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Perhaps no ; but of what strange horror, not ended with Llfe, but perpet- uated in the limbo of invisible things, was that sound the exponent? A Remarkable Mountain. Humboldt once said that no rock 1600 feet in perpendicular height had been found in the Swiss Alps. Rorami, the top of which has just been reached by trav. ellers, lifts above its sloping sides a solid block of red sandstone about 2000 feet high, some of the faces of which, accord- ing to Sir Ropert Schomburgh, are “as perpendicular as if erected with a plumb. liue.” It is the highest and most wonder- ful of a group of table-topped moun- tains situated in an almost inaccessible part of British Guiana. Its flat top was believed to be about seven miles square, but Mr. Thurn’s despatohes say the nearly level summit is twelve miles long, and that it is covered with vegetation. The mountain’s sides are sloping and wooded to a height of 7750 feet above the sea. In Ilonely neighborhood on the verge of Enfield Ohme stands an old house, much beaten by wind and weather. It was inhabited, when I knew it, by two elderly people, maiden sisters, with whom I had some utquaintnnce. and wh ) onoe invited me to dine with them, and mert a circle of local guests. I well remember my walk thither. It led me up a steep eaoent of oak avenue, opening out at the top I u what Wm called the “ ridge road " of the Chane. It was the cl 156 r f a splendid autumn afternoon '. through one mossy holes of the great oaks I saw ". . . the golden autumn wgodlnnd reel Athwen the smoke or burnlng flowers " The year was dying with more than its wonted pomp, " wrapping it ielf in its gorgeous robes like a grander Czeur.” _ LL... .0... had When I met. my hosts again it: was unier another and unhaunbed roof. On my telllnglhhem what had occurred to me, they muled, and aald in was perfectly true; bub added, they were so used to the sound that it had ceased to perturb them. Sometimes, they said, it would be quleb for weeks; at others it followed them xtom room to room, from floor to floor, per- tinaciouely, a: it had followed me. They could give me no explanation of the phenomenon. It was asound, no more, and quite harmless. In..an Having some changes to make in my attirea servant led the way to an upper chamber, and left me. No sooner had he gone than I became conscious of a pecul- iar sound in the roomâ€"a sort of shudder- ing sound, as of suppressed dread. It seemed close to me. I gave little heed to it at first, setting it do wn for the wind in the chimney, or a draught irom the half- open door ; but moving about the room, I perceived that the sound moved with me. Whichever way I turned it followed me. I went to the furthest extremlty of the chamberâ€"it was there also. Begin- ning to feel uneasy. and being unable to account for the swgularlty, I completed, my toilet in haste, and descended to the drawing-room, heping I should thus leave the uncomfortable sound behind meâ€"but swam“... .......... _ 0,, 0n reaching my deaninattun the sun had .eady dipped beluw the honzon, and the eastern from of the house pro j ec zed a black shadow at its foot. What was there in the aspect of the pile that reminded me of the corpse described by the poet â€"t,he corpse than , _. “nu-J; All descriptions of the starry heavens at night, the golden dawn, the setting sun, the boundless sea, the arched canopy of the sky, convey to them but a dim and vague idea of distance and spacewnot even a faint conception of the glorious spectacle that delights their fellow-men. And, as it is with the daily life of the man born blind, so must it be with him in the land of dreams. Henderson, the witch- finder, indeed, fancied he saw the spirit of a slumbering cat pass from her in pur- suit of a visionary mouse ; but the cat actually saw what she pursued. Thomas Blake, the half-crazy artist, professed to see sitters for his pictures as well absent as when present. To some such imper- fect degree of mental vision the blind man may possibly aspire. But to no such noble, living vision as Jacob’s can he by any possibility attain. There can be for him no arched canopy of heavenI no angelic host coming and going by the ray of infinite glory which pierced the clouds, no glimpse of the Eternal One. No face can rise from the grave to smite him with terror ; no image of beauty to gladden his heart with a glimpse of the lovely maiden far away ; no one shape of splendor, grace, or rapture out of the cloudy past ; no outline of mystery, passion, joy. pain, hope. or fear to appeal to his eager brain with the swift power of sliving presence. To him can come no vision of foaming billows, nor perilous wreck, nor pearly gems scattered along the floor of the deep, nor clouds driven across the