LESSON XXVI.

The Grecian Isles.-Louis R. NOBLE.

1. THE beauties the Egean sea presents, on a summer evening, have often been the subject of description. Though prepared for the splendor of the scene by the story of others, yet the traveller sailing over its bosom, feels that no words can give an adequate idea of the reality.

2. The calm serenity of the azure sky, the peaceful slumbers of its waters, and the glories of the setting sun, would create a poetic spirit in a breast devoid of feeling.

3. The air the voyager breathes inspires romantic sentiments; and the classic pilgrim, as his vessel glides onward, realizes why the poets of that clime were unrivalled, and the chivalry of the Greeks unsurpassed in after times.

4. The Islands that perpetually rise and sink as it were, have been compared to pleasing thoughts, that continue to chase one another through the mind, and the recollection of which, when gone, is delightful. But when the story of the past is called to mind, the traveller acknowledges with a sigh, that "all except their sun is set."

5. And yet, when sailing over the "blue Egean," with the aid of fancy, one could easily imagine himself on the ocean of happiness, and hourly passing the isles of blisswhere the gales are loaded with fragrance, where music floats in the air, and where with enraptured ears, he continually hears the sounds of gladness.

6. Such was the picture which painters for ages contemplated in rapture, and poets strove to excel in describing. 7. The Greeks of the Islands may be said to have enjoyed a state of comparative freedom. They were allowed to carry on a lucrative commerce; and as long as they seemed insensible to their really enslaved condition, they lived unmolested. The islanders were all adventurous and brave. Their insular situation rendering them more or less dependent on the people of other countries for many of the comforts and luxuries of life, they were all early inured to lives of hardihood.

8. The little isle of Hydra, one of those "gems of the sea," rises from the Egean, at the distance of a few hours' sail from Napoli di Romania, the capital of modern Greece.

The traveller bound to Hydra, generally leaves the quay of that city in the evening; and while going out of the harbor, he loses, in the contemplation of the magnificent scenery around, the recollection of the dirt and filth of the capital.

9. The Palamede hill towers aloft in the rear of the city, and with its top bristling with batteries, seems the giant guardian of the place. Before him lie the ruins of the city of Agamemnon, while to the left, he sees the snowy Taygetus bounding the view.

10. No where is the scenery of Napoli surpassed. It has repeatedly been pronounced to be among the most picturesque in the world.

11. The voyage to Hydra is performed in a caique, or open boat, and, if the night prove pleasant, is both speedy and delightful. Then is the magic of a Grecian evening truly felt. The moon shines with unclouded, sparkling lustre, and the stillness is only interrupted by the slight noise of the purling wave, and the revolutionary song of the sailors.

12. At midnight the traveller approaches Hydra. The island is a mass of rock with but scanty vegetation, and would seem every way unforbidding as a residence; yet here a century or so ago, a few hardy adventurers settled, that on its barren shores they might possess a kind of freedom.

LESSON XXVII.

The Spectre Hunter.-JOHN RUSSELL.

1. DURING its early years, the province of Louisiana was the theatre of many a wild and romantic adventure. Far from all that could revive the recollection of other days, isappointment forgot, in the seclusion of its Arcadian cenes, that man was ungrateful, or woman untrue.

2. Many a legend of those times is yet told in a foreign tongue, by a venerable few who have come down to us from a former age, and who linger among the new race that peoples their native province, like the mouldering bastions of St. Louis, surrounded by the dwellings and warehouses which busy trade has erected.

3. The following legend is still heard around their winter evening hearths.

4. It was near the middle of October, in the year 1769, on one of those fine autumnal days peculiar to the west, when a French trader was journeying with one of the natives to an Indian settlement high up the Merrimack. In the expressive language of the country, vegetation had been "struck," and the leaves of the ever-varying forest displayed a richness of coloring nowhere seen but under a western sky.

5. The ivy hung in crimson festoons around the oak, and seemed rather the gorgeous drapery of an eastern bridal chamber, than the sober work of nature. The hollow sound of the crane, as he guided his squadron to the south, was in unison with the scene. The broad disk of the sun, reddened by the smoke of "Indian summer," slowly sinking behind the Ozark mountains, flamed on the waters of the Merrimack.

6. The kindling eye of the savage, and the softened tone of his voice, told that the scenery of his native wild was beheld with strong emotions. The trader, immersed in dreams of speculation, lingered behind, and left the mind of the savage to take, uninterruptedly, the hue of the hour. They were fast approaching one of those mounds where the warrior of years beyond the reach of tradition sleeps in glory.

