appear as if they had come to stay, and give a start to a new Harper's Ferry. It is, perhaps, a good sign of their business qualifications that they are not bothered with sentiment as is shown in their sale of John Brown's fort. Everybody at the place wishes them well and hopes that they realize a good price for this interesting relic, but many regret that they did not retain it, as age but added to its value to the owners and, indeed, to the whole town, for many a tourist has tarried a day at the place expressly to get a good sight of it, and the older it grew, the more interest was attached to it. When the author of this book had about finished his labors, he became aware of something very interesting in connection with the site of Harper's Ferry. Had he known it when he began, he certainly would have given his readers the benefit of it at the start, for there it belongs as, if it happened at all, it occurred away back in the misty ages of history or, at least, of Christianity. It is true that he could have remodeled his manuscript and penned it over again, but, as the Fatalists say, "what is written is written" and the undoing of what has been done might bring bad luck to him by putting him in conflict with Fate, besides imposing much labor on him for nothing, perhaps. From his earliest years the writer has been familiar with the legend of Saint Brandan or Borandan, a pious though enterprising Irish monk of the 6th century, who embarked, it is said, on the Atlantic in quest of the "Isles of Paradise," as they were called. At that time and, indeed, at a much later period, there was a firm belief that there was, at least, one island of exquisite beauty in the western Ocean, which appeared at intervals, but always eluded those who tried to take possession of it. There is reason to believe that some vision of the kind, the effect of mirage was sometimes presented to the unsophisticated sailors and fishermen of the olden time and as in those days science had scarcely been born, it is no wonder that a belief in the actual existence of this land was firmly fixed in the minds of a people imaginative and poetic as the Irish, ancient or modern. Be this as it may, there is a well authenticated tradition of the voyage of Saint Brandan in quest of this evanescent land, and manuscripts of hoary antiquity preserved in monasteries until the Reformation, and, since, in old families that trace their lineage even to the times of the Druids, corroborate the oral tradition. Grave historians of late times give respectful mention to the voyage of Saint Brandan and many prefer a claim to his having been the first European discoverer of America. Some time this winter--1901-1902--the author saw in some newspaper a statement purporting to be from some correspondent in Great Britain or Ireland, that a manuscript had been discovered a little before, giving a circumstantial account of this voyage--of the discovery by Brandan of a