Not only are yaks used for draught and for carrying loads, but they are also ridden, a special saddle being then used. Along the roads between Pekin and Lhassa, a yak will carry its rider twenty miles a day, it is said, or it will carry a load ten miles. Much quicker journeys may be made, however, by taking fresh yaks at certain posts or stages. In this way the traveller already referred to was able to ride one hundred and seventy-five miles in five days, the two longest days' journeys being forty-five and forty-two miles respectively.
GOING TO BED.
S up the stairs to bed I go,
A tiger chases me;
He's somewhere in the dark, I know,
Although I cannot see.
From step to step I quickly jump,
But oh, how slow I seem!
And I can feel my heart go 'Thump!
It nearly makes me scream.
The tiger can go faster, much,
He gains at every stride;
He's sure to get me in his clutch—
He's almost at my side!
I dare not give a look behind,
I fear his savage glare;
His cruel teeth I hear him grind,
A-tingle goes my hair!
At last I reach the landing wide—
I'm at the nursery door;
I shut it tight, and, safe inside,
I pant upon the floor.
But Mother often laughs at me
For getting such a scare;
And, somehow, when she goes to see,
The tiger's never there!
MARVELS OF MAN'S MAKING.
IV.—THE BRIDGE AT VICTORIA FALLS.
F a railway train could travel over a rainbow, it would hardly have been necessary to build a bridge over the Zambesi River at the Victoria Falls, for during seven months of the year a rainbow can always be seen there; but about the end of August the fairy architects take it down, and do not come to build it again until the beginning of February. The rainbow is made by the sunlight shining on the dancing drops of spray that leap from the waterfall while the river is in flood. But when, after the end of August, the flood subsides, the spray subsides too, and the lovely rainbow fades from sight until the rainy season has returned.