of light
becomes pure black. The thoughts and feelings are confined within that
chamber with the ebony walls, and are forcibly attracted and made to
rest upon the tree-stems, the leaves, the flowers, and other objects
that glow in the ruddy blaze. Thus the thoughts are collected, and the
wanderer feels, once more, something of the _home-feeling_.

It was not long before our travellers realised this agreeable change.
The depression of their spirits vanished with the darkness and rose with
the leaping flames, until some of the members of the party became quite
facetious. This was especially the case when supper had been disposed
of and the pipes were lighted. It was then that Rance became chatty and
anecdotal in his tendencies, and Jeffson told marvellous stories of
Yankee-land, and Douglas, who devoted himself chiefly to his pipe,
became an attentive listener and an awkward tripper up of the heels of
those who appeared to be "drawing the long-bow," and Meyer looked, if
possible, more solid and amiable than at other times, and Frank enjoyed
himself in a general way, and made himself generally agreeable, while
Joe Graddy became profoundly sententious. Even Bradling's nature
appeared to be softened, for he looked less forbidding and grumpy than
at other times, and once condescended to remark that a life in the woods
was not such a bad one after all!

"Not such a bad one!" cried Joe Graddy; "why, messmate, is that all
you've got to say about it? Now I'll give 'e my opinion on that head.
This is where it lies--see here." (Joe removed his pipe from his mouth
and held up his fore-finger by way of being very impressive.) "I've
travelled pretty well now in every quarter of the globe; gone right
round it in fact, and found that it _is_ round after all,--'cause why?
I went in, so to speak, at one end from the west'ard an' comed out at
the same end from the east'ard, though I must confess it all appeared to
me as flat's a pancake, always exceptin' the mountainous parts of it,
w'ich must be admitted to be lumpy. Hows'ever, as I wos sayin', I've
bin a'most all over the world--I've smoked wi' the Turks, an' hobnobbled
with John Chinaman, an' scrambled through the jungles of the Indies, an'
gone aloft the Himalayas--"

"What, have you seen the Himalayas?" asked Jeffson, with a doubtful
look.

"How could I be among 'em without seein' of 'em?" replied Joe.

"Ah, das is goot--vair goot," said Meyer, opening his huge mouth ver