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LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. Fourth Sexiez

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.

No. 985.-VOL. XIX.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1882.

TROPICAL BRITAIN.

Ir is a common remark, that a former dweller on the earth, were he permitted to revisit scenes once familiar, would find them in many instances changed out of all knowledge. We may with equal justness reverse the remark, and find it applicable to ourselves, were we taken back through the scenes of the historic past, and especially the long ages of the geological periods. Such glimpses of the past are not unattainable. All the principal geological and climatic changes which in succession have passed over the surface of the earth, have been self-registered. Successive landscapes have as it were photographed themselves upon the sensitive plate of the earth's successively renewed surface; their impressions lie buried beneath our feet everywhere, or traced on hill-slopes all around; and where uncovered or detected, though the lines are in many cases blurred and indistinct, to the trained eye of the student they unfold scenes which stand out before the mind with singular distinctness.

How fascinating the interest of endeavouring to recall the long past! Let us, therefore, imagine ourselves transported to the Britain of the Eocene period, and under the guidance of the most recent discoveries and conclusions of geologists and others, picture the scenes which would then meet our view. It is B.C.-we know not how many tens of thousands of years. One thing we are certain of it is a long distance on this side of that chaotic period, millions of years ago, when, according to Mr G. H. Darwin and Professor Ball of Dublin, the earth, a huge molten mass, gave birth to the moon; and mother and daughter hung perilously near each other till the latter began that retreating movement which she still continues. The Primary and Secondary periods had already done their work in moulding our earth into habitable conditions for higher and higher forms of life. We are at the dawn (Eocene) of the Tertiary period, in whose later development man appears upon

the scene.

PRICE 1d

But as we find our way to what is now British soil, and look around, how difficult to believe that we are in Britain's latitudes. For on every hand we see the rich and luxuriant life of the tropics; and the hot air smites us with faintness. From the teeming soil springs a bewildering variety of vegetation, and unfamiliar species appear everywhere. We recognise with astonishment forms of vegetable life which at present we naturally look for only in sunnier climes. When we examine closer, it seems, indeed, as if the plants and flowers of all regions of the earth are gathered around us. To see the nettle-trees, but especially the honeysuckle-trees (Banksias) and the leathery-leafed gum-trees (Eucalypti), we might fancy ourselves in Australia with its characteristic evergreen vegetation. The weird shapes of huge cacti, again, transport us to the regions of Central America, parched with frequent droughts, while the fig-tree at our side speaks of the shores of the Mediterranean; the palm yonder leads the thoughts to Africa; and that breadfruit in the distance awakens visions of the beautiful scenery of the islands of the South Seas. Twining round the tree-stems, flinging their tendrils from branch to branch, creeping, twisting, interlacing everywhere, wreathing themselves in myriad graceful festoons, gorgeous with flowers of every hue, and making our forests as impassable as those of South America, are those wonderful climbing-plants, amid which veteran explorers might recognise their most inveterate foes.

And withal, the trees and plants of temperate climes abound also. And just as the British traveller of to-day in tropical latitudes welcomes the sight of them as old friends, linking him with the temperate regions which are his home, so in that far-back Eocene age, amid so much to make us doubt whether we are on British soil, we welcome the sight of the beech, the elm, the chestnut, and the oak. The air is alive with the hum of insect-life characteristic of the tropics. Glancing, flashing, gleaming in the sunlight, many of them rivalling in colour the flowers

over which they hover, these ephemeral creatures are fed by, and in their turn help to feed, the profusion of living forms which the prolific heat engenders.

And if the vegetation around is strange to us, stranger still are the animals and the birds we observe from time to time. Even while we stand entranced with delight at the rich and varied beauty of the forest scene, or the view by the sleeping waters of a lagoon, the ugly form of an alligator is seen floating like a log, with cruel watchfulness intent upon his prey. Yonder, again, a splash is heard, and there glides forth on land or water some fierce monster, of a shape which suggests that the goblins and dragons fabled by primitive races were not drawn wholly from imagination.

