the market, efforts have, from time to time, been made towards the introduction of peat as a substitute, but the cost of cutting and preparing it for the market, in States where the price of labour is so high, together with the facility of obtaining coal, and the large quantity of wood still existing in those parts, render it highly improbable that peat will be manufactured with any degree of commercial advantage. In the northern portion of Indiana-where there is no stone coal and wood is becoming scarce-it may, under certain conditions, become utilised.

Peat has, however, been consumed in considerable quantities at the College of Notre Dame in St. Joseph's County, Illinois. The following extract of a letter from Father Lemonnier, the principal of this College, is interesting, as showing their experience in the use of peat fuel :

"We have used from six hundred to eight hundred tons of peat every year for the last six years, and our experience of it during that period obliges us to give it up for economy's sake, coal being cheaper. A ton of peat costs four and a half dollars at the College; a ton of coal of good quality is equal to two and a half tons of our peat. In other words, our peat contains thirty per cent. of combustible matter, while coal of the best quality contains eighty to ninety per cent. A ton of our peat, which is far inferior to the peat found in Ireland, is not better than a cord of wood of good quality. I think it was remarked by our fireman, that six hundred tons of peat make two hundred tons of residue."

Several attempts have been made at different times to utilise peat for commercial purposes in the State of Maine, reports Consul Murray, and companies have been formed with this object, but it could not compete with wood and anthracite coal, the former of which was to be found within a stone's-throw of each cottage door. It was tried for domestic purposes and for locomotive engines, but unsuccessfully. For the former, though it gave a steady heat, it left a very large amount of ash, and in the latter case, besides being dirty, its action was not quick enough, and owing to the high price of labour, it was found more expensive than wood. Peat has also been used, charred and powdered, as a deodoriser, and found to be very efficient. The greatly increased price of fuel may induce capitalists to turn their attention to peat again, but it is probable that "some

The foregoing statements afford food for serious reflection, for if our go-ahead and enterprising cousins on the other side of the Atlantic, with all their remarkable skill for adapting machinery to almost every conceivable purpose, have hitherto failed to turn peat to good account as fuel, the question naturally arises, can we in the mother country, exasperated as we are by fluctuations in the price of coal, hope to find in it a substitute for or even a competing rival of our "black diamonds"? Apparently we cannot hope for much aid at present from America.

THE HELEN.

"So you're back again among us;
I'se glad you've gien us a call;
Step in, and welcome, and take a seat,
The pot's on the boil, an' all.

Oh, I'se well and purely, thank you.
I am but dowly a bit,

I gets thinking of the old man, you see,
When I has the time to sit.

He's master of the Helen;

She's sailed for the North, you know,
I feel as a knife went through my heart,
When the wind gets up to blow.
But there's not a braver bark afloat,
Nor better manned and found;
George says to me, as we walked her deck,
They'd not match her, England round.
Our Mary come thou hither, I say.
She's shamefaced there, fond lass.
She's promised to young Charlie Clare,
As bides above the Pass.

Her father made him mate this spring.
I heard him tell her int' court,
The banns should be up the very day,
The Helen rode in port.

The neighbours? Oh, aye, they mind on you,
Old Bess? Well, her man was lost,

In the fearful gale when the Royal Rose
Struck, on the Norway coast.
Her little un's grown a bonny lad;
Our George has ta'en him afloat,
He said, 'He'd be a sailor too,'
When first he framed in the boat.
And Bess was fain her one son's start,
Should be with my good old man,
He'll give the fatherless kindly heed,
And the pick of the berth and the can.
And Annie? her with the golden hair?
Aye, she thought too much on her curls;
But she steadied when she married Bill,
It's often the way with girls.

Poor lass, he sailed in the Helen,
Three days or the bairn had come,
She'll talk to the morsel half the day
How Daddy will soon be home.'
Who else is in the Helen ?
Why Ned, from the cot by the beck;
You made a picture of him and his lads,
Heaping the nets on the deck.

