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NIGHT.

O THE beautiful strange visions seen within the silent night!
Then when heavy eyelids weigh on heavy eyes that hate the light,
When the careworn spirit, resting from the penance and the pain,
Sees in dreams long-vanished Edens rich with love and life again.

Then dark thoughts no more molest us: dull and leaden-hearted men,
Cruel in their lust of riches, make not breath seem bitter then.
Doubt casts not its poisonous shadow. Slow despairs, that rankle deep,
Pass away, as if for ever, exiled from the land of sleep.

Then once more we see the faces that are laid beneath the mould;
Then we hear sweet-meaning voices-voices that we loved of old;
Then the stainless life returneth laughing through the merry hours
On the ancient paths of childhood, sown around with starry flowers.

Who would lose the dear illusion-who would wish to feel it less, Though it make the radiant morning thick with blight and barrenness? Let the weary waking hours, forlorn of hope, creep slowly on,

So on slumber's couch we borrow joyaunce from the summers gone.

O Sleep, dear to all, then dearest when strong sorrow bows us down,
Charming care with golden hours, and smoothing out the furrowed frown;
Thou that blottest from existence half the fever and the fear-
Come, kind minister of healing, come, for thou art needed here.

Come, as yesternight thou camest. I had deemed that nevermore,
Save to grief, my darkened spirit should unlock its sealed door;
For within my breast I shuddered, shadowing forth the things unseen,
And the Past, save in its sorrow, seemed as it had never been.

For I thought on wasted life-I saw a future fearful hour,
Dread misgivings, formless terrors, evil sights of evil power,
When the clock ticks slow, the minutes linger in their sullen flight,
And the ghastly day's oppression is but trebled in the night.

When no more the shattered senses round the throne of reason dwell,
Thinking every sight a spectre, every sound a passing bell;
When the mortal desolation falleth on the soul like rain,

And the wild hell-phantoms dance and revel in the burning brain.

Now the months and years of old, far from the outer feud and strife,
Lay before me like a picture breathing with the breath of life ;
And I saw my early home, as when it was a home to me,
In a happy land, and fairer than bright lands beyond the sea.

There it stood the self-same village-even as in hours of old,
When the stately sun descending dipt the dazzling panes in gold;
And methought for many an hour, yea many a peaceful day and night,
All that space of earth was steeped in one delicious faery light.

And I marvelled not, though round me clustering life and beauty grew
In the paradisal stillness visited by forms I knew ;

Yet there were, beyond all others, features that I loved to trace-
Ah! too truly I remember-for it was my mother's face.

"Twas no wonder that I knew thee, as thy kind eyes turned to mine,
Happy in my happiness, while I was thinking not of thine;
And I heard thy silver accents sweeter than all music flow-
Ah me, but the lapse of summers changes many things below!

"Mother, we will dwell together evermore," I seemed to say,

"Far from hence life's wheels are whirling; scarce an echo comes this way. "Here an uneventful rest shall fold us in a dream of peace, "Here our love through silent seasons grow with infinite increase."

But I woke as one who, coming from far lands beyond the wave,
Finds not any face of welcome-all he loved are in the grave.
Scarce the ancient house remaineth, bartered for a stranger's gold ;—
Foreign fires upon the hearth, whose very flame is deathly cold!

Surely 'twas some evil angel woke me ere the dawn began--
Fiend, who could have heart to break the slumbers of a wretched man!
Time enough grief's drooping banners once more to behold unfurled,
When the warm imperial sunlight widens through a weeping world!

Breathing soon a finer sorrow, I, who had not wept for years,
As I pondered on the vision felt my eyes grow dim with tears;
And I know that never, never, while Time wings his weary flight,
From my heart of hearts shall perish the remembrance of that night.

God be thanked that thy sweet phantom swept across my dreary way,
Lighting up thine own dear footprints lest thy child should turn astray.
Now for me, like loving sisters, Hope and Memory embrace,
Each alike henceforward living in the sunshine of thy face.

Let me pass in some sweet vision of the seasons long gone by!
Some stray touch of dreamy fancy haunt me slumbering ere I die!
Kindred hands of welcome lead me to the country far away,
Where the spirit never needeth interchange of Night and Day!

