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steps from behind a tree adroitly casts his noose round his unwary victim's neck, tugs him backwards on the earth, chokes him, plunders him, and flings his body into the nearest well, from whence it is dragged some subsequent day by the terrified Land holders, while the Officers of Police can no more trace the Thug's path than a Philosopher the tract of an aerolite. Once on a time, [so the story goes] several Sepoys were travelling in company. They were on leave of absence to visit their families and had just crossed a small Nullah or Rivulet when they missed one of their party. They instantly returned and searched on all sides; they peeped even into the shallow stream to discover their comrade, but he was no where to be seen! Not a soul, besides themselves, was in sight, except an old woman who sat immoveable by the River-side. They approached her and called to her, but still she stirred not, which excited their suspicion. She might be a Thug! They seized and dragged her from the ground, and beheld the dead corps of their late comrade hidden under her petticoat. The fatal noose was round his neck, and life had fled.

Then there was a woman clad in white of the Ogre caste, which eat dead human bodies; a wretch who had murdered and devoured her own children. She went mad and sat high on a tree singing songs and furnished with a long noose to strangle all who passed unwarily beneath! Then there were Dacoits who fired Villages and tied tow which they set in a blaze between the fingers of their victims and twisted ropes round their brows till the flesh was cut through, to compel them to discover where their money was hidden! Then the Chief Dacoit was seized, tried, condemned and hanged, begging with his last breath the sinews of his heels might be cut while he was still alive, lest when dead he might walk the earth! and the savage Hangman who dashed his knife into the victim's stomach the instant he was knocked from the ladder and swung slowly round suspended the fatal rope! But vain were all precautions! and still the poor women hurrying late homewards with their earthen pots of Buffalo-milk are terrified, still the benighted peasant is frighten ed as passing nigh the spot where the Robber Chief hangs in chains, the owls reveal and shout forth their names, which the long skeleton of the Dacoit re-echoes and calls loudly on them to "stop!" Then, came the narrative of the unlucky BullockCart-driver who was summoned late at night to a Serai, and two females were put inside his curtained cart, while their Conductor sat beside the driver. Slowly did they proceed; and after several hours journey the Conductor alighted with some excuse and appeared not again. In time, the weary driver called to the females within, and got no answer. He descended and

still they spoke not; he touched them and they moved not; at last he peeped at them, and beheld two strangled women!

"True 'tis, 'tis pity; pity 'tis, 'tis true."

The young Magistrate departed and was succeeded by a Lady and her dog-a pair apparently as inseparable as Britannia and her Lion! It would be incorrect to say she hadn't a word to throw to a dog," for all her words were bestowed on her fourfooted associate! It was poor me, for whom she had no talk to spare! I tried to assail her on her scandalous side and had the art to extract all she knew about Anne Page, and the fidgety Traveller.

It appears the elderly gentleman had first seen the fair maiden at a Church in Calcutta, to which he resorted, not from any religious motive for he was a Sceptic, but to kill the time. He was a lazy man therefore of my own caste, though expending his spare time much less harmlessly than myself! But to the Lady's tale; the fidgetty gentleman used to fall in love with every fair face he saw, though it appeared it was his fate to be regularly rejected by all to whom he addressed himself, and the Heroines of his undesired addresses formed a list nearly as long, and compendious as Cowley's Chronicle of the Beauties who in turn "possessed his breast."

I observed to the Lady it was not unlikely his present pursuit, might terminate equally unsuccessfully. The Lady agreed as far as Anne Page was concerned, but hinted that her Father and Mother might be of another opinion and compel her to listen to her aged admirer who had "jewels and gold in store." I said I hoped not; and to amuse the scandalous Lady I began a long story about Hydrophobia and a dog which had lately gone mad in its mistress's presence and had bitten a dozen other dogs besides Cows, Cats, Sheep, and Horses; but the lady cut my story short and whistled to her Pug, which leaped into her arms, and carrying it to her Palanquin she set off without more adieu than a severe frown on her brow, and a mutter about some people's insolence to other people's dogs, and it's a pity they didn't bite them!

Another day a young Officer came who appeared to be more melancholy than his youth authorised. He was at first in an undress, but when he put on his military Jacket, I remarked the black crape round his arm, and asked him if he had lost a friend. He answered he had lost his brother, and that too by a most dreadful accident. The two young men were going in a Budgerow up the River Gogra, and had been attracted by the sight of some Snipes on a dry sand-bank near them. They both fired and killed several birds, and the elder brother taking a rope in his hand to sway his jump, leaped on the bank. His

brother remained on deck. The supposed sand-bank proved to be a quick-sand and no sooner had the young man's feet touched the sand than it opened beneath him, and he gradually disappeared but still retaining hold of the rope which being passed through a block fastened to the mast above, gave way as his weight affected it. Human help was vain, except the young man retained firm hold of the rope. As the Traveller said, and his eyes filled with tears as he spoke, he watched with the most intense eagerness and hope the rope emerging from the sand as the Natives on board carefully pulled it through the Quick-sand, feelings which were changed into despair almost frantic when he beheld the extreme end of the rope drawn into the air, and no human hand to grasp hold of it! His brother had gone for ever!

