Various

“ Just as they were being turned off the decks to be penned up down-stairs like so many helpless sheep in the lower cabin, Nora Dupuy, who had been standing with the Hawthorns and Dr Whitaker, watching the huge and ever-increasing waves bursting madly over the side of the vessel, happened to drop her shawl at starting on to the deck beside the companion-ladder. At that very moment, a bigger sea than any they had yet encountered broke with shivering force against the broadside of the steamer, and swept across the deck in a drowning flood as though it would carry everything bodily before it. ”

“ Nora and the few other passengers who had still remained on deck stood trembling under shelter of the glazed-in companion-ladder, wondering whether the rash mulatto would really carry out his foolhardy endeavour to recover the wrapper. The sailor stood by, ready to batten down the hatches as soon as the deck was fairly cleared, and waiting impatiently for the last lingerer. But Dr Whitaker took not the slightest notice of captain or sailor, and merely glanced back at Nora with a quiet smile, as if to reassure her of his perfect safety. ”

“ Mr Slimm was talking to Eleanor, making her laugh at his quaint American saws, and she was telling him of her strange dream, and how it had all come true. Edgar and Mr Carver were badgering Bates upon his gloomy state; and Felix was amusing and instructing little Nelly with a bewildering, awe-inspiring fairy tale—the little one, who had been a silent spectator of the proceedings, and knew by some childish instinct that some happy event had happened. ”

“ Nora hesitated a moment. A brown man! Her name on the first page of his printed music! What would people say in Trinidad? And yet, what excuse could she give for answering no? She pretended for a while to be catching back her veil, that the wind blew about her face and hair, to gain time for consideration; then she said with a smile of apology: ‘It would look so conceited of me, you know—wouldn’t it, Dr Whitaker? as if I were setting myself up to be some great one, to whom people were expected to dedicate music.’
The mulatto’s face fell a little with obvious disappointment ”

“ On deck, the captain and the officers, cut off from all communication with below, know how the storm is going and how the ship is weathering it; but the unconscious passengers in their crowded quarters, treated like children by the rough seafaring men, can only sit below in hopeless ignorance, waiting to learn the fate in store for them when the tempest wills it. And indeed, the hurricane that night was quite enough to make even strong men feel their own utter and abject powerlessness. ”

“ The sergeant of the guard at once rushed to the officers’ quarters, woke up the adjutant, and informed him of the ghost’s alleged reappearance. A hue-and-cry was at once instituted; and the orderly sergeants having been roused, a ‘check-roll’ was called, to ascertain whether any man had left his room for the purpose of playing a practical joke. Every nook and cranny in barracks, from the officers’ quarters to the wash-houses, were rigidly examined; but the spectre had apparently vanished into thin air, leaving all the regiment in a state of unpleasant suspense. ”

“ Mr Bates is looking on at the group with meditative looks, speculating, no doubt, upon marriage settlements, which these little chatterers will want some day. Jolly Mr Carver is in the midst of a group of little ones, making himself an object of ridicule and contempt on account of his lack of knowledge touching the mysteries of ‘hunt the slipper.’ ‘Fancy an old gentleman like that knowing nothing of the game!’—an opinion which one golden-haired fairy tenders him without hesitation, and to which he listens with becoming humility and contriteness. ”

“ Mr Carver hopped about like an animated cork, giving the most contrary directions, and sadly interfering with the task in hand by his well-meant interference. After narrowly escaping sudden death from a hearty swing of Mr Slimm’s pickaxe, he retired to a safe distance, and there directed the work in safety, giving instructions which were totally ignored by the worker.
‘I never calculated,’ said the American, as he worked, ‘to be prospecting for pay dirt on a gentleman’s lawn. As an ordinary rule, such is not the place to look for dust. ”

