process was repeated in the same way as it had been done before, but if anything it was more painful. I had then to swallow another large dose of pills, and, lastly, the hot decoction from the teapot. Ere I had drunk the last cupful my skin became moist, and I was soon covered with perspiration. The fever had left me, and I was cured. I was probably the first Hong-mou-jin the doctor had treated, and he was evidently much pleased with the result of his treatment."

THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. (See Illustration.)

This vast artificial barrier was built by the first universal monarch of China, about 200 years before the commencement of the Christian era. It bounds the whole north of China, along the frontiers of three provinces, extending from the shore of the Gulf of Pechele, 31° east of Pekin, to Syning, 15° west of that capital. The emperors of the Ming dynasty built an additional inner wall, near to Pekin on the west, which may be perceived on the map, enclosing a portion of the province between itself and the old wall. From the eastern extremity of the Great Wall there is an extensive stockade of wooden piles enclosed in the country of Mongden, and this has, in some European maps, been erroneously represented as a continuation of the solid barrier.

over

On the first distant approach, the wall is described as resembling a prominent vein or ridge of quartz, standing out from mountains of gneiss or granite. The continuance of this line over the mountain tops arrests the attention, and the form of a wall with battlements is soon distinctly discerned. It is carried ov the ridges of the highest hills, descends into the deepest valleys, crosses upon arches over rivers, and is doubled in important passes, being, moreover, supplied with massy towers, or bastions, at distances of about 100 yards. One of the most elevated ridges crossed by the wall is 5,000 feet above the level of the sea. Its length, including its windings, is little short of 1,500 miles, and far surpasses the sum total of all other works of the same kind in the world. It is rather, however, a monument of

the industry and perseverance than of the skill of the Chinese, for a wall of this description would present but a feeble obstacle to any army who could have any hope of success after passing it. Accordingly, when the Mongols became numerous enough to attempt the subjugation of China, Genghis Khan found little difficulty in bursting through the barrier.

The body of the wall consists of an earthen mound, retained on each side by walls of masonry and brick, and terraced by a platform of square bricks. The total height, including a parapet of five feet, is twenty feet, on a basis of stone projecting two feet under the brickwork, and varying in height from two feet to more, according to the level of the ground. The thickness of the wall at the base is twentyfive feet, diminishing to fifteen at the platform. The towers are forty feet square at the base, diminishing to thirty at the top, and about thirty-seven feet in total height. At particular spots, however, the tower was of two stories, and forty-eight feet high. The bricks are, as usual in China, of a bluish colour, about fifteen inches long, half that in width, and nearly four inches thick-probably the whole, half, and quarter of the Chinese Che, or covid. The blue colour of the bricks led to some doubt of their having been burned, but some ancient kilns were observed near the wall, and since then the actual experiment of Dr. Abel has proved that the brick clay of the Chinese, being red at first, burns blue. The thinness of the parapet of the wall-about eighteen inches -justifies the conclusion that it was not intended to resist cannon; indeed, the Chinese themselves claim no such antiquity for the invention of fire-arms. The above description confirms, upon the whole, that of Gerbillon, about a century before. "It is generally," says he, no more than eighteen, twenty, or twenty-five geometrical feet high, but the towers are seldom less than forty."

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Since Mantchooria and the neighbouring regions of Mongolia have been incorporated with the empire, the wall, being no longer necessary to check the incursions of the wa ndering Tartars, is falling into decay.

MISSISSIPPI.

American merchantmen-learning his profes sion well-and narrowly escaping death by yellow fever, and by shipwreck off the Island of Madagascar, became, while still a young man, a Mississippi pilot.

The account appears to me worth making

public, as it not only presents a trustworthy picture of an incident, such as is unknown even by report to very many in this country, but it also furnishes an example of heroism with which all true hearts must sympathise.

I retain, to a great extent, the language of the letter, its modesty and unaffectedness matching, as is generally the case, the selfsacrificing bravery of its author, and adding to the interest of his narrative.

".... We left Memphis," he writes, “a town of some note on the river, on the 30th November, with a cargo of cotton, tar, cottonbagging, &c. We had ninety-four cabin and sixteen deck passengers. On the night of the 3rd December fire was discovered in the hold of the vessel; and, in spite of all our efforts, soon reached the cotton, and in a few moments all was in flames.

"I am pretty well accustomed to such sights, but the scenes of that night surpassed everything terrible I ever witnessed.

