lly
_taking_ to one's self a wife, seems to be that it is more manly to seize
upon the lady than to sue for her. Why Mohammedan women are always
selected for capture by these fanatical Christians does not appear. But it
is probable that a desire to make proselytes is the chief motive which
causes this action. The women taken are not Turkish, but members of
Albanian tribes which have become Mohammedan; so it is probable that they,
and consequently their children, are looked upon as stray sheep brought
back to the fold. As for the Miridite women, they must take their chances
of getting husbands among the other Christian tribes of Northern Albania,
or else remain virgins all their days, for on no account will the Miridite
men marry within the tribe.

W. W. C.

FRIEND ABNER IN THE NORTH-WEST.

Friend Amos: As thee knows I have been here now some little time, thee
will trust me to give thee a fair description of the country and the
people. The fertility of the land is so widely known that I need not
attempt to enlarge upon that to thee. Broad tracts of gently-rolling
prairie-land spread over the southern portions of Wisconsin and Minnesota,
and vast pine-forests are laid under tribute in the north. The Mississippi
River, which flows between the two States, sorely disappointed me. I
looked for a broad and mighty mass of water, and I found a stream, here at
least, and even for hundreds of miles south, by no means as imposing as
our own Delaware. On either side of it rises a continuous range of
limestone bluffs, showing, far up their rocky sides, the clear wearing of
the ancient water-line. Among these bluffs, stretching back some miles
from the river, curl beautiful and fertile valleys, planted in which, and
often indeed clinging to the unpromising sides of the ragged bluffs, are
the dwellings of the settlers. In the portions longest inhabited rise
often pretty, and sometimes even stately, residences, but in the western
portions many of the settlers are colonists from Norway and Germany, and,
as these are mostly poor, they live more commonly in mere hovels, and
stable their stock under masses of straw resting on frames of posts. The
long and tedious winters being severe on stock, the farmers devote
themselves, in a great degree, to the culture of wheat.

The climate has not the evenness of our own, and the reports I know thee
has heard to the contrary are mistaken. The mercury not unfrequently falls
to thirty-five an