Caper saw what he supposed was a safe to keep meat cool in, and approached. Chapin threw back the doors of it like a showman about to disclose the What Is It? and Caper saw a dropsical-looking Cupid with a very short shirt on, and a pair of winged shoes on his feet. The figure was starting forward as if to catch his equilibrium, which he had that moment lost, and was only prevented from tumbling forward by a bag held behind him in his left hand, while his right arm and hand, at full length, pointed a sharp arrow in front of him.

'Can you tell me what that figger represents?' asked Chapin. As he received no reply, he continued: 'That is Enterprise; the two little ruts at his feet represent a railroad; the arrow, showin' he's sharp, points ahead; Go ahead! is his motto; the bag in his hand represents money, which the keen, sharp, shrewd business man knows is the reward of enterprise. The wreath round his head is laurel mixed up with lightnin', showin' he's up to the tellygraph; the pen behind his ear shows he can figger; and his short shirt shows economy, that admirable virtoo. The wings on his shoes air taken from Mercury, as I suppose you know; and—'

'I say, now, Chapin, don't you think he's got a little too much legs, and rather extra stomach on him, to make fast time?' asked Rocjean.

'Measure him, measure him!' said Chapin, indignantly; 'there's a string. Figure six times the length of his foot, everything else in proportion. No, sir; I have not studied the classic for nothin'; if there is any one thing I am strong on, it's anatomy. Only look at his hair. Why, sir, I spent three weeks once dissectin'; and for more'n six months I didn't do anything, during my idle time, but dror figgers. Art is a kind of thing that's born in a man. This saying the ancients were better sculpters than we air, is no such thing; what did they know about steam-engines or telegraphs? Fiddle! They did some fustrate things, but they had no idee of fixin' hair as it should be fixed. No, sir; we moderns have great add-vantagiz, and we improve 'em. Rome is the Cra—'

'I must bid you good-day,' interrupted Caper; 'your wife will miss you at the sermon: you will attribute it to me; and I would not intentionally be the cause of having her ill-will for anything.'

'Well, she is a pretty hard innimy; and they do talk here in Rome if you don't toe the mark. But ree-ly, you mustn't go off mad (smiling). You must call up with Rocjan and see us; and I ree-ly hope that when your uncle comes you will bring him to my studiyo. I am sure my Enterprise will soot him.'

So Chapin saw them out of his studio. Not until Caper found himself seated on a stone bench under the ilexes of the Villa Borghese, watching the sunbeams darting on the little lizards, and seeing far off the Albanian Mountains, snowcapped against the blue sky—not until then did he breathe freely.

'Rocjean,' said he; 'that stone-cutter down there—that Chapin—'

'Chameau! roared Rocjean. 'He and his kind are doing for art what the Jews did for prize-fighting—they ruin it. They make art the laughing-stock of all refined and educated people. Art applied solely to sculpture and painting is dead; it will not rise again in these our times. But art, the fairy-fingered beautifier of all that surrounds our homes and daily walks, save paintings and statuary, never breathed so fully, clearly, nobly as now, and her pathway amid the lowly and homely things around us is shedding beauty wherever it goes. The rough-handed artisan who, slowly dreaming of the beautiful, at last turns out a stone that will beautify and adorn a room, instead of rendering it hideous, has done for this practical generation what he of an earlier theoretical age did for his cotemporaries when he carved the imperial Venus of Milos. Enough; this is the sermon not preached from stones.'

A BALL AT THE COSTA PALACE

One sunlight morning in February, while hard at work in his studio, Caper was agreeably surprised by the entrance of an elderly uncle of his, Mr. Bill Browne, of St. Louis, a gentleman of the rosy, stout, hearty school of old bachelors, who, having made a large fortune by keeping a Western country store, prudently retired from business, and finding it dull work doing nothing, wisely determined to enjoy himself with a tour over the Continent, 'or any other place he might conclude to visit.'

'I say, Jim, did you expect to see me here?' was his first greeting.

'Why, Uncle Bill! Well, you are the last man I ever thought would turn up. They didn't write me a word of your coming over,' answered Caper.

'Mistake; they wrote you all about it; and if you'll drop round at the post-office, you'll find letters there telling you the particulars. Fact is, I am ahead of the mail. Coming over in the steamer, met a man named Orville; told me he knew you, that he was coming straight through to Rome, and offered to pilot me. So I gave up Paris and all that, and came smack through, eighteen days from New York. But I'm dry. Got a match? Here, try one of these cigars.'

Caper took a cigar from his uncle's case, lit it, and then, calling the man who swept out the studios, sent him to the neighboring wine-shop for a bottle of wine.

'By George, Jim, that's a pretty painting: that jackass is fairly alive, and so's the girl with a red boddice. I say, what's she got that towel on her head for? Is it put there to dry?'

'No; that's an Italian peasant girl's head-covering. Most all of them do so.'

'Do they? I'm glad of that. But here comes your man with the liquor.'

And, after drinking two or three tumblers full, Uncle Bill decided that it was pretty good cider. The wine finished, together with a couple of rolls that came with it, the two sallied out for a walk around the Pincian Hill, the grand promenade of Rome. Towards sunset they thought of dinner, and Uncle Bill, anxious to see life, accepted Caper's invitation to dine at the old Gabioni: here they ordered the best dishes, and the former swore it was as good a dinner as he ever got at the Planter's House. Rocjean, who dined there, delighted the old gentleman immensely, and the two fraternized at once, and drank each other's health, old style, until Caper, fearing that neither could conveniently hold more, suggested an adjournment to the Greco for coffee and cigars.

While they were in the cafe, Rocjean quietly proposed something to Caper, who at once assented; the latter then said to Uncle Bill,—

'You have arrived in Rome just at the right time. You may have heard at home of the great Giacinti family; well, the Prince Nicolo di Giacinti gives a grand ball to-night at the Palazzo Costa. Rocjean and I have received invitations, embracing any illustrious strangers of our acquaintance who may happen to be in Rome; so you must go with us. You have no idea, until you come to know them intimately, what a good-natured, off-hand set the best of the Roman nobility are. Compelled by circumstances to keep up for effect an appearance of great reserve and dignity before the public, they indemnify themselves for it in private by having the highest kind of old times. They are passionately attached to their native habits and costumes, and though driven, on state occasions especially, to imitate French and English habits, yet they love nothing better than at times to enjoy themselves in their native way. The ball given by the prince to-night is what might be called a free-and-easy. It is his particular desire that no one should come in full dress; in fact, he rather likes to have his stranger guests come in their worst clothes, for this prevents the attention of the public being called to them as they enter the palace. After you have lived some time in Rome you will see how necessary it is to keep dark, so you will see no flaring light at the palace gate; it's all as quiet and common-place as possible. The dresses, you must remember, are assumed for the occasion because they are, or were, the national costume, which is fast disappearing, and if it were not for the noble wearers you will see to-night, you could not find them anywhere in Rome. You will perhaps think the nobility at the ball hardly realize your ideas of Italian beauty and refinement, compared with the fine specimens of men and women you may have seen among the Italian opera singers at home: well, these same singers are picked specimens, and are chosen for their height and muscular development from the whole nation, so that strangers may think all the rest at home are like them: it is a little piece of deception we can pardon.'

After this long prelude, Rocjean proposed that they should try a game of billiards in the Cafe Nuovo. After they had played a game or two, and drank several mezzo caldos, or rum punches, they walked up the Corso to the Via San Claudio, No. 48, and entered the palace gate. It was very dark after they entered, so Rocjean, telling them to wait one moment, lit a cerina, or piece of waxed cord, an article indispensable to a Roman, and, crossing the broad courtyard, they entered a small door, and after climbing and twisting and turning, found a ticket-taker, and the next minute were in the ball-room.

Uncle Bill was delighted with the excessively free-and-easy ball of Prince Giacinti, but was very anxious to know the names of the nobility, and Rocjean politely undertook to point out the celebrities, offering kindly to introduce him to any one he might think looked sympathetic; 'what they call simpatico in Italian,' explained Rocjean.

'That pretty girl in Ciociara costume is the Condessa or Countess Stella di Napoli.'

'Introduce me,' said Uncle Bill.

Rocjean went through the performance, concluding thus: 'The countess expresses a wish that you should order a bottiglia (about two bottles) of red wine.'

'Go ahead,' quoth Uncle Bill; 'for a nobility ball this comes as near a dance-house affair as I ever want to approach. By the way, who is that pickpocket-looking genius with eyes like a black snake?'

'Who is that?' said Rocjean, theatrically. 'Chut! a word in your ear; that is An-to-nel-li!'

'The devil! But I heard some one only a few minutes ago call him Angelucio.'

'That was done satirically, for it means big angel, which you, who read the papers, know that Antonelli is not. But here comes the wine, and I see the countess looks dry. Pour out a half-dozen glasses for her. The Roman women, high and low, paddle in wine like ducks, and it never upsets them; for, like ducks, their feet are so large that neither you nor wine can throw them. I wish you could speak Italian, for here comes the Princess Giacinta con Marchese—'

'I wish,' said Uncle Bill, 'you would talk English.'

'Well,' continued Rocjean, 'with the Marchioness Nina Romana, if you like that better. Shall I introduce you?'

'Certainly,' replied the old gentleman, 'and order two more what d'ye call 'ems. It's cheap—this knowing a princess for a quart of red teaberry tooth-wash, for that's what this "wine" amounts to. I am going to dance to-night, for the Princess Giacinta is a complete woman after my heart, and weighs her two hundred pound any day.'

