The Doctor, finding there was no help for it, took heart of grace, and by dint of plying the spurs vigorously, managed to make the old dromedary keep up wonderfully well, although not without many a grin, and many an uneasy shifting of his seat.

As they penetrated deeper into the woods, the gloom became more intense, and the deep silence of solitude more imposing. It almost inspired them with a feeling of awe. Not a bird, not even an insect, was heard. It appeared as if no living thing had ever disturbed the solitude of the primeval forest. And yet there were occasional traces of life. The tall rank grass which grew up amongst the trees, to the height of ten or twelve feet, was in many places trampled down by the wandering herds of wild elephants-several recent foot-marks of tigers might be traced along the sandy path, and once or twice a jungle-dog was seen to glide across the road, with the drooping tail and stealthy pace which indicate the prowling savage.

Here and there an occasional opening in the tree tops varied the monotony of the scene, exhibiting a gorgeous view of the mountains. Their stupendous crags, hanging woods, and sparkling waterfalls, backed by a sky of deeper blue than even Italy can boast, formed a striking contrast to the sombre gloom of the forest, and made the panting travellers sigh for the fresh mountain breezes which they had so lately left.

Mansfield and Charles had just pulled up for a moment to admire one of these beautiful glimpses, and to allow the Doctor, who had again fallen behind, to come up, when the former, casting his eyes upon the ground, discovered a huge snake, a boa-constrictor about twenty feet long, basking amongst the dry leaves by the side of the path.

"Hurra, Doctor!-Hurra! Screw him along. Here's a shot for you; a piece of shikar quite in your line"-and Mansfield hastily unslung his rifle, which he always carried at his back ready loaded.

"What is't, man?-what is't ?" cried the Doctor, coming up quite out of breath.

"See there," replied Mansfield, pointing to the snake; "what do you think of that fellow, Doctor? Would he not be a fine addition to your museum ?"

"Od's my life, man, but that's a grand beast," exclaimed the Doctor, jumping from his horse. "An indubitable boa, and longer by six feet than ony specimen I ever met wi'. Gi' us the rifle, Captain, gi' us the rifle, till I shoot him-I wouldna' lose that, specimin for a pund-note." "Steady now, Doctor," said Mansfield, handing him the rifle ; "let's see you take him in the head."

"Na, na! we maunna injure the heed on no account; it would spoil him for a specimin," replied the Doctor, firing right and left into the snake.

The balls passed through the body of the enormous reptile without apparently doing him much injury; he merely gave a convulsive start, and glided rapidly into the jungle.

"Hark to him, Doctor! Go it, my sporting Esculapius! Never mind the thorns!" shouted Mansfield, laughing till he nearly fell from his horse, as the worthy Doctor, in the excitement of the moment, dashed through brake and brier in hot pursuit of the wounded snake. Charles, who had never before seen a boa, was quite as anxious as the

Doctor to secure the prize. Throwing the reins of his horse to Mansfield, he sprang to the ground, and joined in the chase, shouting aloud, and brandishing a hog-spear which he happened to carry in his hand.

In this manner they followed the snake for some distance, the Doctor pounding away with the butt-end of the rifle, and Charles striving in vain to transfix him with his spear. At length the snake reached the brink of a dry watercourse filled with dense tangled brushwood, into which he glided. He was just about to disappear, when the Doctor, inspired with a desperate fit of courage, dashed forward, seized him by the tail, took a turn of it round his arm, and throwing himself on his back, with his feet firmly planted against a tree, held on like grim death.

Luckily for the Doctor, the snake was too much disgusted with the treatment he had already received, or too intent on making his escape, to think of turning on his pursuers. But his struggles were tremendous. He coiled himself round the trees, twisted himself into knots, and strained every muscle in his body till they seemed ready to burst through his skin. So great was his strength, that it appeared, once or twice, as if the tail must give way or the Doctor's arms be torn from their sockets.

Whilst this struggle was going on, Charles was busily employed in reloading the rifle.

"Haste you, man! haste you!" gasped the Doctor, nearly black in the face from over-exertion. Ods, my life, Maister Chairles, if ye dinna be quick and gie him another shot, he'll waur us a' at the hin'er end. He's amaist pou't the airms aff me already. Deil be licket, but I'm thinkin it's the foul fiend himsell, in his auld disguise, that we hae grippet. Div ye no find nae smell o' brimstone about him?”

