In Scotland there are narrow open ditches which are called sheep drains. A man was riding a donkey across a sheep pasture, but when the animal came to a sheep drain he would not go over it. So the man rode him back a short distance, turned him round and applied the whip, thinking of course, that the donkey, when going at the top of his speed, would jump the drain before he knew it. But not 50. When the donkey got to the drain he stopped all of a sudden, and the man went over Mr. Neddy's head. No sooner had he touched the ground, than he got up, and looking the beast straight in the face, he said, “Verra weel pitched; but then, hoe are yaun tae get ower yersel' ?"

"How is this thirty-two francs for such a lunch ?" cries a customer to a waiter in a restaurant. The proprietor of the establishment comes up, looks at the man, and says, in a severe tone, to the waiter, "Antonio, you should have seen whether his overcoat was worth enough to pay the bill.”

Clergyman (to newly wedded pair): "The marriage state imposes various duties. The husband must protect the wife, while the wife must follow the husband wheresoever he goes." Bride: "Lor', sir, can't that be altered in our case? My husband is going to be a letter-carrier."

When you see a man take off his hat to you it is a sign that he respects you. But when he is seen divesting himself of his coat you can make up your mind that he intends you ball respect him.

An amusing story is told of Rowland Hill. One evening be was preaching, when a shower came on, and his chapel was filled with devotees. With that peculiar sarcastic intonation which none could assume so successfully as himself, he quietly remarked: "My brethren, 1 have often Leard that religion can be made a cloak, but this is the first occasion on which I ever knew it could be converted into

an umbrella."

Epigram on a schoolmaster who was born without a ght hand:

"Though of the right hand Nature has bereft thee,

Right well thou writest with the hand that's left thee." Anecdote of Goldsmith.-Goldsmith was always plain in his appearance; but when a boy, and immediately after a severe attack of small-pox, he was particularly ugly. When he was about seven years old a fiddler, who passed for a Kil, happened to be playing to some company in Mrs. Goldsith's house. During a pause in one of the square dances, onle Oliver surprised the party by jumping up suddenly and ancing around the room. Struck with the grotesque appearance of the ill-favored child, the fiddler exclaimed, E-op!" and the company burst into laughter, when Oliver med to them with a smile, and said:

"Heralds proclaim aloud all saying,

See Esop dancing, and his monkey playing."

Humor. Humor is essentially the expression of a personal idiosyncrasy, and a man is a humorist just because the tragic and the comic elements of life present themselves to his mind in new and unexpected combinations. The objects of other men's reverence strike him from the ludicrous point of view, and he sees something attractive in the things they affect to despise. It is his function to strip off the commonplaces by which we have tacitly agreed to cover over our doubts and misgivings, and to explode empty pretences by the touch of a vigorous originality; and therefore it is that the great mass of mankind are apt to look upon humor of the stronger flavor with suspicion. They suspect the humorist, not without reason, of laughing at their beards. They can enjoy the mere buffoonery which comes from high spirits combined with thoughtlessness. And they can fairly appreciate the gentle humor of Addison, or Goldsmith, or Charles Lamb, where the kindliness of his intention is so obvious that the irony is felt to be harmless. As soon as the humorist begins to be more pungent, and the laughter to be edged with scorn and indignation, good, quiet people, who do not like to be shocked, begin to draw back.

A High House.-A French ambassador, who was a very tall man, received an appointment to the court of James I. After his introduction, the king asked Lord Bacon what he thought of him. "He appears," said the philosopher, "like a very high house, the upper story of which is generally worst finished."

A brewer being drowned in his own vat, the witty Jekyll is reported to have said that the verdict of the coroner's jury should be, “ Found floating on his watery bier."

A young lady who is studying, lately wrote to her parents that she was invited to a déjeneûr the day before, and was going to a fete champêtre the next day. The professor of the college was surprised to receive a despatch from the "old man" a day or two after saying, "If you don't keep my daughter away from these menageries and side shows, I will come down and see what ails her."

