Calcutta as to the precise motives which guide the allotting of the salt, of course all use their best endeavours to propitiate those who are suspected of possessing any influence in the matter. It was a favourite dodge of Ram Chunder Sing to waylay the chief superintendent of the department on his way into the office, and, trotting along by his side, hold some trivial conversation with him with an air of intense importance. This was not lost upon the crowd in the court-yard waiting to make their contracts, who one and all set him down as deep in the confidence of his superior. It is scarcely necessary to say how Ram Chunder turned this to account. It was not long before he turned salt-speculator himself in conjunction with friends, who from that time became the most successful bidders at the monthly sales. No one could say how it happened-whether it was the colour of the paper, the boldness of the writing, the respectability of the names, or merely their goodfortune that caused such huge quantities of salt to pass through their hands, and leave such auriferous deposits behind. Ram left the salt department and the salt trade to carry on financial schemes of a larger character. He lived in great style as a rich banker, lent money at unheard-of rates, and was a most obliging friend to Bengal civilians. He had a strange relish for this description of game: he delighted to see their names in his books; so much so, that he would not think of troubling them for the trifles they owedhe was only too proud to be of any service to them. Now, it was a curious circumstance, and one which was duly noticed, that in the many suits instituted or defended by Ram Chunder in the courts of the Company, he invariably gained his point. Was there a contract to be tendered for to supply the Company's commissariat with anchors or scrubbing-brushes, with rum or salt-beef, Ram Chunder proved the successful man. A volume, and a goodly one too, might be filled with the monetary exploits of the wealthy shroff. There was scarcely a public office he did not manage to obtain a place in for some one of his many creatures. Judges, secretaries, collectors, magistrates, all courted the friendship of the powerful baboo, who could serve them in such a persuasive and pleasant manner. His society, too, was sought for. He entertained, and was entertained in return. Europeans were his especial booncompanions, for whom he could not do too much. When the recent rebellion broke out, Ram Chunder denounced the traitors in emphatic language, and placed himself and all his means at the disposal of government. He loved our rule, our laws, our customs, our society far too much to desire any change. He was all but an Englishman-a most loyal man. It is true he had large sums invested in Company's paper, larger still in house-property about Calcutta, and large contracts in hand for our commissariat, with others in prospective. Still he was a loyal man. This points to the distinction of baboos, even when all these good things are as yet in nubibus. This points to the connection between babooism and respectability. 'CHURCH AFFAIRS AT BALLYGARRIFFE.' The article that appeared with this title in No. 203, we printed merely as an amusing fiction; but it now appears that there is really a village, though with another name, answering to the description of Ballygarriffe, and that the writer, in order, no doubt, to give piquancy to the joke, intermingled personal allusions with the fictitious details, need not say how much we regret having been made the medium of hurting the feelings of respectable persons; but we may point to the character of our Journal, maintained uniformly from the commencement, as evidence that it was so without the slightest consciousness on our part. under excitement and without due consideration. We LAST THOUGHTS. HAVE they told thee I am dying? Careless world, careless worldHave thy proud lips scarce replying The dirge-notes backward hurled, Saying, with a scornful smile: 'She was fair a little whileCourted! but she had her day; There's no need that she should stay. I have nought for her to do, Amid all my glittering crew: "Tis well that she is dying!' Have they told ye I am dying? Summer friends, summer friends, Have ye made pretence at sighing O'er the weary life that ends; Have ye said with feigned sorrow: 'May she have a brighter morrow. She has not joined us long In mirth, or dance, or song. Her bloom is on the wane; Her eyes are dimmed with pain: "Tis well that she is dying!' Have they told thee I am dying? Gentle friend, gentle friend, Will thy sweet spirit sighing One tender message send; Dost say with tearful eye Raised to the quiet sky: "God slake the fever-thirst Her earthly dreams have nurst, And bathe that aching brow Where living waters flow: God help her!-she is dying.' Have they told thee I am dying? Heart estranged, heart estranged! And dost thou turn in sighing To old times long since changed; Dost say with flushing cheek: 'She was young, and very weak. Though it wrung my heart to leave her— Though she wronged me, I forgive her. Many deathless memories Paint her with such gentle eyes, My lost love who is dying.' Have they told thee I am dying? Mother blest, mother blest! Have they told thee I am dying? With weary heart and breast, Dost say to angels round: The child I lost is found. I've left her, ah! too long, 'Mid earthly harm and wrong. There is no place for her 'Mid all life's busy stir; We'll give her welcome here, So far from grief and fear: "Tis well that she is dying!' M. L. P. STAGE BURLESQUES. Burlesques, of which it is the formal purpose to convert into laughter what was meant to exalt and purify the soul, are offences against the public taste and morals equally; and that such offences, instead of being promptly silenced, should be applauded and caressed, and that these barren witlings, appears to us one of the most Shakspeare should be especially selected as the butt of decisive symptoms that the drama, in our generation, is really on the decline.