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around, was so near, comparatively speaking, as almost to court the spectator's feet,-could they, I say, who lived in the days when English sovereigns and statesmen made such anxious efforts to prevent the "building upon new foundations," start from their graves, and look around them now from their metamorphosed and magnified cathedral, great indeed would be their marvel!

Of no great city in the world is it so difficult to define the limits, so endless are its ramifications. Among the causes of this unrestricted increase of the town in superficial extent, may be reckoned that circumstance which has had so many other beneficial influences on the national prosperity, the freedom of the country from that great scourge to industry and check to internal improvement-foreign invasion, and the consequent freedom from the necessity of military barriers, with all their attendant impediments and annoyances. London, therefore, may be literally said to be unbounded, throwing out into the surrounding country vast clusters and lines of habitations, chequering the sides, and in some directions extending to and even beyond the summits, of the interior line of hills already mentioned, and thus overflowing, as it were, the basin within which it is, upon the whole, contained.

In looking round on such a vast expanse of town, compared with which even Paris, in some respects the rival of London, seems to lie "within a nutshell," one feels at first some difficulty in fixing upon any order in which to consider the principal features and objects. In order, however, that we may learn to find our way in this vast labyrinth, and so acquire that facility of glancing, either visually or mentally, from any one to any other of them, which is calculated to aid us so importantly in our subsequent explorings of so immense a field, we shall proceed, in our ensuing paper, to trace the course through London and its vicinity, of their grand and mighty river.

THE WAGERS. (From the French.)

THE diligence stopped at the White horse inn, in the principal street of Fontainebleau. Fatigued and oppressed by the heat on the road, we slowly stretched ourselves, and descended the steps of the vehicle as lazily as possible, smiling at the vacant appearance which

sleep, broken by our sudden arrival, had stamped upon the visages of some of our fellow-travellers. The baggage was dismounted, and dinner ordered. Some of the country folks were eagerly pressing forward to gaze on the newly-arrived, together with their packages, bird-cages and children. In the midst of this bustle, a fat, red-faced man, about thirty years of age, an insipid babbler, who had favoured us the whole length of the journey with the history of his good speculations at Fontainebleau, and of his marriage, which he was at the present time coming there to consummate, drew out his watch, and exclaimed:

"Already four o'clock !"

"Bet that it is not," said a gentleman in slippers, who was smoking a cigar before the door of the low-roofed apartment.

"Tis one of Briquet's watches," proudly answered the rubicund - faced gentleman, at this interruption.

"Ten louis, that it is not one of Briquet's," replied the smoker.

The other gave him a look of pity, and went into the traveller's room, saying to me,

"Don't dine here," and with a touch of the elbow, "we will go to a café, where we can do better."

"I'll wager any thing you choose, that the watch is worth nothing," persisted the one in slippers, following after. "I did not address my conversation to you, sir."

"Bet that you did," retorted the other.

My fellow-traveller, confounded at this persecution, raised his hand, pointing to his forehead, signifying that the intruder was deranged.

"I defy you to prove it," continued his persecutor; and with this parry and thrust, the two regarded each other with the most snarling looks it is possible to conceive, just like two dogs about to be let loose at one another.

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to me,

Upon my word," said the traveller "I know nothing of the fellow, but I have a great inclination to make him march off."

"As to that, I wager you do not," answered the obstinate intruder. "Moreover, I will bet that I make you take the route back again to Paris, and that, too, without much delay."

"That will be no easy matter for you, as I came here to get married."

"One hundred louis that you do not!" "Sir, you are an impertinent scoundrel, and I will box your ears.'

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"I bet 't is a lie!"

Upon this, the ruddy-faced gentleman stamped with rage, and passed before the fellow, making a sign for him to follow.

"Yes, my love," said the other, taking with him a box containing a brace of pistols.

