giving the appearance of an immense tiara. The highest, which rises to the height of sixty yards, dominates over the whole, and is the holy of holies, where the bonzes meet for prayer before a statue of Buddha. Not a stone of this colossal monument is without ornament. The sculptures are marvels, due to incomparable artists, whose inspirations are for ever engraved on stone, but whose names are effaced from the memory of man. According to a legendary tradition, it was built by a leprous king of the neighbouring city, in consequence of a vow he had made; but it is impossible to determine the epoch. It cannot, however, be doubted that the development of architectural art, of which this temple seems to be the highest expression, coincides with the introduction of the Buddhist religion among this people, driven perhaps from India at the time of the great religious per voyage, when the first village of the redoubtable Wonderful ruins were met with on the way, testifying to the vestiges of a former civilisation. After many hours of fatiguing march through the forest, those of Angcor were reached. They were known to the Portuguese at the end of the sixteenth century, but have fallen into utter neglect. Proud statues of lions stand at the entrance of a broad way, paved with flat stones, passing over deep ditches, now changed into marshes: this leads to a long gallery, of which three half-ruined towers interrupt the architectural line. Passing through the central pavilion, a second paved avenue of two hundred yards in length opens out on an immense edifice of a wholly different style of architecture to any that is seen in the west. Tower above tower seems to rise in fantastic profile; but when examined, the plan consists of two rectangular and concentric galleries, with pavilions at the corners, and four towers in the centre, As to the city itself, the walls only are intact; they are nine feet in thickness, formed of cut stones laid together without cement, and have defied the assaults of time, and of a most vigorous vegetation. Broad roads over deep moats lead to the gates, guarded by fifty stone giants, enormous sentinels bound together by the folds of a monstrous serpent, which seems to exhaust itself in vain efforts to escape. A sort of triumphal arch leads to the interior; the heads of elephants decorate the summit; and the trunks, unfolded vertically, like columns, rest on a cluster of large leaves. Regret is as great as astonishment, when, having passed through this magnificent barrier, the thick forest is found to have filled up the vast inclosure surrounded by the walls. The vestiges of a few ruins are met with in solitudes peopled by wild animals, whose fearful cries are repeated by the echoes alone. The king's palace is crumbling under the climbing-plants which divide every stone with their roots. It seems to have been conceived by a wonderfully rich imagination, and was formerly surmounted by forty or fifty towers, some representing the heads of Buddha, which remind the spectator of the Sphinx of Egypt. But encumbered by ruins, it does not please so much as the temple, which is a model of grandeur, harmony, and simplicity. The Portuguese historians seem to think that it was no longer a royal residence in 1570, and perhaps it was abandoned by the inhabitants at the same time. A similar sanctuary was met with in a most distant province of Laos, built in the same style, and covered with gilding One of the buildings, to which the bonzes would scarcely give access, contained a library of sacred books. There they were arranged on decorated shelves, enveloped in rich bindings, covered with silk, slumbering uninterruptedly; for not one of the monks could decipher the language in which they were written. Farther explorations of an arm of the Mekong required the assistance of elephants instead of boats; and the governor promised to find six for the use of the party. A narrow long seat, not unlike a child's cradle, laid upon many skins of stags, calves, or oxen, was strapped round the body of the gigantic animal. When they mounted in a village, ladders placed against these living walls made the ascent and descent easy; but if the ha were in the forest, the well-trained elephants k down at the word of the driver; others s raised the fore-foot, so as to form a step by wh the rider had to reach his place. A word generally sufficed to guide such intelligent creatures, but occasionally the driver cruelly thrust his iron rod in the head so as to bring blood. The river, buried in a deep ravine, had to be crossed twice; the elephants could only pass along a path as wide as their feet and very precipitous, in order to reach it. When the ground was light, they stiffened the fore-legs, and allowed the hind ones to drag so as to touch the soil with their haunches, thus sliding to the bottom of the precipice without ever losing their coolness or equilibrium. Looking at them as they issued from a defile, they might easily be taken for an immense mass of rock which had been detached, and was moving