can only creep out of the hole which serves both for door and chimney. There is now no sound in those huts, but the light sound of falling ashes, and the settling together of burning logs. The Esquimaux sleeps soundly after his hard day's hunting; his dogs sleep beside him, and so do his children. His wife alone watches the fire, to keep it bright for her lord; and when he turns in his heavy slumber she wraps him again in his furs.

All the huts are equally silent-all the men are dreaming; and the women watching by turns those precious fires on which their lives depend. They only move from them to trim the lamps, or sleek the skin of some favourite dog when he wakes up and whines to them for food.

One hour passes over their heads-another change greater than that which tinged the white snow with crimson, has come upon them. The moonlight, when that hour commenced, fell on a dark wavering advancing line, which stole along the brow of a distant hill, like a black serpent gliding onward to its prey. The wavering line came on and grew distinct; it lengthened out; it was made up of many members; it sped rapidly towards the tents: it was a company of armed and desperate men.

The hour is past, and O! how changed the scene! The sullen wave breaks still upon the shore, but its sound is deadened by the cries of those some-time sleepers, by heathen shouts and savage war cries, while fast and fast the mothers fly out into the cold. They drag their children after them, and gather their infants to their breasts, thinking it better the frost should slay them than the keen knife of the murderers. The snow is blotted now with spots of deeper red, and the air filled with the clash of weapons, the wailing of children, the heavy fall of murdered men, and the shrieks of mad despair. The wild creatures start from their lairs, and the icebergs echo with their cries; the screaming birds rush past affrighted; the dogs howl, but the struggle is not for long.

The hour passes: ruin and rapine and revenge have done their work; the blazing firebrands are torn from the hearths, and flung out to be quenched in the snow; they flare in the faces. of the dead-dead father, dead mother, dead child. There are many of them, and none but the dogs make lamentation, while

fast as tears, the snow begins to fall-it is more merciful than warfare, more pitiful than man, for slowly and softly it does the work left undone of human hands: it first shrouds, and then buries, the murdered dead.

The sword slew some; the cold slew more. In a few days the sun begins to shine. First he shows an edge of amber above the hills, then he comes higher up and floods the sea with gold; he puts out the stars; he covers the icebergs with rainbow gleams, but there is no human eye to greet his appearance: the shores of that ice-bound bay are utterly empty and still.

A vessel comes up from the south: it carries a little cabinboy among its crew, and he thinks when he sees the ice < mountains rearing up their desolate heads, and hears the stiff ropes rattling, that never again shall he behold his native fields. He paces the deck: it is all white with snow; he hears the plunging of the great whales, the howling of the bears, and the crashing of the ice as the vessel wades and labours through it. He is very much afraid, for he is but a child; yet he keeps his hardships and his fears to himself. He knows the rough sailors would but laugh at them.

He watches, and watches: he is in a wonderful and beautiful region-in colour most splendid, but desolate and inhospitable. Every day the sun gets a little higher, and the vessel sails yet further to the north. At last she rides at anchor in the very bay that we have spoken of, and shortly the sailors push off a boat. The captain has given them leave to land; they are going ashore to shoot ptarmigans, and they call the little cabin boy to come with them. They are a noisy, reckless, set of men, but they have not landed long before they begin to walk silently, and look at one another; they watch their footsteps with care, for, at intervals not very wide apart, a piece of fluttering raiment, or a lock of woman's hair, stands out from the snow. The sailors press up into the country, first setting up a flag-staff on the hill to guide them back, and then telling the little cabin boy to play near it, while they hunt and shoot ptarmigans.

He is afraid to be alone, and does not care to play; he wanders about and climbs among the cliffs, taking care to keep the ship in view. At last he finds a crevice in a snow wall;

he knows it must be the wall of a hut, and he widens it and creeps in. A red sunbeam follows him, and lies along the floor; there are white ashes on the cold hearth, and scattered round it lie weapons and garments, rude harness, and cooking utensils.

Everything is frozen; he looks round, there is a raised place in one corner covered with skins of animals; something lies upon them, it is carefully folded, all but the face, and the small dimpled hands, for alas! he sees that it is a little dead child, frozen to death among its furs; it had fallen to sleep when the fire was bright-when it went out, the baby died. The little plump cheek looks just, the boy thinks, as it must have done in life; a quiet smile seems to hover about its lips, and in the half light he thinks, as he moves, the baby-features change. The little cabin boy turns away, he feels the tears rise into his eyes, but suddenly he starts and looks quickly round-can it be that he has heard the child move? No, he sees that it is certainly dead, but something begins to sing; he looks nearer, and nestling among the thick folds of fur, which cover the baby's breast, sits a little bird-yes, a living bird. She sits and broods over her snow-white eggs, for she has built her nest and made it warm and soft, she has sung the lullaby of the sleeping child, and her little ones will chirp and flutter close to those heedless ears and silent lips.

