flocks searching the débris along the Volga | chief article sold at the buffet was hot tea in road. He associates freely with the pigeon, tumblers. There is an adage in Germany and appears equally well protected by public that three kinds of people-fools, princes, and sentiment. Possibly his inedible character as- Americans-travel first-class. Pretending to sists his preservation. Pigeons are very abund-be Russian in my mode of traveling, and by ant in all Russian cities, and their tameness is a the advice of a friend, I took a second-class matter of remark among foreign visitors. The ticket, and found the accommodation better peasants consider them sacred, and never mo- than the average of first-class cars in Amerlest them; the pigeon-or dove-brought the ica. olive-branch to the ark, and so they aver that his descendants are entitled to the respect and veneration of man. The birds appreciate their security, and move about among men and horses with the utmost unconcern, only taking care to avoid the feet of the latter.

At the railway station I fell to the charge of two porters who carried my baggage while I sought the ticket-office. A young woman speaking French officiated at the desk, and furnished me with a billet de voyage to Moscow. My baggage arranged I sought the waiting-room, where a hundred or more persons were gathered. The men were well wrapped in furs, and among the ladies I found hoods more numerous than bonnets. Three-fourths of the males and a third of the females were smoking cigarettes, and there was no prohibition visible. In accordance with the national taste the

How strange was the sensation of railway travel! Since I last experienced it I had journeyed more than half around the globe. I had been tossed on the Pacific and adjacent waters, had ascended the great river of Northeastern Asia, had found the rough way of life along the frozen roads beyond the Baikal, and ended with that long, long ride over Siberian snows. I looked back through a long vista of earth and snow, storm and sunshine, starlight and darkness, rolling sea and placid river, rugged mountains and extended plains. The hardships of travel were ended as I reached the land of railways, and our motion as we sped along the track seemed more luxurious than ever before. Contrasted with the cramped and narrow sleigh, pitching over ridges and into hollows, the carriage where I sat appeared the perfection of locomotive skill.

SPENT AND MIS-SPENT.
STAY yet a little longer in the sky,

O golden color of the evening sun!
Let not the sweet day in its sweetness die,
While my day's work is only just begun.

Counting the happy chances strown about

Thick as the leaves, and saying which was best,
The rosy lights of morning all went out,

And it was burning noon, and time to rest.

Then leaning low upon a piece of shade,

Fringed round with violets and pansies sweet,

My heart and I, I said, will be delayed,

And plan our work while cools the sultry heat.

Deep in the hills, and out of silence vast,
A waterfall played up his silver tune-
My plans lost purpose, fell to dreams at last,
And held me late into the afternoon.

But when the idle pleasure ceased to please,
And I awoke, and not a plan was planned,
Just as a drowning man, at what he sees
Catches for life, I caught the thing at hand.

And so life's little work-day hour has all

Been spent, and mis-spent doing what I could,
And in regrets and efforts to recall

The chance of having, being, what I would.

And so sometimes I can not choose but cry,
Seeing my late-sown flowers are hardly set-
O darkening color of the evening sky,
Spare me the day a little longer yet!

VOL. XXXVIII.-No. 225.-20

ALICE CARY.

this one of Solferino pink braided near the molasses. They must be allowed to sing, the inbreast-pockets, and a short petticoat of white terpreter said, otherwise they would not work. with a colored one beneath. His feet were Fearing lest their noise might prevent sleep durbare. He brought with him several men, ing the night, Ansel asked them to let him hear some of whom wore a red fez and a white how softly they could sing, whereupon they began or buff-colored kind of night-gown. When such an unearthly chant and sang so vociferBaby first saw the blacks she said to one of ously that we all roared with laughter. "That them "Pretty boy!" though he was awful to will do!" my husband shouted. "For Heavbehold; but one of them more "toothy" than en's sake stop, or you'll drive me mad! No, the rest (indeed his under-lip was completely you must manage to do without that, for the eclipsed) happening to smile on her, she re- pump is just at the foot of our berth." It was mained for some moments in a state of open- well that the window was closed that night, for mouthed petrifaction with horror. by degrees the low hum of the laborers grew into a loud song, and they forgot all restraint. The words of their refrain sounded like,

The pilot, who had gone off just before our dinner-time, returned bringing me bananas and oranges-some of the Mandarin sort, very sweet, with a loose, red skin-each kind of fruit being presented in a barrel-shaped basket made of loosely-plaited cocoa-nut leaves. He brought word that the consignee, Taria Tophan, a Hindoo merchant, presented his compliments, and would be pleased to see the captain at his house. Then a man with delicate, long features and a flowing dark beard, wearing a turban and white robes, came to inquire if we needed fresh meat. Picture to yourself, if you can, this anomalous, romantic-looking butcher!

