never did Persian devotee gaze upon it with a more fond idolatry, or shipwrecked mariner look up to it from amid the surging waves of ocean, with a more exultant heart, than did I at this time. It was to me an omen of safety-the pledge of a providential guidance-the benignant face of love-for the casual glimpse I caught of it assured me that I was not mistaken in my course, and that I was travelling in the right direction to come to the river. "Now came still evening on," and the sober shades of night slowly gathered o'er earth and sky. The cloud had mostly passed away, and Venus, bright evening "star of hope," shone out, with its cheering and animated ray, from the tranquil heavens.

"A beam of comfort, **

Gilds the black horror, and directs my way." And surely never was its guiding light more grateful to the benighted, lost traveller, than it was to me on this third night of my wretched wanderings. I travelled with hardly a moment's rest, till morning, and when the sun rose, which it did in all its refulgence, my straining and delighted vision caught the reflection of its beams in the placid waters of the majestic Platte. I had been quite hopeful all night-had hummed snatches from familiar operas, and repeated all the passages I could remember from favorite authors, and even enjoyed, in anticipation, the comforts and pleasures which awaited me when I again should reach the haunts of men-but when the glad sight met my eye, and the conviction burst upon me that I was saved-saved from perils nameless and fearful, which had almost frozen my life's blood with terror-saved from a death of agony, unsoothed, unpitied, unwept, my remains uncoffined and unblessed, and no stone to tell where, in the pathless wilderness, they should lie-no one, unless he has passed through a similar scene, can conceive of the strange tumult of my feelings, in which an overpowering joy was predominant.

I was wild with exultation and excitement. The excess of happiness actually bordered on pain, and I could find no way to give vent to my struggling and pent up sensibilities. I laughed and cried by turns, shouted, danced, and committed all sorts of extravagances. After a while, becoming more collected, I started on a full run for the river, at a rate that would have done credit to an Indian, and did not slacken speed till I found myself near its banks. I have looked on many scenes of surpassing beauty and wild magnificence in our own and other lands, but not

one of them ever swelled my heart with half the rapture I felt as I gazed upon the clear and placid waters of that silver stream, and cast my eye along its winding and wooded banks. It was not distance, but association, which lent enchant-ment to that view. I was disappointed in not having crossed the old Fort Kearney road, and was about to plunge into the river and swim to the opposite shore, where I knew there was another route to the Fort, when I discovered the road running along the very edge of the bank. within a few feet of me, and, what was more, there were the fresh imprints of hoofs and human feet upon it, and the prospect of rescue was changed to its certainty. I was near to-I should soon see again my fellow-men! The excitement, the revulsion of my feelings, perhaps the unconscious fatigue I had endured, were too much for me, and I sank fainting upon the ground. How long I lay there, without consciousness, I know not-probably not a great length of time, so far as I could judge by the height of the sun. When I recovered and found the use of my limbs, I commenced to drag myself along the road, wearily and with the sense of exhaustion, in the direction of the Fort. I had gone but a little distance before I caught sight of a camp about a mile ahead. I quickened my pace and soon was in its midst. My first thought was food. The pangs of hunger, which I had hardly felt before, became now perfectly uncontrollable. I rushed up to a man who was cooking something over a fire kindled on the ground, kicked off the hot cover of a baker with my naked foot, and snatching the half-baked bread it contained, began to devour it with the eagerness of a famished wolf. The man, upon recovering from his surprise, not exactly comprehending, in my case, the necessity which knows no law, and perhaps thinking the loss of his meal a rather serious joke, attempted to interfere; but, exhausted as I was by abstinence and fatigue, I threw him from me as easily as if he had been a child, and kept on eating, trying to intimate to him, between the mouthfuls, that I might prove an ugly customer if molested-that I had been lost, and that my funds (pointing to my money belt) were at his service. The whole encampment, men, women and children, were soon around me, with wonder, suspicion, amusement and alarm, depicted on their faces; and well might my sudden apparition have startled them, as they afterwards confessed it did not a little. My wan and haggard looks-my un

time for drawing, and if you keep your hand in practice and have much genius, it will burst out at some future day."

Here I saw that smile again, but was not hurt by it now; I smiled also, and told him I knew he was right and I should accept the offer.

With melancholy determination I took down my sign, its gilt letters still untarnished. I carried my easel, my lay figure, and all my valuable possessions to my attic, and took a last fond look of the sky-light which had been the confident of so many aspirations.

