That a taste for the beauties of Nature was extant at the epoch of which we treat may be inferred from the statement of a writer who commences "An Essay in Praise of the Morning" as follows:—"I have the good Fortune to be so pleasantly lodg'd as to have a Prospect of a neighboring Grove, where the Eye receives the most delicious Refreshment from the lively Verdure of the Greens, and the wild Regularity by which the Scene shifts off and disparts itself into a beautiful Chequer."

The ever interesting and disputed topics of dress and diet come in for an occasional discussion. The following is a characteristic specimen of the satirical vein of the British essayist school, though we have been unable to ascertain, by reference to the "Spectator," "Tatler," "Rambler," "Guardian," etc., the immediate source whence it was taken. It reads as follows:—"History of Female Dress. The sprightly Gauls set their little Wits to work again," (on resuming the war under Queen Anne,) "and invented a wonderful Machine call'd a Hoop Petticoat. In this fine Scheme they had more Views than one; they had compar'd their own Climate and Constitution with that of the British, and finding both warmer, they naturally enough concluded that would only be pleasantly cool to them, which would perhaps give the British Ladies the Rheumatism, and that if they once got them off their Legs they should have them at Advantage; Besides, they had been inform'd, though falsely, that the British Ladies had not good Legs, and then at all Events this Scheme would expose them. With these pernicious Views they set themselves to work, and form'd a Rotund of near 7 Yards about, and sent the Pattern over by the Sussex Smugglers with an Intent that it should be seiz'd and expos'd to Publick View; which happen'd accordingly, and made its first Appearance at a Great Man's House on that Coast, whose Lady claim'd it as her peculiar Property. In it she first struck at Court what the learned in Dress call a bold Stroke; and was thereupon constituted General of the British Ladies during the War. Upon the Whole this Invention did not answer. The Ladies suffer'd a little the first Winter, but after that were so thoroughly harden'd that they improv'd upon the Contrivers by adding near 2 Yards to its Extension, and the Duke of Marlboro' having about the same Time beat the French, the Gallic Ladies dropt their Pretensions, and left the British Misstresses of the Field; the Tokens whereof are worn in Triumph to this Day, having outlasted the Colors in Westminster Hall, and almost that great General's Glory."

To a similar source must probably be referred an article in the same volume, entitled, "Of Diet in General, and of the bad Effects of Tea-Drinking." The genuine conservative flavor of the extract is deliciously apparent, while its wholesale denunciations are drawn but little, if at all, stronger than those which may even yet be occasionally met with. "If we compare the Nature of Tea with the Nature of English Diet, no one can think it a proper Vegetable for us. It has no Parts fit to be assimilated to our Bodies; its essential Salt does not hold Moisture enough to be joined to the Body of an Animal; its Oyl is but very little, and that of the opiate kind, and therefore it is so far from being nutritive, that it irritates and frets the Nerves and Fibres, exciting the expulsive Faculty, so that the Body may be lessened and weakened, but it cannot increase and be strengthened by it. We see this by common Experience; the first Time persons drink it, if they are full grown, it generally gives them a Pain at the Stomach, Dejection of Spirits, Cold Sweats, Palpitation at the Heart, Trembling, Fearfulness; taking away the Sense of Fulness though presently after Meals, and causing a hypochondriac, gnawing Appetite. These symptoms are very little inferiour to what the most poisonous Vegetables we have in England would occasion when dried and used in the same manner.

"These ill Effects of Tea are not all the Mischiefs it occasions. Did it cause none of them, but were it entirely wholesome, as Balm or Mint, it were yet Mischief enough to have our whole Populace used to sip warm Water in a mincing, effeminate Manner, once or twice every Day; which hot Water must be supped out of a nice Tea-Cup, sweatened with Sugar, biting a Bit of nice thin Bread and Butter between Whiles. This mocks the strong Appetite, relaxes the Stomach, satiates it with trifling light Nick-Nacks which have little in them to support hard Labour. In this manner the Bold and Brave become dastardly, the Strong become weak, the Women become barren, or if they breed their Blood is made so poor that they have not Strength to suckle, and if they do the Child dies of the Gripes; In short, it gives an effeminate, weakly Turn to the People in general."

Another humorous philosopher, who is benevolently anxious that his fellow-creatures may not be taken in by the rustic meteorologists, satirically furnishes a number of infallible tests to determine the approach of a severe season. He entitles his contribution to meteorological science,—"Jonathan Weatherwise's Prognostications. As it is not likely that I have a long Time to act on the Stage of this Life, for what with Head-Aches, hard Labour, Storms and broken Spectacles I feel my Blood chilling, and Time, that greedy Tyrant, devouring my whole Constitution," etc.,—an exordium which is certainly well adapted to excite our sympathy for Jonathan, even if it fail to inspire confidence in his "Prognostications," and leave us a little in the dark as to the necessary connection between "broken spectacles" and the "chilling of the blood." The criteria he gives us are truly Ingenious and surprising; but though the greater part would prove novel, we believe, to the present generation, we can here quote but one. He tells us, that, when a boy, he "swore revenge on the Grey Squirrel," in consequence of a petted animal of this species having "bitten off the tip of his grandmother's finger,"—a resolution which proved, as we shall see, unfortunate for the squirrels, but of immense advantage to science. To gratify this dire animosity, and in fulfilment of his vow, he persevered for nearly half a century in the perilous and exciting sport of squirrel-hunting, departing "every Year, for forty-nine successive Years, on the 22d of October, excepting when that Day fell on a Sunday," in which case he started on the Monday following, to take vengeance for the outrage committed on his aged relative. Calm philosophy, however, enabled him, "in the very storm, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of his passion," to observe and record the following remarkable fact in Zoology: "When shot from a high Limb they would put their Tails in their Mouths as they were tumbling, and die in that Manner; I did not know what to make of it, 'till, in Process of Time, I found that when they did so a hard Winter always succeeded, and this may be depended on as infallible."

The author of "An Essay on Puffing" (a topic which we should hardly have thought to have found under discussion at a period so much nearer the golden age than the present) remarks,—"Dubious and uncertain is the Source or Spring of Puffing in this Infant Country, it not being agreed upon whether Puffs were imported by the primitive Settlers of the Wilderness, (for the Puff is not enumerated in the aboriginal Catalogue,) or whether their Growth was spontaneous or accidental. However uncertain we are about the Introduction or first Cultivation of Puffs, it is easy to discover the Effects or Consequences of their Improvement in all Professions, Perswasions and Occupations."

Under the head which has assumed, in modern journalism, an extent and importance second only to the Puff, to wit, the "Horrible Accident Department," we find but a single item, but that one of a nature so unique and startling that it seems to deserve transcribing. "February 7 [1744]. We hear from Statten Island that a Man who had been married about 5 months, having a Design to get rid of his Wife, got some poisoned Herbs with which he advised her to stuff a Leg of Veal, and when it was done found an Excuse to be absent himself; but his Wife having eat of it found herself ill, and he coming Home soon after desired her to fry him some Sausages which she did, and having eat of them also found himself ill; upon which he asked his Wife what she fried them in, who answered, in the Sauce of the Veal; then, said he, I am a dead man: So they continued sick for some Days and then died, but he died the first." We hardly know which most to admire, the graphic and terrible simplicity of this narrative of villany, or the ignorance which it discovers of the modern art of penny-a-lining, an expert practitioner of which would have spread the shocking occurrence over as many columns as this bungling report comprises sentences.

The poetical contents of our Magazine consist mainly, as we have said, of excerpts from the popular productions of English authors, as they were found in the magazines of the mother country or in their published works, the diluted stanzas of their imitators, satirical verses, epigrams, and translations from the Latin poets. There are, however, occasional strains from the native Muse, and here and there a waif from sources now, perhaps, lost or forgotten. Before "he threw his Virgil by to wander with his dearer bow," Mr. Freneau's Indian seems to have determined to leave on record a proof of his classical attainments, for he is doubtless the author of "A Latin Ode written by an American Indian, a Junior Sophister at Cambridge, anno 1678, on the death of the Reverend and Learned Mr. Thacher,"—a translation of which is given at page 166, prefaced thus:—"As the Original of the following Piece is very curious, the publishing this may perhaps help you to some better Translation. Attempted from the Latin of an American Indian." The probability that any reader of the present paper would be disposed to help us to this "better Translation" seems too remote to warrant us in giving the Ode in extenso; nor do we think any would thank us for transcribing a cloudy effusion, a little farther on, entitled, "On the Notion of an abstract antecedent Fitness of Things." The following estrays are perhaps worth the capture; they profess to date back to the reign of Queen Mary, and are styled, "Some Forms of Prayer used by the vulgar Papists."

