Various

“ Isaac Pourtalès, lounging about that minute, watching for Rosina, whom he had come to talk with, saw Nora flit for a second past the open window of the passage, in her light and gauze-like evening dress, with open neck in front, and the flowers twined in her pretty hair; and he said to himself as he glanced up at her: ‘De word ob de Lard say right, “Take captive de women!”’
At the same moment, Tom Dupuy, strolling idly on the lawn in the thickening twilight, caught sight of Pourtalès, and beckoned him towards him with an imperious finger. ‘Come here,’ he said ”

“ Shall they steam with cunning effrontery slowly and ostentatiously close past a gunboat? The plan offers a chance of success, for some of their watchers have once been blockade-runners themselves, and in the darkness the similarity of build might deceive. No; they perceive what seems to be a practicable gap in the line, and driving their engines to their utmost pitch, they rest their fate upon their speed. ”

“ James Chalmers—known all along the southern coast of New Guinea, throughout the original British protectorate in fact, as ‘Ta-ma-té’—will always be held responsible for the first ascent of Cloudy Mountain. Taking advantage of the presence of Commodore Erskine’s squadron at South Cape, he instilled into the minds of some of the officers a desire to get to the summit. With the persuasive eloquence of which his many friends know him to be a master, he expatiated on the honourable nature of the enterprise, dwelling on the fact that no white man had as yet attempted it. ”

“ You are going amongst a rough, lawless crew; never, as long as you live, trust any man as you have trusted me to-day. Where you are bound for, your revolver will be your only true friend; never let it out of your own keeping, to friend or foe. You are far too trusting. There was not a man but yourself amongst those from whom I have just parted who did not believe from the moment I joined that I was Jack the bushranger. Well, mate, I am not going to tell you who or what I am, or how or why I came amongst you; but of this rest assured, that you have no truer friend. ”

“ Tom Dupuy, no real gentleman would ever try so to undermine another man’s position.’
At that moment, Harry Noel, just descending to the drawing-room, strolled out to meet them on the lawn, quite unconscious of this little family altercation. Nora glanced hastily from Tom Dupuy, in his planter coat and high riding-boots, to Harry Noel, looking so tall and handsome in his evening dress, and couldn’t help noticing in her own mind which of the two was the truest gentleman. ”

“ Blockade is essentially a war measure. When the President of the United States, in April 1861, proclaimed that a forcible blockade of the Southern States would be forthwith instituted, England and France immediately declared their neutrality, and although that meant that they recognised the Confederates as belligerents, and not as rebels, their action was unobjectionable, because, whenever the Northern States issued that proclamation, they by implication admitted that they were engaged in war, and not merely in the suppression of a rebellion. ”

“ I’ve been telling you to make yourself miserable for life by marrying a man you despise and dislike, just so that I may get off the punishment that’s due to me. I’m an old man, and in the ordinary course of things, I can’t have many years before me. You’re a girl with all your life before you, and yet I’m wicked enough to tell you to give up all your long life so that my few years shouldn’t be disturbed.’
‘But father’—— began Bertha. ”

“ The material employed for making these artificial flowers and weeds has been called by the inventor, who is also the modeller, the ‘New Kensington Art Material.’ Boughs of trees, the minutest flowers and weeds, even the hair-like filaments that many flower-stems possess as a protection against the ravages of insects, are copied with such scrupulous accuracy as to defy detection by ordinary means; and the union between the real wood and its artificial representation is concealed with the same regard to reality. ”

“ Now, seriously, without in the least desiring to disparage the charity of the saint, it may be pointed out that beggars are usually met with in the streets of towns, and that to give away a cloak therein is at the best not more meritorious than giving to a companion half of your only blanket at the beginning of a rainy night on the summit of a distant mountain. ”

“ Had any one been so ill-conditioned as to maltreat or scold the merry, intelligent carriers, they would, almost to a certainty, have stolen away in the night, and have left the white men to get themselves and their things home as best they could. One native gentleman displayed so much ingenuity in the mode of wearing one of the more unmentionable garments, which he somehow or other succeeded in converting into a kind of sleeved waistcoat, that the appreciative owner made him a present of it. ”

