Then Guahiba raised her head. It was nightdark night-without moon or star.

wrists and arms; she smiled upon him languidly, | together on a mat: they screamed at her appearand appeared satisfied. ance, so changed was she by suffering; but when Night was now coming on. Guahiba dropped she called them by name, they knew her tender her head on her bosom, and closed her eyes, as if voice, and stretched out their little arms towards exhausted by weariness. The young Indian, be- her. In that moment, the mother forgot all she lieving that she slept, after some hesitation laid had endured-all her anguish, all her fears, every himself down on his mat. His companions were thing on earth but the objects which blessed her already slumbering on the porch of the building, eyes. She sat down between her children-she and all was still. took them on her knees-she clasped them in an agony of fondness to her bosom-she covered them There was no with kisses-she shed torrents of tears on their sound, except the breathing of the sleepers around little heads as she hugged them to her. Suddenly her, and the humming of the mosquitoes. She she remembered where she was, and why she was listened for some time with her whole soul; but all was silence. She then gnawed the loosened thongs asunder with her teeth. Her hands once free, she released her feet: and when the morning came she had disappeared. Search was made for her in every direction, but in vain; and Father Gomez, baffled and wrathful, returned to his village.

there: new terrors seized her; she rose up hastily, and, with her babies in her arms, she staggered out of the cabin-fainting, stumbling, and almost blind with loss of blood and inanition. She tried to reach the woods, but too feeble to sustain her burthen, which yet she would not relinquish, her limbs trembled and sank beneath her. At this moment an Indian, who was watching the public oven, perceived her. He gave the alarm by ringing a bell, and the people rushed forth, gathering round Guahiba with fright and astonishment. They gazed upon her as if upon an apparition, till her sobs, and imploring looks, and trembling and wounded limbs, convinced them that she yet lived, though apparently nigh to death. They looked upon her in silence, and then at each other; their savage bosoms were touched with commiseration, and even awe, at this unexampled heroism of ma ternal love.

While they hesitated, and none seemed willing to seize her, or to take her children from her, Father Gomez, who had just landed on his return from Javita, approached in haste, and commanded them to be separated. Guahiba clasped her children closer to her breast, and the Indians shrunk back.

The distance between Javita and San Fernando, where Guahiba had left her infants, is twenty-five leagues in a straight line. A fearful wilderness of gigantic forest trees, and intermingling underwood, separated these two missions;-a savage and awful solitude, which probably, since the beginning of the world, had never been trodden by human foot. All communication was carried on by the river; and there lived not a man, whether Indian or European, bold enough to have attempted the route along the shore. It was the commencement of the rainy season. The sky, obscured by clouds, seldom revealed the sun by day; and neither moon nor gleam of twinkling star by night. The rivers had overflowed, and the low lands were inundated. No object was visible to direct the traveller; no shelter, no defence, no aid, no guide. Was it Providence-was it the strong instinct of maternal love, which led this courageous woman through the depths of the pathless woods-where rivulets, swollen to torrents by the rains, intercepted her at every step; where the thorny lianas, twining from tree to tree, opposed an almost impenetrable barrier; where the mosquitoes hung in clouds upon her path; where the jaguar and the alligator lurked to devour her; where the rattle-snake and the waterserpent lay coiled up in the damp grass, ready to spring at her; where she had no food to support her exhausted frame, but a few berries, and the large black ants which build their nests on the While in this state, Father Gomez, with a cruel trees? How directed-how sustained-cannot be mercy, ordered her wounds to be carefully drestold the poor woman herself could not tell. All sed; her arms and legs were swathed with cotton that can be known with any certainty is, that the bandages; she was then placed in a canoe, and fourth rising sun beheld her at San Fernando; a conveyed to a mission, far, far off, on the river Eswild, and wasted, and fearful object; her feet swelled and bleeding—her hands torn―her body covered with wounds, and emaciated with famine and fatigue;-but once more near her children!

