THE RISING OF THE WATERS.

[JOHN GALT, a native of Irvine in Ayrshire, was born on the 2nd of May, 1779. Early in life he removed to Greenock, where he commenced his literary career. After various unsuccessful attempts in authorship, he commenced novel writing, and produced several works which are still largely read. After a very chequered existence, he died in Greenock on the 11th of April, 1839. Our extract is from his novel, "Laurie Todd."]

ABOUT daybreak it began to rain, and continued to pour with increasing violence all the morning; no one thought of stirring abroad who could keep within shelter. My boys and I had for task only to keep the fire at the door of the shanty brisk and blazing, and to notice that the pools which began to form around us did not become too large; for sometimes, besides the accumulation of the rain, little streams would suddenly break out, and, rushing towards us, would have extinguished our fire, had we not been vigilant.

The site I had chosen for the shanty was near to a little brook, on the top of the main river's bank. In fine weather, no situation could be more beautiful; the brook was clear as crystal, and fell in a small cascade into the river, which, broad and deep, ran beneath the bank with a swift but smooth current.

The forest up the river had not been explored above a mile or two: all beyond was the unknown wilderness. Some vague rumours of small lakes and beaver dams were circulated in the village, but no importance was attached to the information : save but for the occasional little torrents with which the rain sometimes hastily threatened to extinguish our fires, we had no cause to dread inundation.

The rain still continued to fall incessantly: the pools it formed in the hollows of the ground began, towards noon, to overflow their banks, and to become united. By-and-by something like a slight current was observed passing from one to another; but think

ing only of preserving our fire, we no farther noticed this than by occasionally running out of the shanty into the shower, and scraping a channel to let the water run off into the brook or the river.

It was hoped that about noon the rain would slacken; but in this we were disappointed. It continued to increase, and the ground began to be so flooded, while the brook swelled to a river, that we thought it might become necessary to shift our tent to a higher part of the bank. To do this we were, however, reluctant, for it was impossible to encounter the deluge without being almost instantly soaked to the skin; and we had put the shanty up with more care and pains than usual, intending it should serve us for a home until our house was comfortably furnished.

About three o'clock the skies were dreadfully darkened and overcast. I had never seen such darkness while the sun was above the horizon, and still the rain continued to descend in cataracts, but at fits and intervals. No man, who had not seen the like, would credit the description.

Suddenly a sharp flash of lightning, followed by an instantaneous thunder-peal, lightened up all the forest; and almost in the same moment the rain came lashing along as if the windows of heaven were opened; anon another flash, and a louder peal burst upon us, as if the whole forest was rending over and around us.

I drew my helpless and poor trembling little boys under the skirts of my great coat.

Then there was another frantic flash and the roar of the thunder was augmented by the riven trees that fell, cloven on all sides in a whirlwind of splinters. But though the lightning was more terrible than scimitars, and the thunder roared as if the vaults of heaven were shaken to pieces and tumbling in, the irresistible rain was still more appalling than either. I have said that it was as if the windows of heaven

were opened. About sunset, the ground floods were as if the fountains of the great deep were breaking up.

I pressed my shivering children to my bosom, but I could not speak. At the common shanty, where there had been for some time an affectation of mirth and ribaldry, there was now silence: at last, as if with one accord, all the inhabitants rushed from below their miserable shed, tore it into pieces, and ran with the fragments to a higher ground, crying wildly, "The river is rising!"

I had seen it swelling for some time, but our shanty stood so far above the stream, that I had no fear it would reach us. Scarcely, however, had the axemen escaped from theirs, and planted themselves on the crown of a rising ground nearer to us, where they were hastily constructing another shed, when a tremendous crash and roar was heard at some distance in the woods

higher up the stream. It was so awful, I had almost said so omnipotent, in the sound, that I started on my feet, and shook my treasures from me. For a moment the Niagara of the river seemed almost to pause—it was but for a moment-for, instantly after, the noise of the rending of weighty trees, the crashing and the tearing of the rooted forest, rose around. The waters of the river, troubled and raging, came hurling with the wreck of the woods, sweeping with inconceivable fury every thing that stood within its scope;-a lake had burst its banks.

The sudden rise of the waters soon, however, subsided; I saw it ebbing fast, and comforted my terrified boys. The rain also began to abate. Instead of those dreaded sheets of waves which fell upon us as if some vast ocean behind the forest was heaving over it spray, a thick continued small rain came on; and, about an hour after sunset, streaks and breaks in the clouds gave some token that the worst was over; it was not, however, so, for about the same time a stream appeared in the

hollow, between the rising ground to which the axemen had retired, and the little knoll on which our shanty stood; at the same time the waters in the river began to swell again. There was on this occasion no abrupt and bursting noise; but the night was fast closing upon us, and a hoarse muttering and angry sound of many waters grew louder and louder on all sides.

The darkness and increasing rage of the river, which there was just twilight enough to show was rising above the brim of the bank, smote me with inexpressible terror. I snatched my children by the hand, and rushed forward to join the axemen; but the torrent between us rolled so violently, that to pass was impossible, and the waters still continued to rise.

I called aloud to the axemen for assistance; and, when they heard my desperate cries, they came out of the shed, some with burning brands and others with their axes glittering in the flames; but they could render no help; at last, one man, a fearless backwoodsman, happened to observe, by the firelight, a tree on the bank of the torrent, which it in some degree overhung, and he called for others to join him in making a bridge. In the course of a few minutes the tree was laid across the stream, and we scrambled over, just as the river extinguished our fire and swept our shanty

away.

About this time the mizzling rain began to fall softer; the dawn of the morn appeared through the upper branches of the forest, and here and there the stars looked out from their windows in the clouds. The storm was gone, and the deluge assuaged; the floods all around us gradually ebbed away, and the insolent and unknown waters which had so swelled the river shrunk within their banks, and, long before the morning, had retired from the scene.

Need I say that anthems of deliverance were heard in our camp that night? Oh, surely no! The woods answered to our psalms, and waved their mighty arms;

the green leaves clapped their hands; and the blessed moon, lifting the veil from her forehead, and looking down upon us through the boughs, gladdened our solemn rejoicing. GALT.

SPEECH ON NEGRO SLAVERY.

[HENRY LORD BROUGHAM, a distinguished lawyer, statesman, orator, and writer, was born 19th September, 1778. Along with Jeffrey and others, he founded the Edinburgh Review in 1802. He was elected Member of Parliament for Yorkshire in 1830, and became Lord Chancellor of England in the same year. He resigned this office in 1834, and from that date until his death on the 7th of May, 1868, he devoted himself to literary pursuits, and to the furtherance of various schemes having for their object the amelioration of the condition of the people.]

I TRUST that at length the time is come, when Parliament will no longer bear to be told, that slave-owners are the best lawgivers on slavery; no longer suffer our voices to roll across the Atlantic in empty warnings and fruitless orders. Tell me not of rights-talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves. I deny his right-I acknowledge not the property. The principles, the feelings of our common nature, rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the same that rejects it. In vain you tell me of laws that sanction such a claim ! There is a law above all the enactments of human codes -the same throughout the world-the same in all times; such as it was before the daring genius of Columbus pierced the night of ages, and opened to one world the sources of power, wealth, and knowledge, to another all unutterable woes-such is it at this day: it is the law written by the finger of God on the heart of man; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal —while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and hate blood, they shall reject with indignation the wild and guilty fantasy, that man can hold property in man!