down, and saying, "Faut penser à l'éternité." And we could hardly imagine a more beautiful place of repose. When we had left her, and had gone through the town again, and lingered on the ramparts on the other side, and then reluctantly made our way back through the gateway again, we at last saw the population of Saint-Paul. For some time we had heard a drum beating in the distance; we now found a cheap-jack's cart drawn up on the boulevard, and a lively sale going on in the middle of a crowd of dark, good-tempered-looking men and women. The hoarse shrieks of the seller, the rattle now and then of the drum, pursued us into the valley as we left Saint-Paul behind us. But when we look back to that day, the cheap-jack's clatter and crowd seem to fade away into nothing; the one living figure of Saint-Paul, for us, is one old woman standing on the wall, in bright sunshine and clear air, with that splendid landscape round her, eating oranges, and thinking of eternity. From The Spectator. Hum mate, and a noise resembling the winding follow us in, they would find the rooms but simply furnished. In the centre of the dining-room is a large, home-made table, round which are some comfortable chairs, and in a corner stands the useful shot-gun. Upon a shelf lie the local paSIR, As a regular subscriber to your pers, the Spectator, and a few books. valuable paper, and having read an article The room is also decorated with the skins concerning California in a recent number, of birds, wild cats, and rattlesnakes. When I imagined that a further insight into Cali supper is over, we read for a short time, fornian life might prove interesting to your and retire early, to fit us for the hard work many English readers. Let them picture of the coming week. The nights are cool, to themselves a square white house nest- but not too cold to prevent our sleeping ling among a heavy growth of brushwood, with doors and windows wide open all the upon one of a low range of hills, overlook-year round. At daybreak, the rattling of ing a vast plain some twenty miles in length, and eight or ten miles broad, broken here and there by narrow but wonderfully fertile valleys, each of which, during the rainy season, contributes a stream of water to the ocean, which can be seen sparkling and rippling in the almost perpetual sunshine, and they will have an idea of the situation and surroundings of my own and brother's home. On Sunday afternoons, those looked-for hours of leisure, we never tire of sitting upon our verandah and resting our eyes upon the peaceful scene before us. Here and there, large patches of cleared land give evidence of civilization, for this whole track is by nature covered with bushes, including the wild sage, wild buckwheat, arbutus, manzanita, and greasewood, and dotted here and there with a settler's shanty. It is springtime, and in every direction we hear the quail calling to his plates and the sizzle of frying bacon announce the arrival of the breakfast-hour. We rise and hastily don our week-day clothes, which consist of canvas trousers, flannel shirts, and warm socks, over which are drawn heavy leather boots reaching to the knees. With the addition of broadbrimmed hats, our costumes are complete, and we sally forth to attend to the wants of the horses and cattle. This duty over, breakfast is steaming on the table, and we are well prepared to empty speedily our basins of oatmeal porridge, and turn our attention to the beans and bacon, ― the staple dish upon most Californian ranches. Breakfast over, we apply ourselves to our various tasks, which consist at this season of ploughing among the vines, hauling last season's crop of hay to the San Diego market (seventeen miles distant), and looking after forty stands of bees, which are now swarming. These busy little crea Ehrenberg, Gray, Wellstedt, Rüppelí, Ward, Newbold, and the late Professor Palmer, as well as by large numbers of pilgrims. My observations confirm in the main their accounts of the acoustic phenomena heard, but my measurements differ widely from those of all the travellers save Professor Palmer. tures are not much trouble, and a source since which time it has been visited by of considerable profit to every careful bee-keeper. Employed in such a manner, the days pass rapidly, and Sunday morning soon returns. Your readers would be amused as well as edified were they present for the first time at our Sunday service, which is held in a deserted cabin, about one and a half miles distant. Fortunate do we consider ourselves if we succeed in persuading some wandering preacher to preside at our meeting. The speaker's desk consists of an old sugar-barrel, with some boards nailed over one end, hidden from view by an old table-cloth. At the other end of the room are the pews, equally simple, and made by fastening redwood boards upon empty grocery boxes. The congregation is small, never exceeding thirty, and seldom numbering less than five. Before the preaching (if there is any) a Sunday-school is held, which is attended by old and young, and taken charge of by a superintendent as earnest and conscientious as he is lacking in good breeding, and far better known for his charity than for intellectual ability. When the gentleman in question has introduced to the congregation some friend of his who has promised to preach, he will turn to the minister, and good-naturedly ask him, if prepared with a sermon, to "go ahead and spit it right out." While the sermon is in progress, the dogs walk in and out at pleasure through the front and back doors, which are kept open to permit the gentle sea breeze to cool the room. Altogether, our life is a happy one, but we would never