erates all the most memorable and favorable events of his own life, down to the time when he purchased the deceased slave. He then relates the history of the unfortunate slave-girl's untimely end.

"Death is not a natural event,” he continued, in the flowery idiom of his language. "Some person with an evil heart has been in communication with the crocodile that deprived me of my slave. An evil spirit, born of envy or malice, has entered the soul of some person in this village and has been communicated to the crocodile. It may even be that some revengeful man or woman has actually become transformed into the shape of a crocodile to do me harm. An evil spirit has been at work, and I call upon our Nganga, our wise and clever witchdoctor, to seek it."

His speech is ended, and upon the ground at his feet lies the row of small sticks which have served as memoranda.

No sooner has the first speech concluded than another orator commences, with a different line of argument; suggesting that the slave girl had offended the great Evil Spirit, and that the angry "Ndoki" had sent his emissary the crocodile to punish her.

Other men, with yet more strangely superstitious views, hasten to gain the attention of the company; the discussion grows heated, and voices are suddenly raised in anger. An imminent brawl is, however, diverted by the timely appearance of several women upon the scene. They carry large earthen-ware jars of fermented sugar-cane juice. The hubbub ceases; the natives forgetful of their differences crowd forward and drink the intoxicating liquid and their voices assume a more friendly tone. The sun is now at its zenith and the heat is intense.

Suddenly all eyes are directed towards a forest path. A jingle of iron bells, a stamping of feet, and from a cloud of dust there springs the grotesque figure of the Fetish Man. Wild-cat skins dangle from his waist. His eyelids are whitened with chalk. His body is smeared with the blood of a fresh-killed fowl. His feather head-dress flutters as he dances. His charms and metal ornaments clank and jingle as he bounds and springs hither and thither somewhat after the manner of a harlequin.

Wildly he dances, stamping his feet and wriggling his body as though his waist was a hinge; the company, squatting round him in a circle,

meanwhile chant a monotonous dirge-like song and clap their hands in unison. At length, bathed in perspiration, dusty and bedraggled, the Fetish Man with a gesture of his hand commands silence. With high prancing steps and swaying shoulders he passes slowly around the company directing searching looks into many faces. In a falsetto voice, still swaying his body, he states that he has come to seek an evil spirit, that he seeks the person who is guilty of having taken the form of a crocodile to kill a woman.

"It is a woman," says he with a fiendish grin, changing the tone of his voice from shrill falsetto to deep bass, "a woman, an old woman, who was envious of the good favor shown to the dead girl by her master."

Stooping low, he places his ear to the ground, and carries on an imaginary conversation. He pretends to consult a spirit in the earth. Then rising, he walks with measured prancing steps in the direction of a poor forlorn-looking woman. Pointing towards her, he makes a hideous grimace and in a sepulchral tone of voice he condemns her as being the guilty person. The wretched woman shrieks, springs to her feet, and turns to flee. Too late. A spear instantly glistens in the air, it strikes her in the back, and with a moan of pain she falls heavily to the ground. During the ensuing uproar her body is dragged away towards the river amid deafening yells and shouts. They then rejoice, these simple people, that an evil spirit has been appeased.

SEA ICE AND ICEBERGS1

From THE FORMS OF WATER. BY JOHN TYNDALL

Water becomes heavier and more difficult to freeze when salt is dissolved in it. Sea water is therefore heavier than fresh, and the Greenland Ocean requires to freeze it a temperature three and one half degrees lower than fresh water.

But even when the water is saturated with salt, the crystallizing force studiously rejects the salt, and devotes itself to the congelation of the water alone. Hence the ice of sea water, when melted, produces fresh water. The only saline particles existing in such ice are those entangled

1 Reprinted by permission of D. Appleton & Co.

mechanically in its pores. They have no part or lot in the structure of the crystal.

This exclusiveness, if I may use the term, of the water molecules: this entire rejection of all foreign elements from the edifices which they build, is enforced to a surprising degree. Sulphuric acid has so strong an affinity for water that it is one of the most powerful agents known to the chemist for the removal of humidity from air. Still, as shown by Faraday, when a mixture of sulphuric acid and water is frozen, the crystal formed is perfectly sweet and free from acidity. The water alone has lent itself to the crystallizing force.

Every winter in the Arctic regions the sea freezes, roofing itself with ice of enormous thickness and vast extent. By the summer heat, and the tossing of the waves, this is broken up; the fragments are drifted by winds and borne by currents. They clash, they crush each other, they file themselves into heaps, thus constituting the chief danger encountered by mariners in the polar seas.

ice, vaster masses sail, These are the icebergs

But among the drifting masses of flat sea which spring from a totally different source. of the Arctic seas. They rise sometimes to an elevation of hundreds of feet above the water, while the weight of ice submerged is about seven times that seen above.

