"How do you explain this rapid development of railway enterprise?"

"Well, the fact is that at first the aim was to fill up the gaps between the waterways. Rivers were relied on as long as possible, and the first railways were built in districts where there were no large rivers. Then in course of time various lines converged together, new railways were constructed, and now the forty-nine States are covered with a connected network of lines. Moreover, the country roads are so bad that they must be supplemented by railways."

"A large number of bridges must be necessary across all the large rivers?"

"Yes, certainly. The Americans are adepts in bridge-building, and the railway bridges over the Mississippi and Missouri and other rivers are masterpieces of the boldest art. Where lines cross deeply eroded valleys, bridges of timber were formerly built, like sky-scraping parapets with rails laid along the top; but such bridges are now fast disappearing and iron bridges are built, and the trains run at full speed over elegant erections which from a distance look just like a spider's web. Just look to your left. There you have one of the world's strongest bridges, the suspension bridge between New York and Brooklyn. It is of colossal dimensions, and yet it looks so fine and delicate as it hangs between its two mighty piers. You see that vessels with the tallest masts can pass clear below, for it is poised 135 feet above high water. The length is nearly a mile and a quarter. It is wonderful that men have been able to stretch this huge span of iron above the water. Wait a little and you will see a kind of aerial railway."

Then the Stockholm man takes his new friend to a station to travel on the elevated railway through New York. Gunnar's astonishment is beyond bounds as he rushes along on a framework, supported by innumerable iron pillars, over streets and squares, and sees the seething crowd moving in carriages and on foot below his feet.



"Here is the Central Park. Is it not delightful with its leafy trees and cool pools? In summer it is burning hot in the town, and it is refreshing to rest an hour or two in the shade of the trees. The winters are equally cold, and raw, biting winds blow from the east coast. Here is Fifth Avenue, the finest street of New York. In the row of palaces you see here live millionaires, railway kings, steel kings, petroleum kings, corn kings, a whole crop of kings. But I would rather we went to look at the rows of houses facing the Hudson River."

"New York lies, then, on the Hudson River?"

"That is so, but more properly speaking New York stands on the island of Manhattan in the mouth of the river. We are standing, then, on Manhattan, and it is interesting to recall the fact that this island was sold three hundred years ago by Indians to Dutchmen for the sum of four pounds. It is rather more valuable now! Just look at the hideous sky-scrapers with their twenty and thirty storeys" (Plate XXXII.).

"I was just wondering why houses are built so enormously high."

"That is owing to the tremendous value of the ground. When there is not space enough to build out laterally, the buildings are piled up heavenwards, where there is plenty of room. They are certainly not handsome. Look at this row of houses, some of moderate height, others as tall as chimneys. Are they not like a row of keys moved by invisible gigantic fingers?"

"I should not like to live in such a building, I am sure. On the top floor I should be giddy with the height, and on the first I should expect the whole mass to tumble down on me."

"We are better off in Brooklyn, where the houses are of moderate height. To-morrow I will show you something not less remarkable than the wealthy quarter of the city. I will take you to the Chinese town. There Chinese swarm in the dirty lanes; there the whole place reeks of onions and tobacco and spirits from the public-houses; there are vile gambling hells and opium dens; and there paper lanterns on fishing rods hang outside the tea-houses. Then we can take a look at 'Little Italy,' a purely Italian town in the midst of the New York of the Americans. There you will see only Italian books in the book-shops, there Italian newspapers are read, there wax candles burn round images of the Madonna in the churches, and black-haired, brown-eyed children from sunny Italy play in the gutters. And we must not forget 'Little Russia,' the Jews' quarter. The Jews are a remarkable people; you never see them drunk, and you never hear of any crime or felony committed by them. They live poorly, cheaply, and sparingly, and seem cheerful in their booths beside the streets."

"All this is very well, but I do not understand where all the immigrants go. I am told that as many as three thousand persons land daily on Ellis Island. At this rate New York receives yearly an addition of a million souls."

"Yes, but how many do you think remain in New York? Most of them go up country and out westwards. Some improve their position and then repair to other fields of work. But many also stay here and increase the slum population. The immigrants who are destitute on landing take work in factories at any wage they can get. The wages they receive seem very high compared to those in their own country, but they are low for America. Accordingly the immigrant Europeans thrust out the Americans, and therefore there are two millions out of work in the United States. And so there are failures, human wrecks, who are a burden to others. If you like we will try this evening to get to a midnight mission and see the poor wretches waiting in crowds for the doors to open. They have a worn, listless expression, but when the doors are open they wake up and rush in, fill all the benches in the large hall, and go to sleep in all imaginable positions."

"What do they do there?"

"A missionary preaches to them, but they are hungry and weary, and sleep soundly on their benches. Among them you will find tramps and vagabonds, professional beggars and thieves, idlers and men out of work. In the daytime they beg and steal, and now at night they take their sleep in the mission. When the preacher finishes, they file out and go to the bread stalls to get food. Such is their life day after day, and they sink ever deeper into misery."

"They are the slag that remains after the precious metal has run off, of course. It is curious to think of a people that is increased by a never-failing stream of immigrants. What will be the end of it?"

"No one can answer that question. Everything is possible with Americans. They are a mixture of English, Scandinavian, German, Dutch, Italian, and Russian blood, to name only the principal constituents of this complex blend, this huge incorporation. Out of all these elements one day an American race will emerge, when Ellis Island has closed its gates to emigrants from Europe."



"Tell me another thing, now. Why is not New York, the most important city, also the capital of the country?"

"It was thought that the city which bears the name of the great Washington had a more convenient and more central position with regard to the States of the original federation. The population of Washington is only about 330,000, and there are fifteen larger cities in the United States, but it is the centre of government. There the President lives in White House, there Congress assembles in the Capitol, there stands the Washington monument surrounded by large national buildings, and there three universities are established."

CHICAGO AND THE GREAT LAKES

After our friend Gunnar has seen as much as he wants of New York, he obtains a good post in a large factory, but he stays there only two months, for with other Swedes he receives an offer from Philadelphia which he does not hesitate to accept. His idea is to work his way gradually westward. If he can only get as far as Chicago he thinks it will not be difficult to go on to San Francisco.

Now he works in a yard where more than a thousand locomotives are made annually. This yard seems to him quite a town in itself. Here the iron is made white hot in immense furnaces, there it is hammered and rolled, and with irresistible power human hands convert the hard steel into steam boilers, wheels, axles, and parts of machines which are put together to form engines. The workshop is traversed in all directions by rails, and the completed steam-horses are sent out all over the railway systems of the United States.

Gunnar learns from his mates that Philadelphia is one of the largest cities of the world, with nearly a million and a half inhabitants, and that in America only New York and Chicago are larger.

* * * * *

After a while, however, Gunnar has had enough of Philadelphia, and takes a ticket for Pittsburg, the steel and iron capital, where immigrants never need be in want of a post. He travels without a change of carriages between the two towns, traversing the whole of Pennsylvania. Innumerable branch lines diverge in all directions, for towns and villages are everywhere. Here a railway runs to a mine, there another to a district rich in maize and tobacco, and here again a third to a timber yard. At the station stand long trains laden with grain, planks, petroleum, cotton, reaping machines, coal—in fact all the wares that the earth can produce by its fertility, and men by the labour of their hands.

The country becomes hilly, and the train winds about through the northernmost part of the Alleghany Mountains. Gunnar lets his eyes rove with strained attention over the dark woods, the waving fields, and the smoke rising from villages and farmhouses, when an American comes and sits down on the seat just in front of him.

"I see that you are a newcomer in America," says the stranger. "It may then interest you to know that the crest of the Alleghany Mountains, composed of granite, gneiss, and slates, is the watershed between the Atlantic and the Mississippi. You must not suppose that these mountains are everywhere as low as here; far down south-west, in North Carolina, there are summits more than six thousand feet high. Maize and fruit are grown in the valleys, and there are fine forests of pines and foliage trees. And there are places where you lose yourself in dense clumps of rhododendrons and climbing plants. And there are wild recesses where men never go, but where bears and wolves have their haunts among broken branches and twigs, fallen trunks and moss-grown granite boulders, and where nothing is changed since the time when the Indian tribes went on the war-path. But where are you bound for?"

"I am going to Pittsburg to look for work, for I was a smith at home."

"Oh, Pittsburg! I was foreman in some steel works there for two years, and I have never seen anything more wonderful. You know that this town has sprung up out of the earth as if by magic. When petroleum springs were discovered, it increased at double the rate, and now it is one of the world's largest industrial towns, and, as regards iron and steel, the first in America. Here materials are manufactured to the value of more than nineteen million pounds annually. Almost inexhaustible deposits of coal are found in the neighbourhood. More than twenty railway lines converge to Pittsburg, which also has the advantage of three navigable rivers, and a network of canals. And round about the town are suburbs full of machine factories, steel works, and glass works. The neighbourhood has a million of inhabitants, a third of them foreigners, mostly Slavs, Italians, and Hungarians. You have a kind of feeling of oppression when you see from a height this forest of reeking factory chimneys, and when you think of the unfortunate men that slave under this cloud of coal smoke. There is a hammering and beating everywhere, and a rumble of trains rolling over the rails. Overheated furnaces bubble and boil, and sparks fly out under the steam hammers. At night you might think you were in the bottom of a volcano, where lava boils under the ashes ready to roll out and destroy everything. A weird reddish-yellow light flames forth from thousands of fires, lighting up the under side of the thick smoke cloud. I am sorry for you if you are going to Pittsburg. You had much better travel straight on to Chicago. Not that Chicago is a paradise, but there are better openings there, and you will be nearer the great West with its inexhaustible resources."

