troops to the charge; but such were the swarms of Saracens that it was not till evening that the Christians could give themselves a moment's rest, or look round and feel that they had gained one of the most wonderful of victories. Since daybreak Richard had not laid aside his sword or axe, and his hand was blistered all over.

7. These violent exertions seriously injured Richard's health, and a low fever placed him in great danger, as well as several of his best knights. No command or persuasion could induce the rest to commence any enterprise without him, and the tidings from Europe induced him to conclude a peace and return home. Malek-el-Afdal came to visit him, and a truce was signed for three years, three months, three weeks, three days, three hours, and three minutes.

8. Richard sent notice that he was coming back with double his present force to effect the conquest, and the Sultan answered that if the Holy City was to pass into Frank hands, none could be nobler than those of the Malek Rik. Fever and weakness detained Richard a month longer at Joppa, during which time he sent the Bishop of Salisbury to carry his offerings to Jerusalem. The prelate was invited to the presence of Saladin, who spoke in high terms of Richard's courage, but blamed him for rashly exposing his life. On October 9, 1193, Cœur-de-Lion took leave of Palestine, watching with tears its receding1 shores, as he exclaimed, Receding, drawing back.

1

'O Holy Land, I commend thee and thy people unto God. May He grant me yet to return to aid thee!'

9. Having suffered shipwreck on the shore of the Gulf of Venice, he determined to make his way home by land across the continent of Europe, in the disguise of 'Hugh the Merchant.' He was recognised, however, when passing through the dominions of Leopold of Austria, whom he had so bitterly offended at Acre, and was first imprisoned by him, and afterwards sold for 60,000l. to the Emperor Henry VI., who flung him into a castle in the Tyrol.1

10. The story goes that the place of his confinement was discovered by Blondel, his favourite minstrel, who, wandering through the country in search of his master, struck up by a grated window a song which Richard had himself composed, and which was now continued as an answer from within the dungeon. The people of England raised 100,000 merks, equal to about half a million of our money, for their king's ransom, and he returned to England, after an absence of four years, fourteen months of which he had spent in prison.

Adapted from Miss YONGE's Cameos of English History.
By permission of Messrs. MACMILLAN & CO.

The Tyrol is a district of Austria, near to the north-east coast of the Adriatic Sea.

RICHARD CŒUR-DE-LION A

CAPTIVE.

1. THEY have bound the eagle's pinion,1 Snared the lion at his prey,

And the limitless dominion

Of his power has passed away.

In their cunning toils they've caught him,
In their fetters he is bound,

To their dungeon towers they've brought him,
With the soldier guard around.
Earth's noblest hath departed

To become the serpent's prey,
They have chained the lion-hearted
In the towers of Paynimry.2

2. From the grated lattice glancing
Is his falcon eye-beam bent,
And in the hot sun prancing
Is a Moslem armament.3
The Arab steeds are arching

Their jewelled necks on high,
And proud Saracens are marching
To the brazen minstrelsy.

'Pinion, wing.

2 Towers of Paynimry, the castles of the infidels, 'Moslem armament, an armed body of the followers of Mahomet.

The eagle's eye is brighter
From the burning fire within,
The lion's toils are tighter

For the freedom he would win.

3. The heathen host are turning
To their desert camp again,

And the eye has ceased from burning,
And from chafing ceased the chain;
But the shade of night has shrouded
The glory of that eye,

And the haughty brow is clouded
With the mists of memory.—
A gentle strain of singing

Comes floating softly by ;
Like Zephyr's' breezes bringing
A seraph melody.2

4. 'Twas a strain half hope, half sadness,
A strain of Albion's land,
Oft touched in days of gladness
By the captive monarch's hand.-
The captive's heart is waking!

The captive's ear is gained!
The chords despair are breaking,

By memory unchained.

The desert rock is riven

By the olive branch's might,

And the fount whose source is heaven

Is gushing into light!

CAMPBELL

1 Zephyr, the west wind. In poetry, any mild, gentle wind.

A LANDSLIP.

1. THE months of January and February in the year 1774 were remarkable for great melting snows and vast falls of rain, so that by the end of the latter month the land springs' began to prevail. The same thing continued into the beginning of March.

2. In the night between the eighth and ninth of that month, a great part of the woody edge at Hawkley was torn from its place and fell down, leaving a high freestone cliff, naked and bare, and resembling the steep side of a chalk-pit.

3. It appears that this huge fragment, being perhaps undermined by water, went straight down into the earth like a ship sinking into the waters of the ocean; for a gate which stood in the field on the top of the hill, after sinking with its posts for thirty or forty feet, remained in so true and upright a position as to open and shut quite as easily and exactly as in its first situation. Several oaks also remained standing, and continued to grow after they had sunk down with the soil.

4. That great part of this mass of earth was received into some gulf below is clear also from the state of the ground at the bottom of the hill.

'Land springs are caused by water sinking into the earth on high ground, and then draining to lower ground, and there finding its way out.