Marion and I as sovereigns of your toils, [Exeunt winding their horns. Here is a code of laws more generously framed than that of any robber of whom we have ever heard. It is just snited for men of a robust, independent and roving character of mind, whilst it smacks sufficiently of the romantic, to make them feel that they are not of that degraded class who are guided by no principles whatever, save such as actuate the most remorseless depredators. as he, followed his example, and enrolling themselves under his banner, made war upon the rich, who, necessarily, were of the Norman race. The subsisting hatred between the conquered Saxons and their Norman rulers was not the less terior. Some thorough Saxon families, even at this period, deep and sincere for being concealed under a masked exobliged themselves by a perpetual vow, transmitted from father to son, to wear their beards long, as a sort of protest against the innovations and usages which the Conquest had introduced. Even the condition of burgesses was little better than that of serfs. At least their armour would intiThe spirit which characterises these laws of Robin Hood, mate that it partook of the mean character of these, as it seems, by accident, to have in some degree, guided the conduct of Rob Roy, the more recent Caledonian free-booting and iron crow bars. In all this we may trace the causes of consisted of such weapons as staves shod with iron, hatchets, hero; but although he, himself, appears to have had a sys-rebellion in such men as Robin Hood, whose native indetem upon which he acted as far as he could, his followers had none. The exploits of the Saxon had always some touch of "The merry, merry month of May" in them, and seem to have been performed under the influence of a hilarious spirit of frolic, rather than from any desire to injure or terrify. Those of the other partook of a sterner character, influenced perhaps by the solemnity of the climate, and the rugged mountain-land in which he himself was hunted like a wild beast. Robin Hood perpetrated his robberies under the mask of the fourth clause of his code, an invitation to dinner. Rob Roy perpetrated his with pistol in hand, and a threat of instant death, if his will was not immediately complied with. The one was the sworn foe of the High Sheriff of Nottingham; the other of the Duke of Montrose. Whatever were the nature of the original injuries inflicted upon Robin Hood by that official, we have no means of ascertaining; but we know that Rob Roy conceived himself to be a ruined man by the conduct of the ducal nobleman. In the dispositions of the two freebooters there seems to have been a considerable resemblance, if we take into account the situations and the differences of country which they severally inhabited, as well as the manners, customs, and laws under which they lived. They both alike detested the unnecessary shedding of blood. They both alike preyed upon the rich, and respected the poor. They both alike honoured the fair, and the one was as capable of generous feelings and hospitable actions as the other, when he had the opportunities of putting them in practice. In other points, there are singular resemblances between these outlaws. The one was the best bowman of his time, and the other, if not the best, amongst the best, swordsmen of his. They were both men of Herculean strength, and each lived to a long age, and to meet death in his bed. Besides these resemblances, singular incidents marked the death-bed scenes of cach. Robin Hood asked for his bow and arrow, that he might shoot, from the window of Kirkley Hall, to the spot where he wished to be buried. Rob Roy, hearing of an enemy coming to see him, desired to be armed that he might not appear unprepared to meet him, even in the arms of death. Robin Hood calmly gives directions about his grave and dies. Rob Roy calls for his piper, and is played into the bosom of eternity. There is yet another circumstance in which these two heroes agree;-they both spoke in different languages from those which generally obtained amongst the higher classes of their countrymen. In the time of Robin Hood, the English language was held in contempt, whilst the Norman French only was spoken and held in honour by the superior ranks. Even Henry the Second, the fifth monarch from the Conquest, could not converse in English; and the Provencal lays of Richard Cour de Lion are in French; so that in this circumstance, alone, there was enough to keep up an antagonism between the races. Robin Hood belonged to the lower class; at least, he spoke the language of that class, participated in its sentiments, but could not renounce his independence; therefore sought the woods, as the only retreat in which he could live with safety. Others who felt pendence of mind was above a patient and ignominious submission to the usurped and often impudent rule of foreign dominion. In the time of Rob Roy, although six or