Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 706

The servant thinking it her duty, lighted the gas before leaving the room; but she left it burning low, so that the lingering daylight prevailed over it. Though the reception-room was but a little parlour behind a shop, there was an air of refinement about its appointments, and the outlook into a mere yard was masked by a balcony full of blooming and odorous plants. The door which led into the shop remained open, probably for the sake of air; but to such a passionate lover of music as the visitor was, the sight of two or three pianos and a harp and guitar was rather suggestive of delightful ideas than of anything else.

Alice had risen from her chair, and advanced with outstretched hand to meet her guest; but she did not seem able to find a word of greeting.

'Alice!' exclaimed Mr Broughton, 'if I may still call you so, do I seem like one risen from the dead?'

'O no,' she replied; 'I never thought you were dead.' But as she spoke there was a faltering of her voice which shewed that she was agitated.

By this time both were seated, though a little way apart. Mr Broughton drew his chair nearer, and said softly: 'Alice, I come to ask you if it is too late to mend our broken chain?'

'But you are married; I heard that long ago,' exclaimed Alice with dignity. 'You have no right to allude to the past.'

'I have been a widower these two years,' was the rejoinder.

The explanations which followed need not be described in detail.

Letters kept back, false messages,
The tale so old and dark,

had separated the lovers; and when Alice Croft believed that she was forsaken, a severe illness ensued; after her recovery from which, it was found that her voice was seriously impaired. Instead of resting it for a time, she was tempted by the exigences of her profession to overstrain it; the result being such a deterioration in its quality that it was no longer powerful and certain enough for the concert-room. Then followed many years of arduous labour as a teacher of music; during which time her mother's death and the death of other members of the family reduced the little circle, till at last her youngest and widowed sister Mrs Gray was the only one left.

Six weeks after the reunion just described, a quiet but well-omened wedding took place, in which Richard Broughton and Alice Croft were the principal actors. Meanwhile, the bridegroom and bride elect, living under the same roof, had had abundant opportunities of riveting the 'broken chain' to which allusion has been made; while Dandy, no longer confined to one apartment, now ran about the house, as if perpetually engaged in taking messages from one person to another. Mr and Mrs Woodford, early apprised of all that was going on, had made the acquaintance of Miss Croft and her sister, and being fond of children, had frequently had the little Grays at their house. Mr Woodford even consented to give the bride away, and his two young daughters were the bridesmaids. But as Broughton said, his cousin Maggie was always a 'trump,' and her husband seemed worthy of her.

It was the evening before the wedding. The whole family had been visiting the Woodfords, and it was evident that little Ally had something on her mind to communicate. The young Woodfords as well as their mother constantly called Mr Broughton 'Cousin Dick,' and the term had evidently struck the child much.

'What is it, Ally?' said Mr Broughton, drawing the little girl on to his knee. 'What is it you are wishing to say?'

'I should like to call you "Cousin Dick," like those young ladies. May I? for I love you so much.' And as she spoke, Ally raised her face for a kiss, and put her arms round his neck.

'Will not "Uncle Dick" do as well?' cried Broughton, giving the child a warm hug. 'Don't you understand that I shall be really Uncle Dick to-morrow?'

'Oh, how nice! Uncle Dick, dear Uncle Dick – yes, I like that better.'

N.B.– We are commissioned to add that Dandy accompanied the newly married pair on their wedding journey. They considered they owed him so much, that it would not be just to give him the pain of even a temporary separation from his master – and mistress.

A TRIP ON LAKE NYASSA

As many of our readers will doubtless recollect, Mr E. D. Young, R.N., left this country in May 1875, with a small party, for the purpose of establishing the Livingstonia mission, and of placing a small steamer on Lake Nyassa, in the interior of Africa; he and his friends being moved thereto by an earnest determination to carry out one of the dearest wishes of the late Dr Livingstone. Mr Young has recently returned home; and on February 26th he delivered, before the Royal Geographical Society, an interesting account of what he did and what he saw on the Lake of Storms, from which we condense the following brief particulars.

