are so young to die-but Thy will, O God, not mine be done!" "The girls will not be home now," said widow Hoffman to her son, as she glanced at the clock, and then out of the snow-covered casement as well as she could into the darkness. "I am glad that I thought of their staying at S. You can go to bed, Eric dear!" The boy obeyed her, and was asleep in a moment-but his mother could not rest; so she opened her large clasped-bible and read, pausing at intervals to listen to the whispering of the snow as it drifted against the window pane. Paul Vanderpant, assured of the safety of his beloved, went to bed thinking what a merry walk they should have on the following day back from S, and how he would tease Lily for having ventured to doubt his word. About ten minutes afterwards he was suddenly aroused by some one knocking at the door, and distinctly heard the sweet voice of Gertrude, bidding him get up as quickly as possible, and toll the chapel bell. Paul was soon dressed, and went forth wondering what should make Gertrude summon him; and above all, why they had ventured home on such a night. "Thank God that she is safe!" murmured he. "They must have heard of the funeral at S, and she came herself to tell me, that I might know she had returned in safety. Dear, thoughtful Gertrude! It is a wild night for a funeral, anyhow," added Paul, as he entered the little wayside chapel and began to toll the bell. It was above a year since the bell had been heard before. Many started out of their sleep at the sound of its melancholy voice, and murmured a hasty prayer; others slept on, and dreamt of it. The widow, as she sat all alone in her little chamber, shuddered with a strange fear. Gertrude sprang up from the cold ground, where she had been nestling close beside her sister, and where she would soon have slept also, with a cry of joy. God had heard her prayers, and sent the voice of the wayside bell to guide her homeward through the snow; and she knew by the sound that it could not be very far off. The young girl felt endued with a supernatural strength, and lifting up the slight form of her sister in her arms-for she would have died with her rather than have left her behind-she tottered forwards in the direction from which the sound seemed to come. she diverged from the right path, and the voice of the bell came fainter and fainter; and then again it tolled more and more loudly and distinctly, and just as she reached the edge of the wood, and caught a glimpse of the light still burning in her mother's cottage, it ceased altogether, as though it knew that its mission was ended. Now Having rang the accustomed time, Paul Vanderpant quitted the chapel, and proceeded homewards. The snow had ceased to fall, and he saw to his surprise, directly before him, a female figure slightly clad, and bearing, as it seemed, some heavy burden. Slowly it toiled on, staggering beneath the weight it bore, and at length sank down within a few paces of widow Hoffman's cottage. For a moment Paul thought of the wild legend which Lily had told him concerning the spirit of the wayside chapel, but it was only for a moment-the next he had sprung forward, and was kneeling beside the insensible forms of Gertrude and her sister. We will not attempt to describe the scene that followed, or endeavour to explain, or add a single remark of our own to the above simple and truthful narrative; but content ourselves with adopting and believing Gertrude's own sweet creed, that nothing is impossible to God! The wedding of Paul Vanderpant and Gertrude Hoffman took place in the early spring, and Lily was sufficiently recovered to be her sister's bridesmaid. OUR EARLY FRIENDS. BY A. T-*. Our early friends! our early friends, Though absent-altered-dead, What bids the tear-drop moisten eyes The thought of our early friends! The thought of our early friends! When toiling with a sinking heart The thought of our early friends! The thought of our early friends! And when pale sickness heralds Death, In that land where friends change not! Ramsgate, Jan. 24, 1848. A GLANCE AT THE CAPE AND THE CAFFRES. BY ALFRED ST. CYR. (A Five Years Resident.) Every traveller in distant climes looks back with interest to his first voyage. It matters not whether it were prosperous or otherwise; whether he sailed in a first-rate Indiaman, or a third-rate "regular trader;" whether his companions were bores and blues in the former, or grog-drinking sea-monsters in the latter; the voyage and its reminiscences will interest him when many a brighter and pleasanter period of his life has been forgotten. And as travellers and old women are notoriously garrulous, I must insist on their ancient privilege, and talk a little about "my first vogage." The "Prince Rupert" emigrant ship, of four hundred tons burthen, bound for New Zealand, with a