seven hundred years had rolled their destinies over this island, the mountains of the north were still inhabited by a race who spoke a different language from that which generally prevailed throughout the land. In the South, the Saxon had superseded the Norman French, and had already begun to penetrate those Alpine fastnesses, where the sway of the Celt had reigned in supremity, from immemorial time. Robin Hood was a Saxon. Rob Roy was a Celt. The one hated the Norman French. The other disliked the southern English. The one spoke Saxon. The other spoke Gaelic; so here, again, do these singular characters, in some measure, meet in another resemblance. The one detested the Sheriff of Nottingham, and the other, the Duke of Montrose, and they were both equally sincere in their sentiments, and bold in their expression regarding their enemies. Whilst in these quiet and regulated times of law and police, however, the lover of romance may admire the courage, sagacity, and independence of these popular characters, he must regret that so much that was capable of being directed in a nobler channel, was turned to the purposes of evil, by promoting a spirit of lawlessness, subversive of all order by setting at defiance the powers of constituted authority. Before quitting these heroes, we may remark, that they have, above all others of similar degree, been singularly fortunate in having their memories preserved by the Muses. It is observed by Horace, that many heroes lived before Agamemnon, but they are all unmourned, and consigned to oblivion, because they had no bard to sing their praises. This has not been the case with either Robin Hood or Rob Roy. They have both been heralded throughout the length and breadth of the land by the mild and mellifluous voice of poesy. The minstrels who sung the life of the hero of Sherwood have, however, small claim to be held in the rank of poets. Yet there is a simplicity in the outline of their sketches so vividly represented, that we are easily enabled to fill up to pictures, the meagre delineations bequeathed us, whilst there is no attempt at ornament, beyond such as might adorn very humble prose. The poem entitled "The Lytell Geste of Robin Hoode" is the longest, as it is, in our opinion, the best specimen extant of the "Hood" collections. It not only lets us fully into the kind of life the outlaw led, but makes known to us the nature of his sentiments, whilst it presents us with a succession of scenes at once humorous and characteristic. It consists of no fewer than eight fyttes or cantos, numbering in all upwards of eighteen hundred lines. Its antiquity is placed as high as the year 1520, nearly three hundred years after the death of him whose jests it celebrates. Who is its author we have no means of ascertaining. The exploits of Rob Roy have been sung by many minstrels, from the maker of street balladry up to the Laureate, Wordsworth. Sir Walter Scott, however, has done the most to preserve his memory in the immortal romance which goes by his name, and which is one of the best that emanated from the magical pen of the then Great unknown."-CREON. PERSIA: ITS PRESENT AND PAST. OUNTRIES which have risen and fallen with the lapse of ages may never be so far lost in the interest of mankind as not again to become ob relief. It was said at Teheran, by the Persians, that Youssoref Tchazade, prince of Herat, had been taken prisoner; but this greatly requires confirmation, and appears to be merely a rumour got up to weaken the effect of their repulse. From the moment that Persia began seriously to apprchend a war with England, the moral situation of the country has become worse. Like a man whose mind is unequal to the difficulties of his situation, she reels under the weight of the impending calamity, which she owes as much to her own natural vanity and intriguing disposition, as to the secret and active influence of Russian agency. It is not the general purpose of our pages, however, to record the political enmities of nations or the progress of conflicts that are foreign to all the nobler developments of jects of the skill of man in the arts of peace. Far rather would we their politi- be the preservers than the destroyers of our species. A cal consi- higher office, we conceive it to be, to make the more active deration. and turbulent passions of our nature flow in gentler channels Circum- than in those which are apt to lead to the shedding of human blood. Turning, then, from the present aspect of strife which is always terrible, let us briefly take another view of Persia, associated in our mind as she is, with all that is gorgeous in poetical imagery, and rich in the odoriferous realities of aromatic spices and beautiful roses. stances, at some time or other will assuredly arise to reproduce them upon the map from which they may have partially been erased, and recall their obsolete memorials as things that have been forgotten, but not