CHAPTER XVI.

One of the first persons I saw in London was Hubert Rookwood, who, when he heard (for being Basil's brother I would not conceal it from him) that my father was in prison at Bridewell, expressed so much concern therein and resentment of my grief, that I was thereby moved to more kindly feelings toward him than I had of late entertained. He said that in the houses of the law which he frequented he had made friends which he hoped would intercede in his behalf, and therein obtain, if not his release, yet so much alleviation of the hardships of a common prison as should render his condition more tolerable, and that he would lose no time in seeking to move them thereunto; but that our chief hope would lie in Sir Francis Walsingham, who, albeit much opposed to papists, had always showed himself willing to assist his friends of that way of thinking, and often procured for them some relief, which indeed none had more experienced than Mr. Congleton himself. Hubert commended the secrecy which had been observed touching my father's real name; for if he should be publicly known to be possessed of lands and related to noble families, it should be harder for any one to get him released than an obscure person; but nevertheless he craved license to intimate so much of the truth to Sir Francis as should appear convenient, for he had always observed that gentlemen are more compassionate to those of their own rank than to others of meaner birth. Mr. Congleton prayed him to use his own discretion therein, and said he should acquaint no one himself of it except his very good friend the Portuguese ambassador, who, if all other resources failed, might yet obtain of the queen herself some mitigation of his sentence. Thereupon followed some days of weary watching and waiting, in which my only comfort was Mistress Ward, who, by means of the gaoler's wife, who had obliged her in the like manner before, did get access from time to time to Mr. Watson, and brought him necessaries. From him she discovered that the prisoner in the nearest cell to his own was the so-called Mr. Tunstall, and that by knocks against the wall, ingeniously numbered so as to express the letters of the alphabet, as one for _a_, two for _b_, and so to the end thereof, they did communicate. So she straightway began to practice this management; but time allowed not of many speeches to pass between them. Yet in this way he sent me his blessing, and that he was of very good cheer; but that none should try for to visit him, for he had only one fear, which was to bring others into trouble; and, for himself, he was much beholden to her majesty, which had provided him with a quiet lodging and time to look to his soul's welfare; {170} which evidence of his cheerful and pious spirit comforted me not a little. Then that dear friend which had brought me this good comfort spoke of Mr. Watson, and said she desired to procure his escape from prison more than that of any other person in the same plight, not excepting my father. "For, good Constance," quoth she, "when a man is blest with a stout heart and cheerful mind, except it be for the sake of others, I pray you what kind of service do you think we render him by delaying the victory he is about to gain, and peradventure depriving him of the long-desired crown of martyrdom? But this good Mr. Watson, who as you well know was a zealous priest and pious missioner, nevertheless, some time after his apprehension and confinement in Bridewell, by force of torments and other miseries of that place, was prevailed upon to deny his faith so far as to go once to the Protestant service--not dragged there by force as some have been, but compelled thereunto by fear of intolerable sufferings, and was then set at liberty. But the poor man did not thus better his condition; for the torments of his mind, looking on himself as an apostate and traitor to the Church, he found to be more insupportable than any sufferings his gaolers put upon him. So, after some miserable weeks, he went to one of the prisons where some other priests were confined for to seek comfort and counsel from them; and, having confessed his fault with great and sincere sorrow, he received absolution, and straightway repaired to that church in Bridewell wherein he had in a manner denied his faith, and before all the people at that time therein assembled, declared himself a Catholic, and willing to go to prison and to death sooner than to join again in Protestant worship. Whereupon he was laid hold of, dragged to prison, and thrown into a dungeon so low and so straight that he could neither stand up in it nor lay himself down at his full length to sleep. They loaded him with irons, and kept him one whole month on bread and water; nor would suffer any one to come near him to comfort or speak with him."

"Alas!" I cried, "and is this, then, the place where my father is confined?'

"No,", she answered; "after the space of a month Mr. Watson was translated to a lodging at the top of the house, wherein the prisoners are leastways able to stretch their limbs and to see the light; but he having been before prevailed on to yield against his conscience touching that point of going to Protestant worship, no peace is left to him by his persecutors, which never cease to urge on him some sort of conformity to their religion. And, Constance, when a man hath once been weak, what security can there be, albeit I deny not hope, that he shall always after stand firm?"

"But by what means," I eagerly asked, '"do you forecast to procure his escape?"

"I have permission," she answered, "to bring him necessaries, which I do in a basket, on condition that I be searched at going in and coming out, for to make sure I convey not any letter unto him or from him; and this was so strictly observed the first month that they must needs break open the loaves or pies I take to him lest any paper should be conveyed inside. But they begin now to weary of this strict search, and do not care at ways to hearken when I speak with him; so he could tell me the last time I did visit him that he had found a way by which if he had but a cord long enough for his purpose, he could let himself down from the top of the house, and so make his escape in the night."

"Oh," I cried, "dear Mistress Ward, but this is a perilous venture, to aid a prisoner's escape. One which a daughter might run for her father, oh, how willingly, but for a stranger--"

"A stranger!" she answered. "Is he a stranger for whom Christ died, and whose precious soul is in danger. {171} even if not a priest; and being so, is he not entitled to more than common reverence, chiefly in these days when God's servants minister to us in the midst of such great straits to both soul and body?'

"I cry God mercy," I said; "I did term him a stranger who gave ghostly comfort to my dear mother on her death-bed; but oh, dear Mistress Ward, I thought on your peril, who, he knoweth, hath been as a mother to me for these many years. And then-if you are resolved to run this danger, should it not be possible to save my father also by the same means? Two cords should not be more difficult to convey, methinks, than one, and the peril not greater."

"If I could speak with him," she replied, "it would not be impossible. I will tell Muriel to make two instead of one of these cords, which she doth twine in some way she learnt from a Frenchman, so strong as, albeit slight, to have the strength of a cable. But without we do procure two men with a boat for to fetch the prisoners when they descend, 'tis little use to make the attempt. And it be easier, I warrant thee, Constance, to run one's self into a manifest danger than to entice others to the like."

"Should it be safe," I asked, "to speak thereon to Hubert Rookwood? He did exhibit this morning much zeal in my father's behalf, and promised to move Sir Francis Walsingham to procure his release."

"How is he disposed touching religion? she asked, in a doubtful manner.

"Alas!" I answered, "there is a secrecy in his nature which in more ways than one doth prove unvestigable, leastways to me; but when he comes this evening I will sound him thereon. Would his brother were in London! Then we should not lack counsel and aid in this matter."

"We do sorely need both," she answered; "for your good uncle, than which a better man never lived, wanes feeble in body, and hence easily overcome by the fears such enterprises involve. Mr. Wells is not in London at this tune, or he should have been a very palladium of strength in this necessity. Hubert Rookwood hath, I think, a good head."

"What we do want is a brave heart," I replied, thinking on Basil.

"But wits also," she said.

"Basil hath them too," I answered, forgetting that only in mine own thinking had he been named.

"Yea," she cried, "who doth doubt it? but, alas! he is not here."

Then I prayed her not to be too rash in the prosecution of her design. "Touching my father," I said, "I have yet some hope of his release; and as long as any remaineth, flight should be methinks a too desperate attempt to be thought of."

"Yea," she answered, "in most cases it would be so." But Mr. Watson's disposition she perceived to be such as would meet a present danger and death itself, she thought, with courage, but not of that stamp which could endure prolonged fears or infliction of torments.

Since my coming to London I had been too much engaged in these weighty cares to go abroad; but on that day I resolved, if it were possible, to see my Lady Surrey. A report had reached me that the breach between her and her husband had so much deepened that a separation had ensued, which if true, I, which knew her as well almost as mine own self, could judge what her grief must be. I was also moved to this endeavor by the hope that if my Lord Arundel was not too sick to be spoken with, she should perhaps obtain some help through his means for that dear prisoner whose captivity did weigh so heavily on my heart.

So, with a servant to attend on me, I went through the city to the Chapter-house, and with a misgiving mind heard from the porter that Lady Surrey lodged not there, but at Arundel House, whither she had removed soon after her coming to London. {172} Methought that in the telling of it this man exhibited a sorrowful countenance; but not choosing to question one of his sort on so weighty a matter, I went on to Arundel House, where, after some delay, I succeeded in gaining admittance to Lady Surrey's chamber, whose manner, when she first saw me, lacked the warmth which I was used to in her greetings. There seemed some fear in her lest I should speak unadvisedly that which she would be loth to hear; and her strangeness and reserve methinks arose from reluctance to have the wound in her heart probed,--too sore a one, I ween, even for the tender handling of a friend. I inquired of her if my Lord Arundel's health had improved. She said he was better, and like soon to be as well as could be hoped for now-a-days, when his infirmities had much increased.

"Then you will return to Kenninghall?" I said, letting my speech outrun discretion.

"No," she replied; "I purpose never more to leave my Lord Arundel or my Lady Lumley as long as they do live, which I pray God may be many years."

And then she sat without speaking, biting her lips and wringing the kerchief she held in her hands, as if to keep her grief from outbursting. I dared not to comment on her resolve, for I foresaw that the least word which should express some partaking of her sorrow, or any question relating to it, would let loose a torrent weakly stayed by a mightful effort, not like to be of long avail. So I spoke of mine own troubles, and the events which had occasioned my sudden departure from Lynn Court. She had heard of Lady l'Estrange's mishap, and that the following day I had journeyed to London; but naught of the causes thereof, or of the apprehension of any priest by Sir Hammond's orders. Which, when she learnt the manner of this misfortune, and the poor lady's share therein, and that it was my father she had thus unwittingly discovered, her countenance softened, and throwing her arms round my neck, she bitterly wept, which at that moment methinks did her more good than anything else.

