otherwise known amongst his countrymen | our authority in great measure by means of

by the title of " Hyder Naigne,” (Naigne, be it understood, is the Indian word for " corporal.")

I

the very natives and troops we have conquered, and who now lend themselves to enslave their own country, and rivet the shackles of bondage on their fatherland. asked myself the question-was the time approaching when our fame, colonies, and possessions, would be among the things that were would they in process of development be swept away before some nation not yet cradled, or only in its infancy; or-proving an exception to the whole experience of ages-would they remain imperishably great and renowned till the final dissolution of nature?

Bewildered at last with these reflections, I left my palanquin; and, walking forward, with a Manton across my shoulder, accompanied by a Coolie carrying a double-barrelled rifle, was soon busily engaged peering into the thick grass and underwood that lay on each side of the path, intent only on scattering destruction amongst some innocent and tender little bipeds, with the laudable desire of furnishing some trifling addition to natural history, and a distant hope of perhaps securing a shot amongst a herd of deer faintly discernible in the outline.

It is a circumstance not entirely devoid of singularity, that the greatest Gallic and Asiatic warriors of their day should share the same sobriquet, and that the son of the one and the other in person should subsequently, in measuring their strength with the English, be encountered and overthrown in such dissimilar situations by the "hero of a hundred fights." Unlike Napoleon, Hyder Naigne derived his cognomen with some degree of consistency, having at one period filled only the subordinate situation of corporal in the then rajah of Mysore's service. But though destitute of the commonest elements of education, so surprising were his natural abilities, that, by eastern chicanery and undaunted bravery, he at length succeeded in deposing the reigning Hindoo dynasty, and establishing himself and the Mahometan faith paramount in the country. Never did the English encounter a more active, determined, and formidable foe in Hindostan than this restless infidel; and at no period before or since was British India nearer tottering to its foundation. Providence at length interposed, and, much In the incautious pursuit of a wild bear to our safety and satisfaction, transported that had crossed my path, I at length found the wily chieftain from his career of con- myself in the midst of a dense jungle-not quest and inhumanity, to revel-according the most secure position in the world, with to the orthodox koran-in the smiles of the only a single ebony gentleman at your side blue maids of paradise, his son Tippoo suc--for on the least indication of danger, this ceeding him, (whose name signifies in the representative of Lucifer judiciously prefers vernacular tongue "tiger.") Though desti-present safety to future reputation, and pertute of his father's military talents, he manifested all the sanguinary disposition of his carnivorous relation, and was at length slain at the storming of his capital by an English grenadier, who is supposed to have secured a rich booty from the jewels usually worn on his person.

I had been reflecting as I passed through the country on the warlike exploits and barbarous cruelties by which it has been disfigured, and on the short space of time in which, from the first settlement by a few enterprising merchants at Surat, in the year 1612, we had, either by force or diplomacy, possessed ourselves of the entire territory from Cape Comorin to the Himalaya mountains; and, by an anomaly of which history furnishes no parallel, holding and enforcing

forms a retrograde movement with undignified rapidity, leaving you alone to apologize for your intrusion to a brute that cannot be persuaded to adopt polite manners, but evinces an unmistakable desire to exhibit his gratitude for your visit by a passionate and unceremonious embrace. The tendency of long ages of lost liberty and slavish superstition to produce national degradation is forcibly exemplified in the lower castes of the natives, who may truthfully be said to have acquired all the vices of their various conquerors, without any of their redeeming qualities.

To return-tired at last with my exertions, and the intensity of the heat, I dispatched my sable attendant in quest of that peculiar Indian luxury, the palanquin; and

looking round for some sheltered spot to await its coming up, perceived a widespreading banyan-tree. Trusting to its friendly shelter, I was soon stretched beneath a canopy of densely-clustered foliage, sufficient to exclude all direct rays of the solar star; and, lighting one of my best Indian pipes, resigned myself to what Brother Jonathan terms a "tarnation smoke."

and if unconsciously disturbed in its leafy cradle, the oscillation is resented by darting its poisoned fang in the invader's face. These insidious foes, and the probability of | a struggle with some carnivorous denizen of the glen, suggest strong doubts as to the security of your woodland abode, and damp the pleasure the scene otherwise might afford. And thus surely do we find that, in nature as in life, under the most lovely and entrancing aspects often lurk the most seductive and deadly influences. The pros

The scene before me was such as that which Johnson in one of his rich and genial moods would delight to portray-the image of beauty reposing in the lap of sub-pect loses nothing at night, when effulgent limity was never more aptly applied. The sun had attained its culminating point, and was showering down its fervid rays with a scorching influence; not a breath stirred the forest air all was hushed in repose, and silent as the last breathings of the departing soul-while a foreboding sensation o'ershadowed the whole, as that beautiful couplet in Campbell's "Lochiel" ominously crowded on my memory.

