y brain. I
will keep and sell it some day in England. But our leader has already
forestalled me, I fear. He read to me something last night which he has
just composed, and which bears some resemblance to it. Listen:--

"`Now we raise the eye to range
O'er prospect wild, grotesque, and strange;
Sterile mountains, rough and steep,
That bound abrupt the valley deep,
Heaving to the clear blue sky
Their ribs of granite bare and dry.
And ridges, by the torrents worn,
Thinly streaked with scraggy thorn,
Which fringes Nature's savage dress,
Yet scarce relieves her nakedness.
But where the Vale winds deep
below,
The landscape hath a warmer glow
There the spekboom spreads its bowers
Of light green leaves and lilac flowers;
And the aloe rears her crimson crest,
Like stately queen for gala drest
And the bright-blossomed bean-tree shakes
Its coral tufts above the brakes,
Brilliant as the glancing plumes
Of sugar-birds among its blooms,
With the deep-green verdure blending
In the stream of light descending.'

"Something or other follows, I forget what, and then:--

"`With shattered rocks besprinkled o'er,
Behind ascends the mountain hoar,
Where the grin satyr-faced baboon
Sits gibbering to the rising moon,
Or chides with hoarse or angry cry
Th'intruder as he wanders by.'

"There--I can't remember the rest of it," said Considine, "and I'm not
even sure that what I've quoted is correct, but you see Mr Pringle's
mind has jumped before mine,--and higher."

"Man, it's no' that bad," observed Black, with emphasis. "Depend on't--
though I mak' nae pretence to the gift o' prophecy--he'll come oot as a
bard yet--the bard o' Glen Lynden maybe, or Sooth Afriky.--Hech, sirs!"
added Sandy, pointing with a look of surprise to a tree, many of the
pendent branches of which had peculiar round-shaped birds'-nests
attached to them, "what's goin' on there, think 'ee?"

The tree to which the Scot directed attention overhung the stream, and
down one of its branches a snake was seen twining itself with caution.
It evidently meant to rob one of the nests, for the little owner, with
some of its companions, was shrieking and fluttering round the would-be
robber. This kind of bird has been gifted with special wisdom to guard
its home from snakes. It forms the entrance to its pendent nest at the
bottom instead of the top, and hangs the nest itself at the extreme
point of the fin