MY NATIVE LAND.-SIR WALTER SCOTT. BREATHES there the man, with soul so dead, "This is my own, my native land!" From wandering on a foreign strand! O Caledonia! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, That knits me to thy rugged strand! DERVISH FEAST AT ALGERIA.-MAJOR VEREKER. 1. It was the Sheep Feast, a great Mahommedan festival, and an enormous crowd was marching along, preceded by a man bearing a large banner, and by several musicians, who were playing a wild monotonous chant on tambourines and flutes. In front of them advanced a row of the most uncouth men, who halted occasionally to perform religious dances in front of the column. One man had long dishevelled hair, which he tossed about as he rolled his head from side to side, and another had his hair plaited from the top of his head like a Chinese, and kept bobbing his head forward. But the most outlandish of the whole was a Black of the true negro-type, a most animal-like creature, who swayed his body and slobbered over himself in the most disgusting manner. 2. The procession halted after going a few yards, when these hideous savages commenced a frantic dance, two of them whirl ing themselves round and springing together; then one lifted the other high up in the air, the whole yelling madly in time with the music. Gradually they became violently excited, and indulged in gesticulations of increasing wildness, especially the Black, at whom the others pointed and howled, to encourage him. A Marabout came forward and gave the Black an orange, which he devoured voraciously, like a wild beast, out of the Marabout's hand. 3. Then the Black and another uncouth wretch devoured a quantity of the leaves of the variegated thistle, presented to them by the Marabout, holding their hands behind them, and drawing in the leaves with their tongues as they chewed them, like animals. These, I was told, were called the camels, being supposed to represent the habits of those creatures. They swallowed immense mouthfuls at a time. The Marabout then flung an orange on the ground, when the Black threw himself upon it with savage cries, and gorged it as it was, covered all over with the dirt of the road. A second one was thrown down for him, but a little Moorish boy snatched it up and ran off, amidst the execrations of the devout Moslems. 4. The Black performer now began to wax violent, and to glare and slobber frightfully, when a fine, tall fellow, dressed in Zouave costume, came out of the crowd and advised me to put myself under his guidance, as the performers sometimes became delirious from excitement, and “ran a muck”—an offer I gladly accepted, as I thought by his dress that he came from the Arab Bureau. 5. He took me in and out among the performers, who all made way for him, and he procured me the best place for seeing. He told me they were on their way to a Marabout's house close by, where I could see the sword-performances and many other wonderful sights, to which he would get me admission. At the gate of the Marabout's house, he transferred me to the care of a friend, and slipped away mysteriously himself. 6. On entering the court of the Marabout's residence, I found a large and thickly-packed crowd already assembled, but my conductor elbowed his way through, and stationed me upon a chair in the front. On one side of the court stood the Marabout's house, filled with the performers and other people of distinction, and round the other sides rose low, flat-roofed houses, on the tops of which were congregated a number of veiled women, and unveiled Moorish children, who wore conical purple velvet caps, and were attired in gaudy print dresses and common jewellery. 7. A ring of dancers now formed round a tree in the centre of the yard, and the performers went through the same gyrations as when outside, springing suddenly together and lifting each other up among the boughs of the trees. This greatly delighted the women and children above, who gave loud cries of "lou-lou" at each blow of a head against the branches. The drowning music was kept up the whole time, and the two "camels" continued to devour oranges, thistles, and prickly-pear leaves, which latter must have considerably interfered with their internal economy, for even on the hand the little venomous thorns of this plant produce irritation for a couple of days. They appeared, however, to relish the diet much, and the holy man kept up a liberal supply. 8. Now, one man personated a sheep, and another a jackal, which tried to kill the sheep. The rest beat off the jackal; but as he persevered in his attacks, two men lifted up the personator of the sheep on their shoulders, his hands resting on the shoulders of one, and his feet on those of the other. In this painful posture he was borne several times round the court, and dragged through the boughs of the tree, for the special amusement of the spectators on the house-tops, while the jackal continued to leap up, endeavouring to reach his prey. The fellow with the wild floating hair, who had been working himself up to the proper pitch of enthusiasm by swinging his body about to the time of the music, now darted into the Marabout's house and brought out a chafingdish full of red-hot picces of