employers, and at times receives small advances. If he is economical-which he seldom or never is these advances may eke him out a scanty subsistence until spring and labor arrive. The probabilities are, however, that he is prodigal, has his feast, and then lives, in want and squalor, upon any refuse that may come to hand. Nevertheless, he accepts the situation as a matter of course, and is light-hearted through it all. At the opening of navigation he receives another advance, which is quickly spent; then takes his place on the benches of an inland boat or canoe, pulls an oar hundreds of miles into the interior, and crosses long portages with the huge packages of the cargo strapped to his back. Over vast and trackless wildernesses echoes his monotonous boat - song; on many a bleak promontory shine his campfires; and isolated posts waken into life and joy for one day in the year at his coming. His journey made, and the cargoes exchanged with boats from yet farther inland, or distributed at the numerous forts on the way, the voyageur returns home again, receives the remnant of his wages, to be dissipated in the shortest possible time; then relapses into a condition of uncertain sparring with destiny for diurnal sustenance.

If he be freighter, the life is essentially the same merely exchanging the boat for

the wooden carts, creaking their way in long

lines over the plains, like a caravan in the desert. His days are spent in toil, his nights in fighting stinging insects, or shivering in the cold and wet. But his good-nature never tires; his pipe is smoked in quiet satisfaction under all circumstances, and no occasion is too serious to prevent the perpetration of his practical joke.

The tastes of the half-breed are of a decided sort, and essentially like those of other mixed races. In apparel, he is fond of color, and, in most instances, exhibits good taste in the combinations he effects. Ornaments, too, are held in great favor, quality not being so much sought for as quantity. In this regard, however, there is a marked decadence from the extravagant ornamentation of former days. I remember when the arrival of the plain-hunters at our border-posts was the signal of a dress-parade which, if lacking in artistic merit, amply atoned by its rainbowhues and constellations of tawdry jewelry. Ofttimes the entire profits of a season's trade would be invested in highly-colored wearingapparel and cheap jewelry, in which the hunter decked his tawny family and himself, and paraded the adjoining camps, with all the pride of a Hottentot chief. It was a brave and pleasant show, nevertheless, to see these athletic men and supple and graceful women, arrayed in holiday attire, galloping swiftly and lightly over the green prairies. Unfortunately, after this parade of bravery, the demon of thirst would seize them, and, if liquor was attainable, the rivalry of dress was succeeded by a rivalry of drink, ending in a low debauch; for, in his tastes and appetites, our half-brother follows the maternal root.

The religion of the half-breed is the creed of superstition. Roman Catholic in the main, he adds to its formulas a shadowy belief in

the Great Spirit. He acknowledges a purgatory, yet fondly hopes that in the next world human shades will hunt the shades of buffalo and other animals who have lived here. When he dies, he hopes to be carried to the bosom of the saints; yet he feels that his shade will linger four nights round the place of his decease ere taking its flight to the village of the dead. He believes in signs and omens to some extent, and ties a certain number of feathers to his horse's tail, or paints rude emblems on his bark canoe, to increase their speed. Nevertheless, he yields implicit obedience to his priest, and obeys, in his volatile way, the traditions of his Church; but, over all, cherishes a dim faith in the shades of shadow-land.

H. M. ROBINSON.

TIGER-HUNTING IN CENTRAL INDIA.*

I.

LTHOUGH there is much in the sport A of tiger-hunting that renders it inferior, as a mere exercise, or as an effort of skill, to some other pursuits of these regions (for many a man has killed his forty or fifty by fair stalking, a single bull bison, or a stag tigers who has never succeeded in bagging, sámbar), yet there is a stirring of the blood in attacking an animal before whom every other beast of the forest quails, and unarmed man is helpless as the mouse under the paw of a cat-a creature at the same time matchless in beauty of form and color, and in terrible power of offensive armature - which draws men to its continued pursuit after that of every other animal has ceased to afford sufficient excitement to undergo the toil of hunting in a tropical country.

