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he gently wraps his trunk about the infant's
body, and brings it again into the middle of
the circle.

And now we cannot clear our minds of
elephants without unburthening a story which
we have heard from a tale-teller with Indian
experience, and which we imagine to be now
first told in print. It causes us to feel that in
a Parliament of animals, elephants would
have divided in favour of a ten-hours' bill.
There was a large ship's rudder to be floated;
men were busy about it one evening, when a
file of elephants were passing, on the way
home from work, and it was proposed and
carried that an elephant might as well save
them their pains, and push the thing into the
water for them. So an elephant was brought,
and put his head down, and appeared to push
with might, but not a beam, stirred. Another
was brought to help him, with the same
result; and finally, as many elephants as the
rudder would allow, seemed to be busy and
did nothing. So the elephants went home.
They had struck, and declined working out
of business hours. Next morning, on the
way to work, one elephant was again brought,
and pushed the rudder down into the water,
almost as a man might push a walking-stick.

Stories illustrative of the kindness, gratitude,
and kindred feelings of which animals are
capable, have no end; one follows on another;
for, in fact, the animals, bird, beast, and fish,
are all good fellows, if you come to know them
properly. A rat tamed by a prisoner at Genf
slept in his bosom. Punished for some fault,
it ran away, but its anger or its fear died and
its love lived on: in a month it returned. The
prisoner was released, and in the joy of liberty
it did not come into his mind to take his old
companion with him. The rat coiled itself
up in some old clothes left by his friend, all
that was left of him, abstained from food, and
died in three days.

A surgeon at Dover saw in the streets a
wounded terrier, and like a true man took
it home with him, cured it in two days, and
let it go, The terrier ran home, resolved to
pay the doctor by instalments. For many
succeeding weeks he paid a daily visit to the
surgery, wagged his tail violently for some
minutes and departed. Tail-wagging is dog's
money, and when this dog thought that he
had paid in his own coin a proper doctor's
bill, the daily visit to the surgery was
discontinued.

CHIPS.
A VISIT TO THE  BURRA BURRA MINES.


FROM Adelaide to Burra Burra, ninety-six
miles before us;—so many miles of exquisite
enjoyment, should the weather only hold as
brilliant as it is at starting, The "caller air,"
laden with the aroma of gum-trees, and infinite
wild shrubs and flowers, considered even in a
mere sensual light, leaves all the aldermanic
class of pleasures out of sight. We amble on,
towards our first stage, Gawler Town, which is
some two-and-twenty miles from Adelaide.
We glance at the numerous snug little farms
on either side of us. Harvest was long since
over. Everything had been, and was soon to
be again. Fields of wheat, barley, and oats;
fields of maize, fields of lucerne; noble hay-
stacks; here a well-stocked kitchen-garden;
there a quarter of an acre, or so, of gigantic
pumpkins. At this door is a chubby little
rogue of four or five summers, in friendly
contest with the great shaggy dog. Pleasant is
it, too, to see the little flaxen heads amongst
the clumps of vines, and the ruddy-faced
youngsters shading their eyes with their
hands, from the sun, that they may get a
good look at us in passing. Then there are
the clacking of ducks, the grunting of unseen
pigs, the majesty of the strutting turkeys,
and the solemn strings of geese.

We are in sight of Gawler Town; the
horses know it, for they prick their ears,
and bestir themselves, expectant of the sweet
lucerne hay, and the cobs of Indian corn.
Gawler Town is an embryo; the seed of a
town just coming up; as yet, an unpretending
village, but vigorous, striving, prosperous.
Butchers, bakers, grocers, tailors, shoemakers,
all the artists necessary to the mere physical
man. Our innkeeper you would consider to
be a man too good for his business, if he did
not make you so comfortable. A man of
decent education, and of tact, he readily
accepts our invitation to be seated; he has
narrative talent, so that we enjoy being Tom
Jones or Parson Adams for a night, and
luxuriate in our emancipation from the
passionless community of waiters.

Next morning, before daylight, we are once
more in the saddle. Farms again, picturesque
creeks, groups of cattle, flocks of sheep, an
occasional black fellow, or a tweed-clad
horseman, smoking a " cutty " pipe. By mid-day
we reach Captain Bagot's Kapunda mine, at
the village of that name. This is one of the
first discovered copper mines in the country,
and ranks in productiveness next after the
Burra Burra. We are treated most hospitably
by the gallant and fortunate proprietor,
and, after spending the rest of the
day and the following night with him, are
sent onwards the next morning rejoicing.

There is no change in the character of
scenery, except that it has more hill and less
wood. A singular deficiency of wood becomes
observable as you advance still further, and
the sterility of the earth for many miles
before you reach Kooringa, suggests to you
that the wealth beneath the surface is only
reasonable compensation for the poverty
above.

Yet one night more on the road. We are
now only about fifteen miles from the far-
famed Burra Burra. But the dusk of the
short twilight of this latitude comes upon us,
and compels an election between a squalid