same dislocation of the vertebræ may be more effectually performed by seizing the creature by the tail, whirling it round your head, and cracking it as you would a whiplash. I know many men who will do this with the utmost nonchalance. A sheep-farmer of my acquaintance who delighted in seizing a snake just as it was finding fancied security in its hole, pulling it out, and cracking it in the manner described, was one day walking through some thick underwood, when he saw a diamond-snake wriggling away, as it fondly thought, unperceived: he pursued it,-caught it just as it was disappearing into a bank which, from the number of openings, seemed to be a serpentine village, and as usual, pulled away as hard as he could, when, to his astonishment and horror, the beast's head put in an appearance from another hole in the same bank, and close to his hand; that was the last snake he ever bearded (or rather, tailed) in its den. These reptiles are the foundation of many tricks played upon "Johnny New-come." Two bullock-drivers were once out in the scrub, chopping wood; one of them a late arrival, and the other an old and experienced colonist. The former, who had never seen a snake, but "was sure there was no danger in them, and wasn't going to be frightened of a longish sort of lizard" had left his bullocks, and with them a long bullock-whip, while he went a little way off into the scrub: during his absence, his companion saw a large black snake, and immediately was the death of it: he then tied it loosely to the thin end of the whip-handle; the other returning, took up his whip to "kinder encourage" his bullocks, and intuitively cracked it, when, to his horror, the snake, disengaged by the shock, uncoiled from the handle and fell at his feet-" He left."-There is a certain gardener that I wot of, who, according to his own accounts, kills more snakes in a summer than any less-favoured mortal ever saw in a life-time; but some slanderous individuals do thus account for his asserted prowess: they affirm that one evening, two of the station-hands saw and killed a large black snake which they carefully laid across the garden path: the gardener rose betimes in the morning, and, as his custom was, cautiously opened the gate and peered in (in order, of course, not to lose any possible opportunity of emulating the never-to-be-sufficiently-venerated St. Patrick); seeing the monster lying across the walk, he hastily shut the gate, ran for his gun, and taking aim through the hedge, shot the snake; whereupon it came to pass that he,-being greatly elated with his feat, and recounting it to every passer

by-nightly dreamed of his conflict with, and victory over, the beast, and as often, on the succeeding morning, slew a fresh snake in narrative, to his own evident satisfaction, and to the huge delight of the initiated auditors.

Though I believe, from my own experience as well as from that of others, that if a person is cool and self-possessed, he incurs no danger in walking through a neighbourhood abounding in snakes, unless he tread upon one; yet they are essentially uncomfortable creatures, and I know no more horrible sensation than that caused by seeing a snake, when running away from you, stop, turn round his flat spiteful head, his eyes glistening like diamonds with concentrated hate and cunning, open his mouth, protrude a long black forked tongue, and hiss in a manner which "bestills you almost to jelly with the act of fear," and curdles the very blood in your veins. The snake-locks of themselves, would certainly have sufficed to give to Medusa's head its fabled power of petrifaction.

DICI.

IN CAMUM.

RIDICULA nuper cymba, sicut meus est mos, Flumineas propter salices et murmura Cami, Multa movens mecum, fumo inspirante, jacebam. Illic forte mihi senis occurrebat imago Squalida, torva tuens, longos incompta capillos; Ipse manu cymbam prensans se littore in udo Deposuit; Camique humeros agnoscere latos Immanesque artus atque ora hirsuta videbar: Mox lacrymas inter tales dedit ore querelas, "Nate," inquit, "tu semper enim pius accola Cami, "Nate, patris miserere tui, miserere tuorum! "Quinque reportatis tumet Isidis unda triumphis: "Quinque anni vidêre meos sine laude secundo "Cymbam urgere loco cunctantem, et cedere victos. "Heu! quis erit finis? Quis me manet exitus olim? "Terga boum tergis vi non cedentia nostri "Exercent juvenes; nuda atque immania crura, "Digna giganteas inter certare palæstras,

66

Quisque ferunt, latosque humeros et brachia longa, 'Collaque Atlanteo non inferiora labore:

"Sed vis arte carens frustrà per stagna laborat; "Fit brevis inque dies brevior (proh dedecus ingens!) "Ictus, et incerto tremulam movet impete cymbam, 66 Usque volaturæ similem, tamen usque morantem. "Ah! Stanleius ubi est? ubi fortis et acer Iönas "Et Virtus ingens, majorque vel Hercule Judas? "Ah! ubi, læva mei novit quem fluminis ora, "Ille "Ictus,' vitreis longè spectandus ocellis, "Dulce decus Cami, quem plebs ignobilis 'Aulam,' "Vulpicanem Superi grato cognomine dicunt? "Te quoque, magne Pales, et te mea flumina deflent "O formose puer, quibus alto in gurgite mersis "Mille dedit, rapuit mille oscula candida Naias? "Quid decus amissum repeto, aut jam laude peremptâ "Nomina Putnæis annalibus eruta testor?

