hardly keep up with him; and now he is at the cottage garden-gate. What strange things poetical ideas are! and how unlike reality! The poetical idea of a cottage, for instance, is rarely very like truth. We take it and cover it with roses and surround it with flowering shrubs. That may be all very well, for there are such cottages; but then we strip it of all coarse attributes of life; we take away the evils of poverty, and vulgarity, and vice, and leave it nothing but content, and natural refinement, and calm innocence. It is neither the scene of struggles against fortune, cold, fireless, cheerless, often foodless, with want, smoke, and a dozen of children, nor the prim, false rosewood, bad pianoforted abode of retired slopsellerism, nor the snug-embowered, back lane residence of the kept mistress. There is no misery and repining there, no bad English and ginand-water, no quiet cabriolets and small tigers, black eyes, ringlets, flutter, finery, and falsehood. It is all love and roses-quarter of an acre of Paradise with a small house upon it. Such is the poetical idea of a cottage. Such, however, was by no means the sort of cottage, the garden-gate of which was now approached by Billy Lamb. It had been built by a coarse, vulgar man, was inhabited by an arrant scoundrel; and there the arrant scoundrel was, walking in his small domain with the lady whom we have more than once mentioned. He looked sharply round when he heard the garden-gate squeak; but was perfectly composed at the sight of the little pot-boy. The letters and papers he took, and looked at the covers, and then, with an indifferent air, asked, "Well, my lad, what news is stirring in your little town?" "Not much, sir," said Billy Lamb; "only about the marriage of the lord and Miss Slingsby." The lady's eyes flashed unpleasantly, and her companion inquired, “Well, what about that ?” "Nothing, sir, but that it is to be on Monday week, they say," replied Billy Lamb; "and all the people are as busy as possible about it, some talking, and others working hard to get all ready; for Miss Isabella will have every thing she can made in Tarningham.' "D-d badly made they will be," answered the gentleman; " and what is the lord about ?" "Oh, nothing that I know of, sir," rejoined the potboy, only all his people and things are coming down, carriages and horses, and that. The yard is quite full of them." "And so it is to be on Monday week, is it?" rejoined Captain Moreton; "well, the sooner, the better." "Yes, yes," cried the lady, " and he may have guests at his marriage that he does not expect.' She spoke with an ungovernable burst of feeling, before her male companion could stop her; and the boy suddenly raised his clear, intelligent eyes to her countenance, discovering there legible traces of all the furious passions that were at work in her bosom. "Oh, yes," cried Moreton, endeavouring to give another turn to her indiscreet words, and pressing her arm tight as a hint to hold her tongue; "doubtless the whole town and neighbourhood will be there to see.' "Oh, dear, yes, sir," answered Billy Lamb; "though they say they wish it to be quite private. Good morning, sir," and he walked away with a careless air, closing the garden-gate behind him. "Ha, ha, ha!" exclaimed the worthy captain, laughing aloud; "this is capital, Charlotte. You see our trout has bit at the fly." "And I have got the hook in his jaws," said the lady, bitterly. "Yes," rejoined Captain Moreton; "and it is now high time that we should consider, how we may play our fish to the best advantage. First of all, of course, the marriage must take place, or he will slip off your hook, my fair lady; but after that comes the game; and I think it would be much better to make no great noise even afterwards, but to give him proof positive of your existence; and, by working upon his apprehensions, and laying him under contribution, we may drain him dry as hay." "I will have revenge," cried the lady, fiercely; "I care for nought else, but I will have revenge; I will make him a public scoff and a scorn; I will torture him in a court of justice; I will break his proud heart under the world's contempt-try not to stop me, Moreton, for I will have revenge. You think of nothing but money; but vengeance will be sweeter to me, than all the gold of earth." "There are different sorts of revenge,' answered Moreton, quietly; "and, depend upon it, that which I propose is much more terrible. Once he is married, and quietly informed that you are still living, think what pleasant tortures he would undergo, year after year, as long as you pleased. You would stand behind him like an unseen, but not unfelt fate, shadowing his whole existence with a dark cloud. Every hour he would live in terror of discovery, and shame, and punishment. He would never see a stranger, or receive a letter, without the hasty fears rising up in his heart. He would picture to himself the breaking up of all his domestic joys; he would see 'bastard' written on the face of every child; and his heart would wither and shrivel up, I tell you, like a fallen leaf in the autumn. Sleep would be banished from his bed; appetite from his table; cheerfulness from his hearth; peace from his whole life. Even the sweet cup of love itself would turn to poison on his lips; and our vengeance would be permanent, perpetual, undecaying. This