So there is a small joke recorded of an emperor, who,
having long been teazed by an importunate talker,
asked him who and what he was. The man replied in
pique, "Do you not see by my beard and mantle that
I am a philosopher?" "I see the beard and mantle,"
said the emperor; "but the philosopher, where is
he?"
The idea that there existed a connexion between a
man's vigor of mind and body, and vigor of growth in
his beard, was confirmed by the fact that Socrates, the
wisest of the Greek philosophers, earned pre-eminent-
ly the title of the bearded. Among races of men
capable of growing rich crops on the chin, the beard
has always been regarded more or less as a type of
power. Some races, as the Mongolians, do not get
more than twenty or thirty thick coarse hairs, and are
as likely then to pluck them out after the fashion of
some northern tribes, as to esteem them in an exag-
gerated way, as has been sometimes the case in China.
In the world's history the bearded races have at all
times been the most important actors, and there is no
part of the body which, on the whole, they have shown
more readiness to honor. Among many nations, and
through many centuries, development of beard has been
thought indicative of the development of strength, both
bodily and mental. In strict accordance with that feel-
ing, the strength of Samson was made to rest in his hair.
The beard became naturally honored, inasmuch as it is a
characteristic feature of the chief of the two sexes (I
speak as an ancient), of man, and of man only, in the
best years of his life, when he is capable of putting
forth his independent energies. As years multiply
and judgment ripens, the beard grows, and with it
grows, or ought to grow, every man's title to respect.
Gray beards became thus so closely connected with
the idea of mature discretion, that they were taken
often as its sign or cause; and thus it was fabled of
the wise king Numa, that he was gray-haired even in
his youth.

was the beard of the carpenter depicted in the Prince's
Court at Eidam; who, because it was nine feet long,
was obliged, when at work, to sling it about him in a
bag. A beard like either of those is, however, very
much of a phenomenon in nature. The hair of a man's
head is finer, generally, than that on the head of a
woman, and if left uncut, would not grow to nearly the
same length. A woman's back-hair is an appurtenance
entirely and naturally feminine. In the same way, the
development of the hair upon the face of men, if left
unchecked-although it would differ much in different
climates, and in different individuals-would very
rarely go on to an extravagant extent. Shaving com-
pels the hair to grow at an undue rate. It has been
calculated that a man mows off in the course of a
year about six inches-and-a-half of beard, so that a
man of eighty would have chopped up in the course
of his life a twenty-seven foot beard; twenty feet more,
perhaps, than would have sprouted, had he left nature
alone, and contented himself with so much occasional
trimming as would be required by the just laws of
cleanliness and decency.

heightened by physical weakness, and to the man attributes of dignity and strength. A thousand delicate emotions were to play about the woman's mouth, expressions that would not look beautiful in man. We all know that there is nothing more ridiculous to look at than a ladies' man who assumes femininity to please his huge body of sisters, and wins their confidence by making himself quite one of their own set. The character of woman's beauty would be marred by hair upon the face; moreover, what rest would there ever be for an infant on the mother's bosom, tickled perpetually with a mother's beard? Not being framed for active bodily toil, the woman has not the man's capacious lungs, and may need also less growth of hair. But the growth of hair in women really is not much less than in the other sex. The hair upon a woman's head is, as a general rule, coarser, longer, and the whole mass is naturally heavier than upon the head of a man. Here, by the way, I should like to hint a question, whether, since what is gained in one place seems to be lost in another, the increased growth at the chin produced by constant shaving may not help to account for some part of the weakness of hair upon the crown, and of the tendency to premature baldness which is so common in English civilized society?

