Three months did both remain so sick,

The doctors said they both must die,

But doctors always have a trick Of saying so I'll tell you why! If you should really chance to kick,

They puff and praise their prophecy,

But if you mend, and cheat old Nick,

As some young fellows sometimes will,

Then 'twas "all owing to their skill!"

Buggins and Buxun both were sick,

"Twas strange they kept so long alive,

And stranger still how devilish quick

Some of the faculty contrive
To earth a patient-I know one
Once fairly slipt would fairly fox
him,

Give him at first a little run,
With p'rhaps a turn or two and
box him!

Not fight him-no-they pack him off, in

That long dark dismal case, a coffin.

As frisky as is that champagne Which vintners into bottles pour To be by us poured out again!

So met they and such joy attends The hour, that reckless of society Buggins, who now had shunned all friends,

'Shamed of his nasal nullibiety,* Thought there could be no impropriety

In fairly altogether taking
The Lady as his acting-wife,
Thus from his future prospects
shaking

The cares and charms of polished life.

So one bright day they met-and

after

Many caresses sweet and huggings, He, spite of former comrades' laughter,

Changed Buxun into Mrs. Buggins !!

In what cantonment of this clime This couple now may roam or dwell,

If he's a Sub still in his prime, Or Captain who has served his time,

* Nullibiety-the state of being no

where.

The Army List of course will tell; But if in marching to and fro From one dull station to another, As most at times are doomed to go, Should you get thro' the heat and smother

Of sun and dust, or 'scape the rains,

(How heartily one's soul disdains These Major Sturgeonish campaigns) Should you, about, Meet with a pair who have between them

I say, thus shoved

Only one tolerable snout And three good eyes-be sure you've seen them.

Him you would find with jacket soiled,

With stockings round his ankles coiled,

Cravatless, waistcoatless, and far Fatter than are most country skippers,

His chief joy smoking a cigar
In loose pace-jams and native
slippers,

His daily food a roasted fowl
And curry with Kotemeree in,
Washed down, with many a grunt
and growl,

With brandy, beer, and sometimes

gin.

Her, too, a little changed you'd find,

Her once plump rounded limbs, displaying

Huge rolls of fat before, behind Some sixteen stone at lowest weighing!

Her one-eyed face all darkly bloated

Smoking her becree, she'd appear Like him be-slippered and becoated,

As fond of brandy too and beer; Both so much like in dress and habits

That as with any pair of rabbits 'Tis hard, without examining, to know

Which is the buck and which the doe

So till you looked you could not guess

""Twixt Tinker and his Tinkeress. Oft have I heard when sportsmen

SIR,

I know not how far suitable to the purposes of your Magazine the correspondence I have the pleasure to send you may be, but if you think the letters would be agreeable to your readers, you are at liberty to publish them. I regret that I cannot find any scraps of the earlier ones alluded

to by my friend John in the commencement of his first epistle : what I now forward were copies of those he sent to England, and which, at my request, he left with me, to do what I pleased with. His second letter gives a curious and characteristic account of Fox, Hog, and Tiger Hunting, and as he has now gone with his master

to Guzerat, I shall no doubt have something from that quarter to communicate equally amusing. I chanced to be at Poona when John arrived, and a more extraordinary figure I never beheld. A little dapper chap, about 5ft. 3 in., nearly twenty-two years old, with a vacant red face like a ball on a gatepost, now and then relieved from actual stupidity by the twinkle of his keen, grey, real Yorkshire eye, with a nose as flat as a dump, and a mouth like the lid of a teapot.

Yours obediently,

No. 1.

S. Y. S.

Poonur, Jooly, 1828.

DEAR BROOTHER ROOGER,

I sent you, as you must know by this time, a longish, tightish letter from Deel, nearly half a year ago or thereabouts, just to tell you I was all ready to leave ould England, and what's more, to leave Yorkshire too. I shan't say nothing of leaving Phoebe Harper-cause why ?-you knows all about that-I can't think the young un's mine-for he squints woundily, and has a carroty pole I also wrote to say I was main sorry for the roompus 'twixt feyther and I, and as he and me couldn't draw together, and you and sister seem'd to be of opinion that I was to bleame, I took the desperate resolution of leaving home and all friends, and seeing outlandish parts.

