J Ay, ay, sir," said the old second-mate, as he stamped on deck. I heard him stop at the after-hatch, where the boat-steerers and carpenter lived, and call "Chips" two or three times. At last there was an answer, in another voice-not Chips's; then a round of hurried feet on deck, a shout down the forecastle, and a shout back in an'swer. There was no Chips there. Two minutes after, a heavy foot came aft to the cabin-stairs, and Mr. Joseph, with a white face, entered. I knew what he had to tell. I knew now -just as if I had seen it all-who the man was whom I had seen leaning against the line. The captain looked at the second-mate. "Chips is gone, sir," said the old sailor, with a tremor in his rough voice; "Chips was knocked over by the line, and we've gone four knots since it parted. I've put her about, and we're running down again." There was dead silence. We all knew the search was hopeless. No man could swim in such a sea; and we had a thought, though no one spoke it, that brave, strong Chips had been killed by the line before he struck the water. All night we beat about the place where we thought it had occurred. The wind and sea fell, and the moon came out in great beauty to help our sad search. Every man on board staid on deck till the sun rose, and then we looked far and vainly over the heedless swell of the unbroken sea. Chips was dead. The rough Portuguese lads found it hard to believe that the kind heart and strong hand of their friend were gone forever. We all knew that the best man in the ship was taken away. rope. The battle of Wagram had been fought, and the Peace of Vienna signed, the year before; that is to say, in 1809. At the time of my visit the Emperor Napoleon was about to espouse Maria Louise. My father's object was merely to enable me to reap the usual advantages of travel, familiarity with foreign languages, manners, institutions, works of art, and natural scenery. But in addition to these I had an object of my own to attain. I had recently read a book published in London, called "Templeman's Survey of the Globe," in which was given an account of the populations of the various countries of Europe. This book had interested me very much, and I regretted that it did not also contain the sort of information in reference to Europe generally, which Arthur Young in his famous "Travels in France" had given with regard to France, Italy, and part of Spain, viz., an account of the condition of industry, of the peasantry, of the division of land, of commerce, and the like. To obtain this information was the object which I promised myself to accomplish. cept France, there was not a country in Europe wherein immense tracts of land were not held by noblemen and ecclesiastical institutions. The rigor of this provision was somewhat softened by the fact that in most countries the great estates of the privileged classes were divided into small parcels, and let out on rent, either to money tenants, or to méta.· yers, or occupied and worked by serfs. Nev ertheless, in some countries, notably in Spain, the mortmain lands were not let out or worked at all, but lay idle. I took great pains to ascertain how much of the area of the continent was covered with forests or consisted of water-surfaces and waste and barren lands, unfit for productive purposes; for I was anxious to compare the productive land of Europe with that of my own country. The result of my observations and tabulations, which I can truly affirm gave me infinite trouble, is shown in the following table: PRODUCING AREA OF EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES IN THE YEAR 1810, COMPARED. (SUMS IN MILLIONS OF ACRES.) At This journey I made successfully, taking careful notes of every thing I saw, and obtaining authentic information on such topics as were beyond my immediate reach. that period Europe was substantially all of the civilized world. With the exception of some six millions in the United States, and a few hundred thousands in the West Indies and the Spanish Main, Europe contained at that time all the white population of the globe. The East-Indian trade was small and slow from remoteness; the China trade had not opened; the great sheep-herding regions of Australia, Cape of Good Hope, and La Two years afterward, when I found myself in Boston, I took from my sacred things a letter, which I had found in Chips's chest. It was addressed to a woman, with the name and number of a Cambridge street. I found the place a small frame house, with lots of Chips's handiwork around it. His mother met me at the door, an old, white haired❘ Plata, were scarcely more than known. woman. She seemed to have been waiting and watching for somebody. A few words told the hopeless story. The letter was for her, and she read it over-the letter of her only boy, asking forgiveness for his one great and only disobedience—and, as she read, the white head bent lower and lower till it met the thin hands; and I turned and left the little room I had darkened-with all its poor ornaments worthless now-and, as I walked toward Boston, I could not help thinking that God's ways are often wofully far from