of gentleman's boots, but that he could. not find the gentleman. Some one connected with the railway recollected that Mr. Buckland had been seen in the neighborhood, and, knowing his eccentricities, inferred that the boots must belong to him. They were accordingly sent to the Home Office and were at once claimed. We have said that he rarely wore a greatcoat, and when he did so it was ap tional pockets it contained than for its warmth. One of his good stories turned on this. He had been to France, and was returning, vid Southampton, with an overcoat stuffed with natural history specimens of all sorts dead and alive. Among them was a monkey, which was domiciled in a large inside breast-pocket. As Buckland was taking his ticket, Jocko thrust up his head and attracted the attention of the booking-clerk, who immediately (and very properly) said, "You must take a ticket for that dog, if it's going with you. "Dog?" said Buckland; "it's no dog, it's a monkey." "It is a dog," replied the clerk. "It's a monkey," retorted Buckland, and proceeded to show the whole animal, but without convincing the clerk, who insisted on five shillings for the dogticket to London. Nettled at this, Buckland plunged his hand into another pocket and produced a tortoise, and laying it on the sill of the ticket window, said, "Perhaps you'll call that a dog too." The clerk inspected the tortoise. "No," said he, "we make no charge for them-they're insects." they pursued, or the results which ensued from it. It is sufficient to say that no public officer ever threw himself so heartily into his work as Mr. Buckland. His zeal frequently led him into imprudences which would have told severely on a less robust constitution, and which perhaps had the effect of shortening his own life. He has been known to wade up to his neck in water, and change his clothes driving away from the river on the box of a fly. This was an excep-parently more for the value of the additional case; but it was a common thing for him to sit for hours in wet boots. He rarely wore a great coat; he never owned a railway rug; he took a delight in cold, and frequently compared himself to a Polar bear, which languished in the heat and revived in the frost. The pleasure which Mr. Buckland derived from cold accounted for many of his eccentricities. Even in winter he wore the smallest amount of clothing; in summer he discarded almost all clothing. The illustrated papers, which have published portraits of him at home, have given their readers a very inaccurate idea of his appearance at his house in Albany Street. Those were very rare occasions on which he wore a coat at home. His usual dress was a pair of trousers and a flannel shirt; he deferred putting on socks and boots till he was starting for his office. Even on inspections he generally appeared at breakfast in the same attire, and on one occasion he left a large country house, in which he was staying, with no other garments While he was driving in a dogcart to the station, he put on his boots, and as the train was drawing up to the station, at which a deputation of country gentlemen was awaiting him, he said with a sigh that he must begin to dress. Boots were in fact his special aversion. He lost no opportunity of kicking them off his feet. On one occasion, travelling alone in a railway carriage, he fell asleep with his feet resting on the window-sill. As usual he kicked off his boots and they fell outside the carriage on the line. When he reached his destination the boots could not, of course, be found, and he had to go without them to his hotel. The next morning a platelayer examining the permanent way, came upon the boots and reported to the traffic manager that he had found a pair on. If a close observer were asked to mention the chief quality which Mr. Buckland developed as Inspector of Fisheries, he would probably reply a capacity for managing men. He had the happiest way of conciliating opposition and of carrying an even hostile audience with him. It frequently occurred that the fishermen at the many inquiries which his colleague and he held, looked in the first instance with suspicion on the inspectors. They never looked with suspicion on them when they went away. The ice of reserve was thawed by the warmth of Mr. Buckland's genial manner; and the men who, for the first half hour, shrank from imparting information, in the next three hours vied with one another in contributing it. Mr. Buckland was equally at ease with more educated audiences, though in their case he was perhaps less uniformly successful. If he If he had been a politician, he would have been a greater mob orator than Parliamentary debater. But the higher classes, like the lower classes, could not resist the warmth of his manner or the ring of his laughter. He could not, in the most serious conversation, refrain from his joke; and some persons will recollect how on one occasion he was descanting, at a formal meeting, on the advantages which would ensue from the formation of a fishery district. "You will be appointed a conservator, and then you will impose license duties, and the money -probably 300l.