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at two o'clock in the morning, and he dashed along in his sledge, every one keeping out of his way. He got home first, and was married that year. But you should see our Yuletime' in the country. Here, in the capital, all is artificial life, but in the country, ah! there it is a happy time; not for people only, but even for beasts and birds."

B.-" Birds ?"

SWEDE.-"Yes, for birds even. At harvest-time, where people are good, the Yule-sheaf' is laid by unthreshed for a Christmas feast for the poor birds, who are famishing then in the frost. On Christmas-eve this sheaf is hung on a high pole at the farmer's door. If the Yule-sheaf' were not seen near a house the neighbours would believe the farmer would have a bad harvest they would think him a hard man, and care little to help him."

B.-" And pray what is done for the beasts?"

SWEDE." They give them double food on Christmas-eve, and the herd generally says, Eat well and thrive, my good beasts, for this is Jul-afton.''

B. "It would be well for them if 'Jul-afton' came oftener, for they always look half-starved, and in winter they must often want this double portion."

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SWEDE. "If they did not get it on that evening some mischance would be expected. The servants also must be taken care of, and the mistress has to arrange supper-tables for them. Sometimes each servant has a little table, sometimes there is one table for two or three, and sometimes only one for several. Such a table is called Jul-bord,' or 'Yule-table:' it is covered with a white napkin, and on it the mistress lays 'Jul-buller,' or "Yule-bread; that is, Christmas cakes made in various figures: at farm-houses they make them in the shape of horned cattle, and animals; and on these tables are also laid the 'Jul-klapper,' or Christmas-boxes for the servants. What is left of the Christmas-bread is often kept till the first day of spring, that is the day when ploughing commences; which is, you know, another great rejoicing day in the country, and the farm servants then get the remains of their Christmas cakes and soften them in beer; so you see that saves some expense, and helps their treat for ploughing-day.”

My attention was now drawn to the beauty and singularity of the scene around us. It was now half-past eight o'clock; it was not yet daylight, yet it was not dark; it was the clear twilight

of the North; but one could not fancy it was the morning: the red horizon was only more faintly coloured than when the sun had set the evening before; the chief difference was that now the redness was on the east instead of the west. There was no rising sun; there was the stillness, calmness, and contemplative aspect of evening, with its shadowy and pensive light. It was strange to feel oneself, as a stray native of England, thus rambling admiringly through the streets of Stockholm before the sun had risen on a Christmas morn.

How wide the snowy scenery appeared! the air here is so clear, and the distant clouds at the horizon are turning to a deep orange hue, showing the action of the still invisible sun. Ice and snow all around, and the fresh rolling water hurrying in one solitary current through the crystal channel; the white crisp ground, the white hills, white houses; the windows still glittering with light, and not a sight or plaint of misery to check one's enjoyment. That walk was a real pleasure!

I remarked the still lighted windows to my companion.

"Yes," he said, "many even here do light up their houses on Christmas morn, but not as they do in the country. Ah, if you were in my province, that is Wermland, then you would see how all houses are illuminated now, not the smallest is allowed to be utterly dark. People must be miserably poor if they cannot even put a single light in their window. And when a house is seen to be dark by persons going to church-oh, that is indeed bad-that is quite a disgrace."

"Well! the custom is a pleasing emblem; it typifies the light of the world-the light that came into the world that we might not abide in darkness; that we might be enabled to walk as children of the light and of the day." "It truly would be so," the Swede rejoined; "but I fear many persons, like myself, have liked the old custom without thinking much of the emblem you speak of. This is quite an old custom; I think it comes from the old Catholic times; but the people like it because it is old."

When we reached the great doors that admit me into the court of the large house wherein I lodge, I found a tidy, prettymannered little girl waiting there with a small basket in her hand containing some tiny plants. She asked me to buy one. It was the first flower of spring, the Anemone hepatica, which forms its little buds in autumn, then buries them beneath the snow, and when spring melts away its chilly covering, appears

there, ready dressed, to meet the sunbeams, strewing the still cold, bare forest-ground with its blossoms, growing round the roots of dark firs or leafless trees, and blooming amid the blighted straw-coloured grass.

The child had carried that little 'blo-sippa' five or six English miles to sell it for less than a halfpenny. I gave her some confectionary, and received a courtesy in return, that would have graced the first drawing-room in our land, and a simple look of gratitude that would grace all places.

