The bare gray rocks sit lone;
    The shifting sand lies spread so smooth and dry
    That not a wave might ever have swept by
      To vex it with loud moan;
      Only some weedy fragments blackening thrown
    To rot beneath the sky, tell what has been,
    But Desolation’s self is grown serene.

      Afar the mountains rise,
    And the broad estuary widens out,
    All sunshine; wheeling round and round about
      Seaward, a white bird flies;
      A bird?  Nay, seems it rather in these eyes
    An angel; o’er Eternity’s dim sea,
    Beckoning—­’Come thou where all we glad souls be.’

      O life!  O silent shore
    Where we sit patient!  O great Sea beyond,
    To which we look with solemn hope and fond,
      But sorrowful no more!—­
      Would we were disembodied souls, to soar,
    And like white sea-birds wing the Infinite Deep!—­
    Till then, Thou, Just One, wilt our spirits keep.

THE PALO DE VACA, OR COW-TREE OF BRAZIL.

This is one of the most remarkable trees in the forests of Brazil.  During several months in the year when no rain falls, and its branches are dead and dried up, if the trunk be tapped, a sweet and nutritious milk exudes.  The flow is most abundant at sunrise.  Then, the natives receive the milk into large vessels, which soon grows yellow and thickens on the surface.  Some drink plentifully of it under the tree, others take it home to their children.  One might imagine he saw a shepherd distributing the milk of his flock.  It is used in tea and coffee in place of common milk.  The cow-tree is one of the largest in the Brazilian forests, and is used in ship-building.

* * * * *

Just Published, Price 6d.  Paper Cover,

CHAMBERS’S POCKET MISCELLANY:  forming a LITERARY COMPANION for the
RAILWAY, the FIRESIDE, or the BUSH.

VOLUME III.

To be continued in Monthly Volumes.

* * * * *

Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh.  Also sold by W.S.  ORR, Amen Corner, London; D.N.  CHAMBERS, 55 West Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. M’GLASHAN, 50 Upper Sackville Street, Dublin.—­Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to MAXWELL & CO., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all applications respecting their insertion must be made.