GUSTAVUS. So they took up their quarters here?

FATHER. As was most natural! Gregory pulled open the shutter, mounted into the hut, and opened the door which was bolted on the inside. A heavy musty smell met those who were entering, and this was the best proof that the hut for a long time had no inhabitants. The feeble light, which fell through the door and every opening, was not sufficient to render the objects perfectly clear; the pilot therefore kindled one with the torches they had brought with them. Thus they had the double advantage, that the torch gave light and its flame consumed the thick, heavy air.

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FATHER. Just as you may suppose. They found nothing but an old table, a pair of benches, and some sort of an utensil, nearly eaten up by rust. In the wall there were some holes, probably designed for clamps of the wall. JULIA. And did they find nothing further?

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FATHER. No. In fact all three were greatly deceived in their expectations, by this scantiness which came under their view. Here they had hoped to find everything which they needed for their support, and now they saw their hopes so little satisfied. There, they stood sorrowful; they felt nothing but the pain of seeing themselves disappointed in their expectations. To this was added the prospect of a sorrowful future; and thus we cannot wonder if they, in these circumstances, felt in the highest degree unfortunate.

GUSTAVUS. And was the pilot also sad? FATHER. And why should he not be so? But I can say to you, that he too was the first, in whom courage again revived. "The hut seems to me to be larger on the outside," said he, and looked carefully around him. Then he perceived a large board that was leaning behind a bench against the wall; it was a piece of a part of a rudder, but it was so deeply pressed into the sand, that it could only be moved away with the greatest trouble.

GUSTAVUS. And there they found?-I can imagine what it was. w

FATHER. An entrance, in which they

perceived at the first sight that the hands of man had cut it out, or at least had widened it. So heavy, oppressive, almost suffocating, an atmosphere met the curious explorers, that they drew back as if they were stunned. "I must know what is in that cellar!" said the pilot, while he drew the charge of shot from his gun, and loaded it only with powder. He advanced some steps further within the entrance, and fired off the gun. The deadened report echoed through the vault, the flash of the powder at the same time took away. from the otherwise deadly air its suffocating quality, and with the clearer, shining torch, they could now go deeper into the cavern. But what an affright suddenly seized upon the three friends! A grayheaded old man with a long snow-white beard, and covered in a skin.

JULIA. A man? Father, a real man?

FATHER. Sat sleeping behind a table, whose head, like a person slumbering, leaned back on the railing of his stool.

MARIA. Was he, then, only asleep? Was he really alive?

FATHER. That, our affrighted friends could not know; such an examination their terror did not at the first moment permit. They stood several minutes at a distance, regarding the sleeper, before they ventured to approach nearer and address him.

JULIA. And what did he answer?

FATHER. Nothing. He sat like a statue. Finally, the steersman went up closer, held the light of his torch under the gray-beard's eyes, and now found that it was a corpse, probably of the last inhabitant of the cavern, who had died sitting on his stool. When they had recovered themselves from their first affright, they were now in a situation to consider eveything more closely, which presented itself to their view. The corpse itself was like a mummy, hard and dry.

MAX. How was that possible, as every corpse elsewhere becomes putrefied unless it is anointed with balsam ?

FATHER. Probably it arose from the condition of the place. We find many vaults and caves, in which corpses do not decay, but become hard, firm mummies; and this cavern certainly had this peculiarity. The dead man wore a skin which, by the length of time, had become wholly

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brittle. Before him, on the table, stood an empty drinking - cup, a tin plate, an inkstand, in which were some pens, and a pamphlet lay there, of about twenty leaves, written out.-What, my dear children, would you have first done?

MAX. I would have read the pamphlet. GUSTAVUS. I would have buried the corpse in the earth.

MARIA. So would I, and then searched through the whole cave.

FATHER. I believe Gustavus is right. Our friends did the same. The sight of the corpse was, to them only painful and revolting. They found too, at the first sight, many woollen and hairy coverings; in the largest of them they wrapped the corpse, bore it out in front of the hut, and with the united activity of the three friends, it was not difficult, by the aid of an axe and their hands, to make a grave in the light sand, near the hut. Strange as it may seem, they performed this duty with perfect calmness and in the midst of conversation such as is usual in general labour. But now when they went in to take up the corpse, suddenly they were seized by a serious melancholy, such as they had never before experienced. Tears ran from their eyes; they stood there with folded hands and downcast eyes-no one spoke.

JULIA. Why was that?

FATHER. The whole made too deep an impression on the pious, good men. They now buried a person wholly unknown to them, who certainly had not expected to have his grave here, and who never imagined that these three friends would pay the last services to his remains.

"Who will perform this last duty for

us?

Who of us will be the first, and who the last?" Every one asked himself; and questions of this kind often shake even the most wicked, how much more must they affect the pious heart! Amid tears their work was completed; they heaped up by the clear moonlight the grave which the friends covered with a flat stone. The pilot prayed at the grave, then dried his tears and said, "Now we must shed no more tears! The slumberer is at rest. He has passed through all.-We will leave him to his repose!

