pomp of your dress, and here you are, in the broad light of the nineteenth century, gotten up like the rag-tag and bobtail of the purlieus of New York! For shame! Remember your ancestors! Recall their mighty deeds! Remember Uncas!—and Red Jacket!—and Hole-in-the-day!—and Horace Greeley! Emulate their achievements! Unfurl yourselves under my banner, noble savages, illustrious guttersnipes-"

It was the quickest operation that ever was. I simply saw a sudden flash in the air of clubs, brickbats, fists, bead-baskets and moccasins-a single flash, and they all appeared to hit me at once, and no two of them in the same place. In the next instant the entire tribe was upon me. They tore all the clothes off me, they broke my arms and legs, they gave me a thump that dented the top of my head till it would hold coffee like a saucer; and to crown their disgraceful proceedings and add insult to injury they threw me over the Horse-shoe Fall, and I got wet.

About ninety-nine or a hundred feet from the top, the remains of my vest caught on a projecting rock, and I was almost drowned before I could get loose. I finally fell, and brought up in a world of white foam at the foot of the Fall, whose celled and bubbly masses towered up several inches above my head. Of course I got into the eddy. I sailed round and round in it forty-four times-chasing a chip, and gaining on it--each round trip a half a mile—reaching for the same bush on the bank forty-four times, and just exactly missing it by a hair's breadth every time. At last a man walked down and sat down close to that bush, and put a pipe in his mouth and lit a match, and followed me with one eye and kept the other on the match while he sheltered it in his hands from the wind. Presently a puff of wind blow it out. The next time I swept round him he said:

"Got a match ?"

"Yes--in my other vest. Help me out, please!" "Not for Joe."

When I came round again, I said:

"Excuse the seemingly impertinent curiosity of a drowning man, but will you explain this singular conduct of yours?" "With pleasure. I am the coroner. Don't hurry on my account. I can wait for you. But I wish I had a match." I said, “Take my place, and I'll go and get you one.”

He declined. This lack of confidence on his part created a coolness between us, and from that time forward I avoided him. It was my idea, in case anything happened to me, to so time the occurrence as to throw my custom into the hands of the opposition coroner over on the American side. At last a policeman came along and arrested me for disturbing the peace by yelling at people on shore for help. The judge fined me, but I had the advantage of him. My money was with my pantaloons, and my pantaloons were with the Indians.

Thus I escaped. I am now lying in a very critical condition. At least I am lying, any way-critical or not critical.

I am hurt all over, but I cannot tell the full extent yet, because the doctor is not done taking the inventory. He will make out my manifest this evening. However, thus far, he thinks only six of my wounds are fatal. I don't mind the others.

I shall not be able to finish my remarks about Niagara Falls until I get better.

THE TOAST.-MARY KYLE DALLAS.

Pop! went the gay cork flying,

Sparkled the gay champagne ;

By the light of a day that was dying
He filled up their goblets again.
"Let the last, best toast be 'Woman-
Woman, dear woman!" said he :
'Empty your glass, my darling,

When you drink to your sex with me."

But she caught his strong brown fingers,
And held him tight as in fear,

And through the gathering twilight
Her voice fell on his ear:

"Nay, ere you drink, I implore you,
By all that you hold divine,
Pledge a woman in tear-drops

Rather by far than in wine!

"By the woes of the drunkard's mother,
By his children who beg for bread,
By the fate of her whose beloved one
Looks on the wine when 'tis red,
By the kisses changed to curses,

By the tears more bitter than brine,
By many a fond heart broken—
Pledge no woman in wine.

"What has wine brought to woman?
Nothing but tears and pain.

It has torn from her heart her love,
And proven her prayers in vain ;
And her household goods, all scattered,
Lie tangled up in vine.

Oh! I prithee, pledge no woman

In the curse of so many-wine!"

THE DUKITE SNAKE.-J. BOYLE O'REILLY.

AN AUSTRALIAN BUSHMAN'S STORY.

Well, mate, you've asked me about a fellow
You met to-day, in a black-and-yellow
Chain-gang suit, with a peddler's pack,

Or with some such burden, strapped to his back.
Did you meet him square? No, passed you by?
Well, if you had, and had looked in his eye,
You'd have felt for your irons then and there;
For the light in his eye is a madman's glare.
Ay, mad, poor fellow! I know him well,
And if you're not tired just yet, I'll tell
His story, a strange one as you ever heard
Or read; but I'll vouch for it, every word.

