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LESSON CCXXIII.

AUGUST THE ELEVENTH.

Cossack Soldiers.

"See their sun-burnt faces,

Their scatter'd cheeks and chopt hands; there's virtue in them.
They'll sell those mangled limbs at dearer rates
Than you trim bands can buy."-DRYDEN.

THE Cossacks never fight in a line. They are scattered by platoons, at the head, on the flanks, and in the rear of the Russian army, sometimes at considerable distances. They do the duties of advanced guards, videttes, and patrols. Their activity and vigilance are incredible. They creep and ferret everywhere with a boldness and address of which none but those who have seen them can obtain an idea.

Their numerous swarms form, as it were, an atmosphere round the camps and armies on a march, which they secure from all surprise, and from every unforeseen attack. Nothing escapes their piercing and experienced eye; they divine, as if by instinct, the places fit for ambuscades; they read on the trodden grass the number of men and horses that have passed; from the traces more or less recent, they know how to calculate the time of their passing. A bloodhound follows no better the scent of his game.

In the immense plains from Azof to the Danube,—in those monstrous solitudes covered with tufted and waving grass, where the eye meets with no tree, no object that can direct it, and whose melancholy uniformity is only now and then interrupted by infectious bogs and quagmires, torrents overgrown with briars, and insulated hillocks, the ancient graves of unknown generations, —in those deserts, in short, the roaming Cossack never misses his way.

By night the stars direct his solitary course: if the sky is clear, he alights from his horse at the first kurgan that chance throws in his way; through a long habit of exercising his sight in the dark, or even by the help of feeling alone, he distinguishes the herbs and plants which thrive best on the declivity of the hillock exposed to the north or to the south. He repeats this examination as frequently as the opportunity offers, and in this manner he follows, and finds again the direction which he ought to take for regaining his camp, his troop, or his dwelling, and any other place to which he is bound. By day, the

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sun is his surest guide: the breath of the winds, of which he knows the periodical course, it being pretty regular in these countries, likewise serves him as a compass to steer by. As a new species of augury, the Cossack not unwillingly interrogates the birds; their number, their species, their flight, their cry, indicate to him the proximity of a spring, a rivulet, or a pool, a habitation, a herd, or an army.

Those clouds of Cossacks which encompass the Russian armies for the safety of their encampments, or of their marches, are no less formidable to the enemy. Their resistless vigilance, their rash curiosity, their sudden attacks, alarm him, harass him incessantly, and incessantly control and watch his motions. In a general action the Cossacks commonly keep at a distance, and are spectators of the battle; they wait for its issue, in order to take to flight, or to set out in pursuit of the vanquished, among whom their long pike then makes a great slaughter.

1. For what are the Cossacks remarkable?

2. By what means are they able to trace their route across the desert solitudes of the north?

3. What makes the Cossacks so formidable to the enemy?

LESSON CCXXIV.-AUGUST THE TWELFTH.

Gibraltar.

No one who has looked on that vast and forted rock, with its huge granite outline shown in bold relief against the clear sky of the south of Europe-its towering and ruin-crowned peaks-its enormous crags, caverns, and precipices and its rich historical associations, which shed a powerful though vague interest over every feature-can easily forget the strong impression which the first sight of that imposing and magnificent spectacle creates. The flinty mass rising abruptly to an elevation of fifteen hundred feet, and surrounded on every side by the waters of the Mediterranean, save a narrow slip of level sand which stretches from its northern end and connects it with the mainland, has added to its other claims to admiration the strong interest of utter isolation.

For a while the spectator gazes on the "stupendous whole" with an expression of pleased wonder at its height, extent, and strength, and without becoming conscious of the various opposite features which make up its grand

effect of sublimity and beauty. He sees only the giant rock spreading its vast dark mass against the sky, its broken and wavy ridge, its beetling projections, and its dizzy precipices of a thousand feet perpendicular descent. After a time, his eye becoming in some degree familiarized with the main and sterner features of the scene, he perceives that the granite mountain is variegated by here and there some picturesque work of art, or spot of green beauty, that shines with greater loveliness from contrast with the savage roughness by which it is surrounded.

