"Well," said he, "I don't know any better way than to keep down the middle of the swamp until we meet with some of the boys, get some ammunition of them, and then strike off on our own account."

So we trampoosed along down the edge of the swamp till we came to a track, when we turned in Ingin file, and kept on about a mile or so, climbing over stumps, wading through mud-holes, tearing through cat briers, and stumbling among bogs, and at last found ourselves in an open piece about a pole across, which was perfectly dry, with two large oak trees standing some ten feet apart.

"Hold on, Haines," says the boss, "let's pull up here and take some grub. You aint had any breakfast, nor I neither; so you take that tree and I'll take this, and we'll eat and rest a bit."

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Agreed," said Haines. "There aint much use of going too fast, and we might as well pull up a bit here as not. 'Squire, suppose we liquor?"

"Well, old Haines and the boss sat down, and I fixed the things for them, not forgetting to leave the bottle; and, thinks I to myself, I reckon I'll start on a piece and look after some of the boys. So on I goes for about a two or three miles, without seeing anything of any of them; and beginning to feel tired, I turned round and put back agin. Well, when I got, as I thought, about where I left the boss and Haines, I heard a kind of growling and rustling, as if there was pigs huntin' after acorns. Holloa, says I to myself, what's this? I'll jist peep in the brush and see what it is. So I turns in out of the track, and by gosh! if there wasn't the boss behind one tree, and old Haines behind another, each dodging a bear. Holloa! says I, this is a fix ! What's to be done now? So I hides behind a thick ivy bush, and looks on a spell;—but I had to laugh. There stood the boss behind a tree, with his legs one side and his head t'other, and whenever the bear would make a pass at him round one way, he dodged round the other; while old Haines kept his head a-going from one side to the other, and danced round and back jist as if he weighed one stone in place of eighteen.

"Curse me!" said old Haines to the boss, when his bear kept still a moment, and gin him a chance to breathe" if this work keeps on much longer, if I don't have to give up. I can't stand it, by all that's holy. Holler, 'Squire, for I can't, and see if you can't bring that boy back."

"I can't holla, Haines, I can't," said boss, "the animal is so infernally bent on grabbing my leg. Good Lord, he liked to have had me that time! Try, Haines, yourself!-do, there's a good fellow! That animal after you aint a she one, but mine is, I know, by its being so infernal artful. Ugh! you bitch!" said the boss, shaking his fist at the one as was after him, as she stood on her hind legs, grabbing at him round the tree, with her head half way round, to see exactly where he was.

"Can't we change trees?" asked Haines, " for I've got tired running round one way, and the cursed brute won't alter the track."

"Hey! hollo! hey!" sung out the boss for me, "ho, hoop, ha," and by gosh, while he turned up his eyes as if to holla louder, the bear give him a dig with her paw in the seat of his pantaloons, and carried away drawers and all. "Oh!" said the boss, and he put one hand behind to feel what damage was done, and darted round t'other side quicker. "Curse me if I keep this position much longer,

VOL. XXVII.

F F

Haines! I'll take the path and make a run for it! This is playing bo-peep with a vengeance! It's altogether too exciting to be pleasant; a pretty position for the editor of the Advocate and Journal' to be placed in a dodging bears round chestnut-trees! curse me if I can stand it any longer."

But Haines hadn't any time to attend to what the boss was saying, for t'other bear kept him on the move, so that he was all eyes, and no care for anything else; and the two kept dodging and twisting, and heading off each other with great alertness and perseverance.

"I wish I had a slight drop of something," said the boss to himself, for there was no use talking to Haines; he hadn't time to answer. "I think I could keep this up somewhat longer, but without something strengthening I must knock under, that's a fact. No editor of flesh and blood could do it, and what's more, curse me if I do!" He went on getting wrathy. "Look here, Haines! I tell you what, this can't last much longer without coming to some pass or other."

"I, too, Katey," replied Haines; "but may I never taste anything stronger than water if I don't think we 've come to a pretty considerable pass already. Here I am scouting round this infernal tree, first on one side then t'other, dodging here and there, headed off and chased round, making myself a cursed jenny-spinner, dry as, and as hot as thunder, and you yelling out to me to get you out of jist sich a fix as I am in myself. Curse the bitch, why don't you-ah! why don't you mesmerise her!"

But it wasn't any use for them to get wrathy: the bears didn't give them time to get in a passion, for it takes the boss and Haines ten minutes to fire up strong when they talk politics; and as they were just at that time, they didn't get a minute even to think.

