DAMASCUS.

BY CAPT. RICHARD F. BURTON.

"A

THE first sight of Damascus was once famous in travel; but then men rode on horseback, and turned, a little beyond Dummar, sharply to the left of the present line. They took what was evidently the old Roman road, and which is still, on account of its being a short cut, affected by muleteers. Now it is nothing but an ugly climb up sheet-rock and rolling stones, with bars and holes dug by the armed hoofs of many a generation. They then passed through El Zarub, the spout, the primitive way, sunk some ten feet deep in calcaire, till it resembles an uncovered tunnel, and is polished like glass by the traffic and transit of ages. At its mouth you suddenly turn a corner, and see Damascus lying in panorama, a few hundred feet below you. pearl set in emeralds," is the citizen's description of what El Islam calls, and miscalls, the "Smile of the Prophet" (Mohammed). Like Stamboul, it is beautiful from afar, as it is foul and sore within, morally and physically. The eye at once distinguishes a long head, the northern suburb, "El Salihiyyah;" a central nucleus, crescent-shaped, and fronting the bed of the Barada; and a long tail, or southern suburb, "El Maydán." These three centres of whitewashed dwelling and sky-line fretted with dome and minaret, are surrounded and backed by a mass of evergreen orchard, whose outlines are sharply defined by irrigation; whilst beyond the scatter of outlying villages, glare the sunburned yellow clay and the parched rock of the desert, whose light-blue hillocks define the eastern horizon.

The prosaic approach by the French road shows little beyond ruins and graveyards. Damascus outside is a mass of graveyards, the "Great" and "Little Camps" of Constantinople, only without their cypresses; whilst within it is all graveyards and ruins, mixed with crowded and steaming bazars. This world of graves reminds one of Job's forlorn man dwelling "in desolate cities and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps." The Barada in olden times had its stone embankment; the walls are now in ruins. On our right is a ruined bridge, once leading to a large coffee-house, both also in ruins. As we advance, we see upon the right of the old river-valley, the Barmecide Cemetery, all desolate; and beyond it rises the fine Takiyyah (not hospital) of Sultan Selim, half ruined, with its bridge quite ruined. But, though it was phrophesied that Damascus should be a "ruinous heap," her position forbids annihilation. The second of Biblical cities, dating after Hebron, she has been destroyed again and again; her houses have been levelled with the ground, and the Tartar has played hockey with the heads of her sons. Still she sits upon the eastern fold of the Anti-Libanus, over her golden-rolling river, boldly overlooking the desert in face. Damascus, not Rome, deserves, it any does, to be entitled the Eternal City.

I passed twenty-three months (Oct. 1, 1869, to Aug. 20, 1871), on and off, at this most picturesque and unpleasant of residences. It is now in the transitional state, neither of Asia nor of Europe. To one who has long lived in the outer East, a return to such an ambiguous state of things is utterly disenchanting. Hassan, digging or delving in long beard and long clothes, looks more like an overgrown baby than the romantic being which your fancies paint him. Fatima, with a colored kerchief (not a nosebag) over her face, possibly spotted for greater hideousness, with Marseilles gloves, and French bittines of yellow satin trimmed with fringe and bugles, protruding from the white calico which might be her winding-sheet, is an absurdity. She reminds me of sundry "kings" on the West African shore, whose toilet consists of a bright bandana and a chimney-pot hat, of the largest dimensions, colored the liveliest sky-blue.

and

The first steps to be taken at Damascus were to pay receive visits; to find a house; to hire servants; to buy horses; and, in fact, to settle ourselves. It proved no easy matter. Certain persons had amused themselves with

spreading a report that my pilgrimage to Mecca had aroused Moslem fanaticism, and perhaps might cost me my life. They, as well as I, knew far better. So I was not surprised at the kind and even friendly reception given to me by Emir Abd el Kadir, of Algerian fame, and by the Dean of the great Cathedral El Amawí, the late Shaykh Abdullah el Halabi. And I remember with satisfaction, that, to the hour of my quitting Damascus, the Moslems never showed for me any but the most cordial feeling.