I interposed between them to stop this joke, but it was no longer a jesting matter, and my representations were useless. We reached a solitary spot in the park, where the cigar hero was saluted by an officer of the garrison, who was willing to become his second. I threw up into the air a five-franc piece as a signal, the report of a pistol followed, and the piece of money fell indented.

"Bet," said the never ceasing and immoveable marksman, "that I pierce that leaf, trembling at the extremity of the bough ;" and it was pierced.

"Wager that I kill you," added he, coolly regarding the astonished traveller.

"'Tis probable," replied the other, changing from the ruby to a ghastly hue; "and since it is probable, 't is useless. Consequently, I take again the road back to Paris, and have the infinite honour to be your very humble servant.

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In fact, we saw him deposit himself upon the imperiale of the diligence. I solved the enigma. This was a rival to whom the fair lady had given a description of her intended. Need I add, that he won the lady in question? After the honey-moon, I learned that the dead shot had encountered the crest-fallen suitor at Paris, and said to him:

"I wager that you return to Fontainebleau." And I also received a card of invitation.

MISCELLANIES.

J. G. W.

WHAT SOME CALL LUCK.

One person will swallow penknives and yet live on many years; while another, in eating, gets a small bit of liver in his windpipe and dies. One has the shaft of a gig passed completely through his body and recovers; another only runs a thorn into his hand and no skill can save him. One is thrown fifty or a hundred yards down a cliff, and survives; another has his neck broken, by a mere overturn in his gig, on a smooth plain. We have lately seen an aged and healthy minister, who fell from the belfry of a common steeple to the ground a few years ago, but we have also seen a lady die in consequence of falling down gently,

on a level floor. So that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.

AN EXPERIMENT.

Rouelle, an eminent French chemist, while performing some experiments in a lecture room, thus addressed his auditors:-"Gentlemen, you see this cauldron on this brazier-well, if I were to cease stirring its contents a single moment, an explosion would ensue, which would blow us all into the air."-The company had scarcely time to reflect on this comfortable intelligence, before he did forget to stir. The explosion took place with a horrible crash, all the windows were smashed, and the auditors whirled into the garden. The greatest violence, however, was in the direction of the chimney, and fortunately none of the company were seriously injured.

TRAVELLERS.

M. N.

Addison has said, "a man that goes out a fool, cannot ride or sail himself into common sense;" now, as according to the testimony of Solomon, this class is infinite in number, the statesmen, scientific officers, scholars, and others, who roam to enlarge their views, and polish their understandings, bear no more proportion to the wandering mass, than a

bucket of water does to the boundless ocean. "I have made the tour of Europe, ," cried a booby-" And so have your trunks," retorted his hearer.

"Go where we may, rest where we will,
Eternal London haunts ns still:
The trash of Almack's or Fleet-ditch,
And scarce pin's head difference which,
Mixes, though e'en to Greece we run,
With every rill from Helicon !"

Indeed, from the force of fashion or prejudice, the mania has become so epidemic, that even a tallow-chandler, or a grocer, cannot marry his brother craftsman's daughter, but he must spend his honey-moon in France, or the Low Countries; and the freedom of our constitution precludes any check upon the practice. It is a rage which no calling or profession can restrain, no domestic ties counteract, no paucity of means subdue; goaded on by the servile yet urgent spirit of imitation, the silly, the idle, and the dissolute, quit the enjoyments and beneficial moral restraints of home, to acquire incongruous tastes and manners; to associate with people whose acquaintance they cannot continue; and to bring back a luminous verbiage on taverns, galleries, billiard rooms, theatres, and promenades.

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ADVENTURE IN THE ANDES. By the Author of" A Tale of Tucuman."

(For the Parterre).

