same place, and he, too, was in search of fame. His is a sketching tour; said sketches to immortalise him for ever. We swore fraternity at once, and I promised him the illustrating of my book. Meanwhile you will be expecting me to give you some idea of how they do the thing in this part of the world, and, for the look of the place, Dabble will enclose you a sketch."

"Could not write you another word from the considerable Eastern city whence I first dated. Had to scramble up my writing materials and be off, for the caravan was ready, and we had no time to lose. A caravan, for some reason, puts me in mind of an omnibus. First, you have to wait for it; secondly, all sorts travel by it. A kind of wandering medley is a caravan; and Eastern travel is by no means to be attempted solus, so misanthropes may as well give it up; recommend them to try London, there's no place in the world-Paris, of course, excepted-where one can be so confoundedly alone-especially if they are hard up with the 'ready.'

"Dabble and I each got a horse and weighted him with a drinking cup, a small Turkey carpet, and warm cloak (par parenthesis, the Eastern apology for bed, blankets, counterpane, paliasse, and all that sort of thing), plenty of bird's-eye, and sundry other articles; for instance, in mine I put pen and ink and half a ream of foolscap, lined, for my

notes; whilst Dabble, poor fellow! varied his pack with a sketch box, and Heaven knows what artists' paraphernalia.

"If Cyrella could see us, clad in the queer-looking costume of the country, I feel uncertain what she would say. It would either be, 'Oh, how sweetly romantic!' or 'Dear me, Tom, what queer-looking guys they are.' We are bound in blue cloth of the Arab cut --bythe-bye, my travels, illustrated by Dabble, (poor fellow! it will be a loss to me to have anything so inferior to Roberts' style, but still it will be putting something in his pocket, and he will not get patronage everywhere.) I will have my travels bound in blue cloth, also, to be in character. But I anticipate, as romancers have it. I was describing our costumes. Bound in blue cloth of the Arab cut, ornamental headings, in the shape of white turbans with red huzzar-like bags hanging out of them, illustrated with crimson sashes, and-shades of peace preserve us!-armed like so many pirate chiefs cut out of Cooper's or Marryatt's novels, and nicely coloured,—Damascus sabres, Turkish muskets, carbines and pistols, all by way of asterisks and daggers. As for foot-notes, baggy-looking ducks, and peaky shoes: our spirits are proofs-there-don't I smell of printer's ink already? Thinkest thou not, oh, Tom! that my visions even thus early turn from dreams of fair women to screams of Printer's Devils' 'Copy, give us copy and revise'? From the fair Cyrella to the grimed and coatless youth; from Spottiswoode to Cyrella; 'tis but a means unto an end. An end? Heavens! but a beginning of bliss! Tom, I rave!

"We expected a scrimmage on the road, for a hostile troop were announced, but, like Cæsar, they came, they saw, and they overcame,' that is, walked off in the opposite direction-on horseback, of

course.

"The worst part of the matter out here is, that one needs such a confounded credit for the ready.' Why, before venturing towards Aljesira, we had to carry bills for a hundred pounds with us; to say nothing of twenty or forty pounds in the queer-looking cash of the country. In Assyria, too, the murrain amongst the cattle has made everything dearer than ever.

"I forgot to tell you that round about the river of Aleppo were some gardens, green enough to send poor Dabble into cloudland, but as for me I squinted askance at the horrid baked-looking country bounding the horizon in the far expanse. Dabble is a fellow who would paint a bit of oasis, and decoy his fellow-creatures into a miserable desert. That is poetry, is it not, Tom? I call it homicide. Tell Cyrella there will be no poetry in Frank Travers' book. I am not going about in pink spectacles.

"To reach this destination (vide postscript) we have passed no end of villages. Horrid places, most of them; but Dabble is charmed. Some of the Arabian women, when they are young, are pretty enough

They wear white garments and red or white never-mention-'ems, and bind strings of coins round their heads whence the long black hair falls in abundance. I say, Tom, I wonder how much some of the pretty coquettes and others we wot of would give for such tresses to make themselves chignons wherewithal? Easily turn it the fashionable and abominable carrotty colour with some of Unwin's auricomus, eh? What says Petrarch ?—

Or Milton

'Loose to the wind her golden tresses streamed;'

She as a veil, down to her slender waist,
Her unadorned golden tresses wore.'

But it is my opinion Eve was dark. Fair women are only a degeneracy. I hate namby-pambyism and washed-out eyelashes; notwithstanding the immortal Swan sings of

'A golden mesh to ensnare the hearts of men.'

You may depend upon it he alluded to the porte monnaie.

By-the-bye, is there any record of Ann Hathaway's colour? She must have been a black swan, I'll swear; for nothing short of a rara avis could ever have enslaved the bard of Avon, even at downy nineteen.

"But I wander-you see, Tom, I am getting up my phraseology against my typographical appearance in print. (Call for the brandy.) The Turkoman females are prettier than the Arabs, when all is said and done. They are fairer and rosier (not bloom of roses), they are neater and better-dressed, sporting garments of striped silk and coins of real gold; and after all, Tom, dress is 'a most commendable thing in woman,' especially when a fellow don't have to pay for it. I believe Cyrella has a few hundreds of her own, therefore that will never trouble me. But I perfectly adore the little gants she gets at Madame Vanitipore's. There is nothing of that sort here.

