London at the head of the commercial world is not merely a contributor to the wealth of nations, and a cosmopolitan benefactor; it is a mighty moral agent in preserving and extending the desire of peace among the more civilised nations. A score of peace societies could not operate in a long period of time a fraction of that great labour in the cause of religion and humanity, to which London continually contributes most important additions. "Commerce," says a clever writer, more than half a century ago, "is no other than the traffic of two individuals multiplied on a scale of numbers; and by the same rule that nature intended the intercourse of the two, she intended the intercourse of all. For this purpose she has distributed the materials of manufactures and commerce in various and distant nations; and as they cannot be procured by war so commodiously as by commerce, she has rendered the latter the means of extirpating the former." How much this truth seems on the point of realisation, and the metropolis of England the agent for the purpose! Of three, the richest, freest, and most powerful nations of the world, England and her kindred America are the most commercial; France, the third, has the same tendency, and never was war less probable than between these three countries, the power of which united, either for good or evil, is a dictation to the rest of the world. The centre of commerce for all is the British metropolis, the "mart of nations." May it not, therefore, be hoped that the part which London is to act in the noblest drama ever performed by human agency is already shadowed out, and that its glory in the great work will be commensurate with its magnitude!

WELCOME HOME.

BY J. E. CARPENTER.

OH! none can tell but those who've roved
Some bleak, some desert waste afar,

Apart from all he dearly loved,

How sad and dear life's moments are;

But none that heav'nly bliss can feel,

Save those who thus are forced to roam,

A few kind accents may reveal

From lips that bid us "welcome home."

I've sat within the stranger's door,

And alien lips spoke kindly too,

They but reminded me the more,

My own dear native land, of you;

A stranger's welcome's ever dear,

We prize it when afar we roam,

And almost fancy that we hear

The voice that bids us "welcome home."

The silv'ry brook goes murmuring by;

The wandering wind hath pleasant tone;

The lark he carols in the sky;

All nature music's power must own:

But there's a music far more dear

That greets us when we cease to roam,

When sweetly falls upon the ear

The words that bid us "welcome home."

EL LOBO DE LAS SIERRAS.

A TALE OF THE CARLIST WARS.

It is generally imagined, we believe, but with much error, that the relation of an occurrence is more seemingly authentic when accompanied by a statement of its date. Dates, however, in these corrupt times, are so sadly abused, so unscrupulously feigned for the purpose of giving currency to "things which are not," that we are determined to tell our story without. Still we are precise in our own way, and therefore beg to acquaint the reader that our first scene is to rise at Mataro, a little town not far from Barcelona, in the spring time of a certain year when Carlist feuds were rife.

It is evening; the vesper bells ring; the soft Mediterranean breezes whisper through the vine-clustered trellis-work of yonder Moorish arch. Inside the edifice to which this archway leads, contrabandista and carabinero, laying aside their mutual antipathy, are mingling in festive revelry with a host of others whose acquaintance we shall presently make. The sun, although sunk below the horizon, still bathes the west with a glow of roseate light. The cigarras chirp like birds in spring time, and the big frogs maintain a lusty croaking in the rivulets which meander hard by.

Let us now take a glance at the interior of the Moorish building and its inmates. A long series of arched vaults form one enormous shed-room we will not call it, nor stable either, although tethered hither and thither are seen some scores of horses, donkeys, and mules. On the floor, and in all sorts of attitudes, is a strange assemblage of men. There are pedlars, gitanos, and arrieros; merchants, robbers, contrabandistas, carabineros ; a host, in short, from various parts of Spain, and clad in various costumes. Yonder is a jaunty Andaluz, with long gun, tufted sombrero, calzones, and botinas. Next to him is a bluff-looking Biscayan, sour looking and truculent. A little more in the rear is seen a group of Valencianos, with white linen nether garbs and gaily-coloured mantas. But still more numerous than all these are groups of stalwart Catalans, boisterous in speech, harsh in utterance, and distinguished from the other inmates by the provincial costume; of which the most conspicuous part is the deep red woollen cap, long enough to reach half way down the back, but doubled up and worn flat upon the crown of the head.

