early in September, and the grass was still fresh from the jetty, shipped the oars, and with the from the winter rains. Their edges were fringed utmost ease sent the clumsy boat at a good pace by tea-trees, great olive-green shrubs growing through the water. How strange it all was to sometimes to a height of fifteen or twenty feet, him, the rosy water, the low green islands, the their branches hanging over into the lake. foreign-looking trees; above all, this girl, who Bunches of tall reeds were dotted here and there was so different from any of the girls he had left in the shallower water, which was no longer behind him. It was easy to see, as she bent to mud-colored, but flushed with a beautiful rosy the oars, that her figure was handsome to an light, the reflection of the reddening western unusual degree: tall, with lithe limbs, a supple sky. There was nothing grand or striking waist, and the bust and neck of a young god less. about the scene, and yet it pleased him better, She seemed not only strong, but accustomed to Jack thought, than anything he had seen since use her strength in all sorts of ways; her hands he landed; and his heart leaped with gladness grasped the oars, which were no playthings, as when he saw, built on the largest island and if they knew the work and liked it; and the not a hundred yards from the water, a long, low splendid figure bent to the work with a grace cottage, with out-buildings standing back from that betokened perfect ease. He only saw her it, which he knew, from the bullock-driver's face now and then, the huge sun-bonnet shaded directions, to be his brother's. it so completely; but the few glimpses he had managed to obtain of it assured him that the figure by no means outrivalled the features. It was very grave for the face of so young a girl, with something of the gravity of those grand Egyptian faces that look down on us from the carved stone of untold ages. Her forehead was low and broad; her eyes of the darkest shade of blue; her nose straight, with delicately cut nostrils; her mouth perhaps rather large, but with well-moulded lips, which closed firmly on one another. The contour of the face was round rather than oval, and beneath it was a neck which carried the head nobly. "I wonder how I am to get to it?" he thought in perplexity. The water between was not more than a quarter of a mile across, and yet it formed a very effectual barrier to one who had no boat. Jack was seriously contemplating the idea of taking off his clothes, making them into a bundle which he could carry in his mouth, and swimming the distance, when he became aware that he was not alone in this seemingly solitary place. Just at the foot of the slope on which he stood, and hitherto unnoticed, was a rude jetty, constructed of rough, unhewn timber, and only so far boarded over as to make it possible for men and cattle to get to the end of it. And at the end of it, fastened to one of the stakes by a carelessly twisted rope, there lay a rather flatlooking boat, brown from long service. In this boat was a stooping figure of a woman, whom our hero perceived, as he ran down the slope, to be baling out the boat with an old tin pail. Her back was towards him; and as he saw nothing but a shabby brown calico gown and an enormous sun-bonnet, the flap of which completely covered her neck, he at once concluded, new as he was to colonial ways, that she was one of the female servants belonging to his brother's farm. "Hollo! my good woman," he shouted unceremoniously, as he stumbled along the rough flooring of the jetty. But as the figure raised itself from the stooping posture, and turned to confront him just as he arrived at the end, he saw that he had made a mistake. His cap was off in an instant. "I beg your pardon; I didn't know," he stammered, as he caught sight of a blushing face and met a pair of grave, dark-blue eyes fixed on him. "Who can she be ?" thought Jack, as he took all this in silently. Can this be- is it possible this can be - Phyllis?" The idea was almost overpowering. Was this the tender dreammaiden, the clinging creature whom he was to protect, this strong, grandly-made woman, who coolly put him in the stern of her boat, and told him to keep still, as if he had been a boy of six? His musings were, however, soon to be broken by the same quiet voice. "I suppose you are Jack ?" it said, in a matter-of-fact tone. will be very glad you have come. been expecting you ever since the Australia arrived." He hesitated. They We have "And you are "I am Phyllis." She turned her face full on him, and the charming lips parted in a smile. She is awfully handsome," Jack thought. Then he heaved a sigh, and the dream-maiden vanished into thin air. Presently the boat rustled