Imatges de pàgina
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they could not eat, for their tongues are of such abnormal length that they require ample space for shooting them out and securing their prey, and probably had the fly been farther off it would immediately have been swallowed.

Sickly little children lay on the deck, weak and pale from Mauritius fever, and they smiled at my creatures as they watched them change color when put on different hues.

On one point I was firm; no one was to put them on anything red, for the effect would be fatal. At the Castle at Capetown one evening some officers were dining in uniform, and one put a chameleon on his mess jacket. It grew darker and darker, then swelled, as if with rage, and died. Some people think that the effort to turn color is too great for it, and others that the creature really bursts with anger; but the fact is stated in books on natural history.

"The

"Have you tried them with cockroaches?" the sergeant asked. cook would have plenty."

It was a Sunday afternoon, and there was more leisure than usual among the ship's men, so I visited the cook and the butcher, who rose to the occasion.

The butcher pulled up his shirtsleeve and let a chameleon walk on his arm, while the cook caught cockroaches and set them running over the butcher's arm in front of the apathetic chameleon. For he took not the slightest notice of them.

"He ain't hungry, ma'am," said the butcher. "Put 'em on the plants in the saloon. They'll do right enough."

So I commended them to the headwaiter and left them on the palms in the saloon, but whether temptation was too strong for someone, or whether an enterprising chameleon wished to explore for himself, I cannot say, for later in the day five only were to be found.

The Captain assured me that they did not want to eat, and during the day they clung to their palm branches and seemed to sleep, but at night they became active and explored every corner of the saloon.

"Them creatures of yours, ma'am," the head-waiter would say, "are all over the place when I come here in the morning. One was on the sofa, one was under the captain's chair, another was on the curtain, and one was on the floor where the carpet was rolled up." I looked round the plants on the table and could only find four.

"Yes, ma'am," said the waiter, "I'd trod on that one on the floor before I saw it, so I had to throw him overboard. I'm sorry, but you won't get 'em home alive. I've seen scores brought on board, but only one reached home alive, and that was eaten next day by the cat."

This was rather depressing, but I declined to believe that I should be unsuccessful, and for many days no further accidents occurred.

During Morning Service on the following Sunday, one enterprising chameleon climbed up an old gentleman's coat whilst the First Lesson was being read, and sat triumphantly on his collar when he rose for the Te Deum, and I believe they sucked up the drops of water I put on the palm-leaves, but they began to grow thin.

A gentleman who was taking some orchid plants from Mossel Bay suggested that the chameleons might find insects on them, and they were placed there on the lower deck and ran in and out of the leaves.

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wish that I had not brought them away.

However, a naval officer had brought a large bunch of flowers on board, which was placed on the saloon table, and here my three survivors revelled, for the flowers were full of insects.

At Las Palmas we landed and drove up the mountain to lunch. The diningroom was full of flies. Why had I not brought my little friends?

The waiter caught several flies for me, and put them into a bottle, and that evening on board a boy fed the chameleons, for either they could not or would not feed themselves.

News had spread like wild-fire as soon as we were anchored, that as the plague was in Lisbon we should not stop again, and should be in Plymouth on Friday morning.

How we rejoiced; but my tiny pets did not heed the news, and the next day one died.

"Only two," I said to the doctor. "I shall call them the Governor and Cecil Rhodes."

Cecil Rhodes was the larger and paler of the two; the Governor was a dear little rich green creature, and my favorite.

Every one seemed to think that I should get these two home alive, and even the head-waiter modified his opinion.

""Twill be a wonderful thing, ma'am, for I never knew but one got home alive, and that was eaten by the cat; but I really believe you'll do it."

We gave them the inside of grapes, or little bits of fruit, and Thursday evening came.

I can only give you our point of view: if the Governor and Cecil Rhodes could have written their impressions of us it would have been infinitely more interesting and original, for human life on board is not as consistent as chameleon life.

So anxious was I about them this

last night, that I took them to my cabin in their box, from which they escaped, and were making a tour of my dressing-gown in the morning; but I brought them safely to breakfast. Cecil Rhodes was paler than usual, and seemed to have grown suddenly thin; but

"Hullo," said the doctor, "what's the matter with Cecil Rhodes?"

For he had laid himself down, and died. "Never mind," said the doctor, "I'll preserve him in spirits, and you can still take him home."

