THE KELP-GATHERER. self. The next instant the poor widow was caught in the arms of her son. "Where is she? My mother! O my darling mother, I am come back to you! Look! I have kept my word." She strove, with a sudden effort of selfrestraint, to keep her misfortune secret, and wept, without speaking, upon the neck of her long absent relative, who attributed her tears to an excess of happiness. But when he presented his young wife, and called her attention to the happy laughing faces and healthful cheeks of their children, the wandering of her eyes and the confusion of her manner left it no longer possible to retain the secret. 35 to his bosom and wept aloud, while his wife, retiring softly to a distance, hid her face in her cloak. Her children clung with fear and anxiety to her side, and gazed with affrighted faces upon the afflicted mother and son. But they were not forgotten. After she had repeatedly embraced her recovered child, the good widow remembered her guests. She extended her arms towards that part of the room at which she heard the sobs and moanings of the younger mother. "Is that my daughter's voice?" she asked-"place her in my arms, Richard. Let me feel the mother of your children upon my bosom." The young woman flung herself into the embrace of the aged widow. 'Young and fair, I am sure," the latter continued, passing her wasted fingers over the blooming cheek of the good American. "I can feel the roses upon this cheek, I am certain. But what are these?-Tears! My good child, you should dry our tears, instead of adding to them. Where are your children? Let me see The young man uttered a horrid and piercing-ah! my heart-let me feel them, I mean cry, while he tossed his clenched hand above-let me take them in my arms. his head and stamped upon the earth in sud-angels! Oh! If I could only open my eyes den anguish. "Blind! my mother?" he repeated "O Heaven, is this the end of all my toils and wishes? To come home and find her dark for ever! Is it for this I have prayed and laboured! Blind and dark! O my poor mother! Oh, Heaven! O mother, mother!" "My good, kind boy," said she, laying her hand heavily on his arm- -"you are returned to my old arms once more, and I am grateful for it but we cannot expect to have all we wish for in this world. O my poor boy, I can never see you—I can never see your children! I am blind." Let me "Hold now, my boy-where are you? What way is that for a Christian to talk? Come near me, and let me touch your hands. -Don't add to my sorrows, Richard, my child, by uttering a word against the will of Heaven. -Where are you? Come near me. hear you say that you are resigned to this and all other visitations of the great Lord of all light. Say this, my child, and your virtue will be dearer to me than my eyes! Ah! my good Richard, you may be sure the Almighty never strikes us except it is for our sins, or for our good. I thought too much of you, my child, and the Lord saw that my heart was straying to the world again, and he has struck me for the happiness of both. Let me hear you say that you are satisfied. I can see your heart still, and that is dearer to me than your person. Let me see it as good and dutiful as I knew it before you left me." The disappointed exile supported her in his arms."Well,-well,-my poor mother," he said, "I am satisfied. Since you are the chief sufferer and show no discontent, it would be too unreasonable that I should murmur. The will of Heaven be done!-but it is a bitter -stroke." Again he folded his dark parent My little for one moment to look upon you all-but for one little instant-I would close them again for the rest of my life, and think myself happy. If it had happened only one day-one hour after your arrival-but the will of Heaven be done! perhaps even this moment, when we think ourselves most miserable, he is preparing for us some hidden blessing." Once more the pious widow was correct in her conjecture. It is true, that day, which all hoped should be a day of rapture, was spent by the reunited family in tears and mourning. But Providence did not intend that creatures who had served him so faithfully should be visited with more than a temporary sorrow for a slight and unaccustomed transgression. The news of the widow's misfortune spread rapidly through the country, and excited universal sympathy-for few refuse their commiseration to a fellow-creature's sorrow—even of those who would accord a tardy and measured sympathy to his good fortune. Among those who heard with real pity the story of their distress, was a surgeon who resided in the neighbourhood, and who