But Harold only nodded at him over the child's head, and carried Tom, still sleeping, up the companion on to the deck, and laid him in his little carriage.

There he left him, and he never saw him again; but the touch of those clinging arms about his neck had been very sweet to him, and had done his aching heart more good than a whole week of worldly distractions could have done.

The tide was nearly low when they reached Calais, and consequently the passengers had a long walk up the pier before they arrived at the railway station. And very cold and wet and cross and miserable did most of them look as they entered the warm, brightly-lighted Salle d'Attente. The shelter was welcome indeed. The "buffet," after all the hardships they had just gone through, looked especially inviting; and within five minutes of their arrival nearly every one of the little tables with snowy table-cloths which stood about the room was occupied by its own little group of travellers, who were busy discussing steaming soup or cups of coffee. It is a strange fact, but it is nevertheless true, that the first thing nine persons out of ten do upon landing after a sea voyage is to begin to eat.

"How long before the train starts for Paris?" Col. Clive asked of a railway official standing by.

"Une bonne demi-heure, monsieur" (Rather more than half an hour), was the answer he received.

He was not hungry; but he felt faint and wearied. Carrying little Tom up those steep stairs had tired him more than he could have believed possible. So he walked up to the neat-looking young French woman who was officiating behind the counter, and asked for a glass of cognac and a biscuit. As he did so, he heard some one on his left-hand side make a request, in a low voice and in very fair, EnglishFrench, for a cup of hot coffee.

"Madame" smiled, and promised prompt attention to both customers, and then went away to execute the orders. The very moment her back was turned a hand was laid on Harold's arm, and the same voice, speaking in English, now said,

"I should be glad to speak to you, Col. Clive, if you could spare me a few minutes.'

He turned quickly round, and saw that it was the lady in the red hood, and that the lady in the red hood wasLaura!

Laura's very self, and not a mocking apparition, as he had been tempted to think at first. His heart gave one great bound, and then it seemed of a sudden to stand quite still, so utterly astounded was he to see her at such a time and in such a place.

But he made no loud exclamations.

"Laura! you here?" he said with a sort of gasp.

"Hush! don't say any thing more, don't take any notice. How all these people do stare!" she said in a hurried whisper, and turning away her head. "Follow me presently on to the platform. The train is not to start for nearly an hour, and there is not a soul there. I must speak to you, Harold."

She slipped quietly away from his side, was lost for a moment among the crowd of other passengers, and then passed through the glass doors of the waiting-room on to the platform beyond.

Harold stood some few seconds just where she had left him, wondering whether it was all a dream. But she was singularly calm, considering that his heart was beginning to beat with a wild hope that he dared not stop to analyze. He swallowed down the little glass of cognac which was handed to him, for he had need of some such stimulant, paid for it, and then slowly walked away, and followed Laura on to the platform, as she had bidden him do.

The train was already in waiting which was to bear the English mails and passengers to Paris; but there seemed no one about, except that at the extreme left, under the last lamp-post, stood the lady in the red hood.

Harold went straight up to her, and without even holding out his hand, said, in a voice which sounded strangely stern, —

"Laura! what in the world has brought you here?" It was the old Laura Sartoris who looked up at him

then; the Laura of the dancing eyes and sunny smiles; the bright, loving Laura who had stolen his heart away from him years and years before.

"The South-Eastern Railway and her Majesty's steamer 'Sarmphire, the best boat on the station,'" she said, giving him one of her old saucy smiles.

Still there was no unbending on his part.

"Do they know at home that you are here?” "Edward doesn't. I sent him to town to get him out of the way. Rosa aided and abetted me in my wickedness." "She never let you come alone?"

"No, Phoebe is with me in the body at least; but she has been so wofully sea-sick for the last two hours, that I believe in spirit she is still tossing up and down in the cabin of the steamer. One of the sailors had almost to carry her on shore, and I left her just now sitting by the waiting-room fire, utterly oblivious of all things in heaven and earth." But she could not bring a smile to his lips even yet. "Now, Laura, tell me what this all means," he said, in the same stern tone.

