Chapter VII: Part 7

Therefore it is that, when he is hunted, he avoids running through thick bushes, where his scent would remain on the foliage; and, if possible, he dashes into the water, and runs along the beds of shallow streams, where the hounds often lose all trace of him. When this is impossible, he bounds over the ground, making as wide gaps as he can between his tracks. Sometimes, too, he runs into a herd of cattle, and so confuses the dogs; and he has been known to jump up on the back of an ox, and take a ride on the frightened creature, in order to get his own feet partly off of the ground for a time, and thus to break the line of his scent. When very hard pressed, a stag has suddenly dropped on the ground, and when most of the dogs, unable to stop themselves, dash over him, he springs to his feet, and darts off in an opposite direction.

He will also run back on his own track, and employ many other means of the kind to deceive the dogs, showing most conclusively that he understands the theory of scent, and the dogs' power of perceiving it; and also that he has been able to devise the very best plans to elude his pursuers.

Not only do stags reflect in this general manner in regard to their most common and greatest danger, but they make particular reflections, suited to particular places and occasions. The tricks and manoeuvres which would be very successful in one forest and in one season would not answer at all in another place and at another time, and so they reflect on the subject and lay their plans to suit the occasion.

There are many animals which possess great acuteness in eluding their hunters, but the tricks of the stag are sufficient to show us to what an extent some animals are capable of reflection.

WHEN WE MUST NOT BELIEVE OUR EYES.

There are a great number of marvellous things told us of phantom forms and ghostly apparitions--of spectres that flit about lonely roads on moonlight nights, or haunt peaceful people in their own homes; of funeral processions, with long trains of mourners, watched from a distance, but which, on nearer approach, melt into a line of mist; of wild witch-dances in deserted houses, and balls of fire bounding out of doors and windows--stories which cause the flesh of children to creep upon their bones, and make cowards of them where there is no reason for fear. For you may lay it down as a fact, established beyond dispute, that not one of these things is a _reality_. The person who tells these marvels has always what seems the best of reasons for his belief. He either saw these things himself or knew somebody, strictly truthful, who had seen them. He did not know, what I am going to prove to you, that a thing may be _true_ and yet not be _real_. In other words, that there are times when we do actually see marvels that seem supernatural, but that, on such occasions, _we must not believe our own eyes_, but search for a natural cause, and, if we look faithfully, we are sure to find one.

Once a vessel was sailing over a northern ocean in the midst of the short, Arctic summer. The sun was hot, the air was still, and a group of sailors lying lazily upon the deck were almost asleep, when an exclamation of fear from one of them made them all spring to their feet. The one who had uttered the cry pointed into the air at a little distance, and there the awe-stricken sailors saw a large ship, with all sails set, gliding over what seemed to be a placid ocean, for beneath the ship was the reflection of it.

The news soon spread through the vessel that a phantom-ship with a ghostly crew was sailing in the air over a phantom-ocean, and that it was a bad omen, and meant that not one of them should ever see land again. The captain was told the wonderful tale, and coming on deck, he explained to the sailors that this strange appearance was caused by the reflection of some ship that was sailing on the water below this image, but at such a distance they could not see it. There were certain conditions of the atmosphere, he said, when the sun's rays could form a perfect picture in the air of objects on the earth, like the images one sees in glass or water, but they were not generally upright, as in the case of this ship, but reversed--turned bottom upwards. This appearance in the air is called a mirage. He told a sailor to go up to the foretop and look beyond the phantom-ship. The man obeyed, and reported that he could see on the water, below the ship in the air, one precisely like it. Just then another ship was seen in the air, only this one was a steamship, and was bottom-upwards, as the captain had said these mirages generally appeared. Soon after, the steamship itself came in sight. The sailors were now convinced, and never afterwards believed in phantom-ships.

A French army marching across the burning sands of an Egyptian desert, fainting with thirst and choked with fine sand, were suddenly revived in spirit by the sight of a sheet of water in the distance. In it were mirrored the trees and villages, gardens and pretty houses of a cultivated land, all reversed. The blue sky was mirrored there, too, just as you can see the banks of a lake, and the sky that bends over it, in its calm waters. The soldiers rushed towards the place, frantic with joy, but when they got there they found nothing but the hot sands. Again they saw the lake at a distance, and made another headlong rush, only to be again disappointed. This happened frequently, until the men were in despair, and imagined that some demon was tormenting them. But there happened to be with this army a wise man, who did not trust entirely to his own eyes, and although he saw exactly what the others did, he did not believe that there was anything there but air. He set to work to investigate it, and found out that the whole thing was an illusion--it was the reflection of the gardens and villages that were on the river Nile, thrown up into the air, like the ships the sailors saw, only in the clear atmosphere of Egypt these images are projected to a long distance. And demons had nothing whatever to do with it.