"Thanks for your advice. I am the more ready to follow it because I always intended to get to Chicago sometime."

"From Pittsburg," continues the American, "a line runs direct to the large town of St. Louis on the Mississippi. St. Louis is a junction of great importance, for not only do a whole series of great railway lines meet there, but also innumerable steamboats ply from there up the Mississippi and Missouri, and to all the large towns on their tributaries. St. Louis is the centre of all the winding waterways which intersect all parts of the United States. And there you can travel on comfortable flat-bottomed steamers along the main river to New Orleans, a great harbour for the export of cotton. You can well conceive what a blessing and source of wealth this river is to our country. It is of immense extent, for it is the longest river in the world, if we take its length from the sources of the Missouri in the Rocky Mountains, and in the area of its basin it is second only to the Amazons. Its plain is exceedingly fruitful, and far around its banks grain shoots up out of the soil to feed many millions of human beings. And its waterways, ramifying like the nerves of a leaf, facilitate communication and the transport of goods between the different States.

"You should just see how the great river rises in spring. You might think you were sailing on a large lake, and, as a matter of fact, it floods an area as large as Lake Superior. If the Mississippi is a blessing to men, on the other hand in spring it exacts a heavy tax from them. The vast volumes of brown, muddy water often cut off sharp bends from the river-bed and take short cuts through narrow promontories. By such tricks the length of the river is not infrequently shortened by ten or twelve miles here and there. But you can imagine the trouble this causes. A town standing on such a bend may one fine day find itself six miles from the bank. In another the inhabitants are in danger of being at any time drowned like cats. A railway bridge may suddenly be suspended over dry land, while the river has swept away rails and embankment a little farther off. Our engineers have great difficulty in protecting constructions from the capricious river in spring. Not a year passes without the Mississippi causing terrible destruction and inflicting great loss on those who dwell near its banks, especially in cattle.

"You have only to see this water to comprehend what immense quantities of earth, sand, and mud are yearly carried down by it. And all this silt is deposited in the flat delta below New Orleans. Therefore the delta extends from year to year farther out into the Gulf of Mexico. This is an easy way of increasing our territory, but we would willingly sacrifice the gain if we could get rid of the terrible floods in spring."

The train with our two travellers on board has now crossed the boundary of Pennsylvania, and is making its way westwards through the states of Ohio and Indiana. Boundless plains extend to north and south, planted with maize, wheat, oats, and tobacco. Maize fields, however, are the most frequent, and the harvest is just beginning. Gigantic reaping machines, drawn by troops of horses, mow down the grain and bind it into sheaves, while other machines throw it into waggons. The reapers have only to drive the horses; all the rest is done by the machines. Certainly men's hands could never be able to deal with all this grain; whole armies could be hidden under the ears of maize.

Now the train skirts the shore of Lake Michigan, which stretches its blue surface northwards, and a little later halts at Chicago.

* * * * *

Gunnar has been directed to an agency for Swedish workmen, and the first thing he does is to call there. In a day or two he obtains work in the timber business, and goes up to Canada in a large cargo steamer which carries timber from the forests of Canada to Chicago. Here the timber supplies seem to him inexhaustible when he sees the dark coniferous woods on the shores and hills, and when he notices that hundreds of steamboats are carrying the same freight. The workman beside him, an Englishman, boasts of the immense territory which occupies almost all the northern half of North America.

"Canada is the most precious jewel in the crown of Great Britain, next to the mother-country and India."

"Why is Canada so valuable? I always thought that its population was very small."

"It has not many people; you are right there. Canada has only seven million inhabitants."

"Oh, not more! That is just about as many as Greater London."

"Yes; and yet Canada is as large as all Europe and as the United States of America. It stretches so far to east and west that it occupies a fourth part of the circuit of the earth, and if you travel from Montreal to Vancouver you have a journey of 2906 miles. But you can well understand that such an extensive country, even though it is thinly peopled, especially in its cold, northern parts, must yield much that is valuable to its owners."

"Yes, certainly; so it is in Siberia, where the population is also scanty."

"Just so. In Canada fields, mountains, forests, and water yield an immense revenue. Think only of all the agricultural produce which is shipped from here, not to speak of gold, fish, and furs. The wheat produced in Canada is alone worth over 22 million pounds sterling a year. There are also huge areas which are worthless. We get little advantage from the northern coasts, where the Eskimos live."

"You are quite at home on these lakes?"

"Oh yes. When a man has sailed to and fro over them for ten years, he knows all about the roadsteads and channels, and about when the ice forms and breaks up, and when there is a prospect of a storm."

"But the storms cannot be very dangerous?"

"Ah, you do not believe in them. All the same they may be just as dangerous as in the Atlantic, and when a real hurricane comes, the skipper will do well to seek shelter, or at the best he will lose his cargo. You will soon have opportunities of seeing, hearing, and feeling how the surge beats just as on the coast of the ocean. But then, all these lakes have an aggregate area more than half as large as the Baltic, and if we take the depth into account we shall find that the volume of water is the same as in the Baltic. Lake Superior is the largest lake in the world. Beyond the point yonder lies Lake Huron. You must acknowledge that this scenery is beautiful. Have you ever seen anything to equal this sheet of dark-blue water, the dark-green woods, and the grand peaceful shores? It is a pity that we do not go to Lake Erie, for at its eastern extremity is one of the wonders of the world and the most famous spectacle in North America."



"You mean the Falls of Niagara, which I have heard described so many times?"

"Yes. Think of a steamboat on Lake Erie sucked along by the stream that flows to Ontario. This lake lies 300 feet lower than Erie, and about half-way between the two lakes the water passes over a sharp bar and plunges with a thundering roar into the depth below (Plate XXXIII.). The barrier itself, which is a thousand yards broad, is formed of a huge stratum of sandstone, and the rocks under it are loose slates. Erosion proceeds more rapidly in the slates than in the hard limestone, which, therefore, overhangs like the projecting leaf of a table, and the collected volumes of water hurl themselves over it. But when the limestone is so far undermined that it is no longer able to bear the weight of the water, fragments break off from time to time from its edge and fall into the abyss with a deafening noise. Thus in time the fall wears away the barrier and Niagara is moving back in the direction of Lake Erie."

"Moving, do you say? The movement can surely not be rapid."

"Oh no; Niagara needs about seventeen thousand years to move half a mile nearer to Lake Erie."

"That's all right, for now I can be sure it will be there when I visit it at some future opportunity."

"Yes, and you would find it even if a crowd of railway lines did not run to it. You hear the roar of the 'thunder water' forty miles away, and when you come closer you see dense clouds of foam and spray rising from the ravine 150 feet below the threshold of the Fall. Yes, Niagara is the most wonderful thing I have seen. In all the world it is surpassed only by the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi, discovered by Livingstone. One feels small and overawed when one ventures on the bridges above and below the Fall, and sees its 280,000 cubic feet of water gliding one moment smooth as oil over the barrier, and the next dashing into foam and spray below with a thundering noise."

"It would not be pleasant to be sucked over the edge."

"And yet a reckless fellow once made the journey. For safety he crept into a large, stout barrel, well padded inside with cushions. Packed in this way, he let the barrel drift with the stream, tip over the edge of the barrier, and fall perpendicularly into the pool below. As long as he floated in the quiet drift, and even when he fell with the column of water, he ran no danger. It was when he plumped down on to the water below and span round in the whirlpools, bumped against rocks rising up from the bottom, and was carried at a furious pace down under the watery vault. But the traveller got through and was picked up in quiet water."

"I suppose that there are bridges over the Niagara River as over all the others in the country?"

"Certainly. Among them is an arched bridge of steel below the Falls which has a single span of 270 yards, and is the most rigid bridge in the world."

"Tell me, where does all this water go to below Niagara?"

"Well, it flows out into Lake Ontario, opposite Toronto, the largest town in Canada. Then it runs out of the lake's north-eastern corner, forming winding channels among a number of islands, which are called The Thousand Islands. Then the river, which is called the St. Lawrence, is sometimes narrow and rapid and sometimes expands into lake-like reaches. At the large town of Montreal begins the quiet course, and below Quebec the St. Lawrence opens out like a huntsman's horn. The river is frozen over every year, and in some places the ice is so thick that rails can be laid on it and heavy goods trains run over it. In spring, when the ice begins to break up, the neighbourhood of the river is dangerous, and sometimes mountains of ice thrust themselves over the lower parts of Montreal. It can be cold in Montreal—down to-30 deg. It is still worse in northern Canada. And the summer is short in this country."

"You have just mentioned Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec. Which is the capital?"

"Oh, none of these is the capital of the Colony. That honour belongs to the small town of Ottawa. And now I will tell you something extraordinary. The Dominion of Canada is situated between two goldfields. In the extreme east is Newfoundland, in the extreme west Klondike. I shall never forget the gold fever which seized adventurers in nearly all countries when it was known that the precious metal occurred in large quantities in the gravel and sand-beds on the banks of the Yukon River. I was one of them myself. Men rushed wildly off to get there in time and stake out small claims in the auriferous soil. What a wild life! How we suffered! We had to pay a shilling for a biscuit and a dollar for a box of sardines. We were glad when a hunter shot elk and reindeer, and sold the meat for an exorbitant price in gold dust. We lived huddled up in wretched tents and were perished with cold. Furious snowstorms swept during winter over the dreary country and the temperature fell to-67 deg. And what a toil to get hold of the miserable gold! The ground is always frozen up there. To work in it you must first thaw the soil with fire. By degrees the situation improved and a small town grew up on the goldfield, and in a few years the gold won attained to the value of five millions sterling."

"And the other gold mine, then?"

