places in the universe is Frascati's—a poor
pinch-beck copy—where Amsterdam folk
may hold dismal al fresco jollity, after the
true Parisian pattern. This is more of the
wretched gallophobia before spoken of. They
must have their Salon des Variétés and
Vaudeville Theatre also—situated in other
slimes. I get free of the long lane eventually,
and am estopped at the bottom by the green
fluid again. Here is canal and drawbridge
all over again with the line of the Noah's
Ark vegetation; sickly canal-side growth,
drawing what nutriment it can from dry
red bricks and Dutch paving stones. Here,
too, I catch the flavor of that fine old joke
of Messire Desiderius Erasmus, when he
facetiously described his countrymen as
living on the tops of trees. For, the whole
canal was being ripped up and of the
consistence of a huge dirt-pie, and the air was
filled with the old frangipani—only this
time extrait double—exhaled from the mass
of slush, mire and black bog, in which a
gang of men paddled, busy at the work of
pile-driving. A curious proceeding, and
truly racy of the soil, or rather of the swamp.
Curious to see the huge lump of iron swung
up by, say twenty sturdy navvies standing
up to their middles in the great dirt-pie,
and all to a certain tune, chanted dismally
by an ancient fugleman in a red jerkin, so
that the strokes of the hammer fell in
rhythmically at the pauses of the song. It
was as though some one should entone:
Gregoriamy, sing yo mann yo (crash), sing
ja mann ja (crash): which ictus or beat
melodious seemed to help on their sludgy
work surprisingly.

Once on a time I was standing on the
boomtijes pier at Rotterdam, watching the inloading
of corn from a barge, and the men who were
working with great wooden shovels had just
such another lilt to lighten their labour. One
fellow at the head of the line of shovellers
gave the time, the rest taking one long and
strong pull all together when he ceased, and
recovering their spades with admirable
precision when he began to chant. Their song
might run: Sing jo mann jo (shovel), sing
ja mann ja (shovel). It is a miracle how
the pie ever attains consistence, even with
such aids. For, often does the long
Norwegian stat-tree, full forty feet in length,
slip down utterly in the gruelly compost at
the first stroke of the pile-driver, and is lost
altogether. Latterly there have come new
lights in this science of sludge; and wooden
arches, sunk in a peculiar fashion, have been
tried with tolerable success.

I leave that horrid slough and its miasma
far behind rne, and go on up another long
lane, and so it comes in a sort of round,—
slimes, frangipani, canals, drawbridges, blind
alleys, and slimes again. But, the two great
features for ever and aye shall be the
frangipani extract, and the great chimney-pot
eccentricities. This, friends, is Amsterdam,
and this you will find very much the
prospect in every little Dutch town, should you
travel down from the Metropolis Dan unto
the Rotterdam Beersheba.

THE LIGHTNING DOCTOR.

THERE was a time when thunder and lightning
were looked on as the most awful and
sacred manifestations of God, even by Christians;
and when there was a thunder-storm,
people knelt trembling down, and prayed
with their teeth chattering. But in
electricity we have a latent power which seems
to be the grandsire to a noble family.
Magnetism and galvanism are of it. Faradism is
its youngest born.

If I only observe myself and my neighbours
during a thunder-storm, when the air is
loaded with electricity, I become aware that
it is operating in some way or other on our
bodies. Indeed, the human body is what is
called a good conductor; and the whole
family of electrical sciences seems to have
more to do with us than we can yet clearly
understand. I do not think that this quality
of our body comes from our blood's containing
iron, although I have read that in the
blood of twenty-four men there is enough
iron to make a sword.

There are weaker and stronger magnets;
and with human bodies, in their relation to
electricity, there is like difference. Many
persons seem to be more loaded with, or more
sensible to, electricity than others. Although
the names of animal magnetism and
mesmerism are but of a new date, the general
idea expressed by them is as old as history.
We had magnetisers long before Mesmer;
and kings have pretended that they could,
by a touch, cure scrofula or croup.

Electricity in the simple form, as produced
by an electrifying machine, has been used for
healing purposes; but the young lightnings
are such lively sparks, that doctors have
despaired of keeping them in order.
Galvanic electricity has been more manageable.
For a long time it was not practised on living
bodies, because men did not know one of the
chief virtues of the electro-galvanic current,
namely, its decomposing power, which was
first discovered, I believe, by Mr. Jacobi of
Petersburg, the reinventor of galvanoplastic.
I say reinventor, because we have good
reason to believe that the art of extracting
solid metal from the solution of metallic
salts, and depositing it in any form by galvanic
electricity, was not unknown to the ancient
Egyptians, whose priests knew much of
natural science.

The electro-galvanic lightnings act upon
the nerves in some way; but their reckless
and wild nature is not yet to be trusted.
Sometimes these half-tamed lightnings play
mysterious tricks. I know a case in which
the galvanic current was applied against
palsy of the muscles of the face with a most