The hot season, the height of which is in April and May, is the most favorable time for hunting the tiger. Then the water-supply of the country is at its lowest ebb; and the tiger, being very impatient of thirst, seeks the lowest valleys, where, too, much of the game he preys on has congregated, and where the village cattle are regularly watered. In Central India tigers vary a good deal in their habits and range; and they may be roughly classed into those which habitually prey on wild animals, those which live chiefly on domestic cattle, and the few that confine their diet to the human species. Not, of course, that any tiger adheres invariably to the same sort of prey. But there are a large number that appear to prefer each of the former methods of existence, and a few that select the latter.

The regular game-killing tiger is retired in his habits, living chiefly among the hills, retreating readily from man, and is altogether a very innocuous animal, if not even positively beneficial in keeping down the herds of deer and nílgái that prey upon the crops. His hot-weather haunt is usually some rocky ravine among the hills, where pools of water remain, and shelving rocks or

From "The Highlands of Central India," by Captain James Forsyth, of the Bengal Staff Corps.

overhanging trees afford him shelter from the sun. He is a light-made beast (called by shikárís a lodhia bágh), very active and enduring, and, from this, as well as his shyness, generally difficult to bring to bag.

The cattle-lifter, again, is usually an older and a heavier animal (called oontia bágh, from his faintly-striped coat resembling the color of a camel), very fleshy, and indisposed to severe exertion. In the cool season he follows the herds of cattle wherever they go to graze; and then, no doubt, in the long, damp grass brings many a head of game also to bag. In the hot weather, however, the openness of the forest, and the numerous fallen leaves, preclude a lazy monster of this sort from getting at game; and he then locates himself in some strong cover, close to water, and in the neighborhood of where the cattle are taken to drink and graze about on the greener herbage then found by the sides of streams, and, watching his opportunity, kills a bullock as he requires it, and drags it into his cover. Of course a good many head of game are also killed by such a tiger when they come to drink, but so long as he can easily procure cattle he does not trouble himself to hunt for them.

Native shikárís recognize more or less two kinds of tigers, with the names I have given above. It may be matter for specula

tion which is cause and which is effect. Is it that, as tigers grow old and heavy, they take to the easier life of cattle-lifting? Or has the difference of their pursuits, continued for generations, actually resulted in separate breeds, each more adapted for its hereditary method of existence? I myself believe the former to be the truth, and that there really is only one variety of tiger in all peninsular India. It is only to extreme specimens that the above distinctive names are applied; and the great majority are of an intermediate character, and not distinguished by any particular name. The larger and older the animal the more yellow his coat becomes, and the fainter and farther apart are the stripes. Small tigers are sometimes so crowded with the black stripes as almost to approach the appearance of a melanoid variety. The tiger, like all animals, is subject to slight variations of appearance and conformation among individuals; and local circumstances, and perhaps "natural selection," may tend to give the race something of peculiarity in different localities. But none of these has as yet, I believe, reached the point of even permanent variation.

It is useless to devote much time to hunting the hill-tigers that prey on game alone. They are so scattered over extensive tracts of jungle, and are so active and wary, that it is only by accident that they are ever brought to bag.

Favorably-situated covers are almost certain to hold one or more cattle-eating tigers during the hot weather; and, however many are killed, others will shortly occupy their place. A favorite resort for these tigers is in the dense thickets formed of jáman, karóndá, and tamarisk-evergreen bushes whose shade is thickest in the hot weather, and which grow in islands and on the banks of the partially dried-up stream-beds. A thick

and extensive cover of this sort, particularly if the neighboring river-banks are furnished, as is often the case, with a thick, scrubby jungle of thorny bushes, through which ravines lead up to the open country where cattle graze, is a certain find in the hot season. Sometimes considerable gatherings of tigers take place in such favorable places. I have twice known five, and once seven, tigers to be driven out of one cover at the same time; and I think the season of love-making has something to do with these meetings. More usually it is a solitary male tiger, or a tiger and tigress, or a tigress with her grown-up cubs, that are found in one place. The tigress cannot breed more than once in three years, I believe; for the cubs almost invariably stay with her till they are over two years old, and nearly full grown. The greatest number of cubs I have ever found with a tigress was three. These were small, however, and I never saw more than two grownup along with the female.

