THE GREAT STEEPLE-CHASE AT THE CROIX DE BERNY.

THE long-anticipated steeple-chase (writes the lively Theophile Guatier, the spirituel feuilletoniste of the Presse), which kept all Paris in a state of feverish suspense, was to take place at two o'clock in the afternoon. The rush was enormous. Upon the Boulevard of the Invalides, in the Rue d'Enfer, in the Rue de l'Est, thoroughfares, generally speaking, deserted and tranquil, three rivers of carriages and vehicles of all descriptions poured along, till, united at the city-gate, they became a great estuary, flanked by two quays of pedestrians.

The sky, which had smiled for a moment in the morning, no doubt perceiving that something was preparing for the day, began to assume a sullen aspect, which gradually took the character of drizzling rain. The suburban half-rustic population of the outskirts were watching, with eyes sparkling with malicious pleasure, the crowd of fashionables hustling one another through the shower; for nothing rejoices the hearts of the extramural population so much as to see a Parisian wet to the skin and covered with mud.

The landscape is not very picturesque on the road to Berny, the most remarkable objects being immense red wheels, which appear as if detached from so many gigantic hackney-coaches, and vast heaps of rubbish piled by the side of the stone-quarries, to which the said wheels appertain.

On nearing the ground the crowd grew more and more dense. Handsome cavaliers starred the carriage-windows, and even the pretty faces that leaned out to look at them, with mud. Travelling chariots with four post-horses drove the crowd before them, and made vehicles of a frailer description fly before the thunder of their wheels, the jumble of their bells, and the musketry of their whips.

"Sylphides," "citadines," and "milords," were mixed up with cabs, chariots, and coaches, and with "Americaines," phaetons, and landaus, for the English have disinterred the latter. There might be some sacrifice of fashion in all this, but the very incongruity was a sign of "sport" in the wind. All the inns of the village were encumbered with carriages, horses, servants, and jockeys; the rain that was now falling heavily had no effect upon the general gladness and bustle. to ting

Taking the road to the left, the spot where the stands were erected was soon reached, The first was covered and divided into stalls, at twenty francs a seat; the next was also covered, but the seats were not numbered, and there was a scramble at ten francs a head. Private carriages were mulcted in twenty francs, to enter into the meadow and take their station in a line not far from the river. Places taken the previous evenPing fetched thirty francs. The subscribers' stand was erected in a small meadow, at an expense of 1500 francs; the nine windows at the mayor's house, and the two at the inn, which commanded the ground, were let at a hundred francs each. Seats were indeed expensive at this theatre, although the performances took place in the open air. Five hundred foot, and a hundred mounted soldiers, to each of whom the gratuity of

one franc had been allotted, did the duties of police, and certainly it was no easy task with so impatient a mob.

And now let us turn to the ground, or to the "turf," as our continental brethren have it-and there is something equally novel and curious in adhering to their adopted versions of our sporting phraseologythe field of the forthcoming struggle of the "jockeys and gentlemen riders."

A great meadow, washed by the Bièvre, sweeps downwards, with here and there patches of fallow land, heavy and trying for the horses. The winning-post is in this meadow, close by the river. The starting-post is further off, almost out of sight, behind a clump of trees. A variety of obstacles, hedges, ditches, and rivulets, intersect the road which the horses have to pass over. At every obstacle a yellow pennon indicates the line of road to be followed. By these arrangements, almost all the events of the race can be seen; the horses, starting from a given point, ascend the acclivity, then speed downwards, cross the river, traverse the meadow, and return, without having escaped the glasses and eyes directed towards them more than a few minutes. The obstacles to be overcome, consist of hedges, a fencing of planks, a river eleven feet in width, and a stone wall. The difficulties of these leaps were increased by the rain, which had rendered the soil heavy, pasty, and slippery.

Now flank all this with carriages of every description, with an immense and motley crowd, and suspend a dark lowering sky, intersected with strings of rain, and you will have a tolerably correct idea of the whole thing.

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And now to the performers in the equestrian drama. Out of fifty-two horses, forty only accepted the handicap, and only ten ran. These were Commodore, belonging to Mr. Livingston; Ways, M. A. Aumont; Switcher, the Earl of Strathmore; St. Leger, Mr. George Watts, jun.; Discount, Mr. Lambton; Gazely, Major Rushbrook; Matchless, Mr. Stanley Peter Simple, Mr. Rolts; Young Lottery, M. Eugene Cremieux..