along. When climbing the dry bed of a torrent filled with rolling stones, they examined every great tree, the roots of which were uncovered, or any overhanging rock; scrutinised each tuft of grass, and never advanced a step without being assured that the ground would bear them. They were sometimes an hour in getting over a mile, but they never stumbled. When the forest had replaced the rice-grounds, there were no villages found for resting-places, and the provisions for many days had to be carried. The roads were such that the most powerful horse would have refused them. Having reached, not without difficulty, the summit of a precipitous hill, they discovered a beautiful stream in which the wooded mountains were reflected. It was the river Attopée, an old acquaintance, and a halt on its banks was received with pleasure. The elephant's movement is very fatiguing; it is neither rolling nor pitching, but a mixture of the two, which changes at the least unexpected sound to a sudden and violent start. When once domesticated, and not specially trained for war, they become more timid than hares, and will shy at a little dog. In the forest, however, there are more serious causes for alarm; they passed the traces of the rhinoceros, and a tiger crossed their path. They were, in fact, in a neighbourhood where ferocious animals abounded, and the Laotians shewed great fear. They raised a small altar to Buddha with the branches of trees, entreated the travellers not to rouse the anger of the god by swearing or quarrelling, and what was better still, lighted large fires round the camp. Still more difficult became the forest-path on the next day. The roads marked out by the wild elephants were the only ones, and they intersect each other through the bamboos, which form an impenetrable tissue of thorns under the trees. The elephants bury themselves in this undergrowth, tear it away with their trunks, and crush it under their feet. Each in turn leads the column, and obeys exactly the verbal directions of the driver, as if he understood the language itself. If a large tree bars the road, the animal rests its broad forehead against it, and without seeming to make much effort, the tree begins to bend, the roots start out of the ground, and soon it lies extended under the pressure of the mighty foot, which finishes the work by crushing it. Should it be one of the immense creepers, which, hanging from the trees, menace the destruction of the traveller, the elephant draws its stem like a cable towards him, tears and breaks it as a child would a thread, and never advances a step without having opened a sufficiently wide passage for himself and the load on his back, the height of which he seems accurately to measure. Thus they had to labour patiently for many days, and never shewed any ill temper but when the drivers found it necessary to tie them up, instead of simply shackling their feet. This was done whenever they halted in parts frequented by the wild elephants, since these latter, blushing, as it were, to see their race subjected to man, never fail to try and break their brothers' bonds, and constrain them to join their fellows in the wandering life of the woods. Thus they reached the limits of Lower Laos, and the farther they went the stronger did the truth dawn upon them, that the great river Mekong could not be utilised for commercial purposes. Steamers will never ripple its waters, like those of the Amazon and Mississippi; and Saigon cannot hope to be united with the western provinces of China by this immense fluvial way, so powerful by the volume of its waters, yet which seems like a magnificent yet unfinished work. But in other respects the explorers did not feel that their labour was without fruit. By the means of bamboo rafts and pirogues, a considerable trade can be carried on in the way of exchange. European stuffs of brilliant colours are the only luxury sought for at present by the Laotians, whilst watches and arms are the great desire of the rich; but the mandarins transform their houses into museums, where they collect the refuse of our commonest manufactures, and esteem them more than those articles for which they pay so dearly. The A Undeterred, the energetic company pressed on into Middle Laos, having, in addition to the elephants, fifteen buffalo-carriages, which were buried up to the axle-trees in the burning dust which now covered the country. Everywhere the people were making their salt-harvest. marshes containing it abound; thus the people are inundated with this disagreeable kind of water half the year, and are almost dying of thirst the other half. If salt forms the riches of this province of Ubone, chalk is for the next province of Lakhon an inexhaustible source of wealth. whole chain of mountains formed of it presents a most wonderful aspect. One immense line opens, and joins itself to the next with the arch of a gigantic bridge; the angles are formed in the most fantastic manner; a dome rests its head on the shoulder of the next hill; a pyramid seems to be placed the