three-year voyage, the story is that he once lost his 'bearings' for a month; in fact, it is intimated that a hiatus of two months in his 'log' really did exist. This hiatus, however, could easily have been covered in the ship's log-book. We may conceive of reasons for which he might have preferred to keep a temporary silence concerning the discovery of a strange people, in those early, savage times. The little book said, that, when in the Pacific, after passing the strait, Sir Francis was for two weeks driven in a southerly course--a severe, and in every way most unusual storm prevailing. When the winds and the waves subsided, he was surprised to find himself looking into the mouth of a harbor, on the shores of which stood a city, by no means so large as London or even as Paris; but exceeding in grandeur the London or the Paris of that day, as the Paris of to-day exceeds in elegance the comparative squalor of the Paris of three centuries ago. According to the leather-covered little German book, the city was beautiful beyond comparison with any of the European cities of that period. I should suppose that the author thought of it as we do of Athens in the days of Pericles. Not much is said of the inhabitants, who were probably infinitely superior, socially, to the rough voyagers of that date. And for once the 'natives' were neither bullied nor 'converted,' Sir Francis departing no richer than he arrived, save for a few commercially valueless gifts. One thing the natives, it seems, insisted on: Sir Francis arrived in the city without knowing his longitude; and they compelled him on leaving to accept conditions that prevented him from finding his bearings till he was more than a thousand miles away. What the nature of the climate was in this strange city may be judged by the expressions employed in the little book, which, translated, were equivalent to 'perfect,' 'Eden-like,' 'balmy,' 'delicious.' Once the author compares this antarctic city to Venice--admittedly to the Venice of his imagination. No; Sir Francis had nothing to brag of in this adventure; and in those days when to be physically subdued, or in a contest to fail to subdue others, was a humiliation or even a disgrace, he would have kept very quiet about the whole affair; particularly as a future navigator could not have found the city, even had Sir Francis told all that he knew. Now I mention these reports only to show you that others have thought of warm antarctic lands; and I could refer you to many other old stories and traditions, highly suggestive of inhabited lands in the Antarctic Ocean, on which lands a refined people dwell. I certainly expect to learn from Peters facts of some importance to the world, if only he does not die, or is not so delirious as to throw a shadow on the verity of his story, even if he does disclose the wonders which I most assuredly believe that he will if he lives but another day. Really, I am, for the first time in years, excited.