I looked at my little Governor, and was thankful that he was the survivor, then I went below to pack.

The chief steward and stewardess sat at breakfast as I went through. "Cecil Rhodes is dead," I said, and the stewardess started up.

"Has there been a telegram?" she cried, though we were still going at full speed.

"Not the man-the chameleon," I explained.

Before my packing was finished the doctor sent a bottle round, wherein poor Cecil Rhodes swam in spirits. The bottle bore a label. "Hic jacet 'Cecil Rhodes. In the midst of plenty, we starve."

The embalmed remains I kept out of sight, for I had loved to feel the clinging of his queer finger and thumb; and the Governor went back alone into the box which had brought the seven from Robben Island.

No special train awaited the Governor at Plymouth, no strains of "God save the Queen" welcomed him home; but his new home was as fair and bright with flowers as his old home in the island lying lown upon the sea, and some one discovered that he could eat a fly put at some distance from him; SO his long orange-colored tongue caught the flies in a marvellous manner, and the Governor took up his abode in a Devonshire drawing-room.

He gave a reception to half the par

ish, and was greatly admired, though he would not always eat at the desired moment.

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'Tis fairly like a little avit" (eft), said the poor people. "Will he bite, miss?" For west-country folk distrust anything of the nature of "avits."

The Governor's home was a geranium plant, and it was carried up at night; but one morning it was left on the piano in the dining-room till luncheon time, and when it was remembered, the Governor was gone.

It was a glorious summer day, and the window was wide open. Had the Governor fancied himself back in his own island and gone on a tour of inspection out into the coronella, and up among the jessamine and roses on the house? If so, we should see him no more, for when winter came my poor little Governor would die of the cold.

Everyone in the house came to look for it, and the boy with a ladder spent hours poking into the recesses of the creepers; but in vain-the Governor was nowhere to be found.

So I went out into the parish, and had to answer the enquiries after my "little avit" by the sad intelligence that he was lost.

But during my absence my sister went into the dining-room, and there sat the Governor on the top of the sewing-machine.

Temple Bar.

He was feasted and made much of that evening, and never again tried to wander away.

Early in October I had to go to London, and made up my mind to make enquiries at the Zoological Gardens as to the habits of chameleons during winter.

News came of the well-being of the Governor, and news came every day of the ever-increasing complications in South Africa.

And then came that day, never to be forgotten while the world shall last, of the beginning of the war in Africa; and the little Governor stretched himself out on his plant, and died.

Oh, little Governor, with your farseeing eyes and loving grasp, perhaps you are better away from your country just now.

Some day (who knows when)? it may again be the fair, bright land of flowers and peace as I knew it, and your brothers will be climbing the plumbago hedges or nestling among the oleanders, and voices will be laughing as they used to laugh in South Africa; but your memory, my Governor, lies deep in a heart that loves your country and waits for a better and brighter dawn to rise over it-a dawn which may be long in coming, but which must surely come at last.

E. M. Green.

GILBERT WHITE.

Books he shall read in hill and tree; The flowers his weather shall portend. The birds his moralists shall be,

And everything his friend.

W. J. Courthope.

PROVERBS AS LITERATURE.

Of literature, as of government, it may be said that it is born, not made. This saying, so often quoted, must not, indeed, be taken literally. There are definite formative acts achieved by which States grow, and to which their citizens rightly look back as towering landmarks. It is the same with literature. Here is a landmark called Homer, there another called Virgil. Italy has one known as Dante, England one called Shakespeare. In each case some particular constructive monument of genius was erected which had not existed before. But it did not originate de novo, it came into being from materials already there. Goethe said with truth of Burns that his poetry was the outcome of generations of Scottish ballad literature which welled up in his consciousness, and the elements of which were blended by his genius in a new form of art. This is more or less true of all literature, and therefore it may be said that mankind has created and sustained literature, and has contributed more to its perpetuation and power than any one individual, however great.