wrong way up. Valleys, gorges, dark crevasses; partitions, pointed, rough, or polished by water; cavities festooned with stalactites, pendent and indented like Gothic sculptures, form a strange spectacle, and one that excites the admiration of the spectator. When burned, the stones from these mountains are an object of the first necessity for the Laotian. It is chewed with the leaf of the betel and the areca-nut by men and women alike, rendering them hideous, as the mouth is always bloody in appearance; it flattens the lips, decays and blackens the teeth. Often they add tobacco to it, and the bark of a tree, in which there is a large trade. The river was now so low, that large banks of sand appeared, and the shore was a desert. Turning into the forest, they could not but admire the luxuriant vegetation-trees a hundred feet high, bound together by the various climbing-plants which hung in arches between the foliage. One evening, a tiger bounded out, and stopped at twenty paces off. They were without arms, but happily the white skin, long beard, and steady eye of the European frightened the animal, and he turned and fled. He is accustomed, when he sees a monkey on a pliant and young tree, to give the trunk an unexpected shake, as children do when knocking down apples; the monkey falls to the ground, and is devoured immediately. The indolent Laotians prefer fishing to hunting these fierce animals. The muddy waters of the river supply them with abundance, and for about halfa-crown a monster fish may be purchased, a yard and a half long, as fat as pork, and with flesh the colour and consistence of beef. When sliced and smoked, it furnishes food for a long time to a family. At length the capital, Luang-Praban, was reached, a large city with about ten thousand inhabitants, bounded on one side by the Mekong. How pleasant did the confused murmur of many voices sound to the travellers, wearied with the silence of vast solitudes! It is here that Buddha has left his footprint on a rock, so that pagodas are numerous and splendidly ornamented. In the market may be seen many varieties of costume and type. There are the Burman pedlers, who bring cotton and woollen stuffs and a few European articles; their countenance is more open and intelligent than that of the Laotians, whilst their whole body is disfigured by red and blue tattooing. The savages, who are under the rule of the king, come in every morning to buy and to sell; all have the lobe of the ear pierced with a hole an inch long, through which they pass a cylindrical ornament of wood or metal, which the women replace with a large silver pin tipped with gold. They are much despised by the Laotians, but are skilful labourers, owning the best rice-fields and the finest flocks. All the vendors sit silently on each side of the street, with their wares before them; the buyers do their work without noise. There are ragouts ready prepared, and savoury drinks, fish, beef, and pork; lackered boxes, parasols, silk, cotton, rice, salt, Chinese nettles, cigarettes, and pipes; for everybody smokes, men, women, and children; the baby even inhaling the flavour from its mother. struggling on towards China, and now, when within a few days' reach of its borders, the authorities declared that they had received orders not to permit the strangers to pass the frontier. After long discussions with the functionaries, they determined to proceed; and bidding adieu to the river Mekong, entered a very mountainous country, inhabited by a mixed race of Chinese and Laotians. Pine-forests clothed the heights, torrents foamed down the gorges, and forgetting the difficulty of the ascent, they reached the summit, from whence the eye wandered over an extensive plain, and a real town, with its white gables, red wall, and brickcoloured roofs: they were at last on the soil of one of the most ancient and least-known peoples in the world, and every heart beat with emotion at having penetrated into China by a new and unknown route. LUCKY NUMBERS. THERE is a widely spread tendency to believe in lucky numbers. The mystical properties of numbers, and the doctrine of chances, have both something to do with this matter. Card-players have a number of crotchets of this kind—‘luck under the deuce,' bad luck under the nine of diamonds, an even number for the trump card. One theory says that even numbers are unlucky, because each can be divided into two, thereby denoting death and dissolution. One nation made the year consist of 359, in order that it should not divide into twelve equal months. Some of the early Christians pronounced for odd numbers; because God is 1 in 3, and because He made holy the 7th day. The number 7 and its multiples were on other grounds made lucky; because a human being sheds his teeth at 7, becomes a youth at twice 7, a man at thrice 7, and reaches his grand climacteric at nine times 7. In some parts of England, the housewives put their hens on an odd number of eggs; because, with an even number, they fear there would be no chicks. The current year of our Lord