She clasped both her hands about his arm, and her voice trembled for the first time as she made answer:

"It means this, Harold; that either you must go back to England with me, or I am going on to Paris with you, for I never mean to leave you again."

"Does it mean any thing more than that, Laura?" he asked, in a low, pleading voice: he was shaking like a man who had the ague now, but he could not bring himself to put the question in a plainer form, as he had done that time in the Aberdeen prison. Could it be that the cup of happiness, which once more seemed so near to his lips, was to be dashed away again, as it had been that night? No, not this time. She hid her blushing face upon his arm (she could not have reached his shoulder if she had tried), and then came the whispered words which his very soul had longed to hear:

66

Yes, Harold, it does mean something more than that. It means that your wife has come to her senses at last, and has found out that she loves you with her whole heart."

The station and every thing in it began to swim round and round before his misty eyes, and something seemed to come up in his throat and choke him. But he had manliness enough left to take her in his arms, and hold her in such a close embrace that she could scarcely breathe.

"And how did my wife come to make this wonderful discovery?" he faltered out at last.

A voice came from somewhere among the folds of his fur coat: "Don't hug me to death, you dear old bear, and I'll tell you if I can."

"Stop a minute!" and Harold Clive gave a little low happy laugh, such as no one who knew him had heard him give for years before. "Come out of that, little one; I want to kiss you first."

But the little one did not seem disposed to come "out of that." She only clung the closer to his arm; so he took her blushing face into his hands, and kissed her on the eyes and cheeks and lips, till she fairly cried for mercy.

Now, tell me how it was."

"There is not much to tell," she answered, gasping for breath, 66 except that I must have been blind and deaf and dumb, and mad too, I think, when you were with me this morning. I forgot every thing, forgot the locket which I had had ready for you for a week. I let you go, knowing all the while that I should be miserable while you were away, and yet I had not the courage or the wisdom to stop you, as I should have done. But when I came to read your dear letter afterwards, then I thought my heart would break. It would have broken, I believe, if I had not thought of this. I could not write to you, and so, you see, I came." "Brave little girl," he murmured, stroking her hair, for the red hood had fallen back. "How did you manage it? Tell me."

I meant to have been at Charing-cross in good time, but our cab broke down in going from station to station, and we only arrived just before the train started. I should never have known you were there, if I had not seen Edward and Brown speaking to you at the carriage door. I was so frightened of being seen, not by Edward, dear old blind thing, but I thought your sharp eyes would find me out; however, you were busy talking, so I slipped by. And then again at Dover, when I made that false step in going on to the boat, it gave me such a turn. I thought it was all over with me; if I had fallen, you must have found me out, for I knew you were close behind. I felt somehow that you were there. How awfully rude you must have thought me, Harold, never to thank you for saving me!"

or foot.

"Yes, into the cabin I went, as you say; and there I lay all the way over. I was not ill, but I could not move hand I could use my eyes though, and to some purpose too. From where I was lying I could see straight into the larger cabin, and I saw you, sir, up to old tricks as usual, with that poor little boy. Harold, if I had never loved you before, I believe I should have learned to love you then; but he made me quite jealous once, when you were carrying him up stairs; he was in my place, you see, and I knew that he had driven me out of your thoughts for the time."

"But I can't conceive why you should have avoided me so carefully all the way, when your object was to come up with me at last. Why did not you stop me at Dover?" said Clive.

"And be sent back by the next train, like a naughty child. Thank you, that wouldn't have suited me at all. And a nice scene there would have been on Dover pier, with all the porters and the sailors looking on. Besides, you never would have known how much in earnest I was. You can't send me back alone now, Harold," she added, giving her head a little defiant toss. "I have compromised myself too

much."

"Yes, you have compromised yourself finely," he answered, looking down upon her with a curious sort of smile. "What will the world say to this escapade of yours, Laura, I should like to know?""