“ How much more one is impressed with the beauty of the creatures, when one sees them arranged in the positions they assume in a state of nature, than when placed in the old-fashioned style, mounted on boards or badly imitated stumps of trees! ”

“ South Kensington has of late years been so inseparably identified with Art, that it will seem natural to the readers of this article for Art to form its subject; but it will probably surprise the frequenters of these buildings to be asked to bend their steps towards the Natural History Department—which one naturally supposes devoted to scientific objects—to examine works of art quite equal in their way to any to be{416} found in the building devoted ostensibly to that purpose. ”

“ Sometimes heavy smoke was seen rising as from a ship on fire; but when the blockade-runner steered to render help, she found out too late that the supposed burning vessel was a Federal cruiser, which had resorted to this device in order to bring the swifter craft within range of her guns. One dark rainy night the Petrel ran out of Charleston, and shortly afterwards fell in with what appeared to be a large merchant vessel. Hoping to crown a successful run with the capture of a valuable prize, she gave chase, and fired a shot to bring the stranger to. ”

“ Gradually, the pressure of diminished imports began to tell on the resources of the Southern States; iron, liquors, machinery, articles of domestic use, medicinal drugs and appliances of all kinds became scarce. In Richmond, a yard of ordinary calico which was formerly sold for twelve and a half cents, brought thirty dollars; a pair of French gloves was worth one hundred and fifty dollars; and the price of salt had risen to a dollar a pound. The export trade, too, was being slowly strangled; immense stores of cotton and tobacco lay waiting shipment at every port. ”

“ The New Guinean who lights the pipe, when he has filled it with smoke, usually hands it to some one else to have the first whiff. On the present occasion, the pipe was offered first to the white man, to whom, so long as he behaves to them becomingly, Pacific Island natives are almost invariably polite. ”

“ They are a much merrier and more talkative people than the non-cannibal light-coloured race, which dwells farther to the westward. The work of selecting carriers proceeded with much vociferation; the carriers themselves, their friends, and all the ladies of the village—in this part of New Guinea the influence of woman is great—considering it necessary to address lengthy speeches in a loud tone to the white strangers. ”

“ How warily they lie off until the evening favours their approach, and then, with every light but the engine-fires extinguished, speed quietly but rapidly past the large looming hulls of the outer blockaders. ”

“ It is said to resemble snow in appearance, with a temperature greatly below the freezing-point of water. It is believed that a means of producing such a degree of cold will be of great service to experimental chemistry.
Mr W. Thomson, F.R.S.E., has devised a new process for determining the calorific power of fuel by direct combustion in oxygen, which promises to supersede, by reason of its greater accuracy, the methods hitherto in use. The process consists in placing a gramme of the coal or fuel to be tested in a platinum crucible covered with an inverted glass vessel. ”

“ A biscuit or two was handed to the carriers, and—what delighted them still more—a few small fragments of tobacco. The New Guinea fashion of smoking is peculiar. The pipe is a bamboo tube about two feet long and two inches in diameter, with one end closed. Near this end, a small hole like the mouth-hole of a flute is made, and in it a piece of leaf, twisted into a pointed cup or ‘horn’ containing a little tobacco, is inserted. Applying a light to the tobacco, the smoker sucks vigorously at the open end of the tube ”

“ The surrounding of each of these nests is a work of art in itself, constructed, with the most painstaking regard to accuracy of detail, by a lady, whose name, though not appearing in this connection, is not unknown to fame. The sods—if the bird be a ground-builder—are dug up with the nest and surroundings as they are found, and are submitted at once for the modeller to copy the various weeds and flowers exactly as they grow. ”

“ Professor Bentley, who has recently commenced a series of lectures on the Physiology of Plants, asserts most emphatically that no grains which with certainty have been identified as contemporaneous with the deposit of the mummified corpse, have ever come to life. In cases where the so-called mummy wheat has germinated, it has been introduced into the coffin shortly before, or at the time of discovery of the body. ”

“ We know to our cost that certain diseases can be transferred from the lower animals to man. ‘Woolsorters’ disease’ is traced to the same germ which produces splenic fever in cattle and sheep, a malady which has been so ably dealt with by M. Pasteur. The terrible glanders in horses is transferable to man. ”

