presently making his appearance, I called to him to ride in, and bring me my steed; but he refused, and asked me if I wished him to go headlong to destruction. "Sunday" having fed slowly away from the elephant, I went up, and he allowed me to recapture him. I now plainly saw that the elephant was dying, but I continued firing to hasten his demise. Toward the end he took up a position in a dense thorny thicket, where for a long time he remained. Approaching within twelve paces, I fired my two last shots, aiming at his left side, close behind the shoulder. On receiving these, he backed slowly through the thicket, and clearing it, walked gently forward about twenty yards, when he suddenly came down with tremendous violence right on his broadside. To my intense mortification, the heavy fall was accompanied by a loud, sharp crack, and on going up I found one of his matchless tusks broken short off by the lip. This was a glorious day's sport: I had bagged, in one afternoon, probably the two finest bull elephants in Bamangwato, and, had it not been for the destruction of their noble trophies, which were the two finest pair of tusks I had obtained that season, my triumph on the occasion had been great and unalloyed.

[From Dickens's Household Words.]
THE POWER OF MERCY.

they were both first-rate old bulls, with enormous tusks of great length. I dismounted, and warily approached the second elephant for a closer inspection of his tusks. As I drew near, he slightly turned his head, and I then perceived that his farther one was damaged toward the point; while at the same instant his comrade, raising his head clear of the bush on which he browsed, displayed to my delighted eyes a pair of the most beautiful and perfect tusks I had ever seen. Regaining my horse, I advanced toward this elephant, and when within forty yards of him, he walked slowly on before me in an open space, his huge ears gently flapping, and entirely concealing me from his view. Inclining to the left, I slightly increased my pace, and walked past him within sixty yards, upon which he observed me for the first time; but probably mistaking "Sunday" for a hartebeest, he continued his course with his eye upon me, but showed no symptoms of alarm. The natives had requested me to endeavor, if possible, to hunt him toward the water, which lay in a northerly direction, and this I resolved to do. Having advanced a little. I gave him my wind, when he was instantly alarmed, and backed into the bushes, holding his head high and right to me. Thus he stood motionless as a statue, under the impression, probably, that, owing to his Lilliputian dimensions, I had failed to observe him, and fancying that I would pass on without detecting him. I rode slowly on, and described a semicircle to obtain a shot at his shoulder, town of Lamborough. Why all this bustle and halting my horse, fired from the saddle; he to-day? Along the hedge-bound roads which got it in the shoulder-blade, and, as slowly and lead to it, carts, chaises, vehicles of every desilently I continued my course, he still stood scription are jogging along filled with countrygazing at me in utter astonishment. Bill and men; and here and there the scarlet cloak or Flam were now slipped by the natives, and in straw bonnet of some female occupying a chair, another moment they were barking around him. placed somewhat unsteadily behind them, conI shouted loudly to encourage the dogs and per-trasts gayly with the dark coats, or gray smockplex the elephant, who seemed puzzled to know frocks of the front row; from every cottage of what to think of us, and, shrilly trumpeting, charged headlong after the dogs. Retreating, he backed into the thicket, then charged once more, and made clean away, holding the course I wanted. When I tried to fire, "Sunday" was very fidgety, and destroyed the correctness of my aim. Approaching the elephant, I presently dismounted, and, running in, gave him two fine shots behind the shoulder; then the dogs, which were both indifferent ones, ran barking at him. The consequence was a terrific charge, the dogs at once making for their master, and bringing the elephant right upon me. I had no time to gain my saddle, but ran for my life. The dogs, fortunately, took after "Sunday," who, alarmed by the trumpeting, dashed frantically away, though in the heat of the affray I could not help laughing to remark horse, dogs, and elephant all charging along in a direct line.

UIET enough, in general, is the quaint old

the suburb, some individuals join the stream, which rolls on increasing through the streets till it reaches the castle. The ancient moat teems with idlers, and the hill opposite, usually the quiet domain of a score or two of peaceful sheep, partakes of the surrounding agitation.

The voice of the multitude which surrounds the court-house, sounds like the murmur of the sea, till suddenly it is raised to a sort of shout. John West, the terror of the surrounding country, the sheep-stealer and burglar, had been found guilty.

"What is the sentence?" is asked by a hundred voices.

The answer is "Transportation for Life."

But there was one standing aloof on the hill, whose inquiring eye wandered over the crowd with indescribable anguish, whose pallid cheek grew more and more ghastly at every denunciation of the culprit, and who, when at last the sentence was pronounced, fell insensible upon the green-sward. It was the burglar's son.