-Donne's Essays on the Drama. Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by WILLIAM ROBERTSON, 23 Upper Sackville Street, DUBLIN, and all Booksellers. No. 212. OF CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL POPULAR LITERATURE Science and Arts. CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 1858. THE CREDIT-SYSTEM. In relation to one of the monster bankruptcies of the last few months-that of a house ['castle of cards' were a better term] engaged in the production of a class of female finery, and which leaves the world some hundreds of thousands of pounds minus-it is notorious that the house, during its existence, was an utter pest to all other people engaged in the same business, by reason of its practice of underselling. The case is an apt illustration of the beauties of the credit-system. The trade was conducted mainly on the credit and at the risk of a set of innocent, unthinking people, constituting what was called the Western Bank-spread desolation around among its compeers, who traded on their own risk-and now the bank shareholders have to make good, in solid cash, to their own impoverishment, the ideal capital which enabled a company of rash men to speculate for a small chance in their own favour against a certainty of loss to others. There is nothing in the case beyond the most familiar facts in human life. When a man works upon money of his own, he proceeds with caution, and the best exercise of judgment that is in his power. Give him other people's money to do as he likes with, and he makes it spin. It is not therefore surprising that three or four hundred thousand pounds of a bank's money, intrusted to an adventurer, should, in the first place, do a good deal of harm in the spending, and finally be lost. The case leads to a view of the whole credit-system, which it were well to daguerreotype on the public mind. Carried to such extremes as we have seen lately, it promotes wasteful, mischievous, and unsuccessful business, and suffers a fearful penalty in itself. There is, however, another view of it. There is such a thing as a tolerably good business conducted mainly on the basis of credit, though likewise with injurious results. We can state a case An ingenious and accomby way of illustration. plished man was in business as a publisher. He planned and superintended the preparation of many excellent books. But his speculations were too great for his means. He had consequently to buy paper from wholesale stationers at perhaps twenty per cent. He had to give large above ready-money prices. percentages to bill-discounters. He had to take in partners, who, for the sake of small advances, drew a large share of profits. All the natural and proper fruits of many years of laborious industry were thus absorbed, and large losses incurred besides, and this really able and ingenious man ended as poor as he Where banks began. It is strictly a normal case. PRICE 1d. or other capitalists advance money expressly to carry The credit-system involves, then, an usurious element It appears, then, that business on the credit-system is, in the most favourable circumstances, injurious to the borrowing party, and, in the less favourable circumstances, ruinous to the lending party or the extender of credit. In the measure of the extent to which it is carried, business will become a hollow, deceptious, unsatisfactory affair; artificial difficulties will be found obstructing the industrious man working on realised means; agonising competitions, leading to adulterations and all other kinds of safe tricks and eheats, will arise; only a few, unusually dexterous or fortunate, or who are in possession of special advantages for conducting a lucrative business, will find themselves thriving. In short, the unavoidable result of such a system will be exactly that condition of things which we see in the commercial world-so full of disappointment and vexation to all well-meaning and pure-hearted men-and we may therefore well believe that to the credit-system, in a great degree, this very condition of things is owing. We are able to present the case of a firm which for many years acted, in a kindred business, on the opposite principle to that pursued by the publisher above alluded to. It from the beginning proceeded on the ready-money principle. The results of one adventure were made the basis on which another was built. No adventure was entered upon without a previous ascertainment of there being ample means of carrying it out, whether it should be a success or a failure. The principal materials employed were settled for in cash every month. Not a single bill was ever accepted by the firm, and it scarcely ever discounted any that were receivable. There consequently was no anxiety about the conducting of the business. Extra time and energy, which other men of business spend in financiering-a kind of occupation wholly unprofitable-were devoted by the members of this firm to the studies and accomplishments calculated to raise men in the esteem of their