and every one that I ever saw loaded - and I have seen thousands - acted in precisely the same manner. The camel, when he is not eating or drinking or being loaded, is invariably chewing the cud. His long, crooked jaw is in perpetual motion, and when he is told to lie down to receive his burden he does so without varying this incessant masticatory process. He awkwardly bends his fore knees, drags his hind legs under him, and comes to the ground with a curious kind of flop.

But

2. All this time his long, melancholy face shows not the slightest indication that he knows what he is lying down for; and this umistakable hypocrisy, I think, stamps the camel as an animal of a very high order of intellect. in a few seconds the expression on the camel's face undergoes a striking alteration. As he sees the driver approaching him with a box on his shoulder, he seems at last to understand the indignity and torture to which he is about to be subjected; and the astonishment, virtuous indignation, and dismay on the ill-used animal's countenance ought certainly to make some impression on the stony heart of the driver. They never have the slightest effect. The man binds the first box on the wretched animal's back, and goes away to get another. Then the camel wisely abandoning his efforts to move man to compassion, points his hairy nose upward, and howls his wrongs to the skies.

3. Never in circus, pantomime or show have I seen anything half so ludicrous as the camel's appearance at that moment. His upper lip is curled back from the teeth, his under lip doubles up and drops down as though he had no further use for it, his great mouth opens so wide that one can see about half a yard down his throat, and out of the

cavern thus revealed comes a series of the most astonishing howls that ever startled the air-howls of such abject misery that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the camel's heart is breaking; and this impression is strengthened by the tears that flow copiously down the wailing animal's elongated cheeks and drip from the end of his

nose.

4. In the utterance of each note of woe the camel seems to be exerting the utmost power of his lungs, but he is all the time holding a large force in reserve, and as the driver adds box after box to the pile on his back, a howl more resonant and heart-rending than the last testifies to each addition to the creature's misery; and never, except when he is absolutely engaged in trumpeting his agonies into space, are the great watery eyes of the camel removed from the person of his persecutor. They follow him wherever he goes, and express through their tears contempt, indignation, astonishment, and dismay.

5. The Eastern driver, indifferent to these remonstrances, piles up the load until it reaches almost the proportions of an elephant's burden. Then, the cases being bound fast with ropes, the camel is told to rise; and the animal, feeling that he has conscientiously done his whole duty by entering his protest at every stage of the work, contentedly accepts the unavoidable result, stops his tears, suppresses his cries, gets up on his feet, and, resuming his occupation of chewing the cud, is ready for the week's march that usually lies before him.

DIARY OF AN EASTERN TRAVELER.

62. THE ANTLERED RIVALS.

ant'lers, branching horns.

bells, bellows.

de-scry', behold, discern.
fix'i-ty, fixedness, immobility.

1. LET us look together at something truly noble, the masterpieces of Landseer. They form a drama in three acts, melancholy, but full of grandeur. The scene opens on the moorland. It is night, one of the deep, dark, silent nights of Scotland. It is night, and it is winter. The snow has already fallen. It whitens everything; both the mountains ruggedly cleft and broken; and the earth upon which, an image of sadness, lie two branchless and withered firtrees. From this shroud of snow, a deep lake, which doubles the depth of the night, detaches itself, mute and somber. Innumerable stars plunge their sharpened rays into the motionless waters. Heavy, blackish mists, unable to ascend, creep along the banks.

2. A stag is there, alone. More somber than the somber night, he bells aloud. His eyes penetrate the distance, and apparently descry an invisible being. Yet nothing appears and the waste is very dreary. But he has seen some one on yonder bank. Look well into the center of the lake. By the gleam of the stars, do you not see a haughty pair of antlers? It is his rival. He speeds towards him with the swiftness of an arrow !

3. Behold them confronting one another. The night is not now so dark; the moon has risen; she glides pallidly into the mists. The awakened breeze takes captive the waters of the lake. For a moment even frigid nature seems somewhat moved. The combat has begun, and the

weapons are equal. But the heart is troubled to see that in this terrible combat, this struggle to the death, nothing is visible of brutally savage passion. To hear only those foreheads dashing together, and those antlers locking in one another, you would think their hatred unrelenting. But look in their eyes. They see not, neither do they seek, the enemy. Full of grief, one might almost say of tears, they are gazing far away from the scene of strife. How gloomy is the fatality which changes into bitterness the sole happy moment of their existence !

4. And now it is morning. In yon gray sky the dawn has begun to break. They are there still; but prone upon earth, motionless, dead! And what a death! In the struggle, and in the darkness, they have so entangled together their antlers that no effort since has been able to separate them. Cruel nature had willed their defeat. They have fallen together in a tragical embrace.

MADAME MICHELET.

63.

THE MOOSE IN THE MAINE WOODS.

branch, rivulet.

ca-mel'o-pard, the giraffe.

cow'er, to crouch in fear.

e-las'tic, springy.

gro-tesque' [tesk'], whimsical. paint'er, a rope at the bow of a boat. re-con-noi'ter, to examine.

ret'i-cence, refraining to speak.

1. About two o'clock, we turned up a small branch three or four rods wide, which comes in on the right from the south, called Pine Stream, to look for moose-signs. We had gone but a few rods before we saw very recent signs along the water's edge, the mud lifted up by their feet being quite fresh, and Joe declared that they had gone along there but a short time before. We soon reached a small meadow on the east side, at an angle in the stream, which was for the most part densely covered with alders.

2. As we were advancing along the edge of this, rather more quietly than usual, perhaps, on account of the freshness of the signs, the design being to camp up this stream, if it promised well, I heard a slight crackling of twigs deep in the alders, and turned Joe's attention to it; whereupon he began to push the canoe back rapidly; and we had receded thus half a dozen rods, when we suddenly spied two moose standing just on the edge of the open part of the meadow which we had passed, not more than six or seven rods distant, looking round the alders at us. They made me think of great frightened rabbits, with their long ears and half-inquisitive, half-frightened looks.

3. Our Nimrod hastily stood up, and while we ducked, fired over our heads one barrel at the foremost, which alone he saw, though he did not know what kind of crea