risk of pauperising or creating loss of self-respect; but it must be remembered that a little timely aid at this period may often save them from the fate of growing up burdens to themselves and others, and be the means of giving to society healthy men and women in the place of helpless cripples.

Under the term Class Hospitals, it is meant to include those which are set apart, not for special diseases, but for special classes. Such are the Herbert Hospital for soldiers, appropriately named in honour of the late Lord Herbert; the Seamen's Hospital; also those belonging to different nationalities. There is a German Hospital at Dalston, containing one hundred beds; and those who are not aware of the numbers of Germans who are settled in London will be surprised to hear that upwards of sixteen thousand patients were under treatment during last year. Then the Jews have a hospital at Norwood; and again, for Spanish and Portuguese Jews, there is a hospital called 'Belti Holim' at Mile End. The Seamen's Hospital has now been granted a lease, at a nominal rent, of the late infirmary of Greenwich Hospital, in lieu of the Dreadnought, which it formerly occupied. This is the only hospital for seamen in the neighbourhood of London; and when one looks out upon the vast forest of masts rising up from the Thames, when one thinks of the numbers of seamen from every country on the globe who annually arrive in the port of London, and when one considers how much of the wealth of this metropolis depends upon their skill and hardihood, it must be admitted that this hospital has pre-eminent claims upon the sympathy and support of Englishmen. The present building is admirably suited for a hospital. The wards are lofty and airy rooms, and only contain three or four beds each. This is a great advantage, when the patients belong to so many different nationalities, that the result of a large ward would be to produce a regular babel of tongues. Notwithstanding this expenditure of space, the premises are sufficiently large to admit of about three hundred patients being accommodated at a time. Whether it be the contrast between a hospital bed and the usual activity of his life, or the lack of that 'jollity' which is conventionally supposed to form part of his character-whichever it be, there is no class of patient that appears so thoroughly helpless as poor Jack Tar when you see him stretched on his back. It is touching to see the child-like docility with which the great strong fellow surrenders himself to the nurse, and accepts every suggestion that comes from her. This hospital is open to sick and diseased seamen of all nations, and it is perfectly free. No letter of recommendation is required; the necessity of the patients being sufficient to secure their instant admission. Less than this could not be expected from a great maritime country. Sick seamen are continually arriving as total strangers in the port of London, and their condition would be forlorn indeed without such an institution as this. Here they find within their reach skilful physicians and surgeons, and all that care and nursing can do to fit them for again pursuing their calling. About one-half the number of patients admitted into this hospital are Englishmen; the remaining half consists of natives of every country in the four quarters of the globe; while as many as one hundred and eighty-five are true children of the seas, having

been born at sea, and claiming the protection of the country under whose flag they sailed.

Several of the large hospitals have what are called Samaritan funds' attached to them for giving special privileges to patients. One of the most important of these privileges is enabling patients who have been benefited at the hospital to go to a Convalescent Home for the completion of their cure. These institutions do not come under the head of metropolitan hospitals, as they are all in the country, but in very many cases they practically contribute towards the treatment of metropolitan hospital patients. There are convalescent homes in the neighbourhood of London, at Ascot, at Walton-onThames, and at Ockham, and several others at the different watering-places, Eastbourne, Bognor, Ramsgate, Dover, Seaford, Bournemouth. Those who have felt the invigorating and restorative effects of sea-air upon a constitution debilitated by illness and long confinement, will be able to understand the blessings which can be afforded to the sick poor of London by a sojourn in one or other of these sea-side homes. One word of practical suggestion before concluding. Donations in kind are gratefully received by all the London hospitals. Few people consider, or are aware how useful many of the things that are every day cast aside or wasted might become, by being collected and sent to one or other of the hospitals. In addition to cast-off wearing-apparel of men, women, or children, which is most valuable for giving to poor patients on leaving the hospital, we would especially mention newspapers, magazines, and periodicals. Some of the railway companies have adopted the plan of placing a large box on the platform at the terminus to receive papers for the use of hospital patients. It is to be wished that the plan was universally adopted. It might even be extended with advantage to provincial stations for the benefit of the local infirmary. The traveller who buys a paper to beguile the tedium of his journey, and after glancing over it, pronounces 'there is nothing in it,' may, by dropping it into this box, have the satisfaction of knowing that it will be a prize for some poor patient, to be eagerly conned over by him during the long dreary hours of confinement. But besides this, in most houses, periodicals and magazines accumulate rapidly in these days of cheap and abundant literature. They are seldom used after they have lost their first novelty. Such publications-especially those containing illustrations-if collected and forwarded periodically to some hospital, would be of great value.