The Snowflake is wise; she is not afraid lest the baby hand should be lifted up to disturb her callow young; and she sits and watches with her bright eyes, while the little cabin boy stands near her. She turns her head with a restless, uneasy movement, but she does not rise from her nest though he strokes her with his finger, and when he turns away he hears again her soft low song. A sad fate for the little two-years-old child, but these are the miseries of war.

The little cabin boy came home to England, and one day I met him, as I walked about a mile from home; he was come to see his grandmother, and carried a bundle, tied in a red handkerchief, in one hand; a little tame white bird sat on his shoulder, he was whistling to it as he ran along, and when he stopped, full of joy at seeing us, it hopped down on to his hand. He pulled out a clasp knife; "You see, Miss, I've took care of

it," he said smiling, "you said when you gave it me that I should lose it directly, but I have'nt."

your

"And what have you got in handkerchief?" I enquired. "O Miss, it's a nest, and some cur'osities;" and so saying, he untied it and I saw some shells, some beautiful pieces of spar, and the nest he had spoken of. "This is my bird, he continued, I used to feed her, and she flew aboard and followed me homeI can make her sing when I choose."

"Make her sing now, then," said Sophy; and he stroked the bird and whistled to it, whereupon it fluttered its wings, and flew round and round him uttering a succession of clear thrilling notes; then he called it back to his hand, took leave of us, and ran on to his grandmother's cottage.

A few days afterwards he told me this story. He was a sweet little gentle boy, and it had suprised us all that he should have been so bent on going to sea; he was scarcely thirteen years old.

When he had told me how the little child lay with her pretty hands folded on her breast, he said—

"I reckon, Miss, they were all heathens." "Yes, certainly they were."

"What, the poor parents ?" I asked.

“I used to think a good deal about that," continued the boy; "and I said if ever I came home I would ask about it." "Ask about what?" I enquired, interested by his thoughtful

manner.

"About this baby; and whether it was happy? There was some things that I thought was idols, lying on the floor," continued the boy," but it was quite a baby, so it never could have said its prayers to them. I took up the baby and made a little grave for it: the bird was quite tame, so I brought her on board and fed her; her young ones flew away when they were fledged, but she stops with me.

I walked towards home, and at the edge of the common I passed near the open door of a cottage. A man, the owner, who was well known as a drunkard and a reprobate, sat on a bench before it in the sun, his wife sat close to him. I stopped, for there was something strange in the fixed, foolish smile, which gleamed on the woman's face; I was sure she was

intoxicated, but I should have passed on if the sight of their little child, their only one, had not made me pause. This child was the idol of their hearts. Savage as the man was, and profane as the woman was, they never ill-treated it; the little creature was about three years old. I saw it standing between the drunken father and mother, the dark eyes looking unnaturally bright, and the cheeks flushed and heated. I thought the reflection of its mother's smile looked strangely amiss upon those dimpled features; the child seemed neither observant nor playful; presently it tried to run forward, staggered, and fell. The father, upon this, laughed immoderately, and called to it, "Come thou here my pretty, do'nt cry, come to father, and thou shalt have some more.

The little creature rose and walked unsteadily to her father; I saw him lift the mug of spirits which stood beside, and hold it to her lips. She drank again of the sweet poison, walked a few steps, and fell quite intoxicated and incapable of standing. Is it so? I thought as I retired. O cruel, cruel parents! more cruel, far, than pitiless northern cold, or heathen warfare. Miserable fate to be thus caressed, thus cherished! How far more sad is this life, than that death! How far better than this it would be to be still in that frozen solitude with the Snowflake nestling in your bosom! ORRIS.

DAYS SHOULD TEACH.

old man

DEAR Mr. EDITOR." Pity the sorrows of a poor —though really I have few grievances of my own to complain of, and my sorrows are, I trust, growing lighter and lighter every year of my life. But I am very, very old, and have seen so much in others to make me sad, that I do not write to you in the best of spirits.

In common, too, with all earthly things, I have shared in the many changes of a changing world. My name, my position, my circumstances, have each and all been seriously affected by the caprice of man or his supposed convenience. But after all I have no reason to be dissatisfied with my present standing. Like Esau, I have stepped into a birthright to which I had originally no just claim, but in virtue of which I take the