the wind, suffering, like themselves, under the storm, but, evidently in good condition. The haunted imagination of La Force now saw before him his choice of punishment, a dreadful death with his devoted companions, with the sinking vessel, or an ignominious and public punishment by the intervention of the passing ship. The evidence of Dugald would, in that case, be conclusive against him, and the wretched criminal yet conceived the thought of embruing his guilty hands in his blood also: but his doom was fixed. The remaining mast, to which Dugald was confined, was at this moment carried away by a heavy shock, and in the wreck of its fall he was so far released as to be able quickly to disengage himself entirely.

La Force, who, in his distraction, had not observed the canoe towards which the ship was driving, was now springing forward to an attack on Dugald; Dugald, on his part, had seized a crow-bar as a weapon, and, meeting the enraged monster in his advance, placed himself in a posture of defence, and pointed out to his astonished sight the canoe in which four of his victims were thus miraculously preserved, and the floating corpse of the murdered De Tracy, which, from its natural buoyancy, and the shifting of the ballast, by which it was sunk, to the feet, now swam erect in the water, exposed below the breast, and had drifted towards the vessel, as if seeking judgment on its destroyer. The inanimate body seemed to the staring eye-balls of La Force to be the visitation of a spirit; the villain was nerveless; he raved for mercy, attempted prayer, and called, in vain, on his companions for succour; at this moment the ship, which had been for some time but struggling with her fate, made a lurch, which threw her broadside to the sweeping sea; she instantly filled, and shot down head-foremost. Dugald sprang from the stern in time to avoid the whirlpool of the sinking ship. La Force, in an attempt to throw himself over-board, was entangled by the head in the fallen rigging, and on his knees, screaming for mercy was the blood-stained and despairing wretch literally dragged, half strangled to the bottom, with the vessel.

Dugald reached the canoe in safety, and succeeded in keeping it afloat till they were perceived by a passing ship, and rescued from their impending destruction.

The youngest son, who had been forced into the canoe with the unhappy mother, died from the severity of the exposure, adding a fifth victim to the monster, La Force! Madame De Tracy, with her infant, and the mulatto, Rachel, were, with considerable difficulty, recovered from the effects of their brutal treatment, and were ultimately enabled to reach the scenes of their former happiness.

THE PATRIOTIC FATHER.

Two young soldiers had deserted from the army, and returned to their father's house. Their father, incensed at this action, loaded them with irons, and conducted them himself to their general, Lord Stirling. He did what every other officer would have done, in his place, he pardoned them. The father, as patriotic, but less austere than a Roman, was happy to preserve his children; nevertheless he seemed astonished, and approaching the general, My lord," said he, with tears in his eyes, ""Tis more than I hoped for."

A SINGULAR AND AFFECTING ANECDOTE.

Maomhang and Coashti were petty kings of adjoining African provinces. Chymion, the eldest and most beloved son of the former, was one day, in his usual diversion of hunting, engaged with his attendants in the chace of a lioness, who ran before him across the mountains which divided his father's dominions from those of Coashti's, and which it was, by the laws of both nations, death for the subjects of either to pass, without permission from the monarch whose territories they entered: the prince, however, eager on his sport, without considering the consequence, trode at once upon the mountains and the laws of the neighbouring province, and, crossing the prescribed boundaries, killed his prey on the other side. Elated with his success, he now turned to his attendants; but, alas ! found himself surrounded by a party sent out by the governor of the frontier town to apprehend him.

In short, he was made prisoner; and, without trial, led to execution. The prince in vain told them his condition; the savage governor thought him the more guilty on that account, and persisted in his order for the execution. In short, the unfortunate prince was stretched on a scaffold, the skin of his feet stripped, and one hand, one ear, and his nose cut off; when orders came from Coashti, who had by this time heard of it, not to touch the royal youth, but to dismiss him honourably with presents, and send him, with the victim of his courage carried before him in triumph, to the court of his father.

The prince was on this immediately unbound, and placed under the care of the most skilful surgeons: a message of condolence was in the meantime sent to his father; and Coashti visiting him in person, excused the crime with tears, and made him the next day sit up, and see the governor who had been the author of his sufferings, with his whole family, (for such was the custom of this barbarous people in highly criminal cases), put to death with the same torture. After this, when Chymion was recovered of his wounds, he was sent home with honours ten times greater than those before intended him, accompanied by letters from Coashti, representing his detestation of what had been done in the strongest colours, and giving the most circumstantial account of the whole proceedings against the governor.

But what was the distraction of Maomhang, on seeing his beloved son thus mangled and deformed! Paternal fondness, and his beloved revenge, long combated within him: he received with a sullen silence the letters of the worthy sovereign; and his grief and anger being both too extreme for words, he sent away the messengers without deigning to return the smallest answer.

