green firs, with purple shadows gushing over their sides, and glorious changes and gradations of sunrise and setting. A more picturesque, quaint, kind, quiet little town than this of Coire in the Grisons, I have seldom seen; or a more comfortable little inn than this of the Steinbock or Capricorn, on the terrace of which we are standing. But quick, let us turn the page. To look at it makes one horribly melancholy. As we are on the inn-terrace one of our party lies ill in the hotel within. When will that doctor come? Can we trust to a Swiss doctor in a remote little town away at the confines of the railway world? He is a good, sensible, complacent doctor, laus Deo :—the people of the hotel as kind, as attentive, as gentle, as eager to oblige. But oh, the gloom of those sunshiny days; the sickening languor and doubt which fill the heart as the hand is making yonder sketch, and I think of the invalid suffering within! Quick, turn the page. And what is here? This picture, ladies and gentlemen, represents a steamer on the Alabama river, plying, (or which plied,) between Montgomery and Mobile. See, there is a black nurse with a cotton handkerchief round her head, dandling and tossing a white baby. Look in at the open door of that cabin, or "state room" as they call the crib yonder. A mother is leaning by a bed place; and see, kicking up in the air, are a little pair of white fat legs, over which that happy young mother is bending in such happy, tender contemplation. That gentleman with a forked beard and a slouched hat, whose legs are sprawling here and there, and who is stabbing his mouth and teeth with his penknife, is quite good-natured, though he looks so fierce. A little time ago as I was reading in the cabin, having one book in my hand, and another at my elbow, he affably took the book at my elbow, read in it a little, and put it down by my side again. He meant no harm. I say he is quite goodnatured and kind. His manners are not those of May Fair, but is not Alabama a river as well as Thames? I wish that other little gentleman were in the cabin, who asked me to liquor twice or thrice in the course of the morning, but whose hospitality I declined, preferring not to be made merry by wine or strong waters before dinner. After dinner, in return for his hospitality, I asked him if he would drink? "No, sir I have dined," he answered, with very great dignity, and a tone of reproof. Very good. Manners differ. I have not a word to say. Well, my little Mentor is not in my sketch: but he is in my mind as I look at it: and this sketch, ladies and gentlemen, is especially interesting and valuable, because the steamer blew up on the very next journey: blew up I give you my honour-burst her boilers close by my state-room, so that I might, had I but waited for a week, have witnessed a celebrated institution of the country, and had the full benefit of the boiling. I turn a page and who are these little men who appear on it? JIM and SADY are two young friends of mine at Savannah in Georgia. I made Sady's acquaintance on a first visit to America, a pretty little brown boy with beautiful bright eyes—and it appears that I presented him with a quarter of a dollar, which princely gift he remembered years afterwards, for never were eyes more bright and kind than the little man's when he saw me, and I dined with his kind masters on my second visit. Jim at my first visit had been a little toddling tadpole of a creature, but during the interval of the two journeys had developed into the full-blown beauty which you see. On the day after my arrival these young persons paid me a visit, and here is a humble portraiture of them, and an accurate account of a conversation which took place between us, as taken down on the spot by the elder of the interlocutors. Jim is five years old: Sady is seben: only Jim is a great deal fatter. Jim and Sady have had sausage and hominy for breakfast. One sausage, Jim's was the biggest. Jim can sing but declines on being pressed and looks at Sady and grins. They both work in de garden. Jim has been licked by Master but Sady never. These are their best clothes. They go to church in these clothes. Heard a fine sermon yesterday but don't know what it was about. Never heard of England never heard of America. Like orangees best. Don't know any old woman who sells orangees. (A pecuniary transaction takes place.) Will give that quarter dollar to Pa. That was Pa who waited at dinner. Are hungry but dinner not cooked yet. Jim all the while is revolving on his axis and when begged to stand still turns round in a fitful manner. Exeunt Jim and Sady with a cake apiece which the housekeeper gives them. Jim tumbles downstairs. In his little red jacket, his little-his little ?-his immense red trousers. On my word the fair proportions of Jim are not exaggerated-such a queer little laughing blackamoorkin I have never seen. Seen? I see him now, and Sady, and a halfdozen more of the good people, creeping on silent bare feet to the drawing-room door when the music begins, and listening with all their ears, with all their eyes. Good night, kind little, warm-hearted little Sady and Jim! May peace soon be within your doors, and plenty within your walls! I have had so much kindness there, that I grieve to think of friends in arms, and brothers in anger. HE dawn is on the hills and here we stand Calls us to labour in the early hours. Work in His vineyard is our chiefest pleasure, And His approval payment beyond measure. The Master comes; He calls His labouring throng, And forth they go obedient to their toil, A blessed company! I hear the song Of their rejoicing as they till the soil; Ah, why was I not called? I thought to speed But be it so. It is the Master's doing! I will put forth my powers and do His will, Outside His vineyard, ever nobly showing The Master's glory in the servant's zeal; So in the third hour when His voice is heard, Before all others I shall be preferred. |