is the sort of revenge for me !” "It does not suit me !" cried the lady; "it does not suit me; I will have it at once; I will see him crushed and withering; I will feast my eyes upon his misery. No, no; such slow, silent vengeance for the coldblooded and the calm. I tell you, you shall not stop me," she continued, fiercely, seeing that he listened to her with a degree of chilling tranquillity, which she did not love. "You may take what course you will; but I will take mine." "Excellent!" said Captain Moreton, sneeringly; "excellent, my gentle Charlotte; but let me just hint, that we must act together. You can do nothing without me; I can stop it all at a word. Pray, recollect a little hint I gave you the other night; and now, that the moment is come for drawing the greatest advantages from that, which we have been so long labouring to attain, do not drive me to spoil all your plans, by attempting to spoil mine." Ha!" said the lady; "ha!" but she proceeded no further; and, sinking into herself, walked up and down musingly for several minutes, at the end of which time she began to hum snatches of an Italian song. Captain Moreton, who knew well her variable humours, thought that the mood was changed; but he was mistaken. He had planted that, of which he was to reap the fruit ere long. A GLIMPSE OF THE FRONTIER, AND A GALLOP THROUGH THE CAPE COLONY.} BY CAPTAIN BUTLER, 59TH REGT. СНАР. І. A Military Post on the Border-A War Dance of Kafirs-A Camp on the Great Fish River-Hyænas-The Capital of the Frontier-Commencement of the Gallop-Bathurst-A Baboon Hunt-Bivouac in the Savannah-The Quagga Flats-Line of March rejoined-Aboriginal Rabble. THE winds that howl over the thirsty sterility of Africa, hot and fierce from the calcined deserts of the interior, had for three days been lashing up the dust of Kafirland; the countenance of the sun seemed swollen with debauch through the murky atmosphere, and the wild scene around was lighted up with a hideous glare, as I looked out from the door of my tent upon the uncouth encampment to which I had been just consigned. We were surrounded by a high fence or kraal of mimosa bushes, thickly set with long gray thorns, and there were motley groups assembled within and without the enclosure. On one side a crafty-looking community of brown Traglodites were building huts of rushes and reeds, these were the Kat River legion, a ragged handful of Hottentot militia; on the other side lay bivouacked a party of Dutch mounted boors and their followers, their röers, or long rifles, covered with sheep-skins, and their rude appointments strewed around. Outside were the kraals of our black Fingoe auxiliaries, a tribe of Kafirs who had come over to us during the progress of the Kafir war. These, heretofore, busily employed among their cattle and about their bee-hive huts, seemed roused by some strange excitement, and were hurrying to and fro with frantic gestures, and many a barbarian yell. My Irish grenadiers were standing around me, each with his mouth at full stretch, as become men who had been just dropped out of the Phoenix Park into such a pandemonium. The row outside grew fast and furious, when an interpreter came up to intimate that Makalambo, the Fingoe chief, sought admittance, to pay his respects to the new English captain. The chief was immediately led in with his train of counsellors. He was a stately savage, six feet three from the shaven crown of his head to the bare sole of his foot, his ears were adorned with the crimson feathers of the lory, a coil of beads and tigers' claws were upon his neck, a brazen girdle was around his loins, and beaded tassels hung fantastically from his various extremities. Up strode the gaunt chief, and casting aside a blanket, the gift of the British commander upon his first tendering his allegiance; as he approached, he reached forth to me with an air of patriarchal dignity, a large white vessel of English earthenware with one handle, full of milk. It was a delicate task to explain with becoming gravity, through the medium of an interpreter, whose languages were Hottentot-Hy Dutch, and Kafir, the objectionable nature of the goblet. The chief was at length made sensible that there was something in our religion which forbade its use as a drinking cup, and a calabash was substituted. In the meantime, "consedere duces," the chief and his council had squatted on their heels around the door of my tent, and the cause of the turmoil in the Fingoe villages was explained. A war-dance was in preparation, that their fighting-men might be mustered and display their strength for my inspection. As we strolled through the kraals, the groups were in every direction busy at their toilette, trying their sinews by bounding into the air, and their voices by howling and yells, hurling their assegais or javelins, and striking their cow-hide shields; the carosse or mantle, whether of cow-hide their national costume, or of blankets, was cast aside, and each sinewy figure was binding on his plume of blue cranes' feathers, or his kilt of monkeys' or ox's tails, and coils of beads and tassels, and bunches of little birds' blown entrails, and tufts of feathers, to set off his ferocity to advantage, and adorn, not conceal, his nakedness. And now in every direction, through bush and rock, were seen parties hurrying to the