a race of gods and goddesses
invented for robber tribes, who are appeased only by blood-curdling
rites: our author saw their young men running, with yells and
contortions, over a bed of live coals twenty-five feet across to earn
the favor of one such cruel goddess. The Chinese, though in worship
they exhibit the milder sacrificial spirit of offering sheets
of paper, yet in a more stolid way show an equal talent for
self-sacrifice. A neighbor of Mr. Pike's, an excellent quiet fellow,
having gambled with his own servant for his shop, stock and person,
was seen one morning sweeping and serving customers, whilst the
youngster sat leisurely smoking, the game having gone contrarily.
"There was no appearance of triumph on the boy's face: master and
servant reversed their places with the most perfect _sang-froid_."
Of the Creoles, we learn that they believe the presence of pieces of
coral in the house induces headache; of the women from Malabar, that
they can only wear toe-rings after marriage; of the handsomest Indian
tribe in the island, the Reddies, we are told that the boys marry
at five or six, their bride living with the father-in-law or other
husband's relative and rearing children to him: when the boy grows
up, his wife being then aged, he "takes up with some boy's wife in a
manner precisely similar to his own, and procreates children for the
boy-husband." The remaining wonder of Mauritius appears to be the
great Peter Both Mountain, so nearly inaccessible that a rage for
climbing it has been developed. The first successful attempt was
made by Claude Penthe, who planted the French flag on it in 1790, and
English ascents were made in 1832, 1848, 1858, 1864 and 1869. We must
not omit, however, the Aphanapteryx, though Mr. Pike does: it is a red
bird which in Mauritius has survived its whilom companion the dodo,
and which is to be described in a future volume. Mr. Pike has obliged
us with a book of admirable temper, inexhaustible research and fine
manly spirit: we could wish for our own sakes nothing better than
that all our sub-tropical and tropical consulships were filled by
his brothers, and that they would all make volumes out of their
experiences.

Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist. By William Ellery Ghanning. Boston:
Roberts Bros.

Mr. Charming is a boon, and we would not have missed his lucubration
on any account. Now we know how Margaret Fuller talked and in what
dialect they wrote _The Dial_. It was with this senten