Read Ebook: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 11 No. 25 April 1873 by Various

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That is a feature the citizens point out with a good deal of honest pride--the prosperity of the old families, enabling them at once to invest in the most enormous of modern mechanical applications. The wealthy companies now found here did not go to work by calling for capital from the large cities: they went to the old stocking, and found it there. The manufacturers show you, reared in a back office or sticking on a wall, the ancient family sign, which Washington and La Fayette regarded at the time of their disasters along the Brandywine. It is one continuity of thrift.

Take, for instance, some of these Lairds of America, who build ships along the Delaware as their prototypes upon the Clyde. The Harlan & Hollingsworth Company claims to be the oldest iron shipbuilding establishment in America. The money in this concern was local. The partners were old neighbors, relatives or friends. They worked along as a firm until 1868, when the huge proportions of their business induced them to incorporate themselves as a company, still distinguished by the good old proper names. We stroll into their domain by the river-side, and if we previously cherished any notion that shipbuilding was a decayed institution in America, the lively tumult here will effectually drive the insulting thought out of our heads. Among a shoal of leviathans stretched out beside the waters there is the iron steamer Acapulco, waiting for her compound engines from John Elder & Co. of Glasgow: she is three hundred feet long , forty feet beam and twenty-five hundred tons burden. Another, of similar dimensions, is building beside her, and they are both intended for the Pacific Mail Company's line, and will ply between California and China. The various operations going on upon the ground--the laying of an iron keel three hundred feet long, the modeling into true and fine curves the enormous plates for a ship's side, the joining of these so neatly that the rivets are not visible, and the bending of stout iron timbers on vast iron floors--are interesting even as a mere spectacle; and the trains of men who go about to minister to the various great machines seem like races of beings suddenly diminished in the scale of magnitude, and to be so many wise Lilliputians attending around the bodies of creatures of Brobdingnag. It is true that neat mechanical contrivances save their muscle wherever it is possible. A great plate of iron or a bundle of deck flooring is picked up, by a hand which swings down from aloft, like a visiting-card by a lady: a single man turning a windlass, it sails into the air, gets up as high as it chooses to, and drops delicately just where it is wanted along the length of the structure. Out on the wharf a double "hoister," working by steam, and able to pick up and swing a hundred tons, is used in handling the materials of the works. The dry-docks are, in winter, a singular spectacle. They are a vast hospital of interesting invalids, the patients being steamers, barges and canal-boats. For instance, the old Edwin Forrest, which has paddled up the Delaware with excursionists since a time whereof the mind of man runneth not to the contrary, comes up into the dry-dock complaining of its bunions. The dry-dock accommodates a ship as long as three hundred and forty feet, and is one hundred feet across. The gouty steamer potters comfortably in, and lays up its tired keel, while the dock is being discharged, as serenely as a patient who lays his foot on the knee of a corn-doctor: in due time, relieved and sound, the invalid is ready to take the stage of life again. Another boat comes in to be lengthened: it has growing-pains, and wants assistance. The stern is sliced off, the keel is spliced, and the adolescent leaves the docks longer by twenty feet. On the steamers that are being finished we notice the extreme beauty of the upholstery and of the engraved, inlaid and polished woodwork: it is all done on the spot, and before we leave Wilmington we shall have many occasions to admire the luxury with which the higher kinds of joinery are prepared for the various structures made there. On our way to the car-works--for this versatile corporation is a great manufacturer of railway-carriages too--we notice the throngs of workers scattered like ants over every part of the huge area, and it occurs to us to ask if there are any strikes. Our conductor is Mr. J. Taylor Gause, a big, hearty, shrewd man, who knows every bolt and rivet on the whole premises as Bunyan knew the words of his Bible.

"We never have any trouble," replies Mr. Gause; "and it is owing to a way we have of nipping sea-lawyers in the bud."

And what, may we ask, are sea-lawyers?

"Sea-lawyer is a workman's term. The sea-lawyer is the calculating, dissatisfied, eloquent man. He is the Henri Rochefort of their assemblies. A supposed grievance arises, the men have a meeting, and the sea-lawyer begins to stir them up, big in his opportunity. We find who he is, pay him on the instant, and send him away. The men run about for a while with their complaints in their heads, but with nobody to utter them by. It ends by their coming to us in a body to receive back the mischief-maker, by this time repentant. This we generally do, getting a friend converted from an enemy."

