To his description of the perilous Vale of Devils we fear no such respectable origin can be attributed. "This vale," he says, "is full of devils, and has been always;" and horrible noises are heard in it day and night, as though Satan and his crew were holding an infernal feast. Many daring men have entered in quest of the gold and silver which are known to abound therein; but few have come out again, for the devils strangle the misbelieving. We regret to say that Sir John assures us that he actually saw this vale and went through it with several of his company. They heard mass first and confessed their sins, and, trusting in God, fourteen men marched into the valley; but when they came out at the other end they were only nine. Whether the five were strangled by devils or turned back, Sir John did not know; he never saw them again. The vale was full of horrible sights and sounds. Corpses covered the ground, storms filled the air. The face and shoulders of an appalling devil terrified them, belching forth smoke and stench from beneath a huge rock, and several times the travellers were cast down to the ground and buffeted by tempests. Our author unfortunately was afraid to pick up any of the treasures which strewed the way; he did not know what they might really be; for the devils are very cunning in getting up imitation gems and metals; and besides, he adds, "I would not be put out of my devotion; for I was more devout then than ever I was before or after."

When one has passed through the Vale of Devils, other marvels are encountered beyond. There are giants twenty-eight or thirty feet in height, and Sir John heard of others whose stature was as much as fifty feet; but he candidly avows that he "had no lust to go into those parts," because when the giants see a ship sailing by the island on which they live, they wade out to seize it, and bring the men to land, two in each hand, eating them all alive and raw as they walk. In another island toward the north are people quite as dangerous, but not quite so shocking; these are women who have precious stones in their eyes, and when they are angry they slay a man with a look. Still more marvellous and incredible than any of these tales is the account of that country, unnamed and undescribed, where kings are chosen for their virtue and ability alone, and justice is done in every cause to rich and poor alike, and no evil-doer, be he the king, himself, ever escapes punishment. There is an isle besides, called Bragman, or the Land of Faith, where all men eschew vice, and care not for money; where there is neither wrath, envy, lechery, nor deceit; where no man lies, or steals, or deceives his neighbor; where never a murder has been done since the beginning of time; where there is no poverty, no drunkenness, no pestilence, tempest, or sickness, no war, and no oppression. All these fine countries are under the sway of the magnificent Prester John.

Here, on the borders of that Land of Perpetual Darkness, which stretches away to the Terrestrial Paradise, we take leave of our good knight, now near the end of his travels. "Rheumatic gouts" began to torture his wandering limbs and warn him to go home. He has, indeed, a few more stories to tell; but they are dull in comparison with the wonders we have already recounted. Much more, indeed, he might have written; but he gives a truly ingenuous reason for checking his pen:

"And therefore, now that I have devised you of certain countries which I have spoken of before, I beseech your worthy and excellent nobleness that it suffice to you at this time; for if I told you all that is beyond the sea, another man perhaps, who would labor to go into those parts to seek those countries, might be blamed by my words in rehearsing many strange things; for he might not say any thing new, in which the hearers might have either solace or pleasure."

HOME SCENES IN NEW ENGLAND.

CHAPTER I.
MY AUNT AND THE CATECHISM.

"There sister! I told you what would come of letting that dear child hear little Mary Ann recite the Romanist catechism. Here we have our little Kitty setting herself up as a judge in matters of religion, and quoting the answers she has learned by hearing them repeated! Not but that she is as good a child as her auntie or her mother could desire; but her brain is too thoroughly American, too much given to going to the bottom of any subject it is once interested in, to stop half-way in a matter of this kind. I knew all the time how it would end."

Here my maiden aunt paused, more in sorrow than in anger, and little Kitty remarked playfully,