House-hunting was a more serious matter. The hotel gives you lumbago, or ague and fever; the lodging is a thing unknown; and the usual establishment, with its single entrance and its heavily-barred windows, placed high up and looking upon a central court, gives a tolerable idea of a jail. You may see this form, which the Arabs used for defence, still lingering in the Old Bell (Holborn Hill); and in olden Galway they are numerous, being derived through Spain and Portugal from Morocco. Rents at Damascus have been prodigiously raised during the last few years; eighty napoleons are asked for an empty and tumble-down place which in 1850 might have commanded twenty-five; moreover, the tenant pays in advance, and if he improves or is satisfied with the house, the landlord will assuredly raise his terms. After a score of failures, I found a cottage at the head of the Salihiyyah suburb: it was about a mile from the town, surrounded by gardens, flanked on one side by a mosque, on the other by a "hammám" or bath, commanding a splendid view of the city proper, and free from the multitudinous inconveniences, including the four hours' visit, of intramural residence.

To stock the house was a yet harder task than to hire it. Good men will not change civilized Beyroot for dangerous Damascus, where in five years, out of the English colony, rarely exceeding ten souls, there have been nine deaths. And if you persuade them by high salaries they turn sulky, or they fall sick. Thus, within twenty months we had three cooks; and I ended by living on bread and grapes. We had four head grooms, and left a fifth; who, being found stealing the barley, was dismissed by his employer shortly after our departure.

It is no easy thing for a stranger to buy good and sound horses at Damascus, although during the hot season it is girt by equestrian Bedawin. In the matter of driving a bargain, the "Shami" might hail from Yorkshire, and the European soon learns to imitate them. The wild men ask impossible prices from a Frankish purchaser, and even then there is a certain reluctance to sell, especially the mare. If the latter be thoroughbred she can hardly be bought under two hundred and forty pounds, a sum in these regions equal to one thousand pounds in England. Donkeys, which were never ridden at Damascus till the days of Ibrahim Pasha the Egyptian, who, by the by, delivered the place of its own old barbarous fanaticism,have risen in the market, till a good white animal commands thirty to forty napoleons. We won a mare in a lottery; and, as she suffered from incurable stiffness of limb, we exchanged her for a donkey, whose owner presently inquired with astonishment if it had given no one a bad fall. The mare died; and the donkey, after an all but fatal ilness, was cured. Of the next two horses, Salim and Harfush, the former was sprained in the back-sinews, and the latter, made vicious by bad riding, was so handy with forefoot, hoof, and tooth, that no one liked to approach these weapons. After this we became more wary, and bought and hired decent animals, but always at exorbitant prices.

After getting settled, my first care was to be up and moving, in order to become acquainted with the sphere of my duties. In 1869 the Euphrates Valley Railway had once more raised its head. This weakly babe, bʊrn as far back as 1842, and ever since that time half fed and rickety, will not reach man's estate before the end of the present century, unless the actual state of things be radically changed. The fact is, we have shown Turkey and Russia that we want the railway for purely English purposes: two parliamentary committees of late years have assured them of the fact, and they are acting as those usually do from whom something is wanted. Yet the most superficial ol

"Andrew

server will see at a glance the necessity of an Route," a subsidiary to the Lesseps Canal; a second line of more direct communication with India, and eventually a feeder of the main trunk which will run from Scutari to Karachi.

So my first tour was down-coast, in order to see what would make the best Mediterranean terminus. I was prepossessed against the Alexandretta line, which runs over waste ground to Aleppo, passes through a wilderness after leaving it, and finally strikes the Euphrates at a place where the stream is navigable only during half the year.

Reaching Tyre, which I visited a second time, I inspected the old north-eastern road, the classical line of traffic and transit, as far as the Nabatiyyah village, distant sixteen direct geographical miles. The Lebanon is here easily crossed, the heights being much lower on the south than on the north, and the surface of the country is composed of basins parted by rocky ridges. From Nabatiyyah the route falls gradually into the Buka'a, the central portion of the Colesyrian Valley proper; and it makes Ba'albak after twenty more miles, being a total of sixty-six. Thence one hundred and eight miles lead to Palmyra, the half-way house between Damascus and the Euphrates River; and thus one hundred and seventy four direct geographical miles separate "Tadmor in the wilderness" from Tyre on the Medi

terranean.

I afterwards heard of another good line, which had been carefully surveyed by Col. Romer, an American engineer. The seaboard terminus was Tripoli of Syria (Tarabulus el Sham). The first great station to the north-east would be Hums (ninety-one miles), and the second Palmyra, seventy-seven miles to the south-south-east. Thus the grand total from Tripoli to Palmyra would be one hundred and sixty-eight direct geographical miles.