felt all that enthusiastic devotion to his art which its high importance to the welfare of mankind was calculated to excite in a generous mind. This gentleman took an early opportunity of visiting the old widow when she was alone in the cottage. The simplicity with which she told her story, and the entire resignation which she expressed, interested and touched him deeply. "It is not over with me yet, sir," she con- | distinctness. The first on which her eyes recluded, "for still, when the family are talk- posed was the figure of a young man bending ing around me, I forget that I am blind; and his gaze with an intense and ecstatic fondness when I hear my son say something pleasant, I upon hers, and with his arms outstretched as turn to see the smile upon his lips; and when if to anticipate the recognition. The face, the darkness reminds me of my loss, it seems though changed and sunned since she had as if I lost my sight over again!" known it, was still familiar to her. She started from her seat with a wild cry of joy, and cast herself upon the bosom of her son. The surgeon discovered on examination that the blindness was occasioned by a disease called cataract, which obscures, by an unhealthy secretion, the lucid brightness of the crystalline lens, and obstructs the entrance of the rays of light. The improvements which modern practitioners have made in this science render this disease, which was once held to be incurable, now comparatively easy of removal. The surgeon perceived at once by the condition of the eyes, that, by the abstraction of the injured lens, he could restore sight to the afflicted widow. Unwilling, however, to excite her hopes too suddenly or prematurely, he began by asking her whether, for a chance of recovering the use of her eyes, she would submit to a little pain? The poor woman replied, "that if he thought he could once more enable her to behold her child and his children, she would be content to undergo any pain which would not endanger her existence." "Then," replied her visitor, "I may inform you that I have the strongest reasons to believe that I can restore you to sight, provided you agree to place yourself at my disposal for a few days. I will provide you with an apartment in my house, and your family shall know nothing of it until the cure is effected." The widow consented, and on that very evening the operation was performed. The pain was slight, and was endured by the patient without a murmur. For a few days after the surgeon insisted on her wearing a covering over her eyes, until the wounds which he had found it necessary to inflict had been perfectly healed. One morning, after he had felt her pulse and made the necessary inquiries, he said, while he held the hand of the widow: "I think we may now venture with safety to remove the covering. Compose yourself now, my good old friend, and suppress all emotion. Prepare your heart for the reception of a great happiness." The poor woman clasped her hands firmly together and moved her lips as if in prayer. At the same moment the covering fell from her brow and the light burst in a joyous flood upon her soul. She sat for an instant bewildered and incapable of viewing any object with She embraced him repeatedly, then removed him to a distance that she might have the opportunity of viewing him with greater distinctness—and again, with a burst of tears, flung herself upon his neck. Other voices, too, mingled with theirs. She beheld her daughter and their children waiting eagerly for her caress. She embraced them all, returning from each to each, and perusing their faces and persons as if she would never drink deep enough of the cup of rapture which her recovered sense afforded her. The beauty of the young mother-the fresh and rosy colour of the children-the glossy brightness of their hair-their smiles-their movements of joy— all afforded subjects for delight and admiration, such as she might never have experienced had she never considered them in the light of blessings lost for life. The surgeon, who thought that the consciousness of a stranger's presence might impose a restraint upon the feelings of the patient and her friends, retired into a distant corner, where he beheld, not without tears, the scene of happiness which he had been made instrumental in conferring. "Richard," said the widow, as she laid her hand upon her son's shoulder and looked into his eyes, "did I not judge aright when I said, that even when we thought ourselves the most miserable, the Almighty might have been preparing for us some hidden blessing? Were we in the right to