-will be paid to you.' "And what shall I do then?" inquired the listener. Why, then," replied Mr. Buckland, "you had better bolt with it." 46 His love of a joke distinguished him as a lecturer. He remembered his father's lectures, and always thought it his first duty to make his audience laugh; and he had a dozen stories ready to provoke laughter. The excuse of a milk-boy, on a fish being found in the milk-"Please, sir, mother forgot to strain the water "-was one of those which did frequent duty. The same love of a joke followed him on his official inquiries. He left on one occasion a parcel of stinking fish, which he had carried about with him, and forgotten, neatly done up in paper, in a fashionable thoroughfare in Scotland, and stood at the hotel window to watch the face of the first person who examined it. He amused himself, one Sunday evening, on another occasion, in making herring-roe out of tapioca pudding and whisky, to puzzle the witnesses whom he was to examine on the Monday; and he raised a laugh on a third occasion by telling a witness, who said he was a shoemaker, that to judge from the appearance of the children's feet, he should think he had a very poor trade. Throughout his journeys specimens of every kind, living, dying, and dead, were thrown into his bag, possibly to keep company with his boots or his clothes. The odor of the bag usually increased with the length of the inspection, and on one occasion, when it was exceptionally offensive, he said to the boots of a very smart hotel, “I think you had better put this bag into the cellar, as I should not be at all surprised if it smelt by to-morrow morning. The love of fun and laughter which was perceptible while he was transacting the dullest business, distinguished him equally as a writer. It was his object, so he himself thought, to make natural history practical; but it was his real mission to make natural history and fishculture popular. He popularized everything that he touched, he hated the scientific terms which other naturalists employed, and invariably used the simplest language for describing his meaning. His writings were unequal; some of them are not marked by any exceptional qualities. But others of them, such as the best parts of the "Curiosities of Natural History," and "The Royal Academy without a Catalogue" are admirable examples of good English, keen critical observation and rich humor. His best things, he used to say himself, were written on the box of an omnibus or in a railway carriage. The Royal Academy without a Catalogue, was written between London and Crewe, and posted at the latter station. He had originally acquired the art of writing in a railway train from the late Bishop of Oxford. He practised it with as much zeal as the bishop did, and with as good effect. The more labored compositions which Mr. Buckland undertook did not always contain equal traits of happy humor. He was at his best when he took the least pains, and a collection of his very best pieces would deserve a permanent place in any collection of English essays. Desultory work of this character made Mr. Buckland's name a household world throughout the country. His articles were copied and recopied into various newspapers, and obtained, in this way, hundreds of thousands of readers. But, at the same time, this desultory work necessarily prevented him from accomplishing any literary task of first-rate excellence. Some of his personal popularity was thus purchased at the cost of his future reputation; and a mass of knowledge has died with him which might otherwise have been preserved. It is no exaggeration to say that he had collected during his busy life a vast store of information. He had trained himself to observe, and his eye rarely missed anything. He thought that he had facts at his disposal which would have enabled him to answer the great doctrines which Mr. Darwin has unfolded. Evolution was eminently distasteful to him; only two days before his death, in revising the preface of his latest work, he deliberately expressed his disbelief in it, and he used to dispose of any controversy on the subject by saying, "My father was Dean of Westminster. I was brought up in the principles of Church and State; and I will never admit it-I will never admit it." The land's characteristics. His kindliness was another. Perhaps no man ever lived with a kinder heart. It may be doubted whether he ever willingly said a hard word or did a hard action. He used to say of one gentleman, by whom he thought he had been aggrieved, that he had forgiven him seventy times seven already; so that he was not required to forgive him any more. He could not resist a cry of distress, particularly if it came from a woman. Women, he used to say, are such doe-like, timid things, that he could not bear to see them unhappy. One night, walking from his office, he found a poor servant girl crying in the street. She had been turned out of her place that morning as unequal to her duties; she had no money and no friends nearer than Taunton, where her parents lived. Mr. Buckland took her to an eating-house, gave her a dinner, drove her to Paddington, paid for her ticket, and left her in charge of the guard of the train. His nature was so simple and generous that he did not even then seem to realize that he had done an exceptionally kind action. Though, however, on such occasions as these Mr. Buckland used the language of advanced Tories, he habitually shrank from political discussion. He declared that he did not understand politics, and that he reserved himself for his own immediate pursuits. Into these pursuits he threw himself with his whole energy; and his energy was extraordinary. greatest example of it was in the search which he made for John Hunter's coffin in the vaults of St. Martin's A volume might perhaps be filled with. Church. He literally turned over every an account of Mr. Buckland's eccentricoffin in the church before he found the cities. When he was studying oysters, one of which he was in search, spending he would never allow any one to speak; a whole fortnight among the