With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part;
But the noblest thing which perish'd there,
Was that young, faithful heart!

Mrs. Hemans.

A NIGHT ON THE ORINOCO.

4

1 Peaceful narrative. 2 Alarm and fear. Great fear. Unpleasant feeling in the tone. 5 Recovering cheerfulness and confidence. Humorous tone. Plain narrative. Contrast of gaiety and gravity.

7

THE night was calm and serene, and a beautiful moon shed a radiance over the scene. The crocodiles lay extended on the sand; in such a position that they could watch our fire, from which they never turned aside their eyes. Its dazzling evidently attracted them, as it does fish, crabs, and the other inhabitants of the waters. Finding no tree upon the shore, we sank the end of our oars into the sand, in order to form poles for our tents. Every thing remained quiet till eleven at night, when suddenly there arose, in the neighbouring forest, a noise so frightful that it became impossible to shut our eyes. Amidst the voice of so many savage animals, which all roared at once, our Indians could only distinguish the howling of the jaguar, the yell of the tiger, the roar of the cougar, or American lion, and the screams of some birds of prey. 3 When the jaguars approached near to the edge of the forest, our dogs, which to that moment had never ceased to bark, suddenly housed; and, crouching, sought refuge under the shelter of our hammocks. * Sometimes, after an interval of silence, the growl of the tiger was heard from the of the trees, followed immediately by the cries of the monkeys in their branches, which fled the danger by which they were menaced.

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These nocturnal scenes on the Orinoco were repeated for months together, at every place where the forest approached the edge of the river. Despite the evident danger by which one is surrounded, the security which the Indian feels comes to communicate itself to your mind; you become persuaded with him, that all the tigers fear the light of fire, and will not attack a man when lying in his hammock. In truth, the instances of attacks on persons in hammocks are extremely rare; and during a long residence in

South America, I can only call to mind one instance of a Llanero, who was found torn in pieces in his hammock opposite the island

of Uhagua.

71

"When one asks the Indians what is the cause of this tremendous noise, which at a certain hour of the night the animals of the forest make, they answer gaily, "They are saluting the full moon." suspect the cause in general is some quarrel or combat which has arisen in the interior of the forest. The jaguars, for example, pursue the pecaris and tapirs, which, having no means of defence but their numbers, fly in dense bodies, and press, in all the agony of terror, through the thickets which lie in their way. Terrified at this strife, and the crashing of boughs or rustling of thickets which they hear beneath them, the monkeys on the highest branches set up discordant cries of terror on every side. The din soon wakens the parrots and other birds which fill the woods, they instantly scream in the most violent way, and erelong the whole forest is in an uproar. We soon found that it is not so much during a full moon, as on the approach of a whirlwind or a storm, that this frightful concert arises among the wild beasts. "May heaven give us a peaceable night and rest, like other mortals!" was the exclamation of the monk who had accompanied us from the Rio Negro, as he lay down to repose in our bivouac. It is a singular circumstance to be reduced to such a petition in the midst of the solitude of the woods. In the hotels of Spain, the traveller fears the sound of the guitar from the neighbouring apartment: in the bivouacs of the Orinoco, which are spread on the open sand, or under the shade of a single tree, what you have to dread is, the infernal cries which issue from the adjoining forest.-Humboldt.

PEACE AND WAR.

'Beautiful description of peace: tones soft and musical, and instinct with admiration. 2 A fearful contrast: the voice assuming a gloomy and awful tone, increasing in breadth and solemnity to the word shroud. 3 Humiliating reflection: melancholy tone. Mournful description of carnage.

1 How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh, Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear, Were discord to the speaking quietude

That wraps this moveless scene.

Heaven's ebon vault,

Studded with stars unutterably bright,

Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,
Seems like a canopy which Love had spread
To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills,
Robed in a garment of untrodden snow;
Yon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend,
So stainless, that their white and glittering spires
Tinge not the moon's pure beam; yon castled steep,
Whose banner hangeth o'er the time-worn tower
So idly, that rapt fancy deemeth it

A metaphor of peace;-all form a scene
Where musing solitude might love to lift
Her soul above this sphere of earthliness;
Where silence undisturbed might watch alone,
So cold, so bright, so still.—

