36383	----	Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 36383-h.htm or 36383-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36383/36383-h/36383-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36383/36383-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See http://www.archive.org/details/canterburypilgri00penniala A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE This work is Copyright in England and America. A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE. Ridden, written, and illustrated by JOSEPH AND ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL. [Illustration] London: Published by Seeley and Company, xlvi. xlvii. xlviii. Essex Street. Mdccclxxxv. _TO_ Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, _We, who are unknown to him, dedicate this record of one of our short journeys on a Tricycle, in gratitude for the happy hours we have spent travelling with him and his Donkey._ We do not think our book needs an apology, explanation, or preface; nor does it seem to us worth while to give our route-form, since the road from London to Canterbury is almost as well known to cyclers as the Strand, or the Lancaster Pike; nor to record our time, since we were pilgrims and not scorchers. And as for non-cyclers, who as yet know nothing of time and roads, we would rather show them how pleasant it is to go on pilgrimage than weary them with cycling facts. JOSEPH PENNELL. ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL. 36 BEDFORD PLACE, _May 14th, 1885_. First Day [Illustration] Folk do go on Pilgrimage through Kent. [Illustration] A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE [Illustration] It was towards the end of August, when a hot sun was softening the asphalt in the dusty streets of London, and ripening the hops in the pleasant land of Kent, that we went on pilgrimage to Canterbury. Ours was no ordinary journey by rail, which is the way latter-day pilgrims mostly travel. No. What we wanted was in all reverence to follow, as far as it was possible, the road taken by the famous company of bygone days, setting out from the hostelrie where these lordings lay one night and held counsel, making stations by the way at the few places they mention by name, and ending it, as they did, at the shrine of the 'holy, blissful martyr,' in the Canterbury Cathedral. How better could this be done than by riding over the ground made sacred by them on our tricycle? [Illustration: _Our only Race._] And so it came to pass that one close, foggy morning, we strapped our bags to our machine and wheeled out of Russell Square before any one was stirring but the policeman, making his last rounds and trying door after door. Down Holborn and past Staples' Inn, very grey and venerable in the pale light, and where the facetious driver of a donkey-cart tried to race us; past the now silent and deserted cloisters of Christ's Hospital, and under Bow Bells in Cheapside; past the Monument of the famous fire, and over London Bridge, where the mist was heavy on the river and the barges showed spectre-like through it, and where hucksters greeted us after their fashion, one crying, 'Go in, hind one! I bet on you. You'll catch up if you try hard enough!' and another, 'How are you there, up in the second story?' A short way up the Borough High Street, from which we had a glimpse of the old red roof and balustraded galleries of the 'White Hart;' and then we were at the corner where the 'Tabard' ought to be. This was to have been our starting-point; but how, it suddenly occurred to us for the first time, could we start from nothing? If ours had no beginning, would it be a genuine pilgrimage? This was a serious difficulty at the very outset. But our enthusiasm was fresh. We looked up at the old sign of '_Ye Old Tabard_,' hanging from the third story of the tall brick building which has replaced Chaucer's Inn. Here, at least, was something substantial. And we rode on with what good cheer we could. [Illustration] Then we went for some distance over the Old Kent Road, which is laid with Belgian paving--invented, I think, for the confusion of cyclers, and where in one place a Hansom cab blocked the way. In endeavouring to pass around it our big wheel ran into the groove of the track, and we had to dismount and lift it out. The driver sat scowling as he looked on. If he had his way, he said, he would burn all _them things_. We came to Deptford, or West Greenwich, at half-past seven, the very hour when mine host and his fellows passed. So, in remembrance of them, we stopped a few minutes opposite a little street full of old two-storied houses, with tiled roofs and clustered chimney-pots and casement windows, overtopped by a distant church steeple, its outline softened in the silvery mist, for the fog was growing less as we journeyed onwards. At the corner was an Inn called the 'Fountain,' and as a man who talked with us while we rested there said that an old fountain had stood in the open space near by, it pleased us to think that here had been one of the Waterings of Saint Thomas where pilgrims to the shrine made short halts, and that perhaps it was at this very spot that Davy Copperfield, a modern pilgrim who travelled the same road, had come to a stop in his flight from the young man with a donkey-cart. A little way out of Deptford we came to Blackheath, where sheep were peacefully grazing, rooks cawing overhead, and two or three bicyclers racing, and where a woman stopped us to say that 'That's the 'ouse of Prince Harthur yander, and onst the Princess Sophia stayed in it on her way to Woolwich,' and she pointed to the handsome brick house to our left. [Illustration: The Pilgrims are Chased by Dogs.] After Blackheath the mist vanished, and the sun, gladdened by the sweet air, shone on the fields and woods, and the ugly barracks and pretty cottages by which we wheeled. Red-coated soldiers turned to look and dogs ran out to bark at us. In the meadows men and women leaned on their hoes and rakes to stare. From tiny gardens, overflowing with roses and sunflowers, children waved their delight. London was many miles behind when, at a few minutes before nine, we drew up on the bridge at Crayford. It seemed at first a sleepy little village. The only signs of life were on the bridge. Here about a dozen men were smoking their morning pipes, and as many boys were leaning over the wall, lazily staring into the river below, or at the cool stretches of woodland and shady orchards on the hillside beyond. But presently, as we waited, the village clock struck nine, and at once the loud bell in the factory on the other side of the little river Cray began to ring. One by one the older loungers knocked the ashes from their pipes and passed through the gate. The boys lingered. But their evil genius, in the shape of an old man in a tall white cap, came out, and at his bidding they left the sunshine and the river and hurried to work. A man with a cart full of shining onions went by, and we followed him up a hilly street, where the gabled and timbered cottages seemed to be trying to climb one over the other to reach a terrace of shining white houses at the top. The first of these was but one-storied, and its tall chimney-pot threw a soft blue shadow on the higher wall of the house next to it. On a short strip of ground which stretched along the terrace patches of cabbages alternated with luxuriant crops of weeds. In one place there were stalks of pink hollyhock and poles covered with vines, and in the windows above were scarlet geraniums. About them all there was a feeling of warmth and light, more like Italy than England. J. took out his sketch-book. Several women, startled by the novelty of strangers passing by, had come out and were standing in their small gardens. When they saw the sketch-book they posed as if for a photographer--all except one old woman, who hobbled down the street, talking glibly. Perhaps it was as well we did not hear what she said, for I think she was cursing us. When she was close at our side and turned, waving her hands to the other women, she looked like a great bird of ill-omen. 'Go in! go in!' she croaked: 'he's takin' of yere likenesses. That's wot he's arter!' Her wrath still fell upon us as we wheeled out of Crayford. [Illustration: Crayford, August 84] There were many pilgrims on the road; a few, like us, were on machines, but the greater number were on foot. As in Chaucer's day, both rich and poor go upon pilgrimage through Kent; but, whereas in his time there were monasteries and hospitals by the way where the latter were taken in at night, now they must find shelter under hedges or in dingles. Their lot, however, did not seem hard. It is sweet to lie beneath the sky now as it was when Daphnis sang. And the pilgrims whom we saw looked as if soft turf was luxury compared to the beds they had just left, for they belonged to the large army of hop-pickers who, every autumn, come from London to make the Kentish roads unsafe after dark and the householder doubly watchful. Whitechapel and other low quarters are nearly emptied at this season. It is pleasant to know that at least once a-year these people escape from their smoky, squalid streets, into green places where they can breathe pure air, but their coming is not welcomed in the country. Many poor, honest women in towns and villages thereabouts will rather lose a few shillings than let their children go to the hop-fields during the picking season, lest they should come away but too much wiser than they went. As we rode further the number of tramps increased; all the morning we passed and overtook them. There were grey-haired, decrepit men and women, who hobbled painfully along, and could scarcely keep pace with their more stalwart sons and daughters; there were children by the score, some of whom ran gaily on, forgetting fatigue for joy of the sunshine; others lagged behind, whimpering and weary; and still others were borne in their mothers' arms. Almost all these people were laden with their household goods and gods. They carried heavy bags thrown over their shoulders, or else baskets and bundles slung on their arms, and pots and kettles and all manner of household furniture. One man, more enterprising than the others, had brought a push-cart; when we saw it, two babies, almost hidden in a confused mass of clothing and pots and pans, were sleeping in it, and one clasped a kitten in her arms. Now, with a sharp bend in the road, we came suddenly upon a man sitting under a tree, who, though we rang our bell right in his ear, never raised his eyes from a hole in an old silk handkerchief he was holding; and now we came to a man and woman resting on a pile of stones by the roadside, who sat upright at the tinkling of our bell. I shall never forget the red and swarthy face of the woman as she turned and looked at us, her black hair, coarse and straight as an Indian's, hanging about her shoulders and over her eyes: she was unmistakably young in years but old in vice, and ignorant of all save evil--compared to hers an idiot's face would have been intelligent, a brute's refined. I could now understand why honest countrywomen kept their children from the hop-fields. As a rule, the tramps were as careless and jolly as Béranger's Bohemians, and laughed and made merry as if the world and its hardships were but jests. We, as figures in the farce, came in for a share of their mirth. 'That's right! ladies fust!' one old tattered and torn man called after us, gaily; 'that's the principle on which I allus hacts!' Which, I suppose, is a rough way of saying '_Place aux dames_.' A very little joke went a great way with them. 'Clear the path!' another man cried to the women walking with him, as we coasted down the hill outside of Dartford: 'ere's a lady and gen'leman on a happaratus a-runnin' over us!' 'They're only a 'enjoyin' of 'emselves,' an old hag of the party added; 'so let luck go wi' 'em!' Then she laughed loud and long, and the others joined with her, and the sound of their laughter still reached our ears as we came into the village. [Illustration: _An Enterprising Pilgrim._] [Illustration: _An Indifferent Pilgrim._] [Illustration: _Unwelcome Pilgrims._] Dartford, from a cycler's point of view, is a long narrow street between two hills, one of which is good to coast, the other hard to climb. The place, as we saw it, was full of hucksters and waggons, and footmen and carriages, and we passed on without stopping, save by the river that runs near a church, with a tower and an unconventional clock looking out from one side instead of from the centre, which is the proper place for clocks. From Dartford to Gravesend the road became more pleasant every minute. Here and there were brown fields, where men were ploughing, or perhaps burning heaps of stubble, and sending pale grey clouds of smoke heavenwards; here and there were golden meadows where gleaners were busy, and then, perhaps, a row of tall, dark poplars, or a patch of brilliant cabbages. To the south, broad plains, where lazy, ease-loving cattle were grazing, stretched as far as the eye could see. To the north, every now and then, as the road turned, we saw the river, where ships were at anchor, and steamers were steaming up to London, and black barges, with dark-red sails, were floating down with the tide. The water was blue as the sky, and the hills in the distance seemed to melt into a soft purple mist hanging over them. By the road and by the river were many deep deserted quarries, whose white chalk cliffs could be seen from afar, while they brought out in strong contrast the red roofs of the cottages built at their feet. We came to one or two small villages and another church, with its tower and a clock awry, so that we wondered whether this was a fashion in Kent. And all along the hedges were white and pink with open morning-glories, and the trees threw soft shadows over the white road, and everywhere the air was sweet with the scent of clematis. [Illustration] [Illustration: _Burning Stubble near Gravesend._] Gravesend is not a very striking place as you enter it from the road. It was to us remarkable chiefly for the Rosherville Gardens, which hitherto we had known only in our Dickens. But we found a pleasant 'ale-stake' by the river, where we rested to 'both drinke and biten on a cake;' or, rather, on substantial beefsteak and vegetables. There was no one else in the coffee-room, but one or two dogs strayed in from the private bar, and seeing we were at dinner became very sociable. The maid who waited on us was friendly too, and while J. was busy putting away the tricycle she was even moved to confide in me. She was the only maid in the house, she said. There had been another, but she had gone some time ago; 'and there's a jolly hard lot of work for one woman to do, ma'am,' she went on. 'I'm not used to it, and I can't stand it much longer. I've always been in a private before. It's easy enough to go from a private to a public, but to get from a public to a private again is another thing. Onst in a public is always in a public, ma'am!' Then some one called her. I was glad to have her go, for her way of telling her trouble had in it something of the Greek doctrine of fate, and so long as her eye was upon me I had an uncomfortable feeling, as if I were one of the instruments decreed from all time to work out her cheerless destiny. It was more agreeable to look out of the window on the little lawn in front, where two comfortable matrons were drinking beer, and a Blue-coat boy, home for the holidays, was running around, showing his orange legs to the best advantage. It was quiet on the river. Large steamers, small steam-tugs and row-boats, were lying at anchor. An old coastguard hulk was moored opposite, and an officer walked solemnly up and down the deck, every now and then halting to look through a spyglass for suspicious craft. But as we stood on the pier, after we had dined, the tide turned, and swiftly and silently all the boats turned with it. Tugs gave shrill whistles in warning of their speedy departure. Sail-boats unfurled their sails. Sailors came down the watersteps, leading from the houses built on high walls at the water's edge, and rowed quickly to the coastguard boat, saluted the solitary officer, and disappeared below. In the large P. and O. steamer, anchored at some distance from the pier, we could see the red turbans and white tunics of Lascars moving to and fro on the decks. The river was now as lively as it had before been quiet. But it monopolised the activity of the place, for when we went back for our tricycle we met only one or two seamen and a handful of children. [Illustration: _By the River at Gravesend._] When we set forth again the air was warm and sleep-inspiring. This, together with the consciousness of having well dined, it must be confessed, made us return to the pedals unwillingly. Not even the fact that a whole Sunday school, off for a picnic, waited to look at us, could stimulate us into speed. A sun-dial on a church tower just outside of Gravesend seemed to take us to task for our indolence. In large black letters on its white face it said-- 'Be quick: your time's short!' But we knew better. Rochester was but seven miles off, and in Rochester we had made up our minds to sleep that night. The tramps had grown as lazy as we, but they did not even pretend to struggle with their laziness. All along the road we saw them lying under the hedges and in shady places. Some were asleep, others day-dreaming. Three women had roused themselves somewhat, and were making preparations for afternoon tea. They had kindled a fire by the wayside, and hung their kettle over it. A little further on, a mother and her children were just coming to the road from the deep, sweet shade of a dingle. On the hill beyond was a grey church, with a graveyard whose graves straggled down the hillside, and next to it a large farmhouse, with red roof and walls, whose colour was softened and harmonised by time. When the children saw we had stopped the machine they ran up at once to beg us to buy queer little round calico-balls, which they called pin-cushions. One had bright black eyes, and, not in the least discomfited by our refusal of the balls, danced merrily around the tricycle. Then she peered into J.'s sketch-book. [Illustration: _Afternoon Tea._] 'He's drawrin!' she called to her mother, in a loud stage whisper. The latter bade her mind her manners. But she still continued her observations. 'Oh, mother, it's the church!' was her next cry. 'Which, I'm sure, it's a werry decent church,' the mother declared, as if to encourage us with her approval; and then they went their way. Later, when, as we were coasting down a hill, we overtook the party, the same child jumped and clapped her hands, 'It's goin' all by its lone self!' she screamed; but her sister trudged stolidly on, and spake never a word. Of the many places on the road to Canterbury, made famous by latter-day pilgrims, few are better known and loved than Gad's Hill, where honest Jack Falstaff performed his deeds of valour, and where Charles Dickens spent the last years of his life. We had counted upon making it, too, a station by the way. But whether it was that we were just then drifting along in lotus-eaters' fashion, our feet moving mechanically, or whether the prospect of another long coast made us forgetful of all else, certain it is that, with a glance of admiration at the dark spreading cedars, and another at the inn and its sign, adorned with the picture of Falstaff, we went by without a thought as to where we were. At the foot of the hill a baker told us that up yonder was the house where Mr. Dickens had lived. Were we already in danger of forgetting the aim of our pilgrimage? Would we sacrifice our great end for what we had intended to be but a means to it? 'Let us,' I said humbly, 'try to keep our wits from wool-gathering again, lest we ride through Rochester and Canterbury without knowing it!' We collected our thoughts in good time; for, lo! as mine host said to the monk, Rochester stands there hard by. Before many minutes we saw in the distance the town of Strood, and beyond it the broad Medway and Rochester, its castle and cathedral towering above the houses clustering about them. We stayed all night in Rochester. The early pilgrims went to the 'Crown.' But the 'Crown,' alas! stands no longer, and so we slept at the 'Queen's Head,' the C. T. C. headquarters. There is, somewhere in the city, the chapel where pious travellers of old stopped to pray, but we could not find it. The further we went the more it seemed as if we were in pursuit of a shadow. And, indeed, it was here that we discovered that even the road we had ridden over was not that along which mine host and his company had passed as they told their tales. There was no use, however, in our going back to London and starting out again, so as to take the right road; for, alas! it--that is, as far as Rochester--has gone the way of the Tabard and Crown. Only the yew-trees, planted at intervals along its course, survive to show where it once ran. After we had had our tea, we walked out in the twilight. The town deserves the name of Dulborough, given it by Dickens; and so, indeed, our little maid at the inn thought. There was nothing to do to amuse one's self, she said. She had been up to London for a month in the spring, and since then she couldn't abide Rochester. Having produced a Castle and ruined it, and a Cathedral and restored it, it has ever since rested on its laurels. We wandered a little way through the narrow twisting street, meeting only soldiers and a few young girls and men, and through the gabled gatehouse, where opium-eating Jasper lived; past the wonderful Norman doorway of the Cathedral and then to the Castle, where we rested awhile in the public garden the city has made around it. The pigeons had gone to roost, two or three women sat silently on the benches, a group of children played a singing game in the Pavilion. Away in the west, beyond the river, we could see the green and yellow fields and the poplars, radiant in the light of the afterglow; on the horizon, a dark windmill rose above the hillside like a sentinel on duty, and its long arms moved slowly around. It was even more peaceful down by the river: two men were pulling a long outrigger against the tide; a few heavy-laden barges floated up the stream with it. The figures of the men on board were silhouetted in black against the now fading western light. The red sails were furled and the masts slowly fell as the barges neared the bridge; noiselessly and swiftly they disappeared under the black arches. They seemed to carry with them all the sounds of the day; the silence of night came over the place, our voices sank lower, and we walked quietly back to the lonely street and to the Inn. Second Day [Illustration] Oh, what a Fall! Second Day [Illustration] There was a little more stir in the place the next morning, but it was because it was filled with tramps, who were wisely taking advantage of the early coolness and hurrying on their way. But when we turned off the High Street the town was as still in the glare of day as it had been in the late twilight. The high brick walls of the private gardens might have enclosed dwelling-places of the dead rather than of the living, for not a sound came over them. The little pointed houses might have been sepulchres for all the signs of life they gave. The whole town, instead of one little street, should be called Tranquil Place. It seemed very characteristic that the Cathedral should be closed, and this at the season when the tourist is abroad in the land. It was being cleaned, an old man told us. We looked through the iron railing of the door into the nave, and at the marble floor, and the tall, white, rounded arches. 'It's like looking down the throat of Old Time!' Mr. Grewgious thought when he stood there. At the farther end by the chancel steps a charwoman was at work on bended knees. By her side was one small bucket. Here, truly, was a Liliputian set to do the work of Brobdignag. At that rate it is probable visitors were shut out for many months. After we had looked at the 'Bull,' which still reminds the public by a sign of the good beds enjoyed by Mr. Pickwick and his friends, at the Town Hall where Pip was apprenticed, at the many-gabled, lattice-windowed house in which Rosa Bud bloomed into young ladyhood, and were standing in front of the 'Six Poor Travellers'' lodging-place, reading the inscription over the door, and wondering who were the proctors classed with rogues who could not rest within, a benevolent Englishman passing that way fell upon us. He was a worthy fellow-citizen of Richard Watts. Seeing we were strangers, he, without waiting to be asked, bestowed upon us the charity of information. 'Do you know what a Proctor is, Sir?' he asked, addressing himself to J., who meekly, as befits one receiving alms, said that he did not. 'No! Well, then, I will tell you. It is a proc-u-ra-tor,--one who collects Peter's pence for the Pope, Sir. Richard Watts lived in the sixteenth century, when Protestantism made people feel bitterly, Sir, and he would have no friends of the Pope beneath his roof. Proc-u-ra-tor! That's what a Proctor is, Sir.' He had disappeared around the curve of the street before we had finished thanking him. As the information was new to us, I, with the common belief that others must be as ignorant as myself, now imitate his benevolence, and here bestow it in alms upon whoever may be in need of it. It was one o'clock when we mounted our tricycle and set out once more for Canterbury. The sky was still unclouded and the day warm, but a good breeze was blowing, and we were fresh for our ride. The streets of Chatham were as busy as those of Rochester were idle, and blocked with waggons, so that we had to fall in line and go at snail's pace. Once, with a sudden halt, we were brought so near a horse just in front, that my foot knocked against his leg; but he bore the blow stoically, as if he were used to Chatham streets. An American circus was about to start out on its grand street parade, and children hung about corners and out of windows. At the foot of the hill outside the town, and marked 'Dangerous' by the National Cyclists' Union, for the benefit of cyclers, two very small boys offered to 'Push it up, Sir!' but as it looked as if _it_ would push them down, we declined. At the top we met a cycler on his way from Canterbury, and he gave us evil tidings of the road. It became worse with every mile, he said, and it was heavy and hilly, and the dust was enough to stifle one. To this last statement his appearance bore good testimony. [Illustration: _The Marshes._] But at first we found it fair enough. From Chatham to Sittingbourne our journey was one of unmixed pleasure. The wheels went easily, and the wind blew on our backs. Now we passed on our right a vast treeless expanse, divided into squares of green, and golden, and brown, all shining softly in the sunlight, with here and there a windmill; but to the left we could see far below us the white line of the river winding between the flat grey marshes, where in Pip's day the escaped convicts prowled. Again we wheeled through small, sleepy villages, with church and tower half hidden in clumps of trees, and with red oasts, whose crooked cowls loomed up over the chimney-pots of the low cottages: for we had come to the hop country, and at every step the land of Kent grew fairer. Beyond Rainham the road lay between hop-gardens, as they are appropriately called, and cherry-orchards. In places the vines formed tall, shady hedges; in others the gardens were shut in by bare poles hung with coarse brown cloth, to defy the wind and the depredations of small boys, and other destructive animals: but the prettiest fields were those which were in no way hedged about, so that we could look down the long, narrow, green aisles, which seemed to lead to fields of light beyond. The vines twisted lovingly up the poles, which in many places bent beneath masses of green fruit, or else the topmost shoots crossed and intertwined from one pole to another, and the whole field was woven into a large arbour. Where the sunlight fell upon the green clusters it turned them to pure gold, and the leaves, blowing gently to and fro, seemed to rejoice in their great beauty. The cherry-orchards were so pretty and trim that I wondered if, like the hop-fields, they were not sometimes called gardens. The trees had been long stripped of their fruit, but their branches were well covered with cool green leaves, and their shadows met on the grass beneath. There was one in particular, before which we rested. Sheep were browsing placidly on the downy turf, and when we looked low down between the trees we could see the shining white river far in the distance. I half expected to hear a new Daphnis and Menalcas singing their pastorals in gentle rivalry. [Illustration: _A Cherry Orchard._] We met few people. The tramps who come down to Kent for the hop-picking turn off from Rochester to go to Maidstone, where the largest hop-fields are, and where there is more chance for them to be hired; but a comparatively small number go on to Canterbury. Some cyclers were making the most of the fine day. As we sat idly between the hop-gardens three passed us. Two rode a tandem; the third, a bicycle; but they were of the time-making species, for whom the only beauty of a ride is that of speed. Looking at them, and then at the sheep in a field beyond, I thought the latter were having the best of it. A little further on we met a party of three Frenchmen. One rode ahead on a bicycle, the two others followed on a tandem like ours. One of the latter, when he saw us, called out to the bicycler, '_C'est bon d'aller comme ça!_' I suppose he thought we should not understand him, and if we did--well, ought not a Frenchman always to be gallant? [Illustration: A Kentish Pastoral.] We rode on with light hearts. An eternity of wheeling through such perfect country and in such soft sunshine would, we thought, be the true earthly paradise. We were at peace with ourselves and with all mankind, and J. even went so far as to tell me I had never ridden so well! It was, then, in a happy frame of mind, that we reached the inn at Sittingbourne. It was an unassuming place, but quiet and clean; the bar was on one side of the hall, the coffee-room on the other. The latter was empty, and the landlady, after laying the cloth for our bread and cheese and shandy-gaff--of all drinks the most refreshing to the cycler--left us alone to study this printed notice, which hung in a frame over the door:-- 'Call frequently, Drink moderately, Pay honourably, Be good company, Part friendly, Go home quietly.' We soon had the opportunity of putting into practice one clause of this advice, for the door was suddenly burst open, and a short man with a bald head, who wore the Cyclists' Touring Club uniform, rushed in. [Illustration] 'Are you the lady and gentleman that came on the tandem?' he asked, before he was quite in the room. We said we were. 'I don't like tandems, do you?' he continued, fiercely, as if he were daring us to differ from him. He seemed to think we had come there that he might tell us his grievances; which he did, with much elaboration, while we ate our lunch. He and his wife had been down to Margate from London, and were now on their way back, he said. They had made the trip on a tandem; it was the first time he had ridden one, and it would be the last, for he didn't like tandems--they were horrid things! Did we like tandems? To avoid repetition, I may here mention that this expression of dislike, together with the query as to our opinion, was the refrain to everything he said. It was always given with the same interest and emphasis as if it were an entirely original remark. The only variation he made was by sometimes beginning with the statement, and at others with the question. He explained the reasons for his dislike. The principal was, that the people one met on the roads always insulted riders on a tandem. Why, he had been off his machine a dozen times that morning, fighting men who had been chaffing him! I thought, with a shudder, of the crowd of hucksters J. would have had to fight by London Bridge, had he been of the same mind. Then, the next objection was, that he had to sit behind his wife--she had to steer, and he would not be surprised if he were seriously injured, or even killed, before he got back to London. Women were heedless things, and easily frightened. His wife, who had joined us a few minutes before, here grew angry, and a slight skirmish of words followed between them: she reminded him of the dangers they had escaped through her nerve and skill; he recalled the dangers into which they had run owing to her thoughtlessness and timidity. But, just at this point of the discussion J. took out his watch. At sight of it the little man forgot his anger to pounce upon it, with never as much as 'An it please you!' Then, looking up in triumph, he exclaimed, 'I knew it! it's an American watch! They know how to make watches over there, but they're ruining our trade.' Then he explained that he was a London watchmaker, and he pulled out of his pocket a large substantial specimen of his workmanship. The talk now turning upon America, we told him, in answer to his inquiries, that we were Americans. 'From Canada?' his wife asked. 'Oh, no!' I answered; 'from Philadelphia.' 'Dear me!' the watchmaker said; 'then you're _real_ Americans! But you speak English very well!' 'Yes,' J. admitted, modestly. 'But then, you know, English is sometimes spoken in our part of the world!' All this made the fierce little cycler very friendly, and he next wanted to know where we were going. 'To Canterbury,' we said. 'To Canterbury!' he cried; and then, to give greater force to his words, he came and stood directly in front of us on the other side of the table. 'To Canterbury! Well, then, my advice to you is, if you have no other object than pleasure, don't go! No, don't you go! I've been there, and I know what I say. It's a rotten place. There's nothing in it but an old cathedral and a lot of old houses and churches, and they charged me sixpence for keeping my tandem one night. I don't like tandems-horrid things! Do you like tandems? Yes, it's a rotten place, and if I had my way I'd raze it to the ground!' I now understand why it is that Mr. Matthew Arnold thinks the average Briton so very terrible. By this time we had finished our lunch, and were ready to start. The watchmaker and his wife had engaged in another battle. She did not agree with him in his opinion of Canterbury. Indeed I believe they did not agree upon any one subject, and the tandem had tried their tempers. They had both said they wanted to see us off, and to compare machines; but we, being modest people, thought we would as lieve escape without their comments and farewells. This seemed a favourable opportunity. In the heat of the argument we left the room and paid our bill, without their noticing our retreat; but just as we had mounted our tricycle, and were wheeling softly away, we heard a voice calling, 'Oh, I say now! do come back a minute: I want to show you my machine!' It would have been more than uncivil to have refused, so we sat patiently while the much-abused tandem was brought out. The owner, in his pride, rode out on it, pedalled by us, and then wheeled round and faced us with an abruptness that fairly took away our breath. It was the shortest turn I have ever seen, and I waited for the end with the same uncertainty with which one watches a trapeze performance. Then there was some little talk about bells and brakes, and tyres and saddles. In the meantime the landlady, with two or three of her friends, had come out, and was staring at us with a curiosity for which I could not account. But presently she said, 'Are you going back soon?' And then I knew she had heard we were Americans, and had come to have a look at these strange people who had sailed across the sea, apparently for no other reason than to test the cycling properties of the roads of Kent. After this exhibition was over we said good-bye very pleasantly, and rode off, followed by their wishes for our good luck, while the watchmaker called out encouragingly, 'You Americans ride pretty well; but I don't like tandems. Horrid things! Do you like tandems?' But their wishes were the only good luck we met with. We had not gone far from Sittingbourne, when we admitted that the pilgrim we had met just outside of Chatham was no false prophet after all; for the road now began to be heavy with sand and rough with flints. And oh, the hills! They were not very steep, but I was a novice in cycling. No sooner were we on up-grades than I exhausted myself by my vigorous back-pedalling. I have heard the uninitiated say that tricycling must be _so_ easy, just like working the velocipedes of our childhood. But let them try! The country had lost none of its beauty. Fields were as green and golden, orchards as shady, and sheep as peaceful, as those we had seen before lunch. There were little churches on hilltops and pretty dingles by the wayside; handsome country-houses with well-kept lawns, and fields where cricketers were playing, and young girls in gay-coloured dresses were applauding; and there were old-fashioned farm-houses and quaint inn-yards. We passed through villages by which little quiet rivers ran, some with boats lying by the shore, and others, as at Ospringe, where horses and waggons were calmly driven through the water. But the heaviness had spread from the road to my heart, and all joyousness had gone from me. [Illustration: _A Farmhouse near Rochester._] [Illustration: _A Little River._] The worst of it was, that as the road here wound little, we could see it miles ahead--a white perpendicular line on the purple hill which bounded the horizon. We knew this must be Boughton Hill, the fame of whose steepness has gone abroad in the cycling world. With the knowledge of what was to come ever before me, I began to pedal so badly that J. told me so very plainly, and said, moreover, that I was more of a hindrance than a help to him. For some time we rode on very silently. Earlier in the afternoon we had been passed by a man driving an empty carriage, of whom we had asked one or two questions. He had stopped to watch the cricket-match, but he now overtook us, and, to add to my misery, asked me if I would not like him to drive me into Canterbury. All this was hard to bear. [Illustration] Finally, we came to Boughton, a small village with ivy-grown houses and a squirrel and a dolphin staring at each other amicably from rival inns. It is right at the foot of Boughton Hill. Now that we were near it, the white line we had seen for so long widened into a broad road, but it looked no less perpendicular. It was here that Chaucer's pilgrims 'gan atake A man that clothed was in clothes blake, And undernethe he wered a white surplis.' There is no record that mine host and the Chanones Yeman dismounted and walked to rest their horses. But all the many waggons and carriages and cycles we saw above us on the modern road were being led, not driven. Halfway up was an old lumbering stage, with boxes piled on the top, and big baskets and bundles swinging underneath. The driver was walking; but a tramp, who had made believe to push when on level ground, now sat comfortably on the backseat, taking his ease. A little lower was the friendly driver with his empty carriage, for he had rested at the 'Squirrel,' and so we had caught up to him again. At the top we looked back to see that the West was a broad sea of shining light. A yellow mist hung over the plain, softening and blending its many colours. Far off to the north the river glittered and sparkled, and a warm glow spread over the green of the near hillsides. The way in front of us was grey and colourless by comparison. It was almost all down-hill after this. Did I want to be driven into Canterbury, indeed? My benevolent friend might now have asked us to pull him in. The stage made a show of racing us, but we gave it only a minute's chance. An officer in braided coat driving a drag passed us triumphantly while we were on our up-grade; but when we came again to a level we left him far behind. 'Wete ye not wher stondeth a litel toun, Which that ycleped is Bob up-and-doun, Under the blee in Canterbury way?' It is better known now as Harbledown. A little of our trouble here came back, for the road leading to that part of it 'ycleped Bob-up,' was steep and heavy, and we had to walk. To our right were the old red-brick almshouses and the little church of St. Michael, one of the many oldest churches in Kent, and of which all we could see was the ivy-covered tower. It was here that Henry, when on his way to the holy shrine, dismounted, that, as became his humble calling of pilgrim, he might walk into Canterbury. And it was here, too, that the Person began his long-winded discourse. But we, less reverent than King Henry, now mounted again; and, less phlegmatic than the Person, we held our peace. For as we rode further up we heard far-away chimes, just as Erasmus did when he went from Harbledown; and there gradually rose before us a tall, grey tower, then two more, and at last, as we reached the top of the hill, we saw in the plain below the great Cathedral itself, standing up far above the low red roofs of Canterbury. We were almost at our goal. [Illustration] [Illustration] A little further on we passed a hop-field, where the picking had already begun. In one part the poles were stripped of their vines, so that it looked as if the farmer had reaped for his sowing a crop of dead sticks. In the other the poles were still green, but the day's work was just over. Women were packing up kettles and pans, jugs and bottles, and stowing babies and bundles into perambulators, while two or three men were going the rounds with bag and basket, measuring the day's picking, and marking off the account of each picker by notching short, flat pieces of wood held up for the purpose. In the road beyond a large cart, packed with well-filled bags, was being drawn homewards by three horses, while a young man rode up and down the green aisles. 'I beg your pardon, Sir,' a farm hand said to J., who had been sketching, 'but you've been takin' some of our people, and now you hought to take our Guvnor on his 'oss;' and he pointed to the young man. All the way into the town we passed groups of pickers: women with large families of children, small boys with jugs and coats hung over their shoulders, and young girls with garlands of hops twisted about their hats, and all were as merry as if they had been on a picnic. We saw them still before us, even after we had turned into Saint Dunstan's Street, from which the gold of the afterglow was fast fading, and were riding between the quaint, gabled houses, through whose diamond-paned windows lights were beginning to appear. Before us was the old, grey-towered city gate, through which royal and ecclesiastical processions and knights and nobles once passed, but where we now saw only the tramps who had arrived at the eleventh hour sitting at its foot with their bags and baggage. [Illustration: Westgate from without.] We 'toke' our inn at the sign of the 'Falstaff,' without the gate. Honest Jack, in buff doublet and red hose, hanging between the projecting windows and far out over the pavement by a wonderful piece of wrought-iron work, gave us welcome, and within we found rest and good cheer for weary pilgrims. Then we 'ordeyned' our dinner wisely, but it was too late to go to the Cathedral that same evening, as we should have liked to have done, and we were forced to wait for the morrow. After we had come downstairs from our dimity-curtained bed-chamber, had dined, and were sitting over our tea in a little, low-ceilinged room, from whose window we looked into a pretty garden of roses and grapevines, a stranger sent us greeting, and asked if he might come and sit with us. He was a priest, also making pilgrimage, who had ridden from Rochester on a machine like ours; so that we became friendly forthwith, and, like the pilgrims who rested at the 'Chequers of the Hope,' every man of our party 'in his wyse made hertly chere, Telling his felowe of sportys and of chere, And of other mirthis that fellen by the way, As custom is of pilgrims and hath been many a day.' And just before we parted for the night we held counsel together and agreed that, in the morning, we would in company visit the holy shrine. Third Day [Illustration] A Tale of the Verger. Third Day [Illustration] We rose early the next day, and, that we might be in all possible things like the men in whose steps we were walking, we 'cast on fresher gowns' before we started to walk through the town. Then, after we had breakfasted, we set out with our new friend for the Cathedral. Our way led through the gate, on which the sun shone brightly, and where tramps were still waiting to be hired; and then through the High Street, filled with other pilgrims, who spake divers tongues, who wore not sandal, but canvas shoon, and who had their 'signys' in their hands and upon their 'capps,' for many had puggarees about their hats, and still more carried red guide-books. The air was warm, but fresh and pure as if the sea-breeze had touched it; and the gables and carvings of the old houses were glowing with sunlight. The reflection of the red roofs and of geraniums and hollyhocks in gardens by the way made bright bits of colour in among the tall reeds of the little river Stour, and as we went slowly along we talked, as befitted the occasion, of bygone times, for at every step we were reminded of those earlier travellers whose humble followers we were. Here we came to the Hospital of St. Thomas, now an almshouse, of old the place where poor pilgrims found shelter; and here, in the ground-floor of a haberdasher's shop, we saw a few arches of what was once the 'Chequers of the Hope,' where the rich were lodged; and so, when in Mercery Lane, where the houses almost met above in a friendly, confidential way, we saw a man in cocked-hat and knee-breeches and much gold lace, it seemed as if he, like everything else in Canterbury, must be a relic of the olden time. [Illustration: _Waiting to be Hired._] [Illustration: On the Stour.] 'I must know who that fellow is!' the priest exclaimed; and, without more ado, walked up to him and boldly addressed him thus: 'Ahem!--I say now--who are you, any way?' And the man, in his wonder, forgot to take offence, and answered, 'Why I, Sir, am the town crier!' Talk of Yankee cheek indeed! Then we went on down the lane, past the round marketplace, where women were selling sweets, and under the stone gateway with its time-worn tracery, to the south porch of the Cathedral, where a tricycle was standing. As the pilgrims had to pray before they could approach the sacred tomb, so we, after we had entered the nave, had to wait and listen to morning service. Then we were told that no one could go to the shrine unless led thither by the verger. There was nothing to do but to fall into the ranks of a detachment of tourists on their way to it. With them we were marshalled through the iron gate, separating the choir from the chapels, by a grey-bearded, grey-haired man, who kept his eye sternly upon us as we deposited our sixpences, our modest offerings in place of 'silver broch and ryngis.' 'Where is the shrine?' we asked, as soon as we were on the other side of the gate. 'The shrine which it lies but a few steps further on,' the verger answered; 'and you will come to it in good time.' Then he showed us the 'horgan and its pipes, which they lie in the triforium,' and the 'Norman Chapel of Saint Hanselm, which it is the holdest part of the building,' and about all of which he had much to say. But we interrupted him quickly. 'Take us to the shrine,' we commanded. But just then another tourist, eager for information, began to ask questions not only about the Cathedral, but about the whole city. Before we knew where we were, she had carried us all out to Harbledown, and then, without stopping, whisked us off to Saint Martin's-on-the-Hill. This was too much. We started to find the shrine for ourselves, but our friend the priest ran after us. 'You must wait for the verger,' he said. 'I hope you don't mind my telling you; but then, you know, you're Americans, and I thought you mightn't understand.' [Illustration: Canterbury, from the river.] His interest by degrees extended from us to the rest of the party. By some peculiar method of reasoning he had concluded that, because we were Americans, all who were following the verger, except himself, must be so likewise. Every now and then he would dart from our side to ask each one in turn, in a gentle whisper, 'You're an American, are you not?' The results were not always satisfactory. I saw one Englishman, with John Bull written in every feature, glare at him in suppressed rage; while a lady, after saying, rather savagely, 'Well, is there any harm in being one?' dismissed him abruptly, as if to remind him that not she, but the Cathedral, was the show. The verger lingered on the broad stairway, 'which the pilgrims they mounted it on their knees, as is seen by the two deep grooves in the stone steps.' He stood long by the tomb of Prince Hedward, the Black Prince, and when we came to the stone chair used only when archbishops are consecrated, he deliberately stopped, to suggest that some lady might like to sit in it, 'though which it won't make her a harchbishop,' he added. Then at last he led us to the chapel just beyond, and close to the choir. He waited until we had all followed and formed a semicircle around him, then he pointed to the pavement,-- 'Which now,' he said, solemnly, 'you have come to the shrine of the saintly Thomas.' We had reached our goal. We stood in the holy place for which Monk and Knight, Nun and Wife of Bath, had left husbands and nunnery, castle and monastery, and for which we had braved the jests and jeers of London roughs, and had toiled over the hills and struggled through the sands of Kent. Even the verger seemed to sympathise with our feelings. For a few moments he was silent; presently he continued-- ''Enery the Heighth, when he was in Canterbury, took the bones, which they was laid beneath, out on the green, and had them burned. With them he took the 'oly shrine, which it and bones is here no longer!' * * * * * Shrine and Tabard, Chapels and Inns by the way, all have gone with the pilgrims of yester-year. _FINIS._ _London: Printed by_ STRANGEWAYS & SONS, _Tower Street, Upper St. Martin's Lane._ [Illustration] 
2183	----	Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome. 1914 J. W. Arrowsmith edition. Scanned and proofed by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org THREE MEN ON THE BUMMEL by JEROME K. JEROME _Illustrated by L. Raven Hill_ A NEW EDITION BRISTOL J. W. ARROWSMITH LTD., QUAY STREET LONDON SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT AND CO. LIMITED 1914 TO THE GENTLE GUIDE WHO LETS ME EVER GO MY OWN WAY, YET BRINGS ME RIGHT-- TO THE LAUGHTER-LOVING PHILOSOPHER WHO, IF HE HAS NOT RECONCILED ME TO BEARING THE TOOTHACHE PATENTLY, AT LEAST HAS TAUGHT ME THE COMFORT THAT THIS EVEN WILL ALSO PASS-- TO THE GOOD FRIEND WHO SMILES WHEN I TELL HIM OF MY TROUBLES, AND WHO WHEN I ASK FOR HELP, ANSWERS ONLY "WAIT!"-- TO THE GRAVE-FACED JESTER TO WHOM ALL LIFE IS BUT A VOLUME OF OLD HUMOUR-- TO GOOD MASTER Time THIS LITTLE WORK OF A POOR PUPIL IS DEDICATED CHAPTER I Three men need change--Anecdote showing evil result of deception--Moral cowardice of George--Harris has ideas--Yarn of the Ancient Mariner and the Inexperienced Yachtsman--A hearty crew--Danger of sailing when the wind is off the land--Impossibility of sailing when the wind is off the sea--The argumentativeness of Ethelbertha--The dampness of the river--Harris suggests a bicycle tour--George thinks of the wind--Harris suggests the Black Forest--George thinks of the hills--Plan adopted by Harris for ascent of hills--Interruption by Mrs. Harris. "What we want," said Harris, "is a change." At this moment the door opened, and Mrs. Harris put her head in to say that Ethelbertha had sent her to remind me that we must not be late getting home because of Clarence. Ethelbertha, I am inclined to think, is unnecessarily nervous about the children. As a matter of fact, there was nothing wrong with the child whatever. He had been out with his aunt that morning; and if he looks wistfully at a pastrycook's window she takes him inside and buys him cream buns and "maids-of-honour" until he insists that he has had enough, and politely, but firmly, refuses to eat another anything. Then, of course, he wants only one helping of pudding at lunch, and Ethelbertha thinks he is sickening for something. Mrs. Harris added that it would be as well for us to come upstairs soon, on our own account also, as otherwise we should miss Muriel's rendering of "The Mad Hatter's Tea Party," out of _Alice in Wonderland_. Muriel is Harris's second, age eight: she is a bright, intelligent child; but I prefer her myself in serious pieces. We said we would finish our cigarettes and follow almost immediately; we also begged her not to let Muriel begin until we arrived. She promised to hold the child back as long as possible, and went. Harris, as soon as the door was closed, resumed his interrupted sentence. "You know what I mean," he said, "a complete change." The question was how to get it. George suggested "business." It was the sort of suggestion George would make. A bachelor thinks a married woman doesn't know enough to get out of the way of a steam-roller. I knew a young fellow once, an engineer, who thought he would go to Vienna "on business." His wife wanted to know "what business?" He told her it would be his duty to visit the mines in the neighbourhood of the Austrian capital, and to make reports. She said she would go with him; she was that sort of woman. He tried to dissuade her: he told her that a mine was no place for a beautiful woman. She said she felt that herself, and that therefore she did not intend to accompany him down the shafts; she would see him off in the morning, and then amuse herself until his return, looking round the Vienna shops, and buying a few things she might want. Having started the idea, he did not see very well how to get out of it; and for ten long summer days he did visit the mines in the neighbourhood of Vienna, and in the evening wrote reports about them, which she posted for him to his firm, who didn't want them. I should be grieved to think that either Ethelbertha or Mrs. Harris belonged to that class of wife, but it is as well not to overdo "business"--it should be kept for cases of real emergency. "No," I said, "the thing is to be frank and manly. I shall tell Ethelbertha that I have come to the conclusion a man never values happiness that is always with him. I shall tell her that, for the sake of learning to appreciate my own advantages as I know they should be appreciated, I intend to tear myself away from her and the children for at least three weeks. I shall tell her," I continued, turning to Harris, "that it is you who have shown me my duty in this respect; that it is to you we shall owe--" Harris put down his glass rather hurriedly. "If you don't mind, old man," he interrupted, "I'd really rather you didn't. She'll talk it over with my wife, and--well, I should not be happy, taking credit that I do not deserve." "But you do deserve it," I insisted; "it was your suggestion." "It was you gave me the idea," interrupted Harris again. "You know you said it was a mistake for a man to get into a groove, and that unbroken domesticity cloyed the brain." "I was speaking generally," I explained. "It struck me as very apt," said Harris. "I thought of repeating it to Clara; she has a great opinion of your sense, I know. I am sure that if--" "We won't risk it," I interrupted, in my turn; "it is a delicate matter, and I see a way out of it. We will say George suggested the idea." There is a lack of genial helpfulness about George that it sometimes vexes me to notice. You would have thought he would have welcomed the chance of assisting two old friends out of a dilemma; instead, he became disagreeable. "You do," said George, "and I shall tell them both that my original plan was that we should make a party--children and all; that I should bring my aunt, and that we should hire a charming old chateau I know of in Normandy, on the coast, where the climate is peculiarly adapted to delicate children, and the milk such as you do not get in England. I shall add that you over-rode that suggestion, arguing we should be happier by ourselves." With a man like George kindness is of no use; you have to be firm. "You do," said Harris, "and I, for one, will close with the offer. We will just take that chateau. You will bring your aunt--I will see to that,--and we will have a month of it. The children are all fond of you; J. and I will be nowhere. You've promised to teach Edgar fishing; and it is you who will have to play wild beasts. Since last Sunday Dick and Muriel have talked of nothing else but your hippopotamus. We will picnic in the woods--there will only be eleven of us,--and in the evenings we will have music and recitations. Muriel is master of six pieces already, as perhaps you know; and all the other children are quick studies." George climbed down--he has no real courage--but he did not do it gracefully. He said that if we were mean and cowardly and false-hearted enough to stoop to such a shabby trick, he supposed he couldn't help it; and that if I didn't intend to finish the whole bottle of claret myself, he would trouble me to spare him a glass. He also added, somewhat illogically, that it really did not matter, seeing both Ethelbertha and Mrs. Harris were women of sense who would judge him better than to believe for a moment that the suggestion emanated from him. This little point settled, the question was: What sort of a change? Harris, as usual, was for the sea. He said he knew a yacht, just the very thing--one that we could manage by ourselves; no skulking lot of lubbers loafing about, adding to the expense and taking away from the romance. Give him a handy boy, he would sail it himself. We knew that yacht, and we told him so; we had been on it with Harris before. It smells of bilge-water and greens to the exclusion of all other scents; no ordinary sea air can hope to head against it. So far as sense of smell is concerned, one might be spending a week in Limehouse Hole. There is no place to get out of the rain; the saloon is ten feet by four, and half of that is taken up by a stove, which falls to pieces when you go to light it. You have to take your bath on deck, and the towel blows overboard just as you step out of the tub. Harris and the boy do all the interesting work--the lugging and the reefing, the letting her go and the heeling her over, and all that sort of thing,--leaving George and myself to do the peeling of the potatoes and the washing up. "Very well, then," said Harris, "let's take a proper yacht, with a skipper, and do the thing in style." That also I objected to. I know that skipper; his notion of yachting is to lie in what he calls the "offing," where he can be well in touch with his wife and family, to say nothing of his favourite public-house. Years ago, when I was young and inexperienced, I hired a yacht myself. Three things had combined to lead me into this foolishness: I had had a stroke of unexpected luck; Ethelbertha had expressed a yearning for sea air; and the very next morning, in taking up casually at the club a copy of the _Sportsman_, I had come across the following advertisement:-- TO YACHTSMEN.--Unique Opportunity.--"Rogue," 28-ton Yawl.--Owner, called away suddenly on business, is willing to let this superbly-fitted "greyhound of the sea" for any period short or long. Two cabins and saloon; pianette, by Woffenkoff; new copper. Terms, 10 guineas a week.--Apply Pertwee and Co., 3A Bucklersbury. It had seemed to me like the answer to a prayer. "The new copper" did not interest me; what little washing we might want could wait, I thought. But the "pianette by Woffenkoff" sounded alluring. I pictured Ethelbertha playing in the evening--something with a chorus, in which, perhaps, the crew, with a little training, might join--while our moving home bounded, "greyhound-like," over the silvery billows. I took a cab and drove direct to 3A Bucklersbury. Mr. Pertwee was an unpretentious-looking gentleman, who had an unostentatious office on the third floor. He showed me a picture in water-colours of the _Rogue_ flying before the wind. The deck was at an angle of 95 to the ocean. In the picture no human beings were represented on the deck; I suppose they had slipped off. Indeed, I do not see how anyone could have kept on, unless nailed. I pointed out this disadvantage to the agent, who, however, explained to me that the picture represented the _Rogue_ doubling something or other on the well-known occasion of her winning the Medway Challenge Shield. Mr. Pertwee assumed that I knew all about the event, so that I did not like to ask any questions. Two specks near the frame of the picture, which at first I had taken for moths, represented, it appeared, the second and third winners in this celebrated race. A photograph of the yacht at anchor off Gravesend was less impressive, but suggested more stability. All answers to my inquiries being satisfactory, I took the thing for a fortnight. Mr. Pertwee said it was fortunate I wanted it only for a fortnight--later on I came to agree with him,--the time fitting in exactly with another hiring. Had I required it for three weeks he would have been compelled to refuse me. The letting being thus arranged, Mr. Pertwee asked me if I had a skipper in my eye. That I had not was also fortunate--things seemed to be turning out luckily for me all round,--because Mr. Pertwee felt sure I could not do better than keep on Mr. Goyles, at present in charge--an excellent skipper, so Mr. Pertwee assured me, a man who knew the sea as a man knows his own wife, and who had never lost a life. It was still early in the day, and the yacht was lying off Harwich. I caught the ten forty-five from Liverpool Street, and by one o'clock was talking to Mr. Goyles on deck. He was a stout man, and had a fatherly way with him. I told him my idea, which was to take the outlying Dutch islands and then creep up to Norway. He said, "Aye, aye, sir," and appeared quite enthusiastic about the trip; said he should enjoy it himself. We came to the question of victualling, and he grew more enthusiastic. The amount of food suggested by Mr. Goyles, I confess, surprised me. Had we been living in the days of Drake and the Spanish Main, I should have feared he was arranging for something illegal. However, he laughed in his fatherly way, and assured me we were not overdoing it. Anything left the crew would divide and take home with them--it seemed this was the custom. It appeared to me that I was providing for this crew for the winter, but I did not like to appear stingy, and said no more. The amount of drink required also surprised me. I arranged for what I thought we should need for ourselves, and then Mr. Goyles spoke up for the crew. I must say that for him, he did think of his men. "We don't want anything in the nature of an orgie, Mr. Goyles," I suggested. "Orgie!" replied Mr. Goyles; "why they'll take that little drop in their tea." He explained to me that his motto was, Get good men and treat them well. "They work better for you," said Mr. Goyles; "and they come again." Personally, I didn't feel I wanted them to come again. I was beginning to take a dislike to them before I had seen them; I regarded them as a greedy and guzzling crew. But Mr. Goyles was so cheerfully emphatic, and I was so inexperienced, that again I let him have his way. He also promised that even in this department he would see to it personally that nothing was wasted. I also left him to engage the crew. He said he could do the thing, and would, for me, with the help two men and a boy. If he was alluding to the clearing up of the victuals and drink, I think he was making an under- estimate; but possibly he may have been speaking of the sailing of the yacht. I called at my tailors on the way home and ordered a yachting suit, with a white hat, which they promised to bustle up and have ready in time; and then I went home and told Ethelbertha all I had done. Her delight was clouded by only one reflection--would the dressmaker be able to finish a yachting costume for her in time? That is so like a woman. Our honeymoon, which had taken place not very long before, had been somewhat curtailed, so we decided we would invite nobody, but have the yacht to ourselves. And thankful I am to Heaven that we did so decide. On Monday we put on all our clothes and started. I forget what Ethelbertha wore, but, whatever it may have been, it looked very fetching. My own costume was a dark blue trimmed with a narrow white braid, which, I think, was rather effective. Mr. Goyles met us on deck, and told us that lunch was ready. I must admit Goyles had secured the services of a very fair cook. The capabilities of the other members of the crew I had no opportunity of judging. Speaking of them in a state of rest, however, I can say of them they appeared to be a cheerful crew. My idea had been that so soon as the men had finished their dinner we would weigh anchor, while I, smoking a cigar, with Ethelbertha by my side, would lean over the gunwale and watch the white cliffs of the Fatherland sink imperceptibly into the horizon. Ethelbertha and I carried out our part of the programme, and waited, with the deck to ourselves. "They seem to be taking their time," said Ethelbertha. "If, in the course of fourteen days," I said, "they eat half of what is on this yacht, they will want a fairly long time for every meal. We had better not hurry them, or they won't get through a quarter of it." "They must have gone to sleep," said Ethelbertha, later on. "It will be tea-time soon." They were certainly very quiet. I went for'ard, and hailed Captain Goyles down the ladder. I hailed him three times; then he came up slowly. He appeared to be a heavier and older man than when I had seen him last. He had a cold cigar in his mouth. "When you are ready, Captain Goyles," I said, "we'll start." Captain Goyles removed the cigar from his mouth. "Not to-day we won't, sir," he replied, "_with_ your permission." "Why, what's the matter with to-day?" I said. I know sailors are a superstitious folk; I thought maybe a Monday might be considered unlucky. "The day's all right," answered Captain Goyles, "it's the wind I'm a-thinking of. It don't look much like changing." "But do we want it to change?" I asked. "It seems to me to be just where it should be, dead behind us." "Aye, aye," said Captain Goyles, "dead's the right word to use, for dead we'd all be, bar Providence, if we was to put out in this. You see, sir," he explained, in answer to my look of surprise, "this is what we call a 'land wind,' that is, it's a-blowing, as one might say, direct off the land." When I came to think of it the man was right; the wind was blowing off the land. "It may change in the night," said Captain Goyles, more hopefully "anyhow, it's not violent, and she rides well." Captain Goyles resumed his cigar, and I returned aft, and explained to Ethelbertha the reason for the delay. Ethelbertha, who appeared to be less high spirited than when we first boarded, wanted to know _why_ we couldn't sail when the wind was off the land. "If it was not blowing off the land," said Ethelbertha, "it would be blowing off the sea, and that would send us back into the shore again. It seems to me this is just the very wind we want." I said: "That is your inexperience, love; it _seems_ to be the very wind we want, but it is not. It's what we call a land wind, and a land wind is always very dangerous." Ethelbertha wanted to know _why_ a land wind was very dangerous. Her argumentativeness annoyed me somewhat; maybe I was feeling a bit cross; the monotonous rolling heave of a small yacht at anchor depresses an ardent spirit. "I can't explain it to you," I replied, which was true, "but to set sail in this wind would be the height of foolhardiness, and I care for you too much, dear, to expose you to unnecessary risks." I thought this rather a neat conclusion, but Ethelbertha merely replied that she wished, under the circumstances, we hadn't come on board till Tuesday, and went below. In the morning the wind veered round to the north; I was up early, and observed this to Captain Goyles. "Aye, aye, sir," he remarked; "it's unfortunate, but it can't be helped." "You don't think it possible for us to start to-day?" I hazarded. He did not get angry with me, he only laughed. "Well, sir," said he, "if you was a-wanting to go to Ipswich, I should say as it couldn't be better for us, but our destination being, as you see, the Dutch coast--why there you are!" I broke the news to Ethelbertha, and we agreed to spend the day on shore. Harwich is not a merry town, towards evening you might call it dull. We had some tea and watercress at Dovercourt, and then returned to the quay to look for Captain Goyles and the boat. We waited an hour for him. When he came he was more cheerful than we were; if he had not told me himself that he never drank anything but one glass of hot grog before turning in for the night, I should have said he was drunk. The next morning the wind was in the south, which made Captain Goyles rather anxious, it appearing that it was equally unsafe to move or to stop where we were; our only hope was it would change before anything happened. By this time, Ethelbertha had taken a dislike to the yacht; she said that, personally, she would rather be spending a week in a bathing machine, seeing that a bathing machine was at least steady. We passed another day in Harwich, and that night and the next, the wind still continuing in the south, we slept at the "King's Head." On Friday the wind was blowing direct from the east. I met Captain Goyles on the quay, and suggested that, under these circumstances, we might start. He appeared irritated at my persistence. "If you knew a bit more, sir," he said, "you'd see for yourself that it's impossible. The wind's a-blowing direct off the sea." I said: "Captain Goyles, tell me what is this thing I have hired? Is it a yacht or a house-boat?" He seemed surprised at my question. He said: "It's a yawl." "What I mean is," I said, "can it be moved at all, or is it a fixture here? If it is a fixture," I continued, "tell me so frankly, then we will get some ivy in boxes and train over the port-holes, stick some flowers and an awning on deck, and make the thing look pretty. If, on the other hand, it can be moved--" "Moved!" interrupted Captain Goyles. "You get the right wind behind the _Rogue_--" I said: "What is the right wind?" Captain Goyles looked puzzled. "In the course of this week," I went on, "we have had wind from the north, from the south, from the east, from the west--with variations. If you can think of any other point of the compass from which it can blow, tell me, and I will wait for it. If not, and if that anchor has not grown into the bottom of the ocean, we will have it up to-day and see what happens." He grasped the fact that I was determined. "Very well, sir," he said, "you're master and I'm man. I've only got one child as is still dependent on me, thank God, and no doubt your executors will feel it their duty to do the right thing by the old woman." His solemnity impressed me. "Mr. Goyles," I said, "be honest with me. Is there any hope, in any weather, of getting away from this damned hole?" Captain Goyles's kindly geniality returned to him. "You see, sir," he said, "this is a very peculiar coast. We'd be all right if we were once out, but getting away from it in a cockle-shell like that--well, to be frank, sir, it wants doing." I left Captain Goyles with the assurance that he would watch the weather as a mother would her sleeping babe; it was his own simile, and it struck me as rather touching. I saw him again at twelve o'clock; he was watching it from the window of the "Chain and Anchor." At five o'clock that evening a stroke of luck occurred; in the middle of the High Street I met a couple of yachting friends, who had had to put in by reason of a strained rudder. I told them my story, and they appeared less surprised than amused. Captain Goyles and the two men were still watching the weather. I ran into the "King's Head," and prepared Ethelbertha. The four of us crept quietly down to the quay, where we found our boat. Only the boy was on board; my two friends took charge of the yacht, and by six o'clock we were scudding merrily up the coast. We put in that night at Aldborough, and the next day worked up to Yarmouth, where, as my friends had to leave, I decided to abandon the yacht. We sold the stores by auction on Yarmouth sands early in the morning. I made a loss, but had the satisfaction of "doing" Captain Goyles. I left the _Rogue_ in charge of a local mariner, who, for a couple of sovereigns, undertook to see to its return to Harwich; and we came back to London by train. There may be yachts other than the _Rogue_, and skippers other than Mr. Goyles, but that experience has prejudiced me against both. George also thought a yacht would be a good deal of responsibility, so we dismissed the idea. "What about the river?" suggested Harris. "We have had some pleasant times on that." George pulled in silence at his cigar, and I cracked another nut. "The river is not what it used to be," said I; "I don't know what, but there's a something--a dampness--about the river air that always starts my lumbago." "It's the same with me," said George. "I don't know how it is, but I never can sleep now in the neighbourhood of the river. I spent a week at Joe's place in the spring, and every night I woke up at seven o'clock and never got a wink afterwards." "I merely suggested it," observed Harris. "Personally, I don't think it good for me, either; it touches my gout." "What suits me best," I said, "is mountain air. What say you to a walking tour in Scotland?" "It's always wet in Scotland," said George. "I was three weeks in Scotland the year before last, and was never dry once all the time--not in that sense." "It's fine enough in Switzerland," said Harris. "They would never stand our going to Switzerland by ourselves," I objected. "You know what happened last time. It must be some place where no delicately nurtured woman or child could possibly live; a country of bad hotels and comfortless travelling; where we shall have to rough it, to work hard, to starve perhaps--" "Easy!" interrupted George, "easy, there! Don't forget I'm coming with you." "I have it!" exclaimed Harris; "a bicycle tour!" George looked doubtful. "There's a lot of uphill about a bicycle tour," said he, "and the wind is against you." "So there is downhill, and the wind behind you," said Harris. "I've never noticed it," said George. "You won't think of anything better than a bicycle tour," persisted Harris. I was inclined to agree with him. "And I'll tell you where," continued he; "through the Black Forest." "Why, that's _all_ uphill," said George. "Not all," retorted Harris; "say two-thirds. And there's one thing you've forgotten." He looked round cautiously, and sunk his voice to a whisper. "There are little railways going up those hills, little cogwheel things that--" The door opened, and Mrs. Harris appeared. She said that Ethelbertha was putting on her bonnet, and that Muriel, after waiting, had given "The Mad Hatter's Tea Party" without us. "Club, to-morrow, at four," whispered Harris to me, as he rose, and I passed it on to George as we went upstairs. CHAPTER II A delicate business--What Ethelbertha might have said--What she did say--What Mrs. Harris said--What we told George--We will start on Wednesday--George suggests the possibility of improving our minds--Harris and I are doubtful--Which man on a tandem does the most work?--The opinion of the man in front--Views of the man behind--How Harris lost his wife--The luggage question--The wisdom of my late Uncle Podger--Beginning of story about a man who had a bag. I opened the ball with Ethelbertha that same evening. I commenced by being purposely a little irritable. My idea was that Ethelbertha would remark upon this. I should admit it, and account for it by over brain pressure. This would naturally lead to talk about my health in general, and the evident necessity there was for my taking prompt and vigorous measures. I thought that with a little tact I might even manage so that the suggestion should come from Ethelbertha herself. I imagined her saying: "No, dear, it is change you want; complete change. Now be persuaded by me, and go away for a month. No, do not ask me to come with you. I know you would rather that I did, but I will not. It is the society of other men you need. Try and persuade George and Harris to go with you. Believe me, a highly strung brain such as yours demands occasional relaxation from the strain of domestic surroundings. Forget for a little while that children want music lessons, and boots, and bicycles, with tincture of rhubarb three times a day; forget there are such things in life as cooks, and house decorators, and next-door dogs, and butchers' bills. Go away to some green corner of the earth, where all is new and strange to you, where your over-wrought mind will gather peace and fresh ideas. Go away for a space and give me time to miss you, and to reflect upon your goodness and virtue, which, continually present with me, I may, human-like, be apt to forget, as one, through use, grows indifferent to the blessing of the sun and the beauty of the moon. Go away, and come back refreshed in mind and body, a brighter, better man--if that be possible--than when you went away." But even when we obtain our desires they never come to us garbed as we would wish. To begin with, Ethelbertha did not seem to remark that I was irritable; I had to draw her attention to it. I said: "You must forgive me, I'm not feeling quite myself to-night." She said: "Oh! I have not noticed anything different; what's the matter with you?" "I can't tell you what it is," I said; "I've felt it coming on for weeks." "It's that whisky," said Ethelbertha. "You never touch it except when we go to the Harris's. You know you can't stand it; you have not a strong head." "It isn't the whisky," I replied; "it's deeper than that. I fancy it's more mental than bodily." "You've been reading those criticisms again," said Ethelbertha, more sympathetically; "why don't you take my advice and put them on the fire?" "And it isn't the criticisms," I answered; "they've been quite flattering of late--one or two of them." "Well, what is it?" said Ethelbertha; "there must be something to account for it." "No, there isn't," I replied; "that's the remarkable thing about it; I can only describe it as a strange feeling of unrest that seems to have taken possession of me." Ethelbertha glanced across at me with a somewhat curious expression, I thought; but as she said nothing, I continued the argument myself. "This aching monotony of life, these days of peaceful, uneventful felicity, they appall one." "I should not grumble at them," said Ethelbertha; "we might get some of the other sort, and like them still less." "I'm not so sure of that," I replied. "In a life of continuous joy, I can imagine even pain coming as a welcome variation. I wonder sometimes whether the saints in heaven do not occasionally feel the continual serenity a burden. To myself a life of endless bliss, uninterrupted by a single contrasting note, would, I feel, grow maddening. I suppose," I continued, "I am a strange sort of man; I can hardly understand myself at times. There are moments," I added, "when I hate myself." Often a little speech like this, hinting at hidden depths of indescribable emotion has touched Ethelbertha, but to-night she appeared strangely unsympathetic. With regard to heaven and its possible effect upon me, she suggested my not worrying myself about that, remarking it was always foolish to go half-way to meet trouble that might never come; while as to my being a strange sort of fellow, that, she supposed, I could not help, and if other people were willing to put up with me, there was an end of the matter. The monotony of life, she added, was a common experience; there she could sympathise with me. "You don't know I long," said Ethelbertha, "to get away occasionally, even from you; but I know it can never be, so I do not brood upon it." I had never heard Ethelbertha speak like this before; it astonished and grieved me beyond measure. "That's not a very kind remark to make," I said, "not a wifely remark." "I know it isn't," she replied; "that is why I have never said it before. You men never can understand," continued Ethelbertha, "that, however fond a woman may be of a man, there are times when he palls upon her. You don't know how I long to be able sometimes to put on my bonnet and go out, with nobody to ask me where I am going, why I am going, how long I am going to be, and when I shall be back. You don't know how I sometimes long to order a dinner that I should like and that the children would like, but at the sight of which you would put on your hat and be off to the Club. You don't know how much I feel inclined sometimes to invite some woman here that I like, and that I know you don't; to go and see the people that I want to see, to go to bed when _I_ am tired, and to get up when _I_ feel I want to get up. Two people living together are bound both to be continually sacrificing their own desires to the other one. It is sometimes a good thing to slacken the strain a bit." On thinking over Ethelbertha's words afterwards, have come to see their wisdom; but at the time I admit I was hurt and indignant. "If your desire," I said, "is to get rid of me--" "Now, don't be an old goose," said Ethelbertha; "I only want to get rid of you for a little while, just long enough to forget there are one or two corners about you that are not perfect, just long enough to let me remember what a dear fellow you are in other respects, and to look forward to your return, as I used to look forward to your coming in the old days when I did not see you so often as to become, perhaps, a little indifferent to you, as one grows indifferent to the glory of the sun, just because he is there every day." I did not like the tone that Ethelbertha took. There seemed to be a frivolity about her, unsuited to the theme into which we had drifted. That a woman should contemplate cheerfully an absence of three or four weeks from her husband appeared to me to be not altogether nice, not what I call womanly; it was not like Ethelbertha at all. I was worried, I felt I didn't want to go this trip at all. If it had not been for George and Harris, I would have abandoned it. As it was, I could not see how to change my mind with dignity. "Very well, Ethelbertha," I replied, "it shall be as you wish. If you desire a holiday from my presence, you shall enjoy it; but if it be not impertinent curiosity on the part of a husband, I should like to know what you propose doing in my absence?" "We will take that house at Folkestone," answered Ethelbertha, "and I'll go down there with Kate. And if you want to do Clara Harris a good turn," added Ethelbertha, "you'll persuade Harris to go with you, and then Clara can join us. We three used to have some very jolly times together before you men ever came along, and it would be just delightful to renew them. Do you think," continued Ethelbertha, "that you could persuade Mr. Harris to go with you?" I said I would try. "There's a dear boy," said Ethelbertha; "try hard. You might get George to join you." I replied there was not much advantage in George's coming, seeing he was a bachelor, and that therefore nobody would be much benefited by his absence. But a woman never understands satire. Ethelbertha merely remarked it would look unkind leaving him behind. I promised to put it to him. I met Harris at the Club in the afternoon, and asked him how he had got on. He said, "Oh, that's all right; there's no difficulty about getting away." But there was that about his tone that suggested incomplete satisfaction, so I pressed him for further details. "She was as sweet as milk about it," he continued; "said it was an excellent idea of George's, and that she thought it would do me good." "That seems all right," I said; "what's wrong about that?" "There's nothing wrong about that," he answered, "but that wasn't all. She went on to talk of other things." "I understand," I said. "There's that bathroom fad of hers," he continued. "I've heard of it," I said; "she has started Ethelbertha on the same idea." "Well, I've had to agree to that being put in hand at once; I couldn't argue any more when she was so nice about the other thing. That will cost me a hundred pounds, at the very least." "As much as that?" I asked. "Every penny of it," said Harris; "the estimate alone is sixty." I was sorry to hear him say this. "Then there's the kitchen stove," continued Harris; "everything that has gone wrong in the house for the last two years has been the fault of that kitchen stove." "I know," I said. "We have been in seven houses since we were married, and every kitchen stove has been worse than the last. Our present one is not only incompetent; it is spiteful. It knows when we are giving a party, and goes out of its way to do its worst." "_We_ are going to have a new one," said Harris, but he did not say it proudly. "Clara thought it would be such a saving of expense, having the two things done at the same time. I believe," said Harris, "if a woman wanted a diamond tiara, she would explain that it was to save the expense of a bonnet." "How much do you reckon the stove is going to cost you?" I asked. I felt interested in the subject. "I don't know," answered Harris; "another twenty, I suppose. Then we talked about the piano. Could you ever notice," said Harris, "any difference between one piano and another?" "Some of them seem to be a bit louder than others," I answered; "but one gets used to that." "Ours is all wrong about the treble," said Harris. "By the way, what _is_ the treble?" "It's the shrill end of the thing," I explained; "the part that sounds as if you'd trod on its tail. The brilliant selections always end up with a flourish on it." "They want more of it," said Harris; "our old one hasn't got enough of it. I'll have to put it in the nursery, and get a new one for the drawing-room." "Anything else?" I asked. "No," said Harris; "she didn't seem able to think of anything else." "You'll find when you get home," I said, "she has thought of one other thing." "What's that?" said Harris. "A house at Folkestone for the season." "What should she want a house at Folkestone for?" said Harris. "To live in," I suggested, "during the summer months." "She's going to her people in Wales," said Harris, "for the holidays, with the children; we've had an invitation." "Possibly," I said, "she'll go to Wales before she goes to Folkestone, or maybe she'll take Wales on her way home; but she'll want a house at Folkestone for the season, notwithstanding. I may be mistaken--I hope for your sake that I am--but I feel a presentiment that I'm not." "This trip," said Harris, "is going to be expensive." "It was an idiotic suggestion," I said, "from the beginning." "It was foolish of us to listen to him," said Harris; "he'll get us into real trouble one of these days." "He always was a muddler," I agreed. "So headstrong," added Harris. We heard his voice at that moment in the hall, asking for letters. "Better not say anything to him," I suggested; "it's too late to go back now." "There would be no advantage in doing so," replied Harris. "I should have to get that bathroom and piano in any case now." He came in looking very cheerful. "Well," he said, "is it all right? Have you managed it?" There was that about his tone I did not altogether like; I noticed Harris resented it also. "Managed what?" I said. "Why, to get off," said George. I felt the time was come to explain things to George. "In married life," I said, "the man proposes, the woman submits. It is her duty; all religion teaches it." George folded his hands and fixed his eyes on the ceiling. "We may chaff and joke a little about these things," I continued; "but when it comes to practice, that is what always happens. We have mentioned to our wives that we are going. Naturally, they are grieved; they would prefer to come with us; failing that, they would have us remain with them. But we have explained to them our wishes on the subject, and--there's an end of the matter." George said, "Forgive me; I did not understand. I am only a bachelor. People tell me this, that, and the other, and I listen." I said, "That is where you do wrong. When you want information come to Harris or myself; we will tell you the truth about these questions." George thanked us, and we proceeded with the business in hand. "When shall we start?" said George. "So far as I am concerned," replied Harris, "the sooner the better." His idea, I fancy, was to get away before Mrs. H. thought of other things. We fixed the following Wednesday. "What about route?" said Harris. "I have an idea," said George. "I take it you fellows are naturally anxious to improve your minds?" I said, "We don't want to become monstrosities. To a reasonable degree, yes, if it can be done without much expense and with little personal trouble." "It can," said George. "We know Holland and the Rhine. Very well, my suggestion is that we take the boat to Hamburg, see Berlin and Dresden, and work our way to the Schwarzwald, through Nuremberg and Stuttgart." "There are some pretty bits in Mesopotamia, so I've been told," murmured Harris. George said Mesopotamia was too much out of our way, but that the Berlin- Dresden route was quite practicable. For good or evil, he persuaded us into it. "The machines, I suppose," said George, "as before. Harris and I on the tandem, J.--" "I think not," interrupted Harris, firmly. "You and J. on the tandem, I on the single." "All the same to me," agreed George. "J. and I on the tandem, Harris--" "I do not mind taking my turn," I interrupted, "but I am not going to carry George _all_ the way; the burden should be divided." "Very well," agreed Harris, "we'll divide it. But it must be on the distinct understanding that he works." "That he what?" said George. "That he works," repeated Harris, firmly; "at all events, uphill." "Great Scott!" said George; "don't you want _any_ exercise?" There is always unpleasantness about this tandem. It is the theory of the man in front that the man behind does nothing; it is equally the theory of the man behind that he alone is the motive power, the man in front merely doing the puffing. The mystery will never be solved. It is annoying when Prudence is whispering to you on the one side not to overdo your strength and bring on heart disease; while Justice into the other ear is remarking, "Why should you do it all? This isn't a cab. He's not your passenger:" to hear him grunt out: "What's the matter--lost your pedals?" Harris, in his early married days, made much trouble for himself on one occasion, owing to this impossibility of knowing what the person behind is doing. He was riding with his wife through Holland. The roads were stony, and the machine jumped a good deal. "Sit tight," said Harris, without turning his head. What Mrs. Harris thought he said was, "Jump off." Why she should have thought he said "Jump off," when he said "Sit tight," neither of them can explain. Mrs. Harris puts it in this way, "If you had said, 'Sit tight,' why should I have jumped off?" Harris puts it, "If I had wanted you to jump off, why should I have said 'Sit tight!'?" The bitterness is past, but they argue about the matter to this day. Be the explanation what it may, however, nothing alters the fact that Mrs. Harris did jump off, while Harris pedalled away hard, under the impression she was still behind him. It appears that at first she thought he was riding up the hill merely to show off. They were both young in those days, and he used to do that sort of thing. She expected him to spring to earth on reaching the summit, and lean in a careless and graceful attitude against the machine, waiting for her. When, on the contrary, she saw him pass the summit and proceed rapidly down a long and steep incline, she was seized, first with surprise, secondly with indignation, and lastly with alarm. She ran to the top of the hill and shouted, but he never turned his head. She watched him disappear into a wood a mile and a half distant, and then sat down and cried. They had had a slight difference that morning, and she wondered if he had taken it seriously and intended desertion. She had no money; she knew no Dutch. People passed, and seemed sorry for her; she tried to make them understand what had happened. They gathered that she had lost something, but could not grasp what. They took her to the nearest village, and found a policeman for her. He concluded from her pantomime that some man had stolen her bicycle. They put the telegraph into operation, and discovered in a village four miles off an unfortunate boy riding a lady's machine of an obsolete pattern. They brought him to her in a cart, but as she did not appear to want either him or his bicycle they let him go again, and resigned themselves to bewilderment. Meanwhile, Harris continued his ride with much enjoyment. It seemed to him that he had suddenly become a stronger, and in every way a more capable cyclist. Said he to what he thought was Mrs. Harris: "I haven't felt this machine so light for months. It's this air, I think; it's doing me good." Then he told her not to be afraid, and he would show her how fast he _could_ go. He bent down over the handles, and put his heart into his work. The bicycle bounded over the road like a thing of life; farmhouses and churches, dogs and chickens came to him and passed. Old folks stood and gazed at him, the children cheered him. In this way he sped merrily onward for about five miles. Then, as he explains it, the feeling began to grow upon him that something was wrong. He was not surprised at the silence; the wind was blowing strongly, and the machine was rattling a good deal. It was a sense of void that came upon him. He stretched out his hand behind him, and felt; there was nothing there but space. He jumped, or rather fell off, and looked back up the road; it stretched white and straight through the dark wood, and not a living soul could be seen upon it. He remounted, and rode back up the hill. In ten minutes he came to where the road broke into four; there he dismounted and tried to remember which fork he had come down. While he was deliberating a man passed, sitting sideways on a horse. Harris stopped him, and explained to him that he had lost his wife. The man appeared to be neither surprised nor sorry for him. While they were talking another farmer came along, to whom the first man explained the matter, not as an accident, but as a good story. What appeared to surprise the second man most was that Harris should be making a fuss about the thing. He could get no sense out of either of them, and cursing them he mounted his machine again, and took the middle road on chance. Half-way up, he came upon a party of two young women with one young man between them. They appeared to be making the most of him. He asked them if they had seen his wife. They asked him what she was like. He did not know enough Dutch to describe her properly; all he could tell them was she was a very beautiful woman, of medium size. Evidently this did not satisfy them, the description was too general; any man could say that, and by this means perhaps get possession of a wife that did not belong to him. They asked him how she was dressed; for the life of him he could not recollect. I doubt if any man could tell how any woman was dressed ten minutes after he had left her. He recollected a blue skirt, and then there was something that carried the dress on, as it were, up to the neck. Possibly, this may have been a blouse; he retained a dim vision of a belt; but what sort of a blouse? Was it green, or yellow, or blue? Had it a collar, or was it fastened with a bow? Were there feathers in her hat, or flowers? Or was it a hat at all? He dared not say, for fear of making a mistake and being sent miles after the wrong party. The two young women giggled, which in his then state of mind irritated Harris. The young man, who appeared anxious to get rid of him, suggested the police station at the next town. Harris made his way there. The police gave him a piece of paper, and told him to write down a full description of his wife, together with details of when and where he had lost her. He did not know where he had lost her; all he could tell them was the name of the village where he had lunched. He knew he had her with him then, and that they had started from there together. The police looked suspicious; they were doubtful about three matters: Firstly, was she really his wife? Secondly, had he really lost her? Thirdly, why had he lost her? With the aid of a hotel-keeper, however, who spoke a little English, he overcame their scruples. They promised to act, and in the evening they brought her to him in a covered wagon, together with a bill for expenses. The meeting was not a tender one. Mrs. Harris is not a good actress, and always has great difficulty in disguising her feelings. On this occasion, she frankly admits, she made no attempt to disguise them. The wheel business settled, there arose the ever-lasting luggage question. "The usual list, I suppose," said George, preparing to write. That was wisdom I had taught them; I had learned it myself years ago from my Uncle Podger. "Always before beginning to pack," my Uncle would say, "make a list." He was a methodical man. "Take a piece of paper"--he always began at the beginning--"put down on it everything you can possibly require, then go over it and see that it contains nothing you can possibly do without. Imagine yourself in bed; what have you got on? Very well, put it down--together with a change. You get up; what do you do? Wash yourself. What do you wash yourself with? Soap; put down soap. Go on till you have finished. Then take your clothes. Begin at your feet; what do you wear on your feet? Boots, shoes, socks; put them down. Work up till you get to your head. What else do you want besides clothes? A little brandy; put it down. A corkscrew, put it down. Put down everything, then you don't forget anything." That is the plan he always pursued himself. The list made, he would go over it carefully, as he always advised, to see that he had forgotten nothing. Then he would go over it again, and strike out everything it was possible to dispense with. Then he would lose the list. Said George: "Just sufficient for a day or two we will take with us on our bikes. The bulk of our luggage we must send on from town to town." "We must be careful," I said; "I knew a man once--" Harris looked at his watch. "We'll hear about him on the boat," said Harris; "I have got to meet Clara at Waterloo Station in half an hour." "It won't take half an hour," I said; "it's a true story, and--" "Don't waste it," said George: "I am told there are rainy evenings in the Black Forest; we may be glad of it. What we have to do now is to finish this list." Now I come to think of it, I never did get off that story; something always interrupted it. And it really was true. CHAPTER III Harris's one fault--Harris and the Angel--A patent bicycle lamp--The ideal saddle--The "Overhauler"--His eagle eye--His method--His cheery confidence--His simple and inexpensive tastes--His appearance--How to get rid of him--George as prophet--The gentle art of making oneself disagreeable in a foreign tongue--George as a student of human nature--He proposes an experiment--His Prudence--Harris's support secured, upon conditions. On Monday afternoon Harris came round; he had a cycling paper in his hand. I said: "If you take my advice, you will leave it alone." Harris said: "Leave what alone?" I said: "That brand-new, patent, revolution in cycling, record-breaking, Tomfoolishness, whatever it may be, the advertisement of which you have there in your hand." He said: "Well, I don't know; there will be some steep hills for us to negotiate; I guess we shall want a good brake." I said: "We shall want a brake, I agree; what we shall not want is a mechanical surprise that we don't understand, and that never acts when it is wanted." "This thing," he said, "acts automatically." "You needn't tell me," I said. "I know exactly what it will do, by instinct. Going uphill it will jamb the wheel so effectively that we shall have to carry the machine bodily. The air at the top of the hill will do it good, and it will suddenly come right again. Going downhill it will start reflecting what a nuisance it has been. This will lead to remorse, and finally to despair. It will say to itself: 'I'm not fit to be a brake. I don't help these fellows; I only hinder them. I'm a curse, that's what I am;' and, without a word of warning, it will 'chuck' the whole business. That is what that brake will do. Leave it alone. You are a good fellow," I continued, "but you have one fault." "What?" he asked, indignantly. "You have too much faith," I answered. "If you read an advertisement, you go away and believe it. Every experiment that every fool has thought of in connection with cycling you have tried. Your guardian angel appears to be a capable and conscientious spirit, and hitherto she has seen you through; take my advice and don't try her too far. She must have had a busy time since you started cycling. Don't go on till you make her mad." He said: "If every man talked like that there would be no advancement made in any department of life. If nobody ever tried a new thing the world would come to a standstill. It is by--" "I know all that can be said on that side of the argument," I interrupted. "I agree in trying new experiments up to thirty-five; _after_ thirty-five I consider a man is entitled to think of himself. You and I have done our duty in this direction, you especially. You have been blown up by a patent gas lamp--" He said: "I really think, you know, that was my fault; I think I must have screwed it up too tight." I said: "I am quite willing to believe that if there was a wrong way of handling the thing that is the way you handle it. You should take that tendency of yours into consideration; it bears upon the argument. Myself, I did not notice what you did; I only know we were riding peacefully and pleasantly along the Whitby Road, discussing the Thirty Years' War, when your lamp went off like a pistol-shot. The start sent me into the ditch; and your wife's face, when I told her there was nothing the matter and that she was not to worry, because the two men would carry you upstairs, and the doctor would be round in a minute bringing the nurse with him, still lingers in my memory." He said: "I wish you had thought to pick up the lamp. I should like to have found out what was the cause of its going off like that." I said: "There was not time to pick up the lamp. I calculate it would have taken two hours to have collected it. As to its 'going off,' the mere fact of its being advertised as the safest lamp ever invented would of itself, to anyone but you, have suggested accident. Then there was that electric lamp," I continued. "Well, that really did give a fine light," he replied; "you said so yourself." I said: "It gave a brilliant light in the King's Road, Brighton, and frightened a horse. The moment we got into the dark beyond Kemp Town it went out, and you were summoned for riding without a light. You may remember that on sunny afternoons you used to ride about with that lamp shining for all it was worth. When lighting-up time came it was naturally tired, and wanted a rest." "It was a bit irritating, that lamp," he murmured; "I remember it." I said: "It irritated me; it must have been worse for you. Then there are saddles," I went on--I wished to get this lesson home to him. "Can you think of any saddle ever advertised that you have _not_ tried?" He said: "It has been an idea of mine that the right saddle is to be found." I said: "You give up that idea; this is an imperfect world of joy and sorrow mingled. There may be a better land where bicycle saddles are made out of rainbow, stuffed with cloud; in this world the simplest thing is to get used to something hard. There was that saddle you bought in Birmingham; it was divided in the middle, and looked like a pair of kidneys." He said: "You mean that one constructed on anatomical principles." "Very likely," I replied. "The box you bought it in had a picture on the cover, representing a sitting skeleton--or rather that part of a skeleton which does sit." He said: "It was quite correct; it showed you the true position of the--" I said: "We will not go into details; the picture always seemed to me indelicate." He said: "Medically speaking, it was right." "Possibly," I said, "for a man who rode in nothing but his bones. I only know that I tried it myself, and that to a man who wore flesh it was agony. Every time you went over a stone or a rut it nipped you; it was like riding on an irritable lobster. You rode that for a month." "I thought it only right to give it a fair trial," he answered. I said: "You gave your family a fair trial also; if you will allow me the use of slang. Your wife told me that never in the whole course of your married life had she known you so bad tempered, so un-Christian like, as you were that month. Then you remember that other saddle, the one with the spring under it." He said: "You mean 'the Spiral.'" I said: "I mean the one that jerked you up and down like a Jack-in-the- box; sometimes you came down again in the right place, and sometimes you didn't. I am not referring to these matters merely to recall painful memories, but I want to impress you with the folly of trying experiments at your time of life." He said. "I wish you wouldn't harp so much on my age. A man at thirty- four--" "A man at what?" He said: "If you don't want the thing, don't have it. If your machine runs away with you down a mountain, and you and George get flung through a church roof, don't blame me." "I cannot promise for George," I said; "a little thing will sometimes irritate him, as you know. If such an accident as you suggest happen, he may be cross, but I will undertake to explain to him that it was not your fault." "Is the thing all right?" he asked. "The tandem," I replied, "is well." He said: "Have you overhauled it?" I said: "I have not, nor is anyone else going to overhaul it. The thing is now in working order, and it is going to remain in working order till we start." I have had experience of this "overhauling." There was a man at Folkestone; I used to meet him on the Lees. He proposed one evening we should go for a long bicycle ride together on the following day, and I agreed. I got up early, for me; I made an effort, and was pleased with myself. He came half an hour late: I was waiting for him in the garden. It was a lovely day. He said:-- "That's a good-looking machine of yours. How does it run?" "Oh, like most of them!" I answered; "easily enough in the morning; goes a little stiffly after lunch." He caught hold of it by the front wheel and the fork and shook it violently. I said: "Don't do that; you'll hurt it." I did not see why he should shake it; it had not done anything to him. Besides, if it wanted shaking, I was the proper person to shake it. I felt much as I should had he started whacking my dog. He said: "This front wheel wobbles." I said: "It doesn't if you don't wobble it." It didn't wobble, as a matter of fact--nothing worth calling a wobble. He said: "This is dangerous; have you got a screw-hammer?" I ought to have been firm, but I thought that perhaps he really did know something about the business. I went to the tool shed to see what I could find. When I came back he was sitting on the ground with the front wheel between his legs. He was playing with it, twiddling it round between his fingers; the remnant of the machine was lying on the gravel path beside him. He said: "Something has happened to this front wheel of yours." "It looks like it, doesn't it?" I answered. But he was the sort of man that never understands satire. He said: "It looks to me as if the bearings were all wrong." I said: "Don't you trouble about it any more; you will make yourself tired. Let us put it back and get off." He said: "We may as well see what is the matter with it, now it is out." He talked as though it had dropped out by accident. Before I could stop him he had unscrewed something somewhere, and out rolled all over the path some dozen or so little balls. "Catch 'em!" he shouted; "catch 'em! We mustn't lose any of them." He was quite excited about them. We grovelled round for half an hour, and found sixteen. He said he hoped we had got them all, because, if not, it would make a serious difference to the machine. He said there was nothing you should be more careful about in taking a bicycle to pieces than seeing you did not lose any of the balls. He explained that you ought to count them as you took them out, and see that exactly the same number went back in each place. I promised, if ever I took a bicycle to pieces I would remember his advice. I put the balls for safety in my hat, and I put my hat upon the doorstep. It was not a sensible thing to do, I admit. As a matter of fact, it was a silly thing to do. I am not as a rule addle-headed; his influence must have affected me. He then said that while he was about it he would see to the chain for me, and at once began taking off the gear-case. I did try to persuade him from that. I told him what an experienced friend of mine once said to me solemnly:-- "If anything goes wrong with your gear-case, sell the machine and buy a new one; it comes cheaper." He said: "People talk like that who understand nothing about machines. Nothing is easier than taking off a gear-case." I had to confess he was right. In less than five minutes he had the gear- case in two pieces, lying on the path, and was grovelling for screws. He said it was always a mystery to him the way screws disappeared. We were still looking for the screws when Ethelbertha came out. She seemed surprised to find us there; she said she thought we had started hours ago. He said: "We shan't be long now. I'm just helping your husband to overhaul this machine of his. It's a good machine; but they all want going over occasionally." Ethelbertha said: "If you want to wash yourselves when you have done you might go into the back kitchen, if you don't mind; the girls have just finished the bedrooms." She told me that if she met Kate they would probably go for a sail; but that in any case she would be back to lunch. I would have given a sovereign to be going with her. I was getting heartily sick of standing about watching this fool breaking up my bicycle. Common sense continued to whisper to me: "Stop him, before he does any more mischief. You have a right to protect your own property from the ravages of a lunatic. Take him by the scruff of the neck, and kick him out of the gate!" But I am weak when it comes to hurting other people's feelings, and I let him muddle on. He gave up looking for the rest of the screws. He said screws had a knack of turning up when you least expected them; and that now he would see to the chain. He tightened it till it would not move; next he loosened it until it was twice as loose as it was before. Then he said we had better think about getting the front wheel back into its place again. I held the fork open, and he worried with the wheel. At the end of ten minutes I suggested he should hold the forks, and that I should handle the wheel; and we changed places. At the end of his first minute he dropped the machine, and took a short walk round the croquet lawn, with his hands pressed together between his thighs. He explained as he walked that the thing to be careful about was to avoid getting your fingers pinched between the forks and the spokes of the wheel. I replied I was convinced, from my own experience, that there was much truth in what he said. He wrapped himself up in a couple of dusters, and we commenced again. At length we did get the thing into position; and the moment it was in position he burst out laughing. I said: "What's the joke?" He said: "Well, I am an ass!" It was the first thing he had said that made me respect him. I asked him what had led him to the discovery. He said: "We've forgotten the balls!" I looked for my hat; it was lying topsy-turvy in the middle of the path, and Ethelbertha's favourite hound was swallowing the balls as fast as he could pick them up. "He will kill himself," said Ebbson--I have never met him since that day, thank the Lord; but I think his name was Ebbson--"they are solid steel." I said: "I am not troubling about the dog. He has had a bootlace and a packet of needles already this week. Nature's the best guide; puppies seem to require this kind of stimulant. What I am thinking about is my bicycle." He was of a cheerful disposition. He said: "Well, we must put back all we can find, and trust to Providence." We found eleven. We fixed six on one side and five on the other, and half an hour later the wheel was in its place again. It need hardly be added that it really did wobble now; a child might have noticed it. Ebbson said it would do for the present. He appeared to be getting a bit tired himself. If I had let him, he would, I believe, at this point have gone home. I was determined now, however, that he should stop and finish; I had abandoned all thoughts of a ride. My pride in the machine he had killed. My only interest lay now in seeing him scratch and bump and pinch himself. I revived his drooping spirits with a glass of beer and some judicious praise. I said: "Watching you do this is of real use to me. It is not only your skill and dexterity that fascinates me, it is your cheery confidence in yourself, your inexplicable hopefulness, that does me good." Thus encouraged, he set to work to refix the gear-case. He stood the bicycle against the house, and worked from the off side. Then he stood it against a tree, and worked from the near side. Then I held it for him, while he lay on the ground with his head between the wheels, and worked at it from below, and dropped oil upon himself. Then he took it away from me, and doubled himself across it like a pack-saddle, till he lost his balance and slid over on to his head. Three times he said: "Thank Heaven, that's right at last!" And twice he said: "No, I'm damned if it is after all!" What he said the third time I try to forget. Then he lost his temper and tried bullying the thing. The bicycle, I was glad to see, showed spirit; and the subsequent proceedings degenerated into little else than a rough-and-tumble fight between him and the machine. One moment the bicycle would be on the gravel path, and he on top of it; the next, the position would be reversed--he on the gravel path, the bicycle on him. Now he would be standing flushed with victory, the bicycle firmly fixed between his legs. But his triumph would be short-lived. By a sudden, quick movement it would free itself, and, turning upon him, hit him sharply over the head with one of its handles. At a quarter to one, dirty and dishevelled, cut and breeding, he said: "I think that will do;" and rose and wiped his brow. The bicycle looked as if it also had had enough of it. Which had received most punishment it would have been difficult to say. I took him into the back kitchen, where, so far as was possible without soda and proper tools, he cleaned himself, and sent him home. The bicycle I put into a cab and took round to the nearest repairing shop. The foreman of the works came up and looked at it. "What do you want me to do with that?" said he. "I want you," I said, "so far as is possible, to restore it." "It's a bit far gone," said he; "but I'll do my best." He did his best, which came to two pounds ten. But it was never the same machine again; and at the end of the season I left it in an agent's hands to sell. I wished to deceive nobody; I instructed the man to advertise it as a last year's machine. The agent advised me not to mention any date. He said: "In this business it isn't a question of what is true and what isn't; it's a question of what you can get people to believe. Now, between you and me, it don't look like a last year's machine; so far as looks are concerned, it might be a ten-year old. We'll say nothing about date; we'll just get what we can." I left the matter to him, and he got me five pounds, which he said was more than he had expected. There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can "overhaul" it, or you can ride it. On the whole, I am not sure that a man who takes his pleasure overhauling does not have the best of the bargain. He is independent of the weather and the wind; the state of the roads troubles him not. Give him a screw-hammer, a bundle of rags, an oil-can, and something to sit down upon, and he is happy for the day. He has to put up with certain disadvantages, of course; there is no joy without alloy. He himself always looks like a tinker, and his machine always suggests the idea that, having stolen it, he has tried to disguise it; but as he rarely gets beyond the first milestone with it, this, perhaps, does not much matter. The mistake some people make is in thinking they can get both forms of sport out of the same machine. This is impossible; no machine will stand the double strain. You must make up your mind whether you are going to be an "overhauler" or a rider. Personally, I prefer to ride, therefore I take care to have near me nothing that can tempt me to overhaul. When anything happens to my machine I wheel it to the nearest repairing shop. If I am too far from the town or village to walk, I sit by the roadside and wait till a cart comes along. My chief danger, I always find, is from the wandering overhauler. The sight of a broken-down machine is to the overhauler as a wayside corpse to a crow; he swoops down upon it with a friendly yell of triumph. At first I used to try politeness. I would say: "It is nothing; don't you trouble. You ride on, and enjoy yourself, I beg it of you as a favour; please go away." Experience has taught me, however, that courtesy is of no use in such an extremity. Now I say: "You go away and leave the thing alone, or I will knock your silly head off." And if you look determined, and have a good stout cudgel in your hand, you can generally drive him off. George came in later in the day. He said: "Well, do you think everything will be ready?" I said: "Everything will be ready by Wednesday, except, perhaps, you and Harris." He said: "Is the tandem all right?" "The tandem," I said, "is well." He said: "You don't think it wants overhauling?" I replied: "Age and experience have taught me that there are few matters concerning which a man does well to be positive. Consequently, there remain to me now but a limited number of questions upon which I feel any degree of certainty. Among such still-unshaken beliefs, however, is the conviction that that tandem does not want overhauling. I also feel a presentiment that, provided my life is spared, no human being between now and Wednesday morning is going to overhaul it." George said: "I should not show temper over the matter, if I were you. There will come a day, perhaps not far distant, when that bicycle, with a couple of mountains between it and the nearest repairing shop, will, in spite of your chronic desire for rest, _have_ to be overhauled. Then you will clamour for people to tell you where you put the oil-can, and what you have done with the screw-hammer. Then, while you exert yourself holding the thing steady against a tree, you will suggest that somebody else should clean the chain and pump the back wheel." I felt there was justice in George's rebuke--also a certain amount of prophetic wisdom. I said: "Forgive me if I seemed unresponsive. The truth is, Harris was round here this morning--" George said: "Say no more; I understand. Besides, what I came to talk to you about was another matter. Look at that." He handed me a small book bound in red cloth. It was a guide to English conversation for the use of German travellers. It commenced "On a Steam- boat," and terminated "At the Doctor's"; its longest chapter being devoted to conversation in a railway carriage, among, apparently, a compartment load of quarrelsome and ill-mannered lunatics: "Can you not get further away from me, sir?"--"It is impossible, madam; my neighbour, here, is very stout"--"Shall we not endeavour to arrange our legs?"--"Please have the goodness to keep your elbows down"--"Pray do not inconvenience yourself, madam, if my shoulder is of any accommodation to you," whether intended to be said sarcastically or not, there was nothing to indicate--"I really must request you to move a little, madam, I can hardly breathe," the author's idea being, presumably, that by this time the whole party was mixed up together on the floor. The chapter concluded with the phrase, "Here we are at our destination, God be thanked! (_Gott sei dank_!)" a pious exclamation, which under the circumstances must have taken the form of a chorus. At the end of the book was an appendix, giving the German traveller hints concerning the preservation of his health and comfort during his sojourn in English towns, chief among such hints being advice to him to always travel with a supply of disinfectant powder, to always lock his bedroom door at night, and to always carefully count his small change. "It is not a brilliant publication," I remarked, handing the book back to George; "it is not a book that personally I would recommend to any German about to visit England; I think it would get him disliked. But I have read books published in London for the use of English travellers abroad every whit as foolish. Some educated idiot, misunderstanding seven languages, would appear to go about writing these books for the misinformation and false guidance of modern Europe." "You cannot deny," said George, "that these books are in large request. They are bought by the thousand, I know. In every town in Europe there must be people going about talking this sort of thing." "Maybe," I replied; "but fortunately nobody understands them. I have noticed, myself, men standing on railway platforms and at street corners reading aloud from such books. Nobody knows what language they are speaking; nobody has the slightest knowledge of what they are saying. This is, perhaps, as well; were they understood they would probably be assaulted." George said: "Maybe you are right; my idea is to see what would happen if they were understood. My proposal is to get to London early on Wednesday morning, and spend an hour or two going about and shopping with the aid of this book. There are one or two little things I want--a hat and a pair of bedroom slippers, among other articles. Our boat does not leave Tilbury till twelve, and that just gives us time. I want to try this sort of talk where I can properly judge of its effect. I want to see how the foreigner feels when he is talked to in this way." It struck me as a sporting idea. In my enthusiasm I offered to accompany him, and wait outside the shop. I said I thought that Harris would like to be in it, too--or rather outside. George said that was not quite his scheme. His proposal was that Harris and I should accompany him into the shop. With Harris, who looks formidable, to support him, and myself at the door to call the police if necessary, he said he was willing to adventure the thing. We walked round to Harris's, and put the proposal before him. He examined the book, especially the chapters dealing with the purchase of shoes and hats. He said: "If George talks to any bootmaker or any hatter the things that are put down here, it is not support he will want; it is carrying to the hospital that he will need." That made George angry. "You talk," said George, "as though I were a foolhardy boy without any sense. I shall select from the more polite and less irritating speeches; the grosser insults I shall avoid." This being clearly understood, Harris gave in his adhesion; and our start was fixed for early Wednesday morning. CHAPTER IV Why Harris considers alarm clocks unnecessary in a family--Social instinct of the young--A child's thoughts about the morning--The sleepless watchman--The mystery of him--His over anxiety--Night thoughts--The sort of work one does before breakfast--The good sheep and the bad--Disadvantages of being virtuous--Harris's new stove begins badly--The daily out-going of my Uncle Podger--The elderly city man considered as a racer--We arrive in London--We talk the language of the traveller. George came down on Tuesday evening, and slept at Harris's place. We thought this a better arrangement than his own suggestion, which was that we should call for him on our way and "pick him up." Picking George up in the morning means picking him out of bed to begin with, and shaking him awake--in itself an exhausting effort with which to commence the day; helping him find his things and finish his packing; and then waiting for him while he eats his breakfast, a tedious entertainment from the spectator's point of view, full of wearisome repetition. I knew that if he slept at "Beggarbush" he would be up in time; I have slept there myself, and I know what happens. About the middle of the night, as you judge, though in reality it may be somewhat later, you are startled out of your first sleep by what sounds like a rush of cavalry along the passage, just outside your door. Your half-awakened intelligence fluctuates between burglars, the Day of Judgment, and a gas explosion. You sit up in bed and listen intently. You are not kept waiting long; the next moment a door is violently slammed, and somebody, or something, is evidently coming downstairs on a tea-tray. "I told you so," says a voice outside, and immediately some hard substance, a head one would say from the ring of it, rebounds against the panel of your door. By this time you are charging madly round the room for your clothes. Nothing is where you put it overnight, the articles most essential have disappeared entirely; and meanwhile the murder, or revolution, or whatever it is, continues unchecked. You pause for a moment, with your head under the wardrobe, where you think you can see your slippers, to listen to a steady, monotonous thumping upon a distant door. The victim, you presume, has taken refuge there; they mean to have him out and finish him. Will you be in time? The knocking ceases, and a voice, sweetly reassuring in its gentle plaintiveness, asks meekly: "Pa, may I get up?" You do not hear the other voice, but the responses are: "No, it was only the bath--no, she ain't really hurt,--only wet, you know. Yes, ma, I'll tell 'em what you say. No, it was a pure accident. Yes; good-night, papa." Then the same voice, exerting itself so as to be heard in a distant part of the house, remarks: "You've got to come upstairs again. Pa says it isn't time yet to get up." You return to bed, and lie listening to somebody being dragged upstairs, evidently against their will. By a thoughtful arrangement the spare rooms at "Beggarbush" are exactly underneath the nurseries. The same somebody, you conclude, still offering the most creditable opposition, is being put back into bed. You can follow the contest with much exactitude, because every time the body is flung down upon the spring mattress, the bedstead, just above your head, makes a sort of jump; while every time the body succeeds in struggling out again, you are aware by the thud upon the floor. After a time the struggle wanes, or maybe the bed collapses; and you drift back into sleep. But the next moment, or what seems to be the next moment, you again open your eyes under the consciousness of a presence. The door is being held ajar, and four solemn faces, piled one on top of the other, are peering at you, as though you were some natural curiosity kept in this particular room. Seeing you awake, the top face, walking calmly over the other three, comes in and sits on the bed in a friendly attitude. "Oh!" it says, "we didn't know you were awake. I've been awake some time." "So I gather," you reply, shortly. "Pa doesn't like us to get up too early," it continues. "He says everybody else in the house is liable to be disturbed if we get up. So, of course, we mustn't." The tone is that of gentle resignation. It is instinct with the spirit of virtuous pride, arising from the consciousness of self-sacrifice. "Don't you call this being up?" you suggest. "Oh, no; we're not really up, you know, because we're not properly dressed." The fact is self-evident. "Pa's always very tired in the morning," the voice continues; "of course, that's because he works hard all day. Are you ever tired in the morning?" At this point he turns and notices, for the first time, that the three other children have also entered, and are sitting in a semi-circle on the floor. From their attitude it is clear they have mistaken the whole thing for one of the slower forms of entertainment, some comic lecture or conjuring exhibition, and are waiting patiently for you to get out of bed and do something. It shocks him, the idea of their being in the guest's bedchamber. He peremptorily orders them out. They do not answer him, they do not argue; in dead silence, and with one accord they fall upon him. All you can see from the bed is a confused tangle of waving arms and legs, suggestive of an intoxicated octopus trying to find bottom. Not a word is spoken; that seems to be the etiquette of the thing. If you are sleeping in your pyjamas, you spring from the bed, and only add to the confusion; if you are wearing a less showy garment, you stop where you are and shout commands, which are utterly unheeded. The simplest plan is to leave it to the eldest boy. He does get them out after a while, and closes the door upon them. It re-opens immediately, and one, generally Muriel, is shot back into the room. She enters as from a catapult. She is handicapped by having long hair, which can be used as a convenient handle. Evidently aware of this natural disadvantage, she clutches it herself tightly in one hand, and punches with the other. He opens the door again, and cleverly uses her as a battering-ram against the wall of those without. You can hear the dull crash as her head enters among them, and scatters them. When the victory is complete, he comes back and resumes his seat on the bed. There is no bitterness about him; he has forgotten the whole incident. "I like the morning," he says, "don't you?" "Some mornings," you agree, "are all right; others are not so peaceful." He takes no notice of your exception; a far-away look steals over his somewhat ethereal face. "I should like to die in the morning," he says; "everything is so beautiful then." "Well," you answer, "perhaps you will, if your father ever invites an irritable man to come and sleep here, and doesn't warn him beforehand." He descends from his contemplative mood, and becomes himself again. "It's jolly in the garden," he suggests; "you wouldn't like to get up and have a game of cricket, would you?" It was not the idea with which you went to bed, but now, as things have turned out, it seems as good a plan as lying there hopelessly awake; and you agree. You learn, later in the day, that the explanation of the proceeding is that you, unable to sleep, woke up early in the morning, and thought you would like a game of cricket. The children, taught to be ever courteous to guests, felt it their duty to humour you. Mrs. Harris remarks at breakfast that at least you might have seen to it that the children were properly dressed before you took them out; while Harris points out to you, pathetically, how, by your one morning's example and encouragement, you have undone his labour of months. On this Wednesday morning, George, it seems, clamoured to get up at a quarter-past five, and persuaded them to let him teach them cycling tricks round the cucumber frames on Harris's new wheel. Even Mrs. Harris, however, did not blame George on this occasion; she felt intuitively the idea could not have been entirely his. It is not that the Harris children have the faintest notion of avoiding blame at the expense of a friend and comrade. One and all they are honesty itself in accepting responsibility for their own misdeeds. It simply is, that is how the thing presents itself to their understanding. When you explain to them that you had no original intention of getting up at five o'clock in the morning to play cricket on the croquet lawn, or to mimic the history of the early Church by shooting with a cross-bow at dolls tied to a tree; that as a matter of fact, left to your own initiative, you would have slept peacefully till roused in Christian fashion with a cup of tea at eight, they are firstly astonished, secondly apologetic, and thirdly sincerely contrite. In the present instance, waiving the purely academic question whether the awakening of George at a little before five was due to natural instinct on his part, or to the accidental passing of a home-made boomerang through his bedroom window, the dear children frankly admitted that the blame for his uprising was their own. As the eldest boy said: "We ought to have remembered that Uncle George had a long day, before him, and we ought to have dissuaded him from getting up. I blame myself entirely." But an occasional change of habit does nobody any harm; and besides, as Harris and I agreed, it was good training for George. In the Black Forest we should be up at five every morning; that we had determined on. Indeed, George himself had suggested half-past four, but Harris and I had argued that five would be early enough as an average; that would enable us to be on our machines by six, and to break the back of our journey before the heat of the day set in. Occasionally we might start a little earlier, but not as a habit. I myself was up that morning at five. This was earlier than I had intended. I had said to myself on going to sleep, "Six o'clock, sharp!" There are men I know who can wake themselves at any time to the minute. They say to themselves literally, as they lay their heads upon the pillow, "Four-thirty," "Four-forty-five," or "Five-fifteen," as the case may be; and as the clock strikes they open their eyes. It is very wonderful this; the more one dwells upon it, the greater the mystery grows. Some Ego within us, acting quite independently of our conscious self, must be capable of counting the hours while we sleep. Unaided by clock or sun, or any other medium known to our five senses, it keeps watch through the darkness. At the exact moment it whispers "Time!" and we awake. The work of an old riverside fellow I once talked with called him to be out of bed each morning half an hour before high tide. He told me that never once had he overslept himself by a minute. Latterly, he never even troubled to work out the tide for himself. He would lie down tired, and sleep a dreamless sleep, and each morning at a different hour this ghostly watchman, true as the tide itself, would silently call him. Did the man's spirit haunt through the darkness the muddy river stairs; or had it knowledge of the ways of Nature? Whatever the process, the man himself was unconscious of it. In my own case my inward watchman is, perhaps, somewhat out of practice. He does his best; but he is over-anxious; he worries himself, and loses count. I say to him, maybe, "Five-thirty, please;" and he wakes me with a start at half-past two. I look at my watch. He suggests that, perhaps, I forgot to wind it up. I put it to my ear; it is still going. He thinks, maybe, something has happened to it; he is confident himself it is half-past five, if not a little later. To satisfy him, I put on a pair of slippers and go downstairs to inspect the dining-room clock. What happens to a man when he wanders about the house in the middle of the night, clad in a dressing-gown and a pair of slippers, there is no need to recount; most men know by experience. Everything--especially everything with a sharp corner--takes a cowardly delight in hitting him. When you are wearing a pair of stout boots, things get out of your way; when you venture among furniture in woolwork slippers and no socks, it comes at you and kicks you. I return to bed bad tempered, and refusing to listen to his further absurd suggestion that all the clocks in the house have entered into a conspiracy against me, take half an hour to get to sleep again. From four to five he wakes me every ten minutes. I wish I had never said a word to him about the thing. At five o'clock he goes to sleep himself, worn out, and leaves it to the girl, who does it half an hour later than usual. On this particular Wednesday he worried me to such an extent, that I got up at five simply to be rid of him. I did not know what to do with myself. Our train did not leave till eight; all our luggage had been packed and sent on the night before, together with the bicycles, to Fenchurch Street Station. I went into my study; I thought I would put in an hour's writing. The early morning, before one has breakfasted, is not, I take it, a good season for literary effort. I wrote three paragraphs of a story, and then read them over to myself. Some unkind things have been said about my work; but nothing has yet been written which would have done justice to those three paragraphs. I threw them into the waste-paper basket, and sat trying to remember what, if any, charitable institutions provided pensions for decayed authors. To escape from this train of reflection, I put a golf-ball in my pocket, and selecting a driver, strolled out into the paddock. A couple of sheep were browsing there, and they followed and took a keen interest in my practice. The one was a kindly, sympathetic old party. I do not think she understood the game; I think it was my doing this innocent thing so early in the morning that appealed to her. At every stroke I made she bleated: "Go-o-o-d, go-o-o-d ind-e-e-d!" She seemed as pleased as if she had done it herself. As for the other one, she was a cantankerous, disagreeable old thing, as discouraging to me as her friend was helpful. "Ba-a-ad, da-a-a-m ba-a-a-d!" was her comment on almost every stroke. As a matter of fact, some were really excellent strokes; but she did it just to be contradictory, and for the sake of irritating. I could see that. By a most regrettable accident, one of my swiftest balls struck the good sheep on the nose. And at that the bad sheep laughed--laughed distinctly and undoubtedly, a husky, vulgar laugh; and, while her friend stood glued to the ground, too astonished to move, she changed her note for the first time and bleated: "Go-o-o-d, ve-e-ry go-o-o-d! Be-e-e-est sho-o-o-ot he-e-e's ma-a-a-de!" I would have given half-a-crown if it had been she I had hit instead of the other one. It is ever the good and amiable who suffer in this world. I had wasted more time than I had intended in the paddock, and when Ethelbertha came to tell me it was half-past seven, and the breakfast was on the table, I remembered that I had not shaved. It vexes Ethelbertha my shaving quickly. She fears that to outsiders it may suggest a poor- spirited attempt at suicide, and that in consequence it may get about the neighbourhood that we are not happy together. As a further argument, she has also hinted that my appearance is not of the kind that can be trifled with. On the whole, I was just as glad not to be able to take a long farewell of Ethelbertha; I did not want to risk her breaking down. But I should have liked more opportunity to say a few farewell words of advice to the children, especially as regards my fishing rod, which they will persist in using for cricket stumps; and I hate having to run for a train. Quarter of a mile from the station I overtook George and Harris; they were also running. In their case--so Harris informed me, jerkily, while we trotted side by side--it was the new kitchen stove that was to blame. This was the first morning they had tried it, and from some cause or other it had blown up the kidneys and scalded the cook. He said he hoped that by the time we returned they would have got more used to it. We caught the train by the skin of our teeth, as the saying is, and reflecting upon the events of the morning, as we sat gasping in the carriage, there passed vividly before my mind the panorama of my Uncle Podger, as on two hundred and fifty days in the year he would start from Ealing Common by the nine-thirteen train to Moorgate Street. From my Uncle Podger's house to the railway station was eight minutes' walk. What my uncle always said was: "Allow yourself a quarter of an hour, and take it easily." What he always did was to start five minutes before the time and run. I do not know why, but this was the custom of the suburb. Many stout City gentlemen lived at Ealing in those days--I believe some live there still--and caught early trains to Town. They all started late; they all carried a black bag and a newspaper in one hand, and an umbrella in the other; and for the last quarter of a mile to the station, wet or fine, they all ran. Folks with nothing else to do, nursemaids chiefly and errand boys, with now and then a perambulating costermonger added, would gather on the common of a fine morning to watch them pass, and cheer the most deserving. It was not a showy spectacle. They did not run well, they did not even run fast; but they were earnest, and they did their best. The exhibition appealed less to one's sense of art than to one's natural admiration for conscientious effort. Occasionally a little harmless betting would take place among the crowd. "Two to one agin the old gent in the white weskit!" "Ten to one on old Blowpipes, bar he don't roll over hisself 'fore 'e gets there!" "Heven money on the Purple Hemperor!"--a nickname bestowed by a youth of entomological tastes upon a certain retired military neighbour of my uncle's,--a gentleman of imposing appearance when stationary, but apt to colour highly under exercise. My uncle and the others would write to the _Ealing Press_ complaining bitterly concerning the supineness of the local police; and the editor would add spirited leaders upon the Decay of Courtesy among the Lower Orders, especially throughout the Western Suburbs. But no good ever resulted. It was not that my uncle did not rise early enough; it was that troubles came to him at the last moment. The first thing he would do after breakfast would be to lose his newspaper. We always knew when Uncle Podger had lost anything, by the expression of astonished indignation with which, on such occasions, he would regard the world in general. It never occurred to my Uncle Podger to say to himself: "I am a careless old man. I lose everything: I never know where I have put anything. I am quite incapable of finding it again for myself. In this respect I must be a perfect nuisance to everybody about me. I must set to work and reform myself." On the contrary, by some peculiar course of reasoning, he had convinced himself that whenever he lost a thing it was everybody else's fault in the house but his own. "I had it in my hand here not a minute ago!" he would exclaim. From his tone you would have thought he was living surrounded by conjurers, who spirited away things from him merely to irritate him. "Could you have left it in the garden?" my aunt would suggest. "What should I want to leave it in the garden for? I don't want a paper in the garden; I want the paper in the train with me." "You haven't put it in your pocket?" "God bless the woman! Do you think I should be standing here at five minutes to nine looking for it if I had it in my pocket all the while? Do you think I'm a fool?" Here somebody would explain, "What's this?" and hand him from somewhere a paper neatly folded. "I do wish people would leave my things alone," he would growl, snatching at it savagely. He would open his bag to put it in, and then glancing at it, he would pause, speechless with sense of injury. "What's the matter?" aunt would ask. "The day before yesterday's!" he would answer, too hurt even to shout, throwing the paper down upon the table. If only sometimes it had been yesterday's it would have been a change. But it was always the day before yesterday's; except on Tuesday; then it would be Saturday's. We would find it for him eventually; as often as not he was sitting on it. And then he would smile, not genially, but with the weariness that comes to a man who feels that fate has cast his lot among a band of hopeless idiots. "All the time, right in front of your noses--!" He would not finish the sentence; he prided himself on his self-control. This settled, he would start for the hall, where it was the custom of my Aunt Maria to have the children gathered, ready to say good-bye to him. My aunt never left the house herself, if only to make a call next door, without taking a tender farewell of every inmate. One never knew, she would say, what might happen. One of them, of course, was sure to be missing, and the moment this was noticed all the other six, without an instant's hesitation, would scatter with a whoop to find it. Immediately they were gone it would turn up by itself from somewhere quite near, always with the most reasonable explanation for its absence; and would at once start off after the others to explain to them that it was found. In this way, five minutes at least would be taken up in everybody's looking for everybody else, which was just sufficient time to allow my uncle to find his umbrella and lose his hat. Then, at last, the group reassembled in the hall, the drawing-room clock would commence to strike nine. It possessed a cold, penetrating chime that always had the effect of confusing my uncle. In his excitement he would kiss some of the children twice over, pass by others, forget whom he had kissed and whom he hadn't, and have to begin all over again. He used to say he believed they mixed themselves up on purpose, and I am not prepared to maintain that the charge was altogether false. To add to his troubles, one child always had a sticky face; and that child would always be the most affectionate. If things were going too smoothly, the eldest boy would come out with some tale about all the clocks in the house being five minutes slow, and of his having been late for school the previous day in consequence. This would send my uncle rushing impetuously down to the gate, where he would recollect that he had with him neither his bag nor his umbrella. All the children that my aunt could not stop would charge after him, two of them struggling for the umbrella, the others surging round the bag. And when they returned we would discover on the hall table the most important thing of all that he had forgotten, and wondered what he would say about it when he came home. We arrived at Waterloo a little after nine, and at once proceeded to put George's experiment into operation. Opening the book at the chapter entitled "At the Cab Rank," we walked up to a hansom, raised our hats, and wished the driver "Good-morning." This man was not to be outdone in politeness by any foreigner, real or imitation. Calling to a friend named "Charles" to "hold the steed," he sprang from his box, and returned to us a bow, that would have done credit to Mr. Turveydrop himself. Speaking apparently in the name of the nation, he welcomed us to England, adding a regret that Her Majesty was not at the moment in London. We could not reply to him in kind. Nothing of this sort had been anticipated by the book. We called him "coachman," at which he again bowed to the pavement, and asked him if he would have the goodness to drive us to the Westminster Bridge road. He laid his hand upon his heart, and said the pleasure would be his. Taking the third sentence in the chapter, George asked him what his fare would be. The question, as introducing a sordid element into the conversation, seemed to hurt his feelings. He said he never took money from distinguished strangers; he suggested a souvenir--a diamond scarf pin, a gold snuffbox, some little trifle of that sort by which he could remember us. As a small crowd had collected, and as the joke was drifting rather too far in the cabman's direction, we climbed in without further parley, and were driven away amid cheers. We stopped the cab at a boot shop a little past Astley's Theatre that looked the sort of place we wanted. It was one of those overfed shops that the moment their shutters are taken down in the morning disgorge their goods all round them. Boxes of boots stood piled on the pavement or in the gutter opposite. Boots hung in festoons about its doors and windows. Its sun-blind was as some grimy vine, bearing bunches of black and brown boots. Inside, the shop was a bower of boots. The man, when we entered, was busy with a chisel and hammer opening a new crate full of boots. George raised his hat, and said "Good-morning." The man did not even turn round. He struck me from the first as a disagreeable man. He grunted something which might have been "Good-morning," or might not, and went on with his work. George said: "I have been recommended to your shop by my friend, Mr. X." In response, the man should have said: "Mr. X. is a most worthy gentleman; it will give me the greatest pleasure to serve any friend of his." What he did say was: "Don't know him; never heard of him." This was disconcerting. The book gave three or four methods of buying boots; George had carefully selected the one centred round "Mr. X," as being of all the most courtly. You talked a good deal with the shopkeeper about this "Mr. X," and then, when by this means friendship and understanding had been established, you slid naturally and gracefully into the immediate object of your coming, namely, your desire for boots, "cheap and good." This gross, material man cared, apparently, nothing for the niceties of retail dealing. It was necessary with such an one to come to business with brutal directness. George abandoned "Mr. X," and turning back to a previous page, took a sentence at random. It was not a happy selection; it was a speech that would have been superfluous made to any bootmaker. Under the present circumstances, threatened and stifled as we were on every side by boots, it possessed the dignity of positive imbecility. It ran:--"One has told me that you have here boots for sale." For the first time the man put down his hammer and chisel, and looked at us. He spoke slowly, in a thick and husky voice. He said: "What d'ye think I keep boots for--to smell 'em?" He was one of those men that begin quietly and grow more angry as they proceed, their wrongs apparently working within them like yeast. "What d'ye think I am," he continued, "a boot collector? What d'ye think I'm running this shop for--my health? D'ye think I love the boots, and can't bear to part with a pair? D'ye think I hang 'em about here to look at 'em? Ain't there enough of 'em? Where d'ye think you are--in an international exhibition of boots? What d'ye think these boots are--a historical collection? Did you ever hear of a man keeping a boot shop and not selling boots? D'ye think I decorate the shop with 'em to make it look pretty? What d'ye take me for--a prize idiot?" I have always maintained that these conversation books are never of any real use. What we wanted was some English equivalent for the well-known German idiom: "Behalten Sie Ihr Haar auf." Nothing of the sort was to be found in the book from beginning to end. However, I will do George the credit to admit he chose the very best sentence that was to be found therein and applied it. He said:. "I will come again, when, perhaps, you will have some more boots to show me. Till then, adieu!" With that we returned to our cab and drove away, leaving the man standing in the centre of his boot-bedecked doorway addressing remarks to us. What he said, I did not hear, but the passers-by appeared to find it interesting. George was for stopping at another boot shop and trying the experiment afresh; he said he really did want a pair of bedroom slippers. But we persuaded him to postpone their purchase until our arrival in some foreign city, where the tradespeople are no doubt more inured to this sort of talk, or else more naturally amiable. On the subject of the hat, however, he was adamant. He maintained that without that he could not travel, and, accordingly, we pulled up at a small shop in the Blackfriars Road. The proprietor of this shop was a cheery, bright-eyed little man, and he helped us rather than hindered us. When George asked him in the words of the book, "Have you any hats?" he did not get angry; he just stopped and thoughtfully scratched his chin. "Hats," said he. "Let me think. Yes"--here a smile of positive pleasure broke over his genial countenance--"yes, now I come to think of it, I believe I have a hat. But, tell me, why do you ask me?" George explained to him that he wished to purchase a cap, a travelling cap, but the essence of the transaction was that it was to be a "good cap." The man's face fell. "Ah," he remarked, "there, I am afraid, you have me. Now, if you had wanted a bad cap, not worth the price asked for it; a cap good for nothing but to clean windows with, I could have found you the very thing. But a good cap--no; we don't keep them. But wait a minute," he continued,--on seeing the disappointment that spread over George's expressive countenance, "don't be in a hurry. I have a cap here"--he went to a drawer and opened it--"it is not a good cap, but it is not so bad as most of the caps I sell." He brought it forward, extended on his palm. "What do you think of that?" he asked. "Could you put up with that?" George fitted it on before the glass, and, choosing another remark from the book, said: "This hat fits me sufficiently well, but, tell me, do you consider that it becomes me?" The man stepped back and took a bird's-eye view. "Candidly," he replied, "I can't say that it does." He turned from George, and addressed himself to Harris and myself. "Your friend's beauty," said he, "I should describe as elusive. It is there, but you can easily miss it. Now, in that cap, to my mind, you do miss it." At that point it occurred to George that he had had sufficient fun with this particular man. He said: "That is all right. We don't want to lose the train. How much?" Answered the man: "The price of that cap, sir, which, in my opinion, is twice as much as it is worth, is four-and-six. Would you like it wrapped up in brown paper, sir, or in white?" George said he would take it as it was, paid the man four-and-six in-silver, and went out. Harris and I followed. At Fenchurch Street we compromised with our cabman for five shillings. He made us another courtly bow, and begged us to remember him to the Emperor of Austria. Comparing views in the train, we agreed that we had lost the game by two points to one; and George, who was evidently disappointed, threw the book out of window. We found our luggage and the bicycles safe on the boat, and with the tide at twelve dropped down the river. CHAPTER V A necessary digression--Introduced by story containing moral--One of the charms of this book--The Journal that did not command success--Its boast: "Instruction combined with Amusement"--Problem: say what should be considered instructive and what amusing--A popular game--Expert opinion on English law--Another of the charms of this book--A hackneyed tune--Yet a third charm of this book--The sort of wood it was where the maiden lived--Description of the Black Forest. A story is told of a Scotchman who, loving a lassie, desired her for his wife. But he possessed the prudence of his race. He had noticed in his circle many an otherwise promising union result in disappointment and dismay, purely in consequence of the false estimate formed by bride or bridegroom concerning the imagined perfectability of the other. He determined that in his own case no collapsed ideal should be possible. Therefore, it was that his proposal took the following form: "I'm but a puir lad, Jennie; I hae nae siller to offer ye, and nae land." "Ah, but ye hae yoursel', Davie!" "An' I'm wishfu' it wa' onything else, lassie. I'm nae but a puir ill- seasoned loon, Jennie." "Na, na; there's mony a lad mair ill-looking than yoursel', Davie." "I hae na seen him, lass, and I'm just a-thinkin' I shouldna' care to." "Better a plain man, Davie, that ye can depend a' than ane that would be a speirin' at the lassies, a-bringin' trouble into the hame wi' his flouting ways." "Dinna ye reckon on that, Jennie; it's nae the bonniest Bubbly Jock that mak's the most feathers to fly in the kailyard. I was ever a lad to run after the petticoats, as is weel kent; an' it's a weary handfu' I'll be to ye, I'm thinkin'." "Ah, but ye hae a kind heart, Davie! an' ye love me weel. I'm sure on't." "I like ye weel enoo', Jennie, though I canna say how long the feeling may bide wi' me; an' I'm kind enoo' when I hae my ain way, an' naethin' happens to put me oot. But I hae the deevil's ain temper, as my mither call tell ye, an' like my puir fayther, I'm a-thinkin', I'll grow nae better as I grow mair auld." "Ay, but ye're sair hard upon yersel', Davie. Ye're an honest lad. I ken ye better than ye ken yersel', an' ye'll mak a guid hame for me." "Maybe, Jennie! But I hae my doots. It's a sair thing for wife an' bairns when the guid man canna keep awa' frae the glass; an' when the scent of the whusky comes to me it's just as though I hae'd the throat o' a Loch Tay salmon; it just gaes doon an' doon, an' there's nae filling o' me." "Ay, but ye're a guid man when ye're sober, Davie." "Maybe I'll be that, Jennie, if I'm nae disturbed." "An' ye'll bide wi' me, Davie, an' work for me?" "I see nae reason why I shouldna bide wi' yet Jennie; but dinna ye clack aboot work to me, for I just canna bear the thoct o't." "Anyhow, ye'll do your best, Davie? As the minister says, nae man can do mair than that." "An' it's a puir best that mine'll be, Jennie, and I'm nae sae sure ye'll hae ower muckle even o' that. We're a' weak, sinfu' creatures, Jennie, an' ye'd hae some deefficulty to find a man weaker or mair sinfu' than mysel'." "Weel, weel, ye hae a truthfu' tongue, Davie. Mony a lad will mak fine promises to a puir lassie, only to break 'em an' her heart wi' 'em. Ye speak me fair, Davie, and I'm thinkin' I'll just tak ye, an' see what comes o't." Concerning what did come of it, the story is silent, but one feels that under no circumstances had the lady any right to complain of her bargain. Whether she ever did or did not--for women do not invariably order their tongues according to logic, nor men either for the matter of that--Davie, himself, must have had the satisfaction of reflecting that all reproaches were undeserved. I wish to be equally frank with the reader of this book. I wish here conscientiously to let forth its shortcomings. I wish no one to read this book under a misapprehension. There will be no useful information in this book. Anyone who should think that with the aid of this book he would be able to make a tour through Germany and the Black Forest would probably lose himself before he got to the Nore. That, at all events, would be the best thing that could happen to him. The farther away from home he got, the greater only would be his difficulties. I do not regard the conveyance of useful information as my _forte_. This belief was not inborn with me; it has been driven home upon me by experience. In my early journalistic days, I served upon a paper, the forerunner of many very popular periodicals of the present day. Our boast was that we combined instruction with amusement; as to what should be regarded as affording amusement and what instruction, the reader judged for himself. We gave advice to people about to marry--long, earnest advice that would, had they followed it, have made our circle of readers the envy of the whole married world. We told our subscribers how to make fortunes by keeping rabbits, giving facts and figures. The thing that must have surprised them was that we ourselves did not give up journalism and start rabbit-farming. Often and often have I proved conclusively from authoritative sources how a man starting a rabbit farm with twelve selected rabbits and a little judgment must, at the end of three years, be in receipt of an income of two thousand a year, rising rapidly; he simply could not help himself. He might not want the money. He might not know what to do with it when he had it. But there it was for him. I have never met a rabbit farmer myself worth two thousand a year, though I have known many start with the twelve necessary, assorted rabbits. Something has always gone wrong somewhere; maybe the continued atmosphere of a rabbit farm saps the judgment. We told our readers how many bald-headed men there were in Iceland, and for all we knew our figures may have been correct; how many red herrings placed tail to mouth it would take to reach from London to Rome, which must have been useful to anyone desirous of laying down a line of red herrings from London to Rome, enabling him to order in the right quantity at the beginning; how many words the average woman spoke in a day; and other such like items of information calculated to make them wise and great beyond the readers of other journals. We told them how to cure fits in cats. Personally I do not believe, and I did not believe then, that you can cure fits in cats. If I had a cat subject to fits I should advertise it for sale, or even give it away. But our duty was to supply information when asked for. Some fool wrote, clamouring to know; and I spent the best part of a morning seeking knowledge on the subject. I found what I wanted at length at the end of an old cookery book. What it was doing there I have never been able to understand. It had nothing to do with the proper subject of the book whatever; there was no suggestion that you could make anything savoury out of a cat, even when you had cured it of its fits. The authoress had just thrown in this paragraph out of pure generosity. I can only say that I wish she had left it out; it was the cause of a deal of angry correspondence and of the loss of four subscribers to the paper, if not more. The man said the result of following our advice had been two pounds worth of damage to his kitchen crockery, to say nothing of a broken window and probable blood poisoning to himself; added to which the cat's fits were worse than before. And yet it was a simple enough recipe. You held the cat between your legs, gently, so as not to hurt it, and with a pair of scissors made a sharp, clean cut in its tail. You did not cut off any part of the tail; you were to be careful not to do that; you only made an incision. As we explained to the man, the garden or the coal cellar would have been the proper place for the operation; no one but an idiot would have attempted to perform it in a kitchen, and without help. We gave them hints on etiquette. We told them how to address peers and bishops; also how to eat soup. We instructed shy young men how to acquire easy grace in drawing-rooms. We taught dancing to both sexes by the aid of diagrams. We solved their religious doubts for them, and supplied them with a code of morals that would have done credit to a stained-glass window. The paper was not a financial success, it was some years before its time, and the consequence was that our staff was limited. My own apartment, I remember, included "Advice to Mothers"--I wrote that with the assistance of my landlady, who, having divorced one husband and buried four children, was, I considered, a reliable authority on all domestic matters; "Hints on Furnishing and Household Decorations--with Designs" a column of "Literary Counsel to Beginners"--I sincerely hope my guidance was of better service to them than it has ever proved to myself; and our weekly article, "Straight Talks to Young Men," signed "Uncle Henry." A kindly, genial old fellow was "Uncle Henry," with wide and varied experience, and a sympathetic attitude towards the rising generation. He had been through trouble himself in his far back youth, and knew most things. Even to this day I read of "Uncle Henry's" advice, and, though I say it who should not, it still seems to me good, sound advice. I often think that had I followed "Uncle Henry's" counsel closer I would have been wiser, made fewer mistakes, felt better satisfied with myself than is now the case. A quiet, weary little woman, who lived in a bed-sitting room off the Tottenham Court Road, and who had a husband in a lunatic asylum, did our "Cooking Column," "Hints on Education"--we were full of hints,--and a page and a half of "Fashionable Intelligence," written in the pertly personal style which even yet has not altogether disappeared, so I am informed, from modern journalism: "I must tell you about the _divine_ frock I wore at 'Glorious Goodwood' last week. Prince C.--but there, I really must not repeat all the things the silly fellow says; he is _too_ foolish--and the _dear_ Countess, I fancy, was just the _weeish_ bit jealous"--and so on. Poor little woman! I see her now in the shabby grey alpaca, with the inkstains on it. Perhaps a day at "Glorious Goodwood," or anywhere else in the fresh air, might have put some colour into her cheeks. Our proprietor--one of the most unashamedly ignorant men I ever met--I remember his gravely informing a correspondent once that Ben Jonson had written _Rabelais_ to pay for his mother's funeral, and only laughing good-naturedly when his mistakes were pointed out to him--wrote with the aid of a cheap encyclopedia the pages devoted to "General Information," and did them on the whole remarkably well; while our office boy, with an excellent pair of scissors for his assistant, was responsible for our supply of "Wit and Humour." It was hard work, and the pay was poor, what sustained us was the consciousness that we were instructing and improving our fellow men and women. Of all games in the world, the one most universally and eternally popular is the game of school. You collect six children, and put them on a doorstep, while you walk up and down with the book and cane. We play it when babies, we play it when boys and girls, we play it when men and women, we play it as, lean and slippered, we totter towards the grave. It never palls upon, it never wearies us. Only one thing mars it: the tendency of one and all of the other six children to clamour for their turn with the book and the cane. The reason, I am sure, that journalism is so popular a calling, in spite of its many drawbacks, is this: each journalist feels he is the boy walking up and down with the cane. The Government, the Classes, and the Masses, Society, Art, and Literature, are the other children sitting on the doorstep. He instructs and improves them. But I digress. It was to excuse my present permanent disinclination to be the vehicle of useful information that I recalled these matters. Let us now return. Somebody, signing himself "Balloonist," had written to ask concerning the manufacture of hydrogen gas. It is an easy thing to manufacture--at least, so I gathered after reading up the subject at the British Museum; yet I did warn "Balloonist," whoever he might be, to take all necessary precaution against accident. What more could I have done? Ten days afterwards a florid-faced lady called at the office, leading by the hand what, she explained, was her son, aged twelve. The boy's face was unimpressive to a degree positively remarkable. His mother pushed him forward and took off his hat, and then I perceived the reason for this. He had no eyebrows whatever, and of his hair nothing remained but a scrubby dust, giving to his head the appearance of a hard-boiled egg, skinned and sprinkled with black pepper. "That was a handsome lad this time last week, with naturally curly hair," remarked the lady. She spoke with a rising inflection, suggestive of the beginning of things. "What has happened to him?" asked our chief. "This is what's happened to him," retorted the lady. She drew from her muff a copy of our last week's issue, with my article on hydrogen gas scored in pencil, and flung it before his eyes. Our chief took it and read it through. "He was 'Balloonist'?" queried the chief. "He was 'Balloonist,'" admitted the lady, "the poor innocent child, and now look at him!" "Maybe it'll grow again," suggested our chief. "Maybe it will," retorted the lady, her key continuing to rise, "and maybe it won't. What I want to know is what you are going to do for him." Our chief suggested a hair wash. I thought at first she was going to fly at him; but for the moment she confined herself to words. It appears she was not thinking of a hair wash, but of compensation. She also made observations on the general character of our paper, its utility, its claim to public support, the sense and wisdom of its contributors. "I really don't see that it is our fault," urged the chief--he was a mild- mannered man; "he asked for information, and he got it." "Don't you try to be funny about it," said the lady (he had not meant to be funny, I am sure; levity was not his failing) "or you'll get something that _you_ haven't asked for. Why, for two pins," said the lady, with a suddenness that sent us both flying like scuttled chickens behind our respective chairs, "I'd come round and make your head like it!" I take it, she meant like the boy's. She also added observations upon our chief's personal appearance, that were distinctly in bad taste. She was not a nice woman by any means. Myself, I am of opinion that had she brought the action she threatened, she would have had no case; but our chief was a man who had had experience of the law, and his principle was always to avoid it. I have heard him say: "If a man stopped me in the street and demanded of me my watch, I should refuse to give it to him. If he threatened to take it by force, I feel I should, though not a fighting man, do my best to protect it. If, on the other hand, he should assert his intention of trying to obtain it by means of an action in any court of law, I should take it out of my pocket and hand it to him, and think I had got off cheaply." He squared the matter with the florid-faced lady for a five-pound note, which must have represented a month's profits on the paper; and she departed, taking her damaged offspring with her. After she was gone, our chief spoke kindly to me. He said: "Don't think I am blaming you in the least; it is not your fault, it is Fate. Keep to moral advice and criticism--there you are distinctly good; but don't try your hand any more on 'Useful Information.' As I have said, it is not your fault. Your information is correct enough--there is nothing to be said against that; it simply is that you are not lucky with it." I would that I had followed his advice always; I would have saved myself and other people much disaster. I see no reason why it should be, but so it is. If I instruct a man as to the best route between London and Rome, he loses his luggage in Switzerland, or is nearly shipwrecked off Dover. If I counsel him in the purchase of a camera, he gets run in by the German police for photographing fortresses. I once took a deal of trouble to explain to a man how to marry his deceased wife's sister at Stockholm. I found out for him the time the boat left Hull and the best hotels to stop at. There was not a single mistake from beginning to end in the information with which I supplied him; no hitch occurred anywhere; yet now he never speaks to me. Therefore it is that I have come to restrain my passion for the giving of information; therefore it is that nothing in the nature of practical instruction will be found, if I can help it, within these pages. There will be no description of towns, no historical reminiscences, no architecture, no morals. I once asked an intelligent foreigner what he thought of London. He said: "It is a very big town." I said: "What struck you most about it?" He replied: "The people." I said: "Compared with other towns--Paris, Rome, Berlin,--what did you think of it?" He shrugged his shoulders. "It is bigger," he said; "what more can one say?" One anthill is very much like another. So many avenues, wide or narrow, where the little creatures swarm in strange confusion; these bustling by, important; these halting to pow-wow with one another. These struggling with big burdens; those but basking in the sun. So many granaries stored with food; so many cells where the little things sleep, and eat, and love; the corner where lie their little white bones. This hive is larger, the next smaller. This nest lies on the sand, and another under the stones. This was built but yesterday, while that was fashioned ages ago, some say even before the swallows came; who knows? Nor will there be found herein folk-lore or story. Every valley where lie homesteads has its song. I will tell you the plot; you can turn it into verse and set it to music of your own. There lived a lass, and there came a lad, who loved and rode away. It is a monotonous song, written in many languages; for the young man seems to have been a mighty traveller. Here in sentimental Germany they remember him well. So also the dwellers of the Blue Alsatian Mountains remember his coming among them; while, if my memory serves me truly, he likewise visited the Banks of Allan Water. A veritable Wandering Jew is he; for still the foolish girls listen, so they say, to the dying away of his hoof-beats. In this land of many ruins, that long while ago were voice-filled homes, linger many legends; and here again, giving you the essentials, I leave you to cook the dish for yourself. Take a human heart or two, assorted; a bundle of human passions--there are not many of them, half a dozen at the most; season with a mixture of good and evil; flavour the whole with the sauce of death, and serve up where and when you will. "The Saint's Cell," "The Haunted Keep," "The Dungeon Grave," "The Lover's Leap"--call it what you will, the stew's the same. Lastly, in this book there will be no scenery. This is not laziness on my part; it is self-control. Nothing is easier to write than scenery; nothing more difficult and unnecessary to read. When Gibbon had to trust to travellers' tales for a description of the Hellespont, and the Rhine was chiefly familiar to English students through the medium of _Caesar's Commentaries_, it behoved every globe-trotter, for whatever distance, to describe to the best of his ability the things that he had seen. Dr. Johnson, familiar with little else than the view down Fleet Street, could read the description of a Yorkshire moor with pleasure and with profit. To a cockney who had never seen higher ground than the Hog's Back in Surrey, an account of Snowdon must have appeared exciting. But we, or rather the steam-engine and the camera for us, have changed all that. The man who plays tennis every year at the foot of the Matterhorn, and billiards on the summit of the Rigi, does not thank you for an elaborate and painstaking description of the Grampian Hills. To the average man, who has seen a dozen oil paintings, a hundred photographs, a thousand pictures in the illustrated journals, and a couple of panoramas of Niagara, the word-painting of a waterfall is tedious. An American friend of mine, a cultured gentleman, who loved poetry well enough for its own sake, told me that he had obtained a more correct and more satisfying idea of the Lake district from an eighteenpenny book of photographic views than from all the works of Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth put together. I also remember his saying concerning this subject of scenery in literature, that he would thank an author as much for writing an eloquent description of what he had just had for dinner. But this was in reference to another argument; namely, the proper province of each art. My friend maintained that just as canvas and colour were the wrong mediums for story telling, so word-painting was, at its best, but a clumsy method of conveying impressions that could much better be received through the eye. As regards the question, there also lingers in my memory very distinctly a hot school afternoon. The class was for English literature, and the proceedings commenced with the reading of a certain lengthy, but otherwise unobjectionable, poem. The author's name, I am ashamed to say, I have forgotten, together with the title of the poem. The reading finished, we closed our books, and the Professor, a kindly, white-haired old gentleman, suggested our giving in our own words an account of what we had just read. "Tell me," said the Professor, encouragingly, "what it is all about." "Please, sir," said the first boy--he spoke with bowed head and evident reluctance, as though the subject were one which, left to himself, he would never have mentioned,--"it is about a maiden." "Yes," agreed the Professor; "but I want you to tell me in your own words. We do not speak of a maiden, you know; we say a girl. Yes, it is about a girl. Go on." "A girl," repeated the top boy, the substitution apparently increasing his embarrassment, "who lived in a wood." "What sort of a wood?" asked the Professor. The first boy examined his inkpot carefully, and then looked at the ceiling. "Come," urged the Professor, growing impatient, "you have been reading about this wood for the last ten minutes. Surely you can tell me something concerning it." "The gnarly trees, their twisted branches"--recommenced the top boy. "No, no," interrupted the Professor; "I do not want you to repeat the poem. I want you to tell me in your own words what sort of a wood it was where the girl lived." The Professor tapped his foot impatiently; the top boy made a dash for it. "Please, sir, it was the usual sort of a wood." "Tell him what sort of a wood," said he, pointing to the second lad. The second boy said it was a "green wood." This annoyed the Professor still more; he called the second boy a blockhead, though really I cannot see why, and passed on to the third, who, for the last minute, had been sitting apparently on hot plates, with his right arm waving up and down like a distracted semaphore signal. He would have had to say it the next second, whether the Professor had asked him or not; he was red in the face, holding his knowledge in. "A dark and gloomy wood," shouted the third boy, with much relief to his feelings. "A dark and gloomy wood," repeated the Professor, with evident approval. "And why was it dark and gloomy?" The third boy was still equal to the occasion. "Because the sun could not get inside it." The Professor felt he had discovered the poet of the class. "Because the sun could not get into it, or, better, because the sunbeams could not penetrate. And why could not the sunbeams penetrate there?" "Please, sir, because the leaves were too thick." "Very well," said the Professor. "The girl lived in a dark and gloomy wood, through the leafy canopy of which the sunbeams were unable to pierce. Now, what grew in this wood?" He pointed to the fourth boy. "Please, sir, trees, sir." "And what else?" "Toadstools, sir." This after a pause. The Professor was not quite sure about the toadstools, but on referring to the text he found that the boy was right; toadstools had been mentioned. "Quite right," admitted the Professor, "toadstools grew there. And what else? What do you find underneath trees in a wood?" "Please, sir, earth, sir." "No; no; what grows in a wood besides trees?" "Oh, please, sir, bushes, sir." "Bushes; very good. Now we are getting on. In this wood there were trees and bushes. And what else?" He pointed to a small boy near the bottom, who having decided that the wood was too far off to be of any annoyance to him, individually, was occupying his leisure playing noughts and crosses against himself. Vexed and bewildered, but feeling it necessary to add something to the inventory, he hazarded blackberries. This was a mistake; the poet had not mentioned blackberries. "Of course, Klobstock would think of something to eat," commented the Professor, who prided himself on his ready wit. This raised a laugh against Klobstock, and pleased the Professor. "You," continued he, pointing to a boy in the middle; "what else was there in this wood besides trees and bushes?" "Please, sir, there was a torrent there." "Quite right; and what did the torrent do?" "Please, sir, it gurgled." "No; no. Streams gurgle, torrents--?" "Roar, sir." "It roared. And what made it roar?" This was a poser. One boy--he was not our prize intellect, I admit--suggested the girl. To help us the Professor put his question in another form: "When did it roar?" Our third boy, again coming to the rescue, explained that it roared when it fell down among the rocks. I think some of us had a vague idea that it must have been a cowardly torrent to make such a noise about a little thing like this; a pluckier torrent, we felt, would have got up and gone on, saying nothing about it. A torrent that roared every time it fell upon a rock we deemed a poor spirited torrent; but the Professor seemed quite content with it. "And what lived in this wood beside the girl?" was the next question. "Please, sir, birds, sir." "Yes, birds lived in this wood. What else?" Birds seemed to have exhausted our ideas. "Come," said the Professor, "what are those animals with tails, that run up trees?" We thought for a while, then one of us suggested cats. This was an error; the poet had said nothing about cats; squirrels was what the Professor was trying to get. I do not recall much more about this wood in detail. I only recollect that the sky was introduced into it. In places where there occurred an opening among the trees you could by looking up see the sky above you; very often there were clouds in this sky, and occasionally, if I remember rightly, the girl got wet. I have dwelt upon this incident, because it seems to me suggestive of the whole question of scenery in literature. I could not at the time, I cannot now, understand why the top boy's summary was not sufficient. With all due deference to the poet, whoever he may have been, one cannot but acknowledge that his wood was, and could not be otherwise than, "the usual sort of a wood." I could describe the Black Forest to you at great length. I could translate to you Hebel, the poet of the Black Forest. I could write pages concerning its rocky gorges and its smiling valleys, its pine-clad slopes, its rock-crowned summits, its foaming rivulets (where the tidy German has not condemned them to flow respectably through wooden troughs or drainpipes), its white villages, its lonely farmsteads. But I am haunted by the suspicion you might skip all this. Were you sufficiently conscientious--or weak-minded enough--not to do so, I should, all said and done, succeed in conveying to you only an impression much better summed up in the simple words of the unpretentious guide book: "A picturesque, mountainous district, bounded on the south and the west by the plain of the Rhine, towards which its spurs descend precipitately. Its geological formation consists chiefly of variegated sandstone and granite; its lower heights being covered with extensive pine forests. It is well watered with numerous streams, while its populous valleys are fertile and well cultivated. The inns are good; but the local wines should be partaken of by the stranger with discretion." CHAPTER VI Why we went to Hanover--Something they do better abroad--The art of polite foreign conversation, as taught in English schools--A true history, now told for the first time--The French joke, as provided for the amusement of British youth--Fatherly instincts of Harris--The road- waterer, considered as an artist--Patriotism of George--What Harris ought to have done--What he did--We save Harris's life--A sleepless city--The cab-horse as a critic. We arrived in Hamburg on Friday after a smooth and uneventful voyage; and from Hamburg we travelled to Berlin by way of Hanover. It is not the most direct route. I can only account for our visit to Hanover as the nigger accounted to the magistrate for his appearance in the Deacon's poultry-yard. "Well?" "Yes, sar, what the constable sez is quite true, sar; I was dar, sar." "Oh, so you admit it? And what were you doing with a sack, pray, in Deacon Abraham's poultry-yard at twelve o'clock at night?" "I'se gwine ter tell yer, sar; yes, sar. I'd been to Massa Jordan's wid a sack of melons. Yes, sar; an' Massa Jordan he wuz very 'greeable, an' axed me for ter come in." "Yes, sar, very 'greeable man is Massa Jordan. An' dar we sat a talking an' a talking--" "Very likely. What we want to know is what you were doing in the Deacon's poultry-yard?" "Yes, sar, dat's what I'se cumming to. It wuz ver' late 'fore I left Massa Jordan's, an' den I sez ter mysel', sez I, now yer jest step out with yer best leg foremost, Ulysses, case yer gets into trouble wid de ole woman. Ver' talkative woman she is, sar, very--" "Yes, never mind her; there are other people very talkative in this town besides your wife. Deacon Abraham's house is half a mile out of your way home from Mr. Jordan's. How did you get there?" "Dat's what I'm a-gwine ter explain, sar." "I am glad of that. And how do you propose to do it?" "Well, I'se thinkin', sar, I must ha' digressed." I take it we digressed a little. At first, from some reason or other, Hanover strikes you as an uninteresting town, but it grows upon you. It is in reality two towns; a place of broad, modern, handsome streets and tasteful gardens; side by side with a sixteenth-century town, where old timbered houses overhang the narrow lanes; where through low archways one catches glimpses of galleried courtyards, once often thronged, no doubt, with troops of horse, or blocked with lumbering coach and six, waiting its rich merchant owner, and his fat placid Frau, but where now children and chickens scuttle at their will; while over the carved balconies hang dingy clothes a-drying. A singularly English atmosphere hovers over Hanover, especially on Sundays, when its shuttered shops and clanging bells give to it the suggestion of a sunnier London. Nor was this British Sunday atmosphere apparent only to myself, else I might have attributed it to imagination; even George felt it. Harris and I, returning from a short stroll with our cigars after lunch on the Sunday afternoon, found him peacefully slumbering in the smoke-room's easiest chair. "After all," said Harris, "there is something about the British Sunday that appeals to the man with English blood in his veins. I should be sorry to see it altogether done away with, let the new generation say what it will." And taking one each end of the ample settee, we kept George company. To Hanover one should go, they say, to learn the best German. The disadvantage is that outside Hanover, which is only a small province, nobody understands this best German. Thus you have to decide whether to speak good German and remain in Hanover, or bad German and travel about. Germany being separated so many centuries into a dozen principalities, is unfortunate in possessing a variety of dialects. Germans from Posen wishful to converse with men of Wurtemburg, have to talk as often as not in French or English; and young ladies who have received an expensive education in Westphalia surprise and disappoint their parents by being unable to understand a word said to them in Mechlenberg. An English-speaking foreigner, it is true, would find himself equally nonplussed among the Yorkshire wolds, or in the purlieus of Whitechapel; but the cases are not on all fours. Throughout Germany it is not only in the country districts and among the uneducated that dialects are maintained. Every province has practically its own language, of which it is proud and retentive. An educated Bavarian will admit to you that, academically speaking, the North German is more correct; but he will continue to speak South German and to teach it to his children. In the course of the century, I am inclined to think that Germany will solve her difficulty in this respect by speaking English. Every boy and girl in Germany, above the peasant class, speaks English. Were English pronunciation less arbitrary, there is not the slightest doubt but that in the course of a very few years, comparatively speaking, it would become the language of the world. All foreigners agree that, grammatically, it is the easiest language of any to learn. A German, comparing it with his own language, where every word in every sentence is governed by at least four distinct and separate rules, tells you that English has no grammar. A good many English people would seem to have come to the same conclusion; but they are wrong. As a matter of fact, there is an English grammar, and one of these days our schools will recognise the fact, and it will be taught to our children, penetrating maybe even into literary and journalistic circles. But at present we appear to agree with the foreigner that it is a quantity neglectable. English pronunciation is the stumbling-block to our progress. English spelling would seem to have been designed chiefly as a disguise to pronunciation. It is a clever idea, calculated to check presumption on the part of the foreigner; but for that he would learn it in a year. For they have a way of teaching languages in Germany that is not our way, and the consequence is that when the German youth or maiden leaves the gymnasium or high school at fifteen, "it" (as in Germany one conveniently may say) can understand and speak the tongue it has been learning. In England we have a method that for obtaining the least possible result at the greatest possible expenditure of time and money is perhaps unequalled. An English boy who has been through a good middle-class school in England can talk to a Frenchman, slowly and with difficulty, about female gardeners and aunts; conversation which, to a man possessed perhaps of neither, is liable to pall. Possibly, if he be a bright exception, he may be able to tell the time, or make a few guarded observations concerning the weather. No doubt he could repeat a goodly number of irregular verbs by heart; only, as a matter of fact, few foreigners care to listen to their own irregular verbs, recited by young Englishmen. Likewise he might be able to remember a choice selection of grotesquely involved French idioms, such as no modern Frenchman has ever heard or understands when he does hear. The explanation is that, in nine cases out of ten, he has learnt French from an "Ahn's First-Course." The history of this famous work is remarkable and instructive. The book was originally written for a joke, by a witty Frenchman who had resided for some years in England. He intended it as a satire upon the conversational powers of British society. From this point of view it was distinctly good. He submitted it to a London publishing firm. The manager was a shrewd man. He read the book through. Then he sent for the author. "This book of yours," said he to the author, "is very clever. I have laughed over it myself till the tears came." "I am delighted to hear you say so," replied the pleased Frenchman. "I tried to be truthful without being unnecessarily offensive." "It is most amusing," concurred the manager; "and yet published as a harmless joke, I feel it would fail." The author's face fell. "Its humour," proceeded the manager, "would be denounced as forced and extravagant. It would amuse the thoughtful and intelligent, but from a business point of view that portion of the public are never worth considering. But I have an idea," continued the manager. He glanced round the room to be sure they were alone, and leaning forward sunk his voice to a whisper. "My notion is to publish it as a serious work for the use of schools!" The author stared, speechless. "I know the English schoolman," said the manager; "this book will appeal to him. It will exactly fit in with his method. Nothing sillier, nothing more useless for the purpose will he ever discover. He will smack his lips over the book, as a puppy licks up blacking." The author, sacrificing art to greed, consented. They altered the title and added a vocabulary, but left the book otherwise as it was. The result is known to every schoolboy. "Ahn" became the palladium of English philological education. If it no longer retains its ubiquity, it is because something even less adaptable to the object in view has been since invented. Lest, in spite of all, the British schoolboy should obtain, even from the like of "Ahn," some glimmering of French, the British educational method further handicaps him by bestowing upon him the assistance of, what is termed in the prospectus, "A native gentleman." This native French gentleman, who, by-the-by, is generally a Belgian, is no doubt a most worthy person, and can, it is true, understand and speak his own language with tolerable fluency. There his qualifications cease. Invariably he is a man with a quite remarkable inability to teach anybody anything. Indeed, he would seem to be chosen not so much as an instructor as an amuser of youth. He is always a comic figure. No Frenchman of a dignified appearance would be engaged for any English school. If he possess by nature a few harmless peculiarities, calculated to cause merriment, so much the more is he esteemed by his employers. The class naturally regards him as an animated joke. The two to four hours a week that are deliberately wasted on this ancient farce, are looked forward to by the boys as a merry interlude in an otherwise monotonous existence. And then, when the proud parent takes his son and heir to Dieppe merely to discover that the lad does not know enough to call a cab, he abuses not the system, but its innocent victim. I confine my remarks to French, because that is the only language we attempt to teach our youth. An English boy who could speak German would be looked down upon as unpatriotic. Why we waste time in teaching even French according to this method I have never been able to understand. A perfect unacquaintance with a language is respectable. But putting aside comic journalists and lady novelists, for whom it is a business necessity, this smattering of French which we are so proud to possess only serves to render us ridiculous. In the German school the method is somewhat different. One hour every day is devoted to the same language. The idea is not to give the lad time between each lesson to forget what he learned at the last; the idea is for him to get on. There is no comic foreigner provided for his amusement. The desired language is taught by a German school-master who knows it inside and out as thoroughly as he knows his own. Maybe this system does not provide the German youth with that perfection of foreign accent for which the British tourist is in every land remarkable, but it has other advantages. The boy does not call his master "froggy," or "sausage," nor prepare for the French or English hour any exhibition of homely wit whatever. He just sits there, and for his own sake tries to learn that foreign tongue with as little trouble to everybody concerned as possible. When he has left school he can talk, not about penknives and gardeners and aunts merely, but about European politics, history, Shakespeare, or the musical glasses, according to the turn the conversation may take. Viewing the German people from an Anglo-Saxon standpoint, it may be that in this book I shall find occasion to criticise them: but on the other hand there is much that we might learn from them; and in the matter of common sense, as applied to education, they can give us ninety-nine in a hundred and beat us with one hand. The beautiful wood of the Eilenriede bounds Hanover on the south and west, and here occurred a sad drama in which Harris took a prominent part. We were riding our machines through this wood on the Monday afternoon in the company of many other cyclists, for it is a favourite resort with the Hanoverians on a sunny afternoon, and its shady pathways are then filled with happy, thoughtless folk. Among them rode a young and beautiful girl on a machine that was new. She was evidently a novice on the bicycle. One felt instinctively that there would come a moment when she would require help, and Harris, with his accustomed chivalry, suggested we should keep near her. Harris, as he occasionally explains to George and to myself, has daughters of his own, or, to speak more correctly, a daughter, who as the years progress will no doubt cease practising catherine wheels in the front garden, and will grow up into a beautiful and respectable young lady. This naturally gives Harris an interest in all beautiful girls up to the age of thirty-five or thereabouts; they remind him, so he says, of home. We had ridden for about two miles, when we noticed, a little ahead of us in a space where five ways met, a man with a hose, watering the roads. The pipe, supported at each joint by a pair of tiny wheels, writhed after him as he moved, suggesting a gigantic-worm, from whose open neck, as the man, gripping it firmly in both hands, pointing it now this way, and now that, now elevating it, now depressing it, poured a strong stream of water at the rate of about a gallon a second. "What a much better method than ours," observed Harris, enthusiastically. Harris is inclined to be chronically severe on all British institutions. "How much simpler, quicker, and more economical! You see, one man by this method can in five minutes water a stretch of road that would take us with our clumsy lumbering cart half an hour to cover." George, who was riding behind me on the tandem, said, "Yes, and it is also a method by which with a little carelessness a man could cover a good many people in a good deal less time than they could get out of the way." George, the opposite to Harris, is British to the core. I remember George quite patriotically indignant with Harris once for suggesting the introduction of the guillotine into England. "It is so much neater," said Harris. "I don't care if it is," said George; "I'm an Englishman; hanging is good enough for me." "Our water-cart may have its disadvantages," continued George, "but it can only make you uncomfortable about the legs, and you can avoid it. This is the sort of machine with which a man can follow you round the corner and upstairs." "It fascinates me to watch them," said Harris. "They are so skilful. I have seen a man from the corner of a crowded square in Strassburg cover every inch of ground, and not so much as wet an apron string. It is marvellous how they judge their distance. They will send the water up to your toes, and then bring it over your head so that it falls around your heels. They can--" "Ease up a minute," said George. I said: "Why?" He said: "I am going to get off and watch the rest of this show from behind a tree. There may be great performers in this line, as Harris says; this particular artist appears to me to lack something. He has just soused a dog, and now he's busy watering a sign-post. I am going to wait till he has finished." "Nonsense," said Harris; "he won't wet you." "That is precisely what I am going to make sure of," answered George, saying which he jumped off, and, taking up a position behind a remarkably fine elm, pulled out and commenced filling his pipe. I did not care to take the tandem on by myself, so I stepped off and joined him, leaving the machine against a tree. Harris shouted something or other about our being a disgrace to the land that gave us birth, and rode on. The next moment I heard a woman's cry of distress. Glancing round the stem of the tree, I perceived that it proceeded from the young and elegant lady before mentioned, whom, in our interest concerning the road- waterer, we had forgotten. She was riding her machine steadily and straightly through a drenching shower of water from the hose. She appeared to be too paralysed either to get off or turn her wheel aside. Every instant she was becoming wetter, while the man with the hose, who was either drunk or blind, continued to pour water upon her with utter indifference. A dozen voices yelled imprecations upon him, but he took no heed whatever. Harris, his fatherly nature stirred to its depths, did at this point what, under the circumstances, was quite the right and proper thing to do. Had he acted throughout with the same coolness and judgment he then displayed, he would have emerged from that incident the hero of the hour, instead of, as happened, riding away followed by insult and threat. Without a moment's hesitation he spurted at the man, sprang to the ground, and, seizing the hose by the nozzle, attempted to wrest it away. What he ought to have done, what any man retaining his common sense would have done the moment he got his hands upon the thing, was to turn off the tap. Then he might have played foot-ball with the man, or battledore and shuttlecock as he pleased; and the twenty or thirty people who had rushed forward to assist would have only applauded. His idea, however, as he explained to us afterwards, was to take away the hose from the man, and, for punishment, turn it upon the fool himself. The waterman's idea appeared to be the same, namely, to retain the hose as a weapon with which to soak Harris. Of course, the result was that, between them, they soused every dead and living thing within fifty yards, except themselves. One furious man, too drenched to care what more happened to him, leapt into the arena and also took a hand. The three among them proceeded to sweep the compass with that hose. They pointed it to heaven, and the water descended upon the people in the form of an equinoctial storm. They pointed it downwards, and sent the water in rushing streams that took people off their feet, or caught them about the waist line, and doubled them up. Not one of them would loosen his grip upon the hose, not one of them thought to turn the water off. You might have concluded they were struggling with some primeval force of nature. In forty-five seconds, so George said, who was timing it, they had swept that circus bare of every living thing except one dog, who, dripping like a water nymph, rolled over by the force of water, now on this side, now on that, still gallantly staggered again and again to its feet to bark defiance at what it evidently regarded as the powers of hell let loose. Men and women left their machines upon the ground, and flew into the woods. From behind every tree of importance peeped out wet, angry heads. At last, there arrived upon the scene one man of sense. Braving all things, he crept to the hydrant, where still stood the iron key, and screwed it down. And then from forty trees began to creep more or less soaked human beings, each one with something to say. At first I fell to wondering whether a stretcher or a clothes basket would be the more useful for the conveyance of Harris's remains back to the hotel. I consider that George's promptness on that occasion saved Harris's life. Being dry, and therefore able to run quicker, he was there before the crowd. Harris was for explaining things, but George cut him short. "You get on that," said George, handing him his bicycle, "and go. They don't know we belong to you, and you may trust us implicitly not to reveal the secret. We'll hang about behind, and get in their way. Ride zig-zag in case they shoot." I wish this book to be a strict record of fact, unmarred by exaggeration, and therefore I have shown my description of this incident to Harris, lest anything beyond bald narrative may have crept into it. Harris maintains it is exaggerated, but admits that one or two people may have been "sprinkled." I have offered to turn a street hose on him at a distance of five-and-twenty yards, and take his opinion afterwards, as to whether "sprinkled" is the adequate term, but he has declined the test. Again, he insists there could not have been more than half a dozen people, at the outside, involved in the catastrophe, that forty is a ridiculous misstatement. I have offered to return with him to Hanover and make strict inquiry into the matter, and this offer he has likewise declined. Under these circumstances, I maintain that mine is a true and restrained narrative of an event that is, by a certain number of Hanoverians, remembered with bitterness unto this very day. We left Hanover that same evening, and arrived at Berlin in time for supper and an evening stroll. Berlin is a disappointing town; its centre over-crowded, its outlying parts lifeless; its one famous street, Unter den Linden, an attempt to combine Oxford Street with the Champs Elysee, singularly unimposing, being much too wide for its size; its theatres dainty and charming, where acting is considered of more importance than scenery or dress, where long runs are unknown, successful pieces being played again and again, but never consecutively, so that for a week running you may go to the same Berlin theatre, and see a fresh play every night; its opera house unworthy of it; its two music halls, with an unnecessary suggestion of vulgarity and commonness about them, ill-arranged and much too large for comfort. In the Berlin cafes and restaurants, the busy time is from midnight on till three. Yet most of the people who frequent them are up again at seven. Either the Berliner has solved the great problem of modern life, how to do without sleep, or, with Carlyle, he must be looking forward to eternity. Personally, I know of no other town where such late hours are the vogue, except St. Petersburg. But your St. Petersburger does not get up early in the morning. At St. Petersburg, the music halls, which it is the fashionable thing to attend _after_ the theatre--a drive to them taking half an hour in a swift sleigh--do not practically begin till twelve. Through the Neva at four o'clock in the morning you have to literally push your way; and the favourite trains for travellers are those starting about five o'clock in the morning. These trains save the Russian the trouble of getting up early. He wishes his friends "Good-night," and drives down to the station comfortably after supper, without putting the house to any inconvenience. Potsdam, the Versailles to Berlin, is a beautiful little town, situate among lakes and woods. Here in the shady ways of its quiet, far-stretching park of Sans Souci, it is easy to imagine lean, snuffy Frederick "bummeling" with shrill Voltaire. Acting on my advice, George and Harris consented not to stay long in Berlin; but to push on to Dresden. Most that Berlin has to show can be seen better elsewhere, and we decided to be content with a drive through the town. The hotel porter introduced us to a droschke driver, under whose guidance, so he assured us, we should see everything worth seeing in the shortest possible time. The man himself, who called for us at nine o'clock in the morning, was all that could be desired. He was bright, intelligent, and well-informed; his German was easy to understand, and he knew a little English with which to eke it out on occasion. With the man himself there was no fault to be found, but his horse was the most unsympathetic brute I have ever sat behind. He took a dislike to us the moment he saw us. I was the first to come out of the hotel. He turned his head, and looked me up and down with a cold, glassy eye; and then he looked across at another horse, a friend of his that was standing facing him. I knew what he said. He had an expressive head, and he made no attempt to disguise his thought. He said: "Funny things one does come across in the summer time, don't one?" George followed me out the next moment, and stood behind me. The horse again turned his head and looked. I have never known a horse that could twist himself as this horse did. I have seen a camelopard do trick's with his neck that compelled one's attention, but this animal was more like the thing one dreams of after a dusty days at Ascot, followed by a dinner with six old chums. If I had seen his eyes looking at me from between his own hind legs, I doubt if I should have been surprised. He seemed more amused with George if anything, than with myself. He turned to his friend again. "Extraordinary, isn't it?" he remarked; "I suppose there must be some place where they grow them"; and then he commenced licking flies off his own left shoulder. I began to wonder whether he had lost his mother when young, and had been brought up by a cat. George and I climbed in, and sat waiting for Harris. He came a moment later. Myself, I thought he looked rather neat. He wore a white flannel knickerbocker suit, which he had had made specially for bicycling in hot weather; his hat may have been a trifle out of the common, but it did keep the sun off. The horse gave one look at him, said "Gott in Himmel!" as plainly as ever horse spoke, and started off down Friedrich Strasse at a brisk walk, leaving Harris and the driver standing on the pavement. His owner called to him to stop, but he took no notice. They ran after us, and overtook us at the corner of the Dorotheen Strasse. I could not catch what the man said to the horse, he spoke quickly and excitedly; but I gathered a few phrases, such as: "Got to earn my living somehow, haven't I? Who asked for your opinion? Aye, little you care so long as you can guzzle." The horse cut the conversation short by turning up the Dorotheen Strasse on his own account. I think what he said was: "Come on then; don't talk so much. Let's get the job over, and, where possible, let's keep to the back streets." Opposite the Brandenburger Thor our driver hitched the reins to the whip, climbed down, and came round to explain things to us. He pointed out the Thiergarten, and then descanted to us of the Reichstag House. He informed us of its exact height, length, and breadth, after the manner of guides. Then he turned his attention to the Gate. He said it was constructed of sandstone, in imitation of the "Properleer" in Athens. At this point the horse, which had been occupying its leisure licking its own legs, turned round its head. It did not say anything, it just looked. The man began again nervously. This time he said it was an imitation of the "Propeyedliar." Here the horse proceeded up the Linden, and nothing would persuade him not to proceed up the Linden. His owner expostulated with him, but he continued to trot on. From the way he hitched his shoulders as he moved, I somehow felt he was saying: "They've seen the Gate, haven't they? Very well, that's enough. As for the rest, you don't know what you are talking about, and they wouldn't understand you if you did. You talk German." It was the same throughout the length of the Linden. The horse consented to stand still sufficiently long to enable us to have a good look at each sight, and to hear the name of it. All explanation and description he cut short by the simple process of moving on. "What these fellows want," he seemed to say to himself, "is to go home and tell people they have seen these things. If I am doing them an injustice, if they are more intelligent than they look, they can get better information than this old fool of mine is giving them from the guide book. Who wants to know how high a steeple is? You don't remember it the next five minutes when you are told, and if you do it is because you have got nothing else in your head. He just tires me with his talk. Why doesn't he hurry up, and let us all get home to lunch?" Upon reflection, I am not sure that wall-eyed old brute had not sense on its side. Anyhow, I know there have been occasions, with a guide, when I would have been glad of its interference. But one is apt to "sin one's mercies," as the Scotch say, and at the time we cursed that horse instead of blessing it. CHAPTER VII George wonders--German love of order--"The Band of the Schwarzwald Blackbirds will perform at seven"--The china dog--Its superiority over all other dogs--The German and the solar system--A tidy country--The mountain valley as it ought to be, according to the German idea--How the waters come down in Germany--The scandal of Dresden--Harris gives an entertainment--It is unappreciated--George and the aunt of him--George, a cushion, and three damsels. At a point between Berlin and Dresden, George, who had, for the last quarter of an hour or so, been looking very attentively out of the window, said: "Why, in Germany, is it the custom to put the letter-box up a tree? Why do they not fix it to the front door as we do? I should hate having to climb up a tree to get my letters. Besides, it is not fair to the postman. In addition to being most exhausting, the delivery of letters must to a heavy man, on windy nights, be positively dangerous work. If they will fix it to a tree, why not fix it lower down, why always among the topmost branches? But, maybe, I am misjudging the country," he continued, a new idea occurring to him. "Possibly the Germans, who are in many matters ahead of us, have perfected a pigeon post. Even so, I cannot help thinking they would have been wiser to train the birds, while they were about it, to deliver the letters nearer the ground. Getting your letters out of those boxes must be tricky work even to the average middle-aged German." I followed his gaze out of window. I said: "Those are not letter-boxes, they are birds' nests. You must understand this nation. The German loves birds, but he likes tidy birds. A bird left to himself builds his nest just anywhere. It is not a pretty object, according to the German notion of prettiness. There is not a bit of paint on it anywhere, not a plaster image all round, not even a flag. The nest finished, the bird proceeds to live outside it. He drops things on the grass; twigs, ends of worms, all sorts of things. He is indelicate. He makes love, quarrels with his wife, and feeds the children quite in public. The German householder is shocked. He says to the bird: "'For many things I like you. I like to look at you. I like to hear you sing. But I don't like your ways. Take this little box, and put your rubbish inside where I can't see it. Come out when you want to sing; but let your domestic arrangements be confined to the interior. Keep to the box, and don't make the garden untidy.'" In Germany one breathes in love of order with the air, in Germany the babies beat time with their rattles, and the German bird has come to prefer the box, and to regard with contempt the few uncivilised outcasts who continue to build their nests in trees and hedges. In course of time every German bird, one is confident, will have his proper place in a full chorus. This promiscuous and desultory warbling of his must, one feels, be irritating to the precise German mind; there is no method in it. The music-loving German will organise him. Some stout bird with a specially well-developed crop will be trained to conduct him, and, instead of wasting himself in a wood at four o'clock in the morning, he will, at the advertised time, sing in a beer garden, accompanied by a piano. Things are drifting that way. Your German likes nature, but his idea of nature is a glorified Welsh Harp. He takes great interest in his garden. He plants seven rose trees on the north side and seven on the south, and if they do not grow up all the same size and shape it worries him so that he cannot sleep of nights. Every flower he ties to a stick. This interferes with his view of the flower, but he has the satisfaction of knowing it is there, and that it is behaving itself. The lake is lined with zinc, and once a week he takes it up, carries it into the kitchen, and scours it. In the geometrical centre of the grass plot, which is sometimes as large as a tablecloth and is generally railed round, he places a china dog. The Germans are very fond of dogs, but as a rule they prefer them of china. The china dog never digs holes in the lawn to bury bones, and never scatters a flower-bed to the winds with his hind legs. From the German point of view, he is the ideal dog. He stops where you put him, and he is never where you do not want him. You can have him perfect in all points, according to the latest requirements of the Kennel Club; or you can indulge your own fancy and have something unique. You are not, as with other dogs, limited to breed. In china, you can have a blue dog or a pink dog. For a little extra, you can have a double-headed dog. On a certain fixed date in the autumn the German stakes his flowers and bushes to the earth, and covers them with Chinese matting; and on a certain fixed date in the spring he uncovers them, and stands them up again. If it happens to be an exceptionally fine autumn, or an exceptionally late spring, so much the worse for the unfortunate vegetable. No true German would allow his arrangements to be interfered with by so unruly a thing as the solar system. Unable to regulate the weather, he ignores it. Among trees, your German's favourite is the poplar. Other disorderly nations may sing the charms of the rugged oak, the spreading chestnut, or the waving elm. To the German all such, with their wilful, untidy ways, are eyesores. The poplar grows where it is planted, and how it is planted. It has no improper rugged ideas of its own. It does not want to wave or to spread itself. It just grows straight and upright as a German tree should grow; and so gradually the German is rooting out all other trees, and replacing them with poplars. Your German likes the country, but he prefers it as the lady thought she would the noble savage--more dressed. He likes his walk through the wood--to a restaurant. But the pathway must not be too steep, it must have a brick gutter running down one side of it to drain it, and every twenty yards or so it must have its seat on which he can rest and mop his brow; for your German would no more think of sitting on the grass than would an English bishop dream of rolling down One Tree Hill. He likes his view from the summit of the hill, but he likes to find there a stone tablet telling him what to look at, find a table and bench at which he can sit to partake of the frugal beer and "belegte Semmel" he has been careful to bring with him. If, in addition, he can find a police notice posted on a tree, forbidding him to do something or other, that gives him an extra sense of comfort and security. Your German is not averse even to wild scenery, provided it be not too wild. But if he consider it too savage, he sets to work to tame it. I remember, in the neighbourhood of Dresden, discovering a picturesque and narrow valley leading down towards the Elbe. The winding roadway ran beside a mountain torrent, which for a mile or so fretted and foamed over rocks and boulders between wood-covered banks. I followed it enchanted until, turning a corner, I suddenly came across a gang of eighty or a hundred workmen. They were busy tidying up that valley, and making that stream respectable. All the stones that were impeding the course of the water they were carefully picking out and carting away. The bank on either side they were bricking up and cementing. The overhanging trees and bushes, the tangled vines and creepers they were rooting up and trimming down. A little further I came upon the finished work--the mountain valley as it ought to be, according to German ideas. The water, now a broad, sluggish stream, flowed over a level, gravelly bed, between two walls crowned with stone coping. At every hundred yards it gently descended down three shallow wooden platforms. For a space on either side the ground had been cleared, and at regular intervals young poplars planted. Each sapling was protected by a shield of wickerwork and bossed by an iron rod. In the course of a couple of years it is the hope of the local council to have "finished" that valley throughout its entire length, and made it fit for a tidy-minded lover of German nature to walk in. There will be a seat every fifty yards, a police notice every hundred, and a restaurant every half-mile. They are doing the same from the Memel to the Rhine. They are just tidying up the country. I remember well the Wehrthal. It was once the most romantic ravine to be found in the Black Forest. The last time I walked down it some hundreds of Italian workmen were encamped there hard at work, training the wild little Wehr the way it should go, bricking the banks for it here, blasting the rocks for it there, making cement steps for it down which it can travel soberly and without fuss. For in Germany there is no nonsense talked about untrammelled nature. In Germany nature has got to behave herself, and not set a bad example to the children. A German poet, noticing waters coming down as Southey describes, somewhat inexactly, the waters coming down at Lodore, would be too shocked to stop and write alliterative verse about them. He would hurry away, and at once report them to the police. Then their foaming and their shrieking would be of short duration. "Now then, now then, what's all this about?" the voice of German authority would say severely to the waters. "We can't have this sort of thing, you know. Come down quietly, can't you? Where do you think you are?" And the local German council would provide those waters with zinc pipes and wooden troughs, and a corkscrew staircase, and show them how to come down sensibly, in the German manner. It is a tidy land is Germany. We reached Dresden on the Wednesday evening, and stayed there over the Sunday. Taking one consideration with another, Dresden, perhaps, is the most attractive town in Germany; but it is a place to be lived in for a while rather than visited. Its museums and galleries, its palaces and gardens, its beautiful and historically rich environment, provide pleasure for a winter, but bewilder for a week. It has not the gaiety of Paris or Vienna, which quickly palls; its charms are more solidly German, and more lasting. It is the Mecca of the musician. For five shillings, in Dresden, you can purchase a stall at the opera house, together, unfortunately, with a strong disinclination ever again to take the trouble of sitting out a performance in any English, French, or, American opera house. The chief scandal of Dresden still centres round August the Strong, "the Man of Sin," as Carlyle always called him, who is popularly reputed to have cursed Europe with over a thousand children. Castles where he imprisoned this discarded mistress or that--one of them, who persisted in her claim to a better title, for forty years, it is said, poor lady! The narrow rooms where she ate her heart out and died are still shown. Chateaux, shameful for this deed of infamy or that, lie scattered round the neighbourhood like bones about a battlefield; and most of your guide's stories are such as the "young person" educated in Germany had best not hear. His life-sized portrait hangs in the fine Zwinger, which he built as an arena for his wild beast fights when the people grew tired of them in the market-place; a beetle-browed, frankly animal man, but with the culture and taste that so often wait upon animalism. Modern Dresden undoubtedly owes much to him. But what the stranger in Dresden stares at most is, perhaps, its electric trams. These huge vehicles flash through the streets at from ten to twenty miles an hour, taking curves and corners after the manner of an Irish car driver. Everybody travels by them, excepting only officers in uniform, who must not. Ladies in evening dress, going to ball or opera, porters with their baskets, sit side by side. They are all-important in the streets, and everything and everybody makes haste to get out of their way. If you do not get out of their way, and you still happen to be alive when picked up, then on your recovery you are fined for having been in their way. This teaches you to be wary of them. One afternoon Harris took a "bummel" by himself. In the evening, as we sat listening to the band at the Belvedere, Harris said, _a propos_ of nothing in particular, "These Germans have no sense of humour." "What makes you think that?" I asked. "Why, this afternoon," he answered, "I jumped on one of those electric tramcars. I wanted to see the town, so I stood outside on the little platform--what do you call it?" "The Stehplatz," I suggested. "That's it," said Harris. "Well, you know the way they shake you about, and how you have to look out for the corners, and mind yourself when they stop and when they start?" I nodded. "There were about half a dozen of us standing there," he continued, "and, of course, I am not experienced. The thing started suddenly, and that jerked me backwards. I fell against a stout gentleman, just behind me. He could not have been standing very firmly himself, and he, in his turn, fell back against a boy who was carrying a trumpet in a green baize case. They never smiled, neither the man nor the boy with the trumpet; they just stood there and looked sulky. I was going to say I was sorry, but before I could get the words out the tram eased up, for some reason or other, and that, of course, shot me forward again, and I butted into a white-haired old chap, who looked to me like a professor. Well, _he_ never smiled, never moved a muscle." "Maybe, he was thinking of something else," I suggested. "That could not have been the case with them all," replied Harris, "and in the course of that journey, I must have fallen against every one of them at least three times. You see," explained Harris, "they knew when the corners were coming, and in which direction to brace themselves. I, as a stranger, was naturally at a disadvantage. The way I rolled and staggered about that platform, clutching wildly now at this man and now at that, must have been really comic. I don't say it was high-class humour, but it would have amused most people. Those Germans seemed to see no fun in it whatever--just seemed anxious, that was all. There was one man, a little man, who stood with his back against the brake; I fell against him five times, I counted them. You would have expected the fifth time would have dragged a laugh out of him, but it didn't; he merely looked tired. They are a dull lot." George also had an adventure at Dresden. There was a shop near the Altmarkt, in the window of which were exhibited some cushions for sale. The proper business of the shop was handling of glass and china; the cushions appeared to be in the nature of an experiment. They were very beautiful cushions, hand-embroidered on satin. We often passed the shop, and every time George paused and examined those cushions. He said he thought his aunt would like one. George has been very attentive to this aunt of his during the journey. He has written her quite a long letter every day, and from every town we stop at he sends her off a present. To my mind, he is overdoing the business, and more than once I have expostulated with him. His aunt will be meeting other aunts, and talking to them; the whole class will become disorganised and unruly. As a nephew, I object to the impossible standard that George is setting up. But he will not listen. Therefore it was that on the Saturday he left us after lunch, saying he would go round to that shop and get one of those cushions for his aunt. He said he would not be long, and suggested our waiting for him. We waited for what seemed to me rather a long time. When he rejoined us he was empty handed, and looked worried. We asked him where his cushion was. He said he hadn't got a cushion, said he had changed his mind, said he didn't think his aunt would care for a cushion. Evidently something was amiss. We tried to get at the bottom of it, but he was not communicative. Indeed, his answers after our twentieth question or thereabouts became quite short. In the evening, however, when he and I happened to be alone, he broached the subject himself. He said: "They are somewhat peculiar in some things, these Germans." I said: "What has happened?" "Well," he answered, "there was that cushion I wanted." "For your aunt," I remarked. "Why not?" he returned. He was huffy in a moment; I never knew a man so touchy about an aunt. "Why shouldn't I send a cushion to my aunt?" "Don't get excited," I replied. "I am not objecting; I respect you for it." He recovered his temper, and went on: "There were four in the window, if you remember, all very much alike, and each one labelled in plain figures twenty marks. I don't pretend to speak German fluently, but I can generally make myself understood with a little effort, and gather the sense of what is said to me, provided they don't gabble. I went into the shop. A young girl came up to me; she was a pretty, quiet little soul, one might almost say, demure; not at all the sort of girl from whom you would have expected such a thing. I was never more surprised in all my life." "Surprised about what?" I said. George always assumes you know the end of the story while he is telling you the beginning; it is an annoying method. "At what happened," replied George; "at what I am telling you. She smiled and asked me what I wanted. I understood that all right; there could have been no mistake about that. I put down a twenty mark piece on the counter and said: "Please give me a cushion." "She stared at me as if I had asked for a feather bed. I thought, maybe, she had not heard, so I repeated it louder. If I had chucked her under the chin she could not have looked more surprised or indignant. "She said she thought I must be making a mistake. "I did not want to begin a long conversation and find myself stranded. I said there was no mistake. I pointed to my twenty mark piece, and repeated for the third time that I wanted a cushion, 'a twenty mark cushion.' "Another girl came up, an elder girl; and the first girl repeated to her what I had just said: she seemed quite excited about it. The second girl did not believe her--did not think I looked the sort of man who would want a cushion. To make sure, she put the question to me herself. "'Did you say you wanted a cushion?' she asked. "'I have said it three times,' I answered. 'I will say it again--I want a cushion.' "She said: 'Then you can't have one.' "I was getting angry by this time. If I hadn't really wanted the thing I should have walked out of the shop; but there the cushions were in the window, evidently for sale. I didn't see _why_ I couldn't have one. "I said: 'I will have one!' It is a simple sentence. I said it with determination. "A third girl came up at this point, the three representing, I fancy, the whole force of the shop. She was a bright-eyed, saucy-looking little wench, this last one. On any other occasion I might have been pleased to see her; now, her coming only irritated me. I didn't see the need of three girls for this business. "The first two girls started explaining the thing to the third girl, and before they were half-way through the third girl began to giggle--she was the sort of girl who would giggle at anything. That done, they fell to chattering like Jenny Wrens, all three together; and between every half- dozen words they looked across at me; and the more they looked at me the more the third girl giggled; and before they had finished they were all three giggling, the little idiots; you might have thought I was a clown, giving a private performance. "When she was steady enough to move, the third girl came up to me; she was still giggling. She said: "'If you get it, will you go?' "I did not quite understand her at first, and she repeated it. "'This cushion. When you've got it, will you go--away--at once?' "I was only too anxious to go. I told her so. But, I added I was not going without it. I had made up my mind to have that cushion now if I stopped in the shop all night for it. "She rejoined the other two girls. I thought they were going to get me the cushion and have done with the business. Instead of that, the strangest thing possible happened. The two other girls got behind the first girl, all three still giggling, Heaven knows what about, and pushed her towards me. They pushed her close up to me, and then, before I knew what was happening, she put her hands on my shoulders, stood up on tiptoe, and kissed me. After which, burying her face in her apron, she ran off, followed by the second girl. The third girl opened the door for me, and so evidently expected me to go, that in my confusion I went, leaving my twenty marks behind me. I don't say I minded the kiss, though I did not particularly want it, while I did want the cushion. I don't like to go back to the shop. I cannot understand the thing at all." I said: "What did you ask for?" He said: "A cushion" I said: "That is what you wanted, I know. What I mean is, what was the actual German word you said." He replied: "A kuss." I said: "You have nothing to complain of. It is somewhat confusing. A 'kuss' sounds as if it ought to be a cushion, but it is not; it is a kiss, while a 'kissen' is a cushion. You muddled up the two words--people have done it before. I don't know much about this sort of thing myself; but you asked for a twenty mark kiss, and from your description of the girl some people might consider the price reasonable. Anyhow, I should not tell Harris. If I remember rightly, he also has an aunt." George agreed with me it would be better not. CHAPTER VIII Mr. and Miss Jones, of Manchester--The benefits of cocoa--A hint to the Peace Society--The window as a mediaeval argument--The favourite Christian recreation--The language of the guide--How to repair the ravages of time--George tries a bottle--The fate of the German beer drinker--Harris and I resolve to do a good action--The usual sort of statue--Harris and his friends--A pepperless Paradise--Women and towns. We were on our way to Prague, and were waiting in the great hall of the Dresden Station until such time as the powers-that-be should permit us on to the platform. George, who had wandered to the bookstall, returned to us with a wild look in his eyes. He said: "I've seen it." I said, "Seen what?" He was too excited to answer intelligently. He said "It's here. It's coming this way, both of them. If you wait, you'll see it for yourselves. I'm not joking; it's the real thing." As is usual about this period, some paragraphs, more or less serious, had been appearing in the papers concerning the sea-serpent, and I thought for the moment he must be referring to this. A moment's reflection, however, told me that here, in the middle of Europe, three hundred miles from the coast, such a thing was impossible. Before I could question him further, he seized me by the arm. "Look!" he said; "now am I exaggerating?" I turned my head and saw what, I suppose, few living Englishmen have ever seen before--the travelling Britisher according to the Continental idea, accompanied by his daughter. They were coming towards us in the flesh and blood, unless we were dreaming, alive and concrete--the English "Milor" and the English "Mees," as for generations they have been portrayed in the Continental comic press and upon the Continental stage. They were perfect in every detail. The man was tall and thin, with sandy hair, a huge nose, and long Dundreary whiskers. Over a pepper-and-salt suit he wore a light overcoat, reaching almost to his heels. His white helmet was ornamented with a green veil; a pair of opera-glasses hung at his side, and in his lavender-gloved hand he carried an alpenstock a little taller than himself. His daughter was long and angular. Her dress I cannot describe: my grandfather, poor gentleman, might have been able to do so; it would have been more familiar to him. I can only say that it appeared to me unnecessarily short, exhibiting a pair of ankles--if I may be permitted to refer to such points--that, from an artistic point of view, called rather for concealment. Her hat made me think of Mrs. Hemans; but why I cannot explain. She wore side-spring boots--"prunella," I believe, used to be the trade name--mittens, and pince-nez. She also carried an alpenstock (there is not a mountain within a hundred miles of Dresden) and a black bag strapped to her waist. Her teeth stuck out like a rabbit's, and her figure was that of a bolster on stilts. Harris rushed for his camera, and of course could not find it; he never can when he wants it. Whenever we see Harris scuttling up and down like a lost dog, shouting, "Where's my camera? What the dickens have I done with my camera? Don't either of you remember where I put my camera?"--then we know that for the first time that day he has come across something worth photographing. Later on, he remembered it was in his bag; that is where it would be on an occasion like this. They were not content with appearance; they acted the thing to the letter. They walked gaping round them at every step. The gentleman had an open Baedeker in his hand, and the lady carried a phrase book. They talked French that nobody could understand, and German that they could not translate themselves! The man poked at officials with his alpenstock to attract their attention, and the lady, her eye catching sight of an advertisement of somebody's cocoa, said "Shocking!" and turned the other way. Really, there was some excuse for her. One notices, even in England, the home of the proprieties, that the lady who drinks cocoa appears, according to the poster, to require very little else in this world; a yard or so of art muslin at the most. On the Continent she dispenses, so far as one can judge, with every other necessity of life. Not only is cocoa food and drink to her, it should be clothes also, according to the idea of the cocoa manufacturer. But this by the way. Of course, they immediately became the centre of attraction. By being able to render them some slight assistance, I gained the advantage of five minutes' conversation with them. They were very affable. The gentleman told me his name was Jones, and that he came from Manchester, but he did not seem to know what part of Manchester, or where Manchester was. I asked him where he was going to, but he evidently did not know. He said it depended. I asked him if he did not find an alpenstock a clumsy thing to walk about with through a crowded town; he admitted that occasionally it did get in the way. I asked him if he did not find a veil interfere with his view of things; he explained that you only wore it when the flies became troublesome. I enquired of the lady if she did not find the wind blow cold; she said she had noticed it, especially at the corners. I did not ask these questions one after another as I have here put them down; I mixed them up with general conversation, and we parted on good terms. I have pondered much upon the apparition, and have come to a definite opinion. A man I met later at Frankfort, and to whom I described the pair, said he had seen them himself in Paris, three weeks after the termination of the Fashoda incident; while a traveller for some English steel works whom we met in Strassburg remembered having seen them in Berlin during the excitement caused by the Transvaal question. My conclusion is that they were actors out of work, hired to do this thing in the interest of international peace. The French Foreign Office, wishful to allay the anger of the Parisian mob clamouring for war with England, secured this admirable couple and sent them round the town. You cannot be amused at a thing, and at the same time want to kill it. The French nation saw the English citizen and citizeness--no caricature, but the living reality--and their indignation exploded in laughter. The success of the stratagem prompted them later on to offer their services to the German Government, with the beneficial results that we all know. Our own Government might learn the lesson. It might be as well to keep near Downing Street a few small, fat Frenchmen, to be sent round the country when occasion called for it, shrugging their shoulders and eating frog sandwiches; or a file of untidy, lank-haired Germans might be retained, to walk about, smoking long pipes, saying "So." The public would laugh and exclaim, "War with such? It would be too absurd." Failing the Government, I recommend the scheme to the Peace Society. Our visit to Prague we were compelled to lengthen somewhat. Prague is one of the most interesting towns in Europe. Its stones are saturated with history and romance; its every suburb must have been a battlefield. It is the town that conceived the Reformation and hatched the Thirty Years' War. But half Prague's troubles, one imagines, might have been saved to it, had it possessed windows less large and temptingly convenient. The first of these mighty catastrophes it set rolling by throwing the seven Catholic councillors from the windows of its Rathhaus on to the pikes of the Hussites below. Later, it gave the signal for the second by again throwing the Imperial councillors from the windows of the old Burg in the Hradschin--Prague's second "Fenstersturz." Since, other fateful questions have been decide in Prague, one assumes from their having been concluded without violence that such must have been discussed in cellars. The window, as an argument, one feels, would always have proved too strong a temptation to any true-born Praguer. In the Teynkirche stands the worm-eaten pulpit from which preached John Huss. One may hear from the selfsame desk to-day the voice of a Papist priest, while in far-off Constance a rude block of stone, half ivy hidden, marks the spot where Huss and Jerome died burning at the stake. History is fond of her little ironies. In this same Teynkirche lies buried Tycho Brahe, the astronomer, who made the common mistake of thinking the earth, with its eleven hundred creeds and one humanity, the centre of the universe; but who otherwise observed the stars clearly. Through Prague's dirty, palace-bordered alleys must have pressed often in hot haste blind Ziska and open-minded Wallenstein--they have dubbed him "The Hero" in Prague; and the town is honestly proud of having owned him for citizen. In his gloomy palace in the Waldstein-Platz they show as a sacred spot the cabinet where he prayed, and seem to have persuaded themselves he really had a soul. Its steep, winding ways must have been choked a dozen times, now by Sigismund's flying legions, followed by fierce-killing Tarborites, and now by pale Protestants pursued by the victorious Catholics of Maximilian. Now Saxons, now Bavarians, and now French; now the saints of Gustavus Adolphus, and now the steel fighting machines of Frederick the Great, have thundered at its gates and fought upon its bridges. The Jews have always been an important feature of Prague. Occasionally they have assisted the Christians in their favourite occupation of slaughtering one another, and the great flag suspended from the vaulting of the Altneuschule testifies to the courage with which they helped Catholic Ferdinand to resist the Protestant Swedes. The Prague Ghetto was one of the first to be established in Europe, and in the tiny synagogue, still standing, the Jew of Prague has worshipped for eight hundred years, his women folk devoutly listening, without, at the ear holes provided for them in the massive walls. A Jewish cemetery adjacent, "Bethchajim, or the House of Life," seems as though it were bursting with its dead. Within its narrow acre it was the law of centuries that here or nowhere must the bones of Israel rest. So the worn and broken tombstones lie piled in close confusion, as though tossed and tumbled by the struggling host beneath. The Ghetto walls have long been levelled, but the living Jews of Prague still cling to their foetid lanes, though these are being rapidly replaced by fine new streets that promise to eventually transform this quarter into the handsomest part of the town. At Dresden they advised us not to talk German in Prague. For years racial animosity between the German minority and the Czech majority has raged throughout Bohemia, and to be mistaken for a German in certain streets of Prague is inconvenient to a man whose staying powers in a race are not what once they were. However, we did talk German in certain streets in Prague; it was a case of talking German or nothing. The Czech dialect is said to be of great antiquity and of highly scientific cultivation. Its alphabet contains forty-two letters, suggestive to a stranger of Chinese. It is not a language to be picked up in a hurry. We decided that on the whole there would be less risk to our constitution in keeping to German, and as a matter of fact no harm came to us. The explanation I can only surmise. The Praguer is an exceedingly acute person; some subtle falsity of accent, some slight grammatical inaccuracy, may have crept into our German, revealing to him the fact that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, we were no true-born Deutscher. I do not assert this; I put it forward as a possibility. To avoid unnecessary danger, however, we did our sight-seeing with the aid of a guide. No guide I have ever come across is perfect. This one had two distinct failings. His English was decidedly weak. Indeed, it was not English at all. I do not know what you would call it. It was not altogether his fault; he had learnt English from a Scotch lady. I understand Scotch fairly well--to keep abreast of modern English literature this is necessary,--but to understand broad Scotch talked with a Sclavonic accent, occasionally relieved by German modifications, taxes the intelligence. For the first hour it was difficult to rid one's self of the conviction that the man was choking. Every moment we expected him to die on our hands. In the course of the morning we grew accustomed to him, and rid ourselves of the instinct to throw him on his back every time he opened his mouth, and tear his clothes from him. Later, we came to understand a part of what he said, and this led to the discovery of his second failing. It would seem he had lately invented a hair-restorer, which he had persuaded a local chemist to take up and advertise. Half his time he had been pointing out to us, not the beauties of Prague, but the benefits likely to accrue to the human race from the use of this concoction; and the conventional agreement with which, under the impression he was waxing eloquent concerning views and architecture, we had met his enthusiasm he had attributed to sympathetic interest in this wretched wash of his. The result was that now there was no keeping him away from the subject. Ruined palaces and crumbling churches he dismissed with curt reference as mere frivolities, encouraging a morbid taste for the decadent. His duty, as he saw it, was not to lead us to dwell upon the ravages of time, but rather to direct our attention to the means of repairing them. What had we to do with broken-headed heroes, or bald-headed saints? Our interest should be surely in the living world; in the maidens with their flowing tresses, or the flowing tresses they might have, by judicious use of "Kophkeo," in the young men with their fierce moustaches--as pictured on the label. Unconsciously, in his own mind, he had divided the world into two sections. The Past ("Before Use"), a sickly, disagreeable-looking, uninteresting world. The Future ("After Use") a fat, jolly, God-bless- everybody sort of world; and this unfitted him as a guide to scenes of mediaeval history. He sent us each a bottle of the stuff to our hotel. It appeared that in the early part of our converse with him we had, unwittingly, clamoured for it. Personally, I can neither praise it nor condemn it. A long series of disappointments has disheartened me; added to which a permanent atmosphere of paraffin, however faint, is apt to cause remark, especially in the case of a married man. Now, I never try even the sample. I gave my bottle to George. He asked for it to send to a man he knew in Leeds. I learnt later that Harris had given him his bottle also, to send to the same man. A suggestion of onions has clung to this tour since we left Prague. George has noticed it himself. He attributes it to the prevalence of garlic in European cooking. It was in Prague that Harris and I did a kind and friendly thing to George. We had noticed for some time past that George was getting too fond of Pilsener beer. This German beer is an insidious drink, especially in hot weather; but it does not do to imbibe too freely of it. It does not get into your head, but after a time it spoils your waist. I always say to myself on entering Germany: "Now, I will drink no German beer. The white wine of the country, with a little soda-water; perhaps occasionally a glass of Ems or potash. But beer, never--or, at all events, hardly ever." It is a good and useful resolution, which I recommend to all travellers. I only wish I could keep to it myself. George, although I urged him, refused to bind himself by any such hard and fast limit. He said that in moderation German beer was good. "One glass in the morning," said George, "one in the evening, or even two. That will do no harm to anyone." Maybe he was right. It was his half-dozen glasses that troubled Harris and myself. "We ought to do something to stop it," said Harris; "it is becoming serious." "It's hereditary, so he has explained to me," I answered. "It seems his family have always been thirsty." "There is Apollinaris water," replied Harris, "which, I believe, with a little lemon squeezed into it, is practically harmless. What I am thinking about is his figure. He will lose all his natural elegance." We talked the matter over, and, Providence aiding us, we fixed upon a plan. For the ornamentation of the town a new statue had just been cast. I forget of whom it was a statue. I only remember that in the essentials it was the usual sort of street statue, representing the usual sort of gentleman, with the usual stiff neck, riding the usual sort of horse--the horse that always walks on its hind legs, keeping its front paws for beating time. But in detail it possessed individuality. Instead of the usual sword or baton, the man was holding, stretched out in his hand, his own plumed hat; and the horse, instead of the usual waterfall for a tail, possessed a somewhat attenuated appendage that somehow appeared out of keeping with his ostentatious behaviour. One felt that a horse with a tail like that would not have pranced so much. It stood in a small square not far from the further end of the Karlsbrucke, but it stood there only temporarily. Before deciding finally where to fix it, the town authorities had resolved, very sensibly, to judge by practical test where it would look best. Accordingly, they had made three rough copies of the statue--mere wooden profiles, things that would not bear looking at closely, but which, viewed from a little distance, produced all the effect that was necessary. One of these they had set up at the approach to the Franz- Josefsbrucke, a second stood in the open space behind the theatre, and the third in the centre of the Wenzelsplatz. "If George is not in the secret of this thing," said Harris--we were walking by ourselves for an hour, he having remained behind in the hotel to write a letter to his aunt,--"if he has not observed these statues, then by their aid we will make a better and a thinner man of him, and that this very evening." So during dinner we sounded him, judiciously; and finding him ignorant of the matter, we took him out, and led him by side-streets to the place where stood the real statue. George was for looking at it and passing on, as is his way with statues, but we insisted on his pulling up and viewing the thing conscientiously. We walked him round that statue four times, and showed it to him from every possible point of view. I think, on the whole, we rather bored him with the thing, but our object was to impress it upon him. We told him the history of the man who rode upon the horse, the name of the artist who had made the statue, how much it weighed, how much it measured. We worked that statue into his system. By the time we had done with him he knew more about that statue, for the time being, than he knew about anything else. We soaked him in that statue, and only let him go at last on the condition that he would come again with us in the morning, when we could all see it better, and for such purpose we saw to it that he made a note in his pocket-book of the place where the statue stood. Then we accompanied him to his favourite beer hall, and sat beside him, telling him anecdotes of men who, unaccustomed to German beer, and drinking too much of it, had gone mad and developed homicidal mania; of men who had died young through drinking German beer; of lovers that German beer had been the means of parting for ever from beautiful girls. At ten o'clock we started to walk back to the hotel. It was a stormy- looking night, with heavy clouds drifting over a light moon. Harris said: "We won't go back the same way we came; we'll walk back by the river. It is lovely in the moonlight." Harris told a sad history, as we walked, about a man he once knew, who is now in a home for harmless imbeciles. He said he recalled the story because it was on just such another night as this that he was walking with that man the very last time he ever saw the poor fellow. They were strolling down the Thames Embankment, Harris said, and the man frightened him then by persisting that he saw the statue of the Duke of Wellington at the corner of Westminster Bridge, when, as everybody knows, it stands in Piccadilly. It was at this exact instant that we came in sight of the first of these wooden copies. It occupied the centre of a small, railed-in square a little above us on the opposite side of the way. George suddenly stood still and leant against the wall of the quay. "What's the matter?" I said; "feeling giddy?" He said: "I do, a little. Let's rest here a moment." He stood there with his eyes glued to the thing. He said, speaking huskily: "Talking of statues, what always strikes me is how very much one statue is like another statue." Harris said: "I cannot agree with you there--pictures, if you like. Some pictures are very like other pictures, but with a statue there is always something distinctive. Take that statue we saw early in the evening," continued Harris, "before we went into the concert hall. It represented a man sitting on a horse. In Prague you will see other statues of men on horses, but nothing at all like that one." "Yes they are," said George; "they are all alike. It's always the same horse, and it's always the same man. They are all exactly alike. It's idiotic nonsense to say they are not." He appeared to be angry with Harris. "What makes you think so?" I asked. "What makes me think so?" retorted George, now turning upon me. "Why, look at that damned thing over there!" I said: "What damned thing?" "Why, that thing," said George; "look at it! There is the same horse with half a tail, standing on its hind legs; the same man without his hat; the same--" Harris said: "You are talking now about the statue we saw in the Ringplatz." "No, I'm not," replied George; "I'm talking about the statue over there." "What statue?" said Harris. George looked at Harris; but Harris is a man who might, with care, have been a fair amateur actor. His face merely expressed friendly sorrow, mingled with alarm. Next, George turned his gaze on me. I endeavoured, so far as lay with me, to copy Harris's expression, adding to it on my own account a touch of reproof. "Will you have a cab?" I said as kindly as I could to George. "I'll run and get one." "What the devil do I want with a cab?" he answered, ungraciously. "Can't you fellows understand a joke? It's like being out with a couple of confounded old women," saying which, he started off across the bridge, leaving us to follow. "I am so glad that was only a joke of yours," said Harris, on our overtaking him. "I knew a case of softening of the brain that began--" "Oh, you're a silly ass!" said George, cutting him short; "you know everything." He was really most unpleasant in his manner. We took him round by the riverside of the theatre. We told him it was the shortest way, and, as a matter of fact, it was. In the open space behind the theatre stood the second of these wooden apparitions. George looked at it, and again stood still. "What's the matter?" said Harris, kindly. "You are not ill, are you?" "I don't believe this is the shortest way," said George. "I assure you it is," persisted Harris. "Well, I'm going the other," said George; and he turned and went, we, as before, following him. Along the Ferdinand Strasse Harris and I talked about private lunatic asylums, which, Harris said, were not well managed in England. He said a friend of his, a patient in a lunatic asylum-- George said, interrupting: "You appear to have a large number of friends in lunatic asylums." He said it in a most insulting tone, as though to imply that that is where one would look for the majority of Harris's friends. But Harris did not get angry; he merely replied, quite mildly: "Well, it really is extraordinary, when one comes to think of it, how many of them have gone that way sooner or later. I get quite nervous sometimes, now." At the corner of the Wenzelsplatz, Harris, who was a few steps ahead of us, paused. "It's a fine street, isn't it?" he said, sticking his hands in his pockets, and gazing up at it admiringly. George and I followed suit. Two hundred yards away from us, in its very centre, was the third of these ghostly statues. I think it was the best of the three--the most like, the most deceptive. It stood boldly outlined against the wild sky: the horse on its hind legs, with its curiously attenuated tail; the man bareheaded, pointing with his plumed hat to the now entirely visible moon. "I think, if you don't mind," said George--he spoke with almost a pathetic ring in his voice, his aggressiveness had completely fallen from him,--"that I will have that cab, if there's one handy." "I thought you were looking queer," said Harris, kindly. "It's your head, isn't it?" "Perhaps it is," answered George. "I have noticed it coming on," said Harris; "but I didn't like to say anything to you. You fancy you see things, don't you?" "No, no; it isn't that," replied George, rather quickly. "I don't know what it is." "I do," said Harris, solemnly, "and I'll tell you. It's this German beer that you are drinking. I have known a case where a man--" "Don't tell me about him just now," said George. "I dare say it's true, but somehow I don't feel I want to hear about him." "You are not used to it," said Harris. "I shall give it up from to-night," said George. "I think you must be right; it doesn't seem to agree with me." We took him home, and saw him to bed. He was very gentle and quite grateful. One evening later on, after a long day's ride, followed by a most satisfactory dinner, we started him on a big cigar, and, removing things from his reach, told him of this stratagem that for his good we had planned. "How many copies of that statue did you say we saw?" asked George, after we had finished. "Three," replied Harris. "Only three?" said George. "Are you sure?" "Positive," replied Harris. "Why?" "Oh, nothing!" answered George. But I don't think he quite believed Harris. From Prague we travelled to Nuremberg, through Carlsbad. Good Germans, when they die, go, they say, to Carlsbad, as good Americans to Paris. This I doubt, seeing that it is a small place with no convenience for a crowd. In Carlsbad, you rise at five, the fashionable hour for promenade, when the band plays under the Colonnade, and the Sprudel is filled with a packed throng over a mile long, being from six to eight in the morning. Here you may hear more languages spoken than the Tower of Babel could have echoed. Polish Jews and Russian princes, Chinese mandarins and Turkish pashas, Norwegians looking as if they had stepped out of Ibsen's plays, women from the Boulevards, Spanish grandees and English countesses, mountaineers from Montenegro and millionaires from Chicago, you will find every dozen yards. Every luxury in the world Carlsbad provides for its visitors, with the one exception of pepper. That you cannot get within five miles of the town for money; what you can get there for love is not worth taking away. Pepper, to the liver brigade that forms four-fifths of Carlsbad's customers, is poison; and, prevention being better than cure, it is carefully kept out of the neighbourhood. "Pepper parties" are formed in Carlsbad to journey to some place without the boundary, and there indulge in pepper orgies. Nuremberg, if one expects a town of mediaeval appearance, disappoints. Quaint corners, picturesque glimpses, there are in plenty; but everywhere they are surrounded and intruded upon by the modern, and even what is ancient is not nearly so ancient as one thought it was. After all, a town, like a woman, is only as old as it looks; and Nuremberg is still a comfortable-looking dame, its age somewhat difficult to conceive under its fresh paint and stucco in the blaze of the gas and the electric light. Still, looking closely, you may see its wrinkled walls and grey towers. CHAPTER IX Harris breaks the law--The helpful man: The dangers that beset him--George sets forth upon a career of crime--Those to whom Germany would come as a boon and a blessing--The English Sinner: His disappointments--The German Sinner: His exceptional advantages--What you may not do with your bed--An inexpensive vice--The German dog: His simple goodness--The misbehaviour of the beetle--A people that go the way they ought to go--The German small boy: His love of legality--How to go astray with a perambulator--The German student: His chastened wilfulness. All three of us, by some means or another, managed, between Nuremberg and the Black Forest, to get into trouble. Harris led off at Stuttgart by insulting an official. Stuttgart is a charming town, clean and bright, a smaller Dresden. It has the additional attraction of containing little that one need to go out of one's way to see: a medium-sized picture gallery, a small museum of antiquities, and half a palace, and you are through with the entire thing and can enjoy yourself. Harris did not know it was an official he was insulting. He took it for a fireman (it looked like a fireman), and he called it a "dummer Esel." In German you are not permitted to call an official a "silly ass," but undoubtedly this particular man was one. What had happened was this: Harris in the Stadgarten, anxious to get out, and seeing a gate open before him, had stepped over a wire into the street. Harris maintains he never saw it, but undoubtedly there was hanging to the wire a notice, "Durchgang Verboten!" The man, who was standing near the gates stopped Harris, and pointed out to him this notice. Harris thanked him, and passed on. The man came after him, and explained that treatment of the matter in such off-hand way could not be allowed; what was necessary to put the business right was that Harris should step back over the wire into the garden. Harris pointed out to the man that the notice said "going through forbidden," and that, therefore, by re-entering the garden that way he would be infringing the law a second time. The man saw this for himself, and suggested that to get over the difficulty Harris should go back into the garden by the proper entrance, which was round the corner, and afterwards immediately come out again by the same gate. Then it was that Harris called the man a silly ass. That delayed us a day, and cost Harris forty marks. I followed suit at Carlsruhe, by stealing a bicycle. I did not mean to steal the bicycle; I was merely trying to be useful. The train was on the point of starting when I noticed, as I thought, Harris's bicycle still in the goods van. No one was about to help me. I jumped into the van and hauled it out, only just in time. Wheeling it down the platform in triumph, I came across Harris's bicycle, standing against a wall behind some milk-cans. The bicycle I had secured was not Harris's, but some other man's. It was an awkward situation. In England, I should have gone to the stationmaster and explained my mistake. But in Germany they are not content with your explaining a little matter of this sort to one man: they take you round and get you to explain it to about half a dozen; and if any one of the half dozen happens not to be handy, or not to have time just then to listen to you, they have a habit of leaving you over for the night to finish your explanation the next morning. I thought I would just put the thing out of sight, and then, without making any fuss or show, take a short walk. I found a wood shed, which seemed just the very place, and was wheeling the bicycle into it when, unfortunately, a red- hatted railway official, with the airs of a retired field-marshal, caught sight of me and came up. He said: "What are you doing with that bicycle?" I said: "I am going to put it in this wood shed out of the way." I tried to convey by my tone that I was performing a kind and thoughtful action, for which the railway officials ought to thank me; but he was unresponsive. "Is it your bicycle?" he said. "Well, not exactly," I replied. "Whose is it?" he asked, quite sharply. "I can't tell you," I answered. "I don't know whose bicycle it is." "Where did you get it from?" was his next question. There was a suspiciousness about his tone that was almost insulting. "I got it," I answered, with as much calm dignity as at the moment I could assume, "out of the train." "The fact is," I continued, frankly, "I have made a mistake." He did not allow me time to finish. He merely said he thought so too, and blew a whistle. Recollection of the subsequent proceedings is not, so far as I am concerned, amusing. By a miracle of good luck--they say Providence watches over certain of us--the incident happened in Carlsruhe, where I possess a German friend, an official of some importance. Upon what would have been my fate had the station not been at Carlsruhe, or had my friend been from home, I do not care to dwell; as it was I got off, as the saying is, by the skin of my teeth. I should like to add that I left Carlsruhe without a stain upon my character, but that would not be the truth. My going scot free is regarded in police circles there to this day as a grave miscarriage of justice. But all lesser sin sinks into insignificance beside the lawlessness of George. The bicycle incident had thrown us all into confusion, with the result that we lost George altogether. It transpired subsequently that he was waiting for us outside the police court; but this at the time we did not know. We thought, maybe, he had gone on to Baden by himself; and anxious to get away from Carlsruhe, and not, perhaps, thinking out things too clearly, we jumped into the next train that came up and proceeded thither. When George, tired of waiting, returned to the station, he found us gone and he found his luggage gone. Harris had his ticket; I was acting as banker to the party, so that he had in his pocket only some small change. Excusing himself upon these grounds, he thereupon commenced deliberately a career of crime that, reading it later, as set forth baldly in the official summons, made the hair of Harris and myself almost to stand on end. German travelling, it may be explained, is somewhat complicated. You buy a ticket at the station you start from for the place you want to go to. You might think this would enable you to get there, but it does not. When your train comes up, you attempt to swarm into it; but the guard magnificently waves you away. Where are your credentials? You show him your ticket. He explains to you that by itself that is of no service whatever; you have only taken the first step towards travelling; you must go back to the booking-office and get in addition what is called a "schnellzug ticket." With this you return, thinking your troubles over. You are allowed to get in, so far so good. But you must not sit down anywhere, and you must not stand still, and you must not wander about. You must take another ticket, this time what is called a "platz ticket," which entitles you to a place for a certain distance. What a man could do who persisted in taking nothing but the one ticket, I have often wondered. Would he be entitled to run behind the train on the six-foot way? Or could he stick a label on himself and get into the goods van? Again, what could be done with the man who, having taken his schnellzug ticket, obstinately refused, or had not the money to take a platz ticket: would they let him lie in the umbrella rack, or allow him to hang himself out of the window? To return to George, he had just sufficient money to take a third-class slow train ticket to Baden, and that was all. To avoid the inquisitiveness of the guard, he waited till the train was moving, and then jumped in. That was his first sin: (a) Entering a train in motion; (b) After being warned not to do so by an official. Second sin: (a) Travelling in train of superior class to that for which ticket was held. (b) Refusing to pay difference when demanded by an official. (George says he did not "refuse"; he simply told the man he had not got it.) Third sin: (a) Travelling in carriage of superior class to that for which ticket was held. (b) Refusing to pay difference when demanded by an official. (Again George disputes the accuracy of the report. He turned his pockets out, and offered the man all he had, which was about eightpence in German money. He offered to go into a third class, but there was no third class. He offered to go into the goods van, but they would not hear of it.) Fourth sin: (a) Occupying seat, and not paying for same. (b) Loitering about corridor. (As they would not let him sit down without paying, and as he could not pay, it was difficult to see what else he could do.) But explanations are held as no excuse in Germany; and his journey from Carlsruhe to Baden was one of the most expensive perhaps on record. Reflecting upon the case and frequency with which one gets into trouble here in Germany, one is led to the conclusion that this country would come as a boon and a blessing to the average young Englishman. To the medical student, to the eater of dinners at the Temple, to the subaltern on leave, life in London is a wearisome proceeding. The healthy Briton takes his pleasure lawlessly, or it is no pleasure to him. Nothing that he may do affords to him any genuine satisfaction. To be in trouble of some sort is his only idea of bliss. Now, England affords him small opportunity in this respect; to get himself into a scrape requires a good deal of persistence on the part of the young Englishman. I spoke on this subject one day with our senior churchwarden. It was the morning of the 10th of November, and we were both of us glancing, somewhat anxiously, through the police reports. The usual batch of young men had been summoned for creating the usual disturbance the night before at the Criterion. My friend the churchwarden has boys of his own, and a nephew of mine, upon whom I am keeping a fatherly eye, is by a fond mother supposed to be in London for the sole purpose of studying engineering. No names we knew happened, by fortunate chance, to be in the list of those detained in custody, and, relieved, we fell to moralising upon the folly and depravity of youth. "It is very remarkable," said my friend the churchwarden, "how the Criterion retains its position in this respect. It was just so when I was young; the evening always wound up with a row at the Criterion." "So meaningless," I remarked. "So monotonous," he replied. "You have no idea," he continued, a dreamy expression stealing over his furrowed face, "how unutterably tired one can become of the walk from Piccadilly Circus to the Vine Street Police Court. Yet, what else was there for us to do? Simply nothing. Sometimes we would put out a street lamp, and a man would come round and light it again. If one insulted a policeman, he simply took no notice. He did not even know he was being insulted; or, if he did, he seemed not to care. You could fight a Covent Garden porter, if you fancied yourself at that sort of thing. Generally speaking, the porter got the best of it; and when he did it cost you five shillings, and when he did not the price was half a sovereign. I could never see much excitement in that particular sport. I tried driving a hansom cab once. That has always been regarded as the acme of modern Tom and Jerryism. I stole it late one night from outside a public-house in Dean Street, and the first thing that happened to me was that I was hailed in Golden Square by an old lady surrounded by three children, two of them crying and the third one half asleep. Before I could get away she had shot the brats into the cab, taken my number, paid me, so she said, a shilling over the legal fare, and directed me to an address a little beyond what she called North Kensington. As a matter of fact, the place turned out to be the other side of Willesden. The horse was tired, and the journey took us well over two hours. It was the slowest lark I ever remember being concerned in. I tried once or twice to persuade the children to let me take them back to the old lady: but every time I opened the trap-door to speak to them the youngest one, a boy, started screaming; and when I offered other drivers to transfer the job to them, most of them replied in the words of a song popular about that period: 'Oh, George, don't you think you're going just a bit too far?' One man offered to take home to my wife any last message I might be thinking of, while another promised to organise a party to come and dig me out in the spring. When I mounted the dickey I had imagined myself driving a peppery old colonel to some lonesome and cabless region, half a dozen miles from where he wanted to go, and there leaving him upon the kerbstone to swear. About that there might have been good sport or there might not, according to circumstances and the colonel. The idea of a trip to an outlying suburb in charge of a nursery full of helpless infants had never occurred to me. No, London," concluded my friend the churchwarden with a sigh, "affords but limited opportunity to the lover of the illegal." Now, in Germany, on the other hand, trouble is to be had for the asking. There are many things in Germany that you must not do that are quite easy to do. To any young Englishman yearning to get himself into a scrape, and finding himself hampered in his own country, I would advise a single ticket to Germany; a return, lasting as it does only a month, might prove a waste. In the Police Guide of the Fatherland he will find set forth a list of the things the doing of which will bring to him interest and excitement. In Germany you must not hang your bed out of window. He might begin with that. By waving his bed out of window he could get into trouble before he had his breakfast. At home he might hang himself out of window, and nobody would mind much, provided he did not obstruct anybody's ancient lights or break away and injure any passer underneath. In Germany you must not wear fancy dress in the streets. A Highlander of my acquaintance who came to pass the winter in Dresden spent the first few days of his residence there in arguing this question with the Saxon Government. They asked him what he was doing in those clothes. He was not an amiable man. He answered, he was wearing them. They asked him why he was wearing them. He replied, to keep himself warm. They told him frankly that they did not believe him, and sent him back to his lodgings in a closed landau. The personal testimony of the English Minister was necessary to assure the authorities that the Highland garb was the customary dress of many respectable, law-abiding British subjects. They accepted the statement, as diplomatically bound, but retain their private opinion to this day. The English tourist they have grown accustomed to; but a Leicestershire gentleman, invited to hunt with some German officers, on appearing outside his hotel, was promptly marched off, horse and all, to explain his frivolity at the police court. Another thing you must not do in the streets of German towns is to feed horses, mules, or donkeys, whether your own or those belonging to other people. If a passion seizes you to feed somebody else's horse, you must make an appointment with the animal, and the meal must take place in some properly authorised place. You must not break glass or china in the street, nor, in fact, in any public resort whatever; and if you do, you must pick up all the pieces. What you are to do with the pieces when you have gathered them together I cannot say. The only thing I know for certain is that you are not permitted to throw them anywhere, to leave them anywhere, or apparently to part with them in any way whatever. Presumably, you are expected to carry them about with you until you die, and then be buried with them; or, maybe, you are allowed to swallow them. In German streets you must not shoot with a crossbow. The German law- maker does not content himself with the misdeeds of the average man--the crime one feels one wants to do, but must not: he worries himself imagining all the things a wandering maniac might do. In Germany there is no law against a man standing on his head in the middle of the road; the idea has not occurred to them. One of these days a German statesman, visiting a circus and seeing acrobats, will reflect upon this omission. Then he will straightway set to work and frame a clause forbidding people from standing on their heads in the middle of the road, and fixing a fine. This is the charm of German law: misdemeanour in Germany has its fixed price. You are not kept awake all night, as in England, wondering whether you will get off with a caution, be fined forty shillings, or, catching the magistrate in an unhappy moment for yourself, get seven days. You know exactly what your fun is going to cost you. You can spread out your money on the table, open your Police Guide, and plan out your holiday to a fifty pfennig piece. For a really cheap evening, I would recommend walking on the wrong side of the pavement after being cautioned not to do so. I calculate that by choosing your district and keeping to the quiet side streets you could walk for a whole evening on the wrong side of the pavement at a cost of little over three marks. In German towns you must not ramble about after dark "in droves." I am not quite sure how many constitute a "drove," and no official to whom I have spoken on this subject has felt himself competent to fix the exact number. I once put it to a German friend who was starting for the theatre with his wife, his mother-in-law, five children of his own, his sister and her _fiance_, and two nieces, if he did not think he was running a risk under this by-law. He did not take my suggestion as a joke. He cast an eye over the group. "Oh, I don't think so," he said; "you see, we are all one family." "The paragraph says nothing about its being a family drove or not," I replied; "it simply says 'drove.' I do not mean it in any uncomplimentary sense, but, speaking etymologically, I am inclined personally to regard your collection as a 'drove.' Whether the police will take the same view or not remains to be seen. I am merely warning you." My friend himself was inclined to pooh-pooh my fears; but his wife thinking it better not to run any risk of having the party broken up by the police at the very beginning of the evening, they divided, arranging to come together again in the theatre lobby. Another passion you must restrain in Germany is that prompting you to throw things out of window. Cats are no excuse. During the first week of my residence in Germany I was awakened incessantly by cats. One night I got mad. I collected a small arsenal--two or three pieces of coal, a few hard pears, a couple of candle ends, an odd egg I found on the kitchen table, an empty soda-water bottle, and a few articles of that sort,--and, opening the window, bombarded the spot from where the noise appeared to come. I do not suppose I hit anything; I never knew a man who did hit a cat, even when he could see it, except, maybe, by accident when aiming at something else. I have known crack shots, winners of Queen's prizes--those sort of men,--shoot with shot-guns at cats fifty yards away, and never hit a hair. I have often thought that, instead of bull's-eyes, running deer, and that rubbish, the really superior marksman would be he who could boast that he had shot the cat. But, anyhow, they moved off; maybe the egg annoyed them. I had noticed when I picked it up that it did not look a good egg; and I went back to bed again, thinking the incident closed. Ten minutes afterwards there came a violent ringing of the electric bell. I tried to ignore it, but it was too persistent, and, putting on my dressing gown, I went down to the gate. A policeman was standing there. He had all the things I had been throwing out of the window in a little heap in front of him, all except the egg. He had evidently been collecting them. He said: "Are these things yours?" I said: "They were mine, but personally I have done with them. Anybody can have them--you can have them." He ignored my offer. He said: "You threw these things out of window." "You are right," I admitted; "I did." "Why did you throw them out of window?" he asked. A German policeman has his code of questions arranged for him; he never varies them, and he never omits one. "I threw them out of the window at some cats," I answered. "What cats?" he asked. It was the sort of question a German policeman would ask. I replied with as much sarcasm as I could put into my accent that I was ashamed to say I could not tell him what cats. I explained that, personally, they were strangers to me; but I offered, if the police would call all the cats in the district together, to come round and see if I could recognise them by their yaul. The German policeman does not understand a joke, which is perhaps on the whole just as well, for I believe there is a heavy fine for joking with any German uniform; they call it "treating an official with contumely." He merely replied that it was not the duty of the police to help me recognise the cats; their duty was merely to fine me for throwing things out of window. I asked what a man was supposed to do in Germany when woke up night after night by cats, and he explained that I could lodge an information against the owner of the cat, when the police would proceed to caution him, and, if necessary, order the cat to be destroyed. Who was going to destroy the cat, and what the cat would be doing during the process, he did not explain. I asked him how he proposed I should discover the owner of the cat. He thought for a while, and then suggested that I might follow it home. I did not feel inclined to argue with him any more after that; I should only have said things that would have made the matter worse. As it was, that night's sport cost me twelve marks; and not a single one of the four German officials who interviewed me on the subject could see anything ridiculous in the proceedings from beginning to end. But in Germany most human faults and follies sink into comparative insignificance beside the enormity of walking on the grass. Nowhere, and under no circumstances, may you at any time in Germany walk on the grass. Grass in Germany is quite a fetish. To put your foot on German grass would be as great a sacrilege as to dance a hornpipe on a Mohammedan's praying-mat. The very dogs respect German grass; no German dog would dream of putting a paw on it. If you see a dog scampering across the grass in Germany, you may know for certain that it is the dog of some unholy foreigner. In England, when we want to keep dogs out of places, we put up wire netting, six feet high, supported by buttresses, and defended on the top by spikes. In Germany, they put a notice-board in the middle of the place, "Hunden verboten," and a dog that has German blood in its veins looks at that notice-board and walks away. In a German park I have seen a gardener step gingerly with felt boots on to grass-plot, and removing therefrom a beetle, place it gravely but firmly on the gravel; which done, he stood sternly watching the beetle, to see that it did not try to get back on the grass; and the beetle, looking utterly ashamed of itself, walked hurriedly down the gutter, and turned up the path marked "Ausgang." In German parks separate roads are devoted to the different orders of the community, and no one person, at peril of liberty and fortune, may go upon another person's road. There are special paths for "wheel-riders" and special paths for "foot-goers," avenues for "horse-riders," roads for people in light vehicles, and roads for people in heavy vehicles; ways for children and for "alone ladies." That no particular route has yet been set aside for bald-headed men or "new women" has always struck me as an omission. In the Grosse Garten in Dresden I once came across an old lady, standing, helpless and bewildered, in the centre of seven tracks. Each was guarded by a threatening notice, warning everybody off it but the person for whom it was intended. "I am sorry to trouble you," said the old lady, on learning I could speak English and read German, "but would you mind telling me what I am and where I have to go?" I inspected her carefully. I came to the conclusion that she was a "grown-up" and a "foot-goer," and pointed out her path. She looked at it, and seemed disappointed. "But I don't want to go down there," she said; "mayn't I go this way?" "Great heavens, no, madam!" I replied. "That path is reserved for children." "But I wouldn't do them any harm," said the old lady, with a smile. She did not look the sort of old lady who would have done them any harm. "Madam," I replied, "if it rested with me, I would trust you down that path, though my own first-born were at the other end; but I can only inform you of the laws of this country. For you, a full-grown woman, to venture down that path is to go to certain fine, if not imprisonment. There is your path, marked plainly--_Nur fur Fussganger_, and if you will follow my advice, you will hasten down it; you are not allowed to stand here and hesitate." "It doesn't lead a bit in the direction I want to go," said the old lady. "It leads in the direction you _ought_ to want to go," I replied, and we parted. In the German parks there are special seats labelled, "Only for grown- ups" (_Nur fur Erwachsene_), and the German small boy, anxious to sit down, and reading that notice, passes by, and hunts for a seat on which children are permitted to rest; and there he seats himself, careful not to touch the woodwork with his muddy boots. Imagine a seat in Regent's or St. James's Park labelled "Only for grown-ups!" Every child for five miles round would be trying to get on that seat, and hauling other children off who were on. As for any "grown-up," he would never be able to get within half a mile of that seat for the crowd. The German small boy, who has accidentally sat down on such without noticing, rises with a start when his error is pointed out to him, and goes away with down-cast head, brushing to the roots of his hair with shame and regret. Not that the German child is neglected by a paternal Government. In German parks and public gardens special places (_Spielplatze_) are provided for him, each one supplied with a heap of sand. There he can play to his heart's content at making mud pies and building sand castles. To the German child a pie made of any other mud than this would appear an immoral pie. It would give to him no satisfaction: his soul would revolt against it. "That pie," he would say to himself, "was not, as it should have been, made of Government mud specially set apart for the purpose; it was nor manufactured in the place planned and maintained by the Government for the making of mud pies. It can bring no real blessing with it; it is a lawless pie." And until his father had paid the proper fine, and he had received his proper licking, his conscience would continue to trouble him. Another excellent piece of material for obtaining excitement in Germany is the simple domestic perambulator. What you may do with a "kinder-wagen," as it is called, and what you may not, covers pages of German law; after the reading of which, you conclude that the man who can push a perambulator through a German town without breaking the law was meant for a diplomatist. You must not loiter with a perambulator, and you must not go too fast. You must not get in anybody's way with a perambulator, and if anybody gets in your way you must get out of their way. If you want to stop with a perambulator, you must go to a place specially appointed where perambulators may stop; and when you get there you _must_ stop. You must not cross the road with a perambulator; if you and the baby happen to live on the other side, that is your fault. You must not leave your perambulator anywhere, and only in certain places can you take it with you. I should say that in Germany you could go out with a perambulator and get into enough trouble in half an hour to last you for a month. Any young Englishman anxious for a row with the police could not do better than come over to Germany and bring his perambulator with him. In Germany you must not leave your front door unlocked after ten o'clock at night, and you must not play the piano in your own house after eleven. In England I have never felt I wanted to play the piano myself, or to hear anyone else play it, after eleven o'clock at night; but that is a very different thing to being told that you must not play it. Here, in Germany, I never feel that I really care for the piano until eleven o'clock, then I could sit and listen to the "Maiden's Prayer," or the Overture to "Zampa," with pleasure. To the law-loving German, on the other hand, music after eleven o'clock at night ceases to be music; it becomes sin, and as such gives him no satisfaction. The only individual throughout Germany who ever dreams of taking liberties with the law is the German student, and he only to a certain well-defined point. By custom, certain privileges are permitted to him, but even these are strictly limited and clearly understood. For instance, the German student may get drunk and fall asleep in the gutter with no other penalty than that of having the next morning to tip the policeman who has found him and brought him home. But for this purpose he must choose the gutters of side-streets. The German student, conscious of the rapid approach of oblivion, uses all his remaining energy to get round the corner, where he may collapse without anxiety. In certain districts he may ring bells. The rent of flats in these localities is lower than in other quarters of the town; while the difficulty is further met by each family preparing for itself a secret code of bell-ringing by means of which it is known whether the summons is genuine or not. When visiting such a household late at night it is well to be acquainted with this code, or you may, if persistent, get a bucket of water thrown over you. Also the German student is allowed to put out lights at night, but there is a prejudice against his putting out too many. The larky German student generally keeps count, contenting himself with half a dozen lights per night. Likewise, he may shout and sing as he walks home, up till half-past two; and at certain restaurants it is permitted to him to put his arm round the Fraulein's waist. To prevent any suggestion of unseemliness, the waitresses at restaurants frequented by students are always carefully selected from among a staid and elderly classy of women, by reason of which the German student can enjoy the delights of flirtation without fear and without reproach to anyone. They are a law-abiding people, the Germans. CHAPTER X Baden from the visitor's point of view--Beauty of the early morning, as viewed from the preceding afternoon--Distance, as measured by the compass--Ditto, as measured by the leg--George in account with his conscience--A lazy machine--Bicycling, according to the poster: its restfulness--The poster cyclist: its costume; its method--The griffin as a household pet--A dog with proper self-respect--The horse that was abused. From Baden, about which it need only be said that it is a pleasure resort singularly like other pleasure resorts of the same description, we started bicycling in earnest. We planned a ten days' tour, which, while completing the Black Forest, should include a spin down the Donau-Thal, which for the twenty miles from Tuttlingen to Sigmaringen is, perhaps, the finest valley in Germany; the Danube stream here winding its narrow way past old-world unspoilt villages; past ancient monasteries, nestling in green pastures, where still the bare-footed and bare-headed friar, his rope girdle tight about his loins, shepherds, with crook in hand, his sheep upon the hill sides; through rocky woods; between sheer walls of cliff, whose every towering crag stands crowned with ruined fortress, church, or castle; together with a blick at the Vosges mountains, where half the population is bitterly pained if you speak to them in French, the other half being insulted when you address them in German, and the whole indignantly contemptuous at the first sound of English; a state of things that renders conversation with the stranger somewhat nervous work. We did not succeed in carrying out our programme in its entirety, for the reason that human performance lags ever behind human intention. It is easy to say and believe at three o'clock in the afternoon that: "We will rise at five, breakfast lightly at half-past, and start away at six." "Then we shall be well on our way before the heat of the day sets in," remarks one. "This time of the year, the early morning is really the best part of the day. Don't you think so?" adds another. "Oh, undoubtedly." "So cool and fresh." "And the half-lights are so exquisite." The first morning one maintains one's vows. The party assembles at half- past five. It is very silent; individually, somewhat snappy; inclined to grumble with its food, also with most other things; the atmosphere charged with compressed irritability seeking its vent. In the evening the Tempter's voice is heard: "I think if we got off by half-past six, sharp, that would be time enough?" The voice of Virtue protests, faintly: "It will be breaking our resolution." The Tempter replies: "Resolutions were made for man, not man for resolutions." The devil can paraphrase Scripture for his own purpose. "Besides, it is disturbing the whole hotel; think of the poor servants." The voice of Virtue continues, but even feebler: "But everybody gets up early in these parts." "They would not if they were not obliged to, poor things! Say breakfast at half-past six, punctual; that will be disturbing nobody." Thus Sin masquerades under the guise of Good, and one sleeps till six, explaining to one's conscience, who, however, doesn't believe it, that one does this because of unselfish consideration for others. I have known such consideration extend until seven of the clock. Likewise, distance measured with a pair of compasses is not precisely the same as when measured by the leg. "Ten miles an hour for seven hours, seventy miles. A nice easy day's work." "There are some stiff hills to climb?" "The other side to come down. Say, eight miles an hour, and call it sixty miles. Gott in Himmel! if we can't average eight miles an hour, we had better go in bath-chairs." It does seem somewhat impossible to do less, on paper. But at four o'clock in the afternoon the voice of Duty rings less trumpet- toned: "Well, I suppose we ought to be getting on." "Oh, there's no hurry! don't fuss. Lovely view from here, isn't it?" "Very. Don't forget we are twenty-five miles from St. Blasien." "How far?" "Twenty-five miles, a little over if anything." "Do you mean to say we have only come thirty-five miles?" "That's all." "Nonsense. I don't believe that map of yours." "It is impossible, you know. We have been riding steadily ever since the first thing this morning." "No, we haven't. We didn't get away till eight, to begin with." "Quarter to eight." "Well, quarter to eight; and every half-dozen miles we have stopped." "We have only stopped to look at the view. It's no good coming to see a country, and then not seeing it." "And we have had to pull up some stiff hills." "Besides, it has been an exceptionally hot day to-day." "Well, don't forget St. Blasien is twenty-five miles off, that's all." "Any more hills?" "Yes, two; up and down." "I thought you said it was downhill into St. Blasien?" "So it is for the last ten miles. We are twenty-five miles from St. Blasien here." "Isn't there anywhere between here and St. Blasien? What's that little place there on the lake?" "It isn't St. Blasien, or anywhere near it. There's a danger in beginning that sort of thing." "There's a danger in overworking oneself. One should study moderation in all things. Pretty little place, that Titisee, according to the map; looks as if there would be good air there." "All right, I'm agreeable. It was you fellows who suggested our making for St. Blasien." "Oh, I'm not so keen on St. Blasien! poky little place, down in a valley. This Titisee, I should say, was ever so much nicer." "Quite near, isn't it?" "Five miles." General chorus: "We'll stop at Titisee." George made discovery of this difference between theory and practice on the very first day of our ride. "I thought," said George--he was riding the single, Harris and I being a little ahead on the tandem--"that the idea was to train up the hills and ride down them." "So it is," answered Harris, "as a general rule. But the trains don't go up _every_ hill in the Black Forest." "Somehow, I felt a suspicion that they wouldn't," growled George; and for awhile silence reigned. "Besides," remarked Harris, who had evidently been ruminating the subject, "you would not wish to have nothing but downhill, surely. It would not be playing the game. One must take a little rough with one's smooth." Again there returned silence, broken after awhile by George, this time. "Don't you two fellows over-exert yourselves merely on my account," said George. "How do you mean?" asked Harris. "I mean," answered George, "that where a train does happen to be going up these hills, don't you put aside the idea of taking it for fear of outraging my finer feelings. Personally, I am prepared to go up all these hills in a railway train, even if it's not playing the game. I'll square the thing with my conscience; I've been up at seven every day for a week now, and I calculate it owes me a bit. Don't you consider me in the matter at all." We promised to bear this in mind, and again the ride continued in dogged dumbness, until it was again broken by George. "What bicycle did you say this was of yours?" asked George. Harris told him. I forget of what particular manufacture it happened to be; it is immaterial. "Are you sure?" persisted George. "Of course I am sure," answered Harris. "Why, what's the matter with it?" "Well, it doesn't come up to the poster," said George, "that's all." "What poster?" asked Harris. "The poster advertising this particular brand of cycle," explained George. "I was looking at one on a hoarding in Sloane Street only a day or two before we started. A man was riding this make of machine, a man with a banner in his hand: he wasn't doing any work, that was clear as daylight; he was just sitting on the thing and drinking in the air. The cycle was going of its own accord, and going well. This thing of yours leaves all the work to me. It is a lazy brute of a machine; if you don't shove, it simply does nothing: I should complain about it, if I were you." When one comes to think of it, few bicycles do realise the poster. On only one poster that I can recollect have I seen the rider represented as doing any work. But then this man was being pursued by a bull. In ordinary cases the object of the artist is to convince the hesitating neophyte that the sport of bicycling consists in sitting on a luxurious saddle, and being moved rapidly in the direction you wish to go by unseen heavenly powers. Generally speaking, the rider is a lady, and then one feels that, for perfect bodily rest combined with entire freedom from mental anxiety, slumber upon a water-bed cannot compare with bicycle-riding upon a hilly road. No fairy travelling on a summer cloud could take things more easily than does the bicycle girl, according to the poster. Her costume for cycling in hot weather is ideal. Old-fashioned landladies might refuse her lunch, it is true; and a narrowminded police force might desire to secure her, and wrap her in a rug preliminary to summonsing her. But such she heeds not. Uphill and downhill, through traffic that might tax the ingenuity of a cat, over road surfaces calculated to break the average steam roller she passes, a vision of idle loveliness; her fair hair streaming to the wind, her sylph-like form poised airily, one foot upon the saddle, the other resting lightly upon the lamp. Sometimes she condescends to sit down on the saddle; then she puts her feet on the rests, lights a cigarette, and waves above her head a Chinese lantern. Less often, it is a mere male thing that rides the machine. He is not so accomplished an acrobat as is the lady; but simple tricks, such as standing on the saddle and waving flags, drinking beer or beef-tea while riding, he can and does perform. Something, one supposes, he must do to occupy his mind: sitting still hour after hour on this machine, having no work to do, nothing to think about, must pall upon any man of active temperament. Thus it is that we see him rising on his pedals as he nears the top of some high hill to apostrophise the sun, or address poetry to the surrounding scenery. Occasionally the poster pictures a pair of cyclists; and then one grasps the fact how much superior for purposes of flirtation is the modern bicycle to the old-fashioned parlour or the played-out garden gate. He and she mount their bicycles, being careful, of course, that such are of the right make. After that they have nothing to think about but the old sweet tale. Down shady lanes, through busy towns on market days, merrily roll the wheels of the "Bermondsey Company's Bottom Bracket Britain's Best," or of the "Camberwell Company's Jointless Eureka." They need no pedalling; they require no guiding. Give them their heads, and tell them what time you want to get home, and that is all they ask. While Edwin leans from his saddle to whisper the dear old nothings in Angelina's ear, while Angelina's face, to hide its blushes, is turned towards the horizon at the back, the magic bicycles pursue their even course. And the sun is always shining and the roads are always dry. No stern parent rides behind, no interfering aunt beside, no demon small boy brother is peeping round the corner, there never comes a skid. Ah me! Why were there no "Britain's Best" nor "Camberwell Eurekas" to be hired when _we_ were young? Or maybe the "Britain's Best" or the "Camberwell Eureka" stands leaning against a gate; maybe it is tired. It has worked hard all the afternoon, carrying these young people. Mercifully minded, they have dismounted, to give the machine a rest. They sit upon the grass beneath the shade of graceful boughs; it is long and dry grass. A stream flows by their feet. All is rest and peace. That is ever the idea the cycle poster artist sets himself to convey--rest and peace. But I am wrong in saying that no cyclist, according to the poster, ever works. Now I come to reflect, I have seen posters representing gentlemen on cycles working very hard--over-working themselves, one might almost say. They are thin and haggard with the toil, the perspiration stands upon their brow in beads; you feel that if there is another hill beyond the poster they must either get off or die. But this is the result of their own folly. This happens because they will persist in riding a machine of an inferior make. Were they riding a "Putney Popular" or "Battersea Bounder," such as the sensible young man in the centre of the poster rides, then all this unnecessary labour would be saved to them. Then all required of them would be, as in gratitude bound, to look happy; perhaps, occasionally to back-pedal a little when the machine in its youthful buoyancy loses its head for a moment and dashes on too swiftly. You tired young men, sitting dejectedly on milestones, too spent to heed the steady rain that soaks you through; you weary maidens, with the straight, damp hair, anxious about the time, longing to swear, not knowing how; you stout bald men, vanishing visibly as you pant and grunt along the endless road; you purple, dejected matrons, plying with pain the slow unwilling wheel; why did you not see to it that you bought a "Britain's Best" or a "Camberwell Eureka"? Why are these bicycles of inferior make so prevalent throughout the land Or is it with bicycling as with all other things: does Life at no point realise the Poster? The one thing in Germany that never fails to charm and fascinate me is the German dog. In England one grows tired of the old breeds, one knows them all so well: the mastiff, the plum-pudding dog, the terrier (black, white or rough-haired, as the case may be, but always quarrelsome), the collie, the bulldog; never anything new. Now in Germany you get variety. You come across dogs the like of which you have never seen before: that until you hear them bark you do not know are dogs. It is all so fresh, so interesting. George stopped a dog in Sigmaringen and drew our attention to it. It suggested a cross between a codfish and a poodle. I would not like to be positive it was _not_ a cross between a codfish and a poodle. Harris tried to photograph it, but it ran up a fence and disappeared through some bushes. I do not know what the German breeder's idea is; at present he retains his secret. George suggests he is aiming at a griffin. There is much to bear out this theory, and indeed in one or two cases I have come across success on these lines would seem to have been almost achieved. Yet I cannot bring myself to believe that such are anything more than mere accidents. The German is practical, and I fail to see the object of a griffin. If mere quaintness of design be desired, is there not already the Dachshund! What more is needed? Besides, about a house, a griffin would be so inconvenient: people would be continually treading on its tail. My own idea is that what the Germans are trying for is a mermaid, which they will then train to catch fish. For your German does not encourage laziness in any living thing. He likes to see his dogs work, and the German dog loves work; of that there can be no doubt. The life of the English dog must be a misery to him. Imagine a strong, active, and intelligent being, of exceptionally energetic temperament, condemned to spend twenty-four hours a day in absolute idleness! How would you like it yourself? No wonder he feels misunderstood, yearns for the unattainable, and gets himself into trouble generally. Now the German dog, on the other hand, has plenty to occupy his mind. He is busy and important. Watch him as he walks along harnessed to his milk cart. No churchwarden at collection time could feel or look more pleased with himself. He does not do any real work; the human being does the pushing, he does the barking; that is his idea of division of labour. What he says to himself is: "The old man can't bark, but he can shove. Very well." The interest and the pride he takes in the business is quite beautiful to see. Another dog passing by makes, maybe, some jeering remark, casting discredit upon the creaminess of the milk. He stops suddenly, quite regardless of the traffic. "I beg your pardon, what was that you said about our milk?" "I said nothing about your milk," retorts the other dog, in a tone of gentle innocence. "I merely said it was a fine day, and asked the price of chalk." "Oh, you asked the price of chalk, did you? Would you like to know?" "Yes, thanks; somehow I thought you would be able to tell me." "You are quite right, I can. It's worth--" "Oh, do come along!" says the old lady, who is tired and hot, and anxious to finish her round. "Yes, but hang it all; did you hear what he hinted about our milk?" "Oh, never mind him! There's a tram coming round the corner: we shall all get run over." "Yes, but I do mind him; one has one's proper pride. He asked the price of chalk, and he's going to know it! It's worth just twenty times as much--" "You'll have the whole thing over, I know you will," cries the old lady, pathetically, struggling with all her feeble strength to haul him back. "Oh dear, oh dear! I do wish I had left you at home." The tram is bearing down upon them; a cab-driver is shouting at them; another huge brute, hoping to be in time to take a hand, is dragging a bread cart, followed by a screaming child, across the road from the opposite side; a small crowd is collecting; and a policeman is hastening to the scene. "It's worth," says the milk dog, "just twenty-times as much as you'll be worth before I've done with you." "Oh, you think so, do you?" "Yes, I do, you grandson of a French poodle, you cabbage-eating--" "There! I knew you'd have it over," says the poor milk-woman. "I told him he'd have it over." But he is busy, and heeds her not. Five minutes later, when the traffic is renewed, when the bread girl has collected her muddy rolls, and the policeman has gone off with the name and address of everybody in the street, he consents to look behind him. "It _is_ a bit of an upset," he admits. Then shaking himself free of care, he adds, cheerfully, "But I guess I taught him the price of chalk. He won't interfere with us again, I'm thinking." "I'm sure I hope not," says the old lady, regarding dejectedly the milky road. But his favourite sport is to wait at the top of the hill for another dog, and then race down. On these occasions the chief occupation of the other fellow is to run about behind, picking up the scattered articles, loaves, cabbages, or shirts, as they are jerked out. At the bottom of the hill, he stops and waits for his friend. "Good race, wasn't it?" he remarks, panting, as the Human comes up, laden to the chin. "I believe I'd have won it, too, if it hadn't been for that fool of a small boy. He was right in my way just as I turned the corner. _You noticed him_? Wish I had, beastly brat! What's he yelling like that for? _Because I knocked him down and ran over him_? Well, why didn't he get out of the way? It's disgraceful, the way people leave their children about for other people to tumble over. Halloa! did all those things come out? You couldn't have packed them very carefully; you should see to a thing like that. _You did not dream of my tearing down the hill twenty miles an hour_? Surely, you knew me better than to expect I'd let that old Schneider's dog pass me without an effort. But there, you never think. You're sure you've got them all? _You believe so_? I shouldn't 'believe' if I were you; I should run back up the hill again and make sure. _You feel too tired_? Oh, all right! don't blame me if anything is missing, that's all." He is so self-willed. He is cock-sure that the correct turning is the second on the right, and nothing will persuade him that it is the third. He is positive he can get across the road in time, and will not be convinced until he sees the cart smashed up. Then he is very apologetic, it is true. But of what use is that? As he is usually of the size and strength of a young bull, and his human companion is generally a weak- kneed old man or woman, or a small child, he has his way. The greatest punishment his proprietor can inflict upon him is to leave him at home, and take the cart out alone. But your German is too kind-hearted to do this often. That he is harnessed to the cart for anybody's pleasure but his own it is impossible to believe; and I am confident that the German peasant plans the tiny harness and fashions the little cart purely with the hope of gratifying his dog. In other countries--in Belgium, Holland and France--I have seen these draught dogs ill-treated and over-worked; but in Germany, never. Germans abuse animals shockingly. I have seen a German stand in front of his horse and call it every name he could lay his tongue to. But the horse did not mind it. I have seen a German, weary with abusing his horse, call to his wife to come out and assist him. When she came, he told her what the horse had done. The recital roused the woman's temper to almost equal heat with his own; and standing one each side of the poor beast, they both abused it. They abused its dead mother, they insulted its father; they made cutting remarks about its personal appearance, its intelligence, its moral sense, its general ability as a horse. The animal bore the torrent with exemplary patience for awhile; then it did the best thing possible to do under the circumstances. Without losing its own temper, it moved quietly away. The lady returned to her washing, and the man followed it up the street, still abusing it. A kinder-hearted people than the Germans there is no need for. Cruelty to animal or child is a thing almost unknown in the land. The whip with them is a musical instrument; its crack is heard from morning to night, but an Italian coachman that in the streets of Dresden I once saw use it was very nearly lynched by the indignant crowd. Germany is the only country in Europe where the traveller can settle himself comfortably in his hired carriage, confident that his gentle, willing friend between the shafts will be neither over-worked nor cruelly treated. CHAPTER XI Black Forest House: and the sociability therein--Its perfume--George positively declines to remain in bed after four o'clock in the morning--The road one cannot miss--My peculiar extra instinct--An ungrateful party--Harris as a scientist--His cheery confidence--The village: where it was, and where it ought to have been--George: his plan--We promenade a la Francais--The German coachman asleep and awake--The man who spreads the English language abroad. There was one night when, tired out and far from town or village, we slept in a Black Forest farmhouse. The great charm about the Black Forest house is its sociability. The cows are in the next room, the horses are upstairs, the geese and ducks are in the kitchen, while the pigs, the children, and the chickens live all over the place. You are dressing, when you hear a grunt behind you. "Good-morning! Don't happen to have any potato peelings in here? No, I see you haven't; good-bye." Next there is a cackle, and you see the neck of an old hen stretched round the corner. "Fine morning, isn't it? You don't mind my bringing this worm of mine in here, do you? It is so difficult in this house to find a room where one can enjoy one's food with any quietness. From a chicken I have always been a slow eater, and when a dozen--there, I thought they wouldn't leave me alone. Now they'll all want a bit. You don't mind my getting on the bed, do you? Perhaps here they won't notice me." While you are dressing various shock heads peer in at the door; they evidently regard the room as a temporary menagerie. You cannot tell whether the heads belong to boys or girls; you can only hope they are all male. It is of no use shutting the door, because there is nothing to fasten it by, and the moment you are gone they push it open again. You breakfast as the Prodigal Son is generally represented feeding: a pig or two drop in to keep you company; a party of elderly geese criticise you from the door; you gather from their whispers, added to their shocked expression, that they are talking scandal about you. Maybe a cow will condescend to give a glance in. This Noah's Ark arrangement it is, I suppose, that gives to the Black Forest home its distinctive scent. It is not a scent you can liken to any one thing. It is as if you took roses and Limburger cheese and hair oil, some heather and onions, peaches and soapsuds, together with a dash of sea air and a corpse, and mixed them up together. You cannot define any particular odour, but you feel they are all there--all the odours that the world has yet discovered. People who live in these houses are fond of this mixture. They do not open the window and lose any of it; they keep it carefully bottled up. If you want any other scent, you can go outside and smell the wood violets and the pines; inside there is the house; and after a while, I am told, you get used to it, so that you miss it, and are unable to go to sleep in any other atmosphere. We had a long walk before us the next day, and it was our desire, therefore, to get up early, even so early as six o'clock, if that could be managed without disturbing the whole household. We put it to our hostess whether she thought this could be done. She said she thought it could. She might not be about herself at that time; it was her morning for going into the town, some eight miles off, and she rarely got back much before seven; but, possibly, her husband or one of the boys would be returning home to lunch about that hour. Anyhow, somebody should be sent back to wake us and get our breakfast. As it turned out, we did not need any waking. We got up at four, all by ourselves. We got up at four in order to get away from the noise and the din that was making our heads ache. What time the Black Forest peasant rises in the summer time I am unable to say; to us they appeared to be getting up all night. And the first thing the Black Forester does when he gets up is to put on a pair of stout boots with wooden soles, and take a constitutional round the house. Until he has been three times up and down the stairs, he does not feel he is up. Once fully awake himself, the next thing he does is to go upstairs to the stables, and wake up a horse. (The Black Forest house being built generally on the side of a steep hill, the ground floor is at the top, and the hay-loft at the bottom.) Then the horse, it would seem, must also have its constitutional round the house; and this seen to, the man goes downstairs into the kitchen and begins to chop wood, and when he has chopped sufficient wood he feels pleased with himself and begins to sing. All things considered, we came to the conclusion we could not do better than follow the excellent example set us. Even George was quite eager to get up that morning. We had a frugal breakfast at half-past four, and started away at five. Our road lay over a mountain, and from enquiries made in the village it appeared to be one of those roads you cannot possibly miss. I suppose everybody knows this sort of road. Generally, it leads you back to where you started from; and when it doesn't, you wish it did, so that at all events you might know where you were. I foresaw evil from the very first, and before we had accomplished a couple of miles we came up with it. The road divided into three. A worm-eaten sign-post indicated that the path to the left led to a place that we had never heard of--that was on no map. Its other arm, pointing out the direction of the middle road, had disappeared. The road to the right, so we all agreed, clearly led back again to the village. "The old man said distinctly," so Harris reminded us, "keep straight on round the hill." "Which hill?" George asked, pertinently. We were confronted by half a dozen, some of them big, some of them little. "He told us," continued Harris, "that we should come to a wood." "I see no reason to doubt him," commented George, "whichever road we take." As a matter of fact, a dense wood covered every hill. "And he said," murmured Harris, "that we should reach the top in about an hour and a half." "There it is," said George, "that I begin to disbelieve him." "Well, what shall we do?" said Harris. Now I happen to possess the bump of locality. It is not a virtue; I make no boast of it. It is merely an animal instinct that I cannot help. That things occasionally get in my way--mountains, precipices, rivers, and such like obstructions--is no fault of mine. My instinct is correct enough; it is the earth that is wrong. I led them by the middle road. That the middle road had not character enough to continue for any quarter of a mile in the same direction; that after three miles up and down hill it ended abruptly in a wasps' nest, was not a thing that should have been laid to my door. If the middle road had gone in the direction it ought to have done, it would have taken us to where we wanted to go, of that I am convinced. Even as it was, I would have continued to use this gift of mine to discover a fresh way had a proper spirit been displayed towards me. But I am not an angel--I admit this frankly,--and I decline to exert myself for the ungrateful and the ribald. Besides, I doubt if George and Harris would have followed me further in any event. Therefore it was that I washed my hands of the whole affair, and that Harris entered upon the vacancy. "Well," said Harris. "I suppose you are satisfied with what you have done?" "I am quite satisfied," I replied from the heap of stones where I was sitting. "So far, I have brought you with safety. I would continue to lead you further, but no artist can work without encouragement. You appear dissatisfied with me because you do not know where you are. For all you know, you may be just where you want to be. But I say nothing as to that; I expect no thanks. Go your own way; I have done with you both." I spoke, perhaps, with bitterness, but I could not help it. Not a word of kindness had I had all the weary way. "Do not misunderstand us," said Harris; "both George and myself feel that without your assistance we should never be where we now are. For that we give you every credit. But instinct is liable to error. What I propose to do is to substitute for it Science, which is exact. Now, where's the sun?" "Don't you think," said George, "that if we made our way back to the village, and hired a boy for a mark to guide us, it would save time in the end?" "It would be wasting hours," said Harris, with decision. "You leave this to me. I have been reading about this thing, and it has interested me." He took out his watch, and began turning himself round and round. "It's as simple as A B C," he continued. "You point the short hand at the sun, then you bisect the segment between the short hand and the twelve, and thus you get the north." He worried up and down for a while, then he fixed it. "Now I've got it," he said; "that's the north, where that wasps' nest is. Now give me the map." We handed it to him, and seating himself facing the wasps, he examined it. "Todtmoos from here," he said, "is south by south-west." "How do you mean, from here?" asked George. "Why, from here, where we are," returned Harris. "But where are we?" said George. This worried Harris for a time, but at length he cheered up. "It doesn't matter where we are," he said. "Wherever we are, Todtmoos is south by south-west. Come on, we are only wasting time." "I don't quite see how you make it out," said George, as he rose and shouldered his knapsack; "but I suppose it doesn't matter. We are out for our health, and it's all pretty!" "We shall be all right," said Harris, with cheery confidence. "We shall be in at Todtmoos before ten, don't you worry. And at Todtmoos we will have something to eat." He said that he, himself, fancied a beefsteak, followed by an omelette. George said that, personally, he intended to keep his mind off the subject until he saw Todtmoos. We walked for half an hour, then emerging upon an opening, we saw below us, about two miles away, the village through which we had passed that morning. It had a quaint church with an outside staircase, a somewhat unusual arrangement. The sight of it made me sad. We had been walking hard for three hours and a half, and had accomplished, apparently, about four miles. But Harris was delighted. "Now, at last," said Harris, "we know where we are." "I thought you said it didn't matter," George reminded him. "No more it does, practically," replied Harris, "but it is just as well to be certain. Now I feel more confidence in myself." "I'm not so sure about that being an advantage," muttered George. But I do not think Harris heard him. "We are now," continued Harris, "east of the sun, and Todtmoos is south- west of where we are. So that if--" He broke off. "By-the-by," he said, "do you remember whether I said the bisecting line of that segment pointed to the north or to the south?" "You said it pointed to the north," replied George. "Are you positive?" persisted Harris. "Positive," answered George "but don't let that influence your calculations. In all probability you were wrong." Harris thought for a while; then his brow cleared. "That's all right," he said; "of course, it's the north. It must be the north. How could it be the south? Now we must make for the west. Come on." "I am quite willing to make for the west," said George; "any point of the compass is the same to me. I only wish to remark that, at the present moment, we are going dead east." "No we are not," returned Harris; "we are going west." "We are going east, I tell you," said George. "I wish you wouldn't keep saying that," said Harris, "you confuse me." "I don't mind if I do," returned George; "I would rather do that than go wrong. I tell you we are going dead east." "What nonsense!" retorted Harris; "there's the sun." "I can see the sun," answered George, "quite distinctly. It may be where it ought to be, according to you and Science, or it may not. All I know is, that when we were down in the village, that particular hill with that particular lump of rock upon it was due north of us. At the present moment we are facing due east." "You are quite right," said Harris; "I forgot for the moment that we had turned round." "I should get into the habit of making a note of it, if I were you," grumbled George; "it's a manoeuvre that will probably occur again more than once." We faced about, and walked in the other direction. At the end of forty minutes' climbing we again emerged upon an opening, and again the village lay just under our feet. On this occasion it was south of us. "This is very extraordinary," said Harris. "I see nothing remarkable about it," said George. "If you walk steadily round a village it is only natural that now and then you get a glimpse of it. Myself, I am glad to see it. It proves to me that we are not utterly lost." "It ought to be the other side of us," said Harris. "It will be in another hour or so," said George, "if we keep on." I said little myself; I was vexed with both of them; but I was glad to notice George evidently growing cross with Harris. It was absurd of Harris to fancy he could find the way by the sun. "I wish I knew," said Harris, thoughtfully, "for certain whether that bisecting line points to the north or to the south." "I should make up my mind about it," said George; "it's an important point." "It's impossible it can be the north," said Harris, "and I'll tell you why." "You needn't trouble," said George; "I am quite prepared to believe it isn't." "You said just now it was," said Harris, reproachfully. "I said nothing of the sort," retorted George. "I said you said it was--a very different thing. If you think it isn't, let's go the other way. It'll be a change, at all events." So Harris worked things out according to the contrary calculation, and again we plunged into the wood; and again after half an hour's stiff climbing we came in view of that same village. True, we were a little higher, and this time it lay between us and the sun. "I think," said George, as he stood looking down at it, "this is the best view we've had of it, as yet. There is only one other point from which we can see it. After that, I propose we go down into it and get some rest." "I don't believe it's the same village," said Harris; "it can't be." "There's no mistaking that church," said George. "But maybe it is a case on all fours with that Prague statue. Possibly, the authorities hereabout have had made some life-sized models of that village, and have stuck them about the Forest to see where the thing would look best. Anyhow, which way do we go now?" "I don't know," said Harris, "and I don't care. I have done my best; you've done nothing but grumble, and confuse me." "I may have been critical," admitted George "but look at the thing from my point of view. One of you says he's got an instinct, and leads me to a wasps' nest in the middle of a wood." "I can't help wasps building in a wood," I replied. "I don't say you can," answered George. "I am not arguing; I am merely stating incontrovertible facts. The other one, who leads me up and down hill for hours on scientific principles, doesn't know the north from the south, and is never quite sure whether he's turned round or whether he hasn't. Personally, I profess to no instincts beyond the ordinary, nor am I a scientist. But two fields off I can see a man. I am going to offer him the worth of the hay he is cutting, which I estimate at one mark fifty pfennig, to leave his work, and lead me to within sight of Todtmoos. If you two fellows like to follow, you can. If not, you can start another system and work it out by yourselves." George's plan lacked both originality and aplomb, but at the moment it appealed to us. Fortunately, we had worked round to a very short distance away from the spot where we had originally gone wrong; with the result that, aided by the gentleman of the scythe, we recovered the road, and reached Todtmoos four hours later than we had calculated to reach it, with an appetite that took forty-five minutes' steady work in silence to abate. From Todtmoos we had intended to walk down to the Rhine; but having regard to our extra exertions of the morning, we decided to promenade in a carriage, as the French would say: and for this purpose hired a picturesque-looking vehicle, drawn by a horse that I should have called barrel-bodied but for contrast with his driver, in comparison with whom he was angular. In Germany every vehicle is arranged for a pair of horses, but drawn generally by one. This gives to the equipage a lop- sided appearance, according to our notions, but it is held here to indicate style. The idea to be conveyed is that you usually drive a pair of horses, but that for the moment you have mislaid the other one. The German driver is not what we should call a first-class whip. He is at his best when he is asleep. Then, at all events, he is harmless; and the horse being, generally speaking, intelligent and experienced, progress under these conditions is comparatively safe. If in Germany they could only train the horse to collect the money at the end of the journey, there would be no need for a coachman at all. This would be a distinct relief to the passenger, for when the German coachman is awake and not cracking his whip he is generally occupied in getting himself into trouble or out of it. He is better at the former. Once I recollect driving down a steep Black Forest hill with a couple of ladies. It was one of those roads winding corkscrew-wise down the slope. The hill rose at an angle of seventy-five on the off-side, and fell away at an angle of seventy-five on the near-side. We were proceeding very comfortably, the driver, we were happy to notice, with his eyes shut, when suddenly something, a bad dream or indigestion, awoke him. He seized the reins, and, by an adroit movement, pulled the near-side horse over the edge, where it clung, half supported by the traces. Our driver did not appear in the least annoyed or surprised; both horses, I also, noticed, seemed equally used to the situation. We got out, and he got down. He took from under the seat a huge clasp-knife, evidently kept there for the purpose, and deftly cut the traces. The horse, thus released, rolled over and over until he struck the road again some fifty feet below. There he regained his feet and stood waiting for us. We re-entered the carriage and descended with the single horse until we came to him. There, with the help of some bits of string, our driver harnessed him again, and we continued on our way. What impressed me was the evident accustomedness of both driver and horses to this method of working down a hill. Evidently to them it appeared a short and convenient cut. I should not have been surprised had the man suggested our strapping ourselves in, and then rolling over and over, carriage and all, to the bottom. Another peculiarity of the German coachman is that he never attempts to pull in or to pull up. He regulates his rate of speed, not by the pace of the horse, but by manipulation of the brake. For eight miles an hour he puts it on slightly, so that it only scrapes the wheel, producing a continuous sound as of the sharpening of a saw; for four miles an hour he screws it down harder, and you travel to an accompaniment of groans and shrieks, suggestive of a symphony of dying pigs. When he desires to come to a full stop, he puts it on to its full. If his brake be a good one, he calculates he can stop his carriage, unless the horse be an extra powerful animal, in less than twice its own length. Neither the German driver nor the German horse knows, apparently, that you can stop a carriage by any other method. The German horse continues to pull with his full strength until he finds it impossible to move the vehicle another inch; then he rests. Horses of other countries are quite willing to stop when the idea is suggested to them. I have known horses content to go even quite slowly. But your German horse, seemingly, is built for one particular speed, and is unable to depart from it. I am stating nothing but the literal, unadorned truth, when I say I have seen a German coachman, with the reins lying loose over the splash-board, working his brake with both hands, in terror lest he would not be in time to avoid a collision. At Waldshut, one of those little sixteenth-century towns through which the Rhine flows during its earlier course, we came across that exceedingly common object of the Continent: the travelling Briton grieved and surprised at the unacquaintance of the foreigner with the subtleties of the English language. When we entered the station he was, in very fair English, though with a slight Somersetshire accent, explaining to a porter for the tenth time, as he informed us, the simple fact that though he himself had a ticket for Donaueschingen, and wanted to go to Donaueschingen, to see the source of the Danube, which is not there, though they tell you it is, he wished his bicycle to be sent on to Engen and his bag to Constance, there to await his arrival. He was hot and angry with the effort of the thing. The porter was a young man in years, but at the moment looked old and miserable. I offered my services. I wish now I had not--though not so fervently, I expect, as he, the speechless one, came subsequently to wish this. All three routes, so the porter explained to us, were complicated, necessitating changing and re- changing. There was not much time for calm elucidation, as our own train was starting in a few minutes. The man himself was voluble--always a mistake when anything entangled has to be made clear; while the porter was only too eager to get the job done with and so breathe again. It dawned upon me ten minutes later, when thinking the matter over in the train, that though I had agreed with the porter that it would be best for the bicycle to go by way of Immendingen, and had agreed to his booking it to Immendingen, I had neglected to give instructions for its departure from Immendingen. Were I of a despondent temperament I should be worrying myself at the present moment with the reflection that in all probability that bicycle is still at Immendingen to this day. But I regard it as good philosophy to endeavour always to see the brighter side of things. Possibly the porter corrected my omission on his own account, or some simple miracle may have happened to restore that bicycle to its owner some time before the end of his tour. The bag we sent to Radolfzell: but here I console myself with the recollection that it was labelled Constance; and no doubt after a while the railway authorities, finding it unclaimed at Radolfzell, forwarded it on to Constance. But all this is apart from the moral I wished to draw from the incident. The true inwardness of the situation lay in the indignation of this Britisher at finding a German railway porter unable to comprehend English. The moment we spoke to him he expressed this indignation in no measured terms. "Thank you very much indeed," he said; "it's simple enough. I want to go to Donaueschingen myself by train; from Donaueschingen I am going to walk to Geisengen; from Geisengen I am going to take the train to Engen, and from Engen I am going to bicycle to Constance. But I don't want to take my bag with me; I want to find it at Constance when I get there. I have been trying to explain the thing to this fool for the last ten minutes; but I can't get it into him." "It is very disgraceful," I agreed. "Some of these German workmen know hardly any other language than their own." "I have gone over it with him," continued the man, "on the time table, and explained it by pantomime. Even then I could not knock it into him." "I can hardly believe you," I again remarked; "you would think the thing explained itself." Harris was angry with the man; he wished to reprove him for his folly in journeying through the outlying portions of a foreign clime, and seeking in such to accomplish complicated railway tricks without knowing a word of the language of the country. But I checked the impulsiveness of Harris, and pointed out to him the great and good work at which the man was unconsciously assisting. Shakespeare and Milton may have done their little best to spread acquaintance with the English tongue among the less favoured inhabitants of Europe. Newton and Darwin may have rendered their language a necessity among educated and thoughtful foreigners. Dickens and Ouida (for your folk who imagine that the literary world is bounded by the prejudices of New Grub Street, would be surprised and grieved at the position occupied abroad by this at-home-sneered-at lady) may have helped still further to popularise it. But the man who has spread the knowledge of English from Cape St. Vincent to the Ural Mountains is the Englishman who, unable or unwilling to learn a single word of any language but his own, travels purse in hand into every corner of the Continent. One may be shocked at his ignorance, annoyed at his stupidity, angry at his presumption. But the practical fact remains; he it is that is anglicising Europe. For him the Swiss peasant tramps through the snow on winter evenings to attend the English class open in every village. For him the coachman and the guard, the chambermaid and the laundress, pore over their English grammars and colloquial phrase books. For him the foreign shopkeeper and merchant send their sons and daughters in their thousands to study in every English town. For him it is that every foreign hotel- and restaurant-keeper adds to his advertisement: "Only those with fair knowledge of English need apply." Did the English-speaking races make it their rule to speak anything else than English, the marvellous progress of the English tongue throughout the world would stop. The English-speaking man stands amid the strangers and jingles his gold. "Here," cries, "is payment for all such as can speak English." He it is who is the great educator. Theoretically we may scold him; practically we should take our hats off to him. He is the missionary of the English tongue. CHAPTER XII We are grieved at the earthly instincts of the German--A superb view, but no restaurant--Continental opinion of the Englishman--That he does not know enough to come in out of the rain--There comes a weary traveller with a brick--The hurting of the dog--An undesirable family residence--A fruitful region--A merry old soul comes up the hill--George, alarmed at the lateness of the hour, hastens down the other side--Harris follows him, to show him the way--I hate being alone, and follow Harris--Pronunciation specially designed for use of foreigners. A thing that vexes much the high-class Anglo-Saxon soul is the earthly instinct prompting the German to fix a restaurant at the goal of every excursion. On mountain summit, in fairy glen, on lonely pass, by waterfall or winding stream, stands ever the busy Wirtschaft. How can one rhapsodise over a view when surrounded by beer-stained tables? How lose one's self in historical reverie amid the odour of roast veal and spinach? One day, on elevating thoughts intent, we climbed through tangled woods. "And at the top," said Harris, bitterly, as we paused to breathe a space and pull our belts a hole tighter, "there will be a gaudy restaurant, where people will be guzzling beefsteaks and plum tarts and drinking white wine." "Do you think so?" said George. "Sure to be," answered Harris; "you know their way. Not one grove will they consent to dedicate to solitude and contemplation; not one height will they leave to the lover of nature unpolluted by the gross and the material." "I calculate," I remarked, "that we shall be there a little before one o'clock, provided we don't dawdle." "The 'mittagstisch' will be just ready," groaned Harris, "with possibly some of those little blue trout they catch about here. In Germany one never seems able to get away from food and drink. It is maddening!" We pushed on, and in the beauty of the walk forgot our indignation. My estimate proved to be correct. At a quarter to one, said Harris, who was leading: "Here we are; I can see the summit." "Any sign of that restaurant?" said George. "I don't notice it," replied Harris; "but it's there, you may be sure; confound it!" Five minutes later we stood upon the top. We looked north, south, east and west; then we looked at one another. "Grand view, isn't it?" said Harris. "Magnificent," I agreed. "Superb," remarked George. "They have had the good sense for once," said Harris, "to put that restaurant out of sight." "They do seem to have hidden it," said George. "One doesn't mind the thing so much when it is not forced under one's nose," said Harris. "Of course, in its place," I observed, "a restaurant is right enough." "I should like to know where they have put it," said George. "Suppose we look for it?" said Harris, with inspiration. It seemed a good idea. I felt curious myself. We agreed to explore in different directions, returning to the summit to report progress. In half an hour we stood together once again. There was no need for words. The face of one and all of us announced plainly that at last we had discovered a recess of German nature untarnished by the sordid suggestion of food or drink. "I should never have believed it possible," said Harris: "would you?" "I should say," I replied, "that this is the only square quarter of a mile in the entire Fatherland unprovided with one." "And we three strangers have struck it," said George, "without an effort." "True," I observed. "By pure good fortune we are now enabled to feast our finer senses undisturbed by appeal to our lower nature. Observe the light upon those distant peaks; is it not ravishing?" "Talking of nature," said George, "which should you say was the nearest way down?" "The road to the left," I replied, after consulting the guide book, "takes us to Sonnensteig--where, by-the-by, I observe the 'Goldener Adler' is well spoken of--in about two hours. The road to the right, though somewhat longer, commands more extensive prospects." "One prospect," said Harris, "is very much like another prospect; don't you think so?" "Personally," said George, "I am going by the left-hand road." And Harris and I went after him. But we were not to get down so soon as we had anticipated. Storms come quickly in these regions, and before we had walked for quarter of an hour it became a question of seeking shelter or living for the rest of the day in soaked clothes. We decided on the former alternative, and selected a tree that, under ordinary circumstances, should have been ample protection. But a Black Forest thunderstorm is not an ordinary circumstance. We consoled ourselves at first by telling each other that at such a rate it could not last long. Next, we endeavoured to comfort ourselves with the reflection that if it did we should soon be too wet to fear getting wetter. "As it turned out," said Harris, "I should have been almost glad if there had been a restaurant up here." "I see no advantage in being both wet _and_ hungry," said George. "I shall give it another five minutes, then I am going on." "These mountain solitudes," I remarked, "are very attractive in fine weather. On a rainy day, especially if you happen to be past the age when--" At this point there hailed us a voice, proceeding from a stout gentleman, who stood some fifty feet away from us under a big umbrella. "Won't you come inside?" asked the stout gentleman. "Inside where?" I called back. I thought at first he was one of those fools that will try to be funny when there is nothing to be funny about. "Inside the restaurant," he answered. We left our shelter and made for him. We wished for further information about this thing. "I did call to you from the window," said the stout gentleman, as we drew near to him, "but I suppose you did not hear me. This storm may last for another hour; you will get _so_ wet." He was a kindly old gentleman; he seemed quite anxious about us. I said: "It is very kind of you to have come out. We are not lunatics. We have not been standing under that tree for the last half-hour knowing all the time there was a restaurant, hidden by the trees, within twenty yards of us. We had no idea we were anywhere near a restaurant." "I thought maybe you hadn't," said the old gentleman; "that is why I came." It appeared that all the people in the inn had been watching us from the windows also, wondering why we stood there looking miserable. If it had not been for this nice old gentleman the fools would have remained watching us, I suppose, for the rest of the afternoon. The landlord excused himself by saying he thought we looked like English. It is no figure of speech. On the Continent they do sincerely believe that every Englishman is mad. They are as convinced of it as is every English peasant that Frenchmen live on frogs. Even when one makes a direct personal effort to disabuse them of the impression one is not always successful. It was a comfortable little restaurant, where they cooked well, while the Tischwein was really most passable. We stopped there for a couple of hours, and dried ourselves and fed ourselves, and talked about the view; and just before we left an incident occurred that shows how much more stirring in this world are the influences of evil compared with those of good. A traveller entered. He seemed a careworn man. He carried a brick in his hand, tied to a piece of rope. He entered nervously and hurriedly, closed the door carefully behind him, saw to it that it was fastened, peered out of the window long and earnestly, and then, with a sigh of relief, laid his brick upon the bench beside him and called for food and drink. There was something mysterious about the whole affair. One wondered what he was going to do with the brick, why he had closed the door so carefully, why he had looked so anxiously from the window; but his aspect was too wretched to invite conversation, and we forbore, therefore, to ask him questions. As he ate and drank he grew more cheerful, sighed less often. Later he stretched his legs, lit an evil-smelling cigar, and puffed in calm contentment. Then it happened. It happened too suddenly for any detailed explanation of the thing to be possible. I recollect a Fraulein entering the room from the kitchen with a pan in her hand. I saw her cross to the outer door. The next moment the whole room was in an uproar. One was reminded of those pantomime transformation scenes where, from among floating clouds, slow music, waving flowers, and reclining fairies, one is suddenly transported into the midst of shouting policemen tumbling yelling babies, swells fighting pantaloons, sausages and harlequins, buttered slides and clowns. As the Fraulein of the pan touched the door it flew open, as though all the spirits of sin had been pressed against it, waiting. Two pigs and a chicken rushed into the room; a cat that had been sleeping on a beer-barrel spluttered into fiery life. The Fraulein threw her pan into the air and lay down on the floor. The gentleman with the brick sprang to his feet, upsetting the table before him with everything upon it. One looked to see the cause of this disaster: one discovered it at once in the person of a mongrel terrier with pointed ears and a squirrel's tail. The landlord rushed out from another door, and attempted to kick him out of the room. Instead, he kicked one of the pigs, the fatter of the two. It was a vigorous, well-planted kick, and the pig got the whole of it; none of it was wasted. One felt sorry for the poor animal; but no amount of sorrow anyone else might feel for him could compare with the sorrow he felt for himself. He stopped running about; he sat down in the middle of the room, and appealed to the solar system generally to observe this unjust thing that had come upon him. They must have heard his complaint in the valleys round about, and have wondered what upheaval of nature was taking place among the hills. As for the hen it scuttled, screaming, every way at once. It was a marvellous bird: it seemed to be able to run up a straight wall quite easily; and it and the cat between them fetched down mostly everything that was not already on the floor. In less than forty seconds there were nine people in that room, all trying to kick one dog. Possibly, now and again, one or another may have succeeded, for occasionally the dog would stop barking in order to howl. But it did not discourage him. Everything has to be paid for, he evidently argued, even a pig and chicken hunt; and, on the whole, the game was worth it. Besides, he had the satisfaction of observing that, for every kick he received, most other living things in the room got two. As for the unfortunate pig--the stationary one, the one that still sat lamenting in the centre of the room--he must have averaged a steady four. Trying to kick this dog was like playing football with a ball that was never there--not when you went to kick it, but after you had started to kick it, and had gone too far to stop yourself, so that the kick had to go on in any case, your only hope being that your foot would find something or another solid to stop it, and so save you from sitting down on the floor noisily and completely. When anybody did kick the dog it was by pure accident, when they were not expecting to kick him; and, generally speaking, this took them so unawares that, after kicking him, they fell over him. And everybody, every half-minute, would be certain to fall over the pig the sitting pig, the one incapable of getting out of anybody's way. How long the scrimmage might have lasted it is impossible to say. It was ended by the judgment of George. For a while he had been seeking to catch, not the dog but the remaining pig, the one still capable of activity. Cornering it at last, he persuaded it to cease running round and round the room, and instead to take a spin outside. It shot through the door with one long wail. We always desire the thing we have not. One pig, a chicken, nine people, and a cat, were as nothing in that dog's opinion compared with the quarry that was disappearing. Unwisely, he darted after it, and George closed the door upon him and shot the bolt. Then the landlord stood up, and surveyed all the things that were lying on the floor. "That's a playful dog of yours," said he to the man who had come in with the brick. "He is not my dog," replied the man sullenly. "Whose dog is it then?" said the landlord. "I don't know whose dog it is," answered the man. "That won't do for me, you know," said the landlord, picking up a picture of the German Emperor, and wiping beer from it with his sleeve. "I know it won't," replied the man; "I never expected it would. I'm tired of telling people it isn't my dog. They none of them believe me." "What do you want to go about with him for, if he's not your dog?" said the landlord. "What's the attraction about him?" "I don't go about with him," replied the man; "he goes about with me. He picked me up this morning at ten o'clock, and he won't leave me. I thought I had got rid of him when I came in here. I left him busy killing a duck more than a quarter of an hour away. I'll have to pay for that, I expect, on my way back." "Have you tried throwing stones at him?" asked Harris. "Have I tried throwing stones at him!" replied the man, contemptuously. "I've been throwing stones at him till my arm aches with throwing stones; and he thinks it's a game, and brings them back to me. I've been carrying this beastly brick about with me for over an hour, in the hope of being able to drown him, but he never comes near enough for me to get hold of him. He just sits six inches out of reach with his mouth open, and looks at me." "It's the funniest story I've heard for a long while," said the landlord. "Glad it amuses somebody," said the man. We left him helping the landlord to pick up the broken things, and went our way. A dozen yards outside the door the faithful animal was waiting for his friend. He looked tired, but contented. He was evidently a dog of strange and sudden fancies, and we feared for the moment lest he might take a liking to us. But he let us pass with indifference. His loyalty to this unresponsive man was touching; and we made no attempt to undermine it. Having completed to our satisfaction the Black Forest, we journeyed on our wheels through Alt Breisach and Colmar to Munster; whence we started a short exploration of the Vosges range, where, according to the present German Emperor, humanity stops. Of old, Alt Breisach, a rocky fortress with the river now on one side of it and now on the other--for in its inexperienced youth the Rhine never seems to have been quite sure of its way,--must, as a place of residence, have appealed exclusively to the lover of change and excitement. Whoever the war was between, and whatever it was about, Alt Breisach was bound to be in it. Everybody besieged it, most people captured it; the majority of them lost it again; nobody seemed able to keep it. Whom he belonged to, and what he was, the dweller in Alt Breisach could never have been quite sure. One day he would be a Frenchman, and then before he could learn enough French to pay his taxes he would be an Austrian. While trying to discover what you did in order to be a good Austrian, he would find he was no longer an Austrian, but a German, though what particular German out of the dozen must always have been doubtful to him. One day he would discover that he was a Catholic, the next an ardent Protestant. The only thing that could have given any stability to his existence must have been the monotonous necessity of paying heavily for the privilege of being whatever for the moment he was. But when one begins to think of these things one finds oneself wondering why anybody in the Middle Ages, except kings and tax collectors, ever took the trouble to live at all. For variety and beauty, the Vosges will not compare with the hills of the Schwarzwald. The advantage about them from the tourist's point of view is their superior poverty. The Vosges peasant has not the unromantic air of contented prosperity that spoils his _vis-a-vis_ across the Rhine. The villages and farms possess more the charm of decay. Another point wherein the Vosges district excels is its ruins. Many of its numerous castles are perched where you might think only eagles would care to build. In others, commenced by the Romans and finished by the Troubadours, covering acres with the maze of their still standing walls, one may wander for hours. The fruiterer and greengrocer is a person unknown in the Vosges. Most things of that kind grow wild, and are to be had for the picking. It is difficult to keep to any programme when walking through the Vosges, the temptation on a hot day to stop and eat fruit generally being too strong for resistance. Raspberries, the most delicious I have ever tasted, wild strawberries, currants, and gooseberries, grow upon the hill-sides as black-berries by English lanes. The Vosges small boy is not called upon to rob an orchard; he can make himself ill without sin. Orchards exist in the Vosges mountains in plenty; but to trespass into one for the purpose of stealing fruit would be as foolish as for a fish to try and get into a swimming bath without paying. Still, of course, mistakes do occur. One afternoon in the course of a climb we emerged upon a plateau, where we lingered perhaps too long, eating more fruit than may have been good for us; it was so plentiful around us, so varied. We commenced with a few late strawberries, and from those we passed to raspberries. Then Harris found a greengage-tree with some early fruit upon it, just perfect. "This is about the best thing we have struck," said George; "we had better make the most of this." Which was good advice, on the face of it. "It is a pity," said Harris, "that the pears are still so hard." He grieved about this for a while, but later on came across some remarkably fine yellow plums and these consoled him somewhat. "I suppose we are still a bit too far north for pineapples," said George. "I feel I could just enjoy a fresh pineapple. This commonplace fruit palls upon one after a while." "Too much bush fruit and not enough tree, is the fault I find," said Harris. "Myself, I should have liked a few more greengages." "Here is a man coming up the hill," I observed, "who looks like a native. Maybe, he will know where we can find some more greengages." "He walks well for an old chap," remarked Harris. He certainly was climbing the hill at a remarkable pace. Also, so far as we were able to judge at that distance, he appeared to be in a remarkably cheerful mood, singing and shouting at the top of his voice, gesticulating, and waving his arms. "What a merry old soul it is," said Harris; "it does one good to watch him. But why does he carry his stick over his shoulder? Why doesn't he use it to help him up the hill?" "Do you know, I don't think it is a stick," said George. "What can it be, then?" asked Harris. "Well, it looks to me," said George, "more like a gun." "You don't think we can have made a mistake?" suggested Harris. "You don't think this can be anything in the nature of a private orchard?" I said: "Do you remember the sad thing that happened in the South of France some two years ago? A soldier picked some cherries as he passed a house, and the French peasant to whom the cherries belonged came out, and without a word of warning shot him dead." "But surely you are not allowed to shoot a man dead for picking fruit, even in France?" said George. "Of course not," I answered. "It was quite illegal. The only excuse offered by his counsel was that he was of a highly excitable disposition, and especially keen about these particular cherries." "I recollect something about the case," said Harris, "now you mention it. I believe the district in which it happened--the 'Commune,' as I think it is called--had to pay heavy compensation to the relatives of the deceased soldier; which was only fair." George said: "I am tired of this place. Besides, it's getting late." Harris said: "If he goes at that rate he will fall and hurt himself. Besides, I don't believe he knows the way." I felt lonesome up there all by myself, with nobody to speak to. Besides, not since I was a boy, I reflected, had I enjoyed a run down a really steep hill. I thought I would see if I could revive the sensation. It is a jerky exercise, but good, I should say, for the liver. We slept that night at Barr, a pleasant little town on the way to St. Ottilienberg, an interesting old convent among the mountains, where you are waited upon by real nuns, and your bill made out by a priest. At Barr, just before supper a tourist entered. He looked English, but spoke a language the like of which I have never heard before. Yet it was an elegant and fine-sounding language. The landlord stared at him blankly; the landlady shook her head. He sighed, and tried another, which somehow recalled to me forgotten memories, though, at the time, I could not fix it. But again nobody understood him. "This is damnable," he said aloud to himself. "Ah, you are English!" exclaimed the landlord, brightening up. "And Monsieur looks tired," added the bright little landlady. "Monsieur will have supper." They both spoke English excellently, nearly as well as they spoke French and German; and they bustled about and made him comfortable. At supper he sat next to me, and I talked to him. "Tell me," I said--I was curious on the subject--"what language was it you spoke when you first came in?" "German," he explained. "Oh," I replied, "I beg your pardon." "You did not understand it?" he continued. "It must have been my fault," I answered; "my knowledge is extremely limited. One picks up a little here and there as one goes about, but of course that is a different thing." "But _they_ did not understand it," he replied, "the landlord and his wife; and it is their own language." "I do not think so," I said. "The children hereabout speak German, it is true, and our landlord and landlady know German to a certain point. But throughout Alsace and Lorraine the old people still talk French." "And I spoke to them in French also," he added, "and they understood that no better." "It is certainly very curious," I agreed. "It is more than curious," he replied; "in my case it is incomprehensible. I possess a diploma for modern languages. I won my scholarship purely on the strength of my French and German. The correctness of my construction, the purity of my pronunciation, was considered at my college to be quite remarkable. Yet, when I come abroad hardly anybody understands a word I say. Can you explain it?" "I think I can," I replied. "Your pronunciation is too faultless. You remember what the Scotsman said when for the first time in his life he tasted real whisky: 'It may be puir, but I canna drink it'; so it is with your German. It strikes one less as a language than as an exhibition. If I might offer advice, I should say: Mispronounce as much as possible, and throw in as many mistakes as you can think of." It is the same everywhere. Each country keeps a special pronunciation exclusively for the use of foreigners--a pronunciation they never dream of using themselves, that they cannot understand when it is used. I once heard an English lady explaining to a Frenchman how to pronounce the word Have. "You will pronounce it," said the lady reproachfully, "as if it were spelt H-a-v. It isn't. There is an 'e' at the end." "But I thought," said the pupil, "that you did not sound the 'e' at the end of h-a-v-e." "No more you do," explained his teacher. "It is what we call a mute 'e'; but it exercises a modifying influence on the preceding vowel." Before that, he used to say "have" quite intelligently. Afterwards, when he came to the word he would stop dead, collect his thoughts, and give expression to a sound that only the context could explain. Putting aside the sufferings of the early martyrs, few men, I suppose, have gone through more than I myself went through in trying to I attain the correct pronunciation of the German word for church--"Kirche." Long before I had done with it I had determined never to go to church in Germany, rather than be bothered with it. "No, no," my teacher would explain--he was a painstaking gentleman; "you say it as if it were spelt K-i-r-c-h-k-e. There is no k. It is--." And he would illustrate to me again, for the twentieth time that morning, how it should be pronounced; the sad thing being that I could never for the life of me detect any difference between the way he said it and the way I said it. So he would try a new method. "You say it from your throat," he would explain. He was quite right; I did. "I want you to say it from down here," and with a fat forefinger he would indicate the region from where I was to start. After painful efforts, resulting in sounds suggestive of anything rather than a place of worship, I would excuse myself. "I really fear it is impossible," I would say. "You see, for years I have always talked with my mouth, as it were; I never knew a man could talk with his stomach. I doubt if it is not too late now for me to learn." By spending hours in dark corners, and practising in silent streets, to the terror of chance passers-by, I came at last to pronounce this word correctly. My teacher was delighted with me, and until I came to Germany I was pleased with myself. In Germany I found that nobody understood what I meant by it. I never got near a church with it. I had to drop the correct pronunciation, and painstakingly go back to my first wrong pronunciation. Then they would brighten up, and tell me it was round the corner, or down the next street, as the case might be. I also think pronunciation of a foreign tongue could be better taught than by demanding from the pupil those internal acrobatic feats that are generally impossible and always useless. This is the sort of instruction one receives: "Press your tonsils against the underside of your larynx. Then with the convex part of the septum curved upwards so as almost--but not quite--to touch the uvula, try with the tip of your tongue to reach your thyroid. Take a deep breath, and compress your glottis. Now, without opening your lips, say 'Garoo.'" And when you have done it they are not satisfied. CHAPTER XIII An examination into the character and behaviour of the German student--The German Mensur--Uses and abuses of use--Views of an impressionist--The humour of the thing--Recipe for making savages--The Jungfrau: her peculiar taste in laces--The Kneipe--How to rub a Salamander--Advice to the stranger--A story that might have ended sadly--Of two men and two wives--Together with a bachelor. On our way home we included a German University town, being wishful to obtain an insight into the ways of student life, a curiosity that the courtesy of German friends enabled us to gratify. The English boy plays till he is fifteen, and works thence till twenty. In Germany it is the child that works; the young man that plays. The German boy goes to school at seven o'clock in the summer, at eight in the winter, and at school he studies. The result is that at sixteen he has a thorough knowledge of the classics and mathematics, knows as much history as any man compelled to belong to a political party is wise in knowing, together with a thorough grounding in modern languages. Therefore his eight College Semesters, extending over four years, are, except for the young man aiming at a professorship, unnecessarily ample. He is not a sportsman, which is a pity, for he should make good one. He plays football a little, bicycles still less; plays French billiards in stuffy cafes more. But generally speaking he, or the majority of him, lays out his time bummeling, beer drinking, and fighting. If he be the son of a wealthy father he joins a Korps--to belong to a crack Korps costs about four hundred pounds a year. If he be a middle-class young man, he enrols himself in a Burschenschaft, or a Landsmannschaft, which is a little cheaper. These companies are again broken up into smaller circles, in which attempt is made to keep to nationality. There are the Swabians, from Swabia; the Frankonians, descendants of the Franks; the Thuringians, and so forth. In practice, of course, this results as all such attempts do result--I believe half our Gordon Highlanders are Cockneys--but the picturesque object is obtained of dividing each University into some dozen or so separate companies of students, each one with its distinctive cap and colours, and, quite as important, its own particular beer hall, into which no other student wearing his colours may come. The chief work of these student companies is to fight among themselves, or with some rival Korps or Schaft, the celebrated German Mensur. The Mensur has been described so often and so thoroughly that I do not intend to bore my readers with any detailed account of it. I merely come forward as an impressionist, and I write purposely the impression of my first Mensur, because I believe that first impressions are more true and useful than opinions blunted by intercourse, or shaped by influence. A Frenchman or a Spaniard will seek to persuade you that the bull-ring is an institution got up chiefly for the benefit of the bull. The horse which you imagined to be screaming with pain was only laughing at the comical appearance presented by its own inside. Your French or Spanish friend contrasts its glorious and exciting death in the ring with the cold-blooded brutality of the knacker's yard. If you do not keep a tight hold of your head, you come away with the desire to start an agitation for the inception of the bull-ring in England as an aid to chivalry. No doubt Torquemada was convinced of the humanity of the Inquisition. To a stout gentleman, suffering, perhaps, from cramp or rheumatism, an hour or so on the rack was really a physical benefit. He would rise feeling more free in his joints--more elastic, as one might say, than he had felt for years. English huntsmen regard the fox as an animal to be envied. A day's excellent sport is provided for him free of charge, during which he is the centre of attraction. Use blinds one to everything one does not wish to see. Every third German gentleman you meet in the street still bears, and will bear to his grave, marks of the twenty to a hundred duels he has fought in his student days. The German children play at the Mensur in the nursery, rehearse it in the gymnasium. The Germans have come to persuade themselves there is no brutality in it--nothing offensive, nothing degrading. Their argument is that it schools the German youth to coolness and courage. If this could be proved, the argument, particularly in a country where every man is a soldier, would be sufficiently one-sided. But is the virtue of the prize-fighter the virtue of the soldier? One doubts it. Nerve and dash are surely of more service in the field than a temperament of unreasoning indifference as to what is happening to one. As a matter of fact, the German student would have to be possessed of much more courage not to fight. He fights not to please himself, but to satisfy a public opinion that is two hundred years behind the times. All the Mensur does is to brutalise him. There may be skill displayed--I am told there is,--but it is not apparent. The mere fighting is like nothing so much as a broadsword combat at a Richardson's show; the display as a whole a successful attempt to combine the ludicrous with the unpleasant. In aristocratic Bonn, where style is considered, and in Heidelberg, where visitors from other nations are more common, the affair is perhaps more formal. I am told that there the contests take place in handsome rooms; that grey-haired doctors wait upon the wounded, and liveried servants upon the hungry, and that the affair is conducted throughout with a certain amount of picturesque ceremony. In the more essentially German Universities, where strangers are rare and not much encouraged, the simple essentials are the only things kept in view, and these are not of an inviting nature. Indeed, so distinctly uninviting are they, that I strongly advise the sensitive reader to avoid even this description of them. The subject cannot be made pretty, and I do not intend to try. The room is bare and sordid; its walls splashed with mixed stains of beer, blood, and candle-grease; its ceiling, smoky; its floor, sawdust covered. A crowd of students, laughing, smoking, talking, some sitting on the floor, others perched upon chairs and benches form the framework. In the centre, facing one another, stand the combatants, resembling Japanese warriors, as made familiar to us by the Japanese tea-tray. Quaint and rigid, with their goggle-covered eyes, their necks tied up in comforters, their bodies smothered in what looks like dirty bed quilts, their padded arms stretched straight above their heads, they might be a pair of ungainly clockwork figures. The seconds, also more or less padded--their heads and faces protected by huge leather-peaked caps,--drag them out into their proper position. One almost listens to hear the sound of the castors. The umpire takes his place, the word is given, and immediately there follow five rapid clashes of the long straight swords. There is no interest in watching the fight: there is no movement, no skill, no grace (I am speaking of my own impressions.) The strongest man wins; the man who, with his heavily-padded arm, always in an unnatural position, can hold his huge clumsy sword longest without growing too weak to be able either to guard or to strike. The whole interest is centred in watching the wounds. They come always in one of two places--on the top of the head or the left side of the face. Sometimes a portion of hairy scalp or section of cheek flies up into the air, to be carefully preserved in an envelope by its proud possessor, or, strictly speaking, its proud former possessor, and shown round on convivial evenings; and from every wound, of course, flows a plentiful stream of blood. It splashes doctors, seconds, and spectators; it sprinkles ceiling and walls; it saturates the fighters, and makes pools for itself in the sawdust. At the end of each round the doctors rush up, and with hands already dripping with blood press together the gaping wounds, dabbing them with little balls of wet cotton wool, which an attendant carries ready on a plate. Naturally, the moment the men stand up again and commence work, the blood gushes out again, half blinding them, and rendering the ground beneath them slippery. Now and then you see a man's teeth laid bare almost to the ear, so that for the rest of the duel he appears to be grinning at one half of the spectators, his other side, remaining serious; and sometimes a man's nose gets slit, which gives to him as he fights a singularly supercilious air. As the object of each student is to go away from the University bearing as many scars as possible, I doubt if any particular pains are taken to guard, even to the small extent such method of fighting can allow. The real victor is he who comes out with the greatest number of wounds; he who then, stitched and patched almost to unrecognition as a human being, can promenade for the next month, the envy of the German youth, the admiration of the German maiden. He who obtains only a few unimportant wounds retires sulky and disappointed. But the actual fighting is only the beginning of the fun. The second act of the spectacle takes place in the dressing-room. The doctors are generally mere medical students--young fellows who, having taken their degree, are anxious for practice. Truth compels me to say that those with whom I came in contact were coarse-looking men who seemed rather to relish their work. Perhaps they are not to be blamed for this. It is part of the system that as much further punishment as possible must be inflicted by the doctor, and the ideal medical man might hardly care for such job. How the student bears the dressing of his wounds is as important as how he receives them. Every operation has to be performed as brutally as may be, and his companions carefully watch him during the process to see that he goes through it with an appearance of peace and enjoyment. A clean-cut wound that gapes wide is most desired by all parties. On purpose it is sewn up clumsily, with the hope that by this means the scar will last a lifetime. Such a wound, judiciously mauled and interfered with during the week afterwards, can generally be reckoned on to secure its fortunate possessor a wife with a dowry of five figures at the least. These are the general bi-weekly Mensurs, of which the average student fights some dozen a year. There are others to which visitors are not admitted. When a student is considered to have disgraced himself by some slight involuntary movement of the head or body while fighting, then he can only regain his position by standing up to the best swordsman in his Korps. He demands and is accorded, not a contest, but a punishment. His opponent then proceeds to inflict as many and as bloody wounds as can be taken. The object of the victim is to show his comrades that he can stand still while his head is half sliced from his skull. Whether anything can properly be said in favour of the German Mensur I am doubtful; but if so it concerns only the two combatants. Upon the spectators it can and does, I am convinced, exercise nothing but evil. I know myself sufficiently well to be sure I am not of an unusually bloodthirsty disposition. The effect it had upon me can only be the usual effect. At first, before the actual work commenced, my sensation was curiosity mingled with anxiety as to how the sight would trouble me, though some slight acquaintance with dissecting-rooms and operating tables left me less doubt on that point than I might otherwise have felt. As the blood began to flow, and nerves and muscles to be laid bare, I experienced a mingling of disgust and pity. But with the second duel, I must confess, my finer feelings began to disappear; and by the time the third was well upon its way, and the room heavy with the curious hot odour of blood, I began, as the American expression is, to see things red. I wanted more. I looked from face to face surrounding me, and in most of them I found reflected undoubtedly my own sensations. If it be a good thing to excite this blood thirst in the modern man, then the Mensur is a useful institution. But is it a good thing? We prate about our civilisation and humanity, but those of us who do not carry hypocrisy to the length of self-deception know that underneath our starched shirts there lurks the savage, with all his savage instincts untouched. Occasionally he may be wanted, but we never need fear his dying out. On the other hand, it seems unwise to over-nourish him. In favour of the duel, seriously considered, there are many points to be urged. But the Mensur serves no good purpose whatever. It is childishness, and the fact of its being a cruel and brutal game makes it none the less childish. Wounds have no intrinsic value of their own; it is the cause that dignifies them, not their size. William Tell is rightly one of the heroes of the world; but what should we think of the members of a club of fathers, formed with the object of meeting twice a week to shoot apples from their sons' heads with cross-bows? These young German gentlemen could obtain all the results of which they are so proud by teasing a wild cat! To join a society for the mere purpose of getting yourself hacked about reduces a man to the intellectual level of a dancing Dervish. Travellers tell us of savages in Central Africa who express their feelings on festive occasions by jumping about and slashing themselves. But there is no need for Europe to imitate them. The Mensur is, in fact, the _reductio ad absurdum_ of the duel; and if the Germans themselves cannot see that it is funny, one can only regret their lack of humour. But though one may be unable to agree with the public opinion that supports and commands the Mensur, it at least is possible to understand. The University code that, if it does not encourage it, at least condones drunkenness, is more difficult to treat argumentatively. All German students do not get drunk; in fact, the majority are sober, if not industrious. But the minority, whose claim to be representative is freely admitted, are only saved from perpetual inebriety by ability, acquired at some cost, to swill half the day and all the night, while retaining to some extent their five senses. It does not affect all alike, but it is common in any University town to see a young man not yet twenty with the figure of a Falstaff and the complexion of a Rubens Bacchus. That the German maiden can be fascinated with a face, cut and gashed till it suggests having been made out of odd materials that never could have fitted, is a proved fact. But surely there can be no attraction about a blotched and bloated skin and a "bay window" thrown out to an extent threatening to overbalance the whole structure. Yet what else can be expected, when the youngster starts his beer-drinking with a "Fruhschoppen" at 10 a.m., and closes it with a "Kneipe" at four in the morning? The Kneipe is what we should call a stag party, and can be very harmless or very rowdy, according to its composition. One man invites his fellow- students, a dozen or a hundred, to a cafe, and provides them with as much beer and as many cheap cigars as their own sense of health and comfort may dictate, or the host may be the Korps itself. Here, as everywhere, you observe the German sense of discipline and order. As each new comer enters all those sitting round the table rise, and with heels close together salute. When the table is complete, a chairman is chosen, whose duty it is to give out the number of the songs. Printed books of these songs, one to each two men, lie round the table. The chairman gives out number twenty-nine. "First verse," he cries, and away all go, each two men holding a book between them exactly as two people might hold a hymn- book in church. There is a pause at the end of each verse until the chairman starts the company on the next. As every German is a trained singer, and as most of them have fair voices, the general effect is striking. Although the manner may be suggestive of the singing of hymns in church, the words of the songs are occasionally such as to correct this impression. But whether it be a patriotic song, a sentimental ballad, or a ditty of a nature that would shock the average young Englishman, all are sung through with stern earnestness, without a laugh, without a false note. At the end, the chairman calls "Prosit!" Everyone answers "Prosit!" and the next moment every glass is empty. The pianist rises and bows, and is bowed to in return; and then the Fraulein enters to refill the glasses. Between the songs, toasts are proposed and responded to; but there is little cheering, and less laughter. Smiles and grave nods of approval are considered as more seeming among German students. A particular toast, called a Salamander, accorded to some guest as a special distinction, is drunk with exceptional solemnity. "We will now," says the chairman, "a Salamander rub" ("Einen Salamander reiben"). We all rise, and stand like a regiment at attention. "Is the stuff prepared?" ("Sind die stoffe parat?") demands the chairman. "Sunt," we answer, with one voice. "Ad exercitium Salamandri," says the chairman, and we are ready. "Eins!" We rub our glasses with a circular motion on the table. "Zwei!" Again the glasses growl; also at "Drei!" "Drink!" ("Bibite!") And with mechanical unison every glass is emptied and held on high. "Eins!" says the chairman. The foot of every empty glass twirls upon the table, producing a sound as of the dragging back of a stony beach by a receding wave. "Zwei!" The roll swells and sinks again. "Drei!" The glasses strike the table with a single crash, and we are in our seats again. The sport at the Kneipe is for two students to insult each other (in play, of course), and to then challenge each other to a drinking duel. An umpire is appointed, two huge glasses are filled, and the men sit opposite each other with their hands upon the handles, all eyes fixed upon them. The umpire gives the word to go, and in an instant the beer is gurgling down their throats. The man who bangs his perfectly finished glass upon the table first is victor. Strangers who are going through a Kneipe, and who wish to do the thing in German style, will do well, before commencing proceedings, to pin their name and address upon their coats. The German student is courtesy itself, and whatever his own state may be, he will see to it that, by some means or another, his guest gets safely home before the morning. But, of course, he cannot be expected to remember addresses. A story was told me of three guests to a Berlin Kneipe which might have had tragic results. The strangers determined to do the thing thoroughly. They explained their intention, and were applauded, and each proceeded to write his address upon his card, and pin it to the tablecloth in front of him. That was the mistake they made. They should, as I have advised, have pinned it carefully to their coats. A man may change his place at a table, quite unconsciously he may come out the other side of it; but wherever he goes he takes his coat with him. Some time in the small hours, the chairman suggested that to make things more comfortable for those still upright, all the gentlemen unable to keep their heads off the table should be sent home. Among those to whom the proceedings had become uninteresting were the three Englishmen. It was decided to put them into a cab in charge of a comparatively speaking sober student, and return them. Had they retained their original seats throughout the evening all would have been well; but, unfortunately, they had gone walking about, and which gentleman belonged to which card nobody knew--least of all the guests themselves. In the then state of general cheerfulness, this did not to anybody appear to much matter. There were three gentlemen and three addresses. I suppose the idea was that even if a mistake were made, the parties could be sorted out in the morning. Anyhow, the three gentlemen were put into a cab, the comparatively speaking sober student took the three cards in his hand, and the party started amid the cheers and good wishes of the company. There is this advantage about German beer: it does not make a man drunk as the word drunk is understood in England. There is nothing objectionable about him; he is simply tired. He does not want to talk; he wants to be let alone, to go to sleep; it does not matter where--anywhere. The conductor of the party stopped his cab at the nearest address. He took out his worst case; it was a natural instinct to get rid of that first. He and the cabman carried it upstairs, and rang the bell of the Pension. A sleepy porter answered it. They carried their burden in, and looked for a place to drop it. A bedroom door happened to be open; the room was empty; could anything be better?--they took it in there. They relieved it of such things as came off easily, and laid it in the bed. This done, both men, pleased with themselves, returned to the cab. At the next address they stopped again. This time, in answer to their summons, a lady appeared, dressed in a tea gown, with a book in her hand. The German student looked at the top one of two cards remaining in his hand, and enquired if he had the pleasure of addressing Frau Y. It happened that he had, though so far as any pleasure was concerned that appeared to be entirely on his side. He explained to Frau Y. that the gentleman at that moment asleep against the wall was her husband. The reunion moved her to no enthusiasm; she simply opened the bedroom door, and then walked away. The cabman and the student took him in, and laid him on the bed. They did not trouble to undress him, they were feeling tired! They did not see the lady of the house again, and retired therefore without adieus. The last card was that of a bachelor stopping at an hotel. They took their last man, therefore, to that hotel, passed him over to the night porter, and left him. To return to the address at which the first delivery was made, what had happened there was this. Some eight hours previously had said Mr. X. to Mrs. X.: "I think I told you, my dear, that I had an invitation for this evening to what, I believe, is called a Kneipe?" "You did mention something of the sort," replied Mrs. X. "What is a Kneipe?" "Well, it's a sort of bachelor party, my dear, where the students meet to sing and talk and--and smoke, and all that sort of thing, you know." "Oh, well, I hope you will enjoy yourself!" said Mrs. X., who was a nice woman and sensible. "It will be interesting," observed Mr. X. "I have often had a curiosity to see one. I may," continued Mr. X.,--"I mean it is possible, that I may be home a little late." "What do you call late?" asked Mrs. X. "It is somewhat difficult to say," returned Mr. X. "You see these students, they are a wild lot, and when they get together--And then, I believe, a good many toasts are drunk. I don't know how it will affect me. If I can see an opportunity I shall come away early, that is if I can do so without giving offence; but if not--" Said Mrs. X., who, as I remarked before, was a sensible woman: "You had better get the people here to lend you a latchkey. I shall sleep with Dolly, and then you won't disturb me whatever time it may be." "I think that an excellent idea of yours," agreed Mr. X. "I should hate disturbing you. I shall just come in quietly, and slip into bed." Some time in the middle of the night, or maybe towards the early morning, Dolly, who was Mrs. X.'s sister, sat up in bed and listened. "Jenny," said Dolly, "are you awake?" "Yes, dear," answered Mrs. X. "It's all right. You go to sleep again." "But whatever is it?" asked Dolly. "Do you think it's fire?" "I expect," replied Mrs. X., "that it's Percy. Very possibly he has stumbled over something in the dark. Don't you worry, dear; you go to sleep." But so soon as Dolly had dozed off again, Mrs. X., who was a good wife, thought she would steal off softly and see to it that Percy was all right. So, putting on a dressing-gown and slippers, she crept along the passage and into her own room. To awake the gentleman on the bed would have required an earthquake. She lit a candle and stole over to the bedside. It was not Percy; it was not anyone like Percy. She felt it was not the man that ever could have been her husband, under any circumstances. In his present condition her sentiment towards him was that of positive dislike. Her only desire was to get rid of him. But something there was about him which seemed familiar to her. She went nearer, and took a closer view. Then she remembered. Surely it was Mr. Y., a gentleman at whose flat she and Percy had dined the day they first arrived in Berlin. But what was he doing here? She put the candle on the table, and taking her head between her hands sat down to think. The explanation of the thing came to her with a rush. It was with this Mr. Y. that Percy had gone to the Kneipe. A mistake had been made. Mr. Y. had been brought back to Percy's address. Percy at this very moment-- The terrible possibilities of the situation swam before her. Returning to Dolly's room, she dressed herself hastily, and silently crept downstairs. Finding, fortunately, a passing night-cab, she drove to the address of Mrs. Y. Telling the man to wait, she flew upstairs and rang persistently at the bell. It was opened as before by Mrs. Y., still in her tea-gown, and with her book still in her hand. "Mrs. X.!" exclaimed Mrs. Y. "Whatever brings you here?" "My husband!" was all poor Mrs. X. could think to say at the moment, "is he here?" "Mrs. X.," returned Mrs. Y., drawing herself up to her full height, "how dare you?" "Oh, please don't misunderstand me!" pleaded Mrs. X. "It's all a terrible mistake. They must have brought poor Percy here instead of to our place, I'm sure they must. Do please look and see." "My dear," said Mrs. Y., who was a much older woman, and more motherly, "don't excite yourself. They brought him here about half an hour ago, and, to tell you the truth, I never looked at him. He is in here. I don't think they troubled to take off even his boots. If you keep cool, we will get him downstairs and home without a soul beyond ourselves being any the wiser. Indeed, Mrs. Y. seemed quite eager to help Mrs. X. She pushed open the door, and Mrs. X, went in. The next moment she came out with a white, scared face. "It isn't Percy," she said. "Whatever am I to do?" "I wish you wouldn't make these mistakes," said Mrs. Y., moving to enter the room herself. Mrs. X. stopped her. "And it isn't your husband either." "Nonsense," said Mrs. Y. "It isn't really," persisted Mrs. X. "I know, because I have just left him, asleep on Percy's bed." "What's he doing there?" thundered Mrs. Y. "They brought him there, and put him there," explained Mrs. X., beginning to cry. "That's what made me think Percy must be here." The two women stood and looked at one another; and there was silence for awhile, broken only by the snoring of the gentleman the other side of the half-open door. "Then who is that, in there?" demanded Mrs. Y., who was the first to recover herself. "I don't know," answered Mrs. X., "I have never seen him before. Do you think it is anybody you know?" But Mrs. Y. only banged to the door. "What are we to do?" said Mrs. X. "I know what _I_ am going to do," said Mrs. Y. "I'm coming back with you to fetch my husband." "He's very sleepy," explained Mrs. X. "I've known him to be that before," replied Mrs. Y., as she fastened on her cloak. "But where's Percy?" sobbed poor little Mrs. X., as they descended the stairs together. "That my dear," said Mrs. Y., "will be a question for you to ask _him_." "If they go about making mistakes like this," said Mrs. X., "it is impossible to say what they may not have done with him." "We will make enquiries in the morning, my dear," said Mrs. Y., consolingly. "I think these Kneipes are disgraceful affairs," said Mrs. X. "I shall never let Percy go to another, never--so long as I live." "My dear," remarked Mrs. Y., "if you know your duty, he will never want to." And rumour has it that he never did. But, as I have said, the mistake was in pinning the card to the tablecloth instead of to the coat. And error in this world is always severely punished. CHAPTER XIV Which is serious: as becomes a parting chapter--The German from the Anglo- Saxon's point of view--Providence in buttons and a helmet--Paradise of the helpless idiot--German conscience: its aggressiveness--How they hang in Germany, very possibly--What happens to good Germans when they die?--The military instinct: is it all-sufficient?--The German as a shopkeeper--How he supports life--The New Woman, here as everywhere--What can be said against the Germans, as a people--The Bummel is over and done. "Anybody could rule this country," said George; "_I_ could rule it." We were seated in the garden of the Kaiser Hof at Bonn, looking down upon the Rhine. It was the last evening of our Bummel; the early morning train would be the beginning of the end. "I should write down all I wanted the people to do on a piece of paper," continued George; "get a good firm to print off so many copies, have them posted about the towns and villages; and the thing would be done." In the placid, docile German of to-day, whose only ambition appears to be to pay his taxes, and do what he is told to do by those whom it has pleased Providence to place in authority over him, it is difficult, one must confess, to detect any trace of his wild ancestor, to whom individual liberty was as the breath of his nostrils; who appointed his magistrates to advise, but retained the right of execution for the tribe; who followed his chief, but would have scorned to obey him. In Germany to-day one hears a good deal concerning Socialism, but it is a Socialism that would only be despotism under another name. Individualism makes no appeal to the German voter. He is willing, nay, anxious, to be controlled and regulated in all things. He disputes, not government, but the form of it. The policeman is to him a religion, and, one feels, will always remain so. In England we regard our man in blue as a harmless necessity. By the average citizen he is employed chiefly as a signpost, though in busy quarters of the town he is considered useful for taking old ladies across the road. Beyond feeling thankful to him for these services, I doubt if we take much thought of him. In Germany, on the other hand, he is worshipped as a little god and loved as a guardian angel. To the German child he is a combination of Santa Claus and the Bogie Man. All good things come from him: Spielplatze to play in, furnished with swings and giant-strides, sand heaps to fight around, swimming baths, and fairs. All misbehaviour is punished by him. It is the hope of every well-meaning German boy and girl to please the police. To be smiled at by a policeman makes it conceited. A German child that has been patted on the head by a policeman is not fit to live with; its self-importance is unbearable. The German citizen is a soldier, and the policeman is his officer. The policeman directs him where in the street to walk, and how fast to walk. At the end of each bridge stands a policeman to tell the German how to cross it. Were there no policeman there, he would probably sit down and wait till the river had passed by. At the railway station the policeman locks him up in the waiting-room, where he can do no harm to himself. When the proper time arrives, he fetches him out and hands him over to the guard of the train, who is only a policeman in another uniform. The guard tells him where to sit in the train, and when to get out, and sees that he does get out. In Germany you take no responsibility upon yourself whatever. Everything is done for you, and done well. You are not supposed to look after yourself; you are not blamed for being incapable of looking after yourself; it is the duty of the German policeman to look after you. That you may be a helpless idiot does not excuse him should anything happen to you. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing you are in his charge, and he takes care of you--good care of you; there is no denying this. If you lose yourself, he finds you; and if you lose anything belonging to you, he recovers it for you. If you don't know what you want, he tells you. If you want anything that is good for you to have, he gets it for you. Private lawyers are not needed in Germany. If you want to buy or sell a house or field, the State makes out the conveyance. If you have been swindled, the State takes up the case for you. The State marries you, insures you, will even gamble with you for a trifle. "You get yourself born," says the German Government to the German citizen, "we do the rest. Indoors and out of doors, in sickness and in health, in pleasure and in work, we will tell you what to do, and we will see to it that you do it. Don't you worry yourself about anything." And the German doesn't. Where there is no policeman to be found, he wanders about till he comes to a police notice posted on a wall. This he reads; then he goes and does what it says. I remember in one German town--I forget which; it is immaterial; the incident could have happened in any--noticing an open gate leading to a garden in which a concert was being given. There was nothing to prevent anyone who chose from walking through that gate, and thus gaining admittance to the concert without paying. In fact, of the two gates quarter of a mile apart it was the more convenient. Yet of the crowds that passed, not one attempted to enter by that gate. They plodded steadily on under a blazing sun to the other gate, at which a man stood to collect the entrance money. I have seen German youngsters stand longingly by the margin of a lonely sheet of ice. They could have skated on that ice for hours, and nobody have been the wiser. The crowd and the police were at the other end, more than half a mile away, and round the corner. Nothing stopped their going on but the knowledge that they ought not. Things such as these make one pause to seriously wonder whether the Teuton be a member of the sinful human family or not. Is it not possible that these placid, gentle folk may in reality be angels, come down to earth for the sake of a glass of beer, which, as they must know, can only in Germany be obtained worth the drinking? In Germany the country roads are lined with fruit trees. There is no voice to stay man or boy from picking and eating the fruit, except conscience. In England such a state of things would cause public indignation. Children would die of cholera by the hundred. The medical profession would be worked off its legs trying to cope with the natural results of over-indulgence in sour apples and unripe walnuts. Public opinion would demand that these fruit trees should be fenced about, and thus rendered harmless. Fruit growers, to save themselves the expense of walls and palings, would not be allowed in this manner to spread sickness and death throughout the community. But in Germany a boy will walk for miles down a lonely road, hedged with fruit trees, to buy a pennyworth of pears in the village at the other end. To pass these unprotected fruit trees, drooping under their burden of ripe fruit, strikes the Anglo-Saxon mind as a wicked waste of opportunity, a flouting of the blessed gifts of Providence. I do not know if it be so, but from what I have observed of the German character I should not be surprised to hear that when a man in Germany is condemned to death he is given a piece of rope, and told to go and hang himself. It would save the State much trouble and expense, and I can see that German criminal taking that piece of rope home with him, reading up carefully the police instructions, and proceeding to carry them out in his own back kitchen. The Germans are a good people. On the whole, the best people perhaps in the world; an amiable, unselfish, kindly people. I am positive that the vast majority of them go to Heaven. Indeed, comparing them with the other Christian nations of the earth, one is forced to the conclusion that Heaven will be chiefly of German manufacture. But I cannot understand how they get there. That the soul of any single individual German has sufficient initiative to fly up by itself and knock at St. Peter's door, I cannot believe. My own opinion is that they are taken there in small companies, and passed in under the charge of a dead policeman. Carlyle said of the Prussians, and it is true of the whole German nation, that one of their chief virtues was their power of being drilled. Of the Germans you might say they are a people who will go anywhere, and do anything, they are told. Drill him for the work and send him out to Africa or Asia under charge of somebody in uniform, and he is bound to make an excellent colonist, facing difficulties as he would face the devil himself, if ordered. But it is not easy to conceive of him as a pioneer. Left to run himself, one feels he would soon fade away and die, not from any lack of intelligence, but from sheer want of presumption. The German has so long been the soldier of Europe, that the military instinct has entered into his blood. The military virtues he possesses in abundance; but he also suffers from the drawbacks of the military training. It was told me of a German servant, lately released from the barracks, that he was instructed by his master to deliver a letter to a certain house, and to wait there for the answer. The hours passed by, and the man did not return. His master, anxious and surprised, followed. He found the man where he had been sent, the answer in his hand. He was waiting for further orders. The story sounds exaggerated, but personally I can credit it. The curious thing is that the same man, who as an individual is as helpless as a child, becomes, the moment he puts on the uniform, an intelligent being, capable of responsibility and initiative. The German can rule others, and be ruled by others, but he cannot rule himself. The cure would appear to be to train every German for an officer, and then put him under himself. It is certain he would order himself about with discretion and judgment, and see to it that he himself obeyed himself with smartness and precision. For the direction of German character into these channels, the schools, of course, are chiefly responsible. Their everlasting teaching is duty. It is a fine ideal for any people; but before buckling to it, one would wish to have a clear understanding as to what this "duty" is. The German idea of it would appear to be: "blind obedience to everything in buttons." It is the antithesis of the Anglo-Saxon scheme; but as both the Anglo-Saxon and the Teuton are prospering, there must be good in both methods. Hitherto, the German has had the blessed fortune to be exceptionally well governed; if this continue, it will go well with him. When his troubles will begin will be when by any chance something goes wrong with the governing machine. But maybe his method has the advantage of producing a continuous supply of good governors; it would certainly seem so. As a trader, I am inclined to think the German will, unless his temperament considerably change, remain always a long way behind his Anglo-Saxon competitor; and this by reason of his virtues. To him life is something more important than a mere race for wealth. A country that closes its banks and post-offices for two hours in the middle of the day, while it goes home and enjoys a comfortable meal in the bosom of its family, with, perhaps, forty winks by way of dessert, cannot hope, and possibly has no wish, to compete with a people that takes its meals standing, and sleeps with a telephone over its bed. In Germany there is not, at all events as yet, sufficient distinction between the classes to make the struggle for position the life and death affair it is in England. Beyond the landed aristocracy, whose boundaries are impregnable, grade hardly counts. Frau Professor and Frau Candlestickmaker meet at the Weekly Kaffee-Klatsch and exchange scandal on terms of mutual equality. The livery-stable keeper and the doctor hobnob together at their favourite beer hall. The wealthy master builder, when he prepares his roomy waggon for an excursion into the country, invites his foreman and his tailor to join him with their families. Each brings his share of drink and provisions, and returning home they sing in chorus the same songs. So long as this state of things endures, a man is not induced to sacrifice the best years of his life to win a fortune for his dotage. His tastes, and, more to the point still, his wife's, remain inexpensive. He likes to see his flat or villa furnished with much red plush upholstery and a profusion of gilt and lacquer. But that is his idea; and maybe it is in no worse taste than is a mixture of bastard Elizabethan with imitation Louis XV, the whole lit by electric light, and smothered with photographs. Possibly, he will have his outer walls painted by the local artist: a sanguinary battle, a good deal interfered with by the front door, taking place below, while Bismarck, as an angel, flutters vaguely about the bedroom windows. But for his Old Masters he is quite content to go to the public galleries; and "the Celebrity at Home" not having as yet taken its place amongst the institutions of the Fatherland, he is not impelled to waste his, money turning his house into an old curiosity shop. The German is a gourmand. There are still English farmers who, while telling you that farming spells starvation, enjoy their seven solid meals a day. Once a year there comes a week's feast throughout Russia, during which many deaths occur from the over-eating of pancakes; but this is a religious festival, and an exception. Taking him all round, the German as a trencherman stands pre-eminent among the nations of the earth. He rises early, and while dressing tosses off a few cups of coffee, together with half a dozen hot buttered rolls. But it is not until ten o'clock that he sits down to anything that can properly be called a meal. At one or half-past takes place his chief dinner. Of this he makes a business, sitting at it for a couple of hours. At four o'clock he goes to the cafe, and eats cakes and drinks chocolate. The evening he devotes to eating generally--not a set meal, or rarely, but a series of snacks,--a bottle of beer and a Belegete-semmel or two at seven, say; another bottle of beer and an Aufschnitt at the theatre between the acts; a small bottle of white wine and a Spiegeleier before going home; then a piece of cheese or sausage, washed down by more beer, previous to turning in for the night. But he is no gourmet. French cooks and French prices are not the rule at his restaurant. His beer or his inexpensive native white wine he prefers to the most costly clarets or champagnes. And, indeed, it is well for him he does; for one is inclined to think that every time a French grower sells a bottle of wine to a German hotel- or shop-keeper, Sedan is rankling in his mind. It is a foolish revenge, seeing that it is not the German who as a rule drinks it; the punishment falls upon some innocent travelling Englishman. Maybe, however, the French dealer remembers also Waterloo, and feels that in any event he scores. In Germany expensive entertainments are neither offered nor expected. Everything throughout the Fatherland is homely and friendly. The German has no costly sports to pay for, no showy establishment to maintain, no purse-proud circle to dress for. His chief pleasure, a seat at the opera or concert, can be had for a few marks; and his wife and daughters walk there in home-made dresses, with shawls over their heads. Indeed, throughout the country the absence of all ostentation is to English eyes quite refreshing. Private carriages are few and far between, and even the droschke is made use of only when the quicker and cleaner electric car is not available. By such means the German retains his independence. The shopkeeper in Germany does not fawn upon his customers. I accompanied an English lady once on a shopping excursion in Munich. She had been accustomed to shopping in London and New York, and she grumbled at everything the man showed her. It was not that she was really dissatisfied; this was her method. She explained that she could get most things cheaper and better elsewhere; not that she really thought she could, merely she held it good for the shopkeeper to say this. She told him that his stock lacked taste--she did not mean to be offensive; as I have explained, it was her method;--that there was no variety about it; that it was not up to date; that it was commonplace; that it looked as if it would not wear. He did not argue with her; he did not contradict her. He put the things back into their respective boxes, replaced the boxes on their respective shelves, walked into the little parlour behind the shop, and closed the door. "Isn't he ever coming back?" asked the lady, after a couple of minutes had elapsed. Her tone did not imply a question, so much as an exclamation of mere impatience. "I doubt it," I replied. "Why not?" she asked, much astonished. "I expect," I answered, "you have bored him. In all probability he is at this moment behind that door smoking a pipe and reading the paper." "What an extraordinary shopkeeper!" said my friend, as she gathered her parcels together and indignantly walked out. "It is their way," I explained. "There are the goods; if you want them, you can have them. If you do not want them, they would almost rather that you did not come and talk about them." On another occasion I listened in the smoke-room of a German hotel to a small Englishman telling a tale which, had I been in his place, I should have kept to myself. "It doesn't do," said the little Englishman, "to try and beat a German down. They don't seem to understand it. I saw a first edition of _The Robbers_ in a shop in the Georg Platz. I went in and asked the price. It was a rum old chap behind the counter. He said: 'Twenty-five marks,' and went on reading. I told him I had seen a better copy only a few days before for twenty--one talks like that when one is bargaining; it is understood. He asked me 'Where?' I told him in a shop at Leipsig. He suggested my returning there and getting it; he did not seem to care whether I bought the book or whether I didn't. I said: "'What's the least you will take for it?' "'I have told you once,' he answered; 'twenty-five marks.' He was an irritable old chap. "I said: 'It's not worth it.' "'I never said it was, did I?' he snapped. "I said: 'I'll give you ten marks for it.' I thought, maybe, he would end by taking twenty. "He rose. I took it he was coming round the counter to get the book out. Instead, he came straight up to me. He was a biggish sort of man. He took me by the two shoulders, walked me out into the street, and closed the door behind me with a bang. I was never more surprised in all my life. "Maybe the book was worth twenty-five marks," I suggested. "Of course it was," he replied; "well worth it. But what a notion of business!" If anything change the German character, it will be the German woman. She herself is changing rapidly--advancing, as we call it. Ten years ago no German woman caring for her reputation, hoping for a husband, would have dared to ride a bicycle: to-day they spin about the country in their thousands. The old folks shake their heads at them; but the young men, I notice, overtake them and ride beside them. Not long ago it was considered unwomanly in Germany for a lady to be able to do the outside edge. Her proper skating attitude was thought to be that of clinging limpness to some male relative. Now she practises eights in a corner by herself, until some young man comes along to help her. She plays tennis, and, from a point of safety, I have even noticed her driving a dog-cart. Brilliantly educated she always has been. At eighteen she speaks two or three languages, and has forgotten more than the average Englishwoman has ever read. Hitherto, this education has been utterly useless to her. On marriage she has retired into the kitchen, and made haste to clear her brain of everything else, in order to leave room for bad cooking. But suppose it begins to dawn upon her that a woman need not sacrifice her whole existence to household drudgery any more than a man need make himself nothing else than a business machine. Suppose she develop an ambition to take part in the social and national life. Then the influence of such a partner, healthy in body and therefore vigorous in mind, is bound to be both lasting and far-reaching. For it must be borne in mind that the German man is exceptionally sentimental, and most easily influenced by his women folk. It is said of him, he is the best of lovers, the worst of husbands. This has been the woman's fault. Once married, the German woman has done more than put romance behind her; she has taken a carpet-beater and driven it out of the house. As a girl, she never understood dressing; as a wife, she takes off such clothes even as she had, and proceeds to wrap herself up in any odd articles she may happen to find about the house; at all events, this is the impression she produces. The figure that might often be that of a Juno, the complexion that would sometimes do credit to a healthy angel, she proceeds of malice and intent to spoil. She sells her birth-right of admiration and devotion for a mess of sweets. Every afternoon you may see her at the cafe, loading herself with rich cream- covered cakes, washed down by copious draughts of chocolate. In a short time she becomes fat, pasty, placid, and utterly uninteresting. When the German woman gives up her afternoon coffee and her evening beer, takes sufficient exercise to retain her shape, and continues to read after marriage something else than the cookery-book, the German Government will find it has a new and unknown force to deal with. And everywhere throughout Germany one is confronted by unmistakable signs that the old German Frauen are giving place to the newer Damen. Concerning what will then happen one feels curious. For the German nation is still young, and its maturity is of importance to the world. They are a good people, a lovable people, who should help much to make the world better. The worst that can be said against them is that they have their failings. They themselves do not know this; they consider themselves perfect, which is foolish of them. They even go so far as to think themselves superior to the Anglo-Saxon: this is incomprehensible. One feels they must be pretending. "They have their points," said George; "but their tobacco is a national sin. I'm going to bed." We rose, and leaning over the low stone parapet, watched the dancing lights upon the soft, dark river. "It has been a pleasant Bummel, on the whole," said Harris; "I shall be glad to get back, and yet I am sorry it is over, if you understand me." "What is a 'Bummel'?" said George. "How would you translate it?" "A 'Bummel'," I explained, "I should describe as a journey, long or short, without an end; the only thing regulating it being the necessity of getting back within a given time to the point from which one started. Sometimes it is through busy streets, and sometimes through the fields and lanes; sometimes we can be spared for a few hours, and sometimes for a few days. But long or short, but here or there, our thoughts are ever on the running of the sand. We nod and smile to many as we pass; with some we stop and talk awhile; and with a few we walk a little way. We have been much interested, and often a little tired. But on the whole we have had a pleasant time, and are sorry when 'tis over." 
