After that day she shrank from Percival, and they hardly saw each other till she left. She knew his hours of going and coming, and was careful to remain in her room, though it might be that the knowledge drew her to the window that looked into Bellevue street. As for Percival, though he never sought her, it seemed to him that his sense of hearing was quickened. Judith's footstep on the stairs was always distinct to him, and the tone of her voice if she spoke to Miss Bryant or Emma was noted and remembered. It is true that this strained anxiety sometimes made him an involuntary listener to gossip or household arrangements in which Miss Lisle took no active part. One day there was a hurried conversation just outside his door.

"Did you give it to her?" said Lydia's voice.

Emma replied, "Yes'm."

"Open? Just as it came? Just as I gave it to you?"

Emma again replied, "Yes'm."

"Did she look surprised?"

"She gave a little jump, miss," said Emma deliberately, as if weighing her words, "and she looked at it back and front."

"Well, what then? Go on."

"Oh! then she laid it down and said it was quite right, and she'd see about it."

Lydia laughed. "I think there'll be some more—" she said. Percival threw the tongs into the fender, and the dialogue came to an abrupt termination. "She" who gave a little jump was Miss Lisle, of course. But there would be some more—What? The young man revolved the matter gloomily in his mind as he paced to and fro within the narrow limits of his room. A natural impulse had caused him to interrupt Lydia's triumphant speech, which he knew was not intended for his ears, but her laugh rang in the air and mocked him. What was the torture that she had devised and whose effects she so curiously analyzed? There would be more—What?

He thought of it that night, he thought of it the next morning, and still he could not solve the mystery. But as he came from the office in the middle of the day he passed his bootmaker's, and the worthy man, who was holding the door open for a customer to go out, stopped him with an apology. Percival's heart beat fast: never before had he stood face to face with a tradesman and felt that he could not pay him what he owed. His bill had not yet been sent in, and the man had never shown any inclination to hurry him, but he was evidently going to ask for his money now. Percival controlled his face with an effort, prepared for the humiliating confession of his poverty, and found that Mr. Robinson—with profuse excuses for the trouble he was giving—was begging to be told Mr. Lisle's address.

"Mr. Lisle's address?" Thorne repeated the words, but as he did so the matter suddenly became clear to him, and he went on easily: "Oh, I ought to have told you that Mr. Lisle's account was to be sent to me. If you have it there, I'll take it."

Mr. Robinson fetched it with more apologies. He was impressed by the lofty carelessness with which the young man thrust the paper into his pocket, and as Thorne went down the street the little bootmaker looked after him with considerable admiration: "Any one can see he's quite the gentleman, and so was the other. This one'll make his way too, see if he doesn't!" Mr. Robinson imparted these opinions to Mrs. Robinson over their dinner, and was informed in return that he wasn't a prophet, so he needn't think it, and the young men who gave themselves airs and wore smart clothes weren't the ones to get on in the world; and Mrs. Robinson had no patience with such nonsense.

Meanwhile, Percival had gone home with his riddle answered. More—What? More unsuspected debts, more bills of Bertie's to be sent in to the poor girl who had been so happy in the thought that, although their income was small, at least they owed nothing. Percival's heart ached as he pictured Judith's start of surprise when Emma carried in the open paper, her brave smile, her hurried assurance that it was all right, and Lydia laughing outside at the thought of more to come. "She'll pay them all," said Percival to himself. "She won't take a farthing of that girl's money. She'll die sooner than not pay them, but I incline to think she won't pay this one." His mind was made up long before he reached Bellevue street. If by any sacrifice of pride or comfort he could keep the privilege of helping Judith altogether to himself, he would do so. If that were impossible he would get the money from Godfrey Hammond. But he felt doubtful whether he should like Godfrey Hammond quite as well when he should have asked and received this service at his hands. "I ought to like him all the better if he helped her when I couldn't manage it. It would be abominably unjust if I didn't. In fact, I must like him all the better for it: it stands to reason I must. I'll be shot if I should, though! and I don't much think I could ever forgive him."

Percival found that the debt was a small one, and calculated that by a miracle of economy he might pay it out of his salary at the end of the week. Consequently, he dined out two or three days: at least he did not dine at home; but his dissipation did not seem to agree with him, for he looked white and tired. Luckily, he had not to pay for his lodgings till Mrs. Bryant came back, and he sincerely hoped that the good lady would be happy with her sister, Mrs. Smith, till his finances were in better order. When he got his money he lost no time in settling Mr. Robinson's little account, and was fortunate enough to intercept another, about which Mr. Brett the tailor was growing seriously uneasy. He would not for the world have parted with the precious document, but he began to wonder how he should extricate himself from his growing embarrassments. Lydia—half suspicious, half laughing—made a remark about his continual absence from home. "You are getting to be very gay, ain't you, Mr. Thorne?" she said; and she pulled her curl with her old liveliness, and watched him while she spoke.

"Well, rather so: it does seem like it," he allowed.

"I think you'll be getting too fine for Bellevue street," said the girl: "I'm afraid we ain't scarcely smart enough for you already."

Had she any idea how much he was in their power? Was this a taunt or a chance shot?

"Oh no, I think not," he said. "You see, Miss Bryant, I'm used to Bellevue street now. By the way, I shall dine out again to-morrow."

"What! again to-morrow?" Lydia compressed her lips and looked at him. "Oh, very well: it is a fine thing to have friends make so much of one," she said as she turned to leave the room.

Percival came home late the next evening. As he passed Judith's sitting-room the door stood wide and revealed its desolate emptiness. Was she gone, absolutely gone? And he had been out and had never had a word of farewell from her! Perhaps she had looked for him in the middle of the day and wondered why he did not come. Down stairs he heard Lydia calling to the girl: "Emma, didn't I tell you to put the 'Lodgings' card up in the windows as soon as Miss Lisle was out of the house? It might just as well have been up before. What d'ye mean by leaving it lying here on the table? You're enough to provoke a saint—that you are! How d'ye know a score of people mayn't have been looking for lodgings to-day, and I dare say there won't be one to-morrow. If ever there was a lazy, good-for-nothing—" The violent slamming of the kitchen-door cut off the remainder of the discourse, but a shrill screaming voice might still be heard. Percival was certain that the tide of eloquence flowed on undiminished, though of articulate words he could distinguish none. It is to be feared that Emma was less fortunate.

It was true, then. Judith was gone, and that without a farewell look or touch of the hand to mark the day! They had lived for months under the same roof, and, though days might pass without granting them a glimpse of each other, the possibility of a meeting was continually with them. It was only that night that Percival, sitting by his cheerless fireside, understood what that possibility had been to him. He consoled himself as well as he could for his ignorance of the hour of Judith's departure by reflecting that Lydia would have followed her about with malicious watchfulness, and would either have played the spy at their interview or invented a parting instead of that which she had not seen. "She can't gossip now," thought Percival.

Meanwhile, Lydia perceived, beyond a doubt, that they must have arranged some way of meeting, since they had not taken the trouble to say "Good-bye."

[TO BE CONTINUED.]



THE HARVESTING-ANTS OF FLORIDA.



In the low pine barrens of Florida are large districts thickly dotted over with small mounds made by a species of ant whose habits are unknown to the scientific world. Each mound is surrounded by a circle of small chips and pieces of charcoal, which the busy inhabitants often bring from a long distance. The hills are regular in outline, with a crater-like depression on the summit, in the centre of which is the gateway or entrance.

These ants do not live in vast communities like the mound-builders of the North, but each hill seems to be a republic by itself, though separate colonies in the same neighborhood have friendly relations with each other. Their color is rufous or reddish-brown, and they are furnished with stings like bees and wasps, and, like the honey-bee, always die after inflicting a wound, for their stings are torn from their bodies and left in the victim. The pain inflicted is about the same as that caused by the sting of the honey-bee. But they are not as vicious as most stinging insects: they will submit to considerable rough treatment before resorting to this last resource.

There are three sets of neuters in each colony—major and minor workers and soldiers: also one wingless queen is found in each nest. The head is very large, especially that of the soldier.[1] The workers minor—which are the true workers—have regular well-defined teeth on the mandibles, while most of the soldiers have merely the rudiments or teeth entirely obsolete. All the queens which I have found—eighteen in number—have perfectly smooth mandibles, without the least vestige of a tooth.

Early in December, 1877, I brought a large colony of these ants from one of the hills, including the workers major and minor and soldiers, and established them in a glass jar which I placed in my study. They very soon commenced work, tunnelling the earth and erecting a formicary, as nearly as they could after the pattern of their home on the barrens. The mining was done entirely by the small workers. At first they refused all animal food, but ate greedily fruit and sugar, and all kinds of seeds which I gave them were immediately taken below, out of sight. I now visited the mounds on the barrens and found abundant indications of their food-supplies. At the base of each mound was a heap of chaff and shells of various kinds of seeds. The chaff was Aristida speciformis, which grew plentifully all about. I also found many seeds of Euphorbia and Croton, and several species of leguminous seeds. But the ants were not bringing seeds in at this time of year: they were only carrying out the discarded seeds and chaff; and only on the warmest days were they very active. But they do not wholly hibernate. Even after a frosty night, by ten o'clock in the morning many of the hills would be quite active.



I sent specimens to the Rev. Dr. McCook of Philadelphia to be named, and he identified them as Pogono myrmex crudelis, described by Smith as Atta crudelis[2] Dr. McCook predicted from their close structural resemblance to the Texan "agricultural ant" that they would prove to be harvesting-ants.