2 Ah! whence yon glare
That fires the arch of heaven?-That dark red smoke
Blotting the silver moon? The stars are quenched
In darkness, and the pure and spangling snow
Gleams faintly through the gloom that gathers round!
Hark to that roar, whose swift and deafening peals
In countless echoes through the mountains ring,
Startling pale Midnight on her starry throne!
Now swells the intermingling din; the jar,
Frequent and frightful, of the bursting bomb;
The falling beam, the shriek, the groan, the shout,
The ceaseless clangour, and the rush of men
Inebriate with rage:-loud, and more loud
The discord grows; till pale death shuts the scene,
And o'er the conqueror and the conquered draws
His cold and bloody shroud.-3 Of all the men
Whom day's departing beam saw blooming there,
In proud and vigorous health; of all the hearts
That beat with anxious life at sunset there;
How few survive, how few are beating now!
All is deep silence, like the fearful calm
That slumbers in the storm's portentous pause;
Save when the frantic wail of widow'd love

Comes shuddering on the blast, or the faint moan, With which some soul bursts from the frame of clay Wrapt round its struggling powers.

The grey morn Dawns on the mournful scene; the sulphurous smoke Before the icy wind slow rolls away,

And the bright beams of frosty morning dance Along the spangling snow. There tracts of blood Even to the forest's depth, and scattered arms,

And lifeless warriors, whose hard lineaments

Death's self could change not, mark the dreadful path
Of the outsallying victors: far behind,

Black ashes note where their proud city stood.
Within yon forest is a gloomy glen-

Each tree which guards its darkness from the day
Waves o'er a warrior's tomb.

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Percy Bysshe Shelley.

MAZEPPA'S PUNISHMENT.

1Imperative tone. 2 Plain narrative; tone full of vivacity. 3 Anger. 4 Tone of weariness and exhaustion. 5 Anger. 6 Scorn and hatred. "Unslaked revenge. Vivacious, but unpleasant description. A gleam of hope. 10 Bitter disappointment and grief. "Grief. 12 A fearful description of the hungry and ferocious pursuers. 13 Fearlessness and hate. 11 Fear, 15 getting into a tone of confidence and security. 16 Tone of exhaustion and delirium.

"BRING forth the horse!"-" the horse was brought;
In truth he was a noble steed,

A Tartar of the Ukraine breed,

Who look'd as though the speed of thought

Were in his limbs; but he was wild,

Wild as the wild deer, and untaught.

With spur and bridle undefil'd

"Twas but a day he had been caught;
And snorting with erected mane,
And struggling fiercely but in vain;
In the full foam of wrath and dread
To me the desert-born was led:

3 They bound me on, that menial throng,
Upon his back with many a thong;
Then loosed him with a sudden lash-
Away!-away!-and on we dash!
Torrents less rapid and less rash.

4

Away!-away!-My breath was gone,
I saw not where he hurried on:

'Twas scarcely yet the break of day,
And on he foam'd-away!-away!
The last of human sounds which rose,
As I was darted from my foes,

5 Was the wild shout of savage laughter,
Which on the wind came roaring after
A moment from that rabble rout:
With sudden wrath I wrench'd my head,
And snapp'd the cord, which to the mane
Had bound my neck in lieu of rein;
And, writhing half my form about,
Howl'd back my curse; but 'midst the tread,

The thunder of my courser's speed,
Perchance they did not hear nor heed

"It vexes me-for I would fain
Have paid their insult back again.

8

Away, away, my steed and I,

Upon the pinions of the wind,
All human dwellings left behind,
We sped like meteors through the sky,
Town-village-none were on our track,
But a wild plain of far extent,
And bounded by a forest black.
The sky was dull, and dim, and gray,
And a low breeze crept moaning by-
I could have answer'd with a sigh-
But fast we fled away, away-
And I could neither sigh nor pray;
And my cold sweat-drops fell like rain
Upon the courser's bristling mane;
But snorting still with rage and fear,
He flew upon his far career:

At times I almost thought, indeed,
He must have slacken'd in his speed;
10 But no-my bound and slender frame
Was nothing to his angry might,
And merely like a spur became;
Each motion which I made to free
My swoln limbs from agony
Increas'd his fury and affright;
I tried my voice,-'twas faint and low,
But yet he swerved as from a blow;
And, starting to each accent, sprang
As from a sudden trumpet's clang:

11

Meantime

my cords were wet with gore, Which, oozing through my limbs, ran o'er;

And in

A

my tongue the thirst became
something firier far than flame.

We near'd the wild wood-'twas so wide,
I saw no bounds on either side;

"Twas studded with old sturdy trees,
That bent not to the roughest breeze;
But these were few, and far between,
Set thick with shrubs more young and green;
'Twas a wild waste of underwood,
And here and there a chesnut stood,
The strong oak and the hardy pine;
But far apart--and well it were,
Or else a different lot were mine-