requently enabled to give useful counsels to all the
neighbourhood. A large tract of ground had been formerly deluged by the
sea; and the waters, finding no convenient vent, spread themselves all
around, and converted a large extent of soil into a filthy marsh. Every
year, when the heat of summer prevailed, the atmosphere was filled with
putrid exhalations, which produced fevers and pestilential disorders
among the inhabitants. Touched with compassion for the evils which they
endured, I persuaded them to undertake the task of draining the soil and
letting off the superfluous waters. This I instructed them to do with
such success that, in a short time, an unwholesome desert became covered
with the most luxuriant harvests, and was deprived of all its noxious
influence. By thus rendering my services useful to my fellow-creatures,
I received the purest reward which can attend the increase of
knowledge--the consciousness of performing my duty, and humbly imitating
that Being, whose goodness is as general and unbounded as his power.

"'Amidst these tranquil and innocent employments my life flowed gently
away like a clear and even stream. I was a stranger to avarice or
ambition, and to all the cares which agitate the bulk of mortals.
Alternate labour and study preserved the vigour both of body and mind;
our wants were few and easily gratified; we chiefly subsisted upon the
liberal returns of the earth, and seldom polluted our table with the
bodies of slaughtered animals. One only child, the unfortunate girl who
owes her preservation to the courage of this young man, was granted to
our prayers; but in her we found enough to exercise all the affections
of our minds; we hung with ecstasy upon her innocent smiles, and
remarked her opening graces with all the partiality of parental
fondness. As she grew up, her mother instructed her in all the arts and
employments of her sex; while I, who already saw the tempest gathering,
which has since burst with such fatal fury upon my country, thought it
necessary to arm her mind with all the firmness which education can
bestow. For this reason I endeavoured to give both her mind and body a
degree of vigour which is seldom found in the female sex.

"'As soon as Selene (for that was her name) was sufficiently advanced in
strength to be capable of the lighter labours of husbandry and
gardening, I employed her as my constant companion, and she soon
acquired a dexterity in all the rustic employmen