What!" thundered the monk: "will ye suffer this woman to steal two precious souls from heaven? two members from our community? See ye not, that while she is suffered to approach them, there is no salvation for either mother or children? part them instantly!"

The Indians, accustomed to his ascendancy, and terrified at his voice, tore the children of Guahiba once more from her feeble arms: she uttered neither word nor cry, but sunk in a swoon upon the earth.

meralda, beyond the Upper Orinoco. She continued in a state of exhaustion and torpor during the voyage; but after being taken out of the boat and carried inland, restoratives brought her back For several hours she hovered round the hut in to life, and to a sense of her situation. When she which she had left them, gazing on it from a dis- perceived, as reason and consciousness returned, tance with longing eyes and a sick heart, without that she was in a strange place, unknowing how daring to advance: at length she perceived that all she was brought there-among a tribe who spoke the inhabitants had quitted their cottages to attend a language different from any she had ever heard vespers; then she stole from the thicket, and ap- before, and from whom, therefore, according to Inproached, with faint and timid steps, the spot dian prejudices, she could hope neither aid nor which contained her heart's treasures. She enter-pity;—when she recollected that she was far from ed, and found her infants left alone, and playing her beloved children;-when she saw no means of

discovering the bearing or the distance of their abode-no clue to guide her back to it:-then, and only then, did the mother's heart yield to utter despair; and thenceforward refusing to speak or to move, and obstinately rejecting all nourishment, thus she died.

one of the vaults of the castle by his son (assisted by a servant that daily brought him food,) who had given it out that his father was dead, in order that he might get possession of his property. On that very day, as he afterwards learned, the arrival of M. Bertin, who was not expected, having thrown the house into confusion, the servant who carried provisions to the unfortunate old man had not properly fastened the door of the cell when he went away; and the latter perceiving it, waited till all was quiet in the castle, and under cover of the

The boatman, on the river Atabapo, suspends his oar with a sigh as he passes the ROCK OF THE MOTHER. He points it out to the traveller, and weeps as he relates the tale of her sufferings and her fate. Ages hence, when these solitary regions have become the seats of civilization, of power, and in-night, endeavored to escape; but not finding the telligence: when the pathless wilds, which poor Guahiba traversed in her anguish, are replaced by populous cities, and smiling gardens, and pastures, and waving harvests-still that dark rock shall stand, frowning o'er the stream; tradition and his tory shall preserve its name and fame; and when even the pyramids, those vast, vain monuments of human pride, have passed away, it shall endure, to carry down to the end of the world the memory of the Indian Mother.

The Unnatural Son.

M. BERTIN wished to see his native country (Perigeux) from which he had been long absent; he went to pay a visit to one of his old friends, whom he had not heard from for more than a year. Upon his arrival at the house, he was received by the

keys in the outer door, he naturally took the way to his apartment, which, though in the dark, he easily found. M. Bertin called up his servant, without loss of time; said he wished to set off immediately without waking the master of the castle; and took the old man with him to Perigeux, where they arrived at day-break. Proper officers were directly dispatched to arrest the unnatural son, who suffered what his crime deserved, by being shut up, during the remainder of his life, in the same cell in which he had confined his father.

ORIGINAL.

The Old Ribbon.

ALAS! poor faded thing! I knew thee well,
When gaily shining in thy beauty's bloom.
No softer hue did e'er on rose-bud dwell,

And ah, with spring's last breath thy charms have
First opening to the light of sweet spring time:

fled,

Too frail to bloom, when warmer rays are shed.

I saw thee proudly waving o'er a brow,

Radiant with beauty-and the blush that play'd
So brightly o'er that cheek-its gentle glow
Had stol'n from thy soft hue. Too well the
maid

Thy beauties prized, and oft the glass return'd
Her image, when with thee adorned.

