
FOREST. AND STREAM 





For Forest and Stream. 
TROPICAL HUNTING SCENES. 

RAND are the woods, and clear the bubbling streams 
In Asiatic realms, where Ganges sweeps 
Thro’ green savannahs and embowering groves, 
Until it mingles with the Bengal tides. 
Behold, far down the mountain sloper, 
Beneath the realm of snow, the spreading woods 
Rustling their foliage of eternal green, 
The teak tree, the brown chestnut and the oak, 
Kissed by the sunset. glow like golden crowns, 
While the black hemlock and the spirimg pine 
Thrust up their spear-like points and pennoned shafts 
Like hosts embattled. Far beyond, the plains 
of verdurous Thibet spread their level floor. 
Enchanting pictures of serenest bloom 
Burst on the vision ; oranges in groves, 
Citrons and yellow lemons, glow like gold ; 
The ripe pomegranate droops its juicy fruit, 
Red cherries hang their clusters o’er the trees, 
Luxuriant mangoes swing their ruddy globes, 
While strawberries paint with crimson all the ground. 
Green, gadding vines their tendrils mterweave, 
And loftiest trees with flowery festoons drape ; 
Peacocks display their gaudy plumes around, 
And birds of paradise their mottled dyes. 
And here the royal tiger of the wild 
Ranges supreme and guards his noonday haunt, 
And in the glooms of night devours his prey. 
The aun deer and the brindled antelope 
Tremble in bosky coverts, or at speed 
Stretch forth in flight across the open plain. 
‘Tis a fair scene, where gently peace drops down, 
Folds like a bird her pinions on her breast, 
And all the glimmering shades at twilight’s hour 
Their silvery veils and vapors interweave. 
Fair, flowery scenes o’er Afric’s mystic land 
Since the creation morn haye bloom’d and smil’d 
fm lavish beauty. All the varied forms 
Of Nature, fresh from the Creator’s hand, 
Are here commingled in transcendent pomp ; 
Soft plain and placid stream, and mountain range. 
Here glows the fruitful plain, or frowns the waste, 
Here flow majestic rivers to the sea, 
Or spread the limpid lakes their glassy sheets 
Vast lakes whose marge by savage herds is trod, 
Whose waves are only crossed by frail canoe, 
Or haunted by the screaming waterfowl. 
Here desert moors extend their arid space, 
Here mountains soar in grandeur to the skies, 
Forests immense, illimitable spread, 
Fair, flowering groves and natural gardens bloom. 
Th’ exploring stranger from remotest lands 
Crossing these waters drops the listless oar 
To view the wondrous scene. Far, far extends 
The reedy shore with endless meadows hemm’d, 
Or fring’d with woods of tamerind and palm ; 
Charm’d with the view, Eden-like, his soul 
Drinks in the entrancing splendor of the scene. 
lar spread the shores, now rough with beetling cliffs, 
Now smooth with waving grass and unknown shrubs ; 
Far stretch the lakes, undimpled in their sheets, 
While far in distance float the mountains blue. 
Here a white sand-beach spreads its shelly road, 
Back’d by the cocoa-palm trees and the huts 
Of villages in green plantations hid. 
Above some granite bluff the eagle swings, 
And fish-hawks clamor, and in groves around, 
Where the oil-palms their,yellow nuts display, 
Cooes the green pigeon ; chattering squirrels leap, 
The gay-hued parrots glance like living flames 
And the red trogan tunes his mellow lyre. 
Around the shores the sacred 1bis flits, 
The snowy pelicans their files extend, 
The stilted avoset that wades the shoals, 
The black geese and the gray-hued spoon-bi'l tribes 
And all the gorgeous fowl that haunt the wave. 
High beats the hunter’s heart, when all the night, 
Hid in some gloomy copse, at edge of wood, 
He watches the dim plain for wandering game. 
Calm sleeps the forest, save when swells the voice 
Of prowling lion or hyena’s howl, 
Or cracks the twig beneath some trampling hoof. 
