LESSON 1. 
THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. 
   The Canadian Pacific Railway runs across Canada, from Quebec and St. John in the east, to Vancouver in the west.  The cost of making this great line was heavy; but the usefulness of the line to Canada will more than repay the expense. 
 It was opened in 1886, and since then many English people have passed oven it on their way to Australia, this route being shorter than that by the Suez Canal. But the chief value of the railway is, that it enables farmers to send their produce to markets far away. 
   In the summer.  passengers from England land at Quebec.  In the winter, the St. Lawrence is frozen, and ships go into Halifax harbor, or into that of St. John in New Brunswick, and thence to Montreal by train. 
 The journey from Montreal to Vancouver may be made in one train, with no change, and only a few stops.  The carriages, or cars as they are called, are finely fitted up and very comfortable.  They ought to be comfortable, for the passengers have to live in them for nearly a week. 
   There are sleeping cars and dining cars, as well as parlor cars.  All are warmed in winter with hot-water pipes.  News from all over the world, received by wire at the stopping places, is posted up in them everyday, to interest the passengers. 
   After leaving Montreal, the line runs through the valley of the Ottawa, and past Ottawa, the capital of Canada.  Then its course lies through the vast forests of Ontario.  Here and there, middle by settlers, are cleanings which flash past the train like moving pictures of forest life. 
   Along the northern shore of lake Superior the line runs below great cliffs, or on ledges carved out of them.  Here one may look out over the blue waters, and see the ships that navigate the lake.  From Superior, 400 miles of forest, with sparkling streams, stretch to Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba. 
 Next, the train rolls along over a thousand miles of prairie.  On each side there are vast fields of wheat and oars.  Instead of the buffaloes, with long horns and shaggy heads, that once roamed here, there are now sleek, smooth cattle, or useful sheep. 
   After leaving the prairie the train passes through dense forest.  Then the snowy peaks of the Rocky mountains rise in sight.  If you wish to see as much of these as possible, there is a special car you may enter for that purpose. 
   A few hundred feet above the line are huge fields of snow.  The train glides over lofty bridges, beneath which arc mountain torrents fed by waterfalls dropping from terrible heights.  In the hollows between the mighty peaks are miles of glaciers, with ice hundreds of feet thick.  From them flow streams that in the plains become great rivers. 
   Two more ranges -- the Selkirk and the Gold ranges -- are passed.  Here begins beautiful hill and lake country of British Columbia.  The river Fraser flows at the bottom of narrow clefts, or canons, through which the railway line runs on ledges hewn out of the rock. 
   A few more miles across a plain, and Vancouver is reached on the west coast.  From Quebec the journey is about 3000 miles.  Passengers for Australia, China, Japan will find ships here.  Gold-miners bound for Klondyke may also here take 
ship for the first part of their hard journey. 

LESSON 2. 
BOSTON. 
   Boston, the chief city and port of New England, is one of the most celebrated cities of the world.  Situated on Massachusetts Bay, it has a magnificent harbor, which has enabled Boston to become a seaport of the first importance.  From it the goods manufactured in New England, and in Boston itself, are shipped to New York and the other ports of America, as well as to Great Britain and the ports of Continental Europe. 
   Boston is stately city of some half million inhabitants.  In appearance it is more like a European than an American town.  American towns, as a rule, are extremely regular, the streets running at right angles to each other, so as to break the city up into blocks, like the squares of a chess-board.  But in Boston the streets have followed the lines of the early road, and the irregularity of the result gives the city a comfortable, home-like appearance, that is wanting elsewhere in the United States. 
   Boston is historically interesting.  In the harbor took place the incident, known as the "Boston Tea Party," that opened the American War of Independence.  The British government had put a tax upon tea.  The colonists, to show their displeasure refused to let tea be landed, and ordered all ships laden with tea to leave.  At Boston three tea-ships, that did not leave, were boarded by a party of fifty men, disguised as Indians, and the tea was emptied from the holds into the harbor. 
   Bunker's Hill, the scene of one of the first memorable fights of the war, is at Boston.  The colonists bravely held the hill against British infantry during a long day, but at last the British, angry at being repulsed, set their teeth and fixed their bayonets, and, marching steadily up the hill in face of a withering fire, cleared the colonists out at the point of the bayonet.  Among the many deeds of determined daring done by the English army, there is none that shows better the mettle of the British soldier than the taking of Bunker's Hill. 
   Near to Boston is Cambridge, the seat of Harvard University, the famous university of the United States.  Boston is proud of her university, and proud to be thought a city of learning.  She likes to think that many of the great men of the States have been educated, or have lived, within her borders. 
                 From The Illustrated Continental Readers. 

LESSON 3. 
THE EVENING BELLS. 
Those evening bells I those evening bells! 
How many a tale their music tells 
Of youth, and home, and that sweet time, 
When last I heard their smoothing chime.
Those joyous hours are passed away; 
And many a heart that then was gay, 
Within the tomb now darkly dwells, 
And hears no more those evening bells. 
And so 'twill be, when I am gone: 
That tuneful peal will still ring on, 
While other bards shall walk these dells, 
And sing your praise, sweet evening bells!
Thomas Moore

LESSON 4.
THE SPIRIT OF SELP-SACRIFICE. -- 1. 
   It was a calm, sunny day in the year of 1750, the scene, a piece of forest land in the north of Virginia, near a noble stream of water.  Implements of surveying were lying about, and several men reclining under the tree indicated by their dress and appearance that they were engaged in laying out the wild kinds of the country.  
   These persons had just finished their dinner.  Apart from the group walked a young man of a tall and compact frame who moved with the firm and steady tread of one accustomed to constant exercise in the open air.  His face wore a look of decision and manliness not usually found in one so young, for he was but little over eighteen years of age.  Suddenly there was a shriek, then another, and then several more in rapid succession! 
   At the first scream, the youth turned his head in the direction of the sound, but when it was repeated, he pushed aside the undergrowth, and soon dashed into an open space on the banks of the stream, where stood a small log-cabin.  As the young man broke from the undergrowth, he saw his companions crowded together on the banks of the river, while in their midst stood a woman, from whom proceeded the shrieks he had heard.  She was held by two of the men, but was struggling to free herself.   
   The instant the woman saw the young man, she exclaimed, 'Oh, sir, you will do something for me! Make them release me.  My boy, my poor boy, is drowning, and they will not let me go!' 
   'It would be madness; she will jump into the river;' said one of the men; 'and the rapids would dash her to pieces in a moment!'  
 The youth had scarcely waited for these words; for he remembered the child, a bold little boy four years of age, whose beautiful blue eyes and flaxen ringlets made him a favorite with everyone.  He had been accustomed to play in the little enclosure before the cabin; but the gate having been left open, he had stolen out, reached the edge of the bank, and was in the act of looking over, when his mother saw him. 
   The shrieks he uttered only hastened the accident she feared; for the child, frightened at the cry of his mother, lost his balance and fell into the stream, which here went foaming and roaring along among rocks and dangerous rapids.  Several of the men approached the edge of the river, and were on the point of springing in after the boy.  But the sight of the sharp rocks crowding the channel, the rush and whirl of the waters, and the want of any knowledge where to look for the child, deterred them.  
   Not so with the noble youth.  His first act was to throw off his coat; his next to spring to the edge of the bank.  Here he stood for a moment, running his eyes rapidly over the scene below, taking in with a glance the different currents and the most dangerous of the rocks.  He had scarcely formed his conclusion, when he saw in the water a white object, which he knew was the boy's dress ; and then he plunged into the wild and roaring rapids.  
   'Thank God, he will save my child!' cried the mother, 'there he is ! Oh, my boy, my darling boy! How could I leave you!' Everyone had rushed to the brink of the precipice, and were now following with eager eyes the progress of the youth, as the current bore him onward, like a feather in the power of a hurricane.  Now it seemed as if he would be dashed against a projecting rock, over which the water flew in foam, and a whirlpool would drag him in, from whose grasp escape would appear impossible.

LESSON 5.
THE SPIRIT OF SELF-SACRIFICE. -- 2. 
   At times the current bore him under, and he would be lost to sight, then in a few second he would come to the surface again.  Thus struggling amid the rocks and angry waters, was the noble youth borne onward, eager to succeed in his perilous undertaking.  Oh, how that mother's straining eyes followed the struggling youth!  How her heart sank when he went under, and with what joy she saw him emerge again from the waters, and, flinging the waves aside with his strong arms, struggle on in pursuit of her boy!  
   The youth now appeared to redouble his exertions, for they were approaching the most dangerous part of the river.  The rush of waters at this spot was tremendous, and no one ventured to approach it, even in canoe, lest he should be dashed to pieces. 
   What then, would be the youth's fate unless he soon overtook the child?  He seemed fully sensible of the increasing peril, and now urged his way through the foaming current with a desperate strength.  Three times he was on the point of grasping the child when the waters whirled the prize from him.  
The third effort was made just as they were entering within the influence of the current above the falls; and when it failed, the mother's heart sank within her, and she groaned, fully expecting the youth to give up his task.  But no; he only pressed forward the more eagerly; and, as they breathlessly watched, amid the boiling waters, they saw the form of the youth following close after that of the boy.  
   And now both pursuer and pursued shot to the brink of the falls.  An instant they hung there, distinctly visible amid the foaming waters.  Every brain grew dizzy at the sight!  But a shout burst from the spectators, when they saw the child held aloft by the right arm of the youth -- a shout that was suddenly changed into a cry of horror, when they both vanished into the raging waters below.  
   The mother ran forward, and stood gazing with fixed eyes at the foot of the falls. Suddenly she cried, 'There they are!  See they are safe!  Great God, I thank Thee!' and, sure enough, there was the youth still unharmed. 
He had just emerged from the boiling waters below the falls.  With one hand he held aloft the child, and with the other he was making for the shore.  
   They ran, they shouted, they scarcely knew what they did until they reached his side, just as he was struggling to the bank.  They drew him out almost exhausted.  The boy was senseless; but his mother declared that he still lived, as she pressed him to her bosom.  The youth could scarcely stand, so faint was he from his exertions.  
   Who can describe the scene that followed -- the mother's calmness while striving to bring her wild gratitude to his preserver, when the child was out of danger, and sweetly sleeping in her arms? 'God will give you a reward,' said she.  'He will do great things for you in return for this day's work and the blessings of thousands besides mine will attend you.' 
   And so it was; for to the hero of that hour were afterwards confided the destinies of a mighty nation.  Throughout his long career, what tended to make him honored and respected beyond all men was the spirit of self-sacrifice, which, in the rescue of that mother's child, as in the more important events of his life, always characterized George Washington.  
                               From Longmans' Fifth Reader. 

LESSON 6. 
WASHINGTON'S ADDRESS TO HIS TROOPS. 
BEFORE THE BATTLE OF LONG 
              ISLAND, 1776. 
   The Battle of Long Island took place August 27th, 1776.  It was lost, and the American Army was obliged to retreat.  The defeat was largely due to the carelessness of General Putnam, who did not place a guard at alt the passes as Washington had ordered him to do. 
   Instead of sending word to Washington when he learned that the British were coming, he sent a few troops to meet their large army, and they were driven back or made prisoners.  
  If General Howe of the British Army had been on the alert, he might have captured General Washington and his whole force; but Washington watched his opportunity, and retreated in good order.  The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. 
   The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of a brave resistance or the most abject submission.  We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or to die.  
   Our own, our country's honor, calls upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion; and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world.     Let us, then, rely on the goodness of our cause and the aid of the Supreme Being, in whose hand victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble actions. The eyes of all our countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings and praises if, happily, we are the instruments of saving them from the tyranny meditated against them.  
   Let us animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a free man contending for liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.  
   Liberty, property, life, and honor are all at stake; upon your courage and conduct rest the hopes of our bleeding and insulted country.  Our wives, children, and parents expect safety from us alone, and they have every reason to believe that Heaven will crown with success so just a cause.  
   The enemy will endeavor to intimidate by show and appearance; but remember, they have been repulsed on various occasions by a few brave Americans.  Every good soldier will be silent and attentive -- wait for orders and reserve his fire until he is sure of doing execution. 

