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of her century, of Lloyd's, and of fa- colonists in the splendid pasturage

vorable terms of insurance.

On Thetis we spent many weeks, and endured many things during her efforts to get the upper hand of the weather. A pilot and an officer of customs were our fellow-travellers. The revenue of the Falklands, which are a Crown colony, depends largely on the drink duties, and Mr. Poppy is sent round on the merchant ships by the government to guard against unlawful landing of liquor at the different ports. Mr. Poppy is a man of reading, and is quite prepared to discuss the "fourth R.," or the position of the Russian autocrat. "Yes," he says, "I would rather be plain John Poppy than the czar of Russia any day."

Well said, O Poppy, whose duties lie with wax and seal (or tailor's button, if they want the seal ashore) and a polite if careful scrutiny of landed cargo, with occasional tapping of а guilty looking barrel, to end in vinegar and vituperation. Many a half-hour of discussion had we passed with Poppy on the afterhatch before the cargo was replaced by the inexcisable fleeces.

Charlie Gibbert was our pilot-one of the many Charlies of the Falklands, from African "Black Charlie" to "Charlie the Masher," a Swedish Adonis at a coast settlement.

It is said that a boat-load of shipwrecked sailors once landed on the Falklands, and saw approaching down the beach Black Charlie aforesaid. Beholding in him a cannibal chief, attired in the garments of the latest victim, they turned to the mercies of the deep, and put to sea with the fervor of terror, leaving their would-be rescuer arrested with astonishment at their incomprehensible flight from his benevolence. Black Charlie is now skipper of the private yawl at Pebble Island, having lost his command of the Ione on the day on which she foundered in Tamar Pass before mentioned.

We were once at anchor for a week in Gull Harbor, Weddell Island, and being somewhat weary of the vast stretches of moorland which, whatever compensation they may have to the

they afford to the sheep, alike their wealth and occupation, are nevertheless very dreary to the eye, we thought that we ought to climb a hill and see how the country looked from the top. So on a warm, calm morning we started up Mount Weddell (twelve hundred and fifty feet); first, over a fence or two, through thick, dry fern like polypodium, only with glossy leaves; up higher, where green and orange moss straggled over the ground amidst the dun-colored herbage; then across a stone-run, jumping from one great boulder to another to reach the softer ground beyond the stony torrent. These stone-runs have furnished much matter for speculation, and if our memory holds good, it was Darwin who pointed out their probable origin in glacial surroundings-the moraine still spread upon the mountain-side, whence ice has long since melted away. So perhaps will appear mountains of Switzerland when bergs meet their dissolution in Lac Léman, whence steamer traffic shall ere that have been ousted by the flying fleet of Hiram. Upwards still we go, with a blazing sun now beating on our backs. A cold country, forsooth! We are panting now for a gale to cool the air, with a handkerchief tucked into our hat and collar to preserve from sunstroke. With joy we gain the summit, and cast our limbs upon a granite slab aloft to rest awhile.

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Since then we have experienced the necessity of holding on to the jagged peaks aloft to steady ourselves in the blast, when only a fresh breeze was blowing in the plain below. Far and wide below us now is camp-land, motionless, except for shimmering of heated air, or for the moving shadow where horsemen are driving the flocks towards the stream for "dipping." Below is "Circum" Island, named on the New Year's day of its discovery, and the mainland of the West Falkland farther off still, with sea between

blue and shining waters with oily streaks kelp-calmed, and in some bay the curve of surf moving SO slowly

and noiselessly upwards, as eye and brain aver in self-deceived conjunction. Below us, too, is Thetis and her cargo-raft half-way to shore, with flashing oars made silver by the water and the sun, and Castalia lying helpless, gleaming virid as the coppered roof of La Madeleine; and again, farther to the north, the sheds and the more distant houses of the settlement. Down hill we go, with a pleasant breeze now rising in our face, to the hospitable camphouse, where a gentle shepherdess has a welcome and a meal, and her own gracious company awaiting us.

