Europe. The distances, although transparent, and extraordinarily distinct, float in a delicate reddish-blue tinge, in front of which the deep dark shadows and flashing lights produced by the glowing sun stand out the more powerfully. The shadows which the clouds throw on the landscape are also, like the latter, dyed with carmine and cobalt, and not as in England, black and white, the mere sight of which produces a shudder. The streams reflect on their surface the dark ultramarine of the heavens, and the rich green of the woods and prairies loses through its countless tints and rich flora its wearisome monotony." With every hour the beauty of the country increased, and the animal world became more animated. Countless wild horses of the most varying colours flew at our approach over the green hills, large herds of dark-haired buffalo galloped awkwardly over the wide stretches of grass, and from the stony heights the light-footed antelopes gazed down curiously at us. Up hill, down hill, we jolted in the saddles of our ambling steeds, when, on a calm warm evening, towards sunset, we rode down from a grassy knoll to a stream, which was closely overhung with alder bushes, and separated the base of the hill from a wide prairie, round which it wound with numerous meanderings. Tiger was riding about forty yards ahead, and had just disappeared with his piebald in a batch of scrub, when he dashed out of the other side of it with a loud cry and an enormous grizzly bear after him. We galloped through the stream after him, while his rapid horse bounded over the grass towards us, and gained a slight advance on the grizzly. All our rifles were fired at the monster, and turning away from Tiger it came towards us with long leaps, and pursued John with an awful roar. Once again our rifles cracked behind it, but the bullets did not check its clumsy but yet rapid course. John turned his mare again towards us, and had hardly joined our ranks when we fired a salvo from our revolvers at the maddened bear, and galloping after it, kept up our fire. Königstein, on the cream-colour, was the nearest to it on the left, and gave the bear a shot at short range, when the latter turned on him and smashed his broad wooden stirrup into a thousand chips between its savage teeth. Königstein, however, had pulled his foot out, and flew with his horse to our side. Again we sent a hailstorm of bullets into the broad back of the infuriated animal, upon which it sank on its hindquarters, as a bullet had smashed its spine. Its fury and the roars it uttered were fearful; and turning in a circle on its monstrous forepaws, it covered a large space around it with its blood, which streamed from its shaggy carcase. I shouted to my friends not to fire, as I saw Tiger had dismounted and was hastily loading his rifle, and I wished to grant him the pleasure of killing the bear. He fired his bullet into its head, and then cut off its claws with great satisfaction. We took the paws, tongue, and liver of the huge animal, while Tiger rode back to the stream, and thence shouted to us to join him. We rode up, and found in the water a two-year old, very handsome chestnut horse, which the bear had captured on the prairie, and, as the trampled grass showed us, had dragged to the stream, in order to enjoy its meal without being disturbed. I took the tusks of the slain animal, and with the new matter for conversation which this fight gave us, we shortened the road to our camp, which lay in an exquisite hollow on the south side of lofty crags, under which a clear torrent rolled over loose stones that glistened like gold. They contained a substance which really resembled this metal, so that they shone through the water hurrying over them like lumps of pure gold. Some stately palms, maples, and oaks overshadowed our camp, and served as a cool retreat for the countless songsters that saluted us with their evening hymn. It is incomprehensible why the belief prevails throughout Europe that American birds are very brilliantly plumaged, but cannot sing, while most certainly there are sweeter songsters and more varieties of them on this continent than in Europe. A single bird is wanting, the nightingale; but it is compensated a thousandfold by the mocking bird. All other classes of birds are represented, though with different and finer plu mage. The belief may arise from the fact | gazing down at this scene and awaiting the that emigrants from Europe land in the end of the herd, whose head had disaplarge eastern cities, and in their walks in peared some time previously in the valley their vicinity see no birds, from the circum- on our left, while dense masses still constance that boys there of ten years old run tinued to pour down without a check from about with guns and kill every bird that the hills to the water. At length, at the shows itself: and then again, these persons end of an hour, only a few laggards came, only seek the shade of the trees and bushes after at least five thousand buffaloes had during the heat of the day, when all birds crossed the river, and yet the number of silently hide themselves from the burning these animals is said to be quite insignifisun. If they went out in the morning, how-cant compared with what it was twenty ever, when nature is awakening, they would hear quite as good singers as in their old home. Before us the valley wound between partly wooded low hills, behind which the higher base now rose. For several days we marched along this valley, till on one afternoon we looked down from a hill on the blue crystalline waters of the southern Platte, which, coming down from the Medicine hills, rustled through the valley at our feet. The river was large even here, and shot with the speed that characterizes the streams in this country, and with many windings between its wood-clad banks. Before us, where the river