The nobility now began begging Rocjean and Caper to introduce them to his excellency Il vecchio, or the old man; and Uncle Bill, in his enthusiasm at finding himself surrounded with so many princes, Allegrini, Pelligrini, Sapgrini, and Dungreeny, compelled Caper to order up a barrel of wine, set it a-tap, and tell the nobility to 'go in.' It is needless to say that they went in. Many of the costumes were very rich, especially those of the female nobility; and in the rush for a glass of wine the effect of the brilliant draperies flying here and there, struggling and pushing, was notable. The musicians, who were standing on what appeared to be barrels draped with white cloth, jumped down and tried their luck at the wine-cask, and, after satisfying their thirst, returned to their duties. There was a guitar, mandolin, violin, and flute, and the music was good for dancing. Uncle Bill was pounced on by the Princess Giacinta and whirled off into some kind of a dance, he did not know what; round flew the room and the nobility; round flew barrels of teaberry tooth-wash, beautiful princesses, big devils of Antonellis. Lights, flash, hum, buzz, buzz, zzz—ooo—zoom!

Uncle Bill opened his eyes as the sunlight shed one golden bar into his sleeping-room at the Hotel d'Europe, and there by his bedside sat his nephew, Jim Caper, reading a letter, while on a table near at hand was a goblet full of ice, a bottle of hock, and another bottle corked, with string over it.

'It's so-da wa-ter,' said Uncle Bill, musing aloud.

'Hallo, uncle, you awake?' asked Caper, suddenly raising his eyes from his letter.

'I am, my son. Give thy aged father thy blessing, and open that hock and soda water quicker! I say, Jim, now, what became of the nobility, the Colonnas and Aldobrandinis, after they finished that barrel? Strikes me some of them will have an owlly appearance this morning.'

'You don't know them,' answered Caper.

'I am beginning to believe I don't, too,' spoke Uncle Bill. 'I say, now, Jim, where did we go last night?'

'Why, Uncle Bill, to tell you the plain truth, we went to a ball at the Costa Palace, and a model ball it was, too.'

'I have you! Models who sit for you painters. Well, if they arn't nobility, they drink like kings, so it's all right. Give us the hock, and say no more about it.'

* * * * *

HOWE'S CAVE.

Few persons, perhaps, are aware that Schoharie County, N.Y., contains a cave said to be nine or ten miles in extent, and, in many respects, one of the most remarkable in America. Its visitors are few,—owing, probably, to its recent discovery, together with its comparative inaccessibility;—yet these few are well rewarded for its exploration.

In the month of August, 1861, I started, with three companions, to visit this interesting place.

I will not weary the reader by describing the beauty of the Hudson and the grandeur of the Catskills; yet I would fain fix in my memory forever one sunrise, seen from the summit of a bluff on the eastern bank of the river, when the fog, gradually lifting itself from the stream, and slowly breaking into misty fragments, unveiled broad, smiling meadows, dark forests, village after village, while above all, far in the distance, rose the Catskills, clear in the sunlight.

After two days crowded with enjoyment, we arrived in Schoharie, where we passed the night. Having given orders to be called at five, we took advantage of the leisure hour this arrangement gave us to view, the next morning.

AN OLD FORT.

In reality, the 'fort' is a dilapidated old church, used as a shelter during the Indian wars, and also in the days of the Revolution. On the smooth stones that form the eastern side are carved the names of the soldiers who defended it, with the date, and designation of the regiment to which they belonged. I deciphered also, among other curious details, the name of the person who 'gave the favor of the ground.' I would gladly have indulged my antiquarian tastes by copying these rude inscriptions; but the eager cries of my companions compelled me to hurry on.

The western portion of the structure has also its story to tell. The traces of besieging cannon balls are still to be distinctly seen, and in one place I observed a smooth, round hole, made by the passage of a ball into the interior of the fort.

As I stood on the walls of this ancient building, surveying the valley it overlooked, with its straggling village lying at our feet, and the fair Schoharie Creek, now gleaming in the sunlight of the meadows, or darkening in the shade of the trees that overhung it, the past and the present mingled strongly in my thoughts.

The Stars and Stripes, that on this very spot had seen our fathers repelling a foreign foe, now waved over their sons, forced from their quiet homes, not to contend with the stranger and the alien, but to subdue those rebellious brothers whose sacrilegious hands had torn down that sacred flag, reared amidst the trials and perils of '76. Not less noble the present contest than the past, nor less heroic the soldier of to-day than the patriot of the Revolution. We continue to-day the fight they fought against injustice and oppression—a conflict that will end only when every nation and every race shall lift unshackled hands up to God in thanksgiving for the gift of freedom. A deeper love of my country, and a firmer trust in the God of truth and justice, sank into my heart as I turned away from those rude walls, sacred to the memory of departed valor.

We hurried back to the breakfast that awaited us, and then drove to

THE CAVE,

which lies six miles from the village of Schoharie. The entrance is at the base of a heavily-wooded mountain that shuts in a secluded little valley. The only opening from this solitary vale is made by a small stream that winds out from among the hills. The entire seclusion of the place has prevented its earlier discovery; but the inevitable 'Hotel' now rears its wooden walls above the cave to encourage future adventurers to explore its recesses.

In the absence of the proprietor of the hotel, who usually acts as cicerone, we took as guide a sun-burnt young man, with an economical portion of nose, closely cut hair, and a wiry little mouth, which we saw at a glance would open only at the rate of a quarter of a dollar a fact. He proved himself, however, shrewd, witty, and, withal, good-natured, and as fond of a joke as any one of us all. Bob, for so our new companion named himself, showed us at once into a dressing-room, advising us to put on, over our own garments, certain exceedingly coarse and ragged coats, hats and pants, which transformed us at once from rather fashionable young men into a set of forlorn-looking beggars. Each laughed at the appearance of the other, unconscious of his own transformation; but Bob, with more truth than politeness, informed us that we all 'looked like the Old Nick;' whence it appeared that in Bob's opinion the Enemy is usually sorely afflicted with a shabby wardrobe, and that, in the words of the sage,

'Poverty is the devil.'

Being furnished with small oil lamps, we descended to the mouth of the cave. This opens at once into an entrance-hall, one hundred and fifty feet in length and thirty in width, and high enough for a tall man to enter upright.

I inquired of Bob when the cave was discovered. 'In 1842,' he replied. 'And by whom?' I continued. 'Why,' rejoined our guide, 'Mister Howe was a huntin' for caves, and he came across this one.' Rather a queer thing to be hunting for, I thought, though without comment; but in future I allowed Bob to carry on the conversation as best suited himself. He plunged at once into a dissertation on the state of the country, gravely stating that 'Washington was taken.' At the involuntary smile which this astounding piece of news called forth, Bob confessed 'he might be mistaken in this respect, as his paper came but once a week, and frequently only once in two weeks.' Finding him a stanch Union man, and inclined to serve his country to the best of his ability, we undertook 'to post him up' on the present state of affairs, for which the poor fellow was truly grateful.

Entrance Hall leads into Washington Hall, a magnificent apartment, three hundred feet long, and in the lowest part upwards of forty feet high. Our guide favored us at every turn with some new story or legend, repeated in a sing-song, nasal tone, ludicrously contrasting with the extravagance of the tales themselves. Yet he recited all alike with the most immovable gravity. It was a lively waltz of three notes.

Old Tunnel and Giant's Chapel, two fine cave-rooms, were next explored. On entering the latter, Bob favored us with the rehearsal of an old story from the Arabian Nights, which—unfortunately, not one which will bear repetition—he wished us to believe actually happened in this very locality.

I may here confess that, when we came to 'the dark hole in the ground,' I felt some slight reluctance to trust myself therein. Bob, observing this, immediately drew from his lively imagination such an astonishing increase of the perils of the way, looking complacently at me all the while, that my alarm, strange to say, took flight at once, and I pushed onward defiantly. The journey is, however, one that might justly inspire timidity. Above our heads, and on each side, frowned immense rocks, threatening at every instant to fall upon us; while the dash and babble of a stream whose course we followed, increasing in volume as we progressed, came to our ears like the 'sound of many waters.' We crossed this stream a hundred times, at least, in our journey. Sometimes it murmured and fretted in a chasm far below us; again, it spread itself out in our very path, or danced merrily at our side, until it seemed to plunge into some distant abyss with the roar of a cataract.

We emerged from the windings of our tortuous path into Harlem Tunnel, a room six hundred feet in length. In its sides were frequent openings, leading into hitherto unexplored parts of the cave; but we did not venture to enter many of these. Never have I seen such rocks as we here encountered; at one time piled up on one another, ready to totter and fall at a touch; at another, jutting out in immense boulders, sixty feet above our heads, while, in the openings they left, we gazed upward into darkness that seemed immeasurable.

From Harlem Tunnel we came into Cataract Hall, also of great length, and remarkable for containing a small opening extending to an unknown distance within the mountain, since it apparently cannot be explored. Applying the ear to this opening, the sound of an immense cataract becomes audible, pouring over the rocks far within the recesses of the mountain, where the Creator alone, who meted out those unseen, sunless waters, can behold its beauty and its terror.

Crossing the Pool of Siloam, whose babbling waters sparkled into beauty as we held our lamps above them, we entered Franklin Hall. Here the roof, although high enough in some places, is uncomfortably low in others; whereupon Bob bade us give heed to the caution of Franklin, 'Stoop as you go, and you will miss many hard thumps.'

We arrived next at Flood Hall, where a party of explorers were once put in great peril by a sudden freshet in the stream. They barely saved themselves by rapid flight, the water becoming waist-deep before they gained the entrance. We had no reason to doubt the truth of this story, as there were evidences of the rise and fall of water all about us.