That man who goes

Through the bush with the pack and the convict's clothes Has been mad for years; but he does no harm,

And our lonely settlers feel no alarm

When they see or meet him. Poor Dave Sloane
Was a settler once, and a friend of my own.

Some eight years back, in the spring of the year,
Dave came from Scotland, and settled here.
A splendid young fellow he was just then,
And one of the bravest and truest men

That I ever met: he was kind as a woman
To all who needed a friend, and no man-
Not even a convict-met with his scorn,
For David Sloane was a gentleman born.
Ay, friend, a gentleman, though it sounds queer:
There's plenty of blue blood flowing out here.
Well, Sloane came here with an axe and a gun;
He bought four miles of a sandal-wood run.
This bush at that time was a lonesome place,
So lonesome the sight of a white man's face
Was a blessing, unless it came at night,

And peered in your hut, with the cunning fright
Of a runaway convict; and even they

Were welcome, for talk's sake, while they could stay.

Dave lived with me here for a while, and learned
The tricks of the bush,-how the snare was laid
In the wallaby track, how traps were made,
How 'possums and kangaroo rats were killed;
And when that was learned, I helped him to build
From mahogany slabs a good bush hut,

And showed him how sandal-wood logs were cut.
I lived up there with him, days and days,
For I loved the lad for his honest ways.

I had only one fault to find: at first

Dave worked too hard; for a lad who was nursed,
As he was, in idleness, it was strange

How he cleared that sandal-wood off his range.
From the morning light till the light expired
He was always working, he never tired;
Till at length I began to think his will
Was too much settled on wealth, and still
When I looked at the lad's brown face, and eye
Clear, open, my heart gave such thought the lie.
But one day-for he read my mind-he laid
His hand on my shoulder: "Don't be afraid,”
Said he, "that I'm seeking alone for pelf.
I work hard, friend: but 'tis not for myself.”
And he told me, then, in his quiet tone,
Of a girl in Scotland, who was his own,-
His wife, 't was for her: 't was all he could say,
And his clear eye brimmed as he turned away.
After that he told me the simple tale:
They had married for love, and she was to sail
For Australia when he wrote home and told
The oft-watched-for story of finding gold.

In a year he wrote, and his news was good:
He had bought some cattle and sold his wood.
He said, "Darling, I've only a hut,—but come.'
Friend, a husband's heart is a true wife's home;

And he knew she'd come. Then he turned his hand
To make neat the house, and prepare the land
For his crops and vines; and he made that place
Put on such a smiling and homelike face,
That when she came, and he showed her round
His sandal-wood and his crops in the ground,
And spoke of the future, they cried for joy,
The husband's arm clasping his wife and boy.
Well, friend, if a little of heaven's best bliss
Ever comes from the upper world to this,
It came into that manly bushman's life,
And circled him round with the arms of his wife.
God bless that bright memory! Even to me,
A rough, lonely man, did she seem to be,
While living, an angel of God's pure love,
And now I could pray to her face above.
And David he loved her as only a man
With a heart as large as was his heart can.
I wondered how they could have lived apart,
For he was her idol, and she his heart.

Friend, there isn't much more of the tale to tell:
I was talking of angels a while since. Well,
Now I'll change to a devil,-ay, to a devil!
You needn't start: if a spirit of evil
Ever came to this world its hate to slake
On mankind, it came as a dukite snake.
Like? Like the pictures you've seen of sin,
A long red snake,-as if what was within

Was fire that gleamed through his glistening skin.
And his eyes!-if you could go down to hell
And come back to your fellows here and tell
What the fire was like, you could find no thing,
Here below on the earth, or up in the sky,
To compare it to but a dukite's.eye!
Now, mark you, these dukites don't go alone:
There's another near when you see but one;
And beware you of killing that one you see
Without finding the other; for you may be
More than twenty miles from the spot that night,
When camped, but you're tracked by the lone dukite,
That will follow your trail like death or fate,
And kill you as sure as you killed its mate!

Well, poor Dave Sloane had his young wife here
Three months,-'twas just this time of the year.
He had teamed some sandal-wood to the Vasse,
And was homeward bound, when he saw in the grass
A long red snake: he had never been told
Of the dukite's ways, he jumped to the road,
And smashed its flat head with the bullock-goad!