50631	----	ON WHEELS AROUND THE WORLD FOR THE INTER OCEAN THE TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES IN FOREIGN LANDS --OF-- MR. AND MRS. H. DARWIN McILRATH. Compiled from Letters Written by Mr. McIlrath and Published in THE SUNDAY AND WEEKLY INTER OCEAN, from April, 1895, to November, 1898. Copyright, 1898, By The Inter Ocean Publishing Co. THE TOUR AT A GLANCE. INTRODUCTORY. PAGES. Chicago Cyclists demonstrate their enthusiasm at the proposed World's Tour awheel--Friends of the Inter Ocean endorse the project by giving the McIlraths letters to friends in foreign lands--The starting point left behind on April 10, 1895 5-7 CHAPTER I. Two and one-half days getting into Nebraska--Many friends made on the road--An unanswerable argument in favor of the "rational" costume for women--An encounter with the law at Melrose Park and what came of it 9-13 CHAPTER II. Hard cycling in a hailstorm--A speeder with one leg arouses the admiration of the World's tourists--In Colorado at the one-time rendezvous of the famous James Boys and their gang--The 1,000 mile mark covered by May 3 13-18 CHAPTER III. Made wanderers at midnight through the whim of an unreasonable woman--Breaking a coasting record at Hot Springs, Colo.--Western railroad beds as dangerous as the Spanish Mines in Havana Harbor--An explosion and a badly lacerated tire 18-23 CHAPTER IV. Lizards, snakes and swollen streams make traveling lively for tourists--Paralysis of hands and arms necessitates a week's course of medical treatment--"Tommy Atkins," most companionable of Englishmen, forced to desert the Inter Ocean cyclists 24-26 CHAPTER V. Vigilantes of Nevada mistake the wheelman for a notorious bandit--Saved by one's gold teeth--Into Reno, where hospitality has its abode--Quick time to California, and then off for the Mikado's land on Oct. 12 29-33 CHAPTER VI. Quartered at the Club Hotel, Yokohama--Japan's extraordinary credit system--At the funeral of a prince, and a few points noted on Japanese crowds--Uncle Sam's people get the best of everything in Japan 33-38 CHAPTER VII. His Highness, the Emperor, objects to being "shot" by a camera--The war holidays at Shokausha Park, Kudan--By steamer to China--An effective "gun" for Chinese dogs--Cyclists the center of many inquisitive crowds 39-42 CHAPTER VIII. Guests at a Chinese wedding--The dark side of life in China sought and found--Indescribable horrors of a native prison--New Year extravagantly celebrated--Mrs. McIlrath's pen picture of a Chinese lady of fashion 43-47 CHAPTER IX. Received in state by the Toa Toi of Su Chow--Invited to witness the execution of a woman by the "Seng Chee" method--Debut of the bicycle along the Grand Canal--"Foreign devils" pursued by maddened mobs of natives 48-53 CHAPTER X. The American people's able representative at Ching Kiang--A reminiscence of his pluck and courage in settling claims for his country--Wheeling by night in a strange country with mud up to the bicycle hubs 53-57 CHAPTER XI. Saved by a Mandarin from the clutches of an Asiatic Shylock--Cyclists stray into the dangerous province of Hunan--Taken into Shaze, the city of blood and crimes--The Yang-Tse Kiang gorges from a houseboat 57-62 CHAPTER XII. The Yang-Tse-Kiang in its fiercest mood turned to advantage by a native undertaker--An appreciative Tai Foo pays the tourists for calling upon him--Severe punishment of a grasping boatman--A forced march to Chung King 62-66 CHAPTER XIII. Coolie guides and luggage bearers desert the tourists--Opium the curse of the Chinese Empire--The most dangerous stage of the Chinese trip concluded at last--Chung King's conjurer gives a remarkable street performance 67-71 CHAPTER XIV. Inter Ocean tourists become tramps through rain and snow, with the wheels carried on bamboo poles--Nearing the boundary line of China--Sudden change of climate and a narrow escape from the sunstroke--Chang, the Yunnan Giant 72-76 CHAPTER XV. A toast to the United States on Burmese soil--"On the Road to Mandalay"--Entertained at a wedding of royalty, where a feature of the programme caused ladies to retire and bachelors to blush--Hospitable British officers 76-81 CHAPTER XVI. Rangoon suffers an attack of the bicycling fever--Native sports supplanted by corrupt horse-racing--A prize fight where rules do not count--Across the Bay of Bengal by steamer 81-88 CHAPTER XVII. Arrival of the tourists causes great excitement at Benares--A pretty trio of supercilious British wheelmen--Guests of the Maharajah at Fort Ramnagar--A leap almost into the jaws of death 88-94 CHAPTER XVIII. Pursued by a maddened herd of water buffalo--A joke ends in a race for life--The Yankee flag a conspicuous feature of the Queen's Jubilee at Delhi--A reminder of the plucky but unfortunate Frank Lenz 94-96 CHAPTER XIX. Patriotism nearly lands McIlrath in a native prison--A night of terror attributed to Rodney, the pet monkey--Cyclists stricken with fever and become helpless invalids at Lahore--Bicycling much more comfortable than English national traveling 97-102 CHAPTER XX. Last days in India spent during the dreaded monsoon season--The pet monkey's appetite for rubber brings about an annoying delay--Officials refuse to let the Inter Ocean tourists follow out their plans and ride through Beloochistan 103-107 CHAPTER XXI. On board the "Assyria" bound for Persia--American firearms come in handy when road agents ask for "presents"--Climbing the Alps child's play compared with crossing the Kotals of Persia 108-112 CHAPTER XXII. A visiting card left on the Porch of Xerxes--At the ruins of Persepolis--Some plain truths, as to the character of the Armenians--Lost in a snowstorm on the peak of a mountain--Mrs. McIlrath's feet frozen badly 113-118 CHAPTER XXIII. The most miserable Christmas day ever passed by man--The Sultan's cavalrymen forced to admit the superiority of the bicycle--Deserted by a cowardly driver on the road to Teheran--The trip to Resht made by carriages 118-122 CHAPTER XXIV. Landed in Russia three years after leaving Chicago--Easter Sunday in Tiflis, the "Paris of the Caucasus"--In sight of Mount Ararat--The pet monkey commits suicide in Constantinople--A Turkish newspaper joke--Roumania the next country entered 122-126 CHAPTER XXV. Saluted by the king of Roumania--A country where cyclists are in their glory--Splendid riding into Austro-Hungary--Vienna gives the Inter Ocean tourists the heartiest of welcomes--Munich and its art galleries 126-130 INTRODUCTORY. PROPOSAL OF THE INTER OCEAN TOUR--ENTHUSIASTIC CHICAGO WHEELMEN ATTEND THE RECEPTIONS TO THE CYCLISTS--THE START ON APRIL 10. Beyond tests of speed involving championships and world's records, there have been few performances in the recent history of cycling to attract more general notice than the world's tour awheel of Mr. and Mrs. H. Darwin McIlrath. In the early Spring of 1895 the Chicago Inter Ocean, appreciating the great interest taken in cycling all over the country, planned this remarkable trip of more than 30,000 miles. From the moment of the first announcement of the McIlrath tour to the time of their home-coming, interest in and admiration for the Inter Ocean Cyclists never abated. Letters of inquiry at once began to come in so thick and fast to the Inter Ocean office, that to facilitate matters and more thoroughly acquaint the public with the details of the tour than could be done in the columns of the Inter Ocean, a series of receptions was tendered to the intrepid riders for several days prior to their start. The large room at 101 Madison Street, Chicago, was secured for the purpose, and for days Mr. and Mrs. McIlrath received their friends and admiring enthusiastic Chicago wheelmen. The crowds in front of the building became so great gradually that special policemen were detailed to keep the throng moving and traffic open. Among those who visited the McIlraths were: Mrs. K. B. Cornell, President of the Ladies' Knickerbocker Cycling Club, Roy Keator of the Chicago Cycling Club, J. L. Stevens and W. C. Lewis of the Lincoln Cycling Club, Frank T. Fowler, Frank S. Donahue and Frank Bentson of the Illinois Cycling Club, O. H. V. Relihen of the Overland Cycling Club, Miss Annis Porter, holder of the Ladies' Century Record, Thomas Wolf, of Chicago-New York fame, Letter Carrier Smith, who has made the trip from New York to Chicago five times, David H. Dickinson, S. J. Wagner, O. Zimmerman (a cousin to the famous A. A.), Frank E. Borthman, R. B. Watson, Dr. and Mrs. W. S. Fowler, Mrs. J. Christian Baker, Mrs. L. Lawrence, John Palmer, President of Palmer Tire Co., Gus Steele, Yost racing team, C. Sterner and Grant P. Wright, Ashland Club, H. J. Jacobs, C. G. Sinsabaugh, editor of "Bearings," Mesdames A. G. Perry, George E. Baude, Helen Waters, D. W. Barr, C. Hogan, Mrs. Doctor Linden, George Pope, Robert Scott, Misses Kennedy, N. E. Hazard, Eva Christian, Mrs. Charles Harris, J. G. Cochrane, Pauline Wagner and Ada Bale. Many of those who called, though utter strangers to the tourists, upon the strength of their friendship for the Inter Ocean brought letters of introduction for Mr. and Mrs. McIlrath to relations and acquaintances in the foreign lands to be visited. The itinerary as planned by the Inter Ocean was as follows: Start from Chicago, April 10, 1895: Dixon, Ill.; Clinton, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Council Bluffs, Iowa; Omaha, Lincoln, Grand Island, Neb.; Denver, Pike's Peak, Colo.; Cheyenne, Laramie, Green River, Wyoming; Salt Lake City, Ogden, Utah; Elko, Reno, Nev.; Sacramento, San Francisco, Cal.; steamer to Yokohama, Kioto, Osaka, Niko, Kamachura, Papenburg, Japan; steamer to Hongkong and Canton, China; the Himalayas, Bangkok, Siam, Rangoon, Burmah; Calcutta, Benares, Lucknow, Cawnpore, Agro, Lahore, India; Jask, Teheran, Tabriz, Persia; Erzeroum, Constantinople, Turkey; Athens, Greece; steamer to Italy; Turento, Pompeii, Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan and Nice, Italy; Toulon, Marseilles, France; Barcelona, Valencia, Carthagena, Gibraltar, Spain; steamer across channel to Tangier and Cadiz; return via steamer to Gibraltar, Lisbon, Portugal; Madrid, Spain; Bordeaux, Orleans, Paris, France; Brussels, Belgium; Frankfort, Germany; Vienna, Austria; Berlin, Germany; Warsaw, Poland; St. Petersburg, Russia; steamer to Stockholm, Sweden; Christiana, Norway; steamer to Great Britain, Scotland, England and Ireland; steamer to New York, Buffalo, Erie, Penn.; Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio; Fort Wayne, Ind.; and Chicago. It had been intended for the tourists to depart from Chicago at 7 o'clock on the morning of April 10. After farewell receptions at the Illinois Cycling Club and the Lake View Cycling Club, it was decided, in view of the popular demand, that the hour for departure be changed until noon. So it was that as the clock in the Inter Ocean tower struck 12 on Saturday, April 1, the credentials and passport, which was signed by Secretary of State Gresham, were given to Mr. McIlrath, and in the midst of a crowd numbering thousands, and with an escort of hundreds of Chicago wheelmen, the Inter Ocean cyclists were faced west and started on their tour of the globe. Captain Byrnes of the Lake Front Police Station and a detail of police made a pathway through the crowd on Madison Street to Clark. Cable cars had been stopped and the windows of the tall buildings on each side of the street were filled with spectators. A great cheer went up as Mr. and Mrs. McIlrath mounted their wheels to proceed. They could go only a few yards so congested was the street, and they were forced to lead their wheels to Clark Street, north to Washington and west to Des Plaines. Here they mounted and the farewell procession was given its first opportunity to form. A carriage containing Frank T. Fowler, John F. Palmer, John M. Irwin and Lou M. Houseman, sporting editor of the Inter Ocean, led the way. Next came a barouche containing Mrs. Annie R. Boyer of Defiance, O., Mrs. McIlrath's mother. The escort of cyclers, four abreast, followed, with the tourists flanked by the secretaries of the Illinois and Lake View Cycling Clubs. At the Illinois Club House came the leave-taking, and not until then could the tourists be said to be fairly started. The unlooked for events of the three years following 1895, chief among which was the Spanish-American War, caused several material changes in the itinerary of the McIlraths as originally planned. Though accomplished successfully, the long trip across Persia, taken during the dead of winter, resulted in delays that had not been anticipated and after the cyclists had entered Germany, it was deemed best by the promoters of the enterprise to bring the tour to an end. Mr. and Mrs. McIlrath left Southampton, England, the first week in October, 1898. After landing in New York they took a rest of several days before starting overland to Chicago. The route from New York to Chicago led through the following cities: New York to Yonkers, Poughkeepsie, Hudson, Albany, Schenectady, Canajoharie, Utica, Syracuse, Newark, Rochester, Buffalo, Fredonia, New York; Erie, Penn.; Geneva, Cleveland, Oberlin, Bellevue, Bowling Green, Napoleon, Bryan, Ohio; Butler, Kendallville, Goshen, South Bend, La Porte Ind.; through South Chicago and Englewood to the Inter Ocean Office. [The McIlrath equipment consisted of truss-frame wheels made by Frank T. Fowler, of Chicago, fitted with Palmer tires and Christy saddles furnished by A. G. Spalding & Bro.] CHAPTER I. PROGRESS ARRESTED BY A POLICE OFFICER IN MELROSE PARK--A PLEASANT RIDE OF TWO AND A HALF DAYS INTO IOWA AND NEBRASKA. When I consented to the plan of going around the world I intended to make the trip alone, but my wife pleaded so hard to accompany me that I finally concluded to take her. She is a brave little girl, and rather than considering her a burden, I now look upon her as having been of great help to me on our memorable voyage. Aside from the fact that she is an expert wheelwoman, she is also an unerring shot. Nerve she possesses in abundance, as all will agree after reading of the adventures which befell us. The outfit with which we started did not exceed fifty pounds each. Both of us rode diamond truss-frame Fowler wheels, weighing 26 and 27 pounds each. The saddles were Christy anatomical, with Palmer tires, and everything from handle-bar to pedal was stoutly made. Mrs. McIlrath wore the "rational" costume so often derided by dress reformers, and I may say here, that had these same reformers witnessed the advantage of the "rational" costume upon some of the haps and mishaps which come to world's tourists, their arguments would be forever silenced. All of our luggage was carried in a leather case which neatly fitted the inside angles of the bicycle frames. Our personal apparel consisted merely of a change of underwear, as we depended upon the stores in towns along our route for new clothes whenever we should need them. The remainder of our luggage cases contained photograph films, medicines, repair outfits, etc. My "artillery," for which there was great use as it afterward happened, consisted of two 38-caliber and one 44-caliber revolvers. To cyclists who contemplate a trip such as I have just made, or even one of lesser proportions, I can say that these three cannon are as necessary as a repair kit. They come in handy at the most unexpected times, and next to the pistols, I know of no better arms to carry than credentials from such a paper as the Inter Ocean. My credentials were necessary before we had been three hours out of Chicago, since through them we escaped an arrest, which meant certainly ten days or ten dollars. It happened in Melrose Park. We had come through Garfield Park to Washington Boulevard, through Austin, Oak Park and Melrose Park. The roads were abominable, and in order to take to the Northwestern tracks we were forced to return to Melrose Park. Being overjoyed at the sight of any smooth surface, we could not resist the temptation to ride on the sidewalks of this pretty suburb. Then it was that we were arrested. I pleaded with the officer and offered to pay a fine without the delay and inconvenience of standing trial, but he was firm in refusing to release us. At last I showed him my Inter Ocean credentials. Just as promptly he let us go, and remarking to a fellow officer that "it did not pay to buck against newspapers," he went so far as to assist Mrs. McIlrath on her wheel and start us again upon our way. When we took the Northwestern tracks at Melrose Park our party numbered ten. They were: Ed. Porter, Tom Haywood, William Floyd, G. M. Williams, A. E. Wood, William J. Dilner, J. M. Bacon, F. W. Mechener, E. M. Lauterman and Miss Annis Porter. So far as Geneva, where we had supper, and where our escort left us to return to Chicago, the journey was without event. Two and a half days out from Chicago we were in Clinton, Iowa. We met friends all along the line who extended us hearty greetings. Not one of them was in ignorance of our tour and the Inter Ocean enterprise. Farmers called to us from their fields; engineers, as they whizzed by us, saluted with their whistles, and passengers in the coaches behind threw us notes, fruits and flowers. Since leaving Chicago we had eaten four meals daily, sandwiched with countless drafts of creamy milk, and yet the cry arose from us both, "I am so hungry." But the farmers were generous and we were never refused, and wherever remuneration was offered It was invariably declined. We were met at Clinton by a party of twenty-five wheelmen and escorted into the city. Mrs. McIlrath and I had been reinforced by Messrs. William Boyd and J. E. Spofford of Dixon, Ill., through which city we had passed; Mrs. Scoville, who had been our hostess at Dixon, and herself so ardent a wheelwoman that she could not refrain from joining us for a few miles; and Harry Ferguson, a son of State Senator Ferguson of Sterling, Ill. When we left Clinton on Saturday, April 13, we had been invited by the press, municipal officers and the entire cycling fraternity to remain over for Sunday, which was Easter. The bright weather and the prospects of good roads, however, overweighed the social inducements, and we started at 4 o'clock Saturday afternoon. The promises of good weather were not fulfilled, and Mrs. McIlrath and I spent our Easter of '95 on the road in mud above our tires. In a chilling rain we rode into Cedar Rapids, where our entertainment and reception was royal. Frank Harold Putnam of the Merchants' National Bank, who, it is needless to say, is a devotee of the wheel, and his sister, Miss Caroline Putnam, of the Saturday Record, Cedar Rapids' society journal, gave us a warm greeting. With them we dined at the beautiful home of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bell and through them we received from Messrs. C. D. Whelpley, Ben E. Miller and Harry Hodges of the Occidental Cycling Club, a letter of introduction to the Hon. Nicholas M. McIvor, United States Consul at Yokohama. There was much of interest to record during our stay in Cedar Rapids, chief of which was our visit to the Indian Reservation near Tama. Of this visit, I may mention that the squaws and the noble red men which came under our observation were more than sufficient to disillusion us, who had been fond readers of Longfellow's "Hiawatha." Hard riding, rain and the consequent exposure had got in its work upon me by the time we struck Marshalltown, but on the 19th, in spite of the advice of physicians, I started our party, being aided in the carrying of luggage by Mr. Ferguson, who remained with us. At 4:30 o'clock on the afternoon of April 19 we pedaled into Des Moines, the capital of Iowa. The dime museum man was on the alert for us, and we had been in the Kirk wood Hotel scarcely half an hour before my wife and I were offered $25 an hour each, for four hours' exhibition of ourselves. It is a waste of ink to say that the offer was declined without thanks. Our night in Des Moines was the most comfortable we had yet spent. The following day we were entertained at the State House by Governor and Mrs. Jackson and Private Secretary Richards. The Governor is a hearty believer in better roads and he is an admirer of cycling. He expressed sincere admiration for the world's tour awheel, and declared his admiration for the Inter Ocean in furthering such a project. The Des Moines Wheel Club entertained us lavishly in the evening, though while at the club house the tour of the globe was menaced with sudden termination. The brand of Marshalltown fever, which I carried away with me, was such that a physician ordered me promptly to bed. The sun, I am confident, was responsible for my condition. We had been out of Chicago ten days, and two-thirds of the distance was done over railroad beds. We had journeyed almost 300 miles over ties and trestles, suffering intermittently with paralysis of the hands. Often we were compelled to ride along a narrow shelf scarcely 12 inches in width just outside the track and ballast, where the slightest deviation from the course would have caused a plunge down an embankment frequently 30 feet deep. This, too, was accomplished upon a heavy laden wheel with the glare of the burnished steel in our eyes. My physician's advice was that I remain for several days in Des Moines, but anxiety to reach the coast moved me to depart Sunday, April 21. Fifty cyclists rode out of town with us and saw us fairly upon our hilly ride to Council Bluffs. Bad weather was encountered, delaying our arrival in Council Bluffs until April 23. Wheelmen from Omaha and Council Bluffs awaited us upon the outskirts of the latter named city, and in triumph we rolled into that splendid center of the Republic--Omaha. Here we found that the veteran Jack Prince had stirred much enthusiasm in wheeling, and a banquet at the "Pump House" was the first of the chain of entertainment in store. The "Pump House," it should be known, is a handsomely appointed club house under the patronage of the Omaha Wheel Club. Its name is derived from a large pneumatic pump which stands invitingly to all cyclists outside of the main entrance. Our stay in Omaha was pleasant and, from our selfish standpoint, only too brief. When we started away the afternoon of April 25, a pretty surprise and compliment was Mrs. McIlrath's when she found her wheel literally one of gorgeous flowers. Since we left Chicago no larger crowd has wished us good-bye than the one in Omaha. Our friend Ferguson left us here, stubbornly refusing to bear back with him our cargo of souvenir spoons. These precious mementos are all very well in their way, but hardly the thing for two persons who intend pedaling their way over the world. We were already threatened with having to charge ourselves excess baggage. Lincoln, the capital of the state, turned out almost to a man to receive us. The Capital City Cycling Club escorted us on our visit to Governor Holcomb, to whom we presented a letter of introduction. It was through the kindness of the Governor that we visited the State University, and with him we attended the theater in the evening. CHAPTER II. CYCLING IN A HAIL-STORM--A MEETING WITH A ONE-LEGGED WHEELMAN--"TOMMY ATKINS" JOINS THE PARTY--MT. ROSA'S BLIZZARD. Grand Island, Neb., is a small city, but it contains more wheelmen, in proportion to its size, than any city we encountered. There are two bicyclists' clubs, the "Tourists" and "Orientals," the former an organization composed exclusively of ladies. Splendid delegations from both bodies were awaiting us outside of Grand Island the morning we neared the city. En route, Mrs. McIlrath experienced an accident which made me fear for her safety of limb, as well as fearing that we should be delayed for several days. About ten miles east of Grand Island, while riding the railroad tracks, we ran into a hail-storm. Mrs. McIlrath, with her head between her shoulders, was driving blindly in the face of the fusillade of ice bullets. Unable to see where she was going, she ran straight into a cattle guard, throwing her some twenty feet down an embankment, and bending her handle-bars till they met above. Our stay at Grand Island was limited, and we proceeded the same afternoon to Kearney, at which city we arrived late the following morning. Our party, which was much like a snowball, in that it gathered constantly, was augmented at Kearney by Mr. W. B. Walker. The trip was an eventful one for him, and probably changed his views upon the matter of wheelmen's costume. Walker was a howling swell when he started away with us. His Scotch clothes were models of the tailor's art, his cap was of the latest fashion, and his stockings were positively delirious in their pattern. At Shelby we struck an electrical storm, the lightning fairly gliding along the rails and ofttimes playing about our plated handle-bars. Walker grew frightened, and leaping from his wheel landed squarely in a pool of water, which had been stagnant until stirred by the heavy rain shortly before. He was anything but the dapper looking individual of Kearney when he dragged himself from the pool. He got as far as Cozad, and in tones of disgust he bade us good-bye to return home to his wardrobe. We passed the night at Cozad, leaving there at noon Tuesday. At Gothenburg we were met by Will Edwards, S. P. Anderson and George Roberts. This man Roberts is a marvel. Some years ago he had the misfortune to lose his right leg, but put him on a wheel and he is a wonder in spite of his affliction. Through the sandy soil and mud, this man could even outwind Mrs. McIlrath and myself, and a picturesque figure he was, too, as he glided over the plains, with his one leg turning the pedal like a steam piston, and a crutch lashed over his back like a musket. The boys rode with us to North Platt, where we put up for the night. North Platt is one of the best known cities in Nebraska, made so, no doubt, by its being the home of Col. W. F. Cody, famed all over the world as "Buffalo Bill." Cody has a magnificent ranch, which is virtually a present from the United States Government, as Uncle Sam donated the land in recognition of the Colonel's valuable services as scout during the Indian wars. The ranch is called "Scout's Rest," and is managed by Mr. J. A. Goodman, Col. Cody's brother-in-law. Our party spent a delightful day at the "Rest" and in the evening we were driven to the city residence of Col. and Mrs. Cody. We landed upon Colorado soil on Friday, May 3, being accompanied from Big Springs, our last stop in Nebraska, by Messrs. Weber and Hoagland. I may mention, by the way, that Big Springs first achieved notoriety as the headquarters for the James gang. There are men still in Big Springs who delight to sit by the hour and relate their personal experiences with the daring Jesse and Frank, and their fearless followers. As we landed at Julesburg, our first stop in Colorado, on May 3, we made the 1,000-mile mark, the actual traveling time being fourteen days, which I did not consider bad in view of our traveling impedimenta and unfamiliarity with the roads. The roughest traveling we had yet suffered came between Red Line and Iliff. Along the line we found the natives to be the same kind-hearted, simple folk that cheered us on our way through Iowa and Nebraska. As an instance of the good-natured but gruff treatment we received, I cannot refrain from relating an experience at a section-house near Stoneham. Mrs. McIlrath was thirsty. For nearly six hours we had ridden in the blazing sun without catching so much as a sight of water. Our joy at beholding some evidence of human habitation proved almost too much for her. As we neared the section-house the little woman was all but in tears, and so impatient that she could hardly make the distance. We called at every window and door of the house, but not a soul replied. I peered into one of the little windows, and saw a bucket and dipper on a table. Thinking it no harm to enter without the owner's permission, I tried the front door, and to my bitter disappointment I discovered it locked with a big red padlock, bigger and redder than those the sheriff uses when he closes up a man's business house. Mrs. McIlrath was seated on the ground with tears rolling down her cheeks. The sight of her distress was more than I could bear. I was on the point of attempting to break the windows when I saw the tiny prints made by the wheels of a baby buggy rolling around the house. I knew at once that the family could not be far away, so leaving my wife with a promise to return shortly, I followed the tracks of the baby buggy and came upon the entire family in a pasture about a quarter of a mile from the dwelling. The section foreman greeted me in friendly tones, and asked what he could do. I told him it was water I wanted, and then as a guarantee of my honest intentions, I jokingly told him of my temptation to break his window. "Young man," he replied sternly, "you are a fool. If my wife had been thirsty, and I could have found an ax, I shouldn't have walked this far to ask for a drink of water." To appreciate thirst, or rather the cause for it, in this part of the country, it must be understood that all water is brought to the section-houses in barrels by the railroad company. Not a drop is wasted, the casks are watched and guarded as rigidly as the fresh water casks on a steamer at sea. Only once on our trip were we refused a bite to eat; food was always given us willingly and lavishly, but in many places it was like pulling teeth to get a cup of cold water from some of the inhabitants. On May 6 we covered 128 miles, riding over cactus, prairie and sandy desert. In the afternoon we arrived in Denver, marking our 1,200 miles out of Chicago, 500 of which had been done over railroad ties. Our comfort and entertainment in Denver were looked after by the "Ramblers." They were so kind to us that I feared we would be handicapped. I mean this literally, for each member seemed to think that he, solely, was paying Mrs. McIlrath the compliment of a souvenir spoon. It seemed impossible for us to get away from souvenir spoons. We had many pounds of souvenir spoons after a reception on the evening of May 8, at the Rambler's Club House. Poor Mrs. McIlrath wilted when we reached the hotel, and with a look of pleading that was comical to behold, she sank upon the bed and exclaimed: "Oh, Darwin, how on earth are we ever to get around the world if we keep on adding weight to our clothes and traveling cases!" The reception at the "Ramblers" was a delightful event, and one which Mrs. McIlrath and I often talked of during our travels. We said good-bye to Denver at 3 o'clock on the afternoon of May 10. An escort of "Ramblers" followed us as far as Colorado Springs, upon the outskirts of which city we found awaiting us Messrs. C. W. Dawson, local consul for the L. A. W., A. C. Van Cott and L. J. Wahl. It was at Colorado Springs also that we met "Tommy Atkins," who was destined to be our steady companion. "Tommy Atkins" is the name which we gave to Merton Duxbury, an Englishman, who had left Providence, R. I., two weeks before we left Chicago. He was bound for 'Frisco, and by hard riding had arrived in Colorado Springs but an hour or two ahead of the Inter Ocean tourists. I do not know what we should have done without Duxbury. He was original in all things, a born comedian, in fact, though he himself did not know how delightfully amusing he was. If Mrs. McIlrath was tired, or hungry, or thirsty, and I wished to make her forget it, I had only to call "Tommy Atkins," and his pranks did the rest. More amusing things happened to "Tommy" than one could find by attending the theater nightly for years. Another "joy" in human form joined us at Manitou, in the person of "Jim" P. Anderson of Denver, a 200-pound cyclist who was trying to make himself thin by means of the wheel. He asked permission, which was readily given, to become one of us for a short time. With all regard for Anderson's staying qualities, I am inclined to believe it was just as well he did not ask to remain a longer time. But for the largest bottle in our medicine kit, he would have collapsed on our first hard ride up Cheyenne Mountain to Cripple Creek. A storm of blended rain, snow and sand had befallen us on our eight-mile climb to the peak of Mount Rosa, and at its thickest the gigantic Anderson dismounted from his wheel, and upon his knees in a snow-drift he offered a prayer to "dear, good, kind Mr. McIlrath" not to try to go farther, but to set back for the tavern at the base of the mountain. Upon this point I was immovable. The snow blinded the way ahead of us, but I insisted that we push on. After a few hundred yards my eyes were delighted with a sign reading, "Halfway House, Mount Rosa," and a wooden hand pointing up the mountain. Pushing our snow-clogged wheels over an unbroken track we came to a log hut just back of the welcome sign, and there we discovered not a haven of rest and warmth, but a deserted house with its every door and window nailed. Poor Jim, with a hoarse cry, threw himself on the snow, and moaned like a child. Had we been lost in a desert, thousands of miles from aid, the situation could not have been more dramatic. Electricity now added its terrors to our discomforts, and with a sharp crackling sound everything assumed a pinkish hue. Contact with each other produced distinct shocks, and if our fingers touched the wire fence, against which we had leaned our wheels, tiny sparks darted from their tips to the attractive metal. It was only the grandeur of the scene, I firmly believe, that kept Mrs. McIlrath upon her feet. With Anderson it was no joke. The poor fellow was worn out, and the altitude had an effect upon his lungs that threatened him with severe hemorrhage. But "Tommy Atkins" stood the test nobly, and while he reassured Mrs. McIlrath, I did my best to brace up the inconsolable Anderson. Duxbury and I were agreed that as long as the sign directing us to the Halfway House remained standing there must be a Halfway House somewhere not far up the road. Anderson pulled himself together, and the four of us, pushing our wheels in single file, found the Halfway House one mile away. No palace was ever more attractive to the eye than was this house of plank, with its uncarpeted floors and unvarnished doors. The best meal we ever had was had in this hut. We passed the night here, and as we sat about the dining-room before going to bed, we made the acquaintance of Mr. George Bentley, an attorney of Colorado Springs, who was en route to Cripple Creek in a buggy. The meeting with Bentley was most fortunate for Anderson. The big wheelman lost no time in getting chummy with the lawyer, and as we started to retire Anderson surprised us all by exclaiming in the most matter-of-fact way: "Well, I thank you Mr. Bentley, and since you have suggested it, I shall be glad to ride to Cripple Creek in your buggy with you to-morrow." The cunning fellow had got ahead of us, and he thought it a great joke. With his wheel tied behind the buggy, he and Bentley left for Cripple Creek at 8:30 o'clock the next morning, and an hour afterward Mrs. McIlrath, "Tommy Atkins" and I followed in their wake. We had been on the road an hour when, from a man we met on the crest of one of the hills just east of Love Camp, we learned that the buggy was not fifteen minutes ahead. With renewed vigor we set out to make up the time down that and every succeeding hill. The first hill was descended in safety and without effort we rolled up the short incline and plunged down the next. As I whizzed along, my wheel bending from side to side, I felt the road unusually rough and made strenuous efforts to slacken my speed. Duxbury was just ahead of me and I dared not remove my feet from the pedals for fear of running him down. Nor could I check my wheel too much, or Mrs. McIlrath would telescope me from behind. The situation was a trying one, and only when the last curve was reached, and I had successfully scraped past a large boulder which obstructed a clear passage over a corduroy bridge, did I feel safe. The place I had just passed was a most dangerous one. The bridge was narrow and the gorge was ten or twelve feet deep, and more than half filled with rushing water from the thawing snow. I was just wondering what would save one from death if a ride such as mine should terminate in striking a boulder in the path, when down the hill rushed my wife. The front wheel of her machine struck the rock, and with a scream the little woman was thrown foremost on the stones below, and disappeared under the foaming flood. Horror stricken, for a moment I stood spellbound, and then rushed forward expecting to find her terribly mangled, if not killed outright. When I reached the stream she was clinging to a crag, half the time completely submerged, her wheel about her neck like a frame. Fortunately she was unhurt beyond a few scratches and a bruise on the left cheek. Strangling and coughing she clung to the rock until I lifted the bicycle from about her and then Duxbury and I by much effort raised the brave woman to the bank above. Her wheel was uninjured, and after we had squeezed some of the water from her clothes, we ascended the "Divide" and pushed on until we came to a hut bearing a sign, "CRPL KRK Laundry." A Chinaman stood in the doorway, and from him we learned that Cripple Creek was just over the hill. When we reached the town "Tommy Atkins" escorted Mrs. McIlrath to our hotel, while I went to the postoffice for mail. CHAPTER III. ENTERTAINED BY A NATIONALLY FAMED CYCLIST--KRUEGER BREAKS THE COASTING RECORD--TURNED OUT OF SHELTER AT MIDNIGHT. Among my letters was one bearing a check from the Inter Ocean, and I lost no time in going to the bank to obtain the money upon it. The cashier required strong identification, which I, being a stranger, was of course unable to give. I then applied to President Lindsay in person. Mr. Lindsay, I am proud to record, is a gentleman who reads the newspapers. He had already heard of the Inter Ocean cyclists, and when he saw me he said: "My friend, you appear honest, and you look all you say you are, when it comes to riding across the country. It is a compliment when I tell you that you almost look like a tramp. Go get your money," and he nodded to the cashier. At the hotel I found everybody well and eating, "Jim" P. Anderson doing some especially good work with a knife and fork. Mrs. McIlrath had dried her clothes and was none the worse for her icy bath. Cripple Creek by gaslight is quite an attractive place for a "rounder," as I learned that evening, when with guides the gentlemen of our party visited the dance halls, colored people's "rags" and free-and-easy theaters that line "Push Street." The next day was spent in a visit to the El Paso and other mines. Friday, May 28, was scheduled for our departure, but rain made it impossible. Saturday, however, we got away at 6:30 in the morning for Leadville by way of Florrisant, Hartzel, Buena Vista and Granite. We had a day of hard riding, and by 8 o'clock in the evening Mrs. McIlrath was ill and too fagged to go further. After supper at the house of a road overseer, we came to a ranch, where we applied for shelter. For the first time since we had left Chicago we were bluntly refused. Mrs. McIlrath cried aloud when a gray-bearded, hook-nosed old man told her that he had no place for her to sleep. I argued to him that she was ill, but he shut off my pleading by telling me that two miles away was a hotel that had been built expressly for the accommodation of invalids. There was nothing to do but trudge on to this hotel, which we found to be the Hartzel Springs House, owned by and named for the gray-bearded gentleman who had without courtesy closed his doors in our face. We started Sunday morning on a 60-mile run to Buena Vista, following the railroad tracks. At Hill Top we unexpectedly met Editor-in-Chief Martin of the Rocky Mountain News, and several other writers from the Denver papers. They fell in line with us, but wished to take their time in admiring the beautiful scenery; but upon Duxbury's suggestion that we "could not eat the blooming scenery," they relented and we pushed on to Buena Vista, where we arrived on the 26th. Here we were entertained by Ed. Krueger, now a cyclist of national fame, Mr. and Mrs. Dean and Mr. and Mrs. C. Jones. The following day we went out to Hot Springs to see Krueger attempt to break the world's five-mile coasting record. After dinner at the Hot Springs hotel we began preparations for Krueger's race. The wind had subsided as if especially for his benefit. He was not satisfied with his own machine, believing it not strong enough for the test, so he used my wheel with his own saddle, handle-bars and pedals. Dean, Jones and Mr. Mason and myself acted as timers, and Duxbury officiated as starter. At 4 o'clock Krueger mounted his wheel and shot down the hill. Duxbury had taken the time of his start, and it was left for us to note the moment of his arrival. By subtracting the difference, and also splitting the variation of time in the watches of the four timers at the end of the course, we were enabled to gain a fairly accurate estimate of the traveling time. Krueger lost both pedals half way down the incline, but he curled his feet up and crossed the line in 10 minutes and 10 seconds, which I consider wonderful. We started the next morning, May 28, for Leadville, with Krueger also in the party. It was my turn for a disaster, and I came near bringing the Inter Ocean tour to a finish. In crossing a bridge of pine logs my front wheel slipped, and with one foot entangled in the spokes of the rear wheel I stood, eyes protruding, staring at a black rock 300 feet below. A move backward with one foot on terra firma might prove fatal, and to attempt to disengage the other foot meant the release and loss of the bicycle. Nothing remained but to fall backwards on the hard road in a sitting posture, which I did, and Mrs. McIlrath rescued me, scolding as a mother would a disobedient child. We made but a short day of it in Leadville for various reasons, principally that Duxbury was seized with the hemorrhage which threatened him on Mount Rosa. At 5 in the afternoon we left for Red Cliffe, 35 miles away. At the mouth of the Tennessee Pass Tunnel, eleven miles from Leadville, we were overtaken by another storm, more violent than any we had yet passed through. We were made prisoners in the tunnel for an hour or more, the dense blackness rendering it impossible for us to proceed with any degree of safety. Cautiously feeling our way along the walls we managed to emerge from the tunnel and in the night to pedal along to the nearest section-house. This turned out to be a disused box car with bunks built along the sides for the section hands. The section boss, a kind-hearted Irishman, readily gave us permission to stretch ourselves on the floor for a night's rest. We were soon asleep, but about 11 o'clock he waked us and informed us that he was sorry, but he could not help being forced to ask us to leave. The reason, he explained, was that his wife had suddenly returned and that she was the real "boss" of the establishment. As she had not been consulted in the beginning upon the matter of having us for lodgers she had declined to let us remain as her husband's guests. I begged and implored but without avail, and in a storm we set off for the telegraph office, half a mile away. The operator was a young woman and the sight of one of her sisters in distress was more than enough to win an invitation to make ourselves as comfortable as the office would allow. I was enraged almost to the point of personal violence at the thought of an ill-tempered woman's whim causing us such needless annoyance, but as it afterward transpired our experience with the woman section boss was but trivial. It is an even break in this part of the country what manner of treatment a touring wheelman will receive at the hands of the people. A pleasant surprise was ours the morning we rode into Glenwood Springs, Colo., and registered at the palatial Colorado Hotel. A party of Chicagoans, composed of Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Hynes, Mrs. Hynes' mother and sister, Mrs. and Miss Way, en route from California, were at the hotel and soon made themselves known. They had been present at one of the Inter Ocean receptions to us in Chicago and the pleasure of meeting was therefore doubled. We spent the night at Glenwood Springs, leaving the morning of May 31. An accident to Mrs. McIlrath on June 2 between Palisades and DuBeque delayed us the greater part of the week. It was the machine that suffered the real damage, although she herself was rendered unconscious for half an hour. In riding over a sluice she took a tumble, but the accident was not discovered for some moments afterward. I chanced to look over my shoulder and saw her figure stretched in the middle of the road with the machine a shapeless mass by her side. "Tommy Atkins" and I worked hard to revive her, and the walk to DuBeque, six miles ahead, was one of the greatest efforts she was called on to put forth during our entire journey. There was no repair shop in DuBeque, and it was evident at once that we should have to take a freight train for Grand Junction, the nearest point at which we might expect repairs. Our stay at Grand Junction was pleasant in the extreme, and we certainly did not begrudge the three days spent in the city waiting the repairs to arrive from Chicago. Friends who had heard of our tour met us at Grand Junction and straightway began exerting themselves for our entertainment. Their program embraced a visit to Teller Institute, an Indian school near by, and on the evening of our second day a complimentary dinner was given the Inter Ocean tourists by Judge Gray, a jolly, 300-pound enthusiast upon all topics pertaining to the wheel. On June 8 the fork for Mrs. McIlrath's wheel arrived from Chicago, and an hour later we were ready for one of the most difficult stages of our entire trip, that of crossing 290 miles of desert between Grand Junction and Springville, Utah. Tom Roe, known to every cyclist from coast to coast, once attempted it on his ride from San Francisco to New York City and failed. John McGuire, editor of the Cycling West, who has wheeled from Denver to Salt Lake City three times, never succeeded in crossing the desert entirely. When we announced that it was our intention to make it without a break from boundary to boundary, there was a general laugh of ridicule on all sides. Every one predicted that we would fail before we had done 100 miles from Grand Junction. We left at noon and rolled out on the white sandy roads, making 12 miles before the first stop. The great difficulties of our trip across the desert proved to be not so much the hard ploughing through sand as the general inhospitality characteristic of the section houses which dot the vast waste. The section hands are mostly Italians and Chinamen, with a fair sprinkling of Indians. Asked for food or water, they either would not or pretended they could not understand. As the next town from Fruita, our first stop, was 67 miles distant, it will be guessed that we had many a trying meeting with section hands before we came to a hotel. We had been led to expect no kindness from these foreigners, but "Tommy Atkins" and I had sworn to win to our side every man that chance placed in our way. Some of our efforts to make ourselves agreeable in hopes of a hearty welcome were ludicrous. At a ranch near Westwater our party was refused shelter, the mother of three sons residing there telling us that the boys were away from home, one of them having gone to the next settlement for provisions. The pantry, she said, was all but empty, and were she to take in three hungry persons like myself, Mrs. McIlrath and Duxbury, there would be nothing left by the next morning. It was an uncertainty when the supplies were to arrive and a former experience had made her firm in her intentions to take no risks when food promised to be scarce. Our combined entreaties weakened the old lady to the extent that she consented to take in Mrs. McIlrath at least. She warned us that Mrs. McIlrath would have nothing to eat but bread and milk, but then even bread and milk seemed more than a dinner at Chicago's best hotel, and leaving my wife with her benefactress, Duxbury and I went forth determined to charm the Italians at the section house we had passed a few miles back. As soon as we had convinced the Italians that we were not in the service of the railroad as private detectives, or that we were not a pair of the thousands of tramps making the journey from coast to coast on foot, they not only gave us supper but volunteered permission to spend the night before their fire. When we started the next morning I offered money to the section boss, but he declined it, saying I could repay him by delivering a letter which he handed me, addressed to his brother at a section house a few hundred miles ahead. As I have remarked before, the scarcity of water in this part of the country necessitates the shipment of it to the section houses and stations by the railroads. This same scarcity of water was indirectly responsible for a serious accident to my bicycle. I mention it here to show wheelmen what can be accomplished in the way of impromptu repairing when the emergency demands it. The tramps who steal rides on the freight trains never go without a bottle or a tin can of water. As these vessels are drained of their precious contents at different intervals along the roadbed, "Weary Willie" is in the habit of throwing them away. The result is that the tracks for miles and miles are spangled with bits of sharp glass and tin. I was not aware of the risk I was taking with my tire until I ran over one of these "mines." There was an explosion like a shotgun, and when I found myself on the ground I realized that it was not the "mine" that had exploded, but my pneumatic. The puncture was, properly speaking, a gash three inches long in the tire of my rear wheel. Here was a pretty state of affairs! Not a dealer in supplies or a repair shop within 100 miles, and not one of the party with a complete repair kit. There seemed no alternative but a long walk to the nearest section house or ranch, there to await until "Tommy Atkins" could make the next town and express me the needed material. But "necessity is the mother of invention," and under the press of circumstances I hit upon a scheme which afterward proved to work like a charm. First, I wet the edges of the rent with cement, sewing them together superficially, or, as the ladies would say, I "basted" them. Then I made a covering out of pieces of a buckskin glove, moistened with medicines from one of my vials. This covering I stretched on as tightly as possible over the gap. Now came a coat of cement, then the tire tape covering all, and my repair was as complete as I could make it until a cycle supply house could be found or my advance luggage reached. I did not jump on my wheel and ride directly, realizing that until the buckskin had dried and shrunken nothing was to hold the parted ends of tire but a few slight stitches. Mrs. McIlrath then came forward with a suggestion which was acted upon and proving itself to be one of much wisdom. It was that she take my mended tire and place it on her front wheel, where the pressure would be slightest, putting her front tire upon the rear wheel of my machine. For the benefit of doubting wheelmen, I must add that with three inflations daily, the crude mend held itself and answered purposes until Salt Lake City was reached a week later. CHAPTER IV. UTAH'S STOCK OF LIZARDS AND SNAKES--"TOMMY ATKINS'" NARROW ESCAPE--AT "THE HERMITAGE" IN OGDEN CANYON. Utah I found to be full of snakes, lizards and swollen streams. Mrs. McIlrath, Duxbury and I had personal encounters in this direction and our escapes were thrilling. It was on our way to Thistle Junction Gap that Duxbury sprinted ahead, promising to meet us at the next railroad crossing. How he came to wind up on the side of a foaming torrent is beyond me to explain. I know only that when we came to the appointed meeting place, my wife and I stood upon one side of a miniature river with the hapless "Tommy Atkins" on the other bank. He was in a bad fix, for he could not swim--bye the bye, a most uncommon thing among Englishmen. He called for aid and without thinking that the man would be so rash as to follow my instructions, I told him to wade across. He thereupon walked into the water and there came very nearly being some work for the coroner. With his wheel held high above his head he walked boldly into midstream until he came to a step-off. I called to him to be cautious and not to move from where he was. With the warning I walked from the opposite bank ready at any moment to strike out with swimming strokes, but I ascertained that though the current was rapid, the water was no deeper than where Duxbury stood submerged to his shoulders. Lifting the wheel I led the way back to the bank, where "Tommy" stretched himself in the sun to dry. Had the boy not possessed nerve and retained his presence of mind I fear we should have seen the last of him when he made his unlooked-for descent. Continuing our journey through Jordan Valley, Mrs. McIlrath rode some distance ahead of us. We were startled by shrieks, and it was my first thought that she had ridden over a snake. Duxbury and I hastened to her and discovered her standing by her wheel with a number of lizards gliding their way through the grass and sand at her feet. To show her that the silent crawlers were not poisonous, I picked one up in my hand, and was making bold with the ugly thing when a sharp rattle attracted my attention. Looking to one side, but a few paces away, I saw a five-foot rattler coiled as if to strike, and moving his fangs threateningly. My 44-caliber revolver settled Mr. Snake and the encounter also came near settling Mrs. McIlrath. She was so nervous from the shock that it was with difficulty we proceeded to Springville. By a mistake of the telegraph operator we missed the Springville reception committee, and proceeded straight on to Provo City, where we spent the night. The next day Mayor Holbrook, James Clave, editor of the Inquirer, Robert Skelton and a dozen of the Provo City wheelmen called upon us and offered us the keys of the town. They invited us to spend several days with them, mapping out a program of lavish entertainment. This we were forced to decline, as we were impatient to get into Salt Lake City for bicycle repairs and sundry changes in our much dilapidated toilet. We arrived in Salt Lake City the morning of June 15, under the guidance of the Social Wheel Club. Sunday, the club members took us on a "Strawberry Run" to Farmington, though the acceptance of this invitation necessitated declining one to attend the run of the Wasatch Wheelmen. In the evening with Mr. Goode, Mr. Lenne of Chicago, Duxbury and myself went out to Saltair, the great resort a few miles from the city. On June 19 we were guests of the Beck Hot Springs Bicycle Club, where we watched the "crackerjacks" of Salt Lake City and Ogden. This track is one of the best I have seen upon my travels. "Big Bill" Richel, editor of the Rocky Mountain Cyclist, a man who has done much good work in building up interests in wheeling throughout the West, is a prime factor in the racing meets at Beck Hot Springs, and he has invariably arranged for a first-class article of sport. Our entertainment in Salt Lake City was upon so extensive a scale that I had no more than enough time to prepare my Inter Ocean letters and to send our wheels to the repair shop. We left Salt Lake City on June 23, an escort of thirty accompanying us West as far as the Grant Homestead, where a stop was made for dinner. We arrived in Ogden the following day, expecting to leave in the evening, as we had a full moon to ride by at night. The paralysis of the hands and arms, from which both Mrs. McIlrath and myself had been acute sufferers, came over me again at Ogden, and caused a week's stop instead of a day. I consulted a physician, who imperatively ordered that I take a course of treatment at Utah Hot Springs, situated ten miles out of Ogden. Before we entered into our week's seclusion, a number of the representative wheelmen of Ogden were determined that we should visit the greatest of all Utah resorts, "The Hermitage," in Ogden Canyon. On Tuesday, June 25, a party comprising Mr. and Mrs. W. Beardsley, Mr. and Mrs. F. Sherwood, F. C. Scramm, Editor Thomas of the Press, J. W. Warner and the Inter Ocean tourists rode slowly up the steep grades into the rocky boundaries of the Canyon. "The Hermitage" is a sequestered little house, five miles up the gorge, ensconced in a natural cleft in the mountain side, and facing upon the rushing, foaming Ogden River. We rode to "The Hermitage" without a stop. Standing in the doorway in his shirt sleeves, arms akimbo, was the famous "Billy" Wilson. In all Ogden there is not a character so well known as "Billy" Wilson. He is a brawny Scot, with a sun-burned face, clear blue eyes and a luxuriant growth of sandy hair and whiskers, and he possesses the most charming dialect that was ever imported from the unconquered land of the thistle. I did not at all mind my week as an invalid, for I had eight hours a day aside from my treatment by a physician to devote to sight-seeing. There was but one disagreeable feature in connection with the sojourn at Utah Hot Springs, and that was, the loss of "Tommy Atkins." For his own reasons, which he explained to me, Tommy decided to go it alone, and he left on June 26 to pedal his way alone to the Golden Gate. The Inter Ocean cyclists left Ogden on July 2, putting in to Corinne for the night. Corinne is distinctive in Utah as strictly a Gentile town, the sight of a mormon at any time being rare. The morning of the great and glorious Fourth, Mrs. McIlrath and I started from Corinne to celebrate the day with a long run over the sandy plains. As we crossed the tracks in front of the hotel and turned into the smooth road leading to Blue Creek a freight train started from the depot a few rods back of us. The morning was cool, and calling to my wife to keep my rear wheel in sight, I set out to hold that freight train level as long as possible. I had been informed that a chain of foothills that loomed up like a bank of blue fog in the distance, was seven miles away, and as the grade was up, I was determined to lead the engineer a merry dance ere we tipped over the hill and gravity helped the iron horse in his race against my steel-tubed speeder. Over the road we flew, the chug-chug of the engine growing fainter, until we lost it altogether. I knew this was only the start, and bending over my handle-bars I sent my wheel along with a whir. Mrs. McIlrath held on nobly, and when three and a half miles had been covered, the engine was still beyond our hearing. We kept on "jumping on the pedals" and when we tipped over the hills, seven miles from Corinne, the sound of the locomotive's exhaust was barely audible. With the grade in our favor we fairly made things hum. My cyclometer ticked with a continuous rattle like an old-fashioned watchman's signal. And now the engineer of the train seemed to enter into the spirit of the race. He tooted short blasts at us as he gained ground and his train caught the impetus afforded by the grade. The crew also took part in the fun, and from the top of the cars and caboose, they gave us the "come-on" signals when the little red coach tripped around the curve like the last flame of a shooting star. And then we were alone on the desert of Western Utah. Seven miles further on, we came to the end of the main ditch of the Bear River Canal Company. There we met a gang of men who reported having met "Tommy Atkins" nine days ahead. This was the first tidings we had received of the merry Englishman, and it was most welcome news. The exciting ride of the day caused us to forget that it was the Nation's birthday, until we passed Bradley's Ranch and gazed upon the Stars and Stripes gayly floating from a tall staff in front of his house. Bradley saluted us, and in reply to our question if we might send any news of him to friends in the East, he proudly answered: "Tell them that Old Glory waves over Bradley's Ranch the same as it does over the postoffice in Chicago on the Fourth of July." I had calculated upon spending the night at Kelton. We arrived there for supper and found the one hotel of the town in undisputed possession of a gang of cowboys, who were celebrating the Fourth in approved Western style. Whisky was tapped by the barrel, and there were indications of a beer famine soon to come. The men were good-natured for the most part, but so noisy with their fun that Mrs. McIlrath concluded Kelton was no place for her, and we moved on in the direction of a ranch where we had been told we might be accommodated with lodging. I was three hours cruising around the plains trying to find this ranch, and had almost come to the opinion that no such place existed. The moon had gone down and it was difficult riding in the dark. I ran into what I considered an embankment, and was thrown from my wheel, then the embankment gave a loud snort and a scream from Mrs. McIlrath behind let me know that she had also been in a collision. We had struck in the blackness a herd of cows, all lying down and peacefully chewing their cuds. This I took as evidence that the ranch was a reality, and again I began the search for the house, this time riding squarely into a barb-wire fence. Following the line of the wire I came to the dwelling, a prosperous-looking abode, painted and adorned with a veranda and curtains in the window. All knocks and calls were unanswered, which led me to believe that the family could be not far away, probably attending a Fourth of July celebration in the vicinity. Mrs. McIlrath and I sat down on a log to await their return. After an hour's silent vigil, my watch told me that it was long after midnight. The air had grown raw and the wind chilling. I built a fire in the front yard and made a place for Mrs. McIlrath to lie down. To those of my readers who have tried to sleep before a camp fire without blanket Mrs. McIlrath's discomfort will be readily understood. I curled up behind her, doing as best I could to keep off the wind, and thus she was enabled to derive several hours' slumber, but as for myself, I was almost frozen when I waked at five the next morning, and learned that the family had been absent over night. By this time I was desperate, and with one of my small pistols I bowled over two fat chickens that were cackling around the yard. I was ready, had I been surprised by the owner, to pay liberally for the pullets, and consequently I felt no sting of conscience for my tramp-like behavior. The fire was replenished, and while Mrs. McIlrath dressed the chickens in a crude fashion, picking them in hot water boiled in a tin can which I had found on the back porch, I skirmished the premises in hopes of digging up some old utensil of the kitchen with which to cook them. I could find nothing, but my inventive mind, the same which prompted me to patch a tire with a buckskin glove, came to the rescue when my eyes alighted on a piece of stovepipe. It was old and rusted and had been thrown away evidently months before. I smashed its circular shape flat, scraped off the rust, and that served as our frying pan. For breakfast that morning, we had fried chicken, not cooked Maryland style, to be sure, but nevertheless sufficient to stave off hunger until noon. The family had still not yet returned, as we prepared to leave, and telling Mrs. McIlrath that we would be far away when their anger exploded and that we, ourselves, would never be suspected, the blame for the depredation doubtless being placed upon the shoulders of some unfortunate hobo, we mounted our wheels and steered away in the direction of the Nevada State Line. I was unable to learn the name of the people at whose ranch we had stopped and whose chickens I had appropriated, but if they should ever come across this book, I should like them to know that our intentions were honest at least, and that we should have paid for our breakfast could we have met anybody to take the money. By looking at our cyclometers we ascertained that eighty-four miles had been covered on the Fourth of July. We had hard riding the next day, arriving at Lucin at 11 o'clock at night. For once in the life of somebody, a little intemperance served a good purpose. The section boss at Lucin lived alone in a neat cottage, with his Italian and Chinese laborers in quarters a couple of hundred yards away. The section boss, whose name is of no consequence here, had celebrated the Fourth too vigorously. The depression which followed and the loneliness of his surroundings had thrown him into a state of nervousness that made him jump like a man shot if one but snapped his fingers behind him. The sight of company was the best medicine he could have had, and before we had an opportunity to ask him for shelter, he had overwhelmed us with an invitation to come in and stay--stay a week if we only would. We came to Nevada on July 6, with a register of 2,283 miles to our credit, made since leaving the office of the Inter Ocean. This represented a daily average of 57-1/2 miles. At Tecoma, our first stopping place in the state, we found an inquisitive crowd awaiting us. As the crowd was in Tecoma, so it proved to be throughout Nevada. Everywhere the people understood fully who we were, where we were from and the auspices under which we journeyed, but we had difficulty in convincing them that we were not dead-broke and that we were not touring the globe for a wager. There have been so many queer trips recently made by men who start out penniless to receive thousands of dollars upon the culmination of their journey that the public, I noted, had grown to expect all sorts of hard luck stories from tourists whose mode of travel was any other than the railroad. But for all their suspicions of us, they were indulgent and good-natured, and never once were we mistreated or insulted. Nevada also gave us the hardest work in moving through the United States. The sands and head-winds were fifty per cent more exhausting than the distances, and the 132 miles we made the day we entered Denver did not tire us one-half as much as the 61 miles we covered on July 7, the day we rode into Halleck. CHAPTER V. HALTED BY VIGILANTES AND AN ESCAPE FROM LYNCHING IN NEVADA--A DELIGHTFUL RECEPTION AT RENO--ON THE STEAMER FOR JAPAN. The morning of July 8 we set forth for Elko, twenty-six miles away. Mrs. McIlrath and I were moving along at a good gait, when a band of horsemen overtook us near Osina. They dashed across our path and dismounted simultaneously, closing in upon us. The leader approached me with a command to open my mouth and display my teeth. I thought it was a joke and demanded to know who was the dentist in the party. "None of your nonsense," growled the leader, "let's see your teeth." My jaws immediately flew back as far as nature would permit and the leader looked down my throat searchingly. "No, boys; 'taint Brady," he called, and then it was my time to do some talking. Their explanation in brief was that they were hunting for one Brady, a bandit who had been running wild throughout for weeks. He was about my size, they said, quite as likely to be dressed as a wheelman as anything else, and the sole unfailing marks of identification in their possession were the gold fillings in his molars. Goodness knows, what would have happened to me had I been the owner of many gold-plugged teeth. I might have been shot on the spot, or lynched, or at any rate dragged to jail with days of delay and humiliation before me ere I could make myself properly known. We put in a day and a night at Elko and resumed the journey on Wednesday, July 10. The first six miles of going outside of Elko were as good as any Eastern roads I have ever traveled, but the white dust which fills the air makes it advisable for all tourists to ride with gloves and their caps well down upon the head. When this dust mingles with perspiration on any exposed part of the body it smarts and burns like a powerful acid. Our tires suffered also and one by one the punctures repaired in Salt Lake City began to let go. Every revolution brought out a hiss like an angry serpent. By pumping every half mile we managed to get into Golconda on July 12, having made 24 miles in seven and a half hours, the hardest traveling we had yet known. It was 20 miles further to Winnemucca, which we covered easily next day, halting in the town for repairs. On July 17, we were again on the road, leaving Lovelocks, but we could make only three miles an hour in the sand and were forced to return to the station in order to take to the railroad tracks. Two miles from the Nevada Hot Springs, by riding the railroad trestles, my front wheel played me another one of its tricks and threw me down a twelve-foot embankment. Scrambling back to the trestle, I picked up my wheel with its handle-bars snapped in two. My photographic outfit was spilled and the camera broken. The most expert wheelman cannot ride over Western roads without his handle-bars. I sent Mrs. McIlrath ahead while I gathered up my belongings and pushing the wheel before me, I set out to walk to the section house at Desert, ten miles away. As I journeyed along the railroad tracks, bewailing my plight and rebelling at the three hours' tramp before me, I spied a rusty bolt in the road bed, and it occurred to me that it would prove a good substitute for my broken bars. I lashed it with wire in place and found it answered the purpose admirably. Slow riding was better than walking, but at that I did not make out so poorly, for I lumbered into the section house at Desert only fifteen minutes after Mrs. McIlrath had arrived. Our ride through Nevada was varied. For days, we sped along rough tracks, meeting none but illiterate laborers and camping at night upon the hard dirty floors, often without covering. Meal after meal we partook of without fork or spoon and in many instances, the only knife we had was rusted and mayhap coated with plug tobacco. Table linen, napkins, soap and even hair brushes were often total strangers to us. It seems that the men whom fate has decreed to work in these out-of-the-way places have for an object in life only a place of refuge from the elements. Then again maybe the day after our dinner had been eaten from a dry-goods box in such unpleasant surroundings, we would be at one of the famous health resorts or hunting lodges that abound in the West, and where everything is of the very best quality. The two extremes of life came under our observation within our 1,800 miles out of Chicago. At Vista, in accordance with a number of telegrams sent us at various points, we were met by Prof. M. E. Wilson and wife on a tandem, heading a welcoming party sent out from Reno. All preparations for our stay in this charming city had been attended to by them before our arrival. Following an advance guard, with Mrs. Wilson and my wife ahead, the Professor and myself closing up the rear of the procession, the party rode down the main streets of Reno and drew up at the Riverside Hotel. A dinner fit for a king and sufficient for a regiment was on the table ready for us. Our hospitable friends, with an eye for our comfort and enormous appetites, declined to delay sitting down any longer than it would take for us to bathe our faces and hands. They remained for an hour or more after we had cleared the table, arranging trips for our entertainment on the next day. For the first time since leaving Chicago Mrs. McIlrath and I were so tired that when we retired we slept soundly until 1 o'clock in the afternoon of the next day. Likely as not we should have slept until the evening had we not been called by A. S. Bragg, editor of the Reno Gazette, and Miss Manning, a charming young lady, whom the editor had brought along as a companion for Mrs. McIlrath. With them we rode over the entire city, the two ladies going ahead, enabling the editor and myself to fall behind and indulge in a discussion of our favorite theme, "Shall it be gold, or free silver at 16 to 1?" July 20, with Professor and Mrs. Wilson we visited the famous mines of Virginia City, and this time we did not go upon bicycles. The Professor called for us in a carriage, whose horses were piloted by a reliable veteran, who had served his apprenticeship on the earlier stage coaches. The ride to Virginia City, up the side of a mountain, is fraught with danger. Only two weeks before our arrival there was a fatal accident, a couple of tourists and their horses being dashed over a precipice, and after I had arrived in San Francisco three weeks later, I learned of the deaths of two ladies and a gentleman, who had undertaken the same trip on horseback, and had met their end in precisely the same manner. On Monday, July 22, we departed from Reno upon our last relay of American touring for three years. Prof. Wilson rode with us and as we passed Saw Mill Summit, the white dust died away and I saw nothing but flowers, beautiful foliage and waving grass. The Professor calmly remarked: "You have entered a new country; you are now in California." We left Truckee July 23 in the morning, making the 160 miles to Sacramento shortly after dusk. Four days in Sacramento, devoted to sight-seeing, and then we started for San Francisco, arriving there July 29. We had then covered 3,002 3-8 miles from Chicago in 52 days. A complete overhauling of our wheels and time allowed for necessary shopping by Mrs. McIlrath, caused us to remain in San Francisco much longer than we had anticipated. The days did not hang heavy upon our hands, the wheelmen of the city being universally kind in their attentions to us both. My space is too limited to go into the details attendant upon our sojourn in San Francisco, as much as I should like for my cycling readers to know of the pleasure in store for a wheelman in the metropolis of the Pacific Coast. On October 12 the telegraph message of three words, "We are off," was flashed to the Inter Ocean office in Chicago. We had taken passage on the Occidental and Oriental Line steamer City of Pekin, bound for Yokohama, the chief city of the flowery kingdom of Japan. Everything for our accommodation that could be done on board the steamer was ordered, not the least of our favors being two seats at the table of Captain Trask, commanding officer of the vessel. Our fellow passengers were an interesting lot, including two United States naval officers; a member of the English Parliament, his wife and a traveling companion; an officer of the Austrian army; two French globe trotters, who intended to write a book of travel upon their return to Paris; a Corean nobleman; four American missionaries, and a mysterious personage whose visiting card read, "Capt. Vladmir Samioloff," of the army of the Czar. The steerage passengers were exclusively Japanese and Chinese. The third day out Capt. Trask escorted me through the steerage and showed me the hospital ward, which contained three Japanese, who were going home to die. The captain explained to me that in every case of the death of a Japanese on board a steamer, the body was given a sailor's burial, but that with the Chinese it was entirely different. The body of a dead Chinaman, even though he were to die one day out, would be embalmed and taken home to his relatives, a Chinese embalmer nearly always being on board a vessel for just such emergencies. Mrs. McIlrath, for six days out, was the most sea-sick woman that ever tossed in a berth. She was unable to come on deck before Friday, Oct. 18, and rough weather, which set in the next day, sent her below again, and thus she lost one of the prettiest parts of our voyage across the Pacific. Monday, Oct. 21, was the shortest day I ever passed. It lasted, strictly speaking, but seven hours, or from 12 o'clock to 7:15 a. m., at which time the City of Pekin crossed the meridian. Having been constantly racing with the sun, and so gaining time, at 7:16 o'clock we had entered upon Tuesday, Oct. 22. At 11:30 on the morning of the same day we caught our first sight of Japan, the white crest of the sacred mountain, Fujiyama, looming in the distance. Monday evening, Oct. 28, at 8:15 o'clock, the City of Pekin steamed into the harbor, having broken her record thirty-seven minutes. The fact of the boat's arrival ahead of time, made the hours so late before the steam launches of the hotel arrived that we decided to remain on board the steamer until next morning. We were still asleep Tuesday morning when the runners of the hotels roused us by pounding upon our state-room door. The Club Hotel was the one we had selected, and when the representative announced himself, we gave a list of our baggage and hastened to dress. At the English hataba (a long pier running out into the bay) our baggage was thoroughly overhauled by the customs officers, and upon our wheels and camera a duty of five per cent was imposed. As cameras are listed at 50 yen and bicycles at 200 yen each, this would have cost us in duty 22 yen 50 sen, or about twelve dollars in gold. After a short conference and an ostentatious display of Secretary Gresham's passports and the Inter Ocean credentials, which the revenue officers had not understood, our articles were franked and we entered the city. CHAPTER VI. JAPAN'S QUEER CREDIT SYSTEM--INTER OCEAN TOURISTS AT THE BURIAL OF PRINCE KITASHIRAKAWA--A POINT FOR ALL AMERICANS. The Club Hotel, which is the headquarters for American tourists and residents, is situated only a block from the pier and adjacent to the Consulates, shops and points of interest. The owners and managers are Europeans, or "foreigners" as they are called in Japan, but the service of the hotel is exclusively by natives. Your room is cared for by a "boy," your meals served by a "boy" and "boys," sometimes 50 years of age, perform every possible service. There are without doubt more courtesies shown a guest in Japan than in any other country. Our reception in the city was all that we could ask. The letter to Col. McIvor, American Consul, from friends at his home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, made us thrice welcome at that gentleman's residence. The fact of our representing an American newspaper made us at home in newspaper circles, which are controlled largely by Americans. Our coming had been heralded to the wheelmen of Japan, and as we were expected some weeks before we arrived, the coming was of more than ordinary interest. Bicycling, at the time of my visit, was just beginning to become popular in Japan, and what machines were used were imported at great cost from the States and Europe. But with commendable enterprise the manufacturers of Japan now perfect their own machines, all parts of which are made and assembled in local concerns, operated by local capital and mechanics. In Japan it is not expected that cash will be tendered for anything purchased or rented, with perhaps the exception of "rickshas," which correspond in their common use to the cabs of American cities, only that they are drawn by "boys" instead of horses. There is an abominable system of credit established in the empire by which all foreigners purchase and temporarily pay for all articles upon bits of memorandum called "chits." If a gentleman in Yokohama wishes a drink, a cigar, new hat or even a suit of clothes, he steps into the nearest place of business adapted to filling his requirements and, after making his purchase, signs a bit of paper, giving date, price and buyer's name and address, and the first of every month the "chit" is sent him as a receipt bill. To a well-appearing foreigner reasonable credit will be extended without question. My knowledge of this system was derived in the most peculiar manner. Mrs. McIlrath and I were touring the shops, when her attention was attracted by a shawl. She entered the shop, priced the article and I advised the purchase, but our pocketbook had been left at the hotel, she blushingly informed me. We thanked the shopman for his trouble and promised to return the same evening. The price was six yen, or about three dollars, as quoted by the dealer, and as we started out of the shop he called to us, asking if the price was too much. I explained our embarrassed condition, and he immediately wrapped up the shawl, placing one of the printed slips upon the counter, asked me to sign a "chit" for five yen. I was an entire stranger, yet upon credit I obtained for one yen less that which I could not purchase for cash. The most astonishing fact connected with this extraordinary system is that no laws are provided to punish dead-beats or frauds. On Monday, Nov. 11, we journeyed over to Tokio, eighteen miles distant, to witness the funeral ceremonies over the body of His Imperial Highness Prince Kitashirakawa, a commander of the Imperial Guard. In tropical Formosa, under a fierce sun and amid miasmatic jungle, the prince died of malarial fever Oct. 29. The sad news reached Japan shortly after our arrival, but by a curious custom, was not announced to the people as authentic or an accepted fact until officially given out by the imperial authorities on Nov. 5. In fact the Prince officially lived until that time. News of his victories in Formosa brought forth new honors and distinctions, and upon Nov. 2, he, or rather the corpse, was decorated with the Collar of the Chrysanthemum and Grand Cordon of the Imperial Family. The service was simple, yet impressive, without a shade of paganism or superstition. There was much about it also that would befit countries, considering themselves superior to Japan to imitate. One most noticeable was the order of the assembled masses. Not a person offered to step outside of the prescribed limit. There was no jamming or crowding. No voices spoke louder than a whisper, and the presence of police and militia was necessary only as an exhibition of official dignity. Where houses of greater height than one story faced on the line of march, or porches existed above the elevation of the street, the curtains at windows and doors were closely drawn, and the occupants stood in the street. No yelling, gesticulating mob filled the telegraph and telephone poles and roofs, for it is not permissible in Japan that anyone look down upon the funeral of a dignitary. The passage of the Emperor through the streets calls into effect the same condition. He may be viewed from an equal level, but never looked down upon from an elevation. I am glad to record that it is a mistaken impression that there exists in Japan a general feeling against Europeans and Americans. In any part of the Mikado's realm the American is as safe as at home and the European is comparatively as secure. Why is this distinction of a degree made? During the late chastisement which Japan administered to China the action was so one-sided that it could scarcely be called war. As soon as the Russians interfered, threats were made by a few anarchistic extremists in Yokohama, Tokio and other large cities, against the "white man" and his property. The simple minds of the rabble of oriental nations do not regard the English, French, Russian and German subjects as belonging to distinctive nations, but classify them as the "white man." The ministers and consuls at Tokio, during this excitement, were brought under guard to Yokohama. Their residences were guarded by police, and when any of these gentlemen drove out in carriages, they were surrounded by detectives, who were compelled to use force for the passages of their vehicles through the streets. Not an act of violence occurred which reflected upon the local government in the slightest degree, but the satisfactory ending of threatened murder and riot was due entirely to the vigilance of the secret service department. Upon the other hand, when the United States Consul drove out there was no necessity of a guard. A sight of the peerless colors of the United States emblazoned on the carriage door, or the unmistakable uniform of the driver, and the sea of humanity which filled the street would part, and with bows and cheers, allow our representative to go his way. Policemen and officers saluted with caps in hand, while perhaps only a half square away the guard of one of the other consuls struggled fiercely with an unyielding mob. That is the reason I say an American is as safe from personal interference in any part of Japan as in the heart of any of our great cities. An Englishman is, in fact, more secure here than he would be in any of the acquired provinces of Great Britain. The short rides of the Inter Ocean cyclists, taken in and about Yokohama, Kanagarua, Mississippi Bay and Tokio, demonstrated to us the truth that the Japanese have not only respect, but love for the Yankee. The roads of Japan compare favorably with the boulevards of American cities, except in matter of width. They are smooth, hard and upon the sea coast quite level. One of the finest courses I have ridden over is a six-mile run we took daily before breakfast in Yokohama. The course begins at the Club Hotel, along the Bund to the Yalo Bashi, following this to the Haz-Aso-No Bashi and from there to Mississippi Bay, the Bluffs and back to the hotel. The Inter Ocean tourists left Yokohama Monday, Nov. 18, having secured new passports for the interior, where the treaty laws do not extend protection or privileges to the foreigner. Our destination was unknown even to ourselves, but as we were astride our wheels it mattered little where we wound up, so long as interesting scenery and incidences were daily occurrences. One point, in main, was to form the center of a circle around which we intended to swing, and that center was Fujiyama, the sacred mountain. To reach the lower slopes of Fuji there are many pathways, but for cyclists there is but one that may be practicably adopted, and that by way of Gotenba, Yamanka and Yoshida, "the route of temples," the course traveled by the native pilgrims to Fuji in summer months. We took a southwesterly direction from Yokohama and came to a well ballasted wagon road, running almost parallel with the railroad, connecting Tokio with Kobe, 400 miles south. We passed through the villages of Fujisawa, Hiratsuka and Oisa, crossing the River Vanugawa, and entering Kodsu, a village of large proportions, at noon. Kodsu is about thirty miles from Yokohama, and it was here we had hoped to eat our lunch and find drinking water in which we could place confidence. The one drawback to tourists in the interior of Japan is water. In their natural condition the waters are pure, cool streams, coursing down snow-clad mountains, miles in the interior, but passing through the villages, their course is diverted into ditches and water-boxes, running through the gutters and sometimes under the houses of the town. The sewerage of surface drains empties into these streams. Cooking utensils and food are washed, fish are cleaned and even dogs drink from and bathe in these gutters. The same system of water supply exists in all of Japan, and after we had struck Kodsu, Mrs. McIlrath and I drank only native-made beer during our stay in the land of the Mikado. At 1 o'clock we were again on the road, keeping with the railroad tracks until we passed through Sakawagawa. Little was to be seen but rice and vegetable fields, the mountains in the distance and the swift rushing river coursing to the sea. We covered 72 miles by 7 o'clock, arriving at Gotenba, where we spent our first night in a Japanese yadoyo, or inn. In a Japanese sleeping apartment there is nothing to be seen as one enters the room except matting upon the floor. There is not a table, chair, bed or any other article of furniture visible. We had begun to think that we were to pass the night on the floor as we had done in the section houses of Nevada, when an attendant entered the room, bearing cushions, and a second one came with a table, small affairs resembling unpadded foot-rests, braziers with live coals and tiny bronze tea-kettles. The cushions were piled into soft heaps about fourteen inches high, the tables placed between, and we were motioned to a seat upon the cushions. To the right and left were placed box-like trays and in these our food was served in dainty bowls and dishes. At 9 o'clock, when I thought it time to retire, I clapped my hands for a servant. To the girl who answered I made known my wishes and she called two assistants, who appeared, each bringing a pair of padded comforters. The comforters were spread upon the matting in layers, and at the head of each was placed the Japanese substitute for a pillow, a box six inches square by twelve inches long, the upper edge slightly padded. We passed a most comfortable night, and awakened only by the maid entering our room with a tea set. After breakfast we called for our bill and the amount rendered was two yen, or one dollar in gold. Bed, bath, breakfast and supper, unequaled service and every attention in a first-class inn to be had at the rate of sixty cents a day! By 9 o'clock we were again on the road with Fujiyama looming up thirty miles away. From the guide, who had previously given us instructions, we knew which course to take, and so turned up the fork apparently leading to the very root of the mountain. We did not stop at Yamanaka village, but rode through the main streets, astounding the natives and passing from their view, before they realized what had happened, except that something unseen or unheard of before in Yamanaka had passed their way. From Yamanaka to Yoshida our path was over level, smooth roads, but in the latter place we were compelled to stop and consult our guide-books and the police. At the police station, before we were given any information, our passports were demanded. I produced mine, but Mrs. McIlrath had left hers, the most necessary of her effects, behind. The officer looked over my papers and then pointed to my wife. The passports had been made separately at our request, and of course mine made no mention of Mrs. McIlrath. To gain time and collect my wits I took the paper from the officer's hands and glanced over the copy attached, which was written in English. An idea "struck" me. My name was "parted in the middle;" why not give my wife half of it? Calling the attention of the official to the English copy, I pointed to "H. Darwin," and then to my wife. Then laying my finger upon the name "McIlrath," I patted myself on the chest. The official referred to the Japanese copy, I repeated the pantomime, he smiled and bowed, and making a few mystic characters upon the passport, he altered it to read, "H. Darwin, female, and McIlrath, male." CHAPTER VII. A NIGHT IN A JAPANESE TEMPLE--UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO "KODAK" THE MIKADO--LANDED AMONG THE "HEATHEN CHINEE." The sun was setting when we left Yoshida, and with our path principally composed of the narrow dikes separating the rice fields, progress was painfully slow. Miyhoji, seven miles away, was our destination for the night. We had an idea that Miyhoji was a village, and so clicked off eight miles before we discovered that we had either passed the town or were on the wrong track. About one mile back we had seen a light and there we returned. We were at Miyhoji, one of the historic old temples of Japan, and there we slept. The priest lived here with his wife and two acolytes, and a cordial welcome it was they gave us. At 5 o'clock on the afternoon of Nov. 20, we entered a forest at the end of Lake Mishi-No-Umi. We had six miles yet to go ere we sighted Shoji Lake and the hotel at that point kept by Y. Hoshino, a naturalized Japanese gentleman, who was born in Scotland, and having lived eighteen years on the islands of Japan, finally became an adopted citizen. Traveling the forests at night in Japan over lava beds with path illumed only by a cycle lamp is not the most pleasant of journeys. The narrow way is uncertain, deep chasms appear upon either side and I had several rocky falls. I was bruised and battered when we came to Hoshino's residence and lost no time in taking to my bed. At daybreak our host called us to view the silent volcano rising in grandeur to the extreme height 12,365 feet. There is not a peak in all the grand elevation of the Rockies that can compare with Fuji. Pike's Peak, taken from its setting of lesser lights, which but serve to destroy its beauty, and placed upon the plains of Illinois, would not even prove a petty rival to the one before us. As we looked upon Fuji that morning a spotless mantle of snow cowled her crest, the scintillations of which formed a halo of prismatic light about her, and it did not seem strange to realize that the natives worshiped this wondrous monument of eruptive power and beauty. It was our good fortune to be present at the greatest of all "war holidays" held at Shokausha Park in Kudan, on Dec. 15, 16, 17 and 18. After leaving Hoshino's we returned to Tokio, and spent the time in touring the vicinity until these great fetes at which the emperor and empress are always present, were held. Dec. 17, the day upon which His Imperial Majesty Metsu Hito, Emperor of Japan, was to appear at Shokousha Park, dawned dull and threatening, and awakened within us the dread idea that the mightiest of all Japanese would not be on view. At the park the attendance was something incalculable. Tokio seemed to have had its million souls augmented by the thousands of Yokohama, Nikko and other surrounding cities. Our experiences in the vast crowd were paralleled only by those in the dense throng at the World's Fair on Chicago Day. Shortly before 11 o'clock, a tremor ran through the crowd, then a hoarse murmur, and amid a cavalcade of gay lancers, the carriage of the emperor swept through the lane of blue-coated soldiers, and halted directly in front of where we were standing. As the emperor turned and looked about him, I saw a Japanese of low stature, dressed in the uniform of the commander of the army and navy; his dark-complexioned face partly shaded by a peculiar hat, heavily jeweled. The photographs of the Mikado represent him to be a slender man, with a long face, but they are not true likenesses. The Mikado has a round, full face, high intellectual temple, a black mustache which droops over the gentle, pleasing mouth, and with soft eyes, inexpressibly sad, his face appeals to one as that of a man suffering under the royal chains which confine him to the narrow limits of the palace grounds. He stood but a moment in the roadway and surrounded by nobles of various high degrees with bowed form, he moved up the graveled path, ascended the steps of the temple and disappeared within. While he was at worship my American instinct to obtain a souvenir of the occasion got the better of my respect for royalty, and I unswung my camera and prepared to make a picture of the scene. Almost directly two pairs of brown hands seized the camera, turned it sharply upward, and held it until the imperial carriage received the person of the emperor and departed. The Mikado was not to be shot at even by a camera. It was a keen disappointment to me, but I learned later that it was better I did not succeed. Had I snapped the picture I should have lost my camera and probably been roughly handled myself. I was told that I had been followed all morning by the police, who knew what I would attempt with the instrument, and who were detailed especially to frustrate my plans. My camera was not only excluded here, but in all buildings that held treasures or relics of the government and public departments. We had spent two months on the volcanic island, our last few days being fraught with interesting episodes and instructive visits. We had received so many courtesies at the hands of the Japanese, both from individuals and government, that we were loathe to leave for the mainland of China. The final courtesy extended me by the Japanese Government was the privilege of visiting the new prison just completed, and as I was the first European granted such permission, I felt bound to accept the unusual invitation. The precautions taken against disease by germ in the penitentiary at Tokio are equal to those practiced in the most famous hospitals and clinics in the United States and Europe. The wards were models of cleanliness, well lighted, well ventilated, warm and comfortable. The industrial features of the institution, I am safe in saying, are superior to those of the vast state prisons in my own country. There were seven workshops devoted respectively to the manufacture of fire engines, to the weaving and spinning of cotton and silk; the manufacture of silk umbrellas; production of steel hairpins; bricks for the city; the weaving of cloth and the manufacture of stockings, and one devoted to all branches of carpentry and wood-carving. The governor of the prison presented us with many valuable mementoes of our visit. But for that matter, every Japanese gentleman of rank whom we visited sent us a little souvenir of our meeting. We were compelled to purchase additional trunks in which to store our "curios," and when we left on Jan. 12, 1896, on the City of Pekin, for China, we were forced to have our "excess baggage" shipped to our home in America. When the Inter Ocean cyclists reached Shanghai, one of the first sights we wished to see was the people among whom we were to travel for the next 2,000 miles of our trip, and we wished to see them at home. To view them in all their glory as an uncivilized, barbaric race, a trip to the old city was necessary, and on this errand Mrs. McIlrath and I started Jan. 25. We had intended to ride our wheels, but were dissuaded from doing so on account of the hindrance they would prove in sight-seeing. Our friends strongly urged that we take a guide, claiming it unsafe for foreigners to walk about the city alone, but as we were perforce to travel in Chinese territory far less accustomed to "foreign devils" than the inhabitants of Shanghai, we resolved to make our initial bow among the vegetarians unprotected, save by our nerve and a stout cane. Crowds gathered around us wherever we stopped. When I pulled out my notebook and fountain pen, the masses literally fought for places near in order to see me write, and when I had finished and upheld the scrawled page for them to look at, a roar of laughter went up, and several pointed to Chinese characters upon the dead walls of a temple, and in pantomime asked if the ink tracings on the page represented writing. The task of getting away from the crowd was much more difficult than forming it, and we were escorted the remainder of the afternoon by a monster band of chattering idlers. In many of the shops passed we noticed little girls, mere babies they were, standing on stools or leaning over railings, their heads on their arms. The poor tots moaned constantly, their little tear-stained faces depicting anguish seldom seen on the bright faces of children. Nothing seemed to attract their attention, nothing pleased them, and little wonder. Their tiny feet had been bound in unyielding rolls of cloth since the day they were born, and already the bones and sinews were crushing each other into a mass of unrecognizable pulp, held together only by the skin and bandages. This practice is common among the Chinese of all classes and produces the fashionable small foot of the women. The bandages once placed on are never removed, except to be replaced by others, and in result, hundreds of lives are sacrificed annually, the children's feet mortifying and sloughing away. It is erroneous to believe that only women of high caste have small feet. I saw women whose feet were only two and a half and three inches long, dragging drays. For four hours we wandered through the dark alleyways and streets, passing through tunnels and archways that were filled with noxious vapors and used by the public for all manner of nuisances. We experienced no interference with our progression, the only hostile feeling being shown was by a few street arabs who pelted us with stones and fruit skins. This treatment would be accorded a Chinese by our own precious youth in the States and does little harm if no attention is paid to the offenders. Dogs made several attacks upon us, but the little ammonia gun I always carry effectually checked all onslaughts and filled the observing Chinese with wonder. The "gun" was one of my own manufacture, simply a rubber bulb with a short glass nozzle. The bulb I kept filled with ammonia, and when dogs annoyed me, either on my wheel or afoot, the bulb, concealed in the hand, with the nozzle projecting between the fingers, made a most effective weapon. Directing the nozzle in the dog's direction, a slight pressure sent a tiny stream into the yelping cur's mouth and eyes. The dog's violent breathing invariably caused him to take a full inhalation before he was aware of the evil designs upon him, and the effect was instantaneous. He would close his mouth with a snap and then perform a wild side somersault on his back. Several times I used the gun upon dogs in Shanghai and did it in such a manner as to conceal the act. The masters of the animals, who stood grinning while the brutes yelped and snapped at us, were unable to comprehend the reason for Fido's acrobatic feats, and in each instance after looking the dog over to find some injury, laughed heartily, and addressed to us words in reference to the dog which were no credit to man's most faithful friend. CHAPTER VIII. INTER OCEAN CYCLISTS GUESTS AT A CHINESE WEDDING--TORTURES OF A NATIVE PRISON REVEALED--JOLLY CELEBRATION OF THE NEW YEAR. The statement made by someone that man's birth, marriage and death are the three important epochs in his brief career, find support in the custom of the Chinese. Births are heralded by fireworks, fetes and rejoicings, and weddings and funerals are marked by lavish outlay of money and great display. The wedding of a Chinese woman is a complicated affair, but is conducted upon the same principles as are the weddings of the American Indians. The bride marries into the groom's family, not the groom into the bride's family; the wedding occurs at the groom's home and the presents are his property. Although a Chinese may marry as many wives as his income will permit him to support, the first wife is the only one that has an extensive ceremony performed over the nuptials, the succeeding wives entering the life of the husband with as little ceremony as a domestic or a new piece of furniture. In fact as such the additional wives are regarded, being bartered for and bought like merchandise. Mrs. McIlrath and I were fortunate in being present at the elaborate wedding ceremony of a Chinese couple. I fancy that if some of my American friends had their wedding march played by a Chinese orchestra, they would be taken from the altar raving lunatics. A boiler yard or a saw mill would not take "show money" with a Chinese wedding orchestra as a peace disturber. But with all the queer ideas dominant in China, there are a few very sound customs and laws, one, particularly, governing marriage and the duties involved. It may be said truthfully that no race of people on earth possess more loyal wives than the Chinese. Infidelity is punishable by horrible death, and even the mildest of flirtations is a serious offense and a pastime unknown among the more gentle sex of China. The women, though occupying a low plane in the estimate of their liege lords, are devoted to their husbands and homes, laboring zealously for the welfare of their rising generations, but are repaid only by condescending approbation and often neglect. Among the men, the rules of morality are more lax, and the time spent among the slaves, bought of depraved fathers, is limited only by the husband's income and leisure from the absorbing occupation of money-getting. We sought the darkest side of life in China and found in it all the barrenness, yet hideous cunning, ferocity and cruelty of the middle ages. The foreign concessions of Shanghai are guarded by municipal police, composed of Chinese, Europeans and Indians (Sepoys or Seiks), and these minions of the law are controlled by a superintendent, captain and corps of inspectors. The headquarters of the municipal government, police and other departments are located in a large brick building on the Foo Chow Road, and toward the edifice Mrs. McIlrath, a Mr. Burton, an Englishman, who had joined us, and myself directed our steps on Feb. 12. We were met by Superintendent McKenzie and Inspector Ramsey, both gentlemen who had served Great Britain for many years in various capacities as crime suppressors, and they at once showed us the workings of the system as applied in China. Mr. Ramsey placed a Chinese detective at our service to accompany us to one of the native prisons of the old city. Our guide was Kin Lung, a silk-robed, long-cued celestial, who spoke English fluently and smoked cigarettes incessantly. He was the best we could have selected, and thoroughly did he perform his duties. We entered the city by a route never selected by professional guides to conduct tourists, and passed through alleys and streets where the presence of foreigners was as strange a sight as in the far interior. There were few prisoners in durance on that day, as the morrow was the Chinese New Year and all who could obtain bail had been released for the occasion. Those who remained were pacing back and forth in the long, steel-rod cages which formed a sort of outside porch to each row of cells. Each prisoner was bound to a mate by a long chain, riveted to a steel band about his waist. The interior of the prison was dark, gloomy and foul. The floor was covered with damp straw and no light found its way into this tomb, save through the bars at the front door. There were more than two hundred prisoners confined here, a building 15 � 60 feet, and not a bed, blanket or bench to be seen. Food was not furnished, not even uncooked rice, the incarcerated ones being fed by friends upon the outside and by the charitable visitors. The execution and punishment ground was next visited and entered by a small door at the back end of the jail. The area was simply a clayed-floor space, one end devoted to a canopied stand from which the officials viewed the punishment. Stakes and pillars standing upright in the soil told of horrors often perpetrated in the name of justice, and at one side was a bamboo fence inclosure, which concealed something I divined was of import. When I started for this inclosure a warning call from the jailer notified me not to attempt to approach nearer, but tossing him a silver piece I walked behind the fence. I beheld an iron cage about ten feet square, in which hung a half naked coolie. His head was held upright by a chain about his neck, and his cue was fastened to the bars above. His body was supported by an iron bar, upon which he sat astride, but to each foot was attached a bamboo basket which contained a heavy load of bricks. The arms were outstretched by chains, fastened to the sides of the cage, and these were drawn taut by twisting them with a bamboo pole. At first sight I thought the man was dead. The tendons on the back of the legs and under the knees stood out in rigid lines; the abdomen was caved in, and in sharp outlines the ribs and chest bones looked as if covered with parchment; the face, yellow in color, was deathly, the eyes sunken, the lips purple and the lower jaw dropped. As I glanced at this horrible sight I called to my wife to keep away. At the sound of my voice, the eyelids of the tortured wretch raised slowly. For a moment the gaze seemed to rest upon us, and the parched and swollen lips made an effort to form some words. Then the lids fell heavily, as if in despair. The body had given up its fight against death, and the soul had departed on its long journey. In less than two months the Inter Ocean cyclists were participants in the celebration of three distinct New Years, the Japanese New Year, on Dec. 25; the Christian on Jan. 1, and the Chinese celebration on Feb. 13. There is no greater holiday in China than the first day of the year. So religiously are the festivities observed that the natives put aside their absorbing passion of money-earning and all business ceases on the night of Feb. 12, until the morning of the 20th. Shops, even to the cigar, drug and candy stores, close, and supplies for house, ship and hotel must be purchased beforehand to last a week. Vessels which arrive must remain in port, for custom-house and consulate are closed, and as for loading and unloading, the lowest coolie would feel insulted if a gold dollar were offered him for an hour's work during the festal week. The holiday garb of men and women is beyond my power to describe, but this pen picture of one lady of fashion whom we saw, is by Mrs. McIlrath, and I think it worthy of reproduction: "She was extremely pretty," says Mrs. McIlrath, "just like a fantastic doll. She was painted a dead white, her cheeks tinted pink, her lips brightly reddened and her eyebrows penciled black. Her eyes were as dark and pretty as a baby's. Her hair was smoothed back from her forehead and descending in a curve in front of her ears, was coiled neatly in a polished ball at one side on the back. Around the upper part the coil was a coronet of tiny white flowers, and fastening the coils were four ivory stick-pins. Six little ornaments of tinsel danced from gilt pins thrust in her hair, and large gold and jade earrings were fastened in her ears. Her blouse was beautiful. The body was of blue brocaded satin, with a collarette of gold and silver braid stitched upon yellow silk, which fell like a cape, and the sleeves, cut large and loose, were ornamented to the elbow with the same beautiful designs. Her trousers were of pale pink satin with apple-green figures, and her tiny shoes, no longer than my finger, were of blue satin with ermine around the borders at the top. She had fully a dozen bracelets on one arm and bells on her ankles. Her gloves were of black silk, fingerless mitts, the back stitched with gold wire in beautiful scrolls, and her umbrella was carried by two servants." Our Chinese passports from Pekin arrived on March 1, and from the date of their reception till the time we left China, I ceased to be H. Darwin McIlrath, becoming Mo Chee Sah, at least so the impressive document stated, with all the rights and privileges of a low-class Chinese mandarin. The letter from Minister Denby, which accompanied the passport, advised me to go exclusively by that name and use while in the Empire the Chinese form of card printed in Chinese characters. Accordingly I visited a Chinese printer, presented my passport and asked that he print me an appropriate card. The next day a coolie left at our room a package of red paper slips, each two and a half by six inches, bearing three black characters. They were my "visiting cards." On inquiry it developed that this was the proper fashion. The passport was written upon a sheet of coarse paper three by four feet in size, the characters being traced in black and red ink, the edges profusely decorated with signatures of Pekin officials. In the center was a column of characters representing cities and towns, around which a red circle was painted. The cities inside and touched with the circle were those I had permission to visit. Those outside were excluded. We had been long enough in China to learn of the lamentable lack of hotels and inns in the interior. Knowing that for the most part we should have to carry our own bedding and food, we purchased and added to the outfit with which we left Chicago two flannel blankets, a shallow frying pan, a tin plate, which also formed a cover to the frying pan, a knapsack and canteen. My "battery" of three guns was augmented by a double-barrel hammerless shotgun, the barrels and stock of which were sawed off, and, in addition, I carried a short, heavy knife resembling the Cuban machete. A case of beef tea had a place in our luggage, and as we had an abundance of an American brand of malted milk already with us, we were assured that we would pass no such hungry days as we often experienced in our ride to the Pacific Coast. The afternoon of March 3 Mrs. McIlrath and I mounted our luggage-laden wheels, and, after shaking hands with friends, rolled out upon the broad Bund upon the third stage of our long ride. By March 6 we were a hundred miles from the civilized coast, and already we appreciated the fact that our journey across the walled empire would not be "a thing of beauty and a joy forever." The cries of the natives as they caught sight of us silently gliding by on our wheels was strange. The first impression they received from the unusual sight seemed that of superstitious dread. Not a few were angry and made threatening gestures, pointing in the direction of Shanghai, as if warning us to turn back. Our cyclometers showed the distance to be 28 miles when our first difficulty presented itself. It was that of a wide and deep creek, without bridge and without ferry. After a quarter of an hour spent in exploring the banks in vain search for the boatman, we came across a house-boat hidden in the brush. It was owned by two French gentlemen, who were having a pleasure ride as far as Su Chow. Canals are the highways of China, and in going overland from place to place, one must follow these filthy, stagnant streams. Our friends from France, with the politeness and courtesy characteristic of their nation, invited us to become their guests upon the house-boat as far as Su Chow, assuring us that the journey on wheel was almost impossible. The Inter Ocean tourists boarded the trim craft, their wheels stowed forward, and relieving their backs of the blankets and luggage, made themselves at home. Our hosts had had considerable experience in China shooting and trading, and with anecdote of adventure and travel the time passed rapidly until the supper hour. An expert Chinese cook prepared a hearty meal of duck, pheasant and bamboo sprouts, and after an hour's smoking Mrs. McIlrath retired to the only "state room" on board, while the owners of the boat and I, rolled up in blankets, slept on the floor of the cabin. The coolies towing the boat did not cease their labors until after 10 o'clock, and as they resumed towing before daylight, when I woke at 7 the next morning we had covered almost 30 miles. Breakfast over, with our hosts we took a short walk on the banks of the canal, made a few side trips into the brush, and returned to the boat enriched by a dozen pigeons and a pheasant. After our return to the boat I brought forth the great red-sealed document which the Chinese magistrate had given me in Shanghai, and asked if any of the natives in the crew could decipher the purport of the document as written on the envelope. It was this document which had caused us to travel by way of Su Chow, otherwise we should have taken steamer to Chin Kiang, about 60 miles up the Yang-tse-kiang proper, and there begun our ride. I had inquired at Shanghai of foreigners acquainted with the Chinese mandarin language, but all I could learn was that the document was addressed to the Toa Foi at Su Chow, and friends advised me to deliver it. The mystery did not please Mrs. McIlrath, but after deliberation I decided to take chances. Su Chow is a great dumping ground for criminals, and the document was an order intended to reveal to me more of Chinese customs. CHAPTER IX. IN THE AUGUST PRESENCE OF THE TAO TAI--THE PRIVILEGED GUESTS AT AN EXECUTION--FANATICS PURSUE THE "FOREIGN DEVILS." At 8 o'clock on the evening of March 4 our boat moored at the locks of the Grand Canal at Su Chow, but the hour was so late and the streets appeared so dirty and uncertain, that Mrs. McIlrath and I remained on board until morning. Su Chow is a typical Chinese city, and our entrance thereto was an event to the natives. Immediately after breakfast I dispatched a message to the Toa Toi, bearing one of my Chinese cards and the mysterious packet. In an hour the messenger returned accompanied by four chair bearers and a score of soldiers. They were to conduct us into the presence of the Toa Toi. The mandarin received us in state robes, seated upon a high chair, and over his head was held a large umbrella. As we approached him, he graciously descended from his throne and saluted us with a low bow. Mr. Charles Lewis, an American trader, acted as interpreter, and as he spoke Chinese fluently, the mystery of the document and our reception at the palace was soon explained. Mrs. McIlrath and I were not only to see more of Chinese customs, but were the guests of the mandarin. The document further specified that we should witness the execution of a woman who had murdered two others on account of her husband, and at the palace we were to remain until orders came for the execution. "Seng chee" was the mode of death to which the woman was sentenced. This meant "thirty-six cuts," so inflicted upon the body as to terribly mutilate but not prove immediately fatal. The order for execution did not arrive until March 7. The intervening days, spent in the palace from the time of our arrival, were devoted to our express entertainment, a Chinese boy who spoke English well having been brought from Shanghai expressly to serve as our interpreter and guide. It was he who awakened us on the morning of the execution with the news that "the papers" had come. Mrs. McIlrath had no wish to view the horrible scene soon to be enacted, and as I left the room she hid her face within her hands and begged me not to mention the proceedings upon my return. The mandarin awaited me in the state room, and with much forethought had ordered two bottles of champagne with which to brace our nerves. A moment later we were on our way to the court yard in the rear of the palace, a retinue of soldiers surrounding us. Two guards dragged the woman directly before the pavilion we occupied. She fell to her knees, and as she beat the ground with her forehead, begging for mercy, the mandarin's secretary read a few words from a scroll, and the poor wretch was sentenced. Two soldiers tied the woman to a post in an upright position, her feet resting upon a heavy block of wood. The white bandage which had bound her forehead was removed and in its place a belt was applied which held her head immovable. The hands were tied behind the post, each one separately. When the preparations were over, the assistant stepped back, and the executioners, like their victim, naked to the waist, and with knives in hand, prostrated themselves at our feet. The chief butcher took his place by the woman's left side, and a knife gleamed. Then one of her ears was thrown upon the ground. A few seconds more and the other ear was sliced In the same manner. Her eyes no longer glanced wildly from side to side, following the movements of her torturers, but appeared fixed upon mine, and, although I could not understand her shrieking cries, I knew she pleaded to me for mercy--a mercy I could not bestow. Her tongue was cut from her mouth, and at each mutilation a secretary told off the number of the slashes. When he counted ten, I braced myself for a glimpse at the sickening sight, and where had been but a few moments before a woman's face, there was but a bloody, unrecognizable ball. With the regularity of a machine the butchers wielded their cleaver. When I next looked it gave me satisfaction to know that death had come to the relief of the wretched woman before the entire thirty-six cuts had been administered. Before leaving Su Chow we visited the hospital which is conducted under the auspices of the Southern Methodist Episcopal Church. The institution is in charge of Dr. W. H. Park, a typical Southerner, courteous and hospitable, who seemed devoted to his noble work among his heathen patients, and to the medical education of a small class of Chinese students. His corps of assistants included, besides his wife, Dr. Annie Walter, Dr. J. B. Fern, Mr. and Mrs. D. S. Anderson, and the Misses Atkinson, Hearn and Gaither. The cost of sustaining the hospital is paid by the Methodist Mission, but all money derived from patients and from outside visits by Dr. Park, which is considerable, is devoted to the hospital fund. At Wu Sih we were the guests of Dr. Walters for several days before we departed for Ching Kiang. What few roads China possesses are mere foot paths, and in the Eastern districts, where clay is the principal superficial soil, six months of each year these paths are impassable save to foot passengers. Our appearance, therefore, upon bicycles on roads where the wheelbarrow is the only wheel ever seen, stirred the natives to the wildest pitch. The bicycle is an unknown quantity upon the Grand Canal, none besides Lens, the St. Louisan who lost his life in Armenia, having ever passed that way until Mrs. McIlrath and myself appeared. The "devil carriages," as they called our wheels, were too much for their nerves to bear. Six miles up the Grand Canal we encountered the first village, and as the tow path ceased, and the only route through was by the main street, our speed was checked and we were prepared for the reception by the mob which we knew would turn up. By repeated cries of warning I kept the passage clear in front, but no sooner had Mrs. McIlrath passed than the mob closed in. Hooting and jeering, they followed at our heels, the larger and heavier knocking down and walking over the weaker and younger. Their discordant howls were deafening, and when the end of the village street finally appeared I signaled Mrs. McIlrath for a sprint, and away we sped, with a shower of clods after us. We traveled for thirty or forty miles along the banks of the canal, passing boats under sail, the crews of which shouted as we rolled along, until at last we sighted the south gate of Chang Chow, about 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Selecting a place where we could be protected from the wind, we stacked our wheels and prepared for lunch. A small spirit lamp boiled the muddy water taken from the canal. We filtered this through a little pocket contrivance and made each a cup of beef tea. We had expected to avoid being bothered by curious natives, stopping, where we did, one mile from the city, but before we had finished eating a dozen coolies and as many boys gathered around us, and with signs attempted to ascertain who we were and where we were from. Each boat that passed us hailed us cordially, but it was not until four hours after that a boat containing a party of missionaries, friends of ours, arrived, and we were taken on board and put away for the night. House-boats in China, where obtainable, are always preferable to inns, and it is well for one touring the country to attempt arriving at the water's edge by dusk. After a good breakfast the next morning and a thorough inspection of our wheels, we bade farewell to our friends on the boat and set out for Ching Kiang. The streets in Chang Chow were very fair, and we made good speed through the city. Our appearance created a great commotion, but many of the crowd who clattered after us had heard of our reception by various notables and mandarins, and they saluted respectfully, at the same time assisting in clearing a way for us. Once on the open, we sighted the telegraph poles, and by following in their direction were soon on the Grand Canal once more. By noon we had covered forty miles, pausing for dinner at a small village. As we sat in the dingy, queer-smelling restaurant the sky darkened and rain began to fall. We saw the possibility of reaching Tan Yan before night growing less with each drop of moisture, but as the water did not fall in quantities sufficient to make the clay path treacherous, we mounted our wheels, determined to cover every mile we could before the downpour came. At 3 o'clock we sighted a high wall, which we knew to be that encircling the city of Pen In. We made no stop in the city, pedaling around the town, having been warned not to venture within its limits. We traveled all afternoon in a drizzle, and when the rain began to fall in sheets, about 5 o'clock, we were lucky in having a boat pass us on the canal. We hailed the craft, and by displaying a silver dollar obtained shelter for the night. The following morning, Saturday, March 21, we again mounted our wheels and took to the tow-path. Though the ground was soft and treacherous, we reached Tan Yan at 10 o'clock. It was amusing to observe the effect of our bicycles upon the natives. Farmers and laborers in the fields dropped their implements soon as they sighted us and ran to the roadside to view us in blank amazement, but if I stopped and attempted to engage them in conversation they directly ran for the interior again. Some of the people we passed with wheelbarrows left the vehicles in the path and sought refuge in the rice fields. A steam street roller could not have created greater consternation among a troop of wild ponies than our innocent rubber-tired vehicles did among the country folk of China. Several times we thought we had lost our way, so obscure had the path become, and had it not been for our compass, the knowledge that Ching Kiang lay directly north, and an occasional friendly farmer, we would never have found our way. Seventeen miles from Tan Yan we sighted the pagoda of the south gate of Ching Kiang, and entering upon a stone-bedded road, we plowed along at lively speed to the very entrance of the city wall. Inquiry for "Yen Isweesun" (foreigners) put to the crowd before us was fruitful, and under the escort of half a dozen young men we were led through a maze of small streets, and the way pointed out to a group of small houses which dotted the summits of a chain of hills. The United States flag floated over one residence, and with thanks to our guides we turned to leave them. The Chinese who had piloted us blocked our path, demanding a reward. By gestures they made it known that they would consider the account settled if I would let one man ride my wheel. Nothing could have suited me better, and I surrendered it at once. Two men held the wheel while the third mounted it, and in less than a minute he had taken a plunge into a ditch of muddy water, changing his ambition to ride into one of disgust for the wheel and respectful admiration for myself. The United States Consul, Gen. A. C. Jones, occupied one of the handsomest houses in Ching Kiang. We called upon him on the afternoon of our arrival, but found him absent. However, we were taken into his office and entertained by Mrs. Jones until the arrival of her husband, who had been looked up by a native servant with the information that "two men" had come to see him "walking on wheels." CHAPTER X. GENERAL JONES ABLY REPRESENTS UNCLE SAM AND HIS GOVERNMENT--MUD DELAYS THE TOURISTS--MISTAKEN FOR A MISSIONARY M. D. Gen. Jones, a tall, broad-shouldered man, whose handsome face was crowned with silvery white hair and ornamented by a flowing mustache and imperial, impressed me as one of the most courteous and affable gentlemen with whose acquaintance I had ever been honored. There are many reminiscences told of him and his admirable dealings in national affairs with the Chinese, and none better is related than how he adjusted the claim of his government arising out of the great riot of Ching Kiang in 1889. The riot, it may be remembered, resulted in the burning of the British Consulate, the looting of the American Consulate, and the death of Mrs. Mansfield, wife of Her Majesty's Consul, from shock and prostration. The claims of the British government were first presented to the Tao Tai, and after a long period of wrangling the amount of damages was considerably cut down and the matter was pigeon-holed for future consideration. When it came the American Consul's turn to present his bill, he did so without waste of words. It is told of him, by none other than Mr. Mansfield, the English Consul, that Gen. Jones disdained the seat offered him at the meeting of the Commissions of Arbitration, and remained standing in dramatic attitude before the Tao Tai. When that official had listened to the American claim, and expostulated that the figures seemed exorbitant, Gen. Jones drew himself up and forthwith gave an exhibition of Western ideas and American principles. Addressing the Tao Tai, he said: "Sir, I represent a people whom your horde of fanatic savages have maliciously wronged and robbed. I have presented the claim; it lies before you. I do not ask that it be paid; I do not supplicate you that it be settled, but, as the representative of the United States Government, I demand, sir, that it be paid, unaltered, unchanged and in its entirety." The Consul leaned over the table, one hand with clenched fist supporting his body, the other resting upon his hip, as if to draw a six-shooter, and with determination stamped upon his countenance, he hurled the words, rather than spoke them. The Tao Tai first appeared amazed, and finally he actually trembled with fear. The entire scene was theatrical, but the climax caused those assembled more astonishment still. After a hurried whispered conversation the Chinese officials nodded pleasantly to Gen. Jones, and the Consul took his seat. His claim had been accepted. We had already been considerably delayed in our progress to Nanking, so charming and hospitable had been Gen. Jones and his wife, and, in spite of warm invitations to remain longer, Mrs. McIlrath and I left Ching Kiang at noon on March 22. Gen. Jones had ordered the way cleared for us, sending ahead a native officer. We had several days of hot, dusty riding, which was made all the more difficult by the increased amount of baggage which we carried. Nanking, our objective point, is the Southern capital of the empire, the home of the Kai King rebels; the site of the famous porcelain palace and of the great Confucian temple, a city which is the greatest of all Chinese educational points, as well as the most historical, offering opportunity for the examination of 28,000 students at one place at one time. Before entering the city we visited the Ming tomb, the burial place of the Emperor Hung Woo, who reigned during the fourteenth century, and dying at the Imperial Palace was interred at the foot of the Purple mountain. The tomb itself is simply a small hill, with nothing extraordinary appearing about its graceful, rolling eminence. Tradition has it, however, that in its depth reposes a magnificent vault, which has been completely covered by the faithful subjects who visited the tomb, each one depositing a handful of earth upon and about the vault. I bore a letter of introduction from one of my missionary friends to a Mr. Ferguson, an American resident of Nanking, through whose kind offices we were enabled to see nearly, if not all, the points of interest in the historical Chinese city, visiting the Bell tower, Drum tower and Examination Halls before our departure. As Tai Ping Foo, our next stopping place, was 68 miles southwest, and over uncertain roads, we decided to remain the second night at the home of Mr. Ferguson, and it was not until March 23 that we took our leave. We were unable to get further than fifteen miles of Tai Ping Foo on account of the muddy roads. The clay collected by our tires blocked the opening in forks and frames, the sprockets were thick discs of the yellow, sticky mass, and every fifty feet we were compelled to scrape the mud off in order to move a wheel. Removing the chain from each wheel helped matters slightly, but so frequently did the cleaning process become necessary, that we no longer used a stick for the work, but simply scraped the mud from our tires and frames with our hands. Darkness overtook us and added to our discomfort. The path, only three feet wide, and built as an embankment, was as difficult to keep upon as a greased plank. Mrs. McIlrath and I fell time and again. Bridges had to be crossed on hands and knees, and so clogged with mud were our shoes that our legs ached from lifting our feet. We encountered many difficulties since leaving Chicago, but none so hopeless and with so little promise of a night's rest as the time we tried to make Tai Ping Foo. Mrs. McIlrath gave way to her feelings, and sat down upon one of the muddy embankments and indulged in a good cry. We wandered through the mud and rain the greater part of the night, plunging through rice fields and patches of mustard plants, guided only by the feeble light shed by our bicycle lamps. A bad fall broke the glass in my lantern, and we were then forced to proceed only by the dim rays cast by the lamp on Mrs. McIlrath's wheel. Toward morning we came to a halt in front of a mud hut, through the bamboo doors of which we could see the dying embers of a fire. I shouted several times before I could raise any of the occupants. A generous display of silver pieces persuaded them to let us enter. The wife arose, cooked us food, and made places for us to sleep on the floor, with the fire at our feet. I had expected my bill to be something enormous for this great accommodation, and I was all but stunned when our host demanded only 600 cash. This was equivalent to about 60 cents of Uncle Sam's money, which amount will keep a large Chinese family for a week. Tai Ping Foo by this time was only three miles away, and without further incident we reached the city, and though we had been awake the lesser part of the day, we were soon ready for another night's rest in more comfortable quarters. A good stone road for seven miles rendered it possible for us to ride out of Tai Ping Foo the next morning, but by 10 o'clock we came again to the sea of mud, and were forced to resume our walk. We were successful in executing our plans to reach the river by dusk, for we had concluded to take no more chances in seeking shelter with the farmers. It was comparatively easy to obtain a boat to sleep on, and the yellow-skinned bandits took advantage of our position immediately. They seemed to realize just how badly we wanted a boat, and forthwith they put the price up to the excessive sum of four dollars. But boat we had to have, and I paid the sum, stipulating, however, that they were to carry us to Wuhu, seven miles distant, and land us by daybreak. For the only time in my dealings with these rascally natives they kept their word. When we waked we were in the midst of the shipping anchored about Wuhu. On shore I spied the Chinese imperial custom-house, and who should be stalking up and down the paved court before it but our English friend Burton, whom we had met in Shanghai! The meeting with him spoiled our plans for an immediate visit to Dr. E. H. Hart, surgeon of the American Methodist Hospital, as he introduced me to Mr. A. Knight Greyson, agent of the Jardine-Mattison Transportation Company. So genial was this hearty Britisher and his wife in their invitation to luncheon that we could not refuse, and in their cosy home, on the hulk of the old ship Madras, we ate the first good meal we had enjoyed for three days. Our letter of introduction was later presented to Dr. and Mrs. Hart, who not only received us with open arms, but placed fresh linen and clean clothes at our disposal. It was necessary for us to remain three days in Wuhu. Our wheels needed a thorough cleaning, my correspondence had to be attended to, and our shoes and clothes were long past due for repairs. During our stay we were dined on board H. M. S. Daphne and the U. S. S. Detroit. Visits to us at Dr. Hart's from officers of the British gunboat, Commander Newell of the Detroit, Lieutenant-Commander Hawley, Lieutenants Evans and Desmukes, the British Consul, Mr. Mortimore, and the members of the various missions made time fly rapidly, and though the weather was most inclement, we were loathe to leave on April 11, when the sun at last showed himself. Hard riding, favored by delightful weather, brought us to Hankow within the week. My generosity in this part of the country turned out to be dangerous to the comfort of Mrs. McIlrath, as it almost exhausted my stock of medicines. We had stopped one Sunday on one of the boats moored in the river, and I was there mistaken for a doctor. The mistake was somewhat excusable, as Mrs. McIlrath, in a spirit of mischief, had told some of the fishermen that I was a "medicine man." I had taken a short walk on shore during the forenoon, and upon my return to the boat I found the "sick for the day" mustered in line along the beach. One child, suffering from what the missionary doctors call "rice stomach," or, in plainer English, indigestion, was the first to attract my attention. I sounded the little fellow's abdomen, which was so swollen that his waist girth exceeded his chest measure by fourteen inches, and prescribed and administered a dose for him. One of the sailor's wives was afflicted with the "cash eye," a poisoned and inflamed condition of the eye brought about by handling the dirty copper coin and then rubbing the eye with the contaminated fingers. The last of my patients was a young man who suffered from a toothache. I became on the spot a practicing dentist, cutting the gum away from the tooth with my pocket knife, and wrenching the offender from the poor chap's jaw with a pair of bladed pliers, which we carried in our repair kit. At one of the villages we had passed before arriving at Hankow we fell in with a companion named Cunningham. His other name I do not remember, and it is just as well for his own sake that I do not, as I cannot help saying that Cunningham proved himself to be the most annoying part of our baggage. He was a good wheelman, but absolutely without "backbone," and in the serious encounters which we had with the natives, many of them being out-and-out fist fights, Cunningham proved the exception to the rule that Englishmen all are brave fellows and handy with their fists. He did the most injudicious things, and was directly responsible for several of our skirmishes. I may mention that we parted with him finally the day he chided Mrs. McIlrath for not coming to his assistance when he had been set upon and knocked down by a band of ruffianly coolies. Monday, May 18, 1896, I have down in my diary as one of the warmest I have ever passed through. The air was so humid and close that riding offered the only method of creating a breeze. The hot tea we drank at the villages did not alleviate our sufferings, and at my suggestion we passed the day in hard pedaling. Toward the evening we came upon a grove of gunbarrel trees, so called because the trunks are hollow like a gun barrel. The grove is situated upon the banks of a creek, and here we went into camp. The weather remained torrid, and for two days we rested in the forest. A settlement, not far distant, contained a market, at which we purchased our supplies, and the camping out was thus attended by much less inconvenience than one would imagine. CHAPTER XI. INTER OCEAN CYCLISTS ENCOUNTER AN ASIATIC SHYLOCK--HAND-TO-HAND CONFLICTS WITH THE COOLIES IN SHAZE. On the eighth day of our trip from Hankow, Mrs. McIlrath contracted a severe cold, which impeded our progress and caused me great alarm. Much of the journey, on this account, had to be taken in sedan chairs. Our supply of tinned goods was also becoming low, the oil we carried for lubricating was gone, and Cunningham, as if to add his share to the chain of misfortune, displayed symptoms of malarial fever. As the only resort we changed our course in the interior and pushed toward the river, hoping to find some English steamer which might replenish our stores. A half day of waiting on the river bank, and a steamer hove in sight. The three of us hoisted signals, and I fired my pistols, but the steamer evidently did not see us, and steamed on up the river, displaying the English flag as she passed. Though not in such a serious predicament, our sensations were similar to those of the shipwrecked sailor adrift on his raft as the solitary ship sails by, majestic to look upon, but to the castaway cruel and cold. As if in sympathy with our disappointment, the rain came down in torrents as the steamer disappeared from view, and we made our way to a settlement a few miles ahead. It was then necessary for us to cross the river, which we did, but in the most unexpected fashion. The lone ferryman must have been an Asiatic descendant of Shylock, or at least his demands so indicated, for he asked 300 cash to row us 100 feet. To convey the impression that we were not in such a great hurry to be ferried, we sat down upon the river bank and began munching some tasteless cakes which Mrs. McIlrath had purchased at a restaurant. The large boat of a mandarin was moored upon the opposite bank, the crew watching us intently, and the official himself peering at us from the curtained window of his cabin. We next observed the anchor of the boat drawn up and the craft making headway in our direction. Just what was the mandarin's object in crossing we could not imagine. A plank was laid from the shore to his boat, and we were summoned on board. The silk-clad official received us politely, offering the customary tea. One of his crew, who knew a bit of English, interpreted to him that we desired to cross the river. In a moment our boat was moving, and we soon returned to the original mooring. It was almost too much to contemplate! For the first time we had been rescued from the exorbitant charges of a native by one of his own countrymen--a most unusual interference. Chinamen are very clannish, and seldom can they be induced to compete in prices when in trade among themselves, but never where a foreigner is concerned. Delaying only long enough to allow the mandarin to read my passports and to civilly refuse his invitation to remain on board his boat for the day and night, we landed and rode on our way. Ten miles of very fair path through short grass brought us to a gigantic rock arising from the plain like a great castle. Under its sheltering shelves we found a trio of fisher huts. We stopped at the largest of these and obtained permission to cook the food which we purchased from the fishermen, one of the many luncheons of its kind that we ate in China. We stopped only long enough for our repast before setting out for You Chow. Before reaching the city we had a fierce hand-to-hand conflict with a number of savage coolies, Cunningham being almost annihilated. He brought it on himself, however, by rapping across the knuckles an inquisitive Mongolian who had dared to feel his bicycle tire. At You Chow we were received in great ceremony by the mandarin himself, who placed guards at our disposal, and offered us every protection, going so far as to volunteer sending men out to capture the natives who had assaulted us with clods and stones. The Tai Toa of the province visited us the next day to make changes in our passports. The Chinese map of China was produced, and by comparing it with the charts which we carried, I managed to show the official the route we had traveled since leaving Shanghai. One thing mystified me, I could not find You Chow on the native map, and after many efforts I succeeded in making myself understood. My breath was taken away when the official placed his finger upon the character indicating the city, and I learned for the first time that we were twelve miles from the Yang-Tse-Kiang and on the channel connecting with Tung Ting Lake. We had been lost the day before without knowing it. We had been in the dread province of Hunan, out of the territory permitted us to travel, and, worse than all, had put our heads into the lion's jaws by coming into the very place where lawbreakers are confined. I explained my position to the Tao Tai as well as I could, and he seemed to comprehend it. The next morning, Thursday, May 21, he had us called, gave us new passports for the province of Hunan, and dispatched an escort of coolies to see us safely started upon the right road. The issuing of the passport to foreigners by a Tao Tai, when not compelled to do so by a Consul, was unprecedented, and especially in our case, when he could have weighted us with chains, trussed us up like pigs to a pole, and had us carted overland to Shanghai. Such treatment has been accorded foreigners repeatedly. It may seem strange to Europeans that the Chinese do not understand their own language when spoken by a native of some other province. Often in the short distance of twenty miles the dialect is entirely different. This fact I ascertained during our tour through Hupeh. The Shanghai resident is ignorant of the tongue of the Azecheun, and a Hupeh does not understand a syllable uttered by a native of Canton. The character used is the same when produced in writing, but the sound given it by the tongue is entirely different. Chinese also have the idea that natives from a distant province are not proper Chinamen. I asked a native of Hankow to interpret what a boatman was endeavoring in vain to say to me. My friend from Hankow made an effort, but gave it up in disgust. "Can't you talk with your own people?" I asked, in amazement. "Can't you understand a Chinaman?" "Chinaman," he retorted, sharply; "he no belong Chinaman; he belong Ningpoo-man." And Ningpoo is one of the principal ports of China. We had some difficulty and inconvenience in entering the city of Shaze, a city with a record of blood and crime unequaled to any in the Empire. Little of its importance is known to foreigners, or in the coast cities, although it is one of the most important towns on the river between Hankow and Chung King. Possibly this is because Shaze has not a bund, club house, race track, or any of the other modern "conveniences" of a large city. Only recently, or since the Japanese-Chinese war, had it been open as a treaty port, and during my visit there, two years ago, it had but one consulate, the Japanese. It was shunned by strangers on account of its reputation for being extremely anti-foreign, the ruins of a magnificent Roman Catholic Cathedral, standing like a specter on the river bank just above the city, testifying to this prejudice. The reputation of the place caused us to be extremely chary about entering, though we finally accomplished our aim under unlooked for conditions. The shore opposite Shaze was sparsely settled, and I was correct in my conjecture that we could obtain shelter in some hut across the river. The farmer who accommodated us was an unusually kind and intelligent Chinaman. We were kept as his guests three days by rain. On the third day I dispatched a messenger to the Japanese consul at Shaze, but the answer received, written in Japanese characters, occasioned me great disappointment. "No room for you; proceed on your journey," was the reply. I took this to be a Chinese trick, and accused the messenger of not visiting Shaze at all, but writing the characters himself. Later I learned that the letter had been taken to the Roman Catholic Mission by mistake. I returned the messenger to the city, and when he came back, an hour later, he was accompanied by a native, who brought me a letter which read: "May 26, Mr McIlrath, opposite Shaze, dear friends: We are received a letter with you and happy to say to you we are Christian Chinese and hope so are you. We have got good Chinese house in Shaze and hope you will come see us. And man will direct you to the right road to travel this side, and hope you will be happy to receive you. We are all Christians and hope so you are. Respectfully, S. Kwei." The evident hospitality conveyed in the note caused us to overlook its ludicrous wording, and following without delay the "man," we reached the water's edge before we learned that he had failed to bring a house-boat with him. Directing him to return to his master, I gave him a second note, requesting that a craft be sent for us on the next day, and expressing our happiness at the prospect of visiting Mr. Kwei's house. By noon the next day the Inter Ocean tourists were comfortably fixed in a well-appointed Chinese residence in Shaze, the guest of Mr. Kwei. We were detained in Shaze until Saturday, May 30, and during the time that we were the guests of our host we were dressed in the gaudy raiment of the wealthy Chinese. When we left Shaze it was upon a large house-boat, bound five miles above the city. The place scheduled for debarking appeared dangerous on account of the presence of a wild-eyed, chattering mob of coolies, and I prevailed upon the captain to take us further. We traveled over night, and early Sunday morning were landed at a point which promised fair riding. We were then upon our last relay of 300 miles. Ichang was our destination, and we estimated from the point at which the boat had landed us that we would arrive in that city by June 1. There were many annoyances and encounters on the road, some of them serious, as, for instance, a hay knife thrown at Mrs. McIlrath by a laborer in a wheat field. The weapon fell short, and was caught in the spoke of Cunningham's wheel. For the first time in our association did the little Englishman act promptly and correctly. He dismounted, and, picking up the hay knife, threw it far into the river. This act infuriated the Chinaman, who drew another knife, and calling to his friends, advanced toward us. To make a long story short, we "bluffed" the crowd with our pistols. The Chinese dread individuals who do not betray the rage they feel more than an entire regiment of blusterers. All of which reminds me of the well-known maxim that a "barking dog never bites." When the Inter Ocean tourists reached Ichang they were half-way across China, with the record to their credit of 600 miles traveled through a country never penetrated by a foreigner before. Lenz, of whom I have previously spoken, followed the direct route from Shanghai, or what may be called the "telegraph line." Morrison and other Englishmen made the passage by steamer from Shanghai, and Stevens crossed only from Canton to Kui Kiang, and thence to Shanghai by steamer. It took us twenty-one days to complete the journey, and so anxious had members of the European colony at Ichang become about us that, had we not arrived when we did, native couriers would have been dispatched the next morning to search the country for us. Our first stop in the city was at the postoffice, where I received the note from Mr. Hunter, a friend we had met at Hankow, announcing that he had arranged for us to stop at the American Episcopal Mission, and that to the Rev. H. C. Collins would be due the courtesy of entertaining us. The first day we spent in Ichang thoroughly acquainted us with the members of the community. There were scarcely thirty foreigners in all, but each seemed anxious to render our stay as pleasant as possible. We had picnics, tennis parties and dinners arranged in our honor, meeting many interesting characters, both native and European. One of these friends, Tseo Shoo Wen, an energetic, lively Chinaman, and a man one could well afford to win as a friend, was especially solicitous regarding our comfort and safety. Learning that we were to travel through the Yang-Tse-Kiang gorges by boat as far as Wan Hsien, Mr. Tseo offered us as escort a gunboat and lifeboat. We declined, however, as we had been asked to become the guests on the house-boat of Dr. Collins, upon which we departed from Ichang on June 15. Our route as nearly as possible was to go by boat to Wan Shien, thence overland to Chung King, Suifoo, Yunnan Foo Tali and Bahme, the trip by boat merely allowing us to see the beginning of the beauty of the marvelous gorges, and not in the least rendering our trip any less interesting. In fact, as the summer floods were expected daily, there was greater hazard at this time of year on the waterways than on land. We were thoroughly stocked with bedding and canned provisions sufficient for a ten days' trip. We were so fortunate as to secure as captain the same native who had piloted one of my friends, Dr. Morrison, up the river, and he had retained his own crew of five strong, competent boatmen. The evening prior to our departure a complimentary dinner was given in honor of Mrs. McIlrath, and on Monday, June 15, the "Defender," as we called our boat, hoisted sail, and the Inter Ocean tourists left Ichang as they entered it, flying under the beautiful colors of the United States. CHAPTER XII. ON THE YANG-TSE-KIANG DURING A FLOOD--TOWED BY FORTY COOLIES--CYCLISTS PAID FOR BEING ENTERTAINED BY THE TAI FOO. The rain which we had looked for did not disappoint us. The water poured steadily for three days following the Fourth of July, and on the 7th the water rose twenty feet in eighteen hours. It continued rising to flood height, and we were imprisoned at Ping Shan Pa until July 26, our boat tied to the trees of an orange grove which sheltered a coffin shop kept by an old man. The Yang-Tse-Kiang was in its fiercest mood, and none better than ourselves were in a position to witness its terrors. Our boat was turned and twisted as if struggling to break its bonds. Great volumes of under-current burst in swirls under our bow and stern, pounding as they struck the flat bottom of the boat as if we had been crashed on a submerged rock. The yellow waters seemed to leap in their course, all semblance to a stream being lost. Trees, torn up by their roots, leaped full length from the whirlpools and were drawn down into the vortex of the next. A capsized junk shot past, and as it was near the shore a half-dozen boatmen left the bank to seize the prize. It was an exciting sight. The crews raved, yelled and stamped on the deck like demons, risking their lives for the sake of a few pieces of silver. When they succeeded in beaching the junk, every plank, nail, bit of cargo, and even the bodies on board, were theirs to possess or claim reward for. The rampage of the river gave the coffin shop proprietor several days of grewsome work. Within twenty-four hours the gray-queued old fellow rescued six bodies from the whirlpools in front of his establishment. His son, stationed on a crag half a mile upstream, kept a keen lookout for the dead in the river, and as soon as the yellow, bloated bodies appeared on the surface of the water, he signaled his father, who, with an assistant, put out in a small boat to tow the corpses ashore. For this service and for the coffin he received 75 gold cents a body, and rich, in a Chinaman's eyes, had the old fellow grown with his years of watching during the spring and summer floods. Ascending the gorges of the Yang-Tse-Kiang by boat is a trip which, under the most propitious circumstances, is fraught with danger and inconvenience, but especially so during the months of July and August. But we ascended the most dangerous parts of the famed canyons, passed through the Tan Hsin, Sung Poa Tso Tan and other dreaded rapids. Though the trip proved at all times exciting, there was no time that danger was sufficiently apparent to cause Mrs. McIlrath to change color or to reach out for her cork life-belt. Nevertheless, I would not undertake the journey again were it to lead through scenery doubly grand and were the passage to be paid handsomely in gold. The entire pleasure is lost in efforts to keep the Chinese crew in marching order, and, as they must be coerced into activity, the journey may be said to resemble an outing in the Grand Canyon with a herd of swine to drive. The expression is homely, but just and fitting. We sighted the beautiful Teng Hsiang gorge on Aug. 8, but long before we entered it the country became hilly, often resembling the beautiful Palisades of the Hudson. In America, where all things necessary to facilitate transportation and commerce are deemed absolutely necessary, such feats as the Port Huron Canal and the removal of Hell Gate are accepted by the public when the feats are accomplished as simply the result of need, but in China a mere passage a few miles long, blasted out of a mountain side, is a rare spectacle to behold. As our boat slipped along the rocks the beauty of the gorge disclosed itself, but to my mind the scenery of the Teng Hsiang gorge did not compare in grandeur to that encountered upon the rapids of Shan-Tou-Ping. The rapids are caused by jutting shells of rock running out into the river several hundred feet. As the water is deep, and the current runs eight miles an hour, the rapids are terrific. Had our boat broken loose and gone down stream onto the boulders, which reared their heads just above the water, boat, baggage, bicycles, and probably tourists would have been lost. The mast of all boats ascending the Yang-Tse-Kiang is situated almost amidships, just a little forward, and to the base of this is fastened the tracking line of bamboo. From the top of the spar runs another line fastened to the towline about thirty feet out from the mast, and by pulling in or slacking this line the tracking line may be raised to the top of the spar, if desired, this to enable the towline to clear the rocks on the shore, which are occasionally as high as the mast. Forty coolies composed our crew on shore in charge of the tracking line, and as the "Defender," trembling and groaning, pushed her nose into the rushing water the crew ashore chanted and groaned, as, bent forward until one hand almost touched the ground, they moved us up stream. The night of our arrival in Kwei Chou Foo, an old and dilapidated, yet a city of great importance, Mrs. McIlrath and I slept on deck, as was our custom, awakened the next morning at daybreak. At 9 o'clock I sent my letter of introduction, card and passport to the Tai Foo by the captain of the lifeboat, and an hour later we received his card, and word that at noon an official would call for us. In the meantime our apartments were being prepared in the palace of the Tai Foo. He sent three chairs for us, one for myself, one for Mrs. McIlrath, and one for Leo, our Chinese interpreter, a Shanghai boy, who was quite driven out of his wits at the idea that one so high in rank should condescend to provide a chair for a foreigner's servant. The Tai Foo was a tall, slender man, middle-aged, and very intellectual in appearance. Beckoning us to a sumptuously furnished reception room, he welcomed us in courtly manner, and with Leo acting as interpreter, he asked the usual questions concerning our trip, the cause for undertaking such a journey, how much I received a month, if I had seen indications of gold and silver ore in China, and endless queries that are kept constantly on hand by the official clan. Gradually the potentate thawed out, his questioning ceased, and he began telling of his own affairs. He laid aside the peacock plumed bonnet and the gold breastplate, and, clad in his blue silk robe, he became simply a well-educated Chinese gentleman. He realized that Japan had annihilated and confiscated China's navy, defeated her troops and generally "played horse" with the Great Dragon. He also knew that the world was round, and that America and Great Britain were different countries. We were the guests of the Tai Foo for three days, and when we were ready for departure he presented us with a purse of 20 taels, insisting that we accept it to remunerate us for the enjoyment he had derived from our honorable company. As a farewell contribution to our part of the entertainment, I rode the bicycle around the gardens, causing the wives, children and attachés of the Tai Foo to scream with delight, and then call for our chairs. As we took our places in the gaily papered interior of the sedans, the Foo's secretary handed me three enormous envelopes covered with imposing seals and large characters. These were letters of commendation to the Shen at Yan Yang Hsien, where we arrived Monday, Aug. 17. There was another official reception for us, with the same pageant of chairs, umbrellas and ponies. We dined with the Shen, who also stocked our boat with dainty dishes, including hams, ducks, chickens, fish and a young pig. The quantity of food provided for us as a single meal would have fed six Americans for several days. The contract I had made with the boatmen called for 21,000 cash, and stipulated that we were to be landed in Wan Hsien in twelve days. The cash had been paid the crew in advance, and as the ship had occupied twenty-three days, I had been liberal in granting the crew extra money, until 17,000 extra cash had been added to the sum. But upon our arrival at Wan Hsien the boatman demanded 7,000 cash more. I had learned from experience that argument with the coolie class did not pay, so when the demand was made I requested that the boatman accompany me to the Shen and allow that official to decide the difficulty. This proposition he accepted, and as soon as we had met the official, presented our passports and letters of introduction, and our boy Leo had handed the Shen my receipts, contract and a statement of the extras paid, we adjourned to the trial room. In vain did our boat captain explain his woes as he knelt upon the stone floor. Unfortunately for himself, he attempted to explain some particular point, and instantly the Shen shouted an order, four coolies seized him, and stretching him upon the floor, administered 400 strokes with a club. I had not expected such an outcome, and when the Shen asked through the interpreter if I was satisfied, I could but answer, "Only too well." The boatman staggered to his feet, and with piteous moans was thrust into a bamboo cage. This seemed to be carrying things a little too far, and expostulating with the Shen I succeeded in having him released. Paying him 4,000 cash as a recompense, I sent him away, grateful that I had not taken advantage of my influence and allowed him to remain in the filthy bamboo pen. The road from Wan Hsien to Chung King lies directly over the mountains. Knowing that upon our journey we would be unable to ride our bicycles, we engaged coolies to carry them, and taking the conveyance called mountain chairs for the accommodation of ourselves and boy, we left Wan Hsien Aug. 26. The Shen furnished us as an escort two soldiers and four extra coolies, and with these added to our party of five we made quite a little procession as we started on our long tramp. At 4:30 o'clock in the afternoon we halted at a large village thirty miles up the mountain. The rain was pouring, and while the coolies prepared a room for us in the inn I hastened to provide dry clothing and medicine for Mrs. McIlrath. She had fallen ill during the morning, and had I known what distress and alarm her indisposition was to cause me I hardly think I should have ever ventured into the interior of China. To be ill in a civilized land, where one has all the advantages of medicine, proper food, bedding and pure air, is trying enough to one's nerves and peace of mind, but to be stricken in a land 300 miles from a white face, confined in a dark, damp room, centipedes crawling along the walls, rain dropping from the roof, terrible odors from pig pens in the next room, and cesspools of filth in the rear, is calculated to affect any sufferer for the worse. It was midnight before I could quiet my wife by the use of drugs. She insisted upon starting with us the next morning, though so weak she had to be carried to her chair. The rain fell in torrents, and to protect my patient I tied sheets of oil paper over her chair, wrapped her in a flannel blanket, and hung curtains of burlap over the doorway. Her condition did not improve for the next three days. The rain continued to add to our misery and discomfort, but my stock of medicine was running low, and I considered necessary a forced march to Chung King. Several times our coolie chair bearers mutinied, and upon one particular rainy night they gave us the slip, forcing me to send the Shen's two soldiers after them. They not only deserted, but took with them the chair used in carrying Mrs. McIlrath. But the soldiers were faithful to the friends of their master, and captured and brought back the truants. It was only by threats to do them bodily harm that I succeeded in making them resume the march next morning. I probably threatened more than I would execute, but prompt action was imperative. It was either to move rapidly toward Chung King, or lose by an agonizing death the little companion of my travels and of my life. The path was miserable, the rain fell in a drizzle, and the country was half hidden in banks of fog, but never did blue skies, green grass, and the sweet air of freedom appear more welcome to a released convict than did that dreary view as we set forward for relief. CHAPTER XIII. DESERTED BY MUTINOUS COOLIES--DANGEROUS JOURNEY AFOOT TO CHUNG KING--THE MOST MYSTIFYING CONJURER OF THEM ALL. Once well under way, our rebellious gang traveled peaceably, making good time, possibly because we would not permit them to stop for rest or a few whiffs of opium in any of the larger villages, thus frustrating all attempts they would be certain to make in endeavoring to enlist the sympathy of their fellows. The miserable gang, however, went upon another strike when at dusk we halted in the village of Huei Sung Chang. The village inn was dirty, as usual, and no more a fit place for an invalid than any of the other wretched quarters we had previously occupied. When we awoke in the morning of Aug. 31, Leo apprised us of the fact that rebellion had once more broken loose. The coolies refused emphatically to proceed without more cash. The first excuse was that they wanted food, but we had furnished that; the second they wanted opium, but the soldiers supplied them; the third, they wanted rice wine, and they had been given that also; and now they demanded cash. Nothing would satisfy them but good, copper hard cash. The soldiers threatened and argued in vain. The coolies knew that I had none of the little copper coins with me, my funds consisting only of large silver pieces. Their demand for cash was working both ways. If I did not give it them they had an excuse for leaving. If I did give it them they were just that much more ahead. I was about to repeat the object lesson of the day before when the boy Leo offered a solution to the difficulty by volunteering to proceed to the next city on foot, a distance of twenty-five miles, and exchange one of my silver pieces for the required coin. I accepted the proposition, and at 7 o'clock the next morning the faithful little fellow arrived with 5,000 cash. Two thousand cash were given the coolie gang and I demanded a completion of the journey and met with refusal. A squabble ensued and then the storm broke. About thirty coolies assembled in the front part of the inn and more filled the streets. With the aid of the one coolie, upon whom I could depend, I brought out our bicycles and luggage, lifted Mrs. McIlrath in my arms and placed her in the vehicle. This action was the draught of wind which fanned the spark into a flame. My own men took their positions silently and the little procession started through the long lines of humanity. The natives cursed, gesticulated wildly, some striking at us, and others threateningly displaying clods and stones in their hands. One villainous-featured old man followed us, talking confidentially to our men and slipping some article into their hands. This overt act, carried on through the medium of the long flowing sleeves, aroused my suspicion, and at the first village I stopped the outfit and investigated. Illicit opium selling was the meaning of the old fellow's sly actions, and I could but submit and allow the gang to fill their little tin boxes with the low grade "dope" and push on. I have never seen outside of hospitals and museums such looking creatures as my gang of coolies were, when stripped. They were attenuated to such a degree that they were nothing less than breathing skeletons. Opium was responsible for it all. Yet there are men who profess to have traveled in China who deny that opium is the curse that missionaries claim it to be. I am positive that such men are either Englishmen protecting the infamy of their own land, which is largely an exporter of the drug, or else the remarks are made by men who frequent only the hotels and clubs at Shanghai, Hong Kong, Canton and Pekin, writing letters concerning a people the true character of whom it is as impossible to learn at any open port as it is to learn of Mormons, Indians or Indiana White Caps in Chicago or New York City. I have seen the opium fiend in all stages, from the novice to the exhausted hulk, who, paralyzed in every nerve, sits gaunt in a temple doorway, his sightless eyes staring with fixed glare from deep, dark-circled sockets. Every rib, every bone, even to those in his feet, could be seen, and were it not for the odor of the drug which permeates every fibre of clothing, they might be considered starved to death. Starvation really is the cause, for the devotee has no appetite only for the poppy drug. We employed coolies to carry burdens for us, who, in traveling one hundred miles, consumed only two bowls of rice during the four days spent in negotiating the distance. The rice and tea accompanying it cost 48 cash. The remainder of their wages, which amounted to 800 cash, was expended in opium. We have experienced the annoyance of waiting a half hour for men who had been smoking for four. Boatmen on the river, and laborers in the cities do not show the ravages of the drug as a class, for as soon as they become actual fiends they disappear from the busy arteries of commerce, just as drunkards do from active business circles in other lands. There is a belt existing for a distance of 600 miles along the lower end of the Yang-Tse-Kiang where, at certain seasons of the year, principally September, October and November, the sun never shines, and if rain inaugurates the initial month a daily precipitation may be counted upon. We were in the center of this belt Sept. 3, and our own experiences gave evidence to the phenomenon. It rained steadily since our departure from Wan Shen, Aug. 26, and when we resumed our journey on Sept. 3, the roads and bridges rendered testimony to the effect of constantly rushing waters. Journeying under such conditions was not alone dangerous, but monotonous. One of the happiest moments of our tour was when we ascertained that Chung King was but little more than a hundred miles away. Several days drearily spent in climbing hills, wading small streams and skating through mud ankle deep, brought us within about five miles of Tu To. There we were met by a detachment of soldiers from Chung King. We learned from them that they had been dispatched by the Shen of Chung King to escort us to the city. We had lost so much time through bad roads and inclement weather that the officials of Chung King, who had been notified of our coming, had grown anxious and had sent out troops to guide us in safety. On Monday, Sept. 7, we obtained an early start, reaching a small village on the Yang-Tse-Kiang by noon. In small boats we embarked for the city, half a dozen miles above and across the river, arriving at 3 o'clock at the metropolis of Western China, a city situated on a point of land formed by the junction of the Yang-Tse-Kiang and Min rivers. Though Chung King has a greater population of foreigners than any other city on the river, excepting Hankow, we were astonished, upon arrival, to pass through miles of business streets without a glimpse of settlements of foreign houses. It took much diligent inquiry for us to find the residence of Dr. J. H. McCartney, surgeon in charge of the American Methodist Hospital. We were a dirty, mud-stained pair when we at last ascended to the veranda of the doctor's comfortable home, but the kindly surgeon had heard of the Inter Ocean's enterprise, and he bade us enter before inspecting our condition. It would have made little difference had we been two-fold more dilapidated in appearance, for I never met a missionary surgeon in China who did not entertain us royally, even at the sacrifice of his own comfort. As he sat over dessert, discussing our journey, tasting the first genuine American pie we had eaten since leaving San Francisco, I learned with strangely mixed feelings that the district we had just traveled was the most dangerous in China. Only a few weeks prior to our arrival the imperial mail, carried overland, was robbed. I could then understand the significance expressed in the remark of a certain Shen when he said, "You will have plenty to cause you fear before reaching Chung King." I had told him that Mrs. McIlrath and I had no misgivings as to the trip, but had I known that mail carriers were assassinated monthly, and that commissioners, traveling under protection of one of the great power's flags, were robbed and maltreated, our answer would have been different. The interior cities of the Chinese Empire are similar in every respect; see one of them and you have seen them all. A visitor to Ngau-King need not go to Shaze, the man who has seen Shaze need not travel in search of fresh sights to Chung King, and one who has seen the native city of Shanghai has literally seen the great aggregation. Chung King, situated 160 miles from the sea, differed only from the others in that the shops of the various trades were grouped, each industry occupying a section of the street. The only absolutely new features of the town appeared to be the climate, which is delightful for duck and pneumonia propagation, an old conjurer, and the industries established by Mr. Archibald Little. The climate is first and most important, since it exists in humid, opaque quantities upon all occasions, except perhaps when the sun does not happen to be busy elsewhere; then only does the sun shine in Chung King. Pig bristles are the fundamental property of the establishment of Mr. Little, and Uncle Sam's people are the chief patrons of it. After the porker has been despoiled of his hirsute trimmings, the bristles, sorted into bunches of three, four and five inch lengths, are wrapped and shipped to the United States for use in brushes. The remaining great attraction of Chung King, namely, the conjurer, we met on one of the quadrangles of a temple, and for a performance conducted in the open air, by a necromancer stripped from waist to crown of head, without apparatus or appliance, he was marvelous. In a circle formed by the crowd, the stone pavement serving as table and stage, the scrawny, wrinkled old magician produced from space a curved sword, iron rings, hardwood balls, clam shells and bowls. The performance opened with contortions of the legs and back, and a dislocation and replacement of the various joints of the body. The wizard then swallowed a hardwood ball two inches in diameter, following this with a few clam shells and poking the whole mass down his elastic gullet with a curved sword. Famous sword swallowers of the vaudeville stage of our own country may use longer instruments, and swallow equally large objects, but they always leave enough of the swallowed article outside their internal grottos to withdraw the obstruction. Our Chinese entertainer disdained these sensible precautions, and after we had felt through the abdominal walls the point of the curved sword, the ball and the clam shells, he removed them in a style which was distinctively all his own. To remove the sword, he contracted his waist by pressure of both hands, gave a convulsive upheaval and the weapon glided upward until just an inch or two remained in the throat. Then one of the spectators removed the blade at the conjurer's request. The clam shells and ball were brought to light in a simple manner, the conjurer not touching his hands to his mouth, but spitting them on the ground as soon as they appeared between his teeth. CHAPTER XIV. NEARING THE BOUNDARY LINE OF CHINA--A LONG TRAMP WITH THE WHEELS AS IDLERS--A WARNING TO BANDITS. We remained under the hospitable roof of Dr. McCartney's residence for nine days, during which time Mrs. McIlrath recovered from the serious illness which threatened her in the mountains. Her recovery dated from the moment we became the guests of the kind-hearted doctor, and was so rapid that she was able to attend dinner parties given by Commissioner Schutt, the Misses Galloway and Meyer, of the Methodist Deaconess' Home, Rev. Mr. Peet and wife, Rev. Mr. Mandy and wife, and to accept the invitation of the latter to visit their Industrial School two and a half miles from the city. As all these, except the commissioner, were from America, the time passed only too rapidly. The evening before our departure, we were very agreeably entertained by the Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Claxton, of the English Mission. We left Chung King Sept. 17, under Dr. McCartney's guidance, wheeling out of the west gate of the city. The sun had shown his presence on but one occasion of our nine days' sojourn, and our departure, like our entry, was made in a drizzling rain. Our road lay over hills and valleys through a fertile, but badly torn up country. Bicycling was out of the question and we carried our wheels slung on bamboo poles in such a manner that they would be ready for use in less than two minutes. To prevent rusting we daubed the nickeled parts and bearings with vaseline. The saddles were kept dry by tying oiled paper over the leather pads. Swung between the poles, which were carried by two coolies, the machines rode easily, and yet did not hamper the progress of the carriers. The luggage cases, with fresh white lettering, informed passers-by (or those of them who could read English) that the little procession of which the wheels formed the most interesting part, were on a "World's tour for the Inter Ocean, Chicago, U. S. A." We accomplished on an average forty miles a day until Sept. 20, when the signs of the country indicated that we were then in the last province of China, Yunnan, whose chief fame is in its proximity to Burmah. Great numbers of Mohammedans offering for sale beef, mutton and pork, were to be seen along the road. They were not in such number, however, that we felt encouraged in buying the flesh displayed, as the Buddhists were in great evidence, and being vegetarians, they never tasted meat. We therefore refrained from purchasing, reasoning that the beef was probably "shop worn." The rain continued to fall in torrents and the last miles of our journey through China were made in an ocean of mud. Every garment we wore was soaked, our blankets wet through and through, and our shoes were in shreds. We had great difficulty in obtaining coolies to carry our burdens, and as I look back upon it now, I can scarcely blame them for not wishing to push on from early morn till night with a strong west wind driving the sheets of water in their faces. What the brave Lenz must have endured with no companion, I can well imagine from the recollections of the terrible mental depression offered by our trip. As Mrs. McIlrath and I trudged along, our very misery at times became so great that we were able to extract a certain hysterical amusement from it. My attire was conglomerate. A bicycle cap adorned my head; a Norfolk jacket my body; a pair of pajamas my legs; top boots over my feet, and straw sandals tied on these. Over my shoulders was draped my red blanket; on my back was strapped a Chinese sword; in my hand was a heavy walking-stick, and in my holsters a pair of rusty 45's. This mixture of bicycle, bedroom, Navajo Indian, cowboy and Broadway costumes delighted Mrs. McIlrath, who seemed to forget that she wore a dilapidated bloomer costume, patched half and half, with a man's sun helmet upon her head. Many of the temples, bridges and arches that we passed in the province seemed familiar owing to the photographs taken by Lenz and reproduced in his articles. I was much disappointed that I could not duplicate many of them, but the weather we encountered put an end to all thoughts of photography. Still tramping onward in the rain, the bicycles seemed to realize our misery, and occasionally when the wheels touched against some object they spun for minutes as if remonstrating against being carried and demanding an opportunity to "stretch their spokes." Careful inspection daily failed to reveal a fault or a flaw in the machines. Cyclists will be pleased to know that wooden rims stand all manner of climates. Since leaving Chicago in April of '95 to the September of '96, we had no occasion to alter or adjust either our rims or spokes. On Sept. 24 we once more came upon the banks of the Yang-Tse-Kiang crossing and re-crossing it three times before getting to Sui Foo. In this part of the country we obtained our first view of a typical Chinese grove of feathery bamboo. Many writers have described vividly these beautiful pictures, but I fear many received their inspiration from a single tree scattered somewhere along the route of their journey. At any rate, I know that the bamboo flourishes in groves peculiar to this part of the empire, and I know further that, beside ourselves, Lenz and Margary have been the only ones who ever crossed China overland from coast to boundary line. General indisposition of Mrs. McIlrath, myself, and also of the boy Leo, delayed us at Sui Foo until Oct. 25. We wanted for nothing during our stop in the city, Dr. C. H. Finch and the Rev. Robert Wellwood of the American Baptist Mission being untiring in their attentions and courtesies bestowed. Our journey for the next few hundred miles continued to be one afoot. By the time we arrived at Poa Tung we were so road-bruised that we were compelled to knock off our journey and devote two entire days to the application of poultices and hot water to our swollen and blistered feet. On Sunday, Oct. 28, after a most exhausting tramp, the Inter Ocean tourists reached Tai Kwan Hseen. The road had been over the rockiest of mountain paths and we did not have an opportunity of riding our wheels until after we had passed through the cities of Chau Tung. More than one thousand miles of mud-plastered hills and half-submerged valley had we practically walked since entering Ichang, and more than 900 miles of that distance had been covered during rainstorms. Novice never was prouder, when discharged from the padded walls of a cyclery as a full-fledged rider, than were we as we flushed down a boulevard leading out of Chau Tung. We covered as much as fifty miles before a pause. In our enthusiasm we probably overlooked many defects in the road, and corrugations and boulders were passed over without any jar to the perfect contentment which rendered our spirits oblivious to slight inconveniences. Our stop at Chau Tung registered 9,000 miles over the worst roads in America, the best in Japan, and the miserable frame-racking paths of China, and our wheels still rode as easily and were as rigid as the day we pedaled out Washington Boulevard in Chicago. The people ran through the fields to head us off, here with laughter and approval and again with mumbled threats of resentment at the invasion of their land by "the foreign devils on iron horses." Old men joined in the unique procession which followed us at times for more than three or four miles. Knowing that we could wheel but a part of the distance ahead of us, we had sent our bicycle carriers to be overtaken on the road ahead. We overtook and passed our coolies at a point precisely suited to our needs. Checked suddenly by a rocky hill several miles in length, we were forced to dismount, deposit our bicycles by the roadside and walk on. We might be considered rash for leaving our machines unprotected in such a barbarous country, but we knew that no persons were on the road between ourselves and coolies, and travelers going in the opposite direction would not be met with until after reaching the Half-Way Station of the day's journey. This important place Mrs. McIlrath and I reached fully an hour before our wheels arrived, and thus had plenty of time to marvel why, in such a miserable village of ten tea huts conducted by a hundred ragged, filthy natives, a magnificent triple archway of granite should be erected. Not one of the natives whom we questioned was able to explain this problem of why 30,000 silver taels of the people's money had been so expended. The coolies overtook us with our wheels and fairly level roads enabled us to ride the greater part of the distance to Jeang Di, the village selected as the stopping place for the night. The paths were now trails worn deep into the clay by pony caravans, often so narrow that the pedals of the machines would strike the sides alternately, and so deep that our handle-bars skimmed within a few inches of the earth's level. We overtook a number of caravans, enjoying many comical antics by the sturdy animals who did not appear to be pleased at their first sight of the bicycle. Pedaling along the crests of the mountain ranges was delightful. Strong breezes cooled the air, and though the sun shone brightly we did not suffer from the heat until we descended into Jeang Di, dropping in five miles over six thousand feet. In the city the air found no possibility of circulation, and overcome with the intense heat and the exertion of the day, Mrs. McIlrath was compelled to retire, while I, scarcely able to understand the strange dizziness and confused vision, staggered about as if drunk until nausea informed me we had narrowly escaped sunstroke. We were told that many native travelers suffered in the same manner, and when the descent is considered the change is almost as sudden as cold, rare air to stifling heat. Bicycling was out of the question next morning and we sent our coolies ahead while we resumed our trip on foot. Far up in the mountains, where the air had again turned cold and the winds were biting and raw, we passed one of the hermit widows of China, a peculiar class of fanatics, who in Buddhist belief are said to receive great merit in the veiled world. Her husband dying while the marriage festivities were being celebrated, the widow vowed never again to marry or participate in earthly pleasures. So high in the mountains she made her home and upon a pallet of filthy straw she slept by night and sat by day. In collecting curios we endeavor to select such of interest as we could conveniently carry without additional cost, but in Yunnan Foo we inspected a natural curio that I would pay any sum could I have transported it to America. The coveted marvel was Chang, the Yunnan giant. He was a better specimen of giant than his illustrious namesake who once toured the United States to his great profit. When only fifteen years old this junior Chang carried on his enormous feet six feet of manhood, and later increased his height to seven feet nine inches and his weight to 340 pounds. He wears a No. 13 glove and requires No. 14 shoes. When the missionaries ushered into our presence this massive form I was too stunned to speak. Clad in the red uniform of the Chinese army, his head wrapped in a black turban, he towered above me until I felt that he could not possibly be human. Being six feet and a fraction in height myself, I am accustomed to look down, or at best on a level, into the faces of other people, but to be compelled to bend my head sharply back to look at this huge fellow's shoulders was a decidedly new experience. As we were riding the "Great Stone Road" from Yunnan Foo we passed eleven small cages hung on eleven dead trees. In each cage rested the head of a human being. The sight was not one to be described. On the ground about the trees were baskets, ropes and yokes which had been used in conveying the heads from the execution grounds. Not one of the natives who hastened past with bowed heads dared to touch with foot or hand these abandoned trophies. At the next village we were told that the heads were those of eleven bandits who robbed a silk shop in the village, murdering two men and one woman, and almost causing the death of the aged mother of their victims. Decapitation was the punishment awarded, and that passing thieves might be warned against similar fates, the bodies were buried and the heads hung up as object lessons. CHAPTER XV. THROUGH CHINA INTO BURMAH--ENTERTAINED LAVISHLY BY BRITISH OFFICERS IN MANDALAY AND MADE TO BLUSH AT A "ZAT PWEI." Days of intense heat reigned, and snow marked our progress through the Yunnan and Kwei Chan provinces. The snowstorm rivaled in force a Texas blizzard, so exhausting our coolies that they refused to go further. We gave them from our surplus store of clothing, and put upon their feet extra pairs of our thick woolen socks, so earning their gratitude that they consented to proceed a few miles further, where we came upon a large hut, which sometimes did service as a tavern. We were snow-bound here for three days before we could push our way to the British line. Wednesday, Dec. 23, our last day in China, found us up bright and early, and so impatient that we set out afoot in advance of our carriers. Up and down over the stone-heaped path, passing numerous Chinese forts, and over three ranges of mountains, we walked, climbed and stumbled until we sighted a more civilized land--Burmah. Pausing only to assure our gladdened hearts that our eyes did not deceive us, we plunged down a precipitous path, crossed a swaying suspension bridge of bamboo, and, with a loud hurrah, landed on Burmese soil. Mrs. McIlrath's first action on the new territory was to flop down in the sand and cry; mine to crack the neck from a small bottle, and, with a prayer of thanksgiving, a toast to the United States, Queen Victoria, the Inter Ocean, and the good wheels we rode, we drank the bottle's fizzing contents, and yelled like a pair of cowboys. At the water's edge were squatted a few of Great Britain's defenders--the black Sepoys of India. We toiled up the hill to the stockade above, and as we approached, an individual, who introduced himself as Gordon, opened the barrier gates and invited us to come inside. Our advent was expected, and other formalities of introduction were unnecessary. We remained the guests of Gordon over night, as our coolies, with the bicycles, did not arrive until after sundown. As I looked back over the last eleven months, my recollections become almost kaleidoscopic in their variations. For eleven months we were the guests of the Mongolians, having them for companions both day and night; we had adopted their customs, ate, slept and journeyed with them for weeks isolated from a white face, and we felt on our arrival in Nampong that we were competent to judge as very few others the true character of the long-queued Orientals. Our trip from Shanghai had involved 4,200 miles of walking, riding and climbing. We had been pursued by howling mobs; we had slept in swamps and rice fields; we had been fired upon, cut at with knives, lunged at by spears, and stoned innumerable times; often running a gauntlet of maddened natives, with clods and stones falling about us like hail. Coolies of the lowest and officials of the highest type had sheltered and entertained us; pleasures and pain had been our lot; from a palace as honored guests we had been altered in forty-eight hours to besieged beings, expecting to fight for our lives; lost in snowstorms, wading in streams, creeping around landslides, our journey has been fraught with many dangers; death in the garb of pestilent disease had brushed shoulders, feasted at the same table and slept in the same apartment with us; we had been ragged and hungry, yet now, on Burmese soil, not a word of regret could be expressed for all the hardships we had suffered. For myself, there is due little credit. I simply accomplished that which I understood must be done when we entered China, but to the heroic little woman who pleaded to be allowed to share my hardships, is all credit due. Never did she falter when the mobs gathered around us, and when the last possible recourse permitting escape from death and torture seemed exhausted, she was firm and quiet. Of the Chinese as a people, individually and collectively, we learned them to be a weak race, morally and mentally. Opium, liquor and disease have set their marks upon millions. In trade the natives are unscrupulous, and chivalry or respect toward women does not exist. Cruel to the extreme, with a cultivated ferocity they are most arrant cowards, and yet, most overbearing when in numbers. The country itself is rich with precious metals, commercial minerals, oil and fibrous grasses, as yet either unknown to the natives, or else requiring too much labor to extract. Improvement or advancement in civilization or mercantile industries will never take place in China while governed by China. The supreme egotism of the natives prevents the adoption of anything modern or anything foreign. The official classes are no less corrupt. Banded together, as if a society for pillage, they prey upon the people, aided by the more unprincipled priests, and woe to the merchants and peasants who enter court to obtain justice. Such, briefly, is China as the Inter Ocean cyclists found it to be. The first Burmese village into which we wheeled was Myathit, situated in one of the dustiest, hottest, driest portions of all India. There were fine shade trees dotting the white, dusty road, and everywhere were to be seen the curiously attired people from all parts of India and Burmah. I could distinguish the Indians by their garbs of white, some cut into long frock coats and tight trousers, others into jackets, with long, flowing trousers gathered at the ankles. Huge white turbans were knotted about the heads of the Indians, a bit of bright color in the center being the only relief in the entire study of black hands and faces framed in a setting of immaculate white. The Burmese women, as a rule, are handsome. I was aided in this discovery by Mrs. McIlrath, who pointed out to me, as a type, a beauty possessing a complexion like cream, with the pink tint of peach blossoms. When Mrs. McIlrath announces that a woman is beautiful I accept it without argument. She, and not I, is the censor in such matters. One could not imagine a more insipid place to live in than Bahmo, the military and trading coast where we were quartered. The hours of life are routine and monotonous, excepting when one is fortunate enough to own a membership or to have a card to the Bahmo Club. For thirty days in luxuriant idleness (of course not counting the many short trips awheel in and about the city), we lingered in Bahmo, living in the bungalow of the China inland missionary. Bicycling in the district of Bahmo affords limited journeys, but we managed to travel twenty miles away, and visit the government hospital, the provincial jail and a number of coffee plantations. We sailed from this large, but rather uninteresting, city on Jan. 25, 1897, taking passage on one of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company's mail steamers, the Monein. After three days' steaming the Monein tied up at the dock in Mandalay, the capital city of Burmah, and sung of by Mr. Kipling in his clever verses, "On the Road to Mandalay." During the reign of Kings Mindoon and Theebaw, in order that the palaces might be protected from invaders, the buildings were erected far to the inland, under the shadow of Mandalay hill. Wheeling over the hard macadam was a delight, and merrily we whirled off the miles intervening, until we alighted, at last, at the European hotel, the first that had welcomed us since leaving Hankow, China. In our journey of the globe, having been the guests of thousands of people, we must credit the members of the Burmah Club, fifty per cent of whom are British officers, with being the most attentive and kindly organization at whose hands we received courtesies. As a body they wined us, dined us, gave picnic excursions on the river, drives, bicycle rides, obtained invitations to various native celebrations, and put forth every effort to render our sojourn instructive and pleasant. Bicycling with several Europeans who were fortunate enough to own cycles was one of the most delightful features of our entertainment. The roads were excellent, and wheeling in the cool air of early morning, one of the many delightful temples or majestic pagodas the objective point of our excursion, is a pleasure to be enjoyed only on British roads in an Oriental country. It was our privilege, on Feb. 12 to witness a wedding of royal blood. The ex-Nyanugwe Saw Bwa "requested the pleasure of the company of Mr. and Mrs. McIlrath at his home, in South Moat Road, on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter Saw Kin Gwi with the Sawbued of South Theinni, and also on the same night, to witness a Zat Pwei." The ceremonies were performed by the highest class native officials and Sir Frederick Fryer, first lieutenant governor of Burmah. To appear successfully at such a state function one is supposed to dress appropriately, and I felt greatly embarrassed in my knickerbockers as I mingled in the blaze of red uniforms, royal Scotch plaids, gold lace, decorations, and the jewels and dainty gowns of the ladies. Extravagant as are the English in costuming for each event and occasion of the day, the guests did not appear to notice the greasy, dusty and patched raiment which comprised my only wardrobe, and did all they could to make me feel at home. The verbal portion of the marriage ceremony was unintelligible to me, but the "business," as an actor would describe it, made it quite plain to the most casual observer that the dusky pair who formed the center piece of a most interesting group were being united in the holy bonds of wedlock. The usual check from "papa" was not seen as we inspected the wedding gifts, but there was a profusion of diamonds and silver plate. The diamonds were just such as are admired by Burmans, huge yellow beauties, set in dull gold rings, the base uppermost and the radiating surface concealed. Just why the Burmans reverse the European idea of setting gems is difficult to explain, but the prevailing idea is that the gem is so set to resemble the pagodas and pyramids so omnipresent and revered in Burmah. Diamonds valued as high as 30,000 rupees, or about $10,000 in our money, are set in this manner, and the color is invariably yellow. The Zat Pwei, which was next on the program, proved to be a theatrical performance. It began with an overture by the orchestra, the music typically Oriental; then came the dancers of the company, followed by the event of the evening, the drama. Just what the play was called, or what the plot was about, was vague to all the Europeans present, but as the dialogue progressed the audience warmed up and the actors became enlivened. Dropping their theatrical drawl and stagy manner which had characterized the first half hour, the performance developed into repartee of suggestive tone. In fact, the most unblushing French jokes would look well upon Sunday-school cards after listening to a series of Zat Pweis. As our party was entirely dependent upon a native interpreter for translation, and as this gentleman did not regard the performance from a European standpoint, the entertainment soon reached a stage which required the withdrawal of the ladies, and at midnight, with a farewell congratulation to our host, we returned to the hotel, satisfied that Zat Pweis were most interesting--to bachelors and a few other gentlemen. CHAPTER XVI. THE CYCLING FEVER BREAKS OUT IN RANGOON--PRIZE FIGHTING UNDER REMARKABLE RULES--ACROSS THE BAY OF BENGAL TO CALCUTTA. Cycling in Burmah proved extremely monotonous, and the dullest of all the dreary rides we experienced were here. Nowhere was there a variety of scene or change from the level valley, with its dusty, winding roads stretching out under the blistering tropical sun. The air was ever stifling hot; it smarted our dilated nostrils; seemed to stuff our gasping lungs and blister the backs of our hands and necks, and a ride of three hours at a stretch caused us to relax into a sort of stupor, from which we could only arouse ourselves by repeated efforts. Had we reached Burmah during the fall of the year, we could have made good progress, but now tedious delays, entirely beyond our control, hampered us, and we had to face not only the famine and plague-infested land, but the white man's greatest enemy, the summer sun, which, in its molten glare, kept the temperature above 100, night and day, making death and heat apoplexy quite as possible as from the epidemic of cholera and bubonic fever. We left Mandalay at daybreak on March 1, and started over the dusty roads to Rangoon, 400 miles south. Mandalay had been the point which we had selected to observe the characteristics and customs of the natives, and, unlike the efforts put forth in the same channel in China, we found the duties pleasant and fraught with happy little incidents. Burmans resemble the Japanese to a certain extent; not so cleanly, energetic, intelligent or independent, but possessing the same admirable faculty of being happy, smiling and self-complacent under circumstances which would fill any other being's soul with pessimistic vagaries. Farming, carpentry and carving appear to be the only occupations left them, for everywhere was seen the submissive black who followed the rush of England into the land of milk and honey and rice and rubies. "Othello's occupation gone" is true of the Burman. Blacks are the scavengers, sweepers, table servants, cooks, butlers, porters, coachmen, tailors and merchants. Eurasians, the half-castes, whose yellow skin and coarse black hair betray their early English ancestors, and the blacks are selected to act as clerks, hospital attendants, telegraph operators and railroad clerks. "Baboo," the English and natives call them, and, if another letter had only been added to the name, the term would have been quite appropriate. With all these occupations lost to him, the native still appears to do well, always in silk and spotless muslin, smoking incessantly cigarettes or huge cheroots, which scatter sparks like a working fire engine. The women of the Indian races act as laundresses, nurses and maids. Thus, with almost all the natural trades and occupations taken by invaders, little is left for the Burman but the profession of thief and thief-catcher, both synonymous in Burmah, where a policeman is feared not for his authority, but for the blackmailing such office permits him to levy upon wrong-doers and innocent upon whom suspicion rests. We had many companions on the road to Rangoon. On every side were Burmans on foot, on horse, and in the low-roofed box-like carts, which creaked and groaned as the gentle, curved-horned beasts drew them along. We passed Indians who walked hand-in-hand, and Chinese gardeners who swung along at a rapid pace, though their backs were bowed with the weight of fresh vegetables. Bicycles did not seem to attract much attention in the motley throng, the only persons acting as though our presence was unusual being the women bathing around the stone-topped wells, and they only because the icy waters that dashed and poured over their bodies had caused the only garment they wore, a short, scant skirt, to cling closely to their limbs, revealing every outline of symmetrical figures. The craze for wheeling had just reached an interesting stage in Rangoon at the time of our visit. The demand for machines exceeded the supply, and as a result there was to be seen every morning and evening the most interesting parade of antiquities ever witnessed outside of a bicycle show. American machines of modern make were a close second to the new English product, but wheels entitled to the utmost respect due to old age formed the creaking, groaning majority. The riders, too, were curious, the Europeans first in numbers, Eurasians second, and the Indian-Chinese-Burman, the mongrel of all Asia, making up the balance. The positions, too, some of the riders assumed were remarkable. The "hump" had not reached the far East, the rat-trap pedal and toe-clip were unknown, and with handle-bars wide as the horns of a Texas steer, seats suspended on coil after coil of spring, low and set far back over the rear wheel, the tread eight and ten inches wide, the riders reversed the "hump" and appeared to be sitting on the dorsal vertebra, pumping much as a bather swimming on his back. There were many places of historical interest in and around Rangoon, and as all points were available by cycle, our good old wheels were kept busy. The turning point of our morning spins, the teak lumber yards, permitted sights which would delight the little folks at home as much as they secured the attention of tourists here. Elephants, great, huge, dirty fellows, void of all the tinsel trappings of the circus, were the attraction, as daily they performed the most arduous labor which in America is done by cranes and derricks. In harness of chains, the beasts drew enormous logs from the river to the carriage at the saws, and with ropes wound around their trunks they dragged the rough slabs into a yard and piled them in precise heaps. With trunk coiled as a cushion against their tusks, they pushed enormous pieces of timber into the proper places, each piece being placed in exact position, with the ends carefully "trimmed." Gentle and meek as the laborers are in appearance, as, with flapping ears and timid little eyes, they obey their commands, they sometimes become mutinous. In the McGregor yard, which we visited one morning, we were shown one of the largest and best workers of the herd, who had just been released from "jail." He had been in confinement four months, laden with chains, deprived of delicacies, and treated as a criminal, simply because he had wantonly walked upon and then tossed his keeper into the air. The beast apparently realized the disgrace which had been heaped upon him, for he obeyed his new master without even pausing to blow dust on his back or plaster his huge sides with cooling, fly-proof mud. With the advent of English rule in Burmah, native athletic sport degenerated, and became supplanted in time by horse races of most corrupt nature. When I state that the racing is corrupt I have but to cite two instances which occurred at the meeting of the Mandalay Club during our visit to that city. A captain in Her Majesty's army placed 3,000 against 1,000 rupees that a certain horse, which we will designate as A, would win over the field presenting two horses, B and C. Of the latter, C was clearly outclassed, consequently the race was between A and B. You may judge of the bookmakers' surprise when they learned in the afternoon that the gallant captain was to ride B, the horse he had bet against. The race had but one possible outcome, A won. Another race was started and finished in absolute darkness. No lights were used on the tracks, the horses were dark in color, and the jockeys the same, but the judge readily named the winner, and the bookmakers lost again. A native prize fight is even more remarkable, though always conducted "on the square." I do not know the rules governing the ring in Burmah, but so few methods of attack are barred that one need not bother himself on that point. Biting, hair-pulling and kicking a fallen opponent are the only prohibited acts. I was invited to be present at a series of combats which took place in the arena near the Shway Dagon pagoda in Rangoon. Facing each other, the fighters stood a pace apart, the referees opposite each other, also, forming a square. The referees clapped their chests, the combatants smote themselves likewise, there was a great roar of voices, and before I could really notice how it happened, the fighters were wriggling on the tanbark. A flash of dark skins through the sun's rays, the clapping sounds of palms on necks, backs and thighs, a catherine wheel of legs, arms, heads and tanbark, and the round was over. Separated by the referees, the men retired to their corners, drank bottles of soda water, took fresh chews of betel nut, and good-naturedly listened to the gratuitous advice from their friends in the audience. The referees called round two by slapping their chests. The fighters were more cautious as they went at each other, the up-country man opening the round by kicking his antagonist in the chest. A vicious uppercut with a swinging knee was next landed by the local man, and as it reached the curry and rice department of the up-country man, events looked bright for Rangoon. Blows, swung right and left, up and down, were delivered like a man chopping wood. The Rangoon man made a supreme effort to feint, and in doing so he actually struck something, and unexpectedly ended the bout. Leaping high in the air, he kicked the up-country man square on the nose. The blood flew, and the fight was over. Blood drawn, if only from a scratch, constitutes a victory for the unbled one, and two minutes later the fighters had received their reward, coins tossed into the ring by spectators. Two years to a day after leaving Chicago we walked up the gang-plank of the steamship "Africa," booked for Calcutta, only three days across the formidable Bay of Bengal. Mrs. McIlrath developed her usual attack of sea sickness, though the water was unruffled, and was kept in her cabin for the entire voyage, leaving me to occupy the daylight hours wandering among the deck passengers. The first impression one receives on landing at the port of Calcutta is that the city is one vast cab stand. "Gharries," as the natives' hacks are called, line the walks, crowd the streets, rest under the shades of trees in parks, and stand at the curb in front of hotels and shops. The dust, rattle and bang caused by these shaky, dirty vehicles, which are dragged about by horses at snail's pace, is a nuisance second only to the tram cars, and one which would be tolerated only by custom-bound, "strictly-in-form" Englishmen. Streets in Calcutta wander aimlessly along, similar to the rail fences in Indiana, and the buildings, uniformly of staff-covered brick, are of every imaginable size and shape, as if architects were of one mind in determining to try all kinds in an effort to obtain one adapted to the climate. Sidewalks, roads and paths are packed with white-clad natives, barefooted and bareheaded, in the awful glare of heat, which strikes horses dead, unless their heads are protected, yet none of the blacks appear to suffer. Doors of hotels and shops are kept open, but hanging in the apertures are heavy mats of a peculiar grass, which coolies wet with pails of water, and by which means the air is cooled. Everywhere the heat is talked about and guarded against, and yet, with huge fans swung constantly over one's head, with cooling draughts on a table by your side, the perspiration pours from every part of the body. One hundred and ten degrees in the shady corridors of the Continental hotel, the coolest in all India, 98 degrees at night, and this was the country we crossed on bicycles, involving over 2,000 miles' travel, and beyond the pale of ice or daily clean clothes! Bicycles are ridden extensively in Calcutta, comparatively speaking more than 3,000 wheels being enumerated in the tax list at the time I was in the city. There are, however, only about three months in the year favorable to riding--December, January and February. In other months cycling is tolerable only between the hours of 5 and 8 in the morning and evening. This, of course, applies only to the Europeans, and not to the natives, who ride in the intense heat of midday without the slightest difficulty. A sight calculated to arouse laughter in a wooden cigar sign is one of the proud possessors of an old solid-tire, with hammock saddle and wide handle-bars, as he plows along the road, making erratic dives, like misbalanced kites. The most frequented road is a short strip on the Maidan, an enormous clearing, five and seven-eighths miles in circumference, in which is situated Fort Williams. Roads of fine macadam skirt the park, and amid cricket, golf and football grounds are statues and columns erected to Englishmen who have performed satisfactory duties in India. Eden Garden, at one end of the Maidan, is a beautiful spot, and here, morning and evening, a well-directed band plays sweet music to charm Calcutta's conglomerated inhabitants. Cycling in early evening along the Strand is also gratifying. The street is crowded with women in white and red robes, silver anklets and bracelets, their head and matchless figures but faintly concealed by flimsy togs. Burning ghats are also erected on the river shore. The Calcutta burning ghats on the Strand road affords accommodation for the cremation of sixteen bodies simultaneously. In appearance, the crematory is unpretentious, simply a low-roofed structure divided into an alcove, and two waiting rooms for mourners. The Inter Ocean cyclists visited the crematory, and were shown throughout the establishment by an aged Hindoo, who superintended the force of men who kept going the coals under fifteen pyres. Not of less interest, but far less disagreeable, is a distinctively Calcutta feature. Kali ghat. This is a temple devoted to Kali, goddess of destruction, reputed in Hindoo lore to possess a thirst for blood, and to appease and propitiate whom live sacrifices are made. Formerly human beings were offered, but under British rule the custom was abolished, and kids and goats substituted. Decapitation is the method offered, and as fast as sacrifices are brought forward, the bleeding little things are seized by the ears, the priest makes a cutting slash with a heavy knife, and the headless trunk is thrown to the ground. We witnessed the religious rites of Japanese and Chinese, and we had seen the medicine-dances of the American Indians, but nothing approaches the furious fanaticism and the frenzy of the Hindoo at Kali ghat. Men shouted themselves hoarse, women screamed and tore each other's clothes at the shrine of the goddess. It took the assistance of half a dozen hired blacks to force for us an entrance into the temple, and rushes of worshipers were so great that thrice we were swept back ere we obtained a glimpse of the hideous deity. Her face and figure a blood red; with multiple arms swaying like the tentacles of an octopus; her face distorted with blood red tongues; a necklace of skulls about her throat, the goddess Kali is indeed the representation of destruction. Gross, hideous and repulsive as was the figure, the effect was heightened by the maddened crowd, who, with wild shrieks, tossed offerings of flowers at the fiendish idol in their effort to escape from the calamities, believed in their pagan minds, to be brought about by neglecting to satiate the goddess' greed for bloodshed and crime. Amid such surroundings it was not to be wondered at that our minds reverted to the fact that "ghazi," the assassination of Christians, is still in vogue in India, and that one of the devout worshipers might easily plunge a knife in our backs, and thus earn his way to Hindoo heaven with ease and glory. I can assure my readers that we felt easier and more comfortable when once more in our gharry and the horses on a dead run en route back to the hotel. We learned from a priest at the ghat why Calcutta is so named, the title being a British corruption of Kalikata, the name bestowed by the Emperor Akbar, in 1596, in commemoration of the proximity of Kali ghat. We were in Calcutta two weeks before the cycling fraternity knew of our arrival. When they finally discovered our presence, we floated along on a wave of popularity. Cyclists, dealers and agents were our daily companions and callers. American machines were well-known and liked, and wood rims and single-tube tires were looked upon with doubt, but after an inspection of the hardest-used pair of wheels the world ever knew, wood rims and single tubes took on the ascendency. CHAPTER XVII. NIGHT RIDING THROUGH INDIA TO ESCAPE THE HEAT--THREE IMPUDENT ENGLISH WHEELMEN ENCOUNTERED AT BENARES. We left Calcutta early on the morning of May 4, taking the Strand road, across the sacred Hoogly river by means of the Jubilee bridge. We were accompanied for a brief distance by Mr. W. S. Burke, editor of the Asian, the only legitimate sporting paper in the East. To this gentleman were the Inter Ocean tourists indebted for maps, guidance and excellent entertainment while in the city. He piloted us through a road shaded by magnificent palm trees, an avenue 40 feet wide, level as a billiard table and smooth as asphalt. Mr. Burke informed us that this was the "Grand Trunk" road, our path across India from shore to shore. Most of our riding was done at a fast clip, in spite of the fact that we carried full luggage cases, camera, guns, water canteens, lamps, and bells to the extent of 50 pounds each. Only twice did we dismount in the twenty-five-mile run to Chandernagore, once to induce a cautious gate tender at a railroad crossing to open the gates, the second time to view the terrible cars of Juggernaut. Much has been written concerning these vehicles and the manner in which they are hauled about on festive occasions, and in former days crushed out the lives of hundreds of devout fanatics, who endeavored to reach heaven by self-sacrifice. One would naturally believe that such barbaric practice had been done away with by British rule, but such is not the case, and, despite the presence of police and soldiery, each time the towering car is hauled out by worshipers some poor, weak-minded wretch hurls himself under the ponderous wooden rollers. Burke, good-natured, fat and jolly, left us at Chandernagore, but not before a breakfast at the same hotel where, three years ago, he had breakfasted with poor Lenz, served by the same woman, who spoke also of "the fine little lad" who was lost in Armenia. Intense heat made riding dangerous during the day, and after we left Burdwan, on May 5 (81 miles from Calcutta), the greater part of our progress was accomplished at night. We never realized what Indian heat signified until now. The coolness of night offers many inducements for bullock-cart caravans to travel, and a sharp outlook has to be maintained for these obstacles. Our arrival at the Hotel de Paris in Benares, on May 12, completed one-fourth the run across India, a total of 496 miles from Calcutta, representing a succession of night rides, with stops for refreshment and rest at the bungalows along the route. Night riding in India is the only way to avoid paralyzing heat, but it has its terrors and dangers, and after some of my experiences in the jungle between Delhi and Benares, I should say that if I had the trip to make over again, I should undoubtedly trust to the mercies of the sun. We encountered leopards by the score, and though leopards in India are not supposed to attack humans, we could not help our misgivings at the sight of the graceful creatures, as they silently bounded their way through the jungle. Our arrival at the Hotel de Paris caused much excitement. The English do not read newspapers as generally as do the Americans, and, with but one exception, not one man around the hotel had the slightest idea who we were, where we were from, or what we were doing. In fact, after reading the "World's Tour for the Inter Ocean, Chicago, U. S. A.," as printed in large white letters on our luggage cases, many asked us politely, "Pray, what is the meaning of the legend?" We had learned while in Calcutta that Messrs. Lowe, Lum and Frazer, who had left England on a cycling tour of the world in 1896, were on their way across India, and that in all probability we would meet them in Benares. We looked forward with much pleasure to the occasion of joining hands with cyclists who understood the hardships of great journeys in strange lands, but the meeting occasioned us an unexpected set-back in our natural affection for fellow wheelmen. The trio arrived on the second day of our visit in Benares, and immediately sent word that they wanted to see me. I called upon them, and was greatly surprised to ascertain that they looked upon Mrs. McIlrath and myself as frauds. They questioned me closely as to my journey, and concluded by commenting upon the strangeness of the fact that they had never heard of us before. This I did not regard as unseeming, since few of the inhabitants of "the tight little isle" do know what is occurring in the greater part of the world not under British taxation. Fifteen minutes' conversation with the Frazer outfit convinced me that the new aspirants to globe-girdling honors entertained little respect for Americans in general, and ourselves in particular. Lenz they declared emphatically a nonentity in cycling history; Tom Stevens was totally unreliable, and as for ourselves, we had undergone no hardships, and were comparatively new. They probably did not like Stevens because he was the original "round the world on bicycles;" Lenz because he had accomplished single-handed more up to the time of his death than these fellows could accomplish over the route they had selected, if they completed their program; and Mrs. McIlrath came in for her share of contempt because a wee, slender woman, she had encompassed what they averred they would attempt, in a number strong enough to cross the threshold of any earthly inferno with impunity. Their object in circling the world was simply to make the journey, selecting the shortest, most expeditious route, and arriving home as quickly as possible. Frazer was once a "journalist," he informed me, but had deserted journalism to become an author, and write stories for a magazine called the "Golden Penny." While I confessed knowledge to the existence of the Strand, Pall Mall and other magazines in England, I dropped another peg lower in the estimation of my friends because the "Golden Penny" was not included in my list of acquaintances. The machines the cyclists rode were, of course, English make, weighed twelve pounds more than our own, and were equipped with mud guards, gear cases and brakes. The tires were double-tube, and the fourth pair for each machine were now in use, while we were using the same set of single tubes placed on our wheels in America. Their machines showed signs of wear, the front forks of each having been broken, and now, after only one year's use, the frames creaked painfully and the apparatus generally looked badly "used up." The luggage of each man was carried in a small valise fastened on the mud guard over the rear wheel, and large tool bags hung in the angles of the frame. Each carried a short-barreled, cheap revolver, and Lowe, the most gentlemanly and intelligent of the trio, carried a camera. It is needless to comment further upon these gentlemen. They announced their intention of visiting America, and one declared, as I informed him how cordial he would find our cyclists, mayors, governors, and even the president: "We shall not bother about Americans much; after being entertained by the Shah of Persia, we have decided to let your American dignitaries alone." We were entertained, while at Benares, in the castle at Fort Ramnagar by the Maharajah of Benares, one of the native princes of India. His Highness sent a magnificently appointed carriage to the hotel for us, with the proper quota of coachmen and liveried footmen; greeted us in excellent English, and soon displayed his foreign tendencies by direct inquiry about cycling, American foot-ball and base-ball, proudly assuring us that he was an enthusiastic foot-ball and polo player. Nothing but our anxiety to get home led us to decline his urgent invitation to remain his guest for a fortnight, and enjoy a jungle hunt from the backs of trained elephants. The kindness of the Maharajah did not cease with our visit to the palace, but each day we were the recipients of delicious fruit fresh from his garden, and upon our departure, on May 22, we carried letters of introduction to native gentlemen and officials along our route, who were requested to show us every attention and furnish us desired information which would prove of interest to the readers of the Inter Ocean at home. Still holding to the Grand Trunk road, we set out for Allahabad. The road was lonely and monotonous, and a few miles out from Benares there burst upon us a typical tropical tornado. In a second's time the air was darkened and filled with sand. Striking us from a quarter over our right shoulders, the force of the wind pushed us along at a frightful rate. Sand struck against our goggles with a gritting crunch, filled our nostrils and ears, and forced its way into our mouths. Leaves and twigs struck our faces with stinging force, and shrieking and groaning under pressure of the terrible blasts, the trees along the road threatened every moment to crush us. It was after dusk when the storm subsided, and we found shelter in a village 25 miles away from Benares. On May 27, in Allahabad, we were given an example of India's fiercest heat. Thermometers indoors, under the influence of fans, exhibited 112 degrees, and in the sunlight open the gauge showed 165 degrees, heat almost beyond the comprehension of Americans. We remained but one day in the oven-like hotel, starting at 4 o'clock the next morning, riding until 9, then resting along the roadway until nightfall, making the journey by such easy stages to Cawnpore, "the Manchester of India." Places of historical interest in Cawnpore are calculated as four in number: first, the site of the government magazine, where Gen. Wheeler, in charge of Cawnpore forces in 1857, should have erected his fortifications of defense; second, the memorial church and the open field south of the structure, where he did assemble his limited force and the refugees; third, the Suttee Chowra ghat, where the massacre of the retiring troops and civilians took place; and fourth and last, Memorial Garden, which commemorates the massacre of the company of women and children, and the well into which the living were cast with the dead. We left Cawnpore on Monday, June 1, for Lucknow, one of the most populous cities of India, situated directly east fifty miles. We sought out the main road without much difficulty, but for the first seven miles we had any amount of trouble, through about as rough and uneven bit of country as one could imagine. As we had left Cawnpore at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, we had run up only 20 miles to our credit ere darkness compelled us to light our lamps. While engaged in this operation our attention was attracted by awful groans at one side of the roadway. Thinking some poor outcast was dying, I selected one of the lamps and proceeded to investigate. A wide ditch barred my progress at the edge of the road, and, mindful of the motto, "Look before you leap," I flashed the cycle lamp rays on the opposite side to select a favorable place to alight. There was none in the immediate vicinity, for as the bright rays penetrated the gloom, they revealed a large, fine cheetah, or panther, crouched in the edge of the brush, his eyes fixed on the glare of my lamp, and his fangs disclosed in excellent array. The sight was a rare one, but as I had learned from books all I cared to know about the habits of wild beasts, I almost broke the lamp in my haste to extinguish it and get the ever-handy 45. Cautiously picking my way back to the wheels, Mrs. McIlrath and I made the chains and sprocket wheels grind out a merry tune to Lucknow. CHAPTER XVIII. RACE FOR LIFE WITH A MAD DROVE OF BUFFALO--UNCLE SAM'S FLAG A FEATURE OF THE QUEEN'S JUBILEE CELEBRATION AT DELHI. It was our idea to see the sights of Lucknow in two days and return to Cawnpore on the evening of the second, but our plans were changed, as Messrs. Thoburn, Robinson and Mansell, of the American Methodist Mission, called upon us at the hotel and transferred us, bag and baggage, to the Mission as their guests. Under their guidance we remained in Lucknow a week. Having returned to Cawnpore, we resumed our journey on June 11, making rapid progress, principally during the nights. Ever since entering China, more than a year before, we had seen daily countless numbers of the hairless, black, water buffalo. Many Europeans fear them and consider them dangerous, but they treated us with deference until Sunday, June 20, when we encountered a herd of the fierce-looking, cumbersome beasts while pedaling our way to Delhi. I do not believe the buffalos had any premeditated intention of attacking us, but as we wheeled slowly through a drove, a calf became imbued with the idea that bicycles were dangerous. He bolted straight down the road in front of us, running like a winner for a quarter of a mile. Then he was attracted by some tempting green leaves, and halted to browse upon them. As soon as we passed him, the machines which had frightened him became an attraction, and he meekly trotted out and fell in line behind us. The mother, who had been lumbering along in the rear, became excited at the unusual conduct of her son, gave a few short snorts, and set out in pursuit. Immediately the entire drove joined in the novel race, and, with a thundering clatter of hard hoofs ringing in our ears, we realized that we were being pursued. Faster and faster we spun along, and as native pilgrims heard the uproar, they gave one glance at the avalanche of bicycle and buffalo sweeping down upon them and scattered to the right and left. We tried, by shouting and waving helmets at the calf, to drive him away, but in vain, and the affair, which had been amusing at first, settled down into a race for life. It is impossible, as readers know, to take to a tree when on a cycle, so there was nothing else to do but set a pace for a crazy calf and a drove of jealous buffalo, and for the next mile and a half we did so. How the calf came to change his mind about joining his fortune with ours I do not know, but a sudden cessation of the clatter behind us revealed on sight the calf recumbent in a pool of water, with his sympathizing friends and relatives standing by, grimly looking after us. This was the outcome of the buffalos' end of the race; ours was garments soaked with perspiration, panting breath, and ourselves so heated and flushed we were dizzy and faint. The Queen's Jubilee, celebrated the day following our arrival in Delhi, gave us opportunity to enjoy an illumination scene in India, and, though we observed many well-lighted European and government employes' houses, I should not say that the Indian is as much a lover of British rule as the British would have others believe. The usual parade of soldiery and police was the first feature of the evening, and fireworks the final. I thoroughly enjoyed the astonishment caused by the presence of a large American flag, flying from a staff lashed to the life-sized stone elephant which stands in the yard of the government building, and was much amused at the inscriptions on the red cloth banners which the natives hung over their doorways. They read, "Welcome to India;" "Welcome to Delhi," and a rather suggestive few read, "God bless the Prince." It was a few moments before it dawned on me that the inscriptions were originally made to please the eye of the Prince of Wales, when that great functionary of corner-stone laying and baby christening was doing a little globe-trotting at the English public's expense. Who did it, and why that American flag, in all its starry beauty, was flying in front of a government building, were the principal questions asked by army and police officers the next day. Delhi, as a city, was founded during the shadowy ages, which precludes the possibility of dates, but its ruins are visible to-day on an area ten miles wide and fifteen miles long. How often the city has changed its site is only limited to the victories gained by invaders of all tribes and nations. The Rome of Asia, Delhi has known its Nero; Maharrata, Hindoo, Jain, Persian, Afghan, Mohammedan, and the cold, unfeeling Britain, have in turn ruled over the Indian Empire from this ancient city, and the truth has ever been proven that whosoever held Delhi ruled India. Delhi, like many other Indian cities, offers the visitor many interesting buildings of native structure, but so often have we viewed with reverence and awe some superb building, only to learn that it was a tomb for some notable departed, that the word "tomb" has become abhorrent. India will linger in our memory chiefly as one vast group of mausoleums, set in an arid desert and scorched by the fires of a sun fierce as the furnaces of Sheol. The exposure to heat, from which the Inter Ocean cyclists were suffering daily, led to Mrs. McIlrath's serious condition, which prevented our departure from Delhi on June 24, the day upon which we had made our arrangements to leave. With face swollen so that her eyes were half-closed, her skin was entirely covered with tiny pimples. Small-pox would not have presented a more pitiable sight, but experts pronounced the case prickly heat, and beyond advising perfect rest, cool drinks and hot baths, declared that nothing could be done to drive away or reduce the swelling. Under these conditions we were unable to proceed until July 1, but with the delightful attentions shown us by Mr. and Mrs. Aitkin of the Delhi Morning Post, and Major Mainwaring, of the Native Infantry, time did not hang heavily upon our hands. We swung into the main road at 6 o'clock one morning, taking the Grand Trunk once more, and following its course due north. Karnaul, the city which we should have reached the night before, had it not been for the stiff head winds, we entered at 8 o'clock the following morning, just in time to escape a downfall of rain which detained us until the next day. A second reminder of the plucky little Lenz we found in the register book of the Karnaul dak bungalow, which read, "F. G. Lenze, October 10, 1893, arrived six p. m. Departed six a. m., October 12, American Bicyclist." Strange as it may seem, this was only the second instance in which we found trace of Lenz, though in China, Burmah and India we traveled in all over four thousand miles on identically the same route. CHAPTER XIX. PATRIOTISM CURBED JUST IN TIME--BAD NIGHT WITH A FANCIED BITE FROM A COBRA--TWO AMERICAN INVALIDS TOGETHER IN LAHORE. From Karnaul we journeyed steadily north, head-winds baffling attempts at speed, and showers and sand storms retarding us for hours. In several instances, we were compelled to journey along the railway line, the rains having swollen the river to such an extent that the roads were flooded. Umballa, a large military station midway between Delhi and Lahore, we reached on the morning of July 3, and again delayed by rain, were forced to spend the glorious Fourth in that city. Unfortunately for me, the dak bungalow was situated within the cantonment lines, and when I arose at daybreak, prepared to fire a salute of twenty-one shots, the gentle-mannered coolie servant gave a terrified look at the gun and bolted for the cook-house. Before I could fire once, a soldier called to me not to shoot unless I wished to be carted off to the guardhouse for violating military orders, which prohibit firing within the cantonment. Undoubtedly I would have been arrested on the charge of discharging firearms inside the lines, creating a disturbance, and possibly treason, and I dread to think of the effect my explanation of celebrating the Fourth of July would have had on an Englishman, especially an army officer, who might have lived on "Cornwallis Road." Rain fell throughout July 5, on which day we were able to cover only eighteen miles, halting for the night at the little village of Rajpur. Such a small settlement has little need for a dak bungalow, and in consequence, travelers who are so unfortunate as to be compelled to seek shelter for the night, take up quarters at an ancient building owned, but unoccupied, by the Rajah of Petialla. Mrs. McIlrath declared the building was an "old cobra trap," and constantly on the watch for scorpions and snakes, it was but natural that when we retired our dreams were of reptiles. Several times in the night I was awakened, the last time, along toward morning, by a severe pain in my left leg. Paralyzed with the thought of the deadly krite and cobra bite, and the absolute certainty of death resulting in from five to fifteen minutes, I lay calm and rigid for a moment, thinking I was the victim of a dream, but the smarting in my leg continued, and I called to my wife, exclaiming that I had been bitten. She was awake in an instant, and lighting the lamp, we looked around for the cobra. Though we could find no possible trace of a snake, there were on my leg six small punctures, arranged in a semi-circle. For an hour we waited for indications of snake poison in my system, but none appeared. Several times I imagined the choking sensations which precede complete asphyxia, were attacking my throat, but a gulp of water or a puff at my cigarette dispelled this illusion, and at the end of sixty minutes I was compelled to admit that my experience with the cobra had turned out a dismal failure. I cannot to this day offer any possible explanation of my wounds, unless they were inflicted by Rodney, the pet monkey which we made our traveling companion 200 miles back. The "monk" occasionally crept up on my bed to avoid the ants and insects which swarmed over the ground and floors, and it may have been that after making himself comfortable, I had disturbed him and he retaliated by biting the offending leg. Few persons who have not visited India during the Summer rains, can realize what danger there is from poisonous reptiles, chiefly the krite and cobra, and how the dreaded things creep into the most unusual places, just where one would never think of being cautious. In one village of 400 inhabitants, through which we passed, five persons died from snake bites during the five days preceding our arrival. Unlike the rattler, the krite and cobra give no audible warning, except a slight hiss, and directly opposite is the effect of the bite. While the rattler's poison acts on the blood, it may be mitigated by ligation above the wound and the free use of alcohol, but the cobra and krite wounds act directly upon the nerves, producing paralysis and asphyxia, and despite all legends to the contrary, the bite of either reptile, if the fangs are intact, is as surely fatal as decapitation. There is not a remedy known which will even prolong life after the bite has been inflicted. Cities of considerable size, evidently prosperous and well-kept, are many and frequent along the Trunk road in Punjab, and under an excellent system of irrigating canals, crops appear vigorous and abundant. The native method of raising water from the canals into field-ditches is a novelty to the eyes of the Westerner, and language would never describe the squeaking water wheel, with earthen pots in place of buckets, and the slow-plodding, patient bullocks that revolve the wheel. "Persian Wheels," the primitive machines are called, and though winds are strong and almost perpetual, no one appears to consider the old way inefficient, and harness wind and water with one of the powerful wind engines which dot the prairies of the United States. India is a close second to China in adhering to native customs, and after a journey of fifteen hundred miles, made through the country, in such a manner as to mingle with and know the people, I am of the opinion that the English who govern India, are but a trifle less conservative, and that what broad ideas of improvement they do possess, that would materially improve the natives' condition without benefiting the government revenue, are never allowed to develop and expand. India is not governed by the English with any philanthropic ideas, and when one has spent a few months poring over financial reports and statistics, tax lists and penal codes, the idea is firmly fixed in the mind that India is governed by the English for England. I have already spoken of the risk a white person incurs in India by being exposed to the rain. Fever is almost certain to follow, and the morning after our arrival in Lahore, I found Mrs. McIlrath with a temperature of 104 degrees, and every symptom of malaria. Though I struggled through the day, caring for her, when I laid down at night, the ache in my muscles and joints, and the fire which raged internally, warned me I was a victim also, and for the next week we lay side by side, comparing temperatures and consoling one another. To be stricken with fever in India is one of the most terrible punishments nature can visit upon the violators of her laws, and all day and all night through we lay without the cooling drinks, the ripe fruits and the delicacies and attentions which ease and encourage the patient at home. By Saturday, July 17, we were able to sit up and totter about the room, and immediately began to obtain strength by carriage rides in the cool evening air. Lahore does not possess temples, mosques and tombs of great architectural merit, but its chief charm lies in the enormous bazaars which extend for miles through the main streets of the city. The buildings are two-story affairs, built of brick and covered with a staff, which, at a time long ago, was white in color. The shops are merely square rooms, with open fronts; the goods piled on the floors and hung from the ceiling in such a manner as to prevent walking about without danger to stock and inspector. A few of the shops bear sign-boards, painted in English letters. One in particular that attracted my attention, announced that "Subri Lall was a Dentist and Photographer." Another, which struck me as being peculiar, announced that the firm inside sold "fresh salt, patent medicines and millinery." Some of the characters we met wandering around the bazaars selling charms and fetish bags were most interesting fellows. One gigantic Sikh, who halted at the side of our carriage, displayed his stock in trade to us, and then exhibited his personal gear. Under his tunic he wore a coat and helmet of chain mail; in the belt were seven knives of different sizes, and around the turban were three sharped-edged flat circles of steel, which are thrown in the same manner as a boomerang, and in skillful hands will decapitate an enemy. A stout club, bound with copper, completed the Sikh's outfit, and as I looked upon this mail-clad, walking arsenal, I could but be impressed with how very little was English rule and law respected and feared. Lahore marked the end of our journey along the Grand Trunk road, as from that city on Tuesday, July 20, we turned directly south toward the Persian Gulf and the city of Kurachee. Only thirteen miles of the eight hundred and twenty-four were covered the first evening, and though the two hours of jolting and jarring were keenly felt, when we dismounted at the solitary little station at Kana Kacha, the experience was welcomed. It was home-like, for we had not forgotten our ride across Illinois, Iowa, Colorado, Utah and Nevada on similar paths, usually used by the iron horse and the healthy but indigent hobo. Truly patriotism does assume some homely forms in the American absent from home, but then patriotism is satisfying in any form. We were now entered on the most dangerous portion of our two thousand miles ride across India. Not only did we abandon all hope for finding an occasional stretch of road, which would afford relief from the monotonous jolt and jar of riding on track ballast, but had made up our minds to expect poor accommodation in the villages along our route. In the face of the heat and obstructions on the road, however, we managed to schedule fifty miles a day before reaching Changa Manga. I met a delightful gentleman in Montgomery, where we spent two days and a night. He was Mr. Fitzherbert, a civil engineer, who had originally landed in India as first officer on a merchantman. I was surprised to learn that a relationship existed between his family and the famous Stonewall Jackson, which fact made us fast friends. Regarding the city in which we were, I can best dismiss the subject in Mr. Fitzherbert's own language: "Yes," said he, "Montgomery is quite a large place, far different from the little settlement in the desert that I first knew. There are now 4,000 inhabitants, 2,500 are in jail and the balance should be, but as I care little for society that fact does not worry me, and the presence of the city jail assists in making the town. The heat in Montgomery is what renders it almost unbearable. Last year we stood at the head of the list in India, and let me tell you in quiet confidence, that a man that can exist ten years in Montgomery will thoroughly enjoy himself in hell." Early in the morning of July 28 we said good-bye to our friends in Montgomery, and resumed our grind along the railway line, but we were lonesome no longer. Each train that passed us was manned by a crew who greeted us with cheers and encouraging signals as the train whizzed by, and we humbly and laboriously bucked along over the humps and high spots. From Kacha Khuh we took a run over to Mooltan City, returning to Kacha Khuh by rail. The break in the journey afforded us time to form new and desirable acquaintances, and various little trips, via rail, such as this, furnished us with an insight of a phase of life in India of which we knew nothing before, and which will never cease to be of interest to us--the joys of a traveler on a railway line conducted by the English Government on the English system. In India passengers may be transported in three classes, first, second and third, and as I have yet to learn anything English which is branded first-class and touches the American idea of A 1, we did not for a moment consider the second and third rate inducements of low fare. Purchasing two slips of pasteboard at the "booking office," for which we paid two cents a mile, we were informed that we could take the triangular luggage cases, which we wished to check, into the carriage with us, no goods being checked, but dumped into the "brake van" to be called for and identified by the owner. The first-class carriage was easily identified on the exterior by a coat of white paint, but the first glance into the interior would have led one to believe it was a well-loaded furniture van, on any old day about May 1. Our fellow passengers were a Catholic priest and a lieutenant of Her Majesty's army, and into a space only eight feet long were piled their belongings. I took an inventory and counted five trunks, two valises, four hat-boxes, a wash bowl in a leather case, cane, golf stick, riding whip, four large sun helmets, two rolls of bedding, one bundle of books and a lunch hamper. Arriving at Kacha Khuh, we managed to attract the attention of the guard, who kindly released us, and as we dismounted from the carriage we were convinced that our cycles afforded us just about as great speed, comfort and certainly less inconvenience than the government railway train in India. Truly the Chinese are hide-bound in customs, but the English run them a close race. Though many of their methods are modern, in railways, hotels and conveniences for the public at large, they are far in the rear of the ever-advancing army of modern progress which has its headquarters in the United States of America, and whose generals are the same "wooden nutmeg" inventing Yankees, of whom the English so often speak lightly. CHAPTER XX. THE PET MONKEY DINES UPON RUBBER TIRES AND DELAYS PROGRESS--OFFICIALS REFUSE TO LET THE TOURISTS GO THROUGH BELOOCHISTAN. Our last days in India were spent during the monsoon season. The deserts had become lakes of steaming water, the matted undergrowth of rank grass and vegetation rotting, and that we escaped without malarial or typhoid fever was almost a miracle. The railway tracks, which formed our only path, were cut away by the flood of ceaseless rain. The ballast had been swept away and the clay embankment cut into a series of gullies. Four hundred miles we had to push and plod our way through this sticky mass. We left Khanpur on the evening of Aug. 18. The rain had been pouring down for three days, and had subsided into a steady drizzle, which we deemed the most favorable opportunity we would have for a start. We arrived at Daharki, in the plague-stricken district of India, on Aug. 20. We spent the next day, Sunday, at Daharki, and early on the morning of Aug. 22 we started out on a day of mishaps. Before we had passed the yard limits my rear tire collapsed, necessitating a delay of half an hour. Then an unusually long bridge of open structure made our limbs tremble, and scarcely two miles further came a second puncture. Under ordinary circumstances punctures with the outfit and tire we use are trifling affairs, but when each minute counts, as with a race with the sun, such delays are of as great importance to us as any delay to the fire department on its way to a conflagration. Three hours interviewed, when a loud hiss from my rear tire announced a third puncture, and in a few minutes the rim, bumping and smashing on the stone ballast, announced that I was "without air." Three punctures in less than thirty miles was a record to which we were quite unaccustomed. With a third disaster, and no plugs to repair with, my suspicions were aroused and upon investigation I found five large wounds in the tire. As the injury extended along one side only, and that the side which did not come in contact with the ballast, I examined the sides and found the threads torn outward. While sitting on the edge of the railroad ties, gloomily reflecting on the long walk before me, and wondering who could so maliciously have damaged my tire, the pet monkey, Rodney, crawled from his resting place in the bosom of my coat and began plucking grass and herbs. I paid but little attention to him until I heard a sound at the wheel, and turned just in time to discover Rodney chewing a fresh hole. I had caught the offender in the act, and subsequent observations convinced me that he was determined either to make a monkey of us, or satisfy the inexplicable monkey in him. The only reason I failed to kick that grinning ape into space larger than that longed for by the most ardent balloonist, was that he skipped through a barb wire fence quicker than I could reach him with my foot. Mrs. McIlrath carried him into Sarhad, for had he been consigned to my care I fear he would have been cast adrift on the Indus. I reached Sarhad at noon, and had the journey been a mile longer the heat certainly would have killed me. From Sarhad I wired for our trunks and got them after much difficulty. They were billed to a station forty miles ahead, and the station master at first refused flatly to surrender them. He gave them to me after my protests, that without them I should have to walk forty miles more. The plugs were found, the necessary repairs made and at 5 o'clock in the afternoon we were again upon our way. Lacki Pass, which had been our bugbear for several weeks, proved a serious undertaking, but one which we made with far less inconvenience than we had anticipated. Lacki Pass is the section of railway from Dadu to Lacki. Many persons in discussing our journey had said to us in tones of significance: "Well, just wait until you get to Lacki Pass." Sand of depth and finest quality was the first obstacle we encountered ere we entered the first cutting through stone. The pass would be called a canyon in America, for on one side flowed the broad Indus, then in torrent, and on the other rose the steep, rocky face of the mountain. We decided the momentous question of Lacki Pass by mounting our wheels and cycling along the narrow ledge just outside the rails and next the precipice. Our path was not all that could be desired by novices. It was only a foot in width, beset in places with stones and boulders, with the foaming river hundreds of feet below; but then the Inter Ocean cyclists had long ago passed the novice stage, and we set out at a good pace. Hundreds of water buffalos were scrambling along the rocks at the base of the mountain, or wallowing through the coves of slack water, but excepting the occasions that we dismounted to cross some trestle which spanned a chasm, we had little time to observe scenery. Five miles up the steep grade, a half hour's riding along the dizzy height, and we passed the little station of Bagatara, congratulating ourselves that we were almost into the cuttings which would lead to the plain below. The bend which carried us from the edge of the precipice ended our ride, for we were invited to the home of a Mr. Swetenham, who had come up the tracks behind us on a hand-car. There were three miles more of the pass to cover, but the dinner invitation was too much for us and we loaded our wheels on his hand-car and rolled into Lacki. We were a sorry looking pair as we set out on the last short relay in India. The cooking pots which we carried clattered and rattled noisily as they banged against the frames of our bicycles. The luggage cases were heavily laden; our front tires, long ago worn out as rear tires, leaked badly; the cork grips were gone from our handle-bars, and the felt pads of our saddles had become hard as wood. Our attire was thoroughly in keeping with the disreputable appearance of our wheels. Helmets were battered and patched, clothes torn and stained, shoes scuffed and cut to relieve swollen feet, and stockings darned with thread of all colors. Mrs. McIlrath, covered with prickly heat, looked as though bees had stung every portion of her hands and face, and I hardly recognized my own self in the mirror in the gaunt, hollow-cheeked, dull-eyed, yellow-skinned skeleton. Our objective point was Kurrachee. We had a good path, exceptionally free from culverts and bridges, and in the white light of the moon, fanned by the cool breeze from the sea, we sped merrily along until a low-railed bridge obstructed our path, a sign-board indicating that we were but four miles from Dabhugi, the village where we intended to eat our lunch. We were so close upon the bridge before dismounting, that to check my heavy-laden wheel I had to run a few steps with it. Bracing one foot against the curb of the bridge, my eye moved involuntarily to where my foot rested. I was having another encounter with a cobra. The black monster was stretched out in heavy line four feet long. He was of the hooded species, the most deadly of his family, and I stood face to face with death in his most terrible garb. I should have retreated, I should have shot the hideous thing, I should have done anything else but what I did, to stand terrified without power to move a muscle. Suddenly the snake coiled itself into a knot, then twisted around in a circle and disappeared in one of the crevices of the loose rock on the slope of the stream. It was one of the closest escapes I have to relate. We were in Kurrachee for a week, an attack of fever detaining me. Then began preparation for our trip through Beloochistan, a trip which we did not take. From Kurrachee there is a telegraph line which skirts the coast of Beloochistan and enters Persia. This was the route we had calculated upon since leaving Chicago, and with a view of assisting us to obtain information regarding the conditions of the road, the distances and supply stations, Mr. W. Flowers Hamilton, the United States consular agent, gave a dinner, at which we met a number of British officials and heads of the railway department. These same gentlemen had entertained Lenz on his journey, but when the subject was broached of Mrs. McIlrath and myself making the same trip, great surprise was expressed and the question advanced as to whether or not the government would permit it. "But why should Lenz be permitted to pass through and not ourselves?" I asked of Mr. Barker, the telegraph superintendent. "Things were different then," he replied. "The borders from Cashmere to the gulf are now up in arms, and battles are being fought daily, and not with the most satisfactory result to the government either." This was the first intimation we received that the government would probably interfere with our action. The second came a few days later in a letter from the American Consular Department, which caused me post haste to begin a systematic routine of calls upon the British officials. The letter was dated Sept. 14, and signed by Mr. Hamilton. Briefly, it was a protest against our intention of proceeding to Beloochistan. "I am not a pessimist," he wrote, "and would be the last person to thwart your desires in any way, were there the remotest chance of your safely accomplishing the journey you have planned. I feel, though, that since the natives between this and the Persian frontier are bound to forcibly resist your passage to the territory, that to attempt the journey would mean sudden death to you both, and I earnestly request you to accept my advice and to adopt the alternative route via Bushire, Shiraz, Ispaham, Teheran, Tabriz and Batoum." I called upon Mr. Wingate, commissioner of Scinde, and Capt. Tighe, and though I used every argument, offering to assume all risks and to relieve the government of any responsibility, their consent of the promise of an indifferent attitude was withheld. "But if I am willing to attempt the journey alone without Mrs. McIlrath?" was my argument. "It is evident that you do not clearly understand the situation," was the reply. "Your life would not be worth one cent ten miles from the border." This was the final argument, and there was nothing for us to do but scratch Beloochistan from the list, and prepare to take one of the British India steamers leaving for Bushire, on Sept. 28. Our trip through India was severe upon us, physically, and we were compelled to suffer many inconveniences, hardships and even torture from hunger, thirst and weather. There is much misery in India and unalterable condition which forbid that its people ever be benefited by British rule, or that a sympathetic bond be established between the European and Indian. But none who visit its shores will ever have aught to say that both are not hospitable, or that the Englishmen in India do not strive earnestly and sincerely to execute the duties of their office. CHAPTER XXI. OFF TO PERSIA BY WAY OF STEAMSHIP "ASSYRIA"--FREQUENT MEETINGS WITH ROAD AGENTS AND AMERICAN FIRE-ARMS TO THE RESCUE. We took passage on the little coasting steamer "Assyria," leaving Kurrachee on Sept. 28, at 7 o'clock in the morning. There were but two other passengers in the cabin besides Mrs. McIlrath and myself, one a wealthy Arab, the other a missionary of the Reformed Dutch Church. The voyage across the Persian Gulf was colorless and void of incident. Passengers, captain and officers expressed regret that Mrs. McIlrath and I had been so unfortunate in selecting a year which had created so much disturbance in Persia. Scarcity of crops had forced many villagers to subsist by robbery and murder of travelers, and within a single day's journey of the coast hundreds of cases were reported. Politics were affected also, many threats of violence being heard against the Shah and his corps of diplomats. With such a gloomy outlook for a peaceful passage through the wild lands, and the knowledge that winter would overtake us in the mountains of Asiatic Turkey, we had good cause for feeling blue as we sighted the hazy shores which loomed up in the distance on Oct. 8. We anchored three miles off shore, shortly after daybreak. After breakfast, a boat came alongside, the pilot ran up the gang stairs and informed us of the arrival in Bushire of a package of letters. As we were almost destitute, this bit of news made us all the more impatient to be off. Gathering up our boxes, bicycles and the monkey, we shook hands with the genial crew of the "Assyria" and pushed off for Bushire. To learn that there were no telegrams and news concerning our money, which had been lost in the mails to Kurrachee, would have stunned us had we been anything but American nomads. Bushire did not afford a hotel, and two paupers were forced to look up an Armenian shop-keeper, and persuade him to clear two rooms in an unfinished building, and furnish us with bedding and food during our enforced stay. By sundown on the day of our arrival we were comfortably installed, and though seriously crippled as active participants in the world's tour, we were happy and cheerful. Though the community of foreigners in Bushire was small, there is a certain sympathetic bond between all which renders the circle delightful, and as all welcome a new arrival with outstretched arms, we found our stay in the town a very pleasant one. We were dined by Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Churchill, of the Interior Bank of Persia; Surgeon Captain Lumsden, Mr. J. Meyer and Col. Mead, the British Consul General. We also enjoyed a delightful little "tiffin" with Mr. Christmas, of the Indo-European Telegraph Company's inspection corps, and all of these gentlemen united in preparing us for our journey inland. As the first and second steamers arriving from India brought no news of our lost money, we finally gave up all idea of restoration, and deciding that a longer wait was impracticable, made preparation to start at once, having communicated by cable with our American resources. After a week of laying in stores, supplies and heavy clothing, obtaining passports, permits to sleep in telegraph stations, and letters of introduction, we bade adieu to our friends on Nov. 8, and following in the rear of a gang of coolies, started forth to Teheran. The journey from Bushire to Teheran may be divided into three complete stages: first, from Bushire to Shiraz, 173 miles; thence to Ispahan, 312 miles; then on to Teheran, 285 miles. To cycle from Bushire to Shiraz is quite as impossible as to cycle up the side of Pike's Peak. The elevation often reaches 6,000 feet and the road is a mass of boulders and deep sand. The ascent is not gradual, but a continuation of terraces called "kotals" by the Persians, and in these kotals donkeys are the only creatures which can safely walk and carry burdens. Our path lay through uninhabited sand desert, with not a tree or shrub visible. Walking over unbroken road by the side of a patient and heavily-laden mule is as tiresome as it is monotonous, and we were a badly used pair when we arrived at Kushub, the end of our first day's journey in Persia. Resuming the trip the next morning, we soon caught up with a caravan of three score mules, laden with shiny tin cases of petroleum, which bore the welcome brand, "made in the United States." Our forces now consisted of more than fifty men, the majority armed with muzzle-loading rifles, a few with pistols and the remainder with clubs having iron knobs at the end. We felt then sufficiently strong to resist the robbers, against whom we had been warned. The bandits first manifested themselves when the caravan was stopped, and the head muleteer asked for a "present." I was astounded to find that the robbers were none other than a few soldiers who were supposed to be guarding a little village we had passed some miles back. As the "present" is always cash, and often demanded at the muzzle of a gun, the courts of any civilized country would probably call such proceeding highway robbery, but in Persia, where troops are unpaid at under-paid rates, and often go ragged and hungry for years, the laws cannot be supposed to be of superior standing to the army. Toward Mrs. McIlrath and me the unkempt rascals were civil enough, but persisted in detaining the muleteers. I suppose the basis of a "present" was finally agreed upon, for the orders were given to push on after a brief delay. We were slightly in advance of the caravan, continuing our way among the boulder-strewn foothills, when just about daybreak, three men sprang from behind rocks and halted us. They demanded money. Our servant was slightly in advance of Mrs. McIlrath and me, and he promptly pushed a 45-calibre revolver under the nose of the leader. The second man looked into my rifle, and in less than ten seconds so many gun locks clicked behind my back that I feared one would be discharged by accident, and the boy and myself perforated as well as the bandits. It was evident from the manner of the trio that they realized that they had made a mistake, but whether the mistake lay in the fact that we were well armed, or that we were foreigners, was not made clear. They declared themselves soldiers, who only wished a "present" and when I refused to accept their explanation, they protested that they were honest men, but hungry. Such might have been the case, but we gave them nothing except advice that they sell their guns and buy bread. An attempt on the part of a second trio of men, encountered a few days later, to obtain a contribution, resulted in an exhibition of spunk by Mrs. McIlrath. The leader had seized the bridle of her mule, and startled her to such an extent that she poked the muzzle of her revolver into the fellow's face. The villain released his grip and apologized profusely for not having recognized us as Europeans. They seemed to think that so long as they robbed only the natives, they committed no crime. We halted at Diriz on Oct. 12, having been on the road for twelve hours without food. The muleteers, for some reason, probably anxiety to fulfill their contract and be through with us, protested against the delay, urging that we could find neither food, water nor shelter in the place. I had learned by this time that the low caste Persians are born liars, and insisting upon the stop, we found, just as we had expected, both food and water. We refreshed ourselves, and two hours later proceeded at snail-like pace across the plain to Kazeroon. We spent three days in this city, the guests of Mr. Marker, an excellent type of the educated Armenian, who furnished us with much information and took care to see that we were started on our journey in proper form. Wearied by the fatigue of sleepless days and monotonous journeying by night, we changed our hours for travel when we left Kazeroon, taking our departure at 8 o'clock in the morning. One of the most laborious tasks of our entire journey was now before us. Climbing the Alps is nothing compared with the ascent of the kotals in Persia. The muleteers know nothing of scenery, and do not even know the names of villages only a half a mile from the beaten path. But they do know that delays cause great annoyance, and they keep you constantly at the best speed you are capable of making, lest some descending caravan meet you and confusion ensue. One of the mules, upon which was loaded Mrs. McIlrath's bicycle, backed into a huge boulder which jutted into the road, breaking the fork and rendering it unfit for use. Friday, Nov. 19, the road into Shiraz, began to take on a fairly smooth appearance, whereat I lost no time in oiling up my bike. As I prepared for a stiff run into Shiraz, Mrs. McIlrath, contemplated her damaged machine, and expressed a wish that the mule had died the day before she entrusted her wheel to his care. Two miles of fairly level road enabled me to distance the horde of rough riders. Caravan after caravan my cycle passed, not pausing until I whizzed down the main street of Shiraz, arriving three hours ahead of my party. A native mechanic repaired Mrs. McIlrath's wheel, though it took him eight days to do so, giving us ample time to make friends in the city. One would be difficult to please who could not enjoy life in Shiraz. Dr. Sculley and Mr. Wood, superintendent of telegraphs, alternated in dinners; Mr. Von Rijkon, an adopted American, entertained us at lunch, and in each European home we sipped afternoon tea, were entertained with music and listened to delightful little stories of Persian life. With friends we made several excursions about the city, bartering in the bazaars, visiting the places of interest and calling upon Persians of high rank. Our sight-seeing in Shiraz was ended on Wednesday, Dec. 1, when we departed for the north. Our cyclometer revealed that we covered twenty-three miles by dusk over sandy roads and in the face of strong winds, the first day out from Shiraz. At Zerghun we halted for the night, and were up and away before daybreak the next morning. By 10 o'clock we could see outlined against the blue mountains to the north, a village which we knew to be Kinorah, a small, harmless little settlement, where we had been advised to seek accommodations. The ruins of Persopolis are near by, and wishing to visit the grandest monument of a kingly ruler's power that the modern world knows, we wheeled into Kinorah, where we were the guests of the Rev. W. A. Rice. CHAPTER XXII. AT THE RUINS OF PERSEPOLIS--AN AUTOGRAPH ON THE PORCH OF XERXES--LOST IN A SNOWSTORM AND MRS. McILRATH'S FEET FROZEN. Describing the ruins of an ancient city, a famous structure, or even a locality, which, to the modern world, is vaguely grasped as having an existence, is a task most difficult. Consequently I shall in no manner attempt to enter detail in describing the ruins of Persepolis. Towering forty-five feet above the plain the grand platform extends 1,500 feet north by south, and, far as the excavations of explorers have revealed, 800 feet east and west. The first of the remarkable remnants of Achæmenian glory which greet one, are the pieces which form the group known as the Porch of Xerxes. The portals are the favorite background upon which visitors inscribe their names. I have always held such proceeding as vandalism, and thought the names of British ambassadors, naval officers, and clergy deface the rock. I should have foregone the pleasure of perpetuating our visit, had not my eye fallen upon the following inscription: "Stanley, New York Herald, 1870." Never for a moment has an inhabitant of Chicago allowed that New York to thrust its ancient claim upon the world as a typical American city without resentment, and immediately we chipped beneath, "McIlrath, Chicago Inter Ocean, 1897." Our tour of the ruins was thorough, including visits to the grand hall of Xerxes, the hall of One Hundred Columns, and the tombs of Darius and Xerxes, south of the Grand Platform. Persepolis, as it stands to-day, is a stern rebuke to him who styled himself "King of Kings" and "Ruler of the Rulers of the Universe," and vowed that he would build a city that would be the capital of the world, and peopled by all tribes until time nevermore. On Sunday, Dec. 4, we resumed our journey up the hills toward Dehbid. The roads were muddy and the various streams swollen, and we encountered rainstorms and high winds, which caused us to lose the path and occasioned us much discomfort before we could enter the town of Murghab. We found the hotel crowded with passengers, many of whom had seen us previously. There was one Persian in the number who evidently wished to speak to me concerning Frank Lenz, since he uttered the boy's name, pointed to the bicycle, and drew his finger across his own throat in a manner suggestive of Lenz's horrible fate. Monday, Dec. 6, our journey, though not extensive, was exhaustive; we walked up grades too steep to permit of riding, and we walked down grades too steep and rough to ride with safety. Occasionally we passed through sections of country where patches of snow glistened under the shade of bushes and wild grass. From Khan-I-Khergan our ride was a steady up-hill grind for several miles, but ended when the summit was gained by a four-mile dash down-grade into the little settlement of Dehbid. When we left the following morning we had the wind at our back and made such excellent time that we entered the dreaded Koli-kush before we realized it. We experienced no difficulty in the pass, riding down the opposite side as easily as we had ascended the southern approach. There is little to tell of our ride into Surmek, except that we made it at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. The scenery in the background was rugged and outlined against the clear blue sky was beautiful. The high fever which Mrs. McIlrath developed in consequence of a drenching, caused the loss of a day in Abadeh, but it gave me an opportunity of visiting the bazaars and inspecting the marvelous work done by the wood-carvers. We cycled from the telegraph station on Dec. 11, bound for Maksudbeg, seventy-one miles north. We found the roads in passable condition and were escorted for eight or ten miles by a Mr. Stevens, who is connected with the telegraph company, and the solitary cyclist of Central Persia. Passing through the cities of Shulgistan and Yezbikhast, we should have made Maksudbeg early in the afternoon, but I discovered three large lacerations in my rear tire, which prevented fast riding. The "Khaneh" at Maksudbeg was well filled the night of our arrival, but until our baggage train and interpreter arrived we lacked for nothing. We left Maksudbeg early the next morning, whirling at a rapid rate to Marg, where we stopped for the night. On Tuesday, Dec. 14, when we again set out for Julfa, we completed within thirteen miles the second of the three long stages into Teheran. Though many Persians reside in Julfa, the town is typically Armenian. The same high walls that are so general in Persian cities, face each street, but the buildings inside are Armenian, the inscriptions over the doors are in Armenian characters, and the majority of the people seen on the street are Armenians. The Armenian men are a type in themselves. They appear dirtier than the Persian, and if circumstances permit, they affect European clothes and get beastly drunk. In occupation, the Armenian finds himself adapted to any business or trade and in general transactions is a fluent liar and barefaced cheat. There are few good Armenians, but there are those who have received a liberal education, or have been taken in hand by kindly people and brought up to Christian and civilized ideas. The other good Armenians are like the good American Indians--they are deceased Armenians. At Ispahan we were the guests of Bishop Stuart, of the Church of England Mission. Ispahan is just across the Landah River from Julfa, and is not so void of features. Having visited, at his palace, His Royal Highness, the Zil-i Sultan of Persia, the Armenian Cathedral, and the brass working bazaar of Ispahan, we departed for the North on Saturday, Dec. 19. We had a long, hard ride over ravines strewn with rocks, to the city of Soh, where we were the guests of Mr. Newey, an intimate friend of Mr. Christmas, whom we met in Bushire. Snow began to fall on Dec. 22, and our entertainer refused positively to allow us to proceed. The storm did not cease until the following morning, when, despite the protests of Mr. Newey, we set out for the village of Khurud, twenty-five miles away, and a most disastrous trip it proved to be. We expected to cover the distance to Khurud by 4 o'clock in the afternoon, but when that hour arrived our cyclometers registered but eight miles, and we were worn out and almost unable to proceed farther. We had prepared for the trip by putting on extra sweaters and incasing our legs in heavy woolen leggings, such as are worn by native travelers, but we found, after a mile or so on the road, that the most discomfort we suffered was with our hands and feet. Beneath the snow were many pools of water, and into these we floundered, wetting ourselves to the knees and our bicycles to the hubs. As a wild, precipitous descent lay between us and the village, and as nightfall was fast approaching, Mrs. McIlrath suggested that I leave her and the machine in the first gorge which afforded any shelter, and then hurry forward, find the village and send back men and horses for herself and the wheels. I did not entertain the thought for a moment, for I was too deeply impressed with the trying situation, though I did not let her know of our danger. For a time I succeeded in buoying up her spirits, but as we slowly plodded through canyon after canyon, the winds ever growing colder and the sun sinking from sight, Mrs. McIlrath refused to be comforted and grew weaker and more erratic in her movements. The effect of the high, rare air, the terrible mental strain and the enormous muscular exertion were the greatest test to which I have ever been put. It was necessary that we keep moving, and with such an object in view I whistled and sang, and finally scolded Mrs. McIlrath in language most harsh. It would have been cowardly to have been unkind toward my wife under such circumstances had not the occasion demanded, and the cross words intended to assist in working out our salvation. There was no time or thought to be wasted, and I used every means to urge her onward. Cruel as it may seem to those who do not know the dire result of falling exhausted in the snow, I looked about for something with which to flog my wife did she refuse to proceed, and had decided to use the heavy leather belt which encircled my waist. I shouted to her constantly to keep her toes moving, and to bend her feet as much as possible. For two hours we floundered on, and I was then forced to pile the machines together in a conspicuous place, which could afterward be found, and leaving them, push on unhampered. Up the canyon we plunged, every step an agony and every hundred yards a mile to our tortured minds. I kept my wife in front, dreading lest she should fall and succumb to the dreadful fatigue which ends in death. So absorbed was I in her safety, that I lost track of the telegraph poles, and was suddenly confronted with the realization that we were lost on the very peak of the mountain. My medicine case contained no liquors or stimulants, and we had not tasted food since 7 o'clock in the morning. There were but two chances for our lives. Our interpreter had gone on ahead with his horse and our luggage. He might send out a rescue party for us. The second chance was a more forlorn one. At 9 o'clock each evening the telegraph line between Bushire and Teheran is tested, and if communication is broken, the officer on each side of the break will send out men for an immediate repair. It lacked a full half hour to the testing time, and I determined to wait fifteen minutes and then if help did not arrive, climb the pole, shoot the insulators from the arms, and break each and every wire. The fifteen minutes passed and I was in search of the telegraph pole, with but ten minutes to interrupt the "test." In the gloom I perceived a number of dark figures, which I took to be wolves. As they came nearer they developed into men and horses, and from the cheery manner in which the riders greeted us we knew that the interpreter had not forgotten us, and had sent to our rescue. It would have been Mrs. McIlrath's duty as a woman to have fainted when the horses arrived, but she did nothing of the kind. She thanked God, as I did, and when placed in the saddle, wrapped herself in blankets and ordered the men to "hurry up" just as if we had been waiting for them by appointment. Slowly we descended the tortuous path, the intelligent horses leading the men until the right road was regained. I called to my wife to ascertain her condition, and she assured me that her feet no longer pained, but were "warm and comfortable." Two hours later, when we halted at the Chapar Khaneh, my wife cried to me piteously that she could not walk, and I knew only too well why her feet had been "warm and comfortable." We carried her into the dim-lighted post-room and cut the leggings from her limbs. The shoes were ice-covered and stiff. The blackness of her stockings ended at the ankles, and the foot casings were white frost. My instructions to the men were to rub her feet with snow, until each toe showed its natural ruddy glow to a candle light held behind it. For two hours they kept up a vigorous massage, and then when the power of motion was restored and swelling was noticeable, I was content to leave the rest to nature. Two men on horses went up the slopes of the mountain next day and brought in the cycles. The cyclometer was frozen so tightly that at the first revolution of the wheel it had broken off. Otherwise the machines were unharmed. It was absolutely necessary that we reach a point which would afford communication with the nearest surgeon, and on Friday we wrapped Mrs. McIlrath in blankets and placed her upon a horse, our destination being Kashan, a telegraph station. We were in the saddle ten hours before we sighted the city. The telegraph operator was an Armenian, drunk as he could be, and after questioning me as to my ability to speak and understand English, he permitted us to occupy the waiting room. I sent in haste a message to Dr. Wishard, superintendent of the American Presbyterian Mission at Teheran, informing him that my wife's feet were frozen. He replied that he would do all he could, coming himself or sending medicines as we pleased. CHAPTER XXIII. THE MOST MISERABLE OF ALL CHRISTMAS DAYS--RACE BETWEEN WHEEL AND SULTAN'S CAVALRYMEN--DESERTED BY A COWARDLY DRIVER. We lingered three days at Kashan before the preliminary treatment of my wife's feet permitted us to proceed. Here we spent our Christmas Day, dejected and home-sick. In vain we searched the bazaars for a turkey, goose, or duck for our Christmas dinner, but as if to recompense us for our earnest efforts to celebrate, a ragged coolie brought us a rabbit, and with turnips in lieu of sweet potatoes, we endeavored to deceive ourselves into believing we had enjoyed a good old-fashioned Southern feast. We left Kashan in the native "khagvar," two shallow boxes placed on a mule's back, the boxes laden equally to balance the load on either side. We placed Mrs. McIlrath on one side, her bicycle, luggage case and bedding in the opposite box, and on Tuesday, Dec. 28, resumed our journey. The first night of our stop on the way to Koom the owner of the khadgavar refused to continue on the journey without an increase to the contract price for the rent of his mule. Mrs. McIlrath's condition would not admit of a delay, and I was compelled to resort to the extreme measures used in China in such a case, and with success, for within ten minutes we were again on the road. While stopping at a tea house for refreshments on Dec. 29, our little caravan was overtaken by three of the Sultan's cavalrymen. They were inclined to twit us on the effort required to propel bicycles, and I challenged them for a race. Although Mrs. McIlrath required my attention hourly, she entertains such contempt for those who despise cycling, that it was at her request that I left her behind to engage in the test of speed with the horse-soldiers. I left the three troopers easily in the rear after their steeds had begun to show signs of fatigue, never for an instant slackening my pace until I flashed into a village eight miles from the starting point. I had regained my composure, smoked several cigarettes and idled away half an hour ere the horsemen appeared on the brow of a hill one mile away. Though the riders were breathless, their horses reeking with foam, when they halted in front of the tea house, not a look or a word betrayed their chagrin, and they proffered tea and cigarettes with good grace but with great dignity. Not satisfied with the one defeat, the captain demanded that I overtake him ere the next stage. They had a good half hour's start of me, because I waited for Mrs. McIlrath's arrival. As soon as she assured me of her comfortable condition, I sprang into saddle, and settled down into a gait which carried me nine miles into an open valley, just in time to sight the three horsemen and the city of Pasangoon in the distance. The horsemen must have sighted me as soon as I did them, for when I next looked up the trio had separated and were strung along the road in Indian file. I strained every muscle to the utmost, but the up-grade, the load of camera, revolvers, luggage case and monkey had been too great, and I only succeeded in overtaking one of the trio. The other two had not dismounted when I reached the Chapar Khaneh, and were loud in their greeting and praise of the "asp-i-chubee," as they called the bicycle. We were up before daybreak Dec. 30, dismayed to find the ground covered with snow, and pushed into Koom by nightfall, just in time to escape the most violent end of a storm, which delayed us for two days. Proceeding by caravan was out of the question, and as Koom afforded nothing in the medicine line, we were obliged to make the remaining stage by "diligence" to Teheran. Though the trip can be accomplished with ease in less than twenty-four hours, the exorbitant sum of $26 was demanded for fare. The conveyance which bears such a high-sounding name is simply a prairie schooner, hauled by four horses ranged abreast. It is a "terror" as a conveyance, the jolts and jars sending one high into the air, making conversation impossible, while the rattle of the crazy vehicle is like that of volleys of musketry. When we had accomplished about six miles the driver deliberately guided the horses into a deep snow-drift, informed us that progress was impossible, and threats, argument and persuasion would not induce him to proceed. Finding he would not yield, we became equally stubborn, and would not allow him to return, as he proposed, until the next day, when he predicted the passage would be more probable. Unfortunately Mrs. McIlrath and I were weary, and while we slept the cowardly driver cut the horses and quietly decamped. How long we should have remained in this predicament is difficult to conjecture, had not a carriage arrived from the north, containing as passengers Mr. J. P. Whiton Stuart, of New York, and his secretary. Mr. Stuart at once volunteered to send for the horses which had abandoned our vehicle, effect a change of driver and animals and thus help us on our way. This was done, but not until the afternoon had so far advanced that only one stage was accomplished in the entire day. We passed a miserable night Jan. 2, 1898, in the stables of the Post House in Hassinabad. Getting an early start we arrived at Kah-rizak, twenty-six miles north, in the afternoon. It was then but a short ride to the mosque and shrine called "Shah Abdullah Azim," where we boarded a steam railway for Teheran, eight miles ahead. We were then in the capital of Persia, snow-bound and unable to proceed, even had weather permitted, on account of Mrs. McIlrath's feet, but thankful, for Teheran afforded hospitals and surgeons, and best of all, American ones. The city of Teheran has been the imperial residence since Shah Aga Mohammed Kahn, founder of the Khajar dynasty, which now reigns, chose to elevate the insignificant village to a place of royal abode, and bestowed upon it the titles, "City of the Shadow of God," and "Footstool of the King of Kings." We visited the magnificent palace of the reigning Shah, Muzaffaru-ud-din, and also made a tour to Dashen Tappi, one of his favorite resorts. In this latter tour our party consisted of Mr. Black, Mr. Morris and myself, three cyclists; two horsemen, Messrs. Warner and DeMunk; and Misses DeMunk and Warner, and Mrs. McIlrath, entrusted to the care of a Cossack, who drove a pair of mules attached to a heavy Russian carriage. Owing to the condition of Mrs. McIlrath's extremities we were unable to accept many invitations, but despite the fact, we left Teheran greatly indebted to the members of the European Colony there. When we departed on Feb. 25, it was by the carriage, as cycling to Resht was entirely out of the question, the roads being deep with snow and the passes in the mountains ice-bound. There is little to write of the journey in Persia. Scenery was either a vast plain, studded with sagebrush, or the panorama was that of a barren, dull rock which had neither rugged beauty nor picturesque formation. Three days of this monotonous travel brought us to Kasbin, where we were delayed by more wretched weather until March 6. More snow fell directly we took to the road, our path often taking us along the edge of a precipice the entire slope of which, above and below us, was glaring ice. A slip or a false step meant certain death, and each instant that an iron-shod hoof grated and crushed, we expected to hear a wild shriek and the crash of a fatal fall. At one point on the journey we passed a party of laborers at work rescuing from the bottom of the gorge a horse and rider, both stiff in death. This was but one of the many horrors on the road to Resht, which we reached on March 13. The city affords two hotels, both conducted by Frenchmen, and as we inquired for the best, we were directed to one designated as the Hotel Europe. I would recommend any reader contemplating a trip to Resht to apply for lodgings at the other hotel. Our knowledge of the French language was limited, but though we had absorbed sufficient to enable us to eat heartily and sleep soundly in French, we felt certain of success at the Europe Hotel. The avaricious design of the frowsy proprietor foiled us, however, and as his rates were $8 a day, we made our stay in the city as short as possible. CHAPTER XXIV. CYCLISTS LAND IN RUSSIA--TIFLIS, "THE PARIS OF THE CAUCASUS"--IN SIGHT OF MOUNT ARARAT--SUICIDE OF THE PET MONKEY. We left Resht Monday, March 21, on board the nondescript steamer "B." There were but two cabins afforded by the steamer, and to one of these Capt. Ahrninckie assigned the Inter Ocean tourists. The run to Baku is less than the Chicago-Milwaukee or Cleveland-Detroit runs, but owing to delays we did not reach Baku until Thursday, March 24. We formed a number of friends in the city, dinners, teas and drives being of daily occurrence. We also attended the opera, but as great as was our diversion, we pined for the days that we should again be in the saddle, with our feet upon the pedal. Our Easter Sunday of 1898 we spent in Tiflis, the quaintest of all Russian cities. Tiflis is called the "Paris of the Caucasus," but the real significance of the name is "Hot Springs." Hot Springs there are at Tiflis, not of valuable mineral nature, but most grateful to the weary traveler who visits the bath-houses, and after a thorough steaming is kneaded into supple activity by Persian attendants. Here, of all the cities on earth, I do not know of any one which will afford the visitor more varied and interesting street scenes. New Orleans, when in the regalia of its annual Mardi-Gras, is not more picturesque. It is not only the fanciful appearance of the street, but the unique procession of pedestrians, men of all nations, that makes Tiflis and its streets appear like the dancing room of a bal masque. The Russian and the natives of the Caucasus are more hospitable than any people we ever met. Officials of the city heaped upon us courtesies and seemed to enter into a contest with each other in paying us attention. The last few days of our stay in Tiflis were unusually busy. The ruined tires of Mrs. McIlrath's bicycle and the badly damaged front tire of my own had to be replaced by new ones, and the best we could make out was to purchase inner tubes and alter our old tires to suit the available article. We left Tiflis on April 14, many friends being present to see us off. We were all happy, even including Rodney, the monkey, to be again awheel. I should mention that it was not until after our sojourn in Tiflis that Mrs. McIlrath was able, for the first time since her horrible night in the mountains of Persia, to put her feet again to the pedals of her machine. Lost twice on the road, and with many an inconvenience and delay, an account of which would be but to go over in part our misfortunes in other climes, we arrived during the latter part of April at Ahkty, 60 miles from Mount Ararat, the most famed mountain in the world's history, the resting place of the ark in which Noah preserved the family, human animal, reptile and winged. The day after our arrival in Ahkty was a fete day in Russia, the birthday of the Grand Duke. The town was rich in color with the red, blue and white flags, the shops were closed and bands played in the park. Troops in dress uniform swarmed the streets; women and children in holiday clothes promenaded through the groves of trees 'neath the window of our hotel; and above all, shown in glittering, lofty beauty Mount Ararat, immaculate and cold as if, since her duty done in receiving the ship of God, she had locked herself in frigid mail against the frivolous people beneath. An oil-laden tramp steamer, after three days of wallowing along the shores of Asia Minor, placed us in Constantinople on June 9. We had been directed to several hotels in the city, but as our informants had confessed that all were uniformly piratical in their practices, we selected one directly opposite the American Consulate. Galatea, the section of the city in which we landed, is the water front and wholesale commercial portion of the town, and as we threaded our way through the crowded street, following closely the coolies who carried our luggage, we had excellent opportunity of witnessing the sights of the most interesting quarter of the great city. To those who have not visited the interiors of China, India, Burmah and Persia, Constantinople may appear truly Oriental, but to the Inter Ocean cyclists the city presented anything but a resemblance to manners and customs Eastern. We spent seven days in diligent search for curious sights, and of them all we decided that the most attractive features were the Salaamlik, or public reception at prayer by the Sultan; "the dogs of Stamboul" and Constantinople, the fires and fire department, and the museum and the tomb of Alexander. The religious day of Mussulmans is Friday, and we were present when Abdul Hamid, the Sultan, wended his way to the mosque to pray. The populists turned out to greet him, and soldiers flashed their way through the streets; it was a gala day in Constantinople. We saw the face of the Sultan squarely, but it did not please us. If it were possible for human face to resemble a hawk, the Sultan of Turkey certainly bore that resemblance to the cruel bird. The eyes were glittering, the brows big and slanting, the nose hooked, and the lips thin and compressed. The face was not one to be forgotten. Features do not always bespeak the character of a man, but, after looking into the eyes of the Sultan, one could readily understand how such a man could order the extermination of the opposing sect of a religious people, and calmly read the report of his subordinates who informed him that 3,500 of his Armenian subjects had been slain in the streets of Constantinople and Stamboul in less than thirty-six hours. Fires are a serious event in Constantinople, much more so than my American brethren, in whose country conflagrations are daily affairs, can well imagine. The city, with its sea breeze, the hills and valleys as a flue, and with houses of wood, and streets so narrow that flames overreach, a fire, with ordinary start, has an advantage which only exhaustion and skill will overcome. As we saw for ourselves, "exhaustion" is the only method of the Constantinople firemen. There is so much ceremony about going to a fire that the chief and his men are well nigh put out by fatigue before the blaze is extinguished. When I say extinguished, I mean before the fire burns itself out. It is prevented only from being a conflagration by the fact that those members of the department not laid out for want of breath, and assisted by zealous citizens, grab long poles and push and pull down the adjacent buildings. "The dogs of Stamboul" are numbered by the thousands. They are quiet and well behaved, do not bark at wagons and pedestrians, and sleep on the sidewalk, in the gutter and in the middle of the street. They are the scavengers of the city, and woe to the man who abuses them. Sleeping by day, they wake into activity as night advances and the shops close. Meat markets, restaurants, bakeries, private residences and hotels throw the leavings from counter and table into the gutters, and the dogs "do the rest." I must record, while in Constantinople, the untimely death of Rodney, the monkey. The following quotation appeared in the Servet of Constantinople, and is a fair example, at the same time, of a Turkish newspaper joke: "Suicide at the Maison Tokatlian.--Effendi McIlrath, an American journalist, who is resting at the Maison Tokatlian, is completing a remarkable journey through the interior of Asia and Europe, using bicycles to transport himself and wife. The sights of Constantinople have proven so attractive that the gentleman has had little time to devote to a pet monkey, which has been his companion for several thousand miles. After sunset of the past day the monkey was left alone in the gentleman's room, and upon returning from dinner the master found the animal hanging by his neck from the window sash. As no papers were left and no warning given, jealousy is ascribed as the cause, but the police will investigate." I do not know that jealousy was the cause of the little fellow's self-inflicted end, but I am inclined to believe that the desire to reach some strawberries which lay upon the table near him, the twisting of the strap on his neck, and the consequent choking, had more to do with the ending of Rodney's erratic career. We departed for Constantza, Roumania, Saturday, June 18, on one of the coasting steamers carrying mail and passengers to the Oriental express, bound for Paris via Buda-Pesth and Vienna. I would not attempt to fix the date when Roumania was populated, but during the ages when Romans required visitors to do as Romans did, the toga-clad nation utilized Roumania as a sort of ancient Australia, a dumping-ground for incorrigible criminals. Some of the hotel and restaurant keepers in Roumania at the present day should be able to trace their ancestry without trouble. The traits of the pioneers are still exhibited. Constantza is pretty; it is one of those white, clean little places which only exist on the sea fronts where coal dust, soot and factories and black dust is unknown. It is called the "Brighton of Roumania," but since the water off Long Island is just as salt, and the hotel prices almost as exorbitant, the name might be improved on. We selected the Hotel Union in Bucharest as our stopping place, but scarcely had we entered the corridors one evening than a crowd hemmed us in and began the usual catechism in the three popular languages, French, German and Roumanian. Though I managed to slip Mrs. McIlrath through the crowd and up to her chamber, I was unable to leave the throng until two hours later. The next day we were visited by the various members of the "Clubul Ciclistilar Bucharest," which means Bucharest's Cycling Club, and, after luncheon with some of the English-speaking members, we were made honorary members of the organization. Principally Germans, the club is a jolly set. They were our guides, companions and entertainers during our sojourn in the city. They sent flowers to Mrs. McIlrath, dined us, invited us to their meetings, and presented us with souvenirs of the occasion. We fared well in the city, and our ride over the miserable roads was the chief topic in cycling circles. It is inconceivable to me why a country so intensely interesting as Roumania, a city so wickedly fascinating and beautiful as Bucharest, should be so little frequented by travelers. Paris, with all its world-wide reputation as a city of gold-plated vice, cannot compare with the more obscure Bucharest. Lovers of beautiful architecture will find in the palaces, museum and academy all that they desire; admirers of glittering uniforms and lovely women will be able to feast their eyes each evening, when all the capital turns out in dress parade on the beautiful boulevarde; artists will find quaint characters, costumes, landscapes and romantic homes, and the novelist of Zolaism will be able to weave plots of realism that will horrify the morals and titillate the perverted palate of the sensation-loving gourmand. As a kingdom, Roumania enjoys liberties which are not to be equaled in any republic extant. The press is free to the extent that monarch and private character, private history and personal characteristics are not exempt from type. Were American editors to write as do their Roumanian brothers, the vocation would be one excluded from the lists of acceptable risks of life insurance companies. Rains delayed our departure from Bucharest until Sunday, July 26. We were escorted on our start from the city, at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, by Messrs. Furth and Jensen, two of the most hardy road riders of the Bucharest Cycling Club, and we whirled off thirty-one kilometers ere we entered Ploesti, the half-way stop. CHAPTER XXV. ROUMANIA A PARADISE FOR CYCLISTS--DELIGHTFUL RIDING INTO AUSTRO-HUNGARY--VIENNA ACCORDS A SPLENDID RECEPTION TO THE TOURISTS A curious and confusing method of road measurement exists in Roumania, by which many cyclists are led to believe distances are far less than is really the case. If the official distance from village A to E is given as 100 kilometers, that sum does not include the distance inside the boundaries of villages B, C and D. Thus a day's run through a dozen straggling settlements involves riding a total of 80 kilometers more than maps and road posts indicate. We found this difficulty to exist on our first day's run from Bucharest. When we reached Siniai the total mileage indicated was 82, yet we had six kilometers to travel ere we halted at the hotel in the center of the town. Siniai is not a city of trade and industry. It is a mountain summer resort, made popular twelve years ago by an eccentric Roumanian prince, and perpetuated by Carol I., King of Roumania, who selected the enchanting hills as the royal summer palace. The palace is called Pelesu Castle, and, as the English-speaking proprietor of our hotel told us that visitors were freely admitted, we pressed him into service as guide, and made a visit to the abode of royalty. We discovered His Majesty on a terrace in front of the castle, playing with two chubby children. I was fearful lest he see us and regard our presence as an intrusion, but assured by our guide that the monarch was not in the least sensitive about strangers, we passed toward the distinguished group. As we neared the king he stood erect, and looked at us intently, and as he raised one finger to salute by touching the side of his military cap, he spoke clearly, "Guten morgen." The little prince straightened up, brought his boot heels together so that the bare calves of his fat legs touched, and, imitating the sovereign, he piped, "Guten morgen." The king had mistaken us for Germans, his own nationality. When we departed from Siniai we left behind us one of the most romantic and beautiful of cities. Our route was slightly up-hill for the first twenty-five kilometers, but with excellent roads, cool air and frequent shade we did not feel any discomfort and rode rapidly. It is tantalizing to other cyclists and tourists for one to write of elegant roadways, delightful scenery and charming little roadside inns, when the location is so unavailable as Eastern Europe is to American cyclists, but it would be an act of injustice to Roumania were we not to admit it the most beautiful of countries, and the northern section the most perfect of cycling routes. Where the valleys narrow into a pass, the road, cut into the side of rocks, is shaded by overhanging cliffs, and at short intervals are situated moss-covered wooden troughs, through which trickle ice water, clear as only snow water can be when percolated through porous rock. We were rudely disturbed in our survey of entrancing scenery one bright morning by a soldier standing guard at a small house by the roadside. We were at Predeal, the border line between Roumania and Austria-Hungary. Mr. Boxshall, the American vice-consul at Bucharest, had given us letters from the Austro-Hungarian consul at Bucharest, and this, with my muchly-indorsed passport, made an important looking package document which I had handed two officers in the examining room of the outpost. After a careful perusal of the papers, they respectfully declined to inspect our luggage and permitted us to pass into Hungary territory. Tomasu, an Austro-Hungarian customs house, was five miles north, and as we did not expect further formality until reaching that point, we set out at a lively pace as soon as our papers had been returned. We had proceeded scarcely a hundred yards ere a trooper in uniform stepped from a sentry-box and commanded us to halt. As he possessed a rifle and a business-like expression, we checked up immediately. An officer now appeared and demanded receipts for sixty florins, which should have been paid on our bicycles as revenue bond. The sixty florins, he explained, would be returned to us on our departure from Austrian territory, but as our entire finances did not greatly exceed that sum, we endeavored to appease the demands of the revenue department by a display of papers. The official after questioning us regarding our trip, became gracious, and returning our papers, motioned us to go ahead without further annoyance. Having successfully run the gauntlet on two occasions, the task at Tomasu was comparatively easy--in fact a pleasure--the officials endorsing our papers, inviting us to luncheon and providing us with maps. Leaving Tomasu, the grade was in our favor, and late in the afternoon we halted at the village inn at Persani. Stepping inside to quench our thirst, two men who had taken an unusual interest in our bicycles and selves drew near to listen to our conversation. One chap had an enormous revolver, and as the other stood with feet far apart, he thrust his hands under the tails of his smock. There was something familiar in the attitude, and I could not but exclaim to my wife, "I will bet a hundred dollars that chap has hip pockets in his trousers, and if he has, he has been in America." The word America settled all doubt. The pair advanced and declared themselves. In typical "contract labor" dialect. I was addressed as "Boss," informed that America was "bully," and that they had "built" a railroad at Salem, Ohio, and had brought home hip pockets filled with big guns and American money. They insisted upon buying us beer in true American style, and as they departed with a low bow, they looked at the common herd of untraveled with haughty air. We endured slight showers during the afternoon of June 29, which proved our undoing for a century run. After a hard fall on one of the slippery hills, I limped into Peterfalva, 85 miles away from our starting point at midnight, the front fork of my wheel badly bent, and the grips broken from the handle-bars. A half-drunken blacksmith, whom I found in the village the next morning, made an aggravating botch of the repair, but it lasted to Muhlenbach, eighteen miles distant, where a cyclist kindly escorted me to a repair shop. The foreman of the shop had read of the Inter Ocean tourists, and promised us a permanent repair. He kept his word, and we again started on our journey at 6 in the evening. Twenty miles out of Muhlenbach a storm broke upon us and for two hours no cyclists ever had such hard riding, unless, of course, it be up the snow-clad mountains of Persia. We eventually found a wine house on the roadside, to which we were admitted, but informed that we could not be permitted to pass the night there. We flatly refused to go, and when the fat wife of the proprietor realized that we meant just what we said, she brought in straw and arranged a bed for us, where we slept until daylight. At Broos, where we stopped for breakfast, a jolly young fellow introduced himself to us as Erlich Janos, captain of the local wheel club, a pilot of Thomas Stevens, American World's cyclist of '85, and an admirer of the Inter Ocean tourists. Erlich Janos, or, as we should call him, John Erlich, had maps of a territory through which we would travel, and he asked permission to accompany us on part of the run. We were delighted to have him, and our admiration for him was doubled when he appeared in modern wheeling costume in the seat of one of the latest made machines. We covered thirty miles before halting for luncheon, and the good-natured cyclist continued with us as far as a fork in the road ten miles from Dobra. July 4 was spent on a lovely stretch of road, whirling toward Buda-Pesth. Heavy rains made the road almost impassable on July 5, but we foolishly attempted to press on and reach Kecskemet by 10 o'clock that night. When about eighteen miles from our destination, I was blinded by a flash of lightning, and the next moment pitched over a steep embankment. My damaged front fork was once more broken, and my leg seriously wrenched. The situation was anything but pleasant, and how we ever reached Kecskemet carrying the broken wheel and feeling our way in the darkness, remains this day a source of wonder to ourselves. We arrived in the city just in time to catch the mail train into Buda-Pesth, fifty-one miles north, where our wheels were repaired and our broken journey once more picked up. Though our arrival in the city was unannounced and detracted from by entrance on the conventional railway, the Buda-Pesth cyclists immediately accepted us as wandering members of a vast fraternity. Mr. Emil Philopivich, Mr. Otto Blathy and Mr. Joseph Erlich were active in our behalf, and if we do not know the principal sights of the Hungarian capital, the error is not with them. When we left Buda-Pesth on July 17, with Messrs. Erlich and Philopivich as pace-makers, we had in trail many cyclists journeying from Buda-Pesth to Vienna. Assisted by smooth roads, we were in a fair way of reaching Vienna by night, but a cold rain sent us scurrying into a hotel on the roadside, delaying us until the next morning. We reached the outskirts of Vienna at 10 o'clock in the morning, wheeling into the city through scores of parks, avenues of beautiful buildings, and squares reserved for the erection of some government structure designed to match some magnificent building already rearing its proud dome on the square opposite. Vienna would be a paradise to cyclists if the street pavements and condition of thoroughfares were not a menace to life and limb. There is not a street but that has suffered severe attacks of gas, water and sewage contraction. The result is a maze of holes, ditches, depressions and bumps. There are many places to visit in Vienna and near by, but one of the first runs we made was far out in the suburbs to a cottage occupied by a Mr. Clemens. Few people in the book-reading world know Mr. Clemens, but millions know Mark Twain, and the pair are as closely united as Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde (yet in justice to Mr. Clemens, not so dissimilar in character). Mr. Clemens was situated in a delightful, quiet spot, hard at work, while his daughters were adding to their musical education the desired Viennese polish. I did not ascertain what fountain-pen he used, get a diagram of the house with a cross representing where he sat at work, or even his signature asserting that I had a genuine interview with him, but I know that he was enjoying good health, was vigorous as ever, smoked good cigars, and said we were welcome. We liked Vienna and its people, and we stayed in the city just long enough to enjoy its pleasures and learn only a few of its inconveniences. The Inter Ocean cyclists had decided to depart westward July 27, and the "Neue Wiener Tagblatt," which had announced every movement we had made, did not lose advantage of a final write-up. Early in the morning of the date agreed upon we were aroused by a visitor. He was a cyclist and came to announce that hundreds of people were awaiting us in the Kohlmarkt, and though the hour was 7 o'clock and we were to start at 9, the people would be pleased if we would remain on exhibition during the interval. The idea did not suit us exactly, and communicating the fact to the delegate through closed doors, we again slept the sleep of people who must do two days' work in one. We reached the Kohlmarkt at 9 o'clock, and, as our early informant had stated; a crowd awaited us. It was a Vienna crowd, good-natured and patient, who cheered us as we wheeled into sight, made way for us to pass to the rendezvous, but almost pulled us to pieces in efforts to shake hands with us and attract attention to their hearty "Gleich lich ze reisen." We pulled out into the street at 9:30 o'clock. Our escort and the police held back the crowd long enough to allow a photographer to add two negatives to his collection, and then with a sigh of relief we slipped into our saddles and wheeled slowly through the lane of shouting people. Our escort was a unique one, the riders clad in white flannel, black hose, and lavender silk sweaters. Mr. Charles Carpenter, Miss Marion Carpenter and Mr. Fritz of Pottstown, Pa., also lined up, and with a constantly accumulating line of cyclists we started toward the western limits. Near St. Poiten we had lunch, our companions returned to Vienna, and the Inter Ocean cyclists wheeled on alone. We halted that night sixty-four miles from where we had left our Vienna party at midday. We were again in the realm of gast-houses, plain but substantial meals, odd little chambers, equipped with two bedsteads, one chair, a washstand, and several feather beds. It is pleasant, though, clean, and our only regret at the resumption of our trip was that we had left behind Vienna, a city which cannot be excelled in gayety, life and beauty. Paris may be more wicked, vicious and historical in strife, but there is only one Vienna, and that a peerless city of beauty and wholesome pleasure. 
