7. Then arrives your time for resting. The world about you is all your own, and then, where you will, you pitch your solitary tent; there is no living thing to dispute your choice. When at last the spot had been fixed upon, and we came to a halt, my camel instantly understood and obeyed the customary sign, and slowly sunk under me. 8. Then gladly enough I alighted. The rest of the camels were unloaded, and turned loose to browse upon the shrubs of the desert, or, where these failed, to wait for the small quantity of food which was allowed them out of our stores. A. W. Kinglake. EXERCISES IN EMPHASIS. 1. The endless sands yield nothing but small stunted shrubs. 2. You look to the sun, for he is your task-master. 3. Then for a while, and a long while, you see him no more. 4. His power is all veiled in his beauty. 5. The redness of flames has become the redness of roses. 6. There is no living thing to dispute your choice. XLIV. THE SIMOOM. S we journeyed along, an incident occurred which had well nigh put a premature end to our travels. My readers, no less than myself, must have heard or read many a story of the simoom, or deadly wind of the desert; but, for me, I had never yet met it in full force. 2. It was about noon when abrupt and burning gusts of wind began to blow by fits from the south. The oppressiveness of the air increased every mo 1 ment, till my companion and myself asked each other what this could mean, and what was to be its result. 3. We turned to inquire of Salem, our guide; but he had already wrapped up his face in his mantle, and, bowed down and crouching on the neck of his camel, replied not a word. His comrades, also, had adopted a similar position, and were equally silent. 4. At last, Salem pointed to a small black tent at no great distance in front, and said: "Try to reach that; if we can get there, we are saved." He added: "Take care that your camels do not stop and lie down," and then, giving his camel several hard blows, relapsed into silence. It was 5. We looked anxiously toward the tent. about one hundred yards distant. Meanwhile, the gusts grew hotter and more violent, and it was only by repeated efforts that we could urge our beasts forward. The horizon rapidly darkened to a deep violet hue, and seemed to draw in like a curtain on every side. 6. At the same time a stifling blast, as though from some enormous oven opening right on our path, blew steadily under the gloom. Our camels, too, in spite of all we could do, began to turn round and round, and to bend their knees, preparing to lie down. The simoom was fairly upon us. 7. Following our Arab's example, we muffled our faces and forced our struggling animals onward to the tent. We were in time. Just as the worst of the blast was coming, we were prostrate within the tent, with our heads well wrapped up, almost suffocated, but safe; while our camels lay outside, their long necks stretched out on the sand, awaiting the passing of the gale. 8. We remained thus for about ten minutes, during which a still heat, like that of a red-hot iron slowly passing over us, was alone to be felt. Then the tent walls began again to flap in the returning gusts, announcing that the worst of the simoom had gone by. We got up, half dead with exhaustion, and unmuffled our faces. My comrades appeared more like corpses than living men; and so, I suppose, did I. 9. However, I could not forbear, in spite of warnings, to step out and look at the camels. They were still lying flat as though they had been shot. The air was yet darkish, but it soon brightened up to its usual dazzling clearness. During the whole time that the simoom lasted, the atmosphere was entirely free from sand or dust, so that I hardly know how to account for its singular obscurity. Adapted from W. G. Palgrave. XLV. THE NEW-YEAR. ING out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The year is dying in the night; 2. Ring out the old, ring in the new, 3. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, 4. Ring out a slowly dying cause, 5. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. 6. Ring out false pride in place and blood, Ring in the love of truth and right, 7. Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. 8. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring in the Christ that is to be. XLVI.-GRANDFATHER. RANDFATHER is old. His back also is bent. Gia the street he sees crowds of men looking dreadfully young, and walking dreadfully swift. He wonders where all the old folks are. Once, when a boy, he could not find people young enough for him, and sidled up to any young stranger he met on Sundays, wondering why God made the world so old. Now he goes to commencement to see his grandsons take their degree, and is astonished at the youth of the audience. "This is new," he says; "it did not use to be so fifty years before." 2. At meeting, the minister seems surprisingly young, the audience young; and he looks round and is astonished that there are so few venerable heads. The audience seems not decorous; they come in late, and hurry off early, clapping the doors to after them with irreverent bang. But grandfather is decorous, well-mannered, early in his seat; jostled, he jostles not again; elbowed, he returns it not; crowded, he thinks no evil. He is gentlemanly to the rude, obliging to the insolent and vulgar— for grandfather is a gentleman, not puffed up with mere money, but edified with well-grown manliness. Time has dignified his good manners. 3. Now it is night. Grandfather sits by his oldfashioned fire. The family are all abed. He draws his old-fashioned chair nearer to the hearth. On the stand which his mother gave him are the candlesticks, also of old time. The candles are threequarters burnt down; the fire on the hearth also is low. He has been thoughtful all day, talking half to himself, chanting a bit of verse, humming a |