crystal islands, the terror and admiration of ages, had never been attempted by even moderately skilled artists,-the theme was, therefore, striking in itself, original and veiled in mysterious grandeur. The sunlight that falls on the surface of the island lights it with a pure, ice-cold glittering that, when we look close, shows myriads of hues, pierces deep into the purer parts of the mass, and seems lost beyond the power of reflection; elsewhere light has reached the roofs of caves the sea has worn by beating, so that we have it tinging the water in them with a color that makes the emerald look crude. It is green fire where thus transmitted unabsorbed and unreflected. Light on the berg is thus blue from reflection of the sky, golden where flashed back to our eyes by the fractured and splintered surfaces, and enriched with every hue by diverse circumstances of position, form, and transparency. We look in wonder at this vast rock of ice, seemingly fast anchored in the sea, yet with every moment telling its tale of dissolution by the wreaths of flying mist, by huge, yawning crevices, by the eating sea that lapses fatally at the base, has bared caverns, split long shelves, and made deep scars at every point. A scoop of sheer descent on one side of a mountain tells another secret cause of ruin; so large is it, that a milelong shadow seems to lie in scarp: yet, vast as it is, the mere expansion of air has rent and slid off the great scale into the sea. The effect of such a slide is marked where we should least expect it; the whole poise of the berg has thus been altered; the side near to us, becoming light, has risen and changed the line that the sea beat upon for a lower one, placed obliquely to the first. Twice this has happened, for there are two sea-worn lines at the mountain's base. We look from an ice-plain above the level of the sea into a bay worn in the berg, and made shallower by the successive uprisings or losses of balance above indicated; over this bay the wavelets ripple in tender curves, one behind the other; the shifted beaches are on the distant side, and reach almost to the removed horn of the bay, upon whose uttermost promontory the water breaks lazily and of a pure but rather ashy green. One side of the bay shows us the vista of a mountain valley; one of the cliffs is bored with the emerald cave, upon the roof of which rests an enormous boulder, torn away from the rocky arctic home of the berg, and thus floated far to south to find an ocean bed, when the whole fabric is wrecked. Such ice-borne boulders are said to be the originals of our enormous stones that, grouped by some forgotten people to serve priestly rites, are named Druidic temples or tombs. The stone, deeply tinged with iron, has stained with red and russet streaks the pure snow and ice of its bed. not only to see that these beards are forthwith removed, but also that the unity of rule and the complete identity within the Roman Church, with respect to dress and shaving are not broken again." THE Roman Catholic clergy in Bavaria-among | The authorities of the dioceses are commanded, whom the movement of growing a full beard, as was usual in former centuries, has lately begun to spread-has, through the Roman Nuncio in Munich, received the following intimation from Rome : "It has come to the ears of the pope that there are clergymen in some of the dioceses in Bavaria who, led by the spirit of innovation, WE are informed that the committee appointed or rather thoughtlessness, wish to introduce again the antiquated custom of growing the beard, and by the British Association to bring the imporwho, by their example, wish to induce others to tance of fog-signals before the legislature, have, do likewise. Whatever might be said with re- within the last few days, sent in a memorial, in spect to former centuries, it is perfectly well which a series of experiments is especially recomknown that the modern Church discipline dis-mended to the Board of Trade. The committee approves of this custom; and, if such an inno- consists of Drs. Robinson and Gladstone, and vation were to be allowed, this could only be done Professors Wheatstone and Hennessey. by the Supreme Pontiff of the Church. The should be good news for all interested in navigation. latter, however, is all the more unwilling to permit the same innovation, as in these sad times but too many were led astray by new things, as one innovation brought on another very easily. This THE Rev. Charles Kingsley is about to publish a volume of "Sermons on the Pentateuch." [A YOUNG dressmaker, in one of the best conducted establishments in London, has lately died from overwork. The coroner's inquest brought the particulars into public view, and furnished the occasion for the contrast which is copied from the Examiner.]' From St. James's Magazine. SEARCHES FOR THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. ONE by one the treasured secrets of Nature are wrested from her grasp. Earth has unlocked her stony records to reveal, at man's bidding, the story of her creation. The bed of the seas has been sought by the adventurous diver, and its surface everywhere traversed by the mariner's sail. The skies have disclosed planets and stars the most distant to the ken of the telescope. This process of discovery has been going on for ages, but it has been reserved for the present generation to unfold some hidden things which had seemed to defy the advance of science, and to grow more impenetrable as they became encrusted with age. Last and greatest of such achievements is the discovery of the true source of the Nile by Captains Speke and Grant. to know anything about the sources of the Nile, except the steward of sacred things in Minerva's temple at Sais in Egypt; and he, to all appearance, was at best only joking me when he said that he knew perfectly well. His statement was as follows: Two mountains, rising each to a peak, are situated between the city of Syene, in Thebais, and Elephantine; the names of these mountains are-one Crophi, the other Mophi. Between these rise the sources of the Nile, which are bottomless; one half of the water runs north to Egypt, the other half south to Ethiopia.' If this story which even Herodotus deemed a jest, indicates anything, it is that the ancient Egyptians placed the source of the Nile about the equator. 