"Newfoundland. A cold polar current brings yearly quantities of seal, cod, salmon, herring, and lobster down to the banks of Newfoundland, where more than fifty thousand fishermen are engaged in catching them. As the fish brings in yearly a revenue of several millions, this easternmost island of North America may well be called a gold mine too."

THROUGH THE GREAT WEST

After a few profitable voyages on Lakes Michigan and Huron, Gunnar has saved so much that he can carry out his plan of travelling to the extreme West. He intends to let his dollars fly in railway fares, and, after he has seen enough of the great cities of America, to settle down in the most attractive district. There he will stay and work until he has saved up enough to buy a farm of his own in his native country.

He sets off from Chicago and leaves St. Louis behind him, and is carried by a train on the Pacific Railway through Missouri and Kansas westwards. In the latter State he flies over boundless prairies.

Eventually a German naturalist enters Gunnar's carriage when the train stops at a large station. He is dusty and out of breath, and is glad to rest when he has seen his boxes and chests stowed away in the luggage van. Like all Germans he is alert and observant, agreeable and talkative, and the train has not crossed the boundary between Kansas and Colorado before he has learned all about Gunnar's experiences and plans.

Soon the German on his part explains the business which has brought him out to the Far West.

"I have received a grant from the University of Heidelberg to collect plants and animals in the western States, and I travel as cheaply as I can so that the money may last longer. I love this great America. Have you noticed how colossal everything is in this country, whether the good God or wicked man be the master-builder? If you cross a mountain range like the Rocky Mountains, or its South American continuation, the Andes, it is the longest in the world. If you roll over a river, as the Mississippi-Missouri, you hear that this also is the longest that exists. If you travel by steamboat over the Canadian lakes, you are told that no sheets of fresh water in the world surpass them. And think of all these innumerable large towns that have sprung up within a century or two. And these railways, these astonishing bridges, these inexhaustible natural resources, and this world-embracing commerce. How alert and industrious is this people, how quickly everything develops, how much more bustle and feverish haste there is than in the Old World!"

"It is charming to see the Rocky Mountains become more and more distinct, and the different chains and ridges stand out more sharply as we approach."

"Yes, indeed. You notice by the speed of the train that we are already mounting upwards. You see the prairies pass into the foot of the hills. We shall soon come into the zone of dwarf oaks and mahogany trees. Higher up are slopes covered with fine pine woods, and willows and alders grow along the banks of the streams."

"You speak of trees. Is it true, as a skipper on Lake Michigan told me, that there are trees here in the west which are over three hundred feet high?"

"Quite true. Your informant meant, of course, the two species of the coniferous family which are called mammoth trees, because they are the giants of the vegetable kingdom, as the mammoths were of the animal kingdom. They grow on the western flanks of the Sierra Nevada in California. When one sees these heaven-aspiring trees one is tempted to believe that their only aim in life is to rise so high that they may look over the crest of the coast range and have a free view of the Pacific Ocean. One of these giants which fell long ago had a height of 435 feet and a girth of 110 feet at the base. It was called the 'Father of the Forest.' The trunk is hollow. There is also another fallen mammoth called the 'Riding School,' because a man on horseback can ride some way into the inside. These trees are supposed to be several thousand years old. The place in the Sierra Nevada where the last giants stand on their ancient roots is protected and is the property of the whole people. If the law did not protect the trees, they would go the same way as the bisons and Indians."

"Is there not also a reserved area in the Rocky Mountains?"

"Yes; the Yellowstone National Park in the state of Wyoming. It is a wonderful place, and whole books have been written about it. There are as many as four thousand hot springs and a hundred geysers in the lower part of the valley between the crests of the Rocky Mountains. The Giant Geyser shoots up to a height of 250 feet, and 'Old Faithful' spouts up once an hour. The Park contains many other natural wonders, and there are preserved herds of wild animals, such as elks, antelopes, and stags. Even beavers have found a refuge in its streams."

"Are there dangerous beasts of prey in these mountains?" asks Gunnar while the train puffs and rolls heavily up a dark valley.

"Yes; the grizzly bear is the largest of them. He is not so particularly dangerous, and at any rate is better than his reputation. If he is only left in peace he will not come near a man, and if he is attacked he almost always takes to flight. But if he is wounded at close quarters he may take a terrible revenge, and he is the strongest of all the animals in his native haunts. It was formerly considered a great honour to wear a necklace of a grizzly bear's teeth and claws.

"It is a fine sight to see a grizzly bear roaming through the woods and thickets, where he considers himself absolute master of all the animals of the region. He is sometimes brownish, sometimes grey, and a grey bear is supposed to be more dangerous than a brown. He lives like all other bears, hibernates, eats berries, fruit, nuts, and roots, but he also kills animals and is said to be very expert in fishing. I will tell you a little hunting story.

"A white hunter was once eager for an opportunity of killing a grizzly bear, and a young Indian undertook to lead him to a spot where he would not have to wait long. The two marksmen hid behind a small knoll, after having laid out a newly-killed deer as bait. The Indian, who knew the habits of bears, was not mistaken. Soon a huge bear came waddling out of the wood with such a ridiculous gait that the white hunter could hardly control his laughter, though the Indian remained silent and serious. The old fellow stopped frequently, lifted his nose in the air, and looked about to convince himself that no danger lurked around. Once he began to scratch in the ground, and then smelled his forepaws and lay down on his back and rolled. He wanted probably to rub his coat in some strongly smelling plant.

"Then he went on again. After a time he sat and clawed his fur, looked at his paws, and licked his pads. Then he scratched himself behind the ears with his hind paws. And when his toilet was finished he trotted straight towards the place where the deer lay. When he saw the animal he was surprised, reared up on his hind legs to his full height, cocked his ears, wrinkled his forehead, and seemed perplexed. When he was sure that the stag was dead he went up to it and smelt it. Then he went round and nosed about on the other side to see if the animal were dead on that side also.

"His meditations were here interrupted, for the white hunter fired and the bear fell, but raised himself again on his hind legs. The hunter followed his example, but the Indian, who saw that the bear was in an angry and revengeful mood, advised him to hide himself again quickly. Too late! The furious bear had seen his enemy, and rushed in a rolling gallop towards his hiding-place. The hunter found it best to run, and in a minute was with the Indian perched on the bough of an oak. Here they loaded their guns again, while the bear, limping on three legs, made for the tree. Hit by two bullets he fell down, tore up the earth and grass with his claws, and at last became still."

"It is a shame," said Gunnar, "to kill these kings of the Rocky Mountains for amusement or to gain a name as a hunter. Probably they are fated to pass away like the bisons and Indians."

"Oh no, not yet. They will long survive in inaccessible regions of the mountains and in the uninhabited parts of Canada. But certainly it is a shame to destroy them unnecessarily, particularly when we hear of such a deed of chivalry as the following.

"A traveller took a young grizzly bear with him to Europe, and on board he was a general favourite. He drank and ate and played with the sailors, and, curiously enough, conceived a great friendship for a small antelope which travelled with him. When the vessel came into port and the antelope was being led along a street, a large bulldog fell on the defenceless animal. The bear, which was led behind the antelope by a chain, perceived his friend's danger, tore himself away from his keeper with a single jerk, threw himself on the bulldog, and mauled him so badly that he ran away howling with pain."

* * * * *

"You may well declare," says Gunnar, "that everything in America is on a large scale, but all the same lions and tigers are not found here."

"No, but there are jaguars and pumas instead. Both are more common in South than in North America, where the jaguar only comes as far north as the south-western States and Mexico. They are found in the outskirts of forests and in the tall grass of the pampas, where wild horsemen track them down, catch them in lassoes, and drag them after their horses till they are strangled. The jaguar also frequents thickets on the river-banks and marshes. He keeps to the ground, whereas the bold and agile puma even pursues monkeys in the trees. With shrill screams and cries of warning the monkeys fly from tree to tree, but the puma is after them, crawls out along a swaying branch and jumps over to another on the next tree. Both are bloodthirsty robbers, but the jaguar is the larger, stronger, and more savage. He can never be properly tamed, and never loses his innate treacherousness, but the puma becomes as tame as a dog.

"The puma never attacks a man, but you must be on your guard against a jaguar. Both are enemies of flocks and herds, but while the puma never worries tame animals larger than sheep, the jaguar will often attack horses, mules, and young cattle. The jaguar hunts only at daybreak and twilight, or when the moon shines brightly; the puma only in the evening and at night. The puma is dark reddish-yellow, the jaguar orange with black spots and rings on his fur, a marking which reminds one of the colour of certain poisonous snakes. The puma's cubs are charming little creatures, like kittens, but larger. Their eyes do not open until they are ten days old; then they begin to crawl about very awkwardly, tumbling down at every other step, and climb up on their mother's back. They soon become sure on their feet and, like kittens, play with their mother's tail.

"The jaguar is a keen and patient hunter. He crawls along on his belly like a cat, and from the recesses of the thicket watches his victim without moving an eye. He creeps nearer with wonderful agility and noiselessness, and when he is sure of success he makes his spring, tears open the throat of the antelope, sheep, or waterhog, and drags his booty into the thicket. Small animals he swallows hair and all. Of a horse he eats as much as he can, and then goes off to sleep in some concealed spot. When he awakes he goes back to his meal.

"On one road in South America twenty Indians were killed by jaguars within a lifetime. If a man has presence of mind enough to shout and make a noise and go towards the brute, the latter withdraws. Otherwise he is lost, for even if he escapes with his life, the wounds inflicted by the jaguar's blunt claws and teeth are terrible and dangerous. There are Indians in South America who are said to hunt the jaguar in the following manner. They wrap a sheepskin round the left arm and in the right hand hold a sharp two-edged knife. Then they beat up the jaguar and set dogs at him. He gets up on his hind legs like a bear, and attacks one of the Indians. The man puts out his left arm for him to bite, and at the same time runs his knife into the beast's heart.

