gaping and dusty earth, as much as in the bosom of the waters and the air which breathes around."

At last a soft and distant murmur, increasing gradually to a heavy roar, announced that they were nearing some cataract; till, turning a point where the deep alluvial soil rose into a low cliff fringed with delicate ferns, they came full in sight of a scene at which all paused, not with astonishment, but with something very like disgust.

"Rapids again!" grumbled one. "I thought we had had enough of them on the Orinoco."

"We shall have to get out, and draw the canoes. overland, I suppose. Three hours will be lost, and in the very hottest of the day, too."

There's worse behind: don't you see the spray behind the palms?"

Stop grumbling, my masters, and don't cry out before you are hurt. Paddle right up to the largest

of those islands, and let us look about us."

In front of them was a snow-white bar of raging foam, some ten feet high, along which were ranged three or four islands of black rock. Each was crested with a knot of lofty palms, whose green tops stood out clear against the bright sky, while the lower half of their stems loomed hazy through a luminous veil of rainbowed mist. The banks were densely fringed with a low hedge of shrubs, and their Indian guide bade them beware of savages, and pointed to a canoe which lay swinging in the eddies under the largest island, moored to the root of a tree.

"Silence all!" cried Amyas, " and paddle up thither

and seize the canoe. If there be an Indian on the island, we will have speech of him. But mind and treat him friendly; and on your lives, neither strike nor shoot, even if he offers to fight."

So, choosing a line of smooth backwater just in the wake of the island, they drove their canoes up by main force, and fastened them safely by the side of the Indian's; while Amyas, always the foremost, sprang boldly on shore, whispering to the Indian boy to follow him.

Once on the island, Amyas felt sure enough that if its wild tenant had not seen them approach, he certainly had not heard them, so deafening was the noise which filled his brain, and seemed to make the very leaves upon the bushes quiver, and the solid stone beneath his feet to reel and ring. For two hundred yards and more above the fall nothing met his eye but one white waste of raging foam, with here and there a transverse dike of rock, which hurled columns of spray and surges of beaded water high into the air-strangely contrasting with the still and silent cliffs of green leaves which walled the river right and left, and more strangely still with the knots of enormous palms upon the islets, which reared their polished shafts a hundred feet into the air, straight and upright as masts, while their broad plumes and golden-clustered fruit slept in the sunshine far aloft, the image of the stateliest repose amid the wildest wrath of Nature.

He looked round anxiously for the expected Indian, but he was nowhere to be seen; and in the mean

while, as he stepped cautiously along the island, which was some fifty yards in length and breadth, his senses, accustomed as they were to such sights, could not help dwelling on the exquisite beauty of the scene on the garden of gay flowers, of every imaginable form and hue, which fringed every boulder at his feet, peeping out amid delicate fern-fans and luxuriant cushions of moss; on the chequered shade of the palms, and the cool air, which wafted down from the cataracts above the scents of a thousand flowers. Gradually his ear became accustomed to the roar, and above its mighty undertone he could hear the whisper of the wind among the shrubs, and the hum of myriad insects; while the rock manakin, with its saffron plumage, flitted before him from stone to stone, calling cheerily, and seeming to lead him on.

Suddenly, scrambling over the rocky flower-beds to the other side of the isle, he came upon a little shady beach, which, beneath a bank of stone some six feet high, fringed the edge of a perfectly still and glassy bay. Ten yards farther, the cataract fell sheer in thunder; but a high fern-fringed rock turned its force away from that quiet nook. In it the water swung slowly round and round in glassy, dark-green rings, among which dimpled a hundred gaudy fish, waiting for every fly and worm which spun and quivered on the eddy. Here, if anywhere, was the place to find the owner of the canoe. He leaped down upon the pebbles; and as he did so, a figure rose from behind a neighbouring rock, and met him face to face.

From "Westward Ho!" by CHARLES KINGSLEY.

17. THE LOTOS-EATERS.

"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land; "This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon. In the afternoon they came unto a land

In which it seemèd always afternoon.

All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon ;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some through wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.

They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land; far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,

Stood sunset-flushed; and, dewed with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.

The charmed sunset lingered low adown

In the red West; through mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Bordered with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale

A land where all things always seemed the same
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.

Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave

To each, but whoso did receive of them

And taste, to him the gushing of the wave

Far, far away did seem to mourn and rave

!

On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,

His voice was thin, as voices from the grave,
And deep asleep he seemed, yet all awake,

And music in his ears his beating heart did make.

They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
Most weary seemed the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, "We will return no more;'
And all at once they sang, "Our island home
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."

TENNYSON.

18. SONNET.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours:

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon,

The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers—
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.