captured, and dragged on their knees before Monke, who had been driven back from the building by the intolerable heat; and on being questioned at the muzzle of a musket, they told how the slaves and the villagers had combined to rise against the Portuguese, and having surprised him, had tied him to his bed and then set fire to his house.

His cruelty had at last met with its reward. Monke, callous though he was to the severity of the fate that had befallen the man, could not help looking aghast at the house where the tragedy had taken place, and as he looked the roof fell in, and a shower of fiery particles rose up into the air, and the flames were dulled for a few moments, but only for a few moments. They shot up again fiercer than before.

The revenge of the Englishman had been suddenly snatched from him, yet it was with no feeling of disappointment that the task had not been spared to him, that he turned to the forest. And now the little band had to look quickly to their safety, for with returning cour age, the pillagers began firing their muskets, charged with slugs, as they advanced to the edge of the wood.

Not wishing either to confront or harm the maddened creatures, Monke withdrew his men in the direction of M'Gibbon's factory, and sent two of them to search the house. They reported that it was empty, whereupon the party ran smartly along the beach for their boat, which they reached, the slaves following them down to the shore as if to cut them off; but suddenly they halted and turned back toward the Scotchman's house.

As the boat was pulled off shore, flames burst forth from the hitherto dark and tenantless factory. Of its owner nothing was heard or seen. Whether

he was murdered, or whether he escaped from Donde, remained always a mystery. It was supposed, however, that he was taken inland by the natives, and there put to death by them, to prevent any tales being told.

With the destruction of the two factories, the Bay of Donde returned to the possession of the natives; for the houses were never replaced upon its shores, and the only craft to be seen on its placid waters are the canoes of the native fishermen of the village, dotting its expanse with tiny specks.

When Monke got back to Kabooka, he took Margaret under his charge and protection; and though at first it went hard with him to look at her without thinking of his son's death, yet as time passed, that feeling passed away with it, and was replaced by the recollection that she had been the lad's favorite ; and it was for her sake that before long he gave up his charge of the factory, and returned to England.

Margaret, on her part, was well aware of the feelings with which Monke at first regarded her, and she would fain have left him; but since he had not permitted that, she, mindful of her error, set herself to make him love her, and with such sweetness and success, that the two became inseparable, and were known in the little country village to which they retired as father and daughter. This village was situated inland, far away from the sound of the sea, which was distressful to Monke and to the girlfor it reminded the one of his son, and the other of the days she had spent on the far-off lonely African shore. Yet, as time wore on, the inemory of the lad who had died on that coast became fainter and fainter with both, and at last, as at first, he was forgotten.Blackwood's Magazine.

world. The origin of the report was not altogether clear. At least it was not altogether clear to the writer of these lines, who, if the report had had any legitimate foundation, should have

known something about it. It seems that a remark to the effect that the comet of 1880 travelled in the same or bit as the comet of 1843, and was probably the same body, but that if that were the case, it had returned long before it should have done, so that the period of revolution seemed to be shortening, had been to some degree misapprehended.

It had been suggested by several Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society that if the comet of 1880 were really the same as that of 1843, the next return might occur in a very few years; perhaps, said Mr. Marth, in about fifteen; and each return thereafter at shorter and even shorter intervals. For the path of the comet carries it in very close proximity to the orb of the sun; and it is generally believed that a retardation of the comet's motion must occur at each return to the sun's neighborhood, for the simple reason that the comet can hardly be supposed to get through the matter which forms the sun's corona, without encountering some resistance. The more the comet is retarded by such resistance, the faster it will travel round its orbit-paradoxical though this may sound. At each return it will encounter more and more effective resistance, until at length it must be absorbed into the body of the sun.

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Whether such absorption would produce any great effect or not upon the sun, and through him upon the solar system, was a question which to many seemed answerable only in one way. Newton had pointed out that comets might serve as fuel to the sun, and perhaps produce disastrous effects in that way, by unduly increasing the solar light and heat. A comet," he said, "after certain revolutions, by coming nearer and nearer to the sun, would have all its volatile parts condensed, and become a matter fit to recruit and replenish the sun (which must waste by the constant light and heat it emits) as a faggot would this fire if put into it. (He was speaking to Mr. Conduitt at the time, beside a wood fire.) And that would probably be the effect of the comet of 1680 sooner or later; for by the observations made upon it, it seemed to have a tail of thirty or forty degrees, when it went from the sun.

It

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"He

might, perhaps, make five or six revolutions more first; but whenever it did, it would so much increase the heat of the sun, that this earth would be burnt, and no animals in it could live." took the three phenomena seen by Hipparchus, Tycho Brahé, and Kepler's disciples," he added, to have been of this kind; for he could not otherwise account for an extraordinary light, as those were, appearing all at once among the fixed stars (all which he took to be suns enlightening other planets, as our sun does ours) as big as Mercury or Venus seems to us, and gradually diminishing for sixteen months and then sinking into nothing.'