12334	----	Distributed Proofreaders Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 12334-h.htm or 12334-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/1/2/3/3/12334/12334-h/12334-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/1/2/3/3/12334/12334-h.zip) A BICYCLE OF CATHAY A Novel By Frank R. Stockton Author of "The Great Stone of Sardis," "The Associate Hermits" etc. Illustrated by Orson Lowell 1900 [Illustration: The doctor's daughter] CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER II. A BAD TWIST III. THE DUKE'S DRESSING-GOWN IV. A BIT OF ADVICE V. THE LADY AND THE CAVALIER VI. THE HOLLY SPRIG INN VII. MRS. CHESTER IS TROUBLED VIII. ORSO IX. A RUNAWAY X. THE LARRAMIE FAMILY XI. THE THREE MCKENNAS XII. BACK TO THE HOLLY SPRIG XIII. A MAN WITH A LETTER XIV. MISS EDITH IS DISAPPOINTED XV. MISS WILLOUGHBY XVI. AN ICICLE XVII. A FORECASTER OF HUMAN PROBABILITIES XVIII. REPENTANCE AVAILS NOT XIX. BEAUTY, PURITY, AND PEACE XX. BACK FROM CATHAY ILLUSTRATIONS THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER HALF-TITLE "I PUT ON MY COAT" "THE RAIN WAS COMING DOWN HARD" "ON MY RIGHT A LIGHTED DOORWAY" A FEW THOUGHTS "THE BEAUTY OF HER TEETH" "I KICKED OFF MY EMBROIDERED SLIPPERS" "IT WOULD BE WELL FOR ME TO SWALLOW A CAPSULE" "AS SOON AS I HAD SPOKEN THESE WORDS" "I DISMOUNTED AND APPROACHED THE WALL" "I THOUGHT FOR A FEW MOMENTS" "I WENT OUT FOR A WALK" MRS. CHESTER "SHE BEGAN TO TALK ABOUT WALFORD" "BUT WE WERE NOT ALONE" "TO MY LEFT I SAW A LINE OF TREES" "HE WAS RUNNING AWAY" "HE SOON FELT THAT HE WAS UNDER CONTROL" "A LITTLE ARMY HAD THROWN ITSELF UPON ME" "'WOULD IT BE EASIER TO MANAGE A BOY OR A BEAR?'" "I TAPPED MY LEFT PALM" "THERE WAS A SUDDEN FLUSH UPON HER FACE" "THE SCENE VIVIDLY RECURRED TO MY MIND" DECIPHERING THE DAGO'S LETTER "'I DON'T THINK YOU OUGHT TO TAKE THIS LETTER'" "'DO YOU THINK YOU COULD HIT IT WITH AN APPLE?'" "TALKING ABOUT BABY BEARS" "I HELD THAT PICTURE A GOOD WHILE" "'NO, SIR,' SHE SAID" "CUT LIKE THAT" EUROPA [Illustration] CHAPTER I THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER It was a beautiful summer morning when slowly I wheeled my way along the principal street of the village of Walford. A little valise was strapped in front of my bicycle; my coat, rolled into a small compass, was securely tied under the seat, and I was starting out to spend my vacation. I was the teacher of the village school, which useful institution had been closed for the season the day before, much to the gratification of pedagogue and scholars. This position was not at all the summit of my youthful ambition. In fact, I had been very much disappointed when I found myself obliged to accept it, but when I left college my financial condition made it desirable for me to do something to support myself while engaged in some of the studies preparatory to a professional career. I have never considered myself a sentimental person, but I must admit that I did not feel very happy that morning, and this state of mind was occasioned entirely by the feeling that there was no one who seemed to be in the least sorry that I was going away. My boys were so delighted to give up their studies that they were entirely satisfied to give up their teacher, and I am sure that my vacation would have been a very long one if they had had the ordering of it. My landlady might have been pleased to have me stay, but if I had agreed to pay my board during my absence I do not doubt that my empty room would have occasioned her no pangs of regret. I had friends in the village, but as they knew it was a matter of course that I should go away during the vacation, they seemed to be perfectly reconciled to the fact. As I passed a small house which was the abode of my laundress, my mental depression was increased by the action of her oldest son. This little fellow, probably five years of age, and the condition of whose countenance indicated that his mother's art was seldom exercised upon it, was playing on the sidewalk with his sister, somewhat younger and much dirtier. As I passed the little chap he looked up and in a sharp, clear voice, he cried: "Good-bye! Come back soon!" These words cut into my soul. Was it possible that this little ragamuffin was the only one in that village who was sorry to see me depart and who desired my return? And the acuteness of this cut was not decreased by the remembrance that on several occasions when he had accompanied his mother to my lodging I had given him small coins. I was beginning to move more rapidly along the little path, well worn by many rubber tires, which edged the broad roadway, when I perceived the doctor's daughter standing at the gate of her father's front yard. As I knew her very well, and she happened to be standing there and looking in my direction, I felt that it would be the proper thing for me to stop and speak to her, and so I dismounted and proceeded to roll my bicycle up to the gate. As the doctor's daughter stood looking over the gate, her hands clasped the tops of the two central pickets. "Good-morning," said she. "I suppose, from your carrying baggage, that you are starting off for your vacation. How far do you expect to go on your wheel, and do you travel alone?" "My only plan," I answered, "is to ride over the hills and far away! How far I really do not know; and I shall be alone except for this good companion." And as I said this I patted the handle-bar of my bicycle. "Your wheel does seem to be a sort of a companion," she said; "not so good as a horse, but better than nothing. I should think, travelling all by yourself in this way, you would have quite a friendly feeling for it. Did you ever think of giving it a name?" "Oh yes," said I. "I have named it. I call it a 'Bicycle of Cathay.'" "Is there any sense in such a name?" she asked. "It is like part of a quotation from Tennyson, isn't it? I forget the first of it." "You are right," I said. "'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.' I cannot tell you exactly why, but that seems to suggest a good name for a bicycle." "But your machine has two wheels," said she. "Therefore you ought to say, 'Better one hundred years of Europe than two cycles of Cathay.'" "I bow to custom," said I. "Every one speaks of a bicycle as a wheel, and I shall not introduce the plural into the name of my good steed." "And you don't know where your Cathay is to be?" she asked. I smiled and shook my head. "No," I answered, "but I hope my cycle will carry me safely through it." The doctor's daughter looked past me across the road. "I wish I were a man," said she, "and could go off as I pleased, as you do! It must be delightfully independent." I was about to remark that too much independence is not altogether delightful, but she suddenly spoke: "You carry very little with you for a long journey," and as she said this she grasped the pickets of the gate more tightly. I could see the contraction of the muscles of her white hands. It seemed as if she were restraining something. "Oh, this isn't all my baggage," I replied. "I sent on a large bag to Waterton. I suppose I shall be there in a couple of days, and then I shall forward the bag to some other place." "I do not suppose you have packed up any medicine among your other things?" she asked. "You don't look as if you very often needed medicine." I laughed as I replied that in the course of my life I had taken but little. "But if your cycle starts off rolling early in the morning," she said, "or keeps on late in the evening, you ought to be able to defend yourself against malaria. I do not know what sort of a country Cathay may be, but I should not be a bit surprised if you found it full of mists and morning vapors. Malaria has a fancy for strong people, you know. Just wait here a minute, please," and with that she turned and ran into the house. I had liked the doctor's daughter ever since I had begun to know her, although at first I had found it a little hard to become acquainted with her. She was the treasurer of the literary society of the village, and I was its secretary. We had to work together sometimes, and I found her a very straightforward girl in her accounts and in every other way. In about a minute she returned, carrying a little pasteboard box. "Here are some one-grain quinine capsules," she said. "They have no taste, and I am quite sure that if you get into a low country it would be a good thing for you to take at least one of them every morning. People may have given you all sorts of things for your journey, but I do not believe any one has given you this." And she handed me the box over the top of the gate. I did not say that her practical little present was the only thing that anybody had given me, but I thanked her very heartily, and assured her that I would take one every time I thought I needed it. Then, as it seemed proper to do so, I straightened up my bicycle as if I would mount it. Again her fingers clutched the top of the two palings. "When father comes home," she said, "he will be sorry to find that he had not a chance to bid you good-bye. And, by-the-way," she added, quickly, "you know there will be one more meeting of the society. Did you write out any minutes for the last evening, and would you like me to read them for you?" "Upon my word!" I exclaimed. "I have forgotten all about it. I made some rough notes, but I have written nothing." "Well, it doesn't matter in the least," said she, quickly. "I remember everything that happened, and I will write the minutes and read them for you; that is, if you want me to." I assured her that nothing would please me better, and we talked a little about the minutes, after which I thought I ought not to keep her standing at the gate any longer. So I took leave of her, and we shook hands over the gate. This was the first time I had ever shaken hands with the doctor's daughter, for she was a reserved girl, and hitherto I had merely bowed to her. As I sped away down the street and out into the open country my heart was a good deal lighter than it had been when I began my journey. It was certainly pleasant to leave that village, which had been my home for the greater part of a year, without the feeling that there was no one in it who cared for me, even to the extent of a little box of quinine capsules. CHAPTER II A BAD TWIST It was about the middle of the afternoon that I found myself bowling along a smooth highway, bordered by trees and stretching itself almost upon a level far away into the distance. Had I been a scorcher, here would have been a chance to do a little record-breaking, for I was a powerful and practised wheelman. But I had no desire to be extravagant with my energies, and so contented myself with rolling steadily on at a speed moderate enough to allow me to observe the country I was passing through. There were not many people on the road, but at some distance ahead of me I saw a woman on a wheel. She was not going rapidly, and I was gaining on her. Suddenly, with no reason whatever that I could see, her machine gave a twist, and, although she put out her foot to save herself, she fell to the ground. Instantly I pushed forward to assist her, but before I could reach her she was on her feet. She made a step towards her bicycle, which lay in the middle of the road, and then she stopped and stood still. I saw that she was hurt, but I could not help a sort of inward smile. "It is the old way of the world," I thought. "Would the Fates have made that young woman fall from her bicycle if there had been two men coming along on their wheels?" As I jumped from my machine and approached her she turned her head and looked at me. She was a pale girl, and her face was troubled. When I asked her if she had hurt herself, she spoke to me without the slightest embarrassment or hesitation. "I twisted my foot in some way," she said, "and I do not know what I am going to do. It hurts me to make a step, and I am sure I cannot work my wheel." "Have you far to go?" I asked. "I live about two miles from here," she answered. "I do not think I have sprained my ankle, but it hurts. Perhaps, however, if I rest for a little while I may be able to walk." "I would not try to do that," said I. "Whatever has happened to your foot or ankle, you would certainly make it very much worse by walking such a distance. Perhaps I can ride on and get you a conveyance?" "You would have to go a long way to get one," she answered. "We do not keep a horse and I really--" "Don't trouble yourself in the least," I said. "I can take you to your home without any difficulty whatever. If you will mount your machine I can push you along very easily." "But then you would have to walk yourself," she said, quickly, "and push your wheel too." Of course it would not have been necessary for me to walk, for I could have ridden my bicycle and have pushed her along on her own, but under the circumstances I did not think it wise to risk this. So I accepted her suggestion of walking as if nothing else could be done. "Oh, I do not mind walking a bit," said I. "I am used to it, and as I have been riding for a long time, it would be a relief to me." She stood perfectly still, apparently afraid to move lest she should hurt her foot, but she raised her head and fixed a pair of very large blue eyes upon me. "It is too kind in you to offer to do this! But I do not see what else is to be done. But who is going to hold up my wheel while you help me to get on it?" "Oh, I will attend to all that," said I, and picking up her bicycle, I brought it to her. She made a little step towards it, and then stopped. "You mustn't do that," said I. "I will put you on." And holding her bicycle upright with my left hand, I put my right arm around her and lifted her to the seat. She was such a childlike, sensible young person that I did not think it necessary to ask any permission for this action, nor even to allude to its necessity. "Now you might guide yourself with the handle-bar," I said. "Please steer over to that tree where I have left my machine." I easily pushed her over to the tree, and when I had laid hold of my bicycle with my left hand, we slowly proceeded along the smooth road. "I think you would better take your feet from the pedals," said I, "and put them on the coasters--the motion must hurt you. It is better to have your injured foot raised, anyway, as that will keep the blood from running down into it and giving you more pain." She instantly adopted my suggestion, and presently said, "That is a great deal more pleasant, and I am sure it is better for my foot to keep it still. I do hope I haven't sprained my ankle! It is possible to give a foot a bad twist without spraining it, isn't it?" I assented, and as I did so I thought it would not be difficult to give a bad twist to any part of this slenderly framed young creature. "How did you happen to fall?" I asked--not that I needed to inquire, for my own knowledge of wheelcraft assured me that she had tumbled simply because she did not know how to ride. "I haven't the slightest idea," she answered. "The first thing I knew I was going over, and I wish I had not tried to save myself. It would have been better to go down bodily." As we went on she told me that she had not had much practice, as it had been but a few weeks since she had become the possessor of a wheel, and that this was the first trip she had ever taken by herself. She had always gone in company with some one, but to-day she had thought she was able to take care of herself, like other girls. Finding her so entirely free from conventional embarrassment, I made bold to give her a little advice on the subject of wheeling in general, and she seemed entirely willing to be instructed. In fact, as I went on with my little discourse I began to think that I would much rather teach girls than boys. At first sight the young person under my charge might have been taken for a school-girl, but her conversation would have soon removed that illusion. We had not proceeded more than a mile when suddenly I felt a very gentle tap on the end of my nose, and at the same moment the young lady turned her head towards me and exclaimed: "It's going to rain! I felt a drop!" "I will walk faster," I said, "and no doubt I will get you to your house before the shower is upon us. At any rate, I hope you won't be much wet." "Oh, it doesn't matter about me in the least," she said. "I shall be at home and can put on dry clothes, but you will be soaked through and have to go on. You haven't any coat on!" If I had known there was any probability of rain I should have put on my coat before I started out on this somewhat unusual method of travelling, but there was no help for it now, and all I could do was to hurry on. From walking fast I began to trot. The drops were coming down quite frequently. "Won't that tire you dreadfully?" she said. "Not at all," I replied. "I could run like this for a long distance." [Illustration: "I PUT ON MY COAT"] She looked up at me with a little smile. I think she must have forgotten the pain in her foot. "It must be nice to be strong like that," she said. Now the rain came down faster, and my companion declared that I ought to stop and put on my coat. I agreed to this, and when I came to a suitable tree by the road-side, I carefully leaned her against it and detached my coat from my bicycle. But just as I was about to put it on I glanced at the young girl. She had on a thin shirt-waist, and I could see that the shoulders of it were already wet. I advanced towards her, holding out my coat. "I must lay this over you," I said. "I am afraid now that I shall not get you to your home before it begins to rain hard." She turned to me so suddenly that I made ready to catch her if her unguarded movement should overturn her machine. "You mustn't do that at all!" she said. "It doesn't matter whether I am wet or not. I do not have to travel in wet clothes, and you do. Please put on your coat and let us hurry!" I obeyed her, and away we went again, the rain now coming down hard and fast. For some minutes she did not say anything; but I did not wonder at this, for circumstances were not favorable to conversation. But presently, in spite of the rain and our haste, she spoke: "It must seem dreadfully ungrateful and hard-hearted in me to say to you, after all you have done for me, that you must go on in the rain. Anybody would think that I ought to ask you to come into our house and wait until the storm is over. But, really, I do not see how I can do it." I urged her not for a moment to think of me. I was hardy, and did not mind rain, and when I was mounted upon my wheel the exercise would keep me warm enough until I reached a place of shelter. "I do not like it," she said. "It is cruel and inhuman, and nothing you can say will make it any better. But the fact is that I find myself in a very--Well, I do not know what to say about it. You are the school-teacher at Walford, are you not?" This question surprised me, and I assented quickly, wondering what would come next. "I thought so," she said. "I have seen you on the road on your wheel, and some one told me who you were. And now, since you have been so kind to me, I am going to tell you exactly why I cannot ask you to stop at our house. Everything is all wrong there to-day, and if I don't explain what has happened, you might think that things are worse than they really are, and I wouldn't want anybody to think that." [Illustration: "THE RAIN WAS COMING DOWN HARD"] I listened with great attention, for I saw that she was anxious to free herself of the imputation of being inhospitable, and although the heavy rain and my rapid pace made it sometimes difficult to catch her words, I lost very little of her story. "You see," said she, "my father is very fond of gardening, and he takes great pride in his vegetables, especially the early ones. He has peas this year ahead of everybody else in the neighborhood, and it was only day before yesterday that he took me out to look at them. He has been watching them ever since they first came up out of the ground, and when he showed me the nice big pods and told me they would be ready to pick in a day or two, he looked so proud and happy that you might have thought his peas were little living people. I truly believe that even at prayer-time he could not help thinking how good those peas would taste. "But this morning when he came in from the garden and told mother that he was going to pick our first peas, so as to have them perfectly fresh for dinner, she said that he would better not pick them to-day, because the vegetable man had been along just after breakfast, and he had had such nice green peas that she had bought some, and therefore he had better keep his peas for some other day. "Now, I don't want you to think that mother isn't just as good as gold, for she is. But she doesn't take such interest in garden things as father does, and to her all peas are peas, provided they are good ones. But when father heard what she had done I know that he felt exactly as if he had been stabbed in one of his tenderest places. He did not say one word, and he walked right out of the house, and since that they haven't spoken to each other. It was dreadful to sit at dinner, neither of them saying a word to the other, and only speaking to me. It was all so different from the way things generally are that I can scarcely bear it. "And I went out this afternoon for no other reason than to give them a chance to make it up between them. I thought perhaps they would do it better if they were alone with each other. But of course I do not know what has happened, and things may be worse than they were. I could not take a stranger into the house at such a time--they would not like to be found not speaking to each other--and, besides, I do not know--" Here I interrupted her, and begged her not to give another thought to the subject. I wanted very much to go on, and in every way it was the best thing I could do. As I finished speaking she pointed out a pretty house standing back from the road, and told me that was where she lived. In a very few minutes after that I had run her up to the steps of her piazza and was assisting her to dismount from her wheel. "It is awful!" she said. "This rain is coming down like a cataract!" "You must hurry in-doors," I answered. "Let me help you up the steps." And with this I took hold of her under the arms, and in a second I had set her down in front of the closed front door. I then ran down and brought up her wheel. "Do you think you can manage to walk in?" said I. "Oh yes!" she said. "If I can't do anything else, I can hop. My mother will soon have me all right. She knows all about such things." She looked at me with an anxious expression, and then said, "How do you think it would do for you to wait on the piazza until the rain is over?" "Good-bye," I said, with a laugh, and bounding down to the front gate, where I had left my bicycle, I mounted and rode away. The rain came down harder and harder. The road was full of little running streams, and liquid mud flew from under my whirling wheels. It was not late in the afternoon, but it was actually getting dark, and I seemed to be the only living creature out in this tremendous storm. I looked from side to side for some place into which I could run for shelter, but here the road ran between broad open fields. My coat had ceased to protect me, and I could feel the water upon my skin. But in spite of my discomforts and violent exertions I found myself under the influence of some very pleasurable emotions, occasioned by the incident of the slender girl. Her childlike frankness was charming to me. There was not another girl in a thousand who would have told me that story of the peas. I felt glad that she had known who I was when she was talking to me, and that her simple confidences had been given to me personally, and not to an entire stranger who had happened along. I wondered if she resembled her father or her mother, and I had no doubt that to possess such a daughter they must both be excellent people. CHAPTER III THE DUKE'S DRESSING-GOWN Thinking thus, I almost forgot the storm, but coming to a slight descent where the road was very smooth I became conscious that my wheel was inclined to slip, and if I were not careful I might come to grief. But no sooner had I reached the bottom of the declivity than I beheld on my right a lighted doorway. Without the slightest hesitation I turned through the wide gateway, the posts of which I could scarcely see, and stopped in front of a small house by the side of a driveway. Waiting for no permission, I carried my bicycle into a little covered porch. I then approached the door, for I was now seeking not only shelter but an opportunity to dry myself. I do not believe a sponge could have been more thoroughly soaked than I was. At the very entrance I was met by a little man in short jacket and top-boots. "I heard your step," said he. "Been caught in the rain, eh? Well, this is a storm! And now what're we going to do? You must come in. But you're in a pretty mess, I must say! Hi, Maria!" At these words a large, fresh-looking woman came into the little hall. "Maria," said the man, "here's a gentleman that's pretty nigh drowned, and he's dripping puddles big enough to swim in." The woman smiled. "Really, sir," said she, "you've had a hard time. Wheeling, I suppose. It's an awful time to be out. It's so dark that I lighted a lamp to make things look a little cheery. But you must come in until the rain is over, and try and dry yourself." "But how about the hall, Maria?" said the man. "There'll be a dreadful slop!" "Oh, I'll make that all right," she said. She disappeared, and quickly returned with a couple of rugs, which she laid, wrong side up, on the polished floor of the hallway. "Now you can step on those, sir, and come into the kitchen. There's a fire there." I thanked her, and presently found myself before a large stove, on which it was evident, from the odors, that supper was preparing. In a certain way the heat was grateful, but in less than a minute I was bound to admit to myself that I felt as if I were enveloped in a vast warm poultice. The little man and his wife--if wife she were, for she looked big enough to be his mother, and young enough to be his daughter--stood talking in the hall, and I could hear every word they said. [Illustration: "ON MY RIGHT A LIGHTED DOORWAY"] "It's of no use for him to try to dry himself," she said, "for he's wet to the bone. He must change his clothes, and hang those he's got on before the fire." "Change his clothes!" exclaimed the man. "How ever can he do that? I've nothing that'll fit him, and of course he has brought nothing along with him." "Never you mind," said she. "Something's got to be got. Take him into the little chamber. And don't consider the floor; that can be wiped up." She came into the kitchen and spoke to me. "You must come and change your clothes," she said. "You'll catch your death of cold, else. You're the school-master from Walford, I think, sir? Indeed, I'm sure of it, for I've seen you on your wheel." Smiling at the idea that through the instrumentality of my bicycle I had been making myself known to the people of the surrounding country, I followed the man into a small bed-chamber on the ground-floor. "Now," said he, "the quicker you get off your wet clothes and give yourself a good rub-down the better it will be for you. And I'll go and see what I can do in the way of something for you to put on." I asked him to bring me the bag from my bicycle, and after doing so he left me. Very soon I heard talking outside of my door, and as both my entertainers had clear, high voices, I could hear distinctly what they said. "Go get him the corduroys," said she. "He's a well-made man, but he's no bigger than your father was." "The corduroys?" he said, somewhat doubtfully, I thought. "Yes," she replied. "Go get them! I should be glad to have them put to some use." "But what for a coat?" said he. "There's nothing in the house that he could get on." "That's true," said she. "But he must have something. You can get him the Duke's dressing-gown." "What!" exclaimed the man. "You don't mean--" "Yes, I do mean," said she. "It's big enough for anybody, and it'll keep him from ketching cold. Go fetch it!" In a short time there was a knock at my door, and the little man handed me in a pair of yellow corduroy trousers and a large and gaudy dressing-gown. "There!" said he. "They'll keep you warm until your own clothes dry." With a change of linen from my bag, which had fortunately kept its contents dry, the yellow trousers, and a wonderful dressing-gown, made of some blue stuff embroidered with gold and lined throughout with crimson satin, I made a truly gorgeous appearance. But it struck me that it would be rather startling to a beholder were I to appear barefooted in such raiment, for my shoes and stockings were as wet as the rest of my clothes. I had not finished dressing before the little man knocked again, this time with some gray socks and a pair of embroidered slippers. "These'll fit you, I think," said he, "for I'll lay you ten shillings that I'm as big in the feet as you are." I would have been glad to gaze at myself in a full-length mirror, but there was no opportunity for the indulgence of such vanity; and before leaving the room I sat down for a moment to give a few thoughts to the situation. My mind first reverted to the soaked condition of my garments and the difficulty of getting them dry enough for me to put them on and continue my journey. Then I found that I had dropped the subject and was thinking of the slender girl, wondering if she had really hurt herself very much, congratulating myself that I had been fortunate enough to be on hand to help her in her need, and considering what a plight she would have been in if she had been caught in that terrible rain and utterly unable to get herself to shelter. Suddenly I stopped short in my thinking, and going to my bag I took from it the little box of quinine capsules which had been given to me by the doctor's daughter, and promptly proceeded to swallow one of them. "It may be of service to me," I said to myself. When I made my appearance in the hallway I met the little man, who immediately burst into a roar of laughter. "Lord, sir!" said he. "You must excuse me, but you look like a king on a lark! Walk into the parlor, sir, and sit down and make yourself comfortable. She's hurrying up supper to give you something warm after your wettin'. Would you like a little nip of whiskey, sir, to keep the damp out?" [Illustration: A Few Thoughts] I declined the whiskey, and seated myself in the neatly-furnished parlor. It was wonderful, I thought, to fall into such a hospitable household, and then I began to ask myself whether or not it would be the proper thing to offer to pay for my entertainment. I thought I had quite properly divined the position in life of the little man. This small house, so handsomely built and neatly kept, must be a lodge upon some fine country place, and the man was probably the head gardener, or something of the kind. It was not long before my hostess came into the room, but she did not laugh at my appearance. She was a handsome woman, erect and broad, with a free and powerful step. She smiled as she spoke to me. "You may think that that's an over-handsome gown for such as us to be owning. It was given to my man by the Duke of Radford. That was before we were married, and he was an undergardener then. The Duchess wouldn't let the Duke wear it, because it was so gay, and there wasn't none of the servants that would care to take it, for fear they'd be laughed at, until they offered it to John. And John, you must know, he'd take anything! But I came in to tell you supper's ready; and, if you like, I'll bring you something in here, and you can eat it on that table, or--" Here I interrupted my good hostess, and declared that, while I should be glad to have some supper, I would not eat any unless I might sit down with her husband and herself; and, as this proposition seemed to please her, the three of us were soon seated around a very tastefully furnished table in a dining-room looking out upon a pretty lawn. The rain had now almost ceased, and from the window I could see beautiful stretches of grass, interspersed with ornamental trees and flower-beds. The meal was plain but abundant, with an appetizing smell pervading it which is seldom noticed in connection with the tables of the rich. When we had finished supper I found that the skies had nearly cleared and that it was growing quite light again. I asked permission to step out upon a little piazza which opened from the dining-room and smoke a pipe, and while I was sitting there enjoying the beauty of the sunlight on the sparkling grass and trees I again heard the little man and his wife talking to each other. "It can't be done," said he, speaking very positively. "I've orders about that, and there's no getting round them." "It's got to be done!" said she, "and there's an end of it! The clothes won't be dry until morning, and it won't do to put them too near the stove, or they'll shrink so he can't get them on. And he can't go away to hunt up lodgings wearing the Duke's dressing-gown and them yellow breeches!" "Orders is orders," said the man, "and unless I get special leave, it can't be done." "Well, then, go and get special leave," said she, "and don't stand there talking about it!" There was no doubt that my lodging that night was the subject of this conversation, but I had no desire to interfere with the good intentions of my hostess. I must stay somewhere until my clothes were dry, and I should be glad to stop in my present comfortable quarters. So I sat still and smoked, and very soon I heard the big shoes of the little man grating upon the gravel as he walked rapidly away from the house. Now came the good woman out upon the piazza to ask me if I had found my tobacco dry. "Because if it's damp," said she, "my man has some very good 'baccy in his jar." I assured her that my pouch had kept dry; and then, as she seemed inclined to talk, I begged her to sit down if she did not mind the pipe. Down she sat, and steadily she talked. She congratulated herself on her happy thought to light the hall lamp, or I might never have noticed the house in the darkness, and she would have been sorry enough if I had had to keep on the road for another half-hour in that dreadful rain. On she talked in the most cheerful and communicative way, until suddenly she rose with a start. "He's coming himself, sir!" she said, "with Miss Putney." "Who is 'he'?" I asked. "It's the master, sir Mr. Putney, and his daughter. Just stay here where you are, sir, and make yourself comfortable. I'll go and speak to them." Left to myself, I knocked out my pipe and sat wondering what would happen next. A thing happened which surprised me very much. Upon a path which ran in front of the little piazza there appeared two persons--one, an elderly gentleman, with gray side-whiskers and a pale face, attired in clothes with such an appearance of newness that it might well have been supposed this was the first time he had worn them; the other, a young lady, rather small in stature, but extremely pleasant to look upon. She had dark hair and large blue eyes; her complexion was rich, and her dress of light silk was wonderfully well shaped. [Illustration: "The beauty of her teeth"] All this I saw at a glance, and immediately afterwards I also perceived that she had most beautiful teeth; for when she beheld me as I rose from my chair and stood in my elevated position before her she could not restrain a laugh; but for this apparent impoliteness I did not blame her at all. But not so much as a smile came upon the countenance of the elderly gentleman. He, too, was small, but he had a deep voice. "Good-evening, sir," said he. "I am told that you are the school-master at Walford, and that you were overtaken by the storm." I assured him that these were the facts, and stood waiting to hear what he would say next. "It was very proper indeed, sir, that my gardener and his wife should take you under the protection of this roof, but as I hear that it is proposed that you should spend the night here, I have come down to speak about it. I will tell you at once, sir, that I have given my man the most positive orders that he is not to allow any one to spend a night in this house. It is so conveniently near to the road that I should not know what sort of persons were being entertained here if I allowed him any such privilege." As he spoke the young lady stood silently gazing at me. There was a remnant of a smile upon her face, but I could also see that she was a little annoyed. I was about to make some sort of an independent answer to the gentleman's remarks, but he anticipated me. "I do not want you to think, sir, on account of what I have said, that I intend to drive you off my property at this hour of the evening, and in your inappropriate clothing. I have heard of you, sir, and you occupy a position of trust and, to a certain degree, of honor, in your village. Therefore, while I cannot depart from my rule--for I wish to make no precedent of that kind--I will ask you to spend the night at my house. You need not be annoyed by the peculiarity of your attire. If you desire to avoid observation you can remain here until it grows darker, and then you can walk up to the mansion. I shall have a bed-room prepared for you, and whenever you choose you can occupy it. I have been informed that you have had something to eat, and it is as well, for perhaps your dress would prevent you from accepting an invitation to our evening meal." I still held my brier-wood pipe in my hand, and I felt inclined to hurl it at the dapper head of the consequential little gentleman, but with such a girl standing by it would have been impossible to treat him with any disrespect, and as I looked at him I felt sure that his apparent superciliousness was probably the result of too much money and too little breeding. The young lady said nothing, but she turned and looked steadily at her father. Her countenance was probably in the habit of very promptly expressing the state of her mind, and it now seemed to say to her father, "I hope that what you have said will not make him decline what you offer!" My irritation quickly disappeared. I had now entered into my Cathay, and I must take things as I found them there. As I could not stay where I was, and could not continue my journey, it would be a sensible thing to overlook the man's manner and accept his offer, and I accordingly did so. I think he was pleased more than he cared to express. "Very good, sir!" said he. "As soon as it grows a little darker I shall be glad to have you walk up to my house. As I said before, I am sure you would not care to do so now, as you might provoke remarks even from the servants. Good-evening, sir, until I see you again." During all this time the young lady had not spoken, but as the two disappeared around the corner of the house I heard her voice. She spoke very clearly and distinctly, and she said, "It would have been a great deal more gracious if you had asked him to come at once, without all that----" The rest of her remarks were lost to me. The little man and his wife presently came out on the porch. Her countenance expressed a sort of resignation to thwarted hospitality. "It's the way of the world, sir!" she said. "The ups are always up and the downs are always down! I expect they will be glad to have company at the house, for it must be dreadfully lonely up there--which might be said of this house as well." It soon became dark enough for me to walk through the grounds without hurting the sensibilities of their proprietor, and as I arose to go the good wife of the gardener brought me my cap. "I dried that out for you, sir, for I knew you would want it, and to-morrow morning my man will take your clothes up to the house." I thanked her for her thoughtful kindness, and was about to depart, but the little man was not quite ready for me to go. "If you don't mind, sir," said he, "and would step back there in the light just for one minute, I would like to take another look at you. I don't suppose I'll ever see anybody again wearing the Duke's dressing-gown. By George, sir, you do look real royal!" His wife looked at me admiringly. "Yes, sir," said she, "and I wish it was the fashion for gentlemen to dress something like that every day. But I will say, sir, that if you don't want people to be staring at you, and will just wrap that gown round you so that the lining won't be seen, you won't look so much out of the way." As I walked along the smooth, hard driveway I adopted the suggestion of the gardener's wife; but as I approached the house, and saw that even the broad piazza was lighted by electric lamps, I was seized with the fancy to appear in all my glory, and I allowed my capacious robe to float out on each side of me in crimson brightness. The gentleman stood at the top of the steps. "I have been waiting for you, sir," said he. He looked as if he were about to offer me his hand, but probably considered this an unnecessary ceremony under the circumstances. "Would you like to retire to your room, sir, or would you prefer--prefer sitting out here to enjoy the cool of the evening? Here are chairs and seats, sir, of all variety of comfort. My family and I frequently sit out here in the evenings, but to-night the air is a little damp." I assured the gentleman that the air suited me very well, and that I would prefer not to retire so early; and so, not caring any longer to stand in front of the lighted doorway, I walked to one end of the piazza and took a seat. "We haven't yet--that is to say, we are still at the table," he remarked, as he followed me; "but if there is anything that you would like to have, I should be--" I interrupted him by declaring that I had supped heartily and did not want for anything in the world, and then, with some sort of an inarticulate excuse, he left me. I knew very well that this nervously correct personage had jumped up from his dinner in order that he might meet me at the door and thus prevent my unconventional attire from shocking any of the servants. It was very quiet and pleasant on the piazza, but, although I could hear that a great deal of talking was going on inside, no words came to me. In a short time, however, a man-servant in livery came out upon the piazza and approached me with a tray on which were a cup of coffee and some cigars. I could not refrain from smiling as I saw the man. "The old fellow has been forced to conquer his prejudices," I said to myself, "and to submit to the mortification of allowing me to be seen by his butler!" I think, however, that even had the master been regarding us he would have seen no reason for mortification in the manner of his servant. The man was extremely polite and attentive, suggesting various refreshments, such as wine and biscuits, and I never was treated by a lackey with more respect. Leaning back in a comfortable chair, I sipped my coffee and puffed away at a perfectly delightful Havana cigar. "Cathay is not a bad place," said I, to myself. "Its hospitality is a little queer, but as to gorgeousness, luxury, and----" I was about to add another quality when my mind was diverted by a light step on the piazza, and, turning my head, I beheld the young lady I had seen before. Instantly I rose and laid aside my cigar. "Please do not disturb yourself," she said. "I simply came out to give a little message from my father. Sit down again, and I will take this seat for a moment. My father's health is delicate," she said, "and we do not like him to be out in the night air, especially after a rain. So I came in his stead to tell you that if you would like to come into the house you must do so without the slightest hesitation, because my mother and I do not mind that dressing-gown any more than if it were an ordinary coat. We are very glad to have the opportunity of entertaining you, for we know some people in Walford--not very many, but some--and we have heard you and your school spoken of very highly. So we want you to make yourself perfectly at home, and come in or sit out here, just as your own feelings in regard to extraordinary fine clothes shall prompt you." At this she reassured me as to the beauty of her teeth. "As long as you will sit out here," said I, to myself, "there will be no in-doors for me." She seemed to read my thoughts, and said: "If you will go on with your smoking, I will wait and ask you some things about Walford. I dearly love the smell of a good cigar, and father never smokes. He always keeps them, however, in case of gentlemen visitors." She then went on to talk about some Walford people, and asked me if I knew Mary Talbot. I replied in the affirmative, for Miss Talbot was a member of our literary society, and the young lady informed me that Mary Talbot had a brother in my school--a fact of which I was aware to my sorrow--and it was on account of this brother that she had first happened to see me. "See me!" I exclaimed, with surprise. "Yes," said she. "I drove over to the village one day this spring, and Mary and I were walking past your school-house, and the door was wide open, for it was so warm, and we stopped so that Mary might point out her brother to me; and so, as we were looking in, of course I saw you." "And you recognized me," I said, "when you saw me at the gardener's house?" "We call that the lodge," said she. "Not that I care in the least what name you give it. And while we are on a personal subject, I want to ask you to excuse me for laughing at you when I first saw you in that astounding garb. It was very improper, I know, but the apparition was so sudden I could not help it." I had never met a young lady so thoroughly self-contained as this one. None of the formalities of society had been observed in regard to our acquaintance with each other, but she talked with me with such an easy grace and with such a gentle assurance that there was no need of introduction or presentation; I felt acquainted with her on the spot. I had no doubt that her exceptionally gracious demeanor was due to the fact that nobody else in the house seemed inclined to be gracious, and she felt hospitality demanded that something of the kind should be offered me by some one of the family. We talked together for some minutes longer, and then, apparently hearing something in the house which I did not notice, she rose rather abruptly. "I must go in," she said; "but don't you stay out here a second longer than you want to." She had left me but a very short time when her father came out on the piazza, his coat buttoned up nearly to his chin. "I have been detained, sir," he said, "by a man who came to see me on business. I cannot remain with you out here, for the air affects me; but if you will come in, sir, I shall be glad to have you do so, without regard to your appearance. My wife is not strong and she has retired, and if it pleases you I shall be very glad to have you tell me something of your duties and success in Walford. Or, if you are fatigued, your room is ready for you, and my man will show you to it." I snatched at the relief held out to me. To sit in the company of that condescending prig, to bore him and to be bored by him, was a doleful grievance I did not wish to inflict upon myself, and I eagerly answered that the day had been a long and hard one, and that I would be glad to go to bed. This was an assertion which was doubly false, for I was not in the least tired or sleepy; and just as I had made the statement and was entering the hall I saw that the young lady was standing at the parlor door; but it was too late now for me to change my mind. "Brownster," said Mr. Putney to his butler, "will you give this gentleman a candle and show him to his room?" Brownster quietly bowed, and stepping to a table in the corner, on which stood some brass bed-room candlesticks, he lighted one of the candles and stood waiting. The gentleman moved towards his daughter, and then he stopped and turned to me. "We have breakfast," he said, "at half-past eight But if that is too late for you," he added, with a certain hesitation, "you can have--" At this moment I distinctly saw his daughter punch him with her elbow, and as I had no desire to make an early start, and wished very much to enjoy a good breakfast in Cathay, I quickly declared that I was in no hurry, and that the family breakfast hour would suit me perfectly. The young lady disappeared into the parlor, and I moved towards the butler; but my host, probably thinking that he had not been quite as attentive to me as his station demanded, or wishing to let me see what a fine house he possessed, stepped up to me and asked me to look into the billiard-room, the door of which I was about to pass. After some remarks of deprecatory ostentation, in which he informed me that in building his house he thought only of comfort and convenience, and nothing of show, he carelessly invited my attention to the drawing-room, the library, the music-room, and the little sitting-room, all of which were furnished with as much stiffness and hardness and inharmonious coloring as money could command. When we had finished the round of these rooms he made me a bow as stiff as one of his white and gold chairs, and I followed the butler up the staircase. The man with the light preceded me into a room on the second floor, and just as I was about to enter after him I saw the young lady come around a corner of the hall with a lighted candle in her hand. [Illustration: "I kicked off my embroidered slippers"] "Good-night," she said, with a smile so charming that I wanted to stop and tell her something about Mary Talbot's brother; but she passed on, and I went into my room. It seemed perfectly ridiculous to me that people should carry around bed-room candles in a house lighted from top to bottom by electricity, but I had no doubt that this was one of the ultra-conventional customs from which the dapper gentleman would not allow his family to depart. I did not believe for a moment that his daughter would conform to such nonsense except to please her parent. The softly moving and attentive Brownster put the candle on the table, blew it out, and touched a button, thereby lighting up a very handsomely furnished room. Then, after performing every possible service for me, with a bow he left me. Throwing myself into a great easy chair, I kicked off my embroidered slippers and put my feet upon another chair gay with satin stripes. Raising my eyes, I saw in front of me a handsome mirror extending from the floor nearly to the ceiling, and at the magnificent personage which therein met my gaze I could not help laughing aloud. I rose, stood before the mirror, folded my gorgeous gown around me, spread it out, contrasting the crimson glory of its lining with the golden yellow of my trousers, and wondered in my soul how that exceedingly handsome girl with the bright eyes could have controlled her risibilities as she sat with me on the piazza. I could see that she had a wonderful command of herself, but this exercise of it seemed superhuman. I walked around the sumptuously furnished chamber, looking at the pictures and bric-à-brac; I wondered that the master of the house was willing to put me in a room like this--I had expected a hall bed-room, at the best; I sat down by an open window, for it was very early yet and I did not want to go to bed, but I had scarcely seated myself when I heard a tap at the door. I could not have explained it, but this tap made me jump, and I went to the door and opened it instead of calling out. There stood the butler, with a tray in his hand on which was a decanter of wine, biscuits, cheese, and some cigars. "It's so early, sir," said Brownster, "that she said--I mean, sir, I thought that you might like something to eat, and if you want to enjoy a cigar before retiring, as many gentlemen do, you need not mind smoking here. These rooms are so well ventilated, sir, that every particle of odor will be out in no time." Placing the tray upon a table, he retired. [Illustration: "IT WOULD BE WELL FOR ME TO SWALLOW A CAPSULE"] For an hour or more I sat sipping my wine, puffing smoke into rings, and allowing my mind to dwell pleasingly upon the situation, the most prominent feature of which seemed to me to be a young lady with bright eyes and white teeth, and dressed in a perfectly-fitting gown. When at last I thought I ought to go to bed, I stood and gazed at my little valise. I had left it on the porch and had totally forgotten it, but here it was upon a table, where it had been placed, no doubt, by the thoughtful Brownster. I opened it and took out the box of capsules. I did not feel that I had taken cold in the night air; this was not a time to protect myself against morning mists; but still I thought it would be well for me to swallow a capsule, and I did so. CHAPTER IV A BIT OF ADVICE The next morning I awoke about seven o'clock. My clothes, neatly brushed and folded, were on a chair near the bed, with my brightly-blackened shoes near by. I rose, quickly dressed myself, and went forth into the morning air. I met no one in the house, and the hall door was open. For an hour or more I walked about the beautiful grounds. Sometimes I wandered near the house, among the flower-beds and shrubs; sometimes I followed the winding path to a considerable distance; occasionally I sat down in a covered arbor; and then I sought the shade of a little grove, in which there were hammocks and rustic chairs. But I met no one, and I saw no one except some men working near the stables. I would have been glad to go down to the lodge and say "Good-morning" to my kind entertainers there, but for some reason or other it struck me that that neat little house was too much out of the way. When I had had enough walking I retired to the piazza and sat there, until Brownster, with a bow, came and informed me that breakfast was served. The young lady, in the freshest of summer costumes, met me at the door and bade me "Good-morning," but the greeting of her father was not by any means cordial, although his manner had lost some of the stiff condescension which had sat so badly upon him the evening before. The mother was a very pleasant little lady of few words and a general air which indicated an intimate acquaintance with back seats. The breakfast was a remarkably good one. When the meal was over, Mr. Putney walked with me into the hall. "I must now ask you to excuse me, sir," said he, "as this is the hour when I receive my manager and arrange with him for the varied business of the day. Good-morning, sir. I wish you a very pleasant journey." And, barely giving me a chance to thank him for his entertainment, he disappeared into the back part of the house. The young lady was standing at the front of the hall. "Won't you please come in," she said, "and see mother? She wants to talk to you about Walford." I found the little lady in a small room opening from the parlor, and also, to my great surprise, I found her extremely talkative and chatty. She asked me so many questions that I had little chance to answer them, and she told me a great deal more about Walford and its people and citizens than I had learned during my nine months' residence in the village. I was very glad to give her an opportunity of talking, which was a pleasure, I imagined, she did not often enjoy; but as I saw no signs of her stopping, I was obliged to rise and take leave of her. The young lady accompanied me into the hall. "I must get my valise," I said, "and then I must be off. And I assure you--" "No, do not trouble yourself about your valise," she interrupted. "Brownster will attend to that--he will take it down to the lodge. And as to your gorgeous raiment, he will see that that is all properly returned to its owners." I picked up my cap, and she walked with me out upon the piazza. "I suppose you saw everything on our place," she asked, "when you were walking about this morning?" A little surprised, I answered that I had seen a good deal, but I did not add that I had not found what I was looking for. "We have all sorts of hot-houses and green-houses," she said, "but they are not very interesting at this time of the year, otherwise I would ask you to walk through them before you go." She then went on to tell me that a little building which she pointed out was a mushroom-house. "And you will think it strange that it should be there when I tell you that not one of our family likes mushrooms or ever tastes one. But the manager thinks that we ought to grow mushrooms, and so we do it." As she was talking, the thought came to me that there were some people who might consider this young lady a little forward in her method of entertaining a comparative stranger, but I dismissed this idea. With such a peculiarly constituted family it was perhaps necessary for her to put herself forward, in regard, at least, to the expression of hospitality. "One thing I must show you," she said, suddenly, "and that is the orchid-house! Are you fond of orchids?" "Under certain circumstances," I said, unguardedly, "I could be fond of apple-cores." As soon as I had spoken these words I would have been glad to recall them, but they seemed to make no impression whatever on her. We walked to the orchid-house, we went through it, and she explained all its beauties, its singularities, and its rarities. When we came out again, I asked myself: "Is she in the habit of doing all this to chance visitors? Would she treat a Brown or a Robinson in the way she is treating me?" I could not answer my question, but if Brown and Robinson had appeared at that moment I should have been glad to knock their heads together. I did not want to go; I would have been glad to examine every building on the place, but I knew I must depart; and as I was beginning to express my sense of the kindness with which I had been treated, she interrupted by asking me if I expected to come back this way. "No," said I, "that is not my plan. I expect to ride on to Waterton, and there I shall stop for a day or two and decide what section of the country I shall explore next." "And to-day?" she said. "Where have you planned to spend the night?" "I have been recommended to stop at a little inn called the 'Holly Sprig,'" I replied. "It is a leisurely day's journey from Walford, and I have been told that it is a pleasant place and a pretty country. I do not care to travel all the time, and I want to stop a little when I find interesting scenery." [Illustration: "As soon as I had spoken these words"] "Oh, I know the Holly Sprig Inn," said she, speaking very quickly, "and I would advise you not to stop there. We have lunched there two or three times when we were out on long drives. There is a much better house about five miles the other side of the Holly Sprig. It is really a large, handsome hotel, with good service and everything you want--where people go to spend the summer." I thanked her for her information and bade her good-bye. She shook my hand very cordially and I walked away. I had gone but a very few steps when I wanted to turn around and look back, but I did not. Before I had reached the lodge, where I had left my bicycle, I met Brownster, and when I saw him I put my hand into my pocket. He had certainly been very attentive. "I carried your valise, sir," he said, "to the lodge, and I took the liberty of strapping it to your handle-bar. You will find everything all right, sir, and the--other clothes will be properly attended to." I thanked him, and then handed him some money. To my surprise, he did not offer to take it. He smiled a little and bowed. "Would you mind, sir," he said, "if you did not give me anything? I assure you, sir, that I'd very much rather that you wouldn't give me anything." And with this he bowed and rapidly disappeared. "Well," said I, to myself, as I put my money back into my pocket, "it is a queer country, this Cathay." As I approached the lodge, I felt that perhaps I had received a lesson, but I was not sure. I would wait and let circumstances decide. The gardener was away attending to his duties; but his wife was there, and when she came forward, with a frank, cheery greeting, I instantly decided that I had had a lesson. I thanked her, as earnestly as I knew how, for what she had done for me, and then I added: "You and your husband have treated me with such kind hospitality that I am not going to offer you anything in return for what you have done." "You would have hurt us, sir, if you had," said she. Then, in order to change the subject, I spoke of the honor which had been bestowed upon me by being allowed to wear the Duke's dressing-gown. She smiled, and replied: "Honors would always be easy for you, sir, if you only chose to take them." As I rode away I thought that the last remark of the gardener's wife seemed to show a mental brightness above her station, although I did not know exactly what she meant. "Can it be," I asked myself, "that she fancies that good family, six feet of athletic muscle, and no money would be considered sufficient to make matrimonial honors easy on that estate?" If such an idea had come into her head, it certainly was a very foolish one, and I determined to drive it from my mind by thinking of something else. Suddenly I slackened my speed. I stopped and put one foot to the ground. What a hard-hearted wretch I thought myself to be! Here I was thinking of all sorts of nonsense and speeding away without a thought of the young girl who had hurt herself the day before and who had been helped by me to her home! She lived but a few miles back, and I had determined, the evening before, to run down and see how she was getting on before starting on my day's journey. I turned and went bowling back over the road on which I had been so terribly drenched the previous afternoon. In a very little while my bicycle was leaning against the fence of the pretty house by the road-side, and I had entered the front yard. The slender girl was sitting on the piazza behind some vines. When she saw me she quickly closed the book she was reading, drew one foot from a little stool, and rose to meet me. There was more color on her face than I had supposed would be likely to find its way there, and her bright eyes showed that she was not only surprised but glad to see me. "I thought you were ever so far on your journey!" she said. "And how did you get through that awful storm?" "I want to know first about your foot," I said--"how is that?" "My own opinion is," she answered, "that it is nearly well. Mother knew exactly what to do for it; she wrapped it in wet cloths and dry cloths, and this morning I scarcely think of it. But there is one thing I want to tell you before you meet father and mother--for they want to see you, I know. We talked a great deal about you last night. You may have thought it strange I told you about the peas, but I had to do it to explain why I could not ask you to stop. Now I want to tell you that this accident made everything all right. As soon as father and mother knew that I was hurt they forgot everything else, and neither of them remembered that there was such a thing as a pea-vine in the world. It really seems as if my tumble was a most lucky thing. And now you must come in. They will never forgive me if I let you go away without seeing them." The mother, a pleasant little woman, full of cheerful gratitude to me for having done so much for her daughter, and the father, tall and slender, hurrying in from the garden, his face beaming with a friendly enthusiasm, apologizing for the mud on his clothes, and almost in the same breath telling me of the obligations under which I had placed him, both seemed to me at the first glance to be such kind, simple-hearted, simple-mannered people that I could not help contrasting this family with the one under whose roof I had passed the night. I spent half an hour with these good people, patiently listening to their gratitude and to their deep regrets that I had been allowed to go on in the storm; but I succeeded in allaying their friendly regrets by assuring them that it would have been impossible to keep me from going on, so certain had I been that I could reach the little town of Vernon before the storm grew violent. Then I was obliged to tell them that I did not reach Vernon, and how I had spent the night. "With the Putneys!" exclaimed the mother. "I am sure you could not have been entertained in a finer house!" They asked me many questions and I told them many things, and I soon discovered that they took a generous interest in the lives of other people. They spoke of the good this rich family had done in the neighborhood during the building of their great house and the improvement of their estate, and not a word did I hear of ridicule or scandalous comment, although in good truth there was opportunity enough for it. The young lady asked me if I had seen Miss Putney, and when I replied that I had, she inquired if I did not think that she was a very pretty girl. "I do not know her," she said, "but I have often seen her when she was out driving. I do not believe there is any one in this part of the country who dresses better than she does." I laughed, and told her that I thought I knew somebody who dressed much finer even than Miss Putney, and then I described the incident of the Duke's dressing-gown. This delighted them all, and before I left I was obliged to give every detail of my gorgeous attire. It was about eleven o'clock when at last I tore myself away from this most attractive little family. To live as they lived, to be interested in the things that interested them--for the house seemed filled with books and pictures--to love nature, to love each other, and to think well of their fellow-beings, even of the super-rich--seemed to me to be an object for which a man of my temperament should be willing to strive and thankful to win. After meeting her parents I did not wonder that I had thought the slender girl so honest-hearted and so lovable. It was true that I had thought that. CHAPTER V THE LADY AND THE CAVALIER The day was fine, and the landscape lay clean and sharply defined under the blue sky and white clouds. I sped along in a cheerful mood, well pleased with what my good cycle had so far done for me. Again I passed the open gate of the Putney estate, and glanced through it at the lodge. I saw no one, and was glad of it--better pleased, perhaps, than I could have given good reason for. When I had gone on a few hundred yards I was suddenly startled by a voice--a female voice. "Well! well!" cried some one on my right, and turning, I saw, above a low wall, the head and shoulders of the young lady with the dark eyes with whom I had parted an hour or so before. A broad hat shaded her face, her eyes were very dark and very wide open, and I saw some of her beautiful teeth, although she was not smiling or laughing. It was plain that she had not come down there to see me pass; she was genuinely astonished; I dismounted and approached the wall. [Illustration: "I dismounted and approached the wall"] "I thought you were miles and miles on your way!" said she. It occurred to me that I had recently heard a remark very like this, and yet the words, as they came from the slender girl and from this one, seemed to have entirely different meanings. She was desirous, earnestly desirous, to know how I came to be passing this place at this time, when I had left their gate so long before, and, as I was not unwilling to gratify her curiosity, I told her the whole story of the accident the day before, and of everything which had followed it. "And you went all the way back," she said, "to inquire after that Burton girl?" "Do you know her?" I asked. "No," she said, "I do not know her; but I have seen her often, and I know all about her family. They seem to be of such little consequence, one way or the other, that I can scarcely understand how things could so twist themselves that you should consider it necessary to go back there this morning before you really started on your day's journey." I do not remember what I said, but it was something commonplace, no doubt, but I imagined I perceived a little pique in the young lady. Of course I did not object to this, for nothing could be more flattering to a young man than the exhibition of such a feeling on an occasion such as this. But if she felt any pique she quickly brushed it out of sight, for, as I have said before, she was a young woman who had great command of herself. Of course I said to her that I was very glad to have this chance of seeing her again, and she answered, with a laugh: "If you really are glad, you ought to thank the Burton girl. This is one of my favorite walks. The path runs along inside the wall for a considerable distance and then turns around the little hill over there, and so leads back to the house. When I happened to look over the wall and saw you I was truly surprised." The ground was lower on the outside of the wall than on the inside, and as I stood and looked almost into the eyes of this girl, as she leaned with her arms upon the smooth top of the wall, the idea which the gardener's wife put into my head came into it again. This was a beautiful face, and the expression upon it was different from anything I had seen there before. Her surprise had disappeared, her pique had gone, but a very great interest in the incident of my passing this spot at the moment of her being there was plainly evident. As I gazed at her my blood ran warmer through my veins, and there came upon me a feeling of the olden time--of the days when the brave cavalier rode up to the spot where, waiting for him, his lady sat upon her impatient jennet. Without the least hesitation, I asked: "Do you ride a wheel?" She looked wonderingly at me for a moment, and then broke into a laugh. "Why on earth do you ask such a question as that? I have a bicycle, but I am not a very good rider, and I never venture out upon the public road by myself." "You shouldn't think of such a thing," said I; and then I stood silent, and my mind showed me two young people, each mounted, not upon a swift steed, but upon a far swifter pair of wheels, skimming onward through the summer air, still rolling on, on, on, through country lanes and woodland roads, laughing at pursuit if they heard the trampling of eager hoofs behind them, with never a telegraph wire to stretch menacingly above them, and so on, on, on, their eyes sparkling, their hearts beating high with youthful hope. Again, through the tender mists of the afternoon, I saw them returning from some secluded Gretna Green to bend their knees and bow their heads before the lord of the fair bride's home. When all this had passed through my brain, I wondered how such a pair would be received. I knew the gardener and his wife would welcome them, to begin with; Brownster would be very glad to see them; and I believe the mother would stand with tears of joy and open arms, in whatever quiet room she might feel free to await them. Moreover, when the sterner parent heard my tale and read my pedigree, might he not consider good name on the one side an equivalent for good money on the other? I looked up at her; she did not ask me what I had been thinking about nor remark upon my silence. She, too, had been wrapped in revery; her face was grave. She raised her arms from the wall and stood up. It was plainly time for me to do something, and she decided the point for me by slightly moving away from the wall. "Some time, when you are riding out from Walford," she said, "we should be glad to have you stop and take luncheon. Father likes to have people at luncheon." "I should be delighted to do so," said I; and if she had asked me to delay my journey and take luncheon with them that day I think I should have accepted the invitation. But she did not do that, and she was not a young lady who would stand too long by a public road talking to a young man. She smiled very sweetly and held out her hand over the wall. "Good-bye again," she said. As I took her hand I felt very much inclined to press it warmly, but I refrained. Her grasp was firm and friendly, and I would have liked very much to know whether or not it was more so than was her custom. I was mounting my wheel when she called to me again. "Now, I suppose," she said, "you are going straight on?" "Oh yes," I replied, with emphasis, "straight on." "And the name of the hotel where you will stay to-night," said she, "it is the Cheltenham. I forgot it when I spoke to you before. I do not believe, really, it is more than three miles beyond the other little place where you thought of stopping." Then she walked away from the wall and I mounted. I moved very slowly onward, and as I turned my head I saw that a row of straggling bushes which grew close to the wall were now between her and me. But I also saw, or thought I saw, between the leaves and boughs, that her face was towards me, and that she was waving her handkerchief. If I had been sure of that, I think I should have jumped over the wall, pushed through the bushes, and should have asked her to give me that handkerchief, that I might fasten it on the front of my cap as, in olden days, a knight going forth to his adventures bound upon his helmet the glove of his lady-love. But I was not sure of it, and, seized by a sudden energetic excitement, I started off at a tremendous rate of speed. The ground flew backward beneath me as if I had been standing on the platform of a railroad car. Not far ahead of me there came from a side road into the main avenue on which I was travelling a Scorcher, scorching. As he spun away in front of me, his body bent forward until his back was nearly horizontal, and his green-stockinged legs striking out behind him with the furious rapidity of a great frog trying to push his head into the mud, he turned back his little face with a leer of triumphant derision at every moving thing which might happen to be behind him. [Illustration: "I THOUGHT FOR A FEW MOMENTS"] At the sight of this green-legged Scorcher my blood rose, and it was with me as if I had heard the clang of trumpets and the clash of arms. I leaned slightly forward; I struck out powerfully, swiftly, and steadily; I gained upon the Scorcher; I sent into his emerald legs a thrill of startled fear, as if he had been a terrified hare bounding madly away from a pursuing foe, and I passed him as if I had been a swift falcon swooping by a quarry unworthy of his talons. On, on I sped, not deigning even to look back. The same spirit possessed me as that which fired the hearts of the olden knights. I would have been glad to meet with another Scorcher, and yet another, that for the sake of my fair lady I might engage with each and humble his pride in the dust. "It is true," I said to myself, with an inward laugh, "I carry no glove or delicate handkerchief bound upon my visor--" but at this point my mind wandered. I went more slowly, and at last I stopped and sat down under the shade of a way-side tree. I thought for a few minutes, and then I said to myself, "It seems to me this would be a good time to take one of those capsules," and I took one. I then fancied that perhaps I ought to take two, but I contented myself with one. CHAPTER VI THE HOLLY SPRIG INN In the middle of the day I stopped at Vernon, and the afternoon was well advanced when I came in sight of a little way-side house with a broad unfenced green in front of it, and a swinging sign which told the traveller that this was the "Holly Sprig Inn." I dismounted on the opposite side of the road and gazed upon the smoothly shaven greensward in front of the little inn; upon the pretty upper windows peeping out from their frames of leaves; upon the queerly-shaped projections of the building; upon the low portico which shaded the doorway; and upon the gentle stream of blue smoke which rose from the great gray chimney. Then I turned and looked over the surrounding country. There were broad meadows slightly descending to a long line of trees, between which I could see the glimmering of water. On the other side of the road, and extending back of the inn, there were low, forest-crowned hills. Then my eyes, returning to nearer objects, fell upon an old-fashioned garden, with bright flowers and rows of box, which lay beyond the house. "Why on earth," I thought, "should I pass such a place as this and go on to the Cheltenham, with its waiters in coat tails, its nurse-maids, and its rows of people on piazzas? She could not know my tastes, and perhaps she had thought but little on the subject, and had taken her ideas from her father. He is just the man to be contented with nothing else than a vast sprawling hotel, with disdainful menials expecting tips." I rolled my bicycle along the little path which ran around the green, and knocked upon the open door of Holly Sprig Inn. In a few moments a boy came into the hall. He was not dressed like an ordinary hotel attendant, but his appearance was decent, and he might have been a sub-clerk or a head hall-boy. "Can I obtain lodging here for the night?" I asked. The boy looked at me from head to foot, and an expression such as might be produced by too much lemon juice came upon his face. "No," said he; "we don't take cyclers." This reception was something novel to me, who had cycled over thousands of miles, and I was not at all inclined to accept it at the hands of the boy. I stepped into the hall. "Can I see the master of this house?" said I. "There ain't none," he answered, gruffly. "Well, then, I want to see whoever is in charge." He looked as if he were about to say that he was in charge, but he had no opportunity for such impertinence. A female figure came into the hall and advanced towards me. She stopped in an attitude of interrogation. "I was just inquiring," I said, with a bow--for I saw that the new-comer was not a servant--"if I could be accommodated here for the night, but the boy informed me that cyclers are not received here." "What!" she exclaimed, and turned as if she would speak to the boy, but he had vanished. "That is a mistake, sir," she said to me. "Very few wheelmen do stop here, as they prefer a hotel farther on, but we are glad to entertain them when they come." It was not very light in the hall in which we stood, but I could see that this lady was young, that she was of medium size, and good-looking. "Will you walk in, sir, and register?" she said. "I will have your wheel taken around to the back." I followed her into a large apartment to the right of the hall--evidently a room of general assembly. Near the window was a desk with a great book on it. As I stood before this desk and she handed me a pen, her face was in the full light of the window, and glancing at it, the thought struck me that I now knew why Miss Putney did not wish me to stop at the Holly Sprig Inn. I almost laughed as I turned away my head to write my name. I was amused, and at the same time I could not help feeling highly complimented. It cannot but be grateful to the feelings of a young man to find that a very handsome woman objects to his making the acquaintance of an extremely pretty one. When I laid down the pen she stepped up and looked at my name and address. "Oh," said she, "you are the schoolmaster at Walford?" She seemed to be pleased by this discovery, and smiled in a very engaging way as she said, "I am much interested in that school, for I received a great part of my education there." "Indeed!" said I, very much surprised. "But I do not exactly understand. It is a boys' school." "I know that," she answered, "but both boys and girls used to go there. Now the girls have a school of their own." As she spoke I could not help contrasting in my mind what the school must have been with what it was now. She stepped to the door and told a woman who was just entering the room to show me No. 2. The woman said something which I did not hear, although her tones indicated surprise, and then conducted me to my room. This was an exceedingly pleasant chamber on the first floor at the back of the house. It was furnished far better than the quarters generally allotted to me in country inns, or, in fact, in hostelries of any kind. There was great comfort and even simple elegance in its appointments. I would have liked to ask the maid some questions, but she was an elderly woman, who looked as if she might be the mother of the lemon-juice boy, and as she said not a word to me while she made a few arrangements in the room, I did not feel emboldened to say anything to her. When I left my room and went out on the little porch, I soon came to the conclusion that this was not a house of great resort. I saw nobody in front and I heard nobody within. There seemed to be an air of quiet greenness about the surroundings, and the little porch was a charming place in which to sit and look upon the evening landscape. After a time the boy came to tell me that supper was ready. He did so as if he were informing me that it was time to take medicine and he had just taken his. Supper awaited me in a very pleasant room, through the open windows of which there came a gentle breeze which made me know that there was a flower-garden not far away. The table was a small one, round, and on it there was supper for one person. I seated myself, and the elderly woman waited on me. I was so grateful that the boy was not my attendant that my heart warmed towards her, and I thought she might not consider it much out of the way if I said something. "Did I arrive after the regular supper-time?" I asked. "I am sorry if I put the establishment to any inconvenience." "What's inconvenience in your own house isn't anything of the kind in a tavern," she said. "We're used to that. But it doesn't matter to-day. You're the only transient; that is, that eats here," she added. I wanted very much to ask something about the lady who had gone to school in Walford, but I thought it would be well to approach that subject by degrees. "Apparently," said I, "your house is not full." "No," said she, "not at this precise moment of time. Do you want some more tea?" The tone in which she said this made me feel sure she was the mother of the boy, and when she had given me the tea, and looked around in a general way to see that I was provided with what else I needed, she left the room. After supper I looked into the large room where I had registered; it was lighted, and was very comfortably furnished with easy-chairs and a lounge, but it was an extremely lonely place, and, lighting a cigar, I went out for a walk. It was truly a beautiful country, and, illumined by the sunset sky, with all its forms and colors softened by the growing dusk, it was more charming to me than it had been by daylight. As I returned to the inn I noticed a man standing at the entrance of a driveway which appeared to lead back to the stable-yards. "Here is some one who may talk," I thought, and I stopped. [Illustration: "WENT OUT FOR A WALK"] "This ought to be a good country for sport," I said--"fishing, and that sort of thing." "You're stoppin' here for the night?" he asked. I presumed from his voice and appearance that he was a stable-man, and from his tone that he was disappointed that I had not brought a horse with me. I assented to his question, and he said: "I never heard of no fishin'. When people want to fish, they go to a lake about ten miles furder on." "Oh, I do not care particularly about fishing," I said, "but there must be a good many pleasant roads about here." "There's this one," said he. "The people on wheels keep to it." With this he turned and walked slowly towards the back of the house. "A lemon-loving lot!" thought I, and as I approached the porch I saw that the lady who had gone to school at Walford was standing there. I did not believe she had been eating lemons, and I stepped forward quickly for fear that she should depart before I reached her. "Been taking a walk?" she said, pleasantly. There was something in the general air of this young woman which indicated that she should have worn a little apron with pockets, and that her hands should have been jauntily thrust into those pockets; but her dress included nothing of the sort. The hall lamp was now lighted, and I could see that her attire was extremely neat and becoming. Her face was in shadow, but she had beautiful hair of a ruddy brown. I asked myself if she were the "lady clerk" of the establishment, or the daughter of the keeper of the inn. She was evidently a person in some authority, and one with whom it would be proper for me to converse, and as she had given me a very good opportunity to open conversation, I lost no time in doing so. "And so you used to live in Walford?" I said. "Oh yes," she replied, and then she began to speak of the pleasant days she had spent in that village. As she talked I endeavored to discover from her words who she was and what was her position. I did not care to discuss Walford. I wanted to talk about the Holly Sprig Inn, but I could not devise a courteous question which would serve my purpose. Presently our attention was attracted by the sound of singing at the corner of the little lawn most distant from the house. It was growing dark, and the form of the singer could barely be discerned upon a bench under a great oak. The voice was that of a man, and his song was an Italian air from one of Verdi's operas. He sang in a low tone, as if he were simply amusing himself and did not wish to disturb the rest of the world. [Illustration: MRS. CHESTER] "That must be the Italian who is stopping here for the night," she said. "We do not generally take such people; but he spoke so civilly, and said it was so hard to get lodging for his bear--" "His bear!" I exclaimed. "Oh yes," she answered, with a little laugh, "he has a bear with him. I suppose it dances, and so makes a living for its master. Anyway, I said he might stay and lodge with our stable-man. He would sing very well if he had a better voice--don't you think so?" "We do not generally accommodate," "I said he might stay"--these were phrases which I turned over in my mind. If she were the lady clerk she might say "we"--even the boy said "we"--but "I said he might stay" was different. A daughter of a landlord or a landlady might say that. I made a remark about the difficulty of finding lodging for man and beast, if the beast happened to be a bear, and I had scarcely finished it when from the house there came a shrill voice, flavored with lemon without any sugar, and it said, "Mrs. Chester!" "Excuse me," said the young lady, and immediately she went in-doors. Here was a revelation! Mrs. Chester! Strange to say, I had not thought of her as a married woman; and yet, now that I recalled her manner of perfect self-possession, she did suggest the idea of a satisfied young wife. And Mr. Chester--what of him? Could it be possible? Hardly. There was nothing about her to suggest a widow. CHAPTER VII MRS. CHESTER IS TROUBLED I sat on that porch a good while, but she did not come out again. Why should she? Nobody came out, and within I could hear no sound of voices. I might certainly recommend this inn as a quiet place. The Italian and the crickets continued singing and chirping, but they only seemed to make the scene more lonely. I went in-doors. On the left hand of the hall was a door which I had not noticed before, but which was now open. There was a light within, and I saw a prettily-furnished parlor. There was a table with a lamp on it, and by the table sat the lady, Mrs. Chester. I involuntarily stopped, and, looking up, she invited me to come in. Instantly I accepted the invitation, but with a sort of an apology for the intrusion. "Oh, this is the public parlor," she said, "although everything about this house seems private at present. We generally have families staying with us in the summer, but last week nearly all of them went away to the sea-shore. In a few days, however, we expect to be full again." She immediately began to talk about Walford, for evidently the subject interested her, and I answered all her questions as well as I could. "You may know that my husband taught that school. I was his scholar before I became his wife." I had heard of a Mr. Chester who, before me, had taught the school, but, although the information had not interested me at the time, now it did. I wished very much to ask what Mr. Chester was doing at present, but I waited. "I went to boarding-school after I left Walford," said she, "and so for a time lost sight of the village, although I have often visited it since." "How long is it since Mr. Chester gave up the school there?" I asked. This proved to be a very good question indeed. "About six years," she said. "He gave it up just before we were married. He did not like teaching school, and as the death of his father put him into the possession of some money, he was able to change his mode of life. It was by accident that we settled here as innkeepers. We happened to pass the place, and Mr. Chester was struck by its beauty. It was not an inn then, but he thought it would make a charming one, and he also thought that this sort of life would suit him exactly. He was a student, a great reader, and a lover of rural sports--such as fishing and all that." [Illustration: "SHE BEGAN TO TALK ABOUT WALFORD"] "Was." Here was a dim light. "Was" must mean that Mr. Chester had been. If he were living, he would still be a reader and a student. "Did he find the new life all that he expected?" I said, hesitating a little at the word did, as it was not impossible that I might be mistaken. "Oh yes, and more. I think the two years he spent here were the happiest of his life." I was not yet quite sure about the state of affairs; he might be in an insane asylum, or he might be a hopeless invalid up-stairs. "If he had lived," she continued, "I suppose this would have been a wonderfully beautiful place, for he was always making improvements. But it is four years now since his death, and in that time there has been very little change in the inn." I do not remember what answer I made to this remark, but I gazed out upon the situation as if it were an unrolled map. "When you wrote your name in the book," she said, "it seemed to me as if you had brought a note of introduction, and I am sure I am very glad to be acquainted with you, for, you know, you are my husband's successor. He did not like teaching, but he was fond of his scholars, and he always had a great fancy for school-teachers. Whenever one of them stopped here--which happened two or three times--he insisted that he should be put into our best room, if it happened to be vacant, and that is the reason I have put you into it to-day." This was charming. She was such an extremely agreeable young person that it was delightful for me to think of myself in any way as her husband's successor. There was a step at the door. I turned and saw the elderly servant. "Mrs. Chester," she said, "I'm goin' up," and every word was flavored with citric acid. "Good-night," said Mrs. Chester, taking up her basket and her work. "You know, you need not retire until you wish to do so. There is a room opposite, where gentlemen smoke." I did not enter the big, lonely room. I went to my own chamber, which, I had just been informed, was the best in the house. I sat down in an easy-chair by the open window. I looked up to the twinkling stars. Reading, studying, fishing, beautiful country, and all that. And he did not like school-teaching! No wonder he was happier here than he had ever been before! My eyes wandered around the tastefully furnished room. "Her husband's successor," I said to myself, pondering. "He did not like school-teaching, and he was so happy here." Of course he was happy. "Died and left him some money." There was no one to leave me any money, but I had saved some for the time when I should devote myself entirely to my profession. Profession--I thought. After all, what is there in a profession? Slavery; anxiety. And he chose a life of reading, studying, fishing, and everything else. I turned to the window and again looked up into the sky. There was a great star up there, and it seemed to wink cheerfully at me as the words came into my mind, "her husband's successor." When I opened my little valise, before going to bed, I saw the box the doctor's daughter had given me. After sitting so long at the open window, thought I, it might be well to take one of these capsules, and I swallowed one. When I was called to breakfast the next morning I saw that the table was laid with covers for two. In a moment my hostess entered and bade me good-morning. We sat down at the table; and the elderly woman waited. I could now see that her face was the color of a shop-worn lemon. As for the lady who had gone to school at Walford--I wondered what place in the old school-room she had occupied--she was more charming than ever. Her manner was so cordial and cheerful that I could not doubt that she considered the entry of my name in her book as a regular introduction. She asked me about my plan of travel, how far I would go in a day, and that sort of thing. The elderly woman was very grim, and somehow or other I did not take very much interest in my plan of travel, but the meal was an extremely pleasant one for all that. The natural thing for me to do after I finished my breakfast was to pay my bill and ride away, but I felt no inclination for anything of the sort. In fact, the naturalness of departure did not strike me. I went out on the little porch and gazed upon the bright, fresh morning landscape, and as I did so I asked myself why I should mount my bicycle and wheel away over hot and dusty roads, leaving all this cool, delicious beauty behind me. What could I find more enjoyable than this? Why should I not spend a few days at this inn, reading, studying, fishing? Here I wondered why that man told me such a lie about the fishing. If I wanted to exercise on my wheel I felt sure there were pretty roads hereabout. I had plenty of time before me--my whole vacation. Why should I be consumed by this restless desire to get on? I could not help smiling as I thought of my somewhat absurd fancies of the night before; but they were pleasant fancies, and I did not wonder that they had come to me. It certainly is provocative of pleasant fancies to have an exceedingly attractive young woman talk of you in any way as her husband's successor. I could not make up my mind what I ought to do, and I walked back into the hall. I glanced into the parlor, but it was unoccupied. Then I went into the large room on the right; no one was there, and I stood by the window trying to make up my mind in regard to proposing a brief stay at the inn. It really did not seem necessary to give the matter much thought. Here was a place of public entertainment, and, as I was one of the public, why should I not be entertained? I had stopped at many a road-side hostelry, and in each one of them I knew I would be welcome to stay as long as I was willing to pay. Still, there was something, some sort of an undefined consciousness, which seemed to rise in the way of an off-hand proposal to stay at this inn for several days, when I had clearly stated that I wished to stop only for the night. While I was still turning over this matter in my mind Mrs. Chester came into the room. I had expected her. The natural thing for her to do was to come in and receive the amount I owed her for her entertainment of me, but as I looked at her I could not ask her for my bill. It seemed to me that such a thing would shock her sensibilities. Moreover, I did not want her bill. It was plain enough, however, that she expected me to depart, for she asked me where I proposed to stop in the middle of the day, and she suggested that she should have a light luncheon put up for me. She thought probably a wheelman would like that sort of thing, for then he could stop and rest wherever it suited him. "Speaking of stopping," said I, "I am very glad that I did not do as I was advised to do and go on to the Cheltenham. I do not know anything about that hotel, but I am sure it is not so charming as this delightful little inn with its picturesque surroundings." "I am glad you did not," she answered. "Who advised you to go on to the Cheltenham?" "Miss Putney," said I. "Her father's place is between here and Walford. I stopped there night before last." And then, as I was glad of an opportunity to prolong the interview, I told her the history of my adventures at that place. Mrs. Chester was amused, and I thought I might as well tell her how I came to be delayed on the road and so caught in the storm, and I related my experience with Miss Burton. I would have been glad to go still farther back and tell her how I came to take the school at Walford, and anything else she might care to listen to. When I told her about Miss Burton she sat down in a chair near by and laughed heartily. "It is wonderfully funny," she said, "that you should have met those two young ladies and should then have stopped here." "You know them?" I said, promptly taking another chair. "Oh yes," she answered. "I know them both; and, as I have mentioned that your meeting with them seemed funny to me, I suppose I ought to tell you the reason. Some time ago a photographer in Walford, who has taken a portrait of me and also of Miss Putney and Miss Burton, took it into his head to print the three on one card and expose them for sale with a ridiculous inscription under them. This created a great deal of talk, and Miss Putney made the photographer destroy his negative and all the cards he had on hand. After that we were talked about as a trio, and, I expect, a good deal of fun was made of us. And now it seems a little odd--does it not?--that you have become acquainted with all the members of this trio as soon as you left Walford. But I must not keep you in this way." And she rose. Now was my opportunity to make known my desire to be kept, but before I could do so the boy hurriedly came into the room. "The Dago wants to see you," he said. "He's in an awful hurry." "Excuse me," said Mrs. Chester. "It is that Italian who was singing outside last night. I thought he had gone. Would you mind waiting a few minutes?" It was getting harder and harder to enunciate my proposition to make a sojourn at the inn. I wished that I had spoken sooner. It is so much easier to do things promptly. While I was waiting the elderly woman came in. "Do you want the boy to take your little bag out and strap it on?" said she. Evidently there was no want of desire to speed the departing guest. "Oh, I will attend to that myself," said I, but I made no step to do it. When my hostess came back I wanted to be there. Presently she did come back. She ran in hurriedly, and her face was flushed. "Here is a very bad piece of business," she said. "That man's bear has eaten the tire off one of your wheels!" "What!" I exclaimed, and my heart bounded within me. Here, perhaps, was the solution of all my troubles. If by any happy chance my bicycle had been damaged, of course I could not go on. "Come and see," she said, and, following her through the back hall door, we entered a large, enclosed yard. Not far from the house was a shed, and in front of this lay my bicycle on its side in an apparently disabled condition. An Italian, greatly agitated, was standing by it. He was hatless, and his tangled black hair hung over his swarthy face. At the other end of the yard was a whitish-brown bear, not very large, and chained to a post. I approached my bicycle, earnestly hoping that the bear had been attempting to ride it, but I found that he had been trying to do something very different. He had torn the pneumatic tire from one of the wheels, and nearly the whole of it was lying scattered about in little bits upon the ground. "How did this happen?" I said to the Italian, feeling very much inclined to give him a dollar for the good offices of the beast. The man began immediately to pour out an explanation upon me. His English was as badly broken as the torn parts of my tire, but I had no trouble in understanding. The bear had got loose in the night. He had pulled up a little post to which he had been chained. The man had not known it was such a weak post. The bear was never muzzled at night. He had gone about looking for something to eat. He was very fond of India-rubber--or, as the man called it, "Injer-rub." He always ate up India-rubber shoes wherever he could find them. He would eat them off a man's feet if the man should be asleep. He liked the taste of Injer-rub. He did not swallow it. He dropped it all about in little bits. [Illustration: BUT WE WERE NOT ALONE] Then the man sprang towards me and seized the injured wheel. "See!" he exclaimed. "He eat your Injer-rub, but he no break your machine!" This was very true. The wheel did not seem to be injured, but still I could not travel without a tire. This was the most satisfactory feature of the affair. If he and I had been alone together I would have handed the man two dollars, and told him to go in peace with his bear and give himself no more trouble. But we were not alone. The stable-man who had lied to me about the fishing was there; the boy who had lied to me about the reception of cyclers was there; the lemon-faced woman was there, standing close to Mrs. Chester; and there were two maids looking out of the window of the kitchen. "This is very bad indeed!" said Mrs. Chester, addressing the Italian. "You have damaged this gentleman's wheel, and you must pay him for it." Now the Italian began to tear his hair. Never before had I seen any one tear his hair. More than that, he shed tears, and declared he had no money. After he had paid his bill he would not have a cent in the world. His bear had ruined him. He was in despair. "What are you going to do?" said Mrs. Chester to me. "You cannot use your bicycle." Before I could answer, the elderly woman exclaimed: "You ought to come in, Mrs. Chester! This is no place for you! Suppose that beast should break loose again! Let the gentleman settle it with the man." I do not think my hostess wanted to go, but she accompanied her grim companion into the house. "I suppose there is no place near here where I can have a new tire put on this wheel?" said I to the stable-man. "Not nearer than Waterton," he replied; "but we could take you and your machine there in a wagon." "That's so," said the boy. "I'll drive." I glared upon the two fellows as if they had been a couple of fiends who were trying to put a drop of poison into my cup of joy. To be dolefully driven to Waterton by that boy! What a picture! How different from my picture! The Italian sat down on the ground and embraced his knees with his arms. He moaned and groaned, and declared over and over again that he was ruined; that he had no money to pay. In regard to him my mind was made up. I would forgive him his debt and send him away with my blessing, even if I found no opportunity of rewarding him for his great service to me. I would go in and speak to Mrs. Chester about it. Of course it would not be right to do anything without consulting her, and now I could boldly tell her that it would suit me very well to stop at the inn until my wheel could be sent away and repaired. As I entered the large room the elderly woman came out. She was plainly in a bad humor. Mrs. Chester was awaiting me with an anxious countenance, evidently much more troubled about the damage to my bicycle than I was. I hastened to relieve her mind. "It does not matter a bit about the damage done by the bear," I said. "I should not wonder if that wheel would be a great deal better for a new tire, anyway. And, as for that doleful Italian, I do not want to be hard on him, even if he has a little money in his pocket." But my remarks did not relieve her, while my cheerful and contented tones seemed to add to her anxiety. "But you cannot travel," she said, "and there is no place about here where you could get a new tire." It was very plain that no one in this house entertained the idea that it would be a good thing for me to rest here quietly until my bicycle could be sent away and repaired. In fact, my first statement, that I wished to stop but for the night, was accepted with general approval. I did not deem it necessary to refer to the man's offer, to send me and my machine to Waterton in a wagon, and I was just on the point of boldly announcing that I was in no hurry whatever to get on, and that it would suit me very well to wait here for a few days, when the boy burst into the room, one end of his little neck-tie flying behind him. "The Dago's put!" he shouted. "He's put off and gone!" We looked at him in amazement. "Gone!" I exclaimed. "Shall I go after him? Has he paid his bill?" "No, you needn't do that," said the boy. "He cut across the fields like a chipmunk--skipped right over the fences! You'd never ketch him, and you needn't try! He's off for the station. I'll tell you all about it," said the boy, turning to his mistress, who had been too much startled to ask any questions. "When he went into the house"--jerking his head in my direction--"I was left alone with the Dago, and he begun to talk to me. He asked me a lot of things. He rattled on so I couldn't understand half he said. He wanted to know how much a tire cost; he wanted to know how much his bill would be, and if he'd have to pay for the little post that was broke. "Then he asked if I thought that if he'd promise to send you the money would the gentleman let him go without payin' for the tire, and he wanted to know what your name was; and when I told him you hadn't no husband, and what your name was, he asked me to say it over again, and then he made me say it once more--the whole of it; and while I was tellin' him that I'd write it down for him if he wanted to send you the money, he give a big jump and he stuck his head out like a bull. He looked so queer that I was gettin' skeered; and then he says, almost whisperin': 'I go! I go away! I leave my bear! If she sell him, that pay everything! I come back no more--never! never!' "I saw he was goin' to scoot, and I made a grab at him, but he give me a push that nearly tore my collar off, and away he went. You never see anybody run like he run. He was out of sight in no time." "And he left his bear!" she exclaimed, in horror. "What on earth am I to do with a bear?" She looked at me, and in spite of her annoyance and perplexity she could not help joining me when I laughed outright. CHAPTER VIII ORSO Mrs. Chester and I hurried back to the yard. There was the bear, sitting calmly on his haunches, but there was no Italian. "Now that his master is gone," my hostess exclaimed, "I am afraid of him! I will not go any farther! Can you imagine anything that can be done with that beast?" I had no immediate answer to give, and I was still very much amused at the absurdity of the situation. Had any one ever before paid his bill in such fashion? At this moment the stable-man approached us from one of the outbuildings. "This is my hostler," she said. "Perhaps he can suggest something." "This is a bad go, ma'am," said he. "The horse was out in the pasture all night, but this morning when I went to bring him up I couldn't make him come near the stable. He smells that bear! It seems to drive him crazy!" "It's awful!" she said. "What are we going to do, John? Do you think the animal will become dangerous when he misses his master?" "Oh, there's nothin' dangerous about him," answered John. "I was sittin' talkin' to that Dago last night after supper, and he says his bear's tamer than a cat. He is so mild-tempered that he wouldn't hurt nobody. The Dago says he sleeps close up to him of cold nights to keep himself warm. There ain't no trouble about his bein' dangerous, but you can't bring the horse into the stable while he's about. If anybody was to drive into this yard without knowin' they'd be a circus, I can tell you! Horses can't stand bears." She looked at me in dismay. "Couldn't he be shot and buried?" she asked. I had my doubts on that point. A tame bear is a valuable animal, and I could not advise her to dispose of the property of another person in that summary way. "But he must be got away," she said. "We can't have a bear here. He must be taken away some way or other. Isn't there any place where he could be put until the Italian comes back?" "That Dago's never comin' back," said the boy, solemnly. "If you'd a-seen him scoot, you'd a-knowed that he was dead skeered, and would never turn up here no more, bear or no bear." Mrs. Chester looked at me. She was greatly worried, but she was also amused, and she could not help laughing. "Isn't this a dreadful predicament?" she said. "What in the world am I to do?" At this moment there was an acidulated voice from the kitchen. "Mrs. Whittaker wants to see you, Mrs. Chester," it cried, "right away!" "Oh, dear!" said she. "Here is more trouble! Mrs. Whittaker is an invalid lady who is so nervous that she could not sleep one night because she heard a man had killed a snake at the back of the barn, and what she will say when she hears that we have a bear here without a master I do not know. I must go to her, and I do wish you could think of something that I can do;" as she said this she looked at me as if it were a natural thing for her to rely upon me. For a moment it made me think of the star that had winked the night before. Mrs. Chester hurried into the house, and in company with the stable-man I crossed the yard towards the bear. "You are sure he is gentle?" said I. "Mild as milk!" said the man. "I was a-playin' with him last night. He'll let you do anything with him! If you box his ears, he'll lay over flat down on his side!" When we were within a few feet of the bear he sat upright, dangled his fore paws in front of him, and, with his head on one side, he partly opened his mouth and lolled out his tongue. "I guess he's beggin' for his breakfust," said John. "Can't you get him something to eat?" I asked. "He ought to be fed, to begin with." The man went back to the kitchen, and I walked slowly around the bear, looking at the chain and the post, and trying to see what sort of a collar was almost hidden under his shaggy hair. Apparently he seemed securely attached, and then--as he was at the end of his chain--I went up to him and gently patted one paw. He did not object to this, and turning his head he let his tongue loll out on the other side, fixing his little black eyes upon me with much earnestness. When the man came with the pan of scraps from the kitchen I took it from him and placed it on the ground in front of the bear. Instantly the animal dropped to his feet and began to eat with earnest rapidity. "I wonder how much he'd take in for one meal," said John, "if you'd give him all he wanted? I guess that Dago never let him have any more'n he could help." As the bear was licking the tin pan I stood and looked at him. "I wonder if he would be tame with strangers?" said I. "Do you suppose we could take him away from this post if we wanted to?" "Oh yes," said John. "I wouldn't be afraid to take him anywheres, only there isn't any place to take him to." He then stepped quite close to the bear. "Hey, horsey!" said he. "Hey, old horsey! Good old horsey!" "Is that his name?" I asked. "That's what the Dago called him," said John. "Hey, horsey! Good horsey!" And he stooped and unfastened the chain from the post. I imagined that the Italian had called the bear "Orso," perhaps with some diminutive, but I did not care to discuss this. I was very much interested to see what the man was going to do. With the end of the chain in his hand, John now stepped in front of the bear and said, "Come along, horsey!" and, to my surprise, the bear began to shamble after him as quietly as if he had been following his old master. "See!" cried John. "He'll go anywheres I choose to take him!" and he began to lead him about the yard. As he approached the kitchen there came a fearful scream from the open window. "Take him away! Take him away!" I heard, in the shrillest accents. "They're dreadfully skeered," said John, as he led the bear back; "but he wouldn't hurt nobody! It would be a good thing, though, to put his muzzle on; that's it hangin' over there by the shed; it's like a halter, and straps up his jaws. The Dago said there ain't no need for it, but he puts it on when he's travellin' along the road to keep people from bein' skeered." "It would be well to put it on," said I. "I wonder if we can get him into it?" "I guess he'd let you do anything you'd a mind to," replied John, as he again fastened the chain to the post. I took down the muzzle and approached the bear. He did not growl, but stood perfectly still and looked at me. I put the muzzle over his head, and, holding myself in readiness to elude a sudden snap, I strapped up his jaws. The creature made no snap--he gazed at me with mild resignation. "As far as he goes," said John, "he's all right; but as far as everything else goes--especially horses--they're all wrong. He's got to be got rid of some way." I had nothing more to say to John, and I went into the house. I met Mrs. Chester in the hall. "I have had a bad time up-stairs," she said. "Mrs. Whittaker declares that she will not stay an hour in a house where there is a bear without a master; but as she has a terrible sciatica and cannot travel, I do not know what she is going to do. Her trained nurse, I believe, is now putting on her bonnet to depart." As she spoke, the joyful anticipation of a few days at the Holly Sprig Inn began to fade away. I did not blame the bear as the present cause of my disappointment. He had done all he could for me. It was his wretched master who had done the mischief by running away and leaving him. But no matter what had happened, I saw my duty plainly before me. I had not been encouraged to stay, but it is possible that I might have done so without encouragement, but now I saw that I must go. The Fates, who, as I had hoped, had compelled my stay, now compelled my departure. "Do not give yourself another thought upon the subject," I said. "I will settle the whole matter, and nobody need be frightened or disturbed. The Cheltenham Hotel is only a few miles farther on, and I shall have to walk there anyway. I will start immediately and take the bear with me. I am sure that he will allow me to lead him wherever I please. I have tried him, and I find that he is a great deal gentler than most children." She exclaimed, in horror: "You must not think of it! He might spring upon you and tear you to pieces!" "Oh, he will not do that," I answered. "He is not that sort of a bear--and, besides, he is securely muzzled. I muzzled him myself, and he did not mind it in the least. Oh, you need not be afraid of the bear; he has had his breakfast and he is in perfect good-humor with the world. It will not take me long to reach the hotel, and I shall enjoy the walk, and when I get there I will be sure to find some shed or out-house where the beast can be shut up until it can be decided what to do with him. I can leave him there and have him legally advertised, and then--if nothing else can be done--he can be shot. I shall be very glad to have his skin; it will be worth enough to cover his bill here, and the damages to my bicycle. I shall send for that as soon as I reach the hotel. I can go to Waterton by train and take it with me. I can have it made all right in Waterton. So now, you see, I have settled everything satisfactorily." She looked at me earnestly, and, although there was a certain solicitude in her gaze, I could also see there signs of great relief. "But isn't there some other way of getting that bear to the hotel?" she said. "It will be dreadful for you to have to walk there and lead him." "It's the only way to do it," I answered. "You could not hitch a bear behind a wagon--the horse would run away and jerk his head off. The only way to take a bear about the country is to lead him, and I do not mind it in the least. As I have got to go without my bicycle I would like to have some sort of company. Anyway, the bear must go, and as I am on the road to the Cheltenham I shall be very glad to take him along with me." "I think you are wonderfully brave," she said, "and very good. If I can persuade myself it will be perfectly safe for you, it will certainly be a great relief to me." I was now engaged in a piece of self-sacrifice, and I felt that I must do it thoroughly and promptly. "I will go and get my valise," I said, "for I ought to start immediately." "Oh, I will send that!" she exclaimed. "No," I answered; "it does not weigh anything, and I can sling it over my shoulder. By-the-way," I said, turning as I was about to leave the room, "I have forgotten something." I put my hand into my pocket; it would not do to forget that I was, after all, only a departing guest. "No, no," she replied, quickly, "I am your debtor. When you find out how much damage you have suffered, and what is to be done with the bear, all that can be settled. You can write to me, but I will have nothing to do with it now." With my valise over my shoulder I returned to the hall to take leave of my hostess. Now she seemed somewhat contrite. Fate and she had conquered, I was going away, and she was sorry for me. "I think it is wonderfully good of you to do all this," she said. "I wish I could do something for you." I would have been glad to suggest that she might ask me to come again, and it would also have pleased me to say that I did not believe that her husband, if he could express his opinion, would commend her apparent inhospitality to his successor. But I made no such remarks, and offered my hand, which she cordially clasped as if I were an old friend and were going away to settle in the Himalayas. I went into the yard to get Orso. He was lying down when I approached him, but I think he knew from my general appearance that I was prepared to take the road, and he rose to his feet as much as to say, "I am ready." I unfastened the chain from the post, and, with the best of wishes for good-luck from John, who now seemed to be very well satisfied with me, I walked around the side of the house, the bear following as submissively as if he had been used to my leadership all his life. I did not see the boy nor the lemon-faced woman, and I was glad of it. I believe they would have cast evil eyes upon me, and there is no knowing what that bear might have done in consequence. Mrs. Chester was standing in the door as I reached the road. "Good-bye!" she cried, "and good fortune go with you!" I raised my hat, and gave Orso a little jerk with the chain. CHAPTER IX A RUNAWAY He was a very slow walker, that bear. If I had been alone I would have been out of sight of the inn in less than five minutes. As it was, I looked back after a considerable time to see if I really were out of sight of the house, and I found I was not. She was still standing in the doorway, and when I turned she waved her handkerchief. Now that I had truly left and was gone, she seemed to be willing to let me know better than before what a charming woman she was. I took off my hat again and pressed forward. For a couple of miles, perhaps, I walked thoughtfully, and I do not believe I once thought of the bear shambling silently behind me. I had been dreaming a day-dream--not building a castle in the air, for I had seen before me a castle already built. I had simply been dreaming myself into it, into its life, into its possessions, into the possession of everything which belonged to it. It had been a fascinating vision. It had suited my fancy better than any vision of the future which I had ever had. I was not ambitious; I loved the loveliness of life. I was a student, and I had a dream of life which would not interfere with the society of my books. I loved all rural pleasures, and I had dreamed of a life where these were spread out ready for my enjoyment. I was a man formed to love, and there had come to me dreams of this sort of thing. My dreams had even taken practical shape. As I was dressing myself that morning I had puzzled my brain to find a pretext for taking the first step, which would be to remain a few days at the inn. The pretext for doing this had appeared to me. For a moment I had snatched at it and shown my joy, and then it had utterly disappeared--the vision, the fancy, the anticipations, the plans, the vine-covered home in the air, all were destroyed as completely as if it had been the tire of my bicycle scattered about in little bits upon the ground. "Come along, old Orso!" I exclaimed, endeavoring to mend my pace, and giving the bear a good pull upon his chain. But the ugly creature did not walk any faster; he simply looked at me with an air as if he would say that if I kept long upon the road I would learn to take it easy, and maintained the deliberate slouch of his demeanor. Presently I stopped, and Orso was very willing to imitate me in that action. I found, to my surprise, that I was not walking upon a macadamized road: such was the highway which passed the inn and led, I had been told, to the Cheltenham. I was now upon a road of gravel and clay, smooth enough and wide enough, but of a different character from that on which I had started that morning. I looked about me. Across a field to my left I saw a line of trees which seemed to indicate a road. I had a dim recollection of having passed a road which seemed to turn to the left, but I had been thinking very earnestly, and had paid little attention to it. Probably that road was the main road and this the one which turned off. I determined to investigate. It would not do to wander out of my way with my present encumbrance. It was now somewhat after noon; the country people were eating their dinners or engaged about their barns; there was nobody upon the road. At some distance ahead of me was a small house standing well back behind a little group of trees, and I decided to go there and make inquiries. And as it would not do at all to throw a rural establishment into a state of wild confusion by leading a bear up to its door, I conducted Orso to the side of the road and chained him to a fence-post. He was perfectly satisfied and lay down, his nose upon his fore-paws. [Illustration: "TO MY LEFT I SAW A LINE OF TREES"] I found three women in the little house. They were in a side kitchen eating their dinner, and I wondered what the bear would have done if he had smelled that dinner. They told me that I was not on the main road, and would have to go back more than half a mile in order to regain it. When I was out on the road again I said to myself that if I could possibly make Orso step along at a little more lively pace I might get to the hotel in time for a very late luncheon, and I was beginning to think that I had not been wise in declining portable refreshment, when I heard a noise ahead of me. At a considerable distance along the road, and not far from where I had left the bear, I saw a horse attached to a vehicle approaching me at a furious speed. He was running away! The truth flashed upon me--he had been frightened by Orso! I ran a few steps towards the approaching horse. His head was high in the air, and the vehicle swayed from side to side. It was a tall affair with two wheels, and on the high seat sat a lady vainly tugging at the reins. My heart sank. What dreadful thing had I done! I stood in the middle of the road. It seemed but a few seconds before the horse was upon me. He swerved to one side, but I was ready for that. I dashed at his bridle, but caught the end of his cumbrous bit in my right hand. I leaned forward with all the strength that dwelt in my muscles and nerves. The horse's glaring eye was over my face, and I felt the round end of a shaft rise up under my arm. A pair of outstretched forelegs slid past me. I saw the end of a banged tail switching in the dust. The horse was on his haunches. He was stopped. Before I had time to recover an erect attitude and to let up the horse the occupant of the vehicle was on the ground She had skipped down with wonderful alacrity on the side opposite to me, and was coming round by the back of the cart. The horse was now standing on his four legs, trembling in every fibre, and with eyes that were still wild and staring. Holding him firmly, I faced the lady as she stopped near me. She was a young woman in a jaunty summer costume and a round straw hat. She did not seem to be quite mistress of herself; she was not pale, but perhaps that was because her face was somewhat browned by the sun, but her step was not steady, and she breathed hard. Under ordinary circumstances she would have been assisted to the side of the road, where she might sit down and recover herself, and have water brought to her. But I could do nothing of that sort. I could not leave that shivering horse. [Illustration: "HE WAS RUNNING AWAY"] "Are you hurt?" I asked. "Oh no," she said, "but I am shaken up a bit. I cannot tell you how grateful I am! I don't believe I ever can tell you!" "Do not speak of that." I said, quickly. "Perhaps you would feel better if you were to sit down somewhere." "Oh, I don't want to sit down," said she. "I am so glad to have my feet on the solid earth again that that is enough for me. It was a bear that frightened him--a bear lying down by the side of the road a little way back. He never ran away before, but when he saw that bear he gave a great shy and a bolt, and he was off. I just got a glimpse of the beast." I was very anxious to change the conversation, and suggested that I lead the horse into the shade, for the sun was blazing down upon us. The horse submitted to be led to the side of the road, but he was very nervous, and looked everywhere for the approach of shaggy bears. "It is perfectly dreadful," she said, when she again approached me, "for people to leave bears about in that way. I suppose he was fastened, for it could not have been a wild beast. They do not lie down by the side of the road. I do not say that I was rattled, but I expected every second that there would be a smash, and there would have been if it had not been for--" "It is a wonder you were not thrown out," I interrupted, "those carts are so tall." "Yes," she answered, "and if I hadn't slipped off the driving-cushion at the first shy I would have been out sure. I never had anything happen like this, but who could have expected a great bear by the side of the road?" "Have you far to go?" I asked. "Not very--about three miles. I made a call this morning on the other road, and was driving home. My name is Miss Larramie. My father's place is on this road. He is Henry Esmond Larramie." I had heard of the gentleman, but had never met him. "I am not afraid of horses," she continued, "but I do not know about driving this one now. He looks as if he were all ready to bolt again." "Oh, it would not do for you to drive him," I said. "That would be extremely risky." "I might walk home," she said, "but I could not leave the horse." "Let me think a minute," said I. Then presently I asked, "Will this horse stand if he is hitched?" "Oh yes," she answered; "I always hitch him when I make calls. There is a big strap under the seat which goes around his neck, and then through a ring in his bit. He has to stand--he can't get away." "Very well, then," said I; "I will tell you what I will do. I will tie him to this tree. I think he is quieter, and if you will stand by him and talk to him--he knows you?" "Oh yes," she answered, "and I can feed him with grass. But why do you want to tie him? What are you going to do?" As she spoke she brought me the tie strap, and I proceeded to fasten the horse to a tree. "Now, then," said I, "I must go and get the bear and take him away somewhere out of sight. It will never do to leave him there. Some other horse might be coming along." "You get the bear!" she said, surprised. "Yes," I answered; "he is my bear, and--" She stepped back, her eyes expanded and her lower jaw dropped. "_Your_ bear!" she cried, and with that her glance seemed to run all over me as if she were trying to find some resemblance to a man who exhibited a bear. "Yes," I replied; "I left him there while I went to ask my way. It was a dreadful thing to do, but I must leave him there no longer. I will tell you all about it when I come back." I had decided upon a plan of action. I ran down the road to the bear, took down some bars of the fence, and then, untying him, I led him over a field to a patch of woodland. Orso shuffled along humbly as if it did not make any difference to him where he went, and when I reached the woods I entered it by an old cart-road, and soon struck off to one side among some heavy underbrush. Finding a spot where it would be impossible for the beast to be seen from the road, I fastened him securely to a tree. He looked after me regretfully, and I think I heard him whine, but I am not sure of that. I hurried back to the road, replaced the bars, and very soon had joined the young lady. "Well," said she, "never in this world would I have thought that was your bear! But what is to be done now? This horse gave a jump as soon as he heard you running this way." "Now," said I, "I will drive you to your house, or, if you are afraid, you can walk, and I will take him home for you if you will give me the directions." "Oh, I am not a bit afraid," she said. "I am sure you can manage him--you seem to be able to manage animals. But will not this be a great inconvenience to you? Are you going this way? And won't you have to come back after your bear? I can't believe that you are really leading a bear about." I laughed as I unfastened the horse. "It will not take me long to come back," I said. "Now, I will get in first, and, when I have him properly in hand, you can mount on the other side." The young lady appeared to have entirely recovered from the effects of her fright, and was by my side in a moment. The horse danced a little as we started and tried to look behind him, but he soon felt that he was under control, and trotted off finely. I now thought that I ought to tell her who I was, for I did not want to be taken for a travelling showman, although I really did not suppose that she would make such a mistake. "So you are the school-master at Walford!" said she. "I have heard about you. Little Billy Marshall is one of your scholars." I admitted that he was, and that I was afraid he did not do me very much credit. "Perhaps not," she said, "but he is a good boy. His mother sometimes works for us; she does quite heavy jobs of sewing, and Billy brings them up by train. He was here a little more than a week ago, and I asked him how he was getting on at school, and if he had a good teacher, and he said the man was pretty good. But I want to know about the bear. How in the world did you happen to be leading a bear?" I related the ursine incident, which amused her very much, and, as she was a wheelwoman herself, she commiserated with me sincerely on the damage to my machine. "So you stopped at the Holly Sprig?" she said. "And how did you like the mistress of that little inn?" I replied that I had found her very interesting. "Yes, she is an interesting woman," said my companion, "and a very pretty one, too. Some people wonder why she continues to keep the inn, but perhaps she has to. You know, her husband was murdered." [Illustration: "He soon felt that he was under control"] "No, I did not!" I exclaimed, in surprise. "I knew he was not living--but murdered! That is dreadful! How did that happen?" "Nobody knows," she answered. "They had not been married very long--I do not know how long--when he was killed. He went to New York on business by himself, and did not come back. They were searching for him days and days--ever so long, and they could find no clew. At last--it may have been a month afterwards--or perhaps it was more--it was found that he had been murdered. His body had been discovered, and was supposed to be that of somebody else, and had been buried in whatever place the authorities buried people in such cases. Then it was too late to get it or to identify it, or to do anything. Wasn't that perfectly awful?" This story gave me a peculiar shock. I could not have imagined that that charming and apparently light-hearted young woman at the Holly Sprig had ever been crushed down by such a sorrow as this. But I did not ask any more questions. The young girl by my side probably knew no more than she had already told me. Besides, I did not want to hear any more. "'Royal' goes along just as if nothing had happened," she said, admiringly regarding the horse. "Now, I wonder if it will be safe for me to drive him again?" "I should be very sorry," I answered, "if my thoughtlessness had rendered him unsafe for you; but if he could be led up and down past the place where he saw the bear until he becomes convinced that there is now nothing dreadful in that spot, he may soon be all right again." "Do you know," she said, suddenly turning towards me, "what I would like better than anything else in this world? I would like to be able to stand in the middle of the road and stop a horse as you did!" I laughed and assured her that I knew there were a great many things in the world which it would be much better for her to do than that. "Nothing would please me so much," she said, decisively, "not one single, solitary thing! There's our gate. Turn in here, please." I drove up a winding road which led to a house standing among trees on a slight elevation. "Please let me out here," she said, when I reached the end of the porch. "I will send a man to take the horse." CHAPTER X THE LARRAMIE FAMILY I think I did not have to wait ten seconds after her departure, for a stable-man had seen us approach and immediately came forward. I jumped down from the cart and looked in the direction of the road. I thought if I were to make a cross-cut over the lawn and some adjacent fields I should get back to my bear much quicker than if I returned the way I had come. But this thought had scarcely shaped itself in my mind when I heard the approach of hurrying feet, and in the next moment a little army had thrown itself upon me. There was a tall, bright-faced man, with side whiskers and a flowing jacket, who came forward with long steps and outstretched hand; there was a lady behind him, with little curls on the side of her head; and there were some boys and girls and other people. And nearly in front of the whole of them was the young lady I had brought to the house. Each one of them seized me by the hand; each one of them told me what a great thing I had done; each of them thanked me from the bottom of his or her heart for saving the life of his or her daughter or sister, and not one of them gave me a chance to say that as I had done all the mischief I could not be too thankful that I had been able to avert evil consequences. From the various references to the details of the incident I concluded that the young lady had dashed into the house and had given a full account of everything which had happened in less time than it would have taken me to arrange my ideas for such a recital. As soon as I could get a chance I thanked them all for their gracious words, and said that as I was in a hurry I must take my leave. Thereupon arose a hubbub of voices. "Not at dinner-time!" exclaimed Mr. Larramie. "We would never listen to such a thing!" "And you need not trouble yourself about your bear," cried my young lady, whose Christian name I soon discovered to be Edith. "He can live on barks and roots until we have time to attend to him. He is used to that in his native wilds." [Illustration: "A LITTLE ARMY HAD THROWN ITSELF UPON US."] Now everybody wanted to know everything about the bear, and great was the hilarity which my account occasioned. "Come in! Come in!" exclaimed Mr. Larramie. "The bear will be all right if you tied him well. You have just time to get ready for dinner." And noticing a glance I had given to my garments, he continued: "You need not bother about your clothes. We are all in field costume. Oh, I did not see you had a valise. Now, hurry in, all of you!" That dinner was a most lively meal. Everybody seemed to be talking at once, yet they all found time to eat. The father talked so much that his daughter Edith took the carving-fork from him and served out the mutton-chops herself. The mother, from the other end of the table, with tears in her eyes, continually asked me if I would not have something or other, and how I could ever screw up my courage to go about with an absolutely strange bear. There was a young man, apparently the oldest son, with a fine, frank manner and very broad shoulders. He was so wonderfully developed about the bust that he seemed almost deformed, his breast projecting so far that it gave him the appearance of being round-shouldered in front. This, my practised eye told me, was the result of undue exercise in the direction of chest-expansion. He was a good-natured fellow, and overlooked my not answering several of his questions, owing to the evident want of opportunity to do so. There was a yellow-haired girl with a long plait down her back; there was a half-grown boy, wearing a blue calico shirt with a red cravat; there was a small girl who sat by her mother; and there was a young lady, very upright and slender, who did not seem to belong to the family, for she never used the words "father" and "mother," which were continually in the mouths of the others. This young lady talked incessantly, and fired her words after the manner of a Gatling gun, without taking aim at anybody in particular. Sometimes she may have been talking to me, but, as she did not direct her gaze towards me on such occasions, I did not feel bound to consider any suppositions in regard to the matter. I, of course, was the principal object of general attention. They wanted to know what I really thought of Billy Marshall as a scholar. They wanted to know if I would have some more. They wanted to know if I had had any previous experience with bears. The father asked which I thought it would be easier to manage, a boy or a bear. The boy Percy wanted to know how I placed my feet when I stood up in front of a runaway horse. Others asked if I intended to go back to my school at Walford, and how I liked the village, and if I were president of the literary society there, which Mrs. Larramie thought I ought to be, on account of my scholastic position. [Illustration: "'WOULD IT BE EASIER TO MANAGE A BOY OR A BEAR?'"] But before the meal was over the bear had come to be the absorbing subject of conversation. I was asked my plans about him, and they were all disapproved. "It would be of no use to take him to the Cheltenham," said Walter, the oldest son. "They couldn't keep him there. They have too many horses--a livery-stable. They wouldn't let you come on the place with him." "Of course not," said Mr. Larramie. "And, besides, why should you take him there? It would be a poor place anyway. They wouldn't keep him until his owner turned up. They wouldn't have anything to do with him. What you want to do is to bring your bear here. We have a hay-barn out in the fields. He could sleep in the hay, and we could give him a long chain so that he could have a nice range." The younger members of the family were delighted with this suggestion. Nothing would please them better than to have a bear on the place. Each one of them was ready to take entire charge of it, and Percy declared that he would go into the woods and hunt for wild-bee honey with which to feed it. Even Mrs. Larramie assured me that if a bear were well chained, at a suitable distance, she would have no fears whatever of it. I accepted the proposition, for I was glad to get rid of the animal in a way which would please so many people, and after dinner was over, and I had smoked a cigar with my host and his son Walter, I said that it was time for me to go and get the bear. "But you won't go by the main road," said Mr. Larramie. "That makes a great curve below here to avoid a hill. If I understood you properly, you left the bear not far from a small house inhabited by three women?" "They're the McKenna sisters," added Walter. "Yes," said the father, "and their house is not more than two miles from here by a field road. I will go with you." I exclaimed that I would not put him to so much trouble, but my words were useless. The Walter son declared that he would go also, that he would like the walk; the Percy son declared he was going if anybody went; and Genevieve, the girl with the yellow plait, said that she wished she were a boy so that she could go too, and she wished she could go anyway, boy or no boy, and as her father said that there was no earthly reason why she should not go, she ran for her hat. Miss Edith looked as if she would like to go, but she did not say so; and, as for me, I agreed to every proposition. It would certainly be great fun to do things with this lively household. We started off without the boy, but it was not long before he came running after us, and to my horror I perceived that he carried a rifle. "What are you going to do with that, Percy?" exclaimed his father. "I don't expect to do anything with it," the boy replied, "but I thought it would be a good thing to bring it along--especially as Genevieve is with us. Nobody knows what might happen." "That's true," exclaimed Walter, "and the fact that Genevieve is along is the best reason in the world for your not bringing a gun. You better go take it back." To this Percy strongly objected. He was going out on a sort of a bear-hunt, and to him half the pleasure would be lost if he did not carry a gun. I am not a coward, but a boy with a gun is a terror to me. My expression may have intimated my state of mind, for Mr. Larramie said to me that we had now gone so far that it would be a pity to send Percy back, and that he did not think there would be any danger, for his boy had been taught how to carry a gun properly. "We are all out-of-door people and sportsmen," he said, "and we begin early. But I suppose what you are thinking about is the danger of some of us ending soon. But we need not be afraid of that. Walk in front, Percy, and keep the barrel pointed downward." When we came in sight of the house of the three McKennas, Walter proposed that we make a détour towards the woods. "For," said he, "if those good women see a party like this with a gun among them, they will be sure to think it is a case of escaped criminal, or something of that kind, and be frightened out of their wits." We skirted the edge of the trees until we came to the opening of the wood road, which I recognized immediately, and, asking Percy and the others to keep back, I went on by myself. "I don't think people would frighten that sort of a bear," I heard Genevieve say. "He must be used to crowds around him when he's dancing." I presently reached the place where I had turned from the road. It was a natural break in the woods. There was the tree to which I had tied the bear, but there was no bear. I stood aghast, and in a moment the rest of the party were clustered around me. "Is this where you left him?" they cried. "And is he gone? Are you sure this is the place?" Yes, I was sure of it. I have an excellent eye for locality, and I knew that I had chained the bear to the small oak in front of me. At that moment there was a scream from Genevieve. "Look! Look!" she cried. "There he is, just ready to spring!" We all looked up, and, sure enough, on the lower branch of the oak, half enveloped in foliage, we saw the bear extended at full length and blinking down at us. I gave a shout of delight. "Now, keep back, all of you!" I cried. "Bears don't spring from trees, but it will be better for you to be out of the way while I try to get him down." I walked up to the oak-tree, and then I found that the bear was still firmly attached to it. His chain had been fastened loosely around the trunk; he had climbed up to the branch and pulled the chain with him. I now called upon Orso to come down, but apparently he did not understand English, and lay quietly upon the branch, his head towards the trunk of the tree. I extended my hand up towards the chain, and found that I could nearly reach it. "Shall I give you a lift?" cried Walter, and I accepted the offer. It was a hard piece of work for him, but he was a professed athlete, and he would have lifted me if it had cracked his spine. I reached up and unhooked the chain. It was then long enough for me to stand on the ground and hold the end of it. Now I began to pull. "Come down!" I said. "Come down, Orso!" But Orso did not move. "Bears don't come down head-foremost," cried Percy; "they turn around and come down backwards. You ought to have a chain to his tail if you want to pull him down." "He hasn't got any tail!" exclaimed Genevieve. I was in a quandary. I might as well try to break the branch as to pull the bear down. "If we had only thought of bringing a bucket of meat!" cried Percy. "Would you mind holding the chain," I said to Walter, "while I try to drive him down?" Of course the developed young man was not afraid to do anything I was not afraid to do, and he took the chain. There was a pine-tree growing near the oak, and, mounting into this, I found that with a long stick which Mr. Larramie handed me I could just reach the bear. "Go down!" I said, tapping him on the haunches, but he did not move. "Can't you speak to him in Italian?" said Genevieve. "Tame bears know Italian. Doesn't anybody know the Italian for 'Come down out of a tree?'" But such knowledge was absent from the party. "Try him in Latin," cried Percy. "That must be a good deal like Italian, anyway." To this suggestion Mr. Larramie made no answer; he had left college before any of the party present had been born; Mr. Walter looked a little confused; he had graduated several years before, and his classics were rusty. I felt that my pedagogical position made it incumbent upon me to take immediate action, but for the life of me I could not think of an appropriate phrase. "Give him high English!" cried Mr. Larramie. "That's often classic enough! Tell him to descend!" "Orso, descend!" I cried, giving a little foreign twang to the words. Immediately the bear began to twist like a caterpillar upon the limb, he extended his hind-legs towards the trunk, he seized it with his fore-paws. He began slowly to move downward. "Hurrah!" cried Percy, "that hit him like a rifle-ball! Hurrah for high English! That's good enough for me!" "Look at his hind hands!" cried Genevieve. "He has worn all the hair off his palms!" I hurried from the tree and reached the ground before the bear. Then taking the end of the chain, I advised the others to move out of the woods while I followed with the bear. They all obeyed except Genevieve, who wanted very much to linger behind and help me lead him. But this I would not permit. The bear followed me with his usual docility until we had emerged from the woods. Then he gave a little start, and fixed his eyes upon Percy, who stood at a short distance, his rifle in his hand. I had not supposed that this bear was afraid of anything, but now I had reason to believe that he was afraid of guns, for the instant he saw the armed boy he made the little start I have mentioned, and followed it up by a great bolt which jerked the chain from my hand, and the next instant Orso was bounding away in great lopes, his chain rattling behind him. Promptly Percy brought his rifle to his shoulder. "Don't you fire!" I shouted. "Put down your gun and leave it here. It frightens him!" And with that we were all off in hot pursuit. "Cut him off from the woods!" shouted Mr. Walter, who was in advance. "If he gets in the woods we'll lose him sure!" We followed this good advice, and at the top of our speed we endeavored to get between the beast and the trees. To a certain extent we succeeded in our object, for some of us were fast runners, and Orso, perceiving that he might be cut off from a woody retreat, turned almost at right angles and made directly for the house. "He's after the three McKennas!" screamed Genevieve, as she turned to follow the bear, and from being somewhat in the rear she was now in advance of us, and dashed across the field at a most wonderful rate for a girl. The rest of us soon passed her, but before we reached the house the bear disappeared behind some out-buildings. Then we saw him again. He dashed through the gate of a back yard. He seemed to throw himself against the house. He disappeared through a door-way. There was a great crash as of crockery and tin. There were screams. There was rattling and banging, and then all was still. When we reached the house we heard no sound. CHAPTER XI THE THREE McKENNAS I was in advance, and as I entered the door-way through which the bear had disappeared, I found myself in the kitchen where I had seen the three women at their dinner. Wild confusion had been brought about in a second. A table had been over-turned, broken dishes and tin things were scattered on the floor, a wooden chair lay upon its back, and the room seemed deserted. The rest of the party quickly rushed in behind me, and great were their exclamations at the scene of havoc. "I hope nothing has happened to the McKenna sisters," cried Mr. Larramie. "They must have been in here!" I did not suppose that anything serious had occurred, for the bear's jaws were securely strapped, but with anxious haste I went into the other part of the house. Across a hallway I saw an open door, and from the room within came groans, or perhaps I should call them long-drawn wails of woe. I was in the room in a moment, and the others crowded through the door-way behind me. It was a good-sized bedroom, probably the "spare-room" of the first floor. In one corner was a tall and wide high-posted bedstead, and in the very middle of it sat an elderly woman drawn up into the smallest compass into which she could possibly compress herself. Her eyes were closed, her jaws were dropped, her spectacles hung in front of her mouth, her gray hair straggled over her eyes, and her skin was of a soapy whiteness. She paid no attention to the crowd of people in the room. Evidently she was frightened out of her senses. Every moment she emitted a doleful wail. As we stood gazing at her, and before we had time to speak to her, she seemed to be seized by an upheaving spasm, the influence of which was so great that she actually rose in the air, and as she did so her wail intensified itself into a shriek, and as she came down again with a sudden thump all the breath in her body seemed to be bounced out in a gasp of woe. "It's Susan McKenna!" exclaimed Walter. "What in the world is the matter with her? Miss Susan, are you hurt?" She made no answer, but again she rose, again she gave vent to a wild wail, and again she came down with a thump. Percy was now on his knees near the bed. "It's the bear!" he cried. "He's under there, and he's humping himself!" "Sacking bottom!" cried the practical Genevieve "There isn't room enough for him!" Stooping down I saw the bear under the bed, now crowding himself back as far as possible into a corner. No part of his chain was exposed to view, and for a moment I did not see how I was going to get him out. But the first thing was to get rid of the woman. "Come, Miss Susan," said Mr. Larramie, "let me help you off the bed, and you can go into another room, and then we will attend to this animal. You need not be afraid to get down. He won't hurt you." But the McKenna sister paid no attention to these remarks. She kept her eyes closed; she moaned and wailed. So long as that horrible demon was under the bed she would not have put as much as one of her toes over the edge for all the money in the world! In every way I tried to induce the bear to come out, but he paid no attention to me. He had been frightened, and he was now in darkness and security. Suddenly a happy thought struck me. I glanced around the room, and then I rushed into the hall. Genevieve followed me. "What do you want?" she said. "I am looking for some overshoes!" I cried. "India-rubber ones!" Instantly Genevieve began to dash around. In a few moments she had opened a little closet which I had not noticed. "Here is one!" she cried, "but it's torn--the heel is nearly off! Perhaps the other one--" "Give me that!" I exclaimed. "It doesn't matter about its being torn!" With the old overshoe in my hand I ran back into the room, where Mr. Larramie was still imploring the McKenna sister to get down from the bed. I stooped and thrust the shoe under as far as I could reach. Almost immediately I saw a movement in the shaggy mass in the corner. I wriggled the shoe, and a paw was slightly extended. Then I drew it away slowly from under the bed. Now, Miss Susan McKenna rose in the air higher than she had yet gone. A maddening wail went up, and for a moment she tottered on the apex of an elevation like a wooden idol upheaved by an earthquake. Before she had time to tumble over she sank again with a thump. The great hairy bear, looking twice as large in that room as he appeared in the open air, came out from under the foot of the bed, and as I dangled the old rubber shoe in front of his nose he would have seized upon it if his jaws had not been strapped together. I got hold of the chain and conducted him quietly outside, amid the cheers and hand-clapping of Percy and Genevieve. I chained Orso to a post of the fence, and, removing his muzzle, I gave him the old rubber shoe. "Shall I bring him some more?" cried Genevieve, full of zeal in good works. But I assured her that one would do for the present. I now hurried into the house to find out what had happened to the persons and property of the McKenna sisters. "Where are the other two?" cried Genevieve, who was darting from one room to another; "the bear can't have swallowed them." It was not long before Percy discovered the two missing sisters in the cellar. They were seated on the ground with their aprons over their heads. It was some time before quiet was restored in that household. To the paralyzing terror occasioned by the sudden advent of the bear succeeded wild lamentations over the loss of property. I assured them that I was perfectly willing to make good the loss, but Mr. Larramie would not allow me to say anything on the subject. "It is not your affair," said he. "The bear would have done no damage whatever had it not been for the folly of Percy in bringing his gun--I suppose the animal has been shot at some time or other--and my weakness in allowing him to keep it. I will attend to these damages. The amount is very little, I imagine, principally cheap crockery, and the best thing you can do is to start off slowly with your bear. The women will not be able to talk reasonably until it is off the premises. I will catch up with you presently." When the bear and I, with the rest of the party, were fairly out of sight of the house, we stopped and waited for Mr. Larramie, and it was not long before he joined us. When we reached the hay-barn we were met by the rest of the Larramie family, all anxious to see the bear. Even Miss Edith, who had had one glimpse of the beast, was very glad indeed to assure me that she did not wonder in the least that I had supposed there would be no harm in leaving such a mild creature for a little while by the side of the road, and I was sure from the exclamations of the rest of the family that Orso would not suffer for want of care and attention during his stay in the hay-barn. I was immensely relieved to get rid of the bear and to leave him in such good quarters, for it now appeared to me quite reasonable that I might have had difficulty in lodging him anywhere on the premises of the Cheltenham, and under any circumstances I very much preferred appearing at that hotel without an ursine companion. As soon as we reached the house I told Mr. Larramie that it was now necessary for me to hurry on, and asked if there were not some way to the hotel which would not make it necessary for me to go back to the main road. The good gentleman fairly shouted at me. "You aren't going to any hotel!" he declared. "Do you suppose we are heathens, to let you start off at this late hour in the afternoon for a hotel? You have nothing to do with hotels--you spend the night with us, sir! If you are thinking about your clothes, pray dismiss the subject from your mind. If it will make you feel better satisfied, we will all put on golf suits. In the morning we will get your machine from the Holly Sprig, and when you want to go on we will send you and it to Waterton in a wagon. It is not a long drive, and it is much the pleasanter way to manage your business." The family showed themselves delighted when they heard that I was to spend the night with them, and I did not object to the plan, for I had not the slightest desire to go to a summer hotel. Just before I went up to my room to get ready for supper, the young Genevieve came to me upon the porch. "Would you mind," she said, "letting me feel your muscle?" Very much surprised, I reached out my arm for her inspection, and she clasped her long thin fingers around my _biceps flexor cubiti._ Apparently, the inspection was very satisfactory to her. "I would give anything," she said, "if I had muscle like that!" I laughed heartily. "My dear little girl," said I, "you would be sorry, indeed, if you had anything of the sort. When you grow up and go to parties, how would you like to show bare arms shaped like mine? You would be a spectacle, indeed." "Well," said she, "perhaps you are right. I might not care to have them bulge, but I would like to have them hard." It was a lively supper and an interesting evening. Miss Edith sat opposite to me at table--I gave her this title because I was informed that there was an elder sister who was away on a visit. I could see that she regarded me as her especial charge. She did not ask me what I would have, but she saw that every possible want was attended to. As the table was lighted by a large hanging-lamp, I had a better view of her features than I had yet obtained. She was not handsome. Her eyes were too wide apart, her nose needed perhaps an eighth of an inch in length, and her well-shaped mouth would not have suffered by a slight reduction. But there was a cheerful honesty in her expression and in her words which gave me the idea that she was a girl to believe in. After supper we played round games, and the nervous young lady talked. She could not keep her mind on cards, and therefore played no game. In the course of the evening Mrs. Larramie took occasion to say to me, and her eyes were very full as she spoke, that she did not want me to think she had forgotten that that day I had given her her daughter, and although the others--greatly to my satisfaction--did not indulge in any such embarrassing expressions of gratitude, they did not fail to let me know the high estimation in which they held me. The little girl, Clara, sat close to me while I was playing, every now and then gently stroking my arm, and when she was taken off to bed she ran back to say to me that the next time I brought a bear to their house she hoped I would also bring some little ones. Even Percy took occasion to let me know that, under the circumstances, he was willing to overlook entirely the fact of my being a school-master. After the games, when the family was scattering--not to their several bed-chambers, but apparently to various forms of recreation or study which seemed to demand their attention--Miss Edith asked me if I would not like to take a walk and look at the stars. As this suggestion was made in the presence of her parents, I hesitated a moment, expecting some discreet objection. But none came, and I assented most willingly to a sub-astral promenade. There was a long, flagged walk which led to the road, and backward and forward upon this path we walked many, many times. "I like starlight better than moonlight," said Miss Edith, "for it doesn't pretend to be anything more than it is. You cannot do anything by starlight except simply walk about, and if there are any trees, that isn't easy. You know this, you don't expect anything more, and you're satisfied. But moonlight is different. Sometimes it is so bright out-of-doors when the moon is full that you are apt to think you could play golf or croquet, or even sit on a bench and read. But it isn't so. You can't do any of these things--at least, you can't do them with any satisfaction. And yet, month after month, if you live in the country, the moon deceives you into thinking that for a great many things she is nearly as good as the sun. But all she does is to make the world beautiful, and she doesn't do that as well as the sun does it. The stars make no pretences, and that is the reason I like them better. "But I did not bring you out here to tell you all this," she continued, offering me no opportunity of giving my opinions on the stars and moon. "I simply wanted to say that I am so glad and thankful to be walking about on the surface of the earth with whole bones and not a scratch from head to foot"--at this point my heart began to sink: I never do know what to say when people are grateful to me--"that I am going to show you my gratitude by treating you as I know you would like to be treated. I shall not pour out my gratitude before you and make you say things which are incorrect, for you are bound to do that if you say anything--" "I thank you from the bottom of my heart," I said; "but now let us talk some more about the stars." "Oh, bother the stars!" said she. "But I will drop the subject of gratitude as soon as I have said that if you ever come to know me better than you do now, you will know that in regard to such things I am the right kind of a girl." I had not the slightest doubt that she was entirely correct. And then she began to talk about golf, and after that of croquet. "I consider that the finest out-door game we have," she said, "because there is more science in it than you find in any of the others. Your brains must work when you play croquet with intelligent opponents." "The great trouble about it is," I said, "that it is often so easy." "But you can get rid of that objection," she replied, "if you have a bad ground. Croquet needs hazards just as much as golf does. The finest games I have ever seen were played on a bad ground." So we talked and walked until some of the lights in the upper windows of the house had gone out. We ascended to the porch, and just before entering the front door she turned to me. "I wish I could go to sleep to-night with the same right to feel proud, self-confident, superior, that you have. Good-night." And she held out her hand and gave mine a strong, hearty shake. I smiled as she left me standing on the porch. This was the same spot on which her sister Genevieve had felt my muscle. "This is an appreciative family," I said, and, guided by the sound of voices, I found Mr. Larramie and his son Walter in the billiard-room. CHAPTER XII BACK TO THE HOLLY SPRIG Before going to bed that night I did not throw myself into an easy-chair and gaze musingly out into the night. On the contrary, I stood up sturdily with my back to the mantel-piece, and with the forefinger of my right hand I tapped my left palm. "Now, then," said I to myself, "as soon as my bicycle is put into working order I shall imitate travellers in hot countries--I shall ride all night, and I shall rest all day. There are too many young women in Cathay. They turn up one after another with the regularity of a continuous performance. No sooner is the curtain rung down on one act than it is rung up on another. Perhaps after a while I may get out of Cathay, and then again I may ride by day." In taking my things from my valise, I pulled out the little box which the doctor's daughter had given me, but I did not open it. "No," said I, "there is no need whatever that I should take a capsule to-night." [Illustration: "I TAPPED MY LEFT PALM."] After breakfast the next day Mr. Larramie came to me. "Do you know," said he, "I feel ashamed on account of the plans I made for you." I did not know, for I could see no earthly reason for such feeling. "I arranged," said he, "to send to the Holly Sprig for your machine, and then to have you and it driven over to Waterton. Now this I consider brutish. My wife told me that it was, and I agree with her perfectly. It will take several days to repair that injured wheel--Walter tells me you cannot expect it in less than three days--and what will you do in Waterton all that time? It isn't a pretty country, the hotels are barely good enough for a night's stop, and there isn't anything for you to do. Even if you hired a wheel you would find it stupid exploring that country. Now, sir, that plan is brushed entirely out of sight. Your bicycle shall be sent on, and when you hear that it is repaired and ready for use, you can go on yourself if you wish to." "My dear sir," I exclaimed, "this is entirely too much!" He put his hands upon my shoulders and looked me squarely in the face. "Too much!" said he, "too much! That may be your opinion, but I can tell you you have the whole of the rest of the world against you. That is, you would have if they all knew the circumstances. Now you are only one, and if you want to know how many people are opposed to you, I have no doubt Percy can tell you, but I am not very well posted in regard to the present population of the world." There was no good reason that I could offer why I should go and sit solitary in Waterton for three days, and if I had had any such reason I know it would have been treated with contempt. So I submitted--not altogether with an easy mind, and yet seeing cause for nothing but satisfaction and content. "Another thing," said Mr. Larramie; "I have thought that you would like to attend to your bicycle yourself. Perhaps you will want to take it apart before you send it away. Percy will be glad to drive to the Holly Sprig, and you can go with him. Then, when you come back, I will have my man take your machine to Waterton. I have a young horse very much in need of work, and I shall be glad to have an excuse for giving him some travelling to do." I stood astounded. Go back to the Holly Sprig! This arrangement had been made without reference to me. It had been supposed, of course, that I would be glad to go and attend to the proper packing of my bicycle. Even now, Percy, running across the yard, called to me that he would be ready to start in two minutes. When I took my seat in the wagon, Mr. Larramie was telling me that he would like me to inform Mrs. Chester that he would keep the bear until it was reasonable to suppose that the owner would not come for it, and that then he would either sell it or buy it himself, and make satisfactory settlement with her. I know I did not hear all that he said, for my mind was wildly busy trying to decide what I ought to do. Should I jump down even now and decline to go to the Holly Sprig, or should I go on and attend to my business like a sensible man? There was certainly no reason why I should do anything else, but when the impatient Percy started, my mind was not in the least made up; I remained on the seat beside him simply because I was there. Percy was a good driver, and glad to exhibit his skill. He was also in a lively mood, and talked with great freedom. "Do you know," said he, "that Edith wanted to drive you over to the inn? Think of that! But it had all been cut and dried that I should go, and I was not going to listen to any such nonsense. Besides, you might want somebody to help you take your machine apart and pack it up." I was well satisfied to be accompanied by the boy and not by his sister, and with the wheels and his tongue rattling along together, we soon reached the inn. Percy drove past it and was about to turn into the entrance of the yard, but I stopped him. "I suppose your wheel is back there," he said. "Yes," said I, "but I will get out here." "All right," he replied, "I'll drive around to the sheds." At the open door of the large room I met Mrs. Chester, evidently on her way out-of-doors. She wore a wide straw hat, her hands were gloved, and she carried a basket and a pair of large shears. When she saw me there was a sudden flush upon her face, but it disappeared quickly. Whether this meant that she was agreeably surprised to see me again, or whether it showed that she resented my turning up again so soon after she thought she was finally rid of me, I did not know. It does not do to predicate too much upon the flushes of women. [Illustration: "THERE WAS A SUDDEN FLUSH"] I hastened to inform her why I had come, and now, having recovered from her momentary surprise, she asked me to walk in and sit down, an invitation which I willingly accepted, for I did not in the least object to detaining her from her garden. Now she wanted to know how I had managed to get on with the bear, and what the people at the Cheltenham said about it, and when I went on to tell her the whole story, which I did at considerable length, she was intensely interested. She shuddered at the runaway, she laughed heartily at the uprising of the McKenna sister, and she listened earnestly to everything I had to say about the Larramies. "You seem to have a wonderful way," she exclaimed, "of falling in with--" I think she was going to say "girls," but she changed it to "people." "Yes," said I. "I should not have imagined that I could make so many good friends in such a short time." Then I went on to give her Mr. Larramie's message, and to say more things about the bear. I was glad to think of any subject which might prolong the conversation. So far she was interested, and all that we said seemed perfectly natural to the occasion, but this could not last, and I felt within me a strong desire to make some better use of this interview. I had not expected to see her again, certainly not so soon, and here I was alone with her, free to say what I chose; but what should I say? I had not premeditated anything serious. In fact, I was not sure that I wished to say anything which should be considered absolutely serious and definite, but if I were ever to do anything definite--and the more I talked with this bright-eyed and merry-hearted young lady the stronger became the longing to say something definite--now was the time to prepare the way for what I might do or say hereafter. I was beginning to grow nervous, for the right thing to say would not present itself, when Percy strode into the room. "Good-morning, Mrs. Chester," said he, and then, turning to me, he declared that he had been waiting in the yard, and began to think I might have forgotten I had come for my wheel. Of course I rose and she rose, and we followed Percy to the back door of the house. Outside I saw that the boy of the inn was holding the horse, and that the wheel was already placed in the back part of the wagon. "I've got everything all right, I think," said Percy. "I didn't suppose it was necessary to wait for you, but you'd better take a look at it to see if you think it will travel without rubbing or damaging itself." I stepped to the wagon and found that the bicycle was very well placed. "Now, then," said Percy, taking the reins and mounting to his seat, "all you've got to do is to get up, and we'll be off." I turned to the back door, but she was not there. "Wait a minute," said I, and I hurried into the house. She was not in the hall. I looked into the large room. She was not there. I went into the parlor, and out upon the front porch. Then I went back into the house to seek some one who might call her. I was even willing to avail myself of the services of citric acid, for I could not leave that house without speaking to her again. In a moment Mrs. Chester appeared from some inner room. I believe she suspected that I had something to say to her which had nothing to do with the bear or the Larramies, for I had been conscious that my speech had been a little rambling, as if I were earnestly thinking of something else than what I was saying, and that she desired I should be taken away without an opportunity to unburden my mind; but now, hearing me tramping about and knowing that I was looking for her, she was obliged to show herself. As she came forward I noticed that her expression had changed somewhat. There was nothing merry about her eyes; I think she was slightly pale, and her brows were a little contracted, as if she were doing something she did not want to do. "I hope you found everything all right," she said. I looked at her steadily. "No," said I, "everything is not all right." A slight shade of anxiety came upon her face. "I am sorry to hear that," she said. "Was your wheel injured more than you thought?" "Wheel!" I exclaimed. "I was not thinking of wheels! I will tell you what is not all right! It is not right for me to go away without saying to you that I--" At this moment there was a strong, shrill whistle from the front of the house. A most unmistakable sense of relief showed itself upon her face. She ran to the front door, and called out, "Yes, he is coming." [Illustration: "THE SCENE VIVIDLY RECURRED TO MY MIND"] There was nothing for me to do but to follow her. I greatly disliked going away without saying what I wanted to say, and I would have been willing to speak even at the front door, but she gave me no chance. "Good-bye," she said, extending her hand. It was gloved. It gave no clasp--it invited none. As I could not say the words which were on my tongue, I said nothing, and, raising my cap, I hurried away. To make up for lost time, Percy drove very rapidly. "I came mighty near having a fight while you were in the house," said he. "It was that boy at the inn. He's a queer sort of a fellow, and awfully impertinent. He was talking about you, and he wanted to know if the bear had hurt you. He said he believed you were really afraid of the beast, and only wanted to show off before the women. "I stood up for you, and I told him about Edith's runaway, and then he said, fair and square, that he didn't believe you stopped the horse. He said he guessed my sister pulled him up herself, and that then you came along and grabbed him and took all the credit. He said he thought you were that sort of a fellow. "That's the time I was going to pitch into him, but then I thought it would be a pretty low-down thing for me to be fighting a country tavern-boy, so I simply gave him my opinion of him. I don't believe he'd have held the horse, only he thought it would make you get away quicker. He hates you. Did you ever kick him or anything?" I laughed, and, telling Percy that I had never kicked the boy, I thanked him for his championship of me. CHAPTER XIII A MAN WITH A LETTER When my unfortunate bicycle had been started on its way to Waterton, I threw myself into the family life of the Larramies, determined not to let them see any perturbations of mind which had been caused by the extraordinary promptness of the younger son. If a man had gone with me instead of that boy, I would have had every opportunity of saying what I wanted to say to the mistress of the Holly Sprig. I may state that I frequently found myself trying to determine what it was I wanted to say. I did my best to suppress all thoughts relating to things outside of this most hospitable and friendly house. I went to see the bear with the younger members of the family. I played four games of tennis, and in the afternoon the whole family went to fish in a very pretty mill-pond about a mile from the house. A good many fish were caught, large and small, and not one of the female fishers, except Miss Willoughby, the nervous young lady, and little Clara, would allow me to take a fish from her hook. Even Mrs. Larramie said that if she fished at all she thought she ought to do everything for herself, and not depend upon other people. As much as possible I tried to be with Mr. Larramie and Walter. I had not the slightest distaste for the company of the ladies, but there was a consciousness upon me that there were pleasant things in which a man ought to restrict himself. There was nothing chronic about this consciousness. It was on duty for this occasion only. That night at the supper-table the conversation took a peculiar turn. Mr. Larramie was the chief speaker, and it pleased him to hold forth upon the merits of Mrs. Chester. He said, and his wife and others of the company agreed with him, that she was a lady of peculiarly estimable character; that she was out of place; that every one who knew her well felt that she was out of place; but that she so graced her position that she almost raised it to her level. Over and over again her friends had said to her that a lady such as she was--still young, of a good family, well educated, who had travelled, and moved in excellent society--should not continue to be the landlady of a country inn, but the advice of her friends had had no effect upon her. It was not known whether it was necessary for her to continue the inn-keeping business, but the general belief was that it was not necessary. It was supposed that she had had money when she married Godfrey Chester, and he was not a poor man. Then came a strange revelation, which Mr. Larramie dwelt upon with considerable earnestness. There was an idea, he said, that Mrs. Chester kept up the Holly Sprig because she thought it would be her husband's wish that she should do so. He had probably said something about its being a provision for her in case of his death. At any rate, she seemed desirous to maintain the establishment exactly as he had ordered it in his life, making no change whatever, very much as if she had expected him to come back, and wished him to find everything as he had left it. "Of course she doesn't expect him to come back," said Mr. Larramie, "because it must now be four years since the time of his supposed murder--" "Supposed!" I cried, with much more excited interest than I would have shown if I had taken proper thought before speaking. "Well," said Mr. Larramie, "that is a fine point. I said 'supposed' because the facts of the case are not definitely known. There can be no reasonable doubt, however, that he is dead, for even if this fact had not been conclusively proved by the police investigations, it might now be considered proved by his continued absence. It would have been impossible for Mr. Chester alive to keep away from his wife for four years--they were devoted to each other. Furthermore, the exact manner of his death is not known--although it must have been a murder--and for these reasons I used the word 'supposed.' But, really, so far as human judgment can go, the whole matter is a certainty. I have not the slightest doubt in the world that Mrs. Chester so considers it, and yet, as she does not positively know it--as she has not the actual proofs that her husband is no longer living--she refuses in certain ways, in certain ways only, to consider herself a widow." "And what ways are those?" I asked, in a voice which, I hope, exhibited no undue emotion. "She declines to marry again," said Mrs. Larramie, now taking up the conversation. "Of course, such a pretty woman--I may say, such a charming woman--would have admirers, and I know that she has had some most excellent offers, but she has always refused to consider any of them. There was one gentleman, a man of wealth and position, who had proposed to her before she married Mr. Chester, who came on here to offer himself again, but she cut off everything he had to say by telling him that as she did not positively know that her husband was not living, she could not allow a word of that sort to be said to her. I know this, because she told me so herself." There was a good deal more talk of the sort, and of course it interested me greatly, although I tried not to show it, but I could not help wondering why the subject had been brought forward in such an impressive manner upon the present occasion. It seemed to me that there was something personal in it--personal to me. Had that boy Percy been making reports? In the evening I found out all about it, and in a very straightforward and direct fashion. I discovered Miss Edith by herself, and asked her if all that talk about Mrs. Chester had been intended for my benefit, and, if so, why. She laughed. "I expected you to come and ask me about that," she said, "for of course you could see through a good deal of it. It is all father's kindness and goodness. Percy was a little out of temper when he came back, and he spun a yarn about your being sweet on Mrs. Chester, and how he could hardly get you away from her, and all that. He had an idea that you wanted to go there and live, at least for the summer. Something a boy said to him made him think that. So father thought that if you had any notions about Mrs. Chester you ought to have the matter placed properly before you without any delay, and I expect his reason for mentioning it at the supper-table was that it might then seem like a general subject of conversation, whereas it would have been very pointed indeed if he had taken you apart and talked to you about it." "Indeed it would," said I. "And if you will allow me, I will say that boys are unmitigated nuisances! If they are not hearing what they ought not to hear, they are imagining what they ought not to imagine--" "And telling things that they ought not to tell," she added, with a laugh. "Which is an extremely bad thing," said I, "when there is nothing to tell." For the rest of that evening I was more lively than is my wont, for it was a very easy thing to be lively in that family. I do not think I gave any one reason to suppose that I was a man whose attention had been called to a notice not to trespass. As usual, I communed with myself before going to bed. Wherefore this feeling of disappointment? What did it mean? Would I have said anything of importance, of moment, to Mrs. Chester, if the boy Percy had given me an opportunity? What would I have said? What could I have said? I could see that she did not wish that I should say anything, and now I knew the reason for it. It was all plain enough on her side. Even if she had allowed herself any sort of emotion regarding me, she did not wish me to indulge in anything of the kind. But as for myself. I could decide nothing about myself. I smiled grimly as my eyes fell upon the little box of capsules. My first thought was that I should take two of them, but then I shook my head. "It would be utterly useless," I said; "they would do me no good." In the course of the next morning I found myself alone. I put on my cap, lighted a pipe, and started down the flag walk to the gate. In a few moments I heard running steps behind me, and, turning, I saw Miss Edith. "Don't look cross," she said. "Were you going for a walk?" I scouted the idea of crossness, and said that I had thought of taking a stroll. "That seems funny," said she, "for nobody in this house ever goes out for a lonely walk. But you cannot go just yet. There's a man at the back of the house with a letter for you." "A letter!" I exclaimed. "Who in the world could have sent a letter to me here?" "The only way to find out," she answered, "is to go and see." Under a tree at the back of the house I found a young negro man, very warm and dusty, who handed me a letter, which, to my surprise, bore no address. "How do you know this is for me?" said I. He was a good-natured looking fellow. "Oh, I know it's for you, sir," said he. "They told me at the little tavern--the Holly something--that I'd find you here. You're the gentleman that had a bicycle tire eat up by a bear, ain't you?" I admitted that I was, and still, without opening the letter, I asked him, where it came from. "That was given to me in New York, sir," said he, "by a Dago, one of these I-talians. He gave me the money to go to Blackburn Station in the cars, and then I walked over to the tavern. He said he thought I'd find you there, sir. He told me just what sort of a lookin' man you was, sir, and that letter is for you, and no mistake. He didn't know your name, or he'd put it on." "Oh, it is from the owner of the bear," said I. "Yes, sir," said the man, "that's him. He did own a bear--he told me--that eat up your tire." I now tore open the blank envelope, and found it contained a letter on a single sheet, and in this was a folded paper, very dirty. The letter was apparently written in Italian, and had no signature. I ran my eye along the opening lines, and soon found that it would be a very difficult piece of business for me to read it. I was a fair French and German scholar, but my knowledge of Italian was due entirely to its relationship with Latin. I told the man to rest himself somewhere, and went to the house, and, finding Miss Edith, I informed her that I had a letter from the bear man, and asked her if she could read Italian. "I studied the language at school," she said, "but I have not practised much. However, let us go into the library--there is a dictionary there--and perhaps we can spell it out." We spread the open sheet upon the library-table, and laid the folded paper near by, and, sitting side by side, with a dictionary before us, we went to work. It was very hard work. "I think," said my companion, after ten minutes' application, "that the man who sent you this letter writes Italian about as badly as we read it. I think I could decipher the meaning of his words if I knew what letters those funny scratches were intended to represent. But let us stick to it. After a while we may get a little used to the writing, and I must admit that I have a curiosity to know what the man has to say about his bear." After a time the work became easier. Miss Edith possessed an acuteness of perception which enabled her to decipher almost illegible words by comparing them with others which were better written. We were at last enabled to translate the letter. The substance of it was as follows: The writer came to New York on a ship. There was a man on the ship, an Italian man, who was very wicked. He did very wicked things to the writer. When he got to New York he kept on being wicked. He was so wicked that the writer made up his mind to kill him. He waited for him one night for two hours. [Illustration: DECIPHERING THE DAGO'S LETTERS] At last the moment came. It was very dark, and the victim came, walking fast. The avenger sprang from a door-way and plunged his knife into the back of the victim. The man fell, and the moment he fell the writer of the letter knew that he was not the man he had intended to kill. The wicked man would not have been killed so easily. He turned over the man. He was dead. His eyes were used to the darkness, and he could see that he was the wrong man. The coat of the murdered man had fallen open, and a paper showed itself in an inside pocket. The Italian waited only long enough to snatch this paper. He wanted to have something which had belonged to that poor, wrongly murdered man. After that he heard no more about the great mistake he had committed. He could not read the newspapers, and he asked nobody any questions. He put the paper away and kept it. He often thought he ought to burn the paper, but he did not do it. He was afraid. The paper had a name on it, and he was sure it was the name of the man he had killed. He thought as long as he kept the paper there was a chance for his forgiveness. This was all four years ago. He worked hard, and after a while he bought a bear. When his bear ate up the India-rubber on my bicycle he was very much frightened, for he was afraid he might be sent to prison. But that was not the fright that made him run away. When he talked to the boy and asked him the name of the keeper of the inn, and the boy told him what it was, the earth seemed to open and he saw hell. The name was the name that was on the paper he had taken from the man he had killed by mistake, and this was his wife whose house he was staying at. He was seized with such a horror and such a fear that everything might be found out, and that he would be arrested, that he ran away to the railroad and took a train for New York. He did not want his bear. He did not want to be known as the man who had been going about with a bear. One thing he wanted, and that was to get back to Italy, where he would be safe. He was going back very soon in a ship. He had changed his name. He could not be found any more. But he knew his soul would never have any peace if he did not send the paper to the wife of the man he had made a mistake about. But he could not write a letter to her, so he sent it to me, for me to give her the paper and to tell her what he had written in the letter. He left America forever. Nobody in this country would ever see him again. He was gone. He was lost to all people in this country, but his soul felt better now that he had done that which would make the lady whose husband he had killed know how it had happened. The bear he would give to her. That was all that he could do for her. There was no formal close to the letter; the writer had said what he had to say and stopped. Miss Edith and I looked at each other. Her eyes had grown large and bright. "Now, shall we examine the paper?" "I do not know that we have a right to do so," I said. I know my voice was trembling, for I was very much agitated. "That belongs to--to her!" "I think," said Miss Edith, "that we ought to look at it. It is merely a folded paper. I do not think we ought to thrust information upon Mrs. Chester without knowing what it is. Perhaps the man made a mistake in the name. We may do a great deal of mischief if we do not know exactly what we are about." And so saying she took the paper and opened it. It was nothing but a grocery bill, but it was made out to--Godfrey Chester, Dr. Evidently it was for goods supplied to the inn. It was receipted. For a few moments I said nothing, and then I exclaimed, in tones which made my companion gaze very earnestly at me: "I must go to her immediately! I must take these papers! She must know everything!" "Excuse me," said Miss Edith, "but don't you think that something ought to be done about apprehending this man--this Italian? Let us go and question his messenger." We went out together, she carrying, tightly clasped, both the letter and the bill. The black man could tell us very little. An Italian he had never seen before had given him the letter to take to Holly Sprig Inn, and give to the gentleman who had had his tire eaten by a bear. If the gentleman was not there, he was to ask to have it sent to him. That was everything he knew. "Did the Italian give you money to go back with?" asked Miss Edith, and the man rather reluctantly admitted that he did. "Well, you can keep that for yourself," said she, "and we'll pay your passage back. But we would like you to wait here for a while. There may be some sort of an answer." The man laughed. "'Taint no use sendin' no answer," said he; "I couldn't find that Dago again. They're all so much alike. He said he was goin' away on a ship. You see it was yesterday he gave me that letter. I 'spect he'll be a long way out to sea before I get back, even if I did know who he was and what ship he was goin' on. But if you want me to wait, I don't mind waitin'." "Very good," said Miss Edith; "you can go into the kitchen and have something to eat." And, calling a maid, she gave orders for the man's entertainment. "Now," said she, turning to me, "let us take a walk through the orchard. I want to talk to you." "No," said I, "I can't talk at present. I must go immediately to the inn with those papers. It is right that not a moment should be lost in delivering this most momentous message which has been intrusted to me." "But I must speak to you first," said she, and she walked rapidly towards the orchard. As she still held the papers in her hand, I was obliged to follow her. CHAPTER XIV MISS EDITH IS DISAPPOINTED As soon as we had begun to walk under the apple-trees she turned to me and said: "I don't think you ought to take this letter and the bill to Mrs. Chester. It would not be right. There would be something cruel about it." "What do you mean?" I exclaimed. "Of course I do not know exactly the state of the case," she answered, "but I will tell you what I think about it as far as I know. You must not be offended at what I say. If I am a friend to anybody--and I would be ashamed if I were not a friend to you--I must tell him just what I think about things, and this is what I think about this thing: I ought to take these papers to Mrs. Chester. I know her well enough, and it is a woman who ought to go to her at such a time." "That message was intrusted to me," I said. "Of course it was," she answered, "but the bear man did not know what he was doing. He did not understand the circumstances." [Illustration: "'I DON'T THINK YOU OUGHT TO TAKE THIS LETTER'"] "What circumstances?" I asked. She gave me a look as if she were going to take aim at me and wanted to be sure of my position. Then she said: "Percy told us he thought you were courting Mrs. Chester. That was pure impertinence on his part, and perhaps what father said at the table was impertinence too, but I know he said it because he thought there might be something in Percy's chatter, and that you ought to understand how things stood. Now, you may think it impertinence on my part if you choose, but it really does seem to me that you are very much interested in Mrs. Chester. Didn't you intend to walk down to the Holly Sprig when you were starting out by yourself this morning?" "Yes," said I, "I did." "I thought so," she replied. "That, of course, was your own business, and what father said about her being unwilling to marry again need not have made any difference to you if you had chosen not to mind it. But now, don't you think, if you look at the matter fairly and squarely, it would be pretty hard on Mrs. Chester if you were to go down to her and make her understand that she really is a widow, and that now she is free to listen to you if you want to say anything to her? This may sound a little hard and cruel, but don't you think it is the way she would have to look at it?" She stopped as she spoke, and I turned and stood silent, looking at her. "My first thought was," she said, "to advise you to tell father about all this, and take his advice about telling her, but I don't think you would like that. Now, would you like that?" "No," I answered, "I certainly would not." "And don't you really think I ought to go to her with the message, and then come back and tell you how she took it and what she said?" For nearly a minute I did not speak, but I knew she was right, and at last I admitted it. "I am glad to hear you say so!" she exclaimed. "As soon as dinner is over I shall drive to the Holly Sprig." We still walked on, and she proposed that we should go to the top of a hill beyond the orchard, where there was a pretty view. "You may think me a strange sort of a girl," she said, presently, "but I can't help it. I suppose I am strange. I have often thought I would like very much to talk freely and honestly with a man about the reasons which people have for falling in love with each other. Of course I could not ask my father or brother, because they would simply laugh at me and tell me that falling in love was very much like the springing up of weeds--generally without reason and often objectionable. But you would be more likely to tell me something which would be of advantage to me in my studies." "Your studies!" I exclaimed. "What in the world are you studying?" "Well, I am studying human nature--not as a whole, of course, that's too large a subject, but certain phases of it--and I particularly want to know why such queer people come together and get married. Now I have great advantages in such a study, much greater than most girls have." "What are they?" I asked. "The principal one is that I never intend to marry. I made up my mind to that a good while ago. There is a great deal of work that I want to do in this world, and I could not do it properly if I were tied to a man. I would either have to submit myself to his ways, or he would have to submit himself to my ways, and that would not suit me. In the one case I should not respect him, and in the other I should not respect myself." "But suppose," said I, "you should meet a man who should be in perfect harmony with you in all important points?" "Ah," she said, "that sort of thing never happens. You might as well expect to pick up two pebbles exactly alike. I don't believe in it. But if at any time during the rest of my life you show me any examples of such harmony, I will change my opinions. I believe that if I can wait long enough, society will catch up with me. Everything looks that way to me." "It may be that you are right," I answered. "Society is getting on famously. But what is it you want to ask me?" "Simply this," she replied. "What is it which interests you so much in Mrs. Chester?" I looked at her in astonishment. "Truly," I exclaimed, "that is a remarkable question." "I know it," she replied, "and I suppose you are saying to yourself, 'Here is a girl who has known me less than three days, and yet she asks me to tell her about my feeling towards another woman.' But, really, it seems to me that as you have not known that other woman three days, as much friendship and confidence might spring up in the one case as affection in the other." "Affection!" said I. "Have I said anything about affection?" "No, you have not," she replied; "and if there isn't any affection, of course that ends this special study on my part." We reached the top of the hill, but I forgot to look out upon the view. "I think you are a strange girl," I said, "but I like you, and I have a mind to try to answer your question. I have not been able quite to satisfy myself about my feelings towards Mrs. Chester, but now I think I can say that I have an affection for her." "Good!" she exclaimed. "I like that! That is an honest answer if ever there was one. But tell me why it is that you have an affection for her. It must have been almost a case of love at first sight." "It isn't easy to give reasons for such feelings," I said. "They spring up, as your father would say, very much like weeds." "Indeed they do," she interpolated; "sometimes they grow in the middle of a gravel path where they cannot expect to be allowed to stay." I reflected a moment. "I don't mind talking about these things to you," I said. "It seems almost like talking to myself." "That is a compliment I appreciate," she said. "And now go on. Why do you care for her?" "Well," said I, "in the first place, she is very handsome. Don't you think so?" "Oh yes! In fact, I think she is almost what might be called exactly beautiful." "Then she has such charming manners," I continued. "And she is so sensible--although you may not think I had much chance to find out that. Moreover, there is a certain sympathetic cordiality about her--" "Which, of course," interrupted my companion, "you suppose she would not show to any man but you." "Yes," said I. "I am speaking honestly now, and that's the way it strikes me. Of course I may be a fool, but I did think that a sympathy had arisen between us which would not arise between her and anybody else." Miss Edith laughed heartily. "I am getting to know a great deal about one side of the subject," she said. "And now tell me--is that all? I don't believe it is." "No," I answered, "it is not. There is something more which makes her attractive to me. I cannot exactly explain it except by saying that it is her surrounding atmosphere--it is everything that pertains to her. It is the life she lives, it is her home, it is the beauty and peace, the sense of charm which infuses her and everything that belongs to her." "Beautiful!" said Miss Edith. "I expected an answer like that, but not so well put. Now let me translate it into plain, simple language. What you want is to give up your present life, which must be awfully stupid, and go and help Mrs. Chester keep the Holly Sprig. That would suit you exactly. A charming wife, charming surroundings, charming sense of living, a life of absolute independence! But don't think," she added, quickly, "that I am imputing any sordid motives to you. I meant nothing of the kind. You would do just as much to make the inn popular as she would. I expect you would make her rich." "Miss Edith Larramie," said I, "you are a heartless deceiver! It makes my blood run cold to hear you speak in that way." "Never mind that," she said, "but tell me, didn't you think it would be just lovely to live with her in that delightful little inn?" I could not help smiling at her earnestness, but I answered that I did think so. She nodded her head reflectively. "Yes," she said, "I was right. I think you ought to admit that I am a good judge of human nature--at least, in some people and under certain circumstances." "You are," said I. "I admit that. Now answer me a question. What do you think of it?" "I don't like it," she said. "And don't you see," she added, with animation, "what an advantage I possess in having determined never to marry? Very few other girls would be willing to speak to you so plainly. They would be afraid you would think that they wanted you, but, as I don't want anybody, you and I can talk over things of this kind like free and equal human beings. So I will say again that I don't like your affection for Mrs. Chester. It disappoints me." "Disappoints you!" I exclaimed. "Yes," she said, "that is the word. You must remember that my acquaintance with you began with a sort of a bump. A great deal happened in an instant. I formed high ideas of you, and among them were ideas of the future. You can't help that when you are thinking of people who interest you. Your mind will run ahead. When I found out about Mrs. Chester I was disappointed. It might be all very delightful, but you ought to do better than that!" [Illustration: "'DO YOU THINK YOU COULD HIT IT WITH AN APPLE?'"] "How old are you?" I asked. "Twenty-two last May," she replied. "Isn't that the dinner-bell I hear in the distance?" I said. "Yes," she answered, "and we will go down." On the way she stopped, and we stood facing each other. "I am greatly obliged to you," she said, "for giving me your confidence in this way, and I want you to believe that I shall be thoroughly loyal to you, and that I never will breathe anything you have said. But I also want you to know that I do not change any of my opinions. Now we understand each other, don't we?" "Yes," I answered, "but I think I understand you better than you understand me." "Not a bit of it," she replied; "that's nonsense. Do you see that flower-pot on the top of the stump by the little hill over there? Percy has been firing at it with his air-gun. Do you think you could hit it with an apple? Let's each take three apples and try." It was late in the afternoon when Miss Edith returned from the Holly Sprig, where she and Genevieve had driven in a pony-cart. I was with the rest of the family on the golf links a short distance from the house, and it was some time before she got a chance to speak to me, but she managed at last. "How did she take the news?" I eagerly asked. The girl hesitated. "I don't think I ought to tell you all she said and did. It was really a private interview between us two, and I know she would not want me to say much about it. And I don't think you would want to hear everything." I hastened to assure her that I would not ask for the particulars of the conversation. I only wished to know the general effect of the message upon her. That was legitimate enough, as, in fact, she received the message through me. "Well, she was very much affected, and it would have been dreadful if you had gone. Oh the whole, however, I cannot help thinking that the Italian's letter was a great relief to her, particularly because she found that her husband had been killed by mistake. She said that one of the greatest loads upon her soul had been the feeling that he had had an enemy who hated him enough to kill him. But now the case is very different, and it is a great comfort to her to know it." "And about the murderer?" I said. "Did you ask her if she wanted steps taken to apprehend him?" "Yes," she said, "I did speak of it, and she is very anxious that nothing shall be done in that direction. Even if the Italian should be caught, she would not have the affair again publicly discussed and dissected. She believes the man's story, and she never wants to hear of him again. Indeed, I think that if it should be proved that the Italian killed Mr. Chester on purpose, it would be the greatest blow that could be inflicted upon her." "Then," said I, "I might as well let the negro man go his way. I have not paid him his passage-money to the city. I knew he would wait until he got it, and it might be desirable to take him into custody." "Oh no," she said. "Mrs. Chester spoke about that. She doesn't want the man troubled in any way. He knew nothing of the message he carried. Now I am going to tell father about it--she asked me to do it." That evening was a merry one. We had charades, and a good many other things were going on. Miss Willoughby was an admirable actress, and Miss Edith was not bad, although she could never get rid of her personality. I was in a singular state of mind. I felt as if I had been relieved from a weight. My spirits were actually buoyant. "You should not be so unreasonably gay," said Miss Edith to me. "That may be your way when you get better acquainted with people, but I am afraid some of the family will think that you are in such good spirits because Mrs. Chester now knows that she is a widow." "Oh, there is no danger of their thinking anything of that sort," I said. "Don't you suppose they will attribute my good spirits to the fact that the man who took my bicycle to Waterton brought back my big valise, so that I am enabled to look like a gentleman in the parlor? And then, as he also brought word that my bicycle will be all ready for me to-morrow, don't you think it is to be expected of me that I should try to make myself as agreeable as possible on this my last evening with all you good friends?" She shook her head. "Those excuses will not pass. You are abnormally cheerful. My study of you is extremely interesting, but not altogether satisfactory." CHAPTER XV MISS WILLOUGHBY It was decreed the next day that I should not leave until after dinner. They would send me over to Blackburn Station by a cross-road, and I could then reach Waterton in less than an hour. "There is another good thing about this arrangement," said Miss Edith, for it was she who announced it to me, "and that is that you can take charge of Amy." I gazed at her mystified, and she said, "Don't you know that Miss Willoughby is going in the same train with you?" "What!" I exclaimed, far too forcibly. "Yes. Her visit ends to-day. She lives in Waterton. But why should that affect you so wonderfully? I am sure you cannot object to an hour in the train with Amy Willoughby. She may talk a good deal, but you must admit that she talks well." "Object!" I said. "Of course I don't object. She talks very well indeed, and I shall be glad to have the pleasure of her company." "No one would have thought so," she said, looking at me with a criticising eye, "who had seen you when you heard she was going." "It was the suddenness," I said. "Oh yes," she replied, "and your delicate nerves." In my soul I cried out to myself: "Am I ever to break free from young women! Is there to be a railroad accident between here and Waterton! If so, I shall save the nearest old gentleman!" I believe the Larramies were truly sorry to have me go. Each one of them in turn told me so. Mrs. Larramie again said to me, with tears in her eyes, that it made her shudder to think what that home might be if it had not been for me. Mr. Larramie and Walter promised to get up some fine excursions if I would stay a little longer, and Genevieve made me sit down beside her under a tree. "I am awfully sorry you are going," she said. "I always wanted a gentleman friend, and I believe if you'd stay a little longer you'd be one. You see, Walter is really too old for me to confide in, and Percy thinks he's too old--and that's a great deal worse. But you're just the age I like. There are so many things I would say to you if you lived here." Little Clara, cried when she heard I was going, and I felt myself obliged to commit the shameful deception of talking about baby bears and my possible return to this place. Miss Edith accompanied us to the station, and when I took leave of her on the platform she gave me a good, hearty handshake. "I believe that we shall see each other again," she said, "and when we meet I want you to make a report, and I hope it will be a good one!" "About what?" I asked. She smiled in gentle derision, and the conductor cried, "All aboard!" I found a vacant seat, and, side by side, Miss Willoughby and I sped on towards Waterton. For some time I had noticed that Miss Willoughby had ceased to look past me when she spoke to me, and now she fixed her eyes fully upon me and said: "I am always sorry when I go away from that house, for I think the people who live there are the dearest in the world, excepting my own mother and aunt, who are nearer to me than anybody else, although, if I needed a mother, Mrs. Larramie would take me to her heart, I am sure, just as if I were her own daughter, and I am not related to them in any way, although I have always looked upon Edith as a sister, and I don't believe that if I had a real sister she could possibly have been as dear a girl as Edith, who is so lovable and tender and forgiving--whenever there is anything to forgive--and who, although she is a girl of such strong character and such a very peculiar way of thinking about things, has never said a hard word to me in all her life, even when she found that our opinions were different, which was something she often did find, for she looks upon everything in this world in her own way, and bases all her judgments upon her own observations and convictions, while I am very willing to let those whom I think I ought to look up to and respect judge for me--at least in a great many things, but of course not in all matters, for there are some things which we must decide for ourselves without reference to other people's opinions, though I should be sorry indeed if I had so many things to decide as Edith has, or rather chooses to have, for if she would depend more upon other people I think it would not only be easier for her, but really make her happier, for if you could hear some of the wonderful things which she has discussed with me after we have gone to bed at night it would really make your head ache--that is, if you are subject to that sort of thing, which I am if I am kept awake too long, but I am proud to say that I don't think I ever allowed Edith to suppose that I was tired of hearing her talk, for when any one is as lovely as she is I think she ought to be allowed to talk about what she pleases and just along as she pleases." [Illustration: "TALKING ABOUT BABY BEARS"] Surprising as it may appear, nothing happened on that railroad journey. No cow of Cathay blundered in front of the locomotive; no freight train came around a curve going in the opposite direction upon the same track; everything went smoothly and according to schedule. Miss Willoughby did not talk all the time. She was not the greatest talker I ever knew; she was not even the fastest; she was always willing to wait until her turn came, but she had wonderful endurance for a steady stretch. She never made a bad start, she never broke, she went steadily over the track until the heat had been run. When the time came for me to speak she listened with great interest, and sometimes at my words her eyes sparkled almost as much as they did when she was speaking herself. She knew a great many things, and I was pleased to find out that she was especially interested in the good qualities of the people she knew. I never heard so many gracious sentiments in so short a time. Miss Willoughby's residence was but a short distance from the station at Waterton; and as she thought it entirely unnecessary to take a cab, I attended to her baggage, and offered to walk with her to her home and carry her little bag. I was about to leave her at the door, but this she positively forbade. I must step in for a minute or two to see her mother and her aunt. They had heard of me, and would never forgive her if she let me go without their seeing me. As the door opened immediately, we went in. Miss Willoughby's mother and aunt were two most charming elderly ladies, immaculately dainty in their dress, cordial of manner, bright of eye, and diminutive of hand, producing the impression of gentle goodness set off by soft white muslin, folded tenderly. They had heard of me. In the few days in which I had been with the Larramies, Miss Willoughby had written of me. They insisted that I should stay to supper, for what good reason could there be for my taking that meal at the hotel--not a very good one--when they would be so glad to have me sup with them and talk about our mutual friends? I had no reasonable objection to offer, and, returning to the station, I took my baggage to the hotel, where I prepared to sup with the Willoughby family. They were now a little family of three, although there was a brother who had started away the day before on a bicycling tour very like my own, and they were both so delighted to have Amy visit the Larramies, and they were both so delighted to have her come back. The supper was a delicate one, suitable for canary birds, but at an early stage of the meal a savory little sirloin steak was brought on which had been cooked especially for me. Of course I could not be expected to be satisfied with thin dainties, no matter how tasteful they might be. This house was the abode of intelligence, cultivated taste, and opulence. It was probably the finest mansion of the town. In every room there were things to see, and after supper we looked at them, and, as I wandered from pictures to vases and carved ivory, the remarks of the two elder ladies and Miss Willoughby seemed like a harmonized chorus accompanying the rest of the performance. Each spoke at the right time, each in her turn said the thing she ought to say. It was a rare exhibition of hospitable enthusiasm, tempered by sympathetic consideration for me and for each other. I soon discovered that many of the water-color drawings on the walls were the work of Miss Willoughby, and when she saw I was interested in them she produced a portfolio of her sketches. I liked her coloring very much. It was sometimes better than her drawing. It was dainty, delicate, and suggestive. One picture attracted me the moment my eyes fell upon it; it was one of the most carefully executed, and it represented the Holly Sprig Inn. "You recognize that!" said Miss Willoughby, evidently pleased. "You see that light-colored spot in the portico? That's Mrs. Chester; she stood there when I was making the drawing. It is nothing but two or three little dabs, but that is the way she looked at a distance. Around on this side is the corner of the yard where the bear tried to eat up the tire of your bicycle." I gazed and gazed at the little light-colored spot in the portico. I gave it form, light, feeling. I could see perfect features, blue eyes which looked out at me, a form of simple grace. [Illustration: "'I HELD THAT PICTURE A GOOD WHILE'"] I held that picture a good while, saying little, and scarcely listening to Miss Willoughby's words. At last I felt obliged to replace it in the portfolio. If the artist had been a poor girl, I would have offered to buy it; if I had known her better, I would have asked her to give it to me; but I could do nothing but put it back. Glancing at the clock I saw that it was time for me to go, but when I announced this fact the ladies very much demurred. Why should I go to that uncomfortable hotel? They would send for my baggage. There was not the least reason in the world why I should spend the night in that second-rate establishment. "See," said Mrs. Willoughby, opening the door of a room in the rear of the parlor, "if you will stay with us to-night we will lodge you in the chamber of the favored guest. All the pictures on the walls were done by my daughter." I looked into the room. It was the most charming and luxurious bedroom I had ever seen. It was lighted, and the harmony of its furnishings was a treat to the eye. But I stood firm in my purpose to depart. I would not spend the night in that house. There would be a fire, burglars, I knew not what! Against all kind entreaties I urged the absolute necessity of my starting away by the very break of day, and I could not disturb a private family by any such proceeding. They saw that I was determined to go, and they allowed me to depart. CHAPTER XVI AN ICICLE My room at the hotel was as dreary as a stubble-field upon a November evening. The whole house was new, varnished, and hard. My bedroom was small. A piece of new ingrain carpet covered part of the hard varnished floor. Four hard walls and a ceiling, deadly white, surrounded me. The hard varnished bedstead (the mattress felt as if it were varnished) nearly filled the little room. Two stiff chairs, and a yellow window-shade which looked as if it were made of varnished wood, glittered in the feeble light of a glass lamp, while the ghastly grayish pallor of the ewer and basin on the wash-stand was thrown into bold relief by the intenser whiteness of the wall behind it. I put out my light as soon as possible and resolutely closed my eyes, for a street lamp opposite my window would not allow the room to fade into obscurity, and, as long as the hardness of the bed prevented me from sleeping, my thoughts ran back to the chamber of the favored guest, but my conscience stood by me. Cathay is a country where it is necessary to be very careful. I did not leave Waterton until after nine o'clock the next day, for, although I was early at the shop to which my bicycle had been sent, it was not quite ready for me, and I had to wait. Fortunately no Willoughby came that way. But when at last I mounted my wheel I sped away rapidly towards the north. I had ordered my baggage expressed to a town fifty miles away, and I hoped that if I rode steadily and kept my eyes straight in front of me I might safely get out of Cathay, for the boundaries of that fateful territory could not extend themselves indefinitely. Towards the close of the afternoon I saw a female in front of me, her back to me, walking, and pushing a bicycle. "Now," said I to myself, "she is doing that because she likes it, and it is none of my business." I gazed over the fields on the other side of the road, but as I passed her I could not help giving a glance at her machine. The air was gone from the tire of the hind wheel. "Ah," said I to myself, "perhaps her pump is out of order, or it may be that she does not know how to work it. It is getting late. She may have to go a long distance. I could pump it up for her in no time. Even if there is a hole in it I could mend it." But I did not stop. I had steeled my heart against any more adventures in Cathay. But my conscience did not stand by me. I could not forget that poor woman plodding along the weary road and darkness not far away. I went slower and slower, and at last I turned. "It would not take me five minutes to help her," I said. "I must be careful, but I need not be a churl." And I rode rapidly back. I came in sight of her just as she was turning into the gateway of a pretty house yard. Doubtless she lived there. I turned again and spun away faster than I had gone that day. For more than a month I journeyed and sojourned in a beautiful river valley and among the low foot-hills of the mountains. The weather was fair, the scenery was pleasing, and at last I came to believe that I had passed the boundaries of Cathay. I took no tablets from my little box. I did not feel that I had need of them. In the course of time I ceased to travel north-ward. My vacation was not very near its end, but I chose to turn my face towards the scene of my coming duties. I made a wide circuit, I rode slowly, and I stopped often. One day I passed through a village, and at the outer edge of it a little girl, about four years old, tried to cross the road. Tripping, she fell down almost in front of me. It was only by a powerful and sudden exertion that I prevented myself from going over her, and as I wheeled across the road my machine came within two feet of her. She lay there yelling in the dust. I dismounted, and, picking her up I carried her to the other side of the road. There I left her to toddle homeward while I went on my way. I could not but sigh as I thought that I was again in Cathay. Two days after this I entered Waterton. There was another road, said to be a very pleasant one, which lay to the westward, and which would have taken me to Walford through a country new to me, but I wished to make no further explorations in Cathay, and if one journeys back upon a road by which he came he will find the scenery very different. I spent the night at the hotel, and after breakfast I very reluctantly went to call upon the Willoughbys. I forced myself to do this, for, considering the cordiality they had shown me, it would have required more incivility than I possessed to pass through the town without paying my respects. But to my great joy none of the ladies was at home. I hastened from the house with a buoyant step, and was soon speeding away, and away, and away. The road was dry and hard, the sun was bright, but there was a fresh breeze in my face, and I rolled along at a swift and steady rate. On, on I went, until, before the sun had reached its highest point, I wheeled out of the main road, rolled up a gravel path, and dismounted in front of the Holly Sprig Inn. I leaned my bicycle against a tree and went in-doors. The place did not seem so quiet as when I first saw it. I had noticed a lady sitting under a tree in front of the house. There was a nurse-maid attending a child who was playing on the grass. Entering the hall, I glanced into the large room which I had called the "office," and saw a man there writing at a table. Presently a maid-servant came into the hall. She was not one I had noticed before. I asked if I could see Mrs. Chester, and she said she would go and look for her. There were chairs in the hall, and I might have waited for her there, but I did not. I entered the parlor, and was pleased to find it unoccupied. I went to the upper end of the room, as far as possible from the door. In a few minutes I heard a step in the hall. I knew it, and it was strange how soon I had learned to know it. She stopped in front of the office, then she went on towards the porch, and turning she came into the parlor, first looking towards the front of the room and then towards the place where I stood. The light from a window near me fell directly upon her as she approached me, and I could see that there was a slight flush on her face, but before she reached me it had disappeared. She did not greet me. She did not offer me her hand. In fact, from what afterwards happened, I believe that she did not consider me at that moment a fit subject for ordinary greeting. She stood up in front of me. She gazed steadfastly into my face. Her features wore something of their ordinary pleasant expression, but to this there was added a certain determination which I had never seen there before. She gave her head a little quick shake. "No, sir!" she said. This reception amazed me. I had been greatly agitated as I heard her approach, turning over in my mind what I should first say to her, but now I forgot everything I had prepared. "No what?" I exclaimed. [Illustration: "'NO, SIR,' SHE SAID"] "'No' means that I will not marry you." I stood speechless. "Of course you are thinking," she continued, "that you have never asked me to marry you. But that isn't at all necessary. As soon as I saw you standing there, back two weeks before your vacation is over, and when I got a good look at your face, I knew exactly what you had come for. I was afraid when you left here that you would come back for that, so I was not altogether unprepared. I spoke promptly so as to spare you and to make it easier for me." "Easier!" I repeated. "What do you mean?" "Easier, because the sooner you know that I will not marry you the better it will be for you and for me." Now I could restrain myself no longer. "Why can't I marry you?" I asked, speaking very rapidly, and, I am afraid, with imprudent energy. "Is it any sort of condition or circumstance which prevents? Do you think that I am forcing myself upon you at a time when I ought not to do it? If so, you have mistaken me. Ever since I left here I have thought of scarcely anything but you, and I have returned thus early simply to tell you that I love you! I had to do that! I could not wait! But as to all else, I can wait, and wait, and wait, as long as you please. You can tell me to go away and come back at whatever time you think it will be right for you to give me an answer." "This is the right time," she said, "and I have given you your answer. But, unfortunately, I did not prevent you from saying what you came to say. So now I will tell you that the conditions and circumstances to which you allude have nothing to do with the matter. I have a reason for my decision which is of so much more importance than any other reason that it is the only one which need be considered." "What is that?" I asked, quickly. "It is because I keep a tavern," she answered. "It would be wrong and wicked for you to marry a woman who keeps a tavern." Now my face flushed. I could feel it burning. "Keep a tavern!" I exclaimed. "That is a horrible way to put it! But why should you think for an instant that I cared for that? Do you suppose I consider that a dishonorable calling? I would be only too glad to adopt it myself and help you keep a tavern, as you call it." "That is the trouble!" she exclaimed. "That is the greatest trouble. I believe you would. I believe that you think that the life would just suit you." "Then sweep away the tavern!" I exclaimed. "Banish it. Leave it. Put it out of all thought or consideration. I can wait for you. I can make a place and a position for you. I can--" "No, you cannot," she interrupted. "At least, not for a long time, unless one of your scholars dies and leaves you a legacy. It is the future that I am thinking about. No matter what you might sweep away, and to what position you might attain, it could always be said, 'He married a woman who used to keep a tavern.' Now, every one who is a friend to you, who knows what is before you, if you choose to try for it, should do everything that can be done to prevent such a thing ever being said of you. I am a friend to you, and I am going to prevent it." I stood unable to say one word. Her voice, her eyes, even the manner in which she stood before me, assured me that she meant everything she said. It was almost impossible to believe that such an amiable creature could turn into such an icicle. "I do not want you to feel worse than you can help," she said, "but it was necessary for me to speak as firmly and decidedly as I could, and now it is all settled." I knew it was all settled. I knew it as well as if it had been settled for years. But, with my eyes still ardently fixed on her, I remembered the little flush when she came into the room. "Tell me one thing," said I, "and I will go. If it were not for what you say about your position in life, and all that--if there had not been such a place as this inn--then could you--" She moved away from me. "You are as great a bear as the other one!" she exclaimed, and turning she left the room by a door in the rear. But in the next moment she ran back, holding out her hand. "Good-bye!" she said. I took her hand, but held it not a second. Then she was gone. I stood looking at the door which she had closed behind her, and then I left the house. There was no reason why I should stay in that place another minute. As I was about to mount my bicycle the boy came around the corner of the inn. Upon his face was a diabolical grin. The thought rushed into my mind that he might have been standing beneath the parlor window. Instinctively I made a movement towards him, but he did not run. I turned my eyes away from him and mounted. I could not kill a boy in the presence of a nurse-maid. CHAPTER XVII A FORECASTER OF HUMAN PROBABILITIES I was about to turn in the direction of Walford, but then into my trouble-tossed mind there came the recollection that I had intended, no matter what happened, to call on the Larramies before I went home. I owed it to them, and at this moment their house seemed like a port of refuge. The Larramies received me with wide-opened eyes and outstretched hands. They were amazed to see me before the end of my vacation, for no member of that family had ever come back from a vacation before it was over; but they showed that they were delighted to have me with them, be it sooner or later than they had expected, and I had not been in the house ten minutes before I received three separate invitations to make that house my home until school began again. The house was even livelier than when I left it. There was a married couple visiting there, enthusiastic devotees of golf; one of Mr. Walter's college friends was with him; and, to my surprise, Miss Amy Willoughby was there again. Genevieve received me with the greatest warmth, and I could see that her hopes of a gentleman friend revived. Little Clara demanded to be kissed as soon as she saw me, and I think she now looked upon me as a permanent uncle or something of that kind. As soon as possible I was escorted by the greater part of the family to see the bear. Miss Edith had welcomed me as if I had been an old friend. It warmed my heart to receive the frank and cordial handshake she gave me. She said very little, but there was a certain interrogation in her eyes which assured me that she had much to ask when the time came. As for me, I was in no hurry for that time to come. I did not feel like answering questions, and with as much animation as I could assume I talked to everybody as we went to see the bear. This animal had grown very fat and super-contented, but I found that the family were in the condition of Gentleman Waife in Bulwer's novel, and were now wondering what they would do with it. "You see," cried Percy, who was the principal showman, "the neighbors are all on pins and needles about him. Ever since the McKenna sisters spread the story that Orso was in the habit of getting under beds, there isn't a person within five miles of here who can go to bed without looking under it to see if there is a bear there. There are two houses for sale about a mile down the road, and we don't know any reason why people should want to go away except it's the bear. Nearly all the dogs around here are kept chained up for fear that Orso will get hold of them, and there is a general commotion, I can tell you. At first it was great fun, but it is getting a little tiresome now. We have been talking about shooting him, and then I shall have his bones, which I am going to set up as a skeleton, and it is my opinion that you ought to have the skin." Several demurrers now arose, for nobody seemed to think that I would want such an ugly skin as that. "Ugly!" cried Percy, who was evidently very anxious to pursue his study of comparative anatomy. "It's a magnificent skin. Look at that long, heavy fur. Why, if you take that skin and have it all cleaned, and combed out, and dyed some nice color, it will be fit to put into any room." Genevieve was in favor of combing and cleaning, oiling and dyeing the hide of the bear without taking it off. "If you would do that," she declared, "he would be a beautiful bear, and we would give him away. They would be glad to have him at Central Park." The Larramies would not listen to my leaving that day. There were a good many people in the house, but there was room enough for me, and, when we had left the bear without solving the problem of his final disposition, there were so many things to be done and so many things to be said that it was late in the afternoon before Miss Edith found the opportunity of speaking to me for which she had been waiting so long. "Well," said she, as we walked together away from the golf links, but not towards the house, "what have you to report?" "Report?" I repeated, evasively. "Yes, you promised to do that, and I always expect people to fulfil their promises to me. You came here by the way of the Holly Sprig Inn, didn't you?" I assented. "A very roundabout way," she said. "It would have been seven miles nearer if you had come by the cross-road. But I suppose you thought you must go there first." "That is what I thought," I answered. "Have you been thinking about her all the time you have been away?" "Nearly all the time." "And actually cut off a big slice of your vacation in order to see her?" I replied that this was precisely the state of the case. "But, after all, you weren't successful. You need not tell me anything about that--I knew it as soon as I saw you this morning. But I will ask you to answer one thing: Is the decision final?" I sighed--I could not help it, but she did not even smile. "Yes," I said, "the affair is settled definitely." For a minute or so we walked on silently, and then she said: "I do not want you to think I am hard-hearted, but I must say what is in me. I congratulate you, and, at the same time, I am sorry for her." At this amazing speech I turned suddenly towards her, and we both stopped. "Yes," said she, standing before me with her clear eyes fixed upon my face, "you are to be congratulated. I think it is likely she is the most charming young woman you are ever likely to meet--and I know a great deal more about her than you do, for I have known her for a long time, and your acquaintance is a very short one--she has qualities you do not know anything about; she is lovely! But for all that it would be very wrong for you to marry her, and I am glad she had sense enough not to let you do it." "Why do you say that?" I asked, a little sharply. "Of course you don't like it," she replied, "but it is true. She may be as lovely as you think her--and I am sure she is. She may be of good family, finely educated, and a great many more things, but all that goes for nothing beside the fact that for over five years she has been the landlady of a little hotel." "I do not care a snap for that!" I exclaimed. "I like her all the better for it. I--" "That makes it worse," she interrupted, and as she spoke I could not but recollect that a similar remark had been made to me before. "I have not the slightest doubt that you would have been perfectly willing to settle down as the landlord of a little hotel. But if you had not--even if you had gone on in the course which father has marked out for you, and you ought to hear him talk about you--you might have become famous, rich, nobody knows what, perhaps President of a college, but still everybody would have known that your wife was the young woman who used to keep the Holly Sprig Inn, and asked the people who came there if they objected to a back room, and if they wanted tea or coffee for their breakfast. Of course Mrs. Chester thought too much of you to let you consider any such foolishness." I made no answer to this remark. I thought the young woman was taking a great deal upon herself. "Of course," she continued, "it would have been a great thing for Mrs. Chester, and I honor her that she stood up stiffly and did the thing she ought to do. I do not know what she said when she gave you her final answer, but whatever it was it was the finest compliment she could have paid you." I smiled grimly. "She likened me to a bear," I said. "Do you call that a compliment?" Edith Larramie looked at me, her eyes sparkling. "Tell me one thing," she said. "When she spoke to you in that way weren't you trying to find out how she felt about the matter exclusive of the inn?" I could not help smiling again as I assented. "There!" she exclaimed. "I am beginning to have the highest respect for my abilities as a forecaster of human probabilities. It was like you to try to find out that, and it was like her to snub you. But let's walk on. Would you like me to give you some advice." "I am afraid your advice is not worth very much," I answered, "but I will hear it." "Well, then," she said, "I advise you to fall in love with somebody else just as soon as you can. That is the best way to get this affair out of your mind, and until you do that you won't be worth anything." I felt that I now knew this girl so well that I could say anything to her. "Very well, then," said I; "suppose I fall in love with you?" "That isn't a very nice speech," she said. "There is a little bit of spitefulness in it. But it doesn't mean anything, anyway. I am out of the competition, and that is the reason I can speak to you so freely. Moreover, that is the reason I know so much about the matter. I am not biassed. But you need have no trouble--there's Amy." "Don't say Amy to me, I beg of you!" I exclaimed. "Why not?" she persisted. "She is very pretty. She is as good as she can be. She is rich. And if she were your wife you would want her to talk more than she does, you would be so glad to listen to her. I might say more about Amy, but I won't." "Would it be very impolite," said I, "if I whistled?" "I don't know," she said, "but you needn't do it. I will consider it done. Now I will speak of Bertha Putney. I was bound to mention Amy first, because she is my dear friend, but Miss Putney is a grand girl. And I do not mind telling you that she takes a great interest in you." "How do you know that?" I asked. "I have seen her since you were here--she lunched with us. As soon as she heard your name mentioned--and that was bound to happen, for this family has been talking about you ever since they first knew you--she began to ask questions. Of course the bear came up, and she wanted to know every blessed thing that happened. But when she found out that you got the bear at the Holly Sprig her manner changed, and she talked no more about you at the table. "But in the afternoon she had a great deal to say to me. I did not know exactly what she was driving at, and I may have told her too much. We said a great many things--some of which I remember and some I do not--but I am sure that I never knew a woman to take more interest in a man than she takes in you. So it is my opinion that if you would stop at the Putneys' on your way home you might do a great deal to help you get rid of the trouble you are now in. It makes me feel something like a spy in a camp to talk this way, but I told you I was your friend, and I am going to be one. Spies are all right when they are loyal to their own side." I was very glad to have such a girl on my side, but this did not seem to be a very good time to talk about the advantages of a call upon Miss Putney. In spite of all the entreaties of the Larramie family, I persisted in my intention of going on to Walford the next morning, and, in reply to their assurances that I would find it dreadfully dull in that little village during the rest of my vacation, I told them that I should be very much occupied and should have no time to be dull. I was going seriously to work to prepare myself for my profession. For a year or two I had been deferring this important matter, waiting until I had laid by enough money to enable me to give up school-teaching and to apply myself entirely to the studies which would be necessary. All this would give me enough to do, and vacation was the time in which I ought to do it. The distractions of the school session were very much in the way of a proper contemplation of my own affairs. "That sounds very well," said Miss Edith, when there was no one by, "but if you cannot get the Holly Sprig Inn out of your mind, I do not believe you will do very much 'proper contemplation.' Take my advice and stop at the Putneys'. It can do you no harm, and it might help to free your mind of distractions a great deal worse than those of the school." "By filling it with other distractions, I suppose you mean," I answered. "A fickle-minded person you must think me. But it pleases me so much to have you take an interest in me that I do not resent any of your advice." She laughed. "I like to give advice," she said, "but I must admit that I sometimes think better of a person if he does not take it. But I will say--and this is all the advice I am going to give you at present--that if you want to be successful in making love, you must change your methods. You cannot expect to step up in front of a girl and stop her short as if she were a runaway horse. A horse doesn't like that sort of thing, and a girl doesn't like it. You must take more time about it. A runaway girl doesn't hurt anybody, and, if you are active enough, you can jump in behind and take the reins and stop her gradually without hurting her feelings, and then, most likely, you can drive her for all the rest of your life." "You ought to have that speech engraved in uncial characters on a slab of stone," said I. "Any museum would be glad to have it." I had two reasons besides the one I gave for wishing to leave this hospitable house. In the first place, Edith Larramie troubled me. I did not like to have any one know so much about my mental interior--or to think she knew so much. I did not like to feel that I was being managed. I had a strong belief that if anybody jumped into a vehicle she was pulling he would find that she was doing her own driving and would allow no interferences. I liked her very much, but I was sure that away from her I would feel freer in mind. The other reason for my leaving was Amy Willoughby. During my little visit to her house my acquaintance with her had grown with great rapidity. Now I seemed to know her very well, and the more I knew her the better I liked her. It may be vanity, but I think she wanted me to like her, and one reason for believing this was the fact that when she was with me--and I saw a great deal of her during the afternoon and evening I spent with the Larramies--she did not talk so much, and when she did speak she invariably said something I wanted to hear. Remembering the remarks which had been made about her by her friend Edith, I could not but admit that she was a very fine girl, combining a great many attractive qualities, but I rebelled against every conviction I had in regard to her. I did not want to think about her admirable qualities. I did not want to believe that in time they would impress me more forcibly than they did now. I did not want people to imagine that I would come to be so impressed. If I stayed there I might almost look upon her in the light of a duty. The family farewell the next morning was a tumultuous one. Invitations to ride up again during my vacation, to come and spend Saturdays and Sundays, were intermingled with earnest injunctions from Genevieve in regard to a correspondence which she wished to open with me for the benefit of her mind, and declarations from Percy that he would let me know all about the bear as soon as it was decided what would be the best thing to happen to him, and entreaties from little Clara that I would not go away without kissing her good-bye. But amid the confusion Miss Edith found a chance to say a final word to me. "Don't you try," she said, as I was about to mount my bicycle, "to keep those holly sprigs in your brain until Christmas. They are awfully stickery, they will not last, and, besides, there will not be any Christmas." "And how about New-Year's Day?" I asked. "That is the way to talk," said she. "Keep your mind on that and you will be all right." As I rode along I could not forget that it would be necessary for me to pass the inn. I had made inquiries, but there were no byways which would serve my purpose. There was nothing for me to do but keep on, and on I kept. I should pass so noiselessly and so swiftly that I did not believe any one would notice me, unless, indeed, it should be the boy. I earnestly hoped that I should not see the boy. Whether or not I was seen from the inn as I passed it I do not know. In fact, I did not know when I passed it. No shout of immature diabolism caught my ear, no scent of lemon came into my nostrils, and I saw nothing but the line of road directly in front of me. CHAPTER XVIII REPENTANCE AVAILS NOT When I was positively certain that I had left the little inn far behind me, I slackened my speed, and, perceiving a spreading tree by the road-side, I dismounted and sat down in the shade. It was a hot day, and unconsciously I had been working very hard. Several persons on wheels passed along the road, and every time I saw one approaching I was afraid that it might be somebody I knew, who might stop and sit by me in the shade. I was now near enough to Walford to meet with people from that neighborhood, and I did not want to meet with any one just now. I had a great many things to think about and just then I was busy trying to make up my mind whether or not it would be well for me to stop at the Putneys'. If I should pass without stopping, some one in the lodge would probably see me, and the family would know of my discourtesy, but, although it would have been a very simple thing to do, and a very proper thing, I did not feel sure that I wanted to stop. If Edith Larramie had never said anything about it, I think I would surely have made a morning call upon the Putneys. After I had cooled off a little I rose to remount; I had not decided anything, but it was of no use to sit there any longer. Glancing along the road towards Walford, I saw in the distance some one approaching on a wheel. Involuntarily I stood still and watched the on-coming cyclist, who I saw was a woman. She moved steadily and rapidly on the other side of the road. Very soon I recognized her. It was Miss Putney. As she came nearer and nearer I was greatly impressed with her appearance. Her costume was as suitable and becoming for the occasion as if it had been an evening dress for a ball, and she wheeled better than any woman cyclist I ever saw. Her head was erect, her eyes straight before her, and her motion was rhythm of action. With my hand on my wheel I moved a few steps towards the middle of the road. I was about to take off my cap when she turned her eyes upon me. She even moved her head a little so as to gaze upon me a few seconds longer. Her face was quiet and serene, her eyes were large, clear, and observant. In them was not one gleam of recognition. Turning them again upon the road in front of her, she sped on and away. [Illustration: "CUT LIKE THAT"] For some minutes I stood looking after her, utterly astonished. I do not think in all my life I had ever been cut like that. What did it mean? Could she care enough about me to resent my stopping at the Holly Sprig? Was it possible that she could have known what had been likely to happen there, and what had happened there? All this was very improbable, but in Cathay people seemed to know a great many things. Anyway, she had solved my problem for me. I need give no further thought to a stop at her father's mansion. I mounted and rode on, but not rapidly. I was very much moved. My soul grew warm as I thought of the steady gaze of the eyes which that girl had fixed upon me. For a mile or so I moved steadily and quietly in a mood of incensed dignity. I pressed the pedals with a hard and cruel tread. I did not understand. I could scarcely believe. Soon, however, I began to move a little faster. Somehow or other I became conscious that there was a bicycle at some distance behind me. I pushed on a little faster. I did not wish to be overtaken by anybody. Now I was sure there was a wheel behind me. I could not hear it, but I knew it was there. Presently I became certain that my instincts had not deceived me, for I heard the quick sound of a bicycle bell. This was odd, for surely no one would ring for me to get out of the way. Then there was another tinkle, a little nearer. Now I sped faster and faster. I heard the bell violently ringing. Then I thought, but I am not sure, that I heard a voice. I struck out with the thrust of a steam-engine, and the earth slipped backward beneath me like the water of a mill-race. I passed wagons as if they had been puffs of smoke, and people on wheels as though they were flying cinders. In some ten minutes I slackened speed and looked back. For a long distance behind me not a bicycle was in sight. I now pursued my homeward way with a warm body and a lacerated heart. I hated this region which I had called Cathay. Its inhabitants were not barbarians, but I was suffering from their barbarities. I had come among them clean, whole, with an upright bearing. I was going away torn, bloody, and downcast. If the last words of the lady of the Holly Sprig meant the sweet thing I thought they meant, then did they make the words which preceded them all the more bitter. The more friendly and honest the counsels of Edith Larramie had grown, the deeper they had cut into my heart. Even the more than regard with which my soul prompted me to look back to Amy Willoughby was a pain to me. My judgment would enrage me if it should try to compel me to feel as I did not want to feel. But none of these wounds would have so pained and disturbed me had it not been for the merciless gaze which that dark-eyed girl had fixed upon me as she passed me standing in the road. And if she had gone too far and had done more than her own nature could endure, and if it were she who had been pursuing me, then the wound was more cruel and the smart deeper. If she believed me a man who would stop at the ringing of her bell, then was I ashamed of myself for having given her that impression. CHAPTER XIX BEAUTY, PURITY, AND PEACE I now proposed to wheel my way in one long stretch to Walford. I took no interest in rest or in refreshment. Simply to feel that I had done with this cycle of Cathay would be to me rest, refreshment, and, perhaps, the beginning of peace. The sun was high in the heavens, and its rays were hot, but still I kept steadily on until I saw a female figure by the road-side waving a handkerchief. I had not yet reached her, but she had stopped, was looking at me, and was waving energetically. I could not be mistaken. I turned and wheeled up in front of her. It was Mrs. Burton, the mother of the young lady who had injured her ankle on the day when I set out for my journey through Cathay. "I am so glad to see you," she said, as she shook hands with me. "I knew you as soon as my eyes first fell upon you. You know I have often seen you on the road before we became acquainted with you. We have frequently talked about you since you were here, and we did not expect you would be coming back so soon. Mr. Burton has been hoping that he would have a chance to know you better. He is very fond of school-masters. He was an intimate friend of Godfrey Chester, who had the school at Walford some years before you came--when the boys and girls used to go to school together--and of the man who came afterwards. He was a little too elderly, perhaps, but Mr. Burton liked him too, and now he hopes that he is going to know you. But excuse me for keeping you standing so long in the road. You must come in. We shall have dinner in ten minutes. I was just coming home from a neighbor's when I caught sight of you." I declined with earnestness. Mr. Burton might be a very agreeable man, but I wanted to make no new acquaintances then. I must keep on to Walford. But the good lady would listen to no refusals of her hospitality. I was just in time. I must need a mid-day rest and something to eat. She was very sorry that Mr. Burton was not at home. He nearly always was at home, but to-day he had gone to Waterton. But if I would be contented to take dinner with her daughter and herself, they would be delighted to have me do so. She made a motion to open the gate for me, but I opened it for her, and we both went in. The daughter met us at the top of the garden walk. She came towards me as a cool summer breeze comes upon a hot and dusty world. There was no flush upon her face, but her eyes and lips told me that she was glad to see me before she spoke a word or placed her soft, white hand in mine. At the first touch of that hand I felt glad that Mrs. Burton had stopped me in the road. Here was peace. That dinner was the most soothing meal of which I had ever partaken. I did the carving, my companions did the questioning, and nearly all the conversation was about myself. Ordinarily I would not have liked this, but every word which was said by these two fair ladies--for the sweetness of the mother was merely more seasoned than that of the daughter--was so filled with friendly interest that it gratified me to make my answers. They seemed to have heard a great deal about me during my wanderings through Cathay. They knew, of course, that I had stopped with the Putneys, for I had told them that, but they had also heard that I had spent a night at the Holly Sprig, and had afterwards stayed with the Larramies. But of anything which had happened which in the slightest degree had jarred upon my feelings they did not appear to have heard the slightest mention. I might have supposed that only good and happy news thought it worth while to stop at that abode of peace. As I looked upon the serene and tender countenance of Mrs. Burton I wondered how a cloud rising from want of sympathy with early peas ever could have settled over this little family circle; but it was the man who had caused the cloud. I knew it. It is so often the man. When we had finished dinner and had gone out to sit in the cool shadows of the piazza, I let my gaze rest as often as I might upon the fair face of that young girl. Several times her eyes met mine, but their lids never drooped, their tender light did not brighten. I felt that she was so truly glad to see me that her pleasure in the meeting was not affected one way or the other by the slight incident of my looking at her. If ever a countenance told of innocence, purity, and truth, her countenance told of them. I believe that if she had thought it pleased me to look at her, it would have pleased her to know that it gave me pleasure. As I talked with her and looked at her, and as I looked at her mother and talked with her, it was impressed upon me that if there is one thing in this world which is better than all else, it is peace, that peace which comprises so many forms of happiness and deep content. That the thoughts which came to me could come to a heart so lacerated, so torn, so full of pain as mine had been that morning, seemed wonderful, and yet they came. Once or twice I tried to banish these thoughts. It seemed disrespectful to myself to entertain them so soon after other thoughts which I now wished to banish utterly. I am not a hero of romance. I am only a plain human being, and such is the constitution of my nature that the more troubled and disturbed is my soul, the more welcome is purity, truth, and peace. But, after all, my feelings were not quite natural, and the change in them was too sudden. It was the consequence of too violent a reaction, but, such as it was, it was complete. I would not be hasty. I would not be deficient in self-respect. But if at that moment I had known that this was the time to declare what I wished to have, I would unhesitatingly have asked for beauty, purity, and peace. A maid came out upon the piazza who wanted something. Mrs. Burton half rose, but her daughter forestalled her. "I will go," said she. "Excuse me one minute." If my face expressed the sentiment, "Oh, that the mother had gone!" I did not intend that it should do so. Mrs. Burton then began to talk about her daughter. "She is like her father," she said, "in so many ways. For one thing, she is very fond of school-masters. I do not know exactly why this should be, but her teachers always seem to be her friends. In fact, she is to marry a school-master--that is, an assistant professor at Yale. He is in Europe now, but we expect him back early in the fall." A short time after this, when the daughter had returned and I rose to go, the young girl put her soft, white hand into mine exactly as she had done when I arrived, and the light in her eyes showed me, just as it had showed me before, the pleasure she had taken in my visit. But the mother's farewell was different from her greeting. I could see in her kind air a certain considerate sympathy which was not there before. She had been very prompt to tell me of her daughter's engagement. That young angel of peace and truth would not have deemed it necessary to say a word about the matter, even to a young man who was a school-master, and between whom and her family a mutual interest was rapidly growing. But with the mother it was otherwise. She had seen the shadows pass away from my countenance as I sat and talked upon that cool piazza, my eyes bent upon her daughter. Mothers know. CHAPTER XX BACK FROM CATHAY The next morning, being again settled in my rooms in Walford, I went to call upon the Doctor and his daughter. The Doctor was not at home, but his daughter was glad to see me. "And how do you like your cycle of Cathay?" she asked. "I do not like it at all," I answered. "It has taken me upon a dreary round. I am going to change it for another as soon as I have an opportunity." "Then it has not been a wheel of fortune to you?" she remarked. "And as for that country which you figuratively called Cathay, did you find that pleasant?" "In some ways, yes, but in others not. You see, I came back before my vacation was over, and I do not care to go there any more." She now wanted me to tell her where I had really been and what had happened to me, and I gave her a sketch of my adventures. Of course I could not enter deeply into particulars, for that would make too long a story, but I told her where I had stopped, and my accounts of the bear and the horse were deeply interesting. "It seems to me," she said, when I had finished, "that if things had been a little different, you might have had an extremely pleasant tour. For instance, if Mr. Godfrey Chester had been living, I think you would have liked him very much, and it is probable that you would have been glad to stay at his inn for several days. It is a beautiful country thereabout." "Did you know him?" I asked. "Oh yes," she said; "he was my teacher during part of my school-days here. And then there is Mr. Burton; father is very fond of him. He is a man of great intelligence. It was unfortunate that you did not see more of him." "Perhaps you know Mr. Putney?" I said. "No," she answered. "I have heard a great deal about him. He seems to be a stiff sort of a man. But as to Mr. Larramie, everybody likes him. He is a great favorite throughout the county, and his son Walter is a rising young man. I am glad you made the acquaintance of the Larramies." "So am I," I said, "very glad indeed. And, by-the-way, do you know a young man named Willoughby? I never heard his first name, but he lives at Waterton." "Oh, the Willoughbys of Waterton," she said. "I have heard a great deal about them. Father used to know the old gentleman. He was a great collector of rare books, but he is dead now. If you had met him you would have found him a man of your own tastes." When I was going away she stopped me for a moment. "I forgot to ask you," she said; "did you take any of those capsules I gave you when you were starting off on your cycle?" "Yes," said I, "I took some of them." But I could not well explain the capricious way in which I had endeavored to guard against the germs of malaria, and to call my own attention to the threatening germs of erratic fancy. "Then you do not think they did you any good?" she said. "I am not sure," I replied. "I cannot say anything about that. But of one thing I am certain, and that is, that if any germs of any kind entered my system, it is perfectly free from them now." "I am glad to hear that," she said. It was about a week after this that I received a letter from Percy Larramie. "I thought you would like to know about the bear," he wrote. "Somebody must have forgotten to feed him, and he broke his chain and got away. He went straight over to the Holly Sprig Inn, and I expect he did that because the inn was the last place he had seen his master. I did not know bears cared so much for masters. He didn't stay long at the inn, but he stayed long enough to bite a boy. Then he went into the woods. "As soon as we heard of it we all set off on a bear-hunt. It was jolly fun, although I did not so much as catch a sight of him. Father shot him at a three-hundred-foot range. It was a Winchester rifle with a thirty-two cartridge. It was a beautiful shot, Walter said, and I wish I had made it. "We took his skin off and tore it only in two or three places, which can be mended. Would you like to have the skin, and do you care particularly about the head? If you don't, I would like to have it, because without it the skeleton will not be perfect." I wrote to Percy that I did not desire so much as a single hair of the beast. I did not tell him so, but I despised the bears of Cathay. It was just before the Christmas holidays when I finally made up my mind that of all the women in the world the Doctor's daughter was the one for me, and when I told her so she did not try to conceal that this was also her own opinion. I had seen the most charming qualities in other women, and my somewhat rapid and enthusiastic study of them had so familiarized me with them that I was enabled readily to perceive their existence in others. I found them all in the Doctor's daughter. Her father was very well pleased when he heard of our compact. It was plain that he had been waiting to hear of it. When he furthermore heard that I had decided to abandon all thought of the law, and to study medicine instead, his satisfaction was complete. He arranged everything with affectionate prudence. I should read with him, beginning immediately, even before I gave up my school. I should attend the necessary medical courses, and we need be in no hurry to marry. We were both young, and when I was ready to become his assistant it would be time enough for him to give me his daughter. We were sitting together in the Doctor's library and had been looking over some of the papers of the Walford Literary Society, of which we were both officers, when I said, looking at her signature: "By-the-way, I wish you would tell me one thing. What does the initial 'E.' stand for in your name? I never knew any one to use it." "No," she said; "I do not like it. It was given to me by my mother's sister, who was a romantic young lady. It is Europa. And I only hope," she added, quickly, "that you may have fifty years of it." * * * * * Three years of the fifty have now passed, and each one of the young women I met in Cathay has married. The first one to go off was Edith Larramie. She married the college friend of her brother who was at the house when I visited them. When I met her in Walford shortly after I heard of her engagement, she took me aside in her old way and told me she wanted me always to look upon her as my friend, no matter how circumstances might change with her or me. "You do not know how much of a friend I was to you," she said, "and it is not at all necessary you should know. But I will say that when I saw you getting into such a dreadful snarl in our part of the country, I determined, if there were no other way to save you, I would marry you myself! But I did not do it, and you ought to be very glad of it, for you would have found that a little of me, now and then, would be a great deal more to your taste than to have me always." [Illustration: EUROPA] Mrs. Chester married the man who had courted her before she fell in love with her school-master. It appeared that the fact of her having been the landlady of the Holly Sprig made no difference in his case. He was too rich to have any prospects which might be interfered with. Amy Willoughby married Walter Larramie. That was a thing which might well have been expected. I was very glad to hear it, for I shall never fail to be interested in the Larramies. About a year ago there was a grand wedding at the Putney city mansion. The daughter of the family was married to an Italian gentleman with a title. I read of the affair in the newspapers, and having heard, in addition, a great many details of the match from the gossips of Walford, I supposed myself to be fully informed in regard to this grand alliance, and was therefore very much surprised to receive, personally, an announcement of the marriage upon a very large and stiff card, on which were given, in full, the various titles and dignities of the noble bridegroom. I did not believe Mr. Putney had sent me this card, nor that his wife had done so; certainly the Count did not send it. But no matter how it came to me, I was very sure I owed it to the determination, on the part of some one, that by no mischance should I fail to know exactly what had happened. I heard recently that the noble lady and her husband expect to spend the summer at her father's country-house, and some people believe that they intend to make it their permanent home. The Doctor strongly advises that Europa and I should go before long and settle in the Cathay region. He thinks that it will be a most excellent field for me to begin my labors in, and he knows many families there who would doubtless give me their practice. 
49474	----	PEDAL AND PATH Across the Continent AWHEEL AND AFOOT, GEORGE B. THAYER. [Member of the Connecticut Bicycle Club,] HARTFORD: Evening Post Association. 1887. PREFACE. Close confinement to mercantile business for a dozen or more years brought on a feeling of discontent with the monotonous routine, that I at length tried to drive away by taking a little recreation on a bicycle. The machine, I found, was not only a source of great enjoyment, but it soon became a thing of practical value to me in the transaction of business. I took intense delight in riding the wheel a dozen miles to Hartford buying goods, quite content to let those who would sit inertly riding by me in the cars, and it was not long before the idea of taking a short vacation presented itself. A vacation of more than a day was a pleasure of which I had denied myself for so many years that it was a question with me whether the sun would not stand still if I ventured out of the little orbit in which I had moved so many years. But I finally decided to run the risk. At the end of five days, after riding one hundred and seventy-five miles, I came back more than ever pleased with the mode of locomotion and its advantages in sight-seeing. So intense had become my desire to travel, to visit the places of interest here at home, that I then made business arrangements which would permit a more prolonged absence, and took a three weeks' trip of five hundred miles, and soon after a six weeks' trip of one thousand two hundred miles through the most interesting parts of New England. Instead of quieting my rising passion for sight-seeing, these delightful journeys only added fuel to the flames. They showed clearly to me the possibilities of a trip to California, the independence and economy possible to such a trip, and the good results to be obtained from such a mode of traveling in preference to any other. So with no desire or intention of making or breaking any records, or covering the whole distance on the wheel, the trip was started and carried out with the sole object of taking all the pleasure possible and of acquiring a knowledge of the country and the people who live in it. An account of the trip across the continent was written in occasional letters to the Hartford Evening Post, as whose representative I was everywhere most courteously received. Although this little volume is to all purposes a binding of those letters, with considerable revision, in book form, I have been able when seated quietly at my own desk to give fuller details at certain interesting points, and to round out a narrative which was sometimes rather meagre from having been written out in the fields to escape too curious observation of passers-by, in a friendly barn which sheltered me from the rain, on jolting freight-trains, in the cloud-enveloped house on Pike's Peak, on one of the dizziest points overhanging the Yosemite, on a tossing steamer on the misnamed Pacific, and while waiting for the regular spouting of "Old Faithful" in the Yellowstone, as well as in many other situations not conducive to the production of comprehensive and artistic literary work. To the wheelmen of the country, Greetings! The fraternal feeling everywhere manifested between them has, I believe, not a parallel in any social or secret order. To their spontaneous and unfailing kindness was due much of the pleasure of the trip, and if any wheelman should want a more detailed account than I have given, of any portion of the route taken, I should be only too glad to furnish him with all the information I possess. G. B. T. CHAPTER I. WESTWARD HO! THE BEGINNING OF A SEVEN MONTHS' WHEELING TOUR ACROSS THE CONTINENT. For this trip, which covered a distance of 11,000 miles from Hartford, Connecticut, circuitously to San Francisco, California, and return, nearly 4,300 of which was made upon the machine, a forty-six inch Expert Columbia, taking me across twenty-three States and Territories, and through hundreds of the finest cities and towns in the Union, and some of the most magnificent scenery in the world, I was equipped with a blue cap that I wore throughout the whole journey with comfort, brown blouse, thin undershirt, brown corduroy knickerbockers, brown stockings, and low canvas shoes. The baggage in the knapsack consisted of a coat, blouse, pair blue knickerbockers, three summer undershirts, night-shirt, six pairs stockings, six handkerchiefs, needles and thread, buttons, and plenty of stout string, a box of salve, a bottle of tannin and alcohol, a bottle of Jamaica ginger, razor, shaving brush, hair brush, tooth-brush, shaving soap, toilet soap, leather strap with wire hook at one end, a sponge, long rubber tube for drinking, knife and fork, shoe laces, piece of cement, box matches, a candle, coil of pliable wire, two dozen pedal-balls, pedal shaft, chain and Yale lock, pocket mirror, railroad maps, and a good supply of stationery and postal cards. On top of the knapsack was strapped a gossamer coat, gossamer leggings, rubber cap, and a pair of rubber overshoes. The whole weighed a little over fifteen pounds. It will be observed that among the articles enumerated no mention has been made of any weapon of defense. Although implored by some of my friends not to enter upon the Western wilds without a pistol, I decided to maintain my habitual faith in the honesty and good will of the average American and to depend upon diplomacy and conciliation in the circumvention of the exceptional villain. I expressed a valise along to different cities as far as Denver, but found I could carry all necessary clothing in the knapsack, and so left the valise at that place till my return from California, when I sent it directly home. After anxiously waiting for the frost to be taken out of the ground by a warm rain that finally came, I started out on the 10th of April, 1886. The roads to Berlin were full of hard, dry ruts, and through Wallingford sandy as usual. This, in addition to the fifteen pounds of baggage in my knapsack, the soft condition of my muscles, the thirty mile ride the day before,--first one in four months,--these circumstances, taken together, had the effect to make me somewhat weary, and after reaching New Haven, and completing over fifty miles that day, I was tired. Those wheelmen who envied me the trip in the morning would have changed their feeling to pity had they seen me groping along in the dark from North Haven nearly fagged out. The next day, Sunday, was certainly a day of rest, but Monday I rode up the gentle grade of the Farnham drive to the top of East Rock in the morning, and in the afternoon about the city with a Yale student, Mr. Geo. Kimball of Hartford,--a fine rider, who struck a gait that outwinded me and that would have used him up in a day or two, I think. For variety, I spent a couple of hours looking over the fine specimens of ancient life in Peabody museum, and afterwards made the acquaintance of Messrs. Thomas and Robbins of the New Haven Club. Tuesday, a drizzling rain prevented a start till nearly noon, and the ride around Savin Rock to Milford was anything but enjoyable, especially when wearing a rubber suit which retained the perspiration like a hot house, which it really was for me. It was the bitter with the sweet, and the bitter came first, for the roads improved to Stratford and Bridgeport, at which latter place the open-hearted J. Wilkinson, a dealer in bicycles, accompanied me through the city and on to Fairfield, showing his nationality by characterizing places in the road as "beastly." A decided fall in the temperature was now followed by a thunder storm which drove me under shelter for the night at Green Farms. Inquiries for a wheelman at South Norwalk, the next morning, brought out in reply, "There is a man down at the carriage-shop, beyant, that could fix your fhweel, I guess"; but not looking for that kind of a wheelman, I soon found one, Mr. Chas. Warren, who piloted me along to Stamford, where I had a pleasant chat with William A. Hurlburt, the well known State representative. At Greenwich I met three riders, two of whom it was plain to be seen by the dusty condition of one side of their suits had taken recent tumbles. One was Consul E. W. Reynolds, another Dr. E. N. Judd, vice-president of the Greenwich Club, and I did not learn the name of the third. So with this unknown quantity it is safe to leave the reader to ponder over which two of the three took headers, for I could not be so base as to give a clue to the names of the unfortunate ones, all three of whom were very fine gentlemen. Other wheelmen soon came up, meat carts and express teams stopped on the corner, small boys gathered around, and innumerable dogs filled in the chinks, till fearing the knapsack would soon be arrested for obstructing the highway, I reluctantly dragged it away and carried it along to Port Chester, where, with a parting look at the Sound, I started across the country to White Plains and to Tarrytown. The roads improved all the forenoon, and from the Sound to the river were very good. It was nearly dark at Tarrytown, but having some acquaintance with the accommodating landlord at the American House, Sing Sing, I kept on by the monument that marks the spot of Major Andre's capture, down into "Sleepy Hollow," made memorable by Washington Irving, and up to the Old Dutch Church, built in 1699. With a mania which I shall never entirely outgrow, for finding the oldest dates in a grave-yard, I opened the creaking iron gate, and walked in among the tipsy tombstones, and, with the scanty aid of the twilight and the full moon, found many dates nearly as old as the church itself. The iron latch snapped back into place with a remarkably loud click, it seemed to me, as I came out, for everything was wonderfully still, even for a grave-yard, and as I went slowly on through the woods, meeting Italian organ-grinders, passing bands of gypsies camped out by the roadside, and coasting silently down unknown hills in the dark, I really think I must have looked like a genuine goblin astride of a silver broomstick. But there was a novelty about it that I rather enjoyed. CHAPTER II. THROUGH THE HIGHLANDS OF THE HUDSON RIVER. Soon after leaving Port Chester, frequent explosions attracted my attention, and when within two miles of Tarrytown I came to a cluster of cheap shanties out in the woods, and found that it was the location of Shaft No. 11 of the new aqueduct for New York city. This shaft was only sixty feet deep, and as dump cars of rocks were constantly coming up, and empty cars going down, I thought it would be a fine thing to go down into the bowels of the earth. But no amount of entreaty, no amount of newspaper influence behind me would induce the foreman to give his consent without a permit from headquarters, so I rode over to Tarrytown, hunted the city all over, and finally got the coveted piece of paper from D. D. McBeau, the superintendent. I laid awake half the night thinking of the grand chance before me, and started off next morning from Sing Sing to Shaft One, eight miles directly out of my way, over a hilly and muddy country. Here were more cheap shanties off in the mountains and crowds of negroes and Italians loafing around in the woods, waiting for their turn to go down to work. Rum-holes were numerous and doing a thriving business. The powder and oil clerk gave me an old coat and a pair of rubber boots to put on, and when the empty car was ready I crawled over into it and boldly stood up in the mud beside an Italian, who grinned and said something I could not understand. While waiting for the bell to ring I found this hole was 360 feet deep instead of sixty. That information caused me to look over the side of the car down into the dark where the loaded car comes up--the cars go up and down like the buckets in a well--and try to imagine how far down a fellow would go. If anything should break I did not suppose it would jar me much more to drop 360 feet than it would sixty, but it was the uneasy feeling falling during the longer interval that I began to believe I would avoid. What would happen afterwards I never thought of, but it was the long time going down so far before anything could happen that troubled me. I did not want to run the risk of waiting so long. Then I began to think of what they told me before I got into the car, how the day before the cable slipped, a wheel or something dropped--I did not mind much what they said I was so intent on getting into that car--and how the brains of the man beneath were scooped up into a cigar-box and taken away, and how twelve men were sitting on that cigar-box, or all there was of the man's body below his shirt collar, at the same time I was hanging over that black hole. I did not object so much to being carried away in a cigar-box, or being sat upon afterwards, but somehow I did not think it such a big thing to go down after all. I began to imagine how it looked down there, and the more the workmen urged me the less I wanted to go. It wouldn't pay anyhow. I could just as well imagine how it looked and not go. All this time if the bell had rung I should have had no choice, but I finally crawled out, just in time, feeling very foolish, and returned the coat and boots unsoiled. A mile farther I came to Croton dam and the head of the new aqueduct. I may use that hard earned and once highly prized piece of paper some other time when I feel more like it. A brief description of this great work may not be uninteresting. The present aqueduct runs near the Hudson River, but the rich property holders along its course would combine to effectually prevent another aqueduct from boring its way through their fine grounds, so the only thing to be done was to go back five or six miles into the mountains and tunnel the whole distance of thirty-five or forty miles. The head of the two aqueducts are close together, but whereas the old one winds along the banks of the Hudson on the surface, the new one takes a straight course from New York, the first nine miles being a bee line. Every mile or two holes are dug down into the mountain, these shafts varying from 50 to 400 feet in depth, and then tunnels are started out in opposite directions till they meet those being dug from the next shaft. This tunnel goes through solid rock, under swamps and ponds, through mountains, and finally passes under the Harlem River, eighty feet beneath its bed, into the city. Think of a hole eighteen or twenty feet in diameter being dug as far below the surface of the earth as the Genius of Connecticut on the dome of the Capitol at Hartford is above it; this hole going from Hartford down under the Meriden hills and coming out at New Haven. How do those railroad tunnels through the Alps compare with this? There are about twenty-five of these shafts, and six or seven hundred men are constantly working, day and night, down in the bowels of the earth. The tunnels are lighted by the Schuyler Electric Light Company of Hartford. The average fall to New York is eight inches to the mile, and the water will not run much faster than a mile an hour. I have probably ridden over this tunnel half a dozen times during the past two days, and every farmer along its course for twenty-five miles knows about how far underneath him these men are working. Frequently an explosion that shakes buildings five miles away reminded me of what was going on. Asking of a good woman to-day how much the bread and milk I had of her would be, she replied, "Five or ten cents if thee is able to pay." After a few minutes pleasant talk at Peekskill with Chief Consul E. F. Hall, a slight built, dark complexioned gentleman of, perhaps, 30, wearing glasses, I hired a boatman and crossed the river, a mile and a half wide at this place, to Jones's Point. This was done partly to avoid the sandy roads running far east from the river to Garrison's, but principally to get a better view of the entrance to the Highlands. The sun was only half an hour high, but I loitered along, never thinking of the night. The road which winds along the side of the mountain was too stony to ride; but who would want his attention diverted by riding when there was such grand scenery on all sides? The West Shore trains were rushing up and down along the river fifty feet almost perpendicularly below me, the Hudson River trains on the opposite side were just as busy, and the sun brought out the features of Anthony's nose with great distinctness as it rose nearly 1,500 feet straight up from the east bank of the river. The sun went down some time before I began to wonder if any farmers lived along that rugged region, for not a house was in sight for miles, but hearing some one chopping upon the side of the mountain somewhere, I pushed my machine up a cow-path till my wind was all gone, and found there was a house half a mile farther on. Coming to the barn, in front of which a good looking woman of 30 was milking, I told her how I hoped to reach West Point that night, but the rough roads delayed me, and could I stay over night? The husband was inside, she said, and seeing some one in there in the dark I retold my story, only to find out I was talking to the hired man. Finally the husband, who was in a box stall milking, came out and said "yes" without more ado. The house was close to the river, and soon after supper was over, and we were all sitting in the dining-room talking, a knock was heard. The man of the house said "Come in," but no one came. Soon the knock was repeated, with the same answer, and finally the door slowly opened and a small, dried up, middle-aged man came shuffling in, blinking and muttering "Is John here?" But John was not there; so Walter sat down by the stove and immediately fell into a deep reverie, occasionally arousing himself to inquire for John. Finally John came in, and then it seems Walter wanted to be taken home in John's boat, up the river about a mile. So John said, good naturedly, "Come out and get in then," and walked across the gang-plank, out to where the boat was moored. Walter started out into the bright moonlight, going very unsteadily, and reached the gang-plank without any serious trouble, but here he slowed up. The women-folks said "Help him across, John," but Walter started, very cautiously, without waiting for help, and had got half way across when he stepped off into the air and went down out of sight with a splash. John was so tickled he laid down in the boat and roared, and when Walter came up, bareheaded and looking very sleek, John couldn't stop laughing long enough to help him, leaving him hanging there by the gang-plank in the water up to his neck, sputtering, "Zis the river John, zis the river?" But poor Walter was soon helped out, wrapped up in blankets, and taken home in the boat. The ride next morning of five or six miles to West Point was over a road that would compare favorably with the best city roads, and after spending an hour about the grounds, seeing all the captured Mexican cannons, and wondering where the captured cannons of the war of 1812 were--I guess that was not a very good war for capturing cannons--I crossed to Garrison's and found a road that for fifty miles, and probably farther, is as fine as there is anywhere about Boston. The grades are easy, the coasting so perfect I almost forgot there was a brake on the machine. For miles and miles fine rows of elms and maples line the sides of the road. To say I enjoyed it seems tame. At Cold Spring I explained the workings of the cyclometer to a gentleman, and opposite the "Cro' Nest," meeting the same one again, he returned the favor by showing me the situation of the Storm King Bridge, that is soon to be built. It is at the northern entrance to the Highlands and at one of the wildest parts of the whole river. On both sides are high mountains with bold fronts, the one on the east jutting out into the river. Around this projection there is just room enough for one team to pass between the rocks and the river, the railroad tunneling through the rocks at this point. It is to be a cantilever bridge, and, if I understand it, is to be built nearly a mile in length and upon four or five piers. These iron piers are raised to the height of nearly 250 feet above the river, but how deep the river is at this point I did not learn. At other points it is 200 feet and over. When these piers are at the required height an arm or span is built out in one direction and another of equal length in the other direction, and so on till the spans meet in the center between the piers. It is like building four or five immense capital T's and extending the arms out till they meet. Imagine those men up in the air 250 feet, and working out on the end of one of those immense spans 500 feet from the center of the pier. At Po'keepsie I found quite a nest of wheelmen at the office of the Buckeye shops, a policeman escorting me to the place to the evident delight of all the small boys, who thought I was under arrest. Representative Adriance is a tall, sandy complexioned gentleman of 35 or 40, with a full beard, and Captain Edward A. King is dark complexioned and smooth, full faced, and under 25. Both of these gentlemen treated me very cordially, as did others there, and I would be glad to be walked off by a policeman any time to meet such fine fellows in a strange city. Saturday morning, after crossing from Rhinecliff to Kingston and traveling twelve miles over some sandy roads that would have been impassable but for a fair side-path, I found, upon reaching Saugerties, that I had made a mistake by not going up the east side and crossing to the same point, but forgot all about it as the terraced Catskills came in view. At Palenville the hard work commenced, pushing the machine to the top, and, after two hours of sweating and puffing, I arrived. Since a boy I had been told there was plenty of room at the top, and so I found it, 1,200 of them, all empty. Notwithstanding that fact, I was obliged to take an apartment on the first floor front, that is, the piazza. The board was very plain, too. The one under me was not only planed but painted. I did not stay long. Distance traveled in six days, 251 miles. CHAPTER III. UP THE CATSKILLS AND ALONG THE ERIE CANAL. Now that the trees are bare, the terraced appearance of the Catskills is plainly visible, and in climbing up by the new mountain road to the Hotel Kaaterskill, along the northern slope of the Kaaterskill Clove, one wonders at first why the numerous little houses scattered all along up this Clove are not in danger of the catastrophe that befell the Willey House in Crawford Notch, New Hampshire. The sides of the Clove are as steep as the Notch, although not as high, but the rock formation of the Catskills preserves these little hamlets. A landslide here would have to go down a gigantic pair of stairs, while in the White Mountains it would be like slipping off a gothic roof. Half an hour's rest was sufficient after the tough climb of four miles up the gentle grade, as they called it, of the new road. It was very steep all the way up, and at places very dangerous, a single wire holding up a row of posts which themselves seemed bent on going over, being the only protection against a fall of fifty feet or more. I reached the falls in the rear of the Laurel House just as the western sun was filling the Clove with rainbows, and after convincing myself with some difficulty that the whole mountain would not tip over if I stepped too heavy, I crawled around the amphitheater, little by little, till the water came down directly between the stairs and myself. The ice all around the pool rose up very much like the crater of a volcano, down into the center of which the water plunged from 150 feet above. While I was creeping along backside of this ice crater there was a loud crack, loud enough to be heard above all the other noises, and my feet went down about three inches. A thin shale of ice under my feet had broken, that was all, but my heart came up as my feet went down, and it remained about six inches above its ordinary level for some time. That night the lively conversation, accompanied by sly winks, and short little words of the gouty but genial proprietor, J. L. Schult, helped to make the evening pass pleasantly, especially when Mr. Schult, of Dutch descent himself, would slyly refer to the Yankee origin of his wife, a quiet, kind lady of Connecticut parents. Sunday morning came off delightfully clear and cool, and after a ride of a couple of miles by the railroad station and the lake, on one side of which the ice still covered the surface while on the other side buds on the trees were bursting, I reached the Mountain House and sat down for a few minutes, but wishing to be alone crossed over to the Pine Orchard Hotel. A few steps farther brought me to the Beach House where, avoiding contact with people when Nature had so much to say to me, I sat down under the shade of the Catskill Mountain House, and for four hours was undisturbed as I lay there taking in the fine view of the Hudson, the finest, I think, to be had from any of the mountain hotels. If any one is puzzled to account for so many hotels in this section of the mountains, he is no more confused than I was when I had the same building pointed out to me at different times as the Mountain House, the Pine Orchard Hotel, the Beach House, and the Catskill Mountain House, but like the various officers which centered in Pooh-Bah they are all one. Celebrated as the Catskills are, Connecticut can boast of some hills that out-rank them in one respect, and that is age. The Litchfield Hills in plain sight across the river are not only the tallest in the State but they claim to be about as old as the Adirondacks. The river Saguenay has worn a wrinkle 1,500 feet deep down the face of some rocks of the same age. But the Connecticut hills don't show their age like that, old as they are. They were well along in their youth when the rocks were born over which flow the waters of Niagara, and the White Mountains, now both bald and grey, had then not even been thought of. They were in the meridian of life when the Rockies came upon the stage, and had passed that point long before the Alps, Pyrennes, Himalayas, and the rocks of which the pyramids are built, had risen above the surface of the ocean. So their real grandeur consists, certainly not in their size, but in the fact that the group of mountains to which they belong, the Laurentian range, as well as the Adirondacks, has remained above the sea level longer than any other land upon the face of the globe. Not once during this time have they ever bowed to the god of the sea. They are not so pretentious as some of their richer and more lofty followers, but in their ripe old age the Litchfield Hills have acquired a weather-beaten and a most enviable title to the first families of creation. I understood from a wheelman that the coasting down the other side of the mountains toward Catskill was fine, and to enjoy that was my idea in working so hard to get the machine up, but the road was too steep and rough and so all the labor was lost. Crossing the river again at Catskill I rode on to Hudson by moonlight, and the next day kept on, over mostly fine roads, through Kinderhook, where some writers claim the identical "Sleepy Hollow" of Washington Irving is located, to Albany. Washing off some of the dust and dirt I put on a coat and went up to the capitol. Finding I was a stranger those in charge furnished a guide, who took me all over the magnificent structure. To give an idea of the cost of the interior decorations, it will be enough to state that one side of the senate chamber is covered with slabs of Mexican onyx, the cost of this room alone amounting to over one million dollars. On the way out of the city I stopped at the Albany Bicycle Club House, a large two story building, situated on a prominent corner, with a fine lawn in front. The house is nicely furnished, with all conveniences, but the club has of late become more of a social than an athletic club. At Schenectady the only glimpse I had of Jacob W. Clute, the active wheelman of this thriving city, was through the cracks of the court-room door as he was cross-examining a witness, but S. R. James, who has a large crockery establishment here, mounted his tricycle and piloted me along the sidewalks to the tow path. Mr. James has been at different times president and captain of their club, and is a good-sized man of sixty, with side whiskers and moustache. On the tow-path, at last. A path nearly 300 miles long and perfectly level for forty, fifty, and sixty miles on a stretch. How I looked forward to it. How I longed to get to it. How I thought the hard work was over when I reached it. What fun it would be to ride for hours without a dismount; what time I could make. This and a great deal more I had thought about, read of, and talked over. The great tow-path, the bicyclers' paradise! Now I was there. Well, to state facts, it is no path at all, it is a common highway, and a very common one too, for everybody uses it. The soil is a mixture of clay and coarse, very coarse, gravel. Round, loose stones filled the ruts and every part of the road. The inside edge of the bank is cobbled and the outside edge full of little cross ditches. Now, where was a wheel to go? Go in the middle and the wheel would take a serpentine course; try to follow a rut and the loose stones would throw the wheel in and out. The outside edge was terribly jolting, the inside edge dangerous, for a variation of an inch or two and the course of the wheel would throw a rider into the mud and water ten feet below in the empty canal. But for all that I tried the celebrated tow-path for ten, twenty, thirty miles, and long miles, too. After bumping along for a mile or two I would get off and walk. Then pound along for two or three miles farther and dismount again, more to prevent the saddle from becoming ruined than anything else, for even a Kirkpatrick's saddle couldn't stand everything. Water is as necessary to a wheelman as to a locomotive, and yet there was none to be had excepting at the lock-houses several miles apart and then only in a well, down in some warm swamp; no gushing little streams of sparkling, cool water, such as spring out of the rocks and hills all along the regular highways. The only shade was under the bridges that cross the canal at frequent intervals, where a rider can sit down in the dirt and think how nice it might be on the grass beneath the shade of a pine tree. No matter what part of the road you took it required the strictest attention to business, and after following a rut with every muscle hard and every nerve taut for an hour or two, it became monotonous, to say the least. The canal follows the south side of the Mohawk River and passes through very few villages, while on the other side of the river are many places, through each of which there must be a mile or two of nice riding, yet I stuck to the canal on principle for six long hours, and left it at Fonda for good. It may be, when the boats are running, that the mules' kicking abilities are employed, when they slack rope, in firing the million of round stones out of the road, and in that way make the tow-path rideable, but if every mule on the line of the canal had kicked me, personally and individually, with all four feet and all on the same spot, I should not have been any sorer than I was that night. The next day fifty-six miles were made with less labor and decidedly more pleasure over the common roads than was the forty-five miles the day before, and if the tow path was the only way to Buffalo, the next train home would have had me for a passenger. All the way to Syracuse the tow-path, from what I could see in crossing it, is very much the same rough riding, and whenever anyone advised me to take it to a certain place I writhed with pain at the very idea. At Little Falls the West Shore double tracks, the canal, the river, the four tracks of the New York Central, and the highway are all brought into close proximity by the perpendicular ledges of rocks on both sides of the valley, and the rocks along the highway and in the river are worn and scooped out by action of the elements, very much as they are at Diana's Baths, near North Conway. It is no uncommon occurrence on the Central road to see a passenger train chasing and overtaking a freight train, while a third train will scoot in between the two, with a fourth train close on to them. There is nothing dull about a trip up the Mohawk valley, even alone on a bicycle. It is the general opinion that the mud this spring has been the deepest of any for many years, some say twenty-five years; and often I ride over places, now dry and dusty on the surface, that bend and crack like thin ice. A wagon laid up beside the road, with a wheel wrenched off by the deep hard ruts, or a place where rails and boards have been used to extricate a mired horse, are sights of almost daily occurrence. Once I passed a hole in the road where a fine pair of draft horses were ruined. A week sooner and the roads would have been impassable for a bicycle. Even now the ruts prevent any very fast riding. The road scraper has only been used in a very few places, and as the roads have become more dry and dusty the small wheel has become more independent, going off to one side on little excursions of its own, to the natural disconcertment of its rider. After traveling over 400 miles I have had no tumbles, but as I was following a narrow ridge between two ruts, a fly, about as large as the head of a pin, flew into my eye, immediately enlarged itself to the size of a barn, and the next instant I was in the dust. It takes the weak things of this world to confound the bicyclist. The religious crank who has painted the stones and rocks of Connecticut with warnings in regard to the future life has been using the same means of conversion all over York State, and in many places he has taken advantage of alarming situations to enforce his arguments. For instance, in the Highlands below West Point is a deep ravine, down the sides of which the road winds and crosses a bridge nearly 100 feet above the river, on which is posted a sign "dangerous." The bridge totters under my feet, and right here, painted in staring blue letters are these words: "Prepare to meet thy God," and "Repent now or you will go to hell." The knapsack attracts considerable attention along the route, especially from the dogs. Some only give a single low grunt, while others of more sound than sense follow it for a quarter of a mile or more; but every dog has something to say in regard to the trip. Coasting down into Peekskill the knapsack was accompanied by seven (actual count) dogs of various sizes and colors, some turning hand springs, others whirling around within a very small circle, and all performing some sort of gymnastic evolutions in front, on the side of, or behind the knapsack, and each one displaying his vocal powers to the best of his ability. Sometimes a dog of light weight and wit will chew away at my canvas shoes while they are revolving on the pedal, and another will tug away at my stocking while I drink at a well, but constant exposure has so toughened my sensibilities that I can walk along with the cold nose of a savage bull dog bumping against the calves of my legs without a shudder. Going from Ilion to Frankfort I had a lively brush with a horse car, the highway and track running side by side, of such uncertain result that the passengers became as interested in the race as the driver himself. When passengers took or left the car the stops would give me the lead, but then the driver would run his horse and leave me behind, for the road was not the best, but I finally left them behind for good. At Utica I met a dozen or more of the members of the bicycle club at their rooms during the evening. The members are mostly young men and nearly all riders, and bicycling has certainly taken a firm hold at this place. Messrs. Arthur J. Lux and F. E. Manchaw were especially friendly to me. But at Syracuse, where I stopped the next night, the atmosphere is very different. With equally good roads, a larger population, with club rooms, rent free, in the Y. M. C. A. building, a beautiful structure in a city of fine buildings, with all things seemingly favorable, the club hardly numbers a dozen lifeless members. Will. H. Olmstead, the first bicycle rider in Syracuse, a middle aged gentleman with a full black beard, kindly assisted me with information. For six miles out of Utica the sidewalk is without a single gutter to oblige a dismount, and at Syracuse there seems to be the same regard for the personal comfort of bicyclists. That day I met the first unpleasant treatment at a farm-house. Stopping for something to eat, the farmer, who was coming in from the barn to dinner, said rather sharply, "What do you do for a living." I told him what I was doing. "Why don't you go to work and earn your dinner," said he. That "riled" me a little, but I only said I expected to pay for what I had, and had intimated nothing to the contrary. He softened perceptibly, and as the savory smell wafted from the kitchen had increased my ravenous appetite, I jingled the few coins in my pocket in retaliation, till the crabbed old man actually smiled and invited me in, as cordially as it was possible for one of his disposition to do. Then disliking to beg and buy both I said so, and went a few rods to the next house, where I could not force any money on the good woman for the bountiful meal I had there. I stopped for a meal at a way-side hotel, when, upon leaving, the German proprietor, knowing of the intended length of my trip, said, "Hold on one minute," and he ran back into the house. Returning directly with a small business card three or four inches square, on the back of which was a railroad map of the United States, in which the State of Connecticut did not appear larger than the end of a lead pencil, he said, "There, now, you go 'long, and when you come to a road you just take out your map and there you are. You will have to ask no questions. I am glad I thought of it." Thanking him, I went on. Passing through places with such familiar names as New Hartford and Vernon, by houses--built of small cobble-stones, the size of an egg, laid in cement in rows like bricks, and arched over the doors and windows, making a very pretty appearance--by cheese factories with the accusing question painted in large black letters on a board nailed to the whey tank, "Who Steals the Whey?" (every farmer helps himself to enough whey to pay for the milk he brings, and it looks as if some helped themselves to a little more), by acres of hop-poles already stuck, by droves of mules all tied together, with an immense draft horse leading them along and another bringing up the rear: genuine horse guards, that trudged along past the bicycle without so much as deigning to look at it, while the captive mules, the tow-path mules, shied out at it; through Oneida Castle and through Auburn, where a minstrel brass band marching through the streets and a knapsack and bicycle going down the sidewalk gave the small boys and big ones, too, for that matter, altogether too much to attend to just at dinner-time, I finally came to the lake at Cayuga. Here a pleasant ride of half an hour across the lake in a row boat made a very agreeable change from the hot, dusty riding of the last three or four days, and then on to Geneva for the night. Next morning a cold rain drove me into a barn and finally into the farmer's house where I surprised the ancient granger in the act of making up his weekly letter to an agricultural journal. Here ends the second week of the trip. Distance traveled during the week 288 miles; distance from starting point 557 miles. CHAPTER IV. AT NIAGARA AND ALONG LAKE ERIE. At Canandaigua I had a short interview with Doctor A. G. Coleman. He is short and rather thick set, with gray hair and full beard. His conversation was very entertaining; his bicycling experience in Denver and California naturally interesting me very much. The artificial hatching of trout at Mumford, New York, is a sight that is well worth a journey, even from a long distance. The ground occupied is small, only two or three acres, and the building in which the hatching is done is only the size of an ordinary barn, but there is an immense amount of interest concentrated in this small area. There are a dozen or fifteen small ponds, perhaps ten feet square, boarded up on the sides, in which are the various kinds of trout from a year to twelve or fifteen years of age. Brook salmon, California brook, and German trout are the principal kinds raised here. I laid down on a plank that crosses one of the ponds, where the water comes pouring into it, and put my hand down into the water. Probably five hundred of these speckled beauties, the common brook trout, varying from one to two pounds in weight, were struggling to get through the wooden grates into the water above, and they wriggled and twisted through my fingers and bit the flesh as if they resented the interference, but otherwise paid no attention to it. Many would even allow me to take them out and hold them for a few seconds. The water was actually solid with fish, for there were over 3,000 of them in this one pond. Lying on the grass beside another pond in which were some fine specimens of salmon trout, there were within a foot of my hand trout varying from a foot to two feet and a half or three feet in length and weighing from five to eighteen pounds, all lying perfectly still on the bottom, too lazy to stir. Then I went into the building where Jim--everybody knows Jim after one visit--told me how they propagate and care for the millions of tiny things, even selecting individual cases for special care. Half a dozen men were here picking out the poor eggs and doing different kinds of work. The eggs are about half as large as a lead pencil in diameter, and the poor ones are white, the others colorless. In one of the many shallow troughs in the building through which water is constantly running were thousands of eggs spread out just ready to hatch. When they break through the shell the little fish are scarcely longer than the egg itself, which remains attached to them and is finally absorbed. Millions of these eggs, as well as millions of these little trout not an inch long, are annually shipped to all parts of the country. Seth Green came in, and a few minutes' chat with the jovial, gray bearded, two hundred and fifty pound man would make anyone wish to come again and know him better. Then I went out to see them take the spawn. During the spawning season the trout run up a long covered sluiceway at the head of each pond, and a net placed at the lower end of this covered brook catches every fish in it after the boards are removed and the trout driven down with a pole. The men hauled out about a bushel and a half at the first pond and about two bushels at the second, and emptied them into tubs filled with water. The females were parted from the males,--they separated them much faster than a farmer could sort rotting apples--and then the females were taken out by the men on their knees and squeezed dry of every egg in them. Occasionally a few drops of milk were pressed from a male into the pan with eggs to fecundate them, which occurred in a few seconds, and the males were thrown back into the pond, the female being put into a separate pond and tenderly cared for. Thus, in about fifteen minutes 50,000 eggs, or about three quarts, were obtained, and this process is carried out every day during the season. The female brook trout only live to be five or six years old, such necessarily rough handling naturally shortening their lives, and the males are turned loose down the stream after about the same age, but the salmon trout attain the age of fifteen or eighteen years. To put an edge to the enjoyment of this visit, that was intense to one interested in all out-of-door sports, Jim took a pan of chopped liver and the instant the meat struck the water in one of the ponds, three thousand yellow bellies made the water foam and boil with their lightning-like flashes. Then he threw some to the big ones, those lazy fifteen and eighteen pounders. They made some troubled waters, too, a thousand of them, four tons of trout flesh all in motion, handsome fellows that would come sailing, mouths wide open, towards the surface and flop their bodies, nearly a yard in length, entirely out of water. Connecticut fishermen, who tramp for miles with cold, soaked feet and return home with a wet back and a hungry stomach, having secured only a few ounces of trout meat, can, perhaps, get a faint idea from this hurried description of what is to be seen here, but they ought to come and see it themselves. Of course, fishing in a hatching pond would lack the zest which men naturally feel in killing a wild thing, but "I have known it done." Those that are turned loose down the stream make very poor eating, for their life diet of liver and lights renders their meat very tasteless. It evidently needs the piquancy of a spider or fly to give a true gamey flavor. Just before reaching Lima, I stopped at Mr. Augustus Metcalf's, to make inquiries about the roads, and his son Willard, being a wheelman, kindly invited me to stay over night. My short visit with them will always be remembered with pleasure. All the way from Syracuse, in fact all the way from Albany to Buffalo, I took the old, original turnpike. No matter whether I finally decided to take the "lower" road between intermediate places, or the "upper" road or the "middle" road or the "river" road or the "ridge" road or the "middle ridge" road, or a plank, clay, sand, or gravel road; whatever road I happened to be on some old farmer would soon tell me I was traveling on the "old original turnpike between Albany and Buffalo." One went back so far as to say that the said turnpike followed an old Indian trail, and they all seemed to take pride in mentioning the fact that their farms are situated on what was once such a celebrated thoroughfare. But there is another fact in regard to old highways that rests on a more substantial foundation than the disputed question as to which is the "old original." The main street leading out of Utica west towards Syracuse is called Genesee street, into Syracuse it is East Genesee, out of Syracuse West Genesee, and so on through Auburn, I think, and all the principal places until Buffalo is reached by going into the city by the same Genesee street. Going up the Mohawk valley the view one gets is not very extended, but after leaving Syracuse, clear through to Batavia, 125 miles, the country is undulating, and from the top of the many hills a traveler gets a fine view of a most beautiful country. Although the leaves were not yet out when I passed through this section, the grass was green, and the cherry trees were in bloom on Good Friday. Fine shade trees abound along the highways, and through many of the places a double row lines the principal streets, and fine sidewalks and level riding make a trip through this section, even so early in the season, very enjoyable. Arriving at Buffalo, the instant I crossed his threshold Mr. C. W. Adams, secretary of the Buffalo Bicycle Club, made me feel perfectly at home. He is dark complexioned, below the medium height, smooth faced, wears glasses, and is about 25 years of age. I found in traveling farther west that his hospitable manner and winning ways have made him a favorite with all wheelmen who have met him. It was not enough to take me about the finest rides in that beautiful city, after supper, and find a very entertaining escort for me about the city the next morning, but a trip to the falls and the bridge with him the next afternoon made my visit at Buffalo the pleasantest by far of any short stop I have had during a tour of many pleasant experiences. In the city there are fifteen or twenty miles of asphalt pavements as smooth as glass, block asphalt excepted, besides miles and miles of fine park roads, and with such drives it is not strange that the club is outgrowing its old club house--old only in name--and is moving into a very large two-story building on the main street, which will soon be nicely filled up with everything that such a genuine riding, working, racing, hospitable club needs. Judging from the dozen or more members of the club that I met, such kind, open-hearted, courteous fellows deserve all the success that the nutmeg stranger they took in could wish them, and that is unlimited. By train to the falls and out upon Goat Island on our wheels. I dared to follow where Mr. Adams led, but being ahead he didn't notice I took the inside rut of the driveway that runs around the island close to the edge, where a fall to one side would have sent my friend and machine over the bank into the rapids. I can follow as narrow a path on a wheel as anyone in some places, but around the edge of Goat Island is not one of those places. After visiting the place a dozen times or more I might, perhaps; but the first--yes, it was the first time I ever saw Niagara. When I tried to express myself about it every word sounded so flat, so meaningless, so utterly unfit. I might as well try to define the Infinite. I had nothing to say and was dumb, and am yet whenever I think of it. It seems about fifty years ago an insurrection broke out in Canada and the steamer Caroline was used by some filibustering Americans a few miles above here to help the fuss along. But the Canadian authorities finally seized the steamer, touched a match to it and set it adrift. How it came down over the rapids, all afire from stem to stern, and went over the falls, can better be imagined than described, at least by me. In conversation about the occurrence, near the stairs that lead down to where the tower used to stand, and telling how I should like to have seen it, the hackman said with a condescending air: "O yes, but that is only one of many grand scenes that you have missed by coming here late," and from his manner I inferred that strange and wonderful things had occurred on this river for the last 10,000 years at least, and that if I had come in when the doors first opened the one price of admission would have taken me through the entire show. Considering the amount of time and labor required to put this play upon the stage, or hack, rather, the wonder is, not Niagara by any means, but that these poor palæozoic hackmen can afford to exhibit for the price they do. The unfortunate delusion abroad that they charge only for the scene in the play that is being acted now is undoubtedly a great mistake, and they suffer in the estimation of the public accordingly. Their price is for what has occurred since the curtain rose in the Upper Silurian down to the present and until the curtain falls where Erie and Ontario are one. Those who come early and stay late and are not satisfied will doubtless have their money refunded at the close of the entertainment. At least such was the intimation of the man I met. Down a couple of miles to the suspension bridge, a look at the cantilever bridge,--a structure that in its construction was more wonderful than in its completed state, for the arms of the immense iron piers were built out over the river till they met in the middle--across the river and down to the whirlpool and back, and the day, a red letter one, was ended. Thursday morning was clear and cool, and I left Buffalo with a last look at the black cloud of smoke hovering over it that stretched, thinner and thinner, far out over the lake. The roads were fine along the shore, and once or twice I laid down on the grass on the edge of the cliff that juts out over the water, perhaps forty feet below, and tried to imagine I was tired so I could have an excuse for stopping, but the cool breezes at my back urged me on and the certain prospect of fine road ahead kept me going, and so all day long I paddled onward, always with the wind and sometimes like it. The breeze next day blew strong, from the southeast, at right angles to my course, but the road remained good. Once I stopped under a shed to avoid a slight shower, but soon found a red handkerchief hanging at my waist was not a safe thing to have around a barn-yard, for a bull over the fence near me almost immediately began to paw the ground and bellow, and so I moved on without much delay. At times the wind would blow me out of the road on to the side, and when I got fairly braced to tack against it at an angle of forty-five degrees, more or less, it would suddenly let up and back into the road I would go with a rush, the wheel leaving a sort of self-registering mark behind that indicated the velocity of the wind at the different points in the road. Notwithstanding the wind and ten miles of sand and clay, too soft and rutty to ride, the 200 miles from Buffalo to Cleveland was made in three days, with two or three hours to spare, so any wheelman can judge of the general average of the roads. I never saw as long a stretch of fine wheeling. Just here a word about guide-boards. In Connecticut, as we all know, guide-boards are a feature of every main and almost all cross-roads throughout the State, and are usually a great help to travelers by road. But along the Sound they grew scarcer, until coming into York State they were wanting entirely. In riding over 500 miles through different parts of that State, I remember seeing but four public guide-boards, and two of those were placed there by Poughkeepsie wheelmen. The roads are no straighter than in other States, and so the only thing to do in case of doubt is to take the side of safety and ask questions. These delays many times a day amount to a great deal, but there is no other way. But the instant I crossed the State line into the northwest corner of Pennsylvania every road and cross-road had a guide board. The change is like magic. And here in Ohio they go so far in the guide-board business as to tell you which way you can go to a certain place without crossing a railroad. For instance, to-day I passed a board which read: "Painesville without R. R. crossing 2 miles," another way being shorter. For miles around Buffalo in every direction the land is very low and wet, requiring much ditching, but it rises gradually on towards Cleveland, after passing Erie, which like Buffalo is situated nearly on a level with the lake, and the towns, such as Conneaut, Ashtabula, and Painesville, seem to increase in size as the land rises to a higher level, till Cleveland, largest of all, stands on a higher bluff than any. After leaving Buffalo the streams that flow into the lake gradually increase in size also, and they wear a channel down through the solid rock which rises almost perpendicularly on each side. These ravines, at each one of which is a town or city, increase in depth as the general level of the land rises. So, as one travels west from Erie over an apparently level country, there are constantly seen larger streams, deeper ravines, higher levels, and larger cities. The Lake Shore and Nickle Plate railroads are of course obliged to cross all these ravines, and their bridges increase in height till some of them are over one hundred feet above the river bed. I passed close by the Ashtabula bridge where, many will remember, a terrible accident occurred a few years ago on a cold December night. Speaking about railroads reminds me of a little incident of yesterday. All the railroads along the route have adopted the four whistles for a crossing, the Hudson River and New York Central being the only exceptions, I think, so the familiar signal first used by the New York and New England Railroad in the Eastern States is constantly heard. Yesterday I sat down under a tree to rest a few minutes when I heard in the distance the whistle of a train, and being near the tracks, waited to see the train pass. It came no nearer for some time, but I noticed the crossings seemed to be at regular intervals apart. Still the train did not come. Finally, happening to turn my head on one side the sound came from above, and looking up into the tree I saw a small brown bird that at regular intervals would swell up and utter a sound that nine persons in ten would mistake for the four whistles of a locomotive in the distance. The other day, in turning out to pass a team, I carelessly rode into some hard clay ruts that threw me instantly,--so suddenly that I turned almost a complete somersault. That is, I thought I did, for some time, for the blow I received on the back of the head that made it snap for a while could not be accounted for upon any other supposition than that I had gone clear over and struck the back of my head on the hard ground. I did not note just the position I was in when I picked myself up; the person in the wagon did that probably; but I was painfully aware that something hit me, hard too. It was the fifteen-pound knapsack that flew up and hit me a stunning blow on the back of the head. If I had been at home I would have bandaged my head, gone into an easy chair, and called the doctor. As it was, I simply remounted, trundled on, and was all right again in an hour. Nine hundred and eighteen miles in three weeks. CHAPTER V. THROUGH OHIO AND INDIANA. Riding slowly through Mentor, Ohio, a small place with two stores and a meeting-house, I overtook a man driving a raw-boned bay horse that jogged along in a lifeless sort of a way. The driver too seemed to be tired, as he leaned forward holding his body up by resting his elbows on his knees, but this shiftless acting man drove into the yard at Garfield's old home and was Mrs. Garfield's farmer. Views of the homestead and its surroundings are familiar to every one, but a large two-story stone addition is being built that alters the appearance of the house somewhat. This handsome addition is doubtless fire-proof, and the lower windows are protected with heavy iron bars, giving the whole addition the appearance of an elegant prison, but it is designed, I am told, to preserve all of Garfield's books, papers, and other valuables. Six miles east of Cleveland, a city named after a Connecticut surveyor, is the Lake View Cemetery, at which place I stopped a few minutes at the tomb that holds the remains of Garfield, guarded by a squad of United States infantry. The use of the tomb was given to Mrs. Garfield by a private family until such time as the remains could be deposited in their final resting place on the top of a hill a short distance away. The Garfield monument, the massive foundation of which is barely finished, and of which George Keller of Hartford, is the architect, is on a site that commands a fine view of the lake, the city, and the surrounding country for miles; the most beautiful location in that part of the State. Euclid is a small village full of rum-holes, and surrounded by mud and water, the most forsaken place I have yet seen, and in every respect, excepting distance, Euclid avenue in Cleveland is as far removed from Euclid as Paradise from Purgatory. Buffalo has streets as beautiful, with better pavements, but none as long. The poplar seems to be the popular tree, long stately rows lining the sides of the street. I was using the sidewalk on what is called the "bob" side of this street when a rider, using the pavement on the opposite, the "Nabob" side, warned me I had better get off the sidewalk, and so I rode into the city over poor pavements with the gentleman that proved to be the president of the Cleveland club, Mr. H. B. Payne. Plank roads are a necessity in the clay soil of the outer suburbs of Cleveland, but covered with two or three inches of mud and sunken about eight or ten inches below the level of the ground, these plank roads are neither pleasant to look at nor easy to ride over. Much of the low, wet land between Buffalo and Cleveland that will not produce a profitable crop of any of the cereals, is lately being used in raising grapes, currants, and other small fruits. This industry, new for this section of the country, is assuming enormous proportions, and I passed acres and acres of land entirely devoted to grapes. In fact the country seemed to be one vast vineyard, and I could easily imagine what a delicious sight it must present in the fall of the year, and my parched mouth seemed to get drier as I rode past the immense cellars that I knew were full of the cool wine. The route I was to take to Columbus was given me very explicitly at Cleveland as far as Wellington, and from that place I was told to "go right on to Columbus," from which I understood that the latter place was only a short distance ahead. But at Wellington, wheelmen could tell me nothing, livery stable keepers could only guess at the best route, which I was equally able to do, and so I struck out blindly. I went right on, not always right, however, often wrong, but still I went. The Ohio wheelmen are to issue a road book soon, but if the information in it is no more extended than the knowledge of roads possessed by all the northern Ohio wheelmen I have met, from the consuls up to the riders of baby bicycles, the value of the book will not be very great. And this is the kind of country I went into. Land, low, level, and wet. Very little land under cultivation and that little producing a very thin crop of wheat. Houses small and out of repair. Barns tumbling down and propped up. No pebbly brooks or clean wells, but plenty of stagnant pools and plenty of warm rain-water to drink. If a farm-house has happened to burn down the farm is deserted. Nobody seemed to be doing anything and everybody was waiting for the land to dry up or something to turn up. The farmers were all fat, good natured, and wanted to talk. The roads were in awful condition, full of hard, dry ruts, and chunks of clay, that would beat a man's brains out if his head came in contact with them. No one was going from place to place, and over a portion of one main road only two teams had passed in three days--since the last rain. Everybody seemed to have settled down into the wet clay and to become contented; as happy as a great fat hog wallowing in the mud and grunting with satisfaction. To be sure there are a few places of three or four thousand inhabitants scattered along through this otherwise thinly populated section, but this is the general impression a traveler gets. I had to walk over a good portion of the road and so had plenty of chance to observe the condition of things for seventy-five miles south of Cleveland. Besides, the farmers are as ignorant as they are indolent, knowing little about their own State and less about other States. Not one in ten of them could tell me within a hundred and fifty miles the distance to Columbus, their own capital. One man persisted in thinking Connecticut was a small village with a cotton mill, in the State of Rhode Island, and I could not hammer--we were in a blacksmith's shop out of the rain at the time--I could not hammer anything else into the fat old simpleton's head. Then, in the large towns along the way, as if to add insult to injury, the people, in talking to me about this section of poor roads and poor farmers, referred to them as "Yankee roads" and "Yankee farmers." But the people out here, although rather despising the close, saving habits of the average New Englander, yet do respect the perseverance, the tenacity, the sort of bull-dog grip that they think the inhabitants of the Eastern States are noted for. They pity the farmers of New England who contend against a stony, barren soil, but they regard with admiration their constant endeavors to obtain a competency. Here they get their living, such as it is, so easy. At the risk of making a too egotistical illustration of how they regard a little perseverance I will give a little incident that occurred at Wellington, a place of three or four thousand inhabitants. A large portly gentleman, fifty or sixty years old, sitting in a carriage in front of a fine residence, stopped me to ask the inevitable questions, where from, where to, and all about it. Then he "hollered" loud enough for all Wellington to hear, "Wife, wife, come out here and see this boy; this boy from Connecticut. Come all the way on a bicycle, goes sixty and seventy miles a day some days; going clear out to Denver on it. There's an Eastern boy for you, that's Eastern grit, that is. That's Eastern," and he smiled all over his round face and wished me all the good luck in the world. Tuesday I experienced some of the difficulties of the Western mud. A light drizzling rain in the morning made the roads too slippery to ride, and walking was hardly possible. The sticky mud accumulated under the brake and between the forks till, obliged to turn the machine around and push it backwards with the little wheel in the air, the big wheel finally stuck fast and slid along in the road. Then in pushing up hill with all the strength I had my feet would slip back and in going down hill I slipped up, paradoxical as it may seem. But a heavy rain the next morning made the highways impassable for a pedestrian even, and so I took to the lots, avoiding the plowed fields whenever possible. Through ordinary soil the sides of the roads would be passable, but all the holes made by cattle during the spring mud for the last twenty-five years remain to-day just as they were made along the sides, and when these holes are filled with water it is not pleasant to have your foot slip into one of them and then have the water squirt all over you, therefore I took the lots, climbing post and rail fences, crawling through and lifting the machine over barbed wire fences, any way to get along, but all day I made only twelve miles and worked hard too. Along in the afternoon a gentleman in a buggy, the first team I had seen during the day, offered to help me along a mile or so. Seated in the backside of his buggy with my legs hanging off and dragging the machine after me, I thought that was not just the advertised way of going "right on to Columbus," but it was to Columbus I was going, someway. If the machine was muddy the day before, it was plastered all over now. The sticky clay would accumulate under the forks and saddle, and drop off in such big chunks that at times I did not know but I had kept hold of the wrong chunk, and had left the machine back somewhere in the road. Then from the shape of the mass of mud near the locality where the cyclometer was last seen, I observed that the ingenious little appliance was gliding gracefully along bottom-side up. But all this did not last. The roads dried up before night so I could walk in them. A mound of clay beside the road marks the spot where I cleaned up the machine, and after passing through Ashland, Mansfield, and some other smaller places, the next day, thirty-five miles above Columbus I came to a "double-track" road and the hard work was over. These double-track or "summer" roads, as they are called, are made of coarse gravel on one side, and the natural soil, the clay, on the other, the clay track being preferred in the summer, and the gravel in the winter and spring. But I forgot to mention one little incident of the day before. In jumping into a team-wagon for a short ride, the corduroy breeches, with a loud report, split open across the seat, really to such an extent that a change of apparel was absolutely necessary, but before I could get to a barn, in which to disrobe, I met several teams, in which were young ladies, and I know they thought me very bold to turn about and face them after they had passed. Stopping at Cardington, I found a wheelman, Mr. Samuel Brown, who was also a tailor, and he put my breeches in riding order again. The State capitol at Columbus is a heavy, square, granite building, with piles of immense grindstones laid one on top of the other that answers for pillars in front. It has very much the appearance of an Egyptian temple, and is dark inside and dingy out. The buildings in these Western cities, whether built of marble, granite, sand-stone, or brick, all soon have the same dingy look, the smoke from the immense amount of soft coal used being the probable cause. The members of the legislature there convened all had an easy-going happy way about them, and the clerk and messengers were slow and innocent in their manners, in sharp contrast to the business-like, clean-cut appearance of many Eastern legislators, and the rapid actions of Eastern clerks and messengers. On the way out of the city I passed the insane asylum, an institution that to outward appearances will accommodate more patients and that certainly did produce more noise by yelling lunatics than the one at Middletown, Conn. Both north and west of Columbus for many miles log huts are seen on all sides, some deserted, but most of them still occupied, that confounded clay pasted into the cracks between the logs, making the best kind of protection against the weather. Great black sows with chunked little black pigs are as plenty by the roadside as hens and chickens are in the East, and they are often seen roaming around the streets in good sized towns. Three miles west of Dayton is the Soldiers' Home, and as I rode through the entrance to the grounds, a big Dutchman stopped me, but finding my object was simply to ride about the grounds and out again, he said: "Vell, when you get up into the crowd be very careful, for some are blind and some deaf, and if you run into one h--l will be to pay." There was quite a crowd, four or five thousand of them, some fishing, some watching the alligator, all seemingly enjoying themselves about the grounds--grounds that are laid out in beautiful shape, and that contain everything almost that would make life happy. All enjoying themselves? No, not all, for over on the farther side of the grounds several hundred were laying away, with military honors, one who had gone over to the silent majority, and as they filled his grave another grave was being dug. Mr. T. J. Kirkpatrick of Springfield, is of medium size, middle aged, light complexioned, with light-colored side-whiskers and mustache, and from my ten minutes' talk with him I am satisfied that if there had been no other route from Cleveland to Columbus than the one the local consul at Cleveland gave me, Kirkpatrick would have started out and made one for the occasion. He is one of those men who can't do enough to help you along, and is an honor to the L. A. W. The "pike" from Columbus to Indianapolis is a road that originally must have been built at great expense, for it is raised fifteen feet or more along some of the low lands, and now is kept in excellent repair,--a broad, level, and very straight highway, so straight that in forty-four miles there are only two slight bends in it, and so level in places that for twelve miles there is not the slightest rise or depression. In the western part of Ohio the land is just rolling enough to make some very fine coasting, and at times you can look straight ahead eight or ten miles, to the top of an apparently very high hill where the telegraph poles seem to come together, they are so far off, and the task of climbing that hill makes you faint in anticipation, but long before you get there the hill has faded away (another illustration of the maxim never to climb a hill until you get to it), the grade up it has been so gradual, and then, at last, you can look back and see another hill just as high that you have come down without knowing it. The very numerous toll-gate keepers along this pike charge two cents a mile for a horse, so if I had had one of flesh and blood, the expense one day would have been $1.52, but it being of steel and rubber, and only part of a rubber tire on the little wheel at that, the cost for toll was nothing. The road from Buffalo to Cleveland I thought was high water-mark, but this pike is so uniformly good for 180 miles that it must have first place. The appetite such a journey as this gives one is no small part of the pleasure of the trip, everything tastes so good. The truth was never more plainly stated than by a Spartan waiter. Dionysius was taking a "hasty plate of soup," at one of those free lunches they gave there in Greece so often, when, pushing back from the table, he complained that the black broth was not highly seasoned enough for him. The waiter roared it through the hall "Seasoned! We season it by running, sweating, and getting tired, hungry, and thirsty." It is truly wonderful how such exercise does increase a person's digestive ability. I can imagine to a certain degree just how Milo, a Grecian athlete, must have enjoyed himself. Twenty pounds was the amount of his daily bread, and the same quantity of meat, besides fifteen quarts of wine, taken afterwards, no doubt, for his stomach's ache. One day, feeling somewhat faint from lack of nourishment, he knocked a four-year-old in the head with his fist, and devoured the whole "beef critter" during the day. To some this may at first appear incredible, but there is one explanation, at least, that is plausible: Milo must undoubtedly have been a wheelman. The first night out from Columbus I stopped at a farm-house. I walked around to the side door and was just going into the dining-room, when a man, with black hair, wild eyes, and thin pale face came out. He took one sharp look at me, and turning suddenly, slammed the glass door in my face, rushed through the dining-room, and pulling a spread from the table in his flight, and covering himself up with it, disappeared. But not for a great while. As I was eating supper he came back through the room, slamming the doors in his wild rush, and ran out into the yard, as if the very devil was after him. Then I could see him out in the dark, his eyes glaring in at me through the window, and after a while, when everything was still, bang! would go some door, and away he would run through the room into the bed-room again. Still he said nothing, had not spoken for years, they told me. Once or twice during the evening he came slowly into the room, sidling along with his face averted, and his hands apparently warding off some blow coming from where I sat, and during the night I heard an occasional crash as if the side of the house had fallen in. It was that lunatic trying to get out of the cage in which they confined him, while the inmates of the house were asleep. Distance traveled in four weeks, 1,257 miles. CHAPTER VI. AT CHICAGO. I had hardly crossed the Indiana State line when the tire on the rear wheel broke in two pieces and came off. Luckily, I was not far from Richmond where a wheelman gave me a second-hand eighteen inch tire, which he cut down to fit the sixteen inch wheel, and by wiring it on occasionally I reached Chicago with no further trouble on my part from the wheel. Just before reaching Indianapolis, however, the machine was the cause of a broken buggy wheel. I had just dismounted to avoid a drove of cattle, when a horse, coming towards me, suddenly decided to go the other way. I stood still in my tracks but that made no difference, the horse cramped the buggy so short that the front wheel went to pieces, and had not the men jumped out and grabbed the horse by the bit, just as they did, there would have been more trouble. As it was, they left the buggy by the roadside and walked a short distance to their destination, without expressing an opinion that I was in any way to blame for the accident. The State capitol at Indianapolis is a building of the Grecian style of architecture, 300 feet wide, 500 feet long, and three stories high. It has been seven years in building and two years more will be required to complete it, but the stones have become so stained and dingy from the smoke that smuts everything out of doors in all these Western cities that the structure from the outside already looks like an old building. Several of those in authority about the building were very anxious to have me know that the dirty appearance of the outside would all disappear when the building was completed, but no amount of scrubbing will make it clean until the use of soft coal is done away with. The smoke from that coal discolors everything, and the finest stone buildings are bereft of much of the beauty from this cause. The Palmer House, a stone building here in Chicago, for instance, was painted white less than two years ago to get rid of the smutty appearance that it had acquired, but even now it looks as dirty and dingy as though it had never been painted. Scrub and paint all they may there is not a building in all the West, I believe, that looks as clean and white on the outside as our own State capitol on Bushnell Park. But to return to the capitol at Indianapolis. Black and dirty as it will always look on the outside, on the inside it is to be almost entirely pure white, giving it, in comparison with the capitol at Albany and our own, a much cheaper look. But it is superior to either of those other buildings in one respect and that is, as far as I could see, there has been no settling or chipping. One of the finest corridors in the Albany capitol is so sadly marred in appearance by the settling of the foundation that the breaks and cracks in the panels on the side are noticeable to every one. But the dome to the Indiana capitol, which is to be 300 feet high, is not yet finished, and the proof of the stability of building has thus hardly been furnished. A very interesting part of my two hours' clambering over the building and about the works was the sawing and planing of the stones used in the construction. The stone mouldings and cornices and all the straight work on the whole building is done by machinery just as the wood used in the construction of a wooden building is prepared in advance. The carving was the only work done by hand in preparing the stones for the masons to place in position. The county court house at Indianapolis is typical of one very noticeable phase of the Western desire for display. It is a fine substantial building no doubt, but inside it is one conglomeration of different kinds of marble; panels, walls, balustrades, everything inside almost is marble; all the kinds and colors that are in existence are represented here, and many kinds are to be found nowhere else in the world but here: all these are mixed up in the most gaudy manner possible. But look a little closer and there is not a bit of marble there, it is all paint, imitation. And where the paint is wearing off the fraud is badly exposed, giving the whole building the appearance of a decided sham. Another instance of this desire for display that is not shown by counterfeiting at least, is seen in the elegant barber's shop at the Palmer House. Set into the tiling on the floor are nearly four hundred silver dollars that add nothing at all to the beauty of the floor. But many of the buildings that have been erected here in Chicago within the last three or four years are very substantial and whatever there is about them is real and not flashy in appearance. Clustering around the Board of Trade Building, which probably is the finest building of the kind outside of New York, are many handsome structures occupying a quarter of a square, that go up into the sky ten, twelve, and thirteen stories high. I have spoken of the hogs and pigs that are seen all along the roadside through Ohio and Indiana. The numerous sheep that are feeding along the highways show some sense by simply turning to one side to let me pass, and often bleating after me as I leave them behind as if they were sorry to have me go; but the pigs will start up and run along ahead, scaring all the others with their short, quick grunts, until a drove of a dozen or fifteen are bobbing along and running into each other in their foolish attempt to get out of the way. Then they will all suddenly stop, stand perfectly still, and let me pass without flinching. If Eastern people who have a prejudice against Western pork could see what the hogs are fed upon they would have good reason to change their opinions. The hogs eat a great deal of grass and are not confined to any muddy, filthy pen as they are in the East, but roam around the woods and fields as do the cows and sheep. In the fall corn on the ear is thrown out into the lots to them, and I can't see how pork could be fatted in any cleaner way. While the hog is being discussed I must tell what I saw of the manner of his death at the Union Stock Yards just outside of the city limits. Prominent among the many buildings at the yards that cover 365 acres is an office of the Illinois Humane Society, which gives a visitor the impression that he will see nothing but kind treatment and humane ways of killing the beef and hogs, and as far as the cattle are concerned there is nothing objectionable about the process, for a bullet in the brain renders them insensible at the outset. But the hogs--well, this is what I saw. A dozen or more at a time are driven into a pen in one of those immense packing houses. A man slips a chain quickly around one of their hind legs and they are jerked up into the air by machinery, so that their heads are about four or five feet from the floor. They are suspended on little pulleys which roll them along into another pen where a man cuts their throats. This man was standing in clotted blood ankle deep, and the squealing, kicking row of hogs threw blood all over him, which he frequently washed off at a barrel of water near. A hog was jerked up about every ten seconds, and there would be six or eight at a time hanging with their throats cut. Before they had time to die or grow very weak from the loss of blood they were dropped on to an inclined board, and from there they slipped off into the scalding tub. Sometimes two or three would collect on this board and then they would all slide off into the hot water together. Very few of them were dead when they went in, and they would go plunging and struggling around in there, throwing the water in every direction, till gradually becoming weaker they would lie still, a dozen of them, in the long narrow tub at a time, and be turned over and over by men with poles very much as cooks turn nut-cakes over with a fork in the hot fat. Why such haste should be used in getting them into the hot water I cannot see, and I understand the Humane Society have tried unsuccessfully to stop such inhuman work, but this is the sight I came unawares upon, a spectacle that I have not enlarged upon or exaggerated in the least. The hogs were simply drowned in hot water. The rest of the work I rather enjoyed. The scalded hogs were taken out and placed upon a revolving wheel, covered with scrapers, which took all the hair off excepting around the head and legs. This wheel was wide enough to hold three hogs at a time, and they were turned over several times in order to scrape all sides of them. Then men finished up the scraping with knives, the heads were taken off with two or three strokes of the knife, and from the time the hog was first seized by the leg till he was cut up two or three men were at work on him all the time, one set of men passing him along to the next, each doing certain parts of the work. Thus 2,500 hogs a day are put to death by this one set of men, and there was machinery in this same packing house for two other sets of man, so that seven or eight thousand hogs are scalded to death, scalded from the inside as well as from the outside, every day. This packing house is in full operation, and this is only one of many such houses in the stock-yards. I remember now there was an invitation prominent over the door of the Humane Society to make "complaints at this office," and every time I think of the horrible work being perpetrated so near by, I wonder of what earthly good is such a society. I only regret that I did not complain at the time, useless as it would undoubtedly have been, but then I did not realize what an awful sight I had seen. The enormity of the cruelty has grown on me since. But let me change the subject. A bowl of bread and milk in the middle of the day is to be had, almost for the asking, and it not only serves to quench thirst, but what strength it gives is sooner felt than if the food was of a more solid nature. One day I asked an old lady for a bowl of bread and milk, and she brought me the milk in a bowl with two huge slices of bread thrust down into the milk whole, and then she handed me a two-tined fork to eat it with. Often when I am caught out between places at night and have to ask accommodations at farm-houses, I can usually get taken in by saying "a bowl of bread and milk will do for supper." One night, soon after the machine had been put into the front parlor,--the farmers always think the best room in the house none too good for that "silver" horse, as some of them term it--and the knapsack had been laid away in the corner, the husband came in from the barn with two pails of milk, followed by his little boy, who was just old enough to walk if no threshold or hole in the rag carpet interfered with his progress. The milk was placed in the buttery on the floor, and the little youngster of course had to see that it was done all right. Then the farmer came out and everything was quiet for a minute, when suddenly there was a splash. As it so often happens to such toddling young ones, the little fellow's toes suddenly flew up from some unaccountable reason, and he sat down into one of those foaming pails of milk. He never said a word, but sat there perfectly still until his mother, happening to go into the buttery, saw the floor covered with milk, and she jerked him out of that pail as one would pull a close-fitting cork out of a bottle, and with very much the same kind of a sound. When supper was ready, in reply to her question, I said I preferred "cold morning's milk to the warm or warmed over night's milk." About forty miles above Indianapolis, in a sparsely settled district, I passed a small church filled to overflowing with people, and a little further on I met a funeral procession. It had been raining during the morning, but among the fifty or more teams that formed the procession, there was but one top carriage, two buggies, and the rest were all heavy team-wagons. In these farm wagons with boards for seats, were whole families that had come a dozen miles, probably, to attend the funeral. From this it seems that buggies and business wagons are luxuries that the average Western farmer does not yet feel able to afford. At Lafayette, I called at the home of Mr. Frank A. Lewis, to inquire as to the condition of the roads farther on, and his mother kindly asked me in to supper. Before that was finished, Frank returned with several wheelmen, among them Mr. Wal. Wolever, a young photographer. Here the pikes or gravel roads which made the riding excellent so far came to an end, and there was nothing before me for 120 miles to Chicago but black clay roads. It had rained heavily for three successive nights, and after riding over 1,300 miles to reach a city that is not 1,000 miles by direct routes from Hartford, I may, perhaps, be forgiven for wishing to avoid three hard days' work, without any practical return for it in knowledge or experience by taking the train to Chicago. After reaching that city, and being kindly received by friends and old schoolmates, it was with a strong feeling of thankfulness for my own safety, that I read the accounts of the terrible cyclones and floods that had passed through sections of Ohio and Indiana, carrying away bridges that I had so lately ridden over in safety, and perhaps killing men and women from whom I had so recently received kind treatment. The system of beautiful parks that environ Chicago, and the boulevards that connect them are the pride of the city, and the citizens have good reason for being so proud of them. Only a few years ago the whole country around about the city was a low level wet prairie, but now there are six as beautiful parks as are to be found in almost any city in the country; parks filled with lakes, cascades, brooks, hills, groves, grottoes, wild animals and tame ones, and everything almost that is to be found in places where nature furnishes things to order. In Lincoln Park, for instance, is a mound of earth, a hill I suppose they call it, that is probably the highest point of land for many miles near the city, but this, like everything else in these parks, is artificial. All through Ohio and Indiana there is much land that has not yet been cleared, and these clumps and strips of timber give a variety to the country that would otherwise have been very monotonous to me, riding for hours and hours as I did over nearly level roads. These woods have little if any underbrush, and the grass through them is kept closely cropped by cows, sheep, and hogs, so that these two States are filled with hundreds of beautiful groves that invite a lazy wheelman to stop and stay awhile in the cool shade. One day, wishing to get rid of the several days' growth of bristling beard on my face, I took out my shaving apparatus, hooked the leather strap to the brake handle, honed the razor, found an old can, brought some water from a brook near by, pinned the pocket mirror on a tree, and got as clean a shave as I ever had, washing my face with one corner of a handkerchief, and drying it with the other end. But the open level prairie that surrounds Chicago on all sides must have a sort of depressing influence on the thoughts and ideas of those who are born and brought up without the variety of brooks, hills, mountains, and ocean. The first question usually asked me by farmers, who probably have never traveled far from their prairie homes, is: "How far do you live from the salt water?" and when I tell them the distance, which until this trip always seemed to me considerable, but which to them, with their distances and so many things on such an immense scale, seems trifling, they act as if a sniff of the salt sea air from a distance of forty or fifty miles would be a blessing that they could hardly hope for. And yet Lake Michigan, to me, would seem a very good substitute for the ocean in everything but the taste of the water. Two of these parks are washed by the waters of this lake, and so badly washed too that the shore at Jackson Park is rip-rapped for nearly a mile, making a beautiful white-stone beach. The boulevards are laid out on as grand a scale and with as little regard to expense as are the parks. The grand boulevard is Commonwealth avenue in Boston over again, only it is twice as long, with a very broad avenue in the center and a street of good width on each side, one for equestrians and the other for wheelmen, I should judge, for it is very smooth. Ten rows of beautiful elms stretch away in a straight line for two miles, the larger ones having rows of smaller ones on each side. Drexel boulevard has two broad avenues, lined with trees on the outside, and the center filled with lovely flower-beds, for over a mile in length. Other boulevards laid out on a similar plan but not in so finished a condition, connect the different parks, making a continuous drive of nearly forty miles, all as smooth as the most fastidious wheelman could desire. Then there are the lake drives, Dearborn and Michigan avenues, and many other streets too numerous and common to mention, common nowhere but in Chicago though. Chicago wheelmen know so little about coasting, that it seemed quite a novelty to them to see an Eastern boy ride with his legs over the handles, and when I coasted down into one of the tunnels that run under the Chicago River, and disappeared in the darkness, their eyes stuck out with wonder. It was a novelty to me, too, for the dripping water gave me quite a shower bath before I came out on the other side. Distance traveled on the wheel, 1,420 miles. CHAPTER VII. ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI. My time was so taken up in visiting old friends and seeing the sights in Chicago that I found no opportunity to make the acquaintance of many wheelmen in that city, but I met Mr. B. B. Ayers, who kindly gave me directions for pursuing the journey westward, and so after a week's stay in Chicago I started for Minonk, 125 miles away to the southwest, to visit friends in that place, and the two days and a half passed on that journey were the hardest of the trip thus far. One would naturally think 1,500 miles of riding in the past five or six weeks would have so strengthened the muscles of my arms that they would not trouble me at least, but the hard, lumpy, rutty black clay roads of Illinois were too much for them. My elbows became so stiff I could hardly bend them, and the nervous strain occasioned by the constant jar was very exhausting. Once I was induced to take the railroad track and found very good riding for a few miles. At the station they told me the next train would not be along for an hour and it would come from the direction in which I was going, so I rode along unconcerned, for I could see ahead for miles. Suddenly, without the least warning, the sound of a short, sharp whistle from behind caused me to jump off and into the ditch as I never did before. It was well I did so quickly, for an extra locomotive immediately rushed by, and I came to the sudden conclusion it would be a long while and the roads pretty bad before I should again leave them to ride on a railroad track. Two turnpike companies once started to build a pike from Indianapolis to Lafayette, Ind., seventy miles, but when within two miles of each other there was a disagreement between the two companies and that intervening piece of road has never been finished. Although there is a great deal of travel over this splendid pike there is not public spirit sufficient to fill up this gap of two miles, and for years the traveling public have driven off the ends of these two turnpikes into two miles of the deepest mud fordable. In Illinois there are no pikes even, all dirt roads; roads that are to-day in the same condition they were when the country was first settled; not a day's work has ever been expended upon them. I passed farm after farm on which were fine houses, large substantial barns and hundreds of heads of stock, and every indication of a rich soil and worldly prosperity, and yet the road directly in front of these farm-houses has remained in such a condition for years, that for six months out of the twelve it is really dangerous for man or beast to travel after dark. I stopped one night in a fine brick house that in the East would cost four or five thousand dollars, and yet this house could only be reached by a lane in which the mud for six months in the year was hub deep, and a fine fat sow with a litter of pigs had full possession of the front yard, if such a mud hole could be called a yard. Another case I remember where the houses, barns, and stock indicated the farmer's prosperous condition, and yet there was no well, nothing but rain water to drink. The fact is, all these things--and I could keep on mentioning them to the end of the chapter--serve to illustrate the intense Western desire for display to the neglect of comfort. The stately domes of their numerous court-houses seen on all sides make a big show. Their large barns with the farmer's name painted on the side in red letters or shingled into the slate roof advertise the owner's name and financial standing. Whatever is above ground, whatever can be seen from a distance, whatever makes a great display receives the cordial support of the average Westerner, but when you look for a fine country road, free of toll gates, or a good, deep well, or a nice cool cellar, or anything, no matter how much it might add to the personal comfort of the possessor, but which is below the surface or unseen from the surrounding country, you may look in vain for these evidences of a moderately high state of civilization. The diet of Western families is simply abominable. It is pork, fried pork, every meal. Their meals are as monotonous as their scenery. A farmer, rich in money, lands, and houses, will live for weeks on pork, when beef, mutton, turkey, and chicken are in great abundance on all sides and so cheap as to be almost unsalable. And yet, probably because their stomachs are out of sight and the satisfying effect of a good square meal is quieting and not of the spread-eagle effect, the farmers live upon the freshest and plainest sort of food. If the Western stomach could be inflated and placed in some commanding position it would be supplied with the choicest viands and the farmers would pour out their money to fill it to overflowing. The other Sunday I came along to a meeting-house just after the bell stopped tolling, and riding out under the shed, I slipped off my knapsack, buttoned on a clean collar, put on my coat, and went in as quietly as possible, but every one in church except one old lady looked around at me, and I lost most of the Scripture lesson in consequence of this counter attraction. From her actions, afterwards, I think the said old lady was deaf and did not hear me come in, which accounts for her apparent neglect. Soon after a portly old gentleman came waddling up the opposite aisle, and after putting his hat, cane, and numerous other articles of extra baggage over in the seat in front, he held on to the back of that seat to break the fall, finally letting go and sitting down like a trip hammer. He immediately began to box the congregation, and had gone from east around to northwest, when he fetched up against me and put me under close inspection for so long that I wickedly comforted myself knowing that I gave him a crick in the neck. Very soon many in the congregation with eyes reverently closed and heads on one side in imitation of Alexander the Great, were apparently absorbing their spiritual food through their mouths, when the choir of eleven noises followed the sermon with "Asleep in Jesus." The choir kept well together for a while, although one or two had to feel around in advance for the first note, but the last line was always too much for the tenor, and with their leader gone all discipline vanished and they came leisurely home in squads, three and four at a time. But slow and solemn as the singing was, the organist broke loose during the interlude, scampered up and down the scale, trilled, stumbled, snorted, and galloped off into the lots so far I thought he never would get back, and during his last escapade he stepped on a note that stuck, and that note loudly persisted in being heard through the benediction and sometime after the congregation had dispersed. When the organ breathed its last, the boys, old and young, all came out to see me off, and stayed so long it broke up the Sunday-school; so altogether, unintentionally, I caused a good deal of trouble. Going through Aurora I met two wheelmen, Messrs. G. O. and Chas. W. Clayton, one of whom, but since my return I cannot tell which, accompanied me for 10 or 12 miles on my way. Three-fourths of the area of the State of Illinois--a State eleven times as large as Connecticut--is underlaid with seams of soft coal, and at Minonk, where I spent several days in visiting relatives, is the most productive mine in the State. Over 700 tons a day are raised from a depth of 500 feet, and the machinery works with such rapidity that a ton of coal is raised and emptied in twenty-two seconds. After screening, great quantities of the coal, smaller than chestnut size, are sold to farmers, who feed it out to their hogs with beneficial results. The refuse rock and clay from this mine is carried up an inclined railroad and dumped, making a mound perhaps seventy-five feet high. The inhabitants think it quite a treat to climb to the top, they get such a grand view. It really is the highest point of land for miles around, and the view of a town ten miles away is to them quite a sight. Horses in droves in the lots or loose by the roadside are very common, but there is one peculiarity that distinguishes them from all the other domestic animals I have seen. The instant they catch sight of the bicycle they invariably come boldly toward it half a dozen paces and then turn and run like all the other animals. They seem to want to find out as soon as possible the nature of the machine, but their courage is short lived. At Lacon I crossed the Illinois River, which was half a mile wide at this point. The river is very sluggish, falling only one inch to the mile for 300 miles. During several days I had felt sleepy all the time, doubtless due to overeating and lack of exercise in Chicago, and, so, frequently I would lay down beside the road and sleep soundly for an hour or two, the hard clay bed not disturbing my slumbers in the least. In fact I had, by this time, become quite a veteran in this respect, being able to rest peacefully anywhere I felt inclined to stop. At Rock Island I left the State of Illinois, which has a high-license system that works admirably, as far as I could judge from the frequent inquiries made, and crossed the Mississippi River into the prohibition State of Iowa. Imagine my surprise to find beer and liquor sold as openly as soda water in the city of Davenport. The State law is circumvented and nullified in this manner: The city council passed a law obliging all dealers in soda water and like temperance drinks to take out a license. If a man sells soda water, and nothing stronger, this law is not enforced against him; but if he sells liquor in connection with his soda he is prosecuted, not for selling liquor, mind you, but for selling soda without a license. Thus, beer and liquor is sold openly, and the city of Davenport has reaped a revenue of over $3,000 from this source within a few weeks. Before I got through the State of Iowa I could judge better of the practical workings of their prohibitory law, but the first day in the State certainly puzzled me. At one small village all the inhabitants seemed to be devoting the whole time that day to dancing and drinking beer. They were Germans, and it is needless to add that there was no downright drunkenness to be seen there. Even in Grinnell, a place of 3,500 inhabitants, that has never had an open saloon, the "boys" have their beer shipped in to them on such occasions as Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. Traveling alone as I have, most of the way, I could appreciate to a limited extent the lonely task Thomas Stevens performed in crossing this country as he did, but never have I realized until I reached Iowa to what extent he had been shut out from nearly all intelligent communication with human beings in his journey through Europe and Asia. About one hundred miles west of Davenport is a settlement of Bohemians. They number six or eight thousand, and their little villages are scattered along the Iowa River for a distance of ten miles or more. Their system of families is very much like the Shakers in Enfield, Conn., and beside keeping their farms up in excellent condition they manufacture woolen goods, starch, and some other articles of commerce. But not one of them that I met could speak a word of English, so that my experience for two or three hours was in a slight degree like what Stevens suffered for many weeks and months. All I could do was to make signs. Although I left Connecticut before the grass had hardly begun to turn, since then I have seen nothing else but one everlasting sea of green. The country is more rolling in Iowa than in any of the States west of New York through which I have passed, but that change in the scenery was not of much relief. Thus far I had not seen the smallest kind of a wild flower to break the monotony of that color, green, dark and rich as it was. Imagine with what pleasure I came upon a sandy ridge of hills that were covered with a beautiful variety of wild flowers, whose colors seemed particularly bright to me, probably because they were the first I had seen in seven weeks of outdoor life. I spent an hour or more in picking flowers and in biting off the sweet tips of honey-suckles. It is curious how many old veterans the sight of the knapsack brings to the surface. Very often when I lay it aside for a rest some one will pick it up and try it on so handily that I know without his telling me what his experience has been. And the recent speech of that arch traitor, Jefferson Davis, stirs these old soldiers from the top of their heads to the very soles of their feet. Imagine the feelings of one of these, a large-framed, well-formed man of forty, who walked around Minonk with me, up the coal shaft and down, without much apparent difficulty, and yet this same man, John W. January, suffered a thousand deaths at Andersonville, where his feet rotted off, and where he was reduced to forty-five pounds in weight, his bones alone almost weighing that much. Jeff. Davis's words don't exactly stir him to the soles of his feet, but from the words he and so many others, with whom I have talked, have indignantly uttered, I think these old heroes are sorry they were not allowed to do up the job more thoroughly at the time of the war. The bicycle is getting to be more of a wonder the farther west it goes. Everywhere I stop crowds quickly gather, and then the inevitable string of questions! At Rutland, Ill., the landlord, who was a native of Connecticut, gave me all I could eat, but would not let me go till I had ridden all over the sidewalks and gutters in the town, under his direction. A few miles east of Grinnell I found I could not reach that place the night I was expected, so I took a freight train. While waiting for the train the whole town came down to the station, and to escape being almost bored to death I went out back of the station to wash my hot feet. But still there was no rest. An Irishman who lived in Hartford "thirty year ago," was the first to find me, then two or three natives went through the same old list of questions, and finally a colored gentleman came around to pay his respects, just as I was wiping my refreshed feet on the grass. When the train arrived I laid out on one of the long benches, placed along the side of the caboose, and went fast to sleep, apparently. But at every station there was something in the air that told the inhabitants there was an object as strange as a wild man from Borneo on board, and the caboose was quickly filled with a gaping crowd of men, women, and children. One passenger who had already got some points of the trip, related all he knew and more, too, to the assembly, and it required considerable composure to keep on breathing regularly and keep my eyes shut with some old woman looking right down into my face and sighing for my lifeless condition, but as long as my eyes were closed no one asked me any questions, and that was a great relief. As this is a plain unembellished tale of a bicycle journey in which facts are reported as they exist, not as we would like to have them, I may as well acknowledge, though not without a twinge, that during the first week out the chafing of a stocking strap brought out a boil on the side of my leg. The next week a second comforter appeared underneath that member, and painful as it is to acknowledge it (the bitterest pangs are now past), in a few days some six or eight more obtruded themselves, seriously interfering with the saddle. After some days of dogged persistence in riding and trying to rise above them (which efforts from the nature of the case were obviously futile), I succumbed and pleaded for a ride on a freight train; and when that gentleman passenger, who knew the real cause of my desire to take the train, told a lady passenger who was very anxious to know, too, that I took the train because--and he hesitated--because I "had got hurt," his answer pleased me so I was sure the lady, who was looking straight at me from the opposite side of the car, would think I was writhing with pain even in my sleep. "Poor boy!" she responded, sympathetically,--"How dreadful! I do hope he will recover!" Distance traveled on the wheel, 1830 miles. CHAPTER VIII. ACROSS THE MISSOURI. Cyclones are getting to be so common in this Western country that the people are endeavoring to guard against them as they do against fire, but with this difference: they do not try to protect their property against the cyclone; it is useless; they simply wish to save their lives, that is all. Insurance on property against loss by wind is now customary all over the country, but if these cyclones increase in frequency as they have in the past few years, it is only a question of time when life insurance companies will consider it an extra risk to live in this Western country. I experienced a feeling of nearness to the cyclone that was sufficient when I read the accounts of the terrible destruction of life and property in Ohio a few weeks ago, for I had a delightful journey only a few days before through some of the towns that were so soon afterwards swept away in a twinkling. But my stay in Grinnell, of a couple of weeks, was like living on an old battle-field. The dead, of course, have gone from sight, but the wounded are to be seen on all sides. I went out calling and met an old lady still suffering from an injury received four years ago. I saw another go limping by and heard she had a hip broken at the same time, and, while riding, I met a lady whose head was so crushed during that terrible storm that she now has frequent spells of insanity. I began to wonder if any one in Grinnell had escaped uninjured. Let the clouds even now gather, black and threatening, and the people live the awful experience of that night over again. The streets are soon filled with women and children, carrying what few valuables they can, all hurrying to some cave for safety. I crawled into one of these caves one day. It was in the cellar of a fine residence, and is a room not larger than six by eight feet, and not over four feet high, with strong brick walls on the sides and heavy timbers overhead, and amply ventilated, and into this small hole, not long ago, twenty-four women and children huddled for two or three hours one night, some praying, others crying, and all suffering from mortal fear as long as the storm lasted. Almost every house in Grinnell that has a cellar has a cave of some kind in it, a room boarded up and covered over thick with earth to protect the occupants from falling bricks and timbers. Not only here but all through the West a cave is now considered an essential part to every dwelling. But think of the mental suffering the people of these Western States endure whenever there is a severe storm or even indications of one. If those Eastern people could see the photographic views that I have seen of the destruction wrought by a Western cyclone, they would never assign, as a cause of their complete demolition, the flimsy manner in which the houses are built. If they could have seen the two college buildings, one built of stone, the other of brick, each as large and as solidly built as any Eastern edifice, if they could have seen these two buildings demolished and crushed like so many eggshells--in less than two minutes--what would they think of the superior safety of our Eastern houses? How many frame houses would stand such a blow? Everything was as calm and still as death that terrible night when, without any premonitory roar or warning, the cyclone struck the town like the report of a cannon, and in less than five minutes it had finished its work, ending it as easily with the two college buildings as it commenced it with the small frame houses. Although it was early in the evening, fifty-eight persons were instantly killed and many more wounded; but let it come again, day or night, it will never catch Grinnell people unawares. They watch the clouds to this day, as they would some fell demon hovering over them, and the more timid ones early rush to their caves. Many outlandish lies have been written about the power of the cyclone, but the cold fact, the bare truth is more wonderful than any stories man can invent. One only needs to come here and talk with the people about the cyclone to be convinced that their experience for a few minutes was as terrible as that of a great battle, and I was as fascinated with their stories as I ever was talking with old soldiers. "I should know you were an Easterner from your talk," is a remark I hear on all sides, and so I have tried to learn what there is about the talk of a native of New England that distinguishes him from people west of there. It is not because he speaks so flat, for through New York every one spoke more so than I could. I pronounced the town of Fonda just as it is spelled, and yet every one there called it "Fundy." Utica was "Utiky," Lima was "Limy," and everything else was pronounced in the same flat manner. I supposed this to be a peculiarity of New Englanders, but New Yorkers rather excel in that style of speech. Out here in Iowa, where friends have an unflinching frankness quite remarkable, they tell me whenever I say anything particularly flat my nose flies up into the air to emphasize it. That may be a trait peculiar to myself, but it is some comfort to know that people outside of New England have lingual peculiarities as marked as those coming from the Eastern States. In Ohio and Indiana I met a great many persons who never pronounce the personal pronoun "I" as we do. It is always "Ah" instead of "I." "Ah thought so," "Ah heard so." I supposed that was more Southern than Western; but if so, many of Southern birth are now living in these States. The farther West I go the more I notice the way they roll their R's. That letter is brought out with a peculiar force in every word in which it occurs. Here, there, however, harvest, horses, father, mother, and all such words are spoken as if there were two or three r's in them instead of one. Whenever they accost me it is "O, George," while in the East it would be, "Say, George." Then two short grunts are very often used out here instead of yes or no. Emphasize the first grunt and it means no; emphasize the second, with a slightly rising accent, and it means yes. This is a common form of expression, with colored people everywhere, I think, but here, with white children, it is the most common way of saying yes or no, and many older persons use it. They have no brooks or streams here, but everything is called a "crick," pronounced very short, too. That name is applied sometimes to good-sized rivers. These peculiarities of speech do not seem to be acquired by persons living here, who were born and brought up in the East, but their children acquire them readily, and everywhere on the trip, going and coming, I noticed these peculiarities more in the talk of the women and children than in the men. I could only account for this from the fact that men go out into the world more and come in contact and consequently talk more with persons using fewer provincialisms. The students at the Iowa College in Grinnell had a field-day while I was there, and during the games and races I could but notice the striking difference between the features of these students and those of Eastern young men. These Iowa boys have heads large and well shaped enough, but their features are disproportionately large. Their eyebrows are large and overhanging, their cheek bones are prominent, their noses are heavy, mouths large, and under jaw bones strong and marked. There is nothing brutal or exactly coarse about their faces, but everything about them is large and heavy. I hardly saw a small-featured, clean-cut, really refined face among the one hundred and fifty young men. The attendance at church in Grinnell is larger in proportion than in any place in the East, probably. With a population of 3,500 the regular attendance at the Congregational Church alone is eight or nine hundred. When I left Grinnell, two members of their bicycle club, Messrs. Lee Taylor and Geo. Lewis, accompanied me for twenty miles or more, and although I was very glad of their company, the frequent tumbles they took coasting, made me sorry they had undertaken the ride, with the thermometer up in the nineties. Iowa roads are decidedly better than those through Illinois. Although there is the same system of repairing the highways in both States--the ancient system of farmers working out their road tax where they choose--yet Iowa farmers not only scrape their roads, but in many places they were laying tiles along up the worst hills in order that the roads might be drained in the spring. I saw more work done on the roads the first afternoon in Iowa than I saw the whole week in Illinois. And there is another thing to be said in favor of these Western clay roads, roads that for hundreds of miles have been as rough as any cobble street in a New England city (it is simply just to give the devil his due), a rider can go within half an inch of a clay rut and yet his wheel will not slide down into the rut. This has saved me many a tumble. Another thing: during dry spells, such as we are having throughout the West now, the dust gets very fine but never very deep. The clay is so tough it does not get cut up as much as our Eastern roads do during a drought. But the coasting in Iowa, of which I expected so much, for the country is a rolling prairie, was simply dangerous. The hills are so full of hard hummocks, "dive holes" the wheelmen here call them, that it shakes a fellow up terribly. Once I went off, going down a steep hill at such a rate that my hands and knees struck the ground simultaneously, and the knapsack tunked me on the back of the head at about the same time, as if to remind me of man's fallen estate. In almost every Western State the towns are just six miles square and the roads cross each other at right angles at intervals of one mile; consequently in traveling across the country diagonally, as I have most of the time, it was necessary to travel much farther than if the roads had been left as they were before the towns and counties were laid out. Through Iowa the old stage road followed the "divide" (what we call a ridge in the East) in many places, but when the towns were laid out the road was made straight across the country, up and down some very steep hills, in the western part of the State. The log barns, pig pens, and corn cribs, so common in Ohio and Indiana, disappear almost entirely in Illinois and Iowa, and instead appear thatched barns and sheds. Poles are set in the ground and a cheap frame fastened to them, the sides are perhaps covered with rough sheathing boards and the roof thatched with hay; that constitutes the most common barn to be seen in this part of the West. It is no wonder so many cattle perish here during the severe winters. Heavy timber is very scarce, which accounts for the lack of log cabins and other log buildings. Speaking about timber reminds me that they have no woods out here. They always say "when you get through the timber" instead of when you get through the woods. They don't have any swamps here either, they are all "sloughs," pronounced "slews." When the Rock Island road was first built it was a common sight on looking out of the car window to see seams of coal near the surface in the cuts through which the railroad ran. Now there are many farmers in Iowa who can go out and dig up enough coal in a few minutes to last all day in their stoves. Since I left Connecticut I have hardly seen a clear stream of water. The Croton and Hudson Rivers were both very roily from the heavy spring rains, and farther West the streams are muddy the year round. Many times I have longed to strip and take a bath, but the water was unfit for anything but hog wallows. I wonder if the black soil and the consequently black muddy waters of these Western States has had anything to do with the color of the hair on the hogs. A white hog here in the West is as uncommon as a black hog in the East. When this country was first settled the hogs were probably brought from the East, and were white. Would wallowing in the black mud and water for weeks and months during the hot summer season gradually change the color of their hair to correspond to that of the soil in which they spend so much of their time? This question must be left to the evolutionists, who have explained, to their own satisfaction at least, so many questions of a like nature. The cultivation of small fruits in the West has assumed immense proportions. Strawberries have glutted the markets to such an extent that the price will hardly pay for the transportation. Five cents a quart at retail has been the ruling price in many of these Western cities. Blackberries, raspberries, and other small fruits will also be very abundant. The extent to which the farm-work is done by machinery is truly wonderful. The farmer rides while he plows, harrows, and plants the corn, and the wheat is mostly sown in drills. The expense of ditching the land has been very great, amounting in some cases to ten dollars an acre, but now a machine digs the ditch, throws the dirt one side, lays the tiling and covers it up again. Still later in the season I shall probably see the wonderful harvesting machines. Fields of corn containing from a hundred to one hundred and fifty acres are common, in fact that is about the average crop raised by every farmer here. But how they work! From 4 in the morning till 8 at night. They would as soon think of stopping "to do the chores" in the middle of the afternoon as at 6 o'clock. With all the help from the machinery and horses, the Western farmer works very hard, much harder than the New England farmer. And in Iowa he does not seem to be in very good circumstances. His house is small and in poor repair, and his barns are poorer still. With corn at 18 cents a bushel, wheat lower than ever, butter 10 and 12 cents, eggs 8 cents, and all other farmers' produce at like low figures, it requires immense crops to amount to much of an income. The people out here also raise large families of children. Such is doubtless the case in all newly settled countries, but it is mentioned as a curious fact that people who have lived childless in the East for years, move out here, and immediately they are blessed with a goodly number of healthy boys and girls. The gilded dome of the capitol at Des Moines can be seen for eight or ten miles in some directions, but the proportions of the dome are not so graceful as those of our own in Connecticut. The outside diameter is over 80 feet, with the inside 66 feet, while the height is 275 feet. The gilded part has a row of circular windows half way up, and compared with our own the whole dome has a decidedly more "squatty" appearance. The building is 240 by 360 feet, and inside is finished very nicely. The staircases, door casings, wainscoting, pillars, and panels are all or nearly all of genuine marble. In a country where there are so many public buildings that are decorated inside with imitations of every kind of marble known, it is quite refreshing to see so much here that is real. Thirty-two kinds of marble are used in the building. The house has only 100 members, the senate 50, the increase in population making no difference in the number of members, and yet the hall of the house is a very large room, 74 by 91 feet, and 47 feet high, and it is elegantly finished in marble, scagliola, and black walnut. These pillars of scagliola on the sides of the room are nearly as large as those at the entrance of our capitol at Hartford, and are very dark and rich in color. This material can only be used where there is little weight resting on the pillars for they are made of plaster of Paris with an iron rod in the middle. This rod is placed inside of a hollow cylinder, and plaster of Paris, variously colored, and mixed with glue to prevent its hardening quickly, is packed around it with occasionally a chunk of white plaster of Paris laid near the outside of the pillar, when the pillar is taken out of the case, placed in position and nicely polished, the various colors being brought out with a most beautiful effect. The senate chamber is finished in more elegant style, if anything, than the house, but it seemed a pity to see in such a nicely furnished room, in the rear of the president's chair, two large panels of a sickly green colored marble, that were imitations of the real article, and very poor imitations, too. But the structure taken as a whole is so well constructed, and so nicely furnished, that it seems almost incredible that the cost of the whole in its finished state will not be over $3,000,000. In Western Iowa I encountered frequent steep hills, too steep for safe coasting; and after rather ungracefully spinning down one of the steepest, to the astonishment of on-looking pedestrians, I concluded to take a railroad train to Omaha, which I reached in a few hours, after completing my 1980th mile on the wheel. CHAPTER IX. AT THE BASE OF THE ROCKIES. Omaha is booming as it never was before. Twenty years ago, when Congress granted a charter to the Union Pacific Railroad Company, the charter stated that the east bank of the Missouri River should be the eastern terminus of the road, but as there was no bridge over the river, the work of building the road naturally commenced on the west side of the river, and this gave Omaha a start that it has improved upon ever since. Council Bluffs, situated on the east side, about three miles from the river, has always keenly felt the remarkable success of its rival, and has used all its power to compel the Union Pacific road to make the east side of the river the terminus; but Omaha has thus far been, and the chances now are more strongly in favor than ever of its always being, the practical terminus of the road. When the bridge was built the Union Pacific trains were still made up on the west side, until Council Bluffs threatened to apply to Congress for the repeal of the charter, when a large transfer depot was built on the east side, but, mark it, as far away from "the Bluffs" and as near the river as possible. Now the stock-yards, which were first built near the transfer depot, are being removed to Omaha, wholesale firms are moving from the Bluffs over to the other side, and, altogether, Council Bluffs is to be pitied; for, since it was a good sized place itself, it has jealously seen its rival start from nothing until now it is four times as large as itself. The bridge, which was built soon after the road was finished, is now found to be wholly inadequate, and a new double track bridge is soon to take the place of the old one,--one not so very old either. It seems a pity that so much labor should be rendered useless. The iron piers were driven down, section by section, into the shifting bed of the river, until men were working at the peril of their lives down seventy or eighty feet below the water, and these piers rise sixty feet above the river, and support an immense iron bridge; and yet all this labor and much of the material will soon be dead property, for part of the bridge has already been replaced by one with two tracks. The piers of the new bridge are of stone and two of them are finished, having been sunk to the same depth as the iron ones were. Probably the old bridge being in position helps to facilitate the building of the new one, but the old one will be all removed excepting the piers. The old ferry-boats are gone now, and all teams are driven into the rear end of a train of large box cars and thus taken across, leaving the train at the opposite end from which they entered it. There is soon to be a new Union depot at Omaha, built on an immense scale. The smelting works, already the largest in the country, are being extended. The stock-yards and packing houses are beginning to affect the Chicago business in that line of trade; the wholesale houses are drawing business clear from the Pacific coast; a new Board of Trade Building is being built, besides many other fine blocks, and, altogether, things were never booming more in Omaha than now. Most of their streets are of asphalt, and a cable line of street cars is under contract. I heard a fire alarm one day and expected to see fire engines go tearing by, but not one did I see. They have no use for them in case of fire. Their reservoirs are situated on so high a hill that the force of the water is sufficient to throw a stream over the tallest building. Only hose carriages and hook and ladder companies are needed. The city water, pumped from the muddy Missouri, is really the purest in the world. It comes two thousand miles from the Rocky Mountains, and passes no city that can possibly defile the purity of its immense volume. The fine sand is filtered from it, and the supply will be never failing. But the river itself has changed even more in its appearance than the city, although that has grown from eighteen thousand to seventy thousand in sixteen years; but these changes are much more noticeable to me after an absence from the city of that length of time than to residents. Then the river ran south along the bluff on the east side of the valley, turned sharply to the northwest, and soon again turned south close to Omaha; but ten years ago, during a high flood, the river, in a single night, cut across this ox-bow of four miles in length and only a mile wide, and commenced eating into the banks near the Union Pacific railroad shops and smelting works. All the bags in the country, for miles around, were brought to Omaha, filled with sand and dumped into the river at this point, and engines, flat cars, and hundreds of men were employed day and night, trying to hold the river in check with immense rocks and broken stones. It was a hard fight, but the sand bags and rocks finally conquered, and now the river is roughly rip-rapped to a depth of nearly fifty feet and for a mile in length. Sixteen years ago there was danger the river would cut across near Council Bluffs, and leave Omaha high and dry three miles to the west of it; but now there is more probability of its cutting across six miles above, and coming down into the bend of the ox-bow again. As it is now, this ox-bow is "Cut-off Lake," a clear body of water that is much appreciated by boatmen and bathers. Even nature seems to work on the side of Omaha. There is a peculiarity of the clay soil here, very remarkable. In the lowering and grading of streets incident to such a growing city, many houses are left twenty and even twenty-five feet above the grade, and yet when the soil is dug perpendicularly down within a foot of the foundation of these houses, brick ones as well as frame, they remain perfectly firm and secure for months and even years, a few little creases only being worn, by the rains and frosts, down the face of these walls of clay. The clay bluffs across the river, one or two hundred feet high, are nearly perpendicular now in some places, and yet they have been exposed to the weather for centuries, perhaps, long before the pale-faced white settler knew of them at least. After riding six hundred miles through the States of Illinois and Iowa, over the prairies, both level and rolling, I am frank to acknowledge that the prospect of five hundred miles more of the same kind of scenery did not make me over enthusiastic to travel it on my wheel. The riding, so far, has not been monotonous, and I did not want it to become so. The object of the trip was not to make or break records, and thus far, whenever I have found it desirable to take a train, I have done so. But the ride through Nebraska would be so very similar to what I had already experienced in Iowa, that I thought a day's ride on the cars would do me no harm and the time saved could be very profitably used in the mountains. The object of my trip is to see the most of the country in the best possible way, and thus far I think I have been fairly successful. The distance to Omaha traveled by rail has been about 250 miles, and by wheel 2,000 miles, and the total expense, including about eight dollars car fare, has been not quite forty dollars. This includes all repairs to wheel, clothes, and every expense whatsoever. I probably have stopped over night at farm-houses half the time, which has been the chief aid in making the expense so light, but the accommodations have many times been better than at some of the hotels. I have ridden till nearly dark and then taken a hotel or farm-house, just as it happened. Much of the time, seventy days, since leaving home has been spent in visiting friends, but one can travel over the same route, in the same manner, without a friend to visit on the way for less than a dollar a day. Thus far I have been very lucky in not getting caught out in many showers, and it really has rained very little where I have been. A heavy rain at Omaha prevented further progress on the wheel, at least for a few days, and decided me to take the train. Partly through the influence of Mr. Charles M. Woodman, a wheelman, employed in the Union Pacific office, I secured a ticket to Denver at reduced rates. A cap has been the only thing I have worn on my head; the skin on my nose has peeled off several times, and of course, my face and hands are as brown as my seal-brown trousers. Even corduroy breeches could not stand the pressure of those lumpy clay roads, and I have been obliged to have them reseated with thick buckskin, dyed to match. My weight has been reduced from fifteen to eighteen pounds, but a ravenous appetite soon makes up for that reduction whenever I stop riding. The weight of the knapsack is hardly noticed now. I have written sometimes of the ignorance of the farmers in certain sections of the West, and perhaps now it will be no more than fair to refer to the utter lack of knowledge of their country of some persons in Connecticut. Many thought snow drifts and mud would prevent any wheeling outside of Connecticut for weeks after I started, but, as far as I could see, the roads settle in "York State" as early as in Connecticut. At any rate, I saw no snow or mud, unless it was up in the mountains. Another thing that troubled some folks was how I should get across the streams and rivers out West. The idea that occasionally I might find a real bridge did not seem to enter their minds. The fact is, not yet have I come to the smallest creek or pond of water but which I crossed dry shod. Bridges are built here wherever they are needed, just as they are in the East. Some Connecticut people went so far as to doubt whether they had any roads out here at all. Many a one asked me how I could ride across the prairie, and they seemed to take it for granted I should ride upon the railroads, bumping along over the half-covered ties. But strange as it may seem to those persons, the people out here have horses and wagons, and ride over public highways and bridges, very much the same as we do in the East. They have churches and school-houses, Sunday-schools and revivals, morning prayers and a blessing before meals, just as they do in staid old New England. They are just as civilized and decidedly more open and free hearted than in any part of Connecticut, only perhaps they are not quite so refined; that is all the difference. To those who have seen the Western people this talk may seem superfluous, but there are many people in Connecticut, intelligent on every other subject, who show supreme ignorance in regard to the manners and customs of the people of their own country. And as for its being thinly settled, any one can judge as to that when I say I have not been over half a mile from a house at any time, unless it was up in the Highlands of New York. There has been no more danger or difficulty in making the trip than there is in traveling through New England. Thus far the need of a revolver has never presented itself, neither has the idea of getting one. Well, I took the train at Omaha and was soon gliding swiftly through the same rolling prairie that I had seen so much of in Iowa. But these waves of green soon began to subside as the ocean does after a storm, and the sun went down on a country as level and smooth as the ocean itself. From the car window I could see the roads were excellent--a mixture of sand and clay--but I did not regret that I was on twelve wheels instead of two. The newsboys on the trains out here are newsmen, full grown men. The one on the up train worked steadily all the afternoon with his papers, books, oranges, bananas, etc., and finally, when every one was tired of the very sight of him, he brought in a basket of toys, and, sitting down on the arms of the seats, amused the children in the car with snakes and jumping-jacks for half an hour or more. Great liberty is allowed passengers traveling such long distances, and little boys play leap-frog and perform all sorts of gymnastic exercises in the aisle. Along toward midnight the passengers had begun to thin out, and almost every one had found a whole seat for himself, and had lain down with his head or heels sticking out into the aisle. The conductor came through occasionally, but was careful not to disturb any one, and in picking his way along down this gauntlet of bare heads and big feet, he would only hold up his lantern and peer into a face whenever that head hung over into the aisle where a pair of boots projected half an hour before. Everything had been quiet for some time, and the train at midnight was running rapidly, when a low, plaintive moan issued forth from the seat just ahead of me. The voice was rather low, at first, and the sound was rather mournful. A head hung over into the aisle in a very reckless manner, and the mouth was wide open, and yet there was no complaint. The poor sufferer gradually raised his voice, and one after another in the car had risen up and looked around till the car once more seemed to be well filled with passengers. The somnorganist ran up the scale, pulled out all the stops, and, doubled up as he was, the knee-swell was used with powerful effect. It was soon becoming evident that either the head would drop clear off and roll down the aisle or that the bellows would burst, for the sound, loud as it was, came out under great pressure, when a long suffering but very patient passenger in a seat opposite jumped up and grabbing the poor fellow by the shoulder almost yelled in his ear, "Look here, stranger, do you know you have got the nightmare like a horse?" The roars of laughter that followed were not diminished by the fact that the man opposite did not realize he had said anything to cause it. I soon found four seats together, and taking the cushions out and placing them lengthwise of the car, made a very good bed, for I am so short I could lie at full length. The sun rose next morning over very much the same kind of a level country, but snow-capped mountains were easily seen in the distance, and a few hours later the train rolled into the station at Denver. CHAPTER X. ON PIKE'S PEAK. We reached the top last night in a blinding snow and hail storm, with the lightning snapping and cracking around our heads and the thunder rolling around on all sides of us, below as well as above. But in order to have it clearly understood how it came to be "we," and how we came to get here, I must go back a little and give an account of the trip since leaving the train at Denver. The streets of that city are not paved, but they are so hard and smooth most of the year that no one could find any fault with them. The fine sand packs down very hard. The train which I took in Omaha reached Denver so early in the morning that I found very few business men at their stores and so I rode around the principal streets, visited their fine county court-house, which must have cost in the neighborhood of $300,000, and looked with wonder at the snow-capped mountains to be seen at the end of every street, seemingly only a few miles away to the north or west. Streams of clear water run down the gutters of most of the streets, which gives to the city a very cool and refreshed appearance. But one need not look to the streams of water to feel revived; the very air was as crisp and cool as an October morning in Connecticut. It became so cold in the cars the night before that there was no sleep for any one not provided with blankets to cover him, and they tell me this is a sample of their weather all through the summer. In the middle of the day the sun is hot, but in the shade it is never uncomfortable. It is a very dry atmosphere, so that there is very little perspiration to be seen on a person's face when exercising. For several weeks the salt sweat has run down my forehead, in the heat of the day, and into my eyes, making them smart and look glossy, but here the perspiration dries before it can reach one's eyebrows. After being taken about the city and entertained by Chief Consul Geo. F. Higgins (a royal good fellow, light complexion, of medium height and build, and wearing a moustache), and after being escorted out of the city by another member of the club,--Mr. F. J. Chamard, also a light complexioned fellow, we started on for Colorado Springs together. J. A. Hasley, a member of the Kansas City Bicycle Club, reached Denver a few days before I did, intending to take a trip in the same direction I was going, and that is how we came to climb Pike's Peak together. This chapter, and perhaps others to follow, will give our experiences nearly in the order in which they occurred. The first thing that surprised me was the sort of grazing country to be seen on all sides. A farmer in Connecticut who would turn his cattle out into such a scanty pasture to get a living would be a fit subject for prosecution by the Humane Society. I had supposed that Colorado was the finest grazing country in the world, and was never more surprised than to see the dry, sandy, brown appearance of the country. Only at a distance did it look green; close to, but a few scanty bunches, or rather spears of grass could be seen. Actually, such fields in the Eastern States would not be considered fit for even sheep pastures. The only way the herds of horses and cattle get a living is by traveling. They are at liberty to roam over thousands of acres, and in that way manage to subsist. The winters are not very severe, but it is no wonder so many cattle perish when the supply of grass, scanty at the best, is covered with a few inches of snow. Irrigation is carried on to a great extent, but from what I can see it was more for the purpose of watering the stock than for bringing the land up to a high state of cultivation. So far I have seen very little land producing a fair crop of fodder, and that is all they intend to raise. There is no turf to be seen growing naturally. The ride south, from Denver to Colorado Springs, was over a very fair road, although there was probably ten miles of walking in the seventy-five miles. To the east of us was a level or slightly rolling country, while on the other side the snow-covered mountains loomed up apparently only twenty-five miles, but in reality seventy-five miles away. Even the foot-hills, so called, mountains four and five thousand feet above us, were twenty-five miles distant. Such is the clearness of the atmosphere one would think he could walk over to them in a couple of hours. That afternoon, just after the sun had sunk beneath the snowy tops, we struck some Colorado mosquitoes. The first intimation we had of their presence, while riding along at a lively gait, was a prickling sensation all over the calves of our legs, and my stockings were actually black with them. An Eastern mosquito will usually be somewhat embarrassed in his business affairs by a slight motion of the body or a wave of the hand, but these in Colorado are not annoyed in the least by the circular motion of a flying wheelman's legs, and will alight upon his calves and proceed to business with a dispatch that is equaled nowhere else in the world. And be it said to the credit of their excellent military discipline, they never stop drilling or desert their post till they are crushed or brushed away. Once I jumped from the machine in agony, and such a jar would tend to dislodge an ordinary specimen of this kind of animal, but not so with these; every one remained at work, and thirteen perished at a time from one slap of my hand. Many a dismount resulted nearly as disastrously to the enemy, but this cost too much in time, and brushing away while riding was finally resorted to as the least expensive means of warfare. They seemed to go in swarms like bees, and made a noise nearly as loud. The next morning we rode through another army of them, but the only lasting result of the whole fight has been to give us a very satisfying occupation, whenever there was nothing more important on hand, in scratching the different areas of our legs below the knees and regularly returning to the same locality always with renewed relish. Prairie dogs were quite common along the road, and they would sit on their little mounds and remonstrate with us in a squeaking voice for disturbing them, till we were close upon them. Jack rabbits were not so common, only three or four having been seen thus far. That night we walked down a lane to a ranch to find shelter for the night, when a horse, taking fright at our machines, tried to jump over the gate at the foot of the lane, and in doing so, gate, horse, and all came down in a heap together with a crash. The horse jumped up and went off limping, but we thought the next ranch would be a safer place for us, and so we kept on a couple of miles and got an excellent supper, but our bed was on the floor in an old store-room. This slight hardship was soon forgotten in the crisp, cool air of the next morning, and we rode along, hugely enjoying the mountain scenery on our right, till we met a drove of horses and cattle in the road, where barbed-wire fences inclosed the highway on both sides. The horses took fright first and stampeded down the road followed by the cows and calves, the seventy-five or a hundred head leaving a great cloud of dust behind them. The ranchman, who was driving them to water, tried his best, with the vigorous use of his lungs and a shovel in his hands, to stop them by running backwards and forwards across the road, and after we had dismounted and gone clear out to the fence he succeeded in driving them past us. Coming up all out of breath and his eyes flashing with excitement, the full-bearded ranchman yelled, "By J----s, you fellows will get shot down here before you go very far with them things! If my horses had gone over that wire fence, by J----s, I should have wanted to put a hole through you," then cooling down a little at our expressed regrets, he said, oaths omitted, "a while ago, coming from Denver with a load of oats, I met a couple of fellows on their velocipedes and they were yelling and hollering, and did not offer to stop. My horses saw them first, and started down the hill as if nothing was hitched to them. They turned down the railroad track and took that forty hundred of oats over those ties as if they were feathers. I finally stopped them down in the cut, but I was mad, you bet. Those dudes were strangers around here or they would not have said what they did to me. They told me to go talk to a dog and to do some other things. They did not know enough to keep their mouths shut after they had got me into that fix. So I just pulled my belt gun and held it up. 'Now,' says I, 'you just come back or I will corral you. While I go out and stick up a couple of flags, you just lay down those things and go and pack those bags of oats out here into the road.' They wouldn't at first, but finally did, and it did me good to see them New York dudes tugging away at them 300 pound sacks. I unhitched the horses and made them fellows pull the wagon back and load the oats in again, but they emptied both their bottles before they got through." To appreciate this story, and the manner in which it was told, one needs to hear it highly spiced, as it was with the huge oaths and many of the strange expressions used out here. The conversation turned on other subjects, and before he finally bade us "good luck," I learned that droves of mares and a few stallions are turned out loose, and in a short time each stallion has selected his drove of mares to look after and guard, and no mare from any other drove will be allowed to come near his drove. One day a mule tried to get near a drove and the stallion was kept busy all day biting and driving that mule away, who scampered off only to return again to bother the stallion so much he had no chance to eat for hours. With cattle it is the same, the bulls selecting their drove of cows to guard and none from any other drove need apply for admission. As we traveled south, the range of foot-hills turned to the east until we rode along nearly at the base of them. The top of Pike's Peak was plainly to be seen over these foot hills all day, and this snow-covered peak seemed to travel south on the other side of this range of hills just as fast as we did. It looked more like a hooded ghost peering over the green hills at us than a mountain peak 14,000 feet high. As we rode along it would go out of sight behind a hill, only to reappear again farther south, always keeping just so far ahead of us. This game of hide and seek did not end till we reached Colorado Springs, where the peak was directly west of us. We had ridden but a few miles from Denver, when the thin air began to affect me. Hill climbing was out of the question, and the smallest patch of sand or the slightest up grade would make me puff like a winded horse. I tried to breathe entirely through my nose, but the suffocating feeling was unbearable, and so I rode along, mouth wide open. The dry atmosphere parched my tongue and mouth, and my tongue, shriveled to half its size, rattled around in my mouth like a wooden spoon in a bowl. Again I tried to keep my mouth shut, but that was impossible, so I made up my mind to get used to it, and rode miles without any water. Even water would only keep my mouth moist a short time. We reached Palmer Lake, a pleasant resort 7,000 feet high, about noon. This place is nearly 1,000 feet higher than either Denver or Colorado Springs, and the grade descends both to the north and south. The foot-hills, three or four thousand feet higher, are close by to the west, and to the east the country is a rolling sea of green. But the most beautiful sight of all is the wild flowers. White, red, yellow, blue, purple, violet, in fact all the colors imaginable are seen in great profusion on all sides, acres and acres of nothing else, these beautiful little flowers not over three or four inches high growing so closely together as to crowd out what little green grass tried to grow there. In fact, while all the colors of the rainbow but this one lived closely and happily together, green seemed to be an outcast among them. And the colors which one would naturally think would be pale and faded growing in such a dry and sandy soil were just the opposite. I never saw such vivid colors. The varieties were mostly foreign to me, but I shall always remember the colors. Occasionally, rising above these fields of little flowers, were red and white thistles, red and white cactuses, and Spanish bayonets, or soap weed as they call it, all in full blossom, too. I can't begin to describe the delightful ride down from Palmer Lake. The coasting over a road, perfectly smooth, that wound around and over little knolls that gave a wavy motion to the ride; this was enjoyment enough in itself, but to go gliding along without using a muscle in this delightful manner, and see the foot hills, perfectly green to their tops, and the pure white peaks sparkling in the sun rising just above them, all only a mile or two away seemingly, on the right, and to the left these immense fields of the very brightest and most beautiful flowers ever seen, growing close up to the road and stretching out into the distance till their colors were lost in the pale-green of the rolling prairie--to thus imperfectly describe the scene is all I can do; one must see it to realize it. Saturday morning, early, we reached Manitou, where water power furnishes the hotels with electric lights, and started up Ute Pass on our wheels, to visit the Grand Cavern. We were going to leave our wheels and walk up, but a guide told us it was good riding over the other side of this mountain, from the Cave of the Winds down through Williams Cañon, back to Manitou; so we pushed the wheels up a mile over a very good carriage road, six or eight hundred feet high, to the Grand Cavern, with the intention of going across, but here the fun commenced. The only way across was by a narrow trail, but the guide at the cavern said it was all down hill, and so we kept on. The trail went down the side of the mountains very steep, and we had not gone far when it was evident it was the wrong trail, and so back we started; but it took us both to get one wheel up at a time, and the way it made us puff--well, strong as we both were it took every ounce of strength we had to get back. After hunting around awhile we found the right trail, and started on in the direction of Williams Cañon, which was plainly to be seen just below. The trail came to an end at the edge of the cañon, which was three or four hundred feet straight down, but an immense hole, perhaps twenty-five feet across, went down into the bowels of the mountain about two hundred feet, to the entrance of the Cave of the Winds. Rickety ladders and shaky stairs wound down around the inside of this hole, and down these we must go with our wheels! Yes, the guide was right, it was down hill with a vengeance. We took my wheel first, it being the lightest, and Hasley went down a few rounds on the ladder and then took hold of the big wheel and held it firm so that the rubber tire slid down the ladder. I held on to the handle bar with one hand and the ladder with the other, and thus we reached the bottom of the first ladder, step by step, but safely. The next pair of steep stairs went under the shelving rocks so close that there was not room to get the wheel down, and so we lifted it over the edge of the railing, and I let it down as far as I could with one hand, and Hasley ran down to the next stairs underneath and caught the wheel as I let go. The rest of the stairs were not so steep, but a single misstep at any time would have sent us all to the bottom of this hole in unseemly haste. Getting Hasley's wheel down was a repetition of our first experience, only his was heavier, and the stairs creaked more, and it was more difficult to get his machine over the railing and let it down at arm's length, to be caught by the other underneath; but at the entrance of the cave, stairs led down under a boulder, suspended as that one was at the Flume in the White Mountains, and out into the daylight of the cañon, and we were soon down in the road, hardly realizing how we had got there. The scenery down the cañon was so grand, and the whole trip was so exciting, that we did not regret at the end that we had taken our wheels where no other wheels have ever been, and where no other wheels ever ought to be taken again. While we were taking a late breakfast at the Cliff House at Manitou--Manitou is at the very base and almost surrounded by mountains--a young gentleman asked us if we would escort two young ladies up to the top of Pike's Peak, and of course we were only too glad to have the opportunity. But at the last moment one of the ladies refused to go, because it would prevent her attending the first hop of the season; and the other lady who was so enthusiastic that her sense of propriety barely prevailed over her intense desire to climb up the peak, said, sadly disappointed, as she left us: "Now I will go up to my room and have a good cry," and her eyes were already running over. The scenery up the ravine for two or three miles was magnificent, huge boulders filling the gorge, down which a good-sized stream went dashing over and under these boulders in every conceivable manner. In fact, the sides of the mountains up a thousand feet, were covered with huge boulders just on the point of rolling down, and once in a while between them we could catch a glimpse of the country below. Five miles up the trail, which is a very good foot path, is the Half Way House, and we felt much encouraged to find it had taken us only two hours. But from there up, for four miles, the trail went through timber mostly, and we began to get winded. Hasley kept his mouth shut most of the time, which I could not do from the first; but for two hours we had not a drop of water to drink. Just below timber line, which is 12,000 feet above the sea, we met parties coming down, three and four at a time, and they encouraged us by saying: "Only four miles farther," "Keep your strength for the last two miles," "You will have to leave the trail the last mile and follow the telegraph poles up over the snow." Still our legs held out all right, but I began to get dizzy whenever I looked up or stooped to drink at a running stream of snow-water. Finally, snow was the only thing to moisten our mouths, but we both drank or ate very sparingly of this. About one thousand feet above timber line we had to cross snow-drifts one or two hundred feet across, and very soon our feet were cold and wet. Sometimes the snow would let us down to our hips, and then we would wallow along to some projecting rocks and climb up. This took my breath the worst of anything, and I laid down on the rocks, completely exhausted sometimes. About this time a snow-storm commenced, and the wind blew so cold we could only stop a short time to get our wind. The flashes of lightning were getting to be altogether too frequent to be pleasant, and the snow and hail were so blinding we could scarcely see from one telegraph pole to another, for now we had left the trail, and were climbing straight up the side of the peak, with nothing in sight but rocks and boulders half covered with snow. Sometimes we slipped down through these boulders, and then after crawling out, the only thing to do was to lie down with our backs to the driving storm and get rested. When I started on again it was to stagger like a drunken man, for I was dizzy most of the last mile all the time. When we were sure the top must be just over the brow of the steep hill we were slowly climbing, we finally reached there only to see those telegraph poles leading almost straight up into the air and out of sight up the steepest and most rocky hill we had yet encountered. Once in the blinding snow-storm we lost track of the poles, but it was only because one had been blown down, and the next was hidden entirely from view. Finally, after crawling, staggering, and climbing up and over the last mile of rocks, and using up an hour and a half in doing it, I caught sight of a big stone house through the fog and snow, and yelled to Hasley with all the strength I had left, and that wasn't much: "Look at the chimneys." Those who have done any mountain climbing can better imagine our feelings at that moment than I can describe them. Much as we regretted it at first, how thankful we were those ladies had not started up with us, for we never could have reached the top with them. But, as if to repay us for being deprived of their presence, those beautiful little wild flowers accompanied us all the way up, growing brighter in color, if that were possible, the higher up they grew, until on the very top of the peak, 14,147 feet above the sea, we picked a lovely little bouquet from beneath a few inches of snow. These tiny flowers, not more than an inch in height, grow close to a melting drift of snow and ice wherever there is the least bit of sand or soil to nourish them. The two signal service men, Messrs. Ramsay and Potter, did everything possible for us, and in a very short time we were ourselves again. These two men were so kind and considerate toward us, and made us feel so much at home, that we concluded to prolong our stay on the summit until Monday. Distance traveled on the wheel, 2,075 miles. CHAPTER XI. BACK TO DENVER. "The sun is about to rise," whispered Mr. Ramsay, as he softly opened our room door and then disappeared. Mr. John P. Ramsay is the Government signal officer in charge of the station at Pike's Peak, a young wheelman that everyone likes from the first. We were sleeping soundly in a comfortable bed on the top of the Peak this Sunday morning, entirely oblivious of the somewhat severe experience we had in climbing, the afternoon before, but at the first sound of the call we jumped out of bed, slipped on our shoes, and, wrapping some heavy blankets around us, went out the east door and stood on a mat, which was frozen stiff, and where the wind blew about our bare legs and up the folds of the blanket with decidedly too much freedom. We waited there fifteen or twenty minutes, shaking from head to foot, but the sight amply repaid for the discomfort. The sun was sending great broad streamers up into the sky, and a bank of black clouds, which in the distance looked like a range of mountains, still hid the sun from view. We looked over the brow of Pike's Peak, which, on top, is nothing but huge boulders and rocks imbedded in banks of snow, down upon other peaks twelve or thirteen thousand feet high surrounding us on all sides, and looking cold and black in the dim light of the morning. At the base of the Peak on which we stood the level plains stretched out probably 150 miles to the east, where a band of gold was just beginning to gild that bank of clouds. No fog, or mist; nothing obstructed the view in any direction, and everything, even in the darkness, seemed to stand out with peculiar clearness. Soon the broad streamers faded away, the band of gold rendered more dazzling by the blackness of the clouds, began to widen till the whole bank of clouds seemed to be one mountain of gold. Finally, after a long while, as it seemed to us shivering in the cold, the upper outlines of the sun could just be seen through the fiery clouds, and when the round ball stood out clear and distinct above the clouds we crawled back to bed and to sleep. Is seems almost useless to try to describe such a scene, for no one can get an idea of the sight from the most perfect description. The house up there, built of stone, contains six good-sized rooms. Six or eight persons can be comfortably housed over night, and no one who has experienced the difficulties of the climb would complain of the food, for we had a variety and it was well cooked. I sat out doors nearly all day in the warm sun and the view was not hidden till nearly night. We could look down into the streets of Colorado Springs, fifteen miles away, almost as one would upon a checker board. During the day several parties came up, some on horses, to within a mile and a half of the top, where snow covers the trail and renders further progress on horseback impossible, but everyone looked pale and exhausted. Hot coffee brought them around all right in a short time. A party of us went over to the north side of the Peak and tumbled rocks down the side. Some of these went crashing down nearly two thousand feet before they stopped. During the afternoon clouds gathered, but just before sunset the sun came out and the shadow of the Peak was plainly seen against the clouds to the east. Even the shadow of the square stone house was discerned, and then two of us went out to one end of the house, and surely, there we were, standing like the spectres of the Brocken near the shadow of the house, out over the plains twenty-five miles away and fourteen thousand feet above the ground. To be sure our shadows were not as clean cut as though we were nearer the object on which the shadows were cast, but anyone could see the general form. About 9 o'clock that night a terrific thunder storm raged out over the plains to the northeast. The highest clouds were not much above, and most of them far below us. We heard none of the thunder and saw very little of the lightning as it flashed, but the whole mass of clouds was lighted up incessantly. It was a grand sight. The whole sky to the north, west, and south, was perfectly clear, and the stars shone out with remarkable clearness, notwithstanding the full moon was shining so brightly and placidly out over the plains to the east. Everywhere else the world was at peace, but in the northeast those clouds made silver by the light of the moon, were rolling and tumbling and were constantly lighted by the fiery flashes of lightning. And yet not a sound was to be heard. There was no wind, and everything above and below was so quiet and still. And from the northeast, where we could see such a great commotion, there was not the faintest sound. If there had been no clouds anywhere that night the stillness would have seemed natural enough, but to see such a terrific storm raging (and I never saw lightning before), and to see the wind tearing those clouds all to pieces, and yet to have everything so silent you could almost hear yourself think, that was a most weird situation. The weather on Pike's Peak is hardly more severe than it is below, even during the winter. For severity, it is not to be compared with that of Mt. Washington. The wind never blows harder than seventy-five or eighty miles an hour. The roof of the house is a common tin one. They keep up a wood fire the year round. The telegraph wires are not kept in repair, so the weather reports are only sent in by rail. Pike's Peak is not in reality a very important weather station. As if to give us one more startling effect before we started down, the next morning opened cloudy. The morning before we seemed to be on the edge of some great ocean that stretched out to the east as far as the eye could reach, but now we were cast away at sea ourselves. The clouds covered the whole earth in all directions and were so solid and motionless that they looked like one great sea of light gray marble, beautifully carved and polished, but we were high above this sea of marble, and were looking down upon it. The sun had just risen above it when I opened my eyes, and I could hardly believe what they told me. The light brought out every line and feature of the glassy clouds, and the peak on which we were was, apparently, only about 2,000 feet above the level of this sea, for it surrounded us on all sides. Occasionally, here and there, other peaks pierced through the clouds like so many rocky islands, but there was not a rift anywhere to indicate that there was a beautiful earth beneath this great ocean of gray, polished marble, solid enough apparently to walk upon. Very soon the sun took the polish off the clouds, and before long they grew fleecy and soon broke up and passed away. Leaving our friends at the top with regret, for I could have spent a month there with the utmost enjoyment, we started down and reached the base, without trouble or fatigue, in three hours and a half, a journey of twelve miles that consumed seven hours in going up, besides using the last ounce of strength we had in doing it, too. Coming down we picked a few flowers near the top to send home, but every few yards a new variety showed itself, and of course we had to get a few of that kind, too, till our hands were full of the beautiful tiny little things. Then we swore off and would not pick another one; but then another variety, prettier than any of the others, peeped up at us between the rocks, and before we came down to timber line, 12,000 feet above the sea, pockets, hands, and hats were full of the bright colored little flowers. After a hearty meal at the Cliff House we mounted, and our machines were so thoroughly rested they almost ran away with us down the grade out of Manitou. To the Garden of the Gods next. All along the base of the mountains, from Denver south for seventy-five miles, are immense slabs of red and white sandstone projecting into the air edgewise, and running parallel with the range of mountains. Some of these slabs must have been 500 or 1,000 feet high originally, but the action of the rain and frost on their crumbling nature has reduced many of them to steep ridges of red and white soil, along the center of which runs the remnant of the original slab, looking like the backbone of some pre-historic animal. In the Garden of the Gods a few of these slabs remain with very little debris about their base. Some of them, five or six hundred feet long, stick right up into the air three or four hundred feet high, and they are so honey-combed and the edges so rounded and worn, that the action of water is plainly to be seen on them. No one can visit this part of the country without being impressed with the idea that these mountains were once the rocky shores of an immense ocean and the incessant action of the waves has wrought out all the curious-shaped rocks and ledges which make Colorado so celebrated. But when the subject is broached as to what force in nature was powerful enough to turn these strata of rocks up edgewise in the first place, a traveling wheelman drops that subject as he would an ichthyosaurus. Glen Eyrie is another place about a mile above, that abounds in these same slabs, not so large, and more slender and needle shaped. This place is private property and is nicely fixed up with drives, trout ponds, and fountains. The drives through these places of interest are very fine, and when we started back to Colorado Springs over a high, level road, running along a high ridge, the wind sent us along as we never rode before. On the level, a brake was necessary, and we even went coasting up good steep grades. This kind of riding lasted for nearly five miles, and was enjoyed intensely, but after a short stop at the "Springs" with a few very enthusiastic wheelmen, among them Messrs. Walker and Parsons, we turned about for Denver, and faced that same strong wind for fifteen miles, till we found a good resting place for the night at a ranch, which is simply a good farm-house. The next morning after we got over the divide, near Palmer Lake, the wind sent us flying again down the grade. Such coasting! Sometimes side by side, at other times in single file, we passed the fields of wild flowers that seemed to have improved since we last saw them; for the pale yellow blossoms of the cactus plants, as large as the palm of our hand, were much more numerous than a few days before. Then we scattered horses and colts, cows and calves, in all directions; dreadfully scared the poor little prairie dogs that were caught away from home, and made the others who were perched on their mounds, terribly excited. The little animals sometimes dig their holes in the middle of the road, and as we went noiselessly along, we thought we might sometimes catch them unawares, but no. Prairie dogs have ears. They always heard us coming, and would keep up a constant squeaking noise till the last minute, and sometimes after they had dodged out of sight they would pop their heads up once more, utter one last squeak, and disappear for good. I have often wondered why so many plants grow here supplied with thorns and sharp pointed leaves. There are the thistles, cactus, Spanish bayonet, and two or three other species, the names of which are unknown to me, but the extent to which their sharp points will penetrate a wheelman's stockings can be accurately stated; even the spears of grass are as sharp pointed as a needle. They do say that sheep will eat the cactus at certain times in the year. It is not stated at just what period in their existence the sheep do this, but it is probably a short time before they cease to exist. When their bill of fare is limited to a single article of diet, men have been known to eat obnoxious things, and probably the sheep eat the cactus for the same reason. O yes, Colorado is a great grazing country, noted for being such. It is also noted for being a country where sometimes forty per cent. of the stock die in a single winter, simply because there is nothing to eat. The land will not produce enough to keep them alive. Let the snow come a few inches deeper than usual, and the only thing for the stock is to starve to death. The ranchmen don't pretend to house their stock or store up fodder enough to keep them alive when the snow has covered the few spears of grass too deep to be uncovered by pawing. I am told that horses, raised in a warm climate, do not know enough at first when turned out into a field covered with snow, to paw the snow away and nibble the grass underneath, but they soon learn to do so from seeing others, but even pawing does not always save the poor creatures. I was agreeably surprised, in talking with a ranchman, to hear him express himself strongly in favor of a law to prevent anyone raising more stock than he could house and feed during the winter. The desert of Sahara, judging from what I have read, is nearly as good for farming as that part of Colorado I have seen is for stock raising. New York tenement houses and Colorado stock farms are equally good for producing young lives and for killing them off young, too. The ranchman who expressed a desire to put a hole through us for scaring his horses on our way down to the Springs, now recognized and waved his hand to us as we returned. We stopped at a farm-house to get some milk, and while waiting in the dining-room I noticed with surprise well-worn books in the book case, such as "Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe," "Geographical Distribution of Animals," by Wallace, "Elements of Geology," by Le Conte, "English Men of Letters," by Morley, other books by Geike, and many more of like nature. Think of such books as these being read out here on a Colorado ranch, 2,200 miles away from the intellectual hub of the universe! I am sorry to say the ranchman by birth is not an American, but an Englishman. A little farther on, and we overtook a lady on horseback. She did not hear us, but the horse did, and began to act skittish, and not knowing what to make of his actions the lady jumped off. We got by without much trouble, however, but it would never do to ride on leaving the lady dismounted. Here was a state of things. Not a house in sight for miles over the level prairie, not a wagon, box, or anything but a barbed-wire fence to assist the lady to regain the saddle, and with her long riding habit it was impossible to do it alone. One thing, and only one thing could be done. One of us must clasp his hands together on his knee, and in thus making a step for her, help her to mount into the saddle. Now, there were two of us, one tall, the other short. For her to step up on the knee of the taller one would be more difficult than to step up on the knee of the shorter one. So it fell to the lot of the embarrassed writer to do the service. The lady mounted easily to the saddle and we left her. On reaching Denver and looking back over the trip, I felt I had accomplished all and more than I really expected to do when I left home. Not but that I had a strong desire before I started to see the wonders in California, but I thought if I reached Pike's Peak, it would be doing a great deal, all I felt confident of doing then. But now that I reached the goal of my spring ambition so easily, no small consideration would induce me to turn back. I was in better physical condition than when I left home, and the farther I went the more confidence it gave me to continue the journey across to the Pacific. Distance on the wheel, 2,158 miles. CHAPTER XII. ACROSS THE PLAINS. Until now I had expressed a valise, with extra baggage, along to the different cities, but found I could carry everything I needed in the knapsack; and so, leaving the rubber suit behind with the valise, for I was entering a rainless district, and putting on a thinner pair of trousers, I left Denver on the 24th of June. We started on again, in a northerly direction, accompanied for several miles by Mr. J. W. Bryant, and reached Longmont, after a ride of thirty-five miles over miserable roads, rendered more miserable by the water that overflows them from the numerous ditches along the way. Here we found that a ride back to the southwest, to Boulder, and into the mining regions of Boulder County, would make a pleasant little side excursion, and so the next noon we rode over to Boulder, twenty miles, and stopped an hour or so at one of the sampling works. Here large quantities of ore are bought off the miners, and crushed and ground fine as flour, ready to be shipped to the smelting works at Denver and other points. The process of finding the amount of gold or silver in a sample of ore is very interesting. After the ore is reduced to a fine powder, a small quantity of it, perhaps a teaspoonful, is nicely weighed out, and put into an earthern saucer, with perhaps ten times that amount of lead ore in the same powdered state. The saucer is placed in a furnace, and the lead soon absorbs the gold and silver and settles to the bottom, leaving the worthless part of the powder to rise to the top in the shape of dark-colored glass. This button of lead, with the gold and silver absorbed in it, is then placed in a little cup made of burnt bone. This cup is then placed in the furnace and the bone absorbs all the lead, leaving a speck of the precious metal about as large as the head of a small pin. The gold and silver are then separated by placing this speck in nitric acid, which absorbs the silver, and the pure gold is left in the bottom of the glass. I understand that this process, on a small scale, is practically the same as that employed at the large smelting works. In this way miners can find out at a very little expense just what their ore is worth per ton from a comparatively small sample. We started up Boulder Cañon, a gorge in the mountain that is very picturesque, but whose sides are not so perpendicular as those of Williams Cañon at Manitou. We rode and walked up this cañon nine miles to Salina, where we stayed at night. A large stream comes roaring down the cañon, and the narrow gauge track of the Colorado Central Railroad goes up at a very steep grade. The course of the stream is so crooked and the cañon so narrow, that in the nine miles there are over fifty railroad bridges. All along up the cañon the sides of the mountain are fairly honey-combed with holes, dug during the mining excitement in 1859, and since, but now the holes, shanties, and everything about the region seems to be deserted. Salina is a genuine mining town of perhaps a hundred inhabitants, and entirely different from anything that I expected. I supposed that even now a man took his life in his hands when he visited one of these mining towns, but during the evening, and all the time we were there, the place was as quiet and peaceable as any New England town--decidedly more so than any factory village. I saw many well-dressed young ladies and gentlemen all going in one direction, and found it was the night for the temperance lodge to meet, and that the members include all but about a dozen persons in the community. During the evening two little boys at the boarding-house seemed to want to get acquainted, and so I asked one how old he was. "My brother is eight years old, and I am ten days older than he is," he answered. How that could be the little fellow was unable to explain, and so am I. The next morning we visited the First National Mine, which, to all outward appearances, is nothing more than a small shanty up the side of the mountain, with a heap of rocks thrown out to one side of it. Inside is a hole in the floor just large enough for a half barrel bucket to go through, and beside this hole is a trap-door just large enough to let a man's body down. The rocks are raised by a windlass run by horse power outside. With old coats and hats on and a lighted candle in our hands, we followed the overseer down through the trap-door. The ladders down which we climbed were straight up and down, and about all I could see as I followed the others was the light of their candles. About once in fifty feet we came to a platform and then started down another ladder. The ladders went close to one side of the shaft, which was protected with heavy timbers on the sides, and on the other side was the hole down which the bucket went, two hundred and fifteen feet, to the bottom. It was rather awkward holding on to the rounds of the ladder with a candle in one hand, but I kept a firm grip till the rounds began to get slippery from the mud and water, and then the descent was anything but pleasant. Sometimes the ladders, instead of going straight down, leaned over from the top a little, and then it was hard work to keep my feet from slipping off. It was so dark in there I could only see the black bucket hole on one side and the two lighted candles beneath me, and how far down a fellow would go, should his hands or feet slip off the slimy rounds, I had no idea; only I know every nerve in my body was strung up and every muscle was hard. At last, and it seemed an age, we got down to where the men were working. Two hundred feet down, tunnels, just large enough for men to work in, were run out in opposite directions, and at the ends of these tunnels the men were drilling and blasting. And what were these men after, down in this hole in the solid rock, over two hundred feet from the surface? Simply to get out a little narrow streak of dark-colored rock, not over two or three inches wide. This little streak went nearly straight down into the earth, and these men were following it wherever it went, excavating probably fifty tons of refuse rock in order to get one ton of the ore sufficiently valuable to work up. Then we started up, and as I was the last to go up I was wondering all the way if I could keep my hold on the rounds if one of the others should slip and drop on me; but they did not have occasion to test my grip in that way, and we reached the top all right, only I had to stop and rest once, more because of the nervous excitement than anything else, and then you can imagine my feeling, suspended over that black hole with just strength to keep from falling, but with none to go higher. The memory of that experience will never be very pleasant to me. Up three miles farther into the mountains and we came to Gold Hill, another mining town, full of saloons, but otherwise harmless, then down Left Hand Cañon, over a very fair road, out upon the plains again, and back to Longmont. On our way back we stripped off our clothes and took a bath in one of the ditches near the road. A pleasant ride the next day of thirty miles brought us to Fort Collins, where I found many former residents of Connecticut. The mosquito record of thirteen killed at one slap has been broken several times since reference was last made to the subject. The mosquitoes, which swarm everywhere, rarely trouble us about the hands or head, but the revolving motion of the legs seem to attract them, and they collect on our stockings in regular military array, every one headed toward the knee--of all the hundreds, and perhaps thousands, that have alighted on us, we never have seen one headed the other way--and many of them in straight lines, four and six in a row. Once, after enduring the pricking sensation as long as I could, I jumped off my wheel, and with a single slap on each stocking put thirty-two of the sweet singing little creatures on their way to the place where everybody sings. This was the result of the first two blows, and there were several outlying sections to be heard from that increased this number somewhat, for a Colorado mosquito that escapes death the first slap is sure to wait for the second one. In fact, one could almost tell the size of my hand by the area of crushed mosquitoes on my stockings, which was almost entirely surrounded by those still waiting and working. The reader may say the habits of these mosquitoes are of little interest to him, but to me the mosquitoes had points of keen interest about them. The number of light complexioned men in Colorado is very noticeable. I began to observe it at Denver and at Colorado Springs, and at Manitou it was even more marked, till it seemed as if every man, woman, and child had light, very light-blue eyes, and a light moustache; that is, every one that wears a moustache of any color. Wheelmen, guides, cowboys, they all had the same smiling blue eyes that seemed to win one's confidence at the outset. Denver is noted for having many confidence men and bunco steerers, but there is no class of men I would sooner trust myself with than the ranchmen, guides, and cowboys of Colorado. They like to open one's eyes by telling what they have done in the past, but in the mountains, mines, or on the plains a traveler is as safe in their hands as he would be in any city in the East. There is a decided improvement in the general aspect of the country north of Denver, through Longmont and Fort Collins, upon what we saw south of that city for seventy-five miles. There is less stock-raising and more farming. We passed many fields of wheat, corn, and alfalfa. The latter is of the same nature as red clover and grows nearly as high as herdsgrass. Once sown it never needs to be restocked, and three and sometimes four large crops are cut from it during the season. It is almost impossible to plow it up when once it is thoroughly rooted, and one person told me the roots would go down into the ground nearly fifty feet in search of moisture. I give this as a Colorado li--statement. But the only thing that will kill it out is water, too much of it, for it can be drowned out, finally. This brings me to the most important interest of Colorado, and that is water. Nearly all through the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, through which I have ridden, States from seven to eleven times as large as Connecticut, the great question that directly interests all the farmers, and that indirectly concerns every one dependent upon the success of farming, is how to get rid of the water. In some of those States great ditches, six, eight, or ten feet deep, and miles in length, are dug, and smaller ditches and tile drains lead into these main channels, and thus in the spring the water to a great extent is drained away, so that the land will dry off and be fit to cultivate. But the cost of this system of drains and ditches is very great, amounting on some farms to ten dollars an acre. But in Colorado, a State over twenty times as large as Connecticut, water is the one subject uppermost in the minds of the people, as it is farther east, but here it is how to get it, not how to get rid of it. There is the same system of large ditches running for miles and miles through the country, and these are tapped at convenient points by smaller ditches, so that the water is spread out over the sandy, barren-looking country, till by reversing the means used in those other States, the land is brought up into a high state of cultivation. And it does seem as if they even reverse the laws of gravitation, and make the water run up hill, for many and many a ditch seems to go up over and around a hill that is higher than the head of the ditch. There is one advantage, too, the farmers here have over those farther east, and that is, they can have a wet or dry season, just as they choose, for the supply of ditch water is never failing. These main ditches are dug by stock companies, and the stock is in the market just as other stocks are. The water privileges are sold to the farmers, and in some cases the price is twelve to fifteen dollars an acre for perpetual lease. It is singular that in one section of the country it should cost nearly as much per acre to get rid of the water as it does in other sections to procure it. But this ditch water is a great boon to the people in other respects than for agricultural purposes, and that is for drinking. At first I always preferred the well-water, but as I traveled up into the alkali districts the ditch water was much more wholesome to drink, and now I shun everything else. To be treated to ice-water at a farmer's house, appeared at first rather extravagant on their part, but the ditch water in summer gets so warm, ice-water is almost a necessity. Still, a barrel full of this roily water bailed up in the morning and placed in the shade or down cellar and allowed to settle, will remain pure and palatable for a long while. At one ranch where we stopped, the drinking water was brought nine miles, although a well of alkali water was near the house. At another house I was pulling up the bucket over a pulley, and thought the bucket would never reach the top, when the rope broke, and down went the bucket, 140 feet to the bottom of the well that was not even curbed or stoned up. It is needless to say we did not stop to get the bucket out or to get a drink. The annual rainfall is not only increasing in Iowa and Nebraska, but in Colorado also. It is a true saying, civilization brings rain. In the former States it is the natural result of the breaking up of so much prairie land. That clay soil packed down hard by centuries of rain would formerly shed water like a duck's back, but once loosened and broken up, it tends to retain the water like a sponge, and the more moisture retained, the greater the rainfall. In Colorado, the extensive irrigation practiced tends to produce the same result; the dry, sandy soil is becoming moist and filled with vegetable matter, till in some instances the land needs only the usual rains to produce good crops. This increased moisture in the atmosphere has another effect, and that is upon the health of consumptives. Instances are occurring where these invalids are leaving the plains with their net work of ditches and are going up into the dryer mountain air. Leaving Fort Collins, or "Collins" as it will shortly be called, we tarried Monday night at a large sheep ranch on the way to Laramie, where shearing commenced the next morning. The owner has nearly 10,000 sheep in his different camps, and six California shearers began shearing at the rate of about 150 sheep a day for each man. The sheep were caught by the hind leg and sat upon their haunches between the legs of the shearer, and, commencing at their necks, the white and cream-colored fleeces rolled off the sheep with surprising rapidity. Occasionally, a piece of flesh would go with the fleece, and hardly a sheep escaped without some bright red streaks or spots upon it, the blood making a sharp contrast in color against the clean white appearance of the naked sheep. After watching the operation for an hour or more, we started up across the foot-hills to get to the Laramie road on the other side, passing a stream where the water was as red as blood from the red mud or sand being washed down. These foot-hills are immense ledges of rocks that look very much as I have seen ice packed up against the banks of the Connecticut River when the ice breaks up in the spring. Looking at these foot-hills toward the west, they present the appearance of so many rounded hills of gravel and sand; but go up into and pass through them, and turn about and look at them in the opposite direction, and it seems really as if, ages ago, the crust of the earth had been broken up, as ice is in the spring, and the immense cakes of red and white sandstone had been jammed and forced up against the broad shoulders of the Rocky Mountains, till these slabs of stratified rock, several hundred feet thick, overlapped each other, and some of them were even forced up into almost perpendicular positions. Wherever I have passed through these foot-hills, whether at Manitou, Boulder, or at Fort Collins, the country has the same general appearance: that of some immense rock-jam forcing the cakes from the east up on the banks of the Rocky Mountains. Much of the red sandstone is very red, and the contrast between that and the white sandstone is strongly marked, the red and white hills being mixed up promiscuously. We followed a very good road up through the foot-hills for awhile, but the wagon tracks grew fewer and fewer, as they branched off in different directions, till we struck a common trail, and as we wound around the north side of a high rocky hill this trail disappeared entirely, and we found ourselves off among the barren and sandy foot-hills without the slightest road, trail, or habitation in sight for miles. We debated some time which direction to take, but finally I left my knapsack and wheel and climbed up the rocky side of that hill to get a better view, when behold, there was the Laramie road, just over the hill about a mile away. We had a hard job to get our machines over, but were soon on our way, spinning over a fine mountain road that remained good for fifty miles to Laramie, furnishing some of the finest coasting I ever had. This road for many miles was probably 8,000 feet above the sea, so that this elevation had the effect to dwarf the mountains that rose only a little higher. In fact, it is generally remarked by travelers that the Rocky Mountain scenery west of Cheyenne is very tame. Many of the hills are perfectly level on top, looking at them against the horizon, and the sides slant off, the angles being as sharp and clean cut as if the hills were built by hand. Just before reaching Laramie we noticed, off to the east on the plains, another Garden of the Gods, that far exceeds in every way the one near Manitou. It was with regret that I could only look at it from a distance of two miles or more, but the perpendicular position, the height, and the curious shape of the roads, standing up out of the level plains, was certainly very interesting. Arriving at Laramie I inquired of the first man I met, who happened to be a good-natured Dutchman, where a certain friend of mine lived. "I don't know," he said, "but Johnny Wilson is the one you want to see. I will go find him for you. Any one coming so far as Conneckticut must be taken care of. Wilson knows the whole beezness," and he ran into his store, seized his coat and escorted us up the main street of Laramie, calling out to every one he knew, "These two fellows came from Conneckticut on a bicycle," and then he would haw-haw and laugh as if he had secured the greatest prize in the country. In vain I told him I wanted to find my friends before dark, but "Mr. Wilson is the one to take care of you. He knows the whole beezness." We stopped on the corner to find Wilson, who, it will be surmised, is a wheelman, and men and boys, old and young, ran to that corner as if there was a fire, and in less time than it takes to write it, the sidewalk was blocked and the crowd extended out into the street. Really, Laramie was more excited at the arrival of two tired wheelmen than any place through which I have yet passed. The next morning we left the line of the Union Pacific and followed the old emigrant trail across the plains. The country is the dryest, sandiest, and most barren looking of any I had yet seen. Hour after hour we rode over a treeless and grassless country that would have been less disappointing if it had been more level, for as we slowly reached the crest of one long, gentle swell, through the deep sand, another billow, higher still, came in sight, and when we had perhaps walked to the top of that, still another, just a little higher, appeared ahead. Then over a long, level space, and we came to a shallow basin, perhaps eight miles across, on the other side of which could be seen the slender thread of our future course. Then the same rolling country with not a ranch in sight for hours. That day we passed but one stream of water, and what made our thirst more severe was a strong head wind that dried and parched our open mouths till the flesh almost cracked open. About two o'clock we got some milk at a ranch, but that only satisfied our hunger, it did not quench our thirst. All day long we expected to come in sight of the railroad again at the top of every long hill, but every time we were disappointed, and we were doomed not to see railroad or telegraph pole for two days longer. About 7 o'clock that night we came in sight of a ranch, (ranches out here are all slab huts), but there was no one at home, so we laid down and rested, as the next ranch was eight or ten miles farther on, and it was no use thinking of reaching it that night. Still no one came, and about dark we began to investigate. Flour, sugar, lard, coffee, salt, baking powder, and other things were found in the cupboard, but not a thing cooked. Well, now, with all these things before them, two half-starved boys would not go to bed hungry, "you bet." Hasley started out with a tin pail to milk a cow, but the cattle ran off as wild as deers and he concluded they were "all steers, any how." Plenty of whole coffee, but no coffee-mill. I was on the point of pounding up some of the kernels with a hammer when the coffee mill was found. The smell of boiling coffee soon put a keen edge upon our already ravenous appetite, but what could we cook besides? Griddlecakes! Somehow I remembered lard was sometimes put into griddlecakes to make them short, and in a jiffy I was trying to mix three tablespoonfuls of lard into two quarts of flour with a spoon, but the ingredients would not mix well so I used my hands, forgetting that I had just used a greasy rag with which to clean the lantern globe, and that some of the thick coat of soot might have remained on my hands. Then two tablespoonfuls of Dr. Price's baking powder was sprinkled in, and the whole wet up with water, but I must confess it was very lumpy. But if those griddlecakes, covered thick with sugar, didn't taste good! They were light and tender, and after a few trials I could turn one, the size of a dinner plate, over without a break. Beds of hay and plenty of blankets made us comfortable for the night, and we did not lie awake listening for the folks to come home either. Some more griddlecakes and coffee for breakfast, a card, telling who we were and where we were going, and asking them to write, was left on the table, and, man like, we left the log hut that had given us such a kind shelter, without washing up the dishes. That forenoon, we traveled over the same desolate dry country, and by one o'clock saw no signs of getting anything to eat, when suddenly we came to the edge of a high bluff, and below was a sparkling stream of cold water and several houses, a most beautiful looking spot to us. We were soon eating heartily at a ranchman's well-set table, and he not only would take no pay, but urged us to stay longer. That afternoon we overtook and passed an emigrant train of six or eight teams, but the usual head wind prevented us from leaving them very far behind, and it was not unpleasant having them so near. Through Colorado, we saw plenty of harmless snakes by the roadside, and would occasionally stop and kill one to add variety to the trip, but for several days we had seen none of any kind. During the afternoon I was pushing my machine along in the sand rut, leaning my arm on the saddle, and had been trudging along with my head bent down against the gale for some time, when about three feet in front of the wheel I saw a rattlesnake wriggling slowly across the road. He stopped and so did I. The reptile turned his head toward us, ran out his tongue and crept along into the sage brush with his tail sticking up, and disappeared. For a long while after that, I saw a snake behind every bush, and never turned out into the sage brush to avoid the sand again as I had often done before. Thin stockings are not the most effective armor in which to attack one of these snakes, and since I have always allowed them to go in peace. There are plenty of dead ones along the road too, and for a few seconds, when they are curled up naturally, there is as much "business" in a dead snake as a live one. It works upon the nerves in the same powerful way. We met another emigrant with a very sick boy in his wagon, and the anxiety was plainly depicted on the father's face when we told him the nearest ranch was about ten miles back, and no one knew whether they had any kind of medicine there or not. I never once thought of being ill myself off there, but fully realized the danger of a bite from a rattlesnake so far from any medical help. That night we found good accommodations, and the next forenoon came in sight of the railroad once more, and crossed the bridge over the Platte River on the ties to Fort Fred Steele. There was one thought that was uppermost in my mind, during this tramp of three days, and 110 miles, across the plains from Laramie to Rawlins, and that was the utter insignificance of a human being in such a place. One crossing these plains in the cars is too closely connected, in his immediate surroundings, with the improvements of modern civilization, to fully realize the utter helplessness of a person left to his own resources on these deserts. The worldly possessions of one going afoot across these plains, no matter how rich and extensive those possessions are, dwindle into mere worthlessness. All the gold in the world would not purchase him a drop of water. His brain, no matter how active or ingenious, cannot devise anything to satisfy his cravings of hunger. There is absolutely nothing to eat. Emigrants, to be sure, start across prepared with a good supply of food and water; but let one go, as we did, without the slightest preparation in that line--for we supposed there were small places every few miles, whereas there were only two ranches together at one place, and the others averaged ten miles apart--and he will soon realize that the only thing in this world that is of any real value to him, is good muscle and a strong will to back it up. Nothing else is of the slightest account to him, and nothing he can do will give him a mouthful of food or a drop of water, if he has not the strength to go where food and water are. Of course every one has to do that as a general thing, but here it is a question of hours of hard traveling over a desert without any sort of relief till the end. Although we did not suffer for food or water to any great extent, yet I never before fully realized the helplessness of a human being when suddenly cast upon his own resources in such a place. There is another thing that I begin to realize, but I never expect to be able to fully grasp it, and that is the size of this country. Such a trip, although it is only as yet through a very small portion of the country, helps one to faintly comprehend the Infinite. Niagara gives one an idea of the immense power of nature in motion; here one can comprehend the vastness of nature in repose. In either place the same feeling of awe and reverence comes over one, and his own insignificance stands out very prominently. The last ten miles to Rawlins was the most discouraging of any since leaving Laramie. The road was aggravatingly level, smooth, and hard, and ran close by the railroad, but those regular trade-winds that we had faced for the last three days prevented any riding. After a while we came to a section-house, and remained there two or three hours, till the wind died down at sunset, and then we easily pushed on to Rawlins. The only bright spot in that day's experience occurred just before reaching Fort Fred Steele. I came upon a pasteboard box, about the size and shape of those used for expressing suits of clothes, lying in the road. A wagon wheel had crushed one corner, but inside, what a sight for hungry wheelmen! Nicely packed in rows were two dozen fresh, even warm doughnuts, all frosted with sugar, and four dozen cookies, looking equally tempting. Then did we not go down by the river where water was plenty and have a feast! What we could not hold the knapsack did, and not a crumb was wasted. We felt sorry for the ranchman who probably lost his stock of pastry on his way home, but our sorrow did not seriously affect our appetites. Distance on the wheel, 2,467 miles. CHAPTER XIII. AMONG THE MORMONS. Seven cents a mile is the passenger rate upon the Union Pacific Railroad west of Cheyenne. To one accustomed to the almost uniform rate of two cents a mile on Eastern roads this at first seems high, but there are many things that the Eastern roads do not have to contend with that are sources of great expense to the Union Pacific. Water, for instance, is a large item. Trains of low box cars filled with water are almost as common on this road as gravel trains on a newly constructed one. Every eight or ten miles are section-houses for the accommodation of trackmen, and each one of these places has to be furnished with a large cistern filled with water, and this water is often brought by these trains of water cars from a distance of a hundred miles or more. Then there must be water tanks for filling the engines at certain distances, and much of this water is also brought from distant rivers. Many persons pass over the thousand miles of this road and the cost of distributing the necessary amount of water along its line never enters their thoughts, but one who wheels over hundreds of miles of this waterless country, and goes with parched tongue, mouth, and throat for hours, fully realizes the absolute necessity of having water distributed along the line of the road at whatever cost. The wages of the employees, from the common laborer up, is considerably higher than in the East--one deserves more for living out in such a barren country--so that the more one learns of the cost of running the road the less he grumbles at the high passenger fare. But it may be asked what has a touring bicyclist to do with the railroad, and why should he feel less or more like grumbling? It is just here. We had ridden three or four days against a wind so strong that it would not allow riding much of the time even on level ground, and to keep up this discouragingly hard work for the sake simply of riding the whole distance, was not the object of the trip. We could already realize the hardships and privations of the early settlers who crossed these same plains years ago, fighting Indians the whole time. Of that part we, of course, knew nothing, but our experience was sufficient. I do not regret it, but it is like putting one's head under water the first time to feel that queer sensation. It is unnecessary, though, to keep the head under for an hour or two to fully realize the feeling, so we thought about the plains, and took a freight at Rawlins. There we found a wheelman, Mr. James Deitrick, chief train dispatcher on the Wyoming Division of the Union Pacific Railroad, whose kindness to us, especially in a pecuniary manner, will never be forgotten. We thought of him as the train slowly climbed the continental divide and went spinning down the other side, over the same monotonous stretch of sand and sage brush. A ride of seventy-five miles brought us to Green River at eleven o'clock at night. We knew nothing of the town, excepting that we wanted to find some other place to stay than at the $4 a day hotel, and were inquiring at a saloon (there were plenty of those open), when a little short man said: "Come over and stay with me. You are welcome to the best I have." This open-hearted fellow proved to be Frank H. Van Meer Beke, an older brother of the plucky young wheelman who started last March from New York for San Francisco via New Orleans and New Mexico. Frank was formerly a member of the Kings County Bicycle Club of Brooklyn, N. Y., and we were his welcome visitors for two days longer. If his brother Fred is anything like him he is a royal good fellow. Green River is a place of a few hundred inhabitants, without a shade tree or a patch of green grass in the whole town. During the day we took a swim in the cold waters of the river, the first stream we had seen that empties into the Pacific Ocean, and climbed some of the high rocks in the vicinity, and from their very summits we picked out the fossil remains of many a tiny little fish that had been imbedded there ages ago, when perhaps the only dry land on the face of the earth was in the Adirondacks, Canada, and in the western part of our own State of Connecticut. In the evening (Sunday evening, July 4th) stores were open, saloons in full blast, and fireworks, cannons, and bonfires added to the turmoil. They fired Roman candles into each other's faces without the slightest warning, and the back of my shirt shows the effect of one of the bolts that scorched the skin through the flannel. Monday our host took our machines to pieces and cleaned them thoroughly, for he was perfectly at home at that work, having had charge of a riding rink in Brooklyn, and Tuesday morning at 4 o'clock found us on our way to Evanston. We started early to avoid as much as possible the discouraging trade winds, and after crossing the river on the ties of the railroad bridge we climbed a long hill, and got a most extended view of just the same sand and sage brush. At noon, to get out of the terribly hot sun, we crawled down under a railroad bridge and ate our luncheon. We were beginning to learn to carry food along with us. But thirty miles of sand, railroad ties, and that blazing sun drove us into another freight train, and Wednesday morning we left Evanston and before noon were riding leisurely down Echo Cañon on our bicycles. I did not regret then that I was traveling on my wheel, for the roads were good and we stopped and enjoyed the grand scenery to our heart's content. A train went whizzing by, and I saw passengers quickly calling each other's attention to a particularly interesting place in the cañon. With them it was simply a glance, and they were gone; with us, an abundance of time to look as long as we liked. The finest view of the best part of the cañon is to be had, I think, only from the highway. Looking up the cañon, the rocks, four or five hundred feet high projecting out into it, have very much the appearance of the bows of so many immense ocean steamers lying side by side. These rocks are a conglomerated mixture of sand, gravel, stones, and rocks thrown together promiscuously and hardened by some process of nature into one solid mass of rock again. On the outside the whole body of rocks is colored red by some action of the atmosphere, I think, but underneath they show their natural color, that of light sandstone. Coming down the cañon we found an overall jacket lying in the road, pretty soon we came to the tailboard of a wagon, then a ball of tobacco twine, soon after a bottle (how our mouths watered) of varnish (then they did not). Then more twine and a bunch of ropes and a bag and then more twine. For five miles we could see the trail in the road where this twine had been dragged along, and whenever it happened to catch on a bush or stone the twine would be strung along for a quarter of a mile or so. A small feed box came next and finally a good horse collar. It still remains a mystery to whom all these things belonged, and the reader must conjecture for himself. We really enjoyed wondering what we should find next. Gophers seem to take the place of prairie dogs in the high altitudes. They are somewhat smaller, but have very much the same ways of living and are more tame. One of the little fellows stopped in front of his hole one day, within a few feet of me, sat up and ate some sage leaves, came up and sniffed at the bicycle, and, indeed, seemed very friendly. I really wanted to get hold of and squeeze him. Traveling alone so much has made me feel very friendly toward the lower animals. I have been as much inclined to stop and talk to a horse or a little pig as to a person, and many times I longed to have the different ones wait till I could get hold of and caress them. The farther I travel the more this feeling grows on me, but there is still one animal that I have not yet learned to love or to want to squeeze, and that is a rattlesnake. But I can see I am growing in grace in that respect also. Now, when I see a snake, I don't run and jump on it, as I used to at home. The defenseless condition of my legs may have had something to do with this change of heart, but really they are the only living things that have annoyed me, thus far. At Echo we found we were as near Salt Lake City as we should be at Ogden, forty miles further along on the line of the Union Pacific, so we started in a southerly direction over excellent roads, up the beautiful Weber Valley, and were soon eating supper at a comfortable farm-house, where everything was as homelike and pleasant as in any New England home. Desiring information, I said: "I wonder if any of those people in large canvas covered wagons we have been meeting are Mormons?" "O, yes," the farmer's wife replied quickly, "there are lots of them around here. They go out on fishing excursions this time of the year a great deal. What do you Eastern people think of the Mormons, anyway? Do you think we have horns?" You can imagine my surprise, but the farmer and his wife, too, joined in and talked so freely and pleasantly on the subject that I soon asked questions as freely as they answered them. "Yes," the farmer said, "I have been married twenty-three years and have never had more than the one wife. I may sometime take another, but I don't see my way clear to do so yet. A few Mormons around here have more than one wife, but the elections show that only one in eight throughout the whole territory are polygamists. The church does not oblige us to take more than one wife any more than it does to pay one-tenth of what we raise at tilling, and there are lots of Mormons who never do either, but if we do our whole duty we should do both. It is not enough for the Government to oblige us to give up wives we have loved and had children by, but now they are trying to pass a law to disfranchise us if we will not swear we will give up our religion. Juries are packed and we are convicted without justice. We never will give up our religion. We must submit for a while, but the time will come when we shall be delivered from our persecutors." This and much more was said, and it all gave me the impression that if only one-eighth of the Mormons were polygamists, the extent of the blot upon the good name of the country had been greatly over-estimated, for these people were really as kind and Christ-like as any I have met in my travels. But this was one side of the question. During the day we climbed over the Wasatch Mountains, and came down through Parley's Cañon into Salt Lake Valley. Although the sides of this cañon are not as precipitous as some, yet the rocks go boldly up into the air till their tops are covered with snow. The coasting down this cañon would have been very good, but the great number of team-wagons and Mormon camping parties made dismounts frequent and unpleasant. Just before reaching Salt Lake City, which lies to the northwest of the mouth of this cañon, we hid behind some bushes and took a most refreshing bath in one of the irrigating ditches, for the roads were very dusty all day. Riding into the city about six o'clock, we had passed up Main street but a little way when, by chance, we met the secretary of the bicycle club. Before we had reached the hotel another member came tearing up the street after us, and in less than fifteen minutes ten or twelve wheelmen came into the hotel to welcome us, all this, too, without a minute's warning from us, or without our knowing a single person in the city by name. A few days before starting, in the spring, I clipped from the L. A. W. Bulletin what few names of wheelmen I could find, and thus, in almost every city, I knew some wheelman by name; but here were only four or five League members and we knew no one, but that made no difference. They heard we were from the East and they were our friends, because we were wheelmen. Mr. A. C. Brixen, proprietor of the Valley House, where we stopped, is a wheelman, and so are several of his boarders, and although at Buffalo, Denver, and many other places I have been most cordially received, the Salt Lake City wheelmen outdid all other wheelmen in their spontaneous outburst of welcome. Shortly after supper, the sound of a brass band playing in front of the hotel, made me wonder, as I sat in my room trying to get cool: Could it be those enthusiastic fellows had gone so far as to give us a serenade? Just then the music stopped and a knock at the door convinced me. Surely they wanted me to come out and say something, I thought; but what could I say? I had never made a speech in my life, and the very idea of doing so made me blush there in the dark in my room. But I must go out and say something to the crowd, and do the best I could. So I did; I went out trembling. The music came from some theater band out in the street in an omnibus, and just then they drove on to the next hotel, to advertise simply themselves, not me. And the expected crowd of enthusiastic admirers consisted of two men and a boy, sitting under the trees with their feet cocked up, reading, unconcernedly. I did not tremble any more. The knocker was Mr. C. E. Johnson, who wanted us to take a ride about the city in the morning with him. We did, and of him I asked more questions. "Why yes, every member of the club is a Mormon. There is only one who has two wives, and since he was fined he has only lived with one. It amuses us to see Eastern tourists come here, as many of them do, and appear afraid to ask us questions. We are glad to answer all inquiries, and believe Eastern people would not be so prejudiced against us if they knew us better,"--and much more. The members of the club, in intelligence, personal habits, and gentlemanly conduct, will compare very favorably with any Eastern club, and they, from the first, showed such a liking for us, which we could not help but reciprocate, that I left them with more of a feeling of sadness than I have ever experienced in parting from new friends,--and for this reason: These young men who were so full of kindness to us believe in a religion that the government is totally opposed to, and which it is determined to suppress, that is, the polygamous part of it. In case of trouble, and I am afraid from what little I was able to find out in regard to the situation that there will be trouble; in that case these young wheelmen will stand up for their religion, a religion they as honestly believe in as any Eastern wheelmen do in theirs. Then I talked a few minutes with the editor of the Tribune. "The statement," said he, "that only one-eighth of Mormons are polygamists is misleading, certainly. The number of Mormons disqualified from voting for practicing polygamy may have been one-eighth of the whole population, but that includes every man, woman, and child, Gentiles and all. Now Gentiles and women and children are not polygamists; women and children cannot be in the very nature of the case. So that the number of Mormons, capable of being polygamists, that practice it to-day, is nearer one-half than one-eighth. As for juries being packed, the same course is being pursued here as in all courts. A man disbelieving in capital punishment cannot sit in a murder trial, for he would not convict on evidence; just so with a Mormon, he would not convict another Mormon of polygamy. The only persecution practiced is by United States deputies enforcing a United States law. The troops are quartered here in the city because there has been, and is still, need of them to preserve the peace." I feel that what I have learned of the trouble here is only superficial, for a two days' stop, with much of my time otherwise occupied, is not a sufficient time to look up the subject; but one thing seems certain, it will be a very long and a very hard struggle, but the conclusion is foregone. Polygamy must go. Yesterday afternoon we went bathing in Salt Lake; as far as the view is concerned, it is like bathing in the ocean, you cannot see across the lake. It is only three or four years since the people of the city have availed themselves of the benefits of their salt water to any great extent, but now, cheap excursions run out to the lake, twenty miles distant, and returning trains frequently bring back 2,000 passengers. Yes, it is genuine salt water bathing with a vengeance, for you can't swim in it. It is almost like trying to swim in thin mud, you can't get along any. The water is so heavy it is almost impossible to dive to any depth, and then you bob up out of the water feet first, just like a cork. It must be really dangerous to dive from any height. Sink! You can't sink if you try. You can walk clear across the lake and not go under; lie flat on your back with your hands under your head for a pillow, and one who has never been in any water, salt or fresh, could lie there all day without any trouble. Turn over and throw your arms out like a spread eagle, and it is just the same, or sit straight up, tailor fashion, and still you are high above the water; that is, high enough not to feel any nervousness about getting strangled. I never experienced such a pleasant sensation and never enjoyed bathing more, unless it was high surf bathing, and here that is impossible, for no wind, however strong, could raise very high waves on this genuinely heavy sea. The water was full of men, women, and children, all floating around, none swimming, some sitting bolt upright, others lying around in any position that was agreeable, and all unconcerned as to whether there was three or thirty feet of water under them. I went out upon the beach to sit in the sun, to dry off, but soon looked like a miller; hair, neck, face, and hands, were covered with salt, and a bath with fresh water was of course necessary. This water in your mouth or up your nose is very disagreeable; in your eyes, painful; and to be strangled with it, simply terrible. Eyesight has been permanently injured by people opening their eyes under this water. I am told that it contains nearly three times as much salt as ordinary salt water, and the numerous streams of fresh water which empty into it, have no effect on its saline strength. Without any visible outlet, the only change noticeable is a slight rise in the water level. Of course we had to visit the Tabernacle, which comfortably seats over ten thousand people, and when we were told the great organ was brought across the plains on ox-teams, over the same route we had just passed, a chord of sympathy seemed to vibrate between the organ and us. The Temple, which was commenced in 1853, and is to be finished in seven years, making the allotted forty years that must be consumed in its construction, is still nothing but four bare walls, nine feet thick and 100 feet high. Distance traveled with the wheel, 2,625 miles. CHAPTER XIV. AT THE BIG TREES. With a full moon we had planned to travel most of the way across the alkali and sandy deserts of Nevada at night, and were on the point of leaving Salt Lake City to do so when the Grand Army of the Republic excursion tickets were issued, enabling anyone to go from there to San Francisco, up to Portland, Oregon, by water and return to Salt Lake via the Oregon Short Line. Returning by this route would take us within easy wheeling distance of Yellowstone Park, and with that inducement, in addition to being taken across Nevada and over the Sierra Nevada Mountains at half rates, we were not long in deciding to take the cars. But now the first financial difficulty stared us in the face. I had no trouble in Denver in getting identified, but, as I said, we knew no one and no one knew us in Salt Lake City. Letters, league ticket, and other papers were presented at the bank, but nothing would prevail on the officials to give us a penny. The only thing to do was to telegraph home, and that would probably delay us several days, and, with that discouraging alternative in view, we told our story to Mr. F. G. Brooks, a member of the bicycle club. "Wait till I see what father says," said he, and he carried the worthless New York drafts back to the desk. The elder F. G. Brooks hesitated a moment, and then wrote his name across the back of those drafts, and we went to the bank and received $150 in gold. And the old gentleman that did that kind act was a Mormon, through and through. Surely I had reason to like the Mormons, in every respect but their religion. Thus far, in traveling twenty-six hundred miles or more over clay ruts and mountain roads, I had taken only two tumbles, and was beginning to think there was no such thing as headers when, in gliding serenely across the street, in front of the Utah Central Depot at Salt Lake City, I rode into a ditch, concealed with fine sand, and instantly--that word makes the time altogether too long--my nose and chin were scraping along on the hard gravel. I never took such a tumble. It was like a flash. And the knapsack, as usual, unkindly butted me on the back of the head as the ground suddenly brought the trip to a close. With the blood starting from both nose and chin, and a loosened handle bar, that at first sent a cold chill all through me with the impression that it was broken, and with a knee so badly sprained that I could only limp into the cars, these things, altogether, served to remind me that carelessness and 'cycling are incompatible. On the way to Ogden we saw several headers at work on the wheat fields, and these served to awaken me from the dazed condition in which the only kind of a header I had ever known had put me. The field headers are mowing machines that go along in front of the horses instead of behind them, as is usual with mowing machines in the East, and as it cuts the wheat down--it simply cuts off the tops or heads of the wheat, hence the name header--the wheat falls on to a long cloth roller that revolves at right angles to the direction the machine is going. A large box wagon is driven along at the left of the header and the wheat is carried up on this cloth roller and loaded into this wagon. When full another takes its place while the first wagon is being unloaded at the stack. The Wasatch Mountains, a range that extends from below Salt Lake City to many miles above Ogden, are not dwarfed, as is the case with so many other ranges of mountains, by foot hills at their base, but they stand out bold and black, excepting where covered with snow, and are the most impressive of any mountains I have yet seen. At Ogden, through passengers are delayed two hours between the arrival of the Union Pacific and the departure of the Central Pacific trains. Half of this time is a needless delay, for the mail, baggage and express matter was all transferred long before the train left, but this is only a sample of the manner in which both roads are run. The question of fast time is never considered in their operation. A through Eastern fruit train now makes decidedly better time than the regular passenger trains; and freight trains, as a rule, run faster between stations than passenger trains. The time tables seem to be made with the sole object of helping delayed trains get through on time, no matter how slow that time is. One train we were on was an hour and a half late at midnight, but on time before 5 o'clock the next morning, and we did not run so fast but that passengers could sleep as usual. There is talk of a new fast train being put on between Omaha and San Francisco that will shorten the time perhaps a day, but in the East even that train would not be considered anything very fast. Then the Central Pacific trains are not only run slow but sure, sure that everything is all right before they start. A brakeman comes through from the front end of the train and calls for every one's ticket, looks at the ticket and hands it back. Pretty soon a man in uniform, a little higher up than the brakeman, but not so high as the conductor, comes along through the train from the rear end, examines carefully all the tickets, reads all the printed matter on them, punches them, and hands them back, after perhaps taking a passenger out of the cars to verify his statement in regard to an extra hole in his ticket made by some other official. Then after the tickets have been examined from the front to the rear, and scrutinized and punched from the rear end to the front end of the train, even before the train had started, to make the thing more binding the conductor himself comes through, punches all the tickets, and gives each passenger a plain piece of colored pasteboard without so much as a table of distances printed on it, a convenience many times to passengers, and which is so rotten that it breaks and falls to pieces at the least touch. Let a passenger accidentally destroy one of these valuable pieces of plain rotten pasteboard during his rolling and tumbling in his seat at night and he is looked upon by the conductor as a criminal for wantonly destroying so much valuable property, and financially crippling the railroad company in consequence, and these priceless pieces of paper are carefully gathered up at the end of each division of the road by the economical conductors, who, at night, shake and arouse every passenger who has so much of this valuable property of the company's concealed about his person. Most of the postal, express, and baggage cars used here are now built without doors at the ends. Perhaps the numerous train robberies have caused this innovation. Once during that Saturday night, after leaving Ogden, I looked out of the car window and in the moonlight saw a perfectly level sea of alkali without so much as a sage bush growing upon it, and then I went to sleep again more contented than ever with the way I was crossing this part of the continent. At one of the stations were some horned toads for sale, the first I had seen, and as I asked a passenger standing near what kind of animals they were, "I think," said he, honestly enough, "they are what they call prairie dogs." All day Sunday it was sand, sage-bush, and a sun so hot that it would almost blister, and the same kind of a country we had already seen so much of east of Ogden. So I occupied myself most of the time writing. During the day at the different stations situated along the sandy desert the thermometer registered 102° and 104°, and yet I was not uncomfortably warm. The air would blow in at the windows as if it came direct from some furnace, and yet it was so very dry that it would not start the perspiration. Until I reached California there were only three days that were oppressively hot since the commencement of the trip, and those were in the fore part of July while crossing Iowa. In Colorado and over the plains the atmosphere was so very dry that even with the thermometer up to ninety, as it was in Iowa, one could exercise without feeling the heat nearly as much. At Truckee we left the train at 12 o'clock at night, and as we wanted to be off early the next morning for Lake Tahoe, fifteen miles up the Truckee River, we decided not to go to bed. There were several bales of hay on the freight house platform, and one had burst open. Into that hay we crawled and slept till daylight, keeping comfortably warm till nearly morning, but I had to go behind the freight house and remove my clothes in order to shake out the innumerable spires of hay that pricked me from head to foot. We got started soon after four, and the road was decidedly better than I had reason to think it would be, and the grade was easy, but the dust rather uncomfortable. But that is to be expected in a country that has so little rain in so many months, and where the roads are used as much as this one is the fine dust gets very deep. Going up, a couple of young deer remained in the road till I was nearly upon them, and even when I dismounted they didn't run, but stayed within six or eight feet of where I stood. They appeared so tame I wanted to get my hands upon them and stroke their hair, but Hasley, coming up, drew his revolver, and I hallooed "Don't shoot; they're tame." The sound of a human voice sent them up the hillside like a streak, and I saw it was the glistening nickel that fascinated them. The waters of Lake Tahoe are very clear, and it never freezes over, as I was told, although the weather is sufficiently cold; but really I do not see what makes the place so celebrated. It is a beautiful lake, thirty miles long, surrounded by wooded hills, but place it in New England and it would hardly be noticed among the many there fully as beautiful. The clearness of the water is remarkable, but no more so than the water of any lake situated high up in the mountains, where there is nothing but the pure white snow to furnish a water supply, and where there is no loam, mud, or vegetable matter to discolor it. There are no other attractions, unless it be the Hot Springs, and as we did not go over there, five miles away, of course I cannot form an opinion of that place. A steamer goes around the lake once a day, carrying mail and merchandise. We rowed and fished some, that is pulled out the same fish, the minnows, that we threw in, but the rest, lying on the pebbly beach, with the sound of the swash of the waves in my ears, was enjoyed the most of any part of the day. And perhaps that is the very reason why the lake is so noted. People from the East come to it after days of travel over the sandy plains and alkali deserts of Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada, and the change from the hot, dusty ride to the clear, cold waters of the lake in the mountains, is so delightful that the lake gets its full share, and more too, of the credit for the pleasure in the change. Both going up and coming down I must have passed hundreds of snake tracks in the road, some of them two or three inches wide. What size the snakes must have been to make such tracks I could only imagine; but the woods were surely full of snakes. Taking the train again at midnight, I was soon asleep, but something awoke me just as we were rounding Cape Horn. The brakeman, the night before, told me it would be seven o'clock before we should pass that point of interest, so I went to sleep unconcerned about waking in time, but something startled me as a call in the morning would, and I rushed out upon the platform, rubbing my eyes open, just as we were passing around the side of the mountain. It was barely light, but the sight of two huge locomotives followed by a train of twelve cars rushing around near the edge of a precipice four or five hundred feet high will not soon be forgotten, and the manner in which the railroad twists and turns around the sides of the mountains down into Colfax is worth getting up pretty early to see. As far as the eye can see from this point down into the Sacramento valley, California is of one hue--straw-color. The ripe wheat is, of course, that color, but the common grass has dried up and changed to the same, whereas on the plains the dried grass is of nearly the same color as the soil. The morning was not clear, so the view was not very extended; but we were soon looking at objects that were of more practical value to hungry wheelmen than the prevailing color of the country. We had the best "two-bit" meal at Sacramento we had found in many a week. The dome of the capitol, which from a distance resembles the dome at Washington, naturally draws sightseers to visit the capitol building, but the edifice looks old and out of fashion compared with many other State structures. Above the first story, which is of granite, it is built of brick plastered over and painted. The senate chamber and house of representatives are furnished simply with cushioned and cane-seated chairs, standing around promiscuously; no desks for any one excepting clerks and presiding officers. The ascent to the lantern above the dome is by winding stairs that twist about a wooden pole in the center of the upper part of the dome, and it seemed as if the whole building shook as we went up and down these stairs. Salt Lake is a city laid out with very large blocks and built up of very small houses, and Sacramento is a city of verandas. All the sidewalks in the business portion of the city are covered and the verandas are often two stories high. These add greatly to the comfort of pedestrians, and we could fully appreciate them with the thermometer at a hundred and over. Still, notwithstanding this intense, dry heat, we started out in the middle of the afternoon and made thirty-two miles before dark over roads that were certainly excellent. The fine sand which covers the surface of the whole valley, during the rainy season packs down very hard and the wind keeps the surface of the roads in many places free of dust, so that they are as hard and smooth as concrete. That evening we went out into the farmer's garden and ate all the fresh figs we wished. These figs are about the same shape and a little smaller than Bartlett pears and the skin is almost black. They are pink inside and have a sweetish taste that becomes fascinating. The figs we have in the East must be of another variety, for the black skin cannot be removed before drying. The next morning we passed some century plants growing by the roadside in front of a farm-house. The roads were good for twenty miles farther, but then we began to get up into the foot hills and naturally the riding was not so good; but still after waiting three hours or more in the shade at noon we made nearly fifty miles more during the day towards the Big Trees. That evening, after asking in vain for shelter for the night at two or three places, we laid down under a tree, feeling too tired to care much where we stayed. There was no particular hardship about sleeping on the ground, for the night was warm and the ground dry, and there was no dew. I was asleep in no time, but not for long. The ants had pre-empted that section long before and were soon active in finding out who was trying to jump their claim. I did not mind their crawling up my pant legs or down the back of my shirt, or through my hair, or across my face, for I could go to sleep with a whole army walking all over me, but when an ant suddenly took it into his head to bite it served to unpleasantly disturb my dreams. After wasting a good part of the night in changing lodgings, I finally slept soundly whether the ants did or not. The next day, after riding and walking about equal distances for thirty miles, we reached the Calaveras Big Trees, a little less than one hundred and ten miles and two days' journey from Sacramento. The heat, 102° in the shade, was so intense that the cement softened under the tire so much that it could easily be removed, and the three or four inches of hot, fine dust was very hard on the feet; but after a cold bath and half an hour's rest the verdict was that it paid. Although there are woods all over the mountains, and trees over a hundred feet high in many places, yet the grove proper comprises but about twenty-five or thirty acres. I must say that trying to describe the trees themselves is beyond my power. I can only tell what I did. There are smooth drives through the groves, so I rode. Most of the trees are standing, but there was one that had fallen. The inside is hollow, and about fifty feet from the base is an immense hole in the side. Into this hole with my bicycle I went, and rode through the inside of the tree for nearly two hundred feet, emerging through another hole into the daylight again. There is a knothole near this point large enough to allow a man of giant frame to enter or crawl out of. The inside of the tree was covered with charcoal, and it was quite dark in there, so I felt my way along as I rode, getting my hands black, but I washed some of it off at a pool of water that fills the inside of the tree at one point. The basin of water is two or three feet above the level of the ground, and where the water comes from and what forces it up out of the ground into the hollow of this fallen tree is a mystery. There is no rain here for months, and evaporation in this dry air must tend to exhaust the supply wherever it comes from, and yet the pool always remains at the same level. This tree, "The Father of the Forest," is one hundred and twelve feet in circumference at the base, and, judging from what remains of it, four hundred and fifty feet was its height when standing. I have no doubt a sixty-inch wheel could be ridden through where I went. A driveway, or rather a tunnel, has been cut through another standing tree, and the stage drives through there frequently. I found plenty of room above and on either side in 'cycling through it. Imagine four wheelmen abreast riding through such a place. A pavilion has been built over the stump of another tree that was cut down several years ago, and I rode around and cut figure eights on the smooth floor of this stump. The diameter of this tree, at the base, is thirty-two feet, but it was cut off about five feet from the ground, and is twenty-five feet in diameter across the top. Five men worked a month, boring auger holes into it, and when it was completely cut across it would not fall, and so ropes and pulleys had to be used to pull it over. When it fell it shook the ground for miles around, like an earthquake. Thirty-two dancers are easily accommodated on the stump. There are about ninety trees of similar dimensions in the grove, and they bear the names of generals, statesmen, noted women, and others. These trees all show the effects of fire, but younger trees growing by their side, that are certainly from one to two hundred years old, have not the slightest marks of the flames upon them. The date of this ancient fire that burnt the inside out and killed so many of the trees is beyond conjecture, but the age of these giant sequoias must be reckoned up among the thousands. A description of these other trees might be given, but it would simply be a repetition of wonders. Seeing so many trees all the way up from Murphy's that, to me, seemed prodigious, when I first reached here the grove did not impress me, but every time I look at them now they appear larger. As in looking from the rear end of a moving train, as soon as the train stops the ties, rails, and everything begin to enlarge in size, apparently, so with these trees, a couple of days of rest has given me a much better idea of their immensity than could be had at first sight. Distance on the wheel, 2,768 miles. CHAPTER XV. IN THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. From the Calaveras Big Trees to the Yosemite is one hundred and eight miles, and it took me three days to make the journey. The wheelman, Mr. J. A. Hasley, whom I met the day I reached Denver, who made a good companion on the trip to Pike's Peak and across the plains to Salt Lake City, and who bore the blazing hot sun of California as far as the Trees, there decided not to continue the trip farther. For several days it was evident he was beginning to lose interest in sight-seeing, after a month's constant application to it, and when he had the misfortune to lose his purse with something over twenty dollars in it, he decided to get to San Francisco by the quickest and cheapest route, which was by the Stockton boat, an opposition line of steamers taking passengers for ten cents, a distance of one hundred miles. So now I am alone again. The first of the three days' journey was used up in coasting most of the fifteen miles down to Murphy's, over the same road we had worked so hard in getting up to the Big Trees, and then getting a few miles in a southerly direction beyond the Stanislaus River. During the afternoon, while riding along on the side of a high hill, I passed a sign, which read "500 yards to the Natural Bridge, the world's greatest wonder, and don't you forget that." Believing it to be a fraud of some kind, I left the machine and walked down a steep narrow path to the bottom of a ravine, perhaps 500 feet below the level of the road. Here were two men clearing out the entrance to a cave from which ran a good-sized stream of water. The surroundings looked as if a land-slide had once choked up the ravine, but that the stream of water had finally worked its way through underneath the mass of rocks and earth, and had formed a tunnel perhaps four hundred feet long and twenty or thirty feet high. Water was constantly dripping from the roof of the tunnel, forming stalactites of various sizes and shapes. To more fully impress me with the importance of his discovery, the old bachelor who owned the place, stated that it had taken forty-two millions of years to bring the place into its present form and shape. Whether it had or not, I felt well paid for visiting a place of which I knew nothing until I saw the sign. The Stanislaus and the Tuolumne Rivers flow down from the Sierras in a westerly direction, and in going southerly from the Big Trees to the Yosemite, one must naturally cross them. The crossing is easy enough; there is no trouble about that. It is getting down to them that causes the trouble, and getting up away from them again. The profile of the route I took resembled an immense letter W. It is a thousand feet down to the Stanislaus River, and twelve hundred or more down to the Tuolumne, and the two rivers are but a few miles apart. The zigzag road down to the rivers is too steep and dangerous to coast, and once down, walking is the only way up again. When I came to the Tuolumne River, I believe I could have thrown a stone down to the suspension bridge, a thousand feet or more below, and yet it took four miles of walking to get down to it, and after climbing up five miles farther, I could look across the valley about a mile and see where I had been three or four hours before. I would not believe it till I looked, but the thermometer was 105° down at the bridge. Notwithstanding all this there was something about such mountain scenery, combined with the roar of the river so far below, that compensated for the heat and fatigue. Probably half the entire distance between the Trees and the Valley had to be traveled afoot on the hot road, but there is another grand view of the Tuolumne River, and a small grove of big trees to vary the monotony of the last twenty miles of hill climbing. When we left Sacramento, it was with the vague impression that it was somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred and fifty miles to the Yosemite, but the first day out the distance was reduced to below two hundred by some one of whom we made inquiries. We were entirely ignorant of the nearest route, but by making frequent inquiries we kept on, generally in the right direction. The second day the entire distance was further reduced to one hundred and twenty-five miles, then the distance from the Trees to the Valley was put at twenty-five miles by some one who knew it all, but such good news was not lasting, for the very next man who had "traveled over that section," said it was one hundred and seventy-five miles between the two places. And so it was throughout the entire trip: First, we were almost there, then at night, perhaps fifty miles farther away than in the morning. Finally, after six days of hard work, with one object, the Yosemite constantly in view, the answer to an inquiry came back, "eight miles down to the hotel," and in less than a mile, while rounding a bend in the road, the grandest sight I have lived to see, suddenly burst upon me. It was sudden, because I supposed it would be five miles farther before I should see anything but fine trees and bushes, and grand beyond description. I forgot my aching feet and tired legs, and walked along almost unconscious of them, down the zigzag road into the valley, which runs up in a northeasterly direction, the road entering it at the lower end. The word valley hardly describes it, for the sides are perpendicular and almost a mile high, and this immense chasm is ten miles long and hardly a mile wide. The roar of the Merced River, so many thousand feet almost perpendicularly below, is heard even before one gets a glimpse of the river itself or even the valley, and my first thought was, is there any bottom to this chasm. On the opposite side of the valley I recognized Bridal Veil Fall from the many views I had seen of it, and a little farther down the road, which runs dangerously near the edge of precipices four and five hundred feet high, El Capitan came suddenly into sight, the most prominent object to be seen in the whole valley from that point of view. It was quite dark when I reached the hotel, which is half way up the valley, and the next morning my feet were too tired to think of much hill climbing, so I walked up the valley about a mile where it seems to separate into two branches, and taking the right hand one, climbed up a rocky trail to the Vernal Falls. Here the Merced, a comparatively small stream, falls straight down three hundred and fifty feet, sending mist and spray up the sides of the rocks in all directions, making a roar that can be heard long before one gets in sight of the falls. "You can't follow that trail up by the falls; we got wet through trying it," said a couple of tourists whom I met just below the falls, and they started off on another trail two miles farther around. But I took the shorter route, up over slippery shelving rocks that would let one slide quickly down into the pool where the waters came thundering down from a height of perhaps thirty feet, and before I got through the shower of mist and spray, up to the ladders that lead to the top of the falls, I was wet through, too. Lying on the rocks, the warm sun soon dried my clothes, and after a good meal at Snow's, a small hotel situated midway between the Vernal and Nevada Falls, I climbed up to the top of the Nevada Falls. Here the water comes rushing down over high rocks, goes through a narrow gorge under the bridge with a roar, and plunges over the cliff. Down a short distance, the water strikes a projecting rock, and the whole river is sent out with a twist into the air, one mass of white foam that spreads out into hundreds of little white rockets that never explode, but fade away into thin spray. Down farther, another projecting rock tears the water to pieces again and sends it shooting out into the air, till, when it reaches the bottom and has fallen a distance of fully seven hundred feet, there is scarcely anything left of the water but foam. All the afternoon I lay on the flat rock at the top of the falls, and after sleeping and writing by turns, and resting all the time, I became so accustomed to the roar that I hardly realized that the water was rushing by me and falling almost directly down seven hundred feet to the rocks below. The Cap of Liberty is a very appropriate name for a mass of granite that rises up over half a mile within a few rods of the top of the falls. The next morning, after a good night's rest at Snow's, where the roar of the falls makes a soothing sound, I started up the trail for Clouds Rest. "O you can't miss your way. Just follow the trail," is what everybody says, landlords, guides, ranchmen, and everybody of whom the question is asked: "Is there any trouble in finding the way?" This was the case in Colorado and it is so here, and one starts off on such trips with the impression that he has simply to follow his nose and he will get there. But it is the easiest thing in the world for a tenderfoot, like myself, to miss the way. I had gone nearly three miles up the only fresh trail there was to follow, when coming to a log hut I asked how far it was to Clouds Rest. "This is not the way. You missed the trail back there a mile and a half," and so I turned back and hunted for an hour, climbed over boulders, small rocky ridges and fallen trees, tore one knee out of my trousers, ripped open my stockings, and was on the point of going back and giving up the whole trip, when I found what was the trail; but a heavy rain had completely obliterated the foot prints three days before and the trail itself was washed out of existence in many places. But up I started and walked in the direction of the peak for an hour or two, when the trail seemed to lead away from the object of my trip, and so I started straight up the side of the mountain, crawling up over rocks on my hands and knees, sometimes slipping back, but always struggling on, till I finally reached the top. Then how thankful I was that I had not turned back. The top of the peak is, perhaps, twenty by thirty feet in area, and is ten thousand feet above the sea. That is not very high compared with some mountain peaks, but it is six thousand feet above the valley, and as I write these words I can look down, almost straight down, eight hundred feet more than a mile. Think of sitting in the front row of the gallery and looking down into the parquet six thousand feet below. I am sitting in such a place now, only there is no railing or protection in front. The sight is enough to make one almost lose his senses. I had been on top but a few minutes when there was a rumbling sound like thunder not very far off, and I began to wish myself somewhere else. Whether it was a rock falling or simply the reverberation of a gun I don't know, but it made me feel very uncomfortable for a while. The peak is the highest of any in sight for many miles, and one can look down into the whole length of the Yosemite Valley as he would into a deep trench. The river, looking white and slender down there so far, is roaring on its downward course, but I can't hear it. The heavy pine trees from one to two hundred feet high down there in the valley, look like standing evergreens in a meadow. El Capitan, the Half Dome, the Cap of Liberty, the North Dome, and all the other immense peaks that rise up three or four thousand feet above the valley, I can look down on as a tall man upon a crowd of boys. A swallow rushed by me with the whiz of a bullet, making my heart beat with excitement for the moment, and then I began to think how nice it would be to fly down to some of the peaks below; but when a person begins to think of flying in such a place it is dangerous business. He might suddenly take it into his head to try it. The peaks to the east are all covered with snow, and the whole country for miles in every direction has a very light colored appearance, the granite of which it is all composed giving it that look. The mass of rocks that are entirely bare, free from all kinds of vegetation, is fully one-half of the entire area of the country within view. Straight across the valley, and only a little lower down, is a mass of granite, smooth as a floor, containing hundreds of acres, with scarcely a tree or shrub on it. It is less than a mile away, and yet what an awful chasm between us, a chasm deeper than it is wide. The distant views from Pike's Peak are more extended, but there are no such perpendicular heights as are here seen on all sides. I cannot give any good reason for feeling so, but it takes all the courage I have to stay here and eat my luncheon and write what little I have written. Sitting in the middle of this small area the only objects seen over the edge are from five to six thousand feet below, and it is only by going near the edge, which I don't like to do, that I can see the immense granite mountain that supports this small, flat surface, and the sight of that reassures me. But I can't endure it any longer. It is not pleasant up here alone. I feel all the time as if I was just on the point of losing control of myself. I keep thinking what if I should jump off, how would it feel going down a mile or more through the air. People who talk contemptuously of what is called altitude sickness can never have experienced it. After an hour's unpleasant stay on top I got back to Nevada Falls all right and then took the new trail around to Glacier Point, where, after twenty-five miles of climbing during the day, I was ready to rest for the night. The next morning I went out to the point, or, that is, within ten feet or so of the edge. Glacier Point is nearly opposite Yosemite Falls, and a magnificent view of the valley, including both its branches, is to be had from this place, although it is nearly three thousand feet lower than Clouds Rest. The rock projects out over the edge of the cliff, and an iron railing has been placed there. They say, I don't know anything about it, myself, for I did not go out to this railing, but they say you can look down under yourself thirty-two hundred feet into the valley below. The feeling was sufficiently unpleasant the first time I went up the winding stairs on the inside of the dome of the capitol at Hartford, but here the height is over twelve times as great, and I did not care to try it, but some do go out there and have their pictures taken. Down the trail to Barnard's again, and up the opposite side of the valley to the foot of the Upper Yosemite Falls. Here a small stream plunges over the edge of the rocks and falls directly down over sixteen hundred feet, ten times as high as Niagara; before the water reaches the bottom the wind has reduced it to little less than spray, and just before I got to the foot of the cliff the wind suddenly changed and I was drenched to my skin before I could get away. These falls produce a peculiar sound down in the valley that is not heard at all near them. It is that of falling rocks or suppressed thunder, caused probably by the water being blown against the face of the precipice. Whether it was the small volume of water compared with the Nevada Falls, or having my ardor so suddenly dampened by the shower bath, but the Yosemite Falls did not impress me as the other falls I had seen did. On the way back, a gentleman just ahead of me suddenly came upon a rattlesnake a yard long, and the man jumped into the air, and ran back like a deer, but his courage returning he struck the snake a well-directed blow with a stone, and now has the four rattles in his pocket as a trophy. On the way out of the valley, in the afternoon, I stopped at the Bridal Veil Falls, which are nine hundred feet high. Here I met a lady painting near the falls. Two days before that I first saw her at the Nevada Falls, where, before night, she had put upon canvas a most striking picture of the falls. Now she was doing the same here, and we sat upon the rocks at the foot of the falls and had a most delightful talk, for nearly an hour, on the advantages we had (she traveled horseback) over common tourists who depend upon cars and stages. Like the Yosemite, these falls reach the bottom all blown to spray, and I began to perceive that after three days of this tremendous sight-seeing such common heights as one or two thousand feet were passed by unnoticed, and it took some such prominent figure as El Capitan to awaken any special interest. This solid, smooth, perpendicular piece of granite juts out boldly into the valley over three thousand feet high, and it easily holds first place in point of interest at the south end of the valley, as the Half Dome does at the north end. The Half Dome rises above the valley four thousand eight hundred feet, and as its name indicates, one-half of the upper portion is rounded and smooth like any dome, but it is split in half; the other side being vertical from the top down for one thousand five hundred feet, and the lower portion descending nearly perpendicularly. And as I climb up out of the valley, over the Big Oak Flat route, and take a last look at the gigantic object below, I try to form some idea how this valley, different from any other in the world, could have been formed. But all attempted theorizing upon this stupendous subject proves unsatisfactory, and I am more than willing to leave the problem for some other fellow to solve. Distance traveled on the wheel, 2,874 miles. CHAPTER XVI. ON THE SHORES OF THE PACIFIC. To get out of the Yosemite Valley required nearly ten miles of hill climbing, or rather walking, for there is no such thing as riding up even an ordinary hill with three or four inches of fine dust and numberless loose stones in the road. But once at the summit there were thirty miles of coasting, such as it was. Long before, in going into the valley, I had been obliged to take off the spring under the brake, for it required every ounce of strength I had to control the machine in coasting down some of those long hills without wasting any of my strength in pressing down a stiff spring. The roads were very rough, full of roots and stones, and so steep many times that it needed the full strength of the brake to keep the machine slowed down to a safe speed, but even then sometimes an unseen root or stone would throw me forward on to my feet, and the head of the machine would strike me on the lower part of the backbone till the flesh was black and blue. So in order to keep on the bicycle for any distance, I had to actually lie down on the saddle, keeping as far back on it as possible and reach the handles. In this position, with my legs sprawling out in front and the knapsack rubbing on the backbone of the machine, I rode for miles and miles, often bounding into the air, so that daylight might have been seen between myself and the saddle. It was neither a graceful nor a comfortable position, but it was the only way I could get along without walking, and to do that after walking up these same hills in a broiling sun would have been too bad. Some of the hills were too steep and crooked for coasting even, but most of them I rode down without mishap. The next day after I left the valley, just before dark, while riding over a smooth, level strip of road, the felloe on the little wheel broke. The butt end of an eight-penny nail was sticking through the tire just at the point of fracture, but whether that was the cause of the breakage or not I cannot say. But this I did know, the machine was apparently useless,--forty-five miles from any railroad, and how many miles from a blacksmith's shop I had not an idea. But with the use of a piece of hoop iron and some wire that I brought all the way from Indiana, where the old rubber tire had made the only previous trouble with the machine, I bound up the felloe and it carried me thirty miles, till the next noon, when a blacksmith riveted a piece on, and made the wheel strong again. The one hundred and sixty-two miles from the Yosemite back to Sacramento were made in three days. On the way I dropped the machine and ran a quarter of a mile across a wheat field to see a header and thresher at work. It was drawn by eighteen mules, working six abreast, and cut a swarth nearly if not quite ten feet wide. The tops of the wheat as they fell were carried up on a cloth roller into the threshing part of the machine which worked as the machine was drawn along. Four or five men rode upon the machine, doing various work, but the result of the whole was, the wheat was cut, threshed, run into bags, and the bags tied up and thrown off, as the whole establishment went along on two immense wheels. Any farmer can judge of the great number of acres of wheat such a machine will harvest in a day. Irrigation is carried on quite extensively here, but the source of a great part of the water supply is ordinary or bored wells. Some farms have twenty-five or thirty wells, and at each well is a wind-mill. The wind blows almost invariably from the west, every afternoon, and the number of revolving wind-mills seen over the level plains of the Sacramento Valley is astonishing. They are as thick as the chimneys in a city, and when they are all in motion, hundreds of them in all directions, the sight is quite novel to an Easterner. An ordinary good supply of water is had at a depth of less than twenty feet, but let the well be carried down fifty or sixty feet and a source of water is found that is inexhaustible, the size of the bore or the quantity pumped up not having the slightest effect upon the clearness or the supply of the water. The dust, which to Californians must almost get to be a part of their living before the season is over, is a source of great annoyance to a wheelman who has much walking to do. The roughly worn rubber tire raises a constant cloud and the taste and smell is very offensive, but there are counter odors that are really very pleasant. The dried "life-everlasting," that is very common among the foot hills, gives off a most delicious perfume, and there is constantly being wafted by the winds to our nostrils another scent so sweet as to be almost sickening. What the source of this perfume is I could not ascertain, for there was no shrub or bush in blossom to give off such fragrance, but a farmer told me it was the leaves of the laurel, a bush that is very common in the mountains. Crush these leaves and the smell is far from sweet; but diluted by the air it may, perhaps, be different. At any rate there is something in the hills and mountains of California that constantly throws off a perfume that is most pleasant to one breathing so much unpleasantly scented dust. From the plains, as soon as the feed dries up in the summer, the cattle are driven up into the mountains, where vegetation is much fresher, and there they remain till fall. After making the journey once or twice the cattle start off of their own accord for the mountains when the feed gets scarce on the plains. This has the effect to diminish the milk supply among the farmers, as I found out to my sorrow, for many was the large farm-house at which I asked in vain for a bowl of milk. Californians delight as much as do the Mormons in camping out. It is the custom, after the harvest is over, for the farmer to lock up his house, take his whole family up into the mountains and stay for weeks. Many times a day I met these parties going or coming; and taking an early start some mornings I passed men and women lying on the ground under their wagons wrapped up in blankets, sound asleep, the silent running machine not disturbing them in their slumbers. In fact everywhere, at the Big Trees, in the Yosemite, and by the roadside, along the route, everybody seems to be living out under the sky. It must be a delightful life, for the ground is warm; there is no dew, and by the side of a nice, clear, cool brook, where the fishing and hunting is good, the enjoyment must be great. I really wanted to stop with many a party I saw thus situated. My appearance in Sacramento after a twelve days' trip of three hundred and eighty miles in the Lower Sierras was, to put it mildly, peculiar, and the attention I attracted from every one was rather disconcerting to a modest man. My shoes had become so worn and torn, that the different pieces of canvas had to be tied together with strings in order to keep them on my feet. My stockings were little better than leggings--feet all gone--and what there was left of the uppers was very holey, in sharp contrast with the almost sole-less condition of my shoes. And the trousers,--well, not to mention one knee torn out and the other sewed up in a bunch, the part most intimately acquainted with the saddle would make a very good crazy-quilt pattern. A piece of black silk taken from an old skull cap, a portion of a pair of overalls, and a part of a pair of merino stockings were all sewed into the inside of the trousers to strengthen them, and as the different pieces wore through it left a garment of many colors, and I felt constrained to face every one. Had I brought the heavy corduroy buckskin-seated trousers, instead of leaving them at Denver, on account of their weight, I should not have been thus left at the last of the journey in such a deplorable condition, but a traveling wheelman who does his own tailoring whenever occasion suddenly requires, behind a stone wall or clump of bushes, or after he was disrobed at night, cannot stop to do a very nice piece of work even if he could. It is needless to say that my first business on reaching civilization, was in a clothing and shoe store. I had ridden from Milton that day, a distance of sixty-seven miles, and although I had eaten two hearty meals during the ride (and a hearty meal for a hungry wheelman means a good deal), yet at five o'clock, when I reached the hotel, I was half starved. At this hotel, the instant you are seated at the table a waiter on one side of you reels off: "Beef-steak, pork-steak, mutton-chop, fried tripe, corned-beef, pork and beans, fried liver and onions, bacon, and potpie," with a rapidity that classes him as a gastronomic; and another waiter on the other side, the instant you have given your order says, "tea or coffee?" so quickly that you really believe he is about to pour from the large steaming pots which he holds in his hands, both the tea and coffee all over you if you did not respond instanter. Before the square chunks of sugar have had a chance to dissolve in the coffee, the first waiter has returned, not only with what you have ordered, but with lots of other stuff, and as there is not room enough on the table for all the various dishes, he piles them up in a semi-circle around you, two or three layers high. I rather liked the way they had of doing business in that dining-room. Once or twice during the first meal I dug a hole through the breastwork, but at a nod the waiters quickly filled it up again, preventing my escape in that direction. I liked the place, first-rate, and so I stayed there two days--not in the dining-room, but close by. I had considerable writing to do, and thus I simply vibrated all the next day between the desk and the dining-room. It was immaterial what I ordered at the table, everything tasted so good, and so much tasted that same way. In short, I ate as never a wheelman ate before, and as this particular wheelman will never eat again, under the same circumstances. I have forgotten just what the various dishes were that surrounded me at the beginning, during the progress, and at the latter part of the supper siege, but I remember distinctly that fried liver and onions were the last to enter the list and that in a few hours, they were, like the "Bloody Sixty-ninth," the last on the field and the first to leave it. That night I had not been abed long when, in my dreams, one of those watchful waiters, seeing something troubled me, came to the bedside with an armful of liver and onions, simply that and nothing more, and as he placed the dishes around on the bed in that same semi-circle, he took care to heap them up in the center of the circle so that I could hardly see out. Although such a task at first weighed heavily on me, I soon lifted the burden by devouring each dish in turn, but scarcely had I drawn a sigh of relief when another waiter appeared, more heavily loaded than the first, with the same, liver and onions, simply that; but I said I didn't want any more. Still they came, piling the dishes around and above me in an immense semi-circle pyramid, and the more I tried to do my whole duty as a wheelman by stowing away the monotonous meal before me, the more solid grew the foundation of that pyramid. But there was no escape. On all sides of the bed were those wasteful waiters filling the room, and hovering about with dishes piled along up both arms and upon their shoulders, until I seemed to be in the center of a great amphitheater of dishes of liver and onions. Even then I should not have become discouraged at that, simply that, but out in the hall there was plenty more. So, much as I dislike to acknowledge defeat, I was finally induced (but it took a deuce of a long while) to stop eating, and, in sudden awakening, throw up the whole business, liver, onions, and all. Once more taking the train, which was ferried across the water at Benecia, the twelve heavy cars and monster locomotive not making the slightest depression of the boat, I finally reached San Francisco, the turning point on the trip. It may not be uninteresting to give the boys a few notes in regard to the cost of the journey in time, money, and muscle. The stock of muscle is of course decidedly larger than at the beginning, but the amount of flesh is about fifteen pounds less, which was all lost on the first month or six weeks. My stomach has given trouble twice, both times when after long, hard riding for many days, I ceased all work and tried to appease a ravenous appetite by eating enormously. I succeeded, both in satisfying my appetite and myself that even a wheelman's stomach can be overloaded when he stops riding for a few days. The water, of which I have drank very freely everywhere, excepting across the plains, where there was but little to be had, has caused me no trouble. Three pairs of shoes have been worn out, and the feet of twice as many pairs of stockings. The distance on the wheel has been 3,036 miles, that on the cars about 1,800, and in climbing up and about Pike's Peak and the peaks about the Yosemite, nearly one hundred miles more, so that the entire distance traveled has been nearly, if not quite, 5,000 miles. The cost has been $120. This includes repairs to machine, new clothes, and repairs of old ones, and every expense whatsoever. It is a curious fact, curious to me at least, that on both the other bicycle trips I have taken, one of 500 miles down through Rhode Island and Martha's Vineyard, and the other of 1,200 miles up through the White Mountains, the cost per mile of distance traveled should have been so nearly what it has been on this trip. It is within so small a fraction of two cents a mile that I feel confident one can travel on a wheel, in almost any part of this great country, for nearly the same price. And it would be almost ungrateful to the machine now not to say a word in its favor, for I have a feeling of affection towards this Columbia Expert, that is akin to that felt by an equestrian for a strong, able horse that has carried him safely over so much country. Before I started on this trip the machine had carried me 3,000 miles, into mill flumes and mountain passes, and had been put to as severe a test as it is possible for New England roads and a Yankee rider to place upon it. It was the manner in which it stood the test that inspired confidence to give it a harder task, and the manner in which it has brought me here is now known to the reader. The trip into the Yosemite was the severest strain ever put upon the machine, and, in fact, the rider; but the wheel I think would have come out in a whole condition had it not been for that butt end of an eight-penny nail. As it is, the expense of keeping the machine in good repair for three years has been less than five dollars, or one-thirteenth of a cent a mile for distance traveled. The time taken to accomplish this portion of the trip has been one hundred and ten days, so that the living and traveling expenses combined have been but little over a dollar a day. And now that the turning point in the journey has been reached, and as this is a "true relation," as our forefathers used to say, of the common-place adventures of a wheelman, there is only one more little incident that needs to be told, if it need be told at all, and that is in regard to a bottle. From the start I have carried one. Many cowboys and ranchmen thought the tool bag was a liquor flask, but the little bottle above mentioned was carried in the knapsack, and everywhere the knapsack went the bottle was sure to go. That bottle and the Yosemite were the two objects, great and small, that kept my spirits up during the thousands of miles, and many of them weary ones, that we traveled together. The prime motive of the journey was to see the Yosemite and carry that bottle of liquid to California. The cork was not even drawn during the entire journey, and yet that liquid had a wonderful power in keeping my spirits up. In fact, a glass of California wine has been the only alcoholic stimulant thus far drank. The object of carrying a bottle of liquid so far and not even smelling of the cork may seem to some foolish on my part, but had the liquor being used sooner the object sought could not have been accomplished, which object was to get some mixed liquor, some "'alf and 'alf," and carry it back to Connecticut. The object was partly accomplished to-day. Last fall, while riding along the rocky shoes of Nahant, I filled a small bottle with water from the Atlantic Ocean. To-day I emptied part of that water into the Pacific Ocean near the Cliff House, and now I have a bottle filled with water taken from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and in the bottom of the bottle are some pebbles and sand, the former from the Atlantic, the latter from the Pacific. And to-day, standing on the extreme western limit of the Great American Continent, I make obeisance to the good wheel by whose aid I have now accomplished the wonderful and laborious yet delectable journey! CHAPTER XVII. WITH THE VETERANS. A bicycle is of little use in the city of San Francisco, that is, in the city proper. The horizontal streets are too roughly paved and the perpendicular streets are of course unrideable. It may be exaggerating the case a little to speak of the streets as being perpendicular, but many of them are nearer that than they are level. The city is full of hills, such as Telegraph Hill, where there is a beer garden in the shape of an old castle, and Nob Hill where Flood, Stanford, and other California millionaires have built some of their fine residences. A cable line of street cars runs over these hills, and it is quite a treat at first to take a ride upon these cars. They go noiselessly up a grade that often rises one foot in three, as steep as the Mount Washington Railroad, and yet the speed of the car does not slacken in the least, either going up or down, the rate being somewhat faster than horse cars. Unlike the dummy or grip-car in Chicago, which has a train of three or four cars, these have only one car attached, which is often crowded to its utmost, but should the grip lose its hold on the cable the car can be instantly lifted off its wheels on to runners that would prevent the car sliding down the steep grade at a very dangerous speed. The cable, the power which moves the cars, runs along under the center of the track entirely unseen, and the grip, a flat, iron beam, in the center of the dummy, slides along in a slot in the center of the track, and by an ingenious contrivance grasps or lets go of the running cable at the will of the gripman. The power is communicated to the cable by running it over grooved wheels at a central station in the cable car line, which is often three or four miles long. In the rapidity of transit, this system on a level is a great improvement upon horse cars, and in surmounting these long, steep hills, where horse-power would be utterly useless, it works equally well. But to return to the bicycle. In going out to the Presidio, a government reservation, west of the city, a mile or so, and to the fort which stands just at the Golden Gate, I found excellent roads, and so on, all the way to the Cliff House, which is four miles out on the shore of the Pacific; but the drifting sand caused a few dismounts. Strange as it may seem, this sand is the cause of great expense to the people here. It drifts like snow, covering up fences, houses, and in time blocking up thoroughfares if left undisturbed. On the way out I passed square miles of sand hills that were being blown by the westerly winds into heaps and drifts thirty or forty feet high. And one of the petty annoyances from the sand is the dust that is constantly filling every nook and corner of stores, shops, and dwelling-houses. The trouble from flies is as nothing compared to the evil which housekeepers have to endure from their greatest enemy, dust. There is something about this California dust that is more penetrating than Eastern dust, for the pedals on the machine would in other places remain in good running order for several weeks after cleaning, but here they get gummed up in a very few days. A most novel attraction at the Cliff House is the sea lions that swarm all over a mass of rocks out in the ocean, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet from the cliff. Here hundreds of these growling, snarling animals crawl up out of the cold waves, floundering over each other in search of a warm place to sleep in, and disturbing other slumberers, thus creating a constant uproar. The grounds and flower gardens about the residence of Adolph Sutro, of Sutro Tunnel fame, are certainly very pretty--the most beautiful I have seen--and the situation, just back of the Cliff House, and higher up, is a very fine one. After a short trip across the bay, by water and rail, to Alameda, the Saratoga of California, all interest was lost for awhile in everything else in the growing excitement attending the Grand Army Encampment. To one who had been so long in coming across the continent, the sight of those who had so recently left Connecticut was a real pleasure, and I keenly enjoyed looking at fellow Yankees, especially into the faces of those from Hartford. But it was a great disappointment to see Connecticut unheralded in the grand procession except by a small banner belonging to the New Haven Post. The colors that should have made the forty members from Connecticut who joined in the procession distinguishable in the thousands of other marching veterans, arrived an hour after the parade was dismissed. The Avenue, which one here soon learns to know means Van Ness Avenue, is a fine broad street, just suited (as it is not a business street) for the easy formation of a parade, and the sight of the marching and counter-marching regulars, the State militia, and the ten thousand veterans, many of these carrying large silk flags, taken in connection with the scores of playing bands and drum corps, altogether, was very inspiring. Certainly the streets and buildings of San Francisco were never so gayly and handsomely decorated, and there never were so many people here. It was interesting to see the faces of Generals Sherman and Logan as they stood up in their carriages reviewing the procession, nearly opposite the Palace Hotel. Sherman's keen eye noted everything. He frequently pointed out some veteran or banner in the procession in his quick eager manner, and seemed as anxious as a boy not to let anything escape him. He acknowledged the cheers and shouts of the passing veterans by little short, quick nods, keeping his head going and eyes winking almost continually, only occasionally waving his hat a little, which he held down at arm's length most of the time. Sometimes a veteran would leave the ranks to grasp his hand, but not very often, and if a number came at once he would wave them off with an impatient gesture as if the thing that pleased him most was to see them keep marching, marching. Every action of his was quick, active, and almost nervous, and the only time I have seen him do anything slowly was at the pavilion one evening, when he followed Commander-in-Chief Burdette around the floor with a lady on his arm during the grand march preceding the dancing. Then he was obliged to go slow. His photographs flatter him only in one respect, and that is his nose. The end of his nose is larger, fuller, redder, than it appears in his photograph, and curves at the end like a beak. General Logan stood in his carriage almost the antipode of Sherman. Logan was slow, graceful, smiling, saw the procession pass in a calm sort of a way, and took no particular notice of anything in it but once. He replied to the hurrahs and yells of the veterans by slowly raising his black flat brimmed hat, bowing gracefully and smiling, and replacing his hat on his head. The regulars marched by in splendid form, without so much as turning their eyes to the right, but the militia could not resist the temptation to look at Sherman and Logan, and their lines were very wavy in consequence. The veterans simply straggled by, cheering and yelling in squads or singly, just as the spirit moved them. Some Grand Army of the Republic officer, arrayed in glistening uniform and riding a fine horse, would come sailing up with his face and body as immovable as a statue, when suddenly becoming aware of the presence of these generals the officer would unbend, turn his head on a pivot, bow and smile his sweetest, but in nine cases out of ten these supreme efforts of the officers were all lost on Logan, for he was gazing with earnest look at the line of veterans. A stout, full bearded man left the ranks and walked firmly up to Logan, grasped the hand that was always ready, and said, in a low, trembling voice, "God bless you." And I know from his looks he felt a good deal more than he said. Another rather timid man came from the ranks and shaking Logan's hand, said: "I can't help it," and walked off, hanging his head, as if he had done something foolish. Then another came rushing up with a wild glaring look in his eyes, and shaking, and yelling "Twenty-second Ohio," was off again with the moving mass. Up ran another, and, shouting the one word "Chattanooga," as Logan gave him a hearty shake, was gone. And so it was throughout the whole review; no matter whether they came singly or whether whole companies left the ranks in a body, and made a rush for the carriages, Logan's hand was always extended, and a "Glad to see you," or "Yes, that's so, boys," made the old veterans feel happy; for only when Logan was shaking, as fast as he could, a score of uplifted hands, did his black eyes flash, and look as if he really was, as he said he was, glad to see the crowd of comrades pushing eagerly toward him. Once a great burly six footer, crowded up, and extending his broad hand eagerly shouted, "Touch her, God Almighty, touch her." A veteran who had been irrigating a little too freely, stood for quite a while in front of the carriage, and as the old soldiers tramped by he would call their attention, in a maudlin way, to the personage he had in charge by saying, "don't forget John." But it was plain to be seen there was no danger of that. Then another one came up with a demijohn, and, pouring out a glass of water and spilling twice as much all over himself, said, "Drink with me, Gen'al, if you never drink again," and the general did. Then when he joined in singing "Marching Through Georgia," all the ladies in the windows on both sides of the street waved their handkerchiefs; but when a little raggamuffin, during a lull in the yells and shouts of the veterans, rushed out in front of the carriage, and called for "Three cheers for Black Jack," he failed to get them. It certainly required considerable patience on Logan's part to be shaken and almost yanked out of the carriage, as he was several times, but he bore it with good grace, and replied to the hundreds of questions and salutations as pleasantly as possible. Again at the concert at the pavilion he was heartily applauded as he came in and took his seat, and while the ten thousand persons present were clapping their hands, cheering and yelling "Logan, Logan," he sat perfectly still, looking straight in front of himself with that same far away look in his eyes. As nothing less would satisfy the audience he finally climbed upon the stage, when with one accord the thousand singers present showered him with flowers and bouquets. This time he seemed to be somewhat disconcerted and blushed as the bouquets hit him in the breast and face and knocked his long straight black hair all over his eyes. Still he bowed and bowed, and jumped down and took his seat as soon as possible. His manner certainly wins the admiration and respect of the average American. A day's trip to Monterey on the cars is sufficient to see the beautiful grove of live oaks there and to view the old town and bay. The Hotel Del Monte is a magnificent structure, and the floral display about the hotel, in the court in the rear, where there is a garden of an acre of the most brilliant flowers imaginable, and many more out in the grove, this makes the whole place the most delightful resort I have seen. The beach is strewn with the bones of whales, and in places they are thrown up tons of them in heaps. I saw one curiosity hunter lugging off a vertebra that must have weighed fifty pounds. The waves would occasionally float a jelly-fish closely up on the beach, and we finally succeeded, two of us, in holding one of these quivering, slippery masses of living matter from sliding back with the waves, but wet feet was the price of the prize. Some of these masses of jelly that are about the shape of a scalloped summer squash, are nearly as large as a tub, certainly larger than a half bushel. The water on the coast here is too cold for comfortable bathing, and hot salt water bathing is advertised everywhere, but to any one who has enjoyed the surf anywhere on the Atlantic coast the idea of swimming in a tank of heated salt water is not very attractive. For all they have no winter here the cost of fuel is greater, if anything, than where the climate is more severe. Coal costs more per ton, and is delivered to families in fifty pound sacks. Fires are comfortable every day in the year, and sealskin cloaks are seen in the streets all summer long. Why they don't have more big fires in San Francisco is a wonder. Acres of frame dwellings and business blocks are here, a strong wind is always with them, and after four or five months without a drop of rain it naturally seems as if the buildings must be as dry as tinder. But they tell me the red wood, which is the chief building material, does not burn very readily, as there is very little if any resin. The thing they dread most is a thunder storm. A good lively earthquake is barely noticed, and the people walk along with the ground trembling and shaking under them, and the occurrence is hardly mentioned, but let an ordinary thunder storm pass over them and it is the subject of conversation for weeks. The week before I reached here a thunder storm occurred that in New England would hardly be noticed, but here it startled the whole city, and was the occasion of many an animated discussion among the natives who still gather in little groups upon the streets to express their various opinions regarding the phenomenon. CHAPTER XVIII. MONTEREY AND THE GEYSERS. My trip to Monterey, which was mentioned in the last chapter, was made in connection with an excursion arranged as a part of the Grand Army of the Republic programme. I was very glad the ride was taken on the cars, for the last fifty miles was over a section of country that strongly resembles in appearance the sage bush and sandy deserts of Wyoming and Nevada. The prospect of traveling over such roads on a wheel does not stir up in me such an enthusiastic determination to undertake their passage as it did two months ago, and the chance of meeting Eastern people on the train was quite an inducement to go by cars; but a bicycle is just the thing with which to visit the Geysers. The knapsack on this trip was left behind, not because of any inconvenience that it causes, for the longer it is used the better I like it for carrying the amount of baggage necessary on long tours, but the knapsack is the occasion of so many questions, it is such an advertisement, that whenever it is possible on these side excursions it is left behind. But although I started out wearing trousers and dressed otherwise in ordinary clothes, and entertaining the idea that I should not be so publicly bored as usual on this journey because of my ordinary appearance, this impression proved to be a false one as soon as I took the ferry for Oakland. Every one on the boat seemed to know the machine and rider, and on a boat or train it is the same everywhere. Why they knew the machine will be explained shortly, but a few words first about being bored by so many questions. It is not because of any reserve I feel in regard to imparting information about this mode of traveling across the country, to any one interested in such touring, for four or five years ago I asked just such questions of Professor Williams of Brown University, on his return from his European bicycling tour, and whenever any one on the road or at a private house asks questions I feel only glad to answer them; but let any one on a ferry boat, at a station, hotel, or any public place commence the usual string of questions--and this string never varies from one end of the country to the other--then a crowd of listeners quickly gathers around, each one in the audience eager to ask the same or some question the others have not thought of, and it becomes disagreeable in the extreme. The machine became known in this manner. The enterprising agent of the Columbia machine here, with a manner that he must have imbibed from Chinatown, it was so child-like and bland, and with an eye to business which I did not see him open, asked permission to "fix up the machine a little, cement the tire on good," or something, and the next morning the machine was covered with Grand Army of the Republic decorations, a big placard citing its history hung upon it, and the whole affair placed on the sidewalk in front of the agent's place of business, opposite the Palace Hotel, to be viewed by the thousands of people not only from California, but here from all parts of the country during encampment week. So that is the reason why machine and rider are so well-known in this vicinity, better known perhaps than in any other part of the country outside of New England. The ride of three hours to Napa was a delightful one, across the bay to Oakland, then a few miles on the cars to Vallejo Junction, across the bay again, and a few miles farther by train to Napa. After stopping over night there with a new-made friend, I started out up the Napa valley in the cool of a pleasant Sunday morning. The roads were excellent and the country pretty thickly settled for California, but very few persons were stirring about, and the quiet and peaceful appearance of everything was in pleasant contrast with the noise and excitement of the past week in the city. Calistoga, ambitiously named the "Saratoga of the Pacific," on account of a few mineral springs, and a hotel that wants custom, was reached by noon, and it was twelve or fifteen miles farther before any hill climbing to speak of was necessary. Then it all came together, about seven miles of it. It seems strange, in passing through as much unsettled or newly settled country as I have, not once being obliged to go without food for more than six or seven hours during the day, that now, in this old inhabited part of California, I should not be able to procure a mouthful of food for eleven hours, but so it was. It was partly my fault though, for I had ridden thirty-five or forty miles, and it was two o'clock in the afternoon before I thought of being hungry, and then the hill-climbing commenced, and the farm-houses were minus. It was nearly six o'clock before Pine Flat, five miles up the mountain, was reached, and during the last two or three miles I could not walk without staggering sometimes, and often stopping to rest, I was so faint. But a good meal of eggs and venison fixed me all right, and the next morning the summit was reached without much trouble, and only six miles of coasting remained. But such coasting! The grade is not as steep as in some parts of the Yosemite route, Priest's Hill, for instance, on the Big Oak Flat route, but the road is much narrower and decidedly more crooked. It twists around the sides of the mountain and runs so close to the edge of precipices two or three hundred feet high, that it must make one's head swim to ride round these turns in a stage. Clark Foss, the celebrated driver, who owned this route, and was one of the twenty-five different men in different places who drove Horace Greeley on the ride when he promised "to get him there in time" (every one who ever came to California has heard the story; it is the worst chestnut ever perpetrated, but they still retail it), died about a year ago, and his son, Charlie Foss, now drives the six-horse open wagon. For three or four miles I was in constant dread of meeting the stage coming up, and had I done so on some of those oxbow shaped curves in the road, where there is not a foot of space on either side of the hubs, between a ledge of rocks and a precipice, the result can well be imagined. The stage suddenly appeared around one of these very curves, when but a few seconds before, I had been thrown off upon my feet by a rock in the road and was walking, but although I was told I should hear the stage coming, I did not till the leaders' heads appeared around the ledge of rocks, not ten feet ahead of me. But for striking the rock in the road, I should surely have been coasting, and the result would have been, in all probability, I should have gone over the edge, or the horses and stage would have done so. Then what a volley of questions was fired at me by the dozen passengers aboard. The driver stopped, and for five minutes it seemed as if everyone in the stage was talking and asking questions, all at the same time. Some of the passengers had seen me before and knew of the trip, and as the stage disappeared around the curve with the gentlemen waving their hats and the ladies their handkerchiefs, and all wishing me good luck, the pleasant impression left with me will long be remembered, not only for the good feeling shown towards me, but because our meeting on that sharp curve at one of the most dangerous points of this dangerous mountain road might have terminated so differently and perhaps disastrously. Only once did I come near having any trouble with the wheel. In crossing the numerous dry creeks that run down the steep sides of the mountain, the road makes horse-shoe curves, descending rapidly down to the creek and then rising as sharply on the other side. In coasting down into these curved gullies, one has to get his feet back upon the pedals pretty lively in order to climb up the grade on the other side without dismounting, but once the wheel slowed up quicker than I expected, and before my feet were back on the pedals, the wheel turned straight across the road and rolled slowly to the edge of the precipice. I took one look down, my heart leaped into my mouth, and I sprang out of that saddle backwards quicker than I ever did before in my life. It was undecided for a few seconds whether the machine would go over the edge with or without me, but after balancing there for a year and a half, as I remember it, I got the best of gravity and finished the ride down to the geysers in safety. The distance from Napa, fifty-five miles, could easily have been made in a day, had I had a good meal in the middle of the day to work on; but as it was, I saw all there was to see in an hour, and after resting another hour was ready to start on before noon. Those who have visited the geysers lately, and also saw them a dozen or fifteen years ago, tell me the springs are not nearly as active now as they were then. I certainly was disappointed. It is surely a queer place up that narrow little cañon, with the different colored rocks--red, green, blue, yellow, and white ones--all crumbling down in one confused mass into the little stream of scalding hot water that runs down through the cañon. The sides of the cañon were sizzling and bubbling over with little hot springs, and the steam that escapes from the holes was sickening. It smelled like eggs that have passed their prime. Once I poked some of the crumbling stuff down into one of these little vent holes, and the creeping steam spitefully blew the hot sand-stones in my face and eyes. I pushed a stone a little larger than my fist into the most noisy hole, but the escaping steam barely moved it. Years ago, they tell me, a rock as large as a man could lift, would be thrown out of this hole with considerable force. The witches' caldron, a boiling pool of lead-colored water, not now over five or six feet in diameter, is the most active of any of the springs, but there is nothing that can be called a spouting geyser in the whole cañon. The ride down to Cloverdale, seventeen miles, was greatly enjoyed, for the grade was just steep enough to coast, but not to make dangerous riding, and there certainly was something very novel about gliding safely along in the wheel track close to a ledge of rocks, with a yawning precipice within a foot of the other wheel track, and the road winding around projecting points of rocks, and in and out along the side of the mountain, and yet with a grade so gentle that the wheel kept on quietly without the use of a brake. The mountains were so bare of trees that the fine views were unobstructed, and one could look down the winding valley and see points in the road that he would eventually reach in that quiet, easy manner, always without the use of any power either to accelerate or retard the speed of the wheel. Yes, a trip to the geysers on a bicycle is well worth taking, but it is the riding and sight-seeing on the way that pays, and not the geysers. With a barrel of water, a few barrels of lime, and a little coloring matter, one could almost discount the geysers in their present activity. The ride down the Sonoma valley, and to the point where wheelmen are obliged to take the train and ferry over to San Francisco, was through a level country and over excellent roads, and an average speed of six miles an hour was maintained throughout nearly the whole of the ninety miles of the return trip. California is over twenty-five times as large as Connecticut, and I have only seen a small portion of it, but to say, as most Californians insist, that what I have seen is a beautiful country, is certainly drawing upon the imagination to a great extent. The roads are dry and terribly dusty, the grass is dead, the streams all dried up, and the only green objects to be seen, as you look across the country, are the trees and grape-vines and occasionally a few acres of shriveled-up corn. And these are covered so thickly with dust that the color underneath is hardly discernible. To one accustomed to the refreshing showers of the Eastern States during the summer, which render the verdure so luxuriant, the dry, dead, dusty appearance of almost everything from the tops of the mountain peaks to the rocky bottoms of the dry creeks and rivers, is anything but beautiful. It looks as if the face of nature needed washing. But let one imagine the hills and mountains covered with rich, green grass and bright-colored wild flowers, as they were only a few months ago, and think of the streams and rivers brimming full, or imagine the hundreds of acres of grape-vines I have seen, loaded down with their dark, rich fruit, and he can easily see that California has been and will soon be again, a most beautiful country through which to travel. We see California at its worst in August. "Do the fleas trouble you any? We are eaten up alive with them," said an Eastern lady to me one day. My experience in Colorado with mosquitoes was sufficient, it seems, for the fleas here have troubled me very little, but they are a source of great discomfort to most travelers, and even the old residents. Persons going out for a walk will sometimes come back covered with them. The pleasure of an evening's entertainment or social call is often sadly interfered with by the presence of a flea in a lady's underclothing, and a clergyman here was once seen to suddenly leave the pulpit during service and rush for his study, and afterwards explained to some one that he had to go out and "hunt a flea," but that was not the one that "no man pursueth." It is said that some California genius has invented a flea-trap, but I hear of no well-authenticated instance in which the flea was captured. Distance traveled on the wheel, 3,200 miles. CHAPTER XIX. OUT ON THE PACIFIC. So pleasant was my visit in the city of the Golden Gate that it was with some regret that I left San Francisco and took the electric-lighted steamship Columbia for Portland. It was certainly very fortunate for me while there to make those side excursions to Monterey, to the Geysers, and to other places, and yet have the pleasure each time of returning to a good home, while so many Eastern people were cast upon the friendless hotels. This pleasant refuge was at the residence of Mr. A. B. Crosby, formerly of Rockville, Conn., into whose family I was most cordially received, and will always be remembered as a bright spot in my wanderings. The excitement of encampment week and the excursions taken prevented my making the acquaintance of many wheelmen, but I found Mr. Cook, who took such an unfortunate fall at the Hartford races last year, Chief Consul Welch, Mr. George H. Adams, and several others, all gentlemen, as, it is almost needless to say, is the status of the great majority of wheelmen everywhere. There were a great many New England people among the five hundred or more passengers aboard the steamer, but the only Connecticut people I found were from New Haven and Birmingham. Still we were quite a distinguished company. The large frame, the bald head, and smiling face of ex-Commander-in-chief Burdette, the empty sleeve and gray head of the newly-elected Commander-in-chief Fairchild, Governor Robie of Maine, Professor Williams of Brown University, my tutor, in the sense that his delightful account of his European trip first set me wild to be a bicycle traveler there, and many other intelligent ladies and gentlemen helped to form a party that cheered and happily waved their handkerchiefs as the iron steamer left the wharf, turned about, and passing through a fleet of ferry-boats in the harbor, glided out through the Golden Gate, and into a bank of fog and a gale of cold raw wind. How different from what I anticipated. When climbing up to the Big Trees and into the Yosemite, through the hot sand, the suffocating dust, and under a blazing sun, how I looked forward to this ride on the Pacific. In place of the dry and barren country covered with dust, I pictured the broad ocean of bright blue. Instead of hours of raging thirst I looked forward to the time when it would be "water, water everywhere," and plenty of ice water to drink. When I was so tired I sat right down in the road in the dirt, with the sun pouring its rays down, and the air so stiflingly still that the sweat ran down my whole body clear to my ankles, then I thought how nice it would be sitting on deck in an easy chair, with the cool breezes making the bright sun feel just comfortable. How cosy it would seem, and how I would rest, take the physical rest I had so well earned, and the mental rest that would result, with nothing in the blue sky or the smooth waters to cause the slightest mental action. I would just be lazy and do nothing but eat, lay around on deck and dream and sleep. After so many months of constant sight-seeing and hurried thinking, the prospect of a chance to remain inactive, mentally and physically, for a while, seemed like paradise to me. It was the prospect of this delightful sail on a smooth ocean, under a perfectly clear sky and bright sun, that induced me to buy the excursion ticket at Salt Lake City, and it was in anticipation of this voyage that my spirits kept up climbing into the Sierras. The thought of seasickness never entered my mind, and if it had I should have scoffed at the idea of my being sick if others were. All this and more I anticipated. What I realized is this and a great deal more. As I said, we went out through the Golden Gate into a bank of fog and a gale of cold, raw wind. The sound of the fog horn at the entrance of the harbor, which I had heard so many days and nights during the past three weeks, was the only thing to indicate that we were not a thousand miles at sea. But that mournful sound soon died away, and when the fog occasionally lifted afterwards, it showed us that we were indeed out of sight of land, upon an ocean I had so innocently supposed was pacific. How much misery I saw there, and how many times I wished I had kept on from the Geysers and ridden up to Portland on the wheel! I could have done it and reached there as soon as by boat, but I did not want to miss the delightful sea voyage. No, I would not then have missed it for all the world. But I would now. The fog and cold wind made the ladies' cabin the most comfortable place, and for a while the piano and the strong voices of the many veterans on board singing their familiar songs made the time pass pleasantly, but before dark the trouble began. About ten o'clock I went below, thinking I was fortunate to even secure a clean bunk in the bow of a boat where the state-rooms were all taken for two weeks ahead. My bunk-mate, a fine old gentleman from Kansas, had already turned in, but he came crawling out from his bunk, saying, "I can't stand this any longer." I did notice the boat lifted things up higher and let them fall lower than it did during the day, but I felt all right. "O, I stayed here too long, I guess," said my friend, as he started for the round box of sawdust near the bunk. A gentleman in the upper bunk had been leaning out of his bed, intently but quietly looking down in this same box for some time, but this doleful remark of my bunk-mate seemed to suddenly touch his sympathetic nerve, and they mutually, and at the same time, cast away all bitterness in the same small box of sawdust. My friend's head, which was the lower of the two suspended over the box, and which was scantily clothed with gray hair, received a shampoo of a variety of ingredients, but he scarcely minded this in his haste to get away, and I undressed and went to sleep after a while, notwithstanding the place was full of men apparently tearing themselves all to pieces during most of the night. Yes, I slept some but not as soundly as I have done, for the seventy-five sick men down there occupied my thoughts some. And after a while I got the notion into my head that the boat would not go down into the trough of the sea so far if I held myself up a little, so I did. When the boat went up, up, every nerve in my body tingled, and I felt a prickling sensation clear to the ends of my fingers and toes, and the higher up the boat went the stronger was the nervous action. But I did not feel sick. Then when the boat went down I straightened out stiff and rigid in order, if possible, to hold the boat. Although I saw it did not make much difference with the boat whether I tried to sustain it or not, yet I could not relax my muscles sufficiently to rest easily. But in the morning, before I could get washed, I found out what sea-sickness was, but only to a slight degree, and for an hour or two. Lying out on one of the benches on the upper deck with the cold, raw wind blowing into his pale face, was a young gentleman of thirty, with blue eyes, but a face so smooth and fair that he looked much younger, another Bartley Hubbard, if I ever pictured one. He had been stripped of the blanket he had brought up from the hole of misery, where it seems he had spent the night near me, the steward saying, as he took the blanket, "he must go below to lay down," but rather than do that he lay shivering in the wind. I had found it impossible to keep warm, even by pacing the decks, and, contrary to rules, had robbed my bunk of its blankets and was walking about covered from head to foot in the warm wool; but it did not take long to tuck that living representative of the leading character in "A Modern Instance" up warm with my blankets, and when the steward came again to take them, Bartley said the captain, or some fellow with a uniform cap, gave them to him. Watching my chances I soon had another pair about me, but Professor Williams, with heavy underclothing and overcoat, was unable to keep from shivering, and so forcing those last ones upon him, I successfully committed a third burglary without being detected, although the steward came to me afterwards and wanted to know "who was carrying off the blankets." I said I had taken my own on deck, but truthfully replied I did not know whether any one else had taken theirs or not. Bartley was unable to go down to supper, and after I had brought him some tea and crackers we enjoyed the sudden change in the faces of many of the lady passengers, as they sympathizingly patted him on his feverish cheeks, called him "little fellow," and asked if he was thinking of his mother, and then were told he was thinking of his wife and children at home. They didn't pat his cheeks again after that. After we had waited till everybody else had turned in and he had flatly refused to go below, under any consideration, we laid down together on the deck, near the middle of the boat, and slept warm and well all night with the cold wind blowing across our faces. The first afternoon out the beds were made up on the floor of the ladies' cabin before three o'clock, and the bustling stewardess said to a spinster, among others: "Come, take your bed now if you want to be sure of it." The spinster hesitated, before all the gentlemen then in the cabin, and looked shy, but the stewardess repeated the request with impatience, almost, when the maiden lady replied in a low, complaining voice, as she looked at the gentlemen present: "Why, I don't want to go to bed now." She felt relieved, however, when she found it was only to claim the bed by placing baggage on it. The same afternoon I was talking with some lady friends, where the deck was rather crowded, when I heard, just behind me, the voice of this same kind, but business-like stewardess, saying, "Come! out of the way, little boy," and turning around to see who the youngster was I saw that whoever he was he had suddenly disappeared, and that I was the only person in her way. The ladies, who had just a moment before expressed admiration for the manly effort that it seemed to them was necessary to make such a trip as I had, now smiled, in fact all did, everyone within hearing, and no one laughed heartier than the "little boy." And what an appetite I expected to have from sniffing the salt sea air all day, when, in reality, after that short season of personal disgust with the inner man in the morning, I got sufficient nourishment by sniffing the boiled-vegetable air every time I passed the ladies' cabin door. The very sound of the gong was nauseating, and what in the world that young fellow wanted to go around through the different decks whanging away eighteen times a day, and calling on us to go down and eat, when the thought of doing so was more than sufficient! Apparently, from the sound of the gong, it was eat, eat all the time; but I doubt if many did more than go through the form of eating. I did not eat more than one square meal out of the eight on the boat. Forty-five hours after we lost sight of land the boat stopped and floated around in the fog among a lot of buoys, and soon after got across the bar and steamed up the Columbia River to Astoria, and a short time later to Portland. The whole voyage was a cold, foggy, uninteresting ride; the sun never shone once; but on the boat the experience to me was new, and disagreeable as much of it was, I am not sorry for it. Still, very few of the passengers will take that trip again. We were still further disappointed in finding the atmosphere along the river very smoky, and after stopping over night at Portland, a city finely built, but like San Francisco, with a Chinatown in the very heart of it, we took the train, or most of the boat party did, at 3 p. m., and went slowly up the south bank of the Columbia River. A bicycle is some bother in traveling on the cars, for where they run such long trains as they do on all these trans-continental lines, and consequently have so much baggage to load, the machine is the last piece to be taken aboard, and as it is always at owner's risk I often have to hand it up as the train is starting, and then jump on myself, rather than leave it to be left, perhaps. The steamship company would neither take it as a part of the one hundred and fifty pounds of baggage allowed every passenger nor allow me to care for it, and I had to ship it by freight, still at owner's risk, at an anticipated expense of three or four dollars, but when I saw it unload on the wharf at Portland, among a lot of horses and truck wagons, I thought the owner was running a great risk of having it smashed by leaving it there any longer, and so I walked away with it, asking questions of no one. Whether the owner took too great a risk by so doing is still unsettled. The ride up the river by boat, with a clear atmosphere, must certainly equal in grandeur that up the Hudson, but the smoke was too dense to see across the water and we could only catch a glimpse of the shadowy outlines of the high mountains on either side and see for a few seconds the beautiful little waterfalls coming down over the rocks. Then again it was rather aggravating to hear the roar of the river as we stopped in the night at a station somewhere, and to go out and see the ghost of what must have been a magnificent sight by daylight--some great falls in the river. I have seen and heard just enough of this country to wish to make another trip, but it should be taken four or five months earlier in the year; and other mistakes can be avoided. What there was in the trip to the Geysers to cause it I can't think, for the roads were smooth (no such pounding as there was riding through Illinois), but the result of that trip has been another eruption, not at the Geysers, but upon me. Where there is the Devil's kitchen, the Devil's gristmill, and lots of other articles of furniture belonging to his satanic majesty, it is certainly a devil of a place for a wheelman to visit, but in going there I did not look forward to any such outcome of the trip. And that is just what is the matter with me now. I can't look forward to the unpleasant results. In short I have boiled over again, and as a result of these eruptions I shall carry back with me as a souvenir of the trip, many miniature craters of extinct volcanoes. CHAPTER XX. AT SHOSHONE FALLS. "Why don't you stop off at Shoshone and go down and see the falls? They are only twenty-five miles from the station," said one of the Union Pacific officials with whom I became acquainted at Denver. This was just at dark the next night after leaving Portland. I had forgotten what little I knew of those falls, excepting their name, and had no idea of going so near them on this trip, but I left the train at 3.30 the next morning, and about sunrise started out due south. "I suppose there are ranches along the road," said I to the stage-driver at this end of the route. "No, not one; and you can't get any water till you get there," said he. So with a bottle of water, which did not last much more than half the distance, I rode along over the slightly undulating lava beds, which are mostly covered with a few feet of sand and with sage brush, but which occasionally come to the surface in broken masses of dark brown, perforated, metallic sounding rocks. It certainly was not a very interesting ride of four or five hours, for jack rabbits in great numbers and an occasional gopher were the only living things I saw, and in looking across the same level, treeless country, far ahead, I had begun to wonder where the Snake River could possibly be, when suddenly I heard the roar of the falls, and came to the edge of a cañon perhaps three hundred feet deep. The rocks of this cañon, from top to bottom, are composed of this lava, and it is formed in layers from twenty to thirty feet thick, looking as if the lava had, at different times, overflowed the country to that depth, which it really had. But what was my astonishment when I found, on inquiry, that these layers in some places number as many as thirty, and that their depth in many places was several thousand feet. For instance, the Columbia River, which I had so recently seen, has cut its way through lava beds three and four thousand feet thick. And this is not all. These immensely thick beds of lava not only cover the entire surface of Idaho, but also of nearly the whole of Oregon and Washington Territory, and parts of California, Nevada, and Montana. When it is stated that the entire surface covered by this lava is not less than two hundred thousand square miles, forty times as large as Connecticut, one can only faintly comprehend the statement, and many may not believe it; but the fact remains. And to me the thought that I had been allowed to ride over a portion, a very small portion of this lava that ages ago burst out through some immense fissure or great vent in the earth's surface, this thought alone paid me for the hours of thirst endured. The simple fact that I have seen this lava bed has left on my mind one of the strongest impressions of the whole trip; an impression, if not exactly taken on dry plate, yet that was left on a very dry pate. Still no one need to come out into this country to see the effect of some ancient eruption. The hills at Meriden, Conn., and East and West Rock at New Haven, as well as Mount Tom near Holyoke, Mass., hills that I have climbed and ridden over since the bicycle enlarged my means of traveling, these are all lava formations. There is a fine view of the cañon, looking up the river towards the east for a couple of miles as you go. Then a zigzag road down into the cañon, and half a mile below are the falls. The ferry is just above the falls, and I had to wait some time there, before the ferryman, at the hotel just below the falls, on the opposite side of the river, saw me. The ride across in a leaky row-boat--there is a cable ferry-boat for the stage--with broken oars and oarlocks, only a little way above the cloud of mist, was not the safest one I have ever taken, but with my wheel lying flatwise over the edges of the boat, we crossed all right and I had soon climbed out upon a projecting point in the precipice below the hotel, and obtained a magnificent view of the falls, which are but little inferior to Niagara, far ahead of any other falls I have seen in the West. Snake River flows down through the cañon with scarcely a ripple, until at the falls it is broken up by half a dozen or more of rocky islands, and after plunging into pretty cascades for a short distance, it leaps over the cliff, which curves in a little, and falls two hundred and ten feet down into the cañon, there not far from six hundred feet deep. Although the perpendicular fall was greater by fifty feet than at Niagara, the volume of water is less, but there is the dark cañon above and below the falls that adds greatly to the impression one receives. Eagles were seen soaring around in the skies in almost every direction, and on a huge boulder just above the falls in the middle of the river, was a nest of young ones being fed by the parent bird. After spending three or four hours there, I crossed the river again, and climbed up out of the cañon and started back. I took a larger bottle filled with cool spring water--the location of that spring, as well as many others in this Western country, I shall never forget. I can, in imagination, see them now, almost every one of them. The water, of course, got warm, and before dark I had drained every drop of it. There was no riding after dark, and for miles I pushed the machine along in the sandy rut, thinking of little else than that tank of ice-water in the station I was trying to reach. I might mention, as an instance of how similar situations recall mental impressions, that in crossing the plains from Laramie, the song of "Tit Willow" was continually running through my mind, and for days I could do nothing to rid myself of what came to be very unpleasant, but after reaching California I scarcely hummed the tune once. I was not troubled with the song at all after leaving the sand and sage brush, but with the first return to the sage brush, the tune I had not hummed or thought of for weeks came back, pursuing me with all its unpleasant monotony--the smell of the sage revived it. About an hour after dark I lost the wheel tracks, and but for the clear sky and north star, should have had some trouble in getting back to the station. As it was I laid the machine down and commenced feeling around in the sand with my hands for the ruts, and wandered about so long I even lost the machine. There are patches of ground, of an acre or more in extent, entirely free from sage brush, and it was in crossing one of these, where there is no bushy border to the sandy road to make its direction discernible in the dark, that I got into trouble. But I found the wheel tracks after a while, and soon after the wheel, and was very careful from that time to keep the wheel from turning out of the rut, for I had to feel the rut with the machine, as I could not see it. It was after ten o'clock when I reached the station, and no lights ever shone brighter in the distance than did those of Shoshone, and that ice-water, as I poured it down at intervals all night, till the train arrived at 3.30 next morning, served to quench my thirst in the manner I had anticipated for so many hours. Thirsty and tired as I was, I felt fully recompensed by the sight of Shoshone Falls, without visiting the upper falls, situated about two miles up the river. The machine has acquired the distinction of being the first one to visit this place of interest. At the terminus of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company's line at Huntington, I went into the baggage car to get the machine. "$3 to pay on that," said the baggage-master. As I had traveled over 1400 miles on the Union and Central Pacific railroads without being charged a penny for the machine, this charge for one day seemed to be rather exorbitant, and I said so. "Well," said the baggage-master very confidently, "I can't help that. It is $1.50 on the other division, and the same on this." I told him to give me a receipt, if I must pay it, for I should try to get it back from headquarters. That he did not like to do, for whatever I paid him he intended to "knock the company down for it," and the receipt would come home to roost, so he compromised by throwing off one-half, which I paid. On the other side of the depot, the Union Pacific's Oregon Short line came in, and that was the first and last charge made for carrying the machine till I reached Baltimore, where the Penn. Railroad Company's price is one-half cent a mile. After waiting all day at Pocatello, where I put in five or six hours of good sleep on the platform, on the shady side of the depot, with the knapsack for a pillow, I reached Beaver Cañon, on the Utah Northern Railroad, at three A.M., and before daylight slept an hour or two more on the floor of the waiting-room, near a stove that was really comfortable, for the nights were quite cold up there. I had lost so much sleep the past week, I could lie down and take a comfortable nap anywhere I could get a chance. The two nights on the boat, it may be remembered, were not accompanied with many hours of sound repose. The first night out of Portland, I talked with friends on the train who were to return home by the Northern Pacific, till late, and then I wrote till after one o'clock. After that there was not much rest sitting bolt upright, for every seat in the car was taken. The next night it required more force of will to stop off at Shoshone than anything I had done during the trip, for these reasons: I was going towards home, after four months and a half of constant traveling away from it. That thought alone made me very happy, and I could not bear to be delayed even for a day; and besides, I had laid down with four seats all to myself even before dark that night, with the intention of having a good long night's rest. But I did not want to miss any great sight so near as that to my route, and so I took short naps all night till three in the morning, for I did not want to be carried by the station. The next night I took the train at the same hour that I left it the previous night; and thus I had had only one good night's sleep in over a week, when I started out due east early in the morning, Aug. 22d, for the Yellowstone. Distance on the wheel, 3,251 miles. CHAPTER XXI. IN THE YELLOWSTONE PARK. Next morning I left Beaver Cañon, taking some luncheon along with me, and it was well I did, for there was no place to get food, and I saw no one all day. But the roads were excellent, level, and running through some beautiful meadows, with hills on either side covered thick with pines. There were many streams to ford, though, and taking off my shoes and stockings so often was the cause of much delay. It was the first delay of this kind during the trip. However, I reached the Half-Way Hotel sometime before sundown, after riding fifty-five miles, and was obliged to stop there, for the next ranch was twenty miles farther on. This hotel is a log hut, with rows of tents on the sides, for sleeping-rooms, and is situated close to Snake River, a splendid trouting stream, the hills in the rear being covered with heavy timber. About dark nearly a dozen passengers arrived in the stages bound for the Yellowstone, and the sleeping apartments were taxed to their utmost; so when the bar-tender offered me a bed with him, on the ground, in his tent, or bar-room rather, I was glad to accept it. Drinks were twenty-five cents there. The next morning one of the horses that had been turned out the night before, was found with a great chunk of flesh torn from his shoulder, and his haunches and other portions of his body badly clawed up. The drivers said it was done by a bear; and that was as near as I came to seeing one on the trip. The second day I came to Snake River Crossing, which at this point is about two hundred feet wide, and too deep for a forty-six inch wheelman to ford without removing his trousers as well as his shoes and stockings. I had started out ahead of the stages, which had several lady passengers aboard, and supposed I had plenty of time to get across before the stages reached the ford, and so I should have had but for the fact that the water here was too deep for me to carry trousers, shoes and stockings, knapsack and bicycle all at one trip. I had waded once across, through water so cold it made my legs ache, and so deep that it wet a certain short, thin under garment that persisted in dropping down after being tucked up under my blouse out of the way, and had got back into about the middle of the stream when I heard the stage coming down through the woods. Trousers, shoes, stockings, and knapsack had been carried across, the machine still remained to be taken over, and the one to do it was standing waist deep in the water of an icy river, undecided which way to turn. The temperature of the water would not allow of much delay, even were I inclined to wait, and so dashing and splashing through the water as fast as the soft, sandy bottom would admit, I crawled out and laid down on the grass behind a convenient tree, near the machine, curling up and covering myself, though my good intentions were practically unfulfilled by the short garments I then wore. But as good fortune would have it, the lady passengers waited to ride in the second stage, and the men in this one laughed well at what appeared to them uncalled-for modesty on my part in retiring so expeditiously behind so slight a shelter. Coming to another smaller stream soon after, I hoped to avoid further delay by riding with a spurt down into the water and across, as I had done many times before under similar circumstances, but the pebbly bottom was not so firm as it looked, and the wheel slowly came to a standstill in the middle of the stream, while I quickly dismounted into the water, in so doing ripping both inside seams of my nether garment down to the knees. This necessitated more fine tailoring behind some bushes, and, before I had finished, the coarse grass and sticks beneath me had produced in red a very good etching of that immediate section of country; but the sketch soon faded. The roads all the forenoon were fully as good as the day before, and it was much pleasanter riding through dense pine forests and along fine, cool streams of clear water. I took my luncheon that noon by a spring that flows into the Pacific, and about half a mile farther on took a drink from one flowing into the Atlantic. I should not have known this but for the stage-driver, on whose heels I followed all the forenoon. There was nothing in the appearance of the surrounding country to indicate that I was crossing the back-bone of the continent. During the afternoon I left the stage far behind, and rode for twelve miles through pine forests, over a road that twisted about and pleasantly found its way through where there were the fewest trees to be cut away. From Beaver Cañon to Fire Hole, the first stopping place in the park by this route, the distance is one hundred and five miles, and of that, ninety miles is as fine riding as any wheelman could desire. That night, long before dark, I reached Fire Hole, after climbing one long, hard hill, and was ready to start out on short trips to see the wonders, but decided to wait till morning. I took a bath in Fire Hole River in water so warm one would know it came from "Hell's Half Acre," or some other portion of the farm, and the stage-driver offered to share his blankets with me, on the ground of course, in a tent. The next morning the first point of interest visited was the Falls and the Grand Cañon to the northeast. The ride of thirty miles was over the same excellent gravel roads, and through the same beautiful meadows, that abound all over this section of country, but there were six or eight small streams to wade, and a mile of steep hill climbing to offset this, and before I reached the hotel a hard shower wet me through and covered the machine thick with mud. Still the sight of Sulphur Mountain, on the way, was very interesting. It is a hill perhaps one hundred and fifty feet high apparently all sulphur, and at its base is a spring perhaps twelve by twenty feet in diameter that has more business in it than all the California geysers, so called, combined twice over. The water in this spring is constantly boiling, rising sometimes to a height of four or five feet. The Upper and Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, which are respectively one hundred and sixty and three hundred and fifty feet high, are very imposing, but hardly more so than the Nevada and Vernal Falls in the Yosemite, although the volume of water is a little larger. The river rises in Yellowstone Lake, which is in the southeastern part of the park, flows north, and going over the falls plunges down into the cañon. But the Grand Cañon! It is useless to try to describe it. There is nothing with which to compare it, for there is nothing like it in the world. A photograph may give the outlines in cold gray, but no artist can paint the colors of the rocks. The cañon is nearly two thousand feet deep, but the sides are far from perpendicular, in some places the angle being about forty-five degrees. But as the soft crumbling rocks slide down to the green river at the bottom the different colors are blended together in a most beautiful manner. Pure white, yellow, brown, fire-red, pink, and all the different shades and tints of these and many other colors are mixed up in striking contrasts. I walked down to Inspiration Point and crawled out on a projecting rock, where a fine view is had of the cañon for five or six miles. It certainly is the most beautiful spot I ever saw. Up the cañon, three miles, the Green River leaps over the falls and comes roaring down through the cañon two thousand feet, almost directly beneath this point, and turns a corner two miles below and disappears, while the bright sun brings out the varied colors of the rocks with a most brilliant effect. The next day a ride of twelve miles, to the Norris Geysers, and eighteen miles back to Fire Hole, was over roads not so good, but the coasting down through the fine woods for miles, with the roads full of stumps, required some lively work and close steering. There were no geysers of any account in action at Norris, but plenty of hot springs. In fact, during a frosty morning one can hardly look in any direction in the Park, which is fifty-five by sixty-five miles in area, without seeing steam arising through the trees from these springs, of which it is estimated there are three thousand in the Park. In passing a party of campers, for the Park is full of campers, and tourists as well, on the way to Fire Hole, I was kindly invited to spend the night with them, and the tent was pitched near the Fountain Geyser. This experience of camp life was just what I had been longing for all summer, and it fully met my expectations. This party of five young men, two of whom, Mr. John B. Patterson and Mr. Joseph M. Thomas, were Philadelphia wheelmen, were jolly fellows; and after supper, a meal I relished better than any I had had for months, we all went over in the dark to the fountain. Pretty soon some young ladies from another camping party near by came over, and a bright fire was soon burning within six or eight feet of the geyser, which was then a quiet pool of water twenty feet across. One of the young ladies recited a poem, a love story, in really very fine style, the young men sang "Pinafore," "Mikado," and other selections with very pleasing effect, others waltzed on the coarse gravel, and altogether the party were enjoying themselves, when suddenly the water began to boil, and in less than half a minute it was flying up into the air thirty or forty feet. It was certainly a queer sight, the white spray and steam rising high up into the starry heavens, the bright camp fire making the surroundings all the blacker, and a dozen or fifteen persons looking on with bright eyes and red faces, and their forms standing out so distinctly against the black background. The machine, that night, was, of course, left outside the tent, and a heavy thunder shower not only wet that, but came near soaking us through. There was no ditch dug to turn the water, and it ran down under us as we lay on the ground. But that was part of the fun of camping out. The next morning we started for the Upper Geysers, but before I had ridden a mile the left handle-bar broke. The day before, while taking dinner with another party of campers, two young fellows tried to ride the machine while I was very busy eating some delicious ham boiled in one of the hot springs, and I noticed the handle-bar began to get loose during the afternoon, and now it came out of the socket. But by slow riding I reached the Upper Geysers, ten miles distant, and during the afternoon saw Old Faithful send a spray of water up one hundred feet into the air once in sixty-five minutes, as regular as clock-work; but there are indications that the time is gradually becoming longer, the force is subsiding. There is more satisfaction to be had from this Geyser than any other, for there is no waiting. Crowds of people are seen going to this place just before the appointed time, and Old Faithful never disappoints them. It plays for about five minutes, and then subsides as quickly as it commenced spouting. This Geyser is in the form of a small volcano or cone, perhaps ten feet high, composed of white, flakey rock. We climbed up on the white mound of the Giantess and waited hours for her eruption, for there was every indication of it, one sign being a thumping sound beneath our feet, but she failed to make a display till two hours after I had departed next day. This Geyser is a pool of water fifteen feet in diameter, so clear that one can see down into it thirty or forty feet, and so hot it boiled occasionally while we were lying around on the warm rocks waiting. When it did go off, I was told, it looked like a boiling pyramid, sending jets of water into the air 150 feet. When it subsides, which is not for a day or two, it leaves the crater empty to some depth; when it gradually fills up again, and in a week or two, just as it happens, off it goes again. That night the boys sat around the camp-fire, sung, and told stories, but with my thin clothes on I was glad to crawl just inside the tent, cover myself with blankets, and lie there watching the rest, and thinking of the wonderful experience I was having. The next morning I started back for Fire Hole, riding with the broken machine as well as I could, and saw the Grotto in eruption. This one is a mound six or eight feet high, filled with large holes through which the water spurts in all directions. And the Growler was muttering, too. This is not much more than a hole in the earth, but the deep, guttural sound that comes forth every few minutes with a gush of hot steam, leaves the impression that it is well named. I might go on and describe the Castle, the Grand, the Giant, and others,--there are seventy-one of these spouting hot springs in the park--but will mention only one more, and that the greatest of all. It is the Excelsior at Hell's Half Acre, an appropriate name, as you will see. It isn't a half acre alone, but an acre and a quarter of water heated to the verge of boiling. The immense caldron is so obscured by clouds of steam that one only obtains momentary glimpses of its surface, but he who has seen it may well speak of it as an outflow from the infernal regions. There is no sight in the park more impressive. The water, boiling sometimes, is about four feet below the banks that enclose it on one side, on which it is continually making encroachments. These banks jut over it from having been hollowed away beneath, and there is danger in going too near, as it is not easy to tell when they will cave in. The whole surface about is made by a lime deposit, and behind as well as before the visitor are these lakes of heated water, from which arise clouds of steam that are colored green and red by the reflection from the water below. This geyser has been known to go off but once, and that in 1882, when it suddenly burst forth, sending a stream of hot water 300 feet into the air, and boiling over such a quantity that it raised Fire Hole River two feet. It played for nearly a week, then subsided, and has since remained comparatively quiet. I wet my feet in the warm water, then started on toward Fire Hole. The paint pots, springs of boiling mud of red, gray, and different colors, are to be seen in several localities. The roads in many places are black with small pieces of glass, and I saw chunks of it by the road-side, from the Obsidian Cliffs, mountains of black and different colored glass, two or three hundred feet high; but these, as well as the Mammoth Hot Springs, I missed by not going forty miles out of my route. Still, as it was, I saw enough, much more than I can describe. Reaching Fire Hole, where the only blacksmith's shop within a hundred miles is situated, I found the blacksmith was off on a drunk, so I had to try and fix the handle bar or walk a hundred miles to Beaver Cañon, for my supply of money was nearly gone. But I found something with which to run a new thread upon the handle bar, and getting out the broken piece I screwed the shortened bar in place, and went on my way rejoicing. The day before I started back for Beaver Cañon a detachment of United States troops were sent out in that direction from the park, to intercept and drive back a party of Indians who were reported on their way from a reservation to hunt in the park. The first day I saw and heard nothing of them, but the next forenoon, when about ten miles from any ranch, for the ranches are fifteen or twenty miles apart, an Indian came galloping up from across the meadow. According to tradition my scalp should have been the first thing he asked for, but instead he wanted to know, in broken English, if I had seen a party of Indians hunting, and asked where I came from, how many miles a day I could make, and the usual string of questions that almost every white person asks, and then he said, "You know my name?" I replied I had no recollections of ever meeting him before. "My name is Major Jim, Major," with considerable emphasis on the last word; and with that we parted, and I reached Beaver Cañon without further incident. Distance traveled with the wheel, 3,505 miles. CHAPTER XXII. THROUGH THE BLACK CA�ON AND THE ROYAL GORGE. One day's ride by train from Beaver Cañon through a section of country composed mostly of sand and sage brush, overlying that same sheet of lava, and through Mormon cities of eight and ten thousand inhabitants, where they had made the desert blossom for miles around, brought me back to Salt Lake City. Here occurred the first rain that had caused even an hour's delay in my trip since the middle of May, three months and a half ago. After leaving Omaha, sufficient rain had not fallen in the eight or ten States and Territories through which I had passed to dampen my shirt sleeves, and when I reached the Yellowstone, it had been so long since I had even felt a rain drop, that the thorough wetting I received there was really enjoyed. But on reaching Salt Lake City, I was delayed a week by a cloud burst on the line of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, which swept away seven bridges and a mile or two of track. I started out and had gone about 100 miles before coming to the break, when the train was sent back to Salt Lake City again. As it was in going West, so now in returning, I was laid under lasting obligations to another Mormon, for cash on a personal check. This time it was Mr. D. S. Davis, Captain of the bicycle club. Still the enforced delay was not time wholly wasted. It showed me Mormonism in a different light from that in which I had seen it on my first visit. The Mormons professed to me their thorough loyalty to the United States Government, but their actions belie their words. The act of hoisting the stars and stripes at half mast on the Fourth of July does not strengthen one's belief in their loyalty, and to refer to the returning army of Eastern veterans who are daily passing through the city on their way home as a "parcel of blatherskites," as a Mormon bishop did on a public occasion, these and many other instances are daily occurring to show that the Mormons, instead of loving, are beginning to fairly hate the government. A book published a year and a half ago entitled, "The Fall of the Great Republic," finds many enthusiastic readers here. It prophesies the breaking up of the government in a very few years, and it is only too plain to be seen that the Mormons would rejoice to see the prediction fulfilled. Whether the strong hand of the government will succeed in suppressing polygamy without any serious outbreak here is, to say the least, uncertain, for at times it would take very little to start a riot. Sunday afternoon I went to the Tabernacle. It was communion, as it is every Sunday with them, I have since been told, and I suppose all the faithful ones were on hand, occupying the front seats, ready to perform their part of the service. At least, it seemed to be the extent of their mental capabilities, to take a piece of bread and a drink of water when it was offered them. A more ignorant, inferior, almost idiotic set of people I never saw. The women, most of them had sharp noses, peaked chins, and a wild sort of look about the eyes. They looked hard. The men, the gray-haired, bald-headed ones, looked simple and childish, the middle-aged ones were dull and heavy featured. There was not a noble looking woman, or an intelligent appearing man among them. This description may not hold good of the whole congregation, for there were probably five thousand present, the Tabernacle being about half full, but it is a fair estimate of those in the front part of the house as I sat facing them. The bread was distributed among the vast audience by eight or ten men who were continually returning to the front to have their silver baskets refilled, until the stock of bread was entirely exhausted. Two barrels of water, however, was sufficient to go around, although at one time it seemed as if even this amount would not supply the thirsty multitude. As soon as the bread was blessed, in a very brief manner, the speaker commenced his sermon, but was interrupted after a while by a subordinate, who as briefly blessed the two barrels of water. How much impression the sermon made can well be imagined, when you consider the aisles full of men passing bread and water, children chasing each other about and pulling hair, scores of babies squalling--I never saw a greater proportion of small children in any congregation--and people passing out. But in the midst of all this hubbub, the preacher suddenly stopped. A young man, perhaps 30 years of age, stepped to the front and without any apparent embarrassment, asked the congregation to deal leniently with him, that he would do better hereafter, but he was guilty of a sin which the church considered next to that of shedding blood, and so on. Then his nearest relative made a motion, that as his nephew had thus publicly confessed his adulterous actions, he, the nephew, should be turned out of Zion's church, and a sea of uplifted hands forthwith excommunicated him. As this young man holds a high office in the church, and is the son of George Q. Cannon, who is still a fugitive from justice, for practicing polygamy, this prompt action of the church may at first seem meritorious, but the licentious reputation of the son has long been known, and it is thought this public confession and prompt excommunication was for effect upon the large number of Eastern people present. But if so, the effect was hardly favorable, even if it was hoped it would be. The whole service was most irreverent and disgusting. Not a head was bowed during prayer, the little children and even babies were allowed to grab for the bread as they would for sweetmeats, nearly all drank the blessed water as if they were really thirsty, and in the midst of this easy free lunch sort of a meeting, with a discordant sound of crying babies, a prominent member of the church unblushingly confesses his guilty actions in a very business sort of a way! It is all a poor burlesque of the religion of civilization. Not wishing to miss the scenery along the line of the Denver and Rio Grande, a railroad which traverses a section of country through which there are very few wagon roads, and in the most interesting portions none at all, I saw the bicycle handed into the baggage car, and with a pasteboard box as large as a small trunk, filled with pies, cakes, peaches, and grapes, I settled down into a seat in a cozy, narrow-gauge car with the firm belief that another washout on the way would not, at least, reduce me by famine. But accustomed as I have been for months to an appetite of the most ravenous kind, it now surprised even me, to say nothing of the blank astonishment with which the other passengers must have noticed my almost hourly devotion as I bowed over that monstrous pasteboard shoe-box. And so, notwithstanding I had laid in rations sufficient for an ordinary week's trip, when another washout did occur, and lengthened the ride of thirty-three hours from Salt Lake to Denver to fifty hours, the stock of eatables fell far short of the end of the journey. But what shall I say of the scenery? Unlike the dreary hours and days of sand and sage brush along the lines of the Union and Central Pacific Railroads, here is nothing monotonous. At the outset, the ride for hours is in a southerly direction, along the base of those grand old snow-capped mountains, the Wasatch range, until the snorting little engine turns up a cañon, and, puffing like mad, pulls the train of twelve cars as far up the grade as it is possible even for such an ambitious little locomotive to do. Then two more eight wheelers are attached, and the three engines take us to the summit in a short time. The hills along this cañon are covered with shrubbery, which has already begun to show the approach of winter by changing its color to the beautiful hues so common in New England in the fall. If there are long stretches of desert on this line, we must have passed them that night, for the next morning, soon after breakfast, an observation car was attached to the rear of the train, and we all, or as many as could, took seats in a car that is like an ordinary one with the top taken off above the window sills. And then commenced the ride through the Black Cañon. The train ran rather slowly, so that we all had a good opportunity to view the cañon without that hurried feeling so commonly experienced in sight-seeing from a fast rushing train. The dark colored rocks rise in jagged and broken masses to a height of nearly, if not quite, two thousand feet on either side of the Gunnison River, which comes roaring and tumbling down through this narrow and very crooked defile in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, and a most interesting part of the whole ride was the sight of a long train of cars crossing and recrossing the foaming river and winding its dark way along through what seemed to be the very bowels of the earth. Almost every one of us was soon standing, for who could sit still when there was so much to be seen on all sides, and if one imagined these grand sights lasted only a short time, that was where he was wrong, for the cañon is fifteen or twenty miles long, and we were considerably over one hour in passing through it. Then, soon after, came Marshall Pass. Here the situation was just reversed. Instead of groping along in a deep and narrowly contracted defile, where the only outlook was heavenward, now we glided along up the sides of a deep ravine, rising higher and higher, getting a wider and wider view of the surrounding country, until, after twisting around the sides of the mountains, and passing around more horseshoe curves than we ever dreamed of, we finally reached the top of the range of mountains, eleven thousand six hundred feet above the sea. Here, in an immense snow shed, filled with black smoke, we waited for the second section of the train, for it had been divided in climbing this last grade, and then we started down the other side. A locomotive preceded our train, and the second section followed us. Down we went at a lively rate, coming close on to the heels, sometimes, of that single locomotive, which would then dart on ahead out of the way for a time; and looking back we could see the other train rushing close upon us. Sometimes, in going around and down some of those horseshoe curves, we could look out of the window, high up the sides of the mountains, but only a short distance across, and see the passengers on the other train waving papers and handkerchiefs at us as if to hurry us out of their way. And so we went, chasing each other down grades that made one think of Mt. Washington Railroad, and at times so close to each other that both trains and the locomotive were all within a mile. It certainly was dangerous, but we enjoyed it just the same, perhaps all the more, and, finally, just before dark, we came to the Royal Gorge, a cañon, not so long as the Black Cañon, but with sides higher, more nearly perpendicular, and closer at the bottom, if that were possible. The sides of this cañon are 2,800 feet high by actual measurement. Down through this cañon the consolidated train rushed as if the very devil was after it, the little low eight-driving-wheel engine being on the point, seemingly, of tearing itself all to pieces or jumping off into the rocky river at every sharp curve, and it was all curves through the cañon. At one point the cañon is so narrow that the track is suspended over the river, it being held up by braces overhead, the ends of which rest against the rocks on either side. This was the last of the marvelous scenery, but it was the best; it was grand beyond anything I can describe. One who crosses the continent without passing over the Denver and Rio Grande, misses the finest mountain scenery there is in the country, I think, outside of the Yosemite. It beats Salt Lake City, with its many-wived Mormons and bottle-sucking babies, "higher than a kite." CHAPTER XXIII. A VISIT TO PRUDENCE CRANDALL. I reached Denver, and went to the bicycle club rooms one evening, meeting Mr. Van Horne, and many other good fellows, but was sorry not to again see Mr. C. C. Hopkins, fancy rider, whose acquaintance I made on my other visit here. The prospect of wheeling across the State of Kansas was not very encouraging, the country being fairly flooded with water, and so I took the train again, and the next afternoon left it at Emporia, a thriving town in Kansas, on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, with the purpose of visiting Prudence Crandall Philleo (of almost national renown), at her home at Elk Falls. Here the rainfall had been very slight and the roads were in excellent condition, so that after traveling so many days on the cars and taking no exercise on the wheel, I returned to the saddle with the keenest enjoyment. But the corduroy knickerbockers, which I then put on again, felt very stiff and clumsy after wearing thinner ones so long, and they will be the last corduroy trousers I shall ever have. The country south of Emporia, for eighty or ninety miles, is a gentle rolling prairie, which looks as fresh and green as in the spring, and the timber and numerous farm-houses tend to break up what little monotony there is in the prospect. But all the enjoyment of the trip was soon swept away by a drizzling rain which set in on the second day of the ride, and I was glad to find even a grassy place on the side of the road to walk on, for in the road the sticky black clay would clog up under the saddle and entirely stop the wheel. However, after pushing the machine along in this manner for eighteen or twenty miles, I was made glad by the sight of Elk Falls, a town of seven or eight hundred inhabitants, situated within thirty miles of the northern border of the Indian "Nation." The town is surrounded by low hills, and a good patch of timber is close by, so that the general appearance of the country is very different from the level, treeless prairie, so common west of the Missouri River. Inquiring at the first house I came to, the man said, pointing to a house west of us on the brow of a hill, "Mrs. Philleo lives out on that farm, about a mile and a half from town. A Mr. Williams lives with her and takes care of the farm, but she goes around lecturing some, talking on temperance, spiritualism, and so on." I had ridden part way out there, when in answer to another inquiry, I was told: "Mrs. Philleo, since she got her pension from New Jersey, has bought a place in town, and lives next house to the Methodist Church." So turning about, riding through the place, and going around to the back door of the house, which was a plain story and a half, with an ell on the back side, I was pleasantly received by Mr. Williams, a man of 35, with brown hair and mustache, large blue eyes, and a most sympathetic, almost affectionate, manner. "Mrs. Philleo," he explained, "is at church. She enjoys excellent health, and it is wonderful how much she, a woman of 84 years, can endure. Yesterday she wanted to ride over to the farm and see about some things, and before I was ready to come home she started on foot and got clear home before I overtook her, and she didn't seem tired either." Just then Mrs. Philleo came in, and said cordially, "I am glad to see any one from good old Connecticut." As she removed her bonnet, it showed a good growth of sandy gray hair, smoothed back with a common round comb, and cut straight around, the ends curling around in under and in front of her ears; of medium height, but somewhat bent and spare, and with blue eyes, and a face very wrinkled, and rather long; her chin quite prominent, and a solitary tooth on her upper jaw, the only one seen in her mouth. She smiled with her eyes, and with a pleasant voice, said: "Come, you must be hungry, coming so far" (I had only told her then I came from Connecticut on the bicycle), and she urged the apple pie, ginger snaps, johnny-cakes, potatoes, ham, bread and butter, and tea, upon me promiscuously, and in great profusion. "No; as my grandmother used to say, I never break a cup, you must take another full one. Now do you make yourself at home; I know you must be tired. Why, you have seen enough to write a book. [This, after I had explained more fully the extent of the trip.] When you get home you must write up an account of your journey for some newspaper. [Further explanation seemed unadvisable just then.] Now come into the other room; I want to show you some pictures." So, talking every minute, we went into the sitting-room, and drawing up rocking-chairs, we sat down cosily together. "I am going to have these photographs of these noble men all put into a frame together. I don't want them in an album, for I have to turn and turn the leaves so much. I want them in a frame, so I can get the inspiration from them at a glance. This is Samuel Coit, who did so much last winter in my behalf, and this is S. A. Hubbard of the Courant. This is ----. Why I see you know all of these noble souls. Well, I want to read you a letter he sent me," and she slowly picked out the words of the writer who said, among other generous things, that he would be only too glad to load her down with any number of his books, and would send her a complete file of them. The letter was signed Samuel L. Clemens. "But," she added, "he has never sent them. Probably so busy he forgot it. I do wish I could see them, for I had a chance once to read part of 'Innocents Abroad,' and I do like his beautiful style of expression. And here is Major Kinney, and George G. Sumner, and Rev. Mr. Twichell. What grand good men they are. And this--you say you have heard him preach! How much I would give to hear that great soul speak," and she handed me Rev. Mr. Kimball's photograph, and several others, every one of which is more precious to her than gold. In this collection also, were photographs of William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and other anti-slavery friends of hers, and I noticed several others of Garrison framed and hung about the house. When I expressed the opinion that the amount of her pension was too small in proportion to the injury inflicted, she said: "O, I am so thankful for that. It is so much better than nothing." During the evening, the collection was again displayed to a visitor, and it is plain to be seen, the sight of those faces does her a great amount of good. She and I went through them again the next day. After breakfast, I sat down to glance through a book I had seen her reading, "Is Darwin Right," by William Denton of Massachusetts. Soon she came into the sitting-room with a pan of apples, and drawing a low rocking-chair up in front of me said, "Now you must stop reading, for I want to talk," and we talked. In fact, she became as interested in the conversation, and so far forgot herself that, in cutting out the worm-holes from the apples, she once put the worthless portion into her mouth, and munched it thoroughly before she discovered her mistake. The conversation drifted from one subject to another, and on her part it was carried on in a clear, connected, and enlightened manner. I can only give a few sentences of hers. "My whole life has been one of opposition. I never could find any one near me to agree with me. Even my husband opposed me, more than anyone. He would not let me read the books that he himself read, but I did read them. I read all sides, and searched for the truth whether it was in science, religion, or humanity. I sometimes think I would like to live somewhere else. Here, in Elk Falls, there is nothing for my soul to feed upon. Nothing, unless it comes from abroad in the shape of books, newspapers, and so on. There is no public library, and there are but one or two persons in the place that I can converse with profitably for any length of time. No one visits me, and I begin to think they are afraid of me. I think the ministers are afraid I shall upset their religious beliefs, and advise the members of their congregation not to call on me, but I don't care. I speak on spiritualism sometimes, but more on temperance, and am a self-appointed member of the International Arbitration League. I don't want to die yet. I want to live long enough to see some of these reforms consummated. I never had any children of my own to love, but I love every human being, and I want to do what I can for their good." After dinner while I was reading--for there is a host of good books in the house--she sat down to copy off a short account of my trip I had written at her request the night before for a local paper, but every few minutes she would stop to talk on some subject that had just entered her mind, and sometimes we would both commence speaking at the same instant. "Go ahead," she would say, or "keep on, I have kept hold of that idea I had," pressing her thumb and forefinger together, and then again she would say, "When you get another idea just let it out." And so two days passed, very pleasantly, for me at least. There was no subject upon which I was conversant, but that she was competent to talk and even lead in the conversation, and she introduced many subjects to which I found I could only listen. At night Mr. Williams's bed and my own were in the same room, and this gave him an opportunity to say of Mrs. Philleo, "I never knew a person of a more even temperament. She is never low spirited, never greatly elated. When things don't go right she never frets." And of him, when he was off at work, she said, "You don't know how much comfort I get from my adopted son. We have lived together nearly four years, and my prayer is that he will grow up a noble man to do all the good he can in this world," and I can add, judging from his conversation, he has a mind so broad and intelligent that he is fully abreast and even a little beyond her in mental growth, and that is saying a good deal. The last thing she said as I left them was, "if the people of Connecticut only knew how happy I am, and how thankful I am to them, it would make them happy too." Surely she has one of three graces, the greatest of the three, charity for every one. Of strong religious convictions, a thorough spiritualist herself, she respects the beliefs of others, and uttered in my presence not a word ill of any one. The State of Connecticut certainly is to be congratulated that it did not neglect its opportunity last winter. What a shame had this good woman, this great mind, gone to another world without having even that slight justice done it. Very few people in Connecticut realize what a narrow escape they had from a lasting disgrace. The ride on the return to Emporia was uneventful, excepting that a break in the head of the machine obliged me to take the train sooner than I expected, and after a short stop in Kansas City, to keep on by rail to this place where there are facilities for repairing the break. At Kansas City I met Mr. C. B. Ellis, dealer in bicycles, and one or two other wheelmen. In meeting, as I have on the trip, many Connecticut people who have settled in the West, it is pleasant to have them all or nearly all express the desire to return East to live, sometime, when they have made money enough. Some place that wished-for event ten years hence, others longer, but all show that the "good old State of Connecticut" occupies a prominent place in their future plans and prospects. It is their ideal of a place to live in. It is mine. Miles traveled on the wheel, 3,627. CHAPTER XXIV. THE TRIENNIAL CONCLAVE AT ST. LOUIS. Reaching San Francisco in season to witness the encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, I was quite as fortunate in getting to St. Louis on the eve of the triennial conclave of the Knights Templars. Intending at first to make a stay in the city of but a few days, various causes induced me to lengthen the visit to nearly or quite two weeks, and the chief reason for this was the kind invitation of A. W. Sumner, now proprietor of the St. Louis Stoneware Company, but once an old schoolmate of mine, to remain with him while waiting for my bicycle to be repaired. He and I had not met since we both attended Rev. Mr. Hall's School at Ellington, Conn., nearly twenty years since, and after "Hello, Poggy," and "Hello, Bubby," had come to our lips spontaneously, we talked over and looked back to the time we spent in Ellington with very much the same feelings, I think, that Nicholas Nickleby had when he recalled his experiences under Squeer's at Dotheboy's Hall. Still we bear no ill will against the apple-trees in the rear of the school-house, but think it doubtful if those trees themselves have borne anything since, after furnishing so many switches to be used for our moral welfare and physical uplifting. But these reflections were soon forgotten in the noise and excitement of the week. The Charity Concert at the fair grounds, the proceeds of which were for the benefit of the widows and orphans of Masons, was a great success money-wise, but hardly from any other point of view. The immense band-stand was built on the inside of the mile track so far out into the field that the music could scarcely be heard on the grand-stand, which, by the way, is probably the largest and finest one in the country, and after the first number had been played the majority of the eight or ten thousand people who had paid a dollar for a seat, in addition to the fifty cents admission fee, on the grand-stand, left it in disgust and gathered out in the field where something of the music could be heard, besides the cannon accompaniment, if that part can be called music at all. Seats were provided for twice the number of musicians that could finally be persuaded to participate, for many union musicians refused to play in a concert with non-union musicians, and so there were many vacant chairs among the performers. Into one of these seats a press committee's badge made way for me, and there the noise during the anvil chorus was fairly deafening. Before the piece was played Gilmore came over to the anvils on one side of the stand, and rather sternly placed the men, who wore white shirts instead of the customary red ones, in a different position from the one they had taken, but as if to soften his orders he said, smiling, "You are to strike first, you know, but you will do it all right, I guess." During the performance, as one set of musicians would play too loud, or too soft, or too slow, or too fast, Gilmore would look sharply at them, and raise his eyebrows almost to the top of his head, and when the fifty anvils came in, and the cannons went off, both at first in poor time, it seemed as if he would fly all to pieces, he had so much to see to, but after a few beats, and after bending his body sidewise, almost double, and sweeping his arms from above his head down to the floor, he had the thousand performers all playing in very good time. The effect upon the great audience was shown by the way they cheered at the end, and even Gilmore seemed to be well pleased, for he cried "bravo," and bowed to his musicians before he turned about and acknowledged the applause of his audience. When some one of his performers, carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, proposed "three cheers for Gilmore," he had to fairly yell "hold on, hold on," in order to be heard, and by features and gesture frowned down and nipped in the bud the proposed compliment. The gate receipts show there were one hundred and twenty-five thousand people in attendance, and of this number I did not see one drunken person. Actually, I have been, many a time, to a county fair in Connecticut where there were not one-hundredth part as many persons present, and have seen decidedly more disturbance and drunkenness. Undoubtedly there were some among this great number who were not sober, but I did not happen to see them and I was around a good deal. It was beer, beer everywhere, and everybody drank it, nicely dressed and otherwise fine appearing women ordering their beer brought to them on the grand-stand fully as freely as the men. One hundred and fifty waiters were kept busy all day on the grand-stand alone. Coffee, lemonade, and soda could be had at exorbitant prices, but the price of beer was restricted to five cents a glass by the Brewer's Association. And in addition to the fact that beer drinking was a question of economy, there was still greater influence brought to bear in favor of beer. It was a very warm day, many were overcome by the heat, but there was no place where one could get a glass of water. I went from one end of the fair-grounds to the other in search of it, and finally was obliged to drink from the end of an iron pipe where they water horses. Water, evidently, is not used here as a beverage. They tell of a Missourian who was knocked off a ferry-boat into the water and was rescued after being in great danger of his life and was asked if he was much hurt, "No," he replied, "thank God, I don't think a drop of water got into my mouth." This is a chestnut out here. Has it got East? Some of the members of the Womans' Christian Temperance Union in the Eastern cities, who do such a grand good thing by freely furnishing ice-water to the thirsty crowd at all such out-door public gatherings, might suggest the idea to some of the members of the society in this city with good results. Still, notwithstanding the fact that saloons here keep open day and night, seven days in the week, the number of arrests for drunkenness last year was a little less than forty-two hundred, which is not one per cent. of the present estimated population of the city. It would be interesting to compare this with the percentage of drunkenness in Eastern cities. Here the license fee is $600, and the more I can learn of the practical workings of high license in these Western States, the more I am impressed with the belief that high license must for a long time precede prohibition in large cities, in order to insure any practical, good results. But even expecting something of the kind, I was surprised at the practical working of the prohibitory law in Kansas. At Elk Falls, where I spent a couple of days so pleasantly with Mrs. Philleo, the same crowd of loungers congregated about the drug stores that are usually seen near the saloons, and upon inquiry, while waiting in the drug store, I was told anyone could get liquor by signing a blank statement. This statement is filled out by the druggist at his leisure, and gives the name of the disease with which the person is afflicted. The probate judge gets five cents each for recording these statements which are sent to him by the druggists. As I sat there, one poor sufferer passed out from behind the counter where he had probably just disclosed to the druggist the nature of the terrible disease from which he was undergoing inward torment, but which had as yet only shown itself outwardly on the end of his nose. Drug stores have increased three-fold in Elk Falls within a short time, and the increase in other parts of the State is surprising. The probate office has suddenly become a very lucrative position, and judging from the records in this office, Kansas must be the most unhealthy place in the country. But to return from the subject of temperance to the Templars. For several nights the city was beautifully illuminated in their honor. It is impossible to give a good idea of the beautiful effect of the numerous gas-jets used in the illumination. I counted the number of gas-lights upon one of the arches, and found it had 346. Different colored shades were used, and these arches, surmounted with small pyramids of lights, were erected along three or four of the principal streets at the intersection of every cross street. In addition to these large arches were smaller ones extending along on the curbs. The effect, for instance, at the corner of Washington avenue and Fourth street, was like that produced in looking through an immense arbor two or three miles long, completely covered with variegated colored gas lights. Thirty-five thousand gas-jets were used in this manner. The flambeau battalion paraded the streets on several evenings, burning up a couple of thousand of dollars' worth of fireworks each night, and sending off a dozen or so large rockets at a time, with fine effect, as they marched along, colored lights and a shower of Roman candles adding to the beautiful sight. The trades' display parade was another occasion gotten up for the edification of the visiting Knights, and included a parade of the fire department. During a break in the procession, I had gone into the exposition building to hear the "Poet and Peasant" rendered by Gilmore's band as I never heard it before, when coming out and crossing over to Franklin avenue, I found the street full of people, all apparently waiting for something. Soon the bell of a fire engine was heard, and in another instant four large gray horses on a keen run came rushing down through the crowd drawing an engine finely decorated with flags and bunting. The crowd opened barely wide enough for the engine to pass, and closed up again, when another engine rushed down the street in the same reckless manner, no one making the slightest effort to keep the street clear. There was something exciting about the affair that is relished by the average American, just as we enjoyed the way those trains chased each other down the side of the mountain from Marshall Pass, but it was dangerous business. The prize drill of the different commanderies at the fair grounds, and the street parade of the Knights Templar, was a very fine exhibition of what degree of perfection in the different manoeuvers can be attained by uniformed men outside of the regular army and State militias. But with me there was something lacking in the procession and the appearance of these bodies of fine looking men. The sight of that procession of veterans in San Francisco was constantly coming up in my mind, and in that there was a something decidedly lacking in this. Here the white plumes, the showy uniforms, the costly banners, the glistening jewels, the elegant regalia, the diamond studded swords and crowns, all this beautiful display of costly equipments to be seen on the streets and in the show-windows, certainly made a finer appearance than anything to be seen at a veteran reunion, but in it there was nothing to stir a man's soul. The sight of a torn battle-flag is worth more to me than all the banners in any Knight Templar's procession. The flag cost men's lives, and an empty sleeve has more in it, so to speak, than the finest Knight Templar's uniform in the procession, more of history, of patriotism, and of true religion. "In Hoc Signo Vinces," "Christian Warriors," "Defenders of the Cross," and such mottoes, are here seen on all sides, but "Gettysburg," "Appomattox," "Defenders of our country," are words that are more tangible, and have more meaning in them, to the average patriot certainly. But this is hardly a subject for a touring bicyclist to get warmed up over. One of the greatest attractions in the city during this month of festivities, is Gilmore's band at Music Hall in the exposition building. The hall is truly what its name indicates. It is built without boxes, and with the stage well out into the auditorium. The auditorium is boarded up on the sides and overhead with narrow beaded strips, which have the musical effect, I am told, of an immense sounding board; and when Gilmore's sixty-five players are all getting red in the face under his energetic leadership, the air is so filled with music that, as has been said, one could cut the music up in chunks and deliver it around the city for little private serenades. Twice every afternoon and twice in the evening, this hall is filled with four or five thousand visitors to the exposition, who during the intermissions wander about the Machinery Hall and other parts of the immense building. For twenty-five cents this exposition is, as it ought to be, the most popular attraction in the West. It is said, however, that, cheap as is the price of admission, over two thousand dead-head tickets have been called for and issued. There is always an army of applicants at headquarters, and the bald-headed secretary seems to have his time thoroughly occupied in writing passes for this omnipresent crowd. But he is an amiable person and performs this unprofitable service with an alacrity and cheerfulness which I have rarely observed in officials who possess the authority to disburse free passes of any kind. CHAPTER XXV. THE WHEELMEN'S ILLUMINATED PARADE. The wheelmen's illuminated parade here, on the evening of October 1st, was a success. It not only surprised and gratified the crowds of people that lined the streets in the most fashionable part of the city, but the effect was beyond what the wheelmen themselves expected. I rode out to the natatorium, about dark, where the wheelmen had already begun to congregate, and it was interesting to witness the transformations in their appearance. One after another came hurriedly in, wearing his ordinary clothes, and disappeared in the numerous dressing-rooms in the building. Very soon out would come an immense green frog nearly six feet high, walking on his hind legs, then came a gorilla, but with an unusual appendage in the shape of a tail long enough for several "missing links"; soon after a great white rooster came strutting about; then appeared the devil in red tights and with wings so broad he had to go sideways through the doors; closely following him was "Cupid" in white tights with nothing to keep him warm (it was a cold frosty evening) but a pair of tiny wings and an eye-glass. "Cupid" is better known to Hartford wheelmen as George W. Baker, who made the wonderful ride from St. Louis to Boston last year in nineteen and one-half days. Many had their faces painted white with L. A. W. across their noses and cheeks in red paint. But I cannot stop now to even attempt to describe the different costumes. The machines were variously and tastefully trimmed with different colored paper and hung with Chinese lanterns. One machine, or rather three bicycles fastened together and supporting a sort of canopy, was festooned with nearly a hundred lanterns. There were various other designs, and in all there were two hundred riders in line, and probably several thousand lanterns. The ride was over a route nearly four miles in length, and excepting a few blocks, the pavement was entirely of asphalt. Being at the head of the line, as an aid to the grand marshal, with no duties to perform, and assisted in that work by Mr. H. C. Cake of Clarksville, Mo., and Mr. H. G. Stuart of Kansas City, Mo., I was unable to get a good view of the procession till it reached the exposition building, where the immense crowd reduced it nearly to a single line of walking wheelmen, pushing their machines along as best they could. But the view down Pine street was very fine, where the street for nearly a mile was filled to the curbstones with colored men on the sides carrying torches of red fire, and the middle of the street a mass of moving wheels, burning torches, fantastically dressed wheelmen, and hideous looking animals astride of wheels, and the whole filled in with Chinese lanterns hanging not only from the pedals, handle-bars, and backbones of the machines, but moving along in the shape of trees, crosses, boats, and canopies. It was such a weird and beautiful sight that it is almost universally acknowledged that of all the fall festivities held here this procession has only been excelled in beauty by that of the Veiled Prophet. And judging only from the newspaper accounts of the night parade of the Boston wheelmen last fall, this one far surpasses that, which was the first and only affair of the kind ever gotten up in this country. It certainly does in one very important particular of a negative character. There was no molestation of a single rider by the crowd of hoodlums that followed the parade everywhere. When it is remembered how, at Boston, bricks were thrown in the way and sometimes at the heads of the riders, how sticks were thrust through the wheels, causing innumerable headers, and how finally some of the wheelmen dismounted and engaged in knock-down arguments with the roughs and drew revolvers on them, it may at least be placed to the credit of a city that is supposed to be so far removed in respect to the civilization of the "Hub" as is St. Louis, that in this particular, as well as in other respects, the wheelmen have furnished an example that may well be followed by wheelmen and hoodlums alike in Eastern cities. Judging from the remarks at the banquet the next evening, at the Lindell Hotel, given by the St. Louis wheelmen to the many visiting wheelmen who joined in the parade, the credit for the great success of the whole affair seemed to rest mainly upon the shoulders of Grand Marshall E. K. Stettinills and W. E. Hicks, a "literary fellow" on the Post-Despatch, both of whom, with becoming modesty, tried to shift the responsibility upon the other's shoulders. Hicks has dark hair, blue eyes, a thin face, small moustache, and is slightly built, and a little above the medium height. A wiry, active sort of a fellow, all nerves, just the one to create enthusiasm. Stettinills, on the contrary, is solidly built, of medium height, full face, black hair and eyes, small moustache, and has a sledge hammer way with him that is sure to remove all obstruction and insure success. One was imaginative, the other executive, "chiefly executive." One went off like a sky-rocket, the other like a cannon--a good combination, as it proved. After Chief-Consul Rogers, who presided in a very happy manner, had called upon Mr. Gus Thomas, another literary fellow, to respond to "The Press," and he had done so in a speech that for wit and humor is rarely excelled and which kept the wheelmen in a continual roar of laughter, the presiding officer then said there was in their midst a touring wheelman who had accomplished the "great feat of crossing, etc., etc., etc.," and called upon him to respond. This wheelman had had a Colorado ranchman advance upon him with glaring eyes threatening to put a hole through him, and he did not know enough perhaps to feel afraid; had seen an Indian fully armed and galloping towards him, off on the plains of Idaho near the Yellowstone Park, without having one additional heart-beat, and during his entire trip had carried as his only weapon of defense a dull jack-knife with the point of the blade filed off for a screw-driver, and yet after hearing the account of his trip so greatly exaggerated, and seeing the eyes of seventy-five or a hundred friendly wheelmen turned suddenly towards him, he trembled and turned pale, his breath came and went as if that Indian was after his scalp, he hid behind the back of his chair, he could not think of some things he wanted to say and said some things he did not want to, and altogether presented an appearance that ought to dispel any impression that might be entertained of his supposed courage in going where he has been. He says he had rather wheel another thirty-seven hundred miles than be where he was then. The Simmons Hardware Company, agents for the Columbia bicycles in this city (in whose employ were Messrs. Jordan, Sharps, Dennis, and Smith, and other wheelmen, whose acquaintance I made), had just moved a part of their immense business into a new six-story brick block, which was to all outward appearances substantially built, when one Sunday evening, without the slightest warning, the upper floor dropped and carried with it the five other floors down into the basement, burying and ruining one hundred and twenty-five bicycles and a full stock of bicycle sundries, the walls of the building remaining standing, apparently little injured. This occurred a short time before I arrived in the city, and, consequently, an order for a new head for my machine had to be sent to Hartford; but the delay has given me an opportunity to become better acquainted with the wheelmen, and although at Buffalo, Denver, San Francisco, and especially at Salt Lake City, not to mention other places, the cordial treatment I received made me regret to go on, yet, notwithstanding I have made the longest stay here that I have at any place, I am more loath to leave the St. Louis wheelmen than any I have met, and that is saying a good deal for them. Distance traveled on the wheel, 3,740 miles. CHAPTER XXVI. THROUGH KENTUCKY. I took the train from St. Louis, after receiving some road routes kindly given by Mr. Harry L. Swartz, to Louisville, Ky. My recollection of the Illinois dirt roads, after a lapse of five months, was too vivid. The result of my encounter with one hundred and twenty-five miles of clay ruts and lumps, had left too many scars behind, and my indignation had not sufficiently subsided from the boiling point, to make me care to wheel across that State a second time; so, after making the acquaintance of a few wheelmen in Louisville, among them Messrs. Thompson, Adams, Allison, and Huber, I started out over the Shelbyville pike. The pikes in Kentucky are macadamized, the rock used for that purpose being hauled and dumped alongside the road where it is broken up by negroes. It was no uncommon sight to see four or five "niggers," as they are always spoken of there, seated in rows by the roadside in the scorching sun pounding these rocks into small pieces. From twenty to twenty-five cents a perch is the price paid for this rock, and five perch is a very good day's work. The riding, as a general thing was very good, and there was plenty of coasting interspersed, but the many loose stones in the road would not allow very lively work. Although I did not go through the finest portion of the blue-grass region, it was a very pretty country to ride over, plenty of trees, cool-looking groves, and fine-looking farm-houses set back quite a distance from the road on a knoll, a winding driveway leading to them. Sometimes these farm-houses would have a cluster of tumble-down shanties near them, a reminder of ante-bellum times. All the houses, unless of the recent build, had the chimneys on the outside. Besides enjoying the ride through this fertile, beautiful-looking country, it was quite refreshing to be able to pass a group of children, quite mature ones, sometimes, without being the object of such facetious remarks as "Get up there, Levi," "Let her go, Gallagher," and so on, words that are always on the tip of the tongue of every white young American all through the West as well as in the East. But no such remarks ever fell from the lips of the colored children. They would open their eyes wide, and grin perhaps, but not a word was said, unless, as it sometimes happened, it was "Good mornin'," or "How de do." Much as I had to regret the ignorance of the colored people--for they hardly ever gave a satisfactory answer to an inquiry about roads and streets--still they never tried to say something smart as I passed by, a compliment that cannot be paid to the white people of Kentucky, or anywhere else. The first night out I stopped at a farm-house with a widow and a lazy son. The husband had been killed in the rebel army. The next morning at the breakfast table the old lady asked me what kind of bread I had to eat in California. I replied, "Very good, both home-made and baker's." "Well," said she, "my daughter has been visiting in California, and she says they make their bread there in this way: The women take a mouthful of water and squirt it over the flour, and then take another mouthful and do the same, and in this way mix it up. I don't want to eat any of their bread." I explained how the Chinese laundrymen sprinkle their clothes, and suggested that perhaps there was some mistake, but it was no use trying to enlighten a mind that probably, until the war, believed the Yankees had horns and tails. The bicycle is not in favor in Kentucky. I was obliged to make more dismounts on account of frightened horses than in any section of this country through which I have passed. And not only do the horses and their drivers dislike them, but the women express themselves very forcibly about them. A saddle-horse, left unhitched in front of a house, ran away down the road at my approach, but was easily caught. "I don't wonder he was afraid of the thing. They had not ought to be allowed in the road," said a female voice, with emphasis. The sound came from the inside of the house somewhere, I did not look to see where. Meeting a carriage, in which were two persons, I dismounted, as the horse showed some signs of fright, but it was needless, and as they drove leisurely by the man smiled and bowed to me. "Don't bow to him. I would not be seen bow--", was what I heard issuing in a piping voice from the inside of the dilapidated vehicle. She evidently belonged to the aristocracy--to the same liberal class of females that spat upon Union soldiers during the rebellion. Toward night I came suddenly upon another saddle-horse around a bend in the road. Saddle-horses are in such customary use, both by men and boys, that it is no uncommon sight to see half a dozen such horses hitched to trees near the school-houses, the scholars riding them to and from school. This particular horse was hitched in front of a saloon out in the country, and before I could stop he pulled back, broke the bridle, and ran down the road. A man came reeling out of the saloon into the road with a black rawhide whip in his hand, a tall, large-framed man, with full, red cheeks, long face, moustache, and goatee, a typical Kentuckian, drunk, too. "Now you jest take that bridle, and ketch that horse, and bring him back here again, or you'll get a pounden. I am a peaceable man, but I ain't afraid of Christ, damnation, or high water. Now you do as I say," and he walked deliberately back into the saloon, perhaps out of consideration for my humiliated feelings, but probably to take another drink. Although I was not mentioned in his "little list," from his other remarks I judged he was not afraid of me either, and certainly a Kentuckian who is not afraid of water is a brave man indeed. So quickly mending the bridle with a string, I walked a rod or so, put the bridle on the horse without the least trouble, hitched him, and went on my way. Passing through Frankfort, I went to the north of Lexington, which is situated in the heart of the blue-grass region, and rode on to Georgetown. The term "blue grass" is derived, I was told, from the fact that the grass in that section of the State has a bluish color when it is in seed. The sun, during the middle of the day, was so hot that occasionally I was inclined to lie down on the grass under a shady tree. Once I was stretched out with my head within a foot of a stone wall, and had dozed off almost to sleep, when I suddenly smelt a snake. To one who has handled so many live and dead ones, the scent of a snake is very familiar, and, as may be supposed, I was not long in jumping to my feet. There was no snake in sight, but sure enough out on the road was the track of a snake that had recently crossed, and I felt certain it was not many inches from my head when I awoke. Judging from the size of the track left by one I saw crossing the road a little farther on, this one must have been five or six feet long. Reaching Cincinnati on the third day from Louisville, I had a few moments' pleasant talk with Robert H. Kellogg, formerly of Manchester, Conn., but now general agent of Cincinnati for the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company. "Seeing a Yankee from Connecticut will make me feel good for a week," said he, as I left him. When I went across Ohio in May, the consul at Cleveland in directing me to Columbus sent me off into a section of the State where the roads were miserable, and where I got stuck two days in the yellow clay. Consequently I never felt like advising others to follow the misdirections of that consul at Cleveland. But after traveling so many miles since, and not being misled by any one to amount to anything, it is curious, upon entering Ohio again, and applying to the consul for the best roads to Chillicothe, that he, even with the help of the Ohio State Road Book, should be unable to send me out of Cincinnati in the right direction. The map that goes with the road book is a splendid map. It gives every river, all the railroads, the outlines of every town, the name of every county, city, and village--everything almost but the roads. It is large in size, but it is remarkably small in road information, and so of little use to a touring wheelman. At least the consul and I studied it diligently for nearly half an hour, and then he decided I must go out to Loveland, twenty or twenty-five miles, and inquire, just as the consul at Cleveland sent me to Wellington, and then told me to inquire, just as any three-year-old boy could direct me. So the next morning I started for Loveland, but I inquired before I got there, and found I was going in the wrong direction, of course. Then I rode across four or five miles of dirt roads, composed mostly of loose rocks and dust, to another pike, a splendid one, but at Goshen found I was still going in the wrong direction; so after six or eight more miles of dirt roads, I found a pike that leads almost in a straight line from Cincinnati to Chillicothe. The pikes radiate from the city as do the spokes of a wheel from the hub, and consequently it is important to start out on the right one, but it was two o'clock in the afternoon before I found out which one that was. But it was a good one, especially near Hillsboro, and the second night I was one hundred and twenty miles from that useless road book and the friendly but misleading consul. Coming, with the help of steam-power for a short distance, to the Ohio River again, opposite Parkersburg, West Virginia, I rode along up toward Marietta. The roads were good, running close to the bank of the river which was forty or fifty feet below, and, with fine farm-houses along both banks, and trains of cars rushing up and down, the ride was greatly enjoyed. I kept pace for miles with a stern-wheel steamer going up the river. The water looked so inviting, I pushed the machine down behind some bushes next the river, stripped, and took a good bath. Then I hung the pocket-mirror against the root of a large stump, left there by the big flood probably, took the shaving apparatus out of the knapsack, and had a good shave. This recalled to my mind where I performed the operation one morning in the Yellowstone. It was in a pretty meadow between the Grand Cañon and Morris, and near a pebbly brook. I had laid the machine up against a pine tree, under which I was standing, and had just got my face well lathered when three stages came down the road close by. Several ladies exclaimed simultaneously, "O, see the bicycle!" but catching sight of me, with me chin elevated, they murmured something more I could not hear, and went out of sight. Leaving the machine outside in front of the post-office at Marietta I found I must wait several hours for the next Eastern mail, and so escaping the crowd that in so short a time had blocked the door and filled the sidewalk, I pushed my way out, and rode a mile to the "Mound Cemetery," as it is called, and I believe generally accepted to be the resting place of a part of the nation, the Toltecs of Mexico, who passed from the face of the earth before the Aztecs appeared, who were in turn annihilated by the conquering Spaniards. I had not time to pursue the study of ethnology, but climbed to the top of the big mound, feeling secure there among those quiet folks from the flood of questions that inevitably pour down upon me wherever I stop. But no, a man who heard me inquire the way followed and climbed up the forty-five stone steps only to bore me while I write these words. He could not wait to give the others a chance, those who had waited silently for a couple of thousand years. But the Toltecs have more sense. As I pushed the machine up the steep side of the mound they did not ask me "Why don't you get on and ride?" but I have met hundreds of persons who would not derisively but soberly ask that same question if they saw a wheelman pushing his machine up the side of a house. And doubtless this man would have done the same when I came if he had been where the Toltecs are. (I wish he was.) But he is gone now, and I can almost hear the old Toltec beneath me give a sigh of relief. It may be the wind, though, blowing through the big oak trees that are growing up the sides of the mound. Distance traveled with the wheel, 4,005 miles. CHAPTER XXVII Chapter XXVII. Down the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and Home again. A bicycle excites more attention through Southern Ohio and West Virginia than in any State or Territory across which I have ridden. On one occasion, in Ohio, a district school was dismissed, and the schoolmaster asked me to perform a little for the edification of the scholars. I was climbing a steep hill at the time, in a broiling hot sun, and so declined, but was sorry afterwards that I did so. Crossing the Ohio River at Marietta, and following the north-western pike, east through West Virginia, over a very fair road, notwithstanding the hills, the machine was an object of curiosity to every one. In passing the farm-houses, some one was sure to give the alarm, and in some mysterious way the whole household was instantly aware that the opportunity of a lifetime was at hand, and they were bound to improve it. Out would come "Paw" and "Maw," and four or five children, and generally three or four guests, for the people are great visitors in this section. And after I had passed they would all laugh, not derisively, but because they were pleased. The grown folks really acted childish about the machine. One morning a little boy on horseback rode on ahead, and aroused the neighbors for miles. On another morning I got started early, and was noiselessly passing the house when the dog, I believe, gave the alarm, and the whole family, nine of them, broke from the breakfast-table and rushed out into the road, the farmer holding a Bible in his hand, with his finger in the place, so that the morning service might be resumed when I was gone. It was a pleasure to answer the questions of all these simple people, but when I passed through the larger towns it was really annoying to be the object of so much interest. At Grafton, for instance, I stopped on the sidewalk for a minute, and in less time than it takes to write this I was surrounded. Then I moved out upon the curbstone, and instantly the crowd surged into the street and gutter, simply to get in front and look me squarely in the face. Here a reporter, in the form of an elderly gentleman, slightly inebriated, interviewed me, and contrary to my usual feeling when being questioned, I was decidedly pleased this time, and the crowd enjoyed it fully as much. It was only after asking and hearing the answers to his questions over and over again that he was able to put them upon paper, and when I told him the distance I had traveled on the wheel he made a calculation in regard to the circumference of the earth that surprised me, but I said nothing. This is the result of his muddled memory as it appeared in a Grafton paper: "Mr. Thayer may be regarded as one of the most remarkable men of the age, who has accomplished the feat of traveling more than half way around the world on his bicycle. In his modest, unassuming way he informs us he has traveled 4,100 miles on his bicycle since leaving home." But to counterbalance the annoyance there were many things about the ride through West Virginia that were pleasing and new. A very busy branch of the Baltimore & "Ohar" railroad runs for miles close to the pike, and many times while I was climbing the long hill the trains would take a short cut and go through the hill, making the ground tremble beneath me as they rushed through the tunnel. The beauty of the changing foliage was at its prime, the air cool, and the wind blew the rustling leaves about with a pleasing noise. Sometimes I would sit down under a shady tree and quench my thirst with two or three nice apples (they were very plenty everywhere) or crack a few black walnuts, much to the anxiety of the chirping squirrels in the trees, or pull up a root of sassafras or a bunch of pennyroyal. I stopped for a few minutes near a pair of bars. A squirrel came running along on the stone wall to these bars with something in its mouth, and, jumping down to the ground, skipped across to the other side, and went on his way along the wall. Pretty soon he came back, and in a short time had another chestnut in his mouth to be stored away with the first. As he jumped down to the ground to cross the space between the walls for the third time, a good-sized rat sprang out from under a large stone, and chased the squirrel half way across. Then the rat went back into his hole and waited. I could just see the head peeping out. Pretty soon the squirrel came back as big as life, and had got about half way across when the rat pounced out upon him, and the squirrel gave one squeak, and was back on the wall again in an instant. The rat retired to the hole again with a very determined look. I was getting very much interested. The squirrel, with more discretion, came slowly down to the ground with compromising chirps and creeped along, turning first to one side and then the other, but all the time arguing the question in his squeaking voice. The rat came out to meet him, a few steps at a time, sullen, but settled in his purpose to allow no more crossing on his premises under penalty of his jaw; and the affair to me was getting more than interesting when a small, shaggy dog came running along, in the road, turned, and went under the bars, and the rat went one way and the squirrel the other, without more ceremony. All this added spice to the trip, especially as I had ridden so many miles through a section of the country where there were neither hills, trees, apples, nuts, sassafras, pennyroyal, nor water--to say nothing about squirrels and rats. Here there was too much water--hundreds of little brooks crossing the road, making unnumbered dismounts advisable. This reminds me of the different remedies wheelmen have of quenching thirst. Some advise taking toothpicks, others pebbles in the mouth, and so on. But somehow I have become accustomed to using water, that is, when I could get it. With the perspiration oozing visibly from every pore in a wheelman's body for hours at a time, it seems only common sense to think that that waste of moisture must be supplied, not by extracting the juice from a wooden toothpick or a stone, but by a liquid in some form or other. When the system is dry it needs water, just as the stomach does food when it is empty. Toothpicks and pebbles may excite saliva in the mouth for a short trip, but as a regular beverage they are of little use. It is quite common to see three or four kinds of sauce on the table, such as apple, grape, and peach sauce, but it is spoken of as "apple butter," and "grape butter." At one house where I was taking a meal, some one said, "Pass the butter," but that not being quite plain enough, he said, "Pass the cow butter." The rain drove me into a house one afternoon, and while waiting there, the brother of the lady of the house came in. She was a woman of more than ordinary intelligence for this section, and fairly good looking, and as she sat by the stove, nursing her baby to sleep, I noticed she spit upon the floor behind the stove. Humming some tune as she rocked back and forth, her voice was frequently interrupted as she expectorated, and for rapidity of fire and accuracy of aim, she greatly excelled her brother who sat near her. Her lips were stained and her teeth discolored. Pretty soon her brother said, "Got any terbacker," and she, without the slightest concern, pulled out a plug from her pocket and gave it to him. At two other farm-houses where I stopped the women chewed, and upon inquiry I find it is a very common habit with the women in this section, as a little boy said to me, "Yes, some of 'em chew a nickel's worth a day." One noon I was seated by a table in an old-fashioned kitchen eating some hot short-cake, that had just been taken from the open fire-place, when a tall, gray-haired, grizzly-bearded farmer came in, and yanking a chair away from near where I sat, he said to his wife, as he sat down, "Where did the damn Dutchman come from?" Smiling, I answered, I was a Yankee. "Then you are worse still," said he, and he muttered something else I could not hear. But after finding out I had passed through in Illinois the same town in which their son lived the man became mollified, and after showing them how the bicycle worked I thought they seemed more lenient to Yankees than at first. Hotel-keepers along here show more care for their guests, in some particulars, than anywhere I have been. One asked, as he showed me into my room, if I knew how to put the gas out. This inquiry, although made with the best intentions, no doubt, rather hurt my vanity, for by this time I thought I had traveled enough not to look fresh, at least. Another one took me out of my room in the dark to show where the door was that would lead to the fire-escape, which thoughtfulness I certainly appreciated. Once, at Cumberland, Md., and on the banks of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, and the hills, the only impediment to a perfect bicycling trip was gone, and all else remained--the fine mountain scenery, the beautiful foliage, the cool, bracing air, a broad river, a winding canal, and an almost perfect bicycle path for nearly two hundred miles. This charming prospect is in wait for any wheelman who has the good fortune to be at Cumberland in October. I glided along for hours and hours, until I was tired of riding, and yet there was no monotony. The scenes were always shifting. The Potomac River is very crooked, and the canal follows it closely on the north side most of the way. It is not the tow-path, the path where the mules walk; that is nice riding; that is very poor indeed, but it is the smooth, hard wagon road on the bank of the canal that makes the fine wheeling. Where the wagon road is missing, and this is only for a short distance, there is a smooth foot-path made so by the mule-drivers, and this answers all purposes. Wherever the river does not, the canal hugs close to the sides of the mountain, and so for hours and even days I rode along. On the left the mountains, covered with the various colored leaves, then the canal with the numerous boats moving slowly and silently along, in front a broad, smooth, winding path, on the bank of the canal large shady trees; then the wide, smooth river, on the opposite side the numerous trains of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and then the mountains again. Occasionally the canal would widen into a lake half a mile wide, at other times a perpendicular ledge of rocks on one side and the river on the other would force it into a narrow limit. The ride was most enjoyable, gliding along in the shade and without fatigue for hours. Occasionally at the locks there was just a little fine coasting, but only a little. The mules on the tow-path made no trouble to speak of, and those in the bows of the boats, with their mouths full of hay, would look out of their little windows and prick up their big ears as they rode by as if they were perfectly contented with their lot; but, when they were taken out to drag the boat and the tired mules along, in their turn, they apparently changed their minds. At one place I came to a tunnel about half a mile long and started to ride through it, but it soon grew so dark riding was unsafe, so I walked, but before I got through even walking was not very pleasant. I could not even see my hand before me and the nickel on the machine was only faintly visible. The railing that prevented me from walking off into the canal I could only feel, not see, and, altogether, it was the darkest tunnel I was ever in. Had a boat entered the other end of the tunnel before I got there, I should have had to go out the way I went in, but I was soon gliding on as usual. Leaving the canal at Williamsport, I followed along the road towards Sharpsburgh, just in the rear of Lee's line of battle at Antietam. After spending a little time at the National Cemetery, which is on a hill that commands a fine view of the whole battle-field, and on which, I was told, a part of Lee's artillery was stationed, but out of ammunition, I rode around to Burnside Bridge. Not till I saw that bridge did I fully realize where I was. A picture of it appeared in Harper's Weekly twenty-four years ago, and all those war sketches were so familiar to me, having made a strong impression on my boyish memory, that when I passed a bend in the road, and the three-arched stone bridge came in sight, I felt as if I was walking on sacred ground. More lives were laid down in other parts of the field, I did not know just where, but this spot I recognized instantly, and remembered reading at the time of how much importance it was, and I left it with a greater respect than I ever had for the brave Connecticut men who faced death in that battle. Getting back upon the tow-path again at one of the fords where Lee's army slipped away across the Potomac into Virginia, I was soon at Harper's Ferry. The brick building still remains in which so many men were imprisoned by John Brown on the night and morning of his raid, and I was shown the spot where he and his men shot down in a most cold-blooded and unprovoked manner several defenseless citizens of the place. Reaching Baltimore by train I made a stop of a day and a half, but couldn't resist the temptation, after so long an absence from home, to step upon another train that brought me home to Hartford without change. Perhaps a few dry statistics of the trip may not be uninteresting to wheelmen. During the trip the points of special interest visited were the Hudson River and the Highlands, the Catskill Mountains, Niagara, Pike's Peak, Salt Lake, Tahoe, the Calaveras Big Trees, the Yosemite Valley, the California Geysers, Monterey, Columbia River, Shoshone Falls, the Yellowstone Park, the Black Cañon, the Royal Gorge, and Marshall Pass. The route was through twenty-three States and Territories, and a stop of from one day to three weeks was made in the principal cities in those States and Territories. The distance traveled by wheel, rail, and steamer, was a little over eleven thousand miles; the time nearly seven months. Distance traveled on the wheel during the trip, 4,239 miles, making a total distance traveled on the same machine, 7,900 miles. The only tire that was ever on the front wheel is still in good condition; that wheel runs almost as true now as it did when it was new. Only one spoke has ever got loose or broken in it. The rim of the little wheel, although repaired once or twice, is still in good shape, the middle looks well, and the whole machine is in good serviceable condition. In fact, it carries me nearly every day now, over rough pavements and sometimes out into the country eight or ten miles over frozen ground and dangerous ruts. I often got reduced rates on railroads, being a newspaper correspondent, but this help was counter-balanced by paying local rates which are always higher than through rates, but the total cost of the long trip, including repairs, clothes, and every expense whatsoever, was $284.70. 
