made of stuff like me.

MR. ROOSEVELT'S DISCOVERIES.

Scrapping the Map in Brazil.

We are glad to be able to supplement with some further interesting details the meagre accounts of Mr. Roosevelt's explorations in Brazil which have appeared in the daily papers.

Not only did Mr. Roosevelt add to the map a new river nearly a thousand miles long, but he has discovered a gigantic mountain, hitherto undreamt of even by Dr. Cook, to which he has attached the picturesque name of Mount Skyscraper. The lower slopes were thickly infested with cannibals, whom Mr. Roosevelt converted from anthropophagy by a sermon lasting six hours and containing 300,000 words—almost exactly as many as are contained in Mr. de Morgan's new novel.

The middle regions are densely covered with an impenetrable forest inhabited by rhomboidal armadillos and gigantic crabs, to which Mr. Roosevelt has given the name of Kermit crabs, to commemorate the escape of his son, who was carried off by one of these monsters and rescued by a troglodyte guide after a desperate struggle. On emerging from the forest the travellers were faced by perpendicular granite crags, which they ascended on the backs of some friendly condors.... The summit proved to be an extensive plateau, the site of a prehistoric city, built of pedunculated wood-pulp. Lying among the ruins was a gigantic mastodon in excellent preservation, which Mr. Roosevelt brought down on his shoulders.

It was after the descent from Mount Skyscraper, which was accomplished in parachutes, that Mr. Roosevelt struck the new river, the upper parts of which were utterly unknown except to some wild rubber-necked Indians. In consequence of its character and size Mr. Roosevelt originally thought of calling it the Taft, but finally decided on the Rio Encyclopædia in virtue of its volume.

The journey was made in canoes and was full of incident. Descending the great Golliwog Falls Mr. Roosevelt's canoe was smashed to atoms, but the ex-President escaped with only slight injury to his eyeglasses, after a desperate conflict with a pliocene crocodile. The Encyclopædia River, as described by Mr. Roosevelt, resembles the Volga, the Hoang-ho and the Mississippi; but it is richer in snags and of a deeper and more luscious purple than any of them. Near its junction with the Mandragora it runs uphill for several miles, with the result that the canoes were constantly capsizing. The waters of Mandragora are of a curiously soporific character, while those of the River Madeira have a toxic quality which renders them dangerous when drunk in large quantities.

Mr. Roosevelt, it may be added, is shortly expected in London, when he will lecture before the Royal Geographical Society, Master Anthony Asquith having kindly consented to preside.

TO MY HUSBAND'S BANKER.

Dear Mr. S.,—We have been here a week, and I feel I really must write and thank you for what I can see is going to be the most lovely holiday.

It was ripping of you to let us come—for sending us, in fact. I can't think why more people don't do it—I mean travel when they can't afford it. Perhaps it is that all bankers aren't so good-natured as you are. I shall tell all my friends to come to you in future. Of course I shall only recommend the conscientious ones. We are being frightfully conscientious. For instance, when we arrived we purposely didn't go to a hotel some friends of ours were at because it was two francs a day dearer than one we found in Baedeker—though as I told Fred I don't believe you'd have grudged us the two francs a bit. The only thing I have on my conscience a little is that in Paris, where we stayed three days on our way out, we did go to rather good restaurants. But I had never been to Paris before, and I thought, when you knew that, you would quite approve, because first impressions are everything, aren't they? It is rather as if you were an invisible host everywhere we go. "Of course you will have a liqueur with your coffee, Mrs. Merrison?" I hear you say after dinner; and really, Grand Marnier (cordon jaune) is heavenly, isn't it?

Then we came on here, and, do you know, "The Birth of Venus" nearly made me cry when I first saw it, it's so beautiful. I shall never forget that it was you who introduced me to it, so to speak.

And isn't Pisa jolly?

Oh, there's just one other thing I wanted to tell you. Before we came away we gave a little farewell dinner to one or two of our most intimate friends. It came out of the travelling money; and I do feel you ought to have been asked too, when you were really our host. But you see I don't know you very well (except through your actions), and I thought that just possibly you might have felt a little out of it. But I want you very much to come and dine with us one night when we are home again. I think it is time we knew each other ever so much better.

Well, no more now as we are off to lunch. (How ridiculously cheap food is in Italy, isn't it?) We shall be home in three weeks, I expect. I wish we could stay longer, especially as it's really cheaper to stay here than to come home, now we are here. But we mustn't put too much strain on your hospitality.

THE SWASHBUCKLERS.

Tory Die-Hard. "DOWN WITH HOME RULE!"

Radical Extremist. "DOWN WITH ULSTER!"

John Bull. "THIS SORT OF THING MAY AMUSE YOU, GENTLEMEN, BUT I'VE NO USE FOR IT. I'M NOT GOING TO HAVE CIVIL WAR TO PLEASE EITHER OF YOU!"

HIGH ART.

Our very busiest Society Portrait Painter (who has rushed back to his studio after a luncheon in Park Lane). "I'm late, Mrs. Faulkner. Anybody come?"

Studio Caretaker. "Yes, Sir. I've already shown a lady up to the dressing-room."

Portrait