less than those he had undergone at Mahmood- | ering the secret of the calamity, or devising a abad, but felt as though all his troubles were remedy. At last, a very pious ulema announced, ended when he was ordered to depart for Candahar. At the present time, it is believed that Candahar is in the possession of Dost Mohammed, the sovereign of Cabul. In 1845, when General Ferrier was there, it was a sort of feudal dependency of Cabul, with an independent sovereign, Kohendil Khan, brother of Dost. The town itself, which had once contained a population of 60,000, had shrunk to half that num-up. ber, chiefly in consequence of the war by which the English were expelled. in a solemn voice, that the angel Gabriel had appeared to him on the previous night and informed him that, "so long as Candahar was sullied by the presence of an infidel, the enemy of God and man, there would be no cessation of the plague." This happy idea was received with applause. Eight leading Mollahs instantly waited upon Kohendil Khan with a request for Ferrier's head. The Sirdar locked them On this the populace burst into revolt. They hoisted a Koran on a pole as a standard, and with one voice swore by this venerated symbol, not to eat, drink, or bathe, till they had cut the infidel in pieces, and seen the pieces eaten by dogs. ish as bravely as the Englishmen, Conolly and Stoddart, had died the year before. His guards who had uniformly insulted him in consequence of his religion, he took for granted would join the insurgents. General Ferrier was delighted to perceive a marked change in his treatment. He was lodged in a superb house, well fed, well attended, and well guarded; the only drawbacks to his hap- The Frenchman's agony at this turn in afpiness were, that he was still a prisoner, that he fairs may be conceived. He prepared to die, had dirty water to drink, and that in the court-resolved to show that a Frenchman could peryard under his window lay the corpse of the last owner of the house, whom Sedik had murdered in order to obtain possession of his residence. These trifles apart, the Frenchman prospered better than he had done for some time. After a short delay he was admitted to an audience of the Sirdar Kohendil Khan: a mild-faced man, he describes him, with a wicked eye however, and implacable in his hatred of the English. As to himself, the Sirdar informed him that he had written to Dost Mohammed for his advice how to dispose of him; meanwhile he might consider himself safe. Greatly to his amazement, at the first word from Kohendil Khan, they barricaded the house and received the mob with a volley which sent them flying. Hastening to their prisoner, they asked him if he was a soldier, and on receiving a reply in the affirmative, they begged him to assume the command. With a pleasure that can be well realized, Ferrier disposed his forces The most curious part of their conversation to repel the attack; when the mob besieged the related to the principles of government. Ko- place the little garrison received them warmly. hendil could not comprehend how the European For two days and nights the attack continued, monarchs contrived to reign peacefully. "For the advantage being greatly on the side of the my part," said he, "I have confiscated, basti- besieged: but on the third day the mob obtainnadoed, tortured, and cut heads off, but I have ed a footing on the roof of a house which comnever been able to bring my savage Affghans to manded Ferrier's prison, and began to fire efsubmit to my decrees. There is not a Sirdar fectively. In a few minutes seven guards were in my principality, not excepting my own broth- killed and more than fifteen wounded; they ers, sons, and nephews, who would not seize could not have held out half an hour, when sudwith joy an opportunity of wresting the sover-denly they heard sharp file-firing at the other eign power from my grasp. Why is it other-end of the town. Kohendil Khan, having only a wise in Europe?" "It is," said the Frenchman, who may be pardoned for a little patriotic hyperbole, "because with us governments act for the benefit of the people." 