walk with difficulty from room to room, and had no excuse to remain with them longer. But now I dreaded to return; now I shrunk from the thoughts of the rooms where I knew the body of my friend was. . . . . .

six, perhaps eight days already! I dug my nails into the palms of my hands with despair at the idea. Then I thought of Ugo Foscolo-how his body was found with the arm gnawed away by his own teeth in the agony of famine. I raved -I wept-I groaned-my brain seemed a burn- "I went at last. A rude conveyance bore me ing coal. I was in a delirious fever! Oh, the home. It was mid-day when I left the cottage, terrible visions of a mind disordered and oppressed and the rapid winter night had closed in before with such a fearful anguish as mine! Madness was we reached the gates of the chateau. Here I bid wrought to a despairing fury, passing all ordina- my entertainers farewell, and insisted on apry delirium, by the goadings of conscious agony; proaching alone those walls from which I had pain, mental and bodily, acting in terrible con- so long remained absent. The moon was shincert, surrounded me with torments to which the ing bright and chill on every tree and shrub. I fabled hell of the Florentine were no more than am not superstitious, a thrill of dread crept over an uneasy dream. Sometimes I seemed to be- me when I stood before the house, and saw the hold my guest as from a place whence I could bats flitting in the ruins, and beheld the pale light not escape to his aid. I saw him shake the bars on the windows of the fatal rooms which I had of the narrow casements with hopeless fury. I inhabited. I ascended the broken steps-the saw his pale face-his convulsed limbs. I heard great door yielded to my touch-a light beneath him curse my name; and then, oh, horror! he a distant door evidenced that my old servant was fixed his dying eyes on mine, and so chained yet faithful to her guardianship. I opened it, and me, without the power of avoiding their fascina-beheld her sleeping soundly in the chimney cortion. Again, I was walking with him on a narrow shelf beside a burning lake. I fell: I implored him to save me-but to extend his hand to me, or I should perish and methought the dying look came over him again, and his form dilated as he bade me fall and perish. Again but these recollections are too fearful! I was mad; and when reason once more returned to me, I found myself utterly weakened, and help-up to the table, and laid the cand'e down. He less as a child. I looked at my hands; they were little better than the hands of a skeleton. I made signs to them for a looking-glass; my beard had reached the growth of weeks.

ner. Yonder, to the right, down that dark cor-
ridor, lay the rooms which I had lived in; yon-
der, the locked and fatal door. The cold dew
stood upon my brow; I took a lighted candle
from the table, and forced myself to go on.
the door I paused again; even when the key was
in and turned I hesitated, and would fain have
deferred it; then I pushed it open, walked straight

At

was not there. This was a relief to me. I dreaded to find him in the first room, and thanked God that the sight of his corpse had not met my eyes on the first entrance. I closed the door and looked round the chamber in every part. My heart sickened when I beheld the disorder in which it lay. Chairs, books, and cushions were lying on the floor; a thick dust covered every object; the dishes were yet on the table where we had dined together; a few bones, covered, like the rest, with the deposit of months, were scattered on the cloth. A watch was lying be

"Then I knew that my friend was dead. "Dead!―never more to call me by my name -never more to touch my hand, or gladden me with talk of high and wondrous things. Dead! still, cold. Dead, and by my means. Dead and unburied. Could I then have died, so to call him back again to life, I would have rejoiced to do so. Nay, to die were too poor a sacrifice I would have given my soul to do it. I a mur-side them; it had stopped long, long ago at derer! I who had never harmed a fly; who had stepped aside from the snail upon my path ;-I who had never choked the sweet songs of the birds in murderous sport. I was now too feeble and too broken-hearted to make even the faintest effort to return to the chateau. I prayed for death; yet day by day, I gradually recovered strength. The village surgeon who attended me was no more than an unlettered quack, and it is surprising that I should have escaped with life; but I did, and the more I loathed to live, the more I felt that death rejected me. Gradually my limb strengthened, and they lifted me occasionally from the bed to a garden seat, where I might breathe the cool fresh air of early winter. They were all kind and gentle to me, but grateful I could not be for care or attention, since to exist was now and henceforward a perpetual misery. Besides, they had found me no ungenerous guest: I had a considerable sum with me when I went to Toulouse, and the residue amply satisfied their claims. By-and-by I could even