recommend people to try it, unless willing to forego many social pleasures, and prepared to face the hardships, which on a new place for the first few years are inseparable from a rancher's life. I am, sir, etc., EDWARD VINCENT. Linda Vista, San Diego County, California, U.S.A. From Nature. A NEW MOUNTAIN OF THE BELL. I HAVE just returned from a journey of four weeks in the desert of Mount Sinai, made with the especial object of studying the Febel Nagous in connection with the joint researches of Dr. Alexis A. Julien and myself on "musical sand." The Mountain of the Bell "is situated on the Gulf of Suez, about four and a half hours from Tor by the roundabout camel route. It was first described by Seetzen in 1808, The name Jebel Nagous is given by the Bedouins to a mountain nearly three miles long and about 1,200 feet high, composed of white sandstone bearing quartz, pebbles, and veins. On the western and northern sides are several large banks of blown sand, inclined at high angles. The sand on one of these slopes, at the northwest end of the mountain, has the property of yielding a deep resonance when it slides down the incline either from the force of the wind, or by the action of man. This bank of sand I distinguish from the others by calling it the Bell Slope. It is triangu lar in shape, and measures 260 feet across the base, 5 to 8 feet across the top, and is 391 feet high. It has the high inclination of 31° quite uniformly. It is bounded by vertical cliffs of sandstone, and is broken towards the base by projecting rocks of the same material. The sand is yellowish in color, very fine, and possesses at this inclination a curious mobility which causes it to flow when disturbed, like treacle or soft pitch, the depression formed being filled in from above and advancing upward at the same time. The sand has none of the characteristics of sonorous sand found on beaches. When pulled downwards by the hands or pushed by the feet a strong vibration is felt, and a low note is plainly heard resembling the deep bass of an organ-pipe. The loudness and continuity of the note are related to the mass of sand moved, but I think that those who compare it to distant thunder exag gerate. The bordering rocky walls give a marked echo, which may have the effect of magnifying and prolonging the sounds, but which, as I afterwards demonstrated, is not essential. There are no cavities for the sand to fall into, as erroneously reported. The peak of Jebel Nagous rises above the Bell Slope to the height of 955 feet above the sea-level, as determined by a sensitive aneroid. After studying the locality and phenomenon for several days, I formed the opinion that it could not be unique as hitherto supposed, and accordingly I tested every steep slope of blown sand met with on the caravan route northward to Suez. On April 6 I examined a steep sandbank on a I shall be obliged if those who have opportunities of examining banks of dry and fine sand inclined at 31° will report through your columns whether they yield deep sounds when disturbed. H. CARRINGTON BOLTON. Cairo, April 10. From The Pall Mall Gazette. hillock only 45 feet high, and was rewarded" Musical Sand" in preparation by Dr. by the discovery of a second Nagous. Julien and myself, This new Nagous is in the Wadi Werdan, only five minutes off the regular caravan route, and one and a half days, by camels, from Suez. The hillock is called by the Bedouins Ramadan, and forms the eastern end of a range of low hills about one quarter of a mile long; being the only hills in the Wadi, the locality can easily be found by travellers. The hills consist of conglomerate and sandstone, and to the west, of gypsum; they slope up gradually from the north, and end in bold cliffs on the south side. Sand blown by the north wind is carried over the cliffs, and rests on the steep face at two inclinations, 31° above, and 21°, or less, below. By applying the usual tests with the hands to the fine-grained sand, I found that wherever it lies at the requisite angle to produce mobility (319), it yielded the bass note, though not so loud as on the Bell Slope of Jebel Nagous. In one instance, my friend and fellow-traveller, Mr. Henry A. Sim, of the Madras Civil Service, who kindly aided me in my investigations, heard the sound while standing 100 feet distant. The Nagous sand occurs at intervals throughout the 500 yards of low cliffs; the main bank at the east end be ing 150 feet wide and 60 feet high measured on the incline. I stirred up the mobile sand pretty thoroughly on this slope, and the next day it failed to give the sounds, not having recovered its properties. The intervening night was very cold (53°). I feel confident that this phenomenon is not very rare in the desert, though the spontaneous production of sounds by sliding of the sand without man's agency, as at Jebel Nagous, may be. Whether the Rig-i-Rawan, north of Cabul, is caused by similar conditions remains to be determined, but I fear that the peculiar relations existing between England and Russia will prevent my visiting northern Afghanistan. The Bedouins who accompanied us were greatly astounded at my discovery of a new Nagous, and I fear that their faith in a monastery hidden in the heart of Jebel Nagous has received a severe shock. It is interesting to note that the "nagous "or modern gong is in daily use in the Monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai. I made photographs of Jebel Nagous and vicinity, as well as of the new Nagous, and collected specimens of the rocks, sand, etc. This communication must be regarded as a preliminary notice, full details being reserved for the work on COST OF LIVING IN PARIS