The dogs, having missed their master, held away for Kleinboy, who had long disappeared, I knew not whither. "Sunday" stood still, and commenced to graze, while the elephant, slowly When the boy recovered from his swoon, it passing within a few yards of him, assumed a was late in the afternoon; he was alone; the position under a tree beside him. Kleinboy | faint tinkling of the sheep-bell had again replaced

the sound of the human chorus of expectation, thirst for revenge somewhat subsided also, till and dread, and jesting; all was peaceful, he he almost determined to return to Lamborongh; could not understand why he lay there, feeling but he was too tired, too cold, too hungryso weak and sick. He raised himself tremu- besides, the woman would beat him for staylously and looked around, the turf was cut and ing out so late. What could he do? where spoiled by the trampling of many feet. All his should he go? and as the sense of his lonely life of the last few months floated before his and forlorn position returned, so did also the memory, his residence in his father's hovel with affectionate remembrance of his father, his ruffianly comrades, the desperate schemes he hatred of his accusers, his desire to satisfy his heard as he pretended to sleep on his lowly vengeance; and once more, courageous through bed, their expeditions at night, masked and anger, he rose, took the box from his pocket, armed, their hasty returns, the news of his and boldly drew one of them across the sandfather's capture, his own removal to the house paper. It flamed; he stuck it hasily in the of some female in the town, the court, the trial, stack against which he rested—it only flickered the condemnation. a little, and went out. In great trepidation, young West once more grasped the whole of the remaining matches in his hand and ignited them, but at the same instant the dog barked. He hears the gate open, a step is close to him, the matches are extinguished, the lad makes a desperate effort to escape, but a strong hand was laid on his shoulder, and a deep, calm voice inquired, “What can have urged you to such a crime? Then calling loudly, the gentleman, without relinquishing his hold, soon obtained the help of some farming men, who commenced a search with their lanterns all about the farm. Of course they found no accomplices, nothing at all but the handful of half-consumed matches the lad had dropped, and he all that time stood trembling, and occasionally struggling, beneath the firm but not rough grasp of the master who held him.

The father had been a harsh and brutal parent, but he had not positively ill-used his boy. Of the great and merciful Father of the fatherless the child knew nothing. He deemed himself alone in the world. Yet grief was not his pervading feeling, nor the shame of being known as the son of a transport. It was revenge which burned within him. He thought of the crowd which had come to feast upon his father's agony; he longed to tear them to pieces, and he plucked savagely a handful of the grass on which he leant. Oh, that he were a man! that he could punish them all-all-the spectators first, the constables, the judge, the jury, the witnesses—one of them especially, a clergyman named Leyton, who had given his evidence more positively, more clearly, than all the others. Oh, that he could do that man some injury-but for him his father would not have been identified and convicted.

Suddenly a thought occurred to him, his eyes sparkled with fierce delight. "I know where he lives," he said to himself; "he has the farm and parsonage of Millwood. I will go there at once it is almost dark already. I will do as I have heard father say he once did to the squire. I will set his barns and his house on fire. Yes, yes, he shall burn for it—he shall get no more fathers transported.

To procure a box of matches was an easy task, and that was all the preparation the boy made.

The autumn was far advanced. A cold wind was beginning to moan amomg the almost leafless trees, and George West's teeth chattered, and his ill-clad limbs grew numb as he walked along the fields leading to Millwood. "Lucky it's a dark night; this fine wind will fan the flame nicely," he repeated to himself.

The clock was striking nine, but all was quiet as midnight; not a soul stirring, not a light in the parsonage windows that he could see. He dared not open the gate, lest the click of the latch should betray him, so he softly climbed over; but scarcely had he dropped on the other side of the wall before the loud barking of a dog startled him. He cowered down behind the hay-rick, scarcely daring to breathe, expecting each instant that the dog would spring upon him. It was some time before the boy dared to stir, and as his courage cooled, his

At last the men were told to return to the house, and thither, by a different path, was George led, till they entered a small, poorlyfurnished room. The walls were covered with books, as the bright flame of the fire revealed to the anxious gaze of the little culprit. The clergyman lit a lamp, and surveyed his prisoner attentively. The lad's eyes were fixed on the ground, while Mr. Leyton's wandered from his pale, pinched featuress to his scanty, ragged attire, through the tatters of which he could discern the thin limbs quivering from cold or fear; and when at last impelled by curiosity at the long silence, George looked up, there was something so sadly compassionate in the stranger's gentle look, that the boy could scarcely believe that he was really the man whose evidence had mainly contributed to transport his father. At the trial he had been unable to see his face, and nothing so kind had ever gazed upon him. His proud bad feelings were already melting.

"You look half-starved," said Mr. Leyton; "draw nearer to the fire, you can sit down on that stool while I question you; and mind you answer me the truth. I am not a magistrate, but of course can easily hand you over to justice if you will not allow me to benefit you in my own way."