READER, imagine thyself transported to the American continent, at the thirtyninth degree of southern latitude, and at the foot of the eastern base of the giant Andes. The ground is broken into stony ridges, whereon grow various species of cactus and thorny plants, with here and there some beautiful wild flowers. Some scattered algarrova trees are seen in clumps; and the golden barked chanar presents its mellow fruit to the hand of the gatherer, if perchance any one should approach in that wild region. On yonder steep track, up the mountain side, there is something moving, which looks in the distance like a slender thread. Look yet closer, and you will see that it is a herd of guanacoes advancing in single file. Hah! they have broken up their orderly march, and are confusedly scattered over the rocky surface.

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animal is bounding upon one of them. It is a puma; the sharp fangs are fixed in the guanaco's neck, and vain is his speed up the stony height. falls, and the body is at the disposal of the spoiler. Cast your glance higher! Heed not the grey fox which is looking at you within five yards. It is rarely that he looks on a human being; and he does not yet understand that there are modes of doing hurt to a foe, besides teeth and nails. Hither! hither! press not onwards in that direction; look at that pied animal of black and white, close to the old root. Small and pretty though he be, he is a fearful foe. He is a zorrillo, and if you approach too near, his poisonous odour will infect you, and shut you out from communion with your fellows for six months to come. Now, mount this point of rock, and look upwards! Mark the ridged steeps rising one above the other, with an uncertain bluish hue, which half deceives the

* Silver lion.

vision. That last one is more distinct, for the jagged outline is backed by the eternal snow of the main ridge, whose summit is lost in the clouds. Turn your gaze eastwards over the unbroken expanse of the boundless plains; the sea of grass, where the wild rider on his desert-born steed, revels in the very drunkenness of freedom, with the green level below, and the blue sky above him, laughing to scorn, the poor sunparched Arab and his barren sands, which limit his movements by starving the animal that bears him. The day shall come, when we will scour those plains together, in the full tide of rapture, with an hundred gallant steeds to each separate saddle. We will, I tell you, but not now. It is near the time that they burn the grass, and I like not a blackened surface beneath an unshodden hoof. When the young grass hath matted over the ashes of the old, and half whistles as the limbs of the coursers dash through its crisp intertwinings, then is the season of joy; and beneath the well armed bolas and the unerring lazo, neither the speed of the wild deer, nor of the wilder ostrich, shall be found availing. Ha! your colour mounts and your heart beats high. It may well be so; for if aught of rapture exist on earth, yonder grassy desert can yield it. But turn your glance southward, where yonder small stream is meandering over the low and narrow valley. Trace its upward course, and mark where the hills separate on either hand; and even the giant crest of the snowy ridge is cloven, as if to leave a pathway for the purposes of man. It is the southern pass from the eastern side of the Andes, to the fair regions of Chile, along which, in bygone years, caravans of laden wagons the land-ships of the Pampas-were accustomed to travel under the escort of Blandengui soldiers, ere renegado Christians had taught the Pampas tribes to combat and conquer their brethren.

It was during the summer of the year **** that a traveller, well clad and well mounted, and accompanied by a hardylooking guide, who drove before him a pack-horse and several spare saddlehorses, stopped to rest for the night near the stream before described, just as the sun sank in the ridges of clouds which surmounted the summit of the snowy range. The horses were quickly tethered out to feed by the guide, while his patron lighted a fire, on which he piled several large branches of the dense algarrova wood, which is nearly as durable as

