a district in England. St Augustine is said, by our old monkish chroniclers, to have endowed the people of a part of Kent with tails like fishes, because they preferred fishing to listening to his sermons. But though the story is still alluded to as a vulgar reproach, we must say to the reader, in the quaint words of our author, you commit no deadly sin though you believe it not.'

After a long discourse about Amazons, the three friends speak of 'a fierce people and of great courage, though only three spans in length,' called pigmies. "They inhabit the utter part of India, toward the east, near the rising of the river Ganges, where, at such times as it is in other places winter, the cranes come to lay their eggs, and to bring up their young ones, about the river-sides; whose coming, so soon as the pigmies perceive-because they are so little, that the cranes regard them not, but do them much hurt, as well in their persons as in eating up their victuals and spoiling their fruits-they join themselves in great numbers to break their eggs. And to prepare themselves to this terrible fight, they mount upon goats and rams, and in very goodly equipage, go forward to destroy this multiplication of cranes, as to a most dangerous and bloody enterprise.'

Of the existence of the pigmies, the friends have no manner of doubt. They tell us that the Tyrians, whose commerce led them to the extreme ends of the earth, retained numbers of these valiant little people as mercenary soldiers; that, in short, the pigmies are no other than the Gammadins, who hanged their shields upon the towers of Tyre, as we may read in the twenty-seventh chapter of the book of Ezekiel. And we must ourselves add, that the belief in a nation of pigmies prevailed to a comparatively late period. Few of the old museums were without the skeleton or embalmed body of a pigmy; and it was no earlier than the last century, when Dr Tyson, in an elaborate anatomical work, first proved that all those embalmed bodies and skeletons were the remains of monkeys.

From the dwarf to the giant is no more distant a step, than from the ridiculous to the sublime. One Bocacius, who saw it himself, is given as the authority for the following story: Near Trapani, in Sicily, certain labourers, digging for chalk under the foot of a hill, discovered a cave of great wideness. Entering into the which, with light, they found sitting in the midst thereof a man of such monstrous hugeness, that, astonished therewith, they fled to the village, reporting what they had seen; then, gathering together in greater number, with torches and weapons, they returned to the cave, where they found the giant, whose like was never heard of before. In his left hand he held a mighty staff, so great and thick as a great mast of a ship. Seeing that he stirred not, they took a good heart and drew near him; but they had no sooner laid their hands upon him, than he fell to ashes, the bones only remaining so monstrous, that the very skull of his head could hold in it a bushel of wheat. His whole skeleton being measured, was found to be 140 cubits in length.'

To arrive at such a size, the man must have lived a very long time; so we are next treated with accounts of persons, who had lived from 200 up to 500 years. Centaurs, mermen, and merwomen, next furnish subjects for the most ridiculous stories. We are told that a family, appropriately termed Marins, then lived in Spain, who were the descendants of a merThese Marins were webfooted and scaly, They lived principally on raw fish, which they caught with their hands while swimming in their greatgrandfather's native element, being, as may readily be granted, the expertest of swimmers.

man.

A fountain in the garden suggests the topic of the second day's conversation- On the proportions and

