it, the tiger takes them in his paw, and throws them ashore. The Icelanders are said, at one time, to have taught bears to jump into the sea, and catch seals. In China, birds are equally well trained; for, at a signal, they dive into the lakes and bring up large fish, grasped in their bills. In Greece1, the fishermen use branches of pine, steeped in pitch, and lighted; the inhabitants of Amorgos used cypress-leaved cedar, which serves, when lighted, as a flambeau; and the Chinese fish in the night with white painted boards, placed in a manner to reflect the rays of the moon upon the water doubly. These attract the fish to the boat; when the men cast a large net, and seldom fail to draw out considerable quantities. Anchovies are frequently fished for in a similar manner.

XI.

Many and delightful are the associations, connected with rivers!With the Nile we associate the rebuke of Apollonius of Tyana to the cruel natives of Egypt. "Reverence the Nile," said he; "but why do I mention the Nile among men, who prefer measuring the rising of blood to the rising of water?"-Do our minds repose upon the Senegal? So beautiful are its banks, that the stranger fancies he sees the primitive simplicity of the first parents of mankind; blooming, as it were, in the morning of nature.-The Cydnus? In a barge, whose

1 The ancient Greeks and Syrians long abstained from eating the fish of their coasts; and it is remarkable, that Homer nowhere mentions fish as being served up at his numerous banquets.

2 Philost. in vit. Apol. v. c. 26.

Adanson, Voy. to Senegal, i. 345.

poop was of beaten gold; whose oars were of silver, moved to the music of flutes; and whose purple sails were perfumed with various odours, reclines the luxurious Cleopatra, in a pavilion, covered with silk. On each side of her stand boys, like Cupids, fanning her with various coloured fans, while delicious perfumes pervade the vessel. Antony sups with the queen; she wins his heart; and he loses the world!

Does a classical stranger stand upon the banks of the Issus? He remembers that battle in which the Persians lost 10,000 horse, 100,000 foot, and 40,000 prisoners ; while Alexander lost but 450! In this battle the conqueror took Sisygambis, the mother of Darius: she, who slew herself on the death of Alexander, after having witnessed the fate of her husband and eighty of her brothers; the destruction of her son, the loss of an empire, and the ruin of her subjects!

The Vistula? It is immortalized by the death of Vanda, duchess of Poland. Vanda was the most beautiful and accomplished princess of the age, in which she lived. Rithogar, a Teutonic prince, hearing of her fame, despatched an ambassador, to demand her in marriage; with orders to declare war, if she refused the invitation. This method of courtship not suiting the taste of the duchess, the prince prepared for war. Vanda marched at the head of her troops, and encountered Rithogar on the banks of the Vistula. The troops of the prince fled at the first onset; and thus losing the battle, Rithogar slew himself in despair. Vanda, in the meantime, mourned the victory she had gained; for, having beheld Rithogar, she had become enamoured of

him: but her nobles prevented their union. Upon learning the fate of her lover, Vanda threw herself into the Vistula; and her name was given to the country since called Vandalia.

Do we think of the Clitumnus? We behold milkwhite heifers wandering in its meadows.-The Galesus of Calabria? We see flocks of sheep, with soft and flexible wool.-The Eurotas? Olives, laurels, and myrtles are seen growing on its borders.-Do we float in imagination on the bosom of the Plata? We associate its periodical overflowings with those of the Euphrates, the Indus, and the Senegal.-Why does a small rivulet in Pembrokeshire send the imagination into Spain, into Sweden, ancient Phrygia, and the island of St. Domingo? Because it sinks into a cavern; and, passing under ground, rises again, and falls into the sea. Thus does the Vadiana, in Spain; the Gottenburgh, in Sweden; and the Lycus, in Phrygia: while, in St. Domingo, there is a cave, where several brooks and rivers are precipitated with so great a noise, that its echo may be heard at the distance of several leagues.-Can the Itchin be accidentally associated with the Camilla of Virgil? Bathing once in its stream, I saw a fisherman bind his clothes with some osiers, fasten the whole round a stake, and throw it over the river. The stake stuck in the opposite bank; the fisherman then swam over himself. He seemed the father of Camilla! Metabus, king of Privernum, being dethroned for his tyranny, snatched up his daughter, and fled, his enemies pursuing him as dogs chase a stag. Coming to the banks of a river, and fearing to lose his daughter, if he attempts to swim over it with her in his

arms, he takes his spear, fastens the child with osiers, and covering the middle with cork, hurls the spear with all the force he is master of. The spear sticks in the opposite shore, as he had hoped. He swims over, takes the child again in his arms, and devotes himself to the woods. Near the top of a mountain he forms a cave, and lives remote from all society. Becoming a shepherd, he feeds his daughter with the milk of mares, and savage animals. When the little Amazon can bear its weight, she is taught to hold a javelin in her hand, a bow and a quiver of arrows hang at her back, while the skin of a tiger flows loosely over her shoulders. All the matrons of Tuscany desire this young Diana for their sons. She refuses them all, resolved to retain her state of virginity. In the war between Turnus and Eneas, she sides with the former; and, attended by her amazonian companions, Tulla, Tarpeia, and Lavinia, her actions and her death form the best portion of the 11th Eneid.

CHAPTER II.

Not only rivers, but fountains, have been held sacred by almost every nation: equally are they beloved by the poets. Who has not perused with pleasure Sannazaro's ode to the fountain of Mergillini; that of Fracastorius to the spring near the Lake di Garda; or that of Horace to the fountain of Brundusium? When Petrarch first

beheld that of Vaucluse1, in company with his father and his uncle, Settimo, he was, though a boy, so enchanted with it, that he exclaimed, "were I master of this fountain, I would prefer this spot to the finest of cities."

There is something venerable in the very name of fountain. We say, "the fountain of life," and "the fountain of knowledge;" and the image of Truth (the daughter of Time and the mother of Virtue) is fabled to have been first discovered at the bottom of a fountain, clad in a white robe, of a symmetrical figure, and of a mild, modest, diffident, and attractive countenance. Truth?" Of all the divinities that nature has discovered to the mind of man," observes Polybius, "the most beautiful is Truth. Her power is as great as her beauty. For, notwithstanding all conspire to overwhelm her; and notwithstanding every artifice is employed by her adversaries, espousing the cause of Error, to effect a conquest over her, yet, I know not how it is, she never fails, by her own native force, to make her way into the human mind. Sometimes she displays her power immediately; sometimes only after having been a long time enveloped in darkness. She nevertheless surmounts every opposition, and triumphs over every error by her own essential energy." She is, as an Hebrew writer has sublimely expressed it, the strength, kingdom, power, and majesty of all ages.

Pliny alludes to this fountain: "Est in provincia Narbonnensi nobilis fons, Orgo, nomine. In eo herbe nascuntur in tantum expetitæ bubus, ut mersis capitibus eas quærant.

2 Esdras, ch. iv. v. 40.