People used to believe in a fairy called Fata Morgana. Wonderful things were said of her, and her dominions were in the air, where she had large cities which she sometimes amused herself by turning into a variety of shapes. The cities were often seen by dwellers on the Mediterranean sea-coast. Sometimes one of them would be like an earthly city, with houses and churches, and nearly always with a background of mountains. In a moment it would change into a confused mass of long colonnades, lofty towers, and battlements waving with flags, and then the mountains reeling and falling, a long row of windows would appear glowing with rainbow colors, and perhaps, in another instant, all this would be swept away, and nothing be seen but gloomy cypress trees.

These things can be seen now occasionally, as of old, but they are no longer in Fairyland. Now we know that they are the images of cities and mountains on the coast, and the reason they assume these fantastic forms is that the layers of air through which the rays of light pass are curved and irregular.

A gigantic figure haunts the Vosges Mountains, known by the name of "The Spectre of the Brocken." The ignorant peasants were, in former times, in great fear of it, thinking it a supernatural being, and fancying that it brought upon them all manner of evil. And it must be confessed it was a fearful sight to behold suddenly upon the summit of a lofty mountain an immense giant, sometimes pointing in a threatening attitude to a village below, as if dooming it to destruction; sometimes with arms upraised, as if invoking ruin upon all the country; and sometimes stalking along with such tremendous strides as to make but one step from peak to peak; often dwarfing himself to nothingness, and again stretching up until his head is in the clouds, then disappearing entirely for a moment, only to reappear more formidable than before.

But now the Spectre of the Brocken is no longer an object of fear. Why? Because men have found him out, and he is nothing in the world but a shadow. When the sun is in the right position, an ordinary-sized man on a lower mountain will see a gigantic shadow of himself thrown upon a cloud beyond the Brocken, though it appears to be on the mountain itself, and it is so perfect a representation that it is difficult to believe it is only a shadow. But it can be easily proved. If the man stoops to pick up anything, down goes the spectre; if he raises his hand, so does the spectre; if he takes a step of two feet, the spectre takes one of miles; if he raises his hat, the spectre politely returns his salute.

When you behold anything marvellous, and your eyes tell you that you have seen some ghostly thing, don't believe them, but investigate the matter closely, and you will find it no more a phantom than the mirage or the Spectre of the Brocken.

A CITY UNDER THE GROUND.

Under the bright skies of Italy, in a picturesque valley, with the mountains close at hand and the blue waves of the Mediterranean rolling at a little distance--at the foot of wonderful Vesuvius, green and fertile, and covered with vines to its very top, from which smoke is perpetually escaping, and in whose heart fires are eternally raging, in this beautiful valley stands the city of Pompeii.

You might, however, remain upon the spot a long time and never find out that there was a city there. All around you would see groves and vineyards, and cultivated fields and villas. For the city is beneath your feet. Under the vineyards and orchards are temples filled with statues, houses with furniture, pictures, and all homelike things. Nothing is wanting there but life. For Pompeii is a buried city, and fully two-thirds of it has not yet been excavated.

But a short walk from this place will bring you to the spot where excavations have been made, and about one-third of the ancient city lies once more under the light of heaven. It is doubtful whether you can see it when you get to it for the mounds of ashes and rubbish piled around. But, clambering over these, you will pay forty cents for admission, and pass through a turnstile into a street where you will see long rows of ruined houses, and empty shops, and broken temples, and niches which have contained statues of heathen gods and goddesses. As you wander about you will come across laborers busily employed in clearing away rubbish in obstructed streets. It is a very lively scene, as you can see in the picture. Men are digging zealously into the heaps of earth and rubbish, and filling baskets which the bare-footed peasant-girls carry to the cars at a little distance. A railroad has been built expressly to carry away the earth. The cars are drawn by mules. The girls prefer carrying their baskets on their heads. The men have to dig carefully, for there is no knowing when they may come across some rare and valuable work of art.

The excavations are conducted in this manner. Among the trees, and in the cultivated fields there can be traced little hillocks, which are pretty regular in form and size. These indicate the blocks of houses in the buried city, and, of course, the streets run between them. After the land is bought from the owners, these streets are carefully marked out, the vines are cleared away, the trees cut down, and the digging out of these streets is commenced from the top. The work is carried on pretty steadily at present, but it is only within the last few years that it has been conducted with any degree of enterprise and skill.

Let us leave this rubbish, and go into a street that has already been cleared. The first thing you will observe is that it is very narrow. It is evidently not intended for a fashionable drive. But few of the streets are any wider than this one. The greatest width of a street in Pompeii is seven yards, and some are only two and a half yards, sidewalks and all. The middle of the street is paved with blocks of lava. The sidewalks are raised, and it is evident the owners of the houses were allowed to put any pavement they pleased in front of their dwellings. In one place you will see handsome stone flags the next pavement may be nothing but soil beaten down, while the next will be costly marble.

