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those pinched vicars, needy widows, poor old half-pay officers, and the rest, who had been dazzled by our prospectus, and had invested their savings in the pocket of Dr Titus A. C. Bett? It was my respectable name, in common with those of my fellows in the Direction, which had baited the hook for such poor prey as these. My heart-even City men have hearts sometimes-was heavy and mournful with a grief not wholly selfish. Plump! fluff! down went the mustang on his knees, his feet having plunged into the holes that led to the dwellings of some "prairie-dogs"-interesting little brutes that burrow all over the plains-and over the animal's head I flew with the force of a sky-rocket. Lighting with a great thump on the hard turf, I ran no trifling risk of a broken neck; but my hat saved me, at the expense of its own demolition, and I was only stunned. But when Ichabod hurried to the rescue he found me bruised and faint, and with a sprained thumb that caused me exquisite pain for the time. So stupified was I by the shock, that I did not hear the beat of hoofs upon the green carpet of the prairie, nor the sound of friendly voices, and was surprised, on looking up, to see that I was surrounded by a large party of equestrians, who were surveying me from the saddle with every appearance of interest. Riding-habits and side-saddles here in prairie-land! hats and feathers, too, of most ladylike elegance, and a pair of pretty, rather pale faces under the shadow of those plumed felts. Besides the two girls, there were a grey-haired elderly man, two younger gentlemen, and three or four mounted blacks in suits of striped cotton, one of whom led a couple of hounds in a long leash, while another had a buck strapped behind him on the horse.

"Is the poor gentleman much hurt?" asked one of the young ladies in a sweet kind voice. Ichabod, as bold as a lion in general, was awkward and bashful when

addressed by a lady, and seemed to be weighing the words of his answer, when I felt it necessary to reply for myself. On discovering that I was a stranger in the land, General Warfield insisted that I should accompany the party to his house, just across the Missouri border, where my injured thumb should receive every attention, and where he and his family would gladly welcome me. Yielding willingly to this hospitable persuasion, I permitted Ichabod and one of the negroes to help me to remount my mustang, and we rode towards the Missouri boundary. The family whose acquaintance I had just made in so singular a way, bore no similarity to the travelling Americans whom it had previously fallen to my lot to encounter. General Warfield, his son, daughters, and nephew, had the well-bred air and unobtrusive demeanour which I had hitherto deemed exclusively insular. They asked me no abrupt questions as to my station or errand: they indulged in no diatribes against my country, nor in any extravagant laudations of their own; and I might have fancied myself the guest of some longdescended family at home, but for the wild scenes and unusual objects that met my eye as we rode along. It turned out that General Warfield, a retired military officer, not a militiaman, was of an old Virginian family, and had migrated to the newer soil of Missouri six years ago. There his children had grown to be men and women, in the hardy habits of that wild country, a mere outpost of civilisation; and indeed they were returning from a hunting expedition into Iowa when they stumbled upon me in my prostrate condition. Three hours' ride brought us to the General's house, a large building of mingled wood and stone, with a pretty garden on one hand, and on the other the farm-buildings, the corrals for horses and cattle, and the negro huts. Within I found furniture of old-fashioned dark

mahogany, partridge wood, and bird's-eye maple, old family pictures, pretty knickknacks picked up during a three years' residence in Europe, and the massive silver plate which had been handed down from father to son ever since the ancestral Warfield settled in Virginia in the reign of Charles I. I never knew anything so un-American, in respect to the usual standard of comparison, as the mode of life, the bearing, and tastes, of General Warfield and his high-spirited and amiable children. Here was no exaggeration of sentiment, no outrageous national vanity, no rude indifference to the feelings of others, no prying, no pretension. I felt, as I conversed with them, how wide was the gulf that severed the North from the South. It was not diversity of interest alone, but diversity of habits, principles, and aspirations. Wide apart in heart and mind as the poles from each other, the citizens of the opposite ends of the Union had but the feeble Federal bond to delay that violent disruption and severance of which, even then, the signs of the times gave fearful warning. But it is not my purpose to linger on the happy days I spent beneath the roof of my kind hosts. Let me rather relate the information I received from General Warfield, when his friendly hospitality had caused me to confide to his ear my errand to America, and the ruin I had too much reason to anticipate.

"My dear sir," said the General, "I am glad you have told me of this very glad. I can help you in this matter."

The General then proceeded to tell me that, in the first year of his residence in Missouri, Harvey, a notorious speculator, had begun the railway whose miserable wreck I had visited. He had given it up for want of funds, had become insolvent, and was reputed to have died in Texas. That he had received a real concession of land and authentic charters from the State

legislatures, was undoubted. But the concession had been clogged by the express stipulation, that in two years Harvey should have a hundred and fifty miles in working order, and that the whole should be completed in four years. The condition not having been complied with, the concession was null and void. The Great Nauvoo and Nebraska Railway Company, had no right to a corporate existence.