charcoal, some of which he held between his teeth for several seconds, and then threw them into a vessel of water, in order to prove by their hissing that they were still burning hot. But he kept his lips open without letting the coal inside, and his performance was not nearly so good as that of the African fire-eater I had seen in London, when he and his colleagues went there from Paris. This man took the red-hot coal into his mouth, closed his lips and teeth over it, and afterwards blew forth strong flames of lurid fire. 9. To my astonishment, the next who issued forth as a performer was my Zouave acquaintance, who far eclipsed all the others. He had taken off his fez, and his long sweeping hair was hanging wildly about him. He advanced to a brazier of burning charcoal placed on the ground, into which incense was thrown, and swung his head and arms about over the rising vapour with intense violence for several minutes, when he removed his embroidered jacket, and then his shirt, so that the upper part of his body was nude, his head rocking, and his hair swaying in the wind, all the time. On a signal from him, a Marabout presented him with a naked scimitar, whereupon he kissed the feet of the Marabout, and ran the sword across his own tongue. Two men now came forward and held the scimitar between them, when he flung himself upon it on his bare stomach, and in this way he was carried three times round the yard amid rapturous lou-lous from above. When he ceased, the scimitar had sunk deeply into the flesh of his stomach, which had folded over it so that it required an effort to extract the weapon. A deep red welt remained, but no blood flowed. He next stood with his bare feet on the edge of the blade, and was borne round in like manner, standing on the weapon. After this he lay upon the ground on his back, and the scimitar was held over his stomach by two men, while a third stood upon the blade. This appeared to inflict dreadful torture on the victim, but gave intense gratification to the female spectators in the upper gallery, who became louder than ever in their vociferations. These feats must have caused him much suffering, for at the conclusion he was in a profuse perspiration, and was laid on the ground and covered over for some time, after which he was supported into the house in a state of apparent exhaustion, doubtlessly with a bad headache after all the churning his brain had undergone. 10. The pace at which the performers moved now became severe, and numbers of the devotees, including the revolting Black, fell down in ecstatic swoons, in which state they were carried away to the Marabout's house. WHATSOEVER thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest.-ECCLES. ix. 10. SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY'S VISIT TO WESTMINSTER ABBEY.-ADDISON. ADDISON, JOSEPH, the son of a clergyman, was born in 1672. He wrote plays, poems, and essays, &c., but is remembered chiefly by his essays. They were written chiefly in the Spectator, a periodical which he founded. His style is perfect, of its kind. He died in 1719 at the early age of 47. 1. My friend Sir Roger De Coverley1 told me the other night that he had been reading my paper upon Westminster Abbey, "in which," says he, "there are a great many ingenious fancies." He told me at the same time, that he observed I had promised another paper upon the tombs, and that he should be glad to go and see them with me, not having visited them since he had read history. I could not at first imagine how this came into the knight's head, till I recollected that he had been very busy all last summer upon Baker's Chronicle2, which he has quoted several times in his disputes with Sir Andrew Freeport3 since his last coming to town. Accordingly, I promised to call upon him the next morning, that we might go together to the Abbey.1 2. I found the knight under the butler's hands, who always shaves him. He was no sooner dressed, then he called for a glass of the widow Truby's medicinal water, which he told me he always drank before he went abroad. He recommended to me a dram of it at the same time, with so much heartiness, that I could not forbear drinking it. As soon as I had got it down, I found it very unpalatable; upon which the knight, observing that I had made several wry faces, told me that he knew I should not like it at first, but that it was the best thing in the world for the constitution. 3. I could have wished, indeed, that he had acquainted me with the virtues of it sooner; but it was too late to complain, and I knew what he had done was out of good-will. Sir Roger told me further, that he looked upon it to be very good for a man whilst he stayed in town, to keep off infection, and that he got together a quantity of it, upon the first news of the sickness being at Dantzic3: when of a sudden, turning short to one of his servants who stood behind him, he bade him call a hackneycoach, and take care that it was an elderly man that drove it. 4. He then resumed his discourse upon Mrs. Truby's waters, telling me that the widow Truby was one who did more good than all the doctors and apothecaries in the country; that she distilled every poppy that grew within five miles of her; that she |