of oil. We soon passed her. I wish her good
luck."

I will no longer stretch the small, sad boy upon the rack of his dull
journal. He had a glimpse at Juan Fernandez, but the island of his
dreams was so far off that he had to climb to the maintop in order to
get a sight of its shadowy outline. When it had faded away like the
clouds, the lonely little fellow cried himself to sleep for love of his
Robinson Crusoe.

One night the moon--a large, mellow tropical one,--rose from a bank of
cloud so like a mountain's chain that the small one clapped his hands in
glee and cried: "Land ho!" But, alas! it was only cloud-land; and his
eyes, that were starving for a sight of God's green earth, were again
bedewed. Indeed he was bound for a distant shore, a voyage of ninety-one
days; and during all that voyage he was in sight of land for five days
only. It may be said that the port he was bound for, and where he was
destined to pass two years at school, four thousand miles from his own
people, may be called "The Vale of Tears."

Off the Brazilian coast a head-wind forced the ship to tack repeatedly;
she was sometimes so near the land that people could be seen moving,
like black dots, along the shore. Native fishermen, mounted upon the
high seats of their catamarans--the frailest rafts,--drifted within
hailing distance; and over night the brave ship was within almost
speaking distance of Pernambuco. The lights of the city were like a bed
of glowworms,--but the small, sad boy was blown off into the sea again,
for his hour had not yet come.

Here is the last entry I shall weary you with, for I would not abuse
your patience:

"APRIL 5, 1857.--I was _awoke_ this morning by the noise the pilot made
in getting on board. At ten o'clock the steam-tug Hercules took us in
tow. We had beautiful views of the shore [God knows how beautiful they
were in his eyes!], and at three o'clock we were at the Astor House,
with Captain and Mrs. Cresey, Mr. Connor, and the Stoddard boys--all of
the _Flying Cloud_,--where we retired to soft beds to spend the night."

There is a plaintive touch in that reference to _soft beds_ after three
months in the straight and narrow bunk of a ship. And there is more
pathos in all those childish pages than you wot of; for, alas and alas!
I am the sole survivor,--I was that small, sad boy; and I alone am left
to tell the tale.

A BIT OF OLD CHINA

"It is but a step from Confucius to confusion," said I, in a