f Ireland the steamer glided along, among ships
so numerous that the sea seemed a moving city, or the suburbs of a
moving city; for Liverpool itself, with her seven miles of wonderful
docks, is a city of the sea.

The Giant's Causeway, the sunny port of Moville, the rocky islands
with their white light-houses, were passed, and at one o'clock on
Monday morning the last light dropped into the calm sea, fading like a
star.

The Atlantic was perfectly calm--as "calm as a mill-pond" as the
expression is, during the tranquillity of the ocean that follows the
settled summer weather. The steamer was heavily loaded, and had little
apparent motion; bright days and bright nights succeeded each other. A
flock of gulls followed the steamer far out to sea. For three days no
object of interest was seen on the level ocean except the occasional
spouting of a whale.

The sky was a glory in the long twilights. The sun when half set made
the distant ocean seem like an island of fire, and the light clouds
after sunset like hazes drifting away from a Paradisic sphere.

On Thursday morning the shadowy coast of Labrador appeared. The voyage
seemed now virtually ended after four days from land to land. There
were three days more, but the steamer would be in calm water, with
land constantly in view.

The Straits of Belle Isle, some six miles wide, were as calm as had
been the ocean. The Gulf of St. Lawrence--the fishing field of the
world--was like a surface of glass. The sunrise and moonrise were now
magnificent; the sunsets brought scenes to view as wonderful as the
skies of Italy; gigantic mountains rose; clustering sails broke the
monotonous expanse of the glassy sea, and now and then appeared an
Indian canoe such as Jacques Cartier and the early explorers saw
nearly three centuries ago.

The wild shores of Anticosti rose and sunk.

"We are now in the Greater Rhine," said Mr. Beal to the boys,--"the
Rhine of the West."

"How is that?" asked Charlie Leland. "Is not the Hudson the American
Rhine?"

[Illustration: NIAGARA FALLS.]

"It is the New York Rhine," said Mr. Beal, smiling. "The river St.
Lawrence is, by right of analogy, the American Rhine, and so deserves
to be called."

"Which is the larger river?" asked Charlie.

"The larger?"

"Yes, the longer?"

"It does not seem possible that an American schoolboy could seriously
ask such a question! I am sometimes astonished, however, at the
ignorance that older people o