murky bosom of the earth. The alternate commands were working back and forth like shuttle-cocks: "Take a long breath," — —. "Breathe in deep," - "Take a long breath," "Breathe in deep."

The darkness thickened. The gloom was intolerable. Life was getting more and more unbearable. Life? Again that haunting suspicion of imminent death crept over me. I shuddered. Then, philosophically, I endeavored to console myself with the assuring thought that if not in this, I should awake in some other world. But, no! The mere thought was untenable: a distant sound ridiculed the idea of death. "Take a long breath - breathe in deep — — take a long breath- - breathe in deep," faintly reached my ears from the earth's surface far above. My dreamy senses were becoming intoxicated by that merry tattoo: Tick-a-lick-lick — — — tick-a-lick - ticka-lick-lick-tick-a-lick. My head was becoming dizzy in its fast descent, I was still rasping my sides on the rocks in darkness, still executing the magnetic whirl, still tormenting my mind with fears in brightness. I was living a day and a night in a breath of time. Suddenly I fell headlong into a bottomless pit of darkness-total darkness. Oceans of boiling tar swirled furiously about me. I had reached Erebus at last.

"Shut it off," I muttered, feebly; "I am out of it." And I wondered if those on earth could hear me.

Now I began to swim, swim and slush around in this great, muddy cauldron. This sensation was most horrible. Sometimes I dived immeasurable depths, sometimes I was carried by an undertow at inconceivable speed; then the liquid tar began to congeal about my body, and I slackened speed perceptibly, fighting my way against the hardening walls of tar as though with the instinct to free myself from its clutches. But the infernal tar was the master element, and it began to munch my limbs as a giant might munch Saratoga chips. As the scalding tar slowly burned up my body and congealed, I realized that the inexorable anesthetic was overpowering my senses. The eleventh hour had come. I was nearing the end of sensations.

Till now I had paid little attention to the conversation of the doc

tors, except to make certain that it was on general and uninteresting subjects. It now turned on me.

"How does he take the ether?"

"Oh, very well, indeed; he hasn't made a move. See the smile on his face!"

just

"How does his heart beat?"

"Faintly, but regularly. You ought to have heard what he said

Things changed to blue. Faint bluish sounds reached my ear; indescribable bluish feelings swept me through space with the rapidity of light.

How had I freed myself from the tar-like bosom of the earth? This question did not then occur to me. I first thought of myself as an entirely different being from that Mr. Emmons who had just dropped off into unconsciousness. Then I recollected having passed through a short existence on a planet called earth. But now it seemed my soul flitted in and out among the stars with incredible speed. just — just what he said just

"Just

Oho! so they mocked me when I supported the reincarnation theory. Aha! I wish I were back on earth! I would turn preacher. Having empirical knowledge, I could persuade all modern philosophers to accept the belief in reincarnation.

I wonder what planet I am now nearing: Mars, Jupiter, blue Saturn? No, not Saturn, surely, for I did not pass any satellites. Great grief! how blue things are!

"Singing? Here, put this weight in his mouth, or he'll swallow his tongue!"

"He takes things quite philosophically."

"Here, lie down there! He's trying to get up."

"Well, he can't hurt himself in trying. His feet are tied."

Things are getting lighter; I must be travelling towards the sun. As I near the blue planet it grows into stupendous proportions, while I slow up so suddenly that my head is thrown into a whirl. Now I see but vaguely the multiplying objects before me. Now my timorous. sight is haunted by awful visions: blue bodiless creatures torment my sight. These airy monsters neither leave me in peace nor pause in their headlong heedless career to let me gather courage to defy them. Heaven help me! shield me! On they swarm relentlessly with no one nigh to protect me. The will of God be done! I'll close my eyes in meek resignation. I am a child of Fate.

However, there is no reasonability to it—it is positively incomprehensible that I should be travelling through space without bridle or rein. I must have forgotten something. What was it? Was I to awake on another planet? Was that the thing I forgot to do?

I have an inexpressible wish that somebody would push my feet back up here; I myself am too weak to go way down there for them. Well, if I can't get my feet, I must relieve my head by lifting it out of this awkward position. It aches and feels dull. I must raise it out of this hole to some soft spot. There, that's better. But, what's that choking sensation which has gripped my tongue? I can't lift it to utter a syllable.

"Lie still, Mr. Emmons.
I open my eyes again.

Don't try to stir; you are very weak."
The waving, swelling walls gradually

come to a rest. I recognize in them the white, plastered walls of the hospital ward.

Milo Harvey Woolman.

BID ME NOT PROVE ME SINGLY STRONG.

Bid me not prove me singly strong,

Lone in the striving, yet bold to be.

Let me be tired when the day is long,

And come to thee.

Let them not say when the fight is done,
"All unexhorted he took his fame.

Lonely he marched to the heights he won:
Great be his name!"

Weary and high be the way I go;

Let me not, climbing, lonely be.

Give me thy hand, thy whisper low,

"I come with thee!"

Richard John Walsh.

THE TRAVEL PAPERS OF ARMINIUS.

VII. CONCERNING FATHER NILE AND HIS CHILDREN.

The east grows white, another day is come!
Another day of beauty and of peace

Unshadowed, and of visions without cease
Forever passing till the eyes are numb.
The stream is still and every voice is dumb.
Above the west the moon in her decrease,
Pale from her wand'rings, sinks to her release;
And eastern scouts, alert and venturesome,
Leap to the purple zenith, and on high

Cast tumbling backward through the firmament
The silver starry watchers of the sky.

To north, to south, the eager hosts are bent,
And e'en the silver moon in her descent
Shrinks not in field of mirrored gold to die.

The quiet ship is still moored to the shore. All on board are asleep, even the crew is not yet astir. Mysteriously, without a sound, the Nile flows slowly by. Overhead the stars glisten in splendid clusters, pierced here and there and there again by some Titan star overaweing the rest. The blackness of the night has turned to a rich purple. On the eastern bank the motionless palms stand out against the paling sky. Like a melody,

Beginning doubtfully and far away,

then, gathering strength as the musician rises higher and higher to the stars until in superb crescendo it bursts in its full-voiced glory on the world, the day sends forth its first tentative notes, dawns and suffuses the lands. Shafts of light spring up to the sky, the east is suddenly gold, the west is gold, the pink hills catch the glow and the verdure wakes into living green. Then, on the bank, the wooden