"Oh, mine own good Constance," she said, "I doubt not nature riseth many passionate workings in your soul at this time; but, my dear wench, when good men are in trouble our grief for them should be as noble as their virtues. Bethink thee what a worst sorrow it should be to have a vile father, one that thou must needs love,--for who can tear out of his heart affection strong as life?--and he should then prove unworthy. Believe me, Constance, God gives to each, even in this world, a portion of their deserts. Such griefs as thy present one I take to be rare instances of his favor. Other sorts of trials are meet for cowardly souls which refuse to set their lips to a chalice of suffering, and presently find themselves submerged in a sea of woes. But can I help thee, sweet one? Is there aught I can do to lighten thy affliction? Hast thou license for to see thy father?"

"No, dear lady," I answered; "and his name being concealed, I may not petition as his daughter for this permission; but if my Lord Arundel should be so good a lord to me as to obtain leave for me to visit this prisoner, without revealing his name and condition, he should do me the greatest benefit in the world."

"I will move him thereunto," my lady said. "But he who had formerly no equal in the queen's favor, and to whom she doth partly owe her crown, is now in his sickness and old age of so little account in her eyes, that trifling favors are often denied him to whom she would once have said: 'Ask of me what thou wilt, and I will give it unto thee.' But what my poor endeavors can effect through him or others shall not be lacking in this thy need. But I am not in that condition I was once like to have enjoyed." Then with her eyes cast on the ground she seemed for to doubt if she should {173} speak plainly, or still shut up her grief in silence. As I sat painfully expecting her next words, the door opened, and two ladies were announced, which she whispered in mine ear she would fain not have admitted at that time, but that Lord Arundel's desire did oblige her to entertain them. One was Mistress Bellamy, and the other her daughter, Mistress Frances, a young gentlewoman of great beauty and very lively parts, which I had once before seen at Lady Ingoldsby's house. She was her parents' sole daughter, and so idolized by them that they seemed to live only to minister to her fancies. Lord Arundel was much bounden to this family by ancient ties of friendship, which made him urgent with his granddaughter that she should admit them to her privacy. I admired in this instance how suddenly those which have been used to exercise such self-command as high breeding doth teach can school their exterior to seem at ease, and even of good cheer, when most ill at ease interiorly, and with hearts very heavy. Lady Surrey greeted these visitors with as much courtesy, and listened to their discourse with as much civility and smiles when called for, as if no burthensome thoughts did then oppress her.

Many and various themes were touched upon in the random talk which ensued. First, that wonted one of the queen's marriage, which some opined should verily now take place with Monsieur d'Alençon; for that since his stealthy visits to England, she did wear in her bosom a brooch of jewels in a frog's shape.

"Ay," quoth Mistress Frances, "that stolen visit which awoke the ire of the poor soul Stubbs, who styled it 'an unmanlike, unprincelike, French kind of wooing,' and endeth his book of 'The Gaping Gulph' in a loyal rage: 'Here is, therefore, an imp of the crown of France, to marry the crowned nymph of England,'--a nymph indeed well stricken in years. My brother was standing by when Stubbs' hand was cut off; for nothing else would content that sweet royal nymph, albeit the lawyers stoutly contended the statute under which he suffered to be null and void. As soon as his right hand is off, the man takes his hat off with the left, and cries 'God bless the queen!'"

"Here is a wonder," I exclaimed; "I pray you, what is the art this queen doth possess by which she holdeth the hearts of her subjects in so great thrall, albeit so cruel to them which do offend her?"

"Lady Harrington hath told me her majesty's own opinion thereon," said Mrs. Bellamy; "for one day she did ask her in a merry sort, 'How she kept her husband's good-will and love?' To which she made reply that she persuaded her husband of her affection, and in so doing did command his. Upon which the queen cries out, 'Go to, go to, Mistress Moll! you are wisely bent, I find. After such sort do I keep the good wills of all my husbands, my good people; for if they did not rest assured of some special love toward them, they would not readily yield me such good obedience.'"

"Tut, tut!" cried Mistress Frances; "all be not such fools as John Stubbs; and she knoweth how to take rebukes from such as she doth not dare to offend. By the same token that Sir Philip Sydney hath written to dissuade her from this French match, and likewise Sir Francis Walsingham, which last did hint at her advancing years; and her highness never so much as thought of striking off their hands. But I warrant you a rebellion shall arise if this queen doth issue such prohibitions as she hath lately done."

"Of what sort?" asked Lady Surrey.

"First, to forbid," Mrs. Bellamy said, "any new building to be raised within three thousand paces of the gates of London on pain of imprisonment, and sundry other penalties; or for more than one family to inhabit in one house. For her majesty holds it {174} should be an impossible thing to govern or maintain order in a city larger than this London at the present time."

Mistress Frances declared this law to be more tolerable than the one against the size of ladies' ruffs, which were forsooth not to exceed a certain measure; and officers appointed for to stand at the comers of streets and to clip such as overpassed the permitted dimensions, which sooner than submit to she should die.

Lady Surrey smiled, and said she should have judged so from the size of her fine ruff.

"But her majesty is impartial," quoth Mrs. Bellamy; "for the gentlemen's rapiers are served in the same manner. And verily this law hath nearly procured a war with France; for in Smithfield Lane some clownish constables stayed M. de Castelnau, and laid hands on his sword for to shorten it to the required length. I leave you to judge. Lady Surrey, of this ambassador's fury. Sir Henry Seymour, who was tidying the air in Smithfield at the time, perceived him standing with the drawn weapon in his hand, threatening to kill whosoever should approach him, and destruction on this realm of England if the officers should dare to touch his sword again; and this with such frenzy of speech in French mixed with English none could understand, that God knoweth what should have ensued if Sir Henry had not interfered. Her majesty was forced to make an apology to this mounseer for that her officers had ignorantly attempted to clip the sword of her good brother's envoy."

"Why doth she not clip," Mistress Frances said, "if such be her present humor, the orange manes of her gray Dutch horses, which are the frightfullest things in the world?"

"Tis said," quoth Mrs. Bellamy, "that a new French embassy is soon expected, with the dauphin of Auvergne at its head."

"Yea," cried her daughter, "and four handsome English noblemen to meet them at the Tower stairs, and conduct them to the new banqueting-house at Westminster,--my Lord Surrey, Lord Windsor, Sir Philip Sydney, and Sir Fulke Greville. Methinks this should be a very fine sight, if rain doth not fall to spoil it."

I saw my Lady Surrey's countenance change when her husband was mentioned; and Mrs. Bellamy looked at her daughter forasmuch as to check her thoughtless speeches, which caused this young lady to glance round the room, seeking, as it seemed, for some other topic of conversation.

Methinks I should not have preserved so lively a recollection of the circumstances of this visit if some dismal tidings which reached me afterward touching this gentlewoman, then so thoughtless and innocent, had not revived in me the memory of her gay prattle, bright unabashed eyes, and audacious dealing with subjects so weighty and dangerous, that any one less bold should have feared to handle them. After the pause which ensued on the mention of Lord Surrey's name, she took for her text what had been said touching the prohibitions lately issued concerning ruffs and rapiers, and began to mock at her majesty's favorites; yea, and to mimic her majesty herself with so much humor that her well-acted satire must have needs constrained any one to laugh. Then, not contented with these dangerous jests, she talked such direct treason against her highness as to say she hoped to see her dethroned, and a fair Catholic sovereign to reign in her stead, who would be less shrewish to young and handsome ladies. Then her mother cried her, for mercy's sake, to restrain her mad speech, which would serve one day to bring them all into trouble, for all she meant it in jest.

"Marry, good mother," she answered, "not in jest at all; for I do verily hold myself bound to no allegiance to this queen, and would gladly see her get her deserts."

Then Lady Surrey prayed her not to speak so rashly; but methought in {175} her heart, and somewhat I could perceive of this in her eyes, she misliked not wholly this young lady's words, who then spoke of religion; and oh, how zealous therein she did appear, how boldly affirmed (craving Lady Surrey's pardon, albeit she would warrant, she said, there was no need to do so, her ladyship she had heard being half a papist herself) that she had as lief be racked twenty times over and die also, or her face to be so disfigured that none should call her ever after anything but a fright--which martyrdom she held would exceed any yet thought of--than so much as hold her tongue concerning her faith, or stay from telling her majesty to her face, if she should have the chance to get speech with her, that she was a foul heretic, and some other truths beside, which but once to utter in her presence, come of it what would, should be a delicious pleasure. Then she railed at the Catholics which blessed the queen before they suffered for their religion, proving them wrong with ingenious reasons and fallacious arguments mixed with pleasantries not wholly becoming such grave themes. But it should have seemed as reasonable to be angry with a child babbling at random of life and death in the midst of its play, as with this creature, the lightest of heart, the fairest in face, the most winsome in manner, and most careless of danger, that ever did set sail on life's stream.

Oh, how all this rose before me again, when I heard, two years afterward, that for her bold recusancy--alas! more bold, as the sequel proved, than deep, more passionate than fervent--this only cherished daughter, this innocent maiden, the mirror of whose fame no breath had sullied, and on whose name no shadow had rested, was torn by the pursuivants from her parents' home, and cast into a prison with companions at the very aspect of which virtue did shudder. And the unvaliant courage, the weak bravery, of this indulged and wayward young lady had no strength wherewith to resist the surging tides of adversity. No voice of parent, friend, or ghostly father reached her in that abode of despair. No visible angel visited her, but a fiend in human form haunted her dungeon. Liberty and pleasure he offered in exchange for virtue, honor, and faith. She fell; sudden and great was that fall.

There is a man the name of which hath blenched the cheeks and riven the hearts of Catholics, one who hath caused many amongst them to lose their lands and to part from their homes, to die on gibbets and their limbs to be torn asunder--one Richard Topcliffe. But, methinks, of all the voices which shall be raised for to accuse him at Christ's judgment-seat, the loudest will be Frances Bellamy's. Her ruin was his work; one of those works which, when a man is dead, do follow him; whither, God knoweth!