Lingering still in the Britain of the past, we must beware of bathing in this noble stream, whose waters, bending round in graceful curve, have here left a clear stretch of sand and gravel, and yonder are swept by the overhanging luxuriance of the forest. Safe, tempting as it looks, the crocodile and its cousin the gavial, with long, flat, ugly muzzle, are not far off. Peeping through the forest branches, rustling the leaves as they steal down to drink, we catch glimpses of bright graceful creatures not unlike the deer and the antelope, and probably the progenitors of these. Curious it seems to catch sight of one of the oldest and least changed of still living species, an opossum peering down upon us from the branches overhead; while we discover with surprise that animals like the kangaroo are native to these shores. We seem to be in halfa-dozen different regions of the earth at once. Places as distant as the Malay Peninsula and the forest recesses of South America, are brought to our door, when we see in these latitudes the tapir, for example, with his long flexible snout and thick hide, feeding greedily on the tender treeshoots. High overhead, in the serene air, floats the vulture, looking for the dead. Down stream, kingfishers flash to and fro with gleaming plumage; and herons stand watching for their finny prey. Birds shaped like geese, but with what resemble teeth upon their beak, flounder in the water; while in the open glades feed others, huge and wingless, like a now extinct species in New Zealand.

by their contrast with the present. What a rude shock, for example, to our insular exclusiveness and sense of insular security, to discover that Eocene Britain is not an island! Not only do Ireland and all the islands to the west and north form an integral portion of it, but it is joined on the south-west to Bretagne. From the east of Scotland to Norway extends a great valley covered with forests, and watered by a noble river receiving its tributaries from the ravines of what are now Norwegian fjords and the firths of Moray and Forth. And stranger still, there is a land-connection, broadening as we follow it northward, extending from the north-west of Scotland by way of the Faroe Isles and Iceland, to Greenland and the northern portion of North

America.

And while our land forms a portion of two continents, the coast-line of Britain is at the same time far more extensive in these Eocene times than now. The sea tossed and moaned far distant from these cliffs and bays of to-day. Many miles out beneath the Atlantic are the old shores of England and Ireland. Land's End is thus not the land's end, but a lofty inland plateau breaking away probably in terrific precipices on the south and west; and stretching away from the base of these is an undulating plain covered with dense forests, its bounds washed by the remote Atlantic. Northward, where we expect to see the gleaming waters of the Bristol Channel, we behold a wide valley, along which the waters of the Severn flow, till at a point farther west than the now westmost part of Ireland, they join the ocean. Eddystone Rock needs no lighthouse. It is probably a lofty mountain peak. Torquay is far inland. All the delightful bays and pleasant health-resorts of the south-west of our England are many miles from any sea.

We look with deep interest and curiosity to see how much of the present well-known scenery of mountain, plain, and valley can be identified; and under the guidance of Professor Dawkins and others, discover that the general outlines of English, Scotch, and Irish landscapes are much more striking, bolder, more abrupt than now; not having been yet smoothed by the action of the ice of later periods. We gaze with wonder not unmixed with awe on the wild grandeur of And when, emerging from the forests, we stand the mountain scenery of Wales, Cumberland, and on the shores of the shallow Eocene Sea on the Western Scotland, in the dawn of this period. south-east, we find it also teeming with the life of Many of the mountains of the Hebrides are tropical as well as temperate climes. Flights of active volcanoes. Volcanic agency has built them gulls crest its waves, or hover over it, dashing up. Hence we see them as groups of cone down from time to time to seize an unlucky fish. and dome like shapes, like those of Auvergne 'Gigantic sharks, rays, sword-fishes and sturgeons' of to-day, 'rising above the forest which spread tumble about in its waters, and find abundant from these rugged Alpine heights, far away in prey; while among them is a peculiar armour- one mass of green, broken only by the rivers, clad fish. Gliding in graceful undulations are to Ireland and the remote coast-line of the sea-snakes twelve feet long; while the number of Western Sea.' But their height fills us with turtles is countless. The nautilus frequents the astonishment. See that volcano of Mull, of seas; the cowry, minute and burdensome coin of which but a fragment now remains, grand doubtIndia, abounds upon the sand beneath our feet; less, in its way, but insignificant when com and other tropical shells, as the cone, volute, pared with the ancient magnificence of the olive, and large spindle shells, seem to be indi- mountain. It has been calculated-by Professor genous to the shores. Judd-as from ten to fourteen thousand feet high, inclusive of the cone rising above the trees in the distance yonder. These Welsh, Cumbrian, and Scotch mountains are more than twice as high as in degenerate nineteenth-century

