when he "measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, "O'er all its breadth his wisdom walks, 7. Let us give thanks, therefore, for the sea. Let us remember him that gave it such vast dominion, and made it to be not only the dwelling-place of his awful presence, but the beautiful garment of his love and the mighty instrument of his goodness. Let it speak to us of his unfathomable fulness. Let it teach us that he has made nothing in vain. Let it remind us that the powers of destruction and death are under his control, and that behind the cloud of darkness and terror that often invests them, they are working out immeasurable results of blessing and life for the future time, for distant regions, and for coming generations. Let it lead us to confide in Him who "ruleth the raging of the seas, who stilleth the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people;" who has all the forces of the world at his control, and all the ages of time at his command; who knows how to build his kingdom beneath the sea of human opposition, as he built the continents beneath the ocean waters; who makes all the powers of dislocations and decay yield to that kingdom some element of strength or richness; and who, when the appointed hour shall come, will lift it irresistibly above the waves, and set its finished beauty beneath the heavens with the spoils of all time gathered upon its walls. 1 ŌRE. A mineral body which is 3 BELT'ED. Clasped round like a belt; changed to the metallic state by the also, encircled by a belt. action of fire. 4 PÖISE. Balance; weigh. QB-LIV'I-ON. Forgetfulness; cessa- 5 DIS'LO-CA'TION. Derangement of tion of remembrance. position; displacement. [Basil Hall was born in Edinburgh, in 1788, and died in 1844. He was a postcaptain 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.] 1. 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 fortress2, 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. 2. 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 switch; and, before proceeding farther, you must be sure you have effectually driven the enemy back. 3 3. 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 horses' 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. 4. 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 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. 5. 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 to 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. 6. 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. 7. 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. 6 8. 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. 9. 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 inglo rious prey. 1 GAUZE. A thin, transparent stuff of silk or linen. 2 FÖR TRESS. A stronghold; a fortified place. left when the regiment is drawn up in line. One of them usually heads a storming party. 4 SPIRAL. Winding or circular. 8 FLANK COM'PA-NIEȘ. The companies 5 FEL'ON. A criminal; a culprit. which are on the extreme right and │• ĮN-SÏD'I-OUS. Deceitful; sly |