Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters! way, I am chill and weary! Yon rude bench of stone, And life's best warmth still radiates from the heart [A noise at the dungeon-door. It opens, and ORDONIO enters, with a goblet in his hand. Ordonio. Hail, potent wizard! in my gayer mood I poured forth a libation to old Pluto, And, as I brimmed the bowl, I thought on thee. Hast tricked me foully; yet I hate thee not. Why should I hate thee? This same world of ours, And we the air-bladders that course up and down, And, when one bubble runs foul of another, The weaker needs must break. Alv. I see thy heart! There is a frightful glitter in thine eye Feeling! feeling! Ord. If willingly I e'er inflicted them! Come, take the beverage; this chill place demands it. Alv. Yon insect on the wall, [ORDONIO proffers the goblet. 1 Which moves this way and that its hundred limbs, Unerringly to pleasurable ends! Saw I that insect on this goblet's brim, I would remove it with an anxious pity! Alv. There's poison in the wine. Ord. Thou hast guessed right; there's poison in the wine. There's poison in 't—which of us two shall drink it? For one of us must die! Alv. Whom dost thou think me? I know him not. Ord. The accomplice and sworn friend of Isidore. [ALVAR takes the goblet, and throws it to the ground. Ord. Thou mountebank! Alv. My master! Mountebank and villain! What, then, art thou? For shame, put up thy sword! What boots a weapon in a withered arm? I fix mine eye upon thee, and thou tremblest! And turn it to a motionless distraction! Thou blind self-worshipper! thy pride, thy cunning, Thy faith in universal villainy, Thy shallow sophisms, thy pretended scorn For all thy human brethren-out upon them! What have they done for thee? Have they given thee peace? Cured thee of starting in thy sleep? or made The darkness pleasant when thou wak'st at midnight? Art happy when alone? Canst walk by thyself, With even step and quiet cheerfulness? Yet, yet, thou mayst be saved [SIR FRANCIS B. HEAD is one of those writers who has achieved a reputation, not by the power of his imagination or the resources of his learning, but by the happy art by which he can describe, in a vivid and picturesque manner, scenes and characters which have come under his own observation. He has thus made his gallopings across the Pampas, and his loungings at the baths of Nassau, equally interesting. The following extract from The Emigrant' has the same quality of graphic truth.] I do not know at what rate in the eastern world the car of Juggernaut advances over its victims, but it has been roughly estimated that in the opposite hemisphere of America the population of the United States, like a great wave, is constantly rolling towards the westward, over the lands of the Indians, at the rate of about twenty miles per annum. In our colonies the rights of the Indians have been more carefully attended to. The British sovereign and British parliament have faithfully respected them; and as a very friendly feeling exists between the red men of the forest and their white brethren, our governors have never found any difficulty in maintaining the title of "Father" by which the Indians invariably address them. Yet, notwithstanding this just feeling and this general desire of our countrymen to act kindly towards the Indians, it had for some time been in contemplation in Upper Canada to prevail upon a portion of them to dispose of their lands to the crown, and to remove to the British Manitoulin Islands in Lake Huron. When first I heard of this project, I felt much averse to it, and, by repeated personal inspections of the territories in which they were located, took a great deal of pains to ascertain what was the real condition of the Indians in Canada, and whether their proposed removal would be advantageous to them, as well as to the province; and the result of my inquiries induced me, without any hesitation, to take the necessary steps for recommending to them to carry this arrangement into effect. Whosoever, by the sweat of his brow, cultivates the ground, creates, out of a very small area, food and raiment sufficient not only for himself, but for others; whereas the man who subsists solely on game requires even for his own family a large hunting-ground. Now, so long as Canada was very thinly peopled with whites, an Indian preserve, as large as one of our counties in England, only formed part and parcel of the great forest which was common to all, and thus, for a considerable time, the white men and the red men, without inconvenience to each other, followed their respective avocations; the latter hunted, while the former were employing themselves in cutting down trees or in laboriously following the plough. In process of time, however, the Indian preserves became surrounded by small patches of cleared land; and, so soon as this was effected, the truth began to appear that the occupations of each race were not only dissimilar, but hostile to the interests of each other. For, while the great hunting-ground of the red man only inconvenienced the white settler, the little clearances of the latter, as if they had been so many chained-up barking dogs, had the effect of first scaring and then gradually cutting off the supplies of wild animals on whose flesh and skins the red race had been subsisting; besides which, every trader that came to visit the dwellings of the white man, finding it profitable to sell whisky to the Indians, and the fatal results of drunkenness, of small-pox, and other disorders combined, produced, as may be imagined, the most unfortunate results. The remedy which naturally would first suggest itself to most men, and which actually did suggest itself to the minds of Sir Peregrine Maitland, Sir John Colborne, and other administrators of the government who paid parental attention to the Indians, was to induce them to give up their hunting propensities, and tether themselves to the laborious occupations of their white brethren. In a few cases, where the Indians, circumscribed by temptations such as I have described, had become a race of half-castes, the project to a certain degree succeeded; but one might as well attempt to decoy a flight of wild fowl to the ponds of Hampstead Heath-one might as well endeavour to persuade the eagle to descend from the lofty regions in which he has existed to live with the fowls in our court-yards, as to prevail upon the red men of North America to become what we call civilized; in short, it is against their nature, and they cannot do it. Having ascertained that in one or two parts of Upper Canada there existed a few Indians in the unfortunate state I have described, and having found them in a condition highly demoralized, and almost starving on a large block of rich valuable land, which in their pos session was remaining roadless and stagnant, I determined to carry into effect the project of my predecessors by endeavouring to prevail on these people to remove to the British islands in Lake Huron, in which there was some game, and which were abundantly supplied with fish ; and, with a view to introduce them to the spot, I caused it to be made known to the various tribes of Indians resident throughout the immense wilderness of Canada, that on a certain day of a certain moon I would meet them in council, on a certain uninhabited island in Lake Huron, where they should receive their annual presents. In the beginning of August, 1886, I accordingly left Toronto, and with a small party crossed that most beautiful piece of water, Lake Simcoe, and then rode to Penetanguishene Bay, from whence we were to start the next morning in bark canoes. ་ ་* r It was proposed that we should take tents; but, as I had had some little experience of the healthy enjoyment of an out-of-doors' life, as well as of the discomfort of a mongrel state of existence, and as, to use the words of Baillie Nicol Jarvie, a man canna aye carry at his tail the luxuries o' the Saut-market o' Glasgow." I determined that, in our visit to our red brethren, we would adopt Indian habits, and sleep under blankets on the ground.o As soon as our wants were supplied, we embarked in two canoes, each manned by eight Lower Canadian Indians; and, when we got |