Nor are these the only features of the scene fitted to fill us with surprise. There are many other characteristics of British scenery and geography in that Eocene period which startle us

Journal

times. Such at least are they, according to one geological authority, in the period immediately succeeding the Eocene-namely, the Miocene. Low as even these heights are in comparison with the giants of the Himalaya and the Andes, we cannot, gazing on the Highland hills of to-day, think without wonder and awe of an ancient grandeur which made them worthy rivals of even the Cottian, Pennine, and Bernese Alps, with their historic summits-Monte Viso, Mont Blanc, and the Jungfrau. On those awful heights, the snow never melted. Clouds floated around their dazzling ice-clad summits, and hid from time to time their white, sky-piercing peaks. Dizzy precipices, abysmal ravines, cleft and scarred their sides. Go where one would, the solemn grandeur of these towering mountain masses must ever have dominated the view; while more awe-inspiring still the spectacle when from time to time one or other of them burst forth in volcanic fury, vomiting ashes and fire, and spreading far and near, over the luxuriant vegetation beneath, death and desolation.

Curious in its way it is to think how different would have been every feature of our life of today, had those Eocene conditions lasted till now. So completely are those physical circumstances distinct from those of the present, that to all but such as have made a special study of them, they must at first appear unnatural and incredible. Yet the fossil remains of plants, animals, birds, fishes, found in these islands, tell their own tale; and speak of tropical conditions of temperature, and distributions of land and sea very different from those of to-day.

Wonderful as it is to think of that teeming life multiplying itself in myriad forms, and spreading its beauty and its fitness forth beneath the Creator's eye; more wonderful still, and instructive too, it is to think of it all as a vast and steady progress and preparation which is to culminate in the appearance of Man, the 'minister and interpreter of nature,' to whose gradually strengthening gaze these long ages of the past now unfold themselves; and who, from their petrified remains, pictures many a life that had begun, culminated, and perished, ages before his epoch.

VALENTINE STRANG E.

and her lips until she recovered. He had pictured to himself another meeting, and had all ready for delivery an impressive discourse calculated for her moral benefit; but now, when she came round, he was nursing her head upon his breast and murmuring, 'My poor darlin', my poor darlin', and taking not the slightest notice of half-a-dozen ugly but picturesque old women, and one picturesque and astonishingly pretty young one, who suddenly found this little drama acting beneath their noses, and stood attentively to watch it through. Mary was much more sensitive to public observation than her lover. The first thing she did was to arrange her bonnet and lower her veil, the next to resume her seat upon the convenient doorstep and cry comfortably. Hiram addressed the assembled ladies in their own language, and begged them to disperse; but being unable to prevail upon them, he lifted Mary to her feet, tucked her arm under his, and marched off with her.

Mrs Strange is in Cadiz, I suppose?' asked Hiram.

'Yes,' answered Mary; and Mr Strange. They are going home to their house at Brierham.'

Hiram's reception of this simple piece of news astonished Mary; but it meant so much to him that she could not understand. He resolved at once to keep a hawk's eye on his master.