66 handful of troops with him when the émeute began, had remained inactive; but he had sent into the country for a squadron of cavalry. The moment these arrived he attacked the rioters in the rear, discomfited them easily and restored peace to the city. But," replied the Khan, "what is the use of power if it does not enable one to get rich? Dost Mohammed's opinion was that the FeWhat is a king who can not when he pleases bas-ringhee should be sent back whence he came, tinado one of his subjects and cut off his head? Your plan must be anarchy; I think despotism the best form of government for doing good." One seldom finds the despotic principle so neatly laid down. European despots are not so candid. namely, to Herat. Kohendil rather wished to send him the other way-to British India; but his principal officers insisting on carrying out the views of the Cabul chief, Ferrier was released and dispatched on his way. On his arrival at Girishk, he fell again into While Kohendil was waiting for the answer the hands of the villain Mohammed Sedik, who from Dost Mohammed, the cholera broke out shut him up in his old prison, notwithstanding with fearful vehemence at Candahar. Five and the Sirdar's order that he must not be delayed six hundred persons died in a day, out of thirty on his route. No doubt Sedik had heard from thousand. A panic overwhelmed the people. his father on the subject of his robberies; for on The Doctors and the Mollahs had been three the first day of Ferrier's confinement, he visited days in prayer and consultation without discov-him in presence of a number of dignitaries, bade Our traveler, General Ferrier, arrived safely, Mohammed received him more kindly than ever. From thence he gravitated, by a process of which we are uninformed, to the French settlement at Pondicherry, where he now fills a government appointment. him set a price on the articles Sedik had taken, and paid him over that price in shawls and pre-after many adventures, at Herat, where Yar cious stones in presence of the witnesses. But, a short while after, when the witnesses had retired, this princely thief returned and carried away the shawls and precious stones, observing, with inimitable humor: "Do not regret these trifles, which are quite useless to a traveler. God is merciful, and you will, no doubt, arrive safely at your journey's end." But this was not all. Next day Mohammed Sedik actually asked Ferrier to sign a receipt for the shawls and precious stones, and a certificate of his entire satisfaction with the Sirdar. The Frenchman, infuriated beyond measure, bluntly refused. The Sirdar led him into the courtyard and tied him bareheaded to a post under the burning sun; then bade the soldiers insult him; they reviled him; they threw dirt at him; they outraged him as most brutally they could. At the end of five hours, the Frenchman being firm, the Sirdar bade heated irons and boiling oil be brought. This, however, was only a menace. But he deprived Ferrier of sleep and of food, and tormented him so cruelly, that after two or three days' endurance, the unfortunate Frenchman could resist no longer, and he signed receipt and certificate. His travels, of which we have given a sketch, are the latest by a European between Herat and Candahar; should the war now impending, in relation to the succession of Yar Mohammed, be prosecuted with vigor, his descriptions will possess general interest. THE ISLE OF THE PURITANS. NEVER visit the shore country between Boston and Salem without hearing something of the spectral island which haunts that neighborhood of Massachusetts Bay. It is said to be inhabited by the shades of ancient Puritans; and questionless the report comes to us vested with every right of grave credibility; for what other ghostly race would dare to invade waters consecrated by the pilgrim keel of the Mayflower? Manifold are the adventures, the sights, the sounds, which are told of in connection with this demesne of mystery. Through the gloom of night, through the gray sea-mists One would almost be inclined to suspect our of autumn, the fishermen and coasters have French friend of romancing when he describes heard solemn bells slowly vibrating as if from these adventures of his, but that he appears in belfries that rocked on the long swell of the public with the highest indorsation from the best billows. In hours of tempest, majestic hymns Indian authorities. There can be no doubt come out of the foaming distances, mingling that the Affghans are an extraordinarily igno- with the symphonies of the wind, and rising vicrant and savage race. Excuses may be made toriously above the sublime wailing despair of for their expulsion of the English from their soil. ocean. Spectral sails, too, are seen occasionally, Vastly superior as the British government was now gliding silently up fog-covered rivers; now to theirs, the Feringhees had clearly no right to shooting out from behind a hazy headland; then despoil them as they were doing; and the dis- vanishing as they reach some ripply tract of astrous war in Affghanistan was but the natural sunshine; and again reappearing, suspended in recoil of a long series of arbitrary and unjust the air above the vague extreme horizon. What measures on the part of the British government can be the errand of these ghostly pinnaces, unin India. But, apart from patriotic considera-less to sustain or receive the spirits of pure ones tions, the Affghans have constantly shown themselves to be mere savages. Not many years since, an English doctor