Then, again, how much pleasure would pictures and toys, when cast aside by the spoilt pets of the nursery, bestow on the little sufferers in the children's hospitals! Lastly, all sick people love flowers. Children seem especially to yearn after them. They delight to see large nosegays standing in water on the tables in the wards; and we have seen a little patient made happy for a whole afternoon, by a handful of primroses and violets, to play with on his bed. Those who have gardens of their own, would not enjoy them less for the occasional gift of a hamper of flowers, which perhaps they would hardly miss, to be put into the little hands which cannot gather them for themselves. All of us-us who have the use of our limbs, and can walk out into the green fieldshave a share in the great garden which is spread around us at this season; it is easy to sympathise

In the course of the exploration of South America from the Pacific to the Atlantic, whose history is being narrated in instalments by Mr Paul Marcoy, the expedition fell in with, and made careful studies of a number of Indian tribes whose existence is hardly known to the outer world, but who offer an almost endless variety of tribal customs and individual features to the observation of the traveller. Among these there are some who, having in former times been brought under the now long-dispelled influence of the Spanish Missiones, adopted a kind of Christianity, and for a time, at least, had a glimmering of civilisation; while there are others who have never suffered the isolation of their savage life to be interrupted by communications from without, who have adhered steadily to their own ways, and whose aspect of to-day is, in all probability, precisely the same as that of their forefathers, countless generations before the armed heel of Pizarro rang upon the soil of Peru. Among the latter are the Conibos, a very singular tribe, whose territory occupies two hundred miles of river-frontage, and may be found upon the map of the Amazons between Paruitcha and Cosiabatay. Their country abounds in wonderful beauty, and is eminently productive. Inland, on either bank of the gigantic river, beyond the long stretches of sand, rise yellow-tinted slopes, crowned with primeval forests, which are tenanted by the beautiful birds and beasts that abound in regions but little disturbed by even savage man. The river in this part of its course is very beautiful, winding about, studded with islands; and when, in narrow channels, it rolls its yellow waters between the solemn walls of verdure, which sometimes replace the sands, there is perfect silence on its bosom, while the air beyond is filled with the fluttering of leaves, and the stir of birds and beasts. As the canoes of the explorers glide along, a succession of exquisite landscapes, and strange sights by the river-side, glorious daybreaks, twilights, and moonlights, lend the scene an inconceivable beauty. Legions of living creatures are there; caymans plough the sand in furrows; seals, come up to breathe, lurk under the reeds; in the solitary little bays, dolphins, sometimes four abreast, gambol and flash. All along the shore, on trunks of fallen trees, are wild creatures, jaguars, otters, herons, storks, flamingoes, fishing; and trotting about fearless, unmolested, is the bird of poetic name, the cultirostre or 'peacock of the roses.' There, too, are couroucous, clothed in green, red, and gold; manakins, with changing streaks of colour; orioles and toucans, parrots and paroquets, and the great kingfisher, with his azure back and white wings fringed with black. Then comes a strip of reeds, broad-leaved, curling, thick, and strong, of great height, close covert for countless water and mud creatures; and again the broad shelving sands. A poetic voyage, truly, but sometimes interrupted by a strange

* A Journey across South America from the Pacific Occan to the Atlantic Ocean. By Paul Marcoy. London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow: Blackie and Son.

sound, not to be heard without terror even when it has been often heard. It is the noise of the frequent landslips, when huge masses of the riverbanks, composed of sand and vegetable detritus, have been undermined by the waves, and suddenly detaching themselves from the firm ground for perhaps a mile in length, slip down into the great river, dragging with them the trees they have nourished, and the linking lianas which bind them together, as though with mighty cables. Down they rush, with all their beautiful living load, and are lost in the waters, while the thunder of their ruin, often heard at ten miles' distance, is like heavy discharges of ordnance.