through the reeds which bordered the island, and he saw they were nearing a rough jetty like the one they had left on the other side. Then the fair rower unshipped her oars, and, standing up in the boat, threw her rope round a stake, and jumped on shore before Jack had time to offer her his hand. Indeed the idea of such small civilities did not seem to occur to her, as she walked off with long, swift steps, leaving her companion to follow up the grassy slope in front to the cottage. It was certainly not a very pretentious building, Jack thought then; though he soon learned to look upon it as a palace, when compared with some other dwellings. It was built in common Australian fashion, being four rooms wide and one room deep, so that the front of each room faced the lake. The apartment at each end projected beyond the two centre ones, so that space was left between these two bits of projecting wall for a covered veranda, up the pillars of which vines were trained to climb. said Robert Hamilton, cheerily, as he went Of the two larger rooms, one was the common forward to kiss her and the child. While doing sitting-room of the house, where meals were so Jack looked eagerly at the brother from served, and where every one sat when so whom he had parted when he himself was a inclined. The other large room was Mr. and mere school-boy, and the remembrance of whom Mrs. Hamilton's bedroom; and the two smaller was dimmed by time. rooms in the centre were also bedrooms, one being occupied by Phyllis, and the other reserved for Jack. Each room opened on to the veranda, which was the only passage of communication between them. In a cold climate this would have been unbearable; but Australian winters are seldom cold enough to make the arrangement an undesirable one, and in summer the veranda is as good as another room, and is a delicious lounging-place for all. With no show of ceremony Phyllis opened the door of the sitting-room and went straight up to a lady, who was half-sitting, half-reclining on a sofa, with an opossum rug wrapped about her feet. "Bessie, Jack has come!" she said; and with flushed cheeks, and an exclamation of pleasure, Bessie put out both her hands to welcome her new brother. Feeling drawn at the very first to a gentle, fair face, a sweet mouth, and a pair of honest blue eyes, Jack stooped and kissed her. She was like Phyllis, but much smaller; her hands were white and delicate; and she had by no means that look of strength which characterized the fair rower. "Where is Bob ?" were his first words, as he still held her hands in his. "He is busy somewhere about the farm," she answered. "Robert is always busy, you know. He will be in soon now; the darkness comes on so quickly here after sunset. And, oh, he will be so glad! Here is little Bob," she went on, smiling,"commonly called Bertie, to distinguish him from Big Bob, his papa." And drawing down the opossum rug, she proudly exhibited a beautiful boy of about two years old, who lay asleep at her feet. Jack stooped and kissed the child fondly; and his heart felt full at meeting with kinsfolk after his long journey across the great ocean. He saw a man nearly ten years older than himself, and very much handsomer. Jack himself was a tall and well-made man; but he thought he had never seen before such wondrous symmetry and strength of limb, such depth of chest and breadth of shoulders, as were possessed by his brother Robert. Added to this, the Australian settler possessed a handsome face, and a beard which fell nearly to his waist. A pair of sparkling eyes shone in an honest face. Indeed gentler eyes never gladdened a woman's heart than those which were now resting on his wife's delicate face; and it needed but this to assure Jack that his lines had fallen in pleasant places, and that he had committed no imprudence in quitting Old England. — Chambers's Journal. DROLL BLUNDERS. entitled A Book of Blunders. It is a republicaAn amusing book has been recently published tion of a series of papers and letters sent to the Glasgow Herald, and well repays perusal. We give a few extracts from it. are amongst others the following: By the inserAs specimens of typographical errors, there tion of one letter in place of another, a newspaper, not long since, reporting the danger that an express train had run, in consequence of a cow getting upon the line, said: "As the safest way, the engineer put on full steam, dashed up against the cow, and literally cut it into calves!" at a Scott centenary meeting, made one of the A Scotch newspaper, reporting the speeches orators exclaim with more truth than accu racy: "O Caledonia, stern and wild, Drawing a chair beside Bessie's sofa, he talked to her of his journey, of the beauty of the lake and the