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attracted my attention, I turned towards the place whence I had come, in order to retrace my steps, but saw a lion, which had caught scent of me, on that spot, looking about for his prey. I of course made for the old ford, when, after throwing in, as is customary, some stones to frighten the crocodiles away, I hastened to the other side, glad enough to get the watery monsters between the lion and myself. The lions in this part of the country, having gorged on human flesh, if hungry, do not spend time in looking at the human eye, as some are said to do, but seek the easiest and most expeditious way of making a meal of a man.

CHAPTER LXXII.

PUNCH'S REGENCY.

1. THE only man of any mark
In all the town remaining,
I sauntered in St. James's Park,
And watched the daylight waning.
Beneath an elm-tree, on a bank,

I mused, (for tired my hunch was,)
And there in slumber soft I sank,

And this the dream of Punch was.

The Dream.

2. I dreamed it was a chair of gold,
The grassy bank I sat on ;

I dreamed Saint Edward's sceptre old
I wielded for a baton.

Men crowded to my throne, the elm,

In reverend allegiance;

And Punch was published through the realm,

The jolliest of regents.

3. O then! all other reigns which shine

Upon our page domestic,

Were mean and dim compared to mine,
That regency majestic.

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CHAPTER LXXIII.

A PRAIRIE ON FIRE.

1. THE shades of night had begun to close, when they again ascended one of those elevations which swell so gradually that the traveller scarcely remarks them until he reaches the summit and beholds, from a commanding eminence, a boundless landscape spread before him. The veil of night, without concealing the scene, rendered it indistinct; the undulations of the surface were no longer perceptible; and the prairie seemed a perfect plain. One phenomenon astonished and perplexed him: before him the prairie was lighted up with a dim but supernatural brilliancy, like that of a distant fire, while behind was the blackness of darkness. An air of solitude reigned over that wild plain, and not a sound relieved the desolation of the scene.

2. A chill crept over him as he gazed around, and not an object met his eye but that dark maid, who stood in mute patience by his side, as waiting his pleasure; but on whose features, as displayed by the uncertain light that glimmered on them, a smile of triumph seemed to play. He looked again, and the horizon gleamed brighter and brighter, until a fiery redness rose above its dark outline, while heavy, slowmoving masses of cloud curled upward above it. It was evidently the intense reflection and the voluminous smoke of a vast fire.

3. In another moment the blaze itself appeared, first shooting up at one spot and then at another, and advancing until the whole line of horizon was clothed with flames that rolled around, and curled, and dashed upward like the angry waves of a burning ocean. The simple Frenchman had never heard of the fires that sweep over our wide prairies in the autumn, nor did it enter into his head that a natural cause could produce an effect so terrific.

4. The whole western horizon was clad in fire, and, as far as the eye could see, to the right and left was one vast conflagration, having the appearance of angry billows of a fiery liquid, dashing against each other, and foaming, and throwing flakes of burning spray into the air. There was a roaring sound like that caused by the conflict of waves. A more terrific sight could scarcely be conceived; nor was it singular that an unpractised eye should behold in that scene a wide scene of flame, lashed into fury by some internal commotion.

5. Pierre could gaze no longer. A sudden horror thrilled his soul. His worst fears were realized in the tremendous landscape. He saw before him the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels. The existence of such a place of punishment he had never doubted; but, heretofore, it had been a mere dogma of faith, while now it appeared before him in its terrible reality. He thought he could plainly distinguish gigantic black forms dancing in the flames, throwing up their long, misshapen arms, and writhing their bodies into fantastic shapes.

6. Uttering a piercing shriek, he turned and fled with the swiftness of an arrow. Fear gave new vigor to the muscles which had before been relaxed with fatigue, and his feet, so lately heavy, now touched the ground with the light and springy tread of the antelope. Yet, to himself, his steps seemed to linger as if his heels were lead.

CHAPTER LXXIV.

MONT BLANC FROM THE COL DE BALME.

1. THE Col de Balme is about seven thousand feet high, and lying as it does across the vale of Chamouny at the end towards Martigny and the valley of the Rhone, through

which runs the grand route of the Simplon from Switzerland to Italy, you have from it one of the most perfect of all views both of Mont Blanc and the vale of Chamouny, with all the other mountain ridges on every side. You have, as it were, an observatory erected for you, seven thousand feet high, to look at a mountain of sixteen thousand.

2. Till we arrived within a quarter of an hour of the summit, the atmosphere was clear, and Mont Blanc rose to the view with a sublimity which it seemed at every step could scarcely be rivalled, and which yet at every step was still increasing. The path is a winding ascent, practicable only for mules or on foot. A north-east wind, in this last quarter of an hour, was driving the immensity of the mist from the other side of the mountain over the summit, enveloping all creation in a thick, frosty fog, so that when we got to the solitary house, we were surrounded by an ocean of cold, gray cloud, that left neither mountain nor the sun itself distinguishable.

3. And such, thought we, is the end of all our morning's starvation, perils and labors; not to see an inch before us; all this mighty prospect, for which alone one might worthily cross the Atlantic, hidden from us, and quite shut out! We could have wept, perhaps, if we had not been too cold and too hungry. Our host burned up the remainder of his year's sup ply of wood to get us a fire, and then most hospitably provided us with a breakfast of roast potatoes, whereby all immediate danger of famishing was deferred to a considerable distance. But our bitter disappointment in the fog was hard to be borne, and we sat brooding and mourning over the gloomy prospect for the day, and wondering what we had best do with ourselves, when, suddenly, on turning toward the window, Mont Blanc was flashing in the sunshine.

4. Such an instantaneous and extraordinary revelation of splendor was never dreamed of. The clouds had vanished, we could not tell where, and the whole illimitable vast of glory in this, the heart of Switzerland's Alpine grandeurs,

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