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LESSON III.

A TERRIBLE CONFLICT.

WE cast anchor in the Barchurra Nuddee, with an extensive forest on both sides. An hour had just elapsed, when, at about a hundred yards from us, an alligator came up out of the river, to enjoy his noontide sleep in the rays of the sun. After remaining there about half an hour, and being apparently in a sound sleep, we observed an immense tiger emerging from the jungle, and bending his steps towards the place where the alligator lay. In size, the tiger exceeded the largest we had ever seen; and his broad round face, when turned towards us, striped with white, his fierce eyes, together with the amazing apparent strength of his limbs, made the stoutest heart on board tremble at the thought of encountering such a dreadful foe. With the most cautious pace imaginable, the tiger approached the alligator; his raised foot remained some seconds before he replaced it on the ground, and so he proceeded till he came within the power of his leap, when, exerting all his strength, and bounding from the earth, he descended immediately upon the alligator's back, and seized it by its throat. The monster of the deep, roused from its slumber, opened its tremendous jaws, and slashed its terrific tail; and whilst the conflict lasted each seemed to exert its utmost strength. The tiger, however, had the advantage, for he had grasped the alligator in a part of the neck which entirely prevented him from turning his head sufficiently round to seize his antagonist, and though many severe blows were inflicted on the body of the tiger, by its saw-like tail, the noble beast of the forest, when the battle was concluded, shook his brawny sides, and seemed unconscious of any pain. Having overcome the alligator, he dragged it a little farther on the shore, and sat over it exactly in the attitude of a cat sitting over a captive

mouse. He then took the creature in his mouth, and gently walked off with it into the jungles. About ten minutes afterwards, we saw the tiger emerge from the forest, and after gazing at us for a few minutes, and perhaps imagining that we were almost too far from the shore to allow him to add us to the number of his trophies of victory and blood, he slowly pursued his course in a different direction to where he had left his prey, and we saw him no more. In less than an hour afterwards, the alligator, who had been stunned, but not killed, crept out of the jungle, and though evidently much injured, yet with some difficulty reached the river, and escaped the power of his sanguinary foe. He, however, was too much lacerated to remain long in the water, and soon came again to land, but took the precaution of exposing only a part of his body, and keeping his face towards the shore. He continued but a very short time, and again launched into the deep, repeating his visits to the beach almost every quarter of an hour while we remained; the sight was certainly the most dreadfully magnificent that can possibly be conceived, and one we believe that is very seldom witnessed.

LESSON IV.

THE CONVICT SHIP.

MORN on the waters! and purple and bright,
Bursts on the billows the flushing of light;
O'er the glad waves, like a child of the sun,
See the tall vessel goes gallantly on ;

Full to the breeze she unbosoms her sail,

And her pennon streams onward, like hope in the gale; The winds come around her, in murmer and song,

And the surges rejoice as they bear her along!

See! she looks up to the golden edged clouds,
And the sailor sings gaily aloft in the shrouds;
Onward she glides, amid ripple and spray,
Over the waters, away, and away!

Bright as the visions of youth, ere they part,
Passing away, like a dream of the heart!
Who, as the beautiful pageant sweeps by,
Music around her, and sunshine on high-
Pauses to think, amid glitter and show,
Oh! there be hearts that are breaking below!
Night on the waves !—and the moon is on high,
Hung, like a gem, on the brow of the sky,
Treading its depths in the power of her might,
And turning the clouds, as they pass her, to light!
Look to the waters!-asleep on their breast,
Seems not the ship like an island of rest?
Bright and alone on the shadowy main,
Like a heart cherish'd home on some desolate plain !
Who, as she smiles in the silvery light,
Spreading her wings on the bosom of night,
Alone on the deep, as the moon in the sky,
A phantom of beauty could deem with a sigh,
That so lovely a thing is the mansion of sin,
And souls that are smitten lie bursting within.
Who, as he watches her silently gliding,
Remembers that wave after wave is dividing
Bosoms that sorrow and guilt could not sever,
Hearts which are parted and broken for ever.
Or deems that he watches, afloat on the wave,
The death-bed of hope, or the young spirit's grave.
"Tis thus with our life while it passes along,
Like a vessel at sea, amid sunshine and song!
Gaily we glide, in the gaze of the world,

With streamers afloat, and with canvas unfurled ;
All gladness and glory, to wandering eyes,

Yet chartered by sorrow, and freighted with sighs :-
Fading and false is the aspect it wears,

As the smiles we put on, just to cover our tears;

And the withering thoughts which the world cannot

know,

Like heart broken exiles, lie burning below,

Whilst the vessel dives on to that desolate shore,

Where the dreams of our childhood are vanished and

o'er.

LESSON V.

A. K. Hervey.

AMERICAN SCENERY.

THE numerous waterfalls, the enchanting beauty of Lake George and of its pellucid flood, of Lake Champlain and the lesser lakes, afford many objects of the most picturesque character; while the inland seas, from Superior to Ontario, and that astounding cataract, whose roar would hardly be increased by the united murmurs of all the cascades of Europe, are calculated to inspire vast and sublime conceptions. The effects, too, of our climate, composed of Siberian winter and an Italian summer, furnish new and peculiar objects for description. The circumstances of remote regions are here blended, and strikingly opposite appearances witnessed in the same spot at different seasons of the year, In our winters, we have the sun at the same altitude as in Italy, shining on an unlimited surface of snow, which can only be found in the higher latitudes of Europe, where the sun in the winter rises little above the horizon. The dazzling brilliance of a winter's day and a moonlight night, in an atmosphere astonishingly clear and frosty, when the utmost splendour of the sky is reflected from a surface of spotless white, attended with the most excessive cold, is peculiar to the northern parts of the United States. What, too, can surpass the celestial purity and transparency of the atmosphere in a fine. autumnal day, when our vision and our thought seem

carried to the third heaven; the gorgeous magnificence of the close, when the sun sinks from our view, surrounded with various masses of clouds fringed with gold and purple, and reflecting in evanescent tints, all the hues of the rainbow!

From the moment the sun is down, everything becomes silent on the shore, which our windows overlook, and the murmurs of the broad St. Lawrence, more than two miles wide immediately before us, and, a little way to the right, spreading to five or six miles in breadth, are sometimes for an hour the only sounds that arrest our attention. Every evening since we have been here, black clouds and splendid moonlight have hung over and embellished the tranquil scene; and on two of these evenings we have been attracted to the window by the plaintive Canadian boat-song. In one instance, it arose from a solitary voyager, floating in his light canoe, which occasionally appeared and disappeared on the sparkling river, and in its distant course seemed no longer than some sportive insect. In another instance, a larger boat, with more numerous and less melodious voices, not indeed in perfect harmony, passed nearer to the shore, and gave additional life to the scene. A few minutes after, the moon broke out from a throne of dark clouds, and seemed to convert the whole expanse of water into one vast sheet of glittering silver; and in the very brightest spot, at the distance of more than a mile, again appeared a solitary boat, but too distant to admit of our hearing the song with which the boatman was probably solacing his lonely course.-Silliman.

LESSON VI.

SHAKSPEARE'S TOMB.

I HAD come to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimage. My first visit was to the house where Shakspeare was born,

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