virtues of springs, rivers, and lakes.' We have little, however, about the objects specified, springs and rivers leading the conversation to the four great rivers mentioned in Scripture as surrounding the garden of Eden; and nearly the whole chapter is taken up with a discussion respecting the exact site of the terrestrial paradise. This, though a favourite subject of discussion at the period, forms a terribly dry one now; so we shall pass on to the next day. The third day's conversation turns upon 'fancies, visions, spirits, enchanters, charmers, witches, and hags.' After a deal of curious matter, the friends come to a conclusion, as contrary to that of Aristotle and the ancients, as it is to the ideas of the modern ghostbelievers and spirit-rappers-namely, that all apparitions proceed from the devils alone. We are told that there are six degrees of those very numerous and troublesome gentry. The first, in the upper regions of the air, attends to thunder, lightning, hail, and snow; the second, in the lower part of the atmosphere, causes heavy rains, blights, frosts, storms, and whirlwinds; the third, on earth, has quite enough, indeed too much, to do with the affairs of man; the fourth, in the waters, presides over inundations and shipwrecks; the fifth, in the upper strata of the earth, occasions earthquakes, and accidents in mines and wells; the sixth, still lower down, is actively employed in the place unmentionable to ears polite. Among all these, there are well-defined gradations of rank, from the arch-enemy' Satan himself, down to the lowest stoke. We here learn how it was that witches and wizards were generally deserted, in their utmost need, by the fiends with whom they had formed engagements. In their ignorance, they had made contracts with low, vulgar demons, that had neither power to fulfil, nor sufficient honourable feeling to carry out, their engagements. In all cases, however, when the bargain was made with a demon of rank, the terms were most honourably fulfilled, though the extreme penalty of the bond was always exacted. Indeed, some necromancers of superlative cunning and audacity, managed to cheat the demons-'turn a corner jinkin',' as Burns says; but of such highly presumptuous and dangerous experiments, the less said the better. Necromancers who wished to possess a private demoniacal attendant of their own always at hand, could have one confined in a ring, button, box, phial, or other small portable article; but, as a high-caste demon would not submit to such confinement, and a low-caste one could not be depended upon, it was usual in such transactions to secure the services of a low-class fiend, at the same time taking a bond for their due fulfilment, from one of the upper ten thousand in devildom. The best thing, however, that a magician could have a devil confined in was a horse. He could then make journeys of incredible distance in the shortest periods, and always find profitable employment for the imprisoned fiend; an object sometimes of very great consequence.

Of planetary influence, we are told a curious story, to the following effect: Abel, the son of Adam, foreseeing the deluge, and naturally anxious that the recondite secrets, so dearly purchased by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, should not be lost to mankind, wrote a book on the virtues and properties of the planets, and enclosed it in the centre of a large stone. Long after the great cataclysm, Hermes Trismegistus found the stone, opened it, and took out the book, by the contents of which he profited most wonderfully. This antediluvian book subsequently fell into the hands of St Thomas, who, in turn, managed to perform many great and admirable feats by its assistance. On one occasion, the saint, while sojourning in a certain city, being seized by a severe sickness, was much annoyed by the noise of horses and carts traversing the narrow street in which

he dwelt. So he prepared two images, according to a prescription made and provided in Abel's ancient book aforesaid, and having burned one of them at each end of the street, no horse or other beast of draught or burthen could ever after pass the spots where those images were interred. He also made another image, from directions in the same book, and threw it into a fountain; and the effect of this wonderful image was such, that every pitcher touched by the waters of that fountain immediately fell to pieces. This certainly seems to have been a very mischievous trick, even though perpetrated by a saint; and it also savours of a tampering with forbidden arts. But our author sets us right on the latter score. Using the influence of the planets, he tells us, is so very lawful, that nothing can be said against it; but the other kind of necromancy, used and practised through the help and favour of the devil, is a very different affair indeed.

There is nothing novel in the ghost stories in this chapter; they are of the regular stereotyped kind, long and still known over all the world, though here localised by assuming a Spanish character. And as we are given to understand that those appearances were not disembodied spirits, but merely illusions caused by devils, the accounts of them lose that cold charnel-house-like connection with death, the grave, and our own humanity in its future form, which constitutes the great charm and interest of what we may term a legitimate ghost story.