We join Mr Young and his party at the Kongoné mouth of the Zambesi, where the sections of the little steamer Ilala were screwed together; and although an extraordinary flood, early in 1875, had altered the course of the rivers since her captain's previous visit, nothing materially impeded her passage to the foot of the Shiré cataracts. These falls extend for some seventy-five miles, and are a very formidable obstacle to navigation. In the distance named, the waters of Lake Nyassa leap down a staircase of rocks and boulders for some eighteen hundred feet; and before the traveller can reach the higher ground, he has to traverse a most rugged road. Want of porters, as a rule, is the most grievous obstacle to be overcome; but thanks to the kindly recollection existing among the natives of previous missionaries, Mr Young experienced no difficulty on this score; and in ten days the Ilala was taken to pieces, and her sections, boilers, machinery, and stores were conveyed to the upper end of the cataracts. What, however, is thus told in a few brief words, involved very great toil; and Mr Young himself says that the carriage of the steel plates, &c., necessitated some of the most tremendous exertion he ever witnessed, which was much aggravated by the intense heat, in some places reaching one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade. We may certainly admit with him, that the men who did this four days' work for six yards of calico each (say one shilling and sixpence), finding their own food too, without a grumble or a growl, were not to be despised. The work of reconstruction was soon accomplished, and steam was up in a fortnight.

The little steamer entered Lake Nyassa at 7 A.M. on the 12th of October 1875. After examining several beautiful bays and inlets, which did not afford the necessary shelter for the vessel, Mr Young's party resolved to settle, at anyrate temporarily, at Cape Maclear, whither, accordingly, they transported all their stores. On November 19th Mr Young set off on a voyage round the lake, in the course of which he discovered a large extension of its waters, hitherto unknown. Making his way northwards, he came in sight of the grand range which towers over Chiloweela; in places the mountains run sheer down into the lake, and no bottom could be got at one hundred fathoms. After weathering a furious gale which raged for thirteen hours, the Ilala pursued her northward voyage, passing the islands of Likomo and Chusamoolo. On his right, Mr Young reports an iron-bound coast stretching everywhere, excepting only when some ravine came down to the shore. In one spot, there were evident signs of a dreadful massacre having taken place – the result of a slave-raid. Mr Young's account of what he saw here is curious and interesting. Hardly any wood, he says, was to be procured, in consequence of the forests being cleared, and the only remnant of a large population was now to be found on rocky patches jutting up from the water of the lake, and on singular 'pile villages.' It was found that the poor creatures had conveyed earth in their canoes to these rocks, and wherever a crevice afforded a hold, there would a little patch of cassava or corn appear, grown with infinite labour.

The platform villages reached by Mr Young were exceedingly interesting; for the most part they are built three or four hundred yards from the shore, and in from eight to twelve feet of water. Poles are driven down in rows, and on the top of them a wooden platform is constructed, forming the foundation or floor of the village. To give some idea of the extent of these, it may be mentioned that one of them consisted of about one hundred huts. With an abundance of fish round them, the islanders hold their own against starvation. Shortly after leaving these strange villages, Mr Young met with some scenery, the description of which is worth quoting. 'We were now abreast,' he says, 'of some mountains that amongst the parallel ranges which virtually make a mountain-basin of Lake Nyassa, exceed them all in stupendous grandeur. In no part of the world have I seen anything to equal their peculiar magnificence. With peaks apparently from ten to twelve thousand feet high, they run perpendicularly down into the lake. The rain was pouring upon them, and numberless waterfalls hung like threads of white floss-silk from crevices which ran out upon their sides far up among the clouds. Baffled by the raids of the Ma Viti in 1866, Livingstone could not induce his men to go with him to the north end of Nyassa, and thus he missed seeing that which would have struck him as the most beautiful feature of "his old home," as he called the lake. There was but one name to give to these mountains. At its northern end they stand like portals to the lake, faced by the opposite mountains; and as future travellers look upon the "Livingstone Range," it may aid them to remember the man who during his life, more than any other, added to our knowledge of the hitherto unknown beauties of the earth.'