See The Eagle, Vol. I., p. 71.

0000

FATHER CAMUS.

SMOKING lately in my "Funny," as I'm wont, beneath the bank, Listening to Cam's rippling murmurs thro' the weeds and willows dank, As I chewed the cud of fancy, from the water there appeared An old man, fierce-eyed, and filthy, with a long and tangled beard: To the oozy shore he paddled, clinging to my funny's nose, Till, in all his mud majestic, Cam's gigantic form arose. Brawny, broad of shoulders was he, hairy were his face and head, And amid loud lamentations tears incessantly he shed. "Son," he cried, "the sorrows pity of thy melancholy sire! "Pity Camus! pity Cambridge! pity our disasters dire! "Five long years hath Isis triumphed, five long years have seen my eight "Rowing second, vainly struggling 'gainst an unrelenting fate. "What will be the end, I know not! what will be the doom of Camus? "Shall I die disowned, dishonoured? Shall I live, and yet be famous? "Backs as strong as oxen have we, legs Herculean and bare, "Legs that in the ring with Titan wrestlers might to wrestle dare. "Arms we have long, straight, and sinewy, shoulders broad, necks

thick and strong,

"Necks that to the earth-supporting Atlas might full well belong. "But our strength un-scientific strives in vain thro' stagnant water, "Every day, I blush to own it, Cambridge strokes are rowing shorter. "With a short spasmodic impulse see the boats a moment leap, "Starting with a flying motion, soon they stop and sink to sleep. "Where are Stanley, Jones, and Courage? where is 'Judas' stout and tall,

"Where the stroke named "'all' by Bargemen, known to Cambridge as 'Jack Hall'?

"'Twas a spectacle to see him in his gig-lamps row along,

"And the good ship speeding onward swift as Poet's gushing song. "Where is Paley? where is Fair-bairn? from whose lips the Naiad's dank

"Snatched and gave their sweetest kisses when our Eight at Chiswick sank.

"What avails it to remember brilliant days now lost in night? "What avails it Putney's annals, and past glories to recite ?

"Granta ruit, periitque decus, periitque vetusta "Gloria remorum primæque per æquora navis. "Sed vos, O juvenes, sanguis quibus integer ævi, "Spes ventura domûs, Grantæque novissima proles, "Antiquum revocate decus, revocate triumphos! "Continuò Palinurus ubi 'jam pergite' dixit "Erectum librate caput; nec pandere crura "Parcite, nec solidis firmi considere transtris ! "Ast ubi contactas jam palmula senserit undas, "Compressa incipiat jam tum mihi crura phaselus "Accipere, et faciles iter accelerare per undas. "Incipiente ictu qui vim non prompserit omnem "Dique hominesque odêre; hic, pondus inutile cymba, "Tardat iter; comites necat; hunc tu, nauta, caveto! "Nec minus, incepto quoties ratis emicat ictu, "Cura sit ad finem justos perferre labores. "Vidi equidem multos-sileantur nomina-fluctus "Præcipites penetrâsse, sed heu! brevis effluit ictus, "Immemor extremi mediique laboris in undâ : "Nam tales nisus tolerare humana nequit vis. "Et quamvis primos jam jam victura carina "Evolet in cursus, primisque triumphet in undis, "Mox ubi finis adest atque ultima meta laborum, "Labitur exanimis, vi non virtute subactâ.

"Tu quoque qui cymbæ tendis Palinurus habenas "Ultro hortare viros; fortes solare benignis "Vocibus; ignavos accende, suosque labores "Fac peragant, segnique veta torpere veterno. "Sed quid ego hæc ? priscæ si jam pietatis imago "Ulla manet, si quid vabis mea gloria curæ est, "Camigenæ, misero tandem succurrite patri, "Ereptosque diu vincendo reddite honores! "Tunc ego arundineâ redimitus tempora vittâ "Antiquo fruar imperio justisque triumphis : "Tum demum Cloacina meos fœdissima fluctus "Desierit temerare, et puro flumine labens "Camus ad Oceanum volvetur amabilis amnis."

Dixit, et in piceas Fluvius sese abdidit undas Sed me ridiculam solventem a littore cymbam Nectaris ambrosii circumvolvuntur odores, Decedente Deo; naresque impellit acutas Confusi canis amnis et illætabilis aura.

(TURGIDUS REMEX).