Now, both of these lines traverse the richest lands in Syria and Palestine. As in South America, not to say in all thinly-populated countries, the waysides would soon be crowded with settlements; and thus this section may fairly be expected to pay, or at any rate to relieve, a portion of the heavy burden which the desert will impose. From Palmyra the route strikes the Euphrates at a point where it is navigable throughout the year; and finally it leads us back from the distant Cape of Good Hope, and from the devious and dangerous Red Sea, to the very first of overland routes, the earliest connection between India and Europe, established long before the days of David and Sol

omon.

SWORN ON THE CRUCIFIX.

FROM THE FRENCH OF H. DE BALZAC.

A LITTLE beyond the boundary of the town of Vendôme, on the banks of the Loire, stands a gloomy old house with a high, steep roof. It is quite solitary; not even those almost inseparable parasites of a little town, the unsavory tan-yard or the wretched auberge, are to be found near it. Between it and the river is a garden. Here the box borders, which once were closely trimmed to mark the edges of the paths, now spread where and as they will. A line of willows, the river's offspring, has shot upwards, and hides the dwelling on that side as effectually as a hedge. Noxious, rank weeds cover the sloping river-banks with their graceful vegetation. Fruit-trees, which bear fruit no longer, and which have been uncared for the last ten years, have thrust out their boughs in every direction, and have straggled into a thick brushwood. The untrimmed espaliers project like arbors. The paths were at one time neatly gravelled; but now they are choked up with purslain, so that there is scarce a sign of path left visible. A spectator, looking down from the hill, the side of which is cumbered with the ruins of the ancient château of the dukes of Vendôme, the only point of view which commands the secluded spot, would say that at some past time this was the favorite retreat of some country gentleman, delighting in his roses and lilies, - a lover of gardening, in fact, and before all things a lover of good

fruit. He would see a summer-house, or rather the remains of one, and in its shade a table, not yet quite eaten away by time. At the sight of this wilderness, once a garden, the tranquil joys of a peaceful country-life rise up before the imagination; and, to supplement these ideas, half sad and half sweet, one of the walls presents to the eye a sundial, with an inscription breathing the spirit of a narrow and homely Christianity: "Ultimam cogita." The roof of the house is dilapidated; its shutters are always closed; its balconies are covered with swallows' nests. and its doors are always shut. Tall weeds have taken root in the interstices of the stonework, and every thing that is iron is rusteaten. The moon and the sun, summer and winter and snow, have dug their way into the woodwork, warped the beams, and fretted away the paint.

The melancholy silence which prevails in this spot is disturbed only by birds, cats, weasels, rats, and mice, who are free to move about, fight, and devour one another, as they will. An invisible hand has written on all the place, the word mystery. If, driven by curiosity, you went to look at the side of the house which faces the road, you would see a large door, round at the top, riddled with holes by the children of the neighborhood, who had doomed it to destruction ten years ago. Through the gaps in it one can see that perfect harmony exists between the deserted interior and the decay and ruin without. The same disorder reigns here also. The paving-stones in the court-yard are pushed away by tufts of weeds. The walls are furrowed with enormous cracks. The steps are thrust out of their places; the bell-cord is rotten; the spouts are broken. "Has fire fallen from heaven and passed over the place? Or has some tribunal condemned it to be sown with salt? Did its owners insult their God, or betray their country?" Such are the questions that suggest themselves; but there is no one to answer them. The empty, deserted house is an enigma, of which none can tell the meaning. It was formerly a little freehold farm, and it bears the name of La Grande Bretèche. During my stay at Vendôme, whither I had gone to attend a patient, it was one of my few pleasures to contemplate this strange abode. It was better than an historical ruin. Such a ruin is the centre of a group of memories of unimpeachable authenticity; but this habitation, still erect, though its destruction was being accomplished slowly by some avenging hand, held within it a secret a thought unknown to the world outside. More than once in the evening I essayed to scale the formidable hedge which guarded the enclosure. Defying scratches, I entered this ownerless garden, this domain in which neither the State nor the individual seemed to assert any right of possession; and I remained there whole hours observing its disorder. I would not, even with the prospect of learning the history which lay, doubtless, at the bottom of this weird sight, have asked a single question of the gossiping people of Vendôme; but, wandering there, I composed delightful romances, and gave myself up to the luxury of melancholy. Had I known the possibly commonplace reason why the place had been deserted, I should have lost all the unpublished poems which then intoxicated my imagination. To me this retreat was typical of the most varied phases of human life, with the shadow of human woe upon them all; sometimes it breathed the air of a cloister, untenanted by monks; sometimes it suggested the peace of a cemetery, in which there are no dead to speak to one in their language of epitaph; to-day it was the house of a leper; to-morrow the palace of the Atride; but at all times it called up a picture of the country, with its limited notions and unobtrusive life, whose monotony seems always to be regulated by the hour-glass. As I was rambling about my dream-kingdom one evening, the wind caused an old rusty weathercock to turn; the cry it uttered seemed to be the groan rung from the house itself, at the moment when I finished a drama, tragic enough in its plot, by which I accounted for this monument of sorrow. I shuddered, and I returned to my auberge, a prey to the gloomiest thoughts. After supper, my hostess entered my chamber with an air of mystery, and said,

"M. Regnault is here, monsieur." "Who is M. Regnault?"

