But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggling breath of pain,

And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips again.

Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand and faintly smiled:

Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch beside

her child?

5 All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart supplied;

With her kiss upon his forehead, "Mother!" murmured he, and died!

Second. A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee forth,

From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping lonely, in the North!

Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him with her dead,

10 And turned to soothe the living, and bind the wounds which bled.

First. Look forth once more, Ximena!

Second.

Like a cloud before the wind

Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood and

death behind;

Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the wounded strive;

Hide your faces, holy angels! O thou Christ of God, forgive!

Third. Sink, O Night, among thy mountains! let the cool, gray shadows fall;

Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain over all! Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the 5 battle rolled,

In its sheath the saber rested, and the cannon's lips grew

cold.

But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued, Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint and lacking food;

Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care they

hung,

And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and 10 Northern tongue.

Buena Vista (bwa'nah vees'tah): a battlefield of Mexico, situated among the mountains. -Ximena: pronounced he-ma'nah. - Angostura (an-gostooʻrah): a narrow pass near Buena Vista. — Miñ'on: a Mexican general.

PETER THE GREAT

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY

NOTE. Peter I, surnamed the Great, Czar of Russia, was born at Moscow in 1672. Much difference of opinion exists as to his greatness of character, but no one can deny that he was a man of remarkable abilities. Peter died in 1725.

5 One day, in the year 1697, the great Duke of Marlborough happened to be in the village of Saardam. He visited the dockyard of one Mynheer Calf, a rich shipbuilder, and was struck with the appearance of a journeyman at work there. He was a large, powerful man, 10 dressed in a red woolen shirt and duck trousers, with a sailor's hat, and seated, with an adze in his hand, upon a rough log of timber which lay on the ground. The man's features were bold and regular; his dark brown hair fell in natural curls about his neck; his 15 complexion was strong and ruddy, with veins somewhat distended, indicating an ardent temperament and more luxurious habits than comported with his station; and his dark, keen eye glanced from one object to another with remarkable restlessness. He was engaged in earnest con20 versation with some strangers whose remarks he occasionally interrupted, while he rapidly addressed them in a guttural but not unmusical voice. As he became occasionally excited in conversation his features twitched convulsively, the blood rushed to his forehead, his arms

were tossed about with extreme violence of gesticulation, and he seemed constantly upon the point of giving way to some explosion of passion, or else falling into a fit of catalepsy. His companions, however, did not appear alarmed by his vehemence, although they seemed to treat 5 him with remarkable deference; and after a short time his distorted features would resume their symmetry and

agreeable expression, his momentary frenzy would subside, and a bright smile would light up his whole countenance.

The duke inquired the name of this workman, and 10 was told that it was one Pieter Baas, a foreign journeyman of remarkable mechanical abilities and great industry. Approaching, he entered into some slight conversation with him upon matters pertaining to his craft. While they were conversing, a stranger of foreign mien 15 and costume appeared, holding a voluminous letter in his

hand; the workman started up, snatched it from his hand, tore off the seals, and greedily devoured its contents, while the stately Marlborough walked away unnoticed. The duke was well aware that, in this thin disguise, he saw 5 the Czar of Muscovy. Pieter Baas, or Boss Peter, or Master Peter, was Peter, the despot of all the Russias, a man who, having just found himself the undisputed proprietor of a quarter of the globe with all its inhabitants, had opened his eyes to the responsibilities of his 10 position, and had voluntarily descended from his throne for the noble purpose of qualifying himself to reascend it.

The empire of Russia was, at the accession of Peter the First, of quite sufficient dimensions for any reasonable monarch's ambition, but of most unfortunate geograph15 ical position. Shut off from civilized Western Europe by vast and thinly peopled forests and plains and touching nowhere upon the ocean, that great highway of civilization, the ancient empire of the czars seemed always in a state of suffocation.

20 Peter understood thoroughly the position of his empire the moment he came to the throne. Previous czars had issued a multiplicity of edicts forbidding their subjects to go out of the empire. Peter saw that the great trouble was that they could not get out. Both the natural gates 25 of his realm were locked upon him and the keys were in the hands of his enemies. When we look at the map of Russia now we do not sufficiently appreciate the difficulties