"A traveller relates a very good jaguar tale. Some sailors from Europe had landed on the bank of a river in South America. Suddenly they saw a jaguar swimming over from the farther bank. They hurriedly seized their guns, manned their boat, and rowed out to meet the animal. A shot was fired and the jaguar was wounded, but instead of making off, he came straight for the boat. The sailors belaboured him with the oars, but he paid no attention and managed to drag himself on to the boat, when the crew all jumped out and swam to the bank. The jaguar remained, and drifted comfortably down the river. A little farther down came a boat of other sailors, and this time it was the jaguar who jumped out and disappeared among the thickets on the bank. It was a great feat to make his escape after tackling two boats' crews."

* * * * *

The train continues on its noisy course through the mountains. Dark, wild glens open on either side. The monotonous rumble of the wheels on the rails has a soothing effect, and the German, following the example of many other travellers, goes to sleep in his corner.

But when the tireless locomotive draws its row of heavy carriages out on to a giddy bridge and the waves of sound sing in brighter tones than in the enclosed valleys, the compartment wakes to life again. People look out of the windows and gaze at the yawning depth beneath them. The train seems to be rolling out into space on the way to heaven.



The German lights a cigar and begins another lecture to his fellow-traveller.

"Here we are passing over one of the source streams of the Colorado River. You seem disinclined to admit that everything is grand in America, but I maintain that nothing in the world can compare with the great canon of the Colorado. You may believe me or not. You may talk of fire-vomiting mountains and coral reefs, of the peak of Mount Everest and the great abysses of the ocean, of our light blue Alps in Europe and of the dark forests of Africa, nay, you may take me where you will in the world, but I shall still maintain that there is no stupendous overpowering beauty comparable to the canons of the Colorado River (Plate XXXIV.).

"Listen! This river which discharges its waters into the Gulf of California is fed by numerous streams in the rainy, elevated regions of the Rocky Mountains. But where the united river leaves Utah and passes into Arizona, it traverses a dry plateau country with little rain, where its waters have cut their way down through mountain limestone to a depth of 6000 feet. The strata are horizontal, and the whole series has been cleared away by the continued erosive power of water, aided by gravel and boulders. This work has been going on from the commencement of the period in the world's history known as the Pliocene Age, and it is reckoned that the interval which must have elapsed since then must have amounted to millions of years. And yet this space of time, from the Pliocene Age to our own, must, geologically speaking, be extremely insignificant compared to the length of the great geological periods. The six thousand years which we call the historical period is but the beat of a second on the clock of eternity, and what the historian calls primeval times is the latest and most recent period in the last of all the geologist's ages. For while the historian deals with revolutions of the sun of only 365 days, the geologist is only satisfied with thousands and millions of years. The Colorado River has presented him with one of the standards by which he is able to calculate lapse of time. You will acknowledge that it is no small feat for running water to cut its way down through solid rock to a depth of 6500 feet; and these canons are more than 180 miles long and four to eleven miles broad.

"By its work here the river has sculptured in the face of the earth a landscape which awes and astonishes the spectator. It is like nothing he has ever seen before. When he stood at the foot of the Alps he gazed up at the snow-clad wastes of the mighty mountain masses. When he stands at the edge of the canons of the Colorado he looks down and sees a yawning chasm, and on the other side of the giddy ravine the walls rise perpendicular or sloping. He seems to stand before the artistically decorated facade of a gigantic house or palace in an immense town. He sees in the walls of the valley, niches and excavations like a Roman theatre, with benches rising in tiers. At their sides stand gables and projections of rock, like turrets and buttresses. Under huge cornices rise columns standing out or attached at the back, all planned on the same gigantic scale. The precipitous cliffs are dark, and the whole country is coloured in pink, yellow, red, and warm brown tones. The sun pours its gold over the majestic desolation. No grassy sward, no vegetation carpets the horizontal or vertical surfaces with green. Here and there a pine leans its crown over the chasm, and when the cones fall they go right down to the bottom.

"In the early morning, when the air is still pure and clear after the coolness of the night, and when the sun is low, the canon lies in deep gloom, and behind the brightly lighted tops of the columns the shadows lie as black as soot. Then the bold sculpturing stands out in all its glory. On a quiet night, when the moon holds its crescent above the earth, an oppressive silence prevails over this region. The roar of the river is not heard, for the distance is too great. A feeling of romance takes hold of the visitor. He fancies himself in a fairy world. Only a step over the edge and he would soar on invisible wings to a bright wonderland."

At Salt Lake City the German leaves the train to begin his investigations round the Great Salt Lake and the Mormon capital. Gunnar travels on through the mountainous districts of Nevada and California, and when the train at last pulls up at San Francisco he has reached the goal of his hopes.

Here is one of the finest cities in the world, situated on a peninsula in a deep and spacious inlet surrounded by mountains. Almost all traces of the terrible earthquake which a few years ago destroyed the city have disappeared, and splendid new buildings of iron and stone have sprung up from the rubbish heaps, for as a commercial emporium San Francisco has the same importance with relation to the great routes across the Pacific as New York has on the Atlantic side.



IV

SOUTH AMERICA

THE INCA EMPIRE

A terrestrial globe naturally presents a better image of the earth than any map, for it shows plainly the continents and the configuration of the oceans, and exhibits clearly their position and relative size. If you examine such a globe, you notice that the North Pole lies in the midst of a sea, surrounded by great masses of land, whereas the South Pole is in an extensive land surrounded by a wide sea. Perhaps you wonder why all the continents send out peninsulas southwards? Just look at the Scandinavian Peninsula, and look at Spain, Italy, and Greece. Do not Kamtchatka and Korea, Arabia and the Indian Peninsula all point south? South America, Africa, and Australia are drawn out into wedges narrowing southwards. They are like stalactites in a grotto. But however much you may puzzle over the globe, and however much you may question learned men, you will never know why the earth's surface has assumed exactly the form it has and no other.

On another occasion you may remark that Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia lie in an almost continuous curve in the eastern hemisphere, while America has the western hemisphere all to itself. There it lies as a huge dividing wall between two oceans. You wonder why the New World has such a peculiar form stretching from pole to pole.

Perhaps you think that the Creator must have changed His mind at the last moment, and decided to make two distinct continents of America. You seem to see the marks of His omnipotent hands. With the left He held North America, and in the right South America. Where Hudson Bay runs into the land lay His forefinger, and the Gulf of Mexico is the impression of His thumb. South America He gripped with the whole hand, and there is only a slight mark of the thumb just on the boundary between Peru and Chile. It almost looks as if He grasped the continent so tightly that its western border was crumpled into great wrinkles and folds which we men call the Rocky Mountains and the Andes. If we did not know that it is the ocean winds that feed the rivers with rain, we should be tempted to believe that the Mississippi, Amazons, Rio de la Plata, and other rivers were moisture still running out of the mountains under the pressure of the Creator's hands.

And so He has divided America into two. In one place the connection broke, but the fragments still remain, and we call them the West Indies or Antilles. In other places the material was too tough. Mexico thins out southwards as though it were going to end in the sea, and Central America is stretched like a wrung-out cloth. Between Guatemala and Honduras it is almost torn through, and the large lake of Nicaragua is another weak point. But where Costa Rica passes into the Isthmus of Panama the connection between the two halves of the New World has been almost broken and hangs only by a hair. The peninsula, however, resisted the pull, and has held, though reduced to a breadth of forty miles.

Then, of course, man must come and help the Creator to finish the work which He Himself found very good. It was long before men ventured on so gigantic an undertaking, but as they had succeeded in separating Africa from Asia, it was no doubt feasible to blast a canal through the hills of the Isthmus of Panama, 300 feet high. It has cost many years and many millions, but the great cutting will soon be ready which will sever South America from the northern half of the New World. It is surely a splendid undertaking to make it possible for a vessel to sail from Liverpool direct to San Francisco without rounding the whole of South America, and at a single blow to shorten the distance by near 6000 miles.

The bridge still stands unbroken, however, and we come dryshod over to South America just where the Andes begin their mighty march along all the west coast. Their ranges rise, here in double and there in many folds, like ramparts against the Pacific Ocean, and between the ranges lie plains at a height of 12,000 feet. Here also lift themselves on high the loftiest summits of the New World—Aconcagua in Argentina, the highest of all, an extinct volcano covered with eternal snow and glistening glaciers; Sorata in Bolivia; the extinct volcano Chimborazo in Ecuador, like a marble dome; and lastly, one of the earth's most noted mountains, Cotopaxi, the highest of all still active volcanoes (Plate XXXV.). Stand for a moment in the valley above the tree limit, where only scattered plants can find hold in the hard ground. You see a cone as regular as the peak of Fujiyama. The crater is 2500 feet in diameter, and from its edge, 19,600 feet high, the snow-cap falls down the mountain sides like the rays of a gigantic starfish. When the Spanish conquerors, nearly four hundred years ago, took possession of these formerly free countries, Cotopaxi had one of its fearful eruptions; and even in more recent times European travellers have seen the mantle of snow melt away as from a lighted furnace, while a brownish-red reflection from the glowing crater lighted up the devastation caused in the villages and valleys at the foot of the mountain by the flood of melted snow and streams of lava.