A violent storm, more like what might be expected on the Atlantic than on an inland sea, prevented Mr Young from doing much in the way of exploring the unknown region at the end of the lake; but he saw there what he believed to be the mouth of a wide river; and this opinion was confirmed by what he learned from the natives when he next landed after the storm referred to. They averred that a River Rovuma or Röoma flows out at the extreme north; and he inclines to believe this to be the case for the following reasons: In the first place, Dr Livingstone heard the same story twenty years ago, when he discovered the lake, and in quite a different quarter. It will be remembered by many how sanguine he was that the Rovuma River, which debouches on the east coast, was identical with the Nyassa River, and that it would prove to be a second outlet. It may yet prove to be so; but the discovery can be of little use, for the Rovuma ceases to be navigable a short distance from the coast. The second reason for believing the native report is, that in the stormy time, when Mr Young was there, it was very easy to see where rivers ran into the lake. A long current of muddy water would trail out on the dark-blue surface; in this case, however, there was nothing of the kind; and it is consequently tolerably clear that no inflow exists.

Cruising southwards along the western shore of the lake, Mr Young observed, instead of the iron-bound coast on the opposite side, exquisite park-like glades between the mountains and the water's edge; the herds of game merely looked up as the steamer passed, just as sheep raise their heads to gaze at a train, and then went on browsing. In one place a remarkable detached perpendicular rock stands four thousand feet high. The top is flat, and the sides give it the appearance of a pyramid from which a large slice of the top has been removed in order to place in position a perfectly square block of a greenish colour. Beneath this singular summit there is a deep horizontal band of white stone or quartz, succeeded by another of clay apparently; and then comes one of intense black, possibly coal, for this mineral is known to all the natives.

Mr Young's story of his cruise furnishes undeniable evidence of the justness of the name Dr Livingstone gave to Nyassa, namely the Lake of Storms, for he has constantly to record meeting with them – one more terrible than the other. The last he mentions must have been fearfully and awfully grand in its wildness. 'At one time,' he says, 'in the middle of a thunder-storm of great fury, no fewer than twelve waterspouts appeared around us, and we had literally to steer hither and thither to avoid them, for had one overtaken us, it would have sent us to the bottom without a doubt.'

Such are the salient features in Mr Young's brief account of the first trip made by a steamer on the stormy bosom of Lake Nyassa. It did not come within the scope of his paper to describe the daily life of the missionary party at Cape Maclear, the insight they got into the native life, the intrigues of the slave-traders, nor the marvellous effect which the presence of Europeans produced on all sides, more especially in attracting to them from the four winds the scattered remnants of villages swept away by slave-raids; but it will be interesting to our readers to state in conclusion, that he hopes to preserve these details for the public in another form, which we feel sure will meet with the welcome it cannot fail to deserve, as the record of the establishment of the first British colony on Lake Nyassa.

CURIOUS PICK-UPS

The pick-ups, the findings, from underground or under-sea, or in hidden places above ground, comprise a strange medley of the odd and the choice, appealing to the tastes or the pockets of persons filling widely diverse positions in society.

The drains and sewers, for instance: can a more lowly and uncomfortable treasure-house than these be found? Rat-killing by dogs, in an inclosed space surrounded by the roughest of roughs, is a savage exhibition unfortunately not yet quite died out from amongst us. The exhibiters purchase the live rats at so much per dozen from men who grope along the filthy sewers in search of them; and in Paris especially, dead rats are brought up from the same unseemly regions, and placed in the hands of skinners and tanners, who manage to get out of them strong and good-looking pieces of leather suitable for the manufacture of gloves. The great changes made in recent years in London by the extensive Main Drainage Works have deprived the sewer-grubbers of much of their chance; but in the old sewers the pick-ups were often strange enough. Dead infants, a dead seal, cats and dogs both alive and dead, spoons, tobacco-boxes, children's playthings, bad half-crowns and shillings, sets of false teeth, washing-bowls, mops, human heads and limbs which had been thus disposed of by body-snatchers or by anatomical and medical students – all were met with by the sewer-flushers. One party of these strangely employed men came on a certain occasion to a spot where the brickwork between the sewer and a beer-cellar had broken through. What did they do? They helped themselves.

On a former occasion, we presented a few illustrations of the curious operation of the law concerning Treasure-trove, the rights and the wrongs of ownership connected with property picked up from the ground or from a small depth below the surface. Among the examples cited was one relating to the finding of treasure near Stanmore in Middlesex, and another connected with the locality of Mountfield in Sussex. Let us present a few jottings of similar pick-ups in more recent years.