On excavating a nest I found chambers or store-rooms filled with various kinds of seeds. But, so far as I have observed, the seeds are not eaten until they are swollen or sprouted, when the outer covering bursts of itself. At this stage the starch is being converted into sugar, and this seems to be what the ants are after. They also seemed to be very fond of the yellow pollen-dust of the pine. The catkins of the long-leaved pine (Pinus australis) commenced falling in February, and I noticed ants congregated on them; so I took those just ready to discharge the pollen, and shook the dust on the mound in little heaps, which were soon surrounded by ants, crowding and jostling each other in their eagerness to obtain a share.

The colony in the glass jar seemed perfectly contented, not trying to make their escape at all. The earth was originally a little more than two inches in depth, but by the first of February these wonderful architects had reared their domicile to the height of six inches. They raised tier upon tier of chambers in so substantial a manner that they never fell in. One of the store-rooms in which they deposited the seeds I gave them was at the bottom of the jar, and the seeds were stored against the glass with no intervening earth between: it contained about a teaspoonful of millet. I gave this chamber the right degree of heat and moisture to sprout the seed by pouring a little water down the side of the jar until it penetrated the chamber, and then setting it near the fire. The ants soon appreciated the condition of this store-room, and many congregated there and seemed to be enjoying a feast. The next day the seeds were all brought to the surface and deposited in a little heap on one side of the jar, where many of them grew, making a pretty little green forest, which the ants soon cut down and destroyed. This chamber remained empty for three or four days, and was then again refilled with fresh millet and apple and croton seeds.

I kept a small shell, which held about a tablespoonful of water, standing in the jar for the ants to drink from. For more than a month the water was allowed to remain clear, the ants often coming to the edge to drink; but one day one was walking on the edge of the shell, and carrying an apple-seed, when she lost her footing and rolled into the water. She floundered about for a few moments, still holding on to the seed: at last she let it drop and crawled out. As soon as she had divested herself of the surplus water, she consulted several of her companions, and they immediately went to work and filled up the shell, first throwing in four or five apple-seeds, and then filling in with earth; and ever after, as often as I cleared out the shell and put in fresh water, it would be filled with earth, sticks and seeds; and they now served all sweet liquids which I gave them in the same way, sipping the syrup from the moistened earth.

Like other ants, they are very fastidious about removing their dead companions. I buried one about half an inch beneath the soil. Very soon several congregated about the spot and commenced digging with their fore feet, after the manner of digger-wasps, throwing the earth backward. They soon unearthed and pulled the body out, when one seized and tried to remove it, climbing up the side of the jar, and falling back until I relieved her of the burden.

From time to time I add new recruits of soldiers and workers to the jar. This always causes a little confusion for a few moments: there is a quick challenging with antennae, but no fighting, and soon all are working harmoniously together. I found three half-drowned, chilled ants near the mound from which most of the inhabitants of the jar were taken. One was not only wet and chilled, but also covered with sand. These I put on a small leaf and placed in the centre of the jar. The genial warmth soon revived them. Many of their old companions clustered around them, and there seemed to be considerable consultation. The two wet ants were soon made welcome, and, leaving the leaf, were conducted by their comrades—from whom they had been separated for more than two months—to the rooms below. But the one covered with sand—a major—did not meet with so kindly a reception. She still remained on the leaf trying to cleanse herself. All the ants had left her save one, who was determined to quarrel with her. I removed this one, and now another came up, bit at her and annoyed her until I removed this one also. Then some half dozen congregated about the leaf, touching her with their antennae and walking round her. By this time she was nearly free from the sand, and was looking quite bright, strutting about the leaf in a threatening attitude, with her mandibles wide apart. She was not attacked by these last inspectors, though still looked upon a little suspiciously. I then returned the two quarrelsome ants: they immediately walked up to their unfortunate comrade, and now seemed to be satisfied that she was a respectable ant, and admitted her into the community with no further challenging.



I found a nest of large carpenter-ants (Camponotus atriceps, var. esuriens, Smith) which had made their home in fallen timber. Upon examining their work, it was evident they must have strong tools to work with, for the numerous rooms and chambers of their domicile were often made in firm, hard wood. They are the largest, most vicious species I have ever seen. I introduced one of these terrible creatures into the jar among the quiet, peaceful occupants. A large worker major immediately closed with her: it was so quickly done that I could not tell which was the attacking party. They rolled about a few moments in a close embrace, till they rolled out of sight through the wide entrance to one of the rooms below. There was considerable excitement and increased activity among the workers, who were constantly bringing to the surface bits of earth which the struggling warriors had loosened. In about an hour the head of the carpenter was brought out, divested of every member: both the antennae and palpi were gone, cut close to the head. A little later the abdomen was brought out, and still later the thorax with not an entire leg left.



Several times during the months of January and February I introduced into the jar a number of half-grown larvae of the harvester. Without any hesitation they were quickly carried to the rooms below by the workers minor. On the 4th of February I found a large number of the larvae of the carpenter-ant (Camponotus meleus, Say). They were very small, and closely packed together in a chamber cut out of hard wood, two inches in length and an inch and a quarter in diameter, nearly circular. It was packed full of larvae and eggs, the larvae apparently just hatched. I detached a small mass, all stuck together, and placed them in the jar with the harvesters. The workers minor immediately surrounded the mass, touching it with their antennae, and then retreated backward, passing their fore legs over the head and antennae, as if the larvae were obnoxious to them. Great commotion ensued, followed by an apparent consultation lasting a few moments; but soon the usual quietness reigned, and most of the ants left the helpless larvae and returned to their mining and to the storing away of seeds or feeding their own young. But two or three had not entirely deserted the young carpenters. Again and again they touched them, and then retreated, cleansing the antennae as they moved backward. At last one seized the mass and held it in her mandibles, standing nearly in an upright position. Several workers now surrounded her, picked the larvae off, one by one, and carried them below, until all were separated and disposed of.

But by far the most satisfactory way of studying the ants is in their native haunts on the barrens, where I had ten nests under observation. One of these was so situated that it received the direct rays of the sun all day, and was protected from north and east winds by dense, low shrubbery. On sunny days, even with a cool wind from the north, when taking my seat in this sheltered spot, I would soon become uncomfortably warm. This hill was always active whenever I visited it, while in other localities the ants would often be all housed. Around this active nest I stuck stems of millet eighteen inches high, surmounted by the close-packed heads. The ants climbed the stems, loosened and secured the seeds, and stored them within the nest. They worked vigorously, sometimes twenty or more on one head pulling away at the seeds. In my artificial formicary they did not mount the stems, even when the heads were not more than three or four inches from the ground, but seeds that I scattered in the jar were always taken below.

I threw down a handful of apple-seeds near the entrance of the active hill on the barrens. This immediately attracted a large number of excited ants. They rushed to the seeds in a warlike attitude, and began carrying them off, depositing them two or three feet away. But as soon as the excitement caused by the sudden pouring down of the seeds had subsided, they seemed to comprehend that they had been throwing away good seeds; and now, changing their tactics, not only carried the remainder into the nest, but finally brought back and stored all those that had been thrown away.

On excavating the nests we found granaries of seed scattered irregularly throughout to the depth of twenty-two inches below the surface of the ground: some were near the surface, and a few sprouted seeds were scattered about in the mound. The mound is usually not more than four to six inches above the level of the ground.

The great majority of nests that I have found are in the low pine barrens—so low that on reaching the depth of two feet the water runs into the cavity like a spring, and stands above some of the granaries. Notwithstanding this wet locality, I found no sprouted seeds in the deeper store-rooms, but only in the warmer mound. On sunny days the larvae are brought up into the mound and deposited in chambers near the surface, where they receive the benefit of the sun's rays. On cool, cloudy days and in the early morning I found no larvae near the surface. If the ants are intelligent enough to treat the larvae in this way, why should they not store seeds where they will not sprout? And when they need to sprout them in order to obtain the sugar they contain, it would take no more wisdom to treat the seed as they do the larvae—bringing them near the surface to obtain the right degree of heat for the required result.

The little workers seem very determined not to allow any green thing to grow on their mounds. Cassia and croton and many other plants start to grow from seeds which the ants have dropped, but they are always cut down and destroyed if too near the mound, though allowed to grow at a little distance; so that a botanist would be astonished at the great variety of plants within a small area if not aware of the source from which they came. I sometimes found small shrubs of Kalmia hirsuta and Hypericums entirely dead on the mounds, the roots completely girdled in many places. It is very amusing to watch them in their efforts to destroy grass and other plants. Their determined persistence is remarkable: they cut off the tender blades and throw them away. But they do not stop here: the roots must be exterminated; so several dig around the plant, throwing the earth backward, and after making it bare they cut and girdle the roots until the plant is killed.



Early in March the ants in the jar seemed to have completed their domicile. At first, several chambers were visible through the glass, and the galleries leading to them, but gradually the light was all shut out by placing little particles of earth against the glass, thus depriving me of the opportunity of watching their movements within the nest. So I now took the jar to the barrens, and set it by the side of a nest which was about a mile distant from where most of the ants were obtained. Here I carefully broke it, and took the thin shell of glass from around the nest, which did not fall, but stood six inches in height and eighteen inches in circumference. With a large knife I removed a thin layer of earth, which revealed three admirable chambers with galleries leading from one to the other. Immediately below there were five chambers well filled with ants, and below these other chambers were scattered irregularly throughout, with only thin partitions between.