obliterated from the face of the earth. As an instance of this, the resuscitation of the effete empire of Persia, now comes before us; a country, which of all nations whose affairs intimately connect themselves with the events of Europe, is the least known, and, perhaps, now the most suspected as playing the double-dealer on the great stage of political diplomacy. The unceasing intrigues of Russia, coupled, perhaps, with our own jealousy of any move being made which may involve a present or prospective interference with our Indian possessions, may have led to this. The long existing suspicion that Persia is one day to be converted into the instrument by which an attempt would be made upon our Asiatic empire, already assumes a form of reality, and we are fast preparing to meet the emergency. An English force, under Sir George Outram, is waiting his arrival at Bombay, to operate against the Persians, so far, at any rate, as to induce them to abandon their aggressive measures in India. Russia sends an able general, Chrulieff, to take command of its forces distributed along the Persian frontier, with probably another view; and France now claims the Isle of Karrack, near the mouth of the Euphrates, which, it was said, would form our base of operations against any continued aggression of the Shah. What may be the consequences of these various movements it is impossible to say, but, so far, they would seem to be anything but propitious to the destinies of the Persian ruler. By late accounts, too, his affairs at Herat were not in a very favourable position. A courier from Tabriz brings intelligence of the Persian troops having been for several months, occupied in the siege of the independent city of Herat, and having succeeded in gaining an entrance by treachery within its walls. But what was the result? Hardly had they got inside, when the besieged Affghans, armed with haujars, fell furiously upon them in close masses. So great was the mêlée, that in a short time, the Persians being unable to use their muskets, were repulsed after having sustained a considerable loss. It is said that the bodies of a thousand dead, or dangerously wounded, were left within their walls. But their losses did not end here. They were pursued by the Affghans, and in their flight suffered further losses, until protected by a brigade of the Persian Army sent to their When our sublime epic poet wishes to give us an idea of the magnificence of the throne of the Prince of Darkness, his mind naturally turns to the East. "High in a throne of royal state, which far The barbaric gold and pearl however of Persia have now, like all other riches, taken unto themselves wings and flown away. Her riches hold out little temptation to modern enterprise, other regions offering greater inducements to the cupiditive spirit of mankind. The entire region, extending from Asiatic Turkey on the West, to India on the East, was formerly comprised within the limits of the Persian Empire, and still passes under the general name of Persia in the works of many modern geographers. But the eastern portion of this district, is, beyond its political confines, in the possession of various independent Belochee and Affghan tribes. Modern Persia consists of the country to the westward; but this designation is quite unknown to its inhabitants, who style their territory the kingdom of Iran; a name derived from that of the youngest and favourite son of the celebrated king Feridoon, to whom it was allotted in the division of his dominions. The greater part of Persia consists of a gigantic plateau, which reaches a height, ranging from three to four thousand feet above the sea, and comprehends chains of rocky mountains rising from its platform; dry untenanted valleys, wearing an aspect of the sternest desolation; numerous salt lakes and vast saline or sandy deserts, dreary and monotonous in the extreme. It is over these that "the ship of the desert,' the animal represented in our accompanying vignette, pursues his trackless path, and often sinks beneath his burthen to perish from the combined evils of hunger, thirst, and fatigue. The grandest mountain range of Persia, is that of Elburz, which runs parallel to the southern shores of the Caspian, and attains the elevation of fourteen thousand, seven hundred feet in the Peak of Demavend. The largest lake is that of Urumiah in Azerbijan, having a circuit of three hundred miles, with several islands in its bosom. It was in its vicinity that Nasir-eddin, the astronomer of the thirteenth century, had his observatory, the site of which is still to be traced on the summit of a hill near Maragha. Between the Caspian and the range of Elburz, a narrow lowland tract extends, exhibiting a vegetation of the greatest luxuriance and beauty, whilst the shores of the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean present a totally opposite character; hardly anything in the form of vegetation