paid a visit to a Beloochee chief on the Helmund. The chief, believing, as nearly all the people of Central Asia do, that the English have found the philosopher's stone, solicited his visitor to make some gold for him. The doctor protested his inability. But the chief, satisfied that gold was to be had out of the Englishman, killed him as he slept, cut his body into fifteen pieces and hung it up before his house. "You will see," said he to his friends, "that this dog of an infidel will at last be transformed into good ducats." No transformation taking place, he boiled the pieces. Finding no gold in the pot, he then bethought himself that the doctor, to spite him, might have transferred the transmuting power to his clothes. So he cut these into shreds, mixed them with mortar, and plastered his house with them; assuring every body, and believing himself, that in course of time the front of his house would be covered with a plate of solid gold. who are about to pass away from earth? Various are the opinions of the coast folk concerning the inhabitants of the island. Some imagine that as Salem is near by, they must be the spectres of those who, one hundred and sixty years ago, were executed for witchcraft; others believe that they are the persecutors of those same unfortunates, condemned to remain forever in view of the scenes of their own wicked folly. But, in general, it is held that here abide, for some good end, the loftiest and holiest souls of ancient Puritanism. The stories relating to these visionary people are sufficiently diverse; most of them, naturally, of a weird, supernatural character; others quaint, and even whimsically ludicrous. The earthly hero of one of this latter class was a Judge of the Supreme Court in the county of Essex. This gentleman is described as positive, loud, and overbearing in his manners, like most lawyers; but much respected, notwithstanding, for his energy, generosity, and public spirit. One day, about fifteen years ago, he was returning home by stage from a court which had been holden in Salem. Having discovered some particularly fine potatoes in the Salem market, he had bought four quarts of them for seed, and was carrying them along in a paper parcel. The stage halted for dinner in a small coast town, moderately full of loafers; and the Judge consulted the safety of his esculents by taking them into the tavern and depositing them on a chair in the parlor. By the fire sat another traveler, a wild-looking man, with a long beard, dressed in clothes which seemed to have been made for somebody else. The only part of his accoutrements which fitted him was a pair of stupendous boots, mouldy with antiquity, expanding like funnels outside of his gray worsted stockings. "What have you got in your parcel ?" asked this remarkable individual in a loud, domineering tone. "Potatoes," meekly replied the Judge, taken by surprise at finding himself thus sternly catechised. "They are a scandalous vegetable," said the stranger. "Every worthy man despises them and hates them." "You are mistaken, Sir," said the Judge, firmly; for he was very fond of potatoes, and, moreover, had now regained his self-possession. "They are one of the most excellent roots in the world." "You don't know what you are talking about," returned the stranger, fiercely. "I do. I know all about it. They came over with tobacco, and are twice as villainous. They are windy, too, and blow people up with false doctrines savoring of the devil. I never knew a man who loved potatoes but he was an Irish Papist or a rascally Episcopalian." Now the Judge was himself a most vehement Episcopalian, and had maintained many a fierce argument for the honor of the Church with the willful Congregationalists of Essex County. He therefore replied in great wrath: "A rascally Episcopalian, Sir! I consider it a glory to be an Episcopalian. I have been an Episcopalian myself ever since I was born; and I mean to be one till I die, Sir." "You won't be one long, then;" roared the other."You'll die before the day is out." the stomachs of your fellow-creatures? There go your potatoes, you old scoundrel!" With one kick of his mighty boot he scattered the potatoes out of their paper asylum, and then proceeded to trample them furiously all about the parlor and entries. After that he brushed off the scuffling Judge, as if he were an insect; and, stamping out of doors, marched away with great strides in the direction of the sea-shore. "Stop, you vagabond! What's your name ?" called the Judge hoarsely from the doorway. "Goff," replied the other, turning his long beard over his shoulder. "Goff?" repeated the Judge, unable to remember any family in Essex County thus entitled. "Where do you live, you vagabond ?" "In the Isle of the Puritans," responded the stranger. "You lie! There's no such