In fact, the workmen of this city do not strike. The principal remedy for the disease is a simple one. They are householders, being aided to own their own houses. They are therefore committed to the interests of the place, and do not deal in revolutions which would make wandering Ishmaelites of them.

The Harlan & Hollingsworth Company makes great numbers of railway-cars, from the ordinary kind to the most luxurious saloon-cars, and the examination of the shops is entertaining enough. Pullman, in fact, is said to have had more of his luxurious parlor-cars built in Wilmington than in any other city. As we are going, however, to see these carriages constructed where their manufacture is a specialty, we will not linger here, where they occupy but a part of an enormous establishment.

We will visit some more of the American Lairds. Pusey, Jones & Co. show you the vast extent of their premises, occupying ten acres and extending along the water in a thousand feet of wharfage. Their iron ships--one of which the artist has caught just after its completion--and other boats are moving to-day on nearly every river emptying into our Atlantic coast or the Gulf of Mexico. Steamboats of their build are now troubling the more distant waters of the Atrato, Magdalena, Orinoco, Amazon, Purus, Madeira, Tocantins, Ucayali, La Plata, Parana and Guayaquil Rivers of South America. They have other branches of manufacture, uniting the industries of the land to the toil of the sea. They turn out great quantities of machinery and many engines for paper-mills and iron-rolling mills, either of which they supply in every detail. This is an old and experienced firm, fully settled in character, credit and reputation.

Another great industrial combination is the Diamond State Works, established in 1853, occupying a whole block, and enjoying a frontage of three hundred and fifty feet on the Christine. Here are made the vast variety of things into which iron can be rolled or pinched. The eye is puzzled and pleased at the groups of intelligent machines standing up in their places and moulding with their steel fingers the rivets and the bolts; the railroad spikes, washers and fish-joints; the nuts, whether hot-pressed or cold-pressed; the lag-screws and the bolt-ends. Bars of all sizes and for an endless number of uses are pressed out like dough, and stored for sale in enormous warehouses. Mr. Mendinhall and Mr. Clement B. Smyth, the president and vice-president of this company, are of long experience in the management of their business; and the business of the company increases from year to year, demanding all the room in its commodious location, and necessitating an office in New York, where, at No. 71 Broadway, the large disbursing interests of the works are partly attended to.

We will explore another of these great working-places--this time, a group of mills as large as a modest village, yet devoted to one special product. In 1864, Mr. Henry B. Seidel purchased a rolling-mill which had already been in operation with varied success for eighty years, and established the manufacture of large plates for iron ships and boilers. In a few years, associating with himself his superintendent, Mr. Hastings, he greatly enlarged his operations, and the firm found their edifice too small. An ample new one, one hundred and twenty-five feet long, was put up in 1870, upon the Church street side of their property, and with the introduction of all the new machines became capable of the quickest and completest operations. Seidel & Hastings now run both mills, and turn out, when working night and day, at the rate of between five and six thousand tons of plate iron per annum. They prepare their own "blooms" of charcoal iron at a great forge erected on their premises: this forge has five fires, and is provided with the engines and blowing-cylinders for the manufacture of boiler iron, and the monster steam-hammers necessary in its preparation. Nature's products are here taught manners with a witness: whatever shape they enter in, they leave in the form of pie-crust. The tough old genius of iron, which has been trying since the creation to build itself into mountains or dissipate itself in bogs, is taught by the powerful persuasions of these gentlemen to pack and toughen itself into cards, and is only recognized by the foreman when he takes count of stock as "plate inch and a half" or "plate one-eighth."