And John, who steered the life-boat
Right through the surf on the shore,
When the blue lights burnt from the Niobe,
On the reef where the breakers roar.
His blind old father? he's yonder,
He'll say as he sits on the pier,
'I can't see the Helen heave in sight,
But I'll know my brave boy's cheer.'
And Harry Hudson, do you mind?
His father were drowned at sea,
And the mother faded like a bud,
When a blight has struck the tree.
And Harry, who'd hardlins twenty year
Kept the bit of a home together,

And worked for it, and the eight poor bairns,
Summer and winter weather.

George has ta'en him out in the Helen,

Where was a good wage to be had,

He wrought a'most too hard ashore,

For nobbut such a lad.

Aye, owners may talk of her cargo,

But we mun give our prayers,

For a richer and dearer freight than that,
The hands that the Helen bears.

Was the drum up as you passed it ?

I reckon I'm fond to speer.

She's far enough from the angry winds,
That lash our sea-board here.

But oh, we women who sit at home,
With our men so far away,

It is only we who know how the waves
Can thunder in Whitby Bay."

Oh, long, long may the ingle side

Its blaze of welcome keep;

And long, long may the pale wife strain
Sad eyes o'er the tossing deep;

The wedding gauds the maiden prized
May yellow where they rest;

The bright babe spring to the sunburnt boy,
By a father's lips unblest;

The widow may pine her gray life through
For the help of her son's right hand;
The kindly fishermen's nets may rot
In the boats, far up on the sand;
The blind old man may see his son,
Where the light of Heaven shines clear,
And know his voice in the angels' song,
But not upon Whitby Pier.

For the Helen never showed her flag
In the Roads beyond the Scar,
And never echoed the joyous cheers
As she swept o'er the harbour bar;
A smack picked up a broken boat,
Adrift at sea, on the flow,

With her timbers stove, and her rudder gone,
And "The Helen" upon her prow.

And that is all we shall ever hear,
As the desolate months go by,

Of the ship that sailed with her gallant crew, 'Neath the calm October sky.

EARLY EASTERN TRAVELLERS. BUSBEQUIUS. IN TWO PARTS. PART II.

RUSTAN being for the moment ostensibly out of favour, the Grand Vizier Achmet received the embassy in the absence of the sultan, but regarded them with a sour and frowning visage. A few days later they were introduced into the sublime presence of Solyman the Great. "He

was an ancient man; his countenance and the mien of his body very majestic, well

beseeming the dignity which he bore; he was frugal and temperate even from his youth. In his younger days he was not given to wine nor other excesses, and all that his enemies could object to him was that he was uxorious overmuch, and that his over-indulgence to his wife made him consent to the death of his son Mustapha. He is a very strict observer of the Mohammedan religion, and is as desirous to propagate that as to enlarge the bounds of his empire. He is now sixty years of age, and for a man of his years, he enjoys a moderate proportion of health; and yet his countenance doth discover that he carries about him some hidden disease-it was thought a gangrene or ulcer in the thigh; yet at solemn audiences of ambassadors he hath wherewithal to paint his cheeks that he may appear sound and healthy to them, and thereupon be more dreaded by foreign princes, their masters. Methought I discovered some such thing at my dismission, for his countenance was as sour, when I left him, as it was at my first audience."

In fact the embassy of the Seigneur de Busbec was so nearly a complete failure, that he only obtained from the sultan a six-months' truce, to enable him to return home and consult his master, Ferdinand.

Nevertheless, he bore the Turks no ill will; but, in the spirit of a scholar, inclines to follow the example of Tacitus, and extol the barbarians at the expense of his own countrymen. He never tires of lamenting that a superb country and a city like Constantinople, fit to be mistress of the world, should be allowed, through the divisions and quarrels of Christian princes, to remain. in the hands of the infidel; and takes a savage pleasure in pointing out the causes of Turkish supremacy. The people are "remarkable for cleanliness" he remarks, in a tone which leaves us to imagine that washing was not the besetting sin of a Flemish gentleman of that day, and he also points out the affection existing in the East between the horse and his rider. But he draws far more severe contrasts than these between Turk and Christian. At his audience there was a full court, "for a great many governors of provinces were there with their presents.... but among this vast number of courtiers there was not so much as one eminent for birth and parentage; each one by his valour and adventurous achievements was the carver out of his own fortune. Their honour