It has been erroneously asserted that a growth of beard would cover up the face, hide the expression of the features, and give a deceitful mark of uniform sedateness to the entire population. As for that last The hair upon the scalp, so far as concerns its meassertion, it is the direct reverse of what is true. Sir chanical use, is no doubt the most important of the Charles Bell, in his essay on expression, properly ob- hair crops grown upon the human body. It preserves serves that no one who has been present at an assem- the brain from extremes of temperature, retains the bly of bearded men can have failed to remark the greater warmth of the body, and transmits very slowly any variety and force of the expressions they are able to con- impression from without. The character of the hair vey. What can be more portentous, for example, than depends very much upon the degree of protection to see the brow cloud and the eyes flash and the nos-needed by its possessor. The same hair-whether of trils dilate over a beard curling visibly with anger? the head or beard-that is in Europe straight, smooth, How ill does a smooth chin support any time the char- and soft, becomes after a little travel in hot climates acter assumed by the remainder of the face, except it crisp and curly, and will become smooth again after a be a character of sanctimonious oiliness that does not return to cooler latitudes. By a natural action of the belong honestly to man, or such a pretty chin as makes sun's light and heat upon the hair that curliness is prothe charm that should belong only to a woman or a duced, and it is produced in proportion as it is required, To revert to the subject of shaving. Tacitus says child! until, as in the case of negroes under the tropical suns of that in his time the Germans cut their beards. In our Therefore I ask, why do we shave our beards? Africa, each hair becomes so intimately curled up with times among that people the growth of a beard, or at Why are we a bare-chinned people? That the hair its neighbors as to produce what we call a woolly head. least of a good mystax or moustachio, had come by the upon the face of man was given to him for sufficient All hair is wool, or rather all wool is hair, and the hair year eighteen hundred and forty-eight to be regarded reasons it will take but little time to show. It has of the negro differs so much in appearance from that so much as a mark of aristocracy that after the revo- various uses, physiological and mechanical. To take a of the European, only because it is so much more lutions of that year the Germans took to the oblitera- physiological use first, we may point out the fact that curled, and the distinct hairs are so much more intition of the vain mark of distinction by growing hair the formation of hair is one method of extruding carbon mately intertwined. The more hair curls, the more on their own chins and upper lips. Hairs have been from the system, and that the external hairs aid after thoroughly does it form a web in which a stratum of thus made significant in a new way. There are now their own way in the work that has to be done by the air lies entangled to maintain an even temperature on such things to be seen on the continent as revolution- internal lungs. Their use in this respect is not less-the surface of the brain. For that reason it is made a ary beards, and not long ago, in a small German State, ened by shaving; on the contrary, the elimination of law of Nature, that the hair should be caused to curl a barrister was denied a hearing because he stood up carbon through the hairs of the face is made to go on most in the hottest climates. in his place in the law court, wearing a beard of the with unnatural activity, because the natural effort to A protection of considerable importance is provided revolutionary cut. Not only custom, but even to this cover the chin with hair is increased in the vain strug-in the same way by the hair of the face to a large and day law, regulates the cultivation of the hair on many gle to remove the state of artificial baldness, as a hen important knot of nerves that lies under the skin near of our faces. There is scarcely an army in Europe goes on laying if her eggs be taken from her, and the the angle of the lower jaw, somewhere about the point which is not subject to some regulations that affect the production of hair on the chin is at least quadrupled by of junction between the whiskers and the beard. Man beard and whiskers. In England, the chin and-ex- the use of the razor. The natural balance is in this is born to work out of doors and in all weathers, for his cept in some regiments-the upper lip has to be way destroyed. Whether the harm so done is great bread; woman was created for duties of another kind, shaved; elsewhere the beard is to be cultivated and I cannot tell; I do not know that it is, but the strict which do not involve constant exposure to sun, wind, the whiskers shaven. Such matters may have their balance which nature keeps between the production of and rain. Therefore man only goes abroad whiskered significance. The most significant of whiskers are, hair, and the action of the lungs, is too constant and and bearded, with his face muffled by nature in a way however, those worn by the Jews in the East, and rigid to be altogether insignificant. We have all had that shields every sensitive part alike from wind, rain, especially in Africa, who, in accordance with a tradi- too much opportunity for noticing how in people whose heat, or frost, with a perfection that could be equalled tional superstition, keep them at an uniform level of lungs are constitutionally weak, as in people with con- by no muffler of his own devising. The whiskerless about half an inch in length, and cut them into caba-sumptive tendencies, the growth of hair is excessive, seldom can bear long exposure to a sharp wind that listic characters curiously scattered about over the even to the eyelashes. A skin covered with downy strikes on the bare cheek. The numbness then occaface. hair is one of the marks of a scrofulous child, and who sioned by a temporary palsy of the neves has in many has not been saddened by the charm of the long eye-cases become permanent; I will say nothing of aches lashes over the lustrous eye of the consumptive girl! and pains that otherwise affect the face or teeth. For The very anomalies of growth show that the hair a man who goes out to his labor in the morning, no must fulfil more than a trifling purpose in the system. There has been an account published in the present century by Ruggieri, of a woman twenty-seven years of age, who was covered from the shoulders to the knees with black woolly hair, like that of a poodle dog. Very recently, a French physician has related the case of a young lady over whose skin, after a fever, hair grew so rapidly that, at the end of a month, she was covered with a hairy coat, an inch long, over every part of her body, except the face, the palms of the hands,

As there are some communities especially bestowing care and honor on the beard, and others more devoted to the whiskers, so there are nations, as the Hungarian, in which the honor of the moustache is particularly cherished. The moustaches of General Haynau were about half-a-yard long. A Hungarian dragoon who aspired to eminence in that way, and had nursed a pair of moustachios for two years, until they were only second to Haynau's, fell asleep one day after dinner with a cigar in his mouth. He awoke with one of his fine nose tails so terribly burnt at the roots, that he was obliged afterwards to resort to an art used by many of his companions, and to fortify the weak moustache by twining into its substance artificial hair.

and the soles of the feet.

better summer shield or winter covering against the sun or storm can be provided, than the hair which grows over those parts of the face which need protection, and descends as beard in front of the neck and chest, a defence infinitely more useful as well as more becoming than a cravat about the neck, or a prepared hareskin over the pit of the stomach. One of the finest living prose-writers in our language suffered for many years from sore thoat, which was incurable, until following the advice of an Italian surgeon, he allowed his beard to grow; and Mr. Chadwick has pointed out the fact that the sappers and miners of the French army, who are all men with fine beards, are almost entirely free from affections of the lungs and air-passages.

Such freaks and absurdities are, of course, incon- There are other less curious accounts of women who sistent with the mature dignity of bearded men. Let are obliged to shave regularly once or twice a week; us have whisker, beard, and moustache, reverently and it may be asked why are not all women compelled worn, and trimmed discreetly and with decency. I to shave? If beards and whiskers serve a purpose, Mr. Chadwick regards the subject entirely from a am not for the cabalistic whisker, the Hungarian mous- why are they denied to women? That is a question sanitary point of view. He brought it under the distache, or a beard like that worn by the Venetian mag- certainly not difficult to answer. For the same reason cussion of the medical section engaged on sanitary nate, of whom Sismondi relates, that if he did not lift that the rose is painted and the violet perfumed, there inquiries at the York meeting of the British Associait up, he would trip over it in walking. Still worse are assigned by nature to the woman attributes of grace ❘tion, and obtained among other support the concurrence

For that is another use of the moustache and beard.