AND LONDON. A DISCUSSION took place at the last monthly dinner of the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris on the relative cost of living in Paris and in London. Several of the speakers (says the Paris correspondent of the Record) were thoroughly qual ified to discuss the subject, having lived for many years in both cities. The opener, a Frenchman, keeps a house both in Clapham and in Paris, and has long been in the habit of spending part of his time in the one city and part in the other. The president, Sir Edward Blount, K.C.B., an eminently successful English merchant, banker, and railway director in Paris, has also lived in Paris for many years, whilst maintaining an establishment in England. There was every reason, therefore, to regard the company as one competent to pronounce an opinion on the subject. With some difference as to details, the room was almost unanimous that the cost of living in Paris was from twenty to forty per cent. dearer than in London. In the case of a single man or a couple without family the difference is not so much felt; but the larger the family the greater the relative cost. This may possibly arise from the fact that French families are universally so small, and that all the provisions, such as rent, service, etc., for a large family must be abnormal. The gen eral impression seemed to be that £60 in London went as far, in household expen diture, as £100 in Paris. Rent is certainly much higher, to say nothing of the discomforts and inconveniences of living on an étage.. Wages are lower in London, and more work is done for the money. Coal cannot be had in Paris under 355. to 38s. a ton, instead of 20s. or 22s. in London, and then it is bad. Gas is nearly three times the price, but it is better. Bread and meat are forty to fifty per cent. dearer, and sugar one hundred and fifty per cent. It was contended, however, on the other hand, that in the extra price of From The Leisure Hour. food the Parisian pays indirectly the taxes | ject: "I was looking to-day at my monthly which the Londoner pays direct; that the bills during the winter for firing. A slowpaving, lighting, improvement rates, etc., combustion stove in my sitting-room, in are here all raised by the octroi levied on which I burn culm, costs me £1 a month. provisions. But, as a matter of fact, the Were I to burn wood and coke in an difference between the direct taxes and ordinary grate the cost would be about the rates in England and those in France, double. There is no sound reason why being in the one country about twenty-five fuel should be so dear. The unsound or thirty per cent. on the rental, and in the reasons are railway monopolies, protecother ten, was not sufficient to account for tion, and octroi duties. One reason why the much greater price paid for food. these duties are so heavy in Paris is the Amusements it was admitted were cheaper way in which, under the Empire, the Muin Paris, and most of the luxuries of life, nicipal Commission plundered, in demolbut it was the reverse with the necessa- ishing Paris to build it up again. The ries. The same remark applied to railway doings of your Metropolitan Board of fares and cabs, but what was here gained Works were insignificant relatively to the in price was more than lost in comfort jobbery of the Haussmannising gang and and convenience. It was thought, too, the juries packed to grant heavy indemthat the working man in France, helped nity, when houses the gang bought were by the climate, eating less meat and re- to be demolished by the city." quiring less clothing, had an advantage in this way over his English neighbor. The complaints about the exorbitant profits of the middle man, and the systematic robbery of the cuisinière, were very loud. One merchant declared that his friends in London, whose expenditure was about the same as his own, had their house and garden and kept their carriage, while he and his family had to live on a flat and ride in the omnibus. The wonderful facilities for locomotion afforded by the innumerable stations of the underground railway in London and the constant trains, compared with one single station in Paris for the suburbs, St. Lazare, and the handful of trains in a day, were duly enlarged on. Sir Edward Blount, in summing up the discussion, stated that when he came to Paris in 1831, one could live there for a third less than in London, and that the franc went further than the shilling. But now it was all the other way, and he attributed the change which had come over things on both sides of the Channel mainly, if not altogether, to the development of free trade in England, and the increase of protection in France. Another very interesting statement made by the president was that, some time ago, a special commissioner sent over to England by French employers of labor, to inspect English work and workers, and modes of working, came back to report that the workman in England produced one-third more for the same money than he did in France; and, Sir Edward added, he found that whilst they paid about the same wages to their railway employés, they required five to do the work done by three in England. Mrs. Crawford writes on the same sub WHAT THE THAMES POLICE HAVE DONE. THE Rogue Riderhoods of the river are under a cloud. Their trade is vanishing faster than any trade on the Thames. "Horsemen," "mudlarks," and "game lightermen "have nearly all retired from business- or rather, their business has retired from them. The great docks, with their storage and carriage facilities, have taken most of the loading and unloading out of the stream, and in the few opportunities left the water thieves have been