stone dropped a chain's link; slid halfway the boulder, scraping the kelp in its course; careened, and hung over the gravel with one end tilted on a point of the rocky ledge. As it hung suspended, one end buried itself in the gravel near the boulder, while the other end lay aslant up the slope of the rock-covered ledge. Caleb again swam carefully around the stone, opened his arms, and inflating his dress rose five or six feet through the green water, floated over the huge stone, and grasping with his bare hand the lowering chain by which the stone hung, tested its strain. The chain was as rigid as a bar of steel. This showed that the stone was not fully grounded, and therefore dangerous, being likely to slide off at any moment. The diver now sent a telegram of short and long jerks aloft, asking for a crowbar; hooked his legs around the lowering chain and pressed his copper helmet to the chain links to listen to Captain Joe's answer. A series of dull thuds, long and short, struck by a hammer above a means of communication often possible when the depth of water is not great — told him that the crowbar he had asked for would be sent down at once. While he waited motionless, a blackfish pressed his nose to the glass of his face-plate, and scurried off to tell his fellows living in the kelp how strange a thing he had seen that day. A quick jerk from Lacey, and the point of the crowbar dangled over Caleb's head. In an instant, to prevent his losing it in the kelp, he had lashed another and smaller cord about its middle, and with the bar firmly in his hand laid himself flat on the stone. The diver now examined carefully the points of contact between the boulder and the hanging stone, inserted one end of the bar under its edge, sent a warning signal above, braced both feet against the lowering chain, threw his whole strength on the bar, and gave a sharp, quick pull. The next instant the chain tightened; the bar, released from the strain, bound ed from his hand; there was a headlong surge of the huge shadowy mass through the waving kelp, and the great block slipped into its place, stirring up the bot tom silt in a great cloud of water-dust. The first stone of the system of enrockment had been bedded! 66 Caleb clung with both hands to the lowering chain, waited until the water cleared, knocked out the Lewis pin that held the S-hook, thus freeing the chain, and signaled " All clear - hoist." Then he hauled the crowbar towards him by the cord, signaled for the next stone, moved away from the reach of falling bodies, and sat down on a bed of seakelp as comfortably as if it had been a sofa-cushion. These breathing spells rest the lungs of a diver and lighten his work. Being at rest he can manage his dress the better, inflating it so that he is able to get his air with greater ease and regularity. The relief is sometimes so soothing that in long waits the droning of the air-valve will lull the diver into a sleep, from which he is suddenly awakened by a quick jerk on his wrist. Many divers, while waiting for the movements of those above, play with the fish, watch the crabs, or rake over the gravel in search of the thousand and one things that are lost overboard and that everybody hopes to find on the bottom of the sea. Caleb did none of these things. He was too expert a diver to allow himself to go to sleep, and he had too much to think about. He sat quietly awaiting his call, his thoughts on the day of the week and how long it would be before Saturday night came again, and whether, when he left that morning, he had arranged everything for the little wife, so that she would be comfortable until his return. return. Once a lobster, thinking them some tidbit previously unknown, moved slowly up and nipped his red fingers with its claw. The dress terminates at the wrist with a waterproof and air-tight band, leaving the hands bare. At an other time two tomcods came sailing past, side by side, flapped their tails on his helmet, and scampered off. But Caleb, sitting comfortably on his sofa-cushion of seaweed thirty feet under water, paid little heed to outside things. In the world above, a world of fleecy clouds and shimmering sea, some changes had taken place since Caleb sank out of the sunlight. Hardly had the second stone been made ready to be swung overboard and lowered to Caleb, when there came a sudden uplifting of the sea. One of those tramp waves preceding a heavy storm had strayed in from Montauk and was making straight for the Ledge. Captain Joe sprang on the sloop's rail and looked seaward, and a shade of disappointment crossed his face. "Stand by on that outboard guy!" he shouted in a voice that was heard all over the Ledge. tain, his mind, now that the danger had passed, neither on the question nor on the answer. Then suddenly awakening with a look of intense interest, "That line was a new one, Cap'n Bob. I picked it out a-purpose; them kind don't part." Sanford, who had been standing by the tiller, anxiously watching the