The

In a letter subsequently received, the Patriarch says:"The Government of Turkey is just the same as before. We can prove that all the facts contained in the reports (those just mentioned) are true, though the Government tries in every way to prove the contrary. From the province of Van, 50,000 Armenians have resolved to emigrate next spring into Russian territory, and they are already beginning to do so. Armenians of Zeitoun (who had been seized on a charge of rebellion) are still in prison, and Sir A. H. Layard, notwithstanding his great influence, could not procure their release. In the province of Diarbekir, not only the Kurds, but also the soldiers and officers, rob and murder the people and violate the young girls with impunity. The Turkish Government does nothing, except by attempting to prevent news from arriving." Mr. James Bryce, in communicating this to the Times, adds: "The picture which these letters and the accompanying reports present agrees only too closely with that drawn by your correspondent in his interesting letters from Diarbekir and Trebizond, although he does not seem to have visited the district of Van, where the sufferings of the Armenians from the Kurdish marauders have been most severe."

ANTS IN INDIA.-A correspondent in India comments on the statement of an "English Naturalist" that "in some warm countries, as in India, ants are dormant during the rainy season." He says: "I must confess such an idea gave us a little amusement, when read in the middle of the Bengal rainy season. On the table was the sugar, in a close-fitting glass bottle, and further fortified from the attacks of the myriads of ants about by being placed in a dish and surrounded by a moat of water. A week or two before I had gone on a tour in the country, and incautiously left my bread unprotected by such a moat for one night, and the result was that the next morning each loaf was swarming with ants, so that I had to cut the loaves into slices, shake out the ants as best I could, and look forward to the prospect even then of having a little animal food in the shape of broiled ants in these slices when toasted. Whatever it may be in other parts of India, in Bengal it is the rainy season when the ants are most troublesome."

ISANDULA.-A correspondent, writing from Natal, thus sums up the losses at Isandula :-Including non-combatants, 800 or 900 of our Natives must have died at Isandula. It is now ascertained that 850 Europeans perished. The booty taken consisted of 128 waggons, with £70,000 worth of commissariat stores, 300,000 rounds of ammunition, 1,200 Martini-Henry breechloaders, two Armstrong guns, rocket battery, all the baggage of the general, and all the officers and men of the headquarters camp, and volunteers and mounted police attached to it, about 2,000 oxen, 300 horses, and 50 mules, with three mule waggons of the general, and his carriage and eight horses -valued in all at not less than a quarter of a million of money.

AMERICAN DRIED FRUIT TRADE.-Colonel A. C. Jones, an official of the Agricultural Department at Washington, has completed an interesting paper upon the subject of the dried fruit trade, from which the following summary is made :-"The abundance of the fruit crop of the United States is one of the most gratifying results of the progress of agriculture in this country. In the strip between the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays more than 5,000,000 of peach-trees blossom annually. The cranberry has been found to be very profitable in Minnesota, where in 1877 there was a crop of 40,000 bushels, of the value of at least 150,000 dols. The European demand for American fruits increases with the supply, and proves to be very generally remunerative. There is fruit enough raised in the United States to supply both our country and Europe. The first exportation of apples was made thirty years ago, when apples commanded from six to eight dollars a barrel in Liverpool. That city now receives 90,000 barrels of American apples annually. The value

of fruits exported last year was 2,937,025 dols. The exportation of canned fruit is rapidly increasing. The supply of dried fruit has never been equal to the demand. The extraordinary increase in the production within the last few years has been met by still greater consumption. No census of this trade has ever been taken. New York is the largest fruit-producing State, and the bulk of it is marketed at Buffalo. At Chicago the trade in dried fruit is very large, as it is a distributing point of considerable importance for the West and North-West. The secretary of the Board of Trade in Chicago, in a letter to the Department of Agriculture, states that the receipts of dried fruits in 1877 were as follows: Dried apples, 30,000 barrels, of 200 lb. each; dried peaches, 18,000 barrels, of 250 lb. each; dried blackberries, 6,000 barrels, of 200 lb. each. A proportionate amount of the smaller fruits and berries was received. The general trade in dried fruits is not increasing, the demand being supplied within a few years by the increase of canned goods.'