murmur?" The young man withdrew his arms from his mother, clasped them before him, and bowed down his head in silence. PETTICOAT GOVERNMENT. NUBIAN REVENGE. There appears to be a wild caprice amongst the institutions, if such they may be called, of all these tropical nations. In a neighboring state to that of Abyssinia, the king, when appointed to the regal dignity, retires into an island, and is never again visible to the eyes of men but once-when his ministers come to strangle him; for it may not be that the proud monarch of Behr should die a natural death. No men, with this fatal exception, are ever allowed even to set foot upon the island, which is guarded by a band of Amazons. In another border country, called Habeesh, the monarch is dignified with the title of Tiger. He was formerly Melek of Shendy, when it was invaded by Ismael Pasha, and was even then designated by the fierce cognomen. Ismael, Mehemet Ali's second son, advanced through Nubia, claiming tribute and submission from all the tribes. Nemmir-which signifies Tiger-the king of Shendy, received him hospitably, as Mahmoud, our dragoman, informed us, and when he was seated in his tent, waited on him to learn his pleasure. My pleasure is,' replied the invader, that you forthwith furnish me with slaves, cattle, and money to the value of one hundred thousand dollars.' 'Pooh!' said Nemmir, 'you jest ; all my country could not produce what you require in one hundred moons.' 'Ha! Wallah!' was the young pasha's reply, and he struck the Tiger across the face with his pipe. If he had done so to his namesake of the jungle, the insult could not have roused fiercer feelings of revenge, but the human animal did not shew his wrath at once. 'It is well,' he replied; 'let the pasha rest; to-morrow he shall have nothing more to ask.' The Egyptian, and the few Mameluke officers of his staff, were tranquilly smoking towards evening, entertained by some dancing-girls, whom the Tiger had sent to amuse them; when they observed that a huge pile of dried stacks of Indian corn was rising rapidly round the tent. What means this?' inquired Ismael angrily; am not I a pasha?' 'It is but forage for your highness's horses,' replied the Nubian, for, were your troops once arrived, the people would fear to approach the camp. Suddenly, the space is filled with smoke, the tent curtains shrivel up in flames, and the pasha and his comrades find themselves encircled in what they well know is their funeral pyre. Vainly the invader im 37 Nem plores mercy, and assures the Tiger of his warm regard for him and all his family; vainly he endeavours to break through the fiery fence that girds him round; a thousand spears bear him back into the flames, and the Tiger's triumphant yell and bitter mockery mingle with his dying screams. The Egyptians perished to a man. mir escaped up the country, crowned with savage glory, and married the daughter of a king, who soon left him his successor, and the Tiger still defies the old pasha's power. The latter, however, took a terrible revenge upon his people: he burned all the inhabitants of the village nearest to the scene of his son's slaughter, and cut off the right hands of five hundred men besides. much for African warfare. So [MARY ELIZABETH BRADDON, born in London, in 1837. A popular novelist. Among her best known works are Lady Audley's Secret," "Aurora Floyd," "Henry Dunbar," and "Rupert Godwin." From the first-named we make the following extract:] What a wonderful solution of life's enigma there is in a petticoat government! Man might lie in the sunshine and eat lotuses, and fancy it always afternoon if his wife would let him! But she won't; bless her impulsive heart and active mind! She knows better than that. Whoever heard of a woman taking life as it ought to be taken? Instead of supporting it as an unavoidable nuisance, only redeemable by its brevity, she goes through it as if it were a pageant or a procession. She dresses for it, and simpers, and grins, and gesticulates for it. She pushes her neighbours, and struggles for a good place in the dismal march; she elbows, and writhes, and tramples, and prances to the one end of making the most of the misery. She gets up early, and sits up late, and is loud, and restless, and noisy, and unpitying. She drags her husband on to the woolsack, or pushes him into Parliament. She drives him full butt at the dear, lazy machinery of government, and knocks and buffets him about the wheels, and cranks, and screws, and pulleys; antil somebody, for quiet's sake makes him something that she wanted him to be made. That's why