LESSON 7 
A PERLIOUS ADVENTURE. 
   Three or four lads are standing in the channel below the great natural Bridge of Virginia.  They see hundreds of names carved in the limestone buttresses, and resolve to add theirs to the number.  This done one of them is seized with the mad ambition of carving his name higher than the highest there!  His companions try to dissuade him from attempting so dangerous a feat, but in vain.  He is a wild, reckless youth; and afraid now to yield, lest he should be thought coward, he carves his way up and up the limestone rock, till he can hear the voices, but not the words of his terror-stricken playmates. 
   One of them runs of to the village, and tells the boy's father of his perilous situation.  Others go for help in other directions; and ere long there are hundreds of people standing in the rocky channel below, and hundreds on the bridge above, all holding their breath, and awaiting the fearful catastrophe.  the poor boy can just distinguish the tones of his farther, who is shouting with all the energy of despair, -- " William! William! don't look down! Your mother, and Henry, and Harriet are all here praying for you!  Don't look down!  Keep your eyes towards the top! "
   The boy does not look down.  His eye is fixed towards heaven, and his young heart on I him who reigns there.  He grasps again his knife.  He cuts another niche, and another foot is added to the hundreds that remove him from the reach of human help from below. 
   The sun is half way down in the west.  Men are leaning over the outer edge of the bridge with ropes in their hands.  But fifty more inches must be cut before the longest rope can reach the boy ! Two minutes more, and all will be over.  That blade is worn to the last half inch.  The bay's head reels.  His last hope is dying in his heart, his life must hang upon the next niche he cuts.  That niche will be his last. 
   At the last cut he makes, his knife - his faithful knife-drops from his , little nerveless hand and, ringing down the precipice, falls at his mother's feet! An involuntary groan of despair runs through the crowd below, and all is still as the grave.  At the height of nearly three hundred feet, the devoted boy lifts his hopeless heart and closing eyes to commend his soul to God. 
 Hark! -- a shout fills on his cars from above!  A man who is lying with half his length over the bridge, has caught a glimpse of the boy's head and shoulders.  Quick as thought the noosed rope is within reach of the sinking youth.  No one breathes. With a faint, convulsive effort, the swooning boy drops his arm into the noose.  Not a lip moves while he is changing over that fearful abyss; but when a sturdy arm reaches down and draws up the lad, and holds him up before the tearful, breathless multitude such shouting and such leaping and weeping for joy never greeted a human being so recovered from the jaws of death. 

LESSON 8. 
THE OLD BACK STAIR. 
Of all the sports of childhood, 
 I know of none so rare, 
As sliding down the banisters
of 
   the 
    old 
     back
      stair. 
  I remember well the circus,
   And the fun it used to bring,  
  While watching fearless riders 
  A-dashing round the ring;
  But this jolly old attraction
 Could never near compare
With sliding down the banisters
    Of 
     the 
      old
       back
        stair.
Then I recollect the barn loft, 
 Packed tight of clover hay;
Mother used to send us there 
 To spend a rainy day.
 But I often stole away from that,
 And, while mother wasn't there, 
Went sliding down the banisters 
     Of 
      the 
       old 
        back 
         stair 
I have grown into manhood now,
 And often wander home; 
The old folks always welcome me - 
The are glad to have me come 
 But while they are not looking, 
I'm tempted, I declare, 
 To slide adown the banisters 
  Of 
   the 
    old  
     back 
      stair. 

LESSON 9. 
THE NEW WORLD. 
   To-day there is no land outside England, which is so familiar to Englishmen as America. Throughout the northern half of the vast continent English is spoken.  Everday steamers arrive from it, carrying passengers, goods, and letters.  The intercourse is great and constant. 
   Yet a little more than 400 years ago no one in England believed that such a land existed.  The sailors of that day never steered westwards from Land's End.  They crept south along the shores of France and Spain and so into the Mediterranean, or round the coast of Africa.  They believed that the work was flat, and that, if they struck out into the stormy Atlantic, they would come to the end of it, and fall over into some dreadful abyss. 
   These notions were destroyed by a great sailor named Christopher Columbus, a Genoese, who sailed westwards in vessels furnished by the King and Queen of Spain.  In 1492 he crossed the Atlantic, and discovered islands on thee coast of America In 1497 a Bristol ship manned by Bristol sailors discovered the mainland. 
 During the next hundred years the knowledge of the New World, as it was called, advanced rapidly.  The Spaniards took the lead, and set up their rule over wide tracts.  They discovered parts of the newly-found country which were rich in gold, silver, and precious stones-rubies, pearls and diamonds.  They sought these things eagerly, forcing the natives to work the mines, while they took the wealth and sent it home to Spain in great clumsy ships called galleons.  
   But it was not long before the skilful and daring English sailors began to dispute the rule of the Spaniards in the New World.  This rivalry grew and grew, till it became a bitter and desperate warfare, ending finally in the mighty invasion of the Invincible Armada. 

LESSON 10. 
ENGLAND AND SPAIN, 
   During the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603) the enmity between England and Spain was at its fiercest heat.  The Spanish King was bitterly hostile, and prepared to invade England to drive Elizabeth from the throne, and restore the Catholic religion in place of the Protestant.  The English on their side stoutly bade him defiance, and wherever Spaniard met Englishman they flew at each other's throat as deadly enemies.  
   This warfare took place mostly on the sea.  It is the favorite battle-ground of the English, and a terrible fight they made of it.  For now arose that mighty band of sea-captains, who carried the flag of England in triumph into every sea of the world -- Drake and Hawkins, Davis and Frobisher, Raleigh and Gilbert, to name but a few of the great navigators of the time who sailed to the New World.  
   Of all these names, none is so famous as that of Francis Drake, the first Englishman who sailed round the world.  He was a Devonshire man, and the date of his birth is somewhat uncertain -- some authorities say 1539, while others say 1547.  When he came to manhood, the enmity between England and Spain on the sea was at its height.  Drake threw himself into the struggle with delight, and soon made his name dreaded Wherever a Spanish galleon sailed.  
   There was no actual war declared between the two countries at the time, but the English Government looked with no disfavor on the doings of Drake and his companions.  Elizabeth and her ministers knew well that Philip, King of Spain, had in mind the conquest of England, and every galleon taken meant that he was a ship poorer, and every cargo of treasure seized meant so much less wealth to be employed against the English nation.  So they were well content to wink at the unlawfulness of it all.  

LESSON 11. 
THE "PELICAN." 
   Let us look at Drake's voyage round the world.  We shall see not only how he carried out that famous exploit, but his doings on the way will furnish us with an excellent picture of the fashion, in which the English sea-dogs were tiring out the Spaniards of that day. 
   In December, 1577, Drake sailed out of Plymouth Sound in his ship, the Pelican, accompanied by three other vessels.  The Pelican, the largest of the little fleet, was small enough when the task before her is considered.  She was of 120 tons burden, and, placed beside one of our modern steamers, she would appear no more than a fishing boat.  Next in size was the Elizabeth, eighty tons, commanded by Captain Winter.  The smallest of all was a tiny vessel of twelve tons.  
 They had fair weather at the beginning of the voyage for the journey across the North Atlantic, and when that ocean was crossed they ran down the sea-coast of South America.  Drake was aiming to reach Peru, on the Pacific coast, where he had heard that great treasure was to be had.  
   The only way was by Cape Horn, through the Straits of Magellan, as it is to-day. But at that time no one had been through save Magellan, the Portuguese, after whom the passage was named.  Drake was of the opinion that where a Portuguese had been an Englishman could follow, and he steered for the straits.  It took him three weeks to beat through the seventy miles of passage, feeling every inch of the way with the lead.  But the Pacific was sighted at last.  It was early in September, 1578. 
   Three ships now remained, the Pelican, the Elizabeth and the Marigold.   The tiny pinnace was burned.  Drake thought she was too small to be of service.  The Pacific was in contradiction to its name as far as the ships were concerned, for a great westerly gale drove them hundreds of miles out of their course and far apart.  The Marigold went down; the Elizabeth made her way back to the shelter of Magellan's Straits.  Here her captain, Winter, lay for three weeks, and then sailed back to England. 

LESSON 12.
THE SPANISH GALLEONS. 
   Drake meanwhile had sought shelter among the islands about Cape Horn, and there he wintered.  In the spring he sailed north.  He proceeded to Valparaiso, where he expected to meet Winter.  It was the spot where they had angered to rejoin each other, if separated.  But the faint-hearted Winter had returned home, much "against the mariners' will."
   In Valparaiso lay a great galleon newly come into port.  Never dreaming it was an English sail in the offering, they ran up the Spanish colors and beat their drums in welcome.  They were, however, soon undeceived.  The Pelican swiftly laid her abroad, and the English, shouting for joy at their first capture, sprang on to her deck. The Spaniards bounded over the railing into the sea and swam ashore.  The Pelican now received the first of the rich cargo she was to bear back, some hundredweights of gold.  Drake sailed on, still hoping to find Winter along the coast.  He reached a port to which the Spaniards carried down silver from the mines of the Andes.  He sailed into it.  Here again there was no suspicion of danger.  Drake found the silver piled in bars upon the quay, the men in 
charge of the mule train, which had brought it down, being fast asleep beside the treasure. 
   The English boats rowed softly to the quay, and packed the silver bars beneath the rower's seats.  As they did so, a second train of mules came to the harbor with a rich load. 
   The Pelican's men were quite ready for that, and before long it was all safe on board, and Drake was on his way to the next town.  Here they made capture of a heap of bars of solid silver.  
   By this time Drake gave up all hope of meeting Winter, but for all that he steered northward again.  And now he was coming to Lima, the greatest place of 
all, the port where was gathered the vast riches yielded by the mines of Peru.     He sailed into the harbor, and found a dozen Spanish ships, but he soon became aware that he had arrived a few days too late.  A great galleon, called the Cacafuego, had sailed only three or four days before, loaded with all the riches of the mines for that season, silver and gold and precious stones. 
   This did not disappoint the dauntless captain.  He immediately began his pursuit. All eyes on the Pelican were on the watch.  Drake had promised a chain of gold to the first man who should sight the chase.  She was to be 
known by the peculiar shape of her sails. 

LESSON 13. 
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE 
   The Pelican had to run 800 miles before the Cacafuego was seen.  Drake now checked the course of the Pelican and waited for night, to have the advantage of a complete surprise.  
   As soon as darkness fell, the Pelican spread her sails an shot swiftly up to the Spanish galleon.  The Spaniards on her deck heard the loud thunder of a broadside which cut their rigging to pieces, and next a flight of English arrows whistled among them. 
   Before the could recover from their surprise, the men of the Pelican were on the Spanish deek sword in hand.  The struggle was a matter of minutes.  The Spaniards were swiftly overpowered, and the Cacafuego with her load of treasure was won.  
   No one but Drake and Queen Elizabeth ever knew the exact value of the wealth captured. It is known that there were twenty tons of solid silver, many hundred weights of gold in bars and lumps, and "a great stone" of pearls, emeralds, and diamonds.  But it is also known that this was but part of the capture.  
   The Pelican did much mischief to the Spaniards after the capture of the great treasure-ship; and after many adventures, sailed for home across the Pacific aid Indian; Oceans and round the Cape of Good Hope.  She sailed into Plymouth Harbor to the great joy and amazement of all, for she had long been given up for lost.  It was two years and ten months since she weighed anchor and started on the voyage, which for the first time carried English seamen round the globe.  
   All England rang with the exploit.  Elizabeth herself was never tired of hearing Drake tell his story. She had the Pelican brought round to the Thames, dined on board, and knighted Drake on his own quarter-deck. 
   Drake's whole life was full of the most daring deeds.  In 1587 it was made known that the King of Spain was gathering a mighty fleet at Cadiz to invade 
England.  Away sailed Drake with a small squadron, boldly steered into the harbor where the fleet lay, and dealt fatal blows upon it in the most merciless manner.  When the Invincible Armada came in 1588 Drake had a large share in the English victory.
   He made voyage after voyage until his last, which was, as ever, against the Spaniards. He and Sir John Hawkins led an attack on the Spanish settlements in the Gulf of Mexico, but things went ill with them.  Sir John Hawkins died, and Drake was seized with a low fever.  Of this he died in January, 1598, and was buried at sea, a fitting grave for one who had won all his glory on the waves. 
                         From Famous Englishman. 

LESSON 14. 
JOHN MAYNARD. 
In North America once lived 
 A man unknown to fame; 
Methinks that very few have heard 
 Of brave John Maynard's name.  

A skilful pilot he was bred; 
 In God was his delight;
His head was clear, his thoughts were 
    pure. 
 His hopes were ever bright. 

On Erie's broad and placid lake 
 A steamer ploughed her way; 
And honest John stood at the helm 
 That lovely summer day. 

Well filled with many passengers, 
 She cut the waters wide,
Leaving a silver line of light 
 Along the foaming tide. 

But suddenly her captain starts, 
 His cheek is white as snow;
Oh! sight of dread! -- light wreaths of 
    smoke 
Come curling from below! 

Then rose the dreadful shout of "Fire!" 
 Appalling, wild, and drear! 
No boat was on the steamer's side, 
 Nor human aid was near!  

All hands to instant work were called: 
 Alas! all toil was vain! 
The fury of the raging flames 
 No effort could restrain. 

"When, Pilot, can our port be reached? " 
 Arose an eager cry.  
"Three quarters of an hour from hence,"
John Maynard made reply. 

Then forward rush the passengers, 
 Dismayed with terror sore: 
John Maynard at the helm still stands, 
 As steadfast as before. 

Now dreadful clouds of smoke arise, 
 And sheets of flame divide! 
"John Maynard, are you at the helm?" 
 The captain loudly cried. 

"Aye, aye, sir!" was the quick reply. 
 "Then say, how does she head? "
"South-cast by cast!" -- the answer came 
Above the uproar dread. 

"Head her south-cast!" the captain 
  shouts. 

 And run her quick ashore." 
"Aye, aye, sir! " but the quick response 
 Was feebler than before.

"John Maynard! can you still hold on - 
 Five minutes longer still? " 
The captain's ear scarce caught the 
   words - 
 "By God's help, sir, I will! "

Scorched were the old man's face and hair,
 One hand disabled hung; 
Yet with the 
other to the wheel, 
 As to a rock, he clung! 

He beached the ship! to all on board 
 A landing safe was given; 
But, as the last man leaped on shore, 
 John Maynard rose to heaven. 

