When one has passed through the Vale of Devils, other marvels are encountered beyond. There are giants twenty-eight or thirty feet in height, and Sir John heard of others whose stature was as much as fifty feet; but he candidly avows that he "had no lust to go into those parts," because when the giants see a ship sailing by the island on which they live, they wade out to seize it, and bring the men to land, two in each hand, eating them all alive and raw as they walk. In another island toward the north are people quite as dangerous, but not quite so shocking; these are women who have precious stones in their eyes, and when they are angry they slay a man with a look. Still more marvellous and incredible than any of these tales is the account of that country, unnamed and undescribed, where kings are chosen for their virtue and ability alone, and justice is done in every cause to rich and poor alike, and no evil-doer, be he the king, himself, ever escapes punishment. There is an isle besides, called Bragman, or the Land of Faith, where all men eschew vice, and care not for money; where there is neither wrath, envy, lechery, nor deceit; where no man lies, or steals, or deceives his neighbor; where never a murder has been done since the beginning of time; where there is no poverty, no drunkenness, no pestilence, tempest, or sickness, no war, and no oppression. All these fine countries are under the sway of the magnificent Prester John. Here, on the borders of that Land of Perpetual Darkness, which stretches away to the Terrestrial Paradise, we take leave of our good knight, now near the end of his travels. "Rheumatic gouts" began to torture his wandering limbs and warn him to go home. He has, indeed, a few more stories to tell; but they are dull in comparison with the wonders we have already recounted. Much more, indeed, he might have written; but he gives a truly ingenuous reason for checking his pen: "And therefore, now that I have devised you of certain countries which I have spoken of before, I beseech your worthy and excellent nobleness that it suffice to you at this time; for if I told you all that is beyond the sea, another man perhaps, who would labor to go into those parts to seek those countries, might be blamed by my words in rehearsing many strange things; for he might not say any thing new, in which the hearers might have either solace or pleasure." HOME SCENES IN NEW ENGLAND. CHAPTER I. MY AUNT AND THE CATECHISM.