49831	----	from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) [Illustration: "ASPETTI!" _Page 172._] TWO PILGRIMS' PROGRESS BY JOSEPH AND ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL AUTHORS OF "_A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE_" BOSTON ROBERTS BROTHERS LONDON SEELEY & CO. 1887 _Copyright, 1886_, BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. University Press: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. TWO Pilgrims' Progress FROM FAIR FLORENCE, TO The eternal City of ROME: Delivered under the Similitude of a RIDE Wherein is Discovered, The manner of their setting out, Their Dangerous Journey; And safe Arrival at the Desired City. _And Behold they wrought a Work on the Wheels._ _IER.18.3_ By _Joseph & Elizabeth Robins Pennell_. Licensed and Entred according to Order. _And_ _Published By_ ROBERTS BROS. BOSTON MDCCCLXXXVI _A FRIEND'S Apology_ _For this Booke._ _By CHARLES G. LELAND._ _Loe! what is this which Ime to sett before ye? It is, I ween, a very pleasant Story, How two young_ Pilgrimes _who the World would see, Did Wheele themselves all over Italy. One meant to write on't, whence it may be said That for the Nonce hers was the Wheelwright's trade; Which is a clever Crafte, for yee have heard What flits about as a familiar Word Which in a Workshopp often meets the Eare, "Bad Wheelwright maketh a good Carpentere," If of a bad one such a Saying's true, Oh what, I pray, may not a good one do? For by Experience I do declare 'Tis easier to make Books than build a Chaire._ Experto crede--I _have tried them Both, And sweare a Book is easier--on my Oathe!_ _He who with her a Pilgriming did go,--_ That was her Husband. As this Book doth show, _Rare skill he had when he would Sketches take, And from those Sketches prittie Pictures make. She with the Pen could well illuminate, He with the Pencil Nature illustrate. Oh, is't not strange that what they did so well In the Pen way meets in the Name Pen-nell? By which the Proverb doth approved appeare,_ Nomen est Omen,--_as is plain and cleere. Which means to say that every Soule doth Bear A Name well suited to his charactere._ _Now, when this Couple unto Mee did come, And askt me iff I'de write a little Pome, That Tale and Picture as they rouled along Might have some small Accomp'niment of Song, I set my Pen to Paper with Delighte, And quickly had my Thoughts in Black and White. Even as_ JOHN BUNYAN _said he did of yore, So I, because I'd done the like before. Since I was the first man of modern time Who on the bycicle e'er wrote a Rime, How I a Lady in a Vision saw Upon a Wheel like that of Budda's Law, Which kept the Path and went exceeding fast; Loe! now my Vision is fulfilled at last, In this brave writer who with ready Hand Hath guided well the Wheel ore many a Land, Showing the World by her adventurous Course How one may travel fast as any Horse, Without a Steed, and stop where'er ye will, And have for oats or stable nere a Bill._ _Now, for the Book I something have to say (Pray mark Mee well, good Reader, while_ you _may)._ They _say that in the Publick some there bee Who'll take it ill 'cause it doth Parody_ JOHN BUNYAN'S Progress. _That can ne'er be said By any who_ JOHN BUNYAN'S _Booke have read, Since he himself protests against the Whim Of those who said the selfsame thing of him, And thought he lightly treated solemn Things. List the Defence which to this Charge he brings: "This Book will make a Traveler of_ Thee, _If by its Councill_ thou _wilt guided be. And it is writ in such a Dialect As may the Minds of listless Men affect. It seems a_ NOVELTY, _and yet contains Nothing but sound and honest Gospel Strains."_ _Now I can make no more Apologie Than Honest_ JOHN _did make for himself, d'ye see; As for the Rest--if you but cast your Eye Upon the Pictures ere the Booke ye buy, And if of Art you are a clever Judge, The Price for it you'll surely not begrudge. Now, Reader, I have praysed this Booke to Thee, I trust that Thou wilt scan Itt carefullie; 'T will set before thee Portraiture of Townes, Castles and Towres, antient Villes and Downs, How rowling Rivers to y^e Ocean hast, Of Roadside Inns and many a faire Palast, Served up, I ween, with so much gentle Mirthe, Thoulte fairly own thou'st gott_ thy _Money's Worth. If thou art Cheated Mine shall bee the Sinn,-- Turn o'er the Page, my Lady, and Begin!_ * * * * * _Loe! Vanity Faire!--the Worlde is there, Hee and his Wife beside. Ye may see it afoot, or from the Traine, Or if on a Wheel you ride._ _To CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, Who is responsible for our First Work Together, & Who has been the Great-Heart of many a Pilgrimage taken in his Company, We dedicate this Book._ CONTENTS. PAGE THE START 11 IN THE VAL D'ARNO 14 AT EMPOLI 22 THE ROAD TO FAIR AND SOFT SIENA 25 AT POGGIBONSI 34 IN THE MOUNTAINS 36 FAIR AND SOFT SIENA 45 AN ITALIAN BY-ROAD 61 MONTE OLIVETO 81 THROUGH THE WILDERNESS TO A GARDEN 94 WE ARE DETAINED IN MONTEPULCIANO 101 IN THE VAL DI CHIANA 109 LUCA SIGNORELLI'S TOWN 118 TO PERUGIA: BY TRAIN AND TRICYCLE 122 AT PERUGIA 128 ACROSS THE TIBER TO ASSISI 134 AT ASSISI 138 VIRGIL'S COUNTRY 142 TERNI AND ITS FALLS 155 IN THE LAND OF BRIGANDS 157 A MIDDLING INN 164 ACROSS THE CAMPAGNA 166 THE FINISH 173 * * * APPENDIX 175 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. * * * PAGE OVER THE PONTE VECCHIO 14 IN THE SUNLIGHT 18 LASTRA 20 A PERUGINO LANDSCAPE 24 ON THE ARNO--NEAR EMPOLI 36 A SLIGHT OBSTRUCTION 40 NOONTIME 42 BY THE RIVER 50 CHIUSURE 68 MONTE OLIVETO 84 AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS 96 LEAVING MONTEPULCIANO 106 CORTONA 118 ON THE HILL 126 THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION, PERUGIA 134 A FROWN OF DISAPPROVAL, ASSISI 136 GATHERING LEAVES 146 "PIPING DOWN THE VALLEY" 160 FROM VIA FLAMINIA, NEAR PONTE MOLLE 170 "ASPETTO!" 172 TWO PILGRIMS' PROGRESS. TWO PILGRIMS' PROGRESS. THE START. "_They are a couple of far-country men, and, after their mode, are going on Pilgrimage._" We stayed in Florence three days before we started on our pilgrimage to Rome. We needed a short rest. The railway journey straight through from London had been unusually tiresome because of our tricycle. From the first mention of our proposed pilgrimage, kind friends in England had warned us that on the way to Italy the machine would be a burden worse than the Old Man of the Sea; porters, guards, and custom-house officials would look upon it as lawful prey, and we should pay more to get it to Italy than it had cost in the beginning. It is wonderful how clever one's friends are to discover the disagreeable, and then how eager to point it out! Our first experience at the station at Holborn Viaduct seemed to confirm their warnings. We paid eight shillings to have the tricycle carried to Dover, porters amiably remarking it would take a pile of money to get such a machine to Italy. Crossing the Channel, we paid five-and-sixpence more, and the sailors told us condolingly we should have an awful time of it in the custom-house at Calais. This, however, turned out a genuine seaman's yarn. The tricycle was examined carefully, but to be admired, not valued. "That's well made, that!" one guard declared with appreciation, and others playfully urged him to mount it. To make a long story short, our friends proved false prophets. From Calais to Florence we paid only nine francs freight and thirty-five francs duty at Chiasso. But unfortunately we never knew what might be about to happen. We escaped in one place only to be sure the worst would befall us in the next. It was not until the cause of our anxiety was safe in Florence that our mental burden was taken away. But here were more friends who called our pilgrimage a desperate journey, and asked if we had considered what we might meet with in the way we were going. There was the cholera. But we represented that to get to Rome we should not go near the stricken provinces. Then they persisted that our road lay through valleys reeking with malaria until November at least. We should not reach these valleys before November, was our reply. Well, then, did we know we must pass through lonely districts where escaped convicts roamed abroad; and in and out of villages where fleas were like unto a plague of Egypt, and good food as scarce as in the wilderness? In a word, ours was a fool's errand. Perhaps it was because so little had come of the earlier prophecies that we gave slight heed to these. They certainly made no difference in our plans. On October 16, the third morning after our arrival, we rode forth _sans_ flea-powder or brandy, _sans_ quinine or beef-extract, _sans_ everything our friends counselled us to take,--and hence, according to them, right into the jaws of death. IN THE VAL D'ARNO. "_Now their way lay just upon the bank of the river; here, therefore, Christian and his companion walked with great delight._" The _padrone_ who helped to strap our portfolio and two bags to the luggage-carrier, our coats to the handle-bars, and the knapsack to J.'s back, and Mr. Mead, the one friend who foretold pleasure, stood at the door of the Hotel Minerva to see us off. The sunlight streamed over the Piazza of Santa Maria Novella and the beggars on the church-steps and the cabmen who good-naturedly cried "No carriage for you," as we wheeled slowly on, over to the Via Tornabuoni, past Doni's, by Viesseux's, up the Lung' Arno to the crowded Ponte Vecchio where for this once at least we were not attacked by the little shopmen, by the Via de' Bardi, then back through the Borgo San Jacopo, again along the Lung' Arno, and then around with the twisting street-car tracks, through the Porta San Frediano, and out on the broad white road which leads to Pisa. [Illustration: OVER THE PONTE VECCHIO. _Page 14._] But even before we left Florence we met with our first accident. The luggage-carrier swung around from the middle to the side of the backbone. The one evil consequence, however, was a half-hour's delay. Beyond the gate we stopped at the first blacksmith's. Had either of us known the Italian word for "wire," the delay might have been shorter. It was only by elaborate pantomime we could make our meaning clear. Then the blacksmith took the matter in his own hands, unstrapped the bags, and went to work with screw-driver and wire, while the entire neighborhood, backed by passing pedlers and street-car drivers and citizens, pronounced the tricycle "beautiful!" "a new horse!" "a tramway!" When the luggage-carrier was fastened securely and loaded again, the blacksmith was so proud of his success that he declared "nothing" was his charge. But he was easily persuaded to take something to drink the _Signore's_ health. After this there were no further stops. Our road for some distance went over streets laid with the great stones of the old Tuscan pavement,--and for tricyclers these streets are not very bad going,--between tall gray houses, with shrines built in them, and those high walls which radiate from Florence in every direction, and keep one from seeing the gardens and green places within. Women plaiting straw, great yellow bunches of which hung at their waists, and children greeted us with shouts. Shirtless bakers, their hands white with flour, and barbers holding their razors, men with faces half shaved and still lathered, and others with wine-glasses to their lips, rushed to look at this new folly of the foreigner,--for ours was the first tandem tricycle ever seen in Italy. At Signa, on the steep up-grade just outside the town, we had a lively spurt with a dummy engine, the engineer apparently trying to run us down as we were about to cross the track. After this we rode between olives and vineyards where there were fewer people. There was not a cloud in the sky, so blue overhead and so white above the far hill-tops on the horizon. The wind in the trees rustled gently in friendliness. Solemn, white-faced, broad-horned oxen stared at us sympathetically over the hedges. One young peasant even stopped his cart to say how beautiful he thought it must be to travel in Italy after our fashion. All day we passed gray olive-gardens and green terraced hillsides, narrow Tuscan-walled streams dry at this season, and long rows of slim straight poplars,--"white trees," a woman told us was their name. Every here and there was a shrine with lamp burning before the Madonna, or a wayside cross bearing spear and scourge and crown of thorns. Now we rode by the fair river of Arno, where reeds grew tall and close by the water's edge, and where the gray-green mountains rising almost from its banks were barren of all trees save dark stone-pines and towering cypresses, like so many mountains in Raphael's or Perugino's pictures. Now we came to where the plain broadened and the mountains were blue and distant. Mulberries the peasants had stripped of their leaves before their time, but not bare because of the vines festooned about them, broke with their even ranks the monotony of gray and brown ploughed fields. Here on a hill was a white villa or monastery, with long, lofty avenue of cypresses; there, the stanch unshaken walls and gates of castle or fortress, which, however, had long since disappeared. It is true, all these things are to be seen hastily from the windows of the railway train; but it is only by following the windings and straight ways of the road as we did that its beauty can be worthily realized. Later in the afternoon, with a turn of the road, we came suddenly in view of Capraia, high up above, and far to the other side of the river,--so far, indeed, that all detail was lost, and we could only see the outline of its houses and towers and campanile washed into the whitish-blue sky. And all the time we were working just hard enough to feel that joy of mere living which comes with healthy out-of-door exercise, and, I think, with nothing else. Sometimes we rode seeing no one, and hearing no other sound than the low cries of a cricket in the hedge and the loud calls of an unseen ploughman in a neighboring field; then an old woman went by, complimenting us on going so fast without a horse; and then a baker's boy in white shirt and bare legs, carrying a lamb on his shoulders. But then, again, we met wagon after wagon, piled with boxes and baskets, poultry and vegetables, and sleeping men and women, and with lanterns swinging between the wheels,--for the next day would be Friday and market-day, and peasants were already on their way to Florence. There were pedlers, too, walking from village to village, selling straw fans and gorgeous handkerchiefs. Would not the _Signora_ have a handkerchief? one asked, showing me the gayest of his stock. For answer I pointed to the bags on the luggage-carrier and the knapsack on J.'s back. "Of course," he said; we already had enough to carry; would the _Signora_ forgive him for troubling her? And with a polite bow he went on his way. [Illustration: IN THE SUNLIGHT. _Page 18._] We came to several villages and towns,--some small, where pots and bowls, fresh from the potter's wheel, were set out to dry; others large, like Lastra, with heavy walls and gates and old archways, and steps leading up to crooked, steep streets, so narrow the sun never shines into them; or like Montelupo, where for a while we sat on the bridge without the farther gate, looking at the houses which climb up the hillside to the cypress-encircled monastery at the top. Women were washing in the stream below, and under the poplars on the bank a priest in black robes and broad-brimmed hat walked with a young lady. But whenever we stopped, children from far and near collected around us. There were little old-fashioned girls, with handkerchiefs tied over their heads in womanly fashion, who kept on plaiting straw, and small boys nursing big babies, their hands and mouths full of bread and grapes. If, however, in their youthful curiosity they pressed upon us too closely, polite men and women, who had also come to look, drove them back with terrible cries of _Via, ragazzi!_ ("Go away, children!") before which they retreated with the same speed with which they had advanced. [Illustration: LASTRA. _Page 20._] Just beyond Montelupo, when a tedious up-grade brought us to a broad plateau, a cart suddenly came out a little way in front of us from a side road. A man was driving, and on the seat behind, and facing us, were two nuns, who wore wide straw hats which flapped slowly up and down with the motion of the cart. When they saw us, the younger of the two covered her face with her hands, as if she thought us a device of the Devil. But the other, who looked the Lady Abbess, met the danger bravely, and sternly examined us. This close scrutiny reassured her. When we drew nearer she wished us good-evening, and then her companion turned and looked. We told them we were pilgrims bound for Rome. At this they took courage, and the spokeswoman begged for the babies they cared for in Florence. We gave her a few sous. She counted them quite greedily, and then--but not till then--benevolently blessed us. They were going at jog-trot pace, so that we soon left them behind. "_Buon viaggio_," the Abbess cried; and the silent sister smiled, showing all her pretty white teeth, for we now represented a temptation overcome. AT EMPOLI. "_The pilgrim they laid in a large upper chamber whose window opened towards the sunrising; the name of the chamber was Peace; where he slept till break of day._" We put up that night at Empoli. The Albergo Maggiore was fair enough, and, like all large Italian inns, had a clean spacious stable in which to shelter the tricycle. The only drawback to our comfort was the misery at dinner of the black-eyed, blue-shirted waiter at our refusal to eat a dish of birds we had not ordered. He was very eager to dispose of them. He served them with every course, setting them on the table with a triumphant "_Ecco!_" as if he had prepared a delicious surprise. It was not until he brought our coffee that he despaired. Then he retired mournfully to the kitchen, where his loud talk with the _padrona_ made us fear their wrath would fall upon us or the tricycle. But later they gave us candles, and said good-night with such gracious smiles that we slept the sleep which knows neither care nor fear. The next morning their temper was as unclouded as the sky. They both watched the loading of the tricycle with smiling interest. He had seen velocipedes with two wheels, the waiter said, but never one with three. And that a _Signora_ should ride, the _padrona_ added, ah! that indeed was strange! Then she grew confidential. Only occasionally I caught her meaning, for my knowledge of Italian was small. She had had seven children, she said, and all were dead but one. And I, had I any? And where had I bought my dress? She liked it so much; and she took it in her hand and felt it. Should we stay long in Italy? and sometime we would come back to Empoli? Her son, a little fellow, was there too. He had been hanging about the machine when we came down to breakfast, and ever since. He stood speechless while J. was by, but when the latter went away for a few minutes,--less shy with me, I suppose, because he knew I could not understand him as well,--he asked what might such a velocipede cost? as much perhaps as a hundred francs? But J. coming back he was silent as before. They all followed us out to the street, the _padrona_ shaking hands with us both, and the boy standing by the tricycle to the very last. [Illustration: A PERUGINO LANDSCAPE. _Page 24._] THE ROAD TO FAIR AND SOFT SIENA. "_They went till they came into a certain country whose air naturally tended to make one drowsy._" "_Let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober._" It was good to be in the open country again, warming ourselves in the hot sunshine. The second morning of our ride was better than the first. We knew beforehand how beautiful the day would be, and how white and smooth was the road that lay before us. The white oxen behind the ploughs, and the mules in their gay trappings and shining harness seemed like old acquaintances. The pleasant good-morning given us by every peasant we met made us forget we were strangers in the land. A little way from Empoli we crossed the Ponte d'Elsa, and then after a sharp turn to the right we were on the road to "fair and soft Siena." It led on through vineyards and wide fields lying open to the sun, by sloping hillsides and narrow winding rivers, by villas and gardens where roses were blooming. In places they hung over the wall into the road. We asked a little boy to give us one,--for the _Signora_, J. added. But the child shook his head. How could he? The roses were not his, he said. Once we passed a wayside cross on which loving hands had laid a bunch of the fresh blossoms. Sometimes we heard from the far-away mountains the loud blasting of rocks, and then the soft bells of a monastery; sometimes even the cracking of the whip of a peasant behind us, driving an unwilling donkey. Then we would pass from the stillness of the country into the noise and clamor of small villages, to hear the wondering cries of the women to which we were already growing accustomed, the piercing yells of babies, who well secured in basket go-carts could not get to us quickly enough, and the sing-song repetition of older children saying their lesson in school, and whom we could see at their work through the low windows. About noon we rode into Certaldo,--Boccaccio's town. I know nothing that interferes so seriously with hero-worship as hunger. I confess that if some one had said, "You can go either to see Boccaccio's house or to lunch at a _trattoria_, but both these things you cannot do," our answer would have been an immediate order for lunch. We went at once to a _trattoria_ on the piazza where Boccaccio's statue stands. I doubt if that great man himself ever gathered such numbers about him as we did. Excited citizens, when the tricycle was put away, stood on the threshold and stared at us until the door was shut upon them. Then they pressed their faces against the windows and peered over piles of red and yellow pears; and every now and then one, bolder than the rest, stealthily thrust his head in and then scampered off before he could be captured. This gave a spice of novelty and excitement to our midday meal. We ordered a very simple lunch,--soup, bread and cheese, coffee and vermouth. But the _padrona_ had to send out for everything. Her sister, a young girl as fair as an Englishwoman, was her messenger. We were scarcely seated before she came back with coffee and a large bottle that she set before us. This, of course, was the vermouth, and we half filled our glasses and at once drank a little. The two women stared with a surprise we could not understand. The fair girl now disappeared on a second foraging expedition, and stayed away until we had finished our soup. "_Ecco_, vermouth!" she said on her return, putting another bottle in front of us. Then we knew the reason of their wonder. We had swallowed, like so much water, the not over-strong cognac intended only to flavor our coffee. Presently the _padrona_ entered into conversation with us. We were English, she supposed. No; Americans, we told her. At this there was great rejoicing. They had a brother in America. He lived in a large town called Buenos Ayres, where he kept a _trattoria_. Like theirs it was the _Trattoria_ Boccaccio. They were glad to see any one from the same country, whether from north or south. Was it not all America? The _padrona_ went upstairs to bring down his picture that we might see it. Her sister pointed to the purple woollen jersey she wore, and said with pride her brother had sent it to her. It too was American. They even called in their old mother, that she might see her son's fellow-countrymen. We spent an hour wandering through the old town, on top of the hill, in which Boccaccio really lived. The sun was shining right down into the streets, in which the gay kerchiefs of the women, the bunches of straw at their waists, and their cornstalk distaffs made bright bits of color. Though we left the tricycle at the _trattoria_, our coming made a stir in the little place. Our clothes were not like unto those of the natives, and J.'s knee-breeches and long black stockings made them wonder what manner of priest he might be. As we stood looking at the _loggia_ and tower and arched doorway of Boccaccio's house, the custodian, with a heavy bunch of keys, came to take us through it. But we declined his services. We cared more for the old streets and walls and palaces, which, though their greatness has gone, have not been changed since mediæval times, than for an interior, however fine, whose mediævalism dates from to-day. The old man turned rather sulkily. J., seeing there had been some mistake, explained we had not sent for him. Then his face cleared. The women had said we wanted him, else he would never have disturbed us; and he took off his hat, and this time went away with a friendly _à rivederle_. The Palazzo Communale, at the highest point of the town, is still covered with the arms and insignia of other years, of the Medici and Piccolomini, of the Orsini and Baglioni. Its vaulted doorway is still decorated with frescos of the Madonna, and saints and angels. But everywhere the plaster is falling away, and in the courtyard grass grows between the bricks of the pavement; and instead of pages and men-at-arms, we there saw only a little brown-faced ragged child climbing cat-like over the roofs, and a woman scolding him from below. We left the town by the frescoed gateway, through which we saw the near hills, gray, bare, and furrowed, the long lines of cypresses, the stretches of gray olives, the valley below with its vineyards, and the far mountains, purple and shadowy, the highest topped with many-towered San Gimignano. It is better not to be jocund with the fruitful grape in the middle of the day when one is tricycling. The cognac we had taken at lunch, weak as it was, and the vermouth made us sleepy and our feet heavy. I sympathized with the men who lay in sound slumbers in every cart we met. But their drowsiness forced us into wakefulness. Of the ride from Certaldo to Poggibonsi, I remember best the loud inarticulate cries of J. and his calls of "_Eccomi!_" as if he were lord of the land, to sleeping drivers. The Italian cry of the roads, rising to a high note and then suddenly falling and ending in a low prolonged one, which is indispensable to travellers, is not easy to learn. J.'s proficiency in it, however, made him pass for a native when he limited himself to howling. But often donkeys darted into ditches and oxen plunged across the road before the peasants behind them awoke. Like Sancho Panza they had a talent for sleeping. Once, after we had climbed a short but steep hill and had passed by several wagons in rapid succession, we stopped under the shade to rest. It was a pleasant place. We looked over the broad valley, where the vines were festooned, not as Virgil saw them, from elm to elm, but from mulberry to mulberry, and up to San Gimignano, beginning to take more definite shape on its mountain-top. A peasant in peaked hat and blue shirt, with trousers rolled up high above his bare knees, crossed the road and silently examined the tricycle. "You have a good horse," he then said; "it eats nothing." We asked him if they were at work in his vineyard. No, he answered; but would we like to look in the wine-press opposite? And then he took us through the dark windowless building, where on one side the grape-juice was fermenting in large butts, and on the other fresh grapes had been laid on sets of shelves to dry. He picked out two of the finest bunches and gave them to me. When I offered to pay him he refused. The _Signora_ must accept them, he said. As the road was now a dead level and lumpy into the bargain, we were glad when Poggibonsi was in sight. We drew up on a bridge where a man was standing, to ask him if he knew of a good inn. He recommended the Albergo dell' Aquila. "It is good," he went on, "and not too dear. This is not a town where they take one by the neck," and he clutched his own throat. So to the Albergo dell'Aquila we went. We had only to ride through the wide avenue of shady trees, past a row of houses, out of one of which a brown-robed monk came, to rush back at sight of us, past a washing-place surrounded by busy chattering women, and we were at the door of the inn. AT POGGIBONSI. "_Then she asked him whence he was come and whither he was going; and he told her. She asked him also how he got into the way; and he told her. And last she asked his name._" The Albergo dell' Aquila was even more comfortable than the Maggiore in Empoli. We dined in a room from whose walls King Humbert and his Queen smiled upon us, while opposite were two sensational and suggestive brigands in lonely mountain passes. The _padrona_ came up with the salad, and she and the waiter in a cheerful duet catechised us after the friendly Italian fashion, and then told us about the visit to their house of the American consul from Florence; of the hard times the cholera had brought with it for all Italy; of the bad roads to San Gimignano and the steep ones to Siena, along which peasants never travelled without bearing in mind the old saying, _All' ingiù tutti i santi ajutano; ma all' insú ci vuol Gesù_,--"Going down hill, call upon the saints; but going up, one needs Jesus." Before long J. joined in the talk, and the duet became a trio. Never had I been so impressed with his fluent Italian. Even the _padrona_ was not readier with her words than he with his. When I spoke to him about it afterwards, he said he supposed it was wonderful; he had not understood half of it himself. After dinner and in the twilight we walked through the lively crowded streets and into the church, where service was just over. A priest in white surplice left the altar, and another began to put the lights out when we entered. But in the unlit nave many of the faithful still knelt in prayer. The town grew quieter as night came on. But just as we were going to sleep some men went along the street below our window singing. One in a loud clear tenor sang the tune, the others the accompaniment like a part song, and the effect was that of a great guitar. Their song was a fitting good-night to a day to whose beauty there had been not a cloud. IN THE MOUNTAINS. "_He saw a most pleasant mountainous country, beautified with woods, vineyards, fruits of all sorts, flowers also with springs and fountains, very delectable to behold._" Though we left Poggibonsi in the beginning of the morning, a large crowd waited for us at the door of the inn. The _padrona_ said farewell with many good wishes; men and women we had never seen before called out pleasantly _à rivederle_, two _carabinieri_ watched us from the other side of the piazza, the railroad officials at the station cried "_Partenza! Partenza!_" and then we were off and out of the town. It would be _su_, _su_, _su_, all the way they told us at the inn, but for several miles we went fast enough, so that I felt sure the peasants we passed were still only calling on the saints. The ascent at first was very gradual, while the road was excellent. There were down as well as up grades, and for every steep climb we had a short coast. Now we came out on villas which but a little before had been above us, and now we reached the very summit of hills from which we looked forth upon mountain rising beyond mountain,--some treeless and ashen gray, others thickly wooded and glowing with golden greens and russets, and still others white and mist-like, and seeming to melt into the soft white clouds resting on their highest peaks. All along, the hedges were covered with clusters of red rose-berries and the orange berries of the pyracanthus. The grass by the roadside was gay with brilliant crimson pinks, yellow snapdragons and dandelions, and violet daisies. Once we came to a vineyard where the ripe fruit still hung in purple clusters from the vines, and where men and women, some on foot and others on ladders, were gathering and filling with them large buckets and baskets. At the far end of the field white oxen, their great heads decorated with red ribbons, stood in waiting. Boys with buckets slung on long poles were coming and going between the vines. In all the other vineyards we had passed the vintage was over, so we waited to watch the peasants as, laughing and singing, they worked away. But when they saw us, they too stopped and looked, and one man came down from his ladder and to the hedge to offer us a bunch of grapes. [Illustration: ON THE ARNO--NEAR EMPOLI. _Page 36._] The only town through which we rode was Staggia, where workmen were busy restoring the old tower and making it a greater ruin than it had ever been before. One town gate has gone, but from the battlements of the other grass and weeds still wave with the wind, while houses have been built into the broken walls. It is a degenerate little town, and its degeneracy, paradoxical as it may sound, is the result of its activity. For its inhabitants have not rested content like those of Lastra with the mediævalism that surrounds them. They have striven to make what is old new by painting their church and many of their houses in that scene-painting style which to-day seems to represent the art of the people in Italy. Often during our journey we saw specimens of this vile fashion,--houses with sham windows and shutters, churches with make-believe curtains and cords,--but nowhere was it so prominent as in Staggia. Beyond Monteriggione, whose towers alone showed above its high walls, the road began to wind upward on the mountain-side. It was such a long, steady pull that although the surface was perfect we gave up riding and walked. Our machine was heavily loaded, and not too easy to work over prolonged up-grades. Besides, we were not time nor record makers, nor perambulating advertisements, and we had the day before us. We were now closed in with woods. On either side were chestnuts and dwarf-oaks and bushes, their leaves all "yellow and black and pale and hectic red." And occasional openings showed near mountain-tops covered with downy gray grass and a low growth like heather, and here and there were groups of dark pines. For an hour at least we were alone with the sounds and silence of the mountains. The wandering wind whispered in the wood and black swine rooted in the fallen leaves, but of human life there was no sign. Then there came from afar a regular tap-tap, low at first, but growing louder and louder, until, as we drew closer to it, we knew it to be the steady hammering of stone-breakers. There were two men at work in this lonely pass, and as we stood talking to them two more came from under the chestnuts. These had guns on their shoulders, and wore high boots and the high-crowned conventional brigand hats. Ever since we left Florence we had seen at intervals in the fields and woods a notice with the words, "_� vietata la bandita_," which we interpreted as a warning against the bandits or convicts for whom our Florentine friends had prepared us. And now we seemed to have come face to face with two of these brigands. But it turned out that there was little of the bandit about them save their appearance. Their guns were for birds, and later on we learned that the alarming signs were merely to forbid the trespassing of these very gentlemen. [Illustration: A SLIGHT OBSTRUCTION.] A mile or two farther on, the road began to go down again. We were both glad to be on the machine after our walk. We could see to the bottom of the hill, and there was no one in sight. J. let go the brake. None but cyclers know the delight of a five-minutes coast after hours of up-hill toiling. They, however, will sympathize with our pleasure in the mountains near Siena. But when it was at its fullest, and the machine was going at the rate of about twenty miles an hour, and neither brake nor back-pedalling could bring it to a sudden halt, a man (or the foul fiend himself) drove a flock of sheep out from the woods a few feet in front of us. When we reached them only the first had crossed the road; of course, all the rest had to follow. They tried to go on right through the wheels, but only succeeded in getting under them, setting the machine to pitching like a ship in a heavy sea. But I held on fast; J. stood on the pedals and screwed the brake down; the little wheel scattered the sheep like the cow-catcher of an engine, and we brought up in the gutter. Before we stopped, J. began a moral lecture to the shepherd, and was showing him how, if the machine had gone over, the consequences would have been worse for us than for his flock. The lecture ended rather _im_morally with _accidente voi_, and _imbecile_, the deadliest of all Italian maledictions, punishable in places by imprisonment. The shepherd looked as if he was ready to curse us in return, but before he had time we were out of hearing, though we first made sure that no sheep were injured. We were none the worse for the accident, and the tricycle was unhurt, save for a deep dent in the dress guard. The rest of our way was divided between walking and riding. The woods with their solitude and wildness, but not the good road, came to an end. Once beyond them, we wheeled out by fields where men and women were at work, their oxen whiter than any we had yet seen, by contrast with the rich red of the upturned earth. In olive-gardens peasants were eating their midday meal; men with white aprons, women with enormous Sienese hats, and dogs and oxen were all resting sociably together. By the roadside others were making rope, the men twisting and forever walking backwards, a small boy always turning at the wheel. Scattered on the hill-tops and by the road were large red-brick farm-houses, instead of the white ones we had seen near Florence. [Illustration: NOONTIME. _Page 42._] At one, where there was a well on the other side of the wall, we asked for a glass of water. A man brought it to the gate, where he was joined by three or four others. They stared inquiringly at the tricycle, at the bags, and at us, while J. squeezed lemon-juice into the water. Then one opened his mouth very wide and pointed to his teeth: "The little sir," he asked, "is he a dentist?" It was noon when we first saw Siena, and we were then at the very walls. In the old days it was always said, "More than her gates, Siena opens her heart to you!" But the heart of him who sat in office by the city gate was shut against us. When we rode past him he bade us descend. To our "_Perchè?_" he said it was the law. Oh the vanity of these Sienese! Through the streets of Florence and over the crowded Ponte Vecchio we had ridden undisturbed; but in this mountain town, which boasts of but two hacks, and where donkeys and oxen are the only beasts to be frightened, we were forced to get down. The dignity of the law-makers of the city must be respected. So we two weary pilgrims had to walk along the narrow streets, between the tall palaces, while tanners in red caps, and women in flowered, white-ribboned _festa_ hats, and priests and soldiers stared, and one man, with a long push-cart, kept close to us like an evil genius in a dream. He was now on one side, and now on the other, examining the wheels, asking endless questions, and always getting in the way. At all the street corners he hurried on before, and with loud shouts called the people to come and see. Then he was at our heels again, shrieking his loud, shrill trade-cry into our very ears. J. as a rule is not ill-tempered; but there is a limit to all things. The stupid sheep, the watchful guard, and now this plague of a flower-pedler brought his patience to an end, and on our way through the town he said much in good plain English which it was well the citizens could not understand. FAIR AND SOFT SIENA. "_For there where I go is enough and to spare._" "_Read it so, if you will, in my Book._" Even pilgrims of old on their way to Rome sometimes tarried in castle or village. We could not pass through Siena, discourteous though her first welcome had been, as we had through smaller and less fair towns. So for a day or two we put away our tricycle and the "cockle-shells and sandal shoon" of our pilgrimage. We went to a _pension_, one at which J. had stayed before, and which he liked. I admit it was better in many ways than the inns in which hitherto we had slept and eaten. There was carpet on the floor of our room, and in it easy-chairs and a lounge. There were elaborate breakfasts at one, and still more elaborate dinners at six, and there was always a great plenty,--as the Englishwoman who sat next me, and who I fear had not always fared so well, said when she urged me to eat and drink more of the fruit and wine set before me. "You can have all you want in this house," she finished with a sigh, as if her crown of sorrow was in remembering unhappier things. But we both thought regretfully of the dining-rooms with the bad prints on the walls, and the more modest dinners of our own ordering. I think too we had found more pleasure in the half-understood talk of _padroni_ and waiters than we did now in the elegant and learned conversation of our fellow-boarders, for they were all, it seemed, persons of learning and refinement. There was the retired English major-general who sat opposite and who had written a book, as he very soon let us know. He recognized us as Americans before we opened our mouths to speak, which fact he also let us know by his reminiscences, addressed not to us but to our neighbors. He had travelled in Spain with Mr. Fillmore, the ex-President, "the most courteous of gentlemen;" he said he well knew Mr. Marion Crawford, the talented novelist, and his uncle, "dear old Sam Ward;" he had counted among his best friends _Bay_ard Taylor, "as you remember I have said in my book." This same book which made the major so communicative appeared to have crushed the spirit out of his wife; she sat silent during dinner, fortifying herself at intervals with weak whiskey and water. Then there was the elderly English lady travelling abroad with her daughter "who has just taken up architecture;" she informed us, "she has always painted heads till now, but she is fascinated by her architectural work. Then I, you know, am _so_ fond of water-colors." And there was the Swedish lady, who could talk all languages, speaking to us in something supposed to be English, and who was as eager in her pursuit of food for the body as for the mind. I count the way in which she greedily swallowed the _vino santo_ in her glass, when our host passed round the table the second time with his precious bottle, one of the wonders of our visit to Siena. It was pathetic too to see her disappointment when he turned away, just before he reached her, his bottle empty. And there were still others who knew much about pictures and palaces, statues and studios, and no doubt we might greatly have profited thereby. But we liked it better upstairs, where we were alone and there was less culture. Our window overlooked a high terrace in which marigolds and many-colored chrysanthemums were blooming, the gardens of the Piccolomini Palace full of broad-leaved fig-trees and pale olives, and the wide waste of mountain and moorland stretching from the red city walls to the high, snow-capped Apennines on the horizon. All the morning the sun shone in our windows, and every hour and even oftener we heard the church bells, and the loud, clear bugle-calls from the barracks, once a monastery, whose mass of red and gray walls rose from the near olives. They say it snows in Siena in the winter-time, and that it is cold and bleak and dreary; but I shall always think of it as a place of flowers and sunshine and sweet sounds. But best of all were the hours when we wandered through the town, up and down dark alley-ways and flights of steps, under brick arches, along precipitate narrow streets where we had to press close to the houses, or retreat into an open door, to let the wide-horned oxen pass by with their load; now coming out at the very foot of La Mangia, on the broad, sunny piazza; now by the tanneries where little streams of brown water trickled down towards the washing-place at the foot of the hill, and where the walls were hung with dripping brown skins, probably just as they were when the little Catherine--her visions already beginning--and Stefano walked by them and towards home in the fading evening light, from a visit to the older and married sister Bonaventura. One hour we were with the past in the shadowy aisles of the Duomo, where Moses and Trismegistus, Solomon and Socrates, Sibyls and Angels looked up at us from the pavement, and rows of popes kept watch from above the tall black and white pillars, while in the choir beyond priests chanted their solemn psalms. Next we were with the present in the gay Lizza, under the acacias and yellow chestnuts, by flower-beds full of roses and scarlet sage, and walls now covered with brilliant Virginia creepers; and out on the fort above to see a golden sky, and the sun disappearing behind banks of purple, golden-edged, and red clouds, and pale, misty hills, and to look back across the hollow to the red town climbing up from low olive-gardens towards the Duomo on its hill-top, and tall La Mangia towering aloft from its own little hollow beyond. From every side came the voices of many people,--of soldiers in the barracks, of women and children under the trees, of ball-players in the old court below, and of applauding lookers-on lounging on the marble benches. [Illustration: BY THE RIVER. _Page 50._] The tall unfinished arch of the Duomo that rises above houses and churches, and indeed above everything but the lofty La Mangia and the Campanile, tells the story of greatness and power and wealth suddenly checked. But the deadly plague, which carried off so many citizens that not even enough were left to make their city beautiful as they meant it should be, could not take away the great beauty it already had, nor kill the joyousness of its people. There are no Spendthrift Clubs in Siena now, nor any gay Lanos like him Dante met in the _Inferno_. But there are still laughter and song loving Sienese who in their own simple fashion go through life gathering rosebuds while they may. It seemed to me a very pretty fashion when I saw them holiday-making on Sunday afternoon, peasants, priests, officers, townspeople, all out in their Sunday best, and when on the Via Cavour, near the _Loggia_, we met two wandering minstrels singing love-songs through the town. One played on a mandolin which hung from his neck by a wide red ribbon, and as he played he sang. His voice was loud and strong and very sweet, and like another Orpheus he drew after him all who heard his music. His companion sold copies of the song, printed on pink paper, gay as the words. He went bowing and smiling in and out of the crowd,--from the women whose broad hats waved as they kept time to the singing, to the men who had stuck feathers in their soft felts worn jauntily on one side; from demure little girls holding their nurses' hands, to swaggering soldiers. Then when the first singer rested he, in his turn, sang a verse. There was with them a small boy who every now and then broke in in a high treble, so that there was no pause in the singing. Wherever we went that afternoon, whether by the Duomo or out by the Porta Romana, on the Lizza or near San Domenico, we saw large written posters, announcing that at six in the evening there would be, at No. 17 Via Ricasoli, a great marionette performance of the _Ponte dei Sospiri_. Apparently this was to be the event of the day, and to it we determined to go. When a little before the appointed hour we came to the Via Ricasoli, we half expected to see a theatre ablaze with light. What we did find after much difficulty was a low doorway on the ground floor of a many-storied palace, and before it a woman by a table, lighting a very small lamp, to the evident satisfaction of half a dozen youngsters. Over the open doorway was a chintz curtain; behind it, darkness. This was not encouraging. But presently a woman with a child came to buy tickets. One of the groups of youthful admirers was then sent up and a second down the street, and after they had come back with mysterious bundles another lamp was produced, lit, and carried inside, and the first two of the audience followed. It was now five minutes of six, so we also bought our tickets, three _soldi_, or cents, for each, and the curtain was drawn for us. A low crypt-like room with vaulted ceiling; at one end two screens covered with white sheets; between them a stage somewhat larger than that of a street Punch, with a curtain representing a characteristic Sienese brick wall enclosing a fountain; several rows of rough wooden benches, and one of chairs,--this was what we saw by the dim light of one lamp. We sat on the last bench. The audience probably would be more entertaining than the play. But the humble shall be exalted. The woman on the front row bade us come up higher. The small boy who acted as usher told us we might have two of the chairs for two _soldi_ more. The ticket-seller even came in, and in soft pleading tones said that we might have any places we wanted; why then should we choose the worst? But we refused the exaltation. The audience now began to arrive in good earnest. Five ragged boys of the _gamin_ species, one of a neater order with his little sister by the hand, two soldiers, a lady with a blue feather in her bonnet, and her child and nurse, two young girls,--and the benches were almost filled. Our friend the ticket-seller became very active as business grew brisk. She was always running in and out, now giving this one a seat, now rearranging the reserved chairs, and now keeping the younger members of the audience in order. _Ragazzini_, she called the unruly boys who stood up on the benches and whistled and sang, so that I wondered what diminutive she gave the swells on the front row. This was amusing enough, but our dinner-hour was half-past six. J. looked at his watch; it was a quarter past. The ever-watchful keeper of the show saw him. "Ah, the _Signore_ must not be impatient. _Ecco!_ the music was about to begin." Begin it did indeed, to be continued with a persistency which made us fear it would never end. The musicians were two. A young man in velveteen coat and long yellow necktie played the clarionet, and another the cornet. They knew only one tune,--a waltz I think it was meant to be,--but that they gave without stint, playing it over and over again, even while the ticket-seller made them move from their chairs to a long, high box by the wall; and when a third arrived with a trombone they let him join in when and as it best pleased him. When we had heard at least the twenty-fifth repetition of the waltz, had looked at the scuffling of the _ragazzini_ until even that pleasure palled, had seen the soldiers smoke _sigaro Cavour_ after _sigaro Cavour_ so that the air grew heavy, and had watched the gradual growth of the audience until every place was filled, our patience was exhausted. Behold! we said to the woman with the gentle voice, it was now seven. The play was announced for six. Was this right? In a house not far off every one was eating, and two covers were laid for us. But here we were in this dark room in our hunger, waiting for marionettes whose wires for aught we knew were broken. She became penitent. The _signorini_ must forgive her. The wires were not broken, but he who pulled them had not arrived. There was yet time. Would we not go and dine and then come back? She would admit us on our return. And so we went and had our dinner, well seasoned with polite conversation. The ticket-agent was true to her word. When we reappeared at her door, the curtain was pulled at once. In the mean time the musicians had been suppressed, not only out of hearing but out of sight. The room was so crowded that many who had arrived during our absence were standing. Indeed, there must have been by this time fully five francs in the house. All were watching with entranced eyes the movements of four or five puppets. The scene represented an interior, which I suppose, was that of the prison to one side of the Bridge of Sighs. That it was intended for a cell also seemed evident, because the one portable piece of furniture on the stage was a low, flat couch of a shape which as every one who has been to the theatre, but never to prison, knows is peculiar to the latter. It was impossible to lose sight of it, as the _dramatis personæ_ made their exits and entrances over it. It was rather funny to see the villain of the piece after an outbreak of passion, or an elegant long-haired page in crimson clad, after a gentlemanly speech, suddenly vault over it. We could not discover what the play was about. Besides the two above-mentioned characters there was a puppet with a large red face and green coat and trousers who gave moral tone to the dialogue, and another with heavy black beard and turban-like head-dress, and much velvet and lace whom we took to be a person of rank. As they came in and out by turn, it was impossible to decide which was the prisoner. With the exception of the jumps over the couch, there was little action in the performance. Its only two noticeable features were--first, the fact that villain, page, moralist, and magnate spoke in exactly the same voice and with the same expression; and, secondly, that they had an irrepressible tendency to stand in the air rather than on the floor, as if they had borrowed Mr. Stockton's negative-gravity machine. The applause and laughter and rapt attention of the audience proved the play to be much to their liking. But for us inappreciative foreigners a little of it went a great way. As nothing but talk came of all the villany and moralizing and grandeur and prettiness,--which may have been a clever bit of realism of which the English drama is not yet capable,--and as there was no apparent reason why the dialogue should ever come to an end, we went away after the next act. The ticket-seller was surprised at our sudden change from eagerness to indifference, but not offended. She thanked us for our patronage and wished us a _felice notte_. With the darkness the gayety of the town had increased. In the large theatre a play was being performed by a company of amateurs. Having had tickets given us, we looked in for a few minutes, but found it as wordy as that of the puppets. In a neighboring piazza the proprietor of a large van, like those to be seen at country fairs at home, was exhibiting a man, arrayed in a suit of rubber, with a large brass helmet-like arrangement on his head, who, it seemed, could live at the bottom of the sea, along with Neptune and the Naiads, as comfortably as on dry shore. _Ecco!_ There was the tank within, where this marvel could be seen,--a human being living under the water and none the worse for it! Admission was four _soldi_, but _per militari e ragazzi_ ("for the military and children") it was but two! So it seems that the soldiers who abroad are to strike terror into the enemy, at home are ranked with the young of the land, since like them their name is legion! There were about a dozen in the crowd, and, all unconscious of the sarcasm, they hurried up the steps and into the show, while an old man ground out of a hand-organ the appropriate tune of "_O, que j'aime les militaires!_" But dramas and shows were not the only Sunday-evening amusements. The _caffès_ were crowded. Judging from the glimpses we had into little black, cavern-like wine-shops, another Saint Bernardino is needed to set makers of gaming-tools in Siena to the manufacture of holier articles. And more than once, as we walked homewards in the starlight, we heard the voices of the three minstrels singing of human passion in the streets where Catherine so often preached the rapture of divine love. If swans were now seen in visions by fond Sienese matrons, they would wing their way earthward and not heavenward, as in the days when Blessed Bernardo's mother dreamed dreams. AN ITALIAN BY-ROAD. "_And the name of the going up the side of the hill is called Difficulty._" "_Is not the place dangerous? Hath it not hindered many in their pilgrimage?_" We left Siena the morning after the marionette exhibition. The major, when he heard at breakfast that we were going, asked us point blank several questions about Boston publishers, his book probably being still uppermost in his thoughts. Later he sent his card to our room to know at what hour we started; he wished to see us off. The young lady of architectural proclivities shook hands and bade us good-by, saying she had often ridden a sociable with her cousin in England. After all, there was not much for the major to see. We could not ride through the streets, and so could not mount the machine for his benefit. But he was interested in watching us strap the bags to the luggage-carrier, and pleased because of this opportunity to entertain us with more American reminiscences. I am afraid his amusement in Siena was small. In return for the little we gave him he asked us to come and see him in Rome, where he would spend the winter, and added that if we expected to pass through Cortona he would like to write a card of introduction for us to a friend of his there, an Italian who had married an English lady. Cortona was a rough place, and we might be glad to have it. He had forgotten his friend's name, but he would run upstairs and his wife could tell him. In a minute he returned with the written card. We have had many letters of introduction, but never one as singular as the major-general's. As he knew our names even less well than that of his Cortona friends, he introduced us as "an American lady and gentleman riding a _bicycle_!" Only fancy! as the English say. Our parting with him was friendly. Then he stood with Luigi and Zara until we disappeared around the corner of the street. What a ride we had from Siena to Buonconvento! This time the road was all _giù_, _giù_, _giù_. It was one long coast almost all the way, and we made the most of it. We flew by milestone after milestone. Once we timed ourselves: we made a mile in four minutes. The country through which we rode was sad and desolate. On either side were low rolling hills, bare as the English moors, and of every shade of gray and brown and purple. Here rose a hill steeper than the others, with a black cross on its summit; and here, one crowned with a group of four grim cypresses. Down the hillsides were deep ruts and gullies, with only an occasional patch of green, where women were watching sheep and swine. Once we came to where three or four houses were gathered around a small church, but they were as desolate as the land. We heard voices in the distance, but there was no one in sight. When on a short stretch of level road we stopped to look at this strange gray land, the grayer because dark clouds covered the sky, we saw that above the barrenness the sun shone on Siena, and that all her houses, overtowered by the graceful La Mangia and the tall Duomo Campanile, glistened in the bright light. About five miles from the city the desolation was somewhat relieved, for there were hedges by the roadside, and beyond sloping olive-gardens and vineyards. Poplars grew by little streams and sometimes we rode under oaks. On the top of every gray hill, giving it color, was a farm-house, rows of brilliant pumpkins laid on its red walls, ears of yellow corn hung in its _loggia_, and gigantic haystacks standing close by. There were monasteries too, great square brick buildings with tall towers, and below spire-like cypresses. But between the farms and fertile fields were deep ravines and dry beds of streams. The road was lonely. Now and then flocks of birds flew down in front of the tricycle, or large white geese came out from under the hedge and hissed at us. For a few minutes a man driving a donkey-cart made the way not a little lively. He did not see us until we wheeled by him. Then he jumped as if he had been shot. "_Dio!_" he exclaimed, "but you frightened me!" He laughed, however, and whipping up his donkey rattled after us as if eager for a race, talking and shouting all the while until we were out of hearing. One or two peasants passed in straw chariot-shaped wagons, and once from a farm-house a woman in red blouse and yellow apron, with a basket on her head and a dog at her heels, came towards us. It was in this same farm-house we met a Didymus. We stopped, as we had a way of doing when anything pleased us, and he came out to have a better look at the _tramway_. And how far did we expect to go to-day? he asked. To Monte Oliveto, we told him, for, like pious pilgrims, we thought to make a day's retreat with the monks there. "To Monte Oliveto! and in a day, and on that machine!" and he laughed us to scorn. "In a week, the _Signore_ had better say." Later a stone-breaker's belief in us made some amends for the farmer's contempt. We were riding then. "_Addio!_" he cried, even before we reached him. I shall always remember a little village through which we rode that morning, because it was there we saw the first large stone-pine growing by the roadside, which showed we were getting farther south, and because of the friendliness of a peasant. It was a poor place. The people were ragged and squalid and sickly, as if the gloom of the hills had fallen upon them. We asked at a shop for a lemon, but there was not one to be had. "Wait," cried a woman standing close by, and she disappeared. She returned almost immediately with a lemon on whose stem there were still fresh green leaves. "_Ecco!_" she said, "it is from my garden." "How much?" asked J., as she handed it to him. "Oh, nothing, sir," and she put her hands behind her back. We made her take a few coppers, for the children we told her. As far as it lay in her power I think she was as courteous as those men in a certain Italian town who, in days long past, fought together for the stranger who came within their gates, so eager were they all, not to cheat him, as is the way with modern landlords, but to lodge him at their own expense, so that there were no inns in that town. Before we reached Buonconvento the sun came out and the clouds rolled away. It had rained here earlier in the morning. The roads were sticky and the machine ran heavily, and trees and hedges were wet with sparkling raindrops. There is an imposing entrance to the little town, a pointed bridge over a narrow stream, with a Madonna and Child in marble relief at the highest point, an avenue of tall poplars with marble benches set between, and then the heavy brick walls blackened with age, and the gateway, its high Gothic arch decorated with the old Sienese wolf and a more recent crop of weeds. We rode from one end to the other,--a two minutes' ride,--without finding a _trattoria_. At length we appealed to the crowd. Where was the _trattoria_? No one understood; and yet that very morning J. had been asked if he were not a Florentine! Perhaps _monsieur_ speaks French? and a little Frenchman in seedy clothes jauntily worn, and with an indescribable swagger, came forward, hat in hand. The effect of his coming was magical. For unknown reasons, when it was found that J. could speak French after a fashion, his Italian was all-sufficient. The inn was here; we were directly in front of it, and the _padrone_, who had been at our elbows all the time, led the way into it. The Frenchman gallantly saw us through the crowd to the room where we were to dine. It was the best _trattoria_ in the place, but poor enough, he said. Such bread and cheese! horrible! and he shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands to heaven in testimony thereof. He did not live in Buonconvento, not he. He came from Paris. Then he complimented J. on his Italian, to make up in some measure for the failure of the people to appreciate it, and with a bow that might have won him favor at court, and a "I salute you, _monsieur_ and _madame_," he politely left us before our dinner was served. He was a strolling actor, the _padrone_ said; he and his troupe would give a performance in the evening. [Illustration: CHIUSURE. _Page 68._] The fact that we were going to Monte Oliveto annoyed the _padrone_. The monastery is a too successful rival to his inn. Few travellers, except those who are on their way to Monte Oliveto, pass through his town, and few who can help it stay there over night. His list of the evils we should have to endure was the sauce with which he served our beefsteak and potatoes. We must leave the post road for one that was stony and steep. Our velocipede could not be worked over it. It would take hours to reach the monastery, and we had better not be out after dark, for there were dangers untold by the way. But when he had said the worst he became cheerful, and even seemed pleased when we admired his kitchen, where brass and copper pots and pans hung on the walls, and where in one corner was a large fireplace with comfortable seats above and a pigeon-house underneath. But when we complimented him on the walls of his town, Bah! he exclaimed, of what use were they? They were half destroyed. They would be no defence in war-times. He was right. The walls, strong by the gate, have in parts entirely disappeared, and in others, houses and stables have been made of them. It is on the open space by these houses that the men have their playground. They were all there when we arrived, and still there when we left. Young men, others old enough to be their fathers, and boys were, each in turn, holding up balls to their noses, and then, with a long slide and backward twist of the arm, rolling them along the ground, which is the way Italians play bowls. Before the afternoon was over we cursed in our hearts the Tuscan politeness we had heretofore praised. About a mile from Buonconvento the road to Monte Oliveto divided. We turned to the right. But two peasants with ox-teams called out from below that we must not go that way. It was all bad. But to the left it was good, and _piano_, ascending but gently, and we had much better take it. In an evil moment we did. That it ill behooves a wise man to seek counsel in every word spoken to him, we found to our cost. In the first place the ascent was not gentle,--we had not then learned that an Italian calls every hill that is not as straight up and down as the side of a house, _piano_,--and in the second place the road was not good, but vilely bad. Unfortunately, for half a mile or perhaps more it was fair enough. But when we had gone just so far that we were unwilling to turn back we discovered our mistake. The road we had not taken was that built by the monks hundreds of years ago; we had chosen the new and not yet finished by-way. It was heavy with dust and dirt, and full of ruts and loose stones. Over it we could not ride or even push the tricycle without difficulty. It was in keeping, however, with the abomination of desolation lying to each side. For we were now in a veritable wilderness, a land of deserts and of pits, where few men dwell. All around us were naked, colorless chalk-hills, abrupt precipices and ravines. A few chestnut-trees, a rose-bush covered with red berries growing from the gray earth, were the only green things we passed for miles. It was weary and slow work, and the sun was low on the hill-tops before we came to the point where the two roads met. At some distance above us we saw a large red building surrounded by cypresses, and we knew this must be Monte Oliveto Maggiore. So we took heart again. But our trouble was not over. The road was better only by comparison, and it was still impossible to ride, and hard work to push or pull the tricycle. It was built of bricks, which lay as if they had been carelessly shot out of a cart and left where and how they fell. A little farther on it divided again. A woman was walking towards us, and J. asked her which was the road to the convent (_il convento_). "You must go back," she said; "it lies miles below,--Buonconvento." "These peasants are fools," said J. in angry English to her very face; but she, all unconscious, smiled upon us. We went to the left, which fortunately was just what we ought to have done. But it was provoking that instead of getting nearer to the monastery, we seemed to be going farther from it. With one turn of the road it appeared to be above, and with the next below us. Now it was on one side and now on the other, until I began to feel as if we were the answer to the riddle I had so often been asked in my childhood, the mysterious "What is it that goes round and round the house and never gets in?" Soon the sun set behind the hills, and the sky grew soft and golden. We met several peasants bearing large bundles of twigs on their heads. There were one or two shrines, a chapel, and a farm-house in front of which a priest stood talking to a woman. But on we went without resting, J. pushing the machine and I walking behind, womanlike shirking my share of the work. The road grew worse until it became nothing but a mass of ruts and gullies washed out by the rain, and led to a hill from which even Christian would have turned and fled. But we struggled up, reaching the top to see the gate of the monastery some sixty or seventy feet below. Finally we came to the great brick gateway which in the dull light--for by this time the color had faded from the sky--rose before us a heavy black pile, beyond whose archway we saw only shadow and mystery. As we walked under it our voices, when we spoke, sounded unnatural and hollow. On the other side the road wound through a gloomy grove of cypresses, growing so close together that they hedged us about with impenetrable darkness. Once several silent figures, moving noiselessly, passed by. Had we, by mischance, wandered into a Valley of the Shadow of Death? The cypress grove, after several windings, brought us face to face with the building at which we had already so often looked from the distance. Even in the semi-darkness we could see the outline distinctly enough to know we were standing in front of the church, and that the detached building a little to our left was a barn or stable. But not a light shone in a window, not a doorway was in sight. I recalled my convent experience of bygone years, and remembered that after eight o'clock in the evening no one was admitted within its walls. Was there a rule like this at Monte Oliveto, and was six the hour when its bolts and bars were fastened against the stranger? As we hesitated where to go or what to do next, three or four workmen came from the stable. J. spoke to them, and one offered to show him the entrance to the monastery while I waited by the tricycle. It was strange to stand in the late evening and in the wilderness alone, with men whose speech I barely understood and whose faces I could not see. For fully five minutes I waited thus while they talked together in low voices. But at last I heard one cry, _Ecco!_ here was the _padrone_; and they all took off their hats. A dog ran up and examined me, and then a man, who I could just make out in the gloom, wore a cassock and the broad-brimmed priestly hat, joined the group. "_Buona sera_," he said to me. Could I speak to him in French, I asked. Yes, he assented, what was it I wanted? When I told him we wished to stay in the monastery, he said he had not expected us. We had not written. "But," I exclaimed, "we thought strangers were allowed to stay here." "Yes," he answered; "there is a _pension_ in the monastery, but it is for artists." "And my husband is an artist," I interrupted eagerly, for from his manner I feared he would refuse us admission. After all, what did he know about us except that, vagrant-like, we were wandering in the mountains at a most unseasonable hour? Indeed, when later I reflected on the situation, I realized that we must have seemed suspicious characters. At this critical moment J. returned. His guide had led him to a small side-door beyond the church. There he rang and rang again. The bell was loud and clear, and roused many echoes within, but nothing else. The guide, perplexed, then led him back. I told him with whom I was speaking, and he continued the conversation with the _padrone_. Had they talked in Italian only, or in French, they might have understood each other; but instead they used a strange mixture of the two, to their mutual bewilderment. If this kept on much longer we should undoubtedly spend the night in the open air. In despair I broke in in French: "But, my father, cannot we stay this one night?" "Certainly," he said, fortunately dropping all Italian. "That is what I was explaining to _monsieur_. You can stay, but of course we have nothing prepared. We will do our best." If he had said he would do his worst, provided we were rid of the tricycle for the night, and were ourselves taken indoors where we might sit down, we should have been thankful. The bags were unstrapped and given into the care of one of the men, a place was made for the machine in the stable, and then we followed the _padrone_ or _Abate_--for this was his real title--to the door where J. had rung in vain, and which he opened with his key. Within it was so dark that we groped our way through a hall and a small cloister. Then we came to a flight of steps, where at the bidding of the _Abate_, as if to reassure us that we were not being led to secret cells or torture-chambers, the man carrying our bags struck a solitary match. By this feeble light we walked up the broad stone stairs and through many passage-ways, not a sound breaking the stillness but our foot-falls and their loud echoes, to a door where the _Abate_ left us, and at the same time the match burnt out. But the next minute he reappeared with a lighted taper, and at the end of the hall opened another door, lit a lamp on a table within, and showed us four rooms, which he said were at our disposal. The beds were not made, but they would be attended to immediately. He had now to say Office, but at nine supper would be served. Here was a very comfortable solution to the mystery into which the massive gateway seemed to lead. The Valley of the Shadow of Death had turned out to be a Delectable Land! It was still more comfortable later, when, his Office said, the _Abate_ came back and sat and talked with us. Now he could examine us by a better light I think he concluded we were not dangerous characters, probably only harmless lunatics. However that may be, after half an hour, when the supper-bell rang and we started off for the refectory, again by the light of his taper, we were the best of friends. The long corridor, thus dimly seen, seemed interminable. We went down one stairway to find the door locked against us, then up and down another. Here the light went out, leaving us in a darkness like unto that of Egypt. The _Abate_ laughed as if it were the best of jokes. He took J.'s hand and J. took mine, and thus like three children we went laughing down the stairway and along more passages, and at last into a long refectory, at the farther end of which was a lamp, while a door to one side of that by which we entered opened, and a second monk in white robes, holding a lighted taper, came in, and when he saw us made a low bow. As there were no other visitors, we were to eat with him and his brother monk, the _Abate_ said; and then he gave me the head of the table, asking me if I were willing to be the Lady Abbess. If we had been two prodigals he could not have been kinder than he was now he had given us shelter. If we had been starving like the hero of the parable, he could not have been more anxious to set before us a feast of plenty. Nor would any fatted calf have been more to our taste than the substantial supper prepared for us. We must eat, he said; we needed it. He had seen us coming up the hill as he talked with a peasant by the roadside; but _monsieur_ was push-pushing the velocipede and looking at nothing else, and _madame_ was panting and swinging her arms, staring straight in front of her, and before he had time, we had passed. We must drink too; the wine was good for us. We must not mix water with it; it was Christian, why then should it be baptized? The white-robed brother spoke little, but he never allowed J.'s plate to remain empty. When the meat was brought in we were joined by Pirro, a good-sized dog with no tail to speak of, and Lupo, an unusually large cat, and his numerous family, who all had to be fed at intervals. But even while Pirro jumped nimbly into the air after pieces of bread thrown to him, and Lupo scratched, and his progeny made mournful appeals to be remembered, and we talked, I looked every now and then down the long narrow table to where it was lost in deep shadow. The cloth was laid its entire length, as if in readiness for the banished brothers whenever they might return. I should not have been surprised then to see the door open to admit a procession of white-robed monks, all with tapers in their hands. The _Abate_ must have realized that to a stranger there was something uncanny in his dark, silent, deserted monastery, and his last word as he bade us good-night was, that we were to fear nothing, and sleep in peace. _To_ _THE ABATE DI NEGRO,_ _Of Monte Oliveto Maggiore,_ _We would say a Word of Thanks for the Golden Days passed in his House Beautiful, and for The Great Kindnesses shown us in our farther Journeying._ MONTE OLIVETO. "_But, oh, what a favor is this to me, that yet I am admitted entrance here!_" "_But they are to me golden hours in which such things happen to me._" The days we spent at Monte Oliveto were golden days. For we not only slept there one, but several nights, and the _Abate_ declared we could remain as long as we might care to. Nothing could be more melancholy and wild than the country into which we had come. It is the most desolate part of all that strange desolation which lies to the southeast of Siena. The mountain on which the monastery is built is surrounded on every side but one by deep, abrupt ravines. Behind it rise higher mountains, bare and bleak and gray, like gigantic ash-piles, and on the very highest peak is the wretched little village of Chiusure. The other hills around are lower, and from the road by the convent gateway one can see Siena, pale and blue on the horizon, and southward, over the barren hill-tops, Monte Amiata. But Monte Oliveto, with its gardens and orchards and vineyards, is a green place in the midst of the barrenness. The mountain-sides are terraced, and olives and vines grow almost to the bottom of the ravine. It was said in old times that the Bishop of Arezzo was commanded in a vision to call the monastery after the Mount in Jerusalem. Now-a-days sceptics say the trees on the terraces explain the name, forgetting that in its beginning this hill was as bare as the others. Why cannot it be believed, for the legend's sake, that the olives were planted afterwards because of the name? The first morning, the _Abate_ took us to see the frescos representing the life of Saint Benedict, painted on the walls of the large cloister. I will be honest, and confess that they disappointed us. I doubt whether the artists were very proud of them. Luca Signorelli, before he had finished the first side of the cloister, gave up the work, as it is not likely he would have done had he cared much for it. Sodoma, when he took his place, was at first so careless that the then abbot took him to task, but the artist calmly told him more could not be expected for the price that was paid him. Certainly with neither were these frescos a labor of love, and this one feels at once. One wonders if this could have been the same Sodoma who painted the Saint Sebastian in Florence, and yet there is more charm in his pictures than in those of Signorelli. But what we cared for most were his portraits of himself, with heavy hair hanging about his face, and wearing the cloak the Milanese gentleman, turned monk, had given him, and of his wife and child; and the pictures of the raven and the other pets he brought with him to the monastery, to the wonder of the good monks. It is a pity every one cannot look at these frescos with such loving, reverential eyes as the _Abate_. He had shown them probably to hundreds of visitors; he had seen them almost every day for the many years he had been at Monte Oliveto; but his pleasure in them was as fresh as if it dated but from yesterday. He told the story of each in turn,--of how in this one the great Saint Benedict had set the devil to flight, and how in that he had by a miracle recalled an erring brother; and once he pointed to a palm-tree in a background. Sodoma, he said, had seen and admired a palm in the garden of the monastery, and so, after his realistic fashion, had painted it in just as he had his pets. That very tree was in the garden still; he would show it to us if we liked. [Illustration: MONTE OLIVETO. _Page 84._] There never was such another garden! It is close to the large brick house or palace by the gateway, where in old times lay visitors were lodged, and beyond which no woman was ever allowed to pass. It is small, but in it the monks only raised the rarest trees and plants. Here grew the precious herbs out of which in the pharmacy, whose windows overlook the quiet green enclosure, they prepared the healing draughts for which people came from far and near. The pharmacy is closed now. There is dust in the corners and on the quaint old chairs. Cobwebs hang from the ceiling. But brass scales are still on the heavy wooden counter, and pestle and mortar behind it, and glass retorts of strange shapes in the corners and above the doors. Majolica jars all marked with the three mountains, the cross, and the olive-branch,--the _stemma_ of the monastic order,--are ranged on the brown shelves, many of the large ones carefully sealed, while from the smaller come forth strange odors of myrrh and incense and rare ointments. As in the refectory, everything here is in order for the monks when they return. But they will find more change in the garden below. The rare plants, the ebony and the hyssop, the cactuses and the palm (which made us think less of Sodoma's frescos than we had before), the pomegranates and the artichokes, are all there. But weeds grow in the paths, and by the old gray well, and in among the herbs; roses have run riot in the centre of the garden and turned it into a wild tangled growth. To us it seemed the loveliest spot in Monte Oliveto. The hours spent in it were like a beautiful idyl of Theocritus or Shelley. The sun shone and the air was filled with sweet spicy scents. To one side was the gray mountain, to the other dense cypresses, and above a blue, cloudless sky. The roses were still in bloom, and as we lingered there, the _Abate_ went from bush to bush and picked for me a large bunch of fragrant buds. I hope if the monks ever do come back that, while they throw open the windows of the pharmacy and let the light in again upon the majolica and the dark woodwork, they will leave the gates of the garden locked. It is fairer in its confusion than it ever could be with weeded paths and well-clipped bushes. The _Abate_ took us everywhere,--through the empty guest-chambers of the palace to the tower, now a home for pigeons, from the top of which one has a wide view of the country, which with its squares of olives and its gray hills and fields marked by deep furrows, as if by boundary lines, looks like a large map or geological chart,--through the monastery, with its three hundred rooms with now but three monks to occupy them; its cloisters, for there are two besides the large frescoed one; its _loggie_, where geraniums and other green plants were growing; its great refectory, beyond the door of which fowl or flesh meat never passed, and which is now used no longer; and its library, at the very top of the house, where rows of white vellum volumes are ready for the students who so seldom come. Then he led us to the church, where there are more altars than monks to pray before them, and a wonderful choir with inlaid stalls; and in and out of little chapels, one of which contains the grotto where blessed Bernardo Tolomei, the founder of the order, lived for many years after he came to the wilderness, while another was the first church used by the brotherhood, and the Virgin with angels playing to her on harps and mandolins, above the altar, was painted long before Signorelli and Sodoma began their work. Then there was the lemon-grove to be seen, where the _Abate_ filled our pockets with the ripe fruit which we were to keep, he said, in case we might be thirsty on the road some day when there was no wine or water near by to drink. And after that there was still to be visited the wine-press, with its deep shadows and dark corners and long subterranean passage to the room below, where men were filling small casks from large butts, and then carrying them off on their shoulders to be weighed and stored above. We had to taste the wine, and I think it, together with the sunshine and the flowers, must have gone to our heads that morning and stayed there so long as we were at Monte Oliveto, for everything about us seemed to belong less to the actual world than to a dreamland full of wonder and beauty, and sometimes of pathos. It was the same in the afternoon, when the _Abate_ had gone about his work,--for he is a busy man, like the centurion with many under him,--and J. and I wandered alone over the gray hills up to Chiusure. Life with its hardships must be real enough to the people of this little village, in which seeds of pestilence sown hundreds of years ago still bear the bitter fruit of wretchedness. It seems as if the brick walls which could not keep out the plague have ever since successfully barred the way to all prosperity, for generation after generation is born within them but to live and die in poverty. We saw melancholy figures there,--old hags of women, with thin white hair and bent almost double under heavy bundles of wood, toiling up steep stony streets with bare feet, and others crouching in the gloom opposite open doorways. Even the little priest, who, in his knee-breeches and long frock-coat and braided smoking-cap with tassels dangling in his eyes, was humorous enough to look at, was pathetic in his way. For after he had shown us his church with its decorations, poor as the people who worship in it, and offered us a glass of wine in his own parlor, he spread on the table before us some broken pieces of glass easily put together, on which a picture was painted. Was it of value? he asked, so eagerly that he told without further words the story of wants but ill supplied. He was willing to sell it, but he did not know what it was worth. Could we tell him? No, we could not, we said, for we really knew nothing about it, though we feared the hopes he had set upon it would never be realized. And then sadly he gathered together the pieces and put them away again in their newspaper wrapping. It was more cheerful outside the gateway. There, in the late afternoon, the gray olives by the way were more clearly defined against the sky, and the gray ravines below more indistinct. Beyond, the hills, now all purple and soft, rolled away to the horizon and to the brilliant red sky above. One or two lights were lit in distant farm-houses, and once we heard a far-off bell. Before us the white road led by one green hill on whose top was a circle of cypresses, and in its centre a black cross, as in so many old pictures. But the strangest part of this dream-life was the friendship that sprung up between us and the monks. I should not have been more surprised if Saint Benedict and Blessed Bernardo had come back to earth to make friends with us. It was not only that the _Abate_ acted as our guide through the monastery,--this he does for every visitor who comes, since the Government took possession of it and turned it into a public art-gallery and _pension_ for artists,--but he came to our room early in the morning to drink his coffee with us, and in the evening, after he had said his Office, for a little talk. And when we had finished our supper we sat together long over our wine, talking now in French, now in English, now in Italian, and occasionally understanding each other. Like all good fellows, we too had our jokes. But the _Abate's_ favorite was to tell how he had seen us coming up the mountain, _monsieur_ push-pushing the velocipede and _madame_ puff-puffing behind him. Even Dom Giuseppe, the other monk,--the third was away,--relaxed from the dignity with which he had first met us, and took part in the talk and the laughter. Unreal as seemed these late suppers in the long refectory in the dim light, with Pirro forever jumping after choice morsels, while Lupo and his family growled with rage and envy from under the table, we strayed even farther into Wonderland the second day after our arrival, when both monks went out for a ride on the tricycle along the mulberry walk and by Blessed Bernardo's grotto. The last day of our stay a number of visitors arrived,--a priest from Perugia, two nuns, and two English ladies. They were not expected, and dinner had to be prepared for them. The _Abate_ is never pleased when guests come without giving him warning. When we met him in the refectory a little after twelve, we could see his patience had been tried. We must pardon him for being late, he said, but he had had to find something to eat for all these people. Were they to dine with us? we asked. No, indeed, was his answer; they were not members of the community. This confirmed our doubts as to whether we might not be monks without knowing it; for the first morning the _Abate_ had given us a key of the great front door by which we could let ourselves in at all hours, without any ringing of bells or calling of porters; so that we felt as if we belonged to the convent. These visitors were the thorns in his present life, the _Abate_ continued, and we were his roses. Then he brought out a bottle of the _vino santo_ which he makes himself and prizes so highly that he never sells it as he does the other wines, and a plate of grapes for which he had sent a great distance. And when dinner was over he bade the servant put all that was left of grapes and wine away. They were for the community, and not for common folk. He introduced us to the Perugian priest, who might possibly, he said, be of use to us in Perugia. The latter almost embraced J. in his protestations of good-will, and came running back several times to press his hand, and say in a French of his own invention that we must call often during our stay in his city. THROUGH THE WILDERNESS TO A GARDEN. "_Now he bethought himself of setting forward._" "_Here, also, they had the city itself in view, and they thought they heard all the bells therein to ring to welcome them thereto._" We left the monastery the next morning. It took courage on our part; but we knew it was best to go quickly. Every day we fell more under the dreamy influence of the place and became less willing for action. We must hasten from Monte Oliveto for the very reason which led Blessed Bernardo to it,--to flee temptation. The _Abate_ was in our room by half-past seven. Dom Giuseppe was in the church saying Mass, but had sent his farewells. He himself had not yet said Mass, so he could not drink his coffee with us, but he sat by while we had ours. We should not reach San Quirico till noon, he feared, and we must have something in our pockets to eat in the mean time; and he went to his room and came back with two cakes. He brought besides two letters he had written introducing us to monks at San Pietro in Perugia. Then he came downstairs and out to the stable, though he was fasting, and the morning was wet and cloudy and cold. We did not get on the tricycle at once. We remembered the road too well. The _Abate_ walked by our side, now and then patting J. on the back and calling him affectionately "Giuseppe, Giuseppe;" and he kept with us until, at some little distance from the gateway, we mounted the machine. After he had said good-by, he stood quietly watching us. Then there came a turn in the road which hid him from us, and when we saw him again he was walking on the footpath below the cypresses, with two little boys who had come out with him. He was on his way to take Dom Giuseppe's place at the altar. And then we went on sadly, for we knew we should not come to another resting-place where there was such perfect relief for pilgrims that are weary and faint in the way. As the road was difficult going up, so was it dangerous coming down, and again we had to walk. To add to our discomfort, before long it began to rain, and it was so cold we had to blow on our fingers to keep them warm. During the night it had snowed on the far mountain-ranges. Beyond Buonconvento, when we returned to the post-road we went fast enough; but only for a while. There were more mountains to cross, up which J. could not go very fast because of the burden, or knapsack, that was on his back. Out of very shame I took my share in pushing and pulling the tricycle. Once or twice we had long coasts; but in places the road was sandy, and in descending wound as often as a small St. Gothard railway. Coasting would have been too great a risk, especially as I never could back-pedal going down hill, though on upgrades J. but too often complained that, like Dante on the hillside, my firm foot ever was the lower. [Illustration: AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS. _Page 96._] The way still lay between and over hills of chalk, and we rode for miles through monotonous barrenness. It rained at intervals, but at times the sun almost broke through the clouds that followed it in long gray sweeps from the white masses on the snow-capped mountains bounding the horizon. To our right, Monte Amiata, bare and rugged, and with white top, was always in sight; and once above it the clouds rolled away leaving a broad stretch of greenish blue sky. There were many crosses by the wayside, and they were different from any we had yet seen. On each, over spear and sponge and crown of thorns, was a black cock, rudely carved to look as if it crowed. Just before we came to San Quirico, and towards noon, we saw at the foot of one of these crosses an old weary-looking peasant, with head bowed as if he listened for the Angelus. We were prepossessed against San Quirico before we reached it. Olives with vines hanging from them in defiance of Virgil, brown fields, and red and yellow trees, could not reconcile us to the long climb up the mountain. It was worth our trouble, however, if only to see the cathedral. We left the tricycle at the _trattoria_, and at our leisure looked at the portal and its pillars, with quaintly carved capitals of animals and birds, and at those others, joined together with a Celtic-like twist and resting on leopards, and then at the two sea-monsters above. And while we wondered at the grotesque gargoyles on the walls, and the two figures for columns, and the lions on the south doorway, two _carabinieri_ from a neighboring window examined us as if we were equal curiosities. This fine building is an incongruity in San Quirico, which--for our first impressions proved right--is at best but a poor place. We were cheated in it as we had never been before. When we went back to the _trattoria_ four men were eating their dinner inside the fireplace in the kitchen. But we were ushered into what I suppose was the best room. It was dining-room and bed-chamber combined. On one side was a long table, on the other the bed. The dressing-table served as buffet, and the _padrona_ brought from its drawers the cheese and apples for our dessert. In the garden below--for we were in the second story--weeds like corn grew so tall that they shaded the window. What happened in that room, and the difference that arose between the _padrona_ and ourselves, are facts too unpleasant to recall. But I am sure the next foreigners who went to San Quirico heard woful tales of the evil doings of the two _Inglesi_ who came on a velocipede. After San Quirico there was the same barrenness, and only indifferent roads over rolling country. Until within half a mile of Pienza, where the hedges began again, not a tree grew by the roadside, and the only signs of vegetation were the reeds in the little dark pools dotting the gray fields. It was still bitterly cold, and my fingers tingled on the handles. Once we passed a farm-house where a solitary woman watched a herd of black swine, and once we met the diligence; that was all. We rode into Pienza, though our way lay to one side of it. But we were curious to see the cathedrals and palaces Pius II. built there in the vain hope of turning his native village into an important town. Of all the follies of proud popes, I think this was the greatest. As well might he have hoped by his single effort to cover the _creta_, or chalk, with roses, as to raise a prosperous city in its midst. We saw the great brown buildings marked with the fine crescents of the Piccolomini and the papal tiara and keys, as out of place in Pienza as the cathedral seemed in San Quirico; we looked closer at the old stone well and its beautiful wrought-iron work. J. made a sketch of a fine courtyard, and then we were on the road again. Near Montepulciano we came to a thickly wooded country, riding for several miles between chestnuts and oaks. There were open places, too, from which we saw far below the fair Val di Chiana, and in the distance Lake Thrasymene, pale and silvery, and close by olive-gardens, through whose gray branches we looked at the purple mountains and their snowy summits. Above were broad spaces of bright sky, for the dark clouds were rolling away beyond the lake, and those that floated around Monte Amiata were now glistening and white. We had left the wilderness for a garden. All the bells rang out as if in welcome when, after working up the long road, so winding that at times the city was completely hidden, we wheeled into the now dark and cold streets of Montepulciano. WE ARE DETAINED IN MONTEPULCIANO. "_They were therefore here in evil case, and were far from friends and acquaintances._" "_Why, truly, I do not know what had become of me there, had not Evangelist happily met me._" It was in this high hill town that one of the pilgrims fell by the way. For two days J. was too ill to ride, and we feared our pilgrimage had come to an end. We stayed at the Albergo Marzocco. It was on the fifth floor of an old palace, and the entrance was through the kitchen. The _padrone_ and his family were very sociable. Almost immediately his wife wanted to know the trade of the _Signore_. "Ah! an artist. _Ecco me!_ I am a washerwoman!" She was also cook. From the dining-room we could watch her as she prepared our meals. When she kept us waiting too long we had only to step into the kitchen and stand over her until the dish we had ordered was ready. We could look too into an adjacent room where during our stay one daughter of the house forever ironed table-cloths, while a second added up endless accounts. But friendly as these people were, they were stupid. The _padrone_ had a _pizzicheria_, or pork-shop, across the street. When anything was wanted at the Albergo it was brought from the shop. Every time I went to my window I saw messengers on their way between the two establishments. But no man can serve two masters; the _pizzicheria_ drove a more thriving trade, and the Albergo suffered in consequence. It was left in the charge of a youth of unparalleled stupidity, who seldom understood what we asked for, and when he did, declared it something not to be had. But a friend was sent to us in our need. It happened in this way. The first morning we went out for a walk. As we started, and were passing the palace with the Etruscan inscriptions on the heavy stones of its lower wall, a Harlequin newly painted in red and white struck nine from a house-top near by. In the Via dell' Erbe women, their heads covered with gay handkerchiefs or wide-brimmed, high-crowned felt hats, were selling vegetables and fruit. Just in front of us, walking hand in hand, were three beggars, two blind and one lame, and an old brown monk with a wine-cask on his shoulder. At almost every turn we saw through an archway the three far-away lakes of Montepulciano, Chiusi, and Thrasymene. But it was now J. began to feel ill, and we went to a _caffè_ and called for cognac. As we sat there the door opened and a young Italian dressed _à l'Anglaise_, even to his silver-headed cane, came in. He took a seat at the table next to us. When his coffee was brought he asked the waiter if he had seen the English lady and gentleman who arrived the evening before on a velocipede. No, the waiter had not; he knew nothing of these foreigners. There was a pause, while the young Italian sipped his coffee. But presently he turned to us and said in good English, but with a marked accent:-- "I beg pardon, sare, but was it not you who came to Montepulciano on a tricycle?" "Yes," said J., but rather curtly, for he was just then very miserably. "Ah, I thought so!" continued the Italian, well satisfied with the answer. "I have seen it,--a Humber. It is a beautiful machine. I myself do ride a bicycle,--the _Speecial Cloob_. You know it? I do belong to the Cyclists' _Touring Cloob_ and to the _Speedvell Cloob_. All the English champions do belong to that _Cloob_. I did propose some one for director at the last meeting; you will see my name on that account in the papers. Here is my card, but in the country around Montepulciano all call me Sandro or Sandrino. I have ridden from Florence to Montepulciano in one day. I have what you call the wheel fever,"--and he smiled apologetically and stopped, but only to take breath. We were fellow-cyclers, and that was enough. He was at once our friend, though our greeting in return was not enthusiastic, and our record would have disgusted the _Speedvell Cloob_. He could sympathize. He was feeling _vary bad_ himself, because the day before he had gone on his bicycle as far as Montalcino with a gun to _keel the leetle birds_. It was too far even for a champion. But he had taken the waters--Janos: he had great faith in the waters. The cognac by this time had made J. better, and we started to leave the _caffè_. Sandrino, to give him his Montepulciano name, insisted on paying for everything. We must let him have that favor, he said, and also another. He was not a native of the town,--he was a Roman, as he supposed we could see by his nose,--but still he would like to do us the honors of the place. He would take us to see so fine a church we could not but be pleased with it; it was only a step. Foolishly we went. The step was a long one. It took us half-way down the mountain-side to the Madonna di San Biagio. But J. was now really too wretched to look at anything, and we turned back at once. As we walked slowly up again, Sandrino explained that he had lived in England several years; and it turned out that he had the English as well as the wheel fever. All his clothes were from London, he said, even his flannels; and he pulled down his sleeve that we might see. He smoked English tobacco,--a friend sent it to him; and he showed us the small paper box tied with a string in which he kept it. And most of his news was English, too. His friends wrote him. He had just had a letter--see--and he opened it. There had been fearful riots in England. He cared much for the politics of the country. But the refrain of all he said was praise of cycling. He offered to ride with us when we left Montepulciano. He could go any day but the next, which was his twenty-first birthday, when he was to have a great dinner and many friends and much wine. He would call, if we would allow him; and with profession of great friendship he left us at the door of the Albergo. [Illustration: LEAVING MONTEPULCIANO. _Page 106._] He was true to his word. Indeed, I do not know what had become of us but for his kindness. After our return from our walk, J. was unable to leave his room. We were both depressed by this unlooked-for delay, and Sandrino not only helped to amuse, but was of practical use to us. He came twice the following day. The first time he stopped, he said, to tell us he did hear from friends in Castiglione del Lago, who, if we should ride to-morrow, would be glad to see us at lunch. "There will be nothing much," he concluded; "they will make no preparations. It will be some _leetle_ thing." Though in the first glory of his twenty-one years, he went with me to a druggist's to act as interpreter. But I think he was repaid by his pleasure in carrying back a bottle of his favorite waters. The boy, when he saw it, with his usual cleverness followed into the room bringing three glasses. If we had asked for three he doubtless would have brought one. Sandrino's second visit was in the evening after he had eaten his great dinner and drunk much wine, which had again made him feel _vary bad_. Had we ever tasted the famous Montepulciano, "king of all wine"? he asked. No? Well, then, we must before leaving the town. It was not to be had anywhere else, and indeed even in Montepulciano could not be bought in the _caffè_ or shops. He had been presented with many bottles. He repeated his invitation to lunch in Castiglione, and it seemed that other friends in a villa near Cortona would also be charmed to see us, and to give us wine if we were tired. IN THE VAL DI CHIANA. "_Thy company, O sweet Evangelist, how desirable it is to us poor pilgrims._" "_Then I saw in my dream they went very lovingly on together._" The next morning J. was much better, and we decided to ride. Sandrino arrived at half-past seven and breakfasted with us. In the uniform of the _Speedvell Cloob_, its monogram in silver on his cap, he was even more English than he had been the day before. Our last experience at the Albergo was characteristic. The waiter, overcome by Sandrino's appearance, became incapable of action. We called for our coffee and rolls in vain. Finally we all, our guest included, made a descent upon the kitchen and forced him to bestir himself. It was Sunday morning, and the news of our going had been noised abroad. The aristocracy as well as the people turned out to see us off. Many of Sandrino's friends lingered in the barber-shop across the street; others waited just without the city gate with his mother and sister. When Sandrino saw the crowd here, he sprang upon his _Speecial Cloob_, worked with one foot and waved the other in the air, rode to the little park beyond and back, and then jumped off, hat in hand, at his mother's side, with the complacent smile of a champion. Indeed, the whole ride that day savored of the circus. He went down hills with his legs stretched straight out on either side. On level places he made circles and fancy figures in the road. Whenever we passed peasants,--and there were many going to church,--he shrieked a warning shrill as a steam-engine whistle. No wonder he said he had no use for a bell! He spoke to all the women, calling them his "beautiful cousins." And in villages the noise he made was so great that frightened people, staring at him, could not look behind, so that several times we all but rode over men and women who walked backward right into our wheels. And all the while J., like the ring-master, kept calling and shrieking, and no one paid the least attention to him. Our way was through the beautiful Val di Chiana, no longer pestilential and full of stenches as in Dante's day, but fresh and fair, and in places sweet with clematis. There were no fences or hedges, and it stretched from mountains to mountains, one wide lovely park. About half-way to Castiglione we came to the boundary line between Tuscany and Umbria,--a canal with tall poplars on its banks, throwing long reflections into the water below, where a boat lay by the reeds. We stopped there some little time. Sandrino was polite, but I could see he did not approve. What would the _Speedvell Cloob_ have thought? Farther on, when we waited again near a low farm-house under the oaks, he wheeled quickly on. But presently he came back. "Oh," he said, "I thought you must have had an accident!" There could be no lovelier lake town than Castiglione del Lago. The high hill on which it stands projects far into Lake Thrasymene. The olives which grow from its walls down the hillside into the very water are larger and finer, with more strangely twisted trunks, than any I have ever seen. As we came near the town we rode between them, looking beneath their silvery-gray branches out to the pale blue lake beyond. A woman came from under their shade with a bundle of long reeds on her head; a priest passed us on a donkey. We left our machines in a stable at the foot of the hill and walked through the streets. Here Sandrino's invitation came to nought; his friends were away. Whatever _leetle thing_ we had must be found elsewhere. So we went to a _trattoria_, where another of his friends, a serious, polite young man who, we learned afterwards, owns the town and all the country thereabout, sat and talked with us while we ate our lunch. Poor Sandrino! He had to pay for his English clothes and foreign friends! The _padrona_, backed by her husband from the kitchen below, asked him no less than five francs for our macaroni and wine. A dispute, loud because of the distance between the disputants, followed; but in the end Sandrino paid four francs, though half that sum would have been enough. It was some consolation for us to know that, _forestieri_ as we were, we had never been cheated so outrageously, not even in San Quirico. It was pleasant wandering through the town, with the grave young man as guide, to the Palazzo Communale, where the red and white flag of the Duke of Cornia waving outside was the same as that painted in the old frescos within, and where councilmen holding council bowed to us as we passed; and then to the old deserted castle which, with its gray battlemented walls and towers, was not unlike an English ruin. But it was pleasanter when, Sandrino having kissed his friend, we were on the road again, riding between yellow mulberries by the side of the lake. Sheep were grazing on the grassy banks; donkeys and oxen were at rest in the meadows. But the peasants, Mass heard, were at work again. Women on ladders were stripping the mulberries of their leaves; men on their knees were digging in the fields. At the villa, Sandrino's friends were at home. At the gate the gay bicycler gave his war-cry. A young lady ran out between the roses and chrysanthemums in the garden and by the red wall where yellow pumpkins were sunning, to welcome him. Then her mother and sister came and also gave him greeting. They received us with courtesy. We were led into the drawing-room, a bare, barn-like place with cold brick floor, where there were three or four chairs, a table, an old piano, faded cretonne curtains hung on rough sticks at the windows, and small drawings pinned on the walls. A man in blue coat and trousers, such as the peasants wear, followed us in and sat down by the young ladies. He was one of her men, the _Signora_ explained. Then we had the wine Sandrino promised, and we became very friendly. One of the daughters knew a little English, but when we spoke to her she hid her face in her hands and laughed and blushed. She never, never would dare to say a word before us, she declared. She was very arch and girlish. One minute she played a waltz on the piano; the next she teased Sandrino, and there was much pleasantry between them. The mother spoke French after a fashion, but when she had anything to say she relapsed into Italian. She lived in Rome, she said. We must come and see her there. But would we not now stay at her villa all night, instead of in Cortona? Then she squeezed my hand. "_Vous êtes bien sympathique_," she said, and I think she meant to compliment me. Her husband, it seems, was a banker in Rome, and would be pleased, so she told us through Sandrino's interpretation, to do anything and everything for us. Mother and daughters, men and maids, all walking amiably together, came to the garden gate with us. The _Signora_ here squeezed my hand a second time. The skittish young lady said "good-by" and then hid behind a bush, and her sister gave us each some roses. It was here too we were to part with Sandrino. He must be back in Montepulciano by six; more friends were coming. Would we write him postal cards to tell him of the distance and time we made? And that map of Tuscany we said we would give him, would we not remember it? He was going to take some great rides, and it would help him. Then we turned one way, and he, riding his best for the young ladies, the other, to be seen by us no more. It was roses all the way to Cortona. They grew in villa gardens and along the road up the mountain; there were a few even among the olives, on the terraces whose stone embankments make the city from below look as if it were surrounded by many walls instead of one only. Near the town we met two young lovers, their arms around each other's waists, and a group of men who directed us in our search for the inn up a short steep hill leading away from the main road. Above, inside the city gate, several other citizens told us we must go down again, for the road we had left led right by the door. Clearly the Albergo della Stella--for that was its name--was not well known in Cortona. After a climb of three miles it was provoking to go even a foot out of our way, and we turned back in no cheerful mood. It was more disheartening when, having finally come to the Albergo, we found the lower floor, by which we entered, the home of pigs and donkeys and oxen. The major was right, I thought; Cortona was a rough place. The contrast when on the third floor of this establishment we were shown into a large, clean, really well-furnished room with window overlooking the valley, made us neglect to drive a close bargain with the _padrona_,--a neglect for which we suffered later. LUCA SIGNORELLI'S TOWN. "_By this time the pilgrims had a desire to go forward._" The principal event of our stay in Cortona was a hunt for Luca Signorelli's house. Why we were so anxious to find it I did not know then, nor do I now; but we were very earnest about it. At the start a youth pursued us with the persistence of a government spy. It was useless to try and dodge him. No matter how long we were in churches or by what door we came out, he was always waiting in exactly the right place. In our indignation we would not ask him the way, but we did of some other boys, who forthwith led us such a wild-goose chase that I think before it was over there was not a street or corner of the town unvisited by us. [Illustration: CORTONA.] We next employed an old man as guide. Of course he knew all about Luca Signorelli. He could show us all his frescos and pictures in Cortona. Some of them were bad enough, as he supposed the _Signore_ knew; they were painted in the artist's youth. But we wanted to see his house? Ah! we had but to follow him, and he led us in triumph to that of Pietro da Cortona. As this would not do, he consulted with an old woman, who recommended a visit to a certain _padre_. The _padre_ was in his kitchen. He had never heard of Signorelli's house, and honestly admitted his ignorance. But could he show us some fine frescos or sell us antiquities? This failing, our guide hunted for some friends who, he declared, knew everything. But they were not in their shop, nor in the _caffè_, nor on the piazza, and in despair he took us to see another priest. The latter wore a jockey-cap and goggles, and was a learned man. He had heard of a life of Signorelli by a German. He had never read it, nor indeed could he say where it was to be had; but he knew there was such a book. He was certain our hunt was useless, since Signorelli had lived in so many houses the city could not afford to put tablets on them all, and so not one was marked. He himself was a professional letter-writer, and if the _Signore_ had any letters he wished written--? We then gave up the search and dismissed the old man with a franc, though he declared himself still willing to continue it. It was in this way we saw Cortona. For the last few days we had begun to be haunted by the fear of the autumn rains. If they were as bad as Virgil says, and were to fall in dense sheets, tearing the crops up by the roots, while black whirlwinds set the stubble flying, and vast torrents filled ditches and raised rivers, the roads must certainly be made unridable. Since the morning we left Monte Oliveto the weather had been threatening, and now in Cortona there were heavy showers. As we sat in our room at the Albergo after our long tramp, and J. made a sketch from the window, we saw dark clouds gradually cover the sky. The lake, so blue yesterday, was gray and dull. The valley and the mountains were in shadow, save where the sun breaking through the clouds shone on a small square of olives and spread a golden mist over Monte Amiata. Before J. had finished, the gold faded into white and then deepened into purple, and we determined to be off early in the morning. TO PERUGIA: BY TRAIN AND TRICYCLE. "_Now you must note that the City stood upon a mighty hill, but the pilgrims went up that hill with ease._" The next day I was tired and in no humor for riding. J. wanted once to try the tricycle without luggage over the Italian roads. It was settled then between us that I should go alone by train to Perugia, where we should meet. Before seven we had our breakfast and the _padrona_ brought us her bill. Because we had not bargained in the beginning she overcharged us for everything; but we refused to pay more than we knew was her due. There was the inevitable war of words, more unpleasant than usual because her voice was loud and harsh and asthmatic. She grew tearful before it was over, but finally thanked us for what we gave her, and asked us to come again so gently that we mistrusted her. I thought it wise to wait with the bags at the station, though my train would not start till eleven. It was a beautiful coast down the mountain between the olives, four miles with feet up. The clouds had rolled away during the night, and it was bright and warm at the station when J. left me to go on his way. It was quiet too, and for some time I was alone with the porters. But presently a young woman with a child in her arms came by. She stopped and looked at me sympathetically. I spoke to her, and then she came nearer and patted me on the shoulder and said, "_Poverina!_" It seems she had seen J. bring me to the station and then turn back by himself. I do not know what she thought was the trouble, but she felt sorry for me. She was the wife of the telegraph operator, and lived in rooms above the station. She took me to them, and then she brought me an illustrated translation of "Gil Blas" to look at while she made me a cup of coffee. Every few minutes she sighed and said again, "_Poverina!_" She gave me her card,--Elena Olas, _nata_ Bocci, was her name. I wrote mine on a slip of paper, and when the train, only an hour late, came, we parted with great friendship. A regiment of soldiers was on its way to Perugia and made the journey very lively. Peasants who had somehow heard of its coming were in wait at every station with apples and chestnuts and wine, over which there was much noisy bargaining. At other times the soldiers sang. As the train carried us by the lake from which the mountains in the distance rose white and shadowy and phantom-like, and by Passignano,--built right in the water, with reeds instead of flowers around the houses, where fishermen were out in their boats near the weirs,--and then by Maggiore and Ellora on their hill-tops, I heard the constant refrain of the soldiers' song, and it reminded me of my friend at Cortona, for it was a plaintive regret for "_Poverina mia!_" Then there came a pause in the singing, and a voice called out, "_Ecco_, Perugia!" I looked from the carriage window, and there, far above on the mountain, I saw it, white and shining, like a beautiful city of the sun. At the station J. met me. He had been waiting an hour, having made the thirty-six miles between Cortona and Perugia in three hours and a half. He too had had his adventures. Beyond Passignano he met a man on foot who spoke to him, and to whom he said, "_Buon Giorno_." "Good-morning," cried the man in good cockney English, and J. in sheer astonishment stopped the tricycle. The tramp--for tramp he was--explained that he was an Englishman and in a bad way. He had been at Perugia with a circus which had little or no success, and the rascally Frenchman who managed it had broken up and made off, leaving him with nothing. He was now on his way to Florence, where he wanted to be taken on by Prince Strozzi, who kept English jockeys. But in the mean time he was hungry and had no money, and must tramp it all the way. J. bethought him of the card to the gentleman of Cortona who had married an English wife. We had not used it, and it seemed a pity to waste it. The English lady doubtless would be glad of an opportunity to help a countryman. So he gave it to the tramp, together with a franc for his immediate wants. The latter looked at the money. He supposed he could do something with it, he grumbled. He really was grateful, however, for he offered to push the machine up a hill down which he had just walked. But J. telling him to hurry on, engaged instead the services of a small boy who was going his way. For pay, he gave the child a coast down the other side into his native village, than which _soldi_ could not have been sweeter. Did not all his playmates see him ride by in his pride? Arriving in Perugia, J. himself was a hero for a time. Many officers with their wives were in the station, and in their curiosity so far forgot their usual dignity as to surround him and pester him with questions as to his whence and whither and what speed he could make. [Illustration: ON THE HILL. _Page 126._] It is a long way from the station up the mountain to the town, but we went faster than we ever climbed mountain before, for we tied the tricycle to the back of the diligence. J. rode and steered it, but I sat inside, ending my day's journey as I had begun it, in commonplace fashion. The driver was full of admiration. We must go to Terni on our velocipede, he said; in the mountains beyond Spoleto we should go down-hill for seven miles. _Ecco!_ no need of a diligence then! AT PERUGIA. "_And did see such things there, the remembrance of which will stick by me as long as I live._" The _padrone_ of the Albergo at Perugia was a man of parts. He could speak English. When we complimented him on a black cat which was always in his office, he answered, with eyes fixed on vacancy, and pausing between each word like a child saying its lesson: "Yes-it-is-a-good-cat. I-have-one-dog-and-four-cats. This-cat-is-the-fath-er-of-the-oth-er-cats. One-are-red-and-three-is-white." And when we had occasion to thank him, he knew enough to tell us we were very much obliged. But we gave him small chance to display his powers. There was little to keep us in the Albergo, when, after a few minutes' walk we could be in the piazza, where the sun shone on Pisano's fountain, and on the Palazzo of the Baglioni and the Duomo opposite. But what a fall was there! A couple of _gendarmes_, priests walking two by two, a few beggars, were the only people we saw in this broad piazza, where at one time men and women, driven to frenzy by the words of Saint Bernardino, spoken from the pulpit by the Duomo door, almost fell into the fire they had kindled to burn their false hair and ornaments, their dice and cards; and where at another Baglioni fought, with the young Raphael looking on to paint later one at least of the combatants; and where the beautiful Grifonetto lay in death agony, the avengers of his murdered kinsmen waiting to see him die, the heads of his fellow-assassins looking grimly down from the Palazzo walls, and Atalanta, his mother, giving him forgiveness for the deed, for which but yesterday she had cursed him. In the aisles of the Duomo, once so stained with the blood of the Baglioni that they had to be purified with wine before prayers could again be offered in them, a procession of white-robed priests and acolytes, bearing cross and censer, passed from one chapel to another before a congregation of two or three old women. It was the same in the narrow streets; all is now still and peaceful where of old Baglioni, single-handed, kept back the forces of Oddi, their mortal foes. Only the memory of their fierceness remains; though I have two friends who say that in the dark street behind the Palazzo, where brave Simonetto and Astore fought the enemy until corpses lay in piles around them, they one night heard voices singing sadly, as if in lamentation; and these voices led them onwards under one archway and then another until suddenly the sounds ceased. But when they turned to go homewards, lo! they had lost their way. The next morning they returned that they might by daylight see whence the music could have come. But all along the street was a dead wall. None but spirits could have sung there; and what spirits would dare to lift their voices in this famous street but those of Baglioni? It must be the degeneracy of modern warriors that sets these heroes of the old school to singing lamentations. The Grifonettos and Astores who feasted on blood, could they come back to life and their native town, would have little sympathy with the captains and colonels who now drink tamarind-water in the _caffè_, booted and spurred though the latter be. The _caffè_ is everywhere the lounging-place of Italian officers, but in Perugia it seemed to be their headquarters. There was one on the Corso, a few doors from the Palazzo, which they specially patronized. They were there in the morning even before the shops were opened, and again at noon, and yet again in the evening, while at other times they walked to and fro in front of it, as if on guard. But though the youngest as well as the oldest patronized it, the distinctions of rank between them were observed as scrupulously as Dickens says they are with the Chatham and Rochester aristocracy. The colonel associated with nothing lower than a major, the latter in turn drawing the line at the captain, and so it went down to the third lieutenant, who lorded it only over the common soldier. On the whole, I think the lesser officers had the best of it; for whether they eat cakes and drank sweet drinks, or played cards, they were always sociable and merry. Whereas, sometimes the colonel sat solitary in his grandeur, silent except for the few words with the boy selling matches as he hunted through the stock to find a box with a pretty picture. We were long enough in Perugia to carry the _Abate's_ letters to San Pietro. The monks to whom they were written were away, but a third came in their place and gave us welcome. He showed J. the inner cloister, to which I could not go: women were not allowed there. It was because of my skirts, he said; and yet he too wore skirts, and he spread out his cassock on each side. While they were gone I waited in the church. I wonder if ghostly voices are never heard within it. The monks, long dead, whose love and even life it was to make it beautiful until its walls and ceilings were rich and glowing, its choir a miracle of carving, and its sacristy hung with prayer-inspiring pictures, have, like the Baglioni, cause to bewail the degenerate latter day. The beauty they created now lives but for the benefit of a handful of monks whose monastery is turned into a Boys' Agricultural School, and for the occasional tourist. Later from the high terrace of the park opposite San Pietro we saw the boys in their blue blouses digging and hoeing in the fields under the olives, where probably the monks themselves once worked. There is in this little park an amphitheatre with archway, bearing the Perugian griffin in the centre. It is shaded by dense ilex-trees, from whose branches a raven must once have croaked; for evil has come upon the place, as it has upon the gray monastery so near. Instead of nobles and men-at-arms and councillors of state, two or three poor women with their babies sat on the stone benches gossiping. And as we lingered there in the late afternoon there came from San Pietro the sound, not of monks chanting vespers, but of some one playing the "Blue Danube" on an old jingling piano. Only the valley below, and the Tiber winding through it, and the mountains beyond are unchanged. ACROSS THE TIBER TO ASSISI. "_And I slept and dreamed again and saw the same two pilgrims going down the mountains along the highway towards the city._" When we left Perugia in the early morning we passed first by the statue of Julius II., thus receiving, we said to each other, the bronze pontiff's benediction. We imagined this to be an original idea; but it is useless to try to be original. Since then we have remembered the same thought came to Miriam and Donatello when they made the statue their trysting-place. Then we rode through the piazza, where a market was being held, and where at one end a long row of women holding baskets of eggs stood erect, though all around other women and even men, selling fruits and vegetables, sat comfortably on low stools. [Illustration: THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION, PERUGIA. _Page 134._] On the other side of the Porta Romana we saw that while Perugia was bright and clear in the sunlight, a thick white mist covered the valley, so that it looked as if a great lake, bounded by the mountains, lay below. The chrysanthemums and marigolds, hanging over high garden walls, and the grass by the road-side glistened with dew. Shining silver cobwebs hung on the hedges. Before many minutes, so fast did we go, we were riding right into the mist. We could see but a few feet in front of us, and the olives on either side, through the heavy white veil, looked like spectres. We passed no one but a man carrying a lantern and a cage of owls. It seemed but natural that so uncanny a ride should lead to a home of shadows. And when we came to the tomb of the Volumnii at the foot of the mountain we left the tricycle without, and went down for a while into its darkness and damp. When we came out the mist had disappeared and the road lay through sunshine. A little farther on we had our first near view of the Tiber. We crossed it by the old Ponte San Giovanni, so narrow that there was not room for us to pass a boy and a donkey just in front. J. called, and the boy pushed his donkey close to the stone wall; but for all that we could not pass. Even as J. called he was stopped by a sudden sharp pain in his side, the result probably of his descent into the tomb while he was still warm; for he had back-pedalled coming down the mountain. And so we waited for many minutes on the bridge to see, not the yellow Tiber one always hears about, but a river blue in mid-stream, white where it came running over the mill-wheel and down the dam, and red and yellow and green where it reflected the poplars and oaks, and the skirts and handkerchiefs of the women washing on its banks. But after the bridge we left the river, for we were bound for Assisi. We had a quiet, peaceful ride for several miles on the Umbrian plain, where in the old times no one dared to go without the permission of the Baglioni, between vineyards and fields where men were ploughing, and through insignificant little villages, until we came out upon the large piazza in front of Santa Maria degli Angeli. It was crowded with peasants, for market was just over, and there came from every side the sound of many voices. When we rode by we were surrounded at once, two or three men keeping close to our side to sing the praises of the hotels at Assisi and shower their cards upon us. They pursued us even into the church, and as far as the little hermitage beneath the dome, to tell us that each and all could speak English. [Illustration: A FROWN OF DISAPPROVAL, ASSISI. _Page 136._] If the Umbrians about Assisi were always like this, Saint Francis was a wise man to hide himself in the woods and make friends with beasts and birds. Over the sunny roads beyond Santa Maria, where he and Fra Egidio walked singing and exhorting men and women to repentance, we wheeled imploring, or rather commanding, them to get out of the way. It was a hard pull up the mountain-side, the harder because the great monastery on its high foundations seemed always so far above us. When almost at the city gate a monk in brown robes, the knotted cord about his waist, passed. He stopped to look, but it was with a frown of disapproval; I think Saint Francis would have smiled. AT ASSISI. "_Methought these things did ravish my heart; I would have stayed at that man's house a twelvemonth but that I knew I had farther to go._" It was just noon when we reached Assisi, but we rode no more that day. We spent the afternoon in the town of Saint Francis. The Albergo we selected from the many recommended was without the large cloisters of the monastery. The waiter at once remembered that J. had been there before, though eighteen months had passed since his first visit. The _Signore_ had two ladies with him then, he said. He was delighted with the velocipede. It was the first time in all his life he had seen one with three wheels. Nothing would do but he must show us the finest road to Rome. He spread our map on the table as we eat our dinner, and put on his glasses,--for he was a little bad in the eyes, he explained,--and then he pointed out the very route we had already decided upon. _Ecco!_ here, between Spoleto and Terni, we should have a long climb up the mountain, but then there would be seven miles down the other side. Ah! that would be fine! This long coast to Terni was clearly to make up for the hardships we already had endured on toilsome up-grades. After dinner we went to the church. Goethe, when he was in Assisi, saw the old Roman Temple of Minerva,--and then, that his pleasure in it might not be disturbed, refused to look at anything else in the town, and went quickly on his way. But when I passed out of the sunlight into the dark lower church and under the low rounded arches to the altar with Giotto's angels and saints above, it seemed to me he was the loser by his great love for classic beauty. Many who have been to this wonderful church have written descriptions of it, but none have really told, and indeed no one can ever tell, how wonderful it is. The upper church, with its great lofty nave and many windows through which the light streams in on the bright frescoed walls, is beautiful. But this lower one, with its dark, subdued color and dim light, and the odor of incense which always lingers in it, is like the embodiment of the mystery and love that inspired the saint in whose honor it was built. In it one understands, for the first time perhaps, what it is for which the followers of Saint Francis gave up life and action. Whoever was long under the influence of this place must, I thought, always stay,--like the old gray-haired monk we saw kneeling before a side altar rapt in contemplation. And yet on the very threshold we found three or four brothers laughing and joking with two women,--Italian Dr. Mary Walkers they must have been, for they wore men's collars and cravats and coats, with field-glasses slung over their shoulders, and stiff gray hats, and they were smoking long _sigare Cavour_. They were artists, and had been painting, oh, so badly! in the church all the morning. The sun was setting when we left the monastery and walked through the streets, now silent and deserted, where Francis in his gay youth wandered with boon companions, singing not hymns but love-songs. A small boy came and walked with us, and, unbidden, acted as our guide. Here was the Duomo, he said, and here the Church of Santa Chiara; and, when we were on the road without the city gate, _Ecco!_ below, Santa Maria degli Angeli! For from where we stood we looked down upon the huge church rising from the plain, where even now there are scarcely more houses than in the days when Franciscans, coming from far and near to hold counsel with their founder, built their straw huts upon it. Our self-appointed guide was a bright little fellow, and never once begged like the other children who followed us. So when he showed us the road to Foligno where we must ride on the morrow, J. gave him a _sou_. At the door of the Albergo he said he must go home, but not to supper; he never had any. He asked at what time we should leave in the morning, when he would like to come and say good-by. _Felice notte_--"a happy night"--were his last words as he turned away. VIRGIL'S COUNTRY. "_If we have such ill speed at our first setting out, what may we expect betwixt this and our journey's end!_" The next morning, with a select company of ragged boys, our young guide arrived in time to see us start. When I came out he nodded in a friendly way, as if to an old acquaintance, to the wonder and admiration of the other youngsters. The waiter, his glasses on, came to the gate with us. Two monks standing there asked how far we were going on our velocipede. "To Rome?" they cried. "Why, then, here are two pilgrims and two priests!" Our guide and his friend ran down the mountain-side after us until we gave the former another _sou_, when they at once disappeared. It seemed a little ungrateful; but I did not give him much thought, for just then J. bade me back-pedal with all my might. The machine went very fast, despite my hard work, and to my surprise J. suddenly steered into a stone-pile by the roadside. "The brake is broken!" was his explanation as we slowly upset. Fortunately, however, the upright connecting the band of the brake with the handle had only slipped out of place, and though we could not fix it in again securely, J. could still manage to use it. This, so far as we could see, was the one defect in our tricycle, but defect it was. A nut on the end of the upright would have prevented such an accident. But this is one of the minor particulars in which tricycle-makers--and we have tried many--are careless. We had the rest of the coast without interruption. Half-way down, our little friend and his followers ran out from under the olives; he had taken a short cut that he might see us again. From Assisi to Terni was a long day's ride by towns and villages, through fair valleys and over rough mountains. From the foot of the mountain at Assisi, past Monte Subasio, which, bare and rocky, towered above the lower olive-covered hills, the road was level until we rode by Spello with its old Roman gateway and ruined amphitheatre. But the hill here was not steep, and then again there came a level stretch into Foligno, the first lowland town to which we had come since we left Poggibonsi, and which, with its mass of roofs and lofty dome rising high above the city walls, looked little like the Foligno in Raphael's picture. Already in our short ride--for it is but ten miles from Assisi to Foligno--we noticed a great difference in the people. It was not only that many of the women wore bodices and long earrings, and turned their handkerchiefs up on top of their heads, but they, and the men as well, were less polite and more stupid than the Tuscans or Umbrians about Perugia. Few spoke to us, and one woman to whom we said good-morning was so startled that she thanked us in return, as if unused to such civilities. For all J.'s shouts of _a destra_--to the right--and _Eccomi!_ they would not make room for us; and now in Foligno one woman, in her stupidity or obstinacy, walked directly in front of the machine, and when the little wheel caught her dress, through no fault of ours, cried "_Accidente voi!_"--the _voi_, instead of _le_, being a far greater insult than the wishing us an accident. Then she walked on, cursing in loud voice, down the street, by the little stream that runs through the centre of the town, and into the market-place where Saint Francis, in mistaken obedience to words heard in ecstasy, sold the cloth he had taken from his father that he might have money to rebuild the church of San Damiano. Even the beasts we met were stupid as the people. At our coming, horses, donkeys, and oxen tried to run. We therefore looked for at least a skirmish when, beyond Foligno, a regiment of cavalry in marching order advanced upon us. But the soldiers stood our charge bravely. Only the officer was routed and retreated into the gutter. Then, forgetting military discipline, he turned his back upon his men to see us ride. We were now on the old Via Flaminia and in the valley of the Clitumnus,--Virgil's country. The poet's smiling fields and tall, stiff oaks, his white oxen and peasants behind the plough or enjoying the cool shade, were on either side. Crossing the fields were many stony beds of streams, dry at this season, lined with oaks and chestnuts, under whose shade women were filling large baskets with acorns and leaves. The upturned earth was rich and brown. Through the trees or over them we saw the whitish-blue sky, the purple mountains, some pointed like pyramids, and the gray olive hills with little villages in their hollows, and before long Trevi on its high hill-top. And then we came to the temple of the river god Clitumnus, of which Pliny writes, and where the little river, in which Virgil says the white flocks for the sacrifice bathed, runs below, an old mill on its bank and one willow bending over it. [Illustration: GATHERING LEAVES. _Page 146._] At the village of Le Vene, near the source of the stream, we stopped at a wine-shop to eat some bread and cheese. There was no one there but the _padrone_ and a dwarf who wore a decent suit of black clothes and had a medallion of the Pope on his watch-chain. He had come in a carriage which waited for him at the door. I think he was a drummer. He drank much wine, and spoke to us in a vile patois. Indeed, the people thereabout all spoke in dialects worse, I am sure, than any Dante heard at the mouth of Hell. The dwarf had travelled, and had been in Florence, where he had seen a velocipede, but not like ours. It was finer, or perhaps he should say more commodious. The seats were side by side, and it had an umbrella attached, and it was worked by the hands. It went, oh, so fast! and he intimated that we could not hope to rival its speed. I suppose our machine without an umbrella seemed to him like a ship without a sail. But I think he had another tale to tell when, ten minutes later, he having started before we did, we passed him on the road. We were going so fast I only had time to see that in his wonder the reins fell from his hands. Then came the small, wretched village of San Giacomo, with its old castle built up with the houses of the poor, and then Spoleto, where we lunched in a _trattoria_ of the people which was much troubled by a plague of flies. A company of Bersaglieri, red caps on the backs of their heads and blue tassels dangling down their backs, sat at one table, ordering with much merriment their soup and meat and macaroni to be cooked _à la Bersagliere_; at another, two young men were evidently enjoying an unwonted feast; and at the table with us were three peasants, one of whom had brought his bread in his pocket: he eat his soup for dessert, and throughout the meal used his own knife in preference to the knife and fork laid at his place. Two dogs, a cat, and a hen wandered in from the piazza and dined on the bits of macaroni dropped by the not over-careful soldiers. The waiter greeted us cordially. He too had a machine, he said, but had never heard of velocipedes with three wheels. His had but two; the _Signore_ must see it. And before he would listen to our order for lunch, he showed J. his bicycle,--a bone-shaker. He was very proud of it. He had ridden as far as Terni. Ah! what a beautiful time we should have before the afternoon was over! Seven miles down the mountain! The thought of this coast made us leave Spoleto with light hearts, though we knew that first must come a hard climb. But if the road was as perfect as it had been all the morning, there was not much to dread. It was half-past two when we started from the _trattoria_, but we were fifteen minutes in walking to the other end of the town. There was no use riding. The streets were narrow and steep, and crowded with stupid men and women and donkeys, and with officers who instead of controlling were controlled by their horses. Beyond the gate the ascent at first was gradual and we rode easily, even as we worked looking back to the famous old aqueduct and the shadowy heights of Norcia. For some distance we went by the dried-up bed of a wide stream, meeting many priests on foot and peasants on donkeys. But as the way became steeper we left the stream far below, and came into a desolate country, where the mountains were covered with scrub-oaks, and priests and peasants disappeared; only one old man kept before us, making short cuts up the mountain-side, but after a while he too rode out of sight. We soon gave up riding. J. tied a rope to the tricycle and pulled while I pushed. The sun was now hidden behind the mountain and the way was shady. But still it was warm work and wearisome; for before long the road became almost perpendicular and was full of loose stones. How much more of this was there, we asked a woman watching swine on the hillside? "A mile," was her answer; and yet she must have known there were at least three. Finally, after what seemed hours of toiling, we asked another peasant standing in front of a lonely farm-house how much farther it still was to the top. "You are here now," she said. She at least was truthful. A few feet more, and we looked down a road as precipitous as that up which we had come, and so winding that we could see short stretches of it, like so many terraces, all the way down the mountain. We walked for about a hundred yards, and it was as hard to hold back the machine as before it had been to push it. Then we began to ride, but the strain on the brake loosened the handle a second time. We dismounted, and J. tried to push it back into place: it snapped in two pieces in his hands. Here we were, eight miles from Terni, in a lonely mountain road in the evening,--the sun had already set,--with a brakeless machine, which, if allowed to start down-hill with its heavy load of two riders and much baggage, would soon be more unmanageable than a runaway horse. The seven miles' coast to which we had looked forward for days, was to be a walk after all. Like the King of France and his twenty thousand men, we had marched up the mountain that we might march down again. Is it any wonder that we both lost our tempers, and that an accident was the smallest evil we wished the manufacturers of our tricycle? Because they cared more for lightness than for strength,--since record-making is as yet the chief end of the cycling,--the necks of people who ride for pleasure are forsooth to be risked with impunity! However, there was nothing to do but to walk into Terni. It was very cold, and we had to put on our heavy coats. Presently the moon rose above the mountains on our left. By its light we could see the white road,--now provokingly good, but steep and winding and all unknown,--the hills that shut us in on every side, and, far below, the stream making its way through the narrow pass. The way was unpleasantly lonely and silent. Now for an hour or more we went wearily on without hearing a sound but our steady tramp; and now we passed a farm-house within which many voices were raised in anger, while from the barn a dog barked savagely upon our coming. At times we thought we saw in the distance a castle with tall towers or an old ruin, but when we drew near we found in its place great rocks and cliffs of tufa. Once we went through a small village. The way here was not so steep, and for a few minutes we rode. Just beyond the houses three men, driving home a large white bull, walked in the middle of the road. J. shouted, that they might give us more space to pass; but they only laughed, and tried to set the bull on us with loud cries of _Via!_ Before the last died away we were walking again. On and on we walked, all the time holding back the tricycle. But at last we began to meet more people. Men with carts and donkeys went by at long intervals, but they spake never a word, and we too were silent. Now and then we heard the near tinkling of cow-bells, and came to olive-gardens, where in the moonlight the black twisted trunks took grotesque goblin shapes, and the branches threw a network of shadows across our path. Then we came to a railroad, and we knew we were at the foot of the mountains, and that Terni was not far off. We were at the end of the seven miles' coast and could ride again. Two men just then coming our way, J. asked them how far we were from the town; but they stood still and stared for answer. A second time he asked, and still they were speechless. "_Imbecile!_" he cried, and we left them there dumb and motionless. Not far beyond the road divided, and on either side were a few houses. A woman (or a fiend in female form) sat in front of one. "Which is the way to Terni?" we asked. She was silent. Once more we asked. _Chi lo sa?_--"Who knows?"--she answered. This was more than tired human nature could endure; J. turned upon her with a volley of choice Italian abuse. It conquered her as the prayers of Saint Anthony vanquished her sister demons. She arose and meekly showed us the way. In another minute the lights of Terni were in sight. Then we wheeled by a foundry with great furnace in full blast, by a broad avenue with rows of gas-jets, to the gates of the city, to find them shut. There was a second of despair, but J. was now not to be trifled with, and he gave a yell of command which was an effectual "open-sesame." And so we rode on through lively streets and piazza to the hotel, to supper, and to bed! TERNI AND ITS FALLS. "_Well, keep all things so in thy mind, that they may be as a goad in thy sides to prick thee forward in the way thou must go._" "_What thing so deserving as to turn us out of the way to see it?_" I know little of Terni, except that in the month of October the hotel is so cold that the waiter comes into the dining-room in the morning with hat on, and wrapped in overcoat and muffler, and that there is an excellent blacksmith in the town; for the next morning, as soon as J. had had the brake mended, he paid the bill and loaded the tricycle. The _padrone_ was surprised at the shortness of our stay. Did we not know there were waterfalls, and famous ones too, but three miles distant? We could not take the time to visit them? Well, then, at least we must look at their picture; and he showed us a chromo pasted on the hotel omnibus. I am afraid he took us for sad Philistines; but the fear of another kind of waterfall was still a goad to hurry us onward. Now we were so near our journey's end, no wonder, however great, could have led us from the straight path. IN THE LAND OF BRIGANDS. "_But by this place Christian went without much danger, whereat I somewhat wondered_." There was a great _festa_ that day, and all along the street and out on the country road we met men and women in holiday dress carrying baskets and bunches and wreaths of pink chrysanthemums. In Narni, on the heights which Martial called inaccessible, men were lounging in the piazza or playing cards in the _caffè_. For the shepherds alone there was no rest from every-day work. Before we reached even Narni, but ten miles across the valley from Terni, we saw several driving their sheep and goats into the broad meadows. They wore goat-skin breeches, and by that sign alone we should have known we were nearing Rome. We lunched at Narni on coffee and cakes, for it was the last town through which we should pass on that day's ride. It was here that Quintus, in its Roman prosperity, stayed so long that Martial reproached him for his wearisome delay. Could he come to it now, I doubt if his friend would have the same reason for complaint. It did not seem an attractive place, and when we asked a man about the country beyond, he said it was "_bruto_." We did not learn till afterwards that this applied to the people, and not to the country, and that here we ought to have been briganded. We were now high up on the mountain,--on one side steep rocks, on the other a deep precipice. Far below in a narrow valley ran the little river Nar, and on the bank above it the railroad. It was not an easy road to travel, and often the hills were too steep to coast or to climb. The few farm-houses by the way were closed, for the peasants had gone to church. We saw an occasional little gray town crowning the top of sheer gray cliffs, like those in Albert Dürer's pictures, or an old castle either deserted or else with farm-house built in its ruins, where peasants leaned over the battlemented walls. But the only villages through which we rode were Otricoli, just before we descended to the valley of the Tiber, where we created so great a sensation that an old woman selling chestnuts--cooked, I think, by a previous generation--was at first too frightened to wait on us, and Borghetto, on the other side of the valley, where we saw in the piazza the stage from Cività Castellana, in which town we were to spend the night. There were a few people abroad. In the loneliest part of the mountain an old man in a donkey-cart kept in front of us on a long upgrade. Interested in the tricycle, he forgot the donkey, which gave up a straight for a spiral course, and monopolized the road. J. angrily asked its driver which side he meant to take. But the old man heaped coals of fire on his head by offering to carry us up in his wagon. After we left him far behind, we passed two travellers resting by the wayside. Their bags lay on the ground, and they looked weary and worn. They gave us good-day, and where we were going they of course wanted to know. They too were bound for Rome, it turned out, and had come from Bologna. After the two gentlemen of Bologna, we overtook a group of merry peasants, coats slung over their shoulders for no possible reason but the sake of picturesqueness, and hats adorned with gay pompons of colored paper and tinsel. One carried branches of green leaves and red fruit like cherries, and as we went by he gave us a branch and wished us a good journey. Next went by an old woman, who said with a smile that we could go without horse or donkey,--a witticism heard so often it could no longer make us laugh. And then a little boy all alone came "piping down the valley wild." [Illustration: "PIPING DOWN THE VALLEY."] We went with much content over the plain by the Tiber, where there were broad grassy stretches full of sheep and horses, and here and there the shepherds' gypsy-looking huts. It was such easy work now, that we eat our chestnuts as we rode; but beyond the bridge, on which Sixtus V. and Clement VIII. and Gregory XIII., in true papal fashion, have left their names, the hills began again. On we toiled, beneath shady oaks and by rocky places, until we came out on a wide upland. From the treeless road the meadows rolled far beyond to high mountains, on whose sloping side the blue smoke of charcoal-burners curled upward. The moon already had risen, and in the west the setting sun filled the sky with glowing amber light, against which the tired peasants going home were sharply silhouetted. We were glad to see Cività Castellana. One or two men in answer to our questions had told us we were close to it, but we did not believe them. The fields seemed to stretch for miles before us, and there was not a house or tower in sight. But suddenly the road turned and went down-hill, and there below was the city perched on tufa cliffs, a deep ravine surrounding it. Two _carabinieri_, in cocked hats and folded cloaks like the famous two solitary horsemen, were setting out on their night patrol. Vespers were just over in the church near the bridge, and along the way where happy little Etruscan schoolboys once whipped homewards their treacherous schoolmaster, little Italian boys and girls, let loose from church, ran after us, torturing us with their shrill cries. Soon their elders joined them, and we were closely beset with admirers. The town too was in a hubbub about us, and in the streets through which we wheeled, men and women came from their houses to follow in our train. At the door of the Albergo, where we were detained for several minutes, the entire population collected. We had difficulty in getting a room. The _festa_, the _padrone_ said, had brought many country people into the town, and the inns were full to overflowing. If J. would go with him he would see what could be done for us. The search led them through three houses. In the mean time I kept guard over the machine. It was well I did, for once J. had gone the natives closed upon me. Toddling infants and gray-haired men, ragged peasants and gorgeous officers pushed and struggled together in their desire to see. Every now and then a stealthy hand was thrust through the crowd and felt the tire or tried the brake. I turned from left to right crying, "_Guarda! Guarda!_" I lifted exploring hands from the wheels. But in vain. What was one against so many? A man sitting in the doorway took pity on my sad plight. He came out, and with a stick mowed the people back. Then J. returned, having found a room in the first house, which the _padrone_ had thought fit to conceal until the last. A MIDDLING INN. "_The good of the place is before you._" "_But here they tarried and slept._" The Albergo of Cività Castellana was but a middling inn. The _padrone_, in English tweed, high boots, and Derby hat, looked half cockney, half brigand. His wife wore an elaborate false front, and much lace about her neck. But they were far finer than their house. We were lodged in the garret, in a room the size of a large closet. The way to it led through another bed-chamber, long and low, in which four cots were ranged in a row along the wall. When we crossed it on the way downstairs to dinner I devoutly prayed that on our return four nightcaps would not be nodding on the pillows. Later in the evening, when we had dined, we strolled out to the piazza. To see the life of an Italian town you have only to go to the _caffè_. We went to one near the Albergo. There were two tables in it. We sat at the smaller, and at the other were four ragged boys playing cards! Fortunately we were the first to go to bed in the garret. All through the night, however,--for the mattress was hard and I slept little,--I heard loud snores and groans, and the sound of much tossing to and fro. We rose early in the morning, but when we opened our door the cots were empty, though they had not been so long. ACROSS THE CAMPAGNA. "_They compassed them round on every side; some went before, some behind, and some on the right, some on the left._" "_Here they were within sight of the city they were going to, also here met them some of the inhabitants thereof ... and drawing near the city they had yet a more perfect view thereof._" Early as we were, the whole town was stirring when we came downstairs. But who ever knew the hour when the people of an Italian town were not up and abroad? No sooner did J. bring the tricycle from the stable, where it had been kept all night, to the Albergo, than the piazza was again crowded. On they all came with us, men, women, and children, hooting and shouting, jumping and dancing through the vilely paved streets, and finally sprawling over the walls and on the rocks beyond the gate. There they stayed until we had gone down the hill over the bridge, crossing the stream at its foot, and up the hill on the opposite side, passing from their sight around the first curve. Soon we were on an upland and now really at the beginning of the Campagna. The morning was cold. For many miles we rode through a champaign gleaming white with frost. But as the sun rose higher in the heavens, and the yellow light, which at first was spread over the sky, faded and left a clear blue expanse above, the air grew warmer and the frost disappeared. The road wound on and on between oak woods and wide cultivated fields, and green grassy plains which gradually changed into great sweeps of rolling treeless country, like the moors. By the roadside were thick bushes of low green sage and tangled blackberries, and in places the broad flagstones of the old Flaminian Way, with weeds and dandelions and pretty purple flowers growing from the crevices. Sometimes a paving of smaller stones stretched all across the road, so that for a minute or two we were badly shaken, or else, coming on them suddenly at the foot of a hill, all but upset. Truly, as has been said, it could have been no joke for the old Romans to ride. To our left rose the great height of Soracte, not snow-covered as Horace saw it, but bare and brown save where purple shadows lay. At first we met numbers of peasants all astride of donkeys, going towards Cività Castellana, families riding together and eating as they went. Later, however, no one passed but an occasional lonely rider (who in his long cloak and high-pointed hat looked a genuine Fra Diavolo), or else sportsmen and their dogs. It was strange that though we saw many of the latter, we never once heard the singing or chirping of birds. There were hillsides and fields full of large black cattle, or herds of horses, or flocks of sheep and goats. There were shepherds, too, sleeping in the shade or by the roadside, leaning on their staffs or ruling their flock with rod and rustic word, as in the days when Poliziano sung. And if there was no bird's song to break the silence of the Campagna, there was instead a loud baaing of sheep, led by the shrill piercing notes of the lambs. If it was to such an accompaniment that Corydon and Thyrsis sang in rivalry, their song could have been poetical only in Virgil's verse. How hard we worked now that our pilgrimage was almost ended! We scarcely looked at the little village through which we wheeled, and where a White Brother was going from door to door, nor at the ruins which rose here and there in the hollows and on the slopes of the hills; and when at last we saw on the horizon the dome coming up out of the broad undulating plain, we gave it but a short greeting, and then hurried on faster than ever. We would not even go to Castel Nuovo, which lies a quarter of a mile or so from the road, but eat our hasty lunch in a _trattoria_ by the wayside, while a man--an engineer he said he was--showed us drawings he had made on his travels, and asked about our ride. How brave it was of the _Signora_ to work! he exclaimed, and how brave of the _Signore_ to sketch from his velocipede! And after this "the hills their heights began to lower," and with feet up we went like the wind, and every time we looked at the dome it seemed larger and more clearly defined against the sky. But about six miles from Rome our feet were on the pedals again and we were working with all our might. Sand and loose stones covered the road, which grew worse until, in front of the staring pink quarantine building, the stones were so many that in steering out of the way of one we ran over another, and the jar it gave us loosened the screw of the luggage-carrier. We were so near Rome we let it go. This was a mistake. But a little farther, and the whole thing gave way, and bags and knapsack rolled in the dust. It took some fifteen minutes to set it to rights again; and all the time we stood in the shadeless road, under a burning sun, for the heat in the lower plains of the Campagna was as great as if it were still summer. As the luggage-carrier was slightly broken, we were afraid to put too great a strain upon it, and for the rest of the journey the knapsack went like a small boy swinging on behind. [Illustration: FROM VIA FLAMINIA, NEAR PONTE MOLLE. _Page 170._] Like those other pilgrims, we were much discouraged because of the way. But at last, wheeling by pink and white _trattorie_, whose walls were covered with illustrated bills of fare, and coming to an open place where street-cars were coming and going, the Ponte Molle, over a now yellow Tiber, lay before us, and we were under the shadow of the dome we from afar had watched for many hours. Over the bridge we went with cars and carts, between houses and gardens and wine-shops, where there was a discord of many hurdy-gurdies, to the Porta del Popolo, and so into Rome. _Carabinieri_ were lounging about the gate, and carriages were driving to the Pincian; but we rode on and up the street on the right of the piazza. When we had gone a short distance we asked a man at a corner our way to the Piazza di Spagna. We should have taken the street to our left, he said, but now we could reach it by crossing the Corso diagonally. As we did so we heard a loud _sst_, _sst_ behind us, and we saw a _gendarme_ running up the street; but we went on. When we wheeled into the Piazza di Spagna, however, a second, almost breathless, ran out in front of us, and cried, _Aspetti!_ ("Wait!") But still we rode. _Aspetti!_ he cried again, and half drew his sword. In a minute we were surrounded. Models came flying from the Spanish steps; an old countryman carrying a fish affectionately under his arm, bootblacks, clerks from the near shops, young Roman swells,--all these and many more gathered about us. "_Aspetti!_" the _gendarme_ still cried. "_Perchè?_" we asked. And then his fellow-officer, whom we had seen on the Corso, came up. "Get down!" he said, in fierce tones of command. "_Perchè?_" we asked again. "_Per Christo!_" was his only answer. The crowd laughed with glee. Hackmen shouted their applause. It was ignominious, perhaps, but the wisest policy, to get down and walk to our hotel. THE FINISH. "_It pities me much for this poor man: it will certainly go ill with him at the last._" What pilgrim of old times thought his pilgrimage really over until he gave either out of his plenty or nothing in alms? Two months later we too gave our mite, not to the church or to the poor, but to the Government; for we were then summoned before a police magistrate and fined ten francs for "_furious_ riding on the Corso, and refusing to descend when ordered." And so our pilgrimage ended. APPENDIX. VETTURINO _versus_ TRICYCLE. BY JOSEPH PENNELL. _From "Outing."_ Who has not journeyed through a country with his favorite author long before he makes the actual trip himself? and who, when he comes to see with his own eyes that at which he has hitherto looked through some one else's, does not find himself his best guide? Long before I came to Italy I had travelled along its highways and by-ways with many authors, more especially with Hawthorne in his "Italian Note-Book," and Mr. Howells in his "Italian Journeys" and "Venetian Life." When it was finally my good fortune to make the journey myself, I was at first lucky enough to have for a companion, not his books, but Mr. Howells himself; and I frankly confess I found him far more delightful and satisfactory in person than in print. A year later I started for the same country, this time encumbered with a wife and a tricycle. Mr. Howells could no longer be my _cicerone_: in the first place he was back in Boston,--I might add, as if in parenthesis, calling me "lucky dog" for being able to go so soon again over the well-known ground; and, in the second place, because the route I now intended to take is not described in his books. But it is in Hawthorne's "Note-Book," a volume which, as I have just said, I had frequently studied. But of course I forgot to put it in my knapsack, and so had not a chance to see it until I arrived in Rome. When I there looked into it, naturally in a more critical spirit--inspired by personal knowledge of the subject--than I ever had before, the first thing that struck me was the advantage I had had over my old master in travelling by tricycle instead of by diligence. From the little village of Passignano to Rome we had followed exactly the same road, and though we began our rides at its opposite ends, I could still easily compare the time we had made, and the comfort and convenience and pleasure we had enjoyed by the way. As this comparison may be interesting to many who intend some day to make the cycling tour of Italy, I will here briefly indicate Hawthorne's experience, principally as to time and roads, and then mine:-- HAWTHORNE'S JOURNEY TO FLORENCE. MY NOTES. FIRST DAY OF TRIP. LAST DAY OF TRIP. We passed through the Porta del We left Cività Castellana at a Popolo at about 8 o'clock, and quarter of eight. Road so rough, ... began our journey along the had to walk down-hill and up Flaminian Way.... The road was again. (So did Hawthorne's not particularly picturesque. The party.) Road very picturesque, country undulated, but _scarcely and, before long, a distant rose into hills_.... Finally came glimpse of St. Peter's. Began to to the village of Castel Nuovo di see, and occasionally to feel, Porta ... between 12 and 1.... the paving of the old Flaminian Afternoon, Soracte rose before Way, which is abominable. Made of us.... The road kept trending flagstones thrown roughly towards the mountain, following together, or else little blocks, the line of the old Flaminian like the Roman pavement. Coming Way, which we could see at on a stretch of it, at the foot frequent intervals close beside of a hill, and hidden with dust, the modern track. It is paved smashed our luggage-carrier, and with large flagstones, laid so loosened the machine,--more than accurately together that it is the whole trip had done. Passed still, in some places, as smooth Rignano,--usual sensation,--good and even as the floor of a _café_. Under Soracte all church, and everywhere the tufts morning. Reached Castel Nuovo di of grass found it difficult to Porta at 11. (Distance to this root themselves into the village from Cività Castellana interstices.... Its course is much farther than from it to straighter than that of the road Rome, yet we reached it one hour of to-day.... I forget where we sooner than Hawthorne did, finally lost it.... Passed starting out from Rome.) Road got through the town of Rignano--road worse and worse. Finally nothing still grew more and more but ruts and stones. Hills not to picturesque.... Came in sight of be laughed at (though Hawthorne the high, flat table-land, on thought them scarcely which stands Cività perceptible). Arrived at the Castellana.... After passing over Porta del Popolo about half-past the bridge, I alighted with J. one. (About three and a half and R. and made the ascent on hours' better time than foot.... At the top our vetturino Hawthorne.) Distance, thirty-five took us into the carriage again, Italian miles. and quickly brought us to what appears to be a very good hotel.... After a splendid dinner we walked out into the little town, etc. SECOND DAY. OUR SECOND DAY FROM ROME. Roused at 4 o'clock this morning; (We never got up at any such ... ready to start between 5 and unearthly hours as Hawthorne 6.... Remember nothing indulged in.) Left Terni at 11 particularly till we came to o'clock, having been obliged to Borghetto.... After leaving get a new brake made. Terni, dead Borghetto, we crossed the broad level, in low valley,--straight, valley of the Tiber.... Otricoli wide road, ten miles across the by and by appeared.... As the valley,--surface of the road road kept ascending, and as the good. Just outside of Narni road hills grew to be mountainous, we climbs up a steep hill into the had taken on two additional town. (There must have been an horses, making six in all, with a earthquake since Hawthorne's man and boy ... to keep them in time, as Terni, which he saw in a motion.... Murray's guide-book is high and commanding position, now exceedingly vague and stands in the lowest part of the unsatisfactory along this valley, with mountains all route.... Farther on [we saw] the around.) From Narni up nearly all gray tower of Narni.... A long, the way to Otricoli, with the winding street passes through exception of here and there such Narni, broadening at one point a steep descent that we had to into a market-place; ... came out hold the machine back with all from it on the other side.... The our might, riding for several road went winding down into the hours was almost impossible. peaceful vale.... From Narni to (Wish we had had six horses, a Terni I remember nothing that man, and a boy to pull us on.) need be recorded. Terni, like so From Otricoli, down and all many other towns in the across the valley, excellent neighborhood, stands in a high riding to Borghetto; then big and commanding position.... We hill up, out on to the Campagna, reached it between 11 and 12.... and up and down--good road--all It is worth while to record, as the way to Cività Castellana, history of _vetturino_ commissary which we reached between 6 and 7. customs, that for breakfast we Terrible sensation!!! (This day had coffee, eggs, and bread and Hawthorne came in two hours butter; for lunch, an omelette, ahead; but he had six horses and stewed veal, figs and grapes, and the hills in his favor.) We eat two decanters of wine; for dinner every day coffee, bread and an excellent vermicelli soup, two butter, and rolls in the morning; young fowls fricasseed, and a for lunch, a beefsteak, or hind-quarter of roast lamb, with macaroni, and fruit, _no wine_, fritters, oranges, and figs, and but fresh lemons and water; for two more decanters of wine. dinner, soup, two meats, fruit, and a _fiasco_ of wine. Distance about thirty-three Italian miles. (We carried Baedeker, and not Murray, and found it not unsatisfactory.) THIRD DAY. THIRD DAY. At 6 o'clock this morning ... we Left Assisi about 8. Splendid drove out of the city gate of coast down into the valley. Terni.... Our way was now through Beautiful ride over the the vale of Terni.... Soon began undulating road, past Spello to to wind among steep and lofty Foligno, not stopping in the hills.... Wretched villages.... latter place, excepting to have At Strettura we added two oxen to accidents wished us by an old our horses, and began to ascend woman we almost ran over. Then the Monte Somma, which ... is through the beautiful valley of nearly four thousand feet high the Clitumnus--grand road--lovely where we crossed it. When we came day and wonderfully fair country. to the steepest part of the (We saw no beggars.) Rode by the ascent, Gaetano _allowed us to little temple spoken of by Pliny. walk_.... We arrived at Spoleto Ate some bread and cheese at Le before noon.... After lunch ... Vene. Reached Spoleto at one; we found our way up a steep and lunched; then rode up the steep narrow street that led us to the street, through the gate at the city gate.... Resumed our other end of the city, and then journey, emerging from the city began a tremendous climb of six into the classic valley of the miles over Monte Somma, most of Clitumnus.... After passing Le which we had to walk. At last had Vene, we came to the little hard work to push. Coming finally temple ... immortalized by to the top, found the descent on Pliny.... I remember nothing else the other side even steeper. of the valley of Clitumnus, Where it was a little less steep, except that the beggars ... were we got on the machine, put on the well-nigh profane in the urgency brake, which came off in my hand. of their petitions. The city of Bad brake was the one defect in Terni seems completely to cover a our tandem. Had to walk the rest high peaked hill.... We reached of the way. In Strettura, men set Foligno in good season _yesterday bull on us. (Not quite so afternoon_. [This passage really pleasant as Hawthorne's belongs to his fourth day of experience.) Arrived in Terni at travel, but as it shows at what 8 o'clock, having walked the last time of the third day he reached few miles by moonlight,--about Foligno, I have included it with forty miles all together, of the third.] which we walked fully the last fourteen. (Made in one day what Hawthorne did in a day and a half.) FOURTH DAY. FOURTH DAY. I have already remarked that it (Expenses of this trip about five is still possible to live well in francs a day each.) Rode from Italy at no great expense, and Perugia to Assisi, a distance of that the high prices charged to fourteen miles, in about two _forestieri_ are artificial, and hours. Splendid coast down the ought to be abated.... We left hill outside of Perugia (up which Foligno betimes in the morning; Hawthorne walked). Crossed the ... soon passed the old town of Tiber. Visited Santa Maria degli Spello.... By and by we reached Angeli. Awful stitch in my side. Assisi. We ate our _déjeûner_, Climbed up into Assisi, where we and resumed our journey.... We stayed all afternoon, to recover, soon reached the Church of St. and to see the church. Mary of the Angels.... By and by came to the foot of the high hill on which stands Perugia, and which is so long and steep that Gaetano took a yoke of oxen to aid his horses in the ascent. We all, except my wife, walked a part of the way up.... The coach lagged far behind us. FIFTH DAY. FIFTH DAY. Left Perugia about 3 o'clock I covered their fifth and sixth to-day, and went down a pretty days' ride, this time by myself on steep descent.... The road began to the tricycle, in three hours and a ascend before reaching the village half actual riding time, and was of Mugione; ... between 5 and 6 we pulled up the long hill into came in sight of the Lake of Perugia, in a most easy and Thrasymene, ... then reached the delightful way, behind the town of Passignano. (He stayed diligence. there all night. SIXTH DAY. We started at 6 o'clock ... [for Arezzo]. We saw Cortona, like so many other cities in this region, on its hill, and arrived about noon at Arezzo. From Arezzo, Hawthorne went directly to Florence in one day, over a road which Italian cyclers have told me is excellent, and which is the post-road to Rome. We went by way of Montepulciano and Siena, being between two and three weeks on the way. I hope this short account of about one third of our ride will convince other people that cycling is far quicker than the old posting system, far pleasanter than riding in a stuffy railway-carriage, which whirls you through tunnels, and far the best way in which to see Italy,--a country which abounds in magnificent roads, and which should be thoroughly explored by all cyclers who care for something beside record-making. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. Transcriber Notes: Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_. Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS. Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is. In three instances there were cases where the word "eat" appeared one expect the word "ate". No change was made. The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate. In the Appendix, the pages were reformatted to to make it easier to read in an electronic form. Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted. 
38429	----	MERRIWELL SERIES Stories of Frank and Dick Merriwell YOUR DEALER HAS THEM! Handsome Colored Covers Stories of Generous Length For three generations, the adventures of the Merriwell brothers have proven an inspiration to countless thousands of American boys. Frank and Dick are lads of high ideals, and the examples they set in dealing with their parents, their friends, and especially their enemies, are sure to make better boys of their readers. These stories teem with fun and adventure in all branches of sports and athletics. They are just what every red-blooded American boy wants to read--they are what he must read to develop into a manly, upright man. _ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT_ 1--Frank Merriwell's School Days By Burt L. Standish 2--Frank Merriwell's Chums By Burt L. Standish 3--Frank Merriwell's Foes By Burt L. Standish 4--Frank Merriwell's Trip West By Burt L. Standish 5--Frank Merriwell Down South By Burt L. Standish 6--Frank Merriwell's Bravery By Burt L. Standish 7--Frank Merriwell's Hunting Tour By Burt L. Standish 8--Frank Merriwell in Europe By Burt L. Standish 9--Frank Merriwell at Yale By Burt L. Standish 10--Frank Merriwell's Sports Afield By Burt L. Standish 11--Frank Merriwell's Races By Burt L. Standish To Be Published in June, 1921. 12--Frank Merriwell's Party By Burt L. Standish 13--Frank Merriwell's Bicycle Tour By Burt L. Standish To Be Published in July, 1921. 14--Frank Merriwell's Courage By Burt L. Standish 15--Frank Merriwell's Daring By Burt L. Standish To Be Published in August, 1921. 16--Frank Merriwell's Alarm By Burt L. Standish 17--Frank Merriwell's Athletes By Burt L. Standish 18--Frank Merriwell's Skill By Burt L. Standish To Be Published in September, 1921. 19--Frank Merriwell's Champions By Burt L. Standish 20--Frank Merriwell's Return to Yale By Burt L. Standish To Be Published in October, 1921. 21--Frank Merriwell's Secret By Burt L. Standish 22--Frank Merriwell's Danger By Burt L. Standish To Be Published in November, 1921. 23--Frank Merriwell's Loyalty By Burt L. Standish 24--Frank Merriwell in Camp By Burt L. Standish To Be Published in December, 1921. 25--Frank Merriwell's Vacation By Burt L. Standish 26--Frank Merriwell's Cruise By Burt L. Standish In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the books listed above will be issued, during the respective months, in New York City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers at a distance promptly on account of delays in transportation. MARY J. HOLMES CHARLES GARVICE MAY AGNES FLEMING MRS. GEORGIE SHELDON Four authors enshrined in the heart of every reader of fiction in America. See the list of their works in the NEW EAGLE SERIES. FRANK MERRIWELL'S ALARM OR, DOING HIS BEST BY BURT L. STANDISH Author of the famous Merriwell Stories. STREET & SMITH CORPORATION PUBLISHERS 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York Copyright, 1903 By STREET & SMITH Frank Merriwell's Alarm All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. CONTENTS I--ADRIFT IN THE DESERT II--ON TO THE MOUNTAINS III--THE SKELETON IV--"INDIANS!" V--BLUE WOLF TRIES THE BICYCLE VI--TRICK RIDING VII--ESCAPE VIII--THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED IX--A NIGHT ADVENTURE X--THE STORY XI--ANOTHER ESCAPE XII--AT LAKE TAHOE XIII--A RACE ON THE LAKE XIV--THE HERMIT'S POWER XV--RECOVERY XVI--LOST UNDERGROUND XVII--BROTHER AND SISTER XVIII--OLD FRIENDS XIX--BART HODGE MAKES A CONFESSION XX--FRANK BECOMES ALARMED XXI--ARREST AND ESCAPE XXII--ISA ISBAN XXIII--A KNOCK ON THE DOOR XXIV--THE SHERIFF'S SHOT XXV--ESCAPE--CONCLUSION FRANK MERRIWELL'S ALARM. CHAPTER I. ADRIFT IN THE DESERT. Once more the bicycle boys pushed on westward, and it must be said that in spite of all their perils they were in the best of spirits. The beautiful valley in Utah was left behind, and some time later found them on the edge of the great American Desert. Water was not to be had, and they began to suffer greatly from thirst. The thirst at last became so great that nearly all were ready to drop from exhaustion. Toots was much affected, and presently he let out a long wail of discouragement. "Land of watermillions! mah froat am done parched so I ain't gwan teh be able teh whisper if we don' find some warter po'erful soon, chilluns! Nebber struck nuffin' lek dis in all mah bawn days--no, sar!" "You're not the only one," groaned Bruce. "What wouldn't I give for one little swallow of water!" "We must strike water soon, or we are done for," put in Jack. Toots began to sway in his saddle, and Frank spurted to his side, grasping him by the arm, as he sharply said: "Brace up! You mustn't give out now. The mountains are right ahead, and----" "Lawd save us!" hoarsely gasped the darky. "Dem dar mount'ns had been jes' as nigh fo' de las' two houah, Marser Frank. We don' git a bit nearer 'em--no, sar! Dem mount'ns am a recepshun an' a delusum. We ain't nebber gwan teh git out ob dis desert--nebber! Heah's where we's gwan teh lay ouah bones, Marser Frank!" "You are to blame for this, Merriwell," came reproachfully from Diamond. "You were the one to suggest that we should attempt to cross instead of going around to the north, and----" "Say, Diamond!" cried Harry; "riv us a guest--I mean give us a rest! You were as eager as any of us to try to cross the desert, for you thought we'd have it to boast about when we returned to Yale." "But we'll never return." "Perhaps not; still I don't like to hear you piling all the blame onto Merry." "He suggested it." "And you seconded the suggestion. We started out with a supply of water that we thought would last----" "We should have known better!" "Perhaps so, but that is the fault of all of us, not any one person. You are getting to be a regular kicker of late." Jack shot Harry a savage look. "Be careful!" he said. "I don't feel like standing too much! I am rather ugly just now." "That's right, and you have been the only one who has shown anything like ugliness at any time during the trip. You seem to want to put the blame of any mistake onto Merry, while it is all of us----" "Say, drop it!" commanded Frank, sharply. "This is no time to quarrel. Those mountain are close at hand, I am sure, and a last grim pull will take us to them. We will find water there, for you know we were told about the water holes in the Desert Range." "Those water holes will not be easy to find." "I have full directions for finding them. After we get a square drink, we'll feel better, and there'll be no inclination to quarrel." "Oh, water! water!" murmured Browning; "how I'd like to let about a quart gurgle down past my Adam's apple!" "Um, um!" muttered Rattleton, lifting one hand to his throat. "Why do you suppose a fellow's larynx is called his Adam's apple?" "Nothing could be more appropriate," declared Bruce, soberly, "for when Adam ate the apple he got it in the neck." Something like a cackling laugh came from Harry's parched lips. Diamond gave an exclamation of disgust. "This is a nice time to joke!" he grated, fiercely. "The matter with you," said Rattleton, "is that you've not got over thinking of Lona Ayer, whom you were mashed on. You've been grouchy ever since you and Merry came back from your wild expedition into the forbidden Valley of Bethsada. It's too bad, Jack----" "Shut up, will you! I've heard enough about that!" "Drop it, Harry," commanded Frank, warningly. "You've worn it out. Forget it." "Great Scott!" grunted Browning. "I believe my bicycle is heavier than the dealer represented it to be." "Think so?" asked Rattleton. "Sure." "Then give it a weigh." Browning's wheel gave a sudden wobble that nearly threw him off. "Don't!" he gasped. "It's not original. You swiped it from the very same paper that had my Adam's apple joke in it." "Well, it was simply a case of retaliation." "I'd rather have a case of beer. Oh, say!--a case of beer! I wouldn't do a thing to a case of beer--not a thing! Oh, just to think of sitting in the old room at Traeger's or Morey's and drinking all the beer or ale a fellow could pour down his neck! It makes me faint!" "You should not permit yourself to think of such a thing as beer," said Frank, jokingly. "You know beer will make you fat." "Don't care; I'd drink it if it made me so fat I couldn't walk. I'd train down, you know. Dumbbells, punchin' bag, and so forth." "Speaking of the punching bag," said Frank, "makes me think of a good thing on Reggy Stevens. You know Stevens. He's near-sighted. Goes in for athletics, and takes great delight in the fancy manner in which he can hammer the bag. Well, he went down into the country to see his cousin last spring. Some time during the winter his cousin had found a big hornets' nest in the woods, and had cut it down and taken it home. He hung it up in the garret. First day Stevens was there he wandered up into the garret and saw the hornets' nest hanging in the dim light. 'Ho!' said Reggy. 'Didn't know cousin had a punching bag. Glad I found it. I'll toy with it a little.' Then he threw off his coat and made a rush at that innocent looking ball. With his first blow he drove his fist clean through the nest. 'Holy smoke!' gasped Reggy; 'what have I struck?' Then the hornets came pouring out, for the nest was not a deserted one. They saw Reggy--and went him several better. Say, fellows, they didn't do a thing to poor Reggy! About five hundred made for him, and it seemed to Reggy that at least four hundred and ninety-nine of them got him. His howls started shingles off the roof of that old house and knocked several bricks out of the chimney. He fell down the stairs, and went plunging through the house, with a string of hornets trailing after him, like a comet's tail. The hornets did not confine themselves strictly to Reggy; some of them sifted off and got in their work on Reggy's cousin, aunt, uncle, the kitchen girl, the hired man, and one of them made for the dog. The dog thought that hornet was a fly, and snapped at it. One second later that dog joined in the general riot, and the way he swore and yelled fire in dog language was something frightful to hear. Reggy didn't stop till he got outside and plunged his head into the old-fashioned watering trough, where he held it under the surface till he was nearly drowned. The whole family was a sight. And Reggy--well, he's had the swelled head ever since." Rattleton laughed and Bruce managed to smile, while Toots gave a cracked "Yah, yah!" but Diamond failed to show that he appreciated the story in the least. However, it soon became evident that the spirits of the lads had been lightened somewhat, and they pedaled onward straight for the grim mountains which had seemed so near for the last two hours. The sun poured its stifling heat down on the great desert, where nothing save an occasional clump of sage brush could be seen. Heat shimmered in the air, and it was not strange that the young cyclists were disheartened and ready to give up in despair. Suddenly a cry came from Diamond. "Look!" he shouted. "Look to the south! Why haven't we seen it before? We're blind. Water, water!" They looked, and, at a distance of less than a mile it seemed they could see a beautiful lake of water, with trees on the distant shore. The reflection of the trees showed in the mirror-like surface of the blue lake. "Come on!" hoarsely cried Jack, as he turned his wheel southward. "I'll be into that water up to my neck in less than ten minutes!" "Stop!" shouted Merriwell. Jack did not seem to hear. If he heard, he did not heed the command. He was bending far over the handlebars and using all his energy to send his wheel spinning toward the beautiful lake. "I must stop him!" cried Frank. "It is a race for life!" Frank forgot that a short time before Jack Diamond had accused him of leading them all to their doom by inducing them to attempt to cross the barren waste--he forgot everything save that his comrade was in danger. No, he did not forget everything. He knew what that race meant. It might exhaust them both and render them unable to ride their wheels over the few remaining miles of barren desert between them and the mountain range. When Diamond learned the dreadful, heart-sickening truth about that beautiful lake of water it might rob his heart of courage and hope so that he would drop in despair and give himself up to death in the desert. Frank would save him--he must save him! He felt a personal responsibility for the lives of every one of the party, and he had resolved that all should return to New Haven in safety. "Stop, Jack!" he shouted again. But the sight of that beautiful lake had made Diamond mad with a longing to plunge into the water, to splash in it, to drink his fill till not another swallow could he force down his throat. Madly he sent his wheel flying over the sandy plain, panting, gasping, furious to reach the lake. How beautiful the water looked! How cool and inviting was the shade of the trees on the other shore! Oh, he would go around there and rest beneath those trees. Frank bent forward over the handlebars, muttering: "Ride now as you never rode before!" The wheel seemed to leap away like a thing of life--it flew as if it possessed wings. But Frank did not gain as swiftly as he desired, for Diamond, also, was using all his energy to send his bicycle along. "Faster! faster!" panted Frank. Faster and faster he flew along. The hot breath of the desert beat on his face as if it came rushing from the mouth of a furnace. It seemed to scorch him. Fine particles of sand whipped up and stung his flesh. He heard a strange laugh--a wild laugh. "Heaven pity him!" thought Frank, knowing that laugh came from Jack's lips. "The sight of that ghostly lake has nearly turned his brain with joy. I fear he will go mad, indeed, when he knows the truth." On sped pursued and pursuer, and the latter was still gaining. Frank Merriwell had engaged in many contests of skill and endurance, but never in one where more was at stake. His success in overtaking his friend meant the saving of a human life--perhaps two lives. Now he was gaining swiftly, and something like a prayer of thankfulness came from his lips. Once more he cried out to the lad in advance, but it seemed that Diamond's ears were dumb, for he made no sound that told he heard. One last spurt--Frank felt that it must bring him to Diamond's side. He gathered himself, his feet clinging to the flying pedals as if fastened there. A slip, a fall, a miscalculation might mean utter failure, and failure might mean death for Diamond. Now Frank was close behind his friend. He could hear the whirring sound of the spokes of Diamond's wheel cutting the air, and he could hear the hoarse, panting breathing of his friend. A steady hand guided Merriwell's wheel alongside that of his friend; a steady and a strong hand fell on the shoulder of the lad who had been crazed by the alluring vision of the lake in the desert. "Stop, Jack!" Diamond turned toward his friend a face from which a pair of glaring eyes looked out. His lips curled back from his white teeth, and he snarled: "Hands off! Don't try to hold me back! Can't you see it, you fool! The lake--the lake!" "There is no lake!" "Yes, there is! You are blind! See it!" "Stop, Jack! I tell you there is no lake!" Frank tried to check his friend, but Diamond made a swinging blow at him, which Merriwell managed to stop. "Wait--listen a moment!" entreated Frank. But the belief that a lake of water lay a short distance away had completely driven anything like reason from Diamond's head. "Hands off!" he shouted. "If you try to stop me you'll be sorry!" Frank saw he must resort to desperate measures. He secured a firm grip on the shoulder of the young Virginian, and, a moment later, gave a surge that caused them both to fall from their wheels. Over and over they rolled, and then lay in a limp heap on the desert, where the earth was hot and baked and the sun beat down with a fierce parching heat. Diamond was the first to stir, and he tried to scramble up, his one thought being to mount his wheel again and ride onward toward the shimmering lure. Frank seemed to realize this, for he caught at his friend, grasped him and held him fast. Then there was a furious struggle there on the desert, Diamond making a mad effort to break away, but being held by Frank, who would not let him go. The eyes of both lads glared and their teeth were set. Frank tried to force Diamond down and hold him, but Jack had the strength of an insane person, and, time after time, he flung his would-be benefactor off. The eyes of the young Virginian were red and bloodshot, while his lips were cracked and bleeding. His cap was gone, and his straight dark hair fell in a tousled mass over his forehead. Occasionally muttered words came from Diamond's lips, but the other was silent, seeming to realize that he must conquer the mad fellow by sheer strength alone. So they fought on, their efforts growing weaker and weaker, gasping for breath. Seeing that fierce struggle, no one could have imagined they were anything but the most deadly enemies, battling for their very lives. At last, after some minutes, Diamond's fictitious strength suddenly gave out, and then Frank handled and held him with ease. Merriwell pinned Jack down and held him there, while both remained motionless, gasping for breath and seeking to recover from their frightful exertions. "You fool!" whispered the Virginian, bitterly. "What are you trying to do?" "Trying to save your life, but you have given me a merry hustle for it," answered Frank. "Save my life! Bah! Why have you stopped me when we were so near the lake." "There is no lake." "Are you blind? All of us could see the lake! It is near--very near!" "I tell you, Jack, there is no lake." "You lie!" "You have been crazed by what you fancied was water. Some time you will ask my pardon for your words." "You will ask my pardon for stopping me in this manner, Frank Merriwell! You did it because I was the first to discover the lake! You were jealous! You did not wish me to reach it first! I know you! You want to be the leader in everything." "If you were not half crazy now, you would not utter such words, Jack." "Oh, I know you--I know!" Then Diamond's tone and manner suddenly changed and he began to beg: "Please let me up, Merry--please do! Oh, merciful heaven! I am perishing for a swallow of water! And it is so near! There is water enough for ten thousand men! And such beautiful trees, where the shadows are so cool--where this accursed sun can't pour down on one's head! Please let me up, Frank! I'll do anything for you if you'll only let me go to that lake!" "Jack, dear old fellow, I am telling you the truth when I say there is no lake. There could be no lake here in this burning desert. It is an impossibility. If there were such a lake, the ones I asked about the water-holes would have told me." "They did not know. I have seen it, and I know it is there." Frank allowed his friend to sit up. "Look, Jack," he said; "where is your lake?" Jack looked away to the south, the east, the north, and then toward the west, where lay the mountains. There was no lake in sight. CHAPTER II. ON TO THE MOUNTAINS. "Where--where has it gone?" slowly and painfully asked Diamond. "I am sure I saw it--sure! The lake, the trees, all gone!" "I told you there was no lake." "Then--then it must have been a mirage!" "That is exactly what it was." With a deep groan of despair Diamond fell back limply on the sand, as if the last bit of strength and hope had gone from him. "This ends it!" he gasped. "What's the use of struggling any more! We may as well give up right here and die!" "Not much!" cried Merriwell, with attempted cheerfulness. "That is why I ran you down and dragged you from your wheel." "What do you mean?" "I knew the mirage might lure you on and on into the desert, seeming to flee before you, till at last it would vanish in a mocking manner, and you, utterly exhausted and spirit-broken, would lie down and die without another effort." Jack was silent a few moments. "And you did all this for me?" he finally asked. "You pursued and pulled me from my wheel to--to save me?" "Yes." Another brief silence. "Frank." "Well, Jack?" "I was mad." "You looked it." "My thirst--the sight of what I took to be water--the shadows of the trees! Ah, yes, I was mad, Frank!" "Well, it's all over now." "Yes, it is all over. The jig's up!" "Nonsense! Get a brace on, old man. We must get to the mountains. It is our only chance, Jack." "The mountains! I shall never reach the mountains, Frank. I am done for--played out!" "That's all rot, old fellow! You are no more played out than I am. We are both pretty well used up, but we'll pull through to the mountains and get a drink of water." "You never give up." "Well, I try never to give up." "Frank, I want you to forgive me for what I said before we saw the mirage. You know I was making a kick." "Oh, never mind that! It's all right, Jack." "I want you to say you forgive me." "That's dead easy. Of course I forgive you. Think I'm a stiff to hold a grudge over a little matter like that?" Diamond looked his admiration from his bloodshot eyes. "You're all right, Merry," he hoarsely declared. "You always were all right. I knew it all along. Sometimes I get nasty, for I have a jealous nature, although I try to hold it in check. I never did try to hold myself in check in any way till I knew you and saw how you controlled your tastes and passions. That was a revelation to me, Merry. You know I hated you at first, but I came to admire you, despite myself. I have admired you ever since. Sometimes the worst side of my nature will crop out, but I always know I am wrong. Forgive me for striking you." "There, there, old chap! Why are you thinking of such silly things? You are talking as if you had done me a deadly wrong, and this was your last chance to square yourself." "It is my last chance--I am sure of that. I am played out, and I can't drive that wheel farther. It's no use--I throw up the sponge right here." A look of determination came to Frank's face. "You shall not do anything of the kind!" he cried. "I won't have it, Jack!" Diamond did not reply, but lay limp on the ground. Frank put a firm hand on his shoulder, saying: "Come, Jack, make a bluff at it." "No use!" "I tell you it is! Come on. We can reach the mountains within an hour." "The mountains!" came huskily from Diamond's lips. "God knows if there are any mountains! They, too, may be a mirage!" "No! no!" "Think--think how long we have been riding toward them and still they seemed to remain as far away as they were hours ago." "That is one of the peculiar effects of the air out here." "I do not believe any of us will reach the mountains. And if we should, we might not find water. Those mountains look baked and barren." "Remember, I was told how to find water there." But this did not give the disheartened boy courage. "I know you were told, but the man who told you said that at times that water failed. It's no use, Frank, the game is not worth the candle." Then it was that Merriwell began to grow angry. "I am ashamed of you, Diamond!" he harshly cried. "I did think you were built of better stuff! Where is your backbone! Come, man, you must make another try!" "Must?" came rather defiantly from Jack. "I'll not be forced to do it!" "Yes, you will!" The Virginian looked at Frank in astonishment. "What do you mean?" he asked. "I mean that you will brace up and attempt to reach the mountains with the rest of us, or I'll give you the blamedest licking you ever had--and there won't be any apologies afterward, either!" That aroused Jack somewhat. "You--you wouldn't do that--now?" he faltered. "Wouldn't I?" cried Frank, seeming to make preparations to carry out his threat. "Well, you'll see!" "But--but----" "There are no buts about it! Either you get up and make one more struggle, or I'll have the satisfaction of knowing you are not in condition to make a struggle when I leave you. This is business, and it's straight from the shoulder!" Diamond remonstrated weakly, but Frank seemed in sober earnest. "I believe it would do you good," he declared. "It would beat a little sense into you. It's what you want, anyway." A sense of shame came over Jack. "If you've got enough energy to give me a licking, I ought to have enough to make another try for life," he huskily said. "Of course you have." "Well, I'll do it. It isn't because I fear the licking, for that wouldn't make any difference now, but I can make another try for it, if you can." Frank dragged the other boy to his feet, and then picked up their fallen wheels. Jack was so weak that he could scarcely stand, seeming to have been quite exhausted by his last furious struggle with the boy who had raced across the desert sands to save his life. Twice Frank caught him and kept him from falling. "What's the use?" Diamond hoarsely whispered. "I tell you I can't keep in the saddle!" "And I tell you that you must! There are the other fellows, coming this way. I will signal them to ride toward the mountains, and we will join them." Frank made the signal, and the others understood, for they soon turned toward the mountains again. Then Merriwell aided Jack in mounting and getting started, mounting himself after that, and hurrying after the Virginian, whose wheel was making a very crooked track across the sand. When it was necessary Frank supported Jack with a hand on the arm of the dark-faced lad, speaking encouraging words into his ear, urging him on. And thus they rode toward the barren-looking Desert Range, where they must find water or death. They came to the mountains at last, when the burning sun was hanging a ball of fire in the western sky. From a distance Merriwell had singled out Split Peak, which had served as his guide. At the foot of Split Peak were two water-holes, one on the east and one on the south. First Frank sought for the eastern water-hole, and he found it. But it was dry! Dry, save for the slightest indication of moisture in the sand at the bottom of the hole. "I told you so!" gasped Diamond, as he fell to the ground in hopeless exhaustion. "There is no water here." "Wait," said Frank, hoarsely. "We'll see if we can find some. Come, boys; we must scoop out the sand down there in the hole--we must dig for our lives." "By golly!" said Toots; "dis nigger's reddy teh dig a well fo'ty foot deep, if he can fine about fo' swallers ob wattah." "A well!" muttered Rattleton. "We'll sink a shaft here!" "Well, I don't know!" murmured Browning. So they went to work, two of them digging at a time, and, with their hands, they scooped out the sand down in the water-hole. As they worked a little dirty water began to trickle into the hole. "Yum! yum!" muttered Toots, his eyes shining. "Nebber saw muddy wattah look so good befo'! I done fink I can drink 'bout a barrel ob dat stuff!" They worked until quite exhausted, and then waited impatiently for the water to run into the hole. It rose with disheartening slowness, but rise it did. When he could do so, Frank dipped up some of the water with his drinking cup and gave it to Jack first of all. Diamond's hands shook so with eagerness that he nearly spilled the water, and he greedily turned it down his parched throat at a gulp. "Merciful goodness! how sweet!" he gasped. "More, Frank--more!" "Wait a bit, my boy. You have had the first drink from this hole. The others must take their turn now. When it comes around to you again, you shall have more." "But there may not be enough to go around!" Jack almost snarled. "What good do you think a little like that can do a fellow who is dying of thirst? I must have more--now!" "Well, you can't have another drop till the others have taken their turn--not a taste!" When Frank spoke like that he meant what he said, and Jack knew it. But the little water he had received had maddened Diamond almost as much as had the mirage. As Frank turned toward the water-hole, Jack started to spring upon him, crying: "We'll see!" "Hold on!" said Browning, as one of his hands went out and grasped Diamond. "I wouldn't do that. You are excited. I reckon I'll have to sit on you, while you cool off." Then the big fellow took Jack down, and actually sat on him, while the Virginian raved like a maniac. "Poor fellow!" said Frank, pityingly. "He has almost lost his reason by what he has passed through." One by one the others received some of the water, and then it came Jack's turn once more. By this time he was silent, but there was a sullen light in his eyes. When Frank passed him the water in the drinking cup he shook his head, and refused to take it. "No!" he muttered. "I won't have it! Drink it all up! You don't care anything about me! Let me die!" "Well, hang a fool!" snorted Browning, in great disgust. "Say, jes' yo' pass dat wattah heah, Marser Frank, an' see if dis coon'll refuse teh let it percolate down his froat!" "Yes, give it to Toots!" grated Diamond. "You think more of him than you do of me, anyway! Give it to him!" "Don't chool with that fump--I mean don't fool with that chump!" snapped Rattleton. "Let him have his own way! He's got a bug in his head; that's what ails him." "Let him alone, Bruce," said Frank, quietly. "I want to talk to him." "He struck at you behind your back." "Never mind; he won't do so again." "Oh, you don't know!" muttered Diamond. "Yes, I do," declared Frank, with confidence. "Never mind us, fellows. I want a little quiet talk with Jack." They understood him, and the two lads were left alone. CHAPTER III. THE SKELETON. Frank began talking to Diamond in a smooth, pleasant way, appealing to his sense of justice. At first Jack turned away, as if he did not care to listen, but he heard every word, and he was affected. "You are not yourself, old fellow," said Frank, softly, placing his hand gently on Diamond's shoulder. "If you were yourself you would not be like this. It is the burning desert, the blazing sun, the frightful thirst--these have made you unlike yourself. I don't mind anything you have said about me, Jack, for I know you are my friend, and you would not think of saying such things under ordinary circumstances. A little while ago, away out on the desert, you told me that much. It was then that reason came back to you for a little while. Knowing how you have suffered, I gave you the first drink from this water-hole. The water ran in slowly, and I did not know that there would be enough to go around twice. You were not the only one who had suffered from thirst, but the others made no objection to your having the first drink--they wanted you to have it. But it was necessary that they should have some of the water, so that all of us would be in condition to search for the other water-hole. Surely, old fellow, you see the common sense of this. And now, Jack, look--the water has cleared, and more is running into the hole. It will quench your thirst, and you will be yourself again. You are my friend, and I am yours. We stand ready to fight for each other at any time. If one of my enemies were to try to get at me behind my back, why, you would----" "Strangle the infernal cur!" shouted Diamond. "Give me that water, Frank! You are all right, and I'm all wrong! Just let me have a chance to fight for you, and see if I don't fight as long as there is a drop of blood in my body!" Merriwell had conquered, but he showed no sign of triumph, although he quietly said: "I knew all the while, dear old fellow; in fact, I believe I know you better than you know yourself." Then, when the others came up, ready to jolly Diamond about refusing to drink, Frank checked them with a gesture. Jack felt better when he had taken a second drink of water. As water had risen in the hole, all the boys were able to get another round, and the spirits of all of them were raised. "I believe we have some hard bread and jerked beef, haven't we, Merry?" asked Browning. "Yes." "Well, we are all right, then. Can't knock us out now. All I need is a good chance to rest." "Oh, you need rest!" nodded Rattleton. "You always need that. You can take more rest and not complain than any fellow I ever saw." "Young man," said Bruce, loftily, "it won't work. I refuse to let you get me on a string, so drop it." "You'll be lucky if you get out of this part of the country without getting on a string with the other end hitched to the limb of a tree." "That reminds me," drawled Bruce; "at the last town where we stopped I asked a citizen if there were any horse thieves in that locality, and he said there were two of 'em hanging around there the night before." "Yes," nodded Harry, "that was the place where they said they were going to stop lynching if they had to hang every durned lyncher they could catch." "Boys," laughed Merriwell, "we are all right. When you chaps get to springing those things I feel there is no further danger. We'll pull out all right." "Suttinly, sar," grinned Toots. "I's gwan teh bet mah money on dis crowd ebry time, chilluns. We's hot stuff, an' dar ain't nuffin' gwan teh stop us dis side ob San Francisco--no, sar!" Finally, refreshed and filled with new hope, the boys mounted their wheels and started to seek for the second water-hole. Frank led the way, and they turned to the south, riding along the base of some barren cliffs. "Are you sure we'll be able to find our way back to the water-hole we have left if we fail to discover the other one?" asked Rattleton. "I am taking note of everything, and I do not think there will be any difficulty," answered Frank. They had proceeded in this manner for about two miles when they saw before them a place where the barren cliffs opened into a pass that seemed to lead into the mountains. "There is our road!" cried Merriwell, cheerfully. "It should lead us straight to the second water-hole." "Yah! yah!" laughed Toots. "Cayarn't fool dat boy, chilluns! He knows his business, yo' bet! Won't s'prise me a bit if he teks us stret to a resyvoyer--no, sar!" They made for the pass, and, in a burst of energy, the colored boy spurted to the front, taking the lead. Of a sudden, as they approached a point where the bluffs narrowed till they were close together, the negro gave a sudden wild howl of terror, tried to turn his wheel about and went plunging headlong to the ground. "Wow!" gasped Rattleton. "What's struck him?" "Something is the matter with him, sure as fate," said Frank. Toots was seen to sit up and stare toward the wall of stone, while it was plain that he was shaking as if struck by an attack of ague. Then he tried to scramble up, but fell on his knees, with his hands clasped and uplifted in a supplicating attitude, while he wildly cried: "Go 'way, dar, good Mr. Debbil! I ain't done nuffin' teh yo'! Please don' touch me! I's nuffin' but a po' good-fo'-nuffin' nigger, an' I ain't wuff bodderin' wif--no, sar! Dar am some white boys wif me, an' I guess yo'll lek them a heap sight better. Jes' yo' tek one of them, good Mr. Debbil!" "Has he gone daffy, too?" muttered Frank, in astonishment. Then the boys came whirling up and sprang from their wheels, at which Toots made a scramble for Frank, caught hold of his knees, and chatteringly cried: "Don' yeh let him kerry me off, Marser Frank! I knows yo' ain't afeared of nuffin', so I wants yeh ter protect po' Toots from de debbil wif de fiery eyes!" But Frank was so astonished that he scarcely heard a word the colored boy uttered. Seated on a block of stone in a niche of the wall was a human skeleton. It was sitting bolt upright and seemed to be staring at the boys with eyes that flashed a hundred shades of light. "Poly hoker--no, holy poker!" palpitated Harry, leaning hard on his wheel. "What have we struck?" For a time the others were speechless. Wonderfully and fantastically was the skeleton decorated. On its head was a rude crown that seemed to be of glittering gold, while gold bracelets adorned its arms. About the fleshless neck was a chain of gold, to which a large locket was attached, and across the ribs was strung a gold watch-chain, while there were other fantastic and costly ornaments dangling over those bones of a human being. The eyes of the skeleton, flashing so many different lights, seemed to be two huge diamonds of enormous value. No wonder the young cyclists stared in astonishment at the marvelously bejeweled skeleton! "Well," drawled Browning, with his usual nonchalance, "the gentleman seems to have dressed up in his best to receive us. Some one must have sent him word we were coming." Toots, seeing the others did not seem frightened, had got on his feet and picked up his bicycle. "Goodness!" muttered Diamond. "If all those decorations are solid gold, there is a small fortune in sight!" "What is the meaning of this, Frank?" asked Rattleton. "How do you suppose this skeleton happens to be here?" "Ask me something easy," said Merriwell, shaking his head. "The skeleton must have been decorated in that manner by some living person," asserted Rattleton. "But where is that person?" "Not here, that is sure." "It may be a warning," said Jack, gloomily. "Warning, nothing!" exclaimed Frank. "It is plain the thing has been left there by some person, and we are the discoverers. It must be that the skeleton is that of some poor devil who perished here for want of water." "And it may be that the one who placed it there perished also," said Rattleton. "Very likely." "In which case," came eagerly from Jack's lips, "all that treasure belongs to us! Boys, it is a wonderful stroke of fortune! We have made enough to take the whole of us through Yale, and----" "If we ever get back to Yale, old fellow! This unfortunate fellow perished here, and our fate may be similar." "Boo!" shivered Browning. "That's pleasant to think about!" "More than that," Frank went on, "the treasure does not belong to us if we can find the real owner or his heirs." The excitement and interest of the boys was great. They were eager to examine the decorations of the mysterious skeleton. "We'll stack our wheels, and then one of us can climb up and make an inspection," said Frank. So they proceeded to stack their wheels, Toots observing: "Yo' can fool wif dat skillerton if yo' wants to, chilluns, but dis nigger's gwan teh keep right away from it. Bet fo' dollars it will jest reach out dem arms and grab de firs' one dat gits near it. Wo-oh! Land ob wartermillions! it meks me have de fevah an' chillins jes' to fink ob it!" "We'll draw lots to see who goes up," said Frank, winking at the others. "You will have to go if it falls to you, Toots." "Oh, mah goodness!" gasped the frightened darky. "I ain't gwan teh draw no lots, Marser Frank--no, sar! I's got a po'erful bad case ob heart trouble, an' mah doctah hab reckermended dat I don't fool roun' no skillertons. He said it might result distrus if I boddered wif skillertons." "What's that?" cried Frank, sternly. "Would you drink your share of water when water is so precious and not take even chances with the rest of us in any danger?" "Now, Marser Frank!" cried the darky, appealingly; "don' go fo' to be too hard on a po' nigger! De trubble wif me is dat I'm jes' a nacheral bo'n coward, an' I can't git over hit nohow. Dat's what meks mah heart turn flip-flops ebry time dar's any dangar, sar." "But think of the treasure up there that we have found. If it should fall to you to investigate, and you were to bring down that treasure, of course you would receive your share, the same as the rest of us." "Lawd bress yeh, honey! I don' want no treasure if I've goter go an' fotch hit down. I'd a heap sight rudder nebber hab no treasure dan git wifin reachin' distance of dat skillerton--yes, sar!" "Don't fool with him, Merry," said Diamond, impatiently. "Of course you don't expect to send him up, and you won't think of giving him any part of the treasure." Frank flashed a look at the Virginian, and saw that Jack was in earnest. "You are mistaken, old man," he said. "I do not expect Toots to go up there, but, if there is a real treasure and it is divided, you may be sure he will receive his share." "Oh, well!" cried Jack, somewhat taken aback; "of course I don't care what you do about that, but I thought you were in earnest about what you were saying." "The trouble with you," muttered Rattleton, speaking so low that Jack could not hear him, "is that you never see through a joke." "Come," spoke Browning, "if we've got to take chances to see who goes up and makes the examination, come on. I hope to get out of it myself, but if I must, I must." "We need not take chances," said Frank, promptly. "I will go." "It will not be difficult, for it is no climb at all," said Jack. "Two of us can swing ourselves up there in a moment, and I will go with you, Merry." Then it was that Rattleton suddenly gave a great cry of stupefied amazement. "What's the matter?" asked Merriwell. "Look! Look!" gasped Harry, pointing toward the niche in the rocks. "The skeleton--it has disappeared!" They looked, and, dumb for the time with amazement and dismay, they saw Rattleton spoke the truth. The mysterious skeleton had vanished! CHAPTER IV. "INDIANS!" "Gone!" cried Jack. "Sure!" nodded Frank. "Lordy massy sakes teh goose-grease!" gasped Toots, again shivering with terror. "Didn't I done tole yeh, chilluns! If yo' know when yo' am well off, yeh'll git erway from heah jes' as quick as yeh can trabbel! Oh, mah goodness!" Shaking in every limb, the colored boy tried to get his bicycle out from the others, lost his balance, fell over, and sent the entire stack of wheels crashing to the ground. "Well, this seems to be a regular sleight-of-hand performance," coolly commented Browning. "Now you see it, and now you don't; guess where it's gone. It drives me to a cigarette." But he discovered that his cigarettes were gone, which seemed to concern him far more than the vanishing of the skeleton. He declared he had lost a whole package, and seemed to feel quite as bad about it as if they were solid gold. Rattleton was excited. "What sort of pocus-hocus--no, hocus-pocus is this, anyway?" he spluttered. "Where's it gone? Who wayed the old thing a took. I mean who took the old thing away?" "It couldn't have gone away of its own accord," said Frank, "so some one must have removed it." "Don' yeh fool yo'se'f dat way, Marser Frank!" cried Toots, sitting up amid the fallen wheels. "Dat skillerton am de berry ol' scratch hisse'f! De next thing some ob dis crowd will be disumpearin' dat way. Gwan ter git kerried off, chilluns, if yo' don' git out ob dis in a hurry." "Oh, shut up!" snapped Diamond. "You make me tired with your chatter!" "Mistah Dimund," said the colored boy, with attempted dignity, "if yo'll let dat debbil kerry yo' off yo'll nebber be missed--no, sar." Jack pretended he did not hear those words. "Here goes to see what has become of the thing!" cried Frank, as he scrambled up to the niche where the skeleton had sat. "I am with you!" cried Diamond, as he followed Frank closely. Reaching the nook in the face of the cliff, they looked about for some sign of the skeleton that had been there a short time before, but not a sign of it could they see. The ghastly thing was gone, and the glittering ornaments had vanished with it. The block of stone on which the object had sat was still there. "Well, fat do you whind--I mean what do you find?" cried Rattleton, impatiently. "Not a thing," was the disgusted reply. "It has gone, sure as fate!" "So have my cigarettes!" groaned Browning. "The treasure--is any of that there?" asked Harry, eagerly. "Not a bit of it." "Well, that's what I call an unfair deal," murmured Bruce. "It is a blow below the belt. If the old skeleton had desired to go away, none of us would have objected, but it might have left the trimmings with which it was adorned." Frank was puzzled, and the more he investigated the greater grew his wonder. He knew they had seen the skeleton, yet it had vanished like fog before a blazing sun. Jack shrugged his shoulders and shivered, saying: "There's something uncanny about it, old man. I believe it is a warning." "Nonsense!" cried Frank. "What sort of a warning?" "A warning of the fate that awaits all of us." "You are not well, Jack." "Oh, it is not that! First we see a lake of water, and that disappears; then we see this skeleton, and now that has vanished. You must confess that there is something remarkable in it all." "The vanishing of the mirage came about in a natural manner, but----" "But you must confess there was something decidedly unnatural about the vanishing of the skeleton." "It was removed by human hands--I will wager anything on that." "Then where is the human being who removed it?" "I don't know." Unable to remain below, Rattleton came climbing up to the niche. "I've got to satisfy myself," he said, as he felt about with his hands, as if he expected to discover the vanished skeleton in that manner. "I can't see how the blamed old thing could get away!" "Well, you can see quite as well as we can," acknowledged Frank. "It is gone, and that is all we can tell about it." The boys satisfied themselves that the thing had really disappeared, and they could not begin to solve the mystery. After a time they returned to the ground. "It am de debbil's work!" asserted Toots. "Don' yeh mek no misteks 'bout dat, chilluns." They held a "council of war," and it was resolved that they should go on through the pass and try to find the second water-hole before darkness fell. Already night was close at hand, and they must needs lose no time. "We can come back here in the morning and see if we're able to solve the mystery," said Merriwell. "I, for one, do not feel like going away without making another attempt at it." "Nor I," nodded Rattleton. "It is folly," declared Jack, gloomily. "I say we have been warned, and the best thing we can do is get away as soon as possible." "By golly! dat am de firs' sensibul fing I've heard yo' say in fo' days!" cried Toots, approvingly. They picked up their wheels, and soon were ready to mount. "Here's good-by to the vanishing skeleton for to-night," cried Frank. He was answered by a wild peal of mocking laughter that seemed to run along the face of the cliff in a most remarkable manner. "Ha! ha! ha!" it sounded, hoarsely, and "Ha! ha! ha!" came down from the rocks, like a mystic echo. "O-oh, Lordy!" Toots made a jump for the saddle of his bicycle, but jumped too far and went clean over the wheel, striking his knee and turning in the air, to fall with a thump on the back of his neck. "Mah goodness!" he gurgled, as he lay on the ground, dazed by the shock of the fall. "De ol' debbil done gib meh a boost then fo' suah!" The other lads looked at each other in perplexity. "Well, wh-wh-what do you think of that?" stammered Rattleton. "He ought to file his voice, whoever he is," coolly observed Browning. "It's a little rough along the edges." "It strikes me that somebody is having fun with us," said Merriwell, a look of displeasure on his face. "What are you going to do about it?" asked Harry. "We don't seem able to do much of anything now. Come on." Toots scrambled up, and they mounted their wheels. As they started to ride away, a hollow-sounding voice cried: "Stop!" "Oh, riv us a guest--I mean give us a rest!" flung back Rattleton. "Stop!" repeated the mysterious voice. "Do not try the pass. There is danger beyond. Turn back." "I told you it was a warning!" cried Jack. "What do you think of it now?" "I think somebody is trying to have a lot of sport with us!" exclaimed Frank. "Well, what are you going to do?" "Not a thing. I don't propose to pay any attention to it, Come on, fellows. We must have more water, and there's none too much time to find it before dark." Diamond was tempted to declare he would not go any further, but he knew the others would stand by Frank, and so he pedaled along. As they drew away from the spot where they had seen the skeleton, they heard the mysterious voice calling to them again, commanding them to stop and turn back. Thus it continued till they had ridden on so that it could be heard no longer. Despite himself Frank had been impressed by what he had seen and heard, and a feeling of awe was on him. Ahead the shadows were thick where the dark cliffs seemed to come together, and there was something grim and overpowering about the bare and towering mountains that sullenly frowned down upon the little party. The boys were silent, for they had no words to speak. Each was busy with his thoughts, and those thoughts were not of the most pleasant character. A feeling of heart-sickening loneliness settled down upon them and made them long for the homes that were so far away. What satisfaction was there, after all, in this great ride across the continent? They had encountered innumerable perils, and now it seemed that they were overshadowed by the greatest peril of all. How still it was! The mountains seemed like crouching monsters of the great desert, waiting there to spring upon and crush them out of existence. There was something fearsome and frightful in their grim air of waiting. The whirring of the wheels was a warning whisper, or the deadly hiss of a serpent. As they passed between the frowning bluffs, which rose on either hand, the whirring sound seemed to become louder and louder till it was absolutely awesome. Frank looked back, and of all the party Bruce Browning was the only one whose face remained stolid and impassive. It did not seem that he had been affected in the least by what had happened. "He has wonderful nerve!" thought Merriwell. Diamond's dark face seemed pale, and there was an anxious look on the face of Rattleton. Toots betrayed his excitement and fear most distinctly. Frank feared they would not get through the pass in time to find the second water-hole, and he increased his speed. The ground was favorable for swift riding. At that time Merriwell thought it fortunate, but, later, he changed his mind. Of a sudden the pass between the bluffs ended, and they shot out into a valley or basin. A cry of astonishment and alarm came from Frank's lips, and he used all his energy to check and turn his flying wheel. Before them blazed a fire, and around that fire were gathered---- "Indians!" palpitated Harry Rattleton. CHAPTER V. BLUE WOLF TRIES THE BICYCLE. "Indians!" echoed Jack Diamond. "Indians?" grunted Bruce Browning, astonished. "O-oh, Lordy!" gasped Toots. "Dis am whar a nigger boy I know is gwan teh lose his scalp fo' suah!" "Turn!" commanded Frank--"turn to the left, and we'll make a run to get back through the pass." But they were seen, and the redskins about the fire sprang to their feet with loud whoops. At the first whoop Toots gave a howl and threw up both hands. "Don' yo' shoot, good Mistar Injunses!" he shouted. "I's jes' a common brack nigger, an' I ain't no 'count nohow. Mah scalp wouldn' be no good teh yo' arter----" Then he took a header off his wobbling machine and fell directly before Jack, whose bicycle struck his body, and Diamond was hurled to the ground. "Stop, fellows!" cried Merriwell. "We mustn't run away and leave them! Come back here!" From his wheel he leaped to the ground in a moment, running to Diamond's side. Grasping Jack by the arm he exclaimed: "Up, old fellow--up and onto your wheel! We may be able to get away now! We'll make a bluff for it." But it was useless, for Jack was so stunned that he could not get on his feet, though he tried to do so. Toots was stretched at full length on the ground, praying and begging the "good Injunses" not to bother with his scalp, saying the hair was so crooked that it was "no good nohow." Up came the redskins on a run and surrounded the boys, Bruce and Harry having turned back. Browning assumed a defensive attitude, muttering: "Well, if we're in for a scrap, I'll try to get a crack at one or two of these homely mugs before I'm polished off." There were seven of the Indians, and nearly all of them carried weapons in their hands. Although they were not in war paint, they were a decidedly ugly-looking gang, and their savage little eyes denoted anything but friendliness. "Ugh!" grunted the tallest Indian of the party, an old fellow with a scarred and wrinkled face. "Ugh! ugh! ugh!" grunted the others. Then they stared at the boys and their bicycles, the latter seeming a great curiosity to them. "Well, this is a scrolly old jape--I mean a jolly old scrape!" fluttered Rattleton. "We're in for it!" Toots looked up, saw the Indians, uttered another wild howl, and tried to bury his head in the sand, like an ostrich. Frank singled out the tall Indian and spoke to him. "How do you do?" he said. "How," returned the Indian, with dignity. "Unfortunately we did not know you were here, or we should not have called," explained Merriwell. The savage nodded; the single black feather in his hair fluttering like a pennant as he did so. "Um know," he said. "Um see white boy heap much surprised." "Jee! he can talk United States!" muttered Rattleton. "Talk it!" said Bruce, in disgust. "He can chew it, that's all." "I trust we have not disturbed you," said Frank, calmly; "and we will leave you in your glory as soon as my friend, who fell from his wheel, is able to mount and ride." "No, no!" quickly declared the tall Indian; "white boy no go 'way. Injun like um heap much." Browning lifted his cap and felt for his scalp. "It may be my last opportunity to examine it," he murmured. "But we are in a hurry, and we can't stop with you, however much we may desire to do so," declared Frank, glibly. "You see we are on urgent business." "Yes, very urgent," agreed Rattleton. "Smoly hoke--no, holy smoke! don't I wish I were back to New Haven, New York, any old place!" "White boys must stop," said the big savage. "Black Feather say so, that settle um." "I am afraid it does," confessed Browning. Diamond got upon his feet, assisted by Frank. "Well," he said, somewhat bitterly, "that is what we have come to by failing to heed the warning we received!" "Don't go to croaking!" snapped Rattleton. "These Indians are peaceable. They are not on the war path." "But they are off the reservation," said Frank, in a low tone; "and that is bad. They have us foul, and there is no telling what they may take a notion to do." "It's pretty sure they'll take a notion to do us," sighed Harry. The tall Indian, who had given his name as Black Feather, professed great friendliness, and, when the boys told him they had been looking for the water-hole, he said: "Um water-hole dare by fire. Good water, heap much of it. Come, have all water um want." "Well, that is an inducement," confessed Browning. "We may be able to get a square drink before we are scalped." It was with no small difficulty that Toots was forced to get up, and, after he was on his feet, he would look at first one Indian and then dodge, and look at another, each time gurgling: "O-oh, Lord!" And so, surrounded by the Indians, the boys moved over to the fire, which was near the water-hole, as Black Feather had declared. "Well, we'll all drink," said Frank, as he produced his pocket cup and proceeded to fill it. "Here, fellows, take turns." While they were doing so the Indians were examining their bicycles with great curiosity. It was plain the savages had never before seen anything of the kind, and they were filled with astonishment and mystification. They grunted and jabbered, and then one of them decided to get on and try one of the wheels. It happened that this one was the smallest, shortest-legged redskin of the lot, and he selected the machine with the highest frame. "Ugh!" he grunted. "White boy ride two-wheel hoss, Injun him ride two-wheel hoss heap same. Watch Blue Wolf." "Yes," said Browning, softly, nudging Merriwell in the ribs with his elbow, "watch Blue Wolf, and you will see him smash my bicycle. I sincerely hope he will break his confounded head at the same time!" "White boy show Injun how um git on," ordered Blue Wolf. "Go ahead, Bruce," directed Frank. "Oh, thunder!" groaned the big fellow. "I'm so tired!" But he was forced to show the Indians how he mounted the wheel, which he did, being dragged off almost as soon as he got astride the saddle. "Ugh!" grunted Blue Wolf, with great satisfaction. "Um heap much easy. Watch Blue Wolf." "Yes, watch Blue Wolf!" repeated Browning. "It will be good as a circus! Oh, my poor bicycle!" With no small difficulty the little Indian steadied the wheel, reaching forward to grasp the handlebars while standing behind it. The first time he lifted his foot to place it on the step he lost his balance and fell over with the machine. The other Indians grunted, and Blue Wolf got up, saying something in his own language that seemed to make the atmosphere warmer than it was before. The bicycle was lifted and held for the little Indian to make another trial. He looked as if he longed to kick it into a thousand pieces, but braced up, placed his foot on the step and made a wild leap for the saddle. He missed the saddle, struck astride the frame just back of the handlebars, uttered a wild howl of dismay, and went down in hopeless entanglement with the unfortunate machine. "Wow!" howled Blue Wolf. "Oh, my poor bicycle!" groaned Browning, once more. The fallen redman kicked the bicycle into the air, but it promptly came down astride his neck and drove his nose into the dirt. "Ugh!" grunted the watching Indians, solemnly. "Whoop!" roared Blue Wolf, spitting out a mouthful of dirt. Then he made another frantic attempt to cast the machine off, but it persisted in sticking to him in a wonderful manner. One of his arms was thrust through the spokes of the forward wheel to the shoulder, and as he tried to yank it out, the rear wheel spun around and one of the pedals gave him a terrific thump on the top of the head. "Yah!" snarled the unlucky Indian. "Two-wheel hoss kick a heap," observed Black Feather. Blue Wolf tried to struggle to his feet, but he was so entangled with the bicycle that it seemed to fling him down with astonishing violence. Then as the noble red man kicked, and squirmed, and struggled, the bicycle danced and pranced upon his prostrate body like a thing of life. "O-o-oh!" wailed Blue Wolf, in pain and fear. Toots suddenly forgot his fears, and holding onto his side, he doubled up with a wild burst of "coon" laughter. "Oh, land ob watermillions!" he shouted. "Dat bisuckle am knockin' de stuffin' out ob Mistah Injun! Yah! yah! yah! Lordy! lordy! 'Scuse meh, but I has ter laff if it costs me all de wool on mah haid!" Browning folded his arms, a look of intense satisfaction on his face as he observed: "I have made a discovery that will be worth millions of dollars to the government of the United States. Now I know a swift and sure way of settling the Indian question. Provide every Indian in the country with a bicycle, and there will be no Indians left in a week or two." "Gamlet's host--I mean Hamlet's ghost!" chuckled Rattleton, holding his hand over his mouth to keep from shrieking with laughter. "I never saw anything like that before!" Merriwell sprang forward and assisted Blue Wolf in untangling himself from the wheel, fearing the bicycle would be utterly ruined. The little Indian was badly done up. His face was cut and bleeding in several places, and he was covered with dirt. With some difficulty he got upon his feet, and then he backed away from the bicycle, at which he glared with an expression of great fear on his countenance. "Heap bad medicine!" he observed. It seemed that the other Indians were really amused, although they remained solemn and impassive. "Give me hatchet!" Blue Wolf suddenly snarled. "Heap fix two-wheel hoss!" He would have made a rush for the offending wheel, but Frank held up a hand warningly, crying: "Beware, Blue Wolf! It is in truth bad medicine, and it will put a curse upon you if you do it harm. Your squaw will die of hunger before another moon, your children shall make food for the coyotes, and your bones shall bleach on the desert! Beware!" Blue Wolf paused, dismay written on his face. He longed to smash the bicycle, but he was convinced that it was really "bad medicine," and he was afraid to injure it. "Say, that is great, old man!" enthusiastically whispered Rattleton in Merriwell's ear. "Keep it up." "Blue Wolf not hurt two-wheel hoss," declared Black Feather, who seemed to be the chief of the little band. "Want to see white boy ride." "Do you mean that you want me to ride?" asked Frank. "Ugh!" "All right," said Frank. "I'll show you how it is done." Then he motioned for the savages to stand aside. "No try to run 'way," warned Black Feather. "Injun shoot um." "All right, your royal jiblets. If I try to run away you may take a pop at me." CHAPTER VI. TRICK RIDING. The Indians made room for Frank to mount and ride. Standing beside the wheel Frank sprang into the saddle without using the step, caught the pedals and started. The savages gave utterance to a grunt of wonder and admiration. Frank had practiced trick riding, and he now proposed to exhibit his skill, feeling that it might be a good scheme to astonish the savages. He started the bicycle into a circle, round which he rode with the greatest ease, and then of a sudden he passed one leg over the frame, and stood up on one of the pedals, which he kept in motion at the same time. The Indians nodded and looked pleased. Then Frank began to step cross-legged from pedal to pedal, passing his feet over the cross bar of the frame and keeping the wheel in motion all the time. A moment later he whirled about, and with his face toward the rear, continued to pedal the bicycle ahead the same as if he had been seated in the usual manner on the saddle. "Heap good!" observed Black Feather. Then, like a cat Merriwell wheeled about, lifted his feet over the handlebars to which he clung, slipped down till he hung over the forward wheel, placed his feet on the pedals, and rode in that manner. This made it look as though he were dragging the bicycle along behind him. There was a stir among the Indians, and they looked at each other. Without stopping the bicycle, Frank swung back over the handlebars to the saddle. Having reached this position, he stopped suddenly, turning the forward wheel at an angle, sitting there and gracefully balancing on the stationary machine. "Heap much good!" declared Black Feather, growing enthusiastic. "Oh, those little things are dead easy," assured Frank, with a laugh. "Do you really desire to see me do something that is worth doing?" "What more white boy can do?" "Several things, but I'll have to make a larger circle." It was growing dark swiftly now, the sun being down and the shadows of the mountains lying dark and gloomy in the valleys. "Go 'head," directed Black Feather. Frank started the bicycle in motion, and then, with it going at good speed, he swung down on one side and slowly but neatly crept through the frame, coming up on the other side and regaining the saddle without stopping. "Paleface boy great medicine!" said Black Feather. "Ugh!" grunted all the Indians but Blue Wolf. The little savage was looking on in a sullen, wondering way, astonished and angered to think the white boy could do all those things, while he had been unable to mount the two-wheeled horse. "How do you like that, Black Feather?" asked Frank, cheerfully. "Much big!" confessed the chief. "Do some more." "All right. Catch onto this." Then away Frank sped, lifting the forward wheel from the ground and letting it hang suspended in the air, while he rode along on the rear wheel. "Merry is working hard enough," said Rattleton. "I never knew he could do so many tricks." "There are lots of things about that fellow that none of us know anything about," asserted Browning, who was no less surprised, although he did not show it. "He is a fool to work so hard to please these wretched savages!" muttered Diamond. "Now, don't you take Frank Merriwell for a fool in anything!" came swiftly from Harry. "I never knew him to make a fool of himself in all my life, and I have seen a good deal of him." "Well, why is he cutting up all those monkey tricks? What will it amount to when it is all over?" "Wait and see." "The Indians will treat us just the same as if he had not done those things." "Perhaps so." "Of course they will!" "Now, Black Feather, old jiblets," cried Frank, in his merriest manner, "I am going to do something else. Get onto this." Sending the bicycle along at high speed Frank lay over the handlebars and swung his feet into the air till he held himself suspended in that manner, head down and feet up. The Indians were more pleased and astonished than ever. "Oh, it's all in knowing how!" laughed Frank, as he gracefully and lightly dropped back to the saddle. Again the Indians grunted. "Now, Black Feather, old chappie," said Frank, "I am going to do the greatest trick of all. I'll have to get a big start and have lots of room. Watch me close." Away he went, bending over the handlebars and sending the bicycle flying over the ground. He acted as if he intended to make a big circle, but suddenly turned and rode straight toward the pass by which they had entered the basin. Before the Indians could realize his intention, he was almost out of sight in the darkness of the young night. Howls of rage and dismay broke from the redmen. They shouted after the boy, but he kept right on, quickly disappearing from view. "There," sighed Browning, with satisfaction, "I told you he was not doing all that work for nothing, fellows." "He's done gone an' lef us!" wailed Toots. "That's what he has!" grated Diamond--"left us to the mercy of these miserable redskins! That's a fine trick!" "Oh, will you ever get over it?" rasped Rattleton. "Why shouldn't he? He had his chance, and he'd been a fool not to skin out!" "I thought he would stand by us in such a scrape as this." "What you thought doesn't cut any ice. He'll come back." "After we are murdered." Rattleton would have said something more, but the Indians, who had been holding an excited conversation, suddenly grasped the four remaining lads in a threatening manner. "Oh, mah goodness!" palpitated Toots. "Heah is whar I's gwan teh lose mah wool! It am feelin' po'erful loose already!" Browning was on the point of launching out with his heavy fists and making as good battle of it as he could when he heard Black Feather say: "No hurt white boys. Make um keep still, so um not run 'way off like odder white boy. That am all." "I'll take chances on it," muttered Bruce, giving up quietly. The four lads were forced to sit on the ground, and some of the savages squatted near. The fire was replenished, and the Indians seemed to hold a council. "Deciding how they will kill us," said Diamond, gloomily. "Nothing of the sort," declared Rattleton. "See them making motions toward the bicycles. They are talking about the wonderful two-wheeled horses." "Gracious!" gasped Toots; "dat meks mah hair feel easier!" Browning held a hand on his stomach in a pathetic manner. "Oh, my!" he murmured. "How vacant and lonely my interior department seems to be! Methinks I could dine." "The hard bread and jerked beef," whispered Jack. "It is in the carriers attached to the wheels." "Yes, and we had better let it remain there." "Why?" "These Indians look hungry, too." "You think----" "I do. They will take it away from us and eat it if we bring it out. That would leave us in a bad fix." "But they can get it out of the carriers." "They can, but they won't." "Why not?" "They are afraid of those bicycles--so afraid that they will not go near them. Therefore our hard bread and jerked beef is safe as long as we let it remain where it is." Harry agreed with Bruce, and they decided not to touch the food in the carriers; but all were thirsty again, and they expressed a desire to have another drink from the water-hole. To this the Indians did not object, and they took turns at drinking, although the water did not taste nearly as sweet as it had the first time. Having satisfied themselves in this manner they sat down on the ground once more, being compelled to do so by the redskins, who were watching them closely. "They have us in a bad position in case they take a notion to crack us over the head," said Harry. "We wouldn't get a show." "Mah gracious!" gurgled Toots, holding fast to his scalp with both hands. "We's gwan teh git it fo' suah, chilluns! De fus' fing we know we won't no nuffin'!" "We must get out of this somehow," muttered Bruce. "That's right," nodded Jack. "Merriwell has taken care of himself, and left us to take care of ourselves." He spoke in a manner that showed he felt that Frank had done them a great wrong. "It's a good thing he got away as he did," asserted Harry. "Now we know we have a friend who is not a captive like ourselves, and we know he knows the fix we are in. You may be sure he will do what he can for us." "He'll do what he can for himself. How can he do anything for us?" "He'll find a way." "I doubt it." "You have become a great doubter and kicker of late, Diamond. It is certain the loss of that Mormon girl who married the other fellow has soured you, for you were not this way before. Why don't you try to forget her?" "I wish you might forget her! You make me sick talking about her so much! I don't like it at all!" "If you don't like it lump it." Jack and Harry glared at each other as if they were on the point of coming to blows, and this gave Browning an idea. He saw the Indians had noticed there was a disagreement between the boys, and he leaned forward, saying in a low tone: "Keep at it, fellows--keep at it! I have a scheme. Pretend you are fighting, and they will let you get on your feet. When I cry ready we'll all make a jump for our wheels, catch them up, place them in the form of a square, and stand within the square. The redskins are afraid of the wheels--think them 'bad medicine.' They won't dare touch us." Browning had made his idea clear with surprising swiftness, and the other boys were astonished, for they had come to believe that the big fellow never had an original idea in his head. Both Jack and Harry were taken by the scheme, and Diamond quickly said: "It's a go. Keep on with the quarrel, Rattleton." Harry did so, and in a very few seconds they were at it in a manner that seemed intensely in earnest. Their voices rose higher and higher, and they scowled fiercely, flourishing their clinched hands in the air and shaking them under each other's nose. Browning got into the game by making a bluff at stopping the quarrel, which seemed to be quite ineffectual. He seemed to try to force himself between them, but Rattleton hit him a hard crack on the jaw with his fist, with which he was threatening Diamond. "Scissors!" gurgled Bruce, as he keeled over on his back, holding both hands to his jaw. "What do you take me for--a punching bag?" "You have received what peacemakers usually get," said Harry, as he continued to threaten Diamond. The Indians looked on complacently, their appearance seeming to indicate that they were mildly interested, but did not care a continental if the two white boys hammered each other. Jack scrambled to his feet and dared Harry to get up. Harry declared he would not take a dare, and he got up. Then Bruce and Toots lost no time in doing likewise, and, just when it seemed that the apparently angry lads were going to begin hammering each other Browning cried: "Ready!" Immediately the boys made a leap for the bicycles, caught them up, formed a square with them, and stood behind the machines, like soldiers within a fort. The Indians uttered shouts of astonishment, and the four boys found themselves looking into the muzzles of the guns in the hands of the savages. "What white boys mean to do?" harshly demanded Black Feather. "No can run away." "Heap shoot um!" howled Blue Wolf, who seemed eager to slaughter the captives. "Then no can run away." "Hold on!" ordered Browning, with a calm wave of his hand. "We want to parley." "Want to pow-wow?" asked Black Feather. "That's it." "No pow-wow with white boys. White boys Injuns' prisoners. No pow-wow with prisoners." "No!" shouted Blue Wolf. "Shoot um! shoot um!" "Land ob massy!" gurgled Toots. "Dey am gwan teh shoot!" "Black Feather," said Browning, with assumed assurance and dignity, "it will not be a healthy thing for your men to shoot us." "How? how?" "Do you see that we are protected by the 'bad medicine' machines? If you were to do us harm now, these machines would utterly destroy you and every one of your party. The moment you fired at us these machines would be like so many demons let loose, and as they are not made of flesh and blood, they could not be harmed. Not one of your party could escape them." The light of the fire showed that the Indians looked at each other with mingled incredulity and fear. "Wow!" muttered Rattleton. "Is this Browning I hear? How did you happen to think of such a bluff?" "Have to think in a case like this," returned the big fellow, guardedly. "I think only when it is absolutely necessary. This is one of those occasions." The Indians got together and held a consultation. "Can't we make a run for it now?" asked Diamond, eagerly. "We can," nodded Bruce, "but we won't run far. They'd be able to drop us before we could get out of the light of the fire." "What can we do?" "Why, we'll have to----" Browning was interrupted by a clatter of hoofs, which caused him to turn toward the East. The Indians heard the sound, and they turned also. Then wild yells of terror rent the air. CHAPTER VII. ESCAPE. Coming through the darkness at a mad gallop was what seemed to be the gleaming skeleton of a horse. The ribs, the bones of the neck, legs and head, all showed plainly, glowing with a white light. And on the back of the horse, which had sheered to the north and was passing the fire, sat what seemed to be the skeleton of a human being, the bones gleaming the same as those of the horse. It was almost an astonishing and awe-inspiring spectacle, and it frightened the Indians greatly. "Howugh--owugh--owugh!" wailed Black Feather, dismally. Then the savages dropped on their faces, covering their eyes, so they could not see the skeleton horseman. Almost at the same moment as the horseman was passing the spot the ghastly appearing thing seemed to give a sudden swing about and completely disappear. "Poly hoker!" gasped Rattleton. "It's gone!" "That's right!" palpitated Diamond--"vanished in a moment!" "Oh, mah soul--mah soul!" wailed Toots. "Dat sholy am de ol' debbil hisse'f, chilluns! When we see it next it's gwan teh hab one ob us fo sho!" "Hark!" commanded Browning. The beat of the horse's feet could be distinctly heard, but the creature had turned about and was going back toward the pass through the bluffs. Chucker-chucker-chuck! chucker-chucker-chuck! chucker-chucker-chuck! came the ghostly sounds of the galloping horse. "It's turned about!" gasped Harry, in astonishment. "It's going!" fluttered Jack. "And we'd better be going, too!" put in Browning. Then with a familiar whirring sound something came flying toward them through the darkness, causing Toots to utter a wild shriek of terror. Into the light of the camp-fire flashed a boy who was mounted on a bicycle, and they saw it was Frank Merriwell. "Away!" he hissed, as he flew past them. "Make straight for the pass by which we entered this pocket. I will join you." Then he was gone. Browning gave Toots a sharp shake, fiercely whispering: "Mount your wheel and keep with us if you want to save your scalp! If you don't you will be left behind." Then the boys leaped upon their bicycles and were away in a moment, before the prostrate Indians had recovered from the shock of terror given them by the appearance of the skeleton horse and rider. For the time Bruce Browning took the lead, and the others followed him. Toots had heeded the big fellow's warning words, and he was not left behind. Barely had they passed beyond the range of the firelight and disappeared in the darkness when wild yells of anger came from behind them, and they knew the Indians had discovered they were gone. "Bend low! bend low!" hissed Diamond. "They may take a fancy to shoot after us! Stoop, fellows!" Stoop they did, bending low over the handlebars of their bicycles. Bang! bang! bang! The Indians fired several shots, and they heard some of the bullets whistle past, but they were not hit. "Well, that's what I call luck!" muttered the young Virginian. "What do you call luck?" asked Rattleton. "The appearance of that skeleton horse and rider in time to scare the Indians and give us a chance to get away." "Oh!" said Harry, sarcastically, "I didn't know but it was Merry's return. I told you he would not desert us." "I wonder how he happened to come back just then?" "He came back because he was watching for an opportunity to help us, and he saw we had a splendid chance to get away while the redskins were scared by the appearance of the horse and rider. You ought to know him well enough to know he is not the fellow to desert his friends in a scrape like this." Diamond was silent. "I wonder where Frank is?" said Browning. "He said he would join us, and he is----" "Right here, old man," said a cheerful voice, as a flying bicycle brought Merriwell out of the darkness to Browning's side. "This way, fellows! We'll hit the pass and get out of here as soon as we can." "Lawd bress yeh, Marser Frank!" cried Toots, joyfully. "I didn't know's I'd see yeh no mo', boy!" "I hope you didn't think I had left you for good?" "No, sar!" declared the colored boy. "I done knows yeh better dan dat, sar! I knowed yeh'd come back, but I was afeared yeh'd come back too late, sar. Dem Injunses was gittin' po'erful anxious fo' dis yar wool ob mine--yes, sar!" "Well, I am glad to know you thought I would not desert you. I don't want any of my friends to think I would go back on them in the hour of need." Diamond was silent. The pass was found without difficulty, and they went speeding through it. "How did you happen to turn up just then, Frank?" asked Harry. "I was waiting for a chance to come to you, and I saw the chance when that horse and rider frightened the Indians." "The horse and rider--where are they?" asked Browning. "Gone through the pass ahead of us." "Mah gracious!" exclaimed the colored boy. "What if dat ol' debbil teks a noshun teh wait fu' us?" "What sort of ghost business was it, anyway?" questioned Rattleton. "It seemed to be a skeleton horse and a skeleton rider, and it disappeared in a twinkling. I will admit this skeleton business is beginning to work on my nerves." "It is rather creepish," laughed Frank; "but I do not think it is very dangerous." "All the same, you do not attempt to explain the mystery." "Not now." "Not now? Can you later?" "Perhaps so." "It is plain he knows no more about it than the rest of us," said Diamond. "As for me, I am getting sick of seeking vanishing lakes and vanishing skeletons. If I get out of this part of the country alive, you'll never catch me here again." "Meh, too!" exclaimed Toots. "Well, I don't know as any of us will care to revisit it," laughed Frank. "Anyway, we have been very lucky in escaping from those Indians. That you can't deny." "You fooled them easily," said Rattleton. "Yes, and they did not even take a shot at me, which was a surprise. I expected they would pop away a few times." "What are we going to do after we get out on the open desert again?" asked Jack. "It seems to me we'll be as bad off as ever." "We'll have to go around the range to the south, or wait for the Indians to get away from that water-hole, so we can go through the mountains as we originally intended." "The Indians may not go away." "I rather think they have been scared so they'll not hang around there long. I don't fancy they'll be anywhere in the vicinity by morning." "If they are gone----" "We'll be all right, providing we can make our hard bread and dried beef hold out till we can reach one of the small railroad towns." "How far away is the railroad?" "Not much over fifty miles." "That is easy!" declared Rattleton. "We can make it on a spurt!" As they reached the eastern opening of the pass their attention was attracted by a bright light that seemed to shine out from the very niche where they had found the jewel-decorated skeleton. "What does that mean?" exclaimed Jack, in astonishment. "Land ob wartermillions!" gasped Toots. "It am de debbil's light fo' suah, chilluns! Don' yeh go near it!" "By Jove!" cried Frank. "That is worth investigating! Come on, fellows!" He headed straight toward the light, and as they came near the niche they saw the bejeweled skeleton was again seated as they had seen it in the first place, and a bright flood of light was shining upon it from some mysterious place. "It's back!" exclaimed Harry, in astonishment. "Sure enough!" said Frank. "It is on deck again." "I tells yeh to keep away from dat skillerton!" shouted Toots. "Hit am gwan teh grab yo' this time if yo' gits near hit!" "We'll take chances on that," declared Frank. "This time we won't give it time to get away, but we'll go right up and examine it." "That's what we will!" agreed Harry. But even as he spoke, the light disappeared, and this made it impossible for them to see anything up there in that dark nook. "Ha! ha! ha!" Again they heard the mocking laughter, smothered, hollow and ghostly in sound. "Somebody is having lots of fun with us," said Frank, as he leaped from his wheel. "It may be a good joke, but I fail to see where the 'ha, ha,' comes in." "Is the skeleton gone?" "I don't know, but I'll mighty soon find out." Without hesitation he swung himself up to the niche in the rocks, and Rattleton followed, determined that Frank should not go alone into danger. Harry afterward confessed that he was shivering all over when he climbed up there in the darkness, but his fear did not keep him from sticking to Merry. A cry broke from Frank's lips. "What is it?" called Browning, from below. "By the eternal skies, it's gone again!" "Didn't I tole yeh!" cried Toots, from a distance. "Come erway from dar, Marser Frank! If yo' don', yo's gwan teh be grabbed!" "It is gone!" agreed Rattleton. "This beats the Old Nick!" Again they heard that mocking laugh, which seemed to come down from some point above their heads. "Wooh!" shivered Harry. "That sounds pleasant!" "Hang it all!" exclaimed Frank, in a voice that indicated chagrin. "I don't like to be made fun of this way! If we don't solve this mystery before we go away I shall always regret it." "Beware!" It was the same voice that had uttered the warning when they were riding into the pass, and now, in the darkness of night, it sounded even more dismal and uncanny than before. "Come out and show yourself," called Frank. For some time the boys remained there, but they were forced to abandon the task of solving the mystery that night. Frank descended to the ground with no small reluctance, and Harry kept close to him. They mounted their wheels and rode away once more, fully expecting to hear the mocking laughter, or the ghostly voice calling after them. In this, however, they were disappointed, as nothing of the kind happened. After they had ridden some distance, Frank proposed that they halt for the night. "We are in for an open-air camp to-night," he said. "It is something we did not expect, but it can't be helped, and as the night is not cold I think we can get along all right. We need rest, too." "That's right," agreed Bruce. "I feel as if I need about a week of steady resting, but I don't care to take it here." "How about the Indians?" asked Jack. "We are not very far from them, and they might find us." "I scarcely think there is any danger of that." "Why not?" "Those redskins were so badly frightened that they'll not go hunting after white boys to-night. It is more likely they will skin out and make for the Shoshone Reservation, on which they must belong." "But what if they should happen to follow us?" Jack persisted. "We must take turns at standing guard to-night, and the guard should be able to give us warning of danger in time for us to mount our wheels and get away." It was plain that Diamond was not in favor of stopping there, but he said no more. Fortunately the night was warm, so they suffered no discomfort by sleeping thus. No dew fell out there on the desert. It was arranged that Diamond should stand guard first, while Frank came second, with Toots for the last guard toward morning. They ate some of the hard bread and jerked beef and then threw themselves down, with their bicycles near at hand, so they could spring up and mount in a hurry if necessary. Browning was the first to stretch himself on the ground, and he was snoring almost immediately. The others soon fell asleep. The rim of a round, red moon was showing away to the eastward when Jack awoke Frank. "How is it?" Merriwell asked. "Have you heard or seen anything suspicious?" "Not a thing," was the reply. "All is still as death out here--far too still. I don't like it." "Well, it is not real jolly," confessed Frank, with a light laugh; "but I don't think we need to be worried about visitors; and that is one good thing." Jack was fast asleep in a short time. Morning came, and Toots was the first to awaken. Dawn was breaking in the east as he sat up, rubbing his eyes and muttering: "Good land! dat am de hardes' spring mattrus dis coon ebber snoozed on--yes, sar! Nebber struck nuffin' lek dat befo'." Then he looked around in some surprise. "Gracious sakes!" he continued. "Whar am de hotel? It done moved away in de night an' lef' us." It was some time before he realized that they had not put up at a hotel the night before. "Reckum dis is whar we stopped las' night," he finally said. "I 'membah 'bout dat now. We was ter tek turns watchin'. I ain't took no turn at all, an' it's wamnin'. He! he! he! Guess de chap dat was ter wake me fell asleep hisself an' clean fergot it. Dat meks meh 'bout so much sleep ahaid ob de game." He was feeling good over this when he noticed that three forms were stretched on the ground near at hand, instead of four. "Whar am de odder one?" he muttered. "One ob dem boys am gone fo' suah. Land ob wartermillions! What do hit mean? Dar am Dimun, an' dar am Rattletum, an' dar am Brownin', but whar--whar am Marser Frank?" In a moment he was filled with alarm, and he lost no time in grasping Harry's shoulder and giving it a shake, while he cried: "Wek up heah, yo' sleepy haid--wek up, I tells yeh! Dar's suffin' wrong heah, ur I's a fool nigger!" "Muts the whatter?" mumbled Rattleton, sleepily. "Can't you let a fellow sleep a minute? It isn't my turn yet." "Yoah turn!" shouted Toots. "Wek up, yo' fool! It's done come mawnin', an' dar's suffin' happened." "Eh?" grunted Harry, starting up and rubbing his eyes. "Why the moon is just rising." "Moon!" snorted the colored boy. "Dat's de sun comin' up! An' I don't beliebe yo' took yoah turn keepin' watch." Browning grunted and rolled over, flinging out one arm and giving Toots a crack on the neck that keeled him over on the ground. "Landy goodness!" squealed the darky, grasping his neck with both hands. "What yo' tryin' ter do, boy? Want ter coon? Nebber seen such car'less pusson, sar!" "Oh, shut up your racket!" growled the big college lad. "I'm not half rested yet. Call me when breakfast is ready." "Yo'll done git yeh own breakfas' dis mawnin', sar; but befo' dar's any breakfas' we's gwan ter know what has become of Marser Frank. He's gone." "Gone?" replied Bruce, sitting up with remarkable quickness. "Gone?" ejaculated Harry, popping up as if he were worked by springs. "Gone where?" asked Diamond, also sitting up and staring around. "Dat's jes' what I wants ter know, chilluns," declared Toots. "Dat boy ain't heah, an' I's po'erful feared de old skillerton debbil has cotched him." "Why--why," said Jack, "I woke him and he took my place." "But nobody roused me," declared Rattleton. "Nor me," asserted Browning. "Git up, chilluns--git up!" squealed Toots, excitedly. "We's gotter find dat boy in a hurry! 'Spect he's in a berry bad scrape!" CHAPTER VIII. THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED. By this time the boys were fully aroused. An investigation showed that Merriwell's wheel was gone. "Didn't I tole yeh old debbil skillerton would done cotch some ob us!" cried Toots, in great distress. "I hardly understand what the skeleton could have wanted with Merry's wheel," observed Browning. "G'way dar, boy! Didn' de skillerton ride a hawse!" "And you think it is an up-to-date skeleton that has decided to ride a bicycle hereafter. In that case, I congratulate Mr. Skeleton on his good sense." "It must be that Frank has gone on a ride without saying anything to us," said Jack. "I do not see any other way of explaining it." "But why should he do such a thing?" asked Rattleton. "That is where you stick me." Browning slowly shook his head. "It is remarkable that he should do such a thing without saying anything to us," declared the big fellow. "And he must have taken that ride in the night," said Jack. "While he should have been on guard," added Harry. The boys stood looking at each other in sober dismay. "It isn't possible that Merry could have gone daffy," muttered Rattleton. "He is too well balanced for that." "I don't know," came gloomily from Diamond. "This dismal, burning desert is enough to turn the brain of any fellow." "Yah!" cried Toots. "Don' yeh git no noshun dat boy ebber had his brain turned! It am de weak brains dat git turned dat way. His brain was all right, but I jes' know fo' suah dat he hab been cotched." "And I suppose you want to run away as soon as possible before you are 'cotched?'" Then the colored boy surprised them all by saying: "No, sar, I don' want teh go 'way till we knows what hab become ob Marser Frank. Dat boy alwus stick by his frien's, an' dis coon am reddy teh stick by him, even if he do git cotched." "Good stuff, Toots!" cried Rattleton, approvingly. "You are all right! If anything has happened to Frank we'll know what it is or leave our bones here." The boys were worried. They hurriedly talked over the remarkable disappearance, trying to arrive at an understanding of its meaning. At length it was agreed that Frank might have gone back to try to solve the mystery of the skeleton, and then they decided that two of the party should remain where they had made their night bivouac, while the other two proceeded to search for Merriwell. Diamond insisted on being one of the searchers, and Rattleton was determined to be the other, so Browning and Toots were left behind. The boys mounted their wheels and rode back toward the pass through the bluffs. Diamond was downcast again. "Everything is going against us," he declared. "There is fate in it. I am afraid we'll not get out of this wretched desert." "Oh, you're unwell, that's what's the matter with you!" declared Harry, scornfully. "I'll be glad when you are yourself again." "That's all right," muttered Diamond. "You are too thoughtless, that's what's the matter with you." They approached the spot where the mysterious skeleton had been seen, and both were watching for the niche in the rocks. Suddenly they were startled by hearing a wild cry from far above their heads, and looking upward they saw Frank Merriwell running along the very brink of the cliff, but limping badly, as if he were lame. But what astonished and startled them the most was to see a strange-looking, bare-headed man, who was in close pursuit of Frank. Above his head the man wildly flourished a gleaming, long-bladed knife, while he uttered loud cries of rage. "Smoly hoke!" cried Harry. "Will you look at that!" Diamond suddenly grew intensely excited. "What can we do?--what can we do?" he exclaimed. "Frank is hurt! That creature is running him down! He will murder him!" "If Merry had a pistol he would be all right." "But he hasn't! We must do something, Harry--we must!" "Neither of us has a gun." "No, but----" "We can't get up there." "But we must do something!" "We can't!" Jack grew more and more frantic. He leaped from his wheel and seemed to be looking for some place to try to scale the face of the bluff. "Oh, if I could get up there!" he groaned. "I'd show Frank that I was ready to stand by him! I'd fight that man barehanded!" And Rattleton did not doubt it, for he well knew how hot-blooded Diamond was, and the young Virginian had never failed to fight when the occasion arose. He would not shirk any kind of an encounter. Merriwell saw them and shouted something to them, but they could not understand what he said. "Turn! turn!" screamed Jack. "You must fight that man, or he will stab you in the back! He is going to strike you!" Frank seemed to hear and comprehend, for he suddenly wheeled about and made a stand. In a moment the man with the knife had rushed upon him and struck with that gleaming blade. A groan escaped Jack's lips as he saw that blow, but it turned to a gasp of relief when Frank stopped it by catching the man's wrist. "Give it to him! Give it to him!" shrieked Diamond, dancing around in a wild frenzy of anxiety and fear. Then the boys below witnessed a terrific struggle on the heights above them. The man seemed mad with a desire to plunge the knife into Frank, and it was plain that Merriwell did not wish to harm the unknown, but was trying to disarm him. "What folly! what folly!" panted Diamond. "He'll get his hand free and stab Merry sure! Beat him down, Frank--beat him down!" Once Frank slipped and fell to his knees. A fierce yell of triumph broke from the man, and it seemed that he would succeed in using the knife at last. With a groan of anguish Diamond covered his eyes that he might not witness the death of the friend he loved. For Jack Diamond did love Frank Merriwell, for all that he had complained against him of late. A cry of relief from Rattleton caused Jack to look up again, and he saw Frank had regained his feet and was continuing the battle. And now the man fought with a fury that was nerve thrilling to witness. His movements were swift and savage, and he tried again and again to draw the knife across Frank's throat. Jack and Harry scarcely breathed until, with a display of strength and skill, Frank disarmed his assailant by giving his arm a wrench, causing the knife to fly through the air and fall over the edge of the cliff. Down to the ground below rattled the knife, and then Diamond said: "Now Frank will be able to handle the fellow!" But, flinging his arms about the boy, the man made a mad effort to spring over the brink. For some seconds, locked thus in each other's arms, man and boy tottered on the very verge, and then they swayed back. Frank broke the hold of the man, striking him a heavy blow a second later. The man reeled and dropped on the edge of the precipice. He scrambled up hastily, but a great slice of rock cleaved off beneath his feet and went plunging downward. Then the watching boys saw the unknown tottering on the brink, wildly waving his arms in an endeavor to regain his balance. Frank sprang forward to aid him. Too late! With a wild scream of despair, the strange man toppled over and whirled downward to his death. Frank climbed down. "It's all up with him, poor fellow," said he, as he stood near the body of the unknown man, looking down at the face that was white and calm and peaceful in death. "Who is he?" asked Harry. "What is he?" asked Jack. "I am afraid those questions cannot be answered," confessed Frank. "That he was a raving maniac I am sure, and he lived in a remarkable cave close at hand; but who he is or how he came to be there in that cave I do not know." "Well, how you came to be up there with him running you down to stick a knife in you is what I want to know," said Harry. "That's right," Jack nodded. "Explain it, old man." Then Frank told them how, after the moon rose the night before, he had taken his wheel with the intention of riding around the camp, feeling he could keep watch as well that way as any. After the moon was well up, he saw there was no one anywhere about, and a desire to revisit the spot where they had seen the skeleton seized upon him. He rode to the spot, but there was no skeleton in the niche among the rocks. Leaving his bicycle, he climbed up there to examine once more, and to his astonishment, found that what seemed to be a solid, immovable stone had turned in some manner, disclosing an opening. Then, with reckless curiosity, Frank resolved to investigate further, and he descended into the opening, found some stone steps, and was soon in a cavern. The first thing he discovered was the skeleton, still decorated as the boys had seen it in the first place, and he remained there till he found how it could be placed in view on the block of stone and then removed in a twinkling. He also found a lamp with a strong reflector, which had thrown its light on the skeleton from a hole in the rocks. There was another opening near that, where a person in the cave could look out on the desert, and Frank knew the ghostly voice they had heard must have come from that place. Merriwell continued his investigations, having lighted the lamp, by the light of which he wandered through the cave. Suddenly he came face to face with an old man, who seemed surprised, but spoke quietly to him. The old man declared he was "Prof. Morris Fillmore," but did not say what he was professor of, and he volunteered to explain everything to the boy. This he did, telling how he worked the skeleton to frighten away those who might molest him in his solitude, as he wished to be alone. There was another entrance to the cave, and, in a large, airy chamber a horse was kept. The horse was coal black, but on one side of him was drawn the outlines of the skeleton frame of a horse, and the strange old man explained that he had a suit of clothes on one side of which he had traced the skeleton of a human being. This had been done with phosphorus, and it glowed with a white light in the darkness. The old hermit had entered the pocket and ridden near the camp of the Indians. When he turned about the skeleton tracings in phosphorus could not be seen, and so the ghostly horse and rider seemed to disappear in a most marvelous manner. Frank questioned him concerning the treasure, and the old man seemed to grow excited and suspicious. He said something about the treasure being the property of some one who had fled from the destroying angels of the Mormons in the old days, but had perished in the desert. Frank was led to believe that the skeleton was that of the original owner of the treasure. But when the boy would have left the cave the stranger told him he could not do so. He informed Frank that he could never go out again, and then it was that the boy became sure Fillmore was crazy. As the man was armed, Frank decided to use strategy. First he sought to lull the man's suspicions, and after being watched closely for hours he found a chance to slip away. Almost immediately the man discovered what had happened and pursued. By chance Frank fled out through a passage that led upward till the top of the bluff was reached, but he fell and sprained his ankle, so he was unable to get away. The hermit followed, and the mad battle for life took place. "Well, this is amazing!" gasped Jack. "What are you going to do with that treasure?" "Take it to some place for safe deposit and advertise for the legal heirs of Prof. Millard Fillmore." "And if no heirs appear----" "The treasure will belong to us." "Hurrah!" CHAPTER IX. A NIGHT ADVENTURE. Frank's plan was carried out. All the treasure was removed from the cavern in which the mysterious old hermit was buried. The hermit's horse was set free, and the boys carried the treasure to Ullin, Nevada, where it was shipped to Carson and deposited in a bank there. "If it is not claimed in a year's time, boys," said Frank, "we will go about the work of having it evenly divided among us. In that case we will have made a good thing out of this trip across the continent." Nothing more was seen of the Indians, and the boys continued on their trip until Carson City was reached. One evening Frank was strolling along alone when a shrill, piercing cry of pain, ending abruptly, cut the still evening air. "Hello!" muttered Frank, as he paused to listen. "Something is wrong with the person who gave that call." He listened. In a moment the cry was repeated, and this time it ended with a distinct appeal for help. Frank was unarmed, but he was aroused by the thought that a fellow being was in distress, and he ran quickly to a dark corner, from beyond which the cry had seemed to come. To the left was a dark and narrow street, which looked rather forbidding and dangerous. "I believe the cry came from this street," said Frank, to himself. "If there were a few lights----" "Help!" There could be no mistake this time; the cry did come from that street. A short distance away in the darkness a struggle seemed to be going on. Frank could hear the sound of blows, hoarse breathing, muttered exclamations and cries of pain. "Some fellow is being done up there!" thought the boy from Yale. Without further hesitation he ran toward the point from which the sounds seemed to come. In a moment Frank was close upon two dark forms that were battling fiercely on the ground. He could see them indistinctly in the darkness. "Ah-h-h, you little whelp!" snarled a harsh voice "So ye will run away, hey? Well, ye'll never run away no more after this!" "Oh, please, please don't beat me so!" pleaded a weak voice. "You--you are killing me! Oh! oh! oh!" "I'll make ye 'oh, oh, oh!'" grated the other. Then the blows fell thick and fast. "Here, you miserable brute!" rang out the clear voice of Frank. "You ought to be shot!" Then he grasped the figure that was uppermost and attempted to drag him off the other. To Frank's surprise, although the attack had been sudden, he did not succeed in snatching the assailant from the unfortunate person he was beating. "Get out!" roared a bull-like voice. "Lemme alone, or I'll cut yer hide open! This is none of your business!" "Help, sir--help!" cried the weak voice. "He has beaten me nearly to death! He will kill me!" "Ye oughter be killed, ye ungrateful little whelp!" "Break away!" commanded Frank, as he lifted them both by a wonderful outlay of strength and literally tore them apart. The one who had been assailed could not keep on his feet, but swayed weakly and sank to the ground. With a sound that was like the snarl of a ferocious beast, the other grappled with Frank. He was so short that he stood not much higher than Frank's waist, but his shoulders were wonderfully broad, and he had arms that were almost long enough to reach the ground when he was on his feet. "Great heavens!" thought Merriwell. "What is this I have run against? Is it a human gorilla?" And then he found that the creature possessed marvelous strength, for Frank was literally lifted off his feet and flung prostrate, the other coming down upon him. The fall came about so suddenly that Frank was dazed, and his breath was nearly knocked out of his body. For a moment he did nothing, and the creature scrambled up and grasped the fallen lad by the throat with hands that were like iron. "Bother with me, will ye!" snarled that beastlike voice. "I'll fix ye so ye won't do it no more!" Frank felt that he was in deadly peril, and that caused him to clutch the man's wrists and hold fast. He saw something uplifted, and he knew well enough that the furious creature had drawn a weapon of some sort. "Look out!" panted the weak voice from close at hand. "He will kill you! He has a knife!" Then, as Merriwell used all his strength to hold back that uplifted hand, he began to realize that, athlete though he was, he was no match for the person he had tackled. The strength of those long arms was something wonderful, for little by little the man forced Frank's hand back, and his knife approached the boy's breast. Merriwell felt that his power of resistance might give out suddenly at any instant, and then the blade would be driven to its hilt. He was desperate and frantic, for there was something awfully horrifying in the steady manner in which that knife was forced nearer and nearer. Cold sweat started out all over him, and he panted for breath, while it seemed that his madly leaping heart would burst from his bosom. He could see two glaring eyes that seemed to shine with a baleful light of their own in the darkness. He could see the writhing features of a ghastly face, and he could hear the creature grate his teeth. Nearer and nearer came the blade. Crying and panting, the one whom Frank had attempted to save got upon his feet, swayed a bit, and then steadied himself with a great effort. "You shall not do it--you shall not!" he gasped. Then he flung himself on the man, seeking to drag him from the prostrate lad. Frank saw that the time had come to make a last effort for the mastery, and so, aided by the other, he succeeded in forcing his opponent back enough so he could squirm out from beneath. In a moment Frank gained his feet, and then, as the man with the knife came up, out shot the fist of the young athlete. Smack! The blow landed fairly, sounding clear and distinct. Over went the dwarf, and the knife flew out of his hands, falling with a clattering ring upon some stones. Merriwell knew he must follow up his advantage, but he was barely quick enough, for the fallen ruffian scrambled to his feet with the nimbleness of a cat. But again Frank struck the fellow, using all his skill and muscle. He barely escaped being clutched by those long arms, but the dwarf was knocked down once more. The sounds which came from the throat of the man were decidedly unpleasant to hear. They did not seem to be words, but were a succession of snarls. By the time Frank had struck the creature again, he did not scramble up so quickly. At that moment, having heard the sounds of the struggle, some person brought a light to the broken window of an old house that stood almost within the limits of the street. That light shone out and fell full on the dwarf man as he was rising to his feet after the third blow. His long arms were extended so that his hands lay on the ground, and he was standing in a crouching position on all fours. His face was pale as marble, and disfigured by a red scar that ran down his left cheek from his temple to the corner of his mouth. His eyes were set near together, and were blazing with ferocity. Taken altogether, Frank thought that the most horrible face he had ever seen. The light seemed to startle the horrid-appearing creature, and, with a low, grating cry of baffled fury, he turned and ran swiftly away, still in a somewhat crouching position, his hands almost touching the ground, while he made queer leaps and bounds. In a moment the dwarf had disappeared. Frank gave a breath of relief. "Good riddance!" muttered the lad from Yale. Then he turned to look for the person he had saved from the dwarf. That person had disappeared. "Gone!" exclaimed Merriwell, in astonishment and regret. "He must have been frightened away during the last of the struggle. He was weak, and he may not have gone far." Frank resolved to search, and immediately set about doing so. He had not proceeded far when he came upon a form stretched motionless on the ground. A hasty examination showed Frank it was a boy, who seemed to have fainted. "It is the chap the dwarf was beating!" decided Merriwell. He lifted the unconscious boy in his arms, tossing him over one shoulder, and started toward the lighted street. "I must take the poor fellow to the hotel, and then we'll see what can be done for him. He seems to be in a bad way." By the time the lighted street was reached the boy recovered consciousness. He struggled a bit, moaned slightly, and then, in a pathetic, pleading voice, he said: "Please don't take me back to Bernard Belmont, Apollo--please don't! I know he will kill me!" "Don't be afraid," said Frank, gently. "I am not taking you to any one who will harm you." A cry of astonishment broke from the boy. "Why," he exclaimed, "you are not Apollo!" "No; I am Frank Merriwell. Who is Apollo?" "A dwarf--a wretch--the hired tool of Bernard Belmont! Oh, he is a monster, without heart or soul!" "He must be the one with whom I had the lively little set-to." "You--you came to my aid--you saved me from him! How can I thank you! But I thought he would kill you!" "And so he might if you hadn't helped me throw him off. You did it just in time, and I believe you saved my life." "Oh, but he had a knife--I could see it! And I knew he would use it. He has such wonderful strength." "He is strong." "Strong! I do not see how you held him off! But I could see him forcing the knife nearer and nearer, and I grew frantic, for it seemed that you would be killed before my eyes." "I was rather anxious myself," confessed Frank, with something like a laugh. "It was a nasty position." "I don't know how I dared touch him, but I remember that I did. Then you flung him off and got up. After that, I remember that you were fighting, and I felt sure you could not conquer him. He would get the best of you in the end, and then he'd finish me. I was scared and tried to run away; but I did not go far before I became sick and weak, and--and I don't remember anything more." "You fainted." "And you whipped Apollo?" "Not exactly. I knocked him down a few times, but he seemed to spring to his feet almost as soon as he went down. Then somebody brought a light to a window and he was scared away." The boy clung to Frank. "He did not go far!" he excitedly whispered. "He is not far away! He is liable to spring upon us any time! Bernard Belmont has sent him for me, and he will not rest till he gets me. Oh, I must get away--quick--to my sister! She is near--so near now! But my strength is gone, and--and----" The boy began to cough, and each convulsion shook him from head to feet. There was a hollow, dreadful sound about that cough--a sound that gave Frank a chill. "Never mind if your strength is gone," said Merriwell, encouragingly. "You'll get along all right, for I'll stick by you and see that you do." "You are so kind!" "What's your name?" "George Morris." "Where do you live--here in Carson?" "Oh, no, no! I live in Ohio." "That is a long distance away." "Yes, sir." "How do you happen to be here?" The boy hesitated, seeming in doubt and fear, and then, with what appeared to be a sudden impulse, he said: "I am going to tell you--I am going to tell you everything. Put me down here. Let's rest. I am tired, and I must be heavy." They sat down on some steps, the boy seeking to keep in the shadow, showing he feared being seen. "It's--it's like this," he began, weakly. "I--I ran away." "Oh-ho!" exclaimed Frank. The lad quickly, almost fearfully, clutched his arms. "Don't think I ran away foolishly!" he exclaimed, coughing again. "I--I came out here to find my sister, who is buried." "Then your sister is dead?" "No." "Not dead? You said she is buried. How can a person be buried and not be dead?" Frank began to think it possible the boy was rather "daffy." "There--there's lots to the story," came painfully from the boy. "I can't tell you all. The letter said she was buried--buried so deep that Bernard Belmont could never find her. That letter was from Uncle Carter." "Uncle Carter?" "My father's brother, Carter Morris. He lives somewhere in the mountains west of Lake Tahoe. He has a mine up there, and he is very queer. He thinks everybody wants to steal his mine, and he will let no one know where it is located. They say the ore he has brought here into Carson is of marvelous richness. Men have tried to follow him, but he has always succeeded in flinging them off the trail. Never have they tracked him to his mine." "Then he is something of a hermit?" "Yes, he is a hermit, and my sister is with him. He wrote that she was buried deep in the earth--that must be in his mine." "How did your sister come to be with him?" "I helped her--I helped her get away!" panted the boy, excitedly. "I knew they meant to kill us both!" "They? Who?" "Bernard Belmont and Apollo." "Who is Bernard Belmont?" "My stepfather. He married my mother, after the death of my father. He is a handsome man, but he has a wicked face, and he is a wretch--a wretch!" The boy grew excited suddenly, almost screaming his words, while he struck his clinched hands together feebly. "Steady," warned Frank. "You must not get so excited." The boy began to cough, holding both hands to his breast. For some minutes he was shaken by that convulsive cough. "Come," said Frank, "let me get you to the hotel. You must have a doctor. There must be no further delay." "No, stop!" and the boy held to Merriwell's arm. "I must tell you now. I seem to feel that my strength is going--going! I must tell you! He--he killed my mother!" "Who--Bernard Belmont?" "Yes, yes!" "Killed her? You charge him with that?" "I do. He killed her by inches. He tortured her to death by his abusive treatment--he frightened my poor mother to death. And then, when he found everything had been left to us--my sister and myself--then he set about the task of destroying us by inches. It was fixed so that he could get hold of everything with us out of the way, and he----" Another fit of coughing came on, and, when it was finished, the boy was too weak to proceed with the story. "You shall have a doctor immediately!" cried Frank, as he lifted the lad and again started for the hotel. CHAPTER X. THE STORY. Frank succeeded in getting George Morris to the hotel, took him to a room, and put him on the bed. "Do not leave me!" pleaded the boy. "Apollo will come and carry me off if you do. Stay here with me!" "I'll stay," assured Frank; "but I must find some of my friends and send for a physician. You must have a doctor right away." Bruce, Diamond and Toots had gone out, but he found Harry, and told him what was desired. Harry started out to search for a doctor, while Frank returned to the boy, who was in a state of great agitation when he re-entered the room. "Oh, I thought you would never come!" coughed the unfortunate lad. "You were away so long!" He was thin and pale, with deep-sunken eyes, which, however, were strangely bright. He was poorly and scantily dressed, and the hand that lay on his bosom seemed so thin that it was almost transparent. One of his eyes had been struck by the fist of the brutish dwarf, and was turning purple. On one cheek there was a great bruise and a slight cut. Frank's heart had gone out in sympathy to this unfortunate lad, and he was filled with rage when he thought how brutally the poor boy had been treated. Merriwell sat down on the edge of the bed, and took that thin, white hand. It felt like a little bundle of bones, and was so cold that it gave Frank a shudder. "You are very ill," declared the boy from Yale. "I believe you have been starved." "That was one way in which he tried to get rid of us," said George. "You are speaking of Bernard Belmont?" "Yes." "He tried to starve you?" "Yes, and my sister also. Little Milly! You should see her! She is such a sweet girl, and she is so good! I don't see how he had the heart to torture her." "This Belmont must be a human brute!" cried Merriwell, in anger. "He deserves to be broken on the wheel!" "He is a brute!" weakly cried the boy. "He killed my mother--my dear, sweet mother! Oh, she was so good, and so beautiful! She loved us so--Milly and me! Listen, my dear friend," and the the boy drew Frank closer. "I--I think he--poisoned her!" These words were whispered in a tone of such horror and grief that the soul of the listening lad was made to quiver like the vibrating strings of a violin when touched by the bow. "You mustn't think about that now," said Frank, soothingly. "It will hurt you to think about it." "But I must, for, do you know, dear friend, I feel sure I shall not have long to think of it." "What do you mean?" asked Merry, with a chill. "Something--something tells me the end is near. Apollo, he hurt me--here." The boy pressed one hand to his breast and coughed again. "You are excited--you are frightened," declared Frank. "You will be all right in the morning. The doctor will fix you up all right. You shall have the very best food you can eat, and I'll see that you receive the tenderest care." The eyes of the lad on the bed filled with tears and his lips quivered, while he gazed at Frank with a look of love. "You are so good!" he said, weakly, but with deep feeling. "Why are you so good to me--a stranger?" "Because I like you, and you are in trouble." "There are not many like you--not many! I know I can trust you, and I do wish you would do something for me!" "I will. Tell me what it is. I promise in advance." "I don't want you to promise till you know what it is, for I have no right to ask so much of you." "Very well. Tell me." "When I am dead, for I know I shall not last long--will you find my sister and tell her everything? Tell her how near I came to reaching her, and let her know that I am gone. She loves me. I am only fifteen, but she is eighteen and very beautiful. She looks like my angel mother. Dear little Milly! Will you do this?" "I will do it, if the occasion arises; but we'll have you all right in a short time, and you will go to her yourself." "If I recover, I shall not be able to go to her." "Why not?" "Bernard Belmont has followed me, and he will drag me back to the old prison--I know it." "He shall not!" exclaimed Frank, with determination. "The law is with him," said the boy, weakly. "He has the best of it, for he is my legal guardian." "At that he has no right to abuse you, and he can be deprived of guardianship over you. It shall be done." But no light of hope illumined the face of the unfortunate boy. "It will be no use," George said. "He has starved me and beaten me. He has drenched me with water, and left me where it was icy cold, so that I have been awfully ill. And all the time I had this--this cough." Frank leaped to his feet and paced the small room like a caged tiger, his soul wrought to an intense fury at the thought of the treatment the boy had received. He longed for power to punish the monster who had perpetrated such dastardly acts. "Your sister," he finally asked--"did this brute treat her thus?" "Nearly as bad, but she was older and stronger." "Tell me, how did your sister get away from him?" "We planned to run away together, and then I became so ill that I could not. I--I made her leave me. I told her she must find Uncle Carter--must let him know everything. It was our only hope. He must save us." "But how did she reach your uncle?" "It was this way: We knew where Bernard Belmont kept some money in a little safe, and I--I knew how to get into that safe. That money belonged to us--it was mother's money. Belmont was not worth a dollar when he married my mother. It would not be stealing for us to take it. Sometimes he went away and left us to be cared for by Apollo, the dwarf. Such care! Apollo was a monster--a brute! Bernard Belmont hired him to torture us. This time, when Belmont went away, Apollo shut us up in a room, leaving some bread and water for us, and we were left there, while he visited the wine cellar and got beastly drunk. He thought we were safe in that room--thought we could not get out. But we had been imprisoned there before, and I had made a key of wire. We got out. We found the dwarf in a drunken sleep, and we tied him. Then we went to the safe and opened it. There was but a trifle over fifty dollars in that safe. It was not enough to take us both to Nevada--to Uncle Carter. Then I fainted, and I was too ill to try to run away when my sister restored me. She insisted on staying with me, but I commanded her to go. I begged her to go. I told her it was the only way. If she did not go, we were lost, for Bernard Belmont would discover what we had done, and he would make sure we had no opportunity to repeat the trick. She wanted to stay and care for me. I told her Belmont would not dare harm me till he had caught her. It might be some days before he got back. It was possible she could reach Uncle Carter, and then Uncle Carter could come East and save me. After a time I convinced her. She took the money, dressed herself for the street, and, after kissing me and weeping over me, left me. I have never seen her since." "But she escaped--she reached your uncle?" "Yes." "He made no effort to save you?" "No." "Why was that?" "I know nothing, except that he is queer. Perhaps he thought I was not worth saving. It was nearly a week before Bernard Belmont returned. All that time I kept Apollo tied fast, and I rejoiced as the days went by. When Belmont came there was a terrible outburst. I was beaten nearly to death. He tried to make me tell where my sister had gone, but I would only say, 'Find out.' When I had become unconscious and he could not restore me to my senses to question me further, he started to trace Mildred. He traced her after a time, but she had reached Uncle Carter, and she was safe. He wrote a letter to Uncle Carter, and the reply he received made him furious. It told him that Milly was buried so deep that he would never see her again. She was dead to him and to the world. Then Bernard Belmont swore that I would soon be dead in truth. After that--oh, I can't tell it!" Frank saw it was exhausting the unfortunate boy, and he quickly said: "Do not tell it; you have told enough. But you escaped." "After nearly a year. I escaped without a cent of money, and how I worked my way here I do not know. Several times I dodged detectives, whom I knew were in the employ of Belmont. I got here at last, but I found Bernard Belmont and Apollo were waiting for me. I tried to escape, but Apollo found me, and--you know the rest." CHAPTER XI. ANOTHER ESCAPE. The poor boy relapsed into silence, closing his eyes and breathing with no small difficulty. A great flood of pity welled up in the heart of Frank Merriwell as he looked at that thin, bruised face, and he felt like becoming the boy's champion and avenger. Again Frank pressed the thin hand that looked so weak and helpless. He held it in both his own warm, strong hands, and he earnestly said: "My poor fellow! you have been wretchedly treated, and it is certain that Bernard Belmont shall suffer for what he has done. Retribution is something he cannot escape." "Oh, I don't know!" weakly whispered George. "I used to think so--I used to think that the wicked people all were punished, but I'm beginning to believe it isn't so." "You must not believe it isn't so," anxiously declared Frank. "Of course you believe there is an All-wise Being who witnesses even the sparrow's fall?" "Yes." "Then you cannot doubt that such a Being will visit just punishment upon the wicked man who has caused you so much suffering and pain. His way is past finding out, but you must trust Him." There was something noble and manly on the face of Frank Merriwell as he spoke those words, and the manner in which he uttered them told that he had the utmost and implicit confidence in the wisdom of the Being of whom he spoke. At that moment it scarcely seemed possible that Frank was the same merry, laughing, lively lad who was usually so full of fun and pranks. Those who fancied they knew him best would have been amazed could they have seen him and heard his words. Thus was shown one of the many hidden sides of Frank's nature, which was most complex and yet honest and guileless. The boy on the bed opened his eyes and looked at Frank in silence, for a long time. Finally he said: "I see you really believe what you say, and you have given me new faith. I have suffered so much--so much that I had begun to doubt. It is hard to trust in the goodness of God when it seems that nearly all the wicked ones in the world are the ones who are prosperous. Bernard Belmont is believed to be an upright and honorable man in the town where he lives, and the people there think he was very kind to the two invalid children left on his hands when his wife died." "Some day they will know the truth." "It will be when I am dead!" "Nonsense!" "I am sure of it. Do you know, dear friend, Apollo hurt me so much to-night! It seems that he hurt me somewhere in--here." The boy pressed his hand to his side. "But the doctor is coming, and he will make you well again." "Perhaps he can't. I had rather not get well than be turned over to Belmont again and left for him to torture." George shuddered at this, and Frank ground his teeth softly, as he thought what intense satisfaction it would give him to see the man Belmont punished as he deserved. "Why doesn't Harry come with the doctor?" thought Frank, as he got up and impatiently paced the floor. "He has had plenty of time." A few moments later the boy on the bed beckoned with his thin hand. Frank hastened to the bedside, anxiously asking: "Is there anything I can do?" "Yes," whispered George; "sit down and listen." "I wish you would save your strength. You must stop talking." "I must talk, for it is my last chance. I want to tell you again that I know my sister is somewhere in the mountains up around Lake Tahoe. You have said you would find her. Do so; tell her I am gone. She is an heiress, for all the money Bernard Belmont has will belong to her then. If you could do something to aid her in obtaining her rights. Will you try?" "I will try." "Oh, you are so good--and you are so brave! How you fought that terrible dwarf! You did not seem afraid of him! It is wonderful! I never saw anybody like you! Yes, yes, I am beginning to have faith. How can I help it after this?" He smiled at Frank, and there was something so joyous and so pathetic in that smile that Merry turned away to hide the tears which welled into his eyes. When Frank turned back he was bravely smiling, as he said, in a most encouraging manner: "Now you must have faith that you are going to get well. That is what you need. It will be better than medicine and doctors. Think--think of meeting your sister again!" "Yes, yes!" panted the boy. "Dear little Milly!" "How happy she will be!" "Yes, yes!" "And think of regaining possession of what is rightfully your own--of getting square with Bernard Belmont." A cloud came to the face of the boy. "Of course I want what is mine--I want Milly to have her rights," he slowly said; "but--but it is not my place to punish the man who has wronged us." "The law will do that." "God will do that! I believe it once more since talking with you. I trust Him fully." There were footsteps outside the door, a gentle tap, and Frank admitted Harry and a physician. The doctor sat down in a chair by the bed and asked the boy a few questions, while Frank and Harry anxiously watched and listened. The doctor's face was unreadable. "Who is this boy, Frank?" whispered Harry. "Where did you find him?" "Wait," said Merry. "I will tell you later, but not here." The doctor declared that the unfortunate lad must have some light stimulating food without delay, and he wrote a prescription. "Take this to a druggist and have it filled," he said, handing it to Harry. Harry left the room. The boy lay back on the bed, his eyes closed, breathing softly. The doctor arose and walked to the window, motioning Frank to join him. "How is it, doctor?" Merriwell anxiously asked, in a whisper. The man shook his head. "I can't tell yet," he confessed; "but I fear he is done for. He has been starved, and his lungs are in a bad way. What he needs most is stimulants and food, but everything must be mild, as his system is in such a weakened condition. As for the injury to his side, of which he complains, of course I cannot tell how severe that may be." Frank's heart sank, for the doctor was more discouraging in his manner than in his words. "Save him if you can, doctor!" he entreated. "I will. Is he a friend or relative of yours?" "He is an utter stranger to me. I never saw him before to-night." The doctor lifted his eyebrows in astonishment. "Indeed! Then who is to pay the bills for his care and treatment?" "I will," Frank promptly answered. "Here, take this as a fee in advance." A bill was thrust into the physician's hand. After looking at the bill the doctor assumed a very deferential manner. "He should have a first-class nurse," he declared. "He shall," assured Merriwell; "the best one to be obtained in Carson." "This is very strange," said the physician. "I can't understand why you should do such a thing for one who is a stranger to you. You must have an object." "I have." "Ah! I thought so!" "My object is to see this poor, abused boy live and get his just due. He has been misused, and the man who has misused him should be punished. I hope to live to know that man has been punished as he deserves." "Ah!" came from the doctor once more. "Then you have a grudge against the man?" "I never saw him in all my life. I never heard of him before this night." The physician was more puzzled than before. "Then I must say you are a most remarkable person!" he exclaimed. Once more there were steps outside the door--heavy shuffling steps. The boy on the bed heard those steps, and a gasp came from his pale lips, as he turned his head toward the door, his face distorted by fear. "He is coming!" The words came in a hoarse whisper from the injured boy. Frank started toward the door and the boy wildly entreated: "Stop him--don't let him come in here! Hark! There is another step! They are both there! They have come for me--come to drag me back to a living death!" "Why, he is raving!" exclaimed the doctor. Bang!--open flew the door. Without stopping to knock or ask leave to enter, a tall, dark-bearded man stepped into the room. At this man's heels came a crouching figure that seemed half human and half beast. It had a short, thick body and long arms that nearly reached the floor. Its face was pale as marble, save for a red scar that ran down the left cheek to the corner of the mouth. The eyes were set near together, and they glistened with a savage, cruel light. Frank stepped between the intruders and the bed, but the boy had seen them, and he sat up, uttering a wild scream of fear, then fell back on the pillow. "Who are you? and what do you want?" demanded Merriwell, boldly confronting the man and the creature at his heels. "Never mind who we are; we want that boy, and we will have him!" declared the man. "He can't escape us this time!" Frank glanced at the figure on the bed, and then turned back, crying with great impressiveness: "He can and has escaped you, Bernard Belmont; but he will stand face to face with you at the great bar of justice in the day of judgment!" "What!" hoarsely cried the man, starting back and staring at the ghastly face of the boy on the bed; "he is dead!" CHAPTER XII. AT LAKE TAHOE. Poised like a sparkling gem in a grand and glorious setting of mountain peaks, lies Lake Tahoe, the highest body of water on the American continent. The sun was shining from a clear sky when Frank Merriwell and Harry Rattleton reached a point where they could look down upon the bosom of the lake, from which the sunlight was reflected as from the surface of a mirror. "There it is, old man!" cried Frank, enthusiastically--"the most beautiful lake in all the wide world!" "That is stutting it rather peep--I mean putting it rather steep," said Harry, with a remonstrating grin. "But none too steep," asserted Frank. "People raved about the beauties of Maggiore and Como, and thousands of fool Americans rush over to the old world and go into raptures over those lakes, but Tahoe knocks the eye out of them both." "I think you are stuck on anything American, Frank." "I am, and I am proud of it, too. Rattleton, we have a right to be proud of our country, and we would be blooming chumps if we weren't. It is the greatest and grandest country the sun ever shone upon, and a fellow fully realizes it after he has been abroad and traveled around over Europe, Asia and Africa. I've been sight-seeing in those lands, my boy, and I know whereof I speak." "You are thoroughly American, anyway, Frank." "That's right. I love my native land and its beautiful flag--Old Glory! I never knew what it was to feel a thrill of joy that was absolutely painful till I saw the Stars and Stripes in a foreign land. The sight blinded me with tears and made me feel it would be a privilege to lay down my life in defense of that starry banner." "Well, you're a queer duck, anyway!" exclaimed Harry. "I never saw a chap before who seemed cool as an iceberg outside and had a heart of fire in his bosom." Frank laughed. "Every man is peculiar in his own way," he said "I never try to be anything different than I am. I am disgusted by affectation." "We have found Lake Tahoe, but that is not finding the 'buried heiress,' as you call her." "But we will find her." "I scarcely think it will be an easy task." "Nor do I think so, but I gave George Morris my word, and I am going to keep my promise to him, poor fellow!" "You never seem to consider the possibility of failure, Frank." "The ones who consider the possibility of failure are those who fail, old fellow. Those who succeed are the ones who never think of failure--who believe they cannot fail. Confidence in one's self is an absolute requisite in the battle of life." "There is such a thing as egotism." "Yes. That consists in bragging about what you can do. It is most offensive. It is the fellow who does things without boasting who cuts ice in this world. The other fellow often spends his time in telling what he can do, but never does much." "I think you are right; but let's get down nearer the lake. I've heard that the water is marvelously clear." "It is so clear that a small fish may be seen from the surface, though the fish is near the bottom where the lake is the deepest." "Then it can't be very deep." "It is, nevertheless. In many places it is thirty or forty feet--even more than that." "Then who invented the fish story?" "The fish story is all right," laughed Merriwell. "I know." "How do you know?" "I've been here before." "Here--at Lake Tahoe?" "Sure." "Well, say!" cried Rattleton, in astonishment, "I'd like to know where you haven't been!" "Oh, there are lots of places where I haven't been, but this is one of the places where I have been. That's all." "What brought you here?" "I came here in pursuit of a young lady in whom a friend of mine, Bart Hodge, was interested." "I think I have heard you speak of Hodge." "Yes, he was my chum when I was in Fardale Military Academy. We were enemies at first, and Hodge did his best to down me, but we became friendly after that, and Hodge turned out to be a very decent fellow." "Where is he now?" "Give it up. Haven't heard from Bart in a long time. Last I knew he was out here in the West somewhere." The boys had reached Tahoe on their wheels, there being a road to the lake. The road was not a very good one for bicycle traveling, but they had ridden a portion of the way. Now they had left the road and pushed down to the lake by a winding path, along which they had been forced to carry their wheels at times. They made their way down to the edge of a bluff, from the verge of which they could look over into the water. "Say! it is clear!" cried Harry. "I told you so," smiled Frank. "But--but--why, it almost seems to magnify! I can count the pebbles on the bottom. Look at those tiny fishes swimming around there." In truth the water was marvelously clear, and things on the bottom could be seen almost as plainly as if they were not beneath the surface. "Why, it don't seem possible that a boat can float on it!" broke from Harry. "It is something like floating in the air." "Are there boats to be obtained near here?" "There are a number of boats on the lake. There once was a man near here by the name of Big Gabe who owned a boat." "Let's get it, if he is here now. I want to take a sail on this lake. How do we find Big Gabe?" "I don't know that we'll be able to find him at all. He was a consumptive." "Oh, then he may be dead?" "Not from consumption. He came here to die, but in less than a year he was stronger and heartier than he had ever before been, and he was so lazy that he didn't care to do anything but lay around and take life easy. He said he was going to stay here till he died, but there seemed little prospect that he'd ever die. He----" At this moment there was a sudden wild snarl behind them, and, before they could turn, each lad received a powerful thrust that sent him whirling from the bluff to fall with a great splash into the water below. Both lads had pulled their bicycles over the brink, so the wheels fell with a loud splash into the water which washed against the base of the steep rock. The boys themselves had been sent whirling still farther out, and they sank like stones when they struck the water. But they came up quickly, wondering what had happened. "Blate glisters--no, great blisters!" gurgled Harry, as he spurted water like a whale. "Where are we at?" "Christmas!" said Frank. "What struck us?" And then, on the top of the bluff, they saw a creature that was dancing and howling with rage and satisfaction. It was Apollo, the dwarf. "May I be hanged!" exploded Rattleton. "It's that thing!" "It is!" agreed Frank; "and I supposed that thing must be hundreds of miles from here." "Going East." "Of course." "Belmont didn't let any grass grow under his feet before he got out." "Not much." The creature on the bluff danced and screamed and waved its long arms, while its hideous face was convulsed with expressions of rage. "Oh, I'd like to get at him!" grated Frank. "Thank you, I'd much rather keep away!" exclaimed Harry. Then the boys started to swim ashore. Suddenly the dwarf began throwing stones at them. He picked up huge stones from the ground and sent them whizzing through the air with great force and something like accuracy. "Well, this is getting rather hot!" exclaimed Frank, as a huge jagged stone shot down past his head and sank in the water. "Hot!" gurgled Rattleton. "I should say so--some!" "Look out!" Another huge stone struck between them. "If that had hit either of us, it would have fixed us!" came from Frank. "You bet!" "Swim, old fellow! We must get away." But as they swam, looking for a place to go ashore, the dwarf followed along the top of the bluff, still pelting them with stones, while he uttered those savage cries. One of the smaller stones struck Merry and hurt him not a little. "Wait!" he muttered. "I'll get a chance at you yet!" Then, regardless of the shower of stones, he started to swim in toward the shore where he saw a place that they could get out of the water. But another stone whizzed down, and there came a broken, strangling cry from Harry. "What happened, old fellow?" asked Frank, who was now a bit in advance. "Did the cur hit you?" No answer. Frank looked around, and found Harry had disappeared from view. The dwarf on the bluff danced and howled with fierce delight. As quickly as he could, Frank turned about, swam back a little and dived. It did not require a great effort to go down, for now his clothes were thoroughly wet, and he sank easily. As soon as he was below the surface, keeping his eyes open, he saw his friend lying on the bottom. The water was so clear that there was not the least difficulty in this. Down Frank went till he reached Harry, whom he grasped. Planting his feet on the bottom, he gave a great leap and shot upward. The water was not more than eight feet deep, and he quickly reached the surface, immediately striking for the shore. But his watersoaked garments and Harry's weight dragged on him, and it was a desperate battle to keep from going down again. "You must do it, Merriwell!" he told himself. "It's your only show! Pull him out somehow!" Several times his head was forced below the surface and it seemed that the struggle was over; but he would not give up, and he would not let go his hold on Harry. "Both or none!" he thought. "If I can't get out with him, I'll not get out without him!" The dwarf had disappeared from the bluff, which was a fortunate thing, as he would have been given a fine opportunity to pelt them with rocks as Frank slowly and laboriously swam ashore. Just then, if Merriwell had been struck on the head by a stone, it must have ended the whole affair. "Oh, if my clothes were off!" panted Frank. "Then I could do it. I must do it anyway." He wondered how badly Harry was hurt, but it was impossible to tell till the shore was reached. The water did not seem so buoyant as it should, and he almost felt that there was a force dragging him down. Purely by his power of determination he succeeded in reaching the rocks and dragging himself out with his burden, when he sank down utterly exhausted. "Thank goodness!" he gasped. "I did it!" He had not been there many moments when he heard a cry above, and, looking upward, saw the dwarf had returned to the edge of the bluff. The dwarf seemed astonished when he saw the boys had reached shore, and he sent a stone whistling down at them. Frank dodged the missile, and then, with a fresh feeling of strength, hastened up the rocks toward the top of the bluff. Apollo saw the boy coming and immediately took to his heels, quickly disappearing from view. Finding the dwarf had escaped, Frank turned back, lifted Harry in his arms, and again mounted the rocks. He reached the top and bore his friend to a place where he could rest on some short grass where he was sheltered from the sunlight. Then Frank looked for Harry's injury. Rattleton had been struck on the head by a stone, which had cut a short gash in the scalp, and from this blood was flowing. "It doesn't seem very bad," said Frank, as he examined the wound. "I rather think it stunned him, and that is all. He was not under water long enough to drown." Frank took a handkerchief from his pocket and wrung it out, intending to bind up Harry's head with it. At that moment, happening to glance up, he saw a pale, horrible face peering out from a mass of shrubbery. It was the face of Apollo, the dwarf. "That creature still here!" grated Merriwell, as he sprang up. "If he isn't driven away, he may find a way to injure us further." Then he ran after Apollo, who quickly disappeared. Frank pursued the dwarf hotly, hearing the little wretch crashing along for some distance, but Apollo succeeded in keeping out of sight, and, at last, he could be heard no more. Merry was disgusted. He spent some time in searching for Apollo, and then returned to the spot where he had left Harry. CHAPTER XIII. A RACE ON THE LAKE. To Frank's amazement, he found Rattleton reclining in a very comfortable position, with the handkerchief bound about his head. "Hello, old boy!" Merriwell cheerfully called. "I reckon you are all right, for you are able to do up your own wound." "I say, Frank," came eagerly but weakly from Rattleton, "what has become of her?" "Her? Whom?" "The fairy, the nymph, the beautiful queen of the woods! She was here a few moments ago--she was with me." "By Jove! that crack on the head has knocked him daffy!" thought Merriwell. "He's off his trolley sure!" "Why don't you answer me?" Harry impatiently demanded. "I closed my eyes but a moment, and when I opened them again she was gone." "I hope you are not referring to the dwarf," laughed Frank, lightly. "I hope you do not mean him when you talk about a fairy, nymph and beautiful queen of the woods?" "No, no! Of course I do not mean that horrible creature! I mean the girl--the girl who was here!" "There has been no girl here." "What? I know there has! I saw her, although it seemed like a dream. I saw her before I could fully open my eyes. She was kneeling here beside me, and she was so beautiful!" "My dear fellow," said Merriwell, gently, "that tap on the head has mixed you somewhat--there's no doubt about it." Harry made a feeble, impatient gesture. "You think I am off," he said; "but I am not. I tell you I saw a girl--a girl with blue eyes and golden hair. Her cheeks were brown as berries, but the tint of health was in them. And her hands were so soft and tender and warm!" Frank whistled. "I'm afraid you are hurt worse than I thought," he said, with no small concern. "Oh, scrate Gott!" spluttered Harry. "I am not hurt at all! I tell you I saw her--do you hear?" "Yes, I hear." "But you don't believe me, and that is what makes me hot." "Keep cool." "How can I? Look here, look at my head." "Yes, you did a very good job. I was about to do it up when I saw that dwarf again, and I chased him." "I didn't do it up at all." "No?" "Not on your retouched negative!" "Then who----" "The girl--the girl, I tell you! When I came to my senses, I felt some person at work over me, and through my eyelashes I saw her kneeling here at my side. I tell you, Frank, she was a dream--a vision! I thought I was in heaven, and I scarcely dared breathe for fear she would disappear." Frank was watching Harry closely. "Hanged if the fellow doesn't believe it!" muttered Merry. Rattleton's ears were sharp, and he caught the words. "Believe it!" he weakly shouted--"I know it! I not only saw her, but I felt her hands as she gently brushed back my wet hair and tied this bandage in place. Look at it, Merry, old fellow; I couldn't have put it on like that--you know I couldn't." "Well, it would have been quite a trick." "I think she saw us thrown into the water, for she murmured something about it. She must live near here, Frank." Harry was fluttering with suppressed eagerness. "If you saw such a girl, it is likely that she does." "If I saw such a girl! Oh, smoly hoke! will you never be convinced?" "Perhaps so," nodded Frank, as he examined the ground. "What are you looking for?" "Her trail." "If you were an Indian, you might find it; but no white man could find it here, as the ground is not favorable." "I think that is right," admitted Frank, as he gave over the attempt. "If you saw such a girl, I have a fancy I know who she is." Harry started up, shouting: "You do?" "Sure." "Then you saw her when you visited the lake before?" "No." "How is it that you are sure you know who she is if you never saw her before?" "You are little numb just now, Harry, or you would have thought of it yourself. She must be the buried heiress." Rattleton caught his breath. "Right you are!" he exclaimed. "Why, it must be her!" "It strikes me that way," nodded Frank. "By Jove!" palpitated Harry; "she is a peafect perch--I mean a perfect peach! Merry, old chap, she takes the bun!" Frank laughed. "It's not often you get this way, Rattles," he said. "She must have hit you hard." "Right where I live, old man. I'd like to win her." "But you must not forget she is an heiress." "Oh, come off! That doesn't cut any ice in this case. She was dressed like anything but an heiress, and----" "You know why. She is living like anything except an heiress, and still she is one, just as hard." "And that infernal dwarf is here searching for her!" "Sure." "We supposed he had gone East, with Bernard Belmont." "Yes." "Instead of that, Belmont sent him here to find the girl." "Correct me, noble dook." Harry started up, in great excitement. "We must defend her, Frank--we must protect her from that wretched creature!" he cried. "I am ready." "I see you are," smiled Merry. "The thought that she might be in danger has aroused you more than any amount of tonics. We can't protect her unless we can find her." "And you said a short time ago that we would not fail to find her." "We will not, and I hope we may be able to find her in time to be of assistance to her. To begin with, we must get our bicycles out of the lake. It is a fortunate thing they fell in the water." "Fortunate?" "Yes." "Why?" "It is pretty certain the dwarf would have smashed them if they had not." "That's right. I never thought of it. He would have had a fine opportunity. It is fortunate." "We can remove our clothes and hang them in the sunshine to dry while we are getting the wheels." A look of horror came to Harry's face. "No, no!" he cried, wildly. "We can't do that!" "Why not?" "The girl--she is somewhere near here. What if she should see us? Good gracious; it hakes my mart--I mean it makes my heart stand still to think of it!" Harry's expression of horror and the way in which he uttered the words caused Frank to shout with laughter. "Oh, my dear fellow!" he cried; "if you could do that on the stage! It would be great! You'd make a great hit!" For once in his life Harry failed to see the humorous side of a thing, and he did not crack a smile. "What's the use to 'ha-ha' that way, Merry?" he cried, "You wouldn't want a thing of that kind to happen, and you know it." "Of course not, old man, so we'll have to keep on part of our clothing while we are recovering the wheels." They approached the edge of the bluff, and, as they did so, a canoe shot out from the mouth of a small cove nearly half a mile away. There was a single person in the canoe and, immediately on seeing her, Harry cried: "There she is--that is the girl!" It was a girl, and she was handling the paddle with the skill of an expert, sending the light craft flying over the bosom of the lake. "We must call to her!" exclaimed Harry. "She must stop!" "We can't stop her by shouting to her, Rattles," declared Frank, quickly. "It would frighten her, that's all." "But--but what can we do?" "Unless we can find a boat, absolutely nothing." Rattleton was desperate. "It's terrible, Frank!" he cried. "We may lose the only chance of finding her! At least, she should be warned!" "Look!" directed Merriwell, who was watching the girl closely. "She is looking back! See her use the paddle now! She is alarmed! She makes the canoe fly! She makes it spin along at great leaps! Surely something has frightened her! What is it?" Harry's excitement grew. "It's something, that's sure. She is using all her strength! How beautifully she handles the paddle! See the sunshine strike her hair! It is like gold! And now--look! look!" Around a point just beyond the cove came a boat in which two men were seated. Both men were paddling, but the boat was heavy, and they were not gaining on the fleeing girl. "Great Scott!" exclaimed Frank. "It is Apollo, the dwarf!" "Yes; and the other--the other is----" "Bernard Belmont!" "Then he is here--he did not go East at all. That was a blind." "Sure enough. They are here to find the girl." "To put her out of the way, perhaps!" "It would be like that man. If he gets hold of her, some terrible accident is likely to happen to Mildred Morris. But they are not gaining; she is keeping the lead with ease." "Yes," nodded Frank, satisfaction on his face; "she will not be taken." The boys watched the race with great interest, seeing the girl draw farther and farther from her pursuers, till, at last, they gave over the attempt in disgust, although they still paddled along after her. She headed for a distant shore, and Frank and Harry did not cease to watch till both boats had disappeared in the shadow of the mountains and timber. "There," said Merriwell--"over there somewhere must be the present home of that girl. It is a wild region, for I was there once myself, and I know. We will go there and see what we can find." "But we must recover our wheels first." "That is right; and now we can remove our clothes to do so, without fear of being seen. Come on." It was no simple task to get the bicycles out of the lake, but the thought of the girl's possible danger seemed to have restored Harry's strength, and, between them, they succeeded, after many efforts, in accomplishing their object. In the meantime their clothes, which had been hung where sun and wind would reach them, had partly dried. "We can't wait for them to get entirely dry," said Frank. "We'll put them on just as they are. Nobody ever gets cold around Lake Tahoe at this time of year." Harry did not object, but the garments were just wet enough so it was not an easy thing to get into them. This, however, was done, after a severe struggle and a small amount of startling and highly picturesque language from Rattleton. "Woo!" said Harry. "If we had a fine road, we could get on our bikes and send them spinning at such speed that the breeze would soon dry us; but now--how do you propose to get over across this part of the lake, anyhow?" "Well," said Frank, "you heard me speak of Big Gabe?" "Of course." "His cabin was not far from here." "What of that?" "He owned a sailboat." "Wheejiz--no, jeewhiz! that's the stuff! That's what we want!" "I rather thought so. With the aid of a sailboat we can get across the lake easily." "Let's look for Mr. Big Gabe without delay." Frank took the lead, and they went in search of the big hermit, trundling their wheels or carrying them, as was necessary. The modern bicycle is so light, although it is strong and stanch, that it may be carried almost anywhere, and so the task of taking the wheels along was not as difficult as it might have been. Within half an hour they came in sight of Big Gabe's hut, which lay on the shore of the little cove out of which the girl had sped in the light canoe. "It was from this very spot that I first saw that building," said Frank. "I'll never forget it. Bart Hodge was with me. When we drew nearer, Big Gabe himself came out and threatened to shoot us, thinking we were trying to steal his boat, or something of that sort." "Where is the boat now?" "There it is, down where the tree overhangs the lake. See?" They could see the single mast and stern of the boat. "Good luck!" cried Rattleton. "With the aid of that, we won't do a thing but make a lively cruise across the lake, for the wind is rising, and we'll have a fair breeze." Frank was looking steadily toward the hut, and there was something like a frown on his face, which his companion observed. "What's the matter?" Harry asked. "The hut looks deserted. The first time I saw it smoke was coming out of the chimney. Now the chimney is giving forth no smoke, and the door stands open. It doesn't look as if any one had been around the place for a year." "That's right," admitted Harry, anxiously. "But the boat is there." "It may be in bad condition, else why didn't Belmont and the dwarf take it?" "There was no breeze a short time ago, and they could not have sailed it across the lake. Besides, they were in pursuit of the girl in the canoe, and they hoped to overtake her with the aid of a boat they could row or paddle." "Your reasoning is all right, my boy. We will hope the sailboat is all right, too. Come on." CHAPTER XIV. THE HERMIT'S POWER. Around the shore of the cove the two boys went toward the hut. As they approached it Frank placed his hands to his mouth in the form of a horn, and shouted: "Oh, Gabe! Oh, Mr. Blake!" His voice came back in a distinct echo from a distant rocky steep, but that was all the answer he received. The rising breeze stirred the open door, seeming to wave it at the boys in derision, but the air of loneliness about the place was oppressive. "There's no one about," said Frank. "Not a soul," agreed Harry. They reached the cabin and looked in. It had not been occupied for two months, at least. "Big Gabe is dead or gone," said Merriwell, with sincere regret. "I hoped to find him here." "Well, let's see if his boat is all right," came anxiously from Rattleton. "That is what we want to know most." Leaving their wheels leaning against a tree, they hastened to the spot where the boat lay moored at a short distance from the shore. "We'll have to swim to get it," said Frank. "It is plain that other boat in which we saw Belmont and the dwarf was used by Gabe to get from the shore to the sailboat." Frank stripped off quickly and plunged into the lake, although the water was cold, as he well knew from recent experience. Out to the boat he swam, came up by her stern, and got in without difficulty, which was a very neat thing to do, as the average boy would have tried to crawl in over the side, with the probable result of upsetting the boat. "How's she look, Merry?" called Harry, anxiously. "O. K.," answered Frank. "There's some water in her, but it is a small amount, and the sails are well reefed. They may be somewhat rotten, but we'll be careful of them." "How are we to get our wheels on board?" Frank stood up and surveyed the bottom, which he could do with ease, because of the unruffled surface of the cove, as the wind did not touch it there. "There's a channel leading up to that large rock," he said. "I'll bring the boat up there." "Look out to not get her aground so she can't be brought off," warned Harry. "That would be a scrape." "I'll look out." Frank did not find it difficult to get up the anchor, and then, with the aid of a long oar, he guided the boat to the rock. In the meantime, Harry had hastened to bring the bicycles down to the cove, and they were all ready to be taken on board. This was accomplished, and Harry followed them. "Now away, away," he cried. "We'll set our course for yonder shore." "Of course," punned Frank, and Rattleton made a grimace. "Bad--very bad," he said. "That habit has been the cause of more sudden deaths than anything else of which I know." Frank laughed, and they pushed the boat from the great rock. Rattleton set about unfurling the sails and getting them ready for hoisting. "Are you a sailor, Merry?" he asked, as if struck by a new thought. "Am I?" cried Frank. "Ha! ha! also ho! ho! Wait a wee, and you shall see what you shall see." "Then you have been to sea?" Frank gave the other boy a look of reproach. "And you had the nerve to do that after saying what you did about the bad pun I made a short time ago!" he cried. "Rattleton, your crust is something awful!" They made preparations for running up the sail, saw that the tiller was all right and the rudder worked properly, and looked after other things. The bicycles were in the way, but that could not be helped. Harry aided Frank in setting the sail, and, with the aid of the oar, the boat was worked out to a point where they could feel the breeze. "By Jove! this is rather jolly," commented Rattleton, as they began to make headway. "With a fair wind, we'll run over there in a short time, and then--then if we can find that girl!" "My boy, your face is aglow with rapture at the thought," smiled Frank. "You have been hit a genuine heart blow. Look out that it doesn't knock you out." Away they went, making fair speed, although the boat was decidedly crude and cumbersome. The mountainous region beyond the lake was wild and picturesque, but, fortunately, the boys found a cut that led down to the very shore of the lake. They reached a spot where they could run up close to the shore, which enabled them to take their bicycles off without trouble. The boat was made fast, the sails having been reefed once more, and then the lads deliberately mounted their wheels and attempted to ride into the cut. This was not so difficult as might be thought, for they found what seemed to be an antelope "run" that led from the shore, and they pedaled along that path. "It was somewhere in this region that we found the retreat of the gang of money makers when I was here before," said Frank. "What's that? A gang that made money?" "Yes." "I suppose they had some kind of an old hut here-abouts in which they did the work?" "They had a cave--a most wonderful cave it was said to be. That cave had never been fully explored, and---- By Jove!" Frank interrupted himself with the exclamation, a strange look having come to his face. "What is it?" asked Harry. "I have an idea." "Put us on." "That cave, my boy--that cave!" "What about it?" "It is said that Carter Morris, the queer old miner, lives in some sort of an underground place." "That's right!" cried Rattleton, catching Frank's meaning, and growing excited. "He has some sort of mysterious mine." "Sure, old man!" "And he wrote Bernard Belmont that Mildred Morris was buried from the sight of the world." "Now, you believe----" "I do--I believe it possible that man may be occupying the very cave once occupied by the counterfeiters." Rattleton was following Frank along the path, and he nearly ran Merriwell down in his excitement. "You know the way to that cave?" he shouted. "You can find it?" "I might be able to do so, although I am not sure of it. I can try. Even if we find the cave, we may not find the man and girl there." "It is a chance, anyway. It's the best we can do." After they had proceeded into the mountains some distance, Frank began to look for a slope they could scale, so they might get out of the pass. It was finally found, and, with their wheels on their backs, they labored to the top. Getting down on the other side was even more difficult, but they succeeded. Then Frank led Harry a wild chase, till Rattleton was pretty well played out. His head had ceased to bleed, and he had removed the handkerchief, but he could feel that the blow had taken not a little of the stamina out of him. "How long are you going to keep this up, Merry?" he asked. "We must be somewhere near that cave," declared Frank. "It is getting toward night. I hoped to be fortunate and find it before dark." "If we don't----" "There's another day coming. We have hard bread and smoked beef in the carriers, and we can find water here. We're not nearly as bad off as we were on the Utah desert." "That's right. That was a bad fix, but we pulled out of it all right. If our clothes were somewhat drier I could regard the approach of night with greater complaisance." "Our clothes are nearly dry, and they will be much more so in two hours." They continued the restless search, Frank seeming utterly tireless. Rattleton admired him for his resistless energy and unwavering determination and confidence. Fortune must have smiled on them, for, as they were making their way along a narrow cut, they turned a short corner and beheld the dark mouth of a cave just ahead of them. Both lads stopped and stood beside their wheels, uttering exclamations of satisfaction. "Is that it, Frank?" asked Harry. "It may be one of the entrances to the old cave of the counterfeiters," answered Merry. "That cave has several mouths. This is not the one I saw, but----" "It is a cave, and it may be the one we are searching for. Come on!" "What are you going to do?" "Go in." "We can't go in without torches." "That's right--dead right! Was so excited I didn't think of that. But--hooray!--we have found it!" "Don't be so sure yet. We'll go up and look in." They approached the mouth of the cave. Suddenly, as they came near, there was a roar from within, and out of the cave rushed a man whose long hair and beard were white, and whose clothes were rude and worn. The boys halted in amazement, staring at this man, who also stopped. Frank spoke to Harry: "It must be Carter Morris!" "It is!" cried the old man, whose ears had caught the words. "How do you know me? What right have you to know my name? I am buried--buried from the world!" "Crazy as a bedbug!" whispered Rattleton. "Oh, crazy, am I!" sneered the man, much to Harry's astonishment, for it had not seemed possible he could hear that whisper. "That's what they think--the fools!" Rattleton clutched Frank's wrist. "Look," he panted; "she is coming! There she is!" Out of the darkness within the mouth of the cave advanced the strange girl they had seen in the canoe. She was hatless, and she looked marvelously pretty with her golden hair hanging about her ears and reaching down upon her shoulders. "Well, she is a fairy!" admitted Merriwell. "If you win that, you'll be a lucky lad, Rattles." "Ha! ha! ha!" harshly laughed the man, without a trace of mirth in face or voice. "That is all they think of, the fools! That is what brings them here! They know you are rich, my dear--they know it! And they seek to win you! But you are dead to the world--dead and buried!" "Mr. Morris," said Frank, speaking quietly, "we have a message for the young lady." "Bah!" cried the man. "It is from her brother," said Frank. "Bah!" repeated the hermit. But the girl started forward, crying: "My brother--what do you know of him?" The man put out his hand and held her back. "It is a trick," he declared--"a shallow trick! They think to fool you that way. Don't listen to them, child! Let me talk to them." Then he turned on the boys, his face dark with anger. "Go away from here!" he cried. "Every moment you remain here your lives are in danger! If you care to live, go away at once!" The girl looked frightened. "We can't go away till we have delivered our message," said Frank, calmly, as he started forward. "Back!" cried the strange old man, flinging out his hand with a warning gesture. "It means death if you advance another step!" The girl looked more frightened than ever, and the boys halted again. "The old pirate!" whispered Harry. "We must save her from him somehow, Frank! I know he is detaining her against her will." Again that harsh, mirthless laugh. "You know a great deal," sneered the man; "but you do not know enough to go away and save your lives! You do not know my power, but you shall feel it!" The girl cried out and started to lift a hand. Then the man stepped to the right and touched the wall of stone. To Frank and Harry it seemed that the mountains fell on them and beat them down with a great blow that stretched them helpless and senseless on the ground! CHAPTER XV. RECOVERY. With a feeling of numbness and pain in every limb and every part of his body, Frank Merriwell stirred and tried to sit up. His strength seemed to be gone, and he wondered at his weakness. "What--what does it mean?" he asked himself, puzzled. There was a cloud on his brain, and, for the time, he did not remember what had happened. He realized he was lying on the ground, and he wondered if he had been there long. After a time he turned his head a bit, and close beside him he saw Harry Rattleton, stretched on his back, his arms outspread, his face ghastly pale. A chill of horror seized upon Merriwell's heart. Why didn't Harry move? Why were his eyes closed? Why was his face so white? There was something horrible and awe-inspiring about those rigid limbs and that ghastly face. "He is dead!" He succeeded in speaking the words aloud, although his voice was weak and faint. The sound startled him, and, with a mighty effort, he lifted himself to one elbow. "Harry!" he panted, thickly--"Harry, wake up!" Still no stir. "Harry, Harry, are you asleep?" Rattleton remained motionless. Holding himself thus, Frank watched, but he could not see that the bosom of his friend rose and fell at all--he could not see that Harry breathed. Surely that pallid face was not the face of a living person! It had the stamp of death upon it! "Merciful goodness!" whispered Frank, as he dragged himself nearer. "I know--I am sure some frightful thing has happened to us! But I do not seem to remember." He paused and stared about. Sunset light was on the snow-capped peaks of the Sierras, and away up there they were dazzling to the eye; but there were deep shadows below--black shadows in the heart of Frank Merriwell. "The mountains!" he faintly murmured--"they are all around us! This is not the desert--no, no! We were not overcome by hunger and thirst. Something--something else struck us down!" He lifted one hand to his head, which was so numb and felt so lifeless. What was the trouble? Concentrating all his faculties, he forced himself to think. Then he seemed to remember. "The girl!" he faintly exclaimed--"we were searching for her! We were trying to find the cave, and--we found it!" He remembered at last. He remembered the appearance of the old man of the white hair and beard; he remembered that the girl had come forth from the mouth of the cave; he remembered the warning of the strange man and the frightful shock that had followed. "Jingoes!" he said. "I believe we were struck by lightning! I'm not completely knocked out, but Harry seems to be." Then he reached Rattleton and touched his face, felt for his pulse, sought to discover if his heart beat. Close to the breast of his friend Frank placed his ear, and what he heard caused him to utter a cry of satisfaction. "Not dead!" he exclaimed. "He still lives! There is a chance for him." The thought that Harry's life might depend on his efforts aroused him still more. He loosened Harry's sweater and the collar about his throat, he chafed his wrists and temples, he fanned him, called to him, sought in many ways to arouse him. At last he saw signs of success. Rattleton's breast rose and fell, and he gave a great sigh. "That's right, old man!" cried Frank, with satisfaction. "Just open your peepers and let us know you are recovering." Harry opened his eyes. "Where--what--why----" He seemed unable to ask the questions that sought for utterance. "I was thinking the same things a few moments ago," said Frank. "We were knocked out in the first round with the old hermit." "Hermit--what hermit?" "That's it," nodded Merry. "You're as bad off as I was. Why, Carter Morris, the uncle of the girl with the golden hair, who has hit you so hard." A light of understanding came to Harry's face, and he revived with wonderful swiftness. "I remember it all now!" he faintly exclaimed. "But I do not know what happened to us. It seemed to me that something struck me." "Something did." "What was it?" "I don't know, but something knocked us both out. You remember that the old man warned us not to advance another step--said it would mean instant death if we did." "Yes; but I thought the old duffer was bluffing." "So did I. I have since decided that he wasn't." "You think he gave us the knock-out?" "I do." "How could he?" "Some way. He has some mysterious power, with the aid of which he guards the mouth of that cave." "And that power must be----" "Electricity!" "It's a dead-sure thing!" cried Harry. "We were given an electric shock. When the man touched the wall with his hand, he turned on the current." "I believe it." "But how did the shock reach us?" "Don't know. I saw no wires." "Nor I." "There must have been wires." "I presume so." "Well, where are we now?" They looked around, but there was nothing about their surroundings that they remembered having seen before. "We are not in front of the cave," said Frank. "No, we are not where we fell, that is sure." "We must have been removed to this spot." "Sure." "The bicycles--where are they?" With no small difficulty they got upon their feet, and then they saw their wheels leaning against the face of a black rock near by. At first their legs seemed scarcely able to support their weight, but they grew stronger as the moments passed, and they approached the wheels. Then it was they saw something drawn with white chalk on the smooth surface of the black rock. It was the representation of a human hand, with the index finger pointing in a certain direction. Beneath the hand were these words: "THIS WAY--GO!" "It is a warning!" cried Frank. "You boot your bets--I mean bet your boots! It tells us to git." "Well?" With that word Frank turned on Harry sharply. "You may go if you want to," said Rattleton; "but I never knew you to run away. You are not easily scared." "How about you?" "I am here to find that girl, and I am going to stay till I find her or croak! That's how about me!" "Good stuff!" cried Merry, approvingly, as he grasped the hand of his comrade. "We'll both stay till we find her." In a short time the boys began to feel like themselves once more. Taking their wheels along, they sought for a spring, and were able to find one. There they stopped and made a meal from the hard bread and jerked beef, which was washed down with clear water from the spring. "Now I am all right," Harry declared. "A feed was what I needed." They discussed matters a few minutes, and then, carefully observing the surroundings, decided to conceal the bicycles in the vicinity of the spring and seek for the mouth of the cave once more. They found a good hiding place for the wheels, and there the machines were stowed away. "We can't be so awfully far from that cave," Frank decided. "One man and a girl would not be able to bring us a long distance." But the cave was not easy to find, and the more they searched the more bewildered they became. Meanwhile night was coming on swiftly. "Hist!" warned Harry, suddenly grasping Frank's wrist and drawing him down behind some bowlders. "Look there!" "What is it?" "Moving figures! I saw them distinctly over there." "The man and the girl?" "Couldn't tell. There they are again. Look!" "I see! It is not the man and the girl. It is two men." "That is right--or, at least, a man and something that resembles a man." "It is Bernard Belmont and his gorilla man!" "You are right, Merry, my boy; and they, too, are searching for the mouth of the cave. It will be a good scheme to watch them." CHAPTER XVI. LOST UNDERGROUND. The boys followed Belmont and Apollo, being aided in doing so without danger of discovery by the gathering darkness; but they knew very well that, in a short time it would become so dark that they might lose track of the two. Apollo seemed to be guiding his master to some spot, and they clambered over the rocks with haste that indicated a desire to reach the place without delay. At last the dwarf paused and swept aside some matted vines from the face of what seemed to be a cliff of solid stone. A black opening, large enough to admit a man in a stooping posture, was revealed. Apollo urged Belmont to follow, and then they disappeared beyond the vines, which fell down and hid the opening again. "It's a cave, Merry!" whispered Rattleton. "Yes," nodded Frank; "it may be one of the many entrances to the great cavern of the 'queer' makers. This may lead into the cave occupied by Carter Morris!" "Then let's get in there quick!" exclaimed Harry, eagerly. "If we don't, we may lose track of those men." "We must use something like caution, my boy. If we were to rush in after them, it might do us up, for they may be laying for us." So the mouth of the cave was approached with caution. When they had reached it, Frank listened. From a distance inside he could hear voices, and, peering through the vines, he caught the glimmer of a light. "Come in quickly after me, Harry," he directed. "Be ready to fight for your life if attacked." Rattleton's heart was in his throat, and he felt that they were plunging into unknown and terrible danger, but he said: "Go ahead. I am with you to the end." Gently and swiftly Frank made the opening in the vines larger, and then he quickly stepped through, holding them aside for his friend to follow. The vines fell back into place, and the lad crouched close to the ground. "There," said Frank, "see that light? It is not a torch." "No. It seems to be some sort of lamp." "It is a miner's lamp. Look--another is being lighted." A match flared up, and its bright glow revealed the pale and terrible face of the gorilla man, who was lighting the lamp. The lamps were arranged to be placed in the hats of those who carried them, and this was what the two men did with them. When everything was arranged to their satisfaction, Belmont and the dwarf started onward into the cave. "We'll follow them, Harry," said Frank. The light from the lamps made it a comparatively easy task for the boys to accomplish their purpose. Deeper and deeper into the great cave went the two men. Once or twice they stopped and listened. Once the boys distinctly heard Apollo say: "Master, I think I heard a step." "Nonsense!" returned the man, sharply. "You heard nothing." "I am sure I heard something," the dwarf insisted. "Then it was a rat, or, if there are no rats here, it was a piece of falling stone." "It may have been," acknowledged Apollo. Onward they went. Frank and Harry had stopped and were listening. Harry's hands grasped Merriwell's arm, and he was filled with excitement. He drew a breath of relief when the men moved on. "Jy bove--no, by Jove!" he gasped. "I thought the trick was up then!" "Still!" cautioned Frank. "We must not alarm that dwarf too much. He has wonderfully keen ears." The passage, in places, broadened into great chambers, while in other places it narrowed till they were forced to make their way along one at a time. "If we lose sight of those lights we may have some trouble getting out," whispered Harry. "That's so," confessed Merriwell. "I have seen other passages besides the one taken by them." The thought of being lost underground in that great cave was enough to turn them cold with fear. And then, without the least warning, the lights in advance suddenly vanished. "Down!" whispered Merriwell. "I believe they have discovered we are after them. Close to the ground and listen!" Down they crouched, their hearts beating riotously in their bosoms. Not a sound seemed to break the deathlike stillness of the cave. "What's happened?" whispered Harry. "Where have they gone?" "Give it up," answered Frank. "They have disappeared, but that is as much as I know." "Perhaps they are laying for us." But, although they waited a long time, not a sound could they hear save those sounds made by themselves. "I am going ahead," declared Merriwell. "We may run into them." "Got to chance it, old man. That might be better than to have them run away from us. Come on." "I'm with you." Keeping close together, they crept forward slowly, not knowing but they might be attacked at any moment. Of a sudden, Frank gave a gasp and cry. Harry tried to grasp his companion, and then he found himself slipping, sliding, falling. Down they went, getting hold of each other, but being unable to stop their descent. It was impossible to see anything there in that frightful darkness, and that made their peril seem awful indeed. Fortunately their fall was not always direct. There were times when they seemed to be sliding down a steep slope, while dust filled their eyes and mouths, and they were bruised and scratched and robbed of breath. Finally, when it had seemed they would never cease falling, they stopped with a great thump and lay panting side by side. "Great humping misery!" gasped Rattleton, weakly. "Are we diving or are we lead--I mean are we living or are we dead?" "We seem to be living," said Frank, "but we might be better off if we were dead. I think we are in a bad scrape." "What happened to us, anyway?" "We fell." "Or were we pushed?" "There was no pushing about it. We took the tumble ourselves." "You don't suppose the chaps we were following fell down here ahead of us?" "No." "Then what could have become of them?" "They must have turned off into a side passage we did not see. That is the only way I can explain it." "Well, we may not be able to get out of this." "We'll have to get out." "What if we can't?" "We mustn't think of that." "All right; but I can't help it." They sat up and felt of themselves, finding no bones were broken, although they had been bruised somewhat. Harry was about to get on his feet, but Frank would not allow that till he had lighted a match, as there was danger of taking another mad tumble. Frank always carried matches in a watertight case, and he produced and struck one. By the aid of the tiny blaze they first satisfied themselves that they were not on the brink of another descent, and there was no immediate danger of falling again. Then they tried to look around. "Murder!" gasped Harry. "We are in it--bad!" Frank felt that Rattleton was right; without doubt they were in a very bad scrape. But it was Merry's policy to keep up his courage and put on a front, so he joked and laughed as if it were a matter to be made light of. "I don't know how you do it, old man," said Harry, gloomily; "but I can't laugh while we are in this sort of a hole." "We've both been in bad scrapes before. Keep a stiff upper lip. We'll pull out all right. First, we must see if we can scale this place where we fell." Another match was lighted, and they made an examination. It was not long before they were convinced that it was utterly useless to think of trying to get out that way. "Can't be done!" groaned Harry. "Not that way," admitted Frank. "But we'll find a way." "We came here to find the buried heiress, and now we are buried ourselves. That's what I call hard lines." With the aid of their matches, they made their way along slowly, both fearing they might take another fall, and that it might be fatal. "Perhaps it would be the best thing that could happen to us," said Rattleton, dolefully. "It would be a great deal better than starving down here underground." Frank said nothing. He saw their matches were running out, and the thought of being left there in the darkness of that great cavern, with no means of procuring a light of any sort, was overcoming him and making it impossible for him to assume an air of carelessness and merry spirits. Finally, when there were but a few matches left, Frank said: "We'll have to feel our way along and take chances, Harry. I am not going to use up all these matches, for there is no telling how valuable they may be later on." So, clinging to each other, they crept along inch by inch, lost in the Stygian darkness of the great cavern of the Sierras. CHAPTER XVII. BROTHER AND SISTER. "There's a light ahead, Harry!" Frank uttered the words in an excited whisper, after they had been groping their way through the darkness of the great cavern for what seemed to be many hours. Rattleton was greatly agitated. "It is a light, sure!" he panted. "Frank, we're all right at last!" For some time they had heard a strange puffing sound that seemed smothered and far away, like the panting breathing of some subterranean monster. This was accompanied by a singular buzzing roar that sounded very uncanny. "What is it?" asked Rattleton, in awe--"what can it be?" "Give it up," confessed Frank. "Let's find out. Come on." They moved toward the light, and soon they found themselves looking down into a round chamber of the great cavern from a height of many feet. What they saw filled them with inexpressible astonishment. The place was lighted with electric lamps, and down there in the chamber was a steam engine and a small electric dynamo. The engine was running steadily, and the dynamo hummed with a sound about which there now was nothing uncanny. Near the engine, watching it with interest, was the girl of the golden hair. Harry clutched Frank's arm. "There she is!" he panted. "We have found her at last!" They stood in silence for several moments, watching the girl, who looked very pretty beneath the light of the electric lamps. Suddenly a cry came from Harry, and he clutched Merriwell's arm with quivering fingers, pointing with his other hand. "Look! look!" he exclaimed. "The dwarf--there he is!" Sure enough, the crouching figure of Apollo was seen emerging from the darkness of a black opening and advancing toward the girl with swift, catlike steps. The girl had heard Harry's exclamation, and, startled, she looked up toward where the boys were standing. Then the dwarf rushed upon her and clutched her with his iron hands. A scream of terror came from the lips of the frightened girl, and rang in weird echoes through the cave. The hand of Apollo was pressed over her mouth. But that scream had been heard, and there was an answering shout from not very far away. The girl struggled, but the dwarf dragged her along toward the dark opening. "How can we get down there, Frank? We must take a hand! How can we do it? It is too far to jump!" Rattleton was frantic. Frank was looking for some way of getting down into the chamber. Before either of them could discover a means of going to the assistance of the girl, Carter Morris, the strange old hermit, rushed into the cavern. Morris sprang to the aid of the girl, but it seemed Bernard Belmont had been waiting for such a thing to happen, for he leaped out of the darkness and grappled with the hermit. Then a savage battle took place before the eyes of the boys. "Furies!" roared the man of the cave, writhing to break the grasp of his assailant. "Who are you?" The girl got her mouth free from Apollo's hand and screamed: "It is my stepfather--it is Bernard Belmont!" It seemed that those words filled the hermit with a mad frenzy. He struggled furiously, and Belmont was forced to exert all his strength to prevent himself from being overcome, although he was the assailant. "We must go to the rescue, Frank--we must!" palpitated Rattleton. The boys were determined to find a way of getting down into the round chamber, and Frank fancied he saw a manner of descending. It would be necessary to drop at least fifteen feet, but he started to make the attempt and Harry followed. The battle between Belmont and Carter Morris continued with great fury, and Morris seemed to become perfectly mad with rage when he was unable to overcome his assailant. Bit by bit the hermit dragged the man toward the buzzing dynamo, his eyes glowing with an awful purpose. Suddenly he tried to hurl Belmont upon the dynamo. Belmont realized the intention of the man, and a scream of fear escaped him. A moment later both men went down upon the machine! A second they seemed to cling there, and then they were flung off, falling upon the rocky floor of the cavern and lying still, holding fast to each other in death! The girl screamed, and the dwarf seemed overcome with sudden fear. He stared at the contorted face of his dead master, seeming unable to realize what had happened in the twinkling of an eye. Down from the heights above dropped two boys. "Give it to him, Frank!" screamed Harry. They rushed at the dwarf, but, for once in his life, at least, Apollo was mastered by terror, for, with a shout of dismay, he released the girl and fled, disappearing in a hopping, bounding manner into the darkness. Rattleton caught the half-fainting girl in his arms, crying: "Hurrah, Merry, we have found her, and we've saved her!" But she had fainted. When another morning dawned the two boys and the girl left the great cave and started for Carson City. Already had Mildred explained to them how it happened that the steam engine and the dynamo were found in the cavern. The coiners who had occupied that retreat years before had discovered a valuable vein of ore, and they had devised a scheme of mining with the aid of electricity. The engine was brought there to run the dynamo. As a certain portion of the cave yielded coal in liberal quantities, it was not difficult to find fuel for the engine. Carter Morris, being somewhat of an electrician, had put the abandoned machinery in running order when he took possession of the cave. It had been his intention to protect himself from intruders by the aid of electric currents, and he had given Frank and Harry a frightful shock at the mouth of the cavern by means of hidden wires. The electric current had caused his death when he fell upon the dynamo in struggling with Bernard Belmont. The graves of both men were made in the cave, and Little Milly shed tears over the body of her mad uncle, who had sought to befriend her by "burying" her. The hidden bicycles were found, and the sailboat was discovered where the boys had left it. After setting sail to cross the lake, Frank touched Harry's arm and pointed to an object that was floating in the water, at the same time pressing a finger to his lips and shaking his head, with a look toward Milly. Harry looked and started, for he saw the ghastly, upturned face of Apollo, the dwarf, the scar on his cheek having turned a purplish blue. The girl did not see this object, and the boys believed it far better to leave the dwarf than to horrify her by letting her see the body. Carson was reached without further adventure, and there a joyous surprise awaited Mildred Morris. Jack Diamond met the little party outside the hotel. "Where are Toots and Bruce?" asked Frank, in a low voice. "Standing guard, as you directed," said Jack. "We have taken turns since you went away, and he has not been left alone a moment." "How is he?" "Better--much better. The doctor says he thinks he'll come around all right." Then Frank and Harry accompanied Milly to a certain room of the hotel. Browning and the colored boy were called out of the room, and Merriwell said to the girl: "Go in, Miss Morris. There's some one in there who will be glad to see you." He held the door open, and urged her gently into the room. A moment later there was a cry of joy--two cries--a rush. Then, peering in at the door for a moment, the delighted lads saw Milly spring toward the bed and clasp her living brother in her arms. Frank closed the door. Immediately Toots danced a wild cancan of delight. "Golly sakes teh goodness!" he chuckled. "Dat gal sho' am a peach. I'd jes' lek teh take dat sick boy's place 'bout five minutes. Yah! yah! yah! Oh, mommer!" The boy whom Mildred had rushed to meet was her brother, George, who was not dead, but had fainted at sight of his cruel stepfather and the dwarf. Belmont had thought the boy dead, and had left Carson without delay, much to the satisfaction of Frank Merriwell. And now the doctor who was attending George said the boy had a fair show to recover. "Say," observed Diamond, suddenly, "the buried heiress is out of sight! I think I will----" "If you try it," spluttered Rattleton, menacingly, "I'll hake your bread--I mean I'll break your head! I saw her first, and I have first claim there!" "Break away, there, you chumps," laughed Frank. "We have business first, you know. We must speed on toward California and bring this wonderful trip of ours to a successful finish. Onward is the cry." That afternoon they bade farewell to George and Mildred, and rode away, sorry indeed at the parting. CHAPTER XVIII. OLD FRIENDS. "We are a set of jolly, jolly lads, As we ride--as we ride away! You bet we're up to date, but are no cads, As we ride--as we ride away! We've crossed the plains and scaled the Rockies high, And now hurrah! for 'Frisco's town is nigh; We sing as toward that port we swiftly fly, As we ride--as we ride away!" Through a California forest of monster trees our five boys were riding, and they sang as they rode, their voices blending beautifully and making the old woods echo with sweet music. To them it seemed that all the perils of the trip were past and San Francisco was in view, although in truth, it was more than two hundred miles away by the route they would be compelled to follow. It was a perfect day, with the sun shining from a cloudless sky, as it always seems to shine in California. It was warm, but not too hot for comfort, and the road through the forest was fairly good, winding to the right and then to the left beneath the shadows of the great trees. "If this road wasn't so crooked, we wouldn't have to travel so far," groaned Browning, his manner being so dismal that the others broke into a shout of laughter. "You shouldn't kick about this road," smiled Frank. "I've seen a road much more crooked than this." "It must have been pretty crooked." "It was so crooked that when you started to ride on it you'd meet yourself coming back." "Yow!" whooped Rattleton. "That's the worst I ever heard! A man should be put behind bars for perpetrating anything like that." "I don't think I'd like to be put behind bars," confessed Merry. "Huah!" grunted Bruce. "There are others. Why, I know fellows who want to be in front of bars all the time." "You mean they drink incessantly?" "No, I mean they drink whiskey." "Yah! yah! yah!" shouted Toots, his shrill laugh awaking the echoes. "Nebber heard Mistah Brownin' say nuffin' funny as dat befo'! Dat teks de cake!" "I wouldn't mind taking a small cake," said the big fellow. "This California air makes me hungry." "Land ob wartermillions! yo's alwus hungry, Mistah Brownin', sar. Yo's been eatin' all de way 'crost de country." "That's right," was Browning's confession. "And there was one strip of country where they didn't seem to have anything to eat but corn beef and cabbage. I actually ate so much corn beef and cabbage that I was ashamed to look a cow in the face." "Well, we'll soon be in San Francisco, the greatest city in all this Western land," put in Frank. "There we can get almost any kind of feed we like. Why, I know a restaurant where we'll be able to get 'genuine Boston baked beans.'" "You know a place?" questioned Diamond. "You know? Look here, Frank Merriwell, what is there you don't know about? Have you been everywhere and seen everything?" "Not by a long distance, but I have been in San Francisco." "Well, it seems to me that we never mention a place that you don't know all about. You were perfectly familiar with Carson City." "Yes, I had been there before, and it is a place I shall not soon forget, for it was there I last saw my old chum of Fardale, Bart Hodge." "You have spoken of him often of late." "Yes; I have been thinking of him very much. It is natural, as I am near where I saw him last. Dear old fellow! How we fought in the old days when we first met! And, after that, what firm friends we became! Hodge had his failings, but he was white at heart. He would lay down his life for a friend. His parents were wealthy, and they had indulged him in everything he desired, till he was completely spoiled and they could do nothing with him. Fardale was noted as a place where just such fellows were taken and broken into the traces, and so his father sent him there. Hodge didn't do a thing at first--oh, no! not a thing! He raised merry thunder, and he hated me with a virulent hatred. He tried to injure me in every way he could devise, but when I pulled him out of several bad scrapes, incidentally saving his life, he began to see that he was in the wrong. He had a fierce battle to overcome his natural inclination to do dirty things, but overcome it he did, and he became fairly popular in time, although no one knew him and understood him like myself. Between us there was a perfect understanding, and I could control him when he would not listen to reason from any other person." "I believe you were stuck on Hodge!" said Diamond, somewhat piqued. "No more than I am on any of my true friends," answered Frank. "It seems you put yourself to lots of trouble with him." "I did; but I fancied there was the making of a fine man in him, and I felt that it was a shame to see a chap go to the dogs. Several times he came near being fired from Fardale, for they could do nothing with him. If he had been fired, his father would have forced him to hustle for himself. With a boy of Hodge's nature that must have meant ruin, as he would have fallen in with fast companions, would have required money, and would have obtained it by some means or other. If his companions had been crooked, Hodge, although his nature would have rebelled against anything dishonest, would have become crooked also. He told me that, and he said I was his good angel." "Hang it, Merry!" spluttered Rattleton; "you've been a good angel for lots of us. It seems that every fellow who sticks by you gets on better than he ever did before." "I'm a mascot," laughed Frank. "Follow me and you'll wear diamonds--or something else." "There's no doubt about it," grunted Browning. "We'll be arrested if we don't. Can't go naked in this country." "Yah!" cried Toots. "Don' yo' try so hard to say somefin' funny, Mistah Brownin', fo' dat is where yo' meks a mistook, sar. Yo' falls do'n on yo'se'f, an' yo' don' get funny at all." "Thanks, my colored counsellor," murmured the big fellow. "You have a shocking habit of giving advice when it isn't asked. I wouldn't do it so much if I were you." "Choke off, Toots," advised Frank. "All right, sar--all right," muttered the colored boy; "but I knows what I knows--yes, sar. It done do some of de crowd good if dey took mah advice, sar." The boys admired the trees and the weather, and they were supremely happy. All were hearty and healthy, with muscles as hard as iron and eyes clear as the eagle's. Browning, although still stout and sturdy, had worked himself down to a hard, healthy condition, and was really a stunningly handsome fellow. There was about him a suggestion of great strength, and almost any man might have hesitated about facing him in anger. As Merriwell was one who constantly kept himself in perfect condition, it cannot be said that he was looking better than when the party left New York, although he, like the others, was tanned by exposure to all sorts of weather. As the party came around a bend of the road, they saw another young bicyclist, who was standing beside his wheel, somewhat uneasily regarding their approach. "Hello!" exclaimed Diamond. "Here's a fellow traveler." Frank took off his cap and waved it about his head, but the stranger did not answer the salute. "Some way he doesn't seem at all pleased to see us," said Rattleton. "It may be the way with Californians," said Diamond. "Anyhow we'll stop and ask him a few questions," Merriwell said. "At least, he can't refuse to answer us, if we are civil." So, as the boys came up, they slackened their speed and prepared to dismount. To their surprise the stranger made preparations to mount, as if he contemplated riding away if they stopped. "He's going to run away," grunted Bruce, in disgust. "Hold on," urged Merriwell, addressing the stranger. "We want to talk with you." Then the boys sprang off their wheels. To their surprise, the stranger suddenly held out his hand, almost shouting: "It is Frank Merriwell, or my eyes can't see straight!" "Bart Hodge, as I live!" cried Frank, grasping the outstretched hand. CHAPTER XIX. BART HODGE MAKES A CONFESSION. It was Bart Hodge! How they did shake hands! Strangely enough, neither of them laughed, but there was a look of joy on their faces that told of satisfaction and delight too great for laughter. "Merriwell, old man," said Hodge, his voice unsteady with emotion, "I can scarcely believe it is true! It seems too good to be true!" "Hodge!" exclaimed Frank, "there is fate in this. I was speaking of you not more than ten minutes ago." "Speaking of me?" "Sure." "Then you had not forgotten me?" "Forgotten you?" came reproachfully from Frank--"you should know I am not the kind of fellow to forget my friends." "That's right," nodded Bart, quickly; "you always did stick to your friends through thick and thin." "Yes, through thick and thin, old chum." "But it is most astonishing to see you away out here in this part of the country. Where did you drop from?" "Oh, we are on a little run across the country," smiled Merry. "We started from New York, and we're bound for San Francisco. Permit me to introduce my friends." Then he presented the others of the party in turn, and Bart shook hands with them all, expressing his satisfaction at meeting them, but seeming rather reserved and uneasy. Frank observed that Hodge turned his head to glance down the road now and then as if expecting the appearance of some one or something. "So you're Hart Bodge--I mean Bart Hodge?" said Harry, as he was introduced. "Well, I'm glad to know you. Merry has talked about you ever since I first met him at Yale. He has told everything about you." "If that is true, I'm afraid you have not formed a very good opinion of me," said Hodge, somewhat gloomily. "On the contrary, I have formed a very good opinion of you," assured Rattleton. "Then it can't be Merry has told you everything." Frank was not a little surprised by Bart's manner, for Hodge had been a fellow who could not easily suppress his self-conceit, and it had always been his desire to impress strangers with the idea that he was something quite out of the ordinary. A vague feeling that something was wrong with Bart seized upon Merriwell. "You're not well, old man," he said. "I know it. Don't say you are." "Never was better in all my life." "But something is the trouble--I can see that." "Oh, no!" assured Bart; "you are mistaken, I assure you." But, for all of these words, Frank was not satisfied, as Bart's manner had plainly betrayed the fact that he was trying to conceal something. "Which way are you traveling?" Frank asked. "East." "Too bad! We are going the other way, and I hoped you'd go along." "Oh, no! it is impossible," Hodge quickly asserted. "Business important?" "Well, it is--er--somewhat so." "Where are you from last?" "Oh, I've been traveling--yes, traveling," answered Bart, vaguely. "Now, look here!" cried Merry, decisively; "you've got to travel with us, old man. I won't take no for an answer, for I believe you can do it. You'll turn about and go to San Francisco with us." "That's right; come on," cried the others. Bart shook his head. "Can't do it--I can't. You don't know--I can't explain--now." "Do you think this is using me just right?" asked Frank, reproachfully. "You'll find us a jolly crowd, and we'll have dead loads of sport. We've made a quick run across, and we can take our time going back. None of the fellows are obliged to hurry home. Come along with us, Bart, and we'll do you good." Something like a smile flitted over Hodge's serious face. "You are the same old Merriwell," he said. "It has done me good to see you a little while, Frank." "It will do you more good to see me longer, and it'll do me good to have you come with me. Come along." Bart wavered. It was plain enough that he longed to go, but, for some reason, he hesitated. Frank passed an arm about Hodge's shoulders, saying, gently but firmly: "You've got to do it; you can't get out of it, old chum." A wave of feeling fled across Hodge's face, and there was something like a suspicious quiver of his sensitive chin. "You do not understand," he slowly murmured. "I'd like to have a talk with you, Frank. I--I might tell you----" "That's right," said Harry, heartily. "Old friends like you chaps want a chance to talk over old matters and things. Excuse us. We're going to find a chance to stretch our weary limbs on the ground. Browning has an attack of that tired feeling, and he will fall asleep in his tracks if he doesn't recline without delay." "Huah!" grunted Bruce. Then the boys withdrew, leaving Hodge and Merriwell together. Bart seemed embarrassed and uneasy. He glanced at Frank slyly, as if in doubt, which Merry did not fail to note, although pretending not to observe it. They sat down near the foot of a monster tree, against which they could lean in a comfortable position as they chatted. The great forest of redwood trees was all about them, and a Sabbath peace brooded over the gentle slope of the Sierras. "Well, Bart," said Frank, insinuatingly, "I trust things are going well with you?" A sudden change came over Hodge. A fierce look of rage came to his face and his eyes blazed, while his voice was harsh and unpleasant, as he cried: "Things are not going well with me! Everything has gone wrong! Oh, I've had infernal luck! I know I was born under an unlucky star, and the only time I ever did get along was when you and I were together at Fardale." "Then stick by me, and change your luck again." "I'd like to do it, but you are going the wrong way." "What's the odds? There is no reason why you should not turn back and----" "There is a reason." "Of course I do not know about that, but----" "Listen, Frank; you remember Isa Isban?" "Yes, and Vida Milburn, Isa's half-sister, with whom you were in love. I distinctly remember that Vida was a beautiful and charming girl." Hodge's teeth ground together with a nerve-tingling, grating sound, and his face was set as stone, although his eyes still blazed. "Yes, a beautiful girl--a charming girl!" he admitted, but with sarcasm that could not be mistaken. "What's the matter? Where is Vida now?" "I don't know, and I don't care a rap!" "Oh, say! I think I tumble. It is a case of lovers' quarrel. Now, now, now! Don't be foolish, my boy! It will come out all right. You know true love persistently refuses to run smooth. You'll make it all up in time." Hodge grinned, but there was nothing of mirth in the expression. It seemed to Frank as if some wild animal had shown its teeth. "Oh, yes, it will come out all right!" he sneered. "We'll make it all up in time! It's too late, Merriwell." "You think so, that's all." "I know so. She's married!" Frank gasped. "Married?" "Yes." "Married? Why, she is a mere girl! And you--where do you come in?" "I'm not in it, and I think I'm lucky. That's not worrying me." "But how--how did it happen? Why did you throw her over? or why did she go back on you?" "I'm not going to tell the whole story now, Frank; but the fact is that she lacked faith in me. I rather think I'm dead lucky to get out of it, for she was rather weak and fickle. You know her half-sister, Isa Isban, although stunningly handsome, is wild and reckless. She was married to a gambler and maker of crooked money." "But he is dead--was shot, and Isa disappeared." "Well, she has reappeared, but I'll tell you about that later. It's Vida I wish to tell you about now. You know Vida's old uncle and aunt never did have a high opinion of me." "Not till they discovered that you were a brave and honorable fellow. Then they seemed to turn about and think you one of the finest chaps in the world." "They got over it," Hodge sneered. "They came to think me anything but brave and honorable. They believed me a drunkard, a gambler and a thief!" Frank was shocked, and he showed it. "Impossible!" he cried. "How could they think such a thing of you? They had no reason to think so!" Bart turned crimson till it extended all over his face and neck. "You don't know, Merry," he muttered, positively showing shame. "I'm not like you--I make a bad break sometimes. It is hard for me to resist temptation, and--well, I was tempted, and I succumbed. That's all." "Succumbed? What do you mean? I know your heart is right, old fellow, and you did not do anything wrong intentionally." "Appearances were against me--I confess it. First--well, I was seen drunk. That is, I seemed to be drunk, but I swear to you that I had not taken but one drink, and that was not enough to knock out a ten-year-old boy. It was drugged, Frank--I know it!" "Drugged? Who did such a villainous trick?" "My enemy--a young fellow who loved Vida. He has a father who's got the rocks. He's older than I, and I thought him my friend. I met him at her home. His name is Hart Davis." "The whelp! But did Vida see you?" "Yes. I had been out with Davis that night. In the morning I was found on the steps of Vida's home, apparently dead drunk." "How came you there?" "I didn't know at the time. Since then--well, it is settled in my mind. Davis said I left him to go to the place where I was boarding in Carson City. He said I seemed to be all right when I left him, and so he let me go. He appeared very shocked to think such a misfortune had happened me: but--burn him!--I believe he gave me knock-out drops--I believe he carried me to that house--I believe he left me on the steps, where I was found!" Frank's eyes were blazing now, and the look on his expressive face told how he felt toward Mr. Hart Davis. "And did Vida throw you over for that?" he asked, in an indignant manner. "Not entirely for that. She was very shocked and cold toward me, but when I was arrested----" "Arrested?" gasped Frank. "Arrested for what?" "For stealing a watch." CHAPTER XX. FRANK BECOMES ALARMED. "For stealing?" Frank's astonishment was so great that he found it difficult to utter the words. "Yes," nodded Bart, gloomily, "for stealing a watch." "But--but I know you never did such a----The man who would think such a thing ought to be shot!" "The watch was found on my person," said Bart, slowly. "Found on you, was it? I don't care! I know you didn't steal it. Nothing could make me believe that." A gleam of satisfaction seemed to pierce the fierce look on Hodge's face, as a shaft of sunshine sometimes pierces a black and sullen cloud. "You are right, Merriwell," he said; "I did not steal it. Give me your hand. Oh, it is good--so good to have some one in the world who has confidence in me! It has seemed of late that everybody was down on me." He grasped Frank's hand, and pressed it warmly. "You have been up against hard luck, old friend," came feelingly from Frank. "And the girl shook you quite after you were arrested?" "Yes." "Were you tried?" "Yes." "Convicted?" "No." "Still she threw you over?" "She did." "Well, you are dead lucky! Such a girl is not worth thinking about! Don't let that break you up, Hodge." "Wait," said Bart. "I have not told you all." "Go on." "I was arrested in one of the most notorious gambling houses in Carson." It was plain that the confession cost Hodge much, for his shame was evident, and he hastily added: "Give it to me, Merriwell! I deserve it! Blow me up!" "I shall do nothing of the kind," said Frank, slowly, "although I am very sorry to hear what you have told me. Were you in that house to play?" "Yes." "That is the bad part of it, for you know you can't let gambling alone once you get at it. I had hoped you were free of your old bad habits." "You never hoped so more than I!" cried Bart. "But it's no use--I can't reform. Davis induced me to go to the gambling house, and then he dropped me like a live coal when I was pinched." "But you said they proved nothing against you." "No, they could not prove anything, for I proved that I bought the watch of a young man who offered it to me at a bargain. That cleared me of that charge." "But Vida Milburn threw you down just as hard?" "Yes." "Why?" "Don't you see, I was arrested in a gambling house while playing roulette. She had seen me when I appeared to be drunk. That was enough. Even though I did not steal, I drank and gambled. Her aunt forbade her seeing me. She sent back my presents, and told me we must become as strangers. Two months later she married Hart Davis." Frank's hand fell on the shoulder of his old-time friend. "It was hard luck, Hodge," he said, in a straightforward manner, "and you were not entirely blameless. At the same time, it is certain that girl did not care for you as she should, and she might have made you miserable if you had won her. The girl who really loves a fellow will believe in him and his honor till there is not a single tattered remnant of his reputation to which she can pin her faith. I tell you, old chum, you may congratulate yourself that you got off as you did." "I have tried to do so," said Hodge, "and I resolved to be a man and forget her. But it was harder to forget than I dreamed, and then, when I was beginning to forget, that other came upon me again." "That other? What other?" "Her half-sister." "Isa Isban?" "Yes." "You met Isa?" "In Sacramento." "And she looks as she did long ago--just as handsome?" "A hundred times more so!" cried Bart, his eyes kindling and a flush suffusing his cheeks. "Merriwell, she is the handsomest girl I ever knew!" Frank whistled, regarding Bart searchingly and uneasily. "What's this? what's this?" he exclaimed. "What has she been doing with you? Why, hang me if I don't believe--I know you were hard hit by her!" "I was," confessed Bart, flushing still more. "When I first saw her I thought her Vida, but she seemed to have grown more beautiful than ever, and I could not help looking at her. Then I discovered there was a difference--I saw it was not Vida but Isa. When I spoke to her she remembered me, and then--well, we became very friendly. I told her everything, and she laughed. She said Vida was too soft for anything--said the old aunt made Vida do anything she wished, and the girl hadn't spirit enough to do as she desired. She said she would stick to a fellow if she loved him even though he were jailed for twenty years. There was spirit, dash, go about her, Merriwell! She fascinated me. I saw in her what I had missed in Vida." Frank shook his head in a very sober manner. "My dear fellow," he said, "do you remember Isa had a husband?" "Yes, but he is dead," said Bart, quickly. "I know that; but do you remember the sort of fellow he was?" "Of course; he was a counterfeiter." "Exactly, and Isa 'shoved the queer' for him. She didn't do a thing to me the first time we met. I changed a fifty-dollar bill for her, and when I tried to pass the bill I came near being arrested. You remember that?" "Sure." "I hardly think that is the sort of girl you wish to get stuck on, old boy." "I don't know about that," said Bart, rather defiantly. "She stuck to her husband through thick and thin, and I think all the more of her for it." Frank was alarmed. "My dear fellow," he cried, "you are an easy mark. That girl is shrewd--altogether too shrewd for you to match your wits against hers. She will play you for a fool--I am sure of it." Bart reddened again and then turned very pale, his manner indicating great embarrassment. He drew from Frank a bit, and something in his air added to Merriwell's alarm. "I hope you haven't been very friendly with Isa Isban," Frank said. "I might have been more friendly, but she had a foolish idea that it would injure me if I were seen with her often." "She had such an idea?" "Yes; and that goes to show the girl's heart is all right. She had consideration for me." Frank bit his lip and scowled. "It is remarkable," he confessed. "Are you sure it was out of consideration for you that she did not wish you seen with her?" "Sure? Of course." "It seems strange. It seems that the kind of life she has led with that reckless coiner husband would be sure to make her careless of others--make her hard and heartless." "It is not strange you think so, Merriwell; but it is because you do not know her. I honor and respect her for standing by her husband, even when she knew he was a rascal, and I believe she has a heart and soul a thousand times more noble than the heart and soul of her half-sister." "Bad, bad!" exclaimed Frank. "Look here, Bart, you must go along with me. That is settled. Isa Isban will ruin you if you do not escape from her influence." A look of indignation settled on Hodge's face, and he drew away. "If you knew her well, Frank, I would not pardon you for saying that about her; but, as you know nothing about her, I will overlook it. But, old fellow, please don't speak of Miss Isban in that way." "Miss Isban? Her name is Mrs. Scott; her husband's name was Paul Scott." "I know, but she has resumed her maiden name since his death. She calls herself Miss Isban now. You should see her, Merriwell. She looks like a sweet girl graduate--a girl of eighteen, and----" "She must be twenty-one or two." "I don't know, and I don't care. She does not look it, and I believe she is a splendid girl. I honor and respect her." "Great Scott!" thought Frank; "Hodge is in the greatest peril of his life! I am sure of it. I am sure that girl will work his utter downfall if he is not saved from her influence. It is my duty to find a way to save him. I will!" When Frank made up his mind to do a thing, he bent all his energies to accomplish the end. In the past Hodge had been easily influenced, but he felt sure Isa Isban had a hold on the lad that could not be broken with ease. The task must be accomplished by clever work. "Where is she now?" Merry asked. "I don't know." "Don't? How is that?" "Well, you see, I--I left Sacramento rather--rather suddenly," faltered Bart. "Suddenly? Explain it, old chum. Why did you leave Sacramento suddenly? I trust you did not get into trouble there?" Hodge ground his heel into the ground, seeming quite occupied in digging a hole in that manner. Suddenly he started and listened. "A horse is coming this way--up the trail!" he exclaimed. "It is coming at a hot pace, as if hard ridden." "Let it come. That needn't bother us. Answer my questions, Bart. You know I am your friend, and there should be perfect trust and no secrets between close friends." But Hodge did not seem to hear those words. He was listening to the hoofbeats of the galloping horse, and his face had grown pale. "Look here, Merriwell," he hastily exclaimed, "the rider of that horse may be a person I do not care to meet." Bart got up hastily, and Frank arose, saying: "You needn't be afraid of him. The other boys are good fighters, and there is no single man in this country that can do you up while you are with this crowd. We will stand by you." "It's not that; you don't understand. I must not be seen. I'll get out of sight, and you must bluff him off, if he asks about me. That's all. Here he comes!" A glimpse of the horseman was obtained as he flitted along between the great trees. Immediately Hodge slipped behind a tree, and lost no time in getting out of view. The horseman came on swiftly, and the boys saw that he was a large man with a grizzled beard that had once been coal black. He was roughly dressed, with his pantaloons tucked into his boots. As he approached the man eyed the boys closely. Close at hand he drew up, saying in a harsh voice: "Wa-al, who are you, and whatever are yer doing here?" CHAPTER XXI. ARREST AND ESCAPE. Frank was inclined to resent the stranger's words and manner. "I don't understand how that concerns you, sir," he said, rather stiffly. "Hey," cried the man, glaring at Merry. "Don't git insolent, youngster! I don't like it." "Your question was impertinent." "Whatever is that? Be careful. I don't want any foolin'." Frank smiled at this, which seemed to make the horseman angry. "Hang ye!" he exclaimed. "You want to be respectful, for you're liable to get into trouble with me, and you won't like that." "Shoo fly!" chuckled Toots, showing his big white teeth in a grin. "G'way dar, man! Yo' gibs me de fever an' chillins." "Wa-al, dern me!" roared the man, growing very red in the face. "It's the first time an ordinary nigger ever dared to speak to Bill Higgins that way." "Hole on, sar! I ain't no ordumnary nigger, sar. I's a cullud gemman ob 'stinction, sar, an' po' white trash cayarn't talk to me lek dat--no, sar!" "Choke off that critter!" growled the man, addressing Frank. "If yer don't, I'll shoot him full of holes!" "I wouldn't advise you to do that," came calmly from Merriwell. "You might get into serious trouble if you did." "Trouble?--trouble over shootin' a nigger?" snorted the stranger. "Wa-al, I think not! I've got the record of killin' a dozen white men, and----" "Thirteen is an unlucky number you know. Without doubt you will be hanged, as you deserve, when you kill the thirteenth one." "Mebbe so, but a nigger won't count. I'll bore him if he opens his trap again!" "Land ob mercy!" gurgled Toots, dodging behind a tree. "Dat man am crazzy fo' suah! Look out fo' him, chilluns; dar am no tellin' when he'll tek a noshun inter his fool haid teh shoot you all." "You must be a very bad man," said Merriwell, sarcastically. "I am; and now yer realize it, mebbe you'll have a little more respect. Who be yer? an' what're yer doing here?" "If you will show that you have any right to ask those questions, I will answer them." "Right! Why, hang it! I'm ther sheriff of this county!" "Well, what have we done that the sheriff of this county or any other county in California should come around and demand our names, as if we were criminals?" "Ye're suspicious characters." "Is that it? And we look like dangerous criminals?" "I've seen fellows what didn't look more dangerous than you as was rather tough." "Well, we are not tough, and we have no reason for concealing our names." Then Frank gave the name of each of the boys, pointing them out as he did so, and told how they happened to be in California. Bill Higgins, as the man had called himself, listened and looked them over. His manner seemed to change, and he said: "You tell that pretty straight, and I reckon you're not giving me a crooked deal, but whar's to' other one?" "What other one?" "The one what owns the other bisuckle. Thar's only five of you, and here are six bisuckles." The keen eyes of the sheriff made this discovery, and Frank realized that Hodge's wheel should have been concealed. "Oh, the other fellow has just stepped aside to look at the big trees," he explained. "This is the first time we have ever seen trees like these. They are wonders, sir. Do you have them all over the State? How tall are they? Can you give us the dimensions of the largest tree discovered in this State? We desire some information concerning them." "I see ye do," said Higgins, with sarcasm, "an' I desire a little information myself. You'll answer my questions." Frank feared his ruse would fail, but he suavely said: "Oh, certainly--of course, sir. We shall be pleased to answer your questions. Do these trees make good timber for building purposes? Are they difficult to work up? How thick is the bark? And how----" "That'll do!" roared the sheriff, fiercely. "I'm no bureau of information. Whar is the other feller?" Frank assumed a dignified and injured air. "As you do not seem inclined to answer my questions, I must decline to answer yours," he said, coldly. "If you will drive along, it will be agreeable to us." Higgins showed his yellow teeth through his grizzled beard. "Oh-ho!" he grated. "So that's the trick. Wa-al, I know t'other chap is near, an' I'm goin' ter see him. That is settled." Off his horse he sprang, leaving the animal to stand, and then, to the surprise of all, he ran to the tree behind which Bart was concealed, dashed around it, and gave a shout of triumph. A moment later the sheriff reappeared, dragging Hodge by the collar. "Don't try ter git away!" he commanded. "If ye do, you'll be sorry. I don't fool with a critter of your caliber." "Let go!" cried Bart, indignantly. "What are you trying to do with me? Take your hands off, sir!" "Not till I lodge ye behind bars, young feller. You're under arrest, so cool down and keep still." "Why am I arrested?" "Oh, you don't know; oh, no!" "Answer my question, sir! Why am I arrested?" "Now, don't go to gettin' funny and givin' orders. It ain't necessary to answer." Frank stepped forward. "It is no more than right that you should tell me why you have arrested my friend, sir," he said. "Ho! ho!" cried the sheriff. "So he is your friend! I thought as much! Well, don't you get too frisky, or I may take a notion to arrest you, too." "Such a thing would be an outrage, and I believe you have perpetrated an outrage in arresting Mr. Hodge." "I don't care what you think!" "At the same time, I see no reason why you should refuse to tell me why you have arrested him." "Jive him gesse--I mean give him Jesse!" fluttered Rattleton, as he sought Frank's side. "You know we will stand by you, old man. If you say the word, we'll take Hodge away from him." Bill Higgins' ears were sharp, and he caught the words. Like a flash he whipped out a huge revolver, which he held in a menacing manner, while he growled: "Thirteen may be an unlucky number, but skin me if I don't make it thirteen or more if you chaps tries the trick!" He looked as if he meant what he said. "Steady, fellows," warned Merriwell, as the boys gathered at his back, ready for anything. "Don't be hasty." "It won't be good fer yer if you are!" muttered Higgins. "We can take Hodge away from him--I know we can!" whispered Diamond, eagerly. "Say the word, and we'll jump him!" "That's right," nodded Browning, with deliberation. Higgins backed off a bit, still holding fast to Hodge, and handling his revolver threateningly. "Blamed if I don't take the whole gang in!" he shouted. "I reckon you're all standin' in together with this feller." "You will have a warm time taking in this crowd," said Frank, quickly. "We are friends of Mr. Hodge, and therefore we think it no more than right that we should know why he is arrested." "If that's goin' to satisfy ye, you shall know. He's arrested for shovin' the queer." "Shoving--the--queer?" "That's whatever!" "But--but there must be a mistake." "Bill Higgins never makes mistakes." Frank was shocked, stunned. He looked at Bart, and Hodge's face, which had been pale, turned crimson with apparent shame. It was like a blow to Merriwell, for the conviction that Hodge was guilty came over him. "It was that wretched girl--she did it!" he thought. "She has led him into this. She has influenced him to put out some of that bogus money, and he, like the infatuated fool that he was, did it willingly. Oh, it is a shame!" Bart stole a glance at Frank, and saw by the expression of Merry's face that he was convinced of his folly. Immediately Hodge seemed to wilt, as if hope had gone out of him. The color left his face, and it became wan and drawn, with an expression of anguish that aroused Frank's deepest pity. "I don't care!" Merriwell mentally exclaimed. "He did it because he was hypnotized--because her influence compelled him to do so. If he is brought to trial now it will mean his utter ruin. What can I do for him? Can I do anything?" Bart saw the change that came over Frank's face, but did not understand what it meant. Instead, noticing a hard, determined look, he fancied his former friend was hardening his heart against him. Of a sudden Hodge gave the sheriff a shove and trip, sending him sprawling on the ground, his revolver being discharged as he fell. Fortunately the bullet harmed no one. Like a flash, the desperate boy darted away. He caught his wheel, which stood against a tree, and was on it in a moment. His feet caught the pedals, and away he went down the road. Bill Higgins scrambled up, uttering language that was shocking to hear. "The cursed whelp!" he roared. "He can't ride faster than bullets can travel! I'll fill him full of lead!" Then he flung up the revolver. Merriwell was quite as swift in his movements. "No, you don't!" With that cry on his lips, Frank knocked the weapon aside just as it was discharged, and the bullet sped skyward through the tree tops. Then Bill Higgins whirled and tried to shoot the boy who had saved Bart Hodge, but the heavy fist of Bruce Browning fell on his temple, and he dropped like a log to the ground. Frank picked up the sheriff's revolver, which had fallen from his hand, and, when Higgins sat up, he found himself looking into the muzzle of his own weapon. "Get out!" Merriwell uttered the words, and Higgins took the hint. "All right," he snarled; "but this doesn't end it! I'll make all of yer suffer fer this!" He arose, mounted his waiting horse, and galloped away after Hodge. CHAPTER XXII. ISA ISBAN. Late that same afternoon the five boys were riding westward, when Frank said: "Something mysterious has happened, fellows." "What is it?" asked Jack, who was instantly interested in any mystery. "A short time ago I saw a horseman away down the road here." "Yes." "He was coming toward us." "Well?" "We have not met him." "No." "Look--the road lies before us for a mile. Where is he?" "Not in sight, that is sure." "He must have turned off somewhere," said Rattleton. "That is true, but we have seen no road that turned off from this." "Perhaps he saw us and turned aside to avoid us." "Or it may have been Bill Higgins, the sheriff, and he is lying in wait to arrest us all," suggested Browning. "It was not Higgins," assured Merriwell. "It was a young man, I am sure, although I obtained but a glimpse of him through the trees. We have passed no house since then." "Never mind him," said Harry. "We must find a place to stop for the night." "I wish we might learn what has happened to Hodge before we stop. I don't believe Higgins recaptured him." "It's ten chances to one we'll never hear anything more about him while we are in California." "I know that, and I am sorry. I wanted to keep him with us, for he is in great need of friends to straighten him up. He has fallen in with bad companions, and they are ruining him." "I should say so!" exclaimed Diamond. "He is a fool to let himself be worked by a girl." "Don't take Hodge for a fool, Jack. He is anything but a fool, but he is easily influenced, and he is proud and passionate. Fairly started on the wrong road, he may go to ruin in a hurry. If we could get him out of this State--save him from arrest! Should he be arrested, tried and condemned, it would mean his utter and complete ruin. After serving a term in prison, he would feel the disgrace so deeply that nothing could save him." "Well, you have taken a big contract if you are going to try to save him now," Diamond declared. "It might be done, but----Hello! this looks like a path." Frank was off his wheel in a moment, and he quickly decided that a path led from the regular trail into the dark shadows to the forest to the northward. "Wonder where it would take us," he muttered. And then, seized by a sudden inspiration, he cried: "Come on, fellows; let's go on an exploring expedition." Diamond protested, and Browning growled after his usual lazy manner, but Frank was supported by Rattleton and Toots, and the majority ruled. The path, where it turned off from the road, seemed to be somewhat hidden, but it soon became plain enough, and they were able to ride along in single file, Merriwell leading. They had proceeded in this manner about a mile when they came in sight of a small cabin that was set down in a little hollow amid the trees. The place looked lonely and deserted, but Frank rode straight toward it, and the others followed. The boys dismounted before the cabin, and Merriwell rapped loudly on the door. He was forced to knock three times before he obtained a response. The door opened slowly, and a bent and feeble-looking man with dirty white hair looked at them. "Who are you?" he asked, in a cracked voice, suspicion showing plainly in his eyes, which were bright and clear for all of his age. "Travelers," replied Frank, cheerfully. "We were passing, and, as night is at hand, we decided to ask shelter here." "It is useless to ask," the man declared, with a shake of his head. "I can't keep you. It is very strange that you should be passing this place. The road does not come within a mile of here." "That is true, but we found a path, and became convinced that it must lead to a house, so here we are." "You have had your trouble for nothing; I shall not keep you." "Hospitable old man!" murmured Browning, sarcastically. Despite his age, the man was not hard of hearing, for he caught the big fellow's words and shot him a look. "Surely you will not turn us away now," urged Frank. "It will be dark by the time we reach the road again." "That is nothing to me." The old man was about to close the door, when, to the astonishment of the boys, a musical, girlish voice said: "Let them stop here, Drew. I know one of the young gentlemen." The bicyclists looked at each other inquiringly, wondering which one of them the owner of the voice could know. They all felt a thrill, for this added zest and romance to the little adventure. "Am I dreaming?" whispered Bruce; "or did I hear the gentle ripple of a female voice?" "Smoly hoke!" gasped Harry. "To find a girl in this spone lot--I mean lone spot! It is a marvel!" "An' dat voice oh hers am lek honeydew from heabben, chilluns--'deed it am!" gurgled Toots, poetically. The old man seemed astonished and in doubt. "Do you mean it, my dear?" he asked. "It was on your account----" "Never mind me, Drew," came back that musical voice. "It would be a shame to turn them away." "But--but----" "There are no buts about it!" cried the voice sharply, almost angrily. "You have heard what I said! They may stop here." "All right--all right, if you say so. There's nothing for them to eat, and so----" "I'll cook something, for you have corn meal in the house. Young men who ride wheels have appetites that enable them to eat anything." "All right--all right," repeated the old man, vaguely. "Let them put their bicycles under the shed back of the house." The old man came out, closing the door. "It is my niece, young gentlemen," he explained. "She is very peculiar, and--well, when she says anything, that settles it, so you'll have to stay." "Under the circumstances," said Frank, his natural delicacy influencing him, although he was rather curious to see the owner of that voice, "I am inclined to think we're intruding, and we had better go on." For a moment the face of the old man expressed relief, and then that look vanished, while he shook his head. "No," he said, "that will not do now. She has decided that you shall stop, and she will not leave any hair on my head if you go away. You must stop." "She must be a gentle maiden!" murmured Bruce, with a faint smile. The boys followed the old man around to a shed, under which they placed their wheels. The shed had sometimes been used to shelter horses, but no horse was there then. "You mustn't mind my niece," said the old man, apologetically. "She has been spoiled, and she is determined to have her own way. She runs the ranch." Again the boys looked at each other. "I wonder which of us she knows," said Harry. "It must be Merriwell," Diamond declared. "It could not be any one else. This is a joke on him." Diamond's ideas of a joke were decidedly peculiar. He seldom saw anything humorous in what pleased his companions, and he took delight in things which did not amuse them at all. He seldom laughed at anything. Frank himself felt that he was the one the girl knew, if, indeed, she knew any of them, and he was wondering where he had met her. In the course of his wanderings over the world he had met many girls, not a few of whom he had forgotten entirely. "If she is one of your old girls, I'm going to make a stagger at cutting you out, old fellow," chuckled Rattleton. "Oh, I don't know!" smiled Frank. "You're not so warm!" "Just now I don't see any steam coming out of your shoes," Harry shot back, quickly. "You're not the only good thing on the programme; you might be cut out." "Land sakes, chilluns!" exclaimed Toots, with uplifted hands. "I nebber heard no such slanguage as dat--nebber!" "Any of you fellows may have the girl, if you want her," said Jack. "I have not seen her, but I'm sure she is a terror, and I don't care for that kind." They followed the old man toward the door, and entered the house. A lamp had been lighted while they were disposing of their wheels, and the girl was standing where the unsatisfactory light showed her face as plainly as was possible. She was strikingly handsome, with dark hair and eyes and full red lips. An expectant flush of color was in her cheeks. As Frank entered, the girl extended her hand to him, saying: "I am glad to see you again, Mr. Merriwell. Have you forgotten me?" "Good gracious!" cried Merriwell. "It is Vida Milburn!" She tossed her head, her hand dropping by her side. "That is not complimentary to me!" she exclaimed. "It shows you remembered my half-sister far better than you did me." "Your half-sister? Then you are not Vida!" "No, thank you!"--with another haughty toss of the head. "Then--then you must be--Isa Isban!" "How remarkable that you should guess it," she said, with biting sarcasm. "But--you--you must remember it has been some time since I saw you, and--and I saw Miss Melburn last." "You saw me first, and you were so interested in me that you followed me from Reno to Carson City. After that you met my sister, and now you mistake me for her! I am extremely complimented, Mr. Merriwell! Never mind. You are not so many! Perhaps you will introduce your friends. Some of them may have a better memory than you." For once in his life, at least, Frank was "rattled." He introduced Browning as Rattling and Diamond as Brownton, while he completely forgot Harry's name. The girl laughed sharply, plainly enjoying his embarrassment. She shook hands with all but Toots, saying: "Mr. Merriwell doesn't seem to be at his best. It is possible he has ridden too far to-day." Then Frank pulled himself together, and immediately became as cool and collected as usual, which was no easy thing to do. "I beg your pardon, Miss Isban, but I was just thinking I had not ridden far enough." He said it in his most suave manner, but the shot went home, and it brought still more color to her flushed cheeks. "Oh!" she cried, with the same toss of her head, "if your wheel is not broken, it is not too late to make several more miles before absolute darkness comes on." Diamond edged up to Frank, and whispered: "Careful, Merry! You're getting her very angry, and she is a mighty fine girl. Go easy, old man!" This was very amusing to Merriwell, for but a short time before Diamond had expressed himself quite freely in regard to the girl, and it was plain his ideas had undergone a change since seeing her. "Don't worry," Frank returned. "She won't mind a little scrap. I think she will enjoy it. She is that kind." This did not seem to satisfy the young Virginian, who immediately set about making himself as agreeable as possible with Isa. The boys were invited to sit down, and seats were provided for all of them. Frank became rather serious, for thoughts of Hodge's misfortune began to trouble him, and he remembered that this girl was responsible for it all. Isa did not look a day older than when he had last seen her, and it was hard to realize that she was a woman with an experience and a dead husband. Browning was silent and apparently contented. He seemed to take great satisfaction in sitting down and resting. After a little silence, Isa observed, seeming to take a malicious satisfaction in what she said: "One of Mr. Merriwell's friends had not forgotten me, at least." "It might have been better for him if he had," returned Frank, in a manner that surprised himself, for never before had he made such an ungallant remark. The girl's eyes blazed and she bit her lip. It seemed that she was on the point of an outburst, but she restrained herself and laughed. That laugh was defiant and angry. "Oh, well, I don't know!" she said. "The person I speak of may find I will stand by him better than some of his friends who would have looked on while he was dragged away to jail." This was a surprise to Frank, for it showed that the girl knew something about the adventure with Bill Higgins, which had taken place that day. "So you have seen him since?" asked Merry, eagerly. "Where is he?" "Find out." "I shall be able to find out in time, I think, Miss Isban." "As far as he is concerned, you need not worry, for I do not think he cares to see you again." "I do not believe that. He knows me too well, and he trusts me." "He thought he knew you, but he did not fancy you would remain passive and see him placed under arrest." "I did not." "What did you do?" "I did not have an opportunity to do much except save his life." "Save his life?" "Yes." "How?" "I kept him from being bored by a bullet from Bill Higgins' gun." "How did you do so much?" "I spoiled Higgins' aim." "Well, that was most remarkable! I presume you expect him to show the utmost gratitude for a service that any man might render another!" She snapped her fingers toward Frank, laughing scornfully: "That's where you fool yourself. Mr. Hodge has told me that he hoped he might never meet you again. He has found other and better friends." "Perhaps you speak the truth." The manner in which Frank uttered the words implied not only a doubt but a positive belief that she was not speaking the truth and she did not misunderstand them. Her teeth clicked together, gleaming beyond her curved, red lips, and her hands were clinched. On her white fingers were a number of rings, set with diamonds, which flashed and blazed like her eyes. "I care not whether you think I speak the truth or not," she said, and turned her back upon him. Diamond evinced positive distress. "I can't understand you, Merriwell!" he said, in an aside. "It is not at all like you. Why, you are always gallant and courteous to ladies." "That is right," agreed Frank, with deep meaning. "I am." Jack did not like that. "And you mean to insinuate that this beautiful girl is not a lady?" "I have my doubts." "Still it seems to me that you have made a bad break in your treatment of her. You were very rude. That is not the way to treat a young lady." "It is not the way to treat the most of them; but, my dear fellow, you will have to learn that they differ as much as men. If you were to treat all men with the utmost courtesy and consideration, you would find that not a few would regard you as a weak-kneed slob. They would impose on you, and their opinion of you would sink lower and lower as you permitted them to continue their impositions without giving back as good as they sent. In this respect, there is a class of women who resemble men. Of course you cannot handle them as you would men, but you can't be soft with them. A man who insulted you you would knock down. You can't strike a woman, but you can strike her in a different way, and, in nine cases out of ten, if she is of a certain sort, she will think all the more of you in the end." "Well, I am sure you have made a mistake with Miss Isban. I could see her deep anger and hatred for you in her eyes. She would like to strangle you this minute." "I haven't a doubt of it," coolly smiled Frank, his manner showing not the least concern. "She will hate and despise you as long as she lives." "If so, it will make little difference to me." Up to this time Jack had not dreamed that Frank could be anything but courteous and bending to a lady, and now the Southerner saw there was a turn to his friend's character that he had not suspected. Merriwell had not been at all brutal in his manner, but his words had touched Isa Isban like blows of a whip. They had stung her and stirred her blood, although they were spoken in a way that showed the natural polish and training of their author. In truth the girl longed to fly at Frank Merriwell's throat. She felt that she could strike him in the face with her hands and feel the keenest delight in doing so. As she turned toward him again, there came a sharp knock on the door. CHAPTER XXIII. A KNOCK ON THE DOOR. The old man looked startled, and the girl showed signs of alarm. "Quick, Drew!" she whispered. "Is the door fastened?" "Yes!" quavered the old man. "My revolver--where is it?" "On the shelf--where you placed it." With a spring that reminded the boys of the leap of a young pantheress, she reached the shelf and snatched a gleaming pistol from it. Then she faced the door again, the weapon half raised. The boys were on their feet. "Land ob wartermillions!" chattered Toots, his eyes rolling. "Looks lek dar am gwan teh be a rucshun fo' suah!" Then he looked around for some place of concealment. "What is it?" asked Frank. "Is there danger?" "To me--yes," nodded Isa. "But you do not care! I expect no aid from you, sir." "Who is at the door?" "It may be Bill Higgins, the sheriff!" "Come to arrest you?" "Perhaps." "He can't do it!" hissed Diamond, as he caught up a heavy chair and held it poised. "We won't let him!" The girl actually laughed. "At least, I have one champion," she said. "To the death!" Diamond heroically declared. The knock was repeated, and this time it was given in a peculiar manner, as if it were a special signal. An expression of relief came to the faces of the old man and the girl, but they seemed very much surprised. "Who can it be?" Isa asked, doubtingly. "It is the secret signal," said the man with the gray hair. "That is true, but who should come here to give the signal?" "It must be all right." "Wait. I will go into the back room. If it is repeated, open the door. Should it be an enemy or enemies, give me time to get away. That's all. Hold them from rushing into the back room." "We will do that," declared Diamond. In a moment Isa disappeared. The knock was given for the third time, and the old man approached the door, which he slowly and deliberately opened. "Who are you, and what do you want?" he asked. The reply was muffled and indistinct, but something like an exclamation of relief escaped the man, and he flung the door wide open. Into the room walked a young man with a smooth-shaved face and a swaggering air. "Hello, Drew!" he called, and then he stopped and stared at the boys. "I didn't know you had visitors," he said. "So it's you, Kent--so it's you!" exclaimed the old man, with relief. "I didn't know--I reckoned it might be somebody else." "You knew I was coming." "Yes; but I didn't 'low you'd get here so soon. It's a long distance to Carson, and----" "Never mind that," quickly spoke the man, interrupting Drew, as if he feared he would say something it were better the boys did not hear. "My horse is outside. Where shall I put him?" "In the shed. I'll show ye. Come on." The old man went out, followed by the newcomer, and the door was left open slightly. Toots quietly slipped out after them. Isa Isban came back into the room. "I do not care to be seen here by everybody who may come along," she explained; "but this person is all right, for Drew knows him." This was rather strange to all of the boys except Frank, but Merry instantly divined that she was afraid of Higgins and more than half expected the big sheriff would follow her there. The secret signal and the air of mystery and apprehension shown by the girl and the old man convinced Merriwell that all was not right. Isa had at one time "shoved the queer" for a band of men who made counterfeit money, and Bart Hodge had told Frank quite enough to convince Merriwell that she was still in the same dangerous and unlawful business. The thoughts which ran riot in Merry's head were of a startling nature, but his face was calm and passive, betraying nothing of what was passing in his mind. Once more Diamond set about making himself agreeable to Isa, and she met him more than halfway. She laughed and chatted with him, seeming to have forgotten that such a person as Frank Merriwell existed. Browning sat down in a comfortable position where he could lean against the wall, and proceeded to fall asleep. After a short time Toots came slipping into the cabin, his eyes rolling, and his whole manner betraying excitement and fear. He would have blurted out something, but Frank gave him a signal that caused him to be silent. At the first opportunity the colored boy whispered in Merry's ear: "Marser Frank, de bes' fing we can do is teh git out ob dis 'bout as soon as we kin do it, sar." "What makes you think that?" asked Merriwell, cautiously. "We am in a po'erful ba-ad scrape, sar." "What do you mean?" "It am mighty ba-ad folks dat libs heah, sar." "Bad? In what way?" "Dey hab done suffin' dat meks dem skeered ob de ossifers ob de law." "How do you know?" "I done hears de ol' man and de young man talkin'." "What did they say?" "Say dat ossifers am arter 'em. De young man say dat he have to run from Carson City to 'scape arrest, sar." "He is the horseman I saw ahead of us in the valley," said Frank. "He must have seen us coming and concealed himself, expecting we would pass him. It is plain he did not wish to be seen." "Suah's yeh bawn, boy! He has been doin' suffin' mighty ba-ad, an' he's dangerous. He said he wouldn't be 'rested alive, sar." "This is very interesting," nodded Frank. "It seems that we are in for one more exciting adventure before we finish the tour." "I don' like it, sar--'deed I don'! No tellin' what such folks will do. He am feelin' po'erful ugly, fo' he say suffin' 'bout trubble wif his wife an' 'bout habbin' her follerin' him. Dat am how it happen he wur comin' from de wes' 'stead ob de eas'. He done dodge roun' teh git 'way from his wife, sar." "He is a brave and gallant young man," smiled Merriwell. "I admire him very much--nit!" "Now don' yeh go teh bein' brash wif dat chap, Marser Frank. Dar ain't no tellin' what he might do." "Don't worry. Keep cool, and wait till I take a fancy to move. I want to look him over some more. He will be coming back with Drew in a moment, and---- Here they come now!" Into the cabin came the old man, and the young man was at his heels. There was a sullen, unpleasant look on the face of the latter, and he glared at the boys as if he considered them intruders. Isa looked up and arose as they entered. The light of the lamp fell fairly on her face, and the newcomer saw her plainly. He uttered a shout of astonishment and staggered back, his eyes opened to their widest and his manner betraying the utmost consternation. "Is it possible!" he grated. Then he clutched the old man by the shoulder, snarling: "Confound your treacherous old hide! You have betrayed me. You said the woman was Isa Isban, and she is----" The girl interrupted him with a laugh. "You seem excited," she said. "I am Isa Isban, and no one else." He took a step toward her, his face working and his hands clinched. "How did you get here ahead of me?" he hoarsely demanded. "In the most natural manner possible," she answered. "A friend brought me, Mr. Kent." "You know my real name--you know everything! I suppose you are here to secure evidence against me. You are looking for a divorce." "A divorce?" "Exactly." "I do not understand you." "You understand well enough. We have not been married so very long, and our married life hasn't been any too happy. You have accused me of abusing you--you have threatened to leave me." The girl looked bewildered. "What is the matter with the man?" she murmured. "Is he crazy?" The man seemed puzzled by her manner, and the witnesses of the remarkable scene were absolutely at sea; they could not understand what it was about. "I am not crazy," said the young man; "but I was a fool to marry you. You were not worth the trouble I took to get you. I should have let the other fool have you, instead of plotting to disgrace him in the eyes of your uncle and aunt, so I could get you." A great light dawned on Frank Merriwell. "Great fortune!" he mentally exclaimed. "This is the fellow who married Vida Melburn, Isa's half-sister, and he thinks this girl is his wife! They used to look so much alike that it was difficult to tell one from the other. "Married--married to you?" cried the girl. "Not on your life! Why, I never saw you before, although I have heard of you." The man seemed staggered for a moment, and then, with a cry of anger, he leaped upon her. "What is your game?" he hissed, as he shook her savagely. "What are you up to? I thought you a soft, innocent little girl, and now you are showing yourself something quite different. I believe you played me for a sucker! And you want a divorce! Well, here is cause for it!" Then he choked her. Frank went at him like a cyclone. "You infernal villain!" he cried, as his hands fell on the man, and he tore the gasping girl from his clutches. "No one but a brute ever lays hands on a woman in anger, and a brute deserves a good drubbing almost any time. Here is where you get it!" Then he proceeded to polish off the girl's assailant in a most scientific manner, ending by flinging him in a limp and battered condition into a corner of the room. Diamond had hastened to support the girl when Frank snatched her from her assailant, but she repulsed him and flung him off, saying, hoarsely: "Let me alone! I am all right! I want to see this fight!" With interest she watched Frank whip the man whom she had called Kent, though she swayed and panted with every blow, her eyes glittering and her cheeks flushed. As Merriwell flung the fellow into the corner, the girl straightened up and threw back her head, laughing: "Well, he was a soft thing, and that is a fact! Think of being thrashed by a boy! Drew, is it possible this is our Carson City agent, whom you called 'a good man,' when you were speaking of him this evening? Such a chap would blow the whole game if he were pinched. I wouldn't trust him." The old man stood rubbing his shaking hands together, greatly agitated and unable to say a word. Then there came a thunderous knock on the door, and a hoarse voice demanded admittance. CHAPTER XXIV. THE SHERIFF'S SHOT. Old Drew was greatly frightened, and Davis showed alarm. "Hold that door--hold that door one minute!" cried Isa. "It will give us time to get out of the way!" Bruce Browning's shoulder went against the door, and he calmly drawled: "Anybody won't come in here in a hurry." "Come!" whispered the girl, catching hold of Hart; "we must get away! quick!" Davis leaped after them. "It will not be a good thing for me to be seen here," he said. "If there is a way of getting under cover, you must take me along." "That's right," nodded Isa, "for you would peach if you were pinched. Come!" By the way of the door that led into the back room they disappeared. Rap-bang! rap-bang! rap-bang! "Open this door instanter!" Higgins roared the order from the outside. "What's your great rush?" coolly inquired Browning. A volley of fierce language flew from the sheriff's lips. "I'll show yer!" he thundered. "Down goes ther door if ye don't open it immediate!" "Be good enough, Mr. Drew, to ascertain if our friends are under cover yet," said Frank. The old man hobbled into the back room, was gone a moment, and then reappeared, something like a look of relief on his withered face. "They're gone," he whispered. "Will it be all right to open the door?" "I reckon ye'll have to open it." "All right. Admit Mr. Higgins, Bruce." Browning stepped away from the door, lifting the iron bar. Instantly it flew wide open, and, with a big revolver in each hand, the sheriff strode heavily into the room. Behind him came another man, who was also armed and ready to do shooting if necessary. Higgins glared around. "Whatever does this mean?" he asked, astonished by the presence of the bicycle boys. "Whatever does what mean?" asked Frank, innocently. "You critters bein' here. I don't understand it." "We are stopping here for the night." "Sho! Is that it? Well, you're not the only ones. Where are the others?" "What others?" "One in particler--the one you helped to get away to-day. You'll have to square with me for that." "I presume you mean Mr. Hodge?" "That's whatever." "I think your memory is at fault, sir. I did not aid him in getting away, but you owe me thanks for keeping you from shooting him. He would have made the unlucky thirteenth man." "Well, hang me if you ain't got nerve! All the same, you'll have to take your medicine for aiding a criminal." "He has not been proved a criminal yet, sir." "Oh, you know all about it! Well, he's somewhere round this ranch, and I'm going to rope him. Watch the front, Britts." "All right, sir," said the man who accompanied Higgins. Then the big sheriff strode into the back room, picking up the lamp to aid him in his search. Frank held his breath, wondering what Higgins would find. After four or five minutes the sheriff came back, and he was in a furious mood. "I know the critter is here somewhere!" he roared; "and I'll have him, too! Can't hide from me!" "That's right," smiled Frank, with a profound bow. "You have an eagle eye, Mr. Higgins, and you should be able to find anything there is about the place. I wouldn't think of trying to hide from you." "Ye-he! ye-he! ye-he!" giggled Toots. Higgins' face was black with fury. He pointed a revolver straight at Frank, and thundered: "You think you're funny, but I'm going ter bore yer if you don't talk up instanter! You know where that galoot Hodge is hid, and you'll tell, too." "My dear sir," returned Frank, as he folded his arms and looked the furious man fairly in the eyes, "I do not know where Bart Hodge is hidden, and I would not tell if I did." Higgins ground has teeth. "Say yer prayers!" he grated. "I'm goin' to make you the thirteenth!" He was in deadly earnest, yet it did not seem that Frank quailed in the least before him. Indeed, in the face of such peril, Merriwell apparently grew bolder, and a scornful smile curled his lips. "Shoot!" he cried, his voice ringing out clear and unshaken--"shoot and prove yourself a detestable coward!" The other lads held their breath. They felt like interfering, but something in Frank's manner seemed to warn them to keep still and not try to aid him. "You think I won't do it," muttered Higgins. "Well, I'll show ye! I always do exactly as I say. Now, you eat lead!" There was a scream, a swish, a rush of feet, a flitting form, and Isa Isban had flung herself in front of Frank, protecting him with her own body! The heavy revolver spoke! Bang! Frank had realized with wonderful quickness that the girl meant to save him by protecting him with her body, and he caught her by the shoulders, flinging her to the floor in an effort to keep her from being shot at any cost to himself. He would not have been successful, however, but for big Bruce Browning. The big fellow had been watching Higgins as a hawk watches a chicken. At first, he had not thought it possible the sheriff would fire. He could not conceive that the man was such a ruffian. At the last moment, however, he saw Higgins meant to shoot. Browning's hand rested on the back of a chair. With a swiftness that was simply marvelous in one who naturally moved with the greatest slowness, he swung that chair into the air and flung it at the furious sheriff. Higgins saw the movement out of the corners of his eyes, and, although the missile had not reached him when he pulled the trigger, his aim had been disconcerted. The bullet touched Frank's ear as it passed and buried itself in the wall. Then old Drew dashed out the light, and the place was plunged in darkness. CHAPTER XXV. ESCAPE--CONCLUSION. The sheriff's assistant lost no time in getting out of the cabin, rushing to one of the horses, which had been left a short distance away, and mounted. Then he rode madly away through the forest, deserting Higgins in a most cowardly manner. When the lamp in the cabin was relighted, Higgins was found stretched senseless on the floor, the chair having struck him on the head and cut a long gash, from which blood was flowing. "I'm afraid I've killed him!" exclaimed Browning. "I didn't mean to do that, but I had to do something. I couldn't keep still and see him shoot Frank down like a dog." "It serves him right!" said Diamond, but his face was pale, and he looked very anxious. "I sincerely hope he will come around all right," said Frank, as he knelt by the man's side. "This scrape is bad enough, and, although he has shown himself a ruffian, I do not think we care to take the life of any human being." Isa Isban was looking down at the man, and her face softened and showed pity. "You are right, Mr. Merriwell," she gently said. "You have taught me a lesson. Higgins was a handsome man in his way, and it is a pity to have him die with his boots on like this. We'll see what we can do to fix him up." Frank looked up at her, and one glance was enough to convince him of her sincerity. "Poor girl!" he thought. "She has never been taught the difference between right and wrong. Even now, if she had a show, she might become something far better than she is." She knelt on the opposite side of the unconscious man. "Bring some water, Drew," she sharply commanded. "Bring something with which we can bandage his head." "Why don't ye let him die?" whined the old man. "It would be a bad thing for you if we did," she returned. "His deputy has puckacheed, and he won't do a thing but bring a posse here as soon as possible. It will be all the better for you if Bill Higgins is all right when the posse appears." "I'm ruined anyway," declared Drew. "I'll have to git out. They will search, and they're bound to find everything if they do." "We'll have everything out of here before morning, and then let them search. The first job is to fix Bill Higgins up." Water was brought, and she bathed the head of the unconscious man, who groaned a little once or twice. Then Frank aided her in adjusting a bandage. Once their hands touched, and she drew away quickly, catching her breath, as if she had been stung. Frank looked at her in wonder, and saw that she had flushed and then grown very pale. Her eyes met his, and then her lashes drooped, while the blush crept back into her cheeks. What did it mean? More than ever was this girl an enigma to him. The boys lifted Higgins and placed him on an improvised couch in the corner, as Drew would not permit them to place him on the bed in the little back room. By this time Hart Davis had become convinced that Isa Isban was not the girl he had married, although she looked so much like Vida that he was filled with wonder whenever he regarded her. He asked her pardon for his actions of a short time before, but she gave him no heed, as she seemed fully intent on making the sheriff comfortable and restoring him to consciousness. Hodge did not look at Davis, whom he hated with the utmost intensity, as he feared he would spring upon the man if he did so. After a while, Higgins opened his eyes and stared around in a blank manner. "Did we stop the mill, pards?" he huskily asked. "The whole herd was stampeded and goin' like a cyclone down the range, horns clanking, eyes glaring, nostrils smoking and hoofs beating thunder out of the ground." "What is the man talking about?" asked Frank, in wonder. "He was a cowboy once," Isa explained. "He seems to be thinking of that time." "It was a wild ride through the night, wasn't it, pards?" Higgins went on, although he did not seem to be speaking to any one in particular. "It was dark as ten million black cats, and the cold wind cut like a knife. But we stopped 'em--we stopped 'em at last." Then he turned his face toward the wall and closed his eyes. "I hope he isn't going to die," said Frank. "So do I," muttered Browning, sincerely. "I don't want to have that to think about." When morning came Bill Higgins seemed quite strong, but his head was filled with the wildest fancies. He talked of strange things, and it was evident that his mind wandered. Higgins did not wish to eat anything, but Isa brought him bread and coffee, and he took it from her. "Pretty girl," he muttered, with a gleam of reason. "Fine girl! Wonder how such a girl came to be out here on the ranch?" In vain they waited for the appearance of the deputy and a posse. The expected did not happen. Frank had a long talk with Bart. "Old man," he said, "you must come with me--you must do it! I will not take no for an answer. If Bill Higgins comes around all right in his head to-morrow he will be after you again. You must make for San Francisco and lose no time in shipping for some foreign port. After this affair blows over, you can come back." Frank was not satisfied till he saw Bill Higgins delivered into the hands of friends. As for the deputy who took to flight, he met with a fatal accident while passing through the forest. Either he was swept from the back of his horse by a limb or was thrown off. Be that as it may he was found with a broken neck. And Higgins still wandered in his mind when Frank left him. The boys made great speed on the road to San Francisco, which they reached in due time, and there, with the other mail that awaited him, Frank found a brief letter from Isa Isban. "I wish to let you know what the physicians who have examined Bill Higgins have to say," she wrote. "They say he has lost his memory, and, although he may recover from the injury otherwise, it is doubtful if he will ever regain his memory. In that case, Hodge is safe anywhere, but it will be well for him to get out of California." The news was gratifying to Hodge, and he lost no time in disappearing from view. The arrival of the bicycle boys in San Francisco was the cause of two celebrations, one among themselves and another among their friends in the East. The tour across the continent had been a success, and the papers were loud in their praise of plucky Frank Merriwell and his companions. "And now we can take it easy," said Bruce, lazily. "That's Bruce," laughed Diamond. "Always willing to take a rest." "Dunno but wot we hab earned a rest," put in Toots. "Doking snownuts--no, smoking doughnuts! what a lot of adventures we have had since we left New York!" came from Harry. "Any of us could write a book of travels without half trying." "We'll take it easy for a while," said Frank. "But not for long. I've got an idea for more sport, while we are out here." Long letters followed telegrams to the East and long letters were received in return. "You've done the trick," wrote one fellow student. "When you get back to Yale, well--I reckon the town won't be big enough to hold you." "Dear old Yale!" exclaimed Frank. That night the boys sang college songs far into the wee small hours of the morning. They were more than happy, and all their past perils were forgotten. THE END. No. 17 of the Merriwell Series, entitled, "Frank Merriwell's Athletics," gives full play to Frank's idea for more sport, and is full of fun, frolic, and daring deeds. VALUE Nobody objects to paying a fair price for a fair article; in other words, the public cheerfully pays for value received. We do not know of anything in the way of reading matter that gives such value for a modest outlay as do the _S. & S. Novels_. The titles in this list are all 12mo books printed from good type, bound neatly in colored covers and are clean and wholesome. If you are in search of clean recreation let us recommend the S. & S. Novels. STREET & SMITH CORPORATION 79 SEVENTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY What Is the Greatest Thing in the World? Years ago there lived a kindly man who sought the greatest thing in the world--and found it. His name was Henry Drummond, and the pearl beyond price that he found was--love! All treasure and gifts are as nothing beside this--love of the man for his fellow--love of the mother for her babe--love of the one man for the one woman--clean, pure love! It is entirely fitting, therefore, that at last a magazine has been devoted to love stories, exclusively. You may now find it at all news dealers. Ask for LOVE STORY MAGAZINE In it you will find nothing of the immoral--nothing sordid, but bright, cheerful love stories in which sunshine follows the shadows--as it should. Love Story Magazine is for you, for every human being who has ever loved or been loved. Buy a copy _now_. Published Semimonthly. Price, 15c. STREET & SMITH CORPORATION Publishers, New York City 