coal, for fuel, and then sat himself down on his saddle trappings with an air of great contentment, while he stripped off his poncho, or Indian mantle, and appeared clad in a shooting-jacket of blue cloth, containing a host of pockets, and slung over it, several loose pouches or havresacs, constructed of coarse sailcloth. Having examined a fowlingpiece which he carried, he drew the charge and wiped it out, after which he re-loaded it, and added a ball to the small shot, apparently by way of additional security for the night. Then spreading his poncho on the ground, he proceeded to empty his pockets and pouches of their heterogeneous contents. Plants, birds, stones, insects, and various reptiles, were laid out in order; and the guide, having placed by his side a rude square trunk, formed of the untanned hide of an ox with the hair on, he took from it several tin cases and wooden boxes, with an assortment of papers, in which he proceeded to dispose of his treasures of natural history, after skinning his birds and rubbing them with red pepper, contained in a small calabash. The age of the traveller might be about forty, and the expression of his handsome countenance was remarkably benevolent. While he was thus occupied, his guide was busied roasting some small but long strips of beef, which he dexterously threaded on a thin stick of algarrova, and placed in a slanting position over the fire. The guide was considerably younger than his patron, and was garbed in the ordinary habiliments of the Gaucho peasantry, viz. a species of kilt, and loose cotton drawers, with a round jacket and straw hat, all marvellously dirty, from the length of time they had been worn unchanged on the journey. His swarthy features gave indications of great intelligence, and his muscular and well moulded limbs marked him out as a "respectable man," which phrase, in Spanish, means one who well understands how to make his hand keep his head. Having carefully eyed the proceedings of his patron, he broke silence, in the intonation of language peculiar to the class he belonged

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"An armadillo, you mean, Pablo. I cheira held the pass; and perhaps next want a specimen of a shell." year, some other robber will do the same thing. We have a lucky time of it just now.'

"And I should like a specimen of the meat, patron. But what do you intend to make of all those little animals? Are they for remedies?"*

"No, Pablo, they are to shew, when I return to my own country."

"You must never return, patron. What will all the people in Mendoça do, now that they have been so long accustomed to be cured by you? They will never trust themselves again in the hands of that kill-all, Don Bonifacio."

"How did they manage before I arrived, Pablo? But that beef is roasted enough, and I am hungry. By Our Lady, the night is chilly. The breeze that blows over the mountain tops, pierces from breast to back. Give me the horn of wine, Pablo, and see to the hide-lashings, that they remain firm round the barrel. It will be three days yet, ere we are in Chile."

The traveller drank off the presented draught with apparent content, and Pablo handed him the rude spit with the meat, to help himself.

"Not a crumb of bread left, Pablo?" "Not one, patron; but here is some toasted maise-flower in the kid-skin bag. Shall I mix some with water, for your

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"That Pincheira was a desperate villain, patron."

"So I have heard, Pablo; but who is he? and where does he come from? and above all, where has he gone to?"

"He is the son of a royalist officer, whom God confound-by the daughter of one of the Caciques, of the tribe of Pehuenches. He held a commission

in the army of the king; and when La Patria was triumphant, he turned common robber, as chief of a band of Indians and renegado Christians. Since he was last defeated by the Chileno troops, when he had the impudence to call himself Viceroy of Chile, it is supposed that he has contrived to pass over to Chiloe-to Quintanilla. But hark, patron! what shouting is that?"

Both instantly sprang to their feet, and retired to a distance from the fire, to ascertain the cause of the numerous voices that were borne upon the wind; and not without considerable fear, when they reflected upon the bad name the neighbourhood they were in, had no long time before acquired. There was no moon, but the night was bright and starlit. They listened anxiously for awhile, and Pablo ascended the trunk of one of the algarrova trees, when his practised ear distinguished the heavy tramp of cattle. Without another word, he instantly went to the stream, and filled a goat-skin bag with water, which he poured on the fire, and extinguished it, devoutly hoping, that as it was close under a rising bank, it had not been seen by the approaching party, whom he strongly suspected to be marauders, on account of their numbers and apparent security. This suspicion he communicated to his patron; and by his direction, forthwith saddled two horses, and untethered the others ready for loading, when they retired to a greater distance from the spot where their fire had been. Still the sounds continued to approach, and the lowing of cattle was distinctly heard. While they were painfully watching, they observed a blaze shoot up at the distance of a few hundred yards from them; and as the light increased, they distinguished several men seated round, in the act of preparing their supper; while other persons on horseback, from time to time, rode up to them.

"What do you make them out to be, Pablo?" asked his patron.

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