THE LITTLE CREED.

Little Creed can I need, Kneel before our Lady's Knee, Candle light, Candle burn, Our Lady pray'd to her dear Son That we might all to Heaven come; Little Creed, Amen!

THE WHITE PATER NOSTER.

White Pater Noster, St. Peter's Brother, What hast thou in one hand? White-Book Leaves. What hast i'th' to'ther? Heaven Gate Keys. Open Heaven Gates, and steike (shut) Hell Gates, And let every crysom Child creep to its own mother: White Pater Noster, Amen!

We do not think that the poets of the anti-shaving movement have as yet succeeded in producing anything worthy to be set off against a series of spirited stanzas under the heading of "The Razor, a Poem," which we commend to the immediate and careful attention of the "Razor-strop Man." The following are the concluding verses:—

"But, above all, thou grand Catholicon, Or by what useful Name so'er thou'rt call'd, Thou Sweet Composer of the tortur'd Mind! When all the Wheels of Life are heavy clogg'd With Cares or Pain, and nought but Horror dire Before us stalks with dreadful Majesty, Embittering all the Pleasures we enjoy; To thee, distressed, we call; thy gentle Touch Consigns to balmy Sleep our troubled Breasts."

Evidently the production of a philosopher and an economist of time: for who else would have thought of shaving before going to bed, instead of at the matutinal toilet?

In less than five years from the date of its first number, (1743,) "The American Magazine and Historical Chronicle" had ceased to exist, and in the year 1757 appeared "The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for the British Colonies." This was published by Mr. William Bradford in Philadelphia, under the auspices of "a Society of Gentlemen," who declare themselves to be "veritatis cultores, fraudis inimici," but who probably found themselves unequal to the difficulties of such a position, the Magazine having expired just one year after its birth. It was followed by "The New England Magazine," (1758,) "The American Magazine," (1769,) "The Royal American Magazine," (1774,) "The Pennsylvania Magazine, or American Monthly Museum," (1775,) "The Columbian Magazine," (1786,) "The Worcester Magazine," (the same year,) "The American Museum," (1787,) "The Massachusetts Magazine," (1789,) "The New-York Magazine," (1790,) "The Rural Magazine & Vermont Repository," (1796,) "The Missionary Magazine," (same year,)—and others. The premature mortality characteristic of some of our own magazine-literature was, even at this early period, painfully apparent: none of the publications we have named survived their twelfth year, most of them lived less than half that period. A great diversity in the style and quality of their contents, as well as in external appearance, is, of course, observable, and it somewhat requires the eye of faith to see within their rusty and faded covers the germ of that gigantic literary plant which, in this year of Grace, 1860, counts in the city of Boston alone nearly one hundred and fifty periodical publications, (about one-third being legitimate magazines,) perhaps as many more in the other New England cities and towns, and a progeny of unknown, but very considerable extent, throughout the Union.

Apart even from their value to the historiographer and the antiquary, few relics of the past are more suggestive or interesting than the old magazine or newspaper. The houses, furniture, plate, clothing, and decorations of the generations which have preceded us possess their intrinsic value, and serve also to link by a thousand associations the mysterious past with the actual and living present; but the old periodical brings back to us, beside all this, the bodily presence, the words, the actions, and even the very thoughts of the people of a former age. It is, in mercantile phrase, a book of original entry, showing us the transactions of the time in the light in which they were regarded by the parties engaged in them, and reflecting the state of public sentiment on innumerable topics,—moral, religious, political, philosophic, military, and scientific. Its mistakes of fact or induction are honest and palpable ones, easily corrected by contemporaneous data or subsequent discoveries, and not often posted into the ledger of history without detection. The learned and patient labors of the savant or the scholar are not expected of the pamphleteer or the periodical writer of the last century, or of the present; he does but blaze the pathway of the pains-taking engineer who is to follow him, happy enough, if he succeed in satisfying immediate and daily demands, and in capturing the kind of game spoken of by Mr. Pope in that part of his manual where he instructs us to

"shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise."

Among us, however, the magazine-writer, as he existed in the last century, has left few, if any, representatives. He is fading silently away into a forgotten antiquity; his works are not on the publishers' counters,—they linger only among the dust and cobwebs of old libraries, listlessly thumbed by the exploring reader or occasionally consulted by the curious antiquary. His place is occupied by those who, in the multiplication of books, the diffusion of information, and the general alteration of public taste, manners, and habits, though revolving in a similar orbit, move in quite another plane,—who have found in the pages of the periodical a theatre of special activity, a way to the entertainment and instruction of the many; and though much of what is thus produced may bear, as we have hinted, a character more or less ephemeral, we are sometimes presented also with the earlier blossoms and the fresher odors of a rich and perennial growth of genius, everywhere known and acknowledged in the realms of belles-lettres, philosophy, and science, crowded here as in a nursery, to be soon transplanted to other and more permanent abodes.



COME SI CHIAMA?

OR A LEAF FROM THE CENSUS OF 1850.

The first question asked of a "new boy" at school is, "What's your name?" In this year of Grace the eighth decennial census is to be taken, asking that same question of all new comers into the great public school where towns and cities are educated. It will hardly be effected with that marvellous perfection of organization by which Great Britain was made to stand still for a moment and be statistically photographed. For with consummate skill was planned that all-embracing machinery, so that at one and the same moment all over the United Kingdom the recording pen was catching every man's status and setting it down. The tramp on the dusty highway, the clerk in the counting-house, the sportsman upon the moor, the preacher in his pulpit, game-bird and barn-door fowl alike, all were simultaneously bagged. Unless, like the Irishman's swallow, you could be in two places at once, down you went on the recording-tablets. Christopher Sly, from the ale-house door, if caught while the Merry Duke had possession of him, must be chronicled for a peer of the realm; Bully Bottom, if the period of his translations fell in with the census-taking, must be numbered among the cadgers' "mokes"; nay, if Dogberry himself had encountered the officials at the moment of his pathetic lamentation, he were irrevocably written down "an ass."

We can hardly hope for such celerity and sure handling upon this side of the water. Nor is this the subject we have just now in view. The approaching advent of the census-taker has led us to look back at the labor of his predecessor, and the careless turning over of its pages has set us to musing upon NAMES.

William Shakspeare asks, "What's in a name?" England's other great poetical William has devoted a series of his versifyings to the naming of places. Which has the right of it, let us not undertake to pronounce without consideration. England herself has long ago determined the question. As Mr. Emerson says of English names,—"They are an atmosphere of legendary melody spread over the land; older than all epics and histories which clothe a nation, this undershirt sits close to the body." Dean Trench, who handles words as a numismatist his coins, has said substantially the same thing. And it is true not of England only; for the various lands of Europe are written over like palimpsests with the story of successive conquests and dominations chronicled in their local names. You stop and ask why a place is so called,—sure to be rewarded by a legend lurking beneath the title. Like the old crests of heraldry, with their "canting" mottoes beneath, they are history in little, a war or a revolution distilled into the powerful attar of a single phrase. The Rhineland towers of Falkenstein and Stolzenfels are the local counterparts of the Scotch borderers' "Thou shalt want ere I want," for ominous meaning.

The volume we have just laid down painfully reminds us that the poet and the historian have no such heritage in this land. We have done our best to crowd out all the beautiful significant names we found here, and to replace them by meaningless appellations. For the name of a thing is that which really has in it something of that to which it belongs, which describes and classifies it, and is its spoken representative; while the appellation is only a title conferred by act of Parliament or her Majesty's good pleasure: it cannot make a parvenu into a peer.

But we are not writing for the mere interest of the poet and the novelist. Fit names are not given, but grow; and we believe there is not a spot in the land, possessing any attractiveness, but has its name ready fitted to it, waiting unsyllabled in the air above it for the right sponsor to speak it into life. We plead for public convenience simply. We are thinking not of the ears of taste, but of the brain of business. We do not wonder at the monstrous accumulations of the Dead-Letter Office, when we see the actual poverty which our system of naming places has brought about. Pardon us a few statistics, and, as you read them, remember, dear reader, that this is the story of ten years ago, and that the enormous growths of the last decade have probably increased the evil prodigiously.