The upper stories of the houses are in ruins. It is probable, therefore, that they were built of wood, while the lower stories, being of stone, still remain. They had few windows on the street, as the Pompeiians preferred that these should look out on an inner square or court. To the right of the picture is a small monument, and in the left-hand corner is a fountain, or rather the stone slabs that once enclosed a fountain.

As we walk slowly up the solitary street, we think of the busy, restless feet that trod these very stones eighteen hundred years ago. Our minds go back to the year of our Lord 79, when there was high carnival in the little city of Pompeii, with its thirty thousand people, when the town was filled with strangers who had come to the great show; at the time of an election, when politicians were scheming and working to get themselves or their friends into power; when gayly dressed crowds thronged the streets on their way to the amphitheatre to see the gladiatorial fight; when there was feasting and revelry in every house; when merchants were exulting in the midst of thriving trade; when the pagan temples were hung with garlands and filled with gifts; when the slaves were at work in the mills, the kitchens, and the baths; when the gladiators were fighting the wild beasts of the arena--then it was that a swift destruction swept over the city and buried it in a silence that lasted for centuries.

Vesuvius, the volcano so near them, but which had been silent so many years that they had ceased to dread it, suddenly woke into activity, and threw out of its summit a torrent of burning lava and ashes, and in a few short hours buried the two cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii so completely that two centuries after no one could tell the precise place where they had stood, and men built houses and cultivated farms over the spot, never dreaming that cities lay beneath them.

But here we are at the house of Pansa. Let us go in. We do not wait for any invitation from the owner, for he left it nearly two thousand years ago, and his descendants, if he have any, are totally ignorant of their illustrious descent. First we enter a large hall called the Atrium. You can see from the magnificence of this apartment in what style the rich Pompeiians lived. The floor is paved in black and white mosaic, with a marble basin in the centre. The doors opening from this hall conduct us to smaller apartments, two reception rooms, a parlor, the library, and six diminutive bedrooms, only large enough to contain a bedstead, and with no window. It must have been the fashion to sleep with open doors, or the sleepers must inevitably have been suffocated.

At the end of the Atrium you see a large court with a fountain in the middle. This was called the Peristyle. Around it was a portico with columns. To the left were three bedchambers and the kitchen, and to the right three bedchambers and the dining-room. Behind the Peristyle was a grand saloon, and back of this the garden. The upper stories of this house have entirely disappeared. This is a spacious house, but there are some in the city more beautifully decorated, with paintings and mosaics.

When the rubbish was cleared out of this house, much of Pansa's costly furniture was found to be in perfect preservation, and also the statues. In the library were found a few books, not quite destroyed; in the kitchen the coal was in the fire-places; and the kitchen utensils of bronze and terra-cotta were in their proper places. Nearly all of the valuable portable things found in Pompeii have been carried away and placed in the museum at Naples.

This Pansa was candidate for the office of ædile, or mayor of the city, at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius. We know this from the placards that were found posted in various parts of the city, and which were as fresh and clean as on the day they were written. These placards, or posters, were very numerous, and there seem to have been a great many candidates for the various city offices; and it is very evident, from the inscriptions on the houses, on the walls of public buildings and the baths, that party feeling ran quite as high in this luxurious city of ancient times as it does now in any city in America. For these Pompeiians had no newspaper, and expressed their sentiments on the walls, and they have consequently come down to us of the present day.

These inscriptions not only related to politics, but referred often to social and domestic matters, and, taken in connection with the pictures of home scenes that were painted on the walls of the houses, give us such accurate and vivid accounts of the people that it is easy to imagine them all back in their places, and living the old life over again. Pansa, and Paratus, and Sallust, and Diomed, and Julia, and Sabina seem to be our own friends, with whom we have often visited the Forum or the theatre, and gone home to dine.

That curious-looking pin with a Cupid on it is a lady's hair-pin. The necklaces are in the form of serpents, which were favorite symbols with the ancients. The stands of their tables, candelabra, &c., were carved into grotesque or beautiful designs, and even the kitchen utensils were made graceful with figures of exquisite workmanship, and were sometimes fashioned out of silver.

Among the pretty things found in Pompeiian houses I will mention the following:--

A bronze statuette of a Dancing Faun, with head and arms uplifted; every muscle seems to be in motion, and the whole body dancing. Another of a boy with head bent forward, and the whole body in the attitude of listening. Then there is a fine group of statuary representing the mighty Hercules holding a stag bent over his knee; another of the beautiful Apollo with his lyre in his hand leaning against a pillar. There are figures of huntsmen in full chase, and of fishermen sitting patiently and quietly "waiting for a bite." A very celebrated curiosity is the large urn or vase of blue glass, with figures carved on it in half relief, in white. (For the ancients knew how to carve glass.) These white figures look as if made of the finest ivory instead of being carved in glass. They represent masks enveloped in festoons of vine tendrils, loaded with clusters of grapes, mingled with other foliage, on which birds are swinging, children plucking grapes or treading them under foot, or blowing on flutes, or tumbling over each other in frolicsome glee. This superb urn, which is like nothing we have nowadays, is supposed to have been intended to hold the ashes of the dead. For it was a custom of ancient days to burn the bodies of the dead, and place the urns containing their ashes in magnificent tombs.

