The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832.

"I was one day feeding the poor elephant (who was so barbarously put to death at Exeter 'Change) with potatoes, which he took out of my hand. One of them, a round one, fell on the floor, just out of the reach of his proboscis. He leaned against his wooden bar, put out his trunk, and could just touch the potato, but could not pick it up. After several ineffectual efforts, he at last blew the potato against the opposite wall with sufficient force to make it rebound, and he then, without difficulty, secured it. Now it is quite clear, I think, that instinct never taught the elephant to procure his food in this manner; and it must, therefore, have been reason, or some intellectual faculty, which enabled him to be so good a judge of cause and effect. Indeed, the reflecting power of some animals is quite extraordinary. I had a dog who was much attached to me, and who, in consequence of his having been tied up on a Sunday morning, to prevent his accompanying me to church, would conceal himself in good time on that day, and I was sure to find him either at the entrance of the church, or if he could get in, under the place where I usually sat.

"I have been often much delighted with watching the manner in which some of the old bucks in Bushy Park contrive to get the berries from the fine thorn-trees there. They will raise themselves on their hind legs, give a spring, entangle their horns in the lower branches of the tree, give them one or two shakes, which make some of the berries full, and they will then quietly pick them up.

"A strong proof of intellect was given in the case of Colonel O'Kelly's parrot. When the colonel and his parrot were at Brighton, the bird was asked to sing; he answered 'I can't,' Another time he left off in the middle of a tune, and said, 'I have forgot.' Colonel O'Kelly continued the tune for a few notes; the parrot took it up where the Colonel had left off. The parrot took up the bottom of a lady's petticoat, and said 'What a pretty foot!' The parrot seeing the family at breakfast said, 'Won't you give some breakfast to Poll?' The company teazed and mopped him a good deal; he said 'I don't like it.'—(From a Memorandum found amongst the late Earl of Guildford's Papers.)"

Eels

Several pages are devoted to the economy of these curious creatures, and as many points of their history are warmly contested, Mr. Jesse's experience is valuable.

"That they do wander[6 - From the following lines of Oppian, the rambling spirit of eels seems to have been known to the ancients—The wandering eel,Oft to the neighbouring beach will silent steal"] from one place to another is evident, as I am assured that they have been found in ponds in Richmond Park, which had been previously cleaned out and mudded, and into which no water could run except from the springs which supplied it.[7 - I have been informed, upon the authority of a nobleman well known for his attachment to field sports, that, if an eel is found on land, its head is invariably turned towards the sea, for which it is always observed to make in the most direct line possible. If this information is correct (and there seems to be no reason to doubt it.) it shows that the eel, like the swallow, is possessed of a strong migratory instinct. May we not suppose that the swallow, like the eel, performs its migrations in the same undeviating course?] An annual migration of young eels takes place in the River Thames in the month of May, and they have generally made their appearance at Kingston, in their way upwards, about the second week in that month, and accident has so determined it, that, for several years together it was remarked that the 10th of May was the day of what the fishermen call eel-fair; but they have been more irregular in their proceedings since the interruption of the lock at Teddington. These young eels are about two inches in length, and they make their approach in one regular and undeviating column of about five inches in breadth, and as thick together as it is possible for them to be. As the procession generally lasts two or three days, and as they appear to move at the rate of nearly two miles and a half an hour, some idea may be formed of their enormous number.

"Eels feed on almost all animal substances, whether dead or living. It is well known that they devour the young of all water-fowl that are not too large for them. Mr. Bingley states, that he saw exposed for sale at Retford, in Nottinghamshire, a quantity of eels that would have filled a couple of wheelbarrows, the whole of which had been taken out of the body of a dead horse, thrown into a ditch near one of the adjacent villages; and a friend of mine saw the body of a man taken out of the Serpentine River in Hyde Park, where it had been some time, and from which a large eel crawled out. The winter retreat of eels is very curious. They not only get deep into the mud, but in Bushy Park, where the mud in the ponds is not very deep, and what there is, is of a sandy nature, the eels make their way under the banks of the ponds, and have been found knotted together in a large mass. Eels vary much in size in different waters. The largest I ever caught was in Richmond Park, and it weighed five pounds, but some are stated to have been caught in Ireland which weighed from fifteen to twenty pounds. Seven pounds is, I believe, no unusual size. The large ones are extremely strong and muscular. Fishing one day at Pain's Hill, near Cobham, in Surrey, I hooked an eel amongst some weeds, but before I could land him, he had so twisted a new strong double wire, to which the hook was fixed, that he broke it and made his escape."