6

'You have been very angry with me, Hiram,' said Mary, attacking the subject next her heart; but you will forgive me, won't you ?'

He

Somehow, Hiram's sternness had dissolved, and he forgave her, without the lecture he had intended to deliver; and she began to bubble over with innocent happiness and gaiety, and to talk of her curiosities of modern travel, all grown remarkable again, now that Hiram was here to listen whilst she spoke of them. allowed her to run on, and threw in here and there a question to direct her talk, so that, without alarming her by any inkling of his own fears, he drew from her a contradiction of them. Gerard had touched neither at Naples nor Marseilles, and could, therefore, not be here of malice aforethought, since he had no knowledge of his enemy's journey. And just as this dread was finally lifted from Hiram's mind, Mary stopped, and clasping his arm with both hands, made as if to hide herself behind him, whilst with frightened eyes she stared across the street. Following the direction of her glance, he was aware of his master, standing stock-still with A folded arms, unconscious of their presence, but tracking with eyes that burned like fire another figure in their rear, which, as they halted, HAVING once decided in her travelled mind approached them, leaning heavily on a walkingthat foreign cities were not only unlike London, stick, and moving with a dejected head and but exceedingly unlike each other, Mary was downward glance. The face of this bent and steeled against the surprises of costume, archi-ancient-looking figure was hidden from Hiram, tecture, and physiognomy. But that she shared though visible to Gerard. The latter crossing the common frailty, and was not steeled against the sunny pavement, stepped into shadow the amazement of meeting what used to be common within two yards of Hiram, so absorbed in his in the midst of so much uncommonness, was fairly contemplation of the bent figure that he had no proved by the fact that suddenly encountering eyes for his servant. When the man tottered Hiram Search in a shady street in Cadiz, she and quavered quite close, Gerard gripped him sat upon a convenient doorstep and fainted. by the shoulder, and the pinched old face whose Hiram himself, though much amazed by the hollow careworn eyes looked up at him was the encounter, was less affected, and seizing a passing face of Garling. Hiram fell back a step with water-carrier, borrowed his little tin vessel, and an exclamation which drew his master's "regard knelt above his sweetheart and laved her temples upon him. Garling's glance travelled from one

A STORY OF THE PRIMROSE WAY.

CHAPTER XLIV.-AY!' CRIED GARLING IN
QUAVERING VOICE, YOU HAVE PUNISHED ME
ENOUGH, AMONGST YOU.'

to another, with an uneasy half-apprehension of
their presence.
His own daughter; the man
who had ruined his plans; and the son of the
man he had plotted to ruin. He murmured that
they had not often looked so real, and made as
if to pass on; but Gerard's grasp detained him.
'So you are here, Mr Garling, are you?' asked
Gerard, swaying the quavering old figure gently
to and fro in his strong hand. "Your villainy
hasn't led to happiness, either?' That truth
was written in his face.
'That's new,' said Garling, turning his head
aside, as if to listen. "They say the same things
over and over again. A trick-a mere trick, to
trap me into weakness and confession.'
Mister,' said Hiram, 'he's as mad as a March
hare!'

The old man's eyes shifted to the last speaker, with a new look in them, half dreadful, half inquiring. Then they wandered to his daughter's face. 'Why don't you speak?' he asked.

She shrank away from him. Hiram,' she said falteringly, 'he frightens me. Take me away.'

'You can't hold malice against a thing like this?' said Hiram, addressing his master.

Malice?' replied Gerard, dropping the hand that had held Garling. 'No.'

'Ay!' cried Garling in a quavering voice, 'you have punished me enough, amongst you! But you were gentle when the rest were hard. Perhaps you guessed I meant to use you kindly after all. This was to Mary, who shrank back from him appalled. 'Ay, you're afraid of me; but I meant well by you. And I mean well by you still. It isn't much, compared with what it might have been, but it is all honestly come by, and that's a great matter-a great matter. Make a good use of it.'

