his absence was discovered. 'Depend upon it my prediction has come true, and Monseigneur l'Ambassadeur has broken his neck!'

"The Queen heard what Marais said, and an exclamation of terror escaped her.

"It would be strange,' said the King, if poor Buckingham had indeed met with some fatal accident! Look to it at once, messeigneurs ; let a search be made for him!'

"A party of gentlemen set off at once in search of the duke. After some time they found him seated on the trunk of a tree, and preparing to join the hunt on foot, his horse lying on the ground, with a deep wound in his shoulder, apparently without life.

"There, there!' cried out Marais. did I not say that horse would bring the duke to grief?'

"The horse has only brought himself to grief,' said Monsieur de Bagsompière, for I see; heaven be praised! no accident has happened to the duke.'

"By this time the King, who had followed with his suite, came up. "Ah, Duke! you had an adventure, I see,' said the King. It must have been an amusing one!'

"Very amusing, sire!' replied Buckingham. My horse was frightened at the sight of a squirrel, which leaped from one of the path to the other, and started off at full speed. We came opposite the gigantic trunk of a tree, which, with its branches, barred the passage. I saw the obstacle, and prepared to make the horse leap it. Useless endeavour! The animal sprung forward without permitting me to manage him; and, his hind leg catching in the branches, he fell to the ground, bringing me with him; he, poor devil, receiving his death blow, for he has not stirred since; and I myself getting off with only a few scratches.'

"Ah, my dear Duke!' said the King. What a wry face you must have made at the fall! I should like to have seen it!'

"Here an officer of the King's retinue alighted, in order to give his horse to the Duke.

"An English knight approached Buckingham, and murmured rapidly to him of the terror of the Queen when they spoke of an accident having befallen the Duke,' calling his attention to the excessive paleness which had stolen over her face, and the evident agitation she was in.

"Before arriving at Compiègne, Buckingham managed to be at her side. They were a few paces behind the rest, and the Queen spoke first.

"Duke!' she said, I am the cause of this accident; I cannot forgive myself for it. If you had not deprived yourself of this beautiful animal and given it to me, you would have ridden it yourself to-day, instead of that horse, so unluckily marked! I am more distressed at your accident than you are.'

"And I, madame-I am rejoiced at having had what the King your husband calls an amusing adventure! Ah! if I had a leg or an arm broken by it, I would be overpaid by the interest which your Majesty has deigned to express for me.'

"The Queen was no longer pale; but she could not reply--they had come up with the court party.

"History informs us that the Duke presumed so far upon her good

graces, that, after his departure, he secretly returned upon some pretence, and paying a visit to the Queen, was dismissed with a reproof which savoured more of kindness than of anger. Information of this correspondence was soon carried to Richelieu.' The same historian goes on to say, 'When the Duke was making preparations for a new embassy to Paris, a message was sent him from Louis that he must not think of such a journey. In a romantic passion, Buckingham swore that he would see the Queen in spite of all the power of France.'

"But he never saw her again; and, strange fulfilment of Marais' prognostications, he died by the hand of an assassin."

THE TROUT OF THE POOL.
BY WANDErer.

Bright Phoebus now illumes the sky,
And lights the mountain peak;
The blithesome lark, now pois'd on high,
To mortals seems to speak:

No longer slumber on, and dream
Away your fleeting life;

But rise, and hail the solar beam
And Nature, ever rife;

With pleasures of each varied kind,
Imparting ruddy health
To every member of mankind-
His greatest, truest wealth.

The lowing herds now slowly roam
Along the river's brink,

Save where the rapid eddying foam
Extends, the shadows sink

Deep in the clear pellucid stream,
Unruff'd by a breeze,

Hid from the dazzling solar beam,
Beneath o'erhanging trees.

Now does a western wind arise,
And agitate the deep,

And num'rous trout of varied size

At floating insects leap.

Then bring my rod and osier creel,
My landing-net and flies,
And tapered line on brazen reel
The spotted trout to rise.

I'll warrant yonder giant stone
Conceals a lordly trout,

Who 'gainst intruders holds his own
We'll try and draw him out.

THE ART OF TRAVEL; OR SHIFTS AND CONTRIVANCES IN WILD COUNTRIES. By Francis Galton, F.R.S. London: John Murray, Albemarle street.

The first edition of this book was published in 1854; the present has the original matter entirely re-cast and much enlarged.

The information which the volume contains is derived from personal experiences, and from the writings, hints, and suggestions of other travellers, the value of the publication being enhanced by the multiplication of data supplied through this union of sources.

So varied is the range of things which ought to be known, that para. graph after paragraph will be found as applicable to the possible requirements of sportsmen in the six home counties as to those traversing countries six or sixteen thousand miles away from home, the diversity of topics treated, telling a meditating wanderer to remote regions pretty plainly what he may have to encounter, and should be prepared

to meet.

The first page wisely commences with the qualifications requisite for a traveller-health, a craving for adventure, at least a moderate fortune, and a heart set on a definite object as the chief. But the author encouragingly adds: "If you have not independent means, you may still turn travelling to excellent account; for experience shows it often leads to promotion, nay, some men support themselves by travel. They explore pasture land in Australia, they hunt for ivory in Africa, they collect specimens of natural history for sale, or they wander as artists."