The volume in question gives a list of a trifle under ten thousand places,—to be accurate, of nine thousand eight hundred and twenty odd. For these nine thousand cities, towns, and villages have been provided but three thousand eight hundred and twenty names. All the rest have been baptized according to the results of a promiscuous scramble. Some, indeed, make a faint show of variety, by additions of such adjectives as New, North, South, East, West, or Middle. If we reduce the list of original names by striking out these and all the compounds of "ville," "town," and the like, we get about three thousand really distinctive names for American towns. Three hundred and thirty odd we found here when we came,—being Indian or Native American. Three hundred and thirty more we imported from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. A dozen were added to them from the pure well of Welsh undefiled, and mark the districts settled by Cambro-Britons. Out of our Bibles we got thirty-three Hebrew appellations, nearly all ludicrously inappropriate; and these we have been very fond of repeating. In California, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, and the Louisiana purchase, we bought our names along with the land. Fine old French and Spanish ones they are; some thirty of them names of Saints, all well-sounding and pleasant to the ear. And there is a value in these names not at first perceptible. Most of them serve to mark the day of the year upon which the town was founded. They are commemorative dates, which one need only look at the calendar to verify. As an instance of this, there is the forgotten title of Lake George, Lake St. Sacrament, which, in spite of Dr. Cleveland Coxe's very graceful ballad, we must hold to have been conferred because the lake was discovered on Corpus-Christi Day. In the Mississippi Valley, the great chain of French military occupation can still be faintly traced, like the half-obliterated lines of a redoubt which the plough and the country road have passed over.

There remain about two thousand names, which may fairly be called of American manufacture. We exclude, of course, those which were transferred from England, since they were probably brought directly. They have a certain fitness, as affectionate memorials of the Old Country lingering in the hearts of the exiles. Thus, though St. Botolph was of the fenny shire of Lincoln, and the new comers to the Massachusetts Bay named their little peninsula Suffolk, the county of the "South-folk," we do not quarrel with them for calling their future city "Bo's or Botolph's town," out of hearts which did not wholly forget their birthplace with its grand old church, whose noble tower still looks for miles away over the broad levels toward the German Ocean. Nor do we think Plymouth to be utterly meaningless, though it is not at the mouth of the Ply, or any other river such as wanders through the Devon Moorlands to the British Channel.

"Et parvam Trojam, simulataque magnis Pergama, et arentem Xanthi cognomine rivum Agnosco: Seaeaeque amplector limina portae."

Throughout New England, and in all the original colonies, we find this to be the case. But, as Americans, we must reject both what our fathers brought and what they found. Two thousand specimens of the American talent for nomenclature, then, we can exhibit. Walk up, gentlemen! Here you have the top-crest of the great wave of civilization. Hero is a people, emancipated from Old-World trammels, setting the world a lesson. What is the result? With the grand divisions of our land we have not had much to do. Of the States, seventeen were baptized by their Indian appellations; four were named by French and Spanish discoverers; six were called after European sovereigns; three, which bear the prefix of New, have the names of English counties;—there remains Delaware, the title of an English nobleman, leaving us Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Rhode Island, three precious bits of modern classicality. Let us now come to the counties. Ten years ago there were some fifteen hundred and fifty-five of these. One hundred and seventy-three bear Indian names, and there are one or two uncertain. For these fifteen hundred and fifty-five counties there are eight hundred and eighty-eight names, about one to every two. Seven hundred are, then, of Anglo-Saxon bestowing? No. Another hundred are of Spanish and French origin. Six hundred county-names remain; fifty of which, neat as imported, are the names of English places, and fifty more are names bestowed in compliment to English peers. Five hundred are the American residuum.

We beg pardon for these dry statistical details, over which we have spent some little time and care; but they furnish a base of operations. Yet something more remains to be added. We have, it is true, about two thousand names of places and five hundred of counties purely American, or at least due to American taste. In most instances the county-names are repeated in some of the towns within their borders. Therefore we fall back upon our original statement, that two thousand names are the net product of Yankee ingenuity. It is hardly necessary to assure the most careless reader that the vast majority of these are names of persons. And it needs no wizard to conjecture that these are bestowed in very unequal proportions. Here the true trouble of the Postmaster-General and his staff begins.

The most frequent names are, of course, those of the Presidents. The "Father of his Country" has the honor of being god-father to no small portion of it. For there are called after him one territory, twenty-six counties, and one hundred and thirty-eight towns and villages. Adams, the next, has but six counties and twenty-six towns; but his son is specially honored by a village named J.Q. Adams. Jefferson has seventeen counties and seventy-four towns. Madison has fifteen counties and forty-seven towns. Monroe has sixteen counties and fifty-seven towns, showing that the "era of good feeling" was extending in his day. The second Adams has one town to himself; but the son of his father could expect no more. Jackson has fifteen counties and one hundred and twenty-three towns, beside six "boroughs" and "villes,"—showing what it was to have won the Battle of New Orleans. Van Euren gets four counties and twenty-eight towns. Harrison seven counties and fifty-seven towns, as becomes a log-cabin and hard-cider President. Tyler has but three counties, and not a single town, village, or hamlet even. Polk has five counties and thirteen towns. Taylor, three counties and twelve towns. The remaining Presidents being yet in life and eligible to a second term, it would be invidious to make further disclosures till after the conventions. Among unsuccessful candidates there is a vast difference in popularity. Clay has thirty-two towns, and Webster only four. Cass has fourteen, and Calhoun only one. Of Revolutionary heroes, Wayne and Warren are the favorites, having respectively thirteen and fourteen counties and fifty-three and twenty-eight towns. But "Principles, not Men," has been at times the American watchword; therefore there are ten counties and one hundred and three towns named "Union."

We have given the reader a dose, we fear, of statistics; but imagine yourself, dear, patient friend, what you may yet be, Postmaster-General of these United States, with the responsibility of providing for all these bewildering post-offices. And we pray you to heed the absolute poverty of invention which compelled forty-nine towns to call themselves "Centre." Forty-nine Centres! There are towns named after the points of compass simply,—not only the cardinal points, but the others,—so that the census-taker may, if he likes, "box the compass," in addition to his other duties.

But worse than the too common names (anything but proper ones) are the eccentric. The colors are well represented; for, beside Oil and Paint for materials, there are Brown, Black, Blue, Green, White, Cherry, Gray, Hazel, Plum, Rose, and Vermilion. The animals come in for their share; for we find Alligator, Bald-Eagle, Beaver, Buck, Buffalo, Eagle, Eel, Elk, Fawn, East-Deer and West-Deer, Bird, Fox, (in Elk County,) Pigeon, Plover, Raccoon, Seal, Swan, Turbot, Wild-Cat, and Wolf. Then again, the christening seems to have been preceded by the shaking in a hat of a handful of vowels and consonants, the horrible results of which sortes appear as Alna, Cessna, Chazy, Clamo, Novi, (we suspect the last two to be Latin verbs, out of place, and doing duty as substantives,) Cumru, Freco, Fristo, Josco, Hamtramck, Medybemps, Haw, Kan, Paw-Paw, Pee-Pee, Kinzua, Bono, Busti, Lagro, Letart, Lodomillo, Moluncus, Mullica, Lomira, Neave, Oley, Orland, and the felicitous ringing of changes which occurs in Luray, Leroy, and Leray, to say nothing of Ballum, Bango, Helts, and Hellam. And in other unhappy places, the spirit of whim seems to have seized upon the inhabitants. Who would wish to write themselves citizens of Murder-Kill-Hundred, or Cain, or of the town of Lack, which places must be on the high road to Fugit and Constable? There are several anti-Maine-law places, such as Tom and Jerry, Whiskeyrun, Brandywine, Jolly, Lemon, Pipe, and Pitcher, in which Father Matthew himself could hardly reside unimpeached in repute. They read like the names in the old-fashioned "Temperance Tales," all allegory and alcohol, which flourished in our boyhood.