Oh, you who saw her, as I did, in her young and innocent years, can you read this without shuddering? Can you think on it without weeping? As her fall was sudden, so was the change it wrought. With it vanished affections, hopes, womanly feelings, memory of the past; nay, methinks therein I err. Memory did yet abide, but linked with hatred; Satan's memory of heaven. From depths to depths she hath sunk, and is now wedded to a mean wretch, the gaoler of her old prison. So rank a hatred hath grown in her against recusants and mostly priests, that it rages like a madness in her soul, which thirsts for their blood. Some months back, about the time I did begin to write this history, news reached me that she had sold the life of that meek saint, that sweet poet, Father Southwell, of which even an enemy, Lord Mountjoy, did say, when he had seen him suffer, "I pray God, where that man's soul now is, mine may one day be." Her father had concealed him in that house where she had dwelt in her innocent days. None but the family knew the secret of its hiding-place. {176}so will be ready in Ireland She did reveal it, and took gold for her wages! What shall be that woman's death-bed? What trace doth remain on her soul of what was once a share in the divine nature? May one of God's ministers be nigh unto her in that hour for to bid her not despair! If Judas had repented, Jesus would have pardoned him. Peradventure, misery without hope of relief overthrew her brain. I do pray for her always. 'Tis a vain thought perhaps, but I sometimes wish I might, though I see not how to compass it, yet once speak with her before she or I die. Methinks I could say such words as should touch some old chord in her dead heart. God knoweth! That day I write of, little did I ween what her end would be. But yet it feared me to hear one so young and of so frail an aspect speak so boastfully; and it seemed even then to my inexperienced mind, that my Lady Surrey, who had so humbly erewhile accused herself of cowardice and lamented her weakness, should be in a safer plight, albeit as yet unreconciled.

The visit I have described had lasted some time, when a servant came with a message to her ladyship from Mr. Hubert Rookwood, who craved to be admitted on an urgent matter. She glanced at me somewhat surprised, upon which I made her a sign that she should condescend to his request; for I supposed he had seen Sir Francis Walsingham, and was in haste to confer with me touching that interview; and she ordered him to be admitted. Mrs. Bellamy and her daughter rose to go soon after his entrance; and whilst Lady Surrey conducted them to the door he asked me if her ladyship was privy to the matter in hand. When I had satisfied him thereof, he related what had passed in an interview he had with Sir Francis, whom he found ill-disposed at first to stir in the matter, for he said his frequent remonstrances in favor of recusants had been like to bring him into odium with some of the more zealous Protestants, and that he must needs, in every case of that sort, prove it to be his sole object to bring such persons more surely, albeit slowly, by means of toleration, to a rightful conformity; and that with regard to priests he was very loth to interfere.

"I was compelled," quoth Hubert, "to use such arguments as fell in with the scope of his discourse, and to flatter him with the hope of good results in that which he most desired, if he would procure Mr. Sherwood's release, which I doubt not he hath power to effect. And in the end he consented to lend his aid therein, on condition he should prove on his side so far conformable as to suffer a minister to visit and confer with him touching religion, which would then be a pretext for his release, as if it were supposed he was well disposed toward Protestant religion, and a man more like to embrace the truth when at liberty than if driven to it by stress of confinement. Then he would procure," he added, "an order for his passage to France, if he promised not to return, except he should be willing to obey the laws."

"I fear me much," I answered, "my father will not accept these terms which Sir Francis doth offer. Methinks he will consider they do involve some lack of the open profession of his faith."

"It would be madness for one in his plight to refuse them," Hubert exclaimed, and appealed thereon to Lady Surrey, who said she did indeed think as he did, for it was not like any better could be obtained.

It pained me he should refer to her, who from conformity to the times could not well conceive how tender a Catholic conscience should feel at the least approach to dissembling on this point.

"Wherein," he continued, "is the harm for to confer with a minister, or how can it be construed into a denial of a man's faith to listen to his arguments, unless, indeed, he feels himself to be in danger of being shaken by them?"

"You very well know," I exclaimed {177} with some warmth, "that not to be my meaning, or what I suppose his should be. Our priests do constantly crave for public disputations touching religion, albeit they eschew secret ones, which their adversaries make a pretext of to spread reports of their inability to defend their faith, or willingness to abandon it. But heaven forbid I should anyways prejudge this question; and if with a safe conscience--and with no other I am assured will he do it--my father doth subscribe to this condition, then God be praised for it!"

"But you will move him to it, Mistress Constance?" he said.

"If I am so happy," I answered, "as to get speech with him, verily I will entreat him not to throw away his life, so precious to others, if so be he can save it without detriment to his conscience."

"Conscience!" Hubert exclaimed, "methinks that word is often misapplied in these days."

"How so?" I asked, investigating his countenance, for I misdoubted his meaning. Lady Surrey likewise seemed desirous to hear what he should say on that matter.

"Conscience," he answered, "should make persons, and mostly women, careful how they injure others, and cause heedless suffering, by a too great stiffness in refusing conformity to the outward practices which the laws of the country enforce, when it affects not the weightier points of faith, which God forbid any Catholic should deny. There is often as much of pride as of virtue in such rash obstinacy touching small yieldings as doth involve the ruin of a family, separation of parents and children, and more evils than can be thought of."

"Hubert," I said, fixing mine eyes on him with a searching look he cared not, I ween, to meet, for he cast his on a paper he had in his hand, and raised them not while I spoke, "'sit is by such reasonings first, and then by such small yieldings as you commend, that some have been led two or three times in their lives, yea, oftener perhaps, to profess different religions, and to take such contradictory oaths as have been by turns prescribed to them under different sovereigns, and God each time called on to witness their perjuries, whereby truth and falsehood in matters of faith shall come in time to be words without any meaning."

Then he: "You do misapprehend me, Mistress Constance, if you think I would counsel a man to utter a falsehood, or feign to believe that which in his heart he thinketh to be false. But, in heaven's name, I pray you, what harm will your father do if he listens to a minister's discourse, and suffers it to be set forth he doth ponder thereon, and in the meantime escapes to France? whereas, if he refuses the loophole now offered to him, he causeth not to himself alone, but to you and his other friends, more pain and sorrow than can be thought of, and deprives the Church of one of her servants, when her need of them is greatest."

I made no reply to this last speech; for albeit I thought my father would not accede to these terms, I did not so far trust mine own judgment thereon as to predict with certainty what his answer should be. And then Hubert said he had an order from Sir Francis that would admit me on the morrow to see my father; and he offered to go with me, and Mistress Ward too, if I listed, to present it, albeit I alone should enter his cell. I thanked him, and fixed the time of our going.

When he had left us, Lady Surrey commended his zeal, and also his moderate spirit, which did charitably allow, she said, for such as conformed to the times for the sake of others which their reconcilement would very much injure.

Before I could reply she changed this discourse, and, putting her hands on my shoulders and kissing my forehead, said,

"My Lady Lumley hath heard so much from her poor niece of one {178} Mistress Constance Sherwood, that she doth greatly wish to see this young gentlewoman and very resolved papist." And then taking me by the arm she led me to that lady's chamber, where I had as kind a welcome as ever I received from any one from her ladyship, who said "her dear Nan's friends should be always as dear to her as her own," and added many fine commendations greatly exceeding my deserts.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

From The London Quarterly Review.

GLEANINGS FROM THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE TROPICS.

ART. VI.--1. _A Narrative Of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, etc._By Alfred R. Wallace. London: 1853.

2. _Himalayan Journals; or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim, and Nepal Himalayas_. By Joseph D. Hooker, M.D., R.N., F.R.S. London: 1854.

3. _Three Visits to Madagascar during the Years_1853, 1854, 1856, _with Notices of the Natural History of the Country, etc._ By the Rev. W. Ellis, F.H.S. London: 1859.

4. _The Tropical World: A Popular Scientific Account of the Natural History of the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms._By Dr. G. Hartwig. London: 1863.

5. _The Naturalist on the River Amazons: A Record of Adventures, Habits of Animals, etc., during eleven Years of Travel._ By Henry Walter Bates. London: 1863.

The naturalist will never have to complain, with Alexander, that he has no more worlds to conquer, so inexhaustible is the wide field of nature, and so numerous are the vast areas which as yet have never at all, or only partially, been explored by travellers. What may not be in store for some future adventurer in little known regions; what new and wonderful forms of animals and plants may not reward the zealous traveller, when no less than eight thousand species of animals new to science have been discovered by Mr. Bates during his eleven years' residence on the Amazons? Nor is it alone new forms of animated nature that await the enterprise of the naturalist; a whole mine of valuable material, the working of which is attended with the greatest pleasure, lies before him in the discovery of new facts with regard to the habits, structure, and local distribution of animals and plants. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance to the philosophic naturalist of such studies in these days of thought and progress. The collector of natural curiosities may be content with the possession of a miscellaneous lot of objects, but the man of science pursues his investigations with a view of discovering, if possible, some of those wonderful laws which govern the organic world, some of the footprints of the Creator in the production of the countless forms of animal and vegetable life with which this beautiful world abounds.

We purpose in this article to bring before the reader's notice a few gleanings from the natural history of the tropics, merely surmising that we shall linger with more than ordinary pleasure over the productions of tropical {179} South America, of which Mr. Bates has charmingly and most instructively written in his recently published work, whose title is given at the head of this article; we shall pause to admire, with Dr. Hooker, some of the productions of the mighty Himalayan mountains; and we may also visit Madagascar in company with so trustworthy a traveller as Mr. Ellis.

