ores of the noble continent of America.

"What! to America again?"

Ha! that is a large continent, and you need not fear that I am going to
take you over old ground. No, fear not that! New scenes await us; a
new _fauna_, a new _flora_,--I might almost say, a new earth and a new
sky!

You shall have variety, I promise you,--a perfect contrast to the scenes
of our last journey.

Then, you remember, we turned our faces to the cold and icy North,--now
our path lies through the hot and sunny South. Then we lived in a
log-hut, and closed every cranny to keep out the cold,--now, in our
cottage of palms and cane, we shall be but too glad to let the breeze
play through the open walls. Then we wrapped our bodies in thick
furs,--now we shall be content with the lightest garments. Then we were
bitten by the frost,--now we shall be bitten by sand-flies, and
mosquitoes, and bats, and snakes, and scorpions, and spiders, and stung
by wasps, and centipedes, and great red ants! Trust me, you shall have
a change!

Perhaps you do not contemplate _such_ a change with any very lively
feelings of pleasure. Come! do not be alarmed at the snakes, and
scorpions, and centipedes! We shall find a cure for every bite--an
antidote for every bane.

Our new journey shall have its pleasures and advantages. Remember how
of old we shivered as we slept, coiled up in the corner of our dark
log-hut and smothered in skins,--now we shall swing lightly in our
netted hammocks under the gossamer leaves of the palm-tree, or the
feathery frondage of the ferns. Then we gazed upon leaden skies, and at
night looked upon the cold constellation of the Northern Bear;--now, we
shall have over us an azure canopy, and shall nightly behold the
sparkling glories of the Southern Cross, still shining as bright as when
Paul and his little Virginie with loving eyes gazed upon it from their
island home. In our last journey we toiled over bleak and barren
wastes, across frozen lakes, and marshes, and rivers;--now we shall pass
under the shadows of virgin forests, and float lightly upon the bosom of
broad majestic streams, whose shores echo with the voices of living
nature.

Hitherto our travels have been upon the wide, open prairie, the
trackless plain of sand, the frozen lake, the thin scattering woods of
the North, or the treeless snow-clad "Barrens." Now we are about to
enter a great forest,--a forest where the leaves never fade, where the
flowers are alway