or settees, or upon a sort of mast or spar, which lies securely lashed along under the bulwarks, ready to be used in case of need, and occupy themselves in reading or conversation, or in simply waiting for time to pass along. There is no view of the sea from these promenades, on account of the bulwarks, which, instead of being, as in ordinary steam-boats, only breast high, are made, as is usual with sea-going vessels, much higher than one's head, so that it is necessary to clamber up upon the spar in order to get a view of the waves.

Forward of the saloon, and in a line with it upon the deck, and separated from it by a covered passage-way, is a congeries of little apartments-in all scarce twelve feet square-which seems to be China closet, wine-cellar, pantry, and larder all in one, and from which issue the seemingly inexhaustible supplies for the table. The covered passage-way above referred to leads across from the promenade on one side of the ship to the other, and from it there is a communication with the saloon on one side and this pantry on the other side. The two staircases by which we ascend from the cabins and the state-rooms, land, likewise, here. Across this passage-way the stewards bring at meal-times the endless supplies of every imaginable article of food or refreshment, with which they load the tables five times a day. The supplies, it is true, are kept up by a set of wild-looking men, half cooks, half sailors in appearance, who run continually to the windows of these apartments outside, at the proper hours, with great covered dishes which they bring from various cabooses and kitchens further forward. Notwithstanding this, however, the immense capacity of this small space, and its seeming power to supply every imaginable demand upon it, excite continual wonder. One of my messmates, accustomed by many previous voyages to these scenes, was very free in calling, at any time, for any thing which he happened to feel a fancy for, whether it was on the table or not; and it was always produced without any question and with very little delay. Upon my expressing my surprise at the ampleness and abundance of their stores and preparations, Oh," said he, "they have got every thing on board, and so I just take the liberty to call for anything I happen to want. I reason, that when I pay ten dollars a day for my board, I am entitled to have what I ask for. The captain, it

is true, does not reckon it so. He calls it four cents a mile for travelling conveyance; I call it ten dollars a day for board; and as both modes of viewing the subject seem equally correct, I choose to act on mine."

Directly forward of what I have been describing we come to the centre of the deck, in the middle of the ship, where there are openings and passages leading down to the engines and machinery, and also to the forward cabin. You look through a grating into one of these openings, and see iron ladders leading down to a second floor of grating many feet below, and beneath that a second series of ladders conducting to a still greater depth, where you see the glow of fires, and piles of coal, and black, Vulcan-like looking men, replenishing and stirring the fires with enormous implements of iron, seemingly too ponderous for human strength to manage. You wonder what there can be valuable or desirable in life spent in such occupations and in such a den.

Forward of this is a very important place, being the only part of the ship where you can be in the open air, and yet have a shelter over head. Imagine a space ten feet square, with a wooden grating for the floor, and the capstan in the centre of it. There is a partition forward of it, behind which the enormous smoke-pipe ascends into the air. The heat from this pipe pours out very abundantly through a lattice-work in the partition, so that the passenger can warm himself by it if he is cold. The space is open on the two sides to a broad passageway along the deck, beyond which, however, it is protected on the sides of the ship by the paddle-boxes, kitchens, and various offices. Thus, while it is in a great measure open to the air, it is protected from the rain by the saloon deck which extends over it, and it is cut off by the surrounding structures from all prospect of the sea. This is the great rendezvous of the smokers, who stand about the capstan, or sit on the settees and camp-stools. Here, also, the half sick come in bad weather, for it is the only sheltered place about the decks. Here they come, therefore, when too unwell to bear the confined feeling of the cabins and saloon, to enjoy the fresh air a little-fresh air which is composed in about equal proportions of the heat of the boilers, the smoke of the cigars, and all the winds of heaven.

