But then the

influence and many rich presents by the same arts. Turks only listen to those who predict for them a golden future, power, and plenty. A word of truth or warning makes them recoil from one, however kindly and faithfully the warning is given.

Divination is often made at holy wells by observing the surface of the water. At Eyoub, the sacred quarter of Stamboul, near the mosque where the Sultans are girt with the sword of Osman in lieu of coronation, is a famous well. It is to be found in the back garden of a poor, tumble-down house belonging to the Khodja who takes charge of it. It is an ordinary round well, about a yard in diameter. A low coping-stone runs round it, over which the votaries at Dame Fortune's shrine stoop low, to catch, if they may, some image in the depths below vouchsafed for their enlightenment. All Mussulmans, before looking in, reverently hide and stroke their faces with their open hands, as is their manner in praying for some favour. Full scope is there for the imagination to picture on the dark, deep, glimmering surface any face or form which may be uppermost in the mind of the agitated and superstitious gazer! The Khodja interprets, and all have their destiny foretold more or less to their satisfaction. A handsome, noble-looking woman was pointed out to me as having seen her 'fate' in this well whilst yet a slave, and long before she was sold into the family in which she found herself when the negotiations were set on foot for a marriage which made her a Princess. She herself had told the story as a fact. Other Khanums in middleclass life have boasted to me of having seen on the water the shadow of their future husbands. It was instructive to me to observe how far the Turkish women allowed themselves to be swayed in making important decisions by what they fancied they had seen during the well-test. One bad perceived a figure girt with a sword, and therefore negatived every proposal of marriage until a soldier asked for her. Another had seen a dark, bearded face; so, in the public promenade, she was always looking for such an one; and the confidence between her and the fortune-teller was sure to bring the right person in the end, provided the lady had any dowry. I am afraid there are wives who, in consulting the well at Eyoub, have before them the possibility of a second, or even a third fate;' divorce being so easily obtained in Turkey,-it being, in fact, a mere matter of arrangement. It is in such a case that one can estimate something of the mischievous results of superstitions which tend to destroy what little semblance there is of home life in the East. No sort of parallel can be drawn between these Turkish beliefs and our own silly trials of fortune at Hallowe'en.

6

Necromancers-Seers and Seeresses who profess to commune

with the spirits of the dead-are to be found amongst the occult scientists of Stamboul. One of these was said to be an ecstatic medium of great power. She was but eighteen, and married, and had just recovered from a serious illness when I heard that some Khanums of my acquaintance were going to visit her. Attaching myself to them, we found the Eulu Faldje Karé in a lonely winding street of a poor neighbourhood of Stamboul. A crowd of all sorts of women, rich and poor, filled her little sanded ante-room. There were mothers with sick infants in their laps, come for a 'cure;' there were daintily dressed slaves from the Seraglio, wrapped up in shabby feradjis; there were married Khanums with the threat of divorce hanging over their heads. There they patiently awaited for hours their turn to be admitted to the inner room.

This was as poor as the other. The seeress, seated on a low stool in the midst of the uncarpeted floor, leant over a low brass mangal (or chafing-dish). She was a plump, fair young woman, with flaxen hair, and eyes of a peculiar light tint. She appeared to be excessively exhausted, and could not repress long and repeated yawns. She told us there were great demands on her powers, and that her strength was almost entirely gone at the end of the day. She would do her best for us, but in such a state of exhaustion her visions were uncertain. Then, placing us before her on low wicker stools, she bent over the brazier and sprinkled on the live charcoal a powder called ambara, the fumes of which presently affected her as one has seen mesmeric passes affect a mesmeric subject. Her eyes were raised, and had a fixed look, but she sat upright and answered intelligibly the questions which were put to her by ourselves or by the woman who acted as her second. I do not remember what she predicted for the others of our party, but for me she foretold a voyage over the sea, which was not a remarkably clever hit, since she must have known that I was a foreigner in Turkey intending some day to return to my own land. Still, I must do my fortuneteller the justice to acknowledge that I did make an unforeseen voyage to India not long after. But the séance, on the whole, was a failure; and as the effect of the ambara soon passed off, the seeress returned to her normal state, and begged us to leave her to repose, which, in pity to her weariness, we presently did.

A medjidieh (about four shillings) was looked on as a liberal gift from our party, some who had consulted having offered only a beshlic or two (a beshlic is about a shilling), and some had given only a few paras or pence. The woman seemed still quite poor, and evidently lived very miserably, saving most of her gains, and having to support a husband who had no calling. It was said that grief at the loss of her baby had made her a clairvoyante. She was

much sought after from the fear that her 'gift' would wear away as her sorrow healed. Hers was looked on as a case of genuine mediumship, and to see her I could not doubt that she believed in her mission and powers.