999 dye, he spent the night in conversing, on the source of the Nile, with the linen-clad priest Achoreus, who reclined in the highest seat. Lucan, in his "Pharsalia," has preserved to us the conversation. Cæsar said, When Julius Cæsar was in Egypt, doing homage to the fatal beauty of Cleopatra, his The river Nile has served to awe and inter- mind turned from the splendors around him est age after age of mankind. As it rolled to the secrets of the ancient river that rolled through old Egypt, in the days of Egypt's at his feet. Amid ivory halls, doors gleamdominion, laving with its yearly overflowing ing with emeralds, couches shining with the thirsty land on which rain never fell, the gems, furniture yellow with jasper, hangtawny priesthood of Amun and Osiris wor-ings stiff with gold and bright with Tyrian shipped its healthful waters, and pondered its secret source. Grand Homer, as he led on the chorus of Grecian bards, spoke of it with mysterious reverence. Herodotus, the father of history, wandered on its margin to seek out the knowledge of its rise and the cause of its overflow. Macedonian Alexander stayed his conquering chariot to send explorers. Princes, poets, and philosophers of Rome named it and 'marvelled;-Julius Cæsar, Nero, Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Seneca. Yet the ancient world passed away, and the source of the Nile remained an unrevealed mystery. No answer was found to the question of the poet Tibullus,— "O Father Nile, how may I tell thy spring, It is the purpose of the present article to review briefly the history of the search for the source of the Nile in past days, in order to display the greatness of our countrymen's triumph, by showing how many have failed to achieve what they have accomplished. "There is nothing that I would rather wish to know than the courses of the stream that has lain hid through so many centuries, and its unknown head. Let me have an assured hope of seeing the sources of the Nile, I will forego civil war.' Achoreus replied by reciting numerous strange opinions of others on the subject, He then added the and some of his own. following valuable summary of researches before his time : "The desire that thou hast of knowing the Nile, O Roman, existed both in the Pharians and in the Persians, and in the tyrants of has not wished to bestow the knowledge on the Macedonians; and no age is known that posterity; but still does its propensity for concealment prevail. Alexander, the greatest of the kings whom Memphis adores, envied the Nile its concealment, and sent chosen The ancients entertained all sorts of fan- persons through the remotest parts of the cies with regard to this subject; but they of the scorched sky kept back; they saw the land of the Ethiopians. Them the red zone were in total ignorance upon it. Herodotus, Nile warm. Sesostris came to the west and who visited Egypt about B.c. 460, tells us, to the extremities of the world, and drove the "Of all Egyptians, Libyans, and Hellenes Pharian chariots over the necks of kings that I ever conversed with, not one professed still, Rhone and Padus, of your streams did he drink at their sources before the Nile. | considered as the pioneer of modern discovery The mad Cambyses came to the long-lived in Central Africa, and especially in regard people in the East, and falling short of food, to the Nile, is the Jesuit missionary, Pedro and fed by the slaughter of his men, he re- Paez. Born in 1564, he spent his life chiefly turned: thou, O Nile, undiscovered." in labors for the conversion of the AbyssiniNero-who, monster as he was, yet pat-ans to his faith, with much temporary sucronized art and science-sent two centurions cess. In the early years of the seventeenth up the Nile to trace it to its rise. They seem century he discovered the source of the arm to have started under the protection of the of the river known as the Blue Nile, which King of Ethiopia, and with introductions some have asserted to be the main stream. from him to the neighboring kings. The His discoveries were not only a great advance philosopher Seneca had heard them narrate on previous investigations, but doubtless conthat they went a long journey, and at the tributed largely towards making the way last, said they, easy for future voyagers. The next traveller who claims notice as having engaged in this famous search is the celebrated James Bruce, the author of the "We came to immense swamps, the outlet of which the inhabitants knew not; nor could any one breathe there, so thick was the herbage on the waters. And those waters might neither be struggled through by foot-well-known "Travels in Abyssinia." Our men nor by ship, because of the muddy and space forbids us even to sketch the interestsedgy state of the marsh. There," con- ing history of the "moving accidents by flood tinued they, "we beheld two rocks, from and field" through which he passed. Sufwhich the mighty force of the river rushed fice it to say that he was born in Scotland in forth." 