At various times I had given the ants moistened sugar on the thick curved leaves of the live-oak, and several of these had been covered while the ants were making their excavations. Two of the leaves were three inches below the surface, and the ants had utilized them by making the inner curved surface answer for the floor and sides of fine chambers; and here a large number of ants, both soldiers and workers, were crowded together. In other chambers I found the larvae, which were greatly increased in size since I had placed them in the jar; and the larvae of the carpenter-ant were being reared, as I found some smaller than any I had introduced belonging to the harvester.

Very soon a great crowd of excited ants came from the hill near which I had broken the jar, and began to transport the larvae, and also the mature ants, to their own dominions. There was no fighting: the ants from the jar submitted to being carried, not offering the least resistance. A small worker would often take hold of a large soldier, sometimes pushing, sometimes dragging, her through the sand, and she would be as quiet as if dead or dying; but if we touch the little worker she leaves her burden and rushes about to see what the interference means; and now the soldier straightens up, as bright and lively as the rest, and after passing her fore legs over her head and body, goes of her own accord into the new nest, meeting with no opposition. Some of the ants would coil up and allow themselves to be carried easily. Others were led along by an antenna or a leg, in either case manifesting no resistance. For three hours I watched the proceeding, and could see no fighting. It looked precisely as if the inhabitants of the jar realized their helpless condition, and gladly submitted to be taken prisoners or to become partners with this new firm.

I left them, and after the lapse of two hours again visited the spot. The seeds that had been in the jar were now being transferred to the other nest, and two new entrances at the base of the mound were being made. And now every little while an ant would be ejected from the nest. One worker would bring another out and lay her down, often not more than three inches away from the door, but, so far as I could see, she was in no wise injured. Her first movement was to make herself presentable by passing her fore legs over her head and body: as soon as this was completed she returned within the nest. But there was one large soldier which the whole community seemed combined against. She was led or dragged away from the entrance of the nest eight times, and each time left at the base of the mound among the rubbish. Sometimes she was led or carried by one alone, sometimes two or three would conduct her, and then leave her, when she would at once proceed to make her toilet; which completed, she would again return to the door of the nest, when she would be again conducted away, offering no resistance. I now picked her up, which made her very fierce. She seized my glove with her powerful mandibles, and held on with a persistency equal to the most vicious species, at the same time trying to use her sting. As soon as I could free her from the glove I secured her, and on reaching home placed her under the microscope, and found she was not injured and had strong teeth in her mandibles.

On the next day I returned her to the nest, and again she was met by the indignant police at the door and conducted away. With her strong mandibles she could have crushed any number of her small assailants, but in no instance did she show the least disposition to rebel against the indignities to which she was subjected. She was often dragged away with her back on the ground and her legs coiled up, apparently helpless. If all the soldiers had been treated in this way, it would not have been so remarkable, but so far as I could see the rest were allowed to remain, going in and out of the nest as if taking a survey of their new surroundings.

For five months I had these ants under almost constant observation, and yet I was unable to make out the true position of the soldiers in the colony. They stay mostly within the nest. On the warmest days a few will come out and walk leisurely around the mound. They are not scattered irregularly through the nest, but seem to be housed together in large chambers. In one of these chambers I found a wingless queen in their midst. It seemed very fitting for a queen to be surrounded by Amazon soldiers; but, alas! they seemed more like maids of honor than soldiers, for they forsook the royal lady without making an effort to defend her. Not so, however, with the little workers: they rallied around her, ready to guard her with their lives, and no doubt would have succeeded had it been any ordinary foe.

This phenomenon—the soldiers and queens with smooth mandibles—is very puzzling, and has excited much interest among naturalists both in this country and in Europe. I sent specimens to Mr. Charles Darwin, which he forwarded to Mr. Frederick Smith of the British Museum (who, Mr. Darwin informs me, is the highest authority in Europe on ants and other Hymenoptera). Mr. Smith says: "Your observations on the structural differences in the mandibles of this ant are quite new to me." I also sent specimens to the eminent naturalist Dr. Auguste Forel of Munich, who, like Mr. Smith, had never observed this feature of the mandibles in any ant; but he has a theory to account for it—that the smooth mandibles have been worn down by labor. If this theory is true, how can we account for the fact that other ants do not wear down their teeth? The chitinous covering of this harvesting-ant is firm and hard. The stage forceps of my microscope closes with a spring, and in studying this ant I have put thousands of individuals to the test, holding them in the forceps to examine their mandibles, and in no instance do I recollect seeing one injured, while many other species are easily injured by the forceps. Among these are the two large species of carpenter-ant before mentioned, which work in stumps or fallen timber. These ants all have well-developed teeth, and the shell-like covering enveloping the body is much thinner than that of the harvesting-ant.

If it be urged that hard wood will not wear down the teeth like mining in the sandy soil, I can bring forward another member of this family (Camponotus socius, Roger), which lives in the ground, and whose mining and tunnelling are on a much more extensive scale than those of the harvesting-ant. The formicary of this Camponotus often extends over several square rods, with large entrances at various points, all connected by underground galleries, requiring a great amount of labor to construct them; while each colony of the harvesting-ant has a close, compact nest or formicary, requiring much less work to construct it. The worker major of Camponotus socius is very large—larger than the soldier of the harvesting-ant. The formicaries of the two species are often in close contact, so that the nature of the soil is precisely the same. I have examined thousands of Camponotus socius, and in no instance have I found the teeth worn down.

There is still another difficulty in the way of Dr. Forel's theory. Careful observations have revealed the fact that all the harvesting-ants that engage in work of any kind are armed with teeth. I took thirty soldiers with smooth mandibles, put them in a glass jar with every facility for making a nest, but they refused to work, scorned all my offers of food, and remained huddled together for three days. I then introduced several workers minor, and they immediately commenced tunnelling the earth and making chambers, into which the lazy soldiers crawled, meeting with no opposition from these industrious little creatures. My experiments did not stop here. I now took about a hundred specimens—soldiers and a few workers major, the last with partially-developed teeth—and placed them in a jar. Some of these made feeble attempts to construct a nest, but they did not store away seeds, and larvae which I put in the jar they carried about as if not knowing what to do with them.

There is every appearance of an aristocracy among these humble creatures. The minors are the servants who do the work, while the queens and soldiers (especially the soldiers, which more nearly approach the queen in shape of head and mandibles) seem to live a life of comparative ease, and have their food brought to them by the minors. This may be the reason of the non-development of the teeth among the aristocracy. But how the same parent can produce such differing offspring—some born to a life of ease, with obsolete teeth, and others with well-developed teeth to do the work—is one of the mysteries in Nature. The only way to settle the point with regard to the mandibles beyond dispute is to find the pupae of very young queens and soldiers, which I was unable to do during my stay in Florida. All the young were in the larval state.

MARY TREAT.



DOCTEUR ALPHEGE.

"Marcelline! Marcelline! viens m'aider: je souffre!"

The voice was thin and querulous, but painfully weak, and the stalwart, broad-shouldered negress to whom the cry was addressed had an anxious, startled look on her usually stolid face as she turned away from the open door and went into the sick room.

"My poor mistress," she said tenderly in French, raising in her arms as she spoke the attenuated form of the suffering woman before her and rearranging her pillows, "you feel very bad to-day: I knew you did just now when you were asleep and I heard you groaning. I wish—bon Dieu!—I wish I could do something for you."

The invalid made no reply for a minute, but gazed piteously up into the other's face. She was a woman of about fifty, who even in the last stages of emaciation and weakness showed traces of wonderful beauty. The sharp, drawn features were as clear and fine as those of a model, and even now the sweetness and brilliancy of her dark-blue eyes were little diminished. But pain of some kind and utter prostration held her in their grip, and she made several attempts to speak before she said, in a hoarse whisper, "Thou canst help me, child. Food, Marcelline! food, for the love of God!"

The negress started, knit her brows and murmured anxiously, "Oh, my dear mistress, anything but that! Think what would happen to me and my children if—if—"—she seemed almost afraid even to whisper the name, but sank her voice to the lowest tone as she continued—"if Mons. Alphege were to find me out. Attends!" she added aloud and coaxingly: "it will soon be time for your supper now: when the bell rings you are to have some milk, and the sun is almost down."

The sick woman groaned and lay quite still, but when, in a few minutes, a clanging plantation-bell rang the joyful announcement that the day's work was over, she grasped the milk which Marcelline brought her like one famished, and drained it without breathing. It was a short draught, after all, for the cup was only half full, but Marcelline turned away with a shiver from the imploring eyes and outstretched hands, which asked her to replenish it, and, as though unable to endure the sight of suffering which she could not alleviate, went out upon the open gallery and sat down on the steps.