being our ways. I JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. AN OCTOGENARIAN ON HIS TRACKS. WAS born in the year 1798, and am therefore eighty-two years old. At the age of seventeen my father determined that I should go to Europe and travel for a year. With the exception of the British war against Sweden, and the French war against Spain, it was then a period of universal peace in Eu The peasantry of England, France, Switzerland, and the Low Countries, were freemen; but all the rest of Europe was in serfdom. The freedom of the German peasants was only begun in 1816, and that of the other Continental countries at later dates; in Russia so late as 1865. At the time of the visit I speak of, the French peasants had only recently been liberated through their great Revolution: so that the only peoples whom I found in Europe accustomed to freedom were those of Great Britain, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. As to the division of land-a question which at that time disturbed the whole of Europe, and, in my opinion, must disturb it again-it must be understood that Europe contains an area of about three million sev en hundred thousand square miles, or, say, twenty-three hundred and seventy million At the time of the visit the population of Europe was about one hundred and sixty-five millions, so that, had the land been equally divided among all, each person would have received fourteen and one-third acres. So far was this from being the fact that, ex acres. Forests.. Thus of the twenty-three hundred and seventy million acres of the total area of Europe, only eight hundred and eighty-five million acres were producing, against forty million acres in the United States. The producing land, therefore, amounted to only five and one-third acres per capita of population in Europe, while it was over six acres in the United States. As to the industries of Europe, except the woolen trade of England, which had been established in ancient times, and the cotton trade, which was only in its infancy at the time of my visit, there were none in the sense of the word as now employed. Europe was then in the midst of that wonderful intellectual excitement and revival which, beginning in. France during the early part of the previous century, had been among the chief causes of the Revolution, and was one of the few things to survive it. Subjects that in the present degenerate era it would be found difficult to obtain place for, even in a quarterly magazine, were then to be found on the toilet-tables of the beau-monde. Ladies flocked to the public séances of the Académie, and every branch of physical science formed a fashionable study. The result of this great avidity for useful learning was that brilliant series of scientific and mechanical discoveries of which the world is now enjoying the fruits. Steam and electricity were both discovered at this era. So were invented the weaving-machines, gin and chemical processes, which afforded such enormous impetus to the woolen and cotton trades, and formed the basis of the modern factory system. Cuvier, Humboldt, Davy, Goethe, and others of like weight, were the scientific giants of that age. Bichat, Buffon, Lavoisier, and Franklin, were but recently dead. Just as mechanical inventions had to await the scientific discoveries of these great minds, so organized industries had to follow in the footsteps of mechanical discovery. On the occasion of my visit the civilized world was therefore merely beginning to perform those marvelous mechanical labors which are now its proudest boast. With regard to commerce, there existed a small trade with the East Indies and China, chiefly in silks, cotton goods, tea, sugar, and drugs. There was a West-Indian trade in rum, sugar, coffee, and molasses. There was an American trade of some forty million dollars a year in cotton, tobacco, fish, timber, naval stores, and peltries; and there were beginnings of trades with all parts of the world. But beyond the trade in textile fabrics, which had then little more than a good beginning, there was nothing like the commerce of the present day, no commercial movement of breadstuffs and other grain, no traffic in beef, pork, lard, butter, and other great articles of food, no trade in India-rubber, guano, jute, raw wool, coal, iron and iron wares, other metals, machinery, tools, petroleum, live animals, or many other articles that now constitute the chief objects of commerce. All these trades have grown up of late years. In my youth they were either not known, or, like the trade in wool and corn, prohibited or taxed out of existence. So much for Europe in 1810, that Europe which, after having been governed by Rome and superstition for more than sixteen centuries, had at length awakened from her long period of repose, enjoyed a century or two of shaking up in all departments of thought and activity, and was now ready, with steamengine, and coal, and iron, to go to work and prove itself the leader of the continents. I have now recently returned from a journey to Europe, which I began in the spring of 1875. I passed over the same route which