13749	----	AROUND THE WORLD ON A BICYCLE Volume II. From Teheran To Yokohama By Thomas Stevens CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE THE START FROM TEHERAN, ........ 1 CHAPTER II. PERSIA AND THE MESHED PILGRIM ROAD, ...... 34 CHAPTER III. PERSIA AND THE MESHED PILGRIM ROAD,...... 43 CHAPTER IV. THROUGH KHORASSAN,.......... 65 CHAPTER V. MESHED THE HOLY,.......... 84 CHAPTER VI. THE UNBEATEN TRACKS Of KHORASSAN,...... 109 CHAPTER VII. BEERJAND AND THE FRONTIER OF AFGHANISTAN, .. .. 135 CHAPTER VIII ACROSS THE "DESERT OF DESPAIR,"....... 160 CHAPTER IX. AFGHANISTAN,............ 181 CHAPTER X. ARRESTED AT FURRAH,......... 197 CHAPTER XI. UNDER ESCORT TO HERAT,......... 209 CHAPTER XII. TAKEN BACK TO PERSIA,......... 230 CHAPTER XIII. ROUNDABOUT TO INDIA,...... 255 CHAPTER XIV. THROUGH INDIA,........... 284 CHAPTER XV. DELHI AND AGRA,.......... 809 CHAPTER XVI. FROM AGRA TO SINGAPORE,........ 833 CHAPTER XVII. THROUGH CHINA,........... 365 CHAPTER XVIII. DOWN THE KAN-KIANG VALLEY,........ 400 CHAPTER XIX. THROUGH JAPAN,............ 432 CHAPTER XX. THE HOME STRETCH,.......... 451 CAMBRIDGE, MASS., April 10, 1887. FROM TEHERAN TO YOKOHAMA. CHAPTER I. THE START FROM TEHERAN. The season of 1885-86 has been an exceptionally mild winter in the Persian capital. Up to Christmas the weather was clear and bracing, sufficiently cool to be comfortable in the daytime, and with crisp, frosty weather at night. The first snow of the season commenced falling while a portion of the English colony were enjoying a characteristic Christmas dinner of roast-beef and plum-pudding, at the house of the superintendent of the Indo-European Telegraph Station, and during January and February, snow-storms, cold and drizzling rains alternated with brief periods of clearer weather. When the sun shines from a cloudless sky in Teheran, its rays are sometimes uncomfortably warm, even in midwinter; a foot of snow may have clothed the city and the surrounding plain in a soft, white mantle during the night, but, asserting his supremacy on the following morning, he will unveil the gray nakedness of the stony plain again by noon. The steadily retreating snow line will be driven back-back over the undulating foot-hills, and some little distance up the rugged slopes of the Elburz range, hard by, ere he retires from view in the evening, rotund and fiery. This irregular snow-line has been steadily losing ground, and retreating higher and higher up the mountain-slopes during the latter half of February, and when March is ushered in, with clear sunny weather, and the mud begins drying up and the various indications of spring begin to put in their appearance, I decide to make a start. Friends residing here who have been mentioning April 15th as the date I should be justified in thinking the unsettled weather at an end and pulling out eastward again, agree, in response to my anxious inquiries, that it is an open spell of weather before the regular spring rains, that may possibly last until I reach Meshed. During the winter I have examined, as far as circumstances have permitted, the merits and demerits of the different routes to the Pacific Coast, and have decided upon going through Turkestan and Southern Siberia to the Amoor Valley, and thence either follow down the valley to Vladivostok or strike across Mongolia to Pekin--the latter route by preference, if upon reaching Irkutsk I find it to be practicable; if not practicable, then the Amoor Valley route from necessity. This route I approve of, as it will not only take me through some of the most interesting country in Asia, but will probably be a more straightaway continuous land-journey than any other. The distance from Teheran to Vladivostok is some six thousand miles, and, well aware that six thousand miles with a bicycle over Asiatic roads is a task of no little magnitude, I at once determine upon taking advantage of the fair March weather to accomplish at least the first six hundred miles of the journey between Teheran and Meshed, one of the holy cities of Persia. The bicycle is in good trim, my own health is splendid, my experience of nearly eight thousand miles of straightaway wheeling over the roads of three continents ought to count for something, and it is with every confidence of accomplishing my undertaking without serious misadventure that I set about making my final preparations to start. The British Charge d'Affaires gives me a letter to General Melnikoff, the Russian Minister at the Shah's court, explaining the nature and object of my journey, and asking him to render me whatever assistance he can to get through, for most of the proposed route lies through Russian territory. Among my Teheran friends is Mr. M------, a lively, dapper little telegraphist, who knows three or four different languages, and who never seems happier than when called upon to act the part of interpreter for friends about him. Among other distinguishing qualities, Mr. M------shines in Teheran society as the only Briton with sufficient courage to wear a chimney-pot hat. Although the writer has seen the "stove-pipe" of the unsuspecting tenderfoot from the Eastern States made short work of in a far Western town, and the occurrence seemed scarcely to be out of place there, I little expected to find popular sentiment running in the same warlike groove, and asserting itself in the same destructive manner in the little English community at Teheran. Such, however, is the grim fact, and I have ventured to think that after this there is no disputing the common destiny of us Anglo-Saxons, whatever clime, country, or government may at present claim us as its own. Having seen this unfortunate headgear of our venerable and venerated forefathers shot as full of holes as a colander in the West, I come to the East only to find it subjected to similar indignities here. I happen to be present at the wanton destruction of Mr. M------'s second or third importation from England, see it taken ruthlessly from his head, thrust through and through with a sword-stick, and then made to play the unhappy and undignified part of a football so long as there is anything left to kick at. More than our common language, methinks--more than common customs and traditions--more than all those characteristic traits that distinguish us in common, and at the same time also distinguish us from all other peoples--more than anything else, does this mutual spirit of destructiveness, called into play by the sight of a stove-pipe hat, prove the existence of a strong, resistless undercurrent of sympathy that is carrying the most distant outposts of Anglo-Saxony merrily down the stream of time together, to some particular end; perchance a glorious end, perchance an ignominious end, but certainly to an end that will not wear a stove-pipe hat. Mr. M------'s linguistic accomplishments include a fair knowledge of Russian, and he readily accompanies me to the Russian Legation to interpret. The Russian Legation is situated down in the old Oriental quarter (birds of a feather, etc.) of the city, and, for us at least, necessitated the employment of a guide to find it. On the way down, Mr. M------, who prides himself on a knowledge of Russian character, impresses upon me his assurance that General Melnikoff will turn out to be a nice, pleasant sort of a gentleman. "All the better-class Russians are delightfully jolly and agreeable, much more agreeable to have dealings with than the same class of people of any other country," he says, and with these favorable comments we reach the legation and send up my letter. After waiting what we both consider an unnecessarily long time in the vestibule, a full-faced, sensual-looking, or, in other words, well-to-do Persian-looking individual, in the full costume of a Persian nobleman, comes out, bearing my letter unopened in his hand. Bestowing upon us a barely perceptible nod, he walks straight on past, jumps into a carriage at the door, and is driven off. Mr. M------looks nonplussed at me, and I suppose I looked equally nonplussed at him; anyhow, he proceeds to relieve his feelings in language anything but complimentary to the Russian Minister. He's the--well, I've met scores of Russians, but--him, queer! I never saw a Russian act half as queer as this before, never!" "Small prospect of getting any assistance from this quarter," I suggest. "Seems deucedly like it," assents Mr. M------. "I said, just now, that, being a Russian, he was sure to be courteous and agreeable, if nothing else; but it seems as if there are exceptions to this rule as to others;" and, talking together, we try to find consolation in the thought that he may be merely eccentric, and turn out a very good sort of fellow after all. While thus commenting, a liveried servant presents himself and motions for us to follow him in the wake of the departing carriage. Following his guidance a short distance through the streets, he leads us into the court-yard of a splendid Persian mansion, delivers us into the charge of another liveried servant, who conducts us up a broad flight of marble stairs, at the top of which he delivers us into the hands of yet a third flunky, who now escorts us into the most gorgeously mirrored room it has ever been my fortune to see. The apartment is perfectly dazzling in its glittering splendor; the floor is of highly polished marble, the walls consist of mirror-work entirely, as also does the lofty, domed ceiling; not plain, large squares of looking-glass, but mirrored surfaces of all shapes and sizes, pitched at every conceivable angle, form niches, panels, and geometrical designs--yet each separate piece plays well its part in working out the harmonious and decidedly pretty effect of the whole. All the furniture the large apartment boasts is a crimson-and-gold divan or two, a few strips of rich carpet, and an ebony stand-table, inlaid with mother-of-pearl; but suspended from the ceiling are several magnificent cut-glass chandeliers. At night, when these Persian mirrored rooms are lit up, they present a scene of barbaric splendor well calculated to delight the eye of the sumptuous Oriental; every tiny square of glass reflects a point of light, and every larger one reproduces a chandelier; for every lamp he lights, the Persian voluptuary finds himself surrounded by a thousand. Seated on a divan toward one end of this splendid room, with an open box of cigarettes before him, is the man who a few minutes ago passed us by on the other side and drove off in his carriage. Offering us cigarettes, he bids us be seated, and then, in very fair English (for he has once been Persian Minister to England), introduces himself as "Nasr-i-Mulk," the Shah's Minister for Foreign Affairs; the same gentleman, it will be remembered, to whom I was introduced on the morning of my appearance before the Shah. (Vol. I.) I readily recognize him now, and he recognizes me, and asks me when I am going to leave Teheran; but in the gloomy vestibule of the other palace, my own memory of his face and figure was certainly at fault. It turns out, after all, that the wretch whom we paid to guide us to the Russian Legation, in his ignorance guided us into the Persian Foreign Office. "I knew--yes, dash it all! I knew he wasn't the Russian Minister the moment I saw him," says Mr. M------as we take our departure from the glittering room. His confidence in his knowledge of Russian character, which a moment ago had dropped down to zero, revives wonderfully upon discovering our ludicrous mistake, and, small as he is, it is all I can do to keep up with him as we follow the guide Nasr-i-Mulk has kindly sent to show us to the Russian Legation. A few minutes' walk brings us to our destination, where we find, in the person of General Melnikoff, a gentleman possessing the bland and engaging qualities of a good diplomatist in a most eminent degree. "Which is Mr. Stevens?" he exclaims, with something akin to enthusiasm, as he advances almost to the door to meet us, his face fairly beaming with pleasure; and, grasping me warmly by the hand, he proceeds to express his great satisfaction at meeting a person, who had "made so wonderful a journey," etc., etc., and etc. Never did Mr. Pickwick beam more pleasantly at the deaf gentleman, or regard more benignantly Master Humphrey's clock, than the Russian Minister regards the form and features of one whom, he says, he feels "honored to meet." For several minutes we discuss, through the medium of Mr. M------, my journey from San Francisco to Teheran, and its proposed continuation to the Pacific; and during the greater part, of the interview General Melnikoff holds me quite affectionately by the hand. "Wonderful!" he says, "wonderful! nobody ever made half such a remarkable journey; my whole heart will go with you until your journey is completed." Mr. M------looks on and interprets between us, with a fixed and confident didn't-I-tell-you-so smile, that forms a side study of no mean quality. "There will be no trouble about getting permission to go through Turkestan?" I feel constrained to inquire; for such excessive display of affection and bonhommie on the Russian diplomat's part could scarce fail to arouse suspicions. "Oh dear, no!" he replies. "Oh dear, no! I will telegraph to General Komaroff, at Askabad, to remove all obstacles, so that nothing shall interfere with your progress." Having received this positive assurance, we take our leave, Mr. M-------reminding me gleefully of what he had said about the Russians being the most agreeable people on earth, and the few remaining clouds of doubt about getting the road through Turkestan happily dissipated by the Russian Minister's assurances of assistance. Searching through the bazaar, I succeed, after some little trouble, in finding and purchasing a belt-full of Russian gold, sufficient to carry me clear through to Japan; and on the morning of March 10th I bid farewell to the Persian capital, well satisfied at the outlook ahead. While packing up my traps on the evening before starting, it begins raining for the first time in ten days; but it clears off again before midnight, and the morning opens bright and promising as ever. Six members of the telegraph staff have determined to accompany me out to Katoum-abad, the first chapar-station on the Meshed pilgrim road, a distance of seven farsakhs. "Hodge-podge," the cook, and Meshedi Ali, the gholam, were sent ahead yesterday with plenty of substantial refreshments and sun-dry mysterious black bottles--for it is the intention of the party to remain at Katoum-abad overnight, and give me a proper send-off from that point to-morrow morning. Some little delay is occasioned by a difficulty in meeting the fastidious tastes of some of the party as regards saddle-horses; but there is no particular hurry, and ten o'clock finds me bowling briskly through the suburbs toward the Doshan Tepe gate, with four Englishmen, an Irishman, and a Welshman cantering merrily along on horseback behind. "Khuda rail pak Kumad!" (May God sweep your road!), All Akbar had exclaimed as I mounted at the door, and as we pass through the city gate the old sentinel, when told that I am at last starting on the promised journey to Meshed on the asp-i-awhan, supplements this with "Padaram daromad!" (My father has come out!), a Persian metaphorical exclamation, signifying that such wonderful news has had the effect of calling his father from the grave. The weather has changed again since early morning; it is evidently in a very fitful and unsettled mood; the gray clouds are swirling in confusion about the white summit of Demavend as we emerge on the level plain outside the ramparts, and fleecy fugitives are scudding southward in wild haste. Imperfect but ridable donkey-trails follow the dry moat around to the Meshed road, which takes a straight course southeastward from the city and is seen in the distance ahead, leading over a sloping pass, a depression in the Doshan Tepe spur of the Elburz range. The road near the city is now in better condition for wheeling than at any other time of the year; the daily swarms of pack-animals bringing produce into Teheran have trodden it smooth and hard during the ten days' continuous fine weather, while it has not been dry sufficiently long to develop into dust, as it does later in the season. Our road is level and good for something over a farsakh, after which comes the rising ground leading gently upward to the pass. The gradient is sufficiently gentle to be ridable for some little distance, when it becomes too rocky and steep, and I have to dismount and trundle to the summit. The summit of the pass is only about nine miles from the city walls, and we pause a minute to investigate a bottle of homemade wine from the private cellar of Mr. North, one of our party, and to allow me to take a farewell glance at Teheran, and the many familiar objects round about, ere riding down the eastern slope and out of sight. Teheran is in semi-obscurity beneath the same hazy veil observed when first approaching it from the west, and which always seems to hover over it. This haziness is not sufficiently pronounced to hide any conspicuous building, and each familiar object in the city is plainly visible from the commanding summit of the pass. The different gates of the city, each with its little cluster of bright-tiled minars, trace at a glance the size and contour of the outer ditch and wall; the large framework of the pavilion beneath which the Shah gives his annual tazzia (representation of the religious tragedy of Hussein and Hassan), denuded of its canvas covering, suggests from this distance the naked ribs of some monster skeleton. The square towers of the royal anderoon--which the Shah professes to believe is the tallest dwelling-house in the world--loom conspicuously skyward above the mass of indefinable mud buildings and walls that characterize the habitations of humbler folk, but perhaps happier on the whole than the fair occupants of that seven-storied gilded prison. Hundreds of women-wives, concubines, slaves, and domestics are understood to be dwelling within these palace walls in charge of sable eunuchs, and the fate of any female whose bump of discretion in an evil moment fails her, is to be hurled headlong from the summit of one of the anderoon towers--such, at least, is the popular belief in Teheran; it may or may not be an exaggeration. Some even assert that the Shah's chief object in building the anderoon so high was to have the certainty of this awful doom ever present before its numerous inmates, the more easily to keep them in a submissive frame of mind. Off to the right, below our position, is the Doshan Tepe palace, a memorable spot for me, where I had the satisfaction of first introducing bicycle-riding to the notice of the Persian monarch. Off to the left, the Parsee "tower of silence" is observed perched among the lonely gray hills far from human habitation or any traversed road; on a grating fixed in the top of this tower, the Guebre population of Teheran deposit their dead, in order that the carrion-crows and the vultures may pick the carcass clean before they deposit the whitened bones in the body of the tower. Having duly investigated the bottle of wine and noticed these few familiar objects, we all remount and begin the descent. It is a gentle declivity from top to bottom, and ridable the whole distance, save where an occasional washout or other small obstacle compels a dismount. The wind is likewise favorable, and from the top of the pass the bicycle outdistances the horsemen, except two who are riding exceptionally good nags and make a special effort to keep up; and at two o'clock we arrive at Katoum-abad. Katoum-abad consists of a small mud village and a half-ruined brick caravansarai; in one of the rooms of the latter we find "Hodge-podge" and Me-shedi Ali, with an abundance of roast chickens, cold mutton, eggs, and the before-mentioned mysterious black bottles. The few Persian travellers in the caravansarai and the villagers come flocking around as usual to worry me about riding the bicycle, but the servants drive them away in short order. "We want to see the sahib ride the aap-i-awhan," they explain,-no doubt thinking their request most natural and reasonable. "The sahib won't let you see it, nor ride on it this evening," reply the servants; and, given to understand that we won't put up with their importunities, they worry us no more. "Oh, that I could get rid of them thus readily always!" I mentally exclaim; for I feel instinctively that the farther east I get, the more wretchedly worrying and inquisitive I shall find the people. We arrive hungry and thirsty, and in condition to do ample justice to the provisions at hand. After satisfying the pressing needs of hunger, we drink several appropriate toasts from the contents of the mysterious black bottles--toasts for the success of my journey, and to the bicycle that has stood by me so well thus far on my journey, and promises to stand by me equally as well for the future. About four o'clock two of the company, who have been thoughtful enough to bring shotguns along, sally forth in quest of ducks. They come plodding wearily back again shortly after dark, without any game, but with deep designs on the credulity of the non-sporting members of the company. In reply to the general and stereotyped query, "Shoot anything?" one of the erring pair replies, "Yes, we shot several canvas-backs, but lost them in the reeds; didn't we, old un?" "Yes, five," promptly asserts "old un," a truthful young man of about three-and-twenty summers. After this, the silence for the space of a minute is so profound that we can hear each other think, until one of the company, acting as spokesman for the silent reflections of the others, inquires, "Anybody know of any reeds about Katoum-abad?" Some one is about to reply, but sportsman No. 1 artfully waives further examination by heaping imprecations on the unkempt head of a dervish, who at this opportune moment commences a sing-song monotone, in a most soul-harrowing key, outside our menzil doorway. A slight drizzling rain is falling when the early riser of the company wakes up and peeps out at daybreak next morning, but it soon ceases, and by seven o'clock the ground is quite dry. The road for a mile or so is too lumpy to admit of mounting, as is frequently the case near a village, and my six companions accompany me to ridable ground. As I mount and wheel away, they wave hats and send up three ringing cheers and a "tiger," hurrahs that roll across the gray Persian plain to the echoing hills, the strangest sound, perhaps, these grim old hills have ever echoed; certainly, they never before echoed an English cheer. And now, as my friends of the telegraph staff turn about and wend their way back to Teheran, is as good a time as any to mention briefly the manner in which these genial lightning-jerkers assisted to render my five months' sojourn in the Persian capital agreeable. But a few short hours after my arrival in Teheran, I was sought out by Messrs. Meyrick and North, who no sooner learned of my intention to winter here, than they extended a cordial invitation to join them in their already established bachelors' quarters, where four disconsolate halves of humanity were already messing harmoniously together. With them I took up my quarters, and, under the liberal and wholesome gastronomic arrangements of the establishment, soon acquired my usual semi-embon-point condition, and recovered from that gaunt, hungry appearance that the hardships and scant fare of the journey from Constantinople had imparted. The house belonged to Mr. North, and he managed to give me a little room to myself for literary work, and, under the influence of a steady stream of letters and papers from friends and well-wishers in England and America, that snug little apartment, with a round, moon-like hole in the thick mud wall for a window, soon acquired the den-like aspect that seems inseparable from the occupation of distributing ink. Three native servants cooked for us, waited on us, turned up missing when wanted for anything particular, cheated us and each other, swore eternal honesty and fidelity to our faces, called us infidel dogs and pedar sags behind our backs, quarrelled daily among themselves over their modokal (legitimate pickings and stealings--ten per cent, on everything passing through their hands), and meekly bore with any abuse bestowed gratuitously upon them, for an aggregate of one hundred and thirty kerans a month--and, of course, their modokal. Some enterprising members of the colony had formed themselves into a club, and imported a billiard-table from England; this, also, was installed in Mr. North's house, and it furnished the means for many an hour of pleasant diversion. Like all Persian houses, the house was built around a square court-yard. Mr. North had also a pair of small white bull-dogs, named, respectively, "Crib" and "Swindle." The last-named animal furnished us with quite an exciting episode one February evening. He had been acting rather strangely for two or three days; we thought that one of the servants had been giving him a dose of bhang in revenge for having worried his kitten, and that he would soon recover; but on this particular day, when out for a run with his owner, his strange behavior took the form of leaping impulsively at Mr. North, and, with seemingly wild frolic, seizing and shaking his garments. When Mr. North returned home he took the precautionary measure of chaining him up in the yard. Shortly afterward, I came in from my customary evening walk, and, all unconscious of the change in his behavior, went up to him; with a half-playful, half-savage spring he seized the leg of my trousers, and, with an evidently uncontrollable impulse, shook a piece clean out of it. He became gradually worse as the evening wore away; the wild expression of his eyes developed in an alarming manner; he would try to get at any person who showed himself, and he made night hideous with the fearful barking howl of a mad dog. Poor Swindle had gone mad; and I had had a narrow escape from being bitten. We lassoed him from opposite directions and dragged him outside and shot him. Swindle was a plucky little dog, and so was Crib; one day they chased a vagrant cat up on to the roof; driven to desperation, the cat made a wild leap down into the court-yard, a distance of perhaps twenty feet; without a moment's hesitation, both dogs sprang boldly after her, recking little of the distance to the ground and the possibility of broken bones. Sometimes the colony drives dull care and ennui away by indulging in private theatricals; this winter they organized an amateur company, called themselves the "Teheran Bulbuls," and, with burnt-corked faces and grotesque attire, they rehearsed and perfected themselves in "Uncle Ebenezer's Visit to New York," which, together with sundry duets, solos, choruses, etc., they proposed to give, an entertainment for the benefit of the poor of the city. When the Shah returned from Europe, he was moved by what he had seen there to build a small theatre; the theatre was built, but nothing is ever done with it. The Teheran Bulbuls applied for its use to give their entertainment in, and the Shah was pleased to grant their request. The mollahs raised objections; they said it would have a tendency to corrupt the morals of the Persians. Once, twice, the entertainment was postponed; but the Shah finally overruled the bigoted priests' objections, and "Uncle Ebenezer's Visit to New York" was played twice in Nasr-e-Deen's little gilded theatre a few days after I left, with great success; the first night, before the Shah and his nobles and the foreign ambassadors, and the second night before more common folk. The two postponements and my early departure prevented me from being on hand as prompter. The winter before, these dusky-faced "bul-buls" had performed before a Teheran audience, and one who was a member at that time tells an amusing story of the individual who acted as prompter on that occasion. One of the performers appeared on the stage sufficiently charged with stage-fright to cause him to entirely forget his piece. Expecting every moment to get the cue from the prompter's box, what was his horror to hear, after waiting what probably seemed to him about an hour, instead of the cue, in a hoarse whisper that could be distinctly heard all over the room, the comforting remark, "I say, Charlie, I've lost the blooming place!" The American missionaries have a small chapel in Teheran, and on Sunday morning we sometimes used to go; the little congregation gathered there was composed of strange elements collected together from far-off places. From Colonel F ______, the grizzled military adventurer, now in the Shah's service, and who was also with Maximilian in Mexico, to the young American lady who is said to have turned missionary and come, broken-hearted, to the distant East because her lover had died a few days before they were to be married, they are an audience of people each with a more or less adventurous history. It is perfectly natural that it should be so; it is the irrepressible spirit of adventure that is either directly or indirectly responsible for their presence here. Half an hour after the echoes of the three cheers and the "tiger" have died away finds me wet-footed and engaged in fording a series of aggravating little streams, that obstruct my path so frequently that to stop and shed one's foot-gear for each soon becomes an intolerable nuisance. I should think I can lay claim, without exaggeration, to crossing fifty of these streams inside of ten miles. A good-sized stream emerges from the Elburz foot-hills; after reaching the plain it follows no regular channel, but spreads out like an open fan into a gradually widening area of small streams, that play their part in irrigating a few scattering fields and gardens, and are then lost in the sands of the desert to the south. Situated where it can derive the most benefit from these streams is the village of Sherifabad, and beyond Sherifabad stretches a verdureless waste to Aivan-i-Kaif. On this desert, I sit down, for a few minutes, on one of those little mounds of stones piled up at intervals to mark the road when the trail is buried beneath the winter snows; a green-turbaned descendant of the Prophet, bestriding a bay horse, comes from the opposite direction, stops, dismounts, squats down on his hams close by, and proceeds to regale himself with bread and figs, meanwhile casting fugitive glances at the bicycle. Presently he advances closer, gives me a handful of figs, squats down closer to the bicycle, and commences a searching investigation of its several parts. "Where are you going?" he finally asks. "Meshed." "Where have you come from?" "Teheran." With that he hands me another handful of figs, remounts his horse, and rides away without another word. Inquisitiveness is seen almost bristling from the loose sleeves and flowing folds of his sky-blue gown, but his over-whelming sense of his own holiness forbids him holding anything like a lengthy intercourse with an unhallowed Ferenghi, and, much as he would like to know everything about the bicycle, he goes away without asking a single question about it. Shortly after parting company with the sanctimonious seyud, I encounter a prosperous-looking party of dervishes. Some of them are mounted on excellent donkeys, and for dervishes they look exceptionally flourishing and well to do. As I ride slowly past, they accost me with their customary "huk yah huk," and promise to pray Allah for a safe journey to wherever I am going, if I will only favor them with the necessary backsheesh to command their good offices. There are some stretches of very good road across this desert, and I reach Aivan-i-Kaif near noon. There has been no drinkable water for a long distance, and, being thirsty, my first inquiry is for tea. "There is a tchai-khan at the umbar (water-cistern), yonder," I am told, and straightway proceed to the place pointed out; but "tchai-khan neis" is the reply upon inquiring at the umbar. In this manner am I promptly initiated into one peculiarity of the people along this portion of the Meshed pilgrim road, a peculiarity that distinguishes them from the ordinary Persian as fully as the shaking of their heads for an affirmative reply does the people of the Maritza Valley from other people of the Balkan Peninsula. They will frequently ask you if you want a certain article, simply for the purpose of telling you they haven't got it. Whether this queer inconsistency comes of simon-pure inquisitiveness, to hear what one will say in reply, or whether they derive a certain amount of inquisitorial pleasure from raising a person's expectations one moment so as to witness his disappointment the next, is a question I prefer to leave to others, but more than once am I brought into contact with this peculiarity during the few brief hours I stay at Aivan-i-Kaif. It is not improbable that these people are merely carrying their ideas of politeness to the insane length of holding out the promise of what they think or ascertain one wants, knowing at the same time their inability to supply it. It is threatening rain as I pick my way through a mile or so of mud ruins, tumble-down walls, and crooked paths, leading from the umbar to the house of the Persian telegraph-jee, who has been requested, from Teheran, to put me up, and, in view of the threatening aspect of the weather, I conclude to remain till morning. The English Government has taken charge of the Teheran and Meshed telegraph-line, during the delimitation of the Afghan and Turkestan boundary, and, besides guaranteeing the native telegraph-jees their regular salary-which is not always forthcoming from the Persian Government-they pay them something extra. In consequence of this, the telegraph-jees are at present very favorably disposed toward Englishmen, and Mirza Hassan readily tenders me the hospitality of the little mud office where he amuses himself daily clicking the keys of his instrument, smoking kalians, drinking tea, and entertaining his guests. Mr. Mclntire and Mr. Stagno are somewhere between here and Meshed, inspecting and repairing the line for the English Government, for they received it from the Persians in a wretched, tumble-down condition, and Mr. Gray, telegraphist for the Afghan Boundary Commission, is stationed temporarily at Meshed, so that, thanks to the boundary troubles, I am pretty certain of meeting three Europeans on the first six hundred miles of my journey. Mirza Hassan is hospitable and well meaning, but, like most Persians, he is slow about everything but asking questions. Being a telegraph-jee, he is, of course, a comparatively enlightened mortal, and, among other things, he is acquainted with the average Englishman's partiality for beer. One of the first questions he asks, is whether I want any beer. It strikes me at once as a rather strange question to be asked in a Persian village, but, thinking he might perchance have had a bottle or two left here by one of the above-mentioned telegraph-inspectors, I signify my willingness to sample a little. True to the peculiar inconsistency of his fellows, he replies: "Ob-i-jow neis" (beer, no). If he hasn't ob-i-jow, however, he has tea, and in about an hour after my arrival he produces the samovar, a bowl of sugar, and the tiny glasses in which tea is always served in Persia. Visitors begin dropping in as usual, and, before long, hundreds of villagers are swarming about the telegraph-khana, anxious to see me ride. It is coming on to rain, but, in order to rid the telegraph-office of the crowd, I take the bicycle out. Willing men carry both me and the bicycle across a stream that runs through the village, to smooth ground on the opposite side, where I ride back and forth several times, to the wild and boisterous delight of the entire population. In this manner I succeed in ridding the telegraph-office of the crowd; but there is no getting rid of the visitors. Everybody in the place who thinks himself a little better than the ragamuffin ryots comes and squats on his hams in the little hut-like office, sips the telegraph-jee's sweetened tea, smokes his kalians, and spends the afternoon in staring wonderingly at me and the bicycle. Having picked up a little Persian during the winter, I am able to talk with them, and understand them, rather better than last season, and, Persian-like, they ply me mercilessly with questions. Often, when some one asks a question of me, Mirza Hassan, as becomes a telegraphies, and a person of profound erudition, thoughtfully saves me the trouble of replying by undertaking to furnish the desired information himself. One old mollah wants to know how many farsakhs it is from Aivan-i-Kaif to Yenghi Donia (New World-America); ere I can frame a suitable reply, Mirza Hassan forestalls my intentions by answering, in a decisive tone of voice that admits of no appeal, "Khylie!" "Khylie" is a handy word that the Persians always fall back on when their knowledge of great numbers or long distances is vague and shadowy; it is an indefinite term, equivalent to our word "many." Mirza Hassan does not know whether America is two hundred farsakhs away or two thousand, but he knows it to be "khylie farsakhs," and that is perfectly satisfactory to himself, and the white-turbaned questioner is perfectly satisfied with "khylie" for an answer. A person from the New World is naturally a rara avis with the simple villagers of Aivan-i-Kaif, and their inquisitiveness concerning Yenghi Donia and Yenghi Donians fairly runs riot, and shapes itself into all manner of questions. They want to know whether the people smoke kalians and ride horses--real horses, not asps-i-awhans-in Yenghi Donia, and whether the Valiat smoked the kalian with me at Hadji Agha. Mirza Hassan explains about the kalian and horses; he enlightens his wondering auditors to the extent that Yenghi Donians smoke nargilehs and chibouques instead of kalians, and he contemptuously pooh-poohs the idea of them keeping riding-horses when they are clever enough to make iron horses that require nothing to eat or drink and no rest. About the question of the Heir Apparent smoking the kalian with me he betrays as lively an interest as anybody in the room, but he maintains a discreet silence until I answer in the negative, when he surveys his guests with the air of one who pities their ignorance, and says, "Kalian neis." A lusty-lunged youngster of about three summers has been interrupting the genial flow of conversation by making "Rome howl" in an adjoining room, and Mirza Hassan fetches him in and consoles him with sundry lumps of sugar. The advent of the limpid-eyed toddler leads the thoughts and questions of the company into more domestic channels. After exhaustive questioning about my own affairs, Mirza Hassan, with more than praiseworthy frankness and becoming gravity, informs me that, besides the embryo telegraphjee and sugar-consumer in the room, he is the happy father of "yek nim" (one and a half others). I cast my eye around the room at this extraordinary announcement, expecting to find the company indulging in appreciative smiles, but every person in the room is as sober as a judge; plainly, I am the only person present who regards the announcement as anything uncommon. After an ample supper of mutton pillau, Mirza Hassan proceeds to say his prayers, borrowing my compass to get the proper bearings for Mecca, which I have explained to him during the afternoon. With no little dismay he discovers that, according to my explanations, he has for years been bobbing his head daily several degrees east of the holy city, and, like a sensible fellow, and a person who has become convinced of the infallibility of telegraph instruments, compasses, and kindred aids to the accomplishment of human ends, he now rectifies the mistake. Everybody along this route uses a praying-stone, a small cake of stone or hardened clay, containing an inscription from the Koran. These praying-stones are obtained from the sacred soil of Meshed, Koom, or Kerbela, and are placed in position on the ground in front of the kneeling devotee during his devotions, so that, instead of touching his forehead to the carpet or the common ground of his native village, he can bring it in contact with the hallowed soil of one of these holy cities. Distance lends enchantment to a holy place, and adds to the efficacy of a prayer-stone in the eyes of its owner, and they are valued highly or lightly according to the distance and the consequent holiness of the city they are brought from. For example, a Meshedi values a prayer-stone from Kerbela, and a Kerbeli values one from Meshed, neither of them having much faith in the efficacy of one from his own city; familiarity with sacred things apparently breeds doubts and indifference. The prayer-stone is reverently touched to lips, cheeks, and forehead at the finish of prayers, and then carefully wrapped up and stowed away until praying-time comes round again. To a sceptical and perhaps irreverent observer, these praying-stones would seem to bear about the same relation to a pilgrimage to Meshed or Kerbela as a package of prepared sea-salt does to a season at the sea-side. CHAPTER II. PERSIA AND THE MESHED PILGRIM ROAD It rains quite heavily during the night, but clears off again in the early morning, and at eight o'clock I take my departure, Mirza Hassan refusing to allow his son and heir to accept a present in acknowledgment of the hospitality received at his hands. The whole male population of the village is assembled again at the spot where their experience of yesterday has taught them I should probably mount; and the house-tops overlooking the same spot, and commanding a view of the road across the plain to the eastward, are crowded with women and children. The female portion of my farewell audience present quite a picturesque appearance, being arrayed in their holiday garments of red, blue, and other bright colors, in honor of Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath. Pour miles of most excellent camel-path lead across a gravelly plain, affording a smooth, firm, wheeling surface, notwithstanding the heavy rains of the previous night; but beyond the plain the road leads over the pass of the Sardara Kooh, one of the many spurs of the Elburz range that reach out toward the south. This spur consists of saline hills that present a very remarkable appearance in places; the rocks are curiously honey-combed by the action of the salt, and the yellowish earthy portion of the hills are fantastically streaked and seamed with white. A trundle of a couple of miles brings me to the summit, from which point I am able to mount, and, with brake firmly in hand, glide smoothly down the eastern slope. After descending about a mile, I am met by a party of travellers who give me friendly warning of deep water a little farther down the mountain. After leaving them, my road follows down the winding bed of a stream that is probably dry the greater part of the year; but during the spring thaws, and immediately after a rain-storm, a stream of brackish, muddy water a few inches deep trickles down the mountain and forms a most disagreeable area of sticky salt mud at the bottom. The streak this morning can more truthfully be described as yellow liquid mud than as water, and both myself and wheel present anything but a prepossessing appearance in ten minutes after starting down its grimy channel. I am, however, congratulating myself upon finding it so shallow, and begin to think that, in describing the water as nearly over their donkeys' backs, the travellers were but indulging their natural propensity as subjects of the Shah, and worthy followers in the footsteps of Ananias. About the time I have arrived at this comforting conclusion, I am suddenly confronted by a pond of liquid mud that bars my farther progress down the mountain. A recent slide of land and rock has blocked up the narrow channel of the stream, and backed up the thick yellow liquid into a pool of uncertain depth. There is no way to get around it; perpendicular walls of rock and slippery yellow clay rise sheer from the water on either side. There is evidently nothing for it but to disrobe without more ado and try the depth. Besides being thick with mud, the water is found to be of that icy, cutting temperature peculiar to cold brine, and after wading about in it for fifteen minutes, first finding a fordable place, and then carrying clothes and wheel across, I emerge on to the bank formed by the land-slip looking as woebegone a specimen of humanity as can well be imagined. Plastered with a coat of thin yellow mud from head to foot, chilled through and through, and shivering like a Texas steer in a norther, feet cut and bleeding in several places from contact with the sharp rocks, and no clean water to wash off the mud! With the assistance of knife, pocket-handkerchief, and sundry theological remarks which need not be reproduced here, I finally succeed in getting off at least the greater portion of the mud, and putting on my clothes. The discomfort is only of temporary duration; the agreeable warmth of the after-glow exhilarates both mind and body, and with the disappearance of the difficulty to the rear cornea the satisfaction of having found it no harder to overcome. A little good wheeling is encountered toward the bottom of the pass, and then comes an area of wet salt-flats, interspersed with saline rivulets--those innocent-looking little streamlets the deceptive clearness of which tempts the thirsty and uninitiated wayfarer to drink. Few travellers in desert countries but have been deceived by these innocuous-looking streamlets once, and equally few are the people who suffer themselves to be deceived by their smooth, pellucid aspect a second time; for a mouthful of either strongly saline or alkaline water from one of them creates an impression on the deceived one's palate and his mind that guarantees him to be wariness personified for the remainder of his life. Since a certain experience in the Bitter Creek country, Wyoming, the writer prides himself on being able to distinguish drinkable water from the salty or alkaline article almost as far as it can be seen, and a stream about which the least suspicion is entertained is invariably tasted with gingerly hesitancy to begin with. Soon after noon I reach the village of Kishlag, where a halt of an hour or so is made to refresh the inner man with tea, raw eggs, and figs--a queer enough bill of fare for dinner, but no more queer than the people from whom it is obtained. Some of my readers have doubtless heard of the Milesian waiter who could never be brought to see any inconsistency in asking the guests of the restaurant whether they would take tea or coffee, and then telling them there was no tea, they would have to take coffee. The proprietor of the little tchai-khan at Kishlag asks me if I want coffee, and then, in strict conformity with the curious inconsistency first discovered and spoken of at Aivan-i-Kaif, he informs me that he has nothing but tea. The country hereabout is evidently the birthplace of Irish bulls; when the ancestors of modern Handy Andys were running wild on the bogs of Connemara, the people of Aivan-i-Kaif and Kishlag were indulging in Irish bulls of the first water. The crowd at Kishlag are good-natured and comparatively well-behaved. In reply to their questionings, I tell them that I am journeying from Yenghi Donia to Meshed. The New World is a far-away, shadowy realm to these ignorant Persian villagers, almost as much out of their little, unenlightened world as though it were really another planet; they evidently think that in going to Meshed I am making a pilgrimage to the shrine of Imam Riza, for some of them commence inquiring whether or no Yenghi Donians are Mussulmans. The weather-clerk inaugurates a regular March zephyr in the east, during the brief halt at Kishlag; and in addition to that doubtful favor blowing against me, the road leading out is lumpy as far as the cultivated area extends, and then it leads across a rough, stony plain that is traversed by a network of small streams, similar to those encountered yesterday at Sherifabad. To the left, the abutting front of the Elburz Mountains is streaked and frescoed with salt, that in places vies in whiteness with the lingering-patches of snow higher up; to the right extends the gray, level plain, interspersed with small cultivable areas for a farsakh or two, beyond which lies the great dasht-i-namek (salt desert) that comprises a large portion of the interior of Persia. Wild asses abound on the dasht-i-namek, and wandering bands of these animals occasionally stray up in this direction. The Persians consider the flesh of the wild donkey as quite a delicacy, and sometimes hunt them for their meat; they are said to be untamable, unless caught when very young, and are then generally too slender-limbed to be of any service in carrying weights. Wild goats abound in the Elburz Mountains; the villagers hunt them also for their meat, but the flesh of the wild goat is said to contribute largely to the prevalence of sore eyes among the people. The Persian will eat wild donkey, wild goat, and the flesh of camels, but only the very poor people--people who cannot afford to be fastidious--ever touch a piece of beef; gusht-i-goosfang (mutton) is the staple meat of the country. The general aspect of the country immediately south of the Elburz Mountains, beyond the circumscribed area of cultivation about the villages, is that of a desert, desolate, verdureless, and forbidding. One can scarcely realize that by simply crossing this range a beautiful region is entered, where the prospect is as different as is light from darkness. An entirely different climate characterizes the Province of Mazanderan, comprising the northern slopes of these mountains and the Caspian littoral. With a humid climate the whole year round, and the entire face of the country covered with dense jungle, the northern slopes of the Elburz Mountains present a striking contrast to the barren, salt-frescoed foot-hills facing the south hereabout. Here, as at Resht, the moisture from the Caspian Sea does for the province of Mazanderan what similar influences from the Pacific do for California. It makes all the difference between California and Nevada in the one case, and Mazanderan and the desert-like character of Central Persia in the other. In striking and effective contrast to the general aspect of death and desolation that characterizes the desert wastes of Persia--an effect that is heightened by the ruins of caravansaries or villages, that are seldom absent from the landscape--are the cultivated spots around the villages. Wherever there is a permanent supply of water, there also is certain to be found a mud-built village, with fields of wheat and barley, pomegranate orchards, and vineyards. In a country of universal greenness these would count for nothing, but, situated like islands in the sea of sombre gray about them, they often present an appearance of extreme beauty that the wondering observer is somewhat puzzled to account for; it is the beauty of contrast, the great and striking contrast between vegetable life and death. These impressions are nowhere more strongly brought into notice than when approaching Aradan, a village I reach about five o'clock. Like almost all Persian towns and villages, Aradan has evidently occupied a much larger area at one time than it does at present; and the mournful-looking ruins of mosques, gateways, walls, and houses are scattered here and there over the plain for a mile before reaching the present limits of habitation. The brown ruins of a house are seen standing in the middle of a wheat-field; the wheat is of that intense greenness born of irrigation and a rich sandy soil, and the mud ruins, dead, desolate, and crumbling to dust, look even more deserted and mournful from the great contrast in color, and from the myriad stems of green young life that wave and nod about them with every passing breeze. The tumble-down windows and doorways form openings through which the blue sky and the green waving sea of vegetation beyond are seen as in a picture, and the ruined mud mosque, its dome gone, its windows and doorways crumbled to shapeless openings, seems like a weather-beaten skeleton of Persia's past, while the ever-moving waves of verdant life about it, seem to be beating against it and persistently assailing it, like waves of the sea beating against an isolated rock. While engaged in fording a stream on the stony plain between road. The shagird-chapar is with them, on a third "bag of bones," worse, if possible, than the others. Taking the world over, there is perhaps no class of horses that are, subject to so much cruelty and ill-treatment as the chapar horses of Persia, With back raw, ribs countable a hundred yards away, spavined, blind of an eye, fistula, and cursed with every ill that horseflesh in the hands of human brutes is subject to, the chapar horse is liable to be taken out at any hour of the day or night, regardless of previous services being but just finished. He is goaded on with unsparing lash to the next station, twenty, or perhaps thirty miles away, staggering beneath the weight of the traveller, or his servant, with ponderous saddlebags. This chapar, or post-service, is established along the great highways of travel between Teheran and Tabreez, Teheran and Meshed, and Teheran and Bushire, with a branch route from the Tabreez trail to the Caspian port of Enzeli; the stations vary from four to eight farsakhs apart. Not all the chapar horses are the wretched creatures just described, however, and by engaging beforehand the best horses at each station along the route, certain travellers have made quite remarkable time between points hundreds of miles apart. In addition to horses for himself and servants, the traveller is required to pay for one to carry the shagird-chapar who accompanies them to the next station to bring back the horses. The ordinary charge is one keran a farsakh for each horse. It wouldn't be a Persian institution, however, if there wasn't some little underhanded arrangement on hand to mulct the traveller of something over and above the legitimate charges. Accordingly, we find two distinct measurements of distance recognized between each station--the "chapar distance" and the correct distance. If, for instance, the actual distance is six farsakhs, the "chapar distance" will be seven, or seven and a half; the difference between the two is the chapar-jee's modokal; without modokal there is no question but that a Persian would feel himself to be a miserable, neglected mortal. Aradan is another telegraph control station, and Mr. Stagno informs me that the telegraph-jee is looking forward to my arrival, and is fully prepared to accommodate me over night; and, furthermore, that all along the line the people of the telegraph towns are eagerly anticipating the arrival of the Sahib, with the marvellous vehicle, of which they have heard such strange stories. Aradan is reached about five o'clock; the road leading into the village is found excellent wheeling, enabling me to keep the saddle while following at the heels of a fleet-footed ryot, who voluntarily guides me to the telegraph-khana. The telegraph-jee is temporarily absent when I arrive, but his farrash lets me inside the office yard, spreads a piece of carpet for me to sit on, and with commendable thoughtfulness shuts out the crowd, who, as usual, immediately begin to collect. The quickness with which a crowd collects in a Persian town has to be seen to be fully comprehended. For the space of half an hour, I sit in solitary state on the carpet, and endure the wondering gaze and the parrot-like chattering of a thin, long row of villagers, sitting astride the high mud wall that encloses three sides of the compound, and during the time find some amusement in watching the scrambling and quarrelling for position. These irrepressible sight-seers commenced climbing the wall from the adjoining walls and houses the moment the farash shut them out of the yard, and in five minutes they are packed as close as books on a shelf, while others are quarreling noisily for places; in addition to this, the roof of every building commanding a view into the chapar-khana compound is swarmed with neck-craning, chattering people. Soon the telegraph-jee puts in an appearance; he proves to be an exceptionally agreeable fellow, and one of the very few Persians one meets with having blue eyes. He appears to regard it as quite an understood thing that I am going to remain over night with him, and proceeds at once to make the necessary arrangements for my accommodation, without going to the trouble of extending a formal invitation. He also wins my eternal esteem by discouraging, as far as Persian politeness and civility will admit, the intrusion of the inevitable self-sufficients who presume on their "eminent respectability" as loafers, in contradistinction to the half-naked tillers of the soil, to invade the premises and satisfy their inordinate curiosity, and their weakness for kalian, smoking and tea-drinking at another's expense. After duly discussing between us a samovar of tea, we take a stroll through the village to see the old castle, and the umbars that supply the village with water. The telegraph- gee cleared the walls upon his arrival, but the housetops are out of his jurisdiction, and before starting he wisely suggests putting the bicycle in some conspicuous position, as an inducement for the crowd to remain and concentrate their curiosity upon it, otherwise there would be no keeping them from following us about the village. We set it up in plain view on the bala-khana, and returning from our walk, are amused to find the old farrash delivering a lecture on cycling. The fortress at Aradan is the first one of the kind one sees when travelling eastward from Teheran, but as we shall come to a larger and better preserved specimen at Lasgird, in a couple of days, it will, perhaps, be advisable to postpone a description till then. They are all pretty much alike, and were all built to serve the same purpose, of affording shelter and protection from Turkoman raiders. The Aradan umbars are nothing extraordinary, except perhaps that the conical brick-work roofs are terraced so that one can walk, like ascending stairs, to the summit; and perhaps, also, because they are in a good state of repair --asufficiently unusual thing in a Persian village to merit remark. These umbars are filled by allowing the water to flow in from a street ditch connecting with the little stream to which every village owes its existence; when the umbar is full, a few spadefuls of dirt shut the water off. The chief occupation of the Eastern female is undoubtedly carrying water; the women of Oriental villages impress the observant Occidental, as people who will carry water-worlds may be created and worlds destroyed; all things else may change, and habits and costumes become revolutionized by the march of time, but nothing will prevent the Oriental female from carrying water, and carrying it in huge earthenware jugs! At any hour of the day--I won't speak positively about the night--women may be seen at the unbars filling large earthenware jugs, coming and going, going and coming. I don't remember ever passing one of these cisterns without seeing women there, filling and carrying away jars of water. No doubt there are occasional odd moments when no women are there, but any person acquainted with village life in the East will not fail to recognize this as simply the plain, unvarnished truth. As the ditch from which the umbar is filled not infrequently runs through half the length of the village first, the personal habits of a Mohammedan population insure that it reaches the umbar in anything but a fit condition for human consumption. But the Koran teaches that flowing water cannot be contaminated or defiled, consequently, when he takes a drink or fills the village reservoir, your thoroughbred Mussulman never troubles his head about what is going on up-stream. The Koran is to him a more reliable guide for his own good than the evidence of all his seven senses combined. Stagnant pools of water, covered, even this early in the season (March 12th), with green scum, breed fever and mosquitoes galore in Aradan; the people know it, acknowledge it readily, and suffer from it every summer, but they take no steps to remedy the evil; the spirit of public enterprise has dwindled to such dimensions in provincial Persia, that it is no longer equal to filling up a few fever-breeding pools of water in the centre of a village. The telegraph-jee himself acknowledges that the water-holes cause fever and mosquitoes, but, intelligent and enlightened mortal though he be in comparison with his fellow-villagers, when questioned about it, he replies: "Inshalla! the water don't matter; if it is our kismet to take the fever and die, nothing can prevent it; if it is our kismet not to take it, nothing can give it to us." Such unanswerable logic could only originate in the brain of a fatalist; these people are all fatalists, and--as we can imagine--especially so when the doctrine comes in handy to dodge doing anything for the public weal. All Persian villages, except those clustered about the immediate vicinity of a large city, have some peculiarity of their own to offer in the matter of the people's dress. The pantaloons of any Persian village are not by any means stylish garments, according to Western ideas; but the male bipeds of Aradan have something really extraordinary to offer, even among the many startling patterns of this garment met with in Eastern lands. To note the quantity of material that enters into the composition of a pair of Aradan pantaloons, would lead an uninitiated person into thinking the people all millionaires, were it not likewise observed that the material is but coarse blue cotton, woven and dyed by the wearer's wife, mother, or sister. One of the most conspicuous features about them is that their shape--if they can truthfully be said to have any shape--seems to be a wild, rambling pattern of our own ideas concerning the shape this garment ought to assume. The legs, instead of being gathered, Oriental fashion, at the ankles, dangle loosely about the feet; and yet it is these same legs that are the chief distinguishing feature of the pants. One of the legs, cut off and sewed up at one end, would make the nicest kind of an eight-bushel grain sack; rather too wide, perhaps, in proportion to the depth, to make a shapely grain sack, but there is no question about the capacity for the eight bushels. No doubt these people would be puzzled to say why they are wearing yards and yards of stuff that is not only useless, but positively in the way, except that it has been the fashion in Aradan from time immemorable to do so. These simple Persian peasants, when they make any pretence of sprucing up, probably find themselves quite as much enslaved by fashion as our very fastidious selves; a wide difference betaken ourselves and them, however, being, that while they cling tenaciously to some prehistoric style of garment, and regard innovations with abhorrence, fashion demands of us to be constantly changing. The Aradan telegraph-jee is a young man skin-full of piety, rejoicing in the possession of a nice little praying-carpet, a praying-stone from holy Kerbela, the holiest of all except Mecca, and he owns a string of beads of the same soul-comforting material as the stone. During his waking hours he is seldom without the rosary in his hand, passing the holy beads back and forth along the string; and five times a day he produces the praying-stone from its little leathern pouch and goes through the ceremony of saying his prayers, with becoming earnestness. At eventide, when he spreads his praying-carpet and places the little oblong tablet from Kerbela in its customary position, preparatory to commencing his last prayers for the day, it is furthermore ascertained by the compass that he has been pretty accurate in his daily prostrations toward Mecca. With all these enviable advantages--the praying-carpet, the praying-stone, the holy rosary, and the happy accuracy as regards Mecca--the Aradan telegraph-jee is a Mussulman who ought to feel tolerably certain of a rose-garden, a gurgling rivulet, and any number of black-eyed houris to contribute to his happiness in the paradise he hopes to enter beyond the tomb. Indications have not been wanting during the day that the weather is in anything but a settled condition, and upon waking in the morning I fancy I hear the pattering music of the rain. Fortunately it proves to be only fancy, and the telegraph-jee, assuming the part of a weather-prophet, reassures me by remarking, "Inshalla, am roos, baran neis" (Please God, it will not rain to-day). Being a Persian, he says this, not because he has any particular confidence in his own predictions, but because his idea of making himself agreeable is to frame his predictions by the measurement of what he discovers to be my wishes. The road into Aradan led me through one populous cemetery, and the road out again leads me through another; beyond the cemetery it follows alongside a meandering streamlet that flows, sluggishly along over a bed of deep gray mud. The road is lumpy but ridable, and I am pedalling serenely along, happy in the contemplation of better roads ahead than I had yesterday, when one of those ludicrous incidents happen that have occurred at intervals here and there all along my journey. A party of travellers have been making a night march from the east, and as we approach each other, a wary kafaveh-carrying mule, suspicious about the peaceful character of the mysterious object bearing down toward him, pricks up his ears, wheels round, and inaugurates confusion among his fellows, and then proceeds to head them in a determined bolt across the stream. Unfortunately for the women in the kajavehs, the mud and water together prove to be deeper than the mule expected to find them, and the additional fright of finding himself in a well-nigh swamped condition, causes him to struggle violently to get out again. In so doing he bursts whatever fastenings may have bound him and his burden together, scrambles ashore, and leaves the kajavehs floating on the water! The women began screaming the moment the mule wheeled round and bolted, and now they find themselves afloat in their queer craft, these characteristic female signals of distress are redoubled in energy; and they may well be excused for this, for the kajavehs are gradually filling and sinking; it was never intended that kajavehs should be capable of acting in the capacity of a boat. The sight of their companion's difficulties has the effect of causing the other mules to change their minds about crossing the stream, and almost to change their minds about indulging in the mulish luxury of a scare; and fortunately the charvadars of the party succeed in rescuing the kajavehs before they sink. Nobody is injured, beyond the women getting wet; no damage is done worth mentioning, and as the two heroines of the adventure emerge from their novel craft, their garments dripping with water, their doleful looks are rewarded with unsympathetic merriment from the men. Few have been my wheeling days on Asian roads that have not witnessed something in the shape of an overthrow or runaway; so far, nobody has been seriously injured by them, but I have sometimes wondered whether it will be my good fortune to complete the bicycle journey around the world without some mishap of the kind, resulting in broken limbs for the native and trouble for myself. After a couple of miles the road and the meandering stream part company, the latter flowing southward and the road traversing a flat, curious, stone-strewn waste; an area across which one could step from one large boulder to another without touching the ground. Once beyond this, and the road develops into several parallel trails of smooth, hard gravel, that afford as good, or better, wheeling than the finest macadam. While spinning at a highly satisfactory rate of speed along these splendid paths, a small herd of antelopes cross the road some few hundred yards ahead, and pass swiftly southward toward the dasht-i-namek. These are the first antelopes, or, for that matter, the first big game I have encountered since leaving the prairies of Western Nebraska. The Persian antelope seems to be a duplicate of his distinguished American relative in a general, all-round sense; he is, if anything, even more nimble-footed than the spring-heeled habitue of the West, possesses the same characteristic jerky jump, and hoists the same conspicuous white signal of retreat. He is a decidedly slimmer-built quadruped, however, than the American antelope; the body is of the same square build, but is sadly lacking in plumpness, and he seems to be an altogether lankier and less well-favored animal. For this constitutional difference, he is probably indebted to the barren and inhospitable character of the country over which he roams, as compared with the splendid feeding-grounds of the--Far West. The Persians sometimes hunt the antelope on horseback, with falcons and greyhounds; the falcons are taught to fly in advance and attack the fleeing antelopes about the head, and so confuse them and retard their progress in the interest of the pursuing hounds and horsemen. The little village of Deh Namek is reached about mid-day, where my ever-varying bill of fare takes the shape of raw eggs and pomegranates. Deh Namek is too small and unimportant a place to support a public tchai-khan; but along the Meshed pilgrim road the villagers are keenly alive to the chance of earning a stray keran, and the advent of one of those inexhaustible keran-mines, a "Sahib," is the signal for some enterprising person, sufficiently well-to-do to own a samovar, to get up steam in it and prepare tea. East of Deh Namek, the wheeling continues splendid for a dozen miles, traversing a level desert on which one finds no drinkable water for about twenty miles. Across the last eight miles of the desert the road is variable, consisting of alternate stretches of ridable and unridable ground, the latter being generally unridable by reason of sand and loose gravel, or thickly strewn flints. More antelopes are encountered east of Deh Namek; at one place, particularly, I enjoy quite a little exciting spurt in an effort to intercept a band that are heading across my road from the Elburz foot-hills to the desert. The wheeling is here magnificent, the spurt develops into a speed of fourteen miles an hour; the antelopes see their danger, or, at all events, what they fancy to be danger, and their apprehensions are not by any mean lessened by the new and startling character of their pursuer. Wild antelopes are timid things at all times, and, as may be readily imagined, the sight of a mysterious glistening object, speeding along at a fourteen or fifteen mile pace to intercept them, has a magical effect upon their astonishing powers of locomotion. They seem to fly rather than run, and to skim like swallows over the surface of the level plain rather than to touch the ground; but they were some distance from the road when they first realized my terrifying presence, and I am within fifty yards of the band when they flash like a streak of winged terror across the road. These antelopes do not cease their wild flight within the range of my powers of observation; long after the mousy hue of their bodies has rendered their forms indistinguishable in the distance from the sympathetic coloring of the desert, rapidly bobbing specks of white betray the fact that their supposed narrow escape from the vengeful pursuit of the bicycle has given them a fright that will make them suspicious of the Meshed pilgrim road for weeks. "Deh Namek" means "salt village;" and it derives its name from the salt flats that are visible to the south of the road, and the general saline character of the country round about. Salt enters very largely into the composition of the mountains that present a solid and fantastically streaked front a few miles to the north; and the streams flowing from these mountains are simply streams of brine, whose mission would seem to be conveying the saline matter from the hills, and distributing it over the flats and swampy areas of the desert. These flats are visible from the road, white, level, and impressive; like the Great American Desert, Utah, as seen from the Matlin section house, and described in a previous chapter (Vol. I.), it looks as though it might be a sheet of water, solidified and dead. At the end of the twenty miles one comes to a small and unpretentious village and an equally small and unpretentious wayside tchai-khan, both owing their existence to a stream of fresh water as small and unpretentious as themselves. Beyond this cheerless oasis stretches again the still more cheerless desert, the rivulets of undrinkable salt water, the glaring white salt-flats to the south, and the salt-encrusted mountains to the north. The shameless old party presiding at the tchai-khan evidently realizes the advantages of his position, where many travellers from either direction, reaching the place in a thirsty condition, have no choice but between his decoction and cold water. Instead of the excellent tea every Persian knows very well how to make, he serves out a preparation that is made, I should say, chiefly from camelthorn buds plucked within a mile of his shanty; he furthermore illustrates in his own methods the baneful effects of being without the stimulus of a rival, by serving it up in unwashed glasses, and without noticing whether it is hot or cold. Much loose gravel prevails between this memorable point and Lasgird, and while trundling laboriously through it I am overtaken by a rain-storm, accompanied by violent wind, that at first encompasses me about in the most peculiar manner. The storm comes howling from the northwest and advances in two sections, accompanied by thunder and lightning; the two advancing columns seem to be dense masses of gray cloud rolling over the surface of the plain, and between them is a clear space of perhaps half a mile in width. The rain-dispensing columns pass me by on either side with muttering rolls of thunder and momentary gleams of lightning, enveloping me in swirling eddies of dust and bewildering atmospheric disturbances, but not a drop of rain. It is plainly to be seen, however, that the two columns are united further west, and that it behooves me to don my gossamer rubbers; but before being overtaken by the rain, the heads of the flying columns are drawn together, and for some minutes I am surrounded entirely by sheets of falling moisture and streaming clouds that descend to the level plain and obscure the view in every direction; and yet the clear sky is immediately above, and the ground over which I am walking is perfectly dry. After the first violent burst there is very little wind, and the impenetrable walls of vapor encompassing me round about at so near a distance, and yet not interfering with me in any way, present a most singular appearance. While appreciating the extreme novelty of the situation, I can scarce say in addition that I appreciate the free play of electricity going on in all directions, and the irreverent manner in which the nickeled surface of the bicycle seems to glint at it and defy it; on the contrary, I deem it but an act of common discretion to place the machine for a short time where the lightning can have a fair chance at it, without involving a respectful non-combatant in the destruction. In half an hour the whole curious affair is over, and nothing is seen but the wild-looking tail-end of the disturbance climbing over a range of mountains in the southeast. The road now edges off in a more northeasterly course, and by four o'clock leads me to the base of a low pass over a jutting spur of the mountains. At the base of the spur, a cultivated area, consisting of several wheat-fields and terraced melon-gardens, has been rescued from the unproductive desert by the aid of a bright little mountain stream, whose wild spirit the villagers of Lasgird have curbed and tamed for their own benefit, by turning it from its rocky, precipitous channel, and causing it to descend the hill in a curious serpentine ditch. The contour of the ditch is something like this: ~~~~~~~~~~~; it brings the water down a pretty steep gradient, and its serpentine form checks the speed of its descent to an uniform and circumspect pace. The road over the pass leads through a soft limestone formation, and here, as in similar places in Asia Minor, are found those narrow, trench-like trails, worn by the feet of pilgrims and the pack-animal traffic of centuries, several feet deep in the solid rock. On a broad cultivated plain beyond the pass is sighted the village of Lasgird, its huge mud fortress, the most conspicuous object in view, rising a hundred feet above the plain. CHAPTER III. PERSIA AND THE MESHED PILGRIM ROAD. A mile or so through the cultivated fields brings me to the village just in time to be greeted by the shouts and hand-clapping of a wedding procession that is returning from conducting the bride to the bath. Men and boys are beating rude, home-made tambourines, and women are dancing along before the bride, clicking castanets, while a crowd of at least two hundred villagers, arrayed in whatever finery they can muster for the occasion, are following behind, clapping their hands in measured chorus. This hand-clapping is, I believe, pretty generally practiced by the villagers all over Central Asia on festive occasions. As a result of riding for the crowd, I receive an invitation to take supper at the house of the bridegroom's parents. Having obtained sleeping quarters at the chapar-khana, I get the shagird-chapar to guide me to the house at the appointed hour, and arrive just in time for supper. The dining-room is a low-ceiled apartment, about thirty feet long and eight wide, and is dimly lighted by rude grease lamps, set on pewter lamp-stands on the floor. Squatting on the floor, with their backs to the wall, about fifty villagers form a continuous human line around the room. These all rise simultaneously to their feet as I am announced, bob their heads simultaneously, simultaneously say, "Sahib salaam," and after I have been provided with a place, simultaneously resume their seats. Pewter trays are now brought in by volunteer waiters, and set on the floor before the guests, one tray for every two guests, and a separate one for myself. On each tray is a bowl of mast (milk soured with rennet--the "yaort" of Asia Minor), a piece of cheese, one onion, a spoonful or two of pumpkin butter and several flat wheaten cakes. This is the wedding supper. The guests break the bread into the mast and scoop the mixture out with their fingers, transferring it to their mouths with the dexterity of Chinese manipulating a pair of chop-sticks; now and then they take a nibble at the piece of cheese or the onion, and they finish up by consuming the pumpkin butter. The groom doesn't appear among the guests; he is under the special care of several female relations in another apartment, and is probably being fed with tid-bits from the henna-stained fingers of old women, who season them with extravagant and lying stories of the bride's beauty, and duly impress upon him his coming matrimonial responsibilities. Supper eaten and the dishes cleared, an amateur luti from among the villagers produces a tambourine and castanets, and, taking the middle of the room, proceeds to amuse the company by singing extempore love songs in praise of the bride and groom to tambourine accompaniment and pendulous swayings of the body. Pretending to be carried away by the melodiousness and sentiment of his own productions, he gradually bends backward with hands outstretched and castanets jingling, until his head almost touches the floor, and maintains that position while keeping his body in a theatrical tremor of delight. This is the finale of the performance, and the luti comes and sets his skull-cap in front of me for a present; my next neighbor, the bridegroom's father, takes it up and hands it back with a deprecatory wave of the hand; the luti replies by promptly setting it down again; this time my neighbor lets it remain, and the luti is made happy by a coin. Torchlight processions to the different baths are now made from the house of both bride and groom, for this is the "hammam night," devoted to bathing and festivities before the wedding-day. Torches are made with dry camelthorn, the blaze being kept up by constant renewal; a boy, with a lighted candle, walks immediately ahead of the bridegroom and his female relations, and a man with a farnooze brings up the rear. Nobody among the onlookers is permitted to lag behind the man with the farnooze, everybody being required to either walk ahead or alongside. The tambourine-beating and shouting and hand-clapping of the afternoon is repeated, and every now and then the procession stops to allow one or two of the women to face the bridegroom and favor him with an exhibition of their skill in the execution of the hip-dance. The bridal procession is coming down another street, and I stop to try and obtain a glimpse of the bride; but she is completely enveloped in a flaming red shawl, and is supported and led by two women. There seems to be little difference in the two processions, except the preponderance of females in the bride's party; everything is arranged in the same order, and women dance at intervals before the bride as before the groom. It begins raining before I retire for the night; it rains incessantly all night, and is raining heavily when I awake in the morning. The weather clears up at noon, but it is useless thinking of pushing on, for miles of tenacious mud intervene between the village and the gravelly desert; moreover, the prospect of the fine weather holding out looks anything but reassuring. The villagers are all at home, owing to the saturated condition of their fields, and I come in for no small share of worrying attention during the afternoon. A pilgrim from Teheran turns up and tells the people about my appearance before the Shah; this increases their interest in me to an unappreciated extent, and, with glistening eyes and eagerly rubbing fingers, they ask "Chand pool Padishah?" (How much money did the King give you?) "I showed the Shah the bicycle, and the Shah showed me the lions, and tigers, and panthers at Doshan Tepe," I tell them; and a knowing customer, called Meshedi Ali, enlightens them still further by telling them I am not a luti to receive money for letting the Shah-in-Shah see me ride. Still, luti or no luti, the people think I ought to have received a present. I am worried to ride so incessantly that I am forced to seek self-protection in pretending to have sprained my ankle, and in returning to the chapar-khana with a hypocritical limp. I station myself ostensibly for the remainder of the day on the bala-khana front, and busy myself in taking observations of the villagers and their doings. Time was, among ourselves, or more correctly, among our ancestors, when blood-letting was as much the professional calling of a barber as scraping chins or trimming hair, and when our respected beef-eating and beer-drinking forefathers considered wholesale blood-letting as a well-nigh universal panacea for fleshly ills. In travelling through Persia, one often observes things that suggest very strikingly those "good old days" of Queen Bess. The citizens of Zendjan offering the Shah a present of 60,000 tomans, as an inducement not to visit their city, as they did when he was on his way to Europe, has a true Elizabethan ring about it, a suggestion of the Virgin Queen's rabble retinue travelling about, devouring and destroying, and of justly apprehensive citizens, seeing ruin staring them in the face, petitioning their regal mistress to spare them the dread calamity of a royal visit. The ancient Zoroastrian barber, no doubt, bled his patients and customers on the public streets of Persian towns, for the benefit of their healths, when we pinned our pagan faith on Druidical incantations and mystic rites and ceremonies; his Mussulman descendants were doing the same thing when we at length arrived at the same stage of enlightenment, and the Persian wielder of razor and tweezers to-day performs the same office as belonging to his profession. From my vantage point on the bala-khana of the Lasgird chapar station, I watch, with considerable interest, the process of bleeding a goodly share of the male population of the village; for it is spring-time, and in spring, every Persian, whether well or unwell, considers the spilling of half a pint or so of blood very necessary for the maintenance of health. The village barber, with his arms bared, and the flowing, o'er-ample legs of his Aradan-Lasgird pantaloons tucked up at his waist, like a washerwoman's skirt, a bunch of raw cotton in lieu of lint under his left arm, and his keen-edged razor, looks like a man who thoroughly realizes and enjoys the importance of the office he is performing, as from the bared arm or open mouth of one after the other of his neighbors he starts the crimson stream. The candidates for the barber's claret-tapping attentions bare their right arms to the shoulder, and bind for each other a handkerchief or piece of something tightly above the elbow, and the barber deftly slits a vein immediately below the hollow of the elbow-joint, pressing out the vein he wishes to cut by a pressure of the left thumb. The blood spurts out, the patient looks at the squirting blood, and then surveys the onlookers with a "who-cares?--I-don't" sort of a grin. He then squats down and watches it bleed about a half-pint, occasionally working the elbow-joint to stimulate the flow. Half a pint is considered about the correct quantity for an adult to lose at one bleeding; the barber then binds on a small wad of cotton. Now and then a customer gives the barber a trifling coin by way of backsheesh, but the great majority give nothing. In a mere village like Lasgird, these periodical blood-lettings by the barber are, no doubt, regarded as being all in the family, rather than of professional services for a money consideration. The communal spirit obtains to a great extent in village life throughout both Asia Minor and Persia; nevertheless backsheesh would be expected in Persia from those able to afford it. Some few prefer being bled in the roof the mouth, and they all squat on their hams in rows, some bleeding from the arm, others from the mouth, while the inevitable crowd of onlookers stand around, gazing and giving advice. While the barber is engaged in binding on the wad of cotton, or during any interval between patients, he inserts the handle of the razor between his close-fitting skull-cap and his forehead, letting the blade hang down over his face, edge outward; a peculiar disposition of his razor, that he would, no doubt, be entirely at a loss to account for, except that he is following the custom of his fathers. As regards the customs of his ancestors, whose trade or profession he invariably follows, the Asiatic is the most conservative of mortals. "What was good enough for my father and grandfather," he says, "is certainly good enough for me;" and earnestly believing in this, he never, of his own accord, thinks of changing his occupation or of making improvements. Later in the afternoon I descend from the bala-khana and take a strolling look at the village, and with the shagird-chapar for guide, pay a visit to the old fortress, the conspicuous edifice seen from the trail-worn limestone pass. Forgetting about my subterfuge of the sprained ankle, I wander forth without the aforementioned limp; but the people seem to have forgotten it as completely as I had; at all events, nobody makes any comments. A ripple of excitement is caused by a two-storied house collapsing from the effects of the soaking rains, an occurrence by no means infrequent in the spring in a country of mud-built houses. A crowd soon appears upon the scene, watching, with unconcealed delight, the spectacle of tumbling roof and toppling wall, giving vent to their feelings in laughter and loud shouts of approval, like delighted children, whenever another bulky square of mud and thatch comes tumbling down. Fortunately, nobody happens to be hurt, beyond the half-burying in the debris of some donkeys, which are finally induced to extricate themselves by being vigorously bombarded with stones. No sympathy appears to be given on the part of the spectators, and evidently nothing of the kind is expected by the tenants of the tumbling house; the wailing women, and the look of consternation on the face of the men who barely escaped from the falling roof, seem to be regarded by the spectators as a tomasha (show), to be stared at and enjoyed, as they would stare at and enjoy anything not seen every day; on the other hand, the occupants of the house regard their misfortune as kismet. Returning to the chapar-ktiana, I get the shayird to pilot me into and round about the fortress. It is rapidly falling to decay, but is still in a sufficiently good state of preservation to show thoroughly its former strength and conformation. The fortress is a decidedly massive building, constructed entirely of mud and adobe bricks, a hundred feet high, of circular form, and some two hundred yards in circumference. The disintegrated walls and debris of former towers form a sloping mound or foundation about fifty feet in height, and from this the perpendicular walls of the castle rise up, huge and ugly, for another hundred feet. Following a foot-trail up the mound-like base, we come to a low, gloomy passage-way leading into the interior of the fort. A door, composed of one massive stone slab, that nothing less than a cannon-shot would shatter, guards the entrance to this passage, which is the only accessible entrance to the place. Following it along for perhaps thirty yards, we emerge upon a scene of almost indescribable squalor--a scene that instantly suggests an overcrowded "rookery" in the tenement-house slums of New York. The place is simply swarming with people, who, like rabbits in an old warren, seem to be moving about among the tumble-down mud huts, anywhere and everywhere, as though the old ruined fortress were burrowed through and through, or that the people now moved through, over, under, and around the remnants of what was once a more orderly collection of dwellings, having long forsaken regular foot-ways. The inhabitants are ragged and picturesque, and meandering about among them, on the most familiar terms, are hundreds of goats. Although everything is in a more or less dilapidated condition, huts or cells still rise above each other in tiers, and the people clamber about from tier to tier, as if in emulation of their venturesome four-footed associates, who are here, we may well imagine, in as perfect a paradise as vagrom goatish nature would care for or expect. At a low estimate, I should place the present population of the old fortress at a thousand people, and about the same number of goats. In the days when the bold Turkoman raiders were wont to make their dreaded damans almost up to the walls of Teheran, and such strongholds as this were the only safeguard of out-lying villagers, the interior of Lasgird fortress resembled a spacious amphitheatre, around which hundreds of huts rose, tier above tier, like the cells of a monster pigeon-house, affording shelter in times of peril to all the inhabitants of Lasgird, and to such refugees as might come in. At the first alarm of the dreaded man-stealers' approach, the outside villagers repaired to the fortress with their portable property; the donkeys and goats were driven inside and occupied the interior space, and the massive stone door was closed and barricaded. The villagers' granaries were inside the fortress, and provisions for obtaining water were not overlooked; so that once inside, the people were quite secure against any force of Turkomans, whose heaviest arms were muskets. The suggestion of an amphitheatre, as above described, is quite patent at the present day, in something like two or three hundred tiered dwellings; in the days of its usefulness there must have been a thousand. Thanks to the Russian occupation of Turkestan, there is no longer any need of the fortress, and the present population seem to be occupying it at the peril of having it some day tumble down about their ears; for, massive though its walls most certainly are, they are but mud, and the people are indifferent about repairs. Failing to surprise the watchful villagers in their fields or outside dwellings, the baffled marauders would find confronting them fifty feet of solid mud wall without so much as an air-hole in it, rising sheer above the mound-like foundation, and above this, tiers of rooms or cells, from inside which archers or musketeers could make it decidedly interesting for any hostile party attempting to approach. This old fortress of Lasgird is very interesting, as showing the peaceful and unwarlike Persian ryot's method of defending his life and liberty against the savage human hawks that were ever hovering near, ready to swoop down and carry him and his off to the slave markets of Khiva and Bokhara. These were times when seed was sown and harvest garnered in fear and trembling, for the Turkoman raiders were adepts at swooping down when least expected, and they rode horses capable of making their hundred miles a day over the roughest country. (Incredible as this latter fact may seem, it is, nevertheless, a well-known thing in Central Asia that the Turkoman's horse is capable of covering this remarkable distance, and of keeping it up for days.) A thunder-storm is raging violently and drenching everything as I retire for the night, dampening, among other things, my hopes of getting away from Lasgird for some days; for between the village and the gravelly, and consequently always traversable, desert, are some miles of slimy clay of the kind that in wet weather makes an experienced cycler wince to think of crossing. The floor of the bala-khana forms once again my nocturnal couch; but the temperature lowers perceptibly as the night advances and the rain continues, and toward morning it changes into snow. The doors and windows of my room are to be called doors and windows only out of courtesy to a rude, unfinished effort to imitate these things, and the floor, at daybreak, is nicely carpeted with an inch or so of "the beautiful snow," and a four-inch covering of the same greets my vision upon looking outside. Determined to make the best of the situation, I remove my quarters from the cold and draughty bala-khana to the stable, and send the shagird-chapar out in quest of camel-thorn, bread, eggs, and pomegranates, thinking thus to obtain the luxury of a bit of fire and something to eat in comparative seclusion. This vain hope proves that I have not even yet become thoroughly acquainted with the Persians. No sooner does my camel-thorn blaze begin to crackle and the smoke to betray the whereabouts of a fire, than shivering, blue-nosed villagers begin to put in their appearance, their backs humped up and their bare ankles and slip-shod feet adding not a little to the general aspect of wretchedness that seems inseparable from Persians in cold weather. And these are the people who, during a gleam of illusory sunshine yesterday, were so nonchalantly parting with their blood--of which, by the by, your bread and cucumber eating, and cold water drinking Persian has little enough, and that little thin enough at any time. These rag-bedecked, shivering wretches hop up on the raised platform where the fire is burning and squat themselves around it in the most sociable manner; and under the thawing process of passing their hands through the flames, poking the coals together, and close attention to the details of keeping it burning, they quickly thaw out in more respects than one. Fifteen minutes after my fire is lighted, the spot where I anticipated a samovar of tea and a pomegranate or two in peace, is occupied by as many Persians as can find squatting room, talking, shouting, singing, and kalian-smoking, meanwhile eagerly and expectantly watching the preparations for making tea. Preferring to leave them in full possession rather than be in their uncongenial midst, I pass the time in promenading back and forth behind the horses. After walking to and fro a few times, the, to them, singular performance of walking back and forth excites their easily-aroused curiosity, and the wondering attention of all present becomes once again my unhappy portion. An Asiatic's idea of enjoying himself in cold weather is squatting about a few coals of fire, making no physical exertion whatever beyond smoking and conversing; and the spectacle of a Ferenghi promenading back and forth, when he might be following their example of squatting by the fire, is to them a subject of no little wonder and speculation. The redeeming feature of my enforced sojourn at Lasgird is the excellence of the pomegranates, for which the place is famous, and of which there seems an abundance left over through the winter. A small quantity of seedless pomegranates, a highly valued variety, are grown here at Lasgird, but they are all sent to Teheran for the use of the Shah and his household, and are not to be obtained by anyone. It has been a raw, disagreeable day, and at night I decide to sleep in the stable, where it is at least warmer, though the remove is but a compromise by which one's olfactory sensibilities are sacrificed in the interest of securing a few hours' sleep. An unexpected, but none the less welcome, deliverance appears on the following morning in the shape of a frost, that forms on the sticky mud a crust of sufficient thickness to enable me to escape across to the welcome gravel beyond the Lasgird Plain ere it thaws out. Thus on the precarious path of a belated morning frost, breaking through here, jumping over there, I leave Lasgird and its memories of wedding processions, and blood-letting, its huge mud fortress, its pomegranates, and its discomforts. Three miles of mostly ridable gravel bring me to another village, and to four miles of horrible mud in getting through its fields and over its ditches. A raw wind is blowing, and squally gusts of snow come scudding across the dreary prospect--a prospect flanked on the north by cold, gray hills, and the face of nature generally furrowed with tell-tale lines of winter's partial dissolution. While trundling through this village, both myself and bicycle plastered to a well-nigh unrecognizable state with mud, feeling pretty thoroughly disgusted with the weather and the roads, an ancient-looking Persian emerges from a little stall with a last season's muskmelon in hand, and advancing toward me, shouts, "H-o-i" loud enough to wake the seven sleepers. Shouting "H-o-i!!" at a person close enough to hear a whisper, as loud as though he were a good mile away, is a peculiarity of the Persians that has often irritated travellers to the pitch of wishing they had a hot potato and the dexterity to throw it down their throats; and in my present unenviable condition, and its accompanying unenviable frame of mind, I don't mind admitting that I mentally relegated this vociferous melon-vender to a place where infinitely worse than hot potatoes would overtake him. Knowing full well that a halt of a single minute would mean a general mustering of the population, and an importuning rabble following me through the unridable mud, I ignore the old melon-man's foghorn efforts to arrest my onward progress; but he proves a most vociferous and persistent specimen of his class. Nothing less than a dozen exclamation points can give the faintest idea of how a "hollering" Persian shouts "H-o-i." Seven miles over very good gravel, and my road leads into the labyrinth of muddy lanes, ditches, and water-holes, tumble down walls, and disorderly-looking cemeteries of the suburbs of Semnoon. In traversing the cemeteries, one cannot help observing how many of the graves are caved in by the rains and the skeletons exposed to view. Mohammedans bury their dead very shallow, usually about two feet, and in Persia the grave is often arched over with soft mud bricks; these weaken and dissolve after the rains and snows of winter, and a cemetery becomes a place of exposed remains and of pitfalls, where an unwary step on what appears solid ground may precipitate one into the undesirable company of a skeleton. By the time Semnoon is reached the day has grown warmer, and the sun favors the cold, dismal earth with a few genial rays, so that the blooming orchards of peach and pomegranate that brighten and enliven the environs of the city, and which suggest Semnoon to be a mild and sheltered spot, seem quite natural, notwithstanding the patches of snow lying about. The crowds seem remarkably well behaved as I trundle through the bazaar toward the telegraph office, the total absence of missiles being particularly noticeable. The telegraph-jee proves to be a sensible, enlightened fellow, and quite matter-of-fact in his manner for a Persian; apart from his duty to the Governor and a few bigwigs of the place, whom it would be unpardonable in him to overlook or ignore, he saves me as much as possible from the worrying of the people. Prince Anushirvan Mirza, Governor of Semnoon, Damghan, and Shahrood, is the Shah's cousin, son of Baahman Mirza, uncle of the Shah, and formerly Governor of Tabreez. Baahman Mirza was discovered intriguing with the Russians, and, fearing the vengeance of the Shah, fled from the country; seeking an asylum among the Russians, he is now--if not dead--a refugee somewhere in the Caucasus. But the father's disgrace did not prejudice the Shah against his sons, and Prince Anushirvan and his sons are honored and trusted by the Shah as men capable of distinguishing between the friends and enemies of their country, and of conducting themselves accordingly. The Governor's palace is not far from the north gate of the city, and after the customary round of tea and kalians, without which nothing can be done in Persia, he walks outside with his staff to a piece of good road in order to see me ride to the best advantage. (As a specimen of Persian extravagance--to use a very mild term--it may be as well to mention here as anywhere, that the Governor telegraphed to his son, acting as his deputy at Shahrood, that he had ridden some miles with me out of the city!) During the evening one of the Governor's sons, Prince Sultan Madjid Mirza, comes in with a few leading dignitaries to spend an hour in chatting and smoking. This young prince proves one of the most intelligent Persians I have met in the country; besides being very well informed for a provincial Persian, he is bright and quick-witted. Among the gentlemen he brings in with him is a man who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca via "Iskenderi" (Alexandria) and Suez, and has, consequently, seen and ridden on the Egyptian railway. The Prince has heard his description of this railway, and the light thus gained has not unnaturally had the effect of whetting his curiosity to hear more of the marvellous iron roads of Frangistan; and after exhausting the usual programme of queries concerning cycling, the conversation leads, by easy transition, to the subject of railways. "Do they have railways in Yenghi Donia?" questioned the Prince. "Plenty of railways; plenty of everything," I reply. "Like the one at Iskenderi and Stamboul?" "Better and bigger than both these put together a hundred times over; the Iskenderi railroad is very small." Nods and smiles of acquiescence from Prince and listeners follow this statement, which show plainly enough that they consider it a pardonable lie, such as every Persian present habitually indulges in himself and thinks favorably of in others. "Railroads are good things, and Ferenghis are very clever people," says the Prince, renewing the subject and handing me a handful of salted melon seeds from his pocket, meanwhile nibbling some himself. "Yes; why don't you have railroads in Iran? You could then go to Teheran in a few hours." The Prince smiles amusingly at the thought, as though conscious of railroads in Persia being a dream altogether too bright to ever materialize, and shaking his head, says: "Pool neis" (we have no money). "The English have money and would build the railroad; but, 'Mollah neis' --Baron Reuter?--you know Baron Reuter--' Mollah neis,' not 'pool neis.'" The Prince smiles, and signifies that he is well enough aware where the trouble lies; but we talk no more of railroads, for he and his father and brothers belong to the party of progress in Persia, and the triumph of priests and old women over the Shah and Baron Reuter's railway is to them a distressful and humiliating subject. The late lamented O'Donovan, of "To the Merve" fame, used to make Semnoon his headquarters while dodging about on the frontier, and was personally known to everyone present. Semnoon is celebrated for the excellence of its kalian tobacco, and O'Donovan was celebrated in Semnoon for his love of the kalian. This evening, in talking about him, the telegraph-jee says that "when he pulled at the kalian he pulled with such tremendous eagerness that the flames leaped up to the ceiling, and after three whiffs you couldn't see anybody in the room for smoke!" The telegraph-jee's farrash builds a good wood fire in a cozy little room adjoining the office; blankets are provided, an ample supper is sent around from the telegraph-jee's house, and what is still better appreciated, I am left to enjoy these substantial comforts without so much as a single spectator coming to see me feed; no one comes near me till morning. The morning breaks cold and clear, and for some six miles the road is very fair wheeling; after this comes a gradual inclination toward a jutting spur of hills; the following twenty miles being the toughest kind of a trundle through mud, snow-fields, and drifts. This is a most uninviting piece of country to wheel through, and it would seem but little less so to traverse at this time of the year with a caravan of camels, two or three of these animals being found exhausted by the roadside, and a couple of charvadars encountered in one place skinning another, while its companion is lying helplessly alongside watching the operation and waiting its own turn to the same treatment. It is said to be characteristic of a camel that, when he once slips down, cold and weary, in the mud, he never again tries to regain his feet. The weather looks squally and unsettled, and I push ahead as rapidly as the condition of the ground will permit, fearing a snow-storm in the hills. About three p.m. I arrive at the caravansarai of Ahwan, a dreary, inhospitable place in an equally dreary, inhospitable country. Situated in a region of wind and snow and bleak, open hills, the wretched serai of Ahwan is remembered as a place where the keen, raw wind seems to come whistling gleefully and yet maliciously from all points of the compass, seemingly centring in the caravansarai itself; these winds render any attempt to kindle a fire a dismal failure, resulting in smoke and watery eyes. Here I manage to obtain half-frozen bread and a few eggs; after an ineffectual attempt to roast the latter and thaw out the former, I am forced to eat them both as they are; and although the sun looks ominously low, and it is six farsakhs to the next place, I conclude to chance anything rather than risk being snow-bound at Ahwan. Fortunately, after about five miles more of snow, the trail emerges upon a gravelly plain with a gradual descent from the hills just crossed to the lower level of the Damghan plain. The favorable gradient and the smooth trails induce a smart pace, and as the waning daylight merges into the soft, chastened light of a cloud-veiled moon, I alight at the village and serai of Gusheh. There are at the caravansarai a number of travellers, among them a moujik of the Don, travelling to Teheran and beyond in company with a Tabreez Turk. The Russian peasant at once invites me to his menzil in the caravansarai; and although he looks, if anything, a trifle more indifferent about personal cleanliness than either a Turkish or Persian peasant, I have no alternative but to accept his well-meant invitation. At this juncture, when one's thoughts are swayed and influenced by an appetite that the cold day and hard tugging through the hills have rendered well-nigh uncontrollable, a prosperous-looking Persian traveller, returning from a pilgrimage to Meshed with his wives, family, and servitors, quite a respectable-sized retinue, emerges from the seclusion of his quarters to see the bicycle. Of course he requests me to ride, sending his link-boys to bring out all the farnoozes to supplement fair Luna's coy and inefficient beams; and after the performance, the old gentleman promises to send me round a dish of pillau. In due time the promised pillau comes round, an ample dish, sufficient to satisfy even my present ravenous appetite, and after this he sends round tea, lump sugar, and a samovar. The moujik turns to and gets up steam in the samovar, and over tiny glasses of the cheering but non-intoxicating beverage, he sings a Russian regimental song, and his comrade, the Tabreez Turk, warbles the praises of Stamboul. But although they make merry over the tea, methinks both of them would have made still merrier over something stronger, for the moujik puts in a good share of the evening talking about vodka consumed at Shahrood, and smacking his lips at the retrospective bliss embodied in its consumption; while the Turk from Tabreez catches me aside and asks mysteriously if my packages contain any "raki" (arrack). Like the Ah wan caravansarai, the one at Gusheh seems to draw the chilly winds from every direction, and I arise from a rude couch, made wretchedly uncomfortable by draughts, the attacks of insects, and the persistent determination of a horse to use my prostrate form as a rest for his nose-bag, to find myself the possessor of a sore throat. Persian travellers are generally up and off before daylight, and the clicking noise (Persian curry-combs are covered with small rings that make a rattling noise when being used) of currying horses begins as early as three o'clock. The attendants of the old gentleman of happy remembrance in connection with last night's pillau and samovar, have been busy for two hours, and his taktrowan and kajauehs are already occupied and starting, when by the first gleam of awakening dawn I mount and wheel eastward. A shallow, unbridged stream obstructs my path but a short distance from Gusheh, and I manage to get in knee-deep in trying to avoid the necessity of removing my footgear; I then wander several miles off my road to an outlying village. This happy commencement of a new day is followed by a variable road leading sometimes over stony or gravelly plains where the wheeling varies through all the stages of goodness, badness, and indifference, and sometimes through grazing grounds and cultivable areas adjoining the villages. Scattered about the grazing and arable country are now small towers of refuge, loop-holed for defense, to which ryots working in the fields, or shepherds tending their flocks, fled for safety in case of a sudden appearance of Turcoman marauders. But a few years ago men hereabouts went to plough, sow, or reap with a gun slung at their backs, and a few of them reaching the shelter of one of these compact little mud towers were able, through the loop-holes, to keep the Turcomans at bay until relief arrived. The towers are of circular form, about twenty feet high and fifteen in diameter; the entrance is a very small doorway, often a mere hole to crawl into, and steps inside lead to the summit; some are roofed in near the top, others are mere circular walls of mud. On grazing grounds a lower wall often encompasses the tower, fencing in a larger space that formed a corral for the flocks; the shepherds then, while defending themselves, were also defending their sheep or goats. In the more exposed localities these little towers of refuge are often but a couple of hundred yards apart, thickly dotting the country in all directions, while watch-towers are seen perched on peaks and points of vantage, the whole scene speaking eloquently of the extraordinary precautions these poor people were compelled to adopt for the preservation of their lives and property. No wonder Russian intrigue makes headway in Khorassan and all along the Turco-inan-Perso frontier, for the people can scarcely help being favorably impressed by the stoppage of Turcoman deviltry in their midst, and the wholesale liberation of Persian slaves. The town of Damghan is reached near noon, and I am not a little gratified to learn that the telegraph-jee has been notified of my approach, and has stationed his farrash at the entrance to the bazaar, so that I should have no trouble in finding the office. This augurs well for the reception awaiting me there, and I am accordingly not surprised to find him an exceptionally affable youth, proud of a word or two of English he had somehow acquired, and of his knowledge of how to properly entertain a Ferenghi. This latter qualification assumes the eminently practical, and, it is needless to add, acceptable form of a roast chicken, a heaping dish of pillau, and sundry other substantial proofs of anticipatory preparations. The telegraph-jee takes great pleasure in seeing roast chicken mysteriously disappear, and the dish of pillau gradually diminish in size; in fact, the unconcealed satisfaction afforded by these savory testimonials of his cook's abilities give him such pleasure that he urges me to remain his guest for a day and rest up. But Shahrood is only forty miles away, and here I shall have the pleasure of meeting Mr. McIntyre, before mentioned as line-inspector, who is making his temporary headquarters at that city. Moreover, angry-looking storm-dogs have accompanied the sun on his ante-meridian march to-day, and such experience as mine at Lasgird has the effect of making one, if not weather-wise, at least weather-wary. In approaching Damghan, long before any other indications of the city appear, twin minarets are visible, soaring above the stony plain like a pair of huge pillars; these minars belong to the same mosque, and form a conspicuous landmark for travellers and pilgrims in approaching Damghan from any direction; at a distance they appear to rise up sheer from the barren plain, the town being situated in a depression. Six farsakhs from Damghan is the village of Tazaria, noted in the country round about for the enormous size of the carrots grown there; the minarets of Damghan and the extraordinary size of the Tazaria vegetables furnish the material for a characteristic little Eastern story, current among the inhabitants. Finding that people came from far and near to see the graceful minarets of Damghan, and that nobody came to see Tazaria, the good people of that neglected village became envious, and they reasoned among themselves and said: "Why should Damghan have two minarets and Tazaria none?" So they gathered together their pack-donkeys, their ropes and ladders, and a large company of men, and reached Damghan in the silence and darkness of the night, intending to pull down and carry off one of the minarets and erect it in Tazaria. The ropes were fastened to the summit of the minar, but at the first great pull the brick-work gave way and the top of the tall minaret came tumbling down with a crash and clatter, killing several of its would-be removers. The Damghan people turned out, and after hearing the unhappy Tazarians' laments, some sarcastic citizen gave them a few carrot-seeds, bidding them go home and sow them, and they could grow all the minarets they wanted. The carrots grew famously, and the villagers of Tazaria, instead of the promised minarets, found themselves in possession of a new and useful vegetable that fetched a good price in the Damghan bazaars. The Damghanians, meeting a Tazarian ryot coming in with a donkey-load of these huge carrots, cannot resist twitting him regarding the minars; but the now practical Tazarians no longer mourn the absence of minarets in their village, and when twitted about it, reply: "We have more minarets than you have, but our minarets grow downward and are good to eat." During the afternoon I pass many ruined villages and castles, said to have been destroyed by an earthquake many years ago. Some few natives find remunerative employment in excavating and washing over the dirt and debris of the ruined castles, in which they find coins, rubies, agates, turquoise, and women's ornaments; sometimes they unearth skeletons with ornaments still attached. The sun shines out warm this afternoon, and its genial rays are sufficiently tempting to induce the jackals to emerge from their hiding-places and bask in its beaming smiles on the sunny side of the ruins. Wherever there are ruins and skeletons and decay in Eastern lands--and where are there not?--there also is sure to be found the prowling and sneakish-looking jackal. Shelter, and the usual rude accommodation, supplemented on this occasion by a wandering luti and his vicious-looking baboon, as also a company of riotous charvadars, who insist on singing accompaniments to the luti's soul-harrowing tom-toming till after midnight, are obtained at the caravansarai of Deh Mollah. From Deh Mollah it is only a couple of farsakhs to Shahrood, and after the first three miles, which is slightly upgrade and not particularly smooth, it is downgrade and very fair wheeling the remainder of the distance. The road forks a couple of miles from Shahrood, and while I am entering by one road, Mr. McIntyre is leaving on horseback by the other to meet me, guessing, from word received from Damghan, that I must have spent last night at Deh Mollah, and would arrive at Shahrood this morning. Only those who have experienced it know anything of the pleasure of two Europeans meeting and conversing in a country like Persia, where the habits and customs of the natives are so different, and, to most travellers, uncongenial, and only to be tolerated for a time. I have met Mr. Mclntyre in Teheran, so we are not total strangers, which, of course, makes it still more agreeable. After the customary interchange of news, and the discussion of refreshments, Mr. Mclntyre hands me a telegram from Teheran, which bears a date several days old. It is from the British Legation, notifying me that permission is refused to go through the Turcoman country; an appendage from the Charge d'Affaires suggests that I repair to Astrakhan and try the route through Siberia. And this, then, is the result of General Melnikoff's genial smiles and ready promises of assistance; after providing myself with proper money and information for the Turkestan route, on the strength of the Russian Minister's promises, I am overtaken, when three hundred miles away, with a veto against which anything I might say or do would be of no avail! Sultan Ahmed Mirza, a sou of Prince Anushirvan, is deputy governor of Shahrood, responsible to his father; and ere I have arrived an hour the usual request is sent round for a "tomasha," the word now used by people wanting to see me ride, and which really means an exhibition. His place is found in a brick court-yard with the usual central tank, and the airy rooms of the building all opening upon it, and once again comes the feeling of playing a rather ridiculous role, as I circle awkwardly around the tank over very uneven bricks, and around short corners where an upset would precipitate me into the tank--amid, I can't help thinking, "roars of laughter." The Prince is very lavish of his flowery Persian compliments, and says, "You English have now left nothing more to do but to bring the dead back to life." In the court-yard my attention is called to a set of bastinado poles and loops, and Mr. McIntyre asks the Prince if he hasn't a prisoner on hand, so that he can give us a tomasha in return for the one we are giving him; but it is now the Persian New Year, and the prisoners have all been liberated. Here, gentle reader, in Shahrood--but it now behooves us to be dark and mysterious, and deal in hints and whispers, for the Persian proprieties must not be ruthlessly violated and then as ruthlessly exposed to satisfy the prying curiosity of far off Frangistan that would never do. Behold, then, Mr. Mclntyre absent; behold all male humans absent save myself and a couple of sable eunuchs, whose smooth, whiskerless faces betray inward amusement at the extreme novelty of the situation, and we all alone between the high brick walls that encircle the secrecy of an inner court--and yet not all alone, fortell it in whispers--some half-dozen shrouded female forms are clustered together in one corner. Yashmaks are drawn aside, and plump oval faces and bright eyes revealed, faces brown and soft of outline, eyes black, large and lustrous, with black lines skillfully drawn to make them look still larger, and lashes deeply stained to impart love and languor to their wondrous depths. Whisper it not in Gath, and tell it not in the streets of Frangistan, that the wondrous asp-i-awhan has proved an open sesame capable of revealing to an inquisitive and all-observant Ferenghi the collective charms of a Persian swell's harem! We can imagine these ladies in the seclusion of the zenana hearing of the Ferenghi and his wonderful iron horse, and overwhelmed with feminine curiosity, with much coaxing and promising, obtaining reluctant consent for a strictly secret and decorous tomasha, with covered faces and no one present but the attendant eunuchs and the Ferenghi, who, fortunately, will soon leave the country, never to return. Mohammedan women are merely overgrown children, and the promise of strict decorousness is forgotten or ignored the moment the tomasha begins; and the fun and the wickedness of removing their yashmaks in the presence of a Ferenghi is too rare an opportunity to be missed, and, no doubt, furnishes them with material for amusing conversation for many a day after. Rare fun these ladies think it to uncover their olive faces and let the Ferenghi see their beauty; the eunuchs are generally indulgent to their charges whenever they can safely be so, and on this occasion they content themselves with looking on and saying nothing. After seeing me ride, the ladies cluster boldly around and examine the bicycle, chatting freely among themselves the while concerning its capabilities; but some of the younger ladies regard me with fully as much curiosity as the bicycle, for never before did they have such an opportunity of scrutinizing a Ferenghi. And now, while granted the privilege of this little revelation, we must be very careful not to reveal the secret of whose harem we have seen unveiled, and whose inner court our paran wheels have pressed; for the whirligig of time brings about strange things, and apparently trifling things that have been indiscreetly published by travellers in books at home, have sometimes found their way back to the far East, and caused embarrassment and chagrin to people who treated them with hospitality and respect. CHAPTER IV. THROUGH KHORASSAN. Shahrood is at the exit from the mountains of the caravan route from Asterabad, Mazanderan, and the Caspian coast. The mountains overlooking it are bare and rocky. A good trade seems to be done by several firms of Russian-Armenians in exporting wool, cotton, and pelts to Russia, and handling Russian iron and petroleum. But for the iniquitous method of taxation, which consists really of looting the producing classes of all they can stand, the volume of trade here might easily be tenfold what it is. Shahrood is, or rather was, one of the "four stations of terror," Mijamid, Miandasht, and Abassabad being the other three, so called on account of their exposed position and the consequent frequency of Turcoman attacks. Even nowadays they have their little ripples of excitement; rumors of Turcoman raids are heard in the bazaars, and news was brought in and telegraphed to Teheran a week ago that fifteen thousand sheep had been carried off from a district north of the mountains. Word comes back that a regiment of soldiers is on its way to chastise the Turcomans and recover the property; what really will happen, will be a horde of soldiers staying there long enough to devour what few sheep the poor people have left, and then returning without having seen, much less chastised, a Turcoman. The Persian Government will notify the Russian Minister of the misdoings of the Turcomans, and ask to have them punished and the sheep restored; the Russian Minister will reply that these particular Turcomans were Persian subjects, and nothing further will be done. Mr. Mclntyre is a canny Scot, a Royal Engineer, and weighs fully three hundred pounds; but with this avoirdupois he is far from being inactive, and together we ramble up the Asterabad Pass to take a look at the Bostam Valley on the other side. The valley isn't much to look at; no verdure, only a brown, barren plain, surrounded on all sides by equally brown, barren mountains. In the evening the Prince sends round a pheasant, and shortly after calls himself and partakes of tea and cigarettes, I accept Mr. McIntyre's invitation to remain and rest up, but only for another day, my experience being that, when on the road, one or two days' rest is preferable to a longer period; one gets rested without getting out of condition. We take a stroll through the bazaar in the morning, and call in at the wine-shop of a Russian-Armenian trader named Makerditch, who keeps arrack and native wine, and sample some of the latter. In his shop is a badly stuffed Mazanderaii tiger, and the walls of the private sitting-room are decorated with rude, old-fashioned prints of saints and scriptural scenes. It is now the Persian New Year, and bright new garments and snowy turbans impart a gay appearance to the throngs in the bazaar, for everybody changed his wardrobe from tip to toe on eid-i-noo-roos (evening before New Year's Day), although the "great unwashed" of Persian society change never a garment for the next twelve months. Considering that the average lower-class Persian puts in a good share of this twelve months in the unprofitable process of scratching himself, one would think it must be an immense relief for him to cast away these old habiliments with all their horrid load of filth and vermin, and don a clean, new outfit; but the new ones soon get as thickly tenanted as the old; and many even put the new garments on over certain of the old ones, caring nothing for comfort and cleanliness, and everything for appearance. The Persian New Year's holiday lasts thirteen days, and on the evening of the thirteenth day everybody goes out into the fields and plucks flowers and grasses to present to his or her friends. Governors of provinces who retain their position in consequence of having sent satisfactory tribute to the Shah, and ruled with at least a semblance of justice, get presents of new robes on New Year's Day, and those who have been unfortunate enough to lose the royal favor get removed: New Year's Day brings either sorrow or rejoicing to every Persian official's house. The morning of my departure opens bright and warm after a thunder-storm the previous evening, and Mr. Mclntyre accompanies me to the outskirts of the city, to put me on the right road to Mijamid, my objective point for the day, eleven farsakhs distant. The streets are, of course, muddy and unridable, and ere the suburbs are overcome a messenger overtakes us from the Prince, begging me to return and drink tea with him before starting. "Tell the Prince, the sahib sends salaams, but cannot spare the time to return," replies my companion, who knows Persian thoroughly. "You must come," says the messenger, "for the Khan of Bostam has arrived to pay the New Year's salaam to the Prince, and the Prince wants you to show him the bicycle." "'Must come!' Tell the Prince that when the sahib gets fairly started, as he is now, with his bicycle, he wouldn't turn back for the Shah himself." The messenger looks glum and crestfallen, as though very reluctant to return with such a message, a message that probably sounds to him strangely disrespectful, if not positively treasonable; but he sees the uselessness of bandying words, and so turns about, feeling and looking very foolish, for he addressed us very boldly and confidently before the whole crowd when he overtook us. A few small streams have to be crossed on leaving Shahrood for the cast; splendid rivulets of clear, cold water in which there ought to be trout. After these streams the road launches at once on to a level camel-thorn plain, the gravelled surface of which provides excellent wheeling. An outlying village and caravanserai is passed through at a couple of farsakhs, where, as might be expected in the "district of terror," are hundreds of the little towers of refuge. This village would be in a very exposed position, and it looks as though it is but just now being rebuilt and repopulated after a period of ruin and desertion. Beyond this village the towers of refuge and other signs of human occupation disappear; the uncultivated desert reigns supreme on either hand; but the wheeling continues fairly good, although a strong headwind somewhat impedes my progress. Beyond the level plain and the lower hills to the north are the snowy heights of the Elburz range; a less ambitious range of mountains forms a barrier some twenty miles to the south, and in the distant southeast there looms up a dark, massive pile that recalls at a glance memories of Elk Mountain, Wyoming; though upon a closer inspection there is no doubt but that the densely wooded slopes of our old acquaintance of the Rockies would be found wanting. Twenty miles of this level plain is traversed, and I find myself gazing curiously at a range of mica-flecked hills off to the right. These hills present a very curious appearance; the myriads of flakes of mica scattered all about glitter and glint in the bright sunlight as if they might be diamonds, and it requires but an easy effort of the imagination to fancy one's self in some strange, rich land of the "gorgeous East," where precious jewels are scattered about like stones. These mica-spangled hills bear about the same relation to what one's imagination might conceive them to be as the "gorgeous East" as it actually exists does to the "gorgeous East" we read of in fairytales. Beyond the mica hills, I pass through a stretch of abandoned cultivation, where formerly existed fields and ditches, and villages with an abundance of portable property tempted Turkoman raiders to guide their matchless chargers hither. But small outlying settlements hereabout were precarious places to live in, and the persistent damans generally caused them to be abandoned entirely from time to time. The road has averaged good to-day, and Mijamid is reached at four o'clock. Seeking the shelter of the chapar-khana, that devoted building is soon surrounded by a new-dressed and accordingly a good-natured and vociferous crowd shouting--"Sowar shuk! sowar shuk! tomasha! tomasha!" As I survey the grinning, shouting multitude from my retreat on the roof, and note the number of widely-opened mouths, the old wicked thoughts about hot potatoes and dexterity in throwing them persist in coming to the fore. Several scrimmages and quarrels occur between the chapar-jee and his shagirds, and the crowd, who persist in invading the premises, and the tumult around is something deafening, for it is holiday times and the people feel particularly self-indulgent and disinclined for self-denial. In the midst of the uproar, from out the chaotic mass of rainbow-colored costumes, there forms a little knot of mollahs in huge snowy turbans and flowing gowns of solid blue or green, and at their head the gray-bearded patriarchal-looking old khan of the village in his flowered robe of office from the governor. These gay-looking, but comparatively sober-sided representatives of the village, endeavor to have the crowd cease their clamorous importunities--an attempt, however, that results in signal failure--and they constitute themselves a delegation to approach me in a respectful and decorous manner, and ask me to ride for the satisfaction of themselves and the people. The profound salaams and good taste of these eminently respectable personages are not to be resisted, and after satisfying them, the khan promises to provide me with supper, which at a later hour turns up in the form of the inevitable dish of pillau. Two miles on the road next morning and it begins raining; at five miles it develops into a regular downpour, that speedily wets me through. A small walled village is finally reached and shelter obtained beneath its ample portals, a place that seems to likewise be the loafing-place of the village. The entrance is a good-sized room, and here on wet days the men can squat about and smoke, and at the same time see everything that passes on the road. The village is defended by a strong mud wall some thirty feet high, and strengthened with abutting towers at frequent intervals; the only entrance is the one massive door, and inside there is plenty of room for all the four-footed possessions of the people; the houses are the usual little mud huts with thatched beehive roofs, built against the wall. The flocks of goats and sheep are admitted inside every evening, and taken out again to graze in the morning; the appearance of the interior is that of a very filthy, undrained, and utterly neglected farmyard, and as no breath of wind ever passes through it, or comes any nearer the ground than the top of the thirty-foot wall, living in its reeking, pent-up exhalations must be something abominable. Such a place as this in Persia would be fairly swarming with noxious insect life, of which fleas would be the most tolerable variety, and two-thirds of the people would be suffering from chronic ophthalmia. This little village, doubtless, had enough to do a few years ago to maintain its existence, even with its remarkably strong walls; and on the highest mountain peaks round about they point out to me their watch-towers, where sentinels daily scanned the country round for the wild horsemen they so much dreaded. Four men and three women among the little crowd gathered about me here, are pointed out as having been released from slavery by the Russians, when they captured Khiva and liberated the Persian slaves and sent them home. Every village and hamlet along this part of the country contains its quota of returned captives who, no doubt, entertain lively recollections of being carried off and sold. Soon after my arrival here, a little, weazen-faced, old seyud, in a threadbare and badly-faded green gown, comes hobbling through the rain and the mahogany-colored slush of the village yard to the gate. Everybody rises respectfully as he comes in, and the old fellow, accustomed to having this deference paid him by everybody about him, and wishing to show courtesy to a Ferenghi, motions for me to keep seated. Seeing that I had no intention of rising, this courtesy was somewhat superfluous, but the incident serves to show how greatly these simple villagers are impressed with the idea of a seyud's superiority, to say nothing of the seyud's assumption of the same. They explain to me that the little, unwashed, unkempt, and well-nigh unclad specimen of humanity examining the bicycle is a seyud, with the manner of people pointing out a being of unapproachable superiority. Still, looking at the poor old fellow's rags, and remembering that it is new year and the time for a change of raiment, one cannot help thinking, "Old fellow, you evidently come in for more resect, after all, than material assistance, and would, no doubt, willingly exchange a good deal of the former for a little of the latter." Still, one must not be too confident of this; the bodily requirements of a wrinkled old seyud would be very trifling, while his egotism would, on the other hand, be insufferable. This is a grazing village chiefly, and the gravelly desert comes close up to the walls, so that there is no difficulty about pushing on immediately after it ceases raining. Two farsakhs of variable wheeling through a belt of low hills and broken country, and two more over the level Miandasht Plain, and the caravanserai of Miandasht is reached. Here the village, the telegraph office and everything is enclosed within the protecting walls of an immense Shah Abbas caravanserai, a building capable of affording shelter and protection to five thousand people. In the old--and yet not so very old--dangerous days, it was necessary, for safety, that travellers and pilgrims should journey together through this section of country in large caravans, otherwise disaster was sure to overtake them; and Shah Abbas the Great built these huge caravanserais for their accommodation. In deference to the memory of this monarch as a builder of caravanserais all over the country, any large serai is nowadays called a Shah Abbas caravanserai, whether built by him or not. Certainly not less than three hundred pack-camels, besides other animals, are resting and feeding, or being loaded up for the night march as I ride up, their myriad clanging bells making a din that comes floating across the plain to meet me as I approach. Miandasht is the first place in Khorassan proper, and among the motley gathering of charmdars, camel-drivers, pilgrims, travellers, villagers and hangers-on about the serai, are many Khorassanis wearing huge sheepskin busbies, similar to the head-gear of the Roumanians and Tabreez Turks of Ovahjik and the Perso-Turkish border. Most of these busbies are black or brown, but some affect a mixture of black and white, a piebald affair that looks very striking and peculiar. The telegraph-jee here turns out to be a person of immense importance in his own estimation, and he has evidently succeeded in impressing the same belief upon the unsophisticated minds of the villagers, who, apparently, have come to regard him as little less than "monarch of all he surveys." True, there isn't much to survey at Miaudasht, everything there being within the caravanserai walls; but whenever the telegraph-jee emerges from the seclusion of his little office, it is to blossom forth upon the theatre of the crowd's admiring glances in the fanciful habiliments of a la-de-da Persian swell. Very punctilious as regards etiquette, instead of coming forth in a spontaneous manner to see who I am and look at the bicycle, he pays me a ceremonious visit at the chapar-khana half an hour later. In this visit he is preceded by his farrash, and he walks with a magnificent peacock strut that causes the skirts of his faultless roundabout to flop up and down, up and down, in rhythmic accompaniment to his steps. Apart from his insufferable conceit, however, he tries to make himself as agreeable as possible, and after tea and cigarettes, I give him and the people a tomasha, at the conclusion of which he asks permission to send in my supper. The room in which I spend the evening is a small, dome-roofed apartment, in which a circular opening in the apex of the dome is expected to fill the triple office of admitting light, ventilation, and carrying off smoke from the fire; the natural consequence being that the room is dark, unventilated, and full of smoke. Now and then some determined sightseer on the roof fills this hole up completely with his head, in an effort to peer down through the smoke and obtain a glimpse of myself or the bicycle, or a mischievous youngster, unable to resist the temptation, drops down a stone. The shagird-chapar here is a man who has been to Askabad and seen the railroad; and when the inevitable question of Russian versus English marifet (mechanical skill) comes up, he endeavors to impress upon the open-mouthed listeners the marvellous character of the locomotive. "It is a wonderful atesh-gharri" (fire-wagon), he would say, "and runs on an awhan rah (iron road); the charvadar puts in atesh and ob. It goes chu, chu! chu!! ch-ch-ch-chu-ch-u-u-u!!! spits fire and smoke, pulls a long-khylie long-caravan of forgans with it, and goes ten farsakhs an hour." But in order to thoroughly appreciate this travelled and highly enlightened person's narrative, one must have been present in the smoke-permeated room, and by the nickering light of a camel-thorn fire have watched the gesticulations of the speaker and the rapt attention of the listeners; must have heard the exclamations of "Mashal-l-a-h!" escape honestly and involuntarily from the parted lips of wonder-stricken auditors as they endeavored to comprehend how such things could possibly be. And yet there is no doubt that, five minutes afterward, the verdict of each listener, to himself, was that the shagird-chapar, in describing to them the locomotive, was lying like a pirate--or a Persian--and, after all, they couldn't conceive of anything more wonderful than the bicycle and the ability to ride it, and this they had seen with their own eyes. It is the change of the moon, and a most wild-looking evening; the sun sets with a fiery forge glowing about it, and fringing with an angry border the banks of darksome clouds that mingle their weird shapes with the mountain masses to the west, the wind sighs and moans through the archways and menzils of the huge caravanserai, breathing of rain and unsettled weather. These warning signals are not far in advance, for a drenching rain soaks and saturates everything during the night, converting the parallel trails of the pilgrim road into twenty narrow, silvery streaks, that glisten like trails of glass ahead, as I wheel along them to meet the newly-risen sun. It is a morning of hurrying, scudding clouds and fitful sunshine, but fresh and bracing after the rain; a country of broken hills and undulating road is reached in an hour; the broken hills are covered with blossoming shrubs and green young camel-thorn, in which birds are cheerily piping. Six farsakhs bring me to Abbasabad, the last of the four stations of terror. A lank villager is on the lookout a couple of miles west of the place, the people having been apprised of my coming by some travellers who left Miandasht yesterday evening. Tucking the legs of his pantaloons in his waistband, leaving his legs bare and unencumbered, he follows me at a swinging trot into the village, and pilots me to the caravanserai. The population of the place are found occupying their housetops, and whatever points of vantage they can climb to, awaiting my appearance, their curiosity having been wrought to the highest pitch by their informant's highly exaggerated accounts of what they might expect to see. The prevailing color of the female costume is bright red, and the swarms of these gayly-dressed people congregated on the housetops, and mingled promiscuously with the dark gray of the mud walls and domes, makes a picture long to be remembered. And long also to be remembered is the reception awaiting me inside the caravanserai yard--the surging, pushing, struggling, shouting mob, among whom I notice, with some wonderment and speculation, a far larger proportion of blue-eyed people than I have hitherto seen in Persia. Upon inquiry it is learned that Abbasabad is a colony of Georgians, planted and subsidized here by Shah Abbas the Great, as a check on the Turkomans, whose frequent alamans rendered the roads hereabout well-nigh impassable for caravans. These warlike mountaineers were brought from the Caucasus and colonized here, with lands, exemption from taxes, and given an annual subsidy. They were found to be of good service as a check on the Turkomans, but were not much of an improvement upon the Turkomans themselves in many respects. As seen in the caravanserai to-day, they seem a turbulent, headstrong crowd of people, accustomed to be petted, and to do pretty much as they please. At the caravanserai is a traveller who says he hails from the Pishin Valley, and he produces a certificate in English, recommending him as a stone mason. The certificate settles all doubts of his being from India, for were one to meet an Hindostani in the classic shades of purgatory itself, he would immediately produce a certificate recommending him for something or other. As the crowd surge and struggle for some position around me where they can enjoy the exquisite delight of seeing me sip tiny glasses of scalding hot tea, prepared by the enterprising individual who met me two miles out, the Pishin Valley man tries to look amused at them, and to rise superior to the situation, as becomes a person to whom a Sahib, and whatever wonderful things he may possess, are nothing extraordinary. The crowd seem very loath to let such an extraordinary thing as the bicycle and its rider depart from among them so soon, although at the same time anxious to see me speed along the smooth, straight trails that fortunately lead directly from the caravanserai eastward. Scores of the shouting, yelling mob race, bare-footed and bare-legged, over the stones and gravel alongside the bicycle, until I can put on a spurt and out-distance them, which I take care to do as soon as practicable, thankful to get away and eat the bread pocketed in disgust at the caravanserai in the peace and quietude of the desert. Beyond Abbasabad my road skirts Mazinan Lake to the north, passing between the slimy mud-flats of the lake shore and the ever-present Elburz foot-hills, and then through several wholly ruined or partially ruined villages to Mazinan, where I arrive about sunset, my wheel yet again a mass of mud, for the Mazinan lake country is a muddy hole in spring. A drizzling rain ushers in the dusky shades of the evening, as I repair to the chaparkhana, a wretched hole, in a most dilapidated condition. The balakhana is little better than being out of doors; the roof leaks like a colander, the windows are mere unglazed holes in the wall, and the doors are but little better than the windows. It promises to be a cold, draughty, comfortless night, and the prospects for supper look gloomy enough in the light of smoky camel-thorn and no samovar to make a cup of tea. Such is the cheerless prospect confronting me after a hard day's run, when, soon after dark, a man arrives with a thrice-welcome invitation from a Russian officer, who he says is staying at the caravanserai. The officer, he says, has pillau, kabobs, wine, plenty of everything, and would be glad if I would bring my machine and come and accept his hospitality for the night. Under the circumstances nothing could be more welcome news than this; and picturing to myself a pleasant evening with a genial, hospitable gentleman, I take the bicycle down the slippery and broken mud stairway, and follow my guide through drizzling rain and darkness, over ditches and through miry byways, to the caravanserai. The officer is found squatting, Asiatic-like, on his menzil floor, his overcoat over his shoulders. He is watching his cook broiling kabobs for his supper. It is a cheery, hopeful prospect, the glowing charcoal fire sparkling in response to the vigorous waving of half a saddle-flap, the savory, sizzling kabobs and the carpeted menzil, in comparison with the dreary tumble-down place I have just left. My first impression of the officer himself, however, is scarcely so favorable as my impression of the picture in which he is set--the picture as just described; a sinister leer characterizes the expression of his face, and what appears like a nod, with an altogether unnecessary amount of condescension in it, characterizes his greeting. Hopping down to the ground, lamp in hand, he examines the bicycle minutely, and then indirectly addressing the by-standers, he says, "Pooh! this thing was made in Tiflis; there's hundreds of them in Tiflis." Having delivered himself of this lying statement, he hops up on the menzil front again and, without paying the slightest attention to me, resumes his squatting position at the fire, and his occupation of watching the preparations of his cook. Nothing is more evident to me than that he had never before seen a bicycle, and astounded at this conduct on the part of an officer who doubtless thinks himself a civilized being, even though he might not understand anything of our own conception of an "officer and a gentleman," I begin looking around for an explanation from the fellow who brought me the invitation, thinking there must be some mistake. The man has disappeared and is nowhere to be found. The chapar-jee accompanied us to the caravanserai, and seeing that this man has bolted, and that the Russian officer's intentions toward me are anything but hospitable, he calls the missing man--or the officer, I don't know which--a pedar suktar (son of a burnt father), and suggests returning to the cold comfort of the bala-khana. My own feelings upon realizing that this wretched, unscrupulous Muscovite has craftily designed and executed this plan for no other purpose but to insult and humiliate one whom he took for granted to be an Englishman, in the eyes of the Persian travellers present, I prefer to pass over and leave to the reader's imagination. After sleeping on it and thinking it over, early next morning I returned to the caravanserai, bent on finding the fellow who brought the invitation, giving him a thrashing, and seeing if the officer would take it up in his behalf. In the morning, the cossacks said he had gone away; whether gone away or hiding somewhere in the caravanserai, he was nowhere to be found; which perhaps was just as well, for the affair might have ended in bloodshed, and in a fight the chances would have been decidedly against myself. This incident, disagreeable though it be to think of, is instructive as showing the possibilities for mean and contemptible action that may lurk beneath the uniform of a Russian officer. Russian officers as a general thing, however, it is but fair to add, would show up precisely the reverse of this fellow, under similar circumstances, being genial and hospitable to a fault; still, I venture that in no other army in the world, reckoning itself civilized, could be found even one officer capable of displaying just such a spirit as this. The unwelcome music of pattering rain and flowing water in the concert I have to sit and listen to all the forenoon, and a glance outside is rewarded by the dreariest of prospects. The landscape as seen from my lone and miserable lookout, consists of gray mud-fields and gray mud-ruins, wet and slimy with the constant rains; occasional barley-fields mosaic the dreary prospect with bright green patches, but across them all--the mud-flats, the ruins, and the barley-fields--the driving rain sweeps remorselessly along, and the wind moans dismally. There is only one corner of my room proof against the drippings from the roof, and through the wretched apologies for doors and windows the driving rain comes in. Everything seems to go wrong in this particular place. I obtain tea and sugar, but there is no samovar, and the chapar-jee attempts to make it in an open kettle; the result is sweetened water, lukewarm and smoky. I then send for pomegranates, which turn out to be of a sour, uneatable variety; but worse than all is the dreary consciousness of being hopelessly imprisoned for an uncertain period. It grows gradually colder, and toward noon the rain changes to snow; the cold and the penetrating snow drive me into the shelter of the ill-smelling stables. It blows a perfect hurricane all the afternoon, accompanied by fitful squalls of snow and hail, and the same programme continues the greater part of the night. But in the morning I am thankful to discover that the wind has dried the surface sufficiently to enable me to escape from my mud-environed prison and its uncongenial associations. Before getting many miles from Mazinan, I encounter the startling novelty of streams of liquid mud, rolling their thick, yellow flood over the plain in treacly waves, travelling slowly, like waves of molten lava. The mud is only a few inches deep, but the streams overspread a considerable breadth of country, as my road is some miles from where they leave the mountains, and they seem to have no well-defined channels to flow in. A stream of slimy, yellow mud, two hundred yards wide, is a most disagreeable obstacle to overcome with a bicycle; but confined in narrow, deep channels, the conditions would be infinitely worse. It is a dreary and forbidding stretch of country hereabout, the carcasses of camels that have dropped exhausted by the roadside, are frequently passed, and jackals feasting on them slink off at my approach, watch my progress past with evident impatience, and then return again to their feast. Occasional stretches of very fair wheeling are passed over, and at six farsakhs I reach Mehr, the usual combination of brick caravanserai and mud village. Here a halt is made for tea and such rude refreshments as are obtainable, consuming them in the presence of the usual sore-eyed and miserable-looking crowd; more than one poor wretch appealing to me to cure his rapidly-failing sight. A gleam of warm sunshine brightens my departure from Mehr, and after shaking off several following horsemen, the going seems quite pleasant, the wheeling being very good indeed. The mountains off to the left are variegated and beautiful on the lower and intermediate slopes, and are crested with snow; scudding cloudlets, whose multiform shadows are continually climbing up and over the mountains, produce a pleasing kaleidoscopic effect, and here and there a sunny, glistening peak rises superior to the changeful scenes below. Sheepskin-busbied shepherds are tending flocks of very peculiar-looking sheep on this plain, the first of the kind I have noticed. The fatty continuation of the body, popularly regarded as an abnormal growth of tail, is wanting; but what is lacking in this respect is amply compensated for in the pendulous ears, these members hanging almost to the ground; they have a goatish appearance generally, and may possibly be the result of a cross. Herds of antelope also frequent this locality, which by and by develops into a level mud-plain that affords smooth and excellent wheeling, and over which I take the precaution of making the best time possible, conscious that a few minutes' rain would render it impassable for a bicycle; and wild wind-storms are even now careering over it, accompanied by spits of snow and momentary squalls of hail. A lone minar, looming up directly ahead like a tall factory chimney, indicates my approach to Subzowar. The minaret is reached by sunset; it turns out to be a lone shrine of some imam, from which it is yet two farsakhs to Subzowar. The wheeling from this point, however, is very good, and I roll into Subzowar, or, at least, up to its gate, for Subzowar is a walled city, shortly after dark. Sherab (native wine) they tell me, is obtainable in the bazaar, but when I inquire the price per bottle, with a view of sending for one, several eager aspirants for the privilege of fetching it shout out different prices, the lowest figure mentioned being three times the actual price. Being rather indifferent about the doubtful luxury of drinking wine for the amusement of an eagerly curious crowd, which I know only too well beforehand will be my unhappy portion, I conclude to chagrin and disappoint the whole dishonest crew by doing without. One gets so thoroughly disgusted with the ever-present trickery, dishonesty, and prying, unrestrained curiosity of the ragged, sore-eyed and garrulous crowds that gather about one at every halting place, that a person actually comes to prefer a mere crust of bread in peace by a road-side pool to the best a city bazaar affords. A well-dressed individual makes his salaam and intrudes his person upon the scene of my early preparations to depart, on the following morning, and, when I start, takes upon himself the office of conducting me through the labyrinthian bazaar and to the gate of exit beyond. I am wondering somewhat who this individual may be, and wherefore the officiousness of his demeanor to the crowd at our heels; but his mission is soon revealed, for on the way out he pilots me into the court-yard of the Reis, or mayor of the city. The Reis receives me with the glad and courteous greeting of a person desirous of making himself agreeable and of creating a favorable impression; trays of sweetmeats are produced, and tea is served up in little porcelain cups. As soon as tea and sweetmeats and kalians appear on the board, mollahs and seyuds mysteriously begin to put in an appearance likewise, filing noiselessly in and taking their places near or distant from the Reis, according to their respective rank and degree of holiness. My observations everywhere in the Land of the Lion and the Sun all tend to the conclusion that whenever and wherever a samovar of tea begins to sing its cheery and aromatic song, and the soothing hubble-bubble of the kalian begins telling its seductive tale of solid comfort and social intercourse, a huge green or white turban is certain to appear on the scene, a robed figure steps out of its slippers at the door, glides noiselessly inside, puts its hand on its stomach, salaams, and drops, as silently as a ghost might, in a squatting attitude among the guests. Hardly has this one taken his position than another one appears at the door and goes through precisely the same programme, followed shortly afterward by another, and yet others; these foxy-looking members of the Persian priesthood always seem to me to possess the faculty of scenting these little occasions from afar and of following their noses to the place with unerring precision. Upon emerging from the shelter of the city and adjacent ruins, I find myself confronted by a furious head-wind, against which it is quite impossible to ride, and almost impossible to trundle. During the forenoon I meet on the road a disgraced official, in the person of the Asaf-i-dowleh, Governor-General of Khorassan, returning to Teheran from Meshed, having been recalled at New Year's by the Shah to give an account of himself for "oppressing the people, insulting the Prophet, and intriguing with the Russians." The Asaf-i-dowleh made himself very obnoxious to the priests and people of the holy city by arresting a criminal within the place of refuge at Imam Riza's tomb, and by an outrageous devotion to his own pecuniary interests at the public expense. Riots occurred, the mob taking possession of the telegraph-office and smashing the windows, because they fancied their petition to the Shah was being tampered with. A timely rain-storm dispersed the mob and gave time for the Shah's reply to arrive, promising the Asaf-i-dowleh's removal and disgrace. The ex-Governor is in a carriage drawn by four grays; his own women are in gayly gilded taktrowans, upholstered with crimson satin; the women of his followers occupy several pairs of kajavehs, and the household goods of the party follow behind in a number of huge Russian forgans or wagons, each drawn by four mules abreast. Besides these are a long string of pack-camels, mules, and attendants on horseback, forming altogether the most imposing cavalcade I have met on a Persian road. How they manage to get the heavily loaded forgans and the Governor's carriage over such places as the pass near Lasgird is something of a mystery--but there may be another route--at any rate, hundreds of villagers would be called out to assist. An opportunity also presents this morning of seeing the amount of obstinacy and perverseness that manages to find lodgement within the unsightly curves and angles of a runaway camel. A riding-camel, led by its owner, scares at the bicycle, and, breaking away, leads him a lively chase through a belt of low sand ridges near the road, jolting various packages off his back as he runs. Every time the man gets almost within seizing distance of the rope, the contrary camel starts off again in a long, awkward lope, slowing up again, as though maliciously inviting his owner to try it over again, when he has covered a couple of hundred yards. These manoeuvres are repeated again and again, until the chase has extended to perhaps four miles, when a party of travellers assist in rounding him up; the man then has to re-traverse the whole four miles and gather up the things. A late luncheon of bread, warm from the oven, is obtained at the village of Lafaram, where I likewise obtain a peep behind the scenes of everyday village life, and see something of their mode of baking bread. The walled village of Lafaram presents a picture of manure heaps, holes of filthy water, mud-hovels, naked, sore eyed youngsters, unkempt, unwashed, bedraggled females, goats, chickens, and all the unsavory elements that enter into the composition of a wretched, semi-civilized community. With bare, uncombed heads, bare-armed, bare-breasted, and bare-limbed, and with their nakedness scarcely hidden beneath a few coarse rags, some of the women are engaged in making and baking bread, and others in the preparation of tezek from cow manure and chopped straw. In carrying on these two occupations the women mingle, chat, and help each other with happy-go-lucky indifference to consequences, and with a breezy unconsciousness of there being anything repulsive about the idea of handling hot cakes with one hand and tezek with the other. The ovens are huge jars partially sunk in the ground; fire is made inside and the jar heated; flat cakes of dough are then stuck in the inside of the jar, a few minutes sufficing for the baking. The hand and arm the woman inserts inside the heated jar is wrapped with old rags and frequently dipped in a jar of water standing by to keep it cooled; the bread thus baked tastes very good when fresh, but it requires a stomach rendered unsqueamish by dire necessity to relish it after seeing it baked. The plain beyond Lafaram assumes the character of an acclivity, that in four farsakhs terminates in a pass through a spur of hills. The adverse wind blows furiously all day and shows no signs of abating as the dusk of evening settles down over the landscape. A wayside caravanserai is reached at the entrance to the pass, and I determine to remain till morning. Here I meet with a piece of good fortune in a small way, in the shape of a leg of wild goat, obtained from a native Nimrod; a thin rod of iron, obtained from the serai-jee, serves for a skewer, and I spend the evening in roasting and eating wild-goat kabobs, while a youth fans the little charcoal fire for me with the sole of an old geiveh. CHAPTER V. MESHED THE HOLY. Warning spits of snow accompany my early morning departure from the wayside caravanserai, and it quickly develops into a blinding snow-storm that effectually obscures the country around, although melting as it touches the ground. A mile from the caravanserai the trails fork, and, taking the wrong one, I wander some miles up the mountains ere discovering my mistake. Retracing my way, the right road is finally taken; but the gale increases in violence, the cold is numbing to unprotected hands and ears, and the wind and driving snow difficult to face. At one point the trail leads through a morass, in which are two dead horses, swamped in attempting to cross, and near by lies an abandoned camel, lying in the mud and wearily munching at a heap of kali (cut barley-straw) placed before him by his owners before leaving him to his kismet; perchance with a forlorn hope that he might pull through and finally regain his feet. I have a narrow escape from swamping in the treacherous morass myself, sinking knee-deep in the slimy, oozing mud-mass, pulling off my geivehs and having no end of trouble in recovering them. Shurab is reached about noon, where the customary crowd and customary rude accommodations await me. Quite an unaccustomed luxury, however, is obtained at Shurab--a substance made from grapes, called sheerah, which resembles thin molasses. A communal dish, which I see the chapar-jee and his sliagirds prepare for themselves and eat this evening, consists of one pint of sheerah, half that quantity of grease, a handful of chopped onions and a quart of water. This awful mixture is stewed for a few minutes and then poured over a bowl of broken bread; they then gather around and eat it with their hands--that they also eat it with great gusto goes without saying. Opium smoking appears to be indulged in to a great extent here, two out of the three chapar men putting in a good portion of their time "hitting" the seductive pipe, and tinkering with their opium-smoking apparatus. They only have one outfit between them; both of them are half blind with ophthalmia, and the bane of their wretched existence seems to be a Russian candle-lamp, with a broken globe, that persists in falling apart whenever they attempt to use it--which, by the by, is well-nigh all the time--in manipulating the opium needle and pipe. Observing them from my rude shake-down, after supper, bending persistently over this broken, or ever-breaking lamp, their sore eyes and shrunken features, the suzzle-suzzle of the opium as they suck it into the primer and inhale the fumes--the indescribable odor of the drug pervading the room--all this would seem to be a picture of an ideal Chinese opium den rather than of a chapar-khana in Persia. A broken bridge and miles of deep mud not far ahead has been the burthen of information gathered from the villagers during the afternoon, and the chapar-jee urges upon me the necessity of employing men and horses to carry me and the bicycle across these obstructions into Nishapoor. Preferring to take my chances of getting through, however, I pay no heed to these warnings, well aware that the chapar-jee's interest in the matter begins and ends in the fact that he has horses to hire himself. In imitation of my example yesterday, I wander off the proper road again this morning, taking a road that leads to an abandoned ford instead of to the bridge, a mistake that is probably a very good one to have made when viewed from the stand-point of mud, as my road is at least the shorter one of the two. A wild-looking, busby-decked crowd of Khorassani goatherds from a neighboring village follow behind me across the level mudflats leading to the stream, vociferously clamoring for me to ride. They shout persistently: "H-o-i! Sowar shuk; tomasha! tomasha!" even when they see the difficult task I have of it getting the bicycle through the mud. I have singled out a big, sturdy goat-herder to assist me across the streams, of which I learn there are two, a mile or thereabout apart, and his compatriots are accompanying us to see us cross, as well as being impelled by prying curiosity to see how many kerans he gets for his trouble. The first stream is found to be arm-pit deep, with a fairly strong current. My sturdy Khorassani crosses over first, to try the bottom, feeling his way with a long-handled spade; he then returns and carries the bicycle across on his head, afterward carrying me across astride his shoulders, landing me safely with nothing worse than wet feet. A mile of awful saline mud, and stream number two is reached and crossed in a similar manner--although here I unfortunately cross part way over fairly sitting on the water. The water and the weather are both uncomfortably chilly, and my assistant emerges from the second stream with chattering teeth and goose-pimply flesh. A liberal and well-deserved present makes him forget personal discomforts, and, fervently kissing my hand and pressing my palm to his forehead, he tells me there is no more water ahead, and, recrossing the stream, he wends his way homeward again. Fortunately the road improves rapidly, developing beyond the Nishapoor Valley into smooth, upland camel-trails that afford quite excellent wheeling. The Nishapoor Valley impresses me as about the finest area of cultivation seen in Persia, except, perhaps, the Tabreez Plain; and toward Gadamgah the country gets positively beautiful--at least, beautiful in comparison. Crystal streamlets come purling and gurgling across the road over pebbly beds; and, looking northward for their source, one finds that the usually gray and uninteresting foot-hills have changed into bright, green slopes, on whose cheerful brows are seen an occasional pine or cedar. Overtopping these green, grassy slopes are dark, rugged rocks, and higher still the grim white region of--winter. Somewhere behind these emerald foot-hills, near Gadamgah, are the famous turquoise mines alluded to in the "Veiled Prophet of Khorassan." The mines are worked at the present time, but only in a desultory and unenterprising manner. Favored with good roads, I succeed in reaching Gadamgah before dark, where, besides a comfortable and commodious caravanserai, and the pleasure of seeing around a number of fine-spreading cedars, one can obtain the rare luxury of pine-wood to build a fire. Immediately upon my arrival a knowing and respectable-looking old pilgrim, who calls himself a hadji and a dervish from Mazan-deran, rescues me from the annoying importunities of the people and invites me to share the accommodation of his menzil. Augmenting his scanty stock of firewood and obtaining eggs and bread, quite a comfortable evening is spent in reclining beside the blazing pine-wood fire, which is itself no trifling luxury in a country of scanty camel-thorn and tezek. Whenever the prying curiosity of the occupants of neighboring menzils impels them to visit our quarters, to stand and stare at me, my friend the hadji waxes indignant, and, waving a stick of firewood threateningly toward them, he pours forth a torrent of withering and sarcastic remarks. Once, in his wrath, he hops lightly off the menzil floor, seizes an individual twice his own size by the kammerbund, jerks him violently forward, bids him stare until he gets ashamed of staring, and then, turning him round, shoves him unceremoniously away again, pursuing him as he retreats to his own quarters with vengeful shouts of "y-a-h!" To a few eminently respectable travellers, however, the hadji graciously accords the coveted privilege of squatting around our fire and chatting. Being himself a person who dearly loves the music of his own voice, he holds forth at great length on the subject of himself in particular, dervishes in general, and the Province of Mazanderaii. Like a good many other people conscious of their own garrulousness, the hadji evidently suspects his auditors of receiving his statements with a good deal of allowance; consequently, when impressing upon them the circumstance of his hailing from Mazanderan--a fact that he seems to think creditable in some way to himself--he produces from the depths of his capacious saddlebags several dried fish of a variety for which that province is celebrated, and exhibits them in confirmation of his statements. It is genuine wintry weather, and with no bedclothes, save a narrow horse-blanket borrowed from my impromptu friend, I spend a cold, uncomfortable night, for a caravanserai menzil is but a mere place of shelter after all. The hadji rises early and replenishes the fire, and with his little brass teapot we make and drink a glass of tea together before starting out. At daybreak the hadji goes outside to take a preliminary peep at the weather, and returns with the unwelcome intelligence that it is snowing. "Better snow than rain," I conclude, as I prepare to start, little thinking that I am entering upon the toughest day's experience of the whole journey through Persia. Before covering three miles, the snow-storm develops into a regular blizzard; a furious, driving storm that would do credit to Dakota. Without gloves, and in summer clothes throughout, I quickly find myself in a most unenviable plight. It is no common snow-storm; every few minutes a halt has to be made, hands buffeted and ears rubbed to prevent these members from freezing; yet foot-gear has to be removed and streams waded in the bitter cold. The road leads up into a region of broken hills, and the climax of my discomfort is reached, when the blizzard is raging with ever-increasing fury, and the cold has already slightly nipped one finger. While attempting to cross a deep, narrow stream without disrobing, it is my unhappy fate to drop the bicycle into the water, and furthermore to front the necessity of instantly plunging in, armpit deep, to its rescue. When I emerge upon the opposite bank my situation is really quite critical; in a few moments my garments are frozen stiff; everything I have with me is wet; my leathern case, containing the small stock of medicines, matches, writing material, and other small but necessary articles, is full of water, and, with hands benumbed, I am unable to unstrap it. My only salvation consists in vigorous exercise, and, conscious of this, I splurge ahead through the blinding storm and the fast-deepening snow, fording several other streams, often emerging dripping from the icy water to struggle through waist-deep snow-drifts that are rapidly accumulating under the influence of the driving blast and fast-falling snow. Uncertain of the distance to the next caravanserai, I push determinedly forward in this condition for several hours, making but slow progress. Everything must come to an end, however, and twenty miles from Gadamgah the welcome outlines of a road-side caravanserai become visible through the thickly falling snow-flakes, and the din of many jangling camel-bells proclaims it already occupied. The caravanserai is found so densely crowded with people, horses, camels, and their loads that it is impossible to at first carry the bicycle inside. Confusion, and more than confusion, reigns supreme; every menzil is occupied, and the whole interior space is a confused mass of charvadars, stoutly vociferating at one another and at the pack-animals lying down, wandering about, or being unloaded. Leaving the bicycle outside in the snow, I clamber over the humpy forms of kneeling camels, through an intricate maze of mules and over barricades of miscellaneous merchandise, and, making a virtue of dire necessity, invade the menzil of a well-to-do looking traveller. Here, waiving all considerations of whether my presence is acceptable or the reverse, I take a seat beside their fire and forthwith proceed to shed my saturated foot-gear. Under ordinary conditions this proceeding would be nothing less than a piece of sublime assurance; but necessity knows no law, and my case is really very urgent. When I explain to the occupants of the menzil that this nolens volens invasion of their premises is but a temporary arrangement, in the flowery language of polite Persian they tell me that the menzil, the fire, and everything they have is mine. After the inevitable examination of my map, compass, and sundry effects, I begin to fancy my presence something of an embarrassment, and consequently am not a little gratified at hearing the authoritative voice of my friend the hadji shouting loudly at the charvadars, telling them that he is a hadji and a Mazanderan dervish, for whom they cannot clear the way too quickly. Looking round, I see him appear at the caravanserai entrance with a party of pilgrims, in whose company he has journeyed from Gadamgah. The combined excellences that enter into the composition of a person who is both a dervish and an ex-Mecca pilgrim are of great benefit in securing the respect and consideration of the common herd in Persia; and as, in addition to this, our hadji commands attention by the peculiar tone and volume of his voice when delivering his commands, his tall, angular steed is quickly tied up in a snug and sheltered corner and his saddle-bags deposited on the floor of a fellow-pilgrim's menzil. Hearing of my arrival, he straightway seeks me out and invites me to share the accommodation of his new-found quarters, not forgetting to explain to the people he finds me with, however, that he is a hadji, a dervish, and that he hails from Mazanderan. I shouldn't be much surprised to see him back up the latter assertion by producing a dried fish from the ample folds of his kammerbund; but these finny witnesses are reserved to perform their role later in the evening. As the gloom of night envelopes the interior of the caravanserai, and the scores of little brushwood fires smoke and glimmer and twinkle fitfully, the scene appeals to an observant Occidental as being decidedly unique, and totally unlike anything to be seen outside of Persia. Around each little fire, from four to a dozen figures are squatting, each group forming a most social gathering; some are singing, some chatting pleasantly, some quarrelling and arguing violently; some are shouting lustily at each other across the whole width of the serai; all are taking turns at smoking the kalian or sipping tea, or preparing supper. Occasionally a fiery wheel glows through the darkness, from which fly myriads of sparks, looking very pretty as it describes rapid circles. This is a. little wire cage, full of live charcoal, that is being swung round and round like a sling to enliven the coals for priming the kalian. In the middle space, crowded with animals and their loads, the horses, being all stallions, are constantly squealing and fighting; camels, are grunting dolefully, donkeys are braying and bells clanging, and grooms and charvadars are shouting and quarrelling. Taken all in all, the interior of a crowded caravanserai is a decidedly animated place. The snow-storm subsides during the night, and a clear, frosty morning breaks upon a wintry landscape, in which nothing is visible but snow. The hadji announces his intention of "Inshallah Meshed, am roos" (please God, we will reach Meshed to-day) as he covers up the obtrusive tail of a fish emerging from one of the saddle-bags and prepares to mount. I give him my packages to carry, by way of lightening my burden as much as possible for the struggle through the snow, and promise him a bottle of arrack, upon reaching Meshed, as a reward for thus assisting me through. Arrack is forbidden fruit to a hadji above all things else, so that nothing I could promise him would likely prove more tempting or acceptable, or be better appreciated! It proves slavish work trundling, tugging, and carrying the bicycle through the deep snow along a half-broken trail made by a few horses, and through deep drifts; but the cold, bracing air is favorable for exertion, and by ten o'clock we reach Shahriffabad, where a halt is made to prepare a cup of tea and to give the hadji's horse a feed of barley. At Shahriffabad we are warned that on the hills between here and Meshed snow will be found two feet deep, streams belly deep to the hadji's horse will have to be forded, and, toward Meshed, mud knee-deep. Conscious that the mud will be "knee-deep" the whole distance, after the disappearance of the snow, this makes us only the more eager to push on while we may. The sun has by this time become uncomfortably warm, and the narrow trail is fast becoming a miry pathway of mud and slush under the trampling feet of the animals gone ahead, and of villagers' donkeys returning from the city. Mile after mile is devoted to the unhappy task of trundling the bicycle ahead, rear wheel aloft, through mud and slush varying from ankle-deep to worse, occasionally varying the programme by fording a stream. Late in the afternoon we arrive at the summit of the hills overlooking the Meshed Plain, and the hadji points out enthusiastically the golden dome of Imam Biza's sanctuary; the yellow, glistening goal whose famed sanctity has attracted hosts of pilgrims from all quarters of Central Asia for ages past. The hills hereabout are of a rocky character, and pious pilgrims have gathered into little mounds every loose piece of rock, it being customary for each pilgrim to find a stone and add it to one of these piles upon first viewing the bright golden dome of the holy city from this commanding spot. Below the rocky paths of this declivity the snow disappears in favor of slippery mud, and the hadji's wearied charger slips and slides about, to the imminent danger of its rider's neck; and all the time the slim Turkoman! steed trembles visibly in terror of the old Mazanderan dervish's whip and his awful threats. Two miles down the bed of the stream, crossing and recrossing it a dozen times, often thigh-deep, and we emerge upon the gently sloping area of the Meshed Plain, with the yellow beacon-light of Meshed glowing in the mellow light of the evening sun six miles away. The late storm has been chiefly rain in the lower altitude of the plain, and the day's sunshine has partially dried the surface, but leaving it slippery and treacherous here and there. After leaving the bed of the stream the hadji becomes anxious about reaching Meshed before dark, and advises me to mount and put on the speed. "Inshallah, Meshed yek saat," he says, and so I mount and bid him follow along behind. By vocal suasion and a liberal application of his cruel, triple-thonged, raw-hide whip, he urges his well-nigh staggering animal into a canter, lifting his forefeet clear of the ground seemingly by the bridle at every jump. Suspicious as to his lank and angular steed's sure-footedness under the strain, I take the very laudable precaution of keeping as far from him as possible, not caring to get mixed up in a catastrophe that seems inevitable every time the horse, goaded by the stinging stimulus of the whip and the threats, makes another jump. Not more than a mile of the six is covered when I have ample reason for congratulating myself on taking this precaution, for the horse stumbles, and, being too far gone to recover himself, comes down on his nose, and the "hadji and Mazanderau dervish" is cutting a most ridiculous figure in the mud. His tall lambskin hat flies off and lands in a pool of muddy water some distance ahead; the ponderous saddle-bags, which are merely laid on the saddle, shoot forward athwart the horse's neck, the horse's nose roots quite a furrow in the road, and the horse's owner picks himself up and takes a woeful survey of his own figure. It is needless to say that the survey includes a good deal more real estate than the hadji cares to claim, even though it be the semi-sacred soil of the Meshed Plain. The poor horse is altogether too tired to attempt to recover his legs of his own inclination; but, regarding him as the author of his ignominious misadventure, the hadji surveys him with a wrathful eye for a moment, mutters a few awful imprecations--imported, no doubt, from Mazanderan--and then attacks him savagely about the head with the whip. In his wrath and determination to make a lasting impression of each blow given, the hadji emphasizes each visitation with a very audible grunt; and, to speak correctly, so does the horse. It goes without saying, however, that master and animal grunt from widely different motives; although, so far as the mere audible performance is concerned, one grunt might almost be an echo of the other. At length, by adopting a more circumspect pace, we reach the gate of the holy city about sunset without further mishap. The hadji leads the way through a bewildering labyrinth of narrow streets that consist of an open sewage-ditch in the centre, at present full of filth, and a narrow footway of rough, broken, and mud-bespattered cobble-stones on either side. Of course we are followed through these fearful thoroughfares by a surging and vociferous crowd of people such as a Central Asian city alone can produce; but I can this time happily afford to smile at these usually irritating accompaniments to my arrival in a populous city, for ten minutes after entering the gate finds me shaking hands with Mr. Gray, the genial telegraphist of the Afghan Boundary Commission. With a well-guarded gate between our cosey quarters and the shouting mob outside, the evening is spent very pleasantly and quietly, in striking comparison with what it would have been had no one been here to afford me a place of refuge. Meshed is "the jumping off place" of telegraphy; the electric spider spins his galvanized web no farther in this direction, and the dirge-like music of civilization's--AEolian harp, that, like the roll of England's drum, is heard around the world, approaches the barbarous territory of Afghanistan from two directions, but recoils from entering that fanatical and conservative domain. It approaches from Persia on the one side, and from India on the other; but as yet it only approaches. The drum has already been there; it is only a question of time when the AEolian harp will follow. It is with lively recollection of Khorassani March weather and the experience of the last few days that, after a warm bath, I array myself in a suit of Mr. Gray's clothing, elevate my slippered feet, "Yenghi Donia fashion," on a pile of Turcoman! carpets, and, abetted by the cheering presence of a bottle of Shiraz wine, exchange my recent experiences on the road for telegraphic scraps of the latest news. How utterly unsatisfactory and altogether wretched seems even the gilded palace of a Persian provincial governor--the meaningless compliments, the salaaming lackeys and empty show of courtesy, when compared with the cosey quarters, the hearty welcome, the honest ring of an Englishman's voice, and the genuineness of everything! Shortly after my arrival, a gentleman with a coal-black complexion, a retreating forehead, and an overshadowing wealth of lip appears at the door bearing a tray of sweetmeats. Making a profound salaam, he steps out of his slipper-like shoes, enters, and places the sweetmeats on the table, smiling a broad expectant-of-backsheesh smile the while he explains his mission. "The Sartiep has sent you his salaams and a present of sweetmeats, preparatory to calling round himself," explains mine host; "he is a Persian gentleman, Ali Akbar Khan, at the head of the Meshed telegraph-service, and has the rank of general or Sartiep." The Sartiep himself arrives shortly afterward, accompanied by his favorite son, a budding youth of some eight or ten summers, of whose beauty he feels very justly proud. The Sartiep's son is one of those remarkably handsome boys met with occasionally in modern Persia, and which so profusely adorn old Persian paintings. With soft, girlish features, big, black, lustrous eyes, and an abundance of long hair, they remind one of the beautiful youths of Oriental romance; his fond parent takes him about on his visits and finds much gratification in the admiring remarks bestowed upon the son. The Sartiep is an ideal Persian official, courteous and complimentary, but never forgetful of Ali Akbar Khan; his full, round figure and sensual Oriental face speak eloquently of mutton pillau and other fattening dishes galore, sweetmeats, cucumbers, and melons; and deep draughts from pleasure's intoxicating cup have not failed to leave their indelible marks. In this particular the Sartiep is but a casually selected sample of the well-to-do Persian official. Leaving out a few notable exceptions, this brief description of him suffices to describe them all. Following in the train of the Sartiep arrive more servants, bearing dishes of kabobs, herb-seasoned pillau, and various other strange, savory dishes, which, Mr. Gray explains, are considered great delicacies among the upper-class Persians and are intended as a great compliment to me. Although Mohammedans, and particularly Shiite Mohammedans, are forbidden by their religion to indulge in alcoholic beverages, the average high official in Persia is anything but a sanctimonious individual, and partakes with a keen relish of the forbidden fruit in an open-secret manner. The thin, transparent veil of abstemiousness that the Persian noble wears in deference to the sanctimonious pretensions of the mollahs and seyuds and the public eye at large, is cast aside altogether in the presence of intimate friends, and particularly if that intimate friend is a Ferenghi. Owing to their association in the telegraph-service, mine host and the Sartiep are on the most intimate terms. The Sartiep soon after his arrival intimates, with a humorous twinkle of the eye, that he feels the need of a little medicine. Mr. Gray, as becomes a good physician who knows well the constitutional requirements of his patient, and who knows what to prescribe without even going through the preliminary act of feeling the pulse, produces a pale-green bottle and a tumbler and pours out a full dose of its contents for an adult. The patient swallows it at a gulp, nibbles a piece of sweetmeat, and strokes his stomach in token of approval. "What was the medicine you prescribed, Gray?" "High wines," says the physician, "95 proof alcohol; a bottle that the entomologist of the Boundary Commission happened to leave here a year ago; it was the only thing in the house except wine. The patient pronounces it the 'best arrack' he ever tasted; the firier these fellows can get it the better they like it." "Why, it didn't even make him gasp!" "Gasp--nonsense; you haven't been in Persia as long as I have yet, or you wouldn't say 'gasp' even at 95% alcohol." But how polite, how complimentary, these French of Asia are, and how imaginative and fanciful their language! Not having shaved since leaving Teheran, after surveying myself in the glass, I feel called upon, in the interest of fellow-wheelmen elsewhere, to explain to our discerning visitors that all bicyclers are not distinguished from their fellow men by a bronzed and stubby phiz and an all-around vagrom appearance. The Sartiep strokes his beard and stomach, casts a lingering glance at the above-mentioned green-glass bottle, smiles, and replies: "Having accomplished so wonderful a journey, you are now prettier with your rough, unshaven face than you ever were before; you can now survey yourself in the looking-glass of fame instead of in a common mirror that reflects all the imperfections of ordinary mortals." Having delivered himself of this compliment, the Sartiep's eye wanders in the direction of the 95% alcohol again, and the next minute is again smacking his lips and complacently stroking his stomach. In the morning, before I am up, a servant arrives from a Mesh-edi notable named Hadji Mahdi, bringing salaams from his master, and a letter clothed in the fine "apparel diplomatique" of the Orient. The letter, although in reality nothing more than a request to be allowed to come and see the bicycle, reads in substance as follows: "Salaams from Hadji Mahdi--may he be your sacrifice!-to Gray Sahib and the illustrious Sahib who has arrived in Holy Meshed from Teheran, on the wonderful asp-i-awhan, the fame of whose deeds reaches to the ends of the earth. Bismillah! May your shadows never grow less! Your sacrifice's brother, Hadji Mollah Hassan, whose eyes were gladdened by a sight of the asp-i-awhan Sahib at Shahrood, and who now sends his salaams, telegraphs me--his unworthy brother--that upon the Sahib's arrival in Meshed I should render him any assistance he might need. Inshallah, with your permission--may it not be withheld--your sacrifice will be pleased to call and gladden his eyes with a sight of Gray Sahib and the illustrious Sahib his guest." As might have been expected, the advent of a Ferenghi on so strange a vehicle as a bicycle, arriving in the sacred city of Imam Eiza's sanctuary, arouses universal curiosity; and not only the Sartiep and Hadji Mahdi, but hundreds of big-turbaned Meshedi notables, mollahs, and seyuds are admitted during the day to enjoy the happy privilege of feasting their eyes on the latest proof of the Ferenghis' wonderful marifet, Upon receipt of the telegram at Shahrood refusing me permission to go through Turkestan, I telegraphed to Mr. Gray, requesting him to obtain leave for me to go to the Boundary Commission Camp, and accompany them back to India, or reach India from the camp alone. Mr. Gray kindly forwarded my request to the camp, and now urges me to consider myself his guest until the return courier arrives with the answer. This turns out to mean a stop-over of seven days, and on the second day immense crowds of people assemble in the street, shouting for me to come out and ride the bicycle. The clamor on the streets renders it impossible for them to transact business in the telegraph office, and several times requests are sent in begging me to appease them and stop the uproar by riding to and fro along the street. An outer door separates the compound in which the house is built from the street, and to prevent the rabble from invading the premises, and the possibility of unpleasant consequences, the Governor-General stations a guard of four soldiers at the door. This precaution works very well so far as the common herd are concerned, but every hour through the day little knots of priestly men in the flowing new garments and spotless turbans representing their Noo Roos purchases, or the lamb's-wool cylinder and semi-European garb of the official, bribe, coerce, or command the guard to let them in. These persistent people generally stand in a respectful attitude just inside the outer gate, and send word in by a servant that a Shahzedah (relative of the Shah) wishes to see the bicycle. After the first "Shahzedah" has been treated with courtesy and consideration in deference to his royal relative at Teheran, fully two-thirds of those who come after unblushingly proclaim themselves uncles, cousins, or nephews of "His Majesty, the King of Kings and Ruler of the Universe!" The constant worry and annoyance of these people compel us to adopt measures of self-defence, and so, after admitting about a hundred uncles, twice that number of nephews, and Heaven knows how many cousins, we conclude that blood-relations of the Shah are altogether too numerous in Meshed to be of much consequence. Soon after arriving at this conclusion, Mr. Gray's farrash, an Armenian he brought with him from Ispahan, comes in with a message that another Shahzedah has succeeded in getting past the guard and sends in his salaams. "Shahzedah be d----d! Turn him out--put him outside, and tell the guards to let nobody else in without our permission!" A moment later the farrash re-enters with the look of a man scarcely able to control his risibilities, and says the man and his friends are still inside the gate. "Why the devil don't you put them out, as you are told, then?" "He says he is the Padishah's step-father." "Well, what if he is the Padishah's step-father? It's nothing to be the Shah's step-father; the Shah probably has five hundred step-father's, to say the least--turn him out. No; hold hard; let him stay." We conclude that a step-father to the king, whether genuine or only a counterfeit, is at least something of a relief after the swarms of nephews, cousins, and uncles, and so order him to be shown in He proves to be a corpulent little man about sixty, who advances up the bricked walk toward us, making about three extra profound salaams to the rod and smiling in a curious, apprehensive manner, as though not quite assured of his reception. About a dozen long-robed mollahs and seyuds follow with timid hesitancy in his wake. Strange to say, he makes no allusion to his illustrious step-son, the King of Kings at Teheran; and plainly betrays embarrassment when Gray mentions the fact of my having appeared before him on the wheel. We conclude that the Shah's step-father and the little group of holy men clubbed together and paid the Persian guard about a keran to let them in, and perhaps another half-keran to the Armenian farrash for not summarily turning them out. He tries very hard, however, to make himself agreeable, and when told about the Russians refusing me the road, exclaims artfully: "I was not an enemy of the Russians before I heard this, but now I am their worst enemy! Suppose the Sahib's iron horse was a wheel of fire, what harm would it do their country even then?" Our most distinguished caller to-day is Mirza Abbas Khan, C. I. E., a Kandahari gentleman, who has been the British political agent at Meshed for many years. He makes a formal call in all the glory of his official garments, a magnificent Cashmere coat lined with Russian sable and profusely trimmed with gold braid; a servant leads his gayly caparisoned horse, and another brings up the rear with a richly mounted kalian. Appearances count for something among the people of Northeastern Persia, and Abbas Khan draws a sufficiently large salary to enable him to wear gorgeous clothes, and thereby dim the lustre of his bitter rival, the political agent of Russia. Abbas Khan is perhaps the handsomest man in Meshed, is in the prime of life, dyes his flowing beard an orthodox red, and possesses most charming manners; in addition to his ample salary he owns the revenue of a village near Meshed, and seems to be altogether the right man in the right place. Abbas Khan and a friend of his from Herat both agree that the difficulties and dangers of Afghanistan will be likely to prove insurmountable; at the same time promising any assistance they can render me in getting to India, consistent, of course, with Abbas Khan's duties as British Agent. It seems to be a pretty general opinion that Afghanistan will prove a stumbling-block in my path; friends at Teheran telegraph again, advising me to go anywhere rather than risk the dangers to be apprehended in that most lawless and fanatical territory. Nothing can be decided on, however, until the arrival of an answer from the Commission. In the meantime, the days slowly pass away in Meshed; every day come scores of visitors and invitations to go and ride for the delectation of sundry high officials; ever-present are the crowds in the streets shouting, "Tomasha! tomasha! Sowar shuk!" and the frequent squabbles at the gate between the guard and the people wanting to come in. Above the din and clamor of the crowd outside there sometimes arise the chanting voices of a party of newly arrived pilgrims making their way joyously through the thronged streets toward the gold-domed sanctuary of Imam Riza, the tomb being situated a couple of hundred yards down the street from our quarters. Sometimes we hear parties of men uttering strange cries and sounding aloud the praises of Imam Riza, Houssein, Hassan, and other worthies of the Mohammedan world, in response to which are heard the swelling voices of a multitude of people shouting in chorus, "Allah be praised! Allah be praised!!" These weird chanters are dervishes, who, with tiger-skin mantles drawn carelessly about them, clubs or battle-axes on shoulder, their long unkempt hair dangling down their backs, look wildly grotesque as they parade the streets of the Persian Mecca. Meshed is a strange city for a Ferenghi to live in; every day are heard the chanting and singing of newly arriving bands of pilgrims, the strange, wild utterances of dervishes preaching on the streets, and the shouting responses of their auditors. Conspicuous above everything else in the city, as gold is conspicuous from dross, is the golden dome and gold-tipped minarets of the holy edifice that imparts to the city its sacred character. The gold is in thin plates covering the hemispherical roof like sheets of tin; like most Eastern things, its appearance is more impressive from a distance than at close quarters. Grains of barley deposited on the roof by pigeons have sprouted and grown in rank bunches between the thin gold plates, many of which are partially loose, imparting to the place an air of neglect and decay. By resting their feet on the dome of this sacred edifice, the pigeons of Meshed have themselves become objects of veneration; shooting them is strictly prohibited, and a mob would soon be about the ears of anyone venturing to do them harm. The two most important persons in Meshed are the acting Governor-General of Khorassan, and Mardan Khan, Ex-Governor of Sarakhs and Hereditary Chief of the powerful tribe of Timurees. Of course, the Governor sends his salaams, and invites me to come round to the government konak and favor him with an exhibition. Since our refusal to entertain any more of the "Shah's relations," we find that the worthy and long-suffering Abbas Khan has been worried almost to the verge of despair by requests from all over the city begging the privilege of seeing me ride. "Knowing that you have been worried in the same way yourselves," says Abbas Kahu, "I have replied to them, 'Is the Sahib a giraffe and I his keeper? Why, then, do you come to me? The Sahib has travelled a long way, and is stopping here to rest, not to make an exhibition of himself." An exception is of course made in favor of the Governor-General and Mardan Khan. The Government compound is a large enclosure, and to reach the Governor-General's quarters one has to traverse numerous long court-yards connected with one another by long, gloomy passage-ways of brick, where the tramping of the sentinels and the march of retiring and relieving guards resound through the vaults like an echo of mediaeval times. There is nothing particularly interesting about the Governor's apartments, but Mardan Khan's palace is a revelation of barbaric splendor entirely different from anything hitherto seen in the country. In contradistinction to the dazzling, silvery glitter of the mirror-work and stuccoed halls of the Teheran palaces, the home of the wealthy Timuree Chieftain is distinguished by a striking and lavish display of colored glass, gilt, and tinsel. Mardan Khan is a valued friend of Mirza Abbas Khan and a man of powerful influence; besides this, he is a pronounced admirer of the Ingilis as against the Oroos, and my reception at his palace almost takes the character of an ovation. News of the great tomasha has evidently been widely spread, crowds of outsiders fill the streets leading to the palace, and inside the large garden are scores of the elite of the city, mollahs, seyuds, official and private gentlemen; the numerous niches of the walls are occupied by groups of closely veiled females. Trundling through this interesting and expectant crowd with Abbas Khan, Mardan Khan issues forth in flowing gown of richest Cashmere-shawl material and gold braid, to greet us and to take a preliminary peep at the bicycle, and to lead the way into his gorgeously colored room of state. The scene in this room is an ideal picture of the popular occidental conception of the "gorgeous East." Abbas Khan and Mar-dan Khan sit cross-legged side by side on a rich Turcoman rug, salaaming and exchanging compliments after the customary flowery and extravagant language of the Persian nobility. The marvellous pattern and costly texture of Abbas Khan's coat, the gold braid, the Russian sable lining, and the black Astrakhan cylinder he wears, are precisely matched by the garments of Mardan Khan. Twenty or thirty of the most important dignitaries and mollahs of the city are ranged according to their respective rank or degree of holiness around the room; prominent among them is the Chief Imam of Meshed, a very important and influential person in the holy city. The Chief Imam is a slim-built, sharp-looking individual of about forty summers, with a face pale, refined, and intellectual; hands white and slender as a lady's, and a foot equally shapely and feminine. He wears a monster green turban, takes his turn regularly at the kalian, and passes it on to the next with the easy gracefulness that comes of good breeding; and by his manners and appearance he creates an impression of being a person rather superior to his surroundings. Liveried pages pass around little glasses of tea, kalians, cigarettes, and sweetmeats, as well as tiny bottles of lemon-juice and rose-water, a few drops of these two last-named articles being used by some of the guests to impart a fanciful flavor to their tea. Now and then a new guest arrives, steps out of his shoes in the hallway, salaams, and takes his proper position among the people already here. Everybody sits on the carpet except me, for whom a three-legged camp-stool has been thoughtfully provided. Finally, all the guests having arrived, I ride several times around the brick-walks, the strange audience of turbaned priests and veiled women showing their great approval in murmuring undertones of "kylie khoob" and involuntary acclamations of "Mashallah! mash-all-ah!" as they witness with bated breath the strange and incomprehensible scene of a Ferenghi riding a vehicle, that will not stand alone. Altogether, the great tomasha at Mardan Khan's is a decided success. Scarcely can this be said, however, of the "little tomasha" given to the members of Abbas Khan's own family on the way home. Abbas Khan's compound is very small, and the brick-walks very rough and broken; therefore, it is hardly surprising to me, though probably somewhat surprising to him, when, in turning a corner I execute an undignified header into a bunch of busbies. The third day after my arrival in Meshed, I received a telegram from the British Charge d'Affaires at Teheran saying: "You must not attempt to cross the frontier of Afghanistan at any point." Two days later the expected courier arrives from the Boundary Commission Camp with a letter saying: "It is useless for you to raise the question of coming to the Commission Camp. In the first place, the Afghans would never allow you to come here; and if you should happen to reach here, you would never be able to get away again." These two very encouraging missives from our own people seem at first thought more heartless than even the "permission refused" of the Russians. It occurs to me that this "you must not attempt to cross the Afghan frontier" might just as easily have been told me at the Legation at Teheran as when I had travelled six hundred miles to get to it; but the ways of diplomacy are past the comprehension of ordinary mortals. What, after all, are the ambitions and enterprises of an individual, compared to the will and policy of an empire? No matter whether the empire be semi-civilized and despotic, or free and enlightened, the obscure and struggling individual is usually rated 0000. Russia--"permission refused." England--paternally--"must not attempt;" cold, offish language this for a lone cycler to be confronted with away up here in the northeast corner of Persia, from representatives of the two greatest empires of the world. What is to be done? Mr. Gray, returning from the telegraph office later in the evening, finds me endeavoring to unravel the Gordian knot of the situation through the medium of a brown-study. My geographical ruminations have already resulted in a conviction that there is no possible way to unravel it and reach India with a bicycle; my only chance of doing so is to cut it and abide by the consequences. "I have just been communicating with Teheran," says Mr. Gray. "Everybody wants to know what you propose doing." "Tell them I am going down to Beerjand to consult with Heshmet-i-Molk, the Ameer of Seistan, and see if it is possible to get through to Quetta via Beerjand." "Ever hear of Dadur?" queries Mr. Gray. "Ever hear of Dadur, the place of which the Persians tritely say: 'Seeing that there is Dadur, why did Allah, then, make the infernal regions?' That is somewhere in Beloochistan. You'll find yourself slowly broiling to death on a geographical gridiron if you attempt to reach India down that way." "Never mind; tell them at Teheran I am going that way anyhow." Having entered upon this decision, I bid my genial host farewell on April 7th, and mounting at the door, depart in the presence of a well-behaved crowd of spectators. In my pocket is a general letter from the Governor-General of Khorassan to subordinate officials of the province, ordering them to render me any assistance I may require, and another from a prominent person in Meshed to his friend Heshmet-i-Molk, the Ameer of Kain and Governor of Seistan, a powerful and influential chief, with his seat of government at Beerjand. Couched in the sentimental language of the country, one of these letters concludes with the touching remark: "The Sahib, of his own choice is travelling like a dervish, with no protection but the protection of Allah." It is a fine bracing morning as I leave the Mecca of Khorassan behind, and the paths leading round outside the walls and moat of the city from gate to gate afford excellent wheeling. The Beerjand trail branches off from the Teheran and Meshed road about a farsakh east of Shahriffabad; for this distance I shall be retraversing the road by which I came, and shall be confronted at every turn of my wheel by reminiscences of dried fish, a Mazanderau dervish, and an angular steed. The streams that under the influence of the storm ran thigh-deep have now dwindled to mere rivulets, and the narrow, miry trail through the melting snow has become dry and smooth enough to ride wherever the grade permits. The hills are verdant with the green young life of early spring, and are clothed in one of nature's prettiest costumes--a costume of seal-brown rocks and green turf studded with a profusion of blue and yellow flowers. Shahriffabad is reached early in the afternoon, and the threatening aspect of the changed weather forbids going any farther today. Shortly after taking up my quarters in the chapar-khana, a party of Persian travellers appear upon the scene, and with them a fussy little man in big round spectacles and semi-European clothes. Scarcely have they had time to alight and seek out quarters than the little man makes his appearance at my menzil door in all the glory of a crimson velvet dressing-cap and blue slippers, and beaming gladsomely through his moon-like spectacles, he comes forward and without further ceremony shakes hands. "Some queer little French professor, geologist, entomologist, or something, wandering about the country in search of scientific knowledge," is the instinctive conclusion I arrive at the moment he appears; and my greeting of "bonjour, monsieur," is quite as involuntary as the conclusion. "Paruski ni?" he replies, arching his eyebrows and smiling. "Paruski ni; Ingilis." "Parsee namifami?" "Parsee kam-kam." In this brief interchange of words in the vernacular of the country we define at once each other's nationality and linguistic abilities. He is a Russian and can speak a little Persian. It is difficult, however, to believe him anything else than a little French professor, wise above his generation and skin-full of occult wisdom in some particular branch of science; but then the big round spectacles, the red dressing-cap, and the cerulean leather slippers of themselves impart an air of owlish and preternatural wisdom. Six times during the afternoon he bounces into my quarters and shakes hands, and six times shakes hands and bounces out again. Every time he renews his visit he introduces one or more natives, who take as much interest in the hand-shaking as they do in the bicycle. Evidently his object in coming round so frequently is to exhibit for the gratification of his own vanity and the curiosity of the Persians, this European mode of greeting, and the profound depth of his own knowledge of the subject. Later in the evening the women of the village come round in a body to see the Ferenghi and his iron horse, and the wearer of the spectacles, the red cap, and blue slippers, takes upon himself the office of showman for the occasion; pointing out, with a good deal of superficial enthusiasm, the peculiar points of both steed and rider. Particularly is it impressed upon these woefully ignorant fail-ones, that the bicycle is not a horse, but a machine--a thing of iron and not of flesh and blood. The fair ones nod their heads approvingly, but it is painfully apparent that they don't comprehend in the least, how, since it is an asp-i-awhan, it can be anything else but a horse, regardless of the material entering into its composition. When supper-time arrives the chapar-Jee announces his willingness to turn cook and prepare anything I order. Knowing well enough that this seemingly sweeping proposition embraces but two or three articles, I order him to prepare scrambled eggs, bread, and sheerah. An hour later he brings in the scrambled eggs, swimming in hot molasses and grease! He has stirred the grease and molasses together, and in this outlandish mixture cooked the eggs. Off the main road the country assumes the character of low hills of red clay, across which it would be extremely difficult to take the bicycle in wet weather, but which is now fortunately dry. After three or four farsakhs it develops into a curious region of heterogeneous parts; rocky, precipitous mountains, barren, salt-streaked hills, saline streams, and pretty little green valleys. Here, one feels the absence of any plain, well-travelled road, the dim and ill-defined trail being at times very difficult to distinguish from the branch trails leading to some isolated village. The few people one meets already betray a simplicity and a lack of "gumption" that distinguish them at once from the people frequenting the main road. CHAPTER VI. THE UNBEATEN TRACKS OF KHORASSAN. During the afternoon I traverse a rocky canon, crossing and recrossing a clear, cold stream that winds its serpentine course from one precipitous wall to another. Mountain trout are observed disporting in this stream, and big, gray lizards scuttle nimbly about among the loose rocks on the bank. The canon gradually dwindles into a less confined passage between sloping hills of loose rock and bowlders, a wild, desolate region through which the road leads gradually upward to a pass. Part way up this gorge is a rude stone tower about twenty feet high, on the summit of which is perched a little mud hut, looking almost as though it might be a sentry-box. While yet a couple of hundred yards away, a rough-looking customer emerges from the tower and appears to be awaiting my approach. His head is well-nigh hidden beneath a huge Khorassani busby, and he wears the clothes of an irregular soldier. The long, shaggy wool of the sheepskin head-dress dangling over his eyes imparts a very ferocious appearance, and he is armed with the ordinary Persian sword and one of those antiquated flint-lock muskets that are only to be seen on the deserts of the East or in museums of ancient weapons. Taken all in all, he presents a very ferocious front; he is, in fact, about the most ruffianly-looking specimen I have seen outside of Asiatic Turkey. As I ride up he motions for me to alight, at the same time retreating a few steps toward his humble stronghold, betraying a spirit of apprehension lest, perchance, he might be unwittingly standing in the way of danger. Greeting him with the customary "Salaam aleykum" and being similarly greeted in reply, I dismount to ascertain who and what he is. He retreats another step or two in the direction of his strange abode, and eyes the bicycle with evident distrust, edging off to one side as I turn toward him, as though fearful lest it might come whizzing into his sacred person at a moment's notice like a hungry buzz-saw. In response to my inquiries, he points up toward the pass and offers to accompany me thither for the small sum of "yek keran;" giving me to understand that without his presence it is highly indiscreet to proceed. Little penetration is required to understand that this is one of the little black-mailing schemes peculiar to semi-civilization, and which, it is perhaps hardly necessary to explain, comes a trifle too late in the chapter of my Asiatic experiences to influence my movements or to replenish the exchequer of the picturesque and enterprising person desirous of shielding me from imaginary harm. This wily individual is making his living by the novel and ingenious process of trading on the fears and credulity of stray travellers, making them believe the pass is dangerous and charging them a small sum for his services as guard. It is not at all unlikely that he is the present incumbent of an hereditary right to extort blackmail from such travellers along this lonely road as may be prevailed upon without resorting to violence to pay it, and is but humbly following in the footsteps of his worthy sire and still more worthy grandsire. The pass ahead is neither very steep nor difficult, and the summit once crossed, and the first few hundred yards of rough and abrupt declivity overcome, I am able to mount and wheel swiftly down long gradients of smooth, hard gravel for four or five miles, alighting at the walled village of Assababad in the presence of its entire population. Some keen-sighted villager has observed afar off the strange apparition gliding swiftly down the open gravel slopes, and the excited population have all rushed out in breathless expectancy to try and make out its character. The villagers of Assababad are simple-hearted people, and both men and women clap their hands like delighted children to have so rare a novelty suddenly appear upon the scene of their usually humdrum and uneventful lives. Quilts are spread for me on the sunny side of the village wall, and they gather eagerly around to feast to the full their unaccustomed eyes. A couple of the men round up a matronly goat and exact from her the tribute of a bowl of milk; others contribute bread, and the frugal repast is seasoned with the unconcealed delight of my hospitable audience. They are not overly clean in their habits, though, these rude and isolated people; and to keep off prying housewives, bent on satisfying their curiosity regarding the texture of my clothing and the comparative whiteness of my skin, I am compelled to adopt the defensive measure of counter curiosity. The signal and instantaneous success of this plan, resulting in the hasty, scrambling retreat of the women, is greeted with boisterous merriment, by the entire crowd. I have about made up my mind to remain over-night with the hospitable people of Assababad; but at the solicitation of a Persian traveller who comes along, I conclude to accompany him to a building observable in the distance ahead which he explains is a small but comfortable serai. The good villagers seem very loath to let me, go so soon, and one young man kneels down and kisses my dusty geivehs and begs me to take him with me to Hindostan--strange, unsophisticated people; how simple-hearted, how childlike they seem! The caravanserai is but a couple of miles ahead, but it is situated in the dip of an extensive, basin-like depression between two mountain ranges, and the last half mile consists of mud and water eighteen inches deep. The caravanserai itself stands on a slight elevation, and is found occupied by a couple of families, who make the place their permanent abode and gain a livelihood by supplying food, firewood, and horse-feed to travellers. Upon our arrival, a woman makes her appearance and announces her willingness to cater to our wants. "Noon ass?" "Yes, plenty of bread." "Toke-me-morge neis f" "Neis; loke-me-morge-neis." "Sheerah ass?" "Sheerah neis." "What have you then besides bread?" For answer the woman points to a few beruffled chickens scratching for grains of barley among a heap of rubbish that has evidently been exploited by them times without number before, and says she can sell us chickens at one keran apiece. Seeing the absence of anything else, I order her forthwith to capture one for me, and the Persian gentleman orders another. The woman sets three youngsters and a yellow, tailless dog to run down the chickens, and in a few minutes presents herself before us, holding in each hand the plucked and scrawny carcass of a fowl that has had to scratch hard and persistently for its life for heaven knows how many years. One of the chickens is considerably larger than the other, and I tell the Persian gentleman to take his choice, thinking that with himself and his two servants he would be glad to accept the larger fowl. On the contrary, however, he fixes his choice on the smaller one. Touched by what appears to be a simple act of unselfishness, I endeavor to persuade him to take the other, pointing out that he has three mouths to fill while I have only one. My importunities are, however, wasted on so polite and disinterested a person, and so I reluctantly take possession of the bulkier fowl. The Persian's servant dissects his master's purchase and stows it away for future use, the three making their supper off bread and a mixture of grease, chopped onions and sheerah from the larder of their saddle-bags. The woman readily accepts the offer of an additional half keran for relieving me of the onerous task of cooking my own supper, and takes her departure, promising to cook it as quickly as possible. Happy in the contemplation of a whole chicken for supper, I sit around and chat and drink tea with my disinterested friend for the space of an hour. To a hungry person an hour seems an ominously long period of time in which to cook a chicken, and, becoming impatient, the Persian gentleman's servant volunteers to go inside and investigate. I fancy detecting a shadow of amusement passing over the face of the gentleman as his servant departs, and when he returns with the intelligence that the chicken won't be tender enough to eat for another hour, his risibilities get the better of his politeness and he gives way to uncontrollable laughter. Then it is that a gleam of enlightenment steals over my unsuspecting soul and tells me why my guileless fellow-traveller so politely and yet so firmly selected the smallest of the fowls--he is a better judge of Persian "morges" than I. The woman finally turns up, bringing the result of her two hours' culinary perseverance in a large pewter bowl; she has cut the chicken up into several pieces and has been industriously keeping the pot boiling from the beginning. The result of this laudable effort is meat of gutta-percha toughness, upon which one's teeth are exercised in vain; but I make a very good supper after all by breaking bread into the broth. I don't know but that the patriarchal ruler of the roost makes at least the richer broth. Thin ice covers the water when I leave this caravanserai in the gray of the morning, and the Persian travellers, who nearly always start before daybreak, have already departed. Stories were heard yesterday evening of streams between here and the southern chain of mountains, deep and difficult to cross; and I pull out fully expecting to have to strip and do some disagreeable work in the water. Considerable mud is encountered, and three small streams, not over three feet deep, are crossed; but further on I am brought to a stand by a deep, sluggish stream flowing along ten feet below the level of the ground. Though deep, it is very narrow in places, and might almost be described as a yawning crack in the earth, filled with water to within ten feet of the top. A little way up stream is a spot fordable for horses, and, of course, fordable also for a cycler; but the prevailing mud and the chilliness of the morning combine to influence me to try another plan. A happy plan it seems at the moment, a credit to my inventive genius, and spiced with the seductive condiment of novelty, the stream is sufficiently narrow at one place to be overcome with a running jump; but people cannot take running jumps encumbered with a bicycle. The bicycle, however, can quickly and easily be taken into several parts and thrown across, the jump made, and the wheel put together again. Packages, pedals, and backbone with rear wheel are tossed successfully across, but the big wheel attached to fork and handle-bar, unfortunately rolls back and disappears with a splash beneath the water. The details of the unhappy task of recovering this all-important piece of property--how I have to call into requisition for the first time the small, strong rope I have carried from Constantinople--how, in the absence of anything in the shape of a stick, in all the unproductive country around, I have to persuade my unwilling and goose-pimpled frame into the water and duck my devoted head beneath the waves several times before succeeding in passing a slip-noose over the handle--is too harrowing a tale to tell; it makes me shiver and shrink within myself, even as I write. Beyond the stream the road approaches the southern framework of the plain with a barely discernible rise, and dry, hard, paths afford fair wheeling. Looking back one can see the white, uneven crest of the Elburz Range peeping over the lesser chain of hills crossed over yesterday, showing wondrously sharp and clear in the transparent atmosphere of a more or less desert country. A region of red-clay hills and innumerable little streams ends my riding for the present, and the road eventually leads into a cul-de-sac, the source of the little streams and the home of spongy morasses whose deceptive mossy surface may or may not bear one's weight. Bound about the cul-de-sac is a curious jumble of rocks and red-clay heights; the strata of the former inclining to the perpendicular and sometimes rising like parallel walls above the earth, reminding one of the "Devil's Slide" in Weber Canon, Utah. A stiff pass leads over the brow of the range, and on the summit is perched another little stone tower; but no valiant champion of defenceless wayfarers issues forth to proffer his protection here--perhaps our acquaintance of yesterday comes down here when he wants a change of air. From the pass the descent is into a picturesque region of huge rocks and splendid streams that come bubbling out from among them, and farther along is a more open space, a few fields of grain, and the little hamlet of Kahmeh. Stopping here an hour for refreshments, the country again becomes rough and hilly for several miles; the road then descends a rocky slope to the plain, where a few miles ahead can be seen the crenelated walls and suburban orchards and villages of Torbet-i-Haiderie. Remembering my letter from the Governor-General to subordinate officials, I permit a uniformed horseman, who seems anxious to make himself useful in the premises, to pilot me into the city, telling him to lead the way to the Mustapha's office. Guiding me through the narrow, crowded streets into the still more crowded bazaar, he descants, from his commanding position in the saddle, to the listening crowd, on the marvellous nature of my steed and the miraculous ability required to ride it as he had seen me riding it outside the walls. Having accomplished his vain purpose of attracting public attention to himself through me, and by his utterances aroused the popular curiosity to an ungovernable pitch, he rides off and leaves me to extricate myself and find the Mustapha as best I can. The ignorant, inconsiderate mob at once commence shouting for me to ride. "Sowar shuk; sowar shuk! tomasha; tomasha!" a thousand people cry in the stuffy, ill-paved bazaar as they struggle and push and surge about me, giving me barely room to squeeze through them. When it is discovered that I am seeking the Mustapha, there is a great rush of the crowd to reach the municipal compound and gain admittance, lest perchance the gates should be closed after I had entered and a tomasha be given without them seeing. Following along with the crowd, the compound is reached and found to be jammed so tightly with people that the greatest difficulty is experienced in forcing my way through them to the Mustapha's quarters. Nobody seems to take a particle of interest in the matter, save to lend their voices to help swell the volume of the cry for me to ride; nobody in all the tumultuous mob seems capable of the simple reflection that there is no room whatever to ride, not so much as a yard of space unoccupied by human beings. They might with equal propriety be shouting for a fish to swim without providing him with water. The Mustapha is found seated on the raised floor of his open-fronted office, examining, between whiffs of the kalian, papers brought to him by his subordinates, and I hand him my general letter of recommendation. Taking a cursory glance at the contents, he gives a sweep of his chin toward the bicycle, and says, "Sowar shuk; tomasha." Pointing out the utter impossibility of complying with his request in a badly-paved compound packed to its utmost capacity with people; he looks wearily at the ragged and unruly multitude before him, as though conscious that it would be useless to try and do anything with them, and then giving some order to an officer resumes his official labors. The officer summons a couple of farrashes, and with long willow switches they flog their way through the crowd, opening a narrow, but instantly filled again, passage for me to follow. Outside the compound the officer practically forsakes me and goes over body and soul to the enemy. Filled with the same dense ignorance and overwhelming desire to see the bicycle ridden, he desires also to gain the approbation of the crowd, and so brings all his powers of persuasion to bear against me. Time and again, while traversing with the greatest difficulty the narrow bazaar in the midst of a surging mob, he faces about and makes the same insane request, shouting like a maniac to make his voice audible above the din of a thousand clamorous appeals to the same purpose. Had I the power to annihilate the whole crazy, maddening multitude with a sweep of the hand, I am afraid they would at this juncture have received but small mercy. The caravanserai is a big, commodious affair, a quadrangular structure of brick surrounding fully an acre of ground, and with a small open space outside. There is plenty of room to satisfy their insane curiosity here without jeopardizing my own neck, and in a fruitless effort to gratify them I essay to ride. My appearance in the saddle is greeted with wild shouts of exultation, and in their eagerness to come closer and see exactly how the bicycle is propelled and prevented from falling over, they close up in front as well as behind, compelling an instant dismount to prevent disagreeable consequences to myself. Howls of disapproval greet this misinterpreted action, and the officer and farrashes commence flogging right and left to clear a space for another trial. This time, while circling about in the small amphitheatre, walled around by shouting, grinning human beings, wanton youngsters from the rear shy several stones, and the officer comes near giving me a header by accidentally inserting his willow staff in the front wheel while pointing out to the crowd the action of the pedals and the modus operandi of things in general. The officer evidently regards me as the merest dummy, unable to speak or comprehend a word of the language, or help myself in any way--the result, it is presumed, of some explanation to that effect in the letter--and he stalks about with the proud bearing and self-conscious expression of a showman catering successfully to an appreciative and applauding populace. The accommodation provided at the caravanserai consists of doorless menzils, elevated three feet above the ground; a walled partition, with an open archway, divides the quarters into a room behind and an open porch in front. Conducting me to one of these free-for-anybody places, which I could just as easily have found and occupied without his assistance, he takes his departure, leaving me to the tender consideration of an overbearing, ragamuffin mob, in whom the spirit of wantonness is already aroused. I attempt to appeal to the reason of my obstreperous audience by standing on the menzil front and delivering a harangue in such Persian as I have at command. "Sowar shuk, neis, tomasha, caravanserai neis rah koob neis. Inshalla saba, gitti koob rah Beerjandi, khylie koob lomasha-kh-y-l-ie koob tomasha saba," is the burden of this harangue; but eloquent though it be in its simplicity, it fails to accomplish the desired end. Their reply to it all takes the form of howls of disapproval, and the importunities to ride become more clamorous than ever. An effort to keep them from taking possession of my quarters by shoving them off the front porch, results in my being seized roughly by the throat by one determined assailant and cracked on the head with a stick by another. Ignorant of a Ferenghi's mode of attack, the presumptuous individual, with his hand twisted in my neck-handkerchief, cocks his head in a semi-sidewise attitude, in splendid position to be dropped like a pole-axed steer by a neat tap on the temple. He wears the green kammerbund of a seyud, however; and even under the shadow of the legations in Teheran, it is a very serious and risky thing to strike a descendant of the Prophet. For a lone infidel to do so in the presence of two thousand Mussulman fanatics, already imbued with the spirit of wantonness, would be little less than deliberate suicide, so a sense of discretion intervenes to spare him the humiliation of being knocked out of time by an unhallowed fist. The stiff, United States army helmet, obtained, it will be remembered, at Fort Sidney, Nebraska, and worn on the road ever since, saves my bump of veneration from actual contact with the stick of number two; and finding me making only a passive resistance, the valiant individual in the green kammerbund relaxes both the severity of his scowl and his grip on my neck gear. After this there is no use trying to keep them from invading my quarters, and I deem it advisable to stand closely by the bicycle, humoring their curiosity and getting along with them as peaceably as possible. The crowd present is constantly augmented by new arrivals from without; at least two thousand people are struggling, pushing and shouting, some coming forward to invade my menzil, others endeavoring to escape from the crush. While the rowdiest portion of the crowd struggle and push and shout in the foreground of this remarkable scene, little knots of big-turbaned mollahs and better-class citizens are laying their precious heads together scheming against me in the rear. Now and then a messenger in the semi-military garb of a farrash, pushes his way to the front and delivers a message from these worthies, full of lies and deceit. From the top of their shaved and turbaned heads to the soles of their slip-shod feet they are filled with a pig-headed determination to accomplish their object of seeing the bicycle ridden. They send me all sorts of messages, from one of but ordinary improbability, saying that the Mustapha is outside and wants me to come out and ride, to one altogether ridiculous in its wild absurdity, promising me a present of two tomans. Occasionally a dervish holds aloft the fantastic paraphernalia of his profession, battles his way through the surging human surf, and with his black, ferret-like eyes gleaming with unconscious ferocity through a vision of unkempt hair, thrusts his cocoa-nut alms-receiver under my nose and says, "Huk yah huk!" or "backsheesh!" Shouted at, gesticulated at, intrigued against and solicited for alms all at the same time, and with brain-turning persistency, the classic halls of Bedlam would, in contrast, be a reposeful and calm retreat. Driven by my tormentors almost to the desperate resolve of emptying my six-shooter among them, let the result to myself be what it may, the sun of my persecutions has not reached the meridian even yet. The officer who an hour ago inconsiderately left me to my own resources, now returns with a large party of friends, bent on seeing the same wonderful sight that has seemingly set the whole city in an uproar. He has been about the place collecting friends and acquaintances for the purpose of treating them to an exhibition of my skill on the wheel. The purpose of the officer's return, with his friends, is readily understood by the crowd, and his arrival is announced by a universal roar of "Sowar shuk! tomasha!" as though not one of this insatiable mob had yet seen me ride. Appearing before the elevated porch of the menzil, he beckons me to "come ahead" in quite an authoritative manner. The peculiar beckoning twist of this presumptuous individual's chin and henna-stained beard summoning me to come out and "perform" reminds me of nothing so much as some tamer of wild animals ordering a trained baboon to spruce himself up and dance for the edification of the circus-going public. Signifying my unwillingness to be thus made a circus of over and over again, the officer beckons even more peremptorily than before, and even makes a feint of coming and fetching me out by force. As may well be believed, the sum of my patience is no longer equal to the strain, and jerking my revolver around from the obscurity of its hiding-place at my hip to where it can plainly be seen, and laying a hand menacingly on the butt, I warn him to clear off, in a manner that causes him to wilt and turn pale. He leaves the caravanserai at once in high dudgeon. It has been a most humiliating occasion for him, to fall so ignobly from the very high horse on which he just entered with his bosom friends; but it is no more than he rightly deserves. Shortly after this little incident the part-proprietor of a tchai-khan not far from the caravanserai, proposes that I leave my menzil and come with him to his place. Happy in the prospect of any kind of a change that will secure me a little peace, I readily agree to the proposal and at once take my departure. A few stones are thrown, fortunately without doing any damage, ere the tchai-khan is reached; but once inside, the situation is materially improved. It soon transpires that the speculative proprietors have conceived the bright idea of utilizing me as an attraction to draw customers to their place of business. Two men are stationed at the door with clubs, and admittance is only granted to likely-looking people who have money to spend on water-pipes and tea. A rival attraction already occupies the field in the person of a Tabreez Turkish luti with a performing rib-nosed mandril and a drum. Now and then, when the crowd with no money to spend becomes too clamorous about the doorway, the luti goes to the assistance of the guards, and giving the mandril the length of his chain, chases the people away. These wandering troubadours and their performing monkeys are common enough all over Persia, and one often meets them on the road or in the villages; but the bicycle is quite a different thing, and the enterprising Tchan-jees do a roaring business all the evening with customers pouring in to see it and me. The bicycle, the luti, and the mandril occupy the back part of the large room, where several lamps and farnooses envelop this attractive and drawing combination with a garish and stagy glow, so that they can be seen to advantage by the throngs of eager visitors. My own place, as the lion of the occasion, is happily in the vicinity of the samovar, where liberal-minded customers can treat me to cigarettes and tea. Ridiculous as is my position in the tchai-khan, it is, of course, infinitely superior in point of comfort and freedom from annoyance, to my exposed quarters over at the caravanserai. The luti sings doubtful love songs to the accompaniment of finger-strumming on the drum, and the mandril now and then condescends to stand on its head, grunt loudly in response to questions, spin round and round like a dancing dervish, and otherwise give proof of his intelligence and accomplishments. Its long hair is shorn from the lower portion of its body, but its head and shoulders are covered with a wealth of silvery-grayish hair that overlaps the nakedness of its body and gives it the grotesque appearance of wearing a tippet. The animal's temper is anything but sweet, necessitating the habitual employment of a muzzle to prevent him from biting. Every ten or fifteen minutes, as regular almost as the movements of Father Time, the mandril's bottled discontent at being made to perform seems to reach the explosive point, and springing suddenly at his master, he buries his nose viciously among his clothing in a. determined effort to chew him up. This spasmodic rage subsides in horrible grunts of disappointment at being unable to use his teeth, and he becomes reasonably tractable again for another ten minutes. The luti himself is filled with envy and covetousness at the immense drawing powers of the bicycle; and in a burst of confidence wants to know if I am an "Ingilis lut;" at the same time placing his forefingers together as an intimation that if I am we ought by all means to form a combination and travel the country together. About ten o'clock the khan-jees make me up quite a comfortable shake-down, and tired out with the tough journey over the mountains and the worrying persecutions of the afternoon, I fall asleep while yet the house is doing a thriving trade; the luti singing, the mandril grunting, kalians bubbling, and people talking, all fail to keep me awake. The mental and physical exhaustion that makes this possible, does not, however, prevent me from falling asleep with a firm determination to leave Torbet-i-Haiderie and its turbulent population too early in the morning for any more crowds to gather. Accordingly, the morning star has scarcely risen above the horizon ere I turn out, waken one of the khan-jees, pocket some bread and depart. Beyond the streams and villages about Torbet-i-Haiderie, the country develops into a level desert, stretching away southward as far as eye can reach. The trail is firm gravel, the wind is favorable, the morning cool, and the fresh, clear air of the desert exhilarating; under these favorable conditions I bowl rapidly along, overtaking in a very short time night-marching camel-riders that left the city last night. Traces of old irrigating ditches and fields in one or two places tell the tale of an attempt to reclaim portions of this desert long ago; but now the camel-thorn and kindred hardy shrubs hold undisputed sway on every hand. During the forenoon a small oasis is found among some low, shaly hills that give birth to a little stream, and consequent subsistence, to a few families of people; they live together inside a high mud-walled enclosure and cultivate a few small fields of grain. The place is called Kair-abad, and the people mix chopped garlic with their bread before baking it, or sprinkle the dough liberally with garlic seeds. About 2 p.m. is reached a much larger oasis containing a couple of villages; beyond this are diverging trails with no one anywhere near to ask the way. Choosing the one that seems to take the most southerly course, the trail continues hard and ridable for a few more miles, when it becomes lost in a sea of shifting sand. Firmer ground is visible in the distance ahead, and on it are seen the small black tents of a few families of Eliautes. Considerable difficulty is experienced in getting through the sand; but the width is not great, and the dim trail is recovered on the southern side with the assistance of a chance acquaintance. This chance acquaintance is an Eliaute goat-herd, whom I unwittingly scared nearly out of his senses, and whose gratitude at finding himself confronting a kindly-disposed human being instead of some supernatural agent of destruction, is very great indeed. He was slumbering at his post, this gentle guardian of a herd of goats, stretched at full length on the ground. Surveying his unconscious form for a moment and carried away by the animal-like simplicity of his face, I finally shout "Hoi!" Opening his eyes with a start and seeing a white-helmeted head surveying him over the top of a weird, bristling object, the natural impulse of this simple-hearted child of the desert is to seek safety in flight. Recovering his head, however, upon hearing reassuring words, he adopts the propitiatory course of rushing impulsively forward and kissing my hand. Spending his whole life here on the lonely desert in the constant society of a herd of goats, rarely seeing a stranger or meeting anybody to speak to outside the very limited members of his own tribesmen in yonder tents, he seems to have almost lost the power of conversation. His replies are mere guttural gruntings, as though the ever-present music of bleating goats has had the lamentable effect of neutralizing the naturally superior articulation of a human being and dragging his powers of utterance down almost to the ignoble level of "mb-b-a-a." My small stock of Persian words seems also to be altogether lost upon his warped and blunted powers of understanding, and it is only by an elaborate use of pantomime that I finally succeed in making my wants understood. He possesses the simple hospitable instincts of a child of Nature's broad solitudes; he leads the way for over a mile to put me on the now scarcely perceptible continuation of the trail, and with a worshipfully anxious face he begs of me to go and stay over night at the tents. My road leads right past the little cluster of black tents; several women outside collecting stunted brushwood greet me with the silent, wondering stare of people incapable of any deeper display of emotion than the animals they daily associate with and subsist upon; half-naked children stare at me in a dreamy sort of way from beneath the tents. Even the dogs seem to have lost their canine propensity to resent innovations; the result, no doubt, of the same dreary, uneventful round of existence, in which the faculty of resentment has become dwarfed by the general absence of anything new or novel to bark at. The tents of the Eliautes are small and inelegant as compared with the tents of well-to-do Koords, and the physique and general appearance of the Eliautes themselves is vastly inferior to the magnificent fellows that we found loafing about the headquarters of the Koordish sheikhs in Asia Minor and Western Persia. The trail I am now following is evidently but little used, requiring the tracking instincts of an Indian almost to keep it in view. It leads due southward across the broad, level wastes of the Goonabad Desert, the surface of which affords most excellent wheeling even where there is not the faintest indication of a trail. Much of the surface partakes of the character of bare mud-flats that afford as smooth a wheeling surface as the alkali flats of the West; the surface is covered all over with crisp sun peelings--the thin, shiny surface of mud, baked and curled upward by the fierce heat of the sun, and which now crackle like myriads of dried twigs beneath the wheel. Occasionally I pass through thousands of acres of wild tulips, and scattering bands of antelopes are observed feeding in the distance. The bulbous roots of a great many of the tulips have been eaten by herbivorous animals of epicurean tastes---our fastidious friends, the antelopes, no doubt. The flags are bitten off and laid aside, the tender, white interior of the bulb alone is extracted and eaten, the less tender outside layers being left in the hole. It is a glorious ride across the Goonabad Desert, a ten-mile pace being quite possible most of the way; sometimes the trail is visible and sometimes it is not. With but the vaguest idea of the distance to the next abode of man, or the nature of the country ahead, I bowl along southward, led by the strange infatuation of a pathfinder traversing terra incognita, and rejoicing in the sense of boundless freedom and unrestraint that comes of speeding across open country where Nature still holds her primitive sway. Twice I wheel past the ruins of wayside umbars, whose now utterly neglected condition and the well-nigh obliterated trail point out that I am travelling over a route that has for some reason been abandoned. A variation from the otherwise universal level occurs in the shape of a cluster of low, mound-like hills, whose modest proportions are made gorgeous and interesting by flakes of mica that glint and glisten in the sunlight as though the hills might be strewn with precious jewels. The sun is getting pretty low, and no signs of human habitation anywhere about; but the wheeling is excellent, and the termination of the lake-like level is observable in the distance ahead in favor of low hills. Between my present position and the hills the prospect is that of continuous level ground. Imagine my astonishment, then, at shortly finding myself standing on the bank of a stream about thirty yards wide, its yellow waters flowing sluggishly along twenty feet below the surface of the desert. The abrupt nature of its banks, and an evidently unpleasant habit of becoming unfordable after a rain, tell the story of the abandoned trail I have been following. Whether three feet deep or thirty, the thick, muddy character of its moving water refuses to reveal, as, standing on the bank, I ruefully survey the situation. No time is to be lost in idle speculation, unless I want to stretch my supperless form on the barren, brown bosom of mother earth, and dream the dreary visions conjured up by the clamorous demands of unsatisfied nature; for the sun has well-nigh sunk below the horizon. Clambering down the almost perpendicular bank I succeed, after several attempts, in discovering a passage that can be forded, and so, wrapping my clothing, money, revolver, etc. tightly within my rubber coat, I essay to carry the bundle across. All goes well until I reach a point just beyond the middle of the stream, when the bed of the stream breaks through with my weight and lets me down into a watery cavern to which there appears to be no bottom. The bed of the stream at this point seems to be a mere thin shell, beneath which there are other aqueous depths, and fearful lest the undercurrent should carry me beneath the crust and prevent me recovering myself, I loose the bundle and regain the surface without more ado. The rubber covering preserves the clothes from getting much of a wetting, and I swim and wade to the opposite shore with them without much trouble. To get the bicycle over, however, looks a far more serious undertaking; for to break through in this way with a bicycle held aloft would probably result in getting entangled in the wheel and held under the water. It would be equally risky to take that important piece of property apart and cross over with it piece by piece, for the loss of any part would be a serious matter here. Several new places are tried, but this one is the only passage that can be forded. My rope is also too short to be of avail in swimming over and pulling the bicycle across. Finally, after many attempts, I succeed in finding a ford immediately alongside where I had broken through, and after thoroughly testing the strength of the crust by standing and jumping up and down, I conclude to risk carrying the wheel. Owing to the extreme difficulty of following the same line, it is scarcely necessary to remark that every step forward is made with extreme caution and every foot of the riverbed traversed tested as thoroughly as possible, under the circumstances, before fully trusting my weight upon it. Once the crust breaks through again, letting me down several inches; but, fortunately, the second bottom is here but a matter of inches below the first shell, and I am able to recover myself without dropping the bicycle; and the southern bank is reached without further misadventure. No trail is visible on the crackled surface of the mud-flat across the river, as I continue in a general southward course, hoping to find it again ere it becomes too dark Soon a man riding on a camel is descried some distance off to the right, and deeming it advisable to seek for information at his hands, I shape my course toward him and give chase. Becoming conscious of a strange-looking object careering over the plain in his direction, the man surveys me for a moment from the back of his awkward steed and then steers his ship of the desert in another direction. The lumbering camel is quickly overtaken, however, and the gallant but apprehensive rider makes a stand and threateningly waves me away. Observing the absence of the familiar long-barrelled gun, I persist in my purpose of interviewing him regarding the road, and finally learn from him that the village of Goonabad is eight miles farther south, and that the trail will be easier followed when I reach the hills. Had he been armed with a gun, there would have been more or less risk in approaching him in the dusky shades of evening on so strange a vehicle of travel; but before I depart he alights from his camel for the characteristic purpose of kissing my hand. A couple of miles brings me to the hills, where my riding abruptly comes to an end; the hills are simply huge waves of sand and dust collected on the shore of the desert and held together by a growth of coarse shrubs. The dim light of the young moon proves insufficient for my purpose of keeping the trail, and the difficulty in trundling through the sand compels me to seek the cold comfort of a night in the desert, after all. Goonabad appears to be a sort of general rendezvous for wandering tribes of Eliautes that roam the desert country around with their flocks and herds, the tent population of the place far outnumbering the soil-tilling people of the village itself. A complete change is here observable in both the climate and the people; north of the desert the young barley is in a very backward state, but at Goonabad both wheat and barley are headed out, and the sun strikes uncomfortably hot as soon as it rises above the horizon. It is a curious change in so short a distance. The men affect the long, dangling, turban-end of the Afghans and the women blossom forth in the gayest of colors; the people are refreshingly simple-hearted and honest, as compared with the knowing customers along the Teheran-Meshed road. Sand-hills, scattering fields and villages, and a bewildering time generally, in keeping my course, characterize the experience of the forenoon. The people of one particular village passed through are observed to be all descendants of the Prophet, wearing monster green turbans and green kammerbunds; the women are dressed in white throughout--white socks, white pantalettes, and white shrouds; they move silently about, more like ghostly visitants than human beings. Distinctly different types of people from the majority are sometimes met with--full-bearded, very dark-skinned men, whose bared breasts betray the fact that they are little less hairy than a bison. Beyond the sand-hills, the villages, and the cultivation is a stony plain extending for sixteen miles, a gradual upward slant to a range of mountains. At the base of the mountains an area of dark-green coloring denotes the presence of fields and orchards and the whereabouts of the important village of Kakh. Beautifully terraced wheat-fields and vineyards, and peach and pomegranate orchards in full bloom, gladden the eyes and present a most striking contrast to the stony plain as the vicinity of Kakh is reached, and another pleasing and conspicuous feature is the dome of a mesjid mosaicked with bright-colored tiles. The good people of Kakh are inquisitive even above their fellows, if such can be possible, but they are well-behaved and mild-mannered with it. After taking the ragged edge off their curiosity by riding up and down the main thoroughfare of the village, the keeper of a mercantile affair locks the bicycle up in his room, and I spend the evening hobnobbing with him and his customers in his little stall-like place of business. Kakh is famous for the production of little seedless raisins like those of Smyrna. Bushels of these are kicking about the place, and our merchant friend becomes filled with a wild idea that I might, perchance, buy the lot. A moment's reflection would convince him that ten bushels of sickly-sweet raisins would be about the last thing he could sell to a person travelling on a bicycle; but his supply of raisins is evidently so outrageously ahead of the demand that his ambition to reduce his stock obscures his better judgment like a cloud, and places him in the position of a drowning man clutching wildly at a straw. Considerable opium is also grown hereabouts, and the people make it into sticks about the size of a carpenter's pencil; hundreds of these also occupy the merchant's shelves. He seems to have very little that isn't grown in the neighborhood except tea and loaf-sugar. Eyots, who were absent in their fields when I arrived, come crowding around the store in the evening, bothering me to ride; the shop-keeper bids them wait till my departure in the morning, telling them I am not a luti, riding simply to let people see. He provides me with a door that fastens inside, and I am soon in the land of dreams. Early in the morning I am awakened by people pounding at the door and shouting, "A/tab, Sahib-a/tab.'" It is the belated ryots of yesterday eve; thoroughly determined to be on hand and see the start, they are letting me know that it is sunrise. A boisterous mountain stream, tearing along at racing speed over a rocky bed a hundred and fifty yards wide, provides Kakh with perpetual music, and furnishes travellers going southward with an interesting time getting across. This stream must very frequently become a raging torrent, quite impassable; for although it is little more than knee-deep this morning, the swift water carries down stones as large as a brick, that strike against the ankles and well-nigh knock one off his feet. Beyond Kakh the trail winds its circuitous way through a mountainous region, following one little stream to its source, climbing over the crest of an intervening ridge and down the bed of another stream. It is but an indistinct donkey trail at best, and the toilsome mountain climbing reminds me vividly of the worst parts of Asia Minor. Toward nightfall I wander into the village of Nukhab, a small place perched among the hills, inhabited by kindly-disposed, hospitable folks. Having seen the unhappy effect of the Governor-General's letter of recommendation at Torbet-i-Haiderie, and desirous of seeing what effect it might, perchance, have on the more simple-hearted people of Nukhab, I present it to the little, old, blue-gowned Khan of the village. Like a very large proportion of his people, the Khan is suffering from chronic ophthalmia; but he peruses the letter by the glimmer of a blaze of camel-thorn. The intentions of these people were plainly most hospitable from the beginning, so that it is difficult to determine about the effect of the letter. Willing hands sweep out the quarters assigned for my accommodation, the improvised besoms filling the place with a cloud of dust; the doorway is ruthlessly mutilated to make it large enough to admit the bicycle; nummuds are spread and a crackling fire soon fills the room with mingled smoke and light. The people are allowed to circulate freely in and out to see me, but only the Khan himself and a few of the leading lights of the village are permitted to indulge in the coveted privilege of spending the entire evening in my company. The village is ransacked for eatables to honor their guest, resulting in a bountiful repast of eggs, pillau, mast, and sheerah. Away down here among the mountains and out of the world, these people see nothing more curious than their next-door neighbors from year to year; they take the most ridiculous interest in such small affairs as my note-book and pencil, and everything about me seems to strike them as peculiar. The entire village, as usual, assembles to see me dispose of the eatables so generously provided; and later in the evening there is another highly-expectant assembly waiting around, out of curiosity, to see what sort of a figure a Ferenghi cuts at his evening devotions. Poor benighted followers of the False Prophet, how little they comprehend us Christians! Suddenly it seems to dawn upon the mind of the simple old Khan that, being a stranger in a strange land, I might, perchance, be a trifle mixed about my bearings, and so he kindly indicates the direction of Mecca. When informed that the Ingilis never prostrate themselves toward Mecca and say "Allah-il-allah!" they evince the greatest astonishment; and then the strange, unnatural impiousness of people who never address themselves to Allah nor prostrate toward the Holy City, impresses their simple minds with something akin to the feeling entertained among certain of ourselves toward extra dare-devil characters, and they seem to take a deeper and kindlier interest in me than ever. The disappointment at not seeing what I look like at prayers is more than offset by the additional novelty imparted to my person by the, to them, strange and sensational omission. They seem greatly disappointed to learn that I am going away in the morning; they have plenty of toke-me-morge, pillau, mast, and sheerah, they say--plenty of everything; and they want me to stay with them always. Revolving the matter over in my mind, I am forcibly struck with the calm, reposeful state of Nukhab society; and what a brilliant field of enterprise for an ambitious person the place would be. Turned Mussulman, joined in wedlock to three or four sore-eyed village damsels; worshipped as a sort of strange, superior being, hakim and eye-water dispenser; consulted as a walking store-house of occult philosophy on all occasions; endeavoring to educate the people up to habits of all-round cleanliness; chiding the mothers for allowing the flies to swarm and devour the poor little babies' eyes--all this, for toke-me-morge, pillau, mast, and sheerah, twice or thrice a day! Involuntarily my eye roams over the gladsome countenances of the eligible portion of my female auditors, as though driven by this whimsical flight of fancy to the necessity of at once making a choice. There is only one present with any pretence to comeliness; and embarrassed, no doubt, by the extreme tenderness of the stranger's glance, she shrinks from view behind an aged and ugly person whom I take to be her mother. Everybody stops to see what a Ferenghi looks like en deshabille, and when I am snugly sandwiched between the quilts provided, they gather about me and peer curiously down into my face. An enterprising youth is on hand at daybreak making a fire; but it is eight o'clock before I am able to get away; they seem to be mildly scheming among themselves to keep me with them as long as possible. The trail winds and twists about among the mountains, following in the train of a wayward little stream, then leads over a pass and emerges, in the company of another stream, upon a slanting plateau leading down to an extensive plain. Rounding the last spur of the hills, I find myself approaching a crowd numbering at least a hundred people. Hats are waved gleefully, voices are lifted up in joyous shouts of welcome, and the whole company give way to demonstrations of delight at my approach. A minute later I find myself surrounded by the familiar faces of the population of Nukhab--my road has followed a roundabout course of six or seven miles, and our enterprising friends have taken a short cut over the lulls to intercept me at this point, where they can watch my, progress across the open plain. They have brought along the kind old Kahn's kalian and tobacco-bag, and the wherewithal to make me a parting glass of tea. Eight or ten miles of fair wheeling across the plain, through the isolated village of Mohammedabad, and the trail loses itself among the rank, dead stalks of the assafoetida plant that here characterizes the vegetation of the broad, level sweep of plain. The day is cloudy, and with no trail visible, my compass has to be brought into requisition; though oft-times finding it useful, it is the first time I have found this article to be really indispensable so far on the tour. The atmosphere of an assafoetida desert is among those things that can better be imagined than described; the aroma of the fetid gum is wafted to and fro, and assails the nostrils in a manner quite the reverse of "Araby the blest." The plant is a sturdy specimen among the annuals: its straight, upright stem is but three or four feet high, but often measuring four inches in diameter, and it not infrequently defies the blasts of the Khorassan winter and the upheaving thaws of spring, and preserves its upright position for a year after its death. The thick, dead stems and branching tops of last year's plants are seen by the thousands, sturdily holding their ground among the rank young shoots of the new growth. Mountainous territory is again entered during the afternoon, and shortly after sunset I arrive at a cluster of wretched mud hovels, numbering about two dozen. Here my reception is preeminently commercial and business-like, the people requiring payment in advance for the bread and eggs and rogan provided. A nonsensical custom among the people of Southern Khorassan is to offer one's food in turn to everybody present and say, "Bis-millah," before commencing to eat it yourself. Although a ridiculous piece of humbug, it is generally my custom to fall in with the peculiar ways of the country, and for days past have invariably offered my food to scores of people whom I knew beforehand would not take it. The lack of courtesy at this hamlet in exacting payment in advance would seem naturally to preclude the right to expect the following of courteous customs in return. In this, however, I find myself mistaken; for my omission to say "Bis-millah" not only fills these people with astonishment, but excites unfavorable comment. The door-ways of the houses here are entirely too small to admit the bicycle, and that much-enduring vehicle has to take its chances on the low roof with a score or so inquisitive and meddlesome goats that instantly gather around it, as though revolving in their pugnacious minds some fell scheme of destruction. Outside are several camels tied to their respective pack-saddles, which have been taken off and laid on the ground. Before retiring for the night, it occurs to my mind that the total depravity of a goat's appetite bodes ill for the welfare of my saddle, and that, everything considered, the bicycle could, perhaps, be placed safer on the ground; in addition to regarding the saddle as a particularly toothsome morsel, the goats' venturesome disposition might lead them to clambering about on the spokes, and generally mixing things up. So, taking it down, I stand it up against the wall, and place a heap of old pack-saddle frames and camel-trappings before it as an additional precaution. During the night some of the camels break loose and are heard chasing one another around the house, knocking things over and bellowing furiously. Apprehensive of my wheel, I get up and find it knocked over, but, fortunately, uninjured; I then take off the saddle and return it to the tender care and consideration of the goats. Four men and a boy share with me a small, unventilated den, about ten feet square; one of them is a camel-driving descendant of the Prophet, and sings out "Allah-il-allah!" several times during the night in his sleep; another is the patriarch of the village, a person guilty of cheating the undertaker, lo! these many years, and who snuffles and catches his breath. The other two men snore horribly, and the boy gives out unmistakable signs of a tendency to follow their worthy example; altogether, it is anything but a restful night. CHAPTER VII. BEERJAND AND THE FRONTIER OF AFGHANISTAN. Thirty miles over hill and dale, after leaving the little hamlet, and behold, the city of Beerjand appears before me but a mile or thereabouts away, at the foot of the hills I am descending. One's first impression of Beerjand is a sense of disappointment; the city is a jumbled mass of uninteresting mud buildings, ruined and otherwise, all of the same dismal mud-brown hue. Not a tree exists to relieve the eye, nor a solitary green object to break the dreary monotony of the prospect; the impression is that of a place existing under some dread ban of nature that forbids the enlivening presence of a tree, or even the redeeming feature of a bit of greensward. The broad, sandy bed of a stream contains a sluggishly-flowing reminder of past spring freshets; but the quickening presence of a stream of water seems thrown away on Beerjand, except as furnishing a place for closely-veiled females to come and wash clothes, and for the daily wading and disporting of amphibious youngsters. In any other city a part of its mission would be the nurturing of vegetation. The Ameer, Heshmet-i-Molk, I quickly learn, is living at his summer-garden at Ali-abad, four farsakhs to the east. Curious to see something of a place so much out of the world, and so little known as Beerjand, I determine upon spending the evening and night here, and continuing on to Ali-abad next morning. There appears to be absolutely nothing of interest to a casual observer about the city except its population, and they are interesting from their strange, cosmopolitan character, and as being the most unscrupulous and keenest people for money one can well imagine. The city seems a seething nest of hard characters, who buzz around my devoted person like wasps, seemingly restrained only by the fear of retribution from pouncing on my personal effects and depriving me of everything I possess. The harrowing experiences of Torbet-i Haiderie have taught a useful lesson that stands me in good stead at Beerjand. Ere entering the city proper, I enlist the services of a respectable-looking person to guide the way at once where the pressing needs of hunger can be attended to before the inevitable mob gathers about me and renders impossible this very necessary part of the programme. Having duly fortified myself against the anticipated pressure of circumstances by consuming bread and cheese and sheerah in the semi-seclusion of a suburban bake-house, my guide conducts me to the caravanserai, receives his backsheesh, and loses himself in the crowd that instantly fills the place. The news of my arrival seems to set the whole city in a furore; besides the crowds below, the galched roof of the caravanserai becomes standing room for a mass of human beings, to the imminent danger of breaking it in. So, at least, thinks the caravanserai-jee, who becomes anxious about it and tries to persuade them to come down; but he might as well attempt to summon down from above the unlistening clouds. Around two sides of the caravanserai compound is a narrow, bricked walk, elevated to the level of the menzil floors; at the imminent risk of breaking my neck, I endeavor to appease the clamorous multitude, riding to and fro for the edification of what is probably the wildest-looking assembly that could be collected anywhere in the world. Afghans, with tall, conical, gold-threaded head-dresses, converted into monster turbans by winding around them yards and yards of white or white-and-blue cloth, three feet of which is left dangling down the back; Beloochees in flowing gowns that were once white; Arabs in the striped mantles and peculiar headdress of their country; dervishes, mollahs, seyuds, and the whole fantastic array of queer-looking people living in Beerjand, travelling through, or visiting here to trade. Some of the Afghans wear a turban and kammerbund, all of one piece; after winding the long cotton sheet a number of times about the peaked head-dress, it is passed down the back and then ends its career in the form of a kammerbund about the waist. Fights and tumults occur as the result of the caravanserai-jee's attempt to shut the gate and keep them out, and in despair he puts me in a room and locks the door. In less than five minutes the door is broken down, and a second attempt to seclude myself results in my being summarily pelted out again with stones through a hole in the roof. A Yezdi traveller, occupying one of the menzils--all of which at Beeriand are provided with doors and locks--now invites me to his quarters; locking the door and keeping me out of sight, he hopes by making me his guest to assist in getting rid of the crowd. Whatever his object, its consummation is far from being realized; the unappeased curiosity of the crowds of newly arriving people finds expression in noisy shouts and violent hammering on the door, creating a din so infernal that the well-meaning traveller quickly tires of his bargain. Following the instincts of the genuine Oriental, he conjures up the genius of diplomacy to rid himself of his guest and the annoyance occasioned by my presence. "If you go outside and ride around the place once more," he says, "Inshallah, the people will all go home." This is a very transparent proposition--a broad hint, covered with the thin varnish of Persian politeness. No sooner am I outside than the door is locked, and the wily Yezdi has accomplished his purpose of ousting me and thereby securing a little peace for himself. No right-thinking person will blame him for turning me out; on the contrary, he deserves much praise for attempting to take me in. I now endeavor to render my position bearable by locking up the bicycle and allowing the populace to concentrate their eager gaze on me, perching myself on the roof in position to grant them a fair view. Swarms of people come flocking up after me, evidently no more able to control their impulse to follow than if they were so many bleating sheep following the tinkling leadership of a bellwether or a goat. The caravanserai-jee begs me to come down again, fearing the weight will cause the roof to cave in. well-nigh at my wit's end what to do, I next take up a squatting position in a corner and resign myself to the unhappy fate of being importuned to ride, shouted at in the guttural tones of desert tribesmen, questioned in unknown tongues, solicited for alms and schemed against and worried for this, that, and the other, by covetous and evil-minded ruffians. "The Ingilis have khylie pool-k-h-y-lie pool!" (much money) says one ferocious-looking individual to his companion, and their black eyes glisten and their fingers rub together feverishly as they talk, as if the mere imagination of handling my money were a luxury in itself. "He must have khylie pool if he is going all the way to Hindostan-k-h-y-lie pool!" suggests another; and the coveteousness of dozens of keenly interested listeners finds expression in "Pool, pool; the Ingilis have khylie pool." One eager ragamuffin brings me half-a-dozen sour and shrivelled oranges, utterly worthless, for which he asks the outrageous sum of three kerans; a second villainous-looking specimen worries me continuously to leave the caravanserai and go with him somewhere. I never could make out where. He looks the veriest cutthroat, and, curious to penetrate the secret of his intentions, and perchance secure something interesting for my note-book, I at length make pretence of acceding to his wishes. Bystanders at once interfere to prevent him enticing me away, and when he angrily remonstrates he is hustled unceremoniously out into the street. "He is a bad man," they say; "neis koob adam." Nothing daunted by the summary ejection of this person, a dervish, with the haggard face and wild, restless eyes of one addicted to bhang, now volunteers to take me under his protection and lead me out of the caravanserai to--where? He vouchsafes no explanation where; none, at least, that is at all comprehensible to me. Where do these interesting specimens of Beerjand's weird population want to entice me to? why do they want to entice me anywhere? I conclude to go with the dervish and find out. The crowd enter their remonstrances again; but the dervish wears the garb of holy mendicancy; violent hands must not be laid on the sacred person of a dervish. Our path is barred at the outer gate of the caravanserai, however, by two men in semi-military uniforms, armed with swords and huge clubs; they chide the dervish for wanting to take me with him, and have evidently been placed at their post by the authorities. Soon a uniformed official comes in and tries to question me. He is a person of very limited intelligence, incapable of understanding and making himself understood through the medium of the small stock of his native tongue at my command. The linguistic abilities of the strange, semi-civilized audience about us comprise Persian, Turkish, Hindostani, and even a certain amount of Russian; not a soul besides myself knows a single word of English. After queries have been propounded to me in all these tongues, my intellectual interviewer gives me up in despair, and, addressing the crowd about us, cries out in astonishment: "Parsee neis! Turkchi binmus! Hindostani nay! Paruski nicht! mashallah, what language does he speak?" "Ingilis! Ingilis! Ingilis!" shout at least a dozen more knowing people than himself. "Oh, I-n-g-i-l-i-s!" says the officer, condemning his own lack of comprehension by the tone of his voice. "Aha, I-n-g-i-l-i-s, aha!" and he looks over the crowd apologetically for not having thought of so simple a thing before. But having ascertained that I speak English, he now proceeds to treat me to a voluble discourse in simon-pure Persian. Seeing that I fail to comprehend the tenor of the officer's remarks, some of the garrulous crowd vouchsafe to explain in Turkish, others in Hindostani, and one in Russian! In the absence of a lunatic asylum to dodge into, I fasten on to the officer and get him to take me out and show me the Ali-abad road, so that I can find the way out early in the morning. Another caravanserai is found located nearer the road leading from the city eastward, and I determine to change my quarters quietly by the light of the moon, leaving the crowd in ignorance of my whereabouts, so that there will be no difficulty in getting through the streets in the morning. Late at night, when the now quieted city is bathed in the soft, mellow light of the moon, and the crenellated mud walls and old ruins and archways cast weird shadows across the silent streets, with a few chosen companions, parties to the secret of the removal, the bicycle is trundled through the narrow, crooked streets and under arched alleyways, to the caravanserai on the eastern edge of the city. Seated beneath the shadowy archway of the first caravanserai is a silent figure smoking a kalian; as we open the gate to leave, the figure rises up and thrusts forth an alms-receiver and in a loud voice sings out, "Backsheesh, backsheesh; huk yah huk!" It is the same dervish that was turned back with me by the guards at this same gate this afternoon. My much-needed slumbers at my new quarters are rudely disturbed--as a son of Erin might, perhaps, declare under similar circumstances--before they are commenced, by the fearful yowling of Beerjand cats. Several of these animals are paying their feline compliments to the moon from different roofs and walls hard by, and their utterances strike my unaccustomed (unaccustomed to the Beerjand variety of cat-music) ears as about the most unearthly sound possible. Fancying the noise is made by women wailing for the dead, from a striking resemblance to the weird night-sounds heard, it will be remembered, at Bey Bazaar, Asia Minor (Vol. I), I go outside and listen. Many guesses would most assuredly be made by me before guessing cats as the authors of such unearthly music; but cats it is, nevertheless; for, seeing me listening outside by the door, one of the sharers of my rude quarters comes out and removes all doubt by drawing the rude outlines of a cat in the dust with his finger, and by delivering himself of an explanatory "meow." The yowl of a Beerjand cat is several degrees more soul-harrowing than anything inflicted by midnight prowlers upon the Occidental world, and I learn afterward that they not infrequently keep it up in the daytime. An early start, sixteen miles of road without hills or mountains, but embracing the several qualities of good, bad, and indifferent, and at eight o'clock I dismount in the presence of a little knot of Heshmet-i-Molk's retainers congregated outside his summer-garden, and a goodly share of the population of the adjacent village of Ali-abad. While yet miles away, Ali-abad is easily distinguished as being something out of the ordinary run of Persian villages by the luxuriant foliage of the Ameer's garden. The whole country around is of the same desert-like character that distinguishes well-nigh all this country, and the dark, leafy grove of trees standing alone on the gray camel-thorn plain, derives additional beauty and interest from the contrast. The village of Ali-abad, consisting of the merest cluster of low mud hovels and a few stony acres wrested from the desert by means of irrigation, the people ragged, dirty, and uncivilized, looks anything but an appropriate dwelling-place for a great chieftain. The summer garden itself is enclosed within a high mud wall, and it is only after passing through the gate and shutting out the rude hovels, the rag-bedecked villagers, and the barren desert, that the illusion of unfitness is removed. My letter is taken in to the Ameer, and in a few minutes is answered in a most practical manner by the appearance of men carrying carpets, tent-poles, and a round tent of blue and white stripes. Winding its silvery course to the summer garden, from a range of hills several miles distant, is a clear, cold stream; although so narrow as to be easily jumped, and nowhere more than knee-deep, the presence of trout betrays the fact that it never runs dry. The tent is pitched on the banks of this bright little stream, the entrance but a half-dozen paces from its sparkling water, and a couple of guards are stationed near by to keep away intrusive villagers; an abundance of eatables, including sweetmeats, bowls of sherbet, and dried apricots, and pears from Foorg, are provided at once. A neatly dressed attendant squats himself down on the shady side of the tent outside, and at ridiculously short intervals brings me in a newly primed kalian and a samovar of tea. Everything possible to contribute to my comfort is attended to and nothing overlooked; and the Ameer furthermore proves himself sensible and considerate above the average of his fellow-countrymen by leaving me to rest and refresh myself in the quiet retreat of the tent till four o'clock in the afternoon. Reclining on the rich Persian carpet beneath the gayly striped tent, entertained by the babbling gossip of the brook, provided with luxuriant food and watchful attendants, taking an occasional pull at a jewelled kalian primed with the mild and seductive product of Shiraz, or sipping fragrant tea, it is very difficult to associate my present conditions and surroundings with the harassing experiences of a few hours ago. This marvellous transformation in so short a time--from the madding clamor of an inconsiderate mob, to the nerve-soothing murmur of the little stream; from the crowded and filthy caravanserai to the quiet shelter of the luxurious tent; in a word, from purgatory to Paradise--what can have brought it about? Surely nothing less than the good genii of Aladdin's lamp. A very agreeable, and, withal, intelligent young man, the incumbunt of some office about the Ameer's person, no doubt a mirza, pays me a visit at noon, apparently to supervise the serving up of the--more than bountiful repast sent in from his master's table. My attention is at once arrested by the English coat-of-arms on his sword-belt; both belt and clasp have evidently wandered from the ranks of the British army. "Pollock Sahib," he says, in reply to my inquiries--it is a relic of the Seistan Boundary Commission. About four o'clock, this same young man and a companion appear with the announcement that the Ameer is ready to receive me, and requests that I bring the bicycle with me into the garden. The stream flows through a low arch beneath the wall and lends itself to the maintenance of an artificial lake that spreads over a large proportion of the enclosed space. The summer garden is a fabrication of green trees and the cool glimmer of shaded water, rather than the flower-beds, the turf, and shrubbery of the Occidental conception of a garden; the Ameer's quarters consist of an un-pretentious one-storied building fronting on the lake. The Ameer himself is found seated on a plain divan at the open-windowed front, toying with a string of amber beads; a dozen or so retainers are standing about in respectful and expectant attitudes, ready at a moment's notice to obey any command he may give or to anticipate his personal wants. He is a stoutly built, rather ponderous sort of individual, with a full, rotund face and a heavy, unintellectual, but good-natured expression; one's first impression of him is apt to be less flattering to his head than to his heart. He is a person, however, that improves with acquaintance, and is probably more intelligent than he looks. He seems to be living here in a very plain and unpretentious manner; no gaudy stained glass, no tinsel, no mirror-work, no vain gew-gaws of any description impart a cheap and garish glitter to the place; no gorgeous apparel bedecks his ample proportions. Clad in the ordinary dress of a well-to-do Persian nobleman, Heshmet-i-Molk, happy and contented in the enjoyment of creature comforts and the universal esteem of his people, probably finds his chief pleasure in sitting where we now find him, looking out upon the green trees and glimmering waters of the garden, smoking his kalian, and attending to the affairs of state in a quiet, unostentatious manner. With a refreshing absence of ceremonial, he discusses with me the prospects of my being able to reach India overland. The conversation on his part, however, almost takes the form of trying to persuade me from my purpose altogether, and particularly not to attempt Afghanistan. "The Harood is as wide as from here to the other side of the lake yonder (200 yards); tund (swift) as a swift-running horse and deep as this house," he informs me. "No bridge? no ferry-boat? no means of getting across?" "Eitch" (no), replies the Ameer. "Pull neis, kishti neis." "Can't it be forded with camels?" "Shutor neis." "No village, with people to assist with poles or skins to make a raft?" "Afghani dasht-adam (nomads), no poles; you might perhaps find skins; but the river is tund-t-u-n-d! skins neis, poles neis; t-u-n-d!!" and the Ameer points to a bird hopping about on the garden walk, intimating that the Harood flows as swiftly as the flight of a bird. The result of the conference I have been so anxiously looking forward to is anything but an encouraging picture--a picture of insurmountable obstacles on every hand. The deep sand and burning heat of the dreadful Lut Desert intervenes between me and the Mekran coast; the route through Beloochistan, barely passable with camels and guides and skins of water in the winter, is not only impracticable for anything in the summer, but there is the additional obstacle of the spring floods of the Helmund and the Seistan Lake. The Ameer's description of the Lut Desert and Beloochistan is but a confirmation of my own already-arrived-at conclusions concerning the utter impracticability of crossing either in the summer and with a bicycle; but the wish gives birth to the thought that perhaps he may not unlikely be indulging in the Persian weakness for exaggeration in his graphic portrayal of the difficulties presented by the Harood. The region between Beerjand and the Harood is on my map a dismal-looking, blankety-blank stretch of country, marked with the ominous title "Dasht-i" which, being interpreted into English, means Desert of Despair. A gleam of hope that things may not be quite so hopeless as pictured is born of the fact that, in dwelling on the difficulties of the situation, the Ameer makes less capital out of this same Desert of Despair than of the Harood, which has to be crossed on its eastern border. As regards interference from the Legation of Teheran, thank goodness I am now three hundred miles from the nearest telegraph-pole, and shall enter Afghanistan at a point so much nearer to Quetta than to the Boundary Commission Camp that the chances seem all in favor of reaching the former place if I only succeed in reaching the Dasht-i-na-oomid and the Harood. The result of the foregoing deliberations is a qualified (qualified by the absence of any alternative save turning back) determination to point my nose eastward, and follow its leadership toward the British outpost at Quetta. "Khylie koob" (very well), replies the Ameer, as he listens to my determination; "khylie koob;" and he takes a few vigorous whiffs at his kalian as though, conscious of the uselessness of arguing the matter any further with a Ferenghi, he were dismissing the ghost of his own opinions in a cloud of smoke. Shortly after sunrise on the following morning a couple of well-mounted horsemen appear at the door of my tent, armed and equipped for the road. Their equipment consists of long guns with resting-fork attachment, the prongs of which project above the muzzle like a two-pronged pitchfork; swords, pistols, and the brave but antique display of warlike paraphernalia characteristic of the East. One of them, I am pleased to observe, is the genial young mirza whose snuff-colored roundabout is held in place by the "dieu et mon droit" belt of yesterday; his companion is the ordinary sowar, or irregular horseman of the country. They announce themselves as bearers of the Ameer's salaams, and as my escort to Tabbas, a village two marches to the east. A few miles of plain, with a gradual inclination toward the mountains; ten miles up the course of a mountain-stream-up, up, up to where thawing snow-banks make the pathway anything but pleasant for my escort's horses and ten times worse for a person reduced to the necessity of lugging his horse along; over the summit, and down, down, down again over a fearful trail for a wheelman, or, more correctly, over no trail at all, but scrambling as best one can over rocks, along ledges, often in the water of the stream, and finally reaching the village of Darmian, the end of our first day's march, about 3 p.m. Darmian is situated in a rugged gulch, and the houses, gardens, and orchards ramble all over the place--with little regard to regularity, although some attempt has been made at forming streets. Darmian and Poorg are twin villages, but a short distance apart, in this same gulch, and are famous for dried apricots, pears, and dried beetroots, and for the superior quality of its sheerah. Among the absurdities that crop up during the course of an eventful evening at Darmian is the case of a patriarchal villager whose broad and enlightening experience of some threescore years has left him in the possession of a marvellously logical and comprehensive mind. Hearing of the arrival of a Ferenghi with an iron horse, this person's subtle intellect pilots him into the stable of the place we are stopping at and leads him to search curiously therein, with the expectation, we may reasonably presume, of seeing the bicycle complacently munching kah and jow. This is perhaps not so much to be wondered at, when it is reflected that plenty of people hereabout have no conception whatever of a wheeled vehicle, never having seen a vehicle of any description. The good people of Darmian, as is perhaps quite natural in people near the frontier, betray a pardonable pride in comparing Persia with Afghanistan, always to the prodigious disadvantage of the latter. In the course of the usual examination of my effects, they are immensely gratified to learn from my map that Persia is much the larger country of the two. A small corner of India is likewise visible on the map, and, taking it for granted that the map represents India as fully as it does Persia, the khan, on whom I am unwittingly bestowing the rudiments of a false but patriotic geographical education, turns around, and with swelling pride informs the delighted people that Seistan is larger than India, and Iran bigger than all the rest of the world, he taking it for granted that my map of Persia is a map of the whole world. More and more fantastic grow the costumes of the people as one gets farther, so to speak, out of civilization and off the beaten roads. The ends of the turbans here are often seen gathered into a sort of bunch or tuft on the top; the ends are fringed or tipped with gold, and when gathered in this manner create a fanciful, crested appearance--impart a sort of cock-a-doodle-doo aspect to the wearer. Among the most interesting of my callers are three boys of eight to twelve summers, who enter the room chewing leathery chunks of dried beetroot. Although unwashed, "unwiped," and otherwise undistinguishable from others of the same age about the place, they are gravely introduced as khan this, that, and the other respectively; and while they remain in the room, obsequiousness marks the deportment of everybody present except their father, and he regards them with paternal pride. They are sons of the village khan, and as such are regarded superior beings by the common people about them. It looks rather ridiculous to see grown people bearing themselves in a retiring, servile manner in deference to youngsters glaringly ignorant of how to use a pocket-handkerchief, and who look as if their chief pastime were chewing dried beetroot and rolling about in the dust. But presently it is revealed that their first visit has been a mere informal call to satisfy the first impulse of youthful curiosity. By and by their fond parent takes them away for half an hour, and then ushers them into my presence again, transformed into gorgeous youths with nice clean faces and wiped noses. Marshalling themselves gravely opposite where I am sitting, they put their hands solemnly on their youthful stomachs, salaam, and gracefully drop down into a cross-legged position on the carpet. They look like real little chieftains now, both in dress and deportment. Scarlet roundabouts, trimmed with a profusion of gold braid, bedeck their consequential bodies; red slippers embroidered with gold thread cover their feet, and their snowy turbans end in a gold-flecked tuft of transparent muslin that imparts a bantam-like air of superiority. Their father comes and squats down beside me, and, as we sip tea together, he bestows a fond, parental smile upon the three scarlet poppies sitting motionless, with heads slightly bent and eyes downcast, before us, and inquires by an eloquent sweep of his chin what I think of them as specimens of simon-pure nobility. All through Persia the word "ob" has heretofore been used for water; but linguistic changes are naturally to be expected near the frontier, and the Darmian people use the term "ow." Upon my calling for ob, the khan's attendant stares blankly in reply; but an animated individual in the front ranks of the crowd about the doors and windows enlightens him and me at the same time by shouting out, "Ow! ow! ow!" The muezzin, calling the faithful to their evening prayers, likewise utters the summons here at Darmian quite differently from anything of the kind heard elsewhere. The cry is difficult to describe; but without meaning to cast reflections on the worthy muezzin's voice, I may perhaps be permitted to mention that the people are twice admonished, and twice a listening katir (donkey) awakens the echoing voices of the rock-ribbed gulch in vociferous response. The mother-in-law of the mirza lives at Darmian, and, like a dutiful son, he lingers in her society until nine o'clock next morning. At that hour he turns his horse's footsteps down the bed of the stream, while his comrade guides me for a couple of miles over a most abominable mountain-trail, rejoining the river and the dutiful son-in-law at Foorg. Foorg is situated at the extremity of the gulch, and is distinguished by a frowning old castle or fort, that occupies the crest of a precipitous hill overtopping the village and commanding a very comprehensive view of the country toward the Afghan frontier. The villages of Darmian and Foorg, looking out upon wild frontier territory, inhabited chiefly by turbulent and lawless tribes-people whose hereditary instincts are diametrically opposed to the sublime ethics of the decalogue have no doubt often found the grim stronghold towering so picturesquely above them an extremely convenient thing. The escort points it out and explains that it belongs to the "Padishah at Teheran," and not to his own master, the Ameer--a national, as distinct from a provincial, fortification. The cultivated environs of Foorg present a most discouraging front to a wheelman; walled gardens, rocks, orchards, and ruins, with hundreds of water-ditches winding and twisting among them, the water escaping through broken banks and creating new confusion where confusion already reigns supreme. Among this indescribable jumble of mud, water, rocks, ruins, and cultivation, pitched almost at an angle of forty-five degrees, the natives climb about bare-legged, impressing one very forcibly as so many human goats as they scale the walls, clamber over rocks, or wade through mud and water. A willing Foorgian divests himself of everything but his hat, and carries the bicycle across the stream, while I am taken up behind the mirza. As the mirza's iron-gray gingerly enters the water, an interesting and instructive spectacle is afforded by a hundred or more Foorgians following the shining example of the classic figure carrying the bicycle, for the purpose of being on hand to see me start across the plain toward Tabbas. Some of these good people are wearing turbans the size of a bandbox; others wear enormous sheep-skin busbies. A number of tall, angular figures stemming the turbid stream in the elegant costumes of our first parents, but wearing Khorassani busbies or Beerjand turbans, makes a bizarre and striking picture. A gravelly trail, with the gradient slightly in my favor, enables me to create a better impression of a bicycler's capabilities on the mind of the mirza and the sowar than was possible yesterday, by quickly leaving them far in the rear. Some miles are covered when I make a halt for them to overtake me, seeking the welcome shelter of a half-ruined wayside umbar. An Eliaute camp is but a short distance away, and several sun-painted children of the desert are eagerly interviewing the bicycle when my escort comes galloping along; not seeing me anywhere in view ahead, they had wondered what had become of their wheel-winged charge and are quite relieved at finding me here hobnobbing with the Eliautes behind the umbar. The mirza's fond mother-in-law has presented him with a quantity of dried pears with half a walnut imbedded in each quarter; during a brief halt at the umbar these Darmian delicacies are fished out of his saddle-bags and duly pronounced upon, and the genial Eliautes contribute flowing bowls of doke (soured milk, prepared in some manner that prevents its spoiling). High noon finds us at our destination for the day, the village of Tabbas, famous in all the country around for a peculiar windmill used in grinding grain. A grist-mill, or mills, consists of a row of one-storied mud huts, each of which contains a pair of grindstones. Connecting with the upper stone is a perpendicular shaft of wood which protrudes through the roof and extends fifteen feet above it. Cross-pieces run through at right angles and, plaited with rushes, transform the shaft into an upright four-bladed affair that the wind blows around and turns the millstones below. So far, this is only a very primitive and clumsy method of harnessing the wind; but connected with it is a very ingenious contrivance that redeems it entirely from the commonplace. A system of mud walls are built about, the same height or a little higher than the shaft, in such a manner as to concentrate and control the wind in the interest of the miller, regardless of which direction it is blowing in. The suction created by the peculiar disposition of the walls whisks the rude wattle sails around in the most lively manner. Forty of these mills are in operation at Tabbas; and to see them all in full swing, making a loud "sweeshing" noise as they revolve, is a most extraordinary sight. Aside from Tabbas, these novel grist-mills are only to be seen in the territory about the Seistan Lake. The door-way of the quarters provided for our accommodation being too small to admit the bicycle, not the slightest hesitation is made about knocking out the threshold. Every male visible about the place seems eagerly desirous of lending a hand in sweeping out the room, spreading nummuds, bringing quilts, tea, kalians, or something. A slight ripple upon the smooth and pleasing surface of the universal inclination to do us honor is a sententious controversy between the mirza and a blatant individual who enters objections about killing a sheep. Whether, in the absence of the village khan, the objections are based on an unwillingness to supply the mutton, or because the sheep are miles away on the plain, does not appear; but whatever the objections, the mirza overcomes them, and we get freshly slaughtered mutton for supper. Tea is evidently a luxury not to be lightly regarded at Tabbas; after the leaves have served their customary purpose, they are carefully emptied into a saucer, sprinkled with sugar, and handed around--each guest takes a pinch of the sweetened leaves and eats it. The modus operandi of manipulating the kalian likewise comes in for a slight modification here. The ordinary Persian method, before handing the water-pipe to another, is to lift off the top while taking the last pull, and thus empty the water-chamber of smoke. The Tabbasites accomplish the same end by raising the top and blowing down the stem. This mighty difference in the manner of clearing the water-chamber of a hubble-bubble will no doubt impress the minds of intellectual Occidentals as a remarkably important and valuable piece of information. Not less interesting and remarkable will likewise seem the fact that the flour-frescoed proprietors of these queer little Tabbas grist-mills are nothing less than the boundary-mark between that portion of the water-pipe smoking world which blows the remaining smoke out and that portion which inhales it. The Afghan, the Indian, and the Chinaman adopt the former method; the Turk, the Persian, and the Arab the latter. Yet another interesting habit, evidently borrowed from their uncultivated neighbors beyond the Dasht-i-na-oomid, is the execrable practice of chewing snuff. Almost every man carries a supply of coarse snuff in a little sheepskin wallet or dried bladder; at short intervals he rubs a pinch of this villainous stuff all over his teeth and gums and deposits a second pinch away in his cheek. Abdurraheim Khan, the chief of several small villages on the Tabbas plain, turns up in the evening. He is the mildest-mannered, kindliest-looking human being I have seen for a long time; he does the agreeable in a manner that leads his guests to think he worships the "Ingilis" people humbly at a distance, and is highly honored in being able to see and entertain one of those very worshipful individuals. Like nearly all Persians, he is ignorant of the Western custom of shaking hands; the sun-browned paw extended to him as he enters is stared at a moment in embarrassment and then clasped between both his palms. The turban of Abdurraheim Khan is a marvellous evidence of skill in the arranging of that characteristic Eastern head-dress; the snowy whiteness of the material, the gracefulness of the folds, and the elegant crest-like termination are not to be described and done justice to by either word or pen. In reply to my inquiries, I am glad to find that Abdurraheim Khan speaks less discouragingly of the Harood than did the Ameer at Ali-abad; he says it will be fordable for camels, and there will be no difficulty in finding nomads able to provide me an animal to cross over with. Some cause of delay, incomprehensible to me, appears to interfere with the continuation of my journey in the morning, most of the forenoon being spent in a discussion of the subject between Abdurraheim Khan and the mirza. About noon a messenger arrives from Ali-abad, bringing a letter from the Ameer, which seems to clear up the mystery at once. The letter probably contains certain instructions about providing me an escort that were overlooked in the letter brought by the mirza. When about starting, the khan presents me with a bowl of sweet stuff --a heavy preparation of sugar, grease, and peppermint. A very small portion of this lead-like concoction suffices to drive out all other considerations in favor of a determination never to touch it again. An attempt to distribute it among the people about us is interpreted by the well-meaning khan as an impulse of pure generosity on my own part; the result being that he ties the stuff up nicely in a clean handkerchief that an unlucky bystander happens to display at that moment and bids me carry it with me. An ancient retainer, without any teeth to speak of, and an annoying habit of shouting "h-o-i!" at a person, regardless of the fact that one is within hearing of the merest whisper, is detailed to guide me to a few hovels perched among the mountains, four farsakhs to the southeast, from which point the journey across the Dasht-i-na-oomid is to begin, with an escort of three sowars, who are to join us there later in the evening. A couple of miles over fairly level ground, and then commences again the everlasting hills, up, up, down, up, down, clear to our destination for the day. While trundling along over the rough foot-hills, I am approached by some nomads who are tending goats near by. Seeing them gather about me, my aged but valiant protector comes galloping briskly up and imperatively waves them away. A grandfatherly party, with a hacking cough, a rusty cimeter, and a flint-lock musket of "ye olden tyme," I fancied "The Aged" merely a guide to show me the road. As I worry along over the rough, unridable mountains, the irritation of being shouted "hoi!" at for no apparent reason, except for the luxury of hearing the music of his own voice, is so annoying that I have about resolved to abandon him to a well-deserved fate, in case of attack. But now, instead of leaning on me for protection, he blossoms forth at once as not only the protector of his own person, but of mine as well! As he comes galloping bravely up and dismisses the wild-looking children of the desert with a grandiloquent sweep of his hand, he is almost rewarded by an involuntary "bravo, old un!" from myself, so superior to the occasion does he seem to rise. The little nest of mud huts are found, after a certain amount of hesitation and preliminary going ahead by "The Aged," and toward nightfall three picturesque horsemen ride up and dismount; they are the sowars detailed by the Ameer's orders to Abdurraheim, or some other border-land khan, to escort me across the Desert of Despair. "The Aged" bravely returns to Tabbas in the morning by himself. When on the point of departing, he surveys me wistfully across a few feet of space and shouts "h-o-i!" He then regards me with a peculiar and indescribable smile. It is not a very hard smile to interpret, however, and I present him with the customary backsheesh. Pocketing the coins, he shouts "h-o-i!'" again, and delivers himself of another smile even more peculiar and indescribable than the other. "Persian-like, receiving a present of money only excites his cupidity for more," I think; and so reply by a deprecatory shake of the head. This turns out to be an uncharitable judgment, however, for once; he goes through the pantomime of using a pen and says, "Abdurraheim Khan." He saw me write my name, the date of my appearance at Tabbas, etc., on a piece of paper and give it to Abdurraheim Khan, and he wants me to do the same thing for him. The three worthies comprising my new escort are most interesting specimens of the genus sowar; the leader and spokesman of the trio says he is a khan; number two is a mirza, and number three a mudbake. Khans are pretty plentiful hereabouts, and it is nothing surprising to happen across one acting in the humble capacity of a sowar; a mirza gets his title from his ability to write letters; the precise social status of a mudbake is more difficult to here determine, but his proper roosting-place is several rungs of the social ladder below either of the others. They are to take me through to the Khan of Grhalakua, the first Afghan chieftain beyond the desert, and to take back to the Ameer a receipt from him for my safe delivery. It is a far easier task to reckon up their moral calibre than their social. Before being in their delectable company an hour they reveal that strange mingling of childlike simplicity and total moral depravity that enters into the composition of semi-civilized kleptomaniacs. The khan is a person of a highly sanguine temperament and possesses a headstrong disposition; coupled with his perverted notions of meum and tuum, these qualities will some fine day end in his being brought up with a round turn and required to part company with his ears or nose, or to be turned adrift on the cold charity of the world, deprived of his hands by the crude and summary justice of Khorassan. His eyes are brown and large, and spherical almost as an owl's eyes, and they bulge out in a manner that exposes most of the white. He wears long hair, curled up after the manner of Persian la-de-da-dom, and in his crude, uncivilized sphere evidently fancies himself something of a dandy. The mirza is quiet and undemonstrative in his manners, as compared with his social superior; and as becomes a person gifted with the rare talent of composing and writing letters, his bump of cautiousness is several degrees larger than the khan's, but is, nevertheless, not large enough to counterbalance the pernicious effect of an inherited and deeply rooted yearning for filthy lucre and a lamentable indifference as to the manner of obtaining it. The mudbake is the oldest man of the three, and consequently should be found setting the others a good example; but, instead of this, his frequent glances at my packages are, if anything, more heavily freighted with the molecules of covetousness and an eager longing to overhaul their contents than either the khan's or the mirza's. "Pool, pool, pool--keran, keran, keran," the probable amount in my possession, the amount they expect to receive as backsheesh, and kindred speculations concerning the financial aspect of the situation, form almost the sole topic of their conversation. Throwing them off their guard, by affecting greater ignorance of their language than I am really guilty of, enables me to size them up pretty thoroughly by their conversation, and thus to adopt a line of policy to counteract the baneful current of their thoughts. Their display of cunning and rascality is ridiculous in the extreme; fancying themselves deep and unfathomable as the shades of Lucifer himself, they are, in reality, almost as transparent and simple as children; their cunning is the cunning of the school-boy. Well aware that the safety of their own precious carcasses depends on their returning to Khorassan with a receipt from the Khan of Ghalakua for my safe delivery, there is little reason to fear actual violence from them, and their childish attempts at extortion by other methods will furnish an amusing and instructive study of barbarian character. The hovel in which our queerly assorted company of eight people sleep --the owners of the shanty, "The Aged," the khan, the mirza, the mudbake, and myself--is entered by a mere hole in the wall, and the bicycle has to stand outside and take the brunt of a heavy thunder-storm during the night. In this respect, however, it is an object of envy rather than otherwise, for myriads of fleas, larger than I would care to say, for fear of being accused of exaggeration, hold high revel on our devoted carcasses all the livelong night. From the swarms of these frisky insects that disport and kick their heels together in riotous revelry on and about my own person, I fancy, forsooth, they have discovered in me something to be made the most of, as a variety of food seldom coming within their province. But the complaining moans of "Ali-Akbar" from "The Aged," the guttural grunts of disapproval from the mirza and the mudbake, and the impatient growls of "kek" (flea) from the khan, tell of their being at least partial companions in misery; but, being thicker-skinned, and withal well seasoned to this sort of thing, their sufferings are less than mine. The rain has cleared up, but the weather looks unsettled, as about eight o'clock next morning our little party starts eastward under the guidance of a villager whom I have employed to guide us out of the immediate range of mountains, the sowars betraying a general ignorance of the commencement of the route. My escort are a great improvement as regards their arms and equipments upon "The Aged." Among the three are two percussion double-barrelled shot-guns, a percussion musket, six horse-pistols of various degrees of serviceableness, swords, daggers, ornamental goat's-paunch powder-pouches, peculiar pendent brass rings containing spring nippers for carrying and affixing caps, leathern water-bottles, together with various odds and ends of warlike accoutrements distributed about their persons or their saddles. "Inshallah, Ghalakua, Gh-al-a-kua!" exclaims the khan, as he swings himself into the saddle. "Inshallah, Al-lah," is the response of the mirza and the mudbake, as they carelessly follow his example, and the march across the Dasht-i-na-oomid begins. The ryot leads the way afoot, following along the partially empty beds of mountain torrents, through patches of rank camel-thorn, over bowlder-strewn areas and drifts of sand, sometimes following along the merest suggestion of a trail, but quite as frequently following no trail at all. At certain intervals occurs a piece of good ridable ground; our villager-guide then looks back over his shoulder and bounds ahead with a swinging trot, eager to enjoy the spectacle of the bicycle spinning along at his heels; the escort bring up the rear in a leisurely manner, absorbed in the discussion of "pool." Several miles are covered in this manner, when we emerge upon a more open country, and after consulting at some length with the villager, the khan declares himself capable of finding the way without further assistance. It is a strange, wild country, where we part from our local guide; it looks as though it might be the battleground of the elements. A trail, that is only here and there to be made out, follows a southeasternly course down a verdureless tract of country strewn with rocks and bowlders and furrowed by the rushing waters of torrents now dried up. Jagged rocks and bowlders are here mingled in indescribable confusion on a surface of unproductive clay and smaller stones. On the east stretches a waste of low, stony hills, and on the west, the mountains we have recently emerged from rise two thousand feet above us in an almost unbroken wall of precipitous rock. By and by the khan separates himself from the party and gallops away out of sight to the left, his declared mission being to purchase "goosht-i" (mutton) from a camp of nomads, whose whereabouts he claims to know. As the commissaire of the party, I have, of course, intrusted him with a sufficient quantity of money to meet our expenses; and the mirza and the mudbake no sooner find themselves alone than another excellent trait of their character conies to the surface. Upon comparing their thoughts, they find themselves wonderfully unanimous in their suspicions as to the honesty of the khan's intentions toward--not me, but themselves! These worthy individuals are troubled about the khan's independent conduct in going off alone to spend money where they cannot witness the transaction. They are sorely troubled as to probable sharp practice on the part of their social superior in the division of the spoils. The "spoils!" Shades of Croesus! The whole transaction is but an affair of battered kermis, intrinsically not worth a moment's consideration; but it serves its purpose of affording an interesting insight into the character of my escort. The poor mirza and the mudbake are, no doubt, fully justified in entertaining the worst opinions possible of the khan; he is a sad scoundrel, on a small scale, to say the least. While they are growling out to each other their grievances and apprehensions, that artful schemer is riding his poor horse miles and miles over the stony hills to the camping-ground of some hospitable Eliaute chieftain, from whom he can obtain goosht-i-goosfany for nothing, and come back and say he bought it. Several miles are slowly travelled by us three, when, no sign of the khan appearing, we decide upon a halt until he rejoins us. In an hour or so the bizarre figure of the absentee is observed approaching us from over the hills, and before many minutes he is welcomed by a simultaneous query of "chand pool?" (how much money?) from his keenly suspicious comrades, delivered in a ludicrously sarcastic tone of voice. "Doo Tceran," promptly replies the khan, making a most hopeless effort to conceal his very palpable guilt beneath a transparent assumption of innocence. The mirza and the mudbake make no false pretence of taking him at his word, but openly accuse him of deceiving them. The khan maintains his innocence with vehement language and takes refuge in counter-accusations. The wordy warfare goes merrily on for some minutes as earnestly as if they were quarrelling over their own honest money instead of over mine. The joint query of "chand pool?" gathers an additional load of irony from the fact that they didn't seem to think it worth while to even ask him what he had bought. Across the pommel of his saddle he carries a young kid, which is now handed to the mudbake to be tethered to a shrub; he then dismounts and produces three or four pounds of cold goat meat. Before proceeding again on our way we consume this cold meat, together with bread brought from last night's rendezvous. By reason of his social inferiority the mudbake is now required to assume the burden of carrying the youthful goat; he takes the poor kid by the scruff of the neck and flings it roughly across his saddle in a manner that causes the gleeful spirits of the khan to find vent in a peal of laughter. Even the usually imperturbable countenance of the mirza lightens up a little, as though infected by the khan's overflowing merriment and the mudbake's rough handling of the young goat. They know each other thoroughly--as thoroughly as orchard-looting, truant-playing, teacher-deceiving school-boys--these three hopeful aspirants to the favor of Allah; they are an amusing trio, and not a little instructive. CHAPTER VIII. ACROSS THE "DESERT OF DESPAIR." For some hours we are traversing a singularly wild-looking country; it seems as though the odds and ends of all creation were tossed indiscriminately together. Rocky cliffs, sloping hills, riverbeds, dry save from last night's thunder-storm, bits of sandy desert, strips of alkaline flat or hard gravel, have been gathered up from various parts of the earth and tossed carelessly in a heap here. It is an odd corner in which the chips, the sweepings and trimmings, gathered up after the terrestrial globe was finished, were apparently brought and dumped. There is even a little bit of pasture, and at one point a little area of arable land. Here are found four half-naked representatives of this strange, wild border-land, living beneath one rude goat-hair tent, watching over a few grazing goats and several acres of growing grain. We arrive at this remarkable little community shortly after noon, and halt a couple of hours to rest and feed the horses, and to kill and cook the unhappy kid slung across the mudbake's saddle. The poor little creature doesn't require very much killing; all the way from where it was given into his tender charge its infantile bleatings have seemed to grate harshly on the mudbake's unsympathetic ear, and he has handled it anywise but tenderly. The four men found here are Persian Eliautes, a numerous tribe, that seem to form a sort of connecting link between the genuine nomads and the tillers of the soil. They are frequently found combining the occupations of both, and might aptly be classed as semi-nomads. Pitching their tents beside some outlying, isolated piece of cultivable ground in the spring, they sow it with wheat or barley, and three months later they reap a supply of grain to carry away with them when they remove their flocks to winter pasturage. An iron kettle is borrowed to stew the kid in, and when cooked a portion is stowed away to carry with us. The Eliaute quartette contribute bowls of mast and doke, and off this and the remainder of the stewed kid we all make a hearty meal. More than once of late have I been impressed by the striking, even startling, resemblance of some person among the people of Southern Khorassan, to the familiar face of some acquaintance at home. And, strange it is, but true, that one of these four Eliautes blossoms forth upon my astonished vision as the veritable double of one of America's most prominent knights of the pen and wheel. The gentleman himself, an enthusiastic tourist, and to use his own expression, fond of "walking large," has taken considerable interest in my tour of the world. Can it be--I think, upon first confronting this extraordinary reproduction--can it be, that Karl Kron's enthusiasm has caused him to start from the Pacific coast of China on his wheel to try and beat my time in circumcycling the globe? And after getting as far as this strange terrestrial chip-pile, he has been so unfortunately susceptible as to fall in love with some slender-limbed daughter of the desert?--has he been captivated by a pair of big, opthamalmia-proof, black eyes, a coy sidewise glance, or a graceful, jaunty style of shouldering a half-tanned goat-skin of doke? The very first question the nomad asks of the khan, however, removes all suspicions of his being the author and publisher of X. M. M.