to a fine clump of dwarf firs on a high table land, we halted for dinner. The sun was shining bright-the breeze fresh and invigorating, and the scenery beautiful, save the barrenness which renders every place sad. While leisurely enjoying our fried pork and sea-bread, a pleasant sound as of some sweet singer broke upon the ear. And immediately after, a flock of golden plover flitted above us and lighting among the berries commenced a dinner more palatable than ours. They had scarcely lighted before three guns were ready for their destruction. But though in the wilds of Newfoundland, they seemed to understand that men were their enemies, and before we could reach them they flitted away again, giving forth their sweet music. After a long chase and creeping through bushes, Jemmy succeeded in bringing in one-a fine plump fellow, whose skin now often reminds me of that pleasant dinner hour and the sweet note of the golden plover among the highlands of Newfoundland. Our afternoon's path was a winding way. None but an Indian could attempt to follow it with any hope of success. Now across a wide marsh, now through tangled bushes, and again along the rocky bed of a small stream. About five o'clock we came to the top of the hills that in the morning had stretched along our horizon. Just as we reached the top, the quick eye of the Indian caught an object we had much desired as a curiosity and comfort-a fine Carriboo or Reindeer. He was walking leisurely among the low bushes some three hundred yards from us, cropping the asters and other coarse herbage. He was not fully grown, being but two years old, as the guides said. But he was a fine fellow, and young as he was, towered high above our ordinary deer, and would probably weigh nearly four hundred when dressed. We could hardly realize that such a fine animal could be wandering about there without an owner! We fancied his skin well stuffed gracing the Natural History room, and his steak well fried as making an agreeable change from rusty salt pork. The guides slipped stealthily around the hill, and the deer unconscious of danger moved on slowly towards them. When near enough, Jemmy fired and missed, but as the deer turned to bound away, he received Mic's charge in the side, and after two or three powerful leaps that fortunately brought him on to smooth ground, he fell dead. That was game worth looking at by one who had before considered it large business to bag grey squirrels and partridges. We bargained with the guides to take off the skin and carry it to Sandy Point, where it was taken by Mr. Orton on his return home, and after a long time it reached Williamstown, and now hangs up among the Natural History specimens. Mic shouldered the

skin in addition to his pack, and Jemmy cutting off the brisket and "round," took along some fifty or sixty pounds of the fresh venison, and left the remainder with many regrets to bears and hawks. The Indians believe that if they wantonly destroy the deer they shall be unlucky afterwards, and leaving more than three-fourths of a fine buck to be destroyed by the birds and beasts seemed very much like waste. The old tribes of Red Indians destroyed the game, especially the deer, for mere sport, but the Micmacs that now have taken their places are so careful that the deer are increasing. We shall become better acquainted with the island, now that the electric cable stretches from its shore to the main land, and our hunters will hardly neglect a place, where the hills abound with game and the streams with fish.

The day was far spent, and the clouds were gathering for rain, so that we were compelled to push rapidly on, to find in the valley below a treesheltered spot for our camp. We should have been glad to camp on the hills that we might have dry ground to sleep on once, but the cold night wind,-appearance of rain-and absence of wood and water forbade it. The best place we could find was damp and poorly sheltered; but protecting ourselves as well as possible, we supped heartily from venison steaks, and lay down to sleep. The guides replenished the fire, spitted the brisket that it might be roasted by morning, and were soon snoring in happy forgetfulness of the hardships of life. To Indians and reckless. hunters such camping may have a charm, but for myself there was something dispiriting and gloomy in being thus surrounded by wilderness, with many hardships, not to say dangers, between me and home. The thoughts wander away, and when you compare the reality with the account which you must give, you feel willing that others may have the glory of exploring, if they are willing to endure the hardships.

Sleep is a great blessing, not only by bringing rest, but by throwing for a time at least the veil of forgetfulness over troubles. But it cannot shelter us from rain. In the night it began to pour. The sail was but little protection, and the scathed and stunted trees around us seemed of no service but to fill their matted boughs with water, and then to shake it upon our camp, as the gusts swept by. The fire replenished flickered and struggled awhile, but finally being beset with falling water above and running water beneath, it left us in darkness, and the rain drops soon ceased to hiss as they fell among the embers. Some nights like this have already been described. The rain, however, was colder than any that had fallen before, and from the sparseness of trees, we were more exposed

to its beatings. The morning found us cold and drenched, the rain still pouring, the wood too wet to burn, so that there was prospect of a cold, wet, cheerless and hungry day. The rain finally abated sufficiently for cooking breakfast. The fire was as desirable as the food. The day, how long and dreary! Jemmy told us Indian legends and hunting exploits. The guns were tried, notes filled out, pictures drawn of camp, and finally as a last resort we commenced or rather continued the study of the Indian language! The day and the night passed slowly away and brought us clear sky, so that we could renew our journey, although the ground was soaked with water and every bush that we brushed gave a miniature shower. But being already well soaked we were more comfortable walking than in camp.