"Mrs. Caddy," said Twinkle to the landlady at breakfast the other morning, "Mrs. Caddy, this shad isn't as good as we had last Sunday." "I assure you," answered she, with a triumphant air, "it's the very same fish, sir."

Piron did not like "Nanine," one of Voltaire's dramatic pieces. "Why did you not hiss it?" says Voltaire. “Because it was impossible," said the other, "to hiss, and yawn at the

same time."

A pompous fellow made some inadequate offer for a valuable property, and calling the next day for an answer, inquired of the gentleman if he had entertained his proposition. "No," replied the other, "but your proposition entertained me."

A Dutchman was relating his marvelous escape from drowning when thirteen of his companions were lost by the upsetting of a boat, and he alone was saved. "And how did you escape their fate?" asked one of his hearers. "I tid not co in te bote," was the Dutchman's placid answer.

An old judge of the New York Supreme Court, meeting a friend in a neighboring village, exclaimed, "Why, what, are you doing here?" "I'm at work, trying to make an honest living," was the reply. "Then you'll succeed," said the judge, "for you'll have no competition."

An impecunious fortune-hunter having been accepted by an heiress, at the wedding, when that portion of the cere mony was reached where the bridegroom says, "With all my worldly goods I thee endow," a spiteful relative of the bride exclaimed, "There goes his valise!"

"You see," said a lively old Aberdeen bachelor, on being advised to get married, "You see I can't do it, because I could not marry a woman I didn't respect, and it would be impossible for me to respect a woman that would consent to marry me."

The Cat-o'-Nine-Tails.-A sailor who served on board a British man-of-war, the Tartar, in 1747, when tied up to receive his puhishment, addressed the following lines to his commander, who had a very strong antipathy to cats: "By your Honor's command, as example I stand Of your justice to all the ship's crew;

I am hamper'd and stript, and if I am whipt

I must own, 'tis more than my due.

In this scurvy condition, I humbly petition,
To offer some lines to your eye;
Merry Tom by such trash avoided the lash,
And if fate and you please, so may I.

There is nothing you hate, I'm informed, like the cat,
Why, your Honor's aversion is mine;

If puss then with one tail can make your heart fail,
O, save me from that which has nine."

"If Jones undertakes to pull my ears," said a loud-mouthed fellow on the street corner, "he will just have his hands full." The crowd looked at the man's ears and laughed.

"This is a sad commentary on our boasted civilization," a tramp despondently observed when he discovered that the ham he had taken from the front of a shop was a wooden

one.

A little boy asked his mother to talk to him and say something funny. "How can I?" she asked; don't you see I am busy baking these pies?" "Well, you might say, 'Charley, won't you have a pie?' That would be funny for you."

A man who had been away in the Arctic regions for some four years, engaged in whaling, landed at Dundee. Wishing to hear the Gospel preached, he entered one of the churches. When he came out, one of his mates asked him, "Well, Jack, how do you like the sermon ?" "Oh," he replied, "it was a nice sermon enough, but there was no harpoon in it."

Elderly gentleman to a freshman on the train: "You don't have any ticket?" "No, I travel on my good looks Then," after looking him over, "probably you a.n't goin' very far.”

Double and Twisted.-A laughable circumstance once took place upon a trial in Lancashire, where the Rev. Mr Wood was examined as a witness. Upon giving his name, Ottiwell Wood, the judge addressing the reverend person, said: "Pray, Mr. Wood, how do you spell your name?" The old gentleman replied:

"O double T,

I double U,
E double L
Double U,

Double O, D."

Upon which the astonished lawyer laid down his pen, saying it was the most extraordinary name he had ever me: in his life, and after two or three attempts, declared he was unable to record it. The court was convulsed with laughter.

At a legal investigation of a liquor seizure the Judge asked an unwilling witness: "What was in the barrel that you had?" The reply was: "Well, your Honor, it was marked 'whisky' on one end of the barrel, and Pat Duffy' on the other end, so that I can't say whether it was whisky or Pat Duffy was in the barrel, being as I am on my oath."

