THE FISHER-BOY URASHIMA.

ong, long ago there lived on the coast of the sea of Japan a young fisherman named Urashima, a kindly lad and clever with his rod and line.

Well, one day he went out in his boat to fish. But instead of catching any fish, what do you think he caught? Why! a great big tortoise, with a hard shell and such a funny wrinkled old face and a tiny tail. Now I must tell you something which very likely you don’t know; and that is that tortoises always live a thousand years,—at least Japanese tortoises do. So Urashima thought to himself: “A fish would do for my dinner just as well as this tortoise,—in fact better. Why should I go and kill the poor thing, and prevent it from enjoying itself for another nine hundred and ninety-nine years? No, no! I won’t be so cruel. I am sure mother wouldn’t like me to.” And with these words, he threw the tortoise back into the sea.

The next thing that happened was that Urashima went to sleep in his boat; for it was one of those hot summer days when almost everybody enjoys a nap of an afternoon. And as he slept, there came up from beneath the waves a beautiful girl, who got into the boat and said: “I am the daughter of the Sea-God, and I live with my father in the Dragon Palace beyond the waves. It was not a tortoise that you caug