He

A single tiger will kill an ox about every five days, if not disturbed, eating, if very hungry, both hind-quarters the first night. will not go farther than he can help after this meal, but will return again next night to the carcass, which in the mean time he often stores away under a bank, or covers with leaves, etc. This time he will finish all but the head; next night he will clean the bones; and then for a couple of days he will not take the trouble to hunt for a meal, though he will strike down another quarry if it comes near him. Should he have been fired at, however, when thus returning to his kill, he will frequently abandon such measures of economy, and kill a fresh bullock whenever he is hungry. A tigress and grown cubs are also far more destructive, finishing a bullock in a night, and, like the daughter of the horseleech, always crying for more. The young tigers seem to rejoice in the exercise of their growing strength, springing up against trees and scratching the bark as high as they can reach by way of gymnastics, and, if they get among a herd of cattle, striking down as many as they can get hold of. The tiger very seldom kills his prey by the "sledgehammer stroke" of his fore-paw, so often talked about, the usual way being to seize with the teeth the nape of the neck, and at the same time use the paws to hold the victim, and give a purchase for the wrench that dislocates the neck.

Tigers that prey on cattle are generally perfectly well known to the cowherds and others who resort to their neighborhood. They seldom molest men, and are often driven away from their prey, after killing it, by the unarmed herdsmen. Frequently they are known by particular names; and they really seem in many cases to live among the vil. lagers and their herds much like a semi-domesticated animal, though, from a mutual consent to avoid direct interviews as much as possible, they are chiefly known by their tracks in the river-beds, and by their depredations on the cattle. They do not, of course, confine their attacks to the cattle of a single village, usually having a whole circle of them where they are on visiting terms, and among which they distribute their favors with great

impartiality. Generally there is at least one native in every circle of villages whose profession is that of shikárí, or hunter, and who is always on the outlook to shoot the village tiger. When he hears of a bullock having been killed, he proceeds to the spot, and, erecting a platform of leafy boughs in the nearest tree, watches by night for the return of the tiger, who, though he may kill and lap the blood during the day, never feeds before sunset. Generally he does not get a shot, the tiger being extremely suspicious when approaching his "kill," and the shikárís being usually such bunglers at their work as to disturb him by the noise of their preparations. Often he misses when he does shoot, the jungle-king being somewhat trying to the nerves; and if he kills one tiger in the course of the year he considers himself lucky. His weapon is a long matchlock, which he loads with six "fingers" of powder and two bullets. These fly a little apart, and if they hit are usually the death of the tiger. His method of shooting is sometimes imitated by lazy European sportsmen.

Another way of hunting ordinary tigers is to beat them out of their mid-day retreat with a strong gang of beaters, supplied with drums, fireworks, etc., the guns themselves being posted at likely spots ahead. This plan is often successful, when the operations are directed by some one who knows the ground. Frequently, however, the tiger is not found at all, and moreover he very commonly manages to escape at the sides, or break back through the beat, without coming up to the guns at all. It has also the disadvantage of exposing the beaters to much danger; and there are few who shoot in this fashion who have not had more than one beater killed before them. To stalk in on a tiger in his retreat on foot is generally impracticable, as a man commands so little of a view in thick cover that he rarely sees the tiger in time for a shot. In some places, however, where tigers lie in rocky places inaccessible to elephants, this is the only way to do; and a very certain one it then is, there being generally little cover and plenty of commanding elevations whence to see and shoot. The best way of hunting the tiger is undoubtedly that usually adopted in Central India-namely, to bring in the aid of the trained elephant, and follow and shoot him in his mid-day retreat. Any one who thinks he has only got to mount himself on the back of an elephant, and go to a jungle where he has heard of tigers, to make sure of killing one, will find himself very much mistaken on trying. A number of sportsmen with a large line of elephants may kill tigers if they simply beat through likely covers for a long enough time; and many tigers are thus killed, or by driving the jungle with beaters, without the possession of any skill in woodcraft whatever. But no sort of hunting requires more careful arrangements, greater knowledge of the habits of the animal, perseverance, and good shooting, than the pursuit of the tiger by a single sportsman with a single elephant.

