2.

 

 

 

 

WATURAL SCENES.
No. L—A STREAM,

RYSTAL streams are beautiful things, too often

poisoned and defiled by human passions. The
little rill that drains the heathery knol! above must
sometimes carry to the river and the sea the blood
that crieth unto God. Every reader of history has
heard of the Granicus, the Allia, the Bannockburn,
the ‘Iser rolling rapidly” What a fierce struggle
was that on the banks of the Phrygian Granicus,
when Alexander (called the Great) and the mighty
Persian host met and wrestled for the price of
victory! When the Greek came to the river-side he
saw the Persian banners displayed across the running
water, the banners of a hundred thousand men!
Alexander was advised by his captains to wait and
refresh his troops. i

‘Wait?’ shouted the earnest warrior; ‘not I! It
would be a shame to let a rivulet like this bar my
way.’ He called it a rivulet, in scorn, though it was
wide and deep, and had high, craggy banks.

‘No,’ said the hero, ‘let us attack them directly,
while they are yet alarmed by our sudden arrival.’

Alexander then called for his horse, and bade his
nobles follow him. The trumpets sounded, and the
army raised a shout of joy. The Greek leader sprang
into the Granicus with thirteen troops of horse, and
as he advanced across the rapid river in the face of
the Persian arrows, and nearly covered with waves,
he seemed a madman to do such a thing; but he held
on, and gained the banks, slippery and dangerous.
There hé was obliged to fight hand-to-hand, and he
would have been killed by the battle-axe of Rosaces,
a relation ‘of Darius, had not his friend Clitus killed
Rosaces with one blow of his sword, and so saved
his sovereign’s life. The Persians were beaten, and
the blood of twenty thousand brave men flowed into
the river, and made it famous unto this day.

The Allia, too, ran crimson one July day, long ago,
when the savage Gauls were approaching Rome.
Vainly did the citizens bustle out to meet and check
their ferocious invaders. They were led by brave
tribunes, but they were an untrained mob, and their
leaders had not one plan. Soon were the Romans
beaten and put to flight, and Rome was sacked and
burnt. This battle beside the little Allia was fought
when the moon was full, and about the summer
solstice, and the day was called ‘the Day of Allia,’ an
unlucky day, for many hundreds of years afterwards.

And what of Bannockburn? That great. battle,
too, happened on a summer day, when the thorn was

‘white with blossom, and the rivulet murmured

sweetly onward to the sea, under laughing skies, and
among green meadows. It was on a Monday morning
when the mighty English army approached in
splendid array. The Scottish patriots, who, under
the heroic Bruce, were about to lay down their lives
for freedom, calmly awaited Edward’s host. We
need not go into the details of that famous conflict.
Suffice to say it ended in a total defeat for the
Inglish. Two hundred knights and many of the
chief nobles were slain, and King Edward escaped
with difficulty, being pursued as far as Dunbar, where
he found refuge in a castle.

Then there is the Rubicon, a little stream, but

 

famous. <A man is pacing up and down its bank, as
if uncertain what to do. That is Julius Cesar, one
of the greatest men of all time. He is pondering
whether he shall or shall not go and ruin his rival,
Pompey. Pompey was then at Rome, doing all he
could to ruin Cesar. Cesar had but few soldiers
with him, though there were many devoted to him
on the other side the Alps, and it seemed hazardous
to go and beard Pompey. But at last he cried aloud,
‘The die is cast !’ and he crossed the Rubicon. Pompey
did not wait for Cesar, but fled into another country,
whither Cesar soon followed him. Pompey was
beaten in a battle on the plains of Pharsalia, and fled
to Egypt, where he was murdered. When Cesar
saw Pompey’s dead body he wept bitterly.

But all rivers are not thus linked with bloodshed.
Some 250 years ago an act was obtained ‘ for bringing
afresh stream of running water to the north part of
the city of London. There was a difficulty in doing
this, until Mr. Hugh Myddleton, a Welsh goldsmith,
offered to accomplish the work. Many were his
obstacles in coaxing the waters of the Chadwell and
Amvell to flow to the town, but, like a great man,
he persevered; and in about four years’ time a troop
of labourers wearing green caps, and carrying shoyels
and pickaxes, opened the flood-gates, and allowed the
stream to flow: drums and trumpets sounding in a
triumphal manner, and great guns firing a noisy
salute. Mr. Hugh became Sir Hugh, but he was
ruined by his public-spirited action, which has been
well called ‘an immortal work.’

‘A full and clear river,’ says Sir H. Davy, ‘is one
of the most poetical objects in nature. A great
writer has compared it to man’s life. And it well
fulfils the comparison. Look at it, small and clear in
its birth, when it breaks from the rocks, like the river
Aire for instance, in Malham Cove. It falls into
deep glens, and wanton windings through a wild and
beautiful country, nourishing only the: uncultivated
tree or flower by its moisture. In this, its state of
infancy, it may be likened to the human mind, when
fancy and imagination are strongest. It is then more
beautiful than useful. When the many rills and
torrents join, and their united volume flows through
the plain, it is then slow and stately in its motions ;
it moves the mill-wheel, and waters the meadow, and
bears upon its bosom the stately barge: in this mature
state it is deep, strong, and useful. Then, as it flows
nearer the sea, it loses its force and its motion, and
at last becomes as it were a river no more, but part
of the mighty abyss of waters.

 

 

 

THE THRRORS OF WEALTH.

Te great Jewish banker, Nathan Rothschild, with

all his hoarding, was not a happy man. Dangers
and assassinations haunted his imagination by day
and by night, and not, it must be confessed, without
grounds. Often, as he himself has told, before sitting
down to dinner, his appetite has been disturbed by
the receipt of such a note as.this: ‘If you do not
send me at once the sum of 5002. I will blow out your
brains.’ He affected to despise these threats; but,
for all that, they did disturb his mind. Every night,
before going to bed, he loaded his pistols carefully,
and laid them down beside him.