THE FIRST PRINTING-PRESS AT LATTAKOO.-Dr. Moffat thus describes the introduction of printing among the Bechuanas: Although many of the natives had been informed how books were printed, nothing could exceed their surprise when they saw a white sheet, after disappearing for a moment, emerge spangled with letters. After a few noisy exclamations, one obtained a sheet, with which he bounded into the village, showing it to every one he met, and asserting that my colleague and myself had made it in a moment, with a round, black hammer (a printer's ball) and a shake of the arm. The description of such a juggling process soon brought a crowd to see the press, which has since proved an auxiliary of vast importance to our cause."

DAKOTA, THE NEXT AMERICAN STATE. -Dakota lies to the west of the States of Minnesota and Iowa, and north of Nebraska. It is traversed from corner to corner by the Missouri. Its area is set down in the surveys at 150,932 square miles, or nearly onefifth larger than the whole area of the British Isles. But the population at the census of 1870 was only 14,000. It has, however, increased very much since, having at present considerably more than the 60,000 requisite for its organisation as a State, and its friends insist that its rate of development is so rapid that it will certainly have 150,000 inhabitants by the time the Bill passes. It is at present badly off for roads of all kinds. The Northern Pacific Railroad runs through its northern districts; but the construction of this line has been arrested at the town of Bismarck, on the Missouri, which is its temporary western terminus. Other lines are projected; some have been actually surveyed. At the western frontier, extending into the adjoining territory of Wyoming, are the Black Hills, the scene of the massacre by Sioux, in 1875, of General Custer and many soldiers of the United States Army. Gold mines have been lately discovered among these mountains, and miners are already flocking thither.

CENTENARIANS.-Three years ago the newspapers in Scotland reported that a venerable minister, the Rev. Dr. Ingram, of Unst, Shetland, had reached his 100th birthday. His portrait was painted for the college of the Free Church at Edinburgh. He died recently (March 3), within a month of completing his 103rd year, having been born in Aberdeenshire on the 3rd of April, 1776. He was licensed to preach the gospel in 1800, and he was ordained a minister of the Church of Scotland in 1803. At the Disruption he became a minister of the Free Church. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by the University of Glasgow in 1844. His son, the Rev. John Ingram, who is upwards of 70 years of age, and was ordained a minister in 1848, has been his assistant for a considerable time. The deceased's father lived to the age of 100, and his grandfather to the age of 105.

RABBITS IN NEW ZEALAND.-Mr. Cowan, a run holder in Southland, New Zealand, states that on his run of 29,000 acres he killed 26,000 rabbits in four months, and that the cost of destroying them was 3d. per rabbit, while he got no more than 1d. per skin for the skins in winter. Their presence of his land had reduced the lambing of his flocks by 20 per cent. Whole tracts of country had been rendered almost valueless by the rabbit nuisance. On twenty-four holdings in the south, during last year, no less than 1,059,000 rabbits were destroyed. On the same runs there were 153,000 sheep less than were shorn previously, and these runs produced 1,700 bales of wool less than they did formerly. That amount of wool, taken at a moderate computation, of £15 per bale, would bring a return of £25,000, which at 10 per cent. would represent a capital of £250,000.

S Warren returned to the hotel-or rather primitive inn, for though large enough to accommodate several travellers, it had little pretension about it he felt the air particularly hot and close. It was past midnight; no lights were visible in the windows except one twinkling close to a small side entrance, where some one was watching for the night diligence No. 1433.-JUNE 14, 1879.

to Basle in order to deliver up the letters. The large door was closed. In front of the hotel, but at some distance from it, ran the high road, from which a private one diverged to the building, forming a semicircle, the intervening space consisting of a piece of grassy ground, divided in two by a broad gravel walk, planted on each side with poplars. The spot itself was nothing extraordinary, but the scenery around and near was interesting. It was, however, cool and pleasant, well wooded, fragrant with pine

PRICK ONE PENNY.

and other forest trees, and watered by the silvery Birs.