I then went to my lonely breakfast, and spent the rest of this Christmas-day-the first I had ever spent in a foreign land-quite alone. It is not celebrated by the Swedes in the way it is with us. They anticipate all that on its eve, and the day itself is more religiously kept.

I had been engaged to spend it with our minister; but the post, unaffected by times of joy or sorrow, had on this day brought distressing tidings to that respected house, for other English residents thought of all lonely fellow country-people; so I felt that good comes out of evil, and that it is well to be left alone, even on a Christmas-day, in a strange land, if it teaches us when at home to think of, and feel for the houseless and homeless-the stranger and solitary.

Since that Christmas time, what changes have come to pass ! The time has not been long, yet among them are some striking ones. The good, respected, but then afflicted, representative of our government, at whose hospitable mansion I was to have spent that day, is now beneath the walls of Sebastopol, leading our gallant navy against the Russians with whom we were then on terms of friendly intimacy; his name is now ever put forth, as the bravest among commanders, just as it was then as the kindest and warmest among friends.

So ends the recollections of a Christmas in Sweden.

IF thou art worn and hard beset

With sorrows that thou wouldst forget;

If thou wouldst read a lesson that will keep
Thy heart from fainting, and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills!-No tears

Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.

S. B.

LONGFELLOW.

SCHAMYL AT HOME;

OR, GLIMPSES OF THE DOMESTIC LIFE OF THE CIRCASSIAN

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THE name of Schamyl has long been before the civilized world as a synonyme for bravery and glorious deeds of heroism. Nor is its prestige likely speedily to die out. As the hero of the Caucasus, as the symbol of modern chivalry, as the champion of his people's wild mountain liberty, and as the terrible avenger of ambition, he continues to maintain his traditional renown. The invading forces of the northern despot have again, very recently, felt the weight of his chastisement, in one of those sudden, swift, avalanche-like irruptions of his hardy mountaineers, which have long invested his name with so much terror to the military myrmidons of the Czar. But for the stupendous achievements which have, for some months past, centred all eyes and hearts upon Sebastopol, the brilliant exploit of the Circassian warrior in the neighbourhood of Tiflis would have enjoyed a larger share of public attention. And it is

highly probable that, in the succeeding spring, when a new and more vigorous Asiatic campaign against Russia is undertaken, he and his brave fighting men will again distinguish themselves, and render signal service to their European allies, in the noble task to which they have pledged themselves in the interest of public justice and humanity.

But, although the name and chivalric exploits of Schamyl are so familiar to the reader of our English newspapers and periodicals, it is surprising how little is known concerning the personnel of this redoubtable man. After reading of the mysterious visits of this chieftain, at the head of his irresistible flood of warriors, to the camp of the Russian invaders-the tremendous force of the onset, by which everything is borne before them—and the magical celerity with which they disappear in their mountain fastnesses when their work is done who is there that does not long to follow them to their secret alpine heights, which the Russian eagle has never yet been able to reach, and examine into the habits and customs of this brave, but comparatively unknown, people? This laudable curiosity we are about to attempt to gratify to some extent, by affording some glimpses of the domestic life and residence of the great prophet-warrior. The interest attaching to the scanty information we may be able to supply is enhanced by the circumstance, that both political policy and religious requirements induce the chieftain to surround himself by almost impenetrable barriers, so as to exclude all, and especially the Christian, from the precincts of his domestic circle. We now proceed to narrate the principal incidents of a visit which, but a few years ago, was paid, under somewhat extraordinary circumstances, to Schamyl's home.

It was in May, 1848, that a merchant, a native of Murdock, applied to the commander of a Russian fortress on the borders of Circassia, under the following singular circumstances. It appears that, about eight years before, a beautiful girl, a cousin of the merchant, had been captured and carried off into the interior by some of Schamyl's people, and who afterwards, as he had learned, became one of the wives of the chieftain. The object of his application to the Russian governor was to request him to employ his influence to facilitate an interview between him and his lost relative. This the Russian functionary consented to do, by allowing the merchant to communicate with the scouts, through whom he was enabled to establish a correspondence with the Naïbs Duba-Sadaulah and Dalchik. By means of the former, who was a favourite and a privy councillor of Schamyl, he communicated by letter with

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