Congress Hall now awaited us, but I will omit a description of it, as Musical Hall, which immediately succeeded, contains so much more that is interesting. On entering, our attention was first directed to an aperture wide enough for the admission of a man's head. Any sound made in this opening is taken up and repeated by echo after echo, till the very spirit of music seems awakened. Wave after wave of melodious sound charms the ear, even if the first awakening note has been most discordant. If the soul is filled with silent awe while listening to the unseen waterfall in Cataract Hall, it is here wooed into peace by a harmony more perfect than any produced by mortal invention. A temple-cavern vaster than Ellora with a giant 'lithophone' for organ!

The second wonder of Musical Hall is a lake of great extent, and from ten to thirty feet in depth. The smooth surface of these crystal waters, never ruffled by any air of heaven, and undisturbed save by the dip of our oars as we were ferried across, the utter darkness that hid the opposite shore from our straining sight, the huge rocks above, whose clustering stalactites, lighted by our glimmering lamps, sparkled like a starry sky, the sound of the far-off waterfall, softened by distance into a sad and solemn music, all united to recall with a vivid power, never before felt, the passage of the 'pious AEneas' over the Styx, which I had so often read with delight in my boyhood. I half fancied our Yankee Bob fading into a vision of the classic Charon, and that the ghosts of unhappy spirits were peering at us from the darkness.

At the end of the lake is Annexation Rock, a huge limestone formation in the shape of an egg. It stands on one end, is twenty-eight feet in diameter, and over forty in height.

We were now introduced into Fat Man's Misery, where the small and attenuated have greatly the advantage. We emerged from this narrow and difficult passage into the Museum, half a mile long, and so called from the number and variety of its formations. We did not linger to examine its curiosities, but pushed on over the Alps, which we surmounted, aided partly by ladders. Very steep and rugged were these Alps, and quite worthy of the name they bear. We descended from them into the Bath-room, where a pool of water and sundry other arrangements suggest to a lively imagination its designation. It certainly has the recommendation of being the most retired bath-room ever known. That of the Neapolitan sibyl is public in comparison to it.

We then entered Pirate's Retreat. Why so named, I can not guess, for I doubt if the boldest pirate who ever sailed the 'South Seas o'er' would dare venture alone so far underground as we now found ourselves.

Leaving the Pirate's Retreat, we were obliged to cross the Rocky Mountains, similar in formation and arrangement to the Alps. The Rocky Mountains lead into Jehoshaphat's Valley, one mile in length. Like its namesake, this valley is a deep ravine, with steep, rugged sides, and a brawling brook running at the bottom.

Miller's Hall next claims our attention. Here we take leave of the brook, which, with the cave, loses itself in a measureless ravine, where the rocks have fallen in such a manner as to obstruct any further explorations.

From thence, turning to the right, we enter Winding Way, a most appropriate name for the place. The narrow passage turns and twists between masses of solid rook, high in some places, and low in others. The deathlike silence of the solitude that surrounded us impressed us with a vague feeling of fear, and we felt no disposition to tempt the Devil's Gangway, especially as, in consequence of a recent freshet, it was partly filled with water. Our guide informed us that beyond the Gangway were several rooms, among which Silent Chamber and Gothic Arch were the most noteworthy. The portion of the cave visited by tourists terminates in the 'Rotunda,' eight miles from the entrance; although explorations have been made some miles further. The Rotunda is cylindrical in shape, fifteen feet in diameter, and one hundred feet in height.

We were now in a little room six miles from the mouth of the cave, and thought the present a good opportunity to try the effect of the absence of light and sound on the mind. Extinguishing our lights, therefore, we resigned ourselves to the influences of darkness and silence. To realize such a state fully, one must find one's self in the bowels of the earth, as we were, where the beating of our own hearts alone attested the existence of life. We were glad to relight our lamps and begin our return to upper air.

I have already mentioned Annexation Rock; near it is another curious freak of nature, called the Tree of the World's History. It resembles the stump of a tree two feet in diameter, and cut off two feet above the ground, upon which a portion of the trunk, six feet in length, is exactly balanced. A singular type of the changes which time makes in the world above-ground.

In the Museum, whose examination we had postponed till our return, we were lost in a world of wonders. It were vain to attempt to describe or even enumerate half of the various objects that met us at every turn. Churches, towers, complete with doors and windows, as if finished by the hand of an architect; an organ, its long and short pipes arranged in perfect order; Lot's Wife, a figure in stone, life size; in another place two women, in long, flowing garments, standing facing each other, as if engaged in earnest conversation, and a soldier in complete armor,—these were among the most striking of the larger objects. The vegetable world was also well represented. Here was a bunch of carrots, fresh as if just taken from the ground, sheaves of wheat, bunches of grain and grass hanging from the walls and roofs. Interspersed were birds of every species, doves in loving companionship, sparrows, and hawks. I noticed also in one place a pair of elephant's ears perfect as life. Indeed it was not difficult to believe that these stony semblances had once been endowed with life, and, ere blight or decay could change, had been transmuted into things of imperishable beauty.

While waiting for our guide to unmoor the boat, which was to take us over the lake a second time, I ran up the bank to look at the stalactites that hung in the greatest profusion above the water. The light of my lamp shining through them produced an effect as surprising as it was beautiful. But no words can do justice to the scene. Imagine an immense room whose ceiling is studded with icicles forming every conceivable curve and angle, and you will have only a faint idea of the number and variety of these subterranean ornaments.

A mile from the entrance we found some stray bats,—the first living creatures we had met. We endeavored to attract them by holding up our lamps, and succeeded so well that we were glad to leave them behind us as soon as possible.

It is a singular fact, noted by other cave-explorers, and confirmed by our own experience, that while within a cave one's usual vigor and activity appears augmented. A slight reaction takes place on coming out into the upper world, and renders rest doubly refreshing and grateful.

Let me, in closing, advise other visitors to Howe's Cave to choose fair weather, and take time enough for their visit, as the windings of the cave and its curiosities are alike exhaustless.

* * * * *

POTENTIAL MOODS

I sit and dream Of the time that prophets have long foretold, Of an age surpassing the age of gold, Which the eyes of the selfish can never behold, When truth and love shall be owned supreme.

I think and weep O'er the thousands oppressed by sin and woe, O'er the long procession of those who go, Through ignorance, error, and passions low, To the unsought bed of their dreamless sleep.

I wait and long For the sway of justice, the rule of right; For the glad diffusion of wisdom's light; For the triumph of liberty over might; For the day when the weak shall be free from the strong.

I work and sing To welcome the dawn of the fairer day, When crime and sin shall have passed away, When men shall live as well as they pray, And earth with the gladness of heaven shall ring.

I trust and hope In the tide of God's love that unceasingly rolls, In the dear words of promise that bear up our souls, In the tender compassion that sweetly consoles, When in death's darkened valley we tremblingly grope.

I toil and pray For the beauty excelling all forms of art; For the blessing that comes to the holy heart; For the hope that foretells, and seems a part Of the life and joy of the heavenly day.

* * * * *

THE TRUE INTEREST OF NATIONS.

For a litigious, quarrelsome, fighting animal, man is very fond of peace. He began to shed blood almost as soon as he began to go alone in company with his nearest relatives; and when Abel asked of Cain, 'Am I not a man and a brother?' the latter, instead of giving him the hug fraternal, did beat him to death. Cain's only object, it should seem, was a quiet life, and Abel had disturbed his repose by setting up a higher standard of excellence than the elder brother could afford to maintain. It was only to 'conquer a peace' that Cain thus acted. He desired 'indemnity for the past and security for the future,' and so he took up arms against his brother and ended him. He loved peace, but he did not fear war, because he was the stronger party of the two, his weapons being as ready for action as the British navy is ready for it to-day; and Abel was as defenceless as we were a twelvemonth ago. Cain is the type of all mankind, who know that peace is better than war, but who rush into war under the pressure of envy and pride. Ancient as violence is, it is not so old as peace; and it is for peace that all wars are made, at least by organized communities. All peoples have in their minds the idea of a golden age, not unlike to that time so vividly described by Hesiod, when men were absolutely good, and therefore happy; living in perfect accord on what the earth abundantly gave them, suffering neither illness nor old age, and dying as calmly as they had lived. Historical inquiry has so far shaken belief in the existence of any such time as that painted by the poet, that men have agreed to place it in the future. It has never been, but it is to be. It will come with that 'coming man,' who travels so slowly, and will be by him inaugurated, a boundless millennial time. In the mean time contention prevails; 'war's unequal game' is played with transcendent vigor, and at a cost that would frighten the whole human race into madness were it incurred for any other purpose. But, while fighting, men have kept their eyes steadily fixed upon peace, which is to be the reward of their valor and their pecuniary sacrifices. Every warlike time has been followed by a period in which strenuous exertions have been made to make peace perpetual. Never was there a more profound desire felt for peace than that which prevailed among the Romans of the Augustan age, after a series of civil and foreign wars yet unparalleled in the history of human struggles. One poet could denounce the first forger of the iron sword as being truly brutal and iron-hearted; and another could declare it to be the 'mission' of the Romans only to impose terms of peace upon barbarians, who should be compelled to accept quiet as a boon, or endure it as a burden. Strange sentiments were these to proceed from the land of the legions, but they expressed the current Roman opinion, which preferred even dishonor to war. So was it after the settlement of Europe in 1815. A generation that had grown up in the course of the greatest of modern contests produced the most determined and persistent advocates of the 'peace-at-any-price' policy; and for forty years peace was preserved between the principal Christian nations, through the exertions of statesmen, kings, philanthropists, and economists, who, if they could agree in nothing else, were almost unanimous in the opinion that war was an expensive folly, and that the first duty of a government was to prevent its subjects from becoming military-mad. Perhaps there never was a happier time in Christendom than it knew between the autumn of 1815 and the spring of 1854, after Napoleon had gone down and before Nicholas had set himself up to dictate law to the world. It was the modern age of the Antonines, into which was crowded more true enjoyment than mankind had known for centuries; and they are beginning to learn its excellence from its loss,—war raging now in the New World, while Europe lives in hourly expectation of its occurrence. There were wars, and cruel wars, too, in those years, but they faintly affected Europe and the United States, and probably added something to men's happiness, for the same reason that a storm to which we are not exposed increases our sense of comfort. Their thunders were remote, and they furnished materials for the journals. So we saw a Providence in them, and thanked Heaven, some of us, that we no longer furnished examples of the folly of contention.

