other sad. I did not understand a word they said to me, nor they one that I said to them; but I fetched water for their bowl, branches for their fire, and moss for their bed. They wore the Spanish short petticoat and slashed sleeves, the Indian boddice and cloak. Their bare legs were wreathed with a kind of lace or fringe made from part of the birch tree. They entwined their hair with bouquets or reeds, and covered themselves with chains and collars of coloured glass. From their ears hung purple seeds; they had a pretty speaking parroquet-bird of Armida; they fastened it to their shoulders after the manner of an emerald, or carried it hooded on their hands, as the great ladies of the tenth century used to carry the hawk. To strengthen their breast and arms, they rubbed themselves with the apaya, or American cyperus. In Bengal, the Bayadères chew the betel; and in the Levant, the Almés suck the chio mastick; the Floridans crushed between their transparent teeth the gum of the liquidambar and the root of the libanis, which exhaled the mingled fragrance of angelica, cedra, and vanilla. They lived in an atmosphere of perfumes emanating from themselves, like orange trees and flowers in the pure effluence of their leaves and chalices. I amused myself by adorning their heads with some wreath or ornament of my own invention; they submitted in a sort of gentle alarm; enchantresses themselves, they imagined that I was performing some charm on them. One of them, the haughty one, frequently prayed; she appeared to me to be half a Christian; the other sang in a voice soft as velvet, uttering every now and then a cry which thrilled the ear. Sometimes they spoke together with great animation. I fancied I detected the accents of jealousy; but the sad one wept, and silence returned. Weak myself, I sought examples of weakness as precedents. Had not Camoëns loved a black slave of Barbary in the Indies, and might not I offer homage in America to two orange-coloured sultanas? Had not Camoëns addressed Endechas, or stanzas, to Barbara escrava; had he not said to her "A quella captiva Pretidao de amor, Que o siso accompanha, "This captive who holds me captive, because I live in her, does not spare my life. Never was rose in a sweet nosegay so charming to my eyes. Her black hair inspires love; her face is so sweet that the snow desires to change colour with her; her gaiety is accompanied by reserve; she is a stranger, not a barbarian.' The We made a fishing-party. The sun was near its setting. wood formed, as it were, three ranges; the first composed of sassafras, tulip-trees, catalpas, and oaks, whose branches were clothed with white moss; behind this first range rose the most beautiful of trees, the papaya, looking like a column of chased silver, surmounted by a Corinthian urn; and highest of all waved the tacamahaca, the magnolia, and the liquidambar. The sun now sank behind this ridge of foliage; a ray, glancing beneath the tree-tops, glittered like a set carbuncle on the dark leaves; then diverging among the trunks and branches, threw widening streaks and changing arabesques on the turf. At the feet of the trees were lilac bushes, azaleas, masses of bind-weed, with its flexible twisting branches; over head, clouds in every variety of form, some stationary, like promontories or old towers, others floating along like rosy mists or carded silk; their successive transformations gave to view now, as it were, a fiery cavernmouth, now a pile of burning coal, now a river of lava; the whole was resplendent, radiant, and golden, bathed in the rich light. After the insurrection in the Morea, in 1770, many Greek families took refuge in Florida; they might still imagine themselves in the climate of Ionia, which would seem to have become soft and voluptuous in proportion as men's passions gained the ascendancy. At Smyrna, in the evening, nature sleeps like one exhausted with excess of delight. To our right were some ruins belonging to the great fortifications discovered on the Ohio; to our left, an ancient camp of the Indians; the island on which we were, caught in the reflection of the wave, and reproduced by mirage, spread its double perspective before our eyes. To the east, the moon seemed to rest on the distant hills; to the west, the azure vault of heaven seemed to melt away into a sea of diamond and sapphire, in which the sun, half sunk, appeared to dissolve. All the animals of creation were awake and full of life; the earth, in adoration, seemed to offer incense to the sky, and the perfumes exhaled from it returned upon it in a refreshing dew, as a prayer returns on the head of him who prays. trees; I quitted my companions, and sat down near a thick clump of their shadow, here and there shot with rays of light, cast its protecting coolness over me. Fire-flies glittered among the shrubs, and were eclipsed when they issued into the moonbeams; the gentle murmuring flow of the lake fell on the ear, with an occasional splash of a gold fish, or cry of a wild duck. My eyes were fixed on the water, and I fell by degrees into the state of somnolency well known to men who travel much; no distinct recollection remained in my mind; I felt myself living and vegetating with nature in a kind of pantheism. I leaned against the trunk of a magnolia and fell asleep; my slumber was cradled as it were on a vague sea of hope. On awaking, I found the two Indians beside