self had done. He struck his bayonet into his head; the tiger rose at him-he fired; and this time the ball took effect, and in the head. The animal staggered backwards, and we all poured in our fire. He still kicked and writhed; when the gentlemen with the hog-spears advanced, and fixed him, while some natives finished him, by beating him on the head with hedge-stakes. The brave artilleryman was, after all, but slightly hurt; he claimed the skin, which was very cheerfully given to him. There was, however, a cry among the natives that the head should be cut off: it was; and, in so doing, the knife came directly across the bayonet. The animal measured scarcely less than four feet from the root of the tail to the muzzle. There was no tradition of a tiger having been in Jaffna before; indeed, this one must have either come a distance of almost twenty miles, or have swum across an arm of the sea nearly two miles in breadth; for Jaffna stands on a peninsula in which there is no jungle of any magnitude. The leopard of India is called by the natives the "Tree Tiger," from its habit of ascending a tree when pursued, or for the purpose of enabling it to spring securely on its prey. It is doubtless able to effect this ascent, by the extraordinary flexibility of its limbs, which give it the power of springing upward;--for, in the construction of the feet, it has no greater facilities for climbing than the lion or the tiger. It cannot clasp a branch like the bear, because the bone called the claticle is not sufficiently large to permit this action. The Indian hunters chase the leopard to a tree; but even in this elevated spot it is a task of great difficulty to shoot him; for the extraordinary quickness of the creature enables him to protect himself by the most rapid movements. The Africans catch this species in pitfalls, covered over with slight hurdles, upon which there is placed a bait. In some old writers on Natural History there are accounts of the Leopard being taken in a trap, by means of a mirror, which, when the animal jumps against it, brings down the door upon him. This story may have received some sanction from the disposition of the domestic cat, when young, to survey her figure n a looking glass. VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES--THE CEDAR OF LEBANON. In addition to the durability of its timber, the cedar is, in its appearance, the most majestic of trees; and when it stands alone in a situation worthy of it, it is hardly possible to conceive a finer vegetable ornament. Its height in this country has seldom equalled the taller of the larches, though it has nearly aproached to it; but the very air of the tree impresses one with the idea of its comparative immortality. There is a firmness in the bark and a stability in the trunk, in the mode in which that lays hold of the ground, and in the form of the branches and their insertion into the trunk, not found in any other pine, scarcely in any other tree. The foliage, too, is superior to that of any other of the tribe, each branch being perfect in its form: the points of the leaves spread upwards into beautiful little tufts, and the whole upper surface of the branch, which droops in a graceful curve toward the extremity, having the semblance of velvet. The color is also fine; it is a rich green, wanting the bluish tint of the pine and fir, and the lurid and gloomy one of the cypress. The description of the cedar of Lebanon by the prophet Ezekiel is fine and true:- -"Behold the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. His boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long. The fir trees were not like his boughs, nor the chesnut trees like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God like unto him in beauty." Whether the cedars of Lebanon were thinned to exhaustion by the fourscore thousand axes of the King of Israel, or whether they have decayed in consequence of some variation of climate, or other physical change in the country, it is impossible to say; but modern travellers represent that very few now exist, though some are of immense bulk--about thirty-six feet in circumference, and quite undecayed. Various specimens of the cedar of Lebanon are mentioned as having attained a very great size in England. One planted by Dr. Uvedale, in the garden of the manor-house at Enfield, about the middle of the seventeenth century, had a girth of fourteen feet in 1789; eight feet of the top of it had been blown down by the great hurricane in 1703, but still it was forty feet in height. At Whitton, in Middlesex, a remarkable cedar was blown down in 1779. It had attained the height of seventy feet; the branches covered an area of one hundred feet in diameter; the trunk was sixteen feet in circumference at seven feet from the ground, and twenty-one feet at the insertion of the great branches twelve feet above the surface. There were about ten principal branches or limbs, and their average circumference was twelve feet. About the age and planter of this immense tree its historians are not agreed, some of them referring its origin to the days of Elizabeth, and even alleging that it was planted by her own hand. Another cedar, at Hillingdon, near Uxbridge, had, at the presumed age of 116 years, arrived at the following dimensions: its height was fifty-three feet, and the spread of the branches ninety-six feet from east to west, and eighty-nine from north to south. The circumference of the trunk, close to the ground, was thirteen feet and a half; at seven feet it was twelve and a half; and at thirteen feet, just under the branches, it was fifteen feet eight inches. There were two principal branches, the one twelve feet and the other ten feet in girth. The first, after a length of eighteen inches, divided into two arms, one eight feet and a half, and the other seven feet ten. The other branch, soon after its insertion, was parted into two, of five feet and a half each. INTERESTING EXTRACTS. DR. GOLDSMITH. A poor woman, who had seen better days, understanding from one of her acquaintance that Dr. Goldsmith had studied physic, and hearing of his great humanity, solicited him in a letter to send her something for her husband who had lost his appetite, and was reduced to a most melancholy state by continual anguish. The good natured poet waited on her instantly, and after some discourse with his patient, found him sinking into that worst state of sickness, poverty. The Doctor told him they should hear from him in an hour, when he should send to them some pills which he believed would prove efficacious. He immediately went home, and put ten guineas into a chip box with the following label· "These must be used as necessities require: be patient, and of good heart.' LITERATURE Is a ray of that wisdom which pervades the universe. Like the sun, it enlightens, rejoices, and warms. By the aid of books we collect around us all things, all places, men and times. By them we are recalled to the duties of human life. By the sacred examples of greatness, our passions are diverted and we are roused to virtue. Literature is the daughter of heaven, who has descended upon earth to soften the evils of life. Have recourse then to books. The sages who have written long before our days, are so many travellers in the paths of calamity, who stretch out their friendly hands, inviting us when abandoned by the world, to join their society INSTANCES OF THE LOSS OF INTELLECT. Sir Isaac Newton lost the use of his intellect befor his animal frame was arrested by the hand of death So it is said of a Mr. Swisset, that he often wept because he was not able to understand the books which he had written in his younger days. Cornivus, an excellent orator in the Augustine age, became so forgetful as not even to know his own. Simon Tournay, in 1201, after he had outdone all at Oxford for learning, at last grew such an idiot as not to know one letter from another, or one thing he had ever done. An excellent rule for living happy in society is, never to concern one's self with the affairs of others unless they wish for, or desire it. Under pretence of being useful, people often show more curiosity than affection. Every man has in his own life follies enough-in his own mind troubles enough-in the performance of his duties deficiencies enough-in his own fortunes evils enough, without minding other people's business. 1 POETRY. THE PATH TO THE GRAVE. BY MRS. H. M. DODGE. The beautiful have passed this way, A mournfulness is resting here- The powerful have departed hence, The young, the gay, the joyous one, But all its fine and touching tone Oh youth! Oh beauty! power and fame' |