"It can't be that you don't know M. Regnault," she said, as she went away.

Presently there appeared before me a tall, lank man, dressed in black, and holding his hat in his hand; who, with his retreating forehead, his little conical head, and his pale face of the color of muddy water, entered the room like a ram ready to charge at his rival. The unknown wore a threadbare black coat; but he had a diamond in his shirtfrill and gold rings in his ears.

"With whom have I the honor of speaking, monsieur?" I asked.

He took a chair, and seated himself in front of the fire, laid his hat upon the table, began to rub his hands, and said,

66

How cold it is! I am M. Regnault, monsieur." I bowed.

"One moment," he said, repeating the gesture with his hand. "It is a legal offence. I come, monsieur, in the name and as the executor of the late Countess de Merret, to beg you to discontinue your visits. One moment. I am not a Turk, and I don't want to make out that it is a crime. Besides, it is only natural that you should be ignorant of the circumstances which compel me to allow the most eligible family residence in Vendôme to fall into ruin. At the same time, monsieur, you appear to have some education, and you ought to know that the law prohibits, under heavy penalties, the intrusion of a stranger into property which is shut up by the owner. A hedge is as good as a wall. But the present state of the house may serve as an excuse for your curiosity. There is nothing I should like better than to give you the run of the place; but, charged as I am with the execution of the will of Madame de Merret, the testatrix, I have the honor, monsieur, to beg that you will not enter the garden again. I myself, monsieur, have never, since the opening of the will, set my foot within the house, which, I have the honor to inform you, is part of the property left by Madame de Merret. We have only taken an inventory of the doors and windows in order to assess the taxes, which I pay yearly out of funds set apart for the purpose by the late Countess. Ah! my dear monsieur, her will made a great sensation in Vendôme!"

He stopped to blow his nose. I respected his loquacity, perceiving at a glance that the administration of Madame de Merret's estate was the most important event in his life, that his reputation and his glory rested thereon. "Monsieur," I asked, "should I be indiscreet in inquiring the reason of this strange state of things?

He looked as pleased as a man set riding on his hobby always looks. He arranged the collar of his shirt, complacently drew his snuff-box from his pocket, opened it, and offered it to me; and when I refused he took a huge pinch. He was happy now. The man who has no hobby does not know all the value which can be got out of life.

"Monsieur," said M. Regnault, "I used to be Maitre Roguin's head clerk at Paris. He had an excellent business, of which, I dare say, you have heard? -No? His name was, however, well enough known by reason of his unfortunate failure. I had not sufficient money to live at Paris, when the prices were so high in 1816, and so I came here and purchased the business of my predecessor. I had some relations at Vendôme, among them a very rich aunt, who has since given me her daughter in marriage. Monsieur," he continued, after a slight pause, "three months after I had been admitted to practice by Monseigneur the Garde des Sceaux, I was sent for one evening by the Countess de Merret to her Château of Merret. Her maid, a good girl, who is now servant at this hotel, came to my door with the Countess's carriage to fetch me. I must tell you that the