appearing, saving an occasional date tree in the neighbourhood of a few springs. Western Persia, however, affords a prodigal display of the wealth of vegetable nature. There every species of fruit tree known in Europe, grows in wild luxuriance; roses of many varieties occur in profusion, from which the highly prized otto is prepared; and beds of the loveliest flowers, tulips, hyacinths, anemonies, ranunculuses, pinks, jasmines, and violets, embellish the gardens and fields. Yet with all this, the general aspect of the country presents a mournful contrast to that which, by the old national poetry, it appears to have been when Hafiz sang of the gardens of Shiraz and the sweet bowers of Mosselah. Teheran, of which we give a representation, is the present capital of this renowned country, and is situated on a barren plain at the southern base of Elburz. It is a city surrounded by walls of mud, four miles in circuit and of no importance except as the metropolis;-a rank derived from its contiguity to the native seat of the reigning dynasty. The number of its inhabitants varies with the season; as the court, and all who have the means, retire to a cooler site during the intense heat of the summer season. The largest and most commercial cities of Persia are Tabriz, thirty miles east of the lake of Urumiah; Khoi, eighty miles north west from Tabriz; Reschd and Balfroosh on the southern shores of the Caspian; Yezd, occupying an oasis in the vast salt dessert of Khorassan; Casbin, lying to the north west of Teheran and surrounded by a vast extent of orchards and vineyards; Hamadan, at the foot of the snowy peak of Elwund is the supposed site of the ancient Ecbatana; Kermanshah, on an affluent of the Tigris; Kerman, in the centre of the province of that name, and Mushed towards the deserts of Turkslava. These towns we recapitulate, so that, in the event of war, our readers may not be entire strangers to their names, should they spring up into a more prominent existence. Yezd is one of the great entrepôts between central and western Asia, where the caravans from Cabul, Cashmere, Herat, and Bokhara, are met by merchants from the west, and an immense interchange of commodities takes place. Shiraz, once so famous, is now a city largely in ruins, but it derives an interest from its containing the tombs of its two natives, Sadi the moral philosopher, and Hafiz the lyric poet. INDIA.-Apart from the Persian enterprise, in which the Indian Government is not concerned as a principal, there is tranquillity throughout our Eastern empire. The cold season has set in early. Food and employment are plentiful, while if public improvement is proceeding slowly, enterprise is not altogether at a stand-still. SERIOUS DECREASE IN THE YIELD OF SALT.-Mr. Bracegirdle, salt proprietor, of Northwich, Cheshire, says, "The great salt district is composed of two divisions, the Winsford and the Northwich. I own and work a mine in the latter division. For some time past there has been a gradual decrease in the quantity of brine obtained throughout the district, but within the last few days the yield has decreased fully fifty per cent. The higher mines at Winsford have completely failed, and those of Anderton and Northwich have fallen off, within a fortnight, something like fifty per cent. HENRIC VAN KAARTEN; possibly not be aware that beams of a tropical sun; swimming rivers, and crossing ridges of seemingly inaccessible mountains. It happened that Henric had occasion to visit a Mynherr Bomstyck, an offset from the colony, at a distant point: and this coming in to aid his disposition, he MANY of our readers macluded, yet ancient villages, for his journey. One tempting morning, properly accoutred, whose population, thin as it is, is a medley of Portuguese, Mulattoes, New Yorkists, Virginians, and a few individuals whose parents were people of England, situate on the northwestern boundaries of Brazil,-with whom communication is uncertain and infrequent, and whose manners and mode of living, owing to their removal from the influence of modern improvement, are almost as simple as the patriarchal ages. One of these, named Rio-del-Nema, is the scene of the following narrative. he set out, and walked stoutly forwards: masses of forest trees began to close around him, until the greater part of the lower country was shut in from view. On the brow of a grassy eminence, that sloped gently downwards, which he had now attained, Henric turned, and for the last time caught a fair glimpse of the village he had left behind him. It lay vaguely reposing in the early sunlight; its antique church tower peeping from the dark foliage that seemed to sheathe it in solitary peacefulness, and its few gilded roofs gracefully contrasted with the blueness of the country be Calling his dog to his side, Henrie turned round, and strode valiantly forwards. Soon all traces of cultivation or inhabitants faded from his eye. A monotonous