Instead of hanging pictures as we do, the Pompeiians generally had them painted upon the smoothly prepared walls of their halls and saloons. The ashes of Vesuvius preserved these paintings so well that, when first exposed to the light, the coloring on them is fresh and vivid, and every line and figure clear and distinct. But the sunlight soon fades them. They are very beautiful, and teach us much about the beliefs and customs of the old city.

Lovely and graceful as were these pictures, the floors of the houses are much more wonderful. They are marvels of art. Not only are flowers and running vines and complicated designs there laid in mosaics, but pictures that startle with their life-like beauty. There are many of these, but perhaps the finest of all is the one found in the same house with the Dancing Faun. It represents a battle. A squadron of victorious Greeks is rushing upon part of a Persian army. The latter are turning to flee. Those around the vanquished Persian king think only of their safety, but the king, with his hand extended towards his dying general, turns his back upon his flying forces, and invites death. Every figure in it seems to be in motion. You seem to hear the noise of battle, and to see the rage, fear, triumph, and pity expressed by the different faces. Think of such wonderful effects being produced by putting together pieces of glass and marble, colored enamel, and various stones! But, leaving all these beauties, and descending to homely everyday life, we will go into a bakery. Here is one in a good state of preservation.

It is a mill and bakery together. The Pompeiians sent their grain to the baker, and he ground it into flour, and, making it into dough, baked it and sent back loaves of bread. The mills look like huge hour-glasses. They are made of two cone-shaped stones with the small ends together. The upper one revolved, and crushed the grain between the stones. They were worked sometimes by a slave, but oftenest by a donkey. There is the trough for kneading the bread, the arched oven, the cavity below for the ashes, the large vase for water with which to sprinkle the crust and make it "shiny," and the pipe to carry off the smoke. In one of these ovens were found eighty-one loaves, weighing a pound each, whole, hard, and black, in the order in which they had been placed on the 23d of November, 79. Suppose the baker who placed them there had been told that eighteen hundred years would elapse before they would be taken out!

Having wandered about the city, and looked at all the streets, monuments, and dwellings, and having seen very much more than I have here described--the Forum, or Town Hall, the theatres, baths, stores, temples, the street where the tombs are--and having looked at the rude cross carved on a wall, showing that the religion of Christ had penetrated to this Pagan city--having examined all these, you will visit the amphitheatre.

To do this we must leave the part of the city that has interested us so much, and, passing once more through the vineyards and orchards that still cover a large portion of the city, descend again into a sort of ravine, where we will find the amphitheatre. It was quite as the end of the city, next to the wall. It is a circus. The large open space in the centre was called the arena. Here there were fierce and bloody fights; wild beasts fought with each other, or with men trained to the business and called gladiators, and these gladiators often fought with each other--all for the amusement of the people, who were never satisfied unless a quantity of blood was shed, and many were killed. This arena was covered with sand, and a ditch filled with water separated it from the seats.

The seats arose from this arena, tier above tier. There were three divisions of them, separating the rich from the middle class, and these again from the slaves. It was well arranged for the comfort of the audience, having wide aisles and plenty of places of exit. The whole was covered with an awning. In the wall around the arena are the holes where thick iron bars were inserted as a precaution against the bounds of the panthers. To the right of the principal entrance are two square rooms with gratings where the wild beasts were kept. This amphitheatre would hold twenty thousand persons!

We visit this place last because it was while the amphitheatre was crowded with people intent upon the bloody spectacle; while wild beasts, and men more cruel than the beasts, were fighting together, and spectators less pitiful than either were greedily enjoying it, that suddenly the ground trembled violently. This perhaps was not perceived in the circus, on account of the excitement all were in, and the noise that was going on in the arena. But it was soon followed by a whirlwind of ashes, and lurid flashes of flame darted across the sky. The beasts were instantly tamed, and cowered down in abject terror, and the gladiators, for the first time in their lives, grew pale with fear. Then the startled crowd within the vast building heard from the streets the fearful cry: "Vesuvius is on fire!" In an instant the spectacle is forgotten; the terrified crowd rush out of the building, and happy is it for them that the architects have provided so many places of exit. Some fled towards the sea, and some to the open country. Those who reached the ships were saved, but woe to those who went to their homes to collect their valuables to take with them, or who took refuge under cover in the cellars.

