tobacco-talk of Arabia and pearls, and yet smoke tobacco of Circassians and Lahore, and still smoke tobacco ?"

In the amazement of that interruption the last whiff of the smoke of coffee-leaves curled scornfully away over Giovane's diminished head. Hands were clapped again, servants appeared and replaced with a chibouque the Persian nargileh of the disciplinarian.

The mere American Howadji was fascinated with the extent and variety of knowledge acquired by the " 66 poor subalterns." Never," mused he, in a certain querulousness of spirit, "never, until we, too, have an H. E. I. C., can we hope to rear such youths as this. Happy country, imperial England, that at home fosters young men like my excellent Verde Giovane, and in distant India, a race of Verdes, piu Giovane.

The "poor subaltern" gradually melted, and at length even smiled benignly upon Giovane, as he suddenly clapped his hands again and summoned the Hindoo." Mr. Verde, do you smoke paper?"

66

No-why-yes, I should be very happy," replied the appalled Giovane, who told me later, that he considered the subaltern a right "jolly" fellow; with a "stunning" way with him, in which latter half of praise I was entirely of Verde's opinion.

Turning to his servant, the youth said something probably in refined Hindostanee, which the boy, speaking only a patois, of course could not understand. But "make a cigarette," in pure English, resembled his patois to that degree that he understood at once, and rolled the cigarette, which the youth handed to Giovane with an air of majestic forgiveness, and then taking a candle, he left the room, wishing us good night, as who should say, "My Lords, farewell;" leaving the party still as champagne when the gas has bubbled briskly away.

And yet, with that unmistakable family likeness, he could deny that he was of the great Verde family!

The mental shock of subsiding into my own thoughts, at once, after that evening would have been too much. I therefore sought to let myself down by delicate degrees, and, thinking that I had seized a volume of Hafiz, I stepped upon the balcony to read, by moonlight, songs of love and wine. But I found that I had a natural history by an unknown Arabian author. My finger was on this passage

"This is a species of the John Bull, which now, for the first time, falls under the author's observation. Great is Allah and Mohammed his prophet for these new revelations. I am told," he continues, "that it is not uncommon in the mother country.

It is there gregarious in its habits, and found in flocks in the thickets of Regent and Oxford streets, in the paddock of Pall Mall, and usually in any large herd of Bulls.

"Its horns are enormous and threatening, but very flexible and harmless. Its ears and tail are of uncommon length, but adroitly concealed, and it comes to luxuriant perfection in the southern parts of India, and, in fact, wherever the old herds obtain a footing.

"It is very frisky and amusing, and delights to run at the spectator with its great horns branching. If he be panic-stricken and fly, the Bull pursues him roaring like a mighty lion, and with such energy, that the more ingenious naturalists suppose, that for the moment, the animal really fancies his horns to be hard, and pointed, and serviceable. If, however, the spectator turns, and boldly takes the animal by the horns, they will bend quite down-in fact, with a little squeezing, will entirely disappear, and the meek-faced Bull will roar you as gently as any sucking dove."

Nor wonder at such figures in our Nile picture, for here are contrasts more profound, lights lighter, and shadows more shaded, than in our better balanced. West. Believe that you more truly feel the picturesqueness of that turban, and that garb moving

along the shore, because Verde Giovane's "wideawake" and checked shooting-jacket are hard before us. We overhauled them one afternoon, and while Verde Giovane stood in a flat cap, and his hands in the shooting-jacket's pocket, and told us that Nero was just ahead and in sight that morning, Gunning suddenly sprang upon deck, blew off his two barrels, laughed hysterically, and glaring full at us, we saw -O Dolland! that he had succumbed to blue spectacles.

XII.

ASYOOT.

SHERBET OF ROSES in a fountained kiosk of Damascus can alone be more utterly oriental to the imagination and sense than the first interior view of many-minareted Asyoot.

Breathe here, and reflect that Asyoot is a squalid mud town, and perceiving that, and the other too, as you must needs do when you are there, believe in magic for evermore.

Under Aboofeyda, from the dragoman of a dahabieh whose Howadji were in the small boat shooting ducks and waking all the wild echoes of the cliffs, we had heard of Nero just ahead, again, and had left Verde and Gunning far behind. As the Ibis flew on with favoring gales, the river became more and more winding, and the minarets of Asyoot were near across the land, long before the river reached the port of the town. Rounding one of the points, we descried two boats ahead, and we could at length distinguish the Italian tricolor of Nero. His