At the outset of one's experience in forest life it is impossible to avoid the belief that the tiger of story is about to show himself at

every step one takes in thick jungle; and it is not till every effort to meet with him has been used in vain that one realizes how very little danger from tigers attends a mere rambler in the jungles. During ten years of pretty constant roaming about on foot in the most tigerish localities of the central provinces, I have only once come across a tiger when I was not out shooting, and only twice more when I was not actually searching for tigers to shoot. In truth, excepting in the very haunts of a known man-eater, there is no danger whatever in traversing any part of the jungles of this, or I believe any other, part of India.

Some people affect to despise the practice of using elephants in following tigers, and talk a good deal about shooting them on foot. As regards danger to the sportsman, ninetenths of the tigers said to be shot on foot are really killed from trees or rocks, where the sportsman is quite secure. The only danger, then, is to the unfortunate beaters, if used; and when this is not the case the sport generally resolves itself into an undignified sneaking about the outskirts of the covers, in the hope of getting an occasional pot-shot from a secure position. In this method of hunting many more tigers are wounded than are finally secured, the only danger lying in following up a wounded animal, which is usually avoided; and thus an innocuous animal is often converted into a scourge of the country-side. A very few sportsmen do, for a short period of their lives, make a practice of hunting and shooting tigers really on foot; but they are seldom very successful, and sooner or later get killed, or have such narrow escapes as to cure them of such silly folly for the remainder of their days. A man on foot has no chance whatever in thick jungle with a tiger that is bent on killing him. He cannot see a yard before him, and is himself conspicuous to every sense of the brute, who can completely hide in a place that looks scarcely enough to conceal a rat, and can move at will through the thickest cover without the slightest sound or stir. At the same time the sportsman who, as a rule, uses an elephant in thick cover, will find quite enough opportunities, in special cases, of testing his nerve on foot, particularly if he marks down and tracks his own game instead of employ. ing shikárís to do so. Even on the elephant all is not perfect safety, instances being not rare of elephants being completely pulled down by tigers, while accidents from the running away of the elephant in tree-jungle are still more common. Much of the excitement of the sport depends on the sportsman's method of attacking the tiger. Some men box a tiger up in a corner and push in at all hazards, getting repeatedly charged, while others keep at a distance, circling round and offering doors of escape to the tiger, and never get a charge at all. As a rule, when on an elephant in fair ground, the object should be to get the tiger to charge, instead of letting him sneak away, as the hunt is then ended in a short and exciting encounter, while if let away it may be hours before he is found again, if he ever is at all.

The first difficulty is to get reliable information of the presence of tigers in a par

ticular neighborhood. A great many reasons, besides the simple one to which it is usually attributed, namely, that "they are cursed niggers," combine to make the natives in most places very unwilling to give information about tigers. Firstly, it is likely to bring down a large encampment of sahibs" on their village, which they, very just ly in most cases, dislike. The military officer who scorns to learn the rural language, and his train of overbearing, swindling servants, who fully carry out the principle that from him who hath not what little he hath shall be taken away, and that without a price too, stink in the nostrils of the poor inhabitants of the tracts where tigers are found. The tiger himself is in fact far more endurable than those who encamp over against them to make war upon him, and demand from them grain and other supplies which they have not, and carts, etc., to carry the camp, which they want to use for other urgent purposes. Then they fear that they will be made to beat for the tiger-both those who are willing and those who are not -with a considerable chance of getting killed, and very little of being paid for their services. There are few well-known resorts of tigers where some story of the sort has not been handed down among the people. The first essential toward getting sport is to conciliate the willing coöperation of the people, and make it plain to them that your arrangements for supplies are such as to throw no unbearable burden on a poor country, and that your method of hunting is not one to lead to the constant risk of life. Such, however, is the want of sympathy often engendered in the naturally generous Englishman by the fact of his becoming a member of the ruling caste in India, that sportsmen will sometimes be heard on their return from an unsuccessful expedition, in which they had harried a quiet population who did not want their tigers killed at all on their terms, cursing and swearing at them, and perhaps even expressing little regret that a few of them had been sacrificed to their bungling ardor. On the other hand, a properly organized expedition, where the sportsman provides his own supplies and his means of hunting the tigers, is certain to meet with every cooperation from the people. They will even crowd in to help in driving the jungles, when they know they are to work for a good sportsman and shot who will not unnecessarily risk their lives.

