albeit she looks white and stern enough, and,
as it is said, repented of her love to this good
college, and left her wealth to others ere
she died. "I look towards you, madam,
Your health!" Indeed, the master's self
did put his lips to a huge golden goblet full
of port, and the rest all rose up after him with
solemn bow, one after one, three standing at
a time, and drank her memory: "In piam
memoriam fundatricis." Well for me I had
not first to quote the Latin, or surely I had
mauled the long penultimate! So, after that
the rosewater and graces, and then in
Milton's garden we wandered, and kept his
mulberry free enough from blight, I warrant
it, with good tobacco smoke.

Thus my last day at Alma Mater. Mayhap,
I shall not see her any more: but while
old friends find harbour in my heart, and
recollections of blythe days are dear, to her
in piam memoriam will I drink, and towards
her will I look with loving eyes.

                 RICE.

THOSE who have only seen rice as exposed
for sale in grocers' windows, or who have
tasted it in no other shape than as puddings,
may with truth be said to know nothing of
it as an article of food. In this country,
indeed, little is understood of the important
part this grain performs in employing and
feeding a large portion of the human family.
Cultivated in all four quarters of the globe,
but chiefly in America and Asia, it is no
exaggeration to say that it forms the food of
three-fourths of the human race: in other
words, of between six and seven hundred
millions of the population of the world.

It is not merely that the densely-packed
inhabitants of China, Siam, British India,
and the Eastern islands, employ this grain in
lieu of wheat. It stands them in place of all
the varied food of European countries: of
bread, vegetables, flesh, and fowl. The
rice-dealer is at once their baker, greengrocer
butcher, and poulterer. It is impossible to
enter the most remote village in the East
without seeing piles of rice stored in
half-open granaries, or heaped up for sale in
bazaars in such boundless profusion as to
bewilder a traveller from the west, who is apt
to wonder what will become of it all.
Three-fourths of the warehouses in town and
country the traveller may depend on being
rice stores: three-fourths of the lumbering
native craft that steal along the coast, and
quite that proportion of the lazy bullock-carts
that are to be met with toiling over
Indian roads, are certain to be laden with rice.

Of rapid growth, and easily adapting itself
to many varieties of soils, irrespective of culture,
rice appeal's to be the most suitable for
the countries in which it is found. The abundant
rains which periodically fall within and
about the tropics, are precisely what is needed
by this semi-aquatic plant. Sometimes, however,
the rainy season ceases before its time,
or fails altogether: in which case the crops
will assuredly perish, should there exist no
means of procuring a supply from elsewhere,
by aqueducts and dams, or bunds, as they are
termed. The construction of works of irrigation
has, from the earliest periods occupied the
attention of Indian monarchs, who spared
no efforts to keep their subjects well supplied
with water. It long formed a reproach to
the British government of India, that whilst
the Hindoo and Mahometan rulers of Hindostan
had been alike mindful to spend a
portion of the taxes on works of this kind,
they allowed the bunds and canals to fall
into neglect and ruin.

The want of those means of irrigation has
often been fatally felt in some districts of
India. A sudden and severe drought will
destroy the growing crops; and when, as is
unfortunately the case in some parts, there
are no roads by which to convey grain from
more fortunate districts, the consequences are
frightful. In this way we read that in the
year eighteen hundred and thirty-three, fifty
thousand persons perished in the month of
September, in Lucknow: at Kanpore twelve
hundred died of want: in Guntoor, two hundred
and fifty thousand human beings,
seventy-four thousand bullocks, a hundred
and sixty thousand cows, and an incredible
number of sheep and goats, died of starvation:
fifty thousand people perished from the same
cause in Marwa; and in the north-west provinces
half a million of lives are supposed to
have been lost. During that year a million
and a half of human beings are believed to
have perished from want of food.

In some parts of India the monsoon rains
fall heavily for a short period, and very
slightly at other times, yielding a greater
supply than is needed in the first instance,
and too little afterwards. To meet this irregularity,
and store up the too copious rains
of the early monsoon, bunds were built across
valleys to form artificial lakes, often of vast
extent, whence the adjacent country was irrigated
by means of water-courses carried frequently
for many miles along the flanks of
mountains, across gorges and valleys, and
through the most difficult country; operations,
which would have sorely puzzled our
best European engineers to have accomplished
without a great and ruinous outlay.

We have been long accustomed to regard
the magnificent ruins yet remaining in the
prostrate land of the mighty Pharaohs, with
feelings of mingled awe and admiration,
looking upon them as the crumbling types of
a bygone reign of architectural and engineering
greatness. Further eastward, still nearer
the rising of the sun, there are, however,
ruins quite as vast; monumental vestiges of
former greatness fully as astounding. The
remains of ancient works of irrigation in the
island of Ceylon alone, are sufficient to fling
into the shade the boasted labours of the old