described a sharp curve, the banks were stony on both sides, and seemed from time immemorial to have been used by the inhabitants of these countries as a ford. At this moment, when probably for the first time the eyes of white men rested on this ford, a countless herd of buffaloes was occupied in crossing. They were coming southward from the mountains, and pressed shoulder to shoulder in dense masses to water in the river, while others came down the hills in a black line. The roars of these thirsty wanderers filled the air and rang through the hills in a thousand echoes. They dashed by hundreds impetuously from the high bank into the deep, rapid stream, on either side of the ford, and drifted with it into the dark overarching wood. We stopped for a long time years ago. Who knows whether, fifty years hence, they will exist anywhere but in natural history? We were obliged to let the wanderers pass, as we also wanted to cross the river, though in the opposite direction, and we should have run a risk of the whole herd marching over us had we got in their way. We now rode down into the river; but although so great a number of huge animals had passed through it, the water was as clear and bright as if a stone had never been stirred on its bottom. We watered our cattle, and followed the path by which the buffaloes had found their way to this ford, on the supposition that they had rendered it quite passable, and that they had come from the southern prairies, to which we were bound. We had scaled the first hill, when we saw, about two miles off, a few buffaloes trotting towards us, which had probably lagged behind, and now wanted to catch up the herd. We rode about thirty yards off the path, to a spot where we were covered by rocks, and commanded the sloping path down to the water. Ere long we heard the heavy trot of the approaching animals on the stony ground, and presently several cows, and behind them a fat old bull, came past us. We all fired together, and the old bull rolled over and over down the slope, and lay dead at the bottom. We took as usual its tongue, marrow-bones, and loins, and left the rest to those that came after us. THE BOY'S RECITER. 16. THE PILGRIM'S VISION. (Oliver Wen- I know Saint George's blood-red cross, Thou Mistress of the Seas;- Ah! well her iron ribs are knit, Whose thunders strive to quell The mist was cleared, a wreath of stars And wavering from its haughty peak, Oh, trembling Faith! though dark the morn, And paler orbs decline, To light the chosen tribe that sought I see the living tide roll on, It crowns with flaming towers The Spaniard's "land of flowers:" The weary pilgrim slumbers, His resting-place unknown; His hands were crossed, his lids were closed, The drifting soil, the mouldering leaf, His mound has melted into earth, 17. A KISS IN THE DARK. (J. G. Watts.) WHEN very young, I loved a lass, With eyes like violets, bright and bluey, With hair like some Circassian fair, Lips like a rose, rare, red, and dewy. A waist-I never knew its peer, Unlike her heart, 'twas very tender. Sent Valentines, and signed my name, XXVII. CHARADES. I am a word of 6 letters. OUR SPHINX. My 1, 2, 4, 3, is used to hold things in. My 6, 5, 1, 3, is a trial of speed. My 6, 5, 4, 3, is to destroy. My 2, 6, 1, is a curve. My 5, 1, 3, is a term at cards. XXVIII. I am a word of 5 letters. My 2, 3, 1 is a part of the body. My 2, 5, 4, is a Scripture character. My 4, 3, 1, is a gentle blow. My 1, 2, 5, 4, is a conspiracy. My 2, 5, 1, is to cut off. My 4, 5, 1, is a toy. My 1, 5, 4, is a cooking utensil. My 3, 4, is a preposition. My whole is a famous philosopher. XXIX. ENIGMA. On the fertile plains of France my first is raging, Mailed bands over the death-strewn fields are ranging; Hurtling arrow-showers through the air are dashing, Lance and plumed casque in the sun are flashing; Gallant cavaliers to the charge are fleetly dashing, And tried swords in the dread melee are clashing. 'Neath my second the pride of the forest monarch falls, And in trophied grimness it decks baronial halls; It oft on sombre scaffold fell with sick'ning thud, Its gleaming beauty dull'd with Albion's noblest blood. In Richard's hand, on Jaffa's gore-empurpled plain, My whole heap'd high the ghastly mounds of Moslem slain; When the pride of the paynim foe was stricken low, And rigid the archer lay by his broken bow; XXX. BIOGRAPHICAL REBUS. 1. A celebrated English poet 2. A renowned British general. 3. A renowned English admiral. 4. A celebrated Swiss mathematician. 5. A celebrated English painter. 6. A brave British officer. 7. An eminent British philosopher. 8. A celebrated Flemish painter. 9. A renowned Portuguese commander. 10. A French poet. 11. A celebrated Dutchman. 12. An English poet. 13. A celebrated American. 14. An Italian painter. 15. An Italian painter. 16. A French writer. 17. An English philosopher. The initials of the above, read downwards, will give you the name of a celebrated English general. JOHN R. BAILEY. XXXVI. ENIGMA. W. P. The aggregate of the initials of the following words will give the name of a Roman Emperor, a native of Sermium, who in the year 273 A.D., entered Thrace and fought a successful battle with the Goths, and not satisfied with this single victory, pursued them across the Danube and routed their forces a second time, and slew Canaubaud, one of their chiefs. He then marched into Asia and met the army of the Queen of Palmyra (who was one of the most illustrious women recorded in history), and made her prisoner, also an incredible number of persons of different nations. He was slain on his way to Byzantium. 1. A French town, the birth-place of Peter the Hermit. 2. A King of Ithaca, usually deemed the wisest of the Greeks who went to Troy. 3. A town in Russia, considered the third port. 4. A mathematician of Alexandria, who lived in the year B.C. 207. |