fellow-creatures. The business moved slowly on at first, but it never misgave or relapsed, notwithstanding both troubles and losses from consignees who unhappily acted on a different principle; and after a considerable series of years it attained great magnitude, while yet resting on perfectly solid foundations. Here, in short, was an example of a rational career in commerce-no straining, no making of needless difficulties, no waste of time on work leading to nothing, rewards reaped by the workers, instead of being abstracted by horse-leech sleeping-partners and billdiscounters, a rationally enjoyable and even dignified life attained, instead of one of incessant degrading care and worry ending in disappointment-and all through one simple principle-that of working on one's own, instead of another's capital. What a contrast! When we duly consider such a case as an example of what commercial life may be made when right principles are followed, what can we do but wonder at once at the simplicity of the right course, and the perseverance of so large a portion of the community in the wrong one ? To realise such a course as this, however, there must be-as there was in the firm in question-patience with the slender means and the narrow profits at first. The besetting sin of commercial men is over-eagerness -excessive haste to be rich. It is indeed a striking feature of the commercial mind, both in this country and in America, that, instead of a just and honest pride in business as the worthy occupation of a life, there appears a restless desire to be quit of it. Men are seen striving to effect a competency by one lucky stroke, or by a few years of brilliant practice-anything to escape from business, as if it were either a thing ordinarily calling for an intolerable self-sacrifice or a path of perils in which there could be no peace. Now there are some who are impelled in these demonstrations by ambition for fine living or the éclat of wealth; but we as often see great gambling speculators living very plainly, and evidently incapable of filling a station of wealth and dignity, or of enjoying it. The more prevalent cause of the over-eagerness is an uneasy sense of the risks, harassments, and disappointments attending a commercial career-the evils, in fact, which spring from this very credit-system. The merchant pines under the terrors of his distant ventures, from which the returns may be nil; the shopkeeper, finding himself pinched by the foolish competition raised around him through credit, longs to be in any safe haven and at rest. These are the true general causes of the over-eagerness for great successes, as contrasted with moderate returns from sober diligence and application. It comes all back to this wicked credit-system this sluice of continual drainage from the good labour going on in the world. If men would enter upon business in calmness and patience, keeping clear of credit, realising to themselves that work is the only real source of wealth, and that the saved products of one piece of work are the only true foundation for another and another; if, while so acting, they would be content to live frugally till the easy overplus of realised means enables them to take those indulgences which are their proper and fitting reward; one half of the proverbial cares of the world would be spared, merchandise would be entered on as a path of pleasantness, and the merchant would, generally speaking, be a far more honour-worthy being than he is. Let us hope to see, for the future, a great restriction put upon the credit-system. There has just been a palpable loss to the British community of fifty millions by the bankruptcies of one crisis, the proper close of a course in which trade has been degraded to a gambling speculation, and infinite troubles and difficulties have been spread throughout the industrial world. We must see to arrange that no such thing can happen again to the same extent. As individuals, let us try to clear our minds of monetary fallacies, such as that of enlarged and unrestricted issues of paper-money, the equal importance of having credit as having money, the wastefulness of keeping gold in the coffers of the Bank of England, and so forth. And let us each try to keep our own transactions reasonably near the limit of our realised capital. Let us resist the Siren Credit when she holds out her allurements. Neither let us be too easily led by sympathy for young and rising traders, to help them to a degree of accommodation' likely to prove their bane. There must-for the restoration of a right system of things-be a change in the popular conceptions, and the constitutional arrangements, as to banks. The legitimate business of these establishments is to act as a medium in payments, and give a merely temporary accommodation of credit on the basis of actual goods and real transactions. Money-lending for trading speculations, while it may be a profitable iniquity to individual bill-discounters who know their ground, can never be safely practised by a large jointstock company under the charge of a manager and directors. Everything of the kind is to be utterly condemned. My name is Robinson; and I think I must be somehow connected with that well-known traveller who, in conjunction with his two friends, Brown and Jones, made the celebrated foreign tour which Mr Doyle so kindly illustrated for them. I think so, because, besides the coincidence of name, I have the like passionate love of adventure, tempered with the same peculiar appreciation of comfort, as