one of those confidences which are only possible in early life. Nor do I know anything better in youth than the frank readiness with which such friendships are made. It is with no spirit of calculation,-it is with no counting of the cost, that we sign these contracts. We feel drawn into companionship, half by some void within ourselves, half by some quality that seems to supply that void. The tones of our own voice in our own ears assure us that we have found sympathy; for we feel that we are speaking in a way we could not speak to cold or uncongenial listeners.

66

When Jack Bramleigh had told that he was going to take command of a small gun-boat in the Mediterranean, he could not help going further, and telling with what a heavy heart he was going to assume his command. "We sailors have a hard lot of it," said he; we come home after a cruise, all is new, brilliant, and attractive to us. Our hearts are not steeled, as are landsmen's, by daily habit. We are intoxicated by what calmer heads scarcely feel excited. We fall in love; and then, some fine day, comes an Admiralty despatch ordering us to hunt slavers off Lagos, or fish for a lost cable in Behring's Straits."

"Never mind," said the other," so long as there's a goal to reach, so long as there's a prize to win, all can be borne. It's only when life is a shoreless ocean,-when, seek where you will, no land will come in sight, -when, in fact, existence offers nothing to speculate on,-then, indeed, the world is a dreary blank."

"I don't suppose any fellow's lot is as bad as that."

"Not perhaps completely, thoroughly so; but that a man's fate can approach such a condition, that a man can cling to so small a hope that he is obliged to own to himself that it is next to no hope at all;-that there could be, and is, such a lot in existence, I who speak to you now am able unfortunately to vouch for."

"I am sorry to hear it," said Jack, feelingly; "and I am sorry, besides, to have obtruded my own small griefs before one who has such a heavy affliction."

"Remember," said the Frenchman, "I never said it was all up with me. I have a plank still to cling to, though it be only a plank. My case is simply this: I have come over to this country to prefer a claim to a large property, and I have nothing to sustain it but my right. I know well you Englishmen have a theory that your laws are so admirably and so purely administered that if a man asks for justice,-be he poor, or unknown, or a foreigner, it matters not, he is sure to obtain it. I like the theory, and I respect the man who believes in it, but I don't trust it myself. I remember reading in your debates how the House of Lords sat for days over a claim of a French nobleman who had been ruined by the great Revolution in France, and for whose aid, with others, a large sum had once been voted, of which, through a series of misadventures, not a shilling had reached him. That man's claim, upheld and maintained by one of the first men in England, and with an eloquence that thrilled through every heart around, was rejected, ay, rejected, and he was sent out of court

a beggar. They couldn't call him impostor, but they left him to starve!" He paused for a second, and in a slower voice continued, "Now it may be that my case shall one of these days be heard before that tribunal, and I ask you does it not call for great courage and great trustfulness to have a hope on the issue ?”

"I'll stake my head on it, they'll deal fairly by you," said Jack, stoutly.

"The poor baron I spoke of had powerful friends. Men who liked him well, and fairly believed in his claim. Now I am utterly unknown, and as devoid of friends as of money. I think nineteen out of twenty Englishmen would call me an adventurer to-morrow; and there are few titles that convey less respect in this grand country of yours."

"There you are right; every one here must have a place in society, and be in it."

"My landlady where I lodged thought me an adventurer; the tailor who measured me whispered adventurer as he went downstairs, and when a cabman, in gratitude for an extra sixpence, called me 'count,' it was to proclaim me an adventurer to all who heard him."

"You are scarcely fair to us," said Jack, laughing. "You have been singularly unlucky in your English acquaintance."

"No. I have met a great deal of kindness, but always after a certain interval of doubt-almost of mistrust. I tell you frankly, you are the very first Englishman with whom I have ventured to talk freely on so slight an acquaintance, and it has been to me an unspeakable relief to do it."

"I am proud to think you had that confidence in me."

"You yourself suggested it. You began to tell me of your plans and hopes, and I could not resist the temptation to follow you. A French hussar is about as outspoken an animal as an English sailor, so that we were well met."

"Are you still in the service?"

"No; I am in what we call disponibilité. I am free till called on,— and free then if I feel unwilling to go back."

The Frenchman now passed on to speak of his life as a soldier,—a career so full of strange adventures and curious incidents that Jack was actually grieved when they glided into the harbour of Holyhead, and the steamer's bell broke up the narrative.

409

Witch-Murders in India.

THE belief in witchcraft, which in days of yore was so wide-spread throughout almost all the countries of Europe, seems to a great extent to have been driven back by the ever-advancing tide of education and civilization, until it has a refuge only in the less advanced kingdoms of the East. It is strange to look back on that old superstition of the darker ages, which led our pious forefathers to burn harmless old women, and count it a righteous deed so to do. And it is equally strange to reflect on that same dreary superstition which, even in this nineteenth century, remains so deeply rooted in the minds of multitudes of the inhabitants of India, and which leads now, as it led formerly in Europe, to crimes of torture and bloodshed. But it is to be observed that there is this difference between the witchcraft which was held to exist in England and that which is believed to be practised in the present day in India, that whereas in the former case the Devil appeared to enter in and possess the souls of divers old women, and of some young women also, and by his unhallowed arts endue them with a strange power, and stranger inclination, to perform various acts of petty malice and malignant and spiteful harm towards their neighbours, without cause and with no fixed design in India, on the other hand, there seems to be a method in the madness, for the results of the supposed witchcraft are palpable and direct, and the harm it works is incalculable. The witch there has a fixed object in view, and spares no pains to its furtherance; she has something more than the mere indulgence of her own malice to bring about, -a more monstrous design in view than that of mere revenge. This idea of witchcraft is more or less prevalent all over the continent of India; but it is only in certain parts of the country that it seems to pass beyond mere passive belief, and to assume its most revolting features. And it is of one of these hotbeds of superstition and ignorance that the present article principally treats.

