hostess was very voluble, and where the ostler, who was called Mr. Watts, could with difficulty be induced to look after our horses. The country around was covered with a dense bush of the thorny mimosa with its six-inch spines, flowering shrubs, and aloes with long cone-shaped orange blossoms, and green gray monkeys frolicked about the banks of the river, and sat in the boughs watching us as we passed the ford, with their arms affectionately round each other's necks. Our journey onwards lay through dry rocky hills each greener spot marked by the fires of a bivouac or outspan of waggons, while the sluggish vulture rose from his feast upon the carcase of some luckless bullock that had perished upon the roadside from fatigue and bad weather, and soared with his broad wings lazily over our heads. Descending the hills we traversed a wide tract, the surface of which was creeping with small tortoises and thinlyclad in a scanty vegetation of Hottentot figs, or mesembrianthimum, with gaudy blossoms of yellow and pink; the note of a bugle struck our ears, we passed through a dark jungle, and emerging upon the brow of a hill, espied below us the white tents and red uniforms of our regiment encamped picturesquely upon the Swart Kops River.

That night we made a sacrifice to the jolly god, and before the sun arose next day we were on our march for Fort Elizabeth.

At the entrance of that most villanous of towns, the band being met by the female rabble of the place, the latter naked, half-naked, and threequarter naked, black, brown, yellow, and brindled-Kafir, Hottentot, Bosjeswoman, and mongrel-but all rejoicing in that extravagant development before alluded to, to which the flesh of woman and sheep is heir at the Cape; these all preceded us in a barbaresque polonaise, in which all kept admirable time, breaking occasionally into a waltz with a great deal of laughable grace, and these wild figurantes continued the extempore ballet, shaking their fragrance to the gale before us till the regiment drew up along the beach for embarkation.

GOOD NIGHT!

BY F. A. B.

Good night, but dream not, lest the clinging form,
Which thou didst coldly cast from thy embrace,
Should in thy sleep return, and still and warm
Creep to the breast that was its resting-place.
Good night, but dream not, lest the pleading eyes,
Whose tears thou see'st fall down like winter rain,
Should o'er the darkness of thy slumbers rise,

In that long look of helpless, hopeless pain.
Dream not, lest, with the hour of love returning,
Thy former love should to thy heart return.
Alas! as soon might'st thou seek light or burning
In the grey ashes of a funeral urn.

THE TWO JEWS OF PERU.

BY CHARLES HOOTON.

Introduction.

Nor deepest ocean in its calmest mood,
Nor tropic forests' dark green solitude,
Nor clouded silence of the sandiest sea
That rolls its baleful gold o'er Araby,
Equals, in death, the tongueless realm sublime
Where condors soar not, nor where llamas climb;
Those rocks of fiery Andes,--billow-tost,
Till in the depths of heav'n the last is lost:
The final granite peak, the needle lone,
The sole, cloud-footed, black volcanic stone
That sleeps in upper horror, far, unseen,

Yon rolling worlds and this dark earth between:
And, lost in dreamy height from human eyes,
Lives only to the spirits of the skies.

No sun-born insect hums in that thin air;

No mosses microscopic forests rear:

Pure barren elements alone surround

That spot, which sees no life and hears no sound:
Save when the central mountain-thunder roars
And nameless Etnas burst their rocky doors.
While o'er th' amaz'd Pacific, in his ire,
Loud shrieks the struggling stifl'd king of fire.
If years make age, our tale is old; though young
And daily new, upon tradition's tongue.
Since all that's born of bright parental truth
Shall freshly glow in fair unfading youth.
Time moulders rocks, and bares the antler'd trees,
Saps earth's foundations, and dries up her seas:
One pow'r alone the tyrant sets at nought,

He kills the man, but conquers not the thought:
Fresh, heav'n-descended thought!-that aye survives
Ten thousand wrecks of sear'd and sinning lives.
And, buoyant ever, changeless still floats on,
The word-embodied soul of bodies gone.

I.

The Jew laments the disaster that has befallen him, and addresses his tale to the Indian, who succours him in his distress.