The ancients, before the time of Alexander's Indian expedition, were unacquainted with any tropical forms of plants, and great was their astonishment when they first beheld them:

"Gigantic forms of plants and animals," as Humboldt says, "filled the imagination with exciting imagery. Writers from whose severe and scientific style any degree of inspiration is elsewhere entirely absent, become poetical when describing the habits of the elephant,--the height of the trees, 'to the summit of which an arrow cannot reach, and whose leaves are broader then the shields of infantry,'--the bamboo, a light, feathery, arborescent grass, of which single joints (_internodia_) served as four-oared boats,--and the Indian fig-tree, whose pendant branches take root around the parent stem, which attains a diameter of twenty-eight feet, 'forming,' as Onesicritus expresses himself with great truth to nature, 'a leafy canopy similar to a many-pillared tent.'" [Footnote 24]

[Footnote 24: "Cosmos," vol. ii., p. 155. Sabine's translation ]

It is not possible for language to describe the glory of the forests of the Amazon, and yet the silence and gloom of the Brazilian forests, so often mentioned by travellers, are striking realities. Let us read Mr. Bates's impressions of the interior of a primeval forest:

"The silence and gloom," he says, "are realities, and the impression deepens on a longer acquaintance. The few sounds of birds are of that pensive and mysterious character which intensifies the feeling of solitude rather than imparts a sense of life and cheerfulness. Sometimes in the midst of the stillness a sudden yell or scream will startle one; this comes from some defenceless fruit-eating animal which is pounced upon by a tiger-cat or stealthy boa-constrictor. Morning and evening the howling monkeys make a most fearful and harrowing noise, under which it is difficult to keep up one's buoyancy of spirit. The feeling of inhospitable wildness which the forest is calculated to inspire is increased tenfold under this fearful uproar. Often even in the still hours of mid-day a sudden crash will be heard resounding afar through the wilderness, as some great bough or entire tree falls to the ground. There are beside many sounds which it is impossible to account for. I found the natives generally as much at a loss in this respect as myself. Sometimes a sound is heard like the clang of an iron bar against a hard hollow tree, or a piercing cry rends the air; these are not repeated, and the succeeding silence tends to heighten the unpleasant impression which they make on the mind. With the natives it is always the curupira, the wild man, or spirit of the forest, which produces all noises they are unable to explain."

Mr. Bates has some exceedingly interesting observations on the tendency of animals and plants of the Brazilian forests to become climbers. Speaking of a swampy forest of Pará he says:

"The leafy crowns of the trees, scarcely two of which could be seen together of the same kind, were now far away above us, in another world as it were. We could only see at times, where there was a break above, the tracery of the foliage against the clear blue sky. Sometimes the leaves were palmate, at others finely cut or feathery like the leaves of mimosae. Below, the tree trunks were everywhere linked together by sipos; the woody, flexible stems of climbing and creeping trees, whose foliage is far away above, mingled with that of the latter {180} independent trees. Some were twisted in strands like cables, others had thick stems contorted in every variety of shape, entwining snake-like round the tree-trunks, or forming gigantic loops and coils among the larger branches; others again were of zigzag shape or indented like the steps of a staircase, sweeping from the ground to a giddy height."

Of these climbing plants he adds:

"It interested me much afterward to find these climbing trees do not form any particular family or genus. There is no order of plants whose especial habit is to climb, but species of many of the most diverse families, the bulk of whose members are not climbers, seem to have been driven by circumstances to adopt this habit. The orders Leguminosae, Guttifenae, Bignoniaceae, Moraceae, and others, furnish the greater number. There is even a climbing genus of palms (_Desmoncus_), the species of which are called in the Tupí language Jacitára. These have slender, thickly-spined, and flexuous stems, which twine about the latter trees from one to the other, and grow to an incredible length. The leaves, which have the ordinary pinnate shape characteristic of the family, are emitted from the stems at long intervals, instead of being collected into a dense crown, and have at their tips a number of long recurved spines. These structures are excellent contrivances to enable the trees to secure themselves by in climbing, but they are a great nuisance to the traveller, for they sometimes hang over the pathway and catch the hat or clothes, dragging off the one or tearing the other as he passes. The number and variety of climbing trees in the Amazon forests are interesting, taken in connection with the fact of the very general tendency of the animals also to become climbers."

Of this tendency amongst animals Mr. Bates thus writes:

"All the Amazonian, and in fact all South American monkeys, are climbers. There is no group answering to the baboons of the old world, which live on the ground. The gallinaceous birds of the country, the representatives of the fowls and pheasants of Asia and Africa, are all adapted by the position of the toes to perch on trees, and it is only on trees, at a great height, that they are to be seen. A genus of Plantigrade Carnivora, allied to the bears (_Cercoleptes_), found only in the Amazonian forests, is entirely arboreal, and has a long flexible tail like that of certain monkeys. Many other similar instances could be enumerated, but I will mention only the Geodephaga, or carnivorous ground beetles, a great proportion of whose genera and species in these forest regions are, by the structure of their feet, fitted to live exclusively on the branches and leaves of trees."

Strange to the European must be the appearance of the numerous woody lianas, or air-roots of the parasitic plants of the family _Araceae_ of which the well-known cuckoo-pint, or _Arum maculatum_, of this country is a non-epiphytous member, which sit on the branches of the trees above, and "hang down straight as plumb-lines," some singly, others in leashes; some reaching half-way to the ground, others touching it, and taking root in the ground. Here, too, in these forests of Pará, beside palms of various species, "some twenty to thirty feet high, others small and delicate, with stems no thicker than a finger," of the genus _Bactris_, producing bunches of fruit with grape-like juice, masses of a species of banana (_Urania Amizonica_), a beautiful plant with leaves "like broad sword-blades," eight feet long, and one foot broad, add fresh interest to the scene. These leaves rise straight upward alternately from the top of a stem five or six feet high. Various kinds of Marants, a family of plants rich in amylaceous qualities (of which the _Maranta arundinacea_, though not an American plant, yields the best arrowroot of commerce), clothe the ground, conspicuous for their {181} broad glossy leaves. Ferns of beautiful and varied forms decorate the tree-trunks, together with the large fleshy heart-shaped leaves of the Pothos plant. Gigantic grasses, such as bamboos, form arches over the pathways. "The appearance of this part of the forest was strange in the extreme, description can convey no adequate idea of it. The reader who has visited Kew, may form some notion by conceiving a vegetation like that in the great palm-house spread over a large tract of swampy ground, but he must fancy it mingled with large exogenous trees, similar to our oaks and elms, covered with creepers and parasites, and figure to himself the ground encumbered with fallen and rotting trunks, branches, and leaves, the whole illuminated by a glowing vertical sun, and reeking with moisture!" Amid these "swampy shades" numerous butterflies delight to flit. An entomologist in England is proud, indeed, when he succeeds in capturing the beautiful and scarce Camberwell beauty (_Vanessa antiopa_) or the splendid purple emperor (_Apatura iris_), but these fine species do not exceed three inches in expanse of wing, while the glossy blue-and-black _Morpho Achilles_ measure six inches or more. The velvety black _Papiloio Sesostris_, with a large silky green patch on its wings, and other species of this genus, are almost exclusively inhabitants of the moist shades of the forest. The beautiful _Epicalea ancea_, "one of the most richly colored of the whole tribe of butterflies, being black, decorated with broad stripes of pale blue and orange, delights to settle on the broad leaves of the Uraniae and other similar plants." But like many other natural beauties, it is difficult to gain possession of, darting off with lightning speed when approached. Mr. Bates tells us that it is the males only of the different species which are brilliantly colored, the females being plainer and often so utterly unlike their partners that they are generally held to be different species until proved to be the same. The observations of this admirable naturalist on other points in the history of the butterflies of the Amazons, are highly important and deeply interesting. We must recur to this subject by-and-by.

We cannot yet tear ourselves away from these forests of Pará. We can well understand the intense interest with which Mr. Bates visited these different scenes month after month, in different seasons, so as to obtain something like a fair notion of their animal and vegetable productions. It is enough to make a naturalist's mouth water for a week together to think of the many successful strolls which Mr. Bates took amid the shades of these forests. For several months, he tells us, he used to visit this district two or three days every week, and never failed to obtain some species new to him of bird, reptile, or insect:

"This district," he says, "seemed to be an epitome of all that the humid portions of the Pará forest could produce. This endless diversity, the coolness of the air, the varied and strange forms of vegetation, the entire freedom from mosquitoes and other pests, and even the solemn gloom and silence, combined to make my rambles through it always pleasant as well as profitable. Such places are paradises to a naturalist, and if he be of a contemplative turn there is no situation more favorable for his indulging the tendency. There is something in a tropical forest akin to the ocean in its effects on the mind--man feels so completely his insignificance there and the vastness of nature. A naturalist cannot help reflecting on the vegetable forces manifested on so grand a scale around him."

