HE age of Elizabeth was an age of wonders. The extension of commerce and the revival of learning, the reformation of religion and the revolution of science, the rise of civil liberty and the invention of negro slavery, the theory of the planets, the proof of the circulation of the blood, and the discoveries in the New World, all combined, at once, by their variety and oppositeness, to stimulate and astonish the minds of men. It was a dozen epochs crowded into one. The wildest romances were seriously believed, and the soberest facts laughed at as chimeras. Every thing which was simple and matter of fact was rejected. The more improbable a thing was, the more willingly men received it as truth. At such a time the stories of the traveler found a ready audience.

Captain John Smith, the historian of Powhatan and Pocahontas, was a traveler who narrated his own adventures. As a story-teller he was a success. What he tells us of Powhatan and his amiable daughter, is told as an aside to the stirring drama of his own life, Left an orphan, in England, at fifteen, but with competent means, he was apprenticed to a trade, while his guardians appropriated his fortune to themselves. He had read books of romance and adventure enough to inspire him to

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run away. But he was no ordinary boy. He rambled around over Europe, meeting with various adventures, taking part in the Continental wars until the peace of 1598. Being nineteen years old and eager for adventure, he enlisted in an army of mercenaries, employed in the war of the Netherlands. After a year or two of hacking at his fellow-men, he fell in with three rogues for companions, who robbed him and escaped. One of these gallants he afterward met, and ran through with his sword.

Our hero next appears on a ship bound for Italy. Getting into a quarrel with the passengers over religion and politics, they settled the argument by pitching him overboard. But "God got him ashore on an island." He was picked up by a trading vessel, the Britaine, which seemed to have no particu lar destination, but lingered around for freight. The "freight" wanted was a Venetian merchant vessel, which no sooner "spoke" than the Britaine fired a broadside. A lively fight followed, but the merchant surrendered to the pirate. Of the spoils, Smith got "five hundred sequins, and a little box God sent him, worth as much more." His acknowledgments of Providence are touching.

Having wandered around Italy till he was tired, Smith went to Vienna, and enlisted in the army of the Emperor Rudolph, in the war against the Turks. The Turks had shut up Lord Ebersbraught in the besieged town of Olumpagh. Smith had invented a system of signals, which he had once providentially explained to Ebersbraught. Letters from A to L were represented by one torch displayed as many times as the letter was removed from A; letters from M to Z were represented by two torches, similarly displayed. Three torches signified the end of a word. Going upon a hill, Smith flashed his torches to the besieged, signaling that they would attack at midnight on the east. The garrison were to make a sortie at the same time. On the side opposite to that of the intended attack, Smith set up some stakes in the plain, and strung them with long lines of powder strings. At the moment of the attack these were touched off, resembling the flash of musketry, and the Turks prepared,

in force, to resist the attack from this quarter. Their mistake was discovered too late to prevent the rest of the garrison. From this time on, Smith bore the rank of captain

Still more chivalric are his performances in another siege. During the slow toil of the besieging Christians in making trenches and fortifications, the Turks would frequently yell a them, and ridicule their work. In order to pass away the time and "delight the ladies," the Turkish bashaw sent a challenge for single combat with any Christian. John Smith, aged twentythree, accepted it. A theater was built, the armies drawn up, and the bashaw appeared to the sound of music. His caparisoned horse was led by two janižaries, and his lance was borne by a third. On his shoulders were a pair of silver wings, and his costume was ornamented with jeweled plumes. "This gorgeous being Smith did not keep long in waiting. Accompanied by a single page, he took position, made a courteous salute, charged at the signal, and, before the bashaw could say 'Jack Robinson,' thrust his lance through the sight of his beaver, face, head, and all, threw him to the ground, and cut off his head." A friend of the bashaw's then challenged Smith. The fight was with pistols, the Englishman winning another head. Smith then became challenger. The combat was long and doubtful. The weapons were battle-axes. Once Smith dropped his, and the Turks set up a great cheer, but "by his judgment and dexterity in such a business, by God's assistance, having drawn his fanchion, he pierced the Turk so under the culets, thorow backe and body."

Smith was eventually taken prisoner, but only to meet with a new adventure. He was sent to be the slave of the beautiful Charatza Tragabigzanda at Constantinople. He was by no means ill-favored, and the tender passion soon inflamed the heart of the young mistress. But controlling herself, she sent him away to her brother Tymor, "to learn the language, till time made her mistress of herself." Smith thought he would, ere long, become her husband, but in an hour after his arrival the brother stripped