The wealth displayed in the shops of London is suitable to the metropolis of the world. In one you see heaps of silks, of the richest and most splendid patterns; and if you pause to note their infinite variety, you become at last surfeited and sickened with mere luxury. In another shop you see every species of jewelry――and rubies, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, cameos, and intaglios, are so rife, that you pass on, content that they are not yours. You come to a window, where gold and silver plate are stretched out before you in such profusion, that they almost look cheap and vulgar! In one window is a display of cutlery, so bright and so fancifully arranged, that it looks like the gaudy figures in a kaleidoscope; in another, there is such an assemblage of furs, that you draw a long breath, with a smothering sensation, just to look at it. Thus, as you pass on, one after another of these shops presents you with its treasures,――and all attended by every ingenious device, every suggestion of busy fancy, to set them off to the best advantage. There is a perpetual strife between the shopkeepers, to outshine each other: each one is desirous of obtaining notoriety, of catching the public eye, of securing a run of custom――in short, of being in the fashion and making a fortune, of course. Regent street, at night, seems like an illuminated city. The lights in the shop windows, arranged to display the goods, are exceedingly brilliant; yet they are generally hidden from the sight, while they throw the whole flood of their blaze upon the merchandise. The effect is truly beautiful,――and if any one desires to see the shops of London to the greatest advantage, let them visit Regent street in the evening. And one thing more――if a person wishes to save his money let him defer buying till he has been in London a month; by that time, he is likely to be so surfeited with splendor, as to feel weary of it. Fishes playing the Jewsharp. We have often a very queer story from the far South and West. It is a land of wonders; for there they have alligators fifteen feet long; rattlesnakes by the bushel; gallinippers as big as gad flies; birds that cry out at night, “Chuck-will’s-widow!” mocking birds that surpass the far-famed nightingale in song; pigeons in such abundance as to crush the forests; wild deer that stare you in the face from the bushes; bisons as abundant as cattle at Brighton; bears with claws five inches long; and men, and women too, as brave as Julius Cæsar.