fingers began to work in a nervous or
abstracted way among the loose earth that had
been thrown up. It was thick with gold, and
an excitement quickly spread among the
kneeling crowd. The preacher's eye was
caught, and he stopped suddenly in his
prayer to exclaim, " Boys, what's that?
Gold, and the richest kind of diggings. The
congregation is dismissed! " The poor miner
was taken from the precious soil and put
aside for burial elsewhere, while the funeral
party, with the parson at its head, lost no
time in " prospecting " the new digging.

In Mr. Marryat's book we find bits of
advice to emigrants which we think worth
repeating. Some of them we have already
given incidentally, but we add a few others
in a plainer form. Mr. Marryat would have
every one go out with his mind made up as
to what he means to do, not with the vague
notion of trying his luck, in some unknown
fashion. He advises that each emigrant
should prefer, as far as possible, to do that
work in the colony for which he has been
trained at home; and, if he amasses money at
first in the diggings, that he should be
prudent in time, and use it as the means of
setting himself up among the new community
in steady trade. He dwells on the importance
of a trifle of capital, that may be consumed
during the days of quiet observation and
deliberation with which an emigrant's life, in
the majority of cases, is best begun. He
recommends daily and complete ablution for the
preservation of health, the constant wearing
of flannel next the skin, in California, and in
other places with like climate; and he most
wisely advises against meddling with a medicine
chest. The emigrant's best medicine for
home use—good to swallow, good to use as a
salve; efficacious in a hundred cases, and
unlikely to be dangerous in one— is castor
oil. This, with a few trifles for the cure of
wounds, a stock of mustard, and some quinine
if it can be afforded, should be all the physic
with which an emigrant would venture to
undertake the tinkering of his own constitution.
When headache and sickness give
warning of fever, rest, says the wise adviser.
Do not, he adds, take pride in working till
an illness becomes serious. A day or two
of repose, and a dose or two of castor oil,
taken in proper time, will often save the
digger weeks of misery. When fever threatens,
resist the inclination to bathe in a stream.

The digger is advised to vex himself little
about outfit; but to be very careful as to
the good quality of his blankets and flannel
clothing, to select good thick socks and the best
highlow shoes that can be made for money.
A blanket with a hole cut in the middle for
the head to go through, is an invaluable
poncho wrapper for wet seasons. India
rubber clothing—except, perhaps, a water-
proof cap with a curtain to protect the neck—
is scarcely to be recommended. Whoever
intends to dig will find it worth while to
have one or two pickaxes and crowbars made
under his own supervision, since the adviser
tells us "it is money well spent to pay
something over market price for a pickaxe that
won't turn its nose up at you the instant you
drive it into the hillside."

Finally, everybody is advised—- not by Mr.
Marryat, but by us—to read the sensible
book we have cursorily described.

MY CONFESSION.

I HAD always been a passionate boy. They
said I was almost a fiend at times. At others
I was mild and loving. My father could
not manage me at home; so I was sent to
school. I was more flogged, both at home and
at school, than any one I ever knew or heard
of. It was incessant flogging. It was the
best way they knew of to educate and correct
me. I remember to this day how my father
and my master used to say, " they would flog
the devil out of me." This phrase was burnt
at last into my very being. I bore it always
consciously about with me. I heard it so often
that a dim kind of notion came into my mind
that I really was possessed by a devil, and
that they were right to try and scourge it
out of me. This was a very vague feeling
at first. After events made it more definite.

Time went on in the old way. I was for
ever doing wrong, and for ever under punishment
—terrible punishment that left my
body wounded, and hardened my heart into
stone. I have bitten my tongue till it was
black and swollen, that I might not say I
repented of what I had done. Repentance
then, was synonymous with cowardice and
shame. At last it grew into a savage pride
of endurance. I gloried in my sufferings,
for I knew that I came the conqueror out
of them. The masters might flog me till I
fainted; but they could not subdue me. My
constancy was greater than their tortures,
and my firmness superior to their will. Yes,
they were forced to acknowledge it—I
conquered them: the devil would not be scourged
out of me at their bidding; but remained
with me at mine.

When I look back to this time of my
boyhood, I seem to look over a wide expanse of
desert land swept through with fiery storms.
Passions of every kind convulsed my mind ,
unrest and mental turmoil, strife and tumult,
and suffering never ceasing;—this is the
picture of my youth whenever I turn it from the
dark wall of the past. But it is foolish to
recal this now. Even at my age, chastened
and sobered as I am, it makes my heart
bound with the old passionate throb again,
when I remember the torture and the fever
of my boyhood.

I had few school friends. The boys were
afraid of me, very naturally; and shrank from
any intimacy with one under such a potent ban
as I. I resented this, and fought my way
savagely against them. One only, Herbert