garden, eat fruit from the trees with his hands in his pockets, and then and there composed sonorous apostrophes to the rising sun.

Travelling is a fool's paradise, to a fool. But to him, staying at home is the same thing. A fool is always in paradise. But into that delight, a wise man can no more penetrate than a soul into a stone. If you are a fool, O friendly reader of the rollingstone theory, you are in the paradise you dread, and hermetically closed in. The great gates clanged awfully behind you at your birth. But if you are wise, you can never by any chance get in. Allons, take your slippers, I shall take passage with the fool.

All this we say, being somewhat sleepy, under the bank at Esne, on the verge of tumbling in. Good night! But one word! You, facetious friends in the hot slippers, what is our so stable-seeming, moss-amassing Earth doing? Truly what Rip Van Winkle heard the aged men do among the mountains-rolling, rolling, rolling forever.

O, friends of the Verde family, have you duly meditated these things?

XVII.

FAIR FRAILTY.

FRAIL are the fair of Esne. Yet the beauty of gossamer webs is not less beautiful, because it is not sheet-iron. Let the panoplied in principle pass Esne by. There dwell the gossamer-moraled Ghawazee. A strange sect the Ghawazee-a race dedicate to pleasure.

Somewhere in these remote regions lay the Lotus islands. Mild-eyed and melancholy were the forms that swam those calm waters to the loitering vessel, and wooed the mariners with their hearts' own longings soothlier sung

"Here are cool mosses deep,

And through the moss the ivies creep,

And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,

And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep."

To those enchanted islands and that summer sea, is not this river of unknown source the winding avenue? Through its silence, ever silenter-along the peaceful waving of its palms-azure-arched and lotus-shored, leads it not backward to that dream?

Yes-the Howadji felt it. The day whispered it at noon. The palms at sunset waved it from the shore. The stars burning ever brighter with the deepening south, breathed it with their greater beauty all night long, "Mild-eyed, melancholy" were the men. But along the shores of this labyrinth, which we so dreamily tread, are stations posted, to give exquisite earnest of our bourne. And here are maidens, not men, vowed to that fair forgetfulness of yesterday and to-morrow which is the golden garland of to-day.

These azure airs, soft and voluptuous, are they not those that blew beyond the domain of conscience-remote region of which Elia dreamed? Is not the Bishop of that diocese unmitred here? For the nonce I renounce my fealty, and air myself beyond those limits: and when I return, if mortal may return from the Lotus islands, and from streams enchanted, that good Bishop shall only lightly touch me with his crosier for the sake of bright Kushuk Arnem, and the still-eyed Xenobi.

Did you sup at the Barmecide's in Bagdad, with Shacabac and myself, that Arabian night? Well, the Ghazeeyah Kushuk Arnem, a girl of Palestine, claims descent from him. Or did you assist at Herodias's dancing before the royal Herod? Well, the Ghazeeyah Kushuk Arnem dances as Herodias

danced. Or in those Pharaoh days, something musty now, did you frequent the court balls? Well, this is the same dancing; and needless was it to have lived so long ago, for here you have the same delight in Kushuk Arnem. Or, seated under olive-trees, in stately Spain, with Don Quixote de la Mancha, were your eyes enamored of the Fandango? That was well, but January is not June in Spain, and in Esne the Howadji saw Kushuk Arnem, and the gracious Ghazeeyah's dance was the model of the Spanish.

For the Egyptian dancing-girls are of a distinct race, and of an unknown antiquity. The Egyptian gipsies, but not unanimously, claim the same Barmecidian descent, and the Ghawazee, or dancing-girls, each one of which is termed Ghazeeyah, wear divers adornments, like those of the gipsies. They speak the language and profess the faith of the Egyptians -nay, like Hadji Hamed, the long cook of the Ibis, they perform the pilgrimage to Mecca for the solace of their own souls and bodies, or those of some accompanying ascetic. The race of Ghawazee is kept distinct. They marry among themselves, or some Ghazeeyah, weary of those sunny slopes, fuori le mure of conscience, wondering haply whither they do slope, retreats into the religious retirement of the hareem. When she has made a vow of repentance,

the respectable husband is not considered disgraced by the connection.

For the profession of the Ghawazee is dancing ed altri generi. They are migratory, moving from town to town with tents, slaves, and cattle, raising readily their homely home, and striking it as speedily. In the large cities, they inhabit a distinct quarter of the region especially consecrated to pleasure. In villages, they sojourn upon the outskirts. At all fairs, they are the fairest and most fascinating. But they mostly affect religious festivals—the going out to tombs in the desert, a few miles from the cities. For, on the natal days of saints inhabiting those tombs, a religious spree takes place upon the spot, and scenes are presented to the contemplative eye, not unlike those of Methodist camp-meetings. At such times and places they are present "by thousands, by millions," cried the unmathematical Commander, ecstatic with his theme, but again without the golden sleeve.

In golden sleeves alone, O Commander, is dignity and wisdom.

I said it was a sect vowed to pleasure. From earliest youth, they are educated to their profession. They do not marry until they have commenced a public career. Then the husband is the grand Vizier and Kapellmeister of his wife's court.