Whilst Mr. Sinclair was saying a few words to the sleepy watchman, the lumbering of the diligence was heard, and, as if by some stroke of magic, men and horses, issuing from some unperceived cover, were suddenly upon the scene. The wheels stopped, voices were heard, and lanterns flashed; then followed a jingling and scuffling, a few shoutings, and the wheels were again in motion. Next came the measured tread of the tired horses going to their stables, and soon all was again still.

After seeing the man fasten the door, Mr. Sinclair went in the direction of the principal passage, asking for a light. "This is the shortest way, sir, and as good as the other in the end," remarked the man, pointing to a small staircase facing the side door. "Permit me to show you the way." Suiting the action to the word, he preceded him up a flight of narrow, steep steps to the first floor, issuing on a part of the corridor which was strange to Mr. Sinclair. Being a new-comer, he was unacquainted with the windings of the passages, but happily remembered his number. His room was soon found by the rough attendant, who lighted his candle and left him. Notwithstanding his journey, he did not feel tired, and had no inclination to sleep, walking so long in the night air having refreshed him. Besides that, his thoughts were troublesome, and had to be reduced to subjection. His window looking upon the back, upon outhouses and untidy kitchen-gardens, offered nothing to please the eye, yet he kept it open on account of the heat. Aware, at length, that it was time to go to bed if he meant to rest at all, he went to shut it, and started with a sudden and frightful apprehension.

What was it? What did it mean? A red glow proceeding from one of the rooms below immediately darted into flames. As the fearful sight met his eye, the terrible cry, "Fire! fire!" (au secours! au secours!), always alarming, but a thousandfold more so in the dead of night, when help seems so far off, if not impossible, was raised. Doors opened and shut, screams echoed and re-echoed above, below, out-of-doors.

Where was Mrs. Fraser ? Where was Mona? Warren did not know their rooms, only that they must be on the floor above, as he had gone up two pair of stairs on his arrival. No time was to be lost; the building being of wood would burn rapidly; volumes of smoke from below were already rolling up the staircase as he set his foot upon it. On reaching the top the first person he distinguished was Mona, in a dressing-gown, her hair about her shoulders, and pale as a spectre, hurrying along the passage with a light in her hand. She, too, had been sitting up, reflecting over the events of the day, and, her room looking on the back premises, she had become aware of the fire about the same time as Warren.

"This way-this way, down the staircase, and out of doors at once," said Mr. Sinclair, seizing her hand and trying to drag her towards the stairs he had just ascended.

"Mrs. Fraser and Fanny! save them, save them!" she answered, resisting with all her force, and impelling him along the corridor with her. Winged as she appeared in her rapid movements, and though it took but a couple of seconds to reach Mrs. Fraser's door, a general stampede had taken place before she

gained it. From the upper storey many were hurrying down, adding to the confusion by cries and screams, and dense columns of smoke were rising all round.

At the first knock Mrs. Fraser made her appearance, partially dressed, asking what was the matter. Realising the truth in an instant, she precipitated herself back into the room, frantically calling upon Fanny to get up and run.

"There is yet time to dress her quickly, and to save some of your valuables. The fire is at present at the back; only make haste, and escape is easy," said Mr. Sinclair, who remembered the small staircase with which he had unexpectedly become acquainted, which now appeared untouched, all the smoke and turmoil being at the other end.

"There, Mona," he added, again seizing her hand, "round the corner and down the little staircase. Go out at the door at the bottom of it, I will follow directly with my sister and Fanny. You must, you shall obey me!" he said, imperatively, endeavouring to force her away.

But Mona shook him off, and was inside Mrs. Fraser's room at her pupil's side in a moment. Mrs. Fraser having snatched the candle from her, began securing one valuable after another, and tumbling them together into a shawl, at the same time calling upon her daughter to make haste, Mr. Sinclair and a maid, who had come upon the scene, lending all the assistance in their power.