I am what I was bred and born,-'tis true.

What then?-Why should our faiths each other mar?

Look at me, Christian men;-behold the Jew.

I am what I am,-you are what you are.

If each felt truly what to each is due,

For this abstraction should we never war.

My beard is grayly dying: ashy sign

Youth's fuel is burn'd down to dust within.

Yet know I not, at this white age of mine,
Why loving what my youth was taught, is sin.
I suck'd belief in milk, as thou didst thine,
And life and faith together did begin.

What marks the stubborn ox, or timid hind?
Kinds are not designated black or white:

Were colour cause for war of kind with kind,
Poor life would be but one protracted fight.
So, faith is but the colour of the mind,

And, though we differ, both may still be right.

Or, if this seem a latitude too wide,

(The narrowest skiff most fears how far it goes),
At least, 'tis clear no umpire may decide;

And each for self must judge from what he knows.
Dictation springs from evil spirit-pride,

And forc'd opinions are too real woes.

Would all mankind these thoughts might entertain;
And mutual hate, and persecution, cease:
"Tis lack of thought breeds enmity and pain.
Why cannot faiths dwell side by side in peace?
Nor strive each other's robes of heav'n to stain,
But from all self-defections seek release.

Oh, these are dark and heavy times, indeed!
Though seventeen hundred years have nearly fled
Since mortal Israel bade th' Immortal bleed,-

(And since how deeply they themselves have bled !)—
E'en yet the Christian knows not his own creed,
But, like a shell, encloses what is dead.

Through scorn and insult, robbery, and wrong,
With all to suffer, but with nought to do;
When our abuse is virtue on each tongue,
And life all mire to drag reluctant through;
Why to The Scatter'd do I still belong?
And live in agony to be a Jew?

Think what-but yesterday,-I underwent !
Look but upon me as I am to-day!
My limbs were firm as cedar-boughs unbent,
When last the sun fled from the world away.
Now are they dislocated,-broken,-rent:

And I fast sliding down to cold decay.

And this is Christian work, O, Holy One!

These pain-sweats on my brow are mercy's dew:
This clotted gore hath charity put on

To hide my wounds from wet-eyed Pity's view.—
No need from mine, since sight is almost gone,-
Though I should feel no more, by seeing too.

Mute Indian man of pity unprofess'd !

No Christian nam'd, yet more than Christian bright:
Thou, whose sublimest school is thy own breast,

Where nature writes her lessons up in light.

Hear thou the story of my fate unblest,

And be thy simple nature judge of right.

Thou art my good Samaritan.-And they

Who should have been so, are in truth the thieves.
They preach, then stab, and leave us by the way;
But no man is what he himself believes.

He most persists he's right when most astray,

So easily self-flattery self-deceives.

II.

The Jew commences his Tale, and describes his own and his Father's Journey to Lima. From persecution flying, and fierce hate,

That redden'd Europe's soil with Israel's blood;

And rent with shrieks, no mercy might abate,

The air where once our habitations stood;

We bow'd before inevitable fate,

And brav'd th' Atlantic's far less angry flood.

It was our bosom hope, in this far clime

To find the horror worn from off our name:-
That "Jew" was not synonymous with crime;
And rabid Christian zeal had grown more tame.
But distance softens not such rage, nor time.-
In wild Peru, as Europe, 'tis the same.

My sire and I,-for though myself bleach'd gray,
He still liv'd on, all patriarchal white:-

I and my father weary day by day

Through swamp and forest, to this Andean height
Have footed, sinking-hearted, our sad way;
And all to die at last in lowlier plight.

When, great Jehovah! shall thy chosen seed
Have ended their redeeming sacrifice!-
And, after age on age, have ceased to bleed
Enough, to Christian consciences and eyes,
For that most ghastly, unforgotten deed,

That rent Jerusalem, and tore her skies?

Our journey from the sea was wild and drear:
Nor company had we save bird and beast.
Yet was it happy in its kind,-since fear
Of persecution felt we not, at least.
And less I dread the tiger in his lair

Than frenzied superstition, rage-increas'd.