hundred and twenty of Her Majesty's lieges on board, was as tough a ship and as dull a sailer as ever quitted England: the latter quality nearly caused our death by starvation, for no stock of provisions could last out one of her voyages; the former saved our lives in shipwreck. Of that hereafter. She sailed from Gravesend somewhere in the month of April, 1841, with about thirty or forty cabin passengers and double the number of free emigrants in the steerage. A more heterogeneous compound of characters was never assembled in so small a compass. There were government officers going out to the new capital, the very name and position of which was yet unknown. There were gentlemen farmers, who were innocent of any acquaintance with ploughing or sowing; merchants, intending to establish trading houses to fill their own pockets, and do the “ Maoris;" young gentlemen, going to make their fortunes by some yet-to-be-discovered process, their sole possessions an outfit from Silver's, and a few coins of the realm-some glass beads to tempt the natives, and letters of introduction to unfortunates like themselves. Then there were ladies, the wives and daughters of the three first classes I have mentioned, and a few children. Above all, there was the Captain, a commander in the navy, late of the coast-guard in Ireland, and knighted by the Lord Lieutenant for lending him his boat on some trivial occasion: of himself and his title he had the highest opinion; for his passengers the supremest contempt. We beat down Channel as far as Portsmouth, when we were obliged to put in and restow the cargo, for the ship was so "cranky" as to be unfit for sea. A week was thus wasted while we rambled about among the delights of the dock-yard and the victualling yard, and the other attractions of the place. It was the 15th of May when we caught the last glimpse of our native country. The thought of its being the last glimpse did not make me sentimentally miserable, but the pitching of our ship in the Chops of the Channel made me anything but bodily comfortable; so I "turned in" for three days. Oh, the delights of the first dinner at sea in heavy weather! Sitting down with your head still giddy and your appetite still delicate, and having your first glass of wine upset into your soup; your boiled chicken and parsley and butter deposited on your "unmentionables," and a bottle of Bass's pale ale poured down your back by the staggering steward. Worse still, to see the only dish you can fancy shot on to the deck, and its flavour irretrievably damaged by the admixture of dirt and coal-tar; and then to watch the captain and the mate making fearful inroads on all the provisions, hob-nobbing over their wine, and looking as unconcerned as if an angle of forty-five were the natural position for a gentleman's dining-table. For the first week I hated every man who was not sea-sick. Fine weather came at last, and our time was spent in looking out for ships, catching bonitos and albicores, with an occasional shark; betting on the latitude and longitude, and quarrelling with the captain: the latter occupation became rather troublesome, for he took a fancy one day to declare that his passengers were in a state of mutiny because they asked for some more beer or wine. The ship was laid to, the ensign hoisted upside down, the provisions locked up, and the keys laid on the cabin table, with an intimation that the passengers had better help themselves; the men were called aft and harangued, and the captain retired to his cabin to load his pistols and wind up his chronometers. After carrying on this farce for twenty-four hours, during which we had nothing to eat but sundry fancy biscuits from our own private stores, it was arranged that we should proceed to Bahia in Brazil (whither we were bound for fresh provisions), and there discuss our differences with the captain before Her Britannic Majesty's consul. On one of the loveliest evenings I have ever beheld we sailed into Bahia de todos los Santos. It was too late for the port authorities to come off to us, and we were not allowed to land until we had received their visit. The situation of Tantalus, with his undying thirst in the midst of water, could not have been worse than ours cooped up in our detestable vessel, after eight weeks at sea, with all the delights and liberty of a beautiful shore within a few hundred yards of us, The sight which burst upon my vision on | good-looking, and some of them remarkably reaching the deck next morning was magnificent handsome. I only had the opportunity of conbeyond description. We were lying in a lovely versing with two or three; they were animated bay of immense extent. Before us St. Salvador, and agreeable, but their ideas not very enlarged. or (as it is more commonly termed) Bahia, rose Religious ceremonies