An Algerine Story. The Hero is Blown away, Captured, Crushed, Comforted, and Astonished. One beautiful summer night, about the beginning of the present century, a young naval officer entered the public drawing-room of a hotel at Nice, and glanced round as if in search of some one. Many people were assembled there—some in robust, others in delicate, health, many in that condition which rendered it... more...

The Norsemen in the West; Or America before Columbus. The Curtain Rises and the Play Begins. One fine autumn evening, between eight and nine hundred years ago, two large hairy creatures, bearing some resemblance to polar bears, might have been seen creeping slowly, and with much caution, toward the summit of a ridge that formed a spur to one of the ice-clad mountains of Greenland. The creatures went on... more...

What the Ocean has to Say—Its Whispers—Its Thunders—Its Secrets. There is a voice in the waters of the great sea. It calls to man continually. Sometimes it thunders in the tempest, when the waves leap high and strong and the wild winds shriek and roar, as if to force our attention. Sometimes it whispers in the calm, and comes rippling on the shingly beach in a still, small voice, as if to solicit... more...

Preface. Sir Alexander Mackenzie was one of the most energetic and successful of the discoverers who have traversed the vast wilderness of British America. He did his work single-handed, with slender means, and slight encouragement, at a time when discovery was rare and the country almost terra incognita. The long and difficult route, so recently traversed by the Red River Expedition, was, to Sir... more...

Opens the Tale. Some time within the first quarter of the present nineteenth century, a little old lady—some people would even have called her a dear little old lady—sat one afternoon in a high-backed chair beside a cottage window, from which might be had a magnificent view of Sicilian rocks, with the Mediterranean beyond. This little old lady was so pleasant in all respects that an adequate... more...

The Alarm. Whitewing was a Red Indian of the North American prairies. Though not a chief of the highest standing, he was a very great man in the estimation of his tribe, for, besides being possessed of qualities which are highly esteemed among all savages—such as courage, strength, agility, and the like—he was a deep thinker, and held speculative views in regard to the Great Manitou (God), as well... more...

The Tale Begins with the Engaging of a “Tail”—and the Captain Delivers his Opinions on Various Subjects. Captain Dunning stood with his back to the fireplace in the back-parlour of a temperance coffee-house in a certain town on the eastern seaboard of America. The name of that town is unimportant, and, for reasons with which the reader has nothing to do, we do not mean to disclose it. Captain... more...

Opens the Ball. If ever there was a man who possessed a gem in the form of a daughter of nineteen, that man was Samuel Ravenshaw; and if ever there was a girl who owned a bluff, jovial, fiery, hot-tempered, irascible old father, that girl was Elsie Ravenshaw. Although a gem, Elsie was exceedingly imperfect. Had she been the reverse she would not have been worth writing about. Old Ravenshaw, as his... more...

At the Foot of the Mountain Range. Towards the close of a bright and warm day, between fifty and sixty years ago, a solitary man might have been seen, mounted on a mule, wending his way slowly up the western slopes of the Andes. Although decidedly inelegant and unhandsome, this specimen of the human family was by no means uninteresting. He was so large, and his legs were so long, that the contrast... more...

The Wild Karroo. A solitary horseman—a youth in early manhood—riding at a snail’s pace over the great plains, or karroo, of South Africa. His chin on his breast; his hands in the pockets of an old shooting-coat; his legs in ragged trousers, and his feet in worn-out boots. Regardless of stirrups, the last are dangling. The reins hang on the neck of his steed, whose head may be said to dangle from... more...