The room was on the ground floor, and the house was an old-fashioned creole dwelling, long and low, with many doors and innumerable little staircases—everything in disorder and out of repair, and weeds and grass growing up to the threshold. There was a well-stocked and carefully-tended vegetable garden not a hundred yards off: the poultry-yards, dove-cotes and smoke-houses were as full as they could hold, and over yonder, just behind the tall picket fence, were corn-cribs bursting with corn and hay-lofts choked with hay. Fifty or sixty negro hovels, irregularly grouped together down by the bayou-side, and indistinctly seen in the fading twilight, contained about three hundred slaves, who, having trooped in from the field at the sound of the bell, were now eating pork and hominy as fast as they could swallow. But no one would have guessed that all this abundance was at hand, or that this was the homestead of one of the richest creole families in the State. Yet it was so. Old Madame Levassour—or Madame Hypolite, as she was invariably called—was not only the widow of a wealthy planter, but had been herself a great heiress, perhaps the greatest in the whole South, at the time of her marriage. The property had gone on appreciating, as slave property did in old times, and now that she was lying at the point of death, her two daughters, who had married brothers, and, like all true creoles, still lived at home with their mother, would soon be enormously rich. They were well off already by inheritance from their father, and each owned a valuable plantation and many slaves; but these were nothing compared to the possessions of their mother, who was an excellent business-woman, full of energy, prudence and moderation, and never weak or capricious, especially where the interests of others were concerned. She had always been a kind and indulgent mistress to her slaves, who loved her in return with passionate fidelity, and many were the sighs and tears their approaching change of owners produced among them. Her sons-in-law were educated men, of good birth and moderate fortune; but negroes are the best judges of character in the world, and there was not a trait or feeling concealed under the quiet, nonchalant exterior of Mons. Volmont Cherbuliez which they did not thoroughly understand. About his brother Alphege, who was a physician, there was more diversity of opinion. That he also was bad, cruel, dissipated, profoundly deceitful, there was no doubt in the minds of his future chattels, but what precise form his idiosyncrasies would take they felt to be uncertain, and gazed with terror—all the more acute for being somewhat vague—at his cold, impassive face. In the mean time, nothing could be more irreproachable than the demeanor of the two brothers. Dr. Alphege was known to be a man of great skill, a graduate of the medical schools of Paris and always interested in the practice of his profession. He devoted himself to his mother-in-law now with unfailing assiduity, and when her disease—which he pronounced to be a dangerous gastric affection—baffled his utmost efforts, he sent for advice and assistance even to New Orleans; which, thirty years ago in South-western Louisiana, was quite an enterprise. His fellow-physicians agreed with him in his management of the case, and the daughters and friends of Madame Hypolite, though deeply grieved by her illness, felt that nothing more could be done. As is usual in diseases of the stomach, her suffering was very great, and the most rigid care had to be exercised in the choice and administration of nourishment. On her food, said Dr. Alphege, he depended for the only hope of a cure: consequently, the rules which he laid down must be, and were, enforced in the most rigid manner. The penalty of transgressing his orders was always severe, but now the fiat went forth that any one of the nurses or attendants upon Madame Hypolite who should depart from his carefully-explained orders in the minutest particular should receive a punishment such as had never been administered in that household before.

One of the marked features of creole life was always the immense number of house-servants, and in a long illness such as Madame Hypolite was now experiencing many attendants and various nurses seemed a matter of course. Therefore the doctor's orders were doubly necessary, and would in all cases have been entirely correct, since the first element of good nursing is implicit obedience. Still, with all this care, she did not improve, and in the evening of which we write her two daughters, Mesdames Volmont and Alphege (for a creole never gets his or her last name except in legal documents), were sitting on the gallery not far from where Marcelline crouched on the steps, rocking themselves backward and forward to keep off the mosquitoes and talking over the aspect of affairs. They were both extremely pretty women, and very much alike. Euphrosyne (Madame Volmont) was a year or two the older, but still not more than twenty-two or three. She had been married at fourteen, and her oldest boy was nearly eight, but she seemed not more than sixteen now; while Clothilde (Madame Alphege), who, although married at the same age, was childless, looked even younger; and any stranger seeing them this evening in their soft white cambric dresses, little high-heeled red slippers and floating ribbons, would have taken them for a couple of pretty, dark-eyed, lazy school-girls enjoying their holiday.

Marcelline listened to them as they talked, at first with the same intent, peculiar expression she had worn in the sick room, but gradually her features relaxed as she heard their harmless chatter, subdued so as not to disturb the sufferer near by, but full of little childish gossip and kindly details of daily life. After talking for a few minutes about Dr. Alphege's last report, which was that some slight improvement was visible, Clothilde asked her sister with much interest if she had finished the novena she was making, and on being answered in the affirmative said that she would begin one herself on Monday.

"Bien!" said Euphrosyne. "If you will make a novena I will burn two more candles, and get Pere Ramain to say three masses for my intention in honor of the Blessed Trinity."

"Say the novena with me," suggested Clothilde, fanning and rocking, and speaking less distinctly than usual because her mouth was full of candy.

"Indeed, I cannot," replied Euphrosyne: "my knees are black and blue now. I told Pere Ramain yesterday that if he could just see them he would not make me kneel again for a week."

As she spoke a horse's step was heard on the grass, and Volmont Cherbuliez galloped lightly up over the turf. As he jumped down and threw the reins to half a dozen nearly naked little black fellows who were at his heels, his wife rose to meet him affectionately, and with her hand on his shoulder said in a low tone of genuine delight, "Cher ami, you will be so glad to hear that mamma is really better to-night!" She was not looking at him, but even in the darkness, which was now that of a starlit summer evening, Marcelline could see the slight start and change of expression with which he heard her. He said nothing, however, but kissed her hand with as much gallantry as though he was still faisant la cour to "mademoiselle," and they all passed into the dining-room together. This, as was the custom in all such houses, was also the common sitting-room of the family, or rather, when the weather was too cold to sit on the galleries and they had occasion to leave their bedrooms, it was here they met. As a rule, the women invariably occupied their sleeping apartments, and never thought of leaving them except for the open gallery or at meal-times. Here they received their friends, sewed, embroidered, gossiped and told their beads. Two large double beds were the ordinary complement of each room, and, what with large family connections and frequent visitors, it was rare indeed to find one not in use. Owing to this habit on the part of the women, and the fact that no Creole planter ever spent two consecutive minutes in his house during the daytime if he could possibly help it, the dining-room was as dreary a spot as could be imagined. A long, narrow table covered with oilcloth and surmounted by a huge punkah, a number of straight wooden chairs and a square red cupboard comprised all the furniture, the whole dimly lighted by two candles. The Cherbuliez family, however, as they sat down to supper, seemed to feel no deficiency, and ate and drank merrily, especially when Madame Volmont's three children came in and were bountifully helped to everything on the table, including ripe figs, cucumbers, melons and gumbo choux. As they were all lingering over the table and wondering why Alphege did not come in, he suddenly appeared, looking very pale and tired. Without stopping even to say "Good-evening," he passed directly through into the room beyond, where Madame Hypolite was lying, and was heard questioning Marcelline rapidly as to his patient's condition. When he at last sat down to his supper he looked like a man overworked bodily indeed, but with a great weight suddenly removed from his mind; and Clothilde, who was an enfant gatee to him as to others, exclaimed joyfully, "Oh, Alphege, maman is really better—elle va se guerir, elle est hors de danger, n'est ce pas?" And she came behind him and put her arms round his neck as he tried to eat, and gave him a joyful embrace.

Whatever the dark secrets of his soul might be, at which so many dimly guessed, Alphege Cherbuliez was invariably tender and considerate to his wife; and now, as he gently disengaged the little hands that were throttling him from his throat, he said kindly, but with a gravity which always awed and restrained her, "I think she is better, my dear, but it is impossible to predict in such cases; and all we can do is to wait and hope."

As he spoke, his brother, who had lighted a cigarette and was sitting opposite with his youngest child on his knee, looked up. The gaze of the two men met. On the bronzed cheek of Volmont came a slight flush, and his eyes had an expression for the moment of fear and appeal. But the dark, handsome face of Alphege maintained its cold, inscrutable composure, and the look before which his brother's slowly fell was magnetic in its steady strength.

A little later, as they smoked together on the steps their last cigar before retiring, Volmont asked in a sudden low whisper, "Did you succeed?" and Alphege said slowly aloud, "Yes: they will wait two weeks longer."

"Hadst thou trouble, my brother?"

The other paused a moment, and then said, "Yes: they were inclined to insist. They have been a long time out of their money, mon ami, and when this danger is over we shall do well to avoid another—with them."

"What did you promise?" asked Volmont, as if reassured by his brother's tone.

"I promised," said Alphege, carefully rolling the end of his cigar, but this time dropping his voice, "that in a fortnight the notes should be taken up."

* * * * *

It was midnight, and the house was entirely silent and dark except where one shaded candle burned in the sick room. Down at the "quarters," as the negro cabins were called, every one was literally locked in slumber, and it must have been a loud and prolonged noise which should have awakened those tired sleepers. But some one was stirring, for all that, and had the moon been shining ever so faintly it would have been a dangerous task for those two gliding, crouching figures to move across the open green beyond the stable as they were doing. But the night was safely dark: a soft gray scud from the Gulf was flying rapidly in, obscuring even the dim starlight, and no one saw them as they passed through the turngate in the fence and sat down close to the water's edge under the overhanging trunk of a huge water-oak.

"Now we are safe," said the woman, throwing back her coarse shawl; "and I tell you, Pierre, you must listen to me, and I must speak, or some day I shall just burst out and go screaming my dreadful news from one end of the parish to the other."

The speaker was Marcelline, and the man who listened to her a huge raw-boned mulatto of that square-jawed, vindictive-looking type which is the manifest offspring of foul oppression and long-continued wrong.

But he shrank appalled from the tremendous energy of the woman beside him. "Hush—sh!" he said in a warning whisper and with an apprehensive glance into the still darkness around. "Don't talk so loud, you fool! or I'll choke the d——d black blood out of you."

The woman lowered her voice, but paid no other heed to his menace as she went on in the same earnestly-excited manner. "Listen, Pierre!" she said, grasping him by the arm and speaking with an amount of decision which even he could not withstand. "Do you love la bonne maitresse? Do you care for her to live or die? Dis-moi, dis ce que tu veux!"