Mr. Wallace and Mr. Bates are well-known advocates of Mr. Darwin's theory of natural selection. The former gentleman was Mr. Bates's companion in travel for four years, and he has published a very interesting account of his voyage on his return to England. Whatever differences of opinion there may be with respect to {182} the celebrated work which Mr. Darwin gave to the world four or five years ago, unbiassed and thoughtful naturalists must recognize the force with which the author supports many of his arguments, and the fairness with which he encounters every difficulty. The competition displayed by organized beings is strikingly manifested in the Brazilian forests. So unmistakable is this fact, that Burmeister, a German traveller, was painfully impressed with the contemplation of the emulation and "spirit of restless selfishness" which the vegetation of a tropical forest displayed. "He thought the softness, earnestness, and repose of European woodland scenery were far more pleasing, and that these formed one of the causes of the superior moral character of European nations;" a curious question, which we leave to the consideration of moral philosophers. The emulation displayed by the plants and trees of the forests of Pará is thus spoken of by Mr. Bates:

"In these tropical forests each plant and tree seems to be striving to outvie its fellow, struggling upward toward light and air--branch, and leaf, and stem--regardless of its neighbors. Parasitic plants are seen fastening with firm grip on others, making use of them with reckless indifference as instruments for their own advancement. Live and let live is clearly not the maxim taught in these wildernesses. There is one kind of parasitic tree very common near Pará which exhibits this feature in a very prominent manner. It is called the Sipó Matador, or the Murderer Liana. It belongs to the fig order, and has been described by Von Martins in the 'Atlas to Spix and Martius's Travels.' I observed many specimens. The base of its stem would be unable to bear the weight of the upper growth; it is obliged, therefore, to support itself on a tree of another species. In this it is not essentially different from other climbing trees and plants, but the way the matador sets about it is peculiar, and produces certainly a disagreeable impression. It springs up close to the tree on which it intends to fix itself, and the wood of its stem grows by spreading itself like a plastic mould over one side of the trunk of its supporter. It then puts forth from each side an arm-like branch, which grows rapidly, and looks as though a stream of sap were flowing and hardening as it went. This adheres closely to the trunk of the victim, and the two arms meet on the opposite side and blend together. These arms are put forth at somewhat regular intervals in mounting upward, and the victim when its strangler is full grown becomes tightly clasped by a number of inflexible rings. These rings gradually grow larger as the murderer flourishes, rearing its crown of foliage to the sky mingled with that of its neighbor, and in course of time they kill it by stopping the flow of its sap. The strange spectacle then remains of the selfish parasite clasping in its arms the lifeless and decaying body of its victim, which had been a help to its own growth. Its ends have been served--it has flowered and fruited, reproduced and disseminated its kind; and now when the dead trunk moulders away, its own end approaches; its support is gone, and itself also falls."

The strangling properties of some of the fig-tree family are indeed very remarkable, and may be witnessed not only in South America, but in India, Ceylon, and Australia. Frazer observed several kinds of _Ficus_, more than 150 feet high, embracing huge ironbark trees in the forests at Moreton Bay. The _Ficus repens_, according to Sir Emerson Tennent, is often to be seen clambering over rocks, like ivy, turning through heaps of stones, or ascending some tall tree to the height of thirty or forty feet, while the thickness of its own stem does not exceed a quarter of an inch. The small plants of this family, of which the Murdering Liana is one species, grow and reproduce their kind from seeds {183} deposited in the ground; but the huge representatives of the family, such as the banyan-tree, whose

"Bended twigs take root, and daughters grow About the mother tree;"

and the Peepul, or sacred Bo-tree of the Buddhists (_Ficus religiosa_), originate from seeds carried by birds to upper portions of some palm or other tree. Fig-trees, as Sir E. Tennent has remarked, are "the Thugs of the vegetable world; for, though not necessarily epiphytic, it may be said that, in point of fact, no single plant comes to perfection or acquires even partial development without the destruction of some other on which to fix itself as its supporter." The mode of growth of these trees is well described by the excellent writer just mentioned, and we shall make use of his own language:

"The family generally make their first appearance as slender roots hanging from the crown or trunk of some other tree, generally a palm, among the moist bases of whose leaves the seed carried thither by some bird which had fed upon the fig begins to germinate. This root, branching as it descends, envelops the trunk of the supporting tree with a net-work of wood, and at length, penetrating the ground, attains the dimensions of a stem. But, unlike a _stem_, it throws out no buds or flowers; the true stem, with its branches, its foliage, and fruit, springs upward from the crown of the tree whence the root is seen descending; and from it issue the pendulous rootlets, which on reaching the earth fix themselves firmly, and form the marvellous growth for which the banyan is so celebrated. In the depth of this grove the original tree is incarcerated till, literally strangled by the folds and weight of its resistless companion, it dies and leaves the fig in undisturbed possession of its place." [Footnote 25]

[Footnote 25: "Ceylon," i., p. 95]

But not trees alone do these vegetable garrotters embrace in their fatal grasp, ancient monuments are also destroyed by these formidable assailants. Sir E. Tennent has given an engraving of a fig-tree on the ruins at Pollanarrua, in Ceylon, which had fixed itself on the walls---a curious sight, indeed--"its roots streaming downward over the ruins as if they had once been fluid, following every sinuosity of the building and terraces till they reach the earth." An extremely interesting series of drawings is now to be seen in the Linnean Society's room at Burlington House, illustrating the mode of growth of another strangling or murdering tree, of New Zealand, belonging to an entirely different order from that to which the figs belong (_Urticaceae_), namely, to one of the _Myrtaceae_. The association of garrotting habits with those of the stinging nettle family is apt enough, we may be inclined to think; but it is rather disappointing to meet with these disagreeable peculiarities in the case of the myrtle group; but such is the fact: the Rata, or _Metrosideros robusta_--as we believe is the species---climbs to the summits of mighty trees of the forest of Wangaroa, and kills them in its iron grasp. But, notwithstanding these unpleasant impressions which "the reckless energy of the vegetation might produce" in the traveller's mind, there is plenty in tropical nature to counteract them:

"There is the incomparable beauty and variety of the foliage, the vivid color, the richness and exuberance everywhere displayed, which make the richest woodland scenery in northern Europe a sterile desert in comparison. But it is especially the enjoyment of life manifested by individual existences which compensates for the destruction and pain caused by the inevitable competition. Although this competition is nowhere more active, and the dangers to which each individual is exposed nowhere more numerous, yet nowhere is this enjoyment more vividly displayed."

Mr. Bates mentions a peculiar feature in some of the colossal trees which here and there monopolize a large {184} space in the forests. The height of some of these giants he estimates at from 180 to 200 feet, whose "vast dome of foliage rises above the other forest trees as a domed cathedral does above the other buildings in a city." In most of the large trees of different species is to be seen "a growth of buttress-shaped projections around the lower part of their stems. The spaces between these buttresses--which are generally thin walls of wood--form spacious chambers, and may be compared to stalls in a stable; some of them are large enough to hold half-a-dozen persons." What are these buttresses, how do they originate, and what is their use? We have already seen how great is the competition amongst the trees of a primeval forest, and how every square inch is eagerly battled for by the number of competitors. In consequence of this it is obvious that lateral growth of roots in the earth is a difficult matter. "Necessity being the mother of invention," the roots, unable to expand laterally, "raise themselves ridge-like out of the earth, growing gradually upward as the increasing height of the tree required augmented support." A beautiful compensation, truly, and full of deep interest! As Londoners add upper stories to their houses where competition has rendered lateral additions impossible, so these gigantic trees, in order to sustain the massive crown and trunk, strengthen their roots by upper additions.

One of the most striking features in tropical scenery is the suddenness with which the leaves and blossoms spring into full beauty. "Some mornings a single tree would appear in flower amidst what was the preceding evening a uniform green mass of forest,--a dome of blossom suddenly created as if by magic." In the early mornings, soon after dawn, the sky is always without a cloud, the thermometer marking 72° or 73° Fahr. Now all nature is fresh, and the birds in the full enjoyment of their existence, the "shrill yelping" of the toucans being frequently heard from their abode amongst the wild fruit-trees of the forest; flocks of parrots appear in distinct relief against the blue sky, always two by two, chattering to each other, the pairs being separated by regular intervals, too high, however, to reveal the bright colors of their plumage. The greatest heat of the day is about two o'clock, by which time, the thermometer being 92° or 93° Fahr., "every voice of bird or mammal is hushed; only in the trees is heard at intervals the harsh whirr of a cicada. The leaves, which were so fresh and moist in early morning, now become lax and drooping, and the flowers shed their petals. The Indian and mulatto inhabitants sleep in their hammocks, or sit on mats in the shade, too languid even to talk."

Mr. Bates has given a graphic picture of tropical nature at the approach of rain:

"First, the cool sea-breeze which commenced to blow about ten o'clock, and which had increased in force with the increasing power of the sun, would flag and finally die away. The heat and electric tension of the atmosphere would then become almost insupportable. Languor and uneasiness would seize on every one; even the denizens of the forest betraying it by their motions. White clouds would appear in the east and gather into cumuli, with an increasing blackness along their lower portions. The whole eastern horizon would become almost suddenly black, and this would spread upward, the sun at length becoming obscured. Then the rush of a mighty wind is heard through the forest, swaying the tree-tops; a vivid flash of lightning bursts forth, then a crash of thunder, and down streams the deluging rain. Such storms soon cease, leaving bluish-black motionless clouds in the sky until night. Meanwhile all nature is refreshed; but heaps of flower petals and fallen leaves are seen under the trees. Toward evening life revives again, and the ringing uproar is resumed from bush and tree. {185} The following morning the son again rises in a cloudless sky, and so the cycle is completed; spring, summer, and autumn, as it were, in one tropical day."

With regard to animal life in the Amazonian forests, it appears that there is a great variety of mammals, birds, and reptiles, but they are very shy, and widely scattered. Brazil is poor in terrestrial animals, and the species are of small size. "The huntsman would be disappointed who expected to find here flocks of animals similar to the buffalo herds of North America, or the swarms of antelopes and herds of ponderous pachyderms of southern Africa."

It has already been observed that the mammals of Brazil are, for the most part, arboreal in their habits; this is especially the case with the monkeys, or _Cebidae_, a family of quadrumamous animals peculiar to the new world. The reader may observe the habits of some species of this group in the monkey-house of the Zoological Society's Gardens in Regent's Park. The strong muscular tail, with its naked palm under the tip, which many of the Cebidae possess, renders them peculiarly well adapted to a forest life. Mr. Bates states that thirty-eight species of this family of monkey inhabit the Amazon region, and considers the Coaitás, or spider-monkeys, "as the extreme development of the American type of apes." The flesh of one species of Coaitás is much esteemed as an article of food by the natives in some parts of the country. The Indians, we are told, are very fund of Coaitás as pets.