storm-rent sky. Within him, all around him, reigns night supreme and unchanging. Milton who only knew half its bitterness, calls itâ€" I crossed nanoe. not so. It was on the landing on the stair ; it went down with me-always the ssme sunnd of shuddering horror, faint. but audible, and aims; s close at hand. Even at the dinner-table. when the con- versation flagged, I heard it unmistakably several times, and so near, that if there were an entity connected with it, we were two on one chair. It seemed to be noticed by nobody else, but it ended by harassing end distressing me, and I was relieved to think I had not to sleep in the house that night. At an early hour, several of the guests having far to go, the party broke up, and lb was a. satisfaction to me to breathe the fresh alr of the night, and feel rid at. last of 3y shugdering incubus. l IL _._n “ Was calm and cold, as it did hold Some aecret awning? To live half-dead a living death How the Blind Dream. A Fearful Presence. the threshold with repug Then the the vertical walls of the vast sandstone formation. Cascades pour over the edge, the water falling 2000 feet to the finer: below, forming the sources of rivers that, starting lrom the same place. aepanfe widely and flJW to the Orinoco, the quequibo, and the Amaz m The worst insult toa Russian maiden is to spread tar on the front gate of her residence. She wanbsa kiss, not a cold tuba. Young ladies always seem to feel happy when they get) in an armory. So many arms there, of course. Girls smitten with brass band player: wear bandollne bangs over their eyes. Whether leprosy is contagious or not is a. mooted question. The physicians disagree upon this point, as they do upon so many others, The weight of evidence is to the efl'ect that there is great danger from contagion. Leprosy is absolutely incurable by any method of treatment known to the medical faculty and it is fortunate that it is as rare as it is. Cut 0!! From the World. Far on the way to Smith Sound dwell a white family who are considerably nearer the north poie than any ether wnites have ever lived. Explorers have spent some months or years much iurther norih, but Mr. Jensen's little home is the most northern habitation occupied by a. family oi whites in the Worm. Jensen and his Wife and four or live cmidren have lived ior about twenty years at 'l‘eseuisak, in 73‘> 24‘ norm latitude, some forty miies north of Upernavik. This is the most northern poat of the Danish Government, and Jensen is in charge of the station. It 13 his business to buy lure, oil, walrus ivory, and dried fish irom the Elquimaux of his district. Once a year the GOVern- ment vessel calls to take on his collection of merchandise. Ir. leaves for the little family a year‘s supply of loud, clothing, back: and newspapers and a piokage of letters from their relations in Denmark, and then steams away, and Jensen’s home is cut off for another year from communication with the world outside of his little harbor. One of these leptons centres is Louisi- ana, where the disease has existed for over a century. It was at one time so pre- valent that in 1785 a. leper hospital was erected in New Oxleans. Within a few years past quite a. number of cases have been reported inlower Louisxna, and five or six years ago an official investigation was ordered by the legislature of that state. On the Bay of Chaleurs, in New Bruns- wick. there has been a leper hospital for many years. The disease has been con- siderably restricted by governmental supervision, and seems in a falr way of noon disappearing there altogether._ ‘ A Dreaded Plague. Few persons are aware that lepro still prevails to a considerable extent in various parts of the world. The Chinese are popularly believed to be the only peo- ple especially subject too it. Meuical writings show, hOWever, that it is no only widely distributed in India, China, some portions of Europe, the Sandwich Islands, and the west Indies, but that in this country there are several centers where cases have been observed. The disease hes been imported into Minnesota by Norwegian emigrants, but it said to be on the decline in that state. In California it is reported to be frequent- ly among the Chinese. v N o refiable statistics of its prevalence there gre, however, available. In Boston several cases of the disease have developed within the last ten years. Cases have been reported in the medical journals by two of our physicians, who have made a careful investigation into the subject. One of the cases had never been away from the city, showing that the disease was acquired here. The family ht ve grown accustomed to their constant isolation, and say they have no wish to return to Denmark. For months ata time during the long winter nlght they are entirely alone, not even an