—a pullet in mine goat-tail, - dey shoots me three, five dime, and by tam I gives dem h-l yet!"

But I can render you no idea of the battle caldron that boiled on the plateau. An incident, here and there, I have given you, and you must fill out the picture for yourself. Dead soldiers lay thick around Bragg's headquarters and along the ridge. Scabbards, broken arms, artillery horses, wrecks of gun-carriages, bloody garments, strewed the scene; and, tread lightly, O true-hearted, the boys in blue are lying there; no more the sounding charge; no more the brave wild cheer; and never for them, sweet as the breath of new-mown hay in the old home fields, "the Soldier's Return from the War." A little waif of a drummerboy, somehow drifted up the mountain in the surge, lies there, his pale face upward, a blue spot on his breast. Muffle his drum for the poor child and his mother.

With the receding flight and swift pursuit the battle died away in murmurs, far down the valley of the Chicamauga; Sheridan was again in the saddle, and with his command spurring on after the enemy. Tall columns of smoke were rising at the left. The enemy were burning a train of stores a mile long. In the exploding caissons we had "the cloud by day," and now we were having "the pillar of fire by night.” The sun, the golden dish of the scales that balance day and night, had hardly gone down, when up, beyond Mission Ridge, rose the silver side, for that night it was full moon. The troubled day was done.

The ardor of the men had been quenchless; there had been three days of fitful fever, and after it, alas, a

multitude slept well. The work on the right, left, and centre cost us full four thousand killed and wounded. There is a tremble of the lip but a flash of pride in the eye as the soldier tells with how many he went in, how expressive is that "went in!” Of a truth it was wading in deep waters, — with how few he came out. I cannot try to swing the burden clear from any heart by throwing into the scale upon the other side the deadweight of fifty-two pieces of captured artillery, ten thousand stand of arms, and heaps of dead enemies, or by driving upon it a herd of seven thousand prisoners. Nothing of all this can lighten that burden a single ounce, but those three days' work brought Tennessee to resurrection; set the flag, that fairest blossom in all this flowery world, to blooming in its native soil again.

That splendid march from the Federal line of battle to the crest was made in one hour and five minutes, but it was a grander march toward the end of carnage; a glorious campaign of sixty-five minutes toward the white borders of peace. It made that fleeting November afternoon imperishable. Let the struggle be known as the Battle of Mission Ridge, and now that calmer days have come, men make pilgrimage and women smile again among the mountains of the Cumberland, but they need no guide. Rust may have eaten the guns; the graves of the heroes may have subsided like waves weary of their troubling; the soldier and his leader may have lain down together; but there, embossed upon the globe, Mission Ridge will stand its fitting monument forever.

BEG my readers to fancy themselves wafted away to the shores of the Bay of Yedo, -a fair, smiling landscape: gentle slopes, crested by a dark fringe of pines and firs, lead down to the sea; the quaint eaves of many a temple and holy shrine peep out here and there from the groves; the bay itself is studded with picturesque fisher-craft, the torches of which shine by night like glow-worms among the outlying forts; far away to the west loom the goblin-haunted heights of Oyama, and beyond the twin hills of the Hakoné Pass, Fuji-Yama, the Peerless Mountain, solitary and grand, stands in the centre of the plain, from which it sprang, vomiting flames, twenty-one centuries ago. For a hundred and sixty years the huge mountain has been at peace; but the frequent earthquakes still tell of hidden fires, and none can say when the red-hot stones and ashes may once more fall like rain over five provinces.

In the midst of a nest of venerable trees in Takanawa, a suburb of Yedo, is hidden Sengakuji, or the Spring Hill Temple, renowned throughout the length and breadth

of the land for its cemetery, which contains the graves of the Forty-seven Rônins,* famous in Japanese history, heroes of Japanese drama, the tale of whose deeds I am about to transcribe.

On the left-hand side of the main court of the temple is a chapel, in which, surmounted by a gilt figure of Kwanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, are enshrined the images of the forty-seven men and of the master whom they loved so well. The statues are carved in wood, the faces colored, and the dresses richly lacquered. As works of art, they have great merit, the action of the heroes, each armed with his favorite weapon, being wonderfully lifelike and spirited. Some are venerable men, with thin gray hair (one is seventy-seven years old); others are mere boys of sixteen. Close by the chapel, at the side of a path leading up the hill, is a little well of pure water, fenced in and adorned with a tiny fernery, over which is an inscription setting forth that "This is the well in which the head was washed; you must not wash your hands or your feet here." A

*The word Roain means, literally, a wave-man," one who is tossed about hither and thither, as a wave of the sea. It is used to designate persons of gentle blood, entitled to bear arms, who, having become separated from their feudal lords, by their own act, or by dismissal, or by fate, wander about the country in the capacity of somewhat disreputable knights-errant, without ostensible means of living, offering themselves for hire to new masters, or supporting themselves by pillage. Sometimes, for political reasons, a man will become Rônin, in order that his lord may not be implicated in some deed of blood in which he is about to engage.

little farther on is a stall, at which a poor old man earns a pittance by selling books, pictures, and medals, commemorating the loyalty of the Forty-seven; and higher up, shaded by a grove of stately trees, is a neat enclosure, kept up, as a signboard announces, by voluntary contributions, round which are ranged forty-eight little tombstones, each decked with evergreens, each with its tribute of water and incense for the comfort of the departed spirit. There were forty-seven Rônins; there are forty-eight tombstones, and the story of the fortyeighth is truly characteristic of Japanese ideas of honor. Almost touching the rail of the graveyard is a more imposing monument, under which lies buried the lord whose death his followers piously avenged.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century lived a daimio, called Asano Takumi no Kami, the lord of the castle of Akô, in the province of Harima. Now it happened that an Imperial ambassador from the court of the Mikado, having been sent to the Shogun* at Yedo, Takumi no Kami and another noble called Kamei Sama were appointed to receive and feast the envoy; and a high official, named Kira Kôtsuké no Suké, was named to teach them the proper ceremonies to be observed upon the occasion. The two nobles were accordingly forced to go daily to the castle to listen to the instructions of Kot

"Bar

*The full title of the Tycoon was Sei-i-tai-Shogun, barian-repressing Commander-in-chief." The style Tai Kun, "Great Prince," was borrowed in order to convey the idea of sovereignty to foreigners, at the time of the conclusion of the treaties.