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'Upon first discovering the fire, we endeavoured to put into the bank, the nearest point of which was about 200 yards distant; but in rounding-to the vessel for that purpose, she grounded. What followed baffles description. "On board were about thirty ladies and nearly as many children, whose shrieks were heartrending. Nearly all the crew and gentlemen passengers who could swim availed themselves of that means of escape, and almost all got safe to shore. (I do not, of course, speak of those who had wives and families on board.) The upper or hurricane deck was crowded with ladies and children, but it was evident they would have to abandon their position shortly, as the flames were increasing with wonderful rapidity. We had only one boat that was of any service, and it could not contain more than six or seven persons, and nearly twenty minutes elapsed during each trip she made. The tide was very swift, and there was great difficulty in getting the boat alongside.

"I saw one gentleman go up to his wife, kiss her tenderly, then seize her, and jump overboard with her. He supported her probably fifty yards, when he became exhausted, not being an expert swimmer, and both sank, the waters of the Mississippi closing over them about half a minute before I and one of the clerks could reach them.

"Three ladies, five children, and one negro woman, were burned to death.

"The captain's daughter caught fire, and rushed into the arms of her father, who instantly jumped overboard with her; and, being

a good swimmer, succeeded in getting ashore with her, though she was dreadfully burned.

"Mr. Powell, the chief clerk, and I, jumped overboard, as soon as we saw there was no chance of saving the vessel, to assist in getting some of the poor helpless beings ashore. We sang out to those on board to throw the children overboard, one or two at a time, and we would swim to the shore with them.

"One lady threw her little girl to us, then jumped overboard. We succeeded in landing with them, returned, and swam back, each with a child. We made two trips besides, until we had safely landed eight. Upon returning the last time, we saw a lady clinging to a rope which was accidentally hanging over the side. She was nearly exhausted, but positively refused to abandon her hold of the rope, imploring us to save her children. Having a knife in my pocket, I took it out and cut the rope, telling her to be perfectly calm. We took her safely ashore, but in a state of insensibility. Her children were saved.

"Picture to yourself," he concludes, " vessel laden with cotton, and more than a hundred passengers, mostly women and children; the vessel on fire, and aground; the nearest bank full 200 yards distant, the current running six knots, and only one skiff available! I received no injury, and did not take cold, though I was in the water nearly two hours. Such things are by no means rare on the Mississippi, this being the fifth of the kind within the last eight months. I lost 1200 dollars, which I had in the clerk's office, but I never thought of them: I had other things to

Comment on this letter is unnecessary. But of the writer, I may say that since he wrote it (nearly seven years ago) but little tidings have been received. With the exception of one letter, bearing the address, "De Soto Parish, State of Louisiana," this, from which I have quoted, was the last. The circumstances of his position-always productive of delay in the receipt of letters on both sides-may have been the cause of intelligence from him, if despatched, not having reached his friends. And the war, it is well known, has made all correspondence between America and England irregular and uncertain.

His name-not a common one in the Statesappeared in a letter from the Times' Southern correspondent as that of the colonel commanding a Confederate field-battery which took a

prominent part in the dreadful fight of Fredericksburg. And this was confirmed, by information from America, that the same name (including, in this instance, the initials) and bearing the same title had been read in a list of the New Orleans Artillery leaving that city for the seat of war.

Notwithstanding diligent inquiry, however, no more has been learned; so that they who love him are left to conjecture, and the entertainment of a hope only not quite extinguished.

The river, the scene of his anxious toil and frequent daring, may be the bed of his long rest! Or he may have fallen-gallantly we may be sure-on one of those fields of blood where slain men lay like swathes of the fresh

mown grass. But he may have survived all perils, and may yet return to gladden with his presence a waiting mother's eye and heart.

In the belief that this short and simply-told story of a few hours in his eventful life,-a record so precious to those to whom he is dear, -will be acceptable to many readers who never heard of his existence, I have claimed this page. And to give "honour to whom honour is due," as well as with the possibility that this page-far-travelling-may fall under the notice of some one who can tell of his fate, I am permitted to inscribe on it the name of

WILLIAM VIALLS WALTON.

G. R. T.

PUBLIC attention has begun to be directed to a new subject of interest and importance, Oysterculture, the means of increasing to a vast extent the supply of one of our most esteemed and wholesome luxuries,-a new branch of industry capable of giving employment to many thousands of persons on the British coasts, and a new source of national wealth.

No mollusc is so highly esteemed as the Oyster. From very ancient times, it has been, as it is now, a very favourite article of food, and the luxurious Romans spared no expense to procure it in perfection. Particular localities were famous for the excellence of their oysters, among which was Rutupia, now Richborough, in Kent; and in some shallow brackish ponds, oysters brought from other places were fattened for the table, acquiring at the same time a flavour which was deemed peculiarly delicious; for the Roman epicure affected to discern in the oysters of Brundisium, fattened in the waters of Avernus, a combination of their original flavour with that of the oysters of Lake Lucrinus. The fattening of oysters in ponds connected with the sea has long been practised for the London market, as it was for that of ancient Rome; and from the vegetable matter which abounds in the ponds, chiefly the spores and young shoots of confervæ, they acquire a greenish colour never seen in oysters newly dredged from beds in the sea, but which recommends them in a high degree to the taste of many epicures, and still more to those of Paris than of London. The oyster-culture, how

ever, to which we devote the present article, is something very different from this mere fattening of oysters; and has for its first object, not to improve their quality for the gratification of the luxurious, but to increase their abundance and to diminish their price. We might have headed our article, OYSTERS FOR THE MILLION.