With luck and first-rate arrangements a few tigers may be got in the cold weather. At this season tigers sometimes venture very close to large towns, and even to the European stations. But it is not until the greater part of the grass has been burned in the jungles, and a hot sun has contracted the supply of water in the neighborhood of the great rivers, that regular tiger-hunting can be commenced with a fair prospect of success. At this season, having discovered a tract where tigers are reported, a good central place should be selected for a camp, in the deep shade of some mango-grove near a village, or under the still more grateful canopy of some spreading banyan-tree. The graciousness of Nature in furnishing such

plentiful shade at this arid season cannot but be admired. It is just at the time when all Nature begins to quiver in the fierce sun and burning blasts of April that the banyan and peepúl figs, and the ever-present mango, begin to throw out a fresh crop of leaves, those of the first tree being then moreover charged with a thick, milky juice that forms an impenetrable non-conductor to the sun's rays.

Riding up to his camp, pitched in the cool, shadowy depths of some grove like this, the sportsman will probably find assembled the village head-man, with a small train of cultivators and cowherds, waiting to receive him with some simple offering a pot of milk, or a bunch of plantains from his garden. If he is welcome, tales will not be wanting of the neighboring tigers-how Ram Singh's cow was taken out of the herd a few days before, or Bhyron, the village watch, going on an errand, went down for a drink to the river, and there came on a tigress with her cubs bathing by its brink. That youth himself will chime in, and graphically describe how he took to a tree and was kept there all night-the same being probably a euphemism for a night passed with some boon companions at a neighboring grog-shop. The usual haunts of the tiger will be described; and the size of his footprints and width of his head be drawn to a greatly exaggerated scale. The shikárí of the neighborhood will be present, or can be sent for -a long gaunt figure clad in a ragged shirt of Mhowa green, with a dingy turban twisted round his shaggy locks, and furnished with the usual long small-bored matchlock, with its bulky powder-flask of bison-horn, and smaller supply of fine priming-powder kept carefully in a horn of the gazelle. Rupees, or a prospect of them, will be wanted to loosen his tongue, and then his statements will likely be studiously vague. His hearty services must be secured, however, for he alone knows intimately the ways and haunts of the tiger, and he alone will have the pluck to accompany you or your shikárí to mark him down. If you are known to be a good paymaster he will willingly serve you, otherwise you must promise him a handsome douceur in case of success, to induce him to spoil his own chance of claiming the government reward. This reward was, till financial difficulties reduced it to half, fifty rupees (twenty-five dollars), and, as all sportsmen were entitled to claim it, it used to go far to cover the cost of the hunt. I used always to divide it equally between the village shikárí, if he worked well, and my own shikárí and elephant-driver. Now, however, the sportsman will find himself a good deal out of pocket by every tiger he kills.