checkmated by the river police. It is an astonishing fact that out of the millions' worth of property entering and leaving the Thames, the value stolen afloat in one year-1887- was only £186! Last century the river thieves were in their glory. The ships all received and discharged their cargoes in the tideway. So numerous were the guardians, and so divided the responsibility, that practically there was no control whatever. And it was es timated by a magistrate who knew what he was about, and who afterwards took the chief part in forming the new police, that, taking the century through, the aver age loss in robbery per year on the tidal Thames exceeded £100,000! This was a far larger proportion of the total value than it would be in these days, for the increase in the carrying trade has since been enormous. In 1702 the average tonnage of our vessels trading beyond sea was ninety-six tons; at the end of the century it was under two hundred tons. They now average nine hundred and forty and tons, and are at least three times as nu- | even their apprentices kept a country merous. But owing to the shipping being house and a saddle-horse! These were all in the river, the Thames must have the days when Dibdin's heroes marked seemed busier in those last years of the their 'bacca-boxes with their sweethearts' last century than it does now. From names and left their Mollies at Wapping London Bridge to the Horseferry, the Old Stairs. But these loose days were whole forty-one hundred and fifty yards of too scandalous to last. On July 22, 1798, the Pools now divided into Upper and thanks chiefly to Dr. Patrick Colquhoun, Lower at Wapping Police Station, then there started into life the Marine Police. made out as three, owing to a Middle Pool Their headquarters were near Wapping being divided off from the Upper at Union New Stairs where they still are Hole were occupied by a straggling line the magistrate was John Harriott. On of sailing craft, most of them at anchor that day the first guard-boat patrolled the and some of them under way among a river, and a year of excitement began. crowd of bright-hued barges and dirty The dangers and difficulties that the force sluggish lighters, and saucy tilt-boats, and had to contend with from within and withbrisk, handy skiffs and wherries, that knew out may be imagined when, as the result no rest from daylight to dark and after of his first year's work, Harriott could redark. Farther down, off Blackwall, lay port twenty-two hundred convictions for the large Indiamen, drawing from twenty- crime on the river, and a saving of proptwo to twenty-four feet of water, and dis- erty, in the case of the West Indian plantcharging into decked hoys, which even ers alone, of £150,000! the care of the great John Company could not keep unrobbed. But higher up, off Shadwell and Wapping and thereabouts, the loading and unloading were all into undecked craft offering every chance for the plunderer. And every year thereafter the convictions were less and the state of the river improved. And in 1887 the Thames Police who in 1838 had become a division of the Metropolitan Police under the or ders of the commissioner - had to report only one hundred and forty-eight arrests on all charges, from felony to drunkenness, and of the paltry 186 in value of property stolen, £44 were recovered, so that only £142 were actually lost. A more striking instance of success in the repression and prevention of crime within the kingdom's limits it would be difficult to quote. Bad as London may be, it is gratifying to find that it is the only port in the world where crime has decreased as trade has increased. From The Economist. Some of the deeds done are almost incredible. All classes were in the swim, even the ships' officers and the revenue men. A mate has been bribed to keep careless watch while so-called "light horsemen," with bags blacked so as not to be noticeable, have cleared thirty hogsheads of sugar out of a ship in a single night. A ship-master has been busy on deck searching "lumpers" he had discovered in thieving, and at the same time his sugar has been loaded into a boat astern by a gang who had entered through the cabin windows. And even a ship's anchor and chain have been removed by civil young watermen, who very politely hailed the ship they had robbed and reported the fact as they cheerily rowed away. There was a regular classification of IT is, we believe, quite certain that the Thames thieves. Besides the night grave and well-informed men of business plunderers, or "light horsemen," there in Berlin regard the extinction of the male were "heavy horsemen," who, with pock line of Orange-Nassau, which is now cerets many, would offer their services for tain and may occur at any hour, with a nothing and make two guineas a day out of feeling of uneasiness. They do not be. what they stole. There were the "mud-lieve that the government of Germany is larks" who prowled about vessels at low satisfied with the arrangements made for water to receive bags of coffee and other the Dutch succession, and think that it articles handed to them by confederates may interfere in a way which at present on board. There were the rat catchers," is not at all anticipated. A well-informed who walked off with the ship's rats and anything else they could lay their hands on. There were the "game lightermen," who lightened their lighters as well as the ships to such a profitable extent that THE FUTURE OF HOLLAND. correspondent of our own, in particular, has warned us repeatedly to watch events, and not to trust implicitly in the carefully diffused Dutch view, that the occurrence has been so carefully provided against |