Come now, at once," said her brother, in a clear, firm voice, after a few minutes; "there is no time to lose," and Mrs. Fraser obeyed. Taking his arm with her disengaged hand, she told Mona to lay hold of Fanny and keep close to them. Pressed together, they walked towards the narrow staircase, down which others were also hurrying with boxes and bundles, hastily packed, the general alarm venting itself by cries and lamentations, which greatly served to increase it.

At the top of the staircase Mr. Sinclair stopped, saying, "Mona Moreton, give me your hand, and take Fanny firmly by the other, or if you cannot do that from the narrowness of the way, take hold of my coat. We must not run the risk of being separated." He spoke so imperatively that Mona did as she was bid, except that she reversed the position, giving her pupil's hand to Mr. Sinclair, and following herself.

In that way they safely descended the first flight, but before they reached the second their advance was impeded. Some who had remained behind, endeavouring to save their possessions either on their persons or by throwing them out of the window, frightened by the rapidly-spreading flames or half stifled with the smoke, came rushing upon them with such headlong speed just at the top of the stairs, that Mona found she must either relinquish her grasp of Fanny, or pull her back. Without hesitation she let her go, hoping to be able to follow, but was immediately swept aside, and was unable for a few seconds to regain the staircase. When she did so the bannisters were broken.

In front of the hotel the grass plats were covered with persons of all ages and degree, men, women, and children, asking or offering assistance; strewn besides with boxes, bags, and broken furniture, all that could be cast down in the hurry. The fire raged principally on the opposite side, where the greatest confusion prevailed; the lurid flames continued to

A fire-engine was soon at work, men of all degrees contributed their aid by forming the usual chain or line, extending from the building to the river or nearest fountain, passing the bucket from one to another, and generally losing half its contents before reaching the last hand.

Another engine was rattling along the road when Mr. Sinclair halted his party out of danger, as he hoped, from the falling timber or fire-brands. All at once Fanny set up a cry, "Where is Miss More

ton?"

"With you," thundered her uncle, in a voice of alarm. No, Fanny had let go of her at the top of the staircase when they were pushed asunder, and thought she was following.

"Mona, Mona, Mona Moreton," shouted Mr. Sinclair, rushing among the heterogeneous crowd, looking hard into every face, and especially at every crouching figure that seemed to be suffering or frightened, and even among the promiscuous heap of things thrown upon the grass.

There was no answer to his cry; no one heeded him. Each one for himself was the common feeling. Desperate with apprehension of the worst kind, he ran to the door by which they had issued. Apparently the flames had not reached that part, but it was shut up and guarded by a sentinel, there being some hope of saving that end, and no one was allowed to go in

or out.

66

'Let me pass, let me pass!" gasped Mr. Sinclair, almost breathless, as he reached the door.

In answer the man on guard placed his gun across it, phlegmatically replying, "On ne passe pas."

"Let me pass, I say," repeated Mr. Sinclair. "There's yet one more to be saved."

"There is no one," returned the soldier in the same impassive manner.

"There is some one missing, a young girl who was with us on the stairs. Open, open; I will give all my fortune to save her."

The English accent of the stranger was not to be mistaken; perhaps the word donner on his lips conveyed some solid meaning to the stolid guard, or he thought that under circumstances so peculiar he might disobey orders. He turned the key, opened the door, and snatching a lantern from some one near, held it above his head, as Mr. Sinclair, uttering the same cry, "Mona, Mona, Mona Moreton," but more wildly and despairingly, hurried up the broken stair

case.

When less than half-way his foot encountered something soft. He stooped down to ascertain what it was dead or alive it was a human body-a woman by the texture of her clothes. "Mona, Mona, is it you?" he exclaimed; but there was no response. Half stifled by the smoke, and unable to see before him, he yet managed to get his arms round the senseless figure huddled up as it was, and, with a strength furnished by the occasion, descended the steps and tottered into the open air with his burden in an agony of fear lest he had come to the rescue too late. A breeze just risen, to the dismay of those working against the flames, revived the inanimate form he held. A convulsive shudder passed through her frame sending a thrill of joy to his heart. She moved, she lived, and he had saved her!