rendezvous, whether to be called parade, gala, or Walpurgis Night revel, but most like the latter, save that it was in the glare of day; warriors in full dress bounding along, shrivelled old men and squalid children, haggard old crones emerging from holes in the ground or the beehive huts, ancient sorceresses, he magi or rain makers fantastically arrayed, young witches, black devils and brown, all hurrying to a common centre, and each humming a low moaning howl, an ominous overture. And now the warriors formed in a ring upon the appointed space, and facing inwards, commenced an unearthly yell, leaping up to its discord, and brandishing their javelins, and clattering their shields. At intervals, a chief of acknowledged prowess would dash into the centre and execute a dancing or leaping pantomime, expressive of his past achievements. Again a wrinkled old sorceress would spring up from her heels upon which she had been coiled, and dash into the centre among the warriors, casting her last garment from her, and bounding about with her spindle shanks, pot belly, and pendant breasts, shriek forth her mingled execrations and songs of praise, the excited crowd of women around joining in the barbarian concert, wagging that characteristic feature of the South African races which modern fashion loves to simulate, and the children thereon seated, to mark the measure. The figure of the dance now varied, the circle broke up, sham fights commenced, the alternate parties advanced, retreated, hurled and recovered their assegais, dispersed and rallied, and again reformed the circle. The revel continued till after the sun had long gone down, the warriors occasionally flinging themselves upon the ground, reeking with dust and perspiration, for a brief rest, and returning to the circle with fresh vigour. In the meantime the hills around the horizon were blazing with the watch-fires of the hostile Kafirs flaring wildly through the sirrocco. The scene was one of utter barbarism. It seemed a dream, the creation of a nightmare. The last "sounds of revelry by night" which I had heard, had been in Dublin Castle. From St. Patrick's ball I found myself transported into the midst of a war dance of savages- -a sea voyage, a few days' march across a thirsty desert were all that intervened. The transition was startling-it seemed to have been one step from the alpha to the omega of the creation. The silvery tongues of the laughter-loving dames at that festival seemed yet to vibrate in my ears-— The music, and the banquet, and the wine, "All the delusion of the dizzy scene" seemed yet upon my faculties, when I found around me the howling wilderness, and that demon dance. But it was no world of phantasms-it was no distempered vision. There So wild an introduction to the wild warfare of the frontier, seemed the prelude of at least an active life. Vain hope! Already had a peace been concluded-the Kafir war was at an end-the regiment, which had been hurried on to the scene of action, without halt or resting places since it had left the shores of the fatherland, was to be consigned to the repose of Cape Town. A few patrols, a rescue of cattle, a chase upon the spoor of the thieves as good as a fox hunt-a scamper through Kafirland, and my detachment was on its way through the neutral territory to regain the head-quarters. There is no scene more characteristically savage than that through which the road, strewed with fragments of broken waggons, and carcases of oxen that have yielded the ghost from fatigue, winds its tortuous way from the heights about Fort Wiltshire into the valley of the Great Fish River. Rock rolled upon rock, and headland doubling upon headland; a dense dwarf forest of grotesque vegetation, wilderness of inaccessible ravines, and winding among these the turbid river, with its margins of acacia and green willows, and the post or encampment of Double Drift, towards which we were hurrying, spied only at distant intervals below us, as we rose over the crests of those rugged cliffs. Along this marched my grenadiers, and with them the uncouth waggons and their interminable spans of oxen, led on by their ragamuffin Hottentot fore-lopers, whose clothing was a hat a piece, and driven with whips wielded like salmon rods, but not like them in silence, each crack echoed among the hills like a young piece of ordnance, and was accompanied by the encouraging shrieks of the drivers. The white waggon tops seemed alternately to bow down to the earth on either side as the wheels mounted over the masses of rock, or sank into the deep ruts. The scene was not without its charm to those to whom the idiomatic features of the land were new, a few days of genial rain had caused a wonderful change in the scorched surface of the soil. The chandelier lily was arrayed in all its glory, blue jessamines flung their garlands over the rhinoster bush and the succulent foliage of the elephant's meat, and an endless variety of geraniums mingled with the gaunt euphorbia. The cliffs were clad in tangled masses of thorny shrubs, among which were clumps of strelitzia, whose blossoms look like some startled animal, peeping out from the midst of the spear-shaped leaves, with large ears pricked, and tongue out, blue and forked; and from the recesses of the cliffs was occasionally heard,, amid the continued cooing of the wood |