Then, by way of counterpart to these, there are sixty-four places known as Liberty, and thirteen as Freedom, but only one as Moral,—passing by which, we suppose we shall come to Climax, and, thence descending, arrive, as the whirligig of time appointeth, at Smackover, unless we pause in Economy, or Equality, or Candor, or Fairplay.

If we were land-hunters, we might ponder long over the town of Gratis, unless we thought Bonus promised more. There is Extra, and, if tautologically fond of grandeur, Metropolis City,—a mighty Babel of (in 1850) four hundred and twenty-seven inhabitants,—and Bigger, which has seven hundred. A brisk man would hardly choose Nodaway for his home, nor a haymaker the town of Rain. And of all practical impertinences, what could in this land of novelty equal the calling of one's abiding-place "New"? We fully expect that 1860 will reveal a comparative and superlative, and perhaps even a super-superlative, ("Newest-of-all,") upon its columns.

But what is the sense of such titles as Buckskin, Bullskin, (is it Byrsa, by way of proving Solomon's adage,—"There is nothing new under the sun"?) Chest, and Posey? There is one unfortunate place (do they take the New York "Herald" and "Ledger" there?) which has "gone and got itself christened" Mary Ann, and another (where "Childe Harold" is doubtless in favor) is called Ada. There is a Crockery, a Carryall, and a Turkey-Foot,—which last, like the broomstick in Goethe's ballad, is chopped in two, only to reappear as a double nuisance, as Upper and Lower Turkey-Foot.

Then what paucity of ideas is revealed in the fact that a number of names are simply common nouns, or, worse yet, spinster adjectives, "singly blest"! Such are Hill, Mountain, Lake, Glade, Rock, Glen, Bay, Shade, Valley, Village, District, Falls, which might profitably be joined in holy matrimony with the following,—Grand, Noble, Plain, Pleasant, Rich, Muddy, Barren, Fine, and Flat.

As for one or two other unfortunates, like Bloom and Lumber, they can only be sent to State's Prison for life, with Bean-Blossom and Scrub-Grass. We need hardly mention that to the religious public, including special attention to "clergymen and their families," Calvin, Wesley, Whitefield, Tate, Brady, and Watts offer peculiar attractions.

But there is a class of names which does gladden us, partly from their oddity, and partly from a feeling at first sight that they are names really suggestive of something which has happened,—and this is apt to turn out the fact. Thus, Painted-Post, in New York, and Baton-Rouge, in Louisiana, are honest, though quaint appellatives; Standing-Stone is another; High-Spire, a fourth. Others of the same class provoke our curiosity. Thus, Grand-View-and-Embarras seems to have a history. So do Warrior's-Mark and Broken-Straw. There is one queer name, Pen-Yan, which is said to denote the component parts of its population, Pennsylvanians and Yankees; and we have hopes that Proviso is not meaningless. Also we would give our best pen to know the true origin of Loyal-Sock, and of Marine-Town in the inland State of Illinois. This last is like a "shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia." There is, too, a memorial of the Greek Revolution which tells its own story, —Scio-and-Webster! We could hardly wish the awkward partnership dissolved. But who will unravel the mysteries of New-Design and New-Faul? and can any one tell us whether the fine Norman name of Sanilac is really the euphonious substitute for Bloody-Pond? If there be in America that excellent institution, "Notes and Queries," here is matter for their meddling.

But it is time to shut the book. For we are weary of picking holes in our own poncho, and inclined to muse a little upon the science of naming places. After what we have said about names growing,—Nomen nascitur, non fil,—we cannot expect that the evil can be remedied by Congress or Convention. Yet the Postal Department has fair cause of complaint. Thus much might be required, that all the supernumerary spots answering to the same hail should be compelled to change their titles. Government exercises a tender supervision of the nomenclature of our navy. Our ships of war are not permitted to disgrace the flag by uncouth titles. Enterprising merchants have offered prizes for good mouth-filling designations for their crack clippers, knowing that freight and fortune often wait upon taking titles. Was the Flying Cloud ever beaten? And in a land where all things change so lightly, why not shake off the loosely sticking names and put on better? For at present, the main end, that of conferring a nomen or a name, something by which the spot shall be known, has almost passed out of sight. If John Smith, of the town of Smith, in Smith County, die, or commit forgery, or be run for Congress, or write a book, his address might as well be "Outis, Esq., Town of Anywhere, County of Everywhere." It concerns the "Atlantic Monthly" not a little. For we desire, among its rapidly multiplying subscribers, that our particular friend and kind critic, commorant in Washington, should duly receive and enjoy this present paper, undefrauded by any resident of the other one hundred and thirty of the name. If we wish to mail a copy of "The Impending Crisis" to Franklin, Vermont, we surely do not expect that it will perish by auto da f in Franklin, Louisiana.

But the thought comes upon us, that herein is revealed a curious defect of the American mind. It lacks, we contend, the fine perceptive power which belongs to the poet. It can imitate, but cannot make. It does not seize hold upon the distinctive fact of what it looks at, and appropriate that. Our countrymen once could do it. The stern Puritan of New England looked upon the grassy meadows beside the Connecticut, and found them all bubbling with fountains, and called his settlement "Springfield." But the American has lost the elementary uses of his mother tongue. He is perpetually inventing new abstract terms, generalizing with boldness and power and utter contempt of usage. But the rich idiomatic sources of his speech lie too deep for him. They are the glory and the joy of our motherland. You may take up "Bradshaw" and amuse yourself on the wettest day at the dullest inn, nay, even amid the horrors of the railway station, with deciphering the hidden meanings of its lists of names, and form for yourself the gliding panorama of its changing scenery and historic renown. But blank, indeed, is the American transit through Rome, Marcellus, Carthage, Athens, Palmyra, and Geneva; and blessed the relief when the Indian tongue comes musically in to "heal the blows of sound"! And whatever the expectations of the "Great American Poem," the Transatlantic "Divina Commedia" or "Iliad," which the public may entertain, we feel certain they will not be fulfilled in our day. Take Tennyson's "Idyls of the King," and see what beautiful beadrolls of names he can string together from the rough Cornish and Devon coasts. Only out of a poetic-hearted people are poets born. The peasant writes ballads, though scholars and antiquaries collect them. The Hebrew lyric fire blazed in myriad beacons from every landmark. The soil of Palestine is trodden, as it were, with the footsteps of God, so eloquent are its mountains and hamlets with these records of a nation's faith.

But into how much of the love of home do its familiar names enter! And we appeal to the common sense of everybody, whether those we have quoted above are not enough to make a man ashamed of his birthplace. They are the ear-mark of a roving, careless, selfish population, which thinks only of mill-privileges, and never of pleasant meadows,—which has built the ugliest dwellings and the biggest hotels of any nation, save the Calmucks, over whom reigns the Czar. Upon the American soil seem destined to meet and fuse the two great elements of European civilization,—the Latin and the Saxon,—and of these two is our nation blent. But just at present it exhibits the love of glare and finery of the one, without its true and tender taste,—and the sturdy, practical utilitarianism of the other, without its simple-hearted, home-loving poetry. The boy is a great boy,—awkward, ungainly, and in the way; but he has eyes, tongue, feet, and hands to some (future) purpose. And that in good taste, good sense, refinement, and hopeful culture, our big boy has been growing, we hope will be apparent, even in the matter of "calling names," from the pages of the next census.

We have but a word more, in the way of finale. We have not been romancing. Everything we have set down here we have truly looked up there, in the volume furnished by Mr. De Bow. He, not we, must be held answerable for any and all scarce credible names which are found wanting in a local habitation. We have counted duly and truly the fine-printed pages, from which task we pray that the kind Fates may keep the reader.

Yet, if he doubt, and care to explore the original mine whence our specimen petrifactions have been dug, he will find that we have by no means exhausted the supply; and that there are many most curious and suggestive facts, not contained in the statistics or intended by the compiler, which are embraced in the CENSUS REPORTS.



BARDIC SYMBOLS.

I.

Elemental drifts! Oh, I wish I could impress others as you and the waves have just been impressing me!

II.

As I ebbed with an ebb of the ocean of life, As I wended the shores I know, As I walked where the sea-ripples wash you, Paumanok, Where they rustle up, hoarse and sibilant, Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways, I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off southward, Alone, held by the eternal self of me that threatens to get the better of me and stifle me, Was seized by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot, In the ruin, the sediment, that stands for all the water and all the land of the globe.