lasquimaux coming within miles of Tessulsak. Then the lamily school has daily sessions, rind the younger chil- than are taught to read about the busy 'world they have never seen. Mrs. Jen- sen told Dr. Hayes she was too busy with her household duties and the educa- tion of her children to indulge in any longing for her old home in Denmark. They live in a thick-walled frame house that was brought out from Denmark for them, and, With an overflnving larder and plenty of books and papers, they are probably a great deal more comfortable and happy than many thousands of poor people in the large cities. Jensen isa great hunter, and the few yachtlng parties that have entered Melville Bay have thought their fortunes made if they could induce him to go along with them. He went up Smith‘s Sound with Dr Hayes, but no later explorers succeeded in inducing him to leave his home, though meat of them made him tempting offers. Most of the Danes 1n Greenland have passed many years there. and some of them have become so attached to their adopted home that nothlng could induce them to permanently return to Europe. A whlle ago the hundred or so people who live in Upernavlk had a joyous and festive tlme over the return of Dr. E N. Rud lph, who had passed the greater part of hls llfe in fine most northern town in the world. \Vnen quite an old man he declded to return to Denmark to end his days in his natlve land. He rail- ed, however, to find ln civtlized hie the conten;ment he looked for, and the first thing the Upernavikers saw as the Gov- ernment vessel steamed into the harbor a year later was Dr. ltudolph’s happy face. The land where there are only one day and one night in the year was good enough for him, and he had come back to stay. It is computed that it cost the U. S. Government $1,848,000 to support 2,200 Dakota Indians during seven years of their savage life ;after they were Christianlzed, it cost $120,000 for the same length of time. Panthers They ascend the immense trees near the mouth of the Columbia, which are fre- quently 300 feet high, and sixty, eighty, or even a hundred feet to the first limb, precisely as a cat would climb them, and, when wounded, will sometimes go to the very top. In one instance. I Ivnrld a small glade in the forest, where, from the sign, it was evident that two or more of them had been gamboling, and like kittens scurrying around in the grass, and then. bounding against the trunk of a tree at a point at least ten feet from the ground, they had ascended apparently onthe run, tearing ofl" great pieces of bark, and lear ingciaw'mnrks afoot long on each side. Al- though they may in some localities spend the day in lying upon the limb of a tree, I think they always prefer rocky ledges and caverns for that purpose, where such are accessible. In San Diego, near the Arizona line, the rugged, rocky ranges furnish admirable retreats for panthers, there usually callzd mountain lions; and although not so abundant, they are, I think, morefrequently shot than they are further north, for reasons that Will soon be explained. Like all of the cat tribe they are partial to warmth, and upon days when it is rather cold in the shade, they frequently come out of their lairs in the middle of the day and lie upon the rocks near by to bask and drowee in the warm sun, and as the ranges there are generally very sparsely timbered, they are occasionally discovered by hunters, when thechances of getting Within shot are bet- ter than under almost any other circum- stances. But for all that, they are animals that areseldomshot, no matter how abu ud- ant they may be and their disappearing so rapidly before the march of civnization is a mystery that loan only solve by the conclusion that being such a large and entirely carnivorous animal, they are immediately affected by the least thinning out of the large game and are daiven by hunger to seek places where the rifle had not begunits deadly work; unless, as they seem to haVe done on the McCioud river, they turn their attention to the stock of the settler. Many of them are poisoned by the sheep and cattlemen of the south- ern counties, when their visits to the flock and herds become too frequent. I .