--he asks if I am a Ferenghi and whither I am going; Kron would have asked me for tabulated statistics of my tour through Persia. A couple of hours' rest in the Eliaute camp, and we bid adieu to this queer little oasis of human life within the barbarous boundary-line of the Dasht-i-na-oomid, and proceed on our way. One of the Eliautes accompanies us some little distance to guide us through a belt of badly broken country immediately surrounding their camp. The country continues to be a regular jumble of odds and ends of physical geography all the afternoon, and several times the horses of the sowars, without preliminary warning, break through the thin upper crust of some treacherous boggy spot and sink suddenly to their bellies. During the afternoon the mirza is pitched headlong over his horse's head once, and the khan and the mudbake twice. In one tumble the khan's loosely sheathed sword slips from its scabbard, and he well nigh falls a victim to the accident a la King Saul. While traversing this treacherous belt of territory I make the sowars lead the way and perform the office of pathfinder for myself and wheel. Whenever one of them gets stuck in boggy ground, and his horse flounders wildly about, to the imminent risk of unseating its rider, his two hopeful comrades bubble over with merriment at his expense; his own sincere exclamations of "Allah!" being answered by unsympathetic jeers and sarcastic remarks. A few minutes later, perchance one of the hilarious twain finds himself unexpectedly in the same predicament; it then becomes his turn to look scared and importune Allah for protection, and also his turn to be the target for the wild hilarity of the others. And so this lively and eventful afternoon passes away, and about five o'clock we round the base of a conglomerate hill that has been shutting out the prospect ahead, cross a small spring freshet, and emerge upon an extensive gravelly plain stretching away eastward to the horizon. It is the central plain of the Dasht-i-na-oomid, the heart of the desert, of which the wild, heterogeneous territory traversed since morning forms the setting. So far as the utility of the bicycle and the horses is concerned, the change is decidedly for the better, even more so for the former than for the latter. The gravelly plain presents very good wheeling surface, and I forge ahead of my escort, following a trail so faint that it is barely distinguishable from the general surface. Shortly after leaving the mountainous country the three sowars hip their horses into a smart canter to overtake the bicycle. As they come clattering up, the khan shouts loudly for me to stop, and the mirza and mudbake supplement his vocal exertions by gesticulating to the same purpose. Dismounting, and allowing them to approach, in reply to my query of "Chi mi khoi?" the khan's knavish countenance becomes overspread with a ridiculously thin and transparent assumption of seriousness and importance, and pointing to an imaginary boundary-line at his horse's feet he says: "Bur-raa (brother), Afghanistan." "Khylie koob, Afghanistan inja-koob, hoob, sowari." (Very good, I understand, we are entering Afghanistan; all right, ride on.) "Sowari neis," replies the khan; and he tries hard to impress upon me that our crossing the Afghan frontier is a momentous occasion, and not to be lightly regarded. Several times during the day has my delectable escort endeavored to fathom the extent of my courage by impressing upon me the danger to be apprehended in Afghanistan by a Ferenghi. Not less than half a dozen times have they indulged in the grim pantomime of cutting their own throats, and telling me that this is the tragic fate that would await me in Afghanistan without their valuable protection. And now, as we stand on the boundary line, their bronzed and bared throats are again subjected to this highly expressive treatment; and transfixing me with a penetrating stare, as though eager to read in my face some responsive sign of fear or apprehension, the khan repeats with emphasis: "Bur-raa-ther, Afghanistan." Seeing me still inclined to make light of the matter, he turns to his comrades for confirmation. "O, bur-raa-ther, Afghanistan," assents the mirza; and the mudbake chimes in with the same words. "Well, yes, I understand; Afghanistan--what of it?" I inquire, amused at this theatrical display of their childish knavery. For answer they start to loading up their guns and pistols, which up to now they have neglected to do; and they examine, with a ludicrous show of importance, the edges of their swords and the points of their daggers, staring the while at me to see what kind of an impression all this is making. Their scrutiny of my countenance brings them small satisfaction, methinks, for so ludicrous seems the scene, and so transparent the motives of this warlike movement, that no room is there for aught but a genuine expression of amusement. Having loaded up their imposing array of firearms, the khan gives the word to advance, with as much show of solemnity as though leading a forlorn hope on some desperate undertaking, and he impresses upon me the importance of keeping as close to then as possible, instead of riding ahead. All around us is the unto-habited plain; not a living thing or sign of human being anywhere; but when I point this out, and picking up a stone, ask the khan if it is these that are dangerous, he replies, as before: "Bur-raa-ther, Afghanistan," and significantly taps his weapons. As we advance the level plain becomes covered with a growth of wild thyme and camel-thorn, the former permeating the desert air with its agreeable perfume. The evening air is soft and balmy I as we halt in the dusk of the evening to camp alongside the trail; each sowar has a large leathern water-bottle swinging from his stirrup-strap filled at the little freshet above mentioned, and for food we have bread and the remains of the cold kid. The horses are fastened to stout shrubs, and a fire is kindled with dried camel-thorn collected by the mudbake. Not a sound breaks the stillness of the evening as we squat around the fire and eat our frugal supper--all about us is the oppressive silence and solitude of the desert Away off in the dim distance to the northeast can be seen a single speck of light--the camp-fire of some wandering Afghan tribe. "What is the fire yonder?" I ask of the khan. The khan looks at it, says something to his comrades, and then looks at me and draws his finger yet again across his throat; the mirza and the mudbake follow suit. The ridiculous frequency of this tragic demonstration causes me to laugh outright, in spite of an effort to control my risibilities. The khan replies to this by explaining, "Afghani Noorzais-dasht-adam," and then goes on to explain that the Noorzais are very bad Afghans, who would like nothing better than to murder a Ferenghi. From the beginning of our acquaintance I have allowed my escort to think my understanding of the conversation going on among themselves is extremely limited. By this means have they been thrown somewhat off their guard, and frequently committed themselves within my hearing. It is their laudable purpose, I have discovered, to steal money from me if an opportunity presents without the chance of being detected. Besides being inquisitive about the probable amount in my possession, there has evolved from their collective brain during the day, a deep-laid scheme to find out something about the amount of backsheesh they may expect me to bestow upon them at the end of our journey. This deep-laid scheme is for the khan to pretend that he is sending the mirza and the mudbake back to Beerjand from this point, and for these two hopeful accomplices to present themselves before me as about ready to depart, and so demand backsheesh. This little farce is duly played shortly after our arrival; it is a genuine piece of light comedy, acted on the strangely realistic stage of the lonely desert, to which the full round moon just rising above the eastern horizon. These advances are met on my part by broad intimations that if they continue to act as ridiculously during the remainder of the journey as they have to-day they will surely get well bastinadoed, instead of backsheeshed, when we reach Ghalakua. The actors retire from the stage with visible discomfiture and squat themselves around the fire. Long after I have stretched my somewhat weary frame upon a narrow strip of saddle-blanket for the night, my three "protectors" squat around the smouldering embers of the camel-thorn fire, discussing the all-absorbing topic of my money. Little do they suspect that concealed in a leathern money-belt beneath my clothes are one hundred Russian gold Imperials, the money obtained in Teheran for the journey through Turkestan and Siberia to the Pacific. Though sleeping with the traditional one eye open and my Smith & Wesson where it can be readily used, there is little apprehension of being robbed, owing to their obligation to take back the receipt for my safe delivery to Heshmet-i-Molk. It is the weather-changeful period of the full moon, and about midnight a clap of thunder rolls over the desert, and a smart shower descends from a small dark cloud, that sails slowly across the sky, obscuring for a brief period the moist-looking countenance of the moon, and then disappears. A couple of hours later a rush of wind is heard careering across the desert toward us, accompanied by a wildly scudding cloud. The cloud peppers us with hailstones in the most lively manner, and the wind strikes us almost with the force of a tornado, knocking over the bicycle, which I have leaned against a clump of shrubs at my head, and favoring us with a blinding fusilade of sand and gravel. It rains and hails enough to make us wet and uncomfortable, and the mudbake gets up and kindles another fire. In a short time the squally midnight weather has given place to a dead calm; the clouds have dispersed; the moon shines all the brighter from having had its face washed; the stars twinkle themselves out one by one as the gray dawn gradually makes itself manifest. It is a most lovely morning; the bruising hailstones and the moistening rain have proved themselves stimulants in the laboratory of the wild-thyme shrubs, setting free and disseminating a new supply of aroma; and while until now the voice of animate nature has been conspicuous by its absence, the morning vespers of song-birds seed almost to be issuing, like flowers, from the ground. There is an indescribable charm about this morning's experience on the desert; dawn appears, the moon hangs low-suspended in the heavens, the birds carol merrily, and every inspiration one takes is a tonic to stimulate the system. Half an hour later the sun has risen, the song-birds have one and all lapsed into silence, the desert is itself again, stern, silent, uncompromising, and apparently destitute of life. Total depravity, it appears, has not yet claimed my worthy escort for its own entirely, for while saddling up their horses during this brief display of nature's kindlier mood they call my attention to the singing of the birds and the grateful perfumery in the air. The germ of goodness still lingers within their semi-civilized conception of things about them; they are the children of Nature, and are profoundly impressed by their mother's varying moods. Their prostrations toward Mecca and their matutinal prayers to Allah seem to gain something of sincerity from the accompanying worship of the birds and the sympathetic essence of the awakening day. Eastward from our camping-ground the trail is oftentimes indistinguishable; but a few loose stones have been tossed together at intervals of several hundred yards, to guide wayfarers across the desert. A surface of mingled sand and gravel characterizes the way; sometimes it is unridably heavy, and sometimes the wheeling is excellent for a mile or two at a stretch, enabling me to leave the ambling yahoos of the sowars far behind. Beautiful mirages sometimes appear in the distance --lakes of water, waving groves of palms, and lovely castles; and often, when far enough ahead, I can look back, and see the grotesque figures of the khan, the mirza, and the mudbake apparently riding through the air. Perhaps twenty miles are covered, when we arrive at a pile of dead brush that has been erected for a landmark, and find a dilapidated well containing water. The water is forty feet below the surface, and contains a miscellaneous assortment of dead lizards, the carcasses of various small mammalia, and sundry other unfortunate representatives of animated nature that have fallen in. Beyond this well the country assumes the character of a broad sink or mud-basin, the shiny surface of its mud glistening in the sun like a sheet of muddy water. Sloughs innumerable meander through it, fringed with rank rushes and shrubs. A far heavier down-pour than we were favored with on the plain has drenched a region of stony hills adjacent, and the drainage therefrom has, for the time being, filled and overflowed the winding sloughs. A dozen or more of these are successfully forded, though not without some difficulty; but we finally arrive at the parent slough, of which the others are but tributaries. This proves too deep for the sowars' horses to ford, and after surveying the yellow flood some minutes and searching up and down, the khan declares ruefully that we shall have to return to Beerjand. As I remonstrate with him upon his lack of enterprise in turning from so trifling a difficulty, the khan finally orders the mudbake to strip off his purple and fine linen and try the depth. The mudbake proceeds to obey his superior, with many apprehensive glances at the muddy freshet, and wades gingerly in, muttering prayers to Allah the while. Deeper and deeper the yellow waters creep up his shivering form, and when nearly up to his neck, a sudden deepening causes him to bob unexpectedly down almost over his head. Hurriedly retreating, spluttering and whining, he scrambles hastily ashore, where his two companions, lolling lazily on their horses, watching his attempt, are convulsed with merriment over his little misadventure and his fright. The shivering mudbake, clad chiefly in goose-pimples, now eagerly supplements the khan's proposition for us all to return to Beerjand, and the mirza with equal eagerness murmurs his approval of the same course of action. Making light of their craven determination, I prepare to cross the freshet without their assistance, and announce my intention of proceeding alone. The stream, though deep, is not over thirty yards wide, and a very few minutes suffices for me to swim across with my clothes, my packages, and the saddle of the bicycle; the small, strong rope I have carried from Constantinople is then attached to the bicycle, and, swimming across with the end, the wheel is pulled safely through the water. Neither of the sowars can swim, and they regard the prospect of being left behind with no little consternation. Their guileful souls seem to turn naturally to Allah in their perplexity; and they all prostrate themselves toward Mecca, and pray with the apparent earnestness of deep sincerity. Having duly strengthened and fortified themselves with these devotional exercises, they bravely prepare to resign themselves to kismet and follow my instructions about crossing the stream. The khan's iron-gray being the best horse of the three, and the khan himself of a more sanguine and hopeful disposition, I make him tie all his clothes and damageable things into a bundle and fasten them on his saddle; the rope is then tied to the bridle and the horse pulled across, his gallant rider clinging to his tail, according to my orders, and praying aloud to Allah on his own account. The gray swims the unfordable middle portion nobly, and the khan comes through with no worse damage than a mouthful or two of muddy water. As the dripping charger scrambles up the bank, the khan allows himself to be hauled up high and dry by its tail; he then looks back at his comrades and favors them with a brief but highly exaggerated account of his sensations. The mirza and the mudbake deliver themselves of particularly deep-chested acclamations of "Allah, Allah!" at the prospect of undergoing similar sensations to those described by the khan, whereupon that unsympathetic individual vents his hilarity in a gleeful, heartless peal of laughter, and tells them, with a diabolical chuckle of delight, that they will most likely fare ten times worse than himself on account of the inferiority of their horses compared with the gray. Much threatening, bantering, and persuasion is necessary to induce them to follow the leadership of the khan; but, trusting to kismet, they finally venture, and both come through without noteworthy misadventure. The khan's wild hilarity and ribaldish jeers at the expense of his two subordinates, as he stands on the solid foundation of a feat happily already accomplished and surveys their trepidation, and hears their prayers as they are pulled like human dinghies through the water, is in such ludicrous contrast to his own prayerful utterances under the same circumstances a minute before that my own risibilities are not to be wholly controlled. This little episode makes a profound impression upon the minds of my escort; they now regard me as a very dare-devil and determined individual, a person entirely without fear, and their deference during the remainder of the afternoon is in marked contrast to their previous attempts to work upon my presumed apprehensions of the dangers of Afghanistan. Following the guidance of a few rude landmarks of piled brush, we discover, a few miles off to the left, and on the eastern environ of the slough-veined basin, a considerable body of tents and a herd of grazing camels. The sowars pronounce them to be a certain camp of Einiucks that they have been expecting to find somewhere in this vicinity, and with whose chief the khan says he is acquainted. Wending our way thither we find a large camp of about fifty tents occupying a level stretch of clean gravelly ground, slightly elevated above the mud-flats. The tents are of brownish-black goat-hair, similar in material to the tents of Koords and Eliautes; in size and structure they are larger and finer than those of the Eliautes, but inferior to the splendid tent-palaces of Koordistan. A couple of hundred yards from the tents is a small spring of water, enclosed within a rude wall of loosely-piled stone; the water is allowed to trickle through this wall and accumulate in a basin outside. Here, as we ride up, are several women filling goat-skin vessels to carry to the tents. The tent of the chief stands out conspicuously from the others, and the khan, desirous of giving his "bur-raa-ther," as he now terms the Eimuck chieftain, a surprise, suggests that I ride ahead of the horsemen and dismount before his tent. This capital little arrangement is somewhat interfered with by the fact that a goodly proportion of the male population present have already become cognizant of our presence, and are standing in white-robed groups about their tents trying with hand-shaded eyes to penetrate the secret of my strange appearance. Nevertheless, I ride ahead and alight at the entrance to the chief's tent. The chief is a middle-aged man of medium height and inclined to obesity. He and all the men are arrayed in garments of coarse white cotton stuff throughout, loose pantaloons, bound at the ankles, and an over-garment of a pattern very much like a night-shirt; on their heads are the regulation Afghan turbans, with long, dangling ends, and their feet are incased in rude moccasins with upturned toes. As I dismount, and the chief fully realizes that I am a Ferenghi, his face turns red with embarrassment. Instead of the smiles or the grave kindliness of a Koordish sheikh, or the simple, childlike greeting of an Eliaute, the Eimuck chief motions me into his tent in a brusque, offish manner, his countenance all aglow with the redness of what almost looks like a guilty conscience. With the intuition that comes of long and changeful association with strange peoples, the changing countenance of the Afghan chief impresses me at once as the fiery signal of inbred Mussulman fanaticism, lighting up spontaneously at the unexpected and unannounced arrival of a lone Ferenghi in his presence. It savors somewhat of bearding a dangerous lion in his own den. He certainly betrays deep embarrassment at my appearance; which, however, may partly result from not yet knowing the character of my companions, or the wherefore of this strange visitation. When my escort rides up his whole demeanor instantly undergoes a change; the cloud of embarrassment lifts from his face, he and the khan recognize and greet each other cordially as "bur-raa-ther," and kiss each-other's hands; some of his men standing by exchange similar brotherly greetings with the mirza and the mudbake. After duly refreshing and invigorating ourselves with sundry bowls of doke, the inevitable tomasha is given, and the chief asks the khan to get me to ride up before one row of tents and down the other for the edification of the women and children, curious groups of whom are gathered at every door. The ground between the two long, even rows of tents resembles a macadam boulevard for width and smoothness, and I give the wild Eimuck tribes-people a ten minutes' exhibition of circling, speeding, and riding with hands off handles. A strange and novel experience, surely, this latest triumph of high Western civilization, invading the isolated nomad camp on the Dasht-i-na-oomid and disporting for the amusement of the women and children. Some of the women are attired in quite fanciful colors; Turkish pantaloons of bright blue and jackets of equally bright red render them highly picturesque, and they wear a profusion of bead necklaces and the multifarious gewgaws of semi-civilization. The younger girls wear nose-rings of silver in the left nostril, with a cluster of tiny beads or stones decorating the side of the nose. The wrists of most of the men are adorned with bracelets of plain copper wire about the size of ordinary telegraph wire; they average large and well-proportioned, and seem intellectually superior to the Eliautes. A very striking peculiarity of the people in this particular camp is a sort of lisping, hissing accent to their speech. When first addressed by the chief, I fancied it simply an individual case of lisping; but every person in the camp does likewise. Another peculiarity of expression, that, while not peculiar to this particular camp, is made striking by reason of its novelty to me at this time, the use of the expression "O" as a term of assent, in lieu of the Persian "balli." The sowars, from their proximity to the frontier, have sometimes used this expression, but here, in the Eimuck camp, I come suddenly upon a people who use it to the total exclusion of the Persian word. The change from the "balli sahib" of the Tabbas villagers to the "O, O, O" of the Afghan nomads is novel and entertaining in the extreme, and I sit and listen with no small interest to the edifying conversation of the khan, the mirza, and the mudbake on the one side, and the Eimuck chieftain and prominent members of the tribe on the other. Standing behind the chief, who sits cross-legged on a Persian nummud, is a handsome, intelligent-looking man, who seems to be the most pleasant-faced and entertaining conversationalist of the nomads. The kahn grows particularly talkative and communicative, the evening hours flow on, and while addressing his remarks and queries directly to the chief, he gazes about him to observe the effects of his words on the general assembly gathered inside and crowded about the tent-entrance. The pleasant-faced man does far more talking in reply than does the chief himself. In reply to the khan's innumerable queries he replies, in the peculiar, hissing shibboleth of the camp, "O, O, O-O bus-s-s-orah, b-s-s-s-orah." Sometimes the khan delivers himself of quite a lengthy disquisition, and as his remarks are followed by the assembled nomads with the eager interest of people who seldom hear anything but the music of their own voices, the interesting individual above referred to sprinkles his assenting "O, O, O" thickly along the line of the khan's presumably edifying narrative; now and then the chief himself chimes in with a quiet "b-s-s-s-orah." Here also, in this camp of surprises and innovations, do I first hear the word "India" used in lieu of "Hindostan" among Asiatics. The fatigue of the day's journey, and the imperfect rest of the two preceding nights, cause me to be overcome with drowsiness, early in the evening, and I stretch oat alongside the bicycle and fall into a deep sleep. An hour or two later I am awakened for the evening meal. Flat, pancake-like sheets of unleavened bread, inferior to the bread of Persia, and partaking somewhat of the character of the chupalties of India, boiled goat, and the broth preserved from the same, together with the regulation mast and doke, constitute the Eimuek supper. A liberal bowl of the broth, an abundance of meat, bread, mast and doke are placed before me on a separate wooden tray, while my escort, the chief, and several of his men gather around a communal spread of the same variety of edibles. A crowd of curious people occupy the remainder of the space inside, and stand at the door. As I rise and prepare to eat, all eyes are turned upon me as though anticipating some surprising exhibition of the strange manners of a Ferenghi at his meals. Surveying the broth, I motion the khan to try and obtain a spoon. The chief looks inquiringly at the khan, and the khan with the gladsome expression of a person conscious of having on hand a rare piece of information for his friends, explains that a Ferenghi eats soup with a spoon. The chief and his men smile incredibly, but the khan emphasizes his position by appealing to the mirza and the mudbake for confirmation. "Eat soup with a spoon?" queries the chief in Persian; and he casts about him a look of unutterable astonishment. Recovering somewhat from his incredulity, however, he orders an attendant to fetch one, which shortly results in the triumphant production of a rude wooden ladle. These uncivilized children of the desert watch me drink broth from the ladle with most intense curiosity. In their own case, an attendant tears several of the sheets of bread into pieces and puts them in the broth; each person then helps himself to the broth-soaked bread with his fingers. What broth remains at the bottom of the bowl is drunk by them from the vessel itself in turns. After consuming several generous chunks of "gusht" bread and mast and broth, and supplementing this with a bowl of doke, I stretch myself out again and at once become wrapped in sound, refreshing slumbers that last till morning. It is a glorious morning as, after breakfasting off the cold remains of the meat left over from the evening meal, we bid farewell to the hospitable Eimuek camp and resume our journey. As we leave, I offer to shake hands with the chief to see if he understands our mode of greeting; he seizes my hand between his two palms and kisses it. For the first few miles the country is gravelly and undulating, after which it changes to a sort of basin, partially covered by dense patches of tall, rank weeds. On either side are rocky hills, almost rising to the dignity of mountains; the rain and melting snow evidently convert this basin into a swamp at certain periods, but it is now dry. A mile or so off to the right we catch a glimpse, of some wild animal chasing a small herd of antelope. From its size and motion, I judge it to be a leopard or cheetah; the sowars regard it, bounding along after the fleet-footed antelope, with lively interest; they call it a "baab" (tiger), and say there are many in the reeds. It looks quite a likely spot for tigers, and it is not at all unlikely that it may have been one, for, while not plentiful hereabout, Tigris Asiaticus occasionally makes his presence known in the patches of reed and jungle in Southern Afghanistan and Seistan. All three of the sowars are frisky as kittens this morning, the result, it is surmised, of the generous hospitality of the Eimuek chief --gusht galore and rich broth cause their animal spirits to run riot. Like overfed horses they "feel their oats" as they sniff the fresh and invigorating morning air, and they point toward the shadowy form of the racing baab a mile away, and pretend to take aim at it with their guns. They sing and shout and swoop down on one another about the basin, flourishing their swords and aiming with their guns, and they whip their poor, long-suffering yahoos into wild, sweeping gallops as they swoop down on some imaginary enemy. This wild hilarity and mimic warfare of the desert is kept up until the ragged edge of their exuberance is worn away, and their horses are well-nigh fagged out; we then halt for an hour to allow the horses to recuperate by nibbling at a patch of reeds. About ten miles from the Eimuek camp, the country develops into a wilderness of deep, loose sand and bowlders. Across this sandy region stretches a range of dark volcanic hills; the bases of the hills terminate in billows of whitish-yellow sand; the higher waves of the sandy sea stretch well up the sides like giant ocean breakers driven by the gale up the side of the rocky cliffs. It is a tough piece of country even for the sowars' horses, and dragging a bicycle through the mingled sand and bowlders is abominable in the extreme. The heat becomes oppressive as we penetrate deeper into the belt of sand-hills, and after five miles of desperate tugging I become tired and distressed. The sowars lolling lazily in their saddles, well-nigh sleeping, while I am struggling and perspiring, form another chapter of experience entirely novel in the field of European travel in Asia. Usually it is the natives who have to sweat and toil and administer to the comfort of the traveller. Revolving these things over in my mind, and becoming really wearied, I suggest to the khan that he change places for a brief spell and give me a chance to rest. The idea of himself trundling the asp-i-awhan appeals to the khan as decidedly novel, and he bites at the bait quite readily. Mounting his vacated saddle, I join the mirza and the mudbake in watching him struggle along through the sand with it for some two hundred yards. Along that brief course he topples over with it not less than half a dozen times. The novel spectacle of the khan trundling the asp-i-awhan arouses his two comrades from the warmth-inspired semi-torpidity of their condition, and whenever the khan topples over, they favor him with jeers and laughter. At the end of two hundred, yards the khan declares himself exhausted and orders the mudbake to dismount and try it; this, however, the mudbake bluntly refuses to do. After a little persuasion the inirza is induced to try the experiment of a trundle; it is but an experiment, however, for, being less active than the khan, the first time he tumbles the bicycle over finds him sprawling on top of it, and, fearful lest he should snap some spokes, I take it in hand again myself. Another couple of miles and the eastern edge of the sandy area I is reached, after which a compensational proportion of smooth gravel abounds. Shortly after noon another small camp of nomads I is reached, some half-dozen inferior tents, pitched on the shelterless edge of an exposed gravelly slope. The afternoon is oppressively hot, and the men are comfortably snoozing in all sorts of outlandish places among the scrubby camel-thorn. Only the I women and children are visible as we approach the tents; but youngsters are despatched forthwith, and, lo! several tall white-robed figures seem to rise up literally out of the ground at different spots round about; they were burrowed away under the low, bushy shrubbery like rabbits. The women and children among these nomads always seem industriously engaged, the former with domestic duties about the tents, and the latter tending the flocks; but the men put in most of their unprofitable lives loafing, sleeping, and gossiping. We are not invited into the tents, but bread and mast is provided, and, while we eat, four men hold the corners of an ample blue turban sheet over us to shelter us from the sun. Spread out on sheets and on the roofs of the tents are bushels of curds drying in the sun; the curds are compressed into round balls the size of an apple, and when dried into hard balls are excellent things to put in the pocket and nibble along the road. Here we learn that the Harood is only one farsakh distant, and a couple of stalwart young nomads accompany us to assist us across. At Beerjand the Harood was "deep as a house;" at our last night's camp we were told that it was fordable with camels; here we learn, that, though very swift, it is really fordable for men and horses. First we come to a branch less than waist-deep. My nether garments are handed to the khan; in the pocket of my pantaloons is a purse containing a few kerans. While engaged in fording this branch the khan ferrets out the purse and extracts something from it, which he deftly slips into the folds of his kammerbund. All this I silently observe from the corners of my eyes, but say nothing. Emerging from the stream, the wily khan points across the intervening three hundred yards or thereabout to the main stream, and motions for me to go ahead. The discovery of the purse and the purloined kerans has aroused all the latent cupidity of his soul, and he wants me to ride ahead, so that he can straggle along in the rear and investigate the contents of the purse at his leisure. While winking at the amusing little act of petty larceny already detected, I do not propose to give his kleptomaniac tendencies full swing, and so I meet his proposal to sowar and go ahead by peremptorily ordering him to take the lead. Arriving at the bank of the Harood, I retire behind a clump of reeds, and fold my money-belt, full of gold, up in the middle of my clothes, making a compact bundle, with my gossamer rubber wrapped around the outside. The river is about a hundred and fifty yards wide at the ford, with a sand-bar about mid-stream, and is not above shoulder-deep along the ridge that renders it fordable; the current, however, is frightfully strong. Like the Indians of the West, the Afghan nomads are accustomed from infancy to battling with the elements, and are comparatively fearless in regard to rivers and deserts and storms, etc. Such, at least, is the impression created by the conduct of the two young men who have come to assist us across. The bicycle, my clothes, and all the effects of the sowars are carried across on their heads, the rushing waters threatening to sweep them off their feet at every step; but nothing is allowed to get wet. When they are carrying across the last bundle, the khan, solicitous for my safety, wants me to hang on to a short rope tied around the waist of the strongest of the nomads. Naturally disdaining any such arrangement as this, however, I declare my intention of crossing without assistance, and wade in forthwith. Ere I have progressed thirty yards, the current fairly sweeps me off my feet and I have to swim for it. Fancying that I am overcome and in a fair way of being drowned, the sowars set up a wild howl of apprehension, and shout excitedly to the nomads to rescue me from a watery grave. The Afghans are not so excited, however, over the outlook; they see that I am swimming all right, and they confine themselves to motioning the direction for me to take. The current carries me some little distance down stream, when I find footing on the lower extremity of the sand-bar, and on it, wade up; stream again with some difficulty against swiftly rushing water four feet deep. The khan thinks I have had the narrowest possible escape, and in tones of desperation he shouts out and begs me not to attempt to cross the other channel without assistance. "The receipt!" he shouts, "the receipt! Allah preserve us! the receipt; Hesh met-i-Molk." The worthy khan is afflicted with a keen consciousness of coming punishment awaiting him at Beerjand, should I happen to come to grief while under his protection, and he, no doubt, suffers an agony of apprehension during the fifteen minutes I am battling with the rapid current of the Harood. The second channel is found less swift and comparatively easy to ford. The sturdy nomads, having transported all of my escort's damageable effects, those three now stark-naked worthies mount with fear and trembling their equally stark-naked steeds-naked all, save for the turbans of the men and the bridles of their horses. Whatever of intrepidity the khan possesses is of a quantity scarcely visible to the naked eye, and it is, therefore, scarcely surprising to find him trying to persuade, first the mudbake and then the mirza, to take the initiative. His efforts prove wholly ineffectual, however, to bring the feebly flowing tide of their courage up to the high-water level of assuming the duties of leadership, and so in the absence of any alternative, he finally screws up his own courage and leads the way. The others allow their horses to follow closely behind. The horses seem to regard the rushing volume of yellow water about them with far less apprehension than do their riders. While dressing myself on the eastern bank, the frightened mutterings of "Allah" from these gallant horsemen come floating across the water, and, as they reach the sand-bar in the middle of the stream, I can hear their muttered importunities for Providential protection change, like the passing shadow-whims of Nature's children that they are, into gleeful chuckles at their escape. When the khan emerges from the water, the ruling passion within his avaricious nature asserts itself with ridiculous promptness. With the water dripping from his dangling feet, he rides hastily to where I am dressing and whispers, "Pool neis; Afghani dasht-adam, pool neis." By this he desires me to understand that the men who have been so industrious and ready in helping us across, being Afghan nomads, will not expect any backsheesh for their trouble. The above-mentioned ruling passion is wonderfully strong in the rude breast of the khan, and in view of his own secret machinations against my money he, no doubt, entertains objections to leakages in other directions. So far as presenting these hospitable souls of the desert with money for their services is concerned, the khan's advice probably contains a good deal more wisdom than would appear from a superficial view of the case merely. Assisting travellers across streams and through difficult places evidently appeals to these people as the most natural thing in the world for them to do. It is a part of the un-written code of the hospitality of their uncivilized country, and is, in all probability, undertaken without so much as a mercenary thought. Presenting them with a money-consideration for their services certainly has a tendency to awaken the latent spirit of cupidity, generally resulting in their transformation from simple and unsophisticated children, hospitable both by nature and tradition, into wretched mercenaries, who regard the chance traveller solely from a backsheesh-giving stand-point. The baneful result of this is today glaringly apparent along every tourist route in the East; and, among the pool-loving subjects of the Shah of Persia, travellers do not have to appear very frequently to keep alive and foster a wild yearning for backsheesh that effectually suppresses all loftier considerations. These Afghans, however, seem to be people of an altogether different mould; the ubiquitous Western traveller has not yet become a palpable factor in their experiences. The hidden charms of backsheesh will not become apparent to the wild Afghans until their fierce Mussulman fanaticism has cooled sufficiently to allow the Ferenghi tourist to wander through their territory without being in danger of his life. The danger of corruption in the present instance is exceedingly small, considering that I am the only representative of the Occident that has ever happened along this way, and the probability that none other will follow for many a year after; therefore I ignore the khan's wholly disinterested advice and make the two worthy nomads a small present. They accept the proffered kerans with a look of bewilderment, as though quite unable to comprehend why I should tender them money, and they lay it carelessly down on the sand while they assist the sowars to resaddle their horses. To see the indifference with which the magnificent Afghan nomads toss the silver pieces on the sand, and the eager, covetous expression that the sight of the same coins lying there inspires in the three Persians is, of itself, an instructive lesson on the difference between the two peoples. The sowars become inspired, as if touched by the magic wand of alchemy, to the discussion of their favorite theme; but the Afghans pay no more heed to their remarks about money than if they were talking in an unknown tongue. They really act as though they regarded the subject of money as something altogether beyond their comprehension. CHAPTER IX. AFGHANISTAN. A few miles across a stretch of gravelly river-bottom, interspersed with scattering patches of cultivation, brings us to a hamlet of some twenty mud dwellings. The houses are small, circular structures, unattached, and each one removed some dozen paces from its neighbor; they are built of mud with the roof flat, as in Asia Minor. The sun is setting as we reach this little Harood hamlet, and, as Ghalakua is some three farsakhs distant, we decide to remain here for the night. We pitch our camp on a smooth threshing-floor in the centre of the village, and the headman brings pieces of carpet for me to recline on, together with a sort of a carpet bolster for a pillow. The khan impresses upon these simple-minded, out-of-the-world people a due sense of my importance as the guest of his master, the Ameer of Seistan, and they skirmish around in the liveliest manner to provide what creature comforts their meagre resources are equal to. The best they can provide in the way of eatables is bread and eggs, and muscal, but they make full amends for the absence of variety by bestowing upon us a superabundance of what they have, and no slaves of Oriental despot ever displayed more eager haste to anticipate their ruler's wants than do these, my first acquaintances among the Afghan tillers of the soil, to wait upon us. All the evening long no female ventures anywhere near our alfresco quarters; the rigid exclusion of the female sex in this conservative Mohammedan territory forbids them making any visible show of interest in the affairs of men whatsoever. When the hour arrives for the preparation of the evening meal, closely shrouded figures flit hastily through the dusk from house to house, bearing camel-thorn torches. They are women who have been to their neighbors to obtain a light for their own fire. From the number of these it is plainly evident that the housewives of the entire village light their fires from one original kindling. The shrouds of the women are red and black plaid; the men wear overshirts of coarse white; material that reach to their knees, pointed shoes that turn up at the toes, white Turkish trousers, and the regulation Afghan turban. The night is most lovely, and frogs innumerable are in the lowlands round about us, croaking their appreciation of the mellow moonlight, the balmy air, and the overflowing waters of the river. For hours they favor us with a musical melange, embracing everything between the hoarse bass croak of the full-blown bull-frog, to the tuneful "p-r" of the little green tree-frogs ensconced in the clumps of dwarf-willow hard by. Soothed by the music of the frogs I spend a restful night beneath the blue, calm dome of the Afghan sky, though awakened once or twice by the sowars' horses breaking loose and fighting. There are no geldings to speak of in Central Asia, and unless eternal vigilance is maintained and the horses picketed very carefully, a fight or two is sure to occur among them during the night. As it seems impossible for semi-civilized people to exercise forethought in small matters of this kind, a night without being disturbed by a horse-fight is a very rare occurrence, when several are travelling together. The morning opens as lovely as the close of evening yesterday; a sturdy villager carries me and the bicycle through a small tributary of the Harood. He shakes his head when I offer him a present. How strange that an imaginary boundary-line between two countries should make so much difference in the people! One thinks of next to nothing but money, the other refuses to take it when offered. The sowars are in high glee at having escaped what seems to me the imaginary terrors of the passage across the Dasht-i-na-oomid, and as we ride along toward Ghalakua their exuberant animal spirits find expression in song. Few things are more harrowing and depressing to the unappreciative Ferenghi ear than Persian sowars singing, and three most unmelodious specimens of their kind at it all at once are something horrible. The country hereabouts is a level plain, extending eastward to the Furrah Rood; within the first few miles adjacent to the Harood are seen the crenellated walls of several villages and the crumbling ruins of as many more. Clumps of palm-trees and fields of alfalfa and green young wheat environ the villages, and help to render the dull gray ruins picturesque. The atmosphere seems phenomenally transparent, and the trees and ruins and crenellated walls, rising above the level plain, are outlined clear and distinct against the sky. In the distance, at all points of the compass, rocky mountains rise sheer from the dead level of the plain, looking singularly like giant cliffs rising abruptly from the bed of some inland sea. One of these may be thirty miles away, yet the wondrous clearness of the air renders apparent distances so deceptive that it looks not more than one-third the distance. It is a strikingly interesting country, and its inhabitants are a no less strikingly interesting people. A farsakh from our Harood-side camping-place, we halt to obtain refreshments at a few rude tents pitched beneath the walls of a little village. The owners of the tents are busy milking their flocks of goats. It is an animated scene. No amount of handling, nor years of human association, seems capable of curbing the refractory and restless spirit of a goat. The matronly dams that are being subjected to the milking process this morning have, no doubt, been milked regularly for years; yet they have to be caught and held firmly by the horns by one person, while another robs them of what they seem reluctant enough to give up. The sun grows uncomfortably warm, and myriads of flies buzz hungrily about our morning repast. Before we resume our journey a little damsel, in flaming red skirt and big silver nose-ring, enters the garden and plucks several roses, which she brings to me on a pewter salver. These people are Eliautes, and the women are less fearful of showing themselves than at the village where we passed the night. Several of them apply to me for medical assistance. The chief trouble is chronic ophthalmia; nearly all the children are afflicted with this disease, and at the eyes of each poor helpless babe are a mass of hungry flies. The wonder is, not that ophthalmia runs amuck among these people, but rather, that any of the children escape total blindness. Several villages are passed through en route to Ghalakua; the people turn out en masse and indulge in uproarious demonstrations at the advent of the Ferenghi and the bicycle. These people seem as incapable of controlling their emotions and their voices as so many wild animals; they shout and gesticulate excitedly, and run about like people bereft of their senses. The uncivilization crops out of these obscure Harood villagers far plainer than it does in the tents of the wandering tribes. They are noisier and more boisterous than the nomads, who, as a matter of fact, are sober-sided and sedate in their deportment. No women appear among the crowd on the street, but a carefully covered head is occasionally caught peeping furtively from behind a chimney on the roof of a house, or around some corner. A glance from me, and the head is withdrawn as rapidly as if one were taking hostile aim at it with a rifle. Fine large irrigating ditches traverse this partially cultivable area, and in them are an abundance of fish. In one ditch I catch sight of a splendid specimen of the speckled trout, that must have been three feet long. Travelling leisurely next morning, we arrive at Ghalakua in the middle of the forenoon; quarters are assigned us by Aminulah Khan, the Chief of the Ghalakua villages and tributary territory. In appearance he is a typical Oriental official, his fluffy, sensuous countenance bearing traces of such excesses as voluptuous Easterns are wont to indulge in, and this morning he is suffering with an attack of "tab" (fever). Wrapped in a heavy fur-lined over-coat, he is found seated on the front platform of a inenzil beneath the arched village gateway, smoking cigarettes; in his hand is a bouquet of roses, and numerous others are scattered about his feet. Dancing attendance upon him is a smart-looking little fellow in a sheepskin busby almost as bulky in proportion as his whole body, and which renders his appearance grotesque in the extreme. His keen black eyes sparkle brightly through the long wool of his remarkable headgear, the ends of which dangle over his eyes like an overgrown and wayward bang. The bravery of his attire is measurably enhanced by a cavalry sword, long enough and heavy enough for a six-foot dragoon, a green kammerbund, and top-boots of red leather. This person stands by the side of Aminulah Khan, watches keenly everything that is being said and done, receives orders from his master, and transmits them to the various subordinates lounging about. He looks the soul of honesty and watchfullness, his appearance and demeanor naturally conjuring up reflections of faithful servitors about the persons of knights and nobles of old; he is apparently the Khan of Ghalakua's confidential retainer and general supervisor of affairs about his person and headquarters. Our quarters are in the bala-khana of a small half-ruined konak outside the village, and shortly after retiring thither the khan's sprightly little retainer brings in tea and fried eggs, besides pomegranates and roses for myself. A new departure makes its appearance in the shape of sugar sprinkled over the eggs. While we are discussing these refreshments our attendant stands in the doorway and addresses the sowars at some length in Persian. He is apparently delivering instructions received from his master; whatever it is all about, he delivers it with the air of an orator addressing an audience, and he supplements his remarks with gestures that would do credit to a professional elocutionist. He is as agreeable as he is picturesque; he and I seem to fall en rapport at once, as against the untrustworthiness of the remainder of our company. As his keen, honest eyes scrutinize the countenances of the sowars, and then seek my own face, I feel instinctively that he has sized my escort up correctly, and that their innate rascality is as well revealed to him as if he had accompanied us across the desert. Several visitors drop in to pay their respects; they salaam respectfully to me, and greet the sowars as "bur-raa-thers," and kiss, their hands. One simple, unsophisticated mortal, who in his isolated life has never had the opportunity of discriminating between a Mussulman and a Ferenghi, addresses me also as "bur-raa-ther," and favors my palm with the regulation osculatory greeting. The Afghans present view this extraordinary proceeding with dignified silence, and if moved in any manner by the spectacle, manage to conceal their emotions beneath a stolid exterior. The risibilities of the sowars, however, are stirred to their deepest depths, and they nearly choke themselves in desperate efforts to keep from laughing outright. Offerings of roses are brought into our quarters by the various visitors, and boys and men toss others in through door and windows, until our room is gratefully perfumed and roses are literally carpeting the floor. One might well imagine the place to be Gulistan itself; every person is carrying bunches of roses in his hands, smelling of them, and wearing them in his turban and kammerbund. The people seem to be fairly revelling in the delights of these choicest gems from Flora's evidently overflowing storehouse. The men average tall and handsome; they look like veritable warrior-priests in their flowing white costumes, and they make a strange picture of mingled barbarism and aestheticism as they loaf in lazy magnificence about the tumble-down ruins of the konak, toying with their roses in silence. They seem contented and happy in their isolation from the great busy outer world, and, impressed by their universal appreciation of a flower, it occurs to me, on the impulse of ocular evidence, that it would be the greatest pity to disturb and corrupt these people by attempting to thrust upon them our Western civilization--they seem far happier than a civilized community. The khan obtains his receipt for my delivery, and by and by Aminulah Khan sends his man to request the favor of a tomasha. Leaving my other effects behind in charge of the sowars, I take the bicycle and favor him with a few turns in front of the village gate. Among the various contents of my leathern case is a bag of kerans; but, although the case is not locked, it is provided with a peculiar fastening which I fondly imagine to be beyond the ingenuity of the khan to open. So that, while well enough aware of that guileful individual's uncontrollable avarice in general, and his deep, dark designs on my money in particular, I think little of leaving it with him for the few minutes I expect to be absent. It strikes me as a trifle suspicious, however, upon discovering that while everybody else comes to see the tomasha, all three of the sowars remain behind. Instinctively I arrive at the conclusion that with these three worthy kleptomaniacs left alone in a room with some other person's portable property, something is pretty sure to happen to the property; so, excusing myself as quickly as courtesy will permit, I hasten back to our quarters. The mudbake is found posted at the outer gate of the konak. He is keeping watch while his delectable comrades search the package in which they sagaciously locate the silver lucre they so much covet. Seeing me approaching, he makes a trumpet of his hands and sings out warningly to his accomplices that I am coming back. Taking no more notice of him than usual, I pass inside and repair at once to the bala-khana, to find that the khan and the mirza have disappeared. The mudbake follows me in to watch my movements. In the simplicity of his semi-civilized understanding he is wondering within himself whether or no I entertain suspicions of anything being wrong, and he is watching me closely to find out. In his dense ignorance he imagines the khan and the mirza artful almost beyond human comprehension, and in thinking this he no doubt merely supplements the sentiments of these two wily individuals themselves. Time and again on the journey from Tabbas has he joined them in chuckling with ghoulish glee over some self-laudatory exposition of their own deep, deep, cunning. They well know themselves to be unfathomably cute beside the simple-hearted and honest ryots and nomads with whom they are wont to compare themselves, and from these standards they confidently judge the world at large. The mudbake colors up like a guilty school-boy upon seeing me proceed without delay to examine the leathern case. The erstwhile orderly arranged contents are found tumbled about in dire confusion. My bag of about one hundred kerans have dwindled nearly half that number as the result of being in their custody ten minutes. "Some of you pedar sags have stolen my money; who is it? where's the khan?" I inquire, addressing the guilty-looking mud-bake. He is now shivering visibly with fright, but makes a ludicrous effort to put a bold face on the matter, and brazenly asks, "Chand pool" (How much is missing?). "Khylie! where is the khan and the inirza? I will take you all to Aminulah Khan and have you bastinadoed!" The poor mudbake turns pale at the bare suggestion of the bastinado, and stoutly maintains his own innocence. He would no doubt as stoutly proclaim the guilt of his comrades if by so doing he could escape punishment himself. Nor is this so surprising, when one reflects that either of these worthies would, without a moment's hesitation, perform the same office for him or for each other. Without wasting time in bandying arguments with the mudbake, I sally forth in search of the others, and meet them just outside the gate; they are returning from hiding the money in the ruins. The crimson flood of guilt overspreads their faces as I raise my finger and shake it at them by way of admonition. With them following behind with all the meekness of discovered guilt, I lead the way back up into the bala-khana. Arriving there, both of them wilt so utterly and completely, and proceed to plead for mercy with such ludicrous promptness, that my sense of the ridiculous outweighs all other considerations, and I regard their demonstrations of remorse with a broad smile of amusement. It is anything but a laughing matter from their own standpoint, however; the mudbake warns them forthwith that I have threatened to have them bastinadoed, and they fairly writhe and groan in an agony of apprehension. The khan, owing to his more sanguine temperament, and a lively conception that the heaviest burden of guilt and accompanying punishment would naturally fall on his own shoulders as the chief of my escort, removes his turban and then lies down on the floor and grovels at my feet. All the hair he possesses is a little tuft or two left on his otherwise smoothly shaven pate, by which he confidently expects at his demise to be tenderly lifted up into Paradise by the Prophet Mohammed. After kissing most of the dust off my geivehs, and banging his head violently against the floor, he signifies his willingness to relinquish all anticipations of eternal happiness, black-eyed houris and the like, by attempting to yank out even this Celestial hand-hold, hoping that the woeful depth of his anguish and the sincerity of his repentance may prove the means of escaping present punishment. His eyes roll wildly about in their sockets, and in a voice choking with emotion he begs me pathetically to keep the matter a secret from the Khan of Ghalakua. "O Sahib, Sahib! Hoikim no, hoikim no!" he pleads, and the anguish-stricken khan accompanies these pleadings with a look of unutterable agony, and furthermore indulges in the pantomime of sawing off his ears and his hands with his forefinger. This latter tragic demonstration is to let me know that the result of exposure would be to have the former, and perhaps the latter, of these useful members cut off, after the cruel and summary justice of this country. The mirza and mudbake cluster around and supplement their superior's pathetic pleadings with deep-drawn groans of "Allah, Allah!" and sundry prostrations toward Mecca. It is a ludicrous and yet a strangely touching spectacle to see these three poor devils grovelling and pleading before me, and at the same time praying to Allah for protection in the little bala-khana, hoping thereby to save themselves from cruel mutilation and lifelong disgrace. A watchful eye is kept outside by the mirza, who does his groaning and praying near the door, and the sight of an Afghan approaching is the signal for a mute appeal for mercy from all three, and a transformation to ordinary attitudes and vocations, the completeness of which would do credit to professional comedians. When a favorable opportunity presents, with much peering about to make sure of being unobserved, his comrades lower the khan down over the rear wall of the bala-khana, and a minute later they hoist him up again with the same show of caution. Producing from his kammerbund a red handkerchief containing the stolen kerans, he advances and humbly lays it at my feet, at the same time kneeling down and implanting yet another osculatory favor on my geivehs. Joyful at seeing my readiness to second them in keeping the matter hidden from stray Afghans that come dropping in, the guilty sowars are still fearful lest they have not yet secured my complete forgiveness. Consequently, the khan repeatedly appeals to me as "bur-raa-ther," lays his forefingers together, and enlarges upon the fact that we have passed through the dangers and difficulties of the Dasht-i-na-oomid together. The dread spectre of possible mutilation and disgrace as the consequence of their misdeeds pursues these guileful, grown-up children even in their dreams. All through the night they are moaning and muttering uneasily in their sleep, and tossing restlessly about; and long before daybreak are they up, prostrating themselves and filling the room with rapidly muttered prayers, The khan comes over to my corner and peers anxiously down into my face. Finding me awake, he renews his plea for mercy and forgiveness, calling me "bur-raa-ther" and pleading earnestly "Hoikim no, hoikim no!" The sharp-eyed wearer of the big busby, the cavalry sword, and red jack-boots turns up early next morning. He dropped in once or twice yesterday, and being possessed of more brains than the three sowars put together, he gathered from appearances, and his general estimation of their character, that all is not right. These suspicions he promptly communicated to his master. Aminulah Khan is only too well acquainted with the weakest side of the Persian character, and at once jumps to the conclusion that the sowars have stolen my money. Sending for me and summoning the sowars to his presence, without preliminary palaver he accuses them of robbing me of "pool." Addressing himself to me, he inquires: "Sahib, Parses namifami?" (Do you understand Persian?) "Kam Kam" (a little), I reply. "Sowari pool f pool koob; rupee-rupee Jcoob?" "O, O, pool koob; rupee koob; sowari neis, sowari khylie koob adam." In this brief interchange of disconnected Persian the khan has asked me whether the sowars have stolen money from me, and I have answered that they have not, but that, on the contrary, they are most excellent men, both "trustie and true." May the recording angel enter my answer down with a recommendation for mercy! During this examination the little busby-wearer stands and closely scrutinizes the changeful countenances of the accused. He thoroughly understands that I am mercifully shielding them from what he considers their just deserts, and he chips in a word occasionally to Aminulah Khan, aside, like a sharp lawyer watching the progress of a cross-examination. The chief himself, though ostensibly accepting my statement, has his own suspicions to the same purpose, and before dismissing them he shakes his finger menacingly at the sowars and significantly touches the hilt of his sword. The three culprits look guilty enough to satisfy the most merciful of judges, but, relying on my operation to shield them, they stoutly maintain their innocence. Some little delay occurs about starting for Furrah, my next objective point on the road to India; the khan explains that all of his sowars have been sent off to help garrison Herat; that the best he can provide in the form of a mounted escort is an elderly little man whom he points out, with an evident doubt as to my probable appreciation. The man looks more like a Persian than an Afghan, which he probably is, as the population of these borderland districts is much mixed. Nothing would have pleased me better than to have had Aminulah Khan bid me go ahead without any escort whatever, but next to nobody at all, the most satisfactory arrangement is the harmless-looking old fellow in the Persian lamb's-wool hat. Telling him that he has done well in sending his sowars to Herat, and that the old fellow will answer very well as guide, I prepare to take my departure. My guide disappears, and shortly returns mounted on a powerful and spirited gray. Aminulah Khan gives him a letter, and after mutual salaams, and "good ahfis," the old sowar leads the way at a pace which shows him to be filled with exaggerated ideas about my speediness. Irrigating ditches and fields characterize the way for some few miles, after which we emerge upon a level desert whose hard gravel surface is ridable in any direction without regard to beaten trails. Numerous lizards of a peculiar spotted variety are observed scuttling about on this gravelly plain as we ride along. The sun grows hot, but the way is level and smooth, and about ten o'clock we arrive at the oasis of Mahmoudabad, five farsakhs from Ghalakua. Mahmoudabad consists of a few mud dwellings surrounded by a strong wall, and a number of tents. Water is brought in a ditch from some distant source, and my faculty of astonishment is once again assailed by the sight of flourishing little patches of "Windsor beans." This is the first growth of these particular legumes that have come beneath my notice in Asia; dropping on them in the little oasis of Mahmoudabad is something of a surprise, to say the least. The men of Mahmoudabad wear bracelets and ankle-ornaments of thick copper wire, and necklaces of beads. Nothing whatever is seen of the women; so far as ocular evidence is concerned, Mahmoudabad might be a community of men and boys exclusively. The plain continues level and gravelly, and pretty soon it becomes thinly covered with green young camel-thorn. The widely scattered shrubs fail to cover up much of the desert's nakedness at close quarters, but a wider view gives a pleasant green plain, out of which the dark, massive mountains rise abrupt with striking effect. Late in the afternoon the hard surface of the desert gives place to the loose adobe soil of the Furi-ah Eooi bottom-lands. For some distance this is so loose and soft that one sinks in shoe-top deep at every step, and the path becomes a mere trail through dense thickets of reeds that wave high above one's head. Beyond this is a narrow area of cultivation and several walled villages, most of which are distinguished by one or two palms. Arriving at one of these villages, an hour before sunset, the old guide advocates remaining for the night. In obedience to his orders the headman brings out a carpet and spreads it beneath the shadow of the wall, and pointing to it, says, "Sahib, bismillah!" Taking the proffered seat, I inquire of him the distance to Furrah. Ho says it is across the Furrah Rood, and distant one farsakh. "Kishtee ass?" "O, Idshtee" Turning to the guide, I suggest: "Bismillah Furrah." The old fellow looks disappointed at the idea of going on, but he replies, "Bismillah." The carpet is taken away again, and the village headman sends a younger man to guide us through the fields and gardens to the river. The Furrah Rood is broader and swifter here than the Harood, and when at sunset we reach the ferry, it is to find that the boat is on the other side and the ferrymen gone to their homes for the night. Several hundred yards back from the river the city of Furrah reveals itself in the shape of a sombre-looking high mud wall, forming a solid parallelogram, I should judge a third of a mile long and of slightly less width. The walls are crenellated, and strengthened by numerous buttresses. It occupies slightly rising ground, and nothing is visible from without but the walls. The old guide shouts lustily at a couple of men visible on the opposite bank; but he only gets shouted back at for his pains. Darkness is rapidly settling down upon us, and I begin to realize my mistake in not abiding by the guide's judgment and stopping at the village. Another village is seen a couple of miles across the reedy lowland to our rear, and thitherward we shape our course. The intervening space is found to consist largely of tall reeds, swampy or overflowed areas, and irrigating ditches. Many of the latter are too deep to ford, and darkness overtakes us long before the village is reached. Finding it impossible to do anything with the bicycle, I remove my packages and lay the naked wheel on top of a conspicuous place on the bank of a ditch, where it may be readily found in the morning. For some reason unintelligible to me accommodation is refused us at the village. The old guide addresses the people in tones loud and authoritative, but all to no purpose--they refuse to let us remain. While hesitating about what course to pursue, one of the men comes out and volunteers to guide us to a camp of nomads not far away. Following his guidance, a camp of a dozen tents is shortly reached, and in their hospitable midst we spend the night on a piece of carpet beneath the sky. The usual simple refreshments are provided, as also quilts for covering. Upon waking in the morning I am surprised to find the bicycle lying close to my head. The hospitable nomads, having heard the story of its abandonment from the guide, have been out in the night and found it and brought it in. The same friendly person who brought us to the camp turns up at daybreak and voluntarily guides us through the area of ditches and impenetrable reed-patches to the river. Several people are squatting on the bank watching a crew of half-naked men tugging a rude but strong ferryboat up-stream toward them. The boat is built of heavy hewn timber, and capable of ferrying fifty passengers. The Furrah Rood, at the ferry, is about two hundred yards wide, and with a current of perhaps five miles an hour. A dozen stalwart men with rude, heavy sweeps propel the boat across; but at every passage the swift current takes it down-stream twice as far as the river's width. After disembarking the passengers, the boatmen have to tow it this distance up-stream again before making the next crossing. The boatmen wear a single garment of blue cotton that in shape resembles a plain loose shirt. When nearing the shore, three or four of them deftly slip their arms out of the sleeves, bunch the whole garment up around their necks, and spring overboard. Swimming to shallow water with a rope, they brace themselves to stay the down-stream career of the boat. A small gathering of wild-looking men are collected at the landing-place, and my astonishment is awakened by the familiar figure of a Celestial among the crowd. He is a veritable John Chinaman--beardless face, queue, almond eyes, and everything complete. The superior thriftiness of the Chinaman over the Afghans needs no further demonstration than the ocular evidence that among them all he wears by far the best and the tidiest clothes. In this, not less than in the strong Mongolian type of face, is he a striking figure among the people. John Chinaman is a very familiar figure to me, and I regard this strange specimen with almost as great interest as if I had thus unexpectedly met a European. His grotesque figure and dress, representing, so it seems to me at the moment, a speck of civilization among the barbarousness of my surroundings, is quite a relief to the senses. A closer investigation, however, on the bank, while waiting for the guide's horse, reveals the fact that he is far from being the John Chinaman of Chinatown, San Francisco. Instead of hailing from the rice-fields of Quangtung, this fellow is a native of Kashga-ria, a country almost as wild as Afghanistan. A moment's scrutiny of his face removes him as far from the civilized seaboard Celestials of our acquaintance as is the Zulu warrior from the plantation-darky of the South. Except for the above-mentioned comparative neatness of appearance, it is very evident that the Mongolian is every bit as wild as the Afghans about him. The people regard me with a deep and peculiar interest; very few remarks are made among themselves, and no one puts a single question to me or ventures upon any remarks. All this is in strange contrast to the everlasting gabble and the noisy and persistent importunities of the Persians. The Afghans are plainly full of speculations concerning my mission, who I am, and what I am doing in their country; although they regard the bicycle with great curiosity, the machine is evidently a matter of secondary importance. Like the Eimuck chieftain on the Dasht-i several of these men change countenance when I favor them with a glance. Whether this peculiar reddening of the face among the Afghans comes of embarrassment, or what it is, it always impresses me as much like the "perturbation of a wild animal at finding himself suddenly confronted with a human being." Hiding part way to the city gate, I send the guide ahead to notify the governor of my arrival, and to present the letter from Aininulah Khan. He is absent what appears to me an unnecessarily long time, and I determine to follow him in and take my chances on the tide of circumstances, as in the cities of Persia. It is not without certain lively apprehensions of possible adventure, however, that I approach the little arched gateway of this gray-walled Afghan city, conscious of its being filled with the most fanatical population in the world. In addition to this knowledge is the disquieting reflection of being a trespasser on forbidden territory, and therefore outside the pale of governmental sympathy should I get into trouble. The fascination of penetrating the strange little world within those high walls, however, ill brooks these retrospective reflections, or thoughts of unpleasant consequences, and I make no hesitation about riding up to the gate. A sharp, short turn and abrupt rise in the road occurs at the gate, necessitating a dismount and a trundle of about thirty yards, when I suddenly find myself confronting a couple of sentries beneath the archway of the gate. The sensation of surprise seems quite in order of late, and these sentries furnish yet another sensation, for they are wearing the red jackets of British infantrymen and the natty peaked caps of the Royal Artillery. The same crimson flush of embarrassment--or whatever it may be--that was observed in the countenance of the Eimuck chief, overspreads their faces, and they seem overcome with confusion and astonishment; but they both salute mechanically as I pass in. Fifty yards of open waste ground enables me to mount and ride into the entrance of the principal street. I have precious little time to look about me, and no opportunity to discover what the result of my temerity would be after the people had recovered from their amazement, for hardly have I gotten fairly into the street when I am met by my old guide, conducting a guard of twelve soldiers who have been sent to bring me in. CHAPTER X. ARRESTED AT FURRAH. Perhaps no stranger occurrence in the field of personal adventure in Central Asia has happened for many a year than my entrance into Furrah on a bicycle. Only those who know Afghanistan and the Afghans can fully realize the ticklish character of this little piece of adventure. My soldier-escort are fine-looking fellows, wearing the well-known red jackets of the British Army, evidently the uniform of some sepoy regiment. Forming around me, they conduct me through the gate of an inner enclosure near by, and usher me into a small compound where Mahmoud Yusuph Khan, the commander-in-chief of the garrison, is engaged in holding a morning reception of his subordinate chiefs and officers. The spectacle that greets my astonished eyes is a revelation indeed; the whole compound is filled with soldiers wearing the regimentals of the Anglo-Indian army. As I enter the compound and trundle the bicycle between long files of soldiers toward Mahmoud Yusuph Khan and his officers, five hundred pairs of eyes are fixed on me with intense curiosity. These are Cabooli soldiers sent here to garrison Furrah, where they will be handy to march to the relief of Herat, in case of demonstrations against that city by the Russians. The tension over the Penjdeh incident has not yet (April, 1886) wholly relaxed, and I feel instinctively that I am suspected of being a Russian spy. In the centre of the compound is a large bungalow, surrounded by a slightly raised porch. Seated on a mat at one end of this is Mahmoud Yusuph Khan, and ranged in two long rows down the porch are his chiefs and officers. They are all seated cross-legged on a strip of carpet, and attendants are serving them with tea in little porcelain cups. They are the most martial-looking assembly of humans I ever set eyes on. They are fairly bristling with quite serviceable looking weapons, besides many of the highly ornamented, but less dangerous, "gewgaws of war" dear to the heart of the brave but conservative warriors of Islam. Prominent among the peculiarities observed are strips of chain mail attached to portions of their clothing as guards against sword-cuts, noticeably on the sleeves. Some are wearing steel helmets, some huge turbans, and others the regular Afghan military hat, this latter a rakish-looking head-piece something like the hat of a Chinese Tartar general. Mahmoud Yusupli Khan himself is wearing one of these hats, and is attired in a tight-fitting suit of buckram, pipe-clayed from head to foot; in his hat glitters a handsome rosette of nine diamonds, which I have an opportunity of counting while seated beside him. He is a stoutish person, full-faced, slightly above middle age, less striking in appearance than many of his subordinates. When I have walked up between the two rows of seated chieftains and gained his side, he forthwith displays his knowledge of the English mode of greeting by shaking hands. He orders an attendant to fetch a couple of camp chairs, and setting one for me, he rises from the carpet and occupies the other one himself. Tea is brought in small cups instead of glasses, and is highly sweetened after the manner of the Persians; sweetmeats are handed round at the same time. After ascertaining that I understand something of Persian, he expresses his astonishment at my appearance in Furrah. At first it is painfully evident that he suspects me of being a Russian spy; but after several minutes of questions and answers, he is apparently satisfied that I am not a Muscovite, and he explains to his officers that I am an "Ingilis nockshi" (correspondent). He is greatly astonished to hear of the route by which I entered the country, as no traveller ever entered Afghanistan across the Dasht-i-na-oomid before. I tell him that I am going to Kandahar and Quetta, and suggest that he send a sowar with me to guide the way. He smiles amusedly at this suggestion, and shaking his head vigorously, he says, "Kandahar neis; Afghanistan's bad; khylie bad;" and he furthermore explains that I would be sure to get killed. "Kliylie koob; I don't want any sowar, I will go alone; if I get killed, then nobody will be blamable but myself." "Kandahar neis," he replies, shaking his finger and head, and looking very serious; "Kandahar neis; beest (20) sowars couldn't see you safely through to Kandahar; Afghanistan's bad; a Ferenghi would be sure to get killed before reaching Kandahar." Pretending to be greatly amused at this, I reply, "koob; if I get killed, all right; I don't want any sowars; I will go alone." At hearing this, he grows still more serious, and enters into quite an eloquent and lengthy explanation, to dissuade me from the idea of going. He explains that the Ameer has little control over the fanatical tribes in Zemindavar, and that although the Boundary Commission had a whole regiment of sepoys, the Ameer couldn't guarantee their safety if they came to Furrah. He furthermore expresses his surprise that I wasn't killed before getting this far. The officer of the guard who brought me in, and who is standing against the porch close by, speaks up at this stage of the interview and tells with much animation of how I was riding down the street, and of the people all speechless with astonishment. Mahmoud Yusuph Khan repeats this to his officers, with comments of his own, and they look at one another and smile and shake their heads, evidently deeply impressed at what they consider the dare-devil recklessness of a Ferenghi in venturing alone into the streets of Furrah. The warlike Afghans have great admiration for personal courage, and they evidently regard my arrival here without escort as a proof that I am possessed of a commendable share of that desirable quality. As the commander-in-chief and a few grim old warriors squatting near us exchange comments on the subject of my appearance here, and my willingness to proceed alone to Kandahar, notwithstanding the known probability of being murdered, their glances of mingled amusement and admiration are agreeably convincing that I have touched a chord of sympathy in their rude, martial breasts. Half an hour is passed in drinking tea and asking questions. Mahmoud Yusuph Khan proves himself not wholly ignorant of English and British-Indian politics. "General Roberts Sahib, Cabool to Kandahar?" he queries first. The Afghans regard General Roberts' famous march as a wonderful performance, and consequently hold that distinguished officer's name in high repute. He asks about Sir Peter Lumsden and Colonel Sir West Ridgeway; and speaks of the Governor-General of India. By way of testing the extent of his knowledge, I refer to Lord Ripon as the present Governor-General of India, when he at once corrects me with, "No; Lord Dufferin Sahib." He speaks of London, and wants to know about Mr. Gladstone and Lord Salisbury--which is now Prime Minister? I explain by pantomime that the election is not decided; he acknowledges his understanding of my meaning by a nod. He then grows inquisitive about the respective merits of the two candidates. "Gladstone koob or Salisbury koob?" he queries. "Gladstone koob, England, ryot, nune, gusht, kishrnish, pool-Salisbury koob, India, Afghanistan, Ameer, Russia soldier, officer," is the reply. To the average reader this latter reads like so much unintelligible shibboleth; but it is a fair sample of the disjointed language by which I manage to convey my meaning plainly to the Afghan chieftain. He understands by these few disconnected nouns that I consider Gladstone to be the better statesman of the two for England's domestic affairs, and Salisbury the better for the foreign policy of the Empire. All this time the troops are being put through their exercises, marching about the compound in companies and drilling with their muskets. Some are uniformed in the picturesque Anglo-Oriental regimentals of the Indian sepoy, and others in neat red jackets, peaked caps, and white trousers with red stripes. The buttons, belts, bandoleers, and buckles are all wanderers from the ranks of the British army. The men themselves--many of them, at least--might quite as readily be credited to that high standard of military prowess which characterizes the British army as the clothes and accoutrements they are wearing, judging from outward appearances. Not only do their faces bear the stamp of both fearlessness and intelligence, but some of them are possessed of the distinctively combative physiognomy of the born pugilist. The captain of the Governor's guard has a particularly plucky and aggressive expression; he is a man whose face will always remain pictured on my memory. The interesting expression this officer habitually wears is that of a prize-ring champion, with a determined bull-dog phiz, watching eagerly to pounce on some imaginary antagonist. Seeing that his attention is keenly centred upon me the whole time I am sitting by the side of his chief, he becomes an object of more than passing interest. He watches me with the keen earnestness of a bull-dog expectantly awaiting the order to attack. Mahmoud Yusuph Khan now attempts to explain at length sundry reasons why it is necessary to place me, for the time being, under guard. He seems very anxious to convey this unpleasant piece of information in the flowery langue diplomatique of the Orient, or in other words, to coat the bitter pill of my detention with a sugary coating of Eastern politeness. His own linguistic abilities being unequal to the occasion, he sends off somewhere for a dusky Hindostani, who shortly arrives and, in obedience to orders, forthwith begins jabbering at me in his own tongue. Of this I, of course, know literally nothing, and, ever swayed by suspicion, it is easily perceivable that their first impression of my being a Russian spy is in a measure revived by my ignorance of Hindostani. They seem to think it inconsistent that one could be an Englishman and not understand the language of a native of India. After the interview the twelve red-jackets that appear to constitute the Governor's bodyguard are detailed to conduct me to a walled garden--outside the city. Before departing, however, I give the strange assembly of Afghan warriors an exhibition of riding around the compound. The guard, under the leadership of the officer with the bull-dog phiz, fix bayonets and form into a file on either side of me as I trundle back through the same street traversed upon my arrival. Accompanying us is a man on a gray horse whom everybody addresses respectfully as "Kiftan Sahib" (Captain), and another individual afoot in a bottle-green roundabout, a broad leathern belt, a striped turban, white baggy pantalettes, and pointed red shoes. Kiftan Sahib looks more like an English game-keeper than an Afghan captain; he wears a soiled Derby hat, a brown cut-away coat, striped pantaloons, and Northampton-made shoes without socks; his arms are a cavalry sabre and a revolver. Outside the gate, at the suggestion of the young man in the bottle-green roundabout, I mount and ride, wheeling slowly along between the little files of soldiers. The soldiers are delighted at the novelty of their duty, and they swing briskly along as I pedal a little faster. They smile at the exertion necessary to keep up, and falling in with their spirit of amusement, I gradually increase my speed, and finally shoot ahead of them entirely. Kiftan Sahib comes galloping after me on the gray, and with good-humored anxiety motions for me to stop and let the soldiers catch up. He it is upon whom the commander-in-chief has saddled the responsibility for my safe-keeping, and this little display of levity and my ability to so easily out-distance the soldiers, awakens in him the spirit of apprehension at once. One can see that he breathes easier as soon as we are safely inside the garden gate. A couple of little whitewashed bungalows are the only buildings in the garden, and one of these is assigned to me for my quarters. Kiftan Sahib and the young man in the bottle-green roundabout give orders about the preparation of refreshments, and then squat themselves down near me to gladden their eyes with a prolonged examination of my face. The red-jackets separate into three reliefs of four each; one relief immediately commences pacing back and forth along the four sides of the bungalow, one soldier on each side, while the remainder seek the shade of a pomegranate grove that occupies one side of the garden. By-and-by servitors appear bearing trays of sweetmeats and more substantial fare. The variety and abundance of eatables comprising the meal, are such as to thoroughly delight the heart of a person who has grown thin and gaunt and wolfish from semi-starvation and prolonged physical exertion. The two long skewers of smoking kabobs and the fried eggs are most excellent eating, the pillau is delicious, and among other luxuries is a sort of pomegranate jam, some very good butter (called muscal), a big bowl of sherbet, and dishes of nuts, sweetmeats, and salted melon seeds. After dinner the young man in bottle-green, who seems anxious to cultivate my good opinion, smiles significantly at me and takes his departure; he turns up again in a few minutes bearing triumphantly an old Phillips' Atlas, which he deferentially places at my feet. Opening it, I find that the chief countries and cities of the world are indicated in written Hindostani characters. In this manner some English officer has probably been the undesigning medium of giving these Afghans a peep into the configuration of the earth they live on, and their first lesson in geography. I reward the young man by asking him whether he too is a "kiftan." He acknowledges the compliment by a broad grin and two salaams made in rapid succession. After noon a messenger arrives from Mahmoud Yusuph Khan bringing salaams and a pair of stout English walking-boots to replace my old worn-out geivehs; and a cake of toilet soap, also of English make. Both shoes and soap, as may be easily imagined, are highly acceptable articles. The advent of the former likewise answers the purpose of enlightening me a trifle in regard to matters philological; the Afghans call their foot-gear "boots" (the Chinese call their foot-wear "shoes," and their gloves "tung-shoes," or hand-shoes). About four o'clock I am visited by a fatherly old khan in a sky-blue gown, and an interesting Cabooli cavalry colonel, with pieces of chain mail distributed about his uniform, and a fierce-looking moustache that stands straight out from his upper lip. Sweetmeats enough to start a small candy shop have been sent me during the afternoon, and setting them out before my guests, we are soon on the most familiar terms. The colonel shows me his weapons in return for a squint down the shining rifled barrel of my Smith & Wesson, and he explains the merits and demerits of both his own firearms and mine. The 38-calibre S. & W. he thinks a perfect weapon in its way, but altogether too small for Afghanistan. With expressive pantomime he explains that, while my 38 bullet would kill a person as well as a larger one, it requires a heavier missile to crash into a man who is making for you with a knife or sword, and stop him. His favorite weapon for close quarters is a murderous-looking piece, half blunderbuss, half pistol, that he carries thrust in his kammerbund, so that the muzzle points behind him. This weapon has a small single-hand musket stock, and the bell-mouthed barrel is filled nearly to the muzzle with powder and round bullets the size of buckshot. This formidable firearm is for hand-to-hand fighting on horseback, and at ten paces might easily be warranted to blow a man's head into smithereens. The colonel is an amiable old warrior, and kindly points this interesting weapon at my head for me to peer down the barrel and satisfy myself that it is really loaded almost to the top! Like Injun-slaying youngsters in America, the doughty Afghan warriors seem to delight in having their weapons loaded, their sidearms sharp, and their bayonets fixed, and seem anxious to impress the beholder with the fact that they are real warriors, and not mere make-believe soldiers. The colonel wears a dark-brown uniform profusely trimmed with braid, a Kashgarian military hat, and English army shoes. In matters pertaining to his wardrobe it is very evident that he has profited to no small extent by Afghanistan being adjacent territory to British India; but his semi-civilized ambition has not yet soared into the aesthetic realm of socks; doubtless he considers Northampton-made shoes sufficiently luxurious without the addition of socks. The mission of these two officers is apparently to prepare me gradually for the intelligence that I am to be taken back to Herat. So skillfully and diplomatically does the old khan in the cerulean gown acquit himself of this mission, that I thoroughly understand what is to be my disposition, although Herat is never mentioned. He talks volubly about the Ameer, the Wali, the Padishah, the dowleh, Cabool, Allah, and a host of other subjects, out of which I readily evolve my fate; but, as yet, he breathes nothing but diplomatic hints, and these are clothed in the most pleasant and reassuring smiles, and given in tones of paternal solicitude. The colonel sits and listens intently, and now and then chimes in with a word of soothing assent by way of emphasizing the subject, when the khan is explaining about the Ameer, or Allah, or kismet. Mahmoud Tusuph Khan himself comes to the garden in the cool of the evening, and for half an hour occupies bungalow No. 2. He betrays a spark of Oriental vanity by having an attendant follow behind, bearing a huge and wonderful sun-shade, into the make-up of which peacock feathers and other gorgeous material largely enters. Noticing this, I make a determined assault upon his bump of Asiatic self-esteem, by asking him if he is brother to the Ameer. He smiles and says he is a brother of Shere Ali, the ex-Ameer deposed in favor of Abdur Bahman. His remarks during our second interview are largely composed of furtive queries, intended to penetrate what he evidently, even as yet, suspects to be the secret object of my mysterious appearance in the heart of the country. The Afghan official is nothing if not suspicious, and although he professed his own conviction, in the morning, of my being an English "nokshi," his constitutionally suspicious nature forbids him accepting this impression as final. During this interview two more natives of India are produced and ordered to assail my long-suffering ears with the battery of their vernacular. They are an interesting pair, and they evince the liveliest imaginable interest in finding a Sahib alone in the hands of the Afghans. They are vivacious and intelligent, and try hard to make themselves understood. From their own vocal and pantomimic efforts and the Persian of the Afghans, I learn that they are sepoys in charge of three prisoners from the Boundary Commission camp, whom they are taking through to Quetta. They seem very anxious to do something in my behalf, and want Mahmoud Yusuph Khan to let them take me with them to Quetta. I lose no time in signifying my approval of this suggestion; but the Governor shakes his head and orders them away, as though fearful even to have such a proposition entertained. All the time the sepoys are endeavoring to make themselves understood, every Afghan present regards my face with the keenest scrutiny; so glaringly evident are their suspicions that the situation becomes too much for my gravity. The sepoys grin broadly in response, whereupon the pugilistic-faced captain of the Governor's guard remonstrates with them for their levity, by roughly making them stand in a more respectful attitude. I dislike very much to see them ordered off, for they are evidently anxious to champion my cause; moreover, it would have been interesting to have accompanied them through to Quetta. Understanding thoroughly by this time that I am not to be allowed to go through by way of Giriskh and Kandahar, and dreading the probability of being taken back into Persia, I ask permission to travel south to Jowain and the frontier of Beloochistan. The Afghan-Beloochi boundary is not more than fifty or sixty miles south of Furrah, and while it would be difficult to say what advantage would be gained by reaching there, it would at all events be some consolation to find myself at liberty. The interview ends, however, without much additional light being shed on their intentions; but the advent of more sweetmeats shortly after the Governor's departure, and the unexpected luxury of a bottle of Shiraz wine, heightens the conviction that my own wishes in the matter are to be politely ignored. The red-jackets patrol my bungalow till dark, when they are relieved by soldiers in dark-blue kilts, loose Turkish pantalettes, and big turbans. I sit on the threshold during the evening, watching their soldierly bearing with much interest; on their part they comport themselves as though proudly conscious of making a good impression. I judge they have been especially ordered to acquit themselves well in my presence, and so impress me, whether I am English or Russian, with a sense of their military proficiency. All about the garden red-coated guards are seen prostrating themselves toward Mecca in the prosecution of their evening devotions. Full of reflections on the exciting events of the day and the strange turn affairs have taken, I stretch myself on a Turkoman rug and doze off to sleep. The last sound heard ere reaching the realms of unconsciousness is the steady tramp of the sentinels pacing to and fro. Scarcely have I fallen asleep--so at least it seems to me --when I am awakened by my four guards singing out, one after another, "Kujawpuk! Ki-i-puk!!" This appears to be their answer to the challenge of the officer going his rounds, and they shout it out in tones clear and distinct, in succession. This programme is repeated several times during the night, and, notwithstanding the sleep-inducing fatigues of the last few days, my slumbers are light enough to hear the reliefs of the guard and their strange cry of "Kujawpuk, ki-i-puk" every time it is repeated. As the sun peeps over the wall of the garden my red-jackets reappear at their post; roses are stuck in their caps' and their buttonholes, and fastened to their guns. A big bouquet of the same fragrant "guls" is presented to me, and a dozen gholams are busy gathering all that are abloom in the garden. These are probably gathered every morning in the rose season, and used for making rose-water by the officers' wives. During the forenoon the blue-gowned old khan and his major-domo, the mail-clad colonel, again present themselves at my bungalow. They are gracious and friendly to a painful degree, and sugar would scarcely melt in the mouth of the paternal old khan as he delivers the "Wall's salaams to the Sahib." Tea and sweetmeats are handed around, and Kiftan Sahib and Bottle Green join our company. Nothing but the formal salaams has yet been said; but intuition is a faithful forerunner, and ere another word is spoken, I know well enough that the khan and the colonel have been sent to break the disagreeable news that I am to be taken to Herat, and that Kiftan Sahib and Bottle Green have dropped in out of curiosity to see how I take it. The kindly old khan finds his task of awakening the spirit of disappointment anything but congenial, and he seems very loath to deliver the message. When he finally unburdens himself, it is with averted eyes and roundabout language. He commences by a rambling disquisition on the dangers of the road to Kandahar, apologizing profusely for the Ameer's inability to guarantee the good behavior of the wandering tribes, and the consequent necessity of forbidding travellers to enter the country. He dwells piously and at considerable length upon our obligations to submit to the will of Allah, not forgetting a liberal use of the Oriental fatalist's favorite expression: "kismet." For the sake of argument, rather than with any hope of influencing things in my favor, I reply:" All right, I don't ask the Ameer's protection; I will go to Kandahar and Quetta alone, on my own responsibility; then if I get murdered by the Ghilzais, nobody but myself will be to blame." "The Wali has his orders from the Padishah, the Ameer Abdur Eahman Khan, that no Ferenghi is to come in the country." "Tell the Wali that Afghanistan is Allah's country first and Abdur Eahman's country second. Inshallah, Allah gives everybody the road." The old khan is evidently at a loss how to meet so logical an argument, and the colonel, Kiftan Sahib, and Bottle Green are deeply impressed at what they consider my unanswerable wisdom. They look at one another and shake their heads and smile. The chief concern of the khan is apparently to convince me that it is only out of consideration for my own safety that I am forbidden to go through, and, after a brief consultation with the others, he again addresses his flowery eloquence to me. He comes and squats beside me, and, with much soothing patting of my shoulder, he says: "The Wali is only taking you to Herat to obtain Ridgeway Sahib's and Faramorz Khan's permission for you to go through. Inshallah, after you have seen Herat, if it is the will of Allah, and your kismet to go to Kandahar, the Ameer will let you go." To this comforting assurance I deem it but justice to the well-meaning old chieftain to signify my submission to the inevitable. Before departing, he requests the humble present of a pencil-sketch of the bicycle as a souvenir of my visit to Furrah. During the day I get on quite intimate terms with my guard, and among other things compete with them in the feat of holding a musket out at arm's length, gripping the extreme end of the barrel. Tall, strapping fellows some of them are, but they are not muscular in comparison; out of a round dozen competitors I am the only one capable of fairly accomplishing this feat. Many of the soldiers carry young pheasants about with them in cages, and seem to derive a good deal of pleasure in feeding them and attending to their wants. The cages are merely pieces of white muslin, or mosquito-netting, about the size of a pocket-handkerchief, enclosing a four-inch disk of wood for the inmate to stand on. The crape is gathered and loosely tied at the corners. It is carried as one would carry anything suspended in a handkerchief, and is hung on the limb of a tree in the same manner. Late in the afternoon of the second clay my scarlet guard marshal themselves in front of the bungalow, and Kiftan Sahib and Bottle Green bid me prepare for departure to Herat. The old khan and the colonel, and several other horsemen, appear at the gate; the soldiers form themselves into two files, and between them I trundle from my circumscribed quarters. The rude ferry-boat is awaiting our coming, and in a few minutes the khan and the colonel bid me quite an affectionate farewell on the river-bank, gazing eagerly into my face as though regretful at the necessity of parting so soon. My escort favor me with the, same lingering gaze. These people are evidently fascinated by the strange and mysterious manner of my coming among them; who am I, what am I, and wherefore my marvellous manner of travelling, are questions that appeal strongly to their Asiatic imagination, and they are intensely loath to see me disappear again without having seen more of me and my wonderful iron horse, and learned more about it. Several horsemen have already crossed and are awaiting us on the opposite shore. Kiftan Sahib and another officer with a henna-tinted beard are in charge of the party taking me back. Besides myself and these two, the party consists of eleven horsemen; with sundry modifications, their general appearance, arms, and dress resemble the make-up of a Persian sowar rather than the regular Afghan soldier. The sun is just setting behind those western mountains I passed three days ago as we reach the western shore, the boatmen are unloading the saddles and accoutrements of our party, and I sit down on the bank and survey the strange scene just across the river. The steep bluff opposite is occupied by people who accompanied us to the river. Many of them are seizing this opportune moment to prostrate themselves toward the Holy City, the geographical position of which is happily indicated by the setting sun. Prominent among the worshippers are seen side by side the cerulean figure of the khan, and the colonel in all the bravery of his military trappings, his chain armor glistening brightly in the waning sunlight. A little removed from the crowd, the twelve red-coats are ranged in a row, performing the same pious ceremony; as their bared heads bob up and down one after another, the scarlet figures outlined in a row against the eastern sky are strangely suggestive of a small flock of flamingoes engaged in fishing. CHAPTER XI. UNDER ESCORT TO HERAT. Our party camps near a village not far from the river, but it takes us till after dark to reach the place, owing to ditches and overflow. A few miles of winding trails and intricate paths through the reedy river-bottom next morning, and we emerge upon a flinty upland plain. At first a horseman is required to ride immediately ahead of the bicycle, my untutored escort being evidently suspicious lest I might suddenly forge ahead, and with the swiftness of a bird disappear from their midst. As this leader, in his ignorance, occasionally stops right in the narrow path, and considers himself in duty bound to limit my speed to that of the walking horses, this arrangement quickly becomes very monotonous. Appealing to Kiftan Sahib, I point out the annoyance of having a horse just in front, and promise not to go too far ahead. He points appealingly to a little leathern pouch attached to his belt. The pouch contains a letter to the Governor of Herat, and he it is whom Mahmoud Yusuph Khan expects to take back a receipt. The chief responsibility for my safe delivery rests upon his shoulders, and he is disposed to be abnormally apprehensive and suspicious. Reassuring him of my sincerity, he permits the horseman to follow along behind. When the condition of the road admits of my pushing ahead a little, this sowar canters along immediately behind, while the remainder of the party follow more leisurely. One of the party carries a skin of water, and as the morning grows fearfully hot, frequent halts are made to wait for him and get a drink, otherwise we two are usually some distance ahead. These water-vessels are merely goat-skins, taken off with as little mutilation of the hide as possible; one of the legs serves as a faucet, and the tying or untying of a piece of string opens or closes the "tap." It is the handiest imaginable contrivance for carrying liquids on horseback, the tough, pliant goat-skin resisting any amount of hard usage and accommodating itself readily to the contour of the pack-saddle, or itself forming a soft enough seat to the rider. Near noon we reach the ruins of Suleimanabad, entirely deserted save by hideous gray lizards a foot long, numbers of which scuttle off into their hiding places at our approach. In the distance ahead are visible the black tents of a nomad camp. The glowing, reflected heat of the stony desert produces an unquenchable thirst, and the generous bowls of cool, acidulous doke obtained in the tents are quaffed most eagerly by the entire party. The solicitude of Kiftaii Sahib as displayed on my behalf is quite amusing, not to say affecting; while the others are attending to their horses he squats down before me underneath the little goat-hair tent and gazes at me with an attention so close that one might imagine him afraid lest I should mysteriously change into some impalpable spirit and float away. The nomads themselves appear to be amiably disposed, intent chiefly on supplying our wants and fulfilling the traditions of tented hospitality. They look wild enough, but, withal, pleasant and intelligent. Kiftan Sahib, however, watches every movement of the stalwart nomads with keen interest; and small power of penetration is required to see that apprehension, if not positive suspicion, enters very largely into his thoughts concerning them and myself. A howling wind and dust-storm comes careering across the plain, creating a wild scene, and black cloud-banks gather and pile up ominously in the west. The threatened rain-storm, however, passes off with a pyrotechnic display of great brilliancy, and the evening air lowers to a refreshing temperature as we stretch ourselves out on nummuds, fifty yards away from the tents. Kiftan Sahib spreads his own couch on the right side of mine and the red-whiskered chief of the sowars occupies the left. Waking up during the night, I am somewhat taken by surprise at finding one of my escort standing guard over me with fixed bayonet. This extraordinary precaution appears to me at the time as being altogether superfluous; while recognizing these nomads as lawless and fanatical, I should nevertheless have no hesitation in venturing alone among them. The morning star is just soaring above the eastern horizon, and the feeble rays of Luna's half-averted face are imparting a ghostly glimmer of light, when I am awakened from a sound sleep. The horses have all been saddled and packed, and everybody is ready to start. Daylight comes on apace and, finding the trail hard and reasonably smooth, I am happily able to "sowari," and not only able to ride but to forge right ahead of the party. The country is level and open, and uninhabited, so that Kiftan Sahib is far less apprehensive than he was yesterday. I am perhaps a couple of miles ahead when I come to a splendid, large, irrigating canal, evidently conveying water from the Harood down across the desert to the low cultivable lands near the Furrah Rood. The water is three feet deep, and I revel in the luxury of a cooling and refreshing bath until overtaken by the escort. The plain, heretofore hard, now changes into loose sand and gravel, and the trail becomes quite obliterated. In addition to these undesirable changes, the wind commences blowing furiously from the north, making it absolutely impossible to ride. Rounding the base of an abutting mountain, we emerge upon the grassy lowlands of the Harood in the vicinity of Subzowar. Subzowar is a sort of way-station between Furrah and Herat, the only inhabited place, except tents, on the whole journey. It is on the west side of the Harood and the broad, swift stream is full to overflowing, a turgid torrent rushing along at a dangerous pace. After much shouting and firing of guns, a score of villagers appear on the opposite bank, and several of them come wading and swimming across. They seem veritable amphibians, capable of stemming the tide that well-nigh sweeps strong horses off their feet. The river is fordable by following a zigzag course well known to the local watermen. One of them carries the bicycle safely across on his head, and others lead the sowars' horses by the bridle. When all the Afghans but Kiftan Sahib have been assisted over, the strongest horse of the party is brought back for my own passage. A dozen natives are made to form a close cordon about me to rescue me in case of misadventure, while one leads the horse by his bridle and another steadies him by holding on to his tail. Kiftan Sahib himself brings up the rear, and, as the rushing waters deepen around us, he abjures me to keep a steady seat and, in a voice that almost degenerates into an apprehensive whine, he mutters: "The receipt, Sahib, the receipt." A ripple of excitement occurs in the middle of the river by one the men being swept off his feet and carried down stream; and, although he swims like a duck, the treacherous undercurrent sucks him under several times. It looks as though he would be drowned; a number of his comrades race down the bank and plunge in to swim to his rescue, but he finally secures footing on a submerged sand-bank, and after resting a few minutes swims ashore. The remainder of the day, and the night, are passed in tents near Subzowar, it being very evidently against Afghan social etiquette for strangers to take shelter within the confines of the village itself. Whether from their knowledge of the unsuitableness of the country ahead, or from a new spasm of apprehension concerning their responsibility, does not appear; but in the morning Kiftan Sahib and the chief of the sowars insist upon me mounting a horse and handing the bicycle over to the tender mercies of the person in charge of the nummud pack-horse. They point in the direction of Herat, and deliver themselves of a marvellous quantity of deprecatory pantomime. My own impression is that, having recrossed the Harood, the only great obstacle in the path of a wheelman between Furrah and Herat, their abnormally suspicious minds imagine that there is now nothing to prevent me taking wings and outdistancing them to the latter place. Finding them determined, and, moreover, nothing loath to try a horse for a change, on the back-stretch, I take the wheel apart and distribute fork, backbone, and large wheel among the sowars. The only fit place for the latter is on the top of the nummuds and blankets on the spare pack-horse, and, before starting, I see to fastening it securely on top of the load. This pack-horse is a powerful black stallion that puts in a good share of his time trying to attack the other horses. Owing to this uncontrollable pugnacity, he is habitually led along at some considerable distance from the party, generally to the rear. The person in charge of him is a young negro as black, and proportionately powerful, as himself. Wild and ferocious as is the stallion, he is a civilized and mild-mannered animal compared with his manager. In the matter of facial expression and intellectual development this uncivilized descendant of Ham is first cousin to a wild gorilla, and it is not without certain misgivings that I leave the web-like bicycle-wheel in his charge. He has been a very interesting study of uncivilization all along, and his bump of destructiveness is as large as an orange. The military Afghans, one and all, impress me as being especially created to destroy the fruits of other people's industry and thrift, whether it be in wearing out clothes and shoes made in England, or devouring the substance of the peaceful villagers of their own territory; and this untamed darkey fairly bristles with the evidence of his capacity as a destroyer. Everything about him is in a dilapidated condition; the leathern scabbard of his sword is split half way up, revealing a badly notched and rusted blade. An orang-outang, fresh from the jungles of Sumatra, could scarcely display less intelligence concerning human handicraft than he; he bubbles over with laughter at seeing anything upset or broken, growls sullenly at receiving uncongenial orders, calls on Allah, and roars threateningly at the stallion, all in the same breath. No wonder I ride ahead, feeling somewhat apprehensive; and yet the wheel looks snug and safe enough on top of the big pile of soft nummuds. The day's march is long and dreary, through a country of desert wastes and stony hills. The only human habitation seen is a small cluster of tents near some wells of water. The people seem overjoyed at the sight of travellers, and come running to the road with their kammerbunds full of little hard balls of sun-dried mast. We fill our pockets with these and nibble and chew them as we ride along. They are pleasantly sour, containing great thirst-quemhing properties, as well as being very nourishing. The sun goes down and dusk settles over our trail, and still the chief of the sowars and Kiftan Sahib lead the way. Many of the horses are pretty badly fagged, they have had nothing to eat all day and next to nothing to drink, and the party are straggling along the trail for a couple of miles back. At length lights are observed twinkling in the darkness ahead. Half an hour later we dismount in a nomad camp, and one after another the remainder of the party come straggling in, some of them leading their horses. Both men and animals are well-nigh overcome with fatigue. The shrill neighing of the ferocious and spirited black stallion is heard as he approaches and realizes that he is coming into camp; he is a glorious specimen of a horse, neither hunger nor thirst can curb his spirit. He is carrying far the heaviest load of the party, yet he comes into camp at ten o'clock, after hustling along over stones and sand since before daylight, without food or water; neighing loudly and ready to fight all the horses within reach. The chief of the sowars goes out to superintend the unloading of the black stallion; and soon I hear him addressing the negro in angry tones, supplementing his reproachful words with several resounding blows of his riding-whip. The wild darkey's disapproval of these proceedings finds expression in a roar of pain and fear that would do justice to a yearling bull being dragged into the shambles. The cause of this turmoil shortly turns up in the shape of my wheel, with no less than eleven spokes broken, and the rim considerably twisted out of shape. Kiftan Sahib surveys 'the damaged wheel a moment, draws his own rawhide from his kammerbund, and rises to his feet. With a hoarse cry of alarm the negro vanishes into the surrounding gloom; the next moment is heard his eager chuckling laugh, the spontaneous result of his lucky escape from Kiftan Sahib's vengeful rawhide. Kiftan Sahib keeps a desultory lookout for him all the evening, but the wary negro is more eagerly watchful than he, and during supper-time he hovers perpetually about the encircling wall of darkness, ready to vanish into its impenetrable depths at the first aggressive demonstration. The explanation of the negro is that the black horse laid down with his load. The wheel presents a well-nigh ruined appearance, and I retire to my couch in a most unenviable frame of mind; lying awake for hours, pondering over the probability of being able to fix it up again at Herat. One of our party of stragglers has failed to come in, and a couple of nomads start out about 2 a.m. to try and find him; but neither absentee nor searchers turn up at daybreak, and so we pull out without him. The wind blows raw and chilly from the north as we depart at early dawn, and the men muffle themselves up in whatever wraps they happen to have. Unwilling to trust the wheel further in the charge of the negro, I carry it myself, resting it on one stirrup, and securing it with a rope over my shoulder. It is a most awkward thing to carry on horseback; but, unhandy though it be, I regret not having so carried it the whole way from Subzowar. Our route leads through a dreary country, much the same character as yesterday, but we pass a pool of very good water about mid-day, and meet three men driving laden pack-horses from Herat. They are halted and questioned at great length concerning the contents of their packages, whither they are bound and whence they come; and their firearms are examined and commented upon. The members of our party appear to address them with a very domineering spirit, as though wantonly revelling in the sense of their own numerical superiority. On the other hand, the three honest travellers comport themselves with what looks like an altogether unnecessary amount of humility during the interview, and they seem very thankful and relieved when permitted to take their departure. The significance of all this, I imagine, is that my escort were sorely tempted to overhaul the effects of the weaker party, and see if they had any toothsome eatables from the bazaars of Herat; and the latter, justly apprehensive of these designs on their late purchases, consider themselves fortunate in escaping without being ruthlessly looted. Toward evening we pass a comparatively new cemetery on a knoll; no signs of human habitation are about, and Kiftan Sahib, in response to my inquiries, explains that it is the graveyard of a battle-field. Several times during the afternoon we lose the trail; we seem to be going across an almost trailless country, and more than once have to call a halt while men are sent to the summit of some neighboring hill to survey the surrounding country for landmarks. At dark we pitch our camp in a grassy hollow, where the horses are made happy with heaps of pulled bottom-grass. Neither trees nor houses are anywhere in sight; but the chief of the sowars and another man ride away over the hills, and late at night return with two men carrying bread and mast and fresh goat-milk enough to feed the whole hungry party. We make a leisurely start next morning, the reason of the dalliance being that we are but a few farsakhs from Herat. The country develops into undulating, grassy upland prairie, the greensward being thickly spangled with yellow flowers. A two flours' ride brings us to a camp of probably not less than one hundred tents. Large herds of camels are peacefully browsing over the prairie, numbers of them being females rejoicing in the possession of woolly youngsters, whose uncouth but tender proportions are swathed in old quilts and nummuds to protect them from the fierce rays of the sun. Sheep are being sheared and goats milked by men and boys; some of the women are baking bread, some are jerking skin churns, suspended on tripods, vigorously back and forth, and others are preparing balls of mast for drying in the sun. The whole camp presents a scene of picturesque animation. From the busy nomad camp, the trail seems to make a gradual ascent until, on the morning of April 30th, we arrive at the bluff-like termination of a rolling upland country, and behold! spread out below is the famous valley of Herat. Like a panorama suddenly opened up before me is the charmed stretch of country that has time and again created such a stir in the political and military circles of England and Russia, the famous "gate to India" about which the two greatest empires of the world have sometimes almost come to blows. Several populous villages are scattered about the valley within easy range of human vision; the Heri Rood, now bursting its natural boundaries under the stimulus of the spring floods, glistens broadly at intervals like a chain of small lakes. The fortress of Herat is dimly discernible in the distance beyond the river, probably about twenty miles from our position; it is rendered distinguishable from other masses of mud-brown habitations by a cluster of tall minarets, reminding one of a group of factory chimneys. The whole scene, as viewed from the commanding view of our ridge, embraces perhaps four hundred square miles of territory; about one-tenth of this appears to be under cultivation, the remainder being of the same stony, desert-like character as the average camel-thorn dasht. Doubtless a good share of this latter might be reclaimed and rendered productive by an extensive system of irrigating canals, but at present no incentive exists for enterprise of this character. In its present state of cultivation the valley provides an abundance of food for the consumption of its inhabitants, and as yet the demand for exportation is limited to the simple requirements of a few thousand tributary nomads. The orchards and green areas about the villages render the whole scene, as usual, beautiful in comparison with the surrounding barrenness, but that is all. Compared with our own green hills and smiling valleys, the Valley of Herat would scarcely seem worth all the noise that has been made about it. There has been a great amount of sentiment wasted in eulogizing its alleged beauty. Of its wealth and commercial importance in the abstract, I should say much exaggeration has been indulged in. Still, there is no gainsaying that it is a most valuable strategical position, which, if held by either England or Russia, would exercise great influence on Central Asian and Indian affairs. Such are my first impressions of the Herat Valley, and a sojourn of some ten days in one of its villages leaves my conjectures about the same. A few miles along a stony and gradually descending trail, and we are making our way across the usual chequered area of desert, patches, abandoned fields, and old irrigating ditches that so often tell the tale of decay and retrogression in the East. These outlying evidences of decay, however, soon merge into green fields of wheat and barley, poppy gardens, and orchards, and flowing ditches; and two hours after obtaining the first view of Herat finds us camped in a walled apricot garden in the important village of Rosebagh (?). Overtopping our camping ground are a pair of dilapidated brick minarets, attached to what Kiftan Sahib calls the Jami Mesjid, and which he furthermore volunteers was erected by Ghengis Khan. The minarets are of circular form, and one is broken off fifteen feet shorter than its neighbor. In the days of their glory they were mosaicked with blue, green and yellow glazed tiles; but nothing now remains but a few mournful-looking patches of blue, surviving the ravages of time and decay. Pigeons have from time to time deposited grains of barley on the dome, and finding sustenance from the gathered dirt and the falling rains, they have sprouted and grown, and dotted the grand old mosque with patches of green vegetation. One corner of the orchard is occupied by a stable, to the flat roof of which I betake myself shortly after our arrival to try and ascertain my bearings, and see something of the village. High walls rise up between the roofs of the houses and divide one garden from another, so that precious little opportunity exists for observation immediately around, and from here not even the tall minarets of Herat are visible. The adjacent houses are mostly bee-hive roofed, and within the little gardens attached the soil is evidently rich and productive. Pomegranate, almond, and apricot trees abound, and produce a charming contrast to the prevailing crenellated mud walls. A very conspicuous feature of the village is a cluster of some half-dozen venerable cedars. The stable roof provides sleeping accommodation for the chief of the sowars, Kiftan Sahib, and myself, the remainder of the party curl themselves up beneath the apricot-trees below. During the night one of the sowars, an old fellow whose morose and sulky disposition has had the effect of rendering him socially objectionable to his comrades on the march from Furrah, comes scrambling on the roof, and in loud tones of complaint addresses himself to Kiftan Sahib's peacefully snoozing proportions. His midnight eruption consists of some grievance against his fellows; perhaps some such wanton act of injustice as appropriating his blanket or stealing his "timbakoo" (tobacco). The only satisfaction he obtains from his superior takes the form of angry upbraidings for daring to disturb our slumbers; and, continuing his complaints, Kiftan. Sahib springs up from beneath his red blanket and administers several resounding cuffs. Having meted our this summary interpretation of Afghan petty justice, Kiftan Sahib resumes his blanket, and the old sowar comes and squats alongside my own rude couch, and endeavors to heal his wounded spirit by muttering appeals to Allah. His savage groanings render it impossible for me to go to sleep, and several times I motion him away; but he affects not to take any notice. Determined to drive him away, I rise up hastily as though about to attack him,--a piece of strategy that causes him to scramble off the roof far quicker than he climbed on. His fit of rage lasts through the night, finding vent in mutterings that are heard long after his hurried departure from my vicinity, and in the morning he is seen perched in a corner of the wall by himself, still angry and unappeased. The rising sun ushers in May-day with unmistakable indications of his growing powers, and when he glares fiercely over the walls of our little orchard retreat, we find it profitable to crouch in the shade. It is already evident that I am not to be permitted to enter Herat proper, or see or learn any more of my surroundings than my keepers can help. Letters are forwarded to the city immediately upon our arrival, and on the following morning an officer and several soldiers make their appearance, to receive me from Kiftan Sahib and duly receipt for my transfer. The officer announces himself as having once been to Bombay, and proceeds to question me in a mixture of Persian and Hindostani. Finding me ignorant of the latter language, he openly accuses me of being a Russian, raising his finger and wagging his head in a deprecatory manner. He is a simple-minded individual, however, and open to easy conviction, and moreover inclined to be amiable and courteous. He tells me that Faramorz Khan is "Wall of the soldiers" and Niab Alookimah Khan the "dowleh" (civil governor), and after listening to my explanation of being English and not Russian, he takes upon himself to deliver salaams from them both. "Merg Sahib," the political agent of the Boundary Commission, he says is at Murghab, and "Ridgeway Sahib" at Maimene. Learning that a courier is to be sent at once to them with letters in regard to myself, I quickly embrace the opportunity of sending a letter to each by the same messenger, explaining the situation, and asking Colonel Ridgeway to try and render me some assistance in getting through to India. By request of the officer I send the governor of Herat a sketch of the bicycle, to enlighten him somewhat concerning its character and appearance. No doubt, it would be a stretching of his Asiatic dignity as the governor of an important city, to come to Rosebagh on purpose to see it for himself, and on no circumstances can I, an unauthorized Ferenghi invading the country against orders, be permitted to visit Herat. The transfer having been duly made, I am conducted, a mile or so, to the garden of a gentleman named Mohammed Ahziin Khan, my quarters there being an open bungalow just large enough to stretch out in. Here is provided everything necessary for the rude personal comfort of the country, and such additional luxuries as raisins and pomegranates are at once brought. Here, also, I very promptly make the acquaintance of Moore's famous bul-buls, the "sweet nightingales" of Lalla Eookh. The garden is full of fruit-trees and grape-vines, and here several pairs of bul-buls make their home. They are great pets with the Afghans, and when Mohammed Ahzim Khan calls "bul-bul, bul-bul," they come and alight on the bushes close by the bungalow and perk their heads knowingly, evidently expecting to be favored with tid-bits. They are almost tame enough to take raisins out of the hand, and hesitate not to venture after them when placed close to our feet. It is the first time I have had the opportunity of a close examination of the bul-bul. They are almost the counterpart of the English starling as regards size and shape, but their bodies are of a mousey hue; the head and throat are black, with little white patches on either "cheek;" the tail feathers are black, tipped with white, and on the lower part of the body is a patch of yellow; the feathers of the head form a crest that almost rises to the dignity of a tassel. While the bul-bul is a companionable little fellow and possessed of a cheery voice, his warble in no respects resembles the charming singing of the nightingale, and why he should be mentioned in connection with the sweet midnight songster of the English woodlands is something of a mystery. His song is a mere "clickety click" repeated rapidly several times. His popularity comes chiefly from his boldness and his companionable associations with mankind. The bul-bul is as much of a favorite in the Herat Valley as is robin red-breast in rural England, or the bobolink in America. The second day in the garden is remembered as the anniversary of my start from Liverpool, and I have plenty of time for retrospection. It is unnecessary to say that the year has been crowded with strange experiences. Not the least strange of all, perhaps, is my present predicament as a prisoner in the Herat Valley. In the afternoon there arrives from Herat a Peshawari gentleman named Mirza Gholam Ahmed, who is stationed here in the capacity of native agent for the Indian government. He is an individual possessed of considerable Asiatic astuteness, and his particular mission is very plainly to discover for the governor of Herat whether I am English or Russian. He is a somewhat fleshy, well-favored person, and withal of prepossessing manners. He introduces himself by shaking hands and telling me his name, and forthwith indulges in a pinch of snuff preparatory to his task of interrogation. Accompanying him is the officer who received me from Kiftan Sahib in the apricot garden, and whose suspicions of my being a Russian spy are anything but allayed. During the interview he squats down on the threshold of the little bungalow, and concentrates his curiosity and suspicion into a protracted penetrating stare, focused steadily at my devoted countenance. Mohammed Ahzim Khan imitates him to perfection, except that his stare contains more curiosity and less suspicion. Mirza Gholam Ahmed proceeds upon his mission of fathoming the secret of my nationality with extreme wariness, as becomes an Oriental official engaged in a task of significant import, and at first confines himself to the use of Persian and Hindostani. It does not take me long, however, to satisfy the trustworthy old Peshawari that I am not a Muscov, and fifteen minutes after his preliminary pinch of snuff, he is unbosoming himself to me to the extent of letting me know that he served with General Pollock on the Seistan Boundary Commission, that he went with General Pollock to London, and moreover rejoices in the titular distinction of C. I. E. (Companion Indian Empire), bestowed upon him for long and faithful civil and political services. The C. I. E. he designates, with a pardonable smile of self-approval, as "backsheesh" given him, without solicitation, by the government of India; a circumstance that probably appeals to his Oriental conception as a most extraordinary feature in his favor. Bribery, favoritism, and personal influence enter so largely into the preferments and rewards of Oriental governments, that anything obtained on purely meritorious grounds may well be valued highly. He understands English sufficiently well to comprehend the meaning of my remarks and queries, and even knows a few words himself. From him I learn that I will not be permitted to visit Herat, and that I am to be kept under guard until Faramorz Khan's courier returns from the Boundary Commission Camp with Colonel Ridgeway's answer. He tells me that the fame of the bicycle has long ago been brought to Herat by pilgrims returning from Meshed, and the marvellous stories of my accomplishments are current in the bazaars. Fourteen farsakhs (fifty-six miles) an hour, and nothing said about the condition of the roads, is the average Herati's understanding of it; and many a grave, turbaned merchant in the bazaar, and wild warrior on the ramparts, indulges in day-dreams of an iron horse little less miraculous in its deeds than the winged steed of the air we read of in the Arabian Nights. The direct results of Mirza Gholam Ahmed's visit and favorable report to the Governor of Herat, are made manifest on the following day by the appearance of his companion of yesterday in charge of two attendants, bringing me boxes of sweetmeats, almonds, raisins, and salted nuts, together with a package of tea and a fifteen-pound cone of loaf-sugar; all backsheesh from the Governor of Herat. Mirza Gholam Ahmed himself contributes a cake of toilet soap, a few envelopes and sheets of paper, and Huntley & Palmer's Beading biscuits. Upon stumbling upon these latter acceptable articles, one naturally falls to wondering whether this world-famed firm of biscuit-makers suspect that their wares sometimes penetrate even inside the battlemented walls of Herat. With them come also three gunsmiths, charged with the duty of assisting in the reparation of the bicycle, badly damaged by the horse, it is remembered, on the way from Furrah. Their implements consist of a pair of peculiar goat-skin bellows, provided with wooden nozzles tipped with iron. A catgut bowstring drills for boring holes, and screw-drills for cutting threads, hammers, and an anvil. A rude but ingenious forge is constructed out of a few handfuls of stiff mud, and, building a charcoal fire, they spend the evening in sharpening and tempering drills for tomorrow's operations. Everybody seems more attentive and anxious to contribute to my pleasure, the result, evidently, of orders from Herat. The officer, who but two days ago openly accused me of being a Russian, is to-day obsequious beyond measure, and his efforts to atone for Ma openly assured suspicions are really quite painful and embarrassing; even going the length of begging me to take him with me to London. The supper provided to-day consists of more courses and is better cooked and better served; Mohammed Ahzim Khan himself squats before me, diligently engaged in picking hairs out of the butter, pointing out what he considers the choicest morsels, and otherwise betrays great anxiety to do the agreeable. The whole of the fifth and sixth days are consumed in the task of repairing the damages to the bicycle, the result being highly satisfactory, considering everything. Six new spokes that I have with me have been inserted, and sundry others stretched and the ends newly threaded. The gunsmiths are quite expert workmen, considering the tools they have to work with, and when they happen to drill a hole a trifle crooked, they are full of apologies, and remind me that this is Afghanistan and not Frangistan. They know and appreciate good material when they see it, and during the process of heating and stretching the spokes, loud and profuse are the praises bestowed upon the quality of the iron. "Koob awhan," they say, "Khylie koob awhan; Ferenghi awhan koob." As artisans, interested in mechanical affairs, the ball-bearings of the pedals, one of which I take apart to show them, excites their profound admiration as evidence of the marvellous skill of the Ferenghis. Much careful work is required to spring the rim of the wheel back into a true circle, every spoke having to be loosened and the whole wheel newly adjusted. Except for the handy little spoke-vice which I very fortunately brought with me, this work of adjustment would have been impossible. As there is probably nothing obtainable in Herat that would have answered the purpose, no alternative would have been left but to have carried the bicycle out of the country on horseback. After the coterie of gunsmiths have exhausted their ingenuity and my own resources have been expended, three spokes are missing entirely, two others are stretched and weakened, and of the six new ones some are forced into holes partially spoiled in the unskillful boring out of broken ends. Yet, with all these defects, so thoroughly has it stood the severest tests of the roads, that I apprehend little or no trouble about breakages. Day after day passes wearily along; wearily, notwithstanding the kindly efforts of my guardians to make things pleasant and comfortable. From an Asiatic's standpoint, nothing could be more desirable than my present circumstances; with nothing to do but lay around and be waited on, generous meals three times daily, sweetmeats to nibble and tea to drink the whole livelong day; conscious of requiring rest and generous diet--all this, however, is anything but satisfactory in view of the reflection that the fine spring weather is rapidly passing away, and that every day ought to see me forty or fifty miles nearer the Pacific Coast. Time hangs heavily in the absence of occupation, and I endeavor to relieve the tedium of slowly creeping time by cultivating the friendship of our new-found acquaintances, the bul-buls. My bountiful supply of raisins provides the elements of a genuine bond of sympathy between us, and places us on the most friendly terms imaginable from the beginning. During the day my bungalow is infested with swarms of huge robber ants, that make a most determined onslaught on the raisins and sweetmeats, invading the boxes and lugging them off to their haunts among the grape-vines. A favorite occupation of the bul-buls is sitting on a twig just outside the bungalow and watching for the appearance of these ants dragging away raisins. The bul-bul hops to the ground, seizes the raisin, shakes the ant loose, flies back up in his tree, and swallows the captured raisin, and immediately perks his head in search of another prize. Among other ideas intended to contribute to my enjoyment, a loud-voiced pee-wit imprisoned in a crape cage is brought and hung up outside the bungalow. At intervals that seem almost as regular as the striking of a clock, this interesting pet stretches itself up at full length and gives utterance to a succession of rasping cries, strangely loud for so small a creature. A horse is likewise brought into the garden, for the pleasure it will presumably afford me to watch it munch bunches of pulled grass, and switch horseflies away with his tail. The horse is tied up about twenty yards from my quarters, but in his laudable zeal to cater to my amusement Mohammed Ahzim Khan volunteers to station it close by if more agreeable. All these trifling occurrences serve to illustrate the Asiatic's idea of personal enjoyment. Every day a subordinate called Abdur Rahman Khan rides into Herat to report to the Governor, and Mohammed Ahzim Khan himself keeps watch and ward over my person with faithful vigil. Sometimes I wander about the little garden for exercise, and either he or one of his assistants follows close behind, faithful in their attendance as a shadow. Occasionally I grow careless and indifferent about possible danger, and leave my revolver hanging up in the bungalow; noticing its absence, he bids me buckle it around me, saying warningly, "Afghanistan; Afghanistan;" he also watches me retire at night to make sure that I put it under my pillow. One day, a visitor appears upon the scene, carrying a walking-cane. Mohammed Ahzim Khan pounces upon him instantly and I grabbing the stick, examines it closely, evidently suspicious lest it should be a sword-stick. He is the most persistent "gazer" I have yet met in Asia; hour after hour he squats on his hams at my feet and stares intently into my face, as though trying hard to read my inmost thoughts. Oriental-like, he is fascinated by the mystery of my appearance here, and there is no such thing as shaking off his silent, wondering gaze for a minute. He is on hand promptly in the morning to watch my rude matinual toilet, and he always watches me retire for the night. Even when I betake myself to a retired part of the garden in the dusk of evening to take a sluice-bath with a bucket of water, his white-robed figure is always loitering near. Four men are stationed about my bungalow at night; their respective armaments vary from a Martini-Henry rifle attached to a picturesque Asiatic stock, owned by Abdur Rahman Khan, to an immense knobbed cudgel wielded by a titleless youth named Osman. Osman's sole wardrobe consists of a coarse night-shirt style of garment, that in the early part of its career was probably white, but which is now neither white nor equal to the task of protecting him from the penetrating rays of the summer sun. His occupation appears to be that of all-round utility man for whomsoever cares to order him about. Osman has to bring water and pour it on my hands whenever I want to wash, hie him away to the bazaar to search for dates or anything my epicurean taste demands in addition to what is provided, feed the horse, change the position of the pee-wit to keep it in the shade, sweep out my bungalow, and perform all sorts of menial offices. Every noble loafer about my person seems anxious to have Osman continually employed in contributing to my comfort; Mohammed Ahzim Khan even deprecates the independence displayed in lacing up my own shoes. "Osman," he says, "let Osman do it." Osman's chief characteristic is a reckless disregard for the conventionalities of social life and religion; he never seems to bother himself about either washing his person or saying his prayers. Somewhere, not far away, every evening the faithful are summoned to prayer by a muezzin with the most musical and pathetic voice I have heard in all Islam. The voice of this muezzin calling "Allah-il-A-l-l-a-h," as it comes floating over the houses and gardens in the calm silence of the summer evenings, is wonderfully impressive. From the pulpits of all Christendom I have yet to hear an utterance so full of pathos and supplication, or that carries with it the impressions of such deep sincerity as the "Allah-il-A-l-l-a-h" of this Afghan muezzin in the Herat Valley. It is a supplication to the throne of grace that rings in my ears even as I write, months after, and it touches the hearts of every Afghan within hearing and taps the fountain of their piety like magic. It calls forth responsive prayers and pious sighings from everybody around my bungalow--everybody except Osman. Osman can scarcely be called imperturbable, for he has his daily and hourly moods, and is of varying temper; but he carries himself always as though conscious of being an outcast, whom nothing can either elevate or defile. When his fellow Mussulmans are piously prostrating themselves and uttering religious sighs sincere as fanaticism can make them, Osman is either curled up beneath a pomegranate bush asleep, feeding the horse, or attending to the pee-wit. Observing this, I often wonder whether he is considered, or considers himself, too small a potato in this world to hope for any attention from the Prophet in the next. The paradise of the Mohammedans, its shady groves, marble fountains, walled gardens, and cool retreats, its kara ghuz kiz and wealth of material pleasures, no doubt seem to poor Osman, with his one tattered garment and unhappy servility, far beyond the aspirations of such as he. Like the gutter-snipe of London or New York who gazes into the brilliant shop windows, he feels privileged to feast his imagination, perchance, but that is all. Big bouquets of roses are gathered for me every morning, and when the store in our own little garden is exhausted they are procured from somewhere else. The efforts of those about me to render my forced detention as pleasant as possible is very gratifying, and all the time I am buoyed up by the hope that the Boundary Commissioners will be able to do something to help me get through to India. The Boundary Commission camp is stationed over two hundred miles from Herat; eight days roll wearily by and my movements are still carefully confined to the little garden, and my person attended by guards day and night. Every day I amuse myself with giving raisins to the robber ants, for the sake of seeing the ever-watchful bul-buls pounce upon them and rob them. Morning and evening the imprisoned pee-wit awakens the echoes with his ratchetty call, and every sunset is commemorated by the sincerely plaintive utterances of the muezzin mentioned above. Thus the days of my detention pass away, until the ninth day after my arrival here. On the evening of May 8th, the officer who first interviewed me in the apricot orchard comes to my bungalow, and brings salaams from Faramorz Khan. He and Mohammed Ahzim Khan, after a brief discussion between themselves, commence telling me, in the same roundabout manner as the blue-gowned Khan at Furrah, that the Ameer at Cabool has no control over the fanatical nomads of Zemindavar. Mohammed Ahzim Khan draws his finger across his throat, and the officer repeats "Afghan badmash, badmash, b-a-d-m-a-s-h." (desperado). This parrot-like repetition is uttered in accents so pleaful, and is, withal, accompanied by such a searching stare into my face, that its comicality for the minute overcomes any sense of disappointment at the fall of my hopes. For my experience at Furrah teaches me that this is really the object of their visit. Another ingenious argument of these polite and, after a certain childish fashion, astute Asiatics, is a direct appeal to my magnaminity. "We know you are brave, and to accomplish your object would even allow the Ghilzais to cut your throat; but the Wali begs you to sacrifice yourself for the reputation of his country, by keeping out of danger," they plead. "If you get killed, Afghanistan will get a bad name." They are in dead earnest about converting me by argument and pleadings to their view of the case. I point out that, so far as the reputation of Afghanistan is concerned, there can be little difference between forbidding travellers to go through for fear of their getting murdered, and their actual killing. I remind them, too, that I am a "nokshi," and can let the people of Frangistan understand this if I am turned back. These arguments, of course, avail me nothing; the upshot of instructions received from the Boundary Commission camp, is that I am to be conducted at once back into Persia. Horses have to be shod, and all sorts of preparations made next morning, and it is near about noon before we are ready to start. Our destination is the Persian frontier village of Karize, about one hundred miles to the west. Everything is finally ready; when it transpires that Mohammed Ahzim Khan's orders are to put me on a horse and carry the bicycle on another. This programme I utterly refuse to sanction, knowing only too well what the result is likely to be to the bicycle. In defence of the arrangement, Mohammed Ahzim Khan argues that, as the bicycle goes fourteen farsakhs an hour, the horses will not be able to keep up; and strict orders are issued from Herat that I am not to separate myself from my escort while on Afghan territory. Off posts Abdur Kahman Khan, hot haste to Herat, to report the difficulty to the Governor, while we return to the garden. It being too late in the day when he returns, our departure is postponed till morning, and Osman, with his knobbed stick, performs the office of nocturnal guard yet once again. During the evening Mohammed Ahzim Khan unearths from somewhere a couple of photographs of English ladies. These, he tells me, came into his possession from one of Ayoob Khan's fugitive warriors after their dispersion in the Herat Valley, on their flight before General Roberts' command at Kandahar. They were among the effects gathered up by Ayoob Khan's plundering crew from the disastrous field of Maiwand. CHAPTER XII. TAKEN BACK TO PERSIA. The Governor of Herat sends "khylie salaams" and permission for me to ride the bicycle, stipulating that I keep near the escort. So, with many an injunction to me about dasht-adam, kooh, dagh, etc., by way of warning me against venturing too far ahead, we bid farewell to the garden, with its strange associations, in the early morning. Beside Mohammed Ahzim Khan and myself are three sowars, mounted on splendid horses. The morning is bright and cheerful, and shortly after starting the animal spirits of the sowars find vent in song. I have been laboring under the impression that, for soul-harrowing vocal effort, the wild-eyed sowars of Khorassan, as exemplified in my escort from Beerjand, were entitled to the worst execrations of a discriminating Ferenghi, but the Afghans can go them one better. If it is possible to imagine anything in the whole world of sound more jarring and discordant than the united efforts of these Afghan sowars, I have never yet discovered it. Out of pure consideration and courtesy, I endure it for some little time; but they finally reach a high-searching key that is positively unendurable, and I am compelled in sheer self-protection to beg the khan to suppress their exuberance. "These men are not bul-buls; then why do they sing?" is all that is necessary for me to say. They all laugh heartily at the remark, and the khan orders them to sing no more. Over a country that consists chiefly of trailless hills and intervening strips of desert, we wend our weary way, the bicycle often proving more of a drag than a benefit. The weather gets insufferably hot; in places the rocks fairly shimmer with heat, and are so hot that one can scarce hold the hand to them. We camp for the first night at a village, and on the second at an umbar that suggests our approach to Persia, and in the morning we make an early start with the object of reaching Karize before evening. The day grows warm apace, and, at ten miles, the khan calls a halt for the discussion of what simple refreshments we have with us. Our larder embraces dry bread and cold goat-meat and a few handfuls of raisins. It ought also to include water in the leathern bottle swinging from the stirrup of one of the sowars; but when we halt, it is to discover that this worthy has forgotten to fill his bottle. The way has been heavy for a bicycle, trundling wearily through sand mainly, with no riding to speak of; and young as is the day, I am well-nigh overcome with thirst and weariness. I am too thirsty to eat, and, miserably tired and disgusted, one gets an instructive lesson in the control of the mind over the body. Much of my fatigue comes of low spirits, born of disappointment at being conducted back into Persia. One of the sowars is despatched ahead to fill his bottle with water at a well known to be some five miles farther ahead, and to meet us with it on the way. On through the sand and heat we plod wearily, myself almost sick with thirst, fatigue, and disgust. Mohammed Ahzim Khan, observing my wretched condition, insists upon me letting one of the sowars try his hand at trundling the wheel, while I rest myself by riding his horse. Both the sowars bravely try their best to relieve me, but they cut ridiculous figures, toppling over every little while. At length one of them upsets the bicycle into a little gully, and falling on it, snaps asunder two spokes. The khan gives him a good tongue-lashing for his carelessness; but one can hardly blame the fellow, and I take it under my own protection again, before it goes farther and fares worse. About 2 p.m. the sowar sent forward meets us with water; but it is almost undrinkable. Far better luck awaits us, however, farther along. Sighting an Eimuck camel-rider in the distance, one of the sowars gives chase and halts him until we can come up. Slung across his camel he has a skin of doke, the most welcome thing one can wish for under the circumstances. Everybody helps himself liberally of the refreshing beverage, shrinking the Eimuck's supply very perceptibly. The Eimuck joins heartily with our party in laughing at the altered contour of the pliant skin, as pointed out jocularly by Mohammed Ahzim Khan, bids us "salaam aleykum," and pursues his way across country. During the afternoon we cross several well-worn trails; though evidently but little used of late, they have seen much travel. My escort explains that they are daman trails, in other words the trails worn by Turkoman raiders passing back and forth on their man-stealing expeditions, before their subjugation by the Russians. By and by we emerge from a belt of low hills, and descend into a broad, level plain. A few miles off to the right can be seen the Heri Rood, its sinuous course plainly outlined by a dark fringe of jungle. Some miles ahead the village-fortress of Kafir Kaleh is visible. A horseman comes galloping across the plain to intercept us. Mohammed Ahzim Khan produces his written orders concerning my delivery at Karize and reads it to the new arrival. Thereupon ensues a long explanation, which ends in, our turning about and following the new-comer across the trailless plain toward the Heri Rood. "What's up now?" I wonder; but the only intelligible reply I get in reply to queries is that we are going to camp in the jungle. Misgivings as to possible foul play mingle with speculations regarding this person's mission, as I follow in the wake of the Afghans. We camp on a plot of rising ground that elevates us above the overflow, and shortly after our arrival we are visited by a band of nomads who are hunting through the jungle with greyhounds, Mohammed Ahzim Khan informs me that both baabs, and palangs (panthers) are to be found along the Heri Rood. Luxuriant beds of the green stuff known in the United States as lamb's-quarter, abound, and I put one of the sowars to gathering some with the idea of cooking it for supper. None of our party know anything about its being good to eat, and Mohammed Ahzim Khan shakes his head vigorously in token of disapproval. A nomad visitor, however, corroborates my statement about its edibleness, and fills our chief with wonderment that I should know something in common with an Afghan nomad, that he, a resident of the country, knows nothing about. By way of stimulating his wonderment still further, I proceed to call off the names of the various nomad tribes inhabiting Afghanistan, together with their locations. "Where did you learn all this." he queries, evidently suspicious that I have been picking up altogether too much information. "London," I reply. "London!" he says; "Mashallah! they know everything at London." The horseman who intercepted us rode away when we camped for the night. Nothing more was seen of him, and at a late hour I turn in for the night --if one can be said to turn in, when the process takes the form of stretching one's self out on the open ground. No explanation of our detention here has been given me during the evening, and as I lay down to sleep all sorts of speculations are indulged in, varying from having my throat cut before morning, to a reconsideration by the authorities of the orders sending me back to Persia. Some time in the night I am awakened. A strange horseman has arrived in camp with a letter for me. He wears the uniform of a military courier. The sowars make a blaze of brushwood for me to read by. It is a letter from Mr. Merk, the political agent of the Boundary Commission. It is a long letter, full of considerate language, but no instructions affecting the orders of my escort. Mr. Merk explains why Mahmoud Yusuph Khan could not take the responsibility of allowing me to proceed to Kandahar. The population of Zemindavar, he points out, are particularly fanatical and turbulent, and I should very probably have been murdered; etc. The march toward Karize is resumed in good season in the morning. "What was that? a cuckoo?" At first I can scarcely believe my own senses, the idea of cuckoos calling in the jungles of Afghanistan being about the last thing I should have expected to hear, never having read of travellers hearing them anywhere in Central Asia, nor yet having heard them myself before. But there is no mistake; for ere we pass Kafir Kaleh, I hear the familiar notes again and again. The road is a decided improvement over anything we have struck since leaving Herat, and by noon we arrive at Karize. For some inexplicable reason the Sooltan of Karize receives our party with very ill grace. He looks sick, and is probably suffering from fever, which may account for the evident sourness of his disposition. Mohammed Ahzim Khan is anything but pleased at our reception, and as soon as he receives the receipt for my delivery makes his preparations to return. I don't think the Sooltan even tendered my escort a feed of grain for their horses, a piece of inhospitality wholly out of place in this wild country. As for myself, he simply orders a villager to supply me with food and quarters, and charge me for it. Mohammed Ahzim Khan comes to my quarters to bid me good-by, and he takes the opportunity to explain "this is Iran, not Afghanistan. Iran, pool; Afghanistan, pool neis." There is no need of explanation, however; the people rubbing their fingers eagerly together and crying, "pool, pool," when I ask for something to eat, tells me plainer than any explanations that I am back again among our pool-loving friends, the subjects of the Shah. As I bid Mohammed Ahzim Khan farewell, I feel almost like parting--from a friend; he is a good fellow, and with nine-tenths of his inquisitiveness suppressed, would make a very agreeable companion. And so, here I am within a hundred and sixty miles of Meshed again. More than a month has flown past since I last looked back upon its golden dome; it has been an eventful month. My experiences have been exceptional and instructive, but I ought now to be enjoying the comforts of the English camp at Quetta, instead of halting overnight in the mud huts of the surly Sooltan of Karize. The female portion of Karize society make no pretence of covering up their faces, which impresses me the more as I have seen precious little of female faces since entering Afghanistan. All the women of Karize are ugly; a fact that I attribute to the handsomest specimens being carried off to Bokhara, for decades past, by the Turkomans. The people that assemble to gaze upon me are the same sore-eyed crowd that characterizes most Persian villages; and among them is one man totally blind. The loss of sight has not dimmed his inquisitiveness any, however; nothing could do that, and he gets someone to lead him into my room, where he makes an exhaustive examination of the bicycle with his hands. A village luti entertains me during the evening with a dancing deer; a comical affair of wood, made to dance on a table by jerking a string. The luti plays a sort of "whangadoodle" tune on a guitar, and manipulates the string so as to make the deer keep time to the tune. He tells me he obtained it from Hindostan. Among the wiseacres gathered around me plying questions, is one who asks, "Chand menzils inja to London?" He wants to know how many marches, or stopping-places, there are between Karize and London. This is a fair illustration of what these people think the world is like. His idea of a journey from here to London is that of stages across a desert country like Persia from one caravanserai to another; beyond that conception these people know nothing. London, they think, would be some such place as Herat or Meshed. At the hour of my departure from Karize, on the following morning, a little old man presents himself, and wants me to employ him as an escort. The old fellow is a shrivelled-up little bit of a man, whom I could well-nigh hold out at arm's length and lift up with one hand. Not feeling the need of either guide or guard particularly, I decline the old fellow's services "with thanks," and push on; happy, in fact, to find myself once more untrammelled by native company. Small towers of refuge, dotting the plain thickly about Karize, tell of past depredations by the Turkomans. An outlying village like Karize must, indeed, have had a hard struggle for existence; right in the heart of the daman country, too. For miles the plain is found to be grassy as the Western prairies; an innovation from the dreary gray of the camel-thorn dasht that is quite refreshing. A stream or two has to be forded, and many Afghans are met returning from pilgrimage to Meshed. The village of Torbet-i-Sheikh Jahm is reached at noon, a pleasant town containing many shade-trees. Here, I find, resides Ab-durrahzaak Khan, a sub-agent of Mirza Abbas Khan, and consequently a servant of the Indian Government. He is one of the frontier agents, whose duty it is to keep track of events in a certain section of country and report periodically to headquarters. He, of course, receives me hospitably, does the agreeable with tea and kalians, and provides substantial refreshments. The soothing Shi-razi tobacco provided with his kalians, and the excellent quality of his tea, provoke me to make comparison between them and the wretched productions of Afghanistan. Abdurrahzaak laughs good-humoredly at my remark, and replies, "Mashallah! there is nothing good in Afghanistan." He isn't far from right; and the English officer who named the products of Afghanistan as "stones and fighting men" came equally near the truth. Fair roads prevail for some distance after leaving Torbet-i-Sheikh Jahm; a halt is made at an Eliaute camp to refresh myself with a bowl of doke. A picturesque dervish emerges from one of the tents and presents his alms-receiver, with "huk yah huk." Both man and voice seem familiar, and after a moment I recognize him as a familiar figure upon the streets of Teheran last winter. He says he is going to Cabool and Kandahar. A unique feature of his makeup is a staff with a bayonet fixed on the end, in place of the usual club or battle-axe. The night is spent in an Eliaute camp; nummuds seem scarce articles with them, and I spend a cold and uncomfortable night, scarcely sleeping a wink. The camp is not far from the village of Mahmoudabad, and a rowdy gang of ryots come over to camp in the middle of the night, having heard of my arrival. From Mahmoudabad the road follows up a narrow valley with a range of hills running parallel on either hand. The southern range are quite respectable mountains, with lingering patches of snow, and--can it be possible!--even a few scattering pines. Pines, and, for that matter, trees of any kind, are so scarce in this country that one can hardly believe the evidence of his own eyes when he sees them. On past the village of Karizeno my road leads, passing through a hard, gravelly country, the surface generally affording fair riding except for a narrow belt of sand-hills. At Karizeno, a glimpse is obtained of our old acquaintances the Elburz Mountains, near Shah-riffabad. They are observed to be somewhat snow-crowned still, though to a measurably less extent than they were when we last viewed them on the road to Torbeti. The approach of evening brings my day's ride to a close at Furriman, a village of considerable size, partially protected by a wall and moat, Stared at by the assembled population, and enduring their eager gabble all the evening, and then a nummud on the roof of a villager's house till morning. The night is cold, and sleeplessness, with shivering body, again rewards me for a long, hard day's journey. But now it is but about six farsakhs to Meshed, where, "Inshallah," a good bed and all kindred comforts await me beneath Mr. Gray's hospitable roof. Ere the forenoon is passed the familiar gold dome once again appears as a glowing yellow beacon, beckoning me across the Meshed plain. A camel runs away and unseats his rider in deference to his timidity at my strange appearance as I bowl briskly across the Meshed plain at noon. By one o'clock I am circling around the moat of the city, and by two am snugly ensconced in my old quarters, relating the adventures of the last five weeks to Gray, and receiving from him in exchange the latest scraps of European news. I have made the one hundred and sixty miles from Karize in two days and a half--not a bad showing with a bicycle that has been tinkered up by Herati gunsmiths. Among other interesting items of news, it is learned that a hopeful Meshedi blacksmith has been inspired to try his "prentice hand" at making a bicycle. One would like to have seen that bicycle, but somehow I didn't get an opportunity. Friendly telegrams reach me from Teheran, and also another order from the British Legation, instructing me not to attempt Afghanistan again. Since my departure from Meshed, southward bound, another wandering correspondent has invaded the Holy City. Mr. E------, "special" of a great London daily paper, whom I had the pleasure of meeting once or twice in Teheran, has come eastward in an effort to enter Afghanistan. He has been halted by peremptory orders at Meshed. Disgusted with his ill-luck at not being permitted to carry out his plans, he is on the eve of returning to Constantinople. As I am heading for the same point myself, we arrange to travel there in company. Being somewhat under the weather from a recent attack of fever, he has contracted for a Russian fourgon to carry him as far as Shahrood, the farthest point on our route to which vehicular conveyance is practicable. Our purpose is to reach the Caspian port of Bunder Guz, thence embark on a Russian steamer to Baku, over the Caucasus Railway to Batoum, thence by Black Sea steamer to Constantinople. On the afternoon of May 18th, R------makes a start with the fourgon. It is a custom (unalterable as the laws of, etc.) with all Persians starting on a journey of any length to go a short distance only for the first stage. The object of this is probably to find out by actual experience on the road whether anything has been forgotten or overlooked, before they get too far away to return and rectify the mistake. Semi-civilized peoples are wedded very strongly to the customs in vogue among them, and the European traveller finds himself compelled, more or less, to submit to them. My intention is to overtake the fourgon the following day at Shahriffabad. Accordingly, soon after sunrise on the morrow, the road around the outer moat of Meshed is circled once again. A middle-aged descendant of the Prophet, riding a graceful dapple-gray mare, spurs his steed into a swinging gallop for about five miles across the level plain in an effort to bear me company. Three miles farther, and for miles over the steep and unridable gradients of the Shah-riffabad hills, I may anticipate the delights of having his horse's nose at my shoulder, and my heels in constant jeopardy. To avoid this, I spurt ahead, and ere long have the satisfaction of seeing him give it up. In the foothills I encounter, for the first time, one of those characteristics of Mohammedan countries, and more especially of Persia, a caravan of the dead. Thousands of bodies are carried every year, on horseback or on camels, from various parts of Persia, to be buried in holy ground at Meshed, Kerbella, or Mecca. The corpses are bound about with canvas, and slung, like bales of merchandise, one on either side of the horse. The stench from one of these corpse-caravans is something fearful, nothing more nor less than the horrible stench of putrid human bodies. And yet the drivers seem to mind it very little indeed. One stout horse in the party I meet this morning carries two corpses; and in the saddle between them rides a woman. "Mashallah." perchance those very bodies, between which she sits perched so indifferently, are the remains of small-pox victims. But, what cares the woman?--is she not a Mohammedan, and a female one at that?--and does she not believe in kismet. What cares she for Ferenghi "sanitary fads?"--if it is her kismet to take the small-pox, she will take it; if it is her kismet not to, she won't. One would think, however, that common sense and common prudence would instruct these people to imitate the excellent example of the Chinese, in taking measures to dispose of the flesh before transporting the bones to distant burial-places. Many of the epidemics of disease that decimate the populations of Eastern countries, and sometimes travel into the West, originate from these abominable caravans of the dead and kindred irrationalities of the illogical and childlike Oriental. As the golden dome of Imam Riza's sanctuary glimmers upon my retreating figure yet a fourth time as I reach the summit of the hill whence we first beheld it, I breathe a silent hope that I may never set eyes on it again. The fourgon is overtaken, as agreed upon, at Shahriffabad, and after an hour's halt we conclude to continue on to the caravanserai, where, it will be remembered, my friend the hadji and Mazanderan dervish and myself found shelter from the blizzard. B___'s Turkish servant, Abdul, a handy fellow, speaking three or four languages, and numbering, among other accomplishments, the knack of always having on hand plenty of cold chicken and mutton, is a vast improvement upon obtaining food direct from the villagers. Resting here till 2 a.m., we make a moonlight march to Gadamgah, arriving there for breakfast. The trail is a revelation of smoothness, in comparison to my expectations, based upon its condition a few weeks ago. The moon is about full, and gives a light as it only does in Persia, and one can see to ride the parallel camel-paths very successfully. Persians are very much given to night-travelling, and as I ride well ahead of the fourgon, the strange, weird object, gliding noiselessly along through the moonlight, fills many a superstitious pilgrim with misgivings that he has caught a glimpse of Sheitan. I can hear them rapidly muttering "Allah." as they edge off the road and hurry along on their way. Many Arabs from the Lower Euphrates valley are now mingled with the pilgrim throngs en route to Meshed. They are evil-looking customers, black as negroes almost; they look capable of any atrocity under the sun. These Arab pilgrims are hadjis almost to a man, coming, as they do, from much nearer Mecca than the Persians; but their holiness does not prevent them bearing the unenviable reputation of being the most persistent thieves. Abdul knows them well, and when any of them are about, keeps a sharp lookout to see that none of them approach our things. On the following evening, at a caravanserai near Nishapoor, we meet and spend the night with a French scientific party of three sent out by the Paris Geographical Society to make geographical and geological researches in Turkestan. The three Frenchmen are excellent company; they entertain us with European news, their views on the political aspect, and of incidents on their fourgon journey from Tiflis. Among their charvadars is a man who saw me last autumn at Ovahjik. Much good riding surface prevails, and we pass the night of the 21st at Lafaram. The crowds that everywhere gather about us are very annoying to K------, whose fever and consequent weakness is hardly calculated to sweeten his temper under trying circumstances. A whole swarm of women gather to stare at us at Lafaram. "I'll soon scatter them, anyway," says R------; and he reaches for a pair of binoculars hanging up in the fourgon. Adjusting them to his eyes, he levels them at the bunch of females, expecting to see them scatter like a flock of partridges. Scattering is evidently about the last thing the women are thinking of doing, however; they merely turn their attention to the binoculars and concentrate their comments upon them instead of on other of our effects, for the moment, but that is all. In the vicinity of Subzowar we find the people engaged in harvesting the crop of opium. The way they do it is to go through the fields of poppy every morning and scarify the green heads with a knife-blade notched for the purpose, like a saw. During the day the milky juice oozes out and solidifies. In the evening the harvesters pass through the fields again, scrape off the exuded opium, and collect it in vessels. This, after the watery substance has been worked out with frequent kneadings and drying, is the opium of commerce. The chief opium emporium of Persia is Shiraz, where buyers ship it by camel-caravan to Bushire for export. Persian opium commands the topmost prices in foreign markets. Here every idler about the villages seems to be amusing himself by working a ball of opium about in his hands, much as a boy delights in handling a chunk of putty. Lumps as large as the fist are freely offered me by friendly people, as they would hand one a piece of bread or a pomegranate; I might collect pounds of the stuff by simply taking what is offered me without the asking. In the caravanserai at Miandasht, Abdul's failure to appreciate our whilom and egotistical friend, the la-de-da telegraph-jee, at his own valuation comes near resulting in a serious fracas. One of Abdul's most valued services is keeping at a respectful distance the crowds of villagers that invariably swarm about us when we halt. In doing this he sometimes flogs about him pretty lively with the whip. As a general thing the natives take this sort of thing in the greatest good humor; in fact, rather enjoy it than otherwise. At Miandasht, however, Abdul's whip happens to fall rather heavily upon the shoulders of the telegraph-jee's farrash, who is in the crowd. This individual, reflecting something of his master's self-esteem, takes exceptions to this, and complains, with the customary Persian elaboration, no doubt, to the consequential head of the place. The consequence is that a gang of villagers, headed by the telegraph-jee himself, gather around, and suddenly attack poor Abdul with clubs. Except for the prompt assistance of R------and myself, he would have been mauled pretty severely. As it is, he gets bruised up rather badly; though he inflicts almost as much damage as he receives, with a hatchet hastily grabbed from the fourgon. The fact of his being a Turk, whom the Persians consider far less holy than themselves, Abdul explains, accounts for the attack on him as much as anything else. A new surprise awaits us at Mijamid, something that we are totally unprepared for. As we reach the chapar-khana there, a voice from the roof greets us with "Sprechen sie Deutsch." Looking up in astonishment, we behold Colonel G------, a German officer in the Shah's army, whom both of us are familiarly acquainted with by sight, from seeing him so often at the morning reviews in the military maiden at Teheran. But this is not all, for with him are his wife and daughter. This is the first time European ladies have traversed the Meshed-Teheran road, Teheran being the farthest point eastward in Persia that lady travellers have heretofore penetrated to. Colonel G has been appointed to the staff of the new Governor-General of Khorassan, and is on his way to Meshed. The appearance of Ferenghi ladies in the Holy City will be an innovation that will fairly eclipse the introduction of the bicycle. All Meshed will be wild with curiosity, and the poor ladies will never be able to venture into the streets without disguise. There is furor enough over them in Mijamid; the whole population is assembled en masse before the chapar-khana. The combination of the bicycle, three Ferenghis, and, above all, two Ferenghi ladies, is an event that will form a red-letter mark in the history of Mijamid for generations of unborn Persian ryots to talk about and wonder over. The colonel produces a bottle of excellent Shiraz wine and a box of Russian cigarettes. The ladies have become sufficiently Orientalized to number among their accomplishments the smoking of cigarettes. They are delighted at meeting us, and are already acquainted with the main circumstances of my misadventure in Afghanistan. Camp-stools are brought out, and we spend a most pleasant hour together, before continuing on our opposite courses. The wondering natives are almost speechless with astonishment at the spectacle of the two ladies sitting out there, faces all uncovered, smoking cigarettes, sipping claret, and chatting freely with the men. It is a regular circus-day for these poor, unenlightened mortals. The ladies are charming, and the charm of female society loses nothing, the reader may be sure, from one's having been deprived of it for a matter of months. The colonel's lingual preference is German, Mrs. G------'s, French, and the daughter's, English; so that we are quite cosmopolitan in the matter of speech. All of us know enough Persian to express ourselves in that language too. In commenting upon my detention by the Afghans, the colonel characterizes them as "pedar sheitans," Madame as "le diable Afghans," and Miss G------as well, "le diable" in plain yet charmingly broken English. The next day, soon after noon, we roll into Shahrood, where B------ discharges his fourgon and we engage mules to transport us over the Tash Pass, a breakneck bridle-trail over the Elburz range to the Asterabad Plain and the Caspian. A half-day search by Abdul results in the employment of an outfit comprising three charvadars, with three mules, a couple of donkeys, and riding horses for ourselves. A liberal use of the whip by R on the charvadars' shoulders, awful threats, and sundry other persuasive arguments, assist very materially in getting started at a decent hour on the morning following our arrival. The bicycle is taken apart and placed on top of the mule-packs, where, in remembrance of its former fate under somewhat similar conditions, I keep it pretty strictly under surveillance. The Asterabad trail is a steady ascent from the beginning; and before many miles are covered, scattering dwarf pines on the, mountains indicate a change from the utter barrenness that characterizes their southern aspect. One lone tree of quite respectable dimensions, standing a mile or so off to our left, suggests a special point of demarcation between utter barrenness and where a new order of things begins. Our way leads up fearful rocky paths, where the horses have to be led, and at times assisted; up, up, until our elevation is nearly ten thousand feet, and we are among a chaotic wilderness of precipitous rocks and scrub pines. A false step in some places, and our horses would roll down among the craggy rocks for hundreds of feet. It is a toilsome march, but we cross the Tash Pass, camp for the night in a little inter-mountain valley, beside a stream at the foot of a pine-covered mountain. The change from the interior plains is already novel and refreshing. Grass abounds abundance, and the prospect is the greenest I have seen for nine months. We camp out in the open, and are put to some discomfort by passing showers in the night. A march of a dozen miles from this valley over a tortuous mountain trail brings us into a country the existence of which one could never, by any stretch of the imagination, dream of in connection with Persia, as one sees it in its desert-like character south of the mountains. The transformation is from one extreme of vegetable nature to the other. We camp for lunch on velvety greensward beneath a grove of oak and cherry trees. Cuckoos are heard calling round about, singing birds make melody, and among them we both recognize the cheery clickety-click of my raisin-loving Herati friends, the bul-buls. Flowers, too, are here at our feet in abundance, forget-me-nots and other familiar varieties. The view from our position is remarkably fine, reminding me forcibly of the Balkans south of Nisch, and of the Californian slopes of the Sierra Nevadas, where they overlook the Sacramento Valley. The Asterabad Plain is spread out below us like a vast map. We can trace the windings and twistings of the various streams, the tracts of unreclaimed forest, and the cultivated fields. Asterabad and numerous villages dot the plain, and by taking R------'s binoculars we can make out, through the vaporous atmosphere, the shimmering surface of the Caspian Sea. It is one of the most remarkable views I ever saw, and the novelty and grandeur of it appeals the more forcibly to one's imagination, no doubt, because of its striking contrast to what the eyes have from long usage become accustomed to. From dreary, barren dasht, and stony wastes, to densely wooded mountains, jungle-covered plains, tall, luxurious tiger-grass, and beyond all this the shimmering background of the sea is a big change to find but little more than a day's march apart. We are both captivated by the change, and agree that the Caspian slope is the only part of Persia fit to look at. The descent of the northern slope is even steeper than the other side; but instead of rocks, it is the rich soil of virgin forests. Open parks are occasionally crossed, and on one of these we find a large camp of Turcomans, numbering not less than a hundred tents. Mountaineers are always picturesquely dressed, and so, too, are nomads. When, therefore, one finds mountaineer nomads, it seems superfluous almost to describe them as being arrayed chiefly in gewgaws and bright-colored clothes. Camped here amid the dark, luxurious vegetation, they and their tents make a charming picture--a scene of life and of contrast in colors which if faithfully transferred to canvas would be worth a king's ransom. Down paths of break-neck steepness and slipperiness, our way descends into a dark region where vegetation runs riot in the shape of fine tall timber, of a semi-tropical variety. Many of the trees present a fantastic appearance, by reason of great quantities of hanging moss, that in some instances fairly load down the weaker branches. Banks of beautiful ferns, and mossy rocks join with the splendid trees in making our march through these northern foothills of the Elburz Mountains an experience long to be remembered. A curious and interesting comparison that comes under our observation is that, on the gray plains and rocky mountains of the interior the lizards are invariably of a dull and uninteresting color, quite in keeping with their surroundings. No sooner, however, do we find ourselves in a district where nature's deft hand has painted the whole canvas of the country a bright green, than the lizards which we see scuttling through the ferns and moss-beds are also the greenest of all the green things. These scaly little reptiles shine and glisten like supple shapes of emerald, as one sees them gliding across the path. This is but another link in the chain of evidence that seems to prove that animals derive much of their distinctive character and appearance from the nature of their surroundings. In Northern China are a species of small monkey with a quite heavy coat of fur. They are understood to be the descendants of a comparatively hairless variety which found its way there from the warm jungles of the South, the change from a warm climate to a cold one being responsible for the coat of fur. In the same way, after noting the complete change that has come over the lizards, we conclude that, if a colony of the gray species from the other side of the mountains were brought and turned loose among the green foot-hills here, their descendants, a few generations hence, would be found with coats as green as those of the natives. This conviction gathers force from the fact that no gray lizards whatever are encountered here; all the lizards we see are green. Emerging from the foot-hills, we find ourselves in a country the general appearance of which reminds me of a section of Missouri more than anything I have seen in Asia. Fields and pastures are fenced in with the same rude corduroy-fences one sees in the Missouri Valley, some well kept and others neglected. The pastures are blue grass and white clover; bees are humming and buzzing from flower to flower, and, to make the similitude complete, one hears the homely tinkle of cow-bells here and there. It is difficult to realize that all this is in Persia, and that one has not been transported in some miraculous manner back to the United States. A little farther out from the base of the mountains, however, and we come upon wild figs, pomegranates, and other indigenous evidences of Eastern soil; and by and by our path almost becomes a tunnel, burrowing through a wealth of tiger-grass twenty feet high. The fields and little clearings which, a few miles back, were devoted to the cultivation of wheat and rye, now become rice-fields overflowed from irrigating ditches, and in which bare-legged men and women are paddling about, over their knees in mud and water. Early in the evening we reach the city of Asterabad, which we find totally different from the sombre, mud-built cities of the interior. The wall surrounding it is topped with red tiles, and the outer moat is choked with rank vegetation. The houses are gabled, and roofed with tiles or heavy thatch, presenting an appearance very suggestive of the picturesque towns and villages about Strasburg. The streets are narrow and ill-paved, and neglect and decay everywhere abound. The cemeteries are a chaotic mass of tumbledown tombstones and vagrant vegetation. Pools of water covered with green scum, and heaps of filth everywhere, fill the reeking atmosphere with malaria and breed big clouds of mosquitoes. The people have a yellowish, waxy complexion that tells its own story of the unhealthiness of the place, without instituting special inquiry. One can fairly sniff fever and ague in the streets. Much taste is displayed in architectural matters by the wealthier residents. The walls surrounding the little compounds are sometimes adorned with house-leeks or cactus, tastefully set out along the top; and, in other cases, with ornamental tiles. The walls of the houses are decorated with paintings depicting, in bright colors, scenes of the chase, birds, animals, and mythological subjects. The charvadars lead the way to a big caravanserai in the heart of the city. The place is found to be filled with a miscellaneous crowd of caravan people, travellers, merchants, and dervishes. The serai also appears to be a custom-house and emporium for wool, cotton, and other products of the tributary country. Horses, camels, and merchandise crowd the central court, and rising fifty feet above all this confusion and babel is a wooden tower known as a tullar. This is a dilapidated framework of poles that sways visibly in the wind, the uses of which at first sight it is not easy to determine. Some of the natives motion for us to take possession of it, however; and we subsequently learn that the little eyrie-like platform is used as a sleeping-place by travellers of distinction. The elevation and airiness are supposed to be a safeguard against the fever and a refuge from the terrible mosquitoes, of which Asterabad is over-full. An hour after our arrival, Abdul goes out and discovers a Persian gentleman named Mahmoud Turki Aghi, who presents himself in the capacity of British agent here. As we were in ignorance of the presence of any such official being in Asterabad, he comes as a pleasant surprise, and still more pleasant comes an invitation to accept his hospitality. From him we learn that the steamer we expect to take at Bunder Guz, the port of Asterabad, eight farsakhs distant, will not sail until six days later. Mindful of the fever, from which he is still a sufferer to an uncomfortable extent, E------looks a trifle glum at this announcement, and, after our traps are unpacked at Mahmoud Turki Aghi's, he ferrets out a book of travels that I had often heard him refer to as an authority on sundry subjects. Turning over the leaves, he finds a reference to Bunder Guz, and reads out the story of a certain "gimlet-tailed fly" that makes life a burden to the unwary traveller who elects to linger there on the Caspian shore. Between this gimlet-tailed pest, however, and the mosquitoes of Asterabad we decide that there can be very little to choose, and so make up our minds to accept our host's hospitality for a day and then push on. During the day we call on the Russian consul to get our passports vised. As between English and Russian prestige, the latter are decidedly to the fore in Asterabad. The bear has his big paw firmly planted on this fruitful province--it is more Russian than Persian now; before long it will be Russian altogether. Nothing is plainer to us than this, as we reach the Russian Consulate and are introduced by Mahmoud Turki Aghi to the consul. He is no "native agent." On the contrary, he is one of the biggest "personages" I have seen anywhere. He is the sort of man that the Russian Government invariably picks out for its representation at such important points in Asia as Asterabad. A six-footer of magnificent physique, with a smooth and polished address, all smiles and politeness, the Russian consul wears a leonine mustache that could easily be tied in a knot at the back of his head. Although he is the only European resident of Asterabad save a few Cossack attendants, he wears fashionable Parisian clothes, a wealth of watch-chain, rings, and flash jewellery, patent-leather shoes, and all the accompaniments of an ostentatious show of wealth and personal magnificence. His rooms are equally gorgeous, and contain large colored portraits of the Czar and Czarina. The intent and purpose of all this display is to fill the minds of the natives, and particularly the native officials, with an overwhelming sense of Russian grandeur and power. No Persian can enter the presence of this Russian consul in his rooms without experiencing a certain measure of awe and admiration. They regard with covetous eyes the rich and comfortable appointments of the rooms, and the big gold watch-chains and rings on the consul's person. They too would like to be in the Russian service if its rewards are on such a magnificent scale. Of patriotism to the Shah they know nothing--self-interest is the only master they willingly serve. No one knows this better than the Russian consul; and in the case of influential officials and other useful persons, he sees to it that gold watches and such-like tokens of the Czar's esteem are not lacking. The result is that Asterabad, both city and province, is even now more Russian than Persian, and when the proper time arrives will drop into the bear's capacious maw like a ripe plum. At daybreak on the morning of departure the charvadars wake us up by pounding on the outer gate and shouting "hadji" to Abdul Abdul lets them in, and the next hour passes in violent and wordy disputation among them as they load up their horses. All three have purchased new Asterabad hats, big black busbies much prized by Persians from beyond the mountains. The acquisition of these imposing head-dresses has had the effect of increasing their self-esteem wonderfully. They regard each other with considerable hauteur, and quarrel almost continually for the first few miles. E puts up with their angry shouting and quarrelling for awhile, and then chases them around a little with the long hunting whip he carries. This brings them to their senses again, and secures a degree of peace; but the inflating effect of the new hats crops out at intervals all day. Our road from Asterabad leads through jungle nearly the whole distance to Bunder Guz. In the woods are clearings consisting of rice-fields, orchards, and villages. The villages are picturesque clusters of wattle houses with peaked thatch roofs that descend to within a few feet of the ground. Groves of English walnut-trees abound, and plenty of these trees are also scattered through the jungle. During the day we encounter a gang of professional native hunters hunting wild boars, of which these woods contain plenty, as well as tigers and panthers. They are a wild-looking crowd, with long hair, and sleeves rolled up to their elbows. Big knives are bristling in their kammerbunds, besides which they are armed with spears and flint-lock muskets. They make a great deal of noise, shouting and hallooing one to another; one can tell when they are on a hot trail by the amount of noise they make, just as you can with a pack of hounds. We reach our destination by the middle of the afternoon, and find the place a wretched village, right on the shore of the Caspian. We repair to the caravanserai, but find the rooms so evil-smelling that we decide upon camping out and risking the fever rather than court acquaintance with possible cholera, providing no better place can be found elsewhere. This serai is a curious place, anyway. All sorts of people, some of them so peculiarly dressed that none of our party are able to make out their character or nationality. A dervish is exhorting a crowd of interested listeners at one end of the court-yard, and a strolling band of lutis are entertaining an audience at the other end. There are six of these lutis; while two are performing, four are circulating among the crowd collecting money. In any other country but Persia, five would have been playing and one passing the hat. E------and Abdul go ahead to try and secure better quarters, and shortly the latter returns, and announces that they have been successful. So I, and the charvadars, with the horses, follow him through a crooked street of thatched houses, at the end of which we find R------seated beneath the veranda of a rude hotel kept by an Armenian Jew. As we approach I observe that my companion looks happier than I have seen him look for days. He is pretty thoroughly disgusted with Persia and everything in it, and this, together with his fever, has kept him in anything but an amiable frame of mind. But now his face is actually illumined with a smile. On the little table before him stand a half-dozen black bottles, imperial pints, bearing labels inscribed with outlandish Russian words. "This is civilization, my boy--civilization reached at last," says E------, as he sees me coming. "What, this wretched tumble-down hole." I exclaim, waving my hand at the village. "No, not that," replies E------; "this--this is civilization," and he holds up to the light a glass of amber Russian beer. Apart from Russians, we are the first European travellers that have touched at Bunder Guz since McGregor was here in 1875. We keep a loose eye out for the gimlet-tailed flies, but are not harassed by them half so much as by fleas and the omnipresent mosquito. These two latter insects have dwindled somewhat from the majestic proportions described by McGregor; they are large enough and enterprising enough as it is; but McGregor found one species the size of "cats," and the other "as large as camels." Bunder Guz is simply a landing and shipping point for Asterabad and adjacent territory. A good deal of Russian bar iron, petroleum, iron kettles, etc., are piled up under rude sheds; and wool from the interior is being baled by Persian Jews, naked to the waist, by means of hand-presses. Cotton and wool are the chief exports. Of course, the whole of the trade is in the hands of the Russians, who have driven the Persians quite off the sea. The Caspian is now nothing more nor less than a Russian salt-water lake. The harbor of Bunder Guz is so shallow that one may ride horseback into the sea for nearly a mile. The steamers have to load and unload at a floating dock a mile and a half from shore. Very pleasant, in spite of the wretched hole we are in, is it to find one's self on the seashore --to see the smoke of a steamer, and the little smacks riding at anchor. The day after our arrival, a man comes round and tells Abdul that he has three fine young Mazanderan tigers he would like to sell the Sahibs. We send Abdul to investigate, and he returns with the report that a party of Asterabad tiger-hunters have killed a female tiger and brought in three cubs. The man comes back with him and impresses upon us the assertion that they are khylie koob baabs (very splendid tigers), and would be dirt cheap at three hundred kerans apiece, the price he pretends to want for them. From this we know that the tigers could be bought very cheap, and since Mazanderan tigers are very rare in European menageries, we determine to go and look at them anyway. They are found to be the merest kittens, not yet old enough to see. They are savage little brutes, and spend their whole time in dashing recklessly against the bars of the coop in which they are confined. They refuse to eat or drink, and although the Persians declare that they would soon learn to feed, we conclude that they would be altogether too much trouble, even if it were possible to keep them from dying of starvation. On the evening of June 3d we put off, together with a number of native passengers, in a lighter, for the vessel which is loading up with bales of cotton at the floating dock. Most of the night is spent in sitting on deck and watching the Persian roustabouts carry the cargo aboard, for the shouting, the inevitable noisy squabbling, and the thud of bales dumped into the hold render sleep out of the question. The steamer starts at sunrise, and the captain comes round to pay his respects. He is more of a German than a Russian, and seems pleased to welcome aboard his ship the first English or American passengers he has had for years. He makes himself agreeable, and takes a good deal of interest in explaining anything about the burning of petroleum residue on the Caspian steamers, instead of coal. He takes us down below and shows us the furnaces, and explains the modus operandi. We are delighted at the evident superiority of this fuel over coal, and the economy and ease of supplying the furnaces. Seven copecks the forty pounds, the captain says, is the cost of the fuel, and two and a half roubles the expense of running the vessel at full speed an hour. There is not an ounce of coal aboard, the boiler-house is as clean and neat as a parlor, and no cinders fall upon the deck or awnings. In place of huge coal-bunkers, taking up half the vessel's carrying space, compact tanks above the furnaces hold all the liquid fuel. Pipes convey it automatically, much or little, as easily as regulating a water-tap, to the fire-boxes. Jets of steam scatter it broadcast throughout the box in the form of spray, and insures its spontaneous combustion into flame. A peep in these furnaces displays a mass of flame filling an iron box in which no fuel is to be seen. A slight twist of a brass cock increases or diminishes this flame at once. A couple of men in clean linen uniforms manage the whole business. We both concluded that it was far superior to coal. Many windings and tackings are necessary to get outside Ashdurada Bay; sometimes we are steaming bow on for Bunder Guz, apparently returning to port; at other times we are going due south, when our destination is nearly north. This, the captain explains, is due to the intricacy of the channel, which is little more than a deeper stream, so to speak, meandering crookedly through the shallows and sand-bars of the bay. Buoys and sirens mark the steamer's course to the Russian naval station of Ashdurada. Here we cross a bar so shallow that no vessel of more than twelve feet draught can enter or leave the bay. Our own ship is a light-draught steamer of five hundred tons burden. A little steam-launch puts out from Ashdurada, bringing the mails and several naval officers bound for Krasnovodsk and Baku. The scenery of the Mazanderan coast is magnificent. The bold mountains seem to slope quite down to the shore, and from summit to surf-waves they present one dark-green mass of forest. The menu of these Caspian steamers is very good, based on the French school of cookery rather than English. No early breakfast is provided, however; breakfast at eleven and dinner at six are the only refreshments provided by the ship's regular service--anything else has to be paid for as extras. At eleven o'clock we descend to the dining saloon, where we find the table spread with caviare, cheese, little raw salt fishes, pickles, vodka, and the unapproachable bread of Russia. The captain and passengers are congregated about this table, some sitting, others standing, and all reaching here and there, everybody helping himself and eating with his fingers. Now and then each one tosses off a little tumbler of vodka. We proceed to the table and do our best to imitate the Russians in their apparent determination to clean off the table. The edibles before us comprise the elements of a first-class cold luncheon, and we sit down prepared to do it ample justice. By and by the Russians leave this table one by one, and betake themselves to another, on the opposite side of the saloon. As they sit down, waiters come in bearing smoking hot roasts and vegetables, wine and dessert. A gleam of intelligence dawns upon my companion as he realizes that we are making a mistake, and pausing in the act of transferring bread and caviare to his mouth, he says to me, impressively: "This is only sukuski, you know, on this table." "Why, of course. Didn't you know that. Your ignorance surprises me; I thought you knew.". And then we follow the example of everybody else and pass over to the other side. The sukuski is taken before the regular meal in Russia. The tidbits and the vodka are partaken of to prepare and stimulate the appetite for the regular meal. Not yet, however, are we fully initiated into the mysteries of the Caspian steamer's service. Wine is flowing freely, and as we seat ourselves the captain passes down his bottle. Presently I hold my glass to be refilled by a spectacled naval officer sitting opposite. With a polite bow he fills it to the brim. The next moment, I happen to catch the captain's eye, it contains a meaning twinkle of amusement. Heavens! this is not a French steamer, even if the cookery is somewhat Frenchy; neither is it a table-d'hote with claret flowing ad libitum. The ridiculous mistake has been made of taking the captain's polite hospitality and the liberal display of bottles for the free wine of the French table-d'hote. The officer with the eyeglasses lands at Tchislikar in the afternoon, for which I am not sorry. At Tchislikar we are met by a lighter with several Turcoman passengers. The sea is pretty rough, and the united efforts of several boatmen are required to hoist aboard each long-gowned Turcoman, each woman and child. They are Turcoman traders going to Baku and Tiflis with bales of the famous kibitka hangings and carpets. Tchislikar is the port whence a few years ago the Russian expedition set out on their campaign against the Tekke Turcomans. Three hundred miles inland is the famous fortress of Geoke Tepe, where disaster overtook the Russians, and where, in a subsequent campaign, occurred that massacre of women and children which caused the Western world to wonder anew at the barbarism of the Russian soldiery. Still steaming north, our little craft ploughs her way toward Krasnovodsk, an important military station on the eastern coast. At night the surface of the sea becomes smooth and glassy, the sun sets, rotund and red, in a haze suggestive of Indian summer in the West. The cabins are small and stuffy, so I sleep up on the hurricane-deck, wrapping a Persian sheepskin overcoat about me. An awning covers this deck completely, but this does not prevent everything beneath getting drenched with dew. Never did I see such a fall of dew. It streams off the big awning like a shower of rain, and soaks through it and drips, drips on to my recumbent form and everything on the hurricane-deck. Early in the morning we moor our ship to the dock at Krasnovodsk, and load and unload merchandise till noon. Here is where railway material for the Transcaspian railway to Merv is landed, the terminus being at Michaelovich, near by. We go ashore for a couple of hours and look about. The inmates of a military convalescent hospital are passing from the doctor's office to their barracks. They are wearing long dressing-gowns of gray stuff, with hoods that make them look wonderfully like a lot of monks arrayed in cowls. A company of infantry are target-practising at the foot of rocky buttes just outside the town. Not a tree nor a green thing is visible in the place nor on all the hills around--nothing but the blue waters of the Caspian and the dull prospect of rude rock buildings and gray hills. Except for the sea, and the raggedness and abject servility of the poor class of people, one might imagine Krasnovodsk some Far Western fort. Scarcely a female is seen on the streets, soldiers are everywhere, and in the commercial quarter every other place is a vodka-shop. We visit one of these and find men in red shirts and cowhide boots playing billiards and drinking, others drinking and playing cards. Rough and sturdy men they look--frontiersmen; but there is no spirit, no independence, in their expression; they look like curs that have been chastised and bullied until the spirit is completely broken. This peculiar humbled and resigned expression is observable on the faces of the common people from one end of Russia to the other. It is quite extraordinary for a common Russian to look one in the eye. Nor is this at all deceptive; a social superior might step up and strike one of these men brutally in the face without the slightest provocation, and, though the victim of the outrage might be strong as an ox, no remonstrance whatever would be made. It is difficult for us to comprehend How human beings can possibly become so abjectly servile and spiritless as the lower-class Russians. But the terrors of the knout and Siberia are ever present before them. Cheap chromolithographs of Gregorian saints hang on the walls of the saloon, and with them are mingled fancy pictures of Tiflis and Baku cafe-chantant belles. Long rows of vodka-bottles are the chief stock-in-trade of the place, but "peevo" (beer) can be obtained from the cellar. Quite a number of army officers, with their wives, come aboard at Krasnovodsk. They seem good fellows, nearly all, and inclined to cultivate our acquaintance. Individually, the better-class Russian and the Englishman have many attributes in common that make them like each other. Except for imperial matters, Russian and English officers would be the best of friends, I think. The ladies all smoke cigarettes incessantly. There is not a handsome woman aboard, and they show the lingering traces of Russian barbarism by wearing beads and gewgaws. The most interesting of our passengers is a Persian dealer in precious stones. He is a well-educated individual, quite a linguist, and a polished gentleman withal. He is taking diamonds and turquoises that he has collected in Persia, to Vienna and Paris. Another night of drenching dew, and by six o'clock next morning we are drawing near to the great petroleum port of Baku. From Krasnovodsk we have crossed the Caspian from east to west right on the line of latitude 40 deg. CHAPTER XIII. ROUNDABOUT TO INDIA. Baku looks the inartistic, business-like place it is, occupying the base of brown, verdureless hills. Scarcely a green thing is visible to relieve the dull, drab aspect roundabout, and only the scant vegetation of a few gardens relieves the city a trifle itself. To the left of the city the slopes of one hill are dotted with neatly kept Christian cemeteries, and the slopes of another display the disorderly multitude of tombstones characteristic of the graveyards of Islam. On the right are seen numbers of big iron petroleum-tanks similar to those in the oil regions of Pennsylvania. Numbers of petroleum-schooners are riding at anchor in the harbor, and two or three small steamers are moored to the dock. Our steamer moves up alongside a stout wooden wharf, the gang-plank is ran out, and the passengers permitted to file ashore. A cordon of police prevents them passing down the wharf, while custom-house officers examine their baggage. We are, of course, merely in transit through the country; more than that, the Russian authorities seem anxious, for some reason, to make a very favorable impression upon us two Central Asian travellers; so a special officer comes aboard, takes our passports, and with an excessive show of politeness refuses to take more than a mere formal glance at our traps. A horde of ragamuffin porters struggle desperately for the privilege of carrying the passengers' baggage. Poor, half-starved wretches they seem, reminding me, in their rags and struggles, of desperate curs quarrelling savagely over a bone. American porter's strive for passengers' baggage for the sake of making money; with these Russians, it seems more like a fierce resolve to obtain the wherewithal to keep away starvation. Burly policemen, armed with swords, like the gendarmerie of France, and in blue uniforms, assail the wretched porters and strike them brutally in the face, or kick them in the stomach, showing no more consideration than if they were maltreating the merest curs. Such brutality on the one hand, and abject servility and human degradation on the other is to be seen only in the land of the Czar. Servility, it is true exists everywhere in Asia, but only in Russia does one find the other extreme of coarse brutality constantly gloating over it and abusing it. Our stay in Baku is limited to a few hours. We are to take the train for Tiflis the same afternoon, as we land at two o'clock so can spare no time to see much of the city or of the oil-refineries. Summoning one of the swarm of drosky-drivers that beset the exit from the wharf, we are soon tearing over the Belgian blocks to the Hotel de l'Europe. The Russian drosky-driver, whether in Baku or in Moscow, seems incapable of driving at a moderate pace. Over rough streets or smooth he plies the cruel whip, shouts vile epithets at his half-wild steed, and rattles along at a furious pace. Baku is the first Europeanized city either R------or I have been in for many months; the rows of shops, the saloons, drug-stores, barber-shops, and, above all, the hotels--how we appreciate it all after the bazaars and wretched serais of Persia! We patronize a barber-shop, and find the tonsorial accommodations equal in every respect to those of America. One of the chairs is occupied by a Cossack officer. He is the biggest dandy in the way of a Cossack we have yet seen. Scarce had we thought it possible that one of these hardy warriors of the Caucasus could blossom forth in the make-up that bursts upon our astonished vision in this Baku barber-chair. The top-boots he wears are the shiniest of patent leather from knee to toe; lemon-colored silk or satin is the material of the long, gown-like coat that distinguishes the Cossack from all others. His hair is parted in the middle to a hair, and smoothed carefully with perfumed pomade; his mustache is twirled and waxed, his face powdered, and eyebrows pencilled. A silver-jointed belt, richly chased, encircles his waist, and the regulation row of cartridge-pockets across his breast are of the same material. He wears a short sword, the hilt and scabbard of which display the elaborate wealth of ornament affected by the Circassians. During the forenoon we take a stroll about the city afoot, but the wind is high, and clouds of dust sweep down the streets. A Persian in gown and turban steps quietly up behind us in a quiet street, and asks if we are mollahs. We know his little game, however, and gruffly order him off. The houses of Baku are mostly of rock and severely simple in architecture; they look like prisons and warehouses mostly--massive and gloomy. Everywhere, everywhere, hovers the shadow of the police. One seems to breathe dark suspicion and mistrust in the very air. The people in the civil walks of life all look like whipped curs. They wear the expression of people brooding over some deep sorrow. The crape of dead liberty seems to be hanging on every door-knob. Nobody seems capable of smiling; one would think the shadow of some great calamity is hanging gloomily over the city. Nihilism and discontent run riot in the cities of the Caucasus; government spies and secret police are everywhere, and the people on the streets betray their knowledge of the fact by talking little and always in guarded tones. Our stay at the hotel is but a few hours, but eleven domestics range themselves in a row to wait upon our departure and to smirk and extend their palms for tips as we prepare to go. No country under the sun save the Caucasus could thus muster eleven expectant menials on the strength of one meal served and but three hours actual occupation of our rooms. Another wild Jehu drives us to the station of the Tiflis & Baku Railway, and he loses a wheel and upsets us into the street on the way. The station is a stone building, strong enough almost for a fort. Military uniforms adorn every employee, from the supercilious station-master to the ill-paid wretch that handles our baggage. Mine is the first bicycle the Tiflis & Baku Railroad has ever carried. Having no precedent to govern themselves by, and, withal, ever eager to fleece and overcharge, the railway officials charge double rates for it; that is, twice as much as an ordinary package of the same weight. No baggage is carried free on the Tiflis & Baku Railroad except what one takes with him in the passenger coach. The cars are a compromise between the American style and those of England. They are divided into several compartments, but the partitions have openings that enable one to pass from end to end of the car. The doors are in the end compartments, but lead out of the side, there being no platform outside, nor communication between the cars. The seats are upholstered in gray plush and are provided with sliding extensions for sleeping at night. Overhead a second tier of berths unfolds for sleeping. No curtains are employed; the arrangements are only intended for stretching one's self out without undressing. The engines employed on the Tiflis & Baku Railway are without coal-tenders. They burn the residue of petroleum, which is fed to the flames in the form of spray by an atomizer. A small tank above the furnace holds the liquid, and a pipe feeds it automatically to the fire-box. The result of this excellent arrangement is spontaneous conversion into flame, a uniformly hot fire, cleanliness aboard the engine, a total absence of cinders, and almost an absence of smoke. The absence of a tender gives the engine a peculiar, bob-tailed appearance to the unaccustomed eye. The speed of our train is about twenty miles an hour, and it starts from Baku an hour behind the advertised time. For the first few miles unfenced fields of ripe wheat characterize the landscape, and a total absence of trees gives the country a dreary aspect. The day is Sunday, but peasants, ragged and more wretched-looking than any seen in Persia, are harvesting grain. The carts they use are most peculiar vehicles, with wheels eight or ten feet in diameter. The tremendous size of the wheels is understood to materially lighten their draught. After a dozen miles the country develops into barren wastes, as dreary and verdureless as the deserts of Seistan. At intervals of a mile the train whirls past a solitary stone hut occupied by the family of the watchman or section-hand. Sometimes a man stands out and waves a little flag, and sometimes a woman. Whether male or female, the flag-signaller is invariably an uncouth bundle of rags. The telegraph-poles consist of lengths of worn-out rail, with an upper section of wood on which to fasten the insulators. These make substantial poles enough, but have a make-shift look, and convey the impression of financial weakness to the road. The stations are often quite handsome structures of mingled stone and brickwork. The names are conspicuously exposed in Russian and Persian and Circassian. Beer, wine, and eatables are exposed for sale at a lunch-counter, and pedlers vend boiled lobsters, fish, and fruit about the platforms. On the platform of every station hangs a bell with a string attached to the tongue. When almost ready for the train to start, an individual, invested with the dignity of a military cap with a red stripe, jerks this string slowly and solemnly thrice. Half a minute later another man in a full military uniform blows a shrill whistle; yet a third warning, in the shape of a smart toot from the engine itself, and the train pulls out. Full half the crowd about the stations appear to be in military uniform; the remainder are a heterogeneous company, embracing the modern Russian dandy, who affects the latest Parisian fashions, the Circassians and Georgians in picturesque attire, and the ever-present ragamuffin moujik. At one station we pass an institution peculiarly Russian--a railway prison-car conveying convicts eastward. It resembles an ordinary box-car, with iron grating toward the top. We can see the poor wretches peeping through the bars, and the handcuffs on their wrists. Outside at either end is a narrow platform, where stands, with loaded guns and fixed bayonets, a guard of four soldiers. Once or twice before dark the train stops to replenish the engine's supply of fuel. Elevated iron tanks containing a supply of the liquid fuel take the place of the coal-sheds familiar to ourselves. The petroleum is supplied to the smaller tank on the engine through a pipe, as is water to the reservoir. Such villages as we pass are the most unlovely clusters of mud hovels imaginable. Only the people are interesting, and the life of the railway itself. The Circassian peasantry are picturesque in bright colors, and the thin veneering of Western civilization spread over the semi-barbarity of the Russian officials and first-class passengers is an interesting study in itself. We have been promising ourselves a day in Tiflis, the old Georgian capital, and now the head-quarters of the Russian army of the Caucasus, which our friends of the French scientific party said we would find interesting. We find it both pleasant and interesting, for here are all modern improvements of hotel and street, as well as English telegraph officers, one a former acquaintance at Teheran. Tiflis now claims about one hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants, and is situated quite picturesquely in the narrow valley of the Kur. The old Georgian quarters still retain their Oriental appearance--gabled houses, narrow, crooked streets, and filth. The modernized, or European, portion of the city contains broad streets, rows of shops in which is displayed everything that could be found in any city in Europe, and street-railways. These latter were introduced in 1882, and at first met with fierce antagonism from the drosky-drivers, who swarm here as in every city in Russia. These wild Jehus of the Caucasus expected the tram-cars to turn out the same as any other vehicle. Four people were killed by collisions the first day. Severe punishment had to be resorted to in order to stop the hostility of the drosky-drivers against the strange innovation. The day is spent in seeing the city and visiting the hot sulphur baths and in the evening we attend a big bal masque in a suburban garden. A regimental band of fifty pieces plays "Around the World," by order of Prince Nicholas F, who exerts himself to make things pleasant for us in the garden. The famed beauties of Georgia, Circassia, and Mingrelia, masked and costumed, promenade and waltz with Russian officers, and sometimes join Circassian officers in a charming native dance. We spend our promised clay in Tiflis, enjoy it thoroughly, and then proceed to Batoum. The Tiflis railway-station is a splendid building, with fountains and broad nights of stone terrace leading up to it from the street behind. Our drosky-driver rattles up to the foot of these terraced approaches at 8 a.m., and draws up a steed with an abruptness peculiar to the half-wild Jehus of the Caucasus. The same employee of the Hotel de Londres who had mysteriously hailed us by name from the platform as our train glided in from Baku the morning before, accompanies us to the depot now. All English travellers in Russia are supposed to be millionaires; all Americans, possessed of unlimited wealth. Bearing this in mind, our Russian-Armenian henchman has from first to last been most assiduous in his attentions, paying out of his own pocket the few odd copecks to porters carrying our luggage up from drosky to depot, in order to save us bother. The station is crowded with people going away themselves or seeing friends off. As usual, the military overshadows and predominates everything. Between civilians and the wearers of military uniforms one plainly observes in a Russian Caucasus crowd that no love is lost. The strained relationship between the native population and the military aliens from the north is generally made the more conspicuous by the comparative sociability of the Georgians among themselves and kindred people of the Caucasus. Circassian officers in their picturesque uniforms and beautifully chased swords and pistols mingle sociably with the civilians, and are evidently great favorites; but that the blue-coated, white-capped Russians are hated with a bitter, sullen hatred requires no penetrating eye to see. The military brutality that crushed the brave and warlike people of Georgia, Circassia, and Mingrelia, and well-nigh depopulated the country, has left sore wounds that will take the wine and oil of time many a generation to heal completely up. With an inner consciousness of duty well done and services faithfully rendered, our friend from the hotel flicks off our seats in the car with the tail of his long linen duster. Not that they need dusting; but as a gentle reminder of the extraordinary care he has bestowed upon us, in little things as well as in bigger, during our brief acquaintance with him, he dusts them off. That last attentive flick of his coat-tail is the finishing touch of an elaborate retrospective panorama we are expected to conjure up of the valuable services he has rendered us, and for which he is now justly entitled to his reward. The customary three bells are struck, the inevitable military-looking official blows shrilly on his little whistle, and still the train lingers; lastly, the engine toots, however, and we pull slowly out of Tiflis. The town lies below us to the left, the River Kur follows us around a bend, the train speeds through deep gravel cuttings, and when we emerge from them the Georgian capital is no longer visible. Between Baku and Tiflis, the Caucasus Railway runs for the most part through a flat, uninteresting country. Wastes as dreary and desolate as the steppes of Central Russia or the deserts of Turkestan sometimes stretched away to the horizon on either side of the track. At other points were gray, verdureless slopes and rocky buttes, or saline mud-flats that looked like the old bed of some ancient sea. Occasional oases of life appeared here and there, a few wheat-fields and a wretched mud-built village, or a picturesque scene of smoke-browned tents, gayly dressed nomads, and grazing flocks and herds. At night we had passed through a grassy steppe, a facsimile of the rolling prairies of the West. Though but the 6th of June, the country was parched, and the grass dried, as it stood, into hay by the heat and drought. We saw at one point a wide sweep of flame that set the darkening sky aglow and caused the railway-rails ahead to gleam. It was the steppe on fire--another reproduction of a Far Western prairie scene. All this had changed as we woke up an hour before reaching Tiflis. The country became green, lovely, and populous in comparison. The people seemed less 'ragged, poverty-stricken, and wretched; the native women wore garments of brightest red and blue; the men put on more style, with their long Circassian coats and ornamental daggers, than I had yet observed. East of Tiflis, the Caucasus Hallway may, roughly speaking, be said to traverse the dreary wastes of an Asiatic country; west of it to wind around among the green hills and forest-clad heights of Europe's southeastern extremity. Lovelier and more beautifully green grows the country, and more interesting, too, grow the people and the towns, as our train speeds westward toward Batoum and the Black Sea coast. Everything about the railway, also, seems to be more prosperous, and better equipped. The improvised telegraph poles of worn-out lengths of rail seen east of Tiflis give place to something more becoming. Sometimes we speed for miles past ordinary cedar poles, procured, no doubt, from the mountain forests near at hand. Occasionally are stretches of iron poles imported from England, and then poles composed of two iron railway-rails clamped together. For much of the way we see the splendidly equipped Indo-European Telegraph Company's line, the finest telegraph line in the world. Equipped with substantial iron poles throughout, and with every insulator covered with an iron cap in countries where the half-civilized natives are wont to do them damage, this line runs through the various countries of Europe and Asia to Teheran, Persia, where it joins hands with the British Government line to India. Following along the valley of the River Kur, our train is sometimes rattling along up a wild gorge between rugged heights whose sides are bristling with dark coniferous growth, or more precipitous, with huge jagged rocks and the variegated vegetation of the Caucasus strewn in wild confusion. Again, we emerge upon a peaceful grassy valley, lovely enough to have been the Happy Valley of Rasselas, and walled in almost completely with forest-clad mountains. Through it, perhaps, there winds a mountain stream, fed by welling springs and hidden rivulets, and on the stream is sure to be a town or village. An old Georgian town it would be, picturesque but dirty, built, too, with an eye to security from attack. One town is particularly noteworthy--not a very large town, but more important, doubtless, in times past than now. Out of the valley there rises a rocky butte, abrupt almost as though it were some monstrous vegetable growth. On the summit of this natural fortress some old Georgian chief had, in the good old days of independence, built a massive castle, and nestling beneath its protecting shadow around the base of the butte is the town, a picturesque town of adobe and wattle walls and quaint red tiles. So intensely verdant is the valley, so thickly wooded the dark surrounding mountains, so brown the walls, so red the tiles, and so picturesque the elevated castle, that even K goes into raptures, and calls the picture beautiful. The improvement in the Russian telegraph line, perhaps, owes something to its brief association with the invading stranger from England; and now among the sublime loveliness of this Caucasian Switzerland one finds the station-houses built with far more pretence to the picturesque than on the barren steppes toward Baku and the Caspian. Here is the Caucasia of our youthful dreams, and the mystic hills and vales whence Mingrelian princes issued forth to deeds of valor in old romantic tales. Urchins, small mountaineers, more picturesquely clad than anything seen in Alpine Italy, even, now offer us little baskets of wild strawberries at ten copecks a basket-strawberries they and their little brothers and sisters have gathered this very morning at the foot of the hills. The cuisine at the lunch-counters embraces fresh trout from neighboring mountain streams, caught by vagrant Mingrelian Isaac Waltons, who bring them in on strings of plaited grass to sell. Humorous scenes sometimes enliven our stops at the stations. The Russian warnings for travellers to seek the train before it is everlastingly too late cover fully a minute of time. First come three raps of a bell suspended on the platform, afterward a station employe blows a little whistle, and lastly comes a toot from the engine itself, by way of an ultimatum. Once this afternoon a woman leaves the train to enter the waiting-room for something. Just as she is entering, the station-man rings the bell. The woman, evidently unaccustomed to railway travel, rushes hastily back to the train. Everybody greets her performance with good-natured merriment. Finding the train not pulling out, and encouraged by some of the passengers, the woman ventures to try it again. As she reaches the waiting-room door, the station-man blows a shrill blast on his whistle. The woman rushes back, as before. Again the people laugh, and again words of encouragement tempt her to venture back again. This time it is the toot of the engine that brings that poor female scurrying back across the platform amid the unsympathetic laughter of her fellow-passengers, and this time the train really starts. From this it would appear that too many signals are quite as objectionable at railway-stations as not signals enough. Every stoppage at a lunch-counter station, or where venders of things edible come on the platform, gives us opportunity to turn our minds judicially upon the civilization of our fellow first-class passengers. They present a curious combination of French fashion and polite address, on the one hand, and want of taste and ignorance of civilization's usages on the other. Gentlemen and ladies, dressed in the latest Parisian fashions, stand out on the platform and devour German sausage or dig their teeth into big chunks of yellow cheese with the gusto of half-starved barbarians. We double our engines--our compact, tenderless, petroleum-burning engines--at the foot of the Suran Pass. At its base, a stream disappears in an arched cave at the foot of a towering rocky cliff, and I have bethought me since of whether, like Allan Quatermain's subterranean stream, it would, if followed, reveal things heretofore unseen. And so we climb the lovely Suran Pass, rattle down the western slope upon the Black Sea coast, and reach Batoum at 11 p.m. As the chief mercantile port of the Caucasus, Batoum is an important shipping point. By the famous Berlin treaty it was made a free port; but nothing is likely to remain free any length of time upon which the Russian bear has managed to lay his greedy paw. Consequently, Batoum is now afflicted with all sorts of commercial taxes and restrictions, peculiar to a protective and autocratic semi-Oriental government. Notwithstanding this, however, ships from various European ports crowd its harbor, for not only is it the shipping point of Baku petroleum, but also the port of entry for much of the Persian and Central Asian importations from Europe. An oil-pipe line is seriously contemplated from Baku to replace the iron-tank cars now run on the railroad. Big fortifications are under headway to protect the harbor; its strategic importance as the terminus of the Caucasus Railway and the shipping point for troops and war material making Batoum a place of special solicitation on the part of the Russian military authorities. R------and I walk around and take a look at the fortification works, as well as one can do this; but no strangers are allowed very near, and we are conscious of close surveillance the whole time we are walking out near the scene of operations. A pleasant day in Batoum, and we take passage aboard a Messageries Maritimes steamer for Constantinople. Late at night we depart, amid the glare and music of a violent thunder-storm, and in the morning wake up in the roadstead of Trebizond. To fully realize the difference between mock-civilization and the genuine article, one cannot do better than to transfer from a Russian Caspian steamer to a Messageries Maritimes. The Russians affect French methods and manners in pretty much everything; but the thinness and transparency of the varnish becomes very striking in contrast aboard the steamers. The scenery along the Anatolian coast is striking and lovely in the extreme as we steam along in full view of it all next day. It is mountainous the whole distance, but the prospect is charmingly variable. Sometimes the mountains are heavily wooded down to the water's edge, and sometimes the slopes are prettily chequered with clearings and cultivation. More and more lovely it grows next day, as we pass Samsoon, celebrated throughout the East for chibouque tobacco; Sinope, memorable as the place where the first blow of the Crimean War was delivered; and, on the morning of the third day, Ineboli, the "town of wines." On the evening of the third day we lay off the entrance to the Bosphorus till morning, when we steam down that charming strait to Constantinople. It is almost a year since I took, in company with our friend Shelton Bey, a pleasure trip up the Bosphorus and gazed for the first time on its wondrous beauties. I have seen considerable since, but the Bosphorus looks as fresh and lovely as ever. While yielding as full a measure of praise to the Bosphorus as any of its most ardent admirers, I would, however, at the same time, recommend those in search of lovely coast scenery to take a coasting voyage along the southern shore of the Black Sea in June. I have no hesitation in saying that the traveller who goes into raptures over the beauties of the Bosphorus would, if he saw it, include the whole Anatolian coast to Batoum. Several very pleasant days are spent in Constantinople, talking over my Central Asian adventures with former acquaintances and seeing the city. But as these were pretty thoroughly described in Volume I., there is no need of repetition here. With many regrets I part company with R, who has proved a very pleasant companion indeed, and set sail for India. The steamers of the Khedivial Line, plying between Constaninople and Alexandria, have their mooring buoys near the Stamboul side of the Golden Horn, between Seraglio Point and the Galata bridge. During the forenoon, Shelton Bey, R--, and I had taken a caique and sought out from among the crowd of shipping in the harbor the steamship Behera, of the above-mentioned line, on which I have engaged my passage to Alexandria, so that we should have no difficulty in finding it in the afternoon. In the afternoon the Behera is found surrounded by a swarm of caiques, bringing passengers and friends who have come aboard to see them off. These slender-built craft are paddling about the black hull of the steamer in busy confusion. A fussy and authoritative little police boat seems to take a wanton delight in increasing the confusion by making sallies in among them to see that newly arriving passengers have provided themselves with the necessary passports, and that their baggage has been duly examined at the custom-house. All is bustle and confusion aboard the Behera, and in two hours after the advertised time (pretty prompt for an Egyptian-owned boat) a tug-boat assists her from her moorings, paddles glibly to one side, and in ten minutes Seraglio Point is rounded, and we are steaming down the Marmora with the domes and minarets of the Ottoman capital gradually vanishing to the rear. People whose experience of steamship travel is confined to voyages in western waters, and the orderliness and neatness aboard an Atlantic steamer, can form little idea of the appearance aboard an Oriental passenger boat. The small foredeck is reserved for the use of first and second-class passengers; the remainder of the deck-room is pretty well crowded with the most motley and picturesque gathering imaginable. Arabs and Egyptians returning from a visit to Stamboul, pilgrims going to Mecca via Egypt, Greeks, Levantines, and Armenians, all more or less fantastically attired and occupying themselves in their own peculiar way. The nomadic instinct of the Arabs asserts itself even on the deck of the steamer; ere she is an hour from Stamboul they may be seen squatting in little circles around small pans of charcoal, cooking their evening meal in precisely the same manner in which they are wont to cook it in the desert, leaving out, of course, the difference between camel chips and charcoal. The soothing "bubble bubble" of the narghileh is heard issuing from all sorts of quiet corners, where dreamy-looking Turks are perched cross-legged, happy and contented in the enjoyment of their beloved water-pipe and in the silent contemplation of the moving scenes about them. As we ply our way at a ten-knot speed through the blue waves of the Marmora, and the sun sinks with a golden glow below the horizon, the spirit moves one of the Mecca pilgrims to climb on top of a chicken coop and shout "Allah-il!" for several minutes; the dangling ends of his turban flutter in the fresh evening breeze, streaming out behind him as he faces the east, and flapping in his swarthy face as he turns round facing to the opposite point of the compass. His supplications seem to be addressed to the dancing, white-capped waves, but the old Osmanlis mutter "Allah, Allah," in response between meditative whiffs of the narghileh, and the Arab and his fellow Mecca pilgrims swell the chorus with deep-fetched sighs of "Allah, Ali Akbar!" A narrow space is walled off with canvas for the exclusive use of the female deck passengers, and in this enclosure scores of women and children of the above-named nationalities are huddled together indiscriminately for the night, packed, I should say, closer than sardines in a tin box. Male sleepers and family groups are sprawled about the deck in every conceivable position, and in walking from the foredeck to the after-cabins by the ghostly glimmer of the ship's lanterns, one has to pick his way cautiously among them. Woe to the person who attempts this difficult feat without the aid of a good pair of sea-legs; he is sure to be pitched head foremost by the motion of the vessel into the bosom of some family peacefully snoozing in a promiscuous heap, or to step on the slim, dusky figure of an Arab. The ubiquitous Urasian who can speak "a leetle Inglis" soon betrays his presence aboard by singling me out and proceeding to make himself sociable. I am sitting on the foredeck perusing a late copy of a magazine which I had obtained in Constantinople, when that inevitable individual introduces himself by peeping at the corner of the magazine, and, with a winning smile, deliberately spells out its name; and soon we are engaged in as animated a discussion of the magazine as his limited knowledge of English permits. After listening with much interest to the various subjects of which it treats, he parades his profuse knowledge of Anglo-Saxon athletics by asking: "Does it also speak of ballfoot?" The cuisine in both first and second-class cabins aboard the Egyptian liners is excellent, being served after the French style, with several courses and wine ad libitum. At our table is one solitary female, a Greek lady with an interesting habit of talking and gesticulating during meal-times, and of promenading the fore-deck in a profoundly pensive mood between meals. I have good reason to remember her former peculiarity, as she accidentally knocks a bottle of wine over into my soup-plate while gesticulating to a couple of Levantines across the table. She is a curious woman in more respects than one: she always commences to pick her teeth at the beginning of the meal, and between courses she sticks the little wooden toothpick, pen-fashion, behind her ear. Being Greek, of course she smokes cigarettes, and being Greek, of course she is also arrayed in one of those queer-looking garments that resemble an inverted cloth balloon, with the feet protruding from holes in the bottom. She sometimes absent-mindedly keeps the toothpick behind her ear while promenading the deck, and I have humbly thought that a woman promenading pensively back and forth in the national Greek costume, smoking a cigarette, and with a wooden toothpick behind her starboard ear, was deserving of passing mention. The chief engineer of the ship is an Englishman with a large experience in the East; he has served with the late lamented General Gordon in the suppression of the slave trade in the Red Sea, and was anchored in Alexandria harbor during the last bombardment of the forts by the English ships. "The best thing about the whole bombardment," he says, "was to see the enthusiasm aboard the Yankee ships; the rigging swarmed with men, waving hats and cheering the English gunners, and whenever a more telling shot than usual struck the forts, wild hurrahs of approval from the American sailors would make the welkin ring again." "There was no holding the Yankee sailors back when the English were preparing to go ashore," the old engineer continues, a gleam of enthusiasm lighting up his face, "and it was arranged that they should go ashore to protect the American Consulate--only to protect the American Consulate, you know," and the engineer winks profoundly, and thinking I might not comprehend the meaning of a profound wink, he winks knowingly as he repeats, "only to protect the American Consulate, you know." The engineer winds up by remarking: "That little affair in Alexandria harbor taught me more about the true feeling between the English and Americans than all the newspaper gabble on the subject put together." We touch at Smyrna and the Piraeus, and at the latter place a number of recently disbanded Greek soldiers come aboard; some are Albanian Greeks whose costume is sufficiently fantastic to merit description. Beginning at the feet, these extremities are incased in moccasins of red leather, with pointed toes that turn upward and inward and terminate in a black worsted ball. The legs look comfortable and active in tights of coarse gray cloth, but the piece de resistance of the costume is the kilt. This extends from the hips to the middle of the thighs, and instead of being a simple plaited cloth, like the kilt of the Scotch Highlanders, it consists of many folds of airy white material that protrude in the fanciful manner of the stage costume of a coryphee. A jacket of the same material as the tights covers the body, and is embellished with black braid; this jacket is provided with open sleeves that usually dangle behind like immature wings, but which can be buttoned around the wrists so as to cover the back of the arm. The head-gear is a red fez, something like the national Turkish head-dress, but with a huge black tassel that hangs half-way down the back, and which seems ever on the point of pulling the fez off the wearer's head with its weight. At noon of the fifth day out we arrive in Alexandria Harbor, to find the shipping gayly decorated with flags and the cannon booming in honor of the anniversary of Her Majesty Queen Victoria's coronation. Alexandria is the most flourishing and Europeanized city I have thus far seen in the East. That portion of the city destroyed by the incendiary torches of Arabi Pasha is either built up again or in process of rebuilding. Like all large city fires, the burning would almost seem to have been more of a benefit than otherwise, in the long-run, for imposing blocks of substantial stone buildings, many with magnificent marble fronts, have risen, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of the inferior structures destroyed by the fire. After seeing Constantinople, Teheran, or even Tiflis, one cannot but be surprised at Alexandria--surprised at finding its streets well paved with massive stone blocks, smoothly laid, and elevated in the middle, after the most approved methods; surprised at the long row of really splendid shops, in which is displayed everything that can be found in a European city; surprised at the swell turn-outs on the Khediveal Boulevard of an evening; surprised at the many evidences of wealth and European enterprise. In the yet unfinished quarters of the city, houses are going up everywhere, the large gangs of laborers, both men and women, engaged in their erection, create an impression of beehive-like activity, and everybody looks happy and contented. After so many surprises comes a feeling of regret that this commercial and industrial rose, that looks so bright and flourishing under the stimulating influence of the English occupation, should ever again be exposed to the blighting influence of an Oriental administration. Red-coated "Tommy Atkins," stalking in conscious superiority down the streets, or standing guard in front of the barracks, is no doubt chiefly responsible for much of this flourishing state of affairs in Alexandria, and the withdrawal of his peace--insuring presence could not fail to operate adversely to the city's good. The many groves of date-palms, rising up tall and slender, vying in gracefulness with the tapering minarets of the mosques, and with their feathery foliage mingling with and overtopping the white stone buildings, lends a charm to Alexandria that is found wanting in Constantinople --albeit the Osmanli capital presents by far the more lovely appearance from the sea. Massive marble seats are ranged along the Khediveal Boulevard beneath the trees, and dusky statues, in the scant drapery of the Egyptian plebe, are either sitting on them or reclining at lazy length, an occasional movement of body alone betraying that they are not part and parcel of the tomb-like marble slabs. The tall, slim figures of Soudanese and Arabs mingle with the cosmopolitan forms in the streets; Nubians black as ebony, their skins seemingly polished, and their bare legs thin almost as beanpoles, slouch lazily along, or perhaps they are bestriding a diminutive donkey, their long, bony feet dangling idly to the ground. All the donkeys of Alexandria are not diminutive, however. Some of the finest donkeys in the world are here, large, sleek-coated, well-fed-looking animals, that appear quite as intelligent as their riders, or as the native donkey-boys who follow behind and persuade them along. These donkeys are for hire on every street-corner, and all sorts and conditions of people, from an English soldier to a lean Arab, may be seen coming jollity-jolt along the streets on the hurricane-deck of a donkey, with a half-naked donkey-boy racing behind, belaboring him along. The population of Alexandria is essentially cosmopolitan, but, considering the English occupation, one is scarcely prepared to find so few English. The great majority of Europeans are Germans, French, and Italian, nearly all the shopkeepers being of these nationalities. But English language and Bullish money seem to be almost universally understood, and probably the Board of Trade returns would show that English commerce predominates, and that it is only the retail trade in which the foreign element looms so conspicuously to the fore. An English evening paper, the Egyptian Gazette, has taken root here, and the following rather humorous account of a series of camel races, copied from its pages, serves to show something of how the sporting proclivities of the English army of occupation enlist the services of even the awkward and ungainly ships of the desert: 5.15 p.m.-Camel race, for gentlemen riders. Once round and a distance. Sweepstakes, 10 shillings. Don Juan, a fine, long-maned, fast-looking dromedary, started first favorite, Commodore Goodridge, K. N., our popular naval transport officer, being as good a judge of the ship of the desert as he is of a man-of-war. There was some difficulty at the post to get the riders together, owing to the fractiousness of Don Juan, who, with Kobert the Devil (ridden by Surgeon Porke), did not seem quite agreed about the Professional Beauty (ridden by Surgeon Moir). At the start Shaitan (ridden by Mr. Airey, E. N.) shoved to the front, closely followed by Surgeon Robertson's Mother-in-law, who, with Lieutenant Shuckburg's Purely Patience, Mr. Dumreicher's First Love, and Surgeon Halle's Microbe, rather shut out Don Juan. They kept this order until rounding Tattenham Corner, when Mr. Dumreicher brought his camel to the front, proving to his backers that he meant business with his First Love, and won a splendid race by her neck, Don Juan making a good second, with Professional Beauty about a length behind. 6.15 p.m.-Camel race, for sailors and soldiers. Once round and a distance. First prize, 10s.; second, 5s.; third, 2s. 6d. Eleven competitors turned up for this race, which was very well contested, although one of the camels appeared to think it too much trouble to run, and quietly squatted down immediately after the start, and could not be induced to join his fellows. Abdel Hal Hassin of the Coast Guard came in first, with Wickers of the Royal Artillery second, and Simpson of the commissariat and transport corps third. "Second camel race, for gentlemen riders. This was got up on the course by a sporting naval officer. Five camels started: G. O. M., Hartington, Goschen, Chamberlain, and Unionist. This looked a certainty for G. O. M., as all but Unionist were in the same stable. However, the jockeys seem to have been 'got at,' for although G. O. M. got away with a good start, yet rounding the second corner he was shut out by a combined effort of Hartington, Goschen, Chamberlain, and Unionist, the latter winning, amid thunders of applause, by 30 lengths." Egypt is pre-eminently the land of backsheesh, and Alexandria, as the chief port of arrival and departure, naturally comes in for its share of this annoying attention. From ship to hotel, and from hotel to railway-station, the traveller has to run the gauntlet of people deeply versed in the subtle arts and wiles of backsheesh diplomacy. At any time, as you stroll down the street, some native will suddenly bob up like a sable ghost beside you, point out something you don't want to see, and brazenly demand backsheesh for showing it. Cook's tourists' office is but a few hundred yards from my hotel. I have passed it before, and know exactly where it is, but one of these dusky shadows glides silently behind me, until the office is nearly reached, when he slips ahead, points it out, and with consummate assurance demands backsheesh for guiding me to it. The worst of it is there is no such thing as getting rid of these pests; they are the most persevering and unscrupulous blackmailers in their own small way that could be imagined. People whom you could swear you never set eyes on before will boldly declare they have acted as guide or something, and dog your footsteps all over the city; most of them are as "umble" as Uriah Heep himself in their annoying importunities, but some will not even hesitate to create a scene to gain their object, and, as the easiest way to get rid of them, the harassed traveller generally gives them a coin. In leaving by the train, after one has backsheeshed the hungry swarm of hotel servitors, backsheeshed the porter who has doggedly persisted in coming with you to the station, regardless of repeatedly telling him he wasn't wanted, backsheeshed the baggage man, and bolted almost like a hunted thing into the railway-carriage from a small host of people who want backsheesh--one because he happened to detect your wandering gaze in search of the station clock and eagerly pointed out its whereabouts, another because he has told you, without being asked, that the train starts in ten minutes, another because he pointed out your carriage, which for a brief transitory instant you failed to recognize, and others for equally trivial things, for which they all seem keenly on the alert--you shut yourself in with a feeling of relief that must be something akin to escaping from a gang of brigands. King Backsheesh evidently rules supreme in Egypt yet. My route to India takes me along the Egyptian Railway to Suez, thence by steamer down the Red Sea to Aden and Karachi. A passenger train on this railway consists of carriages divided into classes as they are in England, the first and second class cars being modelled on the same lines as the English. The third-class cars, however, are mere boxes provided with seats, and with iron bars instead of windows. Nice airy vehicles these, where the conditions of climate render airiness desirable, but it must be extremely interesting to ride in one of them through an Egyptian sand-storm. At the Alexandria station, an old wrinkle-faced native, bronzed and leathery almost as an Egyptian mummy, pulls a bell-rope three times, the conductor comes to the car-window for the second time and examines your ticket, the engine gives a cracked shriek and pulls out. As the train glides through the suburbs one's attention is arrested by well-kept carriage-drives, lined and overarched with feathery palm-tree groves, and other evidences of municipal thrift. From the suburbs we plunge at once into a rich and populous agricultural country, the famed Nile Delta, of which a passing descriptive glimpse will not here be considered out of place. Cotton seems to be the most important crop as seen from the windows of my car, and for many a mile after leaving Alexandria we glide through luxuriant fields of that important Egyptian staple. Interspersed among the darker green of the growing cotton are fields of young rice, sometimes showing bright and green in contrast to the darker shade of the cotton, and sometimes being represented by square areas of glistening water, beneath which the young rice is submerged. The Nile Delta is a net-work of irrigating ditches from end to end. Large canals, big enough to float barges, and on which considerable commerce is carried, tap the Nile above the Delta, and traversing it in all directions, furnish water to systems of smaller ditches and canals, and these again to still smaller channels of distribution. The water in these channels is all below the surface, and a goodly proportion of the whole teeming population of the delta is engaged between seed-time and harvest in pumping the life-giving water from these ditches into the small surface trenches that conduct it over their fields and gardens. The water-pumping fellahs, ranged along the net-work of canals, often at intervals of not more than one hundred yards, create an impression of marvellous industry pervading the whole scene, as the train speeds its way alongside the larger canals. The pumping in most cases is done by men or buffaloes, and the clumsy-looking but effective Egyptian water-wheel, a rough wooden contrivance that as it revolves, raises the water from below and pours it from holes in the side into a wooden trough, from whence it flows over the field. Small rude shelters are erected close by, beneath which the attendant fellah can squat in the shade and keep the meek and gentle, but lazy buffaloes up to their task, by constant threats and bellicose demonstrations. Most of these animals are blindfolded, a contrivance that, no doubt, inspires them to pace round and round their weary circle with becoming perseverance, inasmuch as it tends to keep them in perpetual fear of the dusky driver beneath the shade. People too poor, or with holdings too small, to justify the employment of oxen in pumping water, raise it from the ditches themselves, with buckets at the end of long well-sweeps; in some localities one can cast his eye over the landscape and see scores of these rude sweeps continually rising and falling, rising and falling. A few windmills are also used for pumping, but the wind is a fickle thing to depend on, and his utter dependence on the water supply makes the Egyptian agriculturist unwilling to run such risks. Steam-engines, both stationary and portable, are observed at frequent intervals. Both the engines and the coal for fuel have to be imported from England; but they evidently pump enough water to repay the outlay, otherwise there would not be so many of them in use. It must be a rich, productive soil that can afford the expensive luxury of importing steam-engines and coal from a distant market to supply it with water for irrigation. The sediment from the Nile, which settles in the canals and ditches, is cleaned out at frequent intervals and spread over the fields, providing a new dressing of rich alluvial soil to annually stimulate the productive capacity of the soil. In the larger cotton-fields the dusky sons and daughters of Egypt are seen strung out in long rows, wielding cumbersome hoes, reminding one of old plantation days in Dixie; or they are paddling about in the inundated rice-fields like amphibious things. Swarms of happy youngsters are splashing about in the canals and ditches; all about is teeming with life and animation. Villages are populous and close together. They are, for the most part, mere jumbles of low, mud houses with curious domed roofs, and they rise above the dead level of the delta like mounds. Many of these villages have probably occupied the same site since the days of the Pharaohs, the debris and rubbish of centuries have accumulated and been built upon again and again as the unsubstantial mud dwellings have crumbled away, until they have gradually developed into mounds that rise like huge mole-hills above the plain, and on which the present houses are built. Near each village is a graveyard, also forming a mound-like excrescence on the dead level of the surrounding surface. At intervals the train passes some stately white mansion, looking lovely and picturesque enough for anything, peeping from a grove of date-palms or other indigenous vegetation. The tall, slender palms with their beautiful feathery foliage, lend a charm to the sunny Egyptian landscape with its golden dawns and sunsets that is simply indescribable. There seems no reason why every village on the whole delta should not be hiding its ugliness beneath a grove of this charming vegetation. Further east, near Fantah, nearly every village is found thus embowered, and date-palm groves form a very conspicuous feature of the landscape. One need hardly add that here the fellaheen look more intelligent, more prosperous and happy. At all the larger stations women come to the train with roast quails stuffed with rice, which they sell at six-pence apiece, and at every station along the line children bring water in the porous clay bottles of the country. This latter is badly needed, for the train rattles along most of the time in a stifling cloud of dust, that penetrates the car and settles over one in incredible quantities. During the afternoon we pass the battle-field of Tel-el-Kebre, the train whisking right through the centre of Arabi Pasha's earthworks. Near the battle-field is a little cemetery where the English soldiers killed in the battle were buried. The cemetery is kept green and tidy, and surrounded by a neat iron fence; amid the gray desert that begins at Tel-el-Kebre this little cemetery is the only bright spot immediately about. From Tel-el-Kebre to Suez the country is a sandy desert, where sand-fences, like the snow-fences of the Rocky Mountains, have been found necessary to protect the railway from the shifting sand. On this dreary waste are seen herds of camels, happy, no doubt, as clams at high tide, as they roam about and search for tough camel-thorn shrubs, that here and there protrude above the wavy ridges of white sand. Put a camel in a pasture of rich, succulent grass and he will roam about with a far-away, disconsolate look and an expression of disgust, but here, on the glaring white sands of the desert with nothing to browse upon but prickly dry shrubs he is in the seventh 'heaven of a camel's delight. Very curious it looks as we approach Suez to see the spars and masts of big steamers moving along the ship-canal, close at hand, without seeing anything of the water. The high dumps, representing the excavations from the canal, conceal everything but the masts and the top of the funnels even when one is close by. Several days are spent at Suez, waiting for the steamer which we will call the Mandarin, on which I am to take passage to Karachi. Suez is a wretched hole, although there is a passably good English hotel facing the water-front. It is the month of Bairam, however, and there is consequently a good deal of picturesque life in the native quarters. Suez seems swarming with guides, and as I am, for the greater part of a week, the only guest at the hotel, they show me far more attention than a dozen people would know what to do with. Some want to take me to see the place where Moses struck the rock, others urge me to visit the spot where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea; both these places being suspiciously handy to Suez. Donkey boys dog one's footsteps with their long-eared chargers, whenever one ventures outside the hotel. "I'm the Peninsular and Oriental Donkey Boy, sir, Jimmy Johnson; I have a good donkey, sir, when you want to ride, ask for Jimmy Johnson." To all this, sundry seductive offers are added, such as a short trial trip along the bund. The Mandarin comes along on July 7th, and a decidedly stably smell is wafted over the waters toward us as we follow behind her with the little launch that is to put me aboard when the steamer condescends to ease up and allow us to approach. The Mandarin, owing to the quarantine, has kept me waiting several days at Suez, and when at last she steams out of the canal and we give chase with the little launch, and finally range alongside, the whole length of the deck is observed to be bristling with ears. Some particularly hopeful agent of the Indian Government has been sanguine enough to ship one hundred and forty mules from Italy to Karachi during the monsoon season, on the deck of a notoriously rolling ship, and with nothing but temporary plank fittings to confine the mules. The mules are ranged along either side of the deck, seventy mules on each side, heads facing inward, and with posts and a two-inch plank separating them from the remainder of the deck, and into stalls of six mules each. Cocoanut matting is provided for them to stand on, and a plank nailed along the deck for them to brace their feet against when the vessel rolls. Nothing could be more happily arranged than this, providing the mules were unanimously agreed about remaining inside the railed-off space, and providing the monsoons had agreed not to roll the Mandarin violently about. With unpardonable short-sightedness, however, it seems that neither of these important factors in the case has been seriously considered or consulted, and, as an additional insult to the mules, the plank in front of them is elevated but four feet six above the deck. They are a choice lot of four-year-old mules, unbroken and wild, harum-skarum and skittish. Well-fed four-year-old mules are skin-full of deviltry under any circumstances, and ranged like so many red herrings in their boxes, with no exercise, and every motion of the ship jostling them against one another, they very quickly developed a capacity for simon-pure cussedness that caused the officers of the ship no little anxiety from day to day, and a good deal more anxiety when they reflected on the weather that would be encountered on the Indian Ocean. The officers of the Mandarin are excellent seamen; they are perfectly at home and at their ease when it comes to managing a vessel, but their knowledge of mules is not so profound and exhaustive as of vessels; in short, their experience of mules has hitherto been confined to casually noticing meek and sober-sided specimens attached to the street cars of certain cities they have visited. Three Italian muleteers have been hired to assist and instruct the coolies in feeding and watering the mules, and to supervise their general welfare. The three muleteers is an excellent arrangement, providing there were but three mules, but unfortunately there are one hundred and forty, and before they had been aboard the Mandarin two days it became apparent that they ought to have engaged an equal number of Italians to keep the mules out of devilment. Uneasy in their minds at the wild restlessness and seemingly dare-devil and inconsiderate pranks of their long-eared and unspeakable charges, the officers are naturally anxious to avail themselves of any stray grains of enlightenment concerning their management they might perchance drop on to by appealing to persons they come in contact with. Accordingly, one of them approaches me, the only passenger aboard, except some Hindoos returning home from a visit to the Colinderies, and asks me if I understand anything about mules. I modestly own up to having reared, broken, driven, and generally handled mules in the West, whereat the officer is much pleased, and proceeds to unburden his mind concerning the animals aboard the ship. "Fine young mules," he says they are, and in reply to a question of what the government of India is importing mules from Europe for, instead of raising them in India, he says he thinks they must be intended for breeding purposes. Understanding well enough that all this is quite natural and excusable in a sea-faring man, I succeed in checking a rising smile, and gently, but firmly, convince the officer of the erroneousness of this conclusion. The officer is delighted to find a person possessing so complete a knowledge of mules, and I am henceforth regarded as the oracle on this particular subject, and the person to be consulted in regard to sundry things they don't quite understand. Between the two-inch plank and the awning overhead is a space of about three feet; the mate says he is a trifle misty as to how a sixteen-hand mule can leap through this small space without touching either the plank or the awning; "and yet," he says, "there is hardly a mule on board that has not performed this seemingly miraculous feat over and over again, and a good many of them, make a practice of doing it every night." This jumping mania makes him feel uneasy every night, the mate goes on to explain, for fear some of the reckless and "light-heeled cusses" should make a mistake and jump over the bulwarks into the sea; the bulwarks are no higher than the plank, yet, while half the mules were found outside the plank every morning, none of them had happened to jump outside the bulwarks so far. Many of the mules, he says, were putting in most of their time bulldozing their fellows, and doing their best to make their life unbearable, and the downtrodden specimens seem so desperately scared of the bulldozers that he expects to see some of them jump overboard from sheer fright and desperation. At this juncture we are joined by another officer, and the mate joyfully informs him that I am a man who knows more about mules than anybody he had ever talked mule with. His brother officer is delighted to hear this, as he has been uneasy about the mules' appetites; they would devour all the hay and coarse feed they could get hold of, but didn't seem to have that constant hankering after grain that he had always understood to be part and parcel of a horse's, and, consequently, a mule's, nature. He knows something about horses, he says, for his wife keeps a pony in Scotland, and the pony would leave hay at any time to eat oats and bran; consequently, he thinks there must be something radically wrong with the mules; and yet they seem lively enough--in fact, they seem d-d lively. The two salts are also troubled somewhat in their minds at the marvellous kicking powers and propensities of the mules. One says he could understand an animal kicking to defend itself when attacked in the rear, or when anything tickled its heels, but the mules aboard the Mandarin had their heels in the air most of the time, and they battered away at one another, and pounded the iron bulwarks, without the slightest provocation. "Yes," chimes in the other officer, "and, more than that, I've seen 'em throw their heels clear over the bulwarks, kicking at a white-capped wave--if you'll believe me, sir, actually kicking at a white-capped wave--that happened to favor them with a trifle of spray." I say I have no doubt what the officer says is true, and not necessarily exaggerated, and the officer says: "No, there is no exaggeration about it. You'll see the same thing yourself before you've been aboard twelve hours. There'll be h-ll to pay aboard this ship when we strike the monsoons." After explaining to the officers that there are not men enough, nor bulldozing and tyrannical mules enough, aboard the Mandarin to scare the timidest mule of the consignment into jumping over the bulwarks into the sea; that it is quite natural for mules to prefer hay to bran and oats, and that it is as natural and necessary for a four-year-old mule to kick as it is to breathe, they thank me and say they shall sleep sounder tonight than they have for a week. The heat, as we steam slowly down the Red Sea, is almost overpowering at this time of the year, July. A universal calm prevails; day after day we glide through waters smooth as a mirror, resort to various expedients to keep cool, and witness fiery red sunsets every evening. Every day the deck presents a scene of animation, from the pranks and vagaries of our long-eared cargo. All goes well with them, however, as we glide along the placid bosom of the Red Sea; the oppressive heat has a wilting effect even on the riotous spirits of the young mules. They still exhibit their mulish contempt for the barriers reared so confidingly around them, and develop new and startling traits of devilment every day; but it is not until we leave Aden, and the long swells come rolling up from the monsoon region, that the real fun begins. The Mandarin lurches and rolls awfully, making it extremely difficult at times for any of the mules to keep their feet; each mule seems to think his next neighbor responsible for the jostling and crowding, and the kicking and squealing is continuous along both lines. While battering away at each other, each mule seems to be at the same time keeping a loose eye behind him for the oncoming waves and swells that occasionally curl over the bulwarks and irrigate and irritate them in the rear. Most of the mules seem capable of kicking at their neighbors and at a wave at the same time; but it is when their undivided attention is centred upon the crested billow of a swell that sweeps alongside the ship and flings a white, foamy cataract at the business end of each mule as it advances, that their marvellous heel-flinging capacity becomes apparent. Each mule batters frantically away as the wave strikes him, and the rattle of nimble and indignant hoofs on the iron bulwarks follows the wave along from one end of the ship to the other. One of the most arrogant and overbearing of the animals aboard is a ginger-colored mule stationed almost amidships on the starboard side. This mule soon develops the extraordinary capacity of casting its eye over the heaving waste of waters and distinguishing the particular wave that intends coming over the bulwarks long before it reaches the vessel. The historical arrogance of Canute's followers in thinking the waves would recede at his command, is nothing in comparison to the cheeky assumption of this ginger mule. This mule will fold back its ears, look wild, and raise its heels menacingly at a white-crested wave when the wave is yet a hundred yards away; and on the second day out from Aden its arrogance develops in such an alarming degree that it bristles up and lifts its heels at waves that its experience and never-flagging observation must have taught it wouldn't come half-way up the bulwarks! Now and then a mule will be caught off his guard and be flung violently to the deck, but the look of astonishment dies away as it nimbly regains its feet, and gives place to angry attack on its neighbor and a half-reproachful, half-apprehensive look at the sea. So far, however, the mules seem to more than hold their own, and, all oblivious of what is before them, they are comparatively happy and mischievous. But on the night of the third day out from Aden, the full force of the monsoon swells strikes the Mandarin, and, true to her character, she responds by rolling and pitching about in the trough of the sea in a manner that fills the mules with consternation, and ends in their utter collapse and demoralization. Planks break and give way as the whole body of mules are flung violently and simultaneously forward, and before midnight the mules are piled up in promiscuous and struggling heaps, while tons of water come on deck and wash and tumble them about in all imaginable shapes and forms. All hands are piped up and kept busy tying the mules' legs, to prevent them regaining their feet only to be flung violently down again in the midst of a struggling heap of their fellows. There is only one mule actually dead in the morning, but the others are the worst used up, discouraged lot of mules I ever saw. Mules that but the day before would nearly jump out of their skins if one attempted to pat their noses, now seem anxious to court human attention and to atone for past sins. Many of them are pretty badly skinned up and bruised, and a few of them are well-nigh flayed alive from being see-sawed back and forth about the deck. It is not a pleasant picture to dwell upon, and it would be much pleasanter to have to record that the mules proved too much for the monsoon, but truth will prevail, and before we reach Karachi the monsoon has scored fourteen mules dead and pretty much all the others more or less wounded. But this is no discredit to the mules; in fact, I have greater respect for the staying qualities of a mule than ever before, since the monsoon only secures ten per cent of them for the sharks after all. A week from Aden, and fourteen days from Suez we reach Karachi. The tide happens to be out at the time, and so we have to lay to till the following morning, when the Mandarin crosses the bar and drops anchor preparatory to unloading the now badly demoralized mules into lighters. Karachi bids fair to develop into a very prominent sea-port in the near future. The extension of the frontier into Beloochistan gives Karachi a strategic importance as the port of arrival of troops and war material from England. Not less is its importance from a purely commercial view; for down the Indus Valley Railway to Karachi for shipment, come the enormous and yearly increasing wheat exportations from the Punjab. Thus far my precise plans have been held in abeyance until my arrival on Indian soil. Whether I would find it practicable to start on the wheel again from Karachi, or whether it would be necessary to proceed to the northeast, I had not yet been able to find out. At any rate, it is always best to leave these matters until one gets on the spot. The result of my investigations at once proves the impossibility, even were it desirable, of starting from Karachi. The Indus River is at flood, inundating the country, which is also jungly and wild and without roads. The heat throughout Scinde in July is something terrific; and to endeavor to force a way through flooded jungle with a bicycle at such a time would be little short of madness. Under these conditions I decide to proceed by rail to Lahore, the capital of the Punjab, whence, I am told, there will be a good road all the way to Calcutta. As the crow flies, Lahore is nearer to Furrah than Karachi is, so that my purpose of making a continuous trail will be better served from that point anyhow. It is an interesting jaunt by rail up the Indus Valley; but one's first impression of India is sure to be one of disappointment by taking this route. It is a desert country, taken all in all, this historic Scinde; through which, however, the Indus Valley makes a narrow streak of agricultural richness. The cars on the railroad are provided with kus-kus tatties to mollify the intense heat. They are fixed into the windows so that the passengers may turn them round from time to time to raise the water from the lower half to the top, whence it trickles back again and cools the heated air that percolates through. The heat increases as we reach Rohri and Sukhar, where passengers are transferred by ferry across the Indus; the country seems a veritable furnace, cracking and blistering with heat. At Sukhar our train glides through some rich date-palms, the origin of which, legend says, were the date-stones thrown away by the soldiers of Alexander the Great. They seem to have taken root in congenial soil, anyway, for every tree is heavily laden with ripe and ripening dates. Reclining under the date-trees or wandering about are many dusky sons and daughters of Scinde, the latter in bright raiment and with children in no raiment whatever. The heat, the fruitful date-palms, and the lotus-eating natives combine to make up a truly tropical scene. Much of the country population seems to be nomadic, or semi-nomadic, dwelling in tents with which they remove to the higher ground when the Indus becomes inundated, and return again to the valley to cultivate and harvest their crops. They seem a picturesque people mostly, sometimes strangely incongruous in the matter of apparel, as, for instance, one I saw wearing a white breech-cloth and a hussar coat. This was the whole extent of his wardrobe, for he had neither shoes, shirt, nor hat. Water-buffaloes are wading and swimming about in the overflowed jungle, browsing off bulrushes and rank grass. Youngsters are sometimes seen perched on the buffaloes' backs, taking care of the herd. About Mooltan the aspect of the country changes to level, barren plain, and this, as we gradually approach Lahore, gives place to a cultivated country of marvellous richness. Here one first sees the matchless kunkah roads, traversing the country from town to town, the first glimpse of which is very reassuring to me. It is July 28th when I at length find myself in Lahore. The heat is not only well-nigh unbearable, but dangerous. Prickly heat has seized hold upon me with a promptness that is anything but agreeable; the thermometer in my room at Clarke's Hotel registers 108 deg. at midnight. A punkah-wallah is indispensable night and day. A couple of days are spent in affixing a new set of tires to my wheel and seeing something of the lions of Lahore. The Shalamar Mango Gardens, a few miles east of the city, and Shah-Jehan's fort, museum, etc., are the regular things to visit. In the museum is a rare collection of ancient Asiatic arms, some of which throw a new light on the origin of modern firearms. Here are revolving muskets that were no doubt used long before the revolving principle was ever applied to arms in the West. But our narrative must not linger amid the antiquities of Lahore, fascinating as they may, peradventure, be. CHAPTER XIV. THROUGH INDIA. The heat is intense, being at the end of the heated term at the commencement of the earliest monsoons. It is certainly not less than 130 deg. Fahr., in the sun, when at 3 p.m. I mount and shape my course toward Amritza, some thirty-five miles down the Grand Trunk Road. In such a temperature and beneath such a sun it behooves the discreet Caucasian to dress as carefully for protection against the heat as he would against the frost of an Arctic winter. The United States army helmet which I have constantly worn since obtaining it at Fort Sydney, Neb., has now to be discarded in favor of a huge pith solar topee an inch thick and but little smaller than an umbrella. This overshadowing head-dress imparts a cheerful, mushroom-like aspect to my person, and casts a shadow on the smooth whitish surface of the road, as I ride along, that well-nigh obliterates the shadow of the wheel and its rider. Thus sheltered from the rays of the Indian sun, I wheel through the beautifully shaded suburban streets of Lahore, past dense thickets of fruitful plantains, across the broad switch-yard of the Scinde, Delhi & Punjab Railway, and out on to the smooth, level surface of the Grand Trunk Road. This road is, beyond a doubt, the finest highway in the whole world. It extends for nearly sixteen hundred miles, an unbroken highway of marvellous perfection, from Peshawur on the Afghan frontier to Calcutta. It is metalled for much of its length with a substance peculiar to the country, known as kunkah. Kunkah is obtained almost anywhere throughout the Land of the Five Rivers, underlying the surface soil. It is a sort of loose nodular limestone, which when wetted and rolled cements together and forms a road-surface smooth and compact as an asphaltum pavement, and of excellent wearing quality. It is a magnificent road to bicycle over; not only is it broad, level, and smooth, but for much of the way it is converted into a veritable avenue by spreading shade-trees on either side. Far and near the rich Indian vegetation, stimulated to wear its loveliest garb by the early monsoon rains, is intensely green and luxuriant; and through the richly verdant landscape stretches the wide, straight belt of the road, far as eye can reach, a whitish streak, glaring and quivering with reflected heat. The natives of the Punjab, the most loyal, perhaps, of the Indian races, are beginning to regard the Christian Sabbath as a holiday, and happy crowds of people in holiday attire are gathered at the Shalamar Mango Gardens, a few miles out of Lahore. Beyond the gardens, I meet a native in a big red turban and white clothes, en route to Lahore on a bone-shaker. He is pedalling ambitiously along, with his umbrella under his left arm. As we approach each other his swarthy countenance lights up with a "glad, fraternal smile," and his hand touches his turban in recognition of the mystic brotherhood of the wheel. There is a mysterious bond of sympathy recognizable even between the old native-made bone-shaker and its Punjabi rider and the pale-faced Ferenghi Sahib mounted on his graceful triumph of Western ingenuity and mechanical skill. The free display of ivories as we approach, the expectation of fraternal recognition so plainly evident in his face, and the friendly and respectful, rather than obsequious, manner of saluting, tell something of that levelling tendency of the wheel we sometimes hear spoken of. The park-like expanse of country on either hand continues as mile after mile is reeled off; the shady trees, the ruins, the villages, and the roadside kos-minars, with the perfect highway leading through it all--what more could wheelman ask than this. A wayside police-chowkee is now seen ahead, a snug little edifice of brick beneath the sacred branches of a spreading peepul. A six-foot Sikh, in the red-and-blue turban and neat blue uniform of the Punjab soldier-police, stands at the door and executes a stiff military salute as I wheel past. A row of conical white pillars and a grass-grown plot of ground containing a few bungalows and camping space for a regiment indicate a military reservation. These spaces are reserved at intervals of ten or twelve miles all down the Grand Trunk Road; the distance from each represents a day's march for Indian troops in time of peace. A bend in the road, and the bicycle sweeps over a substantial brick bridge, spanning an irrigating canal large enough to float a three-masted schooner. The bridge and the ditch convey early evidence of English enterprise no less conspicuous than the road itself. Neatly trimmed banks and a tropical luxuriance of overhanging vegetation give the long straight reach of water the charming appearance of flowing through a leafy tunnel. Under the stimulus of the monsoon rains and the more than tropical heat, the soil seems bursting with fatness, and earth, air, and water are teeming with life. The roadway itself is swarming with pedestrians, trudging along in both directions; some there are with the inevitable umbrellas held above their heads, but more are carrying them under their arms, as though in lofty contempt of 130 deg. Fahr. Vehicles jingle past by the hundred, filled with villagers who have been visiting or shopping at Lahore or Amritza. Their light bamboo carts are provided with numbers of little brass cymbals that clash together musically in response to the motion of the vehicle; the occupants are fairly loaded down with silver jewellery, and for color and picturesqueness generally it is safe to assume that "not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these." The women particularly seem to literally revel in the exuberance of bright coloring adorning their dusky proportions, the profusion of jewellery, the merry jingle-jangle of the cymbals, the more than generous heat, and the seeming bountifulness of everything. These Sikh and Jatni merry-makers early impress me as being particularly happy and light-hearted people. Splendid wheeling though it be, it soon becomes distressingly apparent that propelling a bicycle has now to be considered in connection with the overpowering heat. Half the distance to Amritza is hardly covered, and the riding time scarcely two hours, yet it finds me reclining beneath the shade of a roadside tree more used up than five times the distance would warrant in a less enervating climate. The greensward around me as I recline in the shade is teeming with busy insects, and the trees are swarming with the beautiful winged life of the tropical air. Flocks of paroquets with most gorgeous plumage--blue, red, green, gold, and every conceivable hue--flit hither and thither, or sweep past in whirring flight. Some of the native pedestrians pause for a moment and cast a wondering look at the unaccustomed spectacle of a Sahib and a bicycle reclining alone beneath a wayside tree. All salaam deferentially as they pass by, but there is a refreshing absence of the spirit of obtrusion that sometimes made life a burden among the Turks and Persians. In his disgust at the aggressive curiosity of the Persians, Captain E, my companion from Meshed to Constantinople, had told me, "You'll find, when you get to India, that a Sahib there is a Sahib," and the strikingly deferential demeanor of the natives I have encountered on the road to-day forcibly reminds me of his remarks. The myriads of soldier-ants crossing the road in solid phalanx or climbing the trees, the winged jewels of the air flitting silently here and there, the picturesque natives and their deferential salaams--all these only serve to wean one's thoughts from the oppressive heat for a moment. At times one fairly gasps for breath and looks involuntarily about in forlorn search of some place of escape, if only for a moment, from the stifling atmosphere. A feeling of utter lassitude and loss of ambition comes over one; the importance of accomplishing one's object diminishes, and the necessity of yielding to the pressure of the fearful heat and taking things easy becomes the all-absorbing theme of the imagination. A supreme and heroic effort of the will is necessary to arouse one from the inclination to remain in the shade indefinitely, regardless of everything else. No sort of accommodation is to be obtained this side of Amritza, however, so, waiting until the dreadful power of the sun is tempered somewhat by his retirement beneath the trees, I resume my journey, making several brief halts in deference to an overwhelming sense of lassitude ere completing the thirty-five miles. Owing to these frequent halts, it is after dark when I arrive at Amritza--a thoroughly wilted individual, and suffering agonies from the prickly heat aggravated by the feverish temperature superinduced by the exertion of the afternoon ride. My karki suit and underclothes hold almost as much moisture as though I had just been fished out of the river, and my dry-drained corporeal system is clamorous for the wherewithal to quench the fires of its feverish heat as I alight in the suburbs of Amritza and inquire for the dak bungalow. A willing native guides me to a hotel where a smooth-mannered Parsee Boniface accommodates Sahibs with supper, charpoy, and chota-hazari for the small sum of Rs4; punkah-wallahs, pahnee-wallahs, sweepers, etc., extra. A cooling douche with water kept at a low temperature in the celebrated porous bottles, a change of underclothing, and a punkah-wallah vigorously engaged in creating an artificial breeze, soon change things for the better. All these refreshing and renovating appliances, however, barely suffice to stimulate one's energy up to the duty of jotting down in one's diary a brief summary of the day's happenings. The punkah of India is a long, narrow fan, suspended by cords from the ceiling; attached to it is another cord which finds its way outside through a convenient hole in the wall or window-frame. For the magnificent sum of three annas (six cents) the hopeful punkah-wallah sits outside and fills the room with soothing, sleep-inducing breezes for the space of a day or night, by a constant seesawing motion of the string. Few Europeans are able to sleep at night or exist during the day without the punkah-wallah's services, for at least nine months in the year. The slightest negligence on his part at night is sufficient to summon the sleeper instantly from the land of dreams to the stern reality that the dusky imp outside has himself dropped off to sleep. A pardonable imprecation, delivered in loud, threatening tones; or, in the case of a person vengefully inclined, or once too often made a victim, a stealthy visit to the open door, a well-aimed boot, and the pendulous punkah again swings to and fro, banishing the newly awakened prickly heat, and fanning the recumbent figure on the charpoy with grateful breezes that quickly send him off to sleep again. A slight fall of rain during the night tempers somewhat the oppressive heat, and the zephyrs of the prevailing monsoons blow stiffly against me as I pedal southward in the early morning. The rain has improved rather than injured the kunkah road, and it is, moreover, something of a toss-up as to whether the adverse wind is advantageous or otherwise. On the one hand it exacts increased muscular effort to ride against it, but on the other, its beneficent services as a cooler are measurably apparent. One needs only to traverse the Grand Trunk Road for a few days in order to obtain a comprehensive idea of India's teeming population. Vehicles and pedestrians throng the road again this morning, pouring into Amritza as though to attend some great festival. The impression of some festive occasion obtains additional color from parties of musicians who keep up a perpetual tom-tom-ing on their drums as they trudge along; the object of their noisiness is apparently to gratify their own love of the sounding rattle of the drums. At the police-chowkee of Ghundeala, ten miles from Amritza, a halt is made for rest and a drink of water. To avoid trampling on the caste prejudices, or the sanctimonious religious feelings of the natives, everybody drinks from his hands, or from a cheap earthenware dish that may afterward be smashed. The Sikhs and Mohammedans of the Punjab are far more reasonable in this matter than are the Brahmans and other ultra-holy idolaters of the country farther south. Among the Hindoos, where caste prejudices exist throughout all the strata of society, to avoid the awful consequences of touching their lips to a vessel out of which some unworthy wretch a shade less holy has previously drunk, the fastidious worshipper of Krishna, Vishnu, or Kamadeva always drinks from his hands, unless possessed of a private drinking vessel of his own. The hands are held in position to form a trough leading to the mouth; while an assistant pours water in at one end, the recipient receives it at the other. No little skill and care is required to prevent the water running down one's sleeve: the average native seems to think the human throat a gutter down which the water will flow as fast as he can pour it into the hands. The flowing yellow flood of Beas River, now at flood, and spreading itself over the width of a mile, makes an impassable break in my road soon after mid-day. A ferryboat usually plies across the stream, but by reason of the broad area of overflow, and the consequent difficulty of working it, it is moored up for the time being. Fortunately, the Scinde, Punjab & Delhi Railroad crosses the river on a fine bridge near by, with a regular ferry-train service in operation. Repairing thither, I find, in charge of the ferry-train, an old Anglo-Indian engineer, who prevails upon me to accept his hospitality for the night. Hundreds of natives pass the night round about the railway-station, waiting to cross the bridge on the first morning train. Nowhere else in the world does a gathering of people present so picturesque and interesting a sight as in sunny Hindostan. These people gathered about the Beas River station look more like a company rigged out for the spectacular stage than ordinary, everyday mortals attending to the prosaic business of life. The nose-rings worn by many of the women are so massive and heavy that silken cords are attached and carried to some support on the head to relieve the nostril of the weight. The rims of the ears are likewise grievously overburdened with ornaments. These unoffending appendages are pierced with a number of holes all round the rim from lobe to top; each hole contains a massive ring almost large and heavy enough for a bracelet, the weight of which pulls the ear all out of shape. Simple yet gaudy costumes prevail-garments of red, yellow, blue, green, olive, and white, with gold tinsel, drape the graceful forms of the dusky Sikh or Jatni belles; and not a whit less picturesque and parti-colored are the costumes of their husbands, brothers, and fathers-fine fellows mostly, tall, straight, military-looking men, with handsome faces and fierce mustashios. Not a few thoroughbred Jats are mingled in the crowd--the "stout-built, thick-limbed Jats," the warlike race with the steel or silver discus surmounting their queer pyramidal headdress. Under the independent government of their people by the Gurus, or ruler-priests, of the last century, and particularly under the regulations of the celebrated Guru Govind, every Sikh was considered a warrior from his birth, and was always required to wear steel iri some form or other about his person. The Jats, being the most enterprising and warlike tribe of the territory acknowledging the rule of the Gurus and the religious teachings of the Adi Granth as their faith, take especial pride in commemorating the bravery and warlike qualities of their ancestors by still wearing the distinguishing steel quoits on their heads. Seesum or banyan trees, shading twenty yards' width of luxuriant greensward on either side of the road, and each and every tree sheltering groups of natives, resting, idling, washing their clothes in some silent pool, or tending a few grazing buffaloes, form a truly Arcadian scene for mile after mile next day. These buffaloes are huge, unwieldy animals with black, hairless hides, strong and heavy almost as rhinoceroses. In striking contrast to them are the aristocratic little cream-colored Brahmani cows, with the curious big "camel-hump" on their withers. These latter animals are pampered and revered and made much of among the Brahmans; mythology has it that Brahma created cows and Brahmans at the same time, and the cow is therefore an object of worship and veneration. Taken all in all, the worship of the Hindoos has something eminently rational about it; their worship is frequently bestowed upon some tangible object that contributes directly to their material enjoyment. It is very much like going back to the first principles of gratitude for direct blessings received to worship "Mother Ganga," the noble stream that brings down the moisture from the Himalayas to water their plains and quicken into life their needy crops, or to worship the gentle bovine that provides them daily with milk and cheese and ghee. Wonderful legends are told of the cow in Hindoo mythology. The Ramayana tells of a certain marvellous cow owned by a renowned hermit. The hermit being honored by a visit from the king, who had with him a numerous retinue, was sorely puzzled how to provide refreshments for his princely guests. The cow, however, proved herself equal to the emergency, and--"Obedient to her saintly lord, Viands to suit each taste outpoured. Honey she gave, and roasted grain, Mead, sweet with flowers, and sugar-cane. Each beverage of flavor rare, And food of every sort, were there. Hills of hot rice, and sweetened cakes, And curdled milk, and soup in lakes. Vast beakers flowing to the brim, With sugared drink prepared for him; And dainty sweetmeats, deftly made, Before the hermit's guest were laid." In all Brahman communities are sacred bulls, allowed to roam at their own sweet will among the crops and help themselves. Chowel and dood (rice-and-milk) is obtained at noon from a village eating-stall; the rice is dished up to all customers in basins improvised from a broad banyan-leaf, so that nobody's caste may be jeopardized by handling spoons or dishes that others have touched. Most of the natives manage to eat with their fingers, but they bring for the Sahib a stiff green leaf which is bent into the form of a scoop and made to answer the purpose of a spoon. The milk is served in valueless earthenware basins that are tossed into the street and broken after being once used. There is a regular caste of artisans in India whose hereditary profession is the manufacture of this cheap pottery; almost every village has its family of pottery-makers, who manufacture them for the use of the community. The people are curious about the bicycle, and the Sahib's peculiar manner of travelling without the usual native servant and eating rice at an ordinary village stall. They are, however, far from being in the least obtrusive or annoying; on the contrary, their respectfulness and conservatism is something to admire; although they gather about the bicycle in a compact ring, not a hand in all the company is meddlesome enough to touch it. Through the smooth kunkah-laid bazaars of Jullundar, so different from the unridable bazaars we have heretofore been made familiar with, and I wheel past the Queen's Gardens and into the cantonment along lovely avenues and perfect roads. The detachment of Royal Artillery, whose quarters my road leads directly past, is composed largely of the gallant sons of Erin, and as I wheel into the cantonment, an artilleryman seated on a eharpoy beneath a spreading neem-tree, sings out to his comrades, "Be jabbers, bhoys; here's the Yankee phat's travellin' around the worruld wid a bicycle." I have with me a letter of introduction to an officer stationed at Jullundar. Upon inquiry, however, I find that he is absent at Simla on leave. Desirous of seeing something of Tommy Atkins in his Indian quarters, I therefore accept an invitation to remain at the barracks of the Royal Artillery until ready to resume my journey in the morning. At this season of the year, an Indian cantonment presents the appearance of a magnificent park. The barracks are large, commodious structures, built with a view to securing the best results for the health and comfort of the troops. No soldiers in the world are so well fed, housed, and clothed as the British soldiers in India, and none receive as much pay, except the soldiers of the United States army. That they are justly entitled to everything that can contribute to their happiness and welfare, goes without saying. For actual service rendered, and the importance of the responsibilities resting on their shoulders, it is little enough to say that the British soldiers in India are entitled to a greater measure of consideration than the soldiers of any other army in existence. This little army of fifty or sixty thousand men is practically responsible for the good behavior of one-sixth of the world's population, saying nothing of affairs without. And in addition to this is the wearisome round of existence in an Indian barrack, the enervating climate and the ennui, so poisonous to the active Anglo-Saxon temperament. After all that is said for or against the Anglo-Indian army, the unprejudiced critic cannot fail to admit that they are the finest body of fighting men in existence, a force against which it would be impossible for an equal number of the soldiers of any other country to contend. That the old dominant spirit of the British soldier is yet rampant as ever may be seen, perhaps, plainer in the cantonments of India than anywhere else. The manifest superiority of Tommy Atkins as a fighter stands out in bold relief against the gentle populations of India, who regard him as the very incarnation of war and warlike attributes. His own confidence in his ability to whip all the multitudinous enemies of England put together, is as great to-day as it ever was, and nothing would suit him better than a campaign against the military colossus of the North in defence of the British interests in India he now so faithfully guards. The interest in my appearance is deepened by my recent adventures in Afghanistan and letters partly descriptive of the same that have appeared in late issues of the Indian press. A mile or so from the Artillery barracks are the quarters of a detachment of the Connaught Rangers. A couple of non-commissioned officers in the Rangers, I am happy to discover, are wheelmen, and when the tidings of the Around the World rider's arrival reaches them, they wheel over and endeavor to have me become their guest. The Royal Artillery boys refuse to give their protege up, however, and the rivalry is compromised by my paying the Rangers a visit and then coming back to my first entertainers' quarters for the night. The evening is spent pleasantly in telling stories of camp-life in India and Afghanistan. Some of the soldiers present have been recently stationed at Peshawur and other points near the northern frontier, and tell of the extraordinary precautions that had to be adopted to prevent their rifles being stolen at night from the very racks within the barrack-rooms where they were sleeping. An officer at the cantonment claims to have cured himself of enlarged spleen, the bane of so many Anglo-Indian officers, by daily riding on a tricycle. He then disposed of it to advantage to a native gentleman who had noted the marvellous improvement it had wrought in his health, and who was also affected with the same disease. The native also cured himself, and now firmly believes the tricycle possessed of some magic properties. Reliefs of punkah-wallahs are provided for the barracks, a number of punkahs being connected so that one coolie fans the occupants of a dozen or more charpoys. In talking about these useful and very necessary servants, some of the comments indulged in by the gentleman who first invited me into the barracks are well worth repeating: "Be jabbers, an' yeez have to kape wide awake all night to swear at the lazy divils, in orther to git a wink av shlape"--and--"The moment yeez dhrap ashlape, yeez are awake," are choice specimens, heard in reference to the punkah-wallahs' confirmed habit of dozing off in the silent watches of the night. The two wheelmen of the Connaught Rangers, accompany me five miles to the Bane River ferry, in the cool of early morning. They would have escorted me as far as Umballa, they say, had they known of my coming in time to arrange leave' of absence. Twenty-five miles of continuously smooth and level kunkah, bring me to Phillour, a Mohammedan town of several thousand inhabitants. The fort of Phillour is a conspicuous object on the left of the road; it was formerly an important depot of military supplies, and in the time of Sikh independence was regarded by them as the key to the Punjab. Since the mutiny it has dwindled in importance as a military stronghold, but is held by a detachment of native infantry. A mile or so from Phillour is a splendid girder railway bridge crossing the River Sutlej. The overflow of the river extends for miles, converting the depressions into lakes and the dry ditches into sloughs and creeks. Resting under the shade of a peepul-tree, I while away a passing hour watching native fishermen endeavoring to beguile the finny denizens of the overflow into their custody. Their tactics are to stir up the water and make it muddy for a space around, so that the fish cannot see them; they then toss a flat disk of wood so that it falls with an audible splash a few yards away. This manoeuvre is intended to deceive the fish into thinking something eatable has fallen into the water. Woe betide the guileless fish, however, whose innocent, confiding nature is thus imposed upon, for "swish" goes a circular drop-net over the spot, from the meshes of which the luckless captive tries in vain to struggle. The River Sutlej has its source in the holy lake of Manas Saro-vara, in Thibet's most mountainous regions, and for several hundred miles its course leads through mighty canons, grand and rugged as the canons of the Colorado and the Gunnison. It is on the upper reaches of the Sutlej that the celebrated swing bridges called karorus are in operation. A karorus consists of a bagar-grass or yak-hair rope, stretched from bank to bank, across which passengers are pulled, suspended in a swinging chair or basket. The karorus is also largely patronized by the swarms of monkeys inhabitating the foot-hill jungles of the Himalayas; nothing could well be more congenial to these festive animals than the Blondin-like performance of crossing over some deep, roaring gorge along the swaying rope of a karorus. Like other rivers of the level Punjab plains, the Sutlej has at various times meandered from its legitimate channel; eight miles south of its present bed the large and flourishing city of Ludhiana once stood on its bank. Ludhiana and its dak bungalow, provides refreshments and a three hours' siesta beneath the cooling and seductive punkah, besides an interesting and instructive tete-a-tete with a Eurasian civil officer spending the day here. Among other startling confidences, this olive-tinted gentleman declares that to him the punkah is unbearable, its pendulous, swinging motion invariably making him "sea-sick." Through a country of alternate sandy downs and grazing areas my road leads at length through the territory of the Rajah of Sir-hind. Picturesque and impressive fortresses, and high, crenellated stone walls around the villages give the rajah's little dominion here a most decided mediaeval appearance, and dark, dense patches of sugar-cane attest the marvellous richness of the sandy soil, wherever water can be applied. Moreover, as if to complete the interesting picture of a native prince's rule, on the road is encountered a gayly dressed party in charge of some youthful big-wig on a monster elephant. A thick, striped mattress makes a soft platform on the elephant's broad back, and here the young voluptuary squats as naturally as on the floor of his room. Some of the attendants are dancing along before him, noisily knuckling tambourines and drums, while others trudge alongside or behind. The elephant regards the bicycle with symptoms of mild apprehension, and swerves slightly to one side. The police-officer of Kermandalah chowkee, just off the Rajah of Sirhind's territory, voluntarily tenders me the shelter of his quarters, just as the sun is finishing his race for the day by painting the sky with fanciful tints and streaks. The long, straight avenue which I have wheeled down, for miles hereabout runs east and west. The sun, rotund and fiery, sets immediately in the perspective of the avenue; and at his disappearance there shoot from the same point iridescent javelins that spread, fan-like, over the whole heavens. A sight never to be forgotten is the long white road and the ribs of the glorious celestial fan meeting together in the vista-like distance; and--oh, for the brush and palette and genius of a Turner!--one of the rainbow-tinted javelins spits the crescent moon and holds it to toast before the glowing sunset fires, like a piece of green cheese. The heat of the night is ominously suggestive of shed's popularly conceived temperature, and, in the absence of the customary punkah and nodding, see-sawing wallah, a villager is employed to sit beside my charpoy and agitate the air immediately about my head with a big palm-leaf fan. But sleep is next to impossible; the morning finds me feeling but little refreshed and with a decided yearning to remain all day long in the shade instead of taking to the road. Not a moment's respite is possible from the oppressive heat; an hour in the saddle develops a sensation of grogginess and an amphibian inclination for wallowing in some road-side tank. South of Sirhind the country develops into low, flat jungle, with much of it partly overflowed. The road through these semi-submerged lowlands is an embankment, rising many feet above the general level, and provided with numerous culverts and bridges to prevent the damming of the waters and the danger of washing away the road. The jungle is full of busy life. The air is thick with the low, murmuring hum of busy insect-life, birds shriek, whistle, call, hoot, peep, chirp, and sing among the intertwining branches, and frogs croak hoarsely in the watery shallows beneath. Noises, too, are heard, that would puzzle, I venture to say, many a scholarly, book-wise and specimen-wise naturalist to define as coming from the articulatory organs of bird, beast, or fish. The slow, measured sweep of giant wings beating the air is heard above, and the next moment a huge bustard floats down through the trees and alights in a moist footing of jungle-grass and water. A little Brahman village at the railway station of Rajpaira is reached in the middle of the afternoon; but it provides little or nothing in the way of accommodation for a European. The chow-keedar of the dak bungalow blandly declares his inability to provide anything eatable for a Sahib, and the Eurasian employes at the railway station are unaccommodating and indifferent, owing to the travel-stained and ordinary appearance of my apparel. The Eurasians, by the by, impress me far less favorably as a race than do the better-class full-blood natives. It seems to be the unfortunate fate of most mixed races to inherit the more undesirable qualities of both progenitors, and the better characteristics of neither. No less than the mongrel populations of certain West Indian islands, the Spanish-speaking republics, and the mulattoes of the Southern States, do the Eurasians of India present in their character eloquent argumentation against the error of miscegenation. A little Brahman village is anything but, an encouraging place for a traveller to penetrate in search of eatables. A thin, yellow-skinned Brahman, with a calico fig-leaf suspended from a cocoa-nut-fibre waist-string, and the white-and-red tattooing of his holy caste on his forehead, presides over a big lump of goodakoo (a preparation of tobacco, rose-leaves, jaggeree, bananas, opium, and cardamom seed, used for hookah-smoking), and his double performs the same office for sickly, warm goats' milk and doughy, unleavened chup-patties. Uninviting as is the prospect, one is compelled, by the total absence of any alternative, to patronize the proprietor of the latter articles. As I step inside his little shed-like establishment to see what he has, he holds up his hands in holy trepidation at the unhallowed intrusion, and begs me to be seated outside. My entrance causes as much consternation as the traditional bull in the china shop, the explanation of which is to be found in the fact that anything I might happen to touch becomes at once defiled beyond redemption for the consumption of native customers. With the weather wilting hot, doughy chuppaties and lukewarm, unstrained, strong-tasting goats' milk can scarcely be called an appetizing meal, and the latter is served in the usual cheap, earthenware platter, which is at once tossed out and broken. The natives of India are probably less concerned about their stomachs than the people of any other country in the world. They seem to delight in fasting, and growing thin and emaciated; their ordinary meal is a handful of parched grain and a few swallows of milk or water. Among the aesthetic Brahmans are many specimens reduced by habitual fasting and general meagreness of diet to the condition of living skeletons; yet they seem to enjoy splendid health, and live to a shrivelled old age. The Brahman shop-keeper squats contentedly among his wares, passing the hours in dreamy meditation and in consoling pipes of goodakoo. Nothing seems to disturb his calm serenity, any more than the reposeful expression on the countenance of a marble Buddha could be affected--nothing but the approach of a Sahib toward his shop. It is interesting to observe the mingled play of politeness, apprehension, and alarm in the actions of a Brahman shopkeeper at the appearance of a blundering, but withal well-meaning Sahib, among his wares. Knowing, from long experience, that the Englishman would on no account wilfully injure his property or trample wantonly on his caste prejudices, he is at his wits' end to comport himself deferentially and at the same time prevent anything from being handled. Money has to be placed where the Brahman can pick it up without incurring the awful danger of personal contact with an unhallowed kaffir. The fifty miles, that from the splendid condition of the roads I have thought little enough for the average day's run, is duly reeled off as I ride into the splendid civil lines and cantonment of Um-balla at dusk. But my few days' experience on the roads of India have sufficed to convince me that fifty miles is entirely beyond the bounds of discretion. It is, in fact, beyond the bounds of discretion to be riding any distance in the present season here; fifty miles is overcome to-day only by the exercise of almost superhuman will-power. The average native, when asked for the dak bungalow, is quite as likely to direct one to the post-office, the kutcherry, or any other government building, from a seeming inability to discriminate between them. At the entrance to Umballa one of these hopeful participants in the blessings of enlightened government informs me, with sundry obsequious salaams, that the dak bungalow is four miles farther. So thoroughly has my fifty-mile ride used up my energy that even this four miles, on a most perfect road, seems utterly impossible of accomplishment; besides which, experience has taught that following the directions given would very likely bring me to the post-office and farther away from the dak bungalow than ever. Above the trees, not far away, is observed the weathercock of a chapel-spire, plainly indicating the location of the European quarter. Taking a branch road leading in that direction, I discover a party of English and native gentlemen playing a game of lawn-tennis. Arriving on the scene just as the game is breaking up, I am cordially invited to "come in and take a peg." To the uninitiated a "peg" is a rather ambiguous term, but to the Anglo-Indian its interpretation takes the seductive form of a big tumbler of brandy and soda, a "long drink," than which nothing could be more acceptable in my present fagged-out condition. No hesitation is therefore made in accepting; and, under the stimulating influence of the generous brandy and soda, exhausted nature is quickly recuperated. While not an advocate of indiscriminate indulgence in alcoholic stimulants, after an enervating ride through the wilting heat of an Indian day I am convinced that nothing is more beneficial than what Anglo-Indians laconically describe as a "peg." This very opportune meeting results, naturally enough, in a pressing invitation to stay over and recruit up for a day, a programme to which I offer no objections, feeling rather overdone and in need of rest and recuperation. Mine hosts are police-commissioners, having supervision over the police-district of Uniballa. One of their number is on the eve of departure for his summer vacation in the Himalayas and, in honor of the event, several guests call round to partake of a champagne dinner, the sparkling Pommery Sec being quaffed ad libitum from pint tumblers. At the present time, no surer does water seek its level than the after-dinner conversation of Anglo-Indian officials turns into the discussion of the great depreciation of the silver rupee and its relation to the exchange at home. As the rate of exchange goes lower and lower, and no corresponding increase of salary takes place, the natural result is a great deal of hardship and dissatisfaction among those who, from various causes, have to send money to England. From the Anglo-Indians' daily association with Orientals and their peculiarly subtle understandings, it is perhaps not so surprising to find an occasional flight of fancy brought to bear upon the subject that would do credit to a professional romancer. One ingenious young civil officer present evolves a deep, deep scheme to get even with the government for present injustice that for far-reaching and persistent revenge speaks volumes for the young gentleman's determination to carry his point. His brilliant scheme is to retire on a pension at the proper time, live to the age of eighty years, and then marry a healthy girl of sixteen. As the pension of an Anglo-Indian government officer descends to his surviving widow, the ingenuity and depth of this person's reasoning powers becomes at once apparent. He proposes to take revenge for the present shortcomings of the government by saddling it with a pension for a hundred years or more after his retirement from active service. Tusked and antlered trophies of the chase adorning the walls, and panther and tiger skins scattered about the floor, attest the police-commissioners' prowess with the rifle in the surrounding jungle. The height of every young Englishman's ambition when he comes to India is to kill a tiger; not until with his own rifle he has laid low a genuine Tigris Indicus, and handed its striped pelt over to the taxidermist, does he feel entitled to hold his chin at a becoming elevation and to indulge in the luxury of talking about the big game of the jungle on an equality with his fellows. Among the pets of the establishment are a youthful black bear that spends much of its time in climbing up and down a post on the lawn, a recently captured monkey that utters cries of alarm and looks badly frightened when approached by a white person, and a pair of spotted deer. These, together with several hunting dogs that delight in taking wanton liberties with the bear and deer, form quite a happy, though not altogether trustful family party in the grounds. The day's rest does me a world of good, and upon resuming my journey the voice of my own experience is augmented by the advice of my entertainers, in warning me against overexertion and fatigue in so trying a climate as India. It has rained during the night, and the early morning is signalled by cooler weather than has yet been experienced from Lahore. Companies of tall Sikhs, magnificent-looking fellows, in their trim karki uniforms and monster turbans, are drilling within the native-infantry lines as I wheel through the broad avenues of one of the finest cantonments in all India, and English officers and their wives are taking the morning air on horseback. This splendid cantonment contains no less than seven thousand two hundred and twenty acres and might well be termed a magnificent park throughout. It is in the hilly tracts of the Umballa district that the curious custom prevails of placing infants beneath little cascades of water so that the stream of water shall steadily descend on the head. The cool water of some mountain-rivulet is converted into a number of streams appropriate for the purpose, by means of bamboo ducts or spouts. The infants are brought thither in the morning by their mothers and placed in proper position on beds of grass; the trickling water, pouring on their heads, keeps the brain cool and is popularly supposed to be efficacious in the prevention of many infantile diseases peculiar to the country. Children not subjected to this curious hydropathic treatment are said to generally die young, or grow up weaklings in comparison with the others. A sudden freshet in the ordinarily shallow and partially dry bed of the Donglee River tells of the heaviness of last night's rainstorm among the hills, and compels a halt of a couple of hours until the rapidly subsiding water gets low enough to admit of fording it with a native bullock gharri. A branch of the same stream is crossed in a similar manner, and yet a third river, a few miles farther, has to be crossed on a curious raft made of a number of buoyant earthenware jars fixed in a bamboo frame. A splendid bridge spans the swollen torrent of the more formidable Markunda, and the well-metalled highway now cuts a wide straight swath through inundated jungle. A big wild monkey, the first of his species thus far encountered on the road, utters a shrill squeak of apprehension at seeing the bicycle come bowling down the road, and in his fright he leaps from the branches of a road-side tree into the shallow water and escapes into the jungle with frantic leaps and bounds. Travelling leisurely, and resting often, for thirty miles, the afternoon brings me to the small town of Peepli, where a dak bungalow provides food and shelter of a certain kind. The sleeping-accommodation of the dak bungalow may hardly be described as luxurious; ants and other insects swarm in myriads, and lizards drag their slimy length about the timber of the walls and ceiling. The wild jungle encroaches on the village, and the dak bungalow occupies an isolated position at one end. The jungle resounds with the strange noises of animals and birds, and a friendly native, who speaks a little English, confides the joyful information that the deadly cobra everywhere abounds. For the first time it is cool enough to sleep without the services of the punkah-wallah, and not a soul remains about the dak bungalow after nightfall. The night is dark and cloudy, but not by any means silent, for the "noises of the night" are multitudinous and varied, ranging from the tuneful croaking of innumerable frogs to the yelping chorus of the jackals-the weird nocturnal concert of the Indian jungle, a musical melange far easier to imagine than describe. About ten o'clock, out from the gloomy depths of the jungle near by is suddenly heard the unmistakable caterwauling of a panther, followed by that cunning arch-dissembler's inimitable imitation of a child in distress. As though awed and paralyzed by this revelation of the panther's dread presence, the chirping and juggling and p-r-r-r-ring and yelping of inferior creatures cease as if by mutual impulse moved, and the pitter-patter of little feet are heard on the clay floor of my bungalow. The cry of the forest prowler is repeated, nearer than before to my quarters, and presently something hops up on the foot of the charpoy on which my recumbent form is stretched; and still continues the pattering of feet on the floor. It is pitchy dark within the bungalow, and, uncertain of the nature of my strange visitant, I kick and "qu-e-e-k" at him and scare him off; but, evidently terrorized by the appearance of the panther, the next minute he again invades my couch. To have one's room turned nolens volens into a place of refuge for timid animals, hiding from a prowling panther which is not unlikely to follow them inside, is anything but a desirable experience in the dark. Should his panthership come nosing inside the bungalow, in his eagerness to secure something for supper he might not pause to discriminate between brute and human; and as his awe-inspiring voice is heard again, apparently quite near by, I deem it expedient to warn him off. So reaching my Smith & Wesson from under the pillow, I fire a shot up into the thatched roof. The little intruders, whatever they may be, scamper out of the bungalow, nor wait upon the order of their going, and a loud scream some distance away a moment later tells of the panther's rapid retreat into the depths of the jungle. Soon a courageous bull-frog gives utterance to a subdued, hesitative croak; his excellent example is quickly followed by others; answering noises spring up in every direction, and ere long the midnight concert of the jungle is again in full melody. A comparatively cooling breeze blows across flooded jungle and rice-field in the morning. The country around resembles a shallow lake from out of which the rank vegetation of the jungle rears its multiform foliage; much of the water is merely the temporary overflow of the Markunda, silently moving through the shady forest, but over the more permanently submerged areas is gathered a thick green scum. Not unlike a broad expanse of level meadow-land do some of these open spaces seem, and the yellow, fallen blossoms of the gum arabic trees, scattered thickly about, are the buttercups spangling and beautifying the meadows. Forty-eight miles from Umballa the Grand Trunk road leads through the civil lines and past the towering walls of ancient Kurnaul. Formerly on the banks of the river Jumna, Kurnaul is now removed several miles from that stream, owing to the wayward trick of Indian rivers carving out for themselves new channels during seasons of extraordinary flood. The city is old beyond the records of history, its name and fame glimmering faintly in the dim and distant perspective of ancient Hindostani legend and mythical tales. Within the last few hundred years, Kurnaul has been taken and retaken, plundered and destroyed, by Sikh, Rajput, Mogul, and Mahratta freebooters, and was occupied in 1795 by the celebrated adventurer George Thomas, who figured so largely in the military history of India during the latter part of the last century. Here also was fought the great battle between Nadir Shah and Mohammed Shah, the Emperor of Delhi, that resulted in the defeat of the latter, the subsequent looting of Delhi, and the carrying off to Persia of the famous peacock throne. Splendid water-tanks, spreading banyans, feathery date-palms, and toddy-palms render the suburbs of Kurnaul particularly attractive, these days; but the place is unhealthy, being very low and the surrounding country subject to the overflow that induces fever. A letter of introduction from Umballa to Mr. D, deputy commissioner at Kurnaul, insures me hospitable recognition and creature comforts upon reaching the latter place at 9 a.m. Spending the heat of mid-day in Mr. D 's congenial society, recounting the incidents of my journey and learning in return much valuable information in regard to India, I continue on my journey again when the fiercest heat of the sun has subsided in favor of the slightly more tolerable evening. The country grows more and more interesting from various standpoints as my progression carries me southward. Not only does it become intensely interesting by reason of its historical associations in connection with the old Mogul Empire, but in its peculiar aspect of Indian life to-day. Monkeys are hopping about all over the place, moving leisurely about the roofs and walls of the villages, or complacently examining one another's phrenological peculiarities beneath the trees. About the streets, shops, and houses these mischievous anthropoids are seen in droves, moving hither and thither at their own sweet will, as much at home as the human occupants and owners of the houses themselves. Monkeys, being held sacred by the Hindoos, are allowed to remain in the towns and villages unmolested, doing pretty much as they please. Sometimes they swarm in such numbers that eternal vigilance alone keeps them from devouring the fruit, grain, and other eatables displayed for sale in front of the shops. When they get to be an insufferable nuisance, although the pious Hindoos would suffer from their depredations even to ruin rather than do them injury, they offer no objections to being relieved of their charges by the government officials, so long as the measures taken are not of a sanguinary nature. Sometimes the monkeys are caught and shipped off in car-loads to some point miles away and turned loose in the jungle. The appearance of a car-load of these exiles, however, always excites the sympathies of the pious Hindoo, and instances have been known when they have been stealthily liberated while the train was waiting at some other town. An effectual remedy has been recently discovered in cleaning out colonies of the smaller varieties of monkeys and inducing them to remove somewhere else, by introducing into their midst a certain warlike and aggressive variety from somewhere in the Himalaya foot-hills. This particular race of monkey, being a veritable anthropoidal Don Juan among his fellows, when turned loose in a village commences making violent love to the wives and sweethearts of the resident monkeys. The faithless fair, ever ready for coquetry and flirtation, flattered beyond measure by the attentions of the gallant stranger, forsake their first loves by the wholesale, and bask shamelessly in the sunshine of his favor. The result is that the outraged males, afraid to attack the warlike libertine so rudely introduced into their peaceful community, gather up their erring spouses, giddy daughters, and small children and betake themselves off forever. Not far from Kurnaul I overtake an interesting party of gypsies, moving with their bag and baggage piled on the backs of diminutive cows led by strings. Numbers of the smaller children also bestride the gentle little bovines, but the rest of the party are afoot. The ruling passion of the Romany, the wide world over, asserts itself at my approach; brown-bodied youngsters with sparkling, coal-black eyes race after the bicycle, holding out their hands and begging, "pice, sahib, pice, pice." Facsimile in cry and gesture almost, and in appearance, are these Hindostani gypsies of their relatives in distant Hungary, who, fifteen months before, raced alongside the bicycle, and begged for "kreuzer, kreuzer." Many ethnologists believe India to have been the original abiding place of the now widely scattered Romanies; certain it is that no country and no clime would be so well adapted to their shiftless habits and wandering tent-life as India. Their language, subjected to analysis, has been traced in a measure to Sanscrit roots, and although spread pretty much all over the surface of the globe, this strange, romantic people are said to recognize one another by a common language, even should the one hail from India and the other from the frozen North. Certain professors claim to have discovered a connecting link between the gypsies of the Occident and the Jats of the Punjab. A boy tending a sacred cow undertakes to drive that worshipful animal out of my way as he sees me come bowling briskly down the road. The bovine, pampered and treated with the greatest deference and consideration from her earliest calfhood, resents this treatment by making a short but determined spurt after me as I sweep past. Whether the sacred cows of India are spoiled by generations of overindulgence, or whether the variety is constitutionally evil-tempered does not appear, but they one and all take pugnacious exception to the bicycle. Spurting away from a chasing Brahmani cow is an every-day experience. Mr. D has kindly telegraphed from Kurnaul to Nawab Ali Ahmed Khan, a hospitable Mohammedan gentleman at Paniput, apprising him of my coming. More ancient even than Kurnaul, Paniput's vast antiquity is reputed to extend back to the period of the great Pandava War described in the Mahabharat, and supposed to have been fought nearly four thousand years ago. The city occupies a commanding position to the left of the road, and is rendered conspicuous by several white marble domes and minarets. The nawab and another native gentleman, physician to the Paniput Hospital, are seated in a dog-cart watching for my appearance, at a fork in the road near one of the city gates. The nawab's place is a mile and a half off the main road, but the smooth, level kunkah leads right up to the fine, commodious bungalow, in which I am duly installed. A tepid bath, prepared in deference to the nawab's anticipation of my preference, is awaiting my pleasure, and from the moment of arrival I am the recipient of unstinted attention. A large reclining chair is placed immediately beneath the punkah, and a punkah-wallah, ambitious to please, causes the frilled hangings of this desirable and necessary piece of furniture to wave vigorously to and fro but a foot or eighteen inches above my head. A smiling servant kneels at my feet and proceeds to knead and "groom" the muscles of the legs. Judging from the attentions lavished upon my pedal extremities, one might well imagine me to be a race-horse that had just endeared himself to his groom and owner by winning the Derby. An ample supper is followed by a most refreshing sleep, and in the morning, when ready to depart, my watchful attendants present themselves with broad smiles and sheets of paper. Each one wants a certificate showing that he has contributed to my comfort and entertainment, and lastly comes the nawab himself and his bosom friend, the hospital doctor, to bid me farewell and request the same favor. This certificate-foible is one of the greatest bores in India; almost every native who performs any service for a Sahib, whether in the capacity of a mere waiter at a native hotel, or as retainer of some wealthy nabob--and not infrequently the nabob himself, if a government official--wants a testimonial expressing one's approval of his services. An old servitor who has mingled much among Europeans must have whole reams of these useless articles stowed away. What in the world they want with them is something of a puzzler; though the idea is, probably, that they might come in useful to obtain a situation some time or other. South of Paniput the trees alongside the road are literally swarming with monkeys; they file in long strings across the road, looking anxiously behind, evidently frightened at the strange appearance of the bicycle. Shinnying up the toddy-palms, they ensconce themselves among the foliage and peer curiously down at me as I wheel past, giving vent to their perturbation in excited cries. Twenty-five miles down the road, an hour is spent beneath a grove of shady peepuls, watching the amusing antics of a troop of monkeys in the branches. Their marvellous activity among the trees is here displayed to perfection, as they quarrel and chase one another from tree to tree. The old ones seem passively irritable and decidedly averse to being bothered by the antics and mischievous activity of the youngsters. Taking possession of some particular branch, they warn away all would-be intruders with threatening grimaces and feints. The youthful members of the party are skillful of pranks and didoes, carried on to the great annoyance of their more aged and sedate relatives, who, in revenge, put in no small portion of their time punishing or pursuing them with angry cries for their deeds of wanton annoyance. One monkey, that has very evidently been there many and many a time before on the same thievish errand, with an air of amusing secrecy and roguishness, slips quickly along a horizontal bough and thrusts its arm into a hole. Its eyes wander guiltily around, as though expectant of detection and attack--an apprehension that quickly justifies itself in the shape of a blue-plumaged bird that flutters angrily about the robber's head, causing it to beat a hasty retreat. Birds' eggs are the booty it expected to find, and, me-thinks, as I note the number and activity of the freebooters to whom birds' eggs would be most toothsome morsels, watchful indeed must be the parent-bird whose maternal ambition bears its legitimate fruit in this monkey-infested grove. In me the monkeys seem to recognize a possible enemy, and at my first appearance hasten to hide themselves among the thickest foliage; peering; cautiously down, they yield themselves up to excited chattering and broad grimaces. Peacocks, too, are strutting majestically about the greensward beneath the trees, their gorgeous tails expanded, or, perched on some horizontal branch, they awake the screaming echoes in reply to others of their kindred calling in the jungle. In the same way that monkeys are regarded and worshipped as the representatives of the great mythological monkey-king Hanumiin, who assisted Kama, in his war with Havana for the possession of Sita, so is the peacock revered and held sacred as the bird upon which rode Kartikeya the god of war and commander-in-chief of the armies of the Puranic gods. Thus do both these denizens of the jungle obtain immunity from harm at the hands of the natives, by reason of mythological association. English sportsmen shoot them, however, except in certain specified districts where the government has made their killing prohibitory, in deference to the religious prejudices of the Hindoos. The Rajput warriors of Ulwar used to march to battle with a peacock's feather in their turbans; they believe that the reason why this fine-plumaged bird screams so loudly when it thunders is because it mistakes the noise for the roll of war-drums. Large, two-storied passenger-vans, drawn sometimes by one camel and sometimes two, are now frequently encountered; they are regular two-storied cages, with iron bars, like the animal-vans in a menagerie. The passengers squat on the floors, and when travelling at night, or through wild districts, are locked in between stages to guard against surprise and robbery. CHAPTER XV. DELHI AND AGRA. From the police-thana of Rai, where the night is spent, to Delhi, the character of the road changes to a mixture of clay and rock, altogether inferior to kunkah. The twenty-one miles are covered, however, by 8.30 a.m., that hour finding me wheeling down the broad suburban road to the Lahore Gate amid throngs of country people carrying baskets of mangoes, plantains, pomegranates, and other indigenous products into the markets of the old Mogul capital. Massive archways, ruined forts and serais, placid water-tanks, lovely gardens, feathery toddy-palms, plantain-hedges, and throngs of picturesque people make the approach to historic Delhi a scene long to be remembered. Entering the Lahore Gate, suitable accommodation is found at Northbrook Hotel, a comfortable hostelry under native management near the Moree Gate, and overlooking from its roof the scenes of the most memorable events connected with the siege of Delhi in 1857. Letters are found at the post-office apprising me of a bicycle-camera and paper negatives awaiting my orders at the American Consulate at Calcutta, and it behooves me to linger here for a few days until its arrival in reply to a telegram. No more charming spot could possibly be found to linger in than the old Mogul capital, with its wondrous wealth of historical associations, both remotely antique and comparatively modern, its glorious monuments of imperial Oriental splendor and its reminiscences of heroic deeds in battle. A letter of introduction to an English gentleman, brought from Kurnaul, secures me friends and attention at once; in the cool of the evening we drive out together in his pony-phaeton along the historic granite ridge that formed the site of the British camp during the siege. The operations against the city were conducted mostly from this ridge and the intervening ground; on the ridge itself is erected a beautiful red granite monument memorial, bearing the names of prominent officers and the numbers of men killed, the names of the regiments, etc., engaged in the siege and assault. Here, also, is Hindoo Rao's house, and ancient obelisks. East of the Moree Gate is the world-famed Cashmere Gate--world-famed in connection with the brilliant exploit of the little forlorn hope that, on the morning of September 14, 1857, succeeded, in the face of a deadly fusillade from the, walls and the wicket gates, in carrying bags of gunpowder and blowing it up. Through the opening thus effected poured the eager troops that rescued the city from ten times their own number of mutineers and turned the beams of the scale in which the fate of the whole British Indian Empire was at the moment balanced. Perhaps in all the world's battles no more heroic achievement was ever attempted or carried out than the blowing up of the Cashmere Gate. "Salkeld laid his bags of powder, in the face of a deadly fire from the open wicket not ten feet distant; he was instantly shot through the arm and leg, and fell back on the bridge, handing the port-fire to Sergeant Burgess, bidding him light the fuse. Burgess was instantly shot dead in the attempt. Sergeant Carmichael then advanced, took up the port-fire, and succeeded in firing the fuse, but immediately fell, mortally wounded. Sergeant Smith, seeing him fall, advanced at a run, but finding that the fuse was already burning, flung himself into the ditch." Difficult, indeed, would it be to crowd more heroism into the same number of words that I have here quoted from Colonel Medley, an eye-witness of the affair. Between the double archways of the gate is a red-sandstone memorial tablet, placed there by Lord Napier of Magdala, upon which is inscribed the names, rank, and regiment of those who took part in the forlorn hope. All is now peaceful and lovely enough, but the stone bastions and parapets still remain pretty much as when the British batteries ceased their plunging rain of shot and shell thirty years ago. Not far from the Moree Gate is the tomb of General Nicholson, one of the most conspicuous and heroic characters of that trying period, and generally regarded as the saviour of Delhi. Enshrined in the hearts of the brave Sikhs no less than in the hearts of his own countrymen, his tomb has become a regular place of pilgrimage for the old Sikh warriors who fought side by side with the English against the mutineers. It has been my good fortune, I find, to arrive at the old Mogul capital the day before the commencement of an annual merrymaking, picnicking, and general holiday at the celebrated Kootub Minar. The Kootub Minar is about eleven miles out of Delhi, situated amid the ruins of ancient Dilli (Delhi), the old Hindoo city from which the more modern city takes its name. It is conceded to be the most beautiful minar-monument in the world, and ranks with the Taj Mahal at Agra as one of the beautiful architectural triumphs peculiar to the splendid era of Mohammedan rule in India, and which are not to be matched elsewhere. The day following my arrival I conclude to take a spin out on my bicycle as far as the Kootub, and see something of it, the ruins amid which it stands, and the Hindoos in holiday attire. I choose the comparative coolness of early morning for the ride out; but early though it be, the road thither is already swarming with gayly dressed people bent on holiday-making. The road is a worthy offshoot of the Grand Trunk, not a whit less smooth of surface, nor less lovely in its wealth of sacred shade-trees. Moreover, it passes through a veritable wilderness of ruined cities, mosques, tombs, and forts the whole distance, and leads right through the magnificent remains of the ancient Hindoo city itself. The Kootub Minar is found to be a beautifully fluted column, two hundred and forty feet high, and it soars grandly above the mournful ruins of old Dilli, its hoary wealth of crumbled idol temples, tombs, and forts. The minar is supposed to have been erected in the latter part of the twelfth century to celebrate the victory of the Mohammedans over the Hindoos of Dilli. The general effect of the tall, stately Mohammedan monument among the Hindoo ruins is that of a proud gladiator standing erect and triumphant amid fallen foes. At least, that is how it looks to me, as I view it in connection with the ruins at its base and ponder upon its history. A spiral stairway of three hundred and seventy-five steps leads to the summit. A group of natives are already up there, enjoying the cool breezes and the prospect below. In the comprehensive view from the summit one can read an instructive sermon of centuries of stirring Indian history in the gray stone-work of ruined mosques and tombs and fortresses and pagan temples that dot the valley of the Jumna hereabout almost as thickly as the trees. Strange crowds have congregated on this rare old historic camping-ground in ages past. It was a strange crowd, gathered here for a strange purpose, on that traditional occasion, when Rajah Pithora, in the fourth century of the Christian era, had the celebrated iron shaft dug up to satisfy his curiosity as to whether it had transfixed the subterranean snake-god Vishay. There is a strange crowd gathered here to-day, too; I can hear their shouting and their tom-toming come floating up from among the ruins and the dark-green foliage as I look down from my beautiful eyrie on top of the Kootub upon their pygmy forms, thronging the walks and roads, brown and busy as swarms of ants. It is a vast concourse of people, characteristic of teeming India; but they are not, on this occasion, congregated to witness pagan rites and ceremonies, nor to encourage iconoclastic Moolahs in smashing Hindoo gods and chipping offensive Hindoo carvings off their temples; they are a mixed crowd of Hindoos, Sikhs, and Mohammedans, who, having to some extent buried the hatchet of race and religious animosities under the just and tolerant rule of a Christian government, have gathered here amid the ruins and relics of their respective past histories to enjoy themselves in innocent recreation. Descending from the Kootub Minar, I am resting beneath the shade of the dak bungalow hard by, when a gray-bearded Hindoo approaches, salaams, and hands me a paper. The paper is a certificate, certifying that the bearer, Chunee Lai, had performed before Captain Somebody of the Fusileers, and had afforded that officer excellent amusement. Before I have quite grasped the situation, or comprehended the purport of the tendered missive, several men and boys deposit a miscellaneous assortment of boxes and baskets before me and range themselves in a semicircle behind them. The old fellow with the certificate picks out a small box and raises the lid; a huge cobra thrusts out its hideous head and puffs its hooded neck to the size of a man's hand. It then dawns upon me that the gray-bearded Hindoo is a conjurer; and being curious to see something of Indian prestidigitation, I allow him to proceed. Many of the tricks are quite commonplace and transparent even to a novice. For example, he mixes red, yellow, and white powders together in a tumbler of water and swallows the mixture, making, of course, a wry face, as though taking a dose of bitter medicine. He then calls a boy from among the by-standers and blows first red powder, then yellow, then white into the youngster's face. I judge he had small bags of dry powder stowed away in his cheek. He performs his tricks on the bare ground, without any such invaluable adjunct as the table of his European rival, and some of them, viewed in the light of this disadvantage, are indeed puzzling. For instance, he fills an ordinary tin pot nearly full of water, puts in a handful of yellow sand and a handful of red powder, and thoroughly stirs them up; he then thrusts his naked hand into the water and brings forth a handful of each kind, dry as when he put them in. A simple enough trick, no doubt, to the initiated; but the old conjurer's arm is bared, and the tin is, as far as I can discover, but an ordinary vessel, and the trick is performed without any cover, table, or cloth. After this he expectorates a number of glass marbles, and ends with a couple of solid iron jingal balls that he can scarce get out of his mouth. There is no mistake about their being of solid iron, and the old conjurer opens his mouth and lets me see them emerging from his throat. From what I see him do as the final act, and which there is no deception about, I am inclined to think the old fellow has actually acquired the power of swallowing these jingal balls and reproducing them at pleasure. After a number of tricks too familiar to justify mentioning here he covers his head with a cloth for a minute, and then reappears with brass eyeballs, with a small hole bored in the centre of each to represent the pupils; and his mouth is rendered hideous with a set of teeth belonging to some animal. In this horrible make-up the old Hindoo tom-toms on a small oblong drum, while one of his assistants sings in broken English "Buffalo Gals." He then openly removes the false teeth, and taking out the brass eyeballs, he casts them jingling on the gravel at my feet. They are simply hemispheres of sheet-brass, and fitted closely over the eyeballs, beneath the lids. The conjurer's eyes water visibly after the brass covers are removed; and well enough they might; there is no sleight-of-hand about this--it is purely an act of self-torture. In most of the conjuring tricks the conjurer would purposely make a partial failure in the first attempt; an assistant would then impart the necessary power by muttering cabalistic words over a monkey's skull. A mongoose had been tethered to a stake at the beginning of the performance, and the little ferret-like enemy of the snake family kept tugging at his tether and sniffing suspiciously about whenever snakes appeared in the conjurer's manipulations. He bad promised me a fight between the mongoose and a snake, and before presenting his little brass bowl for backsheesh he holds out a four-foot snake toward the eager little animal at the stake. The snake writhes and struggles to get away, evidently badly scared at the prospect of an encounter with the mongoose; but the man succeeds in depositing him within his adversary's reach. The mongoose nabs him by the neck in an instant, and would no doubt soon have finished him; but the assistants part them with wire crooks, putting the snake in a basket with several others and the mongoose in another. While watching the interesting performances of the Hindoo, conjurers I have left the bicycle at a little dak bungalow near the old entrance-gate. From the commanding height of the Kootub-one could see that the Delhi road is a solid mass of vehicles and pedestrians (how the people in teeming India do swarm on these festive occasions!). It looks impossible to make one's way with a bicycle against that winding stream of human beings, and so, after wandering about a while among the striking and peculiar colonnades of the ancient pagan temples, paying the regulation tribute of curiosity to the enigmatic iron column, and doing the place in general, I return to the bungalow, thinking of starting back to Delhi, when I find that my "cycle of strange experiences" has attracted to itself a no less interesting gathering than a troupe of Nautch girls and their chaperone. The troupe numbers about a dozen girls, and they have come to the merry-making at the Kootub to gather honest shekels by giving exhibitions of their terpsichorean talents in the Nautch dance. I had been wondering whether an opportunity to see this famous dance would occur during my trip through India; and so when four or five of the prettiest of these dusky damsels gather about me, smile at me winsomely ogle me with their big black eyes, smile again, smile separately, smile unanimously, smile all over their semi-mahogany but nevertheless not unhandsome faces, and every time displaying sets of pearly teeth, what could I do, what could anyone have done, but smile in return? There is no language more eloquent or more easily understood than the language of facial expression. No verbal question or answer is necessary. I interpret the winsome smiles of the Nautchnees aright, and they interpret very quickly the permission to go ahead that reveals itself in the smile they force from me. Eight of the twelve are commonplace girls of from fourteen to eighteen, and the other four are "dark but comely"--quite handsome, as handsomeness goes among the Hindoos. Their arms are bare of everything save an abundance of bracelets, and the upper portion of the body is rather scantily draped, after the manner and custom of all Hindoo females; but an ample skirt of red calico reaches to the ankle. Rings are worn on every toe, and massive silver anklets with tiny bells attached make music when they walk of dance. They wear a profusion of bracelets, necklaces of rupees, head-ornaments, ear-rings, and pendent charms, and a massive gold or brass ring in the left nostril. The nostril is relieved of its burden by a string that descends from a head-ornament and takes up the weight. The Nautch girls arrange themselves into a half-circle, their scarlet costumes forming a bright crescent, terminating in a mass of spectators, whose half-naked bodies, varying in color from pale olive to mahogany, are arrayed in costumes scarcely less showy than the dancers. The chaperone and eight outside girls tom-tom an appropriate Nautch accompaniment on drums with their fingers, the four prettiest girls advance, and favoring me with sundry smiles, and coquettish glances from their bright black eyes, they commence to dance. An idea seems to prevail in many Occidental minds that the Nautch dance is a very naughty thing; but nothing is further from the truth. Of course it can be made naughty, and no doubt often is; but then so can many another form of innocent amusement. The Nautch dance is a decorous and artistic performance when properly danced; the graceful motions and elegant proportions of the human form, as revealed by lithe and graceful dancers, are to be viewed with an eye as purely artistic and critical as that with which one regards a Venus or other production of the sculptor's studio. The four dancers take the lower hem of their red garment daintily between the thumb and finger of the right hand, spreading its ample folds into the figure of an opened fan, by bringing the outstretched arm almost on a level with the shoulder. A mantle of transparent muslin, fringed with silver spangles, is worn about the head and shoulders in the same indescribably graceful manner as the mantilla of the Spanish senorita. Raising a portion of this aloft in the left hand, and keeping the "fan" intact with the right, the dancers twirl around and change positions with one another, their supple figures meanwhile assuming a variety of graceful motions and postures from time to time. Now they imitate the spiral movement of a serpent climbing around and upward on an imaginary pole; again they assume an attitude of gracefulness, their dusky countenances half hidden in seeming coquetry behind the muslin mantle, the large red fan waving gently to and fro, the feet unmoving, but the undulating motions of the body and the tremor of the limbs sufficing to jingle the tiny ankle-bells. On the whole, the Nautch dance would be disappointing to most people witnessing it; its fame leads one to expect more than it really amounts to. Before starting back to Delhi, I take a stroll through the adjacent village of Kootub, a place named after the minar, I suppose. The crooked main street of the village of Kootub itself presents to-day a scene of gayety and confusion that beggars description. Bunting floats gayly from every window and balcony, in honor of the festival, and is strung across the street from house to house. Thousands of globular colored lanterns are hanging about, ready to be lighted up at night. The streets are thronged with people in the gayest of costumes, and with vehicles the gilt and paint and glitter of which equal the glittering wagons and chariots of a circus parade at home. The balconies above the shops are curtained with blue gauze, behind which are seen numbers of ladies, chatting, eating fruits and sweetmeats, and peeping down through the semi-transparent screens upon the animated scene in the streets. On the stalls, choice edibles are piled up by the bushel, and busy venders are hawking fruits, sweets, toddy, and all imaginable refreshments about among the crowds. Vacant lots are occupied by the tents of visiting peasants, and in out-of-the-way corners acrobatics, jugglery, and Nautch-dancing attract curious crowds. The incoming tide of human life is at its flood as I start back to Delhi by the same road I came. Here one gets a glimpse of the real gorgeousness of India without seeking for it at the pageants of princes and rajahs. Small zemindars from outlying villages are bringing their wives and daughters to the festivities at the Kootub in circusy-looking bullock-chariots covered with gilt and carvings, and draped and twined with parti-colored ribbons. Some of these gaudy turn-outs are drawn by richly caparisoned, milk-white oxen, with gilded horns. Cymbals and sleigh-bells galore keep up a merry jingle, and tom-toming parties make their noisy presence known all along the line. Still more gorgeous and interesting than the gilded ox-gharries of the ordinary zemindars are miniature chariots drawn by pairs of well-matched, undersized oxen covered with richly spangled trappings, and with horns curiously gilded and tipped with tiny bells. These are the vehicles of petted young nabobs in charge of attendants: tiny oxen with gorgeous trappings, tiny chariots richly gilded and carved and painted, tiny occupants richly dressed and jewelled. Troupes of Nautchnees add their picturesque appearance to the brilliant throngs, and here and there is encountered a holy fakir, unkempt and unwashed, having, perchance, registered a vow years ago never more to apply water to his skin, his only clothing a dirty waist-cloth and the yellow clay plastered on his body. Long strings of less pretentious bullock-gharries almost block the roadway, and people constantly dodging out from behind them in front of my wheel make it extremely difficult to ride. Several days are passed at Delhi, waiting the arrival of a small bicycle-camera from Calcutta, which has been forwarded from America. Most of this time is spent in the pleasant occupation of reclining in an arm-chair beneath the punkah, the only comfortable situation in Delhi at this season of the year. Nevertheless, I manage to spin around the city mornings and evenings, and visit the famous fort and palace of Shah Jehan. In the magnificent--magnificent even in the decline of its grandeur --fort-palace of the Mogul Emperor named, British soldiers now find comfortable quarters. This fort, together with modern Delhi (the real Indian name of Delhi is Shahjehanabad, after the emperor Shah Jehan, who had it built), is but about two hundred and fifty years old, the entire affair having been built to gratify the Mogul ambition for founding new capitals. Although so modern compared with other cities near by, both city and palace have gone through strangely stirring and tragic experiences, and events have happened in the latter that, although sometimes trivial in themselves, have led to momentous results. In this palace, in 1716, was given permission, by the Emperor Furrokh Seeur, to the Scotch physician, Gabriel Hamilton, the privileges that have gradually led up to the British conquest of the whole peninsula. As a reward for professional services rendered, permission to establish factories on the Hooghly was given; the Presidency of Fort William sprung therefrom, and at length the British Indian Empire. Twenty years after this, the terrible Nadir Shah, from Persia, occupied the palace, and held high jinks within while his army slaughtered over a hundred thousand of the inhabitants in the streets. When this red-handed marauder took his departure he carried away with him booty to the value of eighty millions sterling in the value of that time. Among the plunder was the famous Peacock Throne, alone reputed to be worth six million pounds. This remarkable piece of kingly furniture is said to be in the possession of the Shah of Persia at the present time. It is very probable, however, that only some unique portion of the throne is preserved, as it could hardly have been carried back to Persia by Nadir intact. This throne is thus described by a writer: "The throne was six feet long and four broad, composed of solid gold inlaid with precious stones. It was surmounted by a canopy of gold, supported on twelve pillars of the same material. Around the canopy hung a fringe of pearls; on each side of the throne stood two chattahs, or umbrellas, symbols of royalty, formed of crimson velvet richly embroidered with gold thread and pearls, and with handles of solid gold, eight feet long, studded with diamonds. The back of the throne was a representation of the expanded tail of a peacock, the natural colors of which were imitated by sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and other gems." This Peacock Throne was the envy and admiration of every contemporary monarch who heard of it, and was undoubtedly one of the chief elements in exciting the cupidity of the outer world that finally ended in the dissolution of the Mogul Empire. Less than ten years after the departure of Nadir Shah, Ahmud Khan advanced with an army from Cabool, and took pretty much everything of value that the Khorassani freebooter had overlooked, besides committing more atrocities upon the population. At the end of another decade an army of Mahrattas took possession, and completed the spoilation by ripping the silver filigree-work off the ceiling of the Throne-room. Not long after this, yet another adventurer took a hand in the work of destruction, tortured the members of the imperial family, and put out the eyes of the helpless old emperor, Shah Alum. Here Lord Lake's cavalcade arrived, too, in 1803, and found the blinded chief of the royal house of Timour and his magnificent successors, who built Delhi and Agra, seated beneath the tattered remnants of a little canopy, a mockery of royalty, with every external appearance of misery and helplessness And lastly, here, in May, 1857, the last representative of the great Moguls, a not unwilling tool in the hands of the East India Company's mutinous soldiery, presided over the butchery of helpless English women and children. It is difficult to realize that Delhi has been the theatre of such a stirring and eventful history, as nowadays one strolls down the Chandni Chouk and notes the air of peace and contentment that pervades the whole city. It seems quite true, as Edwin Arnold says in his "India Revisited," that Derby is now not more contentedly British than is Delhi. Whatever may be the faults of British rule in India, no impartial critic can say that the people are not in better hands than they have ever been before. One of the most interesting objects in the city is the Jama Mesjid, the largest mosque in India, and the second-largest in all Islam, ranking next to St. Sophia at Constantinople. Broad flights of red sandstone steps lead up to handsome gateways surmounted by rows of small milk-white marble domes or cupolas. Inside is a large quadrangular court, paved with broad slabs of sandstone; occupying the centre of this is a white marble reservoir of water. The mosque proper is situated on the west side of the quadrangle, an oblong structure two hundred feet long by half that many in width, ornamented and embellished by Arabic inscriptions and three shapely white marble domes. Very elegant indeed is the pattern and composition of the floor, each square slab of white marble having a narrow black border running round it, like the border of a mourning envelope. Very charming, also, are the two graceful minarets at either end, one hundred and thirty feet high, alternate strips of white marble and red sandstone producing a very pretty and striking effect. In the northeastern corner of the quadrangle is a small cabinet containing the inevitable relics of the Prophet. Three separate guides have accumulated at my heels since entering the gate, and now a fourth, ancient and hopeful, appears to unravel, for the Sahib's benefit, the mysteries of the little cabinet. Unlocking the door, he steps out of his slippers into the entrance, stooping beneath an iron rail that further bars the entrance. From an inner receptacle he first produces some ancient manuscript, which he explains was written by the same scribes who copied the Koran for Mohammed's grandson. Putting these carefully away, the Ancient and Hopeful then unwraps, very mysteriously, a handkerchief, and reveals a small oblong tin box with a glass face. The casket contains what upon casual observation appears to be a piece of bark curling up at the edges; this, I am informed, however, is nothing less than the sole of one of Mohammed's sandals. Putting away this venerable relic of the great founder of Islam, the old Mussulman assumes a look of profound importance and mystery. One would think, from his expression and manners, that he was about to reveal to the sacrilegious gaze of an infidel nothing less than the Prophet's fifth rib or the parings from his pet corn. Instead of these he exhibits a flat piece of rock bearing marks resembling the shape of a man's foot--the imprint of Mohammed's foot, miraculously made. To one whose soulful gaze has been enraptured with an imprint of the first Sultan's hand on the wall of St. Sophia, and the mosaic figure of the Virgin Mary persistently refusing to be painted out of sight on the dome of the same mosque, this piece of rock would scarcely seem to justify the vast display of reverence that is evidently expected of all visitors by the Ancient and Hopeful. But perhaps it is on account of the place of honor it occupies immediately preceding what is undoubtedly a very precious relic indeed, a relic that fills the worthy custodian with mystery and importance. Or, perchance, mystery and importance have been found, during his long and varied experience with the unsophisticated tourist, excellent things to increase the volume of importance attached to the exhibited articles, and the volume of "pice" in his exchequer. At any rate, the Ancient and Hopeful assumes more mystery and importance than ever as he uncovers a second tin casket with a glass front. Glued to the glass, inside, is a single coarse yellow hair about two inches long; the precious relic, which has a suspicious resemblance to a bristle, is considered the gem of the collection, being nothing less than a hair from the Prophet's venerable mustache. Mohammedans swear by the beard of the Prophet, just as good Christians swear by "the great horned spoon," or by "great Caesar's ghost," so that the possession of even this one poor little hair, surrounded as it is by a blue halo of suspicion as to its authenticity, sheds a ray of glory upon the great Jama Mesjid scarcely surpassed by its importance as the second-largest mosque in the world. The two-inch yellow hair is considered the piece de resistance of the collection, and the Ancient and Hopeful stows it away with all due reverence, strokes his henna-stained beard with the air of a man who has got successfully through a very important task, steps into his slippers, and presents himself for "pice." Pice is duly administered to him and his three salaaming associates, when, lo! a fifth candidate mysteriously appears, also smiling and salaaming expectantly. Although I haven't had the pleasure of a previous acquaintance with this gentleman, the easiest way to escape gracefully from the sacred edifice is to backsheesh him along with the others. These backsheesh considerations are, of course, small and immaterial matters, and one ought to feel extremely grateful to all concerned for the happy privilege of feasting one's soul with ever so brief a contemplation of the things in the cabinet, and more especially on the bristle-like yellow hair. These joy-inspiring objects, ramshackled from the storehouse of the musty past, fulfil the double mission of keeping alive the reverence of devout Mussulmans who visit the mosque, and keeping the Ancient and Hopeful well supplied with goodakoo. My camera having duly arrived, together with a package of letters, which are always doubly welcome to a wanderer in distant lands, I prepare to resume my southward journey. The few days' rest has enabled me to recover from the wilting effects of riding in the terrific heat, and I have seen something of one of the most interesting points in all Asia. Delhi is sometimes called the "Home of Asia," which, it seems to me, is a very appropriate name to give it. Neatly clad and modest-looking females, native converts to Christianity, are walking in orderly procession to church, testaments in hand, as I wheel through the streets of Delhi on Sunday morning toward the Agra road. Very interesting is it to see these dusky daughters of heathendom arrayed in modest white muslin gowns, their lithe and graceful forms freed from the barbarous jewellery that distinguishes the persons of their unconverted sisters. Very charming do they look in their Christianized simplicity and self-contained demeanor as they walk quietly, and at a becoming Sabbath-day pace, two by two, down the Chandni Chouk. They present an instructive comparison to the straggling groups of heathen damsels who watch them curiously as they walk past and then proceed to chant idolatrous songs, apparently in a spirit of wanton raillery at the Christian maidens and their simple, un-ornamented attire. The fair heathens of Delhi have a sort of naughty, Parisian reputation throughout the surrounding country, and so there is nothing surprising in this exhibition of wanton hilarity directed at these more strait-laced converts to the religion of the Ferenghis. The heathen damsels, arrayed in very worldly costumes, consisting of flaring red, yellow, and blue garments, the whole barbaric and ostentatious array of nose-rings, ear-rings, armlets, anklets, rupee necklaces, and pendents, and the multifarious gewgaws of Hindoo womankind, look surpassingly wicked and saucy in comparison with their converted sisters. The gentle converts try hard to regard their heathen songs with indifference, and to show by their very correct deportment the superiority of meekness, virtue, and Christianity over gaudy clothes, vulgar silver jewellery, and heathenism. The whole scene reminds one very forcibly of a gang of wicked street-boys at home, poking fun at a Sunday-school procession or a platoon of Salvation Army soldiers parading the streets. Past the Queen's Gardens and the fort, down a long street of native shops, and out of the Delhi gate I wheel, past the grim battlements of Firozabad, along a rather flinty road that extends for ten miles, after which commences again the splendid kunkah. Villages are numerous, and the country populous; tombs and the ruins of cities dot the landscape, pahnee-chowkees, where yellow Brahmans dispense water to thirsty wayfarers, line the road, and at one point three splendid, massive archways, marking some place that has lost its former importance, span my road. Hindoos are now the prevailing race, and their religion finds frequent expression in idol temples and shrines beneath little roadside groves. The night is spent on the porch of a dak bungalow just outside the walls of Pullwal, a typical Hindoo city, with all its curious display of hideous idols, idolatrous paintings, and beautiful carved temples with gilded spires. The groves about the bungalow are literally swarming with green parrots; in big flocks they sweep past near my charpoy, producing a great wh-r-r-r-ring commotion with their wings. A flock of parrots may be so far aloft as to be well-nigh beyond the range of human vision in the ethery depths, but the noise of their wings will be plainly audible. A two hours' terrific downpour delays me at the village of Hodell next day, and affords an opportunity to inspect an ordinary little Hindoo village temple. The captain of the police-thana sends a tall Sikh policeman to show me in. The temple is only a small tapering marble edifice about thirty feet high, surmounted by a gilded crescent, and resting on a hollow plinth, the hollow of which provides quarters for the priest. One is expected to remove his foot-gear before going inside, the same as in a Mohammedan mosque. A taper is burning in a niche of the wall; mural paintings of snakes, many-handed gods, bulls, monsters, and mythical deities create a cheap and garish impression. In the centre of the floor is a marble linga, and grouped around it a miniature man, woman, and elephant; before these are laid offerings of flowers. The interior of the temple is not more than eight feet square, a mere cell in which the deities are housed; the worshippers mostly perform their prostrations on the plinth outside. The villagers gather in a crowd about the temple and watch every movement of my brief inspection; they seem pleased at the sight of a Sahib honoring their religion by removing his shoes and carefully respecting their feelings. When I descend from the plinth they fall back and greet me with smiles and salaams. The rain clears up and I forge ahead, finding the kunkah road-bed none the worse for the drenching it has just received. Hour by hour one gets more surprised at the multitudes of pedestrians on the road; neither rain nor sun seems to affect their number. Some of the costumes observed are quite startling in their ingenuity and effect. One garment much affected by the Rajput women are yellowish shawls or mantles, phool-karis, in which, are set numerous small circular mirrors about the circumference of a silver half-dollar; the effect of these in the bright Indian sun, as the wearer trudges along in the distance, is as though she were all ablaze with gems. Whenever I wheel past a group of Rajput females, they either stand with averted faces or cover up their heads with their shawls. The road-inspector's bungalow at Chattee affords me shelter, and an intelligent native gentleman, who speaks a misleading quality of English, supplies me with a supper of curried rice and fowl. Hard by is a Hindoo temple, whence at sunset issue the sweetest chimes imaginable from a peal of silver-toned bells. My charpoy is placed on the porch facing the east, and soon the rotund face of the rising moon floats above the trees, and the silvery tinkle of the bells is followed by a chorus of jackals paying their noisy compliments to its loveliness. My slumbers can hardly be said to be unbroken to-night, three pariah dogs have taken a fancy to my quarters; two of them sit on their haunches and howl dismally in response to the jackals, while number three reclines sociably beneath my charpoy and growls at the others as though constituting himself my protector. Some Indian Romeo is serenading his dusky Juliet in the neighboring town; flocks of roysteriug parrots go whirring past at all hours of the night, and a too liberal indulgence in red-hot curry keeps me on the verge of a nightmare almost till the silvery tinkle-tinkle of the Brahman bells announces the break of day. Cynics have sometimes denounced Christians as worse than the heathens, in requiring loud church-bells to summon them to worship. Such, it appears, are putting the case rather thoughtlessly. Mohammedans have their muezzins, while both Christians and idolaters have their chiming bells. Neither Christians, nor Mohammedans, nor heathens need these agencies to summon them to their respective worldly enjoyments, so that, taken all in all, we are pretty much alike--cynics, notwithstanding, to the contrary, we are little or no worse than the heathens. A loudly wailing woman with her head covered up, and supported between two companions who are vainly trying to console her, and a party conveying two cassowaries, a pair of white peacocks, and a kangaroo from Calcutta to some rajah's menagerie up country, are among the curiosities encountered on the road the following day. Spending the afternoon and night in the quarters of the Third Dragoon Guards at Muttra Cantonment, I resume my journey early in the morning, dodging from shelter to shelter to avoid frequent heavy showers. It is but thirty-five miles from Muttra to Agra, and notwithstanding showers and heat, the distance is covered by half-past ten. Wheeling at this pace, however, is an indiscretion, and the completion of the stretch is signalized by a determination to seek shade and quiet for the remainder of the day. Once again the sociable officers of the garrison tender me the hospitality of their quarters, and the ensuing day is spent in visiting that wonder of the world, the Taj Mahal, Akbar's fort, and other wonderful monuments of the palmy days of the Mogul Empire. Finer and more imposing in appearance even than the fort at Delhi, is that at Agra. Walls of red sandstone, seventy feet high, and a mile and a half in circuit, picturesquely crenellated, and with imposing gateways and a deep, broad moat, Complete a work of stupendous dimensions. One is overcome with a sense of grandeur upon first beholding these Indian palace-forts, after seeing nothing more imposing than mud walls in Persia and Afghanistan; they are magnificent looking structures. The contrast, too, of the red sandstone walls and gates and ramparts, with the white marble buildings of the royal quarters, is very striking. The domes of the latter, seen at a distance, seem like snow-white bubbles resting ever so lightly and airily upon the darker mass; one almost expects to see them rise up and float away on the passing zephyrs like balloons. Passing inside over a drawbridge and through the massive Delhi Gate, we proceed into the interior of the fort, traversing a broad ascent of sandstone pavement. Everything around us shows evidence of unstinted outlay in design, execution, and completion of detail in the carrying out of a stupendous undertaking. Everywhere the spirit of Akbar the Magnificent seems to hover amid his creations. One emerges from the covered gateway and the walled corrugated causeway, upon the parade ground. Crenellated walls, a park of artillery, and roomy English barracks greet the vision. Sentinels--Sepoy sentinels in huge turbans, and English sentinels in white sun-helmets--are pacing their beats. But not on these does the gaze of the visitor rest. Straight ahead of him there rises, above the red sandstone walls and the bare parade ground, three marble domes, white as newly-fallen snow, and just beyond are seen the gilt pinnacles of Akbar's palace. We wander among the beautiful marble creations, gaze in wonder at the snowy domes supported on marble pillars, mosaiced with jasper, agate, blood-stone, lapis-lazuli, and other rare stones. We stand on the white marble balustrades, carved so exquisitely as to resemble lace-work, and we look out upon the yellow waters of the Jumna, flowing sluggishly along seventy feet below. Here is where the Grand Mogul, Akbar, used to sit and watch elephant fights and boat races. There are none of these to be seen now; but that does not mean that the prospect is either tame or uninteresting. The banks of the Jumna are alive with hundreds of dusky natives engaged in washing clothes and spreading linen out in the sun to bleach. The prospect beyond is a revelation of vegetable luxuriance and wealth, and of historical reminiscence in the shape of ruins and tombs. One's eyes, however, are drawn away from the contemplation of the picturesque life below, and from the prospect of grove and garden and crumbling tombs, by the mesmerism, of the crowning glory of all Indian architectural triumphs, the famous Taj. This matchless mausoleum rests on the right-hand bank of the Jumna, about a mile down stream. The Taj, with its marvellous beauty and snowy whiteness, seems to cast a spell over the beholder, from the first; one can no more keep his eyes off it, when it is within one's range of vision, than he can keep from breathing. It draws one's attention to itself as irresistibly as though its magnetism were a living and breathing force exerted directly to that end. It is the subtlety of its unapproachable loveliness, commanding homage from all beholders, whether they will or no. We turn away from it awhile, however, and find ample scope for admiration close at hand. We tread the marble aisles of the Pearl Mosque, considered the most perfect gem of its kind in existence. One stands in its court-yard and finds himself in the chaste and exclusive companionship of snowy marble and blue sky. One feels almost ill at ease, as though conscious of being an imperfect thing, marring perfection by his presence. "Quiet as a nun, breathless with adoration," one enthusiastic visitor exclaims, in an effort to put his sentiments and impressions of the Moti Mesjid into words. Like this adoring traveller, the average visitor will rest content to be carried away by the contemplation of its chaste beauty, without prying around for possible defects in the details of the particular school of architecture it graces. He will have little patience with carping critics who point to the beautiful screens, of floriated marble tracery, and say: "Nuns should not wear collars of point lace." From the Moti Mesjid, we visit the Shish Mahal, or mirrored bath-rooms. The chambers and passages here remind me of the mirrored rooms of Persia; here, as there, thousands of tiny mirrors are used in working out various intricate designs. My three uniformed companions at once reflect not less than half a regiment of British soldiers therein. From the fort we drive in a native gharri to the Taj, a mile-drive through suburban scenery, plantain-gardens, groves, and ruins. In approaching the garden of the Taj, one passes through a bazaar, where the skilful Hindoo artisans are busy making beautiful inlaid tables, inkstands, plates, and similar fancies, as well as models of the Taj, out of white Jeypore marble. These are the hereditary descendants and successors of the men who in the palmy days of the Mogul power spent their lives in decorating the royal palaces and tombs with mosaics and tracery. Nowadays their skill is expended on mere articles of virtue, to be sold to European tourists and English officers. Some of them are occasionally employed by the Indian Government to repair the work desecrated by vandals during the mutiny, and under the purely commercial government of the East India Company. One curious phase of this work is, that the men employed to replace with imitations the original stones that have been stolen receive several times higher pay than the men in Akbar's time, who did such splendid work that it is not to be approached, these days. Several months' imprisonment is now the penalty of prying out stones from the mosaic-work of the Taj. This lovely structure has been described so often by travellers that one can scarce venture upon a description without seeming to repeat what has already been said by others. One of the best descriptions of its situation and surroundings is given by Bayard Taylor. He says: "The Taj stands on the bank of the Jumna, rather more than a mile to the eastward of the Fort of Agra. It is approached by a handsome road cut through the mounds left by the ruins of ancient palaces. It stands in a large garden, inclosed by a lofty wall of red sandstone, with arched galleries around the interior, and entered by a superb gateway of sandstone, inlaid with ornaments and inscriptions from the Koran in white marble. Outside this grand portal, however, is a spacious quadrangle of solid masonry, with an elegant structure, intended as a caravanserai, on the opposite side. Whatever may be the visitor's impatience, he cannot help pausing to notice the fine proportions of these structures, and the massive style of their construction. Passing under the open demi-vault, whose arch hangs high above you, an avenue of dark Italian cypress appears before you. Down its centre sparkles a long row of fountains, each casting up a single slender jet. On both sides, the palm, the banyan, and feathery bamboo mingle their foliage; the song of birds meets your ears, and the odor of roses and lemon-flowers sweetens the air. Down such a vista, and over such a foreground, rises the Taj." Of the Taj itself, fault has been found with its proportions by severe critics, like the party who regards the Moti Mesjid "nun" as faulty because she wears a point-lace collar; but the ordinary visitor will find room for nothing but admiration and wonder. It is hard to believe that there is any defect, even in its proportions, for so perfect do these latter appear, that one is astonished to learn that it is a taller building than the Kootub Minar. One would never guess it to be anywhere near so tall as 243 feet. The building rests on a plinth of white marble, eighteen feet high and a hundred yards square. At each corner of the plinth stands a minaret, also of white marble, and 137 feet high. The mausoleum itself occupies the central space, measuring in depth and width 186 feet. The entire affair is of white Jeypore marble, resting upon a lower platform of sandstone: "A thing of perfect beauty and of absolute finish in every detail, it might pass for the work of a genii, who knew naught of the weaknesses and ills with which mankind are beset. It is not a great national temple erected by a free and united people, it owes its creation to the whim of an absolute ruler who was free to squander the resources of the State in commemorating his personal sorrows or his vanity." Another distinguished visitor, commenting on the criticisms of those who profess to have discovered defects, says: "The Taj is like a lovely woman; abuse her as you please, but the moment you come into her presence, you submit to its fascination." "If to her share some female errors fall, Look in her face, and you'll forget them all." Passing beneath the vaulted gateway, we find a sign-board, telling that the best place from which to view the Taj is from the roof of the gateway. A flight of steps leads us to the designated vantage-point, when the tropic garden, the fountains, the twin mosques in the far corners, the river, the minarets, and, above all, the Taj itself lay spread out before us for our inspection. The scene might well conjure up a vision of Paradise itself. The glorious Taj: "So light it seems, so airy, and so like a fabric of mist and moonbeams, with its great dome soaring up, a silvery bubble," that it is difficult, even at a few hundred yards' distance, to believe it a creation of human hands. While gazing on the Taj, men let their cigars go out, and ladies drop their fans without noticing it. Descending the steps again, we pass inside, and again pause to survey it from the end of the avenue. An element of the ridiculous here appears in the person and the appeals of an old Hindoo fruit-vender. This hopeful agent of Pomona squats beside a little tray, and, as we stand and feast our eyes on the sublimest object in the world of architecture, he persistently calls our attention to a dozen or two half-decayed mangoes and custard-apples that comprise his stock in trade. We pass down the cypress aisle, and invade the plinth. Hundreds of natives, both male and female, are wandering about it. The dazzling whiteness of the promenade is in striking contrast to the color of their own bodies. As the groups of women walk about, their toe-rings and ankle-ornaments jingle against the marble, and their particolored raiment and barbarous gewgaws look curiously out of place here. The place seems more appropriate to vestal virgins, robed in white, than to dusky Hindoo females, arrayed in all the colors of the rainbow. Many of these people are pilgrims who have come hundreds of miles to see the Taj, and to pay tribute to the memory of Shah Jehan, and his faithful wife the Princess Arjumund, whose mausoleum is the Taj. Two young men we see, leading an aged female, probably their mother, down the steps to the vault, where, side by side, the remains of this royal pair repose. The old lady is going down there to deposit a rose or two upon Arjumund's tomb, a tender tribute paid to-day, by thousands, to her memory. We climb the spiral stairs of one of the miuars, and sit out on the little pavilion at the top, watching the big ugly crocodiles float lazily on the surface of the Jumna at our feet. Before departing, we enter the Taj and examine the wonderful mosaics on the cenotaphs and the encircling screen-work. This inlaid flower-work is quite in keeping with the general magnificence of the mausoleum, many of the flowers containing not less than twenty-five different stones, assorted shades of agate, carnelian, jasper, blood-stone, lapis lazuli, and turquoise. Ere leaving we put to test the celebrated echo; that beautiful echoing, that--"floats and soars overhead in a long, delicious undulation, fading away so slowly that you hear it after it is silent, as you see, or seem to see, a lark you have been watching, after it is swallowed up in the blue vault of heaven." We leave this garden of enchantment by way of one of the mosques. An Indian boy is licking up honey from the floor of the holy edifice with his tongue. We look up and perceive that enough rich honey-comb to fill a bushel measure is suspended on one of the beams, and so richly laden is it that the honey steadily drips down. The sanctity of the place, I suppose, prevents the people molesting the swarm of wild bees that have selected it for their storehouse, or from relieving them of their honey. The Taj is said to have cost about two million pounds, even though most of the labor was performed without pay, other than rations of grain to keep the workmen from starving. Twenty thousand men were employed upon it for twenty-two years, and for its inlaid work "gems and precious stones came in camel-loads from various countries." The next morning I bid farewell to Agra, more than satisfied with my visit to the Taj. It stands unique and distinct from anything else one sees the whole world round. Nothing one could say about it can give the satisfaction derived from a visit, and no word-painting can do it justice. CHAPTER XVI. FROM AGRA TO SINGAPORE. A couple of miles from the cantonment, and the broad Jumna is crossed on a pontoon bridge, the buoys of which are tubular iron floats instead of boats. Crocodiles are observed floating, motionless as logs, their heads turned up-stream and their snouts protruding from the water. The road is undulating for a few miles and then perfectly level, as, indeed, it has been most of the way from Lahore. Pilgrims carrying little red flags, and sometimes bits of red paper tied to sticks, are encountered by the hundred; mayhap they have come from distant points to gaze upon the beauties of the Taj Mahal, the fame of which resounds to the farthermost corners of India. They can now see it across the Jumna, resting on the opposite bank, looking more like a specimen of the architecture of the skies than anything produced by mere earthly agency. A partly dilapidated Mohammedan mosque in the middle of a forty-acre walled reservoir, overgrown with water-lilies, forms a charming subject for the attention of my camera. The mosque is approached from an adjacent village by a viaduct of twenty arches; a propos of its peculiar surroundings, one might easily fancy the muezzin's call to prayer taking the appropriate form of, "Come where the water-lilies bloom," instead of the orthodox, "Allah-il-allah." Villages are now rows of shops lining the road on either side, sometimes as much as half a mile in length. The entrance is usually marked by a shrine containing a hideous idol, painted red and finished off with cheap-looking patches of gold or silver tinsel. In the larger towns, evidences of English philanthropy loom conspicuously above the hut-like shops and inferior houses of the natives in the form of large and substantial brick buildings, prominently labelled "Ferozabad Hospital" or "Government Free Dispensary." A discouraging head-wind blows steadily all day, and it is near sunset when the thirty-seven miles to Sbikarabad is covered. A mile west of the town, I am told, is the Rohilcund Railway, the dak bungalow, and the bungalow of an English Sahib. Quite suitable for a one-mile race-track as regards surface is this little side-stretch, and a spin along its smooth length is rewarded by a most comfortable night at the bungalow of Mr. S, an engineer of the Ganges Canal, a magnificent irrigating enterprise, on the banks of which his bungalow stands. Several school-boys from Allahabad are here spending their vacation, shooting peafowls and fishing. Wild boars abound in the tall tiger-grass of the Shikobabad district and the silence of the gloaming is broken by the shouting of natives driving them out of their cane-patches, where, if not looked after pretty sharply, they do considerable damage in the night. A curious illustration of native vanity and love of fame is pointed out here in the case of a wealthy gentleman who has spent some thousands of rupees in making and maintaining a beautiful flower-garden in the midst of a worthless piece of sandy land, close by the railway station. Close by is an abundance of excellent ground, where his garden might have been easily and inexpensively maintained. Asked the reason for this strange preference and seemingly foolish choice, he replied: "When people see this beautiful garden in the midst of the barren sand, they will ask, 'Whose garden is this?' and thus will my name become known among men. If, on the other hand, it were planted on good soil, nobody would see anything extraordinary in it, and nobody would trouble themselves to ask to whom it belongs." Youthful Davids, perched on frail platforms that rise above the sugar-cane, indigo, or cotton crops, shout and wield slings with dexterous aim and vigor, to keep away vagrant crows, parrots, and wild pigs, all along the line of my next day's ride to Mainpuri. In many fields these young slingers and their platforms are but a couple of hundred yards apart, the range of their weapons covering the entire crop-area around. Sometimes I endeavor to secure one of these excellent subjects for my camera, but the youngsters invariably clamber down from their perch at seeing me dismount, and become invisible among the thick cane. To the music of loud, rolling thunder, I speed swiftly over the last few miles, and dash beneath the porch of the post-office just in the nick of time to escape a tremendous downpour of rain. How it pours, sometimes, in India, converting the roads into streams and the surrounding country into a shallow lake in the space of a few minutes. Hundreds of youths, naked save for the redeeming breech-cloth, disport themselves in the great warm shower-bath, chasing one another sportively about and enjoying the downpour immensely. The rain ceases, and, with water flinging from my wheel, I seek the civil lines and the dak bungalow three miles farther down the road. Very good meals are dished up by the chowkee-dar at this bungalow, who seems an intelligent and enterprising fellow; but the lean and slippered punkah-wallah is a far less satisfactory part of the accommodation. Twice during the night the punkah ceases to wave and the demon of prickly heat instantly wakes me up; and both times do I have to turn out and arouse him from the infolding arms of Morpheus. On the second occasion the old fellow actually growls at being disturbed. He is wide-awake and obsequious enough, however, at backsheesh-time in the morning. The clock at the little English station-church chimes the hour of six as I resume my journey next morning along a glorious avenue of overarching shade-trees to Bhogan, where my road, which from Delhi has been a branch road, again merges into the Grand Trunk. Groves of tall toddy-palms are a distinguishing feature of Bhogan, and a very pretty little Hindoo temple marks the southern extremity of the town. A striking red and gilt shrine in a secluded grove of peepuls arrests my attention a few miles out of town, and, repairing thither, my rude intrusion fills with silent surprise a company of gentle Brahman youths and maidens paying their matutinal respects to the representation of Kamadeva, the Hindoo cupid and god of love. They seem overwhelmed with embarrassment at the appearance of a Sahib, but they say nothing. I explain that my object is merely a "tomasha" of the exquisitely carved shrine, and a young Brahman, with his smooth, handsome face fantastically streaked with yellow, follows silently behind as I walk around the building. His object is evidently to satisfy himself that nothing is touched by my unhallowed Christian hands. Seven miles from Bhogan is the camping ground of Bheyo, where in December, 1869, an English soldier was assassinated in the night while standing sentry beneath a tree. His grave, beneath the gnarled mango where he fell, is marked by two wooden crosses, and the tree-trunk is all covered with memorial plates nailed there, from time to time, by the various troops who have camped here on their winter marches. Twenty-eight miles are duly reeled off when, just outside a village, I seek the shade of a magnificent banyan. The kindly villagers, unaccustomed to seeing a Sahib without someone attending to his comfort, bring me a charpoy to recline on, and they inquire anxiously, "roti? pahni? doctor." (am I hungry, thirsty, or ill?). Nor are these people actuated by mercenary thoughts, for not a pice will they accept on my departure. "Nay, Sahib, nay," they reply, eagerly, smiling and shaking their heads, "pice, nay." The narrow-gauge Rohilcuud Railway now follows along the Grand Trunk road, being built on one edge of the broad road-bed. Miran Serai, a station on this road, is my destination for the day; there, however, no friendly dak bungalow awaits my coming and no hostelry of any kind is to be found. The native station-master advises me to go to the superintendent of police across the way; the police-officer, in turn, suggests applying to the station-master. The police-thana here is a large establishment, and a number of petty prisoners are occupying railed-off enclosures beneath the arched entrance. They accost me through the bars of their temporary, cage-like prison with smiles, and "Sahib" spoken in coaxing tones, as though moved by the childish hope that I might perchance take pity on them and order the police to set them at liberty. A small and pardonable display of "bounce" at the railway station finally secures me the quarters reserved for the accommodation of English officers of the road, and a Mohammedan employe about the station procures me a supply of curried rice and meat. The station-master himself is a high-caste Hindoo and can speak English; he politely explains the difficulty of his position, as an extra-holy person, in being unable to personally attend to the wants of a Sahib. Upon discovering that I have taken up my quarters in the station, the police-superintendent comes over and begs permission to send over my supper, as he is evidently anxious to cultivate my good opinion, or, at all events, to make sure of giving no offence in failing to accommodate me with sleeping quarters at the thana. He supplements the efforts of the Mohammedan employe, by sending over a dish of sweetened chuppaties. On the street leading out of Miran Serai is a very handsome and elaborately ornamented temple. Passing by early in the morning, I pay it a brief, unceremonious visit of inspection, kneeling on the steps and thrusting my helmeted head in to look about, not caring to go to the trouble of removing my shoes. Inside is an ancient Brahman, engaged in sweeping out the floral offerings of the previous day; he favors me with the first indignant glance I have yet received in India. When I have satisfied my curiosity and withdrawn from the door-way, he comes out himself and shuts the beautifully chased brazen door with quite an angry slam. The day previous was the anniversary of Krishna's birth, and the blood of sacrificial goats and bullocks is smeared profusely about the altar. It is, probably, the enormity of an unhallowed unbeliever in one god, thrusting his infidel head inside the temple at this unseemly hour of the morning, while the blood of the mighty Krishna's sacrificial victims is scarcely dry on the walls, that arouses the righteous wrath of the old heathen priest--as well, indeed, it might. Passing through a village abounding in toddy-palms, I avail myself of an opportunity to investigate the merits of a beverage that I have been somewhat curious about since reaching India, having heard it spoken of so often. The famous "palm-wine" is merely the sap of the toddy-palm, collected much as is the sap from the maple-sugar groves of America, although the palm-juice is generally, if not always, obtained from the upper part of the trunk. When fresh, its taste resembles sweetened water; in a day or two fermentation sets in, and it changes to a beverage that, except for slightly alcoholic properties, might readily be mistaken for vinegar and water. Every little village or hamlet one passes through, south of Agra, seems laudably determined to own a god of some sort; those whose finances fail to justify them in sporting a nice, red-painted god with gilt trimmings, sometimes console themselves with a humble little two-dollar soapstone deity that looks as if he has been rudely chipped into shape by some unskilful prentice hand. God-making is a highly respectable and lucrative profession in India, but only those able to afford it can expect the luxury of a nice painted and varnished deity right to their hand every day. People cannot expect a first-class deity for a couple of rupees; although the best of everything is generally understood to be the cheapest in the end, it takes money to buy marble, red paint, and gold-leaf. A bowl of pulse porridge, sweet and gluey, is prepared and served up in a big banyan-leaf at noon by a villager. In the same village is one of those very old and shrivelled men peculiar to India. From appearances, he must be nearly a hundred years old; his skin resembles the epidermis of a mummy, and hangs in wrinkles about his attenuated frame. He spends most of his time smoking goodakoo from a neat little cocoa-nut hookah. The evening hour brings me into Cawnpore, down a fine broad street divided in the centre by a canal, with flights of stone steps for banks and a double row of trees--a street far broader and finer than the Chandni Chouk--and into an hotel kept by a Parsee gentleman named Byramjee. Life at this hostelry is made of more than passing interest by the familiar manner in which frogs, lizards, and birds invade the privacy of one's apartments. Not one of these is harmful, but one naturally grows curious about whether a cobra or some other less desirable member of the reptile world is not likely at any time to join their interesting company. The lizards scale the walls and ceiling in search of flies, frogs hop sociably about the floor, and a sparrow now and then twitters in and out. A two weeks' drought has filled the farmers of the Cawnpore district with grave apprehensions concerning their crops; but enough rain falls to-night to gladden all their hearts, and also to leak badly through the roof of my bedroom. My punkah-wallah here is a regular automaton--he has acquired the valuable accomplishment of pulling the punkah-string back and forth in his sleep; he keeps it up some time after I have quitted the room in the morning, until a comrade comes round and wakes him up. For three days the rains continue almost without interruption, raining as much as seven inches in one night. Slight breaks occur in the downpour, during which it is possible to get about and take a look at the Memorial Gardens and the native town. The Memorial Gardens and the well enclosed therein commemorate one of the most pathetic incidents of the mutiny--the brutal massacre by Nana Sahib of about two hundred English women and children. This arch-fiend held supreme sway over Cawnpore from June 6, 1857, till July 15th, and in that brief period committed some of the most atrocious deeds of treachery and deviltry that have ever been, recorded. Backed by a horde of blood-thirsty mutineers, he committed deeds the memory of which causes tears of pity for his victims to come unbidden into the eyes of the English tourist thirty years after. Delicate ladies, who from infancy had been the recipients of tender care and consideration, were herded together in stifling rooms with the thermometer at 120 deg. in the shade, marched through the broiling sun for miles, subjected to heart-rending privations, and at length finally butchered, together with their helpless children. After the treacherous massacre of the few surviving Englishmen at the Suttee Chowra Ghaut, the remaining women and children were reserved for further cruelties, and the final act of Nana's fiendish vengeance. From the graphic account of this murderous period of Cawnpore's history contained in the "Tourists' Guide to Cawnpore" is quoted the following brief account of Nana's consummate deed of devilment. But the Nana's reign of terror was now drawing to a close, though not to terminate without a stroke destined to make the civilized world shudder from end to end. He was now to put the finishing touch to his work of mischief. The councils of the wicked were being troubled. Danger was on its way. Stories were brought in by scouting Sepoys of terrible bronzed men coming up the Grand Trunk Road, before whose advance the rebel hosts were fleeing like chaff and dust before the fan of the threshing-floor, Futtehpore had fallen, and disaster had overtaken the rebel forces at Aoung. Reinforcements were despatched by Nana in rapid succession, but all was of no avail--on came Havelock and his handful of heroes, carrying everything before them in their determination to rescue the hapless women and children imprisoned at Cawnpore. About noon on July 15th a few troopers came in from the south and informed Nana that his last reinforcement had met the same fate as the others, and reported that the English were coming up the road like mad horses, caring for neither cannon nor musketry; nor did these appear to have any effect on them. The guilty Nana, with the blood of the recent treacherous massacre on his hands, grew desperate at the hopelessness of the situation, and called a council of war. What plans could they devise to keep out the English? what steps could they adopt to stay their advance. The conclusion arrived at in that council of human tigers could have found expression nowhere save in the brains of Asiatics, illogical, and diabolically cruel. "We will destroy the maims and baba logues," they said, "and inform the English force of it; they will then be disheartened, and go back, for they are only a handful in number!" How the unfortunate innocents were butchered in cold blood in the beebeegurch where they were confined, by Sepoys who gloried in trying their skill at severing the ladies' heads from their bodies at one cut, in splitting little children in twain, and in smearing themselves with the blood of their helpless victims, is too harrowing a tale to dwell upon here. On the following morning "the mangled bodies of both dead and dying" were cast into the well over which now hovers the marble representation of the Pitying Angel. When the victorious relieving force scattered Nana's remaining forces and entered the city, two days later, instead of the living forms of those they had made such heroic efforts to save, they looked down the well and saw their ghastly remains. In this lovely garden, where all is now so calm and peaceful, scarcely does it seem possible that beneath the marble figure of this Pitying Angel repose the dust of two hundred of England's gentle martyrs, whose murdered and mutilated forms, but thirty years ago, choked up the well into which they were tossed. While I stand and read the sorrowful inscription it rains a gentle, soft, unpattering shower. Are these gentle droppings the tender tribute of angels' tears. I wonder, and does it always rain so soft and noiselessly here as it does to-day? No natives are permitted in this garden without special permission; and an English soldier keeps sentinel at the entrance-gate instead of the Sepoy usually found on such duty. The memory of this tragedy seems to hang over Cawnpore like a cloud even to this day, and to cause a feeling of bitterness in the minds of Englishmen, who everywhere else regard the natives about them with no other feelings than of the kindliest possible nature. Other monuments of the mutiny exist, notably the Memorial Church, a splendid Lombard-Gothic structure erected in memoriam of those who fell in the mutiny here. The church is full of tablets commemorating the death of distinguished people, and the stained-glass windows are covered with the names of the victims of Nana Sahib's treachery, and of those who fell in action. Cawnpore is celebrated for the number and extensiveness of its manufactures, and might almost be called the Manchester of India; woollen, cotton, and jute mills abound, leather factories, and various kindred industries, giving employment to millions of capital and thousands of hands. A stroll through the native quarter of any Indian city is interesting, and Cawnpore is no exception. One sees buildings and courts the decorations and general appearance of which leave the beholder in doubt as to whether they are theatre or temple. Music and tom-toming would seem rather to suggest the former, but upon entering one sees fakirs and Hindoo devotees, streaked with clay, fanciful paintings and hideous idols, and all the cheap pomp and pageantry of idolatrous worship. Strolling into one of these places, an attendant, noting my curious gazing, presents himself and points to a sign-board containing characters as meaningless to me as Aztec hieroglyphics. In one narrow street a crowd of young men are struggling violently for position about a door, where an old man is flinging handfuls of yellow powder among the crowd. The struggling men are aspirants for the honor of having a portion of the powder alight on their persons. I inquire of a native by-stander what it all means; the explanation is politely given, but being in the vernacular of the country, it is wasted on the unprofitable soil of my own lingual ignorance. Impatient to be getting along, I misinterpret a gleam of illusory sunshine at noon on the third day of the rain-storm and pull out, taking a cursory glance at the Memorial Church as I go. A drenching shower overtakes me in the native military lines, compelling me to seek shelter for an hour beneath the portico of their barracks. The road is perfectly level and smooth, and well rounded, so that the water drains off and leaves it better wheeling than ever; and with alternate showers and sunshine I have no difficulty in covering thirty-four miles before sunset. This brings me to a caravanserai, consisting of a quadrangular enclosure with long rows of cell-like rooms. The whole structure is much inferior to a Persian caravanserai, but there is probably no need of the big brick structures of Shah Abbas in a winterless country like India. Interesting subjects are not wanting for my camera through the day; but the greatest difficulty is experienced about changing the negatives at night. A small lantern with a very feeble light, made still more feeble by interposing red paper, suffices for my own purpose; but the too attentive chowkee-dar, observing that my room is in darkness, and fancying that my light has gone out accidentally, comes flaring in with a torch, threatening the sensitive negatives with destruction. The morning opens with a fine drizzle or extra-heavy mist that is penetrating and miserable, soaking freely into one's clothes, and threatening every minute to change into a regular rain. It is fourteen miles to Futtehpore, and thence two miles off the straight road to the railway-station, where I understand refreshments are to be obtained. The reward of my four-mile detour is a cup of sloppy tea and a few weevil-burrowed biscuits, as the best the refreshment-room can produce on short notice. The dense mist moves across the country in big banks, between which are patches of comparatively decent atmosphere. The country is perfectly flat, devoted chiefly to the cultivation of rice, and the depressions alongside the road are, of course, filled with water. Timid youngsters, fleeing from the road at my approach, in their scrambling haste sometimes tumble "head-over-heels" in the water; but, beyond a little extra terror lest the dreadful object they see coming bowling along should overtake them, it doesn't matter--they haven't any clothes to spoil or soil. Neither rain nor heat nor dense, reeking, foggy atmosphere seems to diminish the swarms of people on the road, nor the groups bathing or washing clothes beneath the trees. Some of these latter make a very interesting picture. The reader has doubtless visited the Zoo and observed one monkey gravely absorbed in a "phrenological examination" of another's head. With equal gravity and indifference to the world at large, dusky humans are performing a similar office for one another beneath the roadside shade-trees. Roasted ears of maize and a small muskmelon form my noontide repast, and during its consumption quite a comedy is enacted down the street between a fat, paunchy vender of goodakoo and the shiny-skinned proprietor of a dhal-shop. The scene opens with a wordy controversy about something; scene two shows the fat goodakoo merchant advanced midway between his own and his adversary's premises, capering about, gesticulating, and uttering dire threats; scene three finds him retreating and the valorous man of dhal held in check by his wife to prevent him following after with hostile intent. The men seem boiling over with rage and ready to chew each other up; but, judging from the supreme indifference of everybody else about, nobody expects anything serious, to happen. This is mentionable as being the first quarrel I have seen in India; as a general thing the people are gentleness personified. Several tattooed Hindoo devotees are observed this afternoon paying solemn devotions to bel-trees streaked with red paint, near the road. Many of the trees also shelter rude earthenware animals, and hemispherical vessels, which are also objects of worship, as representing the linga. The bel-tree is sacred to Siva the Destroyer, and the third person in the Hindoo Triad, whom Brahma himself is said to have worshipped, although he is regarded as the Creator. In the absence of Siva himself, the worship of the bel-tree is supposed to be as efficacious as worshipping the idol direct. Soon I overtake an individual doing penance for his sins by crawling on his stomach all the way to Benares, the Mecca of the Hindoo religion. In addition to crawling, he is dragging a truck containing his personal effects by a rope tied about his waist. Every fifty yards or so he stands up and stretches himself; then he lies prostrate again and worms his wearisome way along the road like a snake. Benares is still about a hundred miles distant, and not unlikely this determined devotee has already been crawling in this manner for weeks. This painful sort of penance was formerly indulged in by Hindoo fanatics very largely; but the English Government has now all but abolished the practice by mild methods of discouragement. The priests of the different idols in Benares annually send out thousands of missionaries to travel throughout the length and breadth of India to persuade people to make pilgrimages to that city. Each missionary proclaims the great benefits to be derived by going to worship the particular idol he represents; in this manner are the priests enriched by the offerings presented. Not long since one of these zealous pilgrim-hunters persuaded a wealthy rajah into journeying five hundred miles in the same manner as the poor wretch passed on the road to-day. The infatuated rajah completed the task, after months of torture, on all-fours, accompanied the whole distance by a crowd of servants and priests, all living on his bounty. Many people now wear wooden sandals held on the feet by a spool-like attachment, gripped between the big and second toes. Having no straps, the solid sole of the sandal flaps up and mildly bastinadoes the wearer every step that is taken. Another night in a caravanserai, where rival proprietors of rows of little chowkees contend for the privilege of supplying me char-poy, dood, and chowel, and where thousands of cawing rooks blacken the trees and alight in the quadrangular serai in noisy crowds, and I enter upon the home-stretch to Allahabad. In proof that the cycle is making its way in India it may be mentioned that at both Cawnpore and Allahabad the native postmen are mounted on strong, heavy bicycles, made and supplied from the post-office workshops at Allighur. They are rude machines, only a slight improvement upon the honored boneshaker; but their introduction is suggestive of what may be looked for in the future. As evidence, also, of the oft-repeated saying that "the world is small," I here have the good fortune to meet Mr. Wingrave, a wheelman whom I met at the Barnes Common tricycle parade when passing through London. There is even a small cycle club in quasi existence at Allahabad; but it is afflicted with chronic lassitude, as a result of the enervating climate of the Indian plains. Young men who bring with them from England all the Englishman's love of athletics soon become averse to exercise, and prefer a quiet "peg" beneath the punkah to wheeling or cricket. During the brief respite from the hades-like temperature afforded by December and January, they sometimes take club runs down the Ganges and indulge in the pastime of shooting at alligators with small-bore rifles. The walks in the beautiful public gardens and every other place about Allahabad are free to wheelmen, and afford most excellent riding. Messrs. Wingrave and Gawke, the two most enterprising wheelmen, turn out at 6 a.m. to escort me four miles to the Ganges ferry. Some idea of the trying nature of the climate in August may be gathered from the fact that one of my companions arrives at the river fairly exhausted, and is compelled to seek the assistance of a native gharri to get back home. The exposure and exercise I am taking daily is positively dangerous, I am everywhere told, but thus far I have managed to keep free from actual sickness. The sacred river is at its highest flood, and hereabout not less than a mile and half wide. The ferry service is rude and inefficient, being under the management of natives, who reck little of the flight of time or modern improvements. The superintendent will bestir himself, however, in behalf of the Sahib who is riding the Ferenghi gharri around the world: instead of putting me aboard the big slow ferry, he will man a smaller and swifter boat to ferry me over. The "small boat" is accordingly produced, and turns out to be a rude flat-boat sort of craft, capable of carrying fully twenty tons, and it is manned by eight oarsmen. Their oars are stout bamboo poles with bits of broad board nailed or tied on the end. Much of the Ganges' present width is mere overflow, shallow enough for the men to wade and tow the boat. It is tugged a considerable distance up-stream, to take advantage of the swift current in crossing the main channel. The oars are plied vigorously to a weird refrain of "deelah, sahlah-deelah, sahlah!" the stroke oarsman shouting "deelah" and the others replying "sahlah" in chorus. Two hours are consumed in crossing the river, but once across the road is perfection itself, right from the river's brink. Through the valley of the sacred river, the splendid kunkah road leads onward to Benares, the great centre of Hindoo idolatry, a city that is more to the Hindoo than is Mecca to the Mohammedans or Jerusalem to the early Christians. Shrines and idols multiply by the roadside, and tanks innumerable afford bathing and purifying facilities for the far-travelled pilgrims who swarm the road in thousands. As the heathen devotee approaches nearer and nearer to Benares he feels more and more devotionally inclined, and these tanks of the semi-sacred water of the Ganges Valley happily afford him opportunity to soften up the crust of his accumulated transgressions, preparatory to washing them away entirely by a plunge off the Kamnagar ghaut at Benares. Many of the people are trudging their way homeward again, happy in the possession of bottles of sacred water obtained from the river at the holy city. Precious liquid this, that they are carrying in earthenware bottles hundreds of weary miles to gladden the hearts of stay-at-home friends and relations. At every tank scores of people are bathing, washing their clothes, or scouring out the brass drinking vessel almost everyone carries for pulling water up from the roadside wells. They are far less particular about the quality of the water itself than about the cleanliness of the vessel. Many wells for purely drinking purposes abound, and Brahmans serve out cool water from little pahnee-chowkees through window-like openings. Wealthy Hindoos, desirous of performing some meritorious act to perpetuate their memory when dead, frequently build a pahnee-chowkee by the roadside and endow it with sufficient land or money to employ a Brahman to serve out drinking-water to travellers. Thirty miles from Allahabad, I pause at a wayside well to obtain a drink. It is high noon, and the well is on unshaded ground. For a brief moment my broad-brimmed helmet is removed so that a native can pour water into my hands while I hold them to my mouth. Momentary as is the experience, it is followed by an ominous throbbing and ringing in the ears--the voice of the sun's insinuating power. But a very short distance is covered when I am compelled to seek the shelter of a little road-overseer's chowkee, the symptoms of fever making their appearance with alarming severity. The quinine that I provided myself with at Constantinople is brought into requisition for the first time; it is found to be ruined from not being kept in an air-tight vessel. A burning fever keeps me wide awake till 2 a.m., and in the absence of a punkah, prickly heat prevents my slumbering afterward. This wakeful night by the roadside enlightens me to the interesting fact that the road is teeming with people all night as well as all day, many preferring to sleep in the shade during the day and travel at night. It is fifty miles from my chowkee to Benares, and the dread of being overtaken with serious illness away from medical assistance urges upon me the advisability of reaching there to-day, if possible. The morning is ushered in with a stiff head-wind, and the fever leaves me feeling anything but equal to pedalling against it when I mount my wheel at early daybreak. By sheer strength of will I reel off mile after mile, stopping to rest frequently at villages and under the trees. A troop of big government elephants are having their hoofs trimmed at a village where a halt is made to obtain a bite of bread and milk. The elephants enter unmistakable objections to the process in the way of trumpeting, and act pretty much like youngsters objecting to soap and water. But a word and a gentle tap from the mahout's stick and the monster brutes roll over on their sides and submit to the inevitable with a shrill protesting trumpet. Another diversion not less interesting than the elephants is a wrestling tournament at the police-thana, where twenty stalwart policemen, stripped as naked as the proprieties of a country where little clothing is worn anyhow will permit, are struggling for honor in the arena. Vigorous tom-toming encourages the combatants to do their best, and they flop one another over merrily, in the dampened clay, to the applause of a delighted crowd of lookers-on. The fifty miles are happily overcome by four o'clock, and with the fever heaping additional fuel on the already well-nigh unbearable heat, I arrive pretty thoroughly exhausted at Clarke's Hotel, in the European quarter of Benares. Of all the cities of the East, Benares is perhaps the most interesting at the present day to the European tourist. Its fourteen hundred shivalas or idol temples, and two hundred and eighty mosques, its wonderful bathing ghauts swarming with pilgrims washing away their sins, the burning bodies, the sacred Ganges, the hideous idols at every corner of the streets, and its strange idolatrous population, make up a scene that awakens one to a keen appreciation of its novelty. One realizes fully that here the idolatry, the "bowing down before images" that in our Sunday-school days used to seem so unutterably wicked and perverse, so monstrous, and so far, far away, is a tangible fact. To keep up their outward appearance on a par with the holiness of their city, men streak their faces and women mark the parting in their hair with red. Sacred bulls are allowed to roam the streets at will, and the chief business of a large proportion of the population seems to be the keeping of religious observances and paying devotion to the multitudinous idols scattered about the city. The presiding deity of Benares is the great Siva--"The Great God," "The Glorious," "The Three-Eyed," and lord of over one thousand similarly grandiloquent titles, and he is represented by the Bishesharnath ka shivala, a temple whose dome shines resplendent with gold-leaf, and which is known to Europeans as the Golden Temple. Siva is considered the king of all the Hindoo deities in the Benares Pauch-kos, and is consequently honored above all other idols in the number of devotees that pay homage to him daily. His income from offerings amounts to many thousands of rupees annually: there is a reservoir for the reception of offerings about three feet square by half that in depth. The Maharajah Ranjit Singh, Rajah of the Punjab, once filled this place with gold mohurs; many wealthy Hindoos have from time to time filled it with rupees. The old guide whom I have employed to show me about then conducts me into the "Cow Temple," a filthy court containing a number of pampered-looking Brahman bulls, and several youthful bovines whose great privilege it is to roam about the court-yard and accept tid-bits from the hands of devotees. In the same court-yard-like shivala are several red idols, and the numerous comers and goers make the place as animated as a vegetable market at early morning. Priests, too, are here in numbers; seated on a central elevation they make red marks on the faces of the devotees, dipping in the mixture with their finger; in return they receive a small coin, or a pinch of rice or grain is thrown into a vessel placed there for the purpose. In many stalls are big piles of flower-petals which devotees purchase to present as offerings. Men and women by the hundred are encountered in the narrow streets, passing briskly along with baskets containing a supply of these petals, a dish of rice, and a bowl of water; one would think, from their business-like manner, that they were going, or had been, marketing. They are going the morning round of their favorite gods, or the gods whose particular services they happen to stand in need of at the time; before these idols they pause for a moment, mutter their supplications, and sprinkle them with water and flower-petals, passing from one deity to another in a most business-like, matter-of-fact manner. Women unblessed with children throng to the idols of Sidheswari and Sankatadevi, bestowing offerings and making supplication for sons and daughters; pilgrims from afar are flocking to Sakhi-Banaik, whose office it is to testify in the next world of their pilgrimage in this. No matter how far a pilgrim has come, and how many offerings he has bestowed since his arrival, unless he repair to the shivala of Sakhi Banaik and duly report his appearance, his pilgrimage will have been performed in vain. Everywhere, in niches of the walls, under trees, on pedestals at frequent corners, are idols, hideously ugly; red idols, idols with silver faces and stone bodies, some with mouths from ear to ear, big idols, little idols, the worst omnium gatherum imaginable. Sati, nothing visible but her curious silver face, beams over a black mother-hubbard sort of gown that conceals whatever she may possess in the way of a body; Jagaddatri, the Mother of the World, with four arms, seated on a lion; Brahma, with five eyes and four mouths, curiously made to supply quadruple faces. Karn-adeva, the handsome little God of Love (the Hindoo Cupid), whom the cruel Siva once slew with a beam from his third eye--all these and multitudinous others greet the curious sight-seer whichever way he turns. Hanuman, too, is not forgotten, the great Monkey King who aided Kama in his expedition to Ceylon; outside the city proper is the monkey temple, where thousands of the sacred anthropoids do congregate and consider themselves at home. Then there is the fakirs' temple, the most beautifully carved shivala in Benares; here priests distribute handfuls of soaked grain to all mendicants who present themselves. The grain is supplied by wealthy Hindoos, and both priests and patrons consider it a great sin to allow a religious mendicant to go away from the temple empty-handed. Conspicuous above all other buildings in the city is the mosque of Aurungzebe, with its two shapely minarets towering high above everything else. The view from the summit of the minarets is comprehensive and magnificently lovely; the wonderful beauty of the trees and shivalas, the green foliage, and the gilt and red temples, so beautifully carved and gracefully tapering; the broad, flowing Ganges, the busy people, the moving boats, the rajahs' palaces along the water-front, make up a truly beautiful panorama of the Sacred City of the Hindoos. From here we take a native boat and traverse the water-front to see the celebrated bathing ghauts and the strange, animated scene of pilgrims bathing, bodies burning, and swarms of people ascending and descending the broad flights of steps. How intensely eager do these dusky believers in the efficacy of "Mother Ganga" as a purifier of sin dip themselves beneath the yellow water, rinse out their mouths, scrape their tongues, nib, duck, splash, and disport; they fairly revel in the sacred water; happy, thrice happy they look, as well indeed they might, for now are they certain of future happiness. What the "fountain filled with blood" is to the Christian, so is the precious water of dear Ganga to the sinful Hindoo: all sins, past, present, and future, are washed away. Next to washing in the sacred stream during life, the Hindoo's ambition is to yield up the ghost on its bank, and then to be burned on the Burning Ghaut and have his ashes cast adrift on the waters. On the Manikarnika ghaut the Hindoos burn their dead. To the unbelieving Ferenghi tourist there seems to be a "nigger in the fence" about all these heathen ceremonies, and in the burning of the dead the wily priesthood has managed to obtain a valuable monopoly on firewood, by which they have accumulated immense wealth. No Hindoo, no matter how pious he has been through life, how many offerings he has made to the gods, or how thoroughly he has scoured his yellow hide in the Ganges, can ever hope to reach Baikunt (heaven) unless the wood employed at his funeral pyre come from a domra. Domras are the lowest and most despised caste in India, a caste which no Hindoo would, under any consideration, allow himself to touch during life, or administer food to him even if starving to death; but after his holier brethren have yielded up the ghost, then the despised domra has his innings. Then it is that the relatives of the deceased have to humble themselves before the domra to obtain firing to burn the body. Realizing that they now have the pull, the wily domras sometimes bleed their mournful patrons unmercifully. As many as a thousand rupees have been paid for a fire by wealthy rajahs. The domra who holds the monopoly at the Manikarnika ghaut is one of the richest men in Benares. Two or three bodies swathed in white are observed waiting their turn to be burned, others are already burning, and in another spot is the corpse of some wealthier person wrapped in silver tinsel. Not the least interesting of the sights is that of men and boys here and there engaged in dipping up mud from the bottom and washing it in pans similar to the gold-pans of placer-miners; they make their livelihood by finding occasional coins and ornaments, accidentally lost by bathers. A very unique and beautifully carved edifice is the Nepaulese temple; but the carvings are unfit for popular inspection. The whole river-front above the ghauts is occupied by temples and the palaces of rajahs, who spend a portion of their time here preparing themselves for happiness hereafter, by drinking Ganges water and propitiating the gods. On festival occasions, and particularly during an eclipse, as many as one hundred thousand people bathe in the Ganges at once; formerly many were drowned in the great crush to obtain the peculiar blessings of bathing during an eclipse, but now a large force of police is employed to regulate the movements of the people on such occasions. Formerly, also, fights were very frequent between the Mohammedans and Hindoos, owing to the clashing of their religious beliefs, but under the tolerant and conciliatory system of the British Government they now get along very well together. A rest of two days and a few doses of quinine subdue the fever and put me in condition to resume my journey. Twelve miles from Benares, on the East Indian Kail way, is Mogul Serai, to which I deem it advisable to wheel in the evening, by way of getting started without over-exertion at first. Two English railroad engineers are stationed at Mogul Serai, and each of them is a wheelman. They, of course, are delighted to offer me the hospitality of their quarters for the night, and, moreover, put forth various inducements for a longer stay; but being anxious to reach Calcutta, I decide to pull out again next morning. My entertainers accompany me for a few miles out. Mogul Serai is four hundred and twelve miles from Calcutta, and at the four hundred and fourth milestone my companions bid me hearty bon voyage and return. Splendid as are the roads round about Mogul Serai, this eight-mile stone is farther down the road than they have ever ridden before. Twenty-five miles farther, and a sub-inspector of police begs my acceptance of curried chicken and rice. He is a five-named Mohammedan, and tells me a long story about his grandfather having been a reminder of a hundred and fifty villages, and an officer in the East India Company's army. On the pinions of his grandparents' virtues, his Oriental soul soars ambitiously after present promotion; on the strength of sundry eulogistic remarks contained in certificates already in his possession, he wants one from myself recommending him to the powers that be for their favorable consideration. He is the worst "certificate fiend" that I have met. Near Sassaram I meet a most picturesque subject for my camera, a Kajput hill-man in all the glory of shield, spear, and gayly feathered helmet. He is leading a pack-pony laden with his travelling kit, and mechanically obeys when I motion for him to halt. He remains stationary, and regards my movements with much curiosity while I arrange the camera. When the tube is drawn out, however, and pointed at him, and I commence peeping through to arrange the focus, he gets uneasy, and when I am about ready to perpetuate the memory of his fantastic figure forever, he moves away. Nor will any amount of beckoning obtain for me another "sitting," nor the production and holding aloft of a rupee. Whether he fancied the camera in danger of going off, or dreaded the "evil eye," can only be surmised. The famous fleet-footed mail-carriers of Bengal are now frequently encountered on the road; they are invariably going at a bounding trot of eight or ten miles an hour. The letter-bag is attached to the end of a stick carried over the shoulder, which is also provided with rings that jingle merrily in response to the motions of the runner. The day is not far distant when all these men will be mounted on bicycles, judging from the beginning already made at Allahabad and Cawnpore. The village women hereabouts wear massive brass ankle-ornaments, six inches broad, and which are apparently pounds in weight. A deluge of rain during the night at Dilli converts the road into streams, and covers the low, flat land with a sheet of water. The ground is soaked full, like a wet sponge, and can absorb no more; rivers are overflowing, every weed, every blade of grass, and every tree-leaf is jewelled with glistening drops. The splendid kunkah is now gradually giving place to ordinary macadam, which is far less desirable, the heavy, pelting rain washing away the clay and leaving the surface rough. Not less than four hours are consumed in crossing the River Sone at Dilli in a native punt, so swiftly runs the current and so broad is the overflow. The frequent drenching rains, the lowering clouds, and the persistent southern wind betoken the full vigor of the monsoons. One can only dodge from shelter to shelter between violent showers, and pedal vigorously against the stiff breeze. The prevailing weather is stormy, and inky clouds gather in massy banks at all points of the compass, culminating in violent outbursts of thunder and lightning, wind and rain. Occasionally, by some unaccountable freak of the elements, the monsoon veers completely around, and blowing a gale from the north, hustles me along over the cobbly surface at great speed. Just before reaching Shergotti, on the evening of the third day from Benares, a glimpse is obtained of hills on the right. They are the first relief from the dead level of the landscape all the way from Lahore; their appearance signifies that I am approaching the Bengal Hills. From Mogul Serai my road has been through territory not yet invaded by the revolutionizing influence of the railway, and consequently the dak bungalows are still kept up in form to provide travellers with accommodation. Chowkeedar, punkah-wallah, and sweeper are in regular attendance, and one can usually obtain curried rice, chicken, dhal, and chuppatties. An official regulation of prices is posted conspicuously in the bungalow: For room and charpoy, Rs 1; dinner, Rs 1-8; chota-hazari, Rs 1, and so on through the scale. The prices are moderate enough, even when it is considered that a dinner consists of a crow-like chicken, curried rice, and unleavened chuppatties. The chowkeedar is usually an old Sepoy pensioner, who obtains, in addition to his pension, a percentage on the money charged for the rooms--a book is kept in which travellers are required to enter their names and the amount paid. The sweepers and punkah-wallahs are rewarded separately by the recipient of their attentions. Sometimes, if a Mohammedan, and not prohibited by caste obligations from performing these menial services, the old pensioner brings water for bathing and sweeps out one's own room himself, in which case he of course pockets the backsheesh appertaining to these duties also. A few miles south of Shergotti the bridge spanning a tributary of the Sone is broken down, and no ferry is in operation. The stream, however, is fordable, and four stalwart Bengalis carry me across on a charpoy, hoisted on their shoulders; they stem the torrent bravely, and keep up their strength and courage by singing a refrain. From this point the road becomes undulating, and of indifferent surface; the macadam is badly washed by the soaking monsoon rains, and the low, level country is gradually merging into the jungle-covered hills of Bengal. The character of the people has undergone a decided change since leaving Delhi and Agra, and the Bengalis impress one decidedly unfavorably in comparison with the more manly and warlike races of the Punjab. Abject servility marks the demeanor of many, and utter uselessness for any purpose whatsoever, characterizes one's intuitive opinion of a large percentage of the population of the villages. Except for the pressing nature of one's needs, the look of unutterable perplexity that comes over the face of a Bengali villager, to-day, when I ask him to obtain me something to eat, would be laughable in the extreme. "N-a-y, Sahib, n-a-y." he replies, with a show of mental distraction as great as though ordered to fetch me the moon. An appeal for rice, milk, dhal, chuppatties, at several stalls results in the same failure; everybody seems utterly bewildered at the appearance of a Sahib among them searching for something to eat. The village policeman is on duty in the land of dreams, a not unusual circumstance, by the way; but a youth scuttles off and wakes him up, and notifies him of my arrival. Anxious to atone for his shortcomings in slumbering at his post, he bestirs himself to obtain the wherewithal to satisfy my hunger, his authoritative efforts culminating in the appearance of a big dish of dhal. The country becomes hillier, and the wild, jungle-covered hills and dark ravines alongside the road are highly suggestive of royal Bengal tigers. The striped monsters infest these jungles in plenty; during the afternoon I pass through a village where a depredatory man-eater has been carrying off women and children within the last few days. The chowkeedar at Burhee, my stopping-place for the night in the hill country, is a helpless old duffer, who replies "nay-hee, Sahib, nay-hee," with a decidedly woe-begone utterance in response to all queries about refreshments. A youth capable of understanding a little English turns up shortly, and improves the situation by agreeing to undertake the preparation of supper. Still more hopeful is the outlook when a Eurasian and a native school-master appear upon the scene, the former acting as interpreter to the genial pedagogue, who is desirous of contributing to my comfort by impressing upon my impromptu cook the importance of his duties. They become deeply interested in my tour of the world, which the scholarly pedagogue has learned of through the medium of the vernacular press. The Eurasian, not being a newspaper-reader, has not heard anything of the journey. But he has casually heard of the River Thames, and his first wondering question is as to "how I managed to cross the Thames!" My saturated karki clothing has been duly wrung out and hung up inside the dak bungalow, the only place where it will not get wetter instead of dryer, and my cook is searching the town in quest of meat, when an English lady and gentleman drive up in a dog-cart and halt before the bungalow. Unaware of the presence of English people in the place, I am taken completely by surprise. They are Mr. and Mrs. B, an internal revenue officer and his wife, who, having heard of my arrival, have come to invite me to dinner. Of course I am delighted, and they are equally pleased to entertain one about whose adventures they have recently been reading. Their ayah saw me ride in, and went and told her mistress of seeing a "wonderful Sahib on wheels," and already the report has spread that I have come down from Lahore in four days! A very agreeable evening is spent at Mr. E 's house, talking about the incidents of my journey, Mr. E 's tiger-hunting exploits in the neighborhood, and kindred topics. Mr. R devotes a good deal of time in the winter season to hunting tigers in the jungle round about his station, and numerous fine trophies of his prowess adorn the rooms of his house. He knows of the man-eater's depredations in the village I passed to-day, and also of another one ahead which I shall go through to-morrow; he declares his intention of bagging them both next season. Mrs. R arrived from Merrie England but eighteen months ago, a romantic girl whose knowledge of royal Bengal tigers was confined to the subdued habitues of sundry iron-barred cages in the Zoo. She is one of those dear confiding souls that we sometimes find out whose confidence in the omnipotent character of their husbands' ability is nothing if not charming and sublime. Upon her arrival in the wilds of Bengal she was fascinated with the loveliness of the country, and wanted her liege lord to take her into the depths of the jungle and show her a "real wild tiger." She had seen tigers in cages, but wanted to see how a real wild one looked in his native lair. One day they were out taking horseback exercise together, when, a short distance from the road, the horrible roar of a tiger awoke the echoes of the jungle and reverberated through the hills like rolling thunder. Now was the long-looked-for opportunity, and her husband playfully invited her to ride with him toward the spot whence came the roars. Mrs. R, however, had suddenly changed her mind. Mrs. R was the first white lady the people of many of the outlying villages had ever seen on horseback, or perhaps had ever seen at all, and the timidest of them would invariably bolt into the jungle at her appearance. When her husband or any other Englishman went among them alone, the native women would only turn away their faces, but from the lady herself they would hastily run and hide. Here, also, I learn that the natives in this district are dying by the hundred with a malignant type of fever; that the present season is an exceptionally sickly one, all of which gives reason for congratulation at my own health being so good. It is all but a sub-aqueous performance pedalling along the road next morning; the air is laden with a penetrating drizzle, the watery clouds fairly hover on the tree-tops and roll in dark masses among the hills, while the soaked and saturated earth reeks with steam. The road is macadamized with white granite, and after one of those tremendous downpourings that occur every hour or so the wheel-worn depressions on either side become narrow streams, divided by the white central ridge. Down the long, straight slopes these twin rivulets course right merrily, the whirling wheels of the bicycle flinging the water up higher than my head. The ravines are roaring, muddy torrents, but they are all well bridged, and although the road is lumpy, an unridable spot is very rarely encountered. For days I have not had a really dry thread of clothing, from the impossibility of drying anything by hanging it out. Under these trying conditions, a relapse of the fever is matter for daily and hourly apprehension. The driving drizzle to-day is very uncomfortable, but less warm than usual; it is anything but acceptable to the natives; thousands are seen along the road, shivering behind their sheltering sun-shields, from which they dismally essay to extract a ray of comfort. These sun-shields are umbrella-like affairs made of thin strips of bamboo and broad leaves; they are without handles, and for protection against the sun or rain are balanced on the head like an inverted sieve. When carried in the hand they may readily be mistaken for shields. In addition to this, the men carry bamboo spears with iron points as a slipshod measure of defence against possible attacks from wild animals. When viewed from a respectable distance these articles invest the ultra-gentle Bengali with a suggestion of being on the war-path, a delusion that is really absurd in connection with the meek Bengali ryot. The houses of the villages are now heavily thatched, and mostly enclosed with high bamboo fencing, prettily trailed with creepers; the bazaars are merely two rows of shed-like stalls between which runs the road. In lieu of the frequent painted idol, these jungle villagers bestow their devotional exercises upon rude and primitive representations of impossible men and animals made of twisted straw. These are sometimes set up in the open air on big horseshoe-shaped frames, and sometimes they are beneath a shed. In the privacy of their own dwellings the Bengali ryot bows the knee and solemnly worships a bowl of rice or a cup of arrack. The bland and childlike native of Hindostan falls down and worships almost everything that he recognizes as being essential to his happiness and welfare, embracing a wide range of subjects, from Brahma, who created all things, to the denkhi with which their women hull the rice. This denkhi is merely a log of wood fixed on a pivot and with a hammer-like head-piece. The women manipulate it by standing on the lever end and then stepping off, letting it fall of its own weight, the hammer striking into a stone bowl of rice. The denkhi is said to have been blessed by Brahma's son Narada, the god who is distinguished as having cursed his venerable and all-creating sire and changed him from an object of worship and adoration to a luster after forbidden things. The country continues hilly, with the dense jungle fringing the road; all along the way are little covered platforms erected on easily climbed poles from twelve to twenty feet high. These are apparently places of refuge where benighted wayfarers can seek protection from wild animals. Occasionally are met the fleet-footed postmen, their rings jangling merrily as they bound briskly along; perhaps the little platforms are built expressly for their benefit, as they are not infrequently the victims of stealthy attack, the jingle of their rings attracting Mr. Tiger instead of repelling him. Mount Parisnath, four thousand five hundred and thirty feet high, the highest peak of the Bengal hills, overlooks my dak bungalow at Doomree, and also a region of splendid tropical scenery, dark wooded ridges, deep ravines, and rolling masses of dark-green vegetation. During the night the weather actually grows chilly, a raw wind laden with moisture driving me off the porch into the shelter of the bungalow. No portion of Parisnath is visible in the morning but the base, nine-tenths of its proportions being above the line of the cloud-masses that roll along just above the trees. Another day through the hilly country and, a hundred and fifty miles from Calcutta, the flourishing coal-mining district of Asansol brings me again to the East India Railway and semi-European society and accommodation. Instead of doughy chuppatties, throat-blistering curry, and octogenarian chicken, I this morning breakfast off a welcome bottle of Bass's ale, baker's bread, and American cheese. My experience of hotels and hotel proprietors has certainly been somewhat wide and varied within the last two years; but it remains for Rannegunj to produce something entirely novel in the matter of tariff even to one of my experience. The cuisine and service of the hotel is excellent, and well worth the charges; but the tariff is arranged so that it costs more to stay part of a day than a whole one, and more to take two meals than to take three. If a person remains a whole day, including room and three meals, it is Rs 4, and he can, of course, suit himself about staying or going if he engages or pays in advance; but should he only take dinner, room, and chota-hazari, his bill reads: Dinner, Rs 2; room, Rs 1, 8 annas; chota-hazari, rupees 1; total, Rs 4, 8 annas, or 8 annas more than if he had remained and taken another square meal. The subtle-minded proprietor of this establishment should undoubtedly take out a patent on this very unique arrangement and issue licences throughout all Bonifacedom; there would be more "millions in it" than in anything Colonel Sellers ever dreamed of. And now, beyond Rannegunj, comes again the glorious kunkah road, after nearly three hundred miles of variable surface. Level, smooth, and broad it continues the whole sixty-five miles to Burd-wan. Notwithstanding an adverse wind, this is covered by three o'clock. The road leads through the marvellously fertile valley of the Dammoodah, an interesting region where groves of cocoa-nut palms, bamboo thickets, and thatched villages give the scenery a more decidedly tropical character than that north of the Bengal hills. Rice is still the prevailing crop, and the overflow of the Dammoodah is everywhere. Men and women are busily engaged among the pools, fishing for land-crabs, mussels, and other freshwater shell-fish, with triangular nets. As my southward course brings me next day into the valley of the Hooghli River, the road partakes almost of the character of a tunnel burrowing through a mass of dense tropical vegetation. Cocoa-nut and toddy-palms mingle their feathery foliage with the dark-green of the mango, the wild pomolo, giant bamboo, and other vegetable exuberances characteristic of a hot and humid climate, and giant creepers swing from tree to tree and wind among the mass in inextricable confusion. In this magnificent conservatory of nature big, black-faced monkeys, with tails four feet long, romp and revel through the trees, nimbly climb the creepers, and thoroughly enjoy the life amid the sylvan scenes about them. It is a curious sight to see these big anthropoids, almost as large as human beings, swing themselves deftly up among the festooned creepers at my approach--to see their queer, impish black faces peering cautiously out of their hiding-place, and to hear their peculiar squeak of surprise and apprehension as they note the strange character of my conveyance. Sometimes a gang of them will lope awkwardly along ahead of the bicycle, looking every inch like veritable imps of darkness pursuing their silent course through the chastened twilight of green-grown, subterranean passageways, their ridiculously long tails raised aloft, and their faces most of the time looking over their shoulders. Youthful lotus-eaters, sauntering lazily about in the vicinity of some toddy-gatherer's hamlet, hidden behind the road's impenetrable environment of green, regard with supreme indifference the evil-looking apes, bigger far than themselves, romping past; but at seeing me they scurry off the road and disappear as suddenly as the burrow-like openings in the green banks will admit. Women are sometimes met carrying baskets of plantains or mangoes to the village bazaars; sometimes I endeavor to purchase fruit of them, but they shake their heads in silence, and seem anxious to hurry away. These women are fruit-gatherers and not fruit-sellers, consequently they cannot sell a retail quantity to me without violating their caste. My experiences in India have been singularly free from snakes; nothing have I seen of the dreaded cobra, and about the only reminder of Eve's guileful tempter I encounter is on the road this morning. He is only a two-foot specimen of his species, and is basking in a streak of sunshine that penetrates the green arcade above. Remembering the judgment pronounced upon him in the Garden of Eden, I attempt to acquit myself of the duty of bruising his head, by riding over him. To avoid this indignity his snakeship performs the astonishing feat of leaping entirely clear of the ground, something quite extraordinary, I believe, for a snake. The popular belief is that a snake never lifts more than two-thirds of his length from the ground. From the city of Hooghli southward, the road might with equal propriety be termed a street; it follows down the west side of the Hooghli River and links together a chain of populous towns and villages, the straggling streets of which sometimes fairly come together. Fruit-gardens, crowded with big golden pomolos, delicious custard, apples, and bananas abound; in the Hooghli villages the latter can be bought for two pice a dozen. Depots for the accumulation and shipment of cocoa-nuts, where tons and tons of freshly gathered nuts are stacked up like measured mounds of earth, are frequent along the river. Jute factories with thousands of whirring spindles and the clackety-clack of bobbins fill the morning air with the buzz and clatter of vigorous industrial life. Juggernaut cars, huge and gorgeous, occupy central places in many of the towns passed through. The stalls and bazaars display a variety of European beverages very gratifying from the stand-point of a hot and thirsty wayfarer, ranging from Dublin ginger ale to Pommery Sec. California Bartlett pears, with seductive and appetizing labels on their tin coverings, are seen in plenty, and shiny wrappers envelop oblong cakes of Limburger cheese. For a few minutes my wheel turns through a district where the names of the streets are French, and where an atmosphere of sleepy Catholic respectability pervades the streets. This is Chandernagor, a wee bit of territory that the French have been permitted to retain here, a rosebud in the button-hole of la belle France's national vanity. Chanderuagor is a bite of two thousand acres out of the rich cake of the lower Hooghli Valley; but it is invested with all the dignity of a governor-general's court, and is gallantly defended by a standing army of ten men. The Governor-General of Chandernagor fully makes up in dignity what the place lacks in size and importance; when the East India Railway was being built he refused permission for it to pass