Many supposed apparitions, however, were merely natural events, to which men, in their superstitious fears, attributed a spiritual character. As an instance of such, we are told of an occurrence that took place at Benevento, the very town where the garden-scene is laid. An industrious matron, having risen before day one morning, to finish some pressing household work, sent her servant to light a candle at a lamp that was always kept burning in a neighbouring church. The sleepy girl, slightly dressed in white night-clothes, losing her way, wandered over half the town, before she reached the church; and then, too stupid to give any explanation, frightened a silly sexton before she returned to her mistress's house with the burning candle. But, in the meantime, the mistress herself, not choosing to wait in the dark, set off for the church, and also returned with a lighted candle in her hand. Now, it happened that a sick neighbour saw the two women, and his mind being weakened by disease, magnified their number to a considerable extent. The sexton partly corroborated the sick man; and as the story travelled, the number multiplied till the middle of the day, when it was currently reported and believed that a penitential procession of two thousand ghosts carrying lighted tapers had passed through the town during the previous night. For, says Ludovico, who tells the story, 'let but one such matter as this come amongst the common people, and it will grow so, from mouth to mouth, that at last of a mite they will make an elephant.'

The fourth day's discourse, suggested by the arrangement of the flowers in the garden, is upon 'chance, fortune, destiny, luck, felicity, and happiness -what they signify, the difference between them, and many other learned and curious points;' and forms a very interesting chapter, far in advance of the age in which it was written. Astrology, and the supposed influence of the stars, at man's birth, on his future destiny, are treated as ridiculous absurdities; while ignorance and misconduct are shewn to be the principal causes of human misfortunes and miseries. Here Antonio tells a story of some mowers, who found, in a meadow they were cutting, a miserable leper that had crawled thither to die. The contagious nature of the disease, and the hideously disgusting

state of the poor wretch, deterred them from attempting to render him any assistance. On going to their mid-day meal, however, they found that a viper had crept into and been drowned in their wine-jar. Wine thus rendered so deadly poisonous they could not drink; but thinking it a pity that it should be wasted, they concluded to give it to the leper, and thus charitably put him out of his exceeding misery at once. Accordingly, they did so; but, to their great surprise, instead of dying instantaneously, as they had expected, the leper became rather jolly than otherwise. In short, the mowers, instead of being philanthropic poisoners, as they thought, were a sort of pre-Hahnnemanite homœopathists; for the venom of the viper counteracted the virulence of the leprosy, and the man was not killed, but cured. 'So,' continues Antonio, as all herbs, beasts, and stones contain good and profitable virtues, we should not attribute to the stars the misfortunes that befall us, but rather to our own ignorance, which debars us from properly administering to our health and happiness. Concluding, therefore, I say, that pestilential and infectious diseases are not caused by the stars, but by matters of the earth itself infecting the airas dead carrions, corrupted carcasses, sinks, standing and putrid water, and many other filthy things.' The belief in the influence of the stars has long since passed away, but there are many still among us who might glean sound useful information from the above

passage.

The fifth and sixth chapters treat of the septentrional regions, and many things pleasant and worthy to be known.' In other regions, we are told that the sea is the mother of mysteries, but in the septentrional or northern, it is the mother of monsters. One fish, indeed, the head of which was sent by the Primate of Norway to Pope Leo X., was called the monster: it had no other name, and well deserved to be so termed. According to Antonio's description, its length is commonly about fifty cubits, which is but little in comparison with the greatness and deformity of its proportions and members. Its head is as great as half its body, and round about full of horns, longer than those of an ox. It has only one eye, a cubit in length and a cubit in breadth, which by night glittereth in such sort, that afar off it resembleth a huge flame of fire. Its teeth are great and sharp; its body full of hairs, resembling the wing-feathers of a goose; and its colour is as black as any jet in the world may be.'

Then Bernardo, not to be outdone, gives the following account of another odd fish that was caught in 1517, in a river of Germany. Its head was like unto that of a wild boar, with two great tusks shooting about four spans out of its mouth. It had four great feet, like to those with which you see dragons usually painted; and besides the two eyes in its head, it had two others in its sides, and one in its belly; and on the ridge of its neck certain long bristles, as strong and hard as though they had been iron or steel. This monster was carried to Antwerp, and there live many who will witness to have seen the same.'