From morocco-dressing to carriages, which are curtained and cushioned with morocco, is not a difficult step. La Bruy?re, who wrote a whole book without making any transitions, would have passed without effort from the establishment of Pusey, Scott & Co. to the coach-factory of McLear & Kendall. It should be premised that coach-building is another of the very special successes of Wilmington. She produced last year an amount, in cash value, of carriages greater than her iron ships, greater than her cotton fabrics, being one million four hundred thousand dollars. The engraving shows the outside magnitude of McLear & Kendall's factory, the largest in the city, but cannot show the curious effect of the great show-room, filled with rockaways, buggies of all kinds, and park phaetons. The building, which was put up in 1865, is on Ninth, King and French streets, and is two hundred and eighteen feet in length. These makers produce annually fifteen hundred vehicles, which are shipped to all parts of the United States. An engine of forty horse-power assists the workmen, of whom a hundred and seventy-five are kept in employment, earning the high wages commanded by skilled labor, or, on an average throughout the factory, twenty dollars per week.

After the ponderous establishments near the mouth of the Christine, and the neater sorts of industries which can be carried on within the city, we come to notice some of the mills and factories up stream. Many of these are of great antiquity.

A chalybeate spring at Faulkland, formerly much resorted to, is now in railway communication with Wilmington, and will recover its ancient prestige. Under the ownership of Mr. Matthew Newkirk, the late railway manager of Philadelphia, a large hotel at the Brandywine Springs was filled with rich Southerners for many summers, but the house was destroyed by fire, and the flow of visitors turned aside. One of the smaller houses, with accommodation for two hundred guests, is the present claimant for watering-place custom. Its situation, with the fine water-scenery, and a natural coliseum of wooded hills, is very attractive, and the restorative properties of the spring are proved and valuable.

One more interest attaches to Faulkland. Close by were the earthworks where Washington protected his army, expecting the British attack, but, drawn from his intrenchments by a flank movement, was tempted on, to sustain disaster at Chadd's Ford on the Brandywine.

We have just mentioned the site as in railway communication with the city of Wilmington. It is time to speak of the town in its relation to means of transport and as a railroad centre.

The location of the burgh, so near the ocean, on the beach of an immense river, and in the clasp of two smaller but partly navigable streams, kept it, in the old times, outside the latitude of railway improvement. Its naval facilities were thought to be sufficient for what business it had. The Baltimore line from Philadelphia passed through it, and could move its freight either north or south. With the development of its iron manufactures, however, the necessity of other connections became pressing, and in 1869 a road was opened to the coal-regions at Reading, crossing the Pennsylvania Central at Coatesville. Another road leads to New Castle. And now a short road has been opened to the westward, through a very rich region for way-freight; and with some notice of this, an artery for various mines and quarries, we finish our duty toward Wilmington as a railway nucleus.

The Wilmington and Western Railroad has not yet got over the excitement of being constructed. The creative spirit, it may be said, was Mr. Joshua T. Heald, an enterprising Wilmingtonian, already a director of the Wilmington and Reading line. It was he who drummed up the stock-subscriptions among his fellow townsmen. On July 8, 1871, he struck the first pick into the line as president, and in October, 1872, the road was opened for travel as far as Landenberg in Pennsylvania. The Wilmington and Western Road crosses Christine River in the suburbs, then follows the valley of Redclay Creek, past all its mills and local improvements, sends visitors to Brandywine Springs, and passes the birthplace of the inventor Oliver Evans, while its contemplated extension will pass it close to the birthplace of Robert Fulton, in the Peachbottom slate region of Pennsylvania. No bad omen for a steam-road, to have had its ground first broken at the cradle of one steam inventor and to lead to the cradle of another!

Regarding a map, to the west of Wilmington we see that there is a continuous tier of counties, from one extremity of Pennsylvania to the other, which has no great railway running east and west. A few of these counties are penetrated by feeders to the Pennsylvania Railroad or by other lateral roads, but they are not opened by any general comprehensive system; yet this section of Pennsylvania is one of the richest in mineral wealth. It has limestone, slate, iron ore, bituminous coal and other deposits. From one extremity to the other it is a region well worth development, and sure to reward by a large and valuable traffic the line of railway which will carry its products to the tide-water markets for sale or transhipment. The road is still an infant, but a good symptom is, that within six weeks of its opening the gross earnings of the company had reached a sum more than equal to the weekly interest on its bonded debt. Its extension to Oxford and the Susquehanna River is a matter for the immediate future.