LESSON 15. 
FLESH-EATING PLANTS. 
   Flesh-eating plants?  Nonsense:  there are no such things! 
   Indeed there are.  They have no cooks or roasting-jacks, it is true; but there are no fewer than five hundred kinds of plants which support life on insects or small animals.  They do not hunt for them; they have no butchers' shops, of course; the flesh indeed comes to the cater without having to be hunted bought.  The luckless insect is trapped, just as the fly is trapped by the spider, or the silver fox by the hunter in the woods of British North America.  
   One of these curious plants is the Bladderwort, which may be found on many a moor and bog in our country.  It lives suspended in water, and has no root; and in winter, the leaves at the end of the floating stem enlarge themselves and form winterbuds, which are pulled down into the water by the decaying stem.  In spring the buds elongate and become bladders, an rise to near the surface of the pool where little animals in countless numbers are swimming to and fro.  
   A water-flea, let us suppose, is swimming for its life away from some larger animal that is chasing it.  It comes up to a bladder of the Bladderwort, and presses against it, when a tiny door instantly opens, and the insect is safe.  Is it? By and by, when the danger is past, it tries to get back.  There is the door indeed, but it is now shut fast; it opens only inwards, and the insect is caged.   Struggle as it may, it cannot escape:  within the bladder it is starved to death or suffocated, and then the plant sucks its juices into its own body.  
 But why did not the larger insect pursue it into the bladder?  Because it was prevented.  The little valve door is guarded on the outside by a number of stiff bristles, which allowed the tiny thing to slip between them, but warded off the larger pursuer.  Thus, this wonderful plant secures its own food, and at the same time preserves itself from injury. 
   A plant of a similar kind is the Pitcher-plant, which, however, grows only in tropical countries.  Part of the foliage is shaped like a pitcher, the inside of which is lined with smooth cells which overall one another like the scales of a fish.  About the mouth of the pitcher there grow some glandular hairs out of which a kind of honey oozes, and thus the rim is covered with a thin film of sweet juice. 
   A centipede is out in search of food.  It comes to the pitcher-plant and tastes the honey.  Looking down into the plant, it perceives bright spots of color which inform it that there is more honey below.  It crawls over, and downwards, feeding as it goes. Presently it has had enough, and turns about to go back, only to find that unawares it has crawled into a death trap.  Stiff, hair-like needles point downwards from the rim of the pitcher, and the poor centipede can no more pass these than the French cavalry could pass the bayonets of the British Guards at Waterloo. 
   The centipede, being unable to go up, goes further down, and by and by falls into the rain-water collected at the bottom of the pitcher.  There it is drowned, and its flesh is before very long taken up by the plant into its own substance.  There are plants which not only accept what food comes to them in this way, but actually make movement to secure it.  One of these plants is called the Sun-dew, and grows on the damp, dark soil of moors.  A small whitish or dun-colored flower grows at the end of a slender stem, and this springs from among a group of leaves pressed close to the ground.  From the margin of each leaf there spring some two hundred delicate wine-red tentacles, some longer than the others.  At the head of each tentacle there is a drop of clear, thick sticky matter which shines and glitters in the sunlight like a drop of dew.  It is from this that the plant gets its name of Sun-dew An insect, flying through the air, mistakes the glittering drops on the tentacles for honey, and alights to enjoy it.  But its feet are immediately held fast by the sticky gum, which the leaf exudes in an increasing quantity from its glands.  The more it tries to escape by stroking the gum off, the more it besmears itself, until at last its whole body is plastered over with the fluid.  
   Meanwhile the tentacles have begun to turn inwards on the creature.  First one, then another, bends over towards it, until after about three hours the insect is completely inclosed.  By this time it is choked and suffocated, and its flesh and blood are gradually absorbed by the plant, which leaves untouched the claws, legs, bones, wings, and other indigestible parts.  After about forty-eight hours the tentacles life straighten themselves, and resume their original positions.  More tiny dewdrops gleam in the sunshine, and the hungry leaf is ready once more to entice and capture unwary insects.  
                From The Palmerston Readers

LESSON 16. 
A NORTHERN GLACIER. 
   Long ages ago the whole earth was covered with ice, beautiful pure ice -- not like that we see in the winter in England, but great masses of it -- in some places hundreds of feet deep -- shining so white and clean.  
 Such ice is only to be seen now in countries like Switzerland or Norway, where there are very high mountains, ranges of them, especially within the Arctic circle, crowded for miles and miles with perpetual snow, pure-white, glittering snow fields as far as the eye can see -- glaciers filling up the valleys between the peaks, and descending like great frozen waterfalls, in some places from the very summit of the mountain nearly into the sea, very beautiful are these long ranges of snow-mountains, against the deep blue sky.  
   The glaciers, which at a distance look quite smooth, are really made of enormous masses of tumbled blocks and pinnacles of pale blue ice, clear as crystal, and shining like silver where the sun touches the edges -- deep blue in the shadows, and almost black below, where the ice goes into the deep, dark water at its foot.  There is always a stream coming from a glacier, and very often a lake below, formed by the running water -- as there is at the foot of a part of the great Svartisen, one of the largest glaciers in Norway, where blocks of ice that have broken away float about the take like little icebergs; the larger half of each block which is under water looks quite blue and the rest of it dazzling white.    The glacier, though it looks so solid and so lifeless, is always busy, for ever melting, a little in the heat of the sun -- moving a little from the weight of the ice and snow above, renewing itself all the time, and grinding its way but very surely down the its way so valley, rubbing the rocks quite smooth as it goes.  No one can see that a glacier is moving, for it takes about thirty years to move an inch, but it does move a little each year, as measurements have proved.   You must not stand too near the foot of a glacier, for it often throws down pieces of ice, and sometimes a shower of stones, which have come down front the sides of the rocks, and slide over the edges at a tremendous pace.  In some glaciers there are blue grottoes and deep mysterious caverns, from which, there comes the hollow roar of the rushing river below.  Others are built up into all sorts of fantastic shapes, beautiful castles made of crystal, and fortresses of shining ice-blocks that sparkle with millions of diamond drops that fall with a musical tinkle, like silver bells, into the pools below -- part of the eternal song that Nature is always singing, if only we have ears to hear.  
   Sometimes there comes a loud report and a roar as of cannon firing, which is the cracking of the ice, as an enormous block parts from the rest, and falls crashing down the glacier, breaking into showers of ice-balls, and comes rattling over the edges and splashing into the water beneath, like a cascade of diamonds sparkling in the sun.  The echoes in rocks and valleys continue the sound long after the avalanche has ceased to fall.  All is desolate and dreary near a glacier; it is so cold that only the hardiest plants can dare to grow.  There are very few birds, and no trees but the dwarf willows and Arctic birch, which are hardly ever more than six to eight inches high; the snow being on them nine months of the year, they have no time to grow.  A few toad-flax and very small anemones and mountain buttercups are found, and abundance of reindeer moss, on which the herd of rein-deer feed.  The reindeer love the cold and high mountains, and live quite close to the glaciers, blowing away the snow with their warm breath to get at the reindeer moss -- drinking the icy water, and skipping over the ice and snow on their nimble, pointed hoofs, which are made for climbing on its slippery surfaces, and chasing each other across the ice as though they enjoyed the fun. 
                                   From Nature-study Readers

LESSON 17. 
A TALE OF MID-AIR. 
   In a cottage in the valley of Sallanches, near the foot of Mont Blanc, lived old Bernard and his three sons.  One morning he lay in bed sick, and, burning with fever, watched anxiously for the return of his son.  Jean, who had gone to fetch a physician. At length a horse's tread was heard, and soon afterwards the doctor entered.  He examined the patient closely, felt his pulse, looked at his tongue, and then said, patting the old man's cheek, 'It will be nothing, my friend-nothing!' but he made a sign to three lads, who open-mouthed and anxious, stood grouped around the bed. All four withdrew to a distant corner, the doctor shook his head, thrust out his lower lip, and said, 'Tis a serious attack -- very serious -- of fever.  He is now in the height of the fit and as soon as it abates, he must have sulphate of quinine.'  
   'What is that, doctor?" 'Quinine, my friend, is a very expensive medicine, but which you may procure at Sallanches.  Between the two fits your father must take at least three franc worth will write the Prescription.  You can read, Guillaume?  'Yes, doctor.'  'And you will see that he takes it? ' 'Certainly.'  
   'When the physician was gone, Guillaume, Pierre, and Jean looked at each other in silent perplexity.  Their whole stock of money consisted of a franc and a half, and yet the medicine must be procured immediately.  
   'Listen,' said Pierre.  'I know a method of getting from the mountain before night three or four five-franc pieces'  'From the mountain?'  
   'I have discovered an eagle's nest in a cleft of a frightful precipice.  There is a gentleman at Sallanches, who would gladly purchase the eaglets; aid nothing made me hesitate but the terrible risk of taking them; but that's nothing when our father's life is concerned.  We may have them now in two hours.  
   'I will rub the nest,' said Guillaume.'  'No, no, let me,' said Jean.  'I am the youngest and lightest. 
   'I have the best right to venture,' said Pierre, 'as it was I who discovered it.'  'Come,' said Pierre, 'let us decide by 
drawing lots.  Write three numbers, Guillaume, put them into my hat, and whoever draws the number one will try the venture.'  
   Guillaume blackened the end of a wooden splinter in the fire; tore an old card into three pieces; wrote on them one, two, three, and threw them into the hat.  How the three hearts beat!  Old Bernard lay shivering in the cold fit, and each of his sons longed to risk his own life to save that of his father.  
   The lot fell on Pierre, who had discovered the nest; he embraced the sick man.  'We shall not be long absent father, he said, 'and it is needful for us to go together.' 'What are you going to do?'  'We will tell you as soon as we come back.' 
   Guillaume took down from the wall an old saber, which had belonged to Bernard when he served as a soldier; Jean sought a thick cord which the mountaineers use when cutting down trees; and Piece went towards an old wooden cross, reared near the cottage, and knelt before it for some minutes in fervent prayer.  
   They set out together, and soon reached the brink of the precipice.  The danger consisted not only in the possibility of falling several hundred feet, but still more in the probable aggression of the birds of prey, inhabiting the wild abyss.  
   Pierre, who was to brave these perils, was a fine athletic young man of twenty-two.  Having measured with his eye the distance he would have to descend, his brothers fastened the cord around his waist, and began to let him down.  Holding the saber contained the nest.  In it were four eaglets of a light-yellowish-brown color, and his heart beat with joy at the sight of them.  He grasped the nest firmly in his left hand, and shouted joyfully to his brothers, 'I have them!  Draw me up!' 
   Already the first upward pull was given to the cord, when Pierre felt himself attacked by two enormous eagles, whose furious cries proved them to be the parents of the nestling. 
   'Courage, brother!  defend thyself!  don't fear!'  Pierre pressed the nest to his bosom, and with his right hand made the saber play around his head.  
 Then began a terrible combat.  The eagles shrieked, the little ones cried shrilly,' the mountaineer shouted and brandished his sword.  He slashed the birds with its blade which flashed like lightning, and only rendered them still more enraged.  He struck the rock, and sent forth a shower of sparks.  
   Suddenly he felt a jerk given to the cord that sustained him.  Looking up he perceive that in his evolution he had cut it with his saber, and that half the strands were severed! 
   Pierre's eyes dilated widely, remained for a moment immovable, and then closed with terror.  A cold shudder passed through his veins, and he thought of letting go both the nest and the saber.  
   At that moment one of the eagles pounced on his head, and tried to tear his 
face.  The Savoyard made a last effort and defended himself bravely.  He thought of his old father, and took courage.  
   Upwards, still upwards, mounted the cord: friendly voices eagerly uttered words of encouragement and triumph:  but Pierre could not reply to them.  when he reached the brink of the precipice, still clasping fast the nest his hair, which an hour before had been as black as a raven's wing, was become so 
completely white, that Guillaume and Jean could scarcely recognize him.  
   What did that signify?  The eaglets were of the rarest and most valuable species.  That same afternoon they were carried to the village and sold.  Old Bernard had the medicine, and every needed comfort besides, and the doctor in a few days pronounced him convalescent.  
               From Dickens' Household Words.