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The signal being given, we perceived the profiles of the horses and of their riders pass like shadows across the skeletons of the little trees, then we saw a white horse-Peter Simple, if we are not mistaken-upon the acclivity of the hill, followed close by Matchless; the others followed at short distances. The soil was so soaked, that rockets of mud ascended into the air with each vault of the horses. The hedge was cleared courageously, and the whole field arrived at full speed at the river, whose soft and slippery banks were opposed to that spring necessary to insure a safe transit. Lord Strathmore, mounted upon Switcher, found the bed of the stream obstructed by a horse imbedded with its rider in the mud, while another to the right was dragging himself from the mire after a complete immersion.

The white horse had, in the meantime, got an advance of a hundred and fifty paces, and surmounted the wall, loosening only one stone; the others, some with their hoofs, some with their chests, and others with their bellies, tumbled down the crest of the wall, which was thus speedily shorn of one-half of its height, leaving an open breach, for the horses which came up last, to pass through.

What took place beyond the wall we could not say, but after the lapse of a few minutes we saw them all returning in quite a different order of succession. Those which had been last before were now first, and those which had been first were now last.

Peter Simple and Matchless were making strenuous efforts to regain their places, but St. Leger and Young Lottery led the way, followed closely by Discount, Gazely, and Switcher.

It was a splendid sight this pack of horses in full flight, smoking, bathed with foam, their eyes on fire, and their nostrils of a blood-red hue; and the riders, with their red, black, and blue caps, and their scarlet, cerulean, and striped jackets, their white leather breeches, and their pretty top boots, bent over the neck of their steeds, and cutting their shoulders with the whip, all urged by an impulse that had now reached the climax of intensity. It appeared as if the riders were lifting their horses to fling them to the winning-post.

Six horses came in at the same moment. To the spectators who were not at right angles, the distance between them was not appreciable. But St. Leger beat the others by a head, if not more, while Young Lottery and Discount were but a trifle in advance of Switcher and Gazely.

This first event over, a steeple-chase of gentleman-riders followed. Five horses entered: Mary Jane, Victress, Deodora, the Roarer, and Mameluke; MM. de Perregaux and de Montecot represented France in feats of horsemanship so especially Anglican, with more courage than good fortune. Their steeds fell several times without their losing their seats; M. de Montecot, thrown into the river with his horse, scarcely moved in his saddle. Victress, ridden by Mr. Ricardo, came in first, fully justifying her name; Mameluke followed her closely.

Notwithstanding the numerous falls, there were no accidents. The riders got off with a good wetting or a coating of mud. Every thing went off in the happiest manner possible, thanks to the precautions taken by the intelligent and active stewards, Messrs. D'Hedouville, Lecouteulx, Count Guy de la Tour du Pin, and Sir William Massey Stanley.

An abundant collection was also made by the priest of the village in the stands and at the carriage-doors for the poor.

The steeple-chase of the Croix de Berny has given rise to several new fashions. Among others, to a kind of cape, upon which the stormy Hyades, to speak like Boileau, may pour forth the contents of their urns for twenty-four hours without the least inconvenience to the wearer. Most of the ladies, indeed, looked after the races like solar spectres, or various coloured ices just about to melt, the rain having mingled the colours of their dresses in the most fantastical manner.

Notwithstanding the horrible weather, the receipts amounted to 28,000 francs, and every one wet through, but happy, found their way back to Paris, amidst the most triumphant noises, and the most terrific deluge of mud that ever attempted to drown a festival.

LITERATURE.

ROUGH RECOLLECTIONS.*

THE happy and hearty mess of the 2nd battalion 22nd Regiment luckily serves as an excellent introduction to stories of strange venture and hairbreadth escapes from snakes, tigers, and Thugs innumerable. Premising, however, that the tale of the Christian, the Brahmin, and the Hebrew delivered up to the tiger as a test of faith, has more the character of a rude Oriental allegory or modern apologue than of a veritable history.

One of the Thug adventures is excellent. The discovery of the human arm in the clump of the Webera shrub rivets attention. The red cornelian signet ring promises a plot. The young bridegroom Jaffer has fallen by the accursed noose of the Phansigars! Then the arrival of the brother Hassan Ali, with his ten or twelve armed followers-the search in the jungle, and the discovery of a second corpse sitting bolt upright, entangled among pond weeds, in a deep, muddy pool of stagnant water, furnishes, it would be imagined, a picturesque climax. But no, a most agreeable surprise remains for all parties. Jaffer, after the roomal or kerchief has been thrown round his neck, had been saved by a party of Kulals or spirit brewers, gathering the berry of the Bassia latifolia in the jungle, and the corpse mangled by the jackals, and that saved by the water from wild beasts, were those of the "Banchut surs," the cursed swine of Thugs, one of whom had made away with Jaffer's ring, previous to the struggle for life and death.