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But," said I, "I of course perused the papers. I saw no mention of such a conditional clause." The General smiled.

"Depend upon it, Mr Bulkeley," said he, "that erasure and forgery have been practised to make the old deeds sufficiently tempting to effect the only purpose their present holders have in view-that of raising cash in the London market. Colonel Sling-who, by the way, is no more a colonel, even of militia, than black Cæsar there is no novice at fraud. He was convicted at Jefferson city of a like offence, and I was present at his trial, and heard some of his antecedents; indeed, I was a witness in the case. But if you will take my advice, you will hasten back to England, and, if possible, save the funds in the hands of this confederate of his, this Bett, before the pair can abscond with their gains. Do not parley, but apply to the police at once, if, indeed, it be not too late."

Finally, General Warfield was so good as to accompany me to the chief town of Iowa State, where he introduced me to the legal authorities, by whom his statements were fully confirmed, and the Nauvoo and Nebraska declared a transparent swindle. In this town we suddenly came on "Colonel" Sling, who had come out by the next packet, and was tracking me, no doubt in the hope of hoodwinking or silencing me in some mode or other. But when he saw the General, his swaggering air collapsed, a guilty crimson suffused his yellow cheeks, and he slunk away and entered a tavern without accosting

us.

And yet when, after giving hearty thanks to my kindly Virginian friend, I hurried to embark at New York, I had the honour of finding Colonel Coriolanus Sling, my fellow-passenger. He now ventured to address me, but by this time I was on my guard against his specious eloquence, and he retired with an air of mingled effrontery and shame. At Liverpool, as I took my seat in the train, which I did without the loss of a moment, I saw Colonel Sling dart into the telegraph office. So busy was my brain with what was before me, that I did not, during the principal part of the journey, attach any particular meaning to this proceeding of my treacherous ally. When I did think of its probable object, I struck my forehead, and could have cursed my blind stupidity, my dulness of conception. After all my haste, scampering as quickly as possible to the station at Liverpool, was I to be too late, after all? Was this Yankee rascal to be permitted to warn his brother knave in London through my inattention, and was the paid-up capital to fatten the two harpies whose tools we had been? Heavy misgivings filled my heart as I arrived in London, hurried to Scotland Yard, and requested that a detective policeman might at once be ordered to accompany me to the residence of Dr Titus A. C. Bett, cashier to the Nauvoo and Nebraska Company. Luckily I was a man of credit and character in the city; my request was granted instantly, and off whirled the hansom cab, as fast as hansom cab could be impelled by the most lavish bribe, on its way to Piccadilly, bearing me and a quiet man with a resolute, thoughtful face, in plain

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I could have hugged that maid, Mary Ann, Eliza, or Susan, no matter what, for she was my preserver-a most valuable but unwitting ally. I did give her a sovereign as I bade her show us up. We found the Doctor, unshaved, half dressed, tugging at his boots, and with a leather dressing-case weighty with gold and notes lying on the table at his elbow. rushed in with scant ceremony. The detective tapped him on the shoulder and took him into custody with the magic formula of uttering her Majesty's name. The bubble burst, but the funds were saved; and after some expense, ridicule, and trouble, we were able to return their money to the shareholders, and I washed my hands most gladly of my American investment.

THE LANDSCAPE OF ANCIENT ITALY, AS DELINEATED IN THE POMPEIAN PAINTINGS.

"Und aber nach zweitausend Jahren
Kam ich desselbigen Wegs gefahren."

"Et puis nous irons voir, car décadence et deuil
Viennent toujours après la puissance et l'orgueil,
Nous irons voir

WE are so much accustomed to depend on the four great literary languages for the whole body of our information and amusement, that it occurs to few to consider that ignorance of other European dialects involves any inconvenience at all, except to those who have occasion to visit the countries in which they are spoken. Yet there is much of really valuable matter which sees the light only in the minor tongues, especially those of the industrious North, and with which the world has never been made familiar through translation. Joachim Frederic Schouw, the Danish botanist, is one of the writers of our day who has suffered most prejudicially both to his own fame and to the public from having employed only his native language. For his writings are not only valuable in a scientific point of view, but belong to the most popular order of scientific writing, and would assuredly have been general favourites, had not the bulk of them remained untranslated. His ‘Tableau du Climat de l'Italie' has, however, appeared in French, and is a standard work. A little collection of very brief and popular essays, entitled "The Earth, Plants, and Man,' has been translated both into German and English. One of these, styled "The Plants of Pompeii,' is found ed on a rather novel idea. The paintings on the walls of the disinterred houses of that city contain (among other things) many landscape compositions. Some times these are accessory to historical representations. But they often merely portray the scenery