LESSON 18. 
THH FOOL OF THE FAMILY. 
   A certain man had two sons.  The elder passed for a very clever youth:  the younger, 
called Dumling, though the favorite of his mother, was thought to be only half-witted.  In fact,  his father and elder brother were in the habit of calling him "the fool of the family."  
   When Dumling had grown to be fifteen years old, his father became tired of 
supporting the simpleton: so he gave the lad twenty German shillings, and sent him out into the world to seek his fortune. 
   With a light heart, young Dumling trudged forth, jingling the coins in his pouch, and meditating how he should spend so much money.  Before long he met a fisherman carrying a basket on his back.  "Ho, master, and what have there?" said Dumling.
   "Nothing that you can buy," said the fisherman gruffly. But when he heard the money clinking, he declared that in his basket he had the most wonderful turbot in the world.
   "Mr. Fisherman," said Dumling, when he had peeped in at the beautiful fish," will you sell your fish for twenty shillings?"  
   "For want of a better price, yes," replied the fisherman; and the lad eagerly counted out his twenty shillings and took the turbot.
 Journeying on, Dumling caught sight of a fine palace, and stopped a countryman to ask who lived there. 
   "The king," answered the man, "and a courteous and liberal king he is." 
   "Is he, indeed?" thought Dumling.  "I will take him my fish, and see what he will give me for it."
   Without delay he made his way to the gate of the palace, and knocked. The gate was opened by a fat porter, who asked him what his business was. "My business is with your master," said Dumling who knew little of the ways of great men's houses. "I have brought a present for the king!"  
   "Ah, indeed! answered the porter, still delaying to open the gate. "Don't you know that it is the custom of this court that I should see a present before it goes to my lord the king?" 
   So at last Dumling opened his basket.  Now, when the porter saw the beautiful fish, his eyes glistened, and he declared, that, by the custom of the court, half must be his before the bearer could go farther.  
   "Pray let me pass," said Dumling; "and, whatever the bounty of the king bestows on me, you shall have half."
   On this promise the porter opened the door, and permitted him to enter the hall.  But here he was stopped by the chamberlain, who, when he had looked into the basket, said that half was due to him before the gift could be brought before the king, for such was the custom of the court.
   "Fair sir, I quarrel not with your customs," said Dumling; "and though I have already promised half my reward to the porter, I will give you the share which is left, if you will only bring me into the king's presence."
   Then the chamberlain led him in, and the lad laid his present before the king.  "By my crown," said the king, "it is a fair gift.  I accept it gladly.  And now what reward shall I give you for your trouble?  Ask boldy and wisely, and shall not have to complain."
   The porter and the chamberlain now went up to Dumling, and whispered to him to ask for a bag of gold, or a rich office at court, for their lord would not say him nay.
   "I will ask none of these things," said the youth aloud; and bending before the king, he thus spoke up: "Your majesty, I ask no reward but a sound beating,"
 Every one was astonished at hearing this strange request, and the king most of all. But when he saw that Dumling would not change his mind, he ordered him to be tied up, and a hundred lashes to be well laid on.  
   "But hold! " quoth Dumling, as the scourged was baring his brawny arm: I have partners in this business.  I gave away one half of this my reward to the porter, and the other half I promised to the chamberlain, before they would allow me to bring my gift to the king.  It is only right that they should receive what I have promised them." 
   "And thou shalt keep faith with them as I with 
thee," vowed the king, when he learned how his servants dealt with strangers.  
So the porter and the chamberlain were tied up in Dumling's place, and each received his share of the recompense fairly counted out; the spectators, who well knew the greed and insolence of these officials, laughing heartily at the justice of the reward.
   As for Dumling, the king was so much pleased with the lad's cleverness that he took him into his own service.  Thus "the fool of the family" made his fortune: thence-forward no one thought of calling him a simpleton, and all the world spoke nothing but good of him. 

LESSON 19. 
FIDELITY. 
A barking sound the shepherd hears, 
A cry as of a dog or fox;
He halts, and scratches with his eyes 
Among the scattered rocks: 
And now at distance can discern 
A stirring in a brake of fern; 
And instantly a dog is seen, 
Glancing through the covert green. 

The dog is not of mountain breed; 
Its motions, too, are wild and shy; 
With something, as the shepherd thinks, 
Unusual in its cry: 
Nor is there anyone in sight 
All around, in hollow or on height, 
Nor shout nor whistle strike his ear - 
What is the creature doing here? 

It was a cove, a huge recess, 
That keeps, till June, December's snow; 
A lofty precipice in front, 
A silent tarn below; 
Far in the bosom of Helvellyn, 
Remote from public road or dwelling, 
Pathway or cultivated land, 
From trace of human foot or hand. 

Not free from boding thoughts, a while 
The shepherd stood; then made his way 
O'er rock and stones, following the dog 
As quickly as he may; 
Nor far had gone before he found 
A human skeleton on the ground! 
The appalled discoverer with a sigh 
Looks round to learn the history. 

From those abrupt and perilous rocks 
The man had fallen -- that place of fear! 
At length upon the shepherd's mind 
It breaks and all is clear: 
He instantly recalled the name, 
And who he was, and whence he came: 
Remembered, too, the very day 
On which the traveler passed that way. 

But hear a wonder, for whose sake 
This lamentable tale I tell: -- 
A lasting monument of words 
This wonder merits well: 
The dog, which was hovering nigh, 
Repeating the same timid cry, 
This dog had been, through three months' space, 
A dweller in that savage place! 

Yes, proof was plain that since the day 
When this ill-fated traveler died, 
The dog had watched about the spot, 
Or by his master's side: 
How nourished here though such long time 
He knows who gave that love sublime; 
And gave the strength of feeling, great 
Above all human estimate. 
                          Wordsworth.

LESSON 20. 
ANINAL MIMICS. 
   Have you ever wondered why the skins of animals have particular colors ?  Probably you have not, and it is very likely that most people would be surprised to hear that there is any reason for the colors at all.  But there arc reasons.  Color in animals seems to be either 'Protective' or 'warning.'  The object of the first is to, render the easy to be seen, the object of the second is the opposite, to make, it easy to be seen.  
   Lions, tigers, and other beasts of prey, which move quietly through great masses of bush or jungle, are often not to be distinguished from the vegetation surrounding them.  The stripes' of the tiger, for instance, much resemble the long reed-like stalks of the jungle.  One of the most beautiful and ornate of all tropical reptiles is the puff-adder.  This animal, the bite of which is certain death, is from three to five feet long, and in some parts is almost as thick as the lower part of a man's thigh.  The whole body is ornamented with strange devices in green, yellow, and black, and, lying in a museum, its glittering coils certainly form a most striking object.
   But in nature the puff-adder has a very different background.  It is a forest animal, its true dwelling-place being among the fallen leaves in the deep shade of the trees by the banks of streams.  Now in such a position, at the distance of a foot or two, its appearance so exactly resembles the forest bed as to be almost indistinguishable from it.  I was once just throwing myself down under a tree to rest, when, stooping to clear the spot, I noticed a peculiar pattern among the leaves.  I started back in horror, to find a puff-adder of the largest size, only its thick back visible, and its fangs within a few inches of my race as I stooped.  It was lying concealed among fallen leaves so like itself, that, but for the exceptional caution which in African travel becomes a habit, I should certainly have sat down upon it: and to sit down upon a puff-adder is to sit down for the last time. 
   I had stopped one day among some tall Dry grass to mark a reading of the aneroid, when one of my men suddenly shouted "Chirombo!" Chirombo means an inedible beast of any kind, and I turned round to see where the animal was.  The natives pointed straight at myself.  I could see nothing, but they approached, and pointing close to a wisp of hay which had fallen upon my coat, reacted "Chirombo!" Believing that it must be some insect among the hay, I took it in my fingers, looked over it, and told him pointedly there was no Chirombo there.  He smiled, and pointing again to the hay exclaimed, "Moio!" -- "It's alive!"  
   The hay itself was the Chirombo! I do not exaggerate when I say that that wisp, of hay was no more like an insect than my aneroid barometer.  Take two inches of dried yellow grass-stalk: then take six other pieces nearly as long and a quarter as thick: bend each in the middle at any angle you like, stick them in three opposite pairs upon the first grass-stalk, and you have my Chirombo.  When you catch him, his limbs are twisted about at every angle, as if the whole were made of one long stalk of the most delicate grass, hinged in a dozen places, and then gently crushed up into an untidy heap.  Having once assumed a position, by a wonderful instinct he never moves or varies one of his many angles by half a degree.
   The way this insect keeps up the delusion is indeed almost as wonderful as the mimicry itself: you may turn him, about and over and over, but he is mere dried grass, and nothing will induce him to acknowledge the animal kingdom by the faintest suspicion of movement.  All the members of this family have this power of shamming death: but how such emaciated and juiceless skeletons should ever presume to be alive is the real mystery. 
                     From The Palmerston Readers. 

LESSON 21. 
DR. JOHNSON.-- 1. 
   "Sam," said Mr. Michael Johnson of Lichfield one morning, "I am very feeble and ailing to-day.  You must go to Uttoxeter in my stead, and tend the book-stall in the market-place there." 
 The speaker was an elderly man, a book-seller in Lichfield, England, who used to go every market-day and sell books at a stall in the neighboring village of Uttoxeter.
   When Mr. Michael Johnson spoke, Sam pouted and grumbled; then he looked his old father in the face, and said, "Sir, I will not go to Uttoxeter market." 
   "Well, Sam," said Mr. Johnson, as he took his hat and staff, "if for the sake of your foolish pride you can suffer your poor sick father to stand all day in the noise and confusion of the market, when he ought to be in his bed, I have no more to say.  But you will think of this, Sam, when I am dead and gone!" 
   So the poor old man, perhaps with a tear in his eye, certainly with sorrow in his heart, set forth to Uttoxeter.  Sam looked after Mr. Johnson with a sullen countenance until the latter was out of sight.  But when the old man's figure, as he went stooping along the street, was no more to be seen, the boy's heart began to smite him.  
   His fancy tormented him with the image of his father standing in the market-place of Uttoxeter and offering his books to the noisy crowd around him.  "My poor father!" thought Sam to himself; "how his head will ache, and how heavy his heart will be! I am almost sorry that I did not do as he bade me." 
   Then the boy went to his mother, who was busy about the house.  She did not know of what had passed between her husband and Sam.  "Mother," said he, " did you think father seemed very ill to-day?" 
   "Yes, Sam," answered his mother, turning with a flushed face from the fire, where she was cooking their scanty dinner, "your father did look very ill, and it is a pity he did not send you to Uttoxeter in his stead.  You are a big boy now, and you would rejoice, I am sure, to do something for your poor old father, who has done so much for you."
   Sam spoke nothing in reply; but he thought within his own heart, "Oh, I have been a cruel son! God forgive me! God forgive me!"  Had he been truly sorry, he would have hastened away that very moment to Uttoxeter, and have fallen at his father's feet even in the midst of the crowded market-place.  There he would have confessed his fault and besought Mr. Johnson to go home and leave the rest of the days work to him. But such was Sam's pride that he could hot bring himself to yield. 
   Fifty years passed away.  It was again market-day in the village of Uttoxeter.  The streets were crowded with buyers and sellers, with cows, pigs, carts, and horses.  In one place there was a puppet show, with a ridiculous merry-andrew, who kept the people in the roar of laughter.  
   At the busiest hour of the market -- the hour before noon -- a strange old gentleman was seen making his way among the crowd.  He was tall and bulky, but he walked with a slouching gait.  He wore a brown coat and small clothes, with black worsted stockings and buckled shoes.  On his head was a three-cornered hat beneath which a bushy gray wig thrust itself out, all in disorder. 
   The old gentleman elbowed the people aside, and forced his way through the midst of them, rolling his body hither and thither, so that he needed twice as much room as any other person there.
 "Make way sir!" he would cry out in a loud, bash voice, when somebody happened to interrupt his progress; "sir, you push forward your person into the public thoroughfare!" 
   "What a queer old fellow that is! " muttered the people among themselves, hardly knowing whether to laugh or to be angry.  But when they looked into the venerable Stranger's face, not the most thoughtless among them dared to offer him the least rudeness.  There was in his look something of authority and wisdom which impressed them all with awe. 

LESSON 22. 
DR. JOXNSON. -- 2. 
   So they stood aside and let him pass; and the old gentleman made his way across the 
market-place, and paused near the corner of the ivy-mantled church.  Just as he reached it, the clock struck twelve.  
   On that very spot of ground where the stranger now stood, some aged people remembered that old Michael Johnson had formerly kept his book-stall.  The children who had bought picture-books of him were now fathers and grandfathers. 
   "Yes, here is the very spot," muttered the old gentleman to himself.  There this unknown personage took his stand, and removed the three-cornered hat from his head. It was the busiest hour of the day.  What with the hum of the human voices, the lowing of cattle, the squeaking of pigs, and the laughter caused by the merry-andrew, the place was in very great confusion. 
   But the stranger seemed not to notice the bustle any more than if the silence of a desert had been around him. He was wrapt in his own thoughts. Sometimes he raised his furrowed brow to heaven, as if in prayer; sometime she bent his head., as if under a great weight of sorrow. 
   The hot sun blazed upon his unprotected head, but he seemed not to feel its fervor. A dark cloud swept across the sky, and rain-drops pattered in the market-place; but the stranger heeded not the shower. The people began to gaze at the mysterious old gentleman with fear and wonder. Who could he be? Where had he come from? Wherefore was he standing bare-headed in the market-place? Even the school-boys left the merry-andrew and came to gaze with open eyes at the tall, strange-looking old man.  There was a cattle-drover in the village who had recently made a journey to London. No sooner had this man forced his way through the throng, and taken a look at the unknown personage, than he whispered to one of his friends, "I say, neighbor Hutchins, would you like to know who this old gentleman is? " "Ay, that I should," replied neighbor Hutchins; "for a queerer fellow I never saw in my life Somehow it makes me feet small to look at him. He is more than a common man." 
   "You may well say so," answered the cattle-dealer. "Why, that is the famous Doctor Samuel Johnson, who, they say, is the greatest and the most learned man in England! I saw him one day in the streets of London, walking with Mr. Boswell."   Yes, the poor boy, the friendless Sam, had become the famous Doctor Samuel Johnson!  He was generally considered the wisest man and the greatest writer then living in 
England. 
   He had given shape and permanence to his native language by his Dictionary. Thousands upon thousands of people had read his books, Noble and wealthy men and beautiful ladies were his companions.  Even the king of Great Britain had sought his friendship, and had told him what an honor he considered it that such a man had been born in his dominions. He was now at the summit of literary fame. 
   But all his fame could not extinguish the bitter remembrance which had tormented him through life. Never, never had be forgotten his father's sorrowful look. Never, though the old man's troubles had been over for so many years, had the son forgiven himself for inflicting such a pang upon his heart. 
   And now in his old age he had come to the market-place of Uttoxeter to do penance by standing at noonday on the very spot, where Michael Johnson had once kept his book-stall. 
   The aged and illustrious man had done what the poor boy had refused to do. By thus expressing his deep repentance and humiliation of heart he hoped to gain peace of conscience and forgiveness of God. 
From Hawthorne's Biographical Stories 