he; and although circumstances, over which I have no control, and about which it would be an impertinence in the public to inquire, have restricted my rambles to my native country, my experiences, like his, may not be altogether uninteresting. If there is something attractive in the mere appearance of a person who has been up Mont Blanc-disappointing as it is, we must confess, not to find him taller than other people-there must be an interest, although perhaps in a lesser degree, attaching to one who has scaled Helvellyn. If, upon the topmost peak of Cotopaxi, it astonished the philosophic traveller to discover 'butterflies and other insects, which must,' he supposes, 'have been conveyed there by unusual currents of air;' and if the whole scientific world were similarly wonder-struck to hear it, it must surely awaken some surprise when the statement is made public that I too have observed the same phenomenon on the summit of Skiddaw, although I may not have attributed it to so abstruse a cause. These things, it may be urged, however, are solely matters of 51 comparison; and for the sake of argument, suppose this with corks on, and letting go the corks; Z, who to be admitted. Let Humboldt upon his pinnacle, let was a naturalist, but did not know much about mounSmith upon his glacier, be by all means duly honoured; taineering, had been benighted on Wausfell from the but refuse not to Robinson, upon his British mountain- unforeseen circumstance of the sun leaving the hilltop, a humbler meed of approbation too. But, indeed, top before it left the sides. He had found, early in his this is but a low view to take on such a matter after ramble, a very rare and curious beetle, which he had all. When the mathematician, with his reading-party wrapped up carefully in his waistcoat-pocket; but in North Wales, apologised for not climbing Snowdon, while roaming about in the darkness, hunger had overupon the ground that there was a hill behind his powered love of science; and after much hesitation, he residence quite high enough for all practical purposes, had devoured the specimen. he enunciated a mighty truth. I am not, indeed, a Ambleside at last, however, he declared this to have mathematician, but I appreciate his remark in all its been the sublimest adventure possible, and proposed Having got down to depth and fulness. Helvellyn and Skiddaw are quite our spending a night together upon the summit of sufficient for all my humble needs; Mont Blanc and Cotopaxi would be very considerably too high. Is it applauded; only I insisted that the thing should be some other steep, a suggestion which we unanimously pretended that the sensations of a poor fellow, climb- done comfortably. None of your rare and curious ing a steep place in Westmoreland, are different from beetles for supper for me,' said I; 'none of your rocky those of another poor fellow going through the same pillows, and slumbers under the canopy of heaven: sort of thing in Switzerland? Did Mr Albert Smith, Joseph Robinson goes up like a gentleman,' I gave think you, approaching the Grands Mulets, perspire them distinctly to understand, or he doesn't go up at more freely than I did in my ascent of Grisedale Pass, all.' It was therefore arranged that I should have the before I met the donkey? I was fourteen stone when sole charge of the commissariat. As for the mountain, I began that expedition from Grasmere, and I was twelve stone and a half when I was brought down It is about 3000 feet above the level of the sea; and we determined at once that that should be Fairfield. thither, that same evening, upon the back of that we proposed to sleep upon the summit of its huge friendly animal. Such a fact as this needs no comment. Was the Alpine excursionist blistered with the little village; offers of service poured in from every green back. The news spread like wild-fire through much walking? I also can procure the testimony- quarter-guides, lanterns (even a boat from one perin writing, if it be necessary-of my two sons, as to son, who thought it would be a very snug affair turned the awful condition of their father's feet. Was he upside down), ponies, mules-camels would, I doubt drowsy, and did he, towards the conclusion of his not, have been forthcoming, had we desired them— labours, tumble upon this side and upon that, like a everything we wanted, and many things of which drunken man? Ask my guide, Gawain Mackareth we had no need, were pressed upon us eagerly. We of Town End, if he did not, upon the occasion to which had already an alpenstock apiece (which, for my I refer, pick me up four distinct times; besides own part, since it is for ever getting between my legs pouring upon me a continual fire of 'Now then, sirs,' and tripping me up, I do not consider an assistance), and 'Hold up, sirs,' for the last two miles! human being, not excepting Mr Smith, could possibly provided the provisions. These were the chief of the No and a railway rug; and the landlord of our hotel have endured more or worse things in his experience necessaries which my sagacity procured for our nightthan I in mine. I claim, therefore, to be heard. Again, bivouac and tremendous ascent: fourteen bottles of can it in any way increase the risk to a person of my bitter beer, two bottles of gin, two bottles of sherry, habit of body, or indeed to any person, if, in case of a false step, he has to fall a sheer seven thousand feet lamb, one leg of mutton, two fowls, one tongue, one gallon of water, four loaves of bread, one leg of perpendicular, instead