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him; and he was so well versed in all those topics that make a man an interesting companion-literature, science, art, &c.—that many an hour was passed more profitably as well as pleasantly because of his presence. Of our No. 3 it is sufficient to say that he was the youngest, perhaps the gravest, of the party, but as full of enthusiasm and love of adventure as the others; and-but there is not time to say more of him, for here we are at Dover, and the boat is waiting, so please take your portmanteau and get on board at once.

A very few minutes suffice to get in all the luggage, mail bags, private carriages, horses, &c., the bell rings, and we are gliding from the pier. How fine the old cliffs of Dover looked as the moonlight turned them into silver, so that they gleamed behind us almost until the lights of Calais came in sight. "Fine enough," I think I hear some one say, "for those who can hold up their heads to look at them," but most of the passengers were either looking intently over the side or lying in most ungraceful attitudes on the deck, their faces looking very ghastly in the moonlight. You may imagine how much suffering there is on board these boats when you read in the statistics prepared by authority that on an average there are "only ninety days out of the 365 in which calm weather rules, and in which people cross from shore to shore without sickness; and not always then without headache, depression of spirits, and reduction of strength, which symptoms, although less violent, are not always the least troublesome or dangerous."

But away with your horrible statistics, we are in Calais harbour, and the prostrate forms on the deck show signs of life, and ladies emerge from the cabins looking like walking ghosts, and the sailors begin to shout, and various Custom-house officials begin poking and pushing us about very much after the fashion of butchers with cattle at an agricultural show. But once on shore there is a general rush to the refreshment buffet, and soon you hear from every table confused sounds that it would puzzle a professor of languages to interpret. People who have never used their French since they left school think that this is an excellent opportunity of putting into practice what they learnt then. 66 Garsong, si voo play-a-a-" and "garsong," who has seen so much of this sort of thing that he knows what is the matter, comes to the rescue with most unmistakable English, "Yes, sir, fowl and 'am, ros-bif- "Ah, yes, all right, waiter, fowl and ham for two." And for the present, at least, the long-unused French is allowed to rest. For our part, we were soon served, and had time for strolling about the station before the train started.

Now I have frequently noticed that English tourists have spoken, and with good reason, of the superiority of the French railway carriages over the English ones; but why do they not at the same time say that the stations are very much worse than the majority of ours? Perhaps no station looks very comfortable at two o'clock in the morning, and just after a sea passage; but certainly that Calais station did look most cheerless, and felt most draughty and cold. However, we took our place in the almost luxurious carriage, like a parlour on a small scale; we stowed away our baggage under the seat, and looked out pityingly on the people who, with their host of trunks, bags, parcels, &c., seemed to be taking all their property with them.

At last we are off; my companions composed themselves for a nap, and I tried to amuse myself by what I could see of the fields and cottages and trees by moonlight. Occasionally we stopped at some station, and one or two little, blinking, blue-bloused Frenchmen, with lanterns in hand, came pottering about the trains, looking for all the world like men walking in their sleep. The signal for starting again is not, as with us, a bell or whistle, but the blowing of a horn, that has been compared to the noise that you may make when you put a piece of paper over a comb and speak through it. Certainly it was a very dismal sound. The first thing that strikes you when daylight dawns, and you are rattling across the country, is the monotonous, stiff, and tawdry character of all that goes to make up the scenery. "The villages look like slips of town which have been planted out in the country, but won't grow; the agriculture seems to be very superficial; the people tickle the earth and scratch it. There are no solid homesteads with powerful teams of plough-horses; no piles of stacks; no farmyards where the cattle stand knee-deep in straw, munching abundant fodder, while the pigeons wheel above their heads. No, this and a very large part of France besides is naked and dreary, though covered with countless cropscomfortless as a showy French drawing-room, with its artificial flowers and clocks that don't go."* However, we have done now with the little scraps of fields and long weary lines of close-cropped poplars that indicate the roads, and, by the preparations that the two ladies who share with us the compartment begin to make, I know we must be nearing Paris.

II. PARIS.

It is only half-past five when we arrive at the terminus, and, jumping into a fly, we drive off to our hotel. You perhaps know how the streets of a large city or town in England look at that hour; the only persons in them are the workmen off to the mill, the warehouse, or the works, with here and there a coffee-stall; but all the shops closed, and the streets altogether very dreary. In Paris at the same hour they are all alive; women and girls, as well as men and boys, are hurrying along to their work, most of the former without bonnets or head-dress of any kind, and clad in the neatest and cleanest of dresses. But here we are at our hotel in the Rue St. Honoré, and as we purpose leaving for Geneva at eight o'clock in the evening, we have only time for a scamper through this wonderful city. However, with a good guide, such as our No. 1, and a liberal use of cabs, it is surprising what may be crowded into one day in Paris. I find this, at least, that I have since often talked with people who have spent several days-even weeks-there, and who have no better knowledge of the city than I have.

A bath and a good substantial breakfast formed a capital preparation for our day's work, and off we started. It might have been some great feast day or holiday by the gay aspect of the streets, and the number of well-dressed people that were sitting at breakfast or

"The Regular Swiss Round," by Rev. H. Jones, p. 5.