III.

Fascinated, my eyes, reverting from the south, dropped, to follow those slender windrows, Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten, Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide.

IV.

Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me, Paumanok, there and then as I thought the old thought of likenesses, These you presented to me, you fish-shaped island, As I wended the shores I know, As I walked with that eternal self of me, seeking types.

V.

As I wend the shores I know not, As I listen to the dirge, the voices of men and women wrecked, As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me, As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer, At once I find, the least thing that belongs to me, or that I see or touch, I know not; I, too, but signify a little washed-up drift,—a few sands and dead leaves to gather, Gather, and merge myself as part of the leaves and drift.

VI.

Oh, baffled, lost, Bent to the very earth, here preceding what follows, Terrified with myself that I have dared to open my mouth, Aware now, that, amid all the blab whose echoes recoil upon me, I have not once had the least idea who or what I am, But that before all my insolent poems the real me still stands untouched, untold, altogether unreached, Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written or shall write, Striking me with insults, till I fall helpless upon the sand!

VII.

Oh, I think I have not understood anything,—not a single object,—and that no man ever can!

VIII.

I think Nature here, in sight of the sea, is taking advantage of me to oppress me, Because I was assuming so much, And because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.

IX.

You oceans both! You tangible land! Nature! Be not too stern with me,—I submit,—I close with you,— These little shreds shall, indeed, stand for all.

X.

You friable shore, with trails of debris! You fish-shaped island! I take what is underfoot: What is yours is mine, my father!

XI.

I, too, Paumanok, I, too, have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been washed on your shores.

XII.

I, too, am but a trail of drift and debris,— I, too, leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped island!

XIII.

I throw myself upon your breast, my father! I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me,— I hold you so firm, till you answer me something.

XIV.

Kiss me, my father! Touch me with your lips, as I touch those I love! Breathe to me, while I hold you close, the secret of the wondrous murmuring I envy! For I fear I shall become crazed, if I cannot emulate it, and utter myself as well as it.

XV.

Sea-raff! Torn leaves! Oh, I sing, some day, what you have certainly said to me!

XVI.

Ebb, ocean of life! (the flow will return,)— Cease not your moaning, you fierce old mother! Endlessly cry for your castaways! Yet fear not, deny not me,— Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet, as I touch you, or gather from you.

XVII.

I mean tenderly by you,— I gather for myself, and for this phantom, looking down where we lead, and following me and mine.

XVIII.

Me and mine! We, loose windrows, little corpses, Froth, snowy white, and bubbles, Tufts of straw, sands, fragments, Buoyed hither from many moods, one contradicting another, From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell, Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil, Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown, A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, drifted at random, Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature, Just as much, whence we come, that blare of the cloud-trumpets,— We, capricious, brought hither, we know not whence, spread out before you,—you, up there, walking or sitting, Whoever you are,—we, too, lie in drifts at your feet.



HUNTING A PASS:

A SKETCH OF TROPICAL ADVENTURE.

PRELIMINARY.

Reader, take down your map, and, starting at the now well-known Isthmus of Panama, run your finger northward along the coast of the Pacific, until, in latitude 13 north, it shall rest on a fine body of water, or rather the "counterfeit presentment" thereof, which projects far into the land, and is designated as the Bay of Fonseca. If your map be of sufficient scale and moderately exact, you will find represented there two gigantic volcanoes, standing like warders at the entrance of this magnificent bay. That on the south is called Coseguina, memorable for its fearful eruption in 1835; that on the north is named Conchagua or Amapala, taller than Coseguina, but long extinct, and covered to its top with verdure. It is remarkable for its regularity of outline and the narrowness of its apex. On this apex, a mere sugar-loaf crown, are a viga or look-out station, and a signal-staff, whence the approach of vessels is telegraphed to the port of La Union, at the base of the volcano. A rude hut, half-buried in the earth, and loaded down with heavy stones, to prevent it from being blown clean away, or sent rattling down the slopes of the mountain, is occupied by the look-out man,—an old Indian muffled up to his nose; for it is often bitter cold at this elevation, and there is no wood wherewith to make a fire. Were it not for that jar or tinaja of aguardiente which the old man keeps so snugly in the corner of his burrow, he would have withered up long ago, like the mummies of the Great Saint Bernard.

But I am not going to work up the old man of the viga; for he was of little consequence on the 10th day of April, 1853, except as a wondering spectator on the top of Conchagua, in a group consisting of an ex-minister of the United States, an officer of the American navy, and an artist from the good city of New York, to whose ready pencil a grateful country owes many of the illustrations of tropical scenery which have of late years lent their interest to popular periodicals and books of adventure. I might have added to this enumeration the tall, dark figure of Dolores, servant and guide; but Dolores, with a good sense which never deserted him, had no sooner disencumbered his shoulders of his load of provisions, than he bestowed himself in the burrow, out of the wind, and possibly not far from the aguardiente.

The utilitarian reader will ask, at once, the motive of this gathering on the top of the volcano of Conchagua, five thousand feet above the sea, wearily attained at no small expenditure of effort and perspiration. Was it love of adventure merely? ambition to do something whereof to brag about to admiring aunts or country cousins? Hardly. The beauty of the wonderful panorama which spreads before the group of strangers is too much neglected, their instruments are too carefully adjusted and noted, and their consultations are far too earnest and protracted, to admit of either supposition. The old man of the viga, as I have said, was a wondering spectator. He wondered why the eyes of the strangers, glasses as well as eyes, and theodolites as well as glasses, should all be directed across the bay, across the level grounds beyond it, far away to the blue line of the Cordilleras, cutting the clear sky with their serrated outline. He does not observe that deep notch in the great backbone of the continent, as regular as the cleft which the pioneer makes in felling a forest-tree; nor does he observe that the breeze which ripples the waters at the foot of the volcano is the north wind sweeping all the way from the Bay of Honduras through that break in the mountain range, which everywhere else, as far as the eye can reach, presents a high, unbroken barrier to its passage to the Pacific. Yet it is simply to determine the bearings of that notch in the Cordilleras, to fix the positions of the leading features of the intervening country, and to verify the latitude and longitude of the old man's flag-staff itself, as a point of departure for future explorations, that the group of strangers is gathered on the top of Conchagua.

And now, O reader, run your finger due north from the Bay of Fonseca, straight to the Bay of Honduras, and it will pass, in a figurative way, through the notch I have described, and through the pass of which we were in search. You will see, if your map be accurate, that in or near that pass two large rivers have their rise; one, the Humuya, flows almost due north into the Atlantic, and the other, the Goascoran, nearly due south into the Pacific,—together constituting, with the plain of Comayagua, a great transverse valley extending across the continent from sea to sea. Through this valley, commencing at Port Corts, on the north, and terminating on the Bay of Fonseca on the south, American enterprise and English capital have combined to construct a railway, designed to afford a new, if not a shorter and better route of transit across the continent, between New York and San Francisco, and between Great Britain and Australia.

But when we stood on the top of Conchagua, on the 10th day of April, 1853, the existence of a pass through the mountains, as well as of that great transverse valley of which I have spoken, was only inferentially known. In fact, the whole interior of Honduras was unexplored; its geography was not understood; its scenery had never been described; its towns and cities were scarcely known even by name; and its people lived in almost as profound a seclusion from the world at large as the dwellers on the banks of the Niger and the Zambezi. It is not, however, to bore you, O reader, with all the details of our surveys, nor to bother you with statistics, that I write; for, verily, are not these all set down in a book? But it is rather to amuse you with the incidents of our explorations, our quaint encounters with a quaint people of still quainter manners and habits and with ideas quainter than all, and to present you with a picture of a country and a society interesting equally in themselves and from their strong contrasts with our own,—I say, it is rather with these objects that I invite you, O reader, to join our little party, and participate in the manifold adventures of "HUNTING A PASS."

CHAPTER I.

