Here are strange-coloured rocks, and richest keel, in which lie bedded fossils of a former time; here grows our native shamrock, "rabbit clover" if you will, one of the stray oxalis plants that flourishes in shady nooks; here lichens fasten on dead trunks or spread themselves amongst the moss; while down below the seething punch pours into a dark hole, beneath a grimy arch of mud stained—snow; to rise again in tainted springs down in the murky gorge beyond.

The fascination of the scene leaves me; I am sated, and remember that I must climb out again; for though I be sometimes a dreamer, - stern duties await me;

I had a leisure hour; I enjoyed it heartily, but now I must to work again, - I must climb out, but how?

"Facilis est descensus Averni." but it is a different matter when one would leave the bowl; down showered rain and muddy snow to baffle every effort, dead branches broke at touch, my footing slipped; I thought of dripping caverns down below, where punch in puncheons surged beneath the snow; then, bending to my toil, I raised myself grimy and soaked, like gorgon from the pit, until above I breathed free air again, and found the silence sweeter than before, since new arriving songsters tuned their voice to swell their cheerful morning song "Rejoice."

JEREMIAH S. CLARK

NOTE. - The Devil‘s Punch-bowl received its name from a tradition related to me with fullest detail by the late William Hawkins. His father, John Hawkins, was hauling a puncheon of rum from Charlottetown to Darnley, by the Old Malpeque Road. It was before the days of "wheeled carriages," and Mr. Hawkins had the precious liquid lashed to the two drag-poles which were attached by a sort of collar to the horse's neck.

Imagine him, painfully dragging his load along over stumps and cradle—hills, past the seven-mile—house, ten—mile hill, Hazel Grove, and on until when he came to the turn in the road just above the Punch-bowl; here the lower drag—pole slipped into the hole, and, breaking away from its lashings, the puncheon of rum tumbled down the sheer precipice, crashing through the thick undergrowth, until it lay far down in the depths below. There are various traditions, but Mr. H. assured me that he often heard his father tell how he "swamped" a road around to the defile, and, taking his horse into the depths, loaded the unbroken hogshead single-handed, and went on his way to Darnley.

Evidently a council of demons had decreed that the stuff would accomplish its mission more directly if trucked to its destination than if poured out amongst the slime and creepy things of the horrible pit. Who shall say that Hawkins toiled unaided when he raised that ten—men's-load, and bound it to its place a century ago?

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EDITOR'S NOTE. - The original Devil's Punch Bowl is a lake in Ireland near the summit of Mangerton Mountain in County Kerry. It is five miles south of Killarney, which uses it as a water supply. The lake is thought to be the crater of an ancient volcano.

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