At length a storm, that seemed to rise Ah! isles of Nature's bounty free, A larder in the barren sea, Yet fatal to a Cook! They showed at length, and every soul Grew sleek on thoughts of beef; When through the bows a stanchless hole Was broken by a reef. The ship swung round and clear; but now, The babe was saved-I know not how; Since then, although I do not tell When happened this event, The sea, that spared by miracle, I've proved the risks of polar floe; I've proved the wild typhoon; I've sailed where Maelström used to show, And braved the fierce monsoon. There is no terror of the deep That hath not frowned on me; At me Charybdis raved in vain, Buoyless and beaconless, where chart I've kept good watch and cheery heart, The shocks of fate and weather; What boots the jeer at mermaid's lay, Before the sirens quail, who prey And were, if one would smile on me, The happiest wretch alive. Ah! if they knew-but don't they know?- Might have me for a song! Rovers who prize your liberty, Take not the 'Mantrap' yacht to sea, A. H. G. THE PLAYGROUNDS OF EUROPE. THE Low and the High Pyrenees terms; they fix an administrative boundary, rather than denote a geological feature. Both are Low, because both slope down to the plain of France; and both are High, because the difference of the altitude of their loftiest peaks is not considerable. The highest summits of all the Pyrenees (La Maladetta, Le Mont Perdu, and Le Pic Posets), rise from Spanish ground, to the south of the principal mountain chain. The eighty-eight departments of France (including Corsica and the newly-annexed Savoy and Nice) were named after the most striking geographical circumstance which happens to appertain to each. Thus, Nord, or North, speaks for itself; Finisterre is the French Land's End. Pas-de-Calais takes its name from the passage which we call the Straits of Dover; Calvados from the rocks which fringe its coast; Puy de Dôme from the singular peak which towers above it. Others have rivers for their godfathers and godmothers; as Yonne, Var, Seine et Marne, Charente, and Charente Inferieure. Others, again, derive their title from hills and mountains, as Côte d'Or, or Hill of Gold, Vosges, Hautes Alpes, Basses Alpes, which brings us to our startingpoint, the Hautes Pyrénées and the Basses Pyrénées, besides which there are the Pyrénées Orientales. We are still at Eaux Chaudes, in the so-called Low Pyrenees, thoroughly enjoying a daily soaking in its tepid springs. At Pau, on the 16th of September, the thermometer was up to 70° Fahr., and here the air is hotter still. At Eaux Chaudes, the wind can only blow either up or down the valley; to-day it comes down it, like a sirocco, stirring up what little dust there is. The people call it le vent d'Espagne (the Spanish wind, or the wind from Spain), and say that it will blow in that way until rain comes. My bedroom overlooks the ravine, at the bottom of which rushes and roars the Gave. Here let me state that 'Gave' is not the name of one particular stream, as some travellers have thought, but a Pyreneean word (they have a whole glossary full of local expressions)-meaning a brawling mountain-torrent. Thus, the Gave de Pau is the river which flows past Pau, while the Gave d'Ossau is that which runs through the Val d'Ossau; just as, in Scotland, |