After the rain of ashes came a shower of blazing stones, which fell uninterruptedly, setting fire to all parts of the city and blocking up the streets with burning masses. And then a fresh storm of ashes sweeping down would partly smother the flames, but, blocking up the doorways, would stifle those within the houses. And to add to the horror, the volumes of smoke that poured from the mountain caused a darkness deeper than night to settle on the doomed city, through which the people groped their way, except when lighted by the burning houses. What horror and confusion in the streets! Friends seeking each other with faces of utter despair; the groans of the dying mingled with the crash of falling buildings; the pelting of the fiery stones; the shrieks of women and children; the terrific peals of thunder.

So ended the day, and the dreadful scene went on far into the night. In a few hours the silence of death fell upon the city. The ashes continued to pour steadily down upon it, and drifting into every crevice of the buildings, and settling like a closely-fitting shroud around the thousands and thousands of dead bodies, preserved all that the flames had spared for the eyes of the curious who should live centuries after. And a gray ashy hill blotted out Pompeii from the sight of that generation.

Hundreds of skeletons have already been found, and their expressive attitudes tell us the story of their death. We know of the pitiful avarice and vanity of many of the rich ladies who went to their homes to save their jewels, and fell with them clutched tightly in their hands. One woman in the house of the Faun was loaded with jewels, and had died in the vain effort to hold up with her outstretched arms the ceiling that was crushing down upon her. But women were not the only ones who showed an avaricious disposition in the midst of the thunders and flames of Vesuvius. Men had tried to carry off their money, and the delay had cost them their lives, and they were buried in the ashes with the coins they so highly valued. Diomed, one of the richest men of Pompeii, abandoned his wife and daughters and was fleeing with a bag of silver when he was stifled in front of his garden by noxious vapors. In the cellar of his house were found the corpses of seventeen women and children.

A priest was discovered in the temple of Isis, holding fast to an axe with which he had cut his way through two walls, and died at the third. In a shop two lovers had died in each other's arms. A woman carrying a baby had sought refuge in a tomb, but the ashes had walled them tightly in. A soldier died bravely at his post, erect before a city gate, one hand on his spear and the other on his mouth, as if to keep from breathing the stifling gases.

Thus perished in a short time over thirty thousand citizens and strangers in the city of Pompeii, now a city under the ground.

THE COACHMAN.

When a boy sees a coachman driving two showy, high-stepping horses along the street, or, better still, over a level country road, with his long whip curling in the air, which whip he now and then flirts so as to make a sharp, cracking noise over the horses' heads, and occasionally brings down with a light flick upon the flanks of the right or left horse,--the carriage, shining with varnish and plate, rolling along swiftly and smoothly,--the little boy is apt to think that coachman must be a very happy mortal.

If the man on the carriage-box sees the boy looking at him with so much admiration, he will probably throw him a jolly little laugh and a friendly nod, and, gathering up the reins and drawing them in tightly so as to arch the horses' necks and make them look prouder and more stately than before, he will give a loud crack with his curling whip-lash, and the horses will start off at a rapid trot, and the carriage will sweep around a curve in the road so gracefully that the boy's heart will be filled with envy--not of the persons in the carriage--oh, no! riding in a close carriage is a very tame and dull affair; but he will envy the driver. An ambition springs up in his mind at that instant. Of all things in the world he would rather be a coachman! That shall be his business when he grows up to be a man. And the chances are that when he goes home he tells his father so.

But if the little boy, instead of lying tucked in his warm bed, should be set down at twelve o'clock at night upon the pavement in front of that great house with the tall lamps on the steps, he would see this same coachman under conditions that he would not envy at all.

The empty carriage is close to the curb-stone, with the door swinging open as if to urge the owners to hurry and take possession. The high-stepping trotters are covered with blankets to protect them from the piercing cold, and, with their heads drooping, are either asleep or wondering why they are not put into the stable to take their night's rest; and the coachman is dancing about on the pavement to keep his feet warm--not by any means a merry kind of dance, although he moves about pretty briskly. He has taken off his gloves, for they seem to make his hands colder, and now he has thrust one hand into his pocket and is blowing on the other with all his might. His whip, that curled so defiantly in the air, is now pushed under his arm, and the lash is trailing, limp and draggled, on the stones. He is warmly clad, and his great-coat has three capes, but all cannot put sufficient heat into his body, for it is a bitter cold night, and the wind comes howling down the street as if it would like to bite off everybody's ears and noses. It shakes the leafless branches of the trees until they all seem to be moaning and groaning together. The moon is just rising over the church, and the coachman is standing right in a broad patch of its light. But moonlight, though very beautiful when you are where you can comfortably admire it, never warmed anybody yet. And so the poor coachman gets no good out of that.

There is a party in the great house. The boy is standing where he can only see the lower steps and the tall lamps, but the coachman can see that it is lighted from garret to cellar. He knows that it is warm as summer in there. There are stands of flowers all the way up the stairways, baskets of them are swinging from the ceilings, and vines are trailing over the walls.

