15.-TROPICAL SCENERY. THE MANGROVE-FOREST. 1. THEY towed the ship up about half a mile, to a point where she could not be seen from the seaward, and there moored her to the mangrove-stems. Amyas ordered a boat out, and went up the river himself to reconnoitre. He rowed some three miles, till the river narrowed suddenly, and was all but covered in by the interlacing boughs of mighty trees. There was no sign that man had been there since the making of the world. 2. The night-mist began to steam and wreathe upon the foul, beer-colored stream. The loathly floor of liquid mud lay bare beneath the mangrove-forest. Upon the endless web of interarching roots great purple crabs were crawling up and down. They would have supped with pleasure upon Amyas's corpse; perhaps they might sup on him, after all, for a heavy, sickening, grave-yard smell made his heart sink within him; and his weary body, and more weary soul, gave themselves up helplessly to the depressing influence of that doleful place. 3. The black bank of dingy leathern leaves above his head, the endless labyrinth of stems and withes (for every bough had lowered its own living cord to take fresh hold of the foul soil below), the web of roots, which stretched away inland till it was lost in the shades of evening,—all seemed one horrid complicated trap for him and his; and even where, here and there, he passed the mouth of a lagoon, there was no opening, no relief,-nothing but the dark ring of mangroves, and here and there an isolated group of large and small, parents and children, breeding and spreading, as if in hideous haste to choke out air and sky. 4. Wailing sadly, sad-colored mangrove-hens ran off across the mud into the dreary dark. The hoarse nightraven, hid among the roots, startled the voyagers with a sudden shout; and then all was again silent as a grave. The loathly alligators, lounging in the slime, lifted their horny eyelids lazily and leered upon him, as he passed, with stupid savageness. Lines of tall herons stood dimly in the growing gloom, like white fantastic ghosts watching the passage of the doomed boat. 5. All was foul, sullen, weird as witches' dream. If Amyas had seen a crew of skeletons glide down the stream behind him, with Satan standing at the helm, he would have scarcely been surprised. What fitter craft could haunt that Stygian flood? That night every man of the boat's crew, save Amyas, was down with raging fever. THE BANKS OF THE META. 6. On the further side of a little lawn the stream leapt through a chasm beneath overarching vines, sprinkling eternal freshness upon all around, and then sank foaming into a clear rock-basin,-a bath for Dian's self. On its further side the crag rose some twenty feet in height, bank upon bank of feathered ferns and cushioned moss, over the rich green beds of which drooped a thousand orchids, scarlet, white, and orange, and made the still pool gorgeous with the reflection of their gorgeousness. 7. At its more quiet outfall it was half hidden in huge fantastic leaves and tall flowering stems, but near the waterfall the grassy bank sloped down toward the stream ; and there, on palm-leaves strewed upon the turf, beneath the shadow of the crags, lay the two men whom Amyas sought, and whom, now he had found them, he had hardly heart to wake from their delicious dream. 8. For what a nest it was which they had found! The air was heavy with the scent of flowers and quivering with the murmur of the stream, the humming of the colibris and insects, the cheerful song of birds, the gentle cooing of a hundred doves; while now and then, from far away, the musical wail of the sloth or the deep toll of the bellbird came softly to the ear. What was not there which eye or ear could need? And what which the palate could need, either? For, on the rock above, some strange tree, leaning forward, dropped every now and then a luscious apple upon the grass below, and huge wild plantains bent beneath their load of fruit. 9. There, on the stream-bank, lay the two renegades from civilized life. They had cast away their clothes and painted themselves like the Indians with arnotto and indigo. One lay lazily picking up the fruit which fell close to his side; the other sat, his back against a cushion of soft moss, his hands folded languidly upon his lap, giving himself up to the soft influence of the narcotic coca-juice, with half-shut dreamy eyes fixed on the everlasting sparkle of the waterfall, "While beauty, born of murmuring sound, CHARLES KINGSLEY (from Westward Ho). DEFINITIONS.-1. Ree on noi'tre, to make a preliminary survey. 3. Lab'y rinth, an involved mass. Withes, slender twigs. La gōon', a shallow pond into which the sea flows. Is'o lat ed, detached. 4. Leered, looked obliquely. Fan tas tie, fanciful. 5. Weird, unearthly. Styg'i an, infernal. 6. Di'an, an abbreviation of "Di a'na," the name of the goddess of hunting. Orchids, plants belonging to the same family as the lady's-slipper. Gôr'geous ness, splendor. 8. €ŏl'9. Ren'e gadez, deserters. Ar not to, a yellowish-red dyeing-material. Nar eot'ic, producing sleep. Cō'eȧ, the dried leaf of a narcotic plant, i bris, humming-birds. 16.-BOOKS. JOHN RUSKIN was born in London in 1819. He studied at Christ's Church, Oxford, and took his degree in 1842. He is the most eloquent of all writers upon Art. The first volume of his Modern Painters appeared in 1843; the fifth, and last, in 1860. In 1849 appeared his Seven Lamps of Architecture, and in 1851-1853 The Stones of Venice. He has published a large number of lectures on scientific subjects, and is the author of a great variety of review articles. In 1869 he was elected Slade Professor of Art at Oxford. The extract is from Sesame and Lilies. 1. ALL books are divisible into two classes,—the books of the hour, and the books of all time. Mark this distinction: it is not one of quality only. It is not merely the bad book that does not last, and the good one that does. It is a distinction of species. There are good books for the hour, and good ones for all time; bad books for the hour, and bad ones for all time. I must define the two kinds before I go farther. 2. The good book of the hour, then, I do not speak of the bad ones,-is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person, whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels; good-humored and witty discussions of questions; lively or pathetic story-telling in the form of novel; firm facttelling by the real agents concerned in the events of passing history,—all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes more general, are a peculiar characteristic and possession of the present age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them. 3. But we make the worst possible use if we allow them to usurp the place of true books; for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print. Our friend's letter may be delightful or necessary to-day: whether worth keeping or not is to be considered. The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast-time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So, though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns and roads and weather last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing story or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a “book' at all, nor, in the real sense, to be "read." 4. A book is essentially not a talked thing, but a written thing, and written, not with the view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at once: if he could, he would; the volume is mere multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India: if you could, you would; you write instead that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to preserve it. The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. 5. He is bound to say it,-clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him, this the piece of true knowledge or sight which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down for ever,-engrave it on rock if he could, saying, "This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate and drank, and slept, loved, and hated, like another : my life was as the vapor, and is not; but this I saw and |