Prussia, France, &c., but principally to Russia. Russia is the largest country in Europe; the people are the hardiest and most illiterate of European nations. The government in those days was most despotic. The country was divided among so many princes, and the people belonged to the estates on which they happened to be born, except every seventh son, who was "free born." From the "serfs' the government obtained men to supply the country with soldiers and sailors. Though the serfs were compelled to work, and to work hard, yet threefourths of their earnings went to their masters, and out of the other fourth they had to keep themselves. Their food was of the coarsest description, consisting chiefly of rye-bread, salt, and water, and if they could get hold of an oil bottle on board ship they would drink its contents; and yet with this scant food they are the hardiest race in the world. I have seen a Russian lie down on the deck at night with his skin coat around him, and in the morning, when the decks were covered with snow, he was sleeping as peacefully as if he was in a feather bed.

Cronstadt, the port of St. Petersburg, is a small island of no importance itself, but made so by the large amount of commerce carried on there, and its vast fortifications. It is surrounded by immense granite forts, some built on the island, others built on shoals round about the island. Some of the forts are seven or eight stories high, and mount from six to seven hundred guns. It would be next to an impossibility for any war vessel to get past them.

St. Petersburg, the capital of Russia, is fifteen miles from Cronstadt, but the water is too shallow to admit of vessels drawing more than 12 feet of water to reach it. The city was founded by Peter the Great at an enormous cost of money and labour. It is built upon piles driven into the sandbanks and marshes on the estuaries of the Neva. The work was forced on to such an extent that, between the severity of the climate and the pressure of over-work, not less than 100,000 lives were sacrificed. To-day it is one of the finest cities in the world, and, seen from a distance, its magnificent domes and spires gilded and glittering in the sun, the effect is very beautiful.

One of the finest buildings in the city is the Church of St. Isaacs; the gilding on its dome cost no less than twenty millions of roubles, or two millions of pounds of our money, and was the gift of one man. Twenty years were employed in its erection, and the whole of the nation was taxed to defray the cost. It is 334 feet in length, 288 feet in breadth, 309 feet in height; the diameter of the dome is 105 feet. In style of architecture it greatly resembles St. Peter's in Rome. The interior is adorned with many beautiful paintings and groups of statuary

in white marble. I saw an artist at work painting a window on which he had been employed thirteen years, and even then had not half done.

In addition to the churches there are some magnificent buildings, such as the Winter and Summer Palaces, Government Offices, &c. One of the finest monuments is that of Peter the Great. It consists of one solid block of granite, weighing some hundreds of tons, and was transported from the quarry in Poland on rollers.

Voyaging in the Baltic we sometimes got fast in the ice; on one occasion we were ice-bound nearly four weeks. At such times we had visits from the Russian islanders, who go on the island to shoot seals. One day a man came on board and commenced to show us how he could shoot seals. Lying flat on the deck, he took aim at a pipe placed on the "cat-head," and when he fired, away flew the head of the pipe. As an additional proof of Russian skill as marksmen,

I

may say that when on duty in the trenches before Sebastopol during the Crimean War, I have seen a soldier put his cap on a stick and lift it a little above the trench, and in less than a minute it has been pierced by a dozen musket balls.

Returning from a Baltic cruise during a heavy gale and snowstorm, we lost our ship on one of the sandbanks at the mouth of the River Thames. We burned lights for assistance, but got none; fortunately it was a alling tide, and the ship was soon fast on the sand. We retired to the cabin out of the snow and salt spray, and a good old sailor, Stephen Coates, started a prayer meeting, and a right royal prayer meeting it was. Before the tide flowed again the wind moderated, and at daylight we were able to leave the vessel in our boats. After pulling over the sandbank we were picked up by a Revenue cutter and landed at Harwich, where we, and the crews of other seven wrecked ships, were kindly taken care of and sent to our homes by the agents of the Shipwrecked Fishermen's Society, one of the noblest of the many noble institutions in our country.

(To be continued.)

HE who hath led, will lead

All through the wilderness; He who hath fed, will feed;

He who hath blessed, will bless; He who hath heard thy cry

Will never close His ear; He who hath marked thy faintest sigh, Will not forget thy tear.

He loveth always, faileth never;

So rest on Him, to-day, for ever.