P. S. WORSLEY.

NEVER say that good is waning,
Virtue falling from the van;
Nor in saddened strains complaining,
Preach the thanklessness of man.
If some profitless self-seeker

Win much praise and public gold,
Not for this thy work be weaker,
Not for this thy courage cold.

Whoso in life's task hath taken
Glory for a worthy goal,
Hath for a light dream forsaken
True magnificence of soul.

Think it then nor shame nor pity
That no crowds applaud thy name ;
Strive on-save the leaguered city,
Though another reap the fame.

If thy prowess hath not found thee
Meed of honour in the state,
Think of many a martyr round thee
Daily doing something great.

So thy people reap the harvest,
Little recks who cast the seed;
Guerdon, high as thou deservest,
Dwells in thy own holy deed.

P. S. WORSLEY.

MILTON.

GOD gave to thee the keys of heaven and hell,
With power to bring their secret things to light.
His hands upbore thee in thy fiery flight.
He who inspired the seers of Israel

Fashioned thy tongue to speak the unspeakable;
So that for ever with the sons of men
Thy sacred sentences shall deeply dwell,
Graven and grafted with an iron pen,
As of a ruler by the might of mind.

As Zion standeth with her crown of hills,

So thou, above Earth's storms and wasting wind,

Art crowned of God. His is the thought that fills
Thy utterance. His own breath thy being doth move.
I tremble and bow down-I feel and love.

P. S. WORSLEY.

I

CAPTAIN SPEKE'S ADVENTURES IN SOMALI LAND.-PART II.

WE remained here three days, sending the things I had brought in relays across the mountain, and in fetching up the rear ones. The Sultan could not lose the opportunity afforded by my detention to again come and beg for presents, and gave him a razor to shave his head with, and make a clean Mussulman of him. On finding he could get nothing further from me gratis, he demanded that a cloth should be paid to the man whom my cameldrivers had robbed of the goat at Adhai, and, before retiring, wished me urgently to take a letter for him to Aden, petitioning the English to allow him to form an expedition by sea, and take retribution on the Musa Abokr at Heis, who had recently killed one of his subjects.

4th December 1854.-At dawn of day the last of the camels was loaded, and we set out to clamber up to the top of the mountain-range, and descend on the other side to the first watering-place in the interior of the country. It was a double march, and a very stiff one for the camels. Directly in our front lay an easy, flattish ground, with moderate undulations, densely wooded with such trees as I had already seen; but beyond it, about three miles from camp, the face of the mountain-top, towering to a great height, stood frowning over us like a huge bluff wall, which at first sight it appeared quite impossible any camel could surmount. At 9 A. M. we reached this steep, and commenced the stiffest and last ascent up a winding, narrow goat-path, having sharp turns at the extremity of every zigzag, and with huge projecting stones, which seemed to bid defiance to the passage of the camels' bodies. Indeed, it was very marvellous, with their long spindle-shanks and great splay feet, and the awkward boxes on their backs, striking constantly against every little projection in the hill, that they did not tumble headlong over the pathway; for many times, at the corners, they fell upon their chests, with their hind-legs

dangling over the side of the hill, and were only pulled into the path again by the combined exertions of all the men. Like Tibet ponies, when they felt their bodies slipping helplessly over the precipices-down which, had they fallen, they would have met instantaneous and certain deaththey invariably seized hold of anything and everything with their teeth to save their equilibrium. The ascent was at length completed after an infinity of trouble, and our view from the top of the mountain repaid me fully for everything of the past. It was a glorious place! In one glance round I had a complete survey of all the country I was now destined to travel over, and what I had already gone over. The pass was called Yafir, and, by the boiling thermometer, showed an altitude of 6704 feet. It was almost the highest point on this range. From a cedar tree I cooked my breakfast under, on facing to the north, I saw at once the vast waters of the Gulf, all smooth and glassy as a mill-pond, the village of Bunder Goree, and the two buggaloes lying in its anchorage-ground, like little dots of nut-shells, immediately below the steep face of the mountain; so deep and perpendicular was it, that it had almost the effect of looking down a vast precipice. But how different was the view on turning to the south! Instead of seeing this enormous grandeur-a deep rugged hill, green and fresh in verdure, with the sea, like a large lake below-it was tame in the extreme; the land dropped gently to scarcely more than half its depth, with barely a tree visible on its surface; and at the foot of the hill, stretched out as far as the eye could reach, was a howling, blank-looking desert, all hot and arid, and very wretched to look upon. It was the more disappointing, as the Somalis had pictured this to me as a land of promise, literally flowing with milk and honey, where, they said, I should see boundless prairies of grass, large roomy trees, beautiful valleys with deep brooks running down them, and

