[1] On mentioning this circumstance of the dish of stewed snakes some months later to friends of mine in China, they insisted that I must have been mistaken, as none of the South Sea Islanders were snake-eaters. But that some of the tribes do eat snakes has been amply proved since by Mr. C. M. Woodford, who visited the Solomon Group of Islands several times, and lived for months on some of the smaller islands. It appears that it is only certain tribes who eat the snakes; and they are held in contempt by the other tribes who do not use snakes. After my friends so persistently averred that I was mistaken, I came to that conclusion myself; but now I have no longer a doubt that I partook of boiled snake on that memorable day, and, as far as I remember, I found it a toothsome dish, but I bar the oil it was cooked in. That oil, I believe, was made from the blubber of shark.--THE AUTHOR. _Old Stone Signs of London._ THOUGH the predictions of John Dryden were not always fortunate, one stanza in the "Annus Mirabilis," 1666, which refers to the future of London City, may here be appropriately quoted:-- "More great than human now and more August, New deified she from her fires does rise: Her widening streets on new foundations trust, And, opening, into larger parts she flies." It may be observed that Augusta was the Roman name for London. Now of the old stone signs of London yet extant, one or two only bear date anterior to the Great Fire. Many of those which still remain, fixed either on the outside walls or within the houses they originally marked, are undated, but their age may be guessed with a tolerable degree of accuracy. It is also known that the custom of denoting houses by carved stone signs built into the outer walls did not come into general use until the rebuilding of the city subsequent to the year 1666. The inconvenience of the old swinging signs, which blocked the daylight, and which, by their creaking noises, made day and night alike hideous, had long been felt--nay, more, their danger to passers-by, when wind and decay had caused a downfall, had been not a few times painfully apparent. Hence the Act of Charles II., which forbade swinging signboards, was both wise and salutary. The signboards, however, died hard, and prints as late as the middle of the eighteenth century show the streets full of them. But signs had their use in those days of unnumbered streets, and it was not until the numbering of the houses was enforced that the quaint, historic, and, in some cases, even highly artistic, landmarks vanished.