Pg. 606

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 606 HOUSEHOLD WORDS. [Conducted by

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 several days; after which Abu Munchar, hearing of his fate and repenting of what he had done, went and procured his release, and took him to his palace near the Zeynab gate. Here;—strange to say, but the ways of Allah are inscrutable—quiet, and good feeding, and clean clothing, restored him to his wits. The wag appointed him as one of his servants, and he remained a long time in tranquillity without alluding to what had taken place.

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 At length, however, one day, Ali the barber, being merry, said to his master :

¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 “O merry man, where is that place where the wise and happy congregate, and where it is possible to call up by the mere will all that is beautiful and magnificent in the world, and to enjoy without trouble the fruits of power and wealth ? ”

¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 “Thou hast already been there,” replied Abu Munchar.

¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 “I remember not. What manner of place is it?”

¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 “The Moristân!”

¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0 THE LIFE OF A SALMON.

¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 1 No creature can well have a quieter birthplace than the trout which is spawned in the Bann. The Bann is not, on the whole, a quiet river, for it has a prodigious deal of work to do, and it does its work in a prodigious bustle at times; though occasionally it relaxes some- what, and seems to remember the great truth, that nothing is worth the loss of composure. The work that the Bann has to do is to carry away into the sea all the water that other rivers pour into the largest lake of our three kingdoms—Lough Neagh. This lake measures eighty miles round; and several rivers pour their waters into it, while there is only this one river Bann to carry them away. So it must move quickly to get its work done; and it does push on, and drive between its banks, and fume and splash at a grand rate, where rocks are obstinate in refusing to get out of its way. In other spots, whence the rocks got rolled away ages ago, and where thick woods overhang the stream, its current becomes not less rapid but more still. Clear, deep, and dark, it there flows on swiftly and silently. There it is that the salmon, if they are wise, look about them for some little cove —some recess in the banks—which is seldom violently flooded, but which receives a gentle ripple as the stream sweeps by. In such a little cove, with a floor of pure sand, the eggs of the salmon may lie unharmed by any dis­turbance till they are hatched. Some of the fish deposit their spawn where the waters lash the sand, or where animals like to drink, and there the eggs come to nothing and are lost. This is now so well understood, that in some places (in one place in France particu­larly) fishermen are making fortunes by look­ing in good time to the eggs and milt, and seeing that they are deposited in favourable places. Hundreds of thousands, aye, countless millions of fish may be provided for human food by this simple precaution, for want of which some of our Scotch and English rivers are supplying less and less salmon every year.

¶ 10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 1 In such a quiet pool, with its clean sandy bottom, does the fish pass its earliest days. From its first wriggle as a minute insect (as we should call it if we could see it at that stage of its life) to its first use of its fins and tail, that little pool is its world; Its world is quite big enough for it, and altogether beyond its comprehension. Even there it is not wholly beyond the reach of the tides—not shut out from the influences of the moon, and the laws which keep a universe full of firma­ments in their due place and order: but the little fish is very like us in being frightened, and fancying that everything is out of order when any commotion happens that it did not foresee; If it suppose that the universe was made for the sake of infant trout, it may well be alarmed when a strong ripple spreads over its pool, and the water makes a bubble or two against the bank ;—just as men used to take for granted that the world was coming to an end when there was an eclipse; or when an unusual aurora borealis turned the calm, cool night sky into a blood-red dome. Mankind has grown wiser with experience, and is learning that all goes on in the noblest and most: regular and stedfast way under laws which never change ; so that the wise man fears nothing : and even the infant trout grows bolder and happier as it learns more of its own world of waters. It wields its fins, it practises with its tail; it finds it can rise to the surface, and drop down to the sand, and get into the shade at noon under the roots of some water-loving tree, or make new glancing lights in the shallows by playing off its scales in the sunshine. By degrees, it goes out further into the current, and delights in being swept along by it, even though it is whirled away from its own native cove. It may not be for ever. In a year or two it may come up the stream again—as so many do every season.

¶ 11 Leave a comment on paragraph 11 1 Meantime, down it goes; not all at once, but as may suit its growing strength and size, and the provision of food it finds. Towards the end of winter the waters grow cold. The melting snows make them chilly. The salt water will be warmer; and the young creature is strong enough now to bear a salt-water life. So down it goes; faster and faster. It does not know why, but it is carried on faster and faster, under banks where the hazels are hanging out their catkins, and the willow­palm its velvet tufts. Here and there a well- sheltered primrose puts forth a pale bud, in some hollow of the bank, and the wild ducks are making a splutter among the ripening reeds. But now the river rushes so fast that the sun-gleams are like lightning, and there is a tumbling roar like thunder, and a splash like a deluge. On shoots the little creature, setting its rudder—that is, its tail—steady, like the older fish that go before, and in a trice