widow of Ferdinand Bomba. She was, as a queen, cruel and Maria Theresa of Austria was the second wife, and is now the sanguinary, like her husband, and hated by the people to death. she, to escape the popular fury, was obliged to fly from the When Francis II. granted a constitution to save his dynasty, capital and shut herself up in Gaeta for several months, and

then leave for Rome, exiled, despised and accursed by all.

the queens of Naples. Scarcely had she married Francis II. The young Queen Maria Sophia was doomed to close the list of (who was brought up to be a Capuchin) when she was put into mourning by the death of her father-in-law. As soon as she being shut up in Gaeta, she suffered the shame and grief of a was a queen, Garibaldi upset the throne of her husband, and, defeat; and, after a reign of one year, in the very hour in which Cialdini entered Gaeta, she left the Neapolitan shores, never, it would seem, to see them again.

the Queens of Naples; and it cannot be considered anything This historical sketch speaks too plainly of the sad destiny of that the line of the Queens of Naples has finished, and that of else than a piece of good fortune for the princesses of Europe

the Queens of Italy begun.

When well enough to get up after her accouchement, the king, playing with her in his room, as she arose took away the chair where she had been seated; 8 that when she bent to sit down again, she fell on her back. The king be

ginning to laugh, she felt indignant and said, "Your majesty has just played the part of a lazzarone." Upon which, Ferdinand gave her a severe blow on her cheek-an insult not only unkiogly but unmanly.

MONEY and time have both their value. He who makes a bad use of the one will never make a good use of the other.

THE QUAY OF SANTA-LUCIA AT NAPLES.

THE stranger's first feeling on visiting Naples is one of surprise at the strange commingling of the aristocracy and fashionable people with tradesmen. If weary of the noise of the pretentious equipages which, after four o'clock, crowd together in La Chiaja, you have but to cross that avenue of olive trees, and you will find yourself on a quay frequented by fishermen, less elegant but more picturesque than they are usually represented, and where you will fancy yourself an hundred leagues outside the pale of civilization.

If from the Largo del Palazzo you wish to reach Chiaramonte by descending the declivity which extends in front of the arsenal, you will suddenly find yourself transported into another world. The scene is not wanting in grandeur; to the right rise the steep heights of Pizzo Falcone, lined at base and

hire it by the hour. "Your excellency, shall we sail to Nisita or Castellamare? My boat is fleeter than the wind," will ejaculate some ambitious captain. Look before you there, or that maule laden with copper ornaments, as well as baskets of fruit, will knock against you. Be careful, also, how you tread, or you will step upon that sleeping man, or that child playing in the middle of the street, or you may slip upon that melon rind, orange paring or Barbary fig. Above all, do not lose your temper in this crowd, for you will only be laughed at. And do not push aside that facchino as a nuisance, for by-and-bye you may need him as guide and interpreter, and will be glad to make him happy with ninepence. You must not feel disappointed either if you fail to find among the crowd the lazzaroni or beggars, which are described in romances as lying half-naked, asleep in the sun. Here, as elsewhere, the poor labor, and sometimes very hard, to gain a livelihood. But their wants are few, for the sun clothes and warms them. As the fruits which abound

summit with tall mansions; opposite are the sombre walls of | here satisty their hunger and thirst, and as their cheerful temthe Castello del Ovo, while to the extreme left Cape Pausilippo peraments replace what would he wanting elsewhere, these and the azure waves of the Gulf may be seen. But however people, of course, have not the stimulus to exertion which urges fond you may be of contemplation, you will find it difficult to on the inhabitants of less genial climes. indulge in it in the midst of the throng by which you are surrounded. For this quay of Santa-Lucia, in spite of its size, swarms with a noisy, talkative population, bent on business. Do yon wish fresh fish, oysters, frutti di mare (shell fish)? you have then only to step to one of those booths ranged along the sidewalk. Do you prefer a slice of rosy watermelon for less than a penny? you may, to use the seductive expression of the vendor, "Eat, drink and wash yourself." The smoke arising from yonder stands inform you that chestnuts are being roasted and are for sale there. Beware of that boy on crutches, he will not let you pass without a gratuity! That vehicle will almost run you over in order to attract your attention and induce you to

If you would repeat after as before your visit: "I would see Naples and die," you must extend your observations beyond the city proper and its inhabitants. Go to Portici, or, better still, to Mergellina. After returning from your artistic excursions to the museums and churches, instead of narrow, dark, noisy, noxious streets, you should retire to a villa with fragrant gardens. The sea will be at your feet; Vesuvius will be before you, or the enchanted isles of Nisita, Procida, Capri, and over your head the most beautiful sky in the world; from this spot you cannot fail to bear away glorious remembrances of the hours passed in the bosom of this radiant nature, which delights the soul while it vivifies the body.

