tertaining, while, like monkeys, they looked first into it, and then behind, in hopes of finding the monster which was exaggerating their hideous gestures. A watch was also held to the ear of one, who supposing it to be alive, asked if it was good to eat. On being shown the glass of the skylight and binnacle, they touched it, and desired to know what kind of ice it was. During this scene, one of them wandered to the main hatchway, and stooping down, saw the sergeant of marines, whose red coat produced a loud exclamation of wonder, while his own attitude and figure did not less excite the surprise of our tars, who discovered some unexpected peculiarities in the dress of the natives.

THE SOLDIER'S STORY.

"HEAVEN bless the boys!" the old man said, “I hear their distant drumming,— Young Arthur Bruce is at their head, And down the street they're coming,

"And a very noble standard too
He carries in the van;

By the faith of an old soldier, he
Is born to make a man!"

A glow of pride passed o'er his cheek,
A tear came to his eye;

66

Hurra, hurra! my gallant men!"

Cried he, as they came nigh.

"It seems to me but yesterday
Since I was one like ye,

And now my years are seventy-two,-
Come here, and talk with me!"

They made a halt, those merry boys,

Before the aged man ;

And tell us now some story wild,"

Young Arthur Bruce began;

"Of battle and of victory

Tell us some stirring thing!" The old man raised his arm aloft, And cried, "God save the king!

"A soldier's is a life of fame,
A life that hath its meed—
They write his wars in printed books,
That every man may read.

"And if you'd hear a story wild, Of war and battle done,

I am the man to tell such tales, you shall now have one.

And

"In every quarter of the globe
I've fought by sea, by land;
And scarce for five and fifty years
Was the musket from my hand.

"But the bloodiest wars, and fiercest too,
That were waged on any shore,
Were those in which my strength was spent,
In the country of Mysore.

"And oh! what a fearful, deadly clime

Is that of the Indian land,

Where the burning sun shines fiercely down

On the hot and fiery sand!

"The life of man seems little worth,

And his arm hath little power;

His very soul within him dies,
As dies a broken flower,

"Yet spite of this, was India made
As for a kingly throne;
There gold is plentiful as dust,
As sand the diamond stone.

"And like a temple is each house,
Silk-curtained from the sun,

And every man has twenty slaves,
Who at his bidding run.

"He rides on the lordly elephant,
In solemn pomp ;—and there
They hunt the gold-striped tiger,
As here they hunt the hare.

"Yet it is a dreadful clime! and we

Up in the country far

Were sent,

we were two thousand men,

In a disastrous war.

"The soldiers died in the companies
As if the plague had been;
And soon in every twenty men,
The dead were seventeen.

"We went to storm a fort of mud—
And yet the place was strong-
Three thousand men were guarding it,
And they had kept it long.

"We were in all three hundred souls,
Feeble and worn and wan;
Like walking spectres of the tomb,
Was every living man.

"Yet Arthur Bruce, now standing there,

With the ensign of his band, Reminds me of a gallant youth,

Who fought at my right hand.

"Scarce five and twenty years of age, And feeble as the rest,

Yet with the bearing of a king,

That a noble soul expressed.

But a silent grief was in his eye,
And oft his noble frame