“ The powers of customs’ officers in the matter of wreckage or salvage is a matter of great interest; and as it is referred to in a recent Report by Her Majesty’s Commissioners of Customs, a few notes on the subject may not be out of place. The whole of the wreck-work in the United Kingdom is discharged by these officers, under the general superintendence of the Board of Trade. All wreck found by any person, except the owner thereof, is to be delivered up to the duly appointed person termed the Receiver; and even if found by the owner, the receiver is to be apprised of the facts. ”

“ It is a truism nowadays, in this age of travelling, that you see a great deal more of people in a few weeks on board ship at sea together than you would see in a few years of that vacant calling and dining and attending crushes which we ordinarily speak of as society. Nora Dupuy and the two Hawthorns certainly saw a great deal more of Dr Whitaker during their three weeks on board the Severn than they would ever have seen of him in three years of England or of Trinidad. Nora had had the young man’s acquaintance thrust upon her by circumstances, to be sure ”

“ Nearer home, in North-western Europe, are the relics of the same form of volcanic activity, as evidenced by those disconnected patches of lava-streams and trap dikes, which, scattered over the north of Ireland, the Highlands of Scotland, and the northern counties of England, form such prominent features in the landscapes of those districts, as in the columnar basalts of Fingal’s Cave and the Giants’ Causeway, and the igneous dikes that cross, like walls of rock, the hills of our northern counties. ”

“ But small as they are, their playing is one of the wonders of the neighbourhood, and the delight of all who have had the good fortune to hear them. These diminutive artists execute classical music, as well as music of a lighter character, with a vigour and precision, and a finished taste and expression that are nearly incredible, and should be heard to be believed. ”

“ After describing the condign punishment which any practical joker, whether officer or private, might expect if caught in the act of playing the ghost, the commanding officer furiously exclaimed: ‘When a soldier is on duty, I expect that he will stick to his post, even supposing the Evil One himself should make his appearance; and I will try by court-martial any man who dares to act contrary to my express injunctions.’
That afternoon, however, when the guard mounted, the adjutant privately gave orders that the oldest soldier should be detailed for the second relief on the haunted post ”

“ There are indeed a few cinder cones, but they are analogous—as he says—to the smaller cones on the flanks of a volcano, or more so to those around the vapour-vents on the surface of lava-streams. Such vast masses of lava were certainly not ejected from these, nor in the ordinary method of volcanic emission. We are therefore forced to accept Richthofen’s theory, that they are due to a series of eruptions from fissures which stretched across the country for several hundreds of miles, but are now hidden by the sheets of stone in which, since no very remote period, the district has been enwrapped. ”

“ Explosion is, of course, impossible, the engine working below atmospheric pressure.
This engine has been employed in small electric-light installations; and from its regular motion and the ease with which it is managed, is undoubtedly eminently adapted for this class of work; whilst the smallness of its coal-consumption and the high duty attained have procured the highest awards at the hands of all juries who have examined it.
In the future of ‘small motors,’ a future that appears an extended one, this new vacuum motor will doubtless play a not unimportant part. ”

“ The rock is mainly dolerite or basalt, but is very variable, and in many places it exhibits spheroidal or columnar structure; unlike, however, that of the Snake River, volcanic ash is common. The plateau formed by these deposits consists of a vast undulating plain, and of flat-topped hills with occasional ‘scarps’ or cliffs, which in the Sahyadri range are four thousand feet high, the whole being marked by terraces along the outcrop of the horizontal layers of basalt. In many points, the scenery of this district is much like that of the Snake River ”

“ The work of the receiver includes many transactions in connection with wreck requiring much care, tact, and discretion, involving the arrest and detention of ships and cargoes, on declaration by salvors of claims to remuneration for salvage services, ships and cargoes being held under arrest until salvage claims are settled, or until proper security is given by bond or otherwise in satisfaction thereof, as well as the disposal of the claims of salvors, and the restoration of wreck to the owners thereof, after satisfying such claims, other than for salvage, that may be against it. ”

