254, ; MARTIN RATTLER.

yellowish colour naturally, and is blackened in the
course of preparation. Barney did not stay long
here. Shoemaking, he declared, was not his calling
by any means; so he seized the first opportunity he
had of joining a party of traders going into the in-
terior, in the direction of the diamond districts. The
journey was long and varied—sometimes by canoe
and sometimes on the backs of mules and horses—and
many extraordinary adventures did he go through
ere he reached the diamond mines; and when at
length he did so, great was his disappointment. In-
stead of the glittering caves which his vivid imag-
ination had pictured, he found that there were no
caves at all; that the diamonds were found by wash-
ing in the muddy soil; and, worst of all, that when
found they were dim and unpolished, so that they
seemed no better than any other stone. However, he
resolved to continue there for a short time, in order
to make a little money; but now that Martin had
arrived, he thought that they could not do better
than make their way to the coast as fast as possible,
and g@o to sea.

“ The only thing I have to regret,” he said, at the con-
clusion of his narrative, “is that I left Grampus behind
me. But arrah! I came off from the savages in such a

hurry that I had no time at all to tell him I was goin’!”