There is a tract of country, some hundreds of miles in length and many more in breadth, which stretches away from the great backbone of Central India down to the shores of the Bay of Bengal: a territory wild and savage to a degree, possessing few roads, other than the mere stony, rugged tracks which for centuries have been the only means of communication between the coast and the interior; a country whose rivers are not bridged, are not navigable, and, for months of each year, are impassable :which is clothed on all sides by dense, almost primeval jungle, so dense that in many parts it is a difficult thing for its denizens themselves to force their way through the thick undergrowth and the closely-planted

trees. Its population is but scanty, considering the vast area of the country; and the villages, scattered here and there in the little openings of the jungle, are small, miserably poor, and about as wretched specimens of the habitations of man as can well be supposed. And this country is, moreover, girt about and traversed by great chains of hills, in which dwell races of people as ignorant, as superstitious, and as poor, though even more savage and bloodthirsty, than their brethren of. the plains. And all these people are mere animals in their ways of life; beyond the mere gratification of their appetites, they possess scarcely an idea: their religion, if they have any, is vague and gloomy,-a religion of fear and blood. But then they know nothing better, for, century after century, they have lived and died in their remote wilderness, and it is only now that the first rays of light are beginning to shine in upon the thick darkness which has so long hung like a heavy cloud over the length and breadth of the land. So it happens that superstition has established her head-quarters in this country, and has thrown out such hideous offshoots as sometimes to appal her very votaries themselves. Of course, in such an atmosphere as this a belief in all the horrors of witchcraft reigns paramount; it is an established article of faith, and leads the way to outrages and atrocities which have rendered the district notorious in other parts of India, as one inhabited by witches and devils. It is a fact, that to this day the lower classes of other provinces entertain the greatest fear of even passing through this region, lest they should in some mysterious way be tainted by the malignant influence supposed to be abroad. And it is a subject of congratulation that they find themselves and their goods fairly out of this ill-omened district.

The approximate cause of this prevailing belief in the power of witchcraft is "cholera," that scourge of Hindustan. This pestilence, which for years has puzzled the wisest of European physicians, whose source is yet a mystery, and for which, despite all that science can do, no real remedy has yet been found, is attributed, very much as we in former times should have attributed any such inscrutable plague, to simple witchcraft. The people themselves know nothing of excess of, or diminution of, ozone, have no knowledge of sanitary laws, are ignorant of the many ingenious theories from time to time brought forward to show that cholera is caused by some subtle atmospheric poison, or some vegetable impurity. Failing to find a natural cause, they adopt a supernatural one, and lay it all to the account of the spirit of evil.

It is usually at the commencement of the hot season that cholera appears here and there among the villages, at first of a milder type, more sporadic than epidemic, showing itself first at one little village, then another, moving sometimes in a direct line across the country, sometimes fitfully coming and going, breaking out where least expected, and passing over places which would seem most to favour its attacks. As the heat increases, the disease acquires greater virulence, grows more sudden in its results, until at last it commences those ravages which decimate towns

and villages, and strikes panic into the souls of the people. Driven to desperation, they in many cases leave their homes, and take refuge in the jungles, carrying the taint of disease with them, and leaving a track of dead and dying behind them as they fly. The very fact of their having, during the period of their banishment, to subsist as well as they can on the fruits and even on the leaves of the jungle trees, and to drink the most polluted water, renders them easy victims to disease. In such times it is no uncommon thing to find whole towns deserted, with the dead lying unburied in the houses, in the ditches and streets. By the roadside, and in the depths of the jungle fastnesses, the dead lie, infecting the air for miles round. If, in their great need and distress, the fugitives approach any other village in hope of obtaining shelter and food, they are driven. away with blows and curses, and must go back into the jungles to die. The little traffic carried on in better times is entirely suspended; roads are unfrequented,-death is on all sides. Numbers take to their beds and die from sheer fright on the first approach of the destroyer. It happens, moreover, most unfortunately, that at this season of the year great gatherings of the people are held at certain sacred spots, as on the banks of a sacred river, or near some holy well, or in the neighbourhood of some deeply-venerated temple. The people flock to these great gatherings or fairs from all quarters, and remain for days and weeks together, buying, selling, and performing their religious duties; and seldom does a year pass but that at one of these fairs, perhaps at all, in the very height of their enjoyment, the alarm is given that cholera has appeared. The scene that follows such an appalling announcement may be in some sort imagined from the following account of a case in point, quoted in one of the official returns only a short time since.

The report states that a vast multitude of men, women, and children were gathered together at some sacred spot, situate high up on a lofty range of hills; some springs of pure sweet water sprang from the rocks, and ran down in cool refreshing streams to the plains below; the air was pure and exhilarating, the scenery superb, and the people washed in the sacred springs, bought and sold, and worshipped their gods, without a thought of the calamity hanging over them. People of many castes and of many districts were there, who had brought with them large quantities of merchandise of all kinds; they had come with their wives and children, their servants, their tents, their elephants, camels, horses, and bullocks, hoping to combine a profitable business with their religious duties. Between business and pleasure the days passed quickly away, and it began to be almost time to think of betaking themselves back to their respective villages, when on a sudden cholera of a frightfully virulent type broke out in the very heart of the camp. Universal panic ensued, each man thought only of how to save his own life, regardless of his neighbour. Then began a great rush for the plains. Leaving their goods behind them, with one accord they crowded down the steep ghauts, to get away from the fatal spot as soon as possible. But the destroyer followed them-indeed it