The Herr announced to us after half an hour's search, that no horses were to be procured. 'Then we had better remain here for the night,' we decided at once. But no. The Herr had undertaken us, and he alone must have an opinion. We felt that he knew the country, and that we did not, and gave way, though unwillingly, on his assurance that less than twenty minutes would bring us to the Austrian frontier, where we would be sure to find fresh horses. So we reluctantly reseated ourselves. The horses had been at work since early morning, and were utterly exhausted, crawling at a foot's pace. The shades were gathering deeper and deeper around us; the ground rose much more rapidly than before; the road in some places was so bad as to be almost impassable; worst opposite a tablet let into the rock, which informed the grateful traveller, in letters of gold and in choice Latin, how Prince Alexander Ghyka had made and finished it in 1855. The Herr's twenty minutes had lengthened to an hour or more when we reached a narrow treeless gorge, the heights crowned on either side by half-ruined fortress towers, while grim loop-holed modern walls ran down to meet in an immense gateway, whose shut doors barred our path. To the left, a small plateau of green turf bordered the crag overhanging the stream, which now held its rapid course many feet below us.
Our arrival was an event. The guardian of the pass was fat, fussy, and important, and quite deaf to any representations of our anxiety to proceed. Had we anything to declare? No; certainly not. No tea? No. Nor tobacco? No. But then it struck him that there must be some tobacco for present use among our drivers; so a strict personal search was made; the tobacco-pouches were emptied, and their contents thrown over the crag. We were injudicious enough to remonstrate, as we would willingly have paid something to allow the poor men to keep their tobacco; and this seemed to determine our douanier to display his authority to the full, for soon the sward was strewn with our possessions, which included bedding, provisions, and books, as well as the clothing of the whole party. The men must have had a dull time of it in this lonely mountain fort, to judge from their excitement at the display of our goods. At last we seized a packet of tapioca and implored the great man to pass it and the nurses and children, that they might find rest and refreshment beyond the gates. To this, after a very critical scrutiny, he consented; and we despatched them to look for a krishma beyond the boundary.
When we had satisfied the douanier and seen such order as was possible restored to our luggage, we followed, and found them installed in a miserably dirty little place, where the children of the family, who were crowding round, looked so evidently ill, that, fearing something infectious, we were constrained to hurry the preparation of the tapioca, and go out again to the open air. At last the Herr appeared, and had to confess his failure. We ought to have passed the night at the village we had left two hours before; to pass it here was impossible.
'We must feed the horses and push on,' said the Herr; 'it is not an hour's drive.'
Alas! we were beginning to understand but too well what the Herr's 'hours' were like. But the night was mild and pleasant, though already dark; and having arranged beds for the children among the cushions, we continued our journey with a briskness on the part of both drivers and horses which was wonderful after the hard day's work they had gone through. There was just light enough from the stars to shew us the dangerous nature of the road, which rose in rapid zigzags. There was no parapet, and the little river ran below at a depth which increased at every turn. The heavy travelling-carriage seemed to drag back the horses, and the drivers of the wagons had to stop and push it up. At last we reached the top; but it was two o'clock before we reached Bereck. All the inhabitants were asleep; but the people of the krishma, after we had roused them, received us very hospitably, and busied themselves in attending to our comforts. It was late next morning when we resumed our journey, and we were now able to perceive that the scene had a beauty of its own—that of vast extent. Nowhere have I seen a wider horizon, and yet hills closed it in all round, but at a great distance. The plain over which we were passing formed a vast amphitheatre, and the eye took in at one sweep at least a dozen villages, all widely apart from each other. The roads were as excellent as, under Austrian management, they always are. Good horses were to be found at all the posting-houses; and by the middle of the following day we had approached the mountains which bounded the other side of the plain, and found ourselves at our journey's end.
[THE CHANGES OF COLOUR IN THE CHAMELEON.]
From very ancient times the curious changes of colour which take place in the chameleon, and its supposed power of living on air, have been the wonder of the uninformed, and have furnished philosophers and poets with abundant material for metaphor. The belief that the animal can live on air has been exploded long ago, and was no doubt due to its power of long fasting and to its peculiar manner of breathing. It is only quite lately, however, that any satisfactory explanation has been given of the apparently capricious changes which take place in the colour of the chameleon; the latest researches on the subject being those of M. Paul Bert, the French naturalist, which have been described in a recent paper by M. E. Oustalet. As most of our readers are no doubt familiar with the appearance and figure of this curious reptile, and as descriptions of it may be found in any encyclopædia or elementary work on natural history, we do not consider it necessary to repeat them here.
Many and various theories have been proposed to explain the changes of colour which chameleons undergo; changes the importance of which have been greatly exaggerated. It is generally believed that these animals have the power of assuming in a few seconds the colour of any neighbouring object, and that they intentionally make use of this trick to escape more easily from the sight of their enemies. But this opinion is erroneous; and experiments conducted with the greatest care have proved that chameleons are incapable of modifying their external appearance in anything like so rapid and complete a manner.
The first probably to give any rational account of the causes of the puzzling changes of colour in these reptiles was the celebrated French naturalist, Milne-Edwards, about forty years ago. After a patient and minute examination, he discovered that the colouring matters of the skin, the pigments, are not confined as in mammals and birds, to the deep layer of the epidermis, but are partly distributed on the surface of the dermis or true skin, partly located more deeply, and stored in a series of little cells or bags of very peculiar formation. These colour-cells are capable of being shifted in position. When they are brought close to the surface of the outer skin, they cause a definite hue or hues to become apparent; but by depressing the cells and causing them to disappear, the hues can be rendered paler, or may be altogether dispersed. It is noteworthy that the cuttlefishes change colour in a similar manner.