of this triumphal excursion festivities of all kinds rapidly succeeded one another; in both cities the reception of the illustrious visitors was enthusiastic, and the appearance of Joséphine at the Brussels theatre excited so prolonged an ovation that Talma, the "Cinna" of the evening, was unable for several minutes to proceed with his part. Early in August the First Consul returned to St. Cloud, and two months later "Andromaque" was performed there by his express command, he himself arranging the cast of the piece, which included Talma, Lafon, and the two new recruits, Mademoiselles Duchesnois and Georges, the latter of whom, as is well known, had attracted the special notice of the chief of the state by her incomparable beauty.

actors of the Théâtre Français, summoned to take the oath of allegiance to their sovereign, were entitled "comedians in ordinary of the Emperor." In the following year, during the absence of Napoleon in Italy, the first performance of "Les Templiers," by Raynouard, created an extraordinary sensation; this piece, one of the most important novelties of the period, was played thirty-five times consecutively, and on the Emperor's return was represented before him at St. Cloud. It has been stated that, in the course of an interview with the author, Napoleon suggested some alterations in "Les Templiers." Raynouard not only declined to make these, but also refused certain offers of advancement made to him. "He prefers his independence," the Emperor is reported to have said to Fontanes, "which means opposition to my will. Very well, let him do as he likes, but he must be 'surveillé.'

In 1804, Bonaparte's appearances at the theatre were few and far between. This abstention was probably due to two causes; first, to a doubt as to his reception by the In October, 1805, war having been audience owing to the recent execution of declared against Austria, Napoleon left the Duc d'Enghien, which had excited a Paris at the head of his army, and on his painful sensation throughout France; and arrival at Strasbourg a characteristic trait secondly, to the manifold occupations is recorded of him; namely, the despatch entailed on him by the approaching pro- of an order that a "gratification" should clamation of the Empire. A single visit be paid to Fleury, whose acting in "Le to the Opéra in the early part of the year Menteur" had amused him. Two months is recorded by Madame de Rémusat, who later the battle of Austerlitz had been won, accompanied Joséphine on the occasion, and popular excitement was at its height; and who states in her Memoirs that the bulletins from the seat of war were read First Consul, on entering his box, "ad-aloud amid acclamations in every theatre, vanced to the front as if he were charging and hastily improvised couplets in praise a battery, and, either because the spectators of the army and its chief were sung by the had not forgotten their habit of applauding him, or on account of precautions taken by the police, was received with a fair show of enthusiasm." Nevertheless, although disinclined to brave the public gaze, Bonaparte was far from neglecting the concerns of his favourite theatre; and in the contest for supremacy between Duchesnois and Georges, which had been taken up by the press with great acrimony on both sides, openly avowed his partisanship for Mademoiselle Georges; whereas Joséphine, jealous of the impression produced on her husband by the beautiful actress, as strenuously supported her talented but plain-featured rival. So that, in his anxiety to please all parties, Monsieur de Rémusat, superintendent of the theatres, had a hard time of it. Eventually both were admitted members of the society, and peace once more reigned in the house of Molière."

On May the eighteenth, 1804, the Empire was proclaimed, and a fortnight later the

actors. Shortly after the return of the conqueror, he visited the Opéra and the Comédie Française in state, and on both occasions, says an eye-witness, "was received with an enthusiasm bordering on frenzy."

Talma had always been Napoleon's favourite actor, and the few details handed down to us of their conversations at St. Cloud and elsewhere are extremely curious and interesting. Nothing pleased the Emperor more than an opportunity of airing his opinions on dramatic art, a subject of which he was never weary; and while discussing the relative merits of Corneille and Racine, or criticising Le recent productions at the Théâtre Fr çais and their interpreters, he displayed an acuteness of perception which astonished the professional listener. "You gesticulate too much," he said one day to the tragedian, referring to the latter's performance of Cæsar in "La Mort de Pompée"; "such is not the habit of Emperors or Kings.

