the rest are obliged to scrape away the snow with their hoofs, in order to get at their scanty food. About the tents, and on the branches of the trees, are hung in poetical disorder, bows, arrows, quivers, articles of dress, skins of all colours, and household utensils of various forms. From the summit of each tent rises a column of smoke mix. ed with sparks, and here and there perhaps a fire in the open air, with a pot suspended over it. Among all this are seen the grotesque human creatures themselves, enveloped from head to foot in furs, covered all over with a white 'hoar frost, and running about so merrily, in spite of thirty-four degrees of frost, that one might be tempted to believe them insensible to any feeling of cold.

The travelling tents, not so large as those the Tshuktshi use at home, are of soft tanned reindeer skins sewn together, and sustained by means of a few thin poles. Under this outer tent, which has an opening at the top to let out the smoke, are the kitchen (an iron pot, with a fire lighted under it,) and the sleeping-tent. This is a large bag sewn together, of the finest skins of young reindeer, and kept in the form of a square box by means of some staves and laths, but so low, that the most its inmates can do, is to sit upright in it, or to creep about upon their knees. This sleeping tent has no opening either for light or air. To give light and warmth to this sleepingtent, a large earthen pot stands in the centre filled with train-oil, and in this burns a wick made of moss. In so small a space, hermetically closed, the heat produced by this lamp-fire is so great, that even during the severest frost the inmates sit there nearly naked. One tent often covers two or three sleeping-tents, each containing a separate family, or perhaps one of the wives of the owner of the tent and her children.

Loit, one of the richest chiefs, invited me to visit him, and I was delighted with this opportunity of seeing something of the domestic life of these people; but scarcely had I been introduced into the sleeping-tent by my hospitable host in the humble manner above described, than I most heartily wished myself out again. The atmosphere prevailing in the air-tight box may be imagined. I thought I should have been stifled. The hostess and her daughter, a young girl of se venteen, received me with a loud shout of laughter, occasioned, no doubt, by the awkward manner in which I entered their drawing-room, which contained six naked Tshuktshi, male and female, and then proceeded, without the slightest embarrassment, to plait a few strings of beads into their greasy hair, a thing done entirely in honour of my visit. I was requested to be seated; and as soon as their toilet was completed, Madame Loit placed a dirty wooden trough before me, with some boiled reindeer venison without salt, and over this, to make it more agreeable and palatable, she poured a liberal portion of rancid train-oil, and kindly invited me to fall to without ceremony. I shuddered, but there was no help for it. Not to give offence, I was obliged to swallow a few mouthfuls. My host meanwhile devoured meat and broth with incredible eagerness, and without the assistance of fork or spoon, praising to me all the while in broken Russian the culinary talents of his lady, who, it seemed, was famed for her skill in communicating to the train-oil a certain bitter acid flavour, that was highly prized by her lord. I shortened my visit as much as possible, and was well pleased when I got out, and was able to breathe a little fresh air again; but the smell of the sleeping tent remained in my clothes for several days, in spite of all my beating and airing. Loit is not only

one of the richest, but also one of the most cultivated of his nation; some notion may therefore be formed of the domestic delights of humbler mansions. it is astonishing that, living in so pestilential an atmosphere, and in such habitual filth, the people remain so strong and healthy as they do. They are a fine well-grown race of men; and herein, as well as in their physiognomy, they are distinguished from all other Asiatic nations. The Tshuktshi appear to be of American origin, although their language bears no resemblance to the American dialects. Their own name for themselves is Tshetko.

In addition to the soirée just described given me by my friend Loit, I was invited by another chief, Makomol, to a race given by himself near his camp, and to which he brought me in his own sledge. A large portion of the assembled crowd had been attracted from the fair, and these, having posted themselves in two lines, formed the race-course. Three prizes were destined for the victors, namely, a blue fox-skin, a beaver, and two very fine sea-horse tusks. At a given signal the race commenced, and we had every reason to admire, not only the astonishing rapidity of the reindeer, but also the admirable skill with which the charioteers guided and urged them. In addition to the prizes, the victors received the loud acclamations of all present, more particularly of their own countrymen, upon which they appeared to place the highest value. The sledge-race was followed by a foot-race, more curious even than the former, the competitors being all in their usual heavy, stiff, and cumbrous costume, in which it was only with the greatest difficulty that we could stir at all. They ran, however, through the deep snow, as lightly and nimbly as a most elegant runner could have done in his jacket and pumps. They were thoroughly "game," as may be judged from the fact, that the distance to be run round a hill could not be less than fifteen versts, and that the race was well contested. The victors were again rewarded by inferior prizes, and by the applause of the public; but it was evident the Tshuktshi set less value on the skill of the runners than on that of the charioteers. As soon as the games were ended, the whole assembly were entertained with boiled reindeer, cut up into portions, and served out in wooden bowls, each Tshuktshi fetching one for himself, and eating it very contentedly on the snow. Their orderly behaviour, as well during the games as at the banquet that followed, was admirable. There was no crowding, pushing, or quarrelling; everything went off decorously.