Who in there could ever guess how bleak and cold it is outside! Ladies in shimmering silks and satins, and glittering with jewels, are flitting about the halls, and floating up and down the rooms in graceful dances, to the sound of music that only comes out to the coachman in fitful bursts.

He has amused himself watching all this during part of the evening, but now he is looking in at the side-light of the door to see if there are any signs of the breaking up of the party, or if those he is to take home are ready to go away. He is getting very impatient, and let us hope they will soon come out and relieve him.

GEYSERS, AND HOW THEY WORK.

Geysers, or fountains of hot water or mud, are found in several parts of the world. Iceland possesses the grandest one, but in California there are a great many of these natural hot fountains, most of which throw forth mud as well as water. Some of the American Geysers are terrible things to behold. They are generally found near each other, in particular localities, and any one wandering about among them sees in one place a great pool full of black bubbling contents, so hot that an egg thrown in the spring will be boiled in a minute or two; there he sees another spring throwing up boiling mud a few feet in the air; there another one, quiet now, but which may at any time burst out and send its hot contents high above the heads of the spectators; here a great hole in the ground, out of which constantly issues a column of steam, and everywhere are cracks and crevices in the earth, out of which come little jets of steam, and which give the idea that it would not require a very heavy blow to break in, at any point, the crust of the earth, and let the adventurous traveller drop down into the boiling mass below.

In Iceland the Geysers are not quite so terrible in their aspect as those in California, but they are bad enough. Their contents are generally water, some hot and bubbling, and some hot and still; while the Great Geyser, the grandest work of the kind in the world, bursts forth at times with great violence, sending jets of hot water hundreds of feet into the air.

These wonderful hot springs, wherever they have been found, have excited the greatest attention and interest, in travellers and scientific men, and their workings have been explained somewhat in this way:--

Water having gradually accumulated in vast underground crevices and cavities, is heated by the fires, which, in volcanic regions, are not very far from the surface of the earth. If there is a channel or tube from the reservoir to the surface, the water will expand and rise until it fills the basin which is generally found at the mouth of hot springs. But the water beneath, being still further heated, will be changed into steam, which will at times burst out with great force, carrying with it a column of water high into the air. When this water falls back into the basin it is much cooler, on account of its contact with the air, and it cools the water in the basin, and also condenses the steam in the tube or channel leading from the reservoir. The spring is then quiet until enough steam is again formed to cause another eruption. A celebrated German chemist named Bunsen constructed an apparatus for the purpose of showing the operations of Geysers. Here it is.

You see that the two fires in the engraving--one lower and larger than the other, because the heat of the earth increases as we get farther from the surface--will heat the water in the iron tube very much as water is heated in a real Geyser; and when steam enough is formed, a column of hot water is thrown out of the basin. The great subterranean reservoir is not imitated in this apparatus, but the action is the same as if the tube arose from an iron vessel. There is a great deal in Bunsen's description of this contrivance, in regard to the difference in the temperature of the water in that part of the tube between the two fires, and that in the upper portion, which explains the intermittent character of the eruptions of a Geyser, but it is not necessary for us to go into all his details.

When we know that under a Geyser the water is boiling in a great reservoir which communicates with the surface by a natural tube or spout, we need not wonder that occasionally a volume of steam bursts forth, sending a column of water far into the air.

A GIANT PUFF-BALL.

I suppose you have all seen puff-balls, which grow in the fields like mushrooms and toadstools, but I am quite sure that you never saw anything of the kind quite so large as that one in the picture. And yet that engraving was made from a drawing from the puff-ball itself. So we need not suppose that there is anything fanciful about it.

The vegetable in question is a kind of _fungi_ called the Giganti Lycoperdon, and it attains its enormous size in one night! It springs from a seed so small that you could not see it, and grows, while you are asleep, to be bigger, perhaps, than you are yourself!

Think of that! How would you like to plant the whole garden, some afternoon, with that kind of seed? Would not your father and mother, and everybody else, be astounded when they woke up and saw a couple of hundred of those things, as big as barrels, filling up every bed!

They would certainly think it was the most astonishing crop they had ever seen, and there might be people who would suppose that fairies or magicians had been about.

The great trouble about such a crop would be that it would be good for nothing.

I cannot imagine what any one would do with a barnful of Lycoperdons.

But it would be wonderfully interesting to watch the growth of such a _fungus_. You could see it grow. In one night you could see its whole life, from almost nothing at all to that enormous ball in the picture. Nature could hardly show us a more astonishing sight than that.

TICKLED BY A STRAW.

From his dreams of tops and marbles,
Where the soaring kites he saw,
Is that little urchin wakened,
Tickled by a wheaten straw.

How do you suppose he likes it,
Young one with annoying paw?
If I only were your mother,
I'd tickle you with birchen straw.