Neglected ribbon! with what anxious care
I saw thee first selected from the throng,
That gaily spread their various beauties there,
And thine still fairest shone, those charms
among.

son of his friend, who told him his father had been dead about a year. Though he was struck with the news, which was so unexpected, it did not prevent him from going in. He conversed with the son upon the state of his affairs, and frequently interrupted the conversation to regret the loss of his old friend. At night he was conducted to his apartment, which he found to be the same as the deceased had occupied. This circumstance contributed not a little to keep alive his sorrow, and to prevent him from sleeping. He continued awake until two o'clock in the morning, when he heard the door of his chamber open, and by the feeble glimmering of a night-lamp, and of the fire, which was still burning, he perceived the figure of an old man, pale, wan, and excessively thin, with a long and dirty beard, who, shivering with cold, was walking on slowly towards the chimney. When he was near the fire he seemed to warm himself, eagerly saying, "Ah! it is a long time since I saw the fire!" In his voice, figure and manner, M. Bertin, who was seized with terror, thought he recognized his old friend, the master of the house. He was neither able to speak to him, nor to leave the bed; when the old man, turning towards the bed and sighing, said, "Ah! how many nights have I passed without going to bed!" and as he said it, he came forward, in order to throw himself upon it. The terror which M. Bertin felt, made him leap out precipitately, crying, "Who are you? What do you want?" On hearing his voice, the old man looked Oh heed the lesson!-thou whose charms have at him with astonishment, and immediately knew him. What do I see?" cried he, " M. Bertin! my friend M. Bertin!" "And who then are you?" cried M. Bertin.

The old man mentioned his name; and the other, recovering gradually from his fright, learned with horror, that his friend had been confined a year in

Then far from blighting damp or fading ray
With rarest perfumes gently laid away.

Alas! no eye e'er rests upon thee now

Enraptured-dark and lone thou liest! no more
Art called to add new grace to youthful brow;
But where thou wert so dearly prized before
Like many an idol of the hour-cast by
Without a glance of love, without a sigh?

won

A transient empire o'er the wav'ring heart;
Nor think it e'er will last as it begun,

But quickly with thy beauty's ray depart,
And thou be cast forth in life's shadow, while
Some later idol claims the fickle smile!

L. C.

THE NOTARY OF PERIGUEUX.

A TALE

You must know, reader, that there lived some ed-remonstrated-entreated; but all in vain. She years ago, in the city of Perigueux, an honest Notary Public, the descendant of a very ancient and broken-down family, and the occupant of one of those old weather-beaten tenements which remind you of the times of your great grandfather. He was a man of an unoffending, sheepish disposition; the father of a family, though not the head of itfor in that family," the hen over-crowed the cock," and the neighbors, when they spake of the Notary, shrugged their shoulders and exclaimed, Poor fellow! his spurs want sharpening." In fine-you understand me, reader-he was a hen-pecked

made the house too hot for him—he retreated to the tavern; she broke his long stemmed pipes upon the andirons-he substituted a short stemmed one, which, for safe keeping, he carried in his waistcoat pocket.

man.

66

Well, finding no peace at home, he sought it elsewhere, as was very natural for him to do; and at length discovered a place of rest, far beyond the cares and clamors of domestic life. This was a little cafe estaminet, a short way out of the city, whither he repaired every evening to smoke his pipe, drink sugar-water, and play his favorite game of domino. There he met the boon companions he most loved; heard all the floating chit chat of the day; laughed when he was in a merry mood; found consolation when he was sad; and at all times gave vent to his opinions without fear of being snubbed short by a flat contradiction.

Now, the Notary's bosom friend was a dealer in claret and cognac, who lived about a league from the city, and always passed his evenings at the estaminet. He was a gross, corpulent fellow, raised from a full blooded Gascon breed, and sired by a

comic actor of some reputation in his way. He was remarkable for nothing but his good humor, his love of cards, and a strong propensity to test the quality of his own liquors, by comparing them with those sold at other places.