I traversed before. I saw the same countries, the same peoples, and noted the same class of facts. Need I say that the changes have been marvelous ? I praise Heaven that I am enabled to say that nowhere on the face of the Continent any longer exists human slavery in any form. The peasants in every country are free; no だ man is bound to the soil, all feudal and ecclesiastical services are abolished. The right to emigrate is denied in Russia, and many obstacles are placed in its way in Germany; but these last features of restraint and oppression must disappear in time. -1 The population of Europe now numbers about three hundred and five millions-nearly double its number in 1810. Taking the entire white or European population of the globe at the periods of each of my visitssay at one hundred and eighty millions in 1810, and at three hundred and sixty millions in 1875-let us see how much better or worse off it is for land now than it was sixty-five years ago. The producing area of Europe in 1875 I found to be one thousand and fifteen million acres. That of the United States is about two hundred and fifty million acres, and that of the British colonies, South America, and other countries inhabited by Europeans, about ulation of three hundred and sixty millions, amounts to but three and two-thirds acres each, against, let us say, five and one-eighth acres for the entire European race in 1810. thirty-five million acres-total, say, thirteen double, one-half of the entire number being hundred million acres. This area, for a pop-quartered upon the distant plains of the United States, La Plata, the Cape of Good Hope, and Australia. Upon these plains immense herds of horned cattle and sheep now graze, to yield their hides, horns, wool, and carcasses toward the support of those ever-increasing masses of men who go to make up the progressive nations of Europe and North America. Of course, these results are not exact, because of the commerce between the European races and others, which opens to the former the food-resources of countries not included in the producing area summarized. But the variation from the exact line is comparatively small, and may be ignored altogether without substantial injury to a truthful comparison. No one will admit for a moment that the general consumption of our race has diminished since the year 1810. For my own part, I can boast as good an appetite as ever; and it is a well-known fact that men now generally consume, and I may add waste, more abundance and variety of food, clothing, fuel, and other articles of subsistence, than ever before. Yet all these articles, except coal for fuel and metals for tools, implements, and engines, must be produced from the surface of the earth. The productiveness of that surface must, therefore, according to my figures, have become enhanced over fifty per cent., or at least one-half, in order that three and twothirds acres should now support as many lives as five and one-eighth acres did formerly. Had the acquisition of this great and significant fact been the only result of my two long journeys through Europe, I should have considered my time and labor well spent. That, throughout all the European world, three blades of corn now grow where but two grew before, assures us that four blades may yet be made to grow upon the same area, and puts to rest any fears that may have grown up as to the encroachments of population upon the limits of subsistence. And that this most important of all progresses should have occurred with our race, while, so far as we can learn, no such progress has occurred with any other race, also assures us of the continued multiplication and increase of our race, until, perhaps, it shall overcome and subdue the entire habitable earth. With reference to other important changes which my observations taught me had oc-l curred throughout the continent of Europe during the interval between my two visits thither, the most striking was the alteration of forest area. In 1810 the extent of forestarea in Europe was about eight hundred and forty-five million acres, or 35.7 per cent. of the entire surface; in 1875 this area had diminished to seven hundred and ninety-five million acres, or 33.6 of the surface. The difference, or fifty million acres, together with some eighty million acres of water-surface or waste and barren lands, constitutes the gain to the arable and pasture land. In regard to the proportion of arable to pasture land, I could obtain no definite details; but, roughly speaking, I should say that the latter stood as three to five of the former in 1810, while now they stand as two to four. The number of grazing animals in Europe is probably no greater now than it was sixty-five years ago, although the number at the disposal of Europeans is probably Of the numerous industries, manufacturing, mining, and commercial, which have sprung into existence since the date of my first visit to Europe, it is not necessary to speak. They are known of all the world. Lofty manufactories rear their tall chimneys in every country of Europe. Giant masses of iron raise their cyclopean arms, and