XLV. DESCRIPTION OF A STORM.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI (LORD BEACONSFIELD) (1804-1881) was the first Jew to be elevated to the English peerage. He was a statesman of marked ability, as is shown by his being twice called to the premiership by the English conservative party. He wrote many works of fiction. Among them are the novels, Vivian Grey, Coningsby, Henrietta Temple, and Endymion. The last story is really Disraeli's autobiography.

1. THEY looked around on every side, and hope gave way before the scene of desolation. Immense branches were shivered from the largest trees; small ones were entirely stripped of their leaves; the long grass was bowed to the earth; the waters were whirled in eddies out of the little rivulets; birds, leaving their nests to seek shelter in the crevices of the rocks, unable to stem the driving air, flapped their wings and fell upon the earth; the frightened animals of the plain, almost suffocated by the impetuosity of the wind, sought safety, and found destruction; some of the largest trees were torn up by the roots; the sluices of the mountains were filled, and innumerable torrents rushed. down the before empty gullies. The heavens now open, and the lightning and thunder contend with the horrors of the wind.

2. In a moment, all was again hushed. Dead silence succeeded the bellow of the thunder, the roar of the wind, the rush of the waters, the moaning of the beasts, the screaming of the birds. Nothing was heard save the plash of the agitated lake, as it beat up against the black rocks which girt it in.

3. Again, greater darkness enveloped the trembling earth. Anon the heavens were rent with lightning, which nothing could

have quenched but the descending deluge.

Cataracts poured

down from the lowering firmament. For an instant the horses dashed madly forward, beast and rider blinded and stifled by the gushing rain, and gasping for breath. Shelter was nowhere. The quivering beasts reared and snorted, and sank upon their knees, dismounting their riders.

4. He had scarcely spoken, when there burst forth a terrific noise, they knew not what; a rush they could not understand; a vibration which shook them on their horses. Every terror sank below the roar of the cataract. It seemed that the mighty mountain, unable to support its weight of waters, shook to the foundation. A lake had burst upon its summit, and the cataract became a falling ocean. The source of the great deep appeared to be discharging itself over the range of mountains; the great gray peak tottered on its foundation! It shook!-it fell! and buried in its ruins the castle, the village, and the bridge!

BENJAMIN DISRAELI.

XLVI. A SONNET.

GREAT Truths are portions of the soul of man;

Great souls are portions of Eternity;

Each drop of blood that e'er through true heart ran
With lofty message, ran for thee and me;

For God's law, since the starry song began,

Hath been, and still forevermore must be,

That every deed which shall outlast Time's span

Must spur the soul to be erect and free;

Slave is no word of deathless lineage sprung;

Too many noble souls have thought and died,
Too many mighty poets lived and sung,
And our good Saxon, from lips purified

With martyr-fire, throughout the world hath rung
Too long to have God's holy cause denied.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

XLVII. RECOVERY OF THE LOST ATLANTIC

CABLE.

CYRUS WEST FIELD (1819-1892), a native of Massachusetts, began his career in a New York mercantile house, at the age of 15. In a few years he was at the head of the concern. In 1853 he retired from business, and for the next thirty-nine years he devoted his mind and time and money to great engineering problems. It was through his efforts that the great Atlantic cable was laid. After two disastrous failures he pushed ahead with a third effort, and to him belongs the honor of laying the first telegraphic cable. Field was the great promoter of the elevated street railway system in New York city. He had one great dream of laying a Pacific cable, but he died with his dream unrealized.

CYRUS W. FIELD.

1. BUT our work was not over. After landing the cable safely at Newfoundland, we had another task-to return to mid-ocean and recover that lost in the expedition of last year. This achievement has, perhaps, excited more surprise than the other. Many even now "do not understand it"; and every day I am asked, "How was it done?" Well, it does seem rather difficult to fish for a jewel at the bottom of the ocean two and a half miles deep; but it is not so very difficult when you know how.

2. You may be sure we did not go a-fishing at random, nor was our success mere "luck." It was the triumph of the highest nautical and engineering skill. We had four ships, and on board of them some of the best seamen in England men who knew the ocean as a hunter knows every trail in the forest. There was Captain Moriarty, who was in the "Agamemnon" in 1857-8. He was in the "Great Eastern" last year, and saw the cable when it broke; and he and Captain Anderson at once took their observations so exact that they could go right to the spot.

3. After finding it, they marked the line of the cable by a row of buoys; for fogs would come down and shut out sun and stars, so that no man could take an observation. These buoys were anchored a few miles apart. They were numbered, and each had a flag on it, so that it could be seen by day, and by a lantern at night. Thus, having taken our bearings, we stood off three or four miles, so as to come broadside on, and then, casting over the grapnel, drifted slowly down upon it, dragging the bottom of the ocean as we went.

4. At first, it was a little awkward to fish in such deep water; but our men got used to it, and soon could cast a grapnel almost as straight as an old whaler throws a harpoon. Our fishingline was of formidable size. It was made of rope, twisted with wires of steel, so as to bear a strain of thirty tons. It took about two hours for the grapnel to reach the bottom; but we could tell when it struck. I often went to the bow and sat on the rope, and could feel by the quiver that the grapnel was dragging on the bottom two miles under us.

5. But it was a very slow business. We had storms and calms, and fogs and squalls. Still we worked on, day after day. Once, on the 17th of August, we got the cable up, and had it in

full sight for five minutes-a long slimy monster, fresh from the ooze of the ocean's bed; but our men began to cheer so wildly that it seemed to be frightened, and suddenly broke away, and went down into the sea. This accident kept us at work two weeks longer; but finally, on the last night of August, we caught it. We had cast the grapnel thirty times.

6. It was a little before midnight on Friday, that we hooked the cable; and it was a little after midnight, Sunday morning, when we got it on board. What was the anxiety of those twenty-six hours! The strain on every man's life was like the strain on the cable itself. When finally it appeared, it was midnight; the lights of the ship, and in the boats around our bows, as they flashed in the faces of the men, showed them eagerly watching for the cable to appear on the water. 7. At length it was brought to the surface. allowed to approach crowded forward to see it. was spoken: only the voices of the officers in command were heard giving orders. All felt as if life and death hung on the issue. It was only when it was brought over the bow, and onto the deck, that men dared to breathe. Even then they hardly believed their eyes. Some crept toward it to feel of it, to be sure it was there.

All who were Yet not a word

8. Then we carried it along to the electrician's room, to see if our long-sought treasure was alive or dead. A few minutes of suspense, and a flash told of the lightning current again set free. Then did the feeling long pent up burst forth. Some turned away their heads and wept; others broke into cheers; and the cry ran from man to man, and was heard down in the engine-rooms, deck below deck, and from the boats on the water, and the other ships, while rockets lighted up the darkness of the sea.