"Say? What say they? Let them say," she answered indignantly, quoting the well-known old Scottish motto. "What can they say, Harold," she went on, "except that I have run away to France with my own husband; and there can be no great harm in that."

"Your old husband, you mean." "Old!" she exclaimed.

old?"

"How dare you call yourself

"You called me an old bear yourself just now," he said, laughing, and evidently glorying in the recollection.

The

"That's quite a different thing. I may call you what I choose. But you are not old, Harold; you were only forty on your last birthday, I know; and what's that?' very prime of life; quite a young man, in fact. Never call yourself old again, if you please."

"Too old for you, my darling," he answered fondly. "You look ten years younger than you did at Aberdeen, Laura."

"And so will you very soon, if I take you in hand. I'll answer for it, Dr. Laura will do you more good in a week than the whole College of Physicians could."

66

"Very likely, Mrs. Clive."

My new name," she said, with a little blush; 66 no one has ever called me so before. And O Harold, that puts me in mind. Come here with me; I have something to show you, something for you to do."

She drew him with her towards the nearest lamp, so that the light might fall on something she was holding in her hand beneath her cloak. It was a gold locket, the fac-simile of the one she had sent to him by her brother."

"See here," she said; and as she spoke she touched the spring, and it flew open.

On one side was an old vignette likeness of her husband;

on the other, hidden beneath a lock of dark hair tinged with gray, lay her wedding-ring.

66

"Harold, I told you that I was dumb to-day, and so I was - spell-bound, as it were. My heart ached for you when I saw your eye rested on my finger, and missed this from its proper place, and yet I could not tell you then, that I have worn it here" (touching her bosom) ever since you gave it to me. Night and day I have never parted with it; and they tell me, that when I was ill and delirious I never would let it out of my hand. I did think I would wear it to-night," she added in a lighter tone. "I fancied it would look more 'proper' perhaps, if any one watched me travelling alone; but then the thought came into my head that no one, not even I myself, had any right to put it on again except you. And now, Harold," she whispered caressingly, "you must marry me over again. Put on my ring, dear, and say the right words once more; for we did not say them quite properly that day, I think."

"We did not do or say any thing quite properly that day, Laura. We will have the Church's blessing on our marriage before many more hours are over. The next boat shall take us back to England," ("Poor Phobe!" murmured Laura), "and we shall be at Richmond early tomorrow. Edward shall marry us in his own church, the next day, by special license, if necessary; and after thatyou shall go to the end of the world with me, if you will. In the meantime, you shall have it your own way, little one, as you always do." He held up her left hand; and as he slipped the ring on to the wedding-finger, he repeated, half playfully, half seriously, the words of the marriage service: "With this ring I thee wed; with my body I thee worship; with all my worldly goods I thee endow."

"That's lucky!" exclaimed Laura, breaking into a merry little laugh; "for I lost my purse coming off the boat, and I have only a fourpenny piece and three sous in my pocket; and how ever I should have paid for that cup of coffee I had the audacity to order just now, if you hadn't been here, I have not the least idea."

That laugh was the sweetest music that had sounded in Harold Clive's ear for many a long day; but it was too much for his poor little wife. Before the last words were out of her mouth, she broke down, and burst into tears.

"O Harold!” she cried, throwing her arms round his neck, and hiding her head upon his breast, "my husband! — mine to have and to hold, in sickness and in health; mine to cherish and obey; and, thank God I can say it now, mine to love till death us do part."

And Col. Clive bent his head until his gray moustache touched his wife's face; and as he pressed his trembling lips upon her cheek, he said, “Amen."

FOREIGN NOTES.

YOUNG Paris is grumbling because no publio bals masqués are allowed in the capital this winter.

THE first volume of Forster's "Life of Charles Dickins has caused a general re-reading of "David Copperfield." LONDON Fun thinks that Tennyson's last poem ought to have been published in the Law Journal, because it's a power of a tourney!

THE revisers of the New Testament have proceeded in their labors as far as the second chapter of St. Luke's Gospel.

