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THE RIVER TINTO.

The river Tinto rises in Sierra Morena, and empties itself into the Mediterranean, near Huelva, having the name of Tinto given it from the tinge of its waters, which are as yellow as a topaz, hardening the sand and petrifying it in a most surprising manner.  If a stone happen to fall in, and rest on another, they both become in a year’s time perfectly united and conglutiated.  This river withers all the plants on its banks, as well as the roots of trees, which it dyes of the same hue as its waters.  No kind of verdure will flourish where it reaches, nor any fish live in its stream.  It kills worms in cattle, when given them to drink; but in general no animals will drink out of the river, except goats, whose flesh, nevertheless, has an excellent flavour.  These singular properties continue till other rivulets run into it, and alter its nature; for when it passes by Niebla, it is not different from other rivers.  It falls into the Mediterranean six leagues lower down, at the town of Huelva, where it is two leagues broad, and admits of large vessels, which may come up the river as high as San Juan del Puerto, three leagues above Huelva.—­From a Correspondent.

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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

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THE GALLEY SLAVES.

About a mile distant from one of the southern barriers of Paris, a palace was built during our Henry the Sixth’s brief and precarious possession of French royalty, by the Bishop of Winchester.  It was known by the name of Winchester, of which, however, the French kept continually clipping and changing the consonants, until the Anglo-Saxon Winchester dwindled into the French appellation of Bicetre.  The Bishop’s old palace was treated as unceremoniously as his name, being burnt in some of the civil wars.  But there is this advantage in a sumptuous edifice, that its very ruins suggest the thought and supply the means of rebuilding it.  Bicetre, accordingly, reared its head, and is now a straggling mass of building, containing a mad-house, a poor-house, an hospital, and a prison.

To see it is a matter of trifling difficulty, except on one particular day—­that devoted to the rivetting of the chaine.  A surgeon, however, belonging to the establishment, promised to procure me admission, and on receiving his summons, I started one forenoon for Bicetre.  Mortifying news awaited my arrival.  The convicts had plotted a general insurrection and escape, which was to have taken place on the preceding night.  It had been discovered in time, however, and such precautions taken, as completely prevented even the attempt.  The chief of these precautions appeared in half a regiment of troops, that had bivouacked all night in the square adjoining