The first observers of striking natural phenomena generally allow wonder and imagination more than their due place. But to exclude all error arising from this cause, I will refer to the journal of a cool and intrepid Arctic navigator, Sir Leopold McClintock. He describes an iceberg two hundred fifty feet high, which was aground in five hundred feet of water. This would make the entire height of the berg seven hundred fifty feet, not an unusual altitude for the greater icebergs.

From Baffin's Bay these mighty masses come sailing down through Davis' Straits into the broad Atlantic. A vast amount of heat is demanded for the simple liquefaction of ice; and the melting of icebergs is on this account so slow, that when large they sometimes maintain themselves till they have been drifted two thousand miles from their place of birth.

What is their origin? The Arctic glaciers. From the mountains in the interior the indurated snows slide into the valleys and fill them with

ice. The glaciers thus formed move like the Swiss ones, incessantly downward. But the Arctic glaciers reach the sea, enter it, often plowing up its bottom into submarine moraines. Undermined by the lapping of the waves, and unable to resist the strain imposed by their own weight, they break across, and discharge vast masses into the ocean. Some of these run aground on the adjacent shores, and often maintain themselves for years. Others escape southward, to be finally dissolved in the warm waters of the Atlantic.

STRUGGLING FOR AN EDUCATION 1

Abridged from UP FROM SLAVERY. BY BOOKER T. WASHINGTON One day, while I was at work in the coal-mine, I happened to overhear two miners talking about a great school for colored people somewhere in Virginia. This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about any kind of school or college that was more pretentious than the little colored school in our town.

In the darkness of the mine I noiselessly crept as close as I could to the two men who were talking. I heard one tell the other that not only was the school established for the members of my race, but that opportunities were provided by which poor but worthy students could work out all or a part of the cost of board, and at the same time be taught some trade or industry.

As they went on describing the school, it seemed to me that it must be the greatest place on earth, and not even Heaven presented more attractions for me at that time than did the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia, about which these men were talking. I resolved at once to go to that school, although I had no idea where it was, or how I was going to reach it; I remembered only that I was on fire constantly with one ambition, and that was to go to Hampton. This thought was with me day and night.

In the fall of 1872 I determined to make an effort to get there. The distance from Malden to Hampton is about five hundred miles. By walking, begging rides both in wagons and in the cars, sometimes pay

1 Copyright 1901 by Doubleday Page and Company, and reprinted by special arrangement with these publishers.

ing my fare by stage-coach or train from my scanty savings, in some way, after a number of days, I reached Richmond, Virginia, about eighty-two miles from Hampton. At Richmond I spent several days helping unload pig iron from a vessel, thus earning a little to add to the amount I must get to pay my way to Hampton.

I reached Hampton, with a surplus of exactly fifty cents with which to begin my education. To me it had been a long, eventful journey; but the first sight of the large, three-story, brick school building seemed to have rewarded me for all that I had undergone in order to reach the place. If the people who gave the money to provide that building could appreciate the influence the sight of it had upon me, as well as upon thousands of other youths, they would feel all the more encouraged to make such gifts.

It seemed to me to be the largest and most beautiful building I had ever seen. I felt that a new kind of existence had now begun—that life would now have a new meaning. I felt that I had reached the promised land, and I resolved to let no obstacle prevent me from putting forth the highest effort to fit myself to accomplish the most good in the world. As soon as possible after reaching the grounds of the Hampton Institute, I presented myself before the head teacher for assignment to a class. Having been so long without proper food, a bath, and change of clothing, I did not, of course, make a very favorable impression upon her, and I could see at once that there were doubts in her mind about the wisdom of admitting me as a student. I felt that I could hardly blame her if she got the idea that I was a worthless loafer or a tramp.

For some time she did not refuse to admit me, neither did she decide in my favor, and I continued to linger about her, and to impress her in all the ways I could with my worthiness. In the meantime I saw her admitting other students, and that added greatly to my discomfort, for I felt, deep down in my heart, that I could do as well as they, if I could only get the chance to show what was in me.

After some hours had passed, the head teacher said to me: "The adjoining recitation-room needs sweeping. Take the broom and sweep it." It occurred to me that here was my chance. Never did I receive an order with more delight. I knew that I could sweep, for Mrs. Ruffner had taught me how to do that when I lived with her.