he half unsheathed; but, as if conscious of there being no witness present, or wishing, perhaps, still further to convince me of the advantage he possessed, he did not draw.

"Nay,' said I, out with your weapon; nothing less will do. I would rather lose my birthright than yield to thee one, without whom life would be valueless.'

"He smiled bitterly, wiped his bruised and bloody face, and slowly drew from his bosom a small miniature, encircled with diamonds, which he held before my eyes. One glance was sufficient-it was a portrait of Maria! It was that face which, sleeping or waking, has haunted me these thirty years past.

"Villain!' I cried, clutching at the portrait with my left hand, while I snatched with my right my sword from its sheath, 'you have stolen it.'

"With assumed coolness, which it was impossible he could feel, he smiled again, put back the miniature in his bosom, and drew his sword. The next moment our weapons crossed with an angry clash, and were flashing in the morning's sun.

"My adversary was a perfect master of his weapon, and he pressed upon me with a vigour which any attempt to retaliate would have rendered dangerous in one so much inferior to him in skill. Maddened as I was, I yet restrained myself, and stood on my guard, my eyes fixed on his, and watching every glance: my wish to destroy him was intense. The fiend nerved my arm, and, while he warmed with the conflict, I became more cool and vigilant. At length he appeared to grow weary, and then I pressed upon him with the fixed determination of taking his life; but he rallied instantly, and, in returning a thrust, which I intended for his heart, and which he parried scarcely in time, his foot slipped, and he fell on one knee, the point of my sword entering the left breast by accident. It was not a deep wound, and perhaps he felt it not; for he attempted to master my sword with his left hand, while he shortened his own weapon, and thrust fiercely at my throat, making at the same time a spring to regain his feet. But his fate was sealed: as he rose, I dashed aside the thrust intended for me, and sheathed my weapon in his left breast. I believe I must have pierced his heart; for he sank on his knees with a gasp, and the next moment fell heavily on his face, with his sword still clutched tightly in his hand.

"Wearied, and panting from the effects of the violent struggle, I threw myself on the large stone which had so recently served us for a seat, and looked on the body of my adversary. He was dead!—that fatal thrust had destroyed all rivalry, but at the price of murder, the murder of one who had been my friend from boyhood upwards! A thousand conflicting emotions racked me as I beheld the piteous sight. Hatred was extinguished, and remorse succeeded; yet I still thought of the audacity of him who had provoked such deadly resentment. Fear, too, fear of the consequences of this fatal encounter in a solitary spot, without witnesses, added to the intenseness of my misery, and I groaned in anguish. What was to be done? Should I go and deliver myself up to justice, and declare the whole truth? Should I fly, and leave the body of my friend to tell the dismal tale ?-or should I bury him secretly, and leave it to be supposed that he had been robbed and murdered? As each suggestion was canvassed and rejected, in my despair I even thought of dying by my own hand.

"Ah! miserable wretch!' I exclaimed, what hast thou done?-to

what dire necessity has a fair and false face driven thee? Yet I will look once more on those bewitching features which have brought me to this wretched pass!'

"I stooped, and turned the dead man on his back. His pallid face was writhen and distorted, his lips were bloody, and his eyes, which were wide open, seemed still to glare with hatred and defiance, as when he stood before me in the desperate struggle for life and death. I tore open his vest, and discovered the wound which had killed him. It had collapsed, and looked no bigger than the puncture of a bodkin : but one little round crimson spot was visible, the hemorrhage was internal. There lay the miniature which, a few minutes before, had been held up exultingly to my frantic gaze. I seized, and pressed it to my lips, forgetting in my transports how dearly I had purchased it.

"This delirium, however, soon subsided, and my next thoughts were of the dead body. I looked about me for some nook where I might deposit it. There was a chasm in the ground among the ruins a few yards off, where the vaulted roof of the crypt had fallen in. It was scarcely large enough to admit the corpse; but I raised it in my arms, bore it thither, and with some difficulty thrust it through the aperture. I heard it fall, as if to some distance, with a dull, heavy sound; and, casting in after it my adversary's hat and sword, I hurried from the spot like another Cain.

"At dinner, one glance from Maria, as I replied, in answer to her inquiry after George S―, that he was gone to make a call a few miles off,-one glance, I say, thrilled through my very soul, and almost caused me to betray myself. All noticed my perturbed look, and, complaining of violent headache, I withdrew from the table ere the meal was ended, and betook myself to my chamber.

