ing were those frightful yells of rage and fear. The huge body of the snake, fully two feet in diameter, where it depended from the trees, presented the most curious appearances, and in such quick succession that the eye could scarcely follow them. At one moment smooth and flexile, at the next rough and stiffened, or contracted into great knots—at one moment overspread with a thousand tints of reflected color, the next distended so as to transmit through the skin the golden gleams of the animal lightning that coursed up and down within. Over and over rolled the struggling beast; but in vain all his strength, in vain all his efforts to free himself. Gradually his muscles relaxed in their exertions; his roar subsided to a groan; his tongue protruded from his mouth, and his fetid breath, mingled with a strong sickly odor from the serpent, diffused itself through the air, producing a sense of oppression, and a feeling of weakness like that from breathing some deleterious gas. I looked around me. Kaloolah was on her knees, and the negress insensible upon the ground a few paces behind her. A sensation of giddiness warned me that it was time to retreat. Without a word I raised Kaloolah in my arms, ran towards the now almost motionless animals, and, turning along the bank, reached the tree against which my gun was leaning. Darting back, I seized the prostrate negress and bore her off in the same way. By this time both females had recovered their voices, Clefenha exercising hers in a succession of shrieks that compelled me to shake her somewhat rudely, while Kaloolah eagerly besought me to hurry back to the camp. There was now, however, no occasion for hurry. The recovery of my gun altered the state of the case, and my curiosity was excited to witness the progress of deglutition on a large scale, which the boa was probably about to exhibit. It was impossible, however, to resist Kaloolah's entreaties, and after stepping up closer to the animals for one good look, I reluctantly consented to turn back. The lion was quite dead, and, with a slow motion, the snake was uncoiling himself from his prey and from the tree above. As well as I could judge, without seeing him straightened out, he was between ninety and one hundred feet in length-not quite so long as the serpent with which the army of Regulus had its famous battle, or as many of the same animals that I have since seen; but, as the reader will allow, a very respectable sized snake. Up! ere the herds, with trampling feet While the day lingers, do thy best! Sarah Roberts. BORN in Portsmouth, N. H., 1812. DIED in New York, N. Y., THE VOICE OF THE GRASS. HE 1869. ERE I come creeping, creeping everywhere; On the sunny hill-side, Close by the noisy brook, In every shady nook, I come creeping, creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, smiling everywhere; All around the open door, Where sit the aged poor; Here where the children play, I come creeping, creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; My pleasant face you'll meet, Silently creeping, creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; Nor hear my low sweet humming; And the glad morning light, I come quietly creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; More welcome than the flowers In summer's pleasant hours: The gentle cow is glad, And the merry bird not sad, To see me creeping, creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; Most joyfully I raise To Him at whose command I beautify the land, Creeping, silently creeping everywhere. TH Samuel Osgood. BORN in Charlestown, Mass., 1812. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1880. HOURS OF SLEEP AND HOURS OF STUDY. [Student Life. 1861.] HE most obvious polar diversity is that which contrasts our sleeping with our waking hours, and almost repeats the images of death and life. How long we ought to sleep I do not undertake to say with positive certainty, so widely do different persons vary, and so much do many people err from the truth by counting as sleep only their hours of being in bed, whilst they never seem to be fully awake even at noon-day, and others who lounge half the time in bed are rarely found asleep. If I were to try to state the true rule for sleep, according to the best experience and observation, it would be eight hours, and surely never less than seven. A student needs, probably, more sleep than a laboring man, alike because his brain is more used (and the brain suffers more than the muscles from over-action), and because, moreover, the student is so apt to carry the thoughtfulness of study to his pillow as to find it hard to drop into slumber at once, as the tired workman generally does. I advise you to be very careful to secure regular and sufficient sleep; and in most cases when you are tempted by peculiar anxiety to sit up very late, and win study at the cost of an excited brain, it is better to think more of keeping the instrument sound than of forcing the work. I have suffered sometimes by continual late study, and have kept at my pen till morning. Now I prefer a healthy brain to an elaborate manuscript, and am surer of success in such emergencies by speaking extempore from a clear and cool head, than by reading a discourse that has been written by the midnight lamp. I do not believe in the midnight lamp at all, and advise you to be on your pillow always at least an hour before that witching time. In summer it is well for a student to go to bed at ten and rise at six, or half an hour before, and in winter he may retire and rise an hour later. As to any considerable study before breakfast, I do not recommend it, and am inclined to think as poorly of morning candle-light as of the midnight lamp. I tried once to steal time for translating a work from the German by early morning study, and the symptoms of a nervous fever that appeared in the course of a few weeks led me never to repeat the experiment. As to hours of study, they should never exceed those now made the limit of manual labor-ten hours-and I believe that six hours of close application will in the long run accomplish more good work than twelve hours. If a youth actually studies six hours, and adds to this the time spent in going to and from recitation and in waiting for others to recite, he will find very little of the working part of the day left. If we add to six hours of actual work over books the time usually given by an earnest student to thought, and reading, and instructive conversation, it will be found that twelve out of the twenty-four hours are generally given to the culture of the mind. Stating my views in another way, I can say that there is wisdom in dividing the day into three parts of eight hours each-one part for sleep; one for such exertion of the mind as may be called study, whether learning lessons or tasking the thoughts by solid reading or careful meditation; one part for recreation, or for all that refreshes soul and body by food, exercise, society, and all such intellectual occupations as belong more to the play rather than to the work of the mind. I do not, of course, mean to say that these three parts should be separated by a rigid line, and that recreation and study should occupy each eight consecutive hours. It is best for one not to give more than two consecutive hours to one object; and he is wise who goes from one study to another, or intersperses study with exercise or conversation, so as to secure constant freshness and life. The Jesuits, who are marvellously shrewd in their way, forbid their pupils from studying more than two hours without intermission; and Voltaire, who so hated the Jesuits, copied their sagacity by keeping sometimes four desks in his library, with an unfinished work on each, and going, as he was moved, from one to the other, as poetry, history, criticism, or philosophy invited him. You will do well to study a judicious alternation in the division of your time and studies, being especially careful to sweeten hard and repulsive branches by such as are more pleasant, and in every way to change the posture of your mind, so as to refresh and relieve the more weary faculties. |