dead. He the oysters, he said, overheard the conwas ultimately rewarded by obtaining a versation and shut up their shells. More grave for his hero's remains in West- inanimate objects than oysters were enminster Abbey. John Hunter was his dowed by him with sense. He had altypical hero. He had pursued the stud- most persuaded himself that inanimate ies to which Mr. Buckland also devoted things could be spiteful; and he used to himself. He had founded a great mu- say that he would write a book on their seum. He had almost originated a sci- spitefulness. If a railway lamp did not burn properly, he would declare it was sulky, and throw it out of window to see if it could find a better master. He punished his portmanteau on one occasion by knocking it down, and the portmanteau naturally revenged itself by breaking all the bottles of specimens which it contained, and emptying their contents on its master's shirts. To provide himself against possible disasters, he used to carry with him an armory of implements. On the herring inquiry he went to Scotland with six boxes of cigars, four dozen pencils, five knives, and three thermometers. On his return, three weeks afterward, he produced one solitary pencil, the remnant of all this property. The knives were lost, the ence. Like John Hunter, one of Mr. Buckland's main objects was to form a collection which would illustrate the whole science of fish-culture. The museum at South Kensington, which he has left to the nation, exists as a proof of his success. Inferior, of course, to the similar collections in the Smithsonian Museum of the United States, it forms an unequalled example of what one man may accomplish by energy and industry. Thousands of persons have interested themselves in fish-culture from seeing the museum; and the collection has long formed one of the most popular departments of the galleries at South Kensington. Energy was only one of Mr. Buck cigars were smoked; one thermometer had lost its temper, and been thrown out of window; another had been drowned in the Pentland Frith, and a third had beaten out its own brains against the bottom of a gunboat. No human being could have told the fate of the pencils. Such were some of the eccentricities of a man who will, it may be hoped, be recollected by the public for the work which he did, and by his friends for his kindliness, his humor, and his worth. As he lived, so he died. Throughout a long and painful illness his spirits never failed, and his love of fun never ceased. 'I wish to be present at this operation,' was his quaint reply to the proposal of his surgeon that he should take chloroform, and his wonderful vitality enabled him to survive for months under sufferings which would have crushed other men. He is gone his work is of the past and posterity will coldly examine its merits. But his friends will not patiently wait the verdict of posterity. When they recollect his rare powers of observation, his capacity of expressing his ideas, his quaint humor, his kindly heart, and open hand, they will say with the writer, we shall not soon look on his like again.—Macmillan's Magazine. MR. WHYMPER'S ASCENT OF CHIMBORAZO. THE ascent of Chimborazo and other lofty peaks of the Andes was an object worthy the ambition of one who had gained the highest fame as an Alpine mountaineer. But Edward Whymper is not merely a daring climber and successful explorer; he is an intelligent and observant traveller, such as Humboldt would have welcomed as a pupil and comrade. The book which he is preparing on the Andes will be one of the most important additions to the library of modern travel. We have no wish to anticipate the pages of that work, but we are enabled, from letters received from Mr. Whymper, and from notes since supplied, to present a personal narrative of some of his adventurous exploits in South America. 66 on We left Southampton," says Mr. Whymper in his first letter to us, the 3d of November, 1879, on board the Royal Mail steamer, the Don. The party consisted at leaving only of myself and of Jean-Antoine and Louis Carrel-two Italian mountaineers who accompanied me throughout. You will probably remember that Jean-Antoine Carrel was a very old acquaintance, but should you have forgotten, you will find all about him in my recently-published book, The Ascent of the Matterhorn,' and you will see there that I pointed him out many years ago as one of the best mountaineers of the time, and as the finest cragsman I had ever seen. Age has not lessened his ability-in deed, he is now more desirable as a guide than he was twenty years ago, increased experience having somewhat toned his impetuosity and rendered him more prudent, though not less able. He preferred to take his cousin Louis to any other man. Louis was at once the biggest and the youngest of the three indeed, he was, I think, the biggest man on board the ship. "At Jamaica we got a run on shore while the ship remained at Kingston, and made an excursion to the mountains at the back of the military station, Newcastle, a height of nearly five thousand feet, and saw from our highest point both the northern and the southern sides of the island. We remarked that the hills were much better clothed than the natives, and we were surprised at the extremely small amount of clothing which is tolerated in the island. There was grosser and more palpable nakedness visible here than in any other place which we visited-stark, staring nakedness, for which there is, however some excuse. Jamaica, although several degrees north of the Equator, is considerably hotter than most places in South America which are