islands, and of his pleasure at being Never perhaps was the word "austere" more there at last. Her bright, gentle questions and misconstrued than in the instance of a clergyreplies charmed him at once, for Jack Ham- man in Lancashire who got a wholesome warnilton was one of those men who thoroughly ing in regard to pulpit articulation, by discovering appreciate domestic happiness, who are fond in one house which he visited the day after of and tender to all their female belongings, preaching from Luke xix. 21, that the servant especially if those are of the delicate, clinging had gone home with the impression that his text kind. Thus he felt at home with his sister had been, "I feared thee, because thou art an Bessie in half an hour; and when his little oyster-man!" A Hampshire incumbent recently nephew woke up he speedily enlisted the reported in the Pall Mall Gazette some of the sympathies of the child by coaxing him to sit blunders he had heard made in the marriage on his knee and lisp out his pretty words to service, by that class of persons who have to him. pick up the words as best they can, from hearing them repeated by others. He said that in his own parish, it was quite the fashion for the man, when giving the ring, to say to the woman: "With my body I thee wash up, and with all my hurdle goods, I thee and thou." He said the women were generally better up in this part of the service than the men. One day, however, a bride startled him by promising, in what she supposed to be the language of the Prayer-book, to take her husband: To 'ave and to 'old from this day fortni't for betterer horse, for richerer power, in siggerness health, to love cherries, and to bay." What meaning this extraordinary Then there was a step in the veranda, and a tall, sunburnt, bearded man came in, whom Jack I knew must be his brother. He put little Bertie gently down from his knee, and went forward to meet him with both hands outstretched. The brothers had not met for years; yet there was wonderfully little demonstration of affection now between them, only a firm grasp of the hands, a glad look in the faces, and a moisture in the eyes, mutual exclamations of "Jack!" "Bob!" and the meeting they had both longed for was accomplished. "You have made friends with my wife, I see," Vow conveyed to her own mind, the incumbent added: "But a lot of young fellows come out said it baffled him to conjecture. The stories told of the blunders made by Oxford and Cambridge undergraduates in the Scripture examination, are almost incredible. One of these, when asked who was the first king of Israel, was so fortunate as to stumble upon the name of "Saul." He saw that he had hit the mark, and wishing to show the examiners how intimate his knowledge of the Scriptures was, added confidentially: "Saul, often called Paul." Another was asked to give the parable of the good Samaritan. He did so with tolerable accuracy till he came to the place where the Samaritan says to the inn-keeper: "When 1 come again I will repay thee." Here the unlucky examinee added: "This he said, knowing he should see his face no more!" A ludicrous story is told of a bailie, whose studies in natural history seem to have been rather limited. The following case came before him one day: "A man who kept a ferret, having to go into the country, left the cage with the ferret in charge of a neighbor till he should return. The neighbor incautiously opened the cage door, and the ferret escaped. The owner was very angry, and brought a claim against the neighbor for damages. The following was the decision of the learned bailie: Nae doot," he said to the man who had been left in charge, ye was wrang to open the cage door; but," he added, turning to the other,ye was wrang too. For why did ye no clip the brute's wings?" 66 here, and they drink and they eat, and they eat and they drink, and they die; and then they write home to their friends, saying it was the climate that did it!" Though not so numerous as those of the Emerald Isle, Scotland is not without its specimens of this kind of blunder. Two operators in one of the Border towns were heard disputing about a new cemetery, beside the elegant railing of which they were standing. One of them, evi- ! dently disliking the continental fashion in which it was being laid out, said in disgust: "I'd rather dee than be buried in sic a place." 66 Weel, its the verra reverse wi' me," said the other; "for I'll be buried naewhere else, if I'm spared."