The man answered slowly, as if the words were forced from him against his will, but still with an accent of truth and a certain amount of energy: "Love her? Jesu! yes, I do love her. It seems drole for one of us to talk about loving these cursed whites, who treat us worse than dogs; but, for all that, I do love madame."

The woman almost shook him as she said in a whisper of concentrated fury, "Who saved your life, Pierre Lambas, when you were perishing with smallpox? Who went to New Orleans to buy your wife and children from a cruel master and bring them here to you? Who watched by Sophie when she was in convulsions?"

Her voice broke and her fingers relaxed their hold, but this time Pierre answered without hesitation: "C'etait-elle, je le sais bien—I know it well."

"Then," pursued Marcelline, "you are willing to stand by and see her slowly murdered, inch by inch, by this white-faced devil, who leans over her and professes to love her, but is killing her—killing her, Dieu des dieux!—with hunger and thirst?" Her voice shook so that she could scarcely speak as she concluded.

"How do I know," asked Pierre slowly, after a long pause, "that what you think about this may not be a mistake?" Marcelline made an impatient gesture, but he went calmly on: "They say Mons. Alphege is a good doctor, and that he is fond of sa belle-mere. How can I take a man's life on a mere suspicion?"

She almost flew at him in her frenzy, but the darkness so shielded her that he did not see the movement, which was as well. She controlled herself instantly, and only said in reply, "Thou hast not been always so careful of white life, mon ami—so unwilling to shed white blood."

"Ah, bah!" retorted he: "that was when I could not be detected, and when more than life was in question. But now to kill this man would be to suffer death myself in the next hour, and to know that my wife and children were punished as well. Besides," he continued, as if trying to reason with her, "you have told me nothing which convinces me that what you say is true."

"Listen, then," she said, raising her head, which had sunk upon her breast. "You do not believe that he is starving her to death: you think she has all the food required by one in her weak and perishing condition. You think her cries, her prayers, her agony of desire for nourishment—for nourishment!—are only the result of sickness, and that if she had it she could not eat. Bien! Every morning, when I go into her room to dress her blisters with fresh poultices, I find the old ones torn off and eaten up! Tell me, Pierre, have any of our kin, in their worst straits of hunger and suffering, done worse than that?"

She spoke in a low voice, but it was freighted with such an intensity of horror and misery that the man beside her could not speak for an instant. When he did, he said in tones of the deepest feeling, "Ma pauvre maitresse! ma pauvre maitresse!"

"Do you still refuse?" hissed Marcelline.

The answer was compassionate, but resolved: "I do, Marcelline. Not even for her sake can I risk all. You know I have nearly saved enough money to buy my freedom. Once free, I shall soon purchase Sophie and the young ones: I cannot abandon such hopes even to save her."

There was a moment's silence. "May God help me, then!" said the woman as she rose, "for I swear by the Blessed Sacrament to save her if she be still alive—to revenge her if she be dead."

* * * * *

Three days later a long funeral cortege passed from the gates of the Levassour plantation and took its way along the dusty road toward the Catholic church of the settlement, some three miles off. In and out between the massive green walls of shining Cherokee rose-vines, which formed impenetrable barriers on either side of the way, wound the long line of old-fashioned chariots with black coachmen in queer, antiquated liveries, preceded by the tawdry French hearse with its numerous gilt devices and huge nodding plumes. The pitiless sun beat down upon them, and the blinding clouds of dust rose and choked them, but the mourners, both black and white, who formed the procession—and it was closed by a throng of weeping negroes on foot—were too much interested and absorbed in their melancholy task to feel either the one or the other, for such an occasion as this had never taken place in all that quiet country-side before. Inside of that hearse, in a snow-white coffin covered with flowers and gayly decorated with cut paper, silver crosses and waxen saints, reposed the mortal remains of Madame Hypolite Levassour, who had died at midnight thirty-six hours previously; and by her side in another coffin, more hastily contrived, lay the body of her well-beloved son-in-law and physician, Docteur Alphege Cherbuliez, who within six hours after her death had been killed by a shot-gun in the hands of an unknown assassin. Two negro men, Gerard Grol and Pierre Lambas, had been arrested on strong suspicion, and were now in close confinement awaiting the trial which both knew would be short, sharp and swift, and administered by a judge who would not wait for legal proceedings to assist or confirm his decisions. Circumstantial evidence was strong against them, and the two unfortunate wretches were not more conscious that the sun was shining in heaven, making the narrow caboose in which they had been confined an unendurable, suffocating den of heat, than they were that when the dead were buried and grief was satisfied vengeance would make sudden and terrible work with them.

When the church was reached the carriages drew up in double ranks around the broad green meadow in which it stood, and the occupants, descending, filed in motley array into the building. Just in front of the altar two tressels were prepared for the coffins, which were not brought in until the whole congregation, which filled the pews to overflowing, was seated. Then the measured tramp of men was heard, and amid general weeping and lamentation the pall-bearers entered, and the priest, advancing from the foot of the altar, sprinkled with holy water first one coffin and then the other as they were placed before him, while the choir chanted softly the "De Profundis." Everything proceeded quietly as usual through the beautiful services for the burial of the dead, and the cool, dark church, with its mingled odor of incense and flowers, became more and more quiet as the soothing influences crept over the hearts of those assembled there. Mass was over, and the priest, coming out from the chancel, knelt before the tall crucifix which stood at the foot of the coffins and began the most touching of all prayers, "Non intres in judicium," when a sudden movement was heard at the lower end of the church, a stifled cry of alarm instantly hushed, and in another moment Marcelline, who had followed the cortege, like the other servants, on foot, walked slowly and with a perfectly composed and steady step up the aisle, made her reverence to the Host which was concealed in the tabernacle before her, and then stood facing the priest, who without pausing finished his prayer and rose from his knees.

"What wouldst thou have, my daughter," he asked with dignity, "that thou dost disturb the holy services of the Church?"

There was a slight pause. Marcelline seemed to steady herself: then putting her hand on the coffin of Alphege Cherbuliez, she said in a high, monotonous voice which rang through the building and reached even the watchers on the green without, "I killed Doctor Alphege Cherbuliez with my own hands. No one helped me and no one saw me. You can turn Pierre Lambas and Gerard Grol loose."

There was a sudden stir like the rushing of a mighty wind through the church, but the priest waved his hand and the people were still.

"What was your motive?" he asked without moving.

The woman had never turned her head, and now answered him in the same overstrained key: "He starved my mistress to death. I saw her slowly dying of hunger and thirst day after day, and I made up my mind to kill him as soon as I could get the chance. I had to wait and wait," she went on, her voice sinking a little, "till at last it was too late."

She stopped, suddenly stooped and kissed her mistress's coffin: then wheeling round and facing the congregation, who sat spellbound, she shook her clenched fist at them. "Ah!" she said, speaking in a terrible voice, "you knew, you must have known—friends and cousins and brothers, ay, daughters too—that bread—bread!—was what she wanted. Who heard her cry for food? Who heard her beg and pray and implore for one little sip of milk, one little bite of meat?" Her voice rose to a shriek as she went on, but such was the force of her passion that no effort was made to check her: "You, all of you—all heard, all saw, all knew, yet none had courage to act; and now, c'est moi! c'est moi!" striking her breast violently with both hands, "la pauvre esclave, qui l'ai vengee!"

She paused: there was a dead silence. Instantly a ring of men closed round her: she was swept from the church, so swiftly was she borne away, and the service proceeded.

The priest looked pale, and sent two or three messages to those without, but they were of no avail. Before he could leave the altar, which he did as hurriedly as possible, Marcelline was hanging from the limb of an oak tree within sight of the church, her last words being, "God will forgive me: I did right." But bitter were the tears Pere Ramain shed when he found she had gone to her last account unshriven and unabsolved.

ANNIE PORTER.



SYMPHONIC STUDIES.

(AFTER ROBERT SCHUMANN.)

PRELUDE

Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea: Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmony With the wild, restless tone of air and sky. Shall we not call him Prospero who held In his enchanted hands the fateful key Of that tempestuous hour's mystery, And with controlling wand our spirits spelled, With him to wander by a sun-bright shore, To hear fine, fairy voices, and to fly With disembodied Ariel once more Above earth's wrack and ruin? Far and nigh The laughter of the thunder echoed loud, And harmless lightnings leapt from cloud to cloud.

I.

Floating upon a swelling wave of sound, We seemed to overlook an endless sea: Poised 'twixt clear heavens and glittering surf were we. We drank the air in flight: we knew no bound To the audacious ventures of desire. Nigh us the sun was dropping, drowned in gold; Deep, deep below the burning billows rolled; And all the sea sang like a smitten lyre. Oh, the wild voices of those chanting waves! The human faces glimpsed beneath the tide! Familiar eyes gazed from profound sea-caves, And we, exalted, were as we had died. We knew the sea was Life, the harmonious cry The blended discords of humanity.

II.

Look deeper yet: mark 'midst the wave-blurred mass, In lines distinct, in colors clear defined, The typic groups and figures of mankind. Behold within the cool and liquid glass Bright child-folk sporting with smooth yellow shells, Astride of dolphins, leaping up to kiss Fair mother-faces. From the vast abyss How joyously their thought-free laughter wells! Some slumber in grim caverns unafraid, Lulled by the overwhelming water's sound, And some make mouths at dragons, undismayed. Oh dauntless innocence! The gulfs profound Re-echo strangely with their ringing glee, And with wise mermaids' plaintive melody.

III.