So much for the facilities of moving Wilmington's many products by railway. It would be too unjust, however, to pay court to these roads, which are matters of yesterday, and show no attention to the system of water-transport for the sake of which her site was chosen two hundred years since.

Long years ago, Wilmington millers, wishing to ship flour to Philadelphia, used to walk down to Market street wharf, and pulling a bellcord that hung outside a little brick office by the river, summon to his duty the easy-going and cheerful freight-clerk of the transport line. The old sign, with the name of "Warner" upon it, is still upon the office, but the bell is gone, and the premises of Charles Warner & Co. have blossomed out into store-sheds and coal-sheds beyond all calculation. The guiding instinct of the firm was found to be concentrated in the handsome head of Mr. E. Tatnall Warner, a son and now a partner; and it was he who sketched out the amplitude of the store-houses, and determined to bring the line into victorious competition with the rail for all the freight of the port that would bear slow moving. The wharves of Warner & Co. now extend from Water street to the Christine River, and from Market to King streets. There are three communications daily with Philadelphia, and tri-weekly ones with New York and Boston. Their Philadelphia line consists of two steam-barges of one hundred and fifty tons, and they are constructing a third at a shipyard we have yet to examine--that of the Jackson & Sharp Company--of two hundred and fifty tons burden. The four railroads of Wilmington--the Baltimore line, the Wilmington and Reading, the Western, and the Delaware Road--all run their cars by continuous rails to the wharves of Warner & Co., where freight is transferred from cars to steamers with extreme rapidity, by four steam-hoisters placed on the ground for the purpose. A stationary engine also takes hold of the cars, and moves them from place to place on the rail as wanted. The handling by steam-power--a great change from the days of the old bell under the eaves!--of course reduces greatly the necessity for mere human porters. The steamers ply to a wharf at Chestnut street, Philadelphia, and also, as aforesaid, to New York. In respect to the latter port, the Messrs. Warner anticipate an early day when various novel manufactures established at Wilmington will demand new freights from the New York market, and to hasten that day they offer very strong inducements for return cargoes. Such is a specimen of a transport-office, transformed from old-fashioned ideas to the newest ambitions of the time. While the iron road will always collect a large portion of moving merchandise, there will still be another large portion for which the superior cheapness of water-transport will be a successful inducement.

An immense bid which Wilmington makes for future greatness is in the excellence of her harbor. Shipping there is at once safe and unimpeded in its exit. The Delaware and its bay below the city are broad and without sudden bends. Ice does not gather, and the influence of the ocean, by its tidal movement and salt water, makes the breaking of a channel comparatively easy. The Christine harbor, from any point near its mouth, can be kept open to the sea in all ordinary winters by a stout and well-built tug. The Christine is much wider--probably by three times--than the Chicago River, upon which every ton of the magnificent commerce of that great city is delivered. It has a better entrance and deeper water, as well as greater breadth. Wilmington believes she has a better issue for her manufactures in the Christine and Delaware than Glasgow possesses in the Clyde. The Clyde is narrower and more difficult to keep in order than the Christine, and Glasgow's facilities for getting materials for shipbuilding are not as great as Wilmington's.

The difference in the cost of production of iron ships in Wilmington and on the Clyde, exclusive of the premium on gold, is at this time about ten per cent. only. Taking the present price of gold , this increases the difference to about twenty-four per cent. The falling off in the price of gold, which is so generally expected, together with the advance in labor in Great Britain, and the consequent advance in the price of iron there, will soon bring the cost nearly equal in both countries. Indeed, if our shipbuilders would use the light and inferior iron in their ships that is used on the Clyde, the cost would not now materially differ. This will not be done, however, for reasons that are too evident to need stating; and by waiting until the prices have adjusted themselves naturally and permanently, a more lasting and desirable prosperity will be gained. Meditating these considerations, Wilmington is quite serene and fearless under the present temporary depression of American shipbuilding.

There are some features connected with the life and education of the operatives so abundant in this town, some additional industries, a few items of religious history, and a few evidences of modern taste or luxury, that we wish to consider; but these must be reserved for a second paper.

THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA.

SECOND PAPER.

