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said; 'it's mighty hard work to talk with some folks in this willage. They have n't no learning, nor no faculty of obserwation. They 've got such thick sculls that you can't beat no ideas into 'em. They don't never know when they're convinced. It always does me good to talk to a man that is n't so confoundedly ignorant as not to know when to knock under. You preachers generally have some understanding.' I elt flattered.

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Just then, a clock that was perched up in a corner of the store, gave information that the hour- eleven had arrived. The philosopher asked to be excused for a minute, assigning as a reason for this digression of another sort, that he must go home and tell his 'woman' what to cook for dinner. He lived only one door off. It was a very good excuse, but one that was calculated to deceive. I knew that his mind was not on his dinner. He had an eccentric habit of always being at home at eleven o'clock, A.M., unless he was in the tavern. Always, at that hour, he diluted two fingers of water with three fingers of applejack, and a sprinkle of bitters, which dilution he swallowed without sugar. I excused him.

Having indulged in his eccentricity, the refreshed philosopher returned, and resumed the narration of his views.

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Now, it is werry different with that 'wiper' from what it is with a bullock. He is cold-blooded. All snakes are. He has no stove inside. He is kept alive by heat that comes from the outside. You remember the story about the man who put what he thought was a dead wiper' into his bosom. The wiper' rewived as soon as he got warm. Which goes to show that snakes depend on heat from the outside to keep theirselves alive. And the reason why they lie dorminant' during winter, and come to life in spring is, that the sun is n't hot enough for them in the winter. So that, just as long as the sun shines on that 'wiper,' he'll keep alive. But when the sun sets, he 'll have to die, because of the want of heat.'

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I complimented him on the originality of his views, and started from the store, to trail my snake over to the chemist. He evidently thought that he had triumphed, and that I had knocked under. He said at parting: Now, when you get home, you look at your books, and see if my views a' n't right. You may be first-rate at preaching, but you haven't seen snakes as I have. You preachers get your views second-hand; out of books. But some people gets theirs first-hand; by actual observation. You have read how Galileo, and Columbus, and Newton, and Franklin, and Fulton got their views. I'm one of that sort of men who observe for themselves!'

This extreme modesty on the part of the philosopher, prompted me to take him down a peg or two, which I did. I said:

If this viper must die, for the reason you state, after sundown, how will the rest of snakes manage to keep alive?'

He looked at me; he looked at the snake; he looked at the sky; he looked at the ground. He felt the contents of both his pockets, with both his hands. He frowned his brow. But it was no use. He had to come to it. He had to knock under. 'I wow!' he said; I NEVER THOUGHT OF SNAKES!'

THAT.

CUSS THE

NATIVE LAND.

BY ISAAC MACLELLAN.

WHAT leads the daring soldier o'er the world,
With warlike music, and with flag unfurled?
What holds him still contented in the rude,
Rough cabin, pitched by some o'erarching wood?
Oh! 't is the love, the steadfast love GOD SOWS
In every breast through which life's current flows;
The love of home, of sacred native land,
Where'er it be, where'er its bounds expand:
Poor though its soil, and drear its icy shores,
'Gainst which all bleakly Ocean ceaseless pours;
A frozen Lapland, where no sun-beam shoots
To gild the leaves, and flush the golden fruits,
But one vast landscape of the snows and sleet
Wraps the dead earth in its pale winding-sheet;
Still, 't is the soil the dweller calls his own,
Nor would exchange it for a despot's throne.

What though the shrill remorseless northern gale
Sighs o'er his hut with melancholy wail;
And the gaunt wolves, a fierce terrific throng,
Gnash their white fangs, and dismal howls prolong?
Safe still he smiles, 'mid all his little flock,

Nor heeds their rage, nor yet the tempest's shock.

What though brief sun-shine warms the Arctic year,
Nor dews descend, the flowery meads to cheer?
Still lends the moon her lustre to the scene,
And Northern-Lights display their lamps serene:
Though quick the skies the radiant sun-beams lose,
Still, hues of twilight long the clouds suffuse,
And well suffice to light the fisher's skiff,
In the salt tides that chafe the Bothnian cliff.
Happy the Lapland mountaineer doth seek
His game, when star-light tints each frosty peak:
Enwrapped with furs, he safely guides his sledge
By black fir-forest, and the piny ledge.

Lo! the poor child of Labrador's pale coast,

In leaky boat tempestuously tossed,

Plies his hard trade, and sings that GOD is good,

To load his nets, and send his children food.

Well doth he love his bleak, inclement home,
Enchained with frosts, and lashed with icy foam;
Inured to toil, contented he partakes
His blubber dainties, and his train-oil cakes;
Shares with his imps the sea-calf's tasteless meat,
And deems each morsel a luxurious treat.

In softer climes, beneath the blazing line
Where ardent heats prolific powers combine,
In human hearts the same affections flow;
The love of country kindles still its glow:
No soul so dead, no mind so crushed and vile,
As not to bloom beneath its country's smile!

Far where the blue Caribbean billows beat]
The yellow Mexic sands with trampling feet;
Where Nature pours from an o'er-brimming horn
Her affluent gifts, the region to adorn,
The dark-hued Indian drowsily reclines

By shadowed streams, beneath luxuriant vines;
Doomed to light toil, where thick the honeyed fruit
Invites his taste from many a burdened shoot;
Where ripe bananas and the orange pour
Around his hut their free delicious store;
And the rough cactus yields its juicy pear,
And guavas lavish perfumes on the air.