More precise information must be sought for by the sportsman himself. The village shikárí knows nothing of our system of hunting by attacking the tiger in his midday lair. His personal experience of him has probably been confined to nocturnal interviews from the tops of trees; but he will be certain to kuow his habits and usual resorts, and also whereabouts he is at the time being. It is necessary, therefore, for some one to go out with him who knows our style

of work and what particulars to note for guid ance when the actual hunt commences; for it is absolutely necessary to have some pre liminary knowledge of the ground, and habits of the particular tiger, to insure success In my earlier sporting days I always went out to make the preliminary exploration for tigers myself; and this is the only way to learn the business thoroughly, so as to be able afterward to devolve the labor on your shikárís. A sportsman who is not thoroughly master of this business will never have a reliable shikárí; and the best men are those who have been trained up in it along with their masters

The morning is the best time for this work. It is then cool, and every footprint of the previous night is sharp and clear. All the wild animals, from whose movements much is to be learned, are then on the move. The movements of the tiger, even, may often be traced up to eight or nine o'clock by the voices of monkeys and peafowl, the chatter of crows and small birds, and the bark of sámbar and spotted-deer. The whole nocturnal life of the beasts of the forest is then displayed in the clearest manner to the hunter whose eye has been trained to read the book of Nature; and I know nothing more interesting than a ramble in the cool gray of a summer morning along the stream-beds of a tract in which live a great variety of wild animals. The river-beds usually contain large stretches of sand and gravel, with here and there a pool of water, the margin of which will be covered with tracks of deer, wildhogs, bears, etc., and here and there the mighty sign-manual of the jungle-king himself. All must come here to drink in the cool night succeeding a burning day; and in the neighborhood of the water occur most of the tragical interviews between the herbivora and their carnivorous foes. Everywhere the cruel tyranny of the tiger has imprinted itself on the faithful page. His track to the water is straight and leisurely, while that of the nilgai, or spotted deer, is halting and suspicious, and apt to end in a wild scurry to right and left, where it crosses the tiger's. Here and there bleaching skulls and bones show that the whole herd have not always made good their escape.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE

HE well-known art-critic, Mr. J. Jackson Jarves, in a recent article entitled "Ethics of Taste," utters the subjoined remarks upon the aspect of some of our American business streets :

"All honor to industry, even of business; but not all the honor. Give beauty a hearing also. Nothing more forcibly strikes a European eye on first landing in America than the frantic look of the business streets, with their costly, incongruous, ill-combining store-fronts, eruptive with extravagant mammoth signs, howling the venders' wares in every pitch of discordant competition, often stretching across whole streets, and intercepting the serene blues of the heavens, each struggling to make its particular advertisement seen the farthest, and cover the most space; all reminding one of a mob of tipsy sons of Erin at a shillalahexercising fair, each striking his hardest and yelling his shrillest, in utter unconsciousness that the world is not as much interested as he in his diabolical uproar. However pretentious and sometimes elegant the architecture may be, it is in the main confused or eclipsed by these unsympathetic signs; not unfrequently it serves merely as a costly background advertisement to them, supplementing their ill-timed claims on the attention of the passer-by. The confusion which reigns without is continued within the stores and at shopwindows. Merchandise of all descriptions is shown in heterogeneous confusion and senseless disorder, absolutely repellent to eyes accustomed to the aesthetic taste displayed in Europe in the exhibition of similar objects on sale."

There is no denying the truth or force of these statements. We wish they could be printed in mammoth circulars for general distribution in those precincts where the abominations described are to be found. And yet this would do little good. The art-instincts of the tradespeople who so deform our thoroughfares must first be awakened before the condemnation of cultured critics can have much effect upon them. The idea that any thing must be considered but business advantage that struggle for trade should be abridged in any of its manifestations by notions of harmony, beauty, or grace-would probably strike these clamorous traders as something preposterously ridiculous. The day may come, however, when culture will open the public eyes to the distasteful condition of our streets, and a widespread sentiment enforce upon offenders a different policy, if it should so happen that they do not voluntarily surrender to the civilizing influence.