Sir Humphry Davy's opinions respecting eels are quoted from his Salmonia:[8 - See MIRROR, vol. xii. p. 253.] Mr. Jesse adds:

"It is with considerable diffidence that one would venture to differ in opinion with Sir Humphry Davy, but I cannot help remarking, that, as eels are now known to migrate from fresh water, as was shown in the case of the Richmond Park ponds, this restless propensity may arise from their impatience of the greater degree of warmth in those ponds in the month of May, and not from their wish to get into water still warmer, as suggested by Sir Humphry Davy. Very large eels are certainly found in rivers, the Thames and Mole for instance, where I have seen them so that they must either have remained in them, or have returned from the sea, which Sir H. Davy thinks they never do, though I should add, that the circumstance already related of so many large eels being seen dead or dying during a hot summer, near the Nore, would appear to confirm his assertion. If eels are oviparous, as Sir Humphry Davy thinks they are, would not the ova have been found, especially in the conger,—many of which are taken and brought to our markets, frequently of a very large size? It does not appear, however, that any of the fringes along the air-bladder have ever arrived at such a size and appearance as to have justified any one in the supposition that they were ovaria, though, as has been stated, distinguished naturalists, from the time of Aristotle to the present moment, have been endeavouring to ascertain this fact. Since the above was written, I have been shown ova in the lamprey, and what appeared to have been melt taken from a conger eel, at a fishmonger's in Bond-street. These specimens were preserved by Mr. Yarrell, of Little Ryder-street, St. James's, who had the kindness to open two eels, sent to him from Scotland, in my presence, and in which the fringes were very perceptible, though they were without any ova. That ingenious and indefatigable naturalist is, however, of opinion that eels are oviparous, though he failed in producing proof that the common eels were so.

"In further proof, however, of eels being viviparous, it may be added (if the argument of analogy applies in this case), that the animalculæ of paste eels are decidedly viviparous. Mr. Bingley also, in his animal biography, says that eels are viviparous. Blumenbach says, too, that 'according to the most correct observations they are certainly viviparous.' He adds also, that, the eel is so tenacious of life, that its heart, when removed from the body, retains its irritability for forty hours afterwards."

We are not inclined to attach very considerable importance to Mr. Bingley's experience, much as we admire his entertaining Animal Biography: we believe him to be classed among book-naturalists, and he wrote this work many years since.

(To be continued.)

QUEEN ANNE'S SPRING, NEAR ETON

(From a Correspondent.)

The accompanying sketch represents a sequestered spot of sylvan shade whence rises a Spring which tradition designates Queen Anne's. Here the limpid crystal flows in gentle, yet ceaseless streams, conveying "Health to the sick and solace to the swain."

It has some claims to antiquity; and its merits have been appreciated by royalty. Queen Anne was the first august personage who had recourse to it; in later times, Queen Charlotte for many years had the pure element conveyed to her royal abode at Windsor, and in 1785, a stone, with a cipher and date, was placed there by her illustrious consort, George III. This spring is situate at Chalvey, (a village between Eton and Salt Hill,) on the property of J. Mason, Esq., Cippenham. It was the observation of the esteemed and celebrated Dr. Heberdeen, that it but required a physician to write a treatise on the water, to render it as efficacious as Malvern.

    URANIA.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

STATE OF MAGIC IN EGYPT, BY AN EYE-WITNESS

At the Consul General's table, in Egypt, in August, 1822, the conversation turned on the belief in magic; and the Consul's Italian Staff propounded the following story, which seemed to have perfect possession of their best belief. They said that a magician of great name was then in Cairo—I think a Mogrebine; and that he had been sent for to the Consul's house, and put to the following proof:—A silver spoon had been lost, and he was invited to point out the thief. On arriving, he sent for an Arab boy at hazard out of the street, and after various ceremonies, poured ink into the boy's hand, into which the boy was to look. It was stated, that he asked the boy what he saw, and the boy answered, "I see a little man,"—Tell him to bring a flag,—"Now he has brought a flag."—Tell him to bring another.—"Now he has brought another."—Tell him to bring a third,—"Now he has brought it."—Tell him to bring a fourth.—"He has brought it."—Tell him to bring the captain of them all.—"I see a great Sheik on horseback."—Tell him to bring the man that stole the spoon.—"Now he has brought him."—What is he like?—"He is a Frangi, poor-looking and mesquin." After which followed other points of personal description not remembered; but which drew from the Staff the observation, that a European of exactly those qualities had been about the house. We expressed our desire to be introduced to the magician, and the Consul gravely intimated it might hurt the prejudices of his wife, as being a Catholic; to the great mirth of the beautiful Consuless when she was told of it, who, though a Catholic and an Italian, declared she was the only person in the family that set all the magicians in Egypt at defiance.