is always a lucky number in the estimation of some persons. Addison said, in the Spectator: I have been told of a cerThe fine weather passed away in delays whilst tain zealous dissenter, who, being a great enemy to waiting for passports, and the rainy season had popery, and believing that bad men are the most already begun before the party were ready to start. fortunate in the world, will lay two to one on the The king tried to dissuade them from entering number 666 against any other number; because, the Chinese territory; and, in the midst of many says he, it is the number of the beast. This warnings, they set out with a much diminished mystical number has played a great part in luck purse, party, and baggage. The month's rest in speculations. Some Apocalyptic interpreters will the city had been a pleasant oasis, and they again have it that 666 is the pope himself; while, on took to their boats, to navigate this enormous the other hand, a Roman Catholic journalist has stream, the source of which is probably in the recently striven to shew that if Bismarck were highlands of Thibet. The rain fell in torrents, spelled Bistmarck, it would be exactly equivalent fever attacked them, and they landed, as the river's to 666. Number 3 is greatly in favour for luck; current was too violent to be breasted. Here were schoolboys insist that the third time will be fair, new troubles; the leeches proved a real scourge; or will result in success. There is an old supernumerous as dead leaves they issued from the stition or maxim, call it which we may, that three depths of the woods, and hung in clusters on the handfuls of sand on a dead body are as good as feet and legs, leaving a venomous sting, which soon a funeral. The Romans had notions about the changed into an ulcer; whilst the night brought breadth of a camp fosse measuring an odd number no repose, owing to the unseen clouds of mosqui- of feet; the holding of markets at intervals of an toes whose bite was fire. The authorities refused odd number of days; the taking of the census at to help them with baggage-oxen, and they were intervals of an odd number of years; the dining obliged to part with their remaining articles of at a triclinium or three-sided table; the Graces clothing to supply the culinary department; a being three, the Furies three, and the Muses seven waistcoat was exchanged for a duck, and shirts for Greek cities had an odd number of gates. The vegetables. For sixteen months had they been | French peasantry have a knack of making lucky and unlucky years for great personages, by adding together the year of our Lord, the digits which compose that number, the age of the individual, and the number of years between his birth, marriage, or some other notable event in his lifean elastic sort of process, which can be made to prove almost anything we wish. The silly belief in lucky numbers has nowhere been carried to a more absurd extent than in reference to lottery tickets. The state openly and avowedly gave less than it received; the aggregate of prizes was far lower than the money paid by the public for the tickets; and the profit was transferred to the treasury as revenue. The state morality said to the public: 'We do not cheat you; you can buy tickets or not, as you please; and whatever prize you draw, we will honourably pay you the full amount as to the blanks, you must of course take your chance, and must be prepared to expect that they are much more numerous than the prizes.' Then why did the public rush to the lottery offices to buy tickets, knowing all the time that whatever the state might win by the system must necessarily be lost by the aggregate of ticket-buyers? Every buyer hoped that his particular ticket would be a lucky one, and would bring him some large sum. Every ticket was numbered; and he might indulge his own fancy in selecting a particular number. As no one knew beforehand which number would be successful, and as all had an equal chance of success, a reasonable man would just as willingly purchase one number as another. But lottery-ticket buyers were not reasonable; they were gamblers, although they did not say it, and perhaps did not even know it; and were tempted by whatever superstition clung to luck in numbers. The lottery contractors or lotteryoffice keepers knew this well, and made their market out of it; each one claimed to have been particularly fortunate in the sale of tickets which had turned up prizes; and, on the principle post hoc, propter hoc, invited the public to believe that past good luck was an augury of future good luck at the same office. One of the firms, catching hold of an old woman named Goodluck, gave her L.50 a year for the use of her name as a nominal partner; and for many years the House of Goodluck & Co. took the lead. So large was the business done by some of these firms, that as much as L.10,000 was on one occasion given for the goodwill of a lottery office. In the reign of George I. the footman of a lady of quality dreamed that two particular numbers would turn up prizes; he