"Yes, yes,' returned Garling, putting him fretfully aside, and striving once more to get past Hiram to his daughter, who, with terror in every gesture and feature, avoided him.

"Take her away,' said Gerard. 'I will see that he does not follow you. I can get somebody to take charge of him, I daresay. You needn't be afraid of me, Search,' he said, somewhat bitterly. Heaven has taken vengeance here.'

"That's like yourself,' returned Hiram. 'That's the first thing like you sence we sailed out of Thames river!'

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"Take her away,' said Gerard again, speaking sternly this time. Hiram obeyed.

The old man struggled to pursue the retreating pair; but Gerard, passing an arm through Garling's, turned round, and led him in the way he had been originally going. He resented this for a moment only, and then, with drooping eyes, submitted.

'Where do you live?' asked Gerard.

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Garling raised his stick a little from the ground and pointed forward. He went on slowly but without hesitation; and before they had gone far, he paused, and drawing a key from his pocket, entered at an open doorway, mounted a set of white stone steps, and admitted himself to a large chamber, furnished in the fashion of the country, which always looks sparse to an English eye, but with no sign of poverty or neglect in its appearance.

"Is this your home?' Gerard demanded softly. Garling laid down his hat and stick and passed a hand across his forehead before answering. When he responded, it was with a tone and manner so different from those he had hitherto employed, that the questioner was startled. This is my home, Mr Lumby, and will be for the remainder of my time.' He motioned his visitor to a seat, and himself sank down wearily. 'I cannot resent your intrusion,' he said feebly; 'and since you have found me here, you may tell my late employers that I am a good deal

The three who heard him looked from one to the other, and little Mary, whose nerves had already been greatly shaken, began to cry again. "Why, now you weep,' he said, and I perceive you feel some touch of pity. Ah, that's Shak-worn, and that I shall not last much longer. I speare! I was a great student of Shakspeare when I was a lad. A man of lofty imagination, and versed in all the mysteries of human nature. Cæsar haunted Brutus. But no man was ever so crowded round with ghosts as I have been.'

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It was evident alike to Gerard and to Hiram that he was not sure of their corporeal unreality, but they could each trace the meaning beneath these scattered words of his.

You don't take me for a ghost, do you, mister?' said Hiram.

Garling looked startled and perplexed, and made as if to go on again, but turning, caught sight of Mary, and laid his hand on her gently. 'Don't go,' he whispered; don't leave me. shall make it worth your while.'

"Heaven's my witness, mister,' said Hiram earnestly to Gerard, 'that I don't want my little gell to finger a penny of his money, if he's got any; but it ain't the thing to leave him in this condition in a foreign city. He's been a rare bad old lot, and that's a fact; but he ought to be looked after.'

Gerard returning no answer, Hiram laid his hand on Garling's shoulder and addressed him in Spanish. "Do you speak the language, old man? Can you get on by yourself?'

have had many troubles lately, Mr Gerard, and my mind is affected; I feel it unhinged at times, I was proud of my intellect many years ago, and I misused it. I am broken down, as you may know by these confessions; shattered, quite shattered, and an old man.' The light alternately flickered and faded on his face, and his voict seemed to fall and rise with the brightening and the dying of an inward gleam. At one second his face and voice looked and sounded altogether sane, and in the next both had grown senile. The words 'I am broken down' were maundering as you may know by these confessions' followed swiftly, with a re-assertion of his ancient self: Ishattered, quite shattered; an old man,' might have been spoken by one hopelessly gone in melancholia.

The evil you attempted to do us, failed, or partly failed,' said Gerard. He might have gone on to say more; but Garling broke in with a murmur: 'Failed? Yes, yes. It failed.' Then they both sat silent for a time, until Garling looked up with a bewildered air. Help me, he said; I want to think of something. Whom did I meet? Have I met anybody to-day?' "Your daughter?" asked Gerard.