Soft falls the moonlight, filtering through the roof 
Of the dense-matted foliage ; soft gilds 
With shimmering glory all the desert spaces, 
Shining on island groves and grassy slopes. 
From time to time like drifting shadows pars 
In lengthed files the browsing buffalo, 
The eland, gnu and the black antelope 
Glide past ; the bulky elephant 
Swaying his tnshes crushes thro’ the glade ; 
The black rhinoceros stalks unwieldy by, 
pf ecking sequester’d marsh or deep lagoon. 
Issac McLELLAN, 
We 

—Ground Quassia wood is highly recommended as an insect 
destroyer, in the high authority of M. Cloez of the Jardin 
des Plantes. Will some of our readers use it, and give 
results ? 
Che SUAS tet 
—In England, the aggregate income of 5,000,000 families 
employed in manual labor is about $1,500,000,000. Of 
‘his sum 450,000,000 is wasted in excessive drink and to- 
bacco, in buying at small retail stores instead of wholesale 
stores, but quite the larger proportion in unskillful or care- 
less marketing, housekeeping and cooking, and in the 
mulets of trades-anions. 
eee ee 
—The red blood corpuscules of the Salmonide are the 
largest found in osseous fishes, the blood disks of the 
Salmo Fontinalis—American brook trout, measuring 1-1455 
of an inch. , 
SES ee 
—A plaid and a tartain have two entirely different mean- 
ings. The plaid is the name of a garment without refer- 
ence to color or material, the word tartan meaning the parti 
colored pattern. Somehow the two words have got very 
much mixed. 

A LAMENT FROM GAY HEAD. 
ae ne : 
Or¥ MARTHA’s VINEYARD, August 23, 1873. 
Epiror FOREST AND STREAM : 
That a yacht owner should know how to take his 
trick at the helm and negotiate railroad bonds, should be 
able to reef a halliard and financier, is perhaps asking too 
much of ordinary human nature. We cannot all be jour- 
nalists and fishermen, any more than we can combine the 
skipper and banker together. Yet I feel sure you will allow 
me to remark that among our yacht owners we have quite 
a number of Admirable Crichtons. 
I notice a good deal of censorious writing indulged in at 
times in regard to the incompetency of our yacht owners, 
and the frequent attempts made, I think in the worst taste, 
to ridicule certain gentlemen on account of their ignorance 
in sailing. Of course, some men affect an excessive nauti- 
val style, and are all prone to assume a commodore’s man- 
ners without even that general acquaintance with seaman- 
ship which would render them capable of commanding a 
cock-boat. True gentlemen, I believe, always detest shams, 
and I have generally found that any false assumption of 
this character was met by such roars of laughter on the 
part of fellow yachtmen as to make the pseudo skippers 
haul down their colors. The best thing a yacht owner can 
do, if he is ignorant of sailing, is to say so, and there is a 
frank, honest way of stating such want of acquaintance 
which precludes ridicule. I write this, because after a 
pretty heavy blow yesterday, when it looked quite ugly for 
a time, in the coolest kind of a way my host, the owner of 
the yacht Iam now on, said to me: ‘‘ My dear Mr. —, if 
you get drowned, I trust you will not put the blame on me, 
for really, T would not know how to manage her now any 
more than would my wife, who by the way, is very sick 
below. Of course, I know the yacht’s stem from her stern, 
but I should be an idiot, though I have had a yacht for 
fourteen years, to say that I know anything about seaman- 
ship, and what is more, I never expect to encompass its 
mysteries. Fatigued with business, the hours of quiet I 
spend on my yacht are the most pleasant of the whole year. 