Soon enough, from pleasant dreaming,
You'll be wakened by the law,
Which provides for every vision
Some sort of provoking straw.

In dreams of play, or hope, or loving,
When plans of happiness you draw,
Underneath _your_ nose may wiggle
Life's most aggravating straw

THE LIGHT IN THE CASTLE.

On a high hill, in a lonely part of Europe, there stood a ruined castle. No one lived there, for the windows were destitute of glass; there were but few planks left of the floors; the roof was gone; and the doors had long ago rotted off their hinges. So that any persons who should take up their residence in this castle would be exposed to the rain, when there was a storm; to the wind, when it blew; and to robbers, if they should come; besides running the risk of breaking their necks by falling between the rafters, every time they attempted to walk about the house.

It was a very solemn, lonely, and desolate castle, and for many and many a year no human being had been known to set foot inside of it.

It was about ten o'clock of a summer night that Hubert Flamry and his sister Hulda were returning to their home from an errand to a distant village, where they had been belated. Their path led them quite near to the ruined castle, but they did not trouble themselves at all on this account, for they had often passed it, both by night and day. But to-night they had scarcely caught sight of the venerable structure when Hubert started back, and, seizing his sister's arm, exclaimed:

"Look, Hulda! look! A light in the castle!"

Little Hulda looked quickly in the direction in which her brother was pointing, and, sure enough, there was a light moving about the castle as if some one was inside, carrying a lantern from room to room. The children stopped and stood almost motionless.

"What can it be, Hubert?" whispered Hulda.

"I don't know," said he. "It may be a man, but he could not walk where there are no floors. I'm afraid it's a ghost."

"Would a ghost have to carry a light to see by?" asked Hulda.

"I don't know," said Hubert, trembling in both his knees, "but I think he is coming out."

It did seem as if the individual with the light was about to leave the castle. At one moment he would be seen near one of the lower windows, and then he would pass along on the outside of the walls, and directly Hubert and Hulda both made up their minds that he was coming down the hill.

"Had we better run?" said Hulda.

"No," replied her brother. "Let's hide in the bushes."

So they hid.

In a few minutes Hubert grasped his sister by the shoulder. He was trembling so much that the bushes shook as if there was a wind.

"Hulda!" he whispered, "he's walking along the brook, right on top of the water!"

"Is he coming this way?" said Hulda, who had wrapped her head in her apron.

"Right straight!" cried Hubert. "Give me your hand, Hulda!" And, without another word, the boy and girl burst out of the bushes and ran away like rabbits.

When Hulda, breathless, fell down on the grass, Hubert also stopped and looked behind him. They were near the edge of the brook, and there, coming right down the middle of the stream, was the light which had so frightened them.

"Oh-h! Bother!" said Hubert.

"What?" asked poor little Hulda, looking up from the ground.

"Why, it's only a Jack-o'-lantern!" said Hubert. "Let's go home, Hulda."

As they were hurrying along the path to their home, Hubert seemed very much provoked, and he said to his sister:

"Hulda, it was very foolish for you to be frightened at such a thing as that."

"Me?" said Hulda, opening her eyes very wide, "I guess you were just as much frightened as I was."

"You might have known that no real person would be wandering about the castle at night, and a ghost couldn't carry anything, for his fingers are all smoke."

"You ought to have known that too, I should say, Mr. Hubert," answered Hulda.

"And then, I don't believe the light was in the castle at all. It was just bobbing about between us and the castle, and we thought it was inside. You ought to have thought of that, Hulda."

"Me!" exclaimed little Hulda, her eyes almost as big as two silver dollars.

It always seems to me a great pity that there should be such boys as Hubert Flamry.

THE OAK TREE.

I really don't know which liked the great oak best, Harry or his grandfather. Harry was a sturdy little fellow, seven years old, and could play ball, and fly kites, and all such things, when he had anybody to play with. But his father's house was a long distance from the village, and so he did not often have playmates, and it is poor sport to play marbles or ball by one's self. He did sometimes roll his hoop or fly his kite when alone, but he would soon get tired, and then, if it was a clear day, he would most likely say:

"Grandpa, don't you want to go to the big oak?"

And Grandpa would answer:

"Of course, child, we will go. I am always glad to give you that pleasure."

This he said, but everybody knew he liked to go for his own pleasure too. So Harry would bring Grandpa his cane and hat, and away they would go down the crooked path through the field. When they got to the draw-bars, Harry took them down for his Grandpa to pass through, and then put them carefully up again, so that the cows should not get out of the pasture. And, when this was done, there they were at the oak-tree.

