presented to sight from the earth at different
times."

Never can I tell in detail to a confiding
public all that I read in the nightmare book.
A frightful storm arose, and Mr. Robinson
discoursed on the phenomena of storms in
the midst of a shipwreck. Franklin's hat
was blown from its moorings at his buttonhole,
in a tremendous hurricane, and lost
at sea. All hands were lost except the
entire family of Mr. Robinson, with Franklin
Bruce, and an old sailor; who were thrown
on a wild, tropical island, inhabited by
a strange race of savages, called the Ka
Lowns.

This people painted its face white, tattooed
over with large, angular spots of red, and
streaked itself with red about the mouth. It
wore loose parti-coloured linen garments,
and was constantly at war with the tribe of
the Ar Leekins in the mountains higher up,
chiefly upon the subject of intermarriage with
the Coo Lumbins, a race of half-naked
women, also dwelling in that same island of
Roottetootte. There were brilliant bowers,
birds of gay plumage, sea and land monsters
of hideous form inhabiting the island, upon
the shore of which our adventurers planted
themselves with only an old box to live in.
They had scarcely fixed their camp when
one of the natives rushed towards them,
mouthing, and uttering the cry, Erawearagain
howchadoo, with which they always
make their entrance into battle. Mr. Robinson
taught much to the children, and the
handiness of the young Franklin, who had
been engaged as a page by Mrs. Robinson,
won for him the good will of the household,
or rather boxhold, and the admiration of
Louisa.

But a cloud was upon that youth's soul,
which all the wonderful productions of the
island, daily explained to him so carefully,
and all the wild adventures in the bushes
could not melt away. A chance mention by
dear Mr. Robinson of the name of I.
Pilkins, in connection with an allusion to
his own former prosperity, and to the reverse
which, by enforcing on him a prudent
economy, had disqualified him from presenting,
on a certain memorable occasion, more
than fourpence to his deliverer, led to the
disclosure that I. Pilkins had been agent for
the sale of great estates in Boothia Felix,
owned by Mr. Robinson, and that the money
yielded by them, many hundreds of
thousands of pounds in bank-notes, forwarded
October the first, eighteen hundred and——,
had been robbed from the messenger, whose
mangled body was found in a well. And
Franklin having found and lost this treasure,
dared not mention it to the discovered owner.
He felt that he was a deceiver,—that he
carried about a secret that he ought to have
disclosed at once. But he dared not risk the
anger of the father of Louisa.

One day as he walked sadly in the woods
skirting the sea-shore, a bird's nest, singular
in form, attracted his attention. He climbed
the stem and saw, to his delight, the sailor's
hat which had been blown to land by the
same hurricane that drove them also upon
the island, which had been caught in the
trees, and in which a pair of parrots had since
made their nest. The hen parrot was
sitting on the eggs. The boy at once leapt
to the earth again and flew, not to Mr.
Robinson but to his young playmate, Louisa,
whom he made the sharer of his happiness.
He told her the whole story, which she told
again to her papa. Mr. Robinson was pleased
by the intelligence, especially pleased that
the birds had not been molested in their nest.
He walked to the spot next day with his
young friends, and pointed out to them the
impropriety of meddling with the hat, until
the parrot's eggs were hatched and the young
parrots fledged. In the course of a few
months these processes of nature were
complete, the hat was then taken down and found
to contain notes for one hundred thousand
pounds.

"Delightful are this parrot's notes," said
Mr. Robinson, moved for the first and last
time in his life to make an approach to a
small pleasantry. Then patting Franklin on.
the head, he said, "Good boy, it is my duty
surely to reward you hundred fold. You
gave for this hat sixpence, and although
usurious interest is commonly to be regarded
as unholy, I believe that I am justified in
returning to you your money with interest,
at the rate of one hundred per cent. Accept
this shilling."

Louisa was now heir to immense wealth,
and Franklin was but a poor page: but the
two children got lost in the wood one day,
and were seized by the Ar Leekins, a race of
people tattooed in bright colours and at war
with the Ka Lowus. These wild creatures
carried the little boy and girl into a cave of
diamonds, which was the palace, and the
property of their chief, who, seeing that
Franklin had a corn on each of his little
toes, knew him to be his son. This was
indeed Franklin's long lost papa, who had
been cast on the same island many years
before, was given up for dead in England, but
in Roottetoote had accepted the tattoo of the
Ar Leekins, and had by his agility become
their chief. He would not leave his new home
where he was married to a lovely wife from
among the Coo Lumbins, but he gave to his
son one hundred thousand sacks of diamonds,
which there is reason to suppose made
him, in due time, an eligible husband for
Louisa Jane, the eldest daughter of Blank
Robinson, Esquire.