repetition of the same colour, green in all tints, from rich autumnal brown to the deepness of the olive, or the freshness of the emerald, seemed calculated to tire the eye. Forest succeeded forest in never-ending succession; and no sound broke the melancholy stillness of the scene, but now and then a strange and fitful whispering of the ocean of leaves that was spread before, and on either side of him; and, perhaps, the solitary cry of some bird of prey, rendering the silence more oppressive, by a momentary interruption of its reign. The inhabitants of this village were a nondescript kind of people, somewhat superstitious, but friendly in their inter-yond. course with one another, and hospitable to the very few strangers that wandered in that direction. Half cultivators, half huntsmen, they wanted spirit and perseverance to become, or profit as either; a few plots of maize, and the raising a few vegetables that did not demand much experience, supplied them with the principal means of subsistence: inconstant by temperament, the spade was often relinquished for the rifle, and the reaping-hook for a gin. From the surpassing grandeur of the scenery around them, one might have expected to meet an admiration of the beauties of nature, an clevated tone of thinking and feeling, or at least a not total indifference to the refinement of mind. But this was not the case ;-they seemed perfectly insensible to the hundred natural beauties, to which they could not avoid being daily witness; and plodded on with an apathetic equanimity, not certainly very enviable. Two days Henric spent in penetrating the forests that lay in the neighbourhood of his native settlement. Towards the approach of evening on the third, the country began to assume other and still more majestic aspects. He was ap and magnitude,-their bases clothed with luxuriant verdure abounding in birds of the most brilliant plumage, and broken with picturesque confusion into masses of rock, and partial breaks of water, and copsewood. He threw himself on a soft green bank; and, taking off his cap, abandoned himself to a feeling of delicious listlessness; either watching the clouds, as they floated one after the other over the heavens; listening to the murmuring of a distant mountain eagle; or conjuring up shapes among the ancient trees before him, and Among the inhabitants of the Rio-del-Nema, of best sub-proaching a towering ridge of mountains of unequal height stance, about the middle of the past century, might be reckoned a wight, termed Henric Van Kaarten. His grandfather had, for some political reasons, migrated from New York somewhere about the year 1679; and, after roving through the coast towns of the Brazils, had wandered westwards, and at last had settled down at Rio. Sprung from an ancient Dutch family, he inherited the thrift and industry peculiar to the nation, and, in course of years, accumulated a tolerable property; not indeed in coin, but in grain, cattle, &c. This descended to his heirs with increase; and in 1734 Henric was able to look about him with complacency, and congratulate himself on possessions which were the envy of his neighbours, and a source of much satisfaction to himself. Never backward to relieve the deserving or undeserving, always jovial, familiar, and good-hearted, he was, as he ought to have been, extremely popular in the village to him, as the most influential amongst them, were his neighbours accustomed to look for the administration of executive and distributive justice; to his opinion all were accustomed to defer; and representative and legislator of the little commonwealth, he might with justice have reckoned himself, had he been acquainted with the name, a Solon on a small scale. His age was about forty-five; and, though stout, he was tall, and of a goodly presence: endowed with strong capabilities of supporting fatigue, and a mind not casily terrified by danger, it was often his practice to make long and extensive excursions into the surrounding country. A South American woodman has resources in himself calculated to surmount obstacles, and obviate what to others would appear insuperable inconveniences. When preparing for expeditions of this description, he would fit himself out in a species of Robinson Crusoe fashion: carrying, besides rifle, couteau, and powder horns, an axe to cut passages through brushwood, a bag containing provisions, a quilted cloak of ample volume to sleep upon, a flask of spirits, and sundry other necessaries of a similar kind. Attended by a dog of superior breed, that he called Alp, and apparently as well pleased with these sallies as his master, Henric was accustomed to range the forests and savannahs of that part of America; traversing long tracts of woodland, under the scorching | "Chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies;" but night gradually began to creep on, and the scene to fade from his view. Rising hurriedly, and