rattle and hammer and weave incessantly at the bidding of man. Hideous machines, with lightning-like velocity, rush hither and thither upon iron rails, drawing masses of men and commodities in every direction, while myriads of steam vessels plough the main and penetrate the smallest rivers. But little more than threescore years have passed since my first visit to Europe, yet what mighty changes have occurred! The population of the civilized world has doubled, the limits of agricultural production have been extended fifty per cent., and the productive power of the land increased fifty per cent. The monopoly of estates has substantially disappeared, and even in backward Italy and Spain peasants' holdings are almost as numerous as they are in the more progressive countries of the north. Feudal tenures have been abolished or modified in every country, freedom is now the privilege of all, and both the productive power and the share of production of every individual increased many fold. Who will say, after this, that the world does not move? HE little child who watches with delight Tthe moon scampering wildly through the clouds of a windy night, and wonders why it does not sooner finish its race, and come down upon the far-off trees, is not the only subject of illuded sense. His brother who is old enough to accompany their father on a journey, and who, on crossing a ferry for the first time, sees the bank strangely moving away from the boat, and the trees and heavens spinning around overhead as the flat swings down-stream with the current, is another subject of illusion. And so is their father in many a thing, although, being more learned in the ways of Nature, the deception under which he labors may not be quite so palpable. In truth, scarcely a day passes in the lives of most people in which, despite all their intelligence, there is not more or less illusion of some of their senses. A laboring-man who had lost a leg used to complain bitterly of the itching of the missing toes. nervous. A similar nervous trouble, though of a more dignified character, occurred in the case of a young lady who suffered intensely from pain in the point of a forefinger. Her physician, erring in his diagnosis of the case, endeavored, without success, to relieve it by poulticing, blistering, and applying anodynes. One day a medical friend being present whose neurological information was of a higher order, he remarked to her jocosely : "I think, Miss M—; that you are mistaken as to the seat of the pain." "What, doctor!" she exclaimed, "do you suppose I do not know where it hurts me?" "I do," he replied; "and if you will loosen your dress so that I can reach your spine, I think you will soon agree with The opportunity being afforded, he put his finger upon one of the vertebræ between the shoulder-blades, and gave it a gentle pressure, when she screamed: "Doctor, you are right! The pain is in my back." "Well, now," said he, "having discovered the seat of the pain, I think we can relieve it." He applied a counter-irritant directly over the ailing spot, and in the course of a few days the finger was well. Among the illusions of the sense of feeling we must not forget to mention that curious deception, familiar to most boys, in which they cause one marble to seem to be two by rolling it in the palm of one hand by two of the fingers, crossed, of the other. Another deception of this sense is not so generally known. If three tumblers be filled with water-one hot as the finger will bear, and one cold aз can be obtained, and the third, the middle one, a lukewarm mixture of the two-and a finger of each hand be held for a minute one in the hot and the other in the cold tumbler, then both plunged together into the tepid, the water in this last will seem, at the same moment, hot to one finger and cold to the other. Illusions of the senses of smell and of taste seldom, if ever, occur, possibly from the fact, in the first named of the two (if it be a fact, which no man with a faithful nose can easily believe), that we have no recollection of odors. That illusions of the sense of sight should so greatly outnumber those of any other sense or of all the others combined, may be readily accounted for by the fact that impressions on the eye are so much more vivid; but this reason leaves us at a loss to account for the fact that illusions of the sense of hearing are so few in proportion to those of sight, and especially that they should be few compared with the usually supposed-less-vivid sense of feeling, unless we adopt the opinion held by many that the sense of feeling, so called, is not one sense, but many. Leaving these points, however, without discussion, we proceed with our main subject. We watch the majestic rising and setting rope, to which it clung by some contrivance in its feet, and by which it slowly descended until, having reached a den or hole in the midst of a distant thicket, it plunged herein and disappeared. He was so astonished by the unearthly vision that he stopped his horse on the broad highway and watched the scene to its end. How was he to account for it? For, however incubus-like