incompetent men sometimes sit 38 88 THE MEETING WITH LIVINGSTONE AT UJIJI. in high places, and interpose their poor muddled intellects between the things to be done and the people that can do them, making universal confusion in the helpless innocence of well-placed incapacity. The square men in the round holes are pushed into them by their wives. The Eastern potentate who declared that women were at the bottom of all mischief, should have gone a little farther and seen why it is so. It is because women are never lazy. They don't know what it is to be quiet, They are Semiramides, and Cleopatras, and Joan of Arcs, Queen Elizabeths, and Catharine the Seconds, and they riot in battle, and murder, and clamour, and desperation. If they can't agitate the universe, and play at ball with hemispheres, they'll make mountains of warfare and vexations out of domestic molehills, and social storms in household tea-cups. Forbid them to hold forth upon the freedom of nations and the wrongs of mankind, and they'll quarrel with Mrs. Jones about the shape of a mantle or the character of a small maid-servant. To call and, on awakening, asked for the sketches he had just seen-the sketches of his dream. In silent anguish they awaited the close now so surely approaching. His speech was becoming less and less distinct. The last words audible were, More light! The final darkness drew apace, and he whose eternal longings had been for more light, gave a parting cry for it as he was passing under the shadow of death. He continued to express himself, by signs, drawing letters with his forefinger in the air while he had strength; and finally, as life ebbed, drawing figures slowly on the shawl which covered his legs. At half-past twelve he composed himself in the corner of the chair. The watcher placed a finger on her lip to intimate that he was asleep. If sleep it was, it was a sleep in which a life glided from the world. He woke no more. GEORGE H. LEWES. AT UJIJI.* them the weaker sex, is to utter a hideous THE MEETING WITH LIVINGSTONE mockery. They are the stronger sex, the noisier, the more persevering, the most selfassertive sex. They want freedom of opinion, variety of occupation, do they? Let them have it. Let them be lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers, soldiers, legislators-anything they like-but let them be quiet-if they can. DEATH OF GOETHE. up [MR. HENRY M. STANLEY, the young and gallant correspondent of The New York Herald, had been commissioned by Mr. Bennett, the proprietor of that journal, to go and find Livingstone, receiving carte blanche in the way of expenses. With dauntless courage and dexterous management he fought his way to Ujiji, and thus describes the meeting :] We push on rapidly, lest the news of our coming might reach the people of Bunder Ujiji before we come in sight, and are ready The following morning-it was the 22d for them. We halt at a little brook, then of March 1832-he tried to walk a little ascend the long slope of a naked ridge, the and down the room, but, after a turn, he very last of the myriads we have crossed. found himself too feeble to continue. Re- This alone prevents us from seeing the lake seating himself on the easy chair, he chat- (Tanganyika) in all its vastness. We arted cheerfully with Ottilie [his daughter-in-rive at the summit, travel across and arrive law] on the approaching spring, which at its western rim, and-pause, reader-the would be sure to restore him. He had no port of Ujiji is below us, embowered in the idea of his end being so near. The palms-only five hundred yards from us. of Ottilie was frequently on his lips. She At this grand moment we do not think of the sat beside him, holding his hand in both of hundreds of miles we have marched, of the hers. It was now observed that his thoughts hundreds of hills that we have ascended and began to wander incoherently. "See," he descended, of the many forests we have trav exclaimed, "the lovely woman's head, with ersed, of the jungles and thickets that anblack curls, in splendid colours-a dark noyed us, of the fervid salt plains that blistbackground!" Presently he saw a piece of ered our feet, of the hot suns that scorched paper on the floor, and asked them how they could leave Schiller's letters so carelessly lying about. Then he slept softly, name U is a prefix to denote the country; thus Ujiji sig. nifies the country of Jiji. THE MEETING WITH LIVINGSTONE AT UJIJI. 39 ''Good us, nor of the dangers and difficulties now | lage?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Are you sure?' 