and when they got scent of the house would walk right up to it. During the dark we killed four or five every month, except November, but we saw on an average two a week. One moonlight night in November there were five or six bears within four hundred yards of the house, but we could not get a shot at any of them unless we kept very still until the bear came up to the house. We never shot a female bear from October to March

some snow-birds. At Bell Island the obtained. Foxes were constantly troubsame species of birds were seen, and on ling us during the winter, coming right the south side there was a large loomery up to the door after blubber, and would and nests of kittiwakes, dovekies, rotgees, only run a few yards away when anybody snow-birds, and burgomasters. Rein- went out to drive them off. We were geese and brent-geese were seen and shot obliged to shoot some at last as they beon the cliffs seven hundred feet high, but came almost tame. Bears were more no nests were seen. At Cape Flora there numerous while we had the water close was a very large loomery, and also many outside the land ice. They would come rotgees, dovekies, kittiwakes, and snow-walking along the edge of the land ice, birds. On the lowland several snow buntings and sandlings were seen, but no nests were found. The looms lay their eggs on the bare rock, and the dovekies and rotgees lay them in the crevices of the rocks. The kittiwake makes a nest of mud and moss. The snow-bird makes a rudimentary nest of moss and feathers, but of no definite shape. Each species seems to occupy a separate part of the cliff. The rotgees and dovekies left about the first week in September. 13. This is an important fact. They were Looms were very scarce after September 10. On September 22 a few burgomasters, snow-birds, mollies, kittiwakes, eider ducks, and brent-geese were seen, but getting very scarce. One or two snow buntings still remained on the land on October 13. Three or four snow-birds, and occasionally a burgomaster or molly were seen hovering around outside the hut which had been erected, and on October 28, while we were killing some walrus, two snow-birds, two or three mollies, and burgomasters were seen, and remained for two or three days eating the refuse of the carcases. On February 8 a snow owl was seen. This was the first bird to arrive. On February 18 two or three flocks of dovekies were seen following to the north-west, and on the 20th there were a great number seen in the water. On March 2 a lane of water was made close to the land-floe, and it was filled with rotgees and dovekies. On March 9 the first loom was seen, but it was not until the end of March that they began to settle on the rocks, and then they would only stop on the cliffs for a few hours and go away for four or five days. We were not able to get up the hill to shoot any until April 16. On April 20 the first snowbird was seen. A falcon hawk appeared on April 22, on which day two burgomasters were also seen. On April 24 the molly was seen. On May 6 the kittiwakes came. It was not until about June 10 that the looms remained on the rocks for more than two or three days at a time, but after that date the females began to take their places ready for laying the eggs, and on June 20 three eggs were

always very large male bears. Several times on examining the contents of the stomach we found them full of nothing but grass; but in the spring they gen erally had been feeding on seals, and more than once we obtained a good bucketful of oil for cooking purposes out of the bear's stomach. Once a bear had eaten a large piece of greasy canvas which had been thrown away and had been blown some two or three hundred yards from the house. He then came up to the house and commenced to eat our blubber, but was immediately shot. On February 20 a bear was seen about three hundred and fifty feet above the hill at the back of the house. Some hands went up with a rifle and found that the bear had a hole there, out of which they could not get it

-fortunately for them, as they had only one rifle with them, and that would not go off, the lock having been frozen. We never saw any young bear with it. The last time the bear was seen at its hole was on March 1. No track of a bear could be traced up the hill, but the footmarks of an old bear and a cub were seen on the low land, about three hundred yards to the eastward of the house. No old she-bears with young cubs were seen before we left the land in June. In July, 1881, on nearing Cape Crowther, walrus were seen lying on loose pieces of ice in great numbers. Sometimes twenty or more were counted huddled up in a heap on a small piece of ice. By going quietly in a boat you could get within twenty or thirty yards of them before they took much notice of you, but after the first shot was fired they tumbled into the