George still stood twisting his ragged cap in his trembling fingers, and with so much emotion depicted on his face, that the good clergyman resumed, in still more soothing accents: "I have

gated marble. As you proceed, you are stunned Comte de Pomerasce, displays at once great by the noise of constant explosions, which remind ingenuity and courage. The soffioni, or vapors, you that you are traversing the interior of a having been observed to burst forth with more mighty crater, which in past ages was, perhaps, or less vehemence in various parts of the mountfilled with a flood of liquid fire. ains-which, fortunately for industry and comBorax was first brought to Europe, through merce, are copiously irrigated with streams of India, from Thibet, where it is found in a mount-water-the idea was conceived of forming an ainous region, resembling in character the district artificial lagoon on the site of the most elevated of Tuscany we have described. If we except vent. A large basin having been excavated, some doubtful specimens, said to have been dis- the nearest stream was turned into it. The covered in coal-pits in Saxony, we may assert burning blasts from below forcing up their way that the mineral is found nowhere else in Europe, through the water, keep it in a state of perpetual or that the territories of the Grand Duke enjoy a ebullition, and by degrees impregnate it with natural monopoly of the article, which, with the boracic acid. Nothing can be more striking growth of the manufacturing system, is coming than the appearance of such a lagoon. Surmore and more into use every day, especially in rounded by aridity and barrenness, its surface France. In former times, when the value of the presents the aspect of a huge caldron, boiling lagoons was not understood, the hollows and and steaming perpetually, while its margin gorges in the mountains where they are situated trembles, and resounds with the furious exwere regarded by the superstitious peasantry as plosions from below. Sometimes the vapor is the entrance to hell. Experience taught them sues like a thread from the water, and after that it was in many respects a region of death. rising for a considerable height, spreads, and Whatever living thing fell into the lagoons in- assumes an arborescent form as it is diluted by evitably perished, for the devouring acid almost the atmospheric air. It then goes circling in a moment separated the flesh from the bones. over the surface of the lagoon, till, meeting with Cattle were frequently thus lost, and the peasants other bodies of vapor in a similar condition, the themselves or their children sometimes encoun- whole commingling, constitute a diminutive cloud, tered a similar fate. A celebrated chemist, en- which is wafted by the breeze up the peaks of the gaged in making experiments on the impregnated mountains, or precipitated into the valleys, acwater, accidentally fell into a lagoon which he cording to its comparative density. himself had caused to be excavated, and perished immediately, leaving a wife and several children in indigence.

For many ages no use was made of the boracic acid, and the whole district containing it-altogether about thirty miles in length-was dreaded and shunned by the inhabitants. Many inducements were vainly held out to the peasantry to cultivate the lands in the neighborhood, which might generally be obtained for nothing. From time to time a few adventurous families would take up their residence near Monte Cerboli, and bring a few fields into cultivation, leaving, however, more than nine-tenths of the land fallow.

About the middle of the last century, Hoefer, who is described as apothecary to the Grand Duke, first detected the presence of boracic acid in the lagoon Orcherio, near Monte Botardo. Masgagin, a professor of anatomy, found the mineral in a concrete state in several streams issuing from the lagoons, and suggested the propriety of establishing manufactories of borax. As late, however, as 1801, in consequence of the failure of numerous experiments, Professor Gazzeri arrived at the conclusion that the quantity of acid contained in the water of the lagoons was too small to render the working of them profitable. But this opinion was based on the old practice of attempting the extracting the mineral by the use of charcoal furnaces. It was M. Larderel who introduced the improved method of employing the hot vapors of the lagoons themselves in the elaboration of the acid, and may be said to have invented the present method, which will probably go on improving for ages.

The system of the Chevalier Larderel, now

To stand on the brink of one of these deadly lakes, stunned by subterranean thunder, shaken by incessant earthquakes, and scorched and half suffocated by the fiery pestilential vapor, is to experience very peculiar sensations, such as one feels within the crater of Vesuvius or Ætna, or in the obscurity of the Grotto del Cave.

Another lagoon is scooped out lower down the mountain, the site being determined by the occurrence of soffioni; and here the same processes are followed, and the same phenomena observable. The water from the lagoon above, after it has received impregnation during twentyfour hours, is let off, and conducted by an artificial channel to the second lagoon; and from thence, with similar precautions, to a third, a fourth, and so on, till it at length reaches a sixth or eighth lagoon, where the process of impregnation is supposed to be completed. By this time the water contains half per cent. of acid, which Professor Gazzeri considered far too little to repay the expense of extracting it. From the last lagoon it is conveyed into reservoirs, whence again, after having remained quiescent a few hours, for what purpose is not stated, it passes into the evaporating pans. "Here the hot vapor concentrates the strength of the acid by passing under shallow leaden vessels from the boiling fountains above, which it quits at a heat of 80 degrees Reaumur, and is discharged at a heat of 60 degrees (101 Fahrenheit)."

The evaporating pans are arranged on the same principles as the lagoons, though in some cases almost four times as numerous, each placed on a lower level than the other. In every successive pan the condensation becomes greater,