of chains and gewgaws might be worth! some ten or twelve crowns." "Impossible!" exclaimed the licentiate; "for that which the Señor Alferez wore on his neck must have weighed more than two hundred ducats." "So it would have done," replied the Alferez, "if the reality had corresponded with the appearance; but 'all is not gold that glitters,' and my fine things were only imitations, but so well made that nothing but the touchstone or the fire could have detected that they were not genuine." 'So, then, it seems to have been a drawn game between you and the Señora Doña Es tefania?" said the licentiate. "So much so that we may shuffle the cards and make a fresh deal. Only the mischief is, Señor Licentiate, that she may get rid of my mock-chains, but I cannot get rid of the cheat "But I don't complain," replied the Alferez; "only I pity myself, for the culprit who knows his fault does not the less feel the pain of his punishment. I am well aware that I sought to deceive and that I was deceived and caught in my own snare, but I cannot command my feelings so much as not to lament over myself. To come, however, to what more concerns my history— for I may give that name to the narrative of my adventures-I learned that Doña Estefania had been taken away by that cousin. whom she brought to our wedding. I had no mind to go after her and bring back upon myself an evil I was rid of. I changed my lodgings within a few days. I have my sword; for the rest I trust in God." Translation ANONYMOUS. she put upon me; for, in spite of my teeth, A TRIAL IN FRANCE IN THE YEAR she remains my wife." "You may thank God, Señor Campuzano," said Peralta, "that your wife has taken to her heels, and that you are not obliged to go in search of her." "Very true, but for all that, even without looking for her, I always find her-in imagination; and, wherever I am, my disgrace is always present before me.' "I know not what answer to make you except to remind you of these two verses of Petrarch: **Che qui prende diletto di far frode, Non s'ha di lamentar s'altro l'inganna.' That is to say, whoever makes it his practice and his pleasure to deceive others has no right to complain when he is himself deceived." 1651. WENT to the Châtelet, or prison, where a malefactor was to have the question, or torture, given to him, he refusing to confess the robbery with which he was charged, which was thus: They first bound his wrist with a strong rope or small cable, and one end of it to an iron ring made fast to the wall about four feet from the floor, and then his feet with another cable, fastened about five feet farther than his utmost length to another ring on the floor of the room. Thus suspended, and yet lying but aslant, they slid a horse of wood under the rope which bound his feet, which so exceedingly stiffened it as severed the fellow's joints in miserable sort, drawing him out at length in an extraordinary manner, he having only a pair of linen drawers on his naked body. Then they ques- | or 1570, about twenty years before Shaketioned him of the robbery (the lieutenant speare commenced writing for the stage. being present, and a clerk that wrote); Previously to this establishment of the which not confessing, they put a higher "regular drama" there had been three horse under the rope, to increase the tor- different species of theatrical representature and extension. In this agony con- tions-miracles or tions-miracles or mysteries, written by fessing nothing, the executioner with a priests on religious subjects, and performed horn (just such as they drench horses by them on holy days; moralities, which with) stuck the end of it into his mouth sprang from the mysteries and approached and poured the quantity of two buckets nearer to regular plays, their characters of water down his throat and over him, being composed of allegorical personificawhich so prodigiously swelled him as would tions of virtues and vices; and free transhave pitied and affrighted any one to see it; lations from the classics, performed at the for all this he denied all that was charged to inns of court, the public seminaries and the him. They then let him down and carried universities. him before a warm fire to bring him to himself, being now to all appearance dead with pain. What became of him I know not, but the gentleman whom he robbed constantly averred him to be the man, and the fellow's suspicious pale looks before he knew he should be racked betrayed some guilt. The lieutenant was also of that opinion, and told us at first sight (for he was a lean, dry, black young man) he would conquer the torture; and so it seems they could not hang him, but did use in such cases, where the evidence is very presumptive, to send them to the galleys, which is as bad as death. of In 1574 the queen licensed a company actors called "The Earl of Leicester's Servants" to play throughout England "for the recreation of her loving subjects, as for her own solace and pleasure when she should think good to see them." Theatres rapidly increased. In 1606 there were seven in London; in 1629, we believe, there were seventeen. They were opposed in an early stage of their career by the Puritans and the graver counsellors of the sovereign. In 1583, at the time that Sir Philip Sidney published his Defence of Poesy, he could find little in their performances to approve. Though forbidden after the year 1574 to be open on the Sabbath, the prohibition does not appear to have been effective during the reign of Elizabeth. Secretary Walsingham laments over the whole matter in this wise: "The daily abuse of stage-plays is such an offence to the godly, and so great a hindrance to the gospel; for every day in the week the players' bills are set up in sundry places in the city-some in the name of Her Majesty's men, some of erected in Blackfriars in the year 1569 the earl of Leicester's, some the earl of Ox There was another malefactor to succeed, but the spectacle was so uncomfortable that I was not able to stay the sight of another. JOHN EVELYN. ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA. THE first playhouse built in England was This ac As the taste for theatrical exhibitions increased, the task of providing the theatres with plays became a profession. Most of the precursors, contemporaries and successors of Shakespeare were young men of education who came down to the city from the universities to provide themselves with a living by whatever cunning there was in their brain and ten fingers. Some became actors as well as writers. The remuneration of the dramatist was small. Poverty and dissoluteness seem to have characterized the pioneers of the drama. As the theatre was popular as well as fashionable, the "groundlings" who paid their sixpences for admission had their tastes consulted. counts in some degree for the rant and vulgarity which strangely disfigure so many of the plays. The usual miseries and vices which characterize men of letters in an unlettered age, when authors are numerous and readers are few, distinguish the lives of many of the elder dramatists. Ben Jonson, in the Poetaster, makes Tucca exclaim, with a sidereference to the poets of his own day, that they are a sort of poor starved rascals that are ever wrapt up in foul linen, and can boast of nothing but a lean visage peering out of a seam-rent suit, the very emblem of beggary." We suppose this was too true a picture of whose minds deserved a better environment of flesh and raiment. 66 many EDWIN P. WHIPPLE. PASSING SOUTH AFRICA. HUNTING. ASSING on to Letloche, about twenty miles beyond the Bamangwato, we found a fine supply of water. This is a point of so much interest in that country that the first question we ask of passers-by is, “Have you had water?" the first inquiry a native puts to a fellow-countryman is, "Where is the rain?" and, though they are by no means an untruthful nation, the answer generally is, "I don't know; there is none. We are killed with hunger and by the sun. asked for, they commence with "There is no news; I heard some lies only," and then tell all they know. This spot was Mr. Gordon Cumming's farthest station north. Our house at Kolobeng having been quite in the hunting-country, rhinoceros and buffaloes several times rushed past, and I was able to shoot the latter twice from our own door. We were favored by visits from this famous hunter during each of the five years of his warfare with wild animals. Many English gentlemen following the same pursuits paid their guides and assistants so punctually that in making arrangements for them we had to be careful that four did not go where two only were wanted: they knew so well that an Englishman would pay that they depended implicitly on his word of honor; and not only would they go and hunt for five or six months in the north, enduring all the hardships of that trying mode of life with little else but meat of game to subsist on, but they willingly went seven hundred or eight hundred miles to Graham's Town, receiving for wages only a musket worth fifteen shillings. No one ever deceived them except one man, and, as I believed that he was afflicted | matter how great among pheasants, foxes and with a slight degree of the insanity of greedi- hounds, would do well to pause before resolvness, I upheld the honor of the English name ing to brave fever for the excitement of riskby paying his debts. As the guides of Mr. ing such a terrific charge. The scream or Cumming were furnished through my influ- trumpeting of this enormous brute when inence and usually got some strict charges as furiated is more like what the shriek of a to their behavior before parting, looking upon French steam-whistle would be to a man me in the light of a father, they always came standing on the dangerous part of a railroad to give me an account of their service, and than any other earthly sound; a horse unused told most of those hunting-adventures which to it will sometimes stand shivering instead have since been given to the world before we of taking his rider out of danger. It has had the pleasure of hearing our friend relate happened often that the poor animal's legs them himself by our own fireside. I had do their duty so badly that he falls and exthus a tolerably good opportunity of testing poses his rider to be trodden into a mummy, their accuracy, and I have no hesitation in or, losing his presence of mind, the rider may saying that for those who love that sort of allow the horse to dash under a tree and crack thing