"

All

But although what we now know respecting the mass of comets is by no means so much opposed to these views as many seem to imagine, our knowledge of the way in which the sun's heat is maintained will not permit us to adopt Newton's opinion. Nor will the accepted views as to the origin of the sun's heat justify us in accepting a belief in more than a very moderate accession of heat as likely to accrue, under any influences due to comets now actually travelling around the sun. those which have passed once round the sun's immediate neighborhood, can pass again, and yet again, with effects which can never greatly exceed those produced at their first passage If at any one perihelion passage a comet is slightly retarded, it will be slightly retarded again at its next passage close by the sun, somewhat more at the next return, and so on continually, until it is finally absorbed, the interval between these passages continually diminishing. Only in the case of great retardation at one passage, will the retardation at the next perihelion passage be markedly greater; but in this case the effects at the earlier passage should have been noteworthy; so that as no noteworthy sudden accession of solar light and heat has ever been observed, no such earlier passage has yet occurred which should make us seriously fear the next passage of the same comet by the sun's neighborhood.

The fears entertained, therefore, respecting the next return of the comet of 1843 are without foundation. If that comet was really so checked in speed in 1843 that it returned in thirty-seven

years instead of the much longer period assigned to it by the best astronomers, then we had an opportunity at that time of estimating the effect of such interruption of the comet's motion. But no effects were then perceived. The sun was neither brighter nor hotter than usual. The inference is, then, that that frictional resistance cannot appreciably affect the sun's condition. In 1880 we had a repetition of this experience-assuming that the comet of 1880 was the same body. The sun in 1880 shone much as he had done in 1879, much as he did later in 1881 and 1882. So that the world might await with calmness the future returns of this sun-lashing comet, satisfied that whatever effect might be produced on the comet, very little would be produced on the sun or the solar sys

nights, have each and all been uniformly utterly covered in with thick impenetrable clouds. And yet we ought to confess that one other thing might have occurred even so as to make that cloudy appearance more aggravating, more grievously disappointing still. That one overtopping culmination of misfortune would have been "-if the comet had been announced as approaching instead of receding.

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It will be seen that the Astronomer Royal for Scotland regards the comet in question as a rather important body. It is not an every-day comet whose approach is so important that failing to see it must be regarded as an overtopping culmination of misfortune.' Now this comet seems to be none other than that comet. The body, or collection of bodies (for so rather must a comet now be regarded), which was visible to the naked eye on September 18 close to the sun-" a yard or so from the sun,' writes one startled observer-is no other than the comet of 1843, whose tail stretched half across the heavens, and which-like the comet of last monthwas seen in full daylight; nay, even I close by the sun."

Rightly to apprehend the significance of this portent, as viewed by Professor Smyth and many others, chiefly-unlike him-unscientific persons, we should inform our readers that in this year, according to the prophecies symbolically indicated in the Great Pyramid, the end of the dispensation which began 1882 years ago is in some way as yet unknown to be brought about. Some celestial body, "the star in the East of the Magi, appeared then; for aught we know it may have been the same comet, and the Wise Men of the East saw in it evidence that a new dispensation was about to begin. It was fitting, then, that this year, which has now been for several years announced as the time of the end of that dispensation, a similar celestial appearance, or the same body, perhaps, should announce "the beginning of the end." We cannot reasonably doubt this, for careful measurement shows that the Grand Gallery in the Great Pyramid is 1882 inches long; these inches being each the twenty-fifth part of the sacred cubit, which Pyramidalists assure us is the limit of length

in that marvellous structure. Moreover, it is not altogether an accident or a mere coincidence which has brought the British army to the feet of the Great Pyramid at the very time-perhaps at the very hour-when the great comet was passing its perihelion. On September 13, the British cavalry entered Cairo ; on September 18, the great conet could be seen with the naked eye (though it had passed the time of its greatest splendor, described by Professor Smyth as the "ecstatic display at perihelion passage "), and was then beginning to recede. What more natural than to suppose that as the vanguard of Sir Garnet Wolseley's army approached the base of the Pyramids, the great comet was in the very ecstasy of perihelion glory, rushing through the richest portion of the sun's coronal streamers, molten by the solar heat, resisted by the densely aggregated meteor-streams, but so retarded that its return will be hastened, and that in a few months it will come back to effect the final purpose of its existence! If any doubt could be entertained on the subject, it should be removed by the consideration that the British nation has been proved, to the satisfaction of nearly all true believers in the Great Pyramid prophecies, to be no other than the lost ten tribes of Israel.

If this sounds a little strange—or, shall we say, the least little bit premalet the following words by the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, by no means the least able of our astronomers, and facile princeps among Pyramidalists, be carefully considered.