The Roumi who leaves Constantina for Setif has a choice of two routes--one picturesque, lively and covered with Roman remains; the other perfectly arid, and distinguished by the fact that in five miles there are just four trees.

He turns, however, as he settles himself in his stirrup amongst the interested Arab population of Constantina, to cast a last look at the ugly French streets in which, as a tourist, his lot was cast. The Arab quarters, where life still flows on in the old African style, have seized his attention exclusively, and he remembers with a kind of contemptuous remorse that he has paid no regard to the smart modern edifices and offices that belong to French occupation. Yet one of these, at least, the staring Napoleonic Palais de Justice, would yield him a romance from time to time.

Here, in December, 1872, twenty-one natives of the Belezma were tried at a court of assizes for the massacre, last April, of twelve French colonists. The affair was a sequel of the French-Prussian war. The natives, for a long time past on good terms with strangers, became insolent, boasting that France was ruined, and that all the French would soon disappear from Algeria. Some of the tribes, however, remained, if not friendly, at least less hostile. The revolt had become almost general, and on the 21st of April the sheikh Brahim of the Halymias informed the little colony near Batna that they were no longer safe in the forest, and offered to escort them into Batna. These colonists were the workmen at the saw-mills of a M. Prudhomme, about ten miles out of the town. The Europeans, consisting of thirteen men, one woman named Dorliat and her four children, set out the next morning, accompanied by Brahim and about forty of his men. On arriving in a ravine they were suddenly attacked by a large body of the rebels. Six of the party, who were in the rear, succeeded in escaping, but twelve of the men were massacred. Madame Dorliat, it is said, owed her life to a native named Abdallah at the saw-mills, who, on seeing her in tears before starting, said to her: "Woman, you have nothing to fear: no harm will be done to you or to your children. As for the men, I will not answer for them." As she continued to weep, he added: "Listen! When you see the guns pointed at your breast, say this prayer: 'Allah! Allah! Mohammed racoul Allah!' and you will be saved." He also taught the same prayer to her children. In the midst of the slaughter several Arabs had leveled their firearms at her to shoot her, when she remembered Abdallah's lesson, and throwing herself on her knees to them repeated the invocation. The murderers stopped, made her say it over again, and asked, "Do you mean it?" On her replying in the affirmative they spared her, but stripped her entirely naked, and took from her three of her children: she only recovered them thirty-two days later, and one of them died from a sabre-cut in the head, received during the fight. The woman's husband was among the killed, and so was the proprietor of the mill, M. Prudhomme. Of the twenty accused brought to trial at Constantina, twelve were condemned to death and three to hard labor; the others, among whom was the sheikh Brahim, being acquitted.

The guides who accompany the traveler serve, in the absence of the trees, to attract his scrutiny. These mountain Arabs are superb fellows. Lips almost black, and shaded with lustrous beards, set off their perfect teeth, white, small, and separated like those of a young dog. Their black eyes are soft or stern at will. They are usually of middle size, large-chested, as befits Arabs from the hills, with small heads and finely-tapered wrists and ankles. They are dressed in red, with a covering of two bornouses--a white one beneath, and a black one fastened over. Long iron spurs are attached to their boots of red morocco, which come up to the knee; for the Algerian Arab, a bare-legged animal when walking, is a booted cavalier when mounted. The white haik, or toga, is fastened around the temples. The horse of the principal guide is a fine iron-gray, with an enormous tail of black--high-stepping, and carrying his elaborately-draped burden as proudly as a banner.

In contrast to this imposing guard of honor, the traveler minces along on a dumb, timid mule, who smells the ground in a sordid and vulgar manner, and is guided by a pitiful rope bridle. Such are the hackneys and the guides, engaged on the recommendation of the commandant of Constantina, who undertake to carry us to Setif and on to Bou-Kteun in Kabylia.

Setif, the ancient metropolis of this part of Mauritania, and celebrated for a brave defence against the invading Saracens, is now the healthiest spot occupied by the French in all Algeria. It lies on a great table a mile above the sea, is fortified, and has four good streets, but pays for its salubrity by the extreme outspokenness of the climate. It is subject to snow for six months, and is enveloped in a cloud of dust the other six. It is in the midst of a great grain-producing country, and is famed for its market, held every Sabbath. The surrounding folk dress for market, instead of dressing for Sunday, and exhibit the whitest of bornouses above the dustiest of legs as they sit crooning over trays of eggs or onions, brought far on foot through the powdery roads.