Beyond the shelving sands, by the creeks and streams which branch off from the great UcayaliAmazon, the Conibos dwell; a race utterly isolated, but a branch of the once great Pano nation. But for the habitual expression of strangeness and sadness which characterises their countenances, in common with those of all the Peruvian Indians, the Conibos differ from the other native tribes. They are singularly short of stature, never exceeding, rarely ever reaching five feet three, lumpish of figure, with high cheek-bones, small yellow eyes (the pupils tobacco-colour), oblique in shape, and set wide apart. Their thick lips disclose yellow teeth, well set, and gums dyed black by the use of an Indian plant called yanammen. Their faces are almost spherical, and Mr Marcoy says this shape gives them a look of bonhomie and simplicity which corrects the disagreeable impression they make at first sight.' Their skin is very dark, and has a peculiarity which reveals at once the chief drawback to the otherwise exquisite pleasure of travelling in their beautiful country; it is rough to the touch, like shagreen,' says Mr Marcoy, from being incessantly punctured by mosquitoes.' These dreadful insects are the plague of the whole country; the foreigner suffers unbearably from them, and they never leave off biting the Conibos, who do not seem to mind them. Both men and women cut their hair like a brush to the level of the eyebrows, and leave the rest to flow over their shoulders. It is a peculiarity of this tribe that ornament, indeed almost clothing, is reserved for the men only. In the typical portraits furnished by Mr Marcoy, the women wear only a strip of brown cloth, though the mosquitoes are quite impartial in their attacks, while the men wear a loose garment, like a wagoner's smock without sleeves, of brown cotton, ornamented with a border of Greek pattern, lozenges, and zigzags, traced in black with a pencil to imitate embroidery. Whence came this vague sense of art? They all paint their faces, but the men use more colouring than the women, laying on the red very freely, in thick, broad stripes. Black paint is used for (literally) body-colour. A Conibo in full dress will have sandals painted on his feet as far as the ankles, or buskins as high as the knees, like riding-boots; a jacket or coat painted on his body, open at the breast, and festooned round the hips; on his hands gloves or mittens. But besides these ordinary designs, they have arabesques of the most complicated kind for gala-days, which they apply to their faces by a process of stencilling, just as the Etruscans applied their patterns to their vases, and they adorn themselves with necklaces and earrings of black and white beads which they buy at Tierra Blanca. A few of the men who occasionally visit

the Missions to exchange turtles, or the prepared fat of those creatures, or wax, for axes, knives, and beads, have learned the use of straw-hats, which they make for themselves from the young palm reeds. The toilet of the men is a serious operation, in which a Conibo usually spends half his time; the women never think of any personal adornment, and are mere slaves, toilers, and beasts of burden. Their intelligence is, however, very remarkable, and it is with no small surprise we learn that they possess an extraordinary talent for the manufacture of pottery, and for painting and varnishing it afterwards. This is so entirely unlike anything which has been observed respecting the other Peruvian Indian tribes, that it induces a belief in the superior antiquity of the descent of the Conibos, of their kinship to the original race, These women have no tools but their fingers, and one of the shells of those great mussels which are found in the lakes of the interior. With these they fashion water-jars, jugs, cups, and basins, whose forms might belong to the best period of the AndoPeruvian ceramic manufacture. They roll the clay into thin cakes,' says Mr Marcoy, which they lay one upon another, and unite with such exactness that it would be impossible to discovers in their work an equivocal line or a doubtful curve. The potter's wheel is not more mathematically true.' It is in a clearing of the forest, always situated a few steps from their dwelling, and which the men use as a timber-yard for the construction of their canoes, that the women establish their earthenware manufacture. To bake and varnish their work, a clear fire is lighted on the shore. Whilst they overlook the progress of the operation, an old woman sings and dances round the pile, to prevent the evil spirit from touching the vessels. When the vessels are baked, the women varnish the interior with gum-copal, and then proceed to their exterior decoration. Five simple colours are all that these native artists make use of; the art of mixing, and the transition shades, are either unknown to them, or not available. Lampblack, yellow extracted from one of the Guttiferæ, a violettinted blue yielded by the American indigo, a dirty green obtained by macerating the leaves of a capsicum, and a dull red procured from the arnotto, form their entire array of tints. Their pencils are made of three or four blades of dried grass fastened in the middle, or even of a cotton-wick, rolled up like those paper stumps' which artists make for themselves as they want them. Besides Greek borders, lozenges, intersecting lines, and other ornamental fancies, which they employ in the decoration of their pottery, their painted designs include some charming hieroglyphics, suggested by the plumage of the beautiful heron of the country (Ardea helias). The fantastic markings of this bird, extremely rare, and nearly always solitary, have given the Conibo women the idea of a special kind of arabesques for their vases and woven stuffs, as the spatula-shaped tail of the seal has furnished the men with the model for their paddles.'