Coashti, who was a monarch of great mildness, knew how to pity the distresses of human nature on so agonizing an occasion, and considered this insult merely as the effect of that grief which was too poignant for expression. Maomhang, on the other hand, found his affliction doubled, from the consideration that he was too weak to attack his neighbour openly in war; but he employed his life in fruitless attempts privately to revenge himself: all intercourse between the two kingdoms was suspended, and rewards were secretly offered by Maomhang to all those who should destroy, or any way injure the subjects of Coashti. A series of years was now spent, on Maomhang's part, in fruitless attempts to annoy; and, on Coashti's, in the most sincere endeayours to recompense the injured Chymion, whose generous behaviour while his wounds were under cure, with the noble professions of friendship which he made at his departure, had left an indelible impression on his breast. The

revengeful temper of Maomhang was indeed wholly unknown to Coashti; though, had this not been the case, he would have soon lost, in the remembrance of the amiable sweetness of the young prince, every idea of resentment. Matters remained in this situation till the only son of Coashti died; when, after the usual time of mourning, the afflicted father, having now only a daughter left, thought he could not render a greater benefit to his country, or make a nobler amends to the injured Chymion, than by giving her to him in marriage, and making him the heir of his kingdom, which was more than ten times as rich and extensive as that of Maomhang: and, as he doubted not to have the readiest acceptance of his offer, he at once fixed a day, inviting all the principal persons of his own nation, and desiring Maomhang to bring his son and friends, to solemnize the nuptuals, and witness the act of settlement, by which he conveyed, as his daughter's portion, the inheritance of his dominions to Chymion.

The prince, who retained the most tender sense of the kindness he had in his afflictions experienced from Coashti, received this news with the most inconceivable delight: and Maomhang, who since his son's misfortune had never been once seen to smile, now openly expressed his satisfaction. On the day appointed, the bridegroom, attended by his father and four hundred of the principal nobles, went to Coashti, who led the bride to meet them; and, in the presence of twice the number of his own chief subjects, delivered her and the right of succession to Chymion. Then, turning to the father, he said— "You cannot but be sensible how far I have been from sharing in the guilt of my subjects, whose cruelty to your son I can never cease to regret; and I am now most happy, that I feel myself enabled at once to make some amends for the injury, and become firmly allied with so noble a prince, and so just and good a monarch as his father."

Moamhang received this compliment with a sullen joy. "We will drink together," said he, "to my son's happiness; and then my heart will be at rest." Accordingly, taking up a bowl, and delivering another into the hands of his son, he said to Coashti" We who are kings will drink our mutual wish in the same cup, and let all the rest in single bowls follow the example; when our ashes are deposited in peace, may Chymion be happy!" Saying this, he took a hearty draught; and Coashti, receiving the cup from him, drank the remainder: the rest all followed their example; and, lo! in a moment the place was strewed with lifeless carcases! In short, the bride, the prince, the nobles, all fell together; the two kings alone surviving.

son.

Coashti, motionless as a statue, stood fixed with sorrow too great for expression; while Maomhang, raising his eyes to heaven, in fury and distraction, cried out for vengeance, and prostrated himself on the dead body of his Coashti continued to view, with silent horror, the dreadful prospect; when a slave of Moamhang's threw himself at his feet, and tremblingly addressed him in these words. 66 My royal master," said he, "unknown to the prince, poisoned all the beverage with a certain potent herb, the malignity of which Nature has so strongly marked, that it even shrinks, with conscious guilt, from the hand that attempts to pluck it; but into the cup intended for the prince, he infused an infallible antidote from the root, intending thus to perish himself, and involve all his friends, his only son excepted, in one general destruction, that he might secure his long premeditated revenge on you but, by mistake, he appears to have delivered to the prince a wrong cup, and to have taken for himself and you the draught of safety meant only for his son."

Moamhang, at the end of this relation, sprung from the ground, and, acknowledging that it was true, demanded instantly to die. "No!" cried the afflicted Coashti, "thou shalt continue to live, that thou mayest experience greater misery from thy own reflections than torture is capable of inflicting." He then ordered him to be imprisoned, and carefully preserved from every means of death; in which state the wretch survived twenty-six years, an unceasing torment to himself, and a dreadful example to all others of the horrors of an unjust revenge.

DREADFUL ACCOUNT OF AN AVALANCHE.

Sir R. Ker Porter, in his "Travels in Persia, Arminia, &c." gives the following account of a tremendous Avalanche.

Every seven or eight years an overwhelming Avalanche takes place in the Caucasus. One of these in November 1817, which blocked up the course of the Terek, was full twenty-eight fathoms or one hundred and eighty-six feet high, and its extent more than four English miles.

