through the air and expend themselves in mist before half the descent is over. Then a new set burst from the body and sides of the fall, with the same fortune on the remaining distance; and thus the most charming fretwork of watery nodules, each trailing its vapory train for a hundred feet or more, is woven all over the cascade, which swings, now and then, thirty feet each way, on the mountain side, as if it were a pendulum of watery lace. Once in a while, too, the wind manages to get back of the fall, between it and the cliff, and then it will whirl it round and round for two or three hundred feet, as if to try the experiment of twisting it to wring it dry.

9. Of course I visited the foot of the lowest fall of the Yosemite, and looked up though the spray, five hundred feet, to its crown. And I tried to climb to the base of the first or highest cataract, but lost my way among the steep, sharp rocks, for there is only one line by which the cliff can be scaled. But no nearer view that I found or heard described is comparable with the picture, from the hotel, of the cometcurve of the upper cataract, fifteen hundred feet high, and the two falls immediately beneath it, in which the same water leaps to the level of the quiet Merced.

THOMAS STARR KING.

...

SELECT ETYMOLOGIES.-Bounty: L. bon'itas; fr. bon'us, good. . . . Cataract: Gr. katarak'tēs; fr. kat'a, down, and rēg'nunai, to break. Curve: L. cur'vus, crooked, bent.... Dazzle: dimin. of daze; fr. the Scotch dase, to stupefy. Declivity: L. decliv'itas; fr. de and cli'vus, a slope; h., ac-clivity, pro-clivity. Deficient: L. defi'ciens; fr. de and fă'cio, I make. Frequent: L. frè'quens. ... Hotel: L. L. hospitale; fr. L. hos'pes, hos'pitis, a guest, a host; h., hospitable, hospital, host, hostler, in-hospitable. Nodule: L. no'dulus, a little knot; fr. no'dus, a knot; h., node. Opulence: L. opulen'tia; fr. ops, op'is, riches. . Picture: L. pictu'ra; fr. pin'go, pic'tum, to paint; h., de-pict, paint, pictorial, picturesque, pigment.

...

...

September: fr. L. sep'tem, seven, September being the seventh month formerly, when the year commenced with March. Serpentine: L. serpenti'nus; fr. ser'po, I creep. . . . Sierra: a Spanish word; fr. the L. serra, a saw; fr. the resemblance of a chain of mountains to the teeth of a saw; h., serrate.... Solemn : L. solem'nis; fr. sol'lennis, that takes place every year (sol'lustotus, all, an'nus, year), referring to Roman religious ceremonies.... Vapor: L. vap'or, steam; h., evaporate, vapid, etc. . . . Vary: L. văr'io, varia'tum; fr. văr'ius, diverse; h., in-variable, variation, variegate, variety, various.

LXX. THE AMBUSCADE.

I.

"HAVE, then, thy wish!" He whistled shrill, And he was answered from the hill;

Wild as the scream of the curlew,
From crag to crag the signal flew.
Instant, through copse and heath arose
Bonnets and spears and bended bows;
On right, on left, above, below,
Sprang up at once the lurking foe.
From shingles gray the lances start,
The bracken bush sends forth the dart,
The rushes and the willow-wand
Are bristling into axe and brand,
And every tuft of broom gives life
To plaided warrior armed for strife.
That whistle garrisoned the glen
At once with full five hundred men,
As if the yawning hill to heaven
A subterranean host had given.
Watching their leader's beck and will,
All silent there they stood, and still;
Like the loose crags, whose threat'ning mass
Lay tottering o'er the hollow pass,
As if an infant's touch could urge

Their headlong passage down the verge,
With step and weapon forward flung,
Upon the mountain-side they hung.

The mountaineer cast glance of pride

Along Benledi's living side,

Then fixed his eye and sable brow

Full on Fitz-James: "How say'st thou now?

These are Clan-Alpine's warriors true;

And, Saxon, I am Roderick Dhu!"

II.

Fitz-James was brave. Though to his heart
The life-blood thrilled with sudden start,
He manned himself with dauntless air,
Returned the chief his haughty stare.
His back against a rock he bore,
And firmly placed his foot before:
"Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I."

Sir Roderick marked, and in his eyes
Respect was mingled with surprise,
And the stern joy which warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel.

