rats. When Minutius, the dictator, was swearing Flaminius in as his master of the horse, we are told by Plutarch that a rat chanced to squeak, and the superstitious people compelled both officers to resign their posts. Office would be held under great uncertainty in Hongkong if a similar superstition prevailed. Sir John Bowring has just been swearing in General Ashburnham as member of the Colonial Council, and if the rats were silent they showed unusual modesty. They have forced themselves, however, into a State paper. Two hundred rats are destroyed every night in the gaol. Each morning the Chinese prisoners see with tearful eyes and watering mouths a pile of these delicacies cast out in waste. It is as if Christian prisoners were to see scores of white sucking-pigs tossed forth to the dogs by Mahometan gaolers. At last they could refrain no longer. Daring the punishment of tail-cutting, which follows any infraction of prison discipline, they first attempted to abstract the delicacies. Foiled in this, they took the more manly They indited a petition in good Chinese, proving from Confucius that it is sinful to cast away the food of man, and praying that the meat might be handed over to them to cook and eat. This is a fact.

course.

ADVENTURE IN A LAPLAND SNOW-STORM.

WER

A. H. ENGELBACH.

ERE you ever caught in a snow-storm? Not one of those slow, easy-going, quiet affairs that one meets with in London on a dull, dark, dismal December day; when the great white flakes come down thickly enough, to be sure, but lazily and sluggishly, and when they do get to the ground, seem doubtful for a while whether to assert their dignity

as real snow, or to melt away into mud to the grievous disappointment of the boys, who have been anxiously looking out for a game of snow-balls. No, I mean one of those terrible snow-storms, of more northern climes, where the sun sets not for a couple of months in the summer, and shows not his face for a couple of months in the winter, and where all would then be overspread with darkness, did not the wisdom and love of the Creator give a double brilliancy to the starry host of heaven, and light up the sky with the bright broad glare or feathery flashes of the Aurora Borealis. There, when the snow-storm comes, the wintry blast sweeps wildly over boundless and cheerless wastes, howls over the rugged mountains, and roars through the sombre and seemingly interminable pine forests, bearing on its frozen wings dense clouds of icy morsels that whirl madly over waste and wood and wild, and when they do find resting-place lie there for months-ay, perhaps years before they melt away. Woe to the traveller over whose path sweeps that icy storm! Full many a one lost in those trackless regions has found a tomb beneath the snowdrift; or, wearied out with battling against the blast, has sunk into a slumber which in that intensity of cold becomes, with too much certainty, the sleep of death.

It was by such a snow-storm that a sledge containing a single traveller was overtaken some thirty years ago in a wild and dreary tract lying about a hundred miles to the south-west of the Gulf of Onega, which forms the south-western extremity of the White Sea. The traveller, who had visited various places in North Russia and Finland, was now on his way with all speed to Archangel. What the affairs were that called him thither it is not our business to inquire. He might have been a merchant travelling for purposes of commerce; and the costly furs that lined, and almost enveloped the substantial sledge in which he sat, showed him to be a man of no mean wealth.

Business of importance he certainly had, to judge from the speed with which he journeyed. He might have been a high officer on State business, on a tour of military inspection, and the traveller's own appearance rather favoured this supposition; for when he halted for relays of horses, the peasants that might be standing round instinctively shrank back as the tall

stranger strode up and down for a few moments before he again resumed his seat. But this was in Russia, where the very semblance of military rank is enough to overawe even persons of a far higher class than peasants like these.