My new business was one that was valuable and interesting in itself, as well as profitable, so that I felt I was doing something besides merely making money, and I could not but confess that I was happier while actively employed among other men, than when waiting, and waiting in vain, in my lonely studio.

Yet I sometimes looked back with regret to those days of sweet delusion, and retain such an affection for Iphigenia that I carried it home with me when I went to visit my mother. She regarded it with maternal pride, and gave it an honorable place in her parlor, opposite Uncle John. I laughed very much when I saw that delight of my childhood, so meek and cadaverous it now appeared to me, but I turned to my own picture, and thought it almost as absurd.

There

seemed to be a family resemblance between the two-Iphigenia and my Uncle John!

I went with my mother to see Mrs. Brown for the first time since that eventful day on which I was so enraptured by Jephthah's daughter. I sat in the same place at table, and had the same quince, I believe, but could eat it now with perfect composure. I was highly amused to see how flimsy the daughter was in her lilac mantle and pink train, and how very thick Jephthah's sandalled legs had become. The white damsel also was no longer a phantom of delight.

The next morning I called upon Fanny Ann. She was playing a singular tune on a rickety piano. She welcomed me with sweet timidity, and had many pretty little airs and graces; but her hair was in curling-papers, and I did not stay long. I presented her portrait--that gem of art to her grandmother, whose sight was almost gone, and the good lady was very much delighted with it.

But the river, the hills, and the widestretching fields were as beautiful as ever, and I told my mother I should build a pleasanter house on the old place, in a few years, and that she should come and live with me, and-some one else. Fanny Ann!" said my mother; but I thought of another Fanny.

committed sundry depredations upon the emigrants-stealing their stock and killing one man-which so recent occurrences did not serve to allay the apprehensions on my account. Indeed Captain W. had been obliged to send a detachment of troops to the principal village of the Pawnees, with orders to lay it waste in case the fullest reparation was not accorded and the offenders brought to justice. I afterward learned that the Indians, when they saw the preparations made against them, were most willing to accede to the terms imposed upon them.

There are hundreds of persons now living in California and Oregon, and numbers who have returned from thence, to whom the adventure I have narrated so imperfectly, and which excited some little interest at the time, will be familiar, and who will readily identify the writer as the "great lost," if these pages should ever meet their eye.

I have often been asked the questions, why I did not do this, and why I did not do that; why I did not go back to the Doctor's camp, why I did not fire off my pistol to give the alarm, &c., &c. To all of which I reply that it is very easy to do this or that, sitting down coolly at home, and quite another thing to meet the actual difficulties which present themselves in such a case. I did try, of course, to find my way back to the Doctor's-I did think of my pistol, but I doubt if it could have been heard beyond the reach of a clear and manly voice; and, as the event afterwards proved, the pistol was useless. All I can say is, I did the best I could, and I do not believe any one would be willing to put himself in a similar condition in the confidence that he could do better. Place any man in an open field, blindfold him, lead him off a few hundred yards, turn him about three or four times to settle his recollections and fix the points of compass in his mind, and then let him try to return to his starting place, and see how far he will diverge from the right direction. My situation was precisely the same as this

when I was first lost, added to which I was not fully aware of my danger, and did not take the precautions I otherwise might.

I make no pretensions to be a Fremont or a Kit Carson, but I very much doubt if their skill and experience would have been of any avail, if they had been lost as I was, in such a country as I have described, without sun, moon or stars, shrub or tree to guide them. In one respect they would have doubtless been more sensible than I was-they would not have got lost at all. At any rate, I succeeded in getting out at last, for which I live to be thankful, and-"that's something."

I have recently related this adventure, with more of detail than would be suitable to the pages of a magazine, to a highly esteemed friend, Captain Marcy, of the U. S. Army, who has been lost and found so often-so often killed and brought to life again, by the newspapers, during his last tour of exploration on the plains (an interesting and valuable report of which is, by order of Congress, in the course of publication), and who is probably one of the best frontier men in the country; and I have his testimony to the exceeding difficulty and peril of my situation, and to the perseverance and courage which resulted in my deliverance.

