and some were covered with a kind of armor made of tough twigs interlaced with a vegetable fiber supposed by Champlain to be cotton.

The allies, growing anxious, called with loud cries for their champion, and opened their ranks that he might pass to the front. He did so, and, advancing before his red companions in arms, stood revealed to the astonished gaze of the Iroquois, who, beholding the warlike apparition in their path, stared in mute amazement. But his arquebus was leveled; the report startled the woods; a chief fell dead, and another by his side rolled among the bushes. Then there rose from the allies a yell, which, says Champlain, would have drowned a thunderclap, and the forest was full of whizzing arrows.

For a moment the Iroquois stood firm and sent back their arrows lustily; but when another and another gunshot came from the thickets on their flank, they broke and fled in uncontrollable terror. Swifter than hounds, the allies tore through the bushes in pursuit. Some of the Iroquois were killed; more were taken. Camp, canoes, provisions, all were abandoned, and many weapons flung down in the panic flight. The arquebus had done its work. The victory was complete.

Thus did New France rush into collision with the redoubted warriors of the Five Nations. Here was the beginning, in some measure doubtless the cause, of a long suite of murderous conflicts, bearing havoc and flame to generations yet unborn.

· From "Pioneers of France in the New World."

NOTE. The Iroquois Indians were called by the English the Five Nations. They lived in the central and northern parts of the present state of New York.

THE HUMBLEBEE.

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Burly, dozing humblebee, 'Where thou art is clime for me. Let them sail for Porto Rique, Far-off heats through seas to seek; I will follow thee alone, Thou animated torrid zone ! Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, Let me chase thy waving lines; Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, Singing over shrubs and vines.

Insect lover of the sun,

Joy of thy dominion!

Sailor of the atmosphere;

Swimmer through the waves of air;

Voyager of light and noon
Epicurean of June;

Wait, I prithee, till I come
Within earshot of thy hum
All without is martyrdom.

When the south wind, in May days,
With a net of shining haze

Silvers the horizon wall,

And with softness touching all,

Tints the human countenance

With a color of romance,

And infusing subtle heats,
Turns the sod to violets,
Thou in sunny solitudes,

Rover of the underwoods,
The green silence dost displace
With thy mellow, breezy bass.

Hot midsummer's petted crone,
Sweet to me thy drowsy tone
Tells of countless sunny hours,
Long days, and solid banks of flowers;
Of gulfs of sweetness without bound
In Indian wildernesses found;
Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure,
Firmest cheer, and birdlike pleasure.

Aught unsavory or unclean
Hath my insect never seen;
But violets and bilberry bells,

Maple sap and daffodils,

Grass with green flag half-mast high,

Succory to match the sky,

Columbine with horn of honey,
Scented fern and agrimony,
Clover, catchfly, adder's-tongue
And brier roses, dwelt among;
All beside was unknown waste,
All was picture as he passed.

Wiser far than human seer,
Yellow-breeched philosopher!
Seeing only what is fair,

Sipping only what is sweet,

Thou dost mock at fate and care,

Leave the chaff and take the wheat.
When the fierce northwestern blast

Cools sea and land so far and fast,
Thou already slumberest deep;
Woe and want thou canst outsleep;
Want and woe, which torture us,
Thy sleep makes ridiculous.

PRAIRIE FIRES.

BY GEORGE CATLIN.

The prairies burning form some of the most beautiful scenes that are to be witnessed in this country, and also some of the most sublime. Every acre of these vast prairies (being covered for hundreds and hundreds of miles with a crop of grass which dies and dries in the fall) burns over during the fall or early in the spring, leaving the ground of a black and doleful color.

Over the elevated lands and prairie bluffs, where the grass is thin and short, the fire slowly creeps with a feeble flame, which one can easily step over; there the wild animals often rest in their lairs until the flames almost burn their noses, when they will reluctantly rise and leap over it, and trot off amongst the cinders, where the fire has passed and left the ground as black as jet. These scenes at night become indescribably beautiful, when their flames are seen at many miles' distance, creeping over the sides and tops of the bluffs, appearing to be sparkling and brilliant chains of liquid fire (the hills being lost to the view) hanging suspended in graceful festoons from the skies.

But there is yet another character of burning prairies, where the grass is seven or eight feet high, as is often the case for many miles together, on the Missouri bottoms, and the flames are driven forward by the hurricanes which NEW MCGUF. FIFTH-12

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often sweep over the vast prairies of this denuded country. There are many of these meadows on the Missouri, the Platte, and the Arkansas, of many miles in breadth, which are perfectly level, with grass so high that we are obliged to stand erect in our stirrups in order to look over its waving tops, as we are riding through it.

The fire in these, before such a wind, travels at an immense and frightful rate, and often destroys, on their fleetest horses, parties of Indians who are so unlucky as to be overtaken by it ; not that it travels as fast as a horse at full speed, but that the high grass is filled with wild peavines and other impediments which render it necessary for the rider to guide his horse in the zigzag paths of the deer and buffaloes, retarding his progress, until he is overtaken by the dense column of smoke that is swept before the fire. This alarms the horse, which stops and stands terrified and immutable, till the burning grass which is wafted in the wind falls about him, kindling up in a moment a thousand new fires, which are instantly wrapped in the swelling flood of smoke that is moving on like a black thunder cloud, rolling on the earth with its lightning's glare, and its thunder rumbling as it goes.

Ask the red savage of the wilds what is awful and sublime. Ask him what foe he has met that regarded not his frightening yells or his sinewy bow. Ask the lord of the land, who vauntingly challenges the thunder and lightning of Heaven, whether there is not one foe that travels over his land too swift for his feet and too mighty for his strength, at whose approach his stout heart sickens, and his strong-armed courage withers to nothing. Ask him again—“Hush! — sh! — sh! — that's medicine!"