in mystery. The heat there, is so great,
that by day no mortal can endure it.
During those hours the merchants hide
themselves beneath sheltering rocks; when
the moon rises and they come forth from the
crevices, the whole plain lies before them
white with salt, glistening like silver in the
pale moonbeams. They fill their sacks, but
not without danger; for, says tradition, in
the fissures and cavities of the rocks lurk
demons, who entice travellers to their destruction,
calling them by name, and feigning to
be old acquaintances. The sacred thirst for
gold urges them on; and trembling, they
traverse the plain, guided by pillars of salt,
spectral sign-posts, standing like tall white
ghosts, left mourning in the Wilderness, like
the wife of Lot. Saltsprings such as we have
at Droitwich and Nantwich afford capital
table–salt. Those of Sicily are celebrated;
their origin is stated thus:—In eleven
hundred and sixty-nine an earthquake rent the
ground destroying fifteen thousand
commoners and a bishop. Towns and castles
were shaken to pieces; and, at Syracuse, a
fountain lost its sweetness, and became salt.
It would appear that the bishop was translated
to another sea, and, let us hope that he
was benefited by translation.

This salt, so widely spread over earth and
sea, pervades also the whole animal and
vegetable creation; "and indeed," says the
illustrious Zohar, "since the Great God makes
nothing in vain, surely salt must serve some
great use." But, if sages and physicians have
glorified it as a panacea, a modern knight-
errant has assailed it as a poison. Having
heard the blast of their wide-mouthed
trumpets, we may be diverted by the squeak of
his shrill whistle. Salt, according to the late
Dr. Howard, is the source of all our misery
and all our woes. The salt-box is that vase of
Pandora, from which sprang the cohorts of
sin and disease. When man was placed in
Paradise, it was ordained, say the anti-salt
philosophers, that he should feed on earth; yet
only through the medium of the vegetable creation.
It was the primal sin of Adam that he ate
raw salt, passing over the plant through whose
intermediation the earth converts its own
substance into a state fitted for the nourishment
of animated beings. Salt was the
forbidden fruit: it cost man the loss of Paradise:
since then it has been his earthly curse. "The
operation of this crude mineral substance,
which has not been softened and rendered
mild by passing through the vegetable state,
is most certainly fatal to the combustion of
the vital flame." A fertile source of disease,
it is said, by these authorities, to be
denounced in hidden terms in the Bible.
The eating swine-flesh and abomination so
emphatically forbidden in Isaiah, is swine–flesh
and salt. It was against pickled pork that
the prophet directed his denunciation; and
this interpretation of the learned doctors,
proclaims to the whole nation of Hebrews that
they may eat freely of pork—roasted, boiled,
or fried—so that they abstain from bacon and
ham.

No absurdity is so monstrous, but that
some throats have capacity to swallow it.
Even Dr. Howard had his followers. How
Pliny, and Plato, and Blaise de Vigeuères,
would have held up hands of horror and
affright at this unholy heresy! The whole
experience of ages, and collective wisdom of
nations stand opposed to the mad denunciation.
So far is salt from being useless, that
man and animals have from the earliest times
sought it with incredible pains and devoured
it with marvellous avidity. Its use has been
held to be a privilege essential to pleasure and
to health: its deprivation a punishment
productive of pain and disease. Its uses in the
economy are manifold and important. Without
it there would be no assimilation of food,
no formation of gastric juice. Nutrition
would cease: life would languish, and utterly
waste. Salt, moreover, would appear to ward
off low forms of fever. It deals death to
parasite growth. So far is it from being unholy,
that, since the birth of revealed religion, its
history has been bound up with the history
of ceremonial rites, and as Elisha healed with
it the waters of Jericho, so it found a place
in the modern rite of baptism. Sole, saith
the proverb, et sale nihil sanctius et utilius:
Nothing is more holy, or more useful than the
sun and salt.

BILLETED IN BOULOGNE.

One clear brisk autumn day, Nurse, petty
tyrant of my host's little establishment at
Boulogne, entered the dining room, exclaiming:

"There are no less than four dirty French
soldiers, sir, in the court below. They say
they have billets on this house."

"This is serious," our host cried. " I must
go and see what I can do with them."

We followed, and there certainly stood
four travel-stained invaders, soldiers of the
line, with slaty bluish-grey overcoats and
loose red trousers thrust into their white
gaiters, with hairy knapsacks and guns.
They seemed to be very tired, poor fellows,
and, notwithstanding their moustaches and
peaked beards, by no means formidable. The
youngest, bearing a corporal's stripes, was
already in conversation with our host. His
voice was soft, his accent refined, and the bow
with which he concluded his reply would not
have disgraced St. James's or any other lawful
region of Ko–too.

"Well," said the master of the house, "I
will take a few minutes to think of it—either
to receive you, or pay for your quarters at
an estaminet. Meanwhile come in.
Madeleine, some wine and refreshments for
Messieurs les militaires!"

The offer was accepted with many courteously
expressed acknowledgments, and to the