"How shall I paint the horror of that evening, of the night that succeeded it, and the mental darkness which fell upon my wretched self ere the morning dawned! Night came; I rang for lights, and attempted to read, but in vain ; and, after pacing my chamber for some hours, overpowered by fatigue, I threw myself on the bed and slept, how long I know not. A succession of hideous dreams haunted my slumbers, still I was not awakened by them; the scenes shifted when arrived at their climax, and a new ordeal of horrors succeeded, yet, like him who suffers from nightmare, with a vague consciousness that all was not real, I wished to awake. Last of all, I dreamt that I was arraigned for the murder of my friend. The judge summed up the evidence, which, though purely circumstantial, was sufficient to condemn me; and, amidst the silence of the crowded court, broken only by the sobs of anxious and sympathising friends and relatives, I received sentence of death, and was hurried back to my cell. Here, abandoned by all hope, I lay grovelling on my straw bed, and cursed the hour of my birth. A figure entered, and in gentle accents, which I thought I recognised, bade me arise, quit my prison-house, and follow. The figure was that of a female closely veiled. She led the way, and passed the gaolers, who seemed buried in profound sleep. We left the town, crossed the common, and entered a wood, when I threw myself at the feet of my deliverer, and passionately besought her to unveil. She shook her head mournfully, bade me wait a while till she should return with a change of apparel, and departed.

"I cast myself down at the foot of an aged oak, drew from my bosom the portrait of Maria, and, rapt in the contemplation of those lovely features, I did not perceive the approach of a man, the ranger of the forest, who, recognising my prison-dress, darted upon me, exclaiming, Villain! you have escaped from jail, and stolen that miniature from the Hall!"

"I sprang to my feet, thrust the fatal portrait into my bosom, and would have fled; but he seized, and closed with me. In the struggle which followed we both fell, I undermost. At that moment I awoke; I was in reality struggling with some one, but who I could not tell; for my candles had burnt out, and the chamber was in total darkness! A powerful, bony hand grasped me tightly by the throat, while another was thrust into my bosom, as if in search of the miniature, which I had placed there previous to lying down.

"With a desperate effort I disengaged myself, and leaped from the bed; but I was again seized, and again my assailant attempted to reach my fatal prize. We struggled violently; at one time I seemed to be overpowering him, and for several moments there was a pause, during which I heard my own breathing, and felt my own heart throbbing violently; but he with whom I contended seemed to breathe not, nor to feel like a warm and living man. An indescribable tremor shook my frame; I attempted to cry out, but my throat was rigid, and incapable of articulation. I made another effort to disengage myself from the grasp of my assailant, and in doing so drew him, as I found by the curtains, near to the window. Again the hand was thrust into my bosom, and again I repelled it.

"Panting with the violence of the struggle, while a cold sweat burst out at every pore, I disengaged my right hand, and, determined to see who I was contending with, I dashed aside the curtain. The dim light of the waning moon shone into the chamber; it fell upon the face of my antagonist, and one glance froze the blood in my veins. It was he!-it was George S-;-he whom I had murdered, glaring upon me with eyes which no mortal could look upon a second time! My brain whirled, a sound like the discharge of artillery shook the place, and I fell to the ground, blasted at the sight!"

Here follows a few incoherent sentences, which I have not deemed it necessary to transcribe. The reader will probably supply the sequel to this sad story. Whether the whole narrative is a creation of the brain, or whether the struggle in the demented man's chamber is the only portion which is not literally true, and that this may have been the combined effect of horror and remorse, acting on a highly susceptible mind, must be left to the examination of those who have made the physiology of madness their study.

INTRODUCTION OF TOBACCO INTO EUROPE.*

WHEN Christopher Columbus landed at Cuba, he caused that island to be explored by two men belonging to his ship's company. On their return, they made a faithful report of all that they had seen to their chief. "These two christians," said the admiral, in his despatch to the court of Spain, "in their exploring expedition, fell in with a great number of Indians of both sexes, who had small lighted brands in their mouths, the smoke of which they inhaled!" Such was the first introduction of tobacco to the knowledge of Europeans. It was from these aborigines of Cuba that the civilized nations of the earth learned to acquire a habit so artificial, and repugnant to our natural tastes; and the leaders of European fashion -coxcombs heretofore redolent with the perfume of roses and aloes -adopted, as the acme of luxurious refinement, this custom, borrowed from the "untutored mind" of the poor Indian.