They protect the opening of the mouth, and filter the
air for a man working in smoke or dust of any kind;
they also act as a respirator, and prevent the inhalation
into the lungs of air that is too frosty. Mr. Chadwick,
years ago, was led to the discussion of this subject by
observing how in the case of some blacksmiths who
wore beards and moustachios, the hair about the mouth
was discolored by the iron dust that had been caught
on its way into the mouth and lungs.
The same
observer has also pointed out and applied to his argu-
ment the fact that travellers wait, if necessary, until
their moustachios have grown before they brave the
sandy air of deserts. He conceives, therefore, that the
absence of moustache and beard must involve a serious
loss to laborers in dusty trades, such as millers and
masons; to men employed in grinding steel and iron
and to travellers on dusty roads. Men who retain the
hair about the mouth are also, he says, much less lia-
ble to decay or achings of the teeth. To this list we
would add, also, that apart from the incessant dust
flying in town streets, and inseparable from town life,
there is the smoke to be considered. Both dust and
smoke do get into the lungs, and only in a small degree
it is possible for them to be decomposed and removed
by processes of life. The air passages of a Manches-
ter man, or a resident in the city of London, if opened
after death are found to be more or less coloured by
the dirt that has been breathed. Perhaps it does not
matter much; but surely we had better not make dust-
holes or chimney funnels of our lungs. Beyond a
certain point this introduction of mechanical impurity
into the delicate air passages does cause a morbid irri-
tation, marked disease, and premature death. We had
better keep our lungs clean altogether, and for that
reason men working in cities would find it always
worth while to retain the air filter supplied to them by
nature for the purpose the moustache and beard

around the mouth.

THE HONEST PORTER.
ALIGHTING from a railway-no matter where-a

and half-crowns from this new plan of extorting mo ney under false pretences of solicitude.

There is a moral in the above, which is obvious

porter came up to me, and said, "Excuse me sir, but enough. I know for my own part, that whenever a
have you lost anything?"
I examined first one pocket, and then another, veri- I think of the railway porter, and ask myself whether
stranger expresses a vehement interest in my behalf,
fied the safety of my pocket-book, handkerchief, and there may not possibly be the hope of reward glitter-
purse, and taking a hasty inventory of my small stocking, like a new shilling, at the bottom of his zeal?
of jewellry, answered confidently, "No; but my good
man what makes you ask?"

"Why, the fact is, sir, there was a very suspicious character in your carriage," said the porter, and I thought I would ask you, sir, if you had lost anything as long as he was in sight."

I gave the man a shilling, and congratulated myself in no small degree upon my lucky escape.

*

*

A week ago I had occasion to get out at the same station. A slight accident, in which a few lives were lost, was the cause of my lingering longer than usual upon the platform. The confusion consequent upon this calamity was followed by a disturbance worthy of a parliamentary debate. The noise was deafening. Every one seemed to be speaking at once. Prompted by the curiosity that urges an Englishman to push his nose (even at the peril of its being pulled, sometimes) into every disturbance, I elbowed my way into the centre of the crowd, where the riot appeared to be the thickest. There I discovered my honest old porter, by the side of a plethoric old gentleman, who was as red in the face as any of the signal lamps that denote danger along the line. He was in the most violent rage, and was busy pulling by the collar a sheep-faced youth, who evidently could not understand the rough treat

Surely enough has been here said to make it evidentment he was being subjected to. that the Englishman who, at the end of his days, has As soon as this poor victim had been dragged into spent an entire year of his life in scraping off his beard one of the offices-into which the crowd followed, as has worried himself to no purpose, has submitted to a a matter of course-an inquiry took place. The old painful, vexatious, and not merely useless, but actually gentleman charged the beardless youth with being a "suspicious character," and pointed to the porter as unwholesome custom. He has disfigured himself sys- his authority. He (the plethoric old gentleman) had tematically throughout life, accepted his share of unne-lost his handkerchief only the week before-and he cessary ticdoloreux and toothache, coughs and colds, has swallowed dust and inhaled smoke and fog out of had lost one the month before that-and it was not to complaisance to the social prejudice which happens be tolerated that " suspicious characters" were to carry on their dishonest practices in railway carriages with just now to prevail. We all abominate the razor while we use it, and would gladly lay it down. Now, impunity. He was determined to expose every one of if we see clearly-and I think the fact is very clearthat the use of it is a very great blunder, and if we are no longer such a slovenly people as to be afraid that, if we kept our beards, we should not wash, or comb them in a decent way, why can we not put aside our morning plague and irritate our skin no more as we now do?

them!

The bald-faced youth gave his card-was identified by a listening flyman as being the son of a wealthy tallow merchant, who had a villa up the road-and was liberated immediately.

The matter would have terminated quietly here, if a gentleman with a blue bag had not stepped forward, and claimed to be heard. I recommend nobody to grow a beard in such a way "This porter seems to have as to isolate himself in appearance from his neigh- a very curious nose for scenting out suspicious characbors. Moreover, I do not at all desire to bring about ters," he said. "It isn't long ago that he asked me such a revolution as would make shaven chins as singu- if I had lost anything, and gave as his reason for putlar as bearded chins are now. What I should much ting the question, that he had noticed a very suspiciprefer would be the old Roman custom, which pre-ous character' in my carriage. That suspicious charserved the the first beard on a young man's face until acter,' then, I told him, must have been my blue bag; it became comely, and then left it entirely a matter of for there had been no one but myself in the carchoice with him whether he would remain bearded or riage." not. Though it would be wise in an adult man to leave off shaving, he must not expect after ten or twenty years of scraping at the chin, when he has stimulated each hair into undue coarseness and an undue rapidity of growth, that he can ever realise upon his own person the beauty of a virgin beard. If we could introduce now a reform, we, that have been inured to shaving, may develope very good black beards, most serviceable for all working purposes, and a great improvement on bald chins; but the true beauty of the beard remains to be developed in the next generation on the faces of those who may be induced from the beginning to abjure the use of the razors.

