THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 1987, 24 March 1892, Page 39

THE SKETCHER.

IN EASTERN LANDS.

EVENING ON THE NILE.

Most precious of all the experiences of our Nile voyage is the remembrance of the hours spent on deck at what the Arabs call " the time of evening prayer," when the sun dipped behind the Lybian chain, and Mustapha's fire rose in pale yellow flame against the violet water.

The mountain top 3 still glowed, the desert was ashes of roses, the high bank turned to bitumen, the sky to molten gold, and darkly silhouetted against its splendour, a frieze of living bronze against a golden wall, the evercharming figures of the Egyptian pastoral- - Canephora?, on their stately march ; Ohloe, lithe and slender, driving home her sheep ; Daphnis herding his goats ; the gleaners of Virgil ; the husbandmen of Theocritus ; the loves and nymphs of Anacreon, passed before us in the glamour of the evening light, every low-browed profile outlined in sharpest relief against the glowing west.

As the villagers filed homeward the sun sank, and the rosy flush faded.

On the after deck men bowed aDd knelt, with faces turned toward Mecca ; from the distant town the cry of the muezzin came faintly, "There is no God but God"; and, like the sacred crescent of Islam, a new moon shone in the clear sky. — Scribner's Magazine.

THE LIFE OF THE TEA PLANTEB.

It is no life of idleness which awaits a young planter. Early and late he must be at his post, in foul weather and in fine; sometimes for weeks together living in a continual state of soak, with rain pouring as it can only do in the tropics, finding out all the weak places in the roof, and producing such general damp that nothing is dry, and boots and clothes are all covered with fungus. Up and down the steep mountain side he must follow his coolies, often battling with fierce wind, scrambling over and under great fallen trees and rocks and charred branches, for wherever a little bush can find a crevice, there he must go to see that it has been duly tended. For it is not enough to plant a bush and leave it to take its chance ; what with manuring and handling, pruning and picking, there is always something to be done. In the case of coffee, however, the great mass of work comes on periodically in crop time, when for several consecutive weeks the press and hurry continue, and Sunday and week day alike know no rest. Nor will the substitution of tea culture for that of coffee lighten the planter's work; on the contrary, the former involves more constant care. Coffee crops were only gathered at definite seasons, and work on the plantation, in the store, and in the pulping house was all cut and dry, the rush of work being compressed into two or three months. It was simple work, requiring less special training and care than tea cultivation. Tea picking goes on all the year round, and the curing requires the greatest care and nicety of manipulation, and constant European supervision. The work involves long hours nearly every day of the whole year, and is a great and continuous strain on both physical and mental powers. One of the Borest difficulties with which the planter has ceaselessly to contend is the washing away of his precious surface soil by the annual heavy rains, which carry down hundreds of tons of the best soil, possibly to enrich some one ehe in the low country, but more probably to be lost in the ocean. This might in a measure be obviated by more systematic drainage ; but that of course means more coolies and more outlay, and both of these are serious difficulties. Amongst the planter's varied anxieties is the careof his coolies when they fall sick, as these natives of the hot, dry plaics of Southern India are very apt to do in the cold, dreary, rainy 3eason of the mountain districts. Occasionally a very serious outbreak of illnest occurs, when perhaps the nearest doctor is far away, and the "young planter is thrown on his own resources. Happily such a terrible experience as this is rare, but there are continual occasions for care and the exercise of much discrimination to discern between illness and idleness — a quality which does sometimes assert itself even in these energetic and industrious Tamil coolies, who are the backbone of all island labour. In days of old these immigrants from the mainland invaded Ceylon as ruthless conquerors; now they come as valuable helpers in every enterprise. — MUs Goedon Cumming, in " Life in Ceylon."

COSTUMES IN TUNIS,

Probably no city on or near the Mediterranean, scarcely even Cairo itself, can show so many different modes in dressing as are to be noted in Tunis.

The black headgear of the Maltese woman, a one-sided hood which looks like the distorted cover of a hansom cab that has met with an accident, passes each moment, and vies in sheer ugliness with the white canvas skull-cap of the slave from Tripoli. The snowy flowing robes and turban of the high-class old-fashioned Arab compare favourably with the loose blue trousers, frockcoat, and fez of the Turk by his side.

Here a man coolly attired in silk jacket and trousers flits by ; here a beggar in his one rough garment slouches past. The red night-cap of the Marseilles sailor, ■ the black cap of Shylock, the shaven uncovered poll, the gaudy kerchief of the Neapolitan, are all to be seen. Leisure" Hour.