Among a number of wonderful fishes, we may only mention another, found in the rivers of Sweden. Its name is trevis; it is black in winter, and white in summer. "Its marvellous property is such, that, binding it fast with a cord, and letting it down to the bottom of the river, if there be any gold on the sands thereof, the same cleaveth fast to its skin, which, how great soever the pieces may be, fall not off from it till they be taken off; so that some persons in that country use no other occupation to earn their living than this.'

Coming to our own shores, Antonio says: "There is a town in Scotland, the benefit arising to which,

from an abundance of ducks, is so great and wonderful that I cannot pass it over. There is, near this town, a mighty great and craggy rock, to which, at breeding-time, these fowls come flocking in such quantities, that they resemble immense dark clouds rather than anything else. The first two or three days they hover aloof, flying up and down about the rock; during which time, the people of the town stir not out of their doors, for fear of frightening them. The ducks, seeing all things silent and still, settle themselves boldly, and fill the rock with nests. Their sight is so sharp and piercing that, while fluttering over the sea which beateth on the same rock, they see the fish through the water, which—incontinently plunging themselves into the same-they snap up with such facility, that it is scarcely to be believed but by him who hath seen it. Then the towns-people, knowing the ways and passages, get up into this rock, and not only sustain themselves by the fish which they find in the nests, but maintain a great traffic by selling them in other towns. When they perceive that the young birds are ready to fly, the people-in order to enjoy the benefit of the fish the longer-pluck their wings, detaining them in the nests many days, and at last take and eat them, their flesh being very tender and of good smack. These ducks are never seen in that region but at such time as they breed, and though the people kill numbers of them, yet they never fail to come as many as the rock can hold.' The generality of wonderful stories are founded on some slight substratum of truth; through the foregoing cloud of exaggeration, our clearer eyes can readily perceive the Bass Rock and its feathered tenantry of gannets.

The sixth and last day's conversation was held in an arbour of sweetly-scented jessamine, where, in the intervals of speaking, the ears of our three ancient friends were regaled with the sweet and delectable song of nightingales, which, in their opinion, far excelled the curious forced harmony of musicians. As we must part with them, we surely cannot leave them in a more pleasant place; and so, at once, we shall say farewell to The Garden of Flowers.

A RIDE ACROSS SARDINIA. ASSUMING, dear reader, that you are not tired of Sardinia, or out of conceit with those dear wild creatures who inhabit it, I propose to take you across the island to Cagliara. You go by rough paths, over lofty mountains, attended by a guide who is quite a character. He carries a long rifle, and wears a slouched hat; is acquainted with everything and everybody; he is an intimate friend of the terrible bandit, whose stronghold you have to cross; he is on most affectionate terms with the padres of the different villages; and to know the village priest, is to know everybody. Well, you must trust yourself -horse and limb, money and all-to him for the next few days or weeks, and he will not fail you; he may just courteously cheat you out of a stray scudo or two, in the way of business-first, because you are an Englishman, and, of course, supposed to have mines of wealth; and, next, because you are a heretic-so the saints would only smile on the fault. Beyond this, he will do nothing to harm you: on the contrary, at each village, as he passes along, he will spread your name and fame before you, so that there will be a positive rush to catch a passing glimpse of the grand 'Milordo Inglese'-not that they have the smallest idea of what a Milordo Inglese really means-an 'Inca of Peru' would be quite as intelligible to them. Meanwhile, there is at this seasonend of May or beginning of June-a lovely sky, a country teeming with a varied and most abundant vegetation, not perhaps highly cultivated, but tilled

