from the mountain of St. Etienne, and approaching the haunt of the serpent, soon encountered it. Gozon struck it with his lance, but the scales prevented its taking effect.

He prepared to redouble his blows, but his horse, frightened with the hisses of the serpent, refused to advance, and threw himself on his side. Gozon dismounted, and accompanied by his mastiffs, marched sword in hand towards this horrible beast. He struck him in various places, but the scales prevented him from penetrating them. The furious animal by a blow of his tail knocked down the knight, and would certainly have devoured him, had not his two dogs fastened on the belly of the serpent, which they lacerated in a dreadful manner. The knight, favoured by this help, rejoined his two mastiffs, and buried his sword in the body of the monster; which being mortally wounded, rushed on the knight, and would have crushed him to death by its weight, had not his servants, who were spectators of the combat, come to his relief. The serpent was dead, and the knight had fainted. When he recovered, the first and the most agreeable object which could present itself to his view, was the dead body of his enemy.

The death of the serpent was no sooner known in the city, than a crowd of the inhabitants came out to welcome their deliverer. The knights conducted him in triumph to the grand master, who, however, considered it a breach of discipline as unpardonable, even on such an occasion; and, regardless of the entreaties of the knights, and the important service that Gozon had rendered, sent him to prison. A council was assembled, who decided that he should be deprived of the habit of his order for disobedience. This was done; but Velleneuve repenting of his severity, soon restored it to him, and loaded him with favours.

Nothing could exceed the joy of the inhabitants in being delivered from this monster, whose head they stuck on one of the gates of the city, as a monument of the victory of Gozon, whom they regarded as their deliverer.

PASSAGE OF THE DESERT.

Colonel Capper, in his Journal of the Passage to India, through Egypt, and across the Great Desert, relates the following interesting anecdote: "January 24th, in the morning, Captain Twyss came and told us he should sail for Bassora the next day. He had six English passengers with him, that were going over the Desert, and also M. Borel de Bourg, the French officer, who had been plundered and wounded in the Desert. M. Borel wishing to hear the latest news from Eu

rope, and, perhaps, being desirous of conversing with a person who had lately travelled the same route as himself, came and spent the evening with me at the broker's house. I told him that I was no stranger to what had befallen him in the Desert, and easily prevailed upon him to give me an account of his adventures.

The particulars of the business upon which he was sent, he of course concealed; but, in general terms, he informed me, that soon after the engagement between the two fleets near Brest, in July, 1788, Monsieur Sartine, his friend and patron, ordered him to carry despatches over land to India. I think he said he left Marseilles on the third of August; but owing to the stupidity of the captain of the vessel, and to contrary winds, he did not arrive at Latchiea before the end of the month, whence he immediately proceeded to Aleppo. The French consul could not collect more than twenty-five guards to attend him across the Desert, with whom, on the 14th of September, he commenced his journey. He met with no serious molestation until he was within fifteen days of Bassora, when, early one morning, he perceived himself followed by a party of about thirty Arabs, mounted on camels, who soon overtook him. As they approached, he, by his interpreter, desired them either to advance or halt, or to remove to the right or left of him, for he chose to travel by himself. They answered that they should not interfere with him, and went forward at a brisk rate. M. Borel's people then suspected them of some hostile design, and told him to be upon his guard. In the evening, between four and five o'clock, he observed them halted, and drawn up, as if to oppose him; and in a few minutes, three other parties, consisting also of about thirty each, appeared in sight in opposite directions, seemingly inclined to surround him. From these appearances, naturally concluding their intentions to be hostile, and of consequence his situation desperate, he thought only of selling his life as dear as possible. He was armed with a double-barrelled fuzee, a pair of pistols, and a sabre. As he kept marching on, he first fell in with the party in the front, who fired at him, which he returned, as soon as he came within musket shot of them, and killed the Sheick. When he had discharged his fire arms, before he could load them again, several of the Arabs broke in from different sides and cut him down. Stunned with the violence of the blow, he knew nothing of what passed afterwards, until about an hour before day-break next morning, when he found himself entirely naked on the ground, a quantity of blood near him, and part of the flesh of his head hanging upon his cheek. In a few minutes, he recollected

what had passed; but as he could feel no fracture or contusion in the skull, he began to hope that his wounds were not mortal. This, however, was only a transient gleam of hope, for it immediately occurred to him, that without clothes or even food, he was likely to suffer a much more painful death. The first objects which attracted his attention when he began to look about him, were those who had been killed on both sides in the action; but, at the distance of a few hundred yards, he soon afterwards perceived a great number of Arabs seated round a large fire. These he naturally supposed were his enemies; he nevertheless determined to go to them, in hopes either to prevail upon them to spare his life, or else to provoke them to put an immediate end to his miseries. Whilst he was thinking in what manner, without the assistance of language, he should be able to excite their compassion, and to soften their resentment against him for the death of their companions, which he had heard that people seldom forgive, it occurred to him that they paid great respect to old age; and also, that they seldom destroy those who supplicate for mercy; whence he concluded, that if he should throw himself upon the protection of the oldest person among them, he might probably be saved. In order to approach them unperceived, he crept towards them upon his hands and knees; and when arrived within a few paces of their circle, having singled out one who had the most venerable appearance, he sprang over the head of one of the circle, and threw himself into the arms of him whom he had selected as his protector. The whole party were at first astonished, not having the least notion of his being alive; but when their surprise subsided, a debate arose, whether or not they should allow him to live. One of them, who had probably lost a friend or relation, drew his sword in a great rage, and was going to put him to death; but his protector stood up with great zeal in his defence, and would not suffer him to be injured; in consequence of which, his adversary immediately mounted his camel, and, with a few followers, went off. The Sheick, for so he happened to be, perceiving Monsieur Borel entirely without clothes, presented him with his abba, or outer cloak, invited him to approach the fire, and gave him coffee and a pipe; which an Arab, when he is not on the march, has always prepared. The people finding Monsieur Borel did not understand Arabic, inquired for his interpreter, who was found asleep, and slightly wounded.

