a good or bad counselor, according to circumstances, has taught them to medicate their own maladies; superstition, always more potentially influential in proportion as man is isolated from his fellows, mingles religious formularies with their popular therapeutic prescriptions. If they wish to dress a sprain, they begin by apostrophizing the nerve which they suppose to be affected thus: "Nerve, return to thy former state as God created thee at first, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." After having repeated these words three times, they apply a compress of oil of olives, three whites of eggs, and a handful of flax; and, if the pain is violent, a poultice of grease and warm wine. Could a doctor manage it better?

When a charcoal-burner in the woods has the toothache, he runs no risk of being ruined by a dentist; he takes a new nail, places it in contact with the bad tooth, then drives it into the trunk of a growing oak, and says five Paters and five Aves in honor of Saint Apolline. This simple fellow, whose imagination is nourished in the solitudes of nature, partakes fully in the popular faith relative to the infallible efficacy of certain ceremonies. If in the spring a swarm of bees, deserting the parent hive, alight upon a tree, in order to prevent their again taking flight, he will sprinkle the ground with holy water, con- | secrated on the day of the Passover, with a bunch of the box-tree blessed for the purpose on the preceding Sunday.

The life of the charcoal-burner is more solitary than even that of the shepherd. In fact, he differs not much from a hermit, and rarely approaches the dwellings of men, save on a few occasions in the summer, when he travels with a load of charcoal to the water side, whence the fruits of his labors are embarked for Paris.

There are eleven different sorts of charcoal, named after the districts from whence they come. The indispensable agents for its sale are, first the garçons de pelle, or measurers, who are appointed by the prefect of police, at the recommendation of the merchants, and whose duty it is to measure the fuel by the hectolitre, without piling up, and using for the purpose a long shovel of a determinate shape. Then come the porters with broad shoulders, vaulted backs, and beards black and bushy; a triangular medal decorates their breasts;

they stoop beneath the weight of enormous sacks, which they convey to the retailers, to the coffee-houses, and to the private residences of their customers. The police regulates their proceedings, and recognizing the convenience of punctuality, in the delivery of a species of fuel so extensively used, says to them: "You shall go straight to your destination, without stopping on your route; and you shall be judged guilty of fraud if you are seen coming out of a private house with your sack not empty. Your business is to carry charcoal to the market, or to carry it thence to the houses of the buyers, but you shall keep neither shop nor warehouse."

The charcoal porters are divided into bands of one hundred men each, and each band elects a chief and a vice-president from among their number. Good-fellowship is the easier to maintain among the members of this democratic fraternity, that they are mostly fellow-countrymen, being nearly all natives of Auvergne. The immigrants from the Puy-de-Dome and the Cantal, almost to a man devote themselves to this profession. In the charcoal shops and on board the boats in the river, nothing else is to be heard but the wretched Auvergnois jargon, which is a barbarous and unintelligible mixture of Latin, Italian, and French. The retail charcoal-dealer, who keeps an open shop, is an Auvergnat in everything—in language, habits, manners, and greediness. Like the grocer, he sells very dearly by retail what he has bought a bargain by wholesale; a sack of charcoal costs him seven francs, and he will dole it out in small quantities for fourteen. He sells, moreover, firewood, pit-coal, scouring-brick, wood-ashes, burnt brands, cinders, and in addition to these, filtered water contained in an immense tank backed by one of the walls of his shop.

Over his door you may read in majestic letters :-" Wood sold by weight. Economical blocks for burning. Clarified water."

It is to be hoped that his various trades lead the charcoal-seller to fortune, which we wish him sincerely.

KNOWLEDGE may slumber in the memory, but it never dies; it is like the dormouse in the ivied tower, that sleeps while winter lasts, but wakes with the warm breath of spring.

A PREDICAMENT, AND HOW I GOT OUT OF IT.

PERHAPS few of the British colonies

Its

are so little known as Guiana. very name, ten years ago, was seldom either heard or seen, except in the counting-houses and ledgers of the comparatively few merchants trading to one of its three great divisions-Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice. Guiana is the northeastern portion of South America, extending from the Orinoco southward to the Amazon. It is divided among the British, Dutch, and French. British Guiana is the most northern portion, extending on the sea-board from the Orinoco to the Corentyn, and inland to the sources of the last-mentioned river and the Essequiboan area of perhaps fifty thousand square miles. Dutch Guiana, or Surinam, extends from the river Corentyn to the Marony, and between them inland to their sources the area being not much less than thirty thousand square miles. French Guiana, or Cayenne, extends coastwise from the Marony to the Oyapock, which separates it from Brazil. Its extension inland is uncertain, but the area is supposed to be fourteen thousand square miles. With all these divisions of Guiana I have had occasion to become more or less acquainted, though chiefly resident at George Town, the capital of Demeraraindeed, of the whole colony, there being perhaps as many whites in George Town as in the whole of Essequibo and Berbice together.

