the muscular youngster who, had he lived, would doubtless have emulated his more bulky parents in size. Around us stretched the dark forest, with its lights and shadows in strong contrast to each other, our swarthy attendants fit actors in such a scene.

"In giving directions about marking the spot so that our prey might be subsequently found with ease, I suddenly missed Sturt from my side. He had gone off to the left, apparently discontented with his own bad luck and my success (for I was a superior shot then to him). I was sorry for this, and feared the consequences; but, after shouting lustily, gave up the search, certain that if he did not wish to return, my search would be unavailing. I continued my progress up the hill, fell in with R— later in the day, and had excellent sport, having laid seven or nine dead (I forget which) before I made my way to the rendezvous where we were to regale ourselves with lunch. It was not for some days subsequently that I heard a connected recital of Sturt's adventures and their dénouement.'

"More French words," I exclaimed; "why, you have got on admirably well without them

so far. That spirited encounter with the herd is told all in English."

"You like that tale of Growler's," said he, calming down, for the reading made him amazingly excited. "I thought you would; but you must hear what became of Sturt; it's very ludicrous ;" and so he proceeded with that apparently interminable chapter.

Whether it was the claret, however, or the unaccustomed blaze of the fire in front of me, or "Horatio Clomstock," I know not, but I soon found myself vigorously nodding at the fire-place. I had been up to the summit of one of the loftiest peaks in the neighbourhood of Newera Ellia that day, so that the fatigue, too, may have had much to do with it. Certain it is, however, that I retained no distinct idea of how Growler's story ended, nor did I ever arrive at the sporting adventures of Horatio Clomstock himself. Katchit saw me nodding, and became indignant. He put down the manuscript, and, looking at me over his spectacles with a severe look, ceased reading. The interruption roused me, and I

started up.

"Ha! ha! admirably described, and very

ludicrous," said I, anxious to soothe his ruffled feelings.

"It was, without exception, the most pathetic description in the whole book," he replied severely.

"But I thought you said Sturt's adventures ended ludicrously," I explained.

"So they do, further on, but I have not come to that yet," was Katchit's reply.

A coaxing word or two induced him to continue his fruitless labour. I tried to listen and to keep awake; I rubbed my eyes, crossed my legs, pulled my fingers, but all to no purpose. The blaze of the fire was too powerful for eyes long unaccustomed to contemplate a fire at all. I was soon fast asleep, and before I awoke again, Katchit had tied up his manuscript and put it away, nor could away, nor could any subsequent entreaties of mine, in which, indeed, I was not very earnest, induce him to reproduce it.

He still occasionally wrote a letter for the Herald after this; still occasionally urged some topic in an article intended for a leader; still occasionally conversed with me in the library or on the steps of his office; but our intimacy

was at an end from that day forth, and of "Horatio Clomstock" I neither heard nor saw more-requiescat in pace.

I left Ceylon for Calcutta soon afterwards, and, for all I know, "Horatio Comstock" may be now appearing in the Colombo Observer

CHAPTER VI.

THE ABODE OF DEATH.

2

CALCUTTA cannot fail to strike the European or American traveller as a city most remarkable and unique in its appearance. It is built upon the level bank of the Hooghly, on the alluvial deposits brought down from the hills by the Ganges and its tributaries-these deposits now forming an extensive region of many hundred square miles in extent, and of the most astonishing fertility, from the richness and depth of the vegetable mould. As the traveller steams or sails from the low, marshy banks of the mouth of the Hooghly, the "Sand-heads," as they are appropriately called, he is astonished to see ever the same monotonous level plain, stretching out on either hand without a hill or