When children are always in the nursery, you may construe it as a sure sign that the mother does not care much about them.

"I, too, recollect," said another gentleman, "his
trying a similar dodge upon me; and I told him he
must have made a singular mistake, for there had been
no one in the carriage but my wife all the way."
"Yes, sir," exclaimed an elderly lady from the other
""and he told me the same thing;
end of the room,'
and I remember I was so frightened I gave him half-a-
crown for his trouble."

ton umbrella.

And, egad! I gave him a shilling on a similar occasion," cried out an oldish voice, holding up a cot"And I!-and I!-and I!--and I, too!" shouted innumerable voices; and it turned out that mostly every one there present-for it was a dinner-train of persons resident in the neighborhoodhad given him something at some time or other for volunteering the same false information.

The honest porter was dismissed, but he must have reaped, before his exposure, a rare harvest of shillings

VALUE OF A TRUE THOUGHT.-I look upon every thought as a valuable acquisition to society, which cannot possibly hurt or obstruct the good effect of any other truth whatsoever; for they all partake of one common essence, and necessarily coincide with each other; and, like the drops of rain which fall separately into the river, mix themselves at once with the stream, and strengthen the general current.-Dr. Conyers Middleton.

THE RAINBOW.

IRIS! what art thou? Break Creation's silence,
Send forth a voice, thou "million-colored bow ;"
Let fiction be no longer man's reliance;
More of thy nature he desires to know.
Art thou a goddess, dwelling in Elysium,
Whose power, so vast, no mortal dare deny ;
The soul consigning to some unknown region,
Sole arbitress of human destiny?

Art thou a mirror in the sun's pavilion,
Tenfold reflecting all his glories bright,
Glittering with purple, orange, and vermilion,
Or shinest thou with thy unaided light?
"Twas eventide-the majestic bow was gilding
The cloudy temple of the weeping sky;
Arch of Creation's wide palatial building,
Most wondrous work of God's geometry.
Whilst thus I mused, methought the breeze came, bringing
A whisper soft from Iris' golden throne;
Like to the strains of seraph minstrel's singing,
Or heavenly harpings of Æolian tone.
"Dost thou inquire why my illumined crescent
Gleameth so brightly in the heavens o'erhead ?
Mortal, to cheer thine oft-beclouded present,

And paint thy future, is my radiance shed
"Upon thy path. Art thou a stricken spirit,
With many cares and many woes oppressed?
A struggling genius, born but to inherit,

Like all thy fellows, mischance and unrest?
"Art thou a mourner, weeping and heart-broken,
Because thy best-loved treasures are no more?-
To each, to all, I am the faithful token,
There yet is hope and happiness in store.

"I am the mystic over-arching portal,
Resplendent entrance to a better land,
Where peace is perfect, happiness immortal,
And faith to full fruition doth expand."
Fainter and fainter, like the distant pealing
Of silver chimes, the Eolian whisper grew;
It softly ceased; no cloud was then concealing
Heaven's firmament of clear ethereal blue.
R. W. CARPENTER.

HEAVEN.

Он, Heaven is nearer than mortals think,
When they look, with a trembling dread,
At the misty future that stretches on
From the silent homes of the dead.

"Tis no lone isle in a boudless main,
No brilliant but distant shore,
Where the lovely ones, who are called away,
Must go to return no more.

No; Heaven is near us; the mighty veil
Of mortality blinds the eye,
That we cannot see the angel bands
On the shores of eternity.

Yet oft, in the hours of holy thought,
To the thirsting soul is given
That power to pierce through the mist of sense
To the beauteous scenes of Heaven.

Then very near seem its pearly gates,
And sweetly its harpings fall;
Till the soul is restless to soar away,
And longs for the angel-call.

I know, when the silver-chord is loosed,
When the veil is rent away,
Not long and dark shall the passage be
To the realms of endless day.

The eye that shuts in a dying hour,
Will open the next in bliss!
The welcome will sound in a heavenly world,
Ere the farewell is hushed in this.

We pass from the clasp of mourning friends,
To the arms of the loved and lost;
And those smiling faces will greet us then,
Which here we have valued most.

AUSTRALIA.

PERSONS of mature age can well remember the number of cases no adequate compensation is obtained the outward-bound passenger or the stay-at-home

time when Australia, the "great south land," was invested with no pleasing associations, and would have been regarded as the last spot on the surface of the globe to be voluntarily selected as a home. Thought recoiled from it as a vast natural jail, expressly adapted by its position at the antipodes, as well as by irreclaimable sterility and physical incongruities, to receive the outcasts of society, whose crimes demanded their separation from the orderly part of the human race, and justified exile to a desolate region. The lapse of a few years has wrought a wonderful change in popular sentiment. It has been found that the once penal country is admirably fitted for the nurture of great nations, being provided with resources for the sustenance of millions in comfort. A population of free immigrants has rapidly poured in, to occupy rich grass-lands and fertile grain-soil, transferring thither our domestic habits, commercial enterprise, laws, institutions, language, literature, and religion; and the struggle is now intense on the part of thousands of our wellconducted, manual-labor classes to reach the shore, owing to the recent discovery of its gold-fields, and the excessive demand for labor which has been consequently created.There previously existed a great general demand for the able-bodied of both sexes, to engage in various departments of industry, and develop the productive resources of the island-continent. Large sums are at the disposal of the homo government, chiefly the produce of land sales, remitted by the colonists themselves, for the dispatch of healthy emigrants of good character from the mother country, to meet a pressing want for additional hands. But the detection of the precious metal in large quantities having caused a pell-mell rush of the already settled population to the auriferous sites, abandoning all ordinary occupations for gold-digging, there is instant employment at good wages to be found for the strong arm and willing mind, positive ruin hanging over the great staple interests of these colonies,