occupy a great portion almost in the form of an amphitheatre-stately of the people's attention; and unwittingly lookpalms overtopping the white houses, and giving ing on at chapel on one occasion, a sacred a thoroughly tropical appearance to the scene. candle, six feet long, was placed in the hands of Behind us was the Island of Taporica, a beautiful me-a heretic-and I had to parade part of the green spot in the neck of the bay; and beyond, town with it, in procession with twenty or thirty the opposite coast of Vera Cruz. Around us others, all bare-headed, following the priest with were ships of all nations, our own ensign con- cross elevated. What we were doing I never spicuous in all directions; over the clear waters could discover, but at all events every one unof the bay many a light boat with its lateen sails covered and knelt to us as we passed. They skimmed gracefully along, while two or three have an absurd custom of firing off rockets in whale boats were in pursuit of a whale, which the middle of the day from the different churches was afterwards harpooned close under the stern on saints' days, which of course are nearly every of our ship. day. The effect is ridiculous: you hear a whiz and a pop, and see a little smoke in the air; but the stream of fire as the rocket mounts, and the shower of sparks as it bursts, so pretty at night, are utterly unseen in the broad sunlight of a tropical day. Innumerable boats from the shore were collected near us, manned by negroes, South American natives, and Brazilians; some with fruit and vegetables, and others to take passengers on shore. None dared to approach us till the port-captain had seen us and reported a clean bill of health. After this ceremony we landed. On entering the lower part of the town much of its romance seemed to fade, for it was dirty and ill-built; while the odours from its undrained streets, and the innumerable blacks who frequented them, were anything but gratifying to our nostrilsassailed even as they had been during the last eight weeks by the close atmosphere of a ship. One of my fellow-passengers and myself hailed two "cadeiras," and prepared for a start to the upper town and a breakfast. A cadeira is the Brazilian sedan; it resembles a common canebottomed arm-chair with a foot-board, and a top like that of a French bed with curtains, which can be opened or closed at pleasure; and from this are two poles, one behind and the other before, each of which rests on a negro's shoulder, and by means of which they carry you along at a trot. My friend was of very capacious dimensions, and on the negroes trying to lift the cadeira in which he had taken his seat, it broke down another was procured, and we With heavy hearts and a light breeze, we sailed from Bahia, intending to make our run direct to New Zealand: we were never destined to reach it. After we had been a fortnight at sea, it became evident "to the meanest capacity" that our stock of fresh provisions would not last out half the voyage, and it was consequently determined to put in at the Cape and get a fresh supply. Brazilian sheep weigh about thirty pounds; at least ours did, and not liking the sea air, they were daily becoming "Small by degrees and beautifully less." In about six weeks we came in sight of the Cape mountains. One day (the 4th of September) the captain showed us Table Mountain, beneath which lies Cape Town, and announced that we should reach Table Bay that evening. The Prince Rupert, however, was never in a hurry; night came on, and still we were not there. The lead was heaved every instant, and the captain and mate seemed satisfied at length that we had reached the outer anchorage. The started. anchor was let go, and the ship swung round The upper part of the town is much hand-head to wind. In an instant the sound of somer and cleaner than the lower, though it has but little beauty to boast of. We remained here a fortnight. The weather was desperately warm, but clear and beautiful; the country around was superb, provisions very cheap, and fruit abundant. The negroes worshipped us wherever we went, because we were Englishmen, and countrymen of William Wilberforce, whose portrait I found hanging in the house of every negro who had obtained his liberty. The Portuguese or Brazilians looked at us with very different eyes, but they are such ill-looking animals that I should doubt whether they ever bear a pleasant aspect to any one. Not so the ladies, however, who, when seen peeping from the curtains of a cadeira, or the half closed blinds of their houses, or still better, when kneeling at mass, with their black mantillas thrown back, appeared generally breakers was heard close to us, and in another moment we struck on the rocks: the shock was tremendous, and the terror it excited extreme. The cable was slipped, and