from the heavens and from men the three poor, sleeping children. ecstasy rapture. - monologue: that which is spoken by one person alone. — accosted: spoke to. - bantering: talking playfully sou a French coin of colossus: a huge fig to one.- Bastille: the famous prison of Paris. retrospective: looking back.. recesses: secret places. -- small value. - encumbered: took up room. ure. transfigured: changed in looks. - agility: activity. — nocturnal: night. — reverie: deep thought. THE MISSISSIPPI FRANÇOIS AUGUSTE CHATEAUBRIAND 5 CHATEAUBRIAND (1769-1848) was one of the most celebrated of the French writers of the Revolutionary period. He received his education in the college at Rennes. In early manhood, while he was traveling in North America, he heard of the outbreak of the French Revolution. He hurried home to fight against the Republic. Being wounded at the siege of Thionville, he took refuge in England, where he lived in great poverty. In 1800 he returned to Paris and soon took rank among the foremost writers 10 of his day. Chateaubriand was a man of many oddities of character and often changed his views on even the most serious questions. The story of Atala," from which this selection is taken,. one of his best known works. is France formerly possessed in North America a vast realm extending from Labrador to Florida, and from the shores of the Atlantic to the remotest lakes of upper Canada. 15 Four great water courses, having their sources in the same mountains, divided this immense region : the St. Lawrence, which empties eastward into the gulf of like name; the River of the West, which 5 bears its waters to unknown seas; the Bourbon, which hurls itself from south to north into Hudson Bay; and the Mississippi, which falls from north to south into the Gulf of Mexico. This last river, in a course of more than a thou10 sand leagues, waters a delicious land which the people of the United States call New Eden, and for which the French have left the harmonious name of Louisiana. Tributaries of the Mississippi, a thousand other rivers, the Missouri, the Illi15 nois, the Arkansas, the Ohio, the Wabash, the Tennessee, fatten this land with their silt and make it fertile with their waters. When all these streams are swollen with the floods of winter, when tempests have beaten down whole tracts of forests, 20 the uprooted trees gather at the river sources. Before long the mud cements them, vines enchain them, and plants, taking root in all directions, finish compacting these masses. Carried away by the foaming current, they descend to the Mississippi; 25 the river seizes them, sends them on to the gulf, strands them upon sand banks, and increases thus the number of its outlets. At intervals it lifts up its voice as it passes below the hills, and spreads its overflowing waters around forest colonnades and Indian pyramid tombs; it is the Nile of the waste. Yet grace is always joined to magnificence 5 in the scenes of nature; while the current of the middle sweeps toward the sea the dead trunks of pines and oaks, one observes reascending upon the two lateral currents along the shore, floating islands of water lilies whose yellow flowers rise up like 10 little pavilions. Green snakes, blue herons, rose flamingoes, young crocodiles, take passage on these rafts of flowers; and the colony, spreading to the wind its sails of gold, comes to land all asleep in some secluded cove. 15 The opposing banks of the Mississippi present a most extraordinary picture. On the western side savannas roll away until lost to view; their receding billows of verdure seem to mount to the azure of heaven, where they vanish away. On these 20 limitless prairies one sees herds of three or four thousand buffaloes wandering at will. Sometimes a bison bull, heavy with years, comes fending the waves as he swims to couch in the tall herbage on some isle of the Mississippi. From his forehead 25 adorned with its two crescents, from his beard antique and oozy, you might take him for the god of the river, casting an eye of satisfaction over the height of his waves and the wild luxuriance of his banks. the eye. 5 Such is the scene upon the western shore; upon the opposite shore it changes with a wonderful contrast. Hanging over the course of the waters, grouped upon the cliffs and mountains, scattered about in the valleys, mingle trees of every form, 10 of every hue, of every perfume, growing in company, mounting in the air to heights that weary Wild grapevines and begonias, interlacing at the bottom of these trees, climb their boughs, clamber to the very ends of their branches, 15 spring from maple to tulip tree, from tulip tree to vervian mallow, forming a thousand crypts, a thousand arches, a thousand porticoes. Often, straying from tree to tree, festoons cross the arms of rivers, spanning them with bridges of flowers. From the 20 heart of the woods the magnolia rears its unshaken cone; crowned with its great white flowers, it commands the entire forest, and has no rival but the palm, that lightly balances near by its fans of green. 25 Placed in these retreats by the Creator's hands, a multitude of animals diffuses enchantment and life. At the end of sylvan avenues you can see bears, intoxicated with grapes, tottering on the branches of elms; caribous bathing in a lake; black squirrels sporting in the thickness of the foliage; mocking birds, Virginia doves, of the big- 5 ness of sparrows, descending upon lawns reddened with strawberries; green parrots with yellow heads, |