New South Wales

Victoria, late Port Philip
South Australia

Founded.
1788

1836

1836

West Australia, or Swan River 1829

78,000

67,000

4,000

mad spendthrift spirit which it elicits, while in a great sarily imperfect, may not be unsatisfactory, either to for hard toil, and in not a few, wretchedness and de- crowd. moralization are items of evil added to the sting of Australia is, then, eminently a land of contrarieties; disappointment. It is to those alone we address our- a kind of miniature world, in many respects turned selves, who look forward to the service of the flock- upside down; and novelties will often arrest attention, master and grazier, or to prosecuting avocations abroad till the new settler has become accustomed to his kindred to those with which they are familiar at home. change of place. Situated in the southern hemisphere, Australia-remarkable for its great extent (contain- nearly opposite to the position of Great Britain in the ing a territorial area nearly equal to that of Europe), northern, the seasons are, of course, the reverse of its singularly regular conformation, and recent disco- our own, midsummer falling in January, and midwinvery-comprises at present the four following colonies: ter in July. The spring months are September, OctoPopulation ber, und November; the summer, December, January, last census. and February; the autumn, March, April, and May; 180,000 and the winter, June, July, and August. The sun, which is southerly to us, is northerly to our brethren at the antipodes. They have reverse conditions likewise with reference to the temperature of the breeze, the north wind being hot, and the south wind cold. Both in botany and zoology, nature exhibits a thousand singular arrangements, many of which have no parallel elsewhere. Its trees, which are entitled to rank as evergreens, from not periodically casting their leaves, are more generally ever browns. Owing to scanty foliage, the majority afford little shade, except when they are very closely grouped, which is an exception in the distribution of the ligneous vegetation; and for the same reason, along with the peculiar pale tint of the leaves, the forests are never sombre scenes Some bear fruits like cherries, with stones attached to the outside. Others yield what seem delicious-looking pears, but are really pieces of hard wood. There are trees which have leaf-stalks performing the office of leaves, while in other cases the leaves seem twisted out of their proper position, being vertical, or presenting their edges towards the stem, so that both surfaces have the same relation to the light. Nettles of an arborescent stature, from fifteen to twenty feet high, are not uncommon. Native flowers have seldom any odor. Parasitical plants are found growing in the ground, an exception to the alunless their labor-market is supplied. But indepenmost universal law of the vegetable kingdom, that true dently of the recently changed condition of society in Australia, it is not going too far to say, that no part parasites are incapable of taking root in the earth. The animal creation is correspondingly peculiar. of the world presents a fairer opening to persons inSome of its forms excited no little astonishment, and tending to emigrate, with a view to devote themselves to a course of regular industry. As multitudes are, occasionally alarm, in the minds of European visitors. The progress of these settlements-the last except- During Captain Cook's first voyage, a sailor returned therefore, now employing an hour of leisure in turning ed-is without a parallel in history. Sydney, after an from a short excursion on shore, sorely frightened, detheir thoughts to this region as a future home, and existence of sixty years, had nearly 40,000 inhabi- claring he had seen the enemy of mankind moving thinking that they may do so with advantage to them- tants; Adelaide and Melbourne, in the space of six- through the grass, though unable to describe the apselves and the mother country, we devote a portion of teen years, had each grouped an estimated population pearance otherwise than as about the size of a nine-galour pages to the task of offering them some informa- of 25,000 persons; while at the time of the American lon keg. It was one of the hideous Pteropine bats, tion and assistance. Let it not be understood for a revolution, after a period of more than a century and a which sometimes attain prodigious dimensions. The moment that we encourage the idea of leaving the half, Boston only possessed 18,000 inhabitants, and characteristic animals are furnished with pouches in shores of England, in the expectation of cheaply ob- neither Philadelphia nor New York at all equalled the which to stow their young, and move by enormous taining wealth by "prospecting" for gold in the river- size of Sydney." basin of the Murray. We would rather discourage leaps, outstripping the gallop of the horse. Wild It is not easy in a few brief paragraphs to reply o quadrupeds are, however, few, both as to species and the thought to the best of our ability. Experience the natural inquiry of the intending emigrant, "What individuals. All are of the pacific class, the indigeconfirms the statement, that where gold-seeking is a kind of country is Australia?" But, referring exclu- nous dog excepted, which is only an object of annoysource of sudden emolument, the success is very com- sively to the settled districts, we will offer some gene-ance to the shepherd and danger to the flocks, at the monly and speedily negatived to the individual by the ral observations upon the subject, which though, neces-outskirts of the settlements. There are various tribes

FOR

AUSTRALIA.]

Capitals and Principal Ports.

Sydney, Moreton Bay.

Melbourne, Geelong, Portland Bay.