Thickly spread over the floor are bales of cotton, panniers of sugar, salt, and spice, boxes of oranges, leather bottles of wine, oil, and vinegar, besides a hundred other things that would puzzle a conjuror to tell. Confound the place! shall we call it a shop, a warehouse, or bazaar? Strewed confusedly about are guns and swords. Yonder is a dark scowling Catalan cutting a piece of bread with a knife, the blade of which measures some eighteen inches, and is cunningly fashioned to a pointrather an inconvenient knife for bread cutting, one would think, and suggestive of other work. The Catalan, however, achieves his task, the bread is cut, and see! giving the knife a sudden jerk, he darts it past the head of his companion, and sticks it into a door panel some twelve paces away. Is the place a den of thieves? It cannot be; for see yonder is all the parade of lawful life-destruction. Mark the uniforms of the carabineros, or Spanish coast-guard. See how-faithful to military instinct

Is

they have piled their firelocks, orderly and neatly, against the wall. the place a barracks? Glance your eye up yonder lateral arched recess, where beside a little charcoal stove stands that pretty black-eyed girl, her luxuriant hair neatly banded back, and partially hidden under the wavy folds of the gracefully hanging mantilla. Mark how assiduously she waves her fan to enliven the charcoal fire, and fail not to imbibe the goodly fumes which rise from the eggs and tomatoes which she cooks.

In short, what sort of place can this be, which, though allied to all, is neither house nor stable, nor den of thieves, magazine, bazaar, or barracks? Is it a cook's shop? Reader, it is not-no-but a posada, a veritable Spanish posada. And now, if you chance to be philosophically inclined-if you are prone to indulge in definitions and all that, pray defiue a posada to be whatever you please; we can only say a posada is a posada a place without analogy, kindred, or congener-unlike everything we ever knew or heard of, and similar only to itself.

Amongst the numerous human groups who thickly stud the floor of the grim posada, a band of English must not be overlooked. There they are-sufficiently individualised by look, gesture, and occupation from their Spanish friends. Their drink, too, is peculiar; a huge bowl sends forth vapours of aguardiente: they have made themselves a hot bowl of punch with the raw spirit of the country, of which they are quaffing huge draughts, much to the disgust of the sober Spaniards. Such is the

scene.

All the Englishmen, save one, were clad after the manner of railway labourers, and evidently belonged to the staff of the English contractor of the railroad from Barcelona to Mataro. Their appearance was that of navvies, and merits no further description at our hands. The excepted one, however, we cannot so soon dismiss.

Unlike his companions, who assumed no higher grade than labourers, as they were, this one, Tom Dawson by name, at least, his English name, had by some means so played his cards as to acquire the dignity of Don Tomas-wherefore, it would be difficult with certainty to explain; but the most probable cause of this great accession of dignity was a blue-tail coat, munished with a whole galaxy of brass buttons, which, shining resplendent in this sunny clime, so dazzled the vision of the natives, that plain Tom Dawson acquired the honourable pronomen of "Don."

Now "Mister," as we all know, is the most unassuming translation that can be found for "Don," and so it followed that Don Tomas, when translated into the excavators' vernacular, was "Mister Tummas," by which name he was generally called. Occasionally, it is true, some presuming fellow, forgetting the limits beyond which familiarity ought not to go, had been heard to commence addressing our friend by his plain Christian name; but never, we believe, did such people get beyond the first syllable; for a certain sort of expression, beaming from the aristocrat's eyes, paralysed the presumptuous tongues so completely, that the second syllable died away, and the speaker, retracing his steps, prefaced his remarks with "Mister Tum."

As to the personal endowments of our hero, perhaps an ill-disposed observer might have said that he seemed to belong to that numerous division of the human race called gabies-not so his admirers; but the reader shall judge.

His figure was remarkably gaunt, his face not unlike an oblong spheroid of glazier's putty, his nose looked up, the corners of his mouth looked down, his eyes peered so very far into space that they may be said to have looked at no place-a sort of oysterish expression about them might have sufficed to awaken a prejudice against the probability of Tom's intelligence, had it not been certain that he could both read and write; that for want of a better he had been employed as a sort of supernumerary clerk; nay, that he had more than once been seen to look through the glass of a theodolite: so the notion took root among a certain class, that Tom was a genius; and a navvy one day had been solemnly heard to avow, that "Mister Tummas, like a singed cat, was much better than he looked."

Let us now for a time leave our countrymen to their revels, and listen to the conversation of the native groups.

Whilst the libations were proceeding, the village barber was busily engaged cutting the hair and trimming the bigotes of a rakish-looking Andaluz. At length, the work being finished, the hair dressed a pelo and a contrapelo, the smirking little barber shut up his box, and, turning to a Catalan arriero, or muleteer, addressed him thus :

"Tio," said he, "how many mules have you now?"