The port of La Union, our point of departure, is in the little Republic of San Salvador, which, in common with Nicaragua and Honduras, touches on the Bay of Fonseca. It is built near the head of a subordinate bay, of the same name with itself, at the foot of the volcano of Conchagua, which rises between it and the sea, cutting it off from the ocean-breezes, and rendering it, in consequence, comparatively hot and unhealthy. It is a small town, with a population scarcely exceeding fifteen hundred souls; but it is, nevertheless, the most important port of San Salvador. Here, during the season of the great fairs of San Miguel, may be seen vessels of nearly all the maritime nations, —broad-hulled and sleepy-looking ships from the German free-cities, taut American clippers, sturdy English brigs, and even Peruvian and Genoese nondescripts, with crews in red nightcaps.

At this time La Union holds high holiday; its Comandante, content at other times to lounge about in the luxury of a real undress uniform, now puts on his broadcloth and sash, and sustains a sweltering dignity; while all the brown girls of the place, arrayed in their gayest apparel, wage no timorous war on the hearts and pockets of too susceptible skippers. "Ah, me!" exclaimed our landlady, "is it not terrible? Excepting the Seora D. and myself, there is not a married woman in La Union!" "One wouldn't think so," soliloquized the Teniente, as he gazed reflectively into the street, where a dozen naked children, squatting in the sand, disputed the freedom of the highway with a score of lean dogs and bow-backed pigs of voracious appetites.

To me there was nothing specially new in La Union. The three years which had elapsed since my previous visit had not been marked by any great architectural achievement, and although the same effective chain-gang of two convicts seemed still to be occupied with the mole, the advance in that great public work was not perceptible to the eye. My old host and hostess were also the same,—a shade older in appearance, perhaps, but with hearts as warm and hospitalities as lavish as before. Only "La Gringita" had changed from the doe-eyed child of easy confidences into a quiet and somewhat distant girl, full in figure, and with a glance which sometimes betrayed the glow of latent, but as yet unconscious passion. In these sunny climes the bud blossoms and the young fruit ripens in a single day.

With my companions, however, the case was different. The Teniente could never cease being surprised that the commercial and naval facilities of the splendid bay before us had been so long overlooked. "What a place for a naval station, with its spacious and secure anchorages, abundant water, and facilities for making repairs and obtaining supplies! Why, all the fleets of the globe might assemble here, and never foul spars or come across each other's hawsers! What a site, just in that little bay, for a ship-yard! The bottom is pure sand, and there are full ten fathoms of water within a hundred yards of the shore! And then those high islands protecting the entrance! A fort on that point and a battery over yonder would close in the whole bay, with its five hundred square miles of area, against every invader, and make it as safe as Cronstadt!" But what astonished the Teniente more than anything else was, not that the English had seized the bay in 1849, but that they had ever given it up afterwards. "Bull should certainly abandon his filibustering habits, or else stick to his plunder; the example was a bad one for his offspring!"

And as for H., our artist, he, too, was surprised at all times and about everything. It surprised him "to hear mere children talk Spanish!" To be able to help himself to oranges from the tree without paying for them surprised him; so did the habit of sleeping in hammocks, and the practice of dressing children in the cheap and airy garb of a straw hat and cigar! He was surprised that he should come to see "a real volcano, like that of San Miguel, with real smoke rolling up from its mysterious depths; but what surprised him most was, that they should give him pieces of soap by way of making change in the market, and that he could buy a boat-load of oysters for a shilling!"

As for Don Henrique, who had resided twenty years in Nicaragua, he was only surprised at the surprise of others. He had a quiet, imperturbable contempt for the country and everything in it, was satisfied with a cool corridor and cigar, and had no ambition beyond that of some day returning to Paris. Above all, he was a foe to unnecessary exertion.

The ascent of Conchagua was the most important incident of our stay in La Union, both in the excitements of the scramble and in the satisfactory nature of our observations from its summit. We left the port in the afternoon, with the view of passing the night in the highest hut on the mountain-side, so as to reach the summit early in the morning, and thus secure time for our observations. Doa Maria had given us her own well-trained servant, Dolores, who afterwards became a most important member of our little party; and he was now loaded down with baskets and bottles, while the Teniente, H., and myself undertook the responsible charge of the instruments.

Our path was one seldom travelled, and was exceedingly rough and narrow. Here it would wind down into one of the deep ravines which seam the mountain near its base, and, after following the little stream which trickled at its bottom for a short distance, turn abruptly up the opposite side, and run for a while along a crest or ridge of scori or disintegrated lava, only, however, to plunge into another ravine beyond. And thus alternately scrambling up and down, yet gradually ascending diagonally, we worked our way towards the hut where we were to pass the night. The slopes of the mountain were already in shadow, and the gloom of the dense forests and of the deep ravines was so profound, that we might have persuaded ourselves that night had fallen, had we not heard the cheerful notes of unseen birds that were nestling among the tree-tops. After two hours of ascent, the slope of the mountain became more abrupt and decided, the ravines shallower, and the intervening ridges less elevated. The forest, too, became more open, and the trees smaller and less encumbered with vines, and between them we could catch occasional glimpses of the bay, with its waters golden under the slant rays of the declining sun. Finally we came to a kind of terrace or shelf of the mountain, with here and there little patches of ground, newly cleared, and black from the recent burning of the undergrowth,—the only preparation made by the Indian cultivator for planting his annual maize-crop. He has never heard of a plough; a staff shod with iron, with which he pries a hole in the earth for the reception of the seed, is the only agricultural implement with which he is acquainted. When the young blade appears, he may possibly lop away the tree-sprouts and rank weeds with his machete: but all the rest he leaves to Nature, and the care of those unseen protectors of the harvest whom he propitiates in the little church of Conehagua by the offering of a candle, and in the depth of the forest, in some secluded spot of ancient sanctity, by libations of chicha, poured out, with strange dances, at the feet of some rudely sculptured idol which his fathers venerated before him, and which he inwardly believes will come out "all right" in the end, notwithstanding its present disgrace and the Padre's denunciations.

The mountain terrace which we had now reached is three thousand feet above the sea, half a mile long, of varying width, and seems to be the top of some great bed of scori which long ago slipped down on an inclined plane of lava to its present level. Whatever its origin, it is certainly a beautiful spot, thinly covered with trees, and carpeted with grass, on which, at the time of our visit, a few cows were grazing, while half a dozen goats gazed at us in motionless surprise from the gray rocks to which they had retreated on our approach. We found the hut in which we were to rest for the night perched on the very edge of the terrace, where it overlooked the whole expanse of the bay, with its high islands and purple shores. At this airy height, and open to every breeze, its inhabitants enjoy a delicious temperature; and I could well understand how it was that Doa Maria, notwithstanding the difficulties of the ascent, often came up here to escape the debilitating heats of the port, and enjoy the magnificent prospect. The dwellers on this mountain-perch consisted of an old man with his two sons and their wives, and a consequent round dozen of children, all of whom gave Dolores the cordial welcome of an old friend, which was reflected on his companions with equal warmth. Our mules were quickly unsaddled and cared for, and our instruments carefully suspended beneath a rough shed of poles covered with branches of trees, which stood before the hut, and answered the purpose of a corridor in keeping off the sun. Here also we chose to swing our hammocks; for the hut itself was none of the largest, and, having but a single room, would require packing more closely than suited our tastes, in order to afford us the narrowest accommodation. It is true, the two Benedicts volunteered to sleep outside with Dolores, and resign the interior to the old man, the women, the children, and the strangers. But the Teniente thought there would be scant room, even if we had the whole to ourselves; while H. was overcome by "the indelicacy of the suggestion."

The sunset that evening was one of transcendent beauty, heightened by the thousand-hued reflections from the masses of clouds which had been piling up, all the afternoon, around the distant mountains of Honduras, and which Dolores told us betokened the approach of the rainy season. Bathed in crimson and gold, they shed a glowing haze over the intervening country, and were reproduced in the broad mirror of the bay below us, so that we seemed to be suspended and floating in an Iris-like sea of light and beauty. But night falls rapidly under the tropics; the sunsets are as brief as they are brilliant; and as soon as the sun had sunk below the horizon, the gorgeous colors rapidly faded away, leaving only leaden clouds on the horizon and a sullen body of water at our feet.