the scene, it was no dream, but a reality, to which his senses testified as positively as to his own existence. He watched and reasoned, and soon the mystery was revealed. The monster had disappeared, but the rope along which it had so strangely traveled was still in view. Carefully scanning that rope through the misty air, he discovered that, instead of its overhanging the field afar off, one of its ends was attached to a twig distant from him only a few steps, and that, instead of his having looked upon a monster comparing in size with the hippopotamus, he had only been watch can readily conceive that the refraction of No optical illusions are more common than those connected with magnitude and distance. The magnitude of objects perceived by the eye is usually calculated by the angle which they subtend, corrected by the conjectured distance; for, the nearer the object, the greater the angle. And the distance of objects is usually conjectured from the angle they subtend, taken in connection with the brightness or haziness of their appearance; for distant objects are usually dimmed by the intervening atmosphere. It sometimes happens, however, that an object close at hand is dimmed by an unobserved haze, so as to seem to be at a distance; in which case, unless the spectator is able to correct the mistake by the force of reason, the object will assume in his conception gigantic proportions. A few years since a gentleman, well educated and by no means nervous, in riding along a public highway, saw in an adjoining field what seemed to him to be a wild beast of terrible aspect and monstrous proportions. Its body, equaling that of the half-grown hippopotamus in size, far exceeded it in uncouthness, and resembled nothing ever seen by him before, or described in books of natural history. Contrary to all rules of animal structure, its enormous body was nimbly borne by legs disproportionately long and slender. And what was strangest of all was that this enormous creature was suspended in the air by a had passed down one of the cables of its web to the entrance of its den. Oh, the relief to his mind! Had he not held on until the mystery was explained, he must have labored to the end of life under the impression that either he had been mentally deranged, or that he had beheld a monster such as was never before seen on earth. Persons traveling upon a railroad for the first time, at the speed of forty or fifty miles the hour, will sometimes be horrified and sometimes amused at what they seem to see. For instance, in rushing at this rate through a rugged "cut," if they will fix the eye steadily upon a projecting crag or rock on the side of the cut and upon a level with the eye, it will appear to increase in size so rapidly that the mind, unaccustomed to observe such rapid movements, can account for its increase only on the supposition that the rock or crag is projected at them, and they will be tempted, under the vivid impression, to draw themselves quickly back from the seeming missile, or, in other words, to dodge it. Also, whoever, while traveling at this rate, will occupy a place on the rear platform and let his eyes skim along the rail directly beneath, will hardly be able to escape from the conviction that the rail, instead of being a fixture on the road, is not running forward at a speed almost equal to that of the car. In passing by rail over a wide, grassy prairie, or by steamboat through the immense levels of green marsh bordering our Southern seaboard, the head becomes almost giddy with the ceaseless whirl which is visible around any point as a centre on which the eye happens to be fixed, all objects nearer than that point seeming to run rapidly back, and all farther objects as rapidly forward. This gyration is so graceful that the observer is tempted to watch it long. After a few minutes, however, unless forewarned, he is liable to experience an illusion which for a moment or two may give him serious disturbance-at least such was the experience of the writer. On a bleak winter's day he was passing by steamboat through a wide and beautiful marsh, and was enjoying the apparent motion just described, from the warmest place at tainable on deck, which was to the leeward of the hot iron chimney. Suddenly turning his eyes from the green marsh to a spot on deck above the wheel-shaft, he was startled to see the planks apparently forced from their fastenings as if by some slow, resistless power, which moved them past each other at the rate of several inches per second. Having not a doubt (for "seeing is believing ") that serious derangement had happened to the machinery below, and that the floor would soon be a total wreck, he sprang hastily away from the dangerous neighborhood, and at a safe distance turned to watch the progress of the accident. To his surprise, there was no break whatever. The planks occupied the same relative position, although they seemed even yet to be slightly moving. At this moment the thought occurred that the seeming motion of the planks was a reversed resemblance of the seeming whirl of the marsh, and was to be accounted for by the