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A HOLIDAY IN SWITZERLAND.

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lunch outside the cafés, at the little round tables, and by the numbers who were passing in and out of the churches; but this is the everyday life of Paris.

The two most interesting features, to one who is visiting the city for the first time, are the streets and the churches. The people seem to be at home in the streets-indeed, to live in them-and only go home or to their lodgings (for they don't call it home) when they can't go elsewhere. The streets and boulevards would of themselves make Paris one of the most glorious places in the world for young people. The shops, filled with all the luxuries in the way of sweets, confectionery, and pastry that ever tempted a boy to part with his last sixpence, or all the elegancies in dolls and jewellery that ever made a girl's eyes water-whoever can forget the first walk through them? Then the churches-what costly edifices, what magnificent sculpture, what gorgeous stained windows! There is the Madeleine, that you reach by twenty-eight steps, and round it vast Corinthian columns, as many in number as there are weeks in the year. There is Notre Dame, with its marvellously-sculptured front, which it would take many pages to describe. The Panthéon, with its tombs of Voltaire and Rousseau, and its graceful dome and vaulted ceilings, and costly pictures. These, and half-a-dozen other churches we visited, and in each one there were hundreds of chairs in rows, as in an English concert-room, and on these sat or knelt old and young, rich and poor, at all hours of the day, muttering prayers to paltry plaster "Blessed Virgins." Some you saw crouching in the chapels that are ranged down the sides of the church, and as these people (women mostly) counted over their beads or whispered into the ears of the wretched father confessors the story of their sins, we felt our hearts ready to break within us that religion, which of all things should be most elevating and ennobling, should be thus used to degrade men and women, and turn them into the victims of grasping priests. Thank God, dear children, that you are Protestants! I could not help asking myself how much such a false religion had to do with that worn and weary look on almost every woman's face, and that restless, distrustful look on almost every man's face, which seem to tell how soon those streets may be ringing with the cry heard here more than once before, "Bread or blood!"

I must not stop to describe to you the Louvre, with its three miles of galleries and its numberless pictures; the Hôtel des Invalides, with its gorgeous tomb of Napoleon I.; the palace and gardens of the Luxembourg; the Arc de Triomphe, that looks so imposing as you pass on through the Champs Elysées; the Bois de Boulogne, forming such a magnificent avenue, and thronged with equestrians and with the equipages of the nobility of all the nations of Europe; the Chapel of Louis XIV., with its chest of relics, and its stained windows valued at £100,000; the Morgne, with the ghastly corpses of those who, either as victims of violence or suicide, or other means, have been drowned in the river Seine, and placed there for recognition by their friends; and (strange contrast!) the Palais Royal, with its flashing diamonds and tawdry jewellery, and exquisite dinners, &c. To describe all these, with the public buildings, markets, bridges, baths, and soldiers, would

fill many more pages than the Editor can spare, and so I must end this long day in the greatest show-city in the world, After the table d'hôte-a very splendid affair, at which ninety or a hundred sat down -we rested awhile, and then drove through the streets, now all brilliantly lighted up, to the station, and booked for Geneva. The journey thither, and what we saw of that famous city, the lake, and the neighbourhood, I hope to describe in the next number of the JUVENILE.

Remarkable Things.

THE GREBE.

" and cer

WE have often heard it said that "beauty is a snare; tainly amongst the feathered tribe this is true, for those that are most beautiful, are, for the sake of their fine feathers, subjected to most persecution. At present, the grebe family suffer much from this cause. Unfortunately for themselves, their semi-metallic shining plumage is in eager demand by our lady friends, and is worked up into muffs, cuffs, collarets, hats, and a great many other articles of dress, and therefore, the sedgy haunts of these timid birds are invaded by sportsmen, and their natural shyness is much increased by the dangers to which they are continually exposed. The grebes are but ill-formed for living on land, but in every respect they are well adapted for the water, and therefore, to the water they keep. They swim or dive with equal facility, and live on the fish, insects, and aquatic reptiles they catch. They have a curious habit of plucking their own feathers and swallowing them, but for what purpose has not been ascertained. The quickness with which they dive is remarkable. In the grey dawn of the early morning, when no danger is anticipated, they may be seen disporting themselves on the surface of the pond they inhabit, but if the slightest noise be heard, they disappear in an instant, leaving the pond perfectly still. Their heads will be seen bobbing out again at a distance of two hundred yards, but only for a second, that they may breathe, when they disappear beneath the surface again. Owing to their excessive shyness, and their wonderful powers of diving, it is exceedingly difficult to shoot them, and it is only the most practised sportsmen who can at all succeed.

Of grebes there are a good many kinds, scattered through various parts of the world, but their habits all are very similar. The little grebe, called also the dabchick, is the smallest of the family, and is common in the southern counties of England, whereever ponds and small lakes, fringed with abundance of reeds, offer it a refuge. It builds a nest, which floats on the water. The female lays five or six eggs, of a greenish-white, which on every occasion when she leaves them, she carefully covers with leaves