SEPTEMBER 31 



as with a lime -light flash, by the unconscious wording of 

 a war correspondent of to-day, seems indeed a drawing 

 together of all historic times : 



' The telegraphic despatch conveying the news of the 

 battle of Omdurman contained an interesting illustra- 

 tion of a verse of the sixty -eighth Psalm which has 

 caused some difficulty to commentators. The Prayer 

 Book version reads (verse 14): "When the Almighty 

 scattered kings for their sake : then were they as white 

 as snow in Salmon" — i. e., as generally explained, the 

 flashing of the armour of the slain warriors resembled 

 the snow shining on the dark boughs of the forest. 

 Unconsciously, perhaps, the writer of the telegraphic 

 despatch has used the same simile. His words are : 

 "After the dense mass of the Dervishes had melted to 

 companies and the companies to driblets, they broke and 

 fled, leaving the fleld white with jibba-clad corpses, 

 like a meadow dotted with snowdrifts.'" 



Is this really the last of these snow -flecked plains, or 

 will another Mahdi and other Dervishes arise in future 

 ages, to once more strew the ground with these white- 

 clad corpses? 



September 13th. — Last year, about this time, I drove 

 to Mr. Barr's, at Long Ditton, and there I saw, planted 

 out in an open bed, Tigridias, both white and red ; and 

 they looked splendid. I have never seen them grown 

 out of doors in gardens, but Mrs. Loudon, in her ' Ladies' 

 Flower Garden ' (the volume on bulbous plants) , speaks 

 of them as easily cultivated if taken up in the autumn. 

 Mrs. Loudon says: 'They have tunicated bulbs and 

 very long, fibrous roots, which descend perpendicularly. 

 They should be planted in a very deep, rich soil, which 

 should either be of an open nature, or be kept so by a 

 mixture of a sufficient quantity of sand, so as to allow a 

 free passage for the descent of the roots, in the same 