“ They often put on several of these garments one above the other, the effect being much the same as that of a capacious crinoline. In New Guinea, the women are tattooed from forehead to ankles, occasionally in very elaborate patterns. The name Papua given to New Guinea is said to mean ‘woolly-headed,’ and the appellation has been well bestowed. The men of both races ‘tease’ their hair out into a prodigious mop. So do the girls. Married women cut theirs short. The bushy wig which many of the natives of this region seem to be wearing decidedly improves their appearance. ”

“ When their hair is cut short, the similarity of their features to those of African negroes becomes more obvious. They are not tall; but they have well-shaped limbs, and many of them are sturdy fellows. The usual weight for a native carrier is twenty-five pounds. But, as the number of travellers likely to ascend Cloudy Mountain had greatly fallen off, we found ourselves with more carriers than we could supply loads for. The result was that some at all events had very light burdens. One man, for instance, carried an empty tin case for specimens of plants ”

“ This ridge was so steep that, thickly clothed as it was with trees, shrubs, and creepers, it was frequently impossible to advance without pulling one’s self up by one’s hands. In selecting something to lay hold of to effect this, great care had to be exercised. The ‘lawyer’ palm, which sends out trailing shoots admirably adapted to the purpose of tripping up the unwary, is studded with thorns in the very part where it is most natural for a climber requiring its aid to seize it. ”

“ The whole arrangement is placed under water in a suitable receptacle; and the fuel, burnt in oxygen, burns away in a very few minutes, giving off much heated gas, which escapes through the water. The temperature of the water, compared with its temperature before the operation, gives the data upon which the heating power of the coal can be calculated. The question of heat-value in fuel is of course one of first importance to railway Companies and other large consumers of coal. ”

“ A correspondent of the Times notes a most important means of escape from suffocation by smoke, a fatality by which many lives are lost annually. He points out that if a handkerchief be placed beneath the pillow on retiring to rest so as to be within easy reach of the hand, it can, in case of an alarm of fire, be readily dipped in water and tied over the mouth and nostrils. ”

“ The current is kept on day and night, except for a few hours on Sunday morning, and each individual lamp is under separate control by a switch, so that it can be turned off and on just like a gas jet. Every detail has been well thought out, and the vast scheme is a success in every way. We understand that the contractors, the Telegraph Maintenance and Construction Company, have undertaken to supply the light at the same price as would have been charged for gas lamps giving the same light-value. ”

“ Sometimes a climber dislodged a stone that went crashing amongst the thick growth with which the precipitous sides were covered, downwards for hundreds of feet, till the noise of its fall died away in the distance. ”

“ The ink is of a waxy composition, and requires to be heated to render it fluid. It is applied to the glass with a special form of pen, which can be kept in a hot condition by a gas or electrical attachment. When the drawing is complete, the plate is etched by fluoric acid, which of course only attacks and dissolves those portions not covered by the protective ink. The result is a drawing in raised lines, which can be made to furnish an electrotype, or can, if required, be used direct as a block to print from. ”

“ All honest persons rejoice greatly when a notorious evil-doer is run to earth, and much the same satisfaction is experienced when science points with unerring finger to the source of disease, for then the first step has been taken in its eradication. ”

“ If coal-merchants were to furnish some guarantee based on a scientific test as above described, they would find it to their own profit, as well as to the advantage of their customers.
We do not hear very much in these days of mummy wheat and barley, but many people firmly believe that the seeds of both plants found with Egyptian mummies, and supposed to be three or four thousand years old, will sprout if{414} put in the ground. ”

“ But as a set-off against the long and broken stretch of coast which lay open to the operations of the blockade-runners, there were difficulties in their way which were at the outset of the struggle too lightly esteemed. Almost the whole extent of the seaboard was protected by a treacherous fringe of long low islands, scarcely rising above the surface of the water ”

“ This theory teaches that cotton, linen, and other stuffs of vegetable origin retain a power of absorbing those noxious animal exhalations which as plants they digest. Dead fibre, or wood, will, he maintains, act in the same manner, and will throw off the deleterious matter, to the prejudice of living beings, whenever there is a change of temperature. ”