twelve o'clock, and lay there blank and speechless. It was Schneider's. I knew it again. Alas! alas! type of its owner; the busy heart was mute and motionless. I wept; tears seemed to ease my heart of the heavy load that was crushing it within my breast. I gathered resolution once more, and opened the door of the second chamber. But he was not there either. The bed was black with dust-he had slept in it when I left him; and there tossed and uncovered, it remained as when he last arose from it. At the window a table was standing, and on the table a chair. Some panes of glass were broken, through which the night air came down upon me and blew the flame of the candle hither and thither. There he had climbed and striven to escape, but the iron bars defied him; he had broken the window, and cried in vain for help; the attendant was deaf and infirm, and no soul ever penetrated the grounds of the chateau. It was plain, that my study was his tomb. The certainty froze my blood, and I trembled in every limb. Now that

here, and allow you just enough to live. Learn to do something for yourself; and come back in your right senses." So, the young cornet sold his commission, and sailed for Australia

Not intending to go to the Diggings, and hearing that Sydney was a far nicer place to reside in than dust-driving Melbourne (" which nobody can deny, deny"), he landed at that place, and after a short stay to recover so long a voyage, he rode up into the bush some hundred miles. He was a pretty good judge of a horse, and had something in his head that way. Horses brought high prices in Melbourne, and if he could get them over land there, it might be "doing something for himself," as his father had recommended.

it was a certainty I felt unable to move one step stop you. Sell out directly, sir, and leave the in advance. There was the study door not en-country for three years. I'll pay your debts tirely closed, and yet not sufficiently open to reveal aught within. There was his living tomb. It must be done! every breath of air through the shattered panes threatened to extinguish my light. Better to face the worst than be left there in sudden fearful darkness. I groaned involuntarily, and started at the sound of my own voice. I advanced-I extended my hand. Good God! the door resisted me! Yes, there-there across the threshold, lay a dark and shapeless mass. I could only open it by main strength, and all strength on the instant failed me. Terror tied my tongue. I felt a scream of horror rising to my lips, but had not the power to utter it, and, staggering slowly under the burden, the agonizing burden of supreme fear, I dragged myself back again through the rooms, locked the doors, along the corridor and hall, and out once more among the trees and the moonlight. On I went and never once looked back; out through the great open gates, on along the high road. Dread and an unnatural strength possessed me. Yesterday I could scarcely walk thirty yards without pain and fatigue; now, I was insensible to mere bodily grievances. I used the fractured limb without attending to the exquisite suffering it must have occasioned me. At last fatigue overpowered me. I sat down by the roadside. A vehicle passed by. The driver saw and assisted me to enter it. At last, after many changes and stages, I reached Paris. I have since then wandered over Europe. Languedoc and the Chateau Regnier I have not beheld since that awful night. I am a pilgrim and an outcast without peace or rest-wandering, a shadow, among men and cities, in some one of which I hope to find a grave."

Heinrich S. I never saw again. From time to time I hear of him as having been seen in some far off land-three years since he was in Russia, and last summer I was told that he had been for a few weeks in Vienna. But I know not; report is ever vague and uncertain. He lives, I fear: perhaps the next news may be of his death. I hope so; for life is terrible with him. May he die in peace!

A

A FRAGMENT OF AUSTRALIAN LIFE. YOUNG fellow of high connexions, educated at Sandhurst, and having subsequently got his commission in one of the "crack" cavalry regiments (Lancers or Hussars, we decline to say which), became rapidly inaugurated in all the ways of fashionable London life. He cantered in the parks, lounged about the Clubs; the Opera and Almacks were his, with their songs, and dances, and winning smiles. He hunted, he shot, he raced, he gamed, he drank, and “all that," until one morning his father sent for him. He had been allowed five hundred a year, besides his pay, and he had been living at the rate of five thousand-as near as it could be calcuated. What his father said was to this effect: 'Arthur, you're going to the devil, and I must

At East Maitland, about a hundred and fifty miles from Sydney, he chanced to fall in with a young fellow about his own age; and, after what they considered "mature deliberation," they agreed to purchase not horses, but four hundred head of bullocks, engage a bullockdriver to help in the work, and drive them over land to Melbourne. The distance by a direct route, and using roads, would not exceed five or six hundred miles; but, as they would have to go winding and zig-zagging and crossing hills and swamps and fields and creeks in order to find constant food and water for the cattle, the distance would not be far short of nine hundred, or a thousand miles. They purchased the bullocks, engaged a regular bullock-driver (the driving of these horned gentry, whether loose or yoked, being a special art, needing considerable practice), and off they started.