Y

The conditions of success and failure in travel are concisely and admirably put. Thus thirty lines begin by reminding the reader that an exploring expedition is daily exposed to a succession of accidents, any one of which may be fatal to its further progress, and they end with the impressive assurance that the fable of the Hare and Tortoise is peculiarly applicable to travellers over wide and unknown tracts, the sequence of which is the fact of its being "a very high merit to accomplish a long exploration without loss of health, of papers, or even comfort."

In alluding to the physical strength of travellers, powerful men do not necessarily make the most eminent; "it is rather those who take the most interest in their work that succeed the best; as a huntsman says, 'it is the nose that gives speed to the hound.' And Dr. Kane is instanced as by no means a strong man, either in health or muscle, and yet one of the most adventurous of travellers.

To follow up consecutively the advice proffered is apart from our object, and we shall merely at random make jottings from the book in support of our counsel to sportsmen and their kindred affinities to buy it, a careful perusal of every word, prior to its being kept at call for reference only, having our injunction.

In re

Clothing is amply discussed as to material, colour, and cut. gard to coats, Tweed, strong, but not too thick, is deemed in nine cases out of ten the best for rough work, leather being almost essential for a thorny country. For hats a "scanty wide-awake" has been the general favourite, the author saying that Mr. Oswell, the South-African sportsman and traveller, recommended to him a brimless hat of fine Panama grass, which he had sewed as a lining to an ordinary wide-awake. We have ourselves worn Panama hats, and found sterling advantages from the wide brims both in sunshine and rain, their pliability being unaccompanied by flapping, so that, protective against the scorching rays of the former, they are capable of being rendered equally so against the latter when fastened downwards over the ears and neck by some tough tendril. We believe that the better sort are invariably made double, the existence of an intermediate space keeping the head cool.

However wet the weather may be during the day, the traveller is impressively urged to make every endeavour to ensure a dry and warm change of clothes for his bivouac at night. "Hardships in rude weather," he observes elsewhere, "matter little to a healthy man, when he is awake and moving, and while the sun is above the horizon; but let him never forget the deplorable results that may follow a single night's exposure to cold, malaria, and damp."

To dry clothes which may have become wet, a dome-shaped framework should be formed by bending twigs into a half-circle and thrusting their ends into the ground, within which a smouldering fire being placed the clothes should be laid upon the frame-work, and receiving the heat from beneath, the steam from them passes off upwards. In lieu of a smouldering fire, we would suggest red-hot embers being raked together and deposited within the circle, by which caution the clothes will retain freshness, instead of being impregnated with smoke, the odour of which may cling to them.

The various modes of bivouacking are replete with serviceable wrinkles. "Study the form of a hare!" the author says, in speaking

of shelter from the wind. "In the flattest and most unpromising of fields the creature will have availed herself of some little hollow to the lee of an insignificant tuft of grass, and there she will have nestled and fidgeted about till she has made a smooth, round, grassy bed, compact and fitted to her shape, where she may curl herself snugly up, and cower down below the level of the cutting night-wind. Follow her example. A man, as he lies upon his mother earth, is an object so small and low that a screen eighteen inches high will guard him securely from the strength of a storm." A novice selecting a tree for a camping-place makes a common mistake, and this is demonstrated by the evils which result to him when he lies down beneath it, the tree being worthless as a screen, the foliage of the branches having attracted his attention and deceived him as to anticipated comforts beneath. In heavy gales solitary trees are always to be especially avoided, from the fact of their causing violent eddies around their base. "In selecting a place for bivouac," observes the author, "we must bear in mind that a gale never blows in level currents, but in all kinds of curls and eddies, as the driving of a dust-storm, or the vagaries of bits of straw caught up by the wind, unmistakably show us. Little hillocks or undulations, combined with the general lay of the gronnd, are a chief cause of these eddies; they entirely divert the current of wind from particular spots. Such spots should be looked for; they are discovered by watching the grass or the sand that lies on the ground. If the surface be quiet in one place, while all around it is agitated by the wind, we shall not be far wrong in selecting that place for our bed, however unprotected it may seem in other respects. It is constantly remarked that a very slight mound or ridge will shelter the ground for many feet behind it; and an old campaigner will accept such shelter gladly, notwithstanding the apparent insignificance of its cause."

Sabarite seized with a sudden impulse to travel in "wild countries" will do well to ponder over the above passage, and pause 'ere he starts. Conceive, if we can, a fellow with a dread of draughts, and fanciful as to a four-poster or French bedstead, feathers or cocoa-nut fibre, in search of the " very slight mound" to win him some slumber! Prudence, at any rate, would point to Putney Heath or Salisbury Plain as sufficiently far to test sagacity in seeking a "ridge" prior to more serious work; and, indeed, every part of this little book admonishes while it teaches, its inferential warnings worth heeding.

Consolation in some shape or other, with extrication from difficulties constantly comes, and 'tis news for Sabarite that " a man may be as comfortable in a burrow as in a den," an European being able to "live through a bitter night on a perfectly dry sandy plain without any clothes besides what he has on, if he buries his body pretty deeply in the sand, keeping only his head above ground."

Rules laid down for finding a lost way should be studied. Presence of mind is urged upon the traveller and the exertion of a strong control over himself, the best plan of proceeding being advanced, and relief to thirst and hunger alluded to. The author says that travellers, though constantly losing their party, have hardly ever been known to perish unrelieved. This may be so when several individuals are on an expedition, but we have heard of lone travellers, who, losing themselves in the bush or jungle, have become so bewildered, and then so stricken