This, although a civil question, set vibrating a painful chord in the breast of the arriero, who frowned slightly, glanced his eye first towards the mules, then back to the barber, but made no reply.

"I think, señor,” continuing the barber, evidently determined to provoke a conversation-" I think," said he, pointing towards a mule that was standing near, "that is Gloriosa. Por Dios! a good animal is Gloriosa good for the low lands, good for the mountain, good for burden, good for draught; Caramba! what a beast for the hamuja!"

How long the barber would have expatiated on the numerous good qualities of the mule Gloriosa, it is impossible to say, for his remarks were interrupted by the muleteer, who, heaving a long sigh, addressed himself to the garrulous barber thus:

Friend," replied he, gravely; "that is not Gloriosa-Gloriosa is dead! she died last week. That one," continued he, "is Leona-pobre animal!"

"She seems weak," continued the barber.

"She is weak."

"You work them too hard, señor."

"Por Dios que si," warmly replied the muleteer; "of course, I do! some people soon will want their goods carried for nothing; already the cursed camino de hierro has brought us to this."

"And it will be completed as far as Barcelona in two months' time, I hear," interposed the barber.

"Some say one month," added another.

"And there sit those malditos Ingleses like any other swine," continued a third, pointing to the Englishmen as he spoke.

"Malditos sean sus animos!" muttered the arriero between his teeth; "I could puñalar them thus!" and, suiting the action to the word, he jerked the balanced knife quivering through the air towards the panel of a door, where, penetrating to the hilt, it stuck as we have already made appear.

Whatever might have been the acquirements of Don Tomas, philology

was assuredly not one; he gathered, however, that the Spaniards were discussing the point of the completion of the railroad, but did not understand the malediction of the angry muleteer.

"I think, Mister Tummas, them ere covies is a talking about our line," remarked one of the navvies.

"Ye-es, they are."

"And what, Mister Tummas, do they say?"

"They say I am a getting on with it in a superior manner.' "Well now, I would have made a purty round bet, Mister Tummas," interposed another, "as how that chap said that it would be done in a month."

"Some people as bets wins, and some loses," answered Don Tomas, dryly: the truth of which aphorism was so evident that all assented with a smile.

"And so it will be done in a month," remarked the first speaker.

"No it won't, nor in six neither," confidently asserted the second; and thus the argument went on; harsh words began to arise, when "Mister Tum," giving the table a deliberate tap with the knuckle of his right forefinger, thus interposed:

"I tell you what it is now," said he, drawing himself up, and stroking the germ of a pair of moustaches, which had commenced budding under the genial influence of a Catalonian sun-"I tell you what it is, the works will be all over in three months' time. If I don't know who should know?"

Why, I suppose the ingine-eer should," interrupted a navvy; “and I heerd last night"

"Never mind what you heerd last night, I ought to know, I say; for, in pint of fact, I am the ingine-eer!"

"Mr. Tummas the ingine-eer!" said all, with one accord.

It is probable, notwithstanding the habitual deference paid to Mister Tummas's rank, that what the Spaniards term a "carcajada," which means a horselaugh, might have quickly followed this simultaneous round of surprise, had not Don Tomas assumed a peculiar air of tranquillity, and thus enunciated himself:

"It is all very well for you to stare, I dessay; you don't know no better. I tell you I am as good as the ingine-eer. I ain't none of your square and compass and cartridge-paper chaps, I ain't; but I can handle them tools, too; and many's the time, when in the office, says the governor to me, says he, Dawson, Mister Dawson, leave off them wages' accounts, and take them compasses and parrerlels, or barometers, as the case might be, and work off sitch and sitch a thing. I may say, then, that I am as good as the ingine-eer of this line-yes, I am the ingine-eer."

The last words were pronounced deliberately, and with dignity; they were rendered still more emphatic by a heavy thump on the table.

The English colloquy would seem not to have been lost on a portion at least of the Spanish company. Imperceptibly, and unnoticed by the English, the Babel of strange sounds amongst the Spaniards soon totally ceased, and now little else was heard but a confused murmur, whilst all eyes were directed to Tom-"El Ingeniero Ingles."

A proud epoch was this in Tom Dawson's life: he had succeeded in demonstrating, not to himself alone, but to a large assembly of Spa