larger ones, I was startled at seeing a number of large serpentlike heads bobbing above the surface. They proved to be those of electric eels, and it now occurred to me that these round holes were made by these animals working constantly round and round in the moist muddy soil. Their depth (some of them were at least eight feet deep) was doubtless due also to the movements of the eels in the soft soil, and accounted for their not drying up in the fine season with the rest of the creek. Thus, whilst alligators and turtles, in this great inundated forest region, retire to the larger pools during the dry season, the electric eels make for themselves little ponds in which to pass the season of drought.

My companions now each cut a stout pole and proceeded to eject the eels in order to get at the other fishes, with which they had discovered the ponds to abound. I amused them all very much by showing how the electric shock from the eels could pass from one person to another. We joined hands in a line, whilst I touched the biggest and freshest of the animals on the head with the point of my hunting knife. We found that this experiment did not succeed more than three times with the same eel when out of the water; for, the fourth time the shock was scarcely perceptible. All the fishes found in the holes (beside the eels) belonged to one species, a small kind of Acari or Loricaria, a group whose members have a complete integument. Lino and the boy strung them together through the gills with slender sipos, and hung them on the trees to await our return later in the day. Leaving the bed of the creek we marched onwards, always towards the centre of the land, guided by the sun, which now glimmered through the thick foliage overhead. About eleven o'clock we saw a break in the forest before us, and presently emerged on the banks of a considerable sheet of water. This was one of the interior pools, of which there are so many in this district. The margins were elevated some few feet and sloped down to the water, the ground being hard and dry to the water's edge, and covered with shrubby vegetation. We passed completely round this pool, finding the crowns of the trees on its borders tenanted by curassow birds, whose presence was betrayed as usual by the peculiar note which they emit. My companions shot two of them. At the farther end of the lake lay a deep water-course, which we traced for about half a mile, and found it to communicate with another and smaller pool. The second one evidently swarmed with turtle, as we saw the snouts of many peering above the surface of the water; the same had not been seen in the larger lake, probably because we had made too much noise in hailing our discovery on approaching its banks. My friends made an arrangement on the spot for

E

returning to this pool after the termination of the egg harvest on Catuá.

In recrossing the space between the two pools we heard the crash of monkeys in the crowns of trees overhead. The chase of these occupied us a considerable time. José fired at length at one of the laggards of the troop, and wounded him. He climbed pretty nimbly towards a denser part of the tree, and a second and third discharge failed to bring him down. The poor maimed creature then trailed his limbs to one of the topmost branches, where we descried him soon after. The height from the ground to the bough on which he was perched could not have been less than 150 feet, and we could get a glimpse of him only by standing directly underneath and straining our eyes upward. We killed him at last by loading our best gun with a careful charge and resting the barrel against the tree-trunk to steady the aim. A few shots entered his chin, and he then fell heels over head screaming to the ground. Although it was I who gave the final shot, this animal did not fall to my lot in dividing the spoils at the end of the day. I regret now not having preserved the skin, as it belonged to a very large species of Cebus, and one which I never met with afterwards.

On our fresh route we were obliged to cut our way through a long belt of bamboo underwood; and not being so careful of my steps as my companions I trod repeatedly on the flinty thorns which had fallen from the bushes, finishing by becoming completely lame, one thorn having entered deeply into the sole of my foot. I was obliged to be left behind; Lino, the Indian, remaining with me. The careful fellow cleaned my wounds with his saliva, placed pieces of isca (the felt-like substance manufactured by ants) on them to staunch the blood, and bound my feet with tough bast to serve as shoes, which he cut from the bark of a Mongúba tree. He went about his work in a very gentle way and with much skill, but was so sparing of speech that I could scarcely get answers to the questions I put to him. When he had done, I was able to limp about pretty nimbly. An Indian, when he performs a service of this kind, never thinks of a reward. I did not find so much disinterestedness in negro slaves or half-castes.

COMPOUND PROPORTION.

(1) If 10 women make 7 dresses in 5 days, working 11 hours each daily, in what time would 8 women make 9 dresses, working 12 hours per day?

(2) A block of granite 9 feet long, 6 feet thick, and 4 feet wide, weighs 4 tons 8 cwt., what will be the weight of a block 8 feet long, 4 feet thick, and 6 feet wide?

(3) If 10 men earn £45 in 13 days, how many men will earn 70 guineas in 21 days?

(4) If 40 cannon, which fire five rounds in 6 minutes, kill 560 men in 2 hours, how many cannon, which fire 7 rounds in 8 minutes, will kill 600 men in 1 hour?

(5) Suppose 6 horses require as much as 18 ponies, and 10 quarters last 8 ponies for 56 days, how long may 28 horses be kept for £56 15s. when corn is 23s. per quarter?

per-pet'-u-ate, to make lasting se-ques'-ter-ed, quiet, retired ves-ti-ges, footprints

CANUTE.

1014-1036.

(C. MacFarlane.)

dis-af-fec-tion, dislike, want of loyalty

ac-ces'-si-ble, easily come at

o'-ral-ly, by word of mouth

pal'-li-um (Lat.), a cloak
de-vi-a'-tion, a turning aside
tur-bu-lent, disorderly
ma-raud'-ing, plundering
dis-sev'-er-ance, a separation

a'-li-en, a stranger, a foreigner

plen'-i-tude, fulness

im-mu'-ta-ble, unchangeable

ep'-i-logue, a speech at the end of a play, &c.