WE learn from a foreign paper that an American missionary, sent to Calcutta to convert the Hindoos, has become a disciple of Keshub Chunder Sen and been formally received into the Brahmo-Somaj church. It appears that the American missionary has caught a theological Tartar.

THE Pall Mall Gazette, having mistaken Mr. F. W. Loring for the gentleman who pulled the stroke-oar of the Harvard crew in its competition with Oxford, corrects its error, and falls into another by saying that the late Mr.

Loring was the author of a poem entitled "Fair Harvard," having reference, probably, to Mr. William Everett's clever little story with that title.

A SUBSCRIPTION has been opened in Paris for the benefit of the widows and children of the unfortunate gendarmes who were so cruelly shot by the Communists in the Rue Haxo, after having been kept in prison more than two months. The credit of opening this subscription belongs to M. de Villemessant. The Government, which compensated the President of the Republic so handsomely, seems to have done nothing for these unfortunate and innocent victims of the late contest in the streets of Paris.

M. COURBET, the artist, who extinguished himself during the reign of the Commune, receives a great many visits in St. Pélagie; but does not get all the indulgence he asks for. He wanted space for a large studio, which has been not unnaturally refused. He has a palette, paint brushes, and a box of colors; but complains of want of light. A request that a particular model might be allowed to attend him daily was not complied with. He is consoling himself at present by painting flowers, and expresses a hope that in his dark room he may not forget the effects of sunlight. He has only three months more to remain in prison.

LAST month died one of the most remarkable singers who belonged to the French Opera during the Meyerbeer period, the celebrated basso Levasseur- - called in his early days "basso cantante," to distinguish his style from that of the ordinary bass of that time, who took part in concerted pieces, but was never intrusted with a solo. Levasseur

was the original Bertram in "Robert le Diable," his associates being Nourrit, Mlle. Falcon, and Mme. Dorus Gras; and some idea of his versatility may be formed from the fact that he "created" the parts of Bertram in "Robert le Diable," Ankastrom in "Gustave III.," Marcel in "Les Huguenots," Olifour in "Le Dieu et la Bayadère" Fontunarose, the quack doctor in "Le Philtre" (the original of "L'Elisir d'Amore "), and (at least at the French Opera) Leporello in "Don Giovanni.

THE unrestrained gushing of the English press over the illness of the Prince of Wales is not less surprising than the poor gentleman's unlooked-for recovery, if he has recovered. It has long been understood that the heir apparent was by no means popular with the English people; his private character is none of the best, and he has shown few of those winning qualities which make royal sins seem amiable. Yet the entire press of England, and especially the London press, has kept up one surprising wail of lamentation, as if it were the blameless King Arthur or Tennyson's "Albert the Good" who lay at the point of doom. The Irish papers do not appear to take in the situation. Discordant voices come from Ireland. That "the young man known as Albert Edward, Prince of Wales," didn't die when he was expected to, is looked upon almost as an addition to Ireland's accumulated wrongs.

IT would seem as if science were about to make cows superfluous. Artificial milk has been prepared by a French chemist from sugar, dried whites of eggs, carbonate of soda, olive-oil, and water. By substituting gelatine for the whites of eggs, and with less admixture of water, cream is obtained. Another chemist, Gaudin, in discussing the preceding suggestion, gives his testimony as to the depriving fats of all unpleasant odor by mere subjection to an appropriate temperature. He also states that very good artificial milk can be prepared from bones rich in fat, by purifying this fat by means of superheated steam, and combining the fat thus obtained with gelatine. This milk is, he says, almost like that of the cow; and when kept, acquires first the odor of sour milk, then that of cheese. The gelatine in it represents the caseine; the fat, the butter; the sugar, the sugar of milk. It serves for the preparation of coffee and chocolate, of soups, and creams of excellent flavor, and its cost is but trifling. Artificial chops and pieces of beef for roasting will come

next.

