"And what the deuce are you now, Tom?" I inquired. "Dancing-master, and master of the ceremonies at the Junior Almack's," he replied.

"Which means that you are nothing, I presume."

"Indeed it doesn't," said Tom, indignantly; "it means that I'm a dancing-master, sir, and I give lessons at one-and-sixpence an hour, sir, and I'm master of the ceremonies at Boram's Rooms in Castle Street, alias, The Junior Almack's,' sir."

"What the deuce is the meaning of all this?" I asked, seeing that Tom was in earnest.

"It means simply," replied Tom, "that the governor has cast me off, as he declares that I've ruined my own prospects in life just twentyseven times, and he won't stand it any more. Now that's exceedingly unreasonable on the governor's part-don't you think so?-because of course it's I who suffer from my own ruin; and so long as I don't growl why should he? Well, then, as he has cast me off, I am obliged to do something; and so Boram, who 's an old friend of mine, has given me an engagement as master of the ceremonies, at his elegant and classical Terpsichorean establishment (see bills), at one pound a week, which being rather a small sum for a man of my imagination (it's that that ruins a man) to live on, I add to my income by teaching the polka, valse à deux temps, Cellarius, and every other conceivable or inconceivable dance, at the small sum of one-and-six per hour. You know I was always grand at the polka."

"Decidedly so. Witness Miss Penelope Prue and the Nautch girl," said I.

Tom laughed, and begged me to come to Boram's to-morrow night, and he would show me "life behind the scenes." I promised to come, and I took care not to fail.

Boram's was a long, narrow room, with a gallery at the end, in which "the band" was placed. The furniture was of the plainest description,— simply wooden forms covered with red baise down the sides. At the end of the room furthest from the band was a window below the level of one's knees; and peeping down it I perceived that there was a supperroom below on the basement or underground floor. I had gone at a rather early hour, so that I watched the company arrive; but before I did so, I saw Tom Baggs in his new character, and was highly amused at his costume. He wore his hair parted down the middle and frizzled out in the most extraordinary style. He had a coat with extravagantly broad tails, and laid over at the collar with white silk. His shirt was a most elaborate piece of embroidery, and showed a red under-waistcoat being also adorned with mock turquoise studs, about the size of ordinary gooseberries. His trowsers were plaited, à la Francaise, at the waist. He wore open work stockings and narrow-toed pumps; and I utterly despair of describing the massiveness of his Mosaic watch-chain, or the brilliancy of his rainbow-coloured waistcoat.

And this is the man who stormed the breach of Sibi! thought I.

The company was decidedly mixed; there were shop-girls, and milliners, and ballet-girls, and something not so respectable as either. There were clerks, and shop-boys, and city men, and west-end men, and foreigners, and guardsmen. The dancing was indubitably excellent, and Tom was the most bland and finished of maîtres de bal.

The supper followed and was noisy and riotous, but all in good humour.

The dancing went on again, and a second edition of supper followed. And then they began to depart-and I with them.

"Not yet! my dear friend-not yet!" said Tom; "our fun is to begin now." And he made me stay till all were gone but himself and his brother "masters," and three or four ballet-girls who had free tickets, and were 66 on the establishment," so to say.

We dived again into the supper-room, and hot punch became the order of the day. The young ladies drank it con gusto,-so did Tom Baggs. Tom was desperately attentive to a pretty dark-eyed little girl next him; and one of the other "masters" looked savagely on. My attention was turned elsewhere, when I was suddenly recalled to them by a heavy sound as of a man falling, and I beheld the fierce-looking little dancing master sprawling on the floor, and Tom standing up irate and warlike; he had just knocked the other down.

"And so I will marry her, you horrible little varmint," he cried, and he flung his arm round the little ballet-girl's waist, and gave her a squeeze fit to annihilate a bear.

This is getting serious, thought I, so I interposed, and at last led Tom away, still vowing to marry the ballet-girl to-morrow. to his lodgings, which were hard by, and left him.

I got him home Next day (or the same day, for the affair took place at four in the morning) I called to see him. To my surprise and disgust I found him out, and a small note left for me, stating that he had gone to get his marriage licence!

It was positively the fact, and he went with it to the little ballet-girl, and told her to prepare for her wedding the next morning.

"But-but "she said, "you 're dismissed, you know." "Dismissed!-how ?-where?"

"Boram says he shan't allow you to enter his doors again." "Ha! ha!" laughed Tom. "Well-what then?"

"How are you to keep a wife without your salary, pray?"

Oh, that's it, is it? so you're afraid of my not having enough to live on; you'd positively rather not marry me, eh? you don't-d—n it!" cried Tom, getting furious; you don't mean to say that you have

the cursed impudence to refuse me?'

"Thank you, sir," said the little one; "but I'd prefer to marry some one who can keep me like a lady."

