duct the Spaniards to their residence in the capital, and, again entering his litter, was borne off amidst prostrate crowds in the same state in which he had come. The Spaniards quickly followed, and, with colors flying and 5 music playing, soon made their entrance into the southern quarter of Tenochtitlan.

Here, again, they found fresh cause for admiration in the grandeur of the city and the superior style of its architecture. The dwellings of the poorer class were, 10 indeed, chiefly of reeds and mud. But the great avenue through which they were now marching was lined with the houses of the nobles, who were encouraged by the emperor to make the capital their residence. They were built of a red porous stone drawn from quarries in the 15 neighborhood, and, though they rarely rose to a second story, often covered a large space of ground. The flat roofs, azoteas, were protected by stone parapets, so that every house was a fortress. Sometimes these roofs resembled parterres of flowers, so thickly were they covered 20 with them, but more frequently these were cultivated in broad terraced gardens, laid out between the edifices. Occasionally a great square or market place intervened, surrounded by its porticoes of stone and stucco; or a pyramidal temple reared its colossal bulk, crowned with 25 its tapering sanctuaries, and altars blazing with inextinguishable fires. The great street facing the southern. causeway, unlike most others in the place, was wide, and extended some miles in nearly a straight line, as before noticed, through the center of the city. A spectator 30 standing at one end of it, as his eye ranged along the deep

vista of temples, terraces, and gardens, might clearly discern the other, with the blue mountains in the distance, which, in the transparent atmosphere of the table-land, seemed almost in contact with the buildings.

But what most impressed the Spaniards was the throngs 5 of people who swarmed through the streets and on the canals, filling every doorway and window and clustering on the roofs of the buildings. "I well remember the spectacle," exclaims Bernal Diaz; "it seems now, after so

Hernando Cortés.

many years, as present to my mind 10 as if it were but yesterday." But what must have been the sensations of the Aztecs themselves, as they looked on the portentous pageant ! as they heard, now 15 for the first time, the wellcemented pavement ring under the iron tramp of the horses, the strange animals which fear had clothed in 20

such supernatural terrors: as they gazed on the children of

the East, revealing their celestial origin in their fair complexions; saw the bright falchions and bonnets of steel, a metal to them unknown, glancing like meteors in the sun, 25 while sounds of unearthly music-at least, such as their rude instruments had never wakened-floated in the air?

As they passed down the spacious street, the troops repeatedly traversed bridges suspended above canals, along which they saw the Indian barks gliding swiftly 30

with their little cargoes of fruits and vegetables for the markets of Tenochtitlan. At length they halted before a broad area near the center of the city, where rose the huge pyramidal pile dedicated to the patron war god of 5 the Aztecs, second only, in size as well as sanctity, to the temple of Cholula, and covering the same ground now in part occupied by the great cathedral of Mexico.

Facing the western gate of the inclosure of the temple, stood a low range of stone buildings, spreading over a 10 wide extent of ground, the palace of Axayacatl, Montezuma's father, built by that monarch about fifty years before. It was appropriated as the barracks of the Spaniards. The emperor himself was in the courtyard, waiting to receive them. Approaching Cortés, he took from 15 a vase of flowers, borne by one of his slaves, a massy collar, in which the shell of a species of crawfish, much prized by the Indians, was set in gold and connected by heavy links of the same metal. From this chain depended eight ornaments, also of gold, made in resemblance of the 20 same shellfish, a span in length each, and of delicate workmanship; for the Aztec goldsmiths were confessed to have shown skill in their craft not inferior to their brethren of Europe. Montezuma, as he hung the gorgeous collar round the general's neck, said, "This palace be25 longs to you, Malinche" (the epithet by which he always addressed him), "and your brethren. Rest after your fatigues, for you have much need to do so, and in a little while I will visit you again." So saying, he withdrew with his attendants, evincing in this act a delicate consid30 eration not to have been expected in a barbarian.

THE SKYLARK.

Bird of the wilderness,

Blithesome and cumberless,

Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling place:

Oh to abide in the desert with thee!

Wild is thy lay, and loud,

Far in the downy cloud :

Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.

Where, on thy dewy wing,

Where art thou journeying?

Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.

O'er fell and fountain sheen,

O'er moor and mountain green,

O'er the red streamer that heralds the day,

Over the cloudlet dim,

Over the rainbow's rim,

Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!

Then, when the gloaming comes,

Low in the heather blooms

Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be;

Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling place :

Oh to abide in the desert with thee!

-James Hogg.

THE MYSTERY OF THE TADPOLE.

A blade of grass is a mystery, if men would but distill it out. When my learned friend Dr. Syntax, glancing round my workroom, observed a vase full of tadpoles, he asked me in a tone of sniffling superi

ority: "Do you really mean to say

you find any interest in those little beasts?"

"As much as you find in books," I answered, with some

George Henry Lewes.

Very absurd isn't it? But we all have our hobbies. I can pass a bookstall on which I per5 ceive that the ignorance of the bookseller permits him to exhibit now and then rare editions of valuable books at almost no price at all. The sight gives me no thrill it does not even cause me to slacken my pace. But I can't so easily pass a pond in which I see a shoal of tadpoles swimming about, as ignorant of their own value as the bookseller is of his books. I may walk on, but the sight has sent a slight electric shock through me. Why, sir," I said to my learned friend, "there is 5 more to me in the tail of one of those tadpoles than in all the musty old volumes you so much delight to pick up. But I won't thrash your dog unless you thrash mine."

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66

Why, what on earth can you do with the tail?"

SCH. READ. VI.- -8