THE Duke of Ripalda is lucky enough to be the owner

of a Raphael (now exhibiting in London) which at first he valued at £40,000 ($200,000), and now offers for £25,000. The Athenæum says that "the latter sum is probably about double the value of the painting; £12,000 or £13,000 would ly rubbed and unfortunately repaired in many parts as this be an enormous sum for a picture which has been so severeone. Nevertheless, it has many qualities of inestimable beauty; few Raphaels of this size are likely to come into the market, and the history of this one is complete, if that is worth any thing in a case where all we care about is the proper merits and the condition of the painting. A correspondent urges that the well-known Murillo was bought from the Soult collection for the Louvre for £24,000, as if that were any thing but a 'fancy price,' one far beyond the true value of the picture. There is a superb little panel, with a man's head by Antonella da Messina, in the Salon Carré of the Louvre, which cost £9,000; but this is one of the very rarest treasures of art, much scarcer in its kind than the Raphael, and quite perfect. Besides, £9,000 was an absurd price, even for the panel. The Garvagh Raphael was bought for the National Gallery a few years since at a price compared with which even £25,000 is moderate for the much more interesting work which is now in question. But because we were extravagant with regard to the little' Virgin and Child,' and the French were outrageously lavish in the case of the showy Murillo, it does not follow that we shall give £25,000, much less £40,000, for the St. Antonio Raphael. Besides, it is averred by many that the published price of the Murillo was not the true one."

THE correspondent in Lorraine of a Berlin paper (the Landeszeitung) reports that the census lately ordered by the authorities in that province gave the French inhabitants a fresh opportunity of showing their animosity towards the German Government. Only two persons in the whole of the province volunteered to act as census clerks, and the people seemed to be under the impression that the inscription of their names on the census lists signified that they were registered as Prussians, and would be compelled to accept the Lutheran religion "and become Freemasons." One of the agents, on coming to a peasant with his list, was received with the following words: "What do you want of me? Are we not already Prussians, and is it necessary that this should appear on paper? I won't answer any of your questions." A second peasant exclaimed: "Are you not ashamed of yourself, as a Frenchman, to go a Prussian list in order to give us up to Prussia?" third, on being asked the place of his birth, said he was born at Gravelotte," where the Prussians were well thrashed." The census clerk next went to a devout woman of the vil lage. On seeing him, she rose from her chair in great excitement, saying, "What do you want? Is it true, then, that they wish to rob us of our faith and sell us to the Freemasons? For God's sake don't put my name on that paper!" No, mother," added her daughter, "you will not give your name. They want to betray us; we will not become Lutherans, or Freemasons either."

66

about with And a

"ENGLAND," says the Paris Temps "is the only country in Europe where the Government is sufficiently firmly established, and where respect for the liberty of citizens has so far become a custom that orators may, without making any one uneasy or being themselves disquieted, go from town to town carrying on publicly a campaign against the Government of the country. It is known that a young member of Parliament, Sir Charles Dilke, has been making a tour through England, attacking at meeting after meeting Queen Victoria, the administration of her household and the Civil List, and in short, preaching the Republic. At Leeds, as at Chelsea and Bolton, it was the police who protected the Republican orator against the crowd by maintaining some kind of order at those meetings. Sir Charles Dilke is now preparing to renew his campaign_in London itself, and this time under the auspices of the Internationale, of which he has just been elected a member. Mr. John Hales, the secretary of that society, has officially declared that in the Internationale Citizen Dilke was generally admitted to have a claim to be the first President of

the Republic.' Some members had thought of Citizen Gladstone, but the young baronet was preferred to him." For all this, England is not particularly gracious towards its Fenian orators.

CERTAIN passages in Mr. Forster's "Life of Charles Dickens," touching Dickens's early literary relations with Richard Bentley, have drawn forth a letter from George Bentley, the son of the famous old publisher. "I should mention," writes Mr. Bentley," that on my father's death, his papers coming into my possession, I made overtures through a mutual friend of Mr. Forster and myself, for the destruction of any letters that bore reference to a former disagreement between Mr. Dickens and my father. I desired this, because I knew that the most cordial relations existed between Mr. Dickens and my father for many years prior to their death, and I felt sure that nothing could be more opposed to the genial temper of both parties than the public discussion of a disagreement that each party had long forgotten. My application to Mr. Forster was without result, and Mr. Forster professed not to understand the meaning of the application itself.