-A story of Dean Ramsay's is given of a half-cracked man in the parish kirk of Auld Ayr," who got his head in between the iron rails in front of a seat, and startled the congregation by crying out in the middle of the sermon: " Murder, murder! my head will have to be cuttit aff. Holy minister! O my head maun be cuttit aff. It's a judgment for leaving my godly Mr. Peebles (his former minister) at the Newton." When he had been extricated and quieted, and was asked why he put his head there, he said: "It was juist to look on wi' another woman. 66 Amongst the instances of blunders from absence of mind are the following: A clergyman, walking one day in the country, fell into thought. He was so accustomed to ride that, when he found himself at a toll, he stopped and It is also told of a certain Glasgow bailie that, shouted to the man: "Here! what's to pay?" when visiting Paris as one of a deputation from Pay for what?" asked the man. Glasgow to Louis Philippe, the king said, when "For my horse," said the clergyman. showing the party through his library, where he "What horse? There's no horse, sir!" had many of the English classics: You will "Bless me!" exclaimed the clergyman, lookknow Milton very well?"—"Oh, bless you, yes; ing down between his legs, "I thought I was on bless you, yes," said the bailie cheerfully, de- horseback!"-Sydney Smith was not in genlighted that something had been mentioned that he did know. 66 Yes, your majesty, I know Milton very well" (Milton is a little place in the neighborhood of Glasgow); "we're just building slaughter-houses there. By the bad arrangement of clauses in composition, ludicrous blunders are sometimes made. A Wisconsin paper announced that the Board of Education, had "resolved to erect a building large enough to accommodate five hundred students three stories high." In an English paper an advertisement appeared, under the heading of "To Let," of "A house for a family in good repair." Punch noted this, and conjectured that "a family in good repair" must mean one in which none of the members were cracked. "The brooches would have been sent before but have been unwell," was a note of apology sent to Dean Alford by his jeweller; and "Two sisters want washing" was an advertisement which appeared in the Manchester Guardian. An amusing style of blunder is the "bull" for which the Irish get most credit. It was an Irish editor that exclaimed, when speaking of the wrongs of his country: "Her cup of misery has been overflowing, and is not yet full!" It was an Irish newspaper that said of Robespierre that " He left no children behind him, except a brother, who was killed at the same time.". Irish also was the cornet who, when writing home from India praising the much-abused climate as really one of the best under the sun, eral absent-minded; but he says that once, when Noah Some blunders arise from misapprehension. A bishop of Oxford sent round to the churchwardens in his diocese a circular of inquiries, including the question: "Does your officiating clergyman preach the gospel, and is his conversation and carriage consistent therewith?" The church-warden of Wallingford replied: "Ile preaches the gospel, but does not keep a carriage." A doctor, who had one day allowed himself to 66 drink too much, was sent for, to see a fashionable lady who was ailing. He sat down by the bedside, took out his watch, and began to count her pulse as well as his obfuscated condition would permit. He counted: "One, two, three;" then he got confused, and began again: One, two, three, four." Still confused, he began again: "One, two." No; he could not do it. Thoroughly ashamed of himself, he shut up his watch, muttering: Tipsy, I declare tipsy!" Staggering to his feet, he told the lady to keep her bed and take some hot lemonade, to throw her into a perspiration, and he would see her the next day. In the morning he received the following note from the lady, marked "Private: ". "DEAR DOCTOR, - You were right. I dare not deny it. But I am thoroughly ashamed of myself, and will be more careful for the future. Please accept the inclosed fee for your visit" (a ten-pound note), "and do not, I entreat of you, breathe a word about the state in which you found me." The lady, in fact, had herself been drinking too much, and, catching the doctor's murmured words, thought they referred to her. He was too far gone to see what was the matter with his patient, and she was too far gone to observe that the doctor was in the same condition! The Rev. Mr. M'Dougall of Paisley used to tell the following story: One day he was taking a simple friend from the country to see Gartnavel; but passing the Exchange on their way to the Asylum, he took him to the door to look in. The man, who thought they had got to their destination, stood behind Mr. M'Dougall, and staring eagerly over his shoulder at the merchants stepping up and down, and gathering in eager groups, exclaimed with surprise not unmingled with awe: "Is't safe, man?