“ It is to Richthofen that we owe the most plausible theory: he considers these massive eruptions as the fundamental development, and ‘modern volcanic cones as merely parasitic excrescences on the subterranean lava reservoirs, very much in the relation of minor cinder cones to their parent volcano.’ Thus the form regarded till recently as the one method of volcanic ejection, appears to be of but secondary importance, being merely a safety-valve to relieve the pressure from the lava-sources below ”

“ Except for the shifting sand-dunes and slight ridges of basalt extending like long low waves or ground swells—to which Professor Geikie compares them—the surface would be quite level, the lava having either been poured over a plain, or having buried the undulations of the country beneath hundreds of feet of stone. The columnar structure, so often adopted by basalt, is here largely developed, and to it is due the tesselated appearance of the rock, which adds another to the many striking features in the scenery of the district. ”

“ Many years before, the colonel of a regiment which was about to leave the town in order to embark for India, placed a sentry on the spot, to prevent his men from throwing over the cliff the rubbish that accumulates in changing quarters; and the relieving regiment finding this man on duty, had supplied his place without troubling themselves about the why and wherefore; the post became in consequence a permanent institution, and a sentry guards the wall to this day. ”

“ For our knowledge of the series of volcanic rocks that covers the greatest part of Abyssinia, we are also largely indebted to Mr Blanford, who explored the district during the expedition of 1867. These rocks, widespread though they be, are but the remnants, as are also those of Arabia, of a fissure eruption that inundated Abyssinia and Southern Arabia to a depth of two or three thousand feet. ”

“ The one which has attracted most attention is that which formed the plateau of the Snake River, and which covers altogether, in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, an extent of country equal to France and Great Britain combined. The district is one wide verdureless waste of black basalt, stretching westwards from the mountains by which it is bounded on the north and east, as an apparently boundless desert, black and bare, as though it had but recently cooled. ”

“ The receiver has power, with a warrant from a justice of the peace, to enter into any house or other place wherever situated, and there search for, seize, and detain any wreck he may find. In all cases, he shall, within forty-eight hours after taking possession of any wreck, cause to be posted up at the custom-house in the port nearest to which such wreck was found or seized, a description of the same, and of any marks by which it may be distinguished. ”

“ The only river in the district is the Snake River, which winds its way to the Pacific through a cañon seven hundred feet deep, and which is joined, through underground courses, by the few streams that flow on to the basalt from the neighbouring mountains, and soon sink beneath the surface. ”

“ In fact, many an ordinary military band might well take a lesson from them in the grace and point with which they play, and also in the perfect tune and delicacy of tone of all their instruments—virtues that are not common to boys’ bands; extreme roughness, want of tune and tone, and total absence of grace or expression, being the usual failings of juvenile players. That the Vernon band is carefully taught, and trained with the utmost care and skill, there can be little doubt ”

“ But wiser men than the astute lawyer have been puzzled ere now by the idiosyncrasies of man, and Mr Carver was only pondering upon a subject which has been and will be a theme with philosophers for all time. ”

“ That non-commissioned officer along with the men of the relief laughed heartily when I described the fright I had received, and remarked that I had been dreaming. The sergeant, however, performed the duty required of him by the rules of discipline in a most inexorable fashion. ”

“ The money would be employed in the development of the country generally, by the maintenance of roads, railways, irrigation-works, and other works of public utility. As the tribes generally have the instinct of keen traders, it is hoped that these measures may induce them to ‘turn their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks.’ It is hoped, too, that the operations of the Company may stamp out for ever the slave-trade of equatorial Africa. ”

“ There is at present lying in Port Jackson, Australia, a training-ship called the Vernon, and some of the boys who have musical ability are regularly trained in the study of music, with the view to becoming efficient musicians, and thereby able to take their place in military or orchestral bands. ”

“ But here, it seems that the fish have other remorseless enemies in the otters, who of late years have increased in numbers to an alarming extent. These voracious hunters do not content themselves with simply killing a salmon now and then to supply their larders, but prefer, as their habit is, to eat a piece out of the shoulder, leaving the rest of the carcase untouched. As many as six or seven dead fish have been found in one place mutilated in this manner. ”