I will give, in as brief a manner as I can, the details of the connection between Mr. Dickens and my father. It was in March, 1836, that Mr. George Hogarth first introduced Mr. Dickens to him. At this time Mr. Dickens was little known to the public, and at this interview my father, who had read some papers of his, the famous Sketches, proposed to Mr. Dickens to write two works of fiction for £1,000, and an agreement to this effect was entered into and signed on August 22, 1836.

In October, 1836, my father projected his Miscellany, which was to be a monthly periodical devoted principally to papers of a humorous kind. On the 4th of November, 1836, Mr. Dickens entered into an agreement with him to edit this periodical for £20 a month, this sum of course not to include payment for any of his own contributions.

The work became a success, that success, in my opinion, having been not inconsiderably heightened by the famous illustrations of Mr. George Cruikshank; and in March, 1837, Mr. Dickens showing symptoms of dissatisfaction with his agreement, my father agreed to modify the arrangement. A new agreement was drawn up on March 17, 1837, and Mr. Dickens therein agreed to edit the Miscellany for a further £10 a month, conditional on the sale, and signed an agreement to that effect to be in force for five years.

These concessions, however, so far from producing the desired effect on Mr. Dickens, led to a further demand for a change in the month of September, of the same year; Mr. Dickens, taking offence at an alleged interference on the part of my father in the editorship of the Miscellany, demanded fresh terms. This difficulty was got over by a fresh agreement, the fourth, in which the Miscellany was to be edited for £360 a year, and the two novels were to be paid for at the price of £750 each, instead of £500 as first agreed, or £600 as by Mr. Dickens's own proposition in his letter to my father, dated July 14, 1837. On the 22d of September, 1838, a new agreement under seal was executed, and it was supposed by my father that this would really be final. But it was not so, for in the month of February, 1839, Mr. Dickens again became dissatisfied, and refused to

continue the editorship of the Miscellany. After a good deal of discussion and correspondence, fresh agreements were entered into, one for Oliver Twist and the Miscellany, and the other wholly referring to Barnaby Rudge, for which my father agreed to pay £4,000. By these agreements Mr. Dickens stipulated that he would complete Barnaby Rudge by the 1st of January, 1840, and that he would not commence any other work until such time as the work which he had agreed to finish for my father should be completed; and in the same agreement it was stipulated that it was the intention of both parties that the work in question (Barnaby Rudge) should be the next work written and published by Mr. Dickens. In December, 1839, my father announced Barnaby Rudge; on the 16th he

received a lawyer's letter, stating that Mr. Dickens would not be ready for three or four months, and an advertisement appeared showing that Mr. Dickens was about to publish elsewhere a novel, which, according to his arrangement with my father, he was not at liberty to do, until he had completed Barnaby Rudge. The separation between them then took place, and Mr. Dickens bought back the copyright and stock of Oliver Twist, and discontinued the editorship of the Miscellany.

The remuneration to Mr. Dickens, judged by his aftersuccess, might appear inadequate, but it must be borne in mind that when my father signed an agreement for two novels of Mr. Dickens for £1,000, he had not then written any work which showed the power of a novelist, and that a great literary journal itself compared the young author's reputation to the flight of a rocket, and predicted that it would come down like a stick. Supposing my father had held Mr. Dickens to his original agreement, he might have been thought to act with illiberality, but he would have been still within his rights; and without the imputation of casting "a network of agreements" around Mr. Dickens. This he did not do, and that succession of agreements followed of which complaint is made in the biography, but every one of which was more in favor of Mr. Dickens than the lasta conclusive proof at whose instigation they had been changed."