"'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before."

I could not account for the oppressive silence, for often before had I reclined at the foot of some forest giant, and experienced widely different feelings; all here seemed indescribably grand and ennobling. The various tribes of baboons, monkeys, and apes, screeching, chattering, and grinning overhead, anon leaping from tree to tree, luxuriating in all the enjoyment of freedom and revelry; while the jay, the parrot, the peacock, with minor and sweeter minstrels in every splendid variety of tropical plumage, might be seen soaring or darting amidst the foliage of forest verdure, combined with the beauty and number of parasitical plants and wild flowers. Such a scene of loveliness and life had often enraptured me, till a second Eden seemed realized; when, as if its aspect were too beautiful for sinful earth, the illusion was dissipated on observing the slender and graceful form of a snake gliding swiftly in mazy folds through the long grass-by that curious association of ideas, suggesting at once the primal fall, and the probable vicinity of a cobra couched on the branch of a tree overhead, whose color so closely approximates its tinge, that it is almost impossible, with out careful scrutiny, to detect its presence,

with the pensive moonbeams, and the myriads of fire-flies like living stars broke loose from the dominion of old night, delighted with their new-found liberty, and dancing in a perfect jubilee of joyous light through the embowering arcades, illuminating every note of forest life: and on the one side is heard the amorous roar of the antelope's midnight suitor, as pending to the crashing march of the gregarious elephant; and on the other, the nightly concert of a pack of jackals, resembling so closely the music of those 'delightful" babies, that it is only by continuous rehearsals the ear can receive them with indifference--render the whole indescribably magnificent, though rather trying to delicate nerves.

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All such sublimity and active life, however, were now absent; not a living creature was to be seen, and actuated by some indefinable impulse, I involuntarily clutched my rifle. Scarcely had I done so, when an agonizing shriek re-echoed through the forest; rushing in the direction, I encountered a sight that struck me with horror and dismay-for a moment I stood paralyzed!

A Brahmin, with his wife and only daughter, were making a pilgrimage to the banks of the sacred Ganges. With the characteristic indifference of their caste, they had incautiously halted in the midst of the jungle to cook some rice. The little girl, while the mother was occupied in preparing the frugal meal, had thoughtlessly wandered into the long grass in quest of some gaudy insect flitting past: on a sudden, the father, who had thrown himself on the ground to snatch a few moments' repose, was aroused by the screams of his child, and, regaining his feet, perceived a fullgrown cheetah in the act of springing on his tender girl. To see, and rush to her rescue,

armed only with a knife, was the work of an instant; he arrived too late to arrest the tiger as he made his rarely missing, and in this case, fatal spring, on the beautiful and dark-bosomed maid. A terrible struggle now ensued; the infuriated animal relaxed its grasp of the child and fastened on the father. The tender and loving wife, only now fully awakened to the extent of the danger, forgetting her sex, insensible to aught but her husband's peril, recklessly rushed forward; but ere she could reach the spot to become a third victim to the insatiate monster, the providential flight of a bullet from a stranger's rifle, penetrating the animal's brain, stretched him dead at her feet. The brave husband, on approaching the spot, lay extended on the grass in the last agonies of death, dreadfully mangled, the brute having torn away the greater part of his brain and face. The little girl had already expired.

Never can I forget the calmness and apparently stoical indifference of this Indian woman, while her husband lay extended before her, gasping his last. She supported his head, gently wiping the blood from his face and lips; no sign of her feelings could be detected in her features. I gazed upon her with astonishment; but no sooner was it evident that death had effectually terminated the loved one's sufferings, than she gave way to the most frantic and heartrending expressions of grief. The anguish of that woman death alone can obliterate from my memory-words cannot picture it. I see her before me as I write, alternately embracing the lifeless and bloody bodies of her husband and child, lavishing over them the most tender, endearing invocations of affection, then as suddenly turning round and seizing the crimson knife of her heroic husband, plunging it again and again into the body of the insensible animal, uttering all the time the most fearful and violent imprecations of despair and anguish.

child. A deep, settled gloom, beyond any thing I ever witnessed, was upon her features; her eyes had a wandering, restless expression. She knew me immediately, and talked in the most pathetic strain of her hapless child and husband. Poor creature! I tried to console her, but in vain. She said, her only wish was, as soon as the monsoon, or rainy season abated, to prosecute her journey to the Ganges, and die by its sacred stream. I remonstrated with her on this folly, and explained to her the divine truths of Christianity. All in vain! She was fixed in her resolution; and when I pointed to the heavens, and spoke of the mercies of God and His power, she replied, "that were He powerful, He could not be merciful, or He would not have taken her husband and child away without taking her also." All I could say made no impression, nor seemed to abate her determination, and time would not permit my stay, nor did I ever chance again to traverse the same scenes; but I have no doubt, from my knowledge of Indian character, she subsequently carried her resolution into effect.