conflict, walked forward and grasped the skipper's hand. "I want to congratulate you," he said, 66 on your sloop and on your pluck. It is not every man can lie around this stone-pile for the first time and keep his head." Captain Brandt flushed like a bashful girl, and turned away his face. "Well, sir-ye see He never finished the sentence. The compliment had upset him more than the escape of the sloop. All was bustle now on board the Screamer. The boom was swung in aboard, lowered, and laid on the deck. Caleb had been hauled up to the surface, his helmet unscrewed, and his shoes and breast-plate taken off. He still wore his dress, so that he could be ready for the other two stones when the tide turned. Meanwhile he walked about the deck looking like a great bear on his hind legs, his bushy beard puffed out over his copper collar. The heavy outboard hawser holding the sloop whipped out of the sea with the sudden strain, thrashed the spray from its twists, and quivered like a fiddlestring. The sloop staggered for an instant; plunged bow under, careened to her rail, and righted herself within oar's touch of the Ledge. Three feet from her bilge streak crouched a grinning rock with its teeth set! Captain Joe smiled and looked at Cap- of tide dinner was announced, and the tain Brandt. "Ain't nothin' when ye git used to 't, Cap'n Bob. I ain't a-goin' ter scratch 'er paint. The jig 's up now till the tide turns. Got to bank yer fires. Them other two stone 'll have to wait." During the interval of the change Screamer's crew went below to more sizzle and dough-balls, and this time a piece of corned beef, while Sanford, Captain Joe, Caleb, and Lacey sprang into the sloop's yawl and sculled for the shanty, keeping close to the hawser still holding the sloop. "Ay, ay, sir," replied the skipper, throwing the furnace door wide open. Then he walked down the deck and said to Captain Joe in a tone as if he were only asking for information, but without a shade of nervous anxiety, "If that 'ere hawser'd parted, Cap'n Joe, when she give that plunge, it would 'a' been all up with us, — eh?" "Yes, - 'spec' so," answered the cap- pert could checkmate the consequences The unexpected made half the battle at the Ledge. It was not unusual to see a southeast roll, three days old, cut down in an hour to the smoothness of a millpond by a northwest gale, and before night to find this same dead calm followed by a semi-cyclone. Only an ex of weather manœuvres like these. BeBefore Captain Joe had filled each man's plate with his fair porportion of cabbage and pork, a whiff of wind puffed in the bit of calico that served as a curtain for the shanty's pantry window, the one facing east. Captain Joe sprang from his seat, and, bareheaded as he was, mounted the concrete platforms and looked seaward. Off towards Block Island he saw a little wrinkling line of silver flashing out of the deepening haze, while toward Crotch Island scattered flurries of wind furred the glittering surface of the sea with dull splotches, as when one breathes upon a mirror. The captain turned quickly, entered the shanty, and examined the barometer. had fallen two points. It "Finish yer dinner, men," he said quietly. "That's the las' stone to-day, Mr. Sanford. It's beginnin' ter git lumpy. It'll blow a livin' gale o' wind by sundown." A second and stronger puff now swayed the men's oilskins, hanging against the east door. This time the air was colder and more moist. The sky overhead had thickened. In the southeast lay two sundog clouds, their backs shimmering like opals, while about the feverish eye of the sun gathered a reddish circle like an inflammation. Sanford was on the platform, reading the signs of the coming gale. It was important that he should reach Keyport by night, and he had no time to spare. As the men came out one after another, each of them glanced toward the horizon, and quickening his movements fell to work putting the place in order. The loose barrow planks were quickly racked up on the shanty's roof, out of the wash of the surf; an extra safety - guy was made fast to the platform holding the hoisting - engine, and a great tarpaulin drawn over the cement and lashed fast. Captain Joe busied himself meanwhile in examining the turnbuckles of the iron holding down rods, which bound the shanty to the Ledge, and giving them another tightening twist. He ordered the heavy wooden shutters for the east side of the shanty to be put up, and saw that the stovepipe that stuck through the roof was taken down and stored inside. The Screamer tugged harder at her hawser, her bow surging as the ever-increasing swell raced past her. Orders to man the yawl were given and promptly obeyed. Captain Joe was the last to step into the boat. "Keep everything snug, Caleb, while I'm gone,' "he shouted. "It looks soapy, but it may be out to the nor'ard an' clear by daylight. Sit astern, Mr. Sanford. Pull away, men, we ain't got a minute." When the Screamer, with two unset stones still on her deck, bore away from the Ledge with Sanford, Captain Joe, and Lacey on board, the spray was fly ing over the shanty roof. Caleb stood on the platform waving his hand. his hand. He was still in his divingdress. "Tell Betty I'll be home for Sunday," the men heard him call out, as they flew by under close reef. (To be continued.) F. Hopkinson Smith. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' PROGRESS IN EQUATORIAL AFRICA. A FULL account of the extraordinary advances made in Africa during the last twenty-five years would require volumes, and in a single magazine article I can give but a résumé of the progress which has taken place in the equatorial portion of the continent. I begin with 1872, for in July of that year I returned to England with the six years' journals and latest news of Dr. Livingstone. If the reader will take the trouble to lay a sheet of tracing-paper on the now crowded map of Africa, mark out a track from Zanzibar to Lake Tanganika, and from about the centre of that line another running north to the Victoria Nyanza, then draw a curving line of march through the intra-lake region to the out let of the lake on the north side and add the eastern coast of Lake Albert, he will realize far better than from any verbal description how little of Equatorial Africa was known at that time. He will see that nine tenths of inner Africa remained unexplored. The tracks drawn will illustrate what Burton and Speke, Speke and Grant, and Sir Samuel Baker had accomplished in seven years, 1857-64. 66 In September, 1872, I was requested to meet the British Association at Brighton, to tell its geographical section what new discoveries Livingstone had made during his six years' absence between Lakes Nyassa, Mweru, and Tanganika, and along the Lualaba River. At that meeting one geographer insisted that, since domestic swine were unknown in Africa, the "Old Traveler" must have lost his wits when he declared that he had found natives who kept tame pigs. The president observed that it was his duty to veto" stories of that kind, because a geographical society discussed facts, not fictions. Sir Henry Rawlinson was inclined to believe that the great river discovered by Livingstone, if not the Congo, emptied into some vast marsh or swamp. The kindly way in which Livingstone had referred to the amiable Manyuemas was suspected by some of those present to be an attempt on his part to create a favorable impression of the people, from among whom, it was said by Captain Burton, he had taken a princess for a wife. When the audience filed out from the hall, I was mobbed by persons who were curious to know if Zanzibar was an island! But the way in which Americans received the news of Livingstone's achievements was the most amusing of all. They did not resort to personal detraction of Livingstone, but turned their powers of raillery upon me. Every humorous expression in the Old Traveler's letters to the New York Herald was taken to be a proof that I must have concocted the fables about "winsome Manyuema girls," and so on. One journalist went so far as to assert that he had reason to know I had never left New York city, and that I was a married man with a large family, who occasionally relieved my imagination by attempts to rival Defoe. Mark Twain dealt me the worst stroke of all. He wrote in the Hartford Courant, with the most perfect assurance, that when I found Livingstone, I was urged by him to relate first what great national events had happened during the long years in which he had been wandering, and that after describing how the Suez Canal had been opened, reporting the completion of the American transcontinental railway, the election of General Grant to the presidency, and the Franco-German war, I began to tell how Horace Greeley had become a candidate for the presidential honor, whereupon Livingstone exclaimed suddenly, "Hold on, Mr. Stanley! I must say I was inclined to believe you at first, but when you take advantage of my guilelessness and tell me that Horace Greeley has been accepted as a candidate by the American people, I'll be if I can believe anything you say now." The English papers reprinted this solemn squib, and asked "if Mr. Stanley could be surprised that people expressed doubt of his finding Livingstone when he attributed such profanity to a man so noted for his piety"! All this seems to me to have occurred ages ago. It will be incredible to many in this day that my simple story was received with such general unbelief. But such was the obscurity hanging over the centre of Africa in 1872 that, befogged by stay-at-home geographers, the public did not know whom to believe. Nine tenths of Equatorial Africa, as we have seen, were unknown, and the tenth that was known had required fifteen years for Burton, Speke, Baker, and Livingstone to explore. At such a rate of proit would have taken 135 years to gress reveal inner Africa. Several things had conspired to keep Africa dark. In the first place, the public appeared to con |