Well; so hearing from Mister Smartum, feyther's Lunnun friend, that a friend o' his'un, called Mister Doolittle, who was in Hinjee, had wrote to him to get him a jockey to ride his race-'orses for un, I offered for the situation and was accepted.

I also wrote from the Kape o' Good Hope and tould you what a

VOL. I.

charming pleace it be where sheep's tails weighs a matter o' six poonds each, and a penny goes for tuppence. I also said some'ut funny about the Ottypot girlsbut don't you tell Phoebe. So now I writes agen, and hoping this will find you in good health as it does me, I have now got to tell you all about my adventures like. First and foremost,

you must know that I be head groom to a gentleman who is vastly vond of 'orses and dogs, and varmint o' all sorts, and concatenations o' all kinds. Our agreement was that I was to ride his race-'orses for un, and to make myself useful as many ways as I could vind means; and he was to give me bed, board, lodging and washing, and sixtynine poonds a-year.

Accordingly I've zeed all the sights of Hinjee in company with Measter, but I tells you the solemn truth, 'tis always so violent 'ot in these parts that I never could look at 'em coolly enough to remember 'em-so I don't intend troubling you with my travels, because why, not remembering much, I couldn't have very much to say. Howsever, I may as well tell you my idears of the cattle they use here and the rum koind o' hunting they goes arter, just that you may toll Phoebe and our friends in Tadcaster what a queer set of chaps I have got amongst. I first fell in with 'em at a pleace called Poonur, where I am at this present writing. Maybe Mister Smartum knows it-'tis a very funny pretty village, all stuck full of little dobs o' white and yallur houses and tiny bits o' gardinsbut maybe you'd like to know more about it, for there's a deal o' sporting going on, and a very pleasant neighbourhood it is-if so be then that you are at all curious I'll write you a description in my next, but I shall now only tell

F

you about my present purticklur toppic, which, as I said afore, is only on account of their 'orses and dogs.

In this purdicament I shan't say nothing neither of my landing at a place called Bumbay,-and ecod my Yorkshire nose soon told me why they gave it that out-o'-theway kind o' name. No more I shan't describe how they poked me into a long black-and-greenlooking box and carried me on black slaves' shoulders to a kiver'd boat full of black folks.-I never

seed sich a power of negerses in all my life-for my part I think there's no end on 'em-and marcy on us, they runs about, brother Rooger, almost naked like, with a big clout on their woolly heads and only a dirty rag to cover their roompti-iddities.

Well, Rooger, I was landed agen in 4 or 5 hours, and the black sarvents told the black landlord of the inn to give me some'ut to eat, and he giv'd me a nasty mess o' yallur looking stuff with bits of meat in it (I know since they calls it Kurry) and a heap of rice; and lord, lord! it was as 'ot as Ould Nick's best parlur-it burnt my mouth and my throat all the way down to my naval, and all they gived me to squench the fire with was a bottle of ale as bitter as gaul.

Well, Rooger, on we went agen, and arter many weary hours' jolting and jumbling about I got to Poonur, and mortal tired I was. Mr. Doolittle was at home, and in I went. Measter was setting with his legs on the table, and three or four more gentlemen were keeping him company, wi' their feet on the top of the table too-all dress'd in white barber's jackets, and all smoking sigars, and all with a rummer of spirits and water before 'em.

They was talking very loud of

I

racing and race-'orses, and making of bets, when I come into the room. I made my leg, and then they stopped, and one on 'um saysho! you be John Dockery I presume, and he noggled his head as much as to say, aun't I right. So I niggled my head, and says, yes, sur, and you be Mister Doolittle, spoze-then they all laugh'd and Measter wink'd his eye as much as to say "that's a cute guess "— but bless you, Rooger, you niver in all your born days zeed sich a cruel stick of a man as Measter was. He had a long thin yallur oker feace, wi' a nose like the handle of a can, running like the serpentine river all over his cheeks, reddish rimm'd eyes, like a fish's, and a mouth (as Bill Bull of our town used to say of yours) like an Almanack, 'cause it went from ear to ear. He was very tall, and as thin as a threadpaper, and sich poker legs!-they'd the thickest ends down'ards.