Count de Merret had gone to Paris, and died there two months before my arrival here. He died in a wretched state, the victim of excesses of every kind. The day of his departure Madame de Merret had left La Grande Bretèche, and had caused it to be dismantled. Some people declare that she even burned the furniture. Have you been at Merret? No?" he said, supplying my answer. "Ah! it is a beautiful place. For the space of about three months," he continued, after a little toss of the head, "the Count and Countess had lived together there in the strangest manner; they left off receiving visitors, and madame lived on the ground floor while monsieur lived on the first floor. When the Countess was alone she was never seen, except at church. Later on, at home, in her own château, she refused to see any visitors, whether male or female. A great change passed over her at the moment when she left La Grande Bretèche to go to Merret. The dear creature -I say dear, because this diamond was her present; apart from this I only saw her once - well, the good lady was very ill; she had doubtless given up all thoughts of recovery, for she refused to call in any physician. My curiosity was singularly excited, monsieur, when I heard that Madde Merret was in need of my services: and I was not the only person who took an interest in the matter. The same evening. late as it was, the whole town knew that I had gone to Merret. The maid answered the questions I put to her on our way vaguely enough. She told me, however, that her mistress had received the last sacraments at the hands of the curé of Merret during the day, and it did not seem likely that she would survive the night. It was nearly eleven o'clock when I reached the château. I went up the grand staircase. After passing through some dark, lofty rooms, which were cold and damp, I came to the state chamber, in which the Countess was. I had some difficulty in finding her on the huge bed where she was lying, though there was one of those old-fashioned Argand lamps which was intended to light her enormous bedroom. What a bedroom it was! It was hung with frieze in the fashion of the ancien régime, and the hangings were so covered with dust that the very sight of them made me sneeze. But you have never been at Merret? Well, monsieur, the bed was one of those which were common in the times of our great-grandfathers, with a high canopy and curtains of crimson damask. There was a small table beside the bed, and upon it I saw a 'De Imitatione'- which, by the way, I bought afterwards for my wife, together with the lamp. There was also a large arm-chair for the nurse, and two other chairs. Not a bit of fire, however. This was all the furniture. It would not have occupied ten lines in an inventory. The room was like ice; nay, more than that, it was funereal," he added, raising his hand in a theatrical manner and making a pause.

"By dint of looking, as I came near the bed, I at last saw Madame de Merret, thanks to the reflection of the lamp on her pillow. Her face was as yellow as wax, bony and angular. She wore a lace cap which allowed her hair to be scen. It was beautiful, but white as flax. She was sitting propped up in her bed. Her brow was damp. Her fleshless hands were nothing more than bones with the skin stretched over them; the veins and sinews were perfectly visible. She must have been at one time extremely beautiful; but now I was seized with a feeling I can't describe at the sight of her. Never-if what those who placed her in her coffin say be true- - did living creature become as thin as she did. It was, in short, a fearful sight. Although my professional duties had familiarized me with such spectacles, conducting me from time to time to the bedsides of the dying to ascertain their last wishes, I confess that the families in tears and the agonies I have witnessed elsewhere were nothing in comparison to this woman in the solitude and silence of her vast château. I did not hear the least sound; I did not see the movement which one would have expected her breathing to cause in the clothes which covered her; and I stood quite still, looking at her in a kind of stupor. At last her great eyes moved; she tried to raise her right hand, but it fell upon the bed; and these words proceeded from her mouth like a

whisper, for she could scarcely be said to have a voice: 'I have waited for you with much impatience.' The effort to speak brought a momentary flush to her cheek. Madame,' I began. She made a sign to me to be silent. At this moment the old nurse got up and said in my ear, 'Don't speak: madame is in such a state that she cannot bear to lear the least noise, and what you want to say would agitate her perhaps.' I sat down. A few seconds after, Madame de Merret mustered all her remaining strength to move her right arm, and put it, not without infinite difficulty, beneath her pillow. She stopped for a moment, and then she made a last effort to draw back her hand. She brought out a sealed packet; and, when she did so, drops of sweat fell from her forehead. I give my will into your charge,' she said. 'Ah! my God! ah!' This was all. She caught up a crucifix which was upon her bed, pressed it rapidly to her lips, and died. The fixed expression of her eyes makes me shudder still, when I think of it. She must have suffered much! There was a sense of joy in her last look, and it dwelt upon her face when she was dead. I carried the will away with me; and when it was opened I saw that she had appointed me her executor. She left all her property, with the exception of some trifling legacies, to the hospital at Vendôme. But her disporitions with regard to La Grande Bretèche were as follows: She directed me to leave the house for fifty years, to be reckoned from the date of her death, in the state in which it should be found at the moment of her decease; forbidding access to the apartments to all persons whomsoever, declaring that no repairs of any kind were to be made, and even providing a fund for the payment of a watchman, if this should be necessary, in order to insure the complete execution of her intentions. If, at the end of this term, the wishes of the testatrix had been strictly fulfilled, the house was to go to my heirs, for monsieur knows that notaries are not permitted to receive legacies; otherwise La Grande Bretèche was to revert to the right heirs of the testatrix, as the law should direct, subject, however, to a proviso that the conditions contained in a codicil annexed to the will, and which was not to be opened before the expiration of the said term, were to be by them fulfilled. The will was not disputed, and so

The tall, angular notary did not finish the sentence; but at the last words he looked at me with an air of triumph. I made him at once completely happy by complimenting him on his story.

