, while masses of lava cover the ground,
having been blown into weird and fantastic shapes when soft.

In among the cones low underbrush and cacti grow, and feeding upon these
are found the great tortoises, which at the approach of danger draw in
their heads with a loud hiss or move slowly and clumsily away. Their
strength is enormous. A small one, three feet long, carried the writer
along a hard floor with perfect ease, and one of the largest would
probably not be inconvenienced by a weight of five hundred pounds. They
attain a great age, often living, it is said, a hundred years or more.

While we have been digressing, the turtles have been dumped into the
great moat that surrounds the fort, and, stretched upon the deck, the
sable crew are fast asleep. The writer has been watching a large
three-master moving along two or three miles beyond Loggerhead Key. Our
attention is distracted for some time, and, upon looking again, we find
that she has not moved, and impart the fact to Sandy, who looks steadily
through his long spy-glass, evidently made up of several others; then,
gazing intently over the top, he brings all hands to their feet by the
cry of "Wrack!" For Sandy is a licensed "wracker."

The man-of-war orders now uttered find no place in any known code, and
in a moment the Bull Pup becomes a scene of unwonted excitement. The
jib, mainsail, and gaff topsail are hauled up to their very tautest;
finally, the cable is slipped, and then old Sandy for the first time
looks around. The boys fail to suppress a loud guffaw, and forthwith
dodge the flying tiller. The old man in the excitement had forgotten an
important factor in the navigation of sailing-craft,--namely, wind. It
was a dead calm, and had been all day, and there, almost within reach,
was a fortune,--hard and fast on the outer reef.

C.F. HOLDER.

* * * * *

ROUGHING IT IN PALESTINE.

Mohammed can do less than Mammon to-day for the infidel's ease and
comfort in Palestine. The unholy little yellow god works his modern
miracles even in the Holy Land. You have but to speak the word, and show
your purse or letter of credit, in Beirut or Jaffa, and, as suddenly as
if you had rubbed Aladdin's lamp, a retinue will be at your door to do
your bidding. First a dragoman, with great baggy trousers of silk, a
little gold-embroidered jacket over a colored vest, a girdle whose most
ample folds form an arsenal of no mean proportion