Besides the four hundred bullocks, they had nine horses, and a dray. Three of the horses they rode, three were attached to the dray, and the remaining three they drove loose in the rear of the bullocks, on the flank, or as they liked to go. The dray was laden with some bags of oats for the horses, provisions for three men, a change of outer clothing, two changes of under clothing, blankets, spare harness, cordage, hobbles, two double-barreled guns, a rifle, and a few toolssuch as wood-axes, knives, a spade, hammer. and nails.

Day after day, through the solitudes of the bush, pleasingly varied at times by miles of bog, or leagues of swamp, amidst which they had to sleep, or get such rest in the night as they could, our two young gentlemen accommodated themselves to studying the uncouth mysteries of "stock-driving;" aiding and assisting their professor elect in all his countless exigencies and requirements. Our cornet, who was the principal proprietor of all these moving horns, was scarcely one-and-twenty, and, moreover, looked still younger than he was. His friend Wentworth was about twenty-five, of fair complexion, and apparently of no great strength. The bullock-driver was a rough, sun-browned, brawny, bearded old colonial and bush-man. He did not conceal his contempt for the capacities of his

sleeper in a rude and ridiculous way with the hook end of his whip, using very rough language; whereupon our cornet arose, and "polished him off" in first-rate style, being a fair boxer. The butcher, after a few roun deliberately remounted his horse, sat in his Idle looking at his "young man"-then said, "Well, I'm blowed "" and rode away.

་་་

They had some very cold weather about this time, especially during the nights, and they lost six of their horses, almost entirely from the cold, as they had no means of sheltering them. After this, the remaining three horses being needed for the dray, they followed the drove of bullocks on foot, for nearly a month. The few clothes that had remained to them were torn piecemeal from their bodies in passing through the low scrub and swampy osier beds, till our cornet's sole personal effects were a pair of stocking-legs and a tooth-brush. This latter very useful article had been found loose in the dray, and was displayed as a trophy.

They lost upward of a hundred bullocks in the bogs and swamps, or by straying away in the night. Following on foot was a great disadvantage, to say nothing of the work. At length they approached a little bush inn, and a burly old brown-bearded fellow, pleasantly drunk, issued forth to meet them, crying out, "My name's Jem Bowles—glasses round!" He made them all have nobblers of brandy, and plenty to eat, and got them some clothes-enough to ride

CONG

in-and three good bush horses in exchange for bullocks. He made them stay there a day and night at his expense. He had taken a great liking to the cornet. But he often took likings, and habit-lly treated every body. "Glasses round!"

Jem Bowles was a great stock-keeper, and well known on the road. It was his habit to "drink his bullocks” on the way to market, and then to return home. He had been known to drink seventy head, in a few days, at one bush inn. Of course he was robbed, as he kept no 'count of the "glasses round" to which he treated every body all day long. He was now drinking his last ten head of bullocks.

Our cornet and his colleagues being once more horsed, proceeded on their way, uproariously grateful to Jem Bowles, and eventually reached Melbourne, leaving the dray behind them in the bush, where it had at last “given in," wheel and axle. The journey had taken them nearly four months. They had lost, in all, eight horses, and a hundred and three bullocks: the remainder, nevertheless, sold well. After paying all expenses, including every thing, our cornet made, as his share, above one hundred pounds profit. Little enough for such labor; but still very good as the first earnings of a "young man." The very same day, he met in the street the butcher whose hide he had tanned in the bush; and the butcher touched his hat to him. This is a fragment of Australian life.

Monthly Record of Current Events.

UNITED STATES.

