Mr. Castlebrook was supposed, and with reason, at that period, to be a gentleman of good property. Since the death of my grandfather, Mr. De Trevor, he had come into possession, according to the terms of his marriage settlements, of my mother's inheritance, of which no portion was settled on herself or her children. Her father's vindictive harshness had given absolute power to her husband to dispose of the property (unfettered even by a jointure) as he thought proper.

She had so great a horror of appearing to profit by her misfortune, that she possibly at first rejoiced even in her dependence, till my birth, and the dislike my father evinced towards me, for not proving the son he had hoped for, caused her considerable regret that no settlement had been made in favour of the offspring she might bring into the world.

Except for this involuntary fault of being of the wrong sex, I could never guess why my father disliked me so intensely. I doubt now if he knew, himself, very definitely. It is certain he never even liked, much less loved, my mother. That gentle placid melancholy, which, under her circumstances, so naturally characterized her, offended and disgusted him. Once, I believe, in a flt of ungovernable rage, he taunted her with killing her baby-brother. She never told me this, but a chattering maid-servant did. He never, I heard, repeated the cruelty: his wife's agonies were so terrible, that, for many hours after, death seemed inevitable.

We occupied a large handsome house in one of the streets leading out of Piccadilly. We had plenty of servants, but as my father was out a great deal, we kept but a very frugal table. Mr. Castlebrook had never attempted to introduce his wife into society, neither do I think she desired it. His own acquaintance, I suspect, consisted chiefly of bachelor friends and their female companions. He spared no expense on his own pleasures, and became in a few years a complete man-about-town of that day. It was therefore highly expedient to be extremely economical at home, that my father might have an ample supply abroad. My mother never complained. We usually dined at a very unfashionable hour, off a very plain repast; indeed, occasionally, when the cook was probably out of temper, or busy about her own affairs, it was so very plain, that some might have called it stingy and insufficient, even for two such slender appetites as ours. However, we generally contented ourselves with what we

Subsequently I had reason to rejoice that I had never been pampered by luxury. I have mentioned the death of my mother's harsh and unmerciful parent. He died many years before her. Had he survived I should, I fancy, have been little the better for his affection and sympathy. My father and he had been on ill terms very soon after the marriage of the former. All that Mr. De Trevor could will away, he left to an ornithological museum. He had, after his domestic affliction, turned naturalist, and in seeking out Nature, had, as far as his domestic affections were concerned, contrived to lose sight of her altogether.

Up to the period of my mother's death, my education had been, it must be owned, rather of a desultory order. When my father was once solicited by her to provide me with a governess, she got for answer that the less women knew the better. That opinion was too universal in his day-then ladies possessing cultivated minds were only exceptions, and somewhat rare ones. Women at best were considered nonentities by the men of their time, and when any stepped out of the beaten routine of ignorance, she was subjected to the gravest suspicions, and was, indeed, apt to be regarded by the most charitable as somebody not entirely and wholly correct in her character.

My poor mother, thus frustrated, had no resource but to educate me herself, and, for her credit and my own, I must say that though the Misses Patter and Slapdash of that select finishing establishment situated at this present time in Mignonette-square, Belgravia, might have sneered at my proficiency, yet there are, to my own knowledge, many little girls of eleven years old, in that educational hotbed, who, I am convinced, know a great deal less than I did at that stage of my existence. My mother's own education had, in her seclusion, been sedulously pursued, and it was of a more solid kind than the knowledge usually attained by women of her social station. Doubtless the profligacy so glaring among the sex in the days when the Prince Regent flourished, was a great impediment to women being well educated or highly accomplished; for those who are taught that men value them solely for their personal charms are little apt to seek the cultivation of those pertaining to the mind. We are taunted, indeed, to this day, with the assertion that we resort to mental attractions only when our physical ones are on the wane. Nor even as the century advanced, did women progress much, either by their own efforts or by the assistance of the opposite sex. Those of the rising generation may have a good idea of the purposeless, vapid, unreflecting, know-nothing class of beings, women (even the good kind) were in the first quarter of this century, by perusing the fictions of one who, in his day, was held to be the finest improvisatore, the keenest wit, and the most brilliant writer of his time-gifts which he used, to make himself eagerly secured at

It is not a very common thing to fall in with the works of a man who has devoted eleven whole years of his life to searching out and recording the facts of natural history belonging to one separate tract of country, and that tract one that contains within its limits such glorious varieties of animal and vegetable life as does the portion of South America through which that mighty river the Amazon takes its course. Our author (Mr. Bates) has done this, and the record that he gives us of his researches, in his book entitled "The Naturalist on the river Amazons," is so full of splendid description of scenery, and its enlivenments, in the form of gorgeous birds and butterflies and flowers, of queer monsters in the shapes of spiders and beetles, and of other interesting accompaniments of tropical forests and river life and adventure, that, as the book may not fall into the hands of every reader, I have thought a little resumé of its contents could not fail to interest and amuse those who delight in hearing of the wondrous and beautiful works wherewith the great Creator has diversified and adorned this magnificent world in which we live.

And first a few words concerning the river itself, for it is one of the wonders of the world. Rising in the Cordilleras of the Andes it runs northward for some hundred or more miles, and then, taking an eastward course, flows on right across the continent of South America, emptying itself, by numerous mouths, into the North Atlantic Ocean. On its way it gathers up the waters of an immense number of tributary streams, and drains a greater extent of surface than any other river in the world. It runs a course of 3,550 miles between its rise and debouchure, and disgorges a far larger volume of water than even the Mississippi. For 2,000 miles of its way, in a direct line from the ocean, there is depth of water for any description of vessel. Many of its tributaries exceed the largest rivers of Europe, and some are equal to the Wolga. The Madeira is the longest, and this, before it joins the Amazon, adds to its waters the contents of eight large rivers. The Rio Negro and the Tocantins are also immense rivers, each itself the recipient of many important streams. The combined mouths of the Amazon and Para rivers form, with their archipelago of islands, an immense river delta, enclosing a space equal in size to all the southern half of England and Wales. In the middle lies an island as large as Sicily. "The immense volumes of fresh water which are poured through these broad embouchures, the united contributions of innumerable streams fed by drenching tropical rains, prevent them from becoming salt-water estuaries." The fresh water that flows from them tinges the sea along the shores of Guiana to a

distance of nearly 200 miles from the mouth of

the river.

The greater part of the course of this vast river is through tracts of almost impenetrable forests. In speaking of one of the narrow channels of from 30 to 50 miles in length, which in some cases connect the Amazon with other rivers, or diverging from it, after a time again rejoin it, Mr. Bates says: "We found ourselves in a narrow and nearly straight canal, not more than 80 to 100 yards in width, and hemmed in by two rows of forest, which rose quite perpendicularly from the water to a height of 70 or 80 feet. The water was of great and uniform depth, even close to the banks. We seemed to be in a deep gorge, and the strange impression the place produced was augmented by the dull echoes produced by the voices of our Indians and the splash of their paddles. The forest was excessively varied. Some of the trees, the dome-topped giants of the leguminous and bombaceous orders, reared their heads far above the average height of the green walls. The fan-leaved Mirviti palm was scattered in some numbers amidst the rest, a few solitary columns shooting up, their smooth shafts above the other trees. The graceful Assai Palm grew in little groups, forming feathery pictures set in the rounder foliage of the mass. The Ubassú, lower in height, showed only its shuttle cock-shaped crowns of huge undivided fronds, which, being of a vivid pale green, contrasted forcibly against the sombre hues of the surrounding foliage. The Ubassú grew here in great numbers; the equally remarkable Jupati palm (Raphia tædigena), which, like Ubassú, is peculiar to this district, occurred more sparsely, throwing its long shaggy leaves, 40 to 50 feet in length, in broad arches over the canal. An infinite variety of smaller-sized palms decorated the water's edge, such as the Maraja-i'-the Ubim, and a few stately Bacabas; the shape of this last is exceedingly elegant, the size of the crown being in proper proportion to the straight smooth stem; the leaves, down even to the bases of the glossy petioles, are of a rich dark-green colour, and free from spines

the

The forest wall [I am extracting from my journal], under which we are now moving, consists, beides palms, of a great variety of ordinary forest trees. From the highest branches of these, down to the water, sweep ribbons of climbing plants, of the most diverse and ornamental foliage possible. Creeping convolvoli and others have made use of the slender lianas and hanging air roots as ladders to climb by. Now and then appears a mimosa, or other tree, having similar fine pinnate foliage; and thick masses of Inga border the water, from whose branches hang long bean-pods of different size and shape ac. cording to the species, some of them a yard in

length. Flowers there are very few. I see now and then a gorgeous crimson blossom, on long spikes, ornamenting the sombre foliage, towards the summit of the forest; I suppose it to belong to a climber of the combretaceous order. There are also a few yellow and violet trumpetfowers (Bignonia), The blossom of the Jugás, though too conspicuous, are delicately beautiful. The forest all along presents so dense a front that one can never obtain a glimpse into the interior of the wilderness."

In a later part of his book Mr. Bates gives a curious and beautiful account of a "waterpath," which shows us somewhat of the extent and beauty of these primeval forests. He speaks of the district around Ega, on the river Tefté: "The whole of the country for hundreds of miles is covered with picturesque but pathless forests, and there are only two roads round which excursions can be made by land from Ega"-one he describes is "a narrow hunter's path," the other "a beach path, practicable only in the dry seasons, when a flat strip of white sandy beach is exposed at the foot of the high wooded banks of the lake, covered with trees, which, as there is no underwood, form a shady grove." The trees, many of them myrtles and wild guavas, with smooth yellow stems, were then in flower, and the rippling water of the lake under the cool shade everywhere bordered the path." Then he describes kingfishers, green and blue tree-creepers, purplebreasted tanagers and humming-birds flitting about among the trees, and beautiful cicadaes, with wings adorned with patches of bright green and scarlet, clinging, three or four in a tree, to the branches, and emitting their reedy, musical notes, and the numbers and variety of gaily-tinted butterflies sporting about in this grove on sunny days was so great that the bright moving flashes of colour gave quite a character to the physiognomy of the place. It was impossible to walk far without disturbing flocks of them from the damp sand at the edge of the water, where they congregate to imbibe the moisture. They were of all colours, sizes, and shapes. I noticed here altogether 80 species, belonging to 22 different genera." "The most abundant, next to the very common sulphur-yellow and orange-coloured kinds were about a dozen species of Cybdelis, which are of a large kind, and are conspicuous from their liveries of glossy dark blue and purple. A superly adorned creature, the Callithea Markii, having wings of a thick texture, coloured sapphire, blue, and orange, was only an occasional visitor. On certain days, when the weather was very calm, two small gildedgreen species literally swarmed on the sands, their glittering wings lying wide open on the flat surface.

But I have allowed the description of all these gorgeous living jewels to draw me aside from the account of the water-path.' There is a creek, almost a quarter of a mile broad, near the town, which a few miles off narrows into a mere rivulet, that runs through a broad dell in the forest, which,

The

when the rivers rise, is full of water. trunks of the lofty trees then stand many feet deep in the waters, and small canoes are able to travel the distance of a day's journey under the shade, regular paths or alleys being cut through the branches and lower trees. Our party set out at sunrise, and soon came to a part where the way seemed to be stopped by an impenetrable hedge of trees and bushes. They were long in finding entrance, but at length succeeded. A narrow and tolerably straight alley stretched away for a long distance before us; on each side were the tops of bushes and young trees, forming a kind of border to the path, and the trunks of the tall forest-trees rose at irregular intervals from the water, their crowns interlocking far over our heads, and forming a thick shade. Slender air-roots hung down in clusters, and looping sipós dangled from the lower branches; bunches of grass, tillandsiæ, and ferns sat in the forks of the larger boughs, and the trunks of trees near the water had adhering to them round dried masses of fresh-water sponges. There was no current perceptable, and the water was stained with a dark olivebrown hue, but the submerged stems could be seen by it to a great depth." Along this wondrous path they travelled for hours, occasionly startled by the fish "whipping the surface of the water," until the stillness and gloom became quite painful. The wooded valley, about half a mile in width, at the commencement narrowed, as did the water-path, as they drew near to the head of the rivulet, and the forest then became denser, and the water-path more widening on account of the thickness of the forest. The boughs, some of which were but little above their heads, were loaded with epiphytes. "One orchid I noticed particularly, on account of its bright yellow flowers growing at the end of flower stems several feet long. Some of the trunks, espe cially those of palms, close beneath their crowns were clothed with a thick mass of glossy shieldshaped pothos plants mingled with ferns." For some distance the vegetation was so dense that the road ran under an arcade of foliage. "These thickets are formed chiefly of bamboo, whose slender foliage and curving stems dispose themselves in elegant feathery bowers; but other social plants-slender green climbers, with tendrils so eager in aspiring to grasp the highest boughs that they seem to be endowed almost with animal energy, and certain low trees having large elegantly veined leaves-contribute also to the jungly masses."

Amongst the wonders of the forest, probably few would excite greater surprise, perhaps dismay, than the noises which perplex the ear. Mr. Bates remarks that in this water-path there was "no noise;" but in another solitary spot on Japajos, "I heard for the first, and almost the only time, the uproar of life at sunset, which Humboldt describes as having witnessed towards the source of the Orinoco, but which is unknown on the banks of the larger rivers. The noises of animals began just as the sun sank be

bind the trees, after a sweltering afternoon, leaving the sky above of the intensest shade of blue. Two flocks of howling monkeys, one close to our canoe, the others about a furlong distant, filled the echoing forests with their dismal roaring. Troops of parrots, including the Hyacinthine Macaw,' we were in search of, began then to pass over; the different styles of cawing and screaming of the various species making a terrible discord. Added to these noises were the songs of strange cicadas: one large kind, perched on the trees around our little house, set up a most piercing chirp; it began with the usual harsh jarring tone of its tribe, but this gradually and rapidly became shriller, until it ended in a long and broad note resembling the steam whistle of a locomotive engine. Half-adozen of these wonderful performers made a considerable item in the evening's concert. The uproar of birds and beasts and insects lasted but a short time: the sky quickly lost its intense hue, and the night set in. Then began the treefrogs quack-quack, drum-drum, hoo-hoo; these, accompanied by a melancholy night-jar, kept up their monotonous cries until very late." Of course, in these wilds snakes are abundant. On one occasion, when entomologizing alone and unarmed in a place where the trees were rather wide apart and the ground covered, to a depth of eight or ten inches, with dry leaves, Mr. Bates encountered a boa-constrictor. He was startled by a rushing noise near, and looked up to the trees thinking a squall was coming on; but not a breath stirred in them. On stepping out of the bushes, he met, face to face, a huge serpent coming down a slope, and making the dry twigs crack and fly with his weight as he moved over them. He stood his ground, and the animal on seeing him suddenly turned, and, with accelerated speed, glided down the path. "There was very little of the serpentine movement in his course. The rapidly-moving and shining body looked like a stream of brown liquid flow ing over the thick bed of fallen leaves, rather than like a serpent with skin of varied colour." He tells us also of an anaconda, the great waterserpent, which carne on them at midnight, as their canoe lay by, in the river. He was awakened by a heavy blow struck on the side of the canoe, close at his head; but on looking up found all quiet except the cackle of fowls in the hen-coop. In the morning he found the poultry loose about the canoe, and a large rent in the bottom of the coop, which was about two feet from the surface of the water, and two fowls were missing. The men said it was a serpent that had for months been haunting that part of the water, and had carried off many ducks and fowls. They started in pursuit of him, and at last found him sunning himself on a log, at the mouth of a muddy rivulet, and despatched him with harpoons. It was not a large specimen, measuring only eighteen feet in length, twenty-one feet not being an unusual length for gentry of this kind. They will seize poultry, calves, or whatever animals they can get hold of, and Mr. Bates speaks of one which

was near devouring a boy of about ten years old belonging to one of his neighbours. The father and son had gone up the river together to get wild fruit, and the man landed on a sloping sandy shore, leaving the lad in charge of the boat. The beaches of the Tefté (the river on which they were) form groves of wild guava and myrtle trees, and are, during most months of the year, partly under water. Whilst the boy was playing about, under the shade of these trees, an anaconda stealthily wound its coils around him, unperceived until it was too late to escape. His cries, however, soon brought the father to his rescue, who rushed forward and, seizing the snake boldly by the head, tore his jaws asunder. This serpent grows to enormous bulk and great age; specimens have been killed measuring forty-two feet in length.

Amongst the accounts of strange and most beautiful insects with which this book abounds, the following, of a sort found near Santarem, interested me: "Whilst resting in the shade during the great heat of the early hours of afternoon, I used to find amusement in watching the proceedings of the sand-wasps. A small pale green kind of Bombax (Bombax ciliata) was plentiful near the Bay of Massiri. When they are at work, a number of little jets of sand are seen shooting over the surface of the sloping bank. The little miners excavate with their fore feet, which are strongly built, and furnished with a fringe of stiff bristles. They work with wonderful rapidity, and the sand thrown out beneath their bodies issues in continuous streams. They are solitary wasps, each female working on her own account. After making a gallery, two or three inches in length, in a slanting direction from the surface, the owner backs out, and takes a few turns round the orifice, apparently to see if it is well made, but in reality, I believe, to take notes of the locality that she may find it again; this done the busy workwoman flies away; but returns, after an absence varying in different cases from a few minutes to an hour or more, with a fly in her grasp, with which she re-enters her mine. On again emerging, this entrance is carefully closed with sand. During this interval she has laid an egg on the body of the fly, which she had previously benumbed with her sting, and which is to serve as food for the soft footless grub soon to be hatched from the egg." For each egg that she lays the little wasp makes a separate mine-at least so it appears; for in the galleries which our author opened, one fly only was found in each. Of another allied species, Monedula signata, which he observed on the Upper Amazon, Mr. Bates says that it excavates its mine on sand-banks recently laid bare in the middle of the rivers, and closes the orifice before going to seek its prey. In these cases the insect has to take quite a journeyperhaps half a mile or more--before it can find it, as it uses one especial kind of fly, called by the natives, "Motúca." This fly is a great pest, and the wasp does good service to travellers by destroying it, which it does in the most fearless