away and died. In like fashion a Balearic crane affected the company of a Spanish soldier, whom Busbec had "redeemed out of his chains," and disturbed the whole house unless she was allowed to lie under his bed. Now and then the grave diplomatist amused himself with excursions, and makes many quaint and acute remarks on the customs of the natives; and having, during the conduct of his second and successful embassy, made a great collection of ancient coins, inscriptions, drawings of rare plants, and "whole waggon-loads, if not ship-loads, of Greek manuscripts," he returned to Vienna, where he was received with much honour, and, despite his professed wish to pass the rest of his life in learned leisure, was appointed tutor to the young princes, sons of Maximilian the Second. In this honourable employment he passed the eight years of his life between 1562 and 1570, but in the latter year was entrusted with an important mission, which actually decided the future domicile of the learned Fleming. The Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Maximilian the Second, was about to be married to a poor, passionate, sickly, weak-headed, leadenhued boy-one Charles, the ninth of that name, King of France-who, with such heart as he was endowed withal, dearly loved gentle Marie Touchet. Busbec was charged to conduct the princess to Paris, and during her short married life officiated as a sort of lord-steward of the household to the Queen of France. At the conclusion of Charles the Ninth's miserable life, his widow returned to Germany, leaving Busbec behind as her representative. His position as ambassador at the French court was confirmed by the Emperor Rudolph, to whom he wrote a series of remarkable epistles between the years 1582 and 1585. It is well to be thankful for what is given to us, but these charming letters-written in elegant Latin, enriched with the reflections of an advanced philosopher and witty man of the world, and enlivened by piquant anecdotes of the court of Henry, the last of the Valois, sometime King of Poland, and afterwards King of France, murderer of the Balafré, and victim of Jacques Clément-only inspire a lively feeling of regret that Busbec had not earlier taken up the line of a "special correspondent." He was probably present in Paris during the massacre of St. Bartholomew, on the famous day of the Barricades, when this peculiarly Parisian style of warfare was first introduced, and

remained there to witness the death of Henry of Valois and the succession of Henry of Navarre, but did not survive to witness the entry of the latter prince into the capital which he thought "well worth a mass." The extant epistles of Busbec contain no reference to these great events, but are filled with curious details of the intrigues which preceded the death of the Duke of Anjou, better known by his previous title of the Duke of Alençon, the king's brother. Evidently the collection published at Louvain in 1630, only thirty-eight years after the author's death, is incomplete; for he commences the first epistle with an allusion to the long interval which had elapsed since his last letter. His first interesting bit of news concerns William of Nassau, whose life had been attempted by a valet named Jourigny, who had fired a pistol in his face. "The prince," says Busbec, "will live and reign, but his wife has been carried off by a pain in the side." A prime piece of real Paris gossip next turns up in the account of the execution of one Salcède. With philosophic doubt and intelligent incredulity as to the exact nature of the crime of this man, Busbec relates what came under his own notice: "This Salcède, of whom I have spoken in my preceding letters, has undergone a severe sentence, for what crime I know not, but doubtless for some enormity, judging from the sharpness of his punishment, of which only one instance occurs in Roman history, when it was inflicted on Suffetius by Hostilius. Whether he conspired against the life of Alençon, or of the king, or of both, I know not. He was condemned to be torn in pieces by four horses. At the first effort of the horses he cried out that he had still something to declare, and his deposition having been received by a notary, he begged that his right hand might be loosed for an instant, either that he might write something or sign his deposition. His hand having been refastened, and the horses, pulling each in an opposite direction, failing to quarter him, he cried out to the king-who, with his mother (Catherine de Medicis) and sister (Margaret of Valois and Navarre), looked down upon him from a window-that mercy might be shown to him. Then his throat was cut, his head afterwards severed from his shoulders, and his heart torn out; after which, the horses tore the remainder of his body apart. His head was sent to Antwerp, with a command to expose it in the most

public spot. This was the end of a man of prodigious audacity and roguery. He made false money, and bought a farm with it; but the vendor, having discovered the fraud, complained to the king, who restored his farm to him. Now, Salcède, fearing that he should be thrown into boiling oil-the penalty decreed against coiners-took flight, but previously set fire to the farm by night, so that the master had a narrow escape from being burned in his house. The king, who sometimes visited Salcède in prison, reproached him for attempting to consign to such a death a man whom he had already deceived with false money. Salcède replied to his majesty, He wanted to boil me; I tried to roast him.'”

