authority, and one of them, with a spear thrust, destroys the great pearl. Jacob Eibsen then seems repossessed by a white man's soul, and returns to the spot long since abandoned by his kindred, and finds it occupied by English settlers, whose children's simple, child-like playmate he becomes, and remains till death. The plot is good; and it is always managed with a sober simplicity, which forms an excellent ground for some strong dramatic effects. The Australian scenery and air and natural life are every where summoned round the story without being forced upon the reader. Here, for instance. Is a picture at once vivid and intelligible,—which is not always the case with the vivid pictures of the word-painters. After the rains begin in that southern climate,—
Earth throbs and heaves
With pregnant presience of life and leaves;
The shadows darken 'neath the tall trees' screen,
While round their stems the rank and velvet green
Of undergrowth is deeper still; and there
Within the double shade and steaming air,
The scarlet palm has fixed its noxious root,
And hangs the glorious poison of its fruit;
And there, 'mid shaded preen and shaded light,
The steel-blue silent birds take rapid flight
From earth to tree and tree to earth; and there
The crimsoned-plumaged parrot cleaves the air
Like flying fire, and huge brown owls awake
To watch, far down, the stealing carpet-snake
Fresh-skinned and glowing in his charming dyes,
With evil wisdom in the cruel eyes
That glint like gems as o'er his head flits by
The blue-black armor of the emperor-fly;
And all the humid earth displays its powers
Of prayer, with incense from the hearts of flowers
That load the air with beauty and with wine
Of mingled color. . .
"'And high o'erhead is color: round and round
The towering gums and tuads, closely wound
Like cables, creep the climbers to the sun,
And over all the reaching branches run
And hang, and still send shoots that climb and wind