SHALL WE EVER MEET AGAIN?
SHALL we ever meet again

In the woodland by the sea?
Will the moment bringing pain
To the heart, and to the brain,
Come again to thee and me?
Shall we hear again the moaning
Of the ocean to the shore,
Like the ever low intoning
Of a celebrant, Lenore,-
Shall we ever meet again?
Ah me, that Joy should borrow
A thorn to wound the heart
From the pale-red rose of Sorrow!
Adieu! for we must part.

We may never meet again
In the woodland by the sea;
But the song, and the refrain,
Which we sang beside the main,
Will be ever dear to me.
There is no sun that shineth
But hath its spot of shade;
The brightest day declineth,
And sweetest roses fade.
We

e may never meet again.

Ah me, that Love should borrow
A thorn to wound the heart
From the pale-red rose of Sorrow!
Adieu! for we must part.

EDWARD CAPERS.

BURNETT'S COCOAINE promotes the growth of the Hair. Frce from irriatting matter.

"A SLIGHT COLD," COUGHS. - Few are aware of the importance of checking a cough or "SLIGHT COLD" which would yield to a mild remedy, if neglected, often attacks the lungs. "Brown's Bronchial Troches " give sure and almost immediate relief.

TRIALS are the common lot of humanity. Among those best to be endured is a trial of the AMERICAN HOUSE, by tourists or business men, when visiting Boston. Few who have tried the American ever seek another hotel, finding that central, quiet, and replete with all that pertains to comfort and luxury.

DR. LOUIS A. SAYRE, one of the most eminent physicians in the city of New York, has carefully examined the analysis made by the BOARD OF HEALTH, of Geo. W. Laird's "Bloom of Youth," pronounced it entirely free from any material injurious to health, for beautifying the skin, and removing all blemishes. It is the best preparation in the world. Depot, 5 Gold Street, New York.

EXAMPLE FOR THE LADIES-MRS. L. SLOPER, Cottonwood Falls (formerly of Leavenworth), earned, in dressmaking, with a Wheeler & Wilson Machine, in 654 months, $13,340; in 1866 she earned $4,250; in December. 1867, $435. The machine has been constantly employed since 1861 without a cent for repairs.

VOL. I.]

CITY LIFE IN THE CAPITAL OF THE OEZBÉGS.

W

BY ARMINIUS VAMBERY.

HERE the boundless Hyrcanian desert approaches the Oxus, a river in central Asia, celebrated far back in ancient history, which, bending here at a right angle, takes its course northwards to Lake Åral, lies Khiva, the capital of the Khanat Khiva, situated on the right bank of the channel or arm of the Oxus, called Hazreti Pehlivan. Striking, indeed, is the contrast between this tract of land, on the right bank of the river, so famous for its fertility, and the deserts and fathomless oceans of sand, which extend on all sides as far as the eye can reach; but quite as striking and remarkable is the difference between the social relations of the Oezbegs, as exhibited in Khiva, their capital, and those of all the other Asiatic nations, not excepting their immediate neighbors in Persia and Bokhara.

Restrained by the formidable barrier of this perilous desert, Asiatic conquerers have seldom, and then only for a short time, made the ancient Khahrezm the arena of their savage deeds of arms. Whilst its eastern neighbor, the ancient Sogdiana, lay on the high-road along which the mighty waves of Altaic nations rolled westward from the valley of the Thian-Shan Mountains, or the inspired sons of Arabia once advanced victorious as far as Kashgar and Yarkend, leaving behind them on the Zerefshan traces of their power, Khiva, situated farther distant, has been comparatively exempt from foreign influence. Dshingis and Nadir alone sent hither a portion of their troops. The former maintained his supremacy a few short months, the latter only a few weeks. The rude and impetuous nature of its inhabitants, and the still ruder spirit of the nomadic tribes on its borders, have always been powerful obstacles to foreign invaders. No wonder then, that in spite of Islamism, and a few surviving traces of Iranic refinement, we discover in Khiva the genuine spirit of ancient Niguric civilization, and the impress of that primitive Turco-Tataric life, which at the present day we meet with nowhere in Turkestan, nowhere in western Asia, nowhere else among the Turco-Tataric tribes but here. It is, therefore, well worth the trouble to make a small excursion to Khiva, in order to obtain a nearer view of this picture. In books of travel a reader finds but faint and meagre outlines. Two Russians, Muravieff and Butenieff, and five Englishmen, Abbott, Conolly, Shakspeare, Richmond and Thompson, who have been my predecessors in the present century, have not been able to furnish us with more than scanty reports, in consequence of the thick veil of mistrust and reserve which, on their diplomatic mission, obscured their area of observation. They dwelt at some distance from the town, in the summer-palace, called Abdul Aziztöre Havlisi, the usual residence of ambassadors, and could observe Oezbeg life only so far as it presented itself to them within the narrow circuit of their official abode. They were not allowed to move freely about, to have intercourse with the people, or to gain even an occasional insight into their daily life. Can I then be blamed, if from among my reminiscences of the part I played of a sainted Mollah, an honored guest from Constantinople, I should wish to give some particulars of daily life at Khiva?