Well, after I had looked out for about fifteen minutes or so, and seed the boss begin to get desperately frightened, and looking all fired-tired, thinks I, I heard a gun back north some time ago; I guess I'll try and hunt up that fellow, and get him to come and shoot one of these varmint, so as to get our boss out of the scrape. So back I went, and in half an hour I found old Bullet poking around among a parcel of gorse and furze, looking after a partridge that he had killed when I heard his gun go off. As soon as I told him how matters stood with the boss and Haines, he loaded right up, and started away like a fire-engine under a full head of steam, and made tracks straight a-head, without steering clear of anything.

Bullet drove on so fast, that when we came up to where the old 'uns were, I was so all-fired blowed that I hadn't wind enough left to laugh. There they was, just as I had left them, dodging and sliding round, and the bears growling and snapping like all natur. Old Haines had got so warm that he had pulled off his cravat, coat, and waistcoat, and had unbuttoned his shirt at the neck and wristbands, awaiting a chance to duck his head and get that off too. I verily believe that, fat as he is, he did think of climbing the tree, just to vary the amusement. As for the boss, he was jerking his head from one side to the other, just like that Dutch figure on cousin Sally's mantelpiece; and I do believe if he had kept on for about an hour more, he wouldn't have had a hair left on his scalp. He's a little bald on top as it is.

As soon as we got near enough I hollered out to old Haines, so as he might know there was somebody nigh at hand; and as soon as ever he

seed Bullet with his gun, didn't the old fellow look glad, and for fear Bullet would want to poke fun at him, and keep him dodging a little longer, you ought to have heard him try to petition and pray. But it wouldn't do; if ever he learned how, he'd forgot I reckon, though he never had any schooling in that line.

Oh, Bullet," says he, "if you ever heer'd minster Damenhall tell about the next world, and you have a look to be saved, and—just think about my da'ter to hum, and the old woman, though you needn't lay any great stress on her in particular. You know, Bullet, we don't know where we may go to. Oh! Lord, look down on Bullet-I mean the 'Squire and I-and give us grace-(why don't you fire, you cursed fool? Do, that's a good fellow)-and the Squire will ever pray. May we live so as to look forward-(Bullet, I'll give you a pint of apple-jack the very minute I get back to the Major's, if you'll only fire quick) and may our hearts be bound up with grace—(why, in in the name of -> don't you blow this brute's brains out, and be cursed to you? I'll lick you like thunder, I will!). For all our past sins be merciful-(I'll let you off that quarter you owe me, Bullet)— that we may live a godly, righteous, and sober-or at least moderate -life; preserve us, oh Lord."

I don't know whether the old fellow could have gone on any longer, but I hadn't a chance to know, for Bullet, who had got into thick cover, drew upon the varmint, and put a ball clean through its head. The other one scampered off as soon as he heard the report, and was hunted up next day, and killed by Bill Winkle.

The very moment the boss and Haines found themselves clear, down they both dropped, clean gone. The boss fainted, and so would old Haines have done, but he couldn't; and besides, he was so busily engaged in cursing Bullet, and calling for a drink of something, he hadn't time. We had a bad time bringing the boss to, and he appeared a good deal flighty when we got him so as he could walk home. As for Haines, he swore he'd set two niggers to rubbing him down with ile the very minute he got hum, or else he 'd be as stiff as a spavined horse next day.

When we arrived in town we all went to the Major's, but we couldn't keep the boss long, for he took on dreadfully. Some said he was crazy, some said he was wild drunk,-the Major said that he thought perhaps the fright had slightly turned his brain; whereupon old Haines, who was getting near about considerably tight, said as how that couldn't be, because the boss had stood the wear, tear, and racket, when the fellow came on from York to dun the boss for a bill of paper as he owed to one in that city, and said he, "if he could stand such a cursing as that was, burn my skin if all the bears this side of the York line, and west of the Rocky mountains, would be able to shake one single nerve in his whole body!"

However, be the cause what it may, the boss is clean mad, and the schoolmaster has had to take his place.

gone,-stark

THE PRAISE OF SMOKING,

BY H. J. WHITLING.

What it is to be a German ?-The art of Thinking fully exemplified.-The sad effects of eating an Apple!

