turn night into day; whose rising was To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, was a trifle to this. Yet even here the felt, for the comet begins to obey its attraction and bend its course toward it, because among all the multitude of suns which sparkle in the gloom of space it is the nearest. The comet's motion is accelerated, and gradually the star-like sun increases in apparent size and brilliancy. After a time it becomes clear to the comet rider that out of the abyss of immensity he is approaching one of the populated places of the universe. If we suppose him endowed with a most piercing vision-and in the clear ether even ordinary vision would possess extraordinary power-he may see, in different directions, other comets journeying sunwards, and perhaps meteors in swarms and singly, joining the general procession toward the solar centre. Already the loneliness of space is gone, and his comet and the sun are no longer the only material bodies within distance measurable to human comprehension. The sun continues to increase in size and splendour as he approaches it, and if he had any means of measuring his velocity the passenger would perceive that the speed of the comet is becoming frightful. Now he sees that it is a metropolis of the Universe he is approaching. All roads lead to it; the number of his fellow travellers, coming from every direction, increases. They draw closer together as they near the focus of their motion. And presently the solar system, this great city of space in which we dwell, begins to open upon his view, as the shining cupolas and minarets of Damascus rise from afar before the delighted eyes of the traveller approaching slowly across the plains of Syria. First, perhaps, he catches sight of that mysterious trans-Neptunian planet, which no human eye has ever yet beheld, but whose existence some astronomers believe has been demonstrated by means of comets which it has made prisoners to the sun-turning them by its attraction into closed orbits as they entered the outskirts of the solar system. He sees this far-away sentinel planet revolving at a distance from the sun equal to nearly twice that of Neptune. Yet from his point of view it seems to be just outside the rays of the sun. But, forthwith, as he continues to approach, he catches sight of another faintly shining planet circling around the sun much nearer than the first. It is Neptune. Then Saturn with its rings slowly emerges to view; next gigantic Jupiter rolls into sight; then that swarm of tiny worlds, the asteroids; and then ruddy Mars; after which our earth, with its attendant moon, turns its round, spotted face to his view. Venus and Mercury and the teeming millions of meteors that crowd the neighbourhood of the sun appear in turn, and finally the voyager from outer space beholds the whole solar system glowing with light and beauty before him. As the microscopist, by means of his powerful lenses, which, in effect, enable him to bring the object he is studying exceedingly close to his eye, sees a dull speck enlarge into a wonder-world of minute creation, so our man upon a comet, merely by approaching close to the solar system, has seen a twinkling star enlarge into a blazing sun, and out of its rays emerge a crowd of worlds, basking in its heat and light, and presenting a spectacle that might make an angel exclaim with astonishment and delight. From the cold and darkness. and lonesomeness of space the wandering comet has borne him into the glare and bustle of a solar system. He cannot doubt that if his celestial courser had carried him into the neighbourhood of some other star he would have beheld a scene equally or perhaps even more wonderful. And now the comet enters the solar system and rushes headlong in among the planets toward its centre of at traction, the sun. A great change gradually takes place in its appearance. Perhaps the comet's rider could tell just how and why it occurs, but astronomers upon the earth have never yet been able satisfactorily to explain it. At any rate it begins to assume a fiery aspect. From a faint cloudy object it becomes a blazing meteor, throwing out behind it a glowing train that stretches like a conflagration across the sky, and adds millions upon millions of miles to its length as it approaches the sun. Now, indeed, The comet he is on his way, The spectre of the skies. It must make the blood of the man upon the comet tingle when he perceives the terror and astonishment that his fiery courser inspires among the worlds he passes swiftly in his flight. What if there should be a collision? But luckily for him all gates are wide open, and he has a clear road, this John Gilpin of the skies. As he darts across the orbits of the planets, supposing the direction of the comet's motion not to be greatly inclined to the general plane of the system, he is able to study the aspect of these various worlds. Terrestrial astronomers can never have such views as he gets of those outposts of the solar system, Uranus and Neptune. He obtains, perhaps, an insight into the nature and constitution of the splendid rings that encircle Saturn, to possess which a Galileo or a Herschel would almost have bartered life itself. He perceives in Jupiter, far more clearly than we are able to do with our greatest telescopes, the marvellous phenomena of a giant planet which is just being born out of the chaotic elements of an extinguished sun. He has a close view of some of the throng of minute planets that circulate between Jupiter and Mars-planets which are so small, some of them, that their equators might serve as a race track for Weston and Rowell and the other go-as-you-please pedestrians. What wonderful sights may he not behold upon Mars, a world that has advanced in its planetary development many ages beyond the earth, and to whose inhabitants some astronomers have not hesitated to ascribe achievements that would be as impossible to the descendants of Adam as the bridging of the Atlantic ocean. He can obtain a most striking view of this living earth and its dead comrade, the moon-the one whirling swiftly upon its axis and enjoying the rapid succession of day and night; its waters sparkling in the sunshine; its green prairies and forests glowing with beauty; cities dotting its surface; a cloud-peopled atmosphere surrounding it, vegetation covering the slopes of its mountains; and its oceans, as well as its continents, filled with a profusion of life from its luxuriant equator to its snow-capped poles; the other hanging almost motionless upon its axis, a worn out world, without air, without water, without vegetation, without life, only a desert expanse of barren rocks; its naked mountains; its silent volcanoes; its untenanted plains, and its old empty sea bottoms presenting a scene of utter desolation, turned to the untempered glare of the sun without the shadow of a cloud or a tree to hide it. And these two worlds, presenting so complete a contrast, he beholds chained