MISCELLANEA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 149, 12 November 1853, Page 9

MISCELLANEA.

England v. France.—English armies for one hundred and twenty years ravaged France ; but England has not seen the fires of the French camp since the battle of Hastings. English troops have twice taken the French capital; an English king was crowned at Paris; a French king rode captive through London; a French king died in English captivity, and his remains were surrendered by English generosity. Twice the English horse marched from Calais to the Pyrenees, once from the Pyrenees to Calais; the monuraents-of Napoleon in the French capital at this moment owe their preservation from German revenge to an English general. All the ■great-disasters and days of mourning for France since -the- bjutle of Hastings, —Cressy, Poictiers,

Agincourt, Blenheim, Oudeuarde, Ramillies, Malplaquet, Minden, Dettingen, Quebec, Egypt^Talavera, Salamanca, Vittoria, Orthes, the Pyrenees, Waterloo, —were gained by English generals, and won for the most part by English soldiers. Even at Fontenoy the greatest victory over England of which France can boast since Hastings, every regiment of the French army was, on their own admission, routed by the terrible English column, and victory was snatched from its grasp solely by want of support on the part of the Dutch andAustrians. No coalition against France has ever been successful in which England did not take a prominent part; none, in the end, has failed inganingits object in which she stood foremost in the fight. This fact is so apparent on the most superficial survey of history, that it is admitted by the ablest French historians, though they profess themselves unable to explain it.— Alison.

The Cobra be Capella.— Superstition of the Siamese. —The deadly cobra de capella has a way of adopting to himself and family the newly raised structure of the white ants. And when lodged, he is as a sacred object, daintily fed by the Siamese. White ants, in hordes innumerable, with amazing alacrity, sometimes in the course of a single night, raite up a fabric for their own habitations, and to serve as warehouses for their winter provisions of food, often more than two feet high and full twelve feet in diameter. These ant hills are pierced with an innumerable number of holes each hole leading to a different department or suite of chambers. On first being raised, this mould of earth is of a very fragile nature, and easily demolished ; but a few days' baking in the sun makes it so hard and strong as to be quite proof against the heaviest showers of rain, and to resist many a hard blow from a pickaxe. But before it assumes this consistence, the wary cobra, who is on the look-out for nice airy apartments for his wife and expected family, cooly takes possession of the ant-hill, and while it is yet in a mouldable condition, carves out for himself a large space, in which he thenceforward takes up his position. The moment this unwelcome intruder presents himself, the ants decamp, leaving him in undisturbed possession of their labours. Whenever a Hindoo or a native of Chanti Boon observes one of these mounds erected in a place unpleasantly close to his own domicile, he carefully watches it. If he can trace symptoms jof the cobra having entered into possession, then he and his neighbours instantly set to work to construct a strong fence all round it, which is so thickly set with thorn bushes as to render egress impossible. The snake has no chance of escaping without being impaled, and would consequently die of starvation were it not for the superstitious creed of its incarcerators. These latter make it a religious point of duty to supply the venomous brute each mornin°with milk and eggs and other similar dainties', and in the course of a week or ten days, the snakes, male and female, become so accustomed to regular hours, that, punctual to the minute, they may be seen peeping out of their respective holes, in quiet expectation of their breakfast; and in a very short time they will, without evincing any signs of fear, come forth and partake of the good things set down to them in the presence of ever so many spectators. So much for the belief in the transmigation of souls—a creed highly beneficial to snakes and other nauseous reptiles, who but for this, as the population spreads in the east, would be in the course of time utterly exterminated. Both Siamese and Indians have a strange notion with regard to snails : they pretend to be able to track a snake by them," for," say they, " they are the snake's water carriers, and whenever you see the track of a snail on the ground, he sure that the cobra is not far off."— Life in Siam. Declivity of Rivers.—A very slight declivity suffices to give running motion to water. Three inches per mile, in a smooth, straight channel gives a velocity of about three miles an hour. The Ganges, which gathers the waters of the-Himilaya Mountains, the loftiest in the world, is, 1,800 miles from its mouth, only about 800 feet from the level of the sea—about twice the height of St. Paul's, in London, or the height of St. Arthur's seat, in Edinburgh—and to fall these 800 feet in its long course, the water requires more than a month. The great river Magdelena, in South America, running' for 1000 miles between two ridges of the Amies, falls only 500 feet in all that distance : above

the commencement of the 1000 miles, it is seen descending in rapids ami Ciilaracts from the mountains. The frantic Kio de hi Plata lias so gentle a descent to the ocean, that in Paraguay, 1600 miles from its mouth, large ships are seen which have sailed against the current all the wav by the force of the wind alone— that is to say, which, on the beautifully inclined plane of the stream, have been gradually lifted by the soft wind, and even against the current, to an elevation greater than that of our loftiest spi:es.— Arnott's Physics.