It would have saved Mr Downs some trouble and suffering if he had yielded to the impulse, and expended half-an-ounce of lead upon Blacksnake, who, about a week later, sneaks up, with two companions, to the trapper's pine-log fire, and shoots the unfortunate Joe, but is shot down himself, the very next moment, by Jonathan Romer, whose double-barrel settles two of the murderers, and then descends with crushing force upon the cranium of the third. Joe not being dead, although very badly wounded, his young companion conveys him to a cave, whose hidden entrance the trapper had revealed to him the previous day, and there tends him till he is able to bear removal. With his committal to the hands of a village surgeon, Mr Romer's backwoods adventures terminate, a source of regret to the reader, since they are more lively and attractive than some subsequent portions of the book, evidently deemed by the author more interesting and important, and therefore dwelt upon at greater length. Indeed it is our opinion that the author of _Kaloolah_ is mistaken, as young authors constantly are, in the real scope and nature of his own abilities, and that he would shine much more in a novel of backwoods life, or nautical adventure, than in the mixed style he has selected for his first attempt, which is a sort of mosaic, distinguished rather for variety and vividness of colour than for harmony and regularity of design. Jonathan reaches home in time to receive the last adieu of his mother, a worthy but eccentric old lady, who had fitted out her son, on his departure for school, with a winding-sheet, amongst other necessaries, that he might be buried decently should he die far from his friends, and that he might be reminded of his mortality as often as he emptied his trunk. It was a curious conceit, but, as Jonathan observes, she was from Nantucket, and they are all queer people there, and filial affection induced him long to preserve the shroud. Mrs Romer dead, her son applies to the study of surgery, gets himself into trouble by a body-snatching exploit, has to levant to New York, and there, finding he is still in danger from the friends of the disinterred corpse, who have set the police upon his track, ships himself on board the fine fore-topsail schooner, "Lively Anne," bound for the Western Islands, and commanded by Captain Coffin, an old shipmate of his father's. In this smart little craft, he sees some country and more water, until, upon the voyage from the Azores to Malaga, a white squall or a waterspout--which of the two he could never ascertain--capsizes the schooner and dashes him senseless down the hatchway, whence he was just emerging, in alarm at the sudden uproar on deck. On recovering himself, he finds the vessel dismasted, the deck swept of all its fixtures, and the captain and crew missing. Doubtless they had been hurled into the waves by the same terrible force that had shattered the bulwarks and carried away boats, casks, and galley.