Adelaide, Port Adelaide, Port Lincoln.
Perth, King George's Sound.

particles of some size, are raised, and swept along by
this blast from the central fiery furnace.
The sky,
though clear of clouds, assumes, consequently, a hazy
aspect, through which the sun glows like a ball of
copper, while the haze magnifies the glaring orb.
Exposed objects, as the handles of doors, sometimes
become so hot as to be almost painful to grasp.
Though excessively disagreeable, there is nothing im-
mediately injurious in the hot wind. If necessary,
journeying and out-of-doors labor may generally be
prosecuted without danger, in the very teeth of it,
while annoyance is avoided by keeping at home, with
doors and windows closely fastend. The visitation is
over in about two days, and is terminated by a cool
breeze from the south, after a short but occasionally a
very sharp contest.

of honey bees, but none of them have stings. Birds the absence of towering mountains covered with per-
of beautiful plumage abound, but songsters are want-petual snows, there are no vast rivers comparable to
ing. Swans are black; eagles, white. The cuckoo those which are found in other great regions of the
utters its note at night; the owl screeches by day. globe, and permanent waters are generally scarce,
In a region of such extent-the distance from The streams, though subject to extraordinary floods
Sydney to Perth corresponding to that between Edin- from heavy rains in winter, are largely reduced in
burgh and Constantinople-there are, of course, large summer through drought, and commonly either lose
tracts unavailable for the support of civilized man, their continuity, becoming a series of detached ponds,
consisting of peat swamps, saline marshes, rocky hills, or are converted into stony highways. This deficient
stony and sandy plains, either absolutely sterile, or irrigation adapts the country more for pastoral than
productive only of "scrub"-the colonial term for a agricultural purposes, white, except in favored spots,
species of stunted, unprofitable brushwood. But there it renders the herbage scanty, as compared with that
still remain millions of unoccupied acres of the of our own fields, and necessitates extensive "runs"
greatest fertility, adapted for the growth of grain; out of all proportion to the number of cattle and sheep
and more especially for the sustenance of flocks and which are pastured on them. But the long-continued
herds, which may be multiplied for centuries, without droughts, which threatened the colony of New South
fear of overtaking the na-
tural provision for them.
For miles and miles, the
character of the country
has been often compared
to the park scenery around
the seat of an English
noble. Trees of interesting
appearance occur solitarily,
not more than three or
four to the acre, or form
small clumps; sheep
whitely dotting the land-
scape, of which there are
not far short of twenty
millions at present on the
pastures of Australia,
yielding the finest wool,
and placing it at the head
of wool-growing lands.
"Amid the apparent same-
ness of the forest," says M.
de Strzelecki, 66 may be
often found spots teeming
with a gigantic and luxuri-
ant vegetation, sometimes
laid out in stately groves,
free from thicket or under-
wood, sometimes opening
on glades and slopes, in-
tersected with rivulets,
carpeted with the softest
turf, and which lack only
the thatched and gabled
cottage, with its blue
smoke curling amid the
trees, to realize a purely
European picture." Abun-
dant crops of wheat, barley,
and maize are raised, with
ordinary garden vegetables.
Though possessing not a
single native species of
edible fruit, save the cran-
berry and a few other
berry-bearing plants of no
importance, the introduced
vine and orange thrive, and
almost all exotics succeed,
except those which require
a colder climate, as the
apple, gooseberry, and
currant, with oats among
the cereals. Yet not more
there than here does

[THE

ARRIVAL.]

It is a consideration of prime importance to the emigrant, that the ordinary Australian climate is in a high degree genial to the senses, exhilarating to the mind, and conducive to health and longevity. This is the uniform testimony of experience. Through the greater part of the year, the sky is beautifully bright and the air balmy. The dry, pure, elastic atmosphere gives a buoyancy to the spirits, seldom known in our fog-breathing country; and owing to the same cause, exposure at night, bushing it under a gum-tree, with a saddle for a pillow," is attended with no ill effects. Acute inflammatory disorders are rare. Endemic diseases, fevers, or agues, are seldom or never met with, from the general absence of marsh exhalations. The prevalent complaints to which new settlers are specially liable, are ophthalmia and dysentery. The former arises from the reflection of the solar glare; the latter is usually brought on by injudicious diet; but both appear generally in mild forms, where strictly temperate habits are observed. It has been repeatedly stated, that individuals in middle or advanced life, even after the decay of the animal system has commenced, have acquired new vigor on proIceeding to Australia, like trees transplanted to a more congenial soil, and have apparently received an addition to what might have been deemed in their case the ordinary term of existence. From some un

nature supersede the necessity for stern exertion on Wales with destruction while its area was contracted, | known reason, but doubtless climate, birth is given to the part of man, nor can a competence be secured, and have since been ascertained to be but partial visita- children by parents at a more advanced stage of life, distress be avoided, without a due amount of labor, tions, and have not been experienced in South and the young increase in stature more rapidly than in Let no one, contemplating a settlement within its Australia or Victoria. It is to the dryness of the England. bounds, dream of a land flowing with milk and honey, atmosphere that the superior quality of the Australian The entire eastern coast of Australia is girdled by in the sense of riches being acquired, or a comfortable wool is attributed. In winter thin ice is formed; but a belt of highlands, known in the neighborhood of subsistence being gained, apart from pertinacious snow is very rarely seen, except in the upland Sydney as the Blue mountains, and further south as effort. A more immediate and ample return for toil is districts. In summer, the temperature rises high, the Australian Alps, some western spurs and offshoots its prime and only recommendation to the emigrant. and the range of the thermometer is often excessive in of the latter taking the names of the Pyrenees and The application and thrift which at home scarcely the course of a few hours; but the greatest solar heat Grampians: The range is the water-parting of avail to ward off beggary, may there be confidently has no relaxing or debilitating effect upon the consti- streams which flow immediately to the ocean, from expected to place him in easy circumstances; but tution, and the rapid interchange of heat and cold is those which have a landward direction, and either beggary will still be his neighbor, if the maxims of endured without inconvenience. The only atmo- form the river-systers of the Murray travelling to a far industry and economy are neglected, while little sym- spheric annoyance is the hot wind, which occasionally distant sea, or lose themselves in interior swamps and pathy in distress will be awarded him abroad, owing blows in summer from the unexplored interior, and sands. It closely approaches the shore at some points, to the well-founded presumption, that he is pinched as seems to indicate in that direction the existence of and recedes at others to a distance varying from fifty the consequence of his own indolence or folly. vast sandy deserts, which, baking beneath a tropical to a hundred miles. There are no stupendous elevaThe climate of all the coasts and colonies is remark- sun, give a fierce temperature to the breeze that passes tions. Mount Kosciusko, the highest peak, near the able for its dryness. Owing to this circumstance, and over them. Volumes of impalpable dust, and gritty frontier of New South Wales and Victoria, rises 6500