"In some villages they give us to drink out of quaint tall pitchers, just as Rebecca did in the Bible, when Isaac's servant found her at the well. Queer, is it not? Some give us a sort of curds and whey, and refuse money. Queerer still. Barnum ought to have the moneyrefusing species to exhibit in his native land. Not like the American gentlemen, I should say.

"When we reached a village called Chamoorly we could get a glimpse of the Taurus Mountains. They looked high up, like 'cobwebs in the sky;' therefore the bull with one poke tossed them into the oak,' cried I, with a reminiscence of nursery rhymes, and dropped a tear for 'auld lang syne' and days of the short coat. The tops (I don't mean tops and bottoms, but mountain-tops) were covered with snow, like twelfth-cakes, famous at the same period. Dabble sketched them. He came out strong on tinted paper, with Chinese white. An admirable invention, that sort of paste, for artists. Sometimes we

pass the nights on our Turkish carpets, in the open air. Such stars! Cyrella would be in raptures about them. The air, too, is genial and fresh, and the breeze soft and cool as the climate is charming. When we lie down at night, in this primitive fashion, the grass has the most exquisite perfume of mingled freshness and sweetness that I ever inhaled in my life. Mr. Rimmel ought to get some of that- Algesiran grass'-though, by-the-bye, we were not in that province yet.

"At Chamoorly there was the ruin of a mosque and a hill dotted above with scraps of basaltic stones, many of them stuck up like grave ornaments. The blue-looking mountains in the distance and the clear skies sent Dabble into rhapsodies. As for me, I got some sporting now and then. Once we shot a gazelle, and had it for supper. The natives call it a luxury, but as for Frank Travers, he held his nose and left table. Dabble seconded both motions. We got some lovely birds in these latitudes; something like pigeons, with white breasts spotted black, brown wings, and a centre feather in the tail a foot and a half longer than the rest. They call them ghattars.

"There are some remarkably queer religious customs out here. It would give a hint to Spurgeon or Brother Ignatius-extremes meet, they say to join company and come out here. Bellew and Cumming, too, might pick up an idea to raise the wind spiritual. The new moon

I

say,

is an object of great veneration, and down go all the Arabs on their scraps of travelling carpets, and pray to it. These same carpets remind one of Ahmed Brother's bit in the "Arabian Nights," that transported folks where they wished, and I often half expect to see the praying Arabs caught up in mid-air, like Mahommed's coffin, and floating towards their deity, the moon. At the same time, let me remind you, Tom, that coffee is the chief imbibement in the fluid line hereabouts. When it is not coffee it is questionable milk-that is, camel's milk-and when not milk, water. But, would not (6 masses to the moon" take at Norwich? There is quite a Tennysonian alliteration about it, eh? Or, "Trances at the Tabernacle, familiarizing the favoured with Lunar Latitudes and the concomitant company of Spirits of the Spheres!" Tom, I'm no infidel, Heaven forbid !-but I hate the money-changers in the Temple. "The Arabs are fond of lamb for supper, but, as it is generally served fresh-killed, I cannot call it remarkably tender. Also, they have a kind of cake, baked on the hearth, made of honey and other messes, and served in the tents of chieftains. A sheik's tent is a large affair open to the air, with the women's apartments inside, wattled off by reeds sewn together by worsted. The outer part is furnished with cushions, carpets, and beds. The chief is most hospitable, and seems jolly as regards this world's goods. He pitches his tents here and there at his various villages throughout the year, collecting his own rents, and paying tithe to the Pasha at Aleppo for the privilege.

These villages, by the bye, show crowds of canvas like any runaway brig, but some are "bricks" in more ways than one-that's for accommodation and hospitality-a common Arab virtue-and comparative cleanliness mind, Tom, whenever I mention that word cleanliness-mind, during my travels it is always in the comparative degree, which, according to an English Lindley Murray and a Johnson's dictionary in joint-stock company, we might literally and crudely translate dirtiest, dirtier, dirty. That is Frank's definition, at all events. But in these places, per compensation, and I expected different, the women do not wear veils, which is a great advantage, as not a few of them can show tolerably handsome faces. Say nothing about that to Cyrella." (To be Continued.)

A CORONET AT LAST,

A TALE OF AMBITION.

BY G. C. CENTREVILLE,

Author of "The Surface and the Deep; or True to the Last."

I charge thee, fling away ambition; by that sin fell the angels.-SHAKSPEARE.
There is a mystery.-IBID.

CHAPTER IV.

IS VERY POOR.-ST. GILES AT HOME.

HE gentleman with a bunch of violets in his hand, who listened to the singing of Alice's powerful voice (for, soft and gentle as it seemed, it pierced the stout walls and was distinctly audible in the street without)-the gentleman, who had noted the number and name of the street, walked rapidly onwards, turned down a road by no means one of the best in the neighbourhood, quitting that again for a humbler, till he found himself in a very honeycomb of the dwellings of the poor and low. Dirty women, with ragged, dishevelled hair, hung listlessly against some of the door-posts, supporting pale, inanimate, unclean babies in their arms. At another turning the female gender had more life, if not more refinement, and were struggling along the crowded, narrow kerb, elbowing the way vigorously, to avoid a precipitate movement into the dirty kennel of a road scarcely wide enough for the passage of a huckster's cart. Bonnets of indescribable shape, and brilliant with tawdry flowers or crude-coloured ribbons, bespoke the comparatively wealthier condition of their owners, whose coarse, vixenish voices were giving vent to a hideous species of wit,