It

There is, however, one other place of tolerable shelter, which, after all, is, on the whole, better than this. It is directly above it, on the saloon deck, close by the naked smoke-pipe, where it comes out into the open air. This smoke-pipe is very large, perhaps eight feet in diameter, and is painted of a fiery red, with black bands encircling it. The saloon deck is elevated, and entirely exposed to the sky. extends from the smoke-pipe back over the saloon to the stern for about half the width of the ship. Two winding stairs lead up to it. It is surrounded by a brass railing, which is covered with canvass at sea, but is very bright and elegant in port. Here, in fine weather, you can sit, or you can walk up and down, if your head is sufficiently steady. You have an unobstructed prospect of the sea, and you can watch, conveniently, all the operations of the sailors in heaving the log, and in making and furling sail, and also those of the officers in taking the observation at noon. But you must be warmly clothed, for there is always a cold wind drawing over the decks of a seagoing steamer. When it becomes too cold, or when it begins to rain, you can go to the smoke-pipe, and by placing your camp-stool on the sheltered side of it, find a tolerable protection from the rain; and, at any rate, you find the effects of a little wet more tolerable than that of the cigars in the more sheltered place around the capstan just below. The result is, that all ladies, and nearly all gentlemen, except the smokers, when they wish to feel the warmth of this enormous tube, prefer to seek it in the open air above, rather than in the halfconfined inclosure below.

If now we descend to the main-deck, we find a large open space, far forward, which is the chief scene of the movements and operations of the seamen.

Here are

the guns, the anchors, the spare spars, and numberless coils of rigging. Here, in pleasant weather, they repair the worn or damaged sails, spreading them down upon the deck. Here the carpenter, using a heavy plank for a bench, temporarily supported on anything which comes to hand, makes a new grating, or repairs some damage in the wood-work of the ship. He has to stop his work for a moment occasionally, to grasp his bench, at the approach of some heavy swell of the sea, to prevent its being overturned. Here the boys belonging to the families of passengers come to play

with the cordage, or to make new arrows for their bows, or to shoot. In front of this space, directly in the bows of the boat, is a small raised deck, called the forecastle, on which a look-out man keeps watch for ships or land ahead. Beneath it is an unexplored and inaccessible den, where the sailors find what little repose their life allows them.

THE WOODS AND THE WOODMEN.

MANY a pleasant day we spent at that season in nutting in the great wild woods; and many a journey we took there with the wagon, fetching timber for the winter fires. The woods, indeed, are delightful haunts at all seasons. To say nothing of the birds, and squirrels, and other wild creatures that haunt them, there is generally something going on in a wood that is interesting. There are the men busy felling trees, or making charcoal, or loading and carrying away timber. Nothing can be more pleasant than to watch the woodmen at their work: to see them hewing, stroke after stroke, till down comes the tall tree with a crash like thunder, and the smash of lashing and crushing boughs that resound through the wood. It is curious, too, to see in what a little time they will bring down a tree of eighty feet high, and half-ayard in diameter. With a saw, after having just hewn round the stem of the tree, so as to clear it from the bark, I have often seen four men at work-three pulling the saw, and one pulling it back again-cut down fir-trees of this size in five minutes each on an average. To see them lop the boughs, bind the branches up into fagots, or bavins, as they are in some places called, and pile the thicker boughs up in square stacks for firewood; to see them load the heavy trees on their drays, with ropes, and pulleys, and levers, and lead them away; or to see them, as they often do, dig their sawpit in the woods, raise a shelter from the wind over it, and make themselves a hut of boughs to take their dinners in; and then, with their fire burning cheerfully in cold weather, set to work and saw up the trees into boards and other pieces of timber,all this is very interesting to witness. There is something very beautiful and primitive in all these operations in the wild woods. The woodmen have a rustic, picturesque, and quiet country air about them that is pleasing. They often are

very good-natured, quiet old fellows, who have a deal of knowledge of country matters; and have a sort of simple sylvan unction in their way of telling you things, that is very agreeable. I have always liked to talk to them, and have learned many things from them of the habits of birds and animals that I otherwise should not have known. You find them sometimes employed in peeling the bark off the oaks before they fell them; which is done in summer, or rather spring, just as the leaves are coming out, and when the woods are very pleasant. It is quite

worth while to watch them. To see how easily and clearly they strip off the bark in large sheets, with a particular instrument, and leave the giant tree naked to the very extremities of its branches, and then drive down short stakes of the figure of a Y, at some distance, laying a pole over them to rear up the bark to dry against them. And when these ranges of bark have stood in the woods for some months, perhaps, some day you find the tanners busy there, piling it in great loads on their wagons, and carrying it off to tan leather with.

