gesticulations, such as extending their arms and wriggling their bodies. It was a most rude, barbarous scene, and, to our ideas, without any sort of meaning; but we observed that the black women and children watched it with the greatest pleasure. Perhaps these dances originally represented actions, such as wars and victories; there was one called the Emu dance, in which each man extended his arm in a bent manner like the neck of that bird. In another dance, one man imitated the movements of a kangaroo grazing in the woods, whilst a second crawled up and pretended to spear him. When both tribes mingled in the dance, the ground trembled with the heaviness of their steps, and the air resounded with their wild cries. Every one appeared in high spirits, and the group of nearly naked figures, viewed by the light of the blazing fires, all moving in hideous harmony, formed a perfect display of a festival amongst the lowest barbarians. In Tierra del Fuego, we have beheld many curious scenes in savage life; but never, I think, one where the natives were in such high spirits, and so perfectly at their ease. After the dancing was over, the whole party formed a great circle on the ground, and the boiled rice and sugar was distributed, to the delight of all, C. Darwin. III. THE FORSAKEN MERMAN. COME, dear children, let us away; Now my brothers call from the bay, Call her once before you gò— Call once yet! In a voice that she will know : "Margaret! Margaret!" Children's voices should be dear (Call once more) to a mother's ear; This way, this way! "Mother dear, we cannot stay! The wild white horses foam and fret.” Margaret Margaret! Come, dear children, come away down; Call no more! One last look at the white-wall'd town, And the little grey church on the windy shore ; Then come down! She will not come though you call all day; Come away, come away! Children dear, was it yesterday We heard the sweet bells over the bay? Through the surf and through the swell, Children dear, was it yesterday (Call yet once) that she went away? On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well, When down swung the sound of a far-off bell. She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea; And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee." Children dear, were we long alone? "The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan; Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town; From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers, panes. She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear: For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book! Down, down, down! Down to the depths of the sea! She sits at her wheel in the humming town, Singing most joyfully. Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy, For the humming street, and the child with its toy! For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well; For the wheel where I spun, And the blessed light of the sun!" And so she sings her fill, Singing most joyfully, Till the shuttle falls from her hand, And the whizzing wheel stands still. She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, And her eyes are set in a stare ; And anon there drops a tear, A long, long sigh; For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden, And the gleam of her golden hair. Come away, away children, She will start from her slumber A pavement of pearl. Singing: "Here came a mortal, But faithless was she! And alone dwell for ever The kings of the sea.” But, children, at midnight, |