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in chorus to enliven the toilers. endeavouring to keep order The whole gathering bore such and placing the more riotous an aspect of jollity and good of the soldiery under arrest. fellowship that no stranger would have deemed that it was in reality a seditious meetingthe individuals who were thus honoured being almost invariably men imprisoned for high treason. The same compliment was, however, occasionally paid to others well affected towards the Government-Mr Moore, our author's host, being one of the few thus specially singled out. The digging and gathering completed, the whole assembly formed in military array and marched off six deep to the sound of horns and trumpets, each digger carrying his spade upon his shoulder, whilst the mounted force closed in behind. These potato - diggings were shortly afterwards prohibited by the Government.

In Belfast Latocnaye came in for King George's birthday rejoicings. The town was illuminated in honour of the auspicious occasion, and the soldiers of the garrison in particular distinguished themselves by demonstrations of loyalty that were somewhat alarming to the rest of the inhabitants. They carried their officers shoulder - high through the streets, and ran about cheering and breaking all windows that were not lit up. They made their way down even into the back streets and alleys, and continued the work of destruction there. General Lake, the officer in command, was riding about the streets all night,

From this time onwards the young French sieur began to find travelling afoot much less pleasant than before. Some of those to whom he had letters of introduction viewed him with suspicion because he was a Frenchman, and therefore presumably a revolutionary agent. Others again, whose own sympathies inclined towards revolt, on learning that he was provided with passports from the Irish Government, immediately concluded that he was a spy sent out by the authorities to report upon the condition of affairs in the disaffected districts. These last, however, Latocnaye was frequently able to disarm by the simple expedient of unfurling his umbrella and displaying its green lining.

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The aspect of Dublin, too, he found to have changed mightily, and not for the better, during the months that he had been away. Instead of routs and assemblies, there was nothing now but drilling and arming. All the upper classes were joining the yeomanry, counsellors and attorneys had their own companies, both mounted and foot, and not only the professors and students of Trinity College, but even the revenue officers and the merchants of the city were all enlisting, and had each their own special corps that they belonged to.

Latoonaye was only present at one public function, and it was of a vastly different nature from that festive occasion of

the previous year when the Lord Lieutenant had sailed into the Canal Basin amidst the acclaiming multitudes. The printer of the 'Press,' the organ of the United Irishmen, who had been put on trial for the seditious utterances of his newspaper, was sentenced to pay a fine of five hundred pounds, and to stand in the pillory for several hours. During the whole time of his exposure the two rebel leaders, Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Arthur O'Connor, stood one on either side of him, to cheer and encourage him during the ordeal; and he himself, surrounded though he was by soldiers, and with his head and his hands protruding from the wooden frame, was yet bold enough to call out to the crowd to keep up good heart, for the Republicans of France would soon come to their aid again, and the next time that they came they would not fail of their purpose. Within a few days his friends had raised a subscription of no less than a thousand pounds for him, and another printer was found with sufficient hardihood to carry on the 'Press,' of which later on Arthur O'Connor himself undertook the editing.

More than once it was given out in Dublin that the expected general rising would take place

upon some day which W88 named, and though such rumours always proved baseless, yet Latocnaye began to mark groups of men hanging about the quays and corners of the streets whose squalid rags and scowling faces brought back forcibly to his mind the early days of the French Revolution. He had intended to prolong his stay in Ireland for some time, and even to undertake another tour through the central parts of the island and along the canals and waterways, but he had had enough of the one revolution which he had experienced. He had no desire to find himself involved in another, or rather in an insurrection, for the shrewd young Frenchman entertained doubts as to what the outcome of any rising in Ireland must be. The Government there, he deemed, were not likely to display the weakness and incapacity of the ruling powers in France, but for which the tide of anarchy, in his judgment, might in its beginning have been stayed. None the less he thought that a country where uprising and civil war were imminent was not a desirable place to linger in, and accordingly he sailed away to Scotland in the early days of 1798, just before the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion.

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SOME MEXICAN VOLCANOES.

IT was about the middle of August when I sailed from Jamaica to Vera Cruz in the good ship Darien of the then West India and Pacific Line. It is the right thing to call every ship in which one travels "the good ship," but for unmitigated discomfort give me, not the Darien, indeed, but any ship which plies in tropic seas during the heat of summer. The journey was uneventful, the heat intense. We were a small party in the saloon: some three or four commercial travellers, who, when I informed them that I was bound on a trip to climb the Mexican volcanoes, were uncertain whether to regard me as a harmless lunatic or a suspicious personage endeavouring to get the better of them with some new sample; one horrid boy of ten or twelve summers, who confided in me, with practical illustrations, that a toothpick was a really useful article, because you could use one end for the teeth and the other for the nails! and one fair damsel only. Alas! she never appeared. I saw her when I embarked at Kingston, and marked the "golden glory of her hair." That night was rough, and much crockery was broken, including, so I was afterwards told, some bottles in the fair one's cabin. In the early dawn, as we were nearing Mexico, I saw her for the second time, and, from a curious optical illusion, could have

VOL. CLXXXVI.-NO. MCXXVIJ.

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If, however, the dawn, on that day of nearing Vera Cruz, disillusionised me in one respect, in another it made up for it. Never, till I die, shall I forget the glory of that sunrise.