Two blacks and a bright bay all abreast were harnessed to the sledge, and as they dashed wildly forward and made the air ring merrily with the jingling bells that hung from the semi-circular yokes over their arched necks, the eyes of old Ivan the driver glistened with satisfaction at a team surpassing all he had driven for a long, long time. Fifty years had passed away since Ivan's youthful hands had first held the reins of a "Dreispann," and he had not his equal now in North Russia; so with such noble creatures before him, it seemed likely enough that the next stage, though it was to be a longer one than usual, would take even less time than any they had made that day. But the short-lived daylight was already over, and ere they had proceeded many miles, the road, if such we may call an almost wholly untraversed route across the snow, plunged into a dark and apparently interminable forest. It was one consisting of pines of an unusual size for this inclement region, where, on the high grounds, the trees often reach no greater height than a few feet. On the more exposed and rocky fells even the hardy pine gives place to the yet more stunted birch, willow, or dwarf shrubs; whilst the lofty ridges stand forth in all their barrenness, save when they wear the mantle of eternal snow. But here the giant branches stretched over head, and shut out the starry light above, and the

dusky stems on each side of the road, rising in dark relief out of the snow, alone served to mark the way. It required all the strong arm, all the keen experience, and all the penetrating glance of old Ivan to steer clear of the pine stumps and the fallen logs that now and then lay in the path, wholly covered with snow and betraying their presence only by a hillock that looked innocent enough, but which, at the pace they kept up, would, if not dexterously avoided, have brought the journey to a most undesirable stand-still. But Ivan had driven over this road before now. No obstacle, no pitfall escaped his eyes; and obedient to his firm, yet quiet hand, the noble animals kept on their rapid course. What was it then that began to make Ivan so uneasy? Why did he urge on those willing steeds to a still fleeter course, and look up hastily through the openings overhead at the sky above, and bend forward at times as if to listen for something afar off? The old man's quick ear had caught the sound of the coming storm, as it sighed at first gently but sadly through the stunted fir trees. He was not deceived, and long ere they had reached the end of the forest, the tempest was upon them.

Sheltered as they comparatively were by the thick wood on either side, it was nevertheless with difficulty that they held on their course in the very teeth of that fierce northern blast, whilst the blinding ice-snow which it hurled against them in its fury, seemed to threaten at times to drive back horse and man alike. Still Ivan held on his way, till the traveller, less for his own sake (sheltered as he was) than for that of Ivan and the creatures that were struggling against the hurricane, bade the old man drive in amongst the thickest of the wood on one side of the road. After a short consultation it was decided that they should remain here for a while until the fury of the storm should have abated. But scarcely had a spot been selected where a low bank afforded additional shelter, when a huge pine tree, the very monarch of the wood,

L

whose lofty branches overtopping all around, had too boldly dared the fury of the wild tornado, paid the penalty of its presumption, and came crashing down, sweeping many a good stout tree with it in its fall. Traveller, driver, horses, and sledge were in an instant overwhelmed with the fallen branches, yet, happily for them, the bank close to which they had taken refuge, saved them from what would otherwise have been certain destruction; for although not a little bruised by the falling branches, they had escaped from being crushed by the more ponderous boughs, and after some severe exertion the travellers not only extricated themselves, but disengaged the sledge and the terrified horses, and found themselves once more in the forest road. But all thoughts of shelter in the wood were at an end. Again Ivan urged on the now wearied animals, and at length-though not without some forebodings as to what the storm might prove to be on the wide and open waste of many miles' extent which they had yet to traverse-he descried the broad opening of the trees which he knew would bring them out of the wood. He turned for an instant to point it out to his master. Alas! good Ivan, it was at that moment, if ever, that thy quick eye and firm hand were needed most, for at that instant a gaunt and hungry wolf, with something between a savage bark and howl, sprang from а thicket by the roadside and fastened on the throat of the bright bay. With screams of terror, such as only the horse in his agony can utter, the panic-stricken animals swerved to the left, and galloped madly up the steep snow-clad bank. On they went for a moment or two, and then-ere Ivan and the traveller had well discovered what had happeneddown, down from the summit of the steep bank, a height of some twenty feet, went traveller, driver, horses, wolf, sledge, and all, in one confused heap on to the snow-drift beneath.

Though they had fallen from so great a height, they had come to little harm, for the bed was soft enough