POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



86i 



Columbus, etc., constitute another class ; 

 and the collection will be completed with 

 representations of fine-art works, literary 

 and scientific publications, and manuscripts, 

 charts, and plans from the discovery to the 

 middle of the eighteenth century. Prizes 

 and diplomas are offered for the contribu- 

 tions. 



The Royal Tombs of Uganda. — Dr. Carl 

 Peters gives the following description of the 

 more modern royal tombs of Uganda : " On 

 approaching them from a distance the trav- 

 eler thinks he sees pyramids before him, 

 but in reality they are in the form of large 

 cones, and are built of wood in Uganda 

 fashion. On entering, the visitor finds him- 

 self in a dusky hall, supported by a row of 

 columns. In the background of this hall is 

 a painted curtain, before which are ranged 

 the weapons and favorite movables of the 

 deceased. On putting aside the curtain the 

 dark area is entered, from which shafts and 

 corridors have been excavated in the ground. 

 In these passages textile stuffs, covv^rie shells, 

 and other articles of value, which in Uganda 

 represent money, are heaped up. At the 

 farthest extremity of these passages is de- 

 posited the coffin, with the embalmed corpse 

 of the dead person. It appears that the 

 regular procedure for preserving the corpse 

 is by drying it, and swathing it tight in 

 wrappings ; but the Waganda also told me 

 that they understood the art of preserving 

 the body from decomposition by injections 

 into the blood. In front of the curtain 

 twelve girls watch day and night on behalf 

 of the last one departed ; at present, there- 

 fore, for Mtesa. From time lo time all the 

 great men of the land come to the dead 

 man, with drums and fifes, to pay him a 

 visit, as if he were alive." 



Excess in Ornamentation. — In his book 

 on the Planning of Ornament, Mr. Lewis F. 

 Day recognizes as among the {esthetic faults 

 of modern architecture its too free use of 

 ornament without reference to its fitness to 

 the other details of the structure, and rela- 

 tive neglect of proportion. A writer who 

 timidly suggested lately that by a proper 

 attention to proportion ornament might be 

 economized, found himself out of fashion, 

 as he doubtless apprehended. The Saturday 



Review enforces the precepts of the two 

 authors, with a comparison of two buildings 

 that stand near one another in London. Of 

 one, the "front is composed of arches and 

 columns — the arches of colored marbles, 

 the columns of polished granite, the capitals 

 of bronze, heavily gilt. Not far from it is 

 another elevation, partly in brick and plas- 

 ter, painted drab and wholly devoid of any 

 ornament ; yet the eye lingers lovingly on it. 

 The proportions are like those of, say, one 

 of Gray's odes, or one of Mendelssohn's 

 songs without words. The whole fa9ade cost 

 perhaps seven or eight hundred pounds ; 

 but, then, it was designed by Wren. The 

 bank front cost, at a moderate estimate, sev- 

 enty or eighty thousand pounds, yet, because 

 the architect, or, to speak more exactly, the 

 builder, did not mix his design with a single 

 ounce of brains, had not, in fact, so much 

 brains to bestow upon it, all the money 

 spent has produced so hideous a pile that 

 one instinctively turns from it as one turns 

 from a sudden glare or a street accident." 

 Like contrasts may be found in almost any 

 large town. 



Amnsements of Animals. — A writer in 

 the London Spectator suggests as a logical 

 order in which to consider some of the pow- 

 ers of enjoyment possessed by animals, with- 

 out exaggerating or depreciating them, is 

 to observe their development as the animal 

 itself grows up. The faculty of amusement 

 comes early in them. Many animals are 

 aware of this, and make it part of their ma- 

 ternal duties to amuse their young. A fer- 

 ret will play with her kittens, a cat with 

 hers, and a dog with her puppies. A mare 

 will play with her foal, though the writer 

 from whom we quote has never seen a cow 

 try to amuse her calf, nor any birds their 

 young. If their mothers do not amuse them, 

 the young ones invent games of their own. 

 A flock of ewes and lambs were observed in 

 the Isle of Wight in adjoining fields, sepa- 

 rated by a fence with several gaps in it. 

 " Follow my leader " was the game most in 

 favor with this flock, the biggest lamb lead- 

 ing round the field and then jumping the 

 gap, with all the others following in single 

 file ; any lambs that took the leap unusually 

 well would give two or three more enthusi- 

 astic jumps out of sheer exuberant happi- 