Having some time afterwards established ourselves in a house of our own, on the edge of the garden of the Austrian Consulate (as I remember by the token that a Turkish officer who had been taking his evening walk of meditation, very gravely opened the window from the garden, put in first one leg of his huge trousers and then the other, and strode into the room followed by his pipe-bearer, as being the shortest cut into the street; though I must do him the justice to say he laughed and was very conversable, when I brought him up with a salam and a cup of coffee, by way of demonstrating there was somebody in the house besides the Arab owner), we sent for the magician. I remember a well-dressed personable man, of what, after the fashion of the nomenclature in the Chamber of Deputies, might be called the young middle-age. He agreed to show us a specimen of his art, though I do not recollect that the nature of it was defined. He fixed upon our little boy of seven years old to be his instrument; and I remember he talked some nonsense about requiring an innocent agent, and how a woman might do as well, if she could plead the innocent presence of the unborn. He dispatched a servant into the bazar, to procure frankincense and other things which he directed; and on their being produced we all retired into a room, and closed the doors and windows. An earthen pot was placed in the middle of the floor, containing fire, and the magician sat down by it. He placed the little boy before him, and poured ink into the hollow of the boy's hand, and bid him look into it steadily. I think the mother rather quailed, at seeing her child in such propinquity with "the Enemy;" but recovered herself on being exhorted to defy the devil and all his works. And the thing was not entirely without danger from another quarter; for it was understood the Pasha had directed a special edict against all dealing with familiar spirits; and the Pasha's edicts were not altogether to be trifled with, as we knew from the mishap of a poor Indian servant, who was caught in the bazar in the fact of taking thirteen of the Pasha's tin piasters in change for a dollar, when the political economy of Cairo had decreed that twelve were to be equal in public estimation, and was immediately incarcerated in the place of skulls, or at least of heads, from which it is supposed he would have come out shorn of his beard and the chin it grew from, if the Consular cocked hat and Abyssinian charger had not proceeded at a gallop to the Court at Shubra, to claim him as a subject of the British crown; and much did poor Baloo vow, that no earthly temptation should take him again to quit the gentle rule of the old Lady in Leadenhall-street, who, though she pinches a Peishwa and mercilessly screws a renter when it suits her, it must be allowed has a reverent care for the heads of all her lieges, and gives them a fair chance of going to their graves with the members nature had bestowed on them.

