not ants at all), are such determined walkers
through the substance of whatever may lie in
their path, that a swarm of them may pass
through a row of books upon the shelf, turning
them all to powder, and will convert tables, chairs,
or the contents of a portmanteau, to the ghostly
images of what they had been, which fall to powder
at a touch. The true ants, also, are as the sands
of the sea, and get into everything. Whatever
contains sugar, they swarm over. The mason
wasp enters the houses, to plug up keyholes with
clay, and works most gracefully at this kind of
nest-building. The carpenter bee perforates the
wood-work of the house, and makes a great litter
of sawdust. There are moths measuring nearly
a foot across their open wings. Of one moth
the larvae inhabit bundles of twigs bound by
threads, and they are called "billets of firewood"
by the natives, who consider them to be
metamorphosed wood stealers. Bugs abound,
of course ; fleas are to be seen skipping about in
the dust of the roads. Dogs, to escape them,
choose a sleeping place on the white ashes where
a wood fire has been kindled. The mosquitoes
of Ceylon are truculent and cunning. "When
you are reading," says Sir Emerson, "a mosquito
will rarely settle on that portion of your hand
which is within range of your eyes, but,
cunningly stealing by the underside of the book,
fastens on the wrist or little finger." Spiders
are so large and strong, that the lines thrown by
them across a path will knock off the hat of a
horseman. Ticks, dropping from shaken branches,
dig into the skin. Centipedes, often a foot long,
eager to bite on the faintest provocation, crawl
up the sleeve, and creep into the innermost folds
of the dress.

THE RUINED CITY.

THE shadows of a thousand springs,
Unnumbered sunsets, sternly sleep
Above the dust of perished things
That form this city's blasted heap.
Dull watch the crumbling columns keep
Against the fierce relentless sky,
Hours, that no dial noteth, creep
Like unremembered phantoms, by ;
And still this city of the dead
Gives echo to no human tread.

A curse is writ on every stone,
The Temple's latest pillar, lies
Like some white Mammoth's bleaching bone,
Its altars know no deities.
Fine columns of a palace rise,
And when the sun is red and low,
And glaring in the molten skies,
A shadow huge these columns throw,
That like some dark colossal hand
In silence creeps across the sand.

The Senate slumbers, wondrous hive
Of councils sage, of subtle schemes ;
But does no lingering tone survive
To prove their presence more than dreams ?
No light of revelation beams
Around that voiceless Forum now,
Time bears upon his restless streams
No reflex of the haughty brow
That oft has frowned a nation's fate
Here — where dark reptiles congregate.

Where, where, is now the regal rag
That clothed the monarch of yon tower,
On which the rank weed flaps its flag
Across the dusk this sombre hour ?
Alas ! for pomp, alas ! for power,
When Time unveils their nakedness,
And Valour's strength and Beauty's flower
Find naught to echo their distress ;
And flattery—fine delusive breath
Melts in the iron grasp of Death.

Day rises with an angry glance,
As if to blight the stagnant air,
And hurls his fierce and fiery lance
On that Doomed City's forehead bare.
The sunset's wild and wandering hair
Streams backward like a comet's mane,
And from the deep and sullen glare
The shuddering columns crouch in vain,
And through the wreck of wrathful years
The grim hyæna stalks and sneers.

OUR EYE-WITNESS IN GREAT
COMPANY.

A LARGE room, handsomely decorated, with
the oddest-looking people in the oddest-looking
dresses, and in the strangest attitudes, standing
round about it. This was the scene upon which
your Eye-witness had just entered at the
conclusion of that Cattle Show experience which
formed the subject of his last report. His entry
was accompanied by a burst of music, and the
bewilderment produced by the sight of the
strange figures by which he found himself
surrounded was something modified by the
presence of other personages wearing the costume
of our own day, and in other respects resembling
the ordinary types of humanity to be met with
in the England of the nineteenth century.

These, however, are the exception: the
greater part of the occupants of this gorgeous
apartment being habited in vestments of
brilliant colour of fanciful and strange design, and
sometimes in garments decorated with a blazing
wealth of jewellery. Here, are a cardinal, a
Greek warrior, a Quaker, a gentleman in a toga,
and a lady with a powdered head, all to be taken
in at one glance. The military and naval
professions are not unrepresented; the Bishop of
Protestantism is here, as well as the Defender
of the Romanist persuasion; the Deputy-
Lieutenant and the Secretary of State, as well as the
Chinese Commissioner and the Sovereign of
these realms.

On this enchanted ground, too, costume is in
almost every instance a safe guide to the rank
and titles of the wearer. It is too often the
case elsewhere, that a noble earl or marquis is to
be found in a shabby coat rather white at the
seams, in dog-skin gloves, and carrying a six-
penny walking-stick; but, here, the members of
that peerage which it is the delight of our
nation to study, are habited, as such august
persons should be, in a dress indicative of their
rank, with their coronets fixed more or less
uncomfortably on the tops of their heads, and
their ermine right to a tuft. Nay, it is