As we leave Setif we are overtaken by the lumbering stage-coach, which plunges and jolts over the road to Sibou-Areridj--a coach apparently about the age of the carriage of General Washington, for Algeria is the infirmary of all the worn-out French diligences. Sibou-Areridj is reached and passed, and a few miles farther on is encountered an Arab douar, or assemblage of tents forming a tribal fraction. This woven village, although we have attained the limits of Kabylia, reminds us that we have not yet reached the Kabylian abodes: an Arab lives in a tent in all localities outside the great cities--a Kabyle, never. However poor the hut in which the Kabylian artisan starves and labors, it must be a solid mansion founded upon the soil, and its master must feel himself a householder. Our douar proves to be an encampment belonging to the marabouts, or high religious orders, situated on a large plot of ground in the ownership of the saints, and extending up to the limits of Kabylia. Composed of a circle of tents numbering about fifty, and exhibiting numbers of fine horses picketed near the tent-doors, it is as fine a specimen as we shall see of the patriarchal life inherited from the unfatherly father of Ishmael. The pavilions are of a thick camel's hair stuff, very laboriously made by the women, which swells up in the rain and completely excludes moisture. They are striped brown and yellow, but a splendid tabernacle in the centre, of richer colors and finer fabric, bears at the apex a golden ball with plumes of ostrich feathers, the sign of authority. This tent is oval in form, resembling an overturned ship. It is the residence and office of the sheikh, or chief of the douar: several douars united form a tribe, governed by a caid. We venture to visit the sheikh, assured by our spahi guides that we shall be welcome. We are received blandly by the officer, offensively by his dogs, a throng of veritable jackals who scream around our feet as we enter. The interior, rich and severe at once, exhibits saddles and arms, gilded boxes and silken curtains, without a single article of furniture. The sheikh treats us to mild tobacco in chiboukhs--another sign that we are not yet in Kabylia: never is a Kabyle seen smoking. We reciprocate by offering coffee, made on the spot over our spirit-lamp--a process which the venerable sheikh watches as a piece of jugglery, and then dismisses us on our way with the polite but final air which Sarah may be supposed to have used in dismissing Hagar.

The douar, like a city, has suburbs of greater squalor than its interior, and among them, under the palm trees, we see women washing clothes or engaged in the manufacture of couscoussou, a dish common to the Arab, the Kabyle and the traveler hereabouts, and so important that a description of its preparation may be acceptable.

In the opening of a small tent, then, we paused to watch an old moukere , whose hands look as if she had been stirring up the compost-heap of bones, pickings and dirt before the door. With these hands she rolls dexterously a quantity of moistened flour upon a plate. Long habit has made it easy to her, and in an incredibly short time she has formed a multitude of small grains--her hands, it must be said, looking a great deal cleaner after the process. On the fire is a pot of water, just placed. She interrupts her labor to throw in a piece of kid, which, with a quantity of spices, she stirs around with her callous hand, almost to the boiling-pitch of the water. She then addicts herself once more to the manufacture of the flour-grains, of which she has directly made a perfect mountain. The water now boiling, she places the granulated paste in a second earthen pot or vase, whose bottom, pierced like a colander with holes, fits like a cover upon that in which the meat is boiling. The steam cooks the grains, which are afterward served upon a platter, with the meat on top and the soup poured over. All travelers agree that, when you do not witness the preparation, couscoussou is a toothsome and attractive dish, fit to be set beside the maccaroni of Rossini.

On the plateau outside the douar we find the cemetery, with its tombs; for the Arab, content to sleep under tissue while he lives, must needs sleep under mason-work after he is dead. Under the koubba, or dome, is seen a sarcophagus covered with a crimson pall, the tomb of a dead marabout: banners of yellow or green silk, the testimony of so many pilgrimages to Mecca, hang over the dead. In the graveyard round about are tombstones roughly sculptured, and the stone turbans indicating the cranium of a Mussulman; the Arab, again, after building his house of camel's hair, ordering his last turban to be woven by the stone-mason!