Hisce positis, as the logicians say, the magician began his process. The boy was innocent of fear; being in fact a person rather perplexed and imperfect in those parts of theology that should have caused him to feel alarm. His native nurse first taught him to kiss his hand to the moon walking in brightness; which, being especially reprobated in the book of Job, we persuaded him to renounce. We next found him making salams as he passed the fat old gentleman with an elephant's head, and other foul idolatries bedaubed with rose-pink and butter, that show themselves on various milestone-like appurtenances to an Indian road. After his visit to the Persian Gulph he leaned more towards monotheism; and I once found him seated between two guns on the quarter-deck of an Arab frigate, in the midst of a fry of devotees of little more than his own age, busily engaged in chanting canticles in praise of Mohammed the "amber-ee." His early leaning towards the ugly gods of Hindoston, had made it a delicate matter to introduce him to our Evil Principle; and the fact was, that when he afterwards saw the Freischutz in England, we had no means of making him comprehend the nature of the crimson fiend, but by telling him he was a relation of his old elephant-headed friend Gunputty. On the whole I imagine there never was a better subject to cope with a sorcerer; and when he asked the cause of the immediate preparations we told him the man was going to show some feats of legerdemain such as he used to see in India. The magician began by throwing grains of incense upon the fire, bowing with a seesaw motion and repeating "Heyya hadji Capitân, Heyya hadji Capitân;" which being interpreted, if it was intended to have any meaning, would appear to imply "Hurra, pilgrim Captain!" being, as I understood it at the time, an invocation by his style and title, of the spirit he wished to see. When nothing came, he increased his zeal after the manner of a priest of Baal, and seemed determined that if the "Captain" was sleeping or on a journey, he should not be missed for want of calling. One slight variorum reading I observed. Instead of saying to the boy "What do you see?" as had been reported—he said "Do you see a little man?" which, if he had been accessible to fear or phantasy, was manifestly telling him what he was to look for. The boy, however, resolutely declared he saw nothing; and the sorcerer continued his calls upon his spirit. When in this manner curiosity had been roused to something like expectation, the boy suddenly exclaimed, "I see something!"– Tremor occupat artis;—when he quashed it all by adding, "I see my nose." By the dim light of the fire, he had succeeded in getting a glimpse of his own countenance reflected in the ink. The magician doubled his exertions by way of carrying the thing off; but there was much less gravity in his audience afterwards; and at last he was forced to declare that the spirit would not come, and the reason he believed was because we were Christians. He said, however, if an Arab boy was substituted the spirit would come. A servant therefore was sent out to bring a boy by the offer of a piastre, and one was soon produced. Whether there was any confederacy or not, I had no precise means to ascertain; but I was inclined to think not. The Arab boy was trusted with the ink in place of the European, and on the magician's asking him the leading question "Do you see a little man?" he took but one look and answered "Yes." The orders then followed "Tell him to bring a flag." &c. to all of which, whether operated on by some dread of refusing, or by the natural inclination of one rogue to help another, he duly answered that the thing was done. I do not remember any further denoùment that there was; and so ended the magic of the magician of Grand Cairo.

Being disappointed in this experiment, we began to seek for the opportunity of making others, and offered a reward for any person who would show us a specimen of imp or spirit. One man was produced, who was stated to be of considerable fame. He said he would show me a spirit; but I must go out with him three nights running to a cross road at midnight, and perform divers ceremonies and lustrations which he proceeded to describe. I believe he he had got an inkling, that I intended to leave Cairo the next day. I told him, however, that I would cheerfully go through any ceremonies he might propose. He next said, it would be necessary that I should repeat the name of the spirit I called for, eleven thousand times; and this I assured him I would painfully perform. He then said, he was afraid at my age the operation would be dangerous. I wonder whether the rogue meant that I was too young, or too old, or too middle-aged; for I was exactly thirty-eight. Seeing that I only pressed him the more, he took his fee and walked off, intimating that there was no use in doing these things with Frangis.

I saw another instance in Cairo, of the way in which a story accumulates by telling, and the degree in which even sensible Europeans by long residence are induced to give into the beliefs they find around them. The conversation turned one day on the power of charming serpents, supposed to be inherent in certain descendants of the Psylli. One of the Consular Staff immediately declared, that a most remarkable instance of the fact had happened in the Consul-General's own courtyard the day before. That one of those gifted men had come into the yard, and declared he knew by his art that there were serpents in the stable; and that he had immediately gone and summoned forth two snakes of the most poisonous kind, which he seized in his hands and brought, in the presence of the relator, to the Consular threshold. Now it happened to me to see the whole of this scene. I was wandering about the Consul's court, gazing at the curiosities scattered around, enough to have set up any European museum with an Egyptian branch, and particularly, I remember, at a lame mummy's crutch, found with him in his coffin, on which it is possible the original owner hopped away from the plague of frogs. An old rural Arab of respectable appearance was standing at the Consul's door, holding in his hand the crooked stick which an Arab keeps to recover the halter of his camel if he happens to lose it while mounted, and presenting altogether a parallel to a substantial yeoman with his riding-whip, come to town to do a little justice business with the Mayor. A stable-keeper came and said, that two snakes had made their appearance in the stable; on which the Arab, being no more in the habit of fearing such vermin than a European farmer of fearing rats, proceeded towards the stable, and I followed him. Sure enough there were two snakes in dalliance in the horse's stall; and my construction was, that it was the poor animals' St. Valentine. The Arab, however, ruthlessly smote them with his gib stick, in a way that showed an exact comprehension of what would settle a snake; and brought them hanging by the tails and still writhing with the remains of life, and laid them at the threshold of the house. I looked at the snakes, and felt a strong persuasion that they were of a harmless kind; but whether they were or not, was of small moment as the Arab treated them.