1

THE HARVEST MOUSE (MUS MESSORIUS OR MUS
MINUTUS).

MANY persons would be surprised if they were told that a new quadruped had, within some few years past, been discovered in England; and yet it is so. Mr. White, of Selborne, was the person to do this, and his researches were rewarded by his introducing to naturalists the harvest mouse, certainly the smallest four-footed animal we have. We will proceed to give some account of it, and it will be found from its manner of life that it is possessed of equal sagacity with the larger kinds.

We have stated that Mr. White was the first person to bring these animals into notice, although from the account he has published in his charming "Natural History of Selborne," he was evidently ignorant of many of their habits. We will endeavor to supply this deficiency, and the account may prove interesting to those who are little acquainted with the animal in question.

The length of the harvest mouse, including the tail, is four inches. Its color a beautiful reddish yellow on the back and sides, the whole of the under parts being a pure white. The head is small, the nose sharp, the eyes large and prominent and jet black. The whiskers are numerous but weak, ears short, the fore-feet small, with four toes and a rudimentary thumb. The nails are long in proportion, and with them the animal firmly holds its food and conveys it to his mouth. The hind feet are much longer and stronger, having five distinct toes, long and covered with fine hair to the nails. The tail is equal in length to the body, prehensile, thus greatly assisting them when climbing amongst the grass. Weight, two pennyweights and eighteen grains. All the movements of this little creature are agile and graceful. When seated on their hind legs they are capable of extending the body to a considerable angle like the kangaroos.

A nest, containing a female and three young ones, was taken in a hayfield in the month of June. The young were apparently about a month old. They were all placed in a cage, where the young ones grew rapidly, and in a short time could feed themselves, although the mother continued to suckle them. They were the most playful as well as diminutive of all quadrupeds, being in constant motion during their hours of exercise, climbing about the wires of their cage and holding by their prehensile tails, frequently hanging by one foot and the tail. They sometimes fed during the middle of the day, but more generally in the evening, at which time they are most active between the hours of nine and eleven, and perhaps most part of the night. In their gambols the eye can scarcely follow them, such is the rapidity of their motions, for they dart like lightning, scarcely appearing to touch the ground. Their cage was six inches high from the bottom to the top wires, and it was a favorite exercise to leap from the bottom to the top, in the same manner as the leopards and tigers in confinement. This feat was done by all in succession, as if they were following their leader. When the height of the animal and the spring are taken into consideration, it may be considered enormous, being twelve times as high as itself. They are fond of canary seed, barley, bread or biscuit. They drink frequently, by lapping like a dog. In their state of freedom, the pearly dewdrops must be their beverage, as the fields where they were taken are dry, having no water of any kind.

The nest of this pretty little animal is made of grass, formed into a ball about the size of a cricket ball, and is suspended on a plant about five inches from the ground, sometimes, as Mr. White informs us, on the head of a thistle. He also says that it is so compact and well-placed, that it will roll across the table without being discomposed, though it contains eight little mice that are naked and blind. As the nest which he saw was perfectly full, Mr. White asks how could the dam come to her young so as to administer a teat to each? Perhaps she opens different places for that purpose, adjusting them again when the business is over; but she could not possibly be contained herself in the ball with her young, which, moreover, would be daily increasing in bulk. This wonderful procreant cradle, an elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, was found in a wheatfield, suspended in the head of a thistle. In winter, the little animal burrows deep into the ground and makes a warm bed of

grass.

EL PASEO.

[THE favorite resort of the Habanese is El Paseo de Tacon, just outside of the walls of Havana, and extending up to the foot of the hill on which is built the fort of Principe. It is lined by a double row of trees on both sides, between which are walks and seats for pedestrians snd spectators. Here, towards sundown, congregate the wealth and beauty of Havana, to listen to the music of military bands stationed at intervals, to see and be seen. It frequently happens that a double row of volantes and carriages extends from one end of the Paseo to the other, a distance of more than a mile. A correspondent of the Providence Journal has recorded his reminis cences of the Paseo in the following lines, which, although they halt a little here and there, nevertheless have much of the glow and inspiration of the Paseo de Tacon.]

Cloudlessly burning in sapphire aloft,

Eve touches the grove with an orange light,
And a seaborn zephyr, whispering soft
To me as I stroll in the shade to-night,
Balmily wooing me, kissing my cheeks
With a moist and perfumed breath so dear,
Of billow and blossom deliciously speaks,
For with both it had dallied in journeying here.

And leisurely sauntering to and fro

In a magical daydream all my own,

I gaze at the beautiful dames that go
In their open volantes up and down;
Bewitchingly floating, by threes and by twos,
In their gauzy cloudlets of silk and of lace,
That seemed to have robbed the sky of its hues,
And seemed to have robbed the swan of its grace.