On the following day I was visited at my quarters by a numerous party of Tshuktshi, male and female, who came to take leave of me, and to commend themselves to my remembrance. I had only tea and sugar-candy to treat the ladies with. The latter they accepted very willingly, but left the balmy infusion, which appeared not to be to their taste. Frugal as was my entertainment, still, by the aid of a few glass beads, blue, red, and white, which I distributed, I put my guests into such good humour, that the ladies offered to get up a dance. There was nothing, to be sure, very refined in the ballet; but it was peculiar in its kind. The bayaderes, in their stiff ungainly furs, placed themselves in a close circle, and, without stirring from the spot. kept moving their feet slowly backwards and forwards, and toss. ing their hands violently about in the air all the time. The countenance, however, played the most prominent part in the performance, being distorted most extravagantly. This was accompanied by a

kind of song, consisting of single discordant tones, or successive grunts. By way of finale, one of their favourite national dances was executed by three artistes of the first eminence, whose performance was most enthusiastically applauded by their own country-people. We uninitiated ones beheld only three uncouth oily objects, holding one another by the hand, rushing at each other with the most frightful grimaces, then starting back again, and keeping up the sport till perspiration and exhaustion forced them to break up the ball. By the advice of our interpreter, a little brandy and tobacco was offered to these solo dancers, who accepted them with great delight, and the whole party left us highly pleased with our hospitality, and with reiterated invitations to visit them in their own country.

vans.

On the sixth day after our arrival the fair was at an end. The Tshuktshi chiefs paid me one last formal visit, to renew their assurrance that we might depend on a friendly reception in their country; after which they set off for their homes, in five or six separate caraThe population of the surrounding country did the same, as did also the merchants of Kolymsk, the Commissary, and the priest, to whose party we joined ourselves. In a short time the last trace of the busy life that had so lately prevailed there disappeared under a covering of fresh snow. Some hungry foxes and wolverenes established themselves there immediately on our departure, and held a little fair of their own, to discuss the bones and other remnants that lay scattered about the huts and the late encampments.

I left Ostrovnoïe on the 16th of March. Our return was quick and easy, partly because the dogs had been well fed and well rested during the fair time, and partly because we everywhere found hard and beaten tracks. We accordingly reached Nishney Kolymsk in good spirits on the 19th.

JACK FROST

What a very strange fellow Jack Frost must be !
What a creature of mischief and fun!

Just come to the window a moment, and see

What odd things the urchin has done.

The meadows were emerald-green last night,
And the ruffled pond was blue;

But the mischievous elf has clothed in white
The pond and the meadows too.

He's always on some strange frolic bent
When the sun is out of the way,

And prowls about with felon intent
In winter, by night and by day.

Sometimes with glass he paves the flood,

Or whitens the emerald dale,

Or he scatters his wool o'er the naked wood,

Or he pelts the roof with hail.

I should like to know where his home may be

Perhaps on Ben Nevis' crest,

Or perchance in the dreary Polar sea

He makes his icy nest.

With silent tread, when we're in bed,

He'll be at his pranks again,

With wind and snow, and I don't know who,

And the rest of his madcap men.

But we'll heap the blazing fagots high,

And sit round the fire so bright,

And we'll spend the day right cozily,

And laugh at all his spite.

S. W. P,

THE DEATH-BED CONFESSION.

FROM THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF A LATE SURGEON.

"One fatal remembrance."-MOORE.

I HAVE often thought that no profession is so fraught with the recollection of human suffering, mental and corporeal, in all their varied and characteristic shades of life and death, as that of the surgeon and general medical practitioner. The attorney in the course of business is sufficiently connected with misery, Heaven knows. It may be his stern duty to drag from the writhing hand of poverty the last shilling; he may have to issue an execution, and, amid the wailings of a forlorn family, see torn from them, by his minion the broker, their every household chattel,-perhaps leaving a once smiling and happy hearth desolate indeed; nay, the attorney may have to consign some hopeless debtor to all the wretchedness of a prison for life; but the melancholy sequel-the last horrors of existence that border upon the mystic awfulness of eternity-the deathbed-belongs of right to us, and those whose holy ministry breathes, through a blessed Redeemer, the consoling balm of peace to the repentant and departing soul!