Dotted about at long intervals over the steep sides of the craggy mass are seen the humble cottages of the soldiers' wives; or, perched on the very edges of the cliffs, the guard-houses of the garrison, before which, ever and anon, may be descried the vigilant sentry, dwindled to a pigmy, walking to and fro on his allotted and dangerous post. Now and then the eye detects a more sumptuous edifice, half hid in a grove of acacias, orange, and almond trees, as if they clustered round to shut from the view of its inhabitant, in his eyry-like abode, the scene of desolate grandeur above, beneath him, and on every side. At the foot of the rock, on a small and narrow slip less precipitous than the rest, stands the town of Gibraltar, which, as seen from the bay, with its dark-coloured houses, built in the Spanish style, and rising one above another in amphitheatrical order-the ruins of the Moorish castle and defences in the rear-and the high massive walls which surround it at the water's edge, and which, thick planted with cannon, seem formed to "laugh a siege to scorn"—has a mighty, picturesque, and imposing effect. The military works of Gibraltar are on a scale of magnificence commensurate with the natural grandeur of the scene. Its walls, its batteries, and its moles, which, bristling with cannon, stretch far out into the bay, and against whose solid structures the waves spend their fury in vain, are all works of art planned with great genius, and executed with consummate skill. An indefinite sensation of awe mixes with the stranger's feelings, as, gazing upon the defences which everywhere meet his eye, he remembers that the strength of Gibraltar consists not in its visible works alone, but that, hewn in the centre of the vast and perpendicular rock, there are long galleries and ample chambers, where the engines of war are kept always ready, and from whence the fires of death may at any moment be poured down upon an assailant.

Though the rock is the chief feature of interest in the

BATTLE OF BLENHEIM.

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Bay of Gibraltar, yet, when fatigued by long gazing on its barren and solitary grandeur, there are not wanting others on which the eye of the stranger may repose with pleasure. The green shores of Andalusia, encircling the bay in their semicircular sweep, besides the attraction which verdant hills and valleys always possess, have the superadded charm of being linked with many classical and romantic associations. The picturesque towns of St. Roque and Algesiras, the one crowning a smooth eminence at some distance from the shore, and the other occupying a gentle declivity that sinks gradually down to the sparkling waters of the bay-the mountains of Spain, fringed with cork forests in the back ground-the dimlyseen coast of Morocco across the Straits, with the white walls of Ceuta just discernible on one of its promontories -the towering form of Abila, which not even the unromantic modern name of Apes-hill can divest of all its interest as one of "the trophies of great Hercules"these are all features in the natural landscape, which, combined, render it a scene of exceeding beauty.

1. What is the height of the rock of Gibraltar? and by what is it surrounded?

2. What buildings are seen "dotted about " on the steep sides of the craggy mass?

3. Describe the military works of Gibraltar.

4. After viewing the barren rock, to what points does the eye turn for scenery of a very different kind?

LESSON CCXXV.

-AUGUST THE THIRTEENTH.

Battle of Blenheim.

THIS day is the anniversary of the celebrated battle of Blenheim, which took place in 1704, and is memorable for the defeat of the French and Bavarians by the English and their allies, under Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough.

Tallard, the French general, being short-sighted, mistook a detachment of the enemy for his own, and was made prisoner. The enemy's troops being put into confusion, the rout became general, and the flight precipitate. The consternation of the French soldiers was such that they threw themselves into the Danube, without knowing whither they fled.

The allies being now masters of the field of battle,

surrounded the village of Blenheim, where a body of 13,000 men had been posted in the beginning of the action, and still maintained their ground. These troops seeing themselves cut off from all communication with the rest of the army, and despairing of being able to force their way through the allies, threw down their arms, and surrendered prisoners of war.

Thus ended the battle of Blenheim, one of the most complete victories that ever was obtained; 12,000 French and Bavarians being slain in the field or drowned in the Danube, and 13,000 made prisoners of war; besides 100 pieces of cannon, 22 mortars, upwards of 100 pair of colours, 200 standards, 17 pair of kettle-drums, upwards of 3000 tents, 34 coaches, 300 loaded mules, two bridges of boats, and all the French baggage, taken with their military chest.

Next day, when the Duke of Marlborough visited his prisoner, the marshal, the latter assured him that he had overcome the best troops in the world. "I hope, Sir," replied the duke, "you will except those troops by whom they were conquered."

"It was a summer evening,

Old Kaspar's work was done,
And he before the cottage door
Was sitting in the sun!

And by him sported on the green,
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

"She saw her brother Peterkin

Roll something large and round,
That he beside the rivulet

Whilst playing there had found;
He came to ask what he had found

That was so large, and smooth, and round.

"Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by,

And first the old man shook his head,
Then heaved a deep-drawn sigh.

'Tis some poor fellow's skull,' said he,

"Who fell in the great victory.'

"Now tell us what 'twas all about?'
Young Peterkin he cries,
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes;
'Now tell us all about the war,
And what they kill'd each other for?'

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