LESSON 23. 
A RAILWAY ACCIDENT. 
   Gadshill Place, 13th June, 1865.
My dear Milton, 
   I should have written to you yesterday or the day before, if I had been quite up to writing. 
   I was in the only carriage that did not go over into the stream.  It was caught 
upon the turn by some of the ruin of the bridge, and hung suspended and balanced in an apparently impossible manner. Two ladies were my fellow-passengers, an old one and a young one. This is exactly what passed. You may judge from it the precise length of the suspense. Suddenly we were off the rail, and beating the ground as the car of a half-emptied balloon might. The old lady cried out, "My God!" and the young one scrammed. I caught hold of them both -- the old lady sat opposite, and the young one on my left -- , and said, "we can't help ourselves, but we can be quiet and composed. Pray don't cry out." "The old lady immediately answered: "Thank you. Rely upon me. Upon my soul, I will be quiet." We were then all tilted down together in a corner of the carriage, and stopped. I said to them thereupon: "You may be sure nothing worse can happen. Our danger must be over. Will you remain here without stirring, while I get out of the window?" they both answered quite collectedly "Yes," and I got out without the least notion of what had happened. Fortunately I got out with grate caution; and stood upon the step. Looking down.  I saw the bridge gone and nothing below me but the line of rail. Some people in the two other compartments were madly trying to plunge out of window, and had no idea that there was an open swampy field fifteen feet down below them, and nothing else! 
   The two guards (one with his face cut) were running up and down on the down 
side of the bridge (which was not torn up) quite wildly. I called out to them: "Look at me. Do stop an instant and look at me." and tell me whether you don't know me." 
   One of them answered: "We know you very well, Mr. Dickens." "Then," I said, "good fellow, for God's sake, give me your key, and send one of those laborers here, and I'll empty this carriage." We did it quite safely, by means of a plank or two, and when it was done, I saw all the rest of the train, except the two baggage vans, down in the stream.
   I got into the carriage again for my brandy flask, took off my traveling hat for a basin, climbed down the brick-work, and filled my hat with water. 
   Suddenly I came upon a staggering man covered with blood -- I think he must have been flung clean out of his carriage,-- with such a frightful cut across the skull that I couldn't bear to look at him. I poured some water over his face and gave him some to drink, then gave him some brandy, and laid him down on the grass; and he said, "I am gone," and died afterwards. Then I stumbled over a lady lying on her back against a little pollard-tree, with the blood streaming over her face (which was lead color) in a number of distinct little streams from the head. I asked her if she could swallow a little brandy, and she just nodded, and I gave her some, and left her for somebody else. The next time I passed her she was dead. Then a man, examined at the inquest yesterday (who evidently had not the least remembrance of what really passed) came running up to me, and implored me to help him find his wife, who was afterwards found dead. No imagination can conceive the ruin of the carriages, or the extraordinary weights under which people were lying, or the complications into which they were twisted up among iron and wood and mud and water.
   I don't want to be examined at the inquest, and I don't want to write about it.  I could do either way, and I could only seem to speak about myself, which, of course. I would rather not do. I am keeping very quiet here, I have a -- don't know what to call it -- constitutional (I suppose) presence of mind, and was not in the least fluttered at the time: I instantly remembered that I had the M.S. of a number with me, and clambered back into the carriage for it. But in writing these scanty words of recollection I feel the shake, and am obliged to stop. Ever faithfully, 
Ch. Dickens. 

LESSON 24. 
THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER.
 
'Tis the last rose of summer, 
Left blooming alone; 
All her lovely companions 
Are faded and gone; 
No flower of her kindred, 
No rose-bud is nigh, 
To reflect back her blushes, 
Or give sigh for sigh. 

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one, 
To pine on the stem; 
Since the lovely arc sleeping, 
Go, sleep thou with them. 
Thus kindly I scatter 
Thy leaves o'er the bed, 
Where thy mates of the garden 
Lie scentless and dead. 

So soon may I follow, 
When friendships decay, 
And from Love's shining circle 
The gems drop away. 

When true hearts lie withered, 
And fond ones are flown, 
Ah! who would inhabit 
This bleak world alone? 
                         Thomas Moore.

LESSON 25. 
THE DIAMOND MINES. 
   Cape Colony has coal and copper mines within its boundaries.  About a generation ago it was discovered that Griqualand West, a part of the county to the north of the Orange River, contained diamonds.  These tiny sparkling crystals are nothing but a very pure form of carbon.  Being so rare and so much admired, they command such a high price that one of good size and of fine "water," as the term is, will sell for many thousands of pounds. 
   Diamonds are of all colors, yellow, green, 
blue, pink, brown, and orange.  They are both clear and opaque, and are valued according to their size, color, and purity.  Before their discovery in South Africa, they were found chiefly in the East and in Brazil, but within the last few cars whole tons of them have been exported from the Cape.  
   The story goes that the first discovery of South African diamonds was made in 1867, through some children quarrelling over a pretty stone they had picked up by the river, which turned out to be worth hundreds of pounds.  Then a Hottentot brought another to the settlements, which at first no one would buy; but a Boer, who at last bought it for 400 pounds, sold it again for 12,000 pounds; and it is now judged to be worth twice as much. 
   After that people began to believe in the gems waiting to be picked up across the Orange River; and there was a rush into Griqualand West, where soon thousands settled down, like a swarm of bees, at a place that came to be called Kimberley, high up on a dreary, dusty, shadeless plain, where few would choose to live but for the hope of gain.  The chief diamond mines being at a or near Kimberley, in a quarter of a century it has become an important town, connected by a railway with Cape Town, 650 miles away. 
   The diamonds are found in "pipes" running deep into the earth, which appear to have been the chimneys of volcanoes filled with mud or "blue ground."  Such gems as had got washed among the pebbles by the streams, or otherwise brought to the surface, were soon picked up among so many searchers. Now they must be dug for in deep mines, by the help of machinery and much labor.  The great mine in the middle of Kimberley seems one of the biggest holes ever dug by men.  It is large enough to bury an English village 400 feet below the ground, and there is a hole even larger in the neighborhood.  
   When the miners could dig no more in the open air, they sunk shafts downwards, from which galleries are pushed sideways underground, as in a coal-mine.  In these galleries, lit by electric light, the blue earth containing the diamonds is cut out and brought up in trucks.  After being exposed to the air for some month to make it dry and powdery this precious earth is exposed to running water, that washes away all but the hard part, where the diamonds arc still concealed among pebbles and rubbish, settling down like the dregs of a coffee-cup.  Other machinery is used to separate this stuff, and at last the diamonds are sifted out and cleaned, after lying unseen under the earth for more years than one can count. 
   When Property at once so valuable and so easily concealed is being handled, most elaborate precautions must be taken against stealing.  The natives, who do most of the work, are kept shut up in an enclosure surrounded by a high wall.  On coming out of the mines they have to strip naked and hang up their clothes, which are carefully searched, as are their bodies, hair, mouths, toes, and all, every place where might be concealed a speak of crystal worth to them a small fortune.  Then they are turned into their enclosure, where they find blankets instead of their clothes, given back to them only when they return to work in the morning. 
   This treatment seems rather hard on the poor fellows who toil so patiently and good-humouredly, and often lose their lives, to enrich white men; but they submit to it for the sake of wages with which, after a few months, they are able to go home, rich according to their own ideas. 

LESSON 26. 
THE PRICE OF A DIAMOND. 
   Christopher Staines was buying some tobacco in a store in South Africa when in walked a Hottentot, and said, "Will you buy this?" laying down on the counter a glittering stone as large as a walnut. 
   " How much? " said the assistant.
   " Two hundred pounds," was the reply.
   The man examined it, and thought it was a diamond, but dare not give two hundred pounds. 
   "Come again in an hour," he said, "when the master will be in." 
   " No," said the Hottentot quietly, and walked out. 
   Staines mounted his horse, and followed the man. 
   " I'll buy that stone," he said.  "I have only a hundred pounds here, but come with me to Dale's Kloof, and I will give you the other hundred." 
   They started, and went on side by side.  For two days they journeyed through the woods, Staines shooting wild animals for their food.  One afternoon, he was just arising his Enfield rifle to shoot an eland, when the Hottentot whispered hastily, "No, no, no!" Staines turned round to look at him.  His face was ashy, his teeth chattering, his limb shaking. 
   Before Staines could ask him what was the matter, he pointed through an opening in the wood near the eland.  Staines looked, and saw what seemed to him a very long dog crawling from tree to tree. This creature, having got to the skirt of the wood, expanded, by some strange magic, to an enormous size, and sprang into the open with a growl -- a mighty lion.  A bound carried him to the eland, and he struck her one blow on the bead with his terrible paw, and felled her as if with a thunder bolt.
   The lion looked towards the wood, and uttered a dreadful roar.  Staines recoiled, and his flesh crept, whilst the Hottentot slid into the river and remained there.  The lion began tearing away at the eland, and bolting huge morsels greedily.  Hyenas, jackals, and vultures came around, but dared not approach too near.  Having finished his meal, the lion stalked into the wood.
   Staines asked the Hottentot which he thought was the lord of all creatures, a man or a lion. 
   "A lion," said he, amazed at such a shallow question. 
   The lion heard their voices, and made straight for them from a distance of scarcely thirty yards.  Staines shouldered his rifle, took a hasty aim, and sent a bullet at him.  Instantly the enraged beast uttered a terrific roar, and came at him with his mane distended, his eyes glaring, his mouth open, his whole body swelled with fury.
   Staines kneeled, and leveled at the center of the lion's chest; not till he was within five yards did he fire.  Through the smoke he saw the lion in the air above him.  With a cry he rolled himself down the bank into the river, and lay there trembling.  Had the lion lost him? 
   All was silent.
   Staines looked round, and saw a woolly head and two saucer eyes and open nostrils close by him.  It was the Hottentot, more dead than alive.  Staines whispered, "I think he is gone."  The Hottentot raised his head, and ventured a little way into the stream.  He grew bolder still, and began to crawl into some rushes, and through them up the bank.  
   The next moment he burst into a mixture of yelling and singing, and Staines followed him out cautiously up the bank.  Could he believe his eyes?  There lay the lion, dead as a stone, on his back, with his four legs in the air; and there was the valiant Hottentot, dancing about him, on him, and over him.  The lion must have died in the air, when he bounded on receiving the fatal shot.
   The Hottentot uttered a cry of admiration. 
   " Not the lion king of all, nor even the white man," he said; "but Enfield rifle." 
   Staines' eyes glittered. 
   " You shall have it, and the horse, for your diamond," he said. 
   The Hottentot did not reply, but sat down and began to skin the lion.  When he had finished, he said: 
   " We take this to my kraal, and they all say, "Squat a great shooter; he kill lion!"
   "No, Squat," said Staines; " that skin belongs to me.  If you were to go you're your village with that lion's skin, the old men would bend their heads to you, and say 'Great is Squat! He killed the lion and wears his skin.'  The young women would all fight which should be the wife of Squat.  Squat would be King of the village." 
   Squat's eyes began to roll.  
   "And shall I give the skin," Staines went on, "and the glory that is my due, to an ill-natured fellow, who refuses me his diamond for a good horse -- look at him; and for the rifle that kills lions like rabbits-look at it; and a hundred pounds in good gold -- see; and for the lion's skin, and glory, and honor, and a rich wife, and to be king of Africa?  Never!" 
   "Good master," said the Hottentot, " Squat ask pardon.  Squat was blind.  Squat will give the diamond for the lion's skin, and the king rifle, and the little horse, and the gold.  That make just two hundred pounds." 
   "More like four hundred!" cried Staines.  "However, you are an honest fellow, and I think I will buy it.  But first you must show me out of this wood.  I am not going to be eaten alive in it for want of the king of rifles.
   "Squat assented eagerly, and they started at once.  They passed the skeleton of the eland; its very bones were polished; looking back they saw vultures busy on the lion.  They soon cleared the wood.  Then Squat handed Staines the diamond; and the money, horse, rifle, and skin were made over to Squat.  
   "Shake hands over it," said Staines.  "You are hard, but you are honest." 
   "Yes, master, I much hard and honest," said Squat. 
   "Good-by, old fellow." 
   "Good-by, master." 
   And Squat strutted away, the horse following him, the rifle under his arm, and the lion's skin over his shoulders.  Staines had brought his diamond. 
From The Palmerston Readers. 

