because of ennui, but was strengthening his will, and tempering the metal of his nature, for that life of toil and conflict in which he is now engaged. But an Englishman, journeying in the East, must necessarily have with him dragomen capable of interpreting the oriental languages; the absence of wheeled-carriages obliges him to use several beasts of burthen for his baggage, as well as for himself and his attendants; the owners of the horses or camels, with their slaves or servants, fall in as part of his train, and altogether the cavalcade becomes rather numerous, without, however, occasioning any proportionate increase of expense. When a traveller speaks of all these followers in mass, he calls them his "people," or his "troop," or his "party," without intending to make you believe that he is therefore a Sovereign Prince.

You will see that I sometimes follow the custom of the Scots in describing my fellow-countrymen by the names of their paternal homes.

Of course all these explanations are meant for casual readers. To you, without one syllable of excuse or deprecation, and in all the confidence of a friendship that never yet was clouded, I give the long-promised volume, and add but this one "Good-bye!" for I dare not stand greeting you

here.

EOTHE N.

CHAPTER I.

OVER THE BORDER.

AT Semlin I still was encompassed by the scenes and the sounds of familiar life;, the din of a busy world still vexed and cheered me; the unveiled faces of women still shone in the light of day. Yet, whenever I chose to look southward, I saw the Ottoman's fortress-austere, and darkly impending high over the vale of the Danube-historic Belgrade. I had come, as it were, to the end of this wheel-going Europe, and now my eyes would see the splendour and havoc of the East.

The two frontier towns are less than a gunshot apart, yet their people hold no communion. The Hungarian on the north, and the Turk and the Servian on the southern side of the Save, are as much asunder as though there were fifty broad pro

A

vinces that lay in the path between them. Of the men that bustled around me in the streets of Semlin, there was not, perhaps, one who had ever gone down to look upon the stranger race dwelling under the walls of that opposite castle. It is the plague, and the dread of the plague, that divide the one people from the other. All coming and going stands forbidden by the terrors of the yellow flag. If you dare to break the laws of the quarantine, you will be tried with military haste; the court will scream out your sentence to you from a tribunal some fifty yards off; the priest, instead of gently whispering to you the sweet hopes of religion, will console you at duelling distance, and after that you will find yourself carefully shot, and carelessly buried in the ground of the Lazaretto.

When all was in order for our departure, we walked down to the precincts of the quarantine establishment, and here awaited us the "compromised "* officer of the Austrian Government, whose duty it is to superintend the passage of the frontier, and who for that purpose lives in a state of perpetual excommunication. The boats with their "compromised" rowers were also in readiness.

After coming in contact with any creature or

*A "compromised" person is one who has been in contact with people or things supposed to be capable of conveying infection. As a general rule, the whole Ottoman empire lies constantly under this terrible ban. The "yellow flag" is the ensign of the quarantine establishment.