A love of music seems to be universal among all classes in Central America, especially among the Ladinos or mixed population. And it is scarcely possible to find a house, down to the meanest hut, that does not possess a violin or guitar, or, in default of these, a mandolin, on which one or more of its inmates are able to perform with considerable skill, and often with taste and feeling. The violin, however, is esteemed most highly, and its fortunate possessor cherishes it above wife or children, he keeps it with his white buckskin shoes, red sash, and only embroidered shirt, in the solitary trunk with cyclopean lock and antediluvian key, which goes so far, in Central American economy, to make up the scanty list of domestic furniture. The youngest of our hosts was the owner of one of these instruments, of European manufacture, which had cost him, I dare say, many a load of maize, wearily carried on his naked back down to the port. As the evening advanced, he produced it, with an air of satisfaction, from its secure depository, and, leaning against a friendly tree, gave us a specimen of his skill. It is true, we did not expect much from our swarthy friend, whose only garment was his trousers of cotton cloth, tucked up above his knees; and we were therefore all the more surprised, when, after some preliminary tuning of the instrument, he pressed the bow on its strings with a firm and practised hand, and led us, with masterly touch, through some of the finest melodies of our best operas. Very few amateurs of any country, with all their advantages of instruction, could equal the skill of that poor dweller on the flank of the volcano of Conchagua; none certainly could surpass him in the delicacy and feeling of his execution. H., on whom, as an artist, and himself no mean musician, we had already devolved the task of being enthusiastic and demonstrative over matters of this kind, applauded vehemently, and cried, "Bravo!" and "Encore!" and ended in convincing us of the reality of his delight, by pressing his brandy-flask into the hands of the performer, and urging him to "drink it all, every drop, and then give us another!" Our mountain Paganini, I fear, interpreted the behest too literally; or else H.'s enthusiasm never afterwards rose to so high a pitch; at any rate, he was never known to manifest it in so expansive a manner.

"And where did your friend learn his music?"

He had caught it up, he said, from time to time, as he had floated, with his canoe-load of plantains, chickens, and yucas, around the vessels-of-war that occasionally visit the port; neglecting his traffic, no doubt, in eagerly listening to the music of the bands or the individual performances of the officers. He had had no instructor, except "un pobre Italiano," who came to La Union with an exhibition of fantoccini, died there of fever, and was buried like a Christian in the Campo Santo adjoining the church: and Paganini removed his hat reverentially, and made the sign of the cross on his swarthy bosom. And now, most incredulous of readers, are you answered?

During the night we were visited by the first storm of the season, and it opened the flood-gates of the skies right grandly, with booming thunders and blinding lightning, and a dash of rain that came through our imperfect shelter as through a sieve. Driven inside the hut, where we contested the few square feet of bare earthen floor with the pigs and pups of the establishment, we passed a most miserable night, and were glad to rise with the earliest dawn,—ourselves to continue our ascent of the mountain, and our hosts to plant their mountain milpas, while the ground was yet moist from the midnight rain. They told us that the maize, if put into the earth immediately after the first rain of the season, was always more vigorous and productive than that planted afterwards; why they knew not; but "so it had been told them by their fathers."

The air was deliciously fresh and cool, and the foliage of the trees seemed almost pulsating with life and light under the morning sun, as we bade our hosts " Dios!" and resumed our course up the mountain. There was no longer any path, and we had to pick our way as we were able, among blocks of blistered rocks, over fallen trunks of trees, and among gnarled oaks, which soon began to replace the more luxuriant vegetation of the lower slopes. H., dragged from his mule by a scraggy limb, was shocked to find that the first inquiry of his companions was not about the safety of his neck, but of the barometer. At the end of an hour, the ascent becoming every moment more abrupt, we had passed the belt of trees and bushes, and reached the smooth and scoriaceous cone, which, during the rainy season, appears from the bay to be covered with a velvety mantle of green. It was now black and forbidding, from the recent burning of the dry grass or sacate, and so steep as to render direct ascent impossible. I proposed to leave the mules and proceed on foot, but the Teniente entered a solemn protest against anything of the sort:—"If the mules couldn't carry him up, he couldn't go; his family was affected with hereditary palpitation of the heart, and if any one of them suffered more from it than the others, he was the unfortunate victim! Climbing elevations of any kind, and mountains in particular, brought on severe attacks; and we might as well understand, at once, that, if in 'Hunting a Pass' there was any climbing to be done, some one else must do it!" And here I may mention a curious fact, probably hitherto unknown to the faculty, which was developed in our subsequent explorations, namely, that palpitation of the heart is contagious. H. was attacked with it on our third day out, and Don Henrique had formidable symptoms at sight of the merest hillock.

Under the lead of Dolores, by judicious zig-zagging, and by glow and painful advances, we finally reached the viga,—the mules thoroughly blown, but the Teniente and the instruments safe. The latter were speedily set up, and the observations, which were to exercise so important an influence as a basis for our future operations, satisfactorily made. We found the mountain to be 4860 feet above the sea, barometrical admeasurement, and the flagstaff itself in latitude 13 18' N. and longitude 87 45' W. We obtained bearings on nearly all the volcanic cones on the plain of Leon, as also on many of the detached mountain-peaks of Honduras and San Salvador, as the commencement of a system of triangulations which subsequently enabled us to construct the first map of the country at all approximating to accuracy. At noon on the day of our visit, the thermometer marked a temperature of 16 of Fahrenheit below that of the port.

It is a singular circumstance, that Captain Sir Edward Belcher, who surveyed the Bay of Fonseca in 1838, speaks of Conchagua as a mountain exhibiting no evidences of volcanic origin. Apart from its form, which is itself conclusive on that point, its lower slopes are ridged all over with dikes of lava, some of which come down to the water's edge, in rugged, black escarpments. The mountain had two summits: one comparatively broad and rugged, with a huge crater, and a number of smaller vents; and a second and higher one, nearest the bay,—the ash-heap of the volcano proper, on which the viga is erected, and whence our observations were made. This is a sugar-loaf in form, with steep sides, and at its summit scarcely affording standing-room for a dozen horsemen. It is connected with the main part of the mountain by a narrow ridge, barely broad enough for a mule-path, with treeless slopes on either hand, so steep, that, on our return, the Teniente preferred risking an attack of "palpitation" to riding along its crest.

After loosening several large stones from the side of the cone, and watching them bound down the steep declivity, dashing the scori like spray before them, and bearing down the dwarf trees in their path like grass beneath the mower's scythe, until they rumbled away with many a crash in the depths of the forest at the base of the mountain, and after making over to the grateful old man of the viga the remnants of Doa Maria's profusion in the shape of sandwiches and cold chicken, we commenced our descent, taking the shorter path by which I had descended three years before. It conducted us past the great spring of Yololtoca, to which the Indian girls of the pueblo of Conchagua, three miles distant, still come to get their water, and down the ancient path and over the rocks worn smooth by the naked feet of their mothers and their mothers' mothers, until, at six o'clock in the afternoon, we defiled, tired and hungry, into the sweltering streets of La Union. Oysters ad libitum, (which, being translated, means as fast as three men could open them,) one of Doa Maria's best dinners, and a bath in the bay at bedtime calmed our appetites and restored our energies, and we went to sleep with the gratified consciousness that we had successfully taken the first step in the prosecution of our great enterprise.

I have alluded to the oysters of La Union; but I should prove ungrateful indeed, after the manifold delicious repasts which they afforded us, were I to deny them the tribute of a paragraph. It is generally believed that the true oyster of our shores is found nowhere else, or at least only in northern latitudes. But an exception must be made in favor of the waters of the Bay of Fonseca. Here they are found in vast beds, in all the subordinate bays where the streams deposit their sediment, and where, with the rise and fall of the tide, they obtain that alternation of salt and brackish water which seems to be necessary to their perfection. They are the same rough-coated, delicious mollusks as those of our own coasts, and by no means to be degraded by a comparison with the muddy, long-bearded, and, to Christian palates, coppery abominations of the British Islands, which in their flattened shape and scalloped edges seem to betray an impure ancestry,—in point of fact, to be a bad cross between the scallop and the oyster.

