Some natives, speaking in the Moorish tongue—"at which I was overjoyed, for I feared we were beyond the Company's territories, and in those of the King of Ava"—observing his ineffectual efforts to rise laid hold of him and bore him along. As they passed a little stream he made signs to be set down. "I immediately fell on my face in the water and began to gulp it down." His bearers finally dragged him away lest he should drink too much. They took him to a fire, round which the Lascars were sitting, and gave him some boiled rice, "but after chewing it a little I found I could not swallow it." One of the natives, seeing his distress, dashed some water in his face, which, washing the rice down, almost choked him, but "caused such an exertion of the muscles that I recovered the power of swallowing. For some time, however, I was obliged to take a mouthful of water with every one of rice. My lips and the inside of my mouth were so cracked with the heat that every motion of my jaws set them a-bleeding and gave me great pain."
As soon as he was a little recovered, his first care was for Mrs. Bremner, and on pointing out that she had some money about her, the natives were persuaded to take her off the ship. This was accomplished only a few hours before it parted in two. She was totally unable to walk, but her remaining rupees, joined to liberal promises, to be performed on her reaching her journey's end, procured her a litter, in which she was conveyed to Chittagong.
No woman probably ever went through such an experience and survived it as this unhappy lady. Mackay, having no money—for Mrs. Bremner had no more to give him—had to walk, and speedily broke down. The natives left him behind without a scruple. He fell in, however, with a party of Mugs, the chief of whom was full of human kindness. He washed Mackay's wounds, which were filled with sand and dirt, supplied him with rice, and endeavored to teach him how to make fire by rubbing two pieces of bamboo together. Mackay finally arrived at Chittagong, though in a pitiable condition.
In a postscript to this miserable story he says, "With respect to the fate of my companions in misfortune, Mrs. Bremner, having recovered her health and spirits, was afterward well married." So it seems that with time and courage one really does get over almost everything.
[BUSY BIRDS.]
BY MARCIA BRADBURY JORDAN.
A broad green marsh, with sullen pools
Of brackish water here and there,
With mounds of hay on wooden piles,
And squares of yellow flowers like tiles,
And swamp-rosemary everywhere.
The straight road stretches, gray with dust,
From distant pine-trees to the hill;
The warm breath of an autumn day
Prevails, and with its languid sway
Keeps every little song-bird still.
But all along the wire line
That telegrams unnumbered brings,
Small chirping birds are perched secure,
With down-bent head and mien demure,
And gray brown lightly folded wings.
And do you ask, dear girls and boys,
What calls these flatterers from home,
Why restlessly they care to roam
Far from the foliage-guarded nest?
A new idea has come to me;
I wonder if you will agree
To what I'm going to suggest.
When in some quite mysterious way
A trifling fault strikes mamma's ears,
I'm confident you must have heard
Of that communicative bird
Who's always telling all he hears.
A little bird told me, she says,
Of what I never should suspect.
Suppose these listening songsters light
Upon the wires there in sight
To get the latest news direct!
If they're the gossips of bird land,
Reporters for the "Night-hawk Press,"
Then very likely they indulge
In other meddling, and divulge
The tiny secrets so few guess.
They hover near the open door
In summer; past the eaves they dart,
And very likely understand
When any hidden mischief's planned,
And straightway hasten to impart,
To those, they think it may concern,
Their interesting items. Why,
I seem to see their bright eyes shine,
Their cunning heads sideways incline
Inquisitively, full of joy.
The only way I know is this—
To always try to do so well
That when the busy birds appear
To carry secrets through the air,
They won't have anything to tell
Except those messages that bless
Obedience and truthfulness.