fastened to the poles; the wind fills the sails and blows the ship along.

Many ships are moved by steam; this is better than having only the wind and the sails to depend upon, for sometimes there is no wind, and sometimes the wind blows the contrary way to that in which we want the ship to go. By means of steam, however, we can always make the ship move and go the way we wish.

No one who has not seen a large ship sailing swiftly over the water can think what a fine sight it is. Some ships are so very large that there is room for a thousand men to live in them, and to take with them all the food and all the other things they will want for many months.

Such ships as these often carry large cannon also; they are ships of war, and go out to battle when the men of other countries want to do us any harm.

Besides the ships of war there are also many fine large ships which sail to other lands, to fetch from them those good and useful things which are found

there, but are not found in our own land.

These ships bring us oranges, and lemons, and figs; and they bring also tea, and sugar, and cotton, and rice, and many more things which we want. They also take to the countries which send us these good things, the calico, and the knives and scissors, and tools which are made in England. So the ships are very useful to everybody.

WHY do people, especially boys, treat the donkey with so much less care and kindness than they do the horse?

He is so patient, so good, so steady, so useful, and so very hard-working, that I wonder how any one can be unkind to him.

He does not give us the trouble that the horse gives us, to keep him clean and to feed him, and yet we think so little of him!

How ungrateful we are!

We give the horse a great deal of attention; we train him; we are very careful that he should have proper food and exercise; we watch that he shall not have too much, or too little, work to keep him in proper health; we take pains to teach him what we want him to do.

But the poor donkey!

We expect him to be properly fed and kept in good health, without our care. We often leave him to find his own food; and few people think of combing and rubbing a donkey, as they do their horse; and we seem to expect the donkey to know all we wish him to do, without our teaching him.

If his good nature could be driven

out of him, the treatment he receives would soon make him fierce and dan

gerous.

He is often beaten when he does not deserve it, and he is made to carry loads as heavy as would be given to a horse.

Yet the donkey is a very pretty animal, and if there were no horses in the world he would be thought handsome; people compare him with the horse, instead of looking at him as an animal of another kind,-quite as beautiful in his way.

Have you not heard one boy call another a donkey, if he does something stupid?

This, besides being very rude, is quite a mistake. The donkey is not stupid; he is a very sensible beast. If he is shut up in a field, and wants to get out of it, you will find that he can open the gate with his teeth.

A donkey used to open the gate into our field every night, so we had it fastened with a padlock one night. But "Jack" was not to be kept out by a pad

lock, and we found the next morning that the gate was lifted off its hinges.

Now, although the donkey was in the field in the morning, we could not be sure that he had not had the gate moved for him; so we watched.

In the afternoon, we let him out in the road, when he directly walked to the field, and, though the padlock was not then on, he at once began to lift the gate in a way which left no doubt of his having been the culprit.

I have read a story of a donkey whose master used to give him corn every morning; and the donkey came for his good breakfast, every day at the right time, just as if he had a clock to tell the hour by.

Sometimes he did not find anybody there to give him the corn, and then he used to go to the back door, and knock, knock, knock, went his foot, as though he would say, "Here I am, ready for my breakfast!" When he had eaten his corn he used to prick up his ears, and wag his tail, and look as happy as could be. If you wish to compare the donkey