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of ordinary out-door life. The old decorators of the Pompeian chambers had indeed an evident taste for those trivial tricks of theatrical deception, which are still very popular in Italy. Their verdure, sky, and so forth, seem often as if meant to impose on the spectator for a moment as realities; and are, therefore, executed in a realistic " though sketchy style. "Consequently," says Schouw, "the observation of the plants which are represented in these paintings will give, as far as they go, the measure of those which were familiar to the ancient eye, and will help to show the identities and the differences between the vegetation of the Campanian plains a hundred years after Christ, and that which adorns them now."

We propose to follow the Professor through this confined but elegant little chapter of his investigations. But by restraining ourselves to this alone, we should be dealing with only part of a subject. In most regions, two thousand years have made considerable changes in the appearance of the vegetable covering of the earth; but in that land of volcanic influences in which Pompeii stood, great revolutions have taken place, during that time, in the structure of the ground itself. Sea and land have changed places; mountains have risen and sunk; the very outlines and main landmarks of the scene are other than what they were. Let us for a moment imagine ourselves gazing with Emperor Tiberius from his "specular height" on precipitous Capri, at that unequalled panorama of sea and land formed

by the Gulf of Naples, as thence descried, and note in what respects the visible face of things has changed since he beheld it.

The central object in his view, as in that of the modern observer, was Vesuvius, standing out a huge insulated mountain mass, unconformable with the other outlines of the landscape, and covered then, as now, with its broad mantle of dusky green. Then, as now, its volcanic soil was devoted to the cultivation of the vine. But in other respects its appearance was widely different. No slender, menacing column of smoke rose perpetually from its summit. Nor was it lurid, at night, with that red gleam of the slow river of fire,

"A cui riluce Di Capri la marina

E di Napoli il porto e Mergellina." It was an extinct volcano, and had been so for unknown ages. Nor did it exhibit its present characteristic cone, nor probably its double top; Vesuvius and Somma were most likely one; and the deep half-moon-shaped ravine of the Atrio del Cavallo, which now divides them, is thought to be a relic of the ancient crater. That crater was a huge amphitheatrical depression, several miles in circuit, filled with pasture-lands and tangled woods. Spartacus and his servile army had used it not long before as a natural fortress. But this feature scarcely visible to the spectator at Capri, opposite the mountain, to whom the summit must have appeared as a broad flat-topped ridge, in shape and height very similar to the Table Mountain at the Cape of Good Hope.

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was

At the time in question, scarcely a few vague traditions remained to record the fact that the mountain had once burnt." The fiery legends of Magna Græcia related to the country west of Naples, where volcanic action had been more recent the Phlegræan fields, the Market-place of Vulcan (Solfatara), the cone of Gnarime (Ischia), through which the imprisoned

Typhoeus breathed flame, from whence he has been since transferred to Vesuvius, as a Genoese monk informed us when we and he first looked on that volcano together. Vesuvius awoke from his sleep of unknown length, as every one knows, in A.D. 79, when he celebrated his resumption of authority by that grand "extra night” of the 24th August, which has had no rival since, in the way of pyrotechnical entertainment, except on the distant shores of Iceland, the West Indies, and the Moluccas. His period of activity lasted nearly a thousand years. Then he relapsed into lethargy for six hundred. In 1631, he had resumed (as old prints show), something nearly resembling the form which we have attributed to him in classical times. His top, of great height, swollen up by the slow accumulation of burning matter, without a vent, was a level plateau, with a pit-like crater, filled with a forest of secular oaks and ilexes: only a few " fumaroles," or smoke-holes, remained here and there to attest his real character. Even the legends of his conflagrations had become out of date. The old "Orearch" or mountain-spirit, Vesevus, is portrayed by the local poet Pontanus in the fifteenth century, as a rustic figure, with a bald head, hump back, and cincture of brushwood - all fiery attributes omitted. Even his terrible name was only known to the learned : the people called him the "Monte di Somma." The suburban features of a great luxurious city, convents, gardens,vineyards, hunting grounds, and parks of the nobility, had crept again up the sides of the mountain, until they almost mingled with the trees on the summit. The approaching hour was not without its premonitory signs, many and strange. The phenomena which Bulwer makes his witch of Vesuvius recount, by way of warning, to Arbaces, are very closely borrowed from contemporary narratives of the eruption of 1631. Nor were the omens of superstition wanting, accommo

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