‘ ‘Ve often seen their hides nailed to the wai 2 "f the lonely cabins of the stockmen there, and, upon enquiry, have found that they were poisoned in at-leaat three cases out of four. I am quite settled in thebelief thata panther would be no match for a grizzly. It is quite possible that their su- perior agility mightscmetimesmake them more than a match for a black bear, but I can only conceive of their being able to kill a grizzly by fastening upon him in a position where the bear was unable to inflict any injury upon them, as a single well-directed. blow from the paw of a full-grown grizzly will crush in the ribs of an ox, and would, I fancy, leave but little fight in any panther. The human body weighs a pound in the water, and a chair will carry two grown personsâ€"that is it will keep the head above water, which is all that is necessary when it is a question of life or death. One finger placed upon a stool or chair. or a small box, or a piece of board, will easily keep the head above water, while the two feet and the other hand may be used as paddles to propel towards the shore. It is not necessary to know how to swim to be able to keep from drowning in this way. A little ex: perience of the buoyant power of water, and faith in it, is all that is required. We have seen a small boy. who could not swim a stroke, propel himself back and forth across a deep, wide pond by means of a board that would not sustain five pounds‘ weight. Children and all others should have practice in the sustaining power of water. In nine cases out of ten the knowledge that, what will sustain a pound weight is all that is necessary to keep one's head above water, will serve better in emergencies than the greatest expertness as a swimmer. Admiral Hornby’s Squadron. The decision of the Admiralty to form a large squadron of ovulation on the coast of lreland is certainly a wise one. A force of this description under the com- mand of an officer of the ability of Ad- miral Hornby will be able to bring much of the speculation of recent years to a practical test. It is particularly good news that efforts are to be made to try the value of torpedoes in a thoroughgolng fashion as far as that is possible under the circumstances. These weapons have been, comparatively speaking, so little used, and have been so inordinately talked about, that it is time some at- tempts were being made to see what can be done with them in war. As yet the experiments made have not done much more than prove that a. very powerful or.- plosive put just where it can exert its greatest force will destroy even the most powerfully constructed ironclad. It has yet to be seen whether the explosive could be pun in that position during e naval engagement with any degree of pre- cisionI which is at least doub~ful. Up to the present the torpedo has eLijed all the glories oi a new invention and hasâ€" aiter the fashion of such thingsâ€"been going to alter the whole conditions of naval warfare. People who recollect how many discoveries in this and other fields have been going to have the same won- derful efiect, and have, after all, left things very much as they found them, have en- tertained in a modest way certain doubts as to the great future of the torpedo Perhaps Admiral H lrnby's manoeuvres will do something to throw light on the point. The Buoyant Power of Water. The are many intencea of men who have found life in Europe intolernb‘y irk- some after epvnd mg the best parts of their lives In mm or navuge r gums. Senhor Uonzalmo, ‘8 Portuguese trader, settled some forLy years ago among the mtlvae of Bihe, far in the interior of Africa. After he g there for thirty years he declded to re urn to Lisbon to enjoy the competence he had acquired in the ivory trade. Three years later he was back ageln, growing vegetables and wheat on his plantations in Bible. He told the explorer Cameron that he never felt comfortable for a. day in Portugal. He was too old, he said, to get used. again to the ways of civilized life. His black friends had always been faithful, and he would never leave them again. . n. . 9.: Last year commamder Gissing of the British navy, while travelling in Eist Af rica, came to Mount Ndsra, a great gran- ite mass rising steeply out of the plain 4,800 feet above the sea. The mountain, which is above fifty miles from Kiliman- into, is ten miles long, and its top is the home of the Wateita, a wild tribe of hill robbers who cultivate the land at the foot of N dara, and plunder the caravans that pass along the plain. On this moun- tain ridge, dotted with the villages of the Wateita, Oommamder Gissing found a solitary white man who had lived among these savages for nearly three years. He was Mr. Wray of the Church Missi- onary Society, and he is one of the few missionaries in Africa who have no white companions, and who are entirely cut off from regular communication with chil- izatiou. The only white men he had seen for many months were Messrs. Thomson and Johnston, the explorers. Many hundreds of savages swarm around his mountain home. where his work of instructing the natives and raising his own food supplies leaves him little time to indulge in the blues. He had taught the women batter methods of tilllng soil, but the lazy m:n disdained to work, and handled no implements except their bows and arrows. lie had had only nne mis- understanding wiuh the