“I landed a fortnight ago, sir,” said he, with something of triumph in his voice, “and a happy home I found waiting for me! I haven’t a friend or a relation left in the world. My father’s absconded, my mother’s dead, my brother-in-law’s ruined, and my sister gone into a mad-house!” It sounded melancholy enough, yet I felt convinced the man reaped some unaccountable consolation from his pre-eminence in misfortune, admired his own endurance, and was proud of his power to carry so heavy a weight. Custom, no doubt, in these as in all other inflictions, will do much to lighten the load. There is a training of the mind, as of the body, to bear and to endure. With wear and tear the heart gets hardened like the muscles, and the feelings become blunted by ill-usage, just as the skin grows callous on an oarsman’s hands. There is some shadow of truth in the fallacious story of him who carried a calf every day till it became a cow. None of us know what we can do till we try; and there are few but would follow the example of the patient camel, and refuse to rise from the sand, if they knew how heavy a weight is to be imposed on them ere they can reach the longed-for diamond of the desert, gushing and glittering amongst the palms! It is fortunate for us that the packages are not all piled up at once. Little by little we accustom ourselves to the labour as we plod sullenly on with the tinkling caravan, ignorant, till too late to turn back, of the coming hardships, the endless journey, or the many times that cruel _mirage_ must disappoint our fainting, thirsting spirits ere we reach the welcome resting-place where the cool spring bubbles through its fringe of verdure—where we shall drink our fill of those life-bestowing waters, and stretch ourselves out at last for long, unbroken slumbers under the “shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”