'Sure, happily surmounted. sure, sir. Why, I leave him just now.' Unfurl the flags and load your guns!' morning, sir,' said another voice. Hallo,' 'Ay wallah, ay wallah bana!' respond the said I, is this another one?' 'Yes, sir.' men eagerly. One, two, three-fire!' A'Well, what is your name?' 'My name is volley from nearly fifty guns roars like a sa- Chumah, sir.' 'And is the doctor well?' lute from a battery of artillery. 'Now, Ki- 'Not very well, sir.' 'Where has he been rangozi (guide), hold the white man's flag so long?' 'In Manyuema.' 'Now, you Susi, up high, and let the Zanzibar flag bring up run and tell the doctor I am coming.' 'Yes, And you must keep close to- sir;' and off he darted like a madman. gether, and keep firing until we halt in the Soon Susi came running back, and asked market-place, or before the white man's me my name; he told the doctor I was com house. You have said to me often that you ing, but the doctor was too surprised to becould smell the fish of the Tanganyika-Ilieve him, and when the doctor asked him can smell the fish of the Tanganyika now. my name, Susi was rather staggered. There are fish, and beer, and a long rest waiting for you. MARCH!' the rear. But, during Susi's absence, the news had been conveyed to the doctor that it was surely a white man that was coming, whose guns were firing and whose flag could be seen; and the great Arab magnates of Ujiji Abid bin Suliman, Mohammed bin Gharib, and others-had gathered together before the doctor's house, and the doctor had come out from his verandah to discuss the matter and await my arrival. Before we had gone a hundred yards, our repeated volleys had the effect desired. We had awakened Ujiji to the knowledge that a caravan was coming, and the people were-Mohammed bin Sali, Sayd bin Majid, rushing up in hundreds to meet us. The mere sight of the flags informed every one immediately that we were a caravan; but the American flag borne aloft by gigantic Asmani (one of the porters or carriers), whose face was one vast smile on this day, rather staggered them at first. However, many of the people who now approached us remembered the flag. They had seen it float above the American consulate, and from the mast-head of many a ship in the harbor of Zanzibar, and they were soon heard welcoming the beautiful flag with cries of Bindera, Kisungu!'- -a white man's flag. 'Bindera Merikani!'-the American flag. Then we were surrounded by them: by Wajiji, Wanyamwezi, Wangwana, Warundi, Waguhha, Wamanyema, and Arabs, and were almost deafened with the shouts of Yambo, yambo, bana! Yambo bana! Yambo bana!' To all and each of my men the welcome was given. We were now about three hundred yards from the village of Ujiji, and the crowds are dense about me. Suddenly I hear a voice on my right say, 'Goodmorning, sir!' Startled at hearing this greeting in the midst of such a crowd of black people, I turn sharply around in search of the man, and see him at my side, with the blackest of faces, but animated and joyous a man dressed in a long white shirt, with a turban of American sheeting around his woolly head, and I ask, 'Who the mischief are you?' 'I am Susi, the servant of Dr. Livingstone,' said he, smiling, and showing a gleaming row of teeth. What! Is Dr. Livingstone here?' 'Yes, sir.' 'In this vil In the meantime, the head of the expedi tion had halted, and the Kirangozi was out of the ranks, holding his flag aloft, and Selim (the interpreter) said to me: 'I see the doctor, sir. 'Oh, what an old man! He has got a white beard.' And I-what would I not have given for a bit of friendly wilderness, where unseen I might vent my joy in some mad freak, such as idiotically biting my hand, turning a somersault, or slashing at trees, in order to allay those excited feel. ings that were well nigh uncontrollable. My heart beats fast, but I must not let my face betray my emotions, lest it should de tract from the dignity of a white man ap pearing under such extraordinary circum stances. So I did that which I thought was the most dignified. I pushed back the crowds, and passing from the rear, walked down a living avenue of people, until I came in front of the semicircle of Arabs, in the front of which stood the white man with the gray beard. As I advanced slowly towards him I noticed that he was pale, looked wearied, wore a bluish cap with a faded gold band round it, had on a red-sleeved waistcoat, and a pair of gray tweed trousers. I would have run to him, only I was a coward in the presence of such a mob-would have embraced him, only, he being an Englishman, I did not know how he would receive me; so I did |