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As some small set-off against the dun-colored wastes, many of the islets are covered with the giant tussac grass, which grows in huge tufts, far higher than a man, and forms a firstrate food for cattle, for which purpose it is regularly gathered. Amongst the tussac, in holes burrowed deep in the earth, live the penguins, of which several varieties are found, the common "jackass" black and white, filling the twilight with discordant brayings, the "rocky," with a yellow tuft upon head, and the "gentu," with a grebelike breast, and beak, claws, and topknot of bright scarlet. Stray specimens of the great king penguin have also been found, but no rookery of them appears to exist. In winter most of these penguins leave their holes and journey to the South American continent, making their mysterious passage with that instinctive surety which leaves man so far behind, and they will return next season to inhabit the very burrows they deserted, some of the birds having been marked by the settlers before migration for purposes of observation.

When pursued they rush for their holes, flippers waving, and looking much like a crowd of irate barristers, or plunge into the waves, diving in long sweeps beneath the water with great strength and swiftness. The foolish jackass, although providing itself with a snug nursery, makes its nest and lays two or three eggs at the mouth of its hole. The eggs are some.

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times eaten, being by no means SO fishy as might be supposed, but rather flavorless in comparison with a hen's egg. The gentu lays an egg about four times the size of a hen's egg, with a shell of a beautiful bluegreen color, and a blood-red yolk. These answer well enough for cooking purposes, coloring everything with rich apricot tint. The large white eggs of the mollyhawk, or mollymauk, a bird of the albatross kind, are considered better than those of the penguin; and that there is some demand for the various kinds may be gathered from the fact that a schooner, laden with eggs, recently returned from the West Falkland Island to Stanley and sold her cargo within a few hours at the rate of sixteen shillings a hundred. Hens' eggs are scarce in that settlement. The eggs of the tern and oystercatcher slightly resemble the plovers' eggs, which are destroyed wholesale by London epicures. There is a great variety of gulls round the islands, and several kinds of carrion birds, which perform a useful office in devouring the refuse of the thousands of sheep slaughtered annually, but some of which are detestable to the settlers from their treatment of the young lambs, whose eyes they will pluck out at the moment of birth. Gunpowder warfare has therefore been waged with them, and their numbers have greatly diminished; still, the fringed wings of the "Johnny Rook" are seen hovering aloft, and the crafty eye of the turkey-buzzard (a different bird from his American namesake) marks its prey at closer quarters when killing is going on. These birds are incredibly impudent, and have been known to carry off a knife laid down for a moment during skinning operations.

The "stinker" and sea-hen are aquatic birds of a dirty brown color. A white "stinker" was once reported, but is at any rate extremely rare. Shags abound; also the logger-head or steamer-duck, which, when disturbed, flaps clumsily through the water, churning up the foam in its wake. This bird, like several other amphibi

ous ones, has a hard yellow excrescence like a corn on the joint of the wing, where the friction of the water is chiefly felt. The male logger-heads fight tremendously, and will even drown a vanquished foe by holding its head under water.

Amongst the land birds are the kelp and upland geese, the latter edible, but resembling rather rabbit than the fat stubble goose of Ingoldsby; they may pass, however, with sage and onions, and imagination, and afford some sport, although it is almost necessary to knock them over with the gun-stock before they will rise. We may recall Captain Kennedy's famous bags, chronicled for the stirring up of stayat-home scepticism, and including such an item as geese twenty thousand. Yet the geese still prevail, walking fearlessly about the settlements, and eating, under the very eyes of the farmer, the grass he destined for his muttons.

The men-of-war have shot off most of the rabbits with which the charts credit some of the settlements; indeed the only rabbit we ourselves saw was a tame one in a shepherd's cottage. This rabbit, caught by the children in its wild infancy, is more like a lop eared specimen of the tame kind than our prick-eared fellows in English burrows. This, however, is easily explained, for it seems that the wild rabbits in the Falklands resulted from tame ones let loose in the early days of the colony.