What do the sea-nymphs in that coral cave? With wondering eyes their supple forms they bend O'er something rarely beautiful. They lend Their lithe white arms, and through the golden wave They lift it tenderly. Oh blinding sight! A naked, radiant goddess, tranced in sleep, Full-limbed, voluptuous, 'neath the mantling sweep Of auburn locks that kiss her ankles white! Upward they bear her, chanting low and sweet: The clinging waters part before their way, Jewels of flame are dancing 'neath their feet. Up in the sunshine, on soft foam, they lay Their precious burden, and return forlorn. Oh bliss! oh anguish! Mortals, Love is born!

IV.

Hark! from unfathomable deeps a dirge Swells sobbing through the melancholy air: Where Love has entered, Death is also there. The wail outrings the chafed, tumultuous surge: Ocean and earth, the illimitable skies, Prolong one note, a mourning for the dead, The cry of souls not to be comforted. What piercing music! Funeral visions rise, And send the hot tears raining down our cheek. We see the silent grave upon the hill With its lone lilac-bush. O heart, be still! She will not rise, she will not stir nor speak. Surely, the unreturning dead are blest. Ring on, sweet dirge, and knell us to our rest!

V.

Upon the silver beach the undines dance With interlinking arms and flying hair; Like polished marble gleam their limbs left bare; Upon their virgin rites pale moonbeams glance. Softer the music! for their foam-bright feet Print not the moist floor where they trip their round: Affrighted they will scatter at a sound, Leap in their cool sea-chambers, nimbly fleet, And we shall doubt that we have ever seen, While our sane eyes behold stray wreaths of mist, Shot with faint colors by the moon-rays kissed, Floating snow-soft, snow-white, where these had been. Already, look! the wave-washed sands are bare, And mocking laughter ripples through the air.

VI.

Divided 'twixt the dream-world and the real, We heard the waxing passion of the song Soar as to scale the heavens on pinions strong. Amidst the long-reverberant thunder-peal, Against the rain-blurred square of light, the head Of the pale poet at the lyric keys Stood boldly cut, absorbed in reveries, While over it keen-bladed lightnings played. "Rage on, wild storm!" the music seemed to sing: "Not all the thunders of thy wrath can move The soul that's dedicate to worshipping Eternal Beauty, everlasting Love." No more! the song was ended, and behold, A rainbow trembling on a sky of gold!

EPILOGUE.

Forth in the sunlit, rain-bathed air we stepped, Sweet with the dripping grass and flowering vine, And saw through irised clouds the pale sun shine. Back o'er the hills the rain-mist slowly crept Like a transparent curtain's silvery sheen; And fronting us the painted bow was arched, Whereunder the majestic cloud-shapes marched: In the wet, yellow light the dazzling green Of lawn and bush and tree seemed stained with blue. Our hearts o'erflowed with peace. With smiles we spake Of partings in the past, of courage new, Of high achievement, of the dreams that make A wonder and a glory of our days, And all life's music but a hymn of praise.

EMMA LAZARUS.



UNWRITTEN LITERATURE OF THE CAUCASIAN MOUNTAINEERS.

CONCLUDING PAPER.

All or nearly all of the unwritten literature of the Caucasian mountaineers may be referred to one or the other of three great classes. First. Literature which is intended simply to amuse or entertain, including popular tales, beast-fables, anecdotes, riddles and burlesques. Second. Literature which grows out of, and afterward reacts upon, the popular love of glory, of war, of adventure and of heroism, including historical ballads, death-songs and the fiery orations of the mullahs. And third. Literature which serves merely as an outlet for the emotions. A fourth class might perhaps be made of the prayers, exhortations, pious traditions and edifying anecdotes of the theological schools and the mosques, but such productions are more or less alike among all Mohammedan peoples, and those current in the Caucasus are interesting only as illustrations of a peculiar phase of Oriental mysticism—viz. the philosophy of the Murids.

Of these three classes, that which includes anecdotes, beast-fables and popular tales is, although not the most original, by far the most varied and extensive, comprising as it does full four-fifths of the entire body of Caucasian traditionary lore. The popular tales already collected by the officers of the Caucasian mountain administration at Tiflis would make a volume of four or five hundred pages, and as yet the collectors have hardly gone outside the limits of the single province of Daghestan. For the most part, however, these stories are only variants of well-known Aryan and Turanian originals, and are valuable chiefly for their local coloring and for the light which they throw upon the tastes, the habits and the mental processes of a peculiar and long-isolated people. Yet the fact that they are among the oldest heirlooms of the human race does not detract in the least from their value as indices to character. On the contrary, it adds to it by linking them with the folk-lore of the world, and enabling the student to compare them with their original types and understand and estimate aright the significance of the variations. Every one knows how a story is unconsciously varied, colored and adapted in the course of repeated narration to accord with the views, knowledge and tastes of its successive narrators, and how differently the same intellectual framework of fact or fancy will be filled up by the imaginations of different races. This working-over process, which has been going on in the Caucasus without interference and without literary restraint for hundreds—perhaps thousands—of years, has given to Caucasian stories a peculiar psychological interest which in their original forms they never could have had. The themes upon which they were originally founded are most of them perfectly familiar to every student of comparative folk-lore, but the modifications which they have undergone, the changed forms in which they reappear, are all new, and every such change or modification points to some peculiarity in the character of the people who originated it. The variations of a story, therefore, are so many "Fraunhofer's lines" which reveal to us the nature of the intellectual medium through which it has passed. For these reasons the stories, fables and songs which are herewith presented must not be judged by their intrinsic value as literature alone, but by the light which they throw upon the life, tastes, temperament and artistic methods of a semi-barbarous but naturally gifted people.

The space to which I am limited will enable me to give only one or two specimens from each of the three classes into which I have for convenience' sake divided Caucasian literature. I will begin with one of the shortest of its popular tales, a humorous narrative entitled "The Hero Naznai." This story, in one form or another, is common to all branches of the Aryan family, but the mountaineers have so modified and improved it as to make it almost their own. It recites the adventures and achievements of a certain worthless coward who is made by the force of circumstances to appear a hero.

The Hero Naznai.—Listen! listen! There was and there was not. The fox lived with the hare in the fields, the bear lived with the wild-boar in the forest, and in the land of Daghestan there lived a hero, a scurvy fellow without brains or bravery. When he should have been in front he was behind; when he should have been behind he was in front; and if his wife only lifted the poker he hid himself behind the door. Oh, he was very brave! He was called "the hero Naznai." One night he went out of doors to get a drink: it was bright moonlight. Beside him, with a pitcher in her hand, stood his wife. Without his wife he never went out at night: he said, because he didn't like to leave her alone; she said, because he was afraid to go out of doors without her. "What a beautiful night!" exclaimed Naznai—"the very night for a raid."—"Look out!" cried his wife suddenly: "there's a wolf." Naznai, trembling with fear, ran and climbed up into a cart, almost breaking his neck in his haste. His wife led him into the house and said, "I am disgusted with your cowardice, and I am disgusted with you: leave my house this instant (the house belonged to her), or you shall never see another peaceful day: every God-given day, morning and evening, I will pound you with the poker." Naznai begged her to let him stay until daybreak. She consented. In the morning he slung his miserable old sabre over his shoulder and started. Walking and strolling along, he came to a place where some one had been eating fruit, and where there had gathered a great swarm of flies. Picking up a big flat stone, he clapped it down on the very spot, lifted it up, looked, and there lay exactly five hundred dead flies. Then he went on until he reached a certain town, where he inquired for a blacksmith. Having found one, he ordered him to cut on the blade of his sabre this inscription: "The hero Naznai, killer of five hundred at a blow."

Then he went on, on—travelled little, travelled much, travelled as far as a frog can jump—until he came at last to a country where he had never before been, and where he was himself unknown, and entered the capital city of a great king. It was already growing dark, and Naznai was beginning to wonder where he should spend the night, when he heard not far away the sound of fifes, drums and singing. "That's the place for me," he said to himself: "there's nothing worse than a dry throat and an empty stomach." So he went in the direction of the music. When he came to the place he looked, and there stood a great building surrounded by a spacious courtyard, all full of men and women who were eating, drinking and singing. "Will you receive a guest?" inquired Naznai, entering the courtyard. The servants rushed up to him, took his sabre, led him into the house, gave him the seat of honor, and made him eat and drink until he was full up to the very nostrils. The house was the palace of the king's vizier, and they were celebrating that night the wedding of his son. When Naznai had eaten and drunk all he could—enough to last him for a month, the clever rascal!—the vizier asked him, "Where do you come from, guest? Where is your city? Of what country are you? Are you buying or selling?"—"Why should I talk about myself?" replied Naznai. "Look at my sabre: that will tell you who I am." The vizier unsheathed the sabre, looked at it, stared first at Naznai and then at the weapon, and finally rushed, sabre in hand, straight to the king. The king was even more astonished than the vizier. He sent for all the eloquent fools in the city, called together all the wise men who hadn't any judgment, and held a great council. They all said to the king, "You must take the hero Naznai from the land of Daghestan into your service, no matter at what cost, no matter how much you may have to reward him: so long as he lives you will be as safe as if you were behind an iron wall." Then the king sent for Naznai, and the vizier brought him in. "Hero Naznai from the land of Daghestan," said the king—"first I, then you, I the father, you the son—take my only daughter: live with me and defend my kingdom."—"Hard as it is for me," replied Naznai, twisting his moustache, "I will do as you desire." That very night he married the king's daughter, and went to sleep in her arms on a bed from which if one should fall out not even so much as one's bones could ever be gathered together again.[3]

