Page images
PDF
EPUB

NATURAL HISTORY.

Under this head we purpose occasionally to to give a little sketch, and sometimes to illustrate the same through the powerful aid of a well-executed engraving. We this month select for our subject the Thibet Watch Dog, with an accurate delineation, admirably engraved on wood by MR. JABEZ HARE.

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][merged small]

THESE noble animals are the watchdogs of the table-land of the Himalaya mountains, about Thibet. Their masters, the Bhoteas, to whom they are most strongly attached, are a singular race, of a ruddy copper colour, indicating the bracing air which they breathe, rather short, but of an excellent disposition. Their clothing is adapted to the cold climate they inhabit, and consists of fur and woollen cloth. The men till the ground and keep sheep, and, at certain seasons, come down to trade, bringing borax, tincal, and musk, for sale. They sometimes penetrate as far as Calcutta. On these occasions the women always remain at home with the dogs, and the encampment is watched by the latter, which have an almost irreconcileable aversion to Europeans, and in general fly ferociously at a white face. A warmer climate relaxes all their

[blocks in formation]

POETRY.

[In Original Poetry, the Name, real or assumed, of the Author, is printed in small Capitals under the title; in Selections it is printed in Italics at the end.]

A VOICE FROM THE TOMB.

DAVID GUNTON,

This is the hour, so calm and still,
We love to spend apart;
When every pure and holy thrill,
Awakes within the heart.

When nature is half-lulled to sleep,

Come then to me

As twinkling stars begin to peep,
And sombrous tints of darkness creep,
O'er land and sea.

Come to my grave, and there repeat
One word of love;

Mine ear the music will not greet,
Affection's tones, however sweet,

No more shall move.

Yet linger there awhile, and dream
Of life and me;

Of days of bright and sunny gleam,
O'er neighbouring dell and lucid stream,
I spent with thee.

Think of our many playful hours,
When hope was young;

Of home, and its luxuriant flowers,
Where all eve long, amid the bowers,
Some sweet bird sung.

Of winter tale, and summer sport,
And favoured nooks;

Of all our spots of sweet resort:
Of all we ever said or thought,
By tongue or books.

Remember me in health and bloom,

And joy elate;

Ere yet disease had mark'd my doom, Or set the signet of the tomb,

In changeless fate.

Call up the break of morning gay,
When sleep just fled;

When mother came to hear us pray,
And taught us holy words to say,
And joy-tears shed.

[blocks in formation]

REFLECTIONS.

I gazed on the stars which at evening first brighten
The skies, when o'ershadowed with darkness and gloom :-
And I thought of those friends who our sorrows can lighten,
And shed e'en a solace o'er death and the tomb.

I opened the vase where the rose leaves were faded,

But sweet was the incense they breathed from their rest,
And I thought of past joys though by distance long shaded,
That live in the mind in reality drest.

I saw the sweet flower that the rude foot was pressing,
How closely it clung, and how fragrant it grew!
And I thought of that love that would perish, caressing
The hand whose unkindness its happiness slew.

I watched the swoln waves on the green ocean bounding
How they chased one another, then died on the shore,
And I thought of frail man, with life's tempests surrounding,
We struggle-we fall-and are heard of no more.

Then I turned to the West, where the sun was reposing,
And awed by the radiance that mark'd his decline,

I thought of the Just with mortality closing,

And sighed for such peace and such death to be mine!

[blocks in formation]

0.

Twelve honest men form an impartial Jury.

The national debt is 800 millions.

The taxes are about 50 millions.

There are above 100 different languages.

There are above 1000 millions of people on the globe.

Gælic is spoken in Ireland.

Erse in the Scotch Highlands.

Welsh in Wales.

The English Language is a mixture of Welsh, Saxon, NormanFrench, German, Latin and Greek.

There are three or four times as much sea as land.

The clouds are from a quarter of a mile to 7 miles high.

The highest mountains are 4 or 5 miles high.

The heat of the human body is 98 degrees

Water boilsat 212°.

Water freezes at 32°.

Summer heat in England from 60°. to 90°.

Winter heat in England from 40° to 10°.

Water is 830 times heavier than air.

Gold is 19 times heavier than water.

Silver is 10 times heavier.-Iron 7 times heavier.

MISCELLANY AND EXTRACTS.

DONATI found the bottom of the Adriatic to be composed of a compact bed of shells, not less than a hundred feet in thickness; and that a few feet below the surface of the bed, the deposits were converted, by pressure and the action of the chemical laws of nature, into solid marble, and the shells completely petrified.

WE cannot, for a moment, suppose that the first man was ever an infant, or the first oak an acorn. Much less then can we suppose the earth to have been formed in any other way than is mentioned in the first verse of the Bible. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

WHEN the ice breaks up in the polar regions, on the return of summer, immense islands are set afloat, rising high into the air, and sinking a great depth into the sea. The melting process, in most cases, goes on inequally in the water and in the air, and, from the huge mass thus changing form, the stability is lost, and one of the grandest phenomena in nature thus produced. The mountain is suddenly overthrown, with a fearful tumult of the ocean, which is often felt at the distance of many leagues around.

THE advice that Wallace gave, in the 13th century, would be valuable, even now, if it were not too late to adopt it. But stage coaches, steam boats, manufactures, and a false principle of Education, which superseding the old-fashioned study of the scriptures as the all in all, teaches discontented ambitions rather than honest emulations of "doing their duty in that state of life unto which it has pleased God to call them,"-have all combined to make some of the most distant parts of Scotland, too much like those nearest the British metropolis;-and they need not be described ! But there is an effect of this change which Wallace did not forsee,-the tyranny of a multitude, still more formidable than that of a single man, an example which France, the long signal example of luxury and a despotic monarch at last exhibited, in that of a despotic people with " every man's hand against his brother,"-Scottish Chiefs. P. 234, note, Vol. 2.

THE SCHOOLMASTER.-In Cincinnati, United States, a place which was a wilderness only 60 years since, a single publisher has printed, in six years, 650,000 school-books.

MONTHLY NOTICES.

JANUARY.

1st.-Eau Brink Tax due, must be paid before the end of March. Padnal and Waterden, and South Level Taxes due, must be paid before the 28th.

5th.-Half-yearly dividends on some of the species of Stock due. 6th.-Isle of Ely Quarter Sessions at Wisbech.

8th.-Insurances due at Christmas must be paid on or before this

day.

SOHAM

PLAYFORD'S

MAGAZINE,

AND

Friendly Monitor.

FEBRUARY, 1847.

THE FORCE OF EXAMPLE.

r is a maxim, uttered by an inspired apostle, and established by the sad experience of ages, that "evil communications corrupt good manners." Were we to trace to its origin any one vicious habit by which an individual has become enslaved, we should rarely find that it

How many

sprung from the innate evil of his heart, without the contagious influence of sinful society. Hence the vital importance, to our present and future interests, of the careful selection of our associates and friends; for however deeply we may have been imbued with right sentiments of religion and virtue, such impressions will seldom long survive in an atmosphere of immorality and vice. there are who have travelled far towards the close of a lengthened life, tied and bound by inveterate habits of intemperance, who can trace their early departure from the paths of purity, to the shame or fear that they experienced from the anticipated ridicule of others. The power of conscience, and the influence of education, may, for a while, withstand the shock, but these barriers will be gradually overpowered by the presence of an unceasing temptation. How often has the morning of life, which made promise of a bright and happy day, been overcast by those clouds of darkness and storm which have never been dissipated to its close! And whence arose the evil? The native corruption of the heart has been aroused into fatal energy and life by the pernicious No. 2. Vol. I.

« PreviousContinue »