proves to us that the bundles have real live flesh and blood inside them, and it remains to be ascertained what in the world people can be doing so carefully under the broiling sun in what appears so unlikely a place for anything to repay their trouble. We execute a skilful flank movement along one of the less precarious looking of the little dykes which we observe dividing the land into square inclosures, and so contrive gradually to approach a party we have selected for inspection. The mystery is solved by finding that we are forming our first acquaintance with the details of “rice” cultivation; and in the scene before us we have a representation, on European principles, of the outline of slave-labour, such as we imagine it to appear elsewhere. The most prominent figure is a tall, swarthy man, generally holding a sort of tall wooden prong, and his authority seems a little rigidly exerted over the batch of female “workers" under his direction. The fields are several inches under water, as they are allowed to be in Italy during the whole period of growth of the rice plant; and men may often in Lombardy be seen mowing it up to their knees in the genial fluid, which is said to support the weakness of the stalk. The poor women, whom we reach in our walk, look at a little distance like so many monstrous human Cochin-Chinas,—the result of being obliged to remain perpetually in a low stooping posture, without soaking or perhaps being interfered with by their drapery. The difficulty of keeping their drapery permanently out of the water is so great, that they are obliged constantly to get upon the dykes, and there repeat what is evidently a very skilful arrangement under the circumstances, but the nature of which we need not divulge until rices come to be extensively cultivated amongst ourselves. Hour after hour they move about on the slimy bottom of the flooded field, inhaling the marshy exhalations, baked in the noon-tide blaze, pulling up with aged or childish hands the obstructive weeds, or otherwise preparing in spring for the autumn crop of rice. Refreshed now and then with a draught of purer water than what surrounds them, old and young amongst them contrive, even in a posture not best adapted for vocalisation, to strike up a faint chorus, and suggest the idea of contentment with their lot, while it may chance to carry their thoughts for a while elsewhere, or lessen the sense of vertebral dislocation. On the whole, the sort of work is not probably so unhealthy as rice-cultivation in the swamps of America; but it is acknowledged to be dangerous in the Milanese district, and cannot well be less so at Ravenna. If it were ever so innocuous, it is difficult to suppose it over-pleasant to those who are employed in it.
As for the glades of the Pine Forest, to which we resort after our other wanderings, they have had great poets and writers to expatiate upon them, and we can only say that they are not likely to disappoint expectation. The trees are fine, the undergrowth not uncomfortably tangled, the sward is velvety, the acres of drying cones a novel item in commerce, and away from the marshy spots all combines to form an agreeable and sweet-scented retreat.
DAWN IN AN EASTERN JUNGLE.
(SUGGESTED BY A NIGHT-JOURNEY IN CEYLON.)
Amid the forest glades we went
Before the break of day;
Pale Dian from the firmament
Shot down a trembling ray.
And, as we upwards turned and gazed,
The clustering constellations blazed,
Like blossomed thorns in May!
A lovely land, a lonely land!
Nor house nor home was nigh:
Deep forest glooms on either hand;
Above, the open sky;
The turf beneath was green and soft,
As is a daisied English croft,
Where children love to lie.
The fireflies lit their magic lamps
That wreathe the boughs in flame,
And, glittering ’mid the dewy damps,
Alternate went and came;
Each tree ’mid tiny cressets shone,
Fruited as if with diamond-stone,
Or gems of rarest fame!
No tramp of elephants was heard
Emerging from the brake;
No water-bird the lotus stirred
Above the sleeping lake:
So slumbrous all, no sound there was,
Save that the insects on the grass
Trilled songs to keep awake!
The polestar gleamed, our guide afar,
A rare and radiant gem!
Recalling oft the orient star
That shone o’er Bethlehem,
When angel minstrels carolling
Proclaimed the advent of The King,
And shepherds listened them!
Anon, fleet Fancy winged her flight
To transatlantic plains,
Where, guided by the polestar’s light,
The slave forsakes his chains,
And northward speeds with ’bated breath,
Through trackless wilds, for life or death,
To realms where freedom reigns!
O, hark! the song of chanticleer
Bursts from the leafy dells:
And, faint at first, then sharp and near,
The chime of cattle-bells!
The curling smoke uprose again:
The terraced slopes of ripened grain
Lay midst the sylvan swells.
How fair the scene! fields green and gold
Hedged in with ridgy rims:
Aloft, the tall trees, staunch and old,
Outspread their massy limbs:
The wakeful birds were all astir,
And each ethereal chorister
Was chanting matin hymns!
A flush was in the east—a hue
Of rose athwart the gray,
With slender bands of paly blue,
A soft, commingled ray!
Behind the brake the sun upsprung,
And fast his golden censer swung
Aloft—and it was day!