A SUBPBISING CLIMATE,

The change of climate from Oolombo to Nuwara Eliya is surprising. Here, within seven degrees of the equator, I believe the thermometer never exceeds 72deg Fahrenheit at noon in summer ; and at night it sometimes falls below freezing point, so that in the early morning I havo often seen the ground white with hoar frosV, and have been thankful for a thick plaid and a warm tweed dress, and this not only in the chill of frosty morning and evenings, but even at noon on many a cold rainy day. Snow is, of course, absolutely unknown in Ceylon. For the first week after my arrival the rainfall was excessive, pouring as if the very heavens were coming down— pitiless, pouring rain— and the ceaseless drip, drip, drip from the soaked thatch was most depressing. The heavy rainfall fills the numerous clear' brown streams which rush down every ravine of the dark bills, and very gloomy these often seem when capped with gathering clouas and grey drift, clothing the green forests in sombre purple and blue shadows ; but when the sun conquers, then you have a climate like that of our very loveliest summer days in Scotland ; the crisp, clear air is so marvellously invigorating and inspiriting that every breath is an elixir; and the mere fact of existing is a delight, renewed with every breath of an atmosphere so exhilarating that even the feeblest folk find themselves endued with exhaustless energies. Mornings, evening?, and moonlight are each more enchanting than words can tell, and all alike perfumed with the breath of English clover from cultivated fields, micgling with that of mignonette, musk, stocks, pansies, violets, liliep, carnations, phloxes, sweet peas, honeysuckle, azaleas, and all manner of fragrant garden flowers ; and you look up from gardens where heavenly roses, geranium, fuchsia, chrysanthemum, camellias, and heliotrope are luxuriant bushes, to the beautiful mountains encircling the plain, where the sparkling rivulet winds about through thickets of wild roses, yellow wattle imported from Australia golden gorse— real whins, exactly the same as our own, fragrant and home-like — with foxgloves and bluebells, brambles and bracken, growing side by side with the magnificent tree-ferns and the scarlet rhododendron trees, and masses of snowy datura, the latter dipping in the stream their graceful boughs, heavy with the weight of beautiful trumpet-shaped blossom. And of minor flowers there are our own buttercups, foxgloves, and common white clover, and white violets (which, however, are scentless), and a most fascinating wild passion flower, pure white, and enfolded in a mossy calyx just liko a white moss rose. — From Miss Gordon Oumming's work on Ceylon. ,VULTUEES AS SCAVENGEBS. J The vultures are wonderful scavengers in India.

One day an elephant belonging to one of my friends fell down dead suddenly not very far from the house, and there was no power available to drag the huge body away. The mahout suggested that the glephant should be partly dismembered and exposed so as to invite the vultures.

It would be hard to say, or hard to get anyone to believe, how rapidly the vultures came and removed every bit of thcelephant, save the bones and part of the skin. .

When a tiger has been skinned after it ha 3 been shot and brought into camp the body is usually left to the disposal of the vultures.

One one occasion, when circumstances were favourable for an observation, we took out our watches to note the time in which the vultures could eat up the whole body of a tiger. The skinned body looked just like the carcase of a large calf, only the big bones and hard muscles are very different.

The vultures, who were watchiiag hard by, descended on it in hundreds, and in" rather less than 15 minutes there was nothing left but a few of the larger bones, for which the pariah dogs were ready to* dispute as soon as they were free from the beaks of the vultures. — Longman's Magazine. THE DOOM OF THE MAN WHO DBANK KING'S BEEE.

It was at the time of the great dance, when for a month there is a special license, and when anyone carrying beer about is liable to have it raided. But this man had levied toll on the King's beer when it was being carried by the King's women. The poor wretch was brought before the King. He was horribly afraid., His eyes stuck out of his head, and his knees knocked together as he tried to make obeisance. The King bade them hold him fast, then he said, looking the culprit up and down : " You have a nose and a mouth, and two ears, and two ev.es. You have used your nose to smell King's beer " — (turning to attendants) — " cut off his nose 1 " They cut off the man's nose. " You have used your mouth to drink King's beer ; cut off his mouth ! "

They cut off the man's lips. He was a horrid sight. Lobengala waited a moment. Then he said deliberately :

" You have heard with your ears that it is not allowed to drink King's beer ; but your ears are no good to you."

Off went the poor wretch's ears. He looked at the King with a look dreadful to see.

•' Your eyes — cover up his eye 3 1 " shouted the King. " Put his forehead over his eyes that they may not see King's boer 1 " and they cue the forehead of the man, and turned down the flap of skin as a surgeon might turn it, so that it hung over his eyes. Then the King looked at the man for a few minutes, and the man grovelled before him in the dung, until suddenly the King fell into a rage — perhaps he was asbamed of himself— and bade them beat the mm with logs of wood. They beat him within an inch of his life. Last, the poor wretch mustered strength to crawl away, like a broken snake, along the . ground, aad he went and lay under a waggon until nightfall. Then he crept down to the stream to bathe his wounds. He came close past my wapgon! and you never saw such a ghastly sight as he was. The flap of skin hung over his eyes but it was dried and stark.—" In Afrikanderland " (Pall Mall Gazette Extra). THE CAEEEE OV A SMUGGLED DIAMOND. We will assume that the original thief is

