5. After this poetic selection by Mr. Bardou had been read, Mr. Agnew took occasion to call the attention of the young people to the many striking figurative expressions which it contained. "Thus, in TIME'S SONG,'" he said, 'Time, personified, is represented, in his flight over the earth, where the mountains greet him and the fountains do his bidding,-as singing the song of his conquests.

6. "Then Time himself personifies War, by representing it as keeping watch,—Grief, as weeping,-Power, as winning a throne, Genius, as boasting,-Love, as whispering, etc.; while Pleasure, Memory, and Science are also alluded to as intelligent beings, but unable to stay Time's flight, or to tell when his wanderings began, or where his weary wings will find rest."

CHAPTER XIX.-AROUND THE WORLD.-No. 10.

THE BLACK SEA, AND THENCE TO DAMASCUS.

I.- Visit to the Crimea.

1. On leaving Constantinople in our steamer, on the 22d of June, we passed up through the beautiful Bosporus, lined with magnificent palaces and imperial summer residences, most of them on the Asiatic side;-and then we bore away over the dark waters, more than three hundred miles, to the peninsula known as the Crimea, where is the Russian port of Sebas'topol, long the great naval station of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, and now so famous for its long and terrible siege in the years 1854 and 1855, by the English, French, Sardinian, and Turkish fleets and armies.

2. Although the town had been partly rebuilt since that terrible ordeal, yet ruin! ruin! met us at every step. "For

eleven long months," said Prof. Howard, "the storms of war beat upon the helpless town, and left only fragments of houses, crumbled walls, torn and ragged hills, as if a mighty earthquake had spent all its terrible forces upon this one little spot. Not one solitary house escaped-not one remained habitable!"

3. Of course we visited the battle-fields-the Malakoff tower, just in the edge of the town, the Redan close by, Inkerman a mile away, and Balakla'va, an hour's ride. Then the French trenches were to be followed out, from their starting-point, by zigzag courses, until they were carried close under the Malakoff. Oh, the slaughter that occurred there!-for the stronghold was taken and retaken several times.

4. But those fearful fields, where such tempests of death once raged, are peaceful now. Scarcely a sound is heard. there; hardly a living thing moves about them; they are lonely and silent; their desolation is complete. We gathered relics from the ruins, and from the battle-fields; and a box full of them will go to swell my collection for the LakeView Muse'um.

5. As we were going over the field, under the lead of the Professor, who had visited the place the year after the siege," Here," said he, "is where the English Light Brigade started in that terrible charge upon the Russian batteries, which were placed over there on that rising ground. Here, on the right, were Russian batteries,—and there, on the left, were Russian batteries, and from all of them the cannons volleyed and thundered'-as 'into that valley of death rode the six hundred!'”

6. Then the Professor, standing there, repeated to us Tennyson's grand description of the famous "Charge of the Light Brigade," which Henry Allen used to speak at our public examinations. Then I said that I knew another account of the same charge, by another writer, an American, for I had spoken it in school.

7. "Let us have it!" "Let us have it now!" exclaimed several voices. So, right there, with the ruins that the havoc of war had made all around me, I spoke it. It seemed to me that I could see those gallant horsemen, as they dashed forward right into the jaws of death; and then Í could see them straggling back—" but not the six hundred." You know it was Captain Nolan that carried the dispatches to the squadrons, ordering the attack, and that he then led the charge on his noble steed; but he was shot dead from his horse during the advance-the very first one to fall. The very spot upon which he fell was pointed out to us.

II. The Charge of the Light Brigade.

1. Dashing onward, Captain Nolan
Spurring furiously is scen-
And although the road meanders,
His no heavy steed of Flanders,
But one fit for the commanders
Of her Majesty the Queen.

2. Halting where the noble squadrons
Stood impatient of delay,
Out he drew his brief despatches,
Which their leader quickly snatches,
At a glance their meaning catches-
They are ordered to the fray.

3. Brightly gleam six hundred sabres,
And the brazen trumpets ring:
Steeds are gathered-spurs are driven-
And the heavens wildly riven

With a mad shout upward given,

Scaring vultures on the wing.

4. Onward! on! the chargers trample,
Quicker falls each iron heel,

And the headlong pace grows faster;
Noble steed and noble master!
Rushing on to red disaster,

Where the heavy cannons peal!

5. In the van rides Captain Nolan,
Wide his flying tresses wave,
And his heavy broadsword flashes
As upon the foe he dashes-
Ah! his face turns pale as ashes,
He has ridden to his grave.

6. Down he fell, prone from his saddle,
Without motion, without breath,
Never more at trump to waken—
He, the very first one taken
From that bough so sorely shaken
In that vintage-time of death.

7. In a moment-in a twinkling,
He was gathered to his rest,
In the time for which he'd waited ;-
With his gallant heart elated,
Down went Nolan-decorated—

With a death-wound in his breast.

8. Onward still the squadrons thunder,
Knightly hearts were theirs, and brave!
Men and horses without number
All the furrowed ground encumber,
Falling fast to their last slumber-
Bloody slumber-bloody grave!

9. Here a noble charger stiffens,

There his rider grasps the hilt

Of his sabre, lying bloody

By his side, upon the muddy

Trampled ground, which, darkly ruddy,
Shows the blood that he has spilt.

10. And the sleepers-ah! the sleepers
Made a Westminster" that day,
'Mid the seething battle's lava;
And each man who fell shall have a
Proud inscription-" Balaklava,"
Which shall never fade away.

11. Of that charge at Balaklava—
In its chivalry sublime-
Vivid, grand, historic pages
Shall descend to future ages:
Poets, painters, hoary sages,
Shall record it for all time.

James Barron Hope.

III. To Odessa, and thence to Beyrout.

1. Leaving Sebas'topol, we steamed about two hundred miles farther up the Black Sea, to the Russian port of Odessa, where we took in coal. It is an American-looking city, of about one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants; and Dr. Edson tells us that it is the great grain-exporting port of the Black Sea. He says that thirty million dollars' worth of wheat were sent from Odessa the previous year, and that there are in the city six hundred great granaries for storing wheat.

2. Less than a hundred years ago there was no town here; but the Russian Queen, Catherine Second, selected

a One of the greatest honors that can be paid to England's illustrious dead is to have a monument erected to their memory in Westminster Abbey, London. See Fourth Reader, p. 321.