of seven hundred? And as to half-pound of cigars, four carriage-lamps, and two the magnificence of the prospect at a great elevation, packs of playing-cards. We had also a large tent, am I to be told that the power of vision is always pro- which was carried upon the back of a horse. Three portionably extended to suit it? I saw all I was able men were necessary to pitch this tabernacle and to to see from the height I am about to refer to; and carry the provisions. About five o'clock in the afterthere was still a great deal more beyond, could I have noon we started for the mountain with a large train of availed myself of nature's superabundant offer. Had admirers, forming the largest cavalcade that had ever there been twenty times that extra prospect extended left Ambleside before. But most of our camp-followers for my gaze, what benefit would that have been to me? quitted us at the foot of Naps Scar, at Rydal, where I suffered all I could, I saw all I could, and I got to the tremendous ascent was to begin. the very top of my mountain. What conditions of ascent then, I demand to know, have remained unfulfilled? Relying, therefore, upon the great success at Egyptian Hall, I appeal to the everlasting principles of justice, and to that love of fair-play which is said to actuate the British heart, in requesting of the general public a wide circulation and a considerable popularity for the following particulars of my tremendous ascent-of Fairfield. It is not my intention to emulate the majority of my predecessors who have published memorials of this sort, in giving a detailed history of my birth and education, and especially of the social position of the Robinson family in bygone times, but I will begin at once with the circumstances of the adventure itself. A few summers since, I was staying with three friends, whose modesty demands their still remaining unknown characters as X, Y, Z, at Ambleside in the heart of the lake-country. We four had come from Manchester to 'do' the mountain district, and had done it thoroughly. X had killed a pony (which very nearly killed him first) upon Scafell; Y had been almost drowned in Windermere through attempting to swim trees and green fields, but after that, vegetation began For the first quarter of an hour our way lay amongst to grow scanty, and soon even the hardy fir-trees disappeared; however, it was very well to have dispensed with the stone-walls, which have a habit in this region of leaning over upon the side which you wish to climb, and of falling bodily upon you as soon as you cling hold of their topmost layer. It is easier to squeeze and very good fun, after one is safe, to watch an elonthrough the holes made beneath them for the sheep; gated body, such as Y, come creeping behind, half in one field and half in another, and casting a not uninterested eye above him, to see whether the wall is about to cut him in two or not. A few sheep are still sprinkled about our path, but the cows are left far beneath. A rook or two from Rydal woods flaps by us, but these will soon cease, to be exchanged for the sliding buzzard, with his huge brown wings, whose plaintive cry is even now piercing our ears from the upper heights. puffing of your humble servant and his three com- porters, which never tires, and which leaves us so hopelessly behind. At every step, some novel beauty opens upon us, if we had but time to look at it; but as soon as X or Y calls our attention to the same, and our backs are turned, they make use of that infamous advantage to get on forty yards in advance; so Z and I only look straight before us, and wait patiently for the panorama which we know we shall get at the top. Presently, we spy a fresh green mound of the softest turf, and X cannot resist the temptation to rest his tired limbs. No sooner has he seated himself, when up go his legs and arms into the air, and down goes that portion of his person which gravity attracts into the treacherous bog. He is doubled up into the form of a V, and presents a ridiculous appearance; and when he is taken out and straightened, wet through, and brown and green, he is a not less laughable spectacle. If we had been bound together with ropes, as persons ought always to be, it seems, on these tremendous excursions, this accident could not have occurred. The tourist who has only climbed such hills as Loughrigg and Helm Crag can have no conception of the terrors of the heights at which we had now arrived. The frightful rock-rent chasms on all sides of us; the scarcely less dangerous grassy slopes, upon which, had I set my foot, I am morally convinced I should have rolled over and over like a football to the very bottom of the valley; the hideous shapes of the crags themselves, and the awful barren tracts that lay before us still to be crossed, whose northern sides were sheer tremendous precipices. We felt, however, the greatest confidence in our attendants, who-such is the power of habit in familiarising men to the most perilous situations were whistling popular melodies throughout the journey; and perceiving the horse in particular to take the matter with great coolness and philosophy, X, Y, Z, and myself were not slow, in the more difficult places, to adopt his fashion of proceeding upon all fours. At last we reached the topmost of the humps or aiguilles of Fairfield, a little beyond which we had determined to fix our tent. Here we caught the sound of a fowling-piece fired off at Ambleside, no doubt in exultation at our success; and X acknowledged the