THE

THE GOAT.

JHE goat is not an animal that we think of any particular value; but in the estimation of the Hebrews in Bible times it was of great importance. That, among the ancients, the goat was considered at least equally important and serviceable with the sheep, appears in the following lines from a pastoral poem of the Roman poet Virgil:

"For hairy goats of equal profit are

With woolly sheep, and ask an equal care.

'Tis true, the fleece, when drunk with Tyrian juice, Is dearly sold, but not for equal use;

For the prolific goat increases more,

And twice as largely yields her milky store. Meantime the pastor shears their hoary beards, And eases of their hair the loaded herds. Their camelots warm in tents the soldiers hold, And shield the shivering mariners from the cold." The "Tyrian juice" here mentioned refers to the celebrated Tyrian purple with which the garments of wool were stained.

There are numerous allusions to the domestic goat in the Bible, while references to the wild goat, as inhabiting the rocks and the high hills of Palestine, occasionally occur. Many of the Greek fables of sop make mention of the goat; and the goatherd was an important personage among the ancients. Who does not remember the story of the foolish goatherd, who, having taken shelter with his goats in a cave, and finding a number of wild goats already in possession there, gave the food of his flock to the wild goats, in hope of making a prize of them; the consequence of which proceeding was, that his own flock perished with hunger, while the wild goats escaped at the first opportunity; and thus he returned home without wild goats or tame.

The common, or domestic, goat is so well known an animal that its appearance need scarcely be described. The horns are generally curved backwards, and most species are provided with a beard. The domestic goat is distributed over nearly the whole world, but it suits the mountains best. We have but few of these in England, hence we have fewer goats than are to be found among the Welsh mountains.

The naturalist Buffon has given us a graphic description of its nature and character, especially noticing its love of change, and consequent tendency to wander; its hardy constitution, which renders it insensible to heat and cold, and enables it to brow on almost every herb, and its love of standing, mbing, and even sleeping on ruggy eminences. It will find its food in places inaccessible to almost all other animals, and live and thrive by cropping the scanty herbage which

they furnish. In the mountain ranges of Europe, on the Alps and Pyrenees, the goat is found at a great elevation, approaching as near the line of perpetual snow as it can find its scanty sustenance; and it feeds on many plants which to other ruminants are distasteful and even poisonous. Thus hemlock, henbane, and foxglove are eaten by it with impunity, and even the acid euphorbia is not rejected.

An amusing story is told of two goats who met face to face on a narrow ridge overhanging a great depth on the ramparts at Plymouth. The ledge was far too narrow for them to pass one another, nor could they well retreat; but one of the goats sagaciously solved the difficulty by lying down and allowing his fellow to walk over his back; and then each pursued "the even tenour of his way.

""

That the goat is both sagacious and teachable is proved by the fact that it is often used as a "performing animal," and carried about to excite the wonder of gaping audiences. In Dr. Clarke's "Travels," we find an instance of a "learned" or performing goat of this kind. The traveller says: Upon our road we met an Arab with a goat, which he led about the country for exhibition, in order to gain a livelihood for itself and owner. He had taught this animal, while he accompanied its movements with a song, to mount upon little cylindrical blocks of wood, placed successively one above the other, and in shape resembling the dice boxes belonging to a backgammon table. In this manner the goat stood, first upon the top of one cylinder, then upon the top of two, and afterwards of three, four, five, and six, until it remained balanced upon the top of them all, elevated several feet from the ground, and with its four feet collected upon a single point, without throwing down the disjointed fabric upon which it stood. The diameter of the upper cylinder, upon which its feet ultimately remained, until the Arab had ended his ditty, was only two inches, and the length of each cylinder was six inches. This practice is very ancient."

Of this useful animal there is an endless list of varieties. Every country has its kind. We shall only mention a few of the more noted and valuable sorts.