Three hundred years have sufficed to render this usage of the Indians of Cuba a necessity throughout the habitable globe. Some learned men have attempted to question the fact of America having set the example of this whimsical taste. They have maintained that the leaf of the nicotiana, or tobacco, was known in the East before America revealed its use to Europe. But all oriental scholars admit, that neither in eastern works written previous to the discovery of America, nor in the account of travellers, any mention is to be found of tobacco.

True, according to Bell, the Chinese have smoked for several centuries; but then it must have been other aromatic herbs, and not tobacco. It was only in 1599, when the Portuguese brought them the seed, that they became acquainted with that plant. It was about that period, and during the thirty years that the Portuguese retained their establishments in the Persian Gulf, that the use of tobacco found its way into Persia and India. This reminds me of an amusing incident told by Sir Thomas Herbert, and which occurred during his residence in the East.

Two years after the expulsion of the Portuguese from Persia, there arrived at the town of Casbin forty camels loaded with tobacco. The driver, unapprized of the expulsion of the Portuguese, proceeded with his goods quietly to the market, when the Schah's favourite, Mahommed Ali Bey, who had not received the customary bribe (piseak), gave orders that the punishment ordained by the law should be inflicted upon them. Firstly, and in the most summary manner, the merchants had their ears cropped; next, by way of punishing them in that very organ through which they had sought to tempt the weak-minded lieges, their noses were slit open. After which process, Ali Bey caused an immense hole to be dug in the earth, after the shape of a pipe-bowl, into which the forty loads of contraband tobacco were cast, and, having set them on fire, he indulged the populace gratuitously in the pleasure of inhaling for several days the most nauseous and offensive smoke.

The Turks also learned the use of tobacco from Europe, about the same period that the Persians did.

* From the forthcoming "Visit to the Havannah, by the Countess Merlin."

Sandys, another Englishman, wrote as follows in 1610:-"The Turks take great pleasure in tobacco, which they use through a small tube, at the end of which a round wooden bowl is fixed, a custom we English have lately taught them; and if this practice were not discouraged (Bam, a Mahratta chief, ordered the other day a pipe to be forced through the nose of a Turk, and directed him to be paraded in this state about the town,) if, as we said, this practice were not discouraged, it would become general."

But to return to Cuba. Don Bartolomeo de Las Casas wrote in 1557: "The plant whose smoke the Indians inhale is stuffed into a dried leaf, which resembles a squib, such as our children make for the festival of Fête Dieu.' The Indians light it at one end, placing the other in their mouths, inhale the smoke, which completely overpowers them, and induces a state of intoxication."

Don Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviedo Valdez, alcade of the fortress of St. Domingo, furnishes us with further curious details, as to the use of tobacco amongst the Indians of the Havannah.

"Amongst other vices," says he in his History of the Indies, "to which the aborigines are addicted, is that of inhaling the smoke of a herb, which they denominate tabaco, which produces insensibility, and this is the way they set about it: The caciques, or men of consequence, make use of a tube, four to five inches long, and about as thick as the little finger. This tube terminates in two branch tubes, the ends of which they fix in their nostrils, whilst the other end is held over the burning leaf; they then aspirate the smoke three or more times, until they fall to the ground, where they lie in a state of insensibility, intoxicated, and to all appearances in sound sleep. When the cacique falls, overpowered by the narcotic, his wivespagans happen to have more than one-carry him off to bed, provided always that he has given such orders beforehand; for otherwise they leave him where he lies, till he recover from his temporary stupor.

"I cannot conceive," observes the worthy alcade, "what pleasure there can be to transform oneself into a brute beast, when one is a Christian; nevertheless, some of this last denomination begin to imitate the Indians, but only, be it understood, in cases of illness, or to drive dull care away.'

We have just seen in the preceding accounts three distinct modes of smoking, undoubted prototypes of the cigar and the pipe, as in use in the present day. The triangular tube alone, amongst the Indians, bore the name of tabaco, but not the leaf or the plant. A peculiar sort of cigar still goes at the Havannah by the name of monsquelon, or squib, to which the good friar Bartolomeo de Las Casas has compared it.

santa.

*

The nicotiana, or tobacco, was cultivated with especial care by the Indians, who attached to that plant not only an idea of enjoyment, but of religious veneration. They called it "blessed of God," cosa The word tabaco belongs, it would appear, to one of the American dialects, and was generally used in the West India islands after the Spanish conquest. These, no doubt, borrowed it from the aborigines, who in their turn had adopted it from the Caribbees, when, sword and torch in hand, they made descents upon these coasts.

* Fumar un tubaco (sınoke a cigar), is the expression used at the Havannah.