and a path of ice-cold, inky water. Fish there are, seal and salmon-that is all.

3. Considering it was summer the cold was intense; nowhere in the world does the limit of ever-frozen ground come so far south as in the longitude of the Saguenay. At night we had a wonderful display of northern lights. A white column, towering to the mid skies, rose, died away, and was succeeded by broad white clouds, stretching from east to west, and sending streamers northwards. Suddenly there shot up three fresh silvery columns in the north, north-west, and north-east, on which all the colours of the rainbow danced and played. After moonrise the whole seemed gradually to fade away.

4. Ottawa, the capital of the Dominion of Canada, consists of the huge Parliament House, the Government printing-office, some houseless wildernesses meant for streets, and a large hotel much used by the members of Parliament.

5. The view from the Parliament House is even more thoroughly Canadian than that from the terrace at Quebec-a view of a land of rapids, of pine forests, and of lumberers' 2 homes, full of character, but somewhat bleak and dreary; even on the hottest summer's day it tells of winter storms past and to come. On the far left are the

1 The Dominion of Canada includes nearly all the British possessions in America north of the United States, except Newfoundland.

2 Lumberers, men engaged in felling timber.

island-filled reaches of the Upper Ottawa; nearer, the roaring Chaudière Falls, a mile across-a mile of walls of water, of sudden shoots, of jets of spray. From the 'caldron' itself, into which we can hardly see, rises a column of rainbow-tinted mist, backed by distant ranges and black woods, now fast falling before the settler's axe. Below you is the river, swift, and covered with cream-like foam; on the right, a gorge-the mouth of the Rideau Canal.

6. When surveyed from the fittest points, the Chaudière is but little behind Niagara; but it may be doubted whether in any fall there is that which can be called sublime. Natural causes are too evident water, rushing to find its level, falls from a ledge of rock. How different is this from a storm upon the coast, or from a September sunset, where the natural causes are so remote that you can bring yourself almost to see the immediate hand of God!

7. Niagara has one beauty in which it is unapproached by the great Chaudière-the awesome slowness with which the deep-green flood, in the centre of the Horseshoe Fall, rolls rather than plunges into the gulf below.

Adapted from Sir C. DILKE's Greater Britain, by permission of Messrs. MACMILLAN and Co.

ALMA.

I. THO' till now ungraced in story, scant altho' thy waters be,

Alma, roll those waters proudly, proudly roll them to the sea!

2. Yesterday unnamed, unhonoured—but to wandering Tartar known

Now thou art a voice for ever, to the world's four quarters blown.

3. In two nations' annals graven, thou art now a deathless name,

And a star for ever shining in their firmament of fame.

4. Many a great and ancient river, crowned with city, tower, and shrine,

Little streamlet, knows no magic, boasts no potency like thine;

5. Cannot shed the light thou sheddest around many a living head,

Cannot lend the light thou lendest to the memories of the dead.

6. Yea, nor all unsoothed their sorrow, who can proudly mourning say,

When the first strong burst of anguish shall have wept itself away,

7. 'He has passed from us, the loved one—but he sleeps with them that died

By the Alma, at the winning of that terrible hill-side!'

8. Yea, and in the days far onward, when we all are cold as those

Who beneath thy vines and willows on their hero-beds repose,

9. Thou, on England's banners blazoned with the famous fields of old,

Shalt, when other fields are winning, wave above the brave and bold;

10. And our sons unborn shall nerve them for some great deed to be done,

By that twentieth of September when the
Alma's heights were won.

II. O, thou river! dear for ever to the gallant, to the free!

Alma! roll thy waters proudly, proudly roll

them to the sea!

TRENCH.

THE CAPTAIN'S STORY.

I. WHEN I was about forty years of age, I took command of the ship Petersham. We were bound to New York, and nothing unusual occurred until about the eighth day out, when we ran foul of a small iceberg. I did not think we had sustained much injury, for the shock was very slight, but I was very angry, and gave the look-out1 a severe punishment.

2. My cabin-boy was named Jack Withers. He was fourteen years of age, and this was his first voyage. I had taken him from his widowed mother, and I had promised her that I would treat him kindly if he behaved himself. He was a bright, quick lad. But I soon made myself believe that he had a bad disposition. I fancied that he was the most stubborn boy I had ever come across. I made up my mind that he had never been properly governed, and I resolved to break him in. So I flogged him well with a rope's end. Then I asked him if he had got enough, and he told me I might flog him more if I wished. I felt a strong inclination to throw him overboard, but at that moment he staggered back against the mizenmast and fell, and so I left him to himself.

3. When I reasoned calmly with myself, I was 'The look-out, the man whose business it is to keep watch.