attempts made to beat off the rocks, which ended in beating us further on to them. The affair was settled and we were shipwrecked. We could only fire guns of distress as we rolled about and thumped on the rocks with a violence that threatened soon to dash our ship to pieces. For four hours we remained thus; but the news had reached Cape Town, and boats came to our assistance. It was no easy matter for them to come alongside, for the surf was tremendous. Unhappily, five lives were lost, amongst whom was a noble young fellow named Mereweather, the son of Mr. Sergeant Mereweather. He was first mate of an Indiaman lying off Cape Town: on hearing of the wreck he came instantly to our assistance, and lost his own life by the capsizing of the boat while endeavouring to rescue us from destruction: he was deeply lamented by all who knew him. I was taken off in the last boat which left the ship, passed that night on board an Indiaman, and next day landed in Cape Town. Such were the events of my arrival at the Cape. Eight thousand miles from home-without friends, clothes, or money! Such was the very pleasant predicament in which I found myself; for I did not know a soul in Cape Town, my baggage was by this time "In the deep, deep sea," and my letters of credit for New Zealand were with it. A fellow passenger advised me to apply to a certain merchant whom he knew by name. I did so. I told the gentleman I was desirous of drawing a bill on my friends in England, and I asked him to cash it. I could shew him no authority enabling me to draw, and he knew nothing whatever of me or my connexions; moreover he was a Jew. Of course, reader, you feel that you have wit enough to anticipate the result; and yet you are certainly wrong. The gentleman asked no more questions, cashed the bill, and refused the interest. All honour to Israel! Cape Town is rather pretty; at least it is neat, clean, and regular. Many of the houses have trees in front of them, and all have a little terrace, or stoep, as the Dutch call it, with a seat at each end: here the family assembles on all the warm bright evenings to take coffee, chat over the events of the day, and enjoy the cool air. Perchance too, as one by one the family retire into the house, some stray daughter of it will linger behind with some favoured son from a neighbouring dwelling, pacing arm-inarm up and down, looking sometimes at the stars and sometimes at each other's eyes. Ah, there are less agreeable things in life than flirtation by moonlight on the stoep of a Cape Town house. Rondebosch is a village about four or five miles from Cape Town; it is exceedingly pretty. All the houses have large gardens, well stocked with fruit and flowers. Thither most of the more wealthy merchants' families retire during the summer, for it is considered very healthy, and is less hot than Cape Town. Beyond Rondebosch is another village equally pretty, called Wynberg. In fact, all the country near Cape Town is pretty, and to my eye the town itself is prettily situated, though I have heard many complain of the scene as bleak, barren, and desolate. Behind the town is Table Mountain, which seems to rise almost perpendicularly, and, as its name expresses, is flat at the top. It is about twenty or thirty feet higher than Snowdon. On the right of the mountain is a hollow or pass, separating it from another double-topped mountain called the Lion's Head and the Lion's Rump, from the resemblance that it bears to a lion couchant." On the left of Table Mountain is a lofty, pointed mountain called The Devil's Head. When a violent south-east_wind is expected a white cloud appears gradually forming itself over the top of Table Mountain, and this is termed "the devil laying his tablecloth." These winds blow with immense fury; but as they here blow off shore they do little harm to the shipping. It is an amusement in Cape Town to ascend Table Mountain to see the sun rise. The ascent is very tedious by a winding path cut or worn up the side. Some friends of mine, full of the climbing propensities which appear natural to an Englishman (especially a Cockney, who is never more happy than after having made the perilous ascent of Primrose or Greenwich Hill), determined to make the excursion. Accordingly at two o'clock, a.m., we started, with coolies carrying all sorts of provisions, fire-wood, and cooking utensils. Oh dear, what hard work it was! bad enough for the slim and active; but think of my stout friend, whose ponderosity had broken down the cadeira in Bahia; to him it was fearful-a month on the treadmill would have been child's play compared to it in point of the labour of " getting up stairs." We reached the first cave, which affords a restingplace. Now for a fire and something to eat and drink. Have mercy on that beef, my dear fat friend-recollect we shall