It is worth all it costs to be certain that no one can call on 
me, save at my pleasure. To have somebody else to take 
care of me, and good care of me, to throw off every respon- 
sibility, is just what I want, aud I am sure my sailing mas- 
ter is quite capable. Do our friends who run horses at 
Fordham, or Saratoga, or at Long Branch, know much about 
their animals? Could that distinguished banker, who 
stands at the head of the patrons of the American turf, ride 
his own horses? Suppose he even did, somebody would 
be found to abuse him because he could not groom his 
racers. You must acknowledge that it is a hard thing in 
this blessed country of ours, when a man can’t keep a yacht 
according to his own pleasure. Of course, if Iwere twenty 
years old, perhaps I might find pleasure in tarring the rig- 
ging, or scraping the yacht’s bottom, or slushing the masts, 
(if I have made any error in my nautical nomenclature I 
hope you will correct me,) or going aloft. I only wish I 
could do all these things. Well, if any good fellows want 
to doit they are quite welcome to try it. Corinthian sailors 
—that is the name they give them, I believe—do they cook 
for themselves? Of course, there is no degradation about 
that sort of thing, and as to cooking, I know IJ could do 
that quite well; only this, that in just such a blow like we 
have gone through,) for, by George, it did blow,) I feel a 
great deal safer when I know the helm is in the master’s 
hands, and that the crew all were picked seamen, than had 
the yacht been in charge of any Corinthians I ever heard 
of.” Of course this entire assumption of ignorance on the 
part of my host in regard to sailing, was somewhat assumed, 
but I think in the main he was right. We have had a suc- 
cession of very bad days, with no end of dirty weather, and 
the capabilities of the good yacht as a seaboat have 
been tried to their utmost. ‘‘ Gitting drowned for fun,” as 
the honest captain of a lumber schooner said to us the other 
day, as we passed under his stern, ‘‘ain’t no sense, mister; 
why the deuce you smart chaps go kiting around in a nasty 
blow like this, I can’t find out. Yow ll be coming to grief 
some 0’ these days.” What more he said I do not know, 
as we were soon clear of him, going head down and taking 
plenty of green water. Bnt the good old skipper was right; 
for an hour afterwards we were only too glad to find a berth 
alongside of him, ‘‘It’s a raal bucking agin Providence,” 
was his remark, as he sat down at our table, discussing a 
glass of something warm; ‘sailing and fooling don’t jine 
much; but ef ever the man that managed that craft of yourn 
wants a berth, send her to me and [ll give him a place.” 
It may be some days before we are in sailing trim again, 
as we have splintered our topmast, and things generally 
want tautening alow and aloft. 

L. 
a 
—The inhabitants of the Andaman island, have the high 
privilege of squatting as the lowest type of the human race. 
They wear no clothing, but plaster their bodies over with 
mud. They are cunning and treacherous, and their antipa- 
thy to strangers amounts to a passion. 
eereret 
—Baker has positively determined that the Lakes Tan. 
ganyika and Albert Nyanza are really one body of water, 
not less than 700 miles long. If this is so it puts Lake Su- 
perior’s nose out of joint. 
$e —— 
—The total cost of all the railroads in the United States 
amounts to $8,159,423,057. The gross earnings were 
$473,241,005, net earnings about $165,'754,378. 

Bens Srom Abroad. 
os 
OW from plantation, preserve and moor, from brae and 
heather, throughout all England, Scotland, Ireland 
and Wales, resounds the gun. The railroad porter awakening 
from his lethargy, carries under his arms the gun cases, and 
stows away the pointers and setters in the vans, and earns 
great harvest of shillings from the gentlemen who take the 
‘“ grouse trains.” : 
In certain sections of the country where game has been 
thoroughly preserved, perhaps the sport may be considered 
as a trifle unsportsmanlike, resembling a battue. Good old 
authorities deprecate the grouse drives, and the indiserim- 
inate slaughter of the birds. If the younger school derides 
the antiquated style of bagging the birds one by one, the 
fathers retort on their son’s expression of ‘‘ pottering” 
after game, by leaving out one syllable of the epithet, call- 
ing it ‘‘ potting” grouse. So far accounts differ as to the 
quantity and condition of the birds. In England, though 
the grouse are hearty, in Scotland, especially in Forfarshire, 
grouse are said to have suffered from an epidemic of quite 
a virulent type. Good authorities think game will not be 
as plentiful as it has been for the last two seasons. 
