yet the grave of falsehood: why torment me with this fox? Rather spur we our horses, for we have far to go."

Now the day declined, and the shadows of the travellers lengthened on the ground; but darker than the twilight was the sadness on the face of the knave. And as the wind rustled the trees, he ever and anon turned pale, and inquired of his master if the noise were of a torrent, or stream of water. Still, as the evening fell, his eyes strove to discover the course of a winding river. But nothing of the sort could he discern; so that his spirits began to revive, and he was fain to join in discourse with the lord. But the lord held his peace, and looked as one who expects an evil thing.

Suddenly the way became steep, and they descended into a low and woody valley, in which there was a broad and black river, creeping fearfully along, without bridge or bark to be seen near. "Ah, miserable me!" said the knave, turning deadly pale; "this then is the river in which liars must perish." "Even so," said the lord; "this is the stream of which I spake; but the ford is sound and good for true men. Spur we our horses, for the night approacheth, and we have yet far to go."

"My life is dear to me," said the trembling serving man, "and thou knowest that if it were lost, my wife would be disconsolate. In sincerity, then, I declare that the fox which I saw in the distant country was not larger than that which fled from us in the wood this morning."

Then laughed the lord aloud, and said, “Ho, knave! wert thou afraid of thy life? And will nothing cure thy lying? Is not falsehood, which kills the soul, worse than death, which has mastery only over the body? This river is no more than any other, nor hath it a power such as I feigned. The ford is safe, and the waters gentle as those we have already passed; but who shall pass thee over the shame of this day? In it thou needs must sink, unless penitence come to help thee over, and cause thee to look back on the gulf of thy lies, as on a danger from which thou hast been delivered by Heaven's grace." And as he reproved his servant, the lord rode on into

the water, and both in safety reached the opposite shore. Then vowed the knave that from that time forward he would duly measure his words; and glad was he so to escape.

Such is the story of the lying servant and the merry lord, by which let the reader profit.

LX.-A MOSQUITO HUNT.

BASIL HALL.

[Basil Hall was born in Edinburgh, in 1788, and died in 1844. He was a post captain in the British navy at the time of his death. He was a vigorous and entertaining writer, especially on subjects connected with his own profession. The following extract is from the third series of his Fragments of Voyages and Travels.]

IN the sleeping apartments of India, great care is taken to secure coolness. The beds, which are always large and hard, are generally placed as nearly as may be in the very middle of the apartment, in the line of the freest thorough draught which open doors and windows can command. Round each bed is suspended a gauze curtain, without which sleep would be as effectually murdered as ever it was by any tragedy king. For, if even one mosquito contrives to gain admission into your fortress, you may, for that night, bid good by not only to sleep, but to temper, and almost to health. I defy the most resolute, the most serene, or the most robust person that ever lived between the tropics, to pass the whole night in bed, within the curtains of which a single invader has entered, and not to be found, when the morning comes, in a high fever, with every atom of his patience exhausted.

The process of getting into bed, in India, is one requiring great dexterity, and not a little scientific engineering. As the curtains are carefully tucked in close under the mattress, all round, you must decide at once at what part of the bed you choose to make your entry. Having surveyed the ground, and clearly made up your mind on this point, you take in your right hand a kind of brush, or switch, made of a horse's tail; or, if

you be tolerably expert, a towel may answer the purpose. With your left hand you then seize that part of the skirt of the curtain which is thrust under the bedding at the place you intend to enter, and by the light of the cocoa-nut oil lamp you must drive away the mosquitoes from your immediate neighborhood, by whisking round your horse tail; and, before proceeding farther, you must be sure you have effectually driven the enemy back.

If you fail in this matter, your repose is effectually dashed for that night; for these provoking animals appear to know perfectly well what is going to happen, and assemble with the vigor and bravery of the flank companies* appointed to head a storming party, ready in one instant to rush into the breach, careless alike of horse tails and towels. Let it be supposed, however, that you have successfully beaten back the enemy. You next promptly form an opening, not a hair's breadth larger than your own person, into which you leap, like harlequin through a hoop, closing up, with all the speed of fear, the gap through which you have shot yourself into your sleeping quarters.