through his territory. There is no doubt but that the land forces of Chandernagor would resist like bantams any wanton or arbitrary violation of its territorial prerogatives by any mercenary railroad company, or even by perfide Albion herself, if need be. The standing army of Chandernagor hovers over peaceful India, a perpetual menace to the free and liberal government established by England. Some day the military spirit of Chandernagor will break loose, and those ten soldiers will spread death and devastation in some peaceful neighboring meadow, or ruthlessly loot some happy, pastoral melon-garden. Let the Indian Government be warned in time and increase its army. By nine o'clock the bicycle is threading its way among the moving throngs on the pontoon bridge that spans the Hooghli between Howrah and Calcutta, and half an hour later I am enjoying a refreshing bath in Cook's Adelphi Hotel. I have no hesitation in saying that, except for the heat, my tour down the Grand Trunk Road of India has been the most enjoyable part of the whole journey, thus far. What a delightful trip a-wheel it would be, to be sure, were the temperature only milder! My reception in Calcutta is very gratifying. A banquet by the Dalhousie Athletic Club is set on foot the moment my arrival is announced. With such enthusiasm do the members respond that the banquet takes place the very next day, and over forty applicants for cards have to be refused for want of room. For genuine, hearty hospitality, and thoroughness in carrying out the interpretation of the term as understood in its real home, the East, I unhesitatingly yield the palm to Anglo-Indians. Time and again, on my ride through India, have I experienced Anglo-Indian hospitality broad and generous as that of an Arab chief, enriched and rendered more acceptable by a feast of good-fellowship as well as creature considerations. The City of Palaces is hardly to be seen at its best in September, for the Viceregal Court is now at Simla, and with it all the government officials and high life. Two months later and Calcutta is more brilliant, in at least one particular, than any city in the world. Every evening in "the season" there is a turn-out of splendid equipages on the bund road known as the Strand, the like of which is not to be seen elsewhere, East or West. It is the Rotten Row of Calcutta embellished with the gorgeousness of India. Wealthy natives display their luxuriousness in vying with one another and with the government officials in the splendor of their carriages, horses, and liveries. Mr. P, a gentleman long resident in Calcutta, and a prominent member of the Dalhousie Club, drives me in his dog-cart to the famous Botanical Gardens, whose wealth of unique vegetation, gathered from all quarters of the world, would take volumes to do it justice should one attempt a description. Its magnificent banyan is justly entitled to be called one of the wonders of the world. Not less striking, however, in their way, are the avenues of palms; so straight, so symmetrical are these that they look like rows of matched columns rather than works of nature. Fort William, the original name of the city, and the foundation-stone of the British Indian Empire, is visited with Mr. B, the American Consul, a gentleman from Oregon. The glory of Calcutta, its magnificent Maidan, is overlooked by the American Consulate, and one of the most conspicuous objects in the daytime is the stars and stripes floating from the consulate flag-staff. On the 18th sails the opium steamer Wing-sang to Hong-Kong, aboard which I have been intending to take passage, and whose date of departure has somewhat influenced my speed in coming toward Calcutta. To cross overland from India to China with a bicycle is not to be thought of. This I was not long in finding out after reaching India. Fearful as the task would be to reach the Chinese frontier, with at least nine chances out of ten against being able to reach it, the difficulties would then have only commenced. The day before sailing, the bicycle branch of the Dalhousie Athletic Club turns out for a club run around the Maidan, to the number of seventeen. It is in the evening; the long rows of electric lamps stretching across the immense square shed a moon-like light over our ride, and the smooth, broad roads are well worthy the metropolitan terminus of the Grand Trunk. My stay of five days in the City of Palaces has been very enjoyable, and it is with real regret that I bid farewell to those who come down to the shipping ghaut to see me off. The voyage to the Andamans is characterized by fine weather enough; but from that onward we steam through a succession of heavy rain-storms; and down in the Strait of Malacca it can pour quite as heavily as on the Gangetic plains. At Penang it keeps up such an incessant downpour that the beauties of that lovely port are viewed only from beneath the ship's awning. But it is lovely enough even as seen through the drenching rain. Dense groves of cocoa-nut palms line the shores, seemingly hugging the very sands of the beach. Solid cliffs of vegetation they look, almost, so tall, dark, and straight, and withal so lovely, are these forests of palms. Cocoa-nut palms flourish best, I am told, close to the sea, a certain amount of salt being necessary for their healthful growth. The weather is more propitious as we steam into Singapore, at which point we remain for half a day, on the tenth day out from Calcutta. Singapore is indeed a lovely port. Within a stone's-throw of where the Wing-sang ties up to discharge freight the dark-green mangrove bushes are bathing in the salt waves. Very seldom does one see green vegetation mingling familiarly with the blue water of the sea--there is usually a strip of sand or other verdureless shore--but one sees it at lovely Singapore. A fellow-passenger and I spend an hour or two ashore, riding in the first jiniriksha that has come under my notice, from the wharf into town, about half a mile. We are impressed by the commercial activity of the city; as well as by the cosmopolitan character of its population. Chinese predominate, and thrifty, well-conditioned citizens these Celestials look, too, here in Singapore. "Wherever John Chinaman gets half a show, as under the liberal and honest government of the Straits Settlements or Hong-Kong, there you may be sure of finding him prosperous and happy." Hindoos, Parsees, Armenians, Jews, Siamese, Klings, and all the various Eurasian types, with Europeans of all nationalities, make up the conglomerate population of Singapore. Here, on the streets, too, one sees the strange cosmopolitan police force of the English Eastern ports, made up of Chinese, Sikhs, and Englishmen. CHAPTER XVII. THROUGH CHINA. Daily rains characterize our voyage from Singapore through the China Sea--rather unseasonable weather, the captain says; and for the second time in his long experience as a navigator of the China Sea, St. Elmo's lights impart a weird appearance to the spars and masts of his vessel. The rain changes into misty weather as we approach the Ladrone Islands, and, emerging completely from the wide track of the typhoon's moisture-laden winds on the following morning, we learn later, upon landing at Hong-kong, that they have been without rain there for several weeks. It is my purpose to dwell chiefly on my own experiences, and not to write at length upon the sights of Kong-kong and Canton; hundreds of other travellers have described them, and to the average reader they are no longer unique. Several days' delay is experienced in obtaining a passport from the Viceroy of the two Quangs, and during the delay most of the sights of the city are visited. The five-storied pagoda, the temple of the five hundred genii, the water-clock, the criminal court--where several poor wretches are seen almost flayed alive with bamboos-flower-boats, silk, jade-stone, ivory-carving shops, temple of tortures, and a dozen other interesting places are visited under the pilotage of the genial guide and interpreter Ah Kum. The strange boat population, numbering, according to some accounts, two hundred thousand people, is one of the most interesting features of Canton life. Wonderfully animated is the river scene as viewed from the balcony of the Canton Hotel, a hostelry kept by a Portuguese on the opposite bank of the river from Canton proper. The consuls and others express grave doubts about the wisdom of my undertaking in journeying alone through China, and endeavor to dissuade me from making the attempt. Opinion, too, is freely expressed that the Viceroy will refuse his permission, or, at all events, place obstacles in my way. The passport is forthcoming on October 12th, however, and I lose no time in making a start. Thirteen miles from Canton I reach the city of Fat-shan. Five minutes after entering the gate I am in the midst of a crowd of struggling, pushing natives, whose aggressive curiosity renders it extremely difficult for me to move either backward or forward, or to do aught but stand and endeavor to protect the bicycle from the crush. They seem a very good-natured crowd, on the whole, and withal inclined to be courteous, but the pressure of numbers, and the utter impossibility of doing anything, or prosecuting my search for the exit on the other side of the city, renders the good intentions of individuals wholly inoperative. With perseverance I finally succeed in extricating myself and following in the wake of an intelligent-looking young man whom I fondly fancy I have enlightened to the fact that I am searching for the Sam-shue road. The crowd follow at our heels as we tread the labyrinthine alleyways, that seem as interminable as they are narrow and filthy. Every turn we make I am expecting the welcome sight of an open gate and the green rice-fields beyond, when, after dodging about the alleyways of what seems to be the toughest quarter of the city, my guide halts and points to the closed gates of a court. It now becomes apparent that he has been mistaken from the beginning in regard to my wants: instead of taking me to the Sam-shue gate, he has brought me to some kind of a house. "Sam-shue, Sam-shue," I explain, making gestures of disapproval at the house. The young man regards me with a look of utter bewilderment, and forthwith betakes himself off to the outer edge of the crowd, henceforth contenting himself to join the general mass of open-eyed inquisitives. Another attempt to again enlist his services only results in alienating his sympathies still further: he has been grossly taken in by my assumption of intelligence. Having discovered in me a jackass incapable of the Fat-shan pronunciation of Sam-shue, he retires on his dignity from further interest in my affairs. Female faces peer curiously through little barred apertures in the gate, and grin amusedly at the sight of a Fankwae, as I stand for a few minutes uncertain of what course to pursue. From sheer inability to conceive of anything else I seize upon a well-dressed youngster among the crowd, tender him a coin, and address him questioningly--"Sam-shue lo. Sam-shue lo." The youth regards me with monkeyish curiosity for a second, and then looks round at the crowd and giggles. Nothing is plainer than the evidence that nobody present has the slightest conception of what I want to do, or where I wish to go. Not that my pronunciation of Sam-shue is unintelligible (as I afterward discover), but they cannot conceive of a Fankwae in the streets of Fat-shan inquiring for Sam-shue; doubtless many have never heard of that city, and perhaps not one in the crowd has ever been there or knows anything of the road. As a matter of fact, there is no "road," and the best anyone could do would be to point out its direction in a general way. All this, however, comes with after-knowledge. Imagine a lone Chinaman who desired to learn the road to Philadelphia surrounded by a dense crowd in the Bowery, New York, and uttering the one word "Phaladilfi," and the reader gains a feeble conception of my own predicament in Fat-shan, and the ludicrousness of the situation. Finally the people immediately about me motion for me to proceed down the street. Like a drowning man, I am willing to clutch wildly even at a straw, in the absence of anything more satisfactory, and so follow their directions. Passing through squalid streets occupied by loathsome beggars, naked youngsters, slatternly women, matronly sows with Utters of young pigs, and mangy pariahs, we emerge into the more respectable business thoroughfares again, traversing streets that I recognize as having passed through an hour ago. Having brought me here, the leaders in the latest movement seem to think they have accomplished their purpose, leaving me again to my own resources. Yet again am I in the midst of a tightly wedged crowd, helpless to make myself understood, and equally helpless to find my own way. Three hours after entering the city I am following-the Fates only know whither--the leadership of an individual who fortunately "sabes" a word or so of pidgin English, and who really seems to have discovered my wants. First of all he takes me inside a temple-like building and gives me a drink of tea and a few minutes' respite from the annoying pressure of the crowds; he then conducts me along a street that looks somewhat familiar, leads me to the gate I first entered, and points triumphantly in the direction of Canton! I now know as much about the road to Sam-shue as I did before reaching Fat-shan, and have learned a brief lesson of Chinese city experience that is anything but encouraging for the future. The feeling of relief at escaping from the narrow streets and the garrulous, filthy crowds, however, overshadows all sense of disappointment. The lesson of Fat-shan it is proposed to turn to good account by following the country paths in a general course indicated by my map from city to city rather than to rely on the directions given by the people, upon whom my words and gestures seem to be entirely thrown away. For a couple of miles I retraverse the path by which I reached Fat-shan before encountering a divergent pathway, acceptable as, leading distinctly toward the northwest. The inevitable Celestial is right on hand, extracting no end of satisfaction from following, shadow-like, close behind and watching my movements. Pointing along the divergent northwest road, I ask him if this is the koon lo to Sam-shue; for answer he bestows upon me an expansive but wholly expressionless grin, and points silently toward Canton. These repeated failures to awaken the comprehension of intelligent-looking Chinamen, or, at all events, to obtain from them the slightest information in regard to my road, are somewhat bewildering, to say the least. So much of this kind of experience crowded into the first day, however, is very fortunate, as awakening me with healthy rudeness to a realizing sense of what I am to expect; it places me at once on my guard, and enables me to turn on the tap of self-reliance and determination to the proper notch. Shaking my head at the almond-eyed informant who wants me to return to Canton, I strike off in a northwesterly course. The Chinaman grins and chuckles humorously at my departure, as though his risibilities were probed to their deepest depths at my perverseness in going contrary to his directions. As plainly as though spoken in the purest English, his chuckling laughter echoes the thought: "You'll catch it, Mr. Fankwae, before you have gone very far in that direction; you'll wish you had listened to me and gone back to 'Quang-tung.'" The country is a marvellous field-garden of rice, vegetables, and sugar-cane for some miles. The villages, with their peculiar, characteristic Chinese architecture and groves of dark bamboo, are striking and pretty. The paths seem to wind about regardless of any special direction; the chief object of the road-makers would appear to have been to utilize every little strip of inferior soil for the public thoroughfare wherever it might be found. A scrupulous respect for individual rights and the economy of the soil has resulted in adding many a weary mile of pathway between one town and another. To avoid destroying the productive capacity of a dozen square yards of alluvial soil, hundreds of people are daily obliged to follow horseshoe bends around the edges of graveyards that after two hundred paces bring them almost to within jumping distance of their first divergence. Occasionally the path winds its serpentine course between two tall patches of sugar-cane, forming an alleyway between the dark-green walls barely wide enough for two people to pass. Natives met in these confined passages, as isolated from the eyes of the world as though between two walls of brick, invariably recoil a moment with fright at the unexpected apparition of a Fankwae; then partially recovering themselves, they nimbly occupy as little space as possible on one side, and eye me with suspicion and apprehension as I pass. Great quantities of sugar-cane are chewed in China, both by children and grown people, and these patches grown in the rich Choo-kiang Valley for the Fat-shan, Canton, and Hong-kong markets are worth the price of a day's journeying to see. So marvellously neat and thrifty are they, that one would almost believe every separate stalk had been the object of special care and supervision from day to day since its birth; every cane-garden is fenced with neat bamboo pickets, to prevent depredation at the hands of the thousands of sweet-toothed kleptomaniacs who file past and eye the toothsome stalks wistfully every day. After a few miles the hitherto dead level of the valley is broken by low hills of reddish clay, and here the stone paths merge into well-beaten trails that on reasonably level soil afford excellent wheeling. The hillsides are crowded with graves, which, instead of the sugar-loaf "ant hillocks" of the paddy-fields, assume the traditional horseshoe shape of the Chinese ancestral grave. On the barren, gravelly hills, unfit for cultivation, the thrifty and economical Celestial inters the remains of his departed friends. Although in making this choice he is supposed to be chiefly interested in securing repose for his ancestors' souls, he at the same time secures the double advantage of a well-drained cemetery, and the preservation of his cultivable lands intact. Everything, indeed, would seem to be made subservient to this latter end; every foot of productive soil seems to be held as of paramount importance in the teeming delta of the Choo-kiang. Beyond the first of these cemetery hills, peopled so thickly with the dead, rise the tall pawn-towers of the large village of Chun-Kong-hoi. The natural dirt-paths enable me to ride right up to the entrance-gate of the main street. Good-natured crowds follow me through the street; and outside the gate of departure I favor them with a few turns on the smooth flags of a rice-winnowing floor. The performance is hailed with shouts of surprise and delight, and they urge me to remain in Chun-Kong-hoi all night. An official in big tortoise-shell spectacles examines my passport, reading it slowly and deliberately aloud in peculiar sing-song tones to the crowd, who listen with all-absorbing attention. He then orders the people to direct me to a certain inn. This inn blossoms forth upon my as yet unaccustomed vision as a peculiarly vile and dingy little hovel, smoke-blackened and untidy as a village smithy. Half a dozen rude benches covered with reed mats and provided with uncomfortable wooden pillows represent what sleeping accommodations the place affords. The place is so forbidding that I occupy a bench outside in preference to the evil-smelling atmosphere within. As it grows dark the people wonder why I don't prefer the interior of the dimly lighted hittim. My preference for the outside bench is not unattended with hopes that, as they can no longer see my face, my greasy-looking, half-naked audience would give me a moment's peace and quiet. Nothing, however, is further from their thoughts; on the contrary, they gather closer and closer about me, sticking their yellow faces close to mine and examining my features as critically as though searching the face of an image. By and by it grows too dark even for this, and then some enterprising individual brings a couple of red wax tapers, placing one on either side of me on the bench. By the dim religious light of these two candles, hundreds of people come and peer curiously into my face, and occasionally some ultra-inquisitive mortal picks up one of the tapers and by its aid makes a searching examination of my face, figure, and clothes. Mischievous youngsters, with irreligious abandon, attempt to make the scene comical by lighting joss-sticks and waving bits of burning paper. The tapers on either side, and the youngsters' irreverent antics, with the evil-spirit-dispersing joss-sticks, make my situation so ridiculously suggestive of an idol that I am perforce compelled to smile. The crowd have been too deeply absorbed in the contemplation of my face to notice this side-show; but they quickly see the point, and follow my lead with a general round of merriment. About ten o'clock I retire inside; the irrepressible inquisitives come pouring in the door behind me, but the hittim-keeper angrily drives them out and bars the door. Several other lodgers occupy the room in common with myself; some are smoking tobacco, and others are industriously "hitting the pipe." The combined fumes of opium and tobacco are well-nigh unbearable, but thera is no alternative. The next bench to mine is occupied by a peripatetic vender of drugs and medicines. Most of his time is consumed in smoking opium in dreamy oblivion to all else save the sensuous delights embodied in that operation itself. Occasionally, however, when preparing for another smoke, he addresses me at length in about one word of pidgin-English to a dozen of simon-pure Cantonese. In a spirit of friendliness he tenders me the freedom of his pipe and little box of opium, which is, of course, "declined with thanks." Long into the midnight hours my garrulous companions sit around and talk, and smoke, and eat peanuts. Mosquitoes likewise contribute to the general inducement to keep awake; and after the others have finally lain down, my ancient next neighbor produces a small mortar and pestle and busies himself pounding drugs. For this operation he assumes a pair of large, round spectacles, that in the dimly lighted apartment and its nocturnal associations are highly suggestive of owls and owlish wisdom. The old quack works away at his mortar, regardless of the approach of daybreak, now and then pausing to adjust the wick in his little saucer of grease, or to indulge in the luxury of a peanut. Such are the experiences of my first night at a Chinese village hittim; they will not soon be forgotten. The proprietor of the hittim seems overjoyed at my liberality as I present him a ten-cent string of tsin for the night's lodging. Small as it sounds, this amount is probably three or four times more than he obtains from his Chinese guests. The country beyond Chun-Kong-hoi is alternately level and hilly, the former highly cultivated, and the latter occupied mostly with graves. Peanut harvest is in progress, and men, women, and children are everywhere about the fields. The soil of a peanut-bed to the depth of several inches is dug up and all passed through a sieve, the meshes of which are of the proper size to retain the nuts. The last possible grain, nut, or particle of life-sustaining vegetable or insect life is extracted from the soil, ducks and chickens being cooped and herded on the fields and gardens after human ingenuity has reached its limit of research. Big wooden pails of warm tea stand about the fields, from which everybody helps himself when thirsty. A party of peanut-harvesters are regaling themselves with stewed turnips and tough, underdone pieces of dried liver. They invite me to partake, handing me a pair of chopsticks and a bowl. Gangs of coolies, strung in Indian file along the paths, are met, carrying lacquer-ware from some interior town to Fat-shau and Canton. Others are encountered with cages of kittens and puppies, which they are conveying to the same market. These are men whose business is collecting these table delicacies from outlying villages for the city markets, after the manner of egg and chicken buyers in America. My course at length brings me to the town of Si-noun, on the south bank of the Choo-kiang. The river is here prevented from inundating the low country adjacent by strong levees; along these are well-tramped paths that afford much good wheeling, as well as providing a well-defined course toward Sam-shue. After following the river for some miles, however, I conclude that its course is altogether more southerly than there is any necessity for me to go; so, crossing the river at a village ferry, I strike a trail across-country in a north-westerly direction that must sooner or later bring me to the banks of the Pi-kiang. Sam-shue is at the junction of these two rivers, the one flowing from west to east and the other from north to south; by striking across-country, but one side of a triangle is traversed instead of the two formed by the rivers. My objective point for the night is Lo-pow, the first town of any size up the Pi-kiang. A volunteer guide from one of the villages extricates me from a bewildering network of trails in the afternoon, and guides me across to the bottom-lands of the Pi-kiang. Receiving a reward, he eyes the piece of silver a moment wistfully, puts it away, and guides me half a mile farther. Pointing to the embankment of the Pi-kiang in the distance ahead, he presents himself for further reward. Receiving this, he thereupon conceives the brilliant idea of piloting me over successive short stages, with a view of obtaining tsin at the end of each stage. John Chinaman is no more responsible, morally, for the "dark ways and vain tricks" accredited to him in the Western World than a crow is for the blackness of his plumage. The desperate struggle for existence in this crowded empire, that has no doubt been a normal condition of its society for ages, has developed traits of character in these later generations which are as unchangeable as the skin of the Ethiopian or the spots of the leopard. Either of these can be whitened over, but not readily changed; the same may be truthfully said of the moral leprosy of the average Celestial. Here is a simple peanut-farmer's son, who knows nothing of the outer world, yet no sooner does a stray opportunity present than he develops immediately financial trickery worthy of a Constantinople guide. The paths across the Pi-kiang Valley are more walls than paths, often rising ten feet above the paddy-fields, and presenting a width of not more than two feet. Good riding, however, is happily found on the levees, and a few miles up-stream brings me to Lo-pow. The hittim at Lo-pow is somewhat superior to that of yesterday; it is a two-storied building, and the proprietor hustles me up-stairs in short order, and locks me in. This is to prevent any possible hostility from the crowd that immediately swarms the place; for while I am in his house he is in a measure held responsible for my treatment. The bicycle is kept down-stairs, where it performs the office of a vent for the rampant curiosity of the thousands who besiege the proprietor for a peep at me. A little cup and a teapot of hot tea is brought me at once, and my order taken for supper; the characters on ray limited written vocabulary proving invaluable as an aid toward making my g-astro-nomic preferences understood. A dish of boiled fish, pickled ginger, chicken entrees, young onions, together with rice enough to feed a pig, form the ingredients of a very good Chinese meal. Chop-sticks are, of course, provided; but, as yet, my dexterity in the manipulation of these articles is decidedly of the negative order, and so my pocket-knife performs the dual office of knife and fork; for the rice, one can use, after a manner, the little porcelain dipper provided for ladling an evil-smelling liquid over that staple. Bread, there is none in China; rice is the bread of both this country and Japan. During the night one gets a reminder of the bek-jees of Constantinople in the performances of a night policeman, who passes by at intervals loudly beating a drum. This, together with roystering mosquitoes, and a too liberal indulgence in strong tea, banishes sleep to-night almost as effectually as the pounding of the old drug-vender's pestle did at Chun-Kong-hoi. The rooms below are full of sleeping coolies, cat-and-dog hucksters and travellers, when I descend at day-break to start. The first two hours are wasted in wandering along a levee that leads up a tributary stream, coming back again and getting ferried to the right embankment. The riding is variable, and the zigzagging of the levee often compels me to travel three miles for the gaining of one. My elevated path commands a good view of the traffic on the river, and of the agricultural operations on the adjacent lowlands. The boating scenes on the river are animated, and peculiarly Chinese. The northern monsoons, called typhoons in China, are blowing strongly down stream, while the current itself is naturally strong; under the influence of wind and current combined, junks and sampans with butterfly sails all set are going down stream at racing speed. In striking contrast to these, are the up-stream boats, crawling along at scarcely perceptible pace against the current, in response to the rhythmical movements of a line of men, women, and children harnessed one behind another to a long tow-line. The water in the river is low, and the larger boats have to be watched carefully to prevent grounding; sometimes, when the river is wide and the passable channel but a narrow place in the middle, the tow-people have to take to the water, often wading waist deep. Men and women are dressed pretty much alike, but in addition to the broad-legged pantaloons and blue blouse, the women are distinguished by a checked apron. Some of them wear broad bamboo hats, while others wear nothing but nature's covering, or perchance a handkerchief tied around their heads. The traffic on the river is something enormous, scores of boats dotting the river at every turn. It is no longer difficult to believe the oft-heard assertion, that the tonnage of China's inland fleet is equal to the ocean tonnage of all the world. Below me on the right the scene is scarcely less animated; one would think the whole population of the country were engaged in pumping water over the rice-fields, by the number of tread-wheels on the go. One of the most curious sights in China is to see people working these irrigating machines all over the fields. Instead of the buffaloes of Egypt and India, everything here is accomplished by the labor of man. The tread-wheel is usually worked by two men or women, who steady themselves by holding to a cross-bar, while their weight revolves the tread-wheel and works a chain of water-pockets. The pockets dip water from a hole or ditch and empty it into troughs, whence it spreads over the field. The screeching of these wheels can be heard for miles, and the grotesque Chinese figures stepping up, up, up in pairs, yet never ascending, the women singing in shrill, falsetto voices, and the incessant gabble of conversation, makes a picture of industry the like of which is to be seen in no other part of the world. Chin-yuen, my next halting-place, forma something of a crescent on the west shore of the river, and is distinguished by a seven-storied pagoda at the southern extremity of its curvature. As seen from the east bank, the city and its background of reddish hills, two peaks of which rise to the respectable height of, I should judge, two thousand feet, is not without certain pretensions to beauty. Many of the houses on the river front are built over the water on piles, and broad flights of stone steps lead down to the water. The usual boat population occupy a swarm of sampans anchored before the city, while hundreds of others are moving hither and thither. The water is intensely blue, and the broad reaches of Band are dazzlingly white; on either bank are dark patches of feathery bamboo; the white, blue and green, the pagoda, the city with its towering pawn-houses, and the whole flanked by red clay hills, forms a picture that certainly is not wanting in life and color. The quarters assigned me at the hittim, here, are again upstairs, and my room-companion is an attenuated opium smoker, who is apparently a permanent lodger. This apartment is gained by a ladder, and after submitting to much annoyance from the obtrusive crowds below invading our quarters, my companion drives them all out with the loud lash of his tongue, and then draws up the only avenue of communication. He is engaged in cooking his supper and in washing dirty dishes; when the crowd below gets too noisy and clamorous he steps to the opening and coolly treats them to a basin of dish-water. This he repeats a number of times during the evening, saving his dish-water for that special purpose. The air is reeking with smoke and disagreeable odors from below, where cooking is going on, and pigs wallow in filth in a rear apartment. The back-room of a Chinese inn is nearly always a pigsty, and a noisome place on general principles. Later in the evening a few privileged characters are permitted to come up, and the room quickly changes into a regular opium-den. A tough day's journey and two previous nights of wakefulness, enable me to fall asleep, notwithstanding the evil smells, the presence of the opium-smoking visitors, and the grunting pigs and talkative humans down below. During the day I have sprained my right knee, and it becomes painful in the night and wakes me up. In the morning my way is made through the waking city with a painful limp, that gives rise to much unsympathetic giggling among the crowd at my heels. Perhaps they think all Pankwaes thus hobble along; their giggling, however, is doubtless evidence of the well-known pitiless disposition of the Chinese. The sentiments of pity and consideration for the sufferings of others, are a well-nigh invisible quality of John Chinaman's character, and as I limp slowly along, I mentally picture myself with a broken leg or serious illness, alone among these people. A Fankwae with his leg broken! a Fankwae lying at the point of death! why, the whole city would want to witness such an extraordinary sight; there would be no keeping them out; one would be the centre of a tumultuous rabble day and night! The river contains long reaches leading in a totally contrary direction to what I know my general course to be. My objective point is a little east of north, but for miles this morning I am headed considerably south of the rising sun. There is nothing for it, however, but to keep the foot-trail that now follows along the river bank, conforming to all its multifarious crooks and angles. Every mile or two the path is overhung by a big bamboo hedge, behind which is hidden a village. The character of these little riverside villages varies from peaceful agricultural and fishing communities, to nests of river-pirates and hard characters generally, who covertly prey on the commerce of the Pi-kiang, and commit depredations in the surrounding country. A glimpse of me is generally caught by someone behind the hedge as I ride or trundle past; shouts of "the Fankwae, the Fankwae," and screams of laughter at the prospect of seeing one of those queer creatures, immediately follow the discovery. The gabble and laughter and hurrying from the houses to the hedge, the hasty scrambling through the little wicket gates, all occurs with a flutter and noisy squabble that suggest a flock of excited geese. A few miles above Chin-yuen the river enters a rocky gorge, and the marvellous beauty of the scenery rivets me to the spot in wondering contemplation for an hour. It is the same picture of rocky mountains, blue water, junks, bridges, temples, and people, one sometimes sees on sets of chinaware. Never was water so intensely blue, or sand so dazzlingly white, as the Pi-kiang at the entrance to this gorge this sunny morning; on its sky-blue bosom float junks and sampans, their curious sails appearing and disappearing around a bend in the canon. The brown battlemented cliffs are relieved by scattering pines, and in the interstices by dense thickets of bamboo; temples, pagodas, and a village complete a scene that will be long remembered as one of the loveliest bits of scenery the whole world round. The scene is pre-eminently characteristic, and after seeing it, one no longer misunderstands the Chinaman who persists in thinking his country the great middle kingdom of landscape beauty and sunshine, compared to which all others are--"regions of mist and snow." Across the creeks which occasionally join issue with the river, are erected frail and wabbly bamboo foot-rails; some of these are evidently private enterprises, as an ancient Celestial is usually on hand for the collection of tiny toll. Narrow bridges, rude steps cut in the face of the cliffs, trails along narrow ledges, over rocky ridges, down across gulches, and anon through loose shale on ticklishly sloping banks, characterize the passage through the canon. The sun is broiling hot, and my knee swollen and painful. It is barely possible to crawl along at a snail's pace by keeping my game leg stiff; bending the knee is attended with agony. Frequent rests are necessary, and an examination reveals my knee badly inflamed. Hours are consumed in scrambling for three or four miles up and down steps, and over the most abominable course a bicycle was ever dragged, carried, up-ended and lugged over. At the end of that time I reach a temple occupying a romantic position in a rocky defile, and where a flight of steps leads down to the water's edge. All semblance of anything in the nature of a continuous path terminates at the temple, and hailing a sampan bound up stream, I obtain passage to the northern extremity of the canyon. The sampan is towed by a team of seven coolies, harnessed to a small, strong rope made of bamboo splint. It is interesting, yet painful, to see these men clambering like goats about the rocky cliffs, sometimes as much as a hundred feet above the water; one of the number does nothing else but throw the rope over protuberant points of rock. One would naturally imagine that Chinese enterprise would be sufficient to construct something like a decent towpath through this caiion, considering the number of boats towed through it daily; but everything in China seems to be done by the main strength and awkwardness of individuals. The boatmen seem honest-hearted fellows; at noon they invite me to participate in their frugal meal of rice and turnips. Passing sampans are greeted by the crew of our boat with the intelligence that a Fankwae is aboard; the news being invariably conveyed with a droll "ha-ha!" and received with the same. Indeed, the average Chinese river-man or agriculturist, the simple-hearted children of the water and the soil, seem to regard the Fankwae as a creature so remarkably comical, that the mere mention of him causes them to laugh. Near the end of the canon the boat is moored at a village for the day, and my knee feeling much better from the rest, I pursue my course up the bank of the river. The bank is level in a general sense, but much cut up with small tributary creeks. While I am resting on the bank of one of these creeks, partly hidden behind a clump of bamboo, a slave-woman carrying her mistress pick-a-back appears upon the scene. Catching sight of me, the golden lily utters a little cry of alarm and issues hurried orders to her maid. The latter wheels round and scuttles back along the path with her frightened burden, both maid and golden lily no doubt very thankful at finding themselves unpursued. A few minutes after their hasty flight, three men approach my resting-place with pitchforks. The frightened females have probably told them of the presence of some queer-looking object lurking behind the bushes, and like true heroes they have shouldered their pitchforks and sallied forth to investigate. A whoop and a feint from me would either put them to flight, or precipitate a conflict, as is readily seen from the extreme cautiousness of their advance. As I remained perfectly still, however, they approach by short stages, and with many stops for consultation, until near enough to satisfy themselves of my peaceful character. They loiter around until my departure, when they follow behind for a few hundred yards, watching me narrowly until I am past their own little cluster of houses. It is almost dark when I arrive at the next village, prepared to seek such accommodations for the night as the place affords, if any. The people, however, seem decidedly inclined to give me the cold shoulder, eying me suspiciously from a respectful distance, instead of clustering, as usual, close about me. Being pretty tired and hungry, and knowing absolutely nothing of the distance to the next place, I endeavor to cultivate their friendship by smiles, and by addressing the nearest youngster in polite greetings of "chin-chin." All this proves of no avail; they seem one and all to be laboring under the impression that my appearance is of evil portent to themselves. Perchance some social calamity they have just been visited with, is attributed in their superstitious minds to the fell influence of the foreign devil, who has so suddenly bobbed up in their midst just at this unhappy, inauspicious moment. Perad-venture some stray and highly exaggerated bit of news in regard to Fankwae aggression in Tonquin (the French Tonquin expedition) has happened to reach the little interior village this very day, and the excited people see in me an emissary of destruction, here for the diabolical purpose of spying out their country. A dozen reasons, however, might be here advanced, and all be far wide of the truth. Whatever their hostility is all about is a mystery to me, the innocent object of sundry scowls and angry gestures. One individual contemplates me for a minute with unconcealed aversion, and then breaks out into a torrent of angry words and excited gestures. From all appearances, it behooves me to be clearing out, ere the pent-up feelings of the people find vent in some aggressive manner, as a result of this person's incitant eloquence. Greatly puzzled to account for this unpleasant reception, I quietly take myself off. It is now getting pretty dark, and considering the unfortunate condition of my knee, the situation is, to say the least, annoying. It is not without apprehensions of being followed that I leave the village; and ere I am two hundred yards away, torches are observed moving rapidly about, and soon loud shouts of "Fankwae, Fankwae!" tell me that a number of men are in pursuit. Darkness favors my retreat, and scrambling down the river bank, I shape my course across the sand and shallow side-channels to a small island, thickly covered with bamboo, the location of which is now barely outlined against the lingering streaks of daylight in the western sky. Half an hour is consumed in reaching this; but no small satisfaction is derived from seeing the flaming torches of my pursuers continue on up the bank. The dense bamboo thickets afford an excellent hiding-place, providing my divergence is not suspected. A little farther up-stream, on the bank, are the lights of another village; and as I crouch here in the darkness I can see the torches of the pursuing party entering this village, and can hear them making shouting inquiries of their neighbors about the foreign devil. The thicket is alive with ravenous mosquitoes that issue immediately their peculiar policy of assurance against falling asleep. Unappeased hunger, mosquitoes, and the perilousness of the situation occupy my attention for some hours, when, seeing nothing further of the vengeful aspirants for my gore, I drag my weary way up-stream, through sand and shallow water. Keeping in the river-bed for several miles, I finally regain the bank, and, although my inflamed knee treats me to a twinge of agony at every step, I steadily persevere till morning. An hour or two of morning light brings me to the town of Quang-shi, after an awful tugging through sand-hills, unbridged ravines and water. Hardly able to stand from fatigue and the pain of my knee, the desperate nature of the road, or, more correctly, the entire absence of anything of the kind, and the disquieting incident of the night, awaken me to a realizing sense of my helplessness should the people of Quang-shi prove to be hostile. Conscious of my inability to run or ride, savagely hungry, and desperately tired, I enter Quang-shi with the spirit of a hunted animal at bay. With revolver pulled round to the front ready to hand, and half expecting occasion to use it in defence of my life, I grimly speculate on the number of my cartridges and the probability of each one bagging a sore-eyed Celestial ere my own lonely and reluctant ghost is yielded up. All this, fortunately, is found to be superfluous speculation, for the good people of Quang-shi prove, at least, passively friendly; a handful of tsin divided among the youngsters, and a general spendthrift scatterment of ten cents' worth of the same base currency among the stall-keepers for chow-chow heightens their friendly interest in me to an appreciable extent. Chao-choo-foo is the next city marked on my itinerary, but as Quang-shi is not on my map I have no means of judging whether Chao-choo-foo is four li up-stream or forty. All attempts to obtain some idea of the distance from the natives result in the utter bewilderment of both questioned and querist. No amount of counting on fingers, or marking on paper, or interrogative arching of eyebrows, or repetition of "Chao-choo-foo li" sheds a glimmer of light on the mind of the most intelligent-looking shopkeeper in Quang-shi concerning my wants. Yet, withal, he courteously bears with my, to him, idiotic pantomime and barbarous pronunciation, and repeats parrot-like after me "Chao-choo-foo li; Chao-choo-foo li" with sundry beaming smiles and friendly smirks. Far easier, however, is it to make them understand that I want to go to that city by boat. The loquacious owner of a twenty-foot sampan puts in his appearance as soon as my want is ascertained, and favors me with an unpunctuated speech of some five minutes' duration. For fear I shouldn't quite understand the tenor of his remarks, he insists on thrusting his yellow Mongolian phiz within an inch or two of mine own. At the end of five minutes I thrust my fingers in my ears out of sheer consideration for his vocal organs, and turn away; but the next moment he is fronting me again, and repeating himself with ever-increasing volubility. Finding my dulness quite impenetrable, he searches out another loquacious mortal, and by the aid of the tiny beam-scales every Chinaman carries for weighing broken silver, they finally make it understood that for six big rounds (dollars) he will convey me in his boat to Chao-choo-foo. Understanding this, I promptly engage his services. Bundles of joss-sticks, rice, fish, pork, and a jar of samshoo (rice arrack) are taken aboard, and by ten o'clock we are underway. Two men, named respectively Ah Sum and Yung Po, a woman, and a baby of eighteen months comprise the company aboard. Ah Sum, being but an inconsequential wage-worker, at once assumes the onerous duties of towman; Yung Po, husband, father, and sole proprietor of the sampan, manipulates the rudder, which is in front, and occasionally assists Ah Sum by poling. The boat-wife stands at the stern and regulates the length of the tow-line; the baby puts in the first few hours in wondering contemplation of myself. The strange river-life of China is all about us; small fishing-boats are everywhere plying their calling. They are constructed with a central chamber full of auger-holes for the free admittance of water, in which the fish are conveyed alive to market, or imprisoned during the owner's pleasure. Big freight sampans float past, propelled by oars if going down-stream, and by the combined efforts of tow-line and poles if against the current. The propelling poles are fitted with neatly carved "crutch-trees" to fit the shoulder; the polers, sometimes numbering as many as a dozen, walk back and forth along side-planks and encourage themselves with cries of "ha-i, ha-i, ha-i." A peculiar and indescribable inflection would lead one, hearing and not seeing these boatmen, to fancy himself listening to a flight of brants in stormy weather. Yung Po, poling by himself, gives utterance to a prolonged cry of "Atta-atta-atta aaoo ii," every time he hustles along the side-plank. Much of the scenery along the river is lovely in the extreme, and at dark we cast anchor in a smooth, silent reach of the river just within the frowning gateway of a rocky canon. Dark masses of rock tower skyward five hundred feet in a perpendicular wall, casting a dark shadow over the twilight shimmer of the water. In the north, the darksome prospect is invested with a lurid glow, apparently from some large fire; the canon immediately about our anchoring place is alive with moving torches, representing the restless population of the river, and on the banks clustering points of light here and there denote the locality of a village. The last few miles has been severe work for poor Ah Sum, clambering among rocks fit only for the footsteps of a goat. He sticks to the tow-line manfully to the end, but wading out to the boat when over-heated, causes him to be seized with violent cramps all over; in his agony he rolls about the deck and implores Yung Po to put him out of his misery forthwith. His case is evidently urgent, and Yung Po and his wife proceed to administer the most heroic treatment. Hot samshoo is first poured down his throat and rubbed on his joints, then he is rolled over on his stomach; Yung Po then industriously flagellates him in the bend of the knees with a flat bamboo, and his wife scrapes him vigorously down the spine with the sharp edge of a porcelain bowl. Ah Sam groans and winces under this barbarous treatment, but with solicitous upbraidings they hold him down until they have scraped and pounded him black and blue, almost from head to foot. Then they turn him over on his back for a change of programme. A thick joint of bamboo, resembling a quart measure, is planted against his stomach; lighted paper is then inserted beneath, and the "cup" held firmly for a moment, when it adheres of its own accord. This latter instrument is the Chinese equivalent of our cupping-glass; like many other inventions, it was probably in use among them ages before anything of the kind was known to us. Its application to the stomach for the relief of cramps would seem to indicate the possession of drawing powers; I take it to be a substitute for mustard plasters. While the wife attends to this, Yung Po pinches him severely all over the throat and breast, converting all that portion of his anatomy into little blue ridges. By the time they get through with him, his last estate seems a good deal worse than his first, but the change may have saved his life. Before retiring for the night lighted joss-sticks are stuck in the bow of the sampan, and lighted paper is waved about to propitiate the spirit of the waters and of the night; small saucers of rice, boiled turnip, and peanut-oil are also solemnly presented to the tutelary gods, to enlist their active sympathies as an offset against the fell designs of mischievous spirits. Falling asleep under the soothing influence of these extraordinary precautions for our safety and a supper of rice, ginger, and fresh fish, I slumber peacefully until well under way next morning. Ah Sum is stiff and sore all over, but he bravely returns to his post, and under the combined efforts of pole and tow-line we speed along against a swift current at a pace that is almost visible to the naked eye. This morning I purchase a splendid trout, weighing seven or eight pounds, for about twenty cents; off this we make a couple of quite excellent meals. Observing my awkward attempts to pick up pieces of fish with the chop-sticks, the good, thoughtful boat-wife takes a bone hair-pin out of her sleek, oily back hair, and offers it to me to use as a fork! Before noon we emerge into a more open country; straight ahead can be seen an eight-storied pagoda. Beaching the pagoda, we pass, on the opposite shore, the town of Yang-tai (?). Fleets of big junks sail gayly down stream, laden with bales and packages of merchandise from Chao-choo-foo, Nam-hung, and other manufacturing points up the river. Others resemble floating hay-ricks, bearing huge cargoes of coarse hay and pine-needles down for the manufacture of paper. Several war-junks are anchored before Yang-tai; unlike the peaceful (?) merchantmen on the Choo-kiang, they are armed with but a single cannon. They are, however, superior vessels compared with other craft on the river, and are manned with crews of twenty to thirty theatrical-looking characters; rows of muskets and boarding-pikes are observed, and conspicuous above all else are several large and handsome flags of the graceful triangular shape peculiar to China. The crew of these warlike vessels are uniformed in the gayest of red, and in the middle of their backs and breasts are displayed white "bull's eyes" about twelve inches in diameter. The object of these big white circular patches appears to be the presentation of a suitable place for the conspicuous display of big characters, denoting the district or city to which they belong; or in other words labels. The wicked and sarcastic Fankwaes in the treaty ports, however, render a far different explanation. They say that a Chinese soldier always misses a bull's-eye when he shoots at it--under no circumstances does he score a bull's-eye. Observing this, the authorities concluded that Fankwae soldiers were tarred with the same unhappy feather. With true Asiatic astuteness, they therefore conceived and carried out the brilliant idea of decorating all Celestial warriors with bull's-eyes, front and rear, as a measure of protection against the bullets of the Fankwae soldiers in battle. Ah Sum becomes sick and weary at noon and is taken aboard, Tung Po and his better half taking alternate turns at the line. Toward evening the river makes a big sweep to the southeast, bringing the prevailing north wind round to our advantage; if advantage it can be called, in blowing us pretty well south when our destination lies north. The sail is hoisted, and the crew confines itself to steering and poling the boat clear of bars. Poor Ah Sum is subjected to further clinical maltreatment this evening as we lay at anchor before No-foo-gong; while we are eating rice and pork and listening to the sounds of revelry aboard the big passenger junks anchored near by, he is writhing and groaning with pain. He is too stiff and sore and exhausted to do anything in the morning; the woman goes out to pull, and the babe makes Rome howl, with little intermission, till she comes back. The boat-woman seems an industrious, wifely soul; Yung Po probably paid as high as forty dollars for her; at that price I should say she is a decided bargain. Occasionally, when Yung Po cruelly orders her overboard to take a hand at the tow-line, or to help shove the sampan off a sand ridge, she enters a playful demurrer; but an angry look, an angry word, or a cheerful suggestion of "corporeal suasion," and she hops lightly into the water. A few miles from No-foo-gong and a rocky precipice towers up on the west shore, something like a thousand feet high. The crackling of fire-crackers innumerable and the report of larger and noisier explosions attract my attention as we gradually crawl up toward it; and coming nearer, flocks of pigeons are observed flying uneasily in and out of caves in the lower levels of the cliff. In the course of time our sampan arrives opposite and reveals a curious two-storied cave temple, with many gayly dressed people, pleasure sampans, and bamboo rafts. This is the Kum-yam-ngan, a Chinese Buddhist temple dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy. It is the home of flocks of sacred pigeons, and the shrine to which many pilgrims yearly come; the pilgrims manage to keep their feathered friends in a chronic state of trepidation by the agency of fire-crackers and miniature bombs. Outside, under the shelter of the towering cliffs to the' right, are more temples or dwellings of the priests; they present a curious mixture of blue porcelain, rock, and brick which is intensely characteristic of China. During the day we pass, on the same side of the river, yet another remarkable specimen of man's handiwork on the scene of one of nature's curious rockwork conceptions. Leading from base to summit of a sloping mountain are two perpendicular ridges of rock, looking very much like a couple of walls. Across the summit of the mountain, from wall to wall, some fanciful architect three hundred years ago built a massive battlement; in the middle he left a big round hole, which presents a very curious appearance, and materially heightens the delusion that the whole affair, from foot to summit, is the handiwork of man. This place is known as Tan-tsy-shan, or Bullet Mountain, and is the scene of a fight that occurred some time during the Ming dynasty. A legend is current among the people, that the robber Wong, a celebrated freebooter of that period, while firing on a pursuing party of soldiers, shot this moon---like hole through the mountain battlement with the huge musket he used to slaughter his enemies. Many huge rafts of pine logs are now encountered floating down stream to the cities of the lower country; numbers of them are sometimes met, following close behind one another. Several huts are erected on each big raft, so that the sight not infrequently suggests a long straggling village floating with the tide. This suggestion is very much heightened by the score or more people engaged in poling, steering, al fresco cooking, etc., aboard each raft. And anon there come along men, poling with surprising swiftness slender-built craft on which are perched several solemn and important-looking cormorants. These are the celebrated cormorant fishers of the Chinese rivers. Their craft is simply three or four stems of the giant bamboo turned up at the forward end; on this the naked fisherman stands and propels himself by means of a slender pole. His stock-in-trade consists of from four to eight cormorants that balance themselves and smooth their wet wings as the lightsome raft speeds along at the rate of six miles an hour from one fishing ground to another. Arriving at some likely spot the eager aspirant for finny prizes rests on his oars, and allows his aquatic confederates to take to the water in search of their natural prey, the fishes. A ring around the cormorants' necks prevents them swallowing their captives, and previous training teaches them to balance themselves on the propelling pole that the watchful fisherman inserts beneath them the moment they rise to the surface with a fish; captive and captor are then lifted aboard the raft, the cormorant robbed of his prey and hustled quickly off again to business. The sight of these nimble craft, skimming along with scarcely an effort, almost fills me with a resolve to obtain one of them myself and abandon Tung Po and his dreary lack of speed forever. The third day of our voyage against the prevailing typhoons and the rapid current of the Pi-kiang, comes to an end, and finds us again anchored within the dark shadow of a towering cliff. Anchored alongside us is a big junk freighted with bags of rice and bales of paper; the hands aboard this boat indulge in a lively quarrel, during the evening chow-chow, and bang one another about in the liveliest manner. The peculiar indignation that finds expression in abusive language no doubt reaches its highest state of perfection in the Celestial mind. No other human being is capable of soaring to the height of the Chinaman's falsetto modulations, as he heaps reproaches and cuss-words on his enemy's queue-adorned head. A big boat's crew of naked Chinamen cursing and gesticulating excitedly, advancing and retreating, chasing one another about with billets of wood, knocking things over, and raising Cain generally, in the ghostly glimmer of fantastic paper lanterns, is a spectacle both weird and wild. Another weird, but this time noiseless, affair is a long string of nocturnal cormorant fishers, each with a big, flaming torch attached to the prow of his raft, propelling themselves along close under the dark frowning cliff. The torches light up the black face of the precipice with a wild glare, and streak the shimmering water with moon-like reflections. The country through which our watery, serpentine course winds all next day, is hilly rather than mountainous; grassy hills slope down to the water's blue ripples at certain places, but the absence of grazing animals is quite remarkable. Regions, which in other countries would be covered with flocks of sheep and herds of cows and horses, are without so much as a sign of herbivorous animals. Pigs are the prevailing meat-producing animals of Southern China; all the way up country I have not yet seen a single sheep, and but very few cattle; I have also yet to see the first horse. Instead of herbivorous quadrupeds peacefully browsing, are swarms of men, women, and children cutting, bundling, and stacking the grass for the manufacture of paper. Among the fleeting curiosities of the day are a crowd of sampans flying black flags, evidently some military expedition; they are bound down stream, and it occurs to me that they are perhaps a reinforcement of these famous free-lances going to join the hordes of that denomination making things so uncomfortable for the French in Tonquin and Quang-tse. We also pass a district where the women enhance their physical charms by the aid of broad circular hats that resemble an inverted sieve. The edges, however, are not wood, but circular curtains of black calico; the roof of the hat is bleached bamboo chip. Officers board us in the evening to search the vessel for dutiable goods; but they find nothing. The privilege of levying customs on salt and opium is farmed out by the government to people in various cities along the rivers. The tax on these articles from first to last of a long river voyage is very heavy, customs being levied at various points; it is scarcely necessary to add that under these arbitrary arrangements, the oily, conscienceless and tsin-loving Celestial boatman has reduced the noble art of smuggling to a science. Yung Po smiles blandly at the officer as he searches carefully every nook and corner of the sampan, even rooting about with a stick in the moderate amount of bilge-water collected between the ribs, and when he is through, dismisses him with an air of innocence and a wealth of politeness that is artfully calculated to secure less rigorous search next time. The poling and towing is prolonged till nearly midnight, when we cast anchor among a lot of house-boats and miscellaneous craft before a city. Even at this unseemly hour we are visited by an owlish pedler, whose boat is fitted up with boxes containing various dishes toothsome to the heathen palates of the water-men. Yung Po and Ah Sum look wistfully over the ancient pastry-ped-ler's wares, and pick out tiny dishes of sweetened rice gruel; this they consume with the same unutterable satisfaction that hungry monkeys display when eating chestnuts, ending the performance by licking the platters. Although the price is nearly a farthing a dish, with wanton prodigality Yung Po orders dishes for the whole company, including even his passenger! From various indications, it is surmised, as I seek my couch, that the city opposite is Chao-choo-foo. Inquiry to that effect, as usual, elicits nothing but a bland grin from Yung Po. When, however, he takes the unnecessary precaution of warning me not to venture outside the covered sleeping quarters during the night, intimating that I should probably get stabbed if I do, I am pretty well satisfied of our arrival. This cautious proceeding is to be explained by the fact that I am Yung Po's debtor for two days' diet of rice, turnips, and flabby pork, and he is suspicious that I might creep forth in the silence and darkness of the night and leave him in the lurch. Yung Po now summons his entire pantomimic ability, to inform me that Chao-choo-foo is still some distance up the river, at all events that is my interpretation of his words and gestures. On this supposition I enter no objections when he bids me accompany him to the market and purchase a new supply of provisions for the remainder of the journey. Impatient to proceed to Chao-choo-foo I now motion for them to make a start. Yung Po points to the frowning walls of the city we have just visited, and blandly says, "Chao-choo-foo." Having accomplished his purpose of bamboozling me into replenishing his larder, by making me believe our destination is yet farther upstream, he now turns round and tells me that we have already arrived. The neat little advantage he has just been taking of my ignorance with such brilliant results to the larder of the boat, has visibly stimulated his cupidity, and he now brazenly demands the payment of filthy lucre, making a circular hole with his thumb and finger to intimate big rounds in contradistinction to mere tsin. The assumption of dense ignorance has not been without its advantages at various times on my journey around the world, and regarding Yung Po's gestures with a blankety blank stare, I order him to proceed up stream to Chao-choo-foo. The result of my refusal to be further bamboozled by the wily Yung Po, without knowing something of what I am doing, is that I am shortly threading the mazy alleyways of Chao-choo-foo with Ah Sum and Yung Po for escort. What the object of this visit may be I haven't the remotest idea, unless we are proceeding to the quarters of some official to have my passport seen to, or to try and enlighten my understanding in regard to Yung Po's claims for battered Mexican dollars. Vague apprehensions arise that, peradventure, the six dollars paid at Quang-shi was only a small advance on the cost of my passage up, and that Yung Po is now piloting me to an official to establish his just claims upon pretty much all the money I have with me. Ignorant of the proper rate of boat-hire, disquieting visions of having to retreat to Canton for the lack of money to pay the expenses of the journey through to Kui-kiang are flitting through my mind as I follow the pendulous motions of Yung Po's pig-tail along the streets. The office that I have been conjuring up in my mind is reached at last, and found to be a neat room provided with forms and a pulpit like desk. A pleasant-faced little Chinaman in a blue silk gown is examining a sheet of written characters through the medium of a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles. On the wall I am agreeably astonished to see a chromo of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, with an inscription in Chinese characters. The little man chin-chins (salaams) heartily, removes his spectacles and addresses me in a musical tone of voice. Yung Po explains obsequiously that my understanding Chinese is conspicuously unequal to the occasion, a fact that at once becomes apparent to the man in blue silk; whereupon he quickly substitutes written words for spoken ones and presents me the paper. Finding me equally foggy in regard to these, he excuses my ignorance with a courteous smile and bow, and summons a gray-queued underling to whom he gives certain directions. This person leads the way out and motions for me to follow. Yung Po and Ah Sum bring up behind, keeping in order such irrepressibles as endeavor to peer too obtrusively into my face. Soon we arrive at a quarter with big monstrous dragons painted on the walls, and other indications of an official residence; palanquin-bearers in red jackets and hats with tassels of red horse-hair flit past at a fox-trot with a covered palanquin, preceded by noisy gong-beaters and a gayly comparisoned pony. This is evidently the yamen or mandarin's quarter, and here we halt before a door, while our guide enters another one, and disappears. The door before us is opened cautiously by a Celestial who looks out and bestows upon mo a friendly smile. A curly black dog emerges from between his legs and presents himself with much wagging of tail and other manifestations of canine delight. All this occurs to me as very strange; but not for a moment does it prepare me for the agreeable surprise that now presents itself in the appearance of a young Englishman at the door. It would be difficult to say which of us is the most surprised at the other's appearance. Mutual explanations follow, and then I learn that, all unsuspected by me, two missionaries of the English Presbyterian mission are stationed at Chao-choo. At Canton I was told that I wouldn't see a European face nor hear an English word between that city and Kui-kiang. On their part, they have read in English papers of my intended tour through China, but never expected to see me coming through Chao-choo-foo. I am, of course, overjoyed at the opportunity presented by their knowledge of the language to arrange for the continuation of my journey in a manner to know something about what I am doing. They are starting down the river for Canton to-morrow, so that I am very fortunate in having arrived today. As their guest for the day I obtain an agreeable change of diet from the swashy preparations aboard the sampan, and learn much valuable information about the nature of the country ahead from their servants. They have never been higher up the river than Chao-choo-foo themselves, and rather surprise me by giving the distances to Canton as two hundred and eighty miles. By their kind offices I am able to make arrangements for a couple of coolies to carry the bicycle over the Mae-ling Mountains as far as the city of Nam-ngan on the head waters of the Kan-kiang, whence, if necessary, I can descend into the Yang-tsi-kiangby river. The route leads through a mountainous country up to the Mae-ling Pass, thence down to the head waters of the Kan-kiang. All is ready by eight o'clock on the morning of October 22d; the coolies have lashed the bicycle to parallel bamboo poles, as also a tin of lunch biscuits, a tin of salmon, and of corned beef, articles kindly presented by the missionaries. Nam-ngan is said to be two hundred miles distant, but subsequent experience would lessen the distance by about fifty miles. Our way leads first through the cemeteries of Chao-choo-foo, and along little winding stone-ways through the fields leading, in a general sense, along the right bank of the Pi-kiang. The villagers in the upper districts of Quang-tung are peculiarly wanting in facial attractiveness; in some of the villages on the Upper Pi-kiang the entire population, from puling infants to decrepit old stagers whose hoary cues are real pig-tails in respect to size, are hideously ugly. They seem to be simple, primitive people, bent on satisfying their curiosity; but in the pursuit of this they are, if anything, somewhat more considerate or more conservative than the Persians. Mothers hurry home and fetch their babies to see the Fankwae, pointing me out to their notice, very much like pointing out a chimpanzee in the Zoological gardens. In these village inns the spirit of democracy embraces all living things; sore-eyed coolies, leprous hangers-on to the thread of life, matronly sows and mangy dogs, come, go, and freely mingle and associate in these filthy little kitchens. When cooking is in progress, nothing is set off the fire on to the ground but that a hungry pig stands and eyes it wistfully, but sundry burnings of their sensitive snouts during the days of their youthful inexperience have made them preternaturally cautious, so that they are not very meddlesome. The sleeping room is really a part of the pig-sty, nothing but an open railing separating pigs and people. A cobble-stone path now leads through a hilly country, divided up into little rice-fields, peanut gardens, pine copses, and cemeteries. Peanut stalls one encounters at short intervals, where ancient dames or wrinkled old men preside over little saucers of half-roasted nuts, peanut sweet cakes, peanut plain cakes, peanut crullers, peanut dough, peanut candy, peanuts sprinkled with sugar, peanuts sprinkled with salt, and peanuts fresh from the ground. The people seem to be well-nigh living on peanuts, which unhappy diet probably has something to do with their marvellous ugliness. In a gathering of villagers standing about me are people with eyes that are pitched at the most peculiar angles, varying from long, narrow eyes that slope downward toward the cheek-bone, to others that seem almost perpendicular. No less astonishing is the contour of their mouths; ragged holes in their ugly faces are these for the most part, shapeless and uncouth as anything well could be. They are the most unprepossessing humans I have seen the whole world round. As, on the evening of the third day from Chao-choo-foo, we approach Nam-hung, the people and the country undergo a great change for the better. The land is more level and better cultivated; villages are thicker and more populous, and the people are no longer conspicuously ill-favored. All evidence goes to prove that meagre diet and hard lines generally, continued from generation to generation, result in the production of an ill-conditioned and inferior race of people. A three-storied pagoda on a prominent hill to the right marks the approach to Nam-hung, and another of nine stories marks the entrance. Swarms of people follow us through the streets, rushing with eager curiosity to obtain a glimpse of my face. Sometimes the surging masses of people, struggling and pushing and dodging, separate me from the coolies, and the din of the shouting and laughing is so great that my shouts to them to stop are unheard. A shout, or a wave of the hand results only in a quickening of the people's curiosity and an increase in the volume of their own noisiness. Thus hemmed in among a compact mass of apparently well-meaning, but highly inflammable Chinese, hooting, calling, laughing, and gesticulating, I follow the lead of Ching-We and Wong-Yup through a mile of streets to the hittim. Rich native wares are displayed in great abundance, silks, satins, and fur-lined clothing so costly and luxurious, and in such numbers, that one wonders where they find purchasers for them all. Side by side with these are idol factories, where Joss may be seen in every stage of existence, from the unhewn log of his first estate to the proud pre-eminence of his highly finished condition, painted, gilded, and furbished. Coffin warehouses in which burial cases are displayed in tempting array are always conspicuous in a Chinese city. The coffins are made of curious slabs, jointed together in imitation of a solid log; some of these are varnished in a style calculated to make the eyes of a prospective corpse beam with joyous anticipation; others are plainly finished, destined for the abode of humbler and less pretentious remains. At the hittim, with much angry expostulation and firmness of decision, the following mob are barred entrance to our room. They are not, by any means satisfied, however; they quickly smash in a little closed panel so they can look in, and every crack between the boards betrays a row of peering eyes. Ching-We is a hollow-eyed victim of the drug, and yearns for peace and quiet so that he can pass away the evening amid the seductive pleasures of the opium-smoker's heaven. The rattle and racket of the determined sight-seers outside, clamorously demanding to come in and see the Fankwae, annoy him to the verge of desperation under the circumstances. He patiently endeavors to forget it all, however, and to banish the whole troublesome world from his thoughts, by producing his opium-pipe and lamp and attempting to smoke. But just as he is getting comfortably settled down to rolling the little knob of opium on the needle and has puckered his lips for a good pull, a decayed turnip comes sailing through the open panel and hits him on the back. The people looking in add insult to injury by indulging in an audible snicker, as Ching-We springs up and glares savagely into their faces. This indiscreet expression of their levity at once seals their doom, for Ching-We grabs a pole and hits the boards such a resounding whack, and advances upon them so savagely, that only a few undaunted youngsters remain at their post; the panel is repaired, and comparative peace and quiet restored for a short time. No sooner, however, has Ching-We mounted to the first story of heavenly beatitude from the effects of the first pipe of opium, than loud howls of "Fankwae. Fankwae!" are heard outside, and a shower of stones comes rattling against the boards. Ching-We goes to the partition door and indulges in an angry and reproachful attack upon the unoffending head of the establishment. The unoffending head of the establishment goes immediately to the other door and indulges in an angry and reproachful attack upon the shouters and stone-throwers outside. The Chinese are peculiar in many things, and in nothing, perhaps, more than their respect for words of reproach. Whether the long-suffering innkeeper hurled at their heads one of the moral maxims of Confucius, or an original production of his own brain, is outside the pale of my comprehension; but whatever it is, there is no more disturbance outside. It must be about midnight when I am awakened from a deep sleep by the gabble of many people in the room. Transparent lanterns adorned with big red characters held close to my face cause me to blink like a cat upon opening my wondering eyes. These lanterns are held by yameni-runners in semi-military garb, to light up my features for the inspection of an officer wearing a rakish Tartar hat with a brass button and a red horse-hair tassel. The yameni-runners wear the same general style of head-dress, but with a loop instead of the brass button. The officer is possessed of a wonderfully soft, musical voice, and holds forth at great length concerning me, with Ching-We. The officer takes my passport to the yamen, and ere leaving the room, pantomimically advises me to go to sleep again. In the morning Ching-We returns the two-foot square document with the Viceregal seal, and winks mysteriously to signify that everything is lovely, and that the goose of permission to go ahead to Nam-ngan hangs auspiciously high. The morning opens up cool and cloudy, the pebble pathway is wider and better than yesterday, for it is now the thoroughfare along which thousands of coolies stagger daily with heavy loads of merchandise to the commencement of river navigation at Nam-hung. The district is populous and productive; bales of paper, bags of rice and peanuts, bales of tobacco, bamboo ware, and all sorts of things are conveyed by muscular coolies to Nam-hung to be sent down the river. Gradually have we been ascending since leaving Nam-hung, and now is presented the astonishing spectacle of a broad flight of stone steps, certainly not less than a mile in length, leading up, up, up, to the summit of the Mae-ling Pass. Up and down this wonderful stairway hundreds of coolies are toiling with their burdens, scores of travellers in holiday attire and several palanquins bearing persons of wealth or official station. The stairway winds and zigzags up the narrow defile, averaging in width about twenty feet. Refreshment houses are perched here and there along the side, sometimes forming a bridge over the steps. The stairway terminates at the summit in a broad stone archway of ancient build, over which are several rooms; this is evidently an office for the collection of revenue from the merchandise carried over the pass. Standing beneath this arch one obtains a comprehensive view of the country below to the north; a pretty picture is presented of gabled villages and temples, green hills, and pale-gold ripening rice-fields. The little silvery contributaries of the Kan-kiang ramify the picture like veins in the human palm, and the brown, cobbled pathways are seen leading from village to village, disappearing from view at short intervals beneath a cluster of tiled houses. Steeper but somewhat shorter steps lead down from the pass, and the pathway follows along the bank of a tiny stream, leading through an almost continuous string of villages to the walls of Nam-ngan. CHAPTER XVIII. DOWN THE KAN-KIANG VALLEY. The country is still nothing but river and mountains, and a sampan is engaged to float me down the Kan-kiang as far as Kan-tchou-foo, from whence I hope to be able to resume my journey a-wheel. The water is very low in the upper reaches of the river, and the sampan has to be abandoned a few miles from where it started. I then get two of the boatmen to carry the wheel, intending to employ them as far as Kan-tchou-foo. From the stories current at Canton, the reputation of Kan-tchou-foo is rather calculated to inspire a lone Fankwae with sundry misgivings. Some time ago an English traveller, named Cameron, had in that city an unpleasantly narrow escape from being burned alive. The Celestials conceived the diabolical notion of wrapping him in cotton, saturating him with peanut-oil, and setting him on fire. The authorities rescued him not a moment too soon. Ere traversing many miles of mountain-paths we emerge upon a partially cultivated country, where the travelling is somewhat better than in Quang-tung. The Mae-ling Pass was the boundary line between the provinces of Quang-tung and Kiang-se; my journey from Nam-ngan will lead me through the whole length of the latter great province, between three hundred and four hundred miles north and south. The paths hereabout are of dirt mostly, and although wretched roads for a wheelman in the abstract, are nevertheless admirable in comparison with the stone-ways of Quang-tung. Gratified at the prospect of being able to proceed to Kui-kiang by land after all, I determine at once that, if the country gets no worse by to-morrow, I will dismiss the boatmen and pursue my way alone again on the bicycle. This resolve very quickly develops into an earnest determination to rid myself of the incubus of the snail-like movements of my new carriers, who are decidedly out of their element when walking, as I am very quickly brought to understand by the annoying frequency of their halts at way-side tea-houses to rest and smoke and eat. Ere we are five miles from the sampan these festive mariners of the Kan-kiang have developed into shuffling, shirking gormandizers, who peer longingly into every eating-house we pass by and evince a decided tendency to convert their task into a picnic. Finding me uncomplaining in footing their respective "bills of lading" at the frequent places where they rest and indulge their appetites for tid-bits, they advance, in the brief space of four hours, from a simple diet of peanuts and bubbles of greasy pastry to such epicurean dishes as pickled duck, salted eggs, and fricasseed kitten! Fricasseed kitten is all very well for people who have been reared in the lap of luxury, and tenderly nurtured; but neither of these half-clad Kan-kiang navigators was born with the traditional silver spoon. From infancy they have had to thrive the best way they could on rice, turnip-tops, peanuts, and delusive expectations of pork and fish; their assumption of the delicacies above mentioned betrays the possession of bumps of assurance bigger than goose-eggs. It is equivalent to a moneyless New York guttersnipe sailing airily into Delmonico's and ordering porter-house steak and terrapin, because some benevolent person volunteered to feed him for a day or two at his expense. Fearful lest their ambitious palates should soar into the extravagant and bankrupting realms of bird-nest soup, shark's fins, and deer-horn jelly, I firmly resolve to dispense with their services at the first favorable opportunity. Many of the larger villages we pass through are walled with enormously massive brick walls, all bearing evidence of battering at the hands of the Tai-pings. Owing to the frequent restings of the carriers we are overtaken toward evening by a fellow boat-passenger, Oolong, who after our departure determined to follow our enterprising example and walk to Kan-tchou-foo. He comes trudging briskly along with a little white tea-pot swinging in his hand and an umbrella under his arm. The day is disagreeably cold by reason of the chilly typhoons that blow steadily from the north. I have considerately encased the thinnest clad carrier in my gossamer rubbers to shield him from the wind, but Oolong is even thinner clad than he, and he has to hustle along briskly to keep his Celestial blood in circulation. No sooner do we reach the hittim where it is proposed to remain over night than poor Oolong gets into trouble by appropriating to his own use the quilted garment of one of the employes of the place, which he finds lying around loose. The irate owner of the garment loudly accuses Oolong of wanting to steal it, and notwithstanding his vigorous protestations to the contrary he is denounced as a thief and summarily ejected from the premises. The last I ever see of Oolong and his white tea-pot and umbrella is when he pauses for a moment to give his accusers a bit of his mind before vanishing into outer darkness. The morning is quite wintry, and the people are clad in the seasonable costumes of the country. Huge quilted garments are put on one over another until their figures are almost of ball-like rotundity; the hands are drawn up entirely out of sight in the long, loosely flowing sleeves, while the head is half-hidden by being drawn, turtle-like, into their blue-quilted shells. Like the Persians, they seem nipped and miserable in the cold; looking at them, standing about with humped backs and pinched faces this morning, I wonder, with the Chinaman's happy nonchalance about committing suicide, why they don't all seek relief within the nice warm tombs at the end of the village. Surely it can be nothing but their rampant curiosity, urging them to live on and on in the hopes of seeing something new and novel, that keeps them from collapsing entirely in the winter. My epicurean carriers indulge largely in chopped cayenne peppers this morning, which they mis liberally with their food. The paths at least get no worse than they were yesterday, and to-day I meet the first passenger-wheelbarrow, with its big wheel in the centre, a bulky female with a baby on one side, and a bale of merchandise on the other. Sometimes our road brings us to the banks of the Kan-kiang, and most of the time, even when a mile or two away, we can see the queer, corrugated sails of the sampans. Once to-day we happen upon a fleet of fourteen cormorant fishers at a moment when the excitement of their pursuit is at its height. About seventy or eighty cormorants are diving and chasing about among a shoal of fish in a big silent pool, while fourteen wildly excited Chinamen, clad in abbreviated breech-cloths, dart their bamboo rafts about hither and thither, urging each one his own cormorants to dive by tapping them smartly with their poles. The scene is animated in the extreme, a unique picture of Chinese river-life not to be easily forgotten. About two o'clock in the afternoon we arrive at a city that I flatter myself is Kan-tchou-foo; all attempts to question the carriers or anybody else in regard to the matter results in the hopeless bewilderment of both them and myself. The carriers are not such ignoramuses in the art of pantomime, however, but that they are able to announce their intention of stopping here for the remainder of the day, and night. The liberality of my purse for a short day and a half, with its concomitant luxurious living, has so thoroughly demoralized the unaccustomed river-men, that they encroach still further upon my bounty and forbearance by revelling all night in the sensuous delights of opium, at my expense, and turning up in the morning in anything but fit condition for the road. Putting this and that together, I conclude that we have not yet readied Kan-tchou-foo; but the carriers have developed into an insufferable nuisance, a hinderance to progress, rather than a help, so I determine to take them no farther. I tell them nothing of my intentions until we reach a lonely spot a mile from the city. Here I tender them suitable payment for their services and the customary present, attach my loose effects to the bicycle and about my person, and motion them to return. As I anticipated, they make a clamorous demand for more money, even seizing hold of the bicycle and shouting angrily in my face. This I had easily foreseen, and wisely preferred to have their angry demonstrations all to myself, rather than in a crowded city where they could perhaps have excited the mob against me. For the first time in China I have to appeal to my Smith & Wesson in the interests of peace; without its terrifying possession I should on this occasion undoubtedly have been under the necessity of "wiping up a small section of Kiang-se" with these two worthies in self defence. In the affairs of individuals, as of nations, it sometimes operates to the preservation of peace to be well prepared for war. How many times has this been the case with myself on this journey around the world! The barometer of satisfaction at the prospect of reaching Kui-kiang before the appearance of old age rises from zero-level to a quite flattering height, as I find the pathways more than half ridable after delivering myself of the dead weight of native "assistance." Twelve miles farther and I am approaching the grim high walls of a large city that instinctively impresses me as being Kan-tchou-foo. The confused babel of noises within the teeming wall-encompassed city reaches my ears in the form of an "ominous buzz," highly suggestive of a hive of bees, into the interior of which it would be extremely ticklish work for a Fankwae to enter. "Half an hour hence," I mentally speculate, "the pitying angels may be weeping over the spectacle of my seal-brown roasted remains being dragged about the streets by the ribald and exultant rag, tag, and bobtail of Kan-tchou-foo." Reflecting on the horrors of cotton, peanut-oil, and fire, I sit down for half an hour at a peanut-seller's stall, eat peanuts, and meditatively argue the situation of whether it would be better, if seized by a murderous mob, to take the desperate chances of being, like Cameron, rescued at the last minute from the horrors of incineration, or to take my own life. Fourteen cartridges and a 38 Smith & Wesson is the sum total of my armament. Emptying my revolver among the mob, and then being caught while reloading, would mean a lingering death by the most diabolical tortures, processes that the heathen Chinee has reduced to a refinement of cruelty unsurpassed in the old Spanish inquisition chambers. The saucer of peanuts eaten, I pursue my way along the cobblestone path leading to the gate, without having come to any more definite conclusion than to keep cool and govern my actions according to circumstances. Ten minutes after taking this precaution I am trundling along a paved street, somewhat wider than the average Chinese city street, in the thick of the inevitable excited crowd. The city probably contains two hundred thousand people, judging from the length of this street and the wonderful quantity and richness of the goods displayed in the shops. Along this street I see a more lavish display of rich silks, furs, tiger-skins, and other evidences of opulence than was shown me at Canton. The pressure of the crowds reduces me at once to the necessity of drifting helplessly along, whithersoever the seething human tide may lead. Sometimes I fancy the few officiously interested persons about me, whom I endeavor to question in regard to the hoped-for Jesuit mission, have interpreted my queries aright and are piloting me thither; only to conclude by their actions, the next minute, that they have not the remotest conception of my wants, beyond reaching the other side of the city. Now and then some ruffian in the crowd, in a spirit of wanton devilment, utters a wild, exultant whoop and raises the cry of "Fankwae. Fankwae." The cry is taken up by others of his kind, and the whoops and shouts of "Fankwae" swell into a tumultuous howl. Anxious moments these; the spirit of wanton mischief fairly bristles through the crowd, evidently needing but the merest friction to set it ablaze and render my situation desperate. My coat-tail is jerked, the bicycle stopped, my helmet knocked off, and other trifling indignities offered; but to these acts I take no exceptions, merely placing my helmet on again when it is knocked off, and maintaining a calm serenity of face and demeanor. A dozen times during this trying trundle of a mile along the chief business thoroughfare of Kan-tchou-foo, the swelling whoops and yells of "Fankwae" seem to portend the immediate bursting of the anticipated storm, and a dozen times I breathe easier at the subsidence of its volume. The while I am still hoping faintly for a repetition in part of my delightful surprise at Chao-choo-foo, we arrive at a gate leading out on to a broad paved quay of the Kan-kiang, which flows close by the walls. Here I first realize the presence of Imperial troops, and awaken to the probability that I am indebted to their known proximity for the self-restraint of the mob, and their comparatively mild behavior. These Celestial warriors would make excellent characters on the spectacular stage; their uniforms are such marvels of color and pattern that it is difficult to disassociate them from things theatrical. Some are uniformed in sky blue, and others in the gayest of scarlet gowns, blue aprons with little green pockets, and blue turbans or Tartar hats with red tassels. Their gowns and aprons are patterned so as to spread out to a ridiculous width at bottom, imparting to the gay warrior an appearance not unlike an opened fan, his head constituting the handle. As a matter of fact, the soldiers of the Imperial army are the biggest dandies in the country; when on the march coolies are provided to carry their muskets and accoutrements. As seen today, beneath the walls of Kan-tchou-foo, they impress me far more favorably as dandies than as soldiers equal to the demand of modern warfare. Like soldiers the whole world round, however, they seem to be a good-natured, superior class of men; no sooner does my presence become known than several of them interest themselves in checking the aggressive crowding of the people about me. Some of them even accompany me down to the ferry and order the ancient ferryman to take me across for nothing. This worthy individual, however, enters such a wordy protestation against this that I hand him a whole handful of the picayunish tsin. The soldiers make him give me back the over-payment, to the last tsin. The sordid money-making methods of the commercial world seem to be regarded with more or less contempt by the gallant sons of Mars everywhere, not excepting even the soldiers of the Chinese army. The scene presented by the city and the camp from across the river is of a most pronounced mediaeval character, as well as one of the prettiest sights imaginable. The grim walla of the city extend for nearly a mile along the undulating bank of the Kan-kiang, with a narrow strip of greensward between the solid gray battlements and the blue, wind-rippled waters of the river. Along the whole distance, rising and falling with the undulations of the bank, are ranged a continuous row of gayly fluttering banners-red, purple, blue, green, yellow, and all these colors combined in others that are striped as prettily as the prettiest of barber-poles-probably not less than five hundred flags. These multitudinous banners flutter from long, spear-headed bamboo-staves, and of themselves present a wonderfully pretty effect in combination with the blue waters, the verdant bank, and the gray walls. But in addition to these are thousands of soldiers, equally gaudy as to raiment, reclining irregularly along the same greensward, each warrior a bright bit of coloring on the verdant groundwork of the bank. Over variable paths and through numerous villages and hamlets my way now leads, my next objective point being Ki-ngan-foo. At first a country of curious red buttes, terraced rice-fields, and reservoirs of mountain-drift water, serving the double purpose of fish-ponds and irrigating reservoirs, it develops later into a more mountainous region, where the bicycle quickly degenerates into a thing more ornamental than useful. On a narrow mountain-trail is met a gentleman astride of a chunky twelve-hand pony. This diminutive steed is almost concealed beneath a wealth of gay trappings, to which are attached hundreds of jingling bells that fill the air with music as he walks or jogs along. In his fright at the bicycle, or me, he charges wildly up the steep mountain-slope, unseating his rider and making for the mountain-top like the all-possessed. His rider takes the sensible course of immediately pursuing the pony, instead of wasting time in unprofitable fault-finding with me. Few people of these obscure mountain-hamlets have ever seen a Fankwae; many, doubtless, have never even heard of the existence of such queer beings. They gather in a crowd about me when I stay to seek refreshments; the general query of "What is he? what is he?" passed from one to another, sometimes elicits the laconically expressed information of" Fankwae" from some knowing villager or traveller passing through, but often their question remains unanswered, because among the whole assembly there is nobody who really knows what I am. The wonderful industry of these people is more apparent in this mountain-country than anywhere else. The valleys are very narrow, often little more than mere ravines between the mountains, and wherever a square yard of productive soil is to be found it is cultivated to its utmost capacity. In places the mountain-ravines are terraced, to their very topmost limits, tier after tier of substantial rock wall banking up a few square yards of soil that have been gathered with infinite labor and patience from the ledges and crevices of the rocky hills. The uppermost terrace is usually a pond of water, gathered by the artificial drainage of still higher levels, and reserved for the irrigation of the score or more descending "steps" of the rice-growing stairway beneath it. Notwithstanding the mountainous nature of the country and the dallying progress through Kan-tchou-foo, so lightsome does it seem to be once more journeying along, free and unencumbered, that I judge my day's progress to be not less than fifty miles when nightfall overtakes me in a little mountain-village. It is the first day's progress in China with which I have been really satisfied. Nevertheless, it has been a toilsome day, taken altogether, and when nothing but tea and rice confronts me at supper the reward seems so wretchedly inadequate that I rise in rebellion at once. Neither eggs, fish, nor meat are to be obtained, the good woman at the little hittim explains in a high key; neither loan, ue, nor ue-ah, nothing but ch'ung-ch'a and mai. The woman is evidently a dear, considerate mortal, however, for she surveys my evident disgust with sorrowful visage, and then, suddenly brightening up, motions for me to be seated and leaves the house. Presently the good dame returns with a smile of triumph on her face and an object in her hand that, from casual observation, might be the hind-quarters of a rabbit. Bringing it to me in the most matter-of-fact manner, she holds it near my face and, pointing to it with the air of a cateress proudly conscious of having secured something that she knows will be unusually acceptable to her guest, she explains "me-aow, me-aow!" The woman's naivete is simply sublime, and her sagacity in explaining the nature of the meat by imitating a kitten's cry instead of telling me its Chinese name stamps her as superior to her surroundings; but, for all that, I conclude to draw the line at kitten and sup off plain rice and tea. "Me-aow, me-aow" might not be altogether objectionable if one knew it to have been a nice healthy kitten, but my observations of Chinese unsqueamishness about the food they eat leaves an abundance of room for doubt about the nature of its death and its suitableness for human consumption. I therefore resist the temptation to indulge. A clear morning and a white frost usher in the commencement of another march across the mountains, over cobbled paths for the greater part of the forenoon. The sun is warm, but the mountain-breezes are cool and refreshing. About noon I ferry across a large tributary of the Kan-kiang, and follow for miles a cobble-stone path that leads down its eastern bank. According to my map, Ki-ngan-foo should be about fifty miles south of Kan-tchou-foo, so that I ought to have reached there by noon to-day. All due allowance, however, must be made for the map-makers in mapping out a country where their opportunities for accuracy must have been of the meagerest kind. Small occasion for fault-finding under the circumstances, I think, for in the middle of the afternoon the gray battlements, the pagodas, and the bright coloring of military flags a few miles farther down stream tell me that the geographers have not erred to any considerable extent. It is about sunset when I enter the gates and find myself within the Manchu quarter, that portion of the city walled off for the residence of the Manchu garrison and their families. The hittim to which the quickly gathering crowd conduct me is found to be occupied by a rather prepossessing female, who, however, looks frightened at my approach and shuts the door. Nor will she consent to open it again until reassured of my peaceful character by the lengthy explanation of the people outside, and a searching scrutiny of my person through a crack. After opening the door again, and receiving what I opine to be a statement of the financial possibilities of the situation from some person who has heard fabulous accounts of the Fankwaes' liberality, her apprehensiveness dissolves into a smile of welcome and she motions for me to come in. The evening is chilly, and everybody is swollen out to ridiculous proportions by the numerous thick-quilted garments they are wearing. All present, whether male or female, are likewise distinguished by abnormally protruding stomachs. Being Manchus, and therefore the accredited warriors of the country, it occurs to ine that perhaps the fashionable fad among them is to pad out their stomachs in token of the possession of extraordinary courage, the stomach being regarded by the Chinese as the seat of both courage and intelligence. In the absence of large stomachs provided by nature, perhaps these proud Manchus come to the correction of niggardly nature with wadding, as do various hollow-chested people in the "regions of mist and snow," the dreary, sunless land whence cometh the genus Fankwae. But are the females also ambitious to be regarded as warriors, Amazonian soldiers, full of courage and warlike aspirations. As though in direct reply to my mental queries, a woman standing by solves the problem for me at once by producing from beneath her garments a wicker-basket containing a jar of hot ashes; stirring the deadened coals up a little she replaces it, evidently attaching it to her garments underneath by a little hook. Among the hundreds of visitors that drop in to see the Fankwae and his bicycle is an intelligent old officer who actually knows that the great country of the Fankwaes is divided into different nationalities; either that, or else he thinks the Fankwaes have another name, said name being "Ying-yun" (English). Some idea of the dense ignorance of the Chinese of the interior concerning the rest of the world may be gathered from the fact that this officer is the first person since leaving Chao-choo-foo, upon whom the word "Ying-yun" has not been wholly thrown away. Scenes of more than democratic equality and fraternity are witnessed in this Manchu hittim, where silk-robed mandarins and uncouth ragamuffins stand side by side and enjoy the luxury of seeing me take lessons in the use of the chop-sticks. All through China one cannot fail to be impressed with the freedom of intercourse between people of high and low degree; beggars with unwashed faces and disgusting sores and well-nigh naked bodies stand and discuss my appearance and movements with mandarins of high degree, without the least show of presumption on the one hand or condescension on the other. Fully under the impression that Ki-ngan-foo has now peacefully come and peacefully gone from the pale of my experiences, I follow along awful stone paths next morning, leading across a level, cultivated country for several miles. Before long, however, a country of red clay hills and limited cultivable depressions is reached, where well-worn foot-trails over the natural soil afford more or less excellent going. In this particular district the women are observed to be all golden lilies, whereas the proportion of deformed feet in other rural districts has been rather small. Seeing that deformed feet add fifty or a hundred per cent, to the social and matrimonial value of a Chinese female, one cannot help applauding the enterprise of the people in this district as compared to the apathy existing on the same subject in some others. The comparative poverty of their clayey undulations has doubtless awakened them to the opportunities of increasing values in other directions. Hence they convert all their female infants into golden lilies, for whom some prospective husband will be willing to pay a hundred dollars more than if they were possessed of vulgar extremities as provided by nature. The people hereabout seem unusually timid and alarmed at my strange appearance; it is both laughable and painful to see the women hobble off across the fields, frightened almost out of their wits. At times I can look about me and, within a radius of five hundred yards, see twenty or thirty females, all with deformed feet, scuttling off toward the villages with painful efforts at speed. One might well imagine them to be a colony of crippled rabbits, alarmed at the approach of a dog, endeavoring to hobble away from his destructive presence. In the villages they seem equally apprehensive of danger, making it somewhat difficult to obtain anything to eat. At one village where I halt for refreshments the people scurry hastily into their houses at seeing me coming, and peep timidly out again after I have passed. Leaning the bicycle against a wall, I proceed in search of something to eat. A basket of oranges first attracts my attention; they are setting just inside the door of a little shop. The two women in charge look scared nearly out of their wits as I appear at the door and point to the basket; both of them retreat pell-mell into a rear apartment, and, holding the door ajar, peep curiously through to see what I am going to do. While my attention is directed for a moment to something down the street, one daring soul darts out and bears the basket of oranges triumphantly into the back room. For this heroic deed I beg to recommend this brave woman for the Victoria Cross; among the golden lilies of the Celestial Empire are no doubt many such brave souls, coequal with Grace Darling or the Maid of Saragossa. Baffled and out-generaled by this brilliant sortie, I meander down to the other end of the village and invade the premises of an old man engaged in chopping up a piece of pork with a cleaver. The gallant pork-butcher gathers up the choicest parts of his meat and carries them into a rear room; with a wary yet determined look in his eye he then returns, and proceeds to mince up the few remaining odds and ends. It is plainly evident that he fancies himself in dangerous company, and is prepared to defend himself desperately with his meat-chopper in case he gets cornered up. Finally I discover a really courageous individual, in the person of a man presiding over a peanut and treacle-cake establishment; this man, while evidently uneasy in his mind, manfully steels his nerves to the task of attending to my wants. Presently the people begin to gather at a respectful distance to watch me eat, and five minutes later, by a judicious distribution of a few saucers of peanuts among the youngsters, I gain their entire confidence. About four o'clock in the afternoon my road once again brings me to a ferry across the Kan-kiang. Just previous to reaching the river, I meet on the road eight men, carrying a sedan containing a hideous black idol about twice as large as a man. A mile back from the ferry is another large walled city with a magnificent pagoda; this city I fondly imagine to be Lin-kiang, next on my map and itinerary to Ki-ngan-foo, and I mentally congratulate myself on the excellent time I have been making for the last two days. Across the ferry are several official sampans with a number of boys gayly dressed in red and carrying old battle-axes; also a small squad of soldiers with bows and arrows. No sooner does the ferryman land me than the officer in charge of the party, with a wave of his hand in my direction, orders a couple of soldiers to conduct me into the city; his order is given in an off-hand manner peculiarly Chinese, as though I were a mere unimportant cipher in the matter, whose wishes it really was not worth while to consult. The soldiers conduct me to the city and into the yamen or official quarter, where I am greeted with extreme courtesy by a pleasant little officer in cloth top-boots and a pigtail that touches his heels. He is one of the nicest little fellows I have met in China, all smiles and bustling politeness and condescension; a trifle too much of the latter, perhaps, were we at all on an equality; but quite excusable under the conditions of Celestial refinement and civilization on one side, and untutored barbarism on the other. Having duly copied my passport (apropos of the Chinese doing almost everything in a precisely opposite way to ourselves may be pointed out the fact that, instead of attaching vises to the traveller's passport, like European nations, each official copies off the entire document), the little officer with much bowing and scraping leads the way back to the ferry. My explanation that I am bound in the other direction elicits sundry additional bobbings of the head and soothing utterances and smiles, but he points reassuringly to the ferry. Arriving at the river, the little officer is dumbfounded to discover that I have no sampan--that I am not travelling by boat, but overland on the bicycle. Such a possibility had never entered his head; nor is it wonderful that it should not, considering the likelihood that nobody, in all his experience, had ever travelled to Kui-kiang from here except by boat. Least of all would he imagine that a stray Fankwae should be travelling otherwise. At the ferry we meet the officer who first ordered the soldiers to take me in charge, and who now accompanies us back to the yamen. Evidently desirous of unfathoming the mystery of my incomprehensible mode of travelling through the country, these two officers spend much of the evening with me in the hittim smoking and keeping up an animated effort to converse. Notwithstanding my viceregal passport, the superior officer very plainly entertains suspicions as to my motives in undertaking this journey; his superficial politeness no more conceals his suspicions than a glass globe conceals a fish. Before they take their departure three yameni-runners are stationed in my room to assume the responsibility for my safe-keeping during the night. An hour or so is spent waiting in the yamen next morning, apparently for the gratification of visitors continually arriving. When the yamen is crowded with people I am provided with a boiled fish and a pair of chop-sticks. Witnessing the consumption of this fish by the Fankwae is the finale of the "exhibition," and candor compels me to chronicle the fact that it fairly brings down the house. It is a drizzly, disagreeable morning as I trundle out of the city gate over cobble-stones, made slippery by the rain. Walking before me is a slim young yameni-runner with a short bamboo-spear, and on his back a white bull's-eye eighteen inches in diameter; he is bare-footed and bare-headed and bare-legged. In the poverty of his apparel, the all-round contempt of personal appearance and cleanliness, and the total absence of individual ambition, this young person reminds me forcibly of our happy-go-lucky friend Osman, in the garden at Herat. In striking contrast to him is the dandified individual who brings up the rear, about ten paces behind the bicycle. He likewise is a yameni-runner, but of higher degree than his compatriot of the advance; instead of a vulgar and rusty spear, he is armed with an oiled paper parasol, a flaming red article ornamented with blue characters and gilt women. Besides this gay mark of distinction and social superiority, he owns both shoes and hat, carrying the former, however, chiefly in his hand; when fairly away from town, he deliberately turns his red-braided jacket inside out to prevent it getting dirty. This transformation brings about a change from the two white bull's-eyes, to big rings of stitching by which these distinguishing appendages are attached. A substantial meal of yams and pork is obtained at a way-side eating-house, after which yet another evidence of the sybaritic tastes of the rear-guard comes to light, in the form of a beautiful jade-stone opium pipe, with which he regales himself after chow-chow. He is, withal, possessed of more than average intelligence; it is from questioning him that I learn the rather startling fact that, instead of having reached Lin-kiang, I have not yet even come to Ki-ngan-foo. Ta-ho is the name of the city we have just left, and Ki-ngan-foo is whither we are now directly bound. The weather at noon becomes warm, and the luxurious personage at the rear delivers his parasol, and shoes, and jade-stone pipe over to the slender and lissom advance guard to carry, to spare himself the weariness of their weight. Tea and tid-bit houses are plentiful, and stoppages for refreshing ourselves frequent. The rear guard assumes considerable dignity when in the presence of a crowd of sore-eyed rustics; he chides their ill-bred giggling at my appearance and movements by telling them, no matter how funny I appear to them here, I am a mandarin in my own country. After hearing this the crowd regard me with even more curiosity; but their inquisitiveness is now heavily freighted with respect. Some of the costumes of the women in this region are very pretty and characteristic, and many of the females are themselves not devoid of beauty, as beauty goes among the Mongols. Particularly do I notice one to-day, whose tiny, doll-like extremities are neatly bound with red, blue, and green ribbon; her face is a picture of refinement, her head-dress a marvel of neatness and skill, and her whole manner and make-up attractive. Unlike her timid and apprehensive sisters of yesterday, she sees nothing in me to be afraid of; on the contrary, she comes and sits beside ine on the bench and makes herself at home with the peanuts and sweets I purchase, and laughs merrily when I offer to give her a ride on the bicycle. The sun is sinking behind the mountains to the west when we approach the city of Ki-ngan-foo, its northern extremity marked by a very ancient pagoda now rapidly crumbling to decay. The city forms a crescent on the west bank of the Kan-kiang, the main street running parallel with the river for something like half a mile before terminating at the walls of the Manchu quarter. The fastidious gentleman at the rear has betrayed symptoms of a very uneasy state of mind during the afternoon, and now, as he halts the procession a moment to turn the bull's-eye side of his coat outward, and to put on his shoes, he gives me a puzzled, sorrowful look and shakes his head dolefully. The trickiness of former acquaintances causes me to misinterpret this display of emotion into an hypocritical assumption of sorrow at the near prospect of our parting company, with ulterior designs on the nice long strings of tsin he knows to be in my leathern case. It soon becomes evident, however, that trouble of some kind is anticipated in Ki-ngan-foo, for he points to my revolver and then to the city and solemnly shakes his head. The crescent water-front, the broad blue river and white sand, the plain dotted with smiling villages opposite, the tall pagodas, the swarms of sampans with their quaint sails, form the composite parts of a very pretty and striking picture, as seen from the northern tip of the crescent. Near the old ruined pagoda the rear-guard points in an indifferent sort of a way to a substantial brick edifice surmounted by a plain wooden cross. Ah! a Jesuit mission, so help me Pius IX! now shall I meet some genial old French priest, who will make me comfortable for the night and enlighten me in regard to my bearings, distances, and other subjects about which I am in a very thick fog. Instead of the fifty miles from Kan-tchou-foo to Ki-ngan-foo indicated on my map, it has proved to be considerably over a hundred. The sole occupant of the building, however, is found to be a fat, monkish-looking Chinaman, who knows never a word of either French or pidgeon English. He says he knows Latin, but for all the benefit this worthy accomplishment is to me he might as well know nothing but his own language. He informs me, by an expressive motion of the hand, that the missionaries have departed; whether gone to their everlasting reward, however, or only on a temporary flight, his pantomimic language fails to record. Subsequently I learn that they were compelled to flee the country, owing to the hostility aroused by the operations of the French in Tonquin. Instead of extending that cordial greeting and consideration one would naturally expect from a converted Chinaman whose Fankwae accomplishments soar to the classic altitude of Latin, the Celestial convert seems rather anxious to get rid of me; he is evidently on pins and needles for fear my presence should attract a mob to the place and trouble result therefrom. As we proceed down the street my appearance seems to stir the population up to a pitch of wild excitement. Merchants dart in and out of their shops, people in rags, people in tags, and people in gorgeous apparel, buzz all about me and flit hither and thither like a nest of stirred-up wasps. If curiosity has seemed to be rampant in other cities it passes all the limits of Occidental imagination in Ki-ngau-foo. Upon seeing me everybody gives utterance to a peculiar spontaneous squeak of surprise, reminding me very much of the monkeys' notes of alarm in the tree-tops along the Grand Trunk road, India. One might easily imagine the very lives of these people dependent upon their success in obtaining a glimpse of my face. Well-dressed citizens rush hastily ahead, stoop down, and peer up into my face as I trundle past, with a determination to satisfy their curiosity that our language is totally inadequate to describe, and which our temperament renders equally difficult for us to understand. By the time we are half-way along the street the whole city seems in wild tumult. Men rush ahead, peer into my face, deliver themselves of the above-mentioned peculiar squeak, and run hastily down some convergent alley-way. Stall-keepers quickly gather up their wares, and shop-keepers frantically snatch their goods inside as they hear the tumult and see the mob coming down the street. The excitement grows apace, and the same wanton cries of "Fank-wae. Fankwae!" that followed me through Kan-tchou-foo are here repeated with wild whoops and exultant cries. One would sometimes think that all the devils of Dante's "Inferno" had gotten into the crowd and set them wild with the spirit of mischief. By this time the yameni-runners are quaking with fear; he of the paper parasol and jade-stone pipe walks beside me, convulsively clutching my arm, and with whiningly anxious voice shouts out orders to his subordinate. In response to these orders the advance-guard now and then hurries forward and peeps around certain corners, as though expecting some hidden assailants. Thus far, although the symptoms of trouble have been gradually assuming more and more alarming proportions, there has been nothing worse than demoniacal howls. The chief reason of this, however, it now appears, has been the absence of loose stones, for no sooner do we enter an inferior quarter where loose stones and bricks are scattered about, than they come whistling about our ears. The poor yameni-runners shout deprecatingly at the mob; in return the mob loudly announce their intention of working destruction upon my unoffending head. Fortunately for me that head is pretty thoroughly hidden beneath the thick pith thatch-work of my Indian solar topee, otherwise I should have succumbed to the first fusillade of stones at the instance of a cracked pate. Stones that would have knocked me out of time in the first round rattle harmlessly on the 3/4-inch pith helmet, the generous proportions of which effectually protect head and neck from harm. Once, twice, it is knocked off by a stone striking it on the brim, but it never reaches the ground before being recovered and jammed more firmly than ever in its place. Things begin to look pretty desperate as we approach the gate of the Manchu quarter; an immense crowd of people have hurried down back streets and collected at this gate; fancying they are there for the hostile purpose of heading us off, I come very near dodging into an open door way with a view of defending myself till the yameni-runners could summon the authorities. There is no time for second thought, however; precious little time, in fact, for anything but to keep my helmet in its place and hurry along with the bicycle. The yameni-runners repeatedly warn the crowd that I am armed with a top-fanchee (revolver); this, doubtless, prevents them from closing in on us, and keeps their aggressive spirit within certain limits. A moment's respite is happily obtained at the Manchu gate; the crowd gathered there in advance are comparatively peaceful, and the mob, for a moment, seem to hesitate about following us inside. Making the most of this opportunity, we hurry forward toward the yamen, which, I afterward learn, is still two or three hundred yards distant. Ere fifty yards are covered the mob come pouring through the gate, yelling like demons and picking up stones as they hurry after us. "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse." or, what would suit me equally as well, a short piece of smooth road in lieu of break-neck cobble-stones. Again are we overtaken and bombarded vigorously; ignorant of the distance to the yamen, I again begin looking about for some place in which to retreat for defensive purposes, unwilling to abandon the bicycle to destruction and seek doubtful safety in flight. At this juncture a brick strikes the unfortunate rear-guard on the arm, injuring that member severely, and quickening the already badly frightened yameni-runners to the urgent necessity of bringing matters to an ending somehow. Pointing forward, they persist in dragging me into a run. Thus far I have been very careful to preserve outward composure, feeling sure that any demonstration of weakness on my part would surely operate to my disadvantage. The runners' appealing cries of "Yameni! yameni!" however, prove that we are almost there, and for fifty or seventy-five yards we scurry along before the vengeful storm of stones and pursuing mob. As I anticipated, our running only increases the exultation of the mob, and ere we get inside the yamen gate the foremost of them are upon us. Two or three of the boldest spirits seize the bicycle, though the majority are evidently afraid I might turn loose on them with the top-fanchee. We are struggling to get loose from these few determined ruffians when the officials of the yamen, hearing the tumult, come hurrying to our rescue. The only damage done is a couple of spokes broken out of the bicycle, a number of trifling bruises about my body, a badly dented helmet, and the yameni-runner's arm rather severely hurt. When fairly inside and away from danger the pent-up feelings of the advance-guard escape in silent tears, and his superior of the jade-stone pipe sits down and mournfully bemoans his wounded arm. This arm is really badly hurt, probably has sustained a slight fracture of the bone, judging from its unfortunate owner's complaints. The Che-hsein, as I believe the chief magistrate is titled, greets me while running out with his subordinates, with reassuring cries of "S-s-o, s-s-o, s-s-o, s-s-o," repeated with extraordinary rapidity between shouts of deprecation to the mob. The mob seem half inclined to pursue us even inside the precincts of the yamen, but the authoritative voice of the Che-hsein restrains their aggressiveness within partly governable measure; nevertheless, in spite of his presence, showers of stones are hurled into the yamen so long as I remain in sight. As quickly as possible the Che-hsein ushers me into his own office, where he quickly proves himself a comparatively enlightened individual by arching his eyebrows and propounding the query, "French?" "Ying-yun," I reply, feeling the advantage of being English or American, rather than French, more appreciably perhaps than I have ever done before or since. This question of the Che-hsein's at once reveals a gleam of explanatory light concerning the hostility of the people. For aught I know to the contrary it may be but a few days ago since the Jesuit missionaries were compelled to flee for their lives. The mob cannot be expected to distinguish between French and English; to the average Celestial we of the Western world are indiscriminately known as Fankwaes, or foreign devils; even to such an enlightened individual as the Che-hsein himself these divisions of the Fankwae race are but vaguely understood. After satisfying himself by questioning the yameni-runners, that I am without companions or other baggage save the bicycle, the Che-hsein ferrets out a bottle of samshoo and tenders me a liberal allowance in a tea-cup. This is evidently administered with the kindly intention of quieting my nerves, which he imagines to be unstrung from the alarmingly rough treatment at the hands of his riotous townmen. Riotous they are, beyond a doubt, for even as the Che-hsein pours out the samshoo the clamorous howls of "Fankwae. Fankwae." seem louder than ever at the gates. Now and then, as the tumult outside seems to be increasing, the Che-hsein writes big red characters on flat bamboo-staves and sends it out by an officer to be read to the mob; and occasionally, as he sits and listens attentively to the clamor, as though gauging the situation by the volume of the noise, he addresses himself to me with a soothing and reassuring "S-s-o, s-s-o, s-s-o, s-o." Shortly after my arrival the worthy-minded Che-hsein knits his brow for a moment in a profound study, and then, lightening up suddenly, delivers himself of "No savvy," a choice morsel of pidgeon English that he has somehow acquired. This is the full extent of his knowledge, however; but, feeble glimmer of my own mother tongue though it be, it sounds quite cheery amid the wilderness wild of Celestial gabble in the office. For although the shackles of authority hold in check the murderous mob, howling for my barbarian gore outside, a constant stream of officials and their friends are admitted to see me and the bicycle. In making an examination of the bicycle, the peculiar "Ki-ngan-foo squeak" finds spontaneous expression at every new surprise. A man enters the room, peers wonderingly into my face-squeak!--comes closer, and looks again--squeak!--notices the peculiar cut of my garments--squeak!--observes my shoes--squeak!--sees helmet on table--squeak!--sees the bicycle--squeak!--goes and touches it--squeak!--finds out that the pedals twirl round--squeak! and thus he continues until he has seen everything and squeaked at everything; he then takes a lingering survey of the room to satisfy himself that nothing has been overlooked, gives a parting squeak, and leaves the room. The Che-hsein provides me with a chicken, boiled whole, head included, for supper, and consumes his own meal at the same time. The difference between the Che-hsein, eating little prepared meatballs and rice, with gilded chop-sticks, and myself tearing the spraggly-looking rooster asunder and gnawing the drum-sticks greedily with my teeth, no doubt readily appeals to the interested lookers-on as an instructive picture of Chinese civilization and outer barbarism as depicted in our respective modes of eating, side by side. More than once during the evening the tumult at the gate swells into a fierce hubbub, as though pandemonium had broken loose, and the blood-thirsty mob were determined to fetch me out. Every minute, at these periodical outbursts, I expect to see them come surging in through the doorway. A sociable young man, whose chief concern is to keep me supplied with pipes and tea, explains, with the aid of a taper, that the crowd are desirous of burning me alive. This cheerful piece of information, the sociable young man imparts with a characteristic Chinese chuckle of amusement; the thought of a Fankwae squirming and sizzling in the oil-fed flames touches the chord of his risibilities, and makes him giggle merrily. The Che-hsein himself occasionally goes out and harangues the excited mob, the authoritative tones of his voice being plainly heard above the squabbling and yelling. It must be near about midnight when the excitement has finally subsided, and the mob disperse to their homes. Six yameni-runners then file into the room, paper umbrellas slung at their backs in green cloth cases, and stout bamboo quarter-staves in hand. The Che-hsein gives them their orders and delivers a letter into the hands of the officer in charge; he then bids me prepare to depart, bidding me farewell with much polite bowing and scraping, and sundry memorable "chin-chins." A closely covered palanquin is waiting outside the door; into this I am conducted and the blinds carefully drawn. A squad of men with flaming torches, the Che-hsein, and several officials lead the way, maintaining great secrecy and quiet; stout carriers hoist the palanquin to their shoulders and follow on behind; others bring up the rear carrying the bicycle. Back through the Manchu quarter and out of the gate again our little cavalcade wends its way, the officials immediately about the palanquin addressing one another in undertones; back, part way along the same street which but a few short hours ago resounded with the hoots and yells of the mischievous mob, down a long flight of steps, and the palanquin is resting at the end of a gang-plank leading aboard a little passenger-sampan. The worthy Che-hsein bows and scrapes and chin-chins me along this gang-plank, the bicycle is brought aboard, the six yameni-runners follow suit, and the boat is poled out into the river. The squad of torch-bearers are seen watching our progress until we are well out into the middle of the stream, and the officer in charge of my little guard stands out and signals them with his lantern, notifying them, I suppose, that all is well. One would imagine, from their actions, that they were apprehensive of our sampan being pursued or ambushed by some determined party. And yet the scene, as we drift noiselessly along with the current, looks lovely and peaceful as the realms of the blest; the crescent moon, the shimmering water--and the slowly receding lights of the city; what danger can there possibly be in so quiet and peaceful a scene as this? By daylight we are anchored before another walled city, which I think is Ki-shway, a city of considerable pretentions as to wall, but full of social and moral rottenness and commercial decadence within, judging, at least, from outward appearances. Few among the crowds that are permitted free access to the yamen here do not betray, in unmistakable measure, the sins of former generations; while, as regards trade, half the place is in a ruinous, tumble-down condition. The mandarin here is a fleshy, old-fashioned individual, with thick lips and an expression of great good humor. He provides me with a substantial breakfast of rice and pork, and fetches his wife and children in to enjoy the exhibition of a Fankwae feeding, likewise permitting the crowd to look in through the doors and windows. He is a phlegmatic, easy-going Celestial, and occupies about two hours copying my passport and writing a letter. At the end of this time he musters a squad of twelve retainers in faded red uniforms and armed with rusty pikes, who lead the way back to the river, followed by three yameni-runners, equipped, as usual, each with an umbrella and a small string of tsin to buy their food. The gentlemen with the mediaeval weapons accompany us to the river and keep the crowd from pressing too closely upon us until I and the yameni-runners board a Ki shway sampan that is to convey me to the next down-stream city. It now becomes apparent that my bicycling experiences in China are about ending, and that the authorities have determined upon passing me down the Kan-kiang by boat to the Yang-tsi-kiang. I am to be passed on from city to city like a bale of merchandise, delivered and receipted for from day to day. A few miles down stream we overtake a fleet of some twenty war-junks, presenting a most novel and interesting sight, crowded as each one is with the gayest of flags and streaming pennants galore. The junks are cumbersome enough, in all conscience, as utterly useless for purposes of modern warfare as the same number of floating hogsheads; yet withal they make a gallant sight, the like of which is to be seen nowhere these days but on the inland waters of China. Each junk is propelled by a crew of fourteen oarsmen, dressed in uniforms corresponding in color to the triangular flags that flutter gayly in the breeze at the stern. Not the least interesting part of the spectacle are these same oarsmen, as they ply. their long unwieldy sweeps in admirable unison; the sleeves of their coats are almost as broad as the body of the garment, and at every sweep of the oar these all flap up and down together in a manner most comical to behold. All day long our modest little sampan keeps company with this gay fleet, giving me an excellent opportunity of witnessing its manoeuvres. Said manoeuvres and evolutions consist of more or less noisy greetings and demonstrations at every town and village we pass. In the case of a small town, a number of pikemen and officials assemble on the shore, erect a few flags, hammer vigorously on a resonant gong, shout out some sing-song greeting and shoot off a number of bombs and fire-crackers. The foremost vessel of the fleet replies to these noisy compliments by a salute of its one gun, and mayhap throws in two or three bombs, according to the liberality of the salutation ashore. At the larger towns the amount of gunpowder burned and noise created is something wonderful. Bushels of fire-crackers are snapping and rattling away, the while gongs are beating, bombs exploding by the score, and salvoes of artillery are making the mountains echo, from every vessel in the fleet. Beneath the walls of a town we pass soon after noon are ranged fifteen other junks; as the fleet passes, these vessels simultaneously discharge all their guns, while at the same instant there burst upon the startled air detonations from hundreds of bombs, big heaps of firecrackers, and the din of many resonant gongs. Not to be outdone, the fleet of twenty return the compliment in kind, and with cheers from the crews thrown in for interest. The fifteen now join the procession, adding volume and picturesqueness to the already wonderfully pretty scene, by their hundreds of brilliant-hued banners, and theatrically costumed oarsmen. About four o'clock, as we are approaching the city of Hat-kiang, our destination for the day, there comes to meet the gallant navy a pair of twin vessels surpassing all the others in the gorgeousness of their flags and the picturesqueness of the costumes. Purple is the prevailing color of both flags and crew. At their splendid appearance our yameni-runners announce in tones of enthusiasm and admiration that these new-comers hail from Lin-kiang, a large city down stream, that I fancied, it will be remembered, having reached at Ta-ho. The officials are still abed when, in the early morning of the third day, we reach Sin-kiang, and repair to the yamen. A large crowd, however, gather and follow us from the market-place, swelling gradually by reenforcements to a multitude that surges in and out of the shanty-like office in such swarms that the frail board walls bulge and crack with the pressure. When the crowd overwhelm the place entirely, the officials clear them out by angry gesticulations and moral suasion, sometimes menacingly shaking the end of their own queues at them as though they were wielding black-snake whips. Having driven them out, no further notice is taken of them, so they immediately begin swarming in again, until the room is again inundated, when they are again driven out. The permitting of this ebbing and flowing of the multitude into the official quarters is something quite incomprehensible to me; the mob is swayed and controlled--as far as they are controlled at all--without any organized effort of those in authority; when the officials commence screaming angrily at them they begin moving out; when the shouting ceases they begin swarming back. Thus in the course of an hour the room will, perchance, be filled and emptied with angry remonstrance half a dozen times, when, from our own stand-point, a couple of men stationed at the door with authority to keep them out would prevent all the bother and annoyance. Sure enough the Chinaman is "a peculiar little cuss," whether seen at home or abroad. If the inhabitants of Ki-shway are scrofulous, sore-eyed, and mangy, they are at least an improvement on the disgusting state of the public health at Sin-kiang, as revealed in the lamentable condition of the crowd at the yamen and in the markets. Scarcely is it possible to single out a human being of sound and healthful appearance from among them all. Everybody has sore eyes, some have horribly diseased scalps, sores on face and body, and all the horrible array of acquired and hereditary diseases. One's hair stands on end almost at the thought of being among them, to say nothing of eating in their presence, and of their own cooking. Of my new escort from Sin-kiang all three have dreadfully sore eyes, and one wretched mortal is as piebald as a circus pony, from head to foot, with the leprosy. Added to these recommendations, they have the manners and instincts of swine rather than of human beings. The same sampan is re-engaged to convey us farther down stream; beneath the housing of bamboo-mats, the rice-chaff leaves barely room for us to crowd in and huddle together from the rain and cold prevailing outside. The worst the elements can do, however, is far preferable to personal contact with these vile creatures; and so I don my blanket and gossamer rubbers, and sit out in the rain. The rain ceases and the chilly night air covers everything with a coating of hoar-frost, but all this is nothing compared with the horrible associations inside, the reeking fumes of opium and tobacco adding yet another abomination to be remembered. At early morn we land and pursue our way for a few miles across country to Lin-kiang, which is situated on a big tributary stream a few miles above its junction with the Kan-kiang. Our way loads through a rich strip of low country, sheltered and protected from inundations by an extensive system of dykes. Here we pass through orchards of orange-trees bristling with the small blood-red mandarin oranges; we help ourselves freely from the trees, for their great plenteousness makes them of very little value. On the stalls they can be purchased six for one cent; like the people in the great peanut producing country below Nam-hung, the cheapness and abundance of oranges here seems an inducement for the people to almost subsist thereon. Everybody is either buying, stealing, selling, packing, gathering, carrying, or eating oranges; coolies are staggering Lin-kiang-ward beneath big baskets of newly plucked fruit, and others are conveying them in wheelbarrows; boats are being loaded for conveyance along the river. Every orange-tree is distinguished by white characters painted on its trunk, big enough so that those who run may read the rightful owner's name and take warning accordingly. Three more wearisome but eventful days, battling against adverse winds, and we come to anchor in a little slough, where a war-junk and several fishing vessels are already moored for the night. While supper is preparing I pass the time promenading back and forth along a little foot-trail leading for a short distance round the shore. The crew of the war-vessel are engaged in drying freshwater shrimps, tiny minnows, and other drainings and rakings of the water to store away for future use. One of the younger officers stalks back and forth along the same path as myself, brusquely maintaining the road whenever we meet, evidently bent on showing off his contempt for the boasted prowess of the Fankwaes, by compelling me to step to one side. His demeanor is that of a bully stalking about with the traditional chip on his shoulder, daring me to come and knock it off. Considering the circumstances about us, this is a wonderfully courageous performance on his part; nothing but his ignorance of my Smith & Wesson can explain his temerity in assuming a bellicose attitude with only one man-of-war at his back. Out of consideration for this ignorance, I studiously avoid interfering with the chip. At length the river-voyage comes to an end at Wu-chang, on the Poyang Hoo, when I am permitted to proceed overland with an escort to Kui-kiang. Spending the last night at a village inn, we pursue our way over awful bowlder paths next morning, for several miles; over a low mountain-pass and down the northern slope to a level plain. A towering white pagoda is observable in the distance ahead; thia the yameni-runner says is Kui-kiang. At a little way-side tea-house, I find Christmas numbers of the London Graphic pasted on the walls; yet with all this, so utterly unreliable has my information heretofore been, and so often have my hopes and expectations turned out disappointing, that I am almost afraid to believe the evidence of my own senses. The Graphic pictures are of the Christmas pantomimes; the good woman of the tea-house points out to me the tremendous noses, the ear-to-ear mouths, and the abnormal growths of chin therein depicted, with much amusement; "Fankwae," she says, "te-he, te-he," apparently fancying them genuine representations of certain types of that queer, queer people. The paths improve, and soon I see the smoke of a steamer on the Yang-tsi than which, it is needless to say, no more welcome sight has greeted my vision the whole world round. Only the smoke is seen, rising above the city; it cannot be a steamer, it is too good to be possible! this isn't Kui-kiang; this is another wretched disappointment, the smoke is some Chinese house on fire! Not until I get near enough to distinguish flags on the consulates, and the crosses on the mission churches, do I permit myself fully to believe that I am at last actually looking at Kui-kiang, the city that I have begun to think a delusion and a snare, an ignis fatuus that was dancing away faster than I was approaching. The sight of all these unmistakable proofs that I am at last bidding farewell to the hardships, the horrible filth, the soul-harrowing crowds, the abominable paths, and the ever-present danger and want of consideration; that in a little while all these will be a dream of the past, gives wings to my wheel wherever it can be mounted, and ridden. The yameni-runner is left far behind, and I have already engaged a row-boat to cross the little lake in the rear of the city, and the boatman is already pulling me to the "Ying-yun," when the poor yameni-runner comes hurrying up and shouts frantically for me to come back and fetch him. Knowing that the man has to take back his receipt I yield to his request, follow him first to the Kui-kiang yamen, and from thence proceed to the English consulate. Captain McQuinn, of the China Steam Navigation Company's steamer Peking, and the consulate doctor see me riding down the smooth gravelled bund, followed by a crowd of delighted Celestials. "Hello! are you from Canton" they sing out in chorus. "Well, well, well! nobody expected to ever see anything of you again; and so you got through all safe, eh?" "What's the matter? you look bad about the eyes," says the observant doctor, upon shaking hands; "you look haggard and fagged out." Upon surveying myself in a mirror at the consulate I can see that the doctor is quite justified in his apprehensions. Hair long, face unshaved for five weeks, thin and gaunt-looking from daily hunger, worry, and hard dues generally, I look worse than a hunted greyhound. I look far worse, however, than I feel; a few days' rest and wholesome fare will work wonders. An appetizing lunch of cold duck, cheese, and Bass's ale is quickly provided by Mr. Everard, the consul, who seems very pleased that the affair at Ki-ngan-foo ended without serious injury to anybody. The Peking starts for Shanghai in an hour after my arrival; a warm bath, a shave, and a suit of clothes, kindly provided by pilot King, brings about something of a transformation in my appearance. Bountiful meals, clean, springy beds, and elegantly fitted cabins, form an impressive contrast to my life aboard the sampans on the Kan-kiang. The genii of Aladdin's lamp could scarcely execute any more marvellous change than that from my quarters and fare and surroundings at the village hittim, where my last night on the road from Canton was spent, and my first night aboard the elegant and luxurious Peking, only a day later. A pleasant run down the Yang-tsi-kiang to Shanghai, and I arrive at that city just twenty-four hours before the Japanese steamer, Yokohama Maru, sails for Nagasaki. Taking passage aboard it leaves me but one brief day in the important and interesting city of Shanghai, during which time I have to purchase a new outfit of clothes, see about money matters, and what not. CHAPTER XIX. THROUGH JAPAN. An uneventful run of two days, and the Yokohama Maru steams into the beautiful harbor of Nagasaki. The change from the filth of a Chinese city to Nagasaki, clean as if it had all just been newly scoured and varnished, is something delightful. One gets a favorable impression of the Japs right away; much more so, doubtless, by coming direct from China than in any other way. Two days of preparation and looking about leaves almost a pang of regret at having to depart so soon. The American consul here, Mr. B, is a very courteous gentleman; to him and Mr. M, an American gentleman, instructor in the Chinese navy, I am indebted for an exhibition of the geisha dance, and many other courtesies. Having duly supplied myself with Japanese paper-money--ten, five, and one yen notes; fractional currency of fifty, twenty, and ten sen notes, besides copper sen for tea and fruit at road-side teahouses, on Tuesday morning, November 23d, I start on my journey of eight hundred miles through lovely Nippon to Yokohama. Captain F and Mr. B, the American consul, have come to the hotel to see me off. A showery night has made the roads a trifle muddy. Through the long, neat-looking streets of Nagasaki, into a winding road, past crowded hill-side cemeteries, adorned with queer stunted trees and quaint designs in flowers, I ride, followed by wondering eyes and a running fire of curious comments from the Japs. Nagasaki lies at the shoreward base of a range of hills, over a pass called the Himi-toge, which my road climbs immediately upon leaving the city. A good road is maintained over the pass, and an office established there to collect toll from travellers and people bringing produce into Nagasaki. The aged and polite toll-collector smiles and bows at me as I trundle innocently past his sentry-box-like office up the steep incline, hoping that I may take the hint and spare him the necessity of telling me the nature of his duty. My inexperience of Japanese tolls and roads, however, renders his politeness inoperative, and, after allowing me to get past, duty compels him to issue forth and explain. A wooden ticket containing Japanese characters is given me in exchange for a few tiny coins. This I fancy to be a passport for another toll-place higher up. Subsequently, however, I learn it to be a return ticket, the old toll-keeper very naturally thinking I would return, by and by, to Nagasaki. Ponies and buffaloes, laden with baskets of rice, fodder, firewood, and various agricultural products, are encountered on the pass, in charge of Japanese rustics in broad bamboo-hats, red blankets, bare legs, and straw sandals, who lead their charges by long halter-ropes. Both horses and buffaloes are shod with shoes of the same unsubstantial material as the men. When the Japanese traveller sets out on a journey, he provides himself with a new pair of straw sandals; these last him for a tramp of from ten to twenty miles, according to the nature of the road. When worn out, his foot-gear may be readily renewed at any village for a mere song. The same may be said of his horse or buffalo, although several extra shoes are generally carried along in case of need. The summit of the pass is distinguished by a very deep cutting through the ridge rock of the mountain, and a series of successive sharp turns back and forth along narrow-terraced gardens and fields bring the road down into the valley of a clear little stream, called the Himi-gawa. Smooth, hard roads follow along this purling rivulet, now and then crossing it on a stone or wooden bridge. A small estuary, reaching inland like a big bite out of a cake, is passed, and the pretty little village of Yagami reached for dinner. The eating-house, like nearly all Japanese eating-places, is neat and cleanly, the brown wood-work being fairly polished bright from floor to ceiling. Sitting down on the edge of the raised floor, I am approached by the landlady, who kneels down and bows her forehead to the floor. Her politeness is very charming, and her smile would no doubt be more or less winsome were it not for the hideous blackening of the teeth. Blackened teeth is the distinguishing mark between maid and matron in the flowery kingdom of the Mikados. The teeth are stained black at marriage, and henceforth a smile that heretofore displayed rows of small white ivories, and perchance was fairly bewitching, becomes positively repulsive to the Western mind. Fish and rice (sakana and meshi) are the most readily obtainable things to eat at a Japanese hotel, and often form the only bill of fare. Sake, or rice-beer, is usually included in the Jap's own meal, but the average European traveller at first prefers limiting his beverage to tea. The sake is served up in big-necked bottles of cheap porcelain holding about a pint. The bottle is set for a few minutes in boiling water to warm the sake, the Japs preferring to drink it warm. Sake is more like spirits than beer, an honest alcoholic production from rice that soon recommends itself to the European palate, though rather offensive at first. Every tea-house along the road is made doubly attractive by prettily dressed attendants-smiling girls who come out and invite passing travellers to rest and buy tea and refreshments. Their solicitations are chiefly winsome smiles and polite bows and the cheerful greeting "O-ai-o" (the Japanese "how do you do"). A tiny teapot, no larger than those the little girls at home play at "keeping house" with, and shell-like cup to match, is brought on a lacquered tray and placed before one, with charming grace, if a halt is made at one of these tea-houses. Persimmons, sweets, cakes, and various tid-bits are temptingly arrayed on the sloping stand in front. The most trifling purchase is rewarded with an exhibition of good-nature and politeness worth many times the money. About sunset I roll into the smooth, clean streets of Omura, a good-sized town, and seek the accommodation of a charming yadoya (inn) pointed out by a youth in semi-European clothes, who seems bubbling over with pleasure at the opportunity of rendering me this slight assistance. A room is assigned me upstairs, a mat spread for me to recline on, by a polite damsel, who touches her forehead to the floor both when she makes her appearance and her exit. Having got me comfortably settled down with the customary service of tea, sweets, little boxed brazier of live charcoal, spittoon, etc., the proprietor, his wife, and daughter, all come up and prostrate themselves after the most approved fashion. After all the salaaming and deferentiality experienced in other Eastern countries, one still cannot help being impressed with the spectacle of several grotesque Japs bowing before one's seated figure like Hindoos prostrating themselves before some idol With any other people than the Japs this lowly attitude would seem offensively servile; but these inimitable people leave not the slightest room for thinking their actions obsequious. The Japs are a wonderful race; they seem to be the happiest people going, always smiling and good-natured, always polite and gentle, always bowing and scraping. After a bountiful supper of several fishy preparations and rice, the landlord bobs his head to the floor, sucks his breath through the teeth after the peculiar manner of the Japs when desirous of being excessively polite, and extends his hands for my passport. This the yadoya proprietor is required to take and have examined at the police station, provided no policeman calls for it at the house. The Japanese Government, in its efforts to improve the institutions of the country, has introduced systems of reform from various countries. Commissions were sent to the different Western countries to examine and report upon the methods of education, police, army, navy, postal matters, judiciary, etc. What was believed to be the best of the various systems was then selected as the model of Japan's new departure and adoption of Western civilization. Thus the police service is modelled from the French, the judiciary from the English, the schools after the American methods, etc. Having inaugurated these improvements, the Japs seem determined to follow their models with the same minute scrupulosity they exhibit in copying material things. There is probably as little use for elaborate police regulations in Japan as in any country under the sun; but having chosen the splendid police service of France to pattern by, they can now boast of having a service that lacks nothing in effectiveness. A very good road, with an avenue of fine spreading conifers of some kind, leads out of Omura. To the left is the bay of Omura, closely skirted at times by the road. At one place is observed an inland temple, connected with the mainland by a causeway of rough rock. The little island is covered with dark pines and jagged rocks, amid which the Japs have perched their shrine and erected a temple. Both the Chinese and Japs seem fond of selecting the most romantic spots for their worship and the erection of religious edifices. The day is warm, and a heavy shower during the night has made the road heavy in places, although much of it is clean gravel that is not injured by the rain. Over hill and down dale the ku-ruma road leads to Ureshino, a place celebrated for its mineral springs and bath. On the way one passes through charming little ravines, where tiny cataracts come tumbling down the sides of moss-grown precipices, a country of pretty thatched cottages, temples, groves, and purling rivulets. On the streams are numerous rice-hulling machines, operated by the ingenious manipulation of the water. In a little hut is a mortar containing the rice. Attached to a pivot is a long beam having a pestle at one end and a trough at the other. The pestle is made to fall upon the rice in the mortar by the filling and automatic emptying of the trough outside. The trough, filling with water, drops down and empties of its own weight; this causes the opposite end to fall suddenly. This operation repeats itself about every two seconds through the day. The gravelly hills about Ureshino are devoted to the cultivation of tea; the green tea-gardens, with the undulating, even rows of thick shrubs, looking very beautiful where they slope to the foot of the bare rocky cliffs. Ureshino and the baths are some little distance off the main road to Shimonoseki; so, not caring particularly to go there, I continue on to the village of Takio, where rainy weather compels a halt of several hours. Everything is so delightfully superior, as compared with China, that the Japanese village yadoya seems a veritable paradise during these first days of my acquaintance with them. Life at a Chinese village hittim for a week would well-nigh unseat the average Anglo-Saxon's reason, whereas he might spend the same time very pleasantly in a Japanese country inn. The region immediately around Takio is not only naturally lovely, but is embellished by little artificial lakes, islands, grottoes, and various landscape novelties such as the Japs alone excel in. An eight-wire telegraph line threads the road from Takio to Ushidzu, passing through numerous villages that almost form a continuous street from one town to the other. As one notices such improvements, and sees the police and telegraph officials in trim European uniforms seated in their neat offices, an American clock invariably on the wall within, and, moreover, notes the uniform friendliness of the people, it is difficult to imagine that thirty years ago one would have been in more danger travelling through here than through China. Passing through the main streets of Ushidzu in search of the best yadoya, I am accosted by a middle-aged woman with, "Hello! you wanchee room? wanchee chow-chow." Her mother keeps a yadoya, she tells me, and leads the way thither, chatting gayly in pidgeon English, all the way. She seems very pleased at the opportunity to exercise her little stock of broken English, and tells me she learned it at Shanghai, where she once resided for a couple of years in an English family. Her name, she says, is O-hanna, but her English friends used to call her Hannah, without the prefix. Understanding from experience what I would be most likely to appreciate for supper, she rustles around and prepares a nice fish, plenty of Ureshino tea, sugar, sweet-cakes, and sliced pomolo; this, together with rice, is the extent of Ushidzu's present gastronomic limits. The following morning opens with a white frost, the road is level and good, and the yadoya people see that I am provided with a substantial breakfast in good season. My boots, I find, have been cleaned even. They were cleaned with a rag, O-hanna apologizing for the absence of shoe-brushes and blacking in pidgeon English: "Brush no have got." In striking contrast to China, here are gangs of "cantonniers" taking care of the road; men in regular blue uniforms with big white "bull's-eyes," and characters like our Celestial friends the yameni-runners. Troops of school-children are passed on the road going to school with books and tally-boards under their arm. They sometimes range themselves in rows alongside the road, and, as I wheel past, bob their heads simultaneously down to the level of their knees and greet me with a polite "O-ai-o." The country hereabout is rich and populous, and the people seemingly well-to-do. The tea-houses, farm-houses, and even the little ricks of rice seem built with an eye to artistic effect. One sees here the gradual encroachment of Western mechanical improvements. The first two-handled plough I have seen since leaving Europe is encountered this morning; but alongside it are men using the clumsy Japanese digging-tool of their ancestors, and both men and women stripped to the waist, hulling rice by pounding it in mortars with long-headed pestles. It is merely a question of a few years, however, until the intelligent Japs will discard all their old clumsy methods and introduce the latest agricultural improvements of the West into their country. Passing through a mile or more of Saga's smooth and continuously ridable streets, past big school-houses where hundreds of children are reciting aloud in chorus, past the big bronze Buddha for which Saga is locally famous, the road continues through a somewhat undulating country, ridable, generally speaking, the whole way. Long cedar or cryptomerian avenues sometimes characterize the way. Strings of peasants are encountered, leading pack-ponies and bullocks. The former seem to be vicious little wretches, rather masters, on the whole, than servants of their leaders. The Japanese horse objects to a tight girth, objects to being overloaded, and to various other indignities that his relations of other countries meekly endure. To suit his fastidious requirements he is allowed to meander carelessly along at the end of a twenty-foot string, and he is decorated all over with gay and fanciful trappings. A very peculiar trait of his character is that of showing fight at anything he doesn't like the looks of, instead of scaring at it after the orthodox method of horse-flesh in other countries. This peculiarity sometimes makes it extremely interesting for myself. Their usual manner of taking exception to me and the bicycle is to rear up on the hind feet and squeal and paw the air, at the same time evincing a disposition to come on and chew me up. This necessitates continual wariness on my part when passing a company of peasants, for the men never seem to think it worth while to restrain their horses until the actions of the latter render it absolutely necessary. Jinrikishas now become quite frequent, pulled by sturdy-limbed men, who, naked almost as the day they were born, trot along between the shafts of their two-wheeled vehicles at the rate of six miles an hour. Men also are met pulling heavy hand-carts, loaded with tiles, from country factories to the city. Most of the heaviest labor seems to be performed by human beings, though not to the same extent as in China. In every town and village one is struck with the various imitations of European goods. Ludicrous mistakes are everywhere met with, where this serio-comical people have attempted to imitate name, trade-mark, and everything complete. In one portion of the eating-house where lunch is obtained to-day are a number of umbrella-makers manufacturing gingham umbrellas; on every umbrella is stamped the firm-name "John Douglas, Manchester." Cigarettes, nicely made and equal in every respect to those of other countries, are boldly labelled "cigars:" thus do these curious imitators make mistakes. Had Shakespeare seen the Japs one could better understand his "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players;" for most other nations life is a serious enough problem, the Japs alone seem to be merely "playing at making a livelihood." They always impress me as happy-go-lucky harlequins, to whom this whole business of coming into the world and getting a living for a few years is nothing more nor less than a huge joke. The happiest state of affairs seems to exist among all classes and conditions of people in Japan. One passes school-houses and sees the classes out on the well-kept grounds, going through various exercises, such as one would never expect to see in the East. To-day I pause a while before the public-school in Nakabairu, watching the interesting exercises going on. Under the supervision of teachers in black frock-coats and Derby hats, a class of girls are ranged in two rows, throwing and catching pillows, altogether back and forth at the word of command. Classes of boys are manipulating wooden dumb-bells and exercising their muscles by various systematic exercises. The youngsters are enjoying it hugely, and the whole affair looks so thoroughly suggestive of the best elements of Occidental school-life that it is difficult to believe the evidence of one's own eyes. I suspect the Japanese children are about the only children in the wide, wide world who really enjoy studying their lessons and going to school. One of the teachers comes to the gate and greets me with a polite bow. I address him in English, but he doesn't know a word. The wooden houses of Japan seem frail and temporary, but they look new and bright mostly in the country. The government buildings, police-offices, post-offices, schools, etc., all look new and bright and artistic, as though but lately finished. The roads, too, are sometimes laid out straight and trim, suggestive of an attempt to imitate the roads of France; then, again, one traverses for miles the counterpart of the green lanes of Merrie England--narrow, winding, and romantic. The Japanese roads are mainly about ten or twelve feet wide, giving ample room for two jinrikishas to pass, these being the only wheeled vehicles on the roads. Rustic bridges frequently span lovely little babbling brooks, and waterfalls abound this afternoon as I approach, at early eve, Futshishi. Rain necessitates a lay-over of a day at Futshishi, but there is nothing unendurable about it; the proprietor of the house is a blind man, who plays the samosan, and makes the girls sing and dance the geisha for my edification. Beef and chicken are both forthcoming at Futshishi, and the fish, as in almost all Japanese towns, are very excellent. The weather opens clear and frosty after the rain, and the road to Fukuoko is most excellent wheeling; the country continues charming, and every day the people seem to get more and more polite and agreeable. A novel sight of the morning's ride is a big gang of convicts working the roads. They are fastened together with light chains, wear neat brown uniforms, and seem to regard the unconvicted world of humans outside their own company with an expression of apology. To look in their serio-comic faces it is difficult to imagine them capable of doing anything wrong, except in fun: they look, in fact, as if their being chained together and closely attended by guards was of itself anything but a serious affair. Cavalry officers, small, smart-looking, and soldierly, in yellow-braided uniforms, are seen in Fukuoko, looking as un-Asiatic in make-up as the schools, policemen, and telegraph-operators. A collision with a jinrikisha that treats me to a header, and another with a diminutive Jap, that bowls him over like a ninepin, and a third with a bobtailed cat, that damages nothing but pussy's dignity, enter into my reminiscences of Fukuoko. The numbers of jinrikishas, and the peculiar habits of the people, necessitate lynx-eyed vigilance to prevent collisions every hour of the day. The average Jap leaves the door of a house backward, and bows and scrapes his way clear out into the middle of the street, in bidding adieu to the friends he has been calling upon, or even the shopkeeper he has been patronizing. Scarcely a village is passed through but some person waltzes backward out of a door and right in front of the bicycle. A curious sight one frequently sees along the road is an acre or two of ground covered with paper parasols, set out in the sun to dry after being pasted, glued, and painted ready for market. Umbrellas and paper lanterns are as much a part of the Japanese traveller's outfit as his clothes. These latter, nowadays, are sometimes a very grotesque mixture of native and European costume. The craze for foreign innovations pervades all ranks of society, and every village dandy aspires to some article of European clothing. The result is that one frequently encounters men on the road wearing a Derby hat, a red blanket, tight-fitting white drawers, and straw sandals. The villager who sports a European hat or coat comes around to my yadoya, wearing an amusing expression of self-satisfaction, as though filled with an inward consciousness of inv approval of the same. Whereas, every European traveller deprecates the change from their native costume to our own. Following for some distance along the bank of a large canal I reach the village of Hakama for the night. The yadoya here is simply spotless from top to bottom; however the Japanese hotel-keeper manages to transact business and preserve such immaculate apartments is more of a puzzle every day. The regulation custom at a yadoya is for the newly arrived guest to take a scalding hot bath, and then squat beside a little brazier of coals, and smoke and chat till supper-time. The Japanese are more addicted to hot-water bathing than the people of any other country. They souse themselves in water that has been heated to 140 deg. Fahr., a temperature that is quite unbearable to the "Ingurisu-zin" or "Amerika-zin" until he becomes gradually hardened and accustomed to it. Both men and women bathe regularly in hot water every evening. The Japs have not yet imbibed any great quantity of mauvaise honte from their association with Europeans, so the sexes frequent the bath-tub indiscriminately, taking no more notice of one another than if they were all little children. "Venus disporting in the waves"--of a bath-tub--is a regular feature of life at a Japanese inn. Nor can they quite understand why the European tourist should object to the proprietor, his wife and children, chambermaids, tea-girls, guests and visitors crowding around to see him undress and waltz into the tub. Bless their innocent Japanese souls! why should he object. They are only attracted out of curiosity to see the whiteness of his skin, to note his peculiar manner of undressing, and to satisfy a general inquisitiveness concerning his corporeal possibilities. They have no squeamishness whatever about his watching their own natatorial duties; why, then, should he shrink within himself and wave them off? The regular hotel meals consist of rice, fish in various forms, little slices of crisp, raw turnip, pickles, and a catsup-like sauce. Meat is rarely forthcoming, unless specially ordered, when, of course, extra charges are made; sake also has to be purchased separately. After supper one is supplied with a teapot of tea and a brazier of coals. Passing the following night at Hakama, I pull out next morning for Shimonoseki. Traversing for some miles a hilly country, covered with pine-forest, my road brings me into Ashiyah, situated on a small estuary. Here, at Ashiyah, I indulge in nay first simon-pure Japanese shave, patronizing the village barber while dodging a passing shower. The Japanese tonsorial artist shaves without the aid of soap, merely wetting the face by dipping his fingers in a bowl of warm water. During the operation of shaving he hones the razor frequently on an oil-stone. He shaves the entire face and neck, not omitting even the lobes of the ear, the forehead, and nose. If the European traveller didn't keep his senses about him, while in the barber-chair of a Japanese village, he would find himself with every particle of fuzz scraped off his face and neck, save, of course, his regular whiskers or mustache, and with eye-brows considerably curtailed. From Ashiyah my road follows up alongside a small tidal canal to Hakamatsu, traversing a lowland country, devoted entirely to the cultivation of rice. Scores of coal-barges are floating along the canal, propelled solely by the flowing of the tide. I can imagine them floating along until the tide changes, then tying up and waiting patiently until it ebbs and flows again; from long experience they, no doubt, have come to calculate upon one, two, or three tides, as the case may be, floating their barges up to certain landings or villages. The streets of Hakamatsu present a lively and picturesque scene, swarming with country people in the gayest of costumes; the stalls are fairly groaning beneath big piles of tempting eatables, toys, clothing, lanterns, tissue-paper flowers, and every imaginable Japanese thing. Street-men are attracting small crowds about them by displaying curiosities. One old fellow I pause awhile to look at is selling tiny rolls of colored paper which, when cast into a bowl of water, unfold into flowers, boats, houses, birds, or animals. In explanation of the holiday-making, a young man in a custom-house uniform, who knows a few words of English, explains "Japan God "-it is some religious festival these smiling, chatting, bowing, and comical-looking crowds are keeping with such evident relish. Prom Hakamatsu to Kokura the country is hilly and broken; from Kokura one can look across the narrow strait and see Shimonoseki, on the mainland of Japan. Thus far we have been traversing the island of Kiu-shiu, separated from the main island by a strait but a few hundred yards wide at Shimonoseki. From Kokura the jinrikisha road leads a couple of ri farther to Dairi; thence footpaths traverse hills and wax-tree groves for another two miles (a ri is something over two English miles) to the village of Moji. Here I obtain passage on a little ferry-boat across to Shimonoseki, arriving there about two o'clock in the afternoon. A twenty-four hours' halt is made at Shimonoseki in deference to rainy weather. The landlady of the yadoya understands enough about European cookery to prepare me a very decent beefsteak and a pot of coffee. Shimonoseki is full of European goods, and clever imitations of the same; a stroll of an hour through the streets reveals the extent of the Japs' appreciation of foreign things. Every other shop, almost, seems devoted to the goods that come from other countries, or their counterfeits. Not content with merely copying an imported article, the Japanese artisan generally endeavors to make some improvement on the original. For instance, after making an exact imitation of a petroleum-lamp, the Jap workman constructs a neat little lacquer cabinet to set it in when not in use. The coffee-pot in which the coffee served at my yadoya is prepared is an ingenious contrivance with three chambers, evidently a reproduction of Yankee ingenuity. A big Shinto temple occupies the crest of a little hill near by, and flights of stone steps lead up to the entrance. At the foot of the steps, and repeated at several stages up the slope, are the peculiar torii, or "bird-perches," that form the distinctive mark of a Shinto temple. Numerous shrines occupy the court-yard of the temple; the shrines are built of wood mostly, and contain representations of the various gods to whose particular worship they are dedicated. Before each shrine is a barred receptacle for coins. The Japanese devotee poses for a minute before the shrine, bowing his head and smiting together the palms of his hands; he then tosses a diminutive coin or two into the barred treasury, and passes on round to the next shrine he wishes to pay his respects to. In the main building are numerous pictures, bows, arrows, swords, and various articles, evidently votive offerings. The shrine of the deity that presides over the destiny of fishermen is distinguished by a huge silver-paper fish and numerous three-pronged fish-spears. Among other queer objects whose meaning defies the penetration of the traveller unversed in Japanese mythology is a monstrous human face, with a nose at least three feet long, and altogether out of proportion. Strolling about to while away a rainy forenoon I pass big school-houses full of children reciting aloud. Their wooden clogs and paper umbrellas are stowed away in racks, provided for the purpose, at the door. The cheerfulness with which they shout out their exercises proves plainly enough that they are only keeping "make-believe" school. Female vegetable and fruit venders, neat and comely as Normandy dairy-maids, are walking about chatting and smiling and bowing, "playing at selling vegetables." While I pause a moment to inspect the stock of a curio-dealer, the proprietor, seated over a brazier of coals, smoking, bows politely and points, with a chuckle of amusement, at the fierce-looking effigy of a daimio in armor. There is not the slightest hint of a mercenary thought about his actions; plainly enough, he hasn't the remotest wish to sell me anything--he merely wants to call my attention to the grotesqueness of this particular figure. He is only playing curio-dealer; he doesn't try to sell anything, but would do so out of the abundance of his good-nature if requested to, no doubt. A pair of little old-fashioned fire-engines repose carelessly against the side of a municipal building. They have grown tired of playing at extinguishing fires and have thrown aside their toys. I wander to the water-front and try to locate my hotel from that point of observation. Watermen are lounging about in wistaria waterproof coats. They want me to ride to my destination in one of their boats, very evidently, from their manner, only for the fun of the thing. Everybody is smiling and urbane, nobody looks serious; no careworn faces are seen, no pinched poverty. Wonderful people! they come nearer solving the problem of living happily than any other nation. Even the professional mendicants seem to be amused at their own poverty, as if life to them was a mere humorous experiment, scarcely deserving of a serious thought. The weather clears up at noon, and in the face of a strong northern breeze I bid farewell to Shimonoseki. The road follows for some miles along the shore, a smooth, level road that winds about the bases of the hills that here slope down to toy and dally with the restless surf of the famous Inland Sea. Following the shore in a general sense, the road now and then leads inland for a mile or two, for the purpose of linking together the numerous towns and villages that dot the little alluvial valleys between the hills. Passing through one large village, my attention is attracted by the sign "English Books," over a book-shop. Desirous of purchasing some kind of a guide for the road to Kobe, I enter the establishment, expecting at least to find some one capable of understanding English. The young man in charge knows never a word of English, and his stock of "English books" consists of primers, spelling-books, etc., for the use of school-children. The architecture of the villages above Shimonoseki is strikingly artistic. The quaint gabled houses are painted a snowy white, and are roofed with brown glazed tiles of curious pattern, also rimmed with white. About the houses are hedges grotesquely clipped and trained in imitation of storks, animals, or fishes, miniature orange and persimmon trees, pretty flower-gardens and little landscape vanities peculiar to the Japanese. Circling around through little valleys, over small promontories and along smooth, gravelly stretches of sea-shore road, for thirty miles, brings me to anchor for the night in a good-sized village. Among my visitors for the evening is a young gentleman arrayed in shiny top-boots, tight-fitting corduroy trousers, and jockey cap. In his general make-up he is the "horsiest" individual I have seen for many a day. One could readily imagine him to be a professional jockey. The probability is, however, that he has never mounted a horse in his life. In all likelihood he has become infatuated with this style of Western clothes from studying a copy of the London Graphic, has gone to great trouble and expense to procure the garments from Yokohama, and now blossoms forth upon the dazed provincials of his native town in a make-up that stamps him as the swellest of the swell He affects great interest in the bicycle--much more so than the average Jap--from which I infer that he has actually imbibed certain notions of Western sport, and is desirous of posing before his uninitiated and, consequently, unappreciative, countrymen, as an exponent of athletics. Altogether the horsey young gentleman is the most startling representative of "New Japan" I have yet encountered. A cold drizzle ushers in the commencement of my next day's journey. One is loath to exchange the neat yadoya, with everything within so spotless and so pleasant, the tiny garden, not over ten yards square, but containing a miniature lake, grottos, quaint stone lanterns, bronze storks, flowers, and stunted trees, for the road. Disagreeable weather has followed me, however, from Nagasaki like an avenging Fate, bent on preventing the consummation of my tour from being too agreeable. Even with rain and mud and consequent delays my first few days in Japan have seemed a very paradise after my Chinese experiences; what, then, would have been my impressions of country and people amid sunshine and favorable conditions of weather and road, when the novelty of it all first burst upon my Chinese-disgusted senses? The country round about is mountainous, snow lying upon the summits of a few of the higher peaks. The road, though hilly at times, manages to twist and wind its way along from one little valley to another without any very long hills. Peasants from the mountains are met with, leading ponies loaded with firewood and rice. Their old Japanese aboriginal costumes of wistaria raincoats, broad bamboo-hats, and rude straw-sandals make a conspicuous contrast to their countrymen of "New Japan," in Derby hats or jockey suits. Notwithstanding the rapid Europeanizing of the city-bred Japs, the government's progressive policy, the blue-coated gendarmerie, and the general revolutionizing of the country at large, many a day will come and go ere these mountaineers forsake the ways and methods and grotesque costumes of their ancestors. For decades Japan will present an interesting study of mountaineer conservatism and ultra-liberal city life. One party will be wearing foreign clothes, aping foreign manners, adopting foreign ways of doing everything; the other will be clinging tenaciously to the wistaria garments, bamboo sieve-hats, straw-sandals, and the traditions of "Old Japan." Most farm-houses are now thatched with straw; one need hardly add that they are prettily and neatly thatched, and that they are embellished by various unique contrivances. Some of them, I notice, are surrounded by a broad, thick hedge of dark-green shrubbery. The hedge is trimmed so that the upper edge appears to be a continuation of the brown thatch, which merely changes its color and slopes at the same steep gradient to the ground. This device produces a very charming effect, particularly when a few neatly trimmed young pines soar above the hedge like green sentinels about the dwelling. One inimitable piece of "botanical architecture" observed to-day is a thick shrub trimmed into an imitation of a mountain, with trees growing on the slopes, and a temple standing in a grove. Before many of the houses one sees curious tree-roots or rocks, that have been brought many a mile down from the mountains, and preserved on account of some fanciful resemblance to bird, reptile, or animal. Artificial lakes, islands, waterfalls, bridges, temples, and groves abound; and at occasional intervals a large figure of the Buddha squats serenely on a pedestal, smiling in happy contemplation of the peace, happiness, prosperity, and beauty of everything and everybody around. Happy people! happy country. Are the Japs acting wisely or are they acting foolishly in permitting European notions of life to creep in and revolutionize it all. Who can tell. Time alone will prove. They will get richer, more powerful, and more enterprising, because of the necessity of waking themselves up to keep abreast of the times; but wealth and power, and the buzz and rattle of machinery and commerce do not always mean happiness. CHAPTER XX. THE HOME STRETCH. During the afternoon the narrow kuruma road merges into a broad, newly made macadam, as fine a piece of road as I have seen the whole world round. Wonderful work has been done in grading it from the low-lying rice-fields, up, up, up, by the most gentle and even gradient, to where it seemingly terminates, far ahead between high rocky cliffs. The picture of charming houses and beautiful terraced gardens climbing to the very upper stories of the mountains here beggars description; one no longer marvels at what he has seen in the way of terraced mountains in China. New sensations of astonishment await me as the upper portion of the smooth boulevard is reached, and I find myself at the entrance to a tunnel about five hundred yards long and thirty feet wide. The tunnel is lit up by means of big reflectors in the middle, shining through the gloom as one enters, like locomotive headlights. It is difficult to imagine the Japs going to all this trouble and expense for mere jinrikisha and pedestrian travel; yet such is the case, for no other vehicular traffic exists in the country. It is the only country in which I have found a tunnel constructed for the ordinary roadway, although there may be similar improvements that have not happened to come to my notice or ear. One would at least expect to find a toll-keeper in such a place, especially as a person has to be employed to maintain the lights, but there is nothing of the kind. A few miles beyond the tunnel the broad road terminates in a good-sized seaport, whence I encounter some little difficulty in finding my way along zigzag field-paths to my proper road for the north. The rain has fallen at intervals throughout the day, but the roads have averaged good. Fifty miles, or thereabout, must have been reeled off when, at early eventide, I pull up at a village ya-doya. Before settling myself down, for rest and supper, I take a stroll through the village in quest of possible interesting things. Not far from the yadoya my attention is arrested by a prominent sign, in italics, "uropean eating, Kameya hous." Entertaining happy visions of beefsteak and Bass's ale for supper, I enter the establishment and ask the young man in charge whether the place is an hotel. He smiles, bows, and intimates his woeful ignorance of what I am saying. The following morning is frosty, and low, scudding clouds denote unsettled weather, as I resume my journey. Much of the time my road practically follows the shore, and sometimes simply follows the windings and curvatures of the gravelly beach. Most of the low land near the shore appears to be reclaimed from the sea--low, flat-looking mud-fields, protected from overflow by miles and miles of stout dikes and rock-ribbed walls. Fishing villages abound along the shore, and for long distances a recent typhoon has driven the sea inland and washed away the road. Thousands of men and women are engaged in repairing the damages with the abundance of material ready to hand on the sloping granite-shale hills around the foot of which the roadway winds. Fish are cheaper and more plentiful here than anything else, and the old dame at the yadoya of a fishing village cooks me a big skate for supper, which makes first-rate eating, in spite of the black, malodorous sauce she uses so liberally in the cooking. In this room is a wonderful brass-bound cabinet, suggestive of soul-satisfying household idols and comfortable private worship. During the evening I venture to open and take a peep in this cabinet to satisfy a pardonable curiosity as to its contents. My trespass reveals a little wax idol seated amid a wealth of cheap tinsel ornaments, and bits of inscribed paper. Before him sets an offering of rice, sake, and dried fish in tiny porcelain bowls. Clear and frosty opens the following morning; the road is good, the country gradually improves, and by nine o'clock I am engaged in looking at the military exercises of troops quartered in the populous city of Hiroshima. The exercises are conducted within a large square, enclosed with a low bank of earth and a ditch. Crowds of curious civilians are watching the efforts of raw cavalry recruits to ride stout little horses, that buck, kick, bite, and paw the air. Every time a soldier gets thrown the on-lookers chuckle with delight. Both men and horses are undersized, but look stocky and serviceable withal. The uniform of the cavalry is blue, with yellow trimmings. The artillery looks trim and efficient, and the horses, although rather small, are powerful and wiry, just the horses one would select for the rough work of a campaign. North of Hiroshima the country assumes a hilly character, the road following up one mountain-stream and down another. In this mountainous region one meets mail-carriers, the counterpart almost of the fleet-footed postmen of Bengal. The Japanese postman improves upon nature by the addition of a waist-cloth and a scant shirt of white and blue cotton check; his letter-pouch is fastened to a bamboo-staff; as he bounds along with springy stride he warns people to clear the way by shouting in a musical voice, "Honk, honk." This cry resembles in a very striking degree the utterances of an old veteran brant, or wild-goose, when speeding northward in the spring to escape a warm wave from the south. Among these mountains one is filled with amazement at the tremendous work the industrious Japs have done to secure a few acres of cultivable land. Dikes have been thrown up to narrow the channels of the streams, so that the remaining width of the bed may be converted into fields and gardens. The streams have been literally turned out of their beds for the sake of a few acres of alluvial soil. Among the mountains, chiefly between the mountains and the shore, are level areas of a few square miles, supporting a population that seems largely out of proportion to the size of the land. Many of these sea-shore people however, get their livelihood from the blue waters of the Inland Sea; fish sharing the honors with rice in being the staple food of provincial Japan. The weather changes to quite a disagreeable degree of cold by the time I reach the end of to-day's ride. This introduces me promptly into the mysteries of how the Japanese manage to keep themselves warm in their flimsy houses of wooden ribs and semi-transparent paper in cold weather. An opening in the floor accommodates a brazier of coals; over this stands an open wood-work frame; quilts covered over the frame retain the heat. The modus operandi of keeping warm is to insert the body beneath this frame, wrapping the covering about the shoulders, snugly, to prevent the escape of the warm air within. The advantage of this unique arrangement is that the head can be kept cool, while, if desirable, the body can be subjected to a regular hot-air bath. The following day is chilly and raw, with occasional skits of snow. People are humped up and blue-nosed, and seemingly miserable. Yet, withal, they seem to be only humorously miserable, and not by any means seriously displeased with the rawness and the snow. Straw wind-breaks are set up on the windward side of the tea-houses, and there is much stopping among pedestrians to gather around the tea-house braziers and gossip and smoke. Everybody in Japan smokes, both men and women. The universal pipe of the country is a small brass tube about six inches long, with the end turned up and widened to form the bowl. This bowl holds the merest pinch of tobacco; a couple of whiffs, a smart rap on the edge of the brazier to knock out the residue, and the pipe is filled again and again, until the smoker feels satisfied. The girls that wait on one at the yadoyas and tea-houses carry their tobacco in the capacious sleeve-pockets of their dress, and their pipes sometimes thrust in the sash or girdle, and sometimes stuck in the back of the hair. Many of the Buddhas presiding over the cross-roads and village entrances along my route to-day are provided with calico bibs, the object of which it is impossible for me to determine, owing to my ignorance of the vernacular. The bibs are, no doubt, significant of some particular season of religious observance. The important city of Okoyama provides abundant food for observation--the clean, smooth streets, the wealth of European goods in the shops, and the swarms of ever-interesting people, as I wheel leisurely through it on Saturday, December 4th. No human being save Japs has so far crossed my path since leaving Nagasaki, nor am I expecting to meet anybody here. An agreeable surprise, however, awaits me, for at the corner of one of the principal business thoroughfares a couple of American missionaries appear upon the scene. Introducing themselves as Mr. Carey and Mr. Kowland, they inform me that three families of missionaries reside together here, and extend a cordial invitation to remain over Sunday. I am very glad indeed to accept their hospitality for to-morrow, as well as to avail myself of an opportunity to get my proper bearings. Nothing in the way of a reliable map or itinerary of the road I have been traversing from Shimonoseki was to be obtained at Nagasaki, and I have travelled with but the vaguest idea of my whereabouts from day to day. Only from them do I learn that the city we meet in is Okoyama, and that I am now within a hundred miles of Kobe, north of which place "Murray's Handbook" will prove of material assistance in guiding me aright. The little missionary colony is charmingly situated on a pine-clad hill overlooking the city from the east. Several lady missionaries are visiting from other points, all Americans, making a pleasant party for one to meet in such an unexpected manner. On Sunday morning I accompany Mr. Carey to see his native congregation in the nice new church which he says they have erected from their own means at a cost of two thousand yen. This latter is a very gratifying statement, not to say surprisingly so, for it savors of something like sincerity on the part of the converts. In most countries the converts seem to be brought to a knowledge of their evil ways, and to perceive the beauties of the Christian religion through the medium of material assistance provided from the mission. Instead of spending money themselves for the cause they profess to embrace, they expect to receive something from it of a tangible earthly nature. Here, however, we find the converts themselves building their own meeting-house, and bidding fair ere long to support the mission without outside aid. This is encouraging from the stand-point of those who believe in converting "the heathen" from their own religion to ours, and gratifying to the student of Japanese character. About five hundred people congregate in the church, seating themselves quietly and orderly on the mat-covered floor. They embrace all classes, from the samurai lawyer or gentleman to the humblest citizen, and from gray-haired old men and women to shock-headed youngsters, who merely come with their mothers. Many of these same mothers have been persuaded by the missionaries to cease the heathenish practice of blackening their teeth, and so appear at the meeting in even rows of becoming white ivories like their unmarried sisters. Numbers of curious outsiders congregate about the open doors and peep in and stand and listen to the sermon of Mr. Carey, and the singing. The hymns are sung to the same tunes as in America, the words being translated into Japanese. Everybody seems to enjoy the singing, and they listen intently to the sermon. After the sermon, several prominent members of the congregation stand up and address their countrymen and women in convincing words and gestures. Mr. Carey tells me that any ordinary Jap seems capable of delivering a fluent, off-hand exposition of his views in public without special effort or embarrassment. Altogether the Japanese Christian congregation, gathered here in ita own church, sitting on the floor, singing, sermonizing, and looking happy, is a novel and interesting sight to see. One can imagine missionary life among the genial Japs as being very pleasant. Saturday and Sunday pass pleasantly away, and, with happy memories of the little missionary colony, I wheel away from Oko-yama on Monday morning, passing through a country of rich rice-fields and numerous villages for some miles. The scene then changes into a beautiful country of small lakes and pine-covered hills, reminding me very much of portions of the Berkshire Hills, Mass. The weather is cool and clear, and the road splendid, although in places somewhat hilly. Fifty-three miles are duly scored when, at three o'clock in the afternoon, I arrive at the city of Himeji. The yadoya here is a superior sort of a place, and Himeji numbers among its productions European pan (bread), steak, and bottled beer. The Japs are themselves rapidly coming to an appreciation of this latter article, and even to manufacture it, a big brewery being already established somewhere near Tokio. A couple of young dandies of "New Japan" drop in during the evening, send out for bottles of beer, and seem to take particular delight in showing off their appreciation of the newly introduced beverage before their countrymen of the "ancient regime." Beyond Himeji one leaves behind the mountains, emerging upon a broad, level, rice-producing plain, which extends eastward to Kobe and the sea-shore. The fine level road traversing the plain passes through numerous towns and villages, and for the latter half of the distance skirts the shore. Old dismantled stone forts, tea-houses, eating-stalls, fishermen's huts, house-boats, and swarms of jinrikishas and pedestrians make their sea-shore road lively and interesting. The single artery through which the life of all the southern tributary country ebbs and flows to trade at the busiest treaty port in Japan, this road is constantly swarming with people. Over the Minato-gawa Kiver by an elevated bridge, and one finds himself in a broad street leading through Hiogo to Kobe. These two cities are practically joined together, although bearing different names. Like many of the rivers of Japan, the bed of the Minato-gawa is elevated considerably above the surrounding plain. Confined between artificial banks to prevent the flooding of the adjacent fields in spring, the debris brought down from year to year has gradually raised the bed, and necessitated continued raising also of the levees. These operations have very naturally ended in raising the whole affair to an elevation that leaves even the bottom of the stream several feet higher than the fields around. Kobe is one of the treaty ports of Japan, and nowadays is reputed to do more foreign trade than any of the others. One can imagine Kobe being a very pleasant and desirable place to live; the foreign settlement is quite extensive, the surroundings attractive, and the climate mild and healthful. Pleasant days are spent at Kobe and Ozaka. Twenty-seven miles of level road from the latter city, following the course of the Yodo-gawa, a broad shallow stream that flows from Lake Biwa to the sea, brings me to Kioto. From the eighth century until 1868 Kioto was the capital of the Japanese empire, and is generally referred to as the old capital of the country. The present population is about a quarter of a million, about half of what it was supposed to be in the heyday of its ancient glory as the seat of empire. Living at Kioto is Mr. B, an American ex-naval officer, who several years ago forsook old Neptune's service to embark in the more peaceful pursuit of teaching the ideas of youthful Japs to shoot. The occasion was auspicious, for the whole country was fired with enthusiasm for learning English. English was introduced into the public schools as a regular study. Mr. B is settled at Kioto, and now instructs a large and interesting class of boys in the mysteries of his mother tongue. Taking a letter of introduction he makes me comfortable for the afternoon and night at his pleasant residence on the banks of the Yodo-gawa. Under the pilotage of his private jinrikisha-man, I spend a portion of the afternoon in making a flying visit to various places of interest. A party of American tourists are unexpectedly met in the first temple we visit, that of Nishi Hon-gwan-ji. The paintings and decorations of this temple, one of the ladies says with something akin to enthusiasm, are quite equal to those of the great temple at Nikko. This lady appears to be a missionary resident, or, at all events, a person well versed in Japanese temples and things. Her companions are fleeting tourists, who listen to her explanations with respect, but, like myself, know nothing more when they leave the temple than when they entered. Japanese mythology, religion, temples, politics, history, and titles, seem to me to be the worst mixed up and the most difficult for off-hand comprehension of anything I have yet undertaken to peep into. The multitudinous gods of the Hindoos, with their no less multitudinous functions, seem to me to be easily understood in comparison with the weird legends and mazy mythology of the Flowery Kingdom. Near this temple is a lovely little garden that gives much more satisfaction to the casual visitor than the temples. It is always a pleasure to visit a Japanese garden, and, in addition to its landscape attractions, historical interest lends to this one additional charm. The artificial lake is stocked with tame carp, which come crowding to the side when visitors clap their hands, in the expectation of being fed. A pair of unhappy-looking geese are imprisoned beneath an iron grating within the garden. They are kept there in commemoration of some historical incident; what the incident is, however, even the well-informed lady of the party doesn't seem to know; neither does Murray's voluminous guide-book condescend to explain. A small palace, with interior decorations of the usual conventional subjects--storks, flying geese, rising moons, bamboo-shoots, etc.--together with a small, round, thatched summer-house, where, five hundred years ago, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the Shogun monk, was wont to pass the time in meditation, form the remaining sole attractions of the garden. The one place I have been anticipating some real pleasure in visiting is the Shu-gaku-In gardens, one of the most famous gardens in this country where, above all others, gardening is pursued as a fine art. This, however, is not accessible to-day, and wearied already of temples, gods, and shaven-pated priests, I give the jin-rikisha-coolie orders to return home. A mile or two through the smooth and level streets and the hopeful and sanguine "riksha" man dumps me out at another temple. Fancying that, perchance, he might have brought me to something extraordinary, I follow him wearily in. A graduate in the Shinto religion would no doubt find something different about these temples, but to the ordinary, every-day human, to see one is to see them all. My man, however, seems determined to give me a surfeit of temples, and hurries me off to yet another one, ere awakening to the fact that I am trying to get him to return to Mr. B 's. The third one I positively refuse to have anything to do with. At Mr. B 's I find awaiting my coming an interesting deputation, consisting of the assistant superintendent of the young ladies' seminary, together with three of his most interesting pupils. They have been reading about my tour in the native papers, and, in the assistant superintendent's own words, "are very curious at seeing so famous a traveller." The three young ladies stand in a row, like the veritable "three little maids from school" in "The Mikado," and giggle their approval of the teacher's explanation. They are three very pretty girls, and two of them have their hair banged after the most approved American style. Sweetcakes and tea are indulged in by the visitors, and before they leave an agreement is entered into by which I am to visit their school in the morning before leaving and hear them sing "Bonny Boon" and "The fire-fly's light," in return for riding the bicycle in the school-house grounds. "The fire-fly's light" is sung to the tune of "Auld lang syne," the Japanese words of which commemorate a legend of the tea-district of Uji near Lake Biwa. The legend states that certain learned men repaired to a secluded spot near Uji to pursue their studies. On one occasion, being out of oil and unable to procure the means of lighting their apartment, myriads of fire-flies came and illumined the place with their tiny lamps sufficient for their purpose. My compact with the "three little maids from school" takes me down into the city on something of a detour from my nearest road out next morning. The detour is well repaid, however; besides the singing and organ-playing promised, the many departments of industrial study into which the school is divided are very interesting. Laces and embroidery for the Tokio market, dresses for themselves and to sell, are made by the girls, the proceeds going toward the maintenance of the institution. One of the most curious scholarships of the place is the teaching of what is known as the "Japanese ceremony." It seems to be a perpetuation of some old court ceremony of making tea for the Mikado. Expressing a wish to see the ceremony, I am conducted to a small room divided off by the usual sliding paper panels. A class of girls are kneeling in a row, confronting a very neat-looking old lady who sits beside a small brazier of coals. The old lady is the teacher; when she claps her hands, one of the paper screens slides gently aside and one of the scholars enters, bearing a small lacquer tray with tiny teapot and cups, a canister of tea, and various other paraphernalia. There is really very little to the "ceremony," the graceful motions of the tea-maker being by far the more interesting part of the performance. The tea used is finely powdered and comes from Uji, where it is grown especially for the use of the Mikado's household. The tea-dust is mixed with hot water by means of a curiously splintered bamboo mixer that looks very much like a shaving-brush. The result is a very aromatic cup of tea, delicious to the nostrils, but hardly acceptable to the European palate. My jinrikisha-man of yesterday precedes me through the streets, shouting the "honk, honk, honk." of the mail-runners, to clear the way. To see him cleave a way through the multitudes for me to follow, keeping up a six-mile pace the while, swinging his arms like a windmill, one might well imagine me a real dai-mio on wheels with faithful samurai-runner ahead, warning away the common herd from my path. At Kioto begins the Tokaido, the most famous highway of Japan, a road that is said to have been the same great highway of travel, that it is to-day, for many centuries. It extends from Kioto to Tokio, a distance of three hundred and twenty-five miles. Another road, called the Nakasendo, the "Road of the Central Mountains," in contradistinction to the Tokaido, the "Road of the Eastern Sea," also connects the old capital with the new; but, besides being somewhat longer, the Nakasendo is a hillier road, and less interesting than the Tokaido. After leaving the city the Tokaido leads over a low pass through the hills to Otsu, on the lovely sheet of water known as Biwa Lake. This lake is of about the same dimensions as Lake Geneva, and fairly rivals that Switzer gem in transcendental beauty. The Japs, with all their keen appreciation of the beauties of nature, go into raptures over Biwa Lake. Much talk is made of the "eight beauties of Biwa." These eight beauties are: The Autumn Moon from Ishi-yama, the Evening Snow on Hira-yama, the Blaze of Evening at Seta, the Evening Bell of Mii-dera, the Boats sailing back from Yabase, a Bright Sky with a Breeze at Awadzu, Bain by Night at Karasaki, and the Wild Geese alighting at Katada. All the places mentioned are points about the lake. All sorts of legends and romantic stories are associated with the waters of Lake Biwa. Its origin is said to be due to an earthquake that took place several centuries before the Christian era; the legend states that Fuji rose to its majestic height from the plain of Suruga at the same moment the lake was formed. Temples and shrines abound, and pilgrims galore come from far-off places to worship and see its beauties. One object of special curiosity to tourists is a remarkable pine-tree, whose branches have been trained in horizontal courses over upright posts, until it forms a broad shelter over several hundred square yards. A smaller imitation of the large tree is also spreading to ambitious proportions on the Tokaido side. Snow has fallen and rests on the upper slopes of the mountains overlooking the lake, little steamers and numerous sailing-craft are plying on the smooth waters, and wild geese are flying about. With these beauties on the left and tea-gardens on the right, the Tokaido leads through rows of stately pines, and past numerous villages along the lake shore. The Nakasendo branches off to the left at the village of Kusa-tsu, celebrated for the manufacture of riding-whips. Through Ishibe and beyond, to where it crosses the Yokota-gawa, the Tokaido continues level and good. Near the crossing of this stream is a curious stone monument, displaying the carved figures of three monkeys covering up their eyes, mouth, and ears, to indicate that they will "neither see, hear, nor say any evil thing." All through here the country is devoted chiefly to growing tea; very pretty the undulating ridges and rolling slopes of the broken foot-hills look, set out in thick, bushy, well-defined rows and clumps of dark, shiny tea-plants. Down a very steep declivity, by sharp zigzags, the Tokaido suddenly dips into the little valley of the Yasose-gawa. At the foot of the hill is a curious shrine cave, containing several rude idols, a trough with tame goldfish, and one of the crudest Buddhas I ever saw. The aim of the ambitious sculptor of Buddhas is to produce a personification of "great tranquillity." The figure in the Valley of Yasose-gawa is certainly something of a masterpiece in this direction; nothing could well be more tranquil than an oblong bowlder with the faintest chiselling of a mouth and nose, poised on the top of an upright slab of stone rudely chipped into a dim semblance of the human form. A mile or two farther and my day's ride of forty-six miles terminates at the village of Saka-no-shita. A comfortable yadoya awaits me here, no better nor worse, however, than almost every Jap village affords; but on the Tokaido the innkeepers are more accustomed to European guests than they are south of Kobe. Every summer many European and American tourists journey between Yokohama and Kobe by jinrikisha. At this yadoya I first become acquainted with that peculiar institution of Japan, the blind shampooer. Seated in my little room, my attention is attracted by a man who approaches on hands and knees, and butts his shaven pate accidentally against the corner of the open panel that forms my door. He halts at the entrance and indulges in the pantomime of pinching and kneading his person; his mission is to find out whether I desire his services. For a small gratuity the blind shampooer of Japan will rub, knead, and press one into a pleasant sensation from head to foot. This office is relegated to sightless individuals or ugly old women; many Japs indulge in their services after a warm bath, finding the treatment very pleasant and beneficial, so they say. One of the most amusing illustrations of Jap imitativeness is displayed in the number of American clocks one sees adorning the walls of the yadoyas in nearly every village. The amusing feature of the thing is that the owners of these time-pieces seem to have the vaguest ideas of what they are for. One clock on the wall of my yadoya indicates eleven o'clock, another half-past nine, and a third seven-fifteen as I pull out in the morning. Other clocks through the village street vary in similar degree. Watching out for these widely varying clocks as I wheel through the villages has come to be one of the diversions of the day's ride. The road averages good, although somewhat hilly in places, from Saka-no through lovely valleys and pine-clad mountains to Yokka-ichi. Yokka-ichi is a small seaport, whence most travellers along the Tokaido take passage to Miya in the steam passenger launches plying between these points. The kuruma road, however, continues good to the Ku-wana, ten miles farther, whence, to Miya, one has to traverse narrower paths through a flat section of rice-fields, dikes, canals, and sloughs. A ri beyond Okabe and the pass of Utsunoya necessitates a mile or two of trundling. Here occurs a tunnel some six hundred feet in length and twelve wide; a glimmer of sunshine or daylight is cast into the tunnel by a system of simple reflectors at either entrance. These are merely glass mirrors, set at an angle to reflect the rays of light into the tunnel. Descending this little pass the Tokaido traverses a level rice-field plain, crosses the Abe-kawa, and approaches the sea-coast at Shidzuoka, a city of thirty thousand inhabitants. The view of Fuji, now but a short distance ahead, is extremely beautiful; the smooth road sweeps around the gravelly beach, almost licked by the waves. The breakers approach and recede, keeping time to the inimitable music of the surf; vessels are dotting the blue expanse; villages and tea-houses are seen resting along the crescent-sweep of the shore for many a mile ahead, where Fuji slopes so gracefully down from its majestic snow-crowned summit to the sea. It is indeed a glorious ride around the crescent bay, through the sea-shore villages of Okitsu, Yui, Kambara, and Iwabuchi to Yoshiwara, a little town on the footstool of the big, gracefully sweeping cone. The stretch of shore hereabout is celebrated in Japanese poetry as Taga-no-ura, from the peculiarly beautiful view of Fuji obtained from it. This remarkable mountain is the highest in Japan, and is probably the finest specimen of a conical mountain in existence. Native legends surround it with a halo of romance. Its origin is reputed to be simultaneous with the formation of Biwa Lake, near Kioto, both mountain and lake being formed in a single night--one rising from the plain twelve thousand eight hundred feet, the other sinking till its bed reached the level of the sea. The summit of Fuji is a place of pilgrimage for Japanese ascetics who are desirous of attaining "perfect peace" by imitating Shitta-Tai-shi, the Japanese Buddha, who climbed to the summit of a mountain in search of nirvana (calm). Orthodox Japs believe that the grains of sand brought down on the sandals of the pilgrims ascend to the summit again of their own accord during the night. Tradition is furthermore responsible for the belief that snow disappears entirely from the mountain for a few hours on the fifteenth day of the sixth moon, and begins to fall again during the following night. Formerly an active volcano, Fuji even now emits steam from sundry crevices near the summit, and will some day probably fill the good people at Yoshiwara and adjacent villages with a lively sense of its power. Fuji is the special pride of the Japs, its loveliness appealing strongly to the national sense of landscape beauty. Of it their poet sings: "Great Fusiyama, tow'ring to the sky. A treasure art thou, giv'n to mortal man, A god-protector watching o'er Japan: On thee forever let me feast mine eye." Fuji is passed and left behind, and sixteen miles reeled off from Yoshiwara, when Mishima, my destination for the night, is reached. A festival in honor of Oyama-tsumi-no-Kami, the god of "mountains in general," is being held here; for, behold, to-day is November 15th, the "middle day of the bird," one of the several festivals held in his honor every year. The big temple grounds are swarming with people, and pedlers, stalls, jugglers, and all sorts of attractions give the place the appearance of a country fair. Leaving the bicycle outside, I wander in and stroll about among the crowds. Sacred ponds on either side of the footway are swarming with sacred fish. An ancient dame is doing a roaring trade, in a small way, in feathery bread-puffs, which the people buy and throw to the fish, for the fun of seeing them swarm around and eat. Interested groups are gathered around veritable fac-similes of the Yankee "street-men," selling to credulous villagers little boxes of powder for "coating things with silver." Others are selling song-books, attracting customers by the novel and interesting performances of a quartette of pretty girls, who sing song after song in succession. Here also are little travelling peep-shows, containing photographic scenes of famous temples and places in distant parts of the country. Among the various shrines in this temple is one dedicated to an ancient wood-cutter, who used to work and spend his wages on drink for his aged father, who was now too old to earn money for the purpose himself. At his father's demise the son was rewarded for his filial devotion by the discovery of a "cascade of pure sake." A gayly decorated car and a closed tumbril, that looks very much like an old ammunition-wagon, have been wheeled out of their enclosures for the occasion. Strings of little bells are suspended on these; mothers hold their little ones up and allow them to strike these bells, toss a coin into the contribution-box, and pass on. The vehicles probably contain relics of the gods. A wooden horse, painted red, stands in solemn and lonely state behind the wooden bars of his stall--but I have almost registered a vow against temples and their belongings, in Japan, so inexplicable are most of the things to be seen. A person who has delved into the mysteries of Japanese mythology would no doubt derive much satisfaction from a visit to the Oyama-tsumi-uo-Kami temple, but the average reader would weary of it all after seeing others. What to ordinary mortals signify such hideous mythological monsters as saru-tora-hebi (monkey-tiger-serpent), or the "Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety" on the architrave. Yet, of such as these is the ornamentation of all Japanese temples. Some few there are that are admirable as works of art, but most of them are hideous daubs and representations more than passing rude. Down the street near my yadoya, within a boarded enclosure, a dozen wrestlers are giving an entertainment for a crowd of people who have paid two sen apiece entrance-fee. The wrestlers of Japan form a distinct class or caste, separated from the ordinary society of the country by long custom, that prejudices them against marrying other than the daughter of one of their own profession. As the biggest and more muscular men have always been numbered in the ranks of the wrestlers, the result of this exclusiveness and non-admixture with physical inferiors is a class of people as distinct from their fellows as if of another race. The Japanese wrestler stands head and shoulders above the average of his countrymen, and weighs half as much more. As a class they form an interesting illustration of what might be accomplished in the physical improvement of mankind by certain Malthusian schemes that have been at times advocated. Within a twelve-foot arena the sturdy athletes struggle for the mastery, bringing to bear all their strength and skill. No "hippodroming" here: stripped to the skin, the muscles on their brown bodies standing out in irregular knots, they fling one another about in the liveliest manner. The master of ceremonies, stiff and important, in a faultless gray garment bearing a samurai crest, stands by and wields the fiddle-shaped lacquered insignia of his high office, and utter his orders and decisions in an authoritative voice. The wrestlers squat around the ring and shiver, for the evening is cold, until called out by the master of ceremonies. The two selected take a small handful of salt from baskets of that ingredient suspended on posts, and fling toward each other. They then advance into the arena, and furthermore challenge and defy their opponent by stamping their bare feet on the ground, in a manner to display their superior muscularity. Another order from the gentleman wielding the fiddle-shaped insignia, and they rush violently together, engage in a "catch-as-catch-can" scuffle, which, in less than half a minute usually, results in a decisive victory for one or the other. The master of ceremonies waves them out of the ring, straightens himself up, assumes a very haughty expression, until he looks like the very important personage he feels himself to be, and announces the name of the victor to the spectators. The one portion of the Tokaido impassable with a wheel commences at Mishima, the famous Hakone Pass, which for sixteen miles offers a steep surface of rough bowlder-paved paths. Coolies at Mishima make their livelihood by carrying goods and passengers over the pass on kagoa (the Japanese palanquin). Obtaining a couple of men to carry the bicycle, the chilly weather proves an inducement for following them afoot, rather than occupy a kago myself. The block road is broad enough for a wagon, being constructed, no doubt, with a view to military transport service. The long steep slopes are literally carpeted in places with the worn-out straw shoes of men and horses. The country observed from the elevation of the Hakone Pass is extremely beautiful, the white-tipped cone of the magnificent Fuji towering over all, like a presiding genius. Near the hamlet of Yamanaka is a famous point, called Fuji-mi-taira (terrace for looking at Fuji). Big cryptomerias shade the broad stony path along much of its southern slope to Hakone village and lake. Hakone is a very lovely and interesting region, nowadays a favorite summer resort of the European residents of Tokio and Yokohama. From the latter place Hakone Lake is but about fifty miles distant, and by jinrikisha and kago may be reached in one day. The lake is a most charming little body of water, a regular mountain-gem, reflecting in its clear, crystal depths the pine-clad slopes that encompass it round about, as though its surface were a mirror. Japanese mythology peopled the region round with supernatural beings in the early days of the country's history, when all about were impenetrable thickets and pathless woods. Until the revolution of 1868, when all these old feudal customs were ruthlessly swept away, the Tokaido here was obstructed with one of the "barriers," past which nobody might go without a passport. These barriers were established on the boundaries of feudal territories, usually at points where the traveller had no alternate route to choose. A magnificent avenue of cryptomeria shades the Tokaido for a short distance out of Hakone village; on the left is passed a large government sanitarium, one of those splendid modern-looking structures that speak so eloquently of the present Mikado's progressive and enlightened policy. The road then turns up the steep mountain-slopes, fringed with impenetrable thickets of bamboo. Fuji, from here, presents a grand and curious sight. The wind has risen, and the summit of the cone is almost hidden behind clouds of drifting snow, which at a distance might almost be mistaken for a steamy eruption of the volcano. Close by, too, the spirit of the wind moves through the bamboo-brakes, rubbing the myriad frost-dried flags together and causing a peculiar rustling noise--the whispering of the spirits of the mountains. The summit reached, the Tokaido now leads through glorious pine-woods, descending toward the valley of the Sakawagawa by a series of breakneck zigzags. The region is picturesque in the extreme; a small mountain-stream tumbles along through a deep ravine on the left, mountains tower aloft on the other side, and here and there give birth to a cataract that tumbles and splashes down from a height of several hundred feet. By 1 p.m. Yomoto and the recommencement of the jinrikisha road is reached; a broiled fish and a bottle of native beer are consumed for lunch, and the kago coolies dismissed. The road from Yomoto is a gradual descent, for four miles, to Odawara, a town of some thirteen thousand inhabitants, on the coast. The road now becomes level and broader than heretofore; vehicles drawn by horses mingle with the swarms of jinrikishas and pedestrians. Both horses and drivers of the former seem sleepy, woe-begone and careless, as though overcome with a consciousness of being out of place. Gangs of men are dragging stout hand-carts, loaded with material for the construction of the Tokaido railway, now rapidly being pushed forward. Every mile of the road is swarming with life--the strangely interesting life of Japan. Thirty miles from Yomoto, and Totsuka provides me a comfortable yadoya, where the people quickly show their knowledge of the foreigner's requirements by cooking a beefsteak with onions, also in the morning by charging the first really exorbitant price I have been confronted with along the Tokaido. Totsuka is within the treaty limits of Yokohama. A mile or so toward Yokohama I pass, in the morning, the "White Horse Tavern," kept in European style as a sort of road-house for foreigners driving out from that city or Tokio. A fierce wind, blowing from the south, fairly wafts me along the last eleven miles of the Tokaido, from Totsuka to Yokohama. The wind, indeed, has been generally favorable since the rain-storm at Okabe, but it fairly whistles this morning. It calls to mind the Kansas wheelman, who claimed to have once spread his coat-tails to the breeze and coasted from Lawrence to Kansas City in three hours. Unfortunately I am wearing a coat the pattern of which does not admit of using the tails for sails otherwise the homestretch of the tour around the world might have provided one of the most unique incidents of the many I have encountered on the journey. A battery of field-artillery, the smartest seen since leaving Germany, is encountered in the streets of Kanagawa, at which point the road to Yokohama branches off from the Tokaido. The great Imperial highway, along which I have travelled from the old capital almost to the new, continues on to the latter, seventeen miles farther. Since the completion of the railway between Tokio and Kanagawa, travellers journeying from the capital down the Tokaido usually ride on the train to Kanagawa, so that the jinrikisha journey proper nowadays commences at the latter city. Kanagawa is practically a suburban part of Yokohama: one Japanese-owned clock observed here points to the hour of eight, another to eleven, and a third to half past-nine, but the clock at the Club Hotel, on the Yokohama bund, is owned by an Englishman, and is just about striking ten, when the last vault from the saddle of the bicycle that has carried me through so many countries is made. And so the bicycle part of the tour around the world, which was begun April 22, 1884, at San Francisco, California, ends December 17, 1886, at Yokohama. At this port I board the Pacific mail steamer City of Peking, which in seventeen days lands me in San Francisco. Of the enthusiastic reception accorded me by the San Francisco Bicycle Club, the Bay City Wheelmen, and by various clubs throughout the United States, the daily press of the time contains ample record. Here, I beg leave to hope that the courtesies then so warmly extended may find an echoing response in this long record of the adventures that had their beginning and ending at the Golden Gate. ITINERARY: GIVING THE NAME AND DATE OF EACH SLEEPING-POINT ON THE BICYCLE TOUR AROUND THE WORLD. VOLUME I. UNITED STATES. CALIFORNIA. 1884 April 23 San Francisco 23 House in the tuiles 24 Elmira 25 Sacramento 26 Near Rocklin 27-28 Clipper Gap 29 Blue Canon 30 Summit House NEVADA. May 1 Verdi 2 Ranch on Truckee River 3 Hot Springs 4 Lovelocks 5 Mill City 6 Winnemucca 7 Stone House 8 Ranch on Humboldt 9 Palisade 10 Carlin 11 Halleck 12 C P Section House UTAH. 13 Tacoma 14 Matlin 15 Salt House 16 Near Corrinne 17 Willard City 18 Ogden 19 Echo City 20 Castle Rocks WYOMING TERRITORY. May 21 Evanston 22 Hilliard 23 In abandoned freight wagon 24 Carter Station 25 Near Granger 26 Rocks Springs 27 Ranch 28-29 Rawlins 30 Carbon 31 Lookout June 1-2 Laramie City 3 Cheyenne NEBRASKA. 4 Pine Bluffs 5 Potter Station 6 Lodge Pole 7 Ranch on Platte 8 Ogallala 9 In a "dug-out" 10 Brady Island 11 Plum Creek 12 Kearney Junction 13 Grand Island 14 Duncan 15 North Bend 16 Fremont 17-18 Omaha IOWA. 19 Farm near Nishnebotene 20 Farm near Griswold June 21 Farm near Menlo 22 Farm near De Soto 23 Altoona 24 Kellogg 25 Victor 26 Tiffin 27 MOSCOW-ILLINOIS. 28 Rock Island 29 Atkinson 30 La Moile July 1 Yorkville 2 Naperville 3 Lyons 4-11 Chicago INDIANA. 12 Miller Station 13 Beneath a wheat shock 14 Goshen 15 Farm OHIO. 10 Ridgeville 17 Empire House 18 Bellevue 19 Village near Cleveland 20 Madison PENNSYLVANIA. 21 Roadside Hotel near Erie NEW YORK. 22 Angola 23 Buffalo 24 Leroy 25 Farm near Canandaigua 26 Marcellns 27 East Syracuse 28 Erie Canal Inn 29 Indian Castle 80 Crane's Village 31 Westfalls Inn MASSACHUSETTS. Aug. 1 Otis 2 Palmer 3 Worcester 4 Boston EUROPE. ENGLAND. 1885 Liverpool May 2 Warrington 3 Stone 4 Coventry 5 Fenny Stratford 6 Great Berkhamstead 7-8 London 9 Croydon 10 British Channel Steamer FRANCE Via Dieppe 11 Elbeuf 12 Mantes 13-15 Paris 16 Sezanne 17 Bar le Duo 18 Trouville 19 Nancy GERMANY. 20 Phalzburg Via Strasburg 21 Oberkirch 22 Rottenburg 23 Blauburen 24 Augsburg 25-26 Munich 27 Alt Otting AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 28 Hoag 29 Strenberg 80 Neu Lengbach 31 Vienna June 1-3 4 Altenburg 5 Neszmely 6-7 Budapest 8 Duna Pentele 9 Szegszard 10 Duna Szekeso 11-12 Eszek 13 Sarengrad 14 Neusatz 15 Batauitz SERVIA, BULGARIA, AND TURKEY. 16-17 Belgrade 18 Jagodina 19 Nisch June 20-31 Bela Palanka 22 Sofia 23 Ichtiman 24 Near Tartar Bazardjic 25 Cauheme 26 Near Adrianople 27-28 Eski Baba 29 Small Village 30 Tchorlu July 1 Camped out 2 Constantinople 6,000 miles wheeled from San Francisco. ASIA. ASIA MINOR. Aug. 10 Ismidt 11 Geiveh 12 Terekli 13 Beyond Torbali 14 Nalikhan 15 Bey Bazaar 16-17 Angora 18 Village 19 Camped out 20 Koordish Camp 21 Yuzgat 22 Camped out 23 Village 24-25 Sivas 26 Zara Mar. 27 Armenian Village 28 Camp in a cave 29 Merriserriff 30 Erzingan 31 Houssenbeg Khan Sept. 1 Village in Euphrates Valley 2-6 Erzeroum 7 Hassan Kaleh 8 Dela Baba 9 Malosman 10 Sup Ogwanis Monastery PERSIA. 11 Ovahjik 12 Koodish Camp 13 Peri 14 Khoi 15 Village near Lake Ooroomiah 16 Village near Tabreez 17-20 Tabreez 21 Hadji Agha 22 Turcomanchai 23 Miana 24 Koordish Camp 25-26 Zendjan 27 Heeya 28 Kasveen 29 Yeng Imam 30 Teheran VOLUME II. 1886 Mar. 10 Katoum-abad 11 Aivan-i-Kaif 12 Aradan 13-14-15 Lasgird 16 Semnoon 17 Gusheh 18 Deh Mollah 19-20 Shahrood 21 Mijamid 22 Miandasht 23-24 Mazinan 25 Subzowar 26 Wayside caravanserai 27 Shiirab 28 Gadamgah Mar. 29 Wayside caravanserai 30-Ap. 6 Meshed April 7 Shahriffabad 8 Caravanserai 9 Torbet-i-Haidorai 10 Camp on Gounabad Desert 11 Kakh 12 Nukhab 13 Small hamlet 14 Beerjand 15 Ali-abad 16 Darmian 17 Tabbas 18 Huts on desert edge AFGHANISTAN. April 19 Camp on Desert of Despair 20 Nomad camp 31 Village ou Harud 22 Ghalakua 23 Nomad camp 24-25 Furrali (arrested by Afghans) 26 Nomad camp 27 Subzowar 28 Nomad camp 29 Camp out 30-May 9 Herat May 10 Village 11 Roadside umbar 12 Camp in Heri-rood jungle PERSIA. 13 Karize (released by Afghans) 14 Nomad camp 15 Furriman 16-18 Meshed 19 Caravanserai 20 Near Nishapoor 21 Lafaram 22 Wayside umbar 23 Mazinan 24 Near caravanserai 25 Camp out 26-27 Shahrood 28 Camp out 29 Asterabad 30 Bunder Guz Russian steamer to Baku; rail to Batoum; steamer to Constantinople and India. Renewed bicycle tour: INDIA. August Lahore 1 Amritza 2 Beas River 8 Jullunder 4 Police chowkee 5-6 Umballa 7 Peepli 8 Paniput 9 Police chowkee 10-14 Delhi 15 Dak bungalow 16 Bungalow 17 Muttra Aug. 18-19 Agra 20 Mainipoor 21 Miran-serai 22-26 Cawnpore 27 Caravanserai 28 Caravanserai 29-30 Allahabad 31 Roadside hut Sept. 1-2 Benares 3 Mogul-serai 4 Caravanserai 5 Dilli 6 Shergotti 7 D`ak bungalow 8 D`ak bungalow 9 Burwah 10 Ranuegunj 11 Burdwan 12 Hooghli 13-17 Calcutta Steamer to Canton CHINA. Oct. 7-12 Canton 13 Chun-kong-hi 14 Low-pow 15 Chin-ynen 16 Bamboo thicket 17-20 Aboard sampan 21 Schou-chou-foo 22 Small village 23 Do. 24 Nam-hung 25-28 Nam-ngan 29 Aboard sampan 30 Large village 31 Large village near Kan-tchou-i'oo Nov. 1 Small mountain hamlet 2 Walled garrison city 3 Ta-ho 4 Ki-ngan foo (under arrest) 5-15 Under arrest on sampan 16 Inn near Kui-Kiang 17 Yangtsi-Kiang steamer 18 Shanghai 19-20 Japanese steamer JAPAN. 21-22 Nagasaki 23 Omura Nov. 24 Ushidza 25-26 Futshishi 27 Hakama 28 Shemonoseki 29 Village 30 Do. Dec. 1 A small fishing hamlet 2 Do. 3 Do. 4-5 Okoyama Dec. 6 Himeji 7-8 Kobe 9 Ozaka 10 Kioto 11 Saka-no-shita 12 Miya 13 Hamamatsu 14 Roadside inn 15 Mishima 16 Totsuka 17 Yokohama DISTANCE ACTUALLY WHEELED, ABOUT 13,500 MILES. 
5136	----	Around the World on a Bicycle Volume I. From San Francisco to Teheran By Thomas Stevens Ray Schumacher gutenberg@rjs.org http://rjs.org Scanner's Notes: This was scanned from an original edition, copyright 1887, 547 pages. It is as close as I could come in ASCII to the printed text. Scanning time: 15 hours OCR time: 20+ hours Proof #1: 25 hours Proof #2: ? (A slow reading by a friend) The numerous italics have been unfortunately omitted, and the conjoined '‘' have been changed to 'ae'; as well as others, similarly. I have left the spelling, punctuation, capitalization as close as possible to the printed text, including that of titles and headings. The issue of end-of-line hyphenation was difficult, as normal usage in the 1880's often hyphenated words which have since been concatenated. Stevens also used phonetic spelling and italics for much of the unfamiliar language or dialects that he heard; a great deal of foreign words and phrases are also included and always italicized. A word which might seem mis-spelled, such as 'yaort', was originally in italics and was the 1886 spelling of 'yogurt'. Many of the names of places and peoples have long since changed and so are no longer easily referenced. The book is written in the common English of a San Francisco journalist of the era and so is filled with contemporaneous idioms and prejudices, as well as his own wry wit. One of the more unfortunate issues is the omission of the over 100 illustrations of the original edition. I also elected to omit the informative captions. I hope to make an HTML edition available at http://rjs.org/gutenberg/ which will include them. If you find any scanning errors, out and out typos, punctuation errors, or if you disagree with my formatting choices please feel free to email me those errors: gutenburg@rjs.org The space between the double quotes and the quoted text is sometimes omitted, usually included. This is an artifact of the OCR program interpreting the small space in the original print, and if someone wants to remove the space from all of the quotes, I would be glad to see it. I have written a wxPython program to assist in converting raw OCR text to the project's formatting, as well as general punctuation and spelling. http://rjs.org/gutenberg/OCR2Gutenberg/ Code contributions/modifications are most welcome; it is a bit of a hack, but it reduced the proof time needed by more than what it took to write 778 lines of code. Ray Schumacher ****************************************************************************** CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE OVER THE SIERRAS NEVADAS, . . . . . 1 CHAPTER II. OVER THE DESERTS OF NEVADA, . . . . 21 CHAPTER III. THROUGH MORMON-LAND AND OVER THE ROCKIES, . . 46 CHAPTER IV. FROM THE GREAT PLAINS TO THE ATLANTIC, . . 70 CHAPTER V. FROM AMERICA TO THE GERMAN FRONTIER, . . . 91 CHAPTER VI. GERMANY, AUSTRIA, AND HUNGARY, . . . . 121 CHAPTER VII. THROUGH SLAVONIA AND SERVIA, . . . . 153 CHAPTER VIII. BULGARIA, ROUMELIA, AND INTO TURKEY, . . . 184 PREFACE. Shakespeare says, in All's Well that Ends Well, that "a good traveller is something at the latter end of a dinner;" and I never was more struck with the truth of this than when I heard Mr. Thomas Stevens, after the dinner given in his honor by the Massachusetts Bicycle Club, make a brief, off-hand report of his adventures. He seemed like Jules Verne, telling his own wonderful performances, or like a contemporary Sinbad the Sailor. We found that modern mechanical invention, instead of disenchanting the universe, had really afforded the means of exploring its marvels the more surely. Instead of going round the world with a rifle, for the purpose of killing something, - or with a bundle of tracts, in order to convert somebody, - this bold youth simply went round the globe to see the people who were on it; and since he always had something to show them as interesting as anything that they could show him, he made his way among all nations. What he had to show them was not merely a man perched on a lofty wheel, as if riding on a soap-bubble; but he was also a perpetual object-lesson in what Holmes calls "genuine, solid old Teutonic pluck." When the soldier rides into danger he has comrades by his side, his country's cause to defend, his uniform to vindicate, and the bugle to cheer him on; but this solitary rider had neither military station, nor an oath of allegiance, nor comrades, nor bugle; and he went among men of unknown languages, alien habits and hostile faith with only his own tact and courage to help him through. They proved sufficient, for he returned alive. I have only read specimen chapters of this book, but find in them the same simple and manly quality which attracted us all when Mr. Stevens told his story in person. It is pleasant to know that while peace reigns in America, a young man can always find an opportunity to take his life in his hand and originate some exploit as good as those of the much-wandering Ulysses. In the German story "Titan," Jean Paul describes a manly youth who "longed for an adventure for his idle bravery;" and it is pleasant to read the narrative of one who has quietly gone to work, in an honest way, to satisfy this longing. THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. CAMBRIDGE, MASS., April 10, 1887. FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO TEHERAN. CHAPTER I. OVER THE SIERRAS NEVADAS. The beauties of nature are scattered with a more lavish hand across the country lying between the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the shores where the surf romps and rolls over the auriferous sands of the Pacific, in Golden Gate Park, than in a journey of the same length in any other part of the world. Such, at least, is the verdict of many whose fortune it has been to traverse that favored stretch of country. Nothing but the limited power of man's eyes prevents him from standing on the top of the mountains and surveying, at a glance, the whole glorious panorama that stretches away for more than two hundred miles to the west, terminating in the gleaming waters of the Pacific Ocean. Could he do this, he would behold, for the first seventy-five or eighty miles, a vast, billowy sea of foot-hills, clothed with forests of sombre pine and bright, evergreen oaks; and, lower down, dense patches of white-blossomed chaparral, looking in the enchanted distance like irregular banks of snow. Then the world-renowned valley of the Sacramento River, with its level plains of dark, rich soil, its matchless fields of ripening grain, traversed here and there by streams that, emerging from the shadowy depths of the foot-hills, wind their way, like gleaming threads of silver, across the fertile plain and join the Sacramento, which receives them, one and all, in her matronly bosom and hurries with them øn to the sea. Towns and villages, with white church-spires, irregularly sprinkled over hill and vale, although sown like seeds from the giant hand of a mighty husbandman, would be seen nestling snugly amid groves of waving shade and semi-tropical fruit trees. Beyond all this the lower coast-range, where, toward San Francisco, Mount Diablo and Mount Tamalpais - grim sentinels of the Golden Gate - rear their shaggy heads skyward, and seem to look down with a patronizing air upon the less pretentious hills that border the coast and reflect their shadows in the blue water of San Francisco Bay. Upon the sloping sides of these hills sweet, nutritious grasses grow, upon which peacefully graze the cows that supply San Francisco with milk and butter. Various attempts have been made from time to time, by ambitious cyclers, to wheel across America from ocean to ocean; but - "Around the World!" "The impracticable scheme of a visionary," was the most charitable verdict one could reasonably have expected. The first essential element of success, however, is to have sufficient confidence in one's self to brave the criticisms - to say nothing of the witticisms - of a sceptical public. So eight o'clock on the morning of April 22, 1884, finds me and my fifty-inch machine on the deck of the Alameda, one of the splendid ferry-boats plying between San Francisco and Oakland, and a ride of four miles over the sparkling waters of the bay lands us, twenty-eight minutes later, on the Oakland pier, that juts far enough out to allow the big ferries to enter the slip in deep water. On the beauties of San Francisco Bay it is, perhaps, needless to dwell, as everybody has heard or read of this magnificent sheet of water, its surface flecked with snowy sails, and surrounded by a beautiful framework of evergreen hills; its only outlet to the ocean the famous Golden Gate - a narrow channel through which come and go the ships of all nations. With the hearty well-wishing of a small group of Oakland and 'Frisco cyclers who have come, out of curiosity, to see the start, I mount and ride away to the east, down San Pablo Avenue, toward the village of the same Spanish name, some sixteen miles distant. The first seven miles are a sort of half-macadamized road, and I bowl briskly along. The past winter has been the rainiest since 1857, and the continuous pelting rains had not beaten down upon the last half of this imperfect macadam in vain; for it has left it a surface of wave-like undulations, from out of which the frequent bowlder protrudes its unwelcome head, as if ambitiously striving to soar above its lowly surroundings. But this one don't mind, and I am perfectly willing to put up with the bowlders for the sake of the undulations. The sensation of riding a small boat over "the gently-heaving waves of the murmuring sea" is, I think, one of the pleasures of life; and the next thing to it is riding a bicycle over the last three miles of the San Pablo Avenue macadam as I found it on that April morning. The wave-like macadam abruptly terminates, and I find myself on a common dirt road. It is a fair road, however, and I have plenty of time to look about and admire whatever bits of scenery happen to come in view. There are few spots in the "Golden State" from which views of more or less beauty are not to be obtained; and ere I am a baker's dozen of miles from Oakland pier I find myself within an ace of taking an undesirable header into a ditch of water by the road-side, while looking upon a scene that for the moment completely wins me from my immediate surroundings. There is nothing particularly grand or imposing in the outlook here; but the late rains have clothed the whole smiling face of nature with a bright, refreshing green, that fails not to awaken a thrill of pleasure in the breast of one fresh from the verdureless streets of a large sea- port city. Broad fields of pale-green, thrifty-looking young wheat, and darker-hued meads, stretch away on either side of the road; and away beyond to the left, through an opening in the hills, can be seen, as through a window, the placid waters of the bay, over whose glittering, sunlit surface white-winged, aristocratic yachts and the plebeian smacks of Greek and Italian fishermen swiftly glide, and fairly vie with each other in giving the finishing touches to a picture. So far, the road continues level and fairly good; and, notwithstanding the seductive pleasures of the ride over the bounding billows of the gently heaving macadam, the dalliance with the scenery, and the all too frequent dismounts in deference to the objections of phantom-eyed roadsters, I pulled up at San Pablo at ten o'clock, having covered the sixteen miles in one hour and thirty-two minutes; though, of course, there is nothing speedy about this - to which desirable qualification, indeed, I lay no claim. Soon after leaving San Pablo the country gets somewhat "choppy," and the road a succession of short-hills, at the bottom of which modest-looking mud-holes patiently await an opportunity to make one's acquaintance, or scraggy-looking, latitudinous washouts are awaiting their chance to commit a murder, or to make the unwary cycler who should venture to "coast," think he had wheeled over the tail of an earthquake. One never minds a hilly road where one can reach the bottom with an impetus that sends him spinning half-way up the next; but where mud-holes or washouts resolutely "hold the fort" in every depression, it is different, and the progress of the cycler is necessarily slow. I have set upon reaching Suisun, a point fifty miles along the Central Pacific Railway, to-night; but the roads after leaving San Pablo are anything but good, and the day is warm, so six P.M. finds me trudging along an unridable piece of road through the low tuile swamps that border Suisun Bay. "Tuile" is the name given to a species of tall rank grass, or rather rush, that grows to the height of eight or ten feet, and so thick in places that it is difficult to pass through, in the low, swampy grounds in this part of California. These tuile swamps are traversed by a net-work of small, sluggish streams and sloughs, that fairly swarm with wild ducks and geese, and justly entitle them to their local title of "the duck-hunters' paradise." Ere I am through this swamp, the shades of night gather ominously around and settle down like a pall over the half-flooded flats; the road is full of mud-holes and pools of water, through which it is difficult to navigate, and I am in something of a quandary. I am sweeping along at the irresistible velocity of a mile an hour, and wondering how far it is to the other end of the swampy road, when thrice welcome succor appears from a strange and altogether unexpected source. I had noticed a small fire, twinkling through the darkness away off in the swamp; and now the wind rises and the flames of the small fire spread to the thick patches of dead tuile. In a short time the whole country, including my road, is lit up by the fierce glare of the blaze; so that I am enabled to proceed with little trouble. These tuiles often catch on fire in the fall and early winter, when everything is comparatively dry, and fairly rival the prairie fires of the Western plains in the fierceness of the flames. The next morning I start off in a drizzling rain, and, after going sixteen miles, I have to remain for the day at Elmira. Here, among other items of interest, I learn that twenty miles farther ahead the Sacramento River is flooding the country, and the only way I can hope to get through is to take to the Central Pacific track and cross over the six miles of open trestle-work that spans the Sacramento River and its broad bottom-lands, that are subject to the annual spring overflow. From Elmira my way leads through a fruit and farming country that is called second to none in the world. Magnificent farms line the road; at short intervals appear large well-kept vineyards, in which gangs of Chinese coolies are hoeing and pulling weeds, and otherwise keeping trim. A profusion of peach, pear, and almond orchards enlivens the landscape with a wealth of pink and white blossoms, and fills the balmy spring air with a subtle, sensuous perfume that savors of a tropical clime. Already I realize that there is going to be as much "foot-riding" as anything for the first part of my journey; so, while halting for dinner at the village of Davisville, I deliver my rather slight shoes over to the tender mercies of an Irish cobbler of the old school, with carte blanche instructions to fit them out for hard service. While diligently hammering away at the shoes, the old cobbler grows communicative, and in almost unintelligible brogue tells a complicated tale of Irish life, out of which I can make neither head, tail, nor tale; though nodding and assenting to it all, to the great satisfaction of the loquacious manipulator of the last, who in an hour hands over the shoes with the proud assertion, "They'll last yez, be jabbers, to Omaha." Reaching the overflowed country, I have to take to the trestle-work and begin the tedious process of trundling along that aggravating roadway, where, to the music of rushing waters, I have to step from tie to tie, and bump, bump, bump, my machine along for six weary miles. The Sacramento River is the outlet for the tremendous volumes of water caused every spring by the melting snows on the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and these long stretches of open trestle have been found necessary to allow the water to pass beneath. Nothing but trains are expected to cross this trestle-work, and of course no provision is made for pedestrians. The engineer of an approaching train sets his locomotive to tooting for all she is worth as he sees a "strayed or stolen" cycler, slowly bumping along ahead of his train. But he has no need to slow up, for occasional cross-beams stick out far enough to admit of standing out of reach, and when he comes up alongside, he and the fireman look out of the window of the cab and see me squatting on the end of one of these handy beams, and letting the bicycle hang over. That night I stay in Sacramento, the beautiful capital of the Golden State, whose well-shaded streets and blooming, almost tropical gardens combine to form a city of quiet, dignified beauty, of which Californians feel justly proud. Three and a half miles east of Sacramento, the high trestle bridge spanning the main stream of the American River has to be crossed, and from this bridge is obtained a remarkably fine view of the snow-capped Sierras, the great barrier that separates the fertile valleys and glorious climate of California, from the bleak and barren sage-brush plains, rugged mountains, and forbidding wastes of sand and alkali, that, from the summit of the Sierras, stretch away to the eastward for over a thousand miles. The view from the American River bridge is grand and imposing, encompassing the whole foot-hill country, which rolls in broken, irregular billows of forest-crowned hill and charming vale, upward and onward to the east, gradually getting more rugged, rocky, and immense, the hills changing to mountains, the vales to ca¤ons, until they terminate in bald, hoary peaks whose white rugged pinnacles seem to penetrate the sky, and stand out in ghostly, shadowy outline against the azure depths of space beyond. After crossing the American River the character of the country changes, and I enjoy a ten-mile ride over a fair road, through one of those splendid sheep-ranches that are only found in California, and which have long challenged the admiration of the world. Sixty thousand acres, I am informed, is the extent of this pasture, all within one fence. The soft, velvety greensward is half-shaded by the wide-spreading branches of evergreen oaks that singly and in small groups are scattered at irregular intervals from one end of the pasture to the other, giving it the appearance of one of the old ancestral parks of England. As I bowl pleasantly along I involuntarily look about me, half expecting to see some grand, stately old mansion peeping from among some one of the splendid oak-groves; and when a jack-rabbit hops out and halts at twenty paces from my road, I half hesitate to fire at him, lest the noise of the report should bring out the vigilant and lynx-eyed game-keeper, and get me "summoned" for poaching. I remember the pleasant ten-mile ride through this park-like pasture as one of the brightest spots of the whole journey across America. But "every rose conceals a thorn," and pleasant paths often load astray; when I emerge from the pasture I find myself several miles off the right road and have to make my unhappy way across lots, through numberless gates and small ranches, to the road again. There seems to be quite a sprinkling of Spanish or Mexican rancheros through here, and after partaking of the welcome noon-tide hospitality of one of the ranches, I find myself, before I realize it, illustrating the bicycle and its uses, to a group of sombrero-decked rancheros and darked-eyed se¤oritas, by riding the machine round and round on their own ranch-lawn. It is a novel position, to say the least; and often afterward, wending my solitary way across some dreary Nevada desert, with no company but my own uncanny shadow, sharply outlined on the white alkali by the glaring rays of the sun, my untrammelled thoughts would wander back to this scene, and I would grow "hot and cold by turns," in my uncertainty as to whether the bewitching smiles of the se¤oritas were smiles of admiration, or whether they were simply "grinning" at the figure I cut. While not conscious of having cut a sorrier figure than usual on that occasion, somehow I cannot rid myself of an unhappy, ban- owing suspicion, that the latter comes nearer the truth than the former. The ground is gradually getting more broken; huge rocks intrude themselves upon the landscape. At the town of Rocklin we are supposed to enter the foot-hill country proper. Much of the road in these lower foot-hills is excellent, being of a hard, stony character, and proof against the winter rains. Everybody who writes anything about the Golden State is expected to say something complimentary - or otherwise, as his experience may seem to dictate - about the "glorious climate of California;" or else render an account of himself for the slight, should he ever return, which he is very liable to do. For, no matter what he may say about it, the "glorious climate" generally manages to make one, ever after, somewhat dissatisfied with the extremes of heat and cold met with in less genial regions. This fact of having to pay my measure of tribute to the climate forces itself on my notice prominently here at Rocklin, because, in- directly, the "climate" was instrumental in bringing about a slight accident, which, in turn, brought about the - to me - serious calamity of sending me to bed without any supper. Rocklin is celebrated - and by certain bad people, ridiculed - all over this part of the foot-hills for the superabundance of its juvenile population. If one makes any inquisitive remarks about this fact, the Rocklinite addressed will either blush or grin, according to his temperament, and say, "It's the glorious climate." A bicycle is a decided novelty up here, and, of course, the multitudinous youth turn out in droves to see it. The bewildering swarms of these small mountaineers distract my attention and cause me to take a header that temporarily disables the machine. The result is, that, in order to reach the village where I wish to stay over night, I have to "foot it" over four miles of the best road I have found since leaving San Pablo, and lose my supper into the bargain, by procrastinating at the village smithy, so as to have my machine in trim, ready for an early start next morning. If the "glorious climate of California " is responsible for the exceedingly hopeful prospects of Rocklin's future census reports, and the said lively outlook, materialized, is responsible for my mishap, then plainly the said "G. C. of C." is the responsible element in the case. I hope this compliment to the climate will strike the Californians as about the correct thing; but, if it should happen to work the other way, I beg of them at once to pour out the vials of their wrath on the heads of the 'Frisco Bicycle Club, in order that their fury may be spent ere I again set foot on their auriferous soil. "What'll you do when you hit the snow?" is now a frequent question asked by the people hereabouts, who seem to be more conversant with affairs pertaining to the mountains than they are of what is going on in the valleys below. This remark, of course, has reference to the deep snow that, toward the summits of the mountains, covers the ground to the depth of ten feet on the level, and from that to almost any depth where it has drifted and accumulated. I have not started out on this greatest of all bicycle tours without looking into these difficulties, and I remind them that the long snow-sheds of the Central Pacific Railway make it possible for one to cross over, no matter how deep the snow may lie on the ground outside. Some speak cheerfully of the prospects for getting over, but many shake their heads ominously and say, "You'll never be able to make it through." Rougher and more hilly become the roads as we gradually penetrate farther and farther into the foot-hills. We are now in far-famed Placer County, and the evidences of the hardy gold diggers' work in pioneer days are all about us. In every gulch and ravine are to be seen broken and decaying sluice-boxes. Bare, whitish-looking patches of washed-out gravel show where a "claim " has been worked over and abandoned. In every direction are old water-ditches, heaps of gravel, and abandoned shafts - all telling, in language more eloquent than word or pen, of the palmy days of '49, and succeeding years; when, in these deep gulches, and on these yellow hills, thousands of bronzed, red-shirted miners dug and delved, and "rocked the cradle" for the precious yellow dust and nuggets. But all is now changed, and where were hundreds before, now only a few "old timers " roam the foot-hills, prospecting, and working over the old claims; but "dust," "nuggets," and "pockets " still form the burden of conversation in the village barroom or the cross-roads saloon. Now and then a "strike " is made by some lucky - or perhaps it turns out, unlucky - prospector. This for a few days kindles anew the slumbering spark of "gold fever" that lingers in the veins of the people here, ever ready to kindle into a flame at every bit of exciting news, in the way of a lucky "find" near home, or new gold-fields in some distant land. These occasions never fail to have their legitimate effect upon the business of the bar where the "old-timers" congregate to learn the news; and, between drinks, yarns of the good old days of '49 and '50, of "streaks of luck," of "big nuggets," and "wild times," are spun over and over again. Although the palmy days of the "diggin's" are no more, yet the finder of a "pocket" these days seems not a whit wiser than in the days when "pockets" more frequently rewarded the patient prospector than they do now; and at Newcastle - a station near the old-time mining camps of Ophir and Gold Hill - I hear of a man who lately struck a "pocket," out of which he dug forty thousand dollars; and forthwith proceeded to imitate his reckless predecessors by going down to 'Frisco and entering upon a career of protracted sprees and debauchery that cut short his earthly career in less than six months, and wafted his riotous spirit to where there are no more forty thousand dollar pockets, and no more 'Friscos in which to squander it. In this instance the "find" was clearly an unlucky one. Not quite so bad was the case of two others who, but a few days before my arrival, took out twelve hundred dollars; they simply, in the language of the gold fields "turned themselves loose," "made things hum," and "whooped 'em up" around the bar-room of their village for exactly three days; when, "dead broke," they took to the gulches again, to search for more. "Yer oughter hev happened through here with that instrumint of yourn about that time, young fellow; yer might hev kept as full as a tick till they war busted," remarked a slouchy-looking old fellow whose purple-tinted nose plainly indicated that he had devoted a good part of his existence to the business of getting himself "full as a tick" every time he ran across the chance. Quite a different picture is presented by an industrious old Mexican, whom I happen to see away down in the bottom of a deep ravine, along which swiftly hurries a tiny stream. He is diligently shovelling dirt into a rude sluice-box which he has constructed in the bed of the stream at a point where the water rushes swiftly down a declivity. Setting my bicycle up against a rock, I clamber down the steep bank to investigate. In tones that savor of anything but satisfaction with the result of his labor, he informs me that he has to work "most infernal hard" to pan out two dollars' worth of "dust" a day. "I have had to work over all that pile of gravel you see yonder to clean up seventeen dollars' worth of dust," further volunteered the old "greaser," as I picked up a spare shovel and helped him remove a couple of bowlders that he was trying to roll out of his war. I condole with him at the low grade of the gravel he is working, hope he may "strike it rich " one of these days, and take my departure. Up here I find it preferable to keep the railway track, alongside of which there are occasionally ridable side-paths; while on the wagon roads little or no riding can be done on account of the hills, and the sticky nature of the red, clayey soil. From the railway track near Newcastle is obtained a magnificent view of the lower country, traversed during the last three days, with the Sacramento River winding its way through its broad valley to the sea. Deep cuts and high embankments follow each other in succession, as the road-bed is now broken through a hill, now carried across a deep gulch, and anon winds around the next hill and over another ravine. Before reaching Auburn I pass through "Bloomer Cut," where perpendicular walls of bowlders loom up on both sides of the track looking as if the slightest touch or jar would unloose them and send them bounding and crashing on the top of the passing train as it glides along, or drop down on the stray cycler who might venture through. On the way past Auburn, and on up to Clipper Gap, the dry, yellow dirt under the overhanging rocks, and in the crevices, is so suggestive of " dust," that I take a small prospecting glass, which I have in my tool-bag, and do a little prospecting; without, however, finding sufficient "color" to induce me to abandon my journey and go to digging. Before reaching Clipper Gap it begins to rain; while I am taking dinner at that place it quits raining and begins to come down by buckets full, so that I have to lie over for the remainder of the day. The hills around Clipper Gap are gay and white with chaparral blossom, which gives the whole landscape a pleasant, gala-day appearance. It rains all the evening, and at night turns to heavy, damp snow, which clings to the trees and bushes. In the morning the landscape, which a few hours before was white with chaparral bloom, is now even more white with the bloom of the snow. My hostelry at Clipper Gap is a kind of half ranch, half roadside inn, down in a small valley near the railway; and mine host, a jovial Irish blade of the good old "Donnybrook Fair" variety, who came here in 1851, during the great rush to the gold fields, and, failing to make his fortune in the "diggings," wisely decided to send for his family and settle down quietly on a piece of land, in preference to returning to the "ould sod."He turns out to be a "bit av a sphort meself," and, after showing me a number of minor pets and favorites, such as game chickens, Brahma geese, and a litter of young bull pups, he proudly leads the way to the barn to show me "Barney," his greatest pet of all, whom he at present keeps securely tied up for safe-keeping. More than one evil-minded person has a hankering after Barney's gore since his last battle for the championship of Placer County, he explains, in which he inflicted severe punishment on his adversary and resolutely refused to give in; although his opponent on this important occasion was an imported dog, brought into the county by Barney's enemies, who hoped to fill their pockets by betting against the local champion. But Barney, who is a medium-sized, ferocious-looking bull terrier, "scooped"the crowd backing the imported dog, to the extent of their "pile," by "walking all round" his adversary; and thereby stirring up the enmity of said crowd against himself, who - so says Barney's master - have never yet been able to scare up a dog able to "down" Barney. As we stand in the barn-door Barney eyes me suspiciously, and then looks at his master; but luckily for me his master fails to give the word. Noticing that the dog is scarred and seamed all over, I inquire the reason, and am told that he has been fighting wild boars in the chaparral, of which gentle pastime he is extremely fond. "Yes, and he'll tackle a cougar too, of which there are plenty of them around here, if that cowardly animal would only keep out of the trees," admiringly continues mine host, as he orders Barney into his empty salt-barrel again. To day is Sunday, and it rains and snows with little interruption, so that I am compelled to stay over till Monday morning. While it is raining at Clipper Gap, it is snowing higher up in the mountains, and a railway employee 'volunteers the cheering information that, during the winter, the snow has drifted and accumulated in the sheds, so that a train can barely squeeze through, leaving no room for a person to stand to one side. I have my own ideas of whether this state of affairs is probable or not, however, and determine to pay no heed to any of these rumors, but to push ahead. So I pull out on Monday morning and take to the railway-track again, which is the only passable road since the tremendous downpour of the last two days. The first thing I come across is a tunnel burrowing through a hill. This tunnel was originally built the proper size, but, after being walled up, there were indications of a general cave-in; so the company had to go to work and build another thick rock-wall inside the other, which leaves barely room for the trains to pass through without touching the sides. It is anything but an inviting path around the hill; but it is far the safer of the two. Once my foot slips, and I unceremoniously sit down and slide around in the soft yellow clay, in my frantic endeavors to keep from slipping down the hill. This hardly enhances my personal appearance; but it doesn't matter much, as I am where no one can see, and a clay- besmeared individual is worth a dozen dead ones. Soon I am on the track again, briskly trudging up the steep grade toward the snow-line, which I can plainly see, at no great distance ahead, through the windings around the mountains. All through here the only riding to be done is along occasional short stretches of difficult path beside the track, where it happens to be a hard surface; and on the plank platforms of the stations, where I generally take a turn or two to satisfy the consuming curiosity of the miners, who can't imagine how anybody can ride a thing that won't stand alone; at the same time arguing among themselves as to whether I ride along on one of the rails, or bump along over the protruding ties. This morning I follow the railway track around the famous "Cape Horn," a place that never fails to photograph itself permanently upon the memory of all who once see it. For scenery that is magnificently grand and picturesque, the view from where the railroad track curves around Cape Horn is probably without a peer on the American continent. When the Central Pacific Railway company started to grade their road-bed around here, men were first swung over this precipice from above with ropes, until they made standing room for themselves; and then a narrow ledge was cut on the almost perpendicular side of the rocky mountain, around which the railway now winds. Standing on this ledge, the rocks tower skyward on one side of the track so close as almost to touch the passing train; and on the other is a sheer precipice of two thousand five hundred feet, where one can stand on the edge and see, far below, the north fork of the American River, which looks like a thread of silver laid along the narrow valley, and sends up a far-away, scarcely perceptible roar, as it rushes and rumbles along over its rocky bed. The railroad track is carefully looked after at this point, and I was able, by turning round and taking the down grade, to experience the novelty of a short ride, the memory of which will be ever welcome should one live to be as old as "the oldest inhabitant." The scenery for the next few miles is glorious; the grand and imposing mountains are partially covered with stately pines down to their bases, around which winds the turbulent American River, receiving on its boisterous march down the mountains tribute from hundreds of smaller streams and rivulets, which come splashing and dashing out of the dark ca¤ons and crevasses of the mighty hills. The weather is capricious, and by the time I reach Dutch Flat, ten miles east of Cape Horn, the floodgates of heaven are thrown open again, and less than an hour succeeds in impressing Dutch Flat upon my memory as a place where there is literally "water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to -;" no, I cannot finish the quotation. What is the use of lying'. There is plenty to drink at Dutch Flat; plenty of everything. But there is no joke about the water; it is pouring in torrents from above; the streets are shallow streams; and from scores of ditches and gullies comes the merry music of swiftly rushing waters, while, to crown all, scores of monster streams are rushing with a hissing sound from the mouths of huge pipes or nozzles, and playing against the surrounding hills; for Dutch Flat and neighboring camps are the great centre of hydraulic mining operations in California at the present day. Streams of water, higher lip the mountains, are taken from their channels and conducted hither through miles of wooden flumes and iron piping; and from the mouths of huge nozzles are thrown with tremendous force against the hills, literally mowing them down. The rain stops as abruptly as it began. The sun shines out clear and warm, and I push ahead once more. Gradually I have been getting up into the snow, and ever and anon a muffled roar comes booming and echoing over the mountains like the sound of distant artillery. It is the sullen noise of monster snow-slides among the deep, dark ca¤ons of the mountains, though a wicked person at Gold Run winked at another man and tried to make me believe it was the grizzlies "going about the mountains like roaring lions, seeking whom they might devour." The giant voices of nature, the imposing scenery, the gloomy pine forests which have now taken the place of the gay chaparral, combine to impress one who, all alone, looks and listens with a realizing sense of his own littleness. What a change has come over the whole face of nature in a few days' travel. But four days ago I was in the semi-tropical Sacramento Valley; now gaunt winter reigns supreme, and the only vegetation is the hardy pine. This afternoon I pass a small camp of Digger Indians, to whom my bicycle is as much a mystery as was the first locomotive; yet they scarcely turn their uncovered heads to look; and my cheery greeting of "How," scarce elicits a grunt and a stare in reply. Long years of chronic hunger and wretchedness have well-nigh eradicated what little energy these Diggers ever possessed. The discovery of gold among their native mountains has been their bane; the only antidote the rude grave beneath the pine and the happy hunting-grounds beyond. The next morning finds me briskly trundling through the great, gloomy snow-sheds that extend with but few breaks for the next forty miles. When I emerge from them on the other end I shall be over the summit and well down the eastern slope of the mountains. These huge sheds have been built at great expense to protect the track from the vast quantities of snow that fall every winter on these mountains. They wind around the mountain-sides, their roofs built so slanting that the mighty avalanche of rock and snow that comes thundering down from above glides harmlessly over, and down the chasm on the other side, while the train glides along unharmed beneath them. The section-houses, the water-tanks, stations, and everything along here are all under the gloomy but friendly shelter of the great protecting sheds. Fortunately I find the difficulties of getting through much less than I had been led by rumors to anticipate; and although no riding can be done in the sheds, I make very good progress, and trudge merrily along, thankful of a chance to get over the mountains without having to wait a month or six weeks for the snow outside to disappear. At intervals short breaks occur in the sheds, where the track runs over deep gulch or ravine, and at one of these openings the sinuous structure can be traced for quite a long distance, winding its tortuous way around the rugged mountain sides, and through the gloomy pine forest, all but buried under the snow. It requires no great effort of the mind to imagine it to be some wonderful relic of a past civilization, when a venturesome race of men thus dared to invade these vast wintry solitudes and burrow their way through the deep snow, like moles burrowing through the loose earth. Not a living thing is in sight, and the only sounds the occasional roar of a distant snow-slide, and the mournful sighing of the breeze as it plays a weird, melancholy dirge through the gently swaying branches of the tall, sombre pines, whose stately trunks are half buried in the omnipresent snow. To-night I stay at the Summit Hotel, seven thousand and seventeen feet above the level of the sea. The "Summit" is nothing if not snowy, and I am told that thirty feet on the level is no unusual thing up here. Indeed, it looks as if snow-balling on the " Glorious Fourth" were no great luxury at the Summit House; yet notwithstanding the decidedly wintry aspect of the Sierras, the low temperature of the Rockies farther east is unknown; and although there is snow to the right, snow to the left, snow all around, and ice under foot, I travel all through the gloomy sheds in my shirt-sleeves, with but a gossamer rubber coat thrown over my shoulders to keep off the snow- water which is constantly melting and dripping through the roof, making it almost like going through a shower of rain. Often, when it is warm and balmy outside, it is cold and frosty under the sheds, and the dripping water, falling among the rocks and timbers, freezes into all manner of fantastic shapes. Whole menageries of ice animals, birds and all imaginable objects, are here reproduced in clear crystal ice, while in many places the ground is covered with an irregular coating of the same, that often has to be chipped away from the rails. East of the summit is a succession of short tunnels, the space between being covered with snow-shed; and when I came through, the openings and crevices through which the smoke from the engines is wont to make its escape, and through which a few rays of light penetrate the gloomy interior, are blocked up with snow, so that it is both dark and smoky; and groping one's way with a bicycle over the rough surface is anything but pleasant going. But there is nothing so bad, it seems, but that it can get a great deal worse; and before getting far, I hear an approaching train and forthwith proceed to occupy as small an amount of space as possible against the side, while three laboriously puffing engines, tugging a long, heavy freight train up the steep grade, go past. These three puffing, smoke-emitting monsters fill every nook and corner of the tunnel with dense smoke, which creates a darkness by the side of which the natural darkness of the tunnel is daylight in comparison. Here is a darkness that can be felt; I have to grope my way forward, inch by inch; afraid to set my foot down until I have felt the place, for fear of blundering into a culvert; at the same time never knowing whether there is room, just where I am, to get out of the way of a train. A cyclometer wouldn't have to exert itself much through here to keep tally of the revolutions; for, besides advancing with extreme caution, I pause every few steps to listen; as in the oppressive darkness and equally oppressive silence the senses are so keenly on the alert that the gentle rattle of the bicycle over the uneven surface seems to make a noise that would prevent me hearing an approaching train. This finally comes to am end; and at the opening in the sheds I climb up into a pine-tree to obtain a view of Donner Lake, called the "Gem of the Sierras." It is a lovely little lake, and amid the pines, and on its shores occurred one of the most pathetically tragic events of the old emigrant days. Briefly related : A small party of emigrants became snowed in while camped at the lake, and when, toward spring, a rescuing party reached the spot, the last survivor of the partly, crazed with the fearful suffering he had under- gone, was sitting on a log, savagely gnawing away at a human arm, the last remnant of his companions in misery, off whose emaciated carcasses he had for some time been living! My road now follows the course of the Truckee River down the eastern slope of the Sierras, and across the boundary line into Nevada. The Truckee is a rapid, rollicking stream from one end to the other, and affords dam-sites and mill-sites without limit. There is little ridable road down the Truckee ca¤on; but before reaching "Verdi, a station a few miles over the Nevada line, I find good road, and ride up and dismount at the door of the little hotel as coolly as if I had rode without a dismount all the way from 'Frisco. Here at Verdi is a camp of Washoe Indians, who at once showed their superiority to the Diggers by clustering around and examining; the bicycle with great curiosity. Verdi is less than forty miles from the summit of the Sierras, and from the porch of the hotel I can see the snow-storm still fiercely raging up in the place where I stood a few hours ago; yet one can feel that he is already in a dryer and altogether different climate. The great masses of clouds, travelling inward from the coast with their burdens of moisture, like messengers of peace with presents to a far country, being unable to surmount the great mountain barrier that towers skyward across their path, unload their precious cargoes on the mountains; and the parched plains of Nevada open their thirsty mouths in vain. At Verdi I bid good-by to the Golden State and follow the course of the sparkling Truckee toward the Forty-mile Desert. CHAPTER II. OVER THE DESERTS OF NEVADA. Gradually I leave the pine-clad slopes of the Sierras behind, and every revolution of my wheel reveals scenes that constantly remind me that I am in the great "Sage-brush State." How appropriate indeed is the name. Sage-brush is the first thing seen on entering Nevada, almost the only vegetation seen while passing through it, and the last thing seen on leaving it. Clear down to the edge of the rippling waters of the Truckee, on the otherwise barren plain, covering the elevated table-lands, up the hills, even to the mountain-tops-everywhere, everywhere, nothing but sagebrush. In plain view to the right, as I roll on toward Reno, are the mountains on which the world-renowned Comstock lode is situated, and Reno was formerly the point from which this celebrated mining-camp was reached. Before reaching Reno I meet a lone Washoe Indian; he is riding a diminutive, scraggy-looking mustang. One of his legs is muffled up in a red blanket, and in one hand he carries a rudely-invented crutch. "How will you trade horses?" I banteringly ask as we meet in the road; and I dismount for an interview, to find out what kind of Indians these Washoes are. To my friendly chaff he vouchsafes no reply, but simply sits motionless on his pony, and fixes a regular "Injun stare" on the bicycle. "What's the matter with your leg?" I persist, pointing at the blanket-be-muffled member. "Heap sick foot" is the reply, given with the characteristic brevity of the savage; and, now that the ice of his aboriginal reserve is broken, he manages to find words enough to ask me for tobacco. I have no tobacco, but the ride through the crisp morning air has been productive of a surplus amount of animal spirits, and I feel like doing something funny; so I volunteer to cure his " sick foot" by sundry dark and mysterious manoeuvres, that I unbiushingly intimate are "heap good medicine." With owlish solemnity my small monkey-wrench is taken from the tool-bag and waved around the " sick foot" a few times, and the operation is completed by squirting a few drops from my oil-can through a hole in the blanket. Before going I give him to understand that, in order to have the "good medicine " operate to his advantage, he will have to soak his copper-colored hide in a bath every morning for a week, flattering myself that, while my mystic manoauvres will do him no harm, the latter prescription will certainly do him good if he acts on it, which, however, is extremely doubtful. Boiling into Reno at 10.30 A.M. the characteristic whiskey- straight hospitality of the Far West at once asserts itself, and one individual with sporting proclivities invites me to stop over a day or two and assist him to "paint Reno red " at his expense. Leaving Reno, my route leads through the famous Truckee meadows - a strip of very good agricultural land, where plenty of money used to be made by raising produce for the Virginia City market." But there's nothing in it any more, since the Comstock's played out," glumly remarks a ranchman, at whose place I get dinner. "I'll take less for my ranch now than I was offered ten years ago," he continues. The " meadows" gradually contract, and soon after dinner I find myself again following the Truckee down a narrow space between mountains, whose volcanic-looking rocks are destitute of all vegetation save stunted sage- brush. All down here the road is ridable in patches; but many dismounts have to be made, and the walking to be done aggregates at least one-third of the whole distance travelled during the day. Sneakish coyotes prowl about these mountains, from whence they pay neighborly visits to the chicken-roosts of the ranchers in the Truckee meadows near by. Toward night a pair of these animals are observed following behind at the respectful distance of five hundred yards. One need not be apprehensive of danger from these contemptible animals, however; they are simply following behind in a frame of mind similar to that of a hungry school-boy's when gazing longingly into a confectioner's window. Still, night is gathering around, and it begins to look as though I will have to pillow my head on the soft side of a bowlder, and take lodgings on the footsteps of a bald mountain to-night; and it will scarcely invite sleep to know that two pairs of sharp, wolfish eyes are peering wistfully through the darkness at one's prostrate form, and two red tongues are licking about in hungry anticipation of one's blood. Moreover, these animals have an unpleasant habit of congregating after night to pay their compliments to the pale moon, and to hold concerts that would put to shame a whole regiment of Kilkenny cats; though there is but little comparison between the two, save that one howls and the other yowls, and either is equally effective in driving away the drowsy Goddess. I try to draw these two animals within range of my revolver by hiding behind rocks; but they are too chary of their precious carcasses to take any risks, and the moment I disappear from their sight behind a rock they are on the alert, and looking " forty ways at the same time," to make sure that I am not creeping up on them from some other direction. Fate, however, has decreed that I am not to sleep out to-night - not quite out. A lone shanty looms up through the gathering darkness, and I immediately turn my footsteps thitherwise. I find it occupied. I am all right now for the night. Hold on, though! not so fast. "There is many a slip," etc. The little shanty, with a few acres of rather rocky ground, on the bank of the Truckee, is presided over by a lonely bachelor of German extraction, who eyes me with evident suspicion, as, leaning on my bicycle in front of his rude cabin door I ask to be accommodated for the night. Were it a man on horseback, or a man with a team, this hermit-like rancher could satisfy himself to some extent as to the character of his visitor, for he sees men on horseback or men in wagons, on an average, perhaps, once a week during the summer, and can see plenty of them any day by going to Reno. But me and the bicycle he cannot "size up" so readily. He never saw the like of us before, and we are beyond his Teutonic frontier-like comprehension. He gives us up; he fails to solve the puzzle; he knows not how to unravel the mystery; and, with characteristic Teutonic bluntness, he advises us to push on through fifteen miles of rocks, sand, and darkness, to Wadsworth. The prospect of worrying my way, hungry and weary, through fifteen miles of rough, unknown country, after dark, looms up as rather a formidable task. So summoning my reserve stock of persuasive eloquence, backed up by sundry significant movements, such as setting the bicycle up against his cabin-wall, and sitting down on a block of wood under the window, I finally prevail upon him to accommodate me with a blanket on the floor of the shanty. He has just finished supper, and the remnants of the frugal repast are still on the table; but he says nothing about any supper for me: he scarcely feels satisfied with himself yet: he feels that I have, in some mysterious manner, gained an unfair advantage over him, and obtained a foothold in his shanty against his own wish-jumped his claim, so to speak. Not that I think the man really inhospitable at heart; but he has been so habitually alone, away from his fellowmen so much, that the presence of a stranger in his cabin makes him feel uneasy; and when that stranger is accompanied by a queer-looking piece of machinery that cannot stand alone, but which he nevertheless says he rides on, our lonely rancher is perhaps not so much to be wondered at, after all, for his absent-mindedness in regard to my supper. His mind is occupied with other thoughts. "You couldn't accommodate a fellow with a bite to eat, could you." I timidly venture, after devouring what eatables are in sight, over and over again, with my eyes. "I have plenty of money to pay for any accommodation I get," I think it policy to add, by way of cornering him up and giving him as little chance to refuse as possible, for I am decidedly hungry, and if money or diplomacy, or both, will produce supper, I don't propose to go to bed supperless. I am not much surprised to see him bear out my faith in his innate hospitality by apologizing for not thinking of my supper before, and insisting, against my expressed wishes, on lighting the fire and getting me a warm meal of fried ham and coffee, for which I beg leave to withdraw any unfavorable impressions in regard to him which my previous remarks may possibly have made on the reader's mind. After supper he thaws out a little, and I wheedle out of him a part of his history. He settled on this spot of semi-cultivable land during the flush times on the Comstock, and used to prosper very well by raising vegetables, with the aid of Truckee-River water, and hauling them to the mining-camps; but the palmy days of the Comstock have departed and with them our lonely rancher's prosperity. Mine host has barely blankets enough for his own narrow bunk, and it is really an act of generosity on his part when he takes a blanket off his bed and invites me to extract what comfort I can get out of it for the night. Snowy mountains are round about, and curled up on the floor of the shanty, like a kitten under a stove in mid-winter, I shiver the long hours away, and endeavor to feel thankful that it is no worse. For a short distance, next morning, the road is ridable, but nearing Wadsworth it gets sandy, and " sandy," in Nevada means deep, loose sand, in which one sinks almost to his ankles at every step, and where the possession of a bicycle fails to awaken that degree of enthusiasm that it does on a smooth, hard road. At Wadsworth I have to bid farewell to the Truckee River, and start across the Forty-mile Desert, which lies between the Truckee and Humboldt Rivers. Standing on a sand-hill and looking eastward across the dreary, desolate waste of sand, rocks, and alkali, it is with positive regret that I think of leaving the cool, sparkling stream that has been my almost constant companion for nearly a hundred miles. It has always been at hand to quench my thirst or furnish a refreshing bath. More than once have I beguiled the tedium of some uninteresting part of the journey by racing with some trifling object hurried along on its rippling surface. I shall miss the murmuring music of its dancing waters as one would miss the conversation of a companion. This Forty-mile Desert is the place that was so much dreaded by the emigrants en route to the gold-fields of California, there being not a blade of grass nor drop of water for the whole forty miles; nothing but a dreary waste of sand and rocks that reflects the heat of the sun, and renders the desert a veritable furnace in midsummer; and the stock of the emigrants, worn out by the long journey from the States, would succumb by the score in crossing. Though much of the trail is totally unfit for cycling, there are occasional alkali flats that are smooth and hard enough to play croquet on; and this afternoon, while riding with careless ease across one of these places, I am struck with the novelty of the situation. I am in the midst of the dreariest, deadest-looking country imaginable. Whirlwinds of sand, looking at a distance like huge columns of smoke, are wandering erratically over the plains in all directions. The blazing sun casts, with startling vividness on the smooth white alkali, that awful scraggy, straggling shadow that, like a vengeful fate, always accompanies the cycler on a sunny day, and which is the bane of a sensitive wheelman's life. The only representative of animated nature hereabouts is a species of small gray lizard that scuttles over the bare ground with astonishing rapidity. Not even a bird is seen in the air. All living things seem instinctively to avoid this dread spot save the lizard. A desert forty miles wide is not a particularly large one; but when one is in the middle of it, it might as well be as extensive as Sahara itself, for anything he can see to the contrary, and away off to the right I behold as perfect a mirage as one could wish to see. A person can scarce help believing his own eyes, and did one not have some knowledge of these strange and wondrous phenomena, one's orbs of vision would indeed open with astonishment; for seemingly but a few miles away is a beautiful lake, whose shores are fringed with wavy foliage, and whose cool waters seem to lave the burning desert sands at its edge. A short distance to the right of Hot Springs Station broken clouds of steam are seen rising from the ground, as though huge caldrons of water were being heated there. Going to the spot I find, indeed, " caldrons of boiling water;" but the caldrons are in the depths. At irregular openings in the rocky ground the bubbling water wells to the surface, and the fires-ah! where are the fires. On another part of this desert are curious springs that look demure and innocuous enough most of the time, but occasionally they emit columns of spray and steam. It is related of these springs that once a party of emigrants passed by, and one of the men knelt down to take a drink of the clear, nice-looking water. At the instant he leaned over, the spring spurted a quantity of steam and spray all over him, scaring him nearly out of his wits. The man sprang up, and ran as if for his life, frantically beckoning the wagons to move on, at the same time shouting, at the top of his voice, "Drive on! drive on! hell's no great distance from here!" >From the Forty-mile Desert my road leads up the valley of the Humboldt River. On the shores of Humboldt Lake are camped a dozen Piute lodges, and I make a half-hour halt to pay them a visit. I shall never know whether I am a welcome visitor or not; they show no signs of pleasure or displeasure as I trundle the bicycle through the sage-brush toward them. Leaning it familiarly up against one of their teepes, I wander among them and pry into their domestic affairs like a health-officer in a New York tenement. I know I have no right to do this without saying, "By your leave," but item-hunters the world over do likewise, so I feel little squeamishness about it. Moreover, when I come back I find the Indians are playing " tit-for-tat" against me. Not only are they curiously examining the bicycle as a whole, but they have opened the toolbag and are examining the tools, handing them around among themselves. I don't think these Piutes are smart or bold enough to steal nowadays; their intercourse with the whites along the railroad has, in a measure, relieved them of those aboriginal traits of character that would incite them to steal a brass button off their pale-faced brother's coat, or screw a nut off his bicycle; but they have learned to beg; the noble Piute of to-day is an incorrigible mendicant. Gathering up my tools from among them, the monkey-wrench seems to have found favor in the eyes of a wrinkled-faced brave, who, it seems, is a chief. He hands the wrench over with a smile that is meant to be captivating, and points at it as I am putting it back into the bag, and grunts, " Ugh. Piute likum. Piute likum!" As I hold it up, and ask him if this is what he means, he again points and repeats, " Piute likum;" and this time two others standing by point at him and also smile and say, " Him big chief; big Piute chief, him;" thinking, no doubt, this latter would be a clincher, and that I would at once recognize in " big Piute chief, him " a vastly superior being and hand him over the wrench. In this, however, they are mistaken, for the wrench I cannot spare; neither can I see any lingering trace of royalty about him, no kingliness of mien, or extra cleanliness; nor is there anything winning about his smile - nor any of their smiles for that matter. The Piute smile seems to me to be simply a cold, passionless expansion of the vast horizontal slit that reaches almost from one ear to the other, and separates the upper and lower sections of their expressionless faces. Even the smiles of the squaws are of the same unlovely pattern, though they seem to be perfectly oblivious of any ugliness whatever, and whenever a pale-faced visitor appears near their teepe they straightway present him with one of those repulsive, unwinning smiles. Sunday, May 4th, finds me anchored for the day at the village of Lovelocks, on the Humboldt River, where I spend quite a remarkable day. Never before did such a strangely assorted crowd gather to see the first bicycle ride they ever saw, as the crowd that gathers behind the station at Lovelocks to-day to see me. There are perhaps one hundred and fifty people, of whom a hundred are Piute and Shoshone Indians, and the remainder a mingled company of whites and Chinese railroaders; and among them all it is difficult to say who are the most taken with the novelty of the exhibition - the red, the yellow, or the white. Later in the evening I accept the invitation of a Piute brave to come out to their camp, behind the village, and witness rival teams of Shoshone and Piute squaws play a match-game of " Fi-re-fla," the national game of both the Shoshone and Piute tribes. The principle of the game is similar to polo. The squaws are armed with long sticks, with which they endeavor to carry a shorter one to the goal. It is a picturesque and novel sight to see the squaws, dressed in costumes in which the garb of savagery and civilization is strangely mingled and the many colors of the rainbow are promiscuously blended, flitting about the field with the agility of a team of professional polo-players; while the bucks and old squaws, with their pappooses, sit around and watch the game with unmistakable enthusiasm. The Shoshone team wins and looks pleased. Here, at Lovelocks, I fall in with one of those strange and seemingly incongruous characters that are occasionally met with in the West. He is conversing with a small gathering of Piutes in their own tongue, and I introduce myself by asking him the probable age of one of the Indians, whose wrinkled and leathery countenance would indicate unusual longevity. He tells me the Indian is probably ninety years old; but the Indians themselves never know their age, as they count everything by the changes of the moon and the seasons, having no knowledge whatever of the calendar year. While talking on this subject, imagine my surprise to hear my informant - who looks as if the Scriptures are the last thing in the world for him to speak of - volunteer the information that our venerable and venerated ancestors, the antediluvians, used to count time in the same way as the Indians, and that instead of Methuselah being nine hundred and sixty-nine years of age, it ought to be revised so as to read " nine hundred and sixty-nine moons," which would bring that ancient and long-lived person-the oldest man that ever lived-down to the venerable but by no means extraordinary age of eighty years and nine months. This is the first time I have heard this theory, and my astonishment at hearing it from the lips of a rough-looking habitue of the Nevada plains, seated in the midst of a group of illiterate Indians, can easily be imagined. On, up the Humboldt valley I continue, now riding over a smooth, alkali flat, and again slavishly trundling through deep sand, a dozen snowy mountain peaks round about, the Humboldt sluggishly winding its way through the alkali plain; on past Eye Patch, to the right of which are more hot springs, and farther on mines of pure sulphur-all these things, especially the latter, unpleasantly suggestive of a certain place where the climate is popularly supposed to be uncomfortably warm; on, past Humboldt Station, near which place I wantonly shoot a poor harmless badger, who peers inquisitively out of his hole as I ride past. There is something peculiarly pathetic about the actions of a dying badger, and no sooner has the thoughtless shot sped on its mission of death than I am sorry for doing it. Going out of Mill City next morning I lose the way, and find myself up near a small mining camp among the mountains south of the railroad. Thinking to regain the road quickly by going across country through the sage-brush, I get into a place where that enterprising shrub is go thick and high that I have to hold the bicycle up overhead to get through. At three o'clock in the afternoon I come to a railroad section-house. At the Chinese bunk-house I find a lone Celestial who, for some reason, is staying at home. Having had nothing to eat or drink since six o'clock this morning, I present the Chinaman with a smile that is intended to win his heathen heart over to any gastronomic scheme I may propose; but smiles are thrown away on John Chinaman. " John, can you fix me up something to eat. " " No; Chinaman no savvy whi' man eatee; bossee ow on thlack. Chinaman eatee nothing bu' licee [rice]; no licee cookee." This sounds pretty conclusive; nevertheless I don't intend to be thus put off so easily. There is nothing particularly beautiful about a silver half-dollar, but in the almond-shaped eyes of the Chinaman scenes of paradisiacal loveliness are nothing compared to the dull surface of a twenty-year-old fifty-cent piece; and the jingle of the silver coins contains more melody for Chin Chin's unromantic ear than a whole musical festival. " John, I'll give you a couple of two-bit pieces if you'll get me a bite of something," I persist. John's small, black eyes twinkle at the suggestion of two-bit pieces, and his expressive countenance assumes a commerical air as, with a ludicrous change of front, he replies: " Wha'. You gib me flore bittee, me gib you bitee eatee. " "That's what I said, John; and please be as lively as possible about it." " All li; you gib me flore bittee me fly you Melican plan-cae." " Yes, pancakes will do. Go ahead!" Visions of pancakes and molasses flit before my hunger-distorted vision as I sit outside until he gets them ready. In ten minutes John calls me in. On a tin plate, that looks as if it has just been rescued from a barrel of soap-grease, reposes a shapeless mass of substance resembling putty-it is the " Melican plan-cae; " and the Celestial triumphantly sets an empty box in front of it for me to sit on and extends his greasy palm for the stipulated price. May the reader never be ravenously hungry and have to choose between a " Melican plan-cae " and nothing. It is simply a chunk of tenacious dough, made of flour and water only, and soaked for a few minutes in warm grease. I call for molasses; he doesn't know what it is. I inquire for syrup, thinking he may recognize my want by that name. He brings a jar of thin Chinese catsup, that tastes something like Limburger cheese smells. I immediately beg of him to take it where its presumably benign influence will fail to reach me. He produces some excellent cold tea, however, by the aid of which I manage to "bolt" a portion of the "plan-cae." One doesn't look for a very elegant spread for fifty cents in the Sage-brush State; but this "Melican plan-cae" is the worst fifty-cent meal I ever heard of. To-night I stay in Winnemucca, the county seat of Humboldt County, and quite a lively little town of 1,200 inhabitants. "What'll yer have." is the first word on entering the hotel, and "Won't yer take a bottle of whiskey along." is the last word on leaving it next morning. There are Piutes and Piutes camped at Winnemucca, and in the morning I meet a young brave on horseback a short distance out of town and let him try his hand with the bicycle. I wheel him along a few yards and let him dismount; and then I show him how to mount and invite him to try it himself. He gallantly makes the attempt, but springs forward with too much energy, and over he topples, with the bicycle cavorting around on top of him. This satisfies his aboriginal curiosity, and he smiles and shakes his head when I offer to swap the bicycle for his mustang. The road is heavy with sand all along by Winnemucca, and but little riding is to be done. The river runs through green meadows of rich bottom-land hereabouts; but the meadows soon disappear as I travel eastward. Twenty miles east of Winnemucca the river arid railroad pass through the ca¤on in a low range of mountains, while my route lies over the summit. It is a steep trundle up the fountains, but from the summit a broad view of the surrounding country is obtained. The Humboldt River is not a beautiful stream, and for the greater part of its length it meanders through alternate stretches of dreary sage-brush plain and low sand-hills, at long intervals passing through a ca¤on in some barren mountain chain. But "distance lends enchantment to the view," and from the summit of the mountain pass even the Humboldt looks beautiful. The sun shines on its waters, giving it a sheen, and for many a mile its glistening surface can be seen - winding its serpentine course through the broad, gray-looking sage and grease-wood plains, while at occasional intervals narrow patches of green, in striking contrast to the surrounding gray, show where the hardy mountain grasses venturously endeavor to invade the domains of the autocratic sagebrush. What is that queer-looking little reptile, half lizard, half frog, that scuttles about among the rocks. It is different from anything I have yet seen. Around the back of its neck and along its sides, and, in a less prominent degree, all over its yellowishgray body, are small, horn-like protuberances that give the little fellow a very peculiar appearance. Ah, I know who he is. I have heard of him, and have seen his picture in books. I am happy to make his acquaintance. He is "Prickey," the famed horned toad of Nevada. On this mountain spur, between the Golconda miningcamp and Iron Point, is the only place I have seen him on the tour. He is a very interesting little creature, more lizard than frog, perfectly harmless; and his little bead-like eyes are bright and fascinating as the eyes of a rattlesnake. Alkali flats abound, and some splendid riding is to be obtained east of Iron Point. Just before darkness closes down over the surrounding area of plain and mountain I reach Stone-House section-house. " Yes, I guess we can get you a bite of something; but it will be cold," is the answer vouchsafed in reply to my query about supper. Being more concerned these days about the quantity of provisions I can command than the quality, the prospect of a cold supper arouses no ungrateful emotions. I would rather have a four-pound loaf and a shoulder of mutton for supper now than a smaller quantity of extra choice viands; and I manage to satisfy the cravings of my inner man before leaving the table. But what about a place to sleep. For some inexplicable reason these people refuse to grant me even the shelter of their roof for the night. They are not keeping hotel, they say, which is quite true; they have a right to refuse, even if it is twenty miles to the next place; and they do refuse. "There's the empty Chinese bunk-house over there. You can crawl in there, if you arn't afeerd of ghosts," is the parting remark, as the door closes and leaves me standing, like an outcast, on the dark, barren plain. A week ago this bunk-house was occupied by a gang of Chinese railroaders, who got to quarrelling among themselves, and the quarrel wound up in quite a tragic poisoning affair, that resulted in the death of two, and nearly killed a third. The Chinese are nothing, if not superstitious, and since this affair no Chinaman would sleep in the bunk-house or work on this section; consequently the building remains empty. The "spooks" of murdered Chinese are everything but agreeable company; nevertheless they are preferable to inhospitable whites, and I walk over to the house and stretch my weary frame in - for aught I know - the same bunk in which, but a few days ago, reposed the ghastly corpses of the poisoned Celestials. Despite the unsavory memories clinging around the place, and my pillowless and blanketless couch, I am soon in the land of dreams. It is scarcely presumable that one would be blessed with rosy-hued visions of pleasure under such conditions, however, and near midnight I awake in a cold shiver. The snowy mountains rear their white heads up in the silent night, grim and ghostly all around, and make the midnight air chilly, even in midsummer. I lie there, trying in vain to doze off again, for it grows perceptibly cooler. At two o'clock I can stand it no longer, and so get up and strike out for Battle Mountain, twenty miles ahead. The moon has risen; it is two-thirds full, and a more beautiful sight than the one that now greets my exit from the bunk-house it is scarcely possible to conceive. Only those who have been in this inter-mountain country can have any idea of a glorious moonlight night in the clear atmosphere of this dry, elevated region. It is almost as light as day, and one can see to ride quite well wherever the road is ridable. The pale moon seems to fill the whole broad valley with a flood of soft, silvery light; the peaks of many snowy mountains loom up white and spectral; the stilly air is broken by the excited yelping of a pack of coyotes noisily baying the pale-yellow author of all this loveliness, and the wild, unearthly scream of an unknown bird or animal coming from some mysterious, undefinable quarter completes an ideal Western picture, a poem, a dream, that fully compensates for the discomforts of the preceding hour. The inspiration of this beautiful scene awakes the slumbering poesy within, and I am inspired to compose a poem-"Moonlight in the Rockies"-that I expect some day to see the world go into raptures over! A few miles from the Chinese shanty I pass a party of Indians camped by the side of my road. They are squatting around the smouldering embers of a sage-brush fire, sleeping and dozing. I am riding slowly and carefully along the road that happens to be ridable just here, and am fairly past them before being seen. As I gradually vanish in the moonlit air I wonder what they think it was - that strange-looking object that so silently and mysteriously glided past. It is safe to warrant they think me anything but flesh and blood, as they rouse each other and peer at my shadowy form disappearing in the dim distance. >From Battle Mountain my route leads across a low alkali bottom, through which dozens of small streams are flowing to the Humboldt. Many of them are narrow enough to be jumped, but not with a bicycle on one's shoulder, for under such conditions there is always a disagreeable uncertainty that one may disastrously alight before he gets ready. But I am getting tired of partially undressing to ford streams that are little more than ditches, every little way, and so I hit upon the novel plan of using the machine for a vaulting-pole. Beaching it out into the centre of the stream, I place one hand on the head and the other on the saddle, and vault over, retaining my hold as I alight on the opposite shore. Pulling the bicycle out after me, the thing is done. There is no telling to what uses this two-wheeled "creature" could be put in case of necessity. Certainly the inventor never expected it to be used for a vaulting-pole in leaping across streams. Twenty-five miles east of Battle Mountain the valley of the Humboldt widens into a plain of some size, through which the river meanders with many a horseshoe curve, and maps out the pot-hooks and hangers of our childhood days in mazy profusion. Amid these innumerable curves and counter-curves, clumps of willows and tall blue-joint reeds grow thickly, and afford shelter to thousands of pelicans, that here make their homes far from the disturbing presence of man. All unconscious of impending difficulties, I follow the wagon trail leading through this valley until I find myself standing on the edge of the river, ruefully looking around for some avenue by which I can proceed on my way. I am in the bend of a horseshoe curve, and the only way to get out is to retrace my footsteps for several miles, which disagreeable performance I naturally feel somewhat opposed to doing. Casting about me I discover a couple of old fence-posts that have floated down from the Be-o-wa-we settlement above and lodged against the bank. I determine to try and utilize them in getting the machine across the river, which is not over thirty yards wide at this point. Swimming across with my clothes first, I tie the bicycle to the fence-posts, which barely keep it from sinking, and manage to navigate it successfully across. The village of Be-o-wa-we is full of cowboys, who are preparing for the annual spring round-up. Whites, Indians, and Mexicans compose the motley crowd. They look a wild lot, with their bear-skin chaparejos and semi-civilized trappings, galloping to and fro in and about the village. "I can't spare the time, or I would," is my slightly un-truthful answer to an invitation to stop over for the day and have some fun. Briefly told, this latter, with the cowboy, consists in getting hilariously drunk, and then turning his "pop" loose at anything that happens to strike his whiskey-bedevilled fancy as presenting a fitting target. Now a bicycle, above all things, would intrude itself upon the notice of a cowboy on a " tear" as a peculiar and conspicuous object, especially if it had a man on it; so after taking a "smile" with them for good-fellowship, and showing them the modus operandi of riding the wheel, I consider it wise to push on up the valley. Three miles from Be-o-wa-we is seen the celebrated "Maiden's Grave," on a low hill or bluff by the road-side; and "thereby hangs a tale." In early days, a party of emigrants were camped near by at Gravelly Ford, waiting for the waters to subside, so that they could cross the liver, when a young woman of the party sickened and died. A rudely carved head- board was set up to mark the spot where she was buried. Years afterward, when the railroad was being built through here, the men discovered this rude head-board all alone on the bleak hill-top, and were moved by worthy sentiment to build a rough stone wall around it to keep off the ghoulish coyotes; and, later on, the superintendent of the division erected a large white cross, which now stands in plain view of the railroad. On one side of the cross is written the simple inscription, "Maiden's Grave;" on the other, her name, "Lucinda Duncan" Leaving the bicycle by the road-side, I climb the steep bluff and examine the spot with some curiosity. There are now twelve other graves beside the original "Maiden's Grave," for the people of Be-o-wa-we and the surrounding country have selected this romantic spot on which to inter the remains of their departed friends. This afternoon I follow the river through Humboldt Ca¤on in preference to taking a long circuitous route over the mountains. The first noticeable things about this ca¤on are the peculiar water-marks plainly visible on the walls, high up above where the water could possibly rise while its present channels of escape exist unobstructed. It is thought that the country east of the spur of the Red Range, which stretches clear across the valley at Be-o-wa-we, and through which the Humboldt seems to have cut its way, was formerly a lake, and that the water gradually wore a passage-way for itself through the massive barrier, leaving only the high-water marks on the mountain sides to tell of the mighty change. In this ca¤on the rocky walls tower like gigantic battlements, grim and gloomy on either side, and the seething, boiling waters of the Humboldt - that for once awakens from its characteristic lethargy, and madly plunges and splutters over a bed of jagged rocks which seem to have been tossed into its channel by some Herculean hand - fill this mighty "rift" in the mountains with a never-ending roar. It has been threatening rain for the last two hours, and now the first peal of thunder I have heard on the whole journey awakens the echoing voices of the ca¤on and rolls and rumbles along the great jagged fissure like an angry monster muttering his mighty wrath. Peal after peal follow each other in quick succession, the vigorous, newborn echoes of one peal seeming angrily to chase the receding voices of its predecessor from cliff to cliff, and from recess to projection, along its rocky, erratic course up the ca¤on. Vivid flashes of forked lightning shoot athwart the heavy black cloud that seems to rest on either wall, roofing the ca¤on with a ceiling of awful grandeur. Sheets of electric flame light up the dark, shadowy recesses of the towering rocks as they play along the ridges and hover on the mountain-tops; while large drops of rain begin to patter down, gradually increasing with the growing fury of their battling allies above, until a heavy, drenching downpour of rain and hail compels me to take shelter under an overhanging rock. At 4 P.M. I reach Palisade, a railroad village situated in the most romantic spot imaginable, under the shadows of the towering palisades that hover above with a sheltering care, as if their special mission were to protect it from all harm. Evidently these mountains have been rent in twain by an earthquake, and this great gloomy chasm left open, for one can plainly see that the two walls represent two halves of what was once a solid mountain. Curious caves are observed in the face of the cliffs, and one, more conspicuous than the rest, has been christened "Maggie's Bower," in honor of a beautiful Scottish maiden who with her parents once lingered in a neighboring creek-bottom for some time, recruiting their stock. But all is not romance and beauty even in the glorious palisades of the Humboldt; for great, glaring, patent-medicine advertisements are painted on the most conspicuously beautiful spots of the palisades. Business enterprise is of course to be commended and encouraged; but it is really annoying that one cannot let his esthetic soul - that is constantly yearning for the sublime and beautiful - rest in gladsome reflection on some beautiful object without at the same time being reminded of " corns," and " biliousness," and all the multifarious evils that flesh is heir to. It grows pitchy dark ere I leave the ca¤on on my way to Carlin. Farther on, the gorge widens, and thick underbrush intervenes between the road and the river. From out the brush I see peering two little round phosphorescent balls, like two miniature moons, turned in my direction. I wonder what kind of an animal it is, as I trundle along through the darkness, revolver in hand, ready to defend myself, should it make an attack. I think it is a mountain-lion, as they seem to be plentiful in this part of Nevada, Late as it is when I reach Carlin, the "boys" must see how a bicycle is ridden, and, as there is no other place suitable, I manage to circle around the pool-table in the hotel bar-room a few times, nearly scalping myself against the bronze chandelier in the operation. I hasten, however, to explain that these proceedings took place immediately after my arrival, lest some worldly wise, over-sagacious person should be led to suspect them to be the riotous undertakings of one who had "smiled with the boys once too often." Little riding is possible all through this section of Nevada, and, in order to complete the forty miles a day that I have rigorously imposed upon myself, I sometimes get up and pull out at daylight. It is scarce more than sunrise when, following the railroad through Five-mile Canon - another rift through one of the many mountain chains that cross this part of Nevada in all directions under the general name of the Humboldt Mountains-I meet with a startling adventure. I am trundling through the ca¤on alongside the river, when, rounding the sharp curve of a projecting mountain, a tawny mountain lion is perceived trotting leisurely along ahead of me, not over a hundred yards in advance. He hasn't seen me yet; he is perfectly oblivious of the fact that he is in "the presence." A person of ordinary discretion would simply have revealed his presence by a gentlemanly sneeze, or a slight noise of any kind, when the lion would have immediately bolted back into the underbrush. Unable to resist the temptation, I fired at him, and of course missed him, as a person naturally would at a hundred yards with a bull-dog revolver. The bullet must have singed him a little though, for, instead of wildly scooting for the brush, as I anticipated, he turns savagely round and comes bounding rapidly toward me, and at twenty paces crouches for a spring. Laying his cat-like head almost on the ground, his round eyes flashing fire, and his tail angrily waving to and fro, he looks savage and dangerous. Crouching behind the bicycle, I fire at him again. Nine times out of ten a person will overshoot the mark with a revolver under such circumstances, and, being anxious to avoid this, I do the reverse, and fire too low. The ball strikes the ground just in front of his head, and throws the sand and gravel in his face, and perhaps in his wicked round eyes; for he shakes his head, springs up, and makes off into the brush. I shall shed blood of some sort yet before I leave Nevada. There isn't a day that I don't shoot at something or other; and all I ask of any animal is to come within two hundred yards and I will squander a cartridge on him, and I never fail to hit the ground. At Elko, where I take dinner, I make the acquaintance of an individual, rejoicing in the sobriquet of "Alkali Bill," who has the largest and most comprehensive views of any person I ever met. He has seen a paragraph, something about me riding round the world, and he considerately takes upon himself the task of summing up the few trifling obstacles that I shall encounter on the way round: "There is only a small rise at Sherman," he rises to explain, " and another still smaller at the Alleghanies; all the balance is downhill to the Atlantic. Of course you'll have to 'boat it' across the Frogpond; then there's Europe - mostly level; so is Asia, except the Himalayas - and you can soon cross them; then you're all 'hunky,' for there's no mountains to speak of in China." Evidently Alkali Bill is a person who points the finger of scorn at small ideas, and leaves the bothersome details of life to other and smaller-minded folks. In his vast and glorious imagery he sees a centaur-like cycler skimming like a frigate-bird across states and continents, scornfully ignoring sandy deserts and bridgeless streams, halting for nothing but oceans, and only slowing up a little when he runs up against a peak that bobs up its twenty thousand feet of snowy grandeur serenely in his path. What a Ceasar is lost to this benighted world, because in its blindness, it will not search out such men as Alkali and ask them to lead it onward to deeds of inconceivable greatness. Alkali Bill can whittle more chips in an hour than some men could in a week. Much of the Humboldt Valley, through which my road now runs, is at present flooded from the vast quantities of water that are pouring into it from the Ruby Range of mountains now visible to the southeast, and which have the appearance of being the snowiest of any since leaving the Sierras. Only yesterday I threatened to shed blood before I left Nevada, and sure enough my prophecy is destined to speedy fulfilment. Just east of the Osino Ca¤on, and where the North Fork of the Humboldt comes down from the north and joins the main stream, is a stretch of swampy ground on which swarms of wild ducks and geese are paddling about. I blaze away at them, and a poor inoffensive gosling is no more. While writing my notes this evening, in a room adjoining the "bar" at Halleck, near the United States fort of the same name, I overhear a boozy soldier modestly informing his comrades that forty-five miles an hour is no unusual speed to travel with a bicycle. Gradually I am nearing the source of the Humboldt, and at the town of Wells I bid it farewell for good. Wells is named from a group of curious springs near the town. They are supposed to be extinct volcanoes, now filled with water; and report says that no sounding-line has yet been found long enough to fathom the bottom. Some day when some poor, unsuspecting tenderfoot is peering inquisitively down one of these well-like springs, the volcano may suddenly come into play again and convert the water into steam that will shoot him clear up into the moon. These volcanoes may have been soaking in water for millions of years; but they are not to be trusted on that account; they can be depended upon to fill some citizen full of lively surprise one of these days. Everything here is surprising. You look across the desert and see flowing water and waving trees; but when you get there, with your tongue hanging out and your fate wellnigh sealed, you are surprised to find nothing but sand and rocks. You climb a mountain expecting to find trees and birds' eggs, and you are surprised to find high-water marks and sea-shells. Finally, you look in the looking-glass and are surprised to find that the wind and exposure have transformed your nice blonde complexion to a semi-sable hue that would prevent your own mother from recognizing you. The next day, when nearing the entrance to Moutella Pass, over the Goose Creek Range, I happen to look across the mingled sagebrush and juniper-spruce brush to the right, and a sight greets my eyes that causes me to instinctively look around for a tall tree, though well knowing that there is nothing of the kind for miles; neither is there any ridable road near, or I might try my hand at breaking the record for a few miles. Standing bolt upright on their hind legs, by the side of a clump of juniper-spruce bushes and intently watching my movements, are a pair of full-grown cinnamon bears. When a bear sees a man before the man happens to descry him, and fails to betake himself off immediately, it signifies that he is either spoiling for a fight or doesn't care a continental password whether war is declared or not. Moreover, animals recognize the peculiar advantages of two to one in a fight equally with their human infer! - superiors; and those two over there are apparently in no particular hurry to move on. They don't seem awed at my presence. On the contrary, they look suspiciously like being undecided and hesitative about whether to let me proceed peacefully on my way or not. Their behavior is outrageous; they stare and stare and stare, and look quite ready for a fight. I don't intend one to come off, though, if I can avoid it. I prefer to have it settled by arbitration. I haven't lost these bears; they aren't mine, and I don't want anything that doesn't belong to me. I am not covetous; so, lest I should be tempted to shoot at them if I come within the regulation two hundred yards, I "edge off" a few hundred yards in the other direction, and soon have the intense satisfaction of seeing them stroll off toward the mountains. I wonder if I don't owe my escape on this occasion to my bicycle. Do the bright spokes glistening in the sunlight as they revolve make an impression on their bearish intellects that influences their decision in favor of a retreat. It is perhaps needless to add that, all through this mountain-pass, I keep a loose eye busily employed looking out for bears. But nothing more of a bearish nature occurs, and the early gloaming finds me at Tacoma, a village near the Utah boundary line. There is an awful calamity of some sort hovering over this village. One can feel it in the air. The habitues of the hotel barroom sit around, listless and glum. When they speak at all it is to predict all sorts of difficulties for me in my progress through Utah and Wyoming Territories. "The black gnats of the Salt Lake mud flat'll eat you clean up," snarls one. "Bear River's flooding the hull kintry up Weber Ca¤on way," growls another. "The slickest thing you kin do, stranger, is to board the keers and git out of this," says a third, in a tone of voice and with an emphasis that plainly indicates his great disgust at "this." By " this" he means the village of Tacoma; and he is disgusted with it. They are all disgusted with it and with the whole world this evening, because Tacoma is "out of whiskey." Yes, the village is destitute of whiskey; it should have arrived yesterday, and hasn't shown up yet; and the effect on the society of the bar-room is so depressing that I soon retire to my couch, to dream of Utah's strange intermingling of forbidding deserts and beautiful orchards through which my route now leads me. CHAPTER III. THROUGH MORMON-LAND AND OVER THE ROCKIES. A dreary-looking country is the " Great American Desert," in Utah, the northern boundary line of which I traverse next morning. To the left of the road is a low chain of barren hills; to the right, the uninviting plain, over which one's eye wanders in vain for some green object that might raise hopes of a less desolate region beyond; and over all hangs an oppressive silence - the silence of a dead country - a country destitute of both animal and vegetable life. Over the great desert hangs a smoky haze, out of which Pilot Peak, thirty-eight miles away, rears its conical head 2,500 feet above the level plain at its base. Some riding is obtained at intervals along this unattractive stretch of country, but there are no continuously ridable stretches, and the principal incentive to mount at all is a feeling of disgust at so much compulsory walking. A noticeable feature through the desert is the almost unquenchable thirst that the dry saline air inflicts upon one. Reaching a railway section-house, I find no one at home; but there is a small underground cistern of imported water, in which "wrigglers " innumerable wriggle, but which is otherwise good and cool. There is nothing to drink out of, and the water is three feet from the surface; while leaning down to try and drink, the wooden framework at the top gives way and precipitates me head first into the water. Luckily, the tank is large enough to enable me to turn round and reappear at the surface, head first, and with considerable difficulty I scramble out again, with, of course, not a dry thread on me. At three in the afternoon I roll into Terrace, a small Mormon town. Here a rather tough-looking citizen, noticing that my garments are damp, suggests that 'cycling must be hard work to make a person perspire like that in this dry climate. At the Matlin section-house I find accommodation for the night with a whole-souled section-house foreman, who is keeping bachelor's hall temporarily, as his wife is away on a visit at Ogden. >From this house, which is situated on the table-land of the Bed Dome Mountains, can be obtained a more comprehensive view of the Great American Desert than when we last beheld it. It has all the appearance of being the dry bed of an ancient salt lake or inland sea. A broad, level plain of white alkali, which is easily mistaken in the dim distance for smooth, still water, stretches away like a dead, motionless sea as far as human vision can penetrate, until lost in the haze; while, here and there, isolated rocks lift their rugged heads above the dreary level, like islets out of the sea. It is said there are many evidences that go to prove this desert to have once been covered by the waters of the great inland sea that still, in places, laves its eastern borders with its briny flood. I am informed there are many miles of smooth, hard, salt-flats, over which a 'cycler could skim like a bird; but I scarcely think enough of bird-like skimming to go searching for it on the American Desert. A few miles east of Matlin the road leads over a spur of the Red Dome Range, from whence I obtain my first view of the Great Salt Lake, and soon I am enjoying a long-anticipated bath in its briny waters. It is disagreeably cold, but otherwise an enjoyable bath. One can scarce sink beneath the surface, so strongly is the water impregnated with salt. For dinner, I reach Kelton, a town that formerly prospered as the point from which vast quantities of freight were shipped to Idaho. Scores of huge freight-wagons are now bunched up in the corrals, having outlived their usefulness since the innovation from mules and "overland ships " to locomotives on the Utah Northern Railway. Empty stores and a general air of vanished prosperity are the main features of Kelton to-day; and the inhabitants seem to reflect in their persons the aspect of the town; most of them being freighters, who, finding their occupation gone, hang listlessly around, as though conscious of being fit for nothing else. >From Kelton I follow the lake shore, and at six in the afternoon arrive at the salt-works, near Monument Station, and apply for accommodation, which is readily given. Here is erected a wind-mill, which pumps the water from the lake into shallow reservoirs, where it evaporates and leaves a layer of coarse salt on the bottom. These people drink water that is disagreeably brackish and unsatisfactory to one unaccustomed to it, but which they say has become more acceptable to them, from habitual use, than purely fresh water. This spot, is the healthiest and most favorable for the prolific production of certain forms of insect life I ever was in, and I spend the liveliest night here I ever spent anywhere. These people professed to give me a bed to myself, but no sooner have I laid my head on the pillow than I recognize the ghastly joke they are playing on me. The bed is already densely populated with guests, who naturally object to being ousted or overcrowded. They seem quite a kittenish and playful lot, rather inclined to accomplish their ends by playing wild pranks than by resorting to more austere measures. Watching till I have closed my eyes in an attempt to doze off, they slip up and playfully tickle me under the chin, or scramble around in my ear, and anon they wildly chase each other up and down my back, and play leap-frog and hide-and-go-seek all over my sensitive form, so that I arise in the morning anything but refreshed from my experience. Still following the shores of the lake, for several miles, my road now leads over the northern spur of the Promontory Mountains. On these hills I find a few miles of hard gravel that affords the best riding I have experienced in Utah, and I speed along as rapidly as possible, for dark, threatening clouds are gathering overhead. But ere I reach the summit of the ridge a violent thunder-storm breaks over the hills, and I seem to be verily hobnobbing with the thunder and lightning, that appears to be round about me, rather than overhead. A troop of wild bronchos, startled and stampeded by the vivid lightning and sharp peals of thunder, come wildly charging down the mountain trail, threatening to run quite over me in their mad career. Pulling my six-shooter, I fire a couple of shots in the air to attract their attention, when they rapidly swerve to the left, and go tearing frantically over the rolling hills on their wild flight to the plains below. Most of the rain falls on the plain and in the lake, and when I arrive at the summit I pause to take a view at the lake and surrounding country. A more auspicious occasion could scarcely have been presented. The storm has subsided, and far beneath my feet a magnificent rainbow spans the plain, and dips one end of its variegated beauty in the sky-blue waters of the lake. From this point the view to the west and south is truly grand-rugged, irregular mountain-chains traverse the country at every conceivable angle, and around among them winds the lake, filling with its blue waters the intervening spaces, and reflecting, impartially alike, their grand majestic beauty and their faults. What dreams of empire and white-winged commerce on this inland sea must fill the mind and fire the imagery of the newly arrived Mormon convert who, standing on the commanding summit of these mountains, feasts his eyes on the glorious panorama of blue water and rugged mountains that is spread like a wondrous picture before him. Surely, if he be devotionally inclined, it fails not to recall to his mind another inland sea in far-off Asia Minor, on whose pebbly shores and by whose rippling waves the cradle of an older religion than Morrnonism was rocked - but not rocked to sleep. Ten miles farther on, from the vantage-ground of a pass over another spur of the same range, is obtained a widely extended view of the country to the east. For nearly thirty miles from the base of the mountains, low, level mud-flats extend eastward, bordered on the south by the marshy, sinuous shores of the lake, and on the north by the Blue Creek Mountains. Thirty miles to the east - looking from this distance strangely like flocks of sheep grazing at the base of the mountains - can be seen the white- painted houses of the Mormon settlements, that thickly dot the narrow but fertile strip of agricultural land, between Bear River and the mighty Wahsatch Mountains, that, rearing their snowy crest skyward, shut out all view of what lies beyond. From this height the level mud-flats appear as if one could mount his wheel and bowl across at a ten-mile pace; but I shall be agreeably surprised if I am able to aggregate ten miles of riding out of the thirty. Immediately after getting down into the bottom I make the acquaintance of the tiny black gnats that one of our whiskey- bereaved friends at Tacoma had warned me against. One's head is constantly enveloped in a black cloud of these little wretches. They are of infinitesimal proportions, and get into a person's ears, eyes, and nostrils, and if one so far forgets himself as to open his mouth, they swarm in as though they think it the "pearly gates ajar," and this their last chance of effecting an entrance. Mingled with them, and apparently on the best of terms, are swarms of mosquitoes, which appear perfect Jumbos in comparison with their disreputable associates. As if partially to recompense me for the torments of the afternoon, Dame Fortune considerately provides me with two separate and distinct suppers this evening. I had intended, when I left Promontory Station, to reach Corinne for the night; consequently I bring a lunch with me, knowing it will take me till late to reach there. These days, I am troubled with an appetite that makes me blush to speak of it, and about five o'clock I sit down - on the bleached skeleton of a defunct mosquito! - and proceed to eat my lunch of bread and meat - and gnats; for I am quite certain of eating hundreds of these omnipresent creatures at every bite I take. Two hours afterward I am passing Quarry section-house, when the foreman beckons me over and generously invites me to remain over night. He brings out canned oysters and bottles of Milwaukee beer, and insists on my helping him discuss these acceptable viands; to which invitation it is needless to say I yield without extraordinary pressure, the fact of having eaten two hours before being no obstacle whatever. So much for 'cycling as an aid to digestion. Arriving at Corinne, on Bear River, at ten o'clock next morning, I am accosted by a bearded, patriarchal Mormon, who requests me to constitute myself a parade of one, and ride the bicycle around the town for the edification of the people's minds. " In course they knows what a ' perlocefede' is, from seein' 'em in picturs; but they never seed a real machine, and it'd be a 'hefty' treat fer 'em,"is the eloquent appeal made by this person in behalf of the Corinnethians, over whose destinies and happiness he appears to preside with fatherly solicitude. As the streets of Corinne this morning consist entirely of black mud of uncertain depth, I am reluctantly compelled to say the elder nay, at the same time promising him that if he would have them in better condition next time I happened around, I would willingly second his brilliant idea of making the people happy by permitting them a glimpse of my " perlocefede " in action. After crossing Bear River I find myself on a somewhat superior road leading through the Mormon settlements to Ogden. No greater contrast can well be imagined than that presented by this strip of country lying between the lake and the "Wahsatch Mountains, and the desert country to the westward. One can almost fancy himself suddenly transported by some good genii to a quiet farming community in an Eastern State. Instead of untamed bronchos and wild-eyed cattle, roaming at their own free will over unlimited territory, are seen staid work-horses ploughing in the field, and the sleek milch-cow peacefully cropping tame grass in enclosed meadows. Birds are singing merrily in the willow hedges and the shade-trees; green fields of alfalfa and ripening grain line the road and spread themselves over the surrounding country in alternate squares, like those of a vast checker-board. Farms, on the average, are small, and, consequently, houses are thick; and not a farm-house among them all but is embowered in an orchard of fruit and shade-trees that mingle their green leaves and white blossoms harmoniously. At noon I roll into a forest of fruit- trees, among which, I am informed, Willard City is situated; but one can see nothing of any city. Nothing but thickets of peach, plum, and apple trees, all in full bloom, surround the spot where I alight and begin to look around for some indications of the city. "Where is Willard City. " I inquire of a boy who comes out from one of the orchards carrying a can of kerosene in his hand, suggestive of having just come from a grocery, and so he has. " This is Willard City, right here," replies the boy; and then, in response to my inquiry for the hotel, he points to a small gate leading into an orchard, and tells me the hotel is in there. The hote l -like every other house and store here - is embowered amid an orchard of blooming fruit-trees, and looks like anything but a public eating-house. No sign up, nothing to distinguish it from a private dwelling; and I am ushered into a nicely furnished parlor, on the neatly papered walls of which hang enlarged portraits of Brigham Young and other Mormon celebrities, while a large-sized Mormon bible, expensively bound in morocco, reposes on the centre-table. A charming Miss of -teen summers presides over a private table, on which is spread for my material benefit the finest meal I have eaten since leaving California. Such snow-white bread. Such delicious butter. And the exquisite flavor of "spiced peach- butter" lingers in my fancy even now; and as if this were not enough for "two bits" (a fifty per cent, come-down from usual rates in the mountains), a splendid bouquet of flowers is set on the table to round off the repast with their grateful perfume. As I enjoy the wholesome, substantial food, I fall to musing on the mighty chasm that intervenes between the elegant meal now before me and the "Melican plan-cae " of two weeks ago. "You have a remarkably pleasant country here, Miss," I venture to remark to the young lady who has presided over my table, and whom I judge to be the daughter of the house, as she comes to the door to see the bicycle. "Yes; we have made it pleasant by planting so many orchards," she answers, demurely. "I should think the Mormons ought to be contented, for they possess the only good piece of farming country between California and 'the States,'" I blunderingly continued. "I never heard anyone say they are not contented, but their enemies," replies this fair and valiant champion of Mormonism in a voice that shows she quite misunderstands my meaning. "What I intended to say was, that the Mormon people are to be highly congratulated on their good sense in settling here," I hasten to explain; for were I to leave at this house, where my treatment has been so gratifying, a shadow of prejudice against the Mormons, I should feel like kicking myself all over the Territory. The women of the Mormon religion are instructed by the wiseacres of the church to win over strangers by kind treatment and by the charm of their conversation and graces; and this young lady has learned the lesson well; she has graduated with high honors. Coming from the barren deserts of Nevada and Western Utah - from the land where the irreverent and irrepressible "Old Timer" fills the air with a sulphurous odor from his profanity and where nature is seen in its sternest aspect, and then suddenly finding one's self literally surrounded by flowers and conversing with Beauty about Religion, is enough to charm the heart of a marble statue. Ogden is reached for supper, where I quite expect to find a 'cycler or two (Ogden being a city of eight thousand inhabitants); but the nearest approach to a bicycler in Ogden is a gentleman who used to belong to a Chicago club, but who has failed to bring his "wagon" West with him. Twelve miles of alternate riding and walking eastwardly from Ogden bring me to the entrance of Weber Canon, through which the Weber River, the Union Pacific Railroad, and an uncertain wagon-trail make their way through the Wahsatch Mountains on to the elevated table-lands of Wyoming Territory. Objects of interest follow each other in quick succession along this part of the journey, and I have ample time to examine them, for Weber River is flooding the canon, and in many places has washed away the narrow space along which wagons are wont to make their way, so that I have to trundle slowly along the railway track. Now the road turns to the left, and in a few minutes the rugged and picturesque walls of the canon are towering in imposing heights toward the clouds. The Weber River comes rushing - a resistless torrent - from under the dusky shadows of the mountains through which it runs for over fifty miles, and onward to the pkin below, where it assumes a more moderate pace, as if conscious that it has at last escaped from the hurrying turmoil of its boisterous march down the mountain. Advancing into the yawning jaws of the range, a continuously resounding roar is heard in advance, which gradually becomes louder as I proceed eastward; in a short time the source of the noise is discovered, and a weird scene greets my enraptured vision. At a place where the fall is tremendous, the waters are opposed in their mad march by a rough-and-tumble collection of huge, jagged rocks, that have at some time detached themselves from the walls above, and come crashing down into the bed of the stream. The rushing waters, coming with haste from above, appear to pounce with insane fury on the rocks that dare thus to obstruct their path; and then for the next few moments all is a hissing, seething, roaring caldron of strife, the mad waters seeming to pounce with ever- increasing fury from one imperturbable antagonist to another, now leaping clear over the head of one, only to dash itself into a cloud of spray against another, or pour like a cataract against its base in a persistent, endless struggle to undermine it; while over all tower the dark, shadowy rocks, grim witnesses of the battle. This spot is known by the appropriate name of "The Devil's Gate." Wherever the walls of the canon recede from the river's brink, and leave a space of cultivable land, there the industrious Mormons have built log or adobe cabins, and converted the circumscribed domain into farms, gardens, and orchards. In one of these isolated settlements I seek shelter from a passing shower at the house of a "three-ply Mormon " (a Mormon with three wives), and am introduced to his three separate and distinct better-halves; or, rather, one should say, " better-quarters," for how can anything have three halves. A noticeable feature at all these farms is the universal plurality of women around the house, and sometimes in the field. A familiar scene in any farming community is a woman out in the field, visiting her husband, or, perchance, assisting him in his labors. The same thing is observable at the Mormon settlements along the Weber River - only, instead of one woman, there are generally two or three, and perhaps yet another standing in the door of the house. Passing through two tunnels that burrow through rocky spurs stretching across the canon, as though to obstruct farther progress, across the river, to the right, is the "Devil's Slide" - two perpendicular walls of rock, looking strangely like man's handiwork, stretching in parallel lines almost from base to summit of a sloping, grass-covered mountain. The walls are but a dozen feet apart. It is a curious phenomenon, but only one among many that are scattered at intervals all through here. A short distance farther, and I pass the famous "Thousand-mile Tree" - a rugged pine, that stands between the railroad and the river, and which has won renown by springing up just one thousand miles from Omaha. This tree is having a tough struggle for its life these days; one side of its honored trunk is smitten as with the leprosy. The fate of the Thousand-mile Tree is plainly sealed. It is unfortunate in being the most conspicuous target on the line for the fe-ro-ci-ous youth who comes West with a revolver in his pocket and shoots at things from the car-window. Judging from the amount of cold lead contained in that side of its venerable trunk next the railway few of these thoughtless marksmen go past without honoring it with a shot. Emerging from "the Narrows" of Weber Canon, the route follows across a less contracted space to Echo City, a place of two hundred and twenty-five inhabitants, mostly Mormons, where I remain over-night. The hotel where I put up at Echo is all that can be desired, so far as "provender" is concerned; but the handsome and picturesque proprietor seems afflicted with sundry eccentric habits, his leading eccentricity being a haughty contempt for fractional currency. Not having had the opportunity to test him, it is difficult to say whether this peculiarity works both ways, or only when the change is due his transient guests. However, we willingly give him the benefit of the doubt. Heavily freighted rain-clouds are hovering over the mountains next morning and adding to the gloominess of the gorge, which, just east of Echo City, contracts again and proceeds eastward under the name of Echo Gorge. Turning around a bold rocky projection to the left, the far-famed "Pulpit Rock" towers above, on which Brigham Young is reported to have stood and preached to the Mormon host while halting over Sunday at this point, during their pilgrimage to their new home in the Salt Lake Valley below. Had the redoubtable prophet turned "dizzy " while haranguing his followers from the elevated pinnacle of his novel pulpit, he would at least have died a more romantic death than he is accredited with - from eating too much green corn. Fourteen miles farther brings me to "Castle Rocks," a name given to the high sandstone bluffs that compose the left-hand side of the canon at this point, and which have been worn by the elements into all manner of fantastic shapes, many of them calling to mind the towers and turrets of some old-world castle so vividly, that one needs but the pomp and circumstance of old knight-errant days to complete the illusion. But, as one gazes with admiration on these towering buttresses of nature, it is easy to realize that the most massive and imposing feudal castle, or ramparts built with human hands, would look like children's toys beside them. The weather is cool and bracing, and when, in the middle of the afternoon, I reach Evanston, Wyo. Terr., too late to get dinner at the hotel, I proceed to devour the contents of a bakery, filling the proprietor with boundless astonishment by consuming about two-thirds of his stock. When I get through eating, he bluntly refuses to charge anything, considering himself well repaid by having witnessed the most extraordinary gastronomic feat on record - the swallowing of two-thirds of a bakery. Following the trail down Yellow Creek, I arrive at Hilliard after dark. The Hilliardites are "somewhat seldom," but they are made of the right material. The boarding-house landlady sets about preparing me supper, late though it be; and the "boys" extend me a hearty invitation to turn in with them for the night. Here at Hilliard is a long V-shaped flume, thirty miles long, in which telegraph poles, ties, and cord wood are floated down to the railroad from the pineries of the Uintah Mountains, now plainly visible to the south. The "boys" above referred to are men engaged in handling ties thus floated down; and sitting around the red-hot stove, they make the evening jolly with songs and yarns of tie-drives, and of wild rides down the long "V" flume. A happy, light-hearted set of fellows are these "tie-men," and not an evening but their rude shanty resounds with merriment galore. Fun is in the air to-night, and "Beaver" (so dubbed on account of an unfortunate tendency to fall into every hole of water he goes anywhere near) is the unlucky wight upon whom the rude witticisms concentrate; for he has fallen into the water again to- day, and is busily engaged in drying his clothes by the stove. They accuse him of keeping up an uncomfortably hot fire, detrimental to everybody's comfort but his own, and threaten him with dire penalties if he doesn't let the room cool off; also broadly hinting their disapproval of his over-fondness for "Adam's ale," and threaten to make him "set 'em up" every time he tumbles in hereafter. In revenge for these remarks, "Beaver" piles more wood into the stove, and, with many a westernism - not permitted in print - threatens to keep up a fire that will drive them all out of the shanty if they persist in their persecutions. Crossing next day the low, broad pass over the Uintah Mountains, some stretches of ridable surface are passed over, and at this point I see the first band of antelope on the tour; but as they fail to come within the regulation two hundred yards they are graciously permitted to live. At Piedmont Station I decide to go around by way of Port Bridger and strike the direct trail again at Carter Station, twentyfour miles farther east. A tough bit of Country. The next day at noon finds me "tucked in my little bed" at Carter, decidedly the worse for wear, having experienced the toughest twenty-four hours of the entire journey. I have to ford no less than nine streams of ice-cold water; get benighted on a rain-soaked adobe plain, where I have to sleep out all night in an abandoned freight- wagon; and, after carrying the bicycle across seven miles of deep, sticky clay, I finally arrive at Carter, looking like the last sad remnant of a dire calamity - having had nothing to eat for twenty-four hours. From Carter my route leads through the Bad-Lands, amid buttes of mingled clay and rock, which the elements have worn into all conceivable shapes, and conspicuous among them can be seen, to the south, "Church Buttes," so called from having been chiselled by the dexterous hand of nature into a group of domes and pinnacles, that, from a distance, strikingly resembles some magnificent cathedral. High-water marks are observable on these buttes, showing that Noah's flood, or some other aqueous calamity once happened around here; and one can easily imagine droves of miserable, half-clad Indians, perched on top, looking with doleful, melancholy expression on the surrounding wilderness of waters. Arriving at Granger, for dinner, I find at the hotel a crest-fallen state of affairs somewhat similar to the glumness of Tacoma. Tacoma had plenty of customers, but no whiskey; Granger on the contrary has plenty of whiskey, but no customers. The effect on that marvellous, intangible something, the saloon proprietor's intellect, is the same at both places. Here is plainly a new field of research for some ambitious student of psychology. Whiskey without customers. Customers without whiskey. Truly all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Next day I pass the world-renowned castellated rocks of Green River, and stop for the night at Rock Springs, where the Union Pacific Railway Company has extensive coal mines. On calling for my bill at the hotel here, next morning, the proprietor - a corpulent Teuton, whose thoughts, words, and actions, run entirely to beer - replies, "Twenty-five cents a quart." Thinking my hearing apparatus is at fault, I inquire again. "Twenty-five cents a quart and vurnish yer own gan." The bill is abnormally large, but, as I hand over the amount, a "loaded schooner" is shoved under my nose, as though a glass of beer were a tranquillizing antidote for all the ills of life. Splendid level alkali flats abound east of Rock Springs, and I bowl across them at a lively pace until they terminate, and my route follows up Bitter Creek, where the surface is just the reverse; being seamed and furrowed as if it had just emerged from a devastating flood. It is said that the teamster who successfully navigated the route up Bitter Creek, considered himself entitled to be called "a tough cuss from Bitter Creek, on wheels, with a perfect education." A justifiable regard for individual rights would seem to favor my own assumption of this distinguished title after traversing the route with a bicycle. Ten o'clock next morning finds me leaning on my wheel, surveying the scenery from the "Continental Divide" - the backbone of the continent. Pacing the north, all waters at my right hand flow to the east, and all on my left flow to the west - the one eventually finding their way to the Atlantic, the other to the Pacific. This spot is a broad low pass through the Rockies, more plain than mountain, but from which a most commanding view of numerous mountain chains are obtained. To the north and northwest are the Seminole, Wind River, and Sweet-water ranges - bold, rugged mountain- chains, filling the landscape of the distant north with a mass of great, jagged, rocky piles, grand beyond conception; their many snowy peaks peopling the blue ethery space above with ghostly, spectral forms well calculated to inspire with feelings of awe and admiration a lone cycler, who, standing in silence and solitude profound on the great Continental Divide, looks and meditates on what he sees. Other hoary monarchs are visible to the east, which, however, we shall get acquainted with later on. Down grade is the rule now, and were there a good road, what an enjoyable coast it would be, down from the Continental Divide! but half of it has to be walked. About eighteen miles from the divide I am greatly amused, and not a little astonished, at the strange actions of a coyote that comes trotting in a leisurely, confidential way toward me; and when he reaches a spot commanding a good view of my road he stops and watches my movements with an air of the greatest inquisitiveness and assurance. He stands and gazes as I trundle along, not over fifty yards away, and he looks so much like a well-fed collie, that I actually feel like patting my knee for him to come and make friends. Shoot at him . Certainly not. One never abuses a confidence like that. He can come and rub his sleek coat up against the bicycle if he likes, and - blood-thirsty rascal though he no doubt is - I will never fire at him. He has as much right to gaze in astonishment at a bicycle as anybody else who never saw one before. Staying over night and the next day at Rawlins, I make the sixteen miles to Port Fred Steele next morning before breakfast, there bein" a very good road between the two places. This fort stands on the west bank of North Platte River, and a few miles west of the river I ride through the first prairie dog town encountered in crossing the continent from the west, though I shall see plenty of these interesting little fellows during the next three hundred miles. These animals sit near their holes and excitedly bark at whatever goes past. Never before have they had an opportunity to bark at a bicycle, and they seem to be making the most of their opportunity. I see at this village none of the small speckled owls, which, with the rattlesnake, make themselves so much at home in the prairie-dogs' comfortable quarters, but I see them farther east. These three strangely assorted companions may have warm affections toward each other; but one is inclined to think the great bond of sympathy that binds them together is the tender regard entertained by the owl and the rattlesnake for the nice, tender young prairie-pups that appear at intervals to increase the joys and cares of the elder animals. I am now getting on to the famous Laramie Plains, and Elk Mountain looms up not over ten miles to the south - a solid, towery mass of black rocks and dark pine forests, that stands out bold and distinct from surrounding mountain chains as though some animate thing conscious of its own strength and superiority. A snow-storm is raging on its upper slopes, obscuring that portion of the mountain; but the dark forest-clad slopes near the base are in plain view, and also the rugged peak which elevates its white crowned head above the storm, and reposes peacefully in the bright sunlight in striking contrast to the warring elements lower down. I have heard old hunters assert that this famous "landmark of the Rockies" is hollow, and that they have heard wolves howling inside the mountain; but some of these old western hunters see and hear strange things! As I penetrate the Laramie Plains the persistent sage-brush, that has constantly hovered around my path for the last thousand miles, grows beautifully less, and the short, nutritious buffalo-grass is creeping everywhere. In Carbon, where I arrive after dark, I mention among other things in reply to the usual volley of questions, the fact of having to foot it so great a proportion of the way through the mountain country; and shortly afterward, from among a group of men, I hear a voice, thick and husky with "valley tan," remark: " Faith, Oi cud roide a bicycle meself across the counthry av yeez ud lit me walluk it afut!" and straightway a luminous bunch of shamrocks dangled for a brief moment in the air, and then vanished. After passing Medicine Bow Valley and Como Lake I find some good ridable road, the surface being hard gravel and the plains high and dry. Reaching the brow of one of those rocky ridges that hereabouts divide the plains into so many shallow basins, I find myself suddenly within a few paces of a small herd of antelope peacefully grazing on the other side of the narrow ridge, all unconscious of the presence of one of creation's alleged proud lords. My ever-handy revolver rings out clear and sharp on the mountain air, and the startled antelope go bounding across the plain in a succession of quick, jerky jumps peculiar to that nimble animal; but ere they have travelled a hundred yards one of them lags behind and finally staggers and lays down on the grass. As I approach him he makes a gallant struggle to rise and make off after his companions, but the effort is too much for him, and coming up to him, I quickly put him out of pain by a shot behind the ear. This makes a proud addition to my hitherto rather small list of game, which now comprises jack-rabbits, a badger, a fierce gosling, an antelope, and a thin, attenuated coyote, that I bowled over in Utah. >From this ridge an extensive view of the broad, billowy plains and surrounding mountains is obtained. Elk Mountain still seems close at hand, its towering form marking the western limits of the Medicine Bow Range whose dark pine-clad slopes form the western border of the plains. Back of them to the west is the Snowy Range, towering in ghostly grandeur as far above the timber-clad summits of the Medicine Bow Range as these latter are above the grassy plains at their base. To the south more snowy mountains stand out against the sky like white tracery on a blue ground, with Long's Peak and Fremont's Peak towering head and shoulders above them all. The Rattlesnake Range, with Laramie Peak rearing its ten thousand feet of rugged grandeur to the clouds, are visible to the north. On the east is the Black Hills Range, the last chain of the Rockies, and now the only barrier intervening between me and the broad prairies that roll away eastward to the Missouri River and "the States." A genuine Laramie Plains rain-storm is hovering overhead as I pull out of Rock Creek, after dinner, and in a little while the performance begins. There is nothing of the gentle pattering shower about a rain and wind storm on these elevated plains; it comes on with a blow and a bluster that threatens to take one off his feet. The rain is dashed about in the air by the wild, blustering wind, and comes from all directions at the same time. While you are frantically hanging on to your hat, the wind playfully unbuttons your rubber coat and lifts it up over your head and flaps the wet, muddy corners about in your face and eyes; and, ere you can disentangle your features from the cold uncomfortable embrace of the wet mackintosh, the rain - which "falls" upward as well as down, and sidewise, and every other way-has wet you through up as high as the armpits; and then the gentle zephyrs complete your discomfiture by purloining your hat and making off across the sodden plain with it, at a pace that defies pursuit. The storm winds up in a pelting shower of hailstones - round chunks of ice that cause me to wince whenever one makes a square hit, and they strike the steel spokes of the bicycle and make them produce harmonious sounds. Trundling through Cooper Lake Basin, after dark, I get occasional glimpses of mysterious shadowy objects flitting hither and thither through the dusky pall around me. The basin is full of antelope, and my presence here in the darkness fills them with consternation; their keen scent and instinctive knowledge of a strange presence warn them of my proximity; and as they cannot see me in the darkness they are flitting about in wild alarm. Stopping for the night at Lookout, I make an early start, in order to reach Laramie City for dinner. These Laramie Plains "can smile and look pretty" when they choose, and, as I bowl along over a fairly good road this sunny Sunday morning, they certainly choose. The Laramie River on my left, the Medicine Bow and Snowy ranges - black and white respectively - towering aloft to the right, and the intervening plains dotted with herds of antelope, complete a picture that can be seen nowhere save on the Laramie Plains. Reaching a swell of the plains, that almost rises to the dignity of a hill, I can see the nickel-plated wheels of the Laramie wheelmen glistening in the sunlight on the opposite side of the river several miles from where I stand. They have come out a few miles to meet me, but have taken the wrong side of the river, thinking I had crossed below Rock Creek. The members of the Laramie Bicycle Club are the first wheelmen I have seen since leaving California; and, as I am personally acquainted at Laramie, it is needless to dwell on my reception at their hands. The rambles of the Laramie Club are well known to the cycling world from the many interesting letters from the graphic pen of their captain, Mr. Owen, who, with two other members, once took a tour on their wheels to the Yellowstone National Park. They have some very good natural roads around Laramie, but in their rambles over the mountains these "rough riders of the Rockies" necessarily take risks that are unknown to their fraternal brethren farther east. Tuesday morning I pull out to scale the last range that separates me from "the plains" - popularly known as such - and, upon arriving at the summit, I pause to take a farewell view of the great and wonderful inter- mountain country, across whose mountains, plains, and deserts I have been travelling in so novel a manner for the last month. The view from where I stand is magnificent - ay, sublime beyond human power to describe - and well calculated to make an indelible impression on the mind of one gazing upon it, perhaps for the last time. The Laramie Plains extend northward and westward, like a billowy green sea. Emerging from a black canon behind Jelm Mountain, the Laramie River winds its serpentine course in a northeast direction until lost to view behind the abutting mountains of the range, on which I now stand, receiving tribute in its course from the Little Laramie and numbers of smaller streams that emerge from the mountainous bulwarks forming the western border of the marvellous picture now before me. The unusual rains have filled the numberless depressions of the plains with ponds and lakelets that in their green setting glisten and glimmer in the bright morning sunshine like gems. A train is coming from the west, winding around among them as if searching out the most beautiful, and finally halts at Laramie City, which nestles in their midst - the fairest gem of them all - the "Gem of the Rockies." Sheep Mountain, the embodiment of all that is massive and indestructible, juts boldly and defiantly forward as though its mission were to stand guard over all that lies to the west. The Medicine Bow Eange is now seen to greater advantage, and a bald mountain-top here and there protrudes above the dark forests, timidly, as if ashamed of its nakedness. Our old friend, Elk Mountain, is still in view, a stately and magnificent pile, serving as a land-mark for a hundred miles around. Beyond all this, to the west and south - a good hundred miles away - are the snowy ranges; their hoary peaks of glistening purity penetrating the vast blue dome above, like monarchs in royal vestments robed. Still others are seen, white and shadowy, stretching away down into Colorado, peak beyond peak, ridge beyond ridge, until lost in the impenetrable distance. As I lean on my bicycle on this mountain-top, drinking in the glorious scene, and inhaling the ozone-laden air, looking through the loop-holes of recent experiences in crossing the great wonderland to the west; its strange intermingling of forest-clad hills and grassy valleys; its barren, rocky mountains and dreary, desolate plains; its vast, snowy solitudes and its sunny, sylvan nooks; the no less strange intermingling of people; the wandering red-skin with his pathetic history; the feverishly hopeful prospector, toiling and searching for precious metals locked in the eternal hills; and the wild and free cow-boy who, mounted on his wiry bronco, roams these plains and mountains, free as the Arab of the desert - I heave a sigh as I realize that no tongue or pen of mine can hope to do the subject justice. My road is now over Cheyenne Pass, and from this point is mostly down-grade to Cheyenne. Soon I come to a naturally smooth granite surface which extends for twelve miles, where I have to keep the brake set most of the distance, and the constant friction heats the brake-spoon and scorches the rubber tire black. To-night I reach Cheyenne, where I find a bicycle club of twenty members, and where the fame of my journey from San Francisco draws such a crowd on the corner where I alight, that a blue-coated guardian of the city's sidewalks requests me to saunter on over to the hotel. Do I. Yes, I saunter over. The Cheyenne "cops" are bold, bad men to trifle with. They have to be "bold, bad men to trifle with," or the wild, wicked cow-boys would come in and "paint the city red " altogether too frequently. It is the morning of June 4th as I bid farewell to the "Magic City," and, turning my back to the mountains, ride away over very fair roads toward the rising sun. I am not long out before meeting with that characteristic feature of a scene on the Western plains, a "prairie schooner;" and meeting prairie schooners will now be a daily incident of my eastward journey. Many of these "pilgrims" come from the backwoods of Missouri and Arkansas, or the rural districts of some other Western State, where the persevering, but at present circumscribed, cycler has not yet had time to penetrate, and the bicycle is therefore to them a wonder to be gazed at and commented on, generally - it must be admitted - in language more fluent as to words than in knowledge of the subject discussed. Not far from where the trail leads out of Crow Creek bottom on to the higher table-land, I find the grassy plain smoother than the wagon-trail, and bowl along for a short distance as easily as one could wish. But not for long is this permitted; the ground becomes covered with a carpeting of small, loose cacti that stick to the rubber tire with the clinging tenacity of a cuckle-burr to a mule's tail. Of course they scrape off again as they come round to the bridge of the fork, but it isn't the tire picking them up that fills me with lynx-eyed vigilance and alarm; it is the dreaded possibility of taking a header among these awful vegetables that unnerves one, starts the cold chills chasing each other up and down my spinal column, and causes staring big beads of perspiration to ooze out of my forehead. No more appalling physical calamity on a small scale could befall a person than to take a header on to a cactus-covered greensward; millions of miniature needles would fill his tender hide with prickly sensations, and his vision with floating stars. It would perchance cast clouds of gloom over his whole life. Henceforth he would be a solemn-visaged, bilious-eyed needle-cushion among men, and would never smile again. I once knew a young man named Whipple, who sat down on a bunch of these cacti at a picnic in Virginia Dale, Wyo., and he never smiled again. Two meek-eyed maidens of the Rockies invited him to come and take a seat between them on a thin, innocuous-looking layer of hay. Smilingly poor, unsuspecting Whipple accepted the invitation; jokingly he suggested that it would be a rose between two thorns. But immediately he sat down he became convinced that it was the liveliest thorn - or rather millions of thorns - between two roses. Of course the two meek-eyed maidens didn't know it was there, how should they. But, all the same, he never smiled again - not on them. At the section-house, where I call for dinner, I make the mistake of leaving the bicycle behind the house, and the woman takes me for an uncommercial traveller - yes, a tramp. She snaps out, "We can't feed everybody that comes along," and shuts the door in my face. Yesterday I was the centre of admiring crowds in the richest city of its size in America; to-day I am mistaken for a hungry-eyed tramp, and spurned from the door by a woman with a faded calico dress and a wrathy what - are? look in her eye. Such is life in the Far West. Gradually the Rockies have receded from my range of vision, and I am alone on the boundless prairie. There is a feeling of utter isolation at finding one's self alone on the plains that is not experienced in the mountain country. There is something tangible and companionable about a mountain; but here, where there is no object in view anywhere - nothing but the boundless, level plains, stretching away on every hand as far as the eye can reach, I and all around, whichever way one looks, nothing but the green carpet below and the cerulean arch above-one feels that he is the sole occupant of a vast region of otherwise unoccupied space. This evening, while fording Pole Creek with the bicycle, my clothes, and shoes - all at the same time - the latter fall in the river; and m my wild scramble after the shoes I drop some of the clothes; then I drop the machine in my effort to save the clothes, and wind up by falling down in the water with everything. Everything is fished out again all right, but a sad change has come over the clothes and shoes. This morning I was mistaken for a homeless, friendless wanderer; this evening as I stand on the bank of Pole Creek with nothing over me but a thin mantle of native modesty, and ruefully wring the water out of my clothes, I feel considerably like one. Pine Bluffs provides me with shelter for the night, and a few miles' travel next morning takes me across the boundary-line into Nebraska My route leads down Pole Creek, with ridable roads probably half the distance, and low, rocky bluffs lining both sides of the narrow valley, and leading up to high, rolling prairie beyond. Over these rocky bluffs the Indians were wont to stampede herds of buffalo, which falling over the precipitous bluffs, would be killed by hundreds, thus procuring an abundance of beef for the long winter. There are no buffalo here now - they have departed with the Indians - and I shall never have a chance to add a bison to my game-list on this tour. But they have left plenty of tangible evidence behind, in the shape of numerous deeply worn trails leading from the bluffs to the creek. The prairie hereabouts is spangled with a wealth of divers-colored flowers that fill the morning air with gratifying perfume. The air is soft and balmy, in striking contrast to the chilly atmosphere of early morning in the mountain country, where the accumulated snows of a thousand winters exert their chilling influence in opposition to the benign rays of old Sol. This evening I pass through "Prairie-dog City," the largest congregation of prairie-dog dwellings met with on the tour. The "city" covers hundreds of acres of ground, and the dogs come out in such multitudes to present their noisy and excitable protests against my intrusion, that I consider myself quite justified in shooting at them. I hit one old fellow fair and square, but he disappears like a flash down his hole, which now becomes his grave. The lightning-like movements of the prairie-dog, and his instinctive inclination toward his home, combine to perform the last sad rites of burial for his body at death. As, toward dark, I near Potter Station, where I expect accommodation for the night, a storm comes howling from the west, and it soon resolves into a race between me and the storm. With a good ridable road I could win the race; but, being handicapped with an unridable trail, nearly obscured beneath tall, rank grass, the storm overtakes me, and comes in at Potter Station a winner by about three hundred lengths. In the morning I start out in good season, and, nearing Sidney, the road becomes better, and I sweep into that enterprising town at a becoming pace. I conclude to remain at Sidney for dinner, and pass the remainder of the forenoon visiting the neighboring fort. CHAPTER IV. FROM THE GREAT PLAINS TO THE ATLANTIC. Through the courtesy of the commanding officer at Fort Sidney I am enabled to resume my journey eastward under the grateful shade of a military summer helmet in lieu of the semi-sombrero slouch that has lasted me through from San Francisco. Certainly it is not without feelings of compunction that one discards an old friend, that has gallantly stood by me through thick and thin throughout the eventful journey across the inter-mountain country; but the white helmet gives such a delightfully imposing air to my otherwise forlorn and woebegone figure that I ride out of Sidney feeling quite vain. The first thing done is to fill a poor yellow-spotted snake - whose head is boring in the sand - with lively surprise, by riding over his mottled carcass; and only the fact of the tire being rubber, and not steel, enables him to escape unscathed. This same evening, while halting for the night at Lodge Pole Station, the opportunity of observing the awe-inspiring aspect of a great thunder-storm on the plains presents itself. With absolutely nothing to obstruct the. vision the Alpha and Omega of the whole spectacle are plainly observable. The gradual mustering of the forces is near the Rockies to the westward, then the skirmish-line of fleecy cloudlets comes rolling and tumbling in advance, bringing a current of air that causes the ponderous wind-mill at the railway tank to "about face" sharply, and sets its giant arms to whirling vigorously around. Behind comes the compact, inky veil that spreads itself over the whole blue canopy above, seemingly banishing all hope of the future; and athwart its Cimmerian surface shoot zigzag streaks of lightning, accompanied by heavy, muttering thunder that rolls and reverberates over the boundless plains seemingly conscious of the spaciousness of its play-ground. Broad sheets of electric flame play along the ground, filling the air with a strange, unnatural light; heavy, pattering raindrops begin to fall, and, ten minutes after, a pelting, pitiless down-pour is drenching the sod-cabin of the lonely rancher, and, for the time being, converting the level plain into a shallow lake. A fleet of prairie schooners is anchored in the South Platte bottom, waiting for it to dry up, as I trundle down that stream - every mile made interesting by reminiscences of Indian fights and massacres - next day, toward Ogallala; and one of the "Pilgrims" looks wise as I approach, and propounds the query, "Does it hev ter git very muddy afore yer kin ride yer verlocify, mister?" "Ya-as, purty dog-goned muddy," I drawl out in reply; for, although comprehending his meaning, I don't care to venture into an explanatory lecture of uncertain length. Seven weeks' travel through bicycleless territory would undoubtedly convert an angel into a hardened prevaricator, so far as answering questions is concerned. This afternoon is passed the first homestead, as distinguished from a ranch-consisting of a small tent pitched near a few acres of newly upturned prairie - in the picket-line of the great agricultural empire that is gradually creeping westward over the plains, crowding the autocratic cattle-kings and their herds farther west,. even as the Indians and their still greater herds - buffaloes - have been crowded out by the latter. At Ogallala--which but a few years ago was par excellence the cow-boys' rallying point - "homesteads," "timber claims," and "pre-emption" now form the all-absorbing topic. "The Platte's 'petered' since the hoosiers have begun to settle it up," deprecatingly reflects a bronzed cow-boy at the hotel supper-table; and, from his standpoint, he is correct. Passing the next night in the dug-out of a homesteader, in the forks of the North and South Platte, I pass in the morning Buffalo Bill's home ranch (the place where a ranch proprietor himself resides is denominated the "home ranch" as distinctive from a ranch presided over by employes only), the house and improvements of which are said to be the finest in Western Nebraska. Taking dinner at North Platte City, I cross over a substantial wagon-bridge, spanning the turgid yellow stream just below where the north and south branches fork, and proceed eastward as " the Platte " simply, reaching Brady Island for the night. Here I encounter extraordinary difficulties in getting supper. Four families, representing the Union Pacific force at this place, all living in separate houses, constitute the population of Brady Island. "All our folks are just recovering from the scarlet fever," is the reply to my first application; "Muvver's down to ve darden on ve island, and we ain't dot no bread baked," says a barefooted youth at house No. 2; "Me ould ooman's across ter the naybur's, 'n' there ain't a boite av grub cooked in the shanty," answers the proprietor of No. 3, seated on the threshold, puffing vigorously at the traditional short clay; "We all to Nord Blatte been to veesit, und shust back ter home got mit notings gooked," winds up the gloomy programme at No. 4. I am hesitating about whether to crawl in somewhere, supperless, for the night, or push on farther through the darkness, when, "I don't care, pa! it's a shame for a stranger to come here where there are four families and have to go without supper," greet my ears in a musical, tremulous voice. It is the convalescent daughter of house No. 1, valiantly championing my cause; and so well does she succeed that her "pa" comes out, and notwithstanding my protests, insists on setting out the best they have cooked. Homesteads now become more frequent, groves of young cottonwoods, representing timber claims, are occasionally encountered, and section-house accommodation becomes a thing of the past. Near Willow Island I come within a trifle of stepping on a belligerent rattlesnake, and in a moment his deadly fangs are hooked to one of the thick canvas gaiters I am wearing. Were my exquisitely outlined calves encased in cycling stockings only, I should have had a "heap sick foot" to amuse myself with for the next three weeks, though there is little danger of being "snuffed out" entirely by a rattlesnake favor these days; an all-potent remedy is to drink plenty of whiskey as quickly as possible after being bitten, and whiskey is one of the easiest things to obtain in the West. Giving his snakeship to understand that I don't appreciate his ''good intentions " by vigorously shaking him off, I turn my "barker "loose on him, and quickly convert him into a "goody-good snake; " for if "the only good Indian is a dead one," surely the same terse remark applies with much greater force to the vicious and deadly rattler. As I progress eastward, sod-houses and dug-outs become less frequent, and at long intervals frame school-houses appear to remind me that I am passing through a civilized country. Stretches of sand alternate with ridable roads all down the Platte. Often I have to ticklishly wobble along a narrow space between two yawning ruts, over ground that is anything but smooth. I consider it a lucky day that passes without adding one or more to my long and eventful list of headers, and to-day I am fairly "unhorsed" by a squall of wind that-taking me unawares-blows me and the bicycle fairly over. East of Plum Creek a greater proportion of ridable road is encountered, but they still continue to be nothing more than well-worn wagon-trails across the prairie, and when teams are met en route westward one has to give and the other take, in order to pass. It is doubtless owing to misunderstanding a cycler's capacities, rather than ill-nature, that makes these Western teamsters oblivious to the precept, "It is better to give than to receive;" and if ignorance is bliss, an outfit I meet to-day ought to comprise the happiest mortals in existence. Near Elm Creek I meet a train of "schooners," whose drivers fail to recognize my right to one of the two wheel-tracks; and in my endeavor to ride past them on the uneven greensward, I am rewarded by an inglorious header. A dozen freckled Arkansawish faces are watching my movements with undisguised astonishment; and when my crest - alien self is spread out on the prairie, these faces - one and all - resolve into expansive grins, and a squeaking female voice from out nearest wagon, pipes: "La me! that's a right smart chance of a travelling machine, but, if that's the way they stop 'em, I wonder they don't break every blessed bone in their body." But all sorts of people are mingled promiscuously here, for, soon after this incident, two young men come running across the prairie from a semi-dug-out, who prove to be college graduates from "the Hub," who are rooting prairie here in Nebraska, preferring the free, independent life of a Western farmer to the restraints of a position at an Eastern desk. They are more conversant with cycling affairs than myself, and, having heard of my tour, have been on the lookout, expecting I would pass this way. At Kearney Junction the roads are excellent, and everything is satisfactory; but an hour's ride east of that city I am shocked at the gross misconduct of a vigorous and vociferous young mule who is confined alone in a pasture, presumably to be weaned. He evidently mistakes the picturesque combination of man and machine for his mother, as, on seeing us approach, he assumes a thirsty, anxious expression, raises his unmusical, undignified voice, and endeavors to jump the fence. He follows along the whole length of the pasture, and when he gets to the end, and realizes that I am drawing away from him, perhaps forever, he bawls out in an agony of grief and anxiety, and, recklessly bursting through the fence, comes tearing down the road, filling the air with the unmelodious notes of his soul- harrowing music. The road is excellent for a piece, and I lead him a lively chase, but he finally overtakes me, and, when I slow up, he jogs along behind quite contentedly. East of Kearney the sod-houses disappear entirely, and the improvements are of a more substantial character. At "Wood River I "make my bow" to the first growth of natural timber since leaving the mountains, which indicates my gradual advance off the vast timberless plains. Passing through Grand Island, Central City, and other towns, I find myself anchored Saturday evening, June 14th, at Duncan - a settlement of Polackers - an honest-hearted set of folks, who seem to thoroughly understand a cycler's digestive capacity, though understanding nothing whatever about the uses of the machine. Resuming my journey next morning, I find the roads fair. After crossing the Loup River, and passing through Columbus, I reach-about 11 A.M.