natives. When he tried to convince the men that it was their duty to work, the women took up the cudgel f« 1: their masters, said it was woman a place to do all the hard labor and that they Wouldn't let the men and their hands raising beans and s wuet potatoes. Penjdeh is in the shape of a triangle, formeu by the Murghub, which waters the Merv cams, and by [as afflJent, tne Kuahk. To the much and aaunhweat the fronmer of Penjdehâ€"a. cushion traversed by the nomad unbeof the Sarik Turco- mansâ€"'13 enain confounded Wlth the mile 01 the once flourishing terrttory of Bad- ghla. According to the investigations of European manners, we should under- scand by this name the region bounded l-II on she north by the sands of Merv, on me ween by the flerl Rud, on the east by the Murgheb, end on the south by the chain ot the Parapamieue. The most. terofle porbion of Badghle at the present time in the eastern part, beDWeen the Murghab and the Kuahk. The land: of Merv extend into this region to the east. of Penjdeh. wlnle on the south they touch the wexl-culmvated reglon once belonging to the erega, but. now no Afghamemn, and In which are the towns Malmenu, Aripul, Shibergan, Andkhol, and Akcha. The oasis of fenjueh, quy capable of careful cultivation on the one condition ‘ that a good system of irrigation shall be introduced, forms, as it were, a~sort of turning point between the deserts of the north anl the fertile regions of the south, which a. wait 00101112101011. History proves the flJurishing state oi the ancient Bad- ghis, which is still testified to by immense ruins. With regard to the oasis itself. Penjdeh is still peopled b; about 8,000 Sarina, wno occupy themselves cruelly in raising fimks. 'l‘nelr eucampments shirt the bsnks of the Mnrghab from the site marked by the ruins of old Penjdeh. The greatest breadth of the oasis from west to east is about twenty miles; the greatest length irom northwest to south- eastâ€"that is, from AR l‘spa to Meruchek â€"is about twenty-seven miles. The area. is rather more than 300 Lqusre miles. The Penjdeh Ssriks are rich. They llve in kibitkas or felt tents. Some among them possess as many as from 1,500 to 2,000 sheep and between seventy and eighty camels. They raise there, but in small quantities, crops of rice, wheat, sorghum, &3. They w; ave carpets which rival those of Persia, and fine cloths of camel hair for khilats and women's veils, famous throughout the whole of the East, but which are exceedingly dear. The Sariks of Penjdeh have commercial rela- tions with Bokhara, Merv, and Beret above all other places. The irrigation of this region is quite insufficient. its agri- cultural future depends upon the im- provement of this essential. The cul- minating point of the oasis is Al! Tans. Ruins are to be found there of a town and a citadel. There is a road from this place to Herat by following the left bank of the Kushk, which is crossed by the half-ruined bridge of Pnl-l-Khistl or Dash Kepri. At the southeast extremity of the oasis are the ruins of Meruchak, and a. little to the north of them begins the canal which issues from the Margth and irrigates the fields of the Sariks. Marie Kerohner of Erie, Pa... sulcided recently, closing a. chapter of fatalities which are the talk of the city. First her husband was crushed on rho rallroad. 0n the day of his funeral their only child was struck by the hearse which here its father’s remains and was killed. On Friday a letter informed Mrs. Kerchner that her father in Bavaria had been drowned. Unable to endure such a run of fatalities, she ended her sorrow with landannm. Suicide Through Grief. The 0asis of Penjdeh. Individual Isolation. 9mm One of the most heartlesssnd cold-blood- ed confessions ever recorded has just been made by Frederick Groteguth, of Indiana, the aged German who butchered his wife on the 4 inst. The con‘ession is as follows : “ I was born in Germany. I am between 65 and 66 years of age. I have been a resident of the United States for thirty- seven years. I lived in St. Louis about a year and a half after my arrival in this country. and then move ‘to Windsor town- ship, Knox county, Indiana. where I have since residei. On Tnursday morning, June 4, 1885, I was replantingcorn. About 12 o'clock I went to my house to get my dinner. My Wife was knitting. She was sitting in a chair under an apple tree near the summer-kitchen, and my wife follow- ed me in there. When we were in the summer-kitchen my wife told me not to touch the bread that was on the table. Before I went to the summer-kitchen, while I was in the yard, my wife began to fuss at me for letting a pig and some chickens into the yard. I then went into the summer kitchen and began to eat the bread that was on the table, when my wife followed me in there and began to