a working Kafir, loading a truck in the mine, or breaking the "blue" on the dryioggrounds, who suddenly espies a fine diamond, Bay of five or 10 carats, glittering among its dark surroundings. Warned by native acquisitiveness, or mindful of evil counsels with which some " runner" has primed him for just such an opportunity, our Kafir gives not a word or a sign that might attract the eye of the 07erseer. Seizing a moment when he is not observed, he quietly picks the stone up between his toes, and there holds it until an opportunity occurs of transferring it to his mouth. Once there, in a moment it is swallowed with as much nonchalance as if it were a pill. This done, he can face the ordeal of the searching-room, where, naked as he was born, he undergoes a scrutiny of mouth, ears, noso, hair (or rather scrub), armpits— every conceivable or inconceivable lodgment for a diamond : then goe3 through certain gymnastic exercises, and makes way for the next No white would stand this sort of thing for any wages under the sun, and there was riot and bloodshed once at Kimberley when it was proposed to impose on whites a similar scrutiny. But it makes it impossible to have a diamond concealed about the person, otherwise than inside.

In this way, however, an industrious thief will sometimes accumulate within the compound a little cache of precious stones, who c e hiding-place is known only to himself. He possesses his soul in patience until his three months are nearly up, then digs up his diamond or diamonds', and swallows the lot. One uncomfortable week before his exit he has to spend in a specially-constructed room, and under circumstances of surveillance which I must beg you not to inquire how he outwits. Suffice it to say that all does not avail to prevent the diamond from being turned into a circulating currency. At la--t he passes gaily out with his goods packed inside him.

However, if he be at all suspected, it will avail him little to confront the Customs House of the compound with co treacherous a portmanteau as the human form divine. ••But," you will say, "they cannot treat the unhappy native as Baron Munchausen did the fox. They cannot turn him inside out I " Not like a stocking, perhaps. That is true. But they can put him (sleight of hand debarred by padlocking the offending members within certain fingerless leather gloves) in a small and solitary chamber, and there subject him to such pcine forte et dure as speedily attains its end By prescriptions of a kind familiar to the faculty, accompanied by such a light and nourishing diet as is adapted to a febrile patient, the treatment proceeds until a satisfactory cure is effected. Valuable additions have in this way been made to the world's wealth in diamonds.

Such is one typical story of what My Lady's diamonds may have been through ! — "In Afrikanderland " (Pall Mall Gazette Extra).

THE INDIAN MANGO TRICK.

In 1865 a friend of mine was on the point of leaving Calcutta, when some native jugglers came on board the steamer to give an~exhibition of their powers. The surroundings were thus very unfavourable for the performance of anything but a very dexterous trick, and the mango exhibition was given on the bare deck.

The performer was almost naked, so that there was no opportunity for the concealment of a flower pot under a robe.

He placed before him, first of all, a small fiat native wicker-work basket, such as snakes are carried in. This was filled with earth.

A mango seed was then produced.

It was a very large one — a point, this, of importance in view of what follows — and was duly placed in the earth, and covered up. The earth was watered, and the basket in its turn concealed by a small cotton cloth.

Then began the usual mutterings and incantations, while the earth was again sprinkled with water and stirred with the fingers of the operator.

After a few minutes' interval the juggler lifted the cloth and showed to the spectators two small mango leaves appearing above the surface of the earth.

The basket was once more covered up, the watering of the earth and the incantations proceeded, and in a short time, when the cloth was removed, a mango plant, 7in or Bin high, and bearing four or five leaves, was disclosed to view. After another interval, a seedling mango appeared, at least 13in high, and bearing seven or eight leaves.

Hero the performance ended.

Curiosity was rife, of course, regarding the juggler's modus operandi, and my friend, anxious to know how thie ttick was performed, offered the juggler a good round sum of money for the disclosure of his secret.

After some hesitation the man consented to reveal his art, stipulating that bis revelation should be conducted in a secluded spot. A cabin on the ship was offered and accepted as a suitable place, and the juggler and my fiiend retired thereto.

The basket was prepared as before, and the mango seed was handed round.

It was, as before, a large one,

On its beiDg returned to the juggler, he pressed one end of the seed with his long finger-nail, when the seed opened. Two small leaves, those first seen in the deck trick, were then withdrawn from the seed, and next in order came forth the stem, with four leaves. Ultimately, the full 13in of the plant were manipulated out of the seed before the eyes of the spectators.

The seed was, in fact, a hollow one, and the young plant had been dexterously folded within its compass.

It is the art of folding the plant inside the seed which constitutes the essence of the trick. — Dr Andrew Wilson, in the Illustrated London New 3.