The pale summit of the mountain Kasibeck, on the side which shelves down into the dark valley between Derial and the village which bears the mountain's name had been seen abruptly to move. In an instant it was launched forward; and nothing was now beheld for the shaken snow, and dreadful over-shadowing of the falling destruction. The noise that accompanied it, was the most stunning, bursting, and rolling onward of all that must make death certain. As the Avalanche rushed, huge masses of rock, rifted from the mountain's side, were driven before it, and the ice and snow of centuries, flowing down in immense shattered forms and rending heaps, fell like the fall of an earthquake; covering human eyes, villages, valleys, and people! What an awful moment! when all was still! when the dreadful cries of men and beasts were heard no more! and the tremendous Avalanche, lay avast, motionless, white shroud on all around!

SINGULAR LOVE ADVENTURE.

Monsieur Pontignan, speaking of an adventure that happened to him in the country, gives the following account of it:

"When I was in the country last summer, I was often in company with a couple of charming women, who had all the wit and beauty one could desire in female companions, with a dash of coquetry, that from time to time gave me a great many agreeable torments. I was, after my way, in love with both of them, and had such frequent opportunities of pleading my passion to them when they were asunder, that I had reason to hope for particular favours from each of them. As I was walking one evening in my chamber with nothing about me but my night-gown, they both came into my room and told me, they had a very pleasant trick to put upon a gentleman that was in the same house, provided I would bear a part in it. Upon this they told me such a plausible story, that I laughed at their contrivance, and agreed to do whatever they should require of me. They immediately began to swaddle me up in my night-gown with long pieces of linen, which they folded about me till they had wrapt me in above a hundred yards of swathe: my arms were pressed to my sides, and my legs were closed together by so many wrappers one over another, that I looked like an Egyptian mummy. As I stood bolt upright in

this antique figure, one of the ladies burst out a laughing. And now, Pontignan,' says she, we intend to perform the promise we find you have extorted from each of us. You have often asked the favour of us, and I dare say you are a better bred cavalier than to refuse to go to bed to ladies that desire it of you.' After having stood a fit of laughter, I begged them to uncase me, and do with me what they pleased. No, no,' said they,' we like you very well as you are;' and upon that ordered ine to be carried to one of their houses, and put to bed in all my swaddles. The room was lighted up on all sides; and I was laid decently between a pair of sheets, with my head (which indeed was the only part I could move) upon a very high pillow: this was no sooner done, but my two female friends came into bed to me in their finest night-clothes. You may easily guess at the condition of a man that saw a couple of the most beautiful women in the world undressed and a-bed with him, without being able to stir hand or foot. I begged of them to release me, and struggled all I could to get loose, which I did with so much violence, that about midnight they both leaped out of bed, crying out they were undone. But, seeing me safe, they took their posts again, and renewed their raillery. Finding all my prayers and endeavours were lost, I composed myself as well as I could, and told them, that if they would not unbind me, I would fall asleep between them, and by that means disgrace them for ever: but, alas! this was impossible; could I have been disposed to it, they would have prevented me by several little ill-natured endearments and caresses which they bestowed upon me. As much devoted as I am to womankind, I would not pass such another night to be master of the whole sex. My reader will be doubtless curious to know what became of me the next morning; why truly my bed-fellows left me about an hour before day, and told me if I would be good and lie still, they would send somebody to take me up when it was time for me to rise: accordingly about nine o'clock in the morning, an old woman came to unswathe me. I bore all this very patiently, being resolved to take my revenge of my tormentors, and to keep no measures with them as soon as I was at liberty; but upon asking my old woman what was become of the two ladies, she told me she believed they were by that time within sight of Paris, for that they went away in a coach and six before five o'clock in the morning."

FEMALE VALOUR.

Among the illustrious women who have been distinguished for a manly heroism, which, though not, in general, suitable to the sex, is, in some particular cases, highly to be praised, was Jeanne Hachette, a celebrated woman of Beauvais, in Picardy; who, when the Burgundian army besieged that city in 1472, headed a company of other heroines, in order to defend it. On the day of assault, this valiant woman stood in the breach, seized the flag that the enemy were going to plant upon it, and threw down the ensign, that bore it, from the wall. The name of this Amazon is still dear to the inhabitants of Beauvais, Her descendants are exempted from all taxes; and, in memory of this action, a procession is made every year, on the 10th of July, in which the women take the lead.

Antiquity exhibits a similar instance of female heroism, in the illustrious Telesilla, of the city of Argos, in the Peleponnesus. In the year 557 before Christ, the city of Argos being besieged by Cleomenes, king of Sparta, Telesilla armed all the women, instead of the men, and posted them on the