- they're a' loose!" There are some good stories about mistakes as to person, and with two specimens of this class of blunders we will close our paper. It is said that William IV. was once kept waiting outside a certain part of Windsor Castle, owing to a private entrance being that evening in charge of a substitute, who did not know the king in his plain clothes. "You can't pass, old 'un," said the man cheerfully. "No one is allowed to pass here after dark, except the king and the lamplighter." BURNING. [This wild fancy is full of weird, intense poetical imagination, though faulty in some choices of words. It was originally called "Stanzas for music." Its author, Ebenezer Jones, an unsuccessful English poet, was born in London in 1820, brought up in an excessively strict religious family, and wore out his life as a clerk in a warehouse in London, in senseless drudgery which he hated, but which he endured like a man. He published in 1843 one volume of verses, which had no success. Ed.] ["A fool and his money are soon parted," says the old proverb. John Bull and seven hundred and eighty-five millions of dollars of his money have been entirely parted by his lending it to defaulting foreign governments. At the same time, it is better to be the fool that lends it, than the knave that too many of these borrowers have been in repudiating it. Here is the Englishman's own account of the matter. He calls himself a fool. - Ed.] A mutual mistake was once made by Lord Guildford, and a lady of quality in the house of Lord Melville. There was a dinner-party, at which Lord Seaforth was to be present. As Seaforth was deaf and dumb, Lady Melville, before the company arrived, sent a lady friend who was familiar with the dumb alphabet into the drawing-room to be ready against his lordship's The paper of which we have spoken arrival. It happened, however, that Lord above was drawn up by Mr. Medley, a dealer on Guildford was the first to make his appearance; the Stock Exchange, who states that he gave five and the lady, taking him for Lord Seaforth, weeks to its compilation; and it purports to be a began to sign to him nimbly with her fingers. list of all the loans raised in London for foreign His lordship happening to be an adept in the States, including therein the States of the Amerdeaf and dumb alphabet replied in the same ican, Argentine, and Columbian federation, as way; and so they went on talking in this noise- well as the dependencies of Turkey, but excludless manner on their fingers till Lady Melville ing municipalities, counties, and other mere entered, when her friend said aloud: Well, I local authorities, and also, of course, excluding have been talking my best to this dumb man ! our own colonies and dependencies. The paper "Dumb!" cried Lord Guildford, in unfeigned further distinguishes the loans on which partial surprise; "why, my good lady, I thought you or total default has been made from those rewere dumb!" specting which all obligations have been fulfilled. 66 So. money. How much more requisite it is that a lender should inform himself of the resources of a borrowing State, of the value which its people attach to good credit and an untarnished financial reputation, of the intelligence, honesty, and public honor of its governing classes. The loans in entire or partial default together amount to 332,000,0007., or fifty-four per cent. of the total raised. Thus stated, the figures seem to prove incontestably that foreign lending has been very unprofitable business. According to Mr. Medley, the total amount that was only temporary, and that of Austria conhas been so lent is in round numbers 614,000,000l. sisted in the imposition of a heavy income-tax sterling. That is to say, speaking roughly, a on the public creditor and the compulsory consum equal to a year's income of all the persons version of her liabilities. This heading, then, is in the United Kingdom above the working misleading. To say that partial default has classes has been advanced by this country alone been made upon a specified sum gives us in to foreign States during the past half-century or reality no definite information. What we want Of the total sum thus lent, 157,000,0007. is to be told is the proportion of the interest due in entire default, which is about twenty-six per which has not been paid; but that would, doubtcent. In other words, a trifle over one pound in less, be hardly ascertainable. However, the every four has been either completely thrown fact that the obligations contracted by so many away, or at any rate is now receiving no interest. States, one of them ranking among the Great The bankrupt States are, beginning with those Powers of Europe, and all of them civilized and for the heaviest amounts, Turkey, Peru, and possessed