space of time, that precious English preserve, sent out by Crosse and Blackwell, six rupees a pot, will be populous with little red ants, although not a sign of one had been visible half an hour before. Where they come from, and how they discover their prize, is as extraordinary as the manner in which the death of an animal is followed by the appearance of vultures from every part of the horizon. The sweet-toothed little bucaneers must have marvellous powers of scent for such small creatures, or must possess an equally marvellous system of telegraphic communication, by means of which the original discoverer is enabled to inform his comrades of the treasure he has stumbled on. The ravages committed by white ants on every description of property are matters of natural history. They are systematic burglars, with the appetites of aldermen, and the stomachs of ostriches. Nothing comes amiss to them: wood, plaster, paper, carpets, gentleman's boots, lady's dresses, all disappear before the devastating maw of the white ant. He is a real and undeniable nuisance, the worse because his destructive operations are so skilfully concealed; but his red, black, and brown brethren, notwithstanding their countless numbers, are comparatively harmless. They do not buzz like the fly, or bear malice like the |