The friends of peace were actuated by various motives. With statesmen and politicians peace was preferred because it was cheaper than war, and all countries were burdened with debt. England has sometimes been praised because she so uniformly threw her influence on the side of peace, after she had accomplished her purpose in the war against imperial France. Time and again, she might have waged popular wars, and in which she would have probably been successful; but she would help neither the Spaniards against France and the Holy Alliance, nor the Turks against the Russians, nor the Poles against the Czar, nor the Hungarians against the Austrians, nor the Italians against the Kaiser, nor the Greeks against the Turks. She settled all her disputes with the United States by negotiation, and showed no disposition to fight with France, except when she had all the rest of Europe on her side. But this praise has not been deserved. England did not quarrel with powerful countries, because she could not afford to enter upon costly warfare. She had gone to the extent of her means when her debt had reached to four thousand million dollars, and she could not increase that debt largely until she should also have increased her wealth. Time was required to add to her means, and to lessen her debt; and to such a state had her finances been reduced, that it is now twenty years since she began to derive a portion of her revenue from an income tax, which, imposed in the time of peace, was increased when war became inevitable. The bonds she had given to keep the peace were too great to admit of her breaking it. She did not fight, because she doubted her ability to fight successfully. She had no wish to behold another suspension of cash payments by her national bank; and a general war would be sure to bring suspension. But she was as ready as she had ever been to contend with the weak. The Chinese and the Afghans did not find her very forbearing, though with neither of those peoples had she any just cause for war.

With the disunited States she has been as prompt to quarrel as she was slow to contend with the United States; and now she is one of the high contracting parties to the crusade against Mexico. We say nothing of the Sepoy war, for that was a contest for 'empire,' as Earl Russell would say. She could not, in the days of Clyde, give up what she had acquired in the days of Clive; and no one ought to blame her for what she did in India, though it can not be denied that the mutiny was the consequence of her own bad conduct in the East. With Russia, Austria, and Prussia to back her, in 1840, she went to the verge of a war with France; but, in so doing, the government did that which the English nation by no means warmly approved; and the fall of the whig ministry, in 1841, was in no small part due to Lord Palmerston's policy in the preceding year. The Russian war was brought about by the action of the English people, who were angry with the Czar because his empire had the first place in Europe. The government would have prevented that war from breaking out if it could, but popular pressure was too strong for it, and it had to give way. The event has proved that the English government was wiser than were the English people, France alone having gained anything from the departure from what had become the policy of Europe; and for France to gain is not altogether for the benefit of England.

Of the motives of the philanthropists, we have little to say. They are always respectable, and it is a pity that the world should be too wicked to appreciate them. But those of the economists are open to remark, and the more so because there has been so much claimed for them. They reduced everything to a matter of interest. Peace, they reasoned, is for the welfare of all men; and, if an enlightened self-interest could be made to prevail the world over, war would be rendered an impossibility. Wars between civilized countries have mostly grown out of mistaken views of interest on the part of governments and peoples. Once enlighten both rulers and ruled, and make them understand that war can not pay, and selfishness will accomplish what religion, and morality, and benevolence, and common sense have failed to accomplish. Cutting throats may be a very agreeable pastime; but no man ever yet paid for anything more than it was worth, with his eyes wide open to the fact that he was not buying a bargain, but selling himself. Nations would be as wise as individuals, unless it be true that the sum of intelligence is not so great as the items that compose it; and when it should have been made indisputably clear that to make war was to make losses, while peace should be as indisputably profitable, there would be no further occasion to expend, annually, immense sums upon the support of great armaments, such as were not kept up, even in times of war, by the potentates of earlier days. The reason of mankind was to be appealed to, and they were to be made saints through the use of practical logic. Neighborhood, instead of being regarded as cause for enmity, was to be held as ground for good feeling and liberal intercourse. Under the old system it had been the custom to call France and England 'natural enemies,' words that attributed to the Creator the origin of discord. Under the new system, those great countries were to become the best of friends, as well as the closest of neighbors; and one generation of free commerce was to do away with the effects of five centuries of disputes and warfare. England was to forget the part which France took in the first American war, and France was to cease to recollect that there had been such days as Crecy and Agincourt, Vittoria and Waterloo; and also that England had overthrown her rule in North America, and driven her people from India. But it was not France and England only that were to enter within the charmed circle; all nations were to be admitted into it, and the whole world was to fraternize. It was to be Arcadia in a ring-fence, an Arcadia solidly based upon heavy profits, with consols, rentes, and other public securities—which in other times had a bad fashion of becoming very insecure—always at a good premium. Quarter-day was to be the day for which all other days were made, and it would never be darkened by the imposition of new taxes, by repudiation, or by any other of those things that so often have lessened the felicity of the fund-holder.

That the new Temple of Peace might be enabled to rise in proper proportions, it became necessary to destroy some old edifices, and to remove what was considered to be very rubbishy rubbish. Protection, tariffs, and so forth, once worshiped as evidences of ancestral wisdom, were to be got rid of with all possible speed, and free trade was to be substituted, that is, trade as free as was compatible with the raising of enormous revenues, made necessary by the foolish wars of the past. In due time, perfect freedom of trade would be had; but a blessing of that magnitude could not be expected to come at once to the relief of a suffering world. England, which had taken the lead in supporting protection, and whose commercial system had been of the most illiberal and sordid character, became the leader in the grand reform, pushing the work vigorously forward, and, with her usual consideration for the feelings and rights of others, ordering the nations of Europe and America to follow her example. She had discovered that she had been all in the wrong since the day when Oliver St. John's wounded pride led him to the conclusion that it was the duty of every patriotic Englishman to do his best to destroy the commerce of Holland. She was very impatient of those peoples who were shy of imitating her, forgetting that her conduct through six generations had made a strong impression on the world's mind, and that her sudden conversion could not immediately avail against her long persistence in sinning against political economy, if indeed she had so sinned; and the question was one that admitted of some dispute, free trade being but an experiment. Gradually, however, men came round to the British view, in theory at least; and among the intelligent classes it was admitted that commerce without restriction was the true policy of nations, which must be gradually adopted as the basis of all future action, due regard to be paid to those potent disturbing forces, vested interests. France was slow to yield in practice, though she had produced some of the cleverest of economical writers; for she is as little given to change in matters of business as she is ready to rush into political revolutions. But even France at last gave signs of her intention to abandon her ancient practice in deference to modern theories; and Napoleon III. and Mr. Cobden laid their wise heads together to form plans for the completion of the 'cordial understanding,' on the basis of free trade. Less than forty years had sufficed to effect a gradual change of human opinion, and protection seemed about to be sent to that limbo in which witchcraft, alchemy, and judicial astrology have been so long undisturbedly reposing.