From Dickens' "Household Words."

A MYSTERIOUS CITY.

IN a Dominican convent near the city of Santa Cruz del Quiché, happened one of the "Incidents of Travel in Central America," which Stephens has so pleasantly recorded. He there met with an eccentric friar, from whom he obtained some curious information respecting the surrounding country. Nothing roused his curiosity so keenly as the Padre's assertion, that, four days' journey on the road to Mexico, on the other side of the great sierra, (chain of mountains,) was a large and populous city, occupied by Indians, existing precisely in the same state as before the discovery of America. The Padre had heard of it many years before, at the village of It was with the greatest difficulty she Chajul, and was told by the villagers that could at length be removed from the tragic from the topmost ridge of the sierra this scene, and confided to the care of some city was distinctly visible. He was then neighboring villagers. I had occasion to reyoung, and with much labor climbed to the visit the same scenes some few months after, naked summit of the sierra, from which, at and found the bereaved wife, but, indeed, a height of ten or twelve thousand feet, he how changed! I could hardly recognize looked over an immense plain, extending to her. Day and night, I was informed, she Yucatan and the Gulf of Mexico, and saw wandered about, calling on her husband and | at a great distance a large city spread over

a great space, and with turrets white and glittering in the sun, The traditionary account of the Indians of Chajul is, that no white man has ever reached this city; that the inhabitants speak the Maya language, are aware that a race of strangers has conquered the whole country around; and, with that fact ever present in their minds, murder any white man who attempts to enter their territory. They have no coin or other circulating medium; no horses, cattle, mules, or other domestic animals, except fowls; and the cocks they keep under ground to prevent their crowing being heard by white travellers.

ving desire to reach the mysterious city. No man, even if willing to peril his life, could undertake the enterprise, with any hope of success, without hovering for one or two years on the borders of the country, studying the language and character of the adjoining Indians, and making acquaintance with some of the natives. Five hundred men could probably march directly to the city, and the invasion would be more justifiable than any ever made by the Spaniards; but the government is too much occupied with its own wars, and the knowledge could not be procured except at the price of blood. Two young men of good constitution, and who could afford to spare five years, might succeed."

Upon this hint (as we learn from an advertisement in the Boston newspapers) two

"There was in all this," says Stephens, "a wild novelty-something that touched the imagination; the old Padre, in the deep stillness of the dimly-lighted convent, with his long, black coat like a robe, and his flash-young men-one a Mr. Huertis, of Baltiing eye, called up an image of the bold and resolute priests who accompanied the armies of the conquerors; and, as he drew a map on the table, and pointed out the sierra to the top of which he had climbed, and the position of the mysterious city, the interest awakened in us was the most thrilling I ever experienced. One look at that city was worth ten years of an every-day life. If he is right, a place is left where Indians and an Indian city exist, as Cortez and Alvarado found them; there are living men who can solve the mystery that hangs over the ruined cities of America; perhaps who can go to Copan, and read the inscriptions on its monuments. No subject more exciting and attractive presents itself to my mind, and the deep impression of that night will never be effaced.

"Can it be true? Being now in my sober senses, I do verily believe there is much ground to suppose that what the Padre told us is authentic. That the region referred to does not acknowledge the authority of Guate mala, has never been explored, and that no white man ever pretends to have entered it, I am satisfied. From other sources, we heard that from that sierra a large ruined city was visible; and we were told of another person who had climbed to the top of the sierra, but, on account of the dense cloud resting upon it, had been unable to see any thing. At all events, the belief at the village of Chajul is general, and a curiosity is roused that burns to be satisfied. We had a cra