READER, I am a German! Lest, however, you should not happen to know what it is to be a German, and I, in consequence, become misunderstood, the term must be explained. To be a German, then, is, first and foremost, to be a smoker-in other words a thinker-necessarily therefore a philosopher-which, being again interpreted, only means much more of a dreamer than a doer. Mind! I do not consider this last-named characteristic, taken per se, as by any means either uncommon, or peculiar to the Germans; on the contrary, I believe that most people in the world are far more given to dreaming than doing to thought rather than to action. This, however, like everything else, has its good side. Indolence-call it, if you will, inactivity -is the grand Pacific Ocean of life, into whose stagnant abyss the good and the bad oftentimes alike fall and have their end. It is a sort of moral Dead Sea, wherein, if the most salutary things produce no benefit, the most pernicious, on the other hand, produce no evil. The fact is, there are thousands, nay, perhaps millions, who want energy, for one who wants motive; and dreamy sloth, take my word for it, has prevented the active operation of as many vices in some minds, as of virtues in others. In this respect the Germans are the first people in the world at least so they say and I'm sure they think so. But the distinction can only be arrived at by the gentle gradations I have already pointed out; the whole, however, being based upon smoke -for I am fully persuaded that the marked inferiority of the rest of the world arises solely from their inability to smoke as the Germans do. Since the days of Hume and Porson in England, and a few other equally glorious exceptions elsewhere, it has ever been considered indisputable that smoking induces thought, and thought philosophy, and philosophy that dreamy state of mind or intellect which elevates its possessor far above the Clouds of Aristophanes, or the seventh heaven of Mahomet, or even the dwelling-place of Him who is exalted far above either.

Not that merely blowing clouds of smoke will ever make a nation great. It is only to be regarded as an important element in their greatness! The Turk, to whose prophet I have just now so respectfully alluded, he also smokes. But how unlike the German! It is of no pure inhaling. He, like his celestial brother of the moon, puts opium into his pipe and smokes that, and then fancies he is thinking. But they are self-deceivers both. Their dreams are mere torporific illusions, and, until very lately, as testified by one or two recent treaties, of no use whatever to themselves, or to anybody else.

The Indian, it is true, enjoyed the weed long before the German ; but though he notoriously grew the best tobacco, he never seems to have had anything else worth thinking about, till he began to negociate with the pale-faced stranger, who so abominably hocussed him with brandy, that since that time he has never been able to think about anything at all, except perhaps "the bones of his fathers," for which

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pos seves write "The Praise of Imo Reig &

a fool, just as if ther people Caut thouk

THE PRAISE OF SMOKING.

as well as the Germans

419

uncivilized remains the more enlightened portion of the world naturally entertain not the slightest régard.

Then the Dutch! I had almost forgotten them. They smoke also. But, ye gods! does it inspire them with "thought expansive" like the Germans? No. Here the natural and reasonably to be expected transition is at once broken; the sequence signally and entirely fails. In vain do we seek in their heads the anticipated influence.

To be, however, a smoker, thinker, philosopher, dreamer, at one and the same time-this, this it is to be a German! And, doubtless, this powerful combination it is that so wonderfully distinguishes the German above all other nations of the world. For my own part, however, I sometimes fear that I am not a true German, for I find myself failing in many of those outward and visible signs by which he may generally be distinguished. For instance, I cannot hate and despise the Jewan acknowledged Christian duty of every German. I cannot eat peas with a knife, or pick my teeth with a fork; neither can I handle either of those useful instruments as the bandit handles his dagger, or Le petit tambour his drumstick! Then for the moral qualifications. I cannot philosophise, though I have often tried; and as to dreaming, I dream but very, very little, and then, mostly, after an over-late or over-loaded supper of sauer kraut and sausages! I have, however, studied, a little, the art of smoking-everything is studied in Germany. I am rather given to observation; and, at times, I verily believe I have caught myself thinking in a way not altogether discreditable to my country. Therefore, there is, perhaps, a rational ground of hope that, in my case, philosophising and dreaming will, in due time, be respectively attained.

Meanwhile, it is something to be able to think. This you must allow. And yet I declare-although as one of " a nation of thinkers I must, of course, value the inborn prerogative-I often ask myself whether thought is for mankind, a benefit or misfortune? All continental governments-and they certainly ought to know best-unite in affirming the latter; and, considering the consequences its exercise has brought upon themselves, they are no doubt right in doing all they can to prevent the use of anything so dangerous.

The question may indeed be asked as regards mankind in general -what good comes of all their thinking? They break their own heads with problems, and occasion the breaking of other people's heads with brickbats, but still the world goes on its own way. In my opinion, therefore, he who does not think at all, or, thinking, thinks about nothing, has much the best of it. He is contented with himself and the world, and the world is contented with him. He is not disturbed by the past, the present he does not understand, and for the future! what is it to him? But look for a moment on the man who can perform no act himself, or witness the performance of any act by others, who can touch nothing, taste nothing, handle nothing; or see anything touched, tasted, or handled, without trying its merits and character at the bar of that secret police agent, reflection -such a one not only plagues himself perpetually, but often embitters the life of his neighbours. He who is addicted to this kind or habit is liable to have his mind sent wandering and his thoughts troubled even by the most trivial circumstance. For instance, he is perhaps eating a biscuit or a halfpenny roll, and straightway he begins to think of corn tillage, the plough, the flail, and the windmill. The windmill