"Monsieur," I said, "you have interested me deeply: I can fancy that I see her now before me, dying, paler than her winding-sheet; her brilliant eyes fill me with fear; I shall dream of her to-night. But you must have formed some conjecture regarding the dispositions of this eccentric will?"

"Monsieur," he said, with comical reserve, "I never allow myself to pass a judgment on people who have done me the honor of presenting me with a diamond."

After a little more discussion of the matter, which led to nothing more interesting than a detailed account of all the conjectures of all the good people in the town concerning the mysterious codicil, M. Regnault took his leave, in high good humor. Then I sat down, placed my feet on the two Mogs in the fireplace, and was plunging into a romance of the Radcliffe type, based upon the information I had received from the legal lips of M. Regnault, when my door was opened, and my hostess a fat, radiant, good-tempered person entered the room.

"Well, monsieur," she said, "I suppose M. Regnault as been giving you his eternal story about La Grande Brettche?

seem to know something more about the matter, eh? If not, why have you come up into my room?" "Ah! on my faith as an honest woman, as truly as my name is Lepas"

"No oaths, please: your eyes are big with some secret. You knew M. de Merret. What kind of a man was he?” “M. de Merret was a fine man, and a good sort of a gentleman. He came from Picardy, and he was as hot as a pepper-box, as we say. He paid ready money for every thing; he made no difficulties with any one. He was rather wild, and the ladies found him very agreeable."

"What! because he was rather wild?" I asked my hostess.

"Very likely," she said. “You may suppose that he had something to recommend, him when he could marry Madame de Merret, who— without wishing to say any thing against the others was the most beautiful and the wealthiest match in the country. She had near about twenty thousand livres a year. The whole town was at the wedding. The bride was a little engaging creature, quite a jewel of a woman. Ah! they made a lovely couple!"

"Were they happy in their married life?"

"H'm! H'm! Yes and no-so far, at least, as one can judge; for you don't suppose that we townsfolk lived hand and glove with them. Madame de Merret was a good little woman, very quiet, and she had a good deal to bear sometimes; but, though he was a little proud, we liked him. Bah! it was natural for him to be like that. When one's a gentleman, you see

"But there must have been some catastrophe, to make them separate in the violent way they did?"

"I never said there was any catastrophe. I don't know any thing at all about it."

"I am quite sure now, you know every thing."

"Well, monsieur, I'll tell you all about it. When I saw M. Regnault go up to your room, I thought he was going to speak to you about Madame de Merret and La Grande Bretèche. That gave me the idea of asking monsieur's advice; for you seem to be prudent, and incapable of betraying a poor woman like me, who has never done harm to any one, and who is, nevertheless, tormented by her conscience. Till now, I have never dared to open my lips to any of the people about, for they are never tired of wagging their tongues; and, monsieur, I have never had a traveller who staid so long as you in my auberge, and to whom I could tell the story of the fifteen thousand francs."

"My dear Dame Lepas," I said, stopping the flow of her words, "if your secret is of a nature to compromise me, I would not for worlds take it upon my shoulders."

“Don't be afraid," she said, interrupting me. "You shall

"Her eagerness led me to believe that I was not the only person to whom my good landlady had imparted the secret of which I was to be the sole depositary, and I listened.

"Monsieur," she said, "the Emperor sent some Spanish or other prisoners of war to this place; and I had to take in, at the expense of the government, a young Spaniard, who came here on parole. Notwithstanding his parole, he went every day to report himself to the sous-préfet. He was a grandee of Spain excuse me a moment-his names ended in os and dia: it was something like Bagos de Férédia. I have it down in my register, and you can see it if you like. Ah! he was a handsome young man for a Spaniard they say they are all plain-looking. He was only five feet two or three inches in height, but he was well made; he had small hands, and he took great care of themah you should have seen. He had as many brushes for his hands as a woman has for her whole toilet! He had long, black hair, and his eyes were as bright as fire: his skin was slightly copper-colored, but 1 admired him all the same. The linen he wore was the finest I have ever seen on any one, though I have entertained princesses, and amongst others, Gen. Bertrand, the Due and the Duchesse d'Abrantes, M. Decazes, and the King of Spain. He didn't eat much, but his manners were so polished and courteous that one couldn't complain. Indeed, I was very fond of him, though he didn't say four words a day, and it