The charcoal-burning is an object of interest too. Huge piles of wood cut into certain lengths, and cloven, if too thick, to a suitable bulk, are made in the woods. These are covered with turf and earth, and are kept burning day and night, watched by the men so as to prevent much flame bursting out, for that would spoil the charcoal, burning the wood to ashes, instead of that black, light, charred mass which is wanted. Night and day they watch it, and when the whole mass is charred, carefully stopping up every crevice, or vent of flame, they thus put it out, then throw it open, and spread it to cool.

These operations in the woods give continual changes of scenery. At one time where stood grand old trees, you find them cut down, and lying in all their heavy bulk, their arms lopped, and perhaps their bark stripped. Perhaps the next time you approach that place, inwardly lamenting that your favourite trees are gone, you find the ground where they stood all thickly sprinkled with primroses or cowslips, or azure with one wide profusion of blue bells; and in the fagot-stacks around, blackbird and throstle nests, that it is a pleasure to peep into. It is difficult totally to defeat the continual efforts of nature to adorn her

wild scenes with beauty.

But the grandest sport of all was going acorn-gathering out in the oak-woods, when they were arrayed in their russet hues; and the high winds came sweeping around, and the dark-brown glossy acorns came rattling down, and lay thickly on the leaf-strewn earth. Ay, that was delightful!-Every thing was wild and excitingly gloomy. The squirrels might be seen springing from bough to bough; the rooks and jackdaws come in crowds to claim their share; and all the old sows in the neighbourhood, at the very first sound of the autumnal blast, had rushed away instinctively to the oakwood. The roaring of the wind was to them as the sound of a trumpet, telling them that acorns were falling in thousands; and if confined in their styes they would scream with rage, and when let out trot off with a savage eagerness that defied all opposition of lads or dogs, sticks or stones. People often say pigs can see the wind; pigs scream in a high wind-they scream for impatience to be under the oaks and the bushes where the mast is falling in a delicious plenty. Pleasant is it to hear the roaring winds of autumn, and see the withered leaves running along the ground in crowds, like a huge flock of birds racing in a madness of mirth. Howitt's "Boy's Country Book."

TIME.

TIME is the measurer of all things, but is itself immeasurable; and the grand discloser of all things, but is itself undisclosed. Like space, it is incomprehensible, because it has no limit; and it would be still more so, if it had. It gives wings of lightning to pleasure, but feet of lead to pain; and lends expectation a curb, but enjoyment a spur. Time is the most subtle, yet the most insatiable of depredators, and by appearing to take nothing, is permitted to take all; nor can it be satisfied until it has stolen the world from us, and us from the world.Colton.

REJECT NOT THE GOSPEL.

BARE your brow to the lightning; open your bosom to the thunderbolt; but, oh, do not increase the Divine displeasure, and the severity of your final doom, by your settled rejection of Hea ven's last, best gift.-Waugh.

THE tolling of the cathedral bell of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, in Paris, close to the palace of the Louvre, was the signal for Protestant slaughter, on the day of St. Bartholomew. The duke of Guise was to begin it by the murder of Coligny. Companies of citizens had been formed to continue it, and the guards of the duke of Anjou, professedly stationed for the safety of the Protestant dwellings, after the attack on the admiral, were ready to despatch the people they pretended to guard from danger. A white band on the left arm and a white cross in the hat distinguished the citizen troops. The streets were suddenly illuminated by flambeaux, and lights blazed in the windows of the Louvre.

The wounded Coligny, reposing on the
DECEMBER, 1849.

faith of a king, was sleeping, as a Christian at peace with God may sleep. The doors of his house were burst open; a horrified attendant appeared in his room. The admiral asked what was the matter. "My lord, God calls us to himself!" was the answer: a beautiful one, and worthy of a follower of Coligny.

