of Wight.  Let thy taste be ever so fastidious, there it may be gratified.  If thou art in love with sentimental ease and elegance, take up thy residence amongst the library-visiting fashionables at Ryde—­if thou hast a taste for the terrific and sublime, thou canst meditate amidst the solemn and sea-worn cliffs of Chale, and regale thine ears with the watery thunders of the Black Gang Chine—­if any veneration for antiquity lights up thy feelings, enjoy thy dream beneath the Saxon battlements of Carisbrooke, and poetize amidst the “sinking relics” of Quam Abbey—­if geology is thy passion, visit the “wild and wondrous” rocks of Freshwater, where thou canst feast thine eyes with relics of the antediluvian world, and enrich thy collection with shells of every hue—­if thou longest to dissolve thy heart in pastoral tears, a la Keates, adjourn to Arreton, the sweetly secluded scene of the “Dairyman’s Daughter;” where thou mayest “with flowers commune;” or if thou hast the prevailing characteristics of a cheerful citizen, take up thy abode amongst the life-cherishing bon-vivants of Newport—­but, above all, forego not the pleasures of a Cowes Regatta! * * H.

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MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.

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ELEPHANT HUNT.

A medical officer, in a recent letter from Hambantotti says, I have just returned from beholding a sight, which, even in this country, is of rare occurrence, viz. an elephant hunt, conducted under the orders of government.  A minute description (though well worth perusal) would be far too long for a letter; I shall therefore only give you what is usually called a faint idea.

Imagine 2,000 or 3,000 men surrounding a tract of country six or eight miles in circumference, each one armed with different combustibles and moving fires; in the midst suppose 300 elephants, being driven towards the centre by the gradual and regular approach of these fires, till at last they are confined within a circle of about two miles; they are then driven by the same means into a space made by the erection of immense logs of ebony and other strong wood, bound together by cane, and of the shape (in miniature) of the longitudinal section of a funnel, towards which they rush with the greatest fury, amidst the most horrid yells on the approach of fire, of which they stand in the greatest dread.  When enclosed they become outrageous, and charge on all sides with great fury, but without any effect on the strong barricado; they at last gain the narrow path of the enclosure, the extreme end of which is just large enough to admit one elephant, which is immediately prevented breaking out by strong bars laid across.  To express their passion, their desperation, when thus confined, is impossible; and still more so, to imagine the facility and admirable contrivance by which they are removed