What is the characteristic feature of Nature in South America? What striking contrast do the llanos of South America present at different seasons? Wherein do they differ from the wintry solitudes of Siberia? What refreshment does the mule obtain in the savanna? What effect has the drought upon animated nature? What animals bury themselves for the season? What sometimes adds its ravages to complete the image of death? What is the best way to escape from it? What signs announce the approach of the rainy season? What is remarkable about the revival of vegetation? What animals return to the savanna? Into what have the tropical rains converted it?
THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENAMay 5, 1821WILD was the night,yet a wilder night
Hung round the soldier"s pillow;
In his bosom there raged a fiercer fight Than the fight on the wrathful billow.
A few fond mourners were kneeling by, -
The few that his stern heart cherished;
They knew, by his glazed and unearthly eye, That life had nearly perished.
They knew, by his awful and kingly look, By the order hastily spoken,That he dreamed of days when the nations shook, And the nations" hosts were broken.
He dreamed that the Frenchmen"s sword still slew, Still triumphed the Frenchmen"s "eagle;"And the struggling Austrian fled anew,Like the hare before the beagle.
The bearded Russian he scourged again, The Prussian"s camp was routed;And again on the hills of haughty Spain His mighty armies shouted.
Over Egypt"s sands, over Alpine snows, At the pyramids, at the mountain,Where the wave of the lordly Danube flows,And by the Italian fountain;On the snowy cliffs where mountain streamsDash by the Switzer"s dwelling,He led again, in his dying dreams, His hosts, the broad earth quelling.
NOTES
① Wild was the night.-"As if to mark a closing point of resemblance betwixt Cromwell and Napoleon, a dreadful tempest arose on the 4th of May, which preceded the day that was to close the mortal existence of this extraordinary man. A willow, which had been the exile"s favourite, and under which he often enjoyed the fresh breeze, was torn up by the hurricane; and almost all the trees about Longwood shared the same fate. The 5th of May came amid wind and rain. Napoleon"s passing spirit was deliriously engaged in a strife more terrible than that of the elements around. The words "Tete d"armee," the last which escaped his lips, intimated that his thoughts were watching the current of a heady fight. About eleven minutes before six in the evening, Napoleon, after a struggle which indicated the original strength of his constitution, breathed his last."-SCOTT"S Life of Napoleon .
② Beagle, a small hound, formerly used in hunting hares.
③ Marengo, in Italy, where Napoleon, after crossing the Alps, defeated the Austrians in 1800.
④ Jena, in Saxe-Weimar (Germany), where Napoleon defeated the Prussians in 1806.
⑤ In the rocky land, &c.-He was buried on St. Helena in 1821; but in 1840 his remains were, with the consent of England, removed to France, and reinterred in Paris.
⑥ "Left him alone with his glory."-This is from the last line of "The Burial of Sir John Moore."