You

tance. It is thus that he felt, and thus he strives to repeat the scenes of the Elder World. may listen to him for ever without learning much in the way of statistics: but perhaps, if you bear with him long enough, you may find yourself slowly and faintly impressed with the realities of Eastern travel.

My scheme of refusing to dwell upon matters which failed to interest my own feelings has been departed from in one instance—namely, in my detail of the late Lady Hester Stanhope's conversation on supernatural topics. The truth is that I have been much questioned on this subject, and I thought that my best plan would be to write down at once all that I could ever have to say concerning the personage whose career has excited so much curiosity amongst Englishwomen. The result is, that my account of the lady goes to a length which is not justified either by the importance of the subject or by the extent to which it interested the narrator.

You will see that I constantly speak of "my People," "my Party," "my Arabs," and so on, using terms which might possibly seem to imply that I moved about with a pompous retinue. This, of course, was not the case. I travelled with the simplicity proper to my station, as one of the industrious class, who was not flying from his country

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.

ΕΟΤ Η Ε Ν.

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