The vineyards

in a simple and primitive manner. are especially luxuriant-no wonder that the wines of the island are so superior to those of Italy-the olive-grounds extensive and productive; and then the orange-groves-you realise the garden of the Hesperides at Millis, and positively ride for miles through an orange-grove. But we are travelling too fast: we must halt long enough before getting to Millis; and how pleasant it is to watch the unpacking of those huge bisacce: a piece of roast wild boarexcellent!-birds boiled and rolled in myrtle-leavesUmph! you say. Ah, they don't look so well as they taste! Very white bread, and very red wine-green myrtle-branches for dishes and plates, and cut myrtletwigs for forks-a hunting-knife to carve with. But the sun is very hot, and you can take a siesta under these lovely trees-on that sweet bank of wild-flowers, without any fear of cold, cramp, or rheumatism. And what wild villages you pass through-some smiling, cheerful, healthy; others squalid, dirty. Alas, alas; and here, in these low, ill-drained situations, will presently come the dreaded intemperio, the scourge of this beautiful land. The season is early yet; you will, I hope, escape it; but see how your guide muffles up his head at sunset in the hood of his rugged cabanedda, surmounting the whole with a red cotton pocket-handkerchief. He has had it once, and dreads it. You laugh at his precautions. Take care! And now you wonder where you will halt at night, for locandas there are few. You need have no care for this in hospitable, kindly Sardinia, only you must not always carry your ideas of fastidious refinement with you; they will occasionally cause you trouble and vexation of spirit.

The kindly dwelling of a coltivatore or a village priest, with its simple and unpretending appliances, will be ever ready to welcome you; and what an amusing compound of extreme goodness, ignorance, and superstition is this same village priest. Like his native molenta, how carefully does he revolve in his little orbit of daily duties, doling out his kindnesses; ay, and his charities and hospitalities also, on the miserable pittance assigned him for the cure of souls. He will give you a marvellously good supper, good wine, and perhaps a good joke too, for they are not ascetics; but then, after supper comes bed, and with beds in Sardinia come fleas also-not in pairs, dear reader, not even in small social parties-alas, no; these sanguinary little monsters, form themselves into heavy brigades, and make the attack en masse.

But you have a letter of introduction to the Seigneur of ; your guide has been long descanting on the grandeur of his house at Sassari, and also of his campagna, which you are now rapidly approaching. You have for many hours been within his feudal domain.

You, somehow, can connect feudalism only with the middle ages; but here, in this far-off, antiquated, outof-the-way land, you are in the very midst of it. The impression on your mind, drawn from the vivid picturing of the old priest last night, and of the guide all the morning, falls sadly short, as you behold the large tumble-down, queer-looking building, which for some centuries has from time to time received within its walls the successive representatives of the Ffamily during the hot summer months. You have a recent and very vivid recollection of fine English country-seats, and pretty country villas in England, with their smooth lawns, and all their elegant accessories, and are not prepared for such a combination of power, pride, and plainness. We must go first into the court-see the rough sheds for still rougher implements of tillage; the unsophisticated stable, tolerably furnished with snorting and kicking little horses; and the noble-looking, pale-brown, large-eyed, large-horned bullocks, which drew hither the cart

supersede the wines, which were superlative. The padre, after a very elaborate application of the orange-wood stecche to his very unpolished teeth, has subsided into a quiet siesta, from which he will not awake for two good hours. The marchese is hovering between politeness and intense drowsiness; he has strained his eyes three times to make you a suitable reply to an observation; and at length-just as he tried to remark to you that he had heard at Terra Firma that England was a magnificent city-his words died away in a deep sonorous snore, to which, induced by example, you yourself at length willingly respond. So now, again, I say for the present, addios.

MORE BIRDS AS OBSERVED BY ME. IN Peeblesshire, amongst the green rounded hills of the south of Scotland, is the sweetly retired pastoral Vale of Manor, permeated by a little clear stream, in which it was my delight in school-days to throw my rod and line. I could tell every pool where a trout lay. But I advert to the stream now with a design of saying a little about the water-ouzel or water-crow, which I was wont to observe while engaged in this, my favourite sport. It is a little bird, rather smaller than a mavis, black all over the body except its breast, which is white. It is easily made out by this contrast of colours. Sometimes it was met with perched upon a stone in the middle of the stream; sometimes on the gravel at the very edge; and often flying past, over the centre of the water. There were still two other retreats chosen by this bird-a hole in the bank, or one of the lowest branches of some alder-tree which grew over deep pools.

