The Golden Canyon | Page 2

the various chapters were placed together and dispatched to a publisher, who at once accepted and published it. It was in this way the long series of historical stories which has come from his powerful pen was inaugurated, and G.A. Henty was awarded the title of "The Prince of Story-Tellers."
There is in this incident a glimpse of the character of our author which endears him to us all. The story of his kindly interest in his own children surely creates a liking for him in the hearts of the children of others. The man who can spend an hour in telling stories to his little ones, and retain their attention and interest, has an evident sympathy with, and power over, the youthful nature. Time has proved such is the case with G.A. Henty, for up to the present he has written close on fifty stories for boys, which have been received with unbounded joy and satisfaction by all.
As an indication of the reception which his books have met with, the following may be quoted from an English paper:
"G.A. Henty, the English writer of juveniles, is the most popular writer in England to-day in point of sales. Over 150,000 copies of his books are sold in a year, and in America he sells from 25,000 to 50,000 during a year."
"All the world" is the sphere from which Mr. Henty draws his pictures and characters for the pleasure of the young. Almost every country in the world has been studied to do service in this way, with the result that within the series of books which Mr. Henty has produced for the young we find such places dealt with as Carthage, Egypt, Jerusalem, Scotland, Spain, England, Afghanistan, Ashanti, Ireland, France, India, Gibraltar, Waterloo, Alexandria, Venice, Mexico, Canada, Virginia, and California. Doubtless what other countries remain untouched as yet are but so many fields to be attacked, and which every lad hopes to see conquered in the same masterly way in which the previous ones have been handled.
As a rule much of what boys learn at school is left behind them when classes are given up for the sterner work of the world. Unless there is a special demand for a certain subject, that subject is apt to become a thing of the past, both in theory and practice. This, however, is not likely to be the case with history, so long as G.A. Henty writes books for boys, and boys read them. History is his especial forte, and that he is able to invest the dry facts of history with life, and make them attractive to the modern schoolboy, says not a little for his power as a story-teller for boys. It is questionable if history has any better means of fixing itself in the minds of youthful readers than as it is read in the pages of G.A. Henty's works. There is about it an attraction which cannot be resisted; a most unusual circumstance in connection with such a subject. All this of course means for Mr. Henty a vast amount of research and study to substantiate his facts and make his situations, characters, places, and points of time authentic. To the reader it means a benefit which is incalculable, not only as a means of passing a pleasant hour, but in reviving or imparting a general knowledge of the history and geography, the manners and customs of our own and other lands.
There is a noticeable element of "Freedom" which runs through Mr. Henty's books, and in this may be said to lie their influence. From them lads get an elevating sense of independence, and a stimulus to patriotic and manly endeavor. His pages provide the purest form of intellectual excitement which it is possible to put into the hands of lads. They are always vigorous and healthy, and a power for the strengthening of the moral as well as the intellectual life.
In the present work, "The Golden Canyon," a tale of the gold mines, Mr. Henty has fully sustained his reputation, and we feel certain all boys will read the book with keen interest.
The Golden Canyon

Chapter I.
--A Run Ashore.
In the month of August, 1856, the bark Northampton was lying in the harbor of San Diego. In spite of the awning spread over her deck the heat was almost unbearable. Not a breath of wind was stirring in the land-locked harbor, and the bare and arid country round the town afforded no relief to the eye. The town itself looked mean and poverty-stricken, for it was of comparatively modern growth, and contained but a few buildings of importance. Long low warehouses fringed the shore, for here came for shipping vast quantities of hides; as San Diego, which is situated within a few miles of the frontier between the United States and