persistent impression made upon the retina. Hundreds of times since has he enjoyed the illusion, and called the attention of others to it, many of whom had never observed it before. There is another optical phenomenon, not quite so much of an illusion, yet, being only a seeming, must be put into the same category. When the sun shines brightly upon the floor of a piazza or of an open bridge, causing a strong contrast between the illuminated faces of the planks and the dark lines of division between, if any one will walk firmly across these planks and interstices, keeping the line of sight steadily fixed downward and forward at an angle of about forty-five degrees with the floor, he will probably see a strange quivering of the planks, as if the floor were about to give way. The qualifying adverb "probably" is used because, although some persons discern the quivering on their first trial, others cannot discern it after repeated attempts. The quivering does not take place within the circle of perfect vision, but just outside of it; yet, so great did it appear to the one who first observed it, that he thought the bridge on which he was walking was about to be shaken to pieces. This illusion is explained by remembering that the interior of the eyeball is partly filled with fluids which, being jarred by the heel striking firmly upon the floor, cause a wavy motion of the retina in all those parts not kept steady by the mus cles of the eye. We give no notice of those remarkable, and in some instances terrible, hallucinations attendant upon a state of disease-hallucinations in which the individual sees, as plainly as with the real eye, the figures and faces of friends far distant, or of persons deceased, or of strangers never seen before, and, in cases of delirium tremens, of fierce demons haunting the sight or clinging to the person. The omission has been intentional. The object of the writer was to describe only those cases which have fallen under his own observation, and in which all persons may feel a practical interest, for the reason that they occur in every-day life, and the greater part of them may be verified by any one who will keep the eyes open at the proper time. F. R. GOULDING. AN HOUR IN AN ITALIAN AMPHITHEATRE. A LIVE Chinaman, pigtail and all, is such an uncommon sight "in fair Verona, where we lay our scene," that I paused astounded, cigarette in one hand and coffee-cup in the other, as a very radiant Celestial, in a figured purple gown, calmly seated himself beside me, in front of the café, under one of the cool arcades that border the broad piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. He proved to be communicative, and, after a short skirmish in the language of the country, in the course of which John showed a remarkable ability for converting French into Italian by the addition of an o or an i to each word, I abruptly addressed him a question in English, receiving a prompt reply in the same tongue. There was now no further hinderance to a free interchange of our experiences, and we sat and waited for the heat of the day to pass, and discussed America and Italy, but particularly the show-business, in which I soon found my friend to be warmly interested. As he rose to go away, he said: "Of course you'll drop in and see our show this afternoon, even if it be Sunday?" "To be sure," I replied, "if you'll tell me where to find it." "In the Amphitheatre, at half-past four," said he, "and don't be late, for the swordgame comes first." These words carried me back two thou sand years in an instant. At half-past four o'clock, in the Amphitheatre, to see the sword-game! Of course I went, primed to the full with reminiscences of what I had learned of old Roman life, and prepared to see naval combats, or gladiatorial fights, as the supreme powers had dictated for that af ternoon's enjoyment. The Amphitheatre of Verona differs in no essential detail from other existing ruins, except in being much better preserved than the majority of these colossal structures; therefore a description of it would be of no great interest here. It is sufficient to say that it is one hundred and sixty-seven metres long, one hundred and thirty-three wide, thirty-two high, and will contain on its marble benches twenty-five thousand spectators seated, or seventy thousand standing! Occupying oue corner of the piazza, almost in the very centre of the busy little city, it is the first object to meet the stranger's eye as he starts out in search of antiquities. Its blackened, shattered walls tower far above the neighboring houses, and furnish grateful shade to hundreds of lounging Italians gathered there in the heat of the day. At the appointed time, I strolled through the gate at the grand entrance, and proceeded to exchange four sous for a large yellow pasteboard, covered with Chinese characters. The ticket-seller, a very florid Englishwoman, assured me that the show was worth ten times the sum, only the Italians grudged even the trifle demanded, and carried in grown-up children as infants in arms; and she was proceeding with a vehement denouncement of the race, when