14 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



sent with a detachment, to drive away from the 

 wheat-fields and jungles the tigers that often 

 prowl about the camps or even enter the villages ; 

 and he bears terrible marks to this day of the 

 danger of such an employment. He has lately 

 told me, that more than once he has owed his 

 safety to that moment of observation, when the 

 animal seemed as if collecting his force ; for, 

 as it always took place at a very short distance, 

 he seized that favourable pause, while his foe 

 was stationary and steady, to take a deliberate 

 aim at a mortal spot." 



1th. In describing the changes that have been 

 produced by the action of the deluge, my uncle 

 has often dwelt on the vast force of large bodies 

 of water, when moving with rapidity. He sup- 

 poses that most of the vallies have been scooped 

 out by those means, and he divides them into two 

 classes : longitudinal vallies, or those which lie 

 parallel to the chains of hills ; and the trans- 

 verse vallies, which intersect the chains. Caro- 

 line anil I frequently talk over what he tells us, 

 and we agreed to ask him in our walk this morn- 

 ing, why the violence that tore out the vallies did 

 not disturb the hills at the same time. 



(t Those mighty currents," he replied, " na- 

 turally made their first impression on some weak 

 part ; the fragments that were thus detached 

 assisted in excavating a channel as they rushed 