A few sentences on the natural history of the Oyster may here be appropriate. Not that we mean to describe this well-known mollusc; of which a popular description is needless, and a scientific one would be foreign to our purpose. It may be interesting, however, to our readers to know, that there are numerous species of oyster, quite distinct one from another, and inhabiting the coasts of different parts of the world; many of them very similar to the oyster of our coasts, but some of them of much more elongated form, and some of them far exceeding it in size. According to the historians of Alexander's expedition to India, there were oysters found in the Indian Sea a foot in diameter; and Sir James Emerson Tennent, in his work on Ceylon, tells us of edible oysters "a little more than eleven inches in length, by half as many in breadth," so that the molluscs of the Indian seas seem not to have degenerated since the days of Alexander the Great. Oysters are found more abundantly in estuaries than in the open sea; although our common oyster is often found in beds at the depth of several fathoms, and far out in firths where the water is nearly as salt as in any part of the ocean;

but the racoon beds of Virginia and Carolina, so called because racoons prey upon the oysters, are on the banks of tidal rivers and creeks which wind through alluvial land, where the oysters are often to be seen thickly clustered among the very grass at the water's edge, and are in such vast abundance that a small vessel may be loaded from a space not many times exceeding her own length. From this oyster-producing region the markets of New York, Philadelphia, and other American towns, were wont to be supplied before the present war began; and the Americans were accustomed to extol their oysters, like everything else belonging to themselves, as incomparably superior to anything known in the Old World. The abundance of the supply had also led to the importation of the American or Virginian oyster into England; and large quantities were brought to Liverpool, living and in excellent condition, a trade likely to be renewed and to increase when times of peace return. The Virginian oyster is very similar to our British species, as is also the oyster of the Mediterranean, regarded by some naturalists as distinct. The mangrove swamps of many tropical regions abound in oysters, more considerably different from ours, but of good quality, which grow in great clusters on the branches of the mangrove trees. The oyster of the British and other European shores is chiefly found in beds, at the depth of a number of fathoms, where the nature of the bottom affords opportunity for the attachment of the larger valve of the shell by cementing it to the rock, after which oyster attaches itself to oyster, till masses of considerable thickness are formed; but oysters also occur singly, adhering to rocks, wooden piers, &c.; and not only in situations where they are constantly covered with some depth of water, but alsoalthough more rarely-where they are left dry by every retiring tide. Oysters produce young in immense numbers. It may be proper to mention, that they are strictly hermaphrodite; an individual oyster having the same power of propagation which generally, although not always, belongs to an individual plant. The young are produced in summer, at which time oysters are not in season, and our laws very properly forbid the dredging of them. The oyster having in its mature age-for the case is otherwise in its infancy-no power of locomotion, cannot select a place for its spawn, as fishes do, but simply opens its valves and commits its myriad progeny to the mercy of the waves. The eggs are hatched within the mantle of the parent, that part of its soft substance which encloses all the rest, and by which the shell is

secreted; and after being hatched, they are sent forth, a million or two at a time, and so minute that they can only be seen by the naked eye as rendering the water cloudy or slightly turbid, or in bright sunshine, like the little flies that dance in the air, which they resemble also in the activity of their motion. Each newborn oyster is provided with a well-formed shell of two little valves, and with two curious little organs for swimming, which disappear, or change their character and use, soon after its settlement in a suitable situation. But of the multitude of young oysters sent forth at once from an oyster-bed, comparatively few survive the dangers of their first hours; and to provide against these dangers is one of the most important mysteries of oyster-culture. Fishes and other marine animals are ready to devour them, and they perish in still greater numbers by being wafted into unfavourable situations, as upon mud or sand, to which they cannot attach themselves, or by being tossed about in stormy weather till their strength is exhausted. The destruction of oysters in a more advanced state by the dredge, although trifling in comparison, is also very considerable in all the oyster-beds of our coasts; and in Britain, France, and other countries, the supply of oysters has been far from keeping pace with the increasing demand, and beds once productive have become exhausted. Legislation has endeavoured to secure the preservation of the natural oyster-beds, and many and strict are the rules in force; but the oyster seemed likely to become more rare, and its price to go on increasing, till oyster-culture was recently attempted on the coast of France; and such success has attended it that the market can evidently be supplied with oysters in the greatest abundance, of the finest quality, and at a price far below what has hitherto been thought moderate.