feet, overtopping the line of perpetual snow. Standing on its summit, which has no adjacent rivals to intercept the view, a vast panorama is overlooked, while on one side, from the very verge of the station, the eye plunges into a fearful gorge, descending almost perpendicularly 3000 feet, in the bed of which the sources of the Murray gather their contents, the only snow-fed and perpetually flowing great river of the country. But the mean height of the chain is not more than one-half that of the culminating point. It is not a single ridge of mountains, but a very irregularly formed and complex system of highland masses of varying character. There are peaked, serrated, and round-topped ranges; detached hills rising up from but slightly elevated ground; and great table-lands, often presenting very steep faces on the seaward side, defying all direct ascent. The latter conformation is the result of the slopes being perforated with an endless series of precipitous valleys, ravines, and gulleys. These rents in the bosom of the earth, inclosed by gigantic walls of sandstone rock, are of the inost labyrinthine and extraordinary description; either grand hollows, like capacious bays of the ocean, covered with forests, with extremely contracted outlets and perfectly vertical sides; or winding gorges, narrow, gloomy, and profoundly deep. Long did the early settlers on the west of Sydney look wistfully to the Blue Mountains, anxious to know the aspect of the country beyond them, never dreaming of gold, but of new pasture-lands for their multiplying flocks. But government inspectors returned from attempts to cross the range, completely baffled by the ravines, and were glad to effect their own disengagement after days of bewilderment in them. Exploring parties were repeatedly sent out, and came back to their homesteads after enduring great fatigue and privation, with a full conviction of the utter impossibility of passing to the westward of the formidable barrier. This opinion appeared to be supported by the fact, that such of the aborigines as had become known to the colonists, were wholly ignorant of any route to the interior over the opposing heights.

66

THE DEATH OF SUMMER.