On being disturbed by any one walking up the river-bank, the water-crow, on rising, as frequently flies down-stream past you, as away up-stream before you. It is not a very shy bird, and, though I should have been sorry to have killed one, still I could not resist having many a shot with stones, as it went whirring over the water in its straight, rapid flight. I never hit one. If you take the trouble of watching the habits of this little bird, you will find the following remarks true: I have observed it carefully before venturing to write about it, and of course I know too, that others have written about it long ago. 1. When standing on a stone in the middle of the water, it has a habit of nodding its head and threatening to be off many times, before it opens its wings to be gone; it even partly loses its balance when dip, dipping in this way, though it always recovers itself again. 2. When standing thus, it, for the most part, keeps its head towards you, and more frequently its side than its back. When started, it prefers making the turn in the air, to simply turning itself on the stone-that is to say, if it intends flying from you; but I have as often observed it leave the stone, dive under water for an instant, and then fly past you. If there are companions with you, the water-crow will often quit the course of the stream in its flight past; but when it has flown about a hundred yards, it resumes the water-course, and alights soon: half a circle is often flown over in this way. Sometimes it will do this for a single person even. 3. The water-crow feeds on aquatic insects, the spawn of salmon, &c.; and to get at this food, it dives usually in the streams, and propels itself under water by its wings and feet. This is a strange habit, and gave me much amusement, though it was only upon two occasions I was witness of the fact. It was looking after those small larvæ of the may-fly which are to be seen in great numbers cased all over with minute stones and shells. These tiny creatures form the chief food of the bird in May and June, and make capital bait for

trout as well. I once found a nest with three small white eggs under a cascade on the Pentland Hills. While I was standing by the fall, a water-crow burst through it from the inside, and flew fifty yards down the burn, where it alighted. I waded in and got under the water-fall, where I discovered the nest on a shelf of rock, with water dripping on it; the construction of the nest, however, was so ingenious, that though wet outside, the inside was quite dry, and the eggs warm. When I was putting on my shoes and stockings on the bank, the bird returned, and again darting through the torrent, reached its nest. I thought this shewed great courage. These are the only points regarding the water-crow worth noticing, that I can remember.

Of all the birds which help to add to one's enjoyment of summer-time, the one I fancied most was the yellow-hammer, or, as we called it, the yellow-yorlin. This is a simple little bird, and has a song apt to be unnoticed by many, but never by me. I may remark that I have recognised the seasons, spring and summer, not so much from their visible phenomena, as from the songs of birds calling up the association. And summer was not summer for me, unless the yellow-yorlin churmed her simple roundelay from the green hedgerows.

I have often thought that the seasons are ushered in to almost every one by some little favourite association. Thus, spring to you is perhaps not spring without violets, or primroses, or budding trees; for me, the song of the lark, the mavis, the cuckoo-is spring. Flowers are your spring-birds are mine. The same with summer: you cannot think of that season-the word itself cannot be sounded, without your calling up something summer-like, such as green leaves or shady lanes. I see summer at any other time in the year, by thinking of the yellow-yorlin; for the song of that bird has always had the feel of that warm season.

If the weather is warm and genial, the song of this bird is sure to be in full measure. Its favourite position is on the top of some hedgerow, where it appears very like a brownish-yellow ball of feathers. The notes begin suddenly and end in a prolonged cadence, something like the following words, familiar to many a school-boy:

In cold weather, these notes are sung sharply and quickly, with a kind of shiver; but when enjoying the full meridian sun, she will sit on her favourite hedgetop for an hour at a time, sounding to her mate, as often as once or twice a minute, her plaintive calls for

A little bit of bread, but no-oh cheeese. This fancy about the yellow-yorlin must have often struck many a one; for though its sweet notes may be uttered in vain for many a passer-by, still I know there must be those who have felt the warm ditty strike home, like cheerful words from an old friend. Besides, it so often sits by the roadsides.

I must just add that this little favourite's petitions