A labourer, digging a drain in a farm on the estate of the late Lord Palmerston, found a golden torque or torgue, an ancient British necklace. It was ascertained that the original grant of the estate gave to the grantee, as lord of the manor, a right to all treasure-trove found therein; the veteran statesman established his claim, but took care that the finder should not go unrewarded. A ploughman, working near Horndean in Hants, found more than a hundred old silver coins in an earthen jar under the surface of the ground; the lord of the manor gave to the finder the intrinsic value of the coins as mere silver, and then had to fight a battle with the Crown as to who ought to possess the coins themselves. One find near Highgate was very remarkable, on account of the strange manner in which the veritable owner made his appearance. Labourers, grubbing up a tree in a field, found two jars containing nearly four hundred sovereigns; they divided the money amongst themselves, and were then taken aback by the lord of the manor claiming it. Before this claim could be investigated, a tradesman came forward and stated that one night, under a temporary delusion, he had gone out and buried the money; when he awoke, and for some time afterwards, he tried in vain to recollect the locality he had selected, and only obtained a clue when he heard a rumour of the finding of four hundred sovereigns. He was able to bring forward sufficient evidence in support of his singular story; and his claim was admitted.

On different occasions in 1864 the Crown put in claims for treasure-trove – a gold coin found at Long Crendon in Buckinghamshire; sixty-two gold coins found in an earthen jar in a field at Stockerston, Leicestershire; no less than six thousand silver pennies of the time of Henry III. found at Eccles near Manchester; and seven hundred and sixty silver coins earthed up near Newark. The next following year gave the Crown a claim to a hundred and eighty silver coins of the reigns of Mary, Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I., found at Grantham; and to a gold cross and chain brought to light at Castle Bailey, Clare, in Suffolk. The years 1866 and 1867 were marked, among other instances, by the finding of nearly seven thousand small gold and silver coins at Highbury, near London; eighty guineas concealed in the wall of an old house at East Parley, near Christchurch, Hants; and two hundred and sixty old silver coins in a house at Lichfield. In other years there were nine hundred silver coins found at Cumberford in Staffordshire; and eleven rose nobles found in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. These several instances of treasure-trove were settled in various ways. Some of the findings were returned by the Crown to the finders; some were sold to the British Museum, in a manner to place an honorarium in the finder's pocket; some were presented to museums, and the money value given to the finders; some are retained by the Crown, as antiquarian curiosities; while one has been handed over to the descendants of a former owner.

Seven or eight years ago two labouring men found a very ancient gold chain, which they sold to a dealer who knew the value better than they did; the unlucky-lucky men fared badly in this instance, seeing that they were punished for selling the 'find' without giving notice to the authorities – rather hard lines for rustics, who are not likely to know much about the law of treasure-trove. In another case a poor man found a pair of ancient Irish silver bracelets; he sold them as old silver to a silversmith, who melted them down at once – to the great regret of an antiquary, who would have given much more than their intrinsic value for such relics of former days. During the multifarious diggings which have been going on for some years in and near Cannon Street and its neighbourhood for the formation of new streets and the construction of large commercial buildings, the workmen lighted upon twenty-nine guineas and twenty shillings nearly two centuries old; the men got into trouble because they did not voluntarily give them up. On one occasion when the fusty and musty contents of a rag-dealer's heap were being overhauled, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Houndsditch, a diamond ring was espied. A contest arose as to who should possess it: a woman engaged in sorting the rags claimed it because she had found it; the rag-dealer disputed her claim; a pawnbroker who said he had advanced money on the ring insisted on his prior right; a dealer in old clothes who had sold a garment for that money, and one or two other persons of somewhat doubtful antecedents – all came forward to shew that, for some reason or other, the diamond ring ought to be considered theirs. Whether the crown waived its claim, we are not certain; but a magistrate eventually gave a decision in favour of the rag-sorter.

Bank-notes, as well as coins, jewellery, and articles in the precious metals, sometimes make their appearance among the findings. A bundle of notes was one day picked up outside the counter of a retail shop: the finder claimed them because he was the finder; while the shopkeeper claimed them because it was on his premises that the notes had been dropped. The real owner, whoever he may have been, did not come forward, and the law decided in favour of the finder. But a much more remarkable case occurred two or three years ago. A packet containing no less than ten thousand pounds' worth of bank-notes was picked up from the pavement in one of the busy streets near the Bank of England; ten notes of one thousand pounds each. A young City clerk picked up and pocketed the treasure. A friend advised him, on consultation, to keep the notes until the following day, when a handsome reward would possibly be offered by the luckless person who had inadvertently dropped the notes. A firm of solicitors, in the names of the real owners, speedily offered one hundred pounds to the finder. The judicious friend overshot the mark here; he stipulated that he should have nearly half the sum of one hundred pounds as his reward for the advice given; and at the same time coaxed sixty pounds out of the owners by a fabricated story concerning himself, the finder, and the finding. A sheriff court had to decide the matter, and ordered the 'friend' to return part, at anyrate, of the money he had received.