Bright creatures, with rosy-ripe mouths full of smiles,
And ungarnered kisses to madden desire,
Or pouting and wreathing with womanish wiles,
Or flushed with a chaste and delicate fire;
With their tresses, more dusk than the raven's plume,
Disparting in ripples of jet from cheeks
Aglow with the lush and luxuriant bloom,
In which their tropical nature speaks.

In a gaudy procession they pass and return,
Voluptuous beauties in manner and mould,
With their black Spanish eyes that languish and burn,
Now temptingly tender, now tauntingly bold;
And display, in an indolent semi-repose,

Their full and superb and swan shouldered for ms,
Or, sporting their coquettish fans, expose
The tapering white of their jewelled arms.

And, lazily loitering here and there,
Under the shadow of murmuring limes,
Puffing a redolent smoke in the air,

Lulled by the peal of the vesper chimes,
By the fountain's trill, by the ocean's roll,
By the languor and calm of the eventide--
To all its weet ravishment yielding the soul.
There lounges many a group by my side.

Till the lingering glory wavers and wanes
From shadowy slope and from glimmering height,
And the tall royal palm alone retains

In the sheaf of its leaves a roseate light,
Till the marvellous night steals into the skies,
And white in the moon lie the land and the sea,
And the women are gone with their beautiful eyes,
And the luminous stars are blinking o'er me.

And lonelily musing under the limes,

The wandering breeze, like a friend at my ear,
Doth hum an old music that hints of old times,
Old faces, old friends and old memories dear;
And my vision is blurred and my heart is afar
In the land that it love 3 where the snow still lies,
In the home that it loves with a lady rare,
And blest in the light of her soft northern eyes.

AN ASCENT OF MONTE ROSA.

STANDING among the thousand statue-crowned pinnacles of the great marble cathedral of Milan, commenced before the dis

covery of America, steadily worked at ever since, and still un- | finished, the traveller looks northward, over the green plains of Lombardy, to the Alps, beyond the classic lakes of Como and Maggiore. The most imposing feature of this great mountain chain is the gigantic buttress of Monte Rosa-so called from the rosy hue of its snowy crown and icy slopes, when the evening sun floods them with its parting rays. In height it is only next to Mont Blanc. Some surveys make it higher, as it certainly is more grand and striking. Its altitude as last fixed is 15,160 feet, or nearly three miles. It has rarely been ascended, the ascent being much more difficult than that of Mont Blanc. Its summit is not one peak, but a bristling group of rocky and icy pinnacles. The latest ascent of the mountain, which is regarded as an extraordinary feat among tourists, was made by an American, who has written the following account:

Though I had previously shrunk from attempting this most difficult excursion, from a sense of lack of the physical training, requisite to its satisfactory issue, the experience of the week had tended to inspire me with confidence, to say nothing of the positive assurances of my guide. So, after a few preliminary words, we agreed to join forces, and attack this second giant of the Alps next A. M. The ascent was first made six or seven years ago, and is now getting quite popular, though far more Idifficult than the ascent of Mont Blanc. We soon gave the necessary orders for provisions, provided ourselves with hardwood Alpine stocks, thick yarn mittens, &c., and went to bed early, leaving orders to be waked at one o'clock. I slept soundly till half-past one, when the summons came, and I put my head out of the window to see the most glorious, clear, frosty sky, with the pale moon just past full, yet two hours high. A warm winter suit and a cup of tea, and the necessary jabber with the three guides, completed our preparations, and we got under weigh at half-past two, with just a faint bit of twilight gleaming over the Bernese Alps in the north, and the nearer peaks of the Matterhorn and Breithorn standing sharp against the southern sky.

Standing a few steps in advance of the guides along the wellknown path to the Gorner glacier, some fifteen minutes had elapsed before I discovered that four instead of three men were following. It turned out to be a common dodge on the part of the guides to employ a porter to carry grub, at our expense, under plea of custom. We speedily got rid of him by telling all hands he must look to the guides for pay, telling them if they three wouldn't carry enough for five of us to eat, we could help. At half-past four we had crossed the great stream of the Gorner glacier diagonally from under the Gorner-grut cliff, the ice stream bring about three miles wide here; and just as the sun was gilding the "höchste spitze" for which we were bound we attained the rocky cliff at the base of the mountain, along side of which pours down a great glacier between Monte Rosa and the Lyskamus, about one mile and a half wide, a tributary of the stream we had crossed. Little had been said by any of us, except a joke concerning the fine bathtubs we passed. The ice was covered with oval pools, two to ten feet long, for a part of the way, lying in clear azure blue basins with perpendicular sides about as deep as their diameter, which would have been very inviting bathtubs in Boston, in summer, but whose surface was now skimmed one-half inch thick with new ice, formed since sunset, so we took good care to jump clear of them as we passed. They are formed by collections of sand or dirt, first washed into casual depressions by rain or surface water, which, by getting warm in mid-day sun, sink straight into the ice, and leave a pool of crystal water above them. After getting about as deep as the diameter of the tub, the shadows of the sides prevent their bottoms from melting faster than the surrounding surface, so there they appear to stay, though really sinking some twenty feet every summer with the waste of the whole surface. I stopped to take a drink of the contents of one of the last of these sapphire vessels, to the disgust of the guides, who always discourage water drinking.