bought these two tickets on the following day; but they both turned up blanks, and he put an end to his existence. In his trunk was found a memorandum to the effect that, when his riches came to him, he would marry Grace Farmer, that he would make her wait upon him, and that he would eat and drink all day long. Towards the end of the same reign, a mathematician, familiar with the theory of probabilities, demonstrated that, in a particular year, the chances were 34,999 to 1 against a particular number winning the L.10,000 prize; 11,669 to 1 against a L.5000 prize; and 6 to 1 against obtaining any prize at all. But all such warnings were of no use. A banker's clerk was one day found raving mad in the street; he had bought a ticket bearing a favourite number, and was robbed of it; on the day of the drawing of the lottery that number came up a L.30,000 prize : and grief and rage were too much for him. The days of George III. were full of odd incidents about lucky numbers in the lottery. One, Mr Barnes, a grocer, bought four consecutive numbers; fearing that this would be unlucky, he exchanged one of them; but by an annoying freak of fortune, the rejected number turned up a L.20,000 prize, which fell to the lot of one Captain Young. About a fortnight before the drawing of one of the lotteries, three friends determined to buy a ticket among them; but not being able to agree upon the number to be selected, they requested a little girl to decide for them. She fixed upon No. 10,000. They did not like it, thinking the number too obvious, not sufficiently mysterious. She refused to amend her choice, declaring her conviction that the number would prove a lucky one. Whereupon, setting her down as a silly goose, they bought another ticket; but No. 10,000, as it happened, did turn up a prize of L.20,000. An odd incident was connected with a lottery ticket early in the present century. Baron D'Aguilar was requested by a friend to purchase for him No. 14,068, which he felt certain would prove a lucky one. The baron could not fulfil the commission, for he found that this particular number was already sold. The number came up a prize of L.20,000. So far there was vexation for Baron D'Aguilar's friend. On the other hand, the lucky winner (a draper in Cornhill) remained a long time without his money, owing to a blunder of his own; he had bought ten tickets, and had entered their numbers in a note-book as a memorandum; but he wrote 14,668 instead of 14,068, and remained long ignorant of the fact that that ticket had proved a lucky one. A The owner of White Conduit House, some sixty or seventy years ago, lost his all by lotteries, and became impoverished. Meeting a friend one day, he said he had a presentiment that a particular number would be a great prize; money was lent to him to buy; it came up a prize; he squandered the treasure and died a beggar. man, and his cousin, a married woman, clubbed their small means to buy a sixteenth of a lottery ticket; she went to the office to buy it, taking with her a little girl; the girl, being asked to select the number, fixed upon 23,824; she could give no particular reason, but adhered to her choicedeclaring that the number would be a lucky one. It came up a prize of L.10,000; the man went and received the due aliquot part, L.625. Having some peculiar notions about the property or non-property of married women, he pocketed all the money; but the law afterwards compelled him to share it with her. Charles Lamb tells a story of a gentleman who had purchased No. 1069; passing a lottery office, he saw a placard announcing that that number had come up a L.20,000 prize; he walked round St Paul's, to cool his agitation before entering the office on going back again, he found that he had mistaken 10,069 for 1069. The law had frequently to decide cases about lucky numbers. A lady (just before the abolition of lotteries in 1826) wished to purchase the number of the year in which she was born, 1792; finding this was sold, she bought one differing from it by 0 only, namely, 17,092. She was in the hall when, as she declared, No. 17,092 was audibly announced as a L.30,000 prize; and she brought an action for the money; but it was proved that her ears or her imagination must have deceived her. In another case, one Mr M Kellar owed some kindness to his friend, Mr Bellamy. He bought a quarter of a ticket, and said that Bellamy should have half the proceeds, if it turned up a prize. This was done twice over, but both tickets were blanks. Bellamy's daughter then dreamed that No. 5 would be a L.20,000 prize; this number was not to be had; but something told Bellamy to multiply his daughter's number by itself, and add 2 to it."' This made 27. No. 27 was bought, and it was drawn a L.20,000 prize. M'Kellar declared that he had not repeated his promise after the second failure, and a lawsuit was maintained to decide this point. Bellamy also claimed an additional percentage for the ingenuity of his guess about No. 27.' HANDSOME. IN FOUR CHAPTERS.