Weir; but still he was by no means satisfied
of Smith's guilt, much as appearances were
against him.

Fisher's servants were examined, and stated
that their master had often talked of going
to England on a visit to his friends, and of
leaving Mr. Smith to manage his farm; and
that though they were surprised when Mr.
Smith came, and said he had "gone at last,"
they did not think it at all unlikely that he
had done so. An inquest was held, and a
verdict of wilful murder found against Thomas
Smith. He was thereupon transmitted to
Sydney for trial, at the ensuing sessions, in
the supreme court. The case naturally excited
great interest in the colony; and public opinion
respecting Smith's guilt was evenly balanced.

The day of trial came; and the court was
crowded almost to suffocation. The Attorney-
General very truly remarked that there were
circumstances connected with the case which
were without any precedent in the annals of
jurisprudence. The only witnesses were old
Weir and Mr. Grafton. Smith, who defended
himself with great composure and ability, cross-
examined them at considerable length, and
with consummate skill. The prosecution
having closed, Smith addressed the jury,
(which consisted of military officers) in
his defence. He admitted that the
circumstances were strong against him; but he
most ingeniously proceeded to explain them.
The power of attorney, which he produced,
he contended had been regularly granted
by Fisher, and he called several witnesses,
who swore that they believed the signature
to be that of the deceased. He,
further, produced a will, which had been drawn
up by Fisher's attorney, and by that will
Fisher had appointed Smith his sole executor,
in the event of his death. He declined, he
said, to throw any suspicion on Weir; but
he would appeal to the common sense of the
jury whether the ghost story was entitled to
any credit; and, if it were not, to ask
themselves why it had been invented? He alluded
to the fact—which in cross-examination Mr.
Grafton swore to—that when the remains
were first shown to him, he did not
conduct himself as a guilty man would
have been likely to do, although he was
horror-stricken on beholding the hideous
spectacle. He concluded by invoking the
Almighty to bear witness that he was
innocent of the diabolical crime for which he
had been arraigned. The judge (the late Sir
Francis Forbes) recapitulated the evidence.
It was no easy matter to deal with that part
of it which had reference to the apparition:
and if the charge of the judge had any leaning
one way or the other, it was decidedly in
favour of an acquittal. The jury retired;
but, after deliberating for seven hours, they
returned to the court, with a verdict of Guilty.

The judge then sentenced the prisoner to be
hanged on the following Monday. It was on
a Thursday night that he was convicted. On
the Sunday, Smith expressed a wish to see a
clergyman. His wish was instantly attended
to, when he confessed that he, and he alone,
committed the murder ; and that it was upon
the very rail where Weir swore that he had
seen Fisher's ghost sitting, that he had
knocked out Fisher's brains with a tomahawk.
The power of attorney he likewise confessed
was a forgery, but declared that the will was
genuine.

This is very extraordinary, but is,
nevertheless, true in substance, if not in every particular.
Most persons who have visited Sydney
for any length of time will no doubt have had
it narrated to them.

     A WALK THROUGH A MOUNTAIN

I TOOK a walk last year through the
substance of a mountain, entering at the top, and
corning out at the bottom, after a two or three
mile journey underground. Perhaps the story
of this trip is worth narrating. The mountain
was part of an extensive property
belonging to the Emperor of Austria, in his
character of salt merchant, and contained the
famous salt mine of Hallein.

The whole salt district of Upper Austria,
called the Salzkammergut, forms part of a
range of rocks that extends from Halle in the
Tyrol, passes through Reichenthal in Bavaria,
and continues by way of Hallein in Salzburg,
to end at Ausse in Styria. The Austrian part
of the range is now included in what is called
the district of Salzburg, and that district
abounds, as might be expected, in salt springs,
hot and cold, which form in fact the baths of
Gastein, Ischl, and some other places. The
names of Salzburg (Saltborough), the capital,
and of the Salzack (Saltbrook), on the left bank
of which that pleasant city stands, indicate
clearly enough the character of the surrounding
country. Hallein is a small town eight
miles to the south east of Salzburg, and it
was to the mine of Hallein, as before said,
that I paid my visit.

On the way thither I passed through much
delightful rock and water scenery. From
Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, I got
through Wells and Laimbach to the river
Traun, and trudged afoot beside its winding
waters till I reached the point of its junction
with the Traunsee, or Lake of Traun. From
the village on the opposite shore, I followed
the same stream again upon its wanderings
by mountain steep, and wooded bank, along
the valley called after the river's name, until
I came to Gmunden, where the Traun flows
through another lake. At Gmunden I stopped
to look over the Imperial Salt Warehouses.
The Emperor of Austria, as most people
know, is the only dealer in salt and tobacco
with whom his subjects are allowed to trade.
His salt warehouses, therefore, must needs be
extensive. They are situated at Gmunden to
the left of the landing-place, from which a
little steamer plies across the lake; and they