The town of Zanzibar, capital of the island of the same name, seen from the vessel, seemed to consist principally of white houses, built in squares, with flat roofs and castellated tops; the mosques, the rude mud-huts thatched with cocoanut leaves, the groves of cocoa, plantains, bananas, palms, and pomegranate-with huts here and there peeping out of them -furnish prominent features in the picture. The houses of the various consuls are on the white-sanded beach, and their flags give a lively effect to the view. In sight there are also many dhows, some of which, together with the war-ship Shah Allum, belong to the King of Zanzibar-Syed Madjid Ben Syed, a young Arab greatly beloved by his people. He was at the time of which I am writing absent at Bombay. We could also see two English vessels-a gun-boat and a merchantman.

Ansel went off to Taria Tophan's, a Hindoo, as I have said, but one who retained few of the prejudices of his people. He dined at the American consul's. In the mean time, while the vessel was being unloaded, eight blacks were hired to work at the pumps at the rate of 6d. per day or night, with rice and

"Alemam bara. Alemam bara

Maree a marre a O maree-ee-ee."

This looks like an attempt to put the nightingale's song into words! You can have no idea of the effect this refrain has upon one's nerves. One hard-working little fellow named Punch sang as happily, with the perspiration rolling down his face, and with no cap on in the heat of the sun's rays as if he had been a salamander, though I am not sure that the latter really ever does sing. You should have seen how amused

the blacks were at the sight of my Ethel's ragdoll "Judy." They evidently thought that its style of nose must be common in those parts whence we came.

ushered into a large sitting-room, in which were light easy-chairs, tables, and cane sofas with flag-shaped fans lying on them. The white walls were adorned with pictures, the windows were not glazed, and the upper slats of the dark green blinds were closed, making the rooms shady and cool. We were received by Mr. R-, the consul-a fine, gentlemanly young man. Soon after Captain Dow entered together with Taria Tophan, who is called "the honest Hindoo of Zanzibar." He was picturesquely attired, and left his slippers outside. We had a pleasant half-hour's chat, and the gentlemen, with the exception of Taria Tophan (who, by-the-way, did not seem to know English), took vermuth before the four o'clock dinner, which was served in an airy room with white walls and massive square-cut pillars. There was a swing-fan in this room, and two blacks in a sort of white night-gown waited upon the table, and fanned the flies away from us with flags made of cloth, embroidered in floss silk. Taria Tophan did not eat with us.

We had soup and fish, with some yellow pungent sauce that looked like custard, beef, chicken-pie, baked bananas, a kind of green pea, small pickled oranges, plantains, sweetpotatoes, fried mince-meat cakes, asafoetida cakes, or rather wafers (for which I really think I could in time acquire a taste!), a rice curry, a salad of small green leaves and cucumbers, grown and sent by the French Mission Society, a Welsh rarebit, a sponge-cake in custard, and oranges, with sherry and claret plentifully watered from white earthen coolers.

After dinner we returned to the sitting-room, where café au lait was served by an Arab. A walk out was proposed and assented to. We passed through narrow ways over white sand and clinkers. I asked when we should come to the streets, and was told that this was their "West-end" or "Broadway." But how can I describe what I saw during that walk the variety of color, form, dress, and manner, the beauty of some of the old houses, or the dirt On this day several canoes came off with and obscurity of the huts, under the thatched fruit, shells, nuts, corals, and monkeys. Ethel verandas of which the natives plied their trades called one of the latter "Poor Puss!" consider- as tailors, tinkers, and sellers of betel, planing him an improvement on our black cat. In tains, pots, and fruit? How picturesque apthe evening the breeze came from the shore, and peared the half-naked girls with their bead we could clearly distinguish the voices of the necklets, and poising round water-pots on their natives, talking, singing, and shouting; the heads as they came to and from a rocky well! beating of the tum-tums, to which they were Some of the children we saw were perfectly dancing; the clapping of hands, and the bark- naked, and made their "Yambos" (How do you ing of dogs. do's) to us, one of them looking at my hoopskirts and then at my face, and then running in terror up to his mother, screaming, "Oh! oh! The white woman!" His eyelids had been painted a deep black. Stumbling over some unusually large clinkers among the thistles, I was told that they had marked the graves of natives; and on each side of the way I saw stone or composite tombs, covered with cocoanut leaf thatching, all the way to the Mussulman burying-ground. In one of the head-stones We ascended by a wooden staircase, and were had been inserted two willow-pattern cheese

On the 17th my husband and myself visited the American consul. His house is delightfully eastern in style. There are Moorish arches in the court-yard, where two goats and a gazelle were then at play; men wearing the fez and turbans were seated or lying on stone couches that were covered with matting and built near the doors, which are heavy and of dark color, carved down the centre. The walls are very thick and the windows large.