In addition to this combination of industry and art, which is a most surprising spectacle to the traveller in that wonderful wild land, these people, far inore destitute than most of the African tribes of the merest rudiments of property or mechanism, have two funny possessions, never wanting in the cotton-cloth wallet of a Conibo: one is a pair of tweezers, formed of the two shells of a mutilus,

united by a hinge made of thread; the other is a snuff-taking apparatus,' consisting of a snuff-box made of the shell of a bulimus, which its possessor fills to the orifice with tobacco which has been cut in the green state, dried in the shade, and ground to the finest powder, The Conibos do not take snuff merely for their pleasure, it has a medicinal value among them. When a Conibo feels his head heavy, or has caught cold, he begs a comrade to blow down the empty tube of his snuff-taking apparatus known by the suggestive name chicachaouh, and thus gets the powdered nicotine with which the other tube is filled forced up his nose. That done, the Conibo, blowing, snuffling, and sneezing, exhibits his perfect satisfaction by a singular smacking of the lips and tongue, which is habitual among these people, and is significant of a variety of meanings. When a Conibo agrees to a plan or project, when he wishes to express his pleasure or pride in having overcome a difficulty, when he has the food he prefers, when he is satisfied with, the elasticity of his bow, under all pleasant circumstances, indeed, the Conibo smacks his lips and his tongue.

The arms of the Conibos are the bow and arrow, the club, and the shooting-tube. Through the last they send sharp poisoned darts, but, unlike the other tribes of the Amazon, whose war-lances are almost always poisoned, they use them solely for the destruction of animals. The tribe live almost entirely on the turtle. In vain do the forests and the waters offer them a luxurious variety of food; nothing but the turtle, its flesh, its grease, its eggs, its oil, has any charm for them. They eat certain kinds of worms as hors-d'œuvre, and delight in fat, blood-gorged mosquitoes, which they permit to attain full condition upon their own skin, undisturbed, as a bonne bouche. They massacre the unlucky amphibia at all stages of their existence; but the supply seems as yet to be inexhaustible. Any idea of a provision for the future appears to be utterly unconceived by the Conibos, They live from day to day, and only hunt or fish when hunger spurs them. Their eagerness in turtle-fishing is rather for the sake of selling the grease and oil at the Missions for axes, knives, and beads, than for that of laying up any store for their own wants. They are, though always poor, very hospitable. A Conibo will offer to the friend or traveller who visits his mud and leaf hut, the last banana, the last morsel of turtle, the last leg of monkey, with the utmost cheerfulness. They have acquired some notion of clearing and culture. Their plantations, in the middle of an island, or in the corner of a forest, consist of perhaps a dozen sugar-canes, two or three cotton shrubs, from which they weave a kind of cloth, some tobacco, and earth-nuts; and these little spaces are cut out in the forest, the fallen trees are left to dry, then they are burned, and the sowing or planting done on their smouldering ashes. A Conibo spade is the shoulder-bone of a seal, with a stick for a handle. Bigamy is tolerated among these peaceful savages, and indeed they would not object to polygamy, only that they have made a law among themselves that a man shall not have more wives than he can support, and, as they are extraordinarily idle, even for savages, this enactment practically limits the number to two. Their funeral ceremonies are very curious, resembling the ancient Scandinavian death-rites. They have an idea of an Omnipotent Being, the creator

little pond which holds my store of life is no longer shrunk. I don't know what has filled it; possibly drains, but it has got itself, if not full, yet in a way towards such fulfilment as makes the domestic geese of my brain paddle therein with cackle, pleasure, and apparent promise of fat.

The nervous patient, and his name is Legion, is most effectually relieved by genuine rest. I question whether change brings to him what rest conveys. Change involves, almost necessarily, travel; and travel brings fuss. I don't give the name of 'change' to the one move from the town to the country, or the country to the town. I understand by it the shifting from place to place. Now, sometimes this is very wearisome. You have no time to settle; you give no time for the mental sores and raws to heal. The dust which you have in yourself, in your mortal mixture, has no time to precipitate itself, or 'pitch,' as housemaids say.