LESSON 27. 
OVER THE CATARACTS OF THE NILE. 
   Steamers are a new sight on the Nile, startling the Soudanese tribes almost as much as they scare the crocodiles and hippopotamuses.  But the river has always been navigated by half-decked boats with big clumsy sails, and long oars that serve to steer rather than to row.  Drifting down the mighty current is easy work.  Against it, when the river is not too full, the boats are carried by the north wind which prevails for a great part of the year, or are tugged by the exertions of a string of men on the bank. 
   Even the cataracts of the Nile are passed by bold Nubian boatmen, who swim like otters, having from childhood been used to play naked in the swirling flood.  Brehm, the German traveler, gives us a spirited account of such a feat of sailing, for which several boats commonly start together, ready to help each other in case of accident.
   Pushing up stream under full sail, the vessel is caught in a whirlpool that drives it back as it is steered towards an opening in the rapids.  Overboard go one or two men, swimming with a rope to some projecting rock, from which they can haul the boat upwards.  Crash! it has struck on a hidden reef, with such violence that the steersman is flung into the water.  One of his comrades throws him a rope and a bladder, by help of which he soon scrambles on board again; another has sprung to the rudder; the rest rush below to plug up the leak with their shirts, or whatever comes to hand.
   Once more the vessel moves on, rocking, creaking, groaning, till it has passed the whirling waves, and is safely moored to a rock. Now a rope is floated down to the next craft to help it up; this in turn helps the one behind, and so on till, by hauling, sailing, and swimming, the whole fleet has passed the difficult place. 
   Still more exciting is the descent of the rapids, in which one boat out of ten will probably be dashed to pieces.  The most experienced reis or skipper leads the way, loudly encouraging and abusing his men as they tug at the oars, their bare bodies glistening with oil and sweat, ready at every moment to find themselves struggling for life in the water.  But soon his voice is drowned in the roar of the breakers that foam across the deck, while the rocks seem to spin round on either side of the helpless craft, as it is swiftly dashed onwards towards the destruction, that seems to threaten it at every moment. 
   The first perilous reef is behind them almost before the scared men have time to realize their danger.  But two of the oars have been shivered like glass, and the crippled boat sweeps helplessly towards a more formidable cataract.  A cry of terror rises; at a sign from the reis, standing at the bow with trembling knees, all throw themselves flat on the deck; there is a deafening crash and an overwhelming rush of hissing, gurgling waves, then the boat gives a leap upward; they have passed the cataract and escaped the jaws of death!  
   The boat following is not so lucky.  A sudden shock has thrown down all its crew but one, hurled high through the air into the river.  He seems lost, buried in the raging depths; but no! while his comrades wring their hands in dismay, the bold swimmer comes up in the middle of the foaming whirlpool, and as a third boat shoots past, he catches one of her oars to swing himself cleverly on board. 
   His boat is stuck fast on a rock, from which the men make beseeching gestures to those that follow.  A hand raised to heaven is the only answer.  No human help can be given here, but the stream itself may undo the mischief it has done.  The wrecked vessel swings, pitches, plunges head and stern in the water, as it is set free again and borne on by the surging current. 
   Some of the crew row, others bale, others hammer, and caulk at their broken craft. Half-full of water, they contrive to bring her on shore to be emptied of her cargo; but part of this, consisting of gum-arabic, is spoilt, and the owner, a poor merchant, tears his beard, moaning, lamenting, and weeping.  To-morrow, repaired and reloaded, she can drift on with the rest to take her chance among the risks of the next cataract. 

LESSON 28. 
STANLEY'S SEARCH FOR LIVINGSTONE. 
   In 1865 Livingstone left England on his last great African journey. He entered the continent at the river Rovuma, south of Lake Nyassa, and then north-westwards, hoping to discover the source of the Nile. 
   Years passed by, and no word of Livingstone came out of the African forest.  It was reported that he was dead, and many believe the report.  Then a man who was to become famous as an African traveler, Henry M. Stanley, went out to search for him. The following is a description of the most pathetic part of the toilsome search: --
   On the first of November Stanley and his negroes arrived at the Malagarazi, a large river flowing from the east to Lake Tanganyika, and after crossing the ferry, they met a caravan coming from the interior, and were told that a white man had just arrived at Ujiji. 
   "A white man? " cried Stanley. 
   "Yes, an old white man with white hair on his face; and he was sick." 
   "Where did he come from?" 
   "From a very far country indeed."
   "Where was he -- staying at Ujiji?" 
   "Yes." 
   "And was he ever at Ujiji before?" 
   "Yes; he went away a long time ago." 
   "Hurrah!" said Stanley; "this must be Livingstone." 
   On the two hundred and thirty-sixth day from Bagamoyo, and the fifty-first day from Unyanyembe, they saw Lake Tanganyika spread out before them.  It was an immense, broad sheet -- a bed of silver -- a canopy of blue above, lofty mountains for its hangings, and palm forests for its fringes.  Descending the western slope of the mountain the port of Ujiji lay below, surrounded by palms. 
   "Unfurl your flags and load your guns!" cried Stanley. 
   "Yes, yes," eagerly responded the men. 
   "One, two, three!" and a volley from fifty muskets woke up the peaceful village below.  The American flag was raised aloft once more; the men stepped out bravely as the crowds of villagers came flocking around them. 
   Suddenly Stanley heard a voice on his ghirt say in English, "Good morning, sir." A black man, dressed in a long white shirt announced himself as "Susi", the servant of Dr. Livingstone. 
   "What! is Dr. Livingstone here?" 
   "Yes, sir." 
   "In the village?" 
   "Yes, sir." 
   "Are you sure?" 
   "Sure, sure, sir." Why, I left him just now." 
   Then another servant introduced himself; the crowds flocked around anew; and finally, at the head of his caravan Stanley found himself before a semi-circle of Arab chiefs, in front of whom stood an old white man, with a gray beard. 
   As Stanley advanced toward him, he noticed that he looked pale and wearied.  He had on his head a bluish cap with a faded gold band around it, a red-sleeved waistcoat, and a pair of gray tweed trousers.  Stanley walked up to him, took off his hat, and said, 
   "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" 
   "Yes" said he with a smile, lifting his cap slightly. 
   Then they clasped hands, and Stanley explained himself and his mission. 
   It was a great day for the old explorer. There were letters from his children. "Ah!" he said patiently, "I have waited years for letters." And you may picture for yourselves that strangely met pair, seated in the English explorer's house, Livingstone hearing for the first time of the great changes in Europe. 
   Mr. Stanley remained four months in the company of Dr. Livingstone. The explorers returned to Unyanyembe, and on the 14th of March they parted, not without tears. It was not until sunset on the 6th of May that the worn and fatigued Stanley re-entered Bagamoyo. The next morning he crossed to Zanzibar, and as soon as possible departed for Europe with his precious freight the Livingstone journals and letters, and his own rich experience. 
Edward King (adapted). 

LESSON 29. 
PROGNESS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. -- 1. 
   The application of steam to the purposes of locomotion has wrought a marvelous change on the life of the civilized world since the last century began. In 1811, Henry Bell, an inn-keeper of Helensburgh, launched upon the Clyde the "Comet", a vessel of twenty-five tons burden, propelled by steam.  Four years later, George Stephenson achieved the construction of a locomotive engine capable of drawing wagons on a railway.  
   In 1830 the same mechanical genius, aided by his son Robert placed the "Rocket" on the rails of the newly-made line between Liverpool and Manchester; and thenceforward the railway system grew and expanded over the world.  The great ocean triumphs, achieved by steam-boats, were the voyage of the "Savannh" from New York to London in 1819, and that of the "Enterprise" to India in 1825.
   The efforts of Rowland Hill, the son of a Birmingham schoolmaster resulted in 1840 in the establishment of a general penny postage, which has had the effect of immensely increasing correspondence.  But this was comparatively a slight matter, when viewed beside the achievement of Wheatstone and Cooke, who, in 1837, united in the construction of the electric telegraph.  Their first successful trial took place on wires laid between Easton Square and Camden Town. 
   A necessary sequel was the invention of the submarine cable, of which the first idea occurred in 1842 to an American electrician, named Morse.  Jacob Brett reduced this idea to a practical form in 1851 by laying a wire wrapped in guttapercha from Dover to Calais.  This was followed in 1858 by the gigantic enterprise of placing a cable across the Atlantic between Valentia, an island on the west coast of Ireland, and Trinity Bay in Newfoundland.  This cable conveyed messages for three weeks, but then ceased to carry the currents: there was a leak in the rope. 

LESSON 30. 
PROGRESS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. -- 2. 
   The eight years intervening between this failure and the grand success of 1866 were marked by the placing of lines in the Red and Mediterranean Seas, and the Persian Gulf.  In 1865 the Atlantic cable snapped during the process of laying it; but in the following year skill and science triumphed not only in the successful laying of a new and stronger ocean cable, but in the recovery, by grappling, of the lost rope from the depths of the mid-ocean.  There are now four or five cables at work between Europe and America.  
   In 1821 an iron ship, put together in a London dock, steamed down the Channel to Havre.  The application of iron armor to vessels of war became an object of rivalry between France and Britain, These ironclads, is they lave beet-called, came "into practical use during the Civil War in America. 
English constructors arm their vessels with solid plates of rolled iron, strongly backed by planks of teak strengthened with iron bars, and defended within by an iron skin.  Iron armor has afterwards come to be applied also to forts; but the contest between cannon and iron-plating is not yet over.  A shot-proof turret, or cupola, revolving on a pivot, is generally placed on the ironclad or iron-fort.  The gun within, and its port-hale, can both be turned in any direction.  
Steel cannon, not case but built ring by ring, are now made capable of throwing enormous conical steel shells with such force as to penetrate iron plates six inches thick.  Steel has also been applied with success to the armor plating of ships of war.  
   In small guns or fire-arms remarkable changes and improvements have been made.  The old flint musket, throwing its round leaden bullet received a percussion lock, which proved a great advantage; but it has undergone further and more momentous changes, by which it has become a breech-loading rifle, capable of sending a conical bullet with remarkable precision and force to the very great distance. 

LESSON 31. 
PROGRESS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. -- 3. 
   These advances, and the introduction of the railway, the electric wire, and even the balloon into the field of war, have made the modern battle-fields a scene with conditions but slightly resembling those of even Waterloo and Austerlitz. 
   But we must thankfully remember that the modern applications of iron have not been confined to the science of destruction, In addition to the railways, locomotives, and steamboats already noticed, vast bridges of iron, such as the Britannia Tubular Bridge across the Menai Strait (1850), and the Victoria Bridge across the St. Lawrence at Montreal, both the work of Robert Stephenson, have been constructed of this metal. It has been applied also to building purposes, of which the Crystal Palaces, the first erected for the Great Exhibition of 1851, have been the most notable examples. 
   The secret of the north-west passage from Europe to the Pacific Ocean has been solved by two independent explorers. The earlier was Sir John Franklin, who left England in 1845 with the "Erebus" and the "Terror," but was frozen up with his ships, and perished with his associates.  The relics of the expedition were found at the mouth of the Great Fish River in 1857 Captain Robert Maclure, in the "Investigator," sailed, after much delay and peril of life among the ice, from Behring Strait into the Atlantic (1861). 
   In Africa, the basin of the Zambesi has been explored by David Livingstone, a medical missionary, who has dispelled the delusion that the portion of Africa north of Cape Colony is an arid tract of barren sand.  In one of his journeys he discovered on the Zambesi the Victoria Falls, a cataract larger than Niagara.  He then explored Lake Nyassa, and every-where found a fertile land, inhabited by tribes of some advancement, but blighted by the evil influence of the slave-trade. 
   The Nile has also received its share of attention from explorers, of whom two have been most distinguished. Captain Speke, an Indian officer, penetrated the continent from Zanzibar, and discovered a vast lake (1858), which he named Victoria Nyanza. As Speke and his intrepid companion Grant were descending the Nile, after this triumphant result of their toil, they met Mr. Baker.   Accompanied by his wife, Baker pressed up the stream, and was rewarded by the discovery of another lake of colossal size, the Albert Nyanza (1864). 
   The most successful explorer of Australia was Captain Sturt, who traced the course of the tributaries of the Murray (1829), and in 1847 penetrated the sandy interior of the island. A tragic interest hangs over the expedition of Burke and Wills in 1861-62. After having penetrated almost to the northern shore of the island continent, they retraced their steps: but reached Cooper's Creek, five hundred miles north of Adelaide, too much exhausted to proceed. There they died of starvation.  
   The general use of gas in dwelling-houses -- the increasing use of electric light in public places -- the advance of photography (first applied to making portraits in 1839) the adoption in domestic life of the sewing machine, invented by Elias Howe of Massachusetts -- may be noted as steps of progress. 
   Provident habits among the working classes have been encouraged by the establishment of savings-banks, and the increased facilities afforded by insurance companies. Emigration to the Colonies clears the land of its surplus bands; while the poor-houses, under Government control, minister to the wants of those who are unable to support themselves. 
                                                                                  From The Royal Historical Reader 
 
LESSON 32
A NOVEMBER FOG. 
No sun -- no moon! 
No morn -- no noon - 
No sky -- no earthly view - 
No distance looking blue - 
No end to any row - 
No indication where the crescents go - 
No tops to any steeple - 
No recognition of familiar people - 
No travelers at all -- no locomotion - 
No inkling of the way -- no motion - 
"No go" by land or ocean - 
No mail -- no post - 
No news from any foreign coast - 
No warmth -- no cheerfulness -- no healthful ease - 
No comfortable feel in any member - 
No shade -- no shine -- no butterflies -- no bees - 
No fruits -- no flowers -- no leaves -- no birds - 
November! 
Thomas Hood. 