island," shouted the Judge; but his interlocutor was gone, having vanished, no one saw whither. Various were the surmises of the by-standers on the character of this singular personage. "For my part," said the shuffling, red-nosed landlord, “I think he's a kinder mad fellar, got out of some bedlam or another." Such, doubtless, might have become the common opinion, and the story would have been humorous enough, had not the stage overset a mile after leaving the inn, dislocating the Judge's neck and killing him instantly. A circumstance more gravely supernatural than this occurred subsequently in the City of Salem. There is a belief current that certain families of old Puritanic fame receive visits on the occasion of any extraordinary household event from the denizens of the ghostly island. Five years ago the name of Dixwell perished from Salem, by the death of an elderly physician, said to be of the blood which beat in the veins of the old regicide. Doctor Dixwell lived in one of the most ancient houses of the town; a house notorious for the murderous trials which took place in it during the witchcraft horror; vocal, it is said, with nightly moans and sobbings that have lingered for a hundred and sixty years about its passages, and windows, and gables. Besides the aged owner, the only occupants of the dwelling were his daughter, her husband a clergyman named Mather, and two serv "I don't believe a word you say, Sir," thun-ants. dered the unterrified Judge. "It's my opinion you are a dangerous vagrant, and ought to be committed to jail." "Committed to jail!" repeated the stranger with an awful laugh. "I defy you. I have been in your devilish jails, and have escaped as often." "I thought so," said the Judge, with a sneer, loftily surveying the other's extraordinary garments. "But once come in my way, and I'll have you where you won't escape so easily." "No you won't!" shouted the stranger. "You can't do it, you old potato-planting rascal! What are you carrying potatoes about the country for, to debauch the minds and spoil On the afternoon preceding the burial morning, Doctor Dixwell lay in his coffin in the front parlor. The doors of the house had been open all day to friends who wished to take their last look at the dead. All such, however, had retired, for twilight had come with its duties and its melancholy; and Mrs. Mather stood alone, gazing at the coffin as it seemed to sail farther and far away into eternal shadows. Presently some one passed in at the half-open door, and advanced noiselessly to the dead. There had been so many such entrances during the day, that she did not at first turn her eyes toward the visitor. When she did so, he had paused at the head of the coffin, his hat off, his face bent low, and his arms apparently folded under a cloak which draped him to the ankles. She started, for she almost thought that it was her father risen to life again, so marked was the family resemblance in feature. Yet there was something very different in expression; something sublimed, and repellant of familiarity, yet singularly gentle; a supernatural expression, she thought, although she may have been deceived by an effect of twilight. Her second idea was that he must be some distant and forgotten relative of the family, who had heard of her father's decease, and had come to be present at the funeral. So strong was this impression, that she stepped forward with the intention of addressing him and offering him the hospitalities of the house. He did not look up, however, and an awe came over her, so that she glided by him and hastened through the entries to call her husband. He came, but the visitor had disappeared without the sound of a door or footstep. Several hours afterward, near midnight, she sat alone by a fire in the dining-room. Doors were open, and lights were burning in various rooms, so that she commanded a view of a considerable portion of the first floor. Presently she was started from a reverie by one of those weird sighs which haunted the old mansion; and, looking aslant through the long front passage, she saw in the library the funeral visitor of the twilight. He sat enveloped in his cloak, his head bare as before, his face buried in his hands, and his arms resting on a writing-table which had been much used by her father. She started up, trembling, but moved toward him, for a command seemed to be laid upon her. As she advanced, he rose and retreated, floating toward a picture representing some combat between Puritans and Cavaliers, which he seemed to enter, fighting one moment with victorious fury on the sombre canvas, then vanishing amidst a charge of horsemen who were rushing toward the painted distance. Mrs. Mather paused, more in astonishment and doubt than in terror; for she began to question her own sanity. Looking at the table, she