ountry,
and which it produced in the life of our author. As for his
journey from New York to Philadelphia, it presents, for the
time involved, as great a series of adventures and hardships
as does Stanley's recent journey through Central Africa. And
as regards his own history, the contrast between the
Franklin of 1723 and 1783 was as great as that which has
come upon the city of his adoption. There is something
amusingly ludicrous in the picture of the great Franklin,
soiled with travel, a dollar in his pocket representing his
entire wealth, walking up Market Street with two great rolls
of bread under his arms and gnawing hungrily at a third;
while his future wife peers from her door, and laughs to
herself at this awkward youth, who looked as if he had never
set foot on city street before.

We can hardly imagine this to be the Franklin who afterwards
became the associate of the great and the admired of
nations, who argued the cause of America before the
assembled notables of England, who played a leading part in
the formation of the Constitution of the United States, and
to whom Philadelphia owes several of its most thriving and
useful institutions. Millions of people have since poured
into the City of Brotherly Love, but certainly no other
journey thither has been nearly so momentous in its
consequences as the humble one above described.

THE PERILS OF THE WILDERNESS.

On the 31st day of October, in the year 1753, a young man,
whose name was as yet unknown outside the colony of
Virginia, though it was destined to attain world-wide fame,
set out from Williamsburg, in that colony, on a momentous
errand. It was the first step taken in a series of events
which were to end in driving the French from North America,
and placing this great realm under English control,--the
opening movement in the memorable French and Indian War. The
name of the young man was George Washington. His age was
twenty-one years. He began thus, in his earliest manhood,
that work in the service of his country which was to
continue until the end.

The enterprise before the young Virginian was one that
needed the energies of youth and the unyielding perseverance
of an indefatigable spirit. A wilderness extended far and
wide before him, partly broken in Virginia, but farther on
untouched by the hand of civilization. Much of his route lay
over rugged mountains, pathless save by the narrow and
difficult Indian trails. The whole distance