Rev. Dr. Alexander relates that there lived in Peeblesshire a half-witted man, who was in the habit of saying his prayers in a field behind a turf-dyke. One day he was followed to this spot by some wags, who secreted themselves on the opposite side, listening to the man at his devotions, who expressed his conviction that he was a very great sinner, and that, even were the turf-dyke at that moment to fall upon him, it would be no more than he deserved. No sooner had he said this than the persons on the opposite side pushed the dyke over him, when, scrambling out, he was heard to say, Hech, sirs! its an awful world this; a body ca canna na say a thing in a joke, but it's ta'en in earnest."

Two children were engaged in a dispute as to the relative merits of their respective fathers. Finally, one of them said, in a tone of triumph: "Well, my papa is the bravest, anyway; he listed in the war." Huh, that's nothin'," was the disdainful rejoinder; "my papa 'listed three times in one year, and got a bounty every time."

A gentleman addresses another gentleman, whom he doesn't know, at a party: "This affair is awfully stupid, lets go out and take a drink." "I would like to do it," was the reply, "but I can't leave very well, because you see I am the one that is giving the party."

Voltaire compared the English nation to a barrel of their own ale; the top of which is froth, the bottom dregs, and the middle excellent.

STANDING on the upper deck of one of those commodious iron steamers which ply between San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, you espy, on nearing the mouth of the Columbia River, a long surf line which stretches from Cape Disappointment, a rocky promontory to the north, down the coest for four or five miles, and terminates at a sandy spit called Point Adams. If it is a calm day on which you enter, the bar will be comparatively smooth; but if a storm is raging, great walls of foam will rear themselves in front, at side to rear. Then what frantic leaps and darts! All is tumult now. White-crested billows lash the steamer's side, and your ears resound with a thunVOL. XV.-16

dering roar. But playfully tossing into spray the opposing breakers, the vessel soon glides out and upon the bosom of the broad Columbia, and is furrowing her waters. Including an arm of the river to the north, called Baker's Bay, and another to the south, named Young's, the river here reaches a width of eighteen miles. Young's River, emptying into the eastern side of the last-named bay, offers a pleasing attraction in a waterfall of some forty-five feet descent. Rounding a projecting point which has hitherto hid it from view, we now come upon the oldest American settlement on the northwest coast, the one, too, of romance and historical interest,-Astoria.

ere five miles in width, sweeps between. Eastard, Mounts Adams and St. Helens lift their oary peaks majestically above the intermediate ills and forests, and add their snowy whiteness o the scene.

an unfortunate calamity with their lives. A lighted match was by chance dropped in the dry grass. The flames spread, and before they could be extinguished several dead bodies had undergone cremation. But by the assurance of all that the

esembles more a vast bay than river. Many and frequent inHentations pierce its banks, when 1 width of seven or eight miles will be reached, then it is narrowed somewhat by abrupt headlands, which bid defiance to the farther encroachment of the waters. The banks are covered with a dense forest of fir, spruce and hemlock, while amidst the undergrowth trail lovely vines and mosses. But, however refreshing the view at first appears, the scenery of each hour nearly repeats itself, and, ere Portland is reached, one finds himself questioning if it would not be a relief to see the timbered slopes occasionally displaced by rolling prairies.

On the way up to Portland, which from Astoria is one hundred and ten miles and takes about eight hours to reach, many objects of interest are pointed out which are historically connected with the aboriginal races which here roamed at will. Among these are Mount Coffin on the left bank, and Coffin Rock on the right, the tops of which were formerly used as burial-places for the neighboring tribes. From the limbs of the stubby trees or upon driven posts were suspended their oddly-carved canoes in which had been laid the bodies

of their comrades, wrapped and re-wrapped in blankets and robes. The bows and arrows of the warriors, their tomahawks and knives, their trinkets and cooking utensils, were placed in or hung near their unique coffins. Here, many years since, an exploring party came near having to atone for

NEAR CATHLAME, LOWER COLUMBIA.

gift of several valuable presents, the wrath of the dark savage was appeased.

Many settlements or small towns are scattered along both banks of the Columbia, most of them being built on sloping hillsides, and depending either on fisheries or sawmills for their main sup