"Can't say I do," replied Charles, laughing, as he discharged both barrels into the snake; "but I shall make him smell it, and feel it, too." Blood gushed copiously from the wounds, and the strength of the snake was perceptibly diminished. He suddenly uncoiled himself from the trees, and turned round, as if with the intention of making an attack. Charles, snatching up the spear, drove it through his head, and pinned him to the ground.

"Hold on now, Doctor," cried he, leaning his whole weight upon the spear to prevent its being withdrawn; "keep his tail fast, so that he may not get a purchase round a tree, and we have him."

The snake writhed about convulsively, but he was now completely paralyzed, his strength was gone. In a few minutes the victory was complete; and Charles and the Doctor returned to the road, dragging along their snake in triumph.*

"Bravo, Medico! Welcome the conquering hero! So you've managed to hustle him at last." And Mansfield laughed heartily as the Doctor emerged from the jungle in a perfect fever of heat and excitement, his face laced with streaks of blood, which flowed from innumerable scratches, and his coat literally torn to shreds. "But I see you have not obtained a bloodless victory. Hang it, Doctor, you

*This adventure with a snake was achieved by the writer and his brother in their early griffinage; and, in those unsophisticated days, was looked upon, by them, as an exploit no ways inferior to Sir Guy's famous victory over the dragon of Wantley.

have utterly ruined your beauty. You will not be able to show that handsome face of yours among the women for a month to come."

Ay, I'm thinkin I've scarted mysell a wee," replied the Doctor, wiping the blood and perspiration from his face with the sleeve of his coat. "But they're honourable wounds, Captain. O! man, if ye had seen the grand tulzie we had wi' the rampawgin deevle, it wad just hae putten ye clean out o' conceit wi' tiger huntin. It was the sarest job that ever I put my hand till. But, O! Captain, it was grand sport.' "I have no doubt it was a very brilliant piece of shikar," replied Mansfield, smiling. "But what do you intend to do with your game, now that you have secured it?"

"Do wi' it! Od, man, I'll take him hame, surely. Na,-I canna do that either, he's o'er heavy. But I'll just skin him where he is, and take the skin wi' me.' ""

No, no, my friend; we can't afford time for that now, the sun is just setting. But, as we are only five miles from camp, you can easily send out to-morrow morning and have him carried home."

The Doctor was reluctantly obliged to agree to this arrangement, and the party proceeded.

Daylight had deserted them before they reached the end of their journey. But the full moon had risen, and shed a flood of silver light over the picturesque jungle encampment, which rejoiced the sight of our wearied travellers, as a sudden opening amongst the trees brought them upon a beautiful natural lawn of velvet turf imbosomed in lofty woods, and sloping gently towards the bank of a deep and broad river studded with numerous wooded islands. The snow-white tents, glittering in the moonlight,-the bullocks and baggage ponies picketed under the trees, the numerous fires, and the groups of natives squatted around them, with their dusky features and picturesque dresses brought out in strong relief by the reflection of the flame, formed altogether a very striking picture, and lent an air of home and comfort to the uninhabited forest.

Our party were quickly seated in the principal tent, around a camptable sparkling with wax lights and groaning under a profusion of goodly viands,-amongst which a huge venison pasty and a wild boar's head shone conspicuous. Good store of claret was there also,-ruby bright, cold as the mountain spring. And the worthy Doctor's heart leapt for joy, whilst his mouth watered at beholding the unexpected luxury and good living afforded by an Indian sportsman's camp.

Ample justice was done to the feast, and after a very moderate allowance of wine,--for Mansfield, like all good sportsmen, was temperate himself and the cause of temperance in others, our friends retired to rest, prepared to start at daylight on the morrow, with clear heads and well-braced nerves,-two things as necessary to insure success to the forester as a quick eye and a true rifle.

KOONDAH.

THE POETRY OF EARLY RISING.

BY THE AUTHOR OF GLANCES AT LIFE."

If there is one time more than another in which our dear mother, Nature, seems most happy in herself, and looks more proudly and admiringly on her own works and the creatures and creations of her hand, it is in the early months of summer; and if there is one time more than another in which her beauty is more beautiful, her eternal youth more youthful-looking, her delight more infectious, stirring up our sluggish spirits from their trance, it is in her summer mornings, splendid with "excessive light," glittering with her dewy jewellery, balmy with her warm and fragrant breath, and continually new and fresh with the

'Hourly burst of pretty buds to flowers."