"Ah! Mon Dieu, où suis-je ?," The national expression so repulsive to English ears in its application to every trifling incident, was to him as a pistol-shot. His grasp relaxed, his arms fell apart, and he sank senseless to the ground beside the stranger he had rescued.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

WHEN Warren Sinclair came to himself, so as to be fully conscious of passing events, he was lying on a bed in a strange room, large, and almost meagrely furnished. It contained only the barest necessaries. Where was he? How long had he been there? The western sun was shining in at the curtainless window. Certainly it was afternoon. Putting his hand up to his head, in an attempt to collect his thoughts, he found it swathed in linenanother puzzle for his bewildered brain to solve. He remembered having seen a black figure moving about him, and to have heard strange voices, and also a feeling of great pain followed by sudden ease. had been asleep, perhaps for a long time, but he was now awake, and wondered where he was.

He

By degrees his recollections became clearer. He remembered that there had been a fre, and that they had been trying to escape, and-he knew it all now. Back upon his memory flashed a deep, poignant regret. Mona had perished, while he had saved another in her stead. The first consciousness of his misfortune had sunk him to the ground, where his head must have come in contact with a sharp stone, hence the bandages and the aching. Anyway his head was sore to the touch, and he had better remain quiet. Some compassionate soul was caring for him, and some kind hand had bound up his wounds. For some time he lay still, trying to realise how it had all happened, and shortly his thoughts grew more and more distinct, and then over Warren Sinclair swept such a wave of hopeless grief that he could not restrain his tears, and they were very bitter ones.

Mona Moreton could never have been more to him than a sweet memory-a contre round which tender thoughts might cling, as to something noble and good, raising human nature in his estimation; but she would always have been that; and now the remembrance that she, whose life he would have purchased with his own, had perished so miserably!— that he had saved another and left her to die--would ever be to him a real affliction, the sternest trial he could be called upon to bear. Growing calmer after a while, partly from the strength of character inherent in him, partly from a spirit of resignation sedulously cultivated, he waited patiently, thinking that as so much attention had already been paid to him, some one would soon be coming to see after him, of whom he could make inquiries where he was, and why he was in bed. But time passed and no one

came.

Tired at last of playing the invalid, he tried to get up, and, to his surprise, found himself able to do so without difficulty. Having resumed his coat, which had been taken off, he opened the door and looked out into a narrow passage with two other doors opening into it. Of the first he turned the handle and examined the room. It was small-about one-third the size of that he had left-with a poor little iron bedstead on one side, and on it lay a figure in what

appeared a dressing-gown, Part of the hair, which had been carelessly gathered up, had escaped, and was streaming loose about the pillow. The dark eyes wide open were fixed on vacancy, no ray of intelligence was there to light them up; but alive or dead, sane or insane, the face was Mona's.

Oblivious of the sorry figure he cut with his bandaged head, he threw himself down beside the little couch in irrepressible grief. Suddenly a hand was laid on his shoulder, and a voice not quite unfamiliar addressed him in broken English.

"Come back to your room, you. What brings you here? You ugly man. The lady would have one great fright if she saw you with your head tied up like that. You, like the dog of Madame Hubbard, that English sing about. I go for the doctor and I find you well. This way, mon ami, I am your good nurse, and will take care of you, though you did throw me away like a bit of chiffon. But I am grateful; you saved my life, and I have done you a good thing. Do you know where you are? No! I will say you where. In my uncle's house, and well for you he is a friend of the doctor, or you would have been forgotten. I bring you here all bleeding with your head, and he make the doctor come."

"Who are you?" said Warren, yielding to her wishes and retreating under her direction, as he remembered how much his appearance was calculated to alarm, if indeed it were true that Mona was not dead.

"Who I am? The lady you threw away. I not forget it," she answered, laughing.

"Does she live?" asked Warren, too absorbed by his own apprehensions to heed what was said on any other subject.

66

Yes, she is in a kind of stupor from smoke and fright and pain."