As Constantinople must be seen from the Bosporus, to make the most favorable impression, Ispahan from the

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southern mountain-range via Majan, Herat from the road through Khodsha Abdulla Ansari, Bokhara from the road at Karakul; so a traveller should approach Khiva by the road from Merv or Deregöz through that part of the Karakum (black sand) which extends, like a tongue, to the walls of the town. Here we come at once from a bottomless waste of sand to verdant meadows, from the region of tamarisks to delightful elms and poplars, from the chilling aspect of death to the luxuriance of life and vegetation. The outward appearance of this capital, together with the square citadel, rising in the centre, and separated by four gates from the rest of the town, offers little or nothing of interest to the eye accustomed to Asiatic memorials, or of what would satisfy his expectation of a capital. To wander through this chaos of houses and crenellated courtyards would not repay the trouble. We will merely present the reader with a bird's-eye view, and make him in this manner acquainted with Khiva.

Let us go aloft. The compact mass of houses, in which a couple of narrow and crooked streets are distinguishable, is the citadel, just mentioned, Itsh-Kale, the residence of the sovereign and some of the principal functionaries, and where the bazar and the higher order of medresses are situated. Round this inner quarter of the city extend far and wide the gardens and public squares. Eastward lies the quarter Or Rehin Bendí, and farther off, to the southeast, the reservoir Bala Hauz, with the bazar of the barbers contiguous to it, just as in Bokhara, and, if I am correctly informed, in Khokand and all the larger towns of central Asia. Looking southward, we see, in all its extent, the large quarter Jeni Bazar; to the west, Jeni Kale and Rafenek; to the north, Bahdshe, with the reservoir of the same name. This confused mass of large and small buildings, seen from above, may be any thing, but does not convey the impression of a capital; and, but for the few scattered monuments, marked by their ornament of glazed tiles, which rise from the multitude of yellow clay dwellings, there would be literally not a single point on which the eye could rest, for a change from its fatigue.

The finest view is from the short tower of the Medemin College. This tower was intended to have been a third part higher than it is at present, but the death of its builder frustrated his plan. From this point appear the domeshaped roofs of the medresse Ali Khuli Khan, the elegant dome of the Hazret i Pehlivan, and some private dwellinghouses. Farther south-east, the mosque Shaleker strikes the eye. The public squares, the tanks of dirty water, and the subterranean baths, form a very disagreeable prospect, and it is a refreshing relief to the spectator to look beyond these ancient and modern monuments of Oezbeg architecture, upon the chain of pretty summer-houses on the right and left, with their gardens luxuriant with vegetation, which skirt the fore-ground of the horizon. Nature often puts art to shame, but nowhere more conspicuously than in Khiva. So much for the external aspect of the capital; we will now make a small tour round the interior, and inspect the daily life of its inhabitants.

The

A summer's morning in Khiva! how infinitely its charms surpass the poisonous atmosphere of low-lying Bokhara, and many other places in Turkestan, familiar to me! air, although only for a short time, is of marvellous purity. An indescribable, solemn stillness reigns throughout all nature; and it seems as if the silent image of the surround