breath, gazed now at the abyss, swarming with people like ants, two hundred feet below him, and now at the huge copper clapper which from second to second bellowed in his ear. That was the only speech which he could hear, the only sound that broke the universal silence reigning around him. He basked in it as a bird in the sunshine.

All at once the frenzy of the bell seized him; his look became strange; he waited for the passing of the bell as the spider lies in wait for a fly, and flung himself headlong upon it. Then, suspended above the gulf, launched upon the tremendous vibration of the bell, he grasped the brazen monster by its ears, clasped it with his knees, spurred it with his heels, doubling the fury of the peal with the whole force and weight of his body.

The monstrous steed neighed and panted under him; and then the big bell of Notre Dame and Quasimodo ceased to exist: they became a dream, a whirlwind, a tempest; vertigo astride of uproar; a spirit clinging to a winged crupper; a strange centaur, half man, half bell.

VICTOR HUGO (1802–1885) was a celebrated French poet and novelist. His childhood was spent in various places in Paris, in Corsica, in Elba, in Italy, and in Spain, wherever his father, an army officer, happened to be stationed. He received his early education from his mother and from an old priest. Later he went to school in Paris. While he was still at school

he began to write poetry, and one of his poems won him a prize before he was eighteen years old. Some of his novels are masterpieces. They have been translated into English and are widely read on this side of the Atlantic. The most famous is "Les Miserables." He took a great interest in politics and was elected a life member of the French Senate in 1876. latter part of his life he devoted to writing.

The

All that I know

Of a certain star

Is, it can throw

MY STAR

(Like the angled spar)

Now a dart of red,

Now a dart of blue;

Till my friends have said.

They would fain see, too,

My star that dartles the red and the blue!

Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?

Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

an'gled, having corners.

ROBERT BROWNING.

furled, rolled up.

spar, a mineral of many colors.

sol'ace, content.

ROBERT BROWNING (1812–89) was a famous English poet, and was born in London. He was fond of the country, and when a boy, he used to roam through the Dulwich Woods. "Home Thoughts, from the Sea," "Home Thoughts, from Abroad," ," "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix,' ""An Incident of the French Camp," "The Pied Piper of Hamlin," and "The Boy and the Angel" are among his shorter poems.

A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL

December 29th, [1865]. Pedreira. I have said little about the insects and reptiles which play so large a part in most Brazilian travels, and, indeed, I have had much less annoyance from this source than I had expected. But I must confess that the creature which greeted my waking sight this morning was not

a pleasant object to contemplate. It was an enormous centipede close by my side. He was nearly a foot in length. His innumerable legs looked just ready for a start, and his two horns or feelers were protruded with a most venomous expression. These animals are very hideous to look upon, and their bite is painful, though it is not dangerous. I crept softly away from my sofa without disturbing my ugly neighbor, who presently fell a victim to science; being very adroitly caught under a large tumbler, and consigned to a glass jar filled with alcohol.

LOUIS AGASSIZ

Captain Faria says that centipedes are often brought on board with wood, among which they usually lie concealed, seldom making their appearance, unless disturbed and driven out of their hiding places.

To less noxious visitors of this kind, one soon gets accustomed.

As I shake out my dress, I hear a cold flop on the floor, and a pretty little house-lizard, which has found a warm retreat in its folds, makes his escape with all celerity. Cockroaches swarm everywhere, and it would be a vigilant housekeeper that could keep her closets free from them.

Ants are the greatest nuisance of all, and the bite of the fire-ant is really terrible. I remember once having hung some towels to dry on the cord of my hammock; I was about to remove them when suddenly my hand and arm seemed plunged into fire. I dropped the towels as though they had been hot coals, and then I saw that my arm was covered with little brown ants.

Brushing them off in all haste, I called the servant, who found an army of them passing over the hammock, and out of the window near which it hung. He said that they were on their way somewhere, and if left undisturbed, would be gone in an hour or two. And so it proved to be. We saw no more of them.

Yesterday we arrived at Pedreira, a little village consisting of some fifteen or twenty houses hemmed in by forest. The place certainly deserves its name of the "place of stones," for the shore is fringed with rocks and boulders. We landed at once, and Mr. Coutinho and Mr. Agassiz spent the morning in geologizing and botanizing.

In the course of our ramble we came upon an exceedingly picturesque Indian camp. The river is now so high, that the water runs far up into the forest. In such an overflowed wood, a number of Indian boats were moored; while, on a tract of land near by, the Indians had cleared a little grove, cutting down the inner trees, and leaving only the outer ones standing, so

as to make a circular arbor. were slung; while outside were the kettles and water-jugs, and utensils of one sort and another.

Within this arbor the hammocks

In this little camp were several Indian families, who had left their mandioca plantations in the forest, to pass the Christmas festa in the village. We asked the women what they did, they and their babies, when it rained.

They laughed, and pointing to their canoes, said that they

crept under the arched roof of palm-thatch, which always encloses the stern of an Indian boat, and were safe. Even this, in the open river, would not be a protection; but, moored as the boats are in the midst of a thick wood, they do not receive the full force of the showers.

After we returned to the village and rested at the priest's house half an hour, he proposed to send us to his little mandioca plantation at a short distance in the forest, where a par