The fresh water teal is the best bird for sport and for eating, and has given a name to several of its haunts, such as Teal Creek and Teal Inlet on the East Falkland, and Teal River on the West. Snipe, too, may be found; and a settler some years ago sent some home by a frozen-meat ship to his friends, who could at will astound same in their guests with the the height of the London season. The shooting of the wild cattle, descendants from the first with which the islands were stocked, used to form great part of the sport of the Falklands, exciting in proportion to the

risk-no small one-of being unhorsed under the onslaught of a furious bull. There are many tales of narrow escape, one of the most thrilling concerning a hunter who was thrown from his horse by a bull at which he had unsuccessfully fired. Before he could rise again the bull charged him, giving him little time even for that bird's-eye view of his misdemeanors which is said to be offered to us all when in a similarly tight corner of this life. He went up into the air on the beast's horns, as was inevitable, but not impaled, for by a marvellous chance, and to give him time for repentance may be, he had been caught by his leather belt, and the bull and he could not get rid of each other. This was not at all the bull's game, and he started to plunge across the campland bellowing with fury. Certainly there is nothing like leather, for the belt held, and they travelled thus for miles, as it seemed, though not much power of computation could be left to any one whose brains were being rattled in his skull in such a progress.

But in a gleam of recollection the captive remembered his sharp knife in the sheath at his waist, and drawing it out he contrived, half shorn of strength though he was, to hack at the throat of the beast, to go on hacking till the bellowing was choked with gore, and the brute fell dying in its blood-stained track.

Whatever one may have seen in the Falklands, however, the strongest impression is ever of tearing wind and weather unforeseen, of thick blackness and straining canvas, and weary wearing of the ship in the teeth of the gale, with the rocks on either hand, in an impenetrable midnight. And the moral to the tale is pointed in many harbors by the ribs of lost vessels, now a mass of weed and shell and resting sea-birds. Some of the local craft are still afloat, it is true-Fair Rosamond, with the R.Y.S. upon her rubber deck-mats, recalling her yachting sisterhood with the Queen Eleanor, and the Fortuna, Mr. Adrian Hope's beautiful yacht, purchased by the

Falkland Islands Company in 1893. Yet who can hope for their long life who sees the dismasted hulks converted to base uses in Stanley Harbor, or hears the water washing through the rents in poor Castalia's sides? One might go far afleld in speculation concerning the vagaries of the tempests which war around this land of derelicts and Cape Horn. Can the meeting of those two great oceans-differing so widely as they do, after their vast severance by the New World-be concerned in these enigmas? or do the cooling peaks of mighty Andes destroy the equilibrium of the air-strata, goading them into an irreconcilable confusion? Quien sabe?

K. A. PATMORE.

From The Cornhill Magazine. WOLD JIMMY AND ZAIREY. Old Jimmy and Zairey Manney were well known to all Barleigh folks, but as their cottage stood some distance off the highway, to the right of the first acclivity on the Suckton road, they were not often seen in Barleigh. The cottage had been tenanted by several generations of Manneys; Jimmy was born in it, and thence, at the age of sixteen, he ran away to go down to the sea in ships. Manney after Manney had lived and died in Barleigh, and his parents ever afterwards were continually bickering as to the source of the errant strain which they considered disgraced the Manney blood. When he was next seen in the village he was a tanned and bearded man, with a turn of speech and strange oaths that were a wonder in Barleigh. If I may trust the grey beards, no other Barleighan up to that time had ever been a mariner, and for weeks a goodly company gathered nightly in the "Blue Boar" to listen his strange experiences. Barleigh swallowed invention and fact with the same sublime credulity; they were prepared to believe anything of "Chaney and they world-end parts."

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It was love that overcame the wanderer in him. He never went to sea again. He told Sarah Best that she was the sweetest maid to be found the world over, and he had seen the maids countries. of all Sarah, who had never seen the ocean, but had a great horror of it, nevertheless, became his bride on the understanding that "he salt would never put foot on water again."

Jimmy took his bride to the ancestral his home, which they shared with widowed father, and found employment as road-mender. When the old man died, a year later, the furniture, two cows and a pig fell to him, and the young people were well-to-do according to the Barleigh standard.