Death, we are told, found his way into Arcadia; and disappointment was not long in coming to disturb the modern Arcadians, who had as much to do with cotton as their predecessors with wool. The dream of universal peace, a peace that was to endure because based on enlightened selfishness,—that is to say on buying in cheap markets and selling in dear ones,—was as rudely dispelled as had been all earlier dreams of the kind. Interest, it was found, could no more make men live lovingly together than principle could cause them to do so in by-gone times. If there were two nations that might have been insured not to fight each other, because interest was sufficient to prevent men from having resort to war, those nations were Russia and England. They were in no sense rivals, according to the definition of rivalry in the circles of commerce. Between them there was much buying and selling, to the great profit of both. England is an old nation, with the arts of industry developed among her people to an extent that is elsewhere unknown. The division of labor that prevails among her working people is so extensive and so minute, that in that respect she defies comparison. Other countries may have as skillful laborers as she possesses, but their industry is of a far less various character. Russia is a new country, and she requires what England has to dispose of; and England finds her account in purchasing the raw materials that are so abundantly produced in Russia. Commercially speaking, therefore, these two nations could not fall out, could not quarrel, could not fight, if they would. In all other respects, too, they could be counted upon to set a good example to all other communities. They had more than once been allies, each had done the other good services at critical tunes, and they had had the foremost places in that grand alliance which had twice dethroned Napoleon I. The exceptions to their general good understanding belong to those exceptions which are supposed to be useful in proving a given rule. When the tory rulers of England became alarmed because of the success of Catharine II. in her second Turkish war, and proposed doing what was done more than sixty years later,—to assist the Osmanlis,—the opposition to their policy became so powerful that even the strong ministry of William Pitt had to listen to its voice; which shows that the tendency of English opinion was then favorable to Russia. The hostility of Czar Paul to England, in his last days, is attributed to the failure of his mind; and the immediate resumption of good relations between the two countries after his death, establishes the fact that the English and the Russians were not sharers in the Czar's feelings. During the five years that followed Tilsit, Russia appeared to be the enemy of England, and war existed for some time between the two empires; but this was owing to the ascendency of the French, Alexander having to choose between England and France. The nominal enemies did each other as little injury as possible; and, in 1812, they became greater friends than ever. Most Englishmen were probably of Lord Holland's opinion, that England's interest dictated a Russian connection; and in the eighteenth century England was, in some sense, the nursing mother of the new empire, though once or twice she was inclined to do as other nurses have done,—administer some punishment to the rude and healthy child she was fostering, and not without reason. So harmonious had been the relations of these two magnificent states, that an eminent Russian author, Dr. Hamel, writing in 1846, could say: 'Nearly three hundred years have now elapsed since England greeted Muscovy at the mouth of the Dwina. So great have been the benefits to trade, the arts, and industry in general, arising from the friendly relations between England and Russia, which, in 1853, will have completed the third century of their continuance, that one might expect to see this period closed, in both countries, with a jubilee to commemorate so remarkable an example of uninterrupted amicable intercourse between nations.' The year 1853 came; but, instead of being a jubilee to the old friends of three centuries' standing, it brought the beginning of that contest which is known as the Russian war. That was a proper way, indeed, to notice the happy return of the three-hundredth anniversary of the establishment of 'uninterrupted amicable intercourse' between the nations, whose soldiers were soon slaughtering each other with as much energy as if they had been 'natural enemies' from immemorial time. Interest had no power to turn aside the storm of war. The English people were angry with Russia because the iron-willed Czar had carried matters in Europe with a very high hand, and was, in fact, virtually master of the Old World, and suspected of being on uncommonly good terms with the masters of the New World. Nicholas had succeeded to the place of Napoleon in their ill graces. They liked the Cossackry of the one as little as they had liked the cannonarchy of the other. It was a case of pure jealousy. Russia was too powerful to suit the English idea of the fitness of things, and therefore it was necessary that she should be chastised and humbled. Fear of Russia there could have been none in the English mind. It has been thought that England contended for the safety of her Eastern dominions; but then the Czar offered her Egypt and Candia, possession of which would not only have much strengthened her Indian empire, but have been the means of making her more powerful at home. Nothing better could have been offered for her acceptance, if valuable territories would have satisfied her feelings; and much praise has been bestowed upon her because she did not close with the Czar's proposition 'to share and share alike' the lands of the House of Othman; but that praise is not quite deserved, the desire not to see Russia aggrandized being a stronger sentiment with her than was the desire to aggrandize herself. Had the question been left for British statesmen alone to settle,—had the British premier been as free to act for England as the Czar was for Russia,—poor, sick Turkey would have been cut and carved most expeditiously and artistically; she would have been partitioned as perfectly as Poland, and Abdul Medjid would have experienced the fate of Stanislaus Poniatowski. But English ministers hold power only on condition of doing the will of the English nation, and that nation had contracted an aversion to Russia that was uncontrollable, and before its hostility its ministers had to give way, slowly and reluctantly; and the half-measures they adopted, like the half-measures of our own government toward the secessionists, explain the disasters of the war. The English people were determined that there should be an end, for the time at least, to the Russian hegemony, and threw themselves into the arms of France with a vivacity that would have astonished any other French ruler but Napoleon III., who had lived among them, and who knew them well. The war was waged, and, when over, what had England gained? Nothing solid, it must be admitted. The territory of Russia remained unimpaired, and there is not the slightest evidence that her influence in the East was lessened by the partial destruction of Sebastopol. The Russian navy of the Euxine had ceased to exist; but as it consisted principally of vessels that were not adapted to the purposes of modern warfare, the loss of the Russians in that respect was not of a very serious character. Russia's European leadership was suspended; but her power and her resources, which, if properly employed, must soon reinstate her, were not damaged. England had fought for an idea, and had fought in vain.

France had as little interest in the Russian war as England, and the French people had no wish to fight the Czar. They would have preferred fighting the English, in connection with the Czar,—an arrangement that would have been more profitable to their country. But the emperor had a quarrel with his arrogant brother at St. Petersburgh, and he availed himself of the opportunity afforded by that brother's obstinacy to teach him a lesson from which he did not live to profit. Nicholas had cut the new emperor, and had caused him to be taboo'd by most of the sovereigns of Europe; and the Frenchman determined to cut his way to consideration. This he was enabled to do, with the aid of the English; and ever since the war's close he has held the place which became vacant on the death of Nicholas—that of Europe's arbiter. The French fought well, as they always do, but their heart was not in the war. The emperor had the war party pretty much to himself. Exactly the opposite state of things existed in France to that which existed in England. In the former country, the government was for war, and the people were for peace; in the latter, the government was for peace, and the people were for war. In each country power was in the hands of the war party, and so war was made, in spite of the wishes of the French people and of English statesmen. When Napoleon III. had accomplished his purpose, he ordered the English to make peace, and peace was made. In this way he satisfied his subjects, showing them that he had no intention of making England more powerful than she had been, or Russia weaker. He had prevented Russia from extending her dominion, but he had also prevented England from lessening that dominion.

The Italian war was waged in opposition to the sentiments of the French people, which was one of the leading causes of its sudden termination, with its object, only half accomplished, and much to the damage of the emperor's reputation for statesmanship and courage. Whether, in a comprehensive sense, that war was entered upon for purposes adverse to the interests of France, may well be doubted; but it is certain that it was an unpopular measure in that country. The French had no objection to the humiliation of Austria; but it would be a grave error to suppose that they have any wish to behold Italy united and powerful. The kingdom of Italy, should it become all that is desired for it by its friends in this country, would be to France a source of annoyance, and probably of danger. The emperor's power was shaken by his Italian policy, and hence it was that he played the confederature game so long, to the astonishment of foreigners, and got possession of Savoy and Nice, to the astonishment and anger of England; and hence it is that he is seeking Sardinia and other portions of Italy. Thus, the Italian war was begun against the interests of the French people, or what that people believe to be their interests, though this is the age in which there is to be peace, because that is not to be broken except when popular interests require that it shall no longer be preserved.

But the most remarkable instance of the fallacy of the idea that regard for the true interests of nations must banish hostilities from the world, is afforded by the coarse of France and England toward this country since the beginning of the secession war. Both those countries have great interest not only in the preservation of peace with the United States, but in the preservation of peace in the United States; and yet they have done all that it lies in their power to do to encourage our rebels, and have been on the verge of war with us: and war with them, and with Spain, is exported by many Americans, who judge of the future by the present and the past. England had a vast trade with the American Union, buying at the South, and selling to the North, and hence any disturbances here were sure to operate adversely to her interests; but no sooner had it become apparent that our troubles were to be of a serious character, than her weight was thrown on to the side of the rebels, who never would have been able to do much but for the encouragement they have received from abroad. The trade of France was not so great with America as that of England; yet it was valuable, and the French have suffered much from its suspension, perhaps we should say its loss. The North has purchased but little from Europe for a year, and the South has sold less to Europe in that time. There has been a trade in food between the North and some European countries, in which grain has been exchanged for gold, though it would have been better for both parties could anything else than gold have been brought to America, true commerce consisting in the interchange of commodities. For all the sufferings that have been experienced by Englishmen and Frenchmen, they have none but themselves and their governments to censure. That peace has not been preserved is not our fault; and the war that has been blown into so fierce a flame has been fed from Europe; it has been fanned by breezes from France and England. When it was first seen that there was danger of civil war, the governments of those countries, if they had really had any regard for the true interests of their countries, would have discouraged the rebels in the most public and pointed manner imaginable, not because they cared for us, but for the simple reason that they were bound so to act as should best promote the welfare of their own peoples. War in America meant suffering to the artisans and laborers of Europe, who, thus far, have suffered more from the war than have any portion of the American people, except the residents of Southern cities. Napoleon III. and Lord Palmerston should have said to the agents of the Confederacy, and have taken care to publish their words, 'We can afford you neither aid in deeds nor encouragement in words. Our relations with both sections of the American nation are such, that our respective countries must suffer immensely from the course which you are about to pursue, not because you have been oppressed, or fear oppression, but because you have been beaten in an election, and power, for the time, has been taken from your hands. You ask us to act hostilely against the established government of the United States, that government having given us no cause of offense,—to become the patrons of a revolution that has no cause, but the consequences of which may be boundless. To revolutions we are averse; and one of our governments exists in virtue of opposition to the party of disorder in Europe. You ask us to do that which would lessen the means of livelihood to millions of our people; for, granting that you should succeed, still there would necessarily be so great a change produced by your action, and by our intervention in American affairs, that for years America would not be the good customer to France and England that she has been for a generation. With the merits of your cause we can have nothing to do, our true interests pointing to the maintenance of the strictest neutrality in the contest between you and the federal government; and the dictates of interest are fortified by the suggestions of principle. Your movement is essentially disorderly in its character, and it is undertaken avowedly in the interest of slavery; and not only are we the supporters of the existing order of things the world over, but we are hostile to slavery, having abolished it in all parts of our dominions. Our advice to you is, to submit to the federal government, and to seek for the redress of your grievances, if such you have, by means recognized in the constitution and laws of your country. From us you can receive no aid, and you should dismiss all expectation of it from your minds at once and forever. We are indifferent to the form of the American government, and its internal policy can not concern us; but the interests of our peoples require that we should live in peace with the people of America, whether they be of the South or of the North, slave-holders or abolitionists; and we shall not quarrel with any portion of them for the sake of facilitating the erection of a republic to be founded on the basis of the divine nature of slavery, the first time that so preposterous a pretension was ever put forward by the audacity or the impudence of men.' Had something like this been said to the agents of the rebels, and had the English press supported the same views, the rebellion would have been at an end ere this, and the commercial relations of America and Europe would have experienced no sensible interruption. English interests, in an especial sense, demanded that the rebels should be discouraged, and discouragement from London would have rendered rebellion hopeless, and have promoted peace in Savannah and New Orleans.

But it was not in England's nature to pursue a course that would have been as much in harmony with her material interests as with that high moral character which she claims as being peculiarly her own. There appeared to have presented itself an opportunity to effect the destruction of the American Republic, and England could not resist the temptation to strike us hard: and, for almost a year, she has been to the Union a more deadly foe than we have found in the South. We do not allude to the Trent question, for in that we were clearly in the wrong, and Mason and Slidell should have been released on the 16th of November, and not have been detained in captivity six weeks. Secretary Seward has placed the point so emphatically beyond all doubt, that we must all be of one mind thereon, whether in England or America. England might have been moderate in her action, in view of her repeated outrages on the rights of neutrals, but no intelligent American can condemn her position. It is to other things that we must look for evidence of her determination to effect our extinction as a nation. She has, while dripping with Hindoo blood, and while yet men's ears are filled with accounts of the blowing of sepoys from the muzzles of cannon by her military executioners, absolutely demanded of us an acknowledgment of the Southern Confederacy's independence, on the ground that it is inhuman to wage war for the maintenance of our national life. She has compared our mild and forbearing government with the savage proconsulate of Alva in the Netherlands! She has charged us with waging war against civilization, because we have employed stone fleets to close entrances to the harbor of Charleston, though her own history is full of instances of their employment for similar purposes! She has encouraged her traders and seamen to furnish the rebels with arms of all kinds, and stores of every description! She has excluded our ships-of-war from her ports, refusing to allow them to coal at places at which she had granted us the privilege, in time of peace, of establishing stations for fuel! She has given shelter and protection to the privateers of the rebels, vessels that had violated her own laws almost within sight of her own shores, and certainly within the narrow seas! She has acknowledged the belligerent character of the South, which is virtually an acknowledgment of its independence, for none but nations can lawfully wage war. She has, through her Minister for Foreign Affairs, declared that our war with the secessionists is of the same character as the war which the Spaniards carried on with their American colonists, and that there is no difference between it and the attempt of the Turks to subdue the Greeks! Monstrous perversions of history for even Earl Russell to be guilty of! Her leading periodicals and journals, with few exceptions, have denounced our country, our course, and our government in the bitterest language, and to the manifest encouragement of the rebels, who see in their language the rapid growth and prompt exhibition of a sentiment of hostility to this country, and which must, sooner or later, end in war; and war between England and America would be sure to lead to the success of the Confederates, even if we should come out of it victoriously.

Thus we see that the attempt to establish peace on the basis of the true interests of nations has not only failed, but that it has failed signally and deplorably. The solid Doric Temple of Mammon has no more been able to stand against the storms of war than has the Crystal Palace of Sentiment. The fair fabric which was the type of materialism has fallen, and it would be most unwise to seek its reconstruction. That which was to have stood as long and as firmly as the Pyramids has fallen before the first moss could gather upon it. Nor is the reason of this fall far to seek, as it lies upon the surface, and ought to have been anticipated—would have been, only that men are so ready to believe in what they wish to believe. England, as a nation, has two interests to consult, and which do not always accord. She has her commercial interest and her imperial interest; and, when the two conflict, the last is sure to become first. Her position as a nation was threatened only by the United States and Russia. The dynastic disputes of France, which are far from being at an end, and the generally unsettled character of French politics, must long prevent that country from becoming the permanent rival of England. France is great to-day, and England acts wisely in preparing to meet her in war; but to-morrow France may become weak, and her voice be feeble and her weight light in Europe and the world. Three houses claim her throne, and the Republicans may start up into active life again, as we saw they did in 1848. Neither Austria nor Prussia can ever furnish England cause of alarm. With Russia the case is very different, as her government is solidly established; her resources are vast, and in the course of steady development, and her desire to establish her supremacy in the East is a fixed idea with both rulers and ruled. Unchecked, she would have thrown England into the background, and supposing that she had resolved not to allow that country a share of the spoil of Turkey. The hard character and harsh policy of Nicholas ended in furnishing to England an opportunity to throw Russia herself into the background for the time, and that opportunity she made use of, but not to the extent that she had determined upon, owing to her dependence upon France, which became the shield of Russia after having been the sword of England. The United States were a formidable rival of England; and, but for the breaking out of our troubles, we should have been far ahead of her by 1870, and perhaps have stripped her of all her American possessions. When those troubles began, she proceeded to take the same advantage of them that she had taken of the Czar's blunder. To sever the American nation in twain is her object, as some of her public men have frankly avowed; and she believes that the disintegrating process, once commenced, would not stop with the division of the country into the Northern Union and the Southern Confederacy. She expects, should the South succeed, to see half a dozen republics here established, and is not without hope that not even two States would remain together; and for this hope she has very good foundation. The American nation destroyed, England would become as great in the West as she is in the East, and would hold, with far greater means at her command, the same position that was hers in the last days of George II., when the French had been expelled from America and India. She would have no commercial rival, and there would no longer be an American navy susceptible of gigantic increase. She would be truly the sea's sovereign; and whoso rules the sea has power to dictate to the land. 'Whosoever commands the sea,' says Sir Walter Raleigh, 'commands the trade of the world; whosoever commands the trade of the world, commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.' England never would have gone to war with the United States to prevent their growth; but, now that they have instituted civil war, it is certain that she will do all that lies in her power to prevent the reconstruction of the Union. The war of words has been begun, and it is but preliminary to the war of swords. The savage music of the British press is the overture to the opera. The morality of England may be neither higher nor lower than that of all other countries,—may be no worse than our own,—but there is so much that is offensive in her modes of exhibiting her destitution of principle, that she is more hated than all other powerful countries that ever have existed. She not only sins as badly as other nations, but manages to make herself as odious for her manner of sinning as for the sins themselves. There is no crime that she is not capable of, if its perpetration be necessary to promote her own power. When Sir William Reid was governor of Malta, he said to Mr. Lushington, 'I would let them (i.e. the heathen) set up Juggernaut in St. George's Square (in Edinburgh), if it were conducive to England's holding Malta.' And as this time-blue Presbyterian was ready to allow the solemnization of the bloodiest rites of paganism in the most public place of the Christian city of Edinburgh, if that kind of tolerance would be conducive to England's retention of Malta,—of which she holds possession, by the way, in consequence of one of the grossest breaches of faith mentioned even in her history,—so do we find the Christian people, peers, and priests of England ready to become the allies of slave-holders and the supporters of slavery, if thereby the American Republic can be destroyed, as they believe that its existence may become the source of danger to the ascendency of their country.

The last intelligence from England allows us to believe that that country has adopted a more liberal policy, and that her government will do nothing to aid the rebels. Some of the language of Ministers is friendly, and altogether the change is one of a character that can not be otherwise than agreeable to us. France, too, has declared her neutrality as strongly as England. These declarations were made before intelligence of our military and naval successes had reached Europe, which renders them all the more weighty. Peace between America and Europe may, therefore, be counted upon, unless some very great reverses should befall our arms.

* * * * *

AMONG THE PINES.

The 'Ole Cabin' to which Jim had alluded as the scene of Sam's punishment by the Overseer, was a one-story shanty in the vicinity of the stables. Though fast falling to decay, it had more the appearance of a decent habitation than the other huts on the plantation. Its thick plank door was ornamented with a mouldy brass knocker, and its four windows contained sashes, to which here and there clung a broken pane, the surviving relic of its better days. It was built of large unhewn logs, notched at the ends and laid one upon the other, with the bark still on. The thick, rough coat which yet adhered in patches to the timber had opened in the sun, and let the rain and the worm burrow in its sides, till some parts had crumbled entirely away. At one corner the process of decay had gone on till roof, superstructure, and foundation had rotted down and left an opening large enough to admit a coach and four horses. The huge chimneys which had graced the gable-ends of the building were fallen in, leaving only a mass of sticks and clay to tell of their existence, and two wide openings to show how great a figure they had once made in the world. A small space in front of the cabin would have been a lawn, had the grass been willing to grow upon it; and a few acres of cleared land in its rear might have passed for a garden, had it not been entirely overgrown with young pines and stubble. This primitive structure was once the 'mansion' of that broad plantation, and, before the production of turpentine came into fashion in that region, its rude owner drew his support from its few surrounding acres, more truly independent than the present aristocratic proprietor, who, raising only one article, and buying all his provisions, was forced to draw his support from the Yankee or the Englishman.

Only one room, about forty feet square, occupied the interior of the cabin. It once contained several apartments, vestiges of which still remained, but the partitions had been torn away to fit it for its present uses. What those uses were, a moment's observation showed me.

In the middle of the floor, which was mostly rotted away, a space about fifteen feet square was covered with thick pine planking, strongly nailed to the beams. In the centre of this planking an oaken block was firmly bolted, and to it was fastened a strong iron staple that held a log-chain, to which was attached a pair of shackles. Above this, was a queer frame-work of oak, somewhat resembling the contrivance for drying fruit I have seen in Yankee farm-houses. Attached to the rafters by stout pieces of timber, were two hickory poles, placed horizontally, and about four feet apart, the lower one rather more than eight feet from the floor. This was the whipping-rack, and hanging to it were several stout whips with short hickory handles, and long triple lashes. I took one down for closer inspection, and found burned into the wood, in large letters, the words 'Moral Suasion.' I questioned the appropriateness of the label, but the Colonel insisted with great gravity that the whip is the only 'moral suasion' a darky is capable of understanding.

When punishment is inflicted on one of the Colonel's negroes, his feet are confined in the shackles, his arms tied above his head, and drawn by a stout cord up to one of the horizontal poles; then, his back bared to the waist, and standing on tip-toe, with every muscle stretched to its utmost tension, he takes 'de lashes.'

A more severe but more unusual punishment is the 'thumb-screw.' In this a noose is passed around the negro's thumb and fore-finger, while the cord is thrown over the upper cross-pole, and the culprit is drawn up till his toes barely touch the ground. In this position the whole weight of the body rests on the thumb and fore-finger. The torture is excruciating, and strong, able-bodied men can endure it but a few moments. The Colonel naively told me that he had discontinued its practice, as several of his women had nearly lost the use of their hands, and been incapacited for field labor, by its too frequent repetition. 'My —— drivers,'[L] he added, 'have no discretion, and no humanity; if they have a pique against a nigger, they show him no mercy.'

The old shanty I have described was now the place of the Overseer's confinement. Open as it was at top, bottom, and sides, it seemed an unsafe prison-house; but Jim had rendered its present occupant secure by placing 'de padlocks on him.'

'Where did you catch him?' asked the Colonel of Jim, as, followed by every darky on the plantation, we took our way to the old building.

'In de swamp, massa. We got Sandy and de dogs arter him—dey treed him, but he fit like de debil.'

'Any one hurt?'

'Yas, Cunnel; he knifed Yaller Jake, and ef I hadn't a gibin him a wiper, you'd a had anudder nigger short dis mornin'—shore.'

'How was it? tell me,' said his master, while we paused, and the darkies gathered around.

'Wal, yer see, massa, we got de ole debil's hat dat he drapped wen you had him down; den we went to Sandy's fur de dogs—dey scented him to onst, and off dey put for de swamp. 'Bout twenty on us follored 'em. He'd a right smart start on us, and run like a deer, but de hounds kotched up wid him 'bout whar he shot pore Sam. He fit 'em and cut up de Lady awful, but ole Caesar got a hole ob him, and sliced a breakfuss out ob his legs. Somehow, dough, he got away from de ole dog, and clum a tree. 'T was more'n an hour afore we kotched up; but dar he war, and de houns baying 'way as ef dey know'd wat an ole debil he am. I'd tuk one ob de guns—you warn't in de hous, massa, so I cudn't ax you.'

'Never mind that; go on,' said the Colonel.

'Wal, I up wid de gun, and tole him ef he didn't cum down I'd gib him suffin' dat 'ud sot hard on de stummuk. It tuk him a long w'ile, but—he cum down.' Here the darky showed a row of ivory that would have been a fair capital for a metropolitan dentist.

'Wen he war down,' he resumed, 'Jake war gwine to tie him, but de ole 'gator, quicker dan a flash, put a knife enter him.'

'Is Jake much hurt?' interrupted the Colonel.

'Not bad, massa; de knife went fru his arm, and enter his ribs, but de ma'am hab fix him up, and she say he'll be 'round bery sudden.'

'Well, what then?' inquired the Colonel.

'Wen de ole debil seed he hadn't finished Jake, he war gwine to gib him anoder dig, but jus den I drap de gun on his cocoa-nut, and he neber trubble us no more. 'Twar mons'rous hard work to git him out ob de swamp, 'cause he war jes like a dead man, and we had to tote him de hull way; but he'm dar now, massa (pointing to the old cabin), and de bracelets am on him.'

'Where is Jake?' asked the Colonel.

'Dunno, massa, but reckon he'm to hum.'

'One of you boys go and bring him to the cabin,' said the Colonel.

A negro-man went off on the errand, while we and the darkies resumed our way to the Overseer's quarters. Arrived there, I witnessed a scene that words can not picture.

Stretched at full length on the floor, his clothes torn to shreds, his coarse carroty hair matted with blood, and his thin, ugly visage pale as death, lay the Overseer. Bending over him, wiping away the blood from his face, and swathing a ghastly wound on his forehead, was the negress Sue; while at his shackled feet, binding up his still bleeding legs, knelt the octoroon woman.

'Is she here?' I said, involuntarily, as I caught sight of the group.

'It's her nature,' said the Colonel, with a pleasant smile; 'if Moye were the devil himself, she'd do him good if she could; another such woman never lived.'

And yet this woman, with all the instincts that make her sex angel-ministers to man, lived in daily violation of the most sacred of all laws,—because she was a slave. Will Mr. Caleb Cushing or Charles O'Conner please tell us why the Almighty invented a system which forces his creatures to break the laws of His own making?

'Don't waste your time on him, Alice,' said the Colonel, kindly; 'he isn't worth the rope that'll hang him.'

'He was bleeding to death; he must have care or he'll die,' said the octoroon woman.

'Then let him die, d—— him,' replied the Colonel, advancing to where the Overseer lay, and bending down to satisfy himself of his condition.

Meanwhile more than two hundred dusky forms crowded around and filled every opening of the old building. Every conceivable emotion, except pity, was depicted on their dark faces. The same individuals whose cloudy visages a half-hour before I had seen distended with a wild mirth and careless jollity, that made me think them really the docile, good-natured animals they are said to be, now glared on the prostrate Overseer with the infuriated rage of aroused beasts when springing on their prey.

'You can't come the possum here. Get up, you —— hound,' said the Colonel, rising and striking the bleeding man with his foot.

The fellow raised himself on one elbow and gazed around with a stupid, vacant look. His eye wandered unsteadily for a moment from the Colonel to the throng of cloudy faces in the doorway; then, his recent experience flashing upon him, he shrieked out, clinging wildly to the skirts of the octoroon woman, who was standing near, 'Keep off them cursed hounds,—keep them off, I say—they'll kill me!—they'll kill me!'

One glance satisfied me that his mind was wandering. The blow on the head had shattered his reason, and made the strong man less than a child.

'You shan't be killed yet,' said the Colonel. 'You've a small account to settle with me before you reckon with the devil.'

At this moment the dark crowd in the doorway parted, and Jake entered, his arm bound up and in a sling.

'Jake, come here,' said the Colonel; 'this man would have killed you. What shall we do with him?'

''Tain't fur a darky to say dat, massa,' said the negro, evidently unaccustomed to the rude administration of justice which the Colonel was about to inaugurate; 'he did wuss dan dat to Sam, mass—he orter swing for shootin' him.'

'That's my affair; we'll settle your account first,' replied the Colonel.

The darky looked undecidedly at his master, and then at the Overseer, who, overcome by weakness, had sunk again to the floor. The little humanity in him was evidently struggling with his hatred of Moye and his desire of revenge, when the old nurse yelled out from among the crowd, 'Gib him fifty lashes, Massa Davy, and den you wash him down.[M] Be a man, Jake, and say dat.'

Jake still hesitated, and when at last he was about to speak, the eye of the octoroon woman caught his, and chained the words to his tongue, as if by magnetic power.

'Do you say that, boys;' said the Colonel, turning to the other negroes; 'shall he have fifty lashes?'

'Yas, massa, fifty lashes—gib de ole debil fifty lashes,' shouted about fifty voices.

'He shall have them,' quietly said the master.

The mad shout that followed, which was more like the yell of demons than the cry of men, seemed to arouse the Overseer to a sense of the real state of affairs. Springing to his feet, he gazed wildly around; then, sinking on his knees before the octoroon, and clutching the folds of her dress, he shrieked, 'Save me, good lady, save me! as you hope for mercy, save me!'

Not a muscle of her face moved, but, turning to the excited crowd, she mildly said, 'Fifty lashes would kill him. Jake does not say that—your master leaves it to him, and he will not whip a dying man—will you, Jake?'

'No, ma'am—not—not ef you go agin it,' replied the negro, with very evident reluctance.

'But he whipped Sam, ma'am, when he was nearer dead than he am,' said Jim, whose station as house-servant allowed him a certain freedom of speech.

'Because he was brutal to Sam, should you be brutal to him? Can you expect me to tend you when you are sick, if you beat a dying man? Does Pompey say you should do such things?' said the lady.

'No, good ma'am,' said the old preacher, stepping out, with the freedom of an old servant, from the black mass, and taking his stand beside me in the open space left for the 'w'ite folks;' 'de ole man dusn't say dat, ma'am; he tell 'em de Lord want 'em to forgib dar en'mies—to lub dem dat pursyskute em;' then, turning to the Colonel, he added, as he passed his hand meekly over his thin crop of white wool and threw his long heel back, 'ef massa'll 'low me I'll talk to 'em.'

'Fire away,' said the Colonel, with evident chagrin. 'This is a nigger trial; if you want to screen the d—— hound you can do it.'

'I dusn't want to screed him, massa, but I'se bery ole and got soon to gwo, and I dusn't want de blessed Lord to ax me wen I gets dar why I 'lowed dese pore ig'nant brack folks to mudder a man 'fore my bery face. I toted you, massa, fore you cud gwo, I'se worked for you till I can't work no more; and I dusn't want to tell de Lord dat my massa let a brudder man be killed in cole blood.'

'He is no brother of mine, you old fool; preach to the nigs, don't preach to me,' said the Colonel, stifling his displeasure, and striding off through the black crowd, without saying another word.

Here and there in the dark mass a face showed signs of relenting; but much the larger number of that strange jury, had the question been put, would have voted—DEATH.

The old preacher turned to them as the Colonel passed out, and said, 'My chil'ren, would you hab dis man whipped, so weak, so dyin' as he am, of he war brack?'

'No, not ef he war a darky—fer den he wouldn't be such an ole debil,' replied Jim, and about a dozen of the other negroes.

'De w'ite ain't no wuss dan de brack—dey'm all 'like—pore sinners all ob 'em. De Lord wudn't whip a w'ite man no sooner dan a brack one—He tinks de w'ite juss so good as de brack (good Southern doctrine, I thought). De porest w'ite trash wudn't strike a man wen he war down.'

'We'se had 'nough of dis, ole man,' said a large, powerful negro (one of the drivers), stepping forward, and, regardless of the presence of Madam P—— and myself, pressing close to where the Overseer lay, now totally unconscious of what was passing around him. 'You needn't preach no more; de Cunnul hab say we'm to whip ole Moye, and we'se gwine to do it, by ——.'