I was on deck a full hour before dawn, a good performance for a habitually lazy man, but the grilling heat of my cabin would account for much. I found that we were about thirty miles from Vera Cruz, steaming due westward; the dim outline of the coast, or rather the inland mountains, showing up faintly against the starry heavens. As morning approached, this dim outline hardened, as the figures on the sheet when the focus of the magic - lantern is adjusted, and as my eye followed their indented outline with keen satisfaction,-What was that?

A crimson cloud over the culminating-point of the ridge? Impossible, in such a cloudless sky. It is! it must be! the snow-capped peak of Orizaba catching the first glow of the sunrise. No doubt about it soon; the crimson turns to gold, the gold to gleaming

white. How could a mountaineer who had seen a sunrise in the Alps mistake it? How could he fail, and I assuredly did not, to swear to conquer that summit, if it were possible?

But these distant views are all very well in their way. It is high time to get to the base, if not to the summit, of one volcano at any rate. One day's pause at Vera Cruz, and then two days at Fortin, and one at the town of Orizaba, served only to intensify my desire to tread the summit of that glorious peak, seen from this point as a white cone with a ridge of fantastic rocky pinnacles stretching to the westward. Another view as we reach the high plateau at San Andres, and then the train bears us forward through fields of agave, source of the national drink-pulque, towards the historic city of Mexico. As we approach, appears a rival vision. The twin volcanoes, "Popo" and "The White Lady," rise up in all their beauty on our left, and tempt me from my allegiance. But I am firm: Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl I hope to climb, Orizaba I will.

I must confess that the city of Mexico, full of interest and gaiety, and the very hearty welcome extended to me by friends at the Anglo-American and the Jockey Clubs, put all thoughts of climbing out of my head for at least ten days. It was only when I had been laid a bet, or rather two, about my success in getting to the top of the three volcanoes, that I realised that a continual round

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of dances, boliche parties, and excellent suppers, combined with occasional late sittings at the roulette and baccarat tables, were not the best training for mountain expeditions. It was at the Club one day that a genial doctor, on hearing that I proposed to attack the three volcanoes, said, "Well, my boy, I'll lay you 3 to 1 against your getting up all three of them, and evens that you don't climb two." "I'll take you," said I, "but what in?" Hats," was the answer, which for a moment rather staggered me. The Mexican hat, conical, wide brimmed, and about two feet high, is one of the most striking features of the landscape to the stranger's eye. Every Mexican, from the poorest peon to the richest ranch - owner, may be seen wearing one, the former often going without boots to spend another dollar on his headcovering. You may pay almost anything for them from one to several hundred dollars, the price varying with the amount of gold or silver lace with which they are embroidered. As a medium for betting, however, a hat I found meant 10 dollars, as exchange went then, about 25s.

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Some few days later, accompanied by a friend, Dr S. from Washington, I started off to do battle with the first of the giants, Popocatepetl. We took train to Amecameca, a pretty little village, delightfully situated at the base of the twin volcanoes, where Dr S., whose Spanish was more fluent than my own, saw to the collecting of guides, ponies, provisions,

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&e., and after luncheon we streaming eyes, for the wood started at 2 P.M. for the hut, smoke was most pungent, the which is used as a shelter for unusual scene. Our meal dethe Indians who are employed spatched, we retired to the in extracting sulphur from the straw couches in a corner of crater of the volcano. Here it the room, and settled down, is usual for those who intend but not to sleep. The wind ascending Popocatepetl to spend raged and howled outside, and the night-I should hardly say even in the tropics, at a height to sleep, unless our experience of 13,000 ft. above sea-level, was an exceptionally bad one. "the wind bites shrewdly, it is We left Amecameca in brilliant very cold." Through the cracks sunshine, and the shade of the between the stones came forest through which our steep piercing draught of freezing path led was at first most air (it was now snowing hard gratifying, but as we neared outside), so that we lay with the tree limit a sad change took one side in a temperature of place in the weather. Heavy about 32° Fahr., while the other clouds encircled the giant's roasted in smoky clouds from head, and cold blasts of wind, the wood fire. The atmosphere with occasional drifting showers became ever thicker with smoke of rain and sleet, came whirling of fire and tobacco, blended down from the snows above. with the steam from sodden We were wet, cold, and hungry clothes and the natural smell when we reached the hut, and of humanity, mainly unwashed worse than that, dispirited, for humanity, while through all the weather gave but little pierced the insistent, permeatpromise of a successful ascent ing smell of burning sulphur, next morning. The hut was and that delightful gas, sulcrowded with Indians, who had phuretted hydrogen, which rebeen driven down from the sembles nothing so much as summit of the mountains by rotten eggs. And so we waited the bad weather, and the atmosphere was indescribable. It was a picturesque scene enough: a large open fire in the middle of the room shed a ruddy, flickering light on the roof beams and the rough walls of stone and wood. Against it the figures of the Indians, ranged round in a circle of varying poses, were dimly silhouetted through the smoky air. A friendly welcome was extended to us, and soon our guides were busy preparing a meal, while we sat, smoking in self-defence, and watched with

for the dawn.

It came dismally. At 4 A.M., when we ought to have made a move, it was still snowing and sleeting hard, but at five it began to get clearer, and about six we started to ride up to the snow-line. Soon we found that our own legs would carry us better than the ponies, willing little animals though they were. The track was very rough, and the rarefied air told on them greatly. It seemed cruelty to animals to ride such grunting, gasping little beasts, SO we got off and led

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