When the hedges which were green at your retiring to bed, look at them when you rise again, and they are white (as if covered with snow) with the fragrant thorn-blossoms-as if Nature, in the secrecy of night, had showered a rain of silver spangles among their green leaves, to surprise the waking Hours of the morning with beauty, and take the unwilling soul of Man from the sensual sty of Sloth, and lay it in the happy Elysium of her green lap, to slumber there, if it must sleep on and will not be awakened, with those innocent, sweet bedfellows of the tawny gipsy girls,

"The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose;" -when the breath of health may be drank like a precious elixir made for medicining the sickness of the heart, and cleansing it of

"The lees and settlings of the melancholy flood;"

-and when the rosy Health herself, robed in green, and looking like a summer-browned companion of the buxom wood-nymphs,

"The wanton wood-nymphs of the verdant spring,"

or like one of Diana's own chosen troop of hunters, each as beautiful as their most heavenly mistress-when the hunter's horn, and the horn of the bee, and the anthem of the lark, " singing at Heaven's gate," call us away from "the smoke and stir of this dim spot" to the dewy and shining fields of Day, in the full freshness and glory of his youth; when these pleasures invite us, oh who, save the sensual and the insensible, would toss upon the bed of indolence ?-Surely it is healthier and wiser

"To wake and steal swift hours from drowsy sleep?"

No doubt it is; but the multitudinous Many are too deeply drowsed with the syren songs and cloying syrups of Luxury to hear the mother's voice of Nature, admonishing us, and the counsels of her high priests, teaching us to awake and amend our lives at their solicitation. We are deaf as the adder that hears but listens not to the "voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely:" our cry is still, like the sluggard's,

"A little more sleep and a little more slumber;"

and though the earth-embracing air is flowing along like a river of life,

ready prepared, if we would but leave our beds, to receive and freshly bathe and renew our wasted bodies, unwholesome with the exhalations of sleep, and, like a bath, lave them till they revive and redly glow with health and vigour, we prefer wallowing with sloth as an easier attitude than standing erect and strong on "morn-elastic" limbs, like so many mortal Mercuries, "new-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill." Fashioned by the Eternal Hand to look and be but " a little lower than the angels" -taught to rise to them with our souls-we love rather to crawl upon the ground, degraded Nebuchadnezzars, kings by birth and endowments, slaves lower than the lowest in desires and in the condition to which we have debased ourselves. Heirs of heaven, we have sold our birth-right for "a mess of pottage:"-it is eaten, and now, like the prodigal, we must hereafter herd with swine, and feed on the husks of life, instead of "sorting" with immortal spirits, and eating of their manna-bread, their locusts, and wild honey.

Falsely luxurious, will not man awake?"

cried the poet of the Seasons: none, however, heard him, or, if they did, heeded him not, and turned on the other side; and, seeing how disregarded was his call, he turned once more in his own bed, and took another nap. If, when some good-natured friend reminded him of his early enthusiasm for early rising, the poet brusquely asked, "What have I to do, young man?" he spoke thus in his despair: he felt that his voice had been like "one crying in the wilderness," and that he had called unto stocks, and preached unto stones. We are not wiser now, nor more inclined to hear: we still have our own way, and will have it ; and instead of rising when

fiery Phoebus riseth up so bright, That all the heaven laugheth of the sight,"

we lie upon the ground, and cling to it, as though rooted in it; and if we stretch out our arms, it is not as the vine stretches out its tendrils, that it may secure itself still the more firmly where it stands, we stretch out ours only to grasp at sordid things-the gold and the gauds which are our bane and detriment.

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No more-no more!--angels have preach'd in vain !"

It were vain, indeed, to admonish those whom Nature cannot teach, nor Wisdom, when she crieth daily in the streets to ears too "gross and unpurged" to hear her cry, and obey her call to come up from the low cells and dungeons of Care-to walk with her on the high-places of Nature to breathe with her "the incense-breathing Morn," and behold the Sun set forth "like a bridegroom in his strength," with

"All his travelling glories round him.”

But Nature, though forsaken of her human children, still loves them, and yearns for them as a mother for her offspring; and how gladly would she take them back again unto her arms! They

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Have given their hearts away; a sordid boon."

But we have loitered so long at the door, waiting for those who will not waken, that we shall lose the beauties we would have had them to see for themselves, and not hear of, as of some old romancer's story.

It is the dawning-hour of day. The air is calm as an infant's breathing the sky is clear, and greyly tinged with the returning light.