alking over old times--telling tales
of storms and shipwrecks, or more terrible still, of battles at sea.

Those who fought under the heroic Lord Nelson most love to talk of him,
for he was idolized by all his men.

In the great hall of the hospital hang many pictures of him and his
battles; and there also, in a glass case, are kept the clothes which he
wore when he was killed--all stained with his blood. Not a man among
his veteran seamen can look at these relics without feeling his dim old
eyes grow yet more dim with tears. Among the pictures, there was one
which, though not very fine in itself, impressed me not a little at the
time, and which I still remember vividly. It represents an adventure
which happened to Lord Nelson when he was a young sailor-boy, cruising
in the north seas. In the picture, he seems to have wandered off in a
freak of boyish rashness, far from the boat and crew, and is standing
on the ice, surrounded by vast wastes and mountains of ice, alone, but
in a very fearless attitude, facing a monstrous white bear, who is
evidently coming up, eagerly, to _hug_ the young mariner, yet has any
thing but an affectionate expression on his ugly face. Nelson has his
long knife drawn, and seems to say: "Come on; I'm ready for you, old
fellow!"

I do not remember ever to have read any account of this adventure, so I
cannot tell how it terminated for the bear. We know well enough that
Bruin did not get the better of Nelson, for he lived to fight again and
again with foes no less ferocious than the bear, though without his
excuse of brute instincts and hunger. But only suppose it had been
different; suppose the bear had killed and eaten the hero of Trafalgar,
like any common sailor-boy, what a difference it would have made with
the glory and boasting of England, and it may be, in its power on land
and sea.

In the eastern part of Greenwich Park are "the barrows," very singular
circular mounds, supposed to be burial-places of ancient Britons.
These the English people so much respect that they will not suffer them
to be opened, or even levelled.

Just without the park lies Blackheath, a large expanse of common, full
a mile wide, and more than that long, I should say. Opening off from
this is Blackheath Park, and here, in a lovely homelike cottage,
embowered in trees and flowers and vines, I spent some of the happiest
days of my happy visit in England. Oh, I so often think with a sad
longing of that h