Even under the burning sun of the equator, then, these giants stand with mantles of eternal snow and glittering blue fields of ice in the bitterly cold atmosphere. Up there you would think that you were near the pole. There are no trees on the high crests, which seem to rise up from the depths of the Pacific Ocean; but the climate is good, and agriculture yields sustenance to men. On the eastern flanks, which are watered by abundant rains, the vegetation is exceedingly luxuriant, and here the traveller enters the primeval forests of the tropics. Here is the home of the cinchona tree, here orchids bloom among the tall trunks, and here whole woods are entangled in a network of lianas. Immense areas of Brazil and Bolivia are covered with impenetrable primeval forests, which even still present an obstacle to the advance of the explorer.

Thus we find in the Andes all zones from the hot to the cold, from tropical forests to barren heights, from the equator to high southern latitudes.

Among these mountains dwelled in former times a remarkable and law-abiding people, who under judicious and cautious kings attained a high standard of power and development. To the leading tribe several adjacent peoples allied themselves, and in time the mightiest and most highly-cultured kingdom of South America flourished among them. According to tradition, the ruling royal family took its rise where the icefields of some of the loftiest summits of the Andes are reflected in the mirror of Lake Titicaca. The king was called Inca, and when we speak of the Inca Kingdom we mean old Peru, whose people were crushed and annihilated by the Spaniards.



The Inca Empire extended from Colombia and Ecuador in the north far down to the present Chile. The Inca's power was unlimited, and after death he was honoured with divine rites. He was surrounded with wealth and grandeur. A red headband with white and black feathers was the sign of his royal dignity. By his side stood the High Priest, who had to inquire into and proclaim the will of the gods.

In Cuzco, the holy city of the Indians, north-west of the Titicaca lake, the Inca people had erected a splendid temple to the sun and moon. The halls of the sun temple were overlaid with plates of the ruddiest gold, and the friezes and doors were of the same precious metal. In the principal hall was worshipped an image of the sun with a human face in the centre, surrounded by rays of precious stones. In another hall the image of the moon goddess glittered in silver.

The sun and moon were, then, the objects of the deepest reverence. But the Inca people also prayed to the rainbow and to the god of thunder, and believed that certain inferior deities protected their herds, dwellings, fields, and canals. They wore on the neck amulets which shielded them from danger and sudden death, and were eventually buried with them.

The dead were sewed up in hides or matting and interred under the dwelling-house, or, in the case of important men, in special funereal towers. On the coast the body was placed among boulders, in sand-banks, or in large vessels of earthenware. With a dead man were laid his weapons and implements, with women their utensils and handiwork, with children their playthings. To the dead, flowers and fruit were offered, and llamas were sacrificed. Dead Incas were deposited in the temple of the sun, and their wives in the hall of the moon.

The Festival of the Sun was held at the winter solstice, and on this occasion the Inca himself officiated as High Priest in his capacity as the "son of the sun." Then was lighted a fire on the altar of the sun, which was kept in all the year by the virgins of the sun. These had a convent near the temple, the royal palace and the house of nobles. It was also their duty to make costly robes for the priests and princes, to brew maize beer for the festivals of the gods, and after victories or a change of Incas to offer themselves to the gods.

The earlier history of the Inca people is lost in tradition and the mist of legends. We know more of their administration and social condition, for the Spanish conquerors saw all with their own eyes. The constitution was communistic. All the land, fields, and pastures was divided into three parts, of which two belonged to the Inca and the priesthood, and the third to the people. The cultivation of the land was supervised by a commissioner of the government, who had to see that the produce was equitably distributed, and that the ground was properly manured with guano from the islands on the west coast. Clothes and domestic animals were also distributed by the State to the people. All labour was executed in common for the good of the State; roads and bridges were made, mines worked, weapons forged, and all the men capable of bearing arms had to join the ranks when the kingdom was threatened by hostile tribes. The harvest was stored in government warehouses in the various provinces. An extremely accurate account was kept of all goods belonging to the State, such as provisions, clothes, and weapons. A register was kept of births and deaths. No one might change his place of abode without permission, and no one might engage in any other occupation than that of his father. Military order was maintained everywhere, and therefore the Inca people were able to subdue their neighbours. Everything was noted down, and yet this remarkable people had no written characters, but used cords instead, with knots and loops of various colours having different meanings. If the Inca wished to send an order to a distant province, he despatched a running messenger with a bundle of knotted strings. The recipient had only to look at the strings to find out the business on hand.

To facilitate the movement of troops, the Incas constructed two excellent roads which met at Cuzco—one in the mountainous country, the other along the coast. Europeans have justly admired these grand constructions. The military roads were paved with stone, and had walls and avenues of trees. At certain intervals were inns where the swift-footed couriers could pass the night. The principal highway ran from Cuzco to Quito. When the Inca himself was on a journey, he sat on a golden throne carried on a litter by the great nobles of the empire.

European explorers still discover grand relics of the Inca period. The people did not know the arch, and did not use bricks and mortar, yet their temples and fortresses, their gates, towers, and walls are real gems of architecture. The joins between the blocks are often scarcely visible, and some portals are hewn out of a single block with artistic and original chiselled figures and images of the sun god on the facades.

Their skill in pottery was of equal excellence, and as workers in metal there was none to match them in the South American continent. They made clubs and axes of bronze, and vessels and ornaments of gold and silver. In their graves modern explorers have found many striking proofs of their proficiency in the art of weaving. They used the wool of llamas, alpacas, vicunas, and guanacos. These species of animal, allied to the camel, still render great services to the Indians. The llama is distributed over the greater part of the Andes, and the male only is used as a transport animal. The llama is shy, stupid, and quiet, and his head is somewhat like a sheep's. The alpaca does not carry loads, but is kept as a domestic animal for the sake of its meat and wool. The vicuna and guanaco also do not work in the service of man. The latter is found chiefly on the steppes of Patagonia, where he meets the fate of the South American ostrich and falls to the arrows of the Indians.

The Inca people wove clothes of the wool of these animals as well as of cotton. The chief garment of the men was a short shirt without sleeves, of the women a longer shirt with a belt round the waist. The men wore short hair with a black bandage round the head; and outside the bandage they wound a noose or lasso. The women wore their hair long. Sandals covered the feet, and in the ear-lobes were inserted round pegs. The people reared and grazed cattle, as we have seen, and were hunters and fishermen. They grew potatoes and many other root crops, bananas, tobacco, and cotton, and sowed extensive fields of maize. They had all the characteristics of the American race—a short skull, sharply cut features, and a powerfully built body.

* * * * *

For centuries the Inca people had lived in undisturbed repose in their beautiful valleys and on their sunlit tablelands between the mountain ranges—or cordilleras, as they are called—which compose the Andes. If their peace was occasionally disturbed by neighbouring tribes, messages in knotted signs flew through the country, and the roads were full of armed men; but the Inca kings dreamed of no serious danger. For several hundred years their power had passed from father to son, and no neighbour was strong enough to wrest the sceptre from the Inca king's hand. Not a whisper of such names as Chimborazo and Cotopaxi had reached Europe.

A great Inca had recently died and bequeathed his power to his two sons, Huascar and Atahualpa. Just as always in the Old World, such a partition produced friction and disputes, and at length civil war broke out. After four hundred years, we read with sorrow the account of the suicidal strife which harried old Peru, divided the Inca people into two hostile factions, and thus made them an easy prey to the conquerors.

Scarcely had the clash of arms died out after the brave and chivalrous Cortez had burned his ships on the coast of Mexico, subdued the kingdom of Montezuma, and placed it under the crown of Castille, before another Spanish conqueror, the rough, cruel, and treacherous Pizarro, cast his eyes southwards, covetous of new gold countries. With a handful of adventurers, he made his way down to Peru, but soon perceived that he could not succeed without help from the home country. The Emperor Charles V. listened to his tale of gold and green forests, and in the year 1531 Pizarro set out again, this time with a company of 180 well-armed cavaliers. By degrees he gathered fresh reinforcements, landed on the coast of Peru, and marched into the Inca kingdom.

Pizarro was clever and courageous, but, unlike Cortez, he was a base man and a scoundrel. He had no education or proper feeling, and could not even write his name, but he was cunning and knew how to take advantage of favourable circumstances. By means of scouts and ambassadors he soon made himself fully acquainted with the situation. He lulled the fears of Atahualpa by offers of peace, with the result that the Inca king requested his assistance to crush his brother Huascar. If the brothers had held together, they could have driven the Spanish pestilence out of the country. Now the fate of both was sealed.

It was agreed that Atahualpa should come in person to Pizarro's camp, and he arrived in pomp and state, escorted by an army of 30,000 men. He naturally wished to impress his ally with his power. He sat raised on a litter of gold, and was surrounded by all his generals.

Then Pizarro's military chaplain stepped forth, a Catholic priest. In one hand he held a crucifix, in the other a breviary. Raising his crucifix, he exhorted the Inca king in the name of Jesus to accept Christianity and to acknowledge the King of Castille as his master. Atahualpa retained his composure, and simply answered that no one could deprive him of the rights inherited from his fathers. He would not forswear his fathers' faith and did not understand what the priest said. "It is written here in this book," cried the priest, and handed the breviary to the king. Atahualpa held the book to his ear, listened, and said as he threw the breviary on the ground, "Your book does not speak."

Without warning, a massacre was commenced. The cannon and muskets of the Spaniards ploughed red furrows in the ranks of the Peruvians. Protected by their helmets and harness of steel, and with halberts and lances lowered, the cavaliers swept irresistibly through the ranks of half-naked natives and spread terror and confusion around them. All that could be reached with sword, spear, or bullet were mercilessly slaughtered. Four thousand dead bodies lay scattered over the ground, among thousands wounded and bleeding. The rest of the army was completely scattered and took to flight. The Inca king himself had been early taken captive to be kept as a hostage. Enormous plunder fell into the hands of the victors. The report of a land of gold in the south had not been an empty tale; here was gold in heaps. The loot was generously divided between the officers and men, and, with the crucifix raised to heaven, the priest read mass while the other villains thanked God for victory.