actually on the line. "Just as the Don was leaving Kingston we heard that there had been a great storm at Colon, and arriving off that place we found a number of ships ashore, and several hopelessly wrecked. The railroad was stopped, the telegraph was destroyed at numerous places, and nine days passed before we could cross to Panama, and even then the transit took more than thirteen hours, instead of the four hours which it is supposed to occupy. This was just beThis was just before the visit of M. Lesseps to the Isthmus, and many persons wished-some ironically, though more from good-will -that that distinguished individual had arrived a little earlier, in order that he might have been an eye-witness of the tremendous rainfalls which can occur in this region, and do occur at irregular intervals. At one place the River Chagres rose forty feet in a few hours, and this not at a point where the river was narrowed. To make the river rise this amount the floods had first to spread over an immense extent of the surrounding country; and they performed wonders of destruction, floating away houses bodily, transporting massive iron tanks long distances, and even drowning alligators. The bodies of several were lying high and dry by the side of the track as we passed along. "This part of the world is famous for alligators, and especially the River Guayas, up which our course led in going from Panama to Guayaquil, though, to tell the truth, we saw but few until we got higher up than that point. 'Oh!' they said at Guayaquil, you must not expect to see many here, or until you get a long way up the river, away from the steamers, and then you will see them by the thousand !' Well, though we did not see quite so many as that, we saw quite enough. In some places the steep mud-banks by the river-side were black with them, and on one sand-bank I counted thirty-six all in a row, lying side by side, so close that a baby alligator could scarcely have toddled up between them. Big enough for my liking, though not monsters-indeed, I doubt if any were as much as twelve feet long. I flattered myself that we would have a great alligator-catching at Bodegas (or Babahoyo), the terminus for the steamer, for I remembered that this was the place where Stevenson, in his South American Travels, speaks of having witnessed some great sport of that kind,* This is the passage referred to by Mr. Whymper : "These animals will sometimes seize human beings when bathing, and even take children from the shore; after having suc and on arrival at Bodegas one of the first things I did was to say to an old resident,Oh, please, Mr. T., I want ceeded once or twice they will venture to take men or women from the balsas, if they can surprise them when asleep; but they are remark ably timid, and any noise will drive them from their purpose. They have also been known to swim alongside a small canoe and to suddenly place one of their paws on the edge and upset it, when they immediately seize the unwary victim. Whenever it is known that a cebado, one that has devoured either a human being or cattle, is in the neighborhood, all the people join in the common cause to destroy it; this they often effect by means of a noose of strong hide rope, baited with some animal food; when the lagarto seizes the bait its upper jaw becomes entangled with the rope, and the people immediately attack it with their lances and generally kill it. "The natives sometimes divert themselves in catching the lagartos alive; they employ two methods, equally terrific and dangerous to a spectator at first sight; both of these were exhibited to Count Ruis, when we were at Babahoyo, on our way to Quito. A man takes in his right hand a truncheon, called a tolete; this is of hard wood, about two feet long, having a ball formed at each end, into which are fastened two harpoons, and to the middle of this truncheon a platted thong is fastened. The man takes this in his hand, plunges into the river, and holds it horizontally on the surface of the water, grasping a dead fowl with the same hand, and swimming with the other; he places himself in a right line with the lagarto, which is almost sure to dart at the fowl; when this happens the truncheon is placed in a vertical position, and at the moment that the jaw of the lagarto is thrown up the tolete is thrust into the mouth, so that when the jaw falls down again the two harpoons become fixed, and the animal is dragged to the shore by the cord fastened to the tolete. When on shore the appearance of the lagarto is really most horrible; his enormous jaws propped up by the tolete, showing his large sharp teeth; his eyes projecting almost out of his head; the pale red color of the fleshy substance on his under jaw, as well as that of the roof of the mouth; the impenetrable armor of scales which covers the body, with the huge jaws and tail, all contribute to render the spectacle appalling; and although one is perfectly aware that in its present state it is harmless, yet it is almost impossible to look on it without feeling what fear is. The natives now surround the lagarto and bait it like a bull, holding before it anything that is red, at which it runs, when the man jumps on one side and avoids being struck by it, while the animal continues to run forward in a straight line till checked by the thong which is fastened to the tolete. When tired of teasing the poor brute they kill it by thrusting a lance down its throat, or under the fore leg into its body, unless by accident it be thrown on its back, when it may be pierced in any part of the belly, which is soft and easily penetrated. |