'Yes,' he said, brightening instantly, but sinking

back again. By-and-by he said, in the old dry reticent way which the listener could remember from his boyhood: 'It is a curious thing for me to ask a favour of any man belonging to your house. Will you do me one?'

'If I can,' said Gerard. 'Yes.'

'There is some remnant of my own money left me, and I wish my daughter to inherit it. I have not command of myself at all times, and my mind is shattered. It is going. What did I want to say?'

'Listen to me,' said Gerard, as he drooped again. You wish to make a will in your daughter's favour?'

'Yes, yes.'

'Entirely and without reserve?'-He nodded 'Yes' again, with brightening eyes.And you wish me to have it prepared and bring it to you to sign?'

'Yes,' he said, once more collected; and to make immediate provision for the transfer of my last penny to an English bank.' He arose and produced papers, and gave instructions drily and clearly, without even a verbal stumble. If you bring a lawyer with you,' he said then, 'see me before you bring him, and let him meet me at my best.

Gerard promised this also; and Garling again began to maunder in his speech; and after a time the young fellow left him, bound by his undertaking, but not sure that the broken swindler would ever again be in a mental condition to make any business transaction valid. He did perhaps the wisest thing he could do, and consulted the British consul, to whom he told the whole story. The consul himself drafted Garling's last testament, and he and Gerard witnessed the document when it was signed. When called upon for his signature, Garling was in the full possession of his powers. The man's tremendous will was equal to the strain he made upon it; but it never answered to another call; and in a week his stubborn wasted heart beat its last, and the ghosts his wicked life had gathered round

him haunted him no more.

to be safe, put your head into a hole that has
been made by a cannon-ball, as the chances are
that a second shot will not strike the same
spot.' The case of this man, however, was a
curious contradiction to this saying. About an
hour after I had dressed his wound, I missed
him; and as I was making inquiries about him,
he presented himself, wounded a second time,
and strange to say, in the very same spot, the
bullet having ripped up the bandage and the
dressing, and considerably enlarged the first
wound.
It appeared that after the first wound
had been dressed, feeling that he had the use
of his arms and legs, he slipped quietly away
while my back was turned, rejoined his com-
pany in the fight, and was wounded almost
immediately in the very same spot.

A third private was struck by a bullet on the outer edge of the left orbit. The bone was broken, and there was only a small wound, about a quarter of an inch long, on the skin, think it possible that a bullet could have entered extending downwards-so small, that I did not it. The wound healed; and for eight years afterwards the man did his duty. About the end of the eighth year, however, an abscess formed at the spot where he had been wounded; and on opening it, I observed a small dark body appearing just above the edge of the orbit. At first I thought it was a piece of dead bone; but on removing it, found it to be the half of a bullet. It had been lying within the orbital space under the eyeball for eight years. When he was wounded, the bullet must have been split on the edge of the bone, one half flying off, and the other half lodging within the orbit. He lost the sight of the eye from the moment that he was wounded, though there was no apparent injury to the organ; but strange to say, the half-bullet lying under the eyeball never gave him the least inconvenience; and he was as much astonished as I was when I removed

CURIOUS CASES OF GUNSHOT WOUNDS. and handed it to him.

BY A RETIRED ARMY SURGEON.

HAVING read the article on 'Curious Facts relating to Gunshot Wounds,' in No. 931 of your Journal, I send you a few facts relating to wounds of the above nature, which came under my own observation while I was surgeon of a regiment.

of

At the relief of the Residency of Lucknow, during the Indian Mutiny in 1857, the following cases were brought to me. A private my own regiment who had remarkably prominent eyes and a very flat nose, had both eyes cut open by a bullet which passed across them without injuring the nose. Another private was struck by a bullet on the outer edge of the right orbit. It broke the bone, and grooved the temple deeply. I dressed the wound, and applied a bandage to keep the dressing in its place, and desired the man to sit down while I attended to other cases. There is an old saying which was in use amongst sailors, namely, 'If you wish

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