I must not conclude this paper without referring once again to the strong belief of the Turks in a fixed fate-the ' Kesmet' to which they know they must sooner or later bow. There exists amongst them a prophecy, the prediction of one of their Wise Men, that at a given time their old and bitter enemy, the 'Moscov' (or Moscovite), will certainly triumph over Islam, and come and 'take away both their place and nation.' I have more than once heard them refer to this catastrophe as inevitable, and as being the most firmly believed in by the priestly class. One might suppose such a belief would paralyse every effort of so superstitious a people. Their hope seems to be that 'the' time has not as yet come; that the Crescent is but threatened at present with a partial eclipse; and that, if their cannon do but make noise enough, there is still a likelihood that the Monster Bear may be frightened off the moon !!

F. E. A.

In allusion to the popular superstition that it is the presence of a clambering monster that darkens the moon in an eclipse, and to the practice of shouting and shooting from minarets just at the darkest moment, in hopes of making it gradually relax its holl and slink away.

FF

VOL, XXXIV. NO. CXXXVI.

Genius at the Hammer.

THE offices of the firm of Johnson, Royce, and Fairfax, auctioneers and valuers, were in Catherine Street, Strand. Until a few years ago the firm was known as Johnson and Royce, and celebrated all over the empire for the frequency and importance of its sales of interests connected with music and letters. Its books showed transactions for journals, weekly papers, monthly magazines, quarterly reviews, copyrights of music and of books, libraries, foreign rights, colonial rights, &c. In fact, the vast majority of those who wished to dispose of musical or literary property of any kind, always put down on the list for selection the names of Johnson and Royce, and a vast share of all such business fell into the hands of this firm.

It so happened that neither Mr. Johnson nor Mr. Royce had any particular knowledge of literature outside its purely business aspect, and this ignorance they often found to be a source of grave inconvenience, particularly in their foreign and colonial transactions.

In the year 1873 they had in their offices a clerk who five years before had come from Bristol with the intention of adopting literature as a profession. For eighteen months he suffered all the agonies of disappointment, hunger, and despair which fall to the lot of young literary men who rush up penniless and friendless to London, and throw themselves into the chill waters that surround the fabulous islands of literary fame. The name of this afflicted young man was John Fairfax; and in 1869 he gave up all thought of getting either fame or even bread by literature, and answered an advertisement of Messrs. Johnson and Royce. They wanted a clerk who wrote a good hand and knew German. He knew German and wrote a good hand, applied for the situation, and got it-with thirty-five shillings a week. He had been living on nothing a week for some time—a much more useful accomplishment for a poor man than poetry.

The night of the day he got the situation, he lay awake in a very gusty attic, building castles in the air and planning how he could live like a prince on thirty shillings a week, go to a theatre once a week for half-a-crown, and have the other half-crown to spend on books. He was a tall, thin young man, very placid, with blue eyes, light hair, a weird look about the eyes, and a low vitality. That night he decided to devote to poetry the evenings he did not visit a theatre. He would at once begin a monkish

legend, and, without resorting to fraud, try and rival the fame of his fellow townsman the wondrous boy with the fearless soul.'

In 1871 the legend was finished; in 1872 it had completed its round of the publishers, and lay on a shelf in Fairfax's lodgings with already a little accumulation of dust on its covers, and a deep accumulation of sorrows around its failure in his heart. The praise of it by the publishers was unanimous, their regrets that engagements did not at present admit of their undertaking its production, universal.

From the time that John Fairfax first entered the office of Messrs. Johnson and Royce, his politeness and amiability impressed them. As a result of these qualities, he was allotted the charge of all foreign business and of all dealings with poets-foreigners being proverbially polite, and requiring treatment after their kind; poets being historically irascible, and requiring tact, gentleness, and forbearance. In 1873 a firm of publishers, who did a large business, required the services of a man accustomed to poets, and John Fairfax got to understand that he had only to apply for the situation, and he would certainly get it. By this time his salary had been increased to three pounds a week; if he would undertake the poets of that publishing firm he could have four pounds ten. He was a strictly honourable man, and immediately put the case before his employers, adding that, although he should feel loath to leave a house with which he had been so long and so pleasantly connected, still he found himself, like other men, bound in justice to himself to try and improve his position; adding, as a crowning reason for this desire, that he had now another looking to him for a home, as, like many another man, he had asked her to share one with him as soon as he could provide it.

He was promised an answer the next day, and then informed that if he would stay he should have a share in the business there and then, that his name would be added to that of the firm, and that, as time went on, and circumstances seemed to warrant it, his share would be augmented. Thus it was that in the year 1873 Johnson and Royce issued a circular to their friends setting forth the alteration in the title, and giving at foot a specimen of signatures by the three members of the firm, his being the last.

All went pleasantly and prosperously with Messrs. Johnson, Royce, and Fairfax; and in 1877 the junior partner had not only a pleasant home but a pleasant smile as well to greet him when he returned in the evening from Catherine Street, and moreover, while he sat by his hearth, a tiny animate ornament for his knee; in the last he took a solemn shy pride which, when it displayed itself, brought tears, that never fell, into the bright eyes of his contented mate. Although he had abandoned all thought of making any fresh