The captive Inca king begged and prayed to be set at liberty. But Pizarro promised to release him only after he had bound himself to fill a moderate-sized room with gold from the floor up to as high as he could reach with his hand. Then messages in knotted cords were carried through all the country which remained faithful to Atahualpa, and vessels, bowls, ornaments, and ingots of gold poured in from temples and palaces. In a short time the room was filled and the ransom paid, but the Inca king was still kept a prisoner. He reminded Pizarro of his promised word. The unscrupulous adventurer laughed in his black beard. Instead of keeping his promise, he accused Atahualpa of conspiracy, condemned him to death, and the innocent and pious Indian king was strangled in prison. By this abominable deed the whole Spanish conquest was covered with shame and disgrace.

One of Pizarro's comrades in arms, Almagro, now arrived with reinforcements, and with an army of 500 men Pizarro marched on through the high lands to the capital, Cuzco, which he captured. Then he fell out with Almagro, and the latter determined to seek out other gold countries in the south on his own account. With a small party he marched up into the mountains of Bolivia, and then followed the coast southwards to the neighbourhood of Aconcagua. He certainly found no gold, but he achieved a great exploit, for he led his troop through the dreaded Atacama desert.

Meanwhile Pizarro ruled in the conquered kingdom. Close to the coast he founded Lima, which was afterwards for a long period the residence of the Spanish viceroy, and is now, with nearly 150,000 inhabitants, still the capital of Peru. It has a large number of monasteries and churches, and a stately cathedral. The port town, Callao, was almost totally destroyed a hundred and sixty-six years ago by a tidal wave, which drowned the inhabitants and swept away the houses; but it gradually regained its prosperity, and now has 50,000 inhabitants.

At length, however, Pizarro roused a formidable insurrection by his cruelty, and while he was besieged in Lima his three brothers were shut up in Cuzco. Just then Almagro returned from the Atacama desert, defeated the Peruvians, seized Cuzco, and made the three Pizarro brothers prisoners. But the fourth brother, the conqueror, succeeded in effecting their liberation and in capturing Almagro, who was at once sent to the gallows. A few years later, however, Almagro's friends wreaked vengeance on Pizarro; a score of conspirators rushed into the governor's palace and made their way with drawn swords into the room where Pizarro was surrounded by some friends and servants. Most of these jumped through the window; the rest were cut down. Pizarro defended himself bravely, but after killing four of his assailants he fell to the ground, and with a loud voice asked to be allowed to make his confession. While he was making the sign of the cross on the ground, a sword was thrust into his throat.

The murdered Inca king is an emblem of bleeding South America. All was done, it was pretended, in order to spread enlightenment and Christianity, but in reality the children of the country were lured to destruction, deluded to fill Spanish coffers with gold, and then in requital were persecuted to death. Civilisation had no part in the matter; it was only a question of robbery and greed of gain, and when these desires were satisfied, the descendants of the Incas might be swept off the earth.

THE AMAZONS RIVER

In Peru the largest river of the world takes its source, and streams northwards among the verdant cordilleras of the Andes. Wheat waves on its banks, and here and there stands a funereal tower or a ruin from Inca times. Small rafts take the place of bridges, and at high water the river rushes foaming furiously through the valley.

And then it suddenly turns eastwards and cuts its way with unbridled fury through the eastern ridges of the Andes. The water forces itself through ravines barely 50 yards wide and dashes with a deafening roar over falls and rapids. Sometimes the river rests from its labours, expanding to a width of two or three furlongs. Crystal affluents hurry down from the snow-fields of the Andes to join it. It takes its tribute of water from mountain and forest, and is indeed a majestic stream when it leaves the last hills behind.

The source of the Amazons was discovered in 1535 by Maranon, a Spanish soldier. Vicente Pinzon had discovered its mouth in the year 1500. But Maranon, on the one hand, had no notion where the river emerged into the sea, and Pinzon, on the other, knew not where the headwaters purled through the valley. It was reserved for another Spaniard to solve the problem. Let us follow Orellana on his adventurous journey.

Gonzalo Pizarro served under his brother, the conqueror, in northern Peru. There he heard of rich gold countries in the east, and decided to seek them. With an army of 350 Spanish cavalry and infantry, as well as 4000 Indians, he set out from Quito and marched over the Andes past the foot of Cotopaxi to the lowlands of the Napo River.

It was a reckless enterprise. The Indians were frozen to death in crowds on the great heights. Instead of gold, nothing was found but wearisome savannahs and swamps, and dismal forests soaked with two months' rain. Instead of useful domestic animals, no creature was seen but the thick-skinned tapir, which, with a long beak-like nose, crops plants and leaves and frequents swampy tracts in the heart of the primeval forest. The few natives were hostile.

When the troop reached the Napo River on New Year's Day, 1540, Pizarro decided to send the bold seaman Orellana on in front down the river to look for people and provisions, for famine with all its tortures threatened them.

A camp was set up and a wharf constructed. A small brigantine for sails and oars was hastily put together, and Orellana stepped on board with a crew of fifty men, and the boat was borne down the strong current.

Dark and silent woods stood on both sides. No villages, no human beings were seen. Tall trees stood on the bank like triumphal arches, and from their boughs hung lianas serving as rope ladders and swings for sportive monkeys with prehensile tails. Day after day the vessel glided farther into this humid land never before seen by white men. The Spaniards looked in vain for natives, and their eyes tried in vain to pierce the green murkiness between the tree trunks. The men showed increasing uneasiness; but Orellana sat quietly at the helm, gave his orders to the rowers, and had the sail hoisted to catch the breeze that swept over the water.

No camping-places on points of the bank, no huts roofed with palm leaves or grass, no smoke indicated the vicinity of Indians. In a thicket by a brook lay a boa constrictor, a snake allied to the python of the Old World, in easy, elegant coils, digesting a small rodent somewhat like a hare and called an agouti. At the margin of the bank some water-hogs wallowed in the sodden earth full of roots, and under a vault of thorny bushes lay their worst enemy, the jaguar, in ambush, his eyes glowing like fire.

At length the country became more open. Frightened Indians appeared on the bank, and their huts peeped through the forest avenues. Orellana moored his boat and landed with his men. The savages were quiet, and received the Spaniards trustingly, so the latter stayed for a time and collected all the provisions they could obtain. The Indians spoke of a great water in the south which could be reached in ten days.

The fifty Spaniards were now in excellent spirits, and set to work eagerly to construct another smaller sailing vessel. When this was done, Orellana filled both his boats with provisions, manned the larger with thirty and the smaller with twenty men, and continued his wonderful journey, which was to furnish the explanation of the great river system of tropical America. Around him stretched the greatest tropical lowland of the world, before him ran the most voluminous river of the earth. He saw nothing but forest and water, a bewitched country. He had no equipment beyond that which was afforded by the Napo's banks, and his men grumbled daily at the long, dangerous voyage.



After ten days the two boats came to the "great water," where the Napo yields its tribute to the Amazons River. The latter was then rising fast, and when it is at its height, in June and July, the water lies forty feet above its low water-level. Farther down the difference tends to disappear, for the northern tributaries come from the equator, where it rains at all seasons, while the southern rise at different times according to the widely separated regions where their sources lie. To travel from the foot of the cordilleras to the mouth the high water of the main river takes two months.

The Spaniards felt as if they were carried over a boundless lake. Where the banks are low the forests are flooded for miles, and the trees stand up out of the water. Then the wild animals fly to safer districts, and only water birds and forest birds remain, with such four-footed animals as spend all their lives in trees. The fifty men noticed that certain stretches on the banks were never reached by the high water, and it was only at these places that the Indians built their huts, just as the indiarubber gatherers do at the present day (Plate XXXIV.).

When the high water retired, large patches of the loose, sodden banks were undermined, and fell into the river, weighed down by the huge trees they supported. Islands of timber, roots, earth, and lianas were carried away by the current. Some stranded on shallows in the middle of the river, others grounded at projections of the bank, and other rubbish was piled up against them till the whole mass broke away and danced down the river towards the sea. Here the men had to be careful, for at any moment the boats might capsize against a grounded tree trunk. Deep pools also were found, and the current ran at the rate of 2-1/2 feet a second, and they often had the help of the wind.

They soon learned to know by the changed appearance of the forest where they could land. Where the royal crowns of foliaged trees reared their waving canopy above the palms they could be sure of finding dry ground; but if the palms with verdant luxuriance raised their plumes above low brushwood, they might be sure that the bank was flooded by the river.

If the voyage on the capricious river was dangerous, the Spaniards were still more disturbed by Indians, who came paddling up in their canoes and showered poisoned arrows on the boats. To get through in safety, the explorers had to avoid the banks as much as possible.

At the end of May they drifted past the mouth of the Rio Negro, which discharges a large volume of water, for it collects streams from Venezuela and Guiana, and from the wet llanos, or open plains, north of the Amazons River. Where the great tributary is divided by islands it attains a breadth of as much as thirty miles.

Here Orellana stayed several weeks with friendly Indians, who lived in pretty huts under the boughs of bananas. The vessels were repaired, and provisions taken on board—maize, chickens, turtles, and fish. There were swarms of edible turtles, and the Indians caught them and collected their eggs; and the fish were abundant and various—no wonder, when two thousand species of fish live in the basin of the Amazons.

Shortly afterwards they glided past the mouth of the Madeira, a mile and a half broad, which discharges a volume of water little inferior to that of the main river. For the Madeira has its sources far to the south, and descends partly from the cordilleras of Peru and Bolivia, partly from the plateau of Brazil.

