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been saved from thrice the inconvenience it had occasioned me. It was one of those new things in this stereotyped life of ours, imparting new experiences, and giving one as it were a deeper insight into his own soul.

At length we stretched ourselves upon the boughs, and were soon fast asleep. I awoke, however, about midnight, and found our fire reduced to a few embers, while the rain was coming down as if that were its sole business for the night. It is gloomy in the woods without a fire; and I never seem So companionless as when in the still midnight I awake and find nothing but the dark forest about me, cheered by no light. A bright, crackling flame seems like a living thing, keeping awake on purpose to watch over you.

Leaving my companions, whose heavy breathings told how profound were their slumbers, I sallied out in search of fuel. But there was nothing but green fir trees, which would not burn, to be found; and after striking my axe into several, and getting my lower extremities thoroughly wet, I returned, and lay down again and slept till morning. With the first dawn I was up, and taking the Indian's canoe, pushed off in

OMENS OF A STORM.

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search of a deer. The heavy fog lay in masses upon the water, and the damp morning was still and quiet as the night that had passed. I floated about till the sun rose over the mountains, turning that lake into a sheet of gold, and sending the mist in spiral wreaths skyward, and then slowly paddled my way back to our camp. As I was thus floating tranquilly along over the water, I heard far up the lake, where it lost itself in the mountains, two distinct and heavy reports like the discharge of fire-arms. Who could be in that solitude besides ourselves? was the first enquiry. I mentioned the circumstance when I reached the camp, and found that my companions, who had been busy in preparing breakfast, had also been startled by the sound. Mitchell, just then returned from an expedition after a fish-hawk, which he brought back with him, hearing our conjectures, very quietly remarked, they were not rifle shots. His quick ear never deceived him. "What, then, were they?" I enquired. "Trees," he replied. "But," said I, "there is not a breath of air this morning, while it blew very hard yesterday afternoon." "They always fall," he replied, "before a storm-it will storm to-morrow." There was something sad in thinking of those two

trees thus falling all alone on a still and beautiful morning, foretelling a coming tempest. Sombre omens these, and mysterious, as becomes the untrodden forest.

Mitchell had shot an immense fish-hawk, breaking only the tip of his wing, so as to prevent him from flying. He brought him and set him down before the fire, when the fearless bird drew himself proudly up and steadily faced us down without attempting to run away. His savage eye betokened no fear, and when any one of us approached him, his leg would be lifted and his talons expanded ready to strike. I was never so struck with the boldness of a bird in my life. At length Mitchell took him and placed him on a rock by the edge of the lake, when, for a moment, he forgot his wound, and spreading his broad wings, leaped from his resting place. But the broken pinion refused to carry him heavenward, and he fell heavily into the water. I saw Mitchell bring his rifle to his shoulder, and the next moment a bullet crushed through the head of the poor creature, and its sufferings were over.

Such are the incidents cf a life in the woods, and thus do the days and nights pass-not without mean

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LANGUAGE OF NATURE.

A man cannot move

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ing or instruction. or look without thinking of God, for all that meets his eye is just as it left his mighty hand. The old forest as it nods to the passing wind speaks of him—the still mountain points towards his dwelling-place, and the calm lake reflects his sky of stars and sunshine. The glorious sunset and the blushing dawn-the gorgeous midnight and the noon-day splendor, mean more in these solitudes than in the crowded city. Indeed, they look different-they are different.

Yours truly

XXII.

FOREST MUSIC.

THE WOODS, August.

DEAR H- :

How often we speak of the solitude of the forest, meaning by that, the contrast its stillness presents to the hum and motion of busy life. When you first step from the crowded city into the centre of a vast wilderness, the absence of all the bustle and activity you have been accustomed to makes you at first believe there is no sound, no motion there. So a man accustomed for a long time to the surges of the ocean cannot at first hear the murmur of the rill. Yet these solitudes are full of sound, aye, of rare music, too. I do not mean the notes of birds, for they rarely sing in the darker, deeper portions of the forest. Even the robin, which in the fields cannot chirp and carol enough, and is so tame that a tyro can shoot him,

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