more, in the United States, a man of fortune, who had travelled in Egypt, Persia, and Syria, for the inspection of ancient monuments; the other a civil engineer, from Canada, named Hammond-sailed from New Orleans, in 1848, on this perilous and romantic enterprise. They reached Copan on Christmas day, where they met a Spanish merchant, Pedro Velasquez, of San Salvador. He was well acquainted with the country, and knew several of the dialects of the Indians through whose territories they had to pass. He agreed to accompany them. Providing themselves with mules, provender, and an escort of Indians, they commenced their journey to the unknown city. After many perils, they arrived at the top of the high mountain, from which Stephens's priest saw this City of the Sun. They also beheld its domes, turrets, and walls. They descended, and travelled on till they came near the amphitheatre of hills which they thought inclosed the object of their search. They met small groups of Indians, whose dialect they could not understand, and who seemed amazed at seeing them. One of these, however, made them understand that, "about thirty moons ago," a man of the same race as Hammond (who had a florid complexion and red whiskers) had been sacrificed and eaten by the Maebenachs, or Priests of Iximaya, the great city among the hills.

Presently a troop of horsemen passed them in red and yellow tunics, armed with

was the wing of a spacious structure, which had been appropriated to the surviving remnant of an ancient order of priesthood called Kaanas. Forbidden by inviolably sacred laws from intermarrying with any persons but those of their own caste, these Kaanas had dwindled down to a few individuals, diminutive in stature, and imbecile in intellect. They were nevertheless held in high veneration and affection by the Iximayan community-perhaps as specimens of an antique race nearly extinct. Their ancient residence was chiefly occupied by a higher order of priests, called Wabaqoons, who were their legal and sacerdotal guardians. With one of these, Vaalpeor, Velasquez became very intimate, and while Huertis was devoting himself to the antiquities, hieroglyphics, and pantheism of this un

spears, and each holding in a leash a brace of Spanish bloodhounds, of the purest breed. Their informer told them this was a detachment of rural guards which had been appointed since the Spanish invasion to hunt down and capture all strangers that should be found within a circle of twelve leagues of the city. An engagement ensued, in which the travellers were victors, thanks to their rifles, which created as great a panic as the firearms of Cortez. Huertis explained to their chief that they were friendly strangers, who desired their hospitality, and to see their magnificent city. The chief said his countrymen showed no hospitality to strangers-it was punishable with death by their laws. The peace and independence of his nation depended on these restrictions; but if they would enter it with the intention of never leaving, he would promise them dwell-known city, the young pagan was eagerly ings, wives, and honors. Huertis informed him, by signs and other expedients, that he would enter the city on his own terms.

imbibing a knowledge of the world at large from Velasquez, which proved to him equally enchanting; so that when the Spaniard proposed the escape of the expedition, with Vaalpeor as their companion, he agreed to it. At this time Hammond died of his wounds, and after the funeral they prepared for escape.

When they were ready, Huertis could not be found; two days and nights elapsed; still he did not appear. On searching his rooms, neither his papers nor drawing instruments were to be seen. It was afterwards discover

Accordingly they all marched towards it, carrying Hammond, who had been desperately wounded. They found that it was surrounded by a wall sixty feet high, inclosing an area of twelve miles; a moat one hundred feet wide encompassed the wall, which was crossed by a drawbridge, raised over the gate. At a signal from the chief, the bridge descended, and the cavalcade passed over. At another signal the ponderous gates unfolded, and a vista of solemned that Huertis had taken into his confidence magnificence presented itself—an avenue of colossal statues and trees, extending to the opposite side, or western gate; a similar avenue crossed the city from north to south. Arrived at the point where the avenues intersect each other, they were led into a large and lofty hall, surrounded by columns, and displaying three raised seats. These were covered with canopies of rich drapery, on one of which sat the monarch, a person of grave and benignant aspect, of about sixty years' old, who was arrayed in scarlet and gold, having a golden image of the rising sun on the back of his throne.

The interview resulted in giving the strangers their freedom within the limits of the city; and permission for them, under indispensable obligations, to become citizens. In the mean time, they were to be maintained as prisoners of state. With this they were satisfied. The residence assigned them

one whom he hoped would accompany him, and she had betrayed him. His offence, after his voluntary vows, and his initiation into the sacred mysteries was unpardonable; his fate could not be doubted. Vaalpeor afterwards admitted that Huertis had been sacrificed in due form on the high altar of the Sun, and that he (Vaalpeor) had beheld the fatal ceremony. As Huertis had not implicated his associates, there was yet a chance for them. After some difficulties they contrived to escape with Vaalpeor, and the two Aztec or Kaana children of which he was the guardian. In fourteen days, after much suffering, they reached Ocosingo, where Vaalpeor died from the unaccustomed toils and deprivations of the journey. Velasquez, with the two children, reached San Salvador in February. He was advised to send them to the United States, and thence to Europe.