toes, or Imply an arm, by the machine.  If we
enter a shed of one of the Society's shows,
where the engines are at play, and the different
machinery now introduced on farms is on the
whirl, the wonder is that accidents are not more
common.

ON FIRE!

THE recent terrible catastrophe in Santiago
recals vividly to my mind one of the most
extraordinary adventures of my chequered life.

Five-and-twenty years ago, I was captain of
the Northern Light, a large schooner trading
between Hull and St. Petersburg.  A long
acquaintance with the vicissitudes of the Russian
climate had made me somewhat reckless.  The
consequence was, that one 30th of October I
found my vessel tight locked in ice.  I had
stayed a week too long, in my eagerness to
take a full cargo of timber, and I was justly
punished for my temerity: a prisoner till the
middle or end of April, far away from my friends,
and doing what a livery-stable-keeper would call
"eating my own head off."

Being, however, of a sanguine temperament,
and having no wife at home to be
anxious about, I resolved to make the best of
it, and enjoy myself as well as I could.  I saw
all the sights of St. Petersburg, from Peter the
Great's wooden house down to the Mammoth.
I visited Moscow.  I went bear-hunting.  I
drove about in sledges.  I fell in love and fell
out again.  Nor did I neglect business.  I
frequently attended the Exchange, and made
myself known to the chief tallow, hemp, and
timber merchants.  I studied Russian
commerce.  I arranged for cargoes for two years
to come.  The Anglo-Russians are very
hospitable, and, thanks to the kindness of Mr.
Anderson, the English banker, my hotel
expenses were very small.  My fur coats were my
chief expense; they cost me a large sum then;
but I reckoned that they would last me my life,
and so they have—at least, I wear them to this
day.

Nevertheless, I pined for the hour of liberty.
An idle life did not suit a man of my temperament
—one who had been at sea ever since he
was twelve years old.  Like all sailors, I was
always grumbling against the sea, and yet I
was never happy away from it.  At last the
order of my release came.  The ice on the
Neva, opposite the Custom-house especially,
began to melt into thin bars an inch or so wide.
It became dangerous to venture on it, except
where it was piled with snow.  The ice-slabs
on the quay began to break, when I pushed
them with my stick, into glassy fragments.
Here and there some spaces began to open,
and dirty brown snow water pooled on the
surface.  There had been several warm days, but
now rain and wind came, and they soon melted
the walls of my crystal prison.  Sledges still
ventured on the Neva, though the water rose up
to the horses' knees.

One morning, when I looked out of my
window on the ground floor at Miss Benson's,
on the English quay, the water had all gone
from the surface of the ice; that was the well-
known sign that the ice had become too porous
and spongy to hold water, and in a few hours
would break away from the banks and begin to
float seaward.

I had just sat down to breakfast, when a
thunder-peal of cannon broke from the fortress.

"What is that, Miss Benson?"  I said to our
hostess at the head of the table.

"That," she replied,  "is the signal that the
commander of the citadel, with his officers, is
crossing the river, to present the Emperor at
the Winter Palace with a goblet of Neva water
in token of the return of spring.  The
Emperor will give him the cup back filled with
ducats."

"Hurrah!"  I cried:  "then hey for old
England!"

It took me some days to get the ship off, for
it was tedious going backwards and forwards to
Cronstadt.  It was the Butter week time: that
seven days' feast which precedes Lent, and is
followed by the rejoicing of Easter.  In the
intervals of business, as I went to and fro to my
agent's, I amused myself with observing the
revelry of this great Russian festival.

There were thousands of peasants devouring
blinni (pancakes), and caviare, honey-cakes, and
nuts.  There were swings, see-saws, and round-
abouts.  The great square of the Admiralty was
the chief scene of the amusements.  Close to the
Winter Palace, the War-office, and the Senate-
House, there were scores of temporary theatres,
and long lines of ice mountains, down which
the sledges kept rushing incessantly, amid the
shouts and laughter of the good-natured but
wild-looking peasants.  At the doors of the
theatres stood the tea-sellers, with huge brazen
samovars smoking in the centre of their tables,
and surrounded by countless teapots. The shop-
keepers themselves, in fur caps and gloves, stood
by their stalls, stamping, and clapping their
hands, and shouting:  "Gentlemen, will you
please to take a glass of warm tea, with lemon
or cream?  How will you take the sugar?"  (for
a true Russian keeps his sugar in his mouth,
and does not put it into his teacup). The
Admiralty square was strewn with nut-shells; here
and there a drunken bear of a peasant, a mere
reeling bundle of greasy sheepskin, jostled
against me, and then, with the simple-hearted
politeness of his race, took off his hat and
hiccuped out:  "Pardon me, my little father, but
remember it is Butter week."

One day I sallied out into the great square
about noon to see the grandees of the capital
drive through the fair, and I never saw such a
sight.  The line was guarded by mounted
gendarmes, dressed like lancers, and wearing light
blue uniforms with brown epaulettes.  There were
Chinese, Turks, Tartars, Germans, Englishmen,
Russian princes, priests, soldiers, bearded
merchants and their portly wives, Circassian officers,
colonels of the body-guard in their eagle-crowned