A. WORD PAINTING.
BY THOMAS MILLER.

and south, though offshoots diverge from them, fol- their ships, shepherds left their flocks in the field, serlowing a transverse course. The examples are the vants and apprentices absconded. At last, magisAndes, the Brazilian ranges, the South Alleghanies, trates, lawyers, physicians, clerks, and tradesmen, the Urals, the Sierra Nevada of California, and the joined the crowd of laborers, and went off across the Australian coast-chain. Large granite masses, quartz, Blue Mountains, using all manner of conveyances for clay-slate, and other schistose rocks, basalt, porphyry, themselves and their trappings carriages, gigs, drays, and sandstone of the paleozoic formation, are the main carts, and wheelbarrows. But having indulged the components of the latter. So far back as the year most extravagant expectations of the facility with 1844, Sir R. Murchison predicted the existence of gold which wealth might be acquired, while wholly unfitted in this region, and ineffectually recommended a search for the rough life and hard work necessary to procure for it to the government. The opinion was based upon any return, many were seen in a few weeks wending geological considerations; and had he been going to their way back to their deserted homes and families in Australia, he might have verified his own prediction, a miserable plight. They were shoeless and penniless, as in the instance of Humboldt during his expedition ragged and reckless, half starved and crest-fallen, havto the Urals. The latter was so convinced that the ing sold for next to nothing their equipmentstents; same district which yielded gold and platinum, con- carts, cradles, picks, spades, crows, and washing tained diamonds also, that he playfully promised the dishes-which, in many cases, had cost them all they Empress of Russia to produce specimens from the possessed to purchase. Some had a shy embarrassed range, and some were forwarded to Petersburgh be- air, on encountering outward-bound passengers, fearfore he returned. An old shepherd appears to have ful of the oft-repeated questions being renewed, asked long visited Sydney at intervals, bringing pieces of as much in jest as in earnest, What gold have you !?" gold to dispose of; but he kept his secret, and no in- Are your cradles sold?" Never was any conception formation transpired respecting the source of his more erroneous than that of considering a gold-field wealth, till the discovery was effected in the early part reached, and gold realized, as nearly identical proposiof the year 1851, by a returned and disappointed ad- tions venturer from California. This individual, a man of practical sagacity, was led to explore the Bathurst district, by an impression that many parts of it, through which he had formerly travelled, bore a strong resemblance to the Californian gold-fields in aspect and structure, On February 12, his suspicion of its auri- Author of "A Day in the Woods' “Poems;” “Rural ferous character was verified by meeting with actual Sketches; Beauties of the Country;"" Poetical specimens: April 3, he formally reported his success, Language of Flowers." etc., etc. "1 which had become extended, to the local government: “Ring out the bells, and let the mass be said, 'EN I' April 30, the particular localities were indicated to the same quarter: May 6, the opening week of the Great For Summer's dead." OLD SONG. Exhibition, four ounces of gold were produced at a UMMER had now arrived at the full womanhood S public meeting at Bathurst and May 22, an official of her beauty, and walked the earth robed in her proclamation declared the rights of the Crown in re- richest, attire; her loveliness stamped with a majesty spect to gold found in its natural place of deposit such as we see not on the timid countenance of her within the territory of New South Wales, a commissioner being appointed to issue licenses legalizing the sweet sister, Spring. There was a deeper blush on It was in the year 1813 that a season of unusual search for it, at a cost of 30s. per month. her cheek, and a warmer olive on her brow, through drought occurred, reducing the country, from the sea- Considering the amount of wealth abstracted from wandering among the thickets of roses, and basking in coast to the base of the hills, to a perfect desert. All the earth in a few months, it has been deemed sur- the lily-tanning sunshine, that is found on the features the secondary water-courses entirely failed; the scorch- prising that settlers and shepherds should long have ed fields became desolate tracts; and the cattle of the trod the ground, and used the streams for domestic of the April maiden, whose brow is wreathed with colonists died in great numbers for the want of pas- purposes, without detecting the brilliant commodity snowdrops and early violets. But the whisper that turage. But this dearth proved an immense ulterior beneath their feet. But, as a general rule, gold is so advantage, and, as in many other cases, the evil work- minutely and sparingly disseminated, that its ran through the yellow corn, told her that the leaves presence ed for good. Three enterprising individuals were in- is only revealed in the process of washing the soil. would neither becoine greener, nor grow longer, but duced to combine their energies and resources in There is scarcely more appearance of it at the surface that she had finished the beautiful bowers which she another attempt to thread the maze of the highlands, than on Salisbury Plain or Bagshot Heath; and the had been so long building up, and which the birds had and penetrate the chain which had been considered discoverer himself reported in a private letter, "unless an impregnable barrier. Ascending the valley of the you knew how to find it, you might live for a century sung in, and the bees murmured about, and the flowers Grose river, a stream flowing east, between stupen- in this region and know nothing of its existence." so thickly enwreathed, that though pressing one upon dous cliffs, with boulders as large as houses at their Magnificent lumps have indeed been met with, vulgarly another, many of the sweetest had already died. Somebase, they succeeded in gaining the main ridge; and called "nuggets," answering to the pepitas of the times she sat within her flower-roofed arbor, with her following the fall of waters in an opposite direction, Andes, but these are exceptive cases. The matrix, or head resting on her hand, and maryelled to herself, the laborious travellers at length caught sight of a original seat of the gold, is most commonly quartz fine pastoral country to the westward. A practicable rock, which traverses in large veins the clay slates and why she heard not so many familiar, voices as were route was soon afterwards opened by convict toil; set- other schists. Having been broken up by some con- wont to greet her in the golden dawn, and when the tlers rapidly proceeded to the newly-discovered region, vulsion of nature in past ages, or disintegrated by the day threw over its face a veil of blue twilight; and an flocks took possession of its grassy downs, Bathurst atmosphere, rains have washed down the auriferous unconscious sigh, which just waved the drooping jaswas founded, counties were marked out, and year after débris from its native bed to a lower level, and floods year the features of ordinary colonization travelled have transported it along the ravines and gulleys, the mine, would escape her, as she wondered why they further inland. The present road, not improperly channels and the banks of the water-courses being the were hushed. She looked up to the sky for the lark, styled a kind of Australian Simplon, was finally com- main places of deposit. But very few specimens of and into the tree for the cuckoo, and when the day pleted in the year 1832, when the Victoria Pass was unmoved matrix gold have been observed. The water- died, listened to the heart-thrilling song of the nightopened, so called in honor of the queen, then a youth-worn aspect is all but universal. Fissures and crevices ful princess. After having served as a highway for in the original rock-bed of the streams, filled with the ingale, but they were gone-the lark was grieving ordinary passengers and farm produce, there poured fragmentary drift, have become known as "pockets," somewhere; the grey cuckoo had crossed the sea; and over it in the last twelve months a host of as eager from the rich spoils they have yielded. the nightingale was singing to the sun-dyed maidens adventurers as ever were drawn together by the mo- It is no part of our purpose in this paper to describe of the South, leaving his blue-eyed Summer to mourn dern Ophir, and the auriferous regions adjacent, to life at the diggings, now extended far and wide from which it leads. Lands previously held only as the the original gold-field, or detail the operations con- alone in the hawthorn-girded valleys of breezy Engfeeding grounds for cattle, became covered with ducted at those sites. We merely notice the discovery land. She sat and sighed, and then remembered that swarms of gold-diggers; and we can readily under- as a fact of high interest in the natural history of the time would ere long arrive when she must also stand the astonishment which the sudden influx Australia, and of immense political importance, altercreated in a solitary stockman's family, on the banks ing the social condition of the colonies, and opening depart. of the Turon. Born and brought up in a secluded for the redundant population of the mother country She felt that Autumn would soon come and sit down spot, seldom seeing any human beings but their pa- a remunerative labor market. During the first ten to the riper banquet which she left behind; and forget rents, it had never entered the imagination of the days, there were 400 adventurers at Ophir; these had the fairer guest who had graced that board, and upon children that the world contained such a crowd. increased in another fortnight to 2000, with hundreds whose grave he would throw his fallen leaves disreon the way; and as many as 20,000 are estimated to have been at one time assembled on the banks of the garded. But she knew that his time would also come, Turon river. Sydney altogether changed its aspect. and grim Winter rattle the icicles that hung from his Shops shut up, warehouses closed, and regular em- beard, as he reigned amid the ployment came to a stand. Constables threw down their truncheons by the dozen, crews ran away from

Humboldt was the first to make the remarkable observation, that auriferous deposits predominate in the mountain chains which have a meridional direction, and may be regarded as invariably occurring in them. It is certainly true that the chief gold-bearing mountains travel in the direction of the meridian, or north and

"Bare ruined choirs [where late) the sweet birds sang."