UNLIKE his father Sweyn, Canute was a thorough and an enthusiastic Christian. His father had permitted the worshippers of Odin to destroy the Christian churches, and to revive the abominations of human sacrifices, but Canute laid the pagan temples prostrate, shattered the grim idols, and forbade the inhuman rites. He built many churches, and drew good preachers and teachers into Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, by liberally granting them houses and lands. He had the glory of completing the conversion of the Scandinavian race, and of destroying a faith which was calculated to perpetuate the spirit of war and cruelty. By his exertions and encouragement the gospel was firmly established in all the cultivated districts; the old idolatry was driven to the sequestered woods and wilds in the isles of Fionia, Laaland, and Falster, where some faint vestiges of it are still to be traced in popular usages and traditions; churches, cathedrals, monasteries, and abbeys, with their several schools and out-chapels, were erected, and filled in good part with Saxon priests, who gave back to Scandinavia the spiritual benefits their forefathers had received from the Italian missionaries of Pope Gregory, and who also imparted many temporal advantages by teaching the Danes and Norwegians sundry arts which they had hitherto neglected and despised. The tranquillity of England, which could have been secured only by wise and good government, was so perfect, that he was

enabled to absent himself from the island frequently, and for long intervals, during none of which there appears to have been the least commotion or disaffection. Under his rule the country recovered rapidly from the desolation it had suffered, and assumed that aspect of internal tranquillity and prosperity which it had enjoyed during the last years of the reign of King Alfred. Like that great sovereign, Canute was cheerful and accessible to all his subjects, whether Danes or Saxons, and took great pleasure in old songs and ballads, and in the society of poets and musicians. He most liberally patronised the scalds, minstrels, and gleemen-the musicians and poets of the time,-and wrote verses himself in the Anglo-Saxon dialect which were orally circulated among the common people, and taken up and sung by them in the streets and market-places. His popularity was hereby greatly increased. It does not appear that he possessed anything like the learning and literary industry of the great Alfred, but his acquirements must, for the time in which he lived, have been very considerable, and he must always take rank among the royal authors.' A ballad of his composition long continued to be a favourite with the English people. All of it is lost except the first verse, which has been preserved through the monkish chroniclers of the great house of Ely, who were more interested than all other men in its preservation, for it was written in praise of their establishment, to which Canute and his queen were great benefactors. The interesting royal fragment is simply this:

Merie sungen the muneches binnen Ely
Tha Cnut Ching rew there by ;

Roweth, cuihtes, noer the land,

And here we thes muneches saeng.

That is literally,

Merrily (sweetly) sung the monks within Ely
(When) that Cnute King rowed thereby ;

Row, knights, near the land,

And hear we these monks' song.

:

Being in verse and in rhyme, it is thought that Canute's words are reported in their original form; or that they cannot at any rate have been much altered. The verses are said to have been suggested to the royal Dane one day as he was rowing with some of his warlike chiefs on the river Nene, near Ely Minster, by hearing the sweet and solemn music of the monastic choir floating on the air and along the tranquil water. The Ely historian says that in his day, after the lapse of a hundred and fifty years, the song was publicly sung among the people, and remembered in proverbs.

The monks say that he had a singular affection for the fen country, and for their church, which was even then a mag

nificent structure; and that he several times took occasion to keep the Festival of the Purification of the Virgin Mary' with great solemnity and a boundless hospitality at Ely Abbey. They tell one story which is both picturesque and humorous.

One year, at the season of the Purification, the weather was uncommonly severe, and all the rivers, meres, and surrounding waters were frozen over. The courtiers recommended the king to put off his visit to Ely, and keep that holy festival in some other godly house, whither he might repair without the risk of being drowned under breaking ice; but such was the love the king bore to the abbot and monks of Ely, that he could not be prevailed upon to take this advice. Canute proposed going over the ice by Soham mere, which was then an immense sheet of water, declaring that if anyone would go before and show him the way, he would be the first to follow. The courtiers and soldiers hesitated, and looked at one another with some confusion. But there chanced to be standing among the crowd one Brithmer, a churl or serf, a native of the Isle of Ely, and nicknamed Budde or Pudding, from his stoutness; and this fat man stood forth and said that he would go before the king and show him the way. Then go on in the name of Our Lady,' said Canute, and I will follow; for if the ice on Soham mere can bear a man so large and fat as thou art, it will not break under the weight of a small thin man like me!' And so the churl went forward, and Canute the Great followed him, and the courtiers, one by one, and with intervals between, followed the king; and they all got safely across the mere, with no other mishap than a few slips and tumbles on the slippery ice, and Canute, even as he had proposed, kept the Festival of the Purification with the monks of Ely. And in recompense for his opportune services, the fat man Brithmer was made a freeman, and his little property was made free; and so,' concludes the chronicler, ‘Brithmer's posterity continue in our days to be freemen, and to enjoy their possessions as free by virtue of the grant made by the king to their forefather.'

In the year 1030 our great monarch of the North made a pilgrimage to Rome, with a view, it is said, to expiate the bloodshed and crimes which paved his way to the English throne. There can be no reasonable doubt that his devotion and superstition had much to do with this long journey; but Canute may also have been impelled by other strong motives, for there was still much to learn, in government and the useful arts, at the eternal city, and it seems that a sort of royal and ecclesiastical congress had been appointed to meet there this year, to deliberate upon the means of bettering the condition of Christendom. Whatever were the mixed motives and objects of the journey, it is admitted that it was highly beneficial to the