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dren, God be praised! We shall never want for food in this wilderness, since His goodness has enriched it with the potato. You have assured the safety of our colony, my dear boy; but where did you discover the treasure?"

"Down yonder, behind the wood; all the plain is covered."

We all ran thither with an impatience which you may easily imagine, and before us spread an immense field of potatoes; some already ripe, others still in flower; and the latter, spite of their lowly appearance, seemed to us more beautiful than all the roses of Persia.

"It must be owned, my dear Ernest," cried I, enraptured, "that you have made here a most interesting discovery."

"Was it not difficult?" said Rudly, enviously; "he had only to come down here to find it all out, and if I had come—”

"Do not try to lessen your brother's merit," rejoined his mother; "for if you had passed across this very field, it is by no means certain that you would have recognized the potatoes. You are quick and thoughtless, Rudly, while Ernest reflects, observes, and compares; and his discoveries are seldom due to chance."

"Ah, well," cried Rudly, laughing, and recovering his good temper immediately, "if I were not the first to discover them, I will be the first to uproot them."

He began to dig in the earth with his hands, and his ardour communicated itself to the rest of us; even the monkey took his share, and it was soon evident that he was no novice at this kind of work, for in a moment he had turned up a great quantity of the finest and ripest potatoes. We filled all our game-bags, and then resumed our route to Tent-Town.

The discovery we had just made was of inestimable value to us; it assured us of our future subsistence, and would take the place of bread when our scanty supply was exhausted.

"My children," said I, "this new benefit from the hand of Providence reminds me of a passage in the Bible very applicable to our present situation. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way,' says the Psalmist; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered

Then they cried them out of their

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WHAT IS TRUE PRAYER?

All the children joined in a reverent expression of their gratitude, and even little Fritz, who was delighting himself with the prospect of potatoes for his supper, wished a particular prayer to be offered to the good God for this circumstance. My eldest son represented to him with much mildness and just reasoning that this was not necessary; that God thought not of lip-prayer, but of heart-prayer, and that heartprayer consisted before all things in loving the Lord and paying devout obedience to his command

ments.

"Well said, my dear Frederick," I remarked; "His benefits

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ought to awaken our love, and love implies obedience, for how can we disobey those we love?"

Thus conversing, we arrived at the rock whence escaped our little streamlet, falling in a bright cascade, and with a gentle murmur. We once more found ourselves among the tall grasses, and made our way through them with difficulty-the crags on our left, and the sea on our right, at some short distance till we reached a landscape of the most enchanting character.

The rocky wall presented the appearance of a magnificent European conservatory; only the various ledges, or terraces, instead of being crowned with vases and vessels, bloomed with the rarest and most diverse plants, nestling in every chink or cranny, and adorning every point of vantage. Here the rich flora of the tropics was revealed in all its superb luxuriance; the grasses and ferns blended charmingly with spicy stems and the most delicate blossoms; the large-leaved Indian fig, the aloe loaded with clusters of white flowers, the cactus rearing its tall straight column, like a taper crowned with purple jewellery; the jasmine, white and yellow; the

sweet-scented vanilla twining its graceful wreaths about the taller plants; while, high above all, the grass-plantain trailed its supple cords flushed with tufts of a vivid rose-red hue. But what most enchanted us was the abundance of that royal fruit, the precious anana. Several of these we ate with infinite pleasure, for hitherto we had only known the pine-apple by descriptions, and it seemed to us truly delectable, both from its agreeable perfume and its pleasant acidity of taste. My wife, always attentive to her children's welfare, cautioned them to be moderate in their appetites, lest the crudity of the fruit should render them ill. But it was difficult to check my little epicures, who, having shown Master Knips how to gather the harvest, made him bring them the largest and ripest, so that they incurred no risk of wounding themselves with the spines of the thorny bushes planted all about the rock.

While they were thus agreeably occupied, I made another discovery among the bristling stems of cactuses and aloes I noticed a tall plant with large pointed leaves, which, from its general appearance and certain peculiarities, I decided in my own mind to be the karatas. A precious plant it is; for its leaves furnish thread, its stem tinder, and, bruised and cast into the water, it forms a bait which no fish can resist, while it renders them so lethargic that they can be caught by hand.

My boys," I cried, "come here. I will show you something worth all your ananas. Do you see this noble plant? Look at its beautiful red flowers; its leaves resemble those of the anana; but it is of infinitely greater utility."

Papa," replied my young gluttons, "when it bears fruit we will condescend to examine it; at present we don't know of anything superior to our pine-apples!"

"Ah, little epicures! how like you are to the generality of mankind! You only judge of things by their appearances, and I will, therefore, convince you, through your eyes, of the extreme usefulness of this plant. Tell me, Ernest, how would you light a fire if you had no flint in your fowling-piece?"

"Oh, I should do as the savages do; I should rub two pieces of wood together until they kindled."

"A long and tedious method, whose efficacy you have not yet

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tested. Besides, it requires a particular kind of wood which is not to be found everywhere, while with my plant, which you treat with so much contempt, I can obtain a light in a moment; you shall see."

Accordingly I snapped in twain a piece of the karatas stem; it was hollow. I removed the pith, and striking together a couple of pebbles immediately over it, the sparks flew out, and the pith immediately caught fire. My sons stood astounded. I then explained to them the other properties of the plant, and it was with exceeding satisfaction my wife discovered it would furnish her with thread.

"What a happy thing for us," she exclaimed, "that you, my dear Albert, are so well informed, and have studied with so much industry! We, in our ignorance, should have passed by this treasure, and never suspected its value."

"You are quite right, papa," observed my eldest son; "the karatas would carry off the prize for usefulness from the ananas; but what purpose can be served by all these other plants armed with long prickles and darts, except to cripple people?"

"You are judging too hastily, Frederick; each of these plants has its mission, as it were-its part in nature's grand economy; some are filled with juices or resins, of which our physicians make daily use; others are of indescribable service in the arts or industry. Take, for instance, as a plant of peculiar interest, the nopal, or racket it grows everywhere in the barrenest soils; it makes an admirable fence for fields and houses; its fruit, a kind of fig, is, they say, very wholesome and refreshing."

:

Scarcely had I uttered these words before Rudly, carried away by his love of gourmandizing, hastened to pick some of the figs I had just been praising. But the thoughtless fellow had not remarked that, like the entire plant, they were covered with thousands of small prickles, finer than the finest needles, which wounded his fingers sorely. He returned to me weeping, stamping his foot, and wringing his hands. We laughed a little at his gluttonous precipitation, and when I had removed the thorns from his fingers, I showed him how to open the fruit with suitable precautions: with my knife I split the rind of the fig, and then holding it on a