AFRICAN NURSE.


She was of a dark copper colour. In dress and countenance, very like one
of Captain Lyon's female Esquimaux. She was mounted on a long-backed
bright bay horse, with a scraggy tale, crop-eared, and the mane as if the
rats had eaten part of it; and he was not in high condition. She rode
a-straddle; had on a conical straw dish-cover for a hat, or to shade her
face from the sun, a short, dirty, white bedgown, a pair of dirty, white,
loose and wide trousers, a pair of Houssa boots, which are wide, and
came up over the knee, fastened with a string round the waist. She had
also a whip and spurs. At her saddle-bow hung about half a dozen gourds,
filled with water, and a brass basin to drink out of; and with this she
supplied the wounded and the thirsty. I certainly was much obliged to
her, for she twice gave me a basin of water. The heat and the dust made
thirst almost intolerable--_Clapperton's Travels._

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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

* * * * *


THE BOXES.

(_To the Editor of Blackwood's Magazine_.)