But she must not stay here, she must change rooms with me; mine is larger, better, more airy," repeated Warren, quickly.

Looking first at him, then at the recumbent figure, the Frenchwoman nodded her head, saying shortly, "Can you carry her ?" Warren did not hesitate. In the strength of a great joy he forgot his own pain, and taking Mona in his arms, bore her safely into the next room, knowing by the warmth and flexibility of her body that she was not dead.

"That is well; you did not mean to save me, but this one, and you were very sorry. Oh! but you threw me away, as if I were no more than a little dog. And this is your petite, your friend. I thought so when I heard she was found. But I am grateful; without you I should have died. I was too late, I went back to fetch my money. Take courage, I will nurse her for you. You are right, she will be better hero and you there. Chut, chut, here comes the doctor; he will be so glad to have done with you. Go, go; if the lady comes to her mind she will be frightened to see you."

Thus bound to good behaviour, Warren returned to the little room from whence he had taken Mona, but waited in the doorway to hear the medical report.

The village doctor was a fussy little man at all times, and rendered doubly so by the different cases now thrown upon his skill, two of which were really difficult. Mr. Sinclair's was speedily dismissed, it turned out too simple to be very interesting. Mona's was more serious, but he did not despair even of that, and only wished he had nothing worse upon his

hands. After giving directions to the French lady, with whom he seemed on intimate terms, and telling Warren that he would soon be well, he went away.

Before long Mr. Sinclair obtained from his selfconstituted nurse a circumstantial account of what happened after he lost consciousness. He discovered that the lady he had rescued was the niece of the French abbé of the village, who, as soon as her wits were restored, called out for her uncle. Through her means Mr. Sinclair, senseless and bleeding, was conveyed to the abbe's residence, and the doctor sent for, some charitable hand meanwhile staunching and binding up the wound.

When the doctor, after some delay, arrived, he was accompanied by two men carrying some one on a shutter, who had been found by the soldier on guard on the flagstones, close to the staircase where the bannisters had given way. It was Mona, who, having been pushed aside by some impatient hand, had fallen to the ground, too stunned perhaps to rise again, and afterwards kept insensible by the smoke.

In raising his lantern high above his head to light Mr. Sinclair, the soldier had seen something on the ground, and advanced to take a nearer view as Warren issued from the doorway with his burden. Help was immediately procured, and the lifeless body carried out just as the dense smoke burst into flames, and all hope of saving that part of the hotel was lost.

Very soon the whole of it was on fire, and before morning was almost entirely gutted. But among the unhappy fugitives some order prevailed at last. While the men and villagers worked on, trying to reduce the fire, the women and children were housed in different places, the greater part being received into the other hotel, and stowed away upon mattresses in every available space, or upon the floors.

Mrs. Fraser, only partially clad, after being assured that Mr. Sinclair and Mona should have every attention, was induced to go away with her daughter, and naturally repaired to Helen's apartment, already overcrowded. Property, of course, was lost or destroyed to some considerable extent, in spite of a local police engaged to protect it. But the greatest disaster was the loss of a life. One man, in leaping from a window, fell, and was killed. Amid these scenes of alarm, confusion, and suffering, the Abbé Auger was everywhere encouraging, assisting, and directing, putting himself, his servant, and his house at the service of as many as needed them.

By the time Warren Sinclair recovered sufficiently to act for himself the little community had fallen back into a state of resigned quietude, except those engaged in watching the furniture, restoring the property thrown from the windows, or providing for the exigences of the coming night. When next Mrs. Fraser visited her brother she found him walking about, making light of his own accident, but in great anxiety respecting Miss Moreton.

Helen Lestocq did not accompany her. Garbled accounts of what had taken place kept her in retirement; she heard people talk about the Englishman's despair on discovering that the lady was missing, and of his disappointment at having saved the wrong person, and knew that they were speaking of Warren Sinclair. Only too naturally her former jealousy returned. Even Mrs. Fraser could find nothing satisfactory to say, and wisely remained silent, leaving Helen's affairs to adjust themselves.

As day after day passed, she had greater matter