My business in Guiana was an odd one. It was the collecting of skins-alike of beasts, birds, and reptiles—and such other specimens of natural history as could be dried and transmitted to Europe, to become reanimated in the hands of the professional stuffer. Perhaps I do not overestimate my success, if I say that for some years two-thirds of the specimens exported from the colony were the produce of my expeditions. These were, of course, undertaken only in the dry season, of which, in Guiana, there are two-the long dry season, from August to November, and the short, February and March. The course of proceeding was this:-My Indian scout, an Arawak named Barra, got his corial ready, and laid in a supply, according to the time we purposed being absent, of Indian corn, cassava, &c. For

the meat to accompany this, we depended on my double-barreled gun or rifle, as the case might be. As to clothes, Barra's course was the reverse of that usually adopted by travelers. Instead of adding to his stock, he discarded the decent suit he used to wear in town, and contented himself with a single strip of cotton cloth bound tightly round his loins, and serving to hold a large knife. My own wardrobe was somewhat of the scantiest, but we each had a bag slung round us-Barra's to hold provisions when we left the corial for the forest; and mine to receive such feathered or other spoil as we might be able to collect. One part of our equipment must not be forgotten-a strong, but not thick rope, about eighty feet long, knotted at intervals of half a yard, and having at one end a two-pound iron ball. This was used when, by good-luck, we came on a bush-hog or other animal, and did not wish to scare the forest by our firearms. It was of still more essential service in another way, to be described presently.

It was a lovely morning in August, when Barra and I stepped into the little corial, and paddled leisurely up the noble Essequibo. As we landed at two or three islands on our way, we had not made above twenty miles when evening drew in; soon after which we pulled ashore to an Arawak encampment for the night. The next day and night were spent in the same way; and on the third morning we paddled a few miles higher up still, to the foot of the rapids, some fifty miles from the river's mouth, where we secured the corial. Having slung our bags, I took the rifle, Barra the fowling-piece, and we started for the forest-which indeed came down to the water's edge-carrying the coil of rope by turns. As my object was to secure birds, we did not care to fire until we should see something worth firing at. We had been tracking the mazes of the forest, assisted by Barra's knife, for about two hours, when we came upon a small patch of a savanna, at the further side of which stood a noble greenheart (Nectandra Rodiai) of large girth, and without a branch for perhaps fifty feet. The tree, however, might have been passed unnoticed, had it not been crowned by an unusually fine group of toucans. Had I fired at them from the ground, I must have used shot that would have commer

would scarcely have diminished the certainty of a broken neck, and, as the trunk was almost too smooth for a jaguar, we were fairly at our wit's end.

We now took a narrower survey of the tree itself. There did not seem to be anything to fear-no cougar or jaguar marks were visible, nor was there much probability of snakes being found in it, as none but the very largest could compass such a trunk, and they generally prefer a tree overlooking a stream or pool, their prey being thus attracted within an easy distance for the fatal spring. Should anything approach us, however, we had both arms and ammunition. As to food, we were well enough off even for some days, Barra having brought the bag with him, to say nothing of my dearly-bought toucans; but water we had none, nor was there the smallest probability of a drop falling. Our chance of being observed by any passing Indians was small indeed, in a forest the nearest footpath through which was a mile distant; and as to attracting attention by firing, that seemed equally hopeless, as we were known to be out on business, and the report of our arms would, therefore, be thought nothing extraordinary. Time had passed during these cogitations, and it became unpleasantly certain that the night, at least, must be spent in the tree.

As evening drew on, we made a sparing meal, and prepared for such rest as we might be able to obtain. Barra's knife was of good service in cutting some of the smaller branches, which we so disposed in a fork a little above the main one, as to render us tolerably secure from falling, if either of us should doze-sleep we hardly expected. Darkness now came on apace a darkness that might almost be felt. Even in the day, these forests are somber enough, though pleasantly so, as they shield one from the rays of a blazing sun. Looking toward the patch of savanna, the outlines of our tree could, after we had become used to the "dim obscure," be faintly traced; but, toward the forest, all was solid blackness. While coming on, indeed, the darkness seemed more as if it were something tangible, being poured into the forest from above, filling up the spaces between the trees, and the smaller interstices between the branches-more like this, than a simple deprivation of light. It was oppressively, terribly grand. Soon

after night had thus set in, nocturnal sounds began to greet our ears. They were, of course, not new to us; but in our present situation they seemed invested with double significance. A jaguar came moderately near-to the opposite edge, we thought, of the savanna; on the look-out, probably, for some hog-deer in the open space. Upon the whole, however, the most striking feature was the deep silence that prevailed, except when invaded by these sounds. It made us both, at first, almost afraid to break it by a word, as if we should in some sort be committing sacrilege in thus aggressing upon Night's domain. How strange that this dead silence and darkness, and the ceaseless roar and brightness of Niagara, should affect the mind exactly in the same way! It was so at least with me.

Man's power of adaptation to circumstances is a benign provision. If our misfortune had come upon us at the close instead of in the middle of the day, the probability is that we should not have slept a wink. But having brooded over it for some hours, it was scarcely, I should judge, past midnight, when, in spite of the chilly though calm atmosphere, and our scanty protection from it, we both began to doze, and at length fell asleep. I awoke once or twice afterward, but Barra slept on as though he was swinging in his hammock at home. At an hour before dawn, which I could somehow feel was coming, apart from the warning-cries of nocturnal birds and beasts, I became thoroughly aroused, and awoke Barra just as the first streak of light cut like a knife into the forest gloom. He was more rigid than I, not having changed his position for some hours, but soon roused himself, throwing a wondering glance round our nest. A frugal dip into the bag was followed by renewed consultation as to how we should get down. We at length agreed that by the aid of Barra's knife, the string, and our cloths, we should try to make some kind of ladder, by which to release ourselves from our leafy prison. The prospect was not an inviting one, greenheart being one of the heaviest and hardest woods of the colony; and Barra's being the only knife, only one of us could be employed-unless, indeed, that one could tie what the other cut.

This plan was again revised, and at length we commenced making a pole in