consists expands itself, between the Mossamba Mountains and the heights of Ovaherero, over a terrace superabundantly watered. The Liba which issues from Lake Dilolo (4,265 feet in elevation), the Liambey, the name of which it for some time bears, and the Chobe, are here the principal affluents.

11. When it reaches the plateau of the Batokas, it falls in a mass from a height of over 100 feet, forming the celebrated fall Mosiwatunja, which means in the native language "thundering smoke," but to which Livingstone gave the name of Victoria Falls.

12. Downwards, from this point, the river is deeply embossed in a narrow valley, overleaps the pass of Lupate, and receives the Shiré, which brings it, across one of the roughest of roads, the tribute of the waters of Lake Nyassa, another large inland basin, lying 1,522 feet above the level of the sea, and equal in extent to half of Tanganyika. Its length is, in fact, 210 miles, and its average breadth thirty miles, and its superficies 9,000 square miles. On nearing the sea-coast, the Zambesi, after having formed numerous cataracts, suddenly widens its banks, and falls in manifold branches into the Indian Ocean between Quilimane and Luabo.

13. Besides these three water-courses of incomparable power, Africa presents a fourth, which is but little inferior to them—viz., the Niger. This river, the exploration of which was for a long time the passion of travellers, is far from being completely known even now. In its whole length, estimated at 2,220 miles, it presents many analogies with the Nile, the physical conditions of which it reproduces in an inverse sense, on the opposite side of the African Continent.

14. It rises in the same mountains whose opposite slope gives birth to the Senegal and Gambia, flows

north-east as far as the edge of the Sahara near Timbuctoo, that great emporium of the Soudan, so rarely visited even to this day; and from this point it describes a vast curve to the south-east across the rich and populous States of the Fellata.8

15. It is at their southern borders that the Niger receives its principal affluent, the Chadda or Benué, an imposing river, of which the lower course only is known, and the further description of which remains, on account of the beauty of its banks, one of the most interesting problems of African geography. Beyond its confluence with the Benué, the Niger breaks up into a multitude of branches, and finishes its course in the Gulf of Guinea, forming a delta sadly famous for its exceptional unhealthiness.

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.-GRAY.

Thomas Gray was born in London in 1716, and was the only one of twelve children who lived. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and died in 1770. The teacher would do well to cause his pupils to give the meaning of each line of the Elegy, in succession, in other words. Only thus will they gain the full meaning of the exquisite English used. The Ode was suggested by the churchyard at Stoke Pogis, a village in Buckinghamshire, near Windsor.

1. THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

2. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

3. Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower,

The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.2

4. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

5. The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn, 3

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn," No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

6. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

7. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield;

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield!

How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

8. Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor. 9. The boast of heraldry," the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike th' inevitable hour;

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

10. Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault,
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle, and fretted vault,'
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.*

* These two lines refer to pompous funerals in a cathedral.