surprised at the length of time he had spent in rumination, he called Alp, and endeavoured to find some shelter for the night: his bag of provisions, too, ran low; and he hoped by encountering some eatable animal to he furnished with the means of replenishing it. Cautiously advancing, therefore, into a romantic glade that opened before him, and seemed to invite his footsteps,-rifle charged and primed, he peered before and about him, on the look out for an object of attack. Fortune favoured him more than he could have hoped for: about forty paces before him a deer bounded across the sward. Casting a quick and terrific glance from his bright dark eye at the unwelcome intruder, it hastened forwards, and, after two or three ineffectual attempts to pierce the thicket of branches and leaves that formed an impenetrable barrier in many places beside it, leaped boldly upwards, flying like the wind over an almost perpendicular acclivity. Henric's rifle was, however, levelled in a moment-crack! the shot had told. Thus supplied with fresh and wholesome provisions, Henric, after making a hearty woodland dinner, and washing it down with a copious draught of the clearest water, duly impregnated with the contents of his flask, now turned his thoughts upon constructing a temporary night shelter. Having, by the help of his friendly axe, cut a number of stakes from the branches of the trees about him, bending almost to the ground, he fixed them in a small circle in the THE FAMILY MIRROR. carth; and wrapping himself tightly in his cloak, carefully laying his weapons within instant reach, composed himself to sleep. His slumbers were undisturbed by the visit of any hairy wanderer, although he still conceived himself to be awake, and thus pursuing the dreadful adventures of his journey. He thought that he had got far from the abodes of mankind, and to make the most of the day started quickly up, and drawing some refreshment from his wallet, ate hastily as he walked; the aspect of the country again changed, all seemed a wild and melancholy solitude. A disagreeable and overpowering feeling of utter loneliness stole over him, almost rising to something like terror; every minute, although he seemed to be the only inhabitant of the world, he caught himself looking furtively over his shoulder, but he strode boldly on, guiding himself by the sun; sometimes he was more than half tempted to think he had lost his way, as by this he had expected to see the country open towards districts more susceptible of cultivation, but traces of anything calculated to justify the expectation, were not to be discovered. Still mass after mass of foliage, covering steeps, scaling eminences, or declining into valleys, disclosed themselves one after the other. Henric was brought to a stand-still; he first became dubious of his route, then misgiving, and at last totally bewildered. He feared to proceed, through the suspicion that he might be increasing the distance between him and symptoms of civilization; he feared to retrace his steps, through the dread of still farther involving himself. In this state of indecision he sat himself down and night began to close around him. To heighten his perplexity and vexation, a violent thunder-storm came on, and roused the forest solitude into one wild roar of confusion. Sheltering himself as he best might, he waited for its subsidence; and after wringing his cloak, he walked a little way forward, but the discouraging consciousness that he knew not to which point of the compass to direct himself, made him stop, and look wistfully around. At this moment a light in the distance attracted his attention. Henric laboured on, he now perceived that the ground rose rapidly; the woods became more gloomy, and had Henric been a believer in fays and goblins, this was a spot eminently calculated to recall all the tales and traditions of the kind to the reluctant memory; but Henric had never troubled himself with speculations as to their existence or non-existence, and had credence in nothing but what could be brought to the test of actual experience. From what the light proceeded it was totally impossible to discover; it emitted a reddish misty glare upon the nearest objects, but left all in obscurity beyond. Henric would have shouted, but somehow or other his voice seemed to stick in his throat; an indefinable feeling of awe stole over him, his knees trembled, and unconsciously he stood for a moment still. At intervals there seemed to be something like faint peals of laughter borne to him on the breeze; laughter sounded strange in such a place; but it only confirmed his impression, namely, that there must be some human creature within hail. After much toiling, he attained the topmost edge of the ridge; but who can express his fright and astonishment at the scene that met his eye below! A large fire of heaped up twigs and branches was kindled in the centre of the amphitheatre, whose craggy