nglish which those poor souls could understand! In despair I
glanced at the clock: it lacked thirty minutes of the end of school; at
the other teachers: they were all glibly responding. Guiltily I said,
"Very well. Begin and read the chapter over again, very slowly; and when
you come to any word you do not understand, tell me, and I will try to
explain it to you."

Their countenances fell. This was not the way they had usually been
taught. But with the meekness of a down-trodden people they obeyed. It
worked even better than I had hoped. Poor souls! they probably did not
understand enough to select the words which perplexed them. They
trudged patiently through their verses again without question. But my
Charybdis was near. The sixth verse came to the brightest boy. As he
read, "Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your
tradition," he paused after the word tradition. I trembled.

"Arx-play-in trardition," he said.

"What?" said I, feebly, to gain a second's more of time. "What word did
you say?"

"Trardition," he persisted. "What are trardition? Arx-play-in."

What I said I do not know. Probably I should not tell if I did. But I am
very sure that never in all my life have I found myself, and never in
all the rest of my life shall I find myself, in so utterly desperate a
dilemma as I was then, with those patient, earnest, oblique eyes fixed
on me, and the gentle Chinese voice reiterating, "What are trardition?"

MARIPOSA GROVE AND YOSEMITE VALLEY.

CHARLES LORING BRACE.

[Our sketches of travel in America will not be complete without
descriptive narratives relating to its great natural wonders,
of which the United States possesses more examples than any
other country on the globe. The present selection, therefore,
from Brace's "The New West, or California in 1867-68," is
devoted to a brief account of the monster trees of that State
and the scenic marvels of the Yosemite Valley.]

The great pleasure of the American continent will hereafter be the
journey to the Yosemite. There is no one object of nature in the world,
except Niagara, to equal it in attraction. Whenever the Pacific road
brings the two coasts within a fortnight of each other, innumerable
parties will be made up to visit it. I have been tolerably familiar, by
foot-journeys, with Switzerland, Tyrol, and Norway, and I can truly say
that no one scene in those grand regions can compare equa