A visit to the great tombs of Beejapore, one of which, the Burra Gumbuz, or "the great dome," has a cupola larger than that of St. Paul's, possesses within itself a deep and solemn interest. We can readily sympathise with the wanderer taking up his silent and solitary abode for three long days amid these ruins. The dark arches, the mouldering spires and minarets glowing in the golden sunset, the shrub clad walls, are now fitting monuments for a dynasty of murdered or of murdering kings, whose shadows are still said to flit about in the vast and deserted city. In such a place the author truly remarks, "society would be a mockery."

But it remained to Major Campbell to give reality to such a scene by tracking out a "mother of the Ghowls" who dwelt in the dry bottom of an exhausted bowry or well, in which, seated on her haunches, she cooked her rice, fattened as she fancied with the flesh of a much-beloved child. There had been many years before a fearful dookal or famine.

Hoormut was the young handsome wife of Ali Khan, the favourite hujam— barber of Beejapore; they were a youthful and a happy pair, locked up in their love for each other, and in their affection for their only offspring, a beauteous boy of tender age. For a time they struggled, as did others, with the prevailing calamity but an epidemic, arising from palpable causes, broke out among the people, and poor Hoormut became a widow. Whether from the hour of Ali's death insanity took possession of her mind or not, is not known; but she was seen soon afterwards with her wasted boy- her dying Sulimansitting beside an old tomb, devouring some wretched offal, with which, in vain,

* Rough Recollections of Rambles abroad and at home. By Calder Campbell, author of "The Palmer's Last Lesson," &c. 3 vols. T. C. Newby, London.

she tried to feed her child. Two days afterwards rain fell heavily! grain, too, came in from Poona, and my father (for the story is related by a certain Ibrahim Fakir) went in search of Hoormut. He found her-but how found he her? Alas! in her little cabin he found her, seated beside the hacked and hewn corpse of her boy! One limb suspended by a string, was roasting before a huge firethe others lay scattered before her, and she herself-sole queen of this sad kingdom of despair-was singing aloud, in the deplorable exhilaration of incurable madness! No portion of her poor child's body was missing, so that the dreadful food had not entered her lips, and it was concluded that he had died a natural death; but in the wild fits of her frenzy, she is accustomed to accuse herself of having slain and eaten him, calling herself by the strange and appalling title of the Madur-i-ghowl.

1

THE 88th regiment, commonly called the Connaught Rangers, was not in the highest repute at the time that it first formed part of the third division in the Peninsula under General Picton. The story of the Connaught Ranger, stumbled upon by that brave officer and strict disciplinarian with a huge goat on his back, and as usual, forgiven for his national quickness in repartee, speaks volumes as to the little frailties in the men's characters. True, they may have only been "as great marauders as their neighbours," but perchance they were "more successful," and this drew attention to their feats in that line.

Be this, however, as it may, the steady loyalty, and brilliant achievements in the field of these gallant fellows from the far west, effaced all stains of petty marauding. The 88th, although at that period one of the strongest and most effective regiments in the army, did not count more than five hundred bayonets! but the 88th did not lose a man by desertion, while many regiments lost their scores. The 88th also belonged to what was denominated, parenthetically, the "fighting division," and a more determined and more dashing set of fellows was not to be met in that division.

At Busaco, the repulse of the main column of the enemy, which had gained the heights, was, according to Mr. Grattan, solely effected by the Connaught Rangers, assisted by four companies of the 45th. This action was indeed a most brilliant one, and was witnessed by Lord Wellington and Colonel Napier. The affair at Fuentes d'Onore was also, according our partial historian, settled by the Connaught Rangers. So also the favoured 88th stand prominent at the storming of Cuidad Rodrigo and Badajoz, and at the decisive engagement at Salamanca. We have no objections to this esprit de corps, which battles with the pen for the distinction due, either to individual or regimental exertions. It is evident, however, that there is a just medium in such claims, to overstep which is as rash as it is fatal. The very fact, however, of the peculiarities belonging to the Connaught Rangers, the combination of dashing bravery, with a spice of roguery, and love of fun, impart to their adventures in the Peninsula and in Canada, an interest which could belong to almost no other regiment, and this brave, if eccentric battalion, has found an excellent historian in its worthy lieutenant.

*Adventures of the Connaught Rangers from 1808 to 1814. By William Grattan, Esq., late Lieut., Connaught Rangers, in 2 vols. Henry Colburn..