This was a very large tree, indeed, and its branches extended over the road quite to the opposite side. Right at the foot of the tree was a clear, cold spring, from which a little brook trickled, and lost itself in the grass. A dipper was fastened to a projecting root above the spring, that thirsty travellers might drink. The road by the side of which the oak stood was a very public one, for it led to a city twenty miles away. So a great many persons passed the tree, and stopped at the spring to drink. And that was the reason why little Harry and his Grandpa were so fond of going there. It was really quite a lively place. Carriages would bowl along, all glittering with plate and glass, and with drivers in livery; market wagons would rattle by with geese squawking, ducks quacking, and pigs squealing; horsemen would gallop past on splendid horses; hay wagons would creak slowly by, drawn by great oxen; and, best of all, the stage would dash furiously up, with the horses in a swinging trot, and the driver cracking his whip, and the bright red stage swaying from side to side.

It generally happened that somebody in the stage wanted a drink from the spring, and Harry would take the cup handed out of the window, and dip it full of the cold, sparkling water, and then there would be a few minutes of friendly chat.

But the most of the talk was with the foot-passengers. The old man sat on a bench in the cool shade, and the child would run about and play until some one came along. Then he would march up to the tree and stand with his hands in his pockets to hear what was said, very often having a good deal to say himself. Sometimes these people would stay a long time under the shade of the tree, and there were so many different people, and they had so many different kinds of things to say, that Harry thought it was like hearing a book read, only a great deal better.

At one time it would be a soldier, who had wonderful things to tell of the battles he had fought. Another day it would be a sailor, who, while smoking his pipe, would talk about the trackless deserts of burning sands; and of the groves of cinnamon, and all sweet spices, where bright-colored parrots are found; and of the great storms at sea, when the waves dashed ships to pieces. Another time a foreigner would have much to say about the strange people and customs of other lands; and sometimes they talked in a strange language, and could not be understood, and that was very amusing.

The organ-grinders were the best, for they would play such beautiful tunes, and perhaps there would be children who would tinkle their tambourines, and sing the songs that the girls sing in Italy when they tread out the grapes for wine. And sometimes there would be--oh, joy! a monkey! And then what fun Harry would have!

And sometimes there were poor men and women, tired and sick, who had nothing to say but what was sad.

Occasionally an artist would stop under the tree. He would have a great many of his sketches with him, which he would show to Harry and Grandpa. And then he would go off to a distance, and make a picture of the splendid oak, with the old man and child under it, and perhaps he would put into it some poor woman with her baby, who happened to be there, and some poor girl drinking out of the spring. And Harry and Grandpa always thought this better than any of the other pictures he showed them.

THE SEA-SIDE.

The ocean is so wonderful itself, that it invests with some of its peculiar interest the very sands and rocks that lie upon its edges. There is always something to see at the sea-side; whether you walk along the lonely coast; go down among the fishermen, and their nets and boats; or pass along the sands, lively with crowds of many-colored bathers.

But if there was nothing but the grand old ocean itself, it would be enough. Whether it is calm and quiet, just rolling in steadily upon the shore, in long lines of waves, which come sweeping and curling upon the beach and then breaking, spread far out over the sand--or whether the storm-waves, tossing high their lofty heads, come rushing madly upon the coast, dashing themselves upon the sands and thundering up against the rocks, the sea is grand!

What a tremendous thing an ocean is! Ever in powerful motion; so wonderful and awful in its unknown depths, and stretching so far, far, far away!

But, even on the coasts of this great ocean, our days seem all too short, as we search among the rocks and in the little pools for the curiosities of the sea-side. Here are shells, and shells, and shells,--from the great conch, which you put up to your ear to hear the sound of the sea within, to the tiny things which we find stored away in little round cases, which are all fastened together in a string, like the rattles of a snake.

In the shallow pools that have been left by the tide we may find a crab or two, perhaps, some jelly-fish, star-fish, and those wonderful living flowers, the sea-anemones. And then we will watch the great gulls sweeping about in the air, and if we are lucky, we may see an army of little fiddler-crabs marching along, each one with one claw in the air. We may gather sea-side diamonds; we may, perhaps, go in and bathe, and who can tell everything that we may do on the shores of the grand old ocean!

And if we ever get among the fishermen, then we are sure to have good times of still another kind. Then we shall see the men who live by the sea, and on the sea. We shall wander along the shore, and look at their fishing-vessels, which seem so small when they are on the water, but which loom up high above our heads when they are drawn up on the shore--some with their clumsy-looking rudders hauled up out of danger, and others with rudder and keel resting together on the rough beach. Anchors, buoys, bits of chains, and hawsers lie about the shore, while nets are hanging at the doors of the fishermen's cottages, some hung up to dry and some hung up to mend.

Here we may often watch the fishermen putting out to sea in their dirty, but strong, little vessels, which go bouncing away on the waves, their big sails appearing so much too large for the boats that it seems to us, every now and then, as if they must certainly topple over. And then, at other times, we will see the fishermen returning, and will be on the beach when the boats are drawn up on the sand, and the fish, some white, some gray, some black, but all glittering and smooth, are tumbled into baskets and carried up to the houses to be salted down, or sent away fresh for the markets.