ONGRESS not being in session, political interest, during the past month, has been almost entirely concentrated upon the appointments to the various offices within the gift of the Administration. Of the appointments already made, the most important are those of Mr. Buchanan of Pennsylvania as Minister to England, Mr. Borland of Arkansas to Central, America, and Mr. Soulé of Louisiana to Spain. Special significance is attached to the last, from the indication it is supposed to furnish of a desire on the part of the Administration to open negotiations with Spain for the acquisition of Cuba. The seat in the Senate vacated by the appointment of Mr. Soulé, has been filled by the election of Hon. John Slidell. The large amount of patronage at the disposal of the Collectors in the principal Custom Houses, invests these appointments with no small importance. This is especially the case in respect to the Collectorship at New York, which after having been declined by Hon. Mr. Dickinson, was bestowed upon Hon. Greene C. Bronson, late Chief Justice of the State of New York.-From New Mexico we have intelligence of national rather than of local interest. It seems that on the frontiers of that Territory is a tract, known as the Mesilla Valley, some 175 miles long by 30 or 40 broad, which has been claimed both by the United States and Mexico, under the provisions of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The joint Boundary Commission assigned the valley to Mexico. But on the 13th of March, Governor Lane of New Mexico. "upon his own ocial responsibility, and without orders from the

Cabinet of Washington," issued a proclamation taking possession "of the disputed territory, to be held provisionally by the United States, until the question of boundary shall be determined between the United States and Mexico." He assigns as reasons for this step, that the territory in question until the year 1851, was always considered to belong to New Mexico; but in that year it was unwarrantably taken possession of by the State of Chihuahua:—that the action of the Boundary Commission in assigning the territory to Mexico was invalid on account of informality, and moreover had not been ratified by the two Governments :-that the State of Chihuahua has signally failed to protect the inhabitants in the exercise of their rights, and against Indian aggression:-and that the present condition of Mexico precludes the hope that it can afford protection to the inhabitants of the territory; so that a large proportion of them" now claim the protection of the United States, and solicit the re-annexation of the territory to New Mexico, from which it was illegally wrested by the State of Chihuahua." Governor Lane demanded the aid of the United States troops to carry this proclamation into effect; but it was refused. In the meanwhile the Mexican Governor of Chihuahua has published a counter proclamation, and taken such measures as lay in his power to resist the proposed action of the Governor of New Mexico. It is also denied that the inhabitants of the valley are in favor of annexation to the United Stats The intentions of our Government in the matter have not yet transpired; but the general impression is, that the course of Governor Lane will be disavowed, and that he will