be absent many an hour yet. Off again. Confound those coolies, how fast they go! the fellows' sinews must be made of wire. Where's the next resting-place? Higher yet. How the stones slip under one's feet; and fancy tumbling over! Hurrah! another cave. No, no, my dear fat friend, "point de boeuf" this time. Take some of the eau-devie if you like. Onwards again, or we shall be too late. How very slowly the height above seems to diminish. Patience, patience. The top is reached at last, and now for a glorious sight! Why, there's the sun ever so much above the horizon! Certainly; it had risen half-an-hour ago. And what see you below? Table Bay and Cape Town? Not a bit of either, but a great thick mist. Well, this is very pleasant. At all events there is a harbour, and that is something. Still we might have seen one in Cape Town. Well, we will sit down, rest, take breakfast, and hope that the mist will clear away. What is that behind us? A great white cloud-"the devil's table-cloth," by all that is fearful! Make haste for your lives-there is but one way down this precipitous mountain, and if you gain it not before that cloud has spread over the side, the chances are that you will never find it at all, but in seeking for it lose your footing, and be dashed into eternity. Haste, haste! Oh, my dear fat friend, how your little bolster legs did waddle then! The beef was forgotten; eau de vie had fled from your thoughts, the memory of past fatigues had faded; the love of the beautiful in nature, which had led you thither, had died away, and there you were-a fat little man running for his life; and you saved it. P And we reached Cape Town very tired, very, THE CHILD IS FATHER TO THE MAN. hungry, very sleepy, and very ill-tempered. Another favourite excursion for strangers at Cape Town is to visit the wine-farms at Constantia. I found it much pleasanter than climbing Table Mountain. My fat friend and another in a gig, and myself à cheval, we started off one lovely morning. There are but three farms, situated on the side of a hill, where the grape producing the beautiful Constantia wine grows. It has been tried in various other parts of the colony, but without success. Even a mile from the hill the same kind of wine cannot be produced. It is named after the wife of one of the former governors of the Cape; not, I trust, from the lady's too great partiality for the beverage. The road to Constantia, through Rondebosch and Wynberg, is pretty for some distance. After passing the latter village the scene becomes more barren, that is to say less wooded and cultivated, but barren is hardly a term to apply to land covered with an innumerable variety of Cape heaths in full bloom, aloes, wild stocks, and a thousand other delicate and lovely plants, making a natural carpet more beautiful thaa all the corn fields or flower gardens of civilization. And then those pretty birds-what plumage, what forms! but alas, they only chirp; not a song is ever heard in the recesses of a Cape wood. They are very hospitable people those Constantia wine farmers, and excellent establishments they keep; their houses are furnished in the best style, their flower-gardens in the best order, their vineyards neat and prime, their storehouses large, clean, and well stocked; and their wineno, I cannot describe it: there is something so exquisitely delicate in the flavour of the true and pure Constantia wine that it "beggars description." Certainly we tried every variety of it at all three farms, which was rather venturesome on our parts especially, as we had to ride back fourteen miles on horseback. But then, who could resist the fascinations of the wine, the scene, and the hosts? Simon's Bay, where the men-of-war lie, is situated twenty-one miles from Cape Town. It is not worth visiting, and the road is heavy and uninteresting. The only curiosity is the halfway house; the landlord is a character, and writes up on his signboard "In questa casa troverete Tout a que vous pouvez souhaiter- It is rather boastful certainly; nor does the house look as if it could afford all its signboard proclaims. Still you may get a very fair dinner; and a chat with the landlord, Farmer Peck, is worth something. BY GEORGE J. O. ALLMAN. "List thee, Oh, Summer Bee, In minstrelsy, Is Winter coming?” Thus sang a child, with a soft, blue eye, And the tears dripped down his face. He gazed around, as the Summer calm The lambent sunbeams kissed in play With a deepened hush did fall. But the Child joyed not in the Summer air, As with low, sad voice sang he- Oh, Summer Bee, In minstrelsy, Is Winter coming?" They had told him once, that Orphan child, With a look of wonder, doubt, and pain, He gazed on them and smiled; The Hours wore on, and a Winter came, The Spring put forth her shoots again, And the solar heats of Summer's sky |