The wealthy, the poor, the honourable and ignoble, in all the lights and shadows of circumstance and character, call upon the professor of the "healing art" to administer the fruits of his study, to expel that foe to health and enjoyment, fell disease, with its hydra head. In the chambers of the sick, in the grey of early morning, or with the garish sunlight of the day streaming through the half-closed curtains, or at the more solemn midnight hour, when "half the world is hushed in deep repose," the eventful pages of life and death sometimes display strange and startling scenes to us ;-when the anguish of the body and mind conjoined in the sufferer have thrown off the artificialities of every-day existence. The spirit then bordering upon the confines of another world, in the mutter of the broken sleep, the sudden start and exclamation, or even in the very raving of delirium, oftentimes but too eloquently tells of woe or vice, in all the horrors of their true details. Amid such scenes I have often noted that truth has worn a garb stranger than fiction.

Some such motive, I may say, has induced me to write the following recollection.

My early life in the profession was accompanied by a circumstance that, to say the least of it, was not a little singular. It is now some five-and-twenty years since I first commenced practice in this at present overgrown metropolis of London. The first house I occupied was in a style commensurate with my humble fortunes, in a small thoroughfare leading out of Oxford Street. Having but few friends, and those resident in the country, and but a very meagre capital for support until I got into active employment, the knowledge of this fact perhaps only served to stimulate me in my endeavours to obtain practice; but, in spite of every effort, it was to no purpose. I felt myself under a kind of ban, of having the tolerable portion of skill I knew myself possessed of, remain unknown. Daily, hourly, as I

vainly hoped and sought for business, and as my capital gradually decreased, I had the mortification of knowing that my circumstances soon threatened to involve me in all the horrors of poverty.

If I had been a single man, I could have managed to have borne my ill fortune perhaps with something like resignation; but there were two beings entirely dependent upon me for support-a young wife, and an infant at her breast.

One dull December evening, my wife and I were mourning over our gloomy circumstances. The tea-things had been just removed, and we were sitting in the little parlour adjoining my small and seldom-visited surgery. As I contemplated for a moment the horrors of beggary, I burst out into some of those repinings, which I did not possess philosophy enough entirely to suppress, while my angel wife endeavoured to soothe the rugged bitterness of my spirit with the first and last exhortation of the wretched-to hope! My last twenty pounds had been taken from my banker's hands the preceding week, and where I was to obtain a fresh supply when that was gone, Heaven only knew. Something was to be resolved upon soon; but each plan proposed was speedily rejected as impracticable. We had sunken into a silent fit of reflection, gazing at the fire, when the voices of many persons, apparently approaching the house, fell upon

our ears.

"This is the house-here's the nearest doctor's. Take care of the gemman," cried several voices.

I rushed to the door, which was already opened by the servant, and by the light of an adjoining lamp I beheld a considerable crowd of people half surrounding four men, employed in supporting the body of one who, twenty rough voices at one and the same moment informed me, had been run over by a carriage.

Conducting the four men into my surgery, I had my patient placed in a reclining arm-chair. He appeared covered with mud, and in great pain. In crossing Oxford Street, one of the men who assisted in bringing him informed me, he had been run over by the wheels of a carriage driven at a furious rate. The stranger, judging from a single glance at his tall and attenuated figure, had once, no doubt, been a singularly fine man, though now debilitated by age and grief, as his white hair and the furrowed lines of his open and intellectual countenance seemed to infer. He was suffering acute pain, which he informed me proceeded from his right leg. I now perceived, indeed, that this limb lay in a very lifeless and unnatural position. Taking my scissors from my case, I immediately cut down the seam of the trousers and through part of the stocking, laying bare the hurt limb, which, as I had expected, exhibited a severe fracture, through which a portion of ragged bone protruded. At the same moment the old gentleman had with much difficulty raised himself a little, and now bent his eyes over the shattered leg.

"Ha! as I thought!" he exclaimed, in a tone of voice in which pain, self-possession, and resignation were singularly blended. "Fracture of the tibia and fibula, just below the upper third. You must have recourse to your splints."

At this observation, which I knew could only have emanated from a medical man, the slight hope of reward I had cherished at once vanished from my mind, and I prepared as cheerfully as I could to