Mr. Cumming's book conveys a truthful his cranium against a branch. As one charge idea of South African hunting. Some things from an elephant has made embryo Nimrods. in it require explanation, but the numbers of bid a final adieu to the chase, incipient Goranimals said to have been met with and kill- don Cummings might try their nerves by ed are by no means improbable, considering standing on railways till the engines were the amount of large game then in the coun- within a few yards of them. Hunting eletry. Two other gentlemen hunting in the phants on foot would be not less dangerous, same region destroyed in one season no fewer unless the Ceylon mode of killing them by than seventy-eight rhinoceroses alone. Sports- one shot could be followed; it has never men, however, would not now find an equal been tried in Africa. number, for as guns are introduced among the tribes all these fine animals melt away like snow in spring. In the more remote districts where firearms have not yet been introduced, with the single exception of the rhinoceros, the game is to be found in numbers much greater than Mr. Cumming ever saw. The tsetse is, however, an insuperable barrier to hunting with horses there, and Europeans can do nothing on foot. The step of the elephant when charging the hunter, though apparently not quick, is so long that the pace equals the speed of a good horse at a canter. A young sportsman, no TRADING. It was to be expected that they would be imposed upon in their first attempt at trading, but I believe that this could not be so easily repeated. It is, however, unfortunate that in dealing with the natives in the interior there is no attempt made at the establishment of fair prices. The trader shows a quantity of goods, the native asks for more, and more is given. The native, being ignorant of the value of the goods or of his ivory, tries what another demand will bring. After some haggling, an addition is made, and that bargain is concluded to the satisfaction of both parties. Another trader comes, and perhaps offers more than the first; the customary demand for an addition is made, and he yields. The natives by this time are beginning to believe that the more they ask, the more they will get: they continue to urge, the trader bursts into a rage, and the trade is stopped, to be renewed next day by a higher offer. The natives naturally conclude that they were right the day before, and a most disagreeable commercial intercourse is established. A great amount of A great amount of time is spent in concluding these bargains. In other parts it is quite common to see the natives going from one trader to another till they have finished the whole village, and some give presents of brandy to tempt their custom. Much of this unpleasant state of feeling between natives and Europeans results from the commencements made by those who were ignorant of the language, and from the want of education being given at the same time. A THUNDER-STORM. We passed through the patch of the tsetse which exists between Linyanti and Seshéke by night. The majority of the company went on by daylight, in order to prepare our beds. Sekeletu and I, with about forty young men, waited outside the tsetse till dark. We then went forward, and about ten o'clock it became so pitchy dark that both horses and men were completely blinded. The lightning spread over the sky, forming eight or ten branches at a time, in shape exactly like those of a tree. This, with great volumes of sheet-lightning, enabled us at times to see the whole country. The intervals between the flashes were so densely dark as to convey the idea of stone-blindness. The horses trembled, cried out and turned round as if searching for each other, and every new flash revealed the men taking different directions, laughing and stumbling against each other. The thunder was of that tremendously loud kind only to be heard in tropical countries, and which friends from India have assured me is louder in Africa than any they have ever heard elsewhere. Then came a pelting rain, which completed our confusion. After the intense heat of the day we soon felt miserably cold, and turned aside to a fire we saw in the distance. This had been made by some people on their march, for this path is seldom without numbers of strangers passing to and from the capital. My clothing having gone on, I lay down on the cold ground, expecting to spend a miserable night, but Sekeletu kindly covered me with his own blanket and lay uncovered himself. I was much affected by this little act of genuine kindness. If such men must perish by the advance of civilization, as certain races of animals do before others, it is a pity. THE FALLS OF VICTORIA. As this was the point from which we intended to strike off to the north-east, I resolved on the following day to visit the Falls of Victoria, called by the natives. Mosioatunya, or, more anciently, Shongwe. Of these we had often heard since we came into the country; indeed, one of the questions asked by Sebituane was, "Have you smoke that sounds in your country?" They did not go near enough to examine them, but, viewing them with awe at a distance, said, in reference to the vapor and noise, "Mosi oa tunya" "Mosi oa tunya" ("Smoke does |