The lottery was to draw in about two months. Tom whiled away the time as well as he could. It is strange that creatures who have got only a few years to live, should still, at least half the time, be wishing to annihilate that very time which is so short. Yet so it is. Tom had given up peddling, for he was determined to be a rich man, and toil no more; besides, he had spent his money in the lottery ticket, and he had no cash to buy pins and needles with. He went to the tavern, drank gin sling, loafed with the idle fellows of the town, talked politics and scandal, and thus killed the time; but all did not make him content. Many times did he say to himself, “This idleness is a great curse; I wish I was at work; I’d rather peddle than play;” and yet, all the time, he was hoping and yearning for the day when he could be rich, and live without work. At last the time came when the lottery was to be drawn, and Tom was preparing to set off for New York, to be present at the important crisis. “Now, Tom,” said his wife, “mind! If you draw the highest prize, I want you to buy me a yaller silk gown, jest like Mrs. Million’s, only a great deal smarter. And do you buy me a red satin bonnet, like Mrs. Goldboy’s, only redder. And then do you buy me a new fan, with a pikter of a Wenus on one side, and a Cowpig on the other. And then if I don’t go to meetin’, and see who’ll hold their heads highest, and who’ll get the comfortin’ scripters――I’m not Bridget Trudge!” “Well, well,” said Tom, in reply, “and suppose I don’t draw the prize?” “Suppose you don’t draw the prize!” said the spouse, “why then you have thrown away your money like a fool, and remember what I say; if you don’t draw the prize, remember that I told you so; and if you do draw the prize, get the silk gown and the silk bonnet, and the fan.” After a little further conversation, Tom departed on his errand. The result will be told in another chapter. Pictures of Various Nations. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. _About the different colors of the human race._ The globe upon which we dwell is a small body compared with the sun, or with Jupiter, or Saturn; yet it contains many millions of inhabitants. The exact number can never be ascertained. The best estimates make the number between eight and nine hundred millions. This number is too great for a young mind to grasp. A better idea may be formed of it, by supposing the whole population of the globe to pass by you, one by one. How long would it take you to count them, at the rate of twenty thousand a day? More than one hundred and twenty years. These inhabitants are scattered over every part of the earth, and are to be found in almost every island of the sea. They have penetrated into the frozen regions, where scarcely anything grows but moss; where fish, bears and reindeer are their only food; and where they are obliged to live in cabins under ground.