stopped, and seemed to hesitate in wonder
for a moment. When they saw, however,
that they were being charged in good earnest,
they threw their blankets off, and ran away.

Those Indians are good walkers. If they
had been thus hunted in the woods, the
valiant dragoons might have been discomfited,
but over twenty miles of prairie there was
easy chace. In less than half-an-hour therefore,
the greater part of the dragoons—their
captain foremost—were close at the heels of
the fugitives. The poor fellows stopped
again, lifting up their guns for self-defence.
"Ha-a-a-a-alt!" shouted the watchmaker
partly to his steed which was in that critical
minute running away with him, and carrying
him through the very midst of the two corps
d'armée of the enemy.

"Ready for fi-i-i-ire!" he was yet heard to
roar at an enormous distance, whilst he
darted on like a John Gilpin of the western
plain.

The Indians fired a volley of small shot
against their assailants, wounding one amongst
them. They were, however, soon surrounded,
disarmed, tied together, and to Shakopee
conveyed triumphantly. Here the headless
squadron met again with its commander, who
had given notice of his victory almost at the
moment in which it was gained.

The following day numbers amongst the
brightest in that hero's life. His public
march from the quay to the market-place of
Saint Paul was a triumphal procession.
Before the counsel house he gave the word
to halt, and after having thanked his
subalterns for their perseverance and intrepidity,
he delivered his two prisoners of war into the
hands of the magistrate, declaring thereby that
he had done his duty, and that it remained
only for the civil authority to do the rest.

I am glad to say that the rest was wisely
done. The magistrate ordered the poor
fellows to be locked up until the assembled
people had dispersed; then, having given
each of them a few dollars to buy another
blanket, he allowed them to resume their
interrupted journey.

THE GROWTH OF OUR GARDENS.

WE are so accustomed to certain treasures,
both of knowledge and of possession, that we
forget how they were first acquired; with
what difficulty the most insignificant
importation from foreign countries was first made;
and how many noble human lives were spent
in solving questions, which now that
wonderful being, Every Schoolboy, has by heart.
Heirs to all the ages, we are too often
ungrateful to those from whom we inherit, and
by whose infinite pains, trouble, risk, and
sometimes suffering, our present goods were gained.

Now, in the special matter of fruits and
vegetables, who cares to reflect on the original
birthplace of those which are of present
daily use and universal consumption? They
have become so naturalised and so familiar
that we treat them as indigenous; and,
indeed, most of us, in our secret hearts, hold
a vague, floating kind of belief, that they are
British by origin rather than by adoption,
and belong to us by aboriginal grace of
nature, instead of by the toil and intelligence
of man. For instance, in that commonest
of all vegetables, the potato, who ever thinks
of the history lying between the present time
of national abundance, and the days when
those untried foreign roots grew wild and
untasted about Quito? Sir Walter Raleigh,
amongst many other great and good things
that he did, brought those roots as rare dainties
from Virginia to England, in fifteen
hundred and eighty-six; but Gérarde, Queen
Elizabeth's famous gardener, received them
as curiosities only in fifteen hundred and
ninety-seven. Eleven years had not made
them known, or brought them into fashion.
What revolutions, too, have passed over
society since sixteen hundred and sixteen,
when potatoes were eaten at the royal
table of France as a regal luxury; though
soon after to be abandoned to the commonalty
with contempt—since sixteen hundred and
nineteen, when they were one shilling a
pound, here in English markets—and even
since seventeen hundred and ninety, when,
Suffolk first began to possess them, according
to the testimony of Arthur Young. Why,
the most important changes which the world
has ever seen, have occurred since then. The
whole map of Europe has been re-cast, and
the whole fabric of human society has been
remodelled; countries have been annihilated,
and nationalities extinguished; while
religious dogmas, political questions, and moral
views, have all been as thoroughly taken to
pieces, and patched into new shapes, as if we
had pulled down a baronial castle, and made
a row of model cottages with the stones.

The first potatoes grown in Ireland were
from tubers, given to Sir Robert Southwell's
grandfather by Sir Walter Raleigh. They
soon became popular; but no one then looked
forward to the time when the poor of the
nation would live almost exclusively on them;
nor, when a failure in the crop would produce
one of the most heart-rending famines on
record. An Irish ship, laden with the roots,
was wrecked off Lancashire; at least, so runs
the tradition; when the potatoes, taking
root, soon spread far and wide; and, in a
short time, Lancashire was filled and famous.
They were introduced into the south of
Europe by way of Spain and Italy. The
Spaniards brought them from Quito direct,
and passed them into Italy, whence they
journeyed to Vienna, through the patronage of
the governor of Mons in Hainault. It was
not until fifteen hundred and ninety-eight
that they were sent to Clusius, a year
after the time when Gérarde received them.
In Spain they were called papas and bolotas,
in Italy tartufi bianchi (white truffles), and