Short space he stood, then waved his hand:
Down sank the disappearing band;
Each warrior vanished where he stood,
In broom or bracken, heath or wood;
Sank brand and spear and bended bow
In osiers pale and copses low;
It seemed as if their mother-earth
Had swallowed up her warlike birth.
The wind's last breath had tossed in air
Pennon and plaid and plumage fair-
The next but swept a lone hillside,

Where heath and fern were waving wide;

The sun's last glance was glinted back

From spear and glave, from targe and jack;*
The next, all unreflected, shone

On bracken green and cold gray stone.

*The iron jack, or jacques de maille-a back and breastplate of ironwas worn by the Highlanders as late as the sixteenth century. The jack or surcoat was made of various materials-linen, leather, silk, etc.-and embroidered with the arms or badges of the different leaders. The English soldiers wore on their jacks the cross of St. George, the Scottish, that of St. Andrew; hence, after the union of the two nations the flag bearing the two crosses was called the Union Jack.

III.

Fitz-James looked round, yet scarce believed
The witness that his sight received;
Such apparition well might seem
Delusion of a dreadful dream.
Sir Roderick in suspense he eyed,
And to his look the chief replied:
"Fear naught-nay, that I need not say—
But doubt not aught from mine array.
Thou art my guest; I pledged my word
As far as Coilantogle ford;

Nor would I call a clansman's brand
For aid against one valiant hand,
Though on our strife lay every vale
Rent by the Saxon from the Gael.

So move we on; I only meant
To show the reed on which you
leant,
Deeming this path you might pursue
Without a pass from Roderick Dhu.”

IV.

They moved. I said Fitz-James was brave
As ever knight that belted glave,

Yet dare not say that now his blood
Kept on its wont and tempered flood,
As, following Roderick's stride, he drew
That seeming lonesome pathway through,
Which yet by fearful proof was rife
With lances that, to take his life,
Waited but signal from a guide
So late dishonored and defied.
Ever by stealth his eyes sought round
The vanished guardians of the ground,
And still from copse and heather deep
Fancy saw spear and broadsword peep,
And in the plover's silly strain
The signal whistle heard again.

Nor breathed he free till far behind
The pass was left; for then they wind
Along a wide and level green,

Where neither tree nor tuft was seen,

Nor rush nor bush of broom was near
To hide a bonnet or a spear.

SCOTT.

...

SELECT ETYMOLOGIES.-Ambuscade: It. im-boscar, to set in bushes, to place in ambush; fr. the L. L. bos'cus or bus'cus, a wood; h., bosky, bush, etc. . . . Bracken, fern: Ger. bra'ke, brush wood; h., a thicket. Copse, Coppice: a wood of small growth; fr. the F. couper (koo-pā'), to cut.... Daunt: old F. danter, now dompter (don-tā), to subdue; fr. L. dom'o, dom'itum, to tame; h., in-domitable, etc. . . . Glave or Glaive: L. glad'ius, a sword. . . . Infant: L. in'fans, one who cannot yet speak; fr in-, not, and far, fa'ri, fa'tus, to speak; h., affable (fr. af-fari = ad-fari, to speak to), in-effable (unspeakable), in-fantry (foot-soldiers, as related to knights), pre-face (præfari, to speak beforehand), fate (fr. fa'tum, what is spoken or predetermined by the gods).... Shingle: L. scan'dula; fr. scan'do, I climb; so called from shingles resting on a roof like steps one above the other. In geology Shingles are loose, angular fragments of stone. Subterranean: L. sub and terra, earth; h., in-ter (to put into the earth), terrace (a platform of earth), terrestrial, territory, terrier (a dog that goes into the ground after animals that burrow). . . . Threaten: A. S threatian.

...

LXXI. QUEEN ISABELLA.

Pronounce Ximenes Zi-mēnēz, or, according to the Spanish, Hemă'něs.

1. HER person was of the middle height, and well proportioned. She had a clear, fresh complexion, with light blue eyes and auburn hair-a style of beauty exceedingly rare in Spain. Her features were regular, and universally allowed to be uncommonly handsome. The illusion which attaches to rank, more especially when united with engaging manners, might lead us to suspect some exaggeration in the encomiums so liberally lavished on her. But they would seem to be in a great measure justified by the portraits that remain of her, which combine a faultless symmetry of features with singular sweetness and intelligence of expression.