Woods and no end of water, month after month! The heat is the same all the year round—not very excessive, seldom 104 deg., but still oppressive and enervating because of the humidity of the air. Yet the voyage was not monotonous. Leaning against the masts and gunwale, or leisurely moving the oars, the soldiers could observe the dolphins leaping in the river, the sudden darts of the alligators as they hunted the fish through the water, or the clumsy movements of the manati, one of the Sirenia, as it cropped grass at the edge of the bank, to the danger of the eel-like lung fish, which sometimes goes up on to dry land. Sometimes they saw the Indians in light canoes pursue manatis and alligators with harpoons for the sake of their flesh, and perhaps they felt a shiver at the sight of the huge water-snakes of the Amazons River.

On they went through the immense forest which extends from the foot of the Andes and the sources of the Madeira to the mouths of the Orinoco—through this dense, rank carpet which covers all the lowlands of Brazil with its teeming and superabundant life, and which is so bountifully watered by tropical rains and flooded rivers. All the rain that falls on the llanos and the selvas (as the wooded plains are called) makes its way through innumerable affluents to the Amazons and enters the sea through its trumpet-shaped mouth. The river, with its forests, is like a cornucopia of vast, wild, irrepressible nature, where life breathes and pulsates, where it bubbles and ripples, seethes and ferments in the soft productive soil, where animals swarm, and beetles and butterflies are more numerous than anywhere else on our earth, and are clad in the most gorgeous hues of the tropics. There old trees on the bank are undermined and washed away, while others decay in the sultry recesses of the forest. There the earth is constantly fertilised by the manure of animals and their corpses and by dead vegetation, and there new generations are continually rising up from the graves in nature's inexhaustible kingdom.

The Spaniards had no time to make excursions into the country from their camps. It is difficult to make one's way through this intricate, ragged network of climbing plants between trunks, boughs, bushes, and undergrowth. In the interior, far away from the waterways, and especially between some of the southern tributaries, lie forests unknown and untrodden since heathen times. Perhaps there are Indian tribes among them who have not yet heard that America has been discovered, and who may congratulate themselves that the forests are too much for the white men.

There palms predominate in a peaceful Eden, and at their feet flourish ferns with stems as hard as wood. In the bamboo clumps the jaguars play with their cubs, and on the outskirts of the swamps the peccary, a sort of small pig, jumps on his long, supple legs. A dark-green gloom prevails under the tall bay-trees, and their stems stand under their crowns like the columns of a church nave. There thrive mimosas and various species of fig, and climbing palms are not ashamed of their inquisitiveness.

See this tree 200 feet high, with its round, hard fruits as large as a child's head! When they are ripe they fall, and the shell opens to let out the triangular seeds which we call Brazil nuts.

Look at the indiarubber tree with its light-coloured stem, its light-green foliage, and its white sap, which, when congealed, rolls round motor wheels through streets and roads.

Here again is a tree that every one knows about. It grows to a height of 50 feet, and bears large, smooth, leathery leaves, but its blossoms issue from the stem and not among the foliage. Its cucumber-shaped orange fruits ripen at almost all seasons in the perpetual summer of the Amazons. In the fruit the seeds lie in rows. The tree grows wild in the forests, but was cultivated by the Indians before the arrival of white men, and they prepared from it a drink which they called "chocolatl." It was bitter, but the addition of sugar and vanilla made it palatable. This tree is called the cocoa-tree.

Still better known and more popular is another drink—coffee. The coffee-tree is not found in the primeval forests, but in plantations, and even there it is a guest, for its native country is Kaffa in Abyssinia, and coffee came from Arabia to Europe through Constantinople. Now Brazil produces three-fourths of all the world's coffee, and in all thousands of millions of pounds of coffee are consumed yearly.

The vanilla plant, also, is one of the wonderful inmates of the forests. In order that the wild plants which are indigenous in the mountain forests of Mexico and Peru may produce fruit, the pollen must be carried by insects. Many years ago the plant was transported to the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean, where it throve capitally, but bore no fruit. The helpful insects of its native country were absent. Then artificial fertilisation with pollen was successfully attempted, and now Reunion supplies most of the vanilla in the world's markets.

Think again of all the animals which live in the forest and its outskirts towards the savannahs! There is the singular opossum, and there is the sluggish, scaly armadillo, which loves the detestable termites—those white ants which, with their sharp mandibles, gnaw to pieces paper, clothes, wood, the whole house in fact. Then there is the climbing sloth, with its round monkey head and large curved claws. All day long it remains sleepily hanging under a bough, and only wakes up when night falls. It lives only on trees and eats leaves. In far-back ages there were sloths as large as rhinoceroses and elephants. We have, too, the raccoon in a greyish-yellow coat, also a nocturnal animal, which sleeps during the day in a hollow tree. He lives on small mammals and birds, eggs and fruits, but before he swallows his food he cleans it well, generally in water.

There is a perpetual gloom under the crowns of the foliaged trees and palms. It is the home of shadows. Only lianas, these parasites of the vegetable kingdom, raise their stems above the dusky vault to open their calyces in the sun. Round them flutter innumerable butterflies in gaudy colours. On the border between sunlight and shade scream droll parrots, and busy pigeons steer their way among the trees on rustling wings. There humming-birds dart like arrows through the air. They are small, dainty birds with breast, neck, and head shining like metal with the brightest, most vivid colouring. They build their nests carefully with vegetable fibres and moss, and their beaks are long and fine as a reed. There is a humming-bird which does not grow longer than an inch and a half, and weighs little more than fifteen grains.

We must now go back to see how Orellana got on with his two brigantines.

Below the mouth of the Madeira he landed once on the northern bank in a region inhabited only by tall Amazons, from whom the river received its name. But the tale of Amazons was really a sailor's romance, just as the Spaniards dreamed of Eldorado, or the land of gold.

On they went and the river never ended. During their voyage they saw in lakes by the bank, well sheltered and exposed to the sun, the grandest of all flowers, the Victoria regia of the water-lily family, floating on the water. Its leaves measure six feet in diameter, and the blossoms are more than a foot across. The flowers open only two evenings, first white and then purple.

Between the mouths of the mighty tributaries Tapajos and Xingu the Spaniards saw the great grassy plains stretching up to the river. They only just escaped cannibals on the northern bank. Warned by friendly Indians, they were on their guard against the piroroca, the mysterious bore, fifteen feet high, which is connected with the flow of the tide and rushes up the river twice a month from the sea, devastating everything. Finally they came to the northern mouth of the Amazons River, having traversed 2500 out of the 3600 miles of its length.

Here Orellana decked his vessels over and sailed out to sea, making for the West Indies along the coasts of Guiana and Venezuela. Even after the coast was lost to sight he still sailed in yellow, muddy, fresh water, and he was far to the north before he came to blue-green sea-water. For three hundred miles from the mouth the fresh river water overlies the salt. At Christmas he dropped his anchor on the coast of San Domingo, and his grand exploit was achieved.



V

IN THE SOUTH SEAS

ALBATROSSES AND WHALES

Like the sting on the scorpion's poison gland, Tierra del Fuego, the most southern land of America, juts out into the southern sea. It is separated from the mainland by the sound which bears the name of the intrepid Magellan. In the primeval forests of the interior grow evergreen beeches, and there copper-brown Indians of the Ona tribe formerly held unlimited sway. Like their brethren all over the New World, they have been thrust out by white men and are doomed to extinction. They were only sojourners on the coasts of Tierra del Fuego, and their term has expired. Only a few now remain, but they still retain the old characteristics of their race, are powerfully built, warlike and brave, live at feud with their neighbours, and kindle their camp fires in the woods, on the shores of lakes, or on the coast.

Many a sailing vessel has come to grief in the Straits of Magellan. The channel is dangerous, and has a bad reputation for violent squalls, which beat down suddenly over the precipitous cliffs. It is safer to keep to the open sea and sail to the south of the islands of Tierra del Fuego. Here the surges of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans roar together against the high cliffs of Cape Horn.

Who listens to this song, who gazes with royal disdain down over the spray, who wonders why the breakers have been there for thousands of years pounding against gates that never open, who soars at this moment with outspread wings over Cape Horn—who but the albatross, the largest of all storm birds, the boldest and most unwearied of all the winged inhabitants of the realm of air?

Look at him well, for in a second he will be gone. You see that he is as large as a swan, has a short, thick neck, a large head with a powerful pink and yellowish bill, and that he is quite white except where his wing feathers are black. His wings are wonders of creation. When he folds them, they cling close to the body and seem to disappear; but now he has spread them out, and they measure twelve feet from tip to tip. They are long and narrow, thin and finely formed as a sword blade. He moves them with amazing steadiness, and excels all other birds in strength and endurance. No bird has such an elegant and majestic flight. He spreads his wings like sails with taut sheets, and soars at a whistling pace up against the wind. Follow him with your eyes hour after hour in the hardest wind, and you will see that he makes a scarcely perceptible beat of his wings only every seventh minute, keeping them between whiles perfectly still. That is his secret. All his skill consists in his manner of holding his wings expanded and the inclination he gives to his excellent monoplane in relation to his body and the wind. Everything else, change of elevation, and movement forwards with or against the wind, is managed by the wind itself. When he wishes to rise from the surface of the sea he spreads his wings, turns towards the wind, and lets it lift him up. Then he soars in elegant curves and glides up the invisible hills of the atmosphere.