Whereas in rest, in the idlest dawdling, which resents the trouble of drawing a cork or filling a pipe, which dawdles thus without shame or reflection, the obscuring particles that float in the brain begin slowly to settle down. The turf begins to grow again upon the trodden paths of what would be verdant thought. The skin forms over intellectual sores. The head is as empty as a college lecture-room in September. The patient's chief exhibition of vitality is a sulky refusal to exert himself. And in so far as he triumphs in repudiating exertion, he is in the way of life.

That was the case with me. I was urged to travel, and I refused. I was urged to amuse myself, say in shooting, but I refused. I did nothing -mind you, though I say it myself, I have had hard anxious work for many years and on this occasion I did nothing. I hardly cared to read the paper. I went to sleep after breakfast, I went to sleep after lunch, I went to sleep after dinner; and I slept all night. Meanwhile, I was too lazy to feed my tame ducks. My dearest friends, seeing me big, hearty at meals, and apparently free from sickness, began, I fancy, to waver in their allegiance. I really should, they thought, be all the better for doing something. But, happily, I was not upset by their intelligent and loving criticism. They knew nothing whatever about the matter. So I dozed, and dawdled, and sat, and gaped about, until the charming morning twilight of returning interest in the work of life began to flush my soul. Next time I get a holiday I shall do the same. And I advise all whose nerves have been worn threadbare with the daily fuss of life to resent all proposals that they should seek relief in change. Rest is what they want, and they can get that sitting on a gate in the dullest flat of Lincolnshire, where there is not an excrescence bigger than a snail shell for miles around, just as well as they could among the grandest ranges of the Alps. Mind you, I don't mean that mere monotony of work and some diseased depression had not best be cured by change, as lively and contrasting as possible; but when a man is overworked, and though not physically shrunk, exhibits, or rather perceives those phases of mental exhaustion which I have called nervousness,' let no man nor woman, friend nor doctor, persuade him to travel. Let him rest. Let him do nothing, think of nothing; but dawdle through a period of sheer inaction.

That is what I did. And I found fresh life

settle on me like dew-dew that not only descends upon the surface of the leaf, but sends its quickening influence back into the stores from which alone the leaf and fruit can spring.

A VOYAGE TO MEMEL. AT a time when the country is aroused by the revelations of Mr Plimsoll regarding the frequent unseaworthiness of vessels, and the wholesale drowning of mariners, it may be interesting to peruse the narrative of an 'old salt,' describing his voyage to Memel. The voyage certainly took place before ships' officers had to undergo any compulsory examination, but the maritime intelligence in the newspapers of the present day affords too much reason to infer that parallel cases still occur.

The brig which made the following voyage was a strong substantial little craft somewhat over two hundred tons register. During the preceding voyage she had been thoroughly overhauled, and any repairs she required had been executed at one of the Baltic ports. Her sails and rigging were good and sufficient, her ground-tackle-so very important an item in that particular trade-was also amply serviceable. The only things she was deficient in were a competent captain and mate, for although she was rather under-handed, she was not very much so. The captain was a connection of the owners, a man who had been in charge of several vessels, but was always getting into scrapes, and being turned off, on account of his habitual drunkenness, so that he could no longer get employment from any other owners than his relations. They probably would not have employed him on this voyage had they not had more than family reasons for doing so. Whilst the brig was being repaired during the previous voyage, the captain, having plenty of spare time on his hands, spent it in bousing his jib up;' that is, in getting drunk. He had sense enough to see that he was getting too much in debt to the ship-chandler, but he had not principle enough to keep him honest. He got the carpenters to knock some of the copper bolts out of the vessel, and replace them with wooden treenails. These bolts he sold, and embezzled the proceeds. The owners by some means heard of this little speculation, and of course they also discovered the extravagance of the chandler's bill, as not even the Shields captain's plan of making out his accounts (to threepence-worth of nails, sixpence') was sufficient to bring it within reasonable bounds; so the defaulter was retained in his situation, in order that the owners might indemnify themselves in some measure from his wages. In order, however, to put some check on his drinking propensities, they stipulated that he should carry his wife along with him.

The crew consisted of this master; the chiefmate, who was as smart and steady a young seaman as ever trod a plank; the second-mate, who, in addition to being second-mate, was cook and steward-that is, he did duty as cook and steward by day, and took his regular hand at the wheel, and by night he took charge of the starboard or captain's watch; and there were two able and one ordinary seaman, and an apprentice, also a boy who attended the coppers when the cook was otherwise engaged, and performed the numerous odds and ends a boy is fit for.

One cold frosty morning about the middle of