A queer story has lately found its way into the newspapers, not exactly touching on the discovery of treasure, but on a concealment which might possibly lead to discovery if this or that were to occur. One Adolfo de Garcilano (so runs the story), a prisoner in Madrid, and lately a colonel in the Carlist army, was instructed by Don Carlos to take six million pesetas (about one franc each) in English securities and Spanish notes to London, inclosed in an iron box. This treasure he was to bury in the earth in a particular locality, make a sketch of the exact spot, and return to Spain. He was next captured by the Alfonsists, thrust into prison, and told that he would not be set free except on the payment of a large sum of money by way of ransom. Thereupon he wrote to some one in England or Scotland, asking for the transmission of a sufficient sum of money; this done, the secret of the buried treasure would be communicated to the liberal ransomer, who was to retain one-third of it as a grateful reward. If there had been only one such letter, some person might possibly have been victimised; but there were more than one, to different quarters, each requesting the money to be sent to a third party at an address named. We may hereby form a tolerably true estimate of Don Adolfo de Garcilano.

Undoubtedly the most interesting recent discoveries of small but valuable works in the precious metals are those due to Dr Schliemann. Archæologists have long recognised the probability that buried beneath some of the ancient cities of the world, there are not only architectural and sculptured fragments of much historical importance still remaining to be discovered, but also jewels and other treasures which have not seen the light for decades of centuries. Nineveh, Babylon, Jerusalem, the more ancient parts of Rome, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Egypt, Cyprus, the site of the famous Troy, and those of the once important cities of Asia Minor – all may perchance have something to shew which the present age would be prepared to welcome and appreciate. Concerning Jerusalem, a conjecture has been brought forward of a remarkable kind. After the rebuilding of the second Temple, there were five occasions on which precious metals, treasures, and artistic ornaments might have been concealed by the priests or servitors of the sacred edifice – namely, during the abstraction and sale of the temple furniture by the apostate high-priest Menelaus; at the plunder and defilement of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes; during the plunder by Crassus; during that by Sabinus; and at the total destruction by the Romans. On one or more of these occasions, supposing the Jewish priests and servitors should have placed valuables in the Temple, the place of concealment may not have been made known to others, and the secret may have been carried with the priests to the grave. Various facts have been adduced in support of this surmise, sufficient to whet the curiosity of men who would value such treasures, not for their intrinsic worth as precious metals or precious stones, but for their historical and ecclesiastical connection with momentous events nearly two thousand years ago.

Dr Schliemann, whose name we have just mentioned, when making researches among mounds and heaps of rubbish at or near the supposed site of Troy in Asia Minor, has lighted upon the foundations of cities which he supposes to have been more ancient even than the Iliad.