The first demand the Arabs made, was for his money and jewels, which, they observed, Europeans always have in great abundance, but which are concealed in private drawers that none except themselves can discover. He assured them these

opinions were erroneous with respect to him, for that he was not a rich merchant, but only a young soldier of fortune, employed to carry orders from his government in Europe, to their settlements in India; but if they would convey him to Graine, a place near Bassora, on the sea coast, on their arrival there, and on the receipt of his papers, he would engage to pay them two hundred sequins, about one hundred pounds sterling. After a few minutes consultation with each other, they acceded to his proposals, returned him his oldest Arabian dress, and during the rest of his journey, treated him with kindness and

attention.

ESCAPE FROM INDIANS.

In the year 1759, the Mikmak Indians, who inhabited the province of Nova Scotia, committed great barbarities upon the then recently settled colony of Chedebucto. All the English residents whom they could lay hands on, were tormented according to their savage customs. Some of the tribes, on a particular night, having defeated the militia party of Captain Pike, (whom they scalped and tomahawked,) assembled with the prisoners they had made on the Dartmouth shore, and there began their horrid rites in view of the opposite town of Halifax. The victims were successively stretched on their frames, called squares, stuck full of lighted pine splinters, and thus miserably destroyed. One of the prisoners, of the name of Wheeler, had already suffered greatly by their cruelty, and was nearly half scalped. Whilst he waited his own turn of death, with the execution of his companions before his eyes, he determined to make an effort to avoid their fate, and desir ed permission to draw on one side, avowing a cause of urgent necessity. This being a request that the savages never refuse, an Indian was appointed to guard him. The bleeding and almost naked sufferer having concealed a knife, diverted the attention of the Indian, and plunged it into his body. This being done, he hastened into the adjoining woods, wildly flying through such thickets, as in that country are scarcely penetrable except by Indians. His escape soon dispersed his exasperated enemies and their dogs in various directions after him. Exhausted as he was with pain and fatigue, he still contrived to keep them at a distance, being aided by the darkness of the night. He had gone several leagues, when he came to the mouth of the inlet to the sea, known by the name of Coleharbour. Over the entrance to this inlet, runs a bar, with, at all times, a dangerous surf, which at this moment was increased by the commencement of a heavy gale. The raging of the sea was prodigious; his pursuers gained upon him. The un

happy fugitive was hemmed in. With the mingled energy of hope and despair, he threw himself into the surf, and most miraculously reached the opposite shore, while some of his enemies perished in attempting to follow him. He lay for a long time on the beach, almost dead with fatigue and loss of blood. His courage, however, soon revived, and he persevered through the woods towards Laurence Town fort, commanded by Lieutenant Newton, of the 46th regiment. Daylight discovered itself, when Wheeler came up to the pickets of the Block House; and, at the same instant, some of his pursuers made their appearance at an opposite point, having vainly taken a circuitous route to intercept their intended victim.

SINGULAR ADVENTURE OF A BRITISH SOLDIER, IN A CAMPAIGN IN AMERICA.

In the year 1779, when the war with America was conducted with great spirit upon that continent, a division of the British army was encamped on the banks of a river, and in a position so favoured by nature, that it was difficult for any military art to surprise it. War in America was rather a species of hunting than a regular campaign. "If you fight with art," said Washington to the soldiers, "you are sure to be defeated. Acquire discipline enough for concert, and the uniformity of combined attack, and your country will prove the best of the engineers." So true was this maxim of the American General, that the English soldiers had to contend with little else. The Americans had incorporated the Indians into their ranks, and had made them useful in a species of war to which their habits of life had peculiarly fitted them. They sallied out of their impenetrable forests and jungles, and, with their arrows and tomahawks, committed daily waste upon the British army, surprising their centinels, cutting off their stragglers, and even, when the alarm was given, and pursuit commenced, they fled with a swiftness that the speed of cavalry could not overtake, into rocks and fastnesses, whither it was dangerous to follow them.

In order to limit as far as possible this species of war, in which there was so much loss and so little honour, it was the custom with every regiment to extend its outposts to a great distance beyond the encampments; to station centinels some miles in the woods, and keep a constant guard round the main body.

A regiment of foot was, at this time, stationed upon the confines of a boundless Savannah. Its particular office was to guard every avenue of approach to the main body; the centinels, whose posts penetrated into the woods, were supplied from