Among the Indian legends was that of the first canoe, which Jemmy introduced by holding up the brisket bones from which he had knawed the meat. "The Indians formerly," said he, "used rafts instead of canoes. But the deer swam so much better than they could, that they modeled their boats from his breast. For the breast bone they placed a keel, and for the ribs, bent limbs of the Var, (Fir,) and over the whole stretched the skin of a deer." Their canoes are perfect in proportion to their approach in form to the lower half of this swift swimming animal. They build skin canoes at the present time, although upon the ocean they prefer the English built boat, on account of the heavy storms. But when they return from their hunting excursions in the country, and reach the rivers, they quickly frame a canoe, and shaving the hair from a deerskin, cover it, so that they speedily manufacture a vessel that bears them and their burdens safely home. These skins then, thus prepared and stretched, are so clear that the bottom of the river can be plainly seen through them, if the Indians are to be credited. We saw no skin canoes and therefore cannot speak positively.

The wandering and camping from this place to the coast, were but a repetition of what had passed. Every scene is daguerreotyped in the mind and almost every word treasured up; and although the whole often unrolls from the archives of the memory like a dream, the account would be dull, for the pleasure was in things not transferable to paper. Here grew the wild flower, and there fresh berries to be gathered by birds and bears. Here gurgled a wild brook that went dashing down, down the deep cascade, and bursting into spray that pleasure-seekers never came to admire. Here in the valley, protected from frosts, rises the tall fir or stately spruce, draped with hoary waving lichens, while beneath, spread

out in all its Northern luxuriance, thick carpets of the yew, while thick upon roots and rugged rocks, covering fallen timber and pit-falls, spread the deep moss that almost covers Newfoundland. To one who has spent his life where land is owned and marked by bounds, where every well grown tree has been marked for the axe, there is something strange in thus wandering away into a wilderness, where men have never been, unless perhaps the hunter in his rapid marches, and more than that, where man will never come. In our Western wilds the whistle of the steamcar soon salutes the wanderer, so that in all our broad domain he could hardly hope to live a hermit unmolested. But here in these wilds, where frosts reign, there is no hope of inhabitants. The deer and bears are sure of their possession forever. A narrow belt of land along the shore, around good fishing stations, will be inhabited, but the back lands of Newfoundland will belong to Queen Victoria and her successor, unless some nation shall become powerful enough and foolish enough to wrest it from her. Moss and berries will always be its chief productions; black flies, musquitoes, bears, deer and ptarmigan grouse its chief inhabitants! But the last camp in the woods is packed, and the guides, slow almost beyond endurance while preparing, are now making their way with rapid strides through the bushes, that grew denser as we came to the low lands near the coast. Speaking of bushes reminds me of our experience with "Tucking bushes," the night before our last camp in the woods. We had come upon ground where Jemmy had never been except in winter, when the bushes are covered in deep hard snows, so that places impassible in summer are smooth plains. We had followed the slight deer path for a mile or more, laboriously pulling aside the bushes, until they became a dense wall before us. On either side they stretched out like a green sea,-beautiful, because interwoven and flattened by the heavy snows, till they were smooth on top as a well-trimmed hedge. They were four or five feet high, and so interwoven that no written account can give a proper idea of it, because we have nothing with which to compare it. Jemmy was evidently chagrined, that he had led us into such a place, as it seemed to reflect on his character as a guide. Throwing off his heavy pack, he mounted the bushes and actually walked away upon their tops, only occasionally sinking between the yielding limbs. We were much in the situation of the fox in the fable, entangled in the weeds and so given up to the mercy of the gnats. The flies gave us plenty of exercise for hands and patience, till Jemmy's return, when we started once more-sometimes going through bushes and

sometimes over them, till we reached the woods, having cause to remember "Tucking bushes" the remainder of our lives.

Pushing on to the coast, whether we were hastening when these "Tucking bushes" came in our way, we soon heard the surf breaking among the rocks, and about half past ten on the second of September we stood on the shore.

ORAL DEBATE.

A DESIRE to investigate and sift all public questions grows naturally out of our Republican form of government. An increasingly popular method of gratifying this legitimate, and, when rightly controlled, noble and ennobling desire is Oral Debate.

We boast, and justly, of the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech as the palladia of our free institutions; but man's selfish nature too often makes the freedom of the press the license of passion, and with the lawful weapon of open controversy, secretly aims a life-thrust not at the principles, but the character of its antagonist.

But, without the supposition of badness of heart in the disputants, written discussion from its very nature labors under peculiar disadvantages. Often personally unacquainted, the adversaries, each in the retirement of his chamber canvasses his opponent's article; fixes upon its repugnant features; soliloquizes-" like parent, like child"-conceives himself the providentially appointed reprover of wickedness; and hastens to expose over a fictitious signature not only the falsity of doctrine, but the perversity of the heart that could have conceived it.

This tendency, and such as this, are obviated in a well-conducted oral discussion. In it men meet face to face, "perchance, encompassed by a cloud of witnesses," at once a present stimulant to effort and a speaking judge of the fairness of the contest. The pressure of his opponent's warm hand gives to the suspicious controversialist an assurance of a