The

"Save yourselves, my friends," replied the admiral. "All is over with me; I have long been ready to die." murderer appeared. "Art thou Coligny?" he demanded. Truly I am he," was the martyr's reply. "Young man, you ought to respect my gray hairs." He was instantly killed.

Guise with his comrades were under the window, and to satisfy the former that the opponent of his father was really dead, the body of the murdered old man was thrown out of it to them. That

2 M

window is still to be seen in Paris. Guise wiped the blood from the venerable face, to see if it were the very same, and then said, "Venomous beast! thou canst no more infuse thy poison." Ah! how little did he then foresee that his own dead body would be thus spurned by a royal foot, and these very words repeated over it! The martyr of Protestantism was gone to be with that all over-ruling God who maketh even the wrath of man to praise him. And what mattered it to him that his lifeless clay was dragged in wild triumph through the streets, mutilated, and gibbeted?

The general massacre commenced, Guise leading it on, and crying to the soldiers and citizens that it was by the king's order; exhorting them to kill every Huguenot. They did not need exhortation.

"The streets," says a French writer, "were covered with mangled bodies. The doorways, both of palaces and private dwellings, were deep in blood. Yells and murderous cries filled the air, | mingled with reports of pistols and muskets: the shrieks of the slaughtered, and the sound of the dead falling from windows, or from the tops of the houses, or dragged along the ground with hideous howlings. * * Houses were sacked and robbed. Carts passed, sometimes filled with spoil, sometimes loaded with dead to be cast into the Seine." That river was red with the blood that ran through the streets, and more especially through the court of the Louvre, the king's own palace, in the neighbourhood of which nearly all the Protestants had been brought to reside. The massacre was carried on with equal diligence within the very walls of that palace." Protestantism in France," published by the Religious Tract Society.

TEMPERANCE AND INTEMPERANCE.

IT was a splendid night. The fullorbed moon had risen high in the firmament, giving a silvery brightness to the edges of the clouds which floated by, and pouring a flood of radiance on the world beneath! The dark hue of the trees wherever they clustered, with their widespreading branches and thickly-set foliage, contrasted beautifully with the lighter tints of others, either standing apart, or of slighter and more graceful structure,

as well as of smaller and more tender leaf; and especially with that vivid and lovely green which, at such a time, lies like a mantle on the open park, and field, and meadow. The blueness of the hills was upon them;-the mist rising in the dells, as it glistened in the moonlight, looked like a lake of the desert when the mirage occurs; and here and there appeared, in upland and valley, a dwelling which could only be tenanted by the rich, or in which some cottager found a home. But no door was open, -no smoke arose, whose spiral column lends to the landscape by day a beautiful feature; every window was darkened, except when the moonbeams lit up its large or humble panes ;-no lowing, no bleat, no twitter of living thing disturbed the stillness of the scene. It was two hours after midnight by the village clock, and it seemed as if all animate nature were sunk in one dense slumber.

It was not so, however; for just then a vehicle dashed through Merston at a frightful rate. Loud and harsh were the sounds of the horse's hoofs, as he struck in his gallop the flints in the road, sending forth their sparks. Again and again did some huge stone threaten an overthrow, but the wheel only grazed its side, or safely passed over it, until, just beyond the village, it caught the end of the brickwork of a little bridge, when the vehicle overturned with a loud crash, and its burden was instantly cast to a short distance.

The keeper of the turnpike-gate, which a few paces onwards extends across the road, had not settled himself to slumber after rising to let through a wagon laden with corn, when he heard the noise, and rushing forth, he discovered a man lying on the green turf, as if asleep. He knew now it was Jacob Hudson,* and at first supposed he was in his usual state of intoxication when out at that hour; but in vain did he call upon him to rise,-in vain did he lift and shake his limbs; and on kneeling down, and looking intently on that upturned and rigid face, and listening eagerly amidst the perfect stillness of the night, he was terrified on finding Hudson had ceased to breathe.

The dreadful case was now clear; the gate-keeper had observed, the day before, Jacob's new horse; it had now shaken off its tracings, and was standing perfectly still, and had evidently run away when the reins dropped from the driver's *See Visitor for July,