Two sons were born to them. The inherited taint manifested itself, and they both ran away to sea within three years of each other. Jimmy, the eldest, shipped as cabin-boy on board a Baltic barque, and never returned from his first voyage. Robert, who was more imaginative, betook himself to the navy, and had to retire after a Gold Coast engagement with one leg and a shattered right hand. He came home, but Barleigh was too dull for him, and after a few weeks he made his way to Portsmouth. After vain endeavors to face the world again he was admitted into a Sailors' Home, and his parents never saw him again. It was a cup of sorrow in the old folks' lives; they had taken a magnificent pride in their sturdy sons, who were to be the stout props on which they were to lean in their old age. Now the props were wanting, and the bitterness of it ate deep into their hearts.

Jimmy was strong and robust, and he worked for over thirty years on the Barleigh and Suckton highway-a short, ruddy-faced man with keen eyes and a tongue of homely wit. With the two cows and a few pigs and the twelve-and-six a week he асcounted himself a happy man, and prided himself on his magnificent constitution that had so long defied the rains and snows and biting winds that

swept over the moorland. But Neme- zhall us do?" was the burden of the

sis lies in wait for the peasant, and sooner or later, unless he is greatly beloved by the gods, he has to succumb. There are few men who brave nature in all her moods, day after day, that she fails to conquer at last.

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One memorable Friday, when he was near his seventieth birthday, he was at work on the highway when a sudden storm of rain was driven up from the sea. It was the open moorland and there was no shelter, and he went quietly on with his work while the rain drenched him through and through. But he recked not of it; for years he had laughed at the weather. The cloud passed, and the sun broke forth with cheery warmth, and reached home "only a bit dampish." On the Sunday morning he was taken with a shivering fit, and could not go to church-the first time he had missed for a dozen years. After dinner, sitting, as was his custom, in the armchair near the fire, he turned pale, and, rising up, staggered out, saying he had not milked the cow. Zairey followed him, and found him clinging to the pig-sty. "He felt a bit 'mazed," he said.

With a strength born of fear she got him up-stairs and put him to bed. He lay unconscious for six weeks with inflammation of the brain, and when at last he was convalescent, he was but a shadow of the sturdy road-maker, and with a weakened mind that altogether failed him at times.

He never worked again. Husband and wife had been harmoniously frugal, and behind a loosened brick in the great chimney was a purse containing thirty pounds. But the sickness, with its consequent expenses-Zairey would have died rather than plead poverty to the doctor when his bill, "eight pounds fifteen shillings," had to be paid-had made a great hole in it. When Jimmy had been an invalid for a year there was but a few pounds left, and Zairey suddenly realized that she was an old woman whose natural force was fast abating.

old man's complaint, as he sat in the chimney-corner in the long autumn evenings watching his wife, frail and worn herself, as she knitted unceasingly.

Zairey kept a brave front to him. It was only in solitude that she was abject before the approaching shadow. "The Lord'll provide, Jim. We've bin blessed in the world's goods ZO far, and the Lord'll provide." Zairey's tone was cheerful, and Wold Jimmy's ears were dulled and could detect no quaver in it.

"The things be gwain, my maid," the old man would say in a pitiful attempt to face the possibilities.

"Don't 'ee grumble now. We've the cow and the heifer and a vew pounds left. P'raps the Lord'll zee fit to take us booth at oncet avore it be all gone. Don't 'ee worry."

Jimmy looked at his shrunken arms mournfully. “And I was zo strong as a harse avore I took thik cold. Just a wetten, zame as a score ov times, and now zo weak as watter. The ways ov things, the ways ov things! If we can get through the winter wi' what we have p'raps they'll take I—"

"Do 'ee be quiet and don't 'ee trouble."

"Iv it should come to thatJimmy stopped and cast a fearful look in the direction of Suckton. At Suckton was the place of "Damnation." It is ever the skeleton at the peasant's banquet.

Zairey laughed. "The bemoanen ways ov men! What pore creatures ye be! Just 'ee repeat the twentythird Psalm, Jimmy Manney, and let that be sufficient vor 'ee."

Zairey did not break down until she was alone. She had seen "Damnation" when it was yet farther off, and she sent one oft-repeated prayer up to heaven: "May it please 'ee, Lord, to ze fit to take we boöth togeder thease winter."

The spring came and Wold Jimmy's arms were more shrunken still, and his gait was a feeble totter. Asthma "What zhall us do, Zairey? what had racked him all through the winter,

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