noticed a volume on it called "The Lives of the Regicides,” lying open at the portrait of Colonel John Dixwell. Here was the same face, the very features that she had seen, first bent solemnly over the coffin of her father and now mingling in the representation of that by-gone battle. She called up her husband, and asked him how the book came there. He said that he recollected distinctly having taken it down during the afternoon, but he was equally positive that he had almost immediately restored it to its place on the shelves. "Does that portrait look like my father?" she asked. "I don't see that it does," he replied. "Nor I, neither," she said; "and yet there must be some resemblance." In extreme agitation, Mrs. Mather next morning attended the funeral. But notwithstanding her feverish expectation, every thing passed in a natural manner, until the service was over and the earth had found its resting-place on the coffin. At that moment, turning to leave the grave, she saw directly before her the same mysterious figure-the visitor of the death-chamber and library-its back toward her, and its outline on the point of being lost among the dispersing spectators. She reeled with a dizzy feeling at the sight, and her husband had to lift her into his carriage. When she looked around once more, none were visible but living men. Another tableau from this haunted shore is more picturesque, by its strange union of a supernatural background and shadow with the most commonplace figures and sordid interests of earthly life. On the headland now occupied by the merry hotels of Nahant once lived a family named Umberfield—a family long ago ingrafted obscurely into New England existence-attainted of witchcraft as far back as the boyhood of Cotton Mather, harried and smitten years before that by the tomahawk of King Philip. Not very long since it consisted of the father and mother, a son named Luke, the son's wife, and two twin daughters, of about eighteen, called Martha and Mary. Father Umberfield, a well-to-do farmer, was, at sixty-five, already broken down by the rheumatism. In consequence of this, Luke Umberfield, then about thirty-five, came back to the homestead, and was installed as chief manager. Mrs. Luke soon showed herself to be a veteran campaigner. She was five years older than her husband, and governed him as if she had three times that advantage; she snubbed the old lady, wheedled the old gentleman, and put down the daughters. One article of furniture after another found its way from the rest of the house into Mrs. Luke's two front chambers. Mother Umberfield sometimes remonstrated with her husband on these one-sided dispensations of the family valuables. "Well," the old man would respond, with a pitiful, helpless look; "you know Luke's wife must have it so." Luke's wife had it this way and that way until the elder Mrs. Umberfield died, as it were, in disgust. Then the rule of the daughter-in-law became surer, and her yoke weightier than ever. Her tyranny was the more harassing because she seemed to be gifted with a kind of sly, uneasy, tireless omnipresence. She was capable of doing all the work, listening at all the keyholes, lying at ambush in all the passages, and guessing or prying out all the secrets in the house. More than one complaint which the old man or his daughters had made to each other, as they thought, in the strictest privacy, was brought out and flung in their faces at table, as mildly as if it were a dose of vitriol. There was something witch-like about the woman; as if she peered and listened through the walls by a supernatural power; as if Goody Umberfield had got out of her grave, under the gallows, and reentered the family. Then her meanness of soul was, to say the least, quite as uncommon. She was up to shearing a pumpkin, as an agricultural moment, was stricken by a fever, and died in that same chamber. What wonder that the sick girl now began to lose sight of earth, and to commune with exist These people have faces full of sweetness and gladness, notwithstanding that they were once persecuted. I will try to make my face like theirs; and some day my heart shall be like theirs also." neighbor phrased it; and took thorough care that not even her husband should dress too handsomely, or slyly overfeed himself. She was as serious, also, as Mrs. Nesbit; as full of improving remarks as Sancho Panza of prov-ences invisible and inaudible to the sordid beerbs; punctual at church, and perfectly exem- ings around her! By the dead body on its palplary in the pious pucker of her thin lips. Be- let, by the side of the coffin, at the head of the tween these two mill-stones of stinginess and grave, she saw the inhabitants of the island. sanctimoniousness, old Mr. Umberfield was very The forms came, like a revelation, suddenly and soon ground up, and