expiated my sins by exterminating the idolaters of China." What a picture! The mightiest intellect of the age, dimly conscious of something higher, something better, than it has ever known, and seeking a cure for its restless longings after the Unseen only in fresh murder and fresh devastation. Peace be with him. He has learned, long ere this, what it was that he sought in vain upon earth; and it may be that He whose mercy is high as the heaven above the earth, has had pity even upon him.

CHAPTER XXX.

FALLEN TITANS.

"So much for the Gour-Emir," says M-, as we emerge again into the sunshine. "Let's look at the programme, and see what we have left."

He produces his written list (which lies before me as I write, sorely tattered and stained, but still legible) and cons it over: "Koktash Stone-that's in the citadel; Mosques of Tilliah-Kari, Shir-Dar, and Ooloog-Begi— those are all in the great square; Mosque of BibiKhanam, &c. Well, I'll tell you what we'll do; we'll take the mosques first, one after another, and keep the citadel to the end."

Ten minutes later, we debouch upon the Great Square (described in Chapter xxviii.), and see above us the great masses of the three mosques glowing like rainbows in the splendour of their gorgeous colouring, under a flood of burning sunshine. Following our pilot, we pass through the mighty archway of the TilliahKari, and find ourselves in a bona fide "college quad.," peopled by the university men of Samarcand.

'They don't learn much," says M, who has a thoroughly Russian contempt for the native stock, "only scraps of the Koran, and such like trash. You'll

be able to see their way of life, however; but though it's certainly a curious sight, I can't call it very attractive."

And well may he say so. Imagine a man unlocking a disused cellar, and surprising there a gang of ambushed thieves, and you have an idea of the sight which presents itself in every cell that we enter. Filth, darkness, discomfort, beyond all description; dens which, if everything were put to its right use, should belong to a college of wolves, presided over by a common room of gorillas. And the tenants are worthy of their abode. One or two among the countless faces show some vestiges of intellect and manliness, but the majority are of a low, grovelling, bestial type, sufficient of itself to confirm the hideous stories everywhere current respecting them. Faugh! let us pass on.

"The motto of that university," remarks my comrade, as we turn away, "should be 'Nihil humani.'"

"And I would certainly say with regard to every member of it, 'A me alienum puto.' It's too bad to call them beasts. What have the poor beasts done to deserve it?"

From the Tilliah-Kari we cross over to the Shir-Dar, and ascend the easternmost of the two towers-the stair of the other being choked with rubbish. In some points the view from it surpasses even that of our first arrival; for now the bold outline of the Tchepan-Ata comes in to complete the encircling life-guard of mountains; while the details of the city itself, now lying right beneath our feet, are all perfectly visible.

It is Damascus over again--but Damascus on a grand scale, with all its splendid features intensified. From that tremendous height, the swarming streets of the town, the files of camels creeping like mice over the broad white surface of the "Citadel Plain," the battered walls of the fortress, the vast many-coloured towers of the other mosques, the sea of vegetation around, and the great bastions of naked mountain that shut in the landscape are all clear as on a map; while, in the magnificent transparency of the atmosphere, the farthest ridges seem almost within reach. From the point where we stand, one might let fall a plumb-line two hundred feet and more, into the thickest crowd of the great market-place; and the mingled clamour from below comes up to us like the roar of a distant sea.

One by one, the mosques are disposed of. After the Shir-Dar comes the Ooloog-Begi; after the OoloogBegi, the Bibi-Khanam and its companions. All are very much of one type-the type of the Azret-ez-Sultan at Turkestan, as described in chapter xxiv.; two tall funnel-shaped towers, flanking a huge pointed archway. But over each and all hangs the mournful interest attaching to the last relics of an extinct dynasty and a forgotten civilisation. These are the graves of an era -the monuments of the Titans who reigned here in days when Russia was cowering behind the Volga, and paying tribute to the ancestors of those who tremble before her in these streets to-day. And now the Titans, in their turn, are dethroned by the boy-Jupiter of Russian conquest, in the insolence of his young might,

and superhuman enginry, and destroying thunderbolts, against which all the strength of numbers and brute force is as nothing :—

"Sed quid Typhoëus aut validus Mimas,

Vel quid minaci Porphyrion statu,

Quid Rhotus, evulsisque truncis
Enceladus jaculator audax?"

But there is one of our afternoon "sights" which must not be omitted. As we enter the Bibi-Khanam, our guide points to a couple of massive pedestals in the centre, supporting a huge, square, marble slab, set at an angle of forty-five-the whole affair exactly suggesting a gigantic reading-desk.

"What do you think of that?" says he, triumphantly. "This is the mosque built by Timour's favourite wife, who was a Chinese. She had a copy of the Koran laid here a good big one as you may think, to fit the slab— and a Moollah in attendance to turn over the leaves for her; and then she would sit at that window," (pointing to one which looks out of the wall on the opposite side of the court), "and read the Koran from thence, so as to do her devotions without appearing in public."

"And where is the Koran now?"

"Well, it was sent to St Petersburg as a curiosity; but the slab is still held in great reverence by the natives. They have a belief, that any one who creeps under it, and passes out between the two pedestals, will be cured of whatever disease he may happen to have at the time."

In the next mosque that we visit, there are private