"T is a fair land! where plants of matchless dyes
Paint all the soil, as rain-bows streak the skies;
A solemn land! where forests rise sublime,
In whose lone depths soft falls the foot of Time;
Enchanted land! whose mountain-summits glow
With the clear lustre of eternal snow;
Whose vapory cones volcanic flames display,
To heaven's blue dome continual incense pay.

A realm in whose grand wilderness abound

Vast wrecks of grandeur, temple, shrine, and mound; Ruins that tell a nobler race possessed,

In unknown times, this Eden of the West;

Yet, no tradition record doth bestow,

Whereby their names and histories we may know:

We pause, o'erawed, by Uxmal's fallen gate,

And vainly ask the Indian of their fate!

Reigns o'er that land a weak, untutored race,
With minds obscured by Superstition's trace:
The simple Aztec still 's as mere a child,
As when the host of CORTEZ swept the wild:
His pride 's abased, for MONTEZUMA'S hall
Rings where the conqueror revels in the ball:
Yet love of country still delights his heart;
His first affection - latest to depart!

Late, when the stern invader from the North,
His serried files and glittering ranks led forth,
The poor swart Indian grasped his father's spear,
And strove to check the conqueror's career;
But vain his strife o'er Palo-Alto's plain,
And vain the strife along the mountain-chain.
The fiery Saxons, by their hero led,

Strewed Buena-Vista's rocky pass with dead,

In desperate fight beat down the Mexic brand,
And marched triumphant o'er the prostrate land.

So the poor serf from Afric's distant shores,
Sighs for his home, his hapless lot deplores;
Think ye, he hath no longing forth to roam
Beyond the blue seas, to his father's home?
No yearning thrill of transport to explore
The pleasant windings of his native shore?
Turn not in fancy oft his truant feet
To some sequestered, well-beloved retreat,
Where groves of spicy cinnamon and palm
Load the sweet air with aromatic balm?

Doth he not oft, in fancied vision, view
The very stream his early childhood knew,
Still dashing o'er its colored sands and stones,
With its light laugh, its well-remembered tones;
Have years of absence from his mind effaced
The tints of yore, on Memory's tablet traced?

May he forget the high-branched sycamore
That cast its wavering shadows by the door;

The straw-thatched roof, where first the dawning light
Of being glimmered on his infant sight?

Forget the white-haired, patriarchal sire,

His sportive brethren, with their looks of fire,

His mother's song, sung when the skies grew pale,

And evening-shadows deepened in the vale?

He ne'er forgets! nor, from his human heart

May holy loves nor sympathies depart.

When wandering 'long a foreign river's bank,

Where strange flowers bloom, and unknown plants grow rank,

He turns, in thought, to Niger's brimming floods,

Fringed with green pastures, belted thick with woods;
Thinks of old Gambia's foamy course with pride,

Of Congo's windings, Senegal's clear tide;

And fain would tread their bordering sands of gold,
And cleave their waters as in days of old.

Oh! that his nervous limbs might yet again
Urge his wild horse exultant o'er the plain!
Oh! that again his toil-strong arm might wield
The mighty club and shell-embosséd shield!
Oh! that his hand, unshackled, might enclasp
The crooked war-blade in its iron grasp!
Oh! that with manly courage he might brave
The robber-tribe that basely made him slave!

Vain thought! vain hope! an exile doomed to roam,
His dying breath sighs forth the name of home!

ISLAND SKETCHES.

IMPRESSIONS OF JAMAICA, AND OF KINGSTON IN PARTICULAR.

I was up with the sun this morning. Last night the full moon shone beautifully in the starry heavens. We had music, and dancing, and singing on board. All were merry and full of glee. Now, all is changed. The sun has mounted his beamy throne, and his golden rays are dancing on the blue mountains of Jamaica. Fleecy clouds are rolling around the dark tops of the highest peaks, while I am gliding along the coast of the land so celebrated for piratical depredations and negro insurrections.

The island is one hundred and fifty miles long, and about fifty miles in breadth. The range of mountains, extending nearly the whole length of the colony, is truly grand and picturesque. The loftiest summit is eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. It is worth a journey from New-York to behold such a scene. Shortly after sun-rise, we took a black pilot on board, and after passing the point where once stood the beautiful city of Port-Royal, which was swallowed up by an earthquake in 1692, we reached Kingston, this world-renowned city of moral and commercial decay, about ten o'clock A.M. While at the wharf, negro boys came swimming about the vessel, crying piteously for dimes. The passengers would throw small silver coins into the water, and with the alacrity of pelicans, down went these black fellows after the prize. Nearly naked, and all bare-footed, some eighty or ninety women, black, dirty, and shining with grease, stood ready to carry in the coal for the steamer. Rank and file, and singing, or rather yelling, yet keeping time as they go, (each one bearing a round bucket of coal upon her head,) they march up one gangway with a stately strut, and delivering their load into the hold as they pass, they march down another in the most perfect order. Such an exhibition of tatterdemalion wretchedness and human degradation I was unprepared to witness. Leaving this sickening scene, I left the steamer 'to see what I could see.' On every hand were importunate beggars, that beggar description in all that is revolting and disgusting to humanity.

Jamaica is called the Island of Springs. By others she is designated the Queen of the Antilles, and as being the brightest jewel in the crown of England. Respecting her mineral springs, there are four, somewhat noted for their healing virtues in cases of bronchitis, rheumatic, pulmonary, and cutaneous affections, viz.: Bath, St. Faith's, Silver-Hill, and Milk-River Bath. There are marvellous stories told of people living to a great age in those districts. I presume Methusaleh would have been living still had he been a partaker of their waters of life. Were Jamaica called the blackest instead of the brightest jewel in the British crown, I could perfectly appreciate the truth of the poetical appellation. Can it be that prostrate commerce, ruined

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