In about a week afterwards an Artist arrived who had been making a Tour of Central and upper India in search like Dr. Syntax of the picturesque. He was a hungry man and a punster withal; but both hunger and wit sank beneath his professional enthusiasm! From the Niagara-like Water-falls of Bewa to the dirt on the wheel of a hackery; from the peaks of Imaus to the rankest pool from which the Natives drink like the beasts of the field: all attracted his admiration, occupied his conversation, and adorned his Sketch Book! His pencil had indeed an alchymical touch that turned every worthless metal into gold! and compelled me to admire torn sails, delapidated huts, ragged Natives and hump-backed Bullocks almost as much as the jeweled Mausoleum of the Taj-mahal beneath whose dome the fairest Sultana of the Monarch of the world sleeps in marble-snow, or the Imperial *Dewan Khas of Delhi on whose fretted comios it is boastfully written in Persian characters of molten gold.

"If there be an elysium on earth,

"It is this, it is this, it is this!"

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My new friend was also ready to pourtray "the human face divine" whenever required and duly paid; in plain words he painted portraits for a con-si-de-ra-tion, and among his other sketches he showed me several designs rapidly out-lined with pen and ink of pictures to be hereafter executed on a larger scale. One outline especially attracted my attention. It was a slight sketch of the final scene of the Merry Wives" of Windsor. Here smiled the sweet Anne Page; and the delightful Master Fenton clasped the beauty's hand in his : here stood Page and his wife looking rather silly, if the truth must be told! Nor was the finally satisfied Ford wanting, who as he waved his arm seemed to repeat the observation Shakespeare gives his prototype:—

* Special Audience Hall.

"In love the heavens themselves do guide the state,

Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate."

As I observed the picture a smile of pleasure stole over my face, and looking at the painter I said "I think I know to whom this sketch relates, nor is it very many days since I saw some of the parties."" Right, Sir" the punster answered as he eagerly swallowed a large spoonful of Peer Bux's most savoury Pilau " and no saw is likely to part two of them again. Parties and saw, you understand good Sir!"

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Pray tell me," I replied hastily, "all you know about the matter; I feel extremely interested in the fate of the young pair" "with whom none can come pair, or compare. "You understand me, my good Sir," he responded with a self-satisfied grin and proceeded to relate to me all he knew, and which I record divested of puns and extraneous embellishments.

It seems the fidgetty Traveller was well received by the parents, and grievously by the young lady; and the sudden arrival soon after of Master Fenton, as I must still call him, doubly confirmed sweet Anne Page in her dislike. The old gentleman begged a private audience, and as, though rich and old, he had starts of generosity, he was so affected by the young lady's tears and blushes, as with all due delicacy she revealed her dislike to himself and with still greater caution intimated her affection for the young Traveller, that he promised his interposition with her parents to bring about the fulfilment of her hopes and wishes. How he effected his purpose all may guess who know the magic power of rupees. When this point was achieved the fidgetty Traveller had directed the sketch I saw to be taken for the preparation of a larger picture; and as the young pair had confessed it was at a Calcutta masquerade in the guise of Fenton, and Mistress Anne Page they had acknowledged their mutual love, he insisted on their being pourtrayed in those characters, and not only compelled the parents to enact Page and his wife, but he even volunteered to lend his own pallid face and squat figure for the image of Ford, the man who teazed himself many a long day, but was happy in the end.

"Bravo!" I exclaimed when I had heard the painter's narrative to an end, would to heaven I might be Sir Hugh Evans to marry the happy couple; but as that may not be, I will at least fulfil the Welch Parson's promise and dance and eat plumbs at their wedding."

"Thank you, Sir," I continued as the painter rose to depart, "thank you for your story, I will go home and drink the health of the whole party, including you and myself, and finish with a bumper toast, that every fair wooing may end as happily as sweet Anne Page's! Adieu, good Sir, adieu!"

THE FIRST VISIT TO THE GRAVE OF A FRIEND.

The clear September moon was out,
And from their cloudy ambush pale,
The twinkling stars flung all about
Their glances, over hill and dale.
I leapt the hedge-the rustic fence
That girdled round the buried dead;
And reverence deep and thought intense,
Their influence o'er my spirit shed.

A chill (half fear, half longing love.)
Came curdling round my heart!" were there
"No shadows o'er the scene to move?

"No image of the lost and fair ?

"Might not my yearning spirit meet
"A spirit purer than its own?
"Might not I hear the music sweet

"Of that remembered voice's tonè?

"Have not the chambers of the tomb

"Given out responses, sweet though sad? "And have not wailers, 'midst the gloom

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Seen shapes, in heavenly raiment clad ?"
Glanced the bright moon on many a stone,
And many a monumental urn

Gained lustre from the radiance thrown
From lights in higher spheres that burn.
But silence was on earth and air,

Nor shade nor shadow met the eye;
I knelt me by his cold, cold lair,

And wished that instant I could die !

I kissed it once,-I kissed it twice-
A long and silent prayer I prayed,
That, purified from sullying vice,
My soul might be to his conveyed!

And then I bent my lips again

To kiss the damp earth o'er him prest;
While tears, fast flowing, soothed my

As there I left him to his rest.

And oft when night her holy veil

I'll visit by the moon-beam pale

brain,

Shall o'er the shrouded world extend,

The grave of my "untroubled friend."

R. C. C.

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