My feelings are alive to all that Nature offers, whether of beautiful or savage; whether to those wild, grey, haggard vultures which have found a prey on the side of that dark kloof, from which my approach has scared them, and some are hovering near, and some are eyeing me from the rocks, while others are soaring high above in wheeling circles watching my departure,— or to the troop of spring-bucks, (the most graceful of the Gazelles,) that break with their light forms the distant outline of some vast plain, and then, in a minute clearing the intervening space, cross my path, and stop and turn to gaze, and if pursued, burst away with their bounding motion. I have watched and seen them rise two yards above the heads of their companions, and at times even higher, while spreading the white fur on their backs and looking round on their pursuers in triumph, their slight limbs almost appeared suspended in the air. It was curious too to observe the various positions into which they threw themselves when taking these lofty

leaps sometimes their backs were raised and curved, their heads bent downwards, and all their feet brought together; at others, their bodies assumed a hollow form, and the slender fore-legs were thrown straight out from the shoulder. It almost seemed as if the beautiful creatures had a pride mingled with their fear, in showing how various were their attitudes, and how graceful.

To me, wandering and constant change of scene is the highest excitement, and the face of Nature, in all her various aspects, a silent delight. I have sought the drear mountain's side when the thunder clouds were collecting and wrapping the sky in gloom which each minute rendered deeper, and watched for that dead, still hush that precedes the tremendous burst, and listened for the reverberating echoes that follow it, repeated again and again by the grey cliffs until the last low mutter became a doubt. I have ridden through the lonely green ravines when the wind-storm was at its height, and the tall forest-trees bowed before it, and all living

things cowered and sought shelter, and my hardy horse turned abruptly round, unable to face its fury, and his rider had to exert his utmost strength to keep his seat: then would come a pause, and its low moaning would be heard among the high branches and rifted rocks-a melancholy sound, as of regret for the violence that had just passed away.

You will tell me, that I am "a dreamer among men, an idle dreamer," and bid me look forward to the future, not back upon the past: the future, it will indeed be in striking contrast to the wild scenes I have described, as opposite as galloping over a country without an inclosure, and almost without an inhabitant,my guide having one led-horse in hand, and I another, to riding along a turnpike road with its common sights and sounds, its mile-stones, hand-posts, trimmed hedges, notices against trespassing, staring red brick houses, and country girls, innocent and natural as those in London! It will be indeed a change from the bivouac, with the dark forms of the red Kaffers round

me, rendered wilder by the glare of the fire; with a cloudless sky, and a moon of beauty above, glancing a cold light on the withered tree that throws its pale phantom form across the sky;-to turn to London at the same hour, with the blaze of its lights, the incessant whirl of its carriages, and that striking contrast which it presents between all that is brilliant in pleasure, and abject in poverty and vice.

There are there must be recollections, and thoughts, and hopes, that spring up on returning, after an absence of years, to the country of our childhood, that have much of the freshness of our early days; and I too feel them, now that the vessel is cutting its way through the waves, leaving a bright track of foam behind it, and the wind is fair, and our sails, lately so idly flapping, are strained and full, and the water is changing from deep-blue to green, as we approach soundings, and the lone seafowl is come out many a league to welcome us from its nest in England's cliffy coast-strange bird, whose white wing glancing to the sun,

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gives brightness to the calm; and when the waves rise and the winds howl, whose wailing cry is heard in their hushes,-whose form, now lost in the sparkling foam of the crested wave, now soaring high amidst the cold, grey, hurrying clouds, breasts the blast,-for a moment appears to balance itself amidst the wild turmoil, and then yielding to its power, is borne away with the speed of light, and adds yet another horror to the storm.

Yes, you are a fitting welcomer to my country; for in my memory you are connected with a thousand scenes of boyhood's happy days, when I wandered among the beetling cliffs, while you swooped with a rushing sound near the intruder on your savage solitudes, or sat for hours on some grey rock, watching the towering clouds in their snow-white purity, or the mountains with their deep-blue, shadowy recesses, which my imagination would people with fairy forms, or the sea in its boundless extent of calm magnificence-so smooth as it