of varied resources, have not been Mexico, Venezuela, Honduras, Costa Rica, Para- fulfilled, is evidence of the dangers attending guay, the Confederate States, Uruguay, Greece, loans to foreign governments. It is obvious Bolivia, Ecuador, San Domingo, Guatemala, that the business requires special knowledge, Louisiana, Georgia, Poyais, and Liberia. The the more so as there are no means of compelling Confederate debt ought, perhaps, hardly to be a sovereign State to keep its engagements. included, as the repudiation was not voluntary. The man who would lend to a private person of The Greek debt, again, was hardly an invest-whom he knew nothing would be thought dement so much as a contribution from political serving of little commiseration if he lost his sympathizers. Deducting these, the repudiations amount to almost 154,000,000l., which is as nearly as possible twenty-five per cent. of the total loans. Any one who runs over the list of countries we have enumerated can judge for himself whether it is likely that much of the money thus thrown away will ever be recovered. In looking over the list, the wonder, indeed, is that any men in their senses could have been duped into trusting the majority of the States. Turkey, Peru, and Mexico, indeed, undoubtedly possess great resources, and had the borrowing in the case of the first two been confined within reasonable limits the interest might have been paid. The early loans, therefore, to Turkey and Peru might fairly deceive the most prudent. As regards Mexico, also, there were strange illusions afloat in the days when Canning boasted that he had called a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old. But what are we to say to those who were gulled by prospectuses, contractors, and Stock Exchange devices into parting with their money to San Domingo, Paraguay, Honduras, and Poyais? The truth is, that men who could be so fooled were certain to lose their money in one way or another. They had evidently never thought it necessary to inform themselves as to the condition and resources of those Central and South American Republics, or as to the character of the clever speculators who issued the glowing prospectuses, or as to the practicability of the schemes for which they were invited to provide funds. ARE PEARLS ALIVE? [A letter of Mr. Frank Buckland's to Land and Water has brought out the two curious pieces of evidence here reprinted, both from that paper. The man that set out a pocket pistel to have it grow into a gun may not have been so wholly in the wrong, it would seem; and any goose may yet hatch a golden egg- if she can only lay it first. — Ed.] I first heard of these curious productions about five years ago. A lady who had come from India was speaking of them at a party given by a friend of mine, and, seeing that I looked unbelieving, she very kindly offered to show me some she had in her possession. Accordingly I called, and she produced a small box with about a dozen ordinary-looking pearls in it, and a few grains of rice, which she said they fed on. The pearls were of various sizes, and I thought that Mrs. The loans in partial default amount to the enormous sum of 175,000,000l., or nearly thirty had been duped, for she told me she had per cent. of the total raised. Foremost among paid a very high price to some native servant the defaulting States is Spain, with its 109,000,- of a relative of hers, who had been out on a 000 of debt; next comes Egypt, then Portugal, botanical expedition to Borneo, for these articles, then Austria, and then in order Columbia, the as they were exceedingly scarce. I thought of Argentine Confederation, Alabama, Buenos airing the subject in Land and Water at the Ayres, Chili, Virginia, and the Danubian Princi- time, and rather fancy I did write to Science palities. The position of these several States, Gossip about it, though I remember I was sadly though they are all classed together by Mr. afraid of being laughed at; but I do not think Medley, in reality differs very widely. Spain, the account ever appeared in print, and I had for example, has repudiated, converted, ceased forgotten all about it until I read Mr. Buckland's payment of interest, and again promised amend-letter. I remember a gentleman, to whom I ment, until finally the prospects of her creditors are not greatly better than those of Turkey. Egypt, on the other hand, has been obliged to compromise, but, so far, has fairly well kept her engagements. The default of Portugal, again, spoke of these living breeding pearls, saying he had heard of them, and believed them to be fish parasites. I think he considered all pearls to be living animals developed in shell-fish of various kinds, and not the result of a carbonate of lime |