boxes extending around the circle. The building holds, when full, some fourteen thousand persons; and there is rarely any vacant space. For myself I can say that what I vainly strove to imagine in the Coliseum at Rome, and in the more solemn solitude of Capua and Pompeii, came up before me with the vividness of life on entering the bull-ring of Madrid. This, and none other, was the classic arena. This was the crowd that sat expectant, under the blue sky, in the hot glare of the South, while the doomed captives of Dacia, or the sectaries of Judea commended their souls to the gods of the Danube, or the Crucified of Galilee. Half the sand lay in the blinding sun. Half the seats were illuminated by the fierce light. The other half was in shadow, and the dark crescent crept slowly all the afternoon across the arena as the sun declined in the west.

It is hard to conceive a more brilliant scene. The women put on their gayest finery for this occasion. In the warm light, every bit of color flashes out, every combination falls naturally into its place. I am afraid the luxuriance of hues in the dress of the fair Iberians would be considered shocking in Broadway, but in the vast frame and broad light of the Plaza the effect was very brilliant. Thousands of parti-colored paper fans are sold at the ring. The favorite colors are the national red and yellow, and the flutter of these broad, bright disks of color is dazzlingly attractive. There is a gayety of conversation, a quick fire of repartee, shouts of recognition and salutation, which altogether make up a bewildering confusion. The weary young water-men scream their snow-cold refreshment. The orange-men walk with their gold-freighted baskets along the barrier, and throw their oranges with the most marvellous skill and certainty to people in distant boxes or benches. They never miss their mark. They will throw over the heads of a thousand people a dozen oranges into the outstretched hands of customers, so swiftly that it seems like one line of gold from the dealer to the buyer.

At length the blast of a trumpet announces the clearing of the ring. The idlers who have been lounging in the arena are swept out by the alguacils, and the hum of conversation gives way to an expectant silence. When the last loafer has reluctantly retired, the great gate is

thrown open, and the procession of the torreros enters. They advance in a glittering line; first the marshals of the day, then the picadors on horseback, then the matadors on foot surrounded each by his squad of chulos. They walk toward the box which holds the city fathers, under whose patronage the show is given, and formally salute the authority.

The municipal authority throws the bowing alguacil a key, which he catches in his hat, or is hissed if he misses it. With this he unlocks the door through which the bull is to enter, and then scampers off with undignified haste through the opposite entrance. There is a bugle-flourish, the door flies open, and the bull rushes out, blind with the staring light, furious with rage, trembling in every limb. This is the most intense moment of the day. The glorious brute is the target of twelve thousand pairs of eyes. There is a silence as of death, while every one waits to see his first movement. -Castilian Days.

LITTLE BREECHES.

A Pike County View of Special Providence.

I don't go much on religion,

I never ain't had no show;

But I've got a middlin' tight grip, sir,
On the handful o' things I know.

I don't pan out on the prophets

And free will, and that sort of thing,

But I b'lieve in God and the Angels,

Ever sence one night last spring.

I come into town with some turnips,

And my little Gabe come along,-
No four-year-old in the county

Could beat him for pretty and strong,

Pert and chipper and sassy,

Always ready to swear and fight,-
And I'd larnt him ter chaw terbacker,
Jest to keep his milk teeth white.

The snow come down like a blanket

As I passed by Taggert's store;

I went in for a jug of molasses

And left the team at the door.

They scared at something and started,-
I heard one little squall,
And hell-to-split over the prairie

Went team, Little Breeches and all.

Hell-to-split over the prairie !

I was almost froze with skeer; But we rousted up some torches,

And sarched for 'em far and near.
At last we struck hosses and wagon,

Snowed under a soft white mound,
Upsot, dead beat,- but of little Gabe
No hide nor hair was found.

And here all hope soured on me
Of my fellow critter's aid,-

I just flopped on my marrow bones,

Crotch-deep in the snow, and prayed.

By this, the torches was played out.

And me and Isrul Parr

Went off for some wood to a sheep fold
That he said was somewhar thar.

We found it at last, and a little shed

Where they shut up the lambs at night.
We looked in, and seen them huddled thar,
So warm and sleepy and white;

And THAR sot Little Breeches and chirped,
As pert as ever you see,

"I want a chaw of terbacker,

And that's what's the matter of me."

How did he git thar? Angels.

He could never have walked in that storm.

They jest scooped down and toted hiu
To whar it was safe and warm.

And I think that saving a little child,
And bringing him to his own,

Is a derned sight better business

Than loafing around The Throne.

HAYES, ISAAC ISRAEL, an American Arctic explorer, born in Chester County, Pa., March 5, 1832; died in New York, December 17, 1881. He studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and received his diploma in 1853. In the same year he accompanied Dr. Kane in the second Grinnell Expedition to the Arctic regions. They returned it 1855, and in 1860 Dr. Hayes published An Arctic Boat Journey, relating some events of the expedition. In the summer of the same year he set out on another expedition in search of the open Polar Sea. The expedition went as far as latitude 81° 37′ north, and reached land beyond which they saw open water. On his return in 1861, he entered the Union army, and served as surgeon during the civil war. He published The Open Polar Sea in 1867. In 1869 he sailed in the Panther, on a journey of exploration along the southern coast of Greenland. The Land of Desolation (1872) gives an account of this expedition. In 1868 he published a story, Cast Away in the Cold, and afterward a History of Maritime Discoveries.

THE BIRTH OF AN ICEBERG.

I can imagine no more grand and imposing spectacle than the birth of an iceberg; and we have now I think gone far enough in the examination of glaciers and their movements to contemplate such a spectacle, which, whatever it may seem to the reader, was to me most thrilling.

The scene was in a fiord ten times wider than that of Sermitsialik, though not much longer. Unlike that of Sermitsialik, it was studded with islands and shoal places. The glacier which terminated it was twenty miles across, although not quite uniformly; for the ice had poured down into the sea, and, while having blotted out some of the islands it had barely touched others; otherwise the coast-line of ice was perfect and continuous. The islands and shoal places in the fiord arrest the icebergs; and within ten miles or more of the glacier it is almost impossible to go. With great difficulty I came within five, in a boat. Farther I could not force my way by any possibility; and accordingly, we made for land, and climbed a lofty hill for a view. It was a grand spectacle that met my eye as I stood upon the hill-top overlooking the fiord, with its thousands of icebergs, its dark rocky islands, and the immense quantities of loose ice which filled up the space between the bergs and islands, until there was scarcely a patch of water to be seen anywhere as large as a good-sized duck-pond. Very different from the fiord of Sermitsialik, where there were no islands or shoals to arrest the ice in its progress down the fiord.

I was accompanied by the bestyrere of Aukpadlartok, whose name was Philip. We stood together, looking at the glacier and the great sea of ice which stretched away into the interior, blending mountains and valleys. into a vast plain, when Philip said, "Listen! the glacier is going to 'calve'"; for that is the name by which they distinguish the breaking off of a fragment.

I heard a loud report, but I could not at once distinguish the source of it. An instant afterward it was repeated, now louder than before. It resembled the first warning sound of a coming earthquake. Philip had detected the spot whence the sound proceeded, and said, "Look! it is rising." I could now see that a portion of the glacier was being lifted by the water. A great wave was rolled back with this upward movement, and dashed fiercely against the icebergs that lay farther down the fiord. Another instant, and the sound, which was before so deep and loud, broke through the air with a crash that was like the discharge of heavy artillery near at hand. I knew now that a