the corners or on the steps of the bar-rooms.
The Sabbath is observed so strictly that a
dead horse was allowed to lie the whole of one
Sunday until late in the morning of the next
day, in the middle of Broadway, before it was
removed. But a sight infinitely more revolting
was that of a human body, left hanging the
whole day from a rope, fastened to a post at the
edge of one of the quays, with only the head
out of water. Do they save people here who
happen to be drowned on Sunday? Perhaps
such is not the custom! However that may be,
some children were fishing around the miserable
corpse, and were laughing at the livid face:
which some of them made a mark to aim pebbles
at. When the stone rebounded from the
bare skull there were bursts of laughter. I
turned away indignant: little attracted, I must
confess, by this specimen of American manners.
Two steps from these heartless little fishermen
and close by the battery, I met with
another scene which grieved me still more: it was
a group of poor German labourers newly landed,
who had established here their miserable
encampment. In the midst of certain scattered
trunks and implements, which were the hope of
the family, some of the women were preparing
food with their half-naked babies at their breast,
while others were washing linen, which they
hung out on poles to dry. These emigrants,
having been attracted by the hope of large
grants and riches which they fancied awaiting
them in America, were beginning here their hard
apprenticeship to American Reality. The
speculators who had decoyed them were seeking
money of them; but, as they had nothing save
their labour to offer, they walked off shrugging
their shoulders. And here these poor
fellows, with the true resignation of peasants,
intended to remain until fortune should favour
them."

HEATH AND MOUNTAIN.
ERE yet the golden sheaves were piled,
We went, a solitary pair,
My friend and I, across the heaths,
To wander on the mountains bare,
The misty mountains broad and wild.

We wandered where the streamlet twines
Its silver, round the mountain's base,
Toiling through all that golden day,
Till on a rocky resting-place
We paused above the giant pines.

We clambered up the misty Ben,
Half cloud, half sunshine, there, tlie while;
We skimmed the silver-sheeted loch,
We rambled round the sleeping isle,
Or loitered in a twilight glen.

Deep was our rapture where we stept,
And one grey lonely ruin found,
Till in each broken arch we stirred
The slumbering ivy into sound,
Disturbed the halls where ages slept.

We read our Ossian in the fern,
Amid the mountain scenes he sung,
We revelled in his mists of gold,
Till grander seemed his mountain tongue
In that wild landscape bleak and stern.

We saw the little fishing town,
A dingy crescent round the bay,
The scaly prizes drifted in,
The morning breaking cold and grey
O'er ragged headlands bare and brown.

The bleating of the mountain flocks
That roam beyond a shepherd's care:
The wandering wild-fowls' lonely shriek,
Like murmurs of the dreaming air;
The seals half-sunned upon the rocks;

All haunt me yet. Were I to live
Untravelled till my latest hour,
These memories of the past would raise
A deathless charm, a quenchless power,
A sense of wild relief to give.

RUSSIAN TRAVEL.

THE TRAGEDY OT THE WHITE VILLAGE.

NOT until 1863, when the act takes complete
effect, shall we know the results of the emancipation
of thirty millions of serfs. While among
the peasants, journeying from one part to
another, about the time of the first edict on
the subject, I tried to ascertain what value the
peasants themselves set on the promised boon;
but I could not find my way far into the mass
of their ignorance and apathy.

One day I had the following conversation with
a serf, who brought me a message:

"Your name is Evan Vasiliovitch; to whom
do you belong?"

"I am the serf of Karmoritch."

"How many are you?"

"Two thousand souls are we."

"You will all soon be free."

He looked at me from the comers of his eyes,
and drawled out:

"Yes. If God and our Father wills."

"It will be better for you Evan; will it
not?"

"God knows, baron; how should I know?"

"How much obrok do you pay?"

"Thirty roubles a year."

"Do you pay it in work, or in money?"

"I work four days a week in the sugar fabric,
to pay the obrok, passport, and taxes."

"How much are the passport and taxes?"

"About three roubles and a half, besides other
things."

"That is thirty-three roubles and a half you
have to pay, and for this you work four days
every week in the sugar-mill?"

"It is so, baron, and hard work it is."

"When you get your freedom you will not
require to pay obrok, or to work for it. Your
time will be your own, to cultivate your ground.
Will that not be better for you?"

"God give it. I don't know. But I am
tired of working."

"How much land have you?"

"Three and a half deciatines" (ten acres).

"Well, that is plenty to keep your family on.
If you spend all your time on it and pay no obrok,
is it not plenty?"

"I don't know, baron, but I am tired of
working in the fabric."

"Now, tell me, Evan, what do you intend to