walls shot upwards to an immense height; here shelving into precipices, and there branching off into narrow rocky ledges, only Above rose practicable for animals of the surest feet. pyramids of foliage; trees bending horizontally inwards, and shutting out the moonlight clouds:-ponderous crags, which seemed as if a touch would hurl them on the sward below; and caverned blocks of fretted rock, fringed with intertwisted festoons of ivy. A dusky glare was profusely shed on every object, crimsoning leaf, branch, and trunk, and faintly irradiating the sky. Gathered around the fire was an assemblage of strange and hideons shapes, dwarf-like in proportion, and monstrous in features; their bodies were covered with hair, deformed, and uncouth in motion; from their shrivelled hands there extended claws of odious length; their heads, covered with long lank black hair, reaching down to their feet, were large and heavy looking, with "foreheads villanous low," ape-like ears, mouths resembling those of brutes, armed with yellow fangs, and fringed with shaggy beards; and the skin of their faces was withered and wrinkled. Every now and then loud shouts of discordant laughter burst out from their lips, making the woods re-echo for miles round. A fawn, which they were devouring, lay torn and bleeding before them. But Henric had scarcely leisure to observe all these particulars, his first thought, and a horrible one it was, was that he beheld an assemblage of demons, revelling with satanic glee over the body of some lost mortal. Henric had the ordinary courage of man, and would have feared nothing that had come before him in a human form; but this congregation completely mastered him. He lay gazing in a sort of fascination; while party after party of fresh comers descended into the valley, till the whole space was literally crowded with the strange and hideous looking creatures. Every jutting rock and branched tree were also occupied; and the fire seemed to glow brighter and fiercer, and to shed its glaring light with increased intensity. Roar and revelry, and shout and wild laughter, and still wilder antics, made the valley before him seem absolutely alive; and "Still they come !"-till so densely was the the cry was place peopled, that crowd was heaped upon crowd, and vast masses of these horrid beings were growing up like walls around the fire. Henric became utterly bewildered: he lay deprived of all power of locomotion, his head jutting over a ledge of the rock, the fierce light glowing in his face, and the struggling and yelling heaps of demons rising every moment higher and higher directly beneath him. Horrible were Henric's thoughts; and, stirred by the same feelings which make men inclined to throw themselves from lofty eminences, he swayed to and fro, every second losing his self-possession more and more completely; till at length, ab. solutely maddened, he toppled over the crag, dragging his dog with him; himself uttering a scream of horror, and his companion a howl of the same signification. As soon as his person was descried, whirling over the crag, a thousand arms were open to receive him, and a yell arose that drove consciousness from the mind of our unlucky traveller, who knew nothing farther till he awoke as from a dream, and found that the sun was almost in the meridian. Shuddering at the recollection of the dreadful horrors of the past night, he arose, and gave one fearful glance around: all was now quite noiseless and deserted, and he strode as fast as possible away. Anxious to escape from so horrible a neighbourhood, he travelled on with astonishing speed, and at A little time after he descried in the disevening had the satisfaction of perceiving that the country began to open. tance, the thrice welcome spire of the ancient Portuguese rived at it, the wonder with which his tale was received may village in which Mynherr Bomstyck resided. When he arbe easily imagined: some disbelieved it; but Mynherr Bomstyk and a considerable portion of his neighbours, gave it the fullest credence, aware of the irreproachable character for truth which Henric had always maintained. From one thing to another, it became a popular belief, through all the districts to the north-westward of Brazil, that there was a valley inhabited by gnomes or obscure spirits: and as Henric was never enabled to decide exactly which was the precise one on which he had stumbled, a long range of valleys were placed under ban, and as sedulously avoided by the hunters and wayfarers as if certain destruction would have attended the entering of the haunted district. The Not many years ago, circumstances placed the writer in the vicinity of Henric Van Kaarten's gnome-valley. story was told me, and I was solemnly warned of the consequences which might follow a visit to the secluded spot, which for nearly a century had been untrodden by the foot of man; so universal was the tradition, and so firmly was it |