a flourish of trumpets in the interior announced that the show had begun, and I hastened in. Through the damp corridor we went, our steps dimly lighted by great archways opening on the outside; up the broad, steep, stone stairs; along the symmetrically-curved passage, a marvel of thorough workmanship; up a short flight of brick stairs, and out upon the marble seats of the great ellipse. The first sight was an extinguisher upon my enthusiasm. The hour had been chosen when the shadow of the walls fell across the arena, and covered a tiny theatre, built of gaudily. painted boards, with a platform for the or chestra, and a few roughly-constructed private boxes and reserved inclosures. The grand lines of the arena dwarfed to trifling insignificance this mushroom excrescence on its broad level, and the blue-and-red-stained ornaments of this dramatic mockery were in little harmony with the fiue and simple colors of the cool, gray marble in shadow, and the exquisitely-contrasting, broad, warm sunlight on the opposite side. On the marble benches were a thousand people, fairly lost in the great expanse of sitting-room reaching away on either side to the limits of the shadow; the reserved places held a few swells, who did not look so hard at an extra sou as the rest of us, and the blue coats of a military band were half hidden by the voluminous music-scores in the crowded orchestra. The sword-game was about to begin. Two Chinamen, in crimson satin and blue-silk costumes hung with countless bells, occupied the stage. One of them-my friend of the café— acted as spokesman and general diverter of public attention; his companion was a tall, reticent, ugly looking rascal, with cheekbones pushing out his pock-marked skin almost as high as the bridge of his Celestial nose, and with eyes of a very decided oblique angle. Two swords were produced; my interest quickened again, and I was almost persuading myself that there was to be fun between the barbarians, when the giant of the great jaw slowly began to cram both wide blades down his capacious, wound-proof throat, my friend meanwhile indulging in the most fran. tic jumping-jack exercises, and shrieking unintelligible spasmodic words of encouragement. When the blades were fairly in the giant's maw, and he looked like some bird of gay plumage spitted for the fire, feathers and all, the excitement of the audience was supreme. My cries of "Habet! habet!" were drowned by prolonged shouts of "Bravo!" with an accompaniment of hand-applause; and the noise did not diminish until he had unspitted himself successfully, and had repeated his salam a half-score of times. The grand old interior gave dignity even to such a performance as we were witnessing; the voice of the people and their quick, sympathetic recognition of the efforts of the performers indicated the same impulsive spirit that their ancestors displayed in the enjoyment of nobler games; the same blue sky arched over the inclosure that smiled upon the bloody combats which turned men's hearts to stone as they grew accustomed to the horrid spectacles. This was, to be sure, a ridicu lous parody on the sports of the Romans; but it required little effort of the imagination to whisk out of sight the cheaply-painted theatre, to repeople entirely the immense ellipse with full, brown faces, bright garments, and to magnify the hum of the thousand into the murmur of fifty times that number. The upper row of benches cut off, for those sented lower down, any view of the town or country beyond, but the wide arches behind the spectators framed in beautiful pictures the sunlit streets and the broad piazza-pictures dancing in the heated air like the reflections in an unquiet pool. How many times have eyes weary of slaughter turned to gaze upon these peaceful pictures of flat-roofed houses with the sheaves of grain drying in the sun, the women knitting in the shade of the doorways, and the scrubby fig-trees casting sharp shadows of the broad leaves and plump figs on the dazzling white of the walls! The sound of wheels and the cries of children have come up then as to-day faintly through those arched openings, reminding the spectators that the sequel of the drama enacting before them little influenced the busy world outside, bringing back the sympathetic spirit to his habitation again—a welcome break in the tension of too great preoccupation with the exciting human struggles going on in the arena below, and wafting in with the cool breeze a little odor of peace, and home, and domestic comfort, to reach even the senses of the homeless wretches doomed to play with their lives for the entertainment of tyrants satiated with sensual pleasures, and for the diversion of a thoughtless people. Shoo, fly!" in a Roman amphitheatre! The conventional double-length shoes; the three-story collars; the nondescript garments of blue-and-white stripes; the shiny, black faces, with the raw, red mouths suspicious of a last pull of the needful in the wings; the tell-tale spots of florid skin around the eyelids and behind the ears-real American minstrels, and no discount. The rattle of the banjo reverberated