Most noteworthy is the perfect freedom of the albatross. He shuns the mainland and breeds on solitary islands; he can scarcely move on the ground, and when he is forced to alight he waddles clumsily along like a swan. He comes in contact with the earth only at the nest, where the hen sits on her single egg and tucks her white head under her wing. Otherwise he does not touch the ground. He finds his food on the surface of the sea, and spends three-fourths of his life in the air. There he soars about from sea to sea like a satellite to the earth, moving freely and lightly round the heavy globe as it rolls through space.

He is not restricted to any particular course, no distance is too great for him; he simply rests on his wings and sweeps easily from ocean to ocean. He is, however, rarer in the Atlantic than in the Pacific Ocean, and he avoids the heat of equatorial regions. He sails in any other direction he pleases, where he has most prospect of satisfying his voracious appetite.

What do you think of an albatross which was caught on a vessel and marked so that it might be recognised again, and which then followed the vessel for six days and nights watching for any refuse thrown out? The ship was in the open sea and was sailing twelve knots an hour, but the albatross did not tire. Nay, he made circles of miles round the vessel at a considerable height. On board the ship the watch was changed time after time, for man must rest and sleep, but the albatross needed neither sleep nor rest. He had no one to whom he could entrust the management of his wings while he slept at night. He kept awake for a week without showing any signs of weariness. He flew on and on, sometimes disappearing astern, and an hour later appearing again and sweeping down on the vessel from the front. That it was the same albatross was proved by the mark painted on the breast. Only on the seventh day did he leave the ship, dissatisfied with the fare set before him. He was then hundreds of miles from the nearest coast.

Just think of all the wonderful and remarkable sights he must witness on his airy course! He sees everything that takes place on the decks of large sailing vessels, and the smoke rising out of the steamers' funnels. He marks the clumsy movements of the twenty-feet-long sea-elephants on the gravel shore of the islands of South Georgia, east of Cape Horn, and sees the black or grey backs of whales rolling on the surface of the water.

Perhaps he has some time wandered away northwards over the Atlantic and seen whalers attack the blue whale—the largest animal now living in the world, for it often attains to a length of 90 feet. At the present day whalers use strongly built, swift, and easily handled steam-launches, and shoot the harpoon out from the bow with a pivoted gun. In the head of the harpoon is a pointed shell which explodes in the body of the whale, dealing a mortal wound, and at the butt end a thick rope is secured. The vessel follows the whale until it is dead. Then it is hauled up with a steam winch and towed to a whaling station in some bay on the coast, where it is flitched. Then the oil is boiled out, poured into casks, and sent to market.

Much more picturesque and more dangerous was the whaling witnessed in northern seas by the forefathers of the albatross, for man has been for a thousand years the worst enemy of the whale, and some species are almost exterminated. Then the whalers did not use a gun, but threw the harpoon by hand. Every vessel had several keelless whale-boats, pointed at both bow and stern, so that they could be rowed forwards or backwards. When a whale was seen in the distance the boats set out, each boat manned by six experienced whalers. One of them was the coxswain, another the harpooner, while the others sat at the oars. The harpoon line, an inch thick, lay carefully coiled up, and ran out through a brass eye in the bow. Every man knew from long experience what he had to do at any particular minute, and therefore there was silence on board, all working without orders.

When all is ready one of the boats rows towards the whale, and the harpooner throws his sharp weapon with all his strength into the whale's flank. Almost before the harpoon has struck the boat is backed swiftly. Wild with pain, the whale may strike the boat from above with his powerful horizontal caudal fin and crush it at a blow, or he may dive below the boat and upset it, but usually he thinks only of making his escape. He makes for the depths in fright, and the harpoon line runs out, the strands producing a singing sound. Great care is necessary, for if the line curls round a man's leg he is carried overboard and is lost. The whale dives at once to a depth of a couple of hundred fathoms. There it is dark and quiet, and he remains there half an hour or an hour, till at length he is obliged to come up to breathe. The lie of the line in the water shows approximately where he will come up again, and another boat rows to the spot. As soon as he appears above the surface a second harpoon whistles through the air.

The whale is now too breathless to dive. He swims along the surface and lashes the waves with his tail to free himself from his tormentors. He speeds along at a desperate pace, dashing the waves into spray around him and drawing the boats after him. The crews have hauled in the lines, and the boats are quite close to the whale, but they must be ready to pay out the lines if the whale dives. The boats' prows are tilted high up into the air and the water streams off them. They shoot forward like mad things through the foaming sea, whether it be day or night, and pitch up and down over the crests of the waves. With stretched muscles, clenched teeth, and glaring eyes the whale-hunters follow the movements of the whale and the boat.

They notice that the pace slackens. The whale begins to tire, and at last is quite exhausted. Its movements become irregular, it stops and throws itself about so that the water spurts up round it. Then a boat rows up, and a long spear is thrust in three feet deep towards the animal's heart, and perhaps an explosive bullet is fired. If the lungs are pierced the whale sends up jets of blood from its nostrils—"hoisting the red flag," in the language of whalers. Its time is come; it gives up the struggle, and its death tremors show that another of the giants of the ocean has bid a last farewell to its boundless realm.

ROBINSON CRUSOE'S ISLAND

On motionless wings an albatross hovers high above Cape Horn. His sharp eye takes in everything. Now he sees in the distance smoke from the funnel of a steamer, and in a couple of minutes he has tacked round the vessel and decided to follow it on its voyage to the north. To the east he has the coast of Chile, with its countless reefs and islands and deep fiords, and above it rises the snow-capped crest of the Andes. As soon as refuse is thrown overboard, the albatross swoops down like an arrow. A second before he touches the water he raises his wings, draws back his head, stretches out his large feet in front with expanded claws, and then plumps down screaming, into the water. He floats as lightly as a cork. In a moment he has swallowed all the scraps floating on the surface, and then, turning to the wind, rises to a giddy height.

The vessel happens to be carrying goods to Santiago, the capital of Chile, and casts anchor at its port town, Valparaiso. In the background rises Aconcagua, the highest mountain of America.

Then the albatross steers out to sea to try his luck elsewhere. Seventy miles from the coast he comes across the notable little island, Juan Fernandez, and circles round its volcanic cliffs. For him there are no frightful precipitous ascents and descents; from his height he can see all he wishes to see. It is otherwise with explorers. Some cliffs are inaccessible to their feet, as Carl Skottsberg found when he went out to the island three years ago in a Chilian vessel. He saw the cliffs 3000 feet high, and heard the surf rolling in round the island. It was a perfect picture of wild desolation. He found it difficult to land in a small boat. He looked in vain for parrots, monkeys, and tortoises, but found, instead, that more than half the number of the plants on the island are such as grow on no other spot on the earth. Among them are palms, with bright, pale-green trunks, which have been recklessly destroyed by men to make walking-sticks. Here also are tree-ferns, and the small, delicate, climbing ferns which gracefully festoon trunks and boughs. And here also is the last specimen of a species of sandalwood which, wonderful to relate, has found its way hither from its home in Asia. A couple of hundred years ago it grew profusely on the island, but now it has been nearly exterminated by man's cupidity. The red, strongly scented wood was too much in demand for fine cabinet work and other purposes. Only one small branch now produces foliage on the last sandal-tree. In this case it is not the last tree among many, but the last specimen of a species which is vanishing from the earth.

In a cave at the foot of a mountain, according to tradition, lived Robinson Crusoe, and from a saddle in the crest he threw longing, eager glances over the great ocean. A memorial tablet in the cave relates that the real Crusoe, a Scotch sailor named Selkirk, lived alone on the island for four years and four months in the years 1704-1709. He went on shore of his own accord, being dissatisfied with the officers of the ship to which he belonged. The climate was mild, the rainfall moderate, and wild goats and edible fruits served him for food.

Such is the actual fact. How much more do we delight in the Robinson Crusoe whose story is so charmingly depicted in a romantic dress! His vessel foundered, and he was the only man who was thrown up by the stormy waves upon the island. There he made himself at home, wandered round the shore and through the woods, and filled a shooting-bag of banana leaves with oysters, turtle's eggs, and wild fruits. With his simple bow he shot the animals of the forest to make himself clothes of their skins, and wild goats, which he caught and tamed, yielded him milk, from which he churned butter and manufactured cheese. He became a fisherman, furrier, and potter, and on the height above his cave he had his chapel where he kept Sundays. He found wild maize, and sowed, reaped, and made bread. As years passed on, his prosperity increased, and he was a type of the whole human race, which from the rude simplicity of the savage has in the course of ages progressed to a condition of refinement and enlightenment. When he was most at a loss for fire to prepare his food, the lightning struck a tree and set it on fire, and we remember that he then kept up his fire for a long time, never letting it go out. He was very grieved when it at length expired, but a volcanic outbreak came to his assistance, and he lighted his fire again from the glowing lava. He made himself a bread oven of bricks, and built himself a hut and a boat.

Once when he was away on an excursion, and lay asleep far from his dwelling, he started up in alarm at hearing some one call out his name. It was only his own parrot, which had learned to talk, and which had searched for him, and was sitting on a bough calling out "Poor Robinson Crusoe!"

How well we remember his lonely walk to the other side of the island, when he stood petrified with fear before the print of a human foot in the sand! For eight years he had been alone, and now he found that there were other human beings, cannibals no doubt, in the neighbourhood. He stood, gazed, listened, hurried home, and prepared for defence. Here, also, he is a type of peoples and states, which sooner or later awake to a perception of the necessity of defence against hostile attacks. His suspicions give way to certainty when one day he sees a fire burning on the beach. He runs home, draws up the ladder over the fortification round his dwelling, makes ready his weapons, climbs up to his look-out, and sees ten naked savages roasting flesh round a fire. After a wild dance they push out their canoes and disappear. At the fire are left gnawed human bones and skulls, and Robinson is beside himself at the sight.