1730, and when about thirty years of age deThis story is something like the one Herod-vised a project for a descent upon Spain, otus heard, and seems to show that there was which brought him into contact with the a certain point which presented an impassa- English Government. Some observation beble barrier to the researches of old-world ing made by Lord Halifax as to the unknown travellers. source of the Nile, Bruce was fired with the During the long period of the decline and idea of solving this problem of ages. Facili fall of the Roman empire, it does not appear ties were afforded him by the ministry, and that any further efforts were made to pene- he commenced his journey in 1768. But his trate the secret of the Nile. At the close of mind was possessed with the erroneous notion the third century the Romans abandoned every then and often prevalent, that the Bahr-elstation on it above Philæ; and in the long Azrek, or Blue Nile, was the main stream, night of fierce war which consigned the Ro- instead of the Bahr-el-Abiad, or White Nile. man power to destruction, and called into When, therefore, he succeeded-as he did on existence the kingdoms founded by the north- the 14th November, 1770 — in tracking the ern barbarians, African discovery was thrust Blue Nile to its source, he proclaimed that he far out of sight by the convulsions of Euro- had accomplished the long-sought discovery, pean society. In the Dark Ages the crusades though his success was in reality a comparatended to concentrate the efforts of travellers tively small one, and only amounted to going rather upon Palestine than upon Egypt or over the ground which Paez had traversed Ethiopia. We must, therefore, pass over nearly two hundred years before. The narmany centuries, during which no record ex-rative of Paez he made a futile attempt to ists of a renewal of the attempt. Nor even when light broke again on Europe by the revival of letters, does especial attention appear to have been directed to the subject. It is true that Ibn Batuta in the fourteenth century, the Portuguese in the fifteenth, the English captain, Sir John Lancaster, and Leo Africanus in the sixteenth, with many others, made voyages to Africa; but they did not penetrate into the interior. The man who has the fairest claim to be discredit. His services to the geography of Africa, were, however, unmistakably great, and his "Travels" have survived their traducers. From the time of Bruce to the present, expeditions to find out the source of the Nile have been frequent. In 1827, Linant Bey, travelling for the African Association, surveyed the course of the river for one hundred and thirty-two geographical miles from Khartoum. He also expressed an opinion (which vated basin, and well watered. The labors of Livingstone and Burton had confirmed this view, large lakes having been discovered, which rendered the supposition very plausible that the Nile took its rise from some of them. Captains Speke and Grant accordingly did not attempt to pursue the intricate and impracticable navigation of the stream, but set out from the East coast of Africa on the 1st October, 1860, intending to direct their course at once to the lakes, among which they expected (and rightly) to find the foun is now proved to be correct) that the Nile It would need a volume to do justice to the labors of the many eminent explorers who have of late years aided in this interesting quest. Those able envoys of the Church Missionary Society, Dr. Krapf and the Rev. J. Rebmann, who went to Central Africa in 1847 and the following years, contributed most valuable information, which was enlarged and confirmed by the Rev. J. Erhardt. A foreigner of much promise, M. Maizan, was murdered while on his travels. M. Brun Rollet succeeded in reaching the mountain of Garbo, in three degrees north latitude the highest point attained before the discovery of the source. At the close of the Crimean War in 1856, Captain Burton, R.A., offered his services for the investigation, and was sent out by the Royal Geographical Society on the 1st October in that year. He was joined by Captain Speke, and the two made most valuable discoveries, and had penetrated far towards the object of their search, when they were obliged to return on the 14th May, 1858, for want of supplies. In the spring of 1857 an expedition of flat-bottomed steamboats started from Cairo, but they were stopped by order of Said Pacha at Meroë in June of that year. We now come to the successful journey which has made the names of Captains Speke and Grant historic. Though its details are not yet known, we are able roughly to sketch out its course. Before doing so, however, a few words on the position of the question when they started are necessary. For twelve months they did not advance far, owing to the fierce intertribal wars of the natives. On the 1st of January, 1862, however, they reached the capital of a kingdom called Karagwe, on the south-west shore of the great Lake of Nyanza, which Captains Burton and Speke had discovered in their former journey. The king of this country assisted them much. Thence they proceeded through the next kingdom of Uganda, which comprises the west and north shores of the same lake. Here toil was forgotten in triumph; here they solved the mighty riddle; here they were able to proclaim to mankind what countless buried generations had listened for in vain,—that the great Lake Nyanza is the source of the river Nile. This immense Lake Nyanza stretches nearly one hundred and fifty miles south of the equator, which is perhaps its northern boundary; and it is still broader. It is surrounded by conical hills, of which some are ten thousand feet high, and is itself between three thousand and four thousand feet above the level of the sea. From about the centre of its north coast the Nile issues in a stream one hundred and fifty yards wide, and soon passes over a fall twelve feet in height. This mighty reservoir, which collects the equatorial rains from the hills in which it lies embosomed in the very heart of the African continent, is the "cause of the Nile" which had so long defied the research of civilized humanity. The knowledge thus obtained, that the river at its rising receives the equatorial rains, enables us to account for its periodical overflow. The happy discoverers tracked the course As early as 1852, Sir Roderick Murchison of the river to the second degree of north latsuggested that, instead of the interior of Af-itude, where it turns to the west, and passes rica being a barren desert, as men had been through a smaller lake, Luta Nzigi. They wont to consider it, it was probably an ele- crossed the chord of this bend for seventy |