LESSON 33. 
JOHN MILTON. 
1. THE POET'S BOYHOOD. 
   Exactly four hundred years ago, in the year 1608, there was born in London city a boy, who was named John Milton.  His father lived in Bread Street, a street turning from Cheapside, and at that time filled with the handsome houses of wealthy merchants.  
   In 1608 the city of London was far different from what it is now.  To-day the city is a class of offices, shops, and warehouses.  By day it is filled with crowds of busy people, by night it is almost empty; all the clerks and shopmen have gone away to their own homes, and only a few caretakers are left.  But when John Milton was a boy, the City itself was full of homes.  Rich merchants lived above their shops in tall houses with lofty gables, a great sign hanging before the house to mark it from its neighbors.  
   There were no numbers to the houses, but above every door was a picture or figure, and very often these also showed the occupation of the master of the house.  Thus a figure of a silver cup showed that the house belonged to a silversmith, a figure of a golden spear told people they could buy weapons there; the mercer -- woolen draper -- hung out a picture of a fleece; the shoemaker's sign was a great gilded boot.  
   Over the doors of the house in which Milton was born, hung the figure of an eagle with wings widely spread.  The sign always showed that a scrivener lived there, and Milton's father was one A scrivener was a man who did all kinds of legal writing.  He drew up wills, he wrote out agreements ready for people to sign, and he prepared leases He had a small shop on the ground-floor of his house, where people came to give him directions, or he went to the houses of his patrons, and wrote there.   
   The City streets about which Milton ran were much more lively than now.  To-day they are busy enough, and the shops are very splendid, but 300 years ago the citizens of London were very fond of shows, and there were plenty of fine sights to be seen.  
   The different classes of city workers were formed into guilds, or companies, and every company had its great day when it marched in procession through the City, and held a fine feast.  On the day of merry-making, the City was all alive with people moving about in holiday attire.  From the windows they hung out scarlet cloth to make the walls look gay.  Crowds lined the streets through which the procession was to pass.  When it came the people looking on saw that every man had put on a new bright dress in honor of the day.  The London train-bands were clad in shining steel, and carried long pikes, and before them went the drummers. and fifers, playing a merry tune.  
   Some in the procession wore strange dresses, so that they looked like wild in or bears or dragons, and these last, by some trick, spouted fire from their mouths.  At times the companies marched by night and then these processions looked more wonderful still; for the bright colors, the shining steel caps and breast plates, the strange figures, were seen by the light of great torches, and every house was decked with colored lamps.  
   Such was the London in which John Milton spent his boyhood, and, as a boy, it is quite possible he may have seen Shakespeare.  Not far away from his home was a famous tavern, called the Mermaid, and at his tavern, Shakespeare and his friends often met.  Shakespeare must have passed the Spread Eagle many a time, and perhaps was seen by the beautiful little boy, whose name was to live with his in English poetry. 

LESSON 34. 
JOHN MILTON. 
2. THE POET'S MANHOOD. 
   As a child Milton showed every sign that he would become a famous man.  He learned his lessons very easily, and began to write journey by the time he was ten years old.  He went to St Paul School, and stayed there till he was sixteen.  From school he went to Cambridge University, where he stayed seven years, from 1625 to 1632.  
   It is said that he was so earnest in his studies that he sat whole nights over his books, even when he was quite a boy.  For this unwise practice he paid dearly in time, by the loss of his eyesight.  
   After Milton left Cambridge, in 1632, he went to live with his father, who had left London, and bought a house in the country, near Windsor.  There Milton spent several quiet years, reading books and writing some of his most beautiful shorter poems. One of these is called "L'Allegro;" it tells us how sweet is joy, and is filled with gay and joyous pictures of country sights and sounds.  There is a companion poem called "Il Penseroso," and that, in turn, praises melancholy.  
   In 1638 Milton went abroad for two years to see the famous towns of Italy.  But he heard, in 1640, that war was about to break out in England between the King and Parliament, and he returned to take his share in the fight for liberty.  He put aside all his poetry and his love of the quiet life of a student, and did his utmost for the cause of the Parliament against the King.  He wrote many papers in defense of what he thought to be the right.  These were printed and widely read.  
   In 1649 King Charles the First lost his head, and England became a republic.  Milton , was given the post of Latin Secretary.  In those days Latin was the language always used in letters and papers sent from one country to another, and dealing with affairs of government.  
   Soon after this Milton suffered a great misfortune. 
His eyes had always given him much trouble.  They became weaker and weaker, and, in 1652, he went quite blind.  This was a terrible loss to a man who loved books beyond 
everything else.  
   In 1660 Charles the Second came to England, and was placed on the 
throne.  At once he began to punish all those who had had anything to do with the death of his father. Milton was one of them, and he was flung into prison. These were dark days for the great poet.  He was over fifty years old, poor, blind, shut up in prison, and most of his friends dead, or fled abroad.  
   At last someone spoke for him, and obtained his release.  Milton settled down in a house in Bunhill Fields, and resolved to begin his great poem.  For more than twenty years he had been tuning over his mind the plan of a poem upon some great subject.  But he had not been able to work at it during the stormy years between 1640 and 1660.  He never forgot his studies, and the happy days he spent in writing before the Great Civil War broke out.  "I may one day hope", said he, when thinking of them, " to have ye again in a still time, when there shall be no chiding -- not in these Noises.  "And so he put aside his own work, to work for his country.  
   After he was set free from prison, and had settled in his quiet house in a quiet London street, he had the peace he witched for.  He spent some years in writing the poem he had had so long in mind, and finished it in 1665.  It is called "Paradise Lost." It describes the creation of the world, the life of Adam and Eve in Paradise, the manner in which they were tempted and fell, and how they were driven from the Garden of Eden.  "Paradise Lost" is one of the greatest books in the world.  It is written in very pure, noble English, and abounds in wonderful pictures of earth and heaven.  It was published in 1667, and at once Milton took his place as second only to Shakespeare among English poets.  
   Afterwards Milton wrote another poem, Called "Paradise Regained" a poem dealing with the life of Christ. 
This was published in 1671.  He died three years later, in 1674, at the age of sixty-six. From Famous Englishmen.

LESSON 35. 
A KANGAROO-HUNT. --1. 
   About sunset Greene came up to tell Mr.  Ned that "Shaw's paddock" was alive with kangaroos, and that, if the house people wished for a change of amusement, now was the time.  
   "Shaw's paddock" was a great stretch of country away beyond the Black range, and bearing down towards the river on one side and Coobang Creek on the other.  About two thirds of it was open grass-land, while the remainder was steep and ridgy, and the kangaroos, it was well known, made these ridges their retreats and hiding places when pressed in the chase.   Ned spoke of Greene's visit at dinner, when all were assembled, and general excitement followed.  Who would go on the following day, or the day after, to "Shaw's paddock" for a kangaroo-hunt? Who wouldn't, indeed? 
   Some said to-morrow, and some said the day after, but it was impossible to say how matters stood till Mr.  Baird proposed a ballot.  This was done by each person writing on a slip of paper the words "to-morrow", or "day after", folding the paper tightly up, and dropping it into a small flower-basket brought from the drawing-room for the purpose.  When all had voted, Mr. Baird took out the papers, unfolded them, and carefully noted the result.  After an anxious suspense of some three minutes, he called out: "The 'day after' has it, by a majority of four." 
   "Hear, hear!" cried several voices, amidst the greatest good-humor.  
   A delightfully cool and smiling morn was that of the "day after", and each and everyone declared the Weather perfect.   Breakfast over, it wasn't long before every member of the party was in the saddle, or about to mount, and nothing was to be heard all around but the many.  laugh or pleasant joke.  
   Mr. De Barrie, the critic, asked Mr. Baird if there wasn't some kind of new-world knight-errantry connected with Kangaroo-hunts.  
   Mr. Baird explained that forty years ago or more each young hunter was dubbed a knight, and had among the assembled fair a lady-love whom he was supposed to please, no matter the peril, fatigue, or danger, and that he who fairly killed the first kangaroo was the here of the day, and was supposed to claim as his lady-love the beauty of the assembled fair ones after having first laid at her feet the scalp and tail of the defunct marsupial.  The scalp remained a trophy with them in their supposed happy future life, white the tail was turned to a less romantic use, being conversed into the well-known soup of that name, and served up at the first dinner after the death.  
   Dick carried a stock-whip with a handle about one-third longer than the usual run of these articles, and loaded with lead after a very ingenious fashion, and to the extent of nearly half a pound.  It was the property of one of the stock-men on the station.  
   When they were within view of the scene of the day's outing, the kangaroo could be seen in scores all over the plain-kangaroos of all sizes and ages, from the stately " old man " to the " flying joey."  
   A pleasant little knoll, well elevated and nicely, shaded, stood at one end of the great plain, and it was arranged that this should be the grand stand of the day, and here the ladies and elder people, as well as the young folk.  Assembled, and made themselves comfortable on the green, soft, and cool turf.  

LESSON 36. 
A KANGAROO-HUNT. -- 2. 
   It was now eleven o'clock, and it was decided to start the sport at once.  Two young men, visitors, had the first run off, but little sport was the result.  The horsemanship was good, but the marsupials were wary and dodgy; and after half an hour's uninteresting cantering about, the kangaroos cleared the boundary fence, and scudded away into space.  There was to be no attempt made to follow over the fence, and so they escaped. 
   Several other pairs followed, and then came the turn of Archie and Dick.  These young men looked serious and determined.  "Away you go! " cried Ned and the young knights-errant rode forth as proudly and as haughtily as if about to engage in mortal combat. 
   The riders soon got well away on the plain, and it could be seen that each was bowling along at a steady hand-gallop, with the dogs well up.  The kangaroos became suddenly alarmed, for numbers of them sat up and looked around.  Just then the horse-men appeared to separate, as if each had selected his quarry and away they went in different directions.  
   "See", cried Ned, "they are getting the game close up to the timber, and in a few minutes we shall lose sight of them altogether.  The finish will be worth witnessing. Let us ride down, and see this famous Scalping.  Who will come?" 
   In a few minutes all were in the saddle, including the young ladies, and off they went. 
   Archie and Dick at first followed separate animals, but by a mistake in the pine-scrub, they came to be after the same one.  Archie followed closely, and a most desperate and exciting chase for a mile took place.  The kangaroo, feeling himself closely pressed, instinctively ran to the nearest water which happened to be a large pool or dam, varying in depth from three to seven or eight feet.  The moment he reached it, he plunged in, followed by the dogs.  
   Standing erect (he was a huge "old man", and measured fully seven feet in height, he knocked the very picture of defiance and rage.  The dogs swam up to him, but the moment the first reached him, he was instantly gripped by the infuriated marsupial, and plunged under water, where he was held till drowned.  The other contented himself with standing at bay, and barking, till the huntsmen came up when he made a dash at the kangaroo, and narrowly escaped the fate of his comrade.  Up rode Dick and Archie at the same moment, and without saying a word jumped from their saddles, the latter plunging madly into the water-hole.  
   Archie advanced, bowie-knife in hand, towards the kangaroo with great difficulty, but before he could deliver an effective blow the animal gripped him like a vice by each arm just above the elbow-joint, and dipped him, as if he were merely a kitten, to the very bottom of the hole.  
   At that instant Dick waded up on the right, and bringing the handle of the loaded stock-whip round his head with a sweep, crashed it down on the skull of the kangaroo.  Soon Archie was released, and the kangaroo was killed.  
From the Illustrated Continental Readers.  