Before attacking the steep slopes of the mountain, we made a "cache" of eatables and drinkables-putting three bottles of wine into a rivulet of ice water, and covering some bread and meat with some stones to keep off crows. The most of the climbing is done upon deep snow slopes of various angles of inclination, some being very like the roof of a barn, and some very much steeper, rendering direct ascent almost impractica

ble, and causing us to adopt the infallible zigzag track so common in Swiss roads. The direction varied to suit the details of the mountain from time to time, but we found an uninterrupted succession of these slopes for five consecutive hours of steady climbing, varied, it is true, with the most sublime scenery in the immediate neighborhood; for our winding slopes were now flanked, now overhung, now underlaid by stupendous crevasses and ice cliffs and fantastic huge pyramidal blocks of ice, some of which I estimated at two hundred and fifty feet in height. The unearthly, ghastly, greenish-blue tint of these ice cliffs and chasms has never yet been painted. There seems to be something phosphorescent or self-luminous about it, while their infinite variety of detail in form defies all attempt at description.

An acquaintance with the milder forms of the glacier world at lower points had never given me a hint of the awful granThe excitement created a sense of dreamideur of these scenes. ness, as if it could not all be real, soon dissipated, however, by the disagreeable necessity of looking sharp to our footing. The surface of the snow on which we climbed was all fresh after the first two thousand feet ascent, having fallen within a week sufficiently stiff through alternate sunshine and frost to give good foothold, sometimes requiring a hard stamp, however, to make an impression. Of course, every bit of crust detached by our feet would slide down to unexplored regions of cliff and crevasse, for our path wound about among such places, wherever a smooth incline presented itself.

We stopped once at seven o'clock to breakfast, the guide cutting a bench in the snow about two feet wide to sit on, the chips cut out serving to remind us of where we might go if we took a slide, for we never saw them again. The snow was in capital condition, and we reached the top of the slopes at halfpast nine, leaving the knapsacks of grub on the snow at nine o'clock, and carrying each a slice of bread in the pocket, to gnaw upon. Just above here we crossed the "bergschune," or chasm, always found where the moving mass of the glacier detaches itself from the fixed snow and ice which cling to the upper part of the peaks to a limited thickness. Of course its character greatly changes from year to year. Now it happened to be only about ten feet wide here, and was nicely bridged by some of the later snow storms, just where it came convenient for us to cross it.

We passed near one edge of the snow bridge, and could look down into the green blue depth, fringed with massive icicles and stalagmites of ice, like greedy teeth in the jaws of a monster, the depth of whose throat was lost in twilight. Well, at half-past nine we reached the top of these snow slopes, which had presented no difficulties, merely a steady grind of bone and muscle for five hours of frosty weather, with plenty to eat. Now came the tug; for, though within less than one thousand feet of our goal, we had to attain it by keeping on the edge of a sharp crest of ice, one side of which (toward Switzerland) stood at a very high angle, so steep, indeed, that it is not thought safe to cut steps along the side of it, with the privilege of leaning against it, for fear of detaching whole masses, and going down therewith, while the other side appeared to hang over its base in some places, and was at all times fearfully precipitous. The ice was hard and firm on the crest, however, and our only trouble was in keeping balance, and getting good footing where the fresh snow concealed slippery places. Our feet were not planted more than two feet from the edge of the crest, for below this the snow was deeper and might slide, and so we steadily poked our way along, never daring to lift a foot until our ach stick was driven into the crest to hold on by. Of course, we were all tied together, about eight feet of rope between each. The leading guide was a real trump, about fortyfive years old, short and thick, strong as an ox, and tame as a sheep. After getting up about half way in this manner, the route is varied by jagged rocks sticking up through the ice, which we had to get over or around, as best we might. Luckily they were stratified rocks, standing nearly on elge, giving a large number of salient points for finger hold, so that while swinging my weight from one point to the other, by means of the arms, I felt much better off than when on the icy crest, with nothing but an ash stick to hold on to.

Among these rocks we were told to leave our sticks on the snow, for the rest of the way demanded all our fingers. In