What comet," he asks, was this? The little that was seen on Monday, September 18, is not enough to give any clew, and no London journals, whether scientific or political, which I have seen up to September 23, throw any light on the matter. But a note by cable from America, if fully correct, is of profound import. Indeed, nothing so important to all mankind has occurred before, through eighteen hundred years at least of astronomical history. And there is this prospect of the statement being true, that it is given under the name of Professor Lewis Boss, one of the most able and learned mathematical astronomers of the Union, and, we may say now (such has

been the rapid progress of astronomy during the last few years in that country), of the world. He is said, then, to have concluded from his observations that the comet of last Monday was the comet of 1880 and 1843. A comet on each of these occasions was recognized to have passed closer to the sun's surface than any other known comet. But why has it come back so soon? In 1843 it appeared to be moving in an orbit of 170 years, and yet it came back in 1880, or in only 37 years. That was startling enough, though only looked on by the world as a case of failure of astronomical prediction. But having gone off in 1880 on an understanding generally come to by the best astronomers in Europe, North America, Rio Janeiro, the Argentine Republic, and Australia-at all which latter places it had been well observed-that it was not to return before 37 years (and other comets, such as Halley's, and Encke's, keep to their times of revolution round the sun nearly uniformly for centuries), behold this comet has returned now, on the strength of this cablegram from America, in two years. In which case, who can say whether it may not be back again from space in a few months; and then, not merely to graze close past, but actually to fall into the sun, which is so evidently increasing its hold upon it at every revolution? Wherefore we may be near upon the time for witnessing what effects will be produced when such an event takes place in the solar system, as astronomers have hitherto only distantly speculated upon, and no mortal eye is known to have ever beheld."

This brings the matter home to all of us, indeed. Astronomers like Newton have distantly speculated upon the effects which would be produced if a comet fell into the sun. I fear that I have not altogether refrained from such speculations myself. Indeed, the misapprehension to which I referred at the beginning of this paper arose chiefly from such speculations of my own. For speaking, not of such grazing contact as may occur in the case of the comet of 1843 and 1880, but of such direct impact as may through some unlucky chance occur in the case of some comet which comes to our sun from interstellar space, I have expressed the

opinion that such impact may raise the sun's heat temporarily to such intensity that every living thing on this earth would be destroyed, though the increase of heat might not last more than a few weeks or even days. I also expressed my belief (entertained before I had heard that Sir Isaac Newton, in conversation with Mr. Conduitt, had expressed similar views) that the appearance of so called new stars can only be explained by the downfall of meteoric and cometic matter upon some sun like our own, which up to that time had been steadily pouring forth heat and light to nourish the worlds circling around it. This opinion, chancing to be expressed in the closing paragraph of the same paper in which I had indicated my belief that the comet of 1880 really was the same body as the comet of 1843, returned before its time, and that this body would return next after a yet shorter interval, led many to imagine that I had expressed the opinion that the comet of 1843 and 1880, returning soun, would cause our sun to blaze out with greatly increased splendor, and so to destroy all living creatures on this earth.

Now the actual risk from the destruction of this comet by the sun I believe to be very small indeed. But as to the identity of the comet which passed its perihelion on September 17 last and the comets of 1880 and 1843 there is, I think, little room for doubt. I have carefully compared the observed positions on September 17, 18, 19, 22, 24, and 29, with the known orbit of the comet of 1843, and they all agree so closely as to leave no doubt that the new comet is travelling in the same track, so far as the part near the sun is concerned. But I note one circumstance which seems hitherto to have escaped attention. Although the course of the new comet as it passed away was on the right track, the comet was not making nearly so much way as as it should have done, if moving even in the reduced period of 2 years, or even in one year, or in half a year. In other words, the reduction of speed experienced by the comet last September was such that the comet will be back within four or five months, possibly in less time still than that. It may be that

the observations (up to the day of my writing this, which of course precedes by several weeks the day when these words can be read) have been insufficiently exact for accuracy in this respect. But if they can be trusted, the comet will be back in a very short time indeed, possibly before the end of the year--an announcement which should fill the hearts of Pyramidalists with joy.

Be this as it may, it is certain that the splendid comet seen on September 18 and 19 close to the noonday sun, although not seen under conditions at all favorable to ordinary observation, gave of all the comets seen in this century, nay, of all ever seen by man, the fullest promise that one day cometic mysteries will be interpreted. An observation was made upon this comet successfully, which, repeated on similar comets more favorably situated, will give information such as astronomers have long regarded as essential to the solution of cometic mysteries, but such also as they have hitherto scarce dared to hope for.

It is of course known to all who have followed the progress of recent scientific research, that nearly all the comets which have been observed during the last score or so of years, have given under spectroscopic analysis such evidence as shows that a portion of their light comes from glowing gas. Two distinct cometic spectra have been observedDr. Huggins, facile princeps ainong British spectroscopists, first noted them in the case of Brorsen's comet, and of Winnecke's-each consisting of bright bands. In one case the bands have not been identified with those belonging to any known terrestrial substance; but the other and more common cometic spectrum agrees with one which has been found to be characteristic of certain compounds of carbon. "The general close agreement in all cases,' writes Dr. Huggins, notwithstanding some small divergencies, of the bright bands in the cometary light with those seen in the sceptra of hydrocarbons, justifies us fully in ascribing the original light of these comets to matter which contains carbon in combination with hydrogen.'

These spectra of bands had been seen so systematically from 1864, when Donati made the first rough observations of the cometic spectrum, until Wells's comet