me; they had found me asleep, and not wishing to awaken me, had sat down silently, one on each side; and whether it was that they were really asleep, or feigning to be so, their heads had fallen on my shoulders. A breeze passed through the thicket, and covered us with a shower of magnolia blossoms. The youngest of the Seminoles began to sing; let no one who is not quite secure of his own firmness ever expose himself thus to danger; passion, instilled through the voice of melody, increases ten-fold in power. Suddenly a rude jealous voice replied to these sweet accents; a Bois- Brûlé called the two cousins; they trembled and rose; the dawn was beginning to appear in the east. I looked on a similar scene to this on the shores of Greece, though without an Aspasia; I ascended the Parthenon with the dawn, and saw Cythera, Mount Hymetus, the Acropolis of Corinth, the tombs and the ruins, bathed in a transparent golden mist of light, reflected by the sea, and floating like a perfume on the zephyrs of Salamis and Delos. We performed our short voyage in silence. At mid-day the camp was broken up to go and examine the horses which the Creeks wished to sell and the traders to buy. Women and children, all were called together as witnesses, as is their custom on great occasions of dealing; horses of all ages and colours, colts and mares, bulls, cows, and heifers, began to gallop about us. In the confusion, I was separated from the Creeks. A large group of horses and men was collected on the skirts of a wood, and suddenly I caught sight of my two Floridans among them; they were being lifted on two horses, and behind them mounted, without a saddle, a Bois- Brûlé and a Seminole. Oh, Cid! why had I not thy fleet steed Babieça to hasten after them! They rode off, and the immense squadron followed. The horses kicked, bounded, and neighed among the buffaloes and other cattle; their feet met in the air; their tails and manes were bloody. A cloud of devouring insects enveloped this wild cavalcade, and my two Floridans vanished like the daughter of Ceres carried off by Pluto. Thus it is that every thing in my life's history vanishes without trace or aim; I only retain dreams of all that has passed so swiftly; I shall descend to the Elysian fields accompanied by more shadows than ever man took with him before. The fault lies in my organisation; I know not how to profit by any good fortune; I am interested in nothing that interests other men. Except in religion, I have no belief. Had my destiny made me a pastor or a king, what should I have done with my crosier or my sceptre? I should have become equally weary of fame and genius, of labour and ease, of prosperity and adversity. Every thing wearies me; I am troubled to perceive how my days are weighed down with ennui, and I go about yawning away my life. THE TWO INDIANS-ARREST OF LOUIS XVI. AT VARENNES-I DETERMINE TO RETURN TO EUROPE. RONSARD has given us a description of Mary Stuart, on her departure for Scotland after the death of Francis II. :— "De tel habit vous etiez accoustrée, Did I bear any resemblance to Mary Stuart wandering at Fontainebleau, when I wandered over my meadows after losing my fair companions? It is certain, at all events, that my mind, if not my person, was enveloped in a crespe long, subtil et delié, as Ronsard, an old poet of the new school, goes on to say of her. My evil genius having carried off my two Floridans, I learned from my guide that a Bois- Brûlé, who was in love with one of the women, and had become jealous of me, had determined, with the aid of a Seminole, the brother of the other, to take Atala and Céluta out of my reach. The guides unscrupulously designated them by no very respectful name, which wounded my vanity. I was the more humiliated, as the Bois- Brûlé, my successful rival, was a lean, black, ugly rascal, possessing all the characteristics of those insects, which, according to the definition of the entomologists of the grand lama, are animals having their flesh inside and their bones outside. The solitudes appeared empty to me after my mishap. I gave an uncourteous reception to my sylph, who generously hastened to console a faithless lover, like Julie when she pardoned St. Preux his Floridans of Paris. I was in haste to quit the wilds, and have since described my companions of that night. I know not whether I have given back to them in full the life they gave me ; but I have, at least, in expiation, made one of them a blameless maiden, and the other a chaste wife. We re-crossed the Blue Mountains, and again approached the European clearings in the neighbourhood of Chillicothi. I had gained no information on the principal object of my journey; but I was surrounded and escorted by a world of poetry : "Comme une jeune abeille aux roses engagée Ma muse revenait de son butin chargée." I came upon an American house on the banks of a stream-a farm in one wing, a mill in the other. I went in to seek a lodging, and was well received. My hostess led me up a ladder to a room over the mill-wheel. My little window, festooned with ivy and water-iris, looked on the mill-stream running straight and solitary between two close lines of willows, alders, sassafras, tamarinds, and Carolina poplars. The mossy wheel slowly turned beneath their shade, throwing long streams of water from it with every turn; perch and trout leaped in the foam of the eddy; wag-tails flew from |