66

water, and would go swimming about and | but hardly soft, and now high and loud. barking round the boat, but never at- Thus he wandered, tootling and furtive, tacked us. In September they were very and we following and expectant. At last, numerous on the loose ice round Bell arriving at an old, half-dark, evil-smelling Island, and also in the water off Cape stable he appeared to get excited, gave Flora. On October 28 five were shot vent to still wilder squeaks and squeals, lying on the ice edge. When the day- circled round and round under a big palmlight returned in February, walrus were tree beam, and at last, with an ear-splitconstantly seen swimming about in the ting note, he squatted suddenly down, water. A land floe began to form in dashed his hand apparently upward, and March, and no water remained within clutched a big cobra, which he evidently seven or eight miles of the land, but fre- intended us to believe had been charmed quently on looking with the glass from from above. I say apparently, for I am the hill, walrus could be seen in the water, certain that he lost the brute out of the and on June 13 the land ice broke away, "bosom" of his blouse. Now this was and on June 15 the five walrus were shot. very pretty, but hardly satisfactory; so A boat that went over to Bell Island re- instead of giving our charmer "backported that walrus were lying in scores on sheesh "(having a man in authority among the loose ice round about Bell Island. us), we promised him bastinado if he did Mr. Leigh Smith thinks that the walrus not capture a snake in the open. Very leave the country during the winter, but limp about the loins and very yellow did seem to remain in the water, especially if that Arab catiff show through his brown it is shallow. They never saw any signs skin, but we were relentless. "Cobro or of their taking the land and lying up for Toko!" and so he searched with the the winter. White whales and narwhal greatest care-not to find what, in fact, were seen in great numbers in September he did not want to find. At last one of and October travelling to the south-east, us spied the tail of a good-sized snake and in June one or two large shoals were protruding from some unnamable rubbish. seen travelling west and west-north-west." Now, my friend, catch us that snake or " - he tootled not the "or" had taken the music out of him- and, overcoming with a visible effort his shuddering hor ror, he caught the tail in one hand and rapidly ran the other up the body till he reached the neck. Pinning this between his finger and thumb, he caught up the SOME years ago, when Cairo was the tail of his blouse, and forcing the brute to Cairo of the "Arabian Nights," and not close his jaws upon it, tore it out rapidly, the disreputable - looking second-rate again and again, evidently with the intenFrench country town it is now, we in- tion of tearing out the poison fangs, which quired for any possible successor to the he did at last, to a certain extent, to his old snake-charmer whom old Anglo-In- own satisfaction; but he was wary to the dians may remember to have seen playing end, and, instead of putting it into his with his cobras before Shepherd's Hotel. pouch with his old friend, he knotted it After some trouble we lighted on a furtive up in a rag. And so he went his way and Arab catiff, in the usual long blue shirt, we went ours, with a gentle feeling that if girded about the waist to form the upper we had been "done we were to a certain part into a species of spleuchan or spor-extent aware of the fact. By the way, ran. In this he seems to keep his dirty unless my memory has utterly given way pipe, his packet of frousty tobacco, and to my imagination, I distinctly remember whatever small portable property he had seeing in 1851 the cobras striking and acquired more or less honestly. With drawing blood from the arms of the old him we resorted to divers ancient stables Arab snake-charmer and his clever boy. and outbuildings in the suburbs, and con- Many wonderful things he did, such as jured him to find a snake. Placing a producing a cataleptic rigidity in the small wooden pipe between his lips he snake, as easily removed as produced tootled quaintly an old Arab air, now low, things I should like to see again.

From The Field.

SNAKE-CHARMERS.

Fifth Series,

Volume XL.

I. THE LIGHTS OF "MAGA." Part III.,

II. NO NEW THING. Part VI., .

Blackwood's Magazine,

Cornhill Magazine,

Cornhill Magazine,

Blackwood's Magazine,

Modern Review,

Fortnightly Review,

Fraser's Magazine,

Temple Bar,

St. James's Gazette,

Cornhill Magazine,

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From Blackwood's Magazine.

THE LIGHTS OF "MAGA."

THE HEROES OF THE "NOCTES."

Hogg

hieroglyphics. Otherwise the small herdboy was thrown entirely on his own resources. The life was a rough one, though not unhappy in the fine seasons. Out upon the hills from dawn to dusk, Of the men who are the subjects of our tending a handful of sheep or cattle, he three articles, Hogg was undoubtedly the amused himself like a little savage. We most remarkable. For his was an un- hear of him running races against time, taught and self-educated genius, which stripping himself of his ragged garments shone with rare though fitful lustre in one after another, and neglecting to go in spite of all disadvantages, and surmounted search of them afterwards, till at length obstacles that were seemingly insupera- either the indecency or the recklessness ble. Even a hundred years ago, the scandalized his employers, and some of Scottish system of parochial education his elder fellow-servants went to recover had brought its benefits generally within the missing clothes. We are always reach of the poor. And Hogg's parents were not only "decent folk," but his father had raised himself from the station of a shepherd to be a farmer and sheepsalesman of considerable substance. Had things continued to go well with the family, "Jamie "would doubtless have been sent regularly to school, since his mother was a woman of unusual intelligence. As it happened, however, the elder Hogg was ruined, and reduced to his originally humble condition, when his eldest boy was a child of five. Not only beggared, but burdened with debt, his little household was hard pushed to make the two ends meet. Each trifle saved or gained became of consequence; and "wee Jamie," at the age of seven, was hired out as a herd. His keep was of course in the contract, but otherwise his wages were not extravagant, for he tells us that they were fixed for the half-year at a ewe-lamb and a pair of shoes. Hogg was always inclined to exaggerate. But we think we may believe him when he assures us that from first to last he had little more than six months' "schooling," since the parochial schoolmaster of Ettrick was careless enough to forget that he had the honor of teaching his letters to the future celebrity. He did teach him his letters, according to Hogg; and in the first spell of scholarship, the child stumbled into the Shorter Catechism, which was then a common primer in the Scottish rural districts. It was a year or two later that he had another quarter, when he mastered just as much of writing as enabled him to scrawl detached letters in the form of

doubtful whether the shepherd is drawing on fancy or memory in his vivid reminis cences,.but that touch of early heedlessness seems characteristic. For in later life James Hogg might have been a man of substance had he managed his worldly affairs with ordinary prudence. But though he roved the hills after his beasts like a savage, he was not altogether solitary. He is believed to have altered the date of his birthday so as to establish a parallel with that of Burns; but we imag ine he did not invent the incident of a childish love-affair as precocious as Byron's. His first passion was for a pretty little herd-girl rather younger than himself. His master had charged him not to lose sight of little Betty; and " never were instructions better obeyed." As he says himself in one of his retrospective musings in after years, he had "always liked the women better than the men." But if he indulged in the rustic courtships which meant little, though they inspired some of the sweetest passages in his songs, he married well and happily, and was a faithful and devoted husband; and if it was his ambition to rival Burns as a bard, he had few of the greater poet's frailties to reproach himself with.

We can imagine that the hill-life of the lonely herd was an unconscious education for his future. He had always a vague feeling for the beautiful: he loved nature dearly, though the sources of his emotions were veiled to him; and he merely knew that he was happy in sunshine and in storm, and in the changing aspects of the bleak pastoral scenery. Moreover, though