TO Africa! Yes; here it is ’92, January 1, early in the morning, and we are in the sleigh, and away we glide over the snow to Africa, to return to-night. “Twenty thousand miles in twelve hours, pooh! and going to hot Africa in a sleigh!” Suppose, then, we just think we are there, and we are there to all intents and purposes. “Well, here goes; I think I’m in South Africa at the mouth of some diamond hole (tunnel), January 1, ’92. Of course I’m there picking up diamonds to bring back for New Year’s presents, eh?” Indeed you—the best part of you, your soul, your thought—are. Just wake up your imagination, and it’s about the same. Now you step down into the dark hole. Deeper you descend, as down a steep hill, to the very bottom—eight hundred feet or more—through fields full of diamonds. See, just before you dim forms. They are naked natives digging. They fill up the small car of dirt, dotted with the precious stones, and away it goes up and out. It dumps its load and returns. It’s a dirty, dreadful place. Every little while there’s a roar; the ground shakes. There’s dynamite blasting to loosen the earth. Hurry out now; the tunnel may cave in, and you’ll be choked, as were several hundred a few years ago. Here we are outside. See, the ground is two feet deep with the earth carted out. They are harrowing it, or the rain is falling upon it. It is crumbling fine. Ah! see the shining treasures. But look out! Don’t put one into your pocket without permission; you are watched. Now back we come—in thought. There! have not we had one of the brightest New Year’s? Thus brighten up your imagination and you need not be bothering yourself forever with cars and steamboats and ships and seasickness and such things to see foreign lands. With a good book of travels or newspaper you can just trip over there—to Europe, Asia and Africa—in a moment, and see all you can carry back in a few more moments, and be home to tea the same day to show (tell) your treasures! L. ON A VISIT TO GERMANY. HERE we are. It is midwinter— “In Maine or New Hampshire or Canada, I guess.” Guess again, you mistaken Pansy. “Norway, then.” Nor Norway, but just simply in Germany. “Such snow-storms in Germany?” Yes, and that miss with umbrella and fat face trudging on is— “Fräulein, I dare say. Isn’t that, or something like it, the name of all the German girls?” Wouldn’t that mix things in a family of six girls? Think of a mother calling each one Fräulein! But that girl is no other than Bessie— “Bessie a German girl? Never heard one called that in all my life.”