But the discoveries more immediately connected with our present subject are those which Dr Schliemann has since made in Greece. With the permission of the king he made excavations near Mycenæ, on the site of what is believed to be one of the most ancient cities in that classic land – far more ancient than the renowned Athens. In treasuries and tombs, which had not seen the light for an untold number of centuries, he has disinterred beautifully painted vases, whole or in fragments; terra-cotta statuettes and busts of Juno, horses' heads, lions, rams, elephants; knives and keys of iron and bronze; fragments of lyres, flutes, and crystal vases. But most striking of all is the large quantity of gold vessels and ornaments, undoubtedly of precious metal, and in many instances artistically wrought. Sceptres, bracelets, girdles, necklaces, rings, vases, caps, &c. in plenty. One of the Doctor's greatest triumphs was the unearthing of two vases of solid gold, fourteen centimètres (about six inches) high, richly ornamented. Many of these relics, as well as many inscriptions and bas-reliefs on extremely ancient blocks of masonry, have excited the curiosity of classical archæologists in a high degree. Their thoughts go back to the epics and dramas which treat of Agamemnon king of Mycenæ; of the expedition to Troy; of Clytemnestra, Electra, Ægisthus, Orestes; of the stories of some of the Greek plays by Euripides, Sophocles, and Æschylus. They think of these personages and these events; and they lean strongly to the belief that the disinterred ancient city near Mycenæ, and some of the treasures brought to light by Dr Schliemann, may be veritable tokens of the days of Agamemnon. Some of the articles found were in triangular cells, which he thinks may have been treasuries or depositories for treasure and valuables. But his principal 'finds' of wrought gold were in chambers which were probably the tombs of Agamemnon, Cassandra, and Eurymedon. The vases, the cups, the diadems, the signet rings, were mostly found in these tombs (if tombs they were); as likewise were the bones of a man and a woman covered with ornaments of pure gold. In short, the discoveries have been of a most unusual, interesting, and valuable kind, well calculated to attract the attention of the learned in Europe, whether learned in classical history or in artistic archæology.

Of discovering or recovering of treasures lying beneath the waves of the ocean, we do not intend to treat here. The reader will find some curious notices on the subject in the article already referred to; also in 'Submarine Treasure Ventures' (May 1, 1869); and in 'The Story of La Lutine' (July 8, 1876).

RUSTY IRON

If no difficulty, as yet unforeseen, bars the way, Mr Barff's plan for rendering iron impenetrable by rust promises to be of the highest practical importance. Iron is by far the most useful of metals, but it has an unfortunate propensity when exposed to water or moist air for attracting oxygen, and this oxygen eats into its substance, and forms the familiar compound known as rust. The consequence is that iron when exposed to the air, especially in so damp a climate as ours, has to be coated with paint, varnish, or tin. But even this coating does not afford entire protection; the slightest flaw in the armour lets in the enemy oxygen, who often does his work all the more surely because concealed from view. A vessel made of iron and coated with some other substance, may look sound to the eye, and yet be a mere mass of crumbling rust. Mr Barff's remedy for this state of things seems to be after the doctrine of the homœopathists, that like is cured by like. If a small degree of moisture affects iron with two distinct species of oxide or rust, what will exposure to a very excessive degree of moisture do? Well, it appears that if iron is placed in a hot chamber and exposed to the action of superheated steam, a new kind of oxide, called the magnetic or black oxide, forms on its surface. Not only does this benevolent species of black rust refuse to penetrate any further into the metal, but it forms an impervious coating against all other influences; and articles thus prepared have been exposed out of doors for weeks this winter without a particle of rust appearing on them. If careful experiments shew that iron is lessened neither in strength nor in durability by this process, its use will be greatly increased, as for several purposes it will take the place of other and more costly metals. —The Graphic.

ON A PET DOVE KILLED BY A DOG

A GAELIC ELEGY

The following touching verses (as nearly as possible a literal translation from the Gaelic) appeared in the Scotsman of May 17, and were accompanied by a note, which we have abridged, from the translator Mr Alexander Stewart of Nether Lochaber. He says: 'I beg to send you a translation of a Gaelic Elegy by Alastair MacDonald the celebrated Ardnamurchan bard, on a pet dove of his that was killed by a terrier dog. It is, in my judgment, a composition of singular tenderness, pathos, and beauty. Its quaint conceits and abrupt transitions, which the reader cannot fail to notice, though they may seem odd and out of place at first sight, form, in my estimation, no small part of its merit. My translation is about as literal as I could well make it, and I have endeavoured to imitate, with what success let others judge, the manner and measure, the rhyme and rhythm of the original. The pet dove was a female, and at the time of her death had under her care, as the poet fails not to notice with an exquisite touch of tenderness in the fourth line, the dove's usual brood of downy twins. The reference in the poem to the bird's habitat in a wild state shews that it was of the species known as the blue or rock pigeon, thousands of which inhabit the vast caves and precipitous crags of Ardnamurchan and Moidart.'

Mournful my tale to tell,
Though others heed not my sigh;
My gentle, my beautiful pet dove dead —
Must the callow twins too die?
Alas, for the death of the gentlest dove
That ever in woodland coo'd,
Killed by a dog whose properer foe
Were the otter that fights, and dies so slow
In his cairny solitude.