be recalled. An important decision has been made took place on the 6th of May, upon the New York in respect to the delivery to foreign governments of and New Haven Railroad. A drawbridge of 60 feet alleged fugitives from justice. It grew out of the width across the Norwalk River was opened to case of Thomas Kaine, charged with an attempt to admit the passage of a vessel. A train advancing, in murder in Ireland. There seemed little doubt as to broad daylight, at unusual speed, rushed into the openthe guilt of the accused, and his surrender was de-ing, and was plunged into the water. The loss of life manded by the British Government, in accordance by this wholesale act of murder exceeds 50.—A plan with the treaty to that effect. The Court decided has been formed for consolidating the different railway that the surrender of foreign criminals was not an companies forming the line between Albany and Bufordinary criminal proceeding, but a national act, and falo. The distance between New York and Buffalo, that in order to secure it, a demand, accompanied nearly 500 miles, is now accomplished in from 15 to 18 with adequate proof, must be made upon the Ex-hours, either by way of the New York and Erie, or ecutive Department of our Government, which alone the Hudson River and Central lines.- -A general could grant authority for the courts to interfere. This and successful effort to increase the price of almost not having been done, the prisoner was discharged. every description of mechanical labor has taken place -The constitutionality of the law of South Car- in our principal cities. The increase effected olina, directing the imprisonment of foreign colored amounts to from 10 to 15 per cent. In very few cases seamen is about to be tested. It comes up on a suit has resort been had to protracted strikes from labor; instituted by George Roberts, a colored British sea- and in fewer still to violence or intimidation.——— man, for damages on account of assault and false im- Father Gavazzi, an Italian exile, has been lecturing prisonment, against the Sheriff of Charleston. The to crowded audiences in New York. He attacks the real plaintiff in the case is the British Government. Papal system with the most unsparing severity. It The alleged facts are all admitted; and the suit is is said that the notorious Father Achilli is to leave brought to test the constitutionality of the law, which England for America at no distant date, to join in the is affirmed to conflict with treaty stipulations. The crusade against Catholicism.-Mons. Franconi's United States Circuit Court decided it to be consti- Hippodrome has opened in New York, with great tutional, and an appeal has been taken to the Supreme success. Court. The Massachusetts Legislature has again refused, by a small majority, to pass a bill making indemnification for the loss sustained by the burning of the Ursuline Convent at Charlestown, many years ago. -The Message of Governor Seymour of Connecticut gives a very favorable account of the affairs of that State. The total amount paid into the Treasury during the past year was $150,650 00, to which is to be added a balance of $39,130 03, on hand at the commencement of the year. The entire expenditures were $135,104 09, of which only $113,822 15 were for ordinary purposes. The sum raised by direct taxation amounts to but $56,167 88. The School Fund is in a very prosperous condition; it produces an income of $143,639 69, exceeding all the other expenditures of the State, and affording a dividend of $1 35 to each scholar. Efficient measures have been taken to institute a State Reform School for juvenile offenders, for which purpose a farm of 164 acres has been purchased. The number of disasters by steamboat and railroad is unusually large. We can not attempt to enumerate those involving only a slight loss of human life. But a number have occurred of such uncommon magnitude as to force themselves upon public attention. The steamer Independence was lost on the 16th of February on the Island of Margita, off the coast of Lower California. She struck upon a hidden rock, and received so much damage that it was found necessary to run her ashore; in doing this the vessel took fire, and those on board were driven overboard into the furious surf. Out of 418 persons on board 129 were lost. A collision took place, April 23, near Chicago, between the trains of the Central Michigan and Northern Indiana railroads, by which about 20 persons were killed at once, and a large number seriously injured. The lines of the two roads cross each other in the midst of a swamp. The collision took place in a clear night, and was the result of the most inexcusable negligence. The engineers and conductors of both trains have been held to answer to a charge of manslaughter. The steamer Ocean Wave, plying upon Lake Ontario, was burned on the morning of April 20. Of about 50 persons on board, passengers and crew, only 22 were saved. But all previous ailroad accidents are eclipsed in horror by one which

Hon. WILLIAM R. KING, Vice-President of the United States, died at his plantation near Cahawba, Alabama, on the 18th of April, at the age of 68. He was a native of North Carolina; was educated for the bar, but entered public life at an early age. He was elected a Representative in Congress in 1811, just previous to the declaration of war, of which measure he was a warm supporter. In 1816 he went to France as Secretary of Legation. Upon his return he emigrated to Alabama, then a Territory, was chosen a member of the Convention which framed a State Constitution for the Territory, and upon its admission as a State, in 1819, became a member of the United States Senate. He held his seat continuously until 1844, a period of 25 years. He then was sent as Minister to France. Upon his return he was again elected to the Senate, of which body he was presiding officer at the time of his election to the Vice-Presidency of the United States. Some months ago it became evident that a pulmonary disease had made deep inroads upon his constitution, and a tropical sojourn was recommended as the only means of prolonging his life. He accordingly sailed for Havana, where the oath of office was administered to him by the United States Consul, in accordance with a law passed specially for the occasion. It soon became evident that no relief was to be hoped from a residence in Cuba, and Mr. King returned home to die among those friends who had clung so closely to him for so many years. He landed at Mobile on the 11th of April, and reached his home on the 17th, the day preceding his death. By his death the duties of the office to which he was chosen devolve upon the President of the Senate, for the time being. This post is now held by Mr. Atcheson of Missouri.

SOUTHERN AMERICA.

Santa Anna has returned to Mexico, and resumed the government of that country. He was conveyed from Carthagena to Havana by an English steamer; from thence he sailed for Vera Cruz, which he reached on the 1st of April. On the day following he issued an animated proclamation to his countrymen, saying that he had obeyed the summons to return to his country, in the hope of rescuing the State