With moistened eyes they looked on the grave of the unknown; the picture of

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FATHER. Yes, indeed. On account of the approaching winter, the sun here soon became wholly invisible, and the last day before its disappearance, it rose only a little distance above the horizon. consider it, therefore, the most suitable time," added the pilot, "now to go out for wood and food." This he proposed not so much on account of the object mentioned, as rather to divert the minds of his friends, and drive off their troublous thoughts. He knew, doubtless from his own experience, that a man injures himself in nothing so much as by excessive sorrow and immoderate anxiety, since he thus becomes unfit for all business and labour, and renders himself doubly wretched and unfortunate. This, therefore, he wished to prevent in his friends, without allowing himself precisely to point out his object. He himself went back into the hut, to extinguish the burning torch, brought forth the arms of his friends and their knapsacks, together with an axe; and thus they went out in the fresh cold air, through the hollow of the valley to that bay, from whence, as you know, they could see directly over the ocean even to the rising

sun.

The frost covered the ground, as yet without snow; on the shore of the bay there was a thin coat of ice, and the air was extremely cold. At the horizon it was clearer; there was formed that red, fiery circle, which portends the rising of the sun, and soon he made his appearance in majestic splendour, but gradually disappeared again, after he had raised half of his disk above the icebergs.

The pilot cast a melancholy look towards it. "We have then seen thee for the last time this year!" said he, seriously; for as he had already often voyaged in the northern regions of the earth, so he knew that the sun, in this zone, disappeared for at least four or five months at a time. It was therefore to him at this moment, as if an old, tried, and intimate friend was

taking farewell of him. The thought on what he must encounter and undergo, probably, before he saw him again, must also have so greatly affected his heart as he was yet so full of the impression which the burial of the unknown had left behind it.

Almost without knowing what they did and why they chose that path, the friends, silent, and full of serious thoughts, went to that cavern in which they had passed the night before, and were disturbed by the attack of the Polar bear. And here they were all at once awaked out of their heavy, melancholy mood.

JULIA. Now, it was not by misfortune, was it?

FATHER. You will recollect that they had thrown down into the valley from the cavern, the useless parts and entrails of the bear they killed. This act had now invited some guests, which here held open table in good companionship.-There were two powerful bears and many foxes, who were satisfying their hunger on these remains, and were so busy at their work that they did not even observe the approach of our three friends.

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"Now what think you?" asked the pilot. 'Shall we venture on an attack, or shall we get out of the scrape?" Ivan and Gregory left the decision of this question to the more experienced pilot, but promised to hold out and support him with all their might to the last drop of their blood.

"The contest must almost of necessity be ventured," added the pilot; "besides, we not the less need skins and food; if we are once terrified the beasts will become so much the more daring, and we the more timid. We must venture on it; the booty is worth the pains."

Cautiously they went behind a projecting piece of rock, in order to consult as to the plan of attack, and enter on the most suitable arrangements.

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Hunting the bear is not so strange and unknown to me, that I cannot teach you the necessary precautions," said the old pilot. "The bear, especially the large white bear, is a wholly peculiar sort of fellow, who must be handled in a particular way. He never springs, like the wolf or the tiger, on his prey, but comes forward to meet you, as clad with a certain and an

important commission. We must go towards him daringly, and composedly, and if he approaches us look him boldly in the eyes. When he is distant some paces from his assailant he rears himself up growling, and sits on his hind-paws; in this posture he gradually advances, raises his fore-paws, and spreads them out, in order to clasp his adversary and crush him, or to smash him down at one blow. This moment a man must make use of to thrust the beast in the breast with his bayonet, while the charge in the gun can thus be spared for the last necessity."

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In this manner the pilot made his two friends acquainted with the mode attack; and as they had bayonets on the end of their guns, it might be expected that all would result happily. Composed, yet not without some beating of the heart, Ivan and Gregory accompanied by the pilot, advanced forward. They had reached a distance of not more than forty paces from the enemy, when one of the foxes noticed their approach, and gave his comrades warning, on which they made off with incredible swiftness.

"The thing has begun well!" said the pilot. "The volunteers have already taken to their heels!"

Gus. But the bears, the heavy-armed troops, the grenadiers?

FATHER."Stand firm.-Hallo! Hallo!" now cried the pilot. Seriously and gravely uprose the two bears, began to growl, and with their forepaws wipe off their bloody snouts. Yet they stood still, with their glaring eyes, directed to the three friends. (To be continued.)

INDUSTRY. -All exertion is in itself delightful, and active amusement seldom tires us. Helvetius owns that he could hardly listen to a concert for two hours, though he could play on an instrument all day long. In all pursuits, efforts, it must not be forgotten, are as indispensable as desires. The globe is not to be circumnavigated by one wind. We should never do nothing. "It is better to wear out than to rust out," says Bishop Cumberland. "There will be time enough for repose in the grave," said Arnauld to Nicole. In truth, the proper rest for man is change of occupation.-Richard Sharpe.