Those peaceful forests took us back to God:
We felt His might in loneliness, and wept.
Ah! what a change from where man's iron rod

Drew down the storm that o'er our homes had swept!

For though it was a wilderness we trod,

We walked in freedom, and in safety slept!

Oft,-by a sort of instinct led to think

Our case and theirs of old akin might be,

Though yet we could not well define their link.-
We talk'd about the Great Captivity.

This bitter fount our hearts found wholesome drink,
And strength'ning, in our hard necessity.

We vision'd sweet-wav'd Jordan running down

Into the dense, asphaltic, thicken'd sea

That lies on blacken'd Sodom,-sin-lost town!-
And sigh'd afresh o'er that old memory.

'Tis always sad, the grave of lost renown,

But most when lost in hoar iniquity.

Such converse shorten'd time and shrunk up space:-
Less tiresome grew the same eternal wild;

Nor so monotonous seem'd nature's face;

While rocks that frown'd before, half-grimly smil'd.

Yet we so haggard grew in this rude chase,

I scarce my father knew, or he his child.

At length we clear'd the trees, and came again
Reluctantly, and with unnatural dread,
Upon th' unfriendly haunts of lowering men,
Whose very looks sunk in our hearts like lead.

With fear old Lima's gates we enter'd then,

While babes and women from our pathway fled.

III.

The Jews drink at a Fountain, and are accused of carrying Poison in their Beards—

Then further charged with murder, and arrested.

In Lima stands a fountain call'd of Fame.
Who rear'd it, had not studied art alone:

He satirised his fellows in the name,

What more than water's from her trumpet blown?
One moment sparkling in the mid-day flame,

The next sunk down in channels all unknown.

Beside that fountain foot we stay'd to slake

Our husky tropic thirst;-throats dust-inlaid;
Nor deem'd we wrong with hollow hand to take
The common gift that there in coolness play'd.
But soon our simple hearts found cause to ache;-
Such fountains for such lips were never made!
A sun-brown Spaniard,-fierce and snaky-hair'd,—
Exclaim'd, "That Jew-dog will the spring pollute;
He'll mingle poison where he dips his beard,

For melting poison's hidden in the root!"

The rabble thereupon loud war declar'd,

And beat us more than driver beats his brute.

No Jew may turn again—his manhood's gone.

We skulk'd, and cower'd, and fled like cudgell'd hounds.
Yet heavier still the growing crowd press'd on
Until they forc'd us from the city's bounds.
How sunk our spirits then !-Hope had we none
Now we were on more wild and lawless grounds.

The tumult lasted long, till night drew nigh:
And much we wish'd the falling of the gloom.
Protection might be in a darken'd sky,

While daylight only pointed to our doom.
Like baited beasts we rush'd out suddenly
And fled nor knew to safety or a tomb.

:

We reach'd the deserts-'twas a race for life;
A breathless, panting, bloodshot effort, vain.

Less weary limbs gain'd on us in the strife,

Though struggle-sweat roll'd down like thunder-rain.
The one short, kindly pang of shot or knife,
To such a long convulsion had been gain.

Still, haply had we 'scaped, but other noise

Of tongues and hoofs beyond, just then was heard,
Our hot-pac'd hunters slack'd to catch the voice;

And "seize the murd'rous Jews!" was next the word.
We felt a wilder rush of men and boys,

And soon fell pris'ners to that frantic herd.

Lo! we were charg'd with murder-human death!
A man was murder'd on the way we'd come,
And we had done it! half it stopp'd my breath-
I gasp'd in spasm, as when cold waves benumb.
My heart leap'd like a weapon from its sheath,
To answer; but, tongue-paralys'd, was dumb.
They roughly seized, and bound us limb to limb;
Then hurried to the city swiftly back;
Faint grew life's colours as its light wax'd dim,
And doubtful look'd our onward way, and black.

All trust had vanish'd, save alone in him,

The Star unclouded o'er life's stormiest track!

IV.

The Jews are tried and condemned to die, but have a horrible proposition made to them.

Men guide their judgments by their passions; hence
Awry from justice judgment oft is bent.