At low tide some of the beds are nearly bare, and then the Indians take them up readily with their hands. The ease with which they may be got will appear from the circumstance, that for some time after our arrival we paid but a real (twelve and a half cents) for each canoe-load, of from five to six bushels. The people of La Union seldom use them, and we were therefore able to establish the "ruling rates." They continued at a real a load, until H., with reckless generosity, one day paid our improvised oyster-man two reals for his cargo, who thereupon, appealing to this bad precedent, refused to go out, unless previously assured of receiving the advanced rate. This led to the immediate arrest of H., on an indictment charging him with "wilfully and maliciously combining and conniving with one Juan Sanchez, (colored,) to put up the price of the necessaries of life in La Union, in respect of the indispensable article vulgarly known as ostrea Virginiana, but in the language of the law and of science designated as oysters." On this indictment he was summarily tried, and, in consequence of aggravating his offence by an attempt at exculpation, was condemned to suffer the full penalties of the law, in such cases provided, namely, "to pay the entire cost of all the oysters that might thenceforth be consumed by the prosecuting parties and the court, and, at eleven o'clock, past meridian, to be taken from his bed, thence to the extremity of the mole, and there inducted." Which sentence was carried into rigorous execution. Nor was he allowed to resume his former rank in the party, until, by a masterly piece of diplomacy, he organized an opposition oyster-boat, and a consequent competition, which soon brought Juan Sanchez to terms, and oysters to their just market-value.

That the aboriginal dwellers around the Bay of Fonseca appreciated its conchological treasures, we had afterwards ample evidence; for at many places on its islands and shores we found vast heaps of oyster-shells, which seemed to have been piled up as reverent reminiscences of the satisfaction which their contents had afforded.

During my previous visit to La Union, in March, 1850, I had observed that the north winds, which prevail during that month in the Bay of Honduras, sometimes sweep entirely across the continent with such force as to raise a considerable sea in the Bay of Fonseca. I thence inferred that there must exist a pass or break in the great mountain-range of the Cordilleras, through which the wind could have an uninterrupted or but partially interrupted sweep. This was confirmed by the fact that the current of air which reached the bay was narrow, affecting only a width of about ten or twelve miles. This circumstance impressed me at that time only as indicating a remarkable topographical feature of the country; but afterwards, when the impracticability of a canal at Nicaragua and the deficiencies in respect of ports for a railway at Tehuantepec had become established, I was led to reflect upon it in connection with a plan for inter-oceanic communication by railway through Honduras; and, as explained in the introduction, we were now here to test the accuracy of my previous conclusions. Our observations at the top of Conchagua had signally confirmed them.

We could distinctly make out the existence of a great valley extending due north, and our glasses revealed a marked depression in the Cordilleras, which in all the maps were represented as maintaining here the character of a high, unbroken range. Of course no such valley as opened before us could exist without a considerable stream flowing through it. But the maps showed neither valley nor river. This circumstance did not, however, discourage us; for my former travels and explorations in Nicaragua had shown me, that, notwithstanding the country had occupied the attention of geographers for more than three centuries, in connection with a project for a canal between the oceans, its leading and most obvious physical features were still either grossly misconceived or utterly unknown.

The leading fact of the existence of some kind of a pass having been sufficiently established by our observations from Conchagua, we next set to work to obtain such information from the natives as might assist our further proceedings. This was a tedious task, and called for the exercise of all our patience; for it is impossible to convey in language an adequate idea of the abject ignorance of most of the inhabitants of Central America concerning its geography and topographical features. Those who would naturally be supposed to be best informed, the priests, merchants, and lawyers, are really the most ignorant, and it is only from the arrieros, or muleteers, and the correos, or runners, that any knowledge of this kind can be obtained, and then only in a very confused form, and with most preposterous and contradictory estimates of distances and elevations.

We nevertheless made out that the mouth of a river or estero, laid down in Sir Edward Belcher's chart, on the opposite side of the bay in front of La Union, was really that of the river Goascoran, a considerable stream having its rise at a point due north, and not far from Comayagua, the capital of Honduras, which, we also ascertained, was seated in the midst of a great plain, bearing the same name. A large stream, it was said, flowed past that city,—but whether the Goascoran or some other, or whether it flowed north or south, neither arriero nor correo could tell.

The navigability of the Goascoran was also a doubtful question. According to some, it could be forded everywhere; others declared it impassable for many leagues above its mouth: a discrepancy which we were able to reconcile by reference to its probable state at different seasons of the year.

Fixing an early day for taking the field in earnest, and leaving H. and Don Henrique to make the necessary preparations, I improved the interval, in company with Lieutenant J., in making a boat exploration of the Goascoran. Obtaining a ship's gig, with two oarsmen and a supply of provisions, we left La Union at dawn on the 15th of April. We found that the river enters the bay by a number of channels, through low grounds covered with mangrove-trees. It was at half-tide, and we experienced no difficulty in entering. Our course at first was tortuous, and it seemed as if the river had lost itself in a labyrinth of channels, and we were ourselves much confused with regard to our true direction. Keeping, however, in the strongest current, at the end of half an hour we penetrated beyond the little delta of the river, and the belt of mangroves, to firm ground. Here the stream was confined to a single channel two hundred yards broad, with banks of clay and loam from six to ten feet high. The lands back appeared to be level, and, although well covered with ordinary forest-trees, were apparently subject to overflow. We observed cattle in several grassy openings, and here and there a vaquero's hut of branches; for it is a general practice of the hacienderos to drive down their herds to the low grounds of the coasts and rivers, during the dry season, and as soon as the grass on the hills or highlands begins to grow sere and yellow. We observed also occasional heaps of oyster-shells on the banks, or half washed away by the river; and on the sand-spits at the bends of the stream, and in all the little shady nooks of the shore, we saw thousands of water-fowl, ducks of almost every variety, including the heavy muscovy and the lively teal; and there were flocks of white and crimson ibises, and solitary, long-legged, contemplative cranes, and gluttonous pelicans; while myriads of screaming curlews scampered along the line of the receding tide to snap up imprudent snails and the numerous minute crustace which drift about in these brackish waters. The familiar kingfisher was also there, coming down with an occasional arrowy dash on some unsuspecting minnow, and then flapping away leisurely for a quiet meal in the shady recesses of a neighboring tree.

We fired on a flock of ducks, killing a number and wounding others, all of which we secured except one which struggled away into an eddy under the bank. We pushed in, and my hand was extended to pick him up, when a slimy, corrugated head, with distended jaws and formidable teeth, rose to the surface before me, paused an instant, then shot forward, and, closing on the wounded bird, disappeared. The whole was done so quickly as to escape the notice of my companions, who would hardly believe me when I told them that we had been robbed by an alligator. We lost a duck, but gained an admonition; and I scarcely need add that our half-formed purpose of taking a bath in the next cool bend of the river was abandoned.

When the tide had run out, we were able to form a better notion of the river. We found, that, although near the end of the dry season, it was still a fine stream, with a large body of water, but spread over so wide a channel as to preclude anything like useful navigation, except with artificial aids. In places it was so shallow that our little boat found difficulty in advancing. But this did not disappoint us; for nothing like a mixed transit with transhipments had ever entered into my plan, which looked only to an unbroken connection by rail from one sea to the other. At four o'clock, satisfied that no useful purpose could be effected by going farther up the stream, we stopped at a collection of huts called Las Sandas,—not inappropriately, for the whole sloping bank of the river, which here appeared to be little better than a barren sand-bed, was covered, for a quarter of a mile, with a luxuriant crop of water- and musk-melons, now in their perfection. We purchased as many as we could carry off for a real. They were full, rich, and juicy, and proved to be a grateful restorative, after our day's exposure to the direct rays of the sun, and their scarcely less supportable reflection from the water. The melon-patch of Las Sandas is overflowed daring the rainy season, and probably the apparently bare, sandy surface hides rich deposits of soil below.

We found the stream here alive with an active and apparently voracious fish, varying in length from fourteen to twenty inches, reddish in color, and closely resembling the Snapper of the Atlantic coast of Central America. The male inhabitants of Las Sandas were occupied in catching these fishes with hand-nets, in the rifts and currents; and the women were busy in cleaning and drying them. Their offal had accumulated around the huts in offensive heaps, and gave out an odor which was almost insupportable, but of which the women appeared to take no notice. We did not, therefore, trespass long on their hospitality, but returned to our boat and started back to La Union. As night came on, the trees along the river's bank were thronged with chachalacas, which almost deafened us with their querulous screams. Two well-directed shots gave us half a dozen,—for the young chachalaca is not to be despised on the table,—and we added them to our stock of water-fowls and melons as tempting trophies to our companions from the new Canaan on which they were venturing.