324

THE YOUTH’S CABINET.

 

that this good captain, who used to be so
kind to the sailors, was lost at sea. I was
not in the ship at the time. I was in an-
other ship. I got sick of catching whales,
so I did not want to go in a whale-ship
any more. The ship in which this cap-
tain was sailing was very near the shore,
and there were some high rocks that
stood quite down to the edge of the wa-
ter. It was foggy at the time. The cap-
tain did not know that the ship was so
near the rocks, because he could not see
through the fog. The wind blew very
hard, and blew the ship upon the rocks.
In a minute the ship broke in pieces, and
all but two or three of the men who were
in it were lost. The captain was lost
among the rest. So was little George.
When the storm was over, and the wind
stopped blowing, that dear boy was found
on the shore, dead. There was a smile
on his face, just such a smile as he used
to have when he was living. There was
a little Bible in his pocket. It was all
wet with salt water. But there was some
writing on one of the leaves which any-
body could read. It said, “This book
was given to little George by his dear
mother.”

 

Sorrows of Children.

HE transient nature of the sorrows
of children has been often remark-
ed on by writers; but by none so
beautifully as in the following lines

by Sir Walter Scott :—

“The tear down childhood’s cheek that flows,
Is like the dew-drop on the rose ;
When next the summer breeze comes by,
Aad waves the bush, the flower is dry.”

A Lake of Pitch.

CORRESPONDENT of the Troy Whig,
{th at Port of Spain, Trinidad, gives
‘)\. the following description of the
Pitch Lake near La Brea, in that
island: —‘“ Imagine a black surface—a
dreary, desolate black—spread out to the
length of nearly half a mile, by an eighth
in width, slightly varied by many fis-
sures—some of them but a step across,
some just too wide to jump, a few of
these fissures filled with short shrubbery,
but most of them mere ponds of water—
of water clear as the mountain spring;
and then imagine the whole bordered by
a thick growth of trees and the graceful,
bending bamboo, and this whole border
thickly hanging with a profusion and vari-
ety of beautiful flowers—I know not the
spot elsewhere where the eye can rest on
such a profusion of flowers at a glance—
and this may possibly convey some gene-
ral idea of the peculiarity of a general
view. For a closer inspection of the cen-
tral part of the lake, I was obliged to
repeat my visit the next morning, securing
the services of a negro to carry a plank,
to bridge the unjumpable fissures. I then
found spots where the surface of the pitch
would gradually sink beneath my feet, so
that in a few moments I stood in a cavity
ankle deep. Not wishing to pitch deeper,
I changed my position. In other places
it seemed to be boiling below; for the
surface around me was bubbling and sim-
mering like that of a pot over the fire,
while the gas thus disengaged was very
strong. Though the surface of the lake
is generally too hard to receive a foot-
print—just hard enough to cut readily
with an axe—there are places where the
pitch oozes out in nearly a liquid form.