As he was riding through the smoking ruins, his horse, treading on some hot embers, started and plunged violently, so that the King, a stout and heavy man, was thrown forwards on the saddle and severely bruised. The injury brought on a fever; he was carried in a litter to a convent outside the walls of Rouen, where he lingered for six weeks, showing much sorrow for his sins, and trying as far as possible to atone for them, by ordering that the Saxon nobles whom he kept in prison should be released, and advising his sons to be more merciful than he had been.

15. He died in the sixtieth year of his age, and the twenty-first of his reign, and was buried in a beautiful church founded by himself, at Caen, in Normandy.

THE AFRICAN CHIEF.

1. CHAINED in the market-place he stood

1

A man of giant frame,

Amid the gathering multitude,

That shrunk to hear his name:
All stern of look, and strong of limb,
His dark eye on the ground:
And silently they gazed on him,
As on a lion bound.

2. Vainly, but well, that chief had foughtHe was a captive now;

Yet pride, that fortune humbles not,
Was written on his brow.

The scars his dark broad bosom wore,
Shewed warrior true and brave;
A prince among his tribe before,
He could not be a slave!

3. Then to his conqueror he spake: 'My brother is a king;

Undo this necklace from my neck,

And take this bracelet ring,

And send me where my brother reigns;
And I will fill thy hands

With store of ivory from the plains,

And gold-dust from the sands.'

4. 'Not for thy ivory nor thy gold
Will I unbind thy chain;

That fettered hand shall never hold
The battle-spear again.

A price thy nation never gave
Shall yet be paid for thee;

For thou shalt be the Christian's slave,
In lands beyond the sea.'

5. Then wept the warrior chief, and bade To shred his locks away,

And, one by one, each heavy braid
Before the victor lay.

Thick were the plaited locks, and long;
And deftly hidden there,

Shone many a wedge of gold among
The dark and crispèd hair.

6. 'Look! feast thy greedy eyes with gold,
Long kept for sorest need;
Take it thou askest sums untold,
And say that I am freed.

Take it!-my wife, the long, long day,
Weeps by the cocoa tree,

And my young children leave their play,
And ask in vain for me.'

7. 'I take thy gold-but I have made
Thy fetters fast and strong,
And ween that by the cocoa-shade
Thy wife will wait thee long.'
Strong was the agony that shook
The captive's frame to hear,
And the proud meaning of his look
Was changed to mortal fear.

8. His heart was broke-crazed his brain

At once his
eye grew wild;
He struggled fiercely with his chain,
Whispered, and wept, and smiled:
Yet wore not long those fatal bands;
For soon, at close of day,

They drew him forth upon the sands,
The foul hyæna's prey.

200KS are a species of crow. But they differ

from the carrion crow and raven, in not feeding upon dead flesh, but upon corn and other seeds and grass, though indeed they pick up beetles and other insects and worms. See what a number of them have settled on yonder ploughed field, almost blackening

it over. They are searching for grubs and worms. The men in the field do not molest them, for they do a great deal of service by destroying grubs, which, if suffered to grow to winged insects, would injure the trees and plants.

2. But do they not hurt the corn? Yes; they tear up a good deal of green corn; but, upon the whole, rooks are reckoned the farmer's friends.

3. Do all rooks live in rookeries? It is their nature to associate together, and build in numbers on the same or adjoining trees. They have no objection to the neighbourhood of man, but readily take to a plantation of tall trees, though it be close to a house; and this is commonly called a rookery. They will even fix their habitations on trees in the midst of towns.

4. I think a rookery is a sort of town itself? It is; a village in the air, peopled with numerous inhabitants, and nothing can be more amusing than to view them all in motion, flying to and fro, and busied in their several occupations. The spring is their busiest time. Early in the year they begin to repair their nests, or build new ones.

5. Do they all work together, or every one for itself? Each pair, after they have coupled, builds its own nest; and, instead of helping, they are very apt to steal the materials from one another. If both birds go out at once in search of sticks, they often find on their return the work all destroyed, and the materials carried off. However, I have met with a story which shows that they are not without some sense of the oriminality of thieving.