upon this short and withered grass where we stand, and lay bare the earth.”

14. "Would you think to deprive the fire of its victims in this childish manner?" exclaimed Middleton.

15. A faint, but solemn smile passed over the features of the old man, as he answered, "Your grandfather would have said that, when the enemy was nigh, a soldier could do no better than to obey."

16. The captain felt the reproof, and instantly began to imitate the industry of Paul, who was tearing the decayed herbage from the ground in a sort of desperate compliance with the trapper's direction. Even Ellen lent her hands to the labor; nor was.it long before Inez was seen similarly employed, though none among them knew why or wherefore.

17. A very few moments sufficed to lay bare a spot of some twenty feet in diameter. To one side of this little area, the trapper brought the ladies, directing Middleton and Paul to cover their light and inflammable dresses with the blankets of the party. Then the old man approached the opposite side of the grass, which still environed them in a tall and dangerous circle, and selecting a handful of the driest of the herbage, he placed it over the pan of his rifle.

Then

18. The light combustible kindled at the flash. he placed the little flame in a bed of the standing fog, and, withdrawing from the spot to the center of the ring, he patiently awaited the result. The subtle element seized with avidity upon its new fuel, and in a moment forked flames were gliding among the grass.

19. "Now," said the old man, holding up a finger, and laughing in his peculiarly silent manner, "you shall see fire fight fire. Ah's me! many is the time I have burned a path, from wanton laziness to pick my way across a tangled bottom.”

20. "

66

But, is this not fatal ?" cried the amazed Middleare you not bringing the enemy nearer to us, instead of avoiding it?"

ton;

21. "Do you scorch so easily? Your grandfather had a tougher skin. But we shall live to see, we shall all live to see."

22. The experience of the trapper was in the right. As the fire gained strength and heat, it began to spread on three sides, dying of itself on the fourth for want of aliment. As it increased, and the sullen roaring announced its power, it cleared everything before it, leaving the black and smoking soil far more naked, than if the scythe had swept the place.

23. By advancing to the spot where the trapper had kindled the grass, they avoided the heat; and, in a very few moments, the flames began to recede in every direction, leaving them enveloped in a cloud of smoke, but perfectly safe from the torrent of fire that was still furiously rolling onward.

24. "It will do; it will do," returned the old man, who, after the first moment of his success, seemed to think no more of the exploit. "Let the flames do their work for a short half-hour, and, then, we will mount. That time is needed to cool the meadow; for these unshod beasts are tender on the hoof as a barefooted girl."

THE ship on which we were going to America had risen

above the level of the coast, and very soon there was nothing but the sea around us, and the blue vault above, spread out like a canvas prepared to receive the future.

creations of a great artist. The water was like liquid glass. A heavy swell came up from the west, although the wind was blowing from the east; enormous undulations extended from north to south, and opened to our view long vistas in the ocean wastes.

2. The view changed every moment. Sometimes, the multitude of green mounds resembled the long rows of graves in an immense cemetery. Sometimes, the waves, curling their crests, looked like white flocks scattered over the heather; often, the space which the eye took in seemed narrow, for want of a point of comparison. If a wave rose, or curved like a distant shore, or a shoal of sea-dogs crossed our path, the horizon seemed, suddenly, to widen before us.

3. But the effect of great distance was most striking when a light fog crept over the water, and seemed to increase immensity itself. How grand and sad is the face of the ocean under these aspects! Into what reveries it plunges us, whether the imagination enters the northern seas with their frosts and tempests, or revels among the happy islands of the southern main.

4. We often rose, and went on deck in the middle of the night, where we found only the officers of the watch and a few sailors, smoking their pipes in the silence. Not a sound could be heard except the rustling of the waters against the prow, while sparks of fire ran along the ship's side with the white foam.

5. God of Christians! it is especially in the waste of waters and on the distant skies, that Thou hast most deeply graven the signs of Thine almighty power. Millions of stars shine on the dark azure of the celestial dome; the moon hangs in the midst of the firmament; there is the boundless sea — infinity in skies and in the waves! Never has Thy grandeur so moved me as during those nights, when, suspended between the stars and the

ocean, I had immensity for a canopy, and my feet rested upon it!

6. I am nothing, — a simple anchorite. a simple anchorite. I have often heard learned men dispute about the first Being, and I could not understand them; but I have always remarked that this unknown Being manifests Himself to the heart of man.

7. We found ourselves, one evening, in a profound calm, in the beautiful waters which bathe the coast of Virginia; every sail was furled, and I was occupying myself on the deck, when I heard the bell calling the crew to prayers, and hastened to mingle mine with those of my fellowvoyagers. The officers and passengers were assembled on the quarter-deck, with the chaplain, book in hand, a little in advance; the sailors were scattered about the deck; and all, standing, turned their faces toward the prow of the vessel, which looked toward the west.

8. The disc of the sun, just ready to sink into the waves, appeared through the rigging, as if suspended in boundless space; the motion of the ship made it appear as if the radiant orb changed its horizon every moment. There were a few scattered clouds in the east, where the moon was slowly rising; but, everywhere else, the sky was cloudless.

9. Toward the north, there was a water-spout, brilliant with all the colors of the rainbow, which formed a glorious triangle with the rising moon and setting sun, and seemed like a pillar of crystal, rising from the sea, supporting the vault of heaven. That man should be greatly pitied who could not, in this the Creator.

spectacle, see the beauty of

10. The sense of our own littleness, in the presence of infinity, the coming night with its unseen dangers, the wonder of our vessels, among so many wonders, the worshipping seamen, filled with fear and admiration, the ven

erable priest at his prayers; God leaning over the abyss, with one hand holding the sun at the gates of the west, with the other raising the moon in the east, and lending, across immensity, an attentive ear to the voice of His creatures, all this formed a scene which cannot be described, and which the heart of man can hardly comprehend. Francis A. Chateaubriand.

XLVII. THE VALLEY OF THE YOSEMITE.

THE name, Yosemite, signifying Grizzly Bear, was that of a tribe of Indians. In 1851 they were hostile. The whites, pursuing them into their home and stronghold, discovered this crowning wonder of the world. On the seventh of August, after four days' hard travel from San Francisco, we galloped out of the pine woods, dismounted, stood upon the rocky precipice of Inspiration. Point, and looked down into Yosemite as one looks down from a housetop into his garden; or as he would view the