If all these arrangements have been well managed, you may amuse yourself for a while by scoffing at and triumphing over the clouds of baffled mosquitoes outside, who dash themselves against the meshes of the net, in vain attempts to enter your sanctum. If, however, for your sins, any one of their number has succeeded in entering the place along with yourself, he is not so silly as to betray his presence while you are flushed with victory, wide awake, and armed with the means of his destruction. Far from this, he allows you to chuckle over your fancied great doings, and to lie down with all the complacency and fallacious security of your conquest, and under the entire assurance of enjoying a tranquil night's rest. Alas for such presumptuous hopes! Scarcely have you dropped gradually

*Flank companies are the companies which are on the extreme right and left, when the regiment is drawn up in line. One of these usually heads a storming party.

from these visions of the day to the yet more blessed visions of the night, and the last faint effort of your eyelids has been overcome by the gentle pressure of sleep, when, in deceitful slumber, you hear something like the sound of trumpets.

Straightway your imagination is kindled, and you fancy yourself in the midst of a fierce fight, and struggling, not against petty insects, but against armed men and thundering cannon. In the excitement of the mortal conflict of your dream, you awake, not displeased, mayhap, to find that you are safe and snug in bed. But in the next instant what is your dismay, when you are again saluted by the odious notes of a mosquito close at your ear! The perilous fight of the previous dream, in which your honor had become pledged, and your life at hazard, is all forgotten in the pressing reality of this waking calamity. You resolve to do or die, and not to sleep, or even attempt to sleep, till you have finally overcome the enemy.

Just as you have made this manly resolve, and in order to deceive the foe, have pretended to be fast asleep, the wary mosquito is again heard, circling over you at a distance, but gradually coming nearer and nearer in a spiral descent, and at each turn gaining upon you one inch, till at length he almost touches your ear, and, as you suppose, is about to settle upon it. With a sudden jerk, and full of wrath, you bring up your hand, and give yourself such a box on the ear as would have staggered the best friend you have in the world, and might have crushed twenty thousand mosquitoes, had they been there congregated. Being convinced that you have now done for him, you lie down again.

In less than ten seconds, however, the very same felon, whom you fondly hoped you had executed, is again within hail of you, and you can almost fancy there is scorn in the tone of his abominable hum. You, of course, watch his motions still more intently than before, but only by the ear, for you can never see him. We will suppose that you fancy he is aiming at your left hand; indeed, as you are almost sure of it, you

wait till he has ceased his song, and then you give yourself another smack, which, I need not say, proves quite as fruitless as the first.

About this stage of the action you discover, to your horror, that you have been soundly bitten in one ear and in both heels, but when or how you cannot tell. These wounds, of course, put you into a fine rage, partly from the pain, and partly from the insidious manner in which they have been inflicted. Up you spring on your knees

not to pray, Heaven

knows! — but to fight. You seize your horse's tail with spiteful rage, and after whisking it round and round, and cracking it in every corner of the bed, you feel pretty certain you must at last have demolished your friend.

In this unequal warfare you pass the livelong night, alternately scratching and cuffing yourself, fretting and fuming to no purpose, feverish, angry, sleepy, provoked, and wounded in twenty different places. At last, just as the long-expected day begins to dawn, you drop off, quite exhausted, into an unsatisfactory, heavy slumber, during which your triumphant enemy banquets upon your carcass at his convenient leisure. As the sun is rising, you awaken only to discover the bloated and satiated monster clinging to the top of your bed—an easy, but useless and inglorious prey.

LXI. THE TWO HIGHLANDERS.

JAMES HOGG.

[James Hogg, often called the Ettrick Shepherd, was a native of Scotland, born in 1772, and died in 1835. He was a writer of both poetry and prose. He was a man of vigorous genius and original power, not always controlled by taste and judgment.]

On the banks of the Albany River, which falls into Hudson's Bay, there is, among others, a small colony settled, which is mostly made up of emigrants from the Highlands of Scotland. Though the soil of the valleys near the river is very fertile,