This consideration is once more suggested to the mind by an interesting "Hand-Book of English Proverbs with their Equivalents in Italian," by Professor G. Tricomi (Catania: Niccolo Giannotta), which takes as a motto a quatrain of which one line runs, "And what are proverbs but the people's voice?" The collection embraces nearly twelve hundred examples, Italian and English, in parallel columns. Several typographical English errors occur, but we must not be exacting. It is interesting to note and compare the modes of expression in the two languages. Sometimes one is the exact counterpart of the other, as in these in

stances: "As you sow, so shall you reap"-Come farai cosi avrai; "All's well that ends well"-Tutto è bene che riesce bene; "Christmas comes but once a year"-Natale viene una sola volta l'anno; "Custom is second nature"Consuetudine è una seconda natura. In other cases, however, the modes of expression are quite diverse, the English being in such cases the more terse and strenuous. Our proverb, "A cat may look at a King," is in Italian Anche un cane guarda un vescovo,-i.e., a dog may look at a Bishop. "Well begun is half done" becomes Chi ben comincia è alla metà dell' opra, or "He who begins well is at the end of his work." The very terse "Forewarned is forearmed" is represented in Italian by Uomo avvisato, mezzo salvo. Uomo avvertito mezzo munito,-"A man advised is half safe. A man warned is half secure."

Interesting, however, as is the comparison between the structural expression of Italian and English proverbs, our design is rather to suggest the importance of the proverb in the making of literature. For that the proverb is literature there can be no doubt. It is artistic in form, it is a concentrated expression of worldly wisdom at least and very often of profound moral truth, it passes current everywhere, it formulates the universal ideas common to peasant and philosopher, it grows out of the general consciousness. Above all, it suggests to us that that which endures in human speech and writing is the happy phrase or sentence which aims not at preciseness of details, but at precision in the utterance of feeling, knowledge, or experience. It is a noteworthy fact that in our own day, when that terse, epigrammatic style which was all but universal in the early world is no more, when German philosophers

take a hundred pages to say what Aristotle said in three lines, many of the phrases which stick in our minds are not those laboriously polished by our leading writers but rough sayings coined by rough people on Western prairies or in mines, or on solitary hillsides, who have scarcely ever opened a book in their lives. The proverb can never be the outcome of culture. The cultivated man is afraid of committing himself, his mind is as artificial as his surroundings, he knows so much to be said for or against any proposition, that he dare not come out with a simple native truth for fear it should be dissected by other cultivated people as a half-statement. Some modern writers, feeling themselves thus cramped, strive against the tendency to rob language of its primal freshness and crisp quality. Browning takes flying leaps from ledge to ledge of word and epigram, leaving to the mind of the reader the task of filling up the yawning gaps. Mr. Meredith has, in the same quest after a lost terseness, produced a strange language of his own which, if people would be candid, would be found to have pleased nobody. Carlyle had, on the other hand, the real trick. His words, like Luther's, were "half-battles;" we can never forget his powerful phrasing, his biting epigram. But that was largely because Carlyle, like Burns, was the offspring of Scottish peasantry, and was in fact a peasant to the end of his days. He had the peasant's primal contact with realities, and was never made artificial by culture, extensive as were his stores of knowledge. Of a very different person -Johnson-the same may be said, although what Carlyle gave us in books, Johnson has bequeathed to us in conversation. Perhaps the intimate conversation among equals who have nothing to conceal provides the best form of this terse, vigorous epigram or celeated saying of which we are now

treating. How satisfactory it is to "have one's talk out" with those who are sufficiently sympathetic and nimble-witted to divine your essential meaning! And what a source of exasperation to give your best and find it misunderstood by some dull analyzing pedant whose imagination is so ineffective that you "must speak by the card." We complain of the average man, but there must after all be a good Ideal in him, or he would never have melted down human language into proverbial philosophy. For the one thing needed both in the making and understanding of proverbs is the power to read between the lines and to make the imagination help out that which is not stated in terms of mathematical accuracy. Proverbs, like jokes, must not be explained; you understand them at once or not at all. Their power is not quantitative, but ethical, human and qualitative. They sum up for us centuries of experience, but we must accept their meaning in a large and fluid way.

We have said that the proverbial part of the world's literature is an essential, and perhaps the chief part of it which exercises real power. But it is significant that the consciously creating personalities in literature have appreciated fully the proverbial wisdom of their land or race. Perhaps there is no great author of whom this is more true than Cervantes, as there is no literature so full of proverbs as the Spanish. In Signor Tricomi's little work many footnotes remind us how Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Tommaseo, and other Italian writers were familiar with and were indebted to this literature of the common people. Horace must have transmitted to us much of the quick, eager brilliant talk he heard while wandering about the Forum; Juvenal certainly did, as Signor Tricomi's notes show. Shakespeare's mind was filled with proverbial philosophy which stood

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