and prettily looped up in several places on the candle, the top being ornamented with a large and handsome bunch of artificial flowers. This candle was presented to the bride, who received it very passively, standing. After a little time another shouting of the boys at the door announced the approach of something else, when a parcel was brought and given into the hands of the bride's mother; a waiter was placed in a chair, and the woman opened the parcel placing the contents on the waiter. They consisted of a jacket or spencer of green silk velvet, embroidered with gold, a skirt of brass, a silk handkerchief striped with gold, about four yards of deep red sarsenet, and a crown of silver from the church, borrowed for the occasion. The other articles were presents from the bridegroom. They were first shown to the bride, who viewed them with as much indifference as if she had been a person wholly unconcerned; they were then shown to us all, and when this was over, a woman who presided, and was mistress of the ceremonies, took the bride by the hand and led her round the room to kiss all her relatives, and they wept, and she wept, and really it was quite an affecting time, you would have thought she was going to be buried rather than married to have seen the sad looks.

When she had bid them all good bye, she was led out and presently came back dressed in her new clothes, and was placed in a chair in the middle of the room, when two women pulled off her turban, took down her hair, and placed the silver crown upon her head. It was about the size and shape of a boy's black leather or cloth cap, large at the top; this was smaller in the head, as it was placed on the top of the head, and bound on tight with a red silk half-handkerchief, which was tied so tight under the chin as to be uncomfortable, I should think, to the poor girl. Over this was put the four yards of red silk, which hung to the floor before and behind, quite blinding the poor thing, and as the night was warm, all but smothering her. Over this veil was put the gold tinsel, confined by pins in the crown, and hanging to the floor on all sides; to complete the whole a tinsel band was put round the crown to make all fast, and in this was put the artificial flowers; so that when the dressing was finished, nothing was to be seen but a figure covered with silk and gold, and crowned with flowers. Thus arrayed, she was led to the sofa, and stood at one corner for half an hour or more. At last it was twelve o'clock, and then, exactly at "midnight there was a cry

made, Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him." Immediately the men set off to meet him, and he soon entered preceded by five or six priests. This custom of crying and shouting at the approach of the bridegroom struck me very forcibly, as it has probably been the usage ever since the days of our Saviour.

As soon as the bridegroom had come, the bride was led into the middle of the room, and their hands joined under the veil, while the priests chanted loud and long, something in Armenian which I did not understand. Then cakes of almonds and sugar, and some other sweets with coffee were given us, and a procession was formed for the church, the poor bride all the while smothering under a thick veil. At the church there was a long ceremony performed by the priests, the man and woman standing three quarters of an hour at least before the altar, while one and another of the priests read the marriage service, a man all the while holding over the heads of the two persons a small ivory cross, and the man holding the woman's hand and leaning his head against her crown. At last they closed by tying a string around the head of both. She did not go to the house of the bridegroom, as it was too late an hour.

THE HEATHEN MOTHER.

"Without natural affection, unmerciful.”—Rom. i. 31.

THE BOWchee people, says Mr. Lander, in his "Records of Captain Clapperton's Last Expedition to Africa," appear to have no affection for their offspring. They sell their children, as slaves, to the greatest strangers in the world, with no more remorse of conscience than if they were common articles of merchandise. The following touching scene took place at Fullindushie, whilst I was in the town.

A travelling slave-dealer, passing through the place, had purchased several of their children, of both sexes, from the inhabitants; and amongst others a middle aged woman had an only daughter, whom she parted with for a necklace of beads. The unhappy girl, who might have been about thirteen or fourteen years of age, on being dragged away from the threshold of her parents' hut, clung distractedly, like a shipwrecked mariner to a floating mast, round the knees of her unfeeling mother, and

looking up wistfully in her countenance, burst into a flood

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of tears, exclaiming with vehemence and passion, "O mother, do not sell me! What will become of me? What will become of yourself in your old age, if you suffer me to leave you? Who will fetch you corn and milk? Who will pity you when you die? Have I been unkind to you? O mother, do not sell your only daughter! I will take you in my arms when you are feeble, and carry you under the shade of trees. As a hen watches over her chickens, so will I watch over you, my dear mother. I will repay the kindness you showed me in my infant years. When you are weary I will fan you to sleep; and whilst you are sleeping I will drive away the flies from you. I will attend on you when you are in pain; and when you die I will shed rivers of sorrow over your grave. O mother! my dear mother! do not push me away from you; do not sell your only daughter to be the slave of a stranger!" Useless tears! Vain remonstrance! The unnatural, relentless parent, shaking the beads in the face of her only child, thrust her from her embraces; and the slave-dealer drove the agonized girl from the place of her nativity, which she was to behold no more.