We pass along a sterile country, with chalky rocks cropping from the ground and making our way increasingly difficult. All is dry as a lime-basket. The climate here, completely wanting in the sense of a just medium, knows no resource between the utter desiccation of all the water-courses in summer and an outpouring in winter which carries away trees, crops and arable earth, presenting the farmer with a result of boulders and sand. The rocks sound beneath our animals' feet for an hour or two: we dip into a ravine and attain Bou-Kteun, our first Kabylian town.

It is night, and we invoke the hospitality of the village chief, called by the Kabyles the amin. Our prayers are not refused. The amin receives the strangers, not so much from a feeling of social etiquette, of which he knows little, as from his religion, which commands him to receive the guest as the messenger of God. He comes to the threshold, kisses our hands without servility, waits on us at a supper which he is too polite to share, and presents us with a prayer at our bedside. Bou-Kteun, situated halfway up the "Red Plateau," guards the pass called the Gates of Iron. It is an uninteresting village, the official house being alone respectable amidst a town of huts. As the amin accompanies us a little way outside the burgh, we remark, among the young orchards, stumps of olive and fig trees sawn away at the base. The amin shows them with sad satire, saying in explanation, "French Roumi:" it was the Christian French.

The Romans conquered the shores and the plains. You find none of their ruins among the mountains, where the Berbers, from the Roman occupation to the French, have preserved an independence never completely subdued.

The Kabyle villages are united into federations. If these federations engage in quarrels--which is by no means rare--or if a village is menaced by an enemy, signals are placed in the minarets to appeal to the towns of the same party. These are easily seen, for all the villages are on hilly crests and visible from a distance. From the summit of Taourit el Embrank we can count more than twenty of these Kabyle towns, perched on the peaks around us, and separated by profound chasms.

A CHINESE STORY.

None are so wise as they who make pretence To know what fate conceals from mortal sense. This moral from a tale of Ho-hang-ho Might have been drawn a thousand years ago, Long ere the days of spectacles and lenses, When men were left to their unaided senses.

Two young short-sighted fellows, Chang and Ching, Over their chopsticks idly chattering, Fell to disputing which could see the best: At last they agreed to put it to the test. Said Chang: "A marble tablet, so I hear, Is placed upon the Bo-hee temple near, With an inscription on it. Let us go And read it , Standing together at a certain place In front, where we the letters just may trace. Then he who quickest reads the inscription there The palm for keenest eyes henceforth shall bear." "Agreed," said Ching; "but let us try it soon: Suppose we say to-morrow afternoon."

"Nay, not so soon," said Chang: "I'm bound to go, To-morrow, a day's ride from Ho-hang-ho, And sha'n't be ready till the following day: At ten A.M. on Thursday let us say."

"My sharp-eyed friend, there are no such words!" said Ching. "They're there," said Chang, "if I see anything-- As clear as daylight!" "Patent eyes, indeed, You have!" cried Ching. "Do you think I cannot read?" "Not at this distance, as I can," Chang said, "If what you say you saw is all you read."

In fine, they quarreled, and their wrath increased, Till Chang said, "Let us leave it to the priest: Lo, here he comes to meet us." "It is well," Said honest Ching: "no falsehood he will tell."

C.P. CRANCH.

BERRYTOWN.

A straggling old house, painted yellow, and set down between a corn-field and the village pasture for family cows; old walnut trees growing close to its back and front, young walnut trees thrusting themselves unhindered through beet and tomato patches, and even through the roof of the hennery in the rear, which had been rebuilt to accommodate them, spreading a heavy shade all about, picturesque but unprofitable.

Old Peter Guinness used to sit on the doorstep every hot summer evening, smoking his cigar, and watching the hens go clucking up to roost in the lower branches and the cattle gathered underneath.

"What a godsend the trees are to those poor beasts!" he said a dozen times every summer.

"Yes. We risk dampness and neuralgia and ague to oblige the town cows," Mrs. Guinness would reply calmly.

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