In the course of a week Naznai was summoned to the king, and found him sitting on his throne surrounded by a great multitude of people. "My dear son, Hero Naznai," said the king, "I gave you my daughter and made you my son with the hope that when a black day should come upon me you would give me your help. The black day has come: a great dragon gives no peace to my flocks and my herds. Twice every year, at certain known times, he makes his appearance: to-morrow is the day of his coming. You must go out to meet him: who should go if not you, the killer of five hundred men at a blow?" No sooner did Naznai catch the word "dragon" than his heart sank within him, and hardly had the king finished speaking when he ran furiously out of doors. Some said that he had turned coward: others said, "No: he ran out filled with rage against the dragon." In the mean time Naznai had gone home; and that night, as soon as his wife fell asleep, he took to his heels to save his head. He ran and ran and ran until he was so tired that he could run no farther, and at last came to a great forest. Fearing to sleep on the ground, he climbed up into a tree, and, holding fast to a limb with each hand, he fell asleep. When he awoke he looked down, and there, coiled around the trunk of the tree and fast asleep, lay the dragon. Overcome with terror, Naznai lost his hold, fell from the tree and came down plump on the dragon's back. The dragon thought that God in His wrath had struck him with lightning: his heart burst and he gave up the ghost. Naznai started to run, but, looking over his shoulder, he saw that the dragon did not move. Then he knew that it was dead, and going back he cut off its head and went with it to the king. "Then that is what you call a dragon, is it?" he demanded: "in our Daghestan we have cats like that. Why didn't you send some of your children after him, and not give me so much trouble?" The king could think of nothing to say, and so was left with his mouth open.

After a little time the king sent for Naznai again, and said to him, "My dear son-in-law, Hero Naznai, three narts [giants] have invaded my kingdom and are harassing my people with their raids: to-morrow you must go out against them." Again Naznai's heart sank within him, and he ran home. At midnight he fled a second time from the city, took refuge in the same forest as before, and, climbing up the very same tree, went to sleep. When it began to grow light he looked down, and there were the three narts, who, having hoppled their horses and turned them out to graze, were themselves resting under the tree. Naznai's soul went down into his very toes: he almost fell from the tree in a swoon. Suddenly one of the narts said to another, "Now that the king has in his service the hero Naznai, who kills five hundred at a blow, we must be more careful than we have been, and not turn our horses out in this way to graze."—"We have never been afraid of any living thing yet," rejoined the other: "are we going to let him scare us?" This led to a dispute which ended in a quarrel, and the three narts all killed one another. Then Naznai climbed down out of the tree, cut off their heads, stripped them of their clothes and weapons, which he loaded upon two of their horses, and, mounting the third, rode back to the city. Throwing down the heads before the king, he said, "Then those are your narts? We should have called them orphan children in our Daghestan. What was the use of sending a man after them? Women would have done as well." The king was surprised, so were all the people.

A little while afterward the king summoned Naznai for the third time. "My dear son-in-law," he said, "an infidel king has declared war against me. Tomorrow at the head of my army you must invade his dominions: otherwise the infidel hordes will come down like grass of the earth and like the stars of heaven, and surround our capital." Again Naznai ran home with a quaking heart. That night the king stationed a hundred sentinels around the hero's house to restrain him, lest his rash bravery should impel him to go off alone in search of the infidel horde. In vain he tried again and again to escape from the house: the sentinels always stopped him, and his wife worried over him as if she were afraid that he would be carried away by some passing crow. In the morning the king assembled all his forces, put Naznai in the midst of them, and said, "March now, and God go with you! Whoever does not obey my son-in-law's orders, whoever does not do exactly as he sees him do, is a traitor." The army marched away, taking one step forward to two or three steps backward, until they came in sight of the infidel forces. Then Naznai's heart failed him: he grew hot under his clothes. He took off his shoes, so as to be able to run away faster, then his coat, and finally stripped himself as bare as a cake of ice. The soldiers all followed his example, as the king had ordered. Just at that moment a hungry wandering dog ran past, and seizing one of Naznai's shoes (they were greased with mutton tallow: may their owner die!) set off with it in the direction of the infidel army. "Hm!" exclaimed Naznai: "so you'll make me a laughing-stock too, will you?" and, naked as he was, he started in pursuit. After him rushed the whole naked army. "Those are not men: they are devils," thought the infidels; and, filled with terror, they scattered in all directions, throwing away their weapons and abandoning their treasure. Naznai gathered up all the booty, and returned at the head of the army to the kingdom of his father-in-law. Upon their arrival they found that the king was dead, and the army with one voice chose Naznai as his successor. Ever afterward, when the conversation turned upon heroism and notable exploits, Naznai used to say, "They who will may boast of courage: I would rather have good luck."

If the reader will take the trouble to compare the above rendering of this story with the Hindoo variant entitled "The Valiant Chattee-Maker,"[4] and the closely-related German version called by Grimm "The Valiant Little Tailor,"[5] he will see how far it surpasses them both in unity of conception, in coherence of detail, in keen appreciation of humor and in skill of literary treatment. The grotesque statement of impossibilities with which it begins is the Caucasian story-teller's conventional method of forewarning his hearers that they are about to listen to a burlesque, a pure extravaganza, lying entirely outside the domain of fact and reality. There is no attempt made to give it the air of truth: on the contrary, the narrator takes especial pains to demolish what little intrinsic probability the story has by introducing the conventional formula, "Travelled little, travelled much, travelled as far as a frog can jump," etc. This, like the jingle of a court-jester's bells, is intended to remind the hearer that nothing is to be taken seriously.

It is remarkable that men living in such wild, gloomy fastnesses as the tremendous ravines of the Eastern Caucasus—men whose characters have been hardened and tempered in the hot fires of war and the vendetta—men who have the pride and fortitude of American Indians with the sternness and ferocity of Scandinavian Berserkers—should still be capable of appreciating and enjoying such anecdotes as "The Kettle that Died" and "The Big Turnip," and such popular tales as "The Hero Naznai." The fierce lust of war, which is perhaps the most salient feature of the mountaineer's character, and the sternness and hardness of mental and moral fibre which it tends to produce, are generally supposed to be incompatible not only with the delicacy of perception upon which humor largely depends, but with the very taste for humor itself; and yet in the Caucasian mountaineer they are coexistent. How versatile the Caucasian character is, and how wide is the range of its tastes and sympathies, I shall show more fully hereafter.

The characters which figure in Caucasian popular tales are very numerous, and are taken, as might be expected, from a great variety of sources. There are the stereotyped three brothers of German and Russian stories; the dragons, giants, were-wolves, wicked magicians, and beautiful girls married to bears, of all Aryan folk-lore; and sundry nondescript personages with superhuman powers which have no exact analogues among the other Aryan races, and seem to be original products of Caucasian fancy. Among the latter are karts, female ogres with cannibalistic tastes; narts, or giants of protean shapes and variable dispositions; and certain mysterious equestrians who are always described as "hare-riders." These three classes of supernatural beings, karts, narts and hare-riders, are known to the whole body of the Caucasian mountaineers without distinction of tribe or race; and it is a significant fact that the two first mentioned have everywhere and in all Caucasian languages the same names. By whom they were originally invented, and from what tongue their appellations were derived, philologists can as yet only conjecture. Among the Ossetes, who are unquestionably an Aryan race, narts have a quasi-historical existence like the Knights of the Round Table, and their lives and adventures have been woven by popular tradition into a sort of mediaeval epic resembling the Nibelungen Lied of Germany. Elsewhere, among the Chechenses, the Avars and the Circassians, narts are simply giants of the orthodox nursery type.

It is remarkable that we should also find among the dramatis personae of Caucasian popular tales such Old-Testament heroes as Jonah and Solomon, and such historical characters as the Roman Caesars. The former were very likely introduced by the Jews and Arabs, whose descendants form no inconsiderable part of the present population, but the Roman emperors must have gained a foothold in Caucasian traditional lore before the downfall of the Byzantine Empire, and may have done so as long ago as the reign of Augustus, when the lowlands of the Caucasus were under Roman rule.

Next to anecdotes and stories in importance and popularity come beast-fables, of which the mountaineers have an almost endless number and variety. Animals, especially birds and foxes, figure more or less extensively throughout Caucasian literature, but in the beast-fables, properly so called, they have the whole stage to themselves, and think, act and talk in perfect independence of natural laws and limitations. The view taken by the mountaineers of the animal world seems to be the view of the Aryan races generally. With them, as with us, the fox is the embodiment of cunning, the ass of stupidity, and the bear of clumsy strength and good-humored simplicity. If they can be said to have a favorite animal, it is the wolf, whose predatory life, ferocity when at bay and ability to die fighting and in silence comprise all that in a mountaineer's eyes is most worthy of admiration. "Short-eared wolf" is a Caucasian girl's pet name for her lover, and "wolf of the North" was the most complimentary title which the Chechenses could think of to head an address to a distinguished Russian general whose gallantry in battle had won their respect. The serpent, in the Caucasus, is the Cardinal Mezzofanti of the brute world. To know as many languages as a serpent is the ne plus ultra of polyglot erudition. A swaggering coward is compared to a drunken mouse; and many a boaster on the porch of the Caucasian village mosque has been silenced by some sceptical bystander with the well-known quotation from a popular beast-fable: "'What has become of all the cats?' inquired the drunken mouse." Of the Caucasian beast-fables the following is a characteristic specimen:

The Jackal and the Fox.—Once upon a time a hunter set a trap and baited it with a piece of fat mutton. Along came a hungry fox and discovered it, but, not daring to approach it, she proceeded to walk round and round it at a distance. In the mean time she was joined by a jackal. The fox asked the jackal where he was going. "Oh, I am almost dead with hunger," replied the jackal. "I started to go to the village in search of something to eat, but I am afraid of the dogs."—"Well, Brother Jackal," said the fox, "I know a place not far from here where there lies a big piece of fat mutton: how would you like that?"—"Why don't you eat it yourself?" inquired the jackal.—"I'm now keeping oroozh" [a Mohammedan fast], said the fox, "but I'll show it to you." Whereupon she led the jackal to the trap. Hardly had the jackal seized the mutton when the trap sprung and caught him by the neck. In trying to free himself by shaking his head he dislodged the bait, which rolled away to one side. This was all that the fox had waited for: she quickly seized the mutton, and sat down composedly to eat it. "Here!" exclaimed the jackal: "I thought you said you were keeping a fast, and now you are eating."—"I was," replied the fox, "but I have seen the moon,[6] and now I am having a holiday."—"But when am I going to have my holiday?" asked the jackal.—"When the owner of the trap comes," answered the fox, and so saying walked away.