I felt my fingers closing on the palm of my hand, and in a second more they would have cut the darky's profile, had not Madam P—— cried out, 'Stand back, you impudent fellow: say another word, and I'll have you whipped on the spot.'

'De Cunnul am my massa, ma'am—he say ole Moye shall be whipped, and I'se gwine to do it—shore.'

I have seen a storm at sea—I have seen the tempest tear up great trees—I have seen the lightning strike in a dark night—but I never saw anything half so grand, half so terrible, as the glance and tone of that woman as she cried out, 'Jim, take this man—give him fifty lashes this instant.'

Quicker than thought, a dozen darkies were on him. His hands and feet were tied and he was under the whipping-rack in a second. Turning then to the other negroes, the brave woman said, 'Some of you carry Moye to the house, and you, Jim, see to this man—if fifty lashes don't make him sorry, give him fifty more.'

This summary change of programme was silently acquiesced in by the assembled darkies, but many a cloudy face scowled sulkily on the octoroon, as, leaning on my arm, she followed Junius and the other negroes, who bore Moye to the mansion. It was plain that under those dark faces a fire was burning that a breath would have fanned into a flame.

We entered the house by its rear door, and placed Moye in a small room on the ground floor. He was laid on a bed, and stimulants being given him, his senses and reason shortly returned. His eyes opened, and his real position seemed suddenly to flash upon him, for he turned to Madam P——, and in a weak voice, half-choked with emotion, faltered out, 'May God in heaven bless ye, ma'am; God will bless ye for bein' so good to a wicked man like me. I doesn't desarve it, but ye woant leave me—ye woant leave me—they'll kill me ef ye do!'

'Don't fear,' said the Madam; 'you shall have a fair trial. No harm shall come to you here.'

'Thank ye, thank ye,' gasped the Overseer, raising himself on one arm, and clutching at the lady's hand, which he tried to lift to his lips.

'Don't say any more now,' said Madam P——, quietly; 'you must rest and be quiet, or you won't get well.'

'Shan't I get well? Oh, I can't die—I can't die now!'

The lady made a soothing reply, and giving him an opiate, and arranging the bedding so that he might rest more easily, she left the room with me.

As we stepped into the hall, I saw through the front door, which was open, the horses harnessed in readiness for 'meeting,' and the Colonel pacing to and fro on the piazza, smoking a cigar. He perceived us, and halted in front of the doorway.

'So, you've brought that d—— blood-thirsty villain into my house!' he said to Madam P——, in a tone of strong displeasure.

'How could I help it? The negroes are mad, and would kill him anywhere else,' replied the lady, with a certain self-confidence that showed she knew her power over the Colonel.

'Why should you interfere between them and him? Has he not insulted you often enough to make you let him alone? Can you so easily forgive his taunting you with'—He did not finish the sentence, but what I had learned on the previous evening from the old nurse gave me a clue to its meaning. A red flame flushed the face and neck of the octoroon woman—her eyes literally flashed fire, and her very breath seemed to come with pain; in a moment, however, this emotion passed away, and she quietly said, 'Let me settle that in my own way. He has served you well—you have nothing against him that the law will not punish.'

'By ——, you are the most unaccountable woman I ever knew,' exclaimed the Colonel, striding up and down the piazza, the angry feeling passing from his face, and giving way to a mingled expression of wonder and admiration. The conversation was here interrupted by Jim, who just then made his appearance, hat in hand.

'Well, Jim, what is it?' asked his master.

'We'se gib'n Sam twenty lashes, ma'am, but he beg so hard, and say he so sorry, dat I tole him I'd ax you 'fore we gabe him any more.'

'Well, if he's sorry, that's enough; but tell him he'll get fifty another time,' said the lady.

'What Sam is it?' asked the Colonel.

'Big Sam, the driver,' said Jim.

'Why was he whipped?'

'He told me you were his master, and insisted on whipping Moye,' replied the lady.

'Did he dare to do that? Give him a hundred, Jim, not one less,' roared the Colonel.

'Yas, massa,' said Jim.

The lady looked significantly at the negro and shook her head, but said nothing, and he left.

'Come, Alice, it is nearly time for meeting, and I want to stop and see Sandy on the way.'

'I reckon I won't go,' said Madam P——.

'You stay to take care of Moye, I suppose,' said the Colonel, with a slight sneer.

'Yes,' replied the lady; 'he is badly hurt, and in danger of inflammation.'

'Well, suit yourself. Sir. K——, come, we'll go—you'll meet some of the natives.'

The lady retired to the house, and the Colonel and I were soon ready. The driver brought the horses to the door, and as we were about to enter the carriage, I noticed Jim taking his accustomed seat on the box.

'Who's looking after Sam?' asked the Colonel.

'Nobody, Cunnul; de ma'am leff him gwo.'

'How dare you disobey me? Didn't I tell you to give him a hundred?'

'Yas, massa, but de ma'am tole me notter.'

'Well, another time you mind what I say—do you hear?' said his master.

'Yas, massa,' said the negro, with a broad grin, 'I allers do dat.'

'You never do it, you d—— nigger; I ought to have flogged you long ago.'

Jim said nothing, but gave a quiet laugh, showing no sort of fear, and we entered the carriage. I afterwards learned from him that he had never been whipped, and that all the negroes on the plantation obeyed the lady when, which was seldom, her orders came in conflict with their master's. They knew if they did not, the Colonel would whip them.

As we rode slowly along the Colonel said to me, 'Well, you see that the best people have to flog their niggers sometimes.'

'Yes, I should have given that fellow a hundred lashes, at least. I think the effect on the others would have been bad if Madam P—— had not had him flogged.'

'But she generally goes against it. I don't remember of her having it done in ten years before. And yet, though I've the worst gang of niggers in the district, they obey her like so many children.'

'Why is that?'

'Well, there's a kind of magnetism about her that makes everybody love her; and then she tends them in sickness, and is constantly doing little things for their comfort; that attaches them to her. She is an extraordinary woman.'

'Whose negroes are those, Colonel?' I asked, as, after a while, we passed a gang of about a dozen, at work near the roadside. Some were tending a tar-kiln, and some engaged in cutting into fire-wood the pines which a recent tornado had thrown to the ground.

'They are mine, but they are working now for themselves. I let such as will, work on Sunday. I furnish the "raw material," and pay them for what they do, as I would a white man.'

'Would'nt it be better to make them go to hear the old preacher; could'nt they learn something from him?'

'Not much; Old Pomp never read anything but the Bible, and he don't understand that; besides, they can't be taught. You can't make "a whistle out of a pig's tail;" you can't make a nigger into a white man.'

Just here the carriage stopped suddenly, and we looked out to see the cause. The road by which we had come was a mere opening through the pines; no fences separated it from the wooded land, and being seldom traveled, the track was scarcely visible. In many places it widened to a hundred feet, but in others tall trees had grown up on its opposite sides, and there was scarcely width enough for a single carriage to pass along. In one of these narrow passages, just before us, a queer-looking vehicle had upset, and scattered its contents in the road. We had no alternative but to wait till it got out of the way; and we all alighted to reconnoitre.

The vehicle was a little larger than an ordinary hand-cart, and was mounted on wheels that had probably served their time on a Boston dray before commencing their travels in Secessiondom. Its box of pine boarding and its shafts of rough oak poles were evidently of Southern home manufacture. Attached to it by a rope harness, with a primitive bridle of decidedly original construction, was—not a horse, nor a mule, nor even an alligator, but a 'three-year-old heifer.'

The wooden linch-pin of the cart had given way, and the weight of a half-dozen barrels of turpentine had thrown the box off its balance, and rolled the contents about in all directions.

The appearance of the proprietor of this nondescript vehicle was in keeping with the establishment. His coat, which was much too short in the waist and much too long in the skirts, was of the common reddish gray linsey, and his nether garments, of the same material, stopped just below the knees. From there downwards, he wore only the covering that is said to have been the fashion in Paradise before Adam took to fig-leaves. His hat had a rim broader than a political platform, and his skin a color half way between that of tobacco-juice and a tallow candle.

'Wal, Cunnul, how dy'ge?' said the stranger, as we stepped from the carriage.

'Very well, Ned; how are you?'

'Purty wal, Cunnul; had the nagur lately, right smart, but'm gittin' 'roun.'

'You're in a bad fix here, I see. Can't Jim help you?'

'Wal, p'raps he moight. Jim, how dy'ge?'

'Sort o' smart, ole feller. But come, stir yerseff; we want ter gwo 'long,' replied Jim, with a manifest lack of courtesy that showed he regarded the white man as altogether too 'trashy' to be treated with much ceremony.

With the aid of Jim, a new linch-pin was soon whittled out, the turpentine rolled on to the cart, and the vehicle put in a moving condition.

'Where are you hauling your turpentine?' asked the Colonel.

'To Sam Bell's, at the "Boro'."'

'What will he pay you?'

'Wal, I've four barr'ls of "dip," and tu of "hard." For the hull, I reckon he'll give three dollars a barr'l.'

'By tale?'

'No, for two hun'red and eighty pound.'

'Well, I'll give you two dollars and a half by weight.'

'Can't take it, Cunnel; must get three dollar.'

'What, will you go sixty miles with this team, and waste five or six days, for fifty cents on six barrels—three dollars?'

'Can't 'ford the time, Cunnel, but must git three dollar a barr'l.'

'That fellow is a specimen of our "natives,"' said the Colonel, as we resumed our seats in the carriage. 'You'll see more of them before we get back to the plantation.'

'He puts a young cow to a decidedly original use,' I remarked.

'Oh no, not original here; the ox and the cow with us are both used for labor.'

'You don't mean to say that cows are generally worked here?'

'Of course I do. Our breeds are good for nothing as milkers, and we put them to the next best use. I never have cow's milk on my plantation.'