"What must have been," adds Busbec, "the mind of a man who, in such evil case, could not abstain from jokes!"

Next comes a pretty sample of the courtly manners of the period. "I hardly know whether it is worth the trouble to refer to what occurred lately at Antwerp. Saint Luc was in Alençon's room. He, as, unless I mistake, I have mentioned before, having lost the favour of the king, attached himself to Alençon, in whose presence another nobleman, I know not whom, contradicted Saint Luc in an offensive tone. Hereat this one did straightway smack him on the mouth before the very face of Alençon. The Prince of Orange, who was present, was outraged at this conduct, and did not restrain his anger, but told Alençon that such a piece of insolence ought not to go unpunished, and that if such a thing had been done before the Emperor Charles the Fifth, the offender would have been severely punished, let his rank and dignity be what they might; for the chambers of princes are sacred and inviolate places in which no violence may be done. To this replied Saint Luc, almost in these words-'Ha! you talk about Charles, who, if he were alive, would have your goods and your head as well!' This said, he burst out of the room, leaving all astounded with wonder at his audacity."

Farther on we find Catherine de Medicis in a whirlwind of fury at the king's fits of devotion, which caused him to neglect affairs of state. The fiery Florentine gives Father Edmund, the Jesuit confessor of the king, a piece of her mind, winding up a passionate diatribe with a bitter sneer, "Out of a king you have made a monk." Next we are entertained with a fine royal family "row." The king having become

fearfully pious all at once, determines on stopping other people's cakes and ale, and especially those of his sister Margaret, a queen overmuch given to joyous living. On being commanded to leave Paris and join her husband, the lady feels horribly outraged, declares that she and the Queen of Scotland (Mary) are the two most unfortunate people in the world, and exclaims, "Would that someone would poison me; but, alas, there is no hope of this, for I have neither friends nor enemies."

Now the friends of Margaret, if not "all shot," like the enemies of Narvaez, had undergone a gradual process of thinning by the gentle methods then in practice-to wit, the torture of the boot, decapitation, and the free use of rapier and dagger. In fact, the "friendship" of this accomplished and witty princess had become proverbial for bringing death or disaster to those unfortunate enough to share it. Nearly all her blood-relations perished miserably. As was said at the time, the "hand of God was laid heavily on the race of Valois." Margaret was the youngest of the seven children of Henry the Second. When only seven years old she lost her father, who fell by the lance of Montgomery. Her brother, Francis the Second (husband, of Mary Stuart), died young, under suspicious circumstances. Charles the Ninth died wretchedly, haunted, it is said, by the ghosts of St. Bartholomew; but this statement depends on Protestant evidence. Henry the Third fell by the dagger of a frantic monk, and the Duke of Alençon died strangely, probably by poison. Even her husband, Henry the Fourth, who divorced her, failed by these means to shake off the spell, and died by the knife of Ravaillac. Her epithalamium was the rattle of musketry, the clink of sword and halberd, and the shrieks of murdered Huguenots. Arquebusiers and pikemen pursued their prey into her very bedchamber, and the horrors of St. Bartholomew defiled her honeymoon. "friends," whether loved by the gods or not, had a knack of dying young. La Mole lost his head on the scaffold, and Bussy d'Amboise, the champion bully of the period, always referred to by Margaret herself as "the brave Bussy," was done to death by the Count de Montsoreau. Just before uttering the passionate exclamation recorded above, she had lost a remarkably useful friend. This gallant gentleman, "of illustrious race," saith Busbec, was known

Her