wealthy of the old or of the new world.  It speaks much in favour of the revolution, that this vice is sensibly diminishing in Peru, and to the unfortunate Monteagudo belongs the honour of having been the first to attempt its eradication.  A noted gambler was once as much an object of admiration in South America as a six-bottle man was in England fifty years ago.  The houses of the great were converted into nightly hells, where the priesthood were amongst the most regular and adventurous attendants.  Those places are now more innocently enlivened by music and dancing.  Buena Vista, a seat of the late Marquess of Montemira, six leagues from Lima, was the Sunday rendezvous of every fashionable of the capital who had a few doubloons to risk on the turn of a card.  On one occasion, a fortunate player, the celebrated Baquijano, was under the necessity of sending for a bullock car to convey his winnings, amounting to above thirty thousand dollars:  a mule thus laden with specie was a common occurrence.  Chorillos, a fishing town, three leagues south of Lima, is a fashionable watering place for a limited season.  Here immense sums are won and lost; but political and literary coteries, formerly unknown, daily lessen the numbers of the votaries of fortune.

So strong was this ruling passion, that when the patriot army has been closely pursued by the royalists, and pay has been issued to lighten the military chest, the officers, upon halting, would spread their ponchos on the ground, and play until it was time to resume the march; and this was frequently done even on the eve of a battle.  Soldiers on piquet often gambled within sight of an enemy’s advanced post.

Memoirs of Gen. Miller.

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THE NATURALIST.

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VOLCANIC ISLAND OF ST. CHRISTOPHER.

This island is entirely composed of volcanic matter, in some places alternating with submarine productions.  The principal mountain is situated at the western end of the island; it is an exhausted volcano, called in books of navigation, charts, &c., Mount Misery.  The summit of this mountain is 3,711 feet above the sea; it appears to consist of large masses of volcanic rocks, roasted stones, cinders, pumice, and iron-clay.  The whole extent of land, to the sea-shore on either side, may be considered as the base of this mountain, as it rises with a pretty steep ascent towards it; but from the part which is generally considered the foot of the mountain, it takes a sudden rise of an average angle of about 50 degrees.  To the east, another chain of mountains runs, of a similar formation, though of inferior height.  On the summits of these there are no remains that indicate their having ever possessed a crater:  so that whether any of them have originally been volcanoes, or whether they have been formed by an accumulation of matter thrown