As evil communications corrupt good manners, the bad practices of the wine dealer won insensibly upon the worthy Notary; and before he was aware of it, he found himself weaned from domino and sugar water, and addicted to piquet and spiced wine. Indeed, it not unfrequently happened, that after a long session at the estaminet, the two friends grew so urbane that they would waste a full half hour at the door in friendly dispute which should conduct the other home.

Thus the unhappy Notary ran gradually down at the heel. What with his bad habits and his domestic grievances, he became completely hipped. He imagined that he was going to die; and suffered in quick succession all the diseases that ever beset mortal man. Every shooting pain was an alarming sympton; every uneasy feeling after dinner, a sure prognostic of some mortal disease. In vain did his friends endeavor to reason, and then to laugh him out of his strange whims; for when did ever jest or reason cure a sick imagina"do let me alone; I tion? His only answer was, know better than you what ails me.”

Well, reader, things were in this state, when one afternoon in December, as he sat moping in his office, wrapped in an overcoat, with a cap on his head, and his feet thrust into a pair of furred slippers, a cabriolet stopped at the door, and a loud knocking without, aroused him from his gloomy revery. It was a message from his friend the wine dealer, who had been suddenly attacked the night before with a violent fever, and growing worse and worse, had now sent in the greatest haste for the Notary to draw up his last will and testament. The case was urgent, and admitted neither excuse nor delay; and the Notary, tying a handkerchief round his face, and buttoning up to the chin, jumped into the cabriolet, and suffered himself, though not without some dismal presentiments and misgivings of heart, to be driven to the wine dealer's

house.

When he arrived, he found every thing in the greatest confusion. On entering the house, he ran against the apothecary, who was coming down stairs, with a face as long as your arm, and a pharmaceutical instrument somewhat longer; and a few steps farther he met the housekeeper-for the wine dealer was an old bachelor; running up and down, and wringing her hands, for fear that the good man should die without making his will. He soon reached the chamber of his sick friend, and found him tossing about under a huge pile of bedclothes, in a paroxysm of fever, calling aloud for a draught of cold water. The Notary shook his head, he thought this a fatal symptom; for ten years back the wine dealer had been suffering under a species of hydrophobia, which seemed suddenly to have left him.

Though this course of life agreed well enough with the sluggish phlegmatic temperament of the wine dealer, it soon began to play the very deuce with the more sensitive organization of the Notary and finally put his nervous system completely out of tune. He lost his appetite, became gaunt and haggard, and could get no sleep. Legions of blue devils haunted him by day, and by night strange faces peeped through his bed curtains, and the night-mare snorted in his ear. The worse he grew, the more he smoked and tippled; and the more he smoked and tippled why, as a matter of course, the worse he grew. His wife alternately storm- just in time to draw up that—that passport of mine.

When the sick man saw who stood by his bedside, he stretched out his hand and exclaimed

"Ah! my dear friend! have you come at last? You have arrived You see it is all over with me.

Ah! grand diable! how hot it is here! Water- the apothecary's horse, which stood hitched at the Will nobody give me a drop of door, patiently waiting his master's will.

water-water!

cold water?"

As the case was an urgent one, the Notary made no delay in getting his papers in readiness; and in a short time the last will and testament of the wine dealer was drawn up in due form, the Notary guiding the sick man's hand as he scrawled his signature at the bottom.

As the evening wore away, the wine dealer grew worse and worse, and at length became delirious, mingling in his incoherent ravings the phrases of the Credo and Paternoster with the shibboleth of the dram shop and the card table.

"Take care! take care! There, now-Credo in-pop! ting-a-ling-ling! give me some of that. Cent-e-dize! Why, you old publican, this wine is poisoned-I know your tricks! Sanctam ecclesiam Catholicam. Well, well, we shall see. Imbecile! To have a tierce-major and a seven of hearts, and discard the seven. By St. Anthony, capot! You are lurched-Ha ha! I told you so. I knew very well-there-there-don't interrupt me-Carnis resurrectionem et vitam eternam !"'

