Suddenly one of the enemy rushed on the path with a cry of surprise, and, in a moment, lay dead. The other appeared in a second after, when Peg-leg, having unstrapped his wooden leg, flourished it over his head; then presenting the stump to the foe, he flung the wooden leg at the Indian's head! But the savage, seeing his companion dead at his feet, and seeing too, as he fancied, a real leg coming towards him, he stood for a moment panic-struck by this exhibition of witchcraft, and springing out of sight, was seen no more! Peg reached the settlement in safety, with his leg under his arm. The other Indians, he afterwards learned, had been warned by their companion to retire with all speed from the great wizard. Poor Peg-leg! The last time I saw him was at Jack Nolans', the tavern-keeper at Fort Independence. He had come in to sell his skins, and spend his money on drink, as he did every three or four years, for he had no other way of spending it. Banks are few, and securities uncertain, among the Raphoes and Blackfeet! Peg drank more than he could pay for, and Nolans seized the old horse for the debt, and told its master to die when and where he pleased, but he would get neither liquor nor horse till he paid for both. Alas! there was no trapping at Fort Independence. Peg could as well have paid your national debt. The horse was accordingly locked up in an outhouse, the door being fastened with a huge padlock, the key of which hung as an ornament near Mr Nolans' bed. Early in the morning, Peg rose, stepped a few paces back from the padlock, covered the lock with his rifle, blew it open, limped in, and in a trice was mounted on the old horse. Mr Nolans, alarmed

by the shot, had come out in his night-dress to see what was the matter, but only got a peep of Peg, with his leg projecting like a bowsprit between him and the sky, on the top of a prairie knoll, waving his hand as he and his old horse retired once more to live, and I suppose to die, among the Rocky Mountains!"

"What a life!" said I.

Once

"Ah! my friend, you have never tried it! begun, it has a charm which acts like spirits to a confirmed drunkard; you may suffer from it, but habit prevents you from giving it up. I begin to fear I myself could never live in the settlements. As for such a man as Peg-leg Smith doing so, you might as well try and get an eagle to strut along the streets of New York."

The last time I saw the merchant was in Liverpool; and after a long chat, he wished to give me, as a parting gift-will the reader guess what? —a scalp of an Indian whom he had slain in battle! I begged he might not take the trouble of searching for the relic. But a chord had been touched by the very mention of the scalp, and he fell into a reverie staring at the fire, while he slowly smoked his cigar. At last the puffs of smoke got quicker and quicker-the stern expression came to the eye-till, stamping with one foot on the floor, and clenching his hands, he said, with intense energy, "I shall yet do for him! "For whom?" I inquired. "That scoundrel Raphoe Indian who shot my brother!" In the rich and populous "settlement" of Liverpool he was dreaming of the far west, and arranging, in his own mind, for his next attack upon the Raphoes, to revenge the death of a brother whom they had killed!

The last accounts I received of A. S., the merchant of the wilderness, were lately from an old friend who now resides in Mexico. On asking him whether he had ever heard of such a person, he replied, "His name has been well known in Mexico and the far west for nearly thirty years as a very remarkable, honest, enterprising, and daring man. But I have lost sight of him for years. He returned, I believe, to Germany, after having made money in California, but could not resist the attractions of the wilderness, and so he went back again to the far west. The last thing I heard about him was an incident very characteristic of the man. A diligence in which he was travelling near Mexico was attacked by a strong party of banditti, and robbed. The only one of the passengers who showed fight was a little, athletic, black-eyed man, who sat on his luggage with a loaded revolver in each hand, gazing with a stern look on the banditti. 'I know,' he said, 'you cowardly scoundrels, that you can kill me and rob me, but not before two of you, at least, are first shot by me, for I never missed. So keep off!' They did keep off; and the merchant of the wilderness thus saved his life and property. I have not heard of him since." Such a strange life of energy and courage is worth knowing about.

NORMAN MACLEOD.

A

XXI.

DAYS AND NIGHTS IN GREENLAND.

LTHOUGH no missionary hymn is better known or more frequently sung than Bishop Heber's, although nearly every child knows something of "India's coral strand," of the history of its people and its present condition, how few have any acquaintance with "Greenland's icy mountains," with its scattered population, or its geographical or zoological peculiarities. My aim in writing this paper is to contribute information obtained in rather a desultory manner during various visits to the western coast of Greenland, and to give sketches of the habits and social condition of the Eskimo people, from intercourse with them during those visits.

The coast of Greenland is visited by the whaling ships which annually make their voyages to the icy seas of Davis' Strait and Baffin's Bay; lately by the different exploring vessels sent by the English and American Governments to search for Sir John Franklin and his missing companions; and by the Danish ships which, during the navigable season, are despatched to supply the settle

ments scattered along the coast with a renewed stock of provisions, and to carry back to Denmark the products of Eskimo hunting and fishing. Greenland belongs to Denmark, and its trade is monopolised by the Government, the Royal Danish Company yearly sending out ships freighted with European goods and provisions, and bringing back skins of the reindeer, seal, walrus, bear, &c., vast quantities of codfish, and occasionally dried salmon.

The Danish settlements and habitations of the Eskimo are situated along the coast from Cape Farewell, the most southern point of Greenland, to lat. 73° N., and at each settlement a governor or chief factor resides, with his small staff of Danish officials and workmen. Round them gather a mixed Eskimo population, subsisting by the chase, the results of which they bring to the Danish store-house, and barter for goods and provisions.

It was in the middle of July that I first saw the coast of Greenland. The mountains in the neighbourhood of Cape Farewell looked in the distance like the teeth of a jagged saw, peak after peak looming out of the mist, and showing their uneven tops covered with snow, which clothed their slopes down to the sea, or inland to the valleys lying between them and the mountains of the interior. No name seemed to be more inappropriate than Greenland; nothing appeared but dark rock and unsullied snow. On landing, however, I found some little vegetation; greener than other Arctic lands it may be, and is, but to one whose recollections were fresh of the pleasant grassy fields of our own country, the name seemed a mockery.