Dreams cannot picture a world so fair;
Sorrow and death may not enter there.
Time doth not breathe on its fadeless bloom;
For beyond the clouds and beyond the tomb,
It is there, it is there, my child!

Those who are engaged in the whale-fishery often visit the Northern Seas, and encounter great hardships and dangers there. But ships have also been sent into the Polar Sea to make discoveries for the use of our country, and sailors were very glad to go there, for they knew they should see many wonderful and curious things. Great care was taken to provide warm clothing for them, and strengthening wholesome food, and plenty of fuel. A ship, called the Hecla, was sent some years ago, under the command of Captain Parry, for the purpose of making discoveries.

As the crew or sailors approached these northern regions, they saw vast ice-bergs or islands of ice floating about, and they were often in great danger of being run down by them. These ice-bergs are

described as looking very beautiful; sometimes like huge, clear, sea-green rocks, crested with snow. At other times like flat plains of ice. By the end of September, the sailors were completely frozen up in the ocean; masses of ice formed around them, and they were unable to move their ship for nearly eleven months.

never rose.

For about three months of this period, the sun He set on the 4th day of November, and did not rise till the 1st or 2nd of February; I forget which.

A little while after he set, and before he rose, it was twilight; the sun's rays continuing to be faintly reflected both after he set, and before he rose. So that the total darkness lasted about six weeks.

These six weeks must have seemed strange and awful to British sailors, though not so dreary as you would suppose. For in those regions, the sky is enlivened by all sorts of brilliant lights, by meteors or flashes of light darting through the sky, as we sometimes see in the heavens of our country; and also by those lights which were described in the lesson on Europe, and called the Aurora Borealis, or northern "dawn-lights which assume all sorts of shapes, and the most lovely colours; and when these fade they have the stars.

In these regions, especially near the shore, several kinds of sea-fowl are found. There is the great white bear, sheltering her cubs in some icy cave. The white fox, and even wolves are to be found here. The huge whale flounders among the ice, and the gentle, seal lies under shelter of the

cliffs. But with all these strange and curious objects, I dare say the crew of the Hecla were not sorry to return to our green islands, our short days and nights, and our more genial climate.

LESSON LXXXVI.

THE NORTHERN SEAS.

Up! up! let us a voyage take,
Why sit we here at ease?
Find us a vessel tight and snug,
Bound for the Northern Seas.

I long to see the Northern Lights,
With their rushing splendours fly;
Like living things with flaming wings,
Wide o'er the wond'rous sky.

I long to see those ice-bergs vast,

With heads all crowned with snow; Whose green roots sleep in the awful deep, Two hundred fathoms low.

I long to hear the thund'ring crash
Of their terrific fall,

And the echoes from a thousand cliffs,

Like lonely voices call.

There shall we see the fierce white bear,
The sleepy seals aground,

And the spouting whales, that to and fro
Sail with a dreary sound.

There may we tread on depths of ice,
That the hairy mammoth hide,
Perfect, as when in times of old,
The mighty creature died.

And while the unsetting sun shines on Through the still heaven's deep blue, We'll traverse the azure waves, the herds Of the dread sea-horse to view.

We'll pass the shores of solemn pine,
Where wolves and black bears prowl;
And away to the rocky isles of mist,
To rouse the northern fowl.

And there in wastes of the silent sky,
With silent earth below,

We shall see far off to his lonely rock,

The lonely eagle go.

Then softly, softly will we tread

By inland streams to see,

Where the corm'rant of the silent north,

Sits there all silently.

We've visited the northern clime,
Its cold and ice-bound main,

So now, let us back to a dearer land-
To Britain back again.

You may remember reading in one of your former lessons, an account of Ungka, the ape of Sumatra; in that story, a little girl is mentioned who was on board the same ship, and of whom Ungka was very fond. This was the child whose history I am going to relate. Elau (for that was her name) was born in Erromanga, one of the New Hebrides, islands in the South Pacific Ocean. She was of the Papuan race, a people so called from Papua, or New Guinea, and who inhabit a great number of the Islands of Australasia. Travellers have much difficulty in becoming at all acquainted with them, as they are exceedingly fierce and barbarous. The different tribes are always at war with each other, and not only kill, but even eat the flesh of those whom they have taken in battle.

It appears that poor little Elau narrowly escaped meeting with this dreadful fate, for she and several other children had been taken prisoners by a tribe which was at war with their own, and she was only saved by the kindness of some of the natives of another island, who preserved her life and took her out of the hands of her cruel enemies. Soon after, Mr. Bennett brought her on board the ship in