The Cashmere, or Thibet, goat of the Himalaya mountains is perhaps the most celebrated of the tribe, and will probably maintain its position so long as Cashmere shawls are prized as costly and beautiful articles of apparel. The Cashmere goat has flat, spiral, curved horns. Its body is covered with long, straight, shining hair, and

under this coarser outward covering is concealed a soft down or wool, from which the exquisitely fine Cashmere shawls are made. The colder the climate inhabited by this goat the thicker and closer is its downy coat; but, in general, the quantity of wool furnished by one goat is only about three ounces, so that ten or a dozen goats are required to furnish the wool for a shawl of moderate size. An attempt was made early in the present century to introduce the Cashmere goat into France. It was attended with partial success, and the goat of Cashmere has not only been naturalised in France, but the quality has been considerably improved.

Among other varieties may be named the Angora goat, of a snowy white colour, with long silky hair, and the Rocky Mountain goat of North America. The Syrian goat is a near relation of our English goat, but it has longer ears, ten or twelve inches long; and now and then a wild beast, making a sudden dash at a goat, will happen to seize it by the ear, and tear that off; and perhaps then, by making a run for it, the poor animal may escape. It seems to be of such an event that the prophet Amos writes (chap. iii. 12). The Mohair goat, seen only in the north of Palestine, is a kind with rather longer hair than the common Syrian goat, and most likely it was goats of this kind which supplied the hair for the coverings of the tabernacle. This hair could be easily divided into two sorts: one was long and coarse, and so did well for the outside of tents; the other was soft and silky, more like what we call "alpaca."

The ancient Jews kept large quantities of goats as well as sheep, and the present inhabitants of Palestine still rear a great number in some districts. The hilly district, which extends from Hebron up the centre of Western Palestine to the Lebanon, is of all others that most adapted for goats; and in this country they have been reared from the earliest times.

The sheep and goats are here always seen together under the same shepherd and in company, yet they never trespass on the domain of each other. The sheep as they traverse the hillside graze closely the tender herbage and the grass which carpets the soil; the goats, generally filing in long lines a little above them, skip from rock to rock, and browse the tender twigs and the foliage of the thymes and dwarf shrubs. Yet, though the goats mingle with the sheep, there is no disposition on either side for more intimate acquaintance; when folded together at night they may always be seen gathered in dis. tinct groups, and so round the wells they appear instinctively to classify themselves apart, as they wait for the troughs to be filled. This separation is referred to in Matt. xxv. 32, in that solemn

description of the judgment-day which came from the lips of Jesus Himself.

That goat's milk was thought valuable in the East is evident from the promise to the diligent man (Prov. xxvii. 27); and we are told by travellers that the cheeses made from this milk are now esteemed in Syria, because of a finer flavour than those from the cow.

The flesh of the goat, especially that of the kid, was prized as food (Gen. xxvii. 9). A kid is still common food in Palestine. The freshly. killed kid is extremely tender and good, and the most fastidious palate cannot detect the difference between kid and lamb. The older goats, we are told, do not furnish as good meat, though eaten for mutton in most parts of Palestine. Lambs are not so often killed for food as kids; they are kept for the sake of the wool, while calves were considered too expensive a luxury, except on some festive occasions. Hence we see the full force of the complaint which the prodigal's elder brother made (Luke xv. 29, 30).

When we read of bottles in the Bible we must not think of glass bottles such as we have. Eastern bottles were prepared from the skins of goats, each skin forming a bottle, and the hair was allowed to remain.

Kids, under the law of Moses, were often sacrificed with lambs, or instead of them, but they must always be without blemish. On the great day of atonement two goats were specially brought forward, one to be offered up as atonement; the other, the scapegoat, or "goat for Azeal," to be driven in the wilderness, as we read in Leviticus xvi.

But, dear children, we live under a better and a happier dispensation. What the scapegoat was to the Israelites, Christ is really to us; what the scapegoat did typically for them Christ has done for us; for "the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." You must, individually, go to Christ, not to any earthly priest, nor to the Virgin Mary. You must not trust in rites or ceremonies; they are only shadows of false opinions and corrupt practices. These Jewish sacrifices teach us that God hates sin, that He has so loved us as to provide a real Sacrifice, and that He will receive any dear child who comes to Him, repents of his sins, and relies upon Christ for salvation. Dear reader, thus act, then you may say:

"Saved! saved! I shall not be doomed when my earthly life is o'er;

The angels will wait as my eager soul neareth the shining shore.

I have a home in the holy land; and with earnest, buoyant feet,

I shall spring upon the pleasant hills, and walk the golden street."