cattle, wild animals, and bees in abundance. Perhaps this was true to them, who had seen nothing finer in creation; who thought ponies fine horses, a few weeds grass, and a puny little brook a fine large stream. At noon we reloaded, and proceeded to join the camels and men sent forward on the previous day. The track first led us a mile or two across the hilltop, where I remarked several heaps of stones piled up, much after the fashion of those monuments the Tibet Tartars erect in commemoration of their Lahma saints. These, the Somalis said, were left here by their predecessors, and, they thought, were Christian tombs. Once over the brow of the hill, we descended the slopes on the south, which fell gently in terraces, and travelled until dark, when we reached a deep nullah, here called Mükür, in which we found our vanguard safely encamped in a strong ring-fence of thorn bushes. The distance accomplished was seventeen miles; the altitude of place 3660 feet. The two following days (5th and 6th) we halted to rest the cattle, whilst I went shooting and collecting. There were a great number of gazelles and antelopes, some bustard, many florikan and partridges, as well as other very interesting birds and reptiles. These were mostly found in ravines at the foot of the hills, or amongst acacia and jujube trees, with patches of heather in places. We now held durbar, to consult on the plan of proceeding. It was obviously impossible to march across the plateau directly upon the southern Dulbahantas, as there was not a blade of grass to be seen nor any water on the way beyond the first ten miles from the foot of the hills. To go to Berbera, then, I must perforce pass through the territories of the northern Dulbahantas; and this was fixed upon; but hearing of some ancient Christian ruins (left by Sultan Kin), only a day's march to the south eastward, I resolved to see them first, and on the 7th made a move five miles in that direction to a kraal, called Karrah, where we found a deep pool of stagnant water.

*

8th. My kit was now so much diminished, we all marched together down a broad shallow valley southeastward, in which meandered a nullah, called Rhut-Tug, the first wady I came upon in Nogal. The distance accomplished was eight miles when we put up in the kraal of Rhut; for, as I have said before, there were no villages or permanent habitations in the interior of the Nogal country. All the little wooding there is, is found in depressions like this, near the base of hill ranges, where water is moderately near the surface, and the trees are sheltered from the winds that blow over the higher grounds of the general plateau. Rhut is the most favoured spot in the Warsingalis' dominions, and had been loudly lauded by my followers; but all I could find were a few trees larger than the ordinary acacias, a symptom of grass having grown there in more favoured times, when rain had fallen, a few puddles of water in the bed of the nullah, and one flock of sheep to keep the place alive. Gazelles were numerous, and many small birds in gaudy plumage flitted about the trees, amongst which the most beautiful was the Lamprotornis superba, a kind of Maina, called by the Somal Lhimber-load (the cow-bird), because it follows after cows to feed.

9th.-Halt. Kin's City, or rather ruins of, I was told, lay to the northward of my camp, in the direction of the hills, at a distance of about two miles, so I proceeded at once to see it, hoping by this means I should be able to advance westward on the following day. After an hour's walk, I came upon those remains of which I had heard so much at first on landing in the country, as indicative of the great advancement in architectural art of Kin's Christian legion over the now occupying Somal; but I was as much disappointed in this matter as in all others of Somali fabrication. There were five objects of attraction here:-1. The ruins of a (said to be) Christian church; 2. The site and remains of a village; 3. A hole in the ground, denoting a lime-kiln; 4. A cemetery; and, 5. The ground-lines of a fort. This certainly showed a degree

* Durbar-Eastern Court.

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