probably for the first time between those walls; the limping, halting, shuffling walk-around; the India-rubber leaps and jointless poses; the lisping solo and spasmodic, hearty chorus, doubtless rarely reechoed before in this solemn ruin. But the song-and-dance men gained consideration only from the hideousness of the make-up and the extravagance of their leaps. The spirit of the dance and the character of the music was wholly lost on the public. Indeed, my friend the Chinaman had informed me at the café that the song-and-dance men, or minstrels in general, were a profitless attraction on the bill. It seemed to be the general opinion around me that the dancers were Moors from Venice, since all the darkies seen in Verona are presumed to have come from the seaport; and it was loudly discussed whether it was a war-dance or a religious ceremony. My assertion that I had been in the country where the people had such entertainments betweenmeals found no believers. The black pair shuffled off, and a dumpish figure waltzed in in true coryphée style. The musicians were seen to fumble their scores, and, after some hesitation, goaded on by decided language on the part of the dancer, the orchestra reeled off, rather deliberately, the Highland fling, sailor's hornpipe, Rory O'More, a clog-dance, the czárdas, and various other national dances, the lively little English girl dodging behind a screen and changing her dress, reappearing in an instant, always in costume to fit the part. The flying-trapeze, with the "brothers," of course, was next swung out upon the stage, and, strangely enough, the skill and strength of the performers excited no comment, while the unfailing and simultaneous way in which they swung up into place side by side on the bar at the end of each feat called forth a thunder of bravos. My friend the Chinaman strutted a few brief moments on the boards, slicing the air with three or four bright knives, and nimbly slipped out by the wings while the audience was expecting a still greater exhibition of skill. Nevertheless he was cheerfully encored; truly it is part of an actor's art to give an impression of reserved powers. Another Chinaman played with a fresh egg; still another gave the ever-new fan-trick; and so there was no pause in the interesting series of games. But a model variety-show wasting its attractions on the unappreciative senses of a thousand Italians is truly a sad spectacle. And there was no reason why it should not have been an unqualified success. Time: the cooler hours of the daylight tapering off into approaching twilight. Place: the grandest of all theatres. Admission: four sous; children in arms (no limit as to age), half price. But, interesting as the performance was to one for years away from the spleen-dispelling influences of the genuine variety-show, the study of types and characters in the audience was twice as entertaining and quite as profitable. Among the spectators the vigorous inhabitants of the valley of the Adige were easily distinguishable from their more indolent neighbors of the plain, and their stronglymarked, rugged features furnished a type of the honest, happy mountaineer, with spirit as restless as the wind that blows through | the gorges of the rapid stream, fed by the glaciers of the Alps. The sunny, fertile slopes of the Italian Tyrol lend much warmth and glow to the hearts of the people who cultivate the vine there, and the moment one begins to leave behind the chill regions of Southern Austria, peopled with victims of the goître, crétins, and human animals of only sufficient strength of character to be unmitigated bigots in religion, that moment the warm rays of the Italian sun bring cheerfulness and merry hearts to all-fire to the eye, color to the cheek, and symmetry to the form. After the hideous faces of the Austrian Tyrol, the pure oval of the Italian type is grateful to the eye nor is there found in any national type more diversity than in the type which is recognizable as Italian. Every one of the spectators at Verona would be recognized in Boston as Italian, and there were among them eyes as pale-blue as opal, and hair as light as the most bleached Saxon locks. Still, the Italian character was plainly marked in such faces; there was a childlike twinkle about the eye, a careless, improvident look that marks the common people almost universally, and every movement of the features betrayed the impulsiveness of the Italian nature. Comelier faces than those of the Verona girls are rarely seen. Piles of powdered hair adorn the head, and a black veil, daintily adjusted, gives grace to every pose; nor do they scorn to plentifully besprinkle the rich skin of their faces with a coarse white powder, which heightens by contrast rather than subdues by superposi. tion the rich, glowing, yellow complexion. The noisy romps of the girls in the old ruin, after the show was ended, put altogether out of the question any indulgence of my inclination for solitary meditation, and I retreated, leaving them masters of the arena, as the lineal descendants and legitimate heirs of the constructors and proprietors thereof. |