One of the discouraging facts pertaining to this question is, that our streets do not improve in appearance, notwithstanding all the new and pretentious structures that are constantly going up. Broadway is not so handsome a street as it was thirty years ago, although since that period an immense number of very large and costly buildings

have been erected, some of which are really good examples of architecture. This paradox is to be explained by the fact that no miscellaneous juxtaposition in architecture can be effective. Unless there are unity and harmony there can be no genuine beauty; and hence the ceaseless additions to Broadway architecture, many instances of which, considered apart, are very good, but which are all planned with entire independence of all that has gone before, only add to the chaos of forms and tints which the façades of this famous street present. Things have so come to pass with us that every instructed person hears with alarm that any "L new and elegant structures" are contemplated, feeling sure that the new buildings will only add a fresh discord to the general inharmony. Here and there along the street a square can be seen in which by chance a certain unity of effect has been secured; and in these instances one can enjoy the real beauty of the architecture; but for the most part, even where there are merit and largeness in the designs, the eye is distressed and the taste is in rebellion at the woful confusion that meets the gaze. This confusion is in many instances enhanced by the redundant and inelegant sign-boards. One notes, however, frequent attempts to secure a harmony in the signs, but these praiseworthy instances are too isolated to have much effect upon the whole, and a single harmonious structure only emphasizes the discordant character of all the rest. Yet these instances are an example and a hint. If it is possible to get a coöperation among the many tenants of large buildings, it is also possible to secure it among the residents of an entire square; and, once let it become an accepted principle that every one is morally bound to build and adorn with a measure of regard for the character and the adornment of neighboring edifices, we shall be enabled to secure at least an approximate harmony in our street-architecture. In Paris a perfect unity is obtained by the authority of law; in London there is a partial concord secured by public opinion; with us it is public opinion only that can be invoked to enforce a remedy for the present disorders; but to this end it must be industriously cultivated.

OUR Bryant sings of the melancholy days of the late autumn-the November days of "wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere;" but some poet should also sing of the melancholy days of early autumn, when, after the summer days have gone, come the sadness of deserted piazzas, the dreariness of abandoned lawns and summer walks, the loneliness of shut windows, and the dismal household hush and emptiness that ever intervene between the early

chill of autumn and the time for glowing firesides. This interregnum is not always dreary out-of-doors; the watering-places, it is true, look dismal, the roads have lost their gayety, the sea-side and the lake-shore are often silent and solemn enough; but still out-of-doors all during September and October is, as everybody knows, very delightful; it is, therefore, only the house, and the house after sunset, that becomes at this season peculiarly dreary. The air is too chilly for the piazza or for open windows; and this first shutting of summer softness and sweetness out of the house, this retreat before the first chilling breath of autumn, casts a gloom over the household. Everybody wanders about listless and restless. The rooms have a shadowy, gray, repellent look. There is no cheer and no brightness anywhere; the gas looks raw and intrusive, coming after the soft, romantic summer moonlights upon the piazza; the social circle, so long nightly formed in ample chairs, with fluttering fans, with cooling drinks, with long, pleasant chats, is broken up; a gathering under the chandelier is not to be tolerated, and there is no other sufficiently attractive point where the restless spirits can assemble. If there are young lovers under the roof, they sit apart in a half chill; there is no inspiration and no sweetness in the metallic glitter of gas. The men find a measure of compensation in their cigars, of which they smoke an unusual number; some of them even, in sheer desperation, hurry to the billiard-room; but the ladies can do nothing but struggle wearily with such murmurs of gossip and talk as the halftorpid spirit can keep alive. There is no life, no relish, no spirit, no comfort, no felicity of any kind in this truly melancholy and dreary period.

That is, usually there is not. But occasionally one may find a bold spirit that knows how to confront the evil and to master it. There is a certain subtile, strange, merry sprite that may on these occasions be successfully invoked, and whose appearance is sure to dissipate the gloom and the chill, and to bring all the scattered members of the household once more into a gay and happy circle. The sprite is a now too much neglected household familiar, but he is known everywhere as the Blaze on the Hearth. There is no reason why we should keep this excellent genius of good cheer in banishment until the winter winds compel his appearance. He is as competent to cheer our hearts on a cool September night as in a December snow-storm. There is wonderful brightness, and glow, and sparkle, and exultation in his companionship, and never more warmth than we choose to permit. Even a few snapping twigs on the old andirons aro sufficient to show us the imp in his happy