I remember in India once driving one of the snake-jugglers to discovery. He told the servants there were snakes in the stable; and offered to produce one. He accordingly went, with piping and other ceremonies, and soon demonstrated a goodly cobra de capello struggling by the tail. He secured this in his repertory of snakes, and said he thought there was another; on which he went through the same operations again. Though he had been too quick for me on both occasions, I offered him a rupee to produce a third, which he agreed to; and this time I saw the snake's head, struggling rather oddly in his nether garments. He ran into the horse's stall, rushed forward with a shriek to distract attention, and then I saw him jerk out a snake of some four feet long, and drag it backwards by the tip of the tail as if desperately afraid of it. Knowing his snakes must be an exhaustible quantity, I proffered a second rupee for another, taking care to keep between him and the snake-basket; which he declined. But on turning round and giving him a chance to communicate with his receptacle, he quickly presented himself with the assurance that now he thought he knew where a serpent might be lodged. The Indian servants all devoutly believed in his skill; but it is impossible not to be ashamed of Europeans, who adorn their books with marks of similar gullibility.—Abridged from Tait's Edinburgh Mag.

NOTES OF A READER

RECREATIONS IN THE LAW

Gentle reader, we are not about to direct your notice to the Temple Gardens, the olden feasts in our Law Halls—through which men ate their way to eminence—nor to prove that looking to a Chancellorship is woolgathering—nor to invite you to the shrubby groves of Lincoln's Inn, or to promenade with the spirit of BACON in Gray's Inn. All these may be pleasurable occupations; but there is mirth in store in the study of the Law itself, which is not "dull and crabbed as some fools (or knaves) suppose."

In a recent Mirror, (No. 540) this may have been made manifest to the reader in the Legal Rhymes, quoted by our correspondent, W.A.R.;[9 - ERRATA in one of our correspondent's "Legal Rhymes"—the Grant of Edward the Confessor:for "six beaches," read "six braches."for "book ycleped," read "bock ylered."for "token" read "teken."for "Hamelyn" read "Howelin."Corrected from Blount's Tenures, p. 665, ed. 1815.] but lo! here is a volume of evidence in "The Cenveyancer's Guide;" a Poem, by John Crisp, Esq., of Furnival's Inn; in which the art of Conveyancing is sung in Hudibrastic verse, and said in notes of pleasant prose. Happy are we to see Mr. Crisp's volume in a third edition, since we opine from this success the bright moments of relief which his Muse may have shed upon the viginti annorum lucubrutiones of thousands of students. We have not space for quotations from the poem itself, in which Doe and Roe figure as heroes, with their occasional friend Thomas Stiles. We can only say their movements are sung with the terseness and point which we so much admire in the great originals, so as to make men acknowledge there is good in every thing. Our extracts are from the Introduction and Notes. First is

A LEGAL GLEE

"A woman having a settlement,
Married a man with none,
The question was, he being dead,
If that she had was gone.
Quoth Sir John Pratt, her settlement
Suspended did remain,
Living the husband—but him dead,
It doth revive again.

"CHORUS OF PUISNE JUDGES.
"Living the husband—but him dead,
It doth revive again."

A print of Westminster Hall, by Mosely, from a drawing made by Gravelot, who died in 1773, bears the following versified inscription:—

"When fools fall out, for ev'ry flaw,
They run horn mad to go to law,
A hedge awry, a wrong plac'd gate,
Will serve to spend a whole estate.
Your case the lawyer says is good,
And justice cannot he withstood;
By tedious process from above,
From office they to office move,
Thro' pleas, demurrers, the dev'l and all,
At length they bring it to the Hall;
The dreadful hall by Rufus rais'd,
For lofty Gothick arches prais'd.

"The first of Term, the fatal day,
Doth various images convey;
First, from the courts with clam'rous bawl,
The criers their attornies call;
One of the gown discreet and wise,
By proper means his witness tries;
From Wreathock's gang, not right or laws,
H' assures his trembling client's cause.
This gnaws his haudkerchies, whilst that
Gives the kind ogling nymph his hat;
Here one in love with choristers,