Tom stared-looked bewildered-thrust on his hat-tried to feel fierce, but burst into a fit of laughter and left the house. And so he had lived to be rejected by a ballet-girl! Poor Tom !

He came and told me all about it, and I hardly knew whether he was most inclined to laugh or be angry. I left him and promised to see him on the morrow; but I have never seen him since, for he left his lodgings that night, and was heard no more of in town.

He worked his passage as captain's clerk to Australia-got aid from his father-started as a sheep-farmer-made a great deal of money— went to Sydney, where he drove four-in-hand, and did everything most absurd and extravagant, till he was ruined again! He is now at "the diggings," where he has picked up the sixth largest piece of gold ever found there; in fact he is making money so fast, that I fully anticipate his next "ruin" will be on the largest scale of any that he has yet suffered. Altogether, spite of scrapes and escapes, the happiest man I have ever known is Tom Baggs.

A VISIT TO THE BLUE AND WHITE NILES.*

Khartoum, in Soudan, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 1852. LITTLE is known in America of the geography and topography of this part of Central Africa. Few English travellers have made these regions the subject of their investigation, their attention having been principally directed toward the countries on the western coast. The Niger, in fact, has been for them a more interesting problem than the Nile. I can recall at present but two works in the English language which throw much light on Southern Nubia and Ethiopia-those of Bruce and Hoskins. Caillaud and Burckhardt have been translated, as well as Warne's late voyage on the White Nile, but the researches of Russegger and Rüppell, who have made important contributions to our knowledge of Eastern Soudan, are still sealed fountains to those unacquainted with the German tongue. A few words, therefore, concerning the character and relative position of the different countries of which I have occasion to speak, may make these sketches of African life and landscapes more intelligible to many readers. Besides, in Khartoum, I meet continually with persons who have made extensive journeys in various parts of Soudan, and have daily occasion of learning new and interesting facts.

As far as Southern Nubia, with the exception of the Oases in the Lybian Desert, the Nile is the only agent of productiveness. Beyond the narrow limits of his bounteous valley, all is red sand and naked rock, from the Red Sea to the Atlantic. On reaching lat. 19°, however, a change takes place in the desert landscapes. Here the tropical rains, which are unknown in Egypt and Northern Nubia, fall every summer, though in diminished quantity. The dry, gravelly plains, nevertheless, exhibit a scattering growth of grass and thorny shrubs, and springs are frequently found among the mountain ranges. As we proceed southward, the vegetation increases in quantity; the grass no longer keeps the level of the plain, but climbs the mountain-sides, and before reaching Khartoum, in lat. 15° 40′ N., we have passed the limit of the Desert. The wide plains stretching from here eastward to the Atbara, and westward beyond Kordofan, are savannas of rank grass, crossed here and there by belts of the thorny mimosa, and differing little in aspect from the plains of California during the dry season. The Arabs who inhabit them are herdsmen and own vast flocks of camels and sheep. The Nile here is no longer the sole river, and loses his title of "The Sea," which he owns in Egypt. The Atbara, which flows down to him from the Abyssinian Alps, has many tributaries of its own; the Blue Nile, between here and Sennaar, receives the large streams of the Rahad and the Dender; and the White Nile, though flowing for the greater part of his known course through an immense plain, boasts the important affluents-the Sobat and the Bahr el-Ghazal. The soil, climate, productions, and character of the scenery of this region are, therefore, very different from Egypt.

Before the conquest of Soudan by Mohammed Ali, little was known of the country between the Ethiopean Nile and the Red Sea, or of We are indebted to the New York " Weekly Tribune" for this interesting narrative.-ED.

Central Africa south of the latitude of Kordofan and Sennaar. The White Nile, it is true, was known to exist, but was considered as a tributary stream. It was extremely difficult and dangerous to proceed beyond Nubia, and then only in company with the yearly caravans which passed between Assouan and Sennaar. Ibrahim Pasha, Ismail Pasha, and Mohammed Bey Defterdar, between the years 1820 and 1825, gradually subjugated and attached to the rule of Egypt the countries of Berber, Shendy, and Sennaar, as far as the mountains of Fazogl, in lat. 11°, on the south-western frontier of Abyssinia, the wild domains of the Shukorees, the Biskarees, the Hallengas, and Hadendoas, extending to the Red Sea, and embracing the sea-port of Sowakin, and the kingdom of Kordofan, west of the Nile, and bounded by the large and powerful negro kingdom of Dar-Fur. The Egyptian possessions in Soudan are nearly as extensive as all Egypt, Nubia not included, and might become even richer and more flourishing under a just and liberal policy of government. The plains on both sides of the Nile might be irrigated to a much greater extent than in Egypt, and many vast tracts of territory given up to the nomadic tribes could readily be reclaimed from the wilderness. The native inhabitants are infinitely more stupid and degraded than the Fellahs of Egypt, but that they are capable of great improvement is shown by the success attending the efforts of the Catholic priests here in educating children. The terrible climate of Soudan will always be a drawback to its physical prosperity, yet even this would be mitigated, in some measure, were the soil under cultivation.