together by the resistless power of gravitation, their distance apart being, as astronomical measures go, but the merest step. If he passes close to Venus, he may be able to penetrate the mask of clouds which has ever hidden the face of the Planet of Love from terrestrial stargazers, and possibly he will discover that the planet's beauty, like that of the amorous goddess whose name it bears, is only skin deep. We cannot guess what discoveries he might make upon Mercury, the inmost planet of all, which braves the sun at close quarters, for our telescopes give us little hint as to its condition. And at last the comet is face to face with the terrors of its perihelion passage. It must swing around the sun, which from a little star has now grown to a gigantic orb of fire, so close as almost to touch it. Long before he approached so near the comet's rider beheld astonishing appendages about the sun. Instead of a smooth, dazzling white globe, he saw the sun ringed with scarlet flames, while shooting out on every side, hundreds of thousands, and in some cases, perhaps, even millions of miles, were huge fans and shafts of wonderful light, like fiery spokes radiating from the glowing hub of the solar system. And now, as the comet darts closer in, he sees the whole surface of this melting pot of the elements surging and swirling in the mighty rush of contending solar forces. People have lost their heads by gazing too long at the Niagara Whirlpool. That would tear a ship to pieces. But there are maelstroms here in the sun that would shatter and swallow a world. Iron and copper and zinc are here reduced to vapour and spouted heavenward thousands and even hundreds of thousands of miles, and down they come again, ceaseless and awful rain of molten metal. Aye, masses of sun substance are hurled from beneath the glowing surface and go hurtling out into space, scattering white-hot showers of fragments, and cooling and condensing as they go, never to come back again, flung forth by the tormented sun to wander until they fall perchance upon the earth or on some other planet, or join the system revolving around a distant star. What a gigantic Gatling gun of the universe, belching fire and smoke and fearful missiles, must the comet face now! At the perihelion swing the tremendous globe of the sun seems to fill the whole expanse of the sky, a boundless, raging, tossing, and spouting sea of unquenchable fire, a universal conflagration wherein iron and all the metals, calcium and all the elements of the solid rocks, flaming, lick the heavens. There are no words invented that can describe the heat, the glare, and the roar of it. This terrific passage around the sun is the culmination of the comet's career, the fiery Cape Horn of its voyage. Flung off by the storm giant, its speeds away again, back through the realm of the planets, and out into the black depths from which it emerged. Even though turnished with the wings of imagination, the rider must look alive and leap quickly as his racer passes the earth, unless he would be carried back again into the outer darkness.-Garrett P. Serviss.. SONG. Go forget me-why should sorrow Brightly smile and sweetly sing. Hope and Beauty, fare ye well! -Rev. C. Wolfe (author of the "Burial of Sir John Moore.") AMONG THE MAORIS. CHAPTER II. On arriving at Waitotara we found letters awaiting us, containing orders to proceed up the Wanganui River, to survey a block at Otaupari; so we hired a buggy and drove to Wanganui. We put up for the night at Howe's Hotel, a very comfortable hostelry. One side of it faces the river, the other the market square, in the centre of which is a very fine monument, erected to the memory of the friendly natives, who fell in the engagement on the island of Motoa. The figure represents a woman weeping, her face half hidden by her arm, upon which she is resting. Around the pedestal are the names of those who fell, and the tribe or "hapu " to which they belonged. In the morning I engaged a canoe and crew to take us to our destination, eighty miles up the river. While so doing I met a brother surveyor, who suggested that as he was going in the same direction for about forty miles we should journey together. Our party consisted of five Europeans, ten natives, and last, but not least, my dog Chum. What with stores, camp equipment, and living freight, our canoe was pretty well "gunwale down." The morning was not the most cheerfula light drizzling rain falling, and the hills shrouded in dense fog. We got as far as a village called Kaiawaiki, where we stayed for the night. The Maoris placed a "whare" at our service, and also mats to lie upon. There is certainly no enervating luxury about this style of couch. The mats, consisting of flax (harakeke) loosely plaited, being laid upon the ground, which from having been trodden upon for past ages was as hard as asphalt; twist and turn as one liked, it was all the same. The fleas were simply appalling. Ever and anon through the night would be heard, "Confound these fleas !"- "Oh, by Jove, this is awful!"—"Is the floor any softer where you are, old man?"--and numerous other remarks, more forcible than polite. We were not sorry when daylight came. When we arose every limb ached, and our bodies resembled draught-boards, having taken the impression of each of the squares in the flax mats. It still rained heavily, matters being made worse by a furious wind, working the river into a regular sea. We got away at eight a.m., and found a heavy fresh coming down, necessitating poling. Along the cliffs were to be seen numerous holes, some from eight inches to a foot deep. These puzzled me for some time, till I suddenly discovered that they were made by the poles used to shove the canoes forward. Some idea may thus be formed of the traffic on the river, as in many cases the cliffs consist of hard rock, which it must have taken years to bore to such a depth. We had now left all civilization behind us, the highest station up the river being about two miles below Kaiawaiki. The country here presents low fern hills for some distance back, rising into high ranges clothed with dense bush. At two o'clock we arrived at Karnihinihi, where, after partaking of lunch, we decided to remain, as the weather had got rapidly worse. The surface of the river was one mass of pumice, brought down by the flood. Kanihinihi is situated on a sharp point; for some distance back, about half a mile, the ground is cultivated, potatoes (taiwa), sweet potatoes (kumera), and Indian corn, being the principal productions, with a few pumpkins and water-melons interspersed. The village numbers about twenty whares, the population being about fifty-that is, the human population. There are numerous other small and extremely active inhabitants, such as have been before mentioned d; but all Maori settlements being similarly blessed, it prevents undue undue "stuck-uppedness and pride on the part of any one particular village. On the opposite bank |