On the Continent the ubiquitous Englishman is seen cast- 
ing his fly wherever the casual trout could have been sup- 
posed to have found an existence. At home, by loch, mere 
and tarn, by river, brook and rill, the eager fisherman pur- 
sues his prey. There must he so many fishing lines in the 
streams, that one can almost fancy that the light of the sun 
would be obscured. Think of ‘‘a Great All England Ang- 
ling sweepstakes,” fished for in Lincolnshire, of 420 con- 
testants, of six miles of river bank umbrageous with fishing 
poles, and of the scarcity of the fish, or the skill of the fish- 
erman, when three pounds fourteen and a half ounces win 
the prize. 
Athletic sports, save country cricket, are at a stand-still 
for the nonce. Amateur experts a trifle seedy over the early 
summer work, are recuperating, and training again. 
The Paris savutte, or the French art of boxing, is being 
recuscitated. At most this is a villanous game.To the play 
of the fists, is added human mule kicking. An adept in 
“la bore Francaise,” may feint at you with his left, and in- 
stead of hitting from the shoulder, plant his foot under 
your jaw—or kick you in the pit of the stomach. What 
says a grand old English authority of 1754 on this new sub- 
ject? “The dexterous use of the fist is a truly British exer- 
cise, and the sturdy English have been as much renowned 
for their boxing as their beef. To this nutriment and this 
art is owing that long established maxim, that one English- 
man can beat three Frenchmen, and from hence we may 
conclude on the principal of philosophy, that the elastic 
spring which darts from the knuckles of the Englishman, 
falls into the heels of the Frenchman.” 
On the 9th July, 1792, Mahommed Effendi, the secretary 
of the Turkish embassy, exhibited his great strength by shoot- 
ingan arrow 415 yards, partly against the wind, and 482 
yards with the wind, in a field behind Bedford House, Lon- 
don. He used a Turkish bow, drawing 160 pounds. The 
arrow measured twenty-five and a half inches, which he 
pulled three inches within the bow, so as to make the draught 
twenty-eight inches. He said upon the ground that Selim, 
the then Grand Signior, often shot 500 yards, That. this 
fact as stated was true, is proved by the testimony of Sir 
Robert Anslie, ambassador at the Porte, who declares that 
in 1798 Selim drove an arrow into the ground at a distance 
of 972 yards, the British ambassador having measured the 
flight of the arrow. It seems, then, that at one time the 
arrow had almost the range of a rifle. 
In the New York Times Dy. Russell thus describes the 
rooms of some hunting noble in Syria :—‘‘Hence, there is 
a long vista of rooms visible, opening one into the other, and 
entering the first of these I was at once struck with the ec- 
centric garniture and furnishing, which are continued room 
after room for some twenty-five apartments. On the walls 
were fixed in triple rows the skulls and antlers of deer. 
The chandelier was made of antlers of deer. “The sofas, 
chairs, and tables were supported by antlers, and the seats 
were covered with the skins of deer, red roe, and fallow. 
In intervals of this forest of horns appeared ancestral por- 
traits of the Lambergs and their relatives.” 
The pawn broking system it Scotland, is said to engen- 
der vice, and misery. A curious calculation has been under- 
taken to get at the total number of pledges made in the Uni- 
ted Kingdom, It seems a pawn-broker must issue 40,000 
tickets, in order to make money. In Scotland the whole 
number of pawn tickets issued is about 18,720,000, and 
in the United Kingdom, the number of pledges at that ratio 
. would be 206,780,000. 
General Sir John Foster Fitzgerald is possibly the oldest 
General in the world. His first commission dating back to 
October, 1798, at Salamanca, in 1818 he was a colonel. 
Eighty years of honorrble service must command respecct. 
The Register General’s report in England seems to point 
to the fact, that the average duration of human life is .in- 
creasing. Not many years ago it barely exceeded thirty 
years, now it is within a small fraction of forty-one. 
There is somewhat of a growl heard at present, in re- 
gard to a supposed disposition on the part of Germany to 
get a permanent hold of Lower California. We are for the 
Monroe doctrine every time. 
The use of an indicator on breech-loading fowling pieces, 
to show whether they have a cartridge in them or not, seems 
to be becoming quite universal in England, 