Some of our readers are doubtless acquainted with the name of Madame Maria Sibylla Merian, a German lady who was born about the middle of the seventeenth century. She was much devoted to the study of natural history, and travelled to Surinam for the purpose of making drawings of its animal productions; many of these drawings are now in the British Museum. This estimable lady, amongst other curiosities of natural history, affirmed the two following ones:--1. The lantern-fly (_Fulgora lanternaria_) emits so strong a light from its body as to enable a person in the night-time to read a newspaper by it. 2. The large spider (_Mygale_) enters the nests of the little humming-birds, and destroys the inmates. It would occupy too much time to tell of the mass of evidence which was adduced in denial of these recorded facts, but, suffice it to say that Madame Merian was set down as an arch-heretic and inventor, and that no credit was attached to her statements. With regard to the first-named heresy, the opinion of modern zoologists is, that there is nothing at all improbable in the circumstance of the Fulgora emitting a strong light, as luminous properties are known to exist in other insects, but that the fact has been rather over-colored by the imagination of the worthy lady. As to the second question, about the bird-destroying propensities of the Mygale, let us hear the testimony of so thoroughly trustworthy a witness as Mr. Bates:

"In the course of our walk" (between the Tocantins and Cameta) "I chanced to verify a fact relating to the habits of a large hairy spider of the genus Mygale, in a manner worth recording. The species was _M. avicularia_, or one very closely allied to it; the individual was nearly two inches in length of body, but the legs expanded seven inches, and the entire body and legs were covered with coarse grey and reddish hairs. I was attracted by a movement of the monster on a tree-trunk; it was close beneath a deep crevice in the tree, across which was stretched a dense white web. The lower part of the web was broken, and two small birds, finches, were entangled in the pieces; they were about the size of the English siskin, and I judged the two to be male and female. One of them was quite dead, the other lay under the body of the spider not quite dead, and was smeared with the filthy liquor or {186} saliva exuded by the monster. I drove away the spider and took the birds, but the second one soon died. The fact of species of Mygale sallying forth at night, mounting trees, and sucking the eggs and young of humming-birds, has been recorded long ago by Madame Merian and Palisot de Beauvois; but, in the absence of any confirmation, it has come to be discredited. From the way the fact has been related it would appear that it had been merely derived from the report of natives, and had not been witnessed by the narrators. Count Langsdorff, in his 'Expedition into the Interior of Brazil,' states that he totally disbelieved the story. I found the circumstances to be quite a novelty to the residents here about. The Mygales are quite common insects; some species make their cells under stones, others form artistical tunnels in the earth, and some build their dens in the thatch of houses. The natives call them _Aranhas carangueijeiras_, or crab spiders. The hairs with which they are clothed come off when touched, and cause a peculiar and almost maddening irritation. The first specimen that I killed and prepared was handled incautiously, and I suffered terribly for three days afterward. I think this is not owing to any poisonous quality residing in the hairs, but to their being short and hard, and thus getting into the fine creases of the skin. Some Mygales are of immense size. One day I saw the children belonging to an Indian who collected for me with one of these monsters secured by a cord round its waist, by which they were leading it about the house as they would a dog."

The name of "ant" has only to be mentioned, and the strange habits of the various species immediately suggest themselves to the mind of the naturalist, who is always interested in, and amply repaid by, watching these insects with the closest scrutiny. Brazil abounds in ants, one species of which, the _Dinoponera grandis_, is an inch and a quarter in length; but by far the most interesting to the naturalist, as well as one of the most destructive to the cultivated trees of the country, is the leaf-carrying ant (_AEcodoma cephalotes_). In some districts, we are told, it is so abundant that agriculture is almost impossible, and everywhere complaints are heard of the terrible pest. This insect derives its specific name of _cephalotes_ from the extraordinary size of the heads belonging to two of the orders, which, with a third kind, constitute the colony. The formicarian establishment consists of: 1. Worker minors; 2. Worker majors; 3. Subterranean workers. The first-named kind alone does the real active work. The two last contain the individuals with the enormous heads; their functions are not clearly ascertained. In color they are a pale reddish-brown, and the thorax of the true worker, which is the smallest of the orders, is armed with three pairs of sharp spines; the head is provided with a pair of similar spines proceeding from the cheeks behind. This ant, known by the native name of Saüba, has long been celebrated for its habit of clipping off and carrying away, large quantities of leaves:

"When employed in this work," Mr. Bates says, "their processions look like a multitude of animated leaves on the march. In some places I found an accumulation of such leaves, all circular pieces, about the size of a sixpence, lying on the pathway, unattended by the ants, and at some distance from any colony. Such heaps are always found to be removed when the place is revisited next day. In course of time I had plenty of opportunities of seeing them at work. They mount the tree in multitudes, the individuals being all worker minors. Each one places itself on the surface of a leaf, and cuts with its sharp scissor-like jaws, and by a sharp jerk detaches the piece. Sometimes they let the leaf drop to the ground, where a little heap accumulates until carried off by another relay of workers; but generally each marches off {187} with the piece it has operated upon and as all take the same road to their colony, the path they follow becomes in a short time smooth and bare, looking like the impression of a cart-wheel through the herbage."

The Saüba ant is peculiar to tropical America, and, though it is injurious to the wild native trees of the country, it seems to have a preference to the coffee and orange trees and other imported plants. The leaves which the Saüba cuts and carries away are used to "thatch the domes which cover the entrances to their subterranean dwellings, thereby protecting from the deluging rains the young broods in the nests beneath." The insects proceed according to a most orderly method, "the heavily-laden workers, each carrying its segment of leaf vertically, the lower edge secured in its mandibles, troop up, and cast their burdens on the hillock; another body of laborers place the leaves in position, covering them with a layer of earthy granules, which are brought one by one from the soil beneath." The labors of this curious insect are immense, and no obstacles stop their excavations. An allied species of Rio de Janeiro worked a tunnel under the bed of the river Parabyba, at a place where it is as broad as the Thames at London Bridge. These ants are sad rogues, being household plunderers and robbers of the farinha, or mandioca meal, of the poor inhabitants of Brazil; and Mr. Bates was obliged to lay trains of gunpowder along their line of march to blow them up, which in the end resulted in scaring the burglars away. We have already alluded to the massive heads possessed by the major and subterranean kinds of neuters, and stated that the work is done by the worker minor or small-headed kind. With regard to the function of the large-headed worker major, Mr. Bates was unable to satisfy himself:

"They are not the soldiers or defenders of the working portion of the community, like the armed class in the termites, or white ants, for they never fight. The species has no sting, and does not display active resistance when interfered with. I once imagined they exercised a sort of superintendence over the others; but this function is entirely unnecessary in a community where all work with a precision and regularity resembling the subordinate parts of a piece of machinery. I came to the conclusion, at last, that they have no very precisely defined function. They cannot, however, be entirely useless to the community, for the sustenance of an idle class of such bulky individuals would be too heavy a charge for the species to sustain. I think they serve in some sort as passive instruments of protection to the real workers. Their enormously large, hard, and indestructible heads may be of use in protecting them against the attacks of insectivorous animals. They would be, on this view, a kind of _pièces de résistance_ serving as a foil against onslaughts made on the main body of workers."

But the third order, the subterranean kind, we are told, is the most curious of all:

"If the top of a small, fresh hillock, one in which the thatching process is going on, be taken off, a broad cylindrical shaft is disclosed, at a depth about two feet from the surface. If this be probed with a stick, which may be done to the extent of three or four feet without touching bottom, a small number of colossal fellows will slowly begin to make their way up the smooth sides of the mine. Their heads are of the same size as those of the other class (worker major); but the front is clothed with hairs instead of being polished, and they have in the middle of the forehead a twin ocellus, or simple eye, of quite different structure from the ordinary compound eyes on the side of the head. This frontal eye is totally wanting in the other workers, and is not known in any other kind of ant. The apparition of these strange creatures from {188} the cavernous depths of the mine reminded one, when I first observed them, of the Cyclopes of Homeric fable. They were not very pugnacious, as I feared they would be, and I had no difficulty in securing a few with my fingers. I never saw them under any circumstances than those here related, and what their special functions may be I cannot divine."

The naturalist traveller, in the midst of much that interests and delights him, has to put up with a great deal that is annoying, and Mr. Bates proved no exception to the rule. The first few nights when at Caripí, he was much troubled with bats; the room where he slept had not been occupied for several months, and the roof was open to the tiles and rafters:

"On one night," he says, "I was aroused about midnight by the rushing noise made by vast hosts of bats sweeping about the room. The air was alive with them; they had put out the lamp, and when I relighted it, the place appeared blackened with the impish multitudes that were whirling round and round. After I had lain about well with a stick for a few minutes they disappeared amongst the tiles, but when all was still again they returned, and once more extinguished the light. I took no further notice of them and went to sleep. The next night several got into my hammock; I seized them as they were crawling over me, and dashed them against the wall. The next morning I found a wound, evidently caused by a bat, on my hip."

Bats remind us of the vampire, a native of South America, concerning whose blood-sucking properties so much discussion has been from time to time raised. The vampire bat was very common at Ega; it is the largest of the South American species. Of this bat Mr. Bates writes:

"Nothing in animal physiognomy can be more hideous than the countenance of this creature when viewed from the front; the large leathery ears standing out from the sides and top of the head, the erect, spear-shaped appendage on the tip of the nose, the grin, and glistening black eyes, all combining to make up a figure that reminds one of some mocking imp of fable. No wonder that imaginative people have inferred diabolical instincts on the part of so ugly an animal. The vampire, however, is the most harmless of all bats, and its inoffensive character is well known to residents on the banks of the Amazon."

