state for wheel carriages. Parts of India are hilly, and the elephant is largely employed as a beast of burden. A male elephant, full grown, can carry about a ton weight, and travel with it fifty miles a day, and if properly used, will live for a hundred years.

7. The native princes, as well as the English people, make use of the elephant on state occasions, for which purpose a crib, called a houdah, is fastened upon him, and decked out in the most gorgeous manner, and princes and rulers ride on him in all the pomp of the east, and in the same manner as they did many thousand years ago.

LESSON 37.-LUCY GRAY.-Part 1.

OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray;
And, when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day,
The solitary child.

No mate, no comrade, Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wild moor,
The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.

powdery wandered reached

"To-night will be a stormy night-
You to the town must go;

And take a lantern, child, to light
Your mother through the snow."
"That, father, will I gladly do!
'Tis scarcely afternoon-

The minster-clock has just struck two,
And yonder is the moon."

At this the father raised his hook
And snapped a fagot band;
He plied his work ;-and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe:
With many a wanton stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time:
She wandered up and down:
And many a hill did Lucy climb;
But never reached the town.

LESSON 38.-LUCY GRAY.-Part 2.

The wretched parents all that night,

Went shouting far and wide;

But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.

At daybreak on a hill they stood
That overlooked the moor;

And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from the door.

rough

solitary

whistles

And, turning homeward, now they cried,
"In heaven we all shall meet!"
When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downward from the steep hill's edge
They tracked the footmarks small;
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone wall:

And then an open field they crossed:
The marks were still the same;
They tracked them on, nor ever lost;
And to the bridge they came.
The followed from the snowy bank
The footmarks one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;

And further there were none !

Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child;

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along,

And never looks behind;

And sings a solitary song

That whistles in the wind.

1. THE reindeer is a most useful animal to the inhabitants of cold countries, and is well adapted to the life it has to live. To the

Laplanders the reindeer is a substitute for the horse, the cow, and the sheep.

2. Harnessed to the sledge, the reindeer bounds over the frozen lakes and rivers, or the hard snow; of its milk cheese is made, they eat its flesh for food, the skins serve for tents, bedding, and clothing.

3. It is said, that a couple of reindeer yoked to a sledge, can travel more than a hundred miles in a day, with a load of six hundred pounds. The sledge is formed something like a boat, and it has a back board for the rider to lean against.

4. The traveller is tied in the sledge like a child in his cradle. He holds the rein or halter, which is fastened to the deer's head, on his right thumb. When the driver is ready to start, he shakes the rein, and the animal springs forward with great speed.

5. He now directs his course by the rein and by his voice, he sings to him as he goes along, speaks kindly to him, and cheers him on his way. He never strikes or hurts him, for he loves the animal too much to be cruel to him.

6. The Laplanders are thus enabled to travel in winter by night and day, when the whole country, far and wide, is entirely covered by snow, and scarcely a hut or tree is to be seen, and they travel from one part of Lapland to the other in a very short space of time. In the royal palace of Sweden is the portrait of a reindeer, which is said to have travelled with letters eight hundred English miles in forty-eight hours.

7. The principal winter food of the reindeer is a species of lichen or moss, which covers large tracts of the northern regions, and which the deer scratch out with their feet. In the summer they browse upon the shrubs and plants they find on their march, and pasture on the green herbage.