APPENDIX. 613 



his crust of bread out of his wallet, and laid it on the bridle ; " and 

 then gave a deep sigh." But, alas! in vain. He had lost what 

 would never be restored to him. 



His faithful ass his only comfort as he journeyed onwards the 

 help of his family, the plaything of his two dear children, now no 

 more, lay dead on the side of the road in a foreign country, far from 

 its native home. And as the mourner paid the last tribute to its 

 memory, by arranging its accoutrements on the stone bench on which 

 he sat, " he looked wistfully at the little arrangement he had made, 

 and then gave a sigh." " La Fleur offered him money. The old 

 man said he did not want it. It was not the value of the ass, but 

 the loss of him. His ass had been the patient companion of his 

 journey, and it had ate the same bread with him." 



I, who passed two years in Andalusia, can enter fully into this sad 

 exhibition of the mourner's grief. And when I am in a pensive 

 mood, shut out in this sylvan retreat from the follies and anxieties 

 of a delusive world around me, I turn to the story of the " Dead Ass." 

 It does me good. I find nothing exaggerated in it ; and in replacing 

 the book on the table, I exclaim emphatically with the author of it, 

 " Did we love each other as this poor soul loved his ass, it would be 

 something." 



February 5, 1862. 



The Pythoness. 



The public have been informed by the London Review, that " all 

 hopes of hatching are at an end." I never had any hopes at all of 

 the lately adopted midwifery. Success would have been at utter 

 variance with the infallible economy of old Dame Nature herself. 



Should some future pythoness be coaxed to circumvent her eggs 

 with the intention of rendering them fruitful, 1 will ask permission 

 (not having the fear of snakes before my eyes) to enter the lying-in 

 apartment. 



There I would introduce my hands amongst the folds of her hard 

 and cold and scaly body ; and if I found warmth and softness in it, 

 analogous to what exists in regular incubators, then I would frankly 

 own that I had been in error. I am quite of opinion, that had any 