7. The white man casts a vacant eye upon this rude sepulchre of other years, or, at most, regards it with idle curiosity. Far otherwise with the native. He passes it with a slow, melancholy tread: he gazes upon it in silence, and the deep workings of his features show the intense feeling with which he views the grave over which moons have come and gone too countless for the Indian to number.

8. Just as they came in sight of the mound, the Indian started back. On its summit, reclined against a tree, stood a tall, majestic figure, seemingly watching the last rays of the sun fading on the waters of the river. By the side of the tree against which he leaned, was a rifle. At his feet lay a dog apparently asleep. The trader soon arrived, and gazed with silent awe upon the apparition, and the long shadow which it cast upon the surrounding forest. They

soon filed off in a different direction, and scarce did a sound arise from the dead leaves, so noiseless was their tread.

9. The shadows of night had diffused a dimness through the woods, the buffalo had sunk to his lair, and the feathered tribes were perched on the tall sycamores, long bẽfore they deemed themselves sufficiently distant to encamp for the night. At length, having reached a deep ravine, through which ran a little stream, the savage kindled a fire by the side of a dry, fallen elm.

10. Not a word was uttered during the operation, and both, for a long time, watched the flame, curling around the wood they had piled upon it, before either ventured to speak. "Red Serpent," said the trader, "you have always lived in these woods; ever before saw you the tall vision we beheld on the mound? Is it of mortal mould?” A pause followed.

11. The savage cast frequent and piercing glances into the surrounding darkness, which the bright blaze of the fire rendered deeper and still more impenetrable.

12. "I have traversed these wilds ever since I could spring the bow, or take the beaver from the trap. There is not a tree from the great Ozark to the 'father of waters,' that Red Serpent has not seen, in war and in peace. In this glen, when the sky was red and the clouds sent down their waters, in this very glen, I lay in ambush, and heard the wily Osage consult how he might surprise the sleeping Shawnees. The storm howled, and even the hungry wolf looked out from her den and shrunk back. I crawled away unobserved, I reached my native village, and before the sun arose, the head of the Osage was low."

13. Another pause ensued. The shadowy lines of the speaker's countenance grew darker. The scenes of other years were crowding around his memory. The trader left him to the communion of his own thoughts. At length the cloud passed from his brow, and his mind reverted to the question of the Frenchman.

14. "The being we saw on the mound is THE SPECTRE HUNTER; he roams these woods, and no deer is so fleet, no bird is so swift of wing, but the tall rifle we saw leaning against the tree can reach him. The dog that lay at his feet, did you mark how silent, even when strangers approached; yet often when lying, at night, by my fire on the

hills of the Bourbeuse, I have heard his deep, death-like howl, moaning in the blast, from across the great father of waters."

15. However little known at the time of which we speak, the SPECTRE HUNTER was not long permitted to pursue his favorite employment of the chase in obscurity. He soon became the theme of every idle gossip, whether around the hearth of the European, or the ruder fire of the Weekwam. He had often been seen, but no one had ever dared approach him. He was universally represented as a tall, straight figure, of high and noble bearing; his long, black locks, and beard that swept his bosom, sprinkled with premature age; his head always uncovered, even when the storm raved wildest.

16. From his shoulders to his knees, hung a robe of the coarsest sackcloth, girded with a belt of the skin of a wildcat, from which were suspended a powder-horn and a knife of fearful dimensions. His feet were always bare, and their print frequently found in the light snow.

17. Often when the moon was riding in her zenith, he was seen paddling his canoe, with startling rapidity, over "the Endless River," and the bright flashes that fell on the parted waters, and the straight, unbending course he held against the swift current, told that his oar was wielded by no mortal arm. Every beast of the forest could snuff him in the breeze, and the fiercest bloodhound, at the sight of the dog that followed him, uttered a low, plaintive whine, and crouched cowardly at his master's feet.

18. A hunter once crossed his path, and the spectre motioned for him to recede. At every wave of his hand, he felt the blood freeze in his veins. One night when the thunders were racking the earth, and he was supposed to be on the opposite side of the water, he was suddenly seen, by the flashes of lightning, standing on the tallest mound of Cahokia, his bosom bare, and his hands upraised to the bolt. His dog was still at his feet, and his long howl was heard between every pause of the storm.

19. Year after year passed away, and still the spectre hunter and his dog swept the forest, and darted in the light canoe across the swift waters.

20. One day, in the summer of 1774, the little shop of Diego, a Spanish trader in St. Louis, was closed. At that