year, and the land which lies near to it is always frozen quite hard during many months, and covered with snow.

There are no horses, or cows, or sheep to be seen there; but there is a very useful creature, called the rein-deer, which lives upon a small, dry plant, called rein-deer moss, which it scratches out from under the snow.

The rein-deer is strong and tractable, and is of great use to the people who live in that country; it draws their sledges over the snow and ice; and its milk is a chief part of their food. The people have no corn there to make bread with. In the south of Europe both the sea and the land are very different from those in the north.

In the south the sea is generally of a beautiful blue colour, and the land brings forth corn and fruit with less labour bestowed on it than in the more northern parts. There are vineyards there, and groves of oranges, and lemons.

In the west and middle of Europe the weather is not so warm as in the south; but the land brings forth plenty

of corn, and grass, and many fruits. Our own country is in the west. Look on your map, in the sea on the western side of Europe, for the British Isles: there you will find two large islands, and several smaller ones: it is in one of these islands that we live.

The largest island is Great Britain ; it contains England, and Wales, and Scotland: the other is Ireland.

Between the middle and the south of Europe the land rises into very high mountains, called the Alps. These are so high that you may see them, when you are a very long way off, rising far up into the sky, all white and shining; for snow and ice, which never melt away, lie upon the highest parts of the Alps.

Many rivers run down from the

mountains.

The eastern part of Europe, towards Asia, is full of great open plains; you may travel over them for days, and never see a hill, sometimes not a tree -only grass, and horses and cattle feeding upon it: in other parts, the

plains are covered with great forests, in which bears, and wolves, and other wild creatures live.

ASIA is much larger than Europe. The northern part of Asia is, like that of Europe, very cold.

Some of the people who live there make their houses under ground in the winter; they dig a great square hole in the earth, and make a fireplace in the middle of it with stones: the hole is covered over with earth, and that is their house.

The middle of Asia is full of immense

plains, like those in the east of Europe; but some of those in Asia are full of sand or stones: the others are covered with grass. The people who live there are called Tartars; they do not live in towns or villages, but wander over the plains with their camels, and horses, and sheep.

In the east of Asia is the large and pleasant country of China, from which most of our tea is brought. A great deal of sugar grows in China, as well as tea, and rice, and cotton, and many more good and useful things.

The Chinese work very hard. They are very odd-looking; for the men shave off all their hair, excepting one tuft upon the crown, and that grows very long, and hangs all down their backs. When they are at work they twist this long tail of hair round their neck, that it may be out of their way.

All the south of Asia is very hot indeed. Beautiful flowers, and birds, and insects are found there, and spices, and precious stones; but there are also fierce beasts and terrible serpents.

The chief country in the south is India, or Hindostan.

Look on the map, and you will see what a great country it is, and how far it reaches into the sea, on the south side. It is so hot that the people need scarcely any clothes; they dress themselves in thin cotton or muslin. They are of a very dark colour, and have long, smooth, black hair.

There is hardly any furniture in an Indian cottage. The people sit upon the ground, and sleep upon a a mat, which they weave from the hairy outside of the cocoa-nut. The cocoa-nut tree is very plentiful in India.

In the north of India there are the very highest mountains in the world; some of them are almost twice as high as the Alps. in Europe.

In the south-western part of Asia is a country called Syria, and another called Arabia.

Arabia is chiefly made up of deserts, where the ground under your feet is hot, dry sand; but, here and there, there are grassy places, with trees, and