-CHAPTER II. THE lovers had agreed not to mention their engagement till the sanction of Netta's parents had been obtained. It was not likely to be withheld, for Tempest, for a detrimental, was pretty well off, and had nobody to consult; and Netta was the third of a family of four girls and three boys, all more or less unprovided for. Nevertheless, both these young persons came in with such over-acted unconsciousness that Lady Penrhyn smiled with significant benevolence upon them; Brydone looked blacker than thunder; and the very butler filled their glasses with solemn, congratulatory emphasis. Lunch proceeded much as usual, in spite of the convulsion of nature which had just occurred, till Brydone's neighbour of last night, who was sitting next to Miss Thursby, inquired of her if she had found her locket. 'What locket?' said Tempest, with a tragic air, across the table. He was not in the least jealous, in reality, this mild and amiable creature; but he felt it necessary to the situation, part of his love for Netta, to appear so. 'Where did you lose it?' inquired Brydone, more practically, and with a fierce wish that it might be somewhere where Tempest would not dare to venture his 'pretty' face. Tempest's pretty face was, however, quite as likely to be foremost in peril as any ugly ones. No; I haven't found it. I dropped it on the cliff-path when we took that long walk to the "Devil's Teeth," from Treluen, yesterday. It was one papa gave me on my last birthday, so I am very sorry to lose it,' said Netta, answering the questioners inversely to her liking for them. 'I am afraid you won't get it again, then, dear,' said Lady Penrhyn; and so the subject dropped, or rather a rattle of rain, and a fierce gust of wind against the window, turned the conversation. In spite of the weather, however, two gentlemen were immediately after lunch called by pressing business to the little station four miles from Penorna. Tempest, who was the first to start, borrowed the keeper's Welsh pony, and (in spite of that lively little beast occasionally slipping from between his legs, or standing immovably, from the force of habit, to 'point' at game) managed to catch an early train, and be deposited, amid blinding rain and howling blasts, at a still more tiny and primitive station than the one he had left; with a good hour's start of his rival, who, not being a favourite with the Penorna household, was obliged to trust to his own legs and luck. and made his way to the path which ran along the He too, arrived, however, in due time at Treluen, top of the precipitous cliffs Netta had seen from a distance that morning. The day had utterly changed; an awfully black sky hung over a leaden sea, whose long rollers of livid foam crashed like artillery against the rocks, and crawled hungrily over the sand. The tide, just at its lowest, was beginning to turn, and the smaller sea-birds, hopping about in search of food amid the débris of shell and weed, were driven ever higher up, with reluctant twitterings, from stone to stone. The wind howled and raved hideously, till Brydone was fain to ram his hat deep on his brows, and his stony road, to steady his steps. Sometimes his strike the stick he carried among the crevices of path was on the short fine turf, cut close by the keen wind, sometimes sheltered by cliffs rising on either side, sometimes only to the landward, and seaward nothing but a sheer slippery, gray wall, going down, when the tide was up, into a dozen feet of water; shewing now, at its ebb, a chevaux de frise of ragged points, ghastly white; which, reaching a quarter of a mile out, gave this part of the coast its dark name. Brydone was a sufficiently brave man, but he shuddered as he glanced down, and pressed closer to the inland wall. He was more preoccupied than he could afford to be on such a road in such weather, and more than once ran cheek or shoulder against a projecting crag, incidents which made him scowl at his own folly in coming here at all, and think, with sad and savage intuition, how vain that folly was. However, he was in for it now, and went doghim in this also, in luck as in love, imagining gedly on, unconscious that Tempest was before that soft-voiced idiot' coddling himself in the biggest arm-chair by the fire in the large drawing room, maundering poetry to the ladies, kept indoors, like them, by a little rain. Ah, if women only knew!' said poor Brydone, falling into the not uncommon mistake of thinking that the gilded the leaden one, a gift of great price. He had left casket means necessarily emptiness within, and Treluen half-a-dozen miles behind, and the Devil's Teeth rather more than two, when, emerging at one of the abrupt turns of the path from the craggy double wall, he saw a few yards before him, cut clear against a brassy gleam on the sky, blood boiling from his heart to his cheek, and a figure he at once recognised, which sent the made him stand still and clench his teeth for an where! The man was before him here too-the instant, with impotent passion. Distanced everyhandsome, happy, successful man. |