That much fable has attached itself to the history of this curious creature we are perfectly convinced, and that its blood-sucking peculiarities have been grossly exaggerated we must allow. When this bat has been said to perform the operation of drawing blood "by inserting its aculeated tongue [Footnote 26] into the vein of a sleeping person with so much dexterity as not to be felt, at the same time fanning the air with its large wings, and thus producing a sensation so delightfully cool that the sleep is rendered still more profound," it is clear that the mythical element exists to a great extent in the narrative; but our author's assertion that "the vampire is the most harmless of all bats" does not tally with the statements of other naturalists of considerable note. Mr. Wallace says he saw the effects of the vampire's operations on a young horse, and that the first morning after its arrival the poor animal presented a most pitiable appearance, large streams of clotted blood running down from several wounds on its back and sides:

[Footnote 26: An Expression used by Mr. Wood in his "Zoögraphy.' It is enough to remark that no known bat has an aculeated.]

"The appearance," Mr. Wallace adds, "was, however, I dare say, worse than reality, as the bats have the skill to bleed without giving pain, and it is quite possible the horse, like a patient under the influence of chloroform, may have known nothing of the matter. The danger is in the attacks being repeated every night till the loss of blood becomes serious. To prevent this, red peppers are usually rubbed {189} on the parts wounded and on all likely places; and this will partly check the sanguinivorous appetite of the bats, but not entirely, as in spite of this application the poor animal was again bitten the next night in fresh places." [Footnote 27]

[Footnote 27: "Travels on the Amazon," p. 44.]

Both Mr. Darwin and Mr. Waterton, if we remember rightly, have borne similar testimony in favor of the opinion that the vampire does suck blood. A servant of the former gentleman, when near Coquimbo, in Chili, observed something attached to the withers of one of his horses, which was restless, and on putting his hand upon the place he secured a vampire bat. Mr. Waterton, however, could not induce the vampires to bite him, notwithstanding the now veteran naturalist [Footnote 28] slept many months in an open loft which the vampires frequented; but an Indian boy who slept near him had his toes often "tapped," while fowls were destroyed, and even an unfortunate donkey was much persecuted, looking, as Mr. Waterton says, "like misery steeped in vinegar."

[Footnote 28: Since this article was in type this excellent naturalist and kind-hearted gentleman has passed away from amongst us.]

While at Villa Nova, on the lower Amazons, our naturalist was subjected to another annoyance, in the shape of ticks. The tracts thereabouts "swarmed with carapátos, ugly ticks, belonging to the genus _Ixodes_, which mount to the tops of the blades of grass, and attach themselves to the clothes of passers-by. They are a great annoyance. It occupied me a full hour to pick them off my flesh after my diurnal ramble."

Mr. Bates's stay at Ega, on the upper Amazons, and his expeditions in search of scarlet-faced monkeys, owl-faced night-apes, marmosets, curl-crested toucans, blind ants, and hundreds of other interesting animals, must have been particularly enjoyable, if we except the presence of an abominable gad-fly, which fixes on the flesh of man as breeding-places for its grub, and causes painful tumors. "Ega was a fine field for a natural history collector," and Mr. Bates ticketed with the name of this town more than 3,000 new species of animals.

It is an old and a true saying that you "can have too much of a good thing." A London alderman would soon grumble had he to dine every day on turtle only. "The great fresh-water turtle of the Amazons grows in the upper river to an immense size, a full-grown one measuring nearly three feet in length by two in breadth, and is a load for the strongest Indian. . . . . The flesh is very tender, palatable, and wholesome; but it is very cloying. Every one ends sooner or later by becoming thoroughly surfeited." Our traveller adds that he became so sick of turtle in the course of two years that he could not bear the smell of it, although at the same time nothing else was to be had, and he was suffering actual hunger. The pools about Ega abound in turtles and alligators, and the Indians capture a great number of the former animals by means of sharp steel-pointed arrows, fitted into a peg which enters the tip of the shaft. This peg is fastened to the arrow-shaft by means of a piece of twine; and when the missile--which the people hurl with astonishing skill--pierces the carapace, the peg drops out and the struck turtle dives to the bottom, the detached shaft floating on the surface serving to guide the sportsman to his game. So clever are the natives in the use of the bow and arrow, that they do not wait till the turtle comes to the surface to breathe, but shoot at the back of the animal as it moves under the water, and hardly ever fail to pierce the submerged shell.

One of the most curious and interesting facts in natural history is the assimilation in many animals of form and color to other objects, animate or inanimate. Thus the caterpillars termed, from their mode of progression, "geometric" bear so close a resemblance to the twigs of the trees or bushes upon which they rest that it is no easy thing to distinguish them at a {190} glance; the buff-tip moth, when at rest, looks just like a broken bit of lichen-covered branch, the colored tips of the wings resembling a section of the wood. The beautiful Australian parakeets, known as the Batcherrygar parrots, look so much like the leaves of _Eucalpyti_, or gum-trees, on which they repose, that, though numbers may be perched upon a branch, they are hardly to be seen so long as they keep quiet. Some South American beetles (of the family _Cassidae_) closely resemble glittering drops of dew; some kinds of spiders mimic flower-buds, "and station themselves motionless in the axils of leaves and other parts of plants to wait for their victims." Insects belonging to the genera of _Mantis, Locusta_, and _Phasma_, often show a wonderful resemblance to leaves or sticks. Examples of "mimetic analogy" may also be found amongst birds; but perhaps the most remarkable cases of imitation are to be found among the butterflies of the valley of the Amazon recently made known to us by Mr. Bates. There is a family of butterflies named _Heliconidae_, of a slow flight and feeble structure, very numerous in this South American region, notwithstanding that the districts Abound with insectivorous birds. Now, Mr. Bates has observed that where large numbers of this family are found they are always accompanied by species of a totally distinct family which closely resemble them in size, form, color, and markings. So close is the resemblance that Mr. Bates often found it impossible to distinguish members of one family from those of the other when the insects were on the wing; and he observed, moreover, that when a local variety of a species of the _Heliconidae_ occurred, there was found also a butterfly of another family imitating that local variety. There is no difficulty at all in distinguishing the imitators from the imitated, for the latter have all a family likeness, while the former depart from the normal form and likeness of the families to which they respectively belong. What is the meaning of this curious fact? It is this: the _Heliconidae_, or imitated butterflies, are not persecuted by birds, dragon-flies, lizards, or other insectivorous enemies, while the members of the imitating families are subject to much persecution. The butterflies imitated are said to owe their immunity from persecution to their offensive odor, while no such fortunate character belongs to the imitating insects. But how, we naturally ask, has this change of color and form been effected? Mr. Darwin and Mr. Bates explain it on the principle of natural selection. Let us suppose that a member of the persecuted family gave birth to a variety--and there is a tendency in all animals to produce varieties--exhibiting a very slight resemblance to some species of _Heliconidae_. This individual, in consequence of this slight resemblance, would have a better chance of living and producing young than those of its relatives which bear no resemblance whatever to the unmolested family. Some of the offspring of this slightly favored variety would very probably show more marked resemblance to the unpersecuted butterflies; and thus the likeness between insects of totally distinct groups would in course of time be, according to the law of inheritance, quite complete. This is the explanation which Mr. Bates gives of this natural phenomenon. The phenomenon itself is an undoubted one; whether it is or is not satisfactorily accounted for, cannot at present be determined; we must wait for further investigation.

We had intended to speak of some of the South American palms, those wondrous and valuable productions of tropical countries, the India-rubber trees, and other vegetable productions of the Amazons, but we must linger no longer with the excellent naturalist from whose volumes we have derived so much pleasure. Mr. Bates has written a book full of interest, with the spirit of a real lover of nature and with the pen of a philosopher.

{191}

Leaving, then, the new world, let us cast a glance, in company with one of the greatest botanists of the day, at what we may call the tropical features of the Sikkim Himalayas. Though this region is not strictly speaking within the tropics, yet the vegetation at the base is of a tropical character. In this wonderful district the naturalist is able to wander through every zone of vegetation, from the "dense deep-green dripping forests" at the base of the Himalaya, formed of giant trees, as the _Duabanga_ and _Terminalia_, with _Cedrela_ and _Gordonia Wallichii_, mingled with innumerable shrubs and herbs, to the lichens and mosses of the regions of perpetual snow. The tropical vegetation of the Sikkim extends from Siligoree, a station on the verge of the Terai, "that low malarious belt which skirts the base of the Himalaya from the Sutlej to Brahma-Koond, in Upper Assam."

