[Illustration:  I VENTURED TO RAISE MY HEAD AND LOOK ROUND, WHEN, TO MY UNSPEAKABLE JOY, I PERCEIVED THE LION HAD, BY THE EAGERNESS WITH WHICH HE SPRUNG AT ME, JUMPED FORWARD, AS I FELL, INTO THE CROCODILE’S MOUTH, WHICH WAS WIDE OPEN.  THE HEAD OF THE ONE STUCK IN THE THROAT OF THE OTHER, AND THEY WERE STRUGGLING TO EXTRICATE THEMSELVES.]

Soon after I had thus gained a complete victory over my two powerful adversaries my companion arrived in search of me; for finding I did not follow him into the wood, he returned, apprehending I had lost my way or met with some accident.

After mutual congratulations, we measured the crocodile, which was just forty feet in length.

As soon as we had related this extraordinary adventure to the governor, he sent a wagon and servants, who brought home the two carcasses.  The lion’s skin was properly preserved, with its hair on, after which it was made into tobacco pouches, and presented by me, upon our return to Holland, to the burgomasters, who, in return, requested my acceptance of a thousand ducats.

The skin of the crocodile was stuffed in the usual manner, and makes a capital article in their public museum at Amsterdam, where the exhibitor relates the whole story to each spectator, with such additions as he thinks proper.  Some of his variations are rather extravagant; one of them is that the crocodile turned about, snatched the couteau de chasse out of Monsieur’s hand, and swallowed it with such eagerness that it pierced his heart and killed him immediately!

The little regard which this impudent knave has to veracity makes me sometimes apprehensive that my real facts may fall under suspicion, by being found in company with his inventions.

THE BARON’S JOURNEY TO ST. PETERSBURG

By Rodolph Eric Raspe

I set off from Rome on a journey to Russia, in the midst of winter, from a just notion that frost and snow must of course mend the roads, which every traveler had described as uncommonly bad through the northern parts of Germany, Poland, Courland, and Livonia.  I went on horseback, as the most convenient manner of traveling; I was but lightly clothed, and of this I felt the inconvenience the more I advanced northeast.  What must not a poor old man have suffered in that severe weather and climate, whom I saw on a bleak common in Poland, lying on the road, helpless, shivering, and hardly having wherewithal to cover his nakedness?  I pitied the poor soul; though I felt the severity of the air myself, I threw my mantle over him, and immediately I heard a voice from the heavens, blessing me for that piece of charity, saying,—­

“You will be rewarded, my son, for this in time.”

I went on:  night and darkness overtook me.  No village was to be seen.  The country was covered with snow, and I was unacquainted with the road.