LESSON 37. 
WHANG, THE MILLER. 
   Whang, the miller, was naturally avaricious; no body loved money better than he, or more respected those that had it.  When people would talk of a rich man in company, Whang would say, "I know him very well, he and I have been very long acquainted; he and I are intimate."
   But, if a poor man was mentioned, he had not the least knowledge of the man; he might be very well, for aught he knew; but he was not fond of making many acquaintances, and loved to choose his company.  
   Whang, however, with all his eagerness for riches, was poor.  He had nothing but the profit of the mill to support him; but, though these were small, they were certain: while it stood and went, he was sure of eating; and his frugality was such, that he every day laid some money by which he would, at intervals, count and contemplate with much satisfaction.  
   Yet still his acquisitions were not equal to his desires; he only found himself above want; whereas he desired to be possessed of affluence.  One day, as he was indulging these wishes, he was informed that a neighbor of his had found a pan of money under ground, having dreamed of it three nights in succession.  
   These tidings were daggers to the heart of poor Whang.  "Here am I", said he, "toiling and moiling from morning till night for a few paltry farthings, while neighbor Thanks only goes quietly to bed, and dreams himself into thousands before morning.  Oh, that I could dream like him! With what pleasure would I dig round the pan! How slyly would carry it home! Not even my wife should see me! And then, oh the pleasure of thrusting one's hands into a heap of gold up to the elbows!" 
   Such reflections only served to make the miller unhappy.  He discontinued his former assiduity; he was quite disgusted with small gains; and his customers began to forsake him.  Every day he repeated the wish, and every night he laid himself down in older to dream.  Fortune, that was for a long time unkind, at last, however seemed to smile upon his distress, and indulged him with the wished for vision.  
   He dreamed that under a certain part of the foundation of his mill, there was concealed a monstrous pan of gold and diamonds, buried deep in the ground, and covered with a large fat stone.  He concealed his good luck from every person, as is usual in money-dreams, in order to have the vision repeated the two succeeding nights, by which he should be certain of its truth.  His wishes in this, also, were answered; he still dreamed of the same pan of money, in the very same place.  
   Now, therefore, it was past a doubt; so, getting up early the third morning, he repaired, alone, with a mattock in his hand, to the mill, and began to undermine that part of the wall to which the vision directed.  The first omen of success that he met with, was a broken ring; digging still deeper, he turned up a house-tile, quite new and, entire.  
   At last, after much digging, he came to a broad flat stone: but then it was so large, that it was beyond his strength to remove it.  "There", cried he in raptures to himself.  "there it is!" under this stone, there is room for a very large pan of diamonds indeed.  I must den go home to my wife, and tell her the whole affair, and get her to assist me in turning it up." Away, therefore, he goes, and acquaints his wife with every circumstance of their good fortune.  
   Her raptures, on this occasion, may easily be imagined; she flew round his neck, and embraced him in an agony of joy.  But these transports, however, did not allay their eagerness to know the exact sum; returning, together, to the place where Whang had been digging, there they found not, indeed, the expected treasure but the mill, their only support, undermined and fallen! 
                                          Goldsmith.  

LESSON 38. 
THE SUNKEN TREASURE. 
   William Phipps was a poor man's son, and was born in the province of Maine, at the time when America was under British rule.  In his boyhood and youth he used to tend sheep upon the hills, and until he had grown to be a man, he did not even know how to read and write.  Tired of tending sheep, he next apprenticed himself to a ship-carpenter, and s pent about four years in hewing the crocked limbs of oak trees into knees for vessels.  
   In 1673 when he was twenty-two years old he went to Boston, and soon afterwards was married to a rich widow.  It was not long however, before he lost all the money that he had acquired by his marriage, and became a poor man again.  Still he was not discouraged.  He often told his wife that some time or other, he should be very rich, and would build a "fair brick house" in the Green Lane of Boston.  
   Several years passed away, and William Phipps had not yet gained the riches which he promised to himself.  During this time he had begun to follow the sea for a living.  In the year 1684 he happened to hear of a Spanish ship which had been cast away near the Bahamas, and which was supposed to contain a great deal of gold and silver.  Phipps went to the place in a small vessel, hoping that he should be able to recover some of the treasure from the wreck.  He did not succeed, however, in fishing up gold and silver enough to pay the expenses of his voyage.  
   But before he returned he was told of another Spanish galleon, which, laden with immense treasure, had been cast away near Porto Plata.  This ship had lain as much .as fifty years beneath the waves.  But though it was now an old story, and the most aged people had almost forgotten that such a vessel had been wrecked.  William Phipps resolved that the sunken treasure should again be brought to light.  
   He went to London, and obtained admittance to King James.  He told the king of the vast wealth that was lying at the bottom of the sea.  King James listened with attention, and appointed Phipps to be captain of a vessel called the Rose Algier, carrying eighteen guns and ninety-five men.  
   Captain Phipps sailed from England in the Rose Algier, and cruised for nearly two years in the West Indies, endeavoring to find the wreck of the Spanish ship.  But it was all in vain.  The seamen became discouraged, and gave up all hope of making their fortunes by discovering the Spanish wreck.  Finally they broke out in open mutiny, but were mastered by Phipps and compelled to obey his orders.  It would have been dangerous, however, to continue much longer at sea with such a crew of mutinous sailors; and, besides, the Rose Algier was leaky and unseaworthy.  So Captain Phipps judged it best to return to England.  
   But before leaving the West Indies he met with a Spaniard, an old man, who remembered the wreck of the Spanish ship, and gave him directions how to find the very spot.  It was on a reef of rocks, the old man said, a few leagues from Porto Plata.  
   On his arrival in England, Captain Phipps solicited the king to let him have another vessel, and send him back again to the West Indies.  But King James, who had expected that the Rose Algier would return laden with gold, refused to have any thing more to do with the affair.  
   Phipps might never have been able to renew the search, if the Duke of Albemarle and some other noblemen had not lent their assistance.  They fitted out a ship, and gave the command to Captain Phipps.  He sailed from England, and arrived safely at Porte Plata, where he took an adz and assisted his men to build a large boat. 
   The boat was intended for the purpose of going closer to the reef of rocks than a large vessel could safely venture.  When it was finished, the captain sent several men in it to examine the spot where the Spanish ship was said to have been wrecked.  They were accompanied by some Indians, who were skilful divers. 
   The boat's crew proceeded to the reef of rocks, and rowed round and round it a great many tunes.  They .gazed down into the transparent water, but nothing could they see -- nothing more valuable than a curious sea-shrub, which was growing beneath the water, in a crevice of the reef of rocks.  
   "We don't go back empty-handed", cried an English sailor; and then he spoke to one of the Indian divers, "Dive down and bring me that pretty sea-shrub there.  That's the only treasure we shall find." Down plunged the diver, and soon rose dripping from the water, holding the seashrub in his hand.  But he had learned some news at the bottom of the sea.  "There are some ship's guns", said he, the moment he had drawn breath, "some great cannon, among the rocks, near where the shrub was growing! 
   No sooner had he spoken than the English sailors knew that they had found the very spot where the Spanish galleon had been wrecked so many years before.  The other Indian divers immediately plunged over the boat's side and swam headlong down, groping among the rocks and sunken cannon.  In a fee moments one of them rose above the water with a heavy lump of silver in his arms.  The single lump was worth more than a thousand dollars.  
   The sailors took it into the boat, and then rowed back as speedily as they could to inform Captain Phipps of their good lucid "Thanks be to God!" cries Captain Phipps.  "We shall every man of us make our fortunes!" 
   Hereupon the captain and all the crew set to work, with iron rakes and great hooks and lines, fishing for gold and silver at the bottom of the sea.  Up came the treasure in abundance.  Now they beheld a table of solid silver, once the property of an old Spanish grandee.  Now they drew up a golden cup, fit for the King of Spain to drink his wine out of.  Now their rakes or fishing-lines were loaded with masses of silver bullion.  There were also precious stones among the treasure, glittering and sparkling. 
   After a day or two, Captain Phipps and his crew lighted on another part of the wreck, where they found a great many bags of silver dollars.  But nobody could have guessed that these were money-bags.  By remaining so long in the salt water, they had become covered over with a crust which had the appearance of stone, so that it was necessary to break them in pieces with hammers and axes.  When this was done, a stream of silver dollars gushed out upon the deck of the vessel.
   The whole value of the recovered treasure, plate, bullion, precious stones, and all, was estimated at more than two millions of dollars.   Captain Phipps and his men continued to fish up plate bullion, dollars, as plentifully as ever, till their provisions grew short.  Then, as they could not feed upon gold and silver.  Phipps resolved to return to England, where he was received with great joy by the Duke of Albemarle and other English lords who had fitted out the vessel. 
   The captain's share was enough to make him comfortable for the rest of his days.  It also enabled him to fulfill his promise to his wife, by building a "fair brick house" in the Green Lane of Boston.  Before Captain Phipps left London, King James made him a knight; so that, instead of the obscure ship-carpenter who had formerly dwelt among them, the inhabitants of Boston welcomed him on his return as the rich and famous Sir William Phipps.  
            From Nathaniel Hawthorne's True Stories. 

LESSON 39. 
THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIN. 
It was a summer's evening, 
Old Kaspar's work was done, 
And he before his cottage-door 
Was sitting in the sun, 
And by him sported on the green 
His little grandchild Wilhelmine. 

She saw her brother Peterkin 
Roll something large and round, 
That he beside the rivulet 
In playing there had found: 
He came to ask what he had found, 
That was so large, and smooth, and round. 

Old Kaspar took it from the boy, 
Who stood expectant by; 
And then the old man shook his head, 
And with a natural sigh, 
"'Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he, 
"Who fell in the great victory." 

"I find them in the garden, for 
There's many here about. 
And often when I go to plough, 
The ploughshare turns them outs 
For many thousand men," said he, 
"Were slain in the great victory." 

"Now tell us what 'twas all about,"
Young Peterkin he cries, 
And little Wilhelmine looks up 
With wonder-waiting eyes; 
"Now tell us all about the war, 
And what they kill'd each other for." 

"It was the Einglish," Kaspar cried, 
"That put the French to rout: 
But what they 
killed each other for, 
I could not well make out, 
But everybody said," quoth he, 
"That 'twas a famous victory. 

"My father lived at Blenheim then, 
Yon little stream hard by, 
They burnt his dwelling to the ground, 
And he was forced to fly; 
So with his wife and child he fled, 
Nor had he, where to rest his head. 

With fire and sword the county round 
Was wasted far and wide, 
And many a child and mother then, 
And new-born infant died. 
But things like that, you know, must be 
At every famous victory. 

They say, it was a shocking sight 
After the field was won, 
For many thousand bodies here 
Lay rotting in the sun; 
But things like that, you know, must be 
After a famous victory. 

Great praise the Duke of Marlbro won, 
And our good Prince Eugene." - 
"Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!" 
Said little Wilhelmine. 
"Nay ? nay -- my little girl," quoth he, 
"It was a famous victory. " 

And everybody praised the Duke, 
Who such a fight did win." 
"But what good came of it at last?" 
Quoth little Peterkin. 
"Why, that I cannot tell," said he, 
"But 'twas a famous victory." 
       Rebert Southey

LESSON 40. 
THE CAMERA. 
   The photographic camera has done much to help us in the study of nature.  It sees for us many things which are invisible to our human eyes.  It will picture the shape of drops of falling water, and trace the form of a flash of lightning, or it will watch the heavens through a telescope for hours together. 
   Every one knows the use of the camera for taking "snapshots." of moving objects; the time during which change of position during that time.  A man running a plate is exposed is so short that there is almost no is shown, perhaps, as if he were standing on one leg, or about to tumble on his face.  Such an object as a horse leaping, or a bird flying comes out clearly and we see the exact position of the animal at the time the picture was taken.  The human eye, far slower than the camera, cannot catch more than a vague general picture of such movements. 
   A very pretty use is made of snapshot photographs in the "living pictures" of the biograph or cinematograph, which are now so often seen at evening entertainments.  A special kind of camera is used, which takes about thirty snapshots each second, hundreds of tiny negatives being made on a long strip of sensitive film.  Positives of these pictures are then made on a similar strip, and this is placed so as to pass rapidly in front of a magic-lantern.  
   As each picture passes in front of the lantern lens, a beam of light flashes through it, throwing its shadow for a moment upon the large screen.  These shadow pictures are flashed upon the screen so rapidly after each other, that our eyes cannot detect the dark intervals between them, and they look to us like one picture.  But while the scene is nearly the same in all the pictures, the position of the figures is slightly different in each, as you see in the series given on these two pages.  Hence the figures in it moving about like the real figures in front of the camera picture on the screen seems to change gradually, the when the snapshots were taken.  
   The camera is of use also in seeing things for which a long steady gaze is necessary.  It is of the greatest value to the astronomer.  His telescope has already told him much about the starry sky and its wonders; but to make the best use of the telescope, the eye of the camera is needed.  
   In order to trace a picture on the sensitive plate of the camera, either the light must be very bright or it must be allowed to act for a long time When the light is strong, we can take a photograph in a fraction of a second; when the light is dim, we can make up for its weakness by giving a strong exposure The eye of the camera sees as well by dim light as by strong light if we give it time enough.  
   This is just the kind of eye that is needed for star-gazing.  Our eye is easily fatigued, and after a time the longer we look the less we are able to see.  Unless we can make out a faint star in a short time, we may as well give up looking for it.  Not so with the camera If half an hour's exposure leaves no trace of the object on the sensitive plate, we can give an exposure of an hour, two hours, or as many hours as are necessary.   The camera, attached to the telescope, will keep watch for us with open eye all through a long winter night.  
   Not only are faint stars and other objects made clear by a long exposure but stars are shown on the plate which are too dim for any human eye to see even through the most powerful telescope we can build.  Rays of light which are too weak to make any impression on the nerve-screen of our eye, will yet imprint themselves on the plate of the camera, if that be sufficiently sensitive, and if time enough be given for the rays to act.  
   Men have spent many weary hours in mapping out the heavens, and in measuring the distance between one star and another.  This work the camera now performs for us.  Its gaze is not turned to one star at a time, as ours must be; all the stars in the field of its vision are shown as in a map, in their exact positions.  
   These are only a few of the ways in which the camera has aided us in our search for knowledge.  We shall only say, in conclusion, that all the illustrations in this book are printed from metal pictures made by the help of the camera.  To explain here how this is done would take up too much space but those boys who are the happy owners of a camera will no doubt find out the process for themselves. 
         From The Royal Prince Readers.