"Every feature," writes Dr. Hooker, "botanical, geological, and zoological, is new on entering this district. The change is sudden and immediate: sea and shore are hardly more conspicuously different; nor from the edge of the Terai to the limit of perpetual snow is any botanical region more clearly marked than this which is the commencement of Himalayan vegetation." The banks of the numerous tortuous streams are richly clothed with vines and climbing convolvuluses, with various kinds of _Cucurbitaceae_ and _Bignoniaceae_. The district of the Terai is very pestilential, and, though fatal to Europeans, is inhabited by a race called the Mechis with impunity. As our traveller proceeded to the little bungalow of Punkabaree, about 1,800 feet in elevation, the bushy timber of the Terai was found to be replaced by giant forests, with large bamboos cresting the hills, numerous epiphytical orchids and ferns, with _Hoya, Seitamineae_, and similar types of the hottest and dampest climates. All around Punkabaree the hills rise steeply 5,000 or 6,000 feet; from the road at and a little above the bungalow the view is described by Dr. Hooker as superb and very instructive:

"Behind (or north) the Himalaya rise in steep confused masses. Below, the hill on which I stood, and the ranges as far as the eye can reach east and west, throw spurs on the plains of India. These are very thickly wooded, and enclose broad, dead-flat, hot, or damp valleys, apparently covered with a dense forest. Secondary spurs of clay and gravel, like that immediately below Punkabaree, rest on the bases of the mountains and seem to form an intermediate neutral ground between flat and mountainous India. The Terai district forms a very irregular belt, scantily clothed, and intersected by innumerable rivulets from the hills, which unite and divide again on the flat, till, emerging from the region of many trees, they enter the plains, following devious courses, which glisten like silver threads. The whole horizon is bounded by the sea-like expanse of the plains, which stretch away into the region of sunshine and fine weather, as one boundless flat. In the distance the courses of the Teesta and Cosi, the great drainers of the snowy Himalayas, and the recipients of innumerable smaller rills, are with difficulty traced at this the dry season. The ocean-like appearance of this southern view is even more conspicuous in the heavens than on the land, the clouds arranging themselves after a singularly sea-scape fashion. Endless strata run in parallel ribbons over the extreme horizon; above these scattered cumuli, also in horizontal lines, are dotted against a clear grey sky, which gradually, as the eye is lifted, passes into a deep cloudless blue vault, continuously clear to the zenith; there the cumuli, in white fleecy masses, again appear; till, in the northern celestial hemisphere, they thicken and assume the leaden hue of nimbi, discharging their moisture on the dark forest-clad hills around. The breezes are south-easterly, bringing that {192} vapor from the Indian ocean which is rarefied and suspended aloft over the heated plains, but condensed into a drizzle when it strikes the cooler flanks of the hills, and into heavy rain when it meets their still colder summits. Upon what a gigantic scale does nature here operate! Vapors raised from an ocean whose nearest shore is more than 400 miles distant are safely transported without the loss of one drop of water, to support the rank luxuriance of this far distant region. This and other offices fulfilled, the waste waters are returned by the Cosi and Teesta to the ocean, and again exhaled, exported, expended, recollected, and returned."

Many travellers complain of the annoyance caused to them by leeches. Legions of these pests abound in the water-courses and dense jungles of the Sikkim, and though their bite is painless, it is followed by considerable effusion of blood. "They puncture through thick worsted stockings, and even trousers; and when full roll in the form of a little soft ball into the bottom of the shoe, where their presence is hardly felt in walking."

A thousand feet higher, above the bungalow of Punkabaree, the vegetation is very rich, the prevalent timber being of enormous size, "and scaled by climbing _Leguminosae_, as _Bauhinias_ and _Robinias_, which sometimes sheathe the trunks or span the forest with huge cables, joining tree to tree." Their trunks are also clothed with orchids; and still more beautifully with pothos, peppers, vines, and convolvuli.

"The beauty of the drapery of the pothos leaves (_Scindapsus_) is pre-eminent, whether for the graceful folds the foliage assumes or for the liveliness of its color. Of the more conspicuous smaller trees the wild banana is the most abundant; its crown of very beautiful foliage contrasting with the smaller-leaved plants amongst which it nestles; next comes a screwpine (_Pandanus_) with a straight stem and a tuft of leaves, each eight or ten feet long, waving on all sides. _Araliaceae_, with smooth or armed slender trunks, and _Mappa_-like _Euphorbiaceae_ spread their long petioles horizontally forth, each terminated with an ample leaf some feet in diameter. Bamboo abounds everywhere; its dense tufts of culms, 100 feet and upward high, are as thick as a man's thigh at the base. Twenty or thirty species of ferns (including a tree fern) were luxuriant and handsome. Foliaceous lichens and a few mosses appeared at 2,000 feet. Such is the vegetation of the roads through the tropical forests of Outer Himalaya."

As we ascend about 2,000 feet higher, we find many plants of the temperate zone mingling with the tropical vegetation, amongst which "a very English-looking bramble," bearing a good yellow fruit, is the first to mark the change; next, mighty oaks with large lamellated cups and magnificent foliage succeed, till along the ridge of the mountain to Kursiong, at an elevation of about 4,800 feet, the change in the flora is complete. Here the vegetation recalls to mind home impressions: "the oak flowering, the birch bursting into leaf, the violet, _Chrysosplenium, Stellaria and Arum, Vaccinium_, wild strawberry, maple, geranium, bramble. A colder wind blew here; mosses and lichens carpeted the banks and roadsides; the birds and insects were very different from those below, and everything proclaimed the marked change in the vegetation." And yet even at this elevation we meet with forms of tropical plants, "pothos, bananas, palms, figs, pepper, numbers of epiphytal orchids, and similar genuine tropical genera."

The hill-station of Darjiling, the well-known sanitarium, where the health of Europeans is recruited by a temperate climate, is about 370 miles to the north of Calcutta. The ridge "varies in height from 6,500 to 7,500 feet above the level of the sea, 8,000 feet being the elevation at which the mean temperature most nearly coincides with that of London, viz., 50°." {193} The forests around Darjiling are composed principally of magnolias, oaks, laurels, with birch, alder, maple, holly. Dr. Hooker draws especial attention to the absence of _Leguminosae_, "the most prominent botanical feature in the vegetation of the region," which, he says, is too high for the tropical tribes of the warmer elevation, too low for the Alpines, and probably too moist for those of temperate regions; cool, equable, humid climates being generally unfavorable to the above-named order. "The supremacy of this temperate region consists in the infinite number of forest trees, in the absence (in the usual proportion, at any rate) of such common orders as _Compositae, Leguminosae, Cruciferae_ and _Ranunculaceae_, and of grasses amongst Monocotyledons, and in the predominance of the rarer and more local families, as those of rhododendron, camellia, magnolia, ivy, cornel, honeysuckle, hydrangea, begonia, and epiphytic orchids."

We regret that want of space prevents us dwelling longer on the scenes of tropical Himalaya, so graphically described by Dr. Hooker. We will conclude this imperfect sketch with our traveller's description of the scenery along the banks of the great Rungeet, 6,000 feet below Darjiling:

"Leaving the forest, the path led along the river bank and over the great masses of rock which strewed its course. The beautiful India-rubber fig was common. . . . On the forest skirts, _Hoya_, parasitical _Orchidiae_, and ferns abounded; the Chaulmoogra, whose fruit is used to intoxicate fish, was very common, as was an immense mulberry-tree, that yields a milky juice and produces a long, green, sweet fruit. Large fish, chiefly cyprinoid, were abundant in the beautifully clear water of the river. But by far the most striking feature consisted in the amazing quantity of superb butterflies, large tropical swallow-tails, black, with scarlet or yellow eyes on their wings. They were seen everywhere, sailing majestically through the still, hot air, or fluttering from one scorching rock to another, and especially loving to settle on the damp sand of the river; where they sat by thousands, with erect wings, balancing themselves with a rocking motion, as their heavy sails inclined them to one side or the other, resembling a crowded fleet of yachts on a calm day. Such an entomological display cannot be surpassed. _Cicindelae_ and the great _Cicadeae_ were everywhere lighting on the ground, when they uttered a short sharp creaking sound, and anon disappeared as if by magic. Beautiful whip-snakes were gleaming in the sun; they hold on by a few coils of the tall round a twig, the greater part of their body stretched out horizontally, occasionally retracting and darting an unerring aim at some insect. The narrowness of the gorge, and the excessive steepness of the bounding hills, prevented any view except of the opposite mountain-face, which was one dense forest, in which the wild banana was conspicuous."

One of the most remarkable botanical discoveries of modern days is that of a very curious and anomalous genus of plants, named by Dr. Hooker _Welwitschia_ in honor of its discoverer. Dr. Frederic Welwitsch, who first noticed this singular plant in a letter to Sir William Hooker, dated August, 1860. "I have been assured," says Dr. Hooker in his valuable memoir of this plant, "by those who remember it, that since the discovery of the _Rafflesia Arnoldii_, no vegetable production has excited so great an interest as the subject of the present memoir." We well remember this singular plant, having seen a specimen in the Kew Herbarium soon after its arrival in this country. The following is Dr. Hooker's account of its appearance and prominent characters:

"The _Welwitschia_ is a woody plant, said to attain a century in duration, with an obconic trunk about two feet long, of which a few inches rise {194} above the soil, presenting the appearance of a flat, two-lobed depressed mass, sometimes (according to Dr. Welwitsch) attaining fourteen feet in circumference (!) and looking like a round table. When full grown, it is dark brown, hard, and cracked over the whole surface (much like the burnt crust of a loaf of bread); the lower portion forms a stout tap-root, buried in the soil and branching downward at the end. From deep grooves in the circumference of the depressed mass two enormous leaves are given off, each six feet long when full grown, one corresponding to each lobe. These are quite flat, linear, very leathery, and split to the base into innumerable thongs that lie curling upon the surface of the soil. Its discoverer describes these same two leaves as being present from the earliest condition of the plant, and assures me that they are in fact developed from the two cotyledons of the seed, and are persistent, being replaced by no others. From the circumference of the tabular mass, above but close to the insertion of the leaves, spring stout dichotomously branched cymes, nearly a foot high, bearing small erect scarlet cones, which eventually become oblong and attain the size of those of the common spruce fir. The scales of the cones are very closely imbricated, and contain when young and still very small solitary flowers, which in some cases are hermaphrodite (structurally but not functionally), in others female."

After describing these flowers in botanical terms. Dr. Hooker adds, "The mature cone is tetragonous, and contains a broadly winged scale. Its discoverer observes that the whole plant exudes a resin, and that it is called 'tumbo' by the natives. It inhabits the elevated sandy plateau near Cape Negro (lat 14° 40' S. to 23° S.) on the south-west coast of Africa." Dr. Hooker regards the _Welwitschia_ as "the only perennial flowering-plant which at no period has other vegetative organs than those proper to the embryo itself,--the main axis being represented by the radicle, which becomes a gigantic caulicle and develops a root from its base, and inflorescences from its plumulary end, and the leaves being the two cotyledons in a very highly developed and specialized condition." [Footnote 29]

[Footnote 29: "Transactions of the Linnean Society," vol. xxiv.,