The originator of this new branch of industry, which has already attained great magnitude and importance in France, and has been fostered by the French Government, is an old soldier, Hyacinthe Boeuf, who, after thirty-five years' hard service, and having attained the rank of a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, settled as a stone-mason in the Isle of Ré. He observed the young oysters adhering to the stones in the shallow waters of the sea near his residence, and growing there. He conceived the idea of providing the oyster spawn-or spat, as it is termed-with plenty of stones to settle on. He made an enclosure within the tide-mark, about twenty yards square, building the walls eighteen inches high,

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and placed within it stones with oysters adhering to them. The experiment was wonderfully successful. M. Boeuf completed his work in July 1858, and in April 1859 he found the stones of his parc, or enclosure, covered with myriads of young oysters. In 1860, he sold from it oysters to the value of £6. How rapidly he has since increased his parc, and with what increase of profit, it would be too tedious to tell. Nor can we stay to show how the subject was urged on the attention of the French Government by M. Coste, who has closely investigated it, both in its relations to natural history and to political economy; nor what measures were adopted by the French Government in consequence of his representations. It is enough to state, that concessions of the fore-shore have been readily granted by the Government, and oyster-culture has extended with marvellous rapidity in the Isle of Ré and elsewhere, so that now, in the Isle of Ré alone it gives occupation to thousands of men. It has already become a great source of wealth to the inhabitants of the western coast of France, and promises to become far more so in future years. There seems to be no reason why it should not be equally a source of wealth on the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. Nowhere are situations to be found better adapted for oyster-culture than on many parts of these coasts, now utterly unproductive.

The old soldier, Hyacinthe Boeuf, seems to have all the merit of an original discoverer and inventor, yet oyster-culture was practised by the ancient Romans much in the same way that it is now practised on the French coast, although never for any other purpose than the supply of a luxury to the wealthy. And a still more curious and interesting fact is, that it has continued to be practised in one place, from the days of Sergius Orata,-who first formed artificial oyster-beds at Baix, as Pliny tells us, just before the Marsic war,-down to the present time. The place is Lake Fusaro, the Acheron of Virgil, and is not far from Baire. It is a poud of salt water, about a league in circumference, nowhere more than two yards in depth, and with a muddy bottom. All around it are heaps of stones artificially formed, and piles driven into the mud, to many of which faggots of wood are suspended, all being for the young oysters to adhere to; and in that still water circumstances are more favourable to the preservation of the oyster brood than they can be in the turbulence of the open sea. The annual income derived from the oyster-culture of Lake Fusaro, amounts to £1280.

The method adopted on the French coast is already more perfect than the old traditionary practice of Lake Fusaro. There was a difficulty to contend with, unknown at Lake Fusaro, in the comparative storminess of the sea; although the most sheltered situations that could be found were selected as the most suitable, and the enclosure and preparation of the breeding grounds is a work of no little labour. At first, large blocks of stone were scattered over the whole surface of the parc, as the breeding ground is termed, for the young oysters to adhere to; and this is still practised, although it has been found much better to make collec tors of tiles, arranged together in structures of various forms, which occupy completely the available ground of the pare; and a further improvement has been made by covering the tiles with a kind of cement, from which the oysters are easily detached, when required, without injury either to them or to the tiles. Into the details of this subject we cannot go; but it may be mentioned that in the most inproved oyster-culture, the tiles, which are similar in form to those used for the roofs of houses, are piled together, with the concavity downwards, and various means are employed, by stones, wooden posts, &c., to fix them and secure them against the violence of the sea: whilst to stock the parc, a few full-grown oysters are placed amongst them, in the furrow of each row, to produce the spat which they are destined to receive. The young oysters readily attach themselves to the tiles, and chiefly to the under side, which soon becomes covered with them. Wooden piles, and boards roughened by the axe, have been used for collectors, also fascines or bundles of twigs, and even thongs of leather; but nothing has been found so suitable and useful as tiles.

But the French cultivator is not contented with a pare in which he may produce multitudes of oysters such as are produced on the natural banks. He must fit them for the Parisian market, and be ready to send to it oysters such as the Parisian epicure desires, -large, fat, and green. For this purpose he forms, if possible, a claire, which is an enclosure somewhere on a level and muddy shore, surrounded with low walls, about eighteen inches high, built of stones, clay, and wattles, so as to retain some water even at low tide. If circumstances prevent him from forming a claire, he fattens his oysters on an étalage, which has no walls to keep in the water, and is dry, or nearly s at low tide. Oysters are transferred from the parc to the claire or étalage, long before they