quarrel with me again. She told me to drive the pig and chickens out of the yard, butI told her I wouldn't do it ; that she ought to keep the gate shut. She came in the kitchen and told me to let the bread alone. She took hold of me and I took hold of her. She fell out of the door and I fell out with her She fell out on her head and we both fell out together, and lay on the ground together, but she still lay there where she had fallen. I thought Ihad my razor in my pocket, but I did not have it. I then went over into the kitchen in the new part of the house and got my razor out of my ruzn: box. I then went back to where my wife lay. I had my razor in my hand. My wife still lay where she had fallen out of the sum net-kitchen. I went up to where my wife lay with my raz: r in my hand to cut her throat. I placed the raz If on the side of her throat. Sire then placed her hmd on my hand which hold the razn. While her hand was on my hand which held the razor, her throat was cut. I did not go to get my razor to cut my wife's threat, but to cut my own throat. When I got back to where my wife was lying. and seeing her suffering as she was, I thought I would finish her. I think when we both fell out of the summer-kitchen together I partial- ly choked her, as my hand was on her throat. I held her tightly by the throat, and she couldn’t do much. I came home and found my dinner was not ready, and my wife fussed so it made me mad, and that was what caused me to choke her and cut her throat. My wife had been quar- reling with me for many years. After I cut my wife's throat I cut my own throat a little before I carried my Wife's body in- to the house. In the same room where I carried my wife I cut my relf four or five times more on my throat. On Tuesday, June 2, 1885, my wife and myself had a quarrel, when I told her if she didn’t stop quarreling with me I would kill her and. myself, too. When I went up to my wife with the razor, I thought she had enough to kill her, but when I placed my hand with the razor in it on her throat she reached up and placed her hmd on mine, and the razor cut her throat. I think I pushed the razor hard enough to cut her throat, even if she had not placed her hand on mine. On account of the ill-treat- ment received at the hands of my wife for a week previous to her death I had made up my mind to kill her if she didn't stop quarreling with me. The above statement is the tl’lltll concerning the affair as near as I can remember. They can cut 013" my head if they want to." Rome Sixteen Years Ago. It seems like recalling the events of a past century when I look back upon the Rome of sixteen years ago. Everything was so different and so much more pictur- esque, so very unlike this prosaic, positive nineteenth century. The papal court was in all its splendor, and a splendor of pomp and ceremony that (qualled the time of Raphael and Lao X. CJlircted about the Vatican was a. group of royalties ~ les r0138 en exil â€"which gave the city quite a. seven- teenth century air. There were the ex- king and queen of Naples, and all the princes andfiprincesses of that royal house; the ex-grand duke and duchess of Tus- cany, the ex-grand duke and duohess of Parma, etc. Cardinals in long scarlet silken robes walked with leisurely. stately steps under the pines and through the broad avenues, of the Villa Borgheseâ€" that beautiful Borghese promenade, one of the loveliest in the whole world. Its owner, Prince Borghese, has lately sold it to the building company for 11.000,000 francs. When itis out up into building lots and crowded with common tenement houses for the laboring class that will as- semble there, Rome will find that no mon- ey can ever make again for the enjoyment of her people such a lovely place, with its memories of Raphael, its pine plantations its artistically-grouped trees and broad avenues, and tinkling fountains. What a picture the cardinals used to make there with their little courts about them, talk- ing their rich, sonorous Italian in subdued tones discussing. not arguing, important questions with a grace that is gone. Gay- ly-decorated carriages, black horses with long manes and tails plaited in with rich red silken cords and tassels. powdered footmen and dashing buttestrade or out- rider 1, were seen in the streets, socommon a sight as to attract only the attention of tourists. The pope, too, that gracious pontifl", Pius IX . often walked through the Pinclo alleys, and over the broad space of the Piazza di Spagns, blessing the kneeling czowd. That was, indeed, a stately picture 1 Ah, as the market-women of Paris-lea domes du Halleâ€"ssid in 1794 ‘szs evens changes tout cela! ” â€"we have changed all that! And every day the R0- man world is becoming more and more prosaic. A Terrible Confession. -»<->«<