Well, arter all perliminaries and drinking a drop of spirits, Measter told me I had just coom in the nick of time, as he wanted me to ride his famous 'orse Zigzag the next morning-a great match-so I told him I was quite agreeable, and went to bed arter a light supper on cold mutton, 'ot purtaties, pickled inions, and brandy and water. But dear heart, not a wink o' sleep could I get, tho' I squeezed my eyes together as tight as wax, but the divil was in the flies I think, for they kept buz, buzzing about me all night, and the nats bit me a mortal sight worse than all the bugs in Tadcaster ever did-and you knows, Rooger, we hadn't a very few on 'em there neither.

Well, next morning a black man made motions for me to get up-so I dresses myself and goes down to the stable to look at the nags, and there, by Goles, I found

Measter, as white as a candle; and John, says he, I don't half like the looks of Zigzag this morning-which be he, says I, for all I saw was ponies. Why, that un's he that brown un, says Measter, and niver was 1 SO woundily astonished. Lord a marcy, for to think for to send all the way to Yorkshire for me for to mount such a thing as that-'twas a purty leetle creatur to look atbut quite a pony like-well, I was fit to cry to think of riding such a tom-cat of a racer arter what I have crossed. Howsoever, I gulped it all down and says nothing more, and Measter drived me down in his gig to the Course, and then I saw a little long oldfashion'd three-corner'd looking house with some few gentlefolks riding about in front of it and some white ladies inside-all the rest of the congregation were black gentlemen and ladies.

Arter some time passed in weighing, during which I heard lots of folks talking of me as a European and regler-bred Jockey, and so on, we went to the starting post, and main glad I was to see all the other racers just as leetle creatures as Zigzag, and all with black jockies on 'em-this gave me 'art-off we went without a false start the negers' legs going as fast as the 'orses'-and I soon heard 'em all larruping away like smoke. Well, Rooger, I know'd nothing of my nag-but Measter said he had more speed than bottom-so I kept a steady pull, you knows my way, Rooger, never challenging a foot for a mile and a half, but cotching 'em up at the two mile starting-post, I gave 'em the Doncaster double at the turn

in, and won, as people said, cleverly.

Well, but now, Rooger, open your eyes and laugh as I did, and felt fit to do worse. Arter the heat

was over, what did Measter do, but as sure as flour's in puddens he vips the poor animal's fore legs into a tub of saltpeter and water, on purpose, he said, to cool un, and to make un fresh-'twas enough to give him his death o' cold, and so I told un, but no, he said he know'd what he was about, and then he drench'd the horse with a pint of beer and a nutmeg in it.

What would they say in Yorkshire to all this? Only to think of the funny ways of foreign parts! Oh! Rooger, Rooger, I'll tell you more on 'em by-and-bye, but whether their saltpeter work be right or 'rong for Hinjee 'orses I haven't yet been long enough with 'em to know, but I'm sartin sure it wou'd ruin every bit o' 'orseflesh in Yorkshire.

I an't got room for any noos in this letter, but I'll write again soon, for Measter is vastly koind and I ain't got nothing to do only to see the black grooms clean the cattle, at which to be sure they be cruel aukard as soon as I can speak the black language I'll show 'em how to do the thing properly-poor divils, when their measters goes out a riding they always vollows 'em avoot.

In my next I'll tell you all about a fox-hunt I went to-sich a fox and sich a hunt!-ecod how you will laugh-and feyther'll split his sides-at least I know I was ready to bust.

Give my duty and loving kindness to ould feyther-God bless him-I forgive him the thoomp o' the head and the kick o' the youknow-what, he giv'd me and kind love to sister, and remain, dear Rooger,

Your dutiful brother,
JOHN DOCKERY.

Give my love to Phoebe Harpur-has she got married yet—I