The territory to the east, toward and beyond the Atbara, is still in a great measure unexplored. Burckhardt was the first European who visited it, but his route lay among the mountain-ranges near and parallel to the coast of the Red Sea. The long chain of Djebel Langay, which he crossed, is three to five thousand feet in height, and, like the mountain-spine of the island of Ceylon, never has the same season on both sides at once. When it rains on the eastern slopes, the western are dry, and the contrary. There is another and still higher chain near the coast, but the greater part of this region consists of vast plains, tenanted by the Arab herdsmen, and rising gradually toward the south into the first terraces of the table-land of Abyssinia. The land of the Shukorees and the Hallengas, lying on both sides of the Atbara, is called Belad el Takka, Dr. Reitz, the Austrian Consul, visited it three months ago, in company with the military expedition under Moussa Bey, and travelled for three or four weeks through regions where no European had been before him. His account of the trip has interested me exceedingly, and I make no apology for giving an outline of it.

Leaving the town of Shendy, he travelled eastward for nine days over unbroken plains of grass, abounding with gazelles and hyenas, to a village called Gos Radjeb, on the Atbara River. This belongs to the Shukorees, against whom the expedition was in part directed. He then crossed the river, and travelled for two or three weeks through a broken mountain country, inhabited by the wandering races of the Hallengas and Hadendoas. The mountains, which were from two to three thousand feet in height, were crested with walls of naked porphyry rock, but their lower slopes were covered with grass and bushes, and peopled by myriads of apes. Between the ranges were many broad and beautiful valleys, some of which were inhabited. Here the vegetable and animal

world was far richer than on the Nile. The consul was obliged to follow the movements of the expedition, and therefore could not trace out any regular plan of exploration. After seeing just enough to whet his curiosity to penetrate further, Moussa Bey returned to Goz Radjeb. His route then followed the course of the Atbara, for a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, to the town of Sofie, on the Abyssinian frontier. The river, which is a clear and beautiful stream, has a narrow border of trees and underwood, and flows in a winding course through a region of low, grassy hills. By using the water for irrigation, the country, which is now entirely uncultivated, might be made very productive. The Shukorees possess immense herds of camels, and a hegin, or trained dromedary, which the consul purchased from them, is the strongest and fleetest I have seen in Africa.

Near Sofie the Savannas of grass give place to dense tropical forests, with a rank undergrowth which is often impenetrable. Here, in addition to the lion and leopard, which are common to all Soudan, the expedition saw large herds of the elephant and rhinoceros. The woods were filled with birds of brilliant plumage, and the vegetable world was rich and gorgeous beyond description. The consul remained but a short time here, and then travelled westward to the town of AbouHarass on the Blue Nile, visiting on the way a curious isolated mountain, called Djebel Attesh. Near Abou-Harass are the ruins of an ancient Christian town, probably dating from the fourth or fifth century, about which time Christianity, previously planted in Abyssinia, began to advance northwards towards Nubia. The consul obtained from the governor of Abou-Harass three iron crosses of a peculiar form, a number of beads which had belonged to a rosary, and a piece of incense -all of which were found in removing the bricks used to build the pasha's palace and other buildings in Khartoum. The room in which I am now writing is paved with the same bricks. These remains are in curious contrast with the pyramids of Meroe and temples of Mesawooràt. The Christian and Egyptian faiths, advancing towards each other, almost met on these far fields.

The former kingdom of Sennaar included the, and between the, two Niles-except the territory of the Shillooks-as far south as lat. 12°. It is bounded by Abyssinia on the east, and by the mountains of the savage Galla tribes, on the south. Djezeereh (island) el Hoye, as the country between the rivers is called, is for the most part a plain of grass. Towards the south, there are some low ranges of hills, followed by other plains, which extend to the unknown mountain country and abound with elephants and lions. The town of Sennaar, once the capital of this region and the residence of its meks or kings, is now of little importance. Those who have been there, describe it to me as a collection of mud huts, resembling Shendy. The Egyptian rule extends ten days' journey further, to Fazogl, where the fine timber in the mountains and the gold-bearing sands of Kasan occasion the establishment of a military post. Sennaar, as well as Kordofan, Berber, and Dongola, is governed by a bey, appointed by the Pasha of Soudan. It is only two weeks' journey thence to Gondar, the capital of Amhara, the principal Abyssinian kingdom. I am told that it is not difficult for merchants to visit the latter place, but that any one suspected of being a person of consequence is detained there and not allowed to leave again. I have a strong curiosity to see something of Abyssinia, and if