Jamaica, crumpled up a sheet of notepaper and, half smoothing out the folds, Isid it on the table as the best illustration he could give of the mountainous nature of the island. We cannot improve upon this as a description of the present scene, beautiful as it is. Behind and to the right the rising hills, vertebræ of the rocky backbone of the island, are clothed to their highest ridges with the swelling folds of the dark green forest, which serves to soften the jagged outline of the honeycombed limestone.

noble race of savages, first possessors of the land, whose gentle habits still live in tradition. Alas! the aborigine was effectually exterminated by the discovering Spaniard. Our vision of the lake vanishes, and in its stead is the Vale of St. Thomas, lying dark in the shadow of the hills.

The entry to the Vale from the south is by a pass known by the scarcely euphonious name of the Bog Walk. Here the encircling hills have been cleft from crown to base, forming a gorge of surpassing beauty. The road winds along the foot of the hills, and below, the Rio Cobre, between banks fringed with deadly dumbcane and a hundred other plants of succulent and vigorous growth, now rushes noisily over a stony bed, raising a musical babblement, now swirls over a deep and silent pool, and now plunges with a mighty show of power over a rocky shelf.

In the valleys the forest has long since been cleared, its place being taken by the groves of orange and pimento-trees, the grey stems of which now bend under the weight of the fragrant spice berries. In front and to the left, the land, rising and falling in row after row of thickly wooded hills, slopes away gradually to the distance of a mile, and then shoots down two thousand feet. As the road enters the plain it divides: To the north, hills rise again in tier upon one branch, skirting the eastern heights, tier, marked in many places by white- leads to the country beyond; the western walled houses; and the view spreads out- branch, the Great North Road, brings the ward and onward, over estate, pasture, traveller past the wide, spreading fields of a village, and forest to the distant sea. If sugar estate, now brightly verdant with the the weather is propitious, one may see in young shoots of cane, past an old church this direction, across the grey Caribbean whose peal of bells once had local note, Sea, a blue line in the sky marking the through the busy township of Linstead, position of the lofty mountains of Cuba. centre of trade for these parts, and finally to the base of a precipitous height. Up the face of the mountain, winding in and out of its deep wrinkles, creeps the white road, rising steadily for two miles to its highest point, then, after a short level stretch, plunging downwards again to the beautiful parish of St. Ann. At the highest point of the main road a bridle path strikes off to the left and brings the traveller, after a stiff climb of another two miles, to the summit of the Mount Diablo, from which the reader is supposed to survey the scene.

In front, however, the land, after its precipitous descent, spreads out in a spacious plain, at once the most interesting and curious feature of the whole outlook interesting and curious, since to north and south, to east and west, the plain is completely shut in by lofty hills and mountains, and both together, hill and plain, seem like the crater of some extinct volcano, or the basin of a great lake. Words convey a slight idea of configuration; they cannot paint the wonderful colour of the surrounding heights or of the surface of the land-locked vale with its numerous white-walled houses, its verdant cane-fields and groves of dark umbrageous mango. Like the basin of a great lake we said; and, indeed, it requires no mighty effort of the imagination to fill the huge bowl with blue depths of crystal water, to people it with numberless tribes of fish, to clothe its banks with a luscious vegetation, dropping here and there along them a peaceful village embowered in palms, and to dot the surface of the inland sea with the brown sails of the Indian canoe. It pleases the mind, this quiet evening-tide, to dream of such things, and to wander into the dim, dim past to dwell among that

The orange and red have faded from the west; there the sky has assumed a grey and sober hue. It is the advent of the sweet tropic night, with its strange glories of sight and sound. The forest-clad hills loom dark against the brighter heavens beyond, and down in the valleys, where shadows are blackest, golden lights are beginning to flash. If the day with its dazzling splendours has departed, night is here, accompanied by her softer, more entrancing beauties. First and foremost are the fireflies, not as the glow-worm, their lowly congener of northern climes, content to show a humble light from the shelter of a moist bank; but, as if conscious of the pre-eminence of their graces and of their

right to be called Queens of the Night, Luna being absent, filling the air in thousands. Some pass in a great blaze of golden splendour from the two beacons on their heads; others, of a feebler flight, more chary of their favours, at one moment display their lustre, and at the next, modestly hide it.