In concluding the narrative of this personal adventure, let me give the reader, who has been interested enough to follow it to its termination, two words of advice. The first is, that if he should ever have the hardihood to undertake the toilsome and perilous journey to California overland, he should beware of ever leaving his camp or the road, without first pretty well understanding how he is to get back, and without having a compass in his pocket. The second is, not to go by the overland route at all. It will not pay. There is nothing to compensate for the fatigue, exposure, and expense. It is much better to cross the Isthmus, to go by way of Nicaragua, to make the voyage round the Horn-and better than all, to go-in a horn-i.e., STAY AT HOME!

about midnight we separated, feeling at peace with the world and full of good will to all men. There's nothing like your Burgundy for enduing men's breasts with the milk of human kindness. As he held out his hand to me: "Come next week and dine with me," he said, "it will be something new to you; and besides, Monsieur, all the talents dine there."

As I have said I accepted his invitation, and punctual as a king I was pacing the animated Galerie d'Orleans while the Palais Royal clock was striking six o'clock. There is always a throng in the Palais Royal, and especially during the winter; its long arcades afford an agreeable walk in the inclement weather, the miniature shops with all their contents fancifully and tastily arranged in the immense and perfect plate of glass which, barely leaving the space sufficient for a door, covers the whole front of the shop: the unnumbered variety of the shops, the motley complexion of the promenaders, the pretty shop girls, the mirrored and gilded eating-houses with their displays of all the costly luxuries of the season, or rather of the wealthy, for they know no season, give a constantly novel and agreeable scene to foreigners and to Parisians. They are both, too, attracted thither by its offering within its vast parallelogram, restaurants, suited to every variety of purse, from the fixed-price restaurant at twenty-two cents, to the bill restaurant with an octavo volume of several hundred pages; and four theatres; and two musical cafés. The Galerie d'Orleans is the microcosm of the Palais Royal. It is an arcade running across the end of the garden of the Palais Royal, and separating the Palais Royal proper from the shops which line the garden; built entirely of glass and iron, lined on both sides with brilliant shops constructed of the same materials; entirely protected from the weather, it is so favorite a promenade, between six and eight o'clock in the evening, it is almost impossible to move in it except in the cadenced march of the crowd which fills it. The Place Saint Marc in Venice, (the only sight in the world which can be compared with this) is far inferior in brilliancy and gayety to the Palais Royal.

Even if my friend had been less punctual than he was (the fines inflicted by the Grand Opera for tardiness, are admirable correctives of artists' negligence of time), I could readily have amused myself in the Galerie d'Orleans, although I have been for a good many years a daily frequenter of its marble pavement. "Come,"

said he, putting his arm in mine, "are you ready for my artist-dinner; you contemplate it without trembling." "Allons done!" said I, "know, my dear fellow, that when one has eaten his A. B. at --college commons, where, as Weelyan Shaaspee would say―

Rats and mice and such small deer, Have been Tom's food for many a year, he cannot be alarmed by any thing found in a kitchen."

We strolled by one of the external arcades of the Galerie d'Orleans, gayly down to some of the numerous entrances of the Palace, and plunged into one of the narrow streets imprisoned between two giant lines of eight-story houses, until we reached a brilliantly lighted door, painted gorgeously, its decorations being all the presents the earth, air, and water give to the kitchen. Coming suddenly from the dimly lighted street to the gas lighted gilded, and mirrored restaurant, if I was almost blinded by the light. I was completely stunned by the clatter. The ground-floor was as full as it could be; every body was talking as fast and as loud as they could talk; the servants (who had a large number of guests to wait on) shrieked out their questions and answers; the master of the house roared in tones which would not have thrown discredit on Boanerges, the whole bill of fare, which was interlarded with jokes whenever he caught the eye of some stanch habitué, who was never guilty of the "indelicacy" of asking for credit ;-jokes which were received with loud applause of laughter, which I attributed (for the jokes can only be called jokes by that charitable courtesy which takes the will for the deed, it was evident from his face he intended them for jokes.) partly to our masculine proneness to flatter authority, and partly because his absurdities from their colossal exaggeration, seemed caricatures of absurdity. Add to all this confusion confounded, the distant thunder of the cooks' bons; and the sum total of each guest's dinner, bawled interrogatively by the woman at the counter, to the waiters, and that for eighteen cents, you had soup, two plates of meat, a dessert, a half bottle of wine and bread at discretionyou will admit that this was decidedly a cheap restaurant. Wonder that Frenchmen should despise life, when life can be maintained so cheaply!

According to the bill of fare, I eat Julienne soup, a beef-steak and potatoes, a mutton cutlet and potatoes, and plums and almonds-what I really eat, I have much less knowledge of than I possess of