Most of the Caucasian literature to which I have hitherto had occasion to refer is the reflection of the lighter, more genial side of the mountaineer's character, and taken alone would give the impression that he is an amiable, jovial, good-humored fellow with a keen sense of the ludicrous and little knowledge of, or feeling for, the sorrows, the sufferings and the tragedies of life. Such an impression, however, would be a wholly mistaken one; and in order that the reader may see how full of sorrow and suffering and tragedy his life really is, I will, before taking up Caucasian poetry, give some extracts from a code of Caucasian criminal law. I do this partly because the code itself is a legal and literary curiosity, and partly because it shows better than any description could do the state of society in which a Caucasian mountaineer lives:

Laws of Ootsmee Rustem, Khan of Kaitaga.—1. To the reader of these ordinances a piece of silk from him in whose favor the case shall be decided.

2. He shall not read these laws for any one who has not a paper from the bek, with the impression of the bek's seal.

He who holds his tongue will save his head.

1. He who kills a robber in his sheepfold or his house shall not be punished.

2. He who kills the killer of a robber shall pay two fines and have two blood-enemies.

3. One suspected of robbery shall clear himself by taking the oath of purgation, with seven compurgators.

4. For robbery with murder, a sevenfold fine and seven blood-avengers.

5. For robbery and murder of a woman, a fourteen-fold fine and fourteen blood-avengers.

He who holds his tongue will save his head.

1. He who assaults a woman with intent to commit outrage shall forfeit a thousand yards of linen to the community.

2. The life-blood of him who carries off a woman and keeps her by force shall count for nothing.

3. If a slave touch a free woman, kill him.

4. He who murders a Jew shall fill a part of his skin with silver and give it to the bek.

He who holds his tongue will save his head.

1. If one be killed in a fight between a number of persons, and the killer be unknown, the relatives of the killed may count as blood-enemy any one whom they choose of those engaged in the fight.

2. If in a general fight several persons are killed, the relatives of those who die first shall be the blood-seekers of the relatives of those who die last.

3. If one die from wounds inflicted by several persons, count two of them blood-enemies, and after the killing of one take a fine from the other.

4. He who kills another and hides the body shall pay a sevenfold fine and have seven blood-avengers.

He who holds his tongue will save his head.

1. He who does not at once leave the village where his blood-seekers live shall forfeit one hundred yards of linen for the benefit of the community.

2. If a blood-enemy claim refuge, do not send him away: receive him.

3. If he wishes to go away, let no one travel with him.

4. If one be killed while travelling with a blood-enemy, his blood shall count for nothing.

5. Him through whose betrayal a blood-enemy is killed, count as himself a blood-enemy, with all his family.

He who holds his tongue will save his head.

1. The bek shall summon the general assembly every year: if he does not, remove him.

2. From him who does not come at the bek's call take a hundred yards of linen.

3. From a country without a ruler, from a community without a general assembly, from a flock without a shepherd, from an army without a leader and from a village without aldermen, no good will come. Let him who has sense think of this.

4. Have a care, bek! Speak the truth. Truth exalts a man and makes his power endure for ever. The earth does not consume, but glorifies, the body of him whom God has blessed.

5. Have a care, people of Kaitaga! Receive the truth. It is by justice and truth that a community becomes great.

The above are only a few extracts from a long and detailed code of criminal law written in Arabic and preserved in the mosque of an East Caucasian village. The separate rules are known as adats, or precedents, and the system of jurisprudence founded upon them is called "trial by adat," to distinguish it from the course of procedure laid down in the Koran and known as "trial by shariat." It is hardly necessary to say that in such a state of society as that reflected in this barbarous and archaic code of laws there must exist the elements of the profoundest tragedy and almost infinite possibilities of suffering. Out of grief, tragedy and suffering grows the literature of heroism, bearing fruit in such fierce triumphant songs as the one which follows. It is supposed to be sung by the spirit of a mountaineer who has been killed in battle:

THE DEATH-SONG OF THE CHECHENSE.

The earth is drying on my grave, and thou art forgetting me, O my own mother! The weeds are overgrowing my burial-place, and they deaden even thy sorrow, O my aged father! The tears fall no more from the eyes of my sister, and from her heart the misery is passing away; But do not thou forget me, O my elder brother! until thou shalt have avenged my death; And do not thou forget me, O my younger brother! until thou shalt lie beside me. Thou art hot, O bullet! and thou bringest death, but hast thou not been my true slave? Thou art black, O earth! and thou coverest me, but have I not spurned thee under my very horses' feet? Thou art cold, O death! but I have been thy master. My body is the inheritance of earth, but my soul rises in triumph to heaven.

It would be hard to find in any literature a song which breathes a fiercer, more indomitable, spirit of heroism than this. The mountaineer is dead; he can fight no more; his body lies in the black earth; but his freed soul is as proud, defiant and unconquerable as ever. He takes a fierce delight even beyond the grave in taunting the bullet which has killed him with having once been his slave; in reminding the earth which covers him that he has spurned it under his horses' hoofs; and in mocking and defying even death itself. They have destroyed his body, but nothing has subdued, or ever can subdue, the brave, proud spirit which tenanted it. That, and not the body, was the man's true self, and that still lives to exult over bullet, grave and death.

So far is the true mountaineer from being afraid of death, that he seems to take a savage pleasure in imagining it in its most horrible forms and dwelling upon its most repulsive and terrifying features, merely to have the satisfaction of triumphing over it in fancy. As an illustration of this I give below a part of another Chechense song called "The Song of Khamzat." Khamzat was a celebrated abrek, or Caucasian Berserker, who harried the Russian armed line of the Terek with bloody and destructive raids before and during the reign of the great Caucasian hero Shamyl. He was finally overtaken and surrounded by a large Russian force on the summit of a high hill near the river Terek, called the Circassian Gora. Finding it impossible to escape, he and his men slaughtered their horses, built a breastwork of their bodies, and behind this bloody half-living wall fought until they were literally annihilated. The song of which the following are the closing lines was composed in commemoration of Khamzat's heroic defence and death. Just before the final Russian onset he is supposed to see a bird flying over the field of battle in the direction of his native village, and he addresses it as follows:

O aerial bird! carry to Akh Verdi Mohammed, the ruler of Hikka, our last farewell: Bid good-bye to our sweethearts, the fair girls of Hikka, And tell them that our breasts are a wall which will stop the Russian bullets: Tell them that we had hoped to lie in the graveyard of our native village, Where our sisters would have come to weep over our graves, Where sorrowful relatives would have gathered to mourn our death. But God has not granted us this last favor: instead of the weeping of sisters, Over us will be heard the growls of fighting wolves; Instead of sorrowing relatives, here will assemble clouds of croaking ravens: The ravens will drink up our eyes and the bloodthirsty wolves will devour our bodies. Tell them all, O bird! that on the Circassian mountain, in the land of the infidel, With naked sabres in our hands, we all lie dead.

The reader who merely sees this song on a printed page in an imperfect prose translation can form little conception of the thrilling effect which it produces when sung by an excited woman to the fierce wild music of the Caucasian highlanders amid a group of Khamzat's fiery and sensitive countrymen. Their faces flush with strong emotion, their hands close with nervous grip upon the hilts of their long kinjals, and their bright eyes slowly fill with tears of mingled grief, rage and pity as the excited singer wails out the dying words of their lost leader.

The heroic poetry of the Caucasian mountaineers is largely taken up with recitals of their freebooting exploits and achievements in the valley of Georgia, usually in the form of songs or ballads, which all breathe the same fierce, proud, cruel spirit. In the diction there is very little art. Rhyme, although it is known to the mountaineers, is seldom used, and their poetry is, as a rule, nothing more than rhythmical or blank verse broken into irregular stanzas of from seven to eleven metrical feet. This kind of verse they improvise with great readiness and facility. It seems to be the form of expression which their stronger feelings naturally take. I have heard an Avarian mother chant amid her sobs an improvised but rhythmical lament over the body of her dead child. Rude as Caucasian poetry is, however, in construction, fierce and warlike as it generally is in spirit, one meets occasionally in Caucasian songs with the most delicate and graceful conceptions. Contrast, for example, "The Song of Khamzat" or "The Death-Song of the Chechense" with the following bit of Avarian poetry, which I have taken the liberty of calling: