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A Damsel in Distress (Saturday Evening Post serial)/Part 6

HE gift of hiding private emotion and keeping up appearances before strangers is not, as many suppose, entirely a product of our modern civilization. Centuries before we were born or thought of there was a widely press-agented boy in Sparta, who even went so far as to let a fox gnaw his tender young stomach without permitting the discomfort inseparable from such a proceeding to interfere with either his facial expression or his flow of small talk. Historians have handed it down that, even in the later stages of the meal, the polite lad continued to be the life and soul of the party. But though this feat may be said to have established a record never subsequently lowered there is no doubt that almost every day in modern times men and women are performing similar and scarcely less impressive miracles of self-restraint. Of all the qualities which belong exclusively to man and are not shared by the lower animals, this surely is the one which marks him off most sharply from the beasts of the field.

Animals care nothing about keeping up appearances. Observe Bertram the Bull when things are not going just as he could wish. He stamps. He snorts. He paws the ground, He throws back his head and bellows. He is upset, and he doesn't care who knows it. Instances could be readily multiplied. Deposit a charge of shot in some outlying section of Thomas the Tiger, and note the effect. Irritate Wilfred the Wasp, or stand behind Maud the Mule and prod her with a pin. There is not an animal on the list who has even a rudimentary sense of the social amenities; and it is this more than anything else which should make us proud that we are human beings on a loftier plane of development.

In the days which followed Lord Marshmoreton's visit to George at the cottage, not a few of the occupants of Belpher Castle had their mettle sternly tested in this respect; and it is a pleasure to be able to record that not one of them failed to come through the ordeal with success. The general public, as represented by the uncles, cousins and aunts who had descended on the place to help Lord Belpher celebrate his coming of age, had not a notion that turmoil lurked behind the smooth fronts of at least a half dozen of those whom they met in the course of the daily round.

Lord Belpher, for example, though he limped rather painfully, showed nothing of the baffled fury which was reducing his weight at the rate of ounces a day. His uncle Francis, the bishop, when he tackled him in the garden on the subject of intemperance—for Uncle Francis, like thousands of others, had taken it for granted, on reading the report of the encounter with the policeman and Percy's subsequent arrest, that the affair had been the result of a drunken outburst—had no inkling of the volcanic emotions that seethed in his nephew's bosom. He came away from the interview, indeed, feeling that the boy had listened attentively and with a becoming regret, and that there was hope for him after all, provided that he fought the impulse. He little knew that, but for the conventions, which frown on the practice of murdering bishops, Percy would gladly have strangled him with his bare hands and jumped upon the remains.

Lord Belpher's case, inasmuch as he took himself extremely seriously and was not one of those who can extract humor even from their own misfortunes, was perhaps the hardest which comes under our notice; but his sister Maud was also experiencing mental disquietude of no mean order. Everything had gone wrong with Maud. Barely a mile separated her from George, that essential link in her chain of communication with Geoffrey Raymond; but so thickly did it bristle with obstacles and dangers that it might have been a mile of no man's land. Twice, since the occasion when the discovery of Lord Marshmoreton at the cottage had caused her to abandon her purpose of going in and explaining everything to George, had she attempted to make the journey; and each time some trifling, maddening accident had brought about failure. Once, just as she was starting, her Aunt Augusta had insisted on joining her for what she described as “a nice long walk”; and the second time, when she was within a bare hundred yards of her objective, some sort of a cousin popped out from nowhere and forced his loathsome company on her. Foiled in this fashion, she had fallen back in desperation on her second line of attack. She had written a note to George, explaining the whole situation in good, clear phrases and begging him as a man of proved chivalry to help her. It had taken up much of one afternoon, this note, for it was not easy to write; and it had resulted in nothing. She had given it to Albert to deliver, and Albert had returned empty-handed.

“The gentleman said there was no answer, m'lady!”

“No answer! But there must be an answer!”

“No answer, m'lady. Those was his very words,” stoutly maintained the black-souled boy, who had destroyed the letter within two minutes after it had been handed to him. He had not even bothered to read it. A deep, dangerous, dastardly stripling, this, who fought to win and only to win. The ticket marked “R. Byng” was in his pocket, and in his ruthless heart a firm resolve that R. Byng and no other should have the benefit of his assistance.

Maud could not understand it. That is to say, she resolutely kept herself from accepting the only explanation of the episode that seemed possible. In black and white she had asked George to go to London and see Geoffrey and arrange for the passage—through himself as a sort of clearing house—of letters between Geoffrey and herself. She had felt from the first that such a request should be made by her in person and not through the medium of writing; but surely it was incredible that a man like George, who had been through so much for her and whose only reason for being in the neighborhood was to help her, could have coldly refused without even a word. And yet what else was she to think? Now more than ever she felt alone in a hostile world. Yet to her guests she was bright and entertaining. Not one of them had a suspicion that her life was not one of pure sunshine.

Albert, I am happy to say, was thoroughly miserable. The little brute was suffering torments. He was showering anonymous advice to the lovelorn on Reggie Byng—excellent stuff, culled from the pages of weekly papers, of which there was a pile in the housekeeper's room, the property of a sentimental lady's maid—and nothing seemed to come of it. Every day, sometimes twice and thrice a day, he would leave on Reggie's dressing table significant notes similar in tone to the one which he had placed there on the night of the ball; but, for all the effect they appeared to exercise on their recipient, they might have been blank pages. The choicest quotations from the works of such established writers as Aunt Charlotte of Forget-Me-Not, and Doctor Cupid, the heart expert of Home Chat, expended themselves fruitlessly on Reggie. As far as Albert could ascertain—and he was one of those boys who ascertain practically everything within a radius of miles—Reggie positively avoided Maud's society. And this after reading Doctor Cupid's invaluable tip about “Seeking her company on all occasions,” and the dictum of Aunt Charlotte to the effect that “Many a wooer has won his lady by being persistent”—Albert spelled it “persistuent,” but the effect is the same—“and rendering himself indispensable by constant little attentions.” So far from rendering himself indispensable to Maud by constant little attentions, Reggie, to the disgust of his backer and supporter, seemed to spend most of his time with Alice Faraday. On three separate occasions had Albert been revolted by the sight of his protégé in close association with the Faraday girl, once in a boat on the lake and twice in his gray car. It was enough to break a boy's heart, and it completely spoiled Albert's appetite—a phenomenon attributed, I am glad to say, in the servants' hall to reaction from recent excesses. The moment when Keggs, the butler, called him a greedy little pig, and hoped it would be a lesson to him not to stuff himself at all hours with stolen cakes, was a bitter moment for Albert.

It is a relief to turn from the contemplation of these tortured souls to the pleasanter picture presented by Lord Marshmoreton. Here, undeniably, we have a man without a secret sorrow, a man at peace with this best of all possible worlds. Since his visit to George, a second youth seems to have come upon Lord Marshmoreton. He works in his rose garden with a new vim, singing to himself tray gay snatches of melodies popular in the eighties.

Hear him now, as he toils. He has a long garden implement in his hand, and he is sending up the death rate in slug circles with a devastating rapidity.

And the boom is a death knell. As it rings softly out on the pleasant spring air, another stout slug has made the Great Change.

It is peculiar, this gayety. It gives one to think. Others have noticed it; his lordship's valet among them.

“I give you my honest word, Mr. Keggs,” says the valet, awed, “this very morning I 'eard the old devil a-singin' in 'is barth, chirrupin' away like a blooming linnet!”

“Lor!” says Keggs, properly impressed.

“And only last night 'e give me 'arf a box of cigars and said I was a good, faithful feller! I tell you, there's somethin' happened to the old buster, you mark my words!”

VER this complex situation the mind of Keggs, the butler, played like a searchlight. Keggs was a man of discernment and sagacity. He had instinct and reasoning power. Instinct told him that Maud, all unsuspecting the change that had taken place in Albert's attitude toward her romance, would have continued to use the boy as a link between herself and George; and reason, added to an intimate knowledge of Albert, enabled him to see that the latter must inevitably have betrayed her trust. He was prepared to bet a hundred pounds that Albert had been given letters to deliver and had destroyed them. So much was clear to Keggs. It only remained to settle on some plan of action which would reëstablish the broken connection. Keggs did not conceal a tender heart beneath a rugged exterior; he did not mourn over the picture of two loving fellow human beings separated by a misunderstanding; but he did want to win that sweepstake.

His position, of course, was delicate. He could not go to Maud and beg her to confide in him. Maud would not understand his motives, and might leap to the not unjustifiable conclusion that he had been at the sherry. No, men were easier to handle than women. As soon as his duties would permit—and in the present crowded condition of the house they were arduous—he set out for George's cottage.

“I trust I do not disturb or interrupt you, sir,” he said beaming in the doorway like a benevolent high priest. He had doffed his professional manner of austere disapproval, as was his custom in moments of leisure.

“Not at all,” replied George, puzzled. “Was there anything”

“There was, sir!”

“Come along in and sit down.”

“I would not take the liberty, if it is all the same to you, sir. I would prefer to remain standing.” There was a moment of uncomfortable silence—uncomfortable, that is to say, on the part of George, who was wondering if the butler remembered having engaged him as a waiter only a few nights back. Keggs himself was at his ease. Few things ruffled this man.

“Fine day,” said George.

“Extremely, sir, but for the rain.”

“Oh, is it raining?”

“A sharp downpour, sir.”

“Good for the crops,” said George.

“So one would be disposed to imagine, sir.”

Silence fell again. The rain dripped from the eaves.

“If I might speak freely, sir?” said Keggs

“Sure. Shoot!”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“I mean, yes, go ahead!”

The butler cleared his throat.

“Might I begin by remarking that your little affair of the 'eart, if I may use the expression, is no secret in the servants' 'all? I 'ave no wish to seem to be taking a liberty or to presume, but I should like to intimate that the servants' 'all is aware of the facts.”

“You don't have to tell me that,” said George coldly. “I know all about the sweepstake!”

A flicker of embarrassment passed over the butler's large, smooth face—passed and was gone.

“I did not know that you 'ad been apprised of that little matter, sir. But you will doubtless understand and appreciate our point of view. A little sporting flutter—nothing more—designed to alleviate the monotony of life in the country.”

“Oh, don't apologize!” said George, and was reminded of a point which had exercised him a little from time to time since his vigil on the balcony. “By the way, if it isn't giving away secrets, who drew Plummer?”

“Sir?”

“Which of you drew a man named Plummer in the sweep?”

“I rather fancy, sir”—Keggs' brow wrinkled in thought—“I rather fancy it was one of the visiting gentlemen's gentlemen. I gave the point but slight attention at the time. I did not fancy Mr. Plummer's chances. It seemed to me that Mr. Plummer was a negligible quantity.”

“Your knowledge of form was sound. Plummer's out!”

“Indeed, sir! An amiable young gentleman, but lacking in many of the essential qualities. Perhaps he struck you that way, sir?”

“I never met him. Nearly, but not quite!”

“It entered my mind that you might possibly have encountered Mr. Plummer on the night of the ball, sir.”

“Ah! I was wondering if you remembered me!”

“I remember you perfectly, sir, and it was the fact that we had already met in what one might almost term a social way that emboldened me to come 'ere to-day and offer you my services as a intermediary, should you feel disposed to avail yourself of them.”

George was puzzled.

“Your services?”

“Precisely, sir. I fancy I am in a position to lend you what might be termed an 'elping 'and.”

“But that's remarkably altruistic of you, isn't it?”

“Sir?”

“I say, that is very generous of you. Aren't you forgetting that you drew Mr. Byng?”

The butler smiled indulgently.

“You are not quite abreast of the progress of events, sir. Since the original drawing of names there 'as been a trifling adjustment. The boy Albert now 'as Mr. Byng, and I 'ave you, sir. A little amicable rearrangement informally conducted in the scullery on the night of the ball.”

“Amicable?”

“On my part, entirely so.”

George began to understand certain things that had been perplexing to him.

“Then all this while ...”

“Precisely, sir. All this while 'er ladyship, under the impression that the boy Albert was devoted to 'er cause, has no doubt been placing a misguided confidence in 'im, the little blighter!” said Keggs, abandoning for a moment his company manners and permitting vehemence to take the place of polish. “I beg your pardon for the expression, sir,” he added gracefully. “It escaped me inadvertently.”

“You think that Lady Maud gave Albert a letter to give to me, and that he destroyed it?”

“Such, I should imagine, must undoubtedly have been the case. The boy 'as no scruples, no scruples whatsoever.”

“Good Lord!”

“I appreciate your consternation, sir.”

“That must be exactly what has happened.”

“To my way of thinking there is no doubt of it. It was for that reason that I ventured to come 'ere—in the 'ope that I might be instrumental in arranging a meeting.”

The strong distaste which George had had for plotting with this overfed menial began to wane. It might be undignified, he told himself, but it was undeniably practical. And, after all, a man who has plotted with page boys has little dignity to lose by plotting with butlers. He brightened up. If it meant seeing Maud again he was prepared to waive the decencies.

“What do you suggest?” he said.

“It being a rainy evening and everyone indoors, playing games and what not”—Keggs was amiably tolerant of the recreations of the aristocracy—“you would experience little chance of a interruption were you to proceed to the lane outside the east entrance of the castle grounds and wait there. You will find in the field at the roadside a small disused barn only a short way from the gates, where you would be sheltered from the rain. In the meantime, I would inform 'er ladyship of your movements, and no doubt it would be possible for' er to slip off.”

“It sounds all right.”

It is all right, sir. The chances of a interruption may be said to be reduced to a minimum. Shall we say in one hour's time?”

“Very well.”

“Then I will wish you good evening, sir. Thank you, sir. I am glad to 'ave been of assistance.”

He withdrew, as he had come, with a large impressiveness. The room seemed very empty without him. George, with trembling fingers, began to put on a pair of thick boots.

For some minutes after he had set foot outside the door of the cottage George was inclined to revile the weather for having played him false. On this evening of all evenings, he felt, the elements should, so to speak, have rallied round and done their bit. The air should have been soft and clear and scented; there should have been an afterglow of sunset in the sky to light him on his way. Instead, the air was full of that peculiar smell of hopeless dampness which comes at the end of a wet English day. The sky was leaden. The rain hissed down in a steady flow, whispering of mud and desolation, making a dreary morass of the lane through which he tramped. A curious sense of foreboding came upon George. It was as if some voice of the night had murmured maliciously in his ear a hint of troubles to come. He felt oddly nervous as he entered the barn.

The barn was both dark and dismal. In one of the dark corners an intermittent dripping betrayed the presence of a gap in its ancient roof. A rat scurried across the floor. The dripping stopped and began again. George struck a match and looked at his watch. He was early. Another ten minutes must elapse before he could hope for her arrival. He sat down on a broken wagon which lay on its side against one of the walls.

Depression returned. It was impossible to fight against it in this beast of a barn. Che place was like a sepulcher. No one but a fool of a butler would have suggested it as a trysting place. He wondered irritably why places like this were allowed to get into this condition. If people wanted a barn earnestly enough to take the trouble of building one, why was it not worth while to keep the thing in proper repair? Waste and futility, that was what it was! That was what everything was, if you came down to it. Sitting here, for instance, was a futile waste of time. She wouldn't come. There were a dozen reasons why she should not come. So what was the use of his courting rheumatism by waiting in this morgue of dead agricultural ambitions? None whatever. George went on waiting.

And what an awful place to expect her to come to—if by some miracle she did come—where she would be stifled by the smell of moldy hay, damped by raindrops, and—reflected George gloomily, as there was another scurry and scutter along the unseen floor—gnawed by rats. You could not expect a delicately nurtured girl, accustomed to all the comforts of home, to be bright and sunny with a platoon of rats crawling all over her

The gray oblong that was the doorway suddenly darkened.

“Mr. Bevan!”

George sprang up. At the sound of her voice every nerve in his body danced in mad exhilaration. He was another man. Depression fell from him like a garment. He perceived that he had misjudged all sorts of things. The evening, for instance, was a splendid evening, not one of those awful dry, baking evenings which make you feel you can't breathe, but pleasantly moist and full of a delightfully musical patter of rain. And the barn! He had been all wrong about the barn. It was a great little place, comfortable, airy and cheerful. What could be more invigorating than that smell of hay? Even the rats, he felt, must be pretty decent rats, when you came to know them.

“I'm here!”

Maud advanced quickly. His eyes had grown accustomed to the murk, and he could see her dimly. The smell of her damp raincoat came to him like a breath of ozone. He could even see her eyes shining in the darkness, so close was she to him.

“I hope you've not been waiting long?”

George's heart was thundering against his ribs. He could scarcely speak. He contrived to emit a “No.”

“I didn't think at first I could pet away. I had to” She broke off with a cry. The rat, fond of exercise like all rats, had made another of its excitable sprints across the floor.

A hand clutched nervously at George's arm, found it and held it. And at the touch the last small fragment of George's self-control fled from him. The world became vague and unreal. There remained of it but one solid fact—the fact that Maud was in his arms, and that he was saying a number of things very rapidly in a voice that seemed to belong to somebody he had never met before.

ITH a shock of dismay so abrupt and overwhelming that it was like a physical injury, George became aware that something was wrong. Even as he gripped her, Maud had stiffened with a sharp cry; and now she was struggling, trying to wrench herself free. She broke away from him He could hear her breathing hard.

“You—you” she gulped.

“Maud!”

“How dare you!”

There was a pause that seemed to George to stretch on and on endlessly. The rain pattered on the leaky roof. Somewhere in the distance a dog howled dismally. The darkness pressed down like a blanket, stifling thought.

“Good night, Mr. Bevan.” Her voice was ice. “I didn't think you were—that kind of man.”

She was moving toward the door; and, as she reached it, George's stupor left him. He came back to life with a jerk, shaking from head to foot. All his varied emotions had become one emotion, a cold fury.

“Stop!”

Maud stopped. Her chin was tilted, and she was wasting a baleful glare on the darkness.

“Well, what is it?”

Her tone increased George's wrath. The injustice of it made him dizzy. At that moment he hated her, He was the injured party. It was he, not she, that had been deceived and made a fool of.

“I want to say something before you go.”

“I think we had better say no more about it!”

By the exercise of supreme self-control George kept himself from speaking until he could choose milder words than those that rushed to his lips.

“I think we will!” he said between his teeth.

Maud's anger became tinged with surprise. Now that the first shock of the wretched episode was over, the calmer half of her mind was endeavoring to soothe the infuriated half by urging that George's behavior had been but a momentary lapse, and that a man may lose his head for one wild instant and yet remain fundamentally a gentleman and a friend. She had begun to remind herself that this man had helped her once in trouble, and only a day or two before had actually risked his life to save her from embarrassment. When she heard him call to her to stop she supposed that his better feelings had reasserted themselves; and she had prepared herself to receive with dignity a broken, stammered apology. But the voice that had just spoken with a crisp, biting intensity was not the voice of remorse. It was a very angry man, not a penitent one, who was commanding—not begging—her to stop and listen to him.

“Well?” she said again, more coldly this time. She was quite unable to understand this attitude of his. She was the injured party. It was she, not he, who had trusted and been betrayed

“I should like to explain.”

“Please do not apologize.”

George ground his teeth in the gloom.

“I haven't the slightest intention of apologizing. I said I would like to explain When I have finished explaining, you can go.”

“I shall go when I please,” flared Maud. This man was intolerable

“There is nothing to be afraid of. There will be no repetition of the—incident.”

Maud was outraged by this monstrous misinterpretation of her words.

“I am not afraid!”

“Then perhaps you will be kind enough to listen. I won't detain you long. My explanation is quite simple. I have been made a fool of. I seem to be in the position of the tinker in the play whom everybody conspired to delude into the belief that he was a king. First a friend of yours, Mr. Byng, came to me and told me that you had confided to him that you loved me.”

Maud gasped. Either this man was mad or Reggie Byng was. She chose the politer solution.

“Reggie Byng must have lost his senses.”

“So I supposed. At least, I imagined that he must be mistaken But a man in love is an optimistic fool, of course, and I had loved you ever since you got into my cab that morning”

“What!”

“So after a while,” proceeded George, ignoring the interruption, “I almost persuaded myself that miracles could still happen and that what Byng said was true. And when your father called on me and told me the very same thing, I was convinced. It seemed incredible, but I had to believe it. Now it seems that, for some inscrutable reason, both Byng and your father were making a fool of me. That's all. Good night.”

Maud's reply was the last which George or any man would have expected. There was a moment's silence and then she burst into a peal of laughter. It was the laughter of overstrained nerves, but to George's ears it had the ring of genuine amusement.

“I'm glad you find my story entertaining,” he said dryly. He was convinced now that he loathed this girl, and that all he desired was to see her go out of his life forever. “Later, no doubt, the funny side of it will hit me. Just at present my sense of humor is rather dormant.”

Maud gave a little cry.

I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, Mr. Bevan! It wasn't that that at all. Oh, I am so sorry! I don't know why I laughed. It certainly wasn't because I thought it funny. It's tragic. There's been a dreadful mistake!”

“I noticed that,” said George bitterly. The darkness began to afflict his nerves. “I wish to God we had some light.”

The glare of a pocket torch smote upon him.

“I brought it to see my way back with,” said Maud in a small voice. “It's very dark across the fields. I didn't light it before because I was afraid somebody might see.”

She came toward him, holding the torch over her head. The beam showed her face, troubled and sympathetic; and at the sight all George resentment left him. There were mysteries here  beyond his unraveling, but of one thing he was certain—this girl was not to blame. She was a thoroughbred, as straight as a wand. She was pure gold

“I came here to tell you everything,” she said. She placed the torch on the wagon wheel, so that its ray fell in a pool of light on the ground between them. “I'll do it now. Only—only it isn't so easy now. Mr. Bevan, there's a man—there's a man that father and Reggie Byng mistook—they thought—you see, they knew it was you that I was with that day in the cab, and so they naturally thought, when you came down here, that you were the man I had gone to meet that day, the man I—I”

“The man you love?”

“Yes,” said Maud in a small voice; and there was silence again.

George could feel nothing but sympathy. It mastered every other emotion in him, even the gray despair that had come with her words. He could feel all that she was feeling

“Tell me all about it,” he said.

“I met him in Wales last year.” Maud's voice was a whisper. “The family found out, and I was hurried back here and have been here ever since. That day when I met you I had managed to slip away from home. I had found out that he was in London, and I was going to meet him. Then I saw Percy, and got into your cab. It's all been a horrible mistake. I'm sorry.”

“I see,” said George thoughtfully. “I see.” His heart ached like a living wound. She had told so little, and he could guess so much. This unknown man who had triumphed seemed to sneer scornfully at him from the shadows.

“I'm sorry,” said Maud again.

“You mustn't feel like that. How can I help you? That's the point. What is it you want me to do?”

“But I can't ask you now.”

“Of course you can. Why not?”

“Why—oh, I couldn't.”

George managed to laugh. It was a laugh that did not sound convincing even to himself, but it served.

“That's morbid,” he said. “Be sensible! You need help, and I may be able to give it. Surely a man isn't barred forever from doing you a service just because he happens to love you? Suppose you were drowning and Mr. Plummer was the only swimmer within call, wouldn't you let him rescue you?”

“Mr. Plummer? What do you mean?”

You've not forgotten that I was a reluctant earwitness to his recent proposal of marriage?”

Maud uttered an exclamation.

“I never asked! How terrible of me! Were you much hurt?”

“Hurt?” George could not follow her.

“That night. When you were on the balcony.”

“Oh!” George understood. “Oh, no, hardly at all. A few scratches.”

“It was a wonderful thing to do,” said Maud, her admiration glowing for a man who could treat such a leap so lightly. She had always had a private theory that Lord Leonard, after performing the same feat, had bragged about it for the rest of his life.

“No, no, nothing ” said George, who had since wondered why he had ever made such a to-do about climbing up a perfectly stout sheet.

“It was splendid!”

George blushed.

“We wandering from the main theme,” he said. “I want to help you. I came here at enormous expense to help you. How can I do it?”

Maud hesitated.

“I think you may be offended at my asking such a thing.”

“You needn't.”

“You see, the whole trouble is that I can't get in touch with Geoffrey. He's in London and I'm here. And any chance I might have of getting to London vanished that day I met you, when Percy saw me in Piccadilly.”

“How did your people find out it was you?”

“They asked me straight out.”

“And you owned up?”

“I had to. I couldn't tell him a direct lie.”

George thrilled. This was the girl he had had doubts of.

“So then it was worse than ever,” continued Maud. “I daren't risk writing to Geoffrey and having the letter intercepted. I was wondering—I had the idea almost as soon as I found that you had come here”

“You want me to take a letter from you and see that it reaches him. And then he can write back to my address, and I can smuggle the letter to you?”

“That's exactly what I do want; but I almost didn't like to ask.”

“Why not? I'll be delighted to do it.”

“I'm so grateful.”

“Why, it's nothing. I thought you were going to ask me to look in on your brother and smash another of his hats.”

Maud laughed delightedly. The whole tension of the situation had been eased for her. She found herself liking George. Yet she realized with a pang that for him there had been no easing of the situation. She was sad for George. The Plummers she had consigned to what they declared would be perpetual sorrow with scarcely a twinge of regret. But George was different.

“Poor Percy!” she said. “I don't suppose he'll ever get over it. He will have other hats, but it won't be the same.” She came back to the subject nearest her heart: “Mr. Bevan, I wonder if you would do just a little more for me?”

“If it isn't criminal—or, for that matter, if it is.”

“Could you go to Geoffrey and see him, and tell him all about me and—and come back and tell me how he looks and what he said and—and so on?”

“Certainly. What is his name and where do I find him?”

“I never told you. How stupid of me! His name is Geoffrey Raymond, and he lives with his uncle, Mr. Wilbur Raymond at 11a Belgrave Square.”

“I'll go to him to-morrow.”

“Thank you ever so much.”

George got up. The movement seemed to put him in touch once more with the outer world. He noticed that the rain had stopped and that stars had climbed into the oblong of the doorway. He had an impression that he had been in the barn a very long time; and confirmed this with a glance at his watch, though the watch, he felt, understated the facts by the length of several centuries. He was abstaining from too close an examination of his emotions, from a prudent feeling that he was going to suffer soon enough without assistance from himself.

“I think you had better be getting back,” he said. “It's rather late. They may be missing you.”

Maud laughed happily.

“I don't mind now what they do. But I suppose dinners must be dressed for, whatever happens.” They moved together to the door. “What a lovely night after all! I never thought that rain would stop in this world. It's like when you're unhappy and think it's going on forever.”

“Yes,” said George.

Maud held out her hand.

“Good night, Mr. Bevan.”

“Good night.”

He wondered if there would be any allusion to the earlier passages of their interview. There was none. Maud was of the class whose education consists mainly of a training in the delicate ignoring of delicate situations.

“Then you will go and see Geoffrey?”

“To-morrow.”

“Thank you ever so much.”

“Not at all.”

George admired her. The little touch of formality which she had contrived to impart to the conversation struck just the right note, created just the atmosphere which would enable them to part without weighing too heavily on the deeper aspect of that parting.

“You're a real friend, Mr Bevan.”

“Watch me prove it.”

“Well, I must rush, I suppose. Good right!”

“Good night!”

She moved off quickly across the field. Darkness covered her. The dog in the distance had begun to howl again. He had his troubles too.

ROUBLE sharpens the vision. In our moments of distress we can see clearly that what is wrong with this world of ours is the fact that misery loves company and seldom gets it. Toothache is an unpleasant ailment; but if toothache were a natural condition of life, if all mankind were afflicted with toothache at birth, we should not notice it. It is the freedom from aching teeth of all those with whom we come in contact that emphasizes the agony. And as with toothache so with trouble. Until our private affairs go wrong, we never realize how bubbling over with happiness the bulk of mankind seems to be. Our aching heart is apparently nothing but a desert island in an ocean of joy.

George, waking next morning with a heavy heart, made this discovery before his day was an hour old. The sun was shining and bird sang merrily; but this did not disturb him. Nature is ever callous to human woes, laughing while we weep, and we grow to take her callousness for granted. What jarred upon George was the infernal cheerfulness of his fellow men. They seemed to be doing it on purpose, triumphing over him, glorying in the fact that, however fate might have shattered him, were all right.

People were happy who had never been happy before—Mrs. Platt, for instance. A gray, depressed woman of middle age, she had seemed hitherto to have but few pleasures beyond breaking dishes and relating the symptoms of sick neighbors who were not expected to live through the week. She now sang. George could hear her as she prepared his breakfast in the kitchen. At first he had had a hope that she was moaning with pain; but this was dispelled when he had finished his toilet and proceeded downstairs. The sounds she emitted suggested anguish, but the words, when he was able to distinguish them, told another story. Incredible as it might seem, on this particular morning Mrs. Platt had elected to be light-hearted. What she was singing sounded like a dirge, but actually it was Stop your tickling, Jock! And later, when she brought George his coffee and eggs she spent a full ten minutes prattling as he tried to read his paper, pointing out to him a number of merry murders and sprightly suicides which otherwise he might have missed. The woman went out of her way to show him that for her, if not for less fortunate people, God this morning was in his heaven and all right with the world.

Two tramps of supernatural exuberance called at the cottage shortly after breakfast to ask George, whom they had never even consulted about their marriages, to help support their wives and children. Nothing could have been more carefree and debonair than the demeanor of these men.

And then Reggie Byng arrived in his gray racing car, more cheerful than any of them. Fate could not have mocked George more subtly. A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things; and the sight of Reggie in that room reminded him that on the last occasion when they had talked together across this same table, it was he who had been in a fool's paradise and Reggie who had borne a weight of care. Reggie this morning was brighter than the shining sun and gayer than the caroling birds.

“Hullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ul-lo! Topping morning, isn't it?” observed Reggie. “The sunshine! The birds! The absolute what-do-you-call-it of everything and so forth, and all that sort of thing, if you know what I mean! I feel like a two-year-old!”

George, who felt older than this by some ninety-eight years, groaned in spirit. This was more than man was meant to bear.

“I say,” continued Reggie, absently reaching out for a slice of bread and smearing it with marmalade, “this business of marriage, now, and all that species of rot! What I mean to say is, what about it? Not a bad scheme, taking it by and large. Or don't you think so?”

George writhed. The knife twisted in the wound. Surely it was bad enough to see a happy man eating bread and marmalade without having to listen to him talking about marriage.

“Well anyhow, be that as it may,” said Reggie, biting jovially and speaking in a thick but joyous voice, “I'm getting married to-day, and chance it. This morning, this very morning, I leap off the dock!”

George was startled out of his despondency.

“What?”

“Absolutely, laddie!”

George remembered the conventions.

“I congratulate you.”

“Thanks, old man. And not without reason. I'm the luckiest fellow alive. I hardly knew I was alive till now.”

“Isn't this rather sudden?”

Reggie looked a trifle furtive. His manner became that of a conspirator.

“I should jolly well say it is sudden! It's got to be sudden. Dashed sudden and deuced secret! If the mater were to hear of it, there's no doubt whatever she would form a flying wedge and bust up the proceedings with no uncertain voice. You see, laddie, it's Miss Faraday I'm marrying, and the mater—dear old soul—has other ideas for Reginald. Life's a rummy thing, isn't it? What I mean to say is, it's rummy, don't you know, and all that.”

“Very,” agreed George.

“Who'd have thought, a week ago, that I'd be sitting in this jolly old chair asking you to be my best man? Why, a week ago I didn't know you, and if anybody had told me Alice Faraday was going to marry me, I'd have given one of those hollow, mirthless laughs.”

“Do you want me to be your best man?”

“Absolutely, if you don't mind. You see,” said Reggie confidentially, “it's like this: I've got lots of pals, of course, buzzing about all over London and its outskirts who'd be glad enough to rally round and join the execution squad; but you know how it is. Their maters are all pals of my mater's, and I don't want to get them into trouble for aiding and abetting my little show, if you understand what I mean. Now you're different. You don't know the mater, so it doesn't matter to you if she rolls round and puts the curse of the Byngs on you, and all that sort of thing. Besides, I don't know.” Reggie mused. “Of course this is the happiest day of my life,” he proceeded, “and I'm not saying it isn't, but you know how it is—there's absolutely no doubt that a chappie does not show at his best when he's being married. What I mean to say is, he's more or less bound to look a fearful ass. And I'm perfectly certain it would put me right off my stroke if I felt that some chump like Jack Ferris or Ronnie FitzGerald was trying not to giggle in the background. So, if you will be a sportsman and come and hold my hand till the thing's over, I shall be eternally grateful.”

“Where are you going to be married?”

“In London. Alice sneaked off there last night. It was easy, as it happened, because by a bit of luck old Marshmoreton had gone to town yesterday morning nobody knows why; he doesn't go up to London more than a couple of times a year. She's going to meet me at the Savoy, and then the scheme was to toddle round to the nearest registrar and request the lad to unleash the marriage service. I'm whizzing up in the car, and I'm hoping to be able to persuade you to come with me. Say the word, laddie!”

George reflected. He liked Reggie, and there was no practical reason in the world why he should not give him aid and comfort in this crisis. True, in his present frame of mind it would be torture to witness a wedding ceremony; but he ought not to let that stand in the way of helping a friend.

“All right,” he said.

“Stout fellow! I don't know how to thank you. It isn't putting you out or upsetting your plans, I hope, or anything on those lines?”

“Not at all. I had to go up to London to-day anyway.”

“Well, you can't get there quicker than in my car. She's a hummer! By the way, I forgot to ask—how is your little affair coming along? Everything going all right?”

“In a way,” said George. He was not equal to confiding his troubles to Reggie.

“Of course your trouble isn't like mine was. What I mean is, Maud loves you, and all that, and all you've got to think out is a scheme for laying the jolly old family a stymie. It's a pity—almost—that yours isn't a case of having to win the girl, like me; because, by Jove, laddie,” said Reggie with solemn emphasis, “I could help you there. I've got the thing down fine. I've got the infallible dope!”

George smiled bleakly.

“You have? You're a useful fellow to have round. I wish you would tell me what it is.

“But you don't need it.”

“No, of course not, I was forgetting.”

Reggie looked at his watch.

“We ought to be shifting in a quarter of an hour or so. I don't want to be late. It appears that there's a catch of some sort in this business of getting married. As far as I can make out, if you roll in after a certain hour, the Johnnie in charge of the proceedings gives you the miss-in-balk and you have to turn up again next day. However, we shall be all right unless we have a breakdown, and there's not much chance of that. I've been tuning up the old car since seven this morning, and she's sound in wind and limb, absolutely. Oil—petrol—water—air—nuts—bolts—sprockets—carburetor—all present and correct. I've been looking after them like a lot of baby sisters.... Well, as I was saying, I've got the dope. A week ago I was just one of the mugs didn't know a thing about it. But now Gaze on me, laddie! You see before you old Colonel Romeo, the Man Who Knows! It all started on the night of the ball. There was the dickens of a big ball, you know, to celebrate old Boots' coming of age—to which, poor devil, he contributed nothing but the sunshine of his smile, never having learned to dance. On that occasion a most rummy and extraordinary thing happened. I got pickled to the eyebrows!” He laughed happily. “I don't mean that that was a unique occurrence and so forth, because when I was a bachelor it was rather a habit of mine to get a trifle submerged every now and again on occasions of decent mirth and festivity. But the rummy thing that night was that I showed it. Up till then, I've been told by experts, I was a chappie in whom it was absolutely impossible to detect the symptoms. You might get a bit suspicious if you found I couldn't move, but you could never be certain. On the night of the ball, however, I suppose I had been filling the radiator a trifle too enthusiastically. You see, I had deliberately tried to shove myself more or less below the surface in order to get enough nerve to propose to Alice. I don't know what your experience has been but mine is that proposing's a thing that simply isn't within the scope of a man who isn't moderately woozled. I've often wondered how marriages ever occur in the dry states of America. Well, as I was saying, on the night of the ball a most rummy thing happened. I thought one of the waiters was you!”

He paused impressively, to allow this startling statement to sink in.

“And was he?” said George.

“Absolutely not! That was the rummy part of it. He looked as like you as your twin brother.”

“I haven't got a twin brother.”

“No, I know what you mean; but what I mean to say is he looked just like your twin brother would have looked if you had had a twin brother. Well, I had a word or two with this chappie, and after a brief conversation it was borne in upon me that I was up to the gills. Alice was with me at the time, and she noticed it too. Now, you'd have thought that that would have put a girl off a fellow, and all that. But no. Nobody could have been more sympathetic. And she has confided to me since that it was seeing me in my oiled condition that really turned the scale. What I mean is, she made up her mind to save me from myself. You know how some girls are. Angels absolutely! Always on the lookout to pluck brands from the burning, and what not. You may take it from me that the good seed was definitely sown that night.”

“Is that your recipe, then? You would advise the would-be bridegroom to buy a case of champagne and a wedding license and get to work? After that it would be all over except sending out the invitations?”

Reggie shook his head.

“Not at all. You need a lot more than that. That's only the start. You've got to follow up the good work, you see. That's where a number of chappies would slip up, and I'm pretty certain I should have slipped up myself, but for another singularly rummy occurrence. Have you ever had a what-do-you-call-it? What's the word I want? One of those things fellow get sometimes.”

“Headaches?” hazarded George

“No, no. Nothing like that. I don't mean anything you get—I mean something you get, if you know what I mean.”

“Measles?”

“Anonymous letter. That's what I was trying to say. It's a most extraordinary thing, and I can't understand even now where the deuce they came from, but just about then I started to get a whole bunch of anonymous letters from some chappie unknown who didn't sign his name.”

“What you mean is that the letters were anonymous,” said George.

“Absolutely. I used to get two or three a day sometimes. Whenever I went up to my room I'd find another waiting for me on the dressing table.”

“Offensive?”

“Eh?”

“Were the letters offensive? Anonymous letters usually are.

“These weren't. Not at all and quite the reverse. They contained a series of perfectly topping tips on how a fellow should proceed who wants to get hold of a girl.”

“It sounds as though somebody had been teaching you jiujitsu by mail.”

“They were great! Real red-hot stuff straight from the stable. Priceless tips like 'Make yourself indispensable to her in little ways,' 'Study her tastes,' and so on and so forth. I tell you, laddie, I pretty soon stopped worrying about who was sending them to me, and concentrated the old bean on acting on them. They worked like magic. The last one came yesterday morning, and it was a topper! It was all about how a chappie who was nervous should propose. Technical stuff, you know about holding her hand and telling her you're lonely and being sincere and straightforward and letting your heart dictate the rest. Have you ever asked for one card when you wanted to fill a royal flush and happened to pick out the necessary ace? I did once, when I was up at Oxford, and, by Jove, this letter gave me just the same thrill. I didn't hesitate. I just sailed in. I was cold sober, but I didn't worry about that. Something told me I couldn't lose. It was like having to hole out a three-inch putt. And well, there you are, don't you know.” Reggie became thoughtful. “Dash it all! I'd like to know who the fellow was who sent me those letters. I'd like to send him a wedding present or a bit of the cake or something. Though I suppose there won't be any cake, seeing the thing's taking place at a registrar's.”

“You could buy a bun,” suggested George.

“Well, I shall never know, I suppose. And now how about trickling forth? I say, laddie, you don't object if I sing slightly from time to time during the journey? I'm so dashed happy, you know.”

“Not at all, if it's not against the traffic regulations.”

Reggie wandered aimlessly about the room in an ecstasy.

“It's a rummy thing,” he said meditatively. “I've just remembered that, when I was at school, I used to sing a thing called the what's-its-name's wedding song. At house suppers, don't you know, and what not. Jolly little thing. I dare say you know it? It starts 'Ding dong! Ding dong!' or words to that effect, 'Hurry along! For it is my wedding morning!' I remember you had to stretch out the 'mor' a bit. Deuced awkward, if you hadn't laid in enough breath. The Yeoman's Wedding Song. That was it. I knew it was some chappie or other's. And it went on 'And the bride in something or other is doing something I can't recollect.' Well, what I mean is, now it's my wedding morning! Rummy, when you come to think of it what? ...

“Well, as it's getting tolerably late, about it? Shift ho?”

“I'm ready. Would you like me to bring some rice?”

“Thank you, laddie, no. Dashed dangerous stuff, rice! Worse than shrapnel. Got your hat? All set?”

“I'm waiting.”

“Then let the revels commence,” Reggie. “Ding Dong! Ding Dong! Hurry along! For it is my wedding morning! At the bride.... Dash it, I wish I could remember what the bride was doing!”

“Probably writing you a note to say that she's changed her mind and it's all off!”

“Oh!” exclaimed Reggie. “Come on!”


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 are firm but thick. The jaws a little prognathous, but the firmness of the lips diminishes the effect. When viewed in profile the fea- tures seem to be arranged on a curve. The man has a beard of straggling and coarse white hairs, which is stronger than that which Malays generally possess who allow the beard to grow. Each shoulder has a band of similar hair, but that upon his person generally is not remarkable.

His shoulders are narrow and arms fleshless, approaching in this respect to the Australians. The woman's face is very broad across the check bones, so as to present the most Mangolian of all the heads.

Both individuals at first seemed without ideas, and averse to conversation. The man when questioned answered, and to a certain extent overcame his reserve. In the evening of the second day he became very loquacious under the influence of a glass of cherry brandy, and has since been communicative. The woman sits with her eyes fixed on the ground, and her face wearing an expression of hopeless stupidity. No smile, no glance or mo- tion betraying the presence of thought or feeling, has once lighted up her settled look of dulness. Her person is loaded with flabby fat, and clothed from the waist to the knees with a dirty sarong. A rag scantily covers her bosom. The curved gittá tábán handle of a páráng, which projects above the folds of her sarong tells the occupation from which the poor woman has been summoned.

I reserve my remarks on the language of this tribe and of the Beduandá Kálláng.

 THE BIDUANDA KALLANG OF THE RIVER PULAI IN JOHORE.

The Pulái lies farthest to the west of all the rivers that fall in- to the Straits of Singapore from the Peninsula. It derives some geographical interest from its rising in Gunong Puláí, the most southerly mountain, and having its embouchure near Tanjong Bouro the most southerly point, of Asia.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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 Before the British obtained possession of Singapore, the Kálláng, which may be said to bound the present suburbs on the east, was the immemorial haunt of a small tribe who lived in boats, but avoid- ed the sea. Upon the cession of Singapore, they were removed by the Tamungong to the Pulái where they have remained ever since. They formerly consisted of about 100 families, occupying as many boats, but the ravages of the small pox have reduced the number to eight. They are fishermen and foresters, dividing their time between the two pursuits. They have small fishing stakes near the mouth of the river, which some of them visit in the morning. But they have so much dread of the sea that they do not venture to quit the river, and constantly proceed towards the interiour before night. When a strong breeze rises they drag their boats a shore. They never make huts. They collect forest produce for one of the Tamungong's Malays who has charge of them. They have a bo- mo or physician who sings to summon the hantus to give them medicine.

They do not cultivate any plants, their ancestors having made a vow for the race against forming ládángs, and they believe that if any of them were to break it death would be the consequence.

At child birth the mother drinks a decoction of the leaves of the bákáu that have fallen from the trees and float on the water, and the child a little of the expressed juice of the buáh káluna. For any swelling they bruize leaves of the báro and rub them over the part swollen. Cuts or wounds they rub with the juice of the akar lálé urát. For pain in the bowels they use ginger. For head ache, they drink the juice of the kayu kipíèlu ángín.

Previous to marriage the bridegroom provides himself with a boat of his own.

Corpses are wrapped in mats and buried. Upon the grave they place a cup of woman's milk, one of rice and one of water, and entreat the deceased not to seek anything more from them.

Polygamy and adultery are unknown. Widowers and widows do not marry a second time.

Persons of the same family cannot intermarry however remote the degree. But the traces of relationship must soon be lost.

Specimens of the rude chants will be given in speaking of the language.


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 Benjamin was so astonished at this, that he stopped crying. "What!" cried he, surprised, "you can speak, like a human being?"

The dog shook his shaggy head. "Yes, when the rich people act like wild beasts against the poor people, we animals must help them. When a human being is very unhappy and forsaken, he understands our language and knows that we wish him well. I have not forgotten, little Benjamin, that you saved my life. I want to thank you. Lie down on the straw, sleep, I will watch over you."

A little comforted, the little boy obeyed, and the dog sat down near him, guarding him all night, licking Benjamin's hand with his warm tongue occasionally.

Then came hard times for little Benjamin. The stout lady who was his neighbor took him to her hut, but she was not good to him. She forced him to carry water from the river in a heavy bucket, and made him do all kinds of hard work. And the worst was yet to come. One day the rich man passed by the huts of the Negroes and saw Benjamin. "A strong boy," he said. "He can work in the fields already." And from then on the little boy had to work in the fields in the heat of the sun till he thought he would die of weariness.

At evening, tired, he would crawl into the hut, bury his head in the hide of the grey dog, cry, and draw comfort from his only friend.

One evening, his back all bloody and his face swollen, Benjamin came home. The overseer had been in a bad temper, had beaten the little boy with a whip and hit him in the face with his fist.

"I want to die," cried Benjamin, while the dog softly and gently licked his wounds. "I can't stand it any longer. My parents are gone, I am entirely deserted, everyone is unkind to me. Dog, dear dog, what shall I do?"

"Run away," replied the dog.

"Where to? They will catch me and beat me again."

The dog thought hard for a while. 44


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 Two of the men, Sawéng and Sángo, (fig. 6 is the profile of Sawéng) have very remarkable heads which depart greatly from the Binuá, Mintirá and Malay. The forehead is broader than the cheek bones, so as to give the face in front something of the shape of a pear. But in contrast with this unusual breadth is its extreme narrowness, the hair approaching to within less than 2 inches of the eyebrows. The second remarkable characteristic consists in the entire absence of the prognathous form. The lower jaw indeed advances well so as to form a rather sharp chin, but instead of the upper jaw advancing, the whole face from the chin to the base of the brow appears as if it were flattened, so that when viewed in profile all the features seem to be placed on a straight line from which the prominent parts rise very slightly. The lips are comparatively thin, firm and not open, and the mouth small, presenting a great contrast to the gross, loose lips of the Mintirá. The under lip is slightly thrust out or pouting. The whole mouth instead of being sensual has a singular expression of good temper and even of serenity and sweetness. The eyebrows are horizontal so as to form parts of a straight line. The upper part of the body deviates no less strikingly from the ordinary Binua standard, the shoulders being wide and the waist comparatively narrow. The smallness of the head in proportion to the width of the shoulders is one of the marked peculiarities of the figures. The face in its peculiar flatness resembles the profile of a Siamese in the plate of eight national portraits contained in the second volume of Mr. Crawfurd's Embassy to Siam and Cochin China, and the extent to which the hair ad- vances on the forehead is another Siamese characteristic. The brow however is not a slight curve as in the profile of the Siamese, but advances from the face at a sharp angle. The line of the lower jaw also instead of extending back in a horizontal line and then rising nearly at a right angle to the car, proceeds in a direct slightly curved line to the car as in the second profile in Mr. Crawfurd's plate, that of a Chong.

Another of the Biduanda Kallang, Nanéng, (a remarkably strong built and powerful man) has the pyramidal or lozenge face in perfection, the cheek bones being more prominent than in most Binuá.


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Author:Edward Henry Sieveking

Works

 * Manual of Pathological Anatomy (1875)
 * The Harveian Oration 1877

title: Author:Edward Henry Sieveking


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 "We must go north," said he at last. "There people are better than they are here. They do not want the Negroes to be slaves. We must run away there."

"I don't know the way," complained Benjamin.

"I will lead you. Morning and night, when everybody is asleep, we will go."

While the dog was running restlessly back and forth to find a safe place, Benjamin sat on the bank of the river, letting his tired, burning feet hang in the water. Suddenly he was dreadfully frightened and drew his feet back hastily. A large pointed head thrust itself thru the water, a gigantic mouth opened, showing two rows of dreadful teeth, and a deep voice growled, "A fine morsel, just right for breakfast."

Benjamin screamed aloud and the dog came running quickly to him. Tho he was himself a little frightened, he whispered to Benjamin, "That is an alligator. Step back and let me speak to him." 45


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 ON THE SO-CALLED TIGER'S MILK "SUSU RIMAU" OF THE MALAYS.

While staying recently at Pekan I procured, through the kindness of Mr. RODGER, a fine specimen of the remarkable vegetable production, known to the Malays here as "Susu Rimau." The tradition is that it is the congealed milk of the tiger, and it is stated to produce eventually a climbing plant. It is considered a valuable medicine for asthma and other chest complaints, and is sold in the bazaars at a high price. The specimen given me by Mr. RODGER was considered a very large one, being about four inches cube, but a later one was brought in from the forests at Bukit Mandai in Singapore which is even larger, being six inches in length and three inches through in the thickest part. Professor VAUGHAN STEPHENS gave me also a smaller specimen from the interior of Pahang.

The structure and appearance of all seem very much the same. Each consists of an irregular white mass lobed and cracked all over, covered with a thin rind, terra-cotta red in the fresh specimen, browner when older. When fresh the interior is of the consistency of cheese, white, scentless, and with a faint funguslike taste. When dryer, and in old specimens it becames [sic] chalky and vimer [sic].

Under the microscope a section shows it to be a very compact mass of fungus threads (mycelium) with which are mixed innumerable globose cells. In the fresh specimen from Bukit Mandai the mycelium is very scanty, and in all it is very much less in quantity than the white globose cells.


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 Through the mass runs a fine whiter network visible with the naked eye, which consists of chains of cells with more granular opaque contents. The red rind consists of a very fine granular layer, in which I cannot perceive any cell structure.

It is very certain from this that it is no animal structure, and that it is very improbable that the climbing plant supposed to be produced by it has anything to do with it, but that it is of the nature of a fungus. The Malays say that it is found under ground, but the specimen obtained at Bukit Mandai, was growing upon a rotten tree, and to it was attached a fungus of the genus Polyporus, species of which are so abundant on rotten timber in the jungles.

Some similar bodies are known from several parts of the world, and have been described, but at present their origin is very obscure, and I think it will be well to compare the known kinds with our Tiger's Milk, and see wherein it differs.

RUMPHIUS described and figured a fungus which he called Tuber Regium, in the Herbarium Amboinense (Vol. VI Plate LVII 4, p. 120). The picture represents a body like a smooth block of earth on which a number of fungi evidently belonging to the genus Lentinus are growing. RUMPHIUS gives a long account of the "Royal Tuber." He says it is very common in April and October when the rainy season is on, and that then it is quite soft and not durable, and although his picture represents it as quite smooth, he says that when suddenly dried, it becomes cracked and fissured; when he planted it in his garden and watered it with warm water it produced the fungi, but perished next year. The Lentinus is eatable, but hardly worth eating. The tuber he recommends for diarrhea grated and mixed with rice and also mixed with oil as an ointment for sore mouths. Eaten raw he says it is insipid and earthy. He gives the following names for it, none of which occur in FILET'S Javanese Dictionary:—Malay, Ubi Raja, and Culat Batu, Amboinese Mathata Utta batu and Uttah putih. In Hitoc it is called Tabalale (without heart), and in Uliassens, Urupickal. In Java Djanjor bongkang (dung of the Python); in Ternate Cabamaisse (earth-tuber). It was common in Oma, Leytimor, Gorama and Ternate under grass on


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 the mountains and at the roots of tall trees. He compares it with the Chinese plant now called Fuhling (Pachyma Cocos). This is a well known Chinese drug of a very similar nature to our Tiger's Milk, and which is probably also the same as the Tuckahoe or Indian Bread of North America. I obtained a specimen of the Chinese Fuhling in the Singapore market. It is sold in the drug shops, and appears to have some repu- tation as a medecine. The plant differs somewhat from the Susu Rimau, and I should imagine is a different species. It is more regular in shape, resembling a large truffle externally with a cracked brown skin darker coloured than that of the Tiger's Milk. The interior is a little more mealy in texture, but perhaps this is due to the age of the specimen, and the rind is thicker. In section the microscope shows that there are the fungus threads as in the Susu Rimau, but that the glo- bose cells are represented in great measure by amorphous granular masses. The white substance of Pachyma is stated by Professor BERKELEY to consist of masses of pectine traversed by mycelium threads, and the whole thing to be of the nature of a sclerotium, that is to say, a fungus in a resting state. Mr. G. MURRAY, in a paper read before the Linnean Society in 1886, described a sclerotium upon which a Lentinus was growing somewhat as in RUMPHIUS' picture which was brought from Samoa in the Fiji Islands by Mr. WHITMER. This he thought at first might be identical with the Pachyma. Microscopic examination, however, showed no pectine in the Samoan plant, which consisted merely of a mass of fungus threads, and in fact was a typical Sclerotium.

Our plant is, however, somewhat more than this, as the proportion of fungus threads to the white globose cells is so very small. It is evidently more closely allied to Pachyma, but I think is quite distinct from that specifically and may indeed be RUMPHIUS' long-lost Tuber Regium.

The Bukit Mandai mass was partially encrusting a piece of rotten timber, and from it apparently grew a stalked Polyporus of large size. I thought at first that I had got hold of the fungus that produced the Susu Rimau, and was much surprised to find it was a Polyporus, and not a Lentinus, but a section


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 showed that the mycelium of the Polyporus was growing partly on the wood and partly over the Tiger's Milk and there was not only no mingling of the two bodies, but their microscopic structure was totally different. In that of the Polyporus there were no round globose cells, but a mere mass of mycelium threads as in an ordinary Sclerotium, so that the growth of the Polyporus upon the Susu Rimau is a mere accident, and we have again to seek for the fungus which produces this Tiger's Milk.

The plant is evidently not a very rare one and is well known to the Malays, so that if some of those whose business leads them into the jungles of the Peninsula will make enquiries about it, we may hope ere long to obtain the fungus it pro- duces and settle definitely its name and life history.


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text: Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society/Volume 22/On the so-called Tiger's Milk, Susu Rimau of the Malays


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object of this pamphlet is to direct the thoughts of the laboring people toward a consideration of the fundamental laws upon which Society is based, and which determine the prosperity or degradation of the people, according to their observance or violation. In the month of July, 1877, the employes of the principal Railroads between Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the Western States, ceased to work—opposing in a most desperate manner a proposed reduction of their wages by the corporations operating those Railroads. Immediately many of the workingmen of the principal cities in the United States also ceased work, partly from sympathy but especially because they recognized some hidden truth which, although not defined clearly in their minds, nevertheless forced them to demand of Society an inteference in behalf of oppressed Labor, and against the corporate monopolies which are sucking the life-blood from the people. We will endeavor to show in this short work the true principles governing the relations of Labor and Capital, and briefly offer the means of raising up our class through legal and peaceable means, to the dignity of independent and enlightened citizenship, with equality of opportunities and true freedom of the individual. In the earnest hope that all readers of these pages will reflect carefully upon the arguments presented, we are,

Yours in the cause of Labor,

The Executive Committee

Chicago, Oct. 1877.


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and his lady were in the middle of a game at chess, when the servant entered to announce Colonel Von Wartenstein.

“We are not at home,” said Clotilde, and John retired.

“He will take it amiss,” said the Baron.

“So much the better—then he will spare us his visit another time.”

“To display his malicious wit elsewhere at our expense.”

“Let him! If the Marchioness had banished him from her house in the same manner, there would have been no occasion given for the scandal that has arisen between herself and the Marquis. I will show that his impertinent glances are repelled by me, no less than his flattery.”

“But why avoid him?”

“Certainly not from fear, but rather from a love of convenience.”

“Often, Clotilde, the love of convenience renders life very inconvenient and disagreeable. The Colonel has a large acquaintance, and it is in his power to injure us much, if he be so disposed. He may know, perhaps, that we are both at home. In a word, love, I must think of making some excuse for you: I’ll say you were indisposed.”

“Truly, I do, at this moment, feel a violent head-ache,” said she, rising.

“One must avoid giving offence to any body,” said the Baron, with an affectionate embrace; but, to judge by the indifferent manner in which it was returned, he had for the moment fallen into disgrace with his wife.

Eschenburg nevertheless kept his word, and a few days afterwards contrived to detain the Colonel with them the whole evening.

“Well, my dear,” said he, the following morning to his wife, “I thank you for so kindly sacrificing your convenience to me, and receiving the hated guest with becoming civility.”

“But did you remark how every word that he uttered was accompanied by a longer glance at me; how his eye watched my every motion; and his foot was pressing mine every instant?”

“Mere bagatelles, dear child. In truth I am too vain to fear that such a man as Wartenstein will ever, I will not say, supplant me in your heart, but even obtain the smallest portion of your esteem.”—“Have I deserved such a suspicion?—but here he comes again round the corner,” exclaimed Clotilde, exclaimed Clotilde, “perhaps he is coming here.”

“Assuredly, he has promised me a rare coin out of his collection.”

“But this time, Eschenburg, spare me his detested presence, for the sake of the sacrifice I made to you yesterday.”

With that she skipped out of the room. When the Colonel was gone, Eschenburg related with a smile with what eagerness Wartenstein had kept his eye fixed upon the door, and had probably only detained him thus long with his wearisome gossip, in the hope of her making her appearance.

“Detestable creature!” cried Clotilde, “he will often rob me of your loved society, by his disgusting intrusion.”

But humours are not alike. A few weeks afterwards, Eschenburg strode up and down the room one afternoon yawning with ennui, and his wife was only half taken up with a romance, the leaves of which she turned from time to time. A carriage passed the house, and she sprang up so eagerly to look out of the window, that the volume fell upon the floor.

“Where is my book gone to?” said she, returning to her seat.

“Where your haste threw it,” answered her husband, laughing, and pointing to the floor.

“How rapidly the times change!” said she, stooping to pick up the book. “A year ago I should have needed neither the question, nor the trouble of stooping, because your gallantry would have prevented both.”

“A year ago, my dear, you would not have had recourse to a book for relief from my conversation.”

“But at that time, Eschenburg, you had not yet contracted the disgusting habit of yawning.”

“Because then your disposition


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 rences of the past night are too memorable, and if it were only an illusion that represented his death to me, yet I am firmly persuaded that it was one of those illusions which are called death-tokens, and that a marriage would be the last thing to follow it.

The Baroness had no sooner risen and joined her husband in the breakfast room, than West came in laughing with the news of the elucidation of the ghost story, which had first imbued Clotilde’s mind with these presentiments; an elucidation, however, which was not particularly agreeable to her credulous caprice. The whole proved to be a deception carried on by the two lovers, for there was no more foundation for the report of the man’s death, than for that of his persecuting the lady in the shape of a ghost, and the women who watched by her were bribed to their interest.—“That is quite a new piece of news,” added West, “but now for an old one, which I have also received this morning.” With that he drew an open letter from his pocket. “Half an hour ago this billet was sent to me, after having lain for a fortnight enclosed in a letter to a lady resident here, but who has been absent on a journey. It is from my sister, who at length acquaints me with the name of her bridegroom. The man has a residence in this city, and she writes me that he has already confessed to a great many juvenile indiscretions; but nevertheless, she is willing to undertake the task of his reform. What will a maiden in love not venture on? Apropos! he is an acquaintance of yours, and has visited you very recently. I should be delighted if you would acquaint me with the particulars of a few of his pranks, that I may put them into verse, and send it to him. But you don’t imagine, I dare say, that it is Colonel Von Wartenstein whom my sister is to marry, or doubtless has married by this time.”

“Then you, my dear West, are also a party in the scheme of counteracting my too well-grounded apprehensions. Well, I am only at a loss to imagine why there is such a want of consistency in your preconcerted reports.”

“Bless me, Madam, I have lost all power of comprehension!” cried West. I know not whether my ears still possess the faculty of distinguishing sounds. A scheme to counteract your apprehensions!”

“Aye, a scheme full of inconsistencies. According to your account your sister is Wartenstein’s bride, while the latest journals give her quite a different name.”

“What! do the papers already make mention of the name?”

“Yes, but according to that authority, as you will see, the Colonel has married a Fraulein von Landau,” said the Baron.

“Well, well! I thought you were aware that she is my half-sister, the daughter of my mother’s second husband.”

West handed the letter to Clotilde, who instantly becoming convinced of the truth, at last grew instantly tranquil, and explained to him the meaning of her mysterious assertion. It led to a thousand jokes, sometimes touching the death-tokens, sometimes the early occasionsofoccasions [sic] of Wartenstein’s familiarity with the family. “Well, it is a fortunate conclusion after all,” said Clotilde, when alone with her husband. “From this moment, Eschenburg, I will never take up a novel in your presence.”

“Or, if you should, and the volume should fall upon the floor, I will instantly pick it up for you.”

“If you had not been so gallant to the lovely Countess on the following evening!”

“True, my love, I was to blame.”


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ETTER TIMES! When will better times come? How can we bring them about? These are questions which agitate the mind of everybody. They have been answered in very different manner; yet to no avail. Times, instead of improving, grow worse. Hundreds of thousands have lost or are losing their dearly gotten property; as many more of the middle-class are hardly earning their expenses, and are growing poorer; a million or more of workingmen are out of work, and many of them have been so for years; many others expect to be so any day; many more work only on half-time, but all at greatly reduced wages. Cases of starvation are reported all over our country; suicides were never so frequent; crimes are being committed in the hope of finding food and a home in some prison; beggary, which formerly was almost unknown in this land of plenty, is a constantly growing evil; the number of persons who receive public charity has in some of our states increased tenfold within a dozen years, and is on the increase everywhere, while the spirit of benevolence is visibly on the wane, and gloom or despair is taking hold of the masses of the workers and driving them, in some places to riotous proceedings, even to bloodshed and plunder.

What is the cause of all this? We must know the cause, if we are to find the remedy. Some say it is depreciation of our currency; on the contrary, others say, it is that we have not greenbacks enough. Some will have it that our protective policy is the cause, and others, that our duties are not high enough. Some find the fault with the Republican party, others with the Democratic party, and others again charge several, or all of these agencies with the blame; or name still other causes.

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 alleged causes are responsible for our ills. Side by side with our country lies the Dominion of Canada, where they have a free-trade policy, and Great Britain and other countries of Europe have the same policy,—and we find there the same depression of business. France and Russia are blessed with protective duties—and stagnation and bankruptcy are there spread as with us. Both the hard-money and the soft-money countries are suffering under an unprecedented crisis. The Republic of Switzerland no less than all the Monarchies of the Old World are complaining of miseries like our own. In short, it is a which we are in. There must, then, a cause prevail all over the world likewise, which is at the bottom of this universal depression; and all the other causes which may be found at work in our own country, can be of less importance only. In some respects we shall find our country better off than some or all the others, in other respects we are worse off than some or all; in fact, it is difficult to show which country fares worst, since each claims to be at the foot of the ladder of thrift.

Now, as all the world is depressed, and as everywhere the majority of the people are growing poorer, there can be no prospect of better times anywhere, there can come no relief from any country, unless the one great cause of depression is everywhere discovered, and the means for its removal is applied.

That cause is no secret. It has been manifest to the eyes of Science for more than thirty years; the present world's crisis has been foretold. But so long as the people are prosperous, the voice of prophetic Science counts for nothing. Let now that voice be heard, if a new prosperity is to return.

This one cause is called Capitalistic Production. What does that expression mean? It means that those who produce all the goods and merchandise are not the owners of their means of labor (lands and real estate, mines, factories, machines, means of transportation, etc.,) but must sell their working force to some owner of those means of labor; the former are called wages laborers, the latter capitalists. The capitalist does not pay to the laborer all the earnings of the labor of the latter, but only a portion thereof; he keeps the rest to reward himself for the loan of the means of labor—or, in other words, he makes the laborer work more hours a day than is needed to refund the outlay of capital and the outlay for wages. And he has the power to do so for reasons to be stated below. For the present it suffices to know that capitalistic production means a lawful state of things, in which the majority of a population are unable to own the means of labor, so as to work on their own account and to keep all their earnings for themselves, but must enter into the employment of some owner of means by which they can make their livelihood, and leave in his hands part of their earnings, called surplus labor, or surplus value.


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Rh Alenka obeyed, and when the stove was heated she turned to Ivashko, and said,—

"Get on to this stove, so that I may push you in!"

"Alas!" answered the cunning boy, "I was born stupid, and know nothing, not even how to get into a stove; but if you will but show me, I daresay I shall be able to manage it then."

"All right!" replied the girl, as she jumped on to the stove.

Ivashko quickly pushed her in, and closed the stove door, letting the unfortunate girl bake in his stead! He then ran out, locking the door behind him, and climbed up an old tree that spread its leafy branches over the little hut.

Very soon Ivashko saw the witch march up to her little dwelling, accompanied by her friends, but, finding the door locked, the hag grumbled, and climbed in at the window, saying,—

"That bad girl has gone out for a walk and locked the door; but no matter, as long as she has cooked the boy I don't care, for I am hungry."

She then opened the door, and asked her guests to walk in. They all sat down and began eating away like so many hungry wolves, who had not had any food for ages!

When they had eaten everything up, so that nothing but the bones remained, they took these and threw them about under the old tree—where Ivashko sat—and began rolling about on them, as was the custom with the witches in those good old days, and then they sang,—


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 It is evident (and will be made more evident in what follows) that under such a state of things the poor will become poorer, and the rich richer by degrees. It is further easy to see that such a state of things cannot prevail, where a majority of the workers own their means of labor, or may acquire them within a few years, by diligence and economy. But in the United States—it will be said—the majority do own their means of labor.

Let us see if this is the fact! Some of us will remember the time when it was a fact. The fathers of our Republic took care (by Jefferson's Ordinance of 1787) that the public domain be parceled out to men of small means at a nominal price, so that every new settler might be his own landlord. They exempted homesteads to a certain value from being seized for debt, and rendered it easy for bankrupts to shake off a load of debt, so as to begin afresh and quickly a new life of prosperity. Everywhere at the North, the policy then prevailing was to break up large landed estates and banking privileges, and at the beginning of the civil war, the existing homestead law was passed. The fathers of the republic bought, from foreign powers, extensive territories in order to open them for independent settlers and to create a rapidly-growing, sturdy, and well-to-do yeomanry.

Could they have foreseen that a time would come, when, through an unheard of growth of the population, all the valuable portions of our public lands would be taken up and held as private property, so as to raise the price of land for all late comers to figures far beyond the means of a majority? Could they have imagined that the system of Capitalistic Production, which then was in its infancy, would, within a century, distribute the national riches so unequally, as we now see it,—a few hundred millionaires and a few dozen share companies, owning each from ten to several hundred millions, some hundreds of thousands owning all the way up from a competency to a million, and the rest of about nine million voters about equally divided into small farmers and independent trades people on the one hand, and as many wages laborers on the other, the former growing poorer always, the latter already staring slow starvation in the face? Who could have foreseen such results of a benevolent and wise statesmanship? Are there not even now-a-days many wiseacres pretending that they cannot see the facts as they really are? who even now insist that "everybody can, in this country, be a capitalist, whenever he chooses?" (New York Tribune, August, 1877.) But let us look at some statistical facts!

Within a dozen years the expenses toward public charities have increased tenfold in the few states which dare to publish their statistics in this respect, to-wit, in Massachusetts from less than $200,000 to more than three million a year;


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When Ivashko heard this he was greatly amused, and said, in a very low tone of voice,—

"I heard something very strange!" said one of the witches.

"Oh, no, it was nothing but the leaves of the tree!" returned the hostess.

And they chanted as before,—

Still Ivashko continued,—

This time all the witches heard the voice, and on looking up to the tree our friend the hag saw Ivashko sitting laughing at her, as though he enjoyed the joke! The witch, greatly enraged, flew to the tree and began biting it; but she soon broke her front teeth in doing so! However, she was not to be "done." She ran to the blacksmith, and ordered a set of iron teeth! After this she flew once more to the tree, and began to bite at it, and very soon down came the tree; but without Ivashko, for the clever boy had jumped to another, thicker than the first. On seeing this, the angry witch flew to bite that also; but the trunk was so thick that she actually broke her iron teeth over it! Away she ran to the blacksmith once more, and cried,—


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 in the state of New York from about $300,000 to beyond three million and a half.

Says the official statistician of Massachusetts ("the model state"): "After giving the grand aggregate of all classes reported as supported or relieved as 283,476, and after making all allowances, it is found that we support in full or in part one person in every 19 of the population, while in England and Wales they have one in every 23." "In the number of convicts Massachusetts also claims leadership, having one convict to each 380 of the population, while England and Wales has one to every 790, or two and one-tenth convicts in Massachusetts to one in England." (Report of 1876, page 211.)

But this picture of misery is not complete without adding that there are from 100,000 to 110,000 weavers and spinners, from 50,000 to 60,000 shoemakers, and tens of thousands more of workers in that same state who are not receivers of alms or any public charities, but whose wages do not amount to more than $300 a year on an average, even when fully employed, so that they cannot support a family without their wives and most of their children going also to the factory. As early as 1870 the official statistician reported 66,000 children of school age who did not enjoy any schooling.

All the other states having no official labor statistics, we can only guess at the state. of things there from some established facts. In the anthracite mines of Pennsylvania there are about 60,000 miners whose average yearly earnings are not quite $300. This pittance is greatly curtailed by the truck-system which there as well as among the spinners and weavers of New England has made of the laborers real wages slaves.

The census of the United States taken in 1870 exhibits some labor statistics which have been analyzed in a book by Mr. and still further by Dr. of New York. Although that census was taken during the period of our greatest manufacturing and agricultural prosperity, and although the figures are derived from statements of employers who cannot be expected to understate the earnings of their employes; it appears from those figures that there were few industries in 1870 in which the employes could support a family without some additional earnings of their wives and children, or lay up savings and become small capitalists. Most laborers in those industries had to leave more than one-half of their earnings as profits in the hands of their employers, some two-thirds or three-fourths. As it is well known that since 1870 wages have sunk to less than one-half, rent and victuals to only about two-thirds of their former prices, it follows that even fully employed wages people can now no longer expect to become independent owners of their means of labor.


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 MALAY LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Malay language is a member of the Malayan section of the Malayo-Polynesian class of languages, but it is by no means a representative type of the section which has taken its name from it. The area over which it is spoken comprises the peninsula of Malacca with the adjacent islands (the Rhio-Lingga Archipelago), the greater part of the coast districts of Sumatra and Borneo, the seaports of Java, the Sunda and Banda Islands. It is the general medium of communication throughout the archipelago from Sumatra to the Philippine Islands, and it was so upwards of three hundred and fifty years ago when the Portuguese first appeared in those parts.

There are no Malay manuscripts extant, no monumental records with inscriptions in Malay, dating from before the spreading of Islam in the archipelago, about the end of the 13th century. By some it has been argued from this fact that the Malays possessed no kind of writing prior to the introduction of the Arabic alphabet (W. ROBINSON, J. J. DE HOLLANDER); whereas others have maintained, with greater show of probability, that the Malays were in possession of an ancient alphabet, and that it was the same as the Rechang (MARSDEN, FRIEDERICH), as the Kawi (VAN DER TUUK), or most like the Lampong (KERN),—all of which alphabets, with the Battak, Bugi, and Macassar, are ultimately traceable to the ancient Cambojan characters. With the Mohammedan conquest the Perso-Arabic alphabet was introduced among the Malays; it has continued ever since to be in use for literary, religious, and business purposes. Where Javanese is the principal language, Malay is sometimes found written with Javanese characters; and in Palembang, in the Měnangkabo country of Middle Sumatra, the Rechang or Renchong characters are in general use, so called from the sharp and pointed knife with which they are cut on the smooth side of bamboo staves. It is only since the Dutch have established their supremacy in the archipelago that he


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 Roman character has come to be largely used in writing and printing Malay. This is also the case in the Straits Settlements.

By the simplicity of its phonetic elements, the regularity of its grammatical structure, and the copiousness of its nautical vocabulary, the Malay language is singularly well-fitted to be the lingua franca throughout the Indian archipelago. It possesses the five vowels, a, i, u, e, o, both short and long, and one pure diphthong au. Its consonants are k, g, ng, ch, j, ñ, t, d, n, p, b, m, y, r, l, w, s, h. Long vowels can only occur in open syllables. The only possible consonantal nexus in purely Malay words is that of a nasal and mute, a liquid and mute and vice versa, and a liquid and nasal. Final k and h are all but suppressed in the utterance. Purely Arabic letters are only used in Arabic words, a great number of which have been received into the Malay vocabulary. But the Arabic character is even less suited to Malay than to the other Eastern languages on which it has been foisted. As the short vowels are not marked, one would, in seeing, e.g., the word bntng, think first of bintang, a star; but the word might also mean a large scar, to throw down, to spread, rigid, matilated, enecinte, a kind of cucumber, a redoubt, according as it is pronounced bantang, banting, bentang, buntang, buntung, bunting, bonteng, benteng.

Malay is essentially, with few exceptions, a dissyllabic lan- guage, and the syllabic accent rests on the penultimate unless that syllable is open and short e.g., dátang, namáña, běsár, diumpatkanñálah. Nothing in the form of a root word indi- cates the grammatical category to which it belongs; thus, kāsih, kindness, affectionate, to love; ganti, a proxy, to exchange, instead of. It is only in derivative words that this vagueness is avoided. Derivation is effected by infixes, pre- fixes, affixes, and reduplication. Infixes occur more rarely in Malay than in the cognate tongues. Examples are—gūruh, a rumbling noise, gumūruh, to make such a noise; tunjuk, to point, telunjuk, the forefinger; chūchuk, to pierce, cherūchuk,


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 passing notices of the snake in question; but Dr. Fayrer's mag- nificent work on the Thanatophidia or poisonous snakes of the Indian peninsula furnishes the fullest information respecting the appearance, habits and powers of its Indian congener. Without this latter work, indeed, positive identification would have been almost impossible, so necessary are accurate engravings to all who would endeavour to satisfactorily determine the species or family of animals hitherto undescribed, as our "Fellow Colonists" in Singapore. Let me therefore summarize the accounts given in these books of the formidable serpent I am about to describe:—

Louis Figuier's works will be familiar to many hearers. Cover- ing a vast extent of ground they are essentially "popular" and as such of value, though it is seldom that the specialist can, in these lively volumes, find much that will serve his purposes in the way of scientific accuracy. I was however glad to find (as a beginning,) that M. Figuier's English Editor (Mr. Gillmore) had added to the original volume an interesting paragraph res- pecting the Hamadryad under notice. He describes it as having a less developed hood than the true cobra, and having a single small tooth placed at some distance behind the fang. The only species he says, "attains to thirteen feet in length and is proportionably formidable being much less timid and retiring in its habits than the Cobras of the genus Naja. It preys habitually on other snakes and seems to be more plentiful eastward of the Bay of Bengal than it is in India." Mr. Gillmore then eites instances of its capture in Burmah &c., mentioning a case in which an elephant succumbed to its poison in three hours, and he concludes bis brief notice by stating that "it appears not to be uncommon in the Andaman islands, while its range of distribution extends though the Malay countries to the Philippines and to New Guinea." This is in fact all that is said of the most deadly reptile inhabiting the Asiatic continent. The statement that it extended "through the Malay countries, however, justified me in believing that I should eventually come upon a more detailed description. Mr. David on informed me that museum specimens were rare from two causes; one, that few natives acquainted with its terrible powers cared to attempt its capture; the other that when a specimen was observed, such strenuous efforts were made to destroy the reptile, that its after preservation as a specimen was impossible. A headless or crushed snake presents but a sorry object, and the outward resemblance of the Hamadryad to innocuous species has, I doubt not, led before this to its rejection by these unacquainted with its (Museum) rarity.