compliment by tying his pocket-handkerchief on to his umbrella, and waving it three times. While the guides were employed in arrangements for our comfort and refreshment, we walked to the very topmost plane of the mountain, and gave our selves up unrestrainedly to the enjoyment of the poetry of our position. One of the porters, a very trusty man of the name of White, had been up twice before, and averred he had never seen such weather as we were now favoured with-a circumstance which occurs, however, rather often in tremendous ascents. Far, far away beneath us lay the yet sparkling sea, and the rounded outline of the Isle of Man to westward. We could see the broad yellow fringe of Morecambe Bay, and, as Z declared, even a band of travellers crossing the sands of Lancaster; but I confess there was to me a somewhat filmy and indistinct appearance about these pilgrims. In the nearer circle lay fair Windermere, studded with many a glistening sail, and Conistone with its fine old guardian hill standing out grandly-a couch for the setting sun: Grasmere, too, and Easedale Tarn lying peacefully in its lone and lofty bed; and all these amidst a meshwork of gigantic mountains, of which Scafell-the highest in England-Bowfell, and Skiddaw, were the chief. Close beside us, to northward, was Helvellyn, with its looking-glass, Grisedale Tarn; and to the east of them lay Ullswater and the great Kirkstone range; while wood-besprinkled, peaceful Rydal filled up the foreground at our feet. Presently, their bright hues faded away from the lakes and lower fells, and the purple tints upon the western mountain-tops began to herald evening. The wind, too, was rising; and soon swept over the lofty and exposed ridge on which we stood with the chill of night, before we turned towards our shelter. How beautiful our tent looked through the gloom, shining as it did-for the four carriage-lamps were lit within it-over the whole sleeping world like some fair star! The wind, however, had not permitted it to be expanded to its full dimensions; and though one of the porters had gone down with our animal home, there were still six persons to be accommodated under canvas, and there was little room to spare. Even in that bleak position, and with a north-easter rising, we were a great deal too hot inside, and we had to keep a fold open as a ventilator. We ate our supper with such appetites as only mountain-air engenders; and afterwards, having kindled a fire outside, we got some warm water to mix with our gin, lit our cigars, and made ourselves comfortable: I am afraid, also, that we indulged, in that mountain solitude, in a few rubbers at whist. It was pleasant, Z had just discovered, to be thus enjoying all the advantages of civilisation in such a spot, while the wind was howling so vainly around our snug dwelling. We had all agreed to this observation; I had dealt, and was about turning up the trump, which, I grieve to say-since we did not play the game out-was an ace, when a frightful occurrence happened. In an instant, something hurled me from my kneeling posture prostrate upon the ground, and some monster at the same moment seemed to leap upon me with inconceivable force. The whole of the party experienced a sensation precisely similar. The last storm-puff had carried our tent clean off its pegs. For some minutes we were inextricably involved amidst guides, bottles, friends, cards, carriage-lamps, and cold meats, besides finding a great difficulty in breathing. I struggled as violently as any, I do not doubt, and was the first to find myself about ankle-deep in the coldest water. The whole concern had rolled somehow into a morass, and it was matter of great good-fortune that it did so, instead of rolling into the fire which had been kindled immediately below it. When I had extricated myself, the other five were still struggling like eels in a net, and quarrelling among themselves for kicking one another. I rescued a lamp which was still burning, and then drew out poor Y by his left leg; he had fallen unluckily upon one of the other lamps, and had been a long time, poor fellow, putting it out with the small of his back. X had fallen face downwards into the morass, and was now got to be the same colour all over with which he had partially bedaubed himself in the moss-bog. Z, who thought we had been struck with a thunderbolt, was speechless with terror; even the guides were very doubtful whether tent and all had really rolled down the precipice or not. It was about one o'clock in the morning; there was no moon; and oh, how bitterly blew that mountain wind! What did Z mean, we demanded, by bringing us up into such a place as that, to suffer such things as these? If it had not been for him, we should have been all of us snug asleep in our civilised beds by this time. Hark at that abominable canvas, cracking and straining, while the porters strive to set Humpty Dumpty up again! We never were more miserable in all our lives; but I am thankful to say Z was the most miserable. When, after an hour or so, things had been restored to their proper places, he dared not venture into the tent again, but patrolled it like a sentry for the remainder of the night, not daring to leave it, or to descend, for fear of losing his way upon the fell. Then, in the cold gray morning, a mist came over Fairfield, which presently began to drizzle, and then to rain. Instead of that fine panorama which we had so counted upon, we could not see above five yards in any direction; a slight inflammation in the eastern |