Well, reader, as there was no remedy, our Notary mounted this raw-boned steed, and set forth upon his homeward journey. The night was cold and gusty, and the wind set right in his teeth. Overhead the leaden clouds were beating to and fro, and through them the newly-risen moon seemed to be tossing and drifting along like a cock boat in the surf; now swallowed up in a huge billow of cloud, and now lifted upon its bosom, and dashed with silvery spray. The trees by the road side groaned with a sound of evil omen, and before him lay three mortal miles, beset with a thousand imaginary perils. Obedient to the whip and spur, the steed leaped forward by fits and starts, now dashing away in a tremendous gallop, and now relaxing into a long hard trot; while the rider, filled with symptoms of disease and dire presentiments of death, urged him on, as if he were fleeing before the pestilence.

In this way, by dint of whistling and shouting, and beating right and left, one mile of the fatal three was safely passed. The apprehensions of With these words upon his lips, the poor wine the Notary had so far subsided, that he even sufferdealer expired. Meanwhile the Notary sat cowered the poor horse to walk up hill ; but these appreing over the fire, aghast at the fearful scene that hensions were suddenly revived again with tenfold was passing before him, and now and then striving violence, by a sharp pain in the right side, which to keep up his courage by a glass of cognac. Al- seemed to pierce him like a needle. ready his fears were on the alert; and the idea of contagion flitted to and fro through his mind. In order to quiet these thoughts of evil import, he lighted his pipe, and began to prepare for returning home. At that moment the apothecary turned round to him and said:

"Then I am a dead man!" exclaimed the Notary putting his pipe into his waistcoat pocket, and beginning to walk up and down the room in despair. "I am a dead man! Now don't deceive medon't, will you?

toms ?"

What-what are the symp

"A sharp burning pain in the right side," said the apothecary.

"Oh! what a fool I was to come here! Take me home-take me home, and let me die in the bosom of my family!"

"It is upon me at last!" groaned the fear-stricken man. "Heaven be merciful to me, the greatest of sinners! And must I die in a ditch after all? He! get up-get up!"

And away went horse and rider at full speedhurry-scurry-up hill and down-panting and blowing like all possessed. At every leap, the pain in the rider's side seemed to increase. At first it was a little point like the prick of a needle-then it spread to the size of a half franc-then covered a place as large as the palm of your hand. It gained upon him fast.

The poor man groaned aloud in agony; faster and faster sped the horse over the frozen ground-farther and farther spread the pain over his side. To complete the dismal picture, the storm commenced-snow mingled with rain. But and rain, and cold were naught to him; for though his arms and legs were frozen to icicles, he felt it not; the fatal symptom was upon him; he was doomed to die-not of cold, but of scarlet fever!

snow,

At length, he knew not how, more dead than ill-bred dogs, that were serenading at a corner of alive, he reached the gate of the city. A band of the street, seeing the Notary dash by, joined in the hue and ery, and ran barking and yelping at his heels. It was now late at night, and only here and there a solitary lamp twinkled from an upper story. But on went the Notary, down this street and up that, till at last he reached his own door. There was a light in his wife's bed-chamber. The good woman came to the window alarmed at such a knocking and howling, and clattering at her door so late at night; and the Notary was too deeply absorbed in his own sorrows, to observe that the lamp cast the shadow of two heads on the window

In vain did the housekeeper and the apothecary strive to pacify him ;-he was not a man to be reasoned with; he answered that he knew his own constitution better than they did, and insisted upon going home without delay. Unfortunately, the vehicle he came in, had returned to the city; and the whole neighborhood was to bed and asleep. What curtain. was to be done? Nothing in the world but to take | "Let me in! let me in! Quick! be quick!" he

exclaimed, almost breathless from terror and fa- | the laugh can never be restrained; scenes to have tigue.