A bat flies over the edge of the shingled roof. We see it for an instant sharply outlined against the sky, still retaining a glow from the departed sun, before it darts with a shrill cry into the blackness of the night. As it disappears, a croak, long-drawn and harsh, re-echoes through the silent forest. The call is answered by a note hoarser, if anything, and more grating to the ear than the first, and a hundred, nay, a thousand throats take up the chorus. It is the nightly concert of the tree-frogs-gray, loathsome creatures, hideous as their voices, which now fill the air with lugubrious sound. Mingled with the bass of the frogs is the cheerful chirp of innumerable crickets, and the sharp "keck-keck" of the agile wood-geckces. The general result is certainly one of the strangest incidents of the night in there mountain solitudes. At an instant the babel ceases, and the relieved listener is beginning to congratulate himself, when suddenly, as if on a pre-arranged signal, the race of frogs raises its concerted voice in a perfect volume of croaks. The effect upon the ear of this unexpected recommencement of the concert is curious and not pleasant. The charm of the night has departed; it is time to go indoors.

are which seem to be clad in dingy brown, but, as the sun's rays are reflected from their plumage, lo, the suit of brown has vanished, and in its stead one of gorgeous metallic bronze. Supported before the flowers by their tiny wings, humming harmoniously, they plunge their slender bills between the petals with quick movements, characteristic of the tribe. Quarrelsome, too, are the little fellows, and many a sharp engagement takes place between those constantly arriving and those who think they have a prior claim over the sweet-scented blossoms. A very short time suffices for each bird to make a round of the attractive shrub, and it disappears, in a flash of colours, over the fence, its place to be taken by some new arrival. Thus the honeysuckle is the centre of much life, and-such is the love one feels for these gems of the bird-world -one cannot help thinking that they were created as some sort of compensation for the existence of snakes and other drawbacks of the tropics.

In a tree below the house some yellow finches are noisily feeding-they strike one note in the general harmony-while on the moist path at the foot of the hill, a scarlet-legged thrush has found a worm, and proclaims the fact in a fussy manner peculiarly his own. If you were near you might see him-a smallish bird in sad-coloured plumage, relieved by a patch of rusty red under throat and tail-perched on the very summit of a dead tree, whence, his meal finished, he uplifts his morning chant of praise. At this time of the year his song consists of but two notes; but in the nesting season he pours forth a volume of rich melody, surprising to unaccustomed ears.

The folding windows of one's bedroom are thrown open at an early hour, and the pure air of the morning, from which the sun has not yet driven the refreshing coolness of the night, is eagerly drawn in by grateful lungs. The great arch of the heavens is free of clouds, and blue, except on the horizon, where hangs a slight mist born of the night. From the valley to the right comes the protracted "coo-ee-oo" of the boy driving up the cows to milk, and a chorus of anxious bellows from the paddock beneath gives evidence that the hungry calves have also caught the well-setting of hill and mountain. known sound. Beneath the window is the honeysuckle, and around its blossoms, where last night the hawk-moths flitted, half-a-dozen brilliant humming-birds are darting. There are some adorned in green, gold, black and white, and with two of the tail-feathers prolonged to five times the length of their bodies, and some there

The eye, roaming over the pleasing panorama of sunlit forest and shady vale, is perforce made to halt when there comes within its range of vision the Vale of St. Thomas. During the night, while all slept, except the frogs, some enchanter, working a mighty spell, has swept away every vestige of that plain which last evening was seen below in its oval

Sugar

estate, white-walled village, sparkling river, have all disappeared, and in their stead a sea of some snow-white substance, seemingly, with the blue hills, a field of ivory beset with turquoise. There is no movement in the white mass, though, as the. rays of the sun fall upon its bosom, a sparkling radiance it emits deepens the