ready to be bolted into the with power, but lightening the air and not darkother world. Mrs. Luke would not permit him ening it. Nor did they move her to bitterness to depart, however, until he had made his will. and malediction. "These are people," she said He completed it once, to the satisfaction of his to herself, "who have suffered similar and worse passably good-natured son; but Mrs. Luke, outrageously discontented, held fast to him until he should alter it. Never was a more hateful week passed in a New England farm-house than the one which followed the fabrication of that unacceptable testament. Father Umberfield at last Strange to say, her health improved now. summoned the remains of his life about him, Besides helping about the house, she got work and, again calling in a lawyer, dictated a new in braiding hats, saving all the money so earnwill on Mrs. Luke's own terms. She had a pri- ed to repurchase a locket of her father's and vate reading of it, handed it over to her hus- mother's hair, which had been sold by her brothband, and told him that he had better not let er to pay Mary's funeral expenses. Every day, his father trouble himself about it again. Um- also, sunset found her at the church-yard, deckberfield senior gave himself very little more ing those dear graves, especially Mary's, with trouble about any thing in this life, for he died fresh flowers. Mr. and Mrs. Umberfield were before long, in a small back-chamber, to which tolerably satisfied, except with her prolonged he had been removed from the "parlor bed-evening absences; for, in fine weather, she selroom," his daughter-in-law observing, severely, in answer to some remonstrance of the girls, that the room was just as near heaven as any other in the house. Very near heaven it appeared that night; for a thunder-storm shook the old farm-house, and fiery faces seemed peer-over the moonlit bay. The next morning she ing in at the clattering windows. dom came home from the grave-yard before nine in the evening. Once, when her brother locked her out, she walked away without demanding admission, and he thought he saw her go down to the beach, get into a boat, and sail far out reappeared quietly at breakfast, making no complaint, offering no explanation, and listening in silence to his upbraiding. "Let her sail as much as she's a mind to," snarled Mrs. Umberfield, looking as if the devil had whispered to her that the boat might upset and the ocean was deep. Admirable, indeed, was the pious countenance which Mrs. Luke stitched up to wear at the funeral. In equal composure and solemnity she folded her hands and rolled her eyes during the reading of the will. The document contained some erasures and interlineations which puzzled the lawyer; but he made out that the homestead and entire property had gone to Luke Umberfield, excepting only one chamber, and a right of way through the house, which had been accorded to the daughters. This unequal dis-tainly to be found by seeking her in the gravetribution seemed particularly strange, when coupled with the old man's dying declaration to a kindly neighbor that he had "done well by the girls." Now came upon the sisters a wearing monotony of miserly and pettish persecution. Just imagine the plagues of two helpless, unwarlike young women, bound to the presence of a tireless, watchful, dissatisfied, vindictive, stingy, bilious, hypocritical sorceress like Mrs. Luke. Mary, a healthy, rosy, sprightly creature, could bear such torment more easily than most, and was, besides, engaged to be married. But Martha was an invalid, made sensitive by a nervous disease, and confined a great deal to the chamber which was her sole property. Soon another affliction fell, weightier than all that had fallen hitherto. Mary, her darling sister, her kind sister, her companion and nurse at every leisure Henceforward Martha made her expeditions in the afternoon, to avoid the reproach of being out at unseemly hours. She went always, however, were it storm or shine; nor was she cer yard, for some had caught glimpses of her through heavy rain, sailing far out from land; others had beheld her walking by the sea-side at twilight in company with women strangely appareled. Meantime matters were constantly growing worse for her at the house. Her brother's son came home from school, and she was called on to give up her room to him. Vainly did she rebel, declaring that it was her own, and all her own. "Well," said Mrs. Umberfield, "it is yours, and you may keep it. But you just look out for board somewhere else. Not a bit more do you eat in this house." Starved into submission, Martha retreated out of her chamber, and was turned into a pen fitted up expressly for her in a damp basement. It was gloomy at all times, and miserably cold in winter; yet they allowed her no candles but |