- a country school-house, with a gathering of farmers hanging around outside, awaiting the arrival of the parson to open the meeting. Alighting, I am engaged in answering forty questions or thereabouts to the minute when that pious individual canters up, and, dismounting from his nag, comes forward and joins in the conversation. He invites me to stop over and hear the sermon; and when I beg to be excused because desirous of pushing ahead while the weather is favorable His Reverence solemnly warns me against desecrating the Sabbath by going farther than the prescribed "Sabbath-day's journey." At Premont I bid farewell to the Platte - which turns south and joins the Missouri River at Plattsmouth - and follow the old military road through the Elkhorn Valley to Omaha. "Military road" sounds like music in a cycler's ear - suggestive of a well-kept and well-graded highway; but this particular military road between Fremont and Omaha fails to awaken any blithesome sensations to-day, for it is almost one continuous mud-hole. It is called a military road simply from being the route formerly traversed by troops and supply trains bound for the Western forts. Besting a day in Omaha, I obtain a permit to trundle my wheel across the Union Pacific Bridge that spans the Missouri River - the "Big Muddy," toward which I have been travelling so long - between Omaha and Council Bluffs; I bid farewell to Nebraska, and cross over to Iowa. Heretofore I have omitted mentioning the tremendously hot weather I have encountered lately, because of my inability to produce legally tangible evidence; but to-day, while eating dinner at a farm-house, I leave the bicycle standing against the fence, and old Sol ruthlessly unsticks the tire, so that, when I mount, it comes off, and gives me a gymnastic lesson all unnecessary. My first day's experience in the great "Hawkeye State" speaks volumes for the hospitality of the people, there being quite a rivalry between two neighboring farmers about which should take me in to dinner. A compromise is finally made, by which I am to eat dinner at one place, and be "turned loose" in a cherry orchard afterward at the other, to which happy arrangement I, of course, enter no objections. In striking contrast to these friendly advances is my own unpardonable conduct the same evening in conversation with an honest old farmer. "I see you are taking notes. I suppose you keep track of the crops as you travel along?" says the H. O. F. "Certainly, I take more notice of the crops than anything; I'm a natural born agriculturist myself." "Well," continues the farmer, "right here where we stand is Carson Township." "Ah! indeed. Is it possible that I have at last arrived at Carson Township." "You have heard of the township before, then, eh." "Heard of it! why, man alive, Carson Township is all the talk out in the Rockies; in fact, it is known all over the world as the finest Township for corn in Iowa." This sort of conduct is, I admit, unwarrantable in the extreme; but cycling is responsible for it all. If continuous cycling is productive of a superfluity of exhilaration, and said exhilaration bubbles over occasionally, plainly the bicycle is to blame. So forcibly does this latter fact intrude upon me as I shake hands with the farmer, and congratulate him on his rare good fortune in belonging to Carson Township that I mount, and with a view of taking a little of the shine out of it, ride down the long, steep hill leading to the bridge across the Nishnebotene River at a tremendous pace. The machine "kicks" against this treatment, however, and, when about half wray down, it strikes a hole and sends me spinning and gyrating through space; and when I finally strike terra firma, it thumps me unmercifully in the ribs ere it lets me up. "Variable" is the word descriptive of the Iowa roads; for seventy-five miles due east of Omaha the prairie rolls like a heavy Atlantic swell, and during a day's journey I pass through a dozen alternate stretches of muddy and dusky road; for like a huge watering-pot do the rain-clouds pass to and fro over this great garden of the West, that is practically one continuous fertile farm from the Missouri to the Mississippi. Passing through Des Moines on the 23d, muddy roads and hot, thunder-showery weather characterize my journey through Central Iowa, aggravated by the inevitable question, "Why don't you ride?" one Solomon-visaged individual asking me if the railway company wouldn't permit me to ride along one of the rails. No base, unworthy suspicions of a cycler's inability to ride on a two-inch rail finds lodgement in the mind of this wiseacre; but his compassionate heart is moved with tender solicitude as to whether the soulless "company" will, or will not, permit it. Hurrying timorously through Grinnell - the city that was badly demolished and scattered all over the surrounding country by a cyclone in 1882 - I pause at Victor, where I find the inhabitants highly elated over the prospect of building a new jail with the fines nightly inflicted on graders employed on a new railroad near by, who come to town and "hilare" every evening. " What kind of a place do you call this." I inquire, on arriving at a queer-looking town twenty-five miles west of Iowa City. "This is South Amana, one of the towns of the Amana Society," is the civil reply. The Amana Society is found upon inquiry to be a communism of Germans, numbering 15,000 souls, and owning 50,000 acres of choice land in a body, with woollen factories, four small towns, and the best of credit everywhere. Everything is common property, and upon withdrawal or expulsion, a member takes with him only the value of what he brought in. The domestic relations are as usual; and while no person of ambition would be content with the conditions of life here, the slow, ease-loving, methodical people composing the society seem well satisfied with their lot, and are, perhaps, happier, on the whole, than the average outsider. I remain here for dinner, and take a look around. The people, the buildings, the language, the food, everything, is precisely as if it had been picked up bodily in some rural district in Germany, and set down unaltered here in Iowa. "Wie gehts," I venture, as I wheel past a couple of plump, rosy-cheeked maidens, in the quaint, old-fashioned garb of the German peasantry. "Wie gehts," is the demure reply from them, both at once; but not the shadow of a dimple responds to my unhappy attempt to win from them a smile. Pretty but not coquettish are these communistic maidens of Amana. At Tiffin, the stilly air of night, is made joyous with the mellifluous voices of whip-poor-wills-the first I have heard on the tour-and their tuneful concert is impressed on my memory in happy contrast to certain other concerts, both vocal and instrumental, endured en route. Passing through Iowa City, crossing Cedar River at Moscow, nine days after crossing the Missouri, I hear the distant whistle of a Mississippi steamboat. Its hoarse voice is sweetest music to me, heralding the fact that two-thirds of my long tour across the continent is completed. Crossing the "Father of Waters" over the splendid government bridge between Davenport and Rock Island, I pass over into Illinois. For several miles my route leads up the Mississippi River bottom, over sandy roads; but nearing Rock River, the sand disappears, and, for some distance, an excellent road winds through the oak-groves lining this beautiful stream. The green woods are free from underbrush, and a cool undercurrent of air plays amid the leafy shades, which, if not ambrosial, are none the less grateful, as it registers over 100° in the sun; without, the silvery sheen of the river glimmers through the interspaces; the dulcet notes of church-bells come floating on the breeze from over the river, seeming to proclaim, with their melodious tongues, peace and good-will to all. Eock River, with its 300 yards in width of unbridged waters, now obstructs my path, and the ferryboat is tied up on the other shore. "Whoop-ee," I yell at the ferryman's hut opposite, but without receiving any response. "Wh-o-o-p-e-ee," I repeat in a gentle, civilized voice-learned, by the by, two years ago on the Crow reservation in Montana, and which sets the surrounding atmosphere in a whirl and drowns out the music of the church- bells it has no effect whatever on the case-hardened ferryman in the hut; he pays no heed whatever until my persuasive voice is augmented by the voices of two new arrivals in a buggy, when he sallies serenely forth and slowly ferries us across. Riding along rather indifferent roads, between farms worth $100 an acre, through the handsome town of Genesee, stopping over night at Atkinson, I resume my journey next morning through a country abounding in all that goes to make people prosperous, if not happy. Pretty names are given to places hereabouts, for on my left I pass "Pink Prairie, bordered with Green River." Crossing over into Bureau County, I find splendid gravelled roads, and spend a most agreeable hour with the jolly Bicycle Club, of Princeton, the handsome county seat of Bureau County, Pushing on to Lamoille for the night, the enterprising village barber there hustles me into his cosey shop, and shaves, shampoos, shingles, bay-rums, and otherwise manipulates me, to the great enhancement of my personal appearance, all, so he says, for the honor of having lathered the chin of the "great and only--" In fact, the Illinoisians seem to be most excellent folks. After three days' journey through the great Prairie State my head is fairly turned with kindness and flattery; but the third night, as if to rebuke my vanity, I am bluntly refused shelter at three different farm-houses. I am benighted, and conclude to make the best of it by "turning in" under a hay-cock; but the Fox River mosquitoes oust me in short order, and compel me to "mosey along" through the gloomy night to Yorkville. At Yorkville a stout German, on being informed that I am going to ride to Chicago, replies, "What. Ghigago mit dot. Why, mine dear Yellow, Ghi-gago's more as vorty miles; you gan't ride mit dot to Ghigago;" and the old fellow's eyes fairly bulge with astonishment at the bare idea of riding forty miles "mit dot." I considerately refrain from telling him of my already 2,500-mile jaunt "mit dot," lest an apoplectic fit should waft his Teutonic soul to realms of sauer-kraut bliss and Limburger happiness forever. On the morning of July 4th I roll into Chicago, where, having persuaded myself that I deserve a few days' rest, I remain till the Democratic Convention winds up on the 13th. Fifteen miles of good riding and three of tough trundling, through deep sand, brings me into Indiana, which for the first thirty-five miles around the southern shore of Lake Michigan is "simply and solely sand." Finding it next to impossible to traverse the wagon-roads, I trundle around the water's edge, where the sand is firmer because wet. After twenty miles of this I have to shoulder the bicycle and scale the huge sand-dunes that border the lake here, and after wandering for an hour through a bewildering wilderness of swamps, sand-hills, and hickory thickets, I finally reach Miller Station for the night. This place is enough to give one the yellow-edged blues: nothing but swamps, sand, sad-eyed turtles, and ruthless, relentless mosquitoes. At Chesterton the roads improve, but still enough sand remains to break the force of headers, which, notwithstanding my long experience on the road, I still manage to execute with undesirable frequency. To-day I take one, and while unravelling myself and congratulating my lucky stars at being in a lonely spot where none can witness my discomfiture, a gruff, sarcastic "haw-haw" falls like a funeral knell on my ear, and a lanky "Hoosier" rides up on a diminutive pumpkin-colored mule that looks a veritable pygmy between his hoop-pole legs. It is but justice to explain that this latter incident did not occur in "Posey County." At La Porte the roads improve for some distance, but once again I am benighted, and sleep under a wheat-shock. Traversing several miles of corduroy road, through huckleberry swamps, next morning, I reach Cram's Point for breakfast. A remnant of some Indian tribe still lingers around here and gathers huckleberries for the market, two squaws being in the village purchasing supplies for their camp in the swamps. "What's the name of these Indians here?" I ask.. "One of em's Blinkie, and t'other's Seven-up," is the reply, in a voice that implies such profound knowledge of the subject that I forbear to investigate further. Splendid gravel roads lead from Crum's Point to South Bend, and on through Mishawaka, alternating with sandy stretches to Goshen, which town is said - by the Goshenites - to be the prettiest in Indiana; but there seems to be considerable pride of locality in the great Hoosier State, and I venture there are scores of "prettiest towns in Indiana." Nevertheless, Goshen is certainly a very handsome place, with unusually broad, well-shaded streets; the centre of a magnificent farming country, it is romantically situated on the banks of the beautiful Elkhart Eiver. At "Wawaka I find a corpulent 300-pound cycler, who, being afraid to trust his jumbolean proportions on an ordinary machine, has had an extra stout bone-shaker made to order, and goes out on short runs with a couple of neighbor wheelmen, who, being about fifty per cent, less bulky, ride regulation wheels. "Jumbo" goes all right when mounted, but, being unable to mount without aid, he seldom ventures abroad by himself for fear of having to foot it back. Ninety-five degrees in the shade characterizes the weather these days, and I generally make a few miles in the gloaming - not, of course, because it is cooler, but because the "gloaming" is so delightfully romantic. At ten o'clock in the morning, July 17th, I bowl across the boundary line into Ohio. Following the Merchants' and Bankers' Telegraph road to Napoleon, I pass through a district where the rain has overlooked them for two months; the rear wheel of the bicycle is half buried in hot dust; the blackberries are dead on the bushes, and the long-suffering corn looks as though afflicted with the yellow jaundice. I sup this same evening with a family of Germans, who have been settled here forty years, and scarcely know a word of English yet. A fat, phlegmatic-looking baby is peacefully reposing in a cradle, which is simply half a monster pumpkin scooped out and dried; it is the most intensely rustic cradle in the world. Surely, this youngster's head ought to be level on agricultural affairs, when he grows up, if anybody's ought. From Napoleon my route leads up the Maumee River and canal, first trying the tow-path of the latter, and then relinquishing it for the very fair wagon-road. The Maumee River, winding through its splendid rich valley, seems to possess a peculiar beauty all its own, and my mind, unbidden, mentally compares it with our old friend, the Humboldt. The latter stream traverses dreary plains, where almost nothing but sagebrush grows; the Maumee waters a smiling valley, where orchards, fields, and meadows alternate with sugar- maple groves, and in its fair bosom reflects beautiful landscape views, that are changed and rebeautified by the master-hand of the sun every hour of the day, and doubly embellished at night by the moon. It is whispered that during " the late unpleasantness " the Ohio regiments could out-yell the Louisiana tigers, or any other Confederate troops, two to one. Who has not heard the "Ohio yell?" Most people are magnanimously inclined to regard this rumor as simply a "gag" on the Buckeye boys; but it isn't. The Ohioans are to the manner born; the "Buckeye yell" is a tangible fact. All along the Maumee it resounds in my ears; nearly every man or boy, who from the fields, far or near, sees me bowling along the road, straightway delivers himself of a yell, pure and simple. At Perrysburg, I strike the famous "Maumee pike"-forty miles of stone road, almost a dead level. The western half is kept in rather poor repair these days; but from Fremont eastward it is splendid wheeling. The atmosphere of Bellevue is blue with politics, and myself and another innocent, unsuspecting individual, hailing from New York, are enticed into a political meeting by a wily politician, and dexterously made to pose before the assembled company as two gentlemen who have come - one from the Atlantic, the other from the Pacific - to witness the overwhelming success of the only honest, horny-handed, double-breasted patriots - the... party. The roads are found rather sandy east of the pike, and the roadful of wagons going to the circus, which exhibits to-day at Norwalk, causes considerable annoyance. Erie County, through which I am now passing, is one of the finest fruit countries in the world, and many of the farmers keep open orchard. Staying at Eidgeville overnight, I roll into Cleveland, and into the out-stretched arms of a policeman, at 10 o'clock, next morning. "He was violating the city ordinance by riding on the sidewalk," the arresting policeman informs the captain. "Ah! he was, hey!" thunders the captain, in a hoarse, bass voice that causes my knees to knock together with fear and trembling; and the captain's eye seems to look clear through my trembling form. "P-l-e-a-s-e, s-i-r, I d-i-d-n't t-r-y t-o d-o i-t," I falter, in a weak, gasping voice that brings tears to the eyes of the assembled officers and melts the captain's heart, so that he is already wavering between justice and mercy when a local wheelman comes gallantly to the rescue, and explains my natural ignorance of Cleveland's city laws, and I breathe the joyous air of freedom once again. Three members of the Cleveland Bicycle Club and a visiting wheelman accompany me ten miles out, riding down far-famed Euclid Avenue, and calling at Lake View Cemetery to pay a visit to Garfleld's tomb. I bid them farewell at Euclid village. Following the ridge road leading along the shore of Lake Erie to Buffalo, I ride through a most beautiful farming country, passing through "Willoughby and Mentor-Garfield's old home. Splendidly kept roads pass between avenues of stately maples, that cast a grateful shade athwart the highway, both sides of which are lined with magnificent farms, whose fields and meadows fairly groan beneath their wealth of produce, whose fructiferous orchards arc marvels of productiveness, and whose barns and stables would be veritable palaces to the sod-housed homesteaders on Nebraska's frontier prairies. Prominent among them stands the old Garfield homestead - a fine farm of one hundred and sixty-five acres, at present managed by Mrs. Garfield's brother. Smiling villages nestling amid stately groves, rearing white church-spires from out their green, bowery surroundings, dot the low, broad, fertile shore-land to the left; the gleaming waters of Lake Erie here and there glisten like burnished steel through the distant interspaces, and away beyond stretches northward, like a vast mirror, to kiss the blue Canadian skies. Near Conneaut I whirl the dust of the Buckeye State from my tire and cress over into Pennsylvania, where, from the little hamlet of Springfield, the roads become good, then better, and finally best at Girard-the home of the veteran showman, Dan Rice, the beautifying works of whose generous hand are everywhere visible in his native town. Splendid is the road and delightful the country coming east from Girard; even the red brick school-houses are embowered amid leafy groves; and so it continues with ever-varying, ever-pleasing beauty to Erie, after which the highway becomes hardly so good. Twenty-four hours after entering Pennsylvania I make my exit across the boundary into the Empire State. The roads continue good, and after dinner I reach Westfield, six miles from the famous Lake Chautauqua, which beautiful hill and forest embowered sheet of water is popularly believed by many of its numerous local admirers to be the highest navigable lake in the world. If so, however, Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada Mountains comes next, as it is about six thousand feet above the level of the sea, and has three steamers plying on its waters. At Fredonia I am shown through the celebrated watch-movement factory here, by the captain of the Fredonia Club, who accompanies me to Silver Creek, where we call on another enthusiastic wheelman-a physician who uses the wheel in preference to a horse, in making professional calls throughout the surround-in' country. Taking supper with the genial "Doc.," they both accompany me to the s.ummit of a steep hill leading up out of the creek bottom. No wheelman has ever yet rode up this hill, save the muscular and gritty captain of the Fredonia Club, though several have attempted the feat. From the top my road ahead is plainly visible for miles, leading through the broad and smiling Cattaraugus Valley that is spread out like a vast garden below, through which Cattaraugus Creek slowly winds its tortuous way. Stopping over night at Angola I proceed to Buffalo next morning, catching the first glimpse of that important " seaport of the lakes," where, fifteen miles across the bay, the wagon-road is almost licked by the swashing waves; and entering the city over a " misfit" plank-road, off which I am almost upset by the most audaciously indifferent woman in the world. A market woman homeward bound with her empty truck-wagon, recognizes my road-rights to the extent of barely room to squeeze past between her wagon and the ditch; and holds her long, stiff buggy-whip so that it " swipes " me viciously across the face, knocks my helmet off into the mud ditch, and well-nigh upsets mo into the same. The woman-a crimson-crested blonde - jogs serenely along without even deigning to turn her head. Leaving the bicycle at "Isham's "-who volunteers some slight repairs-I take a flying visit by rail to see Niagara Falls, returning the same evening to enjoy the proffered hospitality of a genial member of the Buffalo Bicycle Club. Seated on the piazza of his residence, on Delaware Avenue, this evening, the symphonious voice of the club-whistle is cast adrift whenever the glowing orb of a cycle-lamp heaves in sight through the darkness, and several members of the club are thus rounded up and their hearts captured by the witchery of a smile-a " smile " in Buffalo, I hasten to explain, is no kin whatever to a Rocky Mountain "smile" - far be it from it. This club-wliistle of the Buffalo Bicycle Club happens to sing the same melodious song as the police - whistle at Washington, D. C.; and the Buffalo cyclers who graced the national league - meet at the Capital with their presence took a folio of club music along. A small but frolicsome party of them on top of the Washington monument, "heaved a sigh " from their whistles, at a comrade passing along the street below, when a corpulent policeman, naturally mistaking it for a signal from a brother "cop," hastened to climb the five hundred feet or thereabouts of ascent up the monument. When he arrived, puffing and perspiring, to the summit, and discovered his mistake, the wheelmen say he made such awful use of the Queen's English that the atmosphere had a blue, sulphurous tinge about it for some time after. Leaving Buffalo next morning I pass through Batavia, where the wheelmen have a most aesthetic little club-room. Besides being jovial and whole-souled fellows, they are awfully sesthetic; and the sweetest little Japanese curios and bric-d-brac decorate the walls and tables. Stopping over night at LeBoy, in company with the president and captain of the LeBoy Club, I visit the State fish-hatchery at Mumford next morning, and ride on through the Genesee Valley, finding fair roads through the valley, though somewhat hilly and stony toward Canandaigua. Inquiring the best road to Geneva I am advised of the superiority of the one leading past the poor-house. Finding them somewhat intricate, and being too super-sensitive to stop people and ask them the road to the poor-house, I deservedly get lost, and am wandering erratically eastward through the darkness, when I fortunately meet a wheelman in a buggy, who directs me to his mother's farm-house near by, with instructions to that most excellent lady to accommodate me for the night. Nine o'clock next morning I reach fair Geneva, so beautifully situated on Seneca's silvery lake, passing the State agricultural farm en route; continuing on up the Seneca Eiver, passing-through Waterloo and Seneca Falls to Cayuga, and from thence to Auburn and Skaneateles, where I heave a sigh at the thoughts of leaving the last - I cannot say the loveliest, for all are equally lovely - of that beautiful chain of lakes that transforms this part of New York State into a vast and delightful summer resort. "Down a romantic Swiss glen, where scores of sylvan nooks and rippling rills invite one to cast about for fairies and sprites," is the word descriptive of my route from Marcellus next morning. Once again, on nearing the Camillus outlet from the narrow vale, I hear the sound of Sunday bells, and after the church-bell-less Western wilds, it seems to me that their notes have visited me amid beautiful scenes, strangely often of late. Arriving at Camillus, I ask the name of the sparkling little stream that dances along this fairy glen like a child at play, absorbing the sun-rays and coquettishly reflecting them in the faces of the venerable oaks that bend over it like loving guardians protecting it from evil. My ears are prepared to hear a musical Indian name - "Laughing-Waters " at least; but, like a week's washing ruthlessly intruding upon love's young dream, falls on my waiting ears the unpoetic misnomer, "Nine-Mile Creek." Over good roads to Syracuse, and from thence my route leads down the Erie Canal, alternately riding down the canal tow-path, the wagon-roads, and between the tracks of the New York Central Railway. On the former, the greatest drawback to peaceful cycling is the towing-mule and his unwarrantable animosity toward the bicycle, and the awful, unmentionable profanity engendered thereby in the utterances of the boatmen. Sometimes the burden of this sulphurous profanity is aimed at me, sometimes at the inoffensive bicycle, or both of us collectively, but oftener is it directed at the unspeakable mule, who is really the only party to blame. A mule scares, not because he is really afraid, but because he feels skittishly inclined to turn back, or to make trouble between his enemies - the boatmen, his task-master, and the cycler, an intruder on his exclusive domain, the Erie tow-path. A span of mules will pretend to scare, whirl around, and jerk loose from the driver, and go "scooting" back down the tow-path in a manner indicating that nothing less than a stone wall would stop them; but, exactly in the nick of time to prevent the tow-line jerking them sidewise into the canal, they stop. Trust a mule for never losing his head when he runs away, as does his hot-headed relative, the horse; who never once allows surrounding circumstances to occupy his thoughts to an extent detrimental to his own self-preservative interests. The Erie Canal mule's first mission in life is to engender profanity and strife between boatmen and cyclists, and the second is to work and chew hay, which brings him out about even with the world all round. At Rome I enter the famous and beautiful Mohawk Valley, a place long looked forward to with much pleasurable anticipation, from having heard so often of its natural beauties and its interesting historical associations. "It's the garden spot of the world; and travellers who have been all over Europe and everywhere, say there's nothing in the world to equal the quiet landscape beauty of the Mohawk Valley," enthusiastically remarks an old gentelman in spectacles, whom I chance to encounter on the heights east of Herkimer. Of the first assertion I have nothing to say, having passed through a dozen "garden spots of the world " on this tour across America; but there is no gainsaying the fact that the Mohawk Valley, as viewed from this vantage spot, is wonderfully beautiful. I think it must have been on this spot that the poet received inspiration to compose the beautiful song that is sung alike in the quiet homes of the valley itself and in the trapper's and hunter's tent on the far off Yellowstone - "Fair is the vale where the Mohawk gently glides, On its clear, shining way to the sea." The valley ia one of the natural gateways of commerce, for, at Little Falls - where it contracts to a mere pass between the hills - one can almost throw a stone across six railway tracks, the Erie Canal and the Mohawk River. Spending an hour looking over the magnificent Capitol building at Albany, I cross the Hudson, and proceed to ride eastward between the two tracks of the Boston & Albany Railroad, finding the riding very fair. From the elevated road-bed I cast a longing, lingering look down the Hudson Valley, that stretches away southward like a heaven-born dream, and sigh at the impossibility of going two ways at once. " There's $50 fine for riding a bicycle along the B. & A. Railroad," I am informed at Albany, but risk it to Schodack, where I make inquiries of a section foreman. "No; there's no foine; but av yeez are run over an' git killed, it'll be useless for yeez to inther suit agin the company for damages," is the reassuring reply; and the unpleasant visions of bankrupting fines dissolve in a smile at this characteristic Milesian explanation. Crossing the Massachusetts boundary at the village of State Line, I find the roads excellent; and, thinking that the highways of the " Old Bay State " will be good enough anywhere, I grow careless about the minute directions given me by Albany wheelmen, and, ere long, am laboriously toiling over the heavy roads and steep grades of the Berkshire Hills, endeavoring to get what consolation I can, in return for unridable roads, out of the charming scenery, and the many interesting features of the Berkshire-Hill country. It is at Otis, in the midst of these hills, that I first become acquainted with the peculiar New England dialect in its native home. The widely heralded intellectual superiority of the Massachusetts fair ones asserts itself even in the wildest parts of these wild hills; for at small farms - that, in most States, would be characterized by bare-footed, brown-faced housewives - I encounter spectacled ladies whose fair faces reflect the encyclopaedia of knowledge within, and whose wise looks naturally fill me with awe. At Westfield I learn that Karl Kron, the author and publisher of the American roadbook, " Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle" - not to be outdone by my exploit of floating the bicycle across the Humboldt - undertook the perilous feat of swimming the Potomac with his bicycle suspended at his waist, and had to be fished up from the bottom with a boat-hook. Since then, however, I have seen the gentleman himself, who assures me that the whole story is a canard. Over good roads to Springfield - and on through to Palmer; from thence riding the whole distance to Worcester between the tracks of the railway, in preference to the variable country roads. On to Boston next morning, now only forty miles away, I pass venerable weather-worn mile-stones, set up in old colonial days, when the Great West, now trailed across with the rubber hoof-marks of "the popular steed of today," was a pathless wilderness, and on the maps a blank. Striking the famous "sand-papered roads " at Framingham - which, by the by, ought to be pumice-stoned a little to make them as good for cycling as stretches of gravelled road near Springfield, Sandwich, and Piano, Ill.; La Porte, and South Bend, Ind.; Mentor, and Willoughby, O.; Girard, Penn.; several places on the ridge road between Erie and Buffalo, and the alkali flats of the Rocky Mountain territories. Soon the blue intellectual haze hovering over " the Hub " heaves in sight, and, at two o'clock in the afternoon of August 4th, I roll into Boston, and whisper to the wild waves of the sounding Atlantic what the sad sea-waves of the Pacific were saying when I left there, just one hundred and three and a half days ago, having wheeled about 3,700 miles to deliver the message. Passing the winter of 1884-85 in New York, I became acquainted with the Outing Magazine, contributed to it sketches of my tour across America, and in the Spring of 1885 continued around the world as its special correspondent; embarking April 9th from New York, for Liverpool, aboard the City of Chicago. CHAPTER V. FROM AMERICA TO THE GERMAN FRONTIER. At one P.M., on that day, the ponderous but shapely hull of the City of Chicago, with its living and lively freight, moves from the dock as though it, too, were endowed with mind as well with matter; the crowds that a minute ago disappeared down the gangplank are now congregated on the outer end of the pier, a compact mass of waving handkerchiefs, and anxious-faced people shouting out signs of recognition to friends aboard the departing steamer. >From beginning to end of the voyage across the Atlantic the weather is delightful; and the passengers - well, half the cabin-passengers are members of Henry Irving's Lyceum Company en route home after their second successful tour in America; and old voyagers abroad who have crossed the Atlantic scores of times pronounce it altogether the most enjoyable trip they ever experienced. The third day out we encountered a lonesome-looking iceberg - an object that the captain seemed to think would be better appreciated, and possibly more affectionately remembered, if viewed at the respectful distance of about four miles. It proves a cold, unsympathetic berg, yet extremely entertaining in its own way, since it accommodates us by neutralizing pretty much all the surplus caloric in the atmosphere around for hours after it has disappeared below the horizon of our vision. I am particularly fortunate in finding among my fellow-passengers Mr. Harry B. French, the traveller and author, from whom I obtain much valuable information, particularly of China. Mr. French has travelled some distance through the Flowery Kingdom himself, and thoughtfully forewarns me to anticipate a particularly lively and interesting time in invading that country with a vehicle so strange and incomprehensible to the Celestial mind as a bicycle. This experienced gentleman informs me, among other interesting things, that if five hundred chattering Celestials batter down the door and swarm unannounced at midnight into the apartment where I am endeavoring to get the first wink of sleep obtained for a whole week, instead of following the natural inclinations of an AngloSaxon to energetically defend his rights with a stuffed club, I shall display Solomon-like wisdom by quietly submitting to the invasion, and deferentially bowing to Chinese inquisitiveness. If, on an occasion of this nature, one stationed himself behind the door, and, as a sort of preliminary warning to the others, greeted the first interloper with the business end of a boot-jack, he would be morally certain of a lively one-sided misunderstanding that might end disastrously to himself; whereas, by meekly submitting to a critical and exhaustive examination by the assembled company, he might even become the recipient of an apology for having had to batter down the door in order to satisfy their curiosity. One needs more discretion than valor in dealing with the Chinese. At noon on the 19th we reach Liverpool, where I find a letter awaiting me from A. J. Wilson (Faed), inviting me to call on him at Powerscroft House, London, and offering to tandem me through the intricate mazes of the West End; likewise asking whether it would be agreeable to have him, with others, accompany me from London down to the South coast - a programme to which, it is needless to say, I entertain no objections. As the custom- house officer wrenches a board off the broad, flat box containing my American bicycle, several fellow-passengers, prompted by their curiosity to obtain a peep at the machine which they have learned is to carry me around the world, gather about; and one sympathetic lady, as she catches a glimpse of the bright nickeled forks, exclaims, "Oh, what a shame that they should be allowed to wrench the planks off. They might injure it;" but a small tip thoroughly convinces the individual prying off the board that, by removing one section and taking a conscientious squint in the direction of the closed end, his duty to the British government would be performed as faithfully as though everything were laid bare; and the kind-hearted lady's apprehensions of possible injury are thus happily allayed. In two hours after landing, the bicycle is safely stowed away in the underground store-rooms of the Liverpool & Northwestern Railway Company, and in two hours more I am wheeling rapidly toward London, through neatly cultivated fields, and meadows and parks of that intense greenness met with nowhere save in the British Isles, and which causes a couple of native Americans, riding in the same compartment, and who are visiting England for the first time, to express their admiration of it all in the unmeasured language of the genuine Yankee when truly astonished and delighted. Arriving in London I lose no time in seeking out Mr. Bolton, a well-known wheelman, who has toured on the continent probably as extensively as any other English cycler, and to whom I bear a letter of introduction. Together, on Monday afternoon, we ruthlessly invade the sanctums of the leading cycling papers in London. Mr. Bolton is also able to give me several useful hints concerning wheeling through France and Germany. Then comes the application for a passport, and the inevitable unpleasantness of being suspected by every policeman and detective about the government buildings of being a wild-eyed dynamiter recently arrived from America with the fell purpose of blowing up the place. On Tuesday I make a formal descent on the Chinese Embassy, to seek information regarding the possibility of making a serpentine trail through the Flowery Kingdom via Upper Burmah to Hong-Kong or Shanghai. Here I learn from Dr. McCarty, the interpreter at the Embassy, as from Mr. French, that, putting it as mildly as possible, I must expect a wild time generally in getting through the interior of China with a bicycle. The Doctor feels certain that I may reasonably anticipate the pleasure of making my way through a howling wilderness of hooting Celestials from one end of the country to the other. The great danger, he thinks, will be not so much the well-known aversion of the Chinese to having an "outer barbarian" penetrate the sacred interior of their country, as the enormous crowds that would almost constantly surround me out of curiosity at both rider and wheel, and the moral certainty of a foreigner unwittingly doing something to offend the Chinamen's peculiar and deep-rooted notions of propriety. This, it is easily seen, would be a peculiarly ticklish thing to do when surrounded by surging masses of dangling pig-tails and cerulean blouses, the wearers of which are from the start predisposed to make things as unpleasant as possible. My own experience alone, however, will prove the kind of reception I am likely to meet with among them; and if they will only considerately refrain from impaling me on a bamboo, after a barbarous and highly ingenious custom of theirs, I little reck what other unpleasantries they have in store. After one remains in the world long enough to find it out, he usually becomes less fastidious about the future of things in general, than when in the hopeful days of boyhood every prospect ahead was fringed with the golden expectations of a budding and inexperienced imagery; nevertheless, a thoughtful, meditative person, who realizes the necessity of drawing the line somewhere, would naturally draw it at impalation. Not being conscious of any presentiment savoring of impalation, however, the only request I make of the Chinese, at present, is to place no insurmountable obstacle against my pursuing the even-or uneven, as the case may be-tenor of my way through their country. China, though, is several revolutions of my fifty-inch wheel away to the eastward, at this present time of writing, and speculations in regard to it are rather premature. Soon after reaching London I have the pleasure of meeting "Faed," a gentleman who carries his cycling enthusiasm almost where some people are said to carry their hearts-on his sleeve; so that a very short acquaintance only is necessary to convince one of being in the company of a person whose interest in whirling wheels is of no ordinary nature. When I present myself at Powerscroft House, Faed is busily wandering around among the curves and angles of no less than three tricycles, apparently endeavoring to encompass the complicated mechanism of all three in one grand comprehensive effort of the mind, and the addition of as many tricycle crates standing around makes the premises so suggestive of a flourishing tricycle agency that an old gentleman, happening to pass by at the moment, is really quite excusable in stopping and inquiring the prices, with a view to purchasing one for himself. Our tandem ride through the West End has to be indefinitely postponed, on account of my time being limited, and our inability to procure readily a suitable machine; and Mr. Wilson's bump of discretion would not permit him to think of allowing me to attempt the feat of manoeuvring a tricycle myself among the bewildering traffic of the metropolis, and risk bringing my "wheel around the world" to an inglorious conclusion before being fairly begun. While walking down Parliament Street my attention is called to a venerable-looking gentleman wheeling briskly along among the throngs of vehicles of every description, and I am informed that the bold tricycler is none other than Major Knox Holmes, a vigorous youth of some seventy-eight summers, who has recently accomplished the feat of riding one hundred and fourteen miles in ten hours; for a person nearly eighty years of age this is really quite a promising performance, and there is small doubt but that when the gallant Major gets a little older - say when he becomes a centenarian - he will develop into a veritable prodigy on the cinder-path! Having obtained my passport, and got it vised for the Sultan's dominions at the Turkish consulate, and placed in Faed's possession a bundle of maps, which he generously volunteers to forward , to me, as I require them in the various countries it is proposed to traverse, I return on April 30th to Liverpool, from which point the formal start on the wheel across England is to be made. Four o'clock in the afternoon of May 2d is the time announced, and Edge Hill Church is the appointed place, where Mr. Lawrence , Fletcher, of the Anfield Bicycle Club, and a number of other Liverpool wheelmen, have volunteered to meet and accompany me some distance out of the city. Several of the Liverpool daily papers have made mention of the affair. Accordingly, upon arriving at the appointed place and time, I find a crowd of several hundred people gathered to satisfy their curiosity as to what sort of a looking individual it is who has crossed America awheel, and furthermore proposes to accomplish the greater feat of the circumlocution of the globe. A small sea of hats is enthusiastically waved aloft; a ripple of applause escapes from five hundred English throats as I mount my glistening bicycle; and, with the assistance of a few policemen, the twenty-five Liverpool cyclers who have assembled to accompany me out, extricate themselves from the crowd, mount and fall into line two abreast; and merrily we wheel away down Edge Lane and out of Liverpool. English weather at this season is notoriously capricious, and the present year it is unusually so, and ere the start is fairly made we are pedaling along through quite a pelting shower, which, however, fails to make much impression on the roads beyond causing the flinging of more or less mud. The majority of my escort are members of the Anfield Club, who have the enviable reputation of being among the hardest road-riders in England, several members having accomplished over two hundred miles within the twenty-four hours; and I am informed that Mr. Fletcher is soon to undertake the task of beating the tricycle record over that already well-contested route, from John O'Groat's to Land's End. Sixteen miles out I become the happy recipient of hearty well-wishes innumerable, with the accompanying hand-shaking, and my escort turn back toward home and Liverpool - all save four, who wheel on to Warrington and remain overnight, with the avowed intention of accompanying me twenty-five miles farther to-morrow morning. Our Sunday morning experience begins with a shower of rain, which, however, augurs well for the remainder of the day; and, save for a gentle head wind, no reproachful remarks are heard about that much-criticised individual, the clerk of the weather; especially as our road leads through a country prolific of everything charming to one's sense of the beautiful. Moreover, we are this morning bowling along the self-same highway that in days of yore was among the favorite promenades of a distinguished and enterprising individual known to every British juvenile as Dick Turpin - a person who won imperishable renown, and the undying affection of the small Briton of to-day, by making it unsafe along here for stage-coaches and travellers indiscreet enough to carry valuables about with them. "Think I'll get such roads as this all through England." I ask of my escort as we wheel joyously southward along smooth, macadamized highways that would make the "sand-papered roads" around Boston seem almost unfit for cycling in comparison, and that lead through picturesque villages and noble parks; occasionally catching a glimpse of a splendid old manor among venerable trees, that makes one unconsciously begin humming:- "The ancient homes of England, How beautiful they stand Amidst the tall ancestral trees O'er all the pleasant land." "Oh, you'll get much better roads than this in the southern counties," is the reply; though, fresh from American roads, one can scarce see what shape the improvements can possibly take. Out of Lancashire into Cheshire we wheel, and my escort, after wishing me all manner of good fortune in hearty Lancashire style, wheel about and hie themselves back toward the rumble and roar of the world's greatest sea-port, leaving me to pedal pleasantly southward along the green lanes and amid the quiet rural scenery of Staffordshire to Stone, where I remain Sunday night. The country is favored with another drenching down-pour of rain during the night, and moisture relentlessly descends at short, unreliable intervals on Monday morning, as I proceed toward Birmingham. Notwithstanding the superabundant moisture the morning ride is a most enjoyable occasion, requiring but a dash of sunshine to make everything perfect. The mystic voice of the cuckoo is heard from many an emerald copse around; songsters that inhabit only the green hedges and woods of "Merrie England" are carolling their morning vespers in all directions; skylarks are soaring, soaring skyward, warbling their unceasing paeans of praise as they gradually ascend into cloudland's shadowy realms; and occasionally I bowl along beneath an archway of spreading beeches that are colonized by crowds of noisy rooks incessantly "cawing" their approval or disapproval of things in general. Surely England, with its wellnigh perfect roads, the wonderful greenness of its vegetation, and its roadsters that meet and regard their steel-ribbed rivals with supreme indifference, is the natural paradise of 'cyclers. There is no annoying dismounting for frightened horses on these happy highways, for the English horse, though spirited and brim-ful of fire, has long since accepted the inevitable, and either has made friends with the wheelman and his swift-winged steed, or, what is equally agreeable, maintain a a haughty reserve. Pushing along leisurely, between showers, into Warwickshire, I reach Birmingham about three o'clock, and, after spending an hour or so looking over some tricycle works, and calling for a leather writing-case they are making especially for my tour, I wheel on to Coventry, having the company, of Mr. Priest, Jr., of the tricycle works, as far as Stonehouse. Between Birmingham and Coventry the recent rainfall has evidently been less, and I mentally note this fifteen-mile stretch of road as the finest traversed since leaving Liverpool, both for width and smoothness of surface, it being a veritable boulevard. Arriving at Coventry I call on "Brother Sturmey, " a gentleman well and favorably known to readers of 'cycling literature everywhere; and, as I feel considerably like deserving reasonably gentle treatment after perseveringly pressing forward sixty miles in spite of the rain, I request him to steer me into the Cyclists' Touring Club Hotel - an office which he smilingly performs, and thoughtfully admonishes the proprietor to handle me as tenderly as possible. I am piloted around to take a hurried glance at Coventry, visiting, among other objects of interest, the Starley Memorial. This memorial is interesting to 'cyclers from having been erected by public subscription in recognition of the great interest Mr. Starley took in the 'cycle industry, he having been, in fact, the father of the interest in Coventry, and, consequently, the direct author of the city's present prosperity. The mind of the British small boy along my route has been taxed to its utmost to account for my white military helmet, and various and interesting are the passing remarks heard in consequence. The most general impression seems to be that I am direct from the Soudan, some youthful Conservatives blandly intimating The Starley Memorial, Coventry, that I am the advance-guard of a general scuttle of the army out of Egypt, and that presently whole regiments of white-helmeted wheelmen will come whirling along the roads on nickel-plated steeds, some even going so far as to do me the honor of calling me General Wolseley; while others - rising young Liberals, probably - recklessly call me General Gordon, intimating by this that the hero of Khartoum was not killed, after all, and is proving it by sweeping through England on a bicycle, wearing a white helmet to prove his identity! A pleasant ride along a splendid road, shaded for miles with rows of spreading elms, brings me to the charming old village of Dunchurch, where everything seems moss-grown and venerable with age. A squatty, castle-like church-tower, that has stood the brunt of many centuries, frowns down upon a cluster of picturesque, thatched cottages of primitive architecture, and ivy-clad from top to bottom; while, to make the picture complete, there remain even the old wooden stocks, through the holes of which the feet of boozy unfortunates were wont to be unceremoniously thrust in the good old times of rude simplicity; in fact, the only really unprimitive building about the place appears to be a newly erected Methodist chapel. It couldn't be - no, of course it couldn't be possible, that there is any connecting link between the American peculiarity of elevating the feet on the window-sill or the drum of the heating-stove and this old-time custom of elevating the feet of those of our ancestors possessed of boozy, hilarious proclivities! At Weedon Barracks I make a short halt to watch the soldiers go through the bayonet exercises, and suffer myself to be persuaded into quaffing a mug of delicious, creamy stout at the canteen with a genial old sergeant, a bronzed veteran who has seen active service in several of the tough expeditions that England seems ever prone to undertake in various uncivilized quarters of the world; after which I wheel away over old Roman military roads, through Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire, reaching Fenny Stratford just in time to find shelter against the machinations of the "weather-clerk", who, having withheld rain nearly all the afternoon, begins dispensing it again in the gloaming. It rains uninterruptedly all night; but, although my route for some miles is now down cross-country lanes, the rain has only made them rather disagreeable, without rendering them in any respect unridable; and although I am among the slopes of the Chiltern Hills, scarcely a dismount is necessary during the forenoon. Spending the night at Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire, I pull out toward London on Thursday morning, and near Watford am highly gratified at meeting Faed and the captain of the North London Tricycle Club, who have come out on their tricycles from London to meet and escort me into the metropolis. At Faed's suggestion I decide to remain over in London until Saturday to be present at the annual tricycle meet on Barnes Common, and together we wheel down the Edgeware Road, Park Road, among the fashionable turnouts of Piccadilly, past Knightsbridge and Brompton to the "Inventories" Exhibition, where we spend a most enjoyable afternoon inspecting the thousand and one material evidences of inventive genius from the several countries represented. Five hundred and twelve 'cyclers, including forty-one tandem tricycles and fifty ladies, ride in procession at the Barnes Common meet, making quite an imposing array as they wheel two abreast between rows of enthusiastic spectators. Here, among a host of other wheeling celebrities, I am introduced to Major Knox Holmes, before mentioned as being a gentleman of extraordinary powers of endurance, considering his advanced age. After tea a number of tricyclers accompany me down as far as Croydon, which place we enter to the pattering music of a drenching rain-storm, experiencing the accompanying pleasure of a wet skin, etc. The threatening aspect of the weather on the following morning causes part of our company to hesitate about venturing any farther from London; but Faed and three companions wheel with me toward Brighton through a gentle morning shower, which soon clears away, however, and, before long, the combination of the splendid Sussex roads, fine breezy weather, and lovely scenery, amply repays us for the discomforts of yester-eve. Fourteen miles from Brighton we are met by eight members of the Kempton Rangers Bicycle Club, who have sallied forth thus far northward to escort us into town; having done which, they deliver us over to Mr. C---, of the Brighton Tricycle Club, and brother-in-law to the mayor of the city. It is two in the afternoon. This gentleman straightway ingratiates himself into our united affections, and wins our eternal gratitude, by giving us a regular wheelman's dinner, after which he places us under still further obligations by showing us as many of the lions of Brighton as are accessible on Sunday, chief among which is the famous Brighton Aquarium, where, by his influence, he kindly has the diving-birds and seals fed before their usual hour, for our especial delectation-a proceeding which naturally causes the barometer of our respective self-esteems to rise several notches higher than usual, and doubtless gives equal satisfaction to the seals and diving-birds. We linger at the aquarium until near sun-down, and it is fifteen miles by what is considered the smoothest road to Newhaven. Mr. C---- declares his intention of donning his riding-suit and, by taking a shorter, though supposably rougher, road, reach Newhaven as soon as we. As we halt at Lewes for tea, and ride leisurely, likewise submitting to being photographed en route, he actually arrives there ahead of us. It is Sunday evening, May 10th, and my ride through "Merrie England " is at an end. Among other agreeable things to be ever remembered in connection with it is the fact that it is the first three hundred miles of road I ever remember riding over without scoring a header - a circumstance that impresses itself none the less favorably perhaps when viewed in connection with the solidity of the average English road. It is not a very serious misadventure to take a flying header into a bed of loose sand on an American country road; but the prospect of rooting up a flint-stone with one's nose, or knocking a curb-stone loose with one's bump of cautiousness, is an entirely different affair; consequently, the universal smoothness of the surface of the English highways is appreciated at its full value by at least one wheelman whose experience of roads is nothing if not varied. Comfortable quarters are assigned me on board the Channel steamer, and a few minutes after bidding friends and England farewell, at Newhaven, at 11.30 P.M., I am gently rocked into unconsciousness by the motion of the vessel, and remain happily and restfully oblivious to my surroundings until awakened next morning at Dieppe, where I find myself, in a few minutes, on a foreign shore. All the way from San Francisco to Newhaven. there is a consciousness of being practically in one country and among one people-people who, though acknowledging separate governments, are bound so firmly together by the ties of common instincts and interests, and the mystic brotherhood of a common language and a common civilization, that nothing of a serious nature can ever come between them. But now I am verily among strangers, and the first thing talked of is to make me pay duty on the bicycle. The captain of the vessel, into whose hands Mr. C---- assigned me at Newhaven, protests on my behalf, and I likewise enter a gentle demurrer; but the custom-house officer declares that a duty will have to be forthcoming, saying that the amount will be returned again when I pass over the German frontier. The captain finally advises the payment of the duty and the acceptance of a receipt for the amount, and takes his leave. Not feeling quite satisfied as yet about paying the duty, I take a short stroll about Dieppe, leaving my wheel at tho custom-house and when I shortly return, prepared to pay the assessment, whatever it may be, the officer who, but thirty minutes since, declared emphatically in favor of a duty, now answers, with all the politeness imaginable: "Monsieur is at liberty to take the velocipede and go whithersoever he will." It is a fairly prompt initiation into the impulsiveness of the French character. They don't accept bicycles as baggage, though, on the Channel steamers, and six shillings freight, over and above passage-money, has to be yielded up. Although upon a foreign shore, I am not yet, it seems, to be left entirely alone to the tender mercies of my own lamentable inability to speak French. Fortunately there lives at Dieppe a gentleman named Mr. Parkinson, who, besides being an Englishman to the backbone, is quite an enthusiastic wheelman, and, among other things, considers it his solemn duty to take charge of visiting 'cyclers from England and America and see them safely launched along the magnificent roadways of Normandy, headed fairly toward their destination. Faed has thoughtfully notified Mr. Parkinson of my approach, and he is watching for my coming - as tenderly as though I were a returning prodigal and he charged with my welcoming home. Close under the frowning battlements of Dieppe Castle - a once wellnigh impregnable fortress that was some time in possession of the English - romantically nestles Mr. Parldnson's studio, and that genial gentleman promptly proposes accompanying me some distance into the country. On our way through Dieppe I notice blue-bloused peasants guiding small flocks of goats through the streets, calling them along with a peculiar, tuneful instrument that sounds somewhat similar to a bagpipe. I learn that they are Normandy peasants, who keep their flocks around town all summer, goat's milk being considered beneficial for infants and invalids. They lead the goats from house to house, and milk whatever quantity their customers want at their own door - a custom that we can readily understand will never become widely popular among AngloSaxon milkmen, since it leaves no possible chance for pump-handle combinations and corresponding profits. The morning is glorious with sunshine and the carols of feathered songsters as together we speed away down the beautiful Arques Valley, over roads that are simply perfect for wheeling; and, upon arriving at the picturesque ruins of the Chateau d'Arques, we halt and take a casual peep at the crumbling walls of this of the famous fortress, which the trailing ivy of Normandy now partially covers with a dark-green mantle of charity, as though its purpose and its mission were to hide its fallen grandeur from the rude gaze of the passing stranger. All along the roads we meet happy-looking peasants driving into Dieppe market with produce. They are driving Normandy horses - and that means fine, large, spirited animals - which, being unfamiliar with bicycles, almost invariably take exception to ours, prancing about after the usual manner of high-strung steeds. Unlike his English relative, the Norman horse looks not supinely upon the whirling wheel, but arrays himself almost unanimously against us, and umially in the most uncompromising manner, similar to the phantom- eyed roadster of the United States agriculturist. The similarity between the turnouts of these two countries I am forced to admit, however, terminates abruptly with the horse itself, and does not by any means extend to the driver; for, while the Normandy horse capers about and threatens to upset the vehicle into the ditch, the Frenchman's face is wreathed in apologetic smiles; and, while he frantically endeavors to keep the refractory horse under control, he delivers himself of a whole dictionary of apologies to the wheelman for the animal's foolish conduct, touches his cap with an air of profound deference upon noticing that we have considerately slowed up, and invariably utters his Bon jour, monsieur, as we wheel past, in a voice that plainly indicates his acknowledgment of the wheelman's - or anybody else's - right to half the roadway. A few days ago I called the English roads perfect, and England the paradise of 'cyclers; and so it is; but the Normandy roads are even superior, and the scenery of the Arques Valley is truly lovely. There is not a loose stone, a rut, or depression anywhere on these roads, and it is little exaggeration to call them veritable billiard-tables for smoothness of surface. As one bowls smoothly along over them he is constantly wondering how they can possibly keep them in such condition. Were these fine roads in America one would never be out of sight of whirling wheels. A luncheon of Normandy cheese and cider at Cleres, and then onward to Bouen is the word. At every cross-roads is erected an iron guide-post, containing directions to several of the nearest towns, telling the distances in kilometres and yards; and small stone pillars are set up alongside the road, marking every hundred yards. Arriving at Rouen at four o'clock, Mr. Parkiuson shows me the famous old Rouen Cathedral, the Palace of Justice, and such examples of old mediaeval Rouen as I care to visit, and, after inviting me to remain and take dinner with him by the murmuring waters of the historic Seine, he bids me bon voyage, turns my head southward, and leaves me at last a stranger among strangers, to "cornprendre Franyais" unassisted. Some wiseacre has placed it on record that too much of a good thing is worse than none at all; however that may be, from having concluded that the friendly iron guide-posts would be found on every corner where necessary, pointing out the way with infallible truthfulness, and being doubtless influenced by the superior levelness of the road leading down the valley of the Seine in comparison with the one leading over the bluffs, I wander toward eventide into Elbeuf, instead of Pont de l' Arques, as I had intended; but it matters little, and I am content to make the best of my surroundings. Wheeling along the crooked, paved streets of Elbeuf, I enter a small hotel, and, after the customary exchange of civilities, I arch my eyebrows at an intelligent -looking madaine, and inquire, " Comprendre Anglais." "Non," replies the lady, looking puzzled, while I proceed to ventilate my pantomimic powers to try and make my wants understood. After fifteen minutes of despairing effort, mademoiselle, the daughter, is despatched to the other side of the town, and presently returns with a be whiskered Frenchman, who, in very much broken English, accompanying his words with wondrous gesticulations, gives me to understand that he is the only person in all Elbeuf capable of speaking the English language, and begs me to unburden myself to him without reserve. He proves himself useful and obliging, kindly interesting himself in obtaining me comfortable accommodation at reasonable rates. This Elbeuf hotel, though, is anything but an elegant establishment, and le proprietaire, though seemingly intelligent enough, brings me out a bottle of the inevitable vin ordinaire (common red wine) at breakfast-time, instead of the coffee for which my opportune interpreter said he had given the order yester-eve. If a Frenchman only sits down to a bite of bread and cheese he usually consumes a pint bottle of vin ordinaire with it. The loaves of bread here are rolls three and four feet long, and frequently one of these is laid across - or rather along, for it is oftentimes longer than the table is wide - the table for you to hack away at during your meal, according to your bread-eating capacity or inclination. Monsieur, the accomplished, come down to see his Anglais friend and protege next morning, a few minutes after his Anglais friend and protege, has started off toward a distant street called Rue Poussen, which le garcon had unwittingly directed him to when he inquired the way to the bureau de poste; the natural result, I suppose, of the difference between Elbeuf pronunciation and mine. Discovering my mistake upon arriving at the Rue Poussen, I am more fortunate in my attack upon the interpreting abilities of a passing citizen, who sends an Elbeuf gamin to guide me to the post-office. Post office clerks are proverbially intelligent people in any country, consequently it doesn't take me long to transact my business at the bureau de poste; but now - shades of Caesar! - I have thoughtlessly neglected to take down either the name of the hotel or the street in which it is located, and for the next half-hour go wandering about as helplessly as the "babes in the wood" Once, twice I fancy recognizing the location; but the ordinary Elbeuf house is not easily recognized from its neighbors, and I am standing looking around me in the bewildered attitude of one uncertain of his bearings, when, lo! the landlady, who has doubtless been wondering whatever has become of me, appears at the door of a building which I should certainly never have recognized as my hotel, besom in hand, and her pleasant, "Oui, monsieur," sounds cheery and welcome enough, under the circumstances, as one may readily suppose. Fine roads continue, and between Gaillon and Vernon one can see the splendid highway, smooth, straight, and broad, stretching ahead for miles between rows of stately poplars, forming magnificent avenues that add not a little to the natural loveliness of the country. Noble chateaus appear here and there, oftentimes situated upon the bluffs of the Seine, and forming the background to a long avenue of chestnuts, maples, or poplars, running at right angles to the main road and principal avenue. The well-known thriftincss of the French peasantry is noticeable on every hand, and particularly away off to the left yonder, where their small, well-cultivated farms make the sloping bluffs resemble huge log-cabin quilts in the distance. Another glaring and unmistakable evidence of the Normandy peasants' thriftiness is the remarkable number of patches they manage to distribute over the surface of their pantaloons, every peasant hereabouts averaging twenty patches, more or less, of all shapes and sizes. When the British or United States Governments impose any additional taxation on the people, the people gruinblingly declare they won't put up with it, and then go ahead and pay it; but when the Chamber of Deputies at Paris turns on the financial thumb-screw a little tighter, the French peasant simply puts yet another patch on the seat of his pantaloons, and smilingly hands over the difference between the patch and the new pair he intended to purchase! Huge cavalry barracks mark the entrance to Vernon, and, as I watch with interest the manoauvring of the troops going through their morning drill, I cannot help thinking that with such splendid loads as France possesses she might take many a less practical measure for home defence than to mount a few regiments of light infantry on bicycles; infantry travelling toward the front at the late of seventy-five or a hundred miles a day would be something of an improvement, one would naturally think. Every few miles my road leads through the long, straggling street of a village, every building in which is of solid stone, and looks at least a thousand years old; while at many cross-roads among the fields, and in all manner of unexpected nooks and corners of the villages, crucifixes are erected to accommodate the devotionally inclined. Most of the streets of these interior villages are paved with square stones which the wear and tear of centuries have generally rendered too rough for the bicycle; but occasionally one is ridable, and the astonishment of the inhabitants as I wheel leisurely through, whistling the solemn strains of "Roll, Jordan, roll," is really quite amusing. Every village of any size boasts a church that, for fineness of architecture and apparent costliness of construction, looks out of all proportion to the straggling street of shapeless structures that it overtops. Everything here seems built as though intended to last forever, it being no unusual sight to see a ridiculously small piece of ground surrounded by a stone wall built as though to resist a bombardment; an enclosure that must have cost more to erect than fifty crops off the enclosed space could repay. The important town of Mantes is reached early in the evening, and a good inn found for the night. The market-women are arraying their varied wares all along the main street of Mantes as I wheel down toward the banks of the Seine this morning. I stop to procure a draught of new milk, and, while drinking it, point to sundry long rows of light, flaky-looking cakes strung on strings, and motion that I am desirous of sampling a few at current rates; but the good dame smiles and shakes her head vigorously, as well enough she might, for I learn afterward that the cakes are nothing less than dried yeast-cakes, a breakfast off which would probably have produced spontaneous combustion. Getting on to the wrong road out of Mantes, I find myself at the river's edge down among the Seine watermen. I am shown the right way, but from Mantes to Paris they are not Normandy roads; from Mantes southward they gradually deteriorate until they are little or no better than the "sand-papered roads of Boston." Having determined to taboo vin ordinaire altogether I astonish the restaurateur of a village where I take lunch by motioning away the bottle of red wine and calling for " de I'eau," and the glances cast in my direction by the other customers indicate plainly enough that they consider the proceeding as something quite extraordinary. Rolling through Saint Germain, Chalon Pavey, and Nanterre, the magnificent Arc de Triomphe looms up in the distance ahead, and at about two o'clock, Wednesday, May 13th, I wheel into the gay capital through the Porte Maillott. Asphalt pavement now takes the place of macadam, and but a short distance inside the city limits I notice the 'cycle depot of Renard Ferres. Knowing instinctively that the fraternal feelings engendered by the magic wheel reaches to wherever a wheelman lives, I hesitate not to dismount and present my card. Yes, Jean Glinka, apparently an employe there, comprehends Anglais; they have all heard of my tour, and wish me bon voyage, and Jean and his bicycle is forthwith produced and delegated to accompany me into the interior of the city and find me a suitable hotel. The streets of Paris, like the streets of other large cities, are paved with various compositions, and they have just been sprinkled. French-like, the luckless Jean is desirous of displaying his accomplishments on the wheel to a visitor so distingue; he circles around on the slippery pavement in a manner most unnecessary, and in so doing upsets himself while crossing a car-track, rips his pantaloons, and injures his wheel. At the Hotel du Louvre they won't accept bicycles, having no place to put them; but a short distance from there we find a less pretentious establishment, where, after requiring me to fill up a formidable-looking blank, stating my name, residence, age, occupation, birthplace, the last place I lodged at, etc., they finally assign me quarters. From Paul Devilliers, to whom I bring an introduction, I learn that by waiting here till Friday evening, and repairing to the rooms of the Societe Velocipedique Metropolitaine, the president of that club can give me the best bicycle route between Paris and Vienna; accordingly I domicile myself at the hotel for a couple of days. Many of the lions of Paris are within easy distance of my hotel. The reader, however, probably knows more about the sights of Paris than one can possibly find out in two days; therefore I refrain from any attempt at describing them; but my hotel is worthy of remark. Among other agreeable and sensible arrangements at the Hotel uu Loiret, there is no such thing as opening one's room-door from the outside save with the key; and unless one thoroughly understands this handy peculiarity, and has his wits about him continually, he is morally certain, sometime when he is leaving his room, absent-mindedly to shut the door and leave the key inside. This is, of course, among the first things that happen to me, and it costs me half a franc and three hours of wretchedness before I see the interior of my room again. The hotel keeps a rude skeleton-key on hand, presumably for possible emergencies of this nature; but in manipulating this uncouth instrument le portier actually locks the door, and as the skeleton-key is expected to manage the catch only, and not the lock, this, of course, makes matters infinitely worse. The keys of every room in the house are next brought into requisition and tried in succession, but not a key among them all is a duplicate of mine. What is to be done. Le portier looks as dejected as though Paris was about to be bombarded, as he goes down and breaks the dreadful news to le proprietaire. Up comes le proprietaire - avoirdupois three hundred pounds - sighing like an exhaust-pipe at every step. For fifteen unhappy minutes the skeleton-key is wriggled and twisted about again in the key- hole, and the fat proprietaire rubs his bald head impatiently, but all to no purpose. Each returns to his respective avocation. Impatient to get at my writing materials, I look up at the iron bars across the fifth- story windows above, and motion that if they will procure a rope I will descend from thence and enter the window. They one and all point out into the street; and, thinking they have sent for something or somebody, I sit down and wait with Job-like patience for something to turn up. Nothing, however, turns up, and at the expiration of an hour I naturally begin to feel neglected and impatient, and again suggest the rope; when, at a motion from le proprietaire, le portier pilots me around a neighboring corner to a locksmith's establishment, where, voluntarily acting the part of interpreter, he engages on my behalf, for half a franc, a man to come with a bunch of at least a hundred skeleton-keys of all possible shapes to attack the refractory key-hole. After trying nearly all the keys, and disburdening himself of whole volumes of impulsive French ejaculations, this man likewise gives it up in despair; but, now everything else has been tried and failed, the countenance of la portier suddenly lights up, and he slips quietly around to an adjoining room, and enters mine inside of two minutes by simply lifting a small hook out of a staple with his knife-blade. There appears to be a slight coolness, as it were, between le proprietaire and me after this incident, probably owing to the intellectual standard of each becoming somewhat lowered in the other's estimation in consequence of it. Le proprietaire, doubtless, thinks a man capable of leaving the key inside of the door must be the worst type of an ignoramus; and certainly my opinion of him for leaving such a diabolical arrangement unchanged in the latter half of the nineteenth century is not far removed from the same. Visiting the headquarters of the Societe Velocipedique Mctropolitaine on Friday evening, I obtain from the president the desired directions regarding the route, and am all prepared to continue eastward in the morning. Wheeling down the famous Champs Elysees at eleven at night, when the concert gardens are in full blast and everything in a blaze, of glory, with myriads of electric lights festooned and in long brilliant rows among the trees, is something to be remembered for a lifetime. Before breakfast I leave the city by the Porte Daumesiul, and wheel through the environments toward Vincennes and Jonville, pedalling, to the sound of martial music, for miles beyond the Porte. The roads for thirty miles east of Paris are not Normandy roads, but the country for most of the distance is fairly level, and for mile after mile, and league beyond league, the road is beneath avenues of plane and poplar, which, crossing the plain in every direction like emerald walls of nature's own building, here embellish and beautify an otherwise rather monotonous stretch of country. The villages are little different from the villages of Normandy, but the churches have not the architectural beauty of the Normandy churches, being for the most part massive structures without any pretence to artistic embellishment in their construction. Monkish-looking priests are a characteristic feature of these villages, and when, on passing down the narrow, crooked streets of Fontenay, I wheel beneath a massive stone archway, and looking around, observe cowled priests and everything about the place seemingly in keeping with it, one can readily imagine himself transported back to medieval times. One of these little interior French villages is the most unpromising looking place imaginable for a hungry person to ride into; often one may ride the whole length of the village expectantly looking around for some visible evidence of wherewith to cheer the inner man, and all that greets the hungry vision is a couple of four-foot sticks of bread in one dust-begrimed window, and a few mournful-looking crucifixes and Roman Catholic paraphernalia in another. Neither are the peasants hereabouts to be compared with the Normandy peasantry in personal appearance. True, they have as many patches on their pantaloons, but they don't seem to have acquired the art of attaching them in a manner to produce the same picturesque effect as does the peasant of Normandy; the original garment is almost invariably a shapeless corduroy, of a bagginess and an o'er-ampleness most unbeautiful to behold. The well-known axiom about fair paths leading astray holds good with the high-ways and by-ways of France, as elsewhere, and soon after leaving the ancient town of Provins, I am tempted by a splendid road, following the windings of a murmuring brook, that appears to be going in my direction, in consequence of which I soon find myself among cross-country by-ways, and among peasant proprietors who apparently know little of the world beyond their native Tillages. Four o'clock finds me wheeling through a hilly vineyard district toward Villenauxe, a town several kilometres off my proper route, from whence a dozen kilometres over a very good road brings me to Sezanne, where the Hotel de France affords excellent accommodation. After the table d'hote the clanging bells of the old church hard by announce services of some kind, and having a natural penchant when in strange places from wandering whithersoever inclination leads, in anticipation of the ever possible item of interest, I meander into the church and take a seat. There appears to be nothing extraordinary about the service, the only unfamiliar feature to me being a man wearing a uniform similar to the gendarmerie of Paris: cockade, sash, sword, and everything complete; in addition to which he carries a large cane and a long brazen-headed staff resembling the boarding-pike of the last century. It has rained heavily during the night, but the roads around here are composed mainly of gravel, and are rather improved than otherwise by the rain; and from Sezanne, through Champenoise and on to Vitry le Francois, a distance of about sixty-five kilometres, is one of the most enjoyable stretches of road imaginable. The contour of the country somewhat resembles the swelling prairies of Western Iowa, and the roads are as perfect for most of the distance as an asphalt boulevard. The hills are gradual acclivities, and, owing to the good roads, are mostly ridable, while - the declivities make the finest coasting imaginable; the exhilaration of gliding down them in the morning air, fresh after the rain, can be compared only to Canadian tobogganing. Ahead of you stretches a gradual downward slope, perhaps two kilometres long. Knowing full well that from top to bottom there exists not a loose stone or a dangerous spot, you give the ever-ready steel-horse the rein; faster and faster whirl the glistening wheels until objects "by the road-side become indistinct phantoms as they glide instantaneously by, and to strike a hole or obstruction is to be transformed into a human sky-rocket, and, later on, into a new arrival in another world. A wild yell of warning at a blue- bloused peasant in the road ahead, shrill screams of dismay from several females at a cluster of cottages, greet the ear as you sweep past like a whirlwind, and the next moment reach the bottom at a rate of speed that would make the engineer of the Flying Dutchman green with envy. Sometimes, for the sake of variety, when gliding noiselessly along on the ordinary level, I wheel unobserved close up behind an unsuspecting peasant walking on ahead, without calling out, and when he becomes conscious of my presence and looks around and sees the strange vehicle in such close proximity it is well worth the price of a new hat to see the lively manner in which he hops out of the way, and the next moment becomes fairly rooted to the ground with astonishment; for bicycles and bicycle riders are less familiar objects to the French peasant, outside of the neighborhood of a few large cities, than one would naturally suppose. Vitry le Frangois is a charming old town in the beautiful valley of the Marne; in the middle ages it was a strongly fortified city; the moats and earth-works are still perfect. The only entrance to the town, even now, is over the old draw-bridges, the massive gates, iron wheels, chains, etc., still being intact, so that the gates can yet be drawn up and entrance denied to foes, as of yore; but the moats are now utilized for the boats of the Marne and Rhine Canal, and it is presumable that the old draw-bridges are nowadays always left open. To-day is Sunday - and Sunday in France is equivalent to a holiday - consequently Vitry le Frangois, being quite an important town, and one of the business centres of the prosperous and populous Marne Valley, presents all the appearance of circus-day in an American agricultural community. Several booths are erected in the market square, the proprietors and attaches of two peregrinating theatres, several peep-shows, and a dozen various games of chance, are vying with each other in the noisiness of their demonstrations to attract the attention and small change of the crowd to their respective enterprises. Like every other highway in this part of France the Marne and Bhine Canal is fringed with an avenue of poplars, that from neighboring elevations can be seen winding along the beautiful valley for miles, presenting a most pleasing effect. East of Vitry le Francois the roads deteriorate, and from thence to Bar- le they are inferior to any hitherto encountered in France; nevertheless, from the American standpoint they are very good roads, and when, at five o'clock, I wheel into Bar-le-Duc and come to sum up the aggregate of the day's journey I find that, without any undue exertion, I have covered very nearly one hundred and sixty kilometres, or about one hundred English miles, since 8.30 A.M., notwithstanding a good hour's halt at Vitry le Francois for dinner. Bar-le-Duc appears to be quite an important business centre, pleasantly situated in the valley of the Ornain River, a tributary of the Marne; and the stream, in its narrow, fertile valley, winds around among hills from whose sloping sides, every autumn, fairly ooze the celebrated red wines of the Meuse and Moselle regions. The valley has been favored with a tremendous downpour of rain and hail during the night, and the partial formation of the road leading along the level valley eastward being a light-colored, slippery clay, I find it anything but agreeable wheeling this morning; moreover, the Ornain Valley road is not so perfectly kept as it might be. As in every considerable town in France, so also in Bar-le-Duc, the military element comes conspicuously to the fore. Eleven kilometres of slipping and sliding through the greasy clay brings me to the little village of Tronville, where I halt to investigate the prospect of obtaining something to eat. As usual, the prospect, from the street, is most unpromising, the only outward evidence being a few glass jars of odds and ends of candy in one small window. Entering this establishment, the only thing the woman can produce besides candy and raisins is a box of brown, wafer-like biscuits, the unsubstantial appearance of which is, to say the least, most unsatisfactory to a person who has pedalled his breakfastless way through eleven kilometres of slippery clay. Uncertain of their composition, and remembering my unhappy mistake at Mantes in desiring to breakfast off yeast-cakes, I take the precaution of sampling one, and in the absence of anything more substantial conclude to purchase a few, and so motion to the woman to hand me the box in order that I can show her how many I want. But the o'er-careful Frenchwoman, mistaking my meaning, and fearful that I only want to sample yet another one, probably feeling uncertain of whether I might not wish to taste a whole handful this time, instead of handing it over moves it out of my reach altogether, meanwhile looking quite angry, and not a little mystified at her mysterious, pantomimic customer. A half-franc is produced, and, after taking the precaution of putting it away in advance, the cautious female weighs me out the current quantity of her ware; and I notice that, after giving lumping weight, she throws in a few extra, presumably to counterbalance what, upon sober second thought, she perceives to have been an unjust suspicion. While I am extracting what satisfaction my feathery purchase contains, it begins to rain and hail furiously, and so continues with little interruption all the forenoon, compelling me, much against my inclination, to search out in Tronville, if possible, some accommodation till to-morrow morning. The village is a shapeless cluster of stone houses and stables, the most prominent feature of the streets being huge heaps of manure and grape-vine prunings; but I manage to obtain the necessary shelter, and such other accommodations as might be expected in an out-of-the-way village, unfrequented by visitors from one year's end to another. The following morning is still rainy, and the clayey roads of the Ornain Valley are anything but inviting wheeling; but a longer stay in Tronville is not to be thought of, for, among other pleasantries of the place here, the chief table delicacy appears to be boiled escargots, a large, ungainly snail procured from the neighboring hills. Whilst fond of table delicacies, I emphatically draw the line at escargots. Pulling out toward Toul I find the roads, as expected, barely ridable; but the vineyard-environed little valley, lovely in its tears, wrings from one praise in spite of muddy roads and lowering weather. En route down the valley I meet a battery of artillery travelling from Toul to Bar-le Duc or some other point to the westward; and if there is any honor in throwing a battery of French artillery into confusion, and wellnigh routing them, then the bicycle and I are fairly entitled to it. As I ride carelessly toward them, the leading horses suddenly wheel around and begin plunging about the road. The officers' horses, and, in fact, the horses of the whole company, catch the infection, and there is a plunging and a general confusion all along the line, seeing which I, of course, dismount and retire - but not discomfited - from the field until they have passed. These French horses are certainly not more than half-trained. I passed a battery of English artillery on the road leading out of Coventry, and had I wheeled along under the horses' noses there would have been no confusion whatever. On the divide between the Ornain and Moselle Valleys the roads are hillier, but somewhat less muddy. The weather continues showery and unsettled, and a short distance beyond Void I find myself once again wandering off along the wrong road. The peasantry hereabout seem to have retained a lively recollection of the Prussians, my helmet appearing to have the effect of jogging their memory, and frequently, when stopping to inquire about the roads, the first word in response will be the pointed query, "Prussian." By following the directions given by three different peasants, I wander along the muddy by-roads among the vineyards for two wet, unhappy hours ere I finally strike the main road to Toul again. After floundering along the wellnigh unimproved by-ways for two hours one thoroughly appreciates how much he is indebted to the military necessities of the French Government for the splendid highways of France, especially among these hills and valleys, where natural roadways would be anything but good. Following down the Moselle Valley, I arrive at the important city of Nancy in the eventide, and am fortunate, I suppose, in discovering a hotel where a certain, or, more properly speaking, an uncertain, quantity and quality of English are spoken. Nancy is reputed to be one of the loveliest towns in France. But I merely remained in it over night, and long enough next morning to exchange for some German money, as I cross over the frontier to-day. Luneville is a town I pass through, some distance nearer the border, and the military display here made is perfectly overshadowing. Even the scarecrows in the fields are military figures, with wooden swords threateningly waving about in their hands with every motion of the wind, and the most frequent sound heard along the route is the sharp bang! bang! of muskets, where companies of soldiers are target-practising in the woods. There seems to be a bellicose element in the very atmosphere; for every dog in every village I ride through verily takes after me, and I run clean over one bumptious cur, which, miscalculating the speed at which I am coming, fails to get himself out of the way in time. It is the narrowest escape from a header I have had since starting from Liverpool; although both man and dog were more scared than hurt. Sixty-five kilometres from Nancy, and I take lunch at the frontier town of Blamont. The road becomes more hilly, and a short distance out of Blamont, behold, it is as though a chalk-line were made across the roadway, on the west side of which it had been swept with scrupulous care, and on the east side not swept at all; and when, upon passing the next roadman, I notice that he bears not upon his cap the brass stencil-plate bearing the inscription, " Cantonnier," I know that I have passed over the frontier into the territory of Kaiser Wilhelm. My journey through fair Prance has been most interesting, and perhaps instructive, though I am afraid that the lessons I have taken in French politeness are altogether too superficial to be lasting. The "Bonjour, monsieur," and "Bon voyage," of France, may not mean any more than the "If I don't see you again, why, hello." of America, but it certainly sounds more musical and pleasant. It is at the table d'hote, however, that I have felt myself to have invariably shone superior to the natives; for, lo! the Frenchman eats soup from the end of his spoon. True, it is more convenient to eat soup from the prow of a spoon than from the larboard; nevertheless, it is when eating soup that I instinctively feel my superiority. The French peasants, almost without exception, conclude that the bright-nickelled surface of the bicycle is silver, and presumably consider its rider nothing less than a millionnaire in consequence; but it is when I show them the length of time the rear wheel or a pedal will spin round that they manifest their greatest surprise. The crowning glory of French landscape is the magnificent avenues of poplars that traverse the country in every direction, winding with the roads, the railways, and canals along the valleys, and marshalled like sentinels along the brows of the distant hills; without them French scenery would lose half its charm. CHAPTER VI. GERMANY, AUSTRIA, AND HUNGARY. Notwithstanding Alsace was French territory only fourteen years ago (1871) there is a noticeable difference in the inhabitants, to me the most acceptable being their great linguistic superiority over the people on the French side of the border. I linger in Saarburg only about thirty minutes, yet am addressed twice by natives in my own tongue; and at Pfalzburg, a smaller town, where I remain over night, I find the same characteristic. Ere I penetrate thirty kilometres into German territory, however, I have to record what was never encountered in France; an insolent teamster, who, having his horses strung across a narrow road- way in the suburbs of Saarburg, refuses to turn his leaders' heads to enable me to ride past, thus compelling me to dismount. Soldiers drilling, soldiers at target practice, and soldiers in companies marching about in every direction, greet my eyes upon approaching Pfalzburg; and although there appears to be less beating of drums and blare of trumpets than in French garrison towns, one seldom turns a street corner without hearing the measured tramp of a military company receding or approaching. These German troops appear to march briskly and in a business-like manner in comparison with the French, who always seem to carry themselves with a tired and dejected deportment; but the over-ample and rather slouchy-looking pantaloons of the French are probably answerable, in part, for this impression. One cannot watch these sturdy-looking German soldiers without a conviction that for the stern purposes of war they are inferior only to the soldiers of our own country. At the little gasthaus at Pfalzburg the people appear to understand and anticipate an Englishman's gastronomic peculiarities, for the first time since leaving England I am confronted at the supper-table with excellent steak and tea. It is raining next morning as I wheel over the rolling hills toward Saverne, a city nestling pleasantly in a little valley beyond those dark wooded heights ahead that form the eastern boundary of the valley of the Rhine. The road is good but hilly, and for several kilometres, before reaching Saverne, winds its way among the pine forests tortuously and steeply down from the elevated divide. The valley, dotted here and there with pleasant villages, is spread out like a marvellously beautiful picture, the ruins of several old castles on neighboring hill-tops adding a charm, as well as a dash of romance. The rain pours down in torrents as I wheel into Saverne. I pause long enough to patronize a barber shop; also to procure an additional small wrench. Taking my nickelled monkey-wrench into a likely-looking hardware store, I ask the proprietor if he has anything similar. He examines it with lively interest, for, in comparison with the clumsy tools comprising his stock-in-trade, the wrench is as a watch-spring to an old horse-shoe. I purchase a rude tool that might have been fashioned on the anvil of a village blacksmith. From Saverne my road leads over another divide and down into the glorious valley of the Rhine, for a short distance through a narrow defile that reminds me somewhat of a canon in the Sierra Nevada foot-hills; but a fine, broad road, spread with a coating of surface-mud only by this morning's rain, prevents the comparison from assuming definite shape for a cycler. Extensive and beautifully terraced vineyards mark the eastern exit. The road-beds of this country are hard enough for anything; but a certain proportion of clay in their composition makes a slippery coating in rainy weather. I enter the village of Marienheim and observe the first stork's nest, built on top of a chimney, that I have yet seen in Europe, though I saw plenty of them afterward. The parent stork is perched solemnly over her youthful brood, which one would naturally think would get smoke-dried. A short distance from Marlenheim I descry in the hazy distance the famous spire of Strasburg cathedral looming conspicuously above everything else in all the broad valley; and at 1.30 P.M. I wheel through the massive arched gateway forming part of the city's fortifications, and down the broad but roughly paved streets, the most mud-be-spattered object in all Strasburg. The fortifications surrounding the city are evidently intended strictly for business, and not merely for outward display. The railway station is one of the finest in Europe, and among other conspicuous improvements one notices steam tram-cars. While trundling through the city I am imperatively ordered off the sidewalk by the policeman; and when stopping to inquire of a respectable-looking Strasburger for the Appeuweir road, up steps an individual with one eye and a cast off military cap three sizes too small. After querying, " Appenweir. Englander?" he wheels "about face" with military precision doubtless thus impelled by the magic influence of his headgear - and beckons me to follow. Not knowing what better course to pursue I obey, and after threading the mazes of a dozen streets, composed of buildings ranging in architecture from the much gabled and not unpicturesque structures of mediaeval times to the modern brown-stone front, he pilots me outside the fortifications again, points up the Appenweir road, and after the never neglected formality of touching his cap and extending his palm, returns city-ward. Crossing the Rhine over a pontoon bridge, I ride along level and, happily, rather less muddy roads, through pleasant suburban villages, near one of which I meet a company of soldiers in undress uniform, strung out carelessly along the road, as though returning from a tramp into the country. As I approach them, pedalling laboriously against a stiff head wind, both myself and the bicycle fairly yellow with clay, both officers and soldiers begin to laugh in a good-natured, bantering sort of manner, and a round dozen of them sing out in chorus "Ah! ah! der Englander." and as I reply, "Yah! yah." in response, and smile as I wheel past them, the laughing and banter go all along the line. The sight of an "Englander" on one of his rambling expeditions of adventure furnishes much amusement to the average German, who, while he cannot help admiring the spirit of enterprise that impels him, fails to comprehend where the enjoyment can possibly come in. The average German would much rather loll around, sipping wine or beer, and smoking cigarettes, than impel a bicycle across a continent. A few miles eastward of the Rhine another grim fortress frowns upon peaceful village and broad, green meads, and off yonder to the right is yet another; sure enough, this Franco-German frontier is one vast military camp, with forts, and soldiers, and munitions of war everywhere. When I crossed the Rhine I left Lower Alsace, and am now penetrating the middle Rhine region, where villages are picturesque clusters of gabled cottages - a contrast to the shapeless and ancient-looking stone structures of the French villages. The difference also extends to the inhabitants; the peasant women of France, in either real or affected modesty, would usually pretend not to notice anything extraordinary as I wheeled past, but upon looking back they would almost invariably be seen standing and gazing after my receding figure with unmistakable interest; but the women of these Rhine villages burst out into merry peals of laughter. Rolling over fair roads into the village of Oberkirch, I conclude to remain for the night, and the first thing undertaken is to disburden the bicycle of its covering of clay. The awkward-looking hostler comes around several times and eyes the proceedings with glances of genuine disapproval, doubtless thinking I am cleaning it myself instead of letting him swab it with a besom with the single purpose in view of dodging the inevitable tip. The proprietor can speak a few words of English. He puts his bald head out of the window above, and asks: "Pe you Herr Shtevens ?" "Yah, yah," I reply. " Do you go mit der veld around ?" "Yah; I goes around mit the world." "I shoust read about you mit der noospaper." " Ah, indeed! what newspaper?" "Die Frankfurter Zeitung. You go around mit der veld." The landlord looks delighted to have for a guest the man who goes "mit der veld around," and spreads the news. During the evening several people of importance and position drop in to take a curious peep at me and my wheel. A dampness about the knees, superinduced by wheeling in rubber leggings, causes me to seek the privilege of the kitchen fire upon arrival. After listening to the incessant chatter of the cook for a few moments, I suddenly dispense with all pantomime, and ask in purest English the privilege of drying my clothing in peace and tranquillity by the kitchen fire. The poor woman hurries out, and soon returns with her highly accomplished master, who, comprehending the situation, forthwith tenders me the loan of his Sunday pantaloons for the evening; which offer I gladly accept, notwithstanding the wide disproportion in their size and mine, the landlord being, horizontally, a very large person. Oberkirch is a pretty village at the entrance to the narrow and charming valley of the River Bench, up which my route leads, into the fir-clad heights of the Black Forest. A few miles farther up the valley I wheel through a small village that nestles amid surroundings the loveliest I have yet seen. Dark, frowning firs intermingled with the lighter green of other vegetation crown the surrounding spurs of the Knibis Mountains; vineyards, small fields of waving rye, and green meadow cover the lower slopes with variegated beauty, at the foot of which huddles the cluster of pretty cottages amid scattered orchards of blossoming fruit-trees. The cheery lute of the herders on the mountains, the carol of birds, and the merry music of dashing mountain-streams fill the fresh morning air with melody. All through this country there are apple-trees, pear-trees, cherry-trees In the fruit season one can scarce open his mouth out-doors without having the goddess Pomona pop in some delicious morsel. The poplar avenues of France have disappeared, but the road is frequently shaded for miles with fruit-trees. I never before saw a spot so lovely-certainly not in combination with a wellnigh perfect road for wheeling. On through Oppenau and Petersthal my way leads - this latter a place of growing importance as a summer resort, several commodious hotels with swimming-baths, mineral waters, etc., being already prepared to receive the anticipated influx of health and pleasure-seeking guests this coming summer - and then up, up, up among the dark pines leading over the Black Forest Mountains. Mile after mile of steep incline has now been trundled, following the Bench River to its source. Ere long the road I have lately traversed is visible far below, winding and twisting up the mountain-slopes. Groups of swarthy peasant women are carrying on their heads baskets of pine cones to the villages below. At a distance the sight of their bright red dresses among the sombre green of the pines is suggestive of the fairies with which legend has peopled the Black Forest. The summit is reached at last, and two boundary posts apprise the traveller that on this wooded ridge he passes from Baden into Wurtemberg. The descent for miles is agreeably smooth and gradual; the mountain air blows cool and refreshing, with an odor of the pines; the scenery is Black Forest scenery, and what more could be possibly desired than this happy combination of circumstances. Reaching Freudenstadt about noon, the mountain-climbing, the bracing air, and the pine fragrance cause me to give the good people at the gasthaus an impressive lesson in the effect of cycling on the human appetite. At every town and village I pass through in Wurtemberg the whole juvenile population collects around me in an incredibly short time. The natural impulse of the German small boy appears to be to start running after me, shouting and laughing immoderately, and when passing through some of the larger villages, it is no exaggeration to say that I have had two hundred small Germans, noisy and demonstrative, clattering along behind in their heavy wooden shoes. Wurtemburg, by this route at least, is a decidedly hilly country, and the roads are far inferior to those of both England and France. There will be, perhaps, three kilometres of trundling up through wooded heights leading out of a small valley, then, after several kilometres over undulating, stony upland roads, a long and not always smooth descent into another small valley, this programme, several times repeated, constituting the journey of the clay. The small villages of the peasantry are frequently on the uplands, but the larger towns are invariably in the valleys, sheltered by wooded heights, perched among the crags of the most inaccessible of which are frequently seen the ruins of an old castle. Scores of little boys of eight or ten are breaking stones by the road-side, at which I somewhat marvel, since there is a compulsory school law in Germany; but perhaps to-day is a holiday; or maybe, after school hours, it is customary for these unhappy youngsters to repair to the road-sides and blister their hands with cracking flints. "Hungry as a buzz-saw" I roll into the sleepy old town of Rothenburg at six o'clock, and, repairing to the principal hotel, order supper. Several flunkeys of different degrees of usefulness come in and bow obsequiously from time to time, as I sit around, expecting supper to appear every minute. At seven o'clock the waiter comes in, bows profoundly, and lays the table-cloth; at 7.15 he appears again, this time with a plate, knife, and fork, doing more bowing and scraping as he lays them on the table. Another half-hour rolls by, when, doubtless observing my growing impatience as he happens in at intervals to close a shutter or re-regulate the gas, he produces a small illustrated paper, and, bowing profoundly; lays it before me. I feel very much like making him swallow it, but resigning myself to what appears to be inevitable fate, I wait and wait, and at precisely 8.15 he produces a plate of soup; at 8.30 the kalbscotolet is brought on, and at 8.45 a small plate of mixed biscuits. During the meal I call for another piece of bread, and behold there is a hurrying to and fro, and a resounding of feet scurrying along the stone corridors of the rambling old building, and ten minutes later I receive a small roll. At the opposite end of the long table upon which I am writing some half-dozen ancient and honorable Rothenburgers are having what they doubtless consider a "howling time." Confronting each is a huge tankard of foaming lager, and the one doubtless enjoying himself the most and making the greatest success of exciting the envy and admiration of those around him is a certain ponderous individual who sits from hour to hour in a half comatose condition, barely keeping a large porcelain pipe from going out, and at fifteen-minute intervals taking a telling pull at the lager. Were it not for an occasional blink of the eyelids and the periodical visitation of the tankard to his lips, it would be difficult to tell whether he were awake or sleeping, the act of smoking being barely perceptible to the naked eye. In the morning I am quite naturally afraid to order anything to eat here for fear of having to wait until mid-day, or thereabouts, before getting it; so, after being the unappreciative recipient of several more bows, more deferential and profound if anything than the bows of yesterday eve, I wheel twelve kilometres to Tubingen for breakfast. It showers occasionally during the forenoon, and after about thirty-five kilometres of hilly country it begins to descend in torrents, compelling me to follow the example of several peasants in seeking the shelter of a thick pine copse. We are soon driven out of it, however, and donning my gossamer rubber suit, I push on to Alberbergen, where I indulge in rye bread and milk, and otherwise while away the hours until three o'clock, when, the rain ceasing, I pull out through the mud for Blaubeuren. Down the beautiful valley of one of the Danube's tributaries I ride on Sunday morning, pedalling to the music of Blaubeuren's church-bells. After waiting until ten o'clock, partly to allow the roads to dry a little, I conclude to wait no longer, and so pull out toward the important and quite beautiful city of Ulm. The character of the country now changes, and with it likewise the characteristics of the people, who verily seem to have stamped upon their features the peculiarities of the region they inhabit. My road eastward of Blaubeuren follows down a narrow, winding valley, beside the rippling head-waters of the Danube, and eighteen kilometres of variable road brings me to the strongly fortified city of Ulm, the place I should have reached yesterday, except for the inclemency of the weather, and where I cross from Wurtemberg into Bavaria. On the uninviting uplands of Central Wurtemberg one looks in vain among the peasant women for a prepossessing countenance or a graceful figure, but along the smiling valleys of Bavaria, the women, though usually with figures disproportionately broad, nevertheless carry themselves with a certain gracefulness; and, while far from the American or English idea of beautiful, are several degrees more so than their relatives of the part of Wilrtemberg I have traversed. I stop but a few minutes at Ulm, to test a mug of its lager and inquire the details of the road to Augsburg, yet during that short time I find myself an object of no little curiosity to the citizens, for the fame of my undertaking has pervaded Ulm. The roads of Bavaria possess the one solitary merit of hardness, otherwise they would be simply abominable, the Bavarian idea of road-making evidently being to spread unlimited quantities of loose stones over the surface. For miles a wheelman is compelled to follow along narrow, wheel-worn tracks, incessantly dodging loose stones, or otherwise to pedal his way cautiously along the edges of the roadway. I am now wheeling through the greatest beer-drinking, sausage-consuming country in the world; hop- gardens are a prominent feature of the landscape, and long links of sausages are dangling in nearly every window. The quantities of these viands I see consumed to-day are something astonishing, though the celebration of the Whitsuntide holidays is probably augmentative of the amount. The strains of instrumental music come floating over the level bottom of the Lech valley as, toward eventide, I approach the beautiful environs of Augsburg, and ride past several beer-gardens, where merry crowds of Augsburgers are congregated, quaffing foaming lager, eating sausages, and drinking inspiration from the music of military bands. "Where is the headquarters of the Augsburg Velocipede Club?" I inquire of a promising-looking youth as, after covering one hundred and twenty kilometres since ten o'clock, I wheel into the city. The club's headquarters are at a prominent cafe and beer-garden in the south-eastern suburbs, and repairing thither I find an accommodating individual who can speak English, and who willingly accepts the office of interpreter between me and the proprietor of the garden. Seated amid hundreds of soldiers, Augsburg civilians, and peasants from the surrounding country, and with them extracting genuine enjoyment from a tankard of foaming Augsburg lager, I am informed that most of the members of the club are celebrating the Whitsuntide holidays by touring about the surrounding country, but that I am very welcome to Augsburg, and I am conducted to the Hotel Mohrenkopf (Moor's Head Hotel), and invited to consider myself the guest of the club as long as I care to remain in Augsburg-the Bavarians are nothing if not practical. Mr. Josef Kling, the president of the club, accompanies me as far out as Friedburg on Monday morning; it is the last day of the holidays, and the Bavarians are apparently bent on making the most of it. The suburban beer-gardens are already filled with people, and for some distance out of the city the roads are thronged with holiday-making Augsburgers repairing to various pleasure resorts in the neighboring country, and the peasantry streaming cityward from the villages, their faces beaming in anticipation of unlimited quantities of beer. About every tenth person among the outgoing Augsburgers is carrying an accordion; some playing merrily as they walk along, others preferring to carry theirs in blissful meditation on the good time in store immediately ahead, while a thoughtful majority have large umbrellas strapped to their backs. Music and song are heard on every hand, and as we wheel along together in silence, enforced by an ignorance of each other's language, whichever way one looks, people in holiday attire and holiday faces are moving hither and thither. Some of the peasants are fearfully and wonderfully attired: the men wear high top-boots, polished from the sole to the uppermost hair's breadth of leather; black, broad-brimmed felt hats, frequently with a peacock's feather a yard long stuck through the band, the stem protruding forward, and the end of the feather behind; and their coats and waistcoats are adorned with long rows of large, ancestral buttons. I am now in the Swabian district, and these buttons that form so conspicuous a part of the holiday attire are made of silver coins, and not infrequently have been handed down from generation to generation for several centuries, they being, in fact, family heirlooms. The costumes of the Swabish peasant women are picturesque in the extreme: their finest dresses and that wondrous head-gear of brass, silver, or gold - the Schwabische Bauernfrauenhaube (Swabish farmer-woman hat) - being, like the buttons of the men, family heirlooms. Some of these wonderful ancestral dresses, I am told, contain no less than one hundred and fifty yards of heavy material, gathered and closely pleated in innumerable perpendicular folds, frequently over a foot thick, making the form therein incased appear ridiculously broad and squatty. The waistbands of the dresses are up in the region of the shoulder-blades; the upper portion of the sleeves are likewise padded out to fearful proportions. The day is most lovely, the fields are deserted, and the roads and villages are alive with holiday-making peasants. In every village a tall pole is erected, and decorated from top to bottom with small flags and evergreen wreaths. The little stone churches and the adjoining cemeteries are filled with worshippers chanting in solemn chorus; not so preoccupied with their devotional exercises and spiritual meditations, however, as to prevent their calling one another's attention to me as I wheel past, craning their necks to obtain a better view, and, in one instance, an o'er-inquisitive worshipper even beckons for me to stop - this person both chanting and beckoning vigorously at the same time. Now my road leads through forests of dark firs; and here I overtake a procession of some fifty peasants, the men and women alternately chanting in weird harmony as they trudge along the road. The men are bareheaded, carrying their hats in hand. Many of the women are barefooted, and the pedal extremities of others are incased in stockings of marvellous pattern; not any are wearing shoes. All the colors of the rainbow are represented in their respective costumes, and each carries a large umbrella strapped at his back; they are trudging along at quite a brisk pace, and altogether there is something weird and fascinating about the whole scene: the chanting and the surroundings. The variegated costumes of the women are the only bright objects amid the gloominess of the dark green pines. As I finally pass ahead, the unmistakable expressions of interest on the faces of the men, and the even rows of ivories displayed by the women, betray a diverted attention. Near noon I arrive at the antiquated town of Dachau, and upon repairing to the gasthaus, an individual in a last week's paper collar, and with general appearance in keeping, comes forward and addresses me in quite excellent English, and during the dinner hour answers several questions concerning the country and the natives so intelligently that, upon departing, I ungrudgingly offer him the small tip customary on such occasions in Germany. "No, Whitsuntide in Bavaria. I thank you, very muchly," he replies, smiling, and shaking his head. "I am not an employe of the hotel, as you doubtless think; I am a student of modern languages at the Munich University, visiting Dauhau for the day." Several soldiers playing billiards in the room grin broadly in recognition of the ludicrousness situation; and I must confess that for the moment I feel like asking one of them to draw his sword and charitably prod me out of the room. The unhappy memory of having, in my ignorance, tendered a small tip to a student of the Munich University will cling around me forever. Nevertheless, I feel that after all there are extenuating circumstances - he ought to change his paper collar occasionally. An hour after noon I am industriously dodging loose flints on the level road leading across the Isar River Valley toward Munich; the Tyrolese Alps loom up, shadowy and indistinct, in the distance to the southward, their snowy peaks recalling memories of the Rockies through which I was wheeling exactly a year ago. While wending my way along the streets toward the central portion of the Bavarian capital the familiar sign, "American Cigar Store," looking like a ray of light penetrating through the gloom and mystery of the multitudinous unreadable signs that surround it, greets my vision, and I immediately wend my footsteps thitherward. I discover in the proprietor, Mr. Walsch, a native of Munich, who, after residing in America for several years, has returned to dream away declining years amid the smoke of good cigars and the quaffing of the delicious amber beer that the brewers of Munich alone know how to brew. Then who should happen in but Mr. Charles Buscher, a thorough-going American; from Chicago, who is studying art here at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and who straightway volunteers to show me Munich. Nine o'clock next morning finds me under the pilotage of Mr. Buscher, wandering through the splendid art galleries. We next visit the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, a magnificent building, being erected at a cost of 7,000,000 marks. We repair at eleven o'clock to the royal residence, making a note by the way of a trifling mark of King Ludwig's well-known eccentricity. Opposite the palace is an old church, with two of its four clocks facing the King's apartments. The hands of these clocks are, according to my informant, made of gold. Some time since the King announced that the sight of these golden hands hurt his eyesight, and ordered them painted black. It was done, and they are black to-day. Among the most interesting objects in the palace are the room and bed in which Napoleon I. slept in 1809, which has since been occupied by no other person; the "rich bed," a gorgeous affair of pink and scarlet satin-work, on which forty women wove, with gold thread, daily, for ten years, until 1,600,000 marks were expended. At one of the entrances to the royal residence, and secured with iron bars, is a large bowlder weighing three hundred and sixty-three pounds; in the wall above it are driven three spikes, the highest spike being twelve feet from the ground; and Bavarian historians have recorded that Earl Christoph, a famous giant, tossed this bowlder up to the mark indicated by the highest spike, with his foot. After this I am kindly warned by both Messrs. Buscher and Walsch not to think of leaving the city without visiting the Konigliche Hofbrauhaus (Royal Court Brewery) the most famous place of its kind in all Europe. For centuries Munich has been famous for the excellent quality of its beer, and somewhere about four centuries ago the king founded this famous brewery for the charitable purpose of enabling his poorer subjects to quench their thirst with the best quality of beer, at prices within their means, and from generation to generation it has remained a favorite resort in Munich for lovers of good beer. In spite of its remaining, as of yore, a place of rude benches beneath equally rude, open sheds, with cobwebs festooning the rafters and a general air of dilapidation about it; in spite of the innovation of dozens of modern beer-gardens with waving palms, electric lights, military music, and all modern improvements, the Konigliche Hofbrauhaus is daily and nightly thronged with thirsty visitors, who for the trifling sum of twenty-two pfennigs (about five cents) obtain a quart tankard of the most celebrated brew in all Bavaria. "Munich is the greatest art-centre of the world, the true hub of the artistic universe," Mr. Buscher enthusiastically assures me as we wander together through the sleepy old streets, and he points out a bright bit of old frescoing, which is already partly obliterated by the elements, and compares it with the work of recent years; calls my attention to a piece of statuary, and anon pilots me down into a restaurant and beer hall in some ancient, underground vaults and bids me examine the architecture and the frescoing. The very custom-house of Munich is a glorious old church, that would be carefully preserved as a relic of no small interest and importance in cities less abundantly blessed with antiquities, but which is here piled with the cases and boxes and bags of commerce. One other conspicuous feature of Munich life must not be over-looked ere I leave it, viz., the hackmen. Unlike their Transatlantic brethren, they appear supremely indifferent about whether they pick up any fares or not. Whenever one comes to a hack-stand it is a pretty sure thing to bet that nine drivers out of every ten are taking a quiet snooze, reclining on their elevated boxes, entirely oblivious of their surroundings, and a timid stranger would almost hesitate about disturbing their slumbers. But the Munich cabby has long since got hardened to the disagreeable process of being wakened up. Nor does this lethargy pervade the ranks of hackdom only: at least two-thirds of the teamsters one meets on the roads, hereabouts, are stretched out on their respective loads, contentedly sleeping while the horses or oxen crawl leisurely along toward their goal. Munich is visited heavily with rain during the night, and for several kilometres, next morning, the road is a horrible waste of loose flints and mud-filled ruts, along which it is all but impossible to ride; but after leaving the level bottom of the Isar River the road improves sufficiently to enable me to take an occasional, admiring glance at the Bavarian and Tyrolese Alps, towering cloudward on the southern horizon, their shadowy outlines scarcely distinguishable in the hazy distance from the fleecy clouds their peaks aspire to invade. While absentmindedly taking a more lingering look than is consistent with safety when picking one's way along the narrow edge of the roadway between the stone-strewn centre and the ditch, I run into the latter, and am rewarded with my first Cis-atlantic header, but fortunately both myself and the bicycle come up uninjured. Unlike the Swabish peasantry, the natives east of Munich appear as prosy and unpicturesque in dress as a Kansas homesteader. Ere long there is noticeable a decided change in the character of the villages, they being no longer clusters of gabled cottages, but usually consist of some three or four huge, rambling bulldings, at one of which I call for a drink and observe that brewing and baking are going on as though they were expecting a whole regiment to be quartered on them. Among other things I mentally note this morning is that the men actually seem to be bearing the drudgery of the farm equally with the women; but the favorable impression becomes greatly imperilled upon meeting a woman harnessed to a small cart, heavily laboring along, while her husband - kind man - is walking along-side, holding on to a rope, upon which he considerately pulls to assist her along and lighten her task. Nearing Hoag, and thence eastward, the road becomes greatly improved, and along the Inn River Valley, from Muhldorf to Alt Oetting, where I remain for the night, the late rain-storm has not reached, and the wheeling is superior to any I have yet had in Germany. Muhldorf is a curious and interesting old town. The sidewalks of Muhldorf are beneath long arcades from one end of the principal street to the other; not modern structures either, but massive archways that are doubtless centuries old, and that support the front rooms of the buildings that tower a couple of stories above them. As toward dusk I ride into the market square of Alt Oetting, it is noticeable that nearly all the stalls and shops remaining open display nothing but rosaries, crucifixes, and other paraphernalia of the prevailing religion. Through Eastern Bavaria the people seern pre-eminently devotional; church-spires dot the landscape at every point of the compass. At my hotel in Alt Oetting, crucifixes, holy water, and burning tapers are situated on the different stairway landings. I am sitting in my room, penning these lines to the music of several hundred voices chanting in the old stone church near by, and can look out of the window and see a number of peasant women taking turns in dragging themselves on their knees round and round a small religious edifice in the centre of the market square, carrying on their shoulders huge, heavy wooden crosses, the ends of which are trailing on the ground. All down the Inn River Valley, there is many a picturesque bit of intermingled pine-copse and grassy slopes; but admiring scenery is anything but a riskless undertaking along here, as I quickly discover. On the Inn River I find a primitive ferry-boat operated by a, fac-simile of the Ancient Mariner, who takes me and my wheel across for the consideration of five pfennigs-a trifle over one cent -and when I refuse the tiny change out of a ten-pfennig piece the old fellow touches his cap as deferentially, and favors me with a look of gratitude as profound, as though I were bestowing a pension upon him for life. My arrival at a broad, well-travelled high-way at once convinces me that I have again been unwittingly wandering among the comparatively untravelled by-ways as the result of following the kindly meant advice of people whose knowledge of bicycling requirements is of the slimmest nature. The Inn River a warm, rich vale; haymaking is already in full progress, and delightful perfume is wafted on the fresh morning air from aclows where scores of barefooted Maud Mullers are raking hay, and mowing it too, swinging scythes side by side with the men. Some of the out-door crucifixes and shrines (small, substantial buildings containing pictures, images, and all sorts of religious -emblems) along this valley are really quite elaborate affairs. All through Roman Catholic Germany these emblems of religion are very elaborate, or the reverse, according to the locality, the chosen spot in rich and fertile valleys generally being favored with better and more artistic affairs, and more of them, than the comparatively unproductive uplands. This is evidently because the inhabitants of the latter regions are either less wealthy, and consequently cannot afford it, or otherwise realize that they have really much less to be thankful for than their comparatively fortunate neighbors in the more productive valleys. At the town of Simbach I cross the Inn River again on a substantial wooden bridge, and on the opposite side pass under an old stone archway bearing the Austrian coat-of-arms. Here I am conducted into the custom-house by an officer wearing the sombre uniform of Franz Josef, and required, for the first time in Europe, to produce my passport. After a critical and unnecessarily long examination of this document I am graciously permitted to depart. In an adjacent money-changer's office I exchange what German money I have remaining for the paper currency of Austria, and once more pursue my way toward the Orient, finding the roads rather better than the average German ones, the Austrians, hereabouts at least, having had the goodness to omit the loose flints so characteristic of Bavaria. Once out of the valley of the Inn River, however, I find the uplands intervening between it and the valley of the Danube aggravatingly hilly. While eating my first luncheon in Austria, at the village of Altheim, the village pedagogue informs me in good English that I am the first Briton he has ever had the pleasure of conversing with. He learned the language entirely from books, without a tutor, he says, learning it for pleasure solely, never expecting to utilize the accomplishment in any practical way. One hill after another characterizes my route to-day; the weather, which has hitherto remained reasonably mild, is turning hot and sultry, and, arriving at Hoag about five o'clock, I feel that I have done sufficient hillclimbing for one day. I have been wheeling through Austrian territory since 10.30 this morning, and, with observant eyes the whole distance, I have yet to see the first native, male or female, possessing in the least degree either a graceful figure or a prepossessing face. There has been a great horse-fair at Hoag to-day; the business of the day is concluded, and the principal occupation of the men, apart from drinking beer and smoking, appears to be frightening the women out of their wits by leading prancing horses as near them as possible. My road, on leaving Hoag, is hilly, and the snowy heights of the Nordliche Kalkalpen (North Chalk Mountains), a range of the Austrian Alps, loom up ahead at an uncertain distance. To-day is what Americans call a "scorcher," and climbing hills among pine-woods, that shut out every passing breeze, is anything but exhilarating exercise with the thermometer hovering in the vicinity of one hundred degrees. The peasants are abroad in their fields as usual, but a goodly proportion are reclining beneath the trees. Reclining is, I think, a favorite pastime with the Austrian. The teamster, who happens to be wide awake and sees me approaching, knows instinctively that his team is going to scare at the bicycle, yet he makes no precautionary movements whatever, neither does he arouse himself from his lolling position until the horses or oxen begin to swerve around. As a usual thing the teamster is filling his pipe, which has a large, ungainly-looking, porcelain bowl, a long, straight wooden stem, and a crooked mouth-piece. Almost every Austrian peasant from sixteen years old upward carries one of these uncomely pipes. The men here seem to be dull, uninteresting mortals, dressed in tight- fitting, and yet, somehow, ill-fitting, pantaloons, usually about three sizes too short, a small apron of blue ducking-an unbecoming garment that can only be described as a cross between a short jacket and a waistcoat - and a narrow-rimmed, prosy-looking billycock hat. The peasant women are the poetry of Austria, as of any other European country, and in their short red dresses and broad-brimmed, gypsy hats, they look picturesque and interesting in spite of homely faces and ungraceful figures. Riding into Lambach this morning, I am about wheeling past a horse and drag that, careless and Austrian-like, has been left untied and unwatched in the middle of the street, when the horse suddenly scares, swerves around just in front of me, and dashes, helter-skelter, down the street. The horse circles around the market square and finally stops of his own accord without doing any damage. Runaways, other misfortunes, it seems, never come singly, and ere I have left Lambach an hour I am the innocent cause of yet another one; this time it is a large, powerful work-dog, who becomes excited upon meeting me along the road, and upsets things in the most lively manner. Small carts pulled by dogs are common vehicles here and this one is met coming up an incline, the man considerately giving the animal a lift. A life of drudgery breaks the spirit of these work-dogs and makes them cowardly and cringing. At my approach this one howls, and swerves suddenly around with a rush that upsets both man and cart, topsy-turvy, into the ditch, and the last glimpse of the rumpus obtained, as I sweep past and down the hill beyond, is the man pawing the air with his naked feet and the dog struggling to free himself from the entangling harness. Up among the hills, at the village of Strenburg, night arrives at a very opportune moment to-day, for Strenburg proves a nice, sociable sort of village, where the doctor can speak good English and plays the role of interpreter for me at the gasthaus. The school-ma'am, a vivacious Italian lady, in addition to French and German, can also speak a few words of English, though she persistently refers to herself as the " school -master." She boards at the same gasthaus, and all the evening long I am favored by the liveliest prattle and most charming gesticulations imaginable, while the room is half filled with her class of young lady aspirants to linguistic accomplishments, listening to our amusing, if not instructive, efforts to carry on a conversation. ' It is altogether a most enjoyable evening, and on parting I am requested to write when I get around the world and tell the Strenburgers all that I have seen and experienced. On top of the gasthaus is a rude observatory, and before starting I take a view of the country. The outlook is magnificent; the Austrian Alps are towering skyward to the southeast, rearing snow-crowned heads out from among a billowy sea of pine-covered hills, and to the northward is the lovely valley of the Danube, the river glistening softly through the morning haze. On yonder height, overlooking the Danube on the one hand and the town of Molk on the other, is the largest and most imposing edifice I have yet seen in Austria; it is a convent of the Benedictine monks; and though Molk is a solid, substantially built town, of perhaps a thousand inhabitants, I should think there is more material in the immense convent building than in the whole town besides, and one naturally wonders whatever use the monks can possibly have for a building of such enormous dimensions. Entering a barber's shop here for a shave, I find the barber of Molk following the example of so many of his countrymen by snoozing the mid-day hours happily and unconsciously away. One could easily pocket and walk off with his stock-in-trade, for small is the danger of his awakening. Waking him up, he shuffles mechanically over to hia razor and lathering apparatus, this latter being a soup-plate with a semicircular piece chipped out to fit, after a fashion, the contour of the customers' throats. Pressing this jagged edge of queen's-ware against your windpipe, the artist alternately rubs the water and a cake of soap therein contained about your face with his hands, the water meanwhile passing freely between the ill-fitting' soup-plate and your throat, and running down your breast; but don't complain; be reasonable: no reasonable-minded person could expect one soup-plate, however carefully chipped out, to fit the throats of the entire male population of Molk, besides such travellers as happen along. Spending the night at Neu Lengbach, I climb hills and wabble along, over rough, lumpy roads, toward Vienna, reaching the Austrian capital Sunday morning, and putting up at the Englischer Eof about noon. At Vienna I determine to make a halt of two days, and on Tuesday pay a visit to the headquarters of the Vienna Wanderers' Bicycle Club, away out on a suburban street called Schwimmschulenstrasse; and the club promises that if I will delay my departure another day they will get up a small party of wheelmen to escort me seventy kilometres, to Presburg. The bicycle clubs of Vienna have, at the Wanderers' headquarters, constructed an excellent race-track, three and one-third laps to the English mile, at an expense of 2,000 gulden, and this evening several of Austria's fliers are training upon it for the approaching races. English and American wheelmen little understand the difficulties these Vienna cyclers have to contend with: all the city inside the Ringstrasse, and no less than fifty streets outside, are forbidden to the mounted cyclers, and they are required to ticket themselves with big, glaring letters, as also their lamps at night, so that, in case of violating any of these regulations, they can by their number be readily recognized by the police. Self-preservation compels the clubs to exercise every precaution against violating the police regulations, in order not to excite popular prejudice overwhelmingly against bicycles, and ere a new rider is permitted to venture outside their own grounds he is hauled up before a regularly organized committee, consisting of officers from each club in Vienna, and required to go through a regular examination in mounting, dismounting, and otherwise proving to their entire satisfaction his proficiency in managing and manoeuvring his wheel; besides which every cycler is provided with a pamphlet containing a list of the streets he may and may not frequent. In spite of all these harassing regulations, the Austrian capital has already two hundred riders. The Viennese impress themselves upon me as being possessed of more than ordinary individuality. Yonder comes a man, walking languidly along, and carrying his hat in his hand, because it is warm, and just behind him comes a fellow-citizen muffled up in an overcoat because - because of Viennese individuality. The people seem to walk the streets with a swaying, happy-go-anyhow sort of gait, colliding with one another and jostling together on the sidewalk in the happiest manner imaginable. At five o'clock on Thursday morning I am dressing, when I am notified that two cyclers are awaiting me below. Church-bells are clanging joyously all over Vienna as we meander toward suburbs, and people are already streaming in the direction of the St. Stephen's Church, near the centre of the city, for to-day is Frohnleichnam (Corpus Christi), and the Emperor and many of the great ecclesiastical, civil, and military personages of the empire will pass in procession with all pomp and circumstance; and the average Viennese is not the person to miss so important an occasion. Three other wheelmen are awaiting us in the suburbs, and together we ride through the waving barley-fields of the Danube bottom to Schwechat, for the light breakfast customary in Austria, and thence onward to Petronelle, thirty kilometres distant, where we halt a few minutes for a Corpus Christi procession, and drink a glass of white Hungarian wine. Near Petronelle are the remains of an old Roman wall, extending from the Danube to a lake called the Neusiedler See. My companions say it was built 2,000 years ago, when the sway of the Romans extended over such parts of Europe as were worth the trouble and expense of swaying. The roads are found rather rough and inferior, on account of loose stones and uneven surface, as we push forward toward Presburg, passing through a dozen villages whose streets are carpeted with fresh-cut grass, and converted into temporary avenues, with branches stuck in the ground, in honor of the day they are celebrating. At Hamburg we pass beneath an archway nine hundred years old, and wheel on through the grass-carpeted streets between rows of Hungarian soldiers drawn up in line, with green oak-sprigs in their hats; the villagers are swarming from the church, whose bells are filling the air with their clangor, and on the summit of an over-shadowing cliff are the massive ruins of an ancient castle. Near about noon we roll into Presburg, warm and dusty, and after dinner take a stroll through the Jewish quarter of the town up to the height upon which Presburg castle is situated, and from which a most extensive and beautiful view of the Danube, its wooded bluffs and broad, rich bottom-lands, is obtainable. At dinner the waiter hands me a card, which reads: "Pardon me, but I believe you are an Englishman, in which case I beg the privilege of drinking a glass of wine with you." The sender is an English gentleman residing at Budapest, Hungary, who, after the requested glass of wine, tells me that he guessed who I was when he first saw me enter the garden with the five Austrian wheelmen. My Austrian escort rides out with me to a certain cross-road, to make sure of heading me direct toward Budapest, and as we part they bid me good speed, with a hearty "Eljen." - the Hungarian "Hip, hip, hurrah." After leaving Presburg and crossing over into Hungary the road-bed is of a loose gravel that, during the dry weather this country is now experiencing, is churned up and loosened by every passing vehicle, until one might as well think of riding over a ploughed field. But there is a fair proportion of ridable side-paths, so that I make reasonably good time. Altenburg, my objective point for the night, is the centre of a sixty-thousand-acre estate belonging to the Archduke Albrecht, uncle of the present Emperor of Austro-Hungary, and one of the wealthiest land-owners in the empire. Ere I have been at the gasthaus an hour I am honored by a visit from Professor Thallmeyer, of the Altenburg Royal Agricultural School, who invites me over to his house to spend an hour in conversation, and in the discussion of a bottle of Hungary's best vintage, for the learned professor can talk very good English, and his wife is of English birth and parentage. Although Frau Thallmeyer left England at the tender age of two years, she calls herself an Englishwoman, speaks of England as "home," and welcomes to her house as a countryman any wandering Briton happening along. I am no longer in a land of small peasant proprietors, and there is a noticeably large proportion of the land devoted to grazing purposes, that in France or Germany would be found divided into small farms, and every foot cultivated. Villages are farther apart, and are invariably adjacent to large commons, on which roam flocks of noisy geese, herds of ponies, and cattle with horns that would make a Texan blush - the long horned roadsters of Hungary. The costumes of the Hungarian peasants are both picturesque and novel, the women and girls wearing top-boots and short dresses on holiday occasions and Sundays, and at other times short dresses without any boots at all; the men wear loose-flowing pantaloons of white, coarse linen that reach just below the knees, and which a casual observer would unhesitatingly pronounce a short skirt, the material being so ample. Hungary is still practically a land of serfs and nobles, and nearly every peasant encountered along the road touches his cap respectfully, in instinctive acknowledgment, as it were, of his inferiority. Long rows of women are seen hoeing in the fields with watchful overseers standing over them - a scene not unsuggestive of plantation life in the Southern States in the days of slavery. If these gangs of women are not more than about two hundred yards from the road their inquisitiveness overcomes every other consideration, and dropping everything, the whole crowd comes helter-skelter across the field to obtain a closer view of the strange vehicle; for it is only in the neighborhood of one or two of the principal cities of Hungary that one ever sees a bicycle. Gangs of gypsies are now frequently met with; they are dark-skinned, interesting people, and altogether different-looking from those occasionally encountered in England and America, where, although swarthy and dark-skinned, they bear no comparison in that respect to these, whose skin is wellnigh black, and whose gleaming white teeth and brilliant, coal-black eyes stamp them plainly as alien to the race around them. Ragged, unwashed, happy gangs of vagabonds these stragglers appear, and regular droves of partially or wholly naked youngsters come racing after me, calling out "kreuzer! kreuzer! kreuzer!" and holding out hand or tattered hat in a supplicating manner as they run along-side. Unlike the peasantry, none of these gypsies touch their hats; indeed, yon swarthy-faced vagabond, arrayed mainly in gewgaws, and eying me curiously with his piercing black eyes, may be priding himself on having royal blood in his veins; and, unregenerate chicken-lifter though he doubtless be, would scarce condescend to touch his tattered tile even to the Emperor of Austria. The black eyes scintillate as they take notice of what they consider the great wealth of sterling silver about the machine I bestride. Eastward from Altenburg the main portion of the road continues for the most part unridably loose and heavy. For some kilometres out of Raab the road presents a far better surface, and I ride quite a lively race with a small Danube passenger steamer that is starting down-stream. The steamboat toots and forges ahead, and in answer to the waving of hats and exclamations of encouragement from the passengers, I likewise forge ahead, and although the boat is going down-stream with the strong current of the Danube, as long as the road continues fairly good I manage to keep in advance; but soon the loose surface reappears, and when I arrive at Gonys, for lunch, I find the steamer already tied up, and the passengers and officers greet my appearance with shouts of recognition. My route along the Danube Valley leads through broad, level wheat-fields that recall memories of the Sacramento Valley, California. Geese appear as the most plentiful objects around the villages: there are geese and goslings everywhere; and this evening, in a small village, I wheel quite over one, to the dismay of the maiden driving them homeward, and the unconcealed delight of several small Hungarians. At the village of Nezmely I am to-night treated to a foretaste of what is probably in store for me at a goodly number of places ahead by being consigned to a bunch of hay and a couple of sacks in the stable as the best sleeping accommodations the village gasthaus affords. True, I am assigned the place of honor in the manger, which, though uncomfortably narrow and confining, is perhaps better accommodation, after all, than the peregrinating tinker and three other likely-looking characters are enjoying on the bare floor. Some of these companions, upon retiring, pray aloud at unseemly length, and one of them, at least, keeps it up in his sleep at frequent intervals through the night; horses and work-cattle are rattling chains and munching hay, and an uneasy goat, with a bell around his neck, fills the stable with an incessant tinkle till dawn. Black bread and a cheap but very good quality of white wine seem about the only refreshment obtainable at these little villages. One asks in vain for milch-brod, butter, kdsc, or in fact anything acceptable to the English palate; the answer to all questions concerning these things is "nicht, nicht, nicht." - "What have you, then?" I sometimes ask, the answer to which is almost invariably "brod und wein." Stone-yards thronged with busy workmen, chipping stone for shipment to cities along the Danube, are a feature of these river-side villages. The farther one travels the more frequently gypsies are encountered on the road. In almost every band is a maiden, who, by reason of real or imaginary beauty, occupies the position of pet of the camp, wears a profusion of beads and trinkets, decorates herself with wild flowers, and is permitted to do no manner of drudgery. Some of these gypsy maidens are really quite beautiful in spite of their very dark complexions. Their eyes glisten with inborn avarice as I sweep past on my "silver" bicycle, and in their astonishment at my strange appearance and my evidently enormous wealth they almost forget their plaintive wail of "kreuzer! kreuzer!" a cry which readily bespeaks their origin, and is easily recognized as an echo from the land where the cry of "backsheesh" is seldom out of the traveller's hearing. The roads east of Nezmely are variable, flint-strewn ways predominating; otherwise the way would be very agreeable, since the gradients are gentle, and the dust not over two inches deep, as against three in most of Austro- Hungary thus far traversed. The weather is broiling hot; but I worry along perseveringly, through rough and smooth, toward the land of the rising sun. Nearing Budapest the roads become somewhat smoother, but at the same time hillier, the country changing to vine-clad slopes; and all along the undulating ways I meet wagons laden with huge wine-casks. Reaching Budapest in the afternoon, I seek out Mr. Kosztovitz, of the Budapest Bicycle Club, and consul of the Cyclists' Touring Club, who proves a most agreeable gentleman, and who, besides being an enthusiastic cycler, talks English perfectly. There is more of the sporting spirit in Budapest, perhaps, than in any other city of its size on the Continent, and no sooner is my arrival known than I am taken in hand and practically compelled to remain over at least one day. Svetozar Igali, a noted cycle tourist of the village of Duna Szekeso, now visiting the international exhibition at Budapest, volunteers to accompany me to Belgrade, and perhaps to Constantinople. I am rather surprised at finding so much cycling enthusiasm in the Hungarian capital. Mr. Kosztovitz, who lived some time in England, and was president of a bicycle club there, had the honor of bringing the first wheel into the Austro-Hungarian empire, in the autumn of 1879, and now Budapest alone has three clubs, aggregating nearly a hundred riders, and a still greater number of non-riding members. Cyclers have far more liberty accorded them in Budapest than in Vienna, being permitted to roam the city almost as untrammelled as in London, this happy condition of affairs being partly the result of Mr. Kosztovitz's diplomacy in presenting a ready drawn-up set of rules and regulations for the government of wheelmen to the police authorities when the first bicycle was introduced, and partly to the police magistrate, being himself an enthusiastic all-'round sportsman, inclined to patronize anything in the way of athletics. They are even experimenting in the Hungarian army with the view of organizing a bicycle despatch service; and I am told that they already have a bicycle despatch in successful operation in the Bavarian army. In the evening I am the club's guest at a supper under the shade-trees in the exhibition grounds. Mr. Kosztovitz and another gentleman who can speak English act as interpreters, and here, amid the merry clinking of champagne-glasses, the glare of electric lights, with the ravishing music of an Hungarian gypsy band on our right, and a band of swarthy Servians playing their sweet native melodies on our left, we, among other toasts, drink to the success of my tour. There is a cosmopolitan and exceedingly interesting crowd of visitors at the international exhibition: natives from Bulgaria, Servia, Roumania, and Turkey, in their national costumes; and mingled among them are Hungarian peasants from various provinces, some of them in a remarkably picturesque dress, that I afterward learn is Croatian. A noticeable feature of Budapest, besides a predilection for sport among the citizens, is a larger proportion of handsome ladies than one sees in most European cities, and there is, moreover, a certain atmosphere about them that makes them rather agreeable company. If one is travelling around the world with a bicycle, it is not at all inconsistent with Budapest propriety for the wife of the wheelman sitting opposite you to remark that she wishes she were a rose, that you might wear her for a button-hole bouquet on your journey, and to ask whether or not, in that case, you would throw the rose away when it faded. Compliments, pleasant, yet withal as meaningless as the coquettish glances and fan-play that accompany them, are given with a freedom and liberality that put the sterner native of more western countries at his wits' end to return them. But the most delightful thing in all Hungary is its gypsy music. As it is played here beneath its own sunny skies, methinks there is nothing in the wide world to compare with it. The music does not suit the taste of some people, however; it is too wild and thrilling. Budapest is a place of many languages, one of the waiters in the exhibition cafe claiming the ability to speak and understand no less than fourteen different languages and dialects. Nine wheelmen accompany me some distance out of Budapest on Monday morning, and Mr. Philipovitz and two other members continue with Igali and me to Duna Pentele, some seventy-five miles distant; this is our first sleeping-place, the captain making his guest until our separation and departure in different directions next morning. During the fierce heat of mid-day we halt for about three hours at Adony, and spend a pleasant after-dinner Lour examining the trappings and trophies of a noted sporting gentleman, and witnessing a lively and interesting set-to with fencing foils. There is everything in fire-arms in his cabinet, from an English double-barrelled shot-gun to a tiny air-pistol for shooting flies on the walls of his sitting-room; he has swords, oars, gymnastic paraphernalia - in fact, everything but boxing gloves. Arriving at Duna Pentele early in the evening, before supper we swim for an hour in the waters of the Danube. At 9.30 P.M. two of our little company board the up-stream-bound steamer for the return home, and at ten o'clock we are proposing to retire for the night, when lo, in come a half-dozen gentlemen, among them Mr. Ujvarii, whose private wine-cellar is celebrated all the country round, and who now proposes that we postpone going to bed long enough to pay a short visit to his cellar and sample the "finest wine in Hungary." This is an invitation not to be resisted by ordinary mortals, and accordingly we accept, following the gentleman and his friends through the dark streets of the village. Along the dark, cool vault penetrating the hill-side Mr. Ujvarii leads the way between long rows of wine-casks, heber* held in arm like a sword at dress parade. The heber is first inserted into a cask of red wine, with a perfume and flavor as agreeable as the rose it resembles in color, and carried, full, to the reception end of the vault by the corpulent host with the stately air of a monarch bearing his sceptre. After two rounds of the red wine, two hebers of champagne are brought - champagne that plays a fountain of diamond spray three inches above the glass. The following toast is proposed by the host: "The prosperity and welfare of England, America, and Hungary, three countries that are one in their love and appreciation of sport and adventure." The Hungarians have all the Anglo-American love of sport and adventure.* A glass combination of tube and flask, holding about three pints, with an orifice at each end and the bulb or flask near the upper orifice; the wine is sucked up into the flask with the breath, and when withdrawn from the cask the index finger is held over the lower orifice, from which the glasses are filled by manipulations of the finger. >From Budapest to Paks, about one hundred and twenty kilometres, the roads are superior to anything I expected to find east of Germany; but the thermometer clings around the upper regions, and everything is covered with dust. Our route leads down the Danube in an almost directly southern course. Instead of the poplars of France, and the apples and pears of Germany, the roads are now fringed with mulberry-trees, both raw and manufactured silk being a product of this part of Hungary. My companion is what in England or America would be considered a "character;" he dresses in the thinnest of racing costumes, through which the broiling sun readily penetrates, wears racing-shoes, and a small jockey-cap with an enormous poke, beneath which glints a pair of "specs;" he has rat-trap pedals to his wheel, and winds a long blue girdle several times around his waist, consumes raw eggs, wine, milk, a certain Hungarian mineral water, and otherwise excites the awe and admiration of his sport-admiring countrymen. Igali's only fault as a road companion is his utter lack of speed, six or eight kilometres an hour being his natural pace on average roads, besides footing it up the gentlest of gradients and over all rough stretches. Except for this little drawback, he is an excellent man to take the lead, for he is a genuine Magyar, and orders the peasantry about with the authoritative manner of one born to rule and tyrannize; sometimes, when, the surface is uneven for wheeling, making them drive their clumsy ox-wagons almost into the road-side ditch in order to avoid any possible chance of difficulty in getting past. Igali knows four languages: French, German, Hungarian, and Slavonian, but Anglaise nicht, though with what little French and German I have picked up while crossing those countries we manage to converse and understand each other quite readily, especially as I am, from constant practice, getting to be an accomplished pantomimist, and Igali is also a pantomimist by nature, and gifted with a versatility that would make a Frenchman envious. Ere we have been five minutes at a gasthaus Igali is usually found surrounded by an admiring circle of leading citizens - not peasants; Igali would not suffer them to gather about him - pouring into their willing ears the account of my journey; the words, "San Francisco, Boston, London, Paris, Wien, Pesth, Belgrade, Constantinople, Afghanistan, India, Khiva," etc., which are repeated in rotation at wonderfully short intervals, being about all that my linguistic abilities are capable of grasping. The road continues hard, but south of Paks it becomes rather rough; consequently halts under the shade of the mulberry-trees for Igali to catch up are of frequent occurrence. The peasantry, hereabout, seem very kindly disposed and hospitable. Sometimes, while lingering for Igali, they will wonder what I am stopping for, and motion the questions of whether I wish anything to eat or drink; and this afternoon one of them, whose curiosity to see how I mounted overcomes his patience, offers me a twenty-kreuzer piece to show him. At one village a number of peasants take an old cherry-woman to task for charging me two kreuzers more for some cherries than it appears she ought, and although two kreuzers are but a farthing they make quite a squabble with the poor old woman about it, and will be soothed by neither her voice nor mine until I accept another handful of cherries in lieu of the overcharged two kreuzers. Szekszard has the reputation, hereabout, of producing the best quality of red wine in all Hungary - no small boast, by the way - and the hotel and wine-gardens here, among them, support an excellent gypsy band of fourteen pieces. Mr. Garay, the leader of the band, once spent nearly a year in America, and after supper the band plays, with all the thrilling sweetness of the Hungarian muse, "Home, sweet Home," "Yankee Doodle," and "Sweet Violets," for my especial delectation. A wheelman the fame of whose exploits has preceded him might as well try to wheel through hospitable Hungary without breathing its atmosphere as without drinking its wine; it isn't possible to taboo it as I tabooed the vin ordinaire of France, Hungarians and Frenchmen being two entirely different people. Notwithstanding music until 11.30 P.M., yesterday, we are on the road before six o'clock this morning - for genuine, unadulterated Hungarian music does not prevent one getting up bright and fresh next day - and about noon we roll into Duna Szekeso, Igali's native town, where we have decided to halt for the remainder of the day to get our clothing washed, one of my shoes repaired, and otherwise prepare for our journey to the Servian capital. Duna Szekeso is a calling-place for the Danube steamers, and this afternoon I have the opportunity of taking observations of a gang of Danubian roustabouts at their noontide meal. They are a swarthy, wild-looking crowd, wearing long hair parted in the middle, or not parted at all; to their national costume are added the jaunty trappings affected by river men in all countries. Their food is coarse black bread and meat, and they take turns in drinking wine from a wooden tube protruding from a two-gallon watch-shaped cask, the body of which is composed of a section of hollow log instead of staves, lifting the cask up and drinking from the tube, as they would from the bung-hole of a beer-keg. Their black bread would hardly suit the palate of the Western world; but there are doubtless a few individuals on both sides of the Atlantic who would willingly be transformed into a Danubian roustabout long enough to make the acquaintance of yonder rude cask. After bathing in the river we call on several of Igali's friends, among them the Greek priest and his motherly-looking wife, Igali being of the Greek religion. There appears to be the greatest familiarity between the priests of these Greek churches and their people, and during our brief visit the priest, languid-eyed, fat, and jolly, his equally fat and jolly wife, and Igali, caress playfully, and cut up as many antics as three kittens in a bay window. The farther one travels southward the more amiable and affectionate in disposition the people seem to become. Five o'clock next morning finds us wheeling out of Duna Szekeso, and during the forenoon we pass through Baranyavar, a colony of Greek Hovacs, where the women are robed in white drapery as scant as the statuary which the name of their religion calls to memory. The roads to-day are variable; there is little but what is ridable, but much that is rough and stony enough to compel slow and careful wheeling. Early in the evening, as we wheel over the bridge spanning the River Drave, an important tributary of the Danube, into Eszek, the capital of Slavonia, unmistakable rain- signs appear above the southern horizon. CHAPTER VII. THROUGH SLAVONIA AND SERVIA. The editor of Der Drau, the semi-weekly official organ of the Slavonian capital, and Mr. Freund, being the two citizens of Eszek capable of speaking English, join voices at the supper-table in hoping it will rain enough to compel us to remain over to-morrow, that they may have the pleasure of showing us around Eszek and of inviting us to dinner and supper; and Igali, I am constrained to believe, retires to his couch in full sympathy with them, being possessed of a decided weakness for stopping over and accepting invitations to dine. Their united wish is gratified, for when we rise in the morning it is still raining. Eszek is a fortified city, and has been in time past an important fortress. It has lost much of its importance since the introduction of modern arms, for it occupies perfectly level ground, and the fortifications consist merely of large trenches that have been excavated and walled, with a view of preventing the city from being taken by storm - not a very overshadowing consideration in these days, when the usual mode of procedure is to stand off and bombard a city into the conviction that further resistance is useless. After dinner the assistant editor of Der Drau comes around and pilots us about the city and its pleasant environments. The worthy assistant editor is a sprightly, versatile Slav, and, as together we promenade the parks and avenues, the number and extent of which appear to be the chief glory of Eszek, the ceaseless flow of language and wellnigh continuous interchange of gesticulations between himself and Igali are quite wonderful, and both of them certainly ought to retire to-night far more enlightened individuals than they found themselves this morning. The Hungarian seems in a particularly happy and gracious mood to-day, as I instinctively felt certain he would be if the fates decreed against a continuation of our journey. When our companion' s conversation turns on any particularly interesting subject I am graciously given the benefit of it to the extent of some French or German word the meaning of which, Igali has discovered, I understand. During the afternoon we wander through the intricacies of a yew-shrub maze, where a good-sized area of impenetrably thick vegetation has been trained and trimmed into a bewildering net-work of arched walks that almost exclude the light, and Igali pauses to favor me with the information that this maze is the favorite trysting place of Slavonian nymphs and swains, and furthermore expresses his opinion that the spot must be indeed romantic and an appropriate place to "come a-wooin' " on nights when the moonbeams, penetrating through a thousand tiny interspaces, convert the gloomy interior into chambers of dancing light and shadow. All this information and these comments are embodied in the two short words, "Amour, lima" accompanied by a few gesticulations, and is a fair sample of the manner in which conversation is carried on between us. It is quite astonishing how readily two persons constantly together will come to understand each other through the medium of a few words which they know the meaning of in common. Scores of ladies and gentlemen, the latter chiefly military officers, are enjoying a promenade in the rain-cooled atmosphere, and there is no mistaking the glances of interest with which many of them favor-Igali. His pronounced sportsmanlike make-up attracts universal attention and causes everybody to mistake him for myself - a kindly office which I devoutly wish he would fill until the whole journey is accomplished. In the Casino garden a dozen bearded musicians are playing Slavonian airs, and, by request of the assistant editor, they play and sing the Slavonian national anthem and a popular air or two besides. The national musical instrument of Slavonia is the "tamborica"-a small steel-stringed instrument that is twanged with a chip-like piece of wood. Their singing is excellent in its way, but to the writer's taste there is no comparison between their tamboricas and the gypsy music of Hungary. There are no bicycles in all Eszek save ours - though Mr. Freund, who has lately returned from Paris, has ordered one, with which he expects to win the admiration of all his countrymen - and Igali and myself are lionized to our hearts' content; but this evening we are quite startled and taken aback by the reappearance of the assistant editor, excitedly announcing the arrival of a tricycle in town. Upon going down, in breathless anticipation of summarily losing the universal admiration of Eszek, we find an itinerant cobbler, who has constructed a machine that would make the rudest bone-shaker of ancient memory seem like the most elegant product of Hartford or Coventry in comparison. The backbone and axle-tree are roughly hewn sticks of wood, ironed equally rough at the village blacksmith's; and as, for a twenty-kreuzer piece, the rider mounts and wobbles all over the sidewalk for a short distance, the spectacle would make a stoic roar with laughter, and the good people of the Lower Danubian provinces are anything but stoical. Six o'clock next morning finds us travelling southward into the interior of Slavonia; but we are not mounted, for the road presents an unridable surface of mud, stones, and ruts, that causes my companion's favorite ejaculatory expletive to occur with more than its usual frequency. For a portion of the way there is a narrow sidepath that is fairly ridable, but an uninvitingly deep ditch runs unpleasantly near, and no amount of persuasion can induce my companion to attempt wheeling along it. Igali's bump of cautiousness is fully developed, and day by day, as we journey together, I am becoming more and more convinced that he would be an invaluable companion to have accompany one around the world; true, the journey would occupy a decade, or thereabout, but one would be morally certain of coming out safe and sound in the end. During our progression southward there has been a perceptible softening in the disposition of the natives, this being more noticeably a marked characteristic of the Slavonians; the generous southern sun, shining on the great area of Oriental gentleness, casts a softening influence toward the sterner north, imparting to the people amiable and genial dispositions. It takes but comparatively small deeds to win the admiration and applause of the natives of the Lower Danube, with their childlike manners; and, by slowly meandering along the roadways of Southern Hungary occasionally with his bicycle, Igali has become the pride and admiration of thousands. For mile after mile we have to trundle our way slowly along the muddy highway as best we can, our road leading through a flat and rather swampy area of broad, waving wheat-fields; we relieve the tedium of the journey by whistling, alternately, "Yankee Doodle," to which Igali has taken quite a fancy since first hearing it played by the gypsy band in the wine-garden at Szekszard three days ago, and the Hungarian national air - this latter, of course, falling to Igali's share of the entertainment. Having been to college in Paris, Igali is also able to contribute the famous Marseillaise hymn, and, not to be outdone, I favor him with " God Save the Queen" and "Britannia Rules the Waves," both of which he thinks very good tunes-the former seeming to strike his Hungarian ear, however, as rather solemn. In the middle of the forenoon we make a brief halt at a rude road-side tavern for some refreshments - a thick, narrow slice of raw, fat bacon, white with salt, and a level pint of red wine, satisfying my companion; but I substitute for the bacon a slice of coarse, black bread, much to Igali's wonderment. Here are congregated several Slavonian shepherds, in their large, ill-fitting, sheepskin garments, with the long wool turned inward-clothes that apparently serve them alike to keep out the summer's heat and the winter's cold. One of the peasants, with ideas a trifle befuddled with wine, perhaps, and face all aglow with admiration for our bicycles, produces a tattered memorandum and begs us to favor him with our autographs, an act that of itself proves him to be not without a degree of intelligence one would scarcely look for in a sheepskin-clad shepherd of Slavonia. Igali gruffly bids the man "begone," and aims a careless kick at the proffered memorandum; but seeing no harm in the request, and, moreover, being perhaps by nature a trifle more considerate of others, I comply. As he reads aloud, "United States, America," to his comrades, they one and all lift their hats quite reverently and place their brown hands over their hearts, for I suppose they recognize in my ready compliance with the simple request, in comparison with Igali's rude rebuff-which, by the way, no doubt comes natural enough-the difference between the land of the prince and peasant, and the land where "liberty, equality, and fraternity" is not a meaningless motto - a land which I find every down-trodden peasant of Europe has heard of, and looks upward to. Soon after this incident we are passing a prune-orchard, when, as though for our especial benefit, a couple of peasants working there begin singing aloud, and with evident enthusiasm, some national melody, and as they observe not our presence, at my suggestion we crouch behind a convenient clump of bushes and for several minutes are favored with as fine a duet as I have heard for many a day; but the situation becomes too ridiculous for Igali, and it finally sends him into a roar of laughter that causes the performance to terminate abruptly, and, rising into full view, we doubtless repay the singers by letting them see us mount and ride into their native village, but a few hundred yards distant. We are to-day passing through villages where a bicycle has never been seen - this being outside the area of Igali's peregrinations - and the whole population invariably turns out en masse, clerks, proprietors, and customers in the shops unceremoniously dropping everything and running to the streets; there is verily a hurrying to and fro of all the citizens; husbands hastening from magazine to dwelling to inform their wives and families, mothers running to call their children, children their parents, and everybody scampering to call the attention of their sisters, cousins, and aunts, ere we are vanished in the distance, and it be everlastingly too late. We have been worrying along at some sort of pace, with the exception of the usual noontide halt, since six o'clock this morning, and the busy mosquito is making life interesting for belated wayfarers, when we ride into Sarengrad and put up at the only gasthaus in the village. Our bedroom is situated on the ground floor, the only floor in fact the gaathaus boasts, and we are in a fair way of either being lulled to sleep or kept awake, as the case may be, by a howling chorus of wine-bibbers in the public room adjoining; but here, again, Igali shows up to good advantage by peremptorily ordering the singers to stop, and stop instanter. The amiably disposed peasants, notwithstanding the wine they have been drinking, cease their singing and become silent and circumspect, in deference to the wishes of the two strangers with the wonderful machines. We now make a practice of taking our bicycles into our bedroom with us at night, otherwise every right hand in the whole village would busy itself pinching the "gum-elastic" tires and pedal-rubbers, twirling the pedals, feeling spokes, backbone, and forks, and critically examining and commenting upon every visible portion of the mechanism; and who knows but that the latent cupidity of some easy-conscienced villager might be aroused at the unusual sight of so much "silver" standing around loose (the natives hereabout don't even ask whether the nickelled parts of the bicycle are silver or not; they take it for granted to be so), and surreptitiously attempt to chisel off enough to purchase an embroidered coat for Sundays. From what I can understand of their comments among themselves, it is perfectly consistent with their ideas of the average Englishman that he should bestride a bicycle of solid silver, and if their vocabulary embraced no word corresponding to our "millionnaire," and they desired to use one, they would probably pick upon the word "Englander" as the most appropriate. While we are making our toilets in the morning eager faces are peering inquisitively through the bedroom windows; a murmur of voices, criticizing us and our strange vehicles, greets our waking moments, and our privacy is often invaded, in spite of Igali's inconsiderate treatment of them whenever they happen to cross his path. Many of the inhabitants of this part of Slavonia are Croatians - people who are noted for their fondness of finery; and, as on this sunny Sunday morning we wheel through their villages, the crowds of peasantry who gather about us in all the bravery of their best clothes present, indeed, an appearance gay and picturesque beyond anything hitherto encountered. The garments of the men are covered with braid-work and silk embroidery wherever such ornamentation is thought to be an embellishment, and, to the Croatian mind, that means pretty much everywhere; and the girls and women are arrayed in the gayest of colors; those displaying the brightest hues and the greatest contrasts seem to go tripping along conscious of being irresistible. Many of the Croatian peasants are fine, strapping fellows, and very handsome women are observed in the villages - women with great, dreamy eyes, and faces with an expression of languor that bespeaks their owners to be gentleness personified. Igali shows evidence of more susceptibility to female charms than I should naturally have given him credit for, and shows a decided inclination to linger in these beauty-blessed villages longer than is necessary, and as one dark-eyed damsel after another gathers around us, I usually take the initiative in mounting and clearing out. Were a man to go suddenly flapping his way through the streets of London on the long-anticipated flying-machine, the average Cockney would scarce betray the unfeigned astonishment that is depicted on the countenances of these Croatian villagers as we nde into their midst and dismount. This afternoon my bicycle causes the first runaway since the trifling affair at Lembach, Austria. A brown-faced peasant woman and a little girl, driving a small, shaggy pony harnessed to a basket-work, four-wheeled vehicle, are approaching; their humble-looking steed betrays no evidence of restiveness until just as I am turning out to pass him, when, without warning, he gives a swift, sudden bound to the right, nearly upsetting the vehicle, and without more ado bolts down a considerable embankment and goes helter-skelter across a field of standing grain. The old lady pluckily hangs on to the reins, and finally succeeds in bringing the runaway around into the road again without damaging anything save the corn. It might have ended much less satisfactorily, however, and the incident illustrates one possible source of trouble to a 'cycler travelling alone through countries where the people neither understand, nor can be expected to understand, a wheelman's position; the situation would, of course, be aggravated in a country village where, not speaking the language, one could not make himself understood in his own defence. These people here, if not wise as serpents, are at least harmless as doves; but, in case of the bicycle frightening a team and causing a runaway with the unpleasant sequel of broken limbs, or injured horse, they would scarce know what to do in the premises, since they would have no precedent to govern them, and, in the absence of any intelligent guidance, might conclude to wreak summary vengeance on the bicycle. In such a case, would a wheelman be justified in using his revolver to defend his bicycle ? Such is the reverie into which I fall while reclining beneath a spreading mulberry-tree waiting for Igali to catch up; for he has promised that I shall see the Slavonian national dance sometime to-day, and a village is now visible in the distance. At the Danube-side village of Hamenitz an hour's halt is decided upon to give me the promised opportunity of witnessing the dance in its native land. It is a novel and interesting sight. A round hundred young gallants and maidens are rigged out in finery such as no other people save the Croatian and Slavonian peasants ever wear - the young men braided and embroidered, and the damsels having their hair entwined with a profusion of natural flowers in addition to their costumes of all possible hues. Forming themselves into a large ring, distributed so that the sexes alternate, the young men extend and join their hands in front of the maidens, and the latter join hands behind their partners; the steel-strung tamboricas strike up a lively twanging air, to which the circle of dancers endeavor to shuffle time with their feet, while at the same time moving around in a circle Livelier and faster twang the tamboricas, and more and more animated becomes the scene as the dancing, shuffling ring endeavors to keep pace with it. As the fun progresses into the fast and furious stages the youths' hats have a knack of getting into a jaunty position on the side of their heads, and the wearers' faces assume a reckless, flushed appearance, like men half intoxicated while the maidens' bright eyes and beaming faces betoken unutterable happiness; finally the music and the shuffling of feet terminate with a rapid flourish, everybody kisses everybody - save, of course, mere luckless onlookers like Igali and myself - and the Slavonian national dance is ended. To-night we reach the strongly fortified town of Peterwardein, opposite which, just across a pontoon bridge spanning the Danube, is the larger city of Neusatz. At Hamenitz we met Professor Zaubaur, the editor of the Uj Videk, who came down the Danube ahead of us by steamboat; and now, after housing our machines at our gasthaus in Peterwardein, he pilots us across the pontoon bridge in the twilight, and into one of those wine- gardens so universal in this part of the world. Here at Neusatz I listen to the genuine Hungarian gypsy music for the last time on the European tour ere bidding the territory of Hungary adieu, for Neusatz is on the Hungarian side of the Danube. The professor has evidently let no grass grow beneath his feet since leaving us scarcely an hour ago at Hamenitz, for he has, in the mean time, ferreted out the only English-speaking person at present in town, the good Frau Schrieber, an Austrian lady, formerly of Vienna, but now at Neusatz with her husband, a well-known advocate. This lady talks English quite fluently. Though not yet twenty-five she is very, very wise, and among other things she informs her admiring friends gathered round about us, listening to the - to them - unintelligible flow of a foreign language, that Englishmen are "very grave beings," a piece of information that wrings from Igali a really sympathetic response- nothing less than the startling announcement that he hasn't seen me smile since we left Budapest together, a week ago. "Having seen the Slavonian, I ought by all means to see the Hungarian national dance," Frau Schrieber says; adding, "It is a nice dance for Englishmen to look at, though it is so very gay that English ladies would neither dance it nor look at it being danced." Ere parting company with this entertaining lady she agrees that, if I will but remain in Hungary permanently, she knows of a very handsome fraulein of sixteen summers, who, having heard of my "wonderful journey," is already predisposed in my favor, and with a little friendly tact and management on her - Frau Schrieber's - part would no doubt be willing to waive the formalities of a long courtship, and yield up hand and heart at my request. I can scarcely think of breaking in twain my trip around the world even for so tempting a prospect, and I recommend the fair Hungarian to Igali; but "the fraulein has never heard of Herr Igali, and he will not do." "Will the fraulein be willing to wait until my journey around the world is completed." "Yes; she vill vait mit much pleezure; I vill zee dat she vait; und I know you vill return, for an Englishman alvays forgets his promeezes." Henceforth, when Igali and myself enter upon a programme of whistling, "Yankee Doodle" is supplanted by "The girl I left behind me," much to his annoyance, since, not understanding the sentiment responsible for the change, bethinks "Yankee Doodle" a far better tune. So much attached, in fact, has Igali become to the American national air, that he informs the professor and editor of Uj Videk of the circumstance of the band playing it at Szekszard. As, after supper, several of us promenade the streets of Neusatz, the professor links his arm in mine, and, taking the cue from Igali, begs me to favor him by whistling it. I try my best to palm this patriotic duty off on Igali, by paying flattering compliments to his style of whistling; but, after all, the duty falls on me, and I whistle the tune softly, yet merrily, as we walk along, the professor, spectacled and wise-looking, meanwhile exchanging numerous nods of recognition with his fellow-Neusatzers we meet. The provost-judge of Neusatz shares the honors with Frau Schrieber of knowing more or less English; but this evening the judge is out of town. The enterprising professor lies in wait for him, however, and at 5.30 on Monday morning, while we are dressing, an invasion of our bed-chamber is made by the professor, the jolly-looking and portly provost-judge, a Slavonian lieutenant of artillery, and a druggist friend of the others. The provost- judge and the lieutenant actually own bicycles and ride them, the only representatives of the wheel in Neusatz and Peterwardein, and the judge is " very angry " - as he expresses it - that Monday is court day, and to-day an unusually busy one, for he would be most happy to wheel with us to Belgrade. The lieutenant fetches his wheel and accompanies us to the next village. Peterwardein is a strongly fortified place, and, as a poition commanding the Danube so completely, is furnished with thirty guns of large calibre, a battery certainly not to be despised when posted on a position so commanding as the hill on which Peterwardein fortress is built. As the editor and others at Eszek, so here the professor, the judge, and the druggist unite in a friendly protest against my attempt to wheel through Asia, and more especially through China, "for everybody knows it is quite dangerous," they say. These people cannot possibly understand why it is that an Englishman or American, knowing of danger beforehand, will still venture ahead; and when, in reply to their questions, I modestly announce my intention of going ahead, notwithstanding possible danger and probable difficulties, they each, in turn, shake my hand as though reluctantly resigning me to a reckless determination, and the judge, acting as spokesman, and echoing and interpreting the sentiments of his companions, exclaims, "England and America forever! it is ze grandest peeples on ze world!" The lieutenant, when questioned on the subject by the judge and the professor, simply shrugs his shoulders and says nothing, as becomes a man whose first duty is to cultivate a supreme contempt for danger in all its forms. They all accompany us outside the city gates, when, after mutual farewells and assurances of good-will, we mount and wheel away down the Danube, the lieutenant's big mastiff trotting soberly alongside his master, while Igali, sometimes in and sometimes out of sight behind, brings up the rear. After the lieutenant leaves us we have to trundle our weary way up the steep gradients of the Fruskagora Mountains for a number of kilometres. For Igali it is quite an adventurous morning. Ere we had left the shadows of Peterwardein fortress he upset while wheeling beneath some overhanging mulberry-boughs that threatened destruction to his jockey-cap; soon after parting company with the lieutenant he gets into an altercation with a gang of gypsies about being the cause of their horses breaking loose from their picket-ropes and stampeding, and then making uncivil comments upon the circumstance; an hour after this he overturns again and breaks a pedal, and when we dismount at Indjia, for our noontide halt, he discovers that his saddle-spring has snapped in the middle. As he ruefully surveys the breakage caused by the roughness of the Fruskagora roads, and sends out to scour the village for a mechanic capable of undertaking the repairs, he eyes my Columbia wistfully, and asks me for the address where one like it can be obtained. The blacksmith is not prepared to mend the spring, although he makes a good job of the pedal, and it takes a carpenter and his assistant from 1.30 to 4.30 P.M. to manufacture a grooved piece of wood to fit between the spring and backbone so that he can ride with me to Belgrade. It would have been a fifteen-minute task for a Yankee carpenter. We have been traversing a spur of the Fruskagora Mountains all the morning, and our progress has been slow. The roads through here are mainly of the natural soil, and correspondingly bad; but the glorious views of the Danube, with its alternating wealth of green woods and greener cultivated areas, fully recompense for the extra toil. Prune-orchards, the trees weighed down with fruit yet green, clothe the hill-sides with their luxuriance; indeed, the whole broad, rich valley of the Danube seems nodding and smiling in the consciousness of overflowing plenty; for days we have traversed roads leading through vineyards and orchards, and broad areas with promising-looking grain-crops. It is but thirty kilometres from Indjia to Semlin, on the riverbank opposite Belgrade, and since leaving the Fruskagora Mountains the country has been a level plain, and the roads fairly smooth. But Igali has naturally become doubly cautious since his succession of misadventures this morning, and as, while waiting for him to overtake me, I recline beneath the mulberry-trees near the village of Batainitz and survey the blue mountains of Servia looming up to the southward through the evening haze, he rides up and proposes Batainitz as our halting-place for the night, adding persuasively, "There will be no ferry-boat across to Belgrade to-night, and we can easily catch the first boat in the morning." I reluctantly agree, though advocating going on to Semlin this evening. While our supper is being prepared we are taken in hand by the leading merchant of the village and "turned loose" in an orchard of small fruits and early pears, and from thence conducted to a large gypsy encampment in the outskirts of the village, where, in acknowledgment of the honor of our visit-and a few kreuzers by way of supplement - the "flower of the camp," a blooming damsel, about the shade of a total eclipse, kisses the backs of our hands, and the men play a strumming monotone with sticks and an inverted wooden trough, while the women dance in a most lively and not ungraceful manner. These gypsy bands are a happy crowd of vagabonds, looking as though they had never a single care in all the world; the men wear long, flowing hair, and to the ordinary costume of the peasant is added many a gewgaw, worn with a careless jaunty grace that fails not to carry with it a certain charm in spite of unkempt locks and dirty faces. The women wear a minimum of clothes and a profusion of beads and trinkets, and the children go stark naked or partly dressed. Unmistakable evidence that one is approaching the Orient appears in the semi-Oriental costumes. of the peasantry and roving gypsy bands, as we gradually near the Servian capital. An Oriental costume in Eszek is sufficiently exceptional to be a novelty, and so it is until one gets south of Peterwardein, when the national costumes of Slavonia and Croatia are gradually merged into the tasselled fez, the many-folded waistband, and the loose, flowing pantaloons of Eastern lands. Here at Batainitz the feet are encased in rude raw-hide moccasins, bound on with leathern thongs, and the ankle and calf are bandaged with many folds of heavy red material, also similarly bound. The scene around our gasthaus, after our arrival, resembles a popular meeting; for, although a few of the villagers have been to Belgrade and seen a bicycle, it is only within the last six months that Belgrade itself has boasted one, and the great majority of the Batainitz people have simply heard enough about them to whet their curiosity for a closer acquaintance. More-over, from the interest taken in my tour at Belgrade on account of the bicycle's recent introduction in that capital, these villagers, but a dozen kilometres away, have heard more of my journey than people in villages farther north, and their curiosity is roused in proportion. We are astir by five o'clock next morning; but the same curious crowd is making the stone corridors of the rambling old gasthaus impassable, and filling the space in front, gazing curiously at us, and commenting on our appearance whenever we happen to become visible, while waiting with commendable patience to obtain a glimpse of our wonderful machines. They are a motley, and withal a ragged assembly; old women devoutly cross themselves as, after a slight repast of bread and milk, we sally forth with our wheels, prepared to start; and the spontaneous murmur of admiration which breaks forth as we mount becomes louder and more pronounced as I turn in the saddle and doff my helmet in deference to the homage paid us by hearts which are none the less warm because hidden beneath the rags of honest poverty and semi-civilization. It takes but little to win the hearts of these rude, unsophisticated people. A two hours' ride from Batainitz, over level and reasonably smooth roads, brings us into Semlin, quite an important Slavonian city on the Danube, nearly opposite Belgrade, which is on the same side, but separated from it by a large tributary called the Save. Ferry-boats ply regularly between the two cities, and, after an hour spent in hunting up different officials to gain permission for Igali to cross over into Servian territory without having a regular traveller's passport, we escape from the madding crowds of Semlinites by boarding the ferry-boat, and ten minutes later are exchanging signals! with three Servian wheelmen, who have come down to the landing in full uniform to meet and welcome us to Belgrade. Many readers will doubtless be as surprised as I was to learn that at Belgrade, the capital of the little Kingdom of Servia, independent only since the Treaty of Berlin, a bicycle club was organized in January, 1885, and that now, in June of the same year, they have a promising club of thirty members, twelve of whom are riders owning their own wheels. Their club is named, in French, La Societe Velocipedique Serbe; in the Servian language it is unpronounceable to an Anglo-Saxon, and printable only with Slav type. The president, Milorade M. Nicolitch Terzibachitch, is the Cyclists' Touring Club Consul for Servia, and is the southeastern picket of that organization, their club being the extreme 'cycle outpost in this direction. Our approach has been announced beforehand, and the club has thoughtfully "seen" the Servian authorities, and so far smoothed the way for our entrance into their country that the officials do not even make a pretence of examining my passport or packages - an almost unprecedented occurrence, I should say, since they are more particular about passports here than perhaps in any other European country, save Russia and Turkey. Here at Belgrade I am to part company with Igali, who, by the way, has applied for, and just received, his certificate of appointment to the Cyclists' Touring Club Consulship of Duna Szekeso and Mohacs, an honor of which he feels quite proud. True, there is no other 'cycler in his whole district, and hardly likely to be for some time to corne; but I can heartily recommend him to any wandering wheelman happening down the Danube Valley on a tour; he knows the best wine-cellars in all the country round, and, besides being an agreeable and accommodating road companion, will prove a salutary check upon the headlong career of anyone disposed to over-exertion. I am not yet to be abandoned entirely to my own resources, however; these hospitable Servian wheelmen couldn't think of such a thing. I am to remain over as their guest till to-morrow afternoon, when Mr. Douchan Popovitz, the best rider in Belgrade, is delegated to escort me through Servia to the Bulgarian frontier. When I get there I shall not be much astonished to see a Bulgarian wheelman offer to escort me to Roumelia, and so on clear to Constantinople; for I certainly never expected to find so jolly and enthusiastic a company of 'cyclers in this corner of the world. The good fellowship and hospitality of this Servian club know no bounds; Igali and I are banqueted and driven about in carriages all day. Belgrade is a strongly fortified city, occupying a commanding hill overlooking the Danube; it is a rare old town, battle-scarred and rugged; having been a frontier position of importance in a country that has been debatable ground between Turk and Christian for centuries, it has been a coveted prize to be won and lost on the diplomatic chess-board, or, worse still, the foot-ball of contending armies and wrangling monarchs. Long before the Ottoman Turks first appeared, like a small dark cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, upon the southeastern horizon of Europe, to extend and overwhelm the budding flower of Christianity and civilization in these fairest portions of the continent, Belgrade was an important Roman fortress, and to-day its national museum and antiquarian stores are particularly rich in the treasure-trove of Byzantine antiquities, unearthed from time to time in the fortress itself and the region round about that came under its protection. So plentiful, indeed, are old coins and relics of all sorts at Belgrade, that, as I am standing looking at the collection in the window of an antiquary shop, the proprietor steps out and presents me a small handful of copper coins of Byzantium as a sort of bait that might perchance tempt one to enter and make a closer inspection of his stock. By the famous Treaty of Berlin the Servians gained their complete independence, and their country, from a principality, paying tribute to the Sultan, changed to an independent kingdom with a Servian on the throne, owing allegiance to nobody, and the people have not yet ceased to show, in a thousand little ways, their thorough appreciation of the change; besides filling the picture-galleries of their museum with portraits of Servian heroes, battle-flags, and other gentle reminders of their past history, they have, among other practical methods of manifesting how they feel about the departure of the dominating crescent from among them, turned the leading Turkish mosque into a gas- house. One of the most interesting relics in the Servian capital is an old Roman well, dug from the brow of the fortress hill to below the level of the Danube, for furnishing water to the city when cut off from the river by a besieging army. It is an enormous affair, a tubular brick wall about forty feet in circumference and two hundred and fifty feet deep, outside of which a stone stairway, winding round and round the shaft, leads from top to bottom. Openings through the wall, six feet high and three wide, occur at regular intervals all the way down, and, as we follow our ragged guide down, down into the damp and darkness by the feeble light of a tallow candle in a broken lantern, I cannot help thinking that these o'erhandy openings leading into the dark, watery depths have, in the tragic history of Belgrade, doubtless been responsible for the mysterious disappearance of more than one objectionable person. It is not without certain involuntary misgivings that I take the lantern from the guide - whose general appearance is, by the way, hardly calculated to be reassuring - and, standing in one of the openings, peer down into the darksome depths, with him hanging on to my coat as an act of precaution. The view from the ramparts of Belgrade fortress is a magnificent panorama, extending over the broad valley of the Danube - which here winds about as though trying to bestow its favors with impartiality upon Hungary, Servia, and Slavonia - and of the Save. The Servian soldiers are camped in small tents in various parts of the fortress grounds and its environments, or lolling under the shade of a few scantily verdured trees, for the sun is to-day broiling hot. With a population not exceeding one and a half million, I am told that Servia supports a standing army of a hundred thousand men; and, when required, every man in Servia becomes a soldier. As one lands from the ferry-boat and looks about him he needs no interpreter to inform him that he has left the Occident on the other side of the Save, and to the observant stranger the streets of Belgrade furnish many a novel and interesting sight in the way of fanciful costumes and phases of Oriental life here encountered for the first time. In the afternoon we visit the national museum of old coins, arms, and Eoman and Servian antiquities. A banquet in a wine-garden, where Servian national music is dispensed by a band of female musicians, is given us in the evening by the club, and royal quarters are assigned us for the night at the hospitable mansion of Mr. Terzibachitch's father, who is the merchant -prince of Servia, and purveyor to the court. Wednesday morning we take a general ramble over the city, besides visiting the club's head-quarters, where we find a handsome new album has been purchased for receiving our autographs. The Belgrade wheelmen have names painted on their bicycles, as names are painted on steamboats or yachts: "Fairy," "Good Luck," and "Servian Queen," being fair specimens. The cyclers here are sons of leading citizens and business men of Belgrade, and, while they dress and conduct themselves as becomes thorough gentlemen, one fancies detecting a certain wild expression of the eye, as though their civilization were scarcely yet established; in fact, this peculiar expression is more noticeable at Belgrade, and is apparently more general here than at any other place I visit in Europe. I apprehend it to be a peculiarity that has become hereditary with the citizens, from their city having been so often and for so long the theatre of uncertain fate and distracting political disturbances. It is the half-startled expression of people with the ever-present knowledge of insecurity. But they are a warm-hearted, impulsive set of fellows, and when, while looking through the museum, we happen across Her Britannic Majesty's representative at the Servian court, who is doing the same thing, one of them unhesitatingly approaches that gentleman, cap in hand, and, with considerable enthusiasm of manner, announces that they have with them a countryman of his who is riding around the world on a bicycle. This cooler-blooded and dignified gentleman is not near so demonstrative in his acknowledgment as they doubtless anticipated he would be; whereat they appear quite puzzled and mystified. Three carriages with cyclers and their friends accompany us a dozen kilometres out to a wayside mehana (the Oriental name hereabouts for hotels, wayside inns, etc.); Douchan Popovitz, and Hugo Tichy, the captain of the club, will ride forty-five kilometres with me to Semendria, and at 4 o'clock we mount our wheels and ride away southward into Servia. Arriving at the mehana, wine is brought, and then the two Servians accompanying me, and those returning, kiss each other, after the manner and custom of their country; then a general hand-shaking and well-wishes all around, and the carriages turn toward Belgrade, while we wheelmen alternately ride and trundle over a muddy - for it has rained since noon - and mountainous road till 7.30, when relatives of Douchan Popovitz, in the village of Grotzka, kindly offer us the hospitality of their house till morning, which we hesitate not to avail ourselves of. When about to part at the mehana, the immortal Igali unwinds from around his waist that long blue girdle, the arranging and rearranging of which has been a familiar feature of the last week's experiences, and presents it to me for a souvenir of himself, a courtesy which I return by presenting him with several of the Byzantine coins given to me by the Belgrade antiquary as before mentioned. Beyond Semendria, where the captain leaves us for the return journey, we leave the course of the Danube, which I have been following in a general way for over two weeks, and strike due southward up the smaller, but not less beautiful, valley of the Morava River, where we have the intense satisfaction of finding roads that are both dry and level, enabling us, in spite of the broiling heat, to bowl along at a sixteen-kilometre pace to the village, where we halt for dinner and the usual three hours noontide siesta. Seeing me jotting down my notes with a short piece of lead-pencil, the proprietor of the mehana at Semendria, where we take a parting glass of wine with the captain, and who admires America and the Americans, steps in-doors for a minute, and returns with a telescopic pencil-case, attached to a silken cord of the Servian" national colors, which he places abound my neck, requesting me to wear it around the world, and, when I arrive at my journey's end, sometimes to think of Servia. With Igali's sky-blue girdle encompassing my waist, and the Servian national colors fondly encircling my neck, I begin to feel quite a heraldic tremor creeping over me, and actually surprise myself casting wistful glances at the huge antiquated horse pistol stuck in yonder bull- whacker's ample waistband; moreover, I really think that a pair of these Servian moccasins would not be bad foot-gear for riding the bicycle. All up the Morava Valley the roads continue far better than I have expected to find in Servia, and we wheel merrily along, the Resara Mountains covered with dark pine forests, skirting the valley on the right, sometimes rising into peaks of quite respectable proportions. The sun sinks behind the receding hills, it grows dusk, and finally dark, save the feeble light vouchsafed by the new moon, and our destination still lies several kilometres ahead. But at about nine we roll safely into Jagodina, well- satisfied with the consciousness of having covered one hundred and forty- five kilometres to-day, in spite of delaying our start in the morning until eight o'clock, and the twenty kilometres of indifferent road between Grotzka and Semendria. There has been no reclining under road-side mulberry-trees for my companion to catch up to-day, however; the Servian wheelman is altogether a speedier man than Igali, and, whether the road is rough or smooth, level or hilly, he is found close behind my rear wheel; my own shadow follows not more faithfully than does the "best rider in Servia." We start for Jagodina at 5.30 next morning, finding the roads a little heavy with sand in places, but otherwise all that a wheelman could wish. Crossing a bridge over the Morava River, into Tchupria, we are required not only to foot it across, but to pay a toll for the bicycles, like any other wheeled vehicle. At Tchupria it seems as though the whole town must be depopulated, so great is the throng of citizens that swarm about us. Motley and picturesque even in their rags, one's pen utterly fails to convey a correct idea of their appearance; besides Servians, Bulgarians, and Turks, and the Greek priests who never fail of being on hand, now appear Roumanians, wearing huge sheep-skin busbies, with the long, ragged edges of the wool dangling about eyes and ears, or, in the case of a more "dudish " person, clipped around smooth at the brim, making the head-gear look like a small, round, thatched roof. Urchins, whose daily duty is to promenade the family goat around the streets, join in the procession, tugging their bearded charges after them; and a score of dogs, overjoyed beyond measure at the general commotion, romp about, and bark their joyous approval of it all. To have crowds like this following one out of town makes a sensitive person feel uncomfortably like being chased out of a community for borrowing chickens by moonlight, or on account of some irregularity concerning hotel bills. On occasions like this Orientals seemingly have not the slightest sense of dignity; portly, well-dressed citizens, priests, and military officers press forward among the crowds of peasants and unwashed frequenters of the streets, evidently more delighted with things about them than they have been for many a day before. At Delegrad we wheel through the battle-field of the same name, where, in 1876, Turks and Servians were arrayed against each other. These battle- scarred hills above Delegrad command a glorious view of the lower Morava Valley, which is hereabouts most beautiful, and just broad enough for its entire beauty to be comprehended. The Servians won the battle of Delegrad, and as I pause to admire the glorious prospect to the southward from the hills, methinks their general showed no little sagacity in opposing the invaders at a spot where the Morava Vale, the jewel of Servia, was spread out like a panorama below his position, to fan with its loveliness the patriotism of his troops - they could not do otherwise than win, with the fairest portion of their well-beloved country spread out before them like a picture. A large cannon, captured from the Turks, is standing on its carriage by the road-side, a mute but eloquent witness of Servian prowess. A few miles farther on we halt for dinner at Alexinatz, near the old Servian boundary-line, also the scene of one of the greatest battles fought during the Servian struggle for independence. The Turks were victorious this time, and fifteen thousand Servians and three thousand Russian allies yielded up their lives here to superior Turkish generalship, and Alexiuatz was burned to ashes. The Russians have erected a granite monument on a hill overlooking the town, in memory of their comrades who perished in this fight. The roads to-day average even better than yesterday, and at six o'clock we roll into Nisch, one hundred and twenty kilometres from our starting-point this morning, and two hundred and eighty from Belgrade. As we enter the city a gang of convicts working on the fortifications forget their clanking shackles and chains, and the miseries of their state, long enough to greet us with a boisterous howl of approval, and the guards who are standing over them for once, at least, fail to check them, for their attention, too, is wholly engrossed in the same wondrous subject. Nisch appears to be a thoroughly Oriental city, and here I see the first Turkish ladies, with their features hidden behind their white yashmaks. At seven or eight o'clock in the morning, when it is comparatively cool and people are patronizing the market, trafficking and bartering for the day's supply of provisions, the streets present quite an animated appearance; but during the heat of the day the scene changes to one of squalor and indolence; respectable citizens are smoking nargilehs (Mark Twain's "hubble-bubble"), or sleeping somewhere out of sight; business is generally suspended, and in every shady nook and corner one sees a swarthy ragamuffin stretched out at full length, perfectly happy and contented if only he is allowed to snooze the hours away in peace. Human nature is verily the same the world over, and here, in the hotel at Nisch, I meet an individual who recalls a few of the sensible questions that have been asked me from time to time at different places on both continents. This Nisch interrogator is a Hebrew commercial traveller, who has a smattering of English, and who after ascertaining during a short conversation that, when a range of mountains or any other small obstruction is encountered, I get down and push the bicycle up, airs his knowledge of English and of 'cycling to the extent of inquiring whether I don't take a man along to push it up the hills! Riding out of Nisch this morning we stop just beyond the suburbs to take a curious look at a grim monument of Turkish prowess, in the shape of a square stone structure which the Turks built in 1840, and then faced the whole exterior with grinning rows of Servian skulls partially embedded in mortar. The Servians, naturally objecting to having the skulls of their comrades thus exposed to the gaze of everybody, have since removed and buried them; but the rows of indentations in the thick mortared surface still bear unmistakable evidence of the nature of their former occupants. An avenue of thrifty prune-trees shades a level road leading out of Nisch for several kilometres, but a heavy thunder-storm during the night has made it rather slavish wheeling, although the surface becomes harder and smoother, also hillier, as we gradually approach the Balkan Mountains, that tower well up toward cloudland immediately ahead. The morning is warm and muggy, indicating rain, and the long, steep trundle, kilometre after kilometre, up the Balkan slopes, is anything but child's play, albeit the scenery is most lovely, one prospect especially reminding me of a view in the Big Horn Mountains of northern Wyoming Territory. On the lower slopes we come to a mehana, where, besides plenty of shade-trees, we find springs of most delightfully cool water gushing out of crevices in the rocks, and, throwing our freely perspiring forms beneath the grateful shade and letting the cold water play on our wrists (the best method in the world of cooling one's self when overheated), we both vote that it would be a most agreeable place to spend the heat of the day. But the morning is too young yet to think of thus indulging, and the mountainous prospect ahead warns us that the distance covered to-day will be short enough at the best. The Balkans are clothed with green foliage to the topmost crags, wild pear-trees being no inconspicuous feature; charming little valleys wind about between the mountain-spurs, and last night's downpour has imparted a freshness to the whole scene that perhaps it would not be one's good fortune to see every day, even were he here. This region of intermingled vales and forest-clad mountains might be the natural home of brigandage, and those ferocious-looking specimens of humanity with things like long guns in hand, running with scrambling haste down the mountain-side toward our road ahead, look like veritable brigands heading us off with a view to capturing us. But they are peacefully disposed goatherds, who, alpenstocks in hand, are endeavoring to see "what in the world those queer-looking things are, coming up the road." Their tuneful noise, as they play on some kind of an instrument, greets our ears from a dozen mountain-slopes round about us, as we put our shoulders to the wheel, and gradually approach the summit. Tortoises are occasionally surprised basking in the sunbeams in the middle of the road; when molested they hiss quite audibly in protest, but if passed peacefully by they are seen shuffling off into the bushes, as though thankful to escape. Unhappy oxen are toiling patiently upward, literally inch by inch, dragging heavy, creaking wagons, loaded with miscellaneous importations, prominent among which I notice square cans of American petroleum. Men on horseback are encountered, the long guns of the Orient slung at their backs, and knife and pistols in sash, looking altogether ferocious. Not only are these people perfectly harmless, however, but I verily think it would take a good deal of aggravation to make them even think of fighting. The fellow whose horse we frightened down a rocky embankment, at the imminent risk of breaking the neck of both horse and rider, had both gun, knife, and pistols; yet, though he probably thinks us emissaries of the evil one, he is in no sense a dangerous character, his weapons being merely gewgaws to adorn his person. Finally, the summit of this range is gained, and the long, grateful descent into the valley of the Nissava River begins. The surface during this descent, though averaging very good, is not always of the smoothest; several dismounts are found to be necessary, and many places ridden over require a quick hand and ready eye to pass. The Servians have made a capital point in fixing their new boundary-line south of this mountain-range. Mountaineers are said to be "always freemen;" one can with equal truthfulness add that the costumes of mountaineers' wives and daughters are always more picturesque than those of their sisters in the valleys. In these Balkan Mountains their costumes are a truly wonderful blending of colors, to say nothing of fantastic patterns, apparently a medley of ideas borrowed from Occident and Orient. One woman we have just passed is wearing the loose, flowing pantaloons of the Orient, of a bright-yellow color, a tight-fitting jacket of equally bright blue; around her waist is folded many times a red and blue striped waistband, while both head and feet are bare. This is no holiday attire; it is plainly the ordinary every-day costume. At the foot of the range we halt at a way-side mehana for dinner. A daily diligence, with horses four abreast, runs over the Balkans from Niseh to Sophia, Bulgaria, and one of them is halted at the mehana for refreshments and a change of horses. Refreshments at these mehanas are not always palatable to travellers, who almost invariably carry a supply of provisions along. Of bread nothing but the coarse, black variety common to the country is forthcoming at this mehana, and a gentleman, learning from Mr. Popovitz that I have not yet been educated up to black bread, fishes a large roll of excellent milch-Brod out of his traps and kindly presents it to us; and obtaining from the mehana some hune-hen fabrica and wine we make a very good meal. This hunehen fabrica is nothing more nor less than cooked chicken. Whether hune-hen fabrica is genuine Hungarian for cooked chicken, or whether Igali manufactured the term especially for use between us, I cannot quite understand. Be this as it may, before we started from Belgrade, Igali imparted the secret to Mr. Popovitz that I was possessed with a sort of a wild appetite, as it were, for hune-hen fabrica and cherries, three times a day, the consequence being that Mr. Popovitz thoughtfully orders those viands whenever we halt. After dinner the mutterings of thunder over the mountains warn us that unless we wish to experience the doubtful luxuries of a road-side mehana for the night we had better make all speed to the village of Bela Palanka, twelve kilometres distant over - rather hilly roads. In forty minutes we arrive at the Bela Palanka mehana, some time before the rain begins. It is but twenty kilometres to Pirot, near the Bulgarian frontier, whither my companion has purposed to accompany me, but we are forced to change this programme and remain at Bela Palanka. It rains hard all night, converting the unassuming Nissava into a roaring yellow torrent, and the streets of the little Balkan village into mud- holes. It is still raining on Sunday morning, and as Mr. Popovitz is obliged to be back to his duties as foreign correspondent in the Servian National Bank at Belgrade on Tuesday, and the Balkan roads have been rendered impassable for a bicycle, he is compelled to hire a team and wagon to haul him and his wheel back over the mountains to Nisch, while I have to remain over Sunday amid the dirt and squalor and discomforts - to say nothing of a second night among the fleas - of an Oriental village mehana. We only made fifty kilometres over the mountains yesterday, but during the three days from Belgrade together the aggregate has been satisfactory, and Mr. Popovitz has proven a most agreeable and interesting companion. When but fourteen years of age he served under the banner of the Red Cross in the war between the Turks and Servians, and is altogether an ardent patriot. My Sunday in Bela Palanka impresses me with the conviction that an Oriental village is a splendid place not to live in. In dry weather it is disagreeable enough, but to-day, it is a disorderly aggregation of miserable-looking villagers, pigs, ducks, geese, chickens, and dogs, paddling around the muddy streets. The Oriental peasant's costume is picturesque or otherwise, according to the fancy of the observer. The red fez or turban, the upper garment, and the ample red sash wound round and round the waist until it is eighteen inches broad, look picturesque enough for anybody; but when it comes to having the seat of the pantaloons dangling about the calves of the legs, a person imbued with Western ideas naturally thinks that if the line between picturesqueness and a two-bushel gunny-sack is to be drawn anywhere it should most assuredly be drawn here. As I notice how prevalent this ungainly style of nether garment is in the Orient, I find myself getting quite uneasy lest, perchance, anything serious should happen to mine, and I should be compelled to ride the bicycle in a pair of natives, which would, however, be an altogether impossible feat unless it were feasible to gather the surplus area up in a bunch and wear it like a bustle. I cannot think, however, that Fate, cruel as she sometimes is, has anything so outrageous as this in store for me or any other 'cycler. Although Turkish ladies have almost entirely disappeared from Servia since its severance from Turkey, they have left, in a certain degree, an impress upon the women of the country villages; although the Bela Palanka maidens, as I notice on the streets in their Sunday clothes to-day, do not wear the regulation yashmak, but a head-gear that partially obscures the face, their whole demeanor giving one the impression that their one object in life is to appear the pink of propriety in the eyes of the whole world; they walk along the streets at a most circumspect gait, looking neither to the right nor left, neither stopping to converse with each other by the way, nor paying any sort of attention to the men. The two proprietors of the mehana where I am stopping are subjects for a student of human nature. With their wretched little pigsty of a mehana in this poverty-stricken village, they are gradually accumulating a fortune. Whenever a luckless traveller falls into their clutches they make the incident count for something. They stand expectantly about in their box-like public room; their whole stock consists of a little diluted wine and mastic, and if a bit of black bread and smear-lease is ordered, one is putting it down in the book, while the other is ferreting it out of a little cabinet where they keep a starvation quantity of edibles; when the one acting as waiter has placed the inexpensive morsel before you, he goes over to the book to make sure that number two has put down enough; and, although the maximum value of the provisions is perhaps not over twopence, this precious pair will actually put their heads together in consultation over the amount to be chalked down. Ere the shades of Sunday evening have settled down, I have arrived at the conclusion that if these two are average specimens of the Oriental Jew they are financially a totally depraved people. The rain ceased soon after noon on Sunday, and, although the roads are all but impassable, I pull out southward at five o'clock on Monday morning, trundling up the mountain-roads through mud that frequently compels me to stop and use the scraper. After the summit of the hills between Bela Palanka and Pirot is gained, the road descending into the valley beyond becomes better, enabling me to make quite good time into Pirot, where my passport.undergoes an examination, and is favored with a vise by the Servian officials preparatory to crossing the Servian and Bulgarian frontier about twenty kilometres to the southward. Pirot is quite a large and important village, and my appearance is the signal for more excitement than the Piroters have experienced for many a day. While I am partaking of bread and coffee in the hotel, the main street becomes crowded as on some festive occasion, the grown-up people's faces beaming with as much joyous anticipation of what they expect to behold when I emerge from the hotel as the unwashed countenances of the ragged youngsters around them. Leading citizens who have been to Paris or Vienna, and have learned something about what sort of road a 'cycler needs, have imparted the secret to many of their fellow-townsmen, and there is a general stampede to the highway leading out of town to the southward. This road is found to be most excellent, and the enterprising people who have walked, ridden, or driven out there, in order to see me ride past to the best possible advantage, are rewarded by witnessing what they never saw before - a cycler speeding along past them at ten miles an hour. This gives such general satisfaction that for some considerable distance I ride between a double row of lifted hats and general salutations, and a swelling murmur of applause runs all along the line. Two citizens, more enterprising even than the others, have determined to follow me with team and light wagon to a road-side office ten kilometres ahead, where passports have again to be examined. The road for the whole distance is level and fairly smooth; the Servian horses are, like the Indian ponies of the West, small, but wiry and tough, and although I press forward quite energetically, the whip is applied without stint, and when the passport office is reached we pull up alongside it together, but their ponies' sides are white with lather. The passport officer is so delighted at the story of the race, as narrated to him by the others, that he fetches me out.a piece of lump sugar and a glass of water, a common refreshment partaken of in this country. Yet a third time I am halted by a roadside official and required to produce my passport, and again at the village of Zaribrod, just over the Bulgarian frontier, which I reach about ten o'clock. To the Bulgarian official I present a small stamped card-board check, which was given me for that purpose at the last Servian examination, but he doesn't seem to understand it, and demands to see the original passport. When my English passport is produced he examines it, and straightway assures me of the Bulgarian official respect for an Englishman by grasping me warmly by the hand. The passport office is in the second story of a mud hovel, and is reached by a dilapidated flight of out-door stairs. My bicycle is left leaning against the building, and during my brief interview with the officer a noisy crowd of semi-civilized Bulgarians have collected about, examining it and commenting unreservedly concerning it and myself. The officer, ashamed of the rudeness of his country - and their evidently untutored minds, leans out of the window, and in a chiding voice explains to the crowd that I am a private individual, and not a travelling mountebank going about the country giving exhibitions, and advises them to uphold the dignity of the Bulgarian character by scattering forthwith. But the crowd doesn't scatter to any appreciable extent; they don't care whether I am public or private; they have never seen anything like me and the bicycle before, and the one opportunity of a lifetime is not to be lightly passed over. They are a wild, untamed lot, these Bulgarians here at Zaribrod, little given to self-restraint. When I emerge, the silence of eager anticipation takes entire possession of the crowd, only to break forth into a spontaneous howl of delight, from three hundred bared throats when I mount into the saddle and ride away into - Bulgaria. My ride through Servia, save over the Balkans. has been most enjoyable, and the roads, I am agreeably surprised to have to record, have averaged as good as any country in Europe, save England and France, though being for the most part unmacadamized; with wet weather they would scarcely show to such advantage. My impression of the Servian peasantry is most favorable; they are evidently a warm-hearted, hospitable, and withal a patriotic people, loving their little country and appreciating their independence as only people who have but recently had their dream of self-government realized know how to appreciate it; they even paint the wood-work of their bridges and public buildings with the national colors. I am assured that the Servians have progressed wonderfully since acquiring their full independence; but as one journeys down the beautiful and fertile valley of the Morava, where improvements would naturally be seen, if anywhere, one falls to wondering where they can possibly have come in. Some of their methods would, indeed, seem to indicate a most deplorable lack of practicability; one of the most ridiculous, to the writer's mind, is the erection of small, long sheds substantially built of heavy hewn timber supports, and thick, home-made tiles, over ordinary plank fences and gates to protect them from the weather, when a good coating of tar or paint would answer the purpose of preservation much better. These structures give one the impression of a dollar placed over a penny to protect the latter from harm. Every peasant owns a few acres of land, and, if he produces anything above his own wants, he hauls it to market in an ox-wagon with roughly hewn wheels without tires, and whose creaking can plainly bo heard a mile away. At present the Servian tills his little freehold with the clumsiest of implements, some his own rude handiwork, and the best imperfectly fashioned and forged on native anvils. His plow is chiefly the forked limb of a tree, pointed with iron sufficiently to enable him to root around in the surface soil. One would think the country might offer a promising field for some enterprising manufacturer of such implements as hoes, scythes, hay-forks, small, strong plows, cultivators, etc. These people are industrious, especially the women. I have entry met a Servian peasant woman returning homeward in the evening from her labor in the fields, carrying a fat, heavy baby, a clumsy hoe not much lighter than the youngster, and an earthenware water-pitcher, and, at the same time, industriously spinning wool with a small hand-spindle. And yet some people argue about the impossibility of doing two things at once. Whether these poor women have been hoeing potatoes, carrying the infant, and spinning wool at the same time all day I am unable to say, not having been an eye-witness, though I really should not be much astonished if they had. CHAPTER VIII. BULGARIA, ROUMELIA, AND INTO TURKEY. The road leading into Bulgaria from the Zaribrod custom-house is fairly good for several kilometres, when mountainous and rough ways are encountered; it is a country of goats and goat-herds. A rain-storm is hovering threateningly over the mountains immediately ahead, but it does not reach the vicinity I am traversing: it passes to the southward, and makes the roads for a number of miles wellnigh impassable. Up in the mountains I meet more than one " Bulgarian national express " - pony pack- trains, carrying merchandise to and fro between Sofia and Nisch. Most of these animals are too heavily laden to think of objecting to the appearance of anything on the road, but some of the outfits are returning from Sofia in "ballast" only; and one of these, doubtless overjoyed beyond measure at their unaccustomed lissomeness, breaks through all restraint at my approach, and goes stampeding over the rolling hills, the wild-looking teamsters in full tear after them. Whatever of this nature happens in this part of the world the people seem to regard with commendable complacence: instead of wasting time in trying to quarrel about it, they set about gathering up the scattered train, as though a stampede were the most natural thing going. Bulgaria - at least by the route I am crossing it - is a land of mountains and elevated plateaus, and the inhabitants I should call the "ranchers of the Orient," in their general appearance and demeanor bearing the same relation to the plodding corn-hoer and scythe-swinger of the Morava Valley as the Niobrara cow-boy does to the Nebraska homesteader. On the mountains are encountered herds of goats in charge of men who reck little for civilization, and the upland plains are dotted over with herds of ponies that require constant watching in the interest of scattered fields of grain. For lunch I halt at an unlikely-looking mehana, near a cluster of mud hovels, which, I suppose, the Bulgarians consider a village, and am rewarded by the blackest of black bread, in the composition of which sand plays no inconsiderable part, and the remnants of a chicken killed and stewed at some uncertain period of the past. Of all places invented in the world to disgust a hungry, expectant wayfarer, the Bulgarian mehana is the most abominable. Black bread and mastic (a composition of gum-mastic and Boston rum, so I am informed) seem to be about the only things habitually kept in stock, and everything about the place plainly shows the proprietor to be ignorant of the crudest notions of cleanliness. A storm is observed brewing in the mountains I have lately traversed, and, having swallowed my unpalatable lunch, I hasten to mount, and betake myself off toward Sofia, distant thirty kilometres. The road is nothing extra, to say the least, but a howling wind blowing from the region of the gathering storm propels me rapidly, in spite of undulations, ruts, and undesirable road qualities generally. The region is an elevated plateau, of which but a small proportion is cultivated; on more than one of the neighboring peaks patches of snow are still lingering, and the cool mountain breezes recall memories of the Laramie Plains. Men and women returning homeward on horseback from Sofia are frequently encountered. The women are decked with beads and trinkets and the gewgaws of semi-civilization, as might be the favorite squaws of Squatting Beaver or Sitting Bull, and furthermore imitate their copper-colored sisters of the Far West by bestriding their ponies like men. But in the matter of artistic and profuse decoration of the person the squaw is far behind the peasant woman of Bulgaria. The garments of the men are a combination of sheepskin and a thick, coarse, woollen material, spun by the women, and fashioned after patterns their forefathers brought with them centuries ago when they first invaded Europe. The Bulgarian saddle, like everything else here, is a rudely constructed affair, that answers the double purpose of a pack-saddle or for riding - a home-made, unwieldy thing, that is a fair pony's load of itself. At 4.30 P.M. I wheel into Sofia, the Bulgarian Capital, having covered one hundred and ten kilometres to-day, in spite of mud, mountains, and roads that have been none of the best. Here again I have to patronize the money-changers, for a few Servian francs which I have are not current in Bulgaria; and the Israelite, who reserved unto himself a profit of two francs on the pound at Nisch, now seems the spirit of fairness itself along-side a hook-nosed, wizen-faced relative of his here at Sofia, who wants two Servian francs in exchange for each Bulgarian coin of the same intrinsic value; and the best I am able to get by going to several different money-changers is five francs in exchange for seven; yet the Servian frontier is but sixty kilometres distant, with stages running to it daily; and the two coins are identical in intrinsic value. At the Hotel Concordia, in Sofia, in lieu of plates, the meat is served on round, flat blocks of wood about the circumference of a saucer - the "trenchers" of the time of Henry VIII.- and two respectable citizens seated opposite me are supping off black bread and a sliced cucumber, both fishing slices of the cucumber out of a wooden bowl with their fingers. Life at the Bulgarian Capital evidently bears its legitimate relative comparison to the life of the country it represents. One of Prince Alexander's body-guard, pointed out to me in the bazaar, looks quite a semi-barbarian, arrayed in a highly ornamented national costume, with immense Oriental pistols in waistband, and gold-braided turban cocked on one side of his head, and a fierce mustache. The soldiers here, even the comparatively fortunate ones standing guard at the entrance to the prince's palace, look as though they haven't had a new uniform for years and had long since despaired of ever getting one. A war, and an alliance with some wealthy nation which would rig them out in respectable uniforms, would probably not be an unwelcome event to many of them. While wandering about the bazaar, after supper, I observe that the streets, the palace grounds, and in fact every place that is lit up at all, save the minarets of the mosque, which are always illumined with vegetable oil, are lighted with American petroleum, gas and coal being unknown in the Bulgarian capital. There is an evident want of system in everything these people do. From my own observations I am inclined to think they pay no heed whatever to generally accepted divisions of time, but govern their actions entirely by light and darkness. There is no eight-hour nor ten-hour system of labor here; and I verily believe the industrial classes work the whole time, save when they pause to munch black bread, and to take three or four hours' sleep in the middle of the night; for as I trundle my way through the streets at five o'clock next morning, the same people I observed at various occupations in the bazaars are there now, as busily engaged as though they had been keeping it up all night; as also are workmen building a house; they were pegging away at nine o'clock yestefday evening, by the flickering light of small petroleum lamps, and at five this morning they scarcely look like men who are just commencing for the day. The Oriental, with his primitive methods and tenacious adherence to the ways of his forefathers, probably enough, has to work these extra long hours in order to make any sort of progress. However this may be, I have throughout the Orient been struck by the industriousness of the real working classes; but in practicability and inventiveness the Oriental is sadly deficient. On the way out I pause at the bazaar to drink hot milk and eat a roll of white bread, the former being quite acceptable, for the morning is rather raw and chilly; the wind is still blowing a gale, and a company of cavalry, out for exercise, are incased in their heavy gray overcoats, as though it were midwinter instead of the twenty- third of June. Rudely clad peasants are encountered on the road, carrying large cans of milk into Sofia from neighboring ranches. I stop several of them with a view of sampling the quality of their milk, but invariably find it unstrained, and the vessels looking as though they had been strangers to scalding for some time. Others are carrying gunny-sacks of smear-kase on their shoulders, the whey from which is not infrequently streaming down their backs. Cleanliness is no doubt next to godliness; but the Bulgarians seem to be several degrees removed from either. They need the civilizing influence of soap quite as much as anything else, and if the missionaries cannot educate them up to Christianity or civilization it might not be a bad scheme to try the experiment of starting a native soap-factory or two in the country. Savagery lingers in the lap of civilization on the breezy plateaus of Bulgaria, but salvation is coming this way in the shape of an extension of the Eoumelian railway from the south, to connect with the Servian line north of the Balkans. For years the freight department of this pioneer railway will have to run opposition against ox-teams, and creaking, groaning wagons; and since railway stockholders and directors are not usually content with an exclusive diet of black bread, with a wilted cucumber for a change on Sundays, as is the Bulgarian teamster, and since locomotives cannot be turned out to graze free of charge on the hill-sides, the competition will not be so entirely one-sided as might be imagined. Long trains of these ox-teams are met with this morning hauling freight and building-lumber from the railway terminus in Eoumelia to Sofia. The teamsters are wearing large gray coats of thick blanketing, with floods covering the head, a heavy, convenient garment, that keeps out both rain and cold while on the road, and at night serves for blanket and mattress; for then the teamster turns his oxen loose on the adjacent hill-sides to graze, and, after munching a piece of black bread, he places a small wicker-work wind-break against the windward side of the wagon, and, curling himself up in his great-coat, sleeps soundly. Besides the ox- trains, large, straggling trains of pack-ponies and donkeys occasionally fill the whole roadway; they are carrying firewood and charcoal from the mountains, or wine and spirits, in long, slender casks, from Roumelia; while others are loaded with bales and boxes of miscellaneous merchandise, out of all proportion to their own size. The road southward from Sofia is abominable, being originally constructed of earth and large unbroken bowlders; it has not been repaired for years, and the pack-trains and ox-wagons forever crawling along have, during the wet weather of many seasons, tramped the dirt away, and left the surface a wretched waste of ruts, holes, and thickly protruding stones. It is the worst piece of road I have encountered in all Europe; and although it is ridable this morning by a cautious person, one risks and invites disaster at every turn of the wheel. "Old Boreas" comes howling from the mountains of the north, and hustles me briskly along over ruts, holes, and bowlders, however, in a most reckless fashion, furnishing all the propelling power needful, and leaving me nothing to do but keep a sharp lookout for breakneck places immediately ahead. In Servia, the peasants, driving along the road in their wagons, upon observing me approaching them, being uncertain of the character of my vehicle and the amount of road-space I require, would ofttimes drive entirely off the road; and sometimes, when they failed to take this precaution, and their teams would begin to show signs of restiveness as I drew near, the men would seem to lose their wits for the moment, and cry out in alarm, as though some unknown danger were hovering over them. I have seen women begin to wail quite pitifully, as though they fancied I bestrode an all- devouring circular saw that was about to whirl into them and rend team, wagon, and everything asunder. But the Bulgarians don't seem to care much whether I am going to saw them in twain or not; they are far less particular about yielding the road, and both men and women seem to be made of altogether sterner stuff than the Servians and Slavonians. They seem several degrees less civilized than their neighbors farther north, judging from tieir general appearance and demeanor. They act peaceably and are reasonably civil toward me and the bicycle, however, and personallv I rather enjoy their rough, unpolished manners. Although there is a certain element of rudeness and boisterousuess about them compared with anything I have encountered elsewhere in Europe, they seem, on the whole, a good-natured people. We Westerners seldom hear anything of the Bulgarians except in war-times and then it is usually in connection with atrocities that furnish excellent sensational material for the illustrated weeklies; consequently I rather expected to have a rough time riding through alone. But, instead of coming out slashed and scarred like a Heidelberg student, I emerge from their territory with nothing more serious than a good healthy shaking up from their ill-conditioned roads and howling winds, and my prejudice against black bread with sand in it partly overcome from having had to eat it or nothing. Bulgaria is a principality under the suzerainty of the Sultan, to whom it is supposed to pay a yearly tribute; but the suzerainty sits lightly upon the people, since they do pretty much as they please; and they never worry themselves about the tribute, simply putting it down on the slate whenever it comes due. The Turks might just as well wipe out the account now as at any time, for they will eventually have to whistle for the whole indebtedness. A smart rain-storm drives me into an uninviting mehana near the Roumelian frontier, for two unhappy hours, at noon - a mehana where the edible accommodations would wring an "Ugh" from an American Indian - and the sole occupants are a blear-eyed Bulgarian, in twenty-year-old sheep-skin clothes, whose appearance plainly indicates an over-fondness for mastic, and an unhappy- looking black kitten. Fearful lest something, perchance, might occur to compel me to spend the night here, I don my gossamers as soon as the rain slacks up a little, and splurge ahead through the mud toward Ichtiman, which, my map informs me, is just on this side of the Kodja Balkans, which rise up in dark wooded ridges at no great distance ahead, to the southward. The mud and rain combine to make things as disagreeable as possible, but before three o'clock I reach Ichtiman, to find that I am in the province of Eoumelia, and am again required to produce my passport. I am now getting well down into territory that quite recently was completely under the dominion of the "unspeakable Turk " - unspeakable, by the way, to the writer in more senses than one - and is partly so even now, but have as yet seen very little of the "mysterious veiled lady." The Bulgarians are Christian when they are anything, though the great majority of them are nothing religiously. A comparatively comfortable mehana is found here at Ichtiman, and the proprietor, being able to talk German, readily comprehends the meaning of hune-hen fabrica; but I have to dispense with cherries. Mud is the principal element of the road leading out of Ichtiman and over the Kodja Balkans this morning. The curious crowd of Ichtimanites that follow me through the mud-holes and filth of their native streets, to see what is going to happen when I get clear of them, are rewarded but poorly for their trouble; the best I can possibly do being to make a spasmodic run of a hundred yards through the mud, which I do purely out of consideration for their inquisitiveness, since it seems rather disagreeable to disappoint a crowd of villagers who are expectantly following and watching one's every movement, wondering, in their ignorance, why you don't ride instead of walk. It is a long, wearisome trundle up the muddy slopes of the Kodja Balkans, but, after the descent into the Maritza Valley begins, some little ridable surface is encountered, though many loose stones are lying about, and pitch-holes innumerable, make riding somewhat risky, considering that the road frequently leads immediately alongside precipices. Pack-donkeys are met on these mountain- roads, sometimes filling the way, and corning doggedly and indifferently forward, even in places where I have little choice between scrambling up a rock on one side of the road or jumping down a precipice on the other. I can generally manage to pass them, however, by placing the bicycle on one side, and, 'standing guard over it, push them off one by one as they pass. Some of these Roumelian donkeys are the most diminutive creatures I ever saw; but they seem capable of toiling up these steep mountain-roads with enormous loads. I met one this morning carrying bales of something far bigger than himself, and a big Roumelian, whose feet actually came in contact with the ground occasionally, perched on his rump; the man looked quite capable of carrying both the donkey and his load. The warm and fertile Maritza Valley is reached soon after noon, and I am not sorry to find it traversed by a decent macadamized road; though, while it has been raining quite heavily up among the mountains, this valley has evidently been favored with a small deluge, and frequent stretches are covered with deep mud and sand, washed down from the adjacent hills; in the cultivated areas of the Bulgarian uplands the grain-fields are yet quite green, but harvesting has already begun in the warmer Maritza Vale, and gangs of Roumelian peasants are in the fields, industriously plying reaping-hooks to save their crops of wheat and rye, which the storm has badly lodged. Ere many miles of this level valley-road are ridden over, a dozen pointed minarets loom up ahead, and at four o'clock I dismount at the confines of the well nigh impassable streets of Tatar Bazardjik, quite a lively little city in the sense that Oriental cities are lively, which means well-stocked bazaars thronged with motley crowds. Here I am delayed for some time by a thunder-storm, and finally wheel away southward in the face of threatening heavens. Several villages of gypsies are camped on the banks of the Maritza, just outside the limits of Tatar Bazardjik; a crowd of bronzed, half-naked youngsters wantonly favor me with a fusillade of stones as I ride past, and several gaunt, hungry-looking curs follow me for some distance with much threatening clamor. The dogs in the Orient seem to be pretty much all of one breed, genuine mongrel, possessing nothing of the spirit and courage of the animals we are familiar with. Gypsies are more plentiful south of the Save than even in Austria-Hungary, but since leaving Slavonia I have never been importuned by them for alms. Travellers from other countries are seldom met with along the roads here, and I suppose that the wandering Romanies have long since learned the uselessness of asking alms of the natives; but, since they religiously abstain from anything like work, how they manage to live is something of a mystery. Ere I am five kilometres from Tatar Bazardjik the rain begins to descend, and there is neither house nor other shelter visible anywhere ahead. The peasants' villages are all on the river, and the road leads for mile after mile through fields of wheat and rye. I forge ahead in a drenching downpour that makes short work of the thin gossamer suit, which on this occasion barely prevents me getting a wet skin ere I descry a thrice-welcome mehana ahead and repair thither, prepared to accept, with becoming thankfulness, whatever accommodation the place affords. It proves many degrees superior to the average Bulgarian institution of the same name, the proprietor causing my eyes fairly to bulge out with astonishment by producing a box of French sardines, and bread several shades lighter than I had, in view of previous experience expected to find it; and for a bed provides one of the huge, thick overcoats before spoken of, which, with the ample hood, envelops the whole figure in a covering that defies both wet and cold. I am provided with this unsightly but none the less acceptable garment, and given the happy privilege of occupying the floor of a small out-building in company with several rough-looking pack-train teamsters similarly incased; I pass a not altogether comfortless night, the pattering of rain against the one small window effectually suppressing such thankless thoughts as have a tendency to come unbidden whenever the snoring of any of my fellow-lodgers gets aggravatingly harsh. In all this company I think I am the only person who doesn't snore, and when I awake from my rather fitful slumbers at four o'clock and find the rain no longer pattering against the window, I arise, and take up my journey toward Philippopolis, the city I had intended reaching yesterday. It is after crossing the Kodja Balkans and descending into the Maritza Valley that one finds among the people a peculiarity that, until a person becomes used to it, causes no little mystification and many ludicrous mistakes. A shake of the head, which with us means a negative answer, means exactly the reverse with the people of the Maritza Valley; and it puzzled me not a little more than once yesterday afternoon when inquiring whether I was on the right road, and when patronizing fruit-stalls in Tatar Bazardjik. One never feels quite certain about being right when, after inquiring of a native if this is the correct road to Mustapha Pasha or Philippopolis he replies with a vigorous shake of the head; and although one soon gets accustomed to this peculiarity in others, and accepts it as it is intended, it is not quite so easy to get into the habit yourself. This queer custom seems to prevail only among the inhabitants of this particular valley, for after leaving it at Adrianople I see nothing more of it. Another peculiarity all through Oriental, and indeed through a good part of Central Europe, is that, instead of the "whoa" which we use to a horse, the driver hisses like a goose. Yesterday evening's downpour has little injured the road between the mehana and Philippopolis, the capital of Eoumelia, and I wheel to the confines of that city in something over two hours. Philippopolis is most beautifully situated, being built on and around a cluster of several rocky hills; a situation which, together with a plenitude of waving trees, imparts a pleasing and picturesque effect. With a score of tapering minarets pointing skyward among the green foliage, the scene is thoroughly Oriental; but, like all Eastern cities, "distance lends enchantment to the view." All down the Maritza Valley, and in lesser numbers extending southward and eastward over the undulating plains of Adrianople, are many prehistoric mounds, some twenty-five or thirty feet high, and of about the same diameter. Sometimes in groups, and sometimes singly, these mounds occur so frequently that one can often count a dozen at a time. In the vicinity of Philippopolis several have been excavated, and human remains discovered reclining beneath large slabs of coarse pottery set up like an inverted V, thus: A, evidently intended as a water-shed for the preservation of the bodies. Another feature of the landscape, and one that fails not to strike the observant traveller as a melancholy feature, are the Mohammedan cemeteries. Outside every town and near every village are broad areas of ground thickly studded with slabs of roughly hewn rock set up on end; cities of the dead vastly more populous than the abodes of life adjacent. A person can stand on one of the Philippopolis heights and behold the hills and vales all around thickly dotted with these rude reminders of our universal fate. It is but as yesterday since the Turk occupied these lands, and was in the habit of making it particularly interesting to any "dog of a Christian" who dared desecrate one of these Mussulman cemeteries with his unholy presence; but to-day they are unsurrounded by protecting fence or the moral restrictions of dominant Mussulmans, and the sheep, cows, and goats of the "infidel giaour" graze among them; and oh, shade of Mohammed! hogs also scratch their backs against the tombstones and root around, at their own sweet will, sometimes unearthing skulls and bones, which it is the Turkish custom not to bury at any great depth. The great number and extent of these cemeteries seem to appeal to the unaccustomed observer in eloquent evidence against a people whose rule find religion have been of the sword. While obtaining my breakfast of bread and milk in the Philippopolis bazaar an Arab ragamuffin rushes in, and, with anxious gesticulations toward the bicycle, which I have from necessity left outside, and cries of "Monsieur, monsieur," plainly announces that there is something going wrong in connection with the machine. Quickly going out I find that, although I left it standing on the narrow apology for a sidewalk, it is in imminent danger of coming to grief at the instance of a broadly laden donkey, which, with his load, veritably takes up the whole narrow street, including the sidewalks, as he slowly picks his way along through mud-holes and protruding cobble-stones. And yet Philippopolis has improved wonderfully since it has nominally changed from a Turkish to a Christian city, I am told; the Cross having in Philippopolis not only triumphed over the Crescent, but its influence is rapidly changing the condition and appearance of the streets. There is no doubt about the improvements, but they are at present most conspicuous in the suburbs, near the English consulate. It is threatening rain again as I am picking my way through the crooked streets of Philippopolis toward the Adrianople road; verily, I seem these days to be fully occupied in playing hide-and-seek with the elements; but in Roumelia at this season it is a question of either rain or insufferable heat, and perhaps, after all, I have reason to be thankful at having the former to contend with rather than the latter. Two thunderstorms have to be endured during the forenoon, and for lunch I reach a mehana where, besides eggs roasted in the embers, and fairly good bread, I am actually offered a napkin that has been used but a few times - an evidence of civilization that is quite refreshing. A repetition of the rain-dodging of the forenoon characterizes the afternoon journey, and while halting at a small village the inhabitants actually take me for a mountebank, and among them collect a handful of diminutive copper coins about the size and thickness of a gold twenty-five-cent piece, and of which it would take at least twenty to make an American cent, and offer them to me for a performance. What with shaking my head for "no" and the villagers naturally mistaking the motion for " yes," according to their own custom, I have quite an interesting time of it making them understand that I am not a mountebank travelling from one Roumelian village to another, living on two cents' worth of black sandy bread per diem, and giving performances for about three cents a time. For my halting-place to-night I reach the village of Cauheme, in which I find a mehana, where, although the accommodations are of the crudest nature, the proprietor is a kindly disposed and, withal, a thoroughly honest individual, furnishing me with a reed mat and a pillow, and making things as comfortable and agreeable as possible. Eating raw cucumbers as we eat apples or pears appears to be universal in Oriental Europe; frequently, through Bulgaria and Roumelia, I have noticed people, both old and young, gnawing away at a cucumber with the greatest relish, eating it rind and all, without any condiments whatever. All through Roumelia the gradual decay of the Crescent and the corresponding elevation of the Cross is everywhere evident; the Christian element is now predominant, and the Turkish authorities play but an unimportant part in the government of internal affairs. Naturally enough, it does not suit the Mussulman to live among people whom his religion and time- honored custom have taught him to regard as inferiors, the consequence being that there has of late years been a general folding of tents and silently stealing away; and to-day it is no very infrequent occurrence for a whole Mussulman village to pack up, bag and baggage, and move bodily to Asia Minor, where the Sultan gives them tracts of land for settlement. Between the Christian and Mussulman populations of these countries there is naturally a certain amount of the "six of one and half a dozen of the other " principle, and in certain regions, where the Mussulmans have dwindled to a small minority, the Christians are ever prone to bestow upon them the same treatment that the Turks formerly gave them. There appears to be little conception of what we consider "good manners" among Oriental villagers, and while I am writing out a few notes this evening, the people crowding the mehana because of my strange unaccustomed presence stand around watching every motion of my pen, jostling carelessly against the bench, and commenting on things concerning me and the bicycle with a garrulousness that makes it almost impossible for me to write. The women of these Eoumelian villages bang their hair, and wear it in two long braids, or plaited into a streaming white head-dress of some gauzy material, behind; huge silver clasps, artistically engraved, that are probably heirlooms, fasten a belt around their waists; and as they walk along barefooted, strings of beads, bangles, and necklaces of silver coins make an incessant jingling. The sky clears and the moon shines forth resplendently ere I stretch myself on my rude couch to-night, and the sun rising bright next morning would seem to indicate fair weather at last; an indication that proves illusory, however, before the day is over. At Khaskhor, some fifteen kilometres from Cauheme, I am able to obtain my favorite breakfast of bread, milk, and fruit, and while I am in-doors eating it a stalwart Turk considerately mounts guard over the bicycle, resolutely keeping the meddlesome crowd at bay until I get through eating. The roads this morning, though hilly, are fairly smooth, and about eleven o'clock I reach Hermouli, the last town in Roumelia, where, besides being required to produce my passport, I am requested by a pompous lieutenant of gendarmerie to produce my permit for carrying a revolver, the first time I have been thus molested in Europe. Upon explaining, as best I can, that I have no such permit, and that for a voyageur permission is not necessary (something about which I am in no way so certain, however, as my words would seem to indicate), I am politely disarmed, and conducted to a guard-room in the police-barracks, and for some twenty minutes am favored with the exclusive society of a uniformed guard and the unhappy reflections of a probable heavy fine, if not imprisonment. I am inclined to think afterward that in arresting and detaining me the officer was simply showing off his authority a little to his fellow-Hermoulites, clustered about me and the bicycle, for, at the expiration of half an hour, my revolver and passport are handed back to me, and without further inquiries or explanations I am allowed to depart in peace. As though in wilful aggravation of the case, a village of gypsies have their tents pitched and their donkeys grazing in the last Mohammedan cemetery I see ere passing over the Roumelian border into Turkey proper, where, at the very first village, the general aspect of religious affairs changes, as though its proximity to the border should render rigid distinctions desirable. Instead of the crumbling walls and tottering minarets, a group of closely veiled women are observed praying outside a well-preserved mosque, and praying sincerely too, since not even my ncver-before-seen presence and the attention-commanding bicycle are sufficient to win their attention for a moment from their devotions, albeit those I meet on the road peer curiously enough from between the folds of their muslin yashmaks. I am worrying along to-day in the face of a most discouraging head-wind, and the roads, though mostly ridable, are none of the best. For much of the way there is a macadamized road that, in the palmy days of the Ottoman dominion, was doubtless a splendid highway, but now weeds and thistles, evidences of decaying traffic and of the proximity of the Eoumelian railway, are growing in the centre, and holes and impassable places make cycling a necessarily wide-awake performance. Mustapha Pasha is the first Turkish town of any importance I come to, and here again my much-required "passaporte" has to be exhibited; but the police-officers of Mustapha Pasha seem to be exceptionally intelligent and quite agreeable fellows. My revolver is in plain view, in its accustomed place; but they pay no sort of attention to it, neither do they ask me a whole rigmarole of questions about my linguistic accomplishments, whither I am going, whence I came, etc., but simply glance at my passport, as though its examination were a matter of small consequence anyhow, shake hands, and smilingly request me to let them see me ride. It begins to rain soon after I leave Mustapha Pasha, forcing me to take refuge in a convenient culvert beneath the road. I have been under this shelter but a few minutes when I am favored with the company of three swarthy Turks, who, riding toward Mustapha Pasha on horseback, have sought the same shelter. These people straightway express their astonishment at finding rne and the bicycle under the culvert, by first commenting among themselves; then they turn a battery of Turkish interrogations upon my devoted head, nearly driving me out of my senses ere I escape. They are, of course, quite unintelligible to me; for if one of them asks a question a shrug of the shoulders only causes him to repeat the same over and over again, each time a little louder and a little more deliberate. Sometimes they are all three propounding questions and emphasizing them at the same time, until I begin to think that there is a plot to talk me to death and confiscate whatever valuables I have about me. They all three have long knives in their waistbands, and, instead of pointing out the mechanism of the bicycle to each other with the finger, like civilized people, they use these long, wicked-looking knives for the purpose. They maybe a coterie of heavy villains for anything I know to the contrary, or am able to judge from their general appearance, and in view of the apparent disadvantage of one against three in such cramped quarters, I avoid their immediate society as much as possible by edging off to one end of the culvert. They are probably honest enough, but as their stock of interrogations seems inexhaustible, at the end of half an hour I conclude to face the elements and take my chances of finding some other shelter farther ahead rather than endure their vociferous onslaughts any longer. They all three come out to see what is going to happen, and I am not ashamed to admit that I stand tinkering around the bicycle in the pelting rain longer than is necessary before mounting, in order to keep them out in it and get them wet through, if possible, in revenge for having practically ousted me from the culvert, and since I have a water-proof, and they have nothing of the sort, I partially succeed in my plans. The road is the same ancient and neglected macadam, but between Mustapha Pasha and Adrianople they either make some pretence of keeping it in repair, or else the traffic is sufficient to keep down the weeds, and I am able to mount and ride in spite of the downpour. After riding about two miles I come to another culvert, in which I deem it advisable to take shelter. Here, also, I find myself honored with company, but this time it is a lone cow-herder, who is either too dull and stupid to do anything but stare alternately at me and the bicycle, or else is deaf and dumb, and my recent experience makes me cautious about tempting him to use his tongue. I am forced by the rain to remain cramped up in this last narrow culvert until nearly dark, and then trundle along through an area of stones and water-holes toward Adrianople, which city lies I know not how far to the southeast. While trundling along through the darkness, in the hope of reaching a village or mehana, I observe a rocket shoot skyward in the distance ahead, and surmise that it indicates the whereabout of Adrianople; but it is plainly many a weary mile ahead; the road cannot be ridden by the uncertain light of a cloud-veiled moon, and I have been forging ahead, over rough ways leading through an undulating country, and most of the day against a strong head-wind, since early dawn. By ten o'clock I happily arrive at a section of country that has not been favored by the afternoon rain, and, no mehana making its appearance, I conclude to sup off the cold, cheerless memories of the black bread and half-ripe pears eaten for dinner at a small village, and crawl beneath some wild prune-bushes for the night. A few miles wheeling over very fair roads, next morning, brings me into Adrianople, where, at the Hotel Constantinople, I obtain an excellent breakfast of roast lamb, this being the only well-cooked piece of meat I have eaten since leaving Nisch. It has rained every day without exception since it delayed me over Sunday at Bela Palanka, and this morning it begins while I am eating breakfast, and continues a drenching downpour for over an hour. While waiting to see what the weather is coming to, I wander around the crooked and mystifying streets, watching the animated scenes about the bazaars, and try my best to pick up some knowledge of the value of the different coins, for I have had to deal with a bewildering mixture of late, and once again there is a complete change. Medjidis, cheriks, piastres, and paras now take the place of Serb francs, Bulgar francs, and a bewildering list of nickel and copper pieces, down to one that I should think would scarcely purchase a wooden toothpick. The first named is a large silver coin worth four and a half francs; the cherik might be called a quarter dollar; while piastres and paras are tokens, the former about five cents and the latter requiring about nine to make one cent. There are no copper coins in Turkey proper, the smaller coins being what is called "metallic money," a composition of copper and silver, varying in value from a five-para piece to five piastres. The Adrianopolitans, drawn to the hotel by the magnetism of the bicycle, are bound to see me ride whether or no, and in their quite natural ignorance of its character, they request me to perform in the small, roughly-paved court-yard of the hotel, and all sorts of impossible places. I shake my head in disapproval and explanation of the impracticability of granting their request, but unfortunately Adrianople is within the circle where a shake of the head is understood to mean " yes, certainly;" and the happy crowd range around a ridiculously small space, and smiling approvingly at what they consider my willingness to oblige, motion for me to come ahead. An explanation seems really out of the question after this, and I conclude that the quickest and simplest way of satisfying everybody is to demonstrate my willingness by mounting and wabbling along, if only for a few paces, which I accordingly do beneath a hack shed, at the imminent risk of knocking my brains out against beams and rafters. At eleven o'clock I decide to make a start, I and the bicycle being the focus of attraction for a most undignified mob as I trundle through the muddy streets toward the suburbs. Arriving at a street where it is possible to mount and ride for a short distance, I do this in the hope of satisfying the curiosity of the crowd, and being permitted to leave the city in comparative peace and privacy; but the hope proves a vain one, for only the respectable portion of the crowd disperses, leaving me, solitary and alone, among a howling mob of the rag, tag, and bobtail of Adrianople, who follow noisily along, vociferously yelling for me to "bin! bin!" (mount, mount), and "chu! chu!" (ride, ride) along the really unridable streets. This is the worst crowd I have encountered on the entire journey across two continents, and, arriving at a street where the prospect ahead looks comparatively promising, I mount, and wheel forward with a view of outdistancing them if possible; but a ride of over a hundred yards without dismounting would be an exceptional performance in Adrianople after a rain, and I soon find that I have made a mistake in attempting it, for, as I mount, the mob grows fairly wild and riotous with excitement, flinging their red fezes at the wheels, rushing up behind and giving the bicycle smart pushes forward, in their eagerness to see it go faster, and more than one stone comes bounding along the street, wantonly flung by some young savage unable to contain himself. I quickly decide upon allaying the excitement by dismounting, and trundling until the mobs gets tired of following, whatever the distance. This movement scarcely meets with the approval of the unruly crowd, however, and several come forward and exhibit ten-para pieces as an inducement for me to ride again, while overgrown gamins swarm around me, and, straddling the middle and index fingers of their right hands over their left, to illustrate and emphasize their meaning, they clamorously cry, "bin! bin! chu! chu! monsieur! chu! chu!" as well as much other persuasive talk, which, if one could understand, would probably be found to mean in substance, that, although it is the time-honored custom and privilege of Adrianople mobs to fling stones and similar compliments at such unbelievers from the outer world as come among them in a conspicuous manner, they will considerately forego their privileges this time, if I will only "bin! bin!" and "chu! chu!" The aspect of harmless mischievousness that would characterize a crowd of Occidental youths on a similar occasion is entirely wanting here, their faces wearing the determined expression of people in dead earnest about grasping the only opportunity of a lifetime. Respectable Turks stand on the sidewalk and eye the bicycle curiously, but they regard my evident annoyance at being followed by a mob like this with supreme indifference, as does also a passing gendarme, whom I halt, and motion my disapproval of the proceedings. Like the civilians, he pays no sort of attention, but fixes a curious stare on the bicycle, and asks something, the import of which will to me forever remain a mystery. Once well out of the city the road is quite good for several kilometres, and I am favored with a unanimous outburst of approval from a rough crowd at a suburban mehana, because of outdistancing a horseman who rides out from among them to overtake me. At Adrianople my road leaves the Maritza Valley and leads across the undulating uplands of the Adrianople Plains, hilly, and for most of the way of inferior surface. Reaching the village of Hafsa, soon after noon, I am fairly taken possession of by a crowd of turbaned and fezed Hafsaites and soldiers wearing the coarse blue uniform of the Turkish regulars, and given not one moment's escape from "bin! bin!" until I consent to parade my modest capabilities with the wheel by going back and forth along a ridable section of the main street. The population is delighted. Solid old Turks pat me on the back approvingly, and the proprietor of the mehana fairly hauls me and the bicycle into his establishment. This person is quite befuddled with mastic, which makes him inclined to be tyrannical and officious; and several times within the hour, while I wait for the never-failing thunder-shower to subside, he peremptorily dismisses both civilians and military out of the mehana yard; but the crowd always filters back again in less than two minutes. Once, while eating dinner, I look out of the window and find the bicycle has disappeared. Hurrying out, I meet the boozy proprietor and another individual making their way with alarming unsteadiness up a steep stairway, carrying the machine between them to an up-stairs room, where the people will have no possible chance of seeing it. Two minutes afterward his same whimsical and capricious disposition impels him to politely remove the eatables from before me, and with the manners of a showman, he gently leads me away from the table, and requests me to ride again for the benefit of the very crowd he had, but two minutes since, arbitrarily denied the privilege of even looking at the bicycle. Nothing would be more natural than to refuse to ride under these circumstances; but the crowd looks so gratified at the proprietor's sudden and unaccountable change of front, that I deem it advisable, in the interest of being permitted to finish my meal in peace, to take another short spin; moreover, it is always best to swallow such little annoyances in good part. My route to-day is a continuation of the abandoned macadam road, the weed-covered stones of which I have frequently found acceptable in tiding me over places where the ordinary dirt road was deep with mud. In spite of its long-neglected condition, occasional ridable stretches are encountered, but every bridge and culvert has been destroyed, and an honest shepherd, not far from Hafsa, who from a neighboring knoll observes me wheeling down a long declivity toward one of these uncovered waterways, nearly shouts himself hoarse, and gesticulates most frantically in an effort to attract my attention to the danger ahead. Soon after this I am the innocent cause of two small pack-mules, heavily laden with merchandise, attempting to bolt from their driver, who is walking behind. One of them actually succeeds in escaping, and, although his pack is too heavy to admit of running at any speed, he goes awkwardly jogging across the rolling plains, as though uncertain in his own mind of whether he is acting sensibly or not; but his companion in pack-slavery is less fortunate, since he tumbles into a gully, bringing up flat on his broad and top-heavy pack with his legs frantically pawing the air. Stopping to assist the driver in getting the collapsed mule on his feet again, this individual demands damages for the accident; so I judge, at least, from the frequency of the word "medjedie," as he angrily, yet ruefully, points to the mud-begrimed pack and unhappy, yet withal laughter-provoking, attitude of the mule; but I utterly fail to see any reasonable connection between the uncalled-for scariness of his mules and the contents of my pocket-book, especially since I was riding along the Sultan's ancient and deserted macadam, while he and his mules were patronizing a separate and distinct dirt-road alongside. As he seems far more concerned about obtaining a money satisfaction from me than the rescue of the mule from his topsy-turvy position, I feel perfectly justified, after several times indicating my willingness to assist him, in leaving him and proceeding on my way. The Adrianople plains are a dreary expanse of undulating grazing-land, traversed by small sloughs and their adjacent cultivated areas. Along this route it is without trees, and the villages one comes to at intervals of eight or ten miles are shapeless clusters of mud, straw-thatched huts, out of the midst of which, perchance, rises the tapering minaret of a small mosque, this minaret being, of course, the first indication of a village in the distance. Between Adrianople and Eski Baba, the town I reach for the night, are three villages, in one of which I approach a Turkish private house for a drink of water, and surprise the women with faces unveiled. Upon seeing my countenance peering in the doorway they one and all give utterance to little screams of dismay, and dart like frightened fawns into an adjoining room. When the men appear, to see what is up, they show no signs of resentment at my abrupt intrusion, but one of them follows the women into the room, and loud, angry words seem to indicate that they are being soundly berated for allowing themselves to be thus caught. This does not prevent the women from reappearing the next minute, however, with their faces veiled behind the orthodox yashmak, and through its one permissible opening satisfying their feminine curiosity by critically surveying me and my strange vehicle. Four men follow me on horseback out of this village, presumably to see what use I make of the machine; at least I cannot otherwise account for the honor of their unpleasantly close attentions - close, inasmuch as they keep their horses' noses almost against my back, in spite of sundry subterfuges to shake them off. When I stop they do likewise, and when I start again they deliberately follow, altogether too near to be comfortable. They are, all four, rough-looking peasants, and their object is quite unaccountable, unless they are doing it for "pure cussedness," or perhaps with some vague idea of provoking me into doing something that would offer them the excuse of attacking and robbing me. The road is sufficiently lonely to invite some such attention. If they are only following me to see what I do with the bicycle, they return but little enlightened, since they see nothing but trundling and an occasional scraping off of mud. At the end of about two miles, whatever their object, they give it up. Several showers occur during the afternoon, and the distance travelled has been short and unsatisfactory, when just before dark I arrive at Eski Baba, where I am agreeably surprised to find a mehana, the proprietor of which is a reasonably mannered individual. Since getting into Turkey proper, reasonably mannered people have seemed wonderfully scarce, the majority seeming to be most boisterous and headstrong. Next to the bicycle the Turks of these interior villages seem to exercise their minds the most concerning whether I have a passport; as I enter Eski Baba; a gendarme standing at the police-barrack gates shouts after me to halt and produce "passaporte." Exhibiting my passport at almost every village is getting monotonous, and, as I am going to remain here at least overnight, I ignore the gendarme's challenge and wheel on to the mehana. Two gendarmes are soon on the spot, inquiring if I have a "passaporte;" but, upon learning that I am going no farther to-day, they do not take the trouble to examine it, the average Turkish official religiously believing in never doing anything to-day that can be put off till to-morrow. The natives of a Turkish interior village are not over-intimate with newspapers, and are in consequence profoundly ignorant, having little conception of anything, save what they have been familiar with and surrounded by all their lives, and the appearance of the bicycle is indeed a strange visitation, something entirely beyond their comprehension. The mehana is crowded by a wildly gesticulating and loudly commenting and arguing crowd of Turks and Christians all the evening. Although there seems to be quite a large proportion of native unbelievers in Eski Baba there is not a single female visible on the streets this evening; and from observations next day I judge it to be a conservative Mussulman village, where the Turkish women, besides keeping themselves veiled with orthodox strictness, seldom go abroad, and the women who are not Mohammedan, imbibing something of the retiring spirit of the dominant race, also keep themselves well in the background. A round score of dogs, great and small, and in all possible conditions of miserableness, congregate in the main street of Eski Baba at eventide, waiting with hungry-eyed expectancy for any morsel of food or offal that may peradventure find its way within their reach. The Turks, to their credit be it said, never abuse dogs; but every male "Christian" in Eski Baba seems to consider himself in duty bound to kick or throw a stone at one, and scarcely a minute passes during the whole evening without the yelp of some unfortunate cur. These people seem to enjoy a dog's sufferings; and one soulless peasant, who in the course of the evening kicks a half-starved cur so savagely that the poor animal goes into a fit, and, after staggering and rolling all over the street, falls down as though really dead, is the hero of admiring comments from the crowd, who watch the creature's sufferings with delight. Seeing who can get the most telling kicks at the dogs seems to be the regular evening's pastime among the male population of Eski Baba unbelievers, and everybody seems interested and delighted when some unfortunate animal comes in for an unusually severe visitation. A rush mat on the floor of the stable is my bed to-night, with a dozen unlikely looking natives, to avoid the close companionship of whom I take up my position in dangerous proximity to a donkey's hind legs, and not six feet from where the same animal's progeny is stretched out with all the abandon of extreme youth. Precious little sleep is obtained, for fleas innumerable take liberties with my person. A flourishing colony of swallows inhabiting the roof keeps up an incessant twittering, and toward daylight two muezzins, one on the minaret of each of the two mosques near by, begin calling the faithful to prayer, and howling "Allah. Allah!" with the voices of men bent on conscientiously doing their duty by making themselves heard by every Mussulman for at least a mile around, robbing me of even the short hour of repose that usually follows a sleepless night. It is raining heavily again on Sunday morning - in fact, the last week has been about the rainiest that I ever saw outside of England - and considering the state of the roads south of Eski Baba, the prospects look favorable for a Sunday's experience in an interior Turkish village. Men are solemnly squatting around the benches of the mehana, smoking nargilehs and sipping tiny cups of thick black coffee, and they look on in wonder while I devour a substantial breakfast; but whether it is the novelty of seeing a 'cycler feed, or the novelty of seeing anybody eat as I am doing, thus early in the morning, I am unable to say; for no one else seems to partake of much solid food until about noontide. All the morning long, people swarming around are importuning me with, " Bin, bin, bin, monsieur." The bicycle is locked up in a rear chamber, and thrice I accommodatingly fetch it out and endeavor to appease their curiosity by riding along a hundred-yard stretch of smooth road in the rear of the mehana; but their importunities never for a moment cease. Finally the annoyance becomes so unbearable that the proprietor takes pity on my harassed head, and, after talking quite angrily to the crowd, locks me up in the same room with the bicycle. Iron bars guard the rear windows of the houses at Eski Baba, and ere I am fairly stretched out on my mat several swarthy faces appear at the bars, and several voices simultaneously join in the dread chorus of, " Bin, bin, bin, monsieur! bin, bin." compelling me to close, in the middle of a hot day-the rain having ceased about ten o'clock-the one small avenue of ventilation in the stuffy little room. A moment's privacy is entirely out of the question, for, even with the window closed, faces are constantly peering in, eager to catch even the smallest glimpse of either me or the bicycle. Fate is also against me to-day, plainly enough, for ere I have been imprisoned in the room an hour the door is unlocked to admit the mulazim (lieutenant of gendarmes), and two of his subordinates, with long cavalry swords dangling about their legs, after the manner of the Turkish police. In addition to puzzling their sluggish brains about my passport, my strange means of locomotion, and my affairs generally, they have now, it seems, exercised their minds up to the point that they ought to interfere in the matter of my revolver. But first of all they want to see my wonderful performance of riding a thing that cannot stand alone. After I have favored the gendarmes and the assembled crowd by riding once again, they return the compliment by tenderly escorting me down to police headquarters, where, after spending an hour or so in examining my passport, they place that document and my revolver in their strong box, and lackadaisically wave me adieu. Upon returning to the mehana, I find a corpulent pasha and a number of particularly influential Turks awaiting my reappearance, with the same diabolical object of asking me to "bin! bin!" Soon afterward come the two Mohammedan priests, with the same request; and certainly not less than half a dozen times during the afternoon do I bring out the bicycle and ride, in deference to the insatiable curiosity of the sure enough "unspeakable" Turk; and every separate time my audience consists not only of the people personally making the request, but of the whole gesticulating male population. The proprietor of the mehana kindly takes upon himself the office of apprising me when my visitors are people of importance, by going through the pantomime of swelling his features and form up to a size corresponding in proportion relative to their importance, the process of inflation in the case of the pasha being quite a wonderful performance for a man who is not a professional contortionist. Once during the afternoon I attempt to write, but I might as well attempt to fly, for the mehana is crowded with people who plainly have not the slightest conception of the proprieties. Finally a fez is wantonly flung, by an extra-enterprising youth, at my ink-bottle, knocking it over, and but for its being a handy contrivance, out of which the ink will not spill, it would have made a mess of my notes. Seeing the uselessness of trying to write, I meander forth, and into the leading mosque, and without removing my shoes, tread its sacred floor for several minutes, and stand listening to several devout Mussulmans reciting the Koran aloud, for, be it known, the great fast of Ramadan has begun, and fasting and prayer is now the faithful Mussulman's daily lot for thirty days, his religion forbidding him either eating or drinking from early morn till close - of day. After looking about the interior, I ascend the steep spiral stairway up to the minaret balcony whence the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer five times a day. As I pop my head out through the little opening leading to the balcony, I am slightly taken aback by finding that small footway already occupied by the muezzin, and it is a fair question as to whether the muezzin's astonishment at seeing my white helmet appear through the opening is greater, or mine at finding him already in possession. However, I brazen it out by joining him, and he, like a sensible man, goes about his business just the same as if nobody were about. The people down in the streets look curiously up and call one another's attention to the unaccustomed sight of a white-helmeted 'cycler and a muezzin upon the minaret together; but the fact that I am not interfered with in any way goes far to prove that the Mussulman fanaticism, that we have all heard and read about so often, has wellnigh flickered out in European Turkey; moreover, I think the Eski Babans would allow me to do anything, in order to place me under obligations to "bin! bin!" whenever they ask me. At nine o'clock I begin to grow a trifle uneasy about the fate of my passport and revolver, and, proceeding to the police-barracks, formally demand their return. Nothing has apparently been done concerning either one or the other since they were taken from me, for the mulazim, who is lounging on a divan smoking cigarettes, produces them from the same receptacle he consigned them to this afternoon, and lays them before him, clearly as mystified and perplexed as ever about what he ought to do. I explain to him that I wish to depart in the morning, and gendarmes are despatched to summon several leading Eski Babans for consultation, in the hope that some of them, or all of them put together, might perchance arrive at a satisfactory conclusion concerning me. The great trouble appears to be that, while I got the passport vised at Sofia and Philippopolis, I overlooked Adrianople, and the Eski Baba officials, being in the vilayet of the latter city, are naturally puzzled to account for this omission; and, from what I can gather of their conversation, some are advocating sending me back to Adrianople, a suggestion that I straightway announce my disapproval of by again and again calling their attention to the vise of the Turkish consul-general in London, and giving them to understand, with much emphasis, that this vise answers, for every part of Turkey, including the vilayet of Adrianople. The question then arises as to whether that has anything to do with my carrying a revolver; to which I candidly reply that it has not, at the same time pointing out that I have just come through Servia and Bulgaria (countries in which the Turks consider it quite necessary to go armed, though in fact there is quite as much, if not more, necessity for arms in Turkey), and that I have come through both Mustapha Pasha and Adrianople without being molested on account of the revolver; all of which only seems to mystify them the more, and make them more puzzled than ever about what to do. Finally a brilliant idea occurs to one of them, being nothing less than to shift the weight ot the dreadful responsibility upon the authoritative shoulders of a visiting pasha, an important personage who arrived in Eski Baba by carriage about two hours ago, and whose arrival I remember caused quite a flurry of excitement among the natives. The pasha is found surrounded by a number of bearded Turks, seated cross-legged on a carpet in the open air, smoking nargilehs and cigarettes, and sipping coffee. This pasha is fatter and more unwieldy, if possible, than the one for whose edification I rode the bicycle this afternoon; noticing which, all hopes of being created a pasha upon my arrival at Constantinople naturally vanish, for evidently one of the chief qualifications for a pashalic is obesity, a distinction to which continuous 'cycling, in hot weather is hardly conducive. The pasha seems a good-natured person, after the manner of fat people generally, and straightway bids me be seated on the carpet, and orders coffee and cigarettes to be placed at my disposal while he examines my case. In imitation of those around me I make an effort to sit cross-legged on the mat; but the position is so uncomfortable that I am quickly compelled to change it, and I fancy detecting a merry twinkle in the eye of more than one silent observer at my inability to adapt my posture to the custom of the country. I scarcely think the pasha knows anything more about what sort of a looking document an English passport ought to be, than does the mulazim and the leading citizens of Eski Baba; but he goes through the farce of critically examining the vise of the Turkish consul-general in London, while another Turk holds his lighted cigarette close to it, and blows from it a feeble glimmer of light. Plainly the pasha cannot make anything more out of it than the others, for many a Turkish pasha is unable to sign his own name intelligibly, using a seal instead; but, probably with a view of favorably impressing those around him, he asks me first if I am an Englishman, and then if I am "a baron," doubtless thinking that an English baron is a person occupying a somewhat similar position in English society to that of a pasha in Turkish: viz., a really despotic sway over the people of his district; for, although there are law and lawyers in Turkey to-day, the pasha, especially in country districts, is still an all-powerful person, practically doing as he pleases. To the first question I return an affirmative answer; the latter I pretend not to comprehend; but I cannot help smiling at the question and the manner in which it is put - seeing which the pasha and his friends smile in response, and look knowingly at each other, as though thinking, " Ah! he is a baron, but don't intend to let us know it." Whether this self- arrived decision influences things in my favor I hardly know, but anyhow he tosses me my passport, and orders the mulazim to return my revolver; and as I mentally remark the rather jolly expression of the pasha's face, I am inclined to think that, instead of treating the matter with the ridiculous importance attached to it by the mulazim and the other people, he regards the whole affair in the light of a few minutes' acceptable diversion. The pasha arrived too late this evening at Eski Baba to see the bicycle: "Will I allow a gendarme to go to the mehana and bring it for his inspection?" "I will go and fetch it myself," I explain; and in ten minutes the fat pasha and his friends are examining the perfect mechanism of an American bicycle by the light of an American kerosene lamp, which has been provided in the meantime. Some of the on-lookers, who have seen me ride to-day, suggested to the pasha that I "bin! bin!" and the pasha smiles approvingly at the suggestion; but by pantomime I explain to him the impossibility of riding, owing to the nature of the ground and the darkness, and I am really quite surprised at the readiness with which he comprehends and accepts the situation. The pasha is very likely possessed of more intelligence than I have been giving him credit for; anyhow he has in ten minutes proved himself equal to the situation, which the mulazim and several prominent Eski Babans have puzzled their collective brains over for an hour in vain, and, after he has inspected the bicycle, and resumed his cross-legged position on the carpet, I doff my helmet to him and those about him, and return to the mehana, well satisfied with the turn affairs have taken. CHAPTER IX. THROUGH EUROPEAN TURKEY. ON Monday morning I am again awakened by the muezzin calling the Mussulmans to their early morning devotions, and, arising from my mat at five o'clock, I mount and speed away southward from Eski Baba, Not less than a hundred people have collected to see the wonderful performance again. All pretence of road-making seems to have been abandoned; or, what is more probable, has never been seriously attempted, the visible roadways from village to village being mere ox-wagon and pack-donkey tracks, crossing the wheat-fields and uncultivated tracts in any direction. The soil is a loose, black loam, which the rain converts into mud, through which I have to trundle, wooden scraper in hand; and I not infrequently have to carry the bicycle through the worst places. The morning is sultry, requiring good roads and a breeze-creating pace for agreeable going. Harvesting and threshing are going forward briskly, but the busy hum of the self-binder and the threshing-machine is not heard; the reaping is done with rude hooks, and the threshing by dragging round and round, with horses or oxen, sleigh-runner shaped, broad boards, roughed with flints or iron points, making the surface resemble a huge rasp. Large gangs of rough-looking Armenians, Arabs, and Africans are harvesting the broad acres of land-owning pashas, the gangs sometimes counting not less than fifty men. Several donkeys are always observed picketed near them, taken, wherever they go, for the purpose of carrying provisions and water. Whenever I happen anywhere near one of these gangs they all come charging across the field, reaping-hooks in hand, racing with each other and good-naturedly howling defiance to competitors. A band of Zulus charging down on a fellow, and brandishing their assegais, could scarcely present a more ferocious front. Many of them wear no covering of any kind on the upper part of the body, no hat, no foot-gear, nothing but a pair of loose, baggy trousers, while the tidiest man among them would be immediately arrested on general principles in either England or America. Rough though they are, they appear, for the most part, to be good-natured fellows, and although they sometimes emphasize their importunities of "bin! bin!" by flourishing their reaping-hooks threateningly over my head, and one gang actually confiscates the bicycle, which they lay up on a shock of wheat, and with much flourishing of reaping-hooks as they return to their labors, warn me not to take it away, these are simply good-natured pranks, such as large gangs of laborers are wont to occasionally indulge in the world over. Streams have to be forded to-day for the first time in Europe, several small creeks during the afternoon; and near sundown I find my pathway into a village where I propose stopping for the night, obstructed by a creek swollen bank-full by a heavy thunder-shower in the hills. A couple of lads on the opposite bank volunteer much information concerning the depth of the creek at different points; no doubt their evident mystification at not being understood is equalled only by the amazement at my answers. Four peasants come down to the creek, and one of them kindly wades in and shows that it is only waist deep. Without more ado I ford it, with the bicycle on my shoulder, and straight-way seek the accommodation of the village mehana. This village is a miserable little cluster of mud hovels, and the best the mehana affords is the coarsest of black-bread and a small salted fish, about the size of a sardine, which the natives devour without any pretence of cooking, but which are worse than nothing for me, since the farther they are away the better I am suited. Sticking a flat loaf of black-bread and a dozen of these tiny shapes of salted nothing in his broad waistband, the Turkish peasant sallies forth contentedly to toil. I have accomplished the wonderful distance of forty kilometres to-day, at which I am really quite surprised, considering everything. The usual daily weather programme has been faithfully carried out - a heavy mist at morning, that has prevented any drying up of roads during the night, three hours of oppressive heat - from nine till twelve - during which myraids of ravenous flies squabble for the honor of drawing your blood, and then, when the mud begins to dry out sufficient to justify my dispensing with the wooden scraper, thunder-showers begin to bestow their unappreciated favor upon the roads, making them well-nigh impassable again. The following morning the climax of vexation is reached when, after wading through the mud for two hours, I discover that I have been dragging, carrying, and trundling my laborious way along in the wrong direction for Tchorlu, which is not over thirty-five kilometres from my starting-point, but it takes me till four o'clock to reach there. A hundred miles on French or English roads would not be so fatiguing, and I wisely take advantage of being in a town where comparatively decent accommodations are obtainable to make up, so far as possible, for this morning's breakfast of black bread and coffee, and my noontide meal of cold, cheerless reflections on the same. The same programme of "bin! bin." from importuning crowds, and police inquisitiveness concerning my "passporte" are endured and survived; but I spread myself upon rny mat to-night thoroughly convinced that a month's cycling among the Turks would worry most people into premature graves. I am now approaching pretty close to the Sea of Marmora, and next morning I am agreeably surprised to find sandy roads, which the rains have rather improved than otherwise; and although much is unridably heavy, it is immeasurably superior to yesterday's mud. I pass the country residence of a wealthy pasha, and see the ladies of his harem seated in the meadow hard by, enjoying the fresh morning air. They form a circle, facing inward, and the swarthy eunuch in charge stands keeping watch at a respectful distance. I carry a pocketful of bread with me this morning, and about nine o'clock, upon coming to a ruined mosque and a few deserted buildings, I approach one at which signs of occupation are visible, for some water. This place is simply a deserted Mussulman village, from which the inhabitants probably decamped in a body during the last Russo-Turkish war; the mosque is in a tumble-down condition, the few dwelling-houses remaining are in the last stages of dilapidation, and the one I call at is temporarily occupied by some shepherds, two of whom are regaling themselves with food of some kind out of an earthenware vessel. Obtaining the water, I sit down on some projecting boards to eat my frugal lunch, fully conscious of being an object of much furtive speculation on the part of the two occupants of the deserted house; which, however, fails to strike me as anything extraordinary, since these attentions have long since become an ordinary every-day affair. Not even the sulky and rather hang-dog expression of the men, which failed not to escape my observation at my first approach, awakened any shadow of suspicion in my mind of their being possibly dangerous characters, although the appearance of the place itself is really sufficient to make one hesitate about venturing near; and upon sober after-thought I am fully satisfied that this is a resort of a certain class of disreputable characters, half shepherds, half brigands, who are only kept from turning full-fledged freebooters by a wholesome fear of retributive justice. While I am discussing my bread and water one of these worthies saunters with assumed carelessness up behind me and makes a grab for my revolver, the butt of which he sees protruding from the holster. Although I am not exactly anticipating this movement, travelling alone among strange people makes one's faculties of self-preservation almost mechanically on the alert, and my hand reaches the revolver before his does. Springing up, I turn round and confront him and his companion, who is standing in the doorway. A full exposition of their character is plainly stamped on their faces, and for a moment I am almost tempted to use the revolver on them. Whether they become afraid of this or whether they have urgent business of some nature will never be known to me, but they both disappear inside the door; and, in view of my uncertainty of their future intentions, I consider it advisable to meander on toward the coast. Ere I get beyond the waste lands adjoining this village I encounter two more of these shepherds, in charge of a small flock; they are watering their sheep; and as I go over to the spring, ostensibly to obtain a drink, but really to have a look at them, they both sneak off at my approach, like criminals avoiding one whom they suspect of being a detective. Take it all in all, I am satisfied that this neighborhood is a place that I have been fortunate in coming through in broad daylight; by moonlight it might have furnished a far more interesting item than the above. An hour after, I am gratified at obtaining my first glimpse of the Sea of Marmora off to the right, and in another hour I am disporting in the warm clear surf, a luxury that has not been within my reach since leaving Dieppe, and which is a thrice welcome privilege in this land, where the usual ablutions at mehanas consist of pouring water on the hands from a tin cup. The beach is composed of sand and tiny shells, the warm surf-waves are clear as crystal, and my first plunge in the Marmora, after a two months' cycle tour across a continent, is the most thoroughly enjoyable bath I ever had; notwithstanding, I feel it my duty to keep a loose eye on some shepherds perched on a handy knoll, who look as if half inclined to slip down and examine my clothes. The clothes, with, of course, the revolver and every penny I have with me, are almost as near to them as to me, and always, after ducking my head under water, my first care is to take a precautionary glance in their direction. "Cursed is the mind that nurses suspicion," someone has said; but under the circumstances almost anybody would be suspicious. These shepherds along the Marmora coast favor each other a great deal,: and when a person has been the recipient of undesirable attention from one of them, to look askance at the next one met with comes natural enough. Over the undulating cliffs and along the sandy beach, my road now leads through the pretty little seaport of Cilivria, toward Constantinople, traversing a most lovely stretch of country, where waving wheat-fields hug the beach and fairly coquet with the waves, and the slopes are green and beautiful with vineyards and fig-gardens, while away beyond the glassy shimmer of the sea I fancy I can trace on the southern horizon the inequalities of the hills of Asia Minor. Greek fishing-boats are plying hither and thither; one noble sailing-vessel, with all sails set, is slowly ploughing her way down toward the Dardanelles - probably a grain- ship from the Black Sea - and the smoke from a couple of steamers is discernible in the distance. Flourishing Greek fishing-villages and vine- growing communities occupy this beautiful strip of coast, along which the Greeks seem determined to make the Cross as much more conspicuous than the Crescent as possible, by rearing it on every public building under their control, and not infrequently on private ones as well. The people of these Greek villages seem possessed of sunny dispositions, the absence of all reserve among the women being in striking contrast to the demeanor of the Turkish fair sex. These Greek women chatter after me from the windows as I wheel past, and if I stop a minute in the street they gather around by dozens, smiling pleasantly, and plying me with questions, which, of course, I cannot understand. Some of them are quite handsome, and nearly all have perfect white teeth, a fact that I have ample opportunity of knowing, since they seem to be all smiles. There has been much making of artificial highways leading from Constantinople in this direction in ages past. A road-bed of huge blocks of stone, such as some of the streets of Eastern towns are made impassable with, is traceable for miles, ascending and descending the rolling hills, imperishable witnesses of the wide difference in Eastern and Western ideas of making a road. These are probably the work of the people who occupied this country before the Ottoman Turks, who have also tried their hands at making a macadam, which not infrequently runs close along-side the old block roadway, and sometimes crosses it; and it is matter of some wonderment that the Turks, instead of hauling material for their road from a distance did not save expense by merely breaking the stones of the old causeway and using the same road-bed. Twice to-day I have been required to produce my passport, and when toward evening I pass through a small village, the lone gendarme who is smoking a nargileh in front of the mehana where I halt points to my revolver and demands "passaporte," I wave examination, so to speak, by arguing the case with him, and by the not always unhandy plan of pretending not exactly to comprehend his meaning. "Passaporte! passaporte! gendarmerie, me, " replies the officer, authoritatively, in answer to my explanation of a voyager being privileged to carry a revolver; while several villagers who have gathered around us interpose "Bin! bin! monsieur, bin! bin." I have little notion of yielding up either revolver or passport to this village gendarme, for much of their officiousness is simply the disposition to show off their authority and satisfy their own personal curiosity regarding me, to say nothing of the possibility of coming in for a little backsheesh. The villagers are worrying me to "bin! bin!" at the same time the gendarme is worrying me about the revolver and passport, and knowing from previous experience that the gendarme would never stop me from mounting, being quite as anxious to witness the performance as the villagers, I quickly decide upon killing two birds with one stone, and accordingly mount, and pick my way along the rough street out on to the Constantinople road. The gloaming settles into darkness, and the domes and minarets of Stamboul, which have been visible from the brow of every hill for several miles back, are still eight or ten miles away, and rightly judging that the Ottoman Capital is a most bewildering city for a stranger to penetrate after night, I pillow my head on a sheaf of oats, within sight of the goal toward which I have been pedalling for some 2,500 miles since leaving Liverpool. After surveying with a good deal of satisfaction the twinkling lights that distinguish every minaret in Constantinople each night during the fast of Ramadan, I fall asleep, and enjoy, beneath a sky in which myriads of far-off lamps seem to be twinkling mockingly at the Ramadan illuminations, the finest night's repose I have had for a week. Nothing but the prevailing rains have prevented me from sleeping beneath the starry dome entirely in peference to putting up at the village mehanas. En route into Stamboul, on the following morning, I meet the first train of camels I have yet encountered; in the gray of the morning, with the scenes around so thoroughly Oriental, it seems like an appropriate introduction to Asiatic life. Eight o'clock finds me inside the line of earthworks thrown up by Baker Pasha when the Russians were last knocking at the gates of Constantinople, and ere long I am trundling through the crooked streets of the Turkish Capital toward the bridge which connects Stamboul with Galata and Pera. Even here my ears are assailed with the eternal importunities to "bin! bin!" the officers collecting the bridge- toll even joining in the request. To accommodate them I mount, and ride part way across the bridge, and at 9 o'clock on July 2d, just two calendar months from the start at Liverpool, I am eating my breakfast in a Constantinople restaurant. I am not long in finding English-speaking friends, to whom my journey across the two continents is not unknown, and who kindly direct me to the Chamber of Commerce Hotel, Eue Omar, Galata, a home-like establishment, kept by an English lady. I have been purposing of late to remain in Constantinople during the heated term of July and August, thinking to shape my course southward through Asia Minor and down the Euphrates Valley to Bagdad, and by taking a south-easterly direction as far as circumstances would permit into India, keep pace with the seasons, thus avoiding the necessity of remaining over anywhere for the winter. At the same time I have been reckoning upon meeting Englishmen in Constantinople who, having travelled extensively in Asia, could further enlighten me regarding the best route to India. As I house my bicycle and am shown to my room I take a retrospective glance across Europe and America, and feel almost as if I have arrived at the half-way house of my journey. The distance from Liverpool to Constantinople is fully 2,500 miles, which brings the wheeling distance from San Francisco up to something over 6,000. So far as the, distance wheeled and to be wheeled is concerned, it is not far from half-way; but the real difficulties of the journey are still ahead, although I scarcely anticipate any that time and perseverance will not overcome. My tour across Europe has been, on the whole, a delightful journey, and, although my linguistic shortcomings have made it rather awkward in interior places where no English-speaking person was to be found, I always managed to make myself understood sufficiently to get along. In the interior of Turkey a knowledge of French has been considered indispensable to a traveller: but, although a full knowledge of that language would have made matters much smoother by enabling me to converse with officials and others, I have nevertheless come through all right without it; and there have doubtless been occasions when my ignorance has saved me from a certain amount of bother with the gendarmerie, who, above all things, dislike to exercise their thinking apparatus. A Turkish official is far less indisposed to act than he is to think; his mental faculties work sluggishly, but his actions are governed largely by the impulse of the moment. Someone has said that to see Constantinople is to see the entire East; and judging from the different costumes and peoples one meets on the streets and in the bazaars, the saying is certainly not far amiss. From its geographical situation, as well as from its history, Constantinople naturally takes the front rank among the cosmopolitan cities of the world, and the crowds thronging its busy thoroughfares embrace every condition of man between the kid-gloved exquisite without a wrinkle in his clothes and the representative of half-savage Central Asian States incased in sheepskin garments of rudest pattern. The great fast of Ramadan is under full headway, and all true Mussulmans neither eat nor drink a particle of anything throughout the day until the booming of cannon at eight in the evening announces that the fast is ended, when the scene quickly changes into a general rush for eatables and drink. Between eight and nine o'clock in the evening, during Ramadan, certain streets and bazaars present their liveliest appearance, and from the highest-classed restaurant patronized by bey and pasha to the venders of eatables on the streets, all do a rushing business; even the mjees (water-venders), who with leather water-bottles and a couple of tumblers wait on thirsty pedestrians with pure drinking water, at five paras a glass, dodge about among the crowds, announcing themselves with lusty lung, fully alive to the opportunities of the moment. A few of the coffee-houses provide music of an inferior quality, Constantinople not being a very musical place. A forenoon hour spent in a neighborhood of private residences will repay a stranger for his trouble, since he will during that time see a bewildering assortment of street-venders, from a peregrinating meat-market, with a complete stock dangling from a wooden framework attached to a horse's back, to a grimy individual worrying along beneath a small mountain of charcoal, and each with cries more or less musical. The sidewalks of Constantinople are ridiculously narrow, their only practical use being to keep vehicles from running into the merchandise of the shopkeepers, and to give pedestrians plenty of exercise in jostling each other, and hopping on and off the curbstone to avoid inconveniencing the ladies, who of course are not to be jostled either off the sidewalk or into a sidewalk stock of miscellaneous merchandise. The Constantinople sidewalk is anybody's territory; the merchant encumbers it with his wares and the coffee-houses with chairs for customers to sit on, the rights of pedestrians being altogether ignored; the natural consequence is that these latter fill the streets, and the Constantinople Jehu not only has to keep his wits about him to avoid running over men and dogs, but has to use his lungs continually, shouting at them to clear the way. If a seat is taken in one of the coffee-house chairs, a watchful waiter instantly makes his appearance with a tray containing small chunks of a pasty sweetmeat, known in England as " Turkish Delight," one of which you are expected to take and pay half a piastre for, this being a polite way of obtaining payment for the privilege of using the chair. The coffee is served steaming hot in tiny cups holding about two table-spoonfuls, the price varying from ten paras upward, according to the grade of the establishment. A favorite way of passing the evening is to sit in front of one of these establishments, watching the passing throngs, and smoke a nargileh, this latter requiring a good half-hour to do it properly. I undertook to investigate the amount of enjoyment contained in a nargileh one evening, and before smoking it half through concluded that the taste has to be cultivated. One of the most inconvenient things about Constantinople is the great scarcity of small change. Everybody seems to be short of fractional money save the money-changers-people who are here a genuine necessity, since one often has to patronize them before making the most trifling purchase. Ofttimes the store-keeper will refuse point-blank to sell an article when change is required, solely on account of his inability or unwillingness to supply it. After drinking a cup of coffee, I have had the kahuajee refuse to take any payment rather than change a cherik. Inquiring the reason for this scarcity, I am informed that whenever there is any new output of this money the noble army of money-changers, by a liberal and judicious application of backsheesh, manage to get a corner on the lot and compel the general public, for whose benefit it is ostensibly issued, to obtain what they require through them. However this may be, they manage to control its circulation to a great extent; for while their glass cases display an overflowing plenitude, even the fruit-vender, whose transactions are mainly of ten and twenty paras, is not infrequently compelled to lose a customer because of his inability to make change. There are not less than twenty money-changers' offices within a hundred yards of the Galata end of the principal bridge spanning the Golden Horn, and certainly not a less number on the Stamboul side. The money-changer usually occupies a portion of the frontage of a cigarette and tobacco stand; and on all the business streets one happens at frequent intervals upon these little glass cases full of bowls and heaps of miscellaneous coins, varying in value. Behind sits a business-looking person - usually a Jew - jingling a handful of medjedis, and expectantly eyeing every approaching stranger. The usual percentage charged is, for changing a lira, eighty paras; thirty paras for a medjedie, and ten for a cherik, the percentage on this latter coin being about five per cent. Some idea of the inconvenience to the public of this state of affairs can be better imagined by the American by reflecting that if this state of affairs existed in Boston he would frequently have to walk around the block and give a money-changer five per cent, for changing a dollar before venturing upon the purchase of a dish of baked beans. If one offers a coin of the larger denominations in payment of an article, even in quite imposing establishments, they look as black over it as though you were trying to palm off a counterfeit, and hand back the change with an ungraciousness and an evident reluctance that makes a sensitive person feel as though he has in some way been unwittingly guilty of a mean action. Even the principal streets of Constantinople are but indifferently lighted at night, and, save for the feeble glimmer of kerosene lamps in front of stores and coffee-houses, the by-streets are in darkness. Small parties of Turkish women are encountered picking their way along the streets of Galata in charge of a male attendant, who walks a little way behind, if of the better class, or without the attendant in the case of poorer people, carrying small Japanese lanterns. Sometimes a lantern will go out, or doesn't burn satisfactorily, and the whole party halts in the middle of the, perhaps, crowded thoroughfare, and clusters around until the lantern is radjusted. The Turkish lady walks with a slouchy gait, her shroud-like abbas adding not a little to the ungracefulness. Matters are likewise scarcely to be improved by wearing two pairs of shoes, the large, slipper-like overshoes being required by etiquette to be left on the mat upon entering the house she is visiting; and in the case of a strictly orthodox Mussulman lady - and, doubtless, we may also easily imagine in case of a not over-prepossessing countenance - the yashmak hides all but the eyes. The eyes of many Turkish ladies are large and beautiful, and peep from between the white, gauzy folds of the yashmak with an effect upon the observant Frank not unlike coquettishly ogling from behind a fan. Handsome young Turkish ladies with a leaning toward Western ideas are no doubt coming to understand this, for many are nowadays met on the streets wearing yashmaks that are but a single thickness of transparent gauze that obscures never a feature, at the same time producing the decidedly interesting and taking effect above mentioned. It is readily seen that the wearing of yashmaks must be quite a charitable custom in the case of a lady not blessed with a handsome face, since it enables her to appear in public the equal of her more favored sister in commanding whatever homage is to be derived from that mystery which is said to be woman's greatest charm; and if she has but the one redeeming feature of a beautiful pair of eyes, the advantage is obvious. In street-cars, steamboats, and all public conveyances, board or canvas partitions wall off a small compartment for the exclusive use of ladies, where, hidden from the rude gaze of the Frank, the Turkish lady can remove her yashmak and smoke cigarettes. On Sunday, July 12th, in company with an Englishman in the Turkish artillery service, I pay my first visit to Asian soil, taking a caique across the Bosphorus to Kadikeui, one of the many delightful seaside resorts within easy distance of Constantinople. Many objects of interest are pointed out, as, propelled by a couple of swarthy, half-naked caique- jees, the sharp-prowed caique gallantly rides the blue waves of this loveliest of all pieces of land-environed water. More than once I have noticed that a firm belief in the supernatural has an abiding hold upon the average Turkish mind, having frequently during my usual evening promenade through the Galata streets noted the expression of deep and genuine earnestness upon the countenances of fez-crowned citizens giving respectful audience to Arab fortune-tellers, paying twenty-para pieces for the revelations he is favoring them with, and handing over the coins with the business-like air of people satisfied that they are getting its full equivalent. Consequently I am not much astonished when, rounding Seraglio Point, my companion calls my attention to several large sections of whalebone suspended on the wall facing the water, and tells me that they are placed there by the fishermen, who believe them to be a talisman of no small efficacy in keeping the Bosphorus well supplied with fish, they firmly adhering to the story that once, when the bones were removed, the fish nearly all disappeared. The oars used by the caique-jees are of quite a peculiar shape, the oar-shaft immediately next the hand-hold swells into a bulbous affair for the next eighteen inches, which is at least four times the circumference of the remainder, and the end of the oarblade is for some reason made swallow-tailed. The object of the enlarged portion, which of course comes inside the rowlocks, appears to be the double purpose of balancing the weight of the longer portion outside, and also for preventing the oar at all times from escaping into the water. The rowlock is simply a raw-hide loop, kept well greased, and as, toward the end of every stroke, the caique-jee leans back to his work, the oar slips several inches, causing a considerable loss of power. The day is warm, the broiling sun shines directly down on the bare heads of the caique-jees. and causes the perspiration to roll off their swarthy faces in large beads, but they lay back to their work manfully, although, from early morning until cannon roar at 8 P.M. neither bite nor sup, not even so much water as to moisten the end of their parched tongues, will pass their lips; for, although but poor hard- working caique-jees, they are true Mussulmans. Pointing skyward from the summit of the hill back of Seraglio Point are the four tapering minarets of the world-renowned St. Sophia mosque, and a little farther to the left is the Sultana Achmet mosque, the only mosque in all Mohammedanism with six minarets. Near by is the old Seraglio Palace, or rather what is left of it, built by Mohammed II. in 1467, out of materials from the ancient Byzantine palaces, and in a department of which the sanjiak shereef (holy standard), boorda-y shereef (holy mantle), and other venerated relics of the prophet Mohammed are preserved. To this place, on the 15th of Ramadan, the Sultan and leading dignitaries of the Empire repair to do homage to the holy relics, upon which it would be the highest sacrilege for Christian eyes to gaze. The hem of this holy mantle is reverently kissed by the Sultan and the few leading personages present, after which the spot thus brought in contact with human lips is carefully wiped with an embroidered napkin dipped in a golden basin of water; the water used in this ceremony is then supposed to be of priceless value as a purifier of sin, and is carefully preserved, and, corked up in tiny phials, is distributed among the sultanas, grand dignitaries, and prominent people of the realm, who in return make valuable presents to the lucky messengers and Mussulman ecclesiastics employed in its distribution. This precious liquid is doled out drop by drop, as though it were nectar of eternal life received direct from heaven, and, mixed with other water, is drunk immediately upon breaking fast each evening during the remaining fifteen days of Ramadan. Arriving at Kadikeui, the opportunity presents of observing something of the high-handed manner in which Turkish pashas are wont to expect from inferiors their every whim obeyed. We meet a friend of my companion, a pasha, who for the remainder of the afternoon makes one of our company. Unfortunately for a few other persons the pasha is in a whimsical mood to-day and inclined to display for our benefit rather arbitrary authority toward others. The first individual coming under his immediate notice is a young man torturing a harp. Summoning the musician, the pasha summarily orders him to play "Yankee Doodle." The writer arrived in Constantinople with the full impression that it was the mosqne of St. Sophia that has the famons six minarets, having, I am quite sure, seen it thus quite frequently accredited in print, and I mention this especially, in order that readers who may have been similarly misinformed may know that the above account is the correct one, does not know it, and humbly begs the pasha to name something more familiar. "Yankee Doodle!" - replies the pasha peremptorily. The poor man looks as though he would willingly relinquish all hopes of the future if only some present avenue of escape would offer itself; but nothing of the kind seems at all likely. The musician appeals to my Turkish-speaking friend, and begs him to request me to favor him with the tune. I am of course only too glad to help him stem the rising tide of the pasha's wrath by whistling the tune for him; and after a certain amount of preliminary twanging be strikes up and manages to blunder through "Yankee Doodle." The pasha, after ascertaining from me that the performance is creditable, considering the circumstances, forthwith hands him more money than he would collect among the poorer patrons of the place in two hours. Soon a company of five strolling acrobats and conjurers happens along, and these likewise are summoned into the "presence" and ordered to proceed. Many of the conjurer's tricks are quite creditable performances; but the pasha occasionally interferes in the proceedings just in the nick of time to prevent the prestidigitator finishing his manipulations, much to the pasha's delight. Once, however, he cleverly manages to hoodwink the pasha, and executes his trick in spite of the latter's interference, which so amuses the pasha that he straightway gives him a medjedie. Our return boat to Galata starts at seven o'clock, and it is a ten minutes' drive down to the landing. At fifteen minutes to seven the pasha calls for a public carriage to take us down to the steamer. "There are no carriages, Pasha Effendi. Those three are all engaged by ladies and gentlemen in the garden," exclaims the waiter, respectfully. "Engaged or not engaged, I want that open carriage yonder," replies the pasha authoritatively, and already beginning to show signs of impatience." Boxhanna. "(hi, you, there!)" drive around here," addressing the driver. The driver enters a plea of being already engaged. The pasha's temper rises to the point of threatening to throw carriage, horses, and driver into the Bosphorus if his demands are not instantly complied with. Finally the driver and everybody else interested collapse completely, and, entering the carriage, we are driven to our destination without another murmur. Subsequently I learned that a government officer, whether a pasha or of lower rank, has the power of taking arbitrary possession of a public conveyance over the head of a civilian, so that our pasha was, after all, only sticking up for the rights of himself and my friend of the artillery, who likewise wears the mark by which a military man is in Turkey always distinguishable from a civilian - a longer string to the tassel of his fez. This is the last day of Ramadan, and the following Monday ushers in the three days' feast of Biaram, which is in substance a kind of a general carousal to compensate for the rigid self-denial of the thirty days 'fasting and prayer' just ended. The government offices and works are till closed, everybody is wearing new clothes, and holiday-making engrosses the public attention. A friend proposes a trip on a Bosphorus steamer up as far as the entrance to the Black Sea. The steamers are profusely decorated with gaycolored flags, and at certain hours all war-ships anchored in the Bosphorus, as well as the forts and arsenals, fire salutes, the roar and rattle of the great guns echoing among the hills of Europe and Asia, that here confront each other, with but a thousand yards of dancing blue waters between them. All along either lovely shore villages and splendid country-seats of wealthy pashas and Constantinople merchants dot the verdure-clad slopes. Two white marble kiosks of the Sultan are pointed out. The old castles of Europe and Asia face each other on opposite sides of the narrow channel. They were famous fortresses in their day, but, save as interesting relics of a bygone age, they are no longer of any use. At Therapia are the summer residences of the different ambassadors, the English and French the most conspicuous. The extensive grounds of the former are most beautifully terraced, and evidently fit for the residence of royalty itself. Happy indeed is the Constantinopolitan whose income commands a summer villa in Therapia, or at any of the many desirable locations in plain view within this earthly paradise of blue waves and sunny slopes, and a yacht in which to wing his flight whenever and wherever fancy bids him go. In the glitter and glare of the mid-day sun the scene along the Bosphorus is lovely, yet its loveliness is plainly of the earth; but as we return cityward in the eventide the dusky shadows of the gloaming settle over everything. As we gradually approach, the city seems half hidden behind a vaporous veil, as though, in imitation of thousands of its fair occupants, it were hiding its comeliness behind the yashmak; the scores of tapering minarets, and the towers, and the masts of the crowded shipping of all nations rise above the mist, and line with delicate tracery the western sky, already painted in richest colors by the setting sun. On Saturday morning, July 18th, the sound of martial music announces the arrival of the soldiers from Stamboul, to guard the streets through which the Sultan will pass on his way to a certain mosque to perform some ceremony in connection with the feast just over. At the designated place I find the streets already lined with Circassian cavalry and Ethiopian zouaves; the latter in red and blue zouave costumes and immense turbans. Mounted gendarmes are driving civilians about, first in one direction and then in another, to try and get the streets cleared, occasionally fetching some unlucky wight in the threadbare shirt of the Galata plebe a stinging cut across the shoulders with short raw-hide whips - a glaring injustice that elicits not the slightest adverse criticism from the spectators, and nothing but silent contortions of face and body from the individual receiving the attention. I finally obtain a good place, where nothing but an open plank fence and a narrow plot of ground thinly set with shrubbery intervenes between me and the street leading from the palace. In a few minutes the approach of the Sultan is announced by the appearance of half a dozen Circassian outriders, who dash wildly down the streets, one behind the other, mounted on splendid dapple-gray chargers; then come four close carriages, containing the Sultan's mother and leading ladies of the imperial harem, and a minute later appears a mounted guard, two abreast, keen-eyed fellows, riding slowly, and critically eyeing everybody and everything as they proceed; behind them comes a gorgeously arrayed individual in a perfect blaze of gold braid and decorations, and close behind him follows the Sultan's carriage, surrounded by a small crowd of pedestrians and horsemen, who buzz around the imperial carriage like bees near a hive, the pedestrians especially dodging about hither and thither, hopping nimbly over fences, crossing gardens, etc., keeping pace with the carriage meanwhile, as though determined upon ferreting out and destroying anything in the shape of danger that may possibly be lurking along the route. My object of seeing the Sultan's face is gained; but it is only a momentary glimpse, for besides the horsemen flitting around the carriage, an officer suddenly appears in front of my position and unrolls a broad scroll of paper with something printed on it, which he holds up. Whatever the scroll is, or the object of its display may be, the Sultan bows his acknowledgments, either to the scroll or to the officer holding it up. Ere I am in the Ottoman capital a week, I have the opportunity of witnessing a fire, and the workings of the Constantinople Fire Department. While walking along Tramway Street, a hue and cry of' "yangoonvar! yangoonvar!" (there is fire! there is fire!) is raised, and three barefooted men, dressed in the scantiest linen clothes, come charging pell-mell through the crowded streets, flourishing long brass hose-nozzles to clear the way; behind them comes a crowd of about twenty others, similarly dressed, four of whom are bearing on their shoulders a primitive wooden pump, while others are carrying leathern water-buckets. They are trotting along at quite a lively pace, shouting and making much unnecessary commotion, and lastly comes their chief on horseback, cantering close at their heels, as though to keep the men well up to their pace. The crowds of pedestrians, who refrain from following after the firemen, and who scurried for the sidewalks at their approach, now resume their place in the middle of the street; but again the wild cry of "yangoon var!" resounds along the narrow street, and the same scene of citizens scuttling to the sidewalks, and a hurrying fire brigade followed by a noisy crowd of gamins, is enacted over again, as another and yet another of these primitive organizations go scooting swiftly past. It is said that these nimble-footed firemen do almost miraculous work, considering the material they have at command - an assertion which I think is not at all unlikely; but the wonder is that destructive fires are not much more frequent, when the fire department is evidently so inefficient. In addition to the regular police force and fire department, there is a system of night watchmen, called bekjees, who walk their respective beats throughout the night, carrying staves heavily shod with iron, with which they pound the flagstones with a resounding "thwack." Owing to the hilliness of the city and the roughness of the streets, much of the carrying business of the city is done by hamals, a class of sturdy-limbed men, who, I am told, are mostly Armenians. They wear a sort of pack-saddle, and carry loads the mere sight of which makes the average Westerner groan. For carrying such trifles as crates and hogsheads of crockery and glass-ware, and puncheons of rum, four hamals join strength at the ends of two stout poles. Scarcely less marvellous than the weights they carry is the apparent ease with which they balance tremendous loads, piled high up above them, it being no infrequent sight to see a stalwart hamal with a veritable Saratoga trunk, for size, on his back, with several smaller trunks and valises piled above it, making his way down Step Street, which is as much as many pedestrians can do to descend without carrying anything. One of these hamals, meandering along the street with six or seven hundred pounds of merchandise on his back, has the legal right - to say nothing of the evident moral right - to knock over any unloaded citizen who too tardily yields the way. From observations made on the spot, one cannot help thinking that there is no law in any country to be compared to this one, for simon-pure justice between man and man. These are most assuredly the strongest-backed and hardest working men I have seen anywhere. They are remarkably trustworthy and sure-footed, and their chief ambition, I am told, is to save sufficient money to return to the mountains and valleys of their native Armenia, where most of them have wives patiently awaiting their coming, and purchase a piece of land upon which to spend their declining years in ease and independence. Far different is the daily lot of another habitue of the streets of this busy capital - large, pugnacious-looking rams, that occupy pretty much the same position in Turkish sporting circles that thoroughbred bull-dogs do in England, being kept by young Turks solely on account of their combative propensities and the facilities thereby afforded for gambling on the prowess of their favorite animals. At all hours of the day and evening the Constantinople sport may be met on the streets leading his woolly pet tenderly with a string, often carrying something in his hand to coax the ram along. The wool of these animals is frequently clipped to give them a fanciful aspect, the favorite clip being to produce a lion-like appearance, and they are always carefully guarded against the fell influence of the "evil eye" by a circlet of blue beads and pendent charms suspended from the neck. This latter precautionary measure is not confined to these hard-headed contestants for the championship of Galata, Pera, and Stamboul, however, but grace the necks of a goodly proportion of all animals met on the streets, notably the saddle-ponies, whose services are offered on certain streetcorners to the public. Occasionally one notices among the busy throngs a person wearing a turban of dark green; this distinguishing mark being the sole privilege of persons who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca. All true Mussulmans are supposed to make this pilgrimage some time during their lives, either in person or by employing a substitute to go in their stead, wealthy pashas sometimes paying quite large sums to some imam or other holy person to go as their proxy, for the holier the substitute the greater is supposed to be the benefit to the person sending him. Other persons are seen with turbans of a lighter shade of green than the returned Mecca pilgrims. These are people related in some way to the reigning sovereign. Constantinople has its peculiar attractions as the great centre of the Mohammedan world as represented in the person of the Sultan, and during the five hundred years of the Ottoman dominion here, almost every Sultan and great personage has left behind him some interesting reminder of the times in which he lived and the wonderful possibilities of unlimited wealth and power. A stranger will scarcely show himself upon the streets ere he is discovered and accosted by a guide. From long experience these men can readily distinguish a new arrival, and they seldom make a mistake regarding his nationality. Their usual mode of self-introduction is to approach him, and ask if he is looking for the American consulate, or the English post-office, as the case may be, and if the stranger replies in the affirmative, to offer to show the way. Nothing is mentioned about charges, and the uninitiated new arrival naturally wonders what kind of a place he has got into, when, upon offering what his experience in Western countries has taught him to consider a most liberal recompense, the guide shrugs his shoulders, and tells you that he guided a gentleman the same distance yesterday and the gentleman gave - usually about double what you are offering, no matter whether it be one cherik or half a dozen. An afternoon ramble with a guide through Stamboul embraces the Museum of Antiquities, the St. Sophia Mosque, the Costume Museum, the thousand and one columns, the Tomb of Sultan Mahmoud, the world-renowned Stamboul Bazaar, the Pigeon Mosque, the Saraka Tower, and the Tomb of Sultan Suliman I. Passing over the Museum of Antiquities, which to the average observer is very similar to a dozen other institutions of the kind, the visitor very naturally approaches the portals of the St. Sophia Mosque with expectations enlivened by having already read wondrous accounts of its magnificence and unapproachable grandeur. But, let one's fancy riot as it will, there is small fear of being disappointed in the "finest mosque in Constantinople." At the door one either has to take off his shoes and go inside in stocking-feet, or, in addition to the entrance fee of two cheriks, "backsheesh" the attendant for the use of a pair of overslippers. People with holes in their socks and young men wearing boots three sizes too small are the legitimate prey of the slipper-man, since the average human would yield up almost his last piastre rather than promenade around in St. Sophia with his big toe protruding through his foot-gear like a mud-turtle's head, or run the risk of having to be hauled bare-footed to his hotel in a hack, from the impossibility of putting his boots on again. Devout Mussulmans are bowing their foreheads down to the mat-covered floor in a dozen different parts of the mosque as we enter; tired-looking pilgrims from a distance are curled up in cool corners, happy in the privilege of peacefully slumbering in the holy atmosphere of the great edifice they have, perhaps, travelled hundreds of miles to see; a dozen half-naked youngsters are clambering about the railings and otherwise disporting themselves after the manner of unrestrained juveniles everywhere - free to gambol about to their hearts' content, providing they abstain from making a noise that would interfere with devotions. Upon the marvellous mosaic ceiling of the great dome is a figure of the Virgin Mary, which the Turks have frequently tried to cover up by painting it over; but paint as often as they will, the figure will not be concealed. On one of the upper galleries are the "Gate of Heaven " and "Gate of Hell," the former of which the Turks once tried their best to destroy; but every arm that ventured to raise a tool against it instantly became paralyzed, when the would-be destroyers naturally gave up the job. In giving the readers these facts I earnestly request them not to credit them to my personal account; for, although earnestly believed in by a certain class of Christian natives here, I would prefer the responsibility for their truthfulness to rest on the broad shoulders of tradition rather than on mine. The Turks never call the attention of visitors to these reminders of the religion of the infidels who built the structure, at such an enormous outlay of money and labor, little dreaming that it would become one of the chief glories of the Mohammedan world. But the door-keeper who follows visitors around never neglects to point out the shape of a human hand on the wall, too high up to be closely examined, and volunteer the intelligence that it is the imprint of the hand of the first Sultan who visited the mosque after the occupation of Constantinople by the Osmanlis. Perhaps, however, the Mussulman, in thus discriminating between the traditions of the Greek residents and the alleged hand-mark of the first Sultan, is actuated by a laudable desire to be truthful so far as possible; for there is nothing improbable about the story of the hand-mark, inasmuch as a hole chipped in the masonry, an application of cement, and a pressure of the Sultan's hand against it before it hardened, give at once something for visitors to look at through future centuries and shake their heads incredulously about. Not the least of the attractions are two monster wax candles, which, notwithstanding their lighting up at innumerable fasts and feasts, for the guide does not know how many years past, are still eight feet long by four in circumference; but more wonderful than the monster wax candles, the brass tomb of Constantine's daughter, set in the wall over one of the massive doors, the Sultan's hand-mark, the figure of the Virgin Mary, and the green columns brought from Baalbec; above everything else is the wonderful mosaic-work. The mighty dome and the whole vast ceiling are mosaic-work in which tiny squares of blue, green, and gold crystal are made to work out patterns. The squares used are tiny particles having not over a quarter-inch surface; and the amount of labor and the expense in covering the vast ceiling of this tremendous structure with incomputable myriads of these small particles fairly stagger any attempt at comprehension. An interesting hour can next be spent in the Costume Museum, where life- size figures represent the varied and most decidedly picturesque costumes of the different officials of the Ottoman capital in previous ages, the janizaries, and natives of the different provinces. Some of the head-gear in vogue at Constantinople before the fez were tremendous affairs, but the fez is certainly a step too far in the opposite direction, being several degrees more uncomfortable than nothing in the broiling sun; the fez makes no pretence of shading the eyes, and excludes every particle of air from the scalp. The thousand and one columns are in an ancient Greek reservoir that formerly supplied all Stamboul with water. The columns number but three hundred and thirty-four in reality, but each column is in three parts, and by stretching the point we have the fanciful " tbousand-and-one." The reservoir is reached by descending a flight of stone steps; it is filled in with earth up to the upper half of the second tier of columns, so that the lower tier is buried altogether. This filling up was done in the days of the janizaries, as it was found that those frisky warriors were carrying their well-known theory of "right being might and the Devil take the weakest" to the extent of robbing unprotected people who ventured to pass this vicinity after dark, and then consigning them to the dark depths of the deserted reservoir. The reservoir is now occupied during the day by a number of Jewish silk-weavers, who work here on account of the dampness and coolness being beneficial to the silk. The tomb of Mahmoud is next visited on the way to the Bazaar. The several coffins of the Sultan Mahmoud and his Sultana and princesses are surrounded by massive railings of pure silver; monster wax candles are standing at the head and foot of each coffin, in curiously wrought candlesticks of solid silver that must weigh a hundred pounds each at least; ranged around the room are silver caskets, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, in which rare illumined copies of the Koran are carefully kept, the attendant who opened one for my inspection using a silk pocket-handkerchief to turn the leaves. The Stamboul Bazaar well deserves its renown, since there is nothing else of its kind in the whole world to compare with it. Its labyrinth of little stalls and shops if joined together in one straight line would extend for miles; and a whole day might be spent quite profitably in wandering around, watching the busy scenes of bargaining and manufacturing. Here, in this bewildering maze of buying and selling, the peculiar life of the Orient can be seen to perfection; the "mysterious veiled lady" of the East is seen thronging the narrow traffic-ways and seated in every stall; water-venders and venders of carpooses (water-melons) and a score of different eatables are meandering through. Here, if your guide be an honest fellow, he can pilot you into stuffy little holes full of antique articles of every description, where genuine bargains can be picked up; or, if he be dishonest, and in league with equally dishonest tricksters, whose places are antiquaries only in name, he can lead you where everything is basest imitation. In the former case, if anything is purchased he comes in for a small and not undeserved commission from the shopkeeper, and in the latter for perhaps as much as thirty per cent. I am told that one of these guides, when escorting a party of tourists with plenty of money to spend and no knowledge whatever of the real value or genuineness of antique articles, often makes as much as ten or fifteen pounds sterling a day commission. On the way from the Bazaar we call at the Pigeon Mosque, so called on account of being the resort of thousands of pigeons, that have become quite tame from being constantly fed by visitors and surrounded by human beings. A woman has charge of a store of seeds and grain, and visitors purchase a handful for ten paras and throw to the pigeons, who flock around fearlessly in the general scramble for the food. At any hour of the day Mussulman ladies may be seen here feeding the pigeons for the amusement of their children. From the Pigeon Mosque we ascend the Saraka Tower, the great watch-tower of Stamboul, from the summit of which the news of a fire in any part of the city is signalled, by suspending huge frame-work balls covered with canvas from the ends of projecting poles in the day, and lights at night. Constant watch and ward is kept over the city below by men snugly housed in quarters near the summit, who, in addition to their duties as watchmen, turn an honest cherik occasionally by supplying cups of coffee to Visitors. No fairer site ever greeted human vision than the prospect from the Tower of Saraka. Stamboul, Galata, Pera, and Scutari, with every suburban village and resort for many a mile around, can be seen to perfection from the commanding height of Saraka Tower. The guide can here point out every building of interest in Stamboul-the broad area of roof beneath which the busy scenes of Stamboul Bazaar are enacted from day to day, the great Persian khan, the different mosques, the Sultan's palaces at Pera, the Imperial kiosks up the Bosphorus, the old Grecian aqueduct, along which the water for supplying the great reservoir of the thousand and one columns used to be conducted, the old city walls, and scores of other interesting objects too numerous to mention here. On the opposite hill, across the Golden Horn, Galata Watch-tower points skyward above the mosques and houses of Galata and Pera. The two bridges connecting Stamboul and Galata are seen thronged with busy traffic; a forest of masts and spars is ranged all along the Golden Horn; steamboats are plying hither and thither across the Bosphorus; the American cruiser Quinnebaug rides at anchor opposite the Imperial water-side palace; the blue waters of the Sea of Marmora and the Gulf of Ismidt are dotted here and there with snowy sails or lined with the smoke of steamships; all combined to make the most lovely panorama imaginable, and to which the coast-wise hills and more lofty mountains of Asia Minor in the distance form a most appropriate background. >From this vantage-point the guide will not neglect whetting the curiosity of his charge for more sight-seeing by pointing out everything that he imagines would be interesting; he points out a hill above Scutari, whence, he says, a splendid view can be had of "all Asia Minor," and "we could walk there and back in half a day, or go quicker with horses or donkeys;" he reminds you that to-morrow is the day for the howling dervishes in Scutari, and tells you that by starting at one we can walk out to the English cemetery, and return to Scutari in time for the howling dervishes at four o'clock, and manages altogether to get his employer interested in a programme, which, if carried out, would guarantee him employment for the next week. On the way back to Galata we visit the tomb of Sulieman I, the most magnificent tomb in Stamboul. Here, before the coffins of Sulieman I., Sulieman II, and his brother Ahmed, are monster wax candles, that have stood sentry here for three hundred and fifty years; and the mosaic dome of the beautiful edifice is studded with what are popularly believed to be genuine diamonds, that twinkle down on the curiously gazing visitor like stars from a miniature heaven. The attendant tells the guide, in answer to an inquiry from me, that no one living knows whether they are genuine diamonds or not, for never, since the day it was finished, over three centuries and a half ago, has anyone been permitted to go up and examine them. The edifice was go perfectly and solidly built in the beginning, that no repairs of any kind have ever been necessary; and it looks almost like a new building to-day. Not being able to spare the time for visiting all the objects of interest enumerated by the guide, I elect to see the howling dervishes as the most interesting among them. Accordingly we take the ferry-boat across to Scutari on Thursday afternoon in time to visit the English cemetery before the dervishes begin their peculiar services. We pass through one of the largest Mussulman cemeteries of Constantinople, a bewildering area of tombstones beneath a grove of dark cypresses, so crowded and disorderly that the oldest gravestones seem to have been pushed down, or on one side, to make room for others of a later generation, and these again for still others. In happy comparison to the disordered area of crowded tombstones in the Mohammedan graveyard is the English cemetery, where the soldiers who died at the Scutari hospital during the Crimean war were buried, and the English residents of Constantinople now bury their dead. The situation of the English cemetery is a charming spot, on a sloping bluff, washed by the waters of the Bosphorus, where the requiem of the murmuring waves is perpetually sung for the brave fellows interred there. An Englishman has charge; and after being in Turkey a month it is really quite refreshing to visit this cemetery, and note the scrupulous neatness of the grounds. The keeper must be industry personified, for he scarcely permits a dead leaf to escape his notice; and the four angels beaming down upon the grounds from the national monument erected by England, in memory of the Crimean heroes, were they real visitors from the better land, could doubtless give a good account of his stewardship. The howling dervishes have already begun to howl as we open the portals leading into their place of worship by the influence of a cherik placed in the open palm of a sable eunuch at the door; but it is only the overture, for it is half an hour later when the interesting part of the programme begins. The first hour seems to be devoted to preliminary meditations and comparatively quiet ceremonies; but the cruel-looking instruments of self-flagellation hanging on the wall, and a choice and complete assortment of drums and other noise-producing but unmelodious instruments, remind the visitor that he is in the presence of a peculiar people. Sheepskin mats almost cover the floor of the room, which is kept scrupulously clean, presumably to guard against the worshippers soiling their lips whenever they kiss the floor, a ceremony which they perform quite frequently during the first hour; and everyone who presumes to tread within that holy precinct removes his over-shoes, if he is wearing any, otherwise he enters in his stockings. At five o'clock the excitement begins; thirty or forty men are ranged around one end of the room, bowing themselves about most violently, and keeping time to the movements of their bodies with shouts of "Allah. Allah." and then branching off into a howling chorus of Mussulman supplications, that, unintelligible as they are to the infidel ear, are not altogether devoid of melody in the expression, the Turkish language abounding in words in which there is a world of mellifluousness. A dancing dervish, who has been patiently awaiting at the inner gate, now receives a nod of permission from the priest, and, after laying aside an outer garment, waltzes nimbly into the room, and straightway begins spinning round like a ballet-dancer in Italian opera, his arms extended, his long skirt forming a complete circle around him as he revolves, and his eyes fixed with a determined gaze into vacancy. Among the howlers is a negro, who is six feet three at least, not in his socks, but in the finest pair of under-shoes in the room, and whether it be in the ceremony of kissing the floor, knocking foreheads against the same, kissing the hand of the priest, or in the howling and bodily contortions, this towering son of Ham performs his part with a grace that brings him conspicuously to the fore in this respect. But as the contortions gradually become more-violent, and the cry of "Allah akbar. Allah hai!" degenerates into violent grunts of " h-o-o-o-o-a-hoo-hoo," the half-exhausted devotees fling aside everything but a white shroud, and the perspiration fairly streams off them, from such violent exercise in the hot weather and close atmosphere of the small room. The exercises make rapid inroads upon the tall negro's powers of endurance, and he steps to one side and takes a breathing-spell of five minutes, after which he resumes his place again, and, in spite of the ever-increasing violence of both lung and muscular exercise, and the extra exertion imposed by his great height, he keeps it up heroically to the end. For twenty-five minutes by my watch, the one lone dancing dervish - who appears to be a visitor merely, but is accorded the brotherly privilege of whirling round in silence while the others howl-spins round and round like a tireless top, making not the slightest sound, spinning in a long, persevering, continuous whirl, as though determined to prove himself holier than the howlers, by spinning longer than they can keep up their howling - a fair test of fanatical endurance, so to speak. One cannot help admiring the religious fervor and determination of purpose that impel this lone figure silently around on his axis for twenty-five minutes, at a speed that would upset the equilibrium of anybody but a dancing dervish in thirty seconds; and there is something really heroic in the manner in which he at last suddenly stops, and, without uttering a sound or betraying any sense of dizziness whatever from the exercise, puts on his coat again and departs in silence, conscious, no doubt, of being a holier person than all the howlers put together, even though they are still keeping it up. As unmistakable signals of distress are involuntarily hoisted by the violently exercising devotees, and the weaker ones quietly fall out of line, and the military precision of the twists of body and bobbing and jerking of head begins to lose something of its regularity, the six "encouragers," ranged on sheep-skins before the line of howling men, like non-commissioned officers before a squad of new recruits, increase their encouraging cries of "Allah. Allah akbar" as though fearful that the din might subside, on account of the several already exhausted organs of articulation, unless they chimed in more lustily and helped to swell the volume. Little children now come trooping in, seeking with eager anticipation the happy privilege of being ranged along the floor like sardines in a tin box, and having the priest walk along their bodies, stepping from one to the other along the row, and returning the same way, while two assistants steady him by holding his hands. In the case of the smaller children, the priest considerately steps on their thighs, to avoid throwing their internal apparatus out of gear; but if the recipient of his holy attentions is, in his estimation, strong enough to run the risk, he steps square on their backs, The little things jump up as sprightly as may be, kiss the priest's hand fervently, and go trooping out of the door, apparently well pleased with the novel performance. Finally human nature can endure it no longer, and the performance terminates in a long, despairing wail of "Allah. Allah. Allah!" The exhausted devotees, soaked wet with perspiration, step forward, and receive what I take to be rather an inadequate reward for what they have been subjecting themselves to - viz., the privilege of kissing the priest's already much-kissed hand, and at 5.45 P.M. the performance is over. I take my departure in time to catch the six o'clock boat for Galata, well satisfied with the finest show I ever saw for a cherik. I have already made mention of there being many beautiful sea-side places to which Constantinopolitans resort on Sundays and holidays, and among them all there is no lovelier spot than the island of Prinkipo, one of the Prince's Islands group, situated some twelve miles from Constantinople, down the Gulf of Ismidt. Shelton Bey (Colonel Shelton), an English gentleman, who superintends the Sultan's cannon-foundry at Tophana, and the well-known author of Shelton's " Mechanic's Guide," owns the finest steam-yacht on the Bosphorus, and three Sundays out of the five I remain here, this gentleman and his excellent lady kindly invite me to visit Prinkipo with them for the day. On the way over we usually race with the regular passenger steamer, and as the Bey's yacht is no plaything for size and speed, we generally manage to keep close enough to amuse ourselves with the comments on the beauty and speed of our little craft from the crowded deck of the other boat. Sometimes a very distinguished person or two is aboard the yacht with our little company, personages known to the Bey, who having arrived on the passenger-boat, accept invitations for a cruise around the island, or to dine aboard the yacht as she rides at anchor before the town. But the advent of the " Americanish Velocipediste " and his glistening machine, a wonderful thing that Prinkipo never saw the like of before, creates a genuine sensation, and becomes the subject of a nine-days' wonder. Prinkipo is a delightful gossipy island, occupied during the summer by the families of wealthy Constantinopolitans and leading business men, who go to and fro daily between the little island and the city on the passenger-boats regularly plying between them, and is visited every Sunday by crowds in search of the health and pleasure afforded by a day's outing. While here at Constantinople I received by mail from America a Butcher spoke cyclometer, and on the second visit to Prinkipo I measured the road which has been made around half the island; the distance is four English miles and a fraction. The road was built by refugees employed by the Sultan during the last Russo-Turkish war, and is a very good one; for part of the distance it leads between splendid villas, on the verandas of which are seen groups of the wealth and beauty of the Osmanli capital, Armenians, Greeks, and Turks - the latter ladies sometimes take the privilege of dispensing with the yashmak during their visits to the comparative seclusion of Prinkipo villas - with quite a sprinkling of English and Europeans. The sort of impression made upon the imaginations of Prinkipo young ladies by the bicycle is apparent from the following comment made by a bevy of them confidentially to Shelton Bey, and kindly written out by him, together with the English interpretation thereof. The Prinkipo ladies' compliment to the first bicycle rider visiting their beautiful island is: "O Bizdan kaydore ghyurulduzug em nezalcettt sadi bir dakika ulchum ghyuriorus nazaman bir dah backiorus O bittum gitmush." (He glides noiselessly and gracefully past; we see him only for a moment; when we look again he is quite gone.) The men are of course less poetical, their ideas running more to the practical side of the possibilities of the new ox-rival, and they comment as follows: "Onum beyghir hich-bir-shey yemiore hich-bir-shey ichmiore Inch yorumliore ma sheitan gibi ghiti-ore," (His horse, he eats nothing, drinks nothing, never gets tired, and goes like the very devil.) It is but fair to add, however, that any bold Occidental contemplating making a descent on Prinkipo with a, "sociable" with a view to delightful moonlight rides with the fair; authors of the above poetic contribution will find himself "all at sea" upon, his arrival, unless he brings a three-seated machine, so that the mamma can be accommodated with a seat behind, since the daughters of Prinkipo society never wander forth by moonlight, or any other light, unless thus accompanied, or by some; equally staid and solicitous relative. For the Asiatic tour I have invented a "bicycle tent" - a handy contrivance by which the bicycle is made to answer the place of tent poles. The material used is fine, strong sheeting, that will roll up into a small space, and to make it thoroughly water-proof, I have dressed it with boiled linseed oil. My footgear henceforth will be Circassian moccasins, with the pointed toes sticking up like the prow of a Venetian galley. I have had a pair made to order by a native shoemaker in Galata, and, for either walking or pedalling, they are ahead of any foot-gear I ever wore; they are as easy as a three-year-old glove, and last indefinitely, and for fancifulness in appearance, the shoes of civilization are nowhere. Three days before starting out I receive friendly warnings from both the English and American consul that Turkey in Asia is infested with brigands, the former going the length of saying that if he had the power he would refuse me permission to meander forth upon so risky an undertaking. I have every confidence, however, that the bicycle will prove an effectual safeguard against any undue familiarity on the part of these frisky citizens. Since reaching Constantinople the papers here have published accounts of recent exploits accomplished by brigands near Eski Baba. I have little doubt but that more than one brigand was among my highly interested audiences there on that memorable Sunday. The Turkish authorities seem to have made themselves quite familiar with my intentions, and upon making application for a teskere (Turkish passport) they required me to specify, as far as possible, the precise route I intend traversing from Scutari to Ismidt, Angora, Erzeroum, and beyond, to the Persian frontier. An English gentleman who has lately travelled through Persia and the Caucasus tells me that the Persians are quite agreeable people, their only fault being the one common failing of the East: a disposition to charge whatever they think it possible to obtain for anything. The Circassians seem to be the great bugbear in Asiatic Turkey. I am told that once I get beyond the country that these people range over - who are regarded as a sort of natural and half-privileged freebooters - I shall be reasonably safe from molestation. It is a common thing in Constantinople when two men are quarrelling for one to threaten to give a Circassian a couple of medjedis to kill the other. The Circassian is to Turkey what the mythical "bogie" is to England; mothers threaten undutiful daughters, fathers unruly sons, and everybody their enemies generally, with the Circassian, who, however, unlike the "bogie" of the English household, is a real material presence, popularly understood to be ready for any devilment a person may hire him to do. The bull-dog revolver, under the protecting presence of which I have travelled thus far, has to be abandoned here at Constantinople, having proved itself quite a wayward weapon since it came from the gunsmith's hands in Vienna, who seemed to have upset the internal mechanism in some mysterious manner while boring out the chambers a trifle to accommodate European cartridges. My experience thus far is that a revolver has been more ornamental than useful; but I am now about penetrating far different countries to any I have yet traversed. Plenty of excellently finished German imitations of the Smith & Wesson revolver are found in the magazines of Constantinople; but, apart from it being the duty of every Englishman or American to discourage, as far as his power goes, the unscrupulousness of German manufacturers in placing upon foreign markets what are, as far as outward appearance goes, the exact counterparts of our own goods, for half the money, a genuine American revolver is a different weapon from its would-be imitators, and I hesitate not to pay the price for the genuine article. Remembering the narrow escape on several occasions of having the bull-dog confiscated by the Turkish gendarmerie, and having heard, moreover, in Constantinople, that the same class of officials in Turkey in Asia will most assuredly want to confiscate the Smith & Wesson as a matter of private speculation and enterprise, I obtain through the British consul a teskere giving me special permission to carry a revolver. Subsequent events, however, proved this precaution to be unnecessary, for a more courteous, obliging, and gentlemanly set of fellows, according to their enlightenment, I never met any where, than the government officials of Asiatic Turkey. Were I to make the simple statement that I am starting into Asia with a pair of knee-breeches that are worth fourteen English pounds (about sixty-eight dollars) and offer no further explanation, I should, in all probability, be accused of a high order of prevarication. Nevertheless, such is the fact; for among other subterfuges to outwit possible brigands, and kindred citizens, I have made cloth-covered buttons out of Turkish liras (eighteen shillings English), and sewed them on in place of ordinary buttons. Pantaloon buttons at $54 a dozen are a luxury that my wildest dreams never soared to before, and I am afraid many a thrifty person will condemn me for extravagance; but the "splendor" of the Orient demands it; and the extreme handiness of being able to cut off a button, and with it buy provisions enough to load down a mule, would be all the better appreciated if one had just been released from the hands of the Philistines with nothing but his clothes - and buttons - and the bicycle. With these things left to him, one could afford to regard the whole matter as a joke, expensive, perhaps, but nevertheless a joke compared with what might have been. The Constantinople papers have advertised me to start on Monday, August 10th, "direct from Scutari." I have received friendly warnings from several Constantinople gentlemen, that a band of brigands, under the leadership of an enterprising chief named Mahmoud Pehlivan, operating about thirty miles out of Scutari, have beyond a doubt received intelligence of this fact from spies here in the city, and, to avoid running direct into the lion's mouth, I decide to make the start from Ismidt, about twenty-five miles beyond their rendezvous. A Greek gentleman, who is a British subject, a Mr. J. T. Corpi, whom I have met here, fell into the hands of this same gang, and being known to them as a wealthy gentleman, had to fork over 3,000 ransom; and he says I would be in great danger of molestation in venturing from Scutari to Ismidt after my intention to do so has been published. CHAPTER X. THE START THROUGH ASIA. In addition to a cycler's ordinary outfit and the before-mentioned small wedge tent I provide myself with a few extra spokes, a cake of tire cement, and an extra tire for the rear wheel. This latter, together with twenty yards of small, stout rope, I wrap snugly around the front axle; the tent and spare underclothing, a box of revolver cartridges, and a small bottle of sewing-machine oil are consigned to a luggage-carrier behind; while my writing materials, a few medicines and small sundries find a repository in my Whitehouse sole-leather case on a Lamson carrier, which also accommodates a suit of gossamer rubber. The result of my study of the various routes through Asia is a determination to push on to Teheran, the capital of Persia, and there spend the approaching winter, completing my journey to the Pacific next season. Accordingly nine o'clock on Monday morning, August 10th, finds me aboard the little Turkish steamer that plies semi-weekly between Ismidt and the Ottoman capital, my bicycle, as usual, the centre of a crowd of wondering Orientals. This Ismidt steamer, with its motley crowd of passengers, presents a scene that upholds with more eloquence than words Constantinople's claim of being the most cosmopolitan city in the world; and a casual observer, judging only from the evidence aboard the boat, would pronounce it also the most democratic. There appears to be no first, second, or third class; everybody pays the same fare, and everybody wanders at his own sweet will into every nook and corner of the upper deck, perches himself on top of the paddle-boxes, loafs on the pilot's bridge, or reclines among the miscellaneous assortment of freight piled up in a confused heap on the fore-deck; in short, everybody seems perfectly free to follow the bent of his inclinations, except to penetrate behind the scenes of the aftmost deck, where, carefully hidden from the rude gaze of the male passengers by a canvas partition, the Moslem ladies have their little world of gossip and coffee, and fragrant cigarettes. Every public conveyance in the Orient has this walled-off retreat, in which Osmanli fair ones can remove their yashmaks, smoke cigarettes, and comport themselves with as much freedom as though in the seclusion of their apartments at home. Greek and Armenian ladies mingle with the main-deck passengers, however, the picturesque costumes of the former contributing not a little to the general Oriental effect of the scene. The dress of the Armenian ladies differs but little from Western costumes, and their deportment would wreathe the benign countenance of the Lord Chamberlain with a serene smile of approval; but the minds and inclinations of the gentle Hellenic dames seem to run in rather a contrary channel. Singly, in twos, or in cosey, confidential coteries, arm in arm, they promenade here and there, saying little to each other or to anybody else. By the picturesqueness of their apparel and their seemingly bold demeanor they attract to themselves more than their just share of attention; but with well-feigned ignorance of this they divide most of their time and attention between rolling cigarettes and smoking them. Their heads are bound with jaunty silk handkerchiefs; they wear rakish-looking short jackets, down the back of which their luxuriant black hair dangles in two tresses; but the crowning masterpiece of their costume is that wonderful garment which is neither petticoat nor pantaloons, and which can be most properly described as "indescribable," which tends to give the wearer rather an unfeminine appearance, and is not to be compared with the really sensible and not unpicturesque nether garment of a Turkish lady. The male companions of these Greek women are not a bit behind them in the matter of gay colors and startling surprises of the Levantine clothier's art, for they likewise are in all the bravery of holiday attire. There is quite a number of them aboard, and they now appear at their best, for they are going to take part in wedding festivities at one of the little Greek villages that nestle amid the vine-clad slopes along the coast - white villages, that from the deck of the moving steamer look as though they have been placed here and there by nature's artistic hand for the sole purpose of embellishing the lovely green frame-work that surrounds the blue waters of the Ismidt Gulf. Several of these merry-makers enliven the passing hours with music and dancing, to the delight of a numerous audience, while a second ever-changing but never-dispersing audience is gathered around the bicycle. The verbal comments and Solomon-like opinions, given in expressive pantomime, of this latter garrulous gathering concerning the machine and myself, I can of course but partly understand; but occasionally some wiseacre suddenly becomes inflated with the idea that he has succeeded in unravelling the knotty problem, and forthwith proceeds to explain, for the edification of his fellow-passengers, the modus operandi of riding it, supplementing his words by the most extraordinary gestures. The audience is usually very attentive and highly interested in these explanations, and may be considerably enlightened by their self-constituted tutors, whose sole advantage over their auditors, so far as bicycles are concerned, consists simply in a belief in the superiority of their own particular powers of penetration. But to the only person aboard the steamer who really does know anything at all about the subject, the chief end of their exposition seems to be gained when they have duly impressed upon the minds of their hearers that the bicycle is to ride on, and that it goes at a rate of speed quite beyond the comprehension of their - the auditors' - minds; "Bin, bin, bin. Chu, chu, chu. Haidi, haidi, haidi." being repeated with a vehemence that is intended to impress upon them little less than flying-Dutchman speed. The deck of a Constantinople steamer affords splendid opportunity for character study, and the Ismidt packet is no exception. Nearly every person aboard has some characteristic, peculiar and distinct from any of the others. At intervals of about fifteen minutes a couple of Armenians, bare-footed, bare-legged, and ragged, clamber with much difficulty and scraping of shins over a large pile of empty chicken-crates to visit one particular crate. Their collective baggage consists of a thin, half-grown chicken tied by both feet to a small bag of barley, which is to prepare it for the useful but inglorious end of all chickendom. They have imprisoned their unhappy charge in a crate that is most difficult to get at. Why they didn't put it in one of the nearer crates, what their object is in climbing up to visit it so frequently, and why they always go together, are problems of the knottiest kind. A far less difficult riddle is the case of a middle-aged man, whose costume and avocation explain nothing, save that he is not an Osmanli. He is a passenger homeward bound to one of the coast villages, and he constantly circulates among the crowd with a basket of water-melons, which he has brought aboard "on spec," to vend among his fellow-passengers, hoping thereby to gain sufficient to defray the cost of his passage. Seated on whatever they can find to perch upon, near the canvas partition, all unmoved by the gay and stirring scenes before them, is a group of Mussulman pilgrims from some interior town, returning from a pilgrimage to Stamboul - fine-looking Osmanli graybeards, whose haughty reserve not even the bicycle is able to completely overcome, although it proves more efficacious in subduing it and waking them out of their habitual contemplative attitude than anything else aboard. Two of these men are of magnificent physique; their black eyes, rather full lips, and swarthy skins betraying Arab blood. In addition to the long daggers and antiquated pistols so universally worn in the Orient, they are armed with fine, large, pearl-handled revolvers, and they sit cross-legged, smoking cigarette after cigarette in silent meditation, paying no heed even to the merry music and the dancing of the Greeks. At Jelova, the first village the steamer halts at, a coupleof zaptiehs come aboard with two prisoners whom they are conveying to Ismidt. These men are lower-class criminals, and their wretched appearance betrays the utter absence of hygienic considerations on the part of the Turkish prison authorities; they evidently have had no cause to complain of any harsh measures for the enforcement of personal cleanliness. Their foot-gear consists of pieces of rawhide, fastened on with odds and ends of string; and pieces of coarse sacking tacked on to what were once clothes barely suffice to cover their nakedness; bare-headed - their bushy hair has not for months felt the smoothing influence of a comb, and their hands and faces look as if they had just endured a seven-years' famine of soap and water. This latter feature is a sure sign that they are not Turks, for prisoners are most likely allowed full liberty to keep themselves clean, and a Turk would at least have come out into the world with a clean face. The zaptiehs squat down together and smoke cigarettes, and allow their charges full liberty to roam wheresoever they will while on board, and the two prisoners, to all appearances perfectly oblivious of their rags, filth, and the degradation of their position, mingle freely with the passengers; and, as they move about, asking and answering questions, I look in vain among the latter for any sign of the spirit of social Pharisaism that in a Western crowd would have kept them at a distance. Both these men have every appearance of being the lowest of criminals - men capable of any deed in the calendar within their mental and physical capacities; they may even be members of the very gang I am taking this steamer to avoid; but nobody seems to either pity or condemn them; everybody acts toward them precisely as they act toward each other. Perhaps in no other country in the world does this social and moral apathy obtain among the masses to such a degree as in Turkey. While we lie to for a few minutes to disembark passengers at the village where the before-mentioned wedding festivities are in progress, four of the seven imperturbable Osmanlis actually arise from the one position they have occupied unmoved since coming aboard, and follow me to the foredeck, in order to be present while I explain the workings and mechanism of the bicycle to some Arnienian students of Roberts College, who can speak a certain amount of English. Having listened to my explanations without understanding a word, and, without condescending to question the Armenians, they survey the machine some minutes in silence and then return to their former positions, their cigarettes, and their meditations, paying not the slightest heed to several caique loads of Greek merry-makers who have rowed out to meet the new arrivals, and are paddling around the steamer, filling the air with music. Finding that there is someone aboard that can converse with me, the Greeks, desirous of seeing the bicycle in action, and of introducing a novelty into the festivities of the evening, ask me to come ashore and be their guest until the arrival of the next Ismiclt boat - a matter of three days. Offer declined with thanks, but not without reluctance, for these Greek merry-makings are well worth seeing. The Ismidt packet, like everything else in Turkey, moves at a snail's pace, and although we got under way in something less than an hour after the advertised starting-time, which, for Turkey, is quite commendable promptness, and the distance is but fifty-five miles, we call at a number of villages en route, and it is 6 P.M. when we tie up at the Ismidt wharf. "Five piastres, Effendi," says the ticket-collector, as, after waiting till the crowd has passed the gang-plank, I follow with the bicycle and hand him my ticket. "What are the five piastres for." I ask. For answer, he points' to my wheel. "Baggage," I explain. "Baggage yoke, cargo," he replies; and I have to pay it. The fact is, that, never having seen a bicycle before, he don't know whether it is cargo or baggage; but whenever a Turkish official has no precedent to follow, he takes care to be on the right side in case there is any money to be collected; otherwise he is not apt to be so particular. This is, however, rather a matter of private concern than of zealousness in the performance of his official duties; the possibilities of peculation are ever before him. While satisfying the claim of the ticket-collector a deck-hand comes forward and, pointing to the bicycle, blandly asks me for backsheesh. He asks, not because he has put a finger to the machine, or been asked to do so, but, being a thoughtful, far-sighted youth, he is looking out for the future. The bicycle is something he never saw on his boat before; but the idea that these things may now become common among the passengers wanders through his mind, and that obtaining backsheesh on this particular occasion will establish a precedent that may be very handy hereafter; so he makes a most respectful salaam, calls me "Bey Effendi," and smilingly requests two piastres backsheesh. After him comes the passport officer, who, besides the teskeri for myself, demands a special passport for the machine. He likewise is in a puzzle (it don't take much, by the by, to puzzle the brains of a Turkish official), because the bicycle is something he has had no previous dealings with; but as this is a matter in which finances play no legitimate part - though probably his demand for a passport is made for no other purpose than that of getting backsheesh - a vigorous protest, backed up by the unanimous, and most certainly vociferous, support of a crowd of wharf-loafers, and my fellow-passengers, who, having disembarked, are waiting patiently for me to come and ride down the street, either overrules or overawes the officer and secures my relief. Impatient at consuming a whole day in reaching Ismidt, I have been thinking of taking to the road immediately upon landing, and continuing till dark, taking my chances of reaching some suitable stopping- place for the night. But the good people of Ismidt raise their voices in protest against what they professedly regard as a rash and dangerous proposition. As I evince a disposition to override their well-meant interference and pull out, they hurriedly send for a Frenchman, who can speak sufficient English to make himself intelligible. Speaking for himself, and acting as interpreter in echoing the words and sentiments of the others, the Frenchman straightway warns me not to start into the interior so late in the day, and run the risk of getting benighted in the brush; for "Much very bad people, very bad people! are between Ismidt and Angora; Circassians plenty," he says, adding that the worst characters are near Ismidt, and that the nearer I get to Angora the better I shall find the people. As by this time the sun is already setting behind the hills, I conclude that an early start in the morning will, after all, be the most sensible course. During the last Russo-Turkish war thousands of Circassian refugees migrated to this part of Asia Minor. Having a restless, roving disposition, that unfits them for the laborious and uneventful life of a husbandman, many of them remain even to the present day loafers about the villages, maintaining themselves nobody seems to know how. The belief appears to be unanimous, however, that they are capable of any deviltry under the sun, and that, while their great specialty and favorite occupation is stealing horses, if this becomes slack or unprofitable, or even for the sake of a little pleasant variety, these freebooters from the Caucasus have no hesitation about turning highwaymen whenever a tempting occasion offers. All sorts of advice about the best way to avoid being robbed is volunteered by the people of Ismidt. My watch-chain, L.A.W. badge, and everything that appears of any value, they tell me, must be kept strictly out of sight, so as not to excite the latent cupidity of such Circassians as I meet on the road or in the villages. Some advocate the plan of adorning my coat with Turkish official buttons, shoulder-straps, and trappings, to make myself, look like a government officer; others think it would be best to rig myself up as a full-blown zaptieh, with whom, of course, neither Circassian nor any other guilty person would attempt to interfere. To these latter suggestions I point out that, while they are very good, especially the zaplieh idea, so far as warding off Circassians is concerned, my adoption of a uniform would most certainly get me into hot water with the military authorities of every town and village, owing to my ignorance of the vernacular, and cause me no end of vexatious delay. To this the quick-witted Frenchman replies by at once offering to go with me to the resident pasha, explain the matter to him, and get a letter permitting me to wear the uniform; which offer I gently but firmly decline, being secretly of the opinion that these excessive precautions are all unnecessary. From the time I left Hungary I have been warned so persistently of danger ahead, and have so far met nothing really dangerous, that I am getting sceptical about there being anything like the risk people seem to think. Without being blind to the fact that there is a certain amount of danger in travelling alone through a country where it is the universal custom either to travel in company or to take a guard, I feel quite confident that the extreme novelty of my conveyance will make so profound an impression on the Asiatic mind that, even did they know that my buttons are gold coins of the realm, they would hesitate seriously to molest me. From past observations among people seeing the bicycle ridden for the first time, I believe that with a hundred yards of smooth road it is quite possible for a cycler to ride his way into the good graces of the worst gang of freebooters in Asia. Having decided to remain here over-night, I seek the accommodation of a rudely comfortable hotel, kept by an Armenian, where, at the supper-table, I am first made acquainted with the Asiatic dish called "pillau," that is destined to form no inconsiderable part of my daily bill of fare for several weeks. Pillau is a dish that is met - with in one disguise or another all over Asia. With a foundation of boiled rice, it receives a variety of other compounds, the nature of which will appear as they enter into my daily experiences. In deference to the limited knowledge of each other's language possessed by myself and the proprietor, I am invited into the cookhouse and permitted to take a peep at the contents of several different pots and kettles simmering over a slow fire in a sort of brick trench, to point out to the waiter such dishes as I think I shall like. Failing to find among the assortment any familiar acquaintances, I try the pillau, and find it quite palatable, preferring it to anything else the house affords. Our friend the Frenchman is quite delighted at the advent of a bicycle in Ismidt, for in his younger days, he tells me with much enthusiasm, he used to be somewhat partial to whirling wheels himself; and when he first came here from France, some eighteen years ago, he actually brought with him a bone-shaker, with which, for the first summer, he was wont to surprise the natives. This relic of by-gone days has been stowed away among a lot of old traps ever since, all but forgotten; but the appearance of a mounted wheelman recalls it to memory, and this evening, in honor of my visit, it is brought once more to light, its past history explained by its owner, and its merits and demerits as a vehicle in comparison with my bicycle duly discussed. The bone-shaker has wheels heavy enough for a dog-cart; the saddle is nearly all gnawed away by mice, and it presents altogether so antiquated an appearance that it seems a relic rather of a past century than of a past decade. Its owner assays to take a ride on it; but the best he can do is to wabble around a vacant space in front of the hotel, the awkward motions of the old bone-shaker affording intense amusement to the crowd. After supper this chatty and entertaining gentleman brings his wife, a rotund, motherly-looking person, to see the bicycle; she is a Levantine Greek, and besides her own lingua franca, her husband has improved her education to the extent of a smattering of rather misleading English. Desiring to be complimentary in return for my riding back and forth a few times for her special benefit, the lady comes forward as I dismount and, smiling complacently upon me, remarks, "How very grateful you ride, monsieur!" and her husband and tutor, desiring also to say something complimentary, echoes, " Much grateful - very." The Greeks seem to be the life and poetry of these sea-coast places on the Ismidt gulf. My hotel faces the water; and for hours after dark a half-dozen caique-loads of serenaders are paddling about in front of the town, making quite an entertaining concert in the silence of the night, the pleasing effect being heightened by the well-known softening influence of the water, and not a little enhanced by a display of rockets and Roman candles. Earlier in the evening, while taking a look at Ismidt and the surrounding scenery, in company with a few sociable natives, who point out beauty-spots in the surrounding landscape with no little enthusiasm, I am impressed with the extreme loveliness of the situation. The town itself, now a place of thirteen thousand inhabitants, is the Nicomedia of the ancients. It is built in the form of a crescent, facing the sea; the houses, many of them painted white, are terraced upon the slopes of the green hills, whose sides and summits are clothed with verdure, and whose bases are laved by the blue waves of the gulf, which here, at the upper extremity, narrows to about a mile and a half in width; white villages dot the green mountain-slopes on the opposite shore, prominent among them being the Armenian town of Bahgjadjik, where for a number of years has been established an American missionary-school, a branch, I think, of Roberts College. Every mile of visible country, whether gently sloping or more rugged and imposing, is green with luxuriant vegetation, and the waters of the gulf are of that deep-blue color peculiar to mountain-locked inlets; the bright green hills, the dancing blue waters, and the white painted villages combine to make a scene so lovely in the chastened light of early eventide that, after the Bosporus, I think I never saw a place more beautiful. Besides the loveliness of the situation, the little mountain-sheltered inlet makes an excellent anchorage for shipping; and during the late war, at the well-remembered crisis when the Russian armies were bearing down on Constantinople and the British fleet received the famous order to pass through the Dardanelles with or without the Sultan's permission, the head-waters of the Ismidt gulf became, for several months, the rendezvous of the ships. CHAPTER XI. ON THROUGH ASIA. Early dawn on Tuesday morning finds me already astir and groping about the hotel in search of some of the slumbering employees to let me out. Pocketing a cold lunch in lieu of eating breakfast, I mount and wheel down the long street leading out of the eastern end of town. On the way out I pass a party of caravan-teamsters who have just arrived with a cargo of mohair from Angora; their pack-mules are fairly festooned with strings of bells of all sizes, from a tiny sleigh-bell to a solemn-voiced sheet-iron affair the size of a two-gallon jar. These bells make an awful din; the men are unpacking the weary animals, shouting both at the mules and at each other, as if their chief object were to create as much noise as possible; but as I wheel noiselessly past, they cease their unpacking and their shouting, as if by common consent, and greet me with that silent stare of wonder that men might be supposed to accord to an apparition from another world. For some few miles a rough macadam road affords a somewhat choppy but nevertheless ridable surface, and further inland it develops into a fairly good roadway, where a dismount is unnecessary for several miles. The road leads along a depression between a continuation of the mountain-chains that inclose the Ismidt gulf, which now run parallel with my road on either hand at the distance of a couple of miles, some of the spurs on the south range rising to quite an imposing height. For four miles out of Ismidt the country is flat and swampy; beyond that it changes to higher ground; and the swampy flat, the higher ground, and the mountain-slopes are all covered with timber and a dense growth of underbrush, in which wild-fig shrubs and the homely but beautiful ferns of the English commons, the Missouri Valley woods, and the California foot-hills, mingle their respective charms, and hob-nob with scrub-oak, chestnut, walnut, and scores of others. The whole face of the country is covered with this dense thicket, and the first little hamlet I pass on the road is nearly hidden in it, the roofs of the houses being barely visible above the green sea of vegetation. Orchards and little patches of ground that have been cleared and cultivated are hidden entirely, and one cannot help thinking that if this interminable forest of brushwood were once to get fairly ablaze, nothing could prevent it from destroying everything these villagers possess. A foretaste of what awaits me farther in the interior is obtained even within the first few hours of the morning, when a couple of horsemen canter at my heels for miles; they seem delighted beyond measure, and their solicitude for my health and general welfare is quite affecting. When I halt to pluck some blackberries, they solemnly pat their stomachs and shake their heads in chorus, to make me understand that blackberries are not good things to eat; and by gestures they notify me of bad places in the road which are yet out of sight ahead. Eude mehanax, now called khans, occupy little clearings by the roadside, at intervals of a few miles; and among the habitues congregated there I notice several of the Circassian refugees on whose account friends at Ismidt and Constantinople have shown themselves so concerned for my safety. They are dressed in the long Cossack coats of dark cloth peculiar to the inhabitants of the Caucasus; two rows of bone or metal cartridge-cases adorn their breast, being fitted into flutes or pockets made for them; they wear either top boots or top bootlegs, and the counterpart of my own moccasins; and their headdress is a tall black lamb's-wool turban, similar to the national headgear of the Persians. They are by far the best-dressed and most respectable-looking men one sees among the groups; for while the majority of the natives are both ragged and barefooted, I don't remember ever seeing Circassians either. To all outward appearances they are the most trustworthy men of them all; but there is really more deviltry concealed beneath the smiling exterior of one of these homeless mountaineers from Circassia than in a whole village of the less likely- looking natives here, whose general cutthroat appearance - an effect produced, more than anything else, by the universal custom of wearing all the old swords, knives, anil pistols they can get hold of-really counts for nothing. In picturesqueness of attire some of these khan loafers leave nothing to be desired; and although I am this morning wearing Igali's cerulean scarf as a sash, the tri-colored pencil string of Servia around my neck, and a handsome pair of Circassian moccasins, I ain absolutely nowhere by the side of many a native here whose entire wardrobe wouldn't fetch half a mcdjedie in a Galata auction-room. The great light of Central Asian hospitality casts a glimmer even up into this out-of-the-way northwestern corner of the continent, though it seems to partake more of the Nevada interpretation of the word than farther in the interior. Thrice during the forenoon I am accosted with the invitation "mastic? cogniac? coffee." by road-side klian-jees or their customers who wish me to stop and let them satisfy their consuming curiosity at my novel bagar (horse), as many of them jokingly allude to it. Beyond these three beverages and the inevitable nargileh, these wayside khans provide nothing; vishner syrup (a pleasant extract of the vishner cherry; a spoonful in a tumbler of water makes a most agreeable and refreshing sherbet), which is my favorite beverage on the road, being an inoffensive, non-intoxicating drink, is not in sufficient demand among the patrons of the khans to justify keeping it in stock. An ancient bowlder causeway traverses the route I am following, hut the blocks of stone composing it have long since become misplaced and scattered about in confusion, making it impassable for wheeled vehicles; and the natural dirt-road alongside it is covered with several inches of dust which is continually being churned up by mule-caravans bringing mohair from Angora and miscellaneous merchandise from Ismidt. Camel-caravans make smooth tracks, but they seldom venture to Ismidt at this time of the year, I am told, on account of the bellicose character of the mosquitoes that inhabit this particular region; their special mode of attack being to invade the camels' sensitive nostrils, which drives these patient beasts of burden to the last verge of distraction, sometimes even worrying them to death. Stopping for dinner at the village of Sabanja, the scenes familiar in connection with a halt for refreshments in the Balkan Peninsula are enacted; though for bland and childlike assurance there is no comparison between the European Turk and his brother in Asia Minor. More than one villager approaches me during the few minutes I am engaged in eating dinner, and blandly asks me to quit eating and let him see me ride; one of them, with a view of putting it out of my power to refuse, supplements his request with a few green apples which no European could eat without bringing on an attack of cholera morbus, but which Asiatics consume with impunity. After dinner I request the proprietor to save me from the madding crowd long enough to round up a few notes, which he attempts to do by locking me in a room over the stable. In less than ten minutes the door is unlocked, and in walks the headman of the village, making a most solemn and profound salaam as he enters. He has searched out a man who fought with the English in the Crimea, according to his - the man's-own explanation, and who knows a few words of Frank language and has brought him along to interpret. Without the slightest hesitation he asks me to leave off writing and come down and ride, in order that he may see the performance, and - he continues, artfully - that he may judge of the comparative merits of a horse and a bicycle. This peculiar trait of the Asiatic character is further illustrated during the afternoon in the case of a caravan leader whom I meet on an unridable stretch of road. "Bin! bin!" says this person, as soon as his mental faculties grasp the idea that the bicycle is something to ride on. "Mimlcin, deyil; fenna yole; duz yolo lazim " (impossible; bad road; good road necessary), I reply, airing my limited stock of Turkish. Nothing daunted by this answer, the man blandly requests me to turn about and follow his caravan until ridable road is reached - a good mile - in order that he may be enlightened. It is, perhaps, superfluous to add that, so far as I know, this particular individual's ideas of 'cycling are as hazy and undefined to-day as they ever were. The principal occupation of the Sabanjans seems to be killing time; or perhaps waiting for something to turn up. Apple and pear-orchards are scattered about among the brush, looking utterly neglected; they are old trees mostly, and were planted by the more enterprising ancestors of the present owners, who would appear to be altogether unworthy of their sires, since they evidently do nothing in the way of trimming and pruning, but merely accept such blessings as unaided nature vouchsafes to bestow upon them. Moss-grown gravestones are visible here and there amid the thickets; the graveyards are neither protected by fence nor shorn of brush; in short, this aggressive undergrowth appears to be altogether too much for the energies of the Sabanjans; it seems to be encroaching upon them from every direction, ruthlessly pursuing them even to their very door-sills; like Banquo's ghost, it will not down, and the people have evidently retired discouraged from the contest. Higher up on the mountain-slopes the underbrush gives place to heavier timber, and small clearings abound, around which the unsubdued forest stands like a solid wall of green, the scene reminding one quite forcibly of backwoods clearings in Ohio; and were it not for the ancient appearance of the Sabanja minarets, the old bowlder causeway, and other evidences of declining years, one might easily imagine himself in a new country instead of the cradle of our race. At Sabanja the wagon-road terminates, and my way becomes execrable beyond anything I ever encountered; it leads over a low mountain-pass, following the track of the ancient roadway, that on the acclivity of the mountain has been torn up and washed about, and the stone blocks scattered here and piled up there by the torrents of centuries, until it would seem to have been the sport and plaything of a hundred Kansas cyclones. Bound about and among this disorganized mass, caravans have picked their way over the pass from the first dawn of commercial intercourse; following the same trail year after year, the stepping-places have come to resemble the steps of a rude stairway. From the summit of the pass is obtained a comprehensive view of the verdure-clad valley; here and there white minarets are seen protruding above the verdant area, like lighthouses from a green sea; villages dot the lower slopes of the mountains, while a lake, covering half the width of the valley for a dozen miles, glimmers in the mid-day sun, making altogether a scene that in some countries would long since have been immortalized on canvas or in verse. The descent is even rougher, if anything, than the western side, but it leads down into a tiny valley that, if situated near a large city, would resound with the voices of merry-makers the whole summer long. The undergrowth of this morning's observations has entirely disappeared; wide-spreading chestnut and grand old sycamore trees shade a circumscribed area of velvety greensward and isolated rocks; a tiny stream, a tributary of the Sackaria, meanders along its rocky bed, and forest-clad mountains tower almost perpendicularly around the charming little vale save one narrow outlet to the east. There is not a human being in sight, nor a sound to break the silence save the murmuring of the brook, as I fairly clamber down into this little sylvan retreat; but a wreath of smoke curling above the trees some distance from the road betrays the presence of man. The whole scene vividly calls to mind one of those marvellous mountain-retreats in which writers of banditti stories are wont to pitch their heroes' silken tent - no more appropriate rendezvous for a band of story-book free-booters could well be imagined. Short stretches of ridable mule-paths are found along this valley as I follow the course of the little stream eastward; they are by no means continuous, by reason of the eccentric wanderings of the rivulet; but after climbing the rough pass one feels thankful for even small favors, and I plod along, now riding, now walking, occasionally passing little clusters of mud huts and meeting with pack animals en route to Ismidt with the season's shearing of mohair. "Alia Franga!" is the greeting I am now favored with, instead of the "Ah, I'Anglais." of Europe, as I pass people on the road; and the bicycle is referred to as an araba, the name the natives give their rude carts, and a name which they seem to think is quite appropriate for anything with wheels. Following the course of the little tributary for several miles, crossing and recrossing it a number of times, I finally emerge with it into the valley of Sackaria. There are some very good roads down this valley, which is narrow, and in places contracts to but little more than a mere neck between the mountains. At one of the narrowest points the mountains present an almost perpendicular face of rock and here are the remnants of an ancient stonewall reputed to have been built by the Greeks, somewhere about the twelfth century in anticipation of an invasion of the Turks from the south. The wall stretches across the valley from mountain to river, and is quite a massive affair; an archway has been cut through it for the passage of caravans. Soon after passing through this opening I am favored with the company of a horseman, who follows me for three or four miles, and thoughtfully takes upon himself the office of telling me when to bin and when not to bin, according as he thinks the road suitable for 'cycling or not, until he discovers that his gratuitous advice produces no visible effect on my movements, when he desists and follows along behind in silence like a sensible fellow. About five o'clock in the afternoon I cross the Sackaria on an old stone bridge, and half an hour later roll into Geiveh, a large village situated in the middle of a triangular valley about seven miles in width. My cyclometer shows a trifle over forty miles from Ismidt; it has been a variable forty miles; I shall never forget the pass over the old causeway, the view of the Sabanja Valley from the summit, nor the lovely little retreat on the eastern side. Trundling through the town in quest of a khan, I am soon surrounded by a clamorous crowd; and passing the house or office of the mudir or headman of the place, that person sallies forth, and, after ascertaining the cause of the commotion, begs me to favor the crowd and himself by riding round a vacant piece of ground hard by. After this performance, a respectable-looking man beckons me to follow him, and he takes me - not to his own house to be his guest, for Geiveh is too near Europe for this sort of thing - to a khan kept by a Greek with a mote in one eye, where a "shake down" on the floor, a cup of coffee or a glass of vishner is obtainable, and opposite which another Greek keeps an eating-house. There is no separate kitchen in this latter establishment as in the one at Isrnidt; one room answers for cooking, eating, nargileh-smoking, coffee- sipping, and gossiping; and while I am eating, a curious crowd watches my every movement with intense interest. Here, as at Ismidt, I am requested to examine for myself the contents of several pots. Most of them contain a greasy mixture of chopped meat and tomatoes stewed together, with no visible difference between them save in the sizes of the pieces of meat; but one vessel contains pillau, and of this and some inferior red wine I make my supper. Prices for eatables are ridiculously low; I hand him a cherik for the supper; he beckons me out of the back door, and there, with none save ourselves to witness the transaction, he counts me out two piastres change, which left him ten centa for the supper. He has probably been guilty of the awful crime of charging me about three farthings over the regular price, and was afraid to venture upon so iniquitous a proceeding in the public room lest the Turks should perchance detect him in cheating an Englishman, and revenge the wrong by making him feed me for nothing. It rains quite heavily during the night, and while waiting for it to dry up a little in the morning, the Geivehites voluntarily tender me much advice concerning the state of the road ahead, being governed in their ideas according to their knowledge of a 'cycler's mountain-climbing ability. By a round dozen of men, who penetrate into my room in a body ere I am fairly dressed, and who, after solemnly salaaming in chorus, commence delivering themselves of expressive pantomime and gesticulations, I am led to understand that the road from Geiveh to Tereklu is something fearful for a bicycle. One fat old Turk, undertaking to explain it more fully, after the others have exhausted their knowledge of sign language, swells himself up like an inflated toad and imitates the labored respiration of a broken-winded horse in order to duly impress upon my mind the physical exertion I may expect to put forth in "riding"-he also paws the air with his right foot-over the mountain-range that looms up like an impassable barrier three miles east of the town. The Turks as a nation have the reputation of being solemn-visaged, imperturbable people, yet one occasionally finds them quite animated and "Frenchy" in their behavior - the bicycle may, however, be in a measure responsible for this. The soil around Geiveh is a red clay that, after a shower, clings to the rubber tires of the bicycle as though the mere resemblance in color tended to establish a bond of sympathy between them that nothing could overcome, I pass the time until ten o'clock in avoiding the crowd that has swarmed the khan since early dawn, and has been awaiting with Asiatic patience ever since. At ten o'clock I win the gratitude of a thousand hearts by deciding to start, the happy crowd deserting half-smoked nargilehs, rapidly swallowing tiny cups of scalding-hot coffee in their anxiety lest I vault into the saddle at the door of the khan and whisk out of their sight in a moment - an idea that is flitting through the imaginative mind of more than one Turk present, as a natural result of the stories his wife has heard from his neighbor's wife, whose sister, from the roof of her house, saw me ride around the vacant space at the mudir's request yesterday. The Oriental imagination of scores of wondering villagers has been drawn upon to magnify that modest performance into a feat that fills the hundreds who didn't see it with the liveliest anticipations, and a murmuring undercurrent of excitement thrills the crowd as the word goes round that I am about to start. A minority of the people learned yesterday that I wouldn't ride across the stones, water- ditches, and mud-holes of the village streets, and these at once lead the way, taking upon themselves the office of conducting me to the road leading to the Kara Su Pass; while the less enlightened majority press on behind, the more restless spirits worrying me to ride, those of more patient disposition maintaining a respectful silence, but wondering why on earth I am walking. The road they conduct me to is another of those ancient stone causeways that traverse this section of Asia Minor in all directions. This one and several others I happen to come across are but about three feet wide, and were evidently built for military purposes by the more enterprising people who occupied Constantinople and the adjacent country before the Turks-narrow stone pathways built to facilitate the marching of armies during the rainy season when the natural ground hereabout is all but impassable. These stone roads were probably built during the Byzantine occupation. Fairly smooth mule-paths lead along-side this relic of departed greatness and energy, and the warm sun having dried the surface, I mount and speed away from the wondering crowd, and in four miles reach the foot of the Kara Su Pass. From this spot I can observe a small caravan, slowly picking its way down the mountain; the animals are sometimes entirely hidden behind rocks, as they follow the windings and twistings of the trail down the rugged slope which the old Turk this morning thought would make me puff to climb. A little stream called the Kara Su, or black water, comes dancing out of a rocky avenue near by; and while I am removing my foot-gear to ford it, I am joined by several herdsmen who are tending flocks of the celebrated Angora goats and the peculiar fat-tailed sheep of the East, which are grazing on neighboring knolls. These gentle shepherds are not overburdened with clothing, their nakedness being but barely covered; but they wear long sword-knives and old flint-lock, bell-mouthed horse- pistols that give them a ferocious appearance that seems strangely at variance with their peaceful occupation. They gather about me with a familiarity that impresses me anything but favorably toward them; they critically examine my clothing from helmet to moccasins, eying my various belongings wistfully, tapping my leather case, and pinching the rear package to try and ascertain the nature of its contents. I gather from their remarks about "para " (a term used in a general sense for money, as well as for the small coin of that name), as they regard the leather case with a covetous eye, that they are inclined to the opinion that it contains money; and there is no telling the fabulous wealth their untutored minds are associating with the supposed treasure-chest of a Frank who rides a silver "araba." Evidently these fellows have never heard of the tenth commandment; or, having heard of it, they have failed to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it for the improvement of their moral natures; for covetousness beams forth from every lineament of their faces and every motion of their hands. Seeing this, I endeavor to win them from the moral shackles of their own gloomy minds by pointing out the beautiful mechanism of my machine; I twirl the pedals and show them how perfect are the bearings of the rear wheel; I pinch the rubber tire to show them that it is neither iron nor wood, and call their attention to the brake, fully expecting in this usually winsome manner to fill them with gratitude and admiration, and make them forget all about my baggage and clothes. But these fellows seem to differ from those of their countrymen I left but a short time ago; my other effects interest them far more than the wheel does, and one of them, after wistfully eying my moccasins, a handsomer pair, perhaps, than he ever saw before, points ruefully down to his own rude sandals of thong-bound raw-hide, and casts a look upon his comrades that says far more eloquently than words, "What a shame that such lovely moccasins should grace the feet of a Frank and an unbeliever - ashes on his head - while a true follower of the Prophet like myself should go about almost barefooted!" There is no mistaking the natural bent of these gentle shepherds' inclinations, and as, in the absence of a rusty sword and a seventeenth-century horse pistol, they doubtless think I am unarmed, my impression from their bearing is that they would, at least, have tried to frighten me into making them a present of my moccasins and perhaps a few other things. In the innocence of their unsophisticated natures, they wist not of the compact little weapon reposing beneath my coat that is as superior to their entire armament as is a modern gunboat to the wooden walls of the last century. Whatever their intentions may be, however, they are doomed never to be carried out, for their attention is now attracted by the caravan, whose approach is heralded by the jingle of a thousand bells. The next two hours find me engaged in the laborious task of climbing a mere bridle-path up the rugged mountain slope, along which no wheeled vehicle has certainly ever been before. There is in some places barely room for pack animals to pass between the masses of rocks, and at others, but a narrow ledge between a perpendicular rock and a sheer precipice. The steepest portions are worn into rude stone stairways by the feet of pack animals that toiled over this pass just as they toiled before America was discovered and have been toiling ever since; and for hundreds of yards at a stretch I am compelled to push the bicycle ahead, rear wheel aloft, in the well-known manner of going up-stairs. While climbing up a rather awkward place, I meet a lone Arab youth, leading his horse by the bridle, and come near causing a serious accident. It was at the turning of a sharp corner that I met this swarthy-faced youth face to face, and the sudden appearance of what both he and the horse thought was a being from a far more distant sphere than the western half of our own so frightened them both that I expected every minute to see them go toppling over the precipice. Reassuring the boy by speaking a word or two of Turkish, and seeing the impossibility of either passing him or of his horse being able to turn around, I turn about and retreat a short distance, to where there is more room. He is not quite assured of my terrestrial character even yet; he is too frightened to speak, and he trembles visibly as he goes past, greeting me with a leer of mingled fear and suspicion; at the same time making a brave but very sickly effort to ward off any evil designs I might be meditating against him by a pitiful propitiatory smile which will haunt my memory for weeks; though I hope by plenty of exercise to escape an attack of the nightmare. This is the worst mountain climbing I have done with a bicycle; all the way across the Rockies there is nothing approaching this pass for steepness; although on foot or horseback it would of course not appear so formidable. When part way up, a bank of low hanging clouds come rolling down to meet me, enveloping the mountain in fog, and bringing on a disagreeable drizzle which scarcely improves the situation. Five miles from the bottom of the pass and three hours from Geiveh I reach a small postaya-khan, occupied by one zaptieh and the station-keeper, where I halt for a half hour and get the zaptieh to brew me a cup of coffee, feeling the need of a, little refreshment after the stiff tugging of the last two hours. Coffee is the only refreshment obtainable here, and, though the weather looks anything but propitious, I push ahead toward a regular roadside khan, which I am told I shall come to at the distance of another hour - the natives of Asia Minor know nothing of miles or kilometres, but reckon the distance from point to point by the number of hours it usually takes to go on horseback. Reaching this khan at three o'clock, I call for something to satisfy the cravings of hunger, and am forthwith confronted with a loaf of black bread, villanously heavy, and given a preliminary peep into a large jar of a crumbly white substance as villanously odoriferous as the bread is heavy, and which I think the proprietor expects me to look upon as cheese. This native product seems to be valued by the people here in proportion as it is rancid, being regarded by them with more than affection when it has reached a degree of rancidness and odoriferousness that would drive a European - barring perhaps, a Limburger - out of the house. These two delicacies, and the inevitable tiny cups of black bitter coffee make up all the edibles the khan affords; so seeing the absence of any alternative, I order bread and coffee, prepared to make the most of circumstances. The proprietor being a kindly individual, and thinking perhaps that limited means forbid my indulgence in such luxuries as the substance in the earthenware jar, in the kindness of his heart toward a lone stranger, scoops out a small portion with his unwashed hand, puts it in a bowl of water and stirs it about a little by way of washing it, drains the water off through his fingers, and places it before me. While engaged in the discussion of this delectable meal, a caravan of mules arrives in charge of seven rough-looking Turks, who halt to procure a feed of barley for their animals, the supplying of which appears to be the chief business of the klian-jee. No sooner have these men alighted and ascertained the use of the bicycle, than I am assailed with the usual importunities to ride for their further edification. It would be quite as reasonable to ask a man to fly as to ride a bicycle anywhere near the khan; but in the innocence of their hearts and the dulness of their Oriental understandings they think differently. They regard my objections as the result of a perverse and contrary disposition, and my explanation of mimkin deyil" as but a groundless excuse born of my unwillingness to oblige. One old gray-beard, after examining the bicycle, eyes me meditatively for a moment, and then comes forward with a humorous twinkle in his eye, and pokes me playfully in the ribs, and makes a peculiar noise with the mouth: " q-u-e-e-k," in an effort to tickle me into good-humor and compliance with their wishes; in addition to which, the artful old dodger, thinking thus to work on my vanity, calls me "Pasha Effendi." Finding that toward their entreaties I give but the same reply, one of the younger men coolly advocates the use of force to coerce me into giving them an exhibition of my skill on the araba. As far as I am able to interpret, this bold visionary's argument is: "Behold, we are seven; Effendi is only one; we are good Mussulmans - peace be with us - he is but a Frank - ashes on his head- let us make him bin." CHAPTER XII. THROUGH THE ANGORA GOAT COUNTRY. The other members of the caravan company, while equally anxious to see the performance, and no doubt thinking me quite an unreasonable person, disapprove of the young man's proposition; and the Man-jee severely reprimands him for talking about resorting to force, and turning to the others, he lays his forefingers together and says something about Franks, Mussulmans, Turks, and Ingilis; meaning that even if we are Franks and Mussulmans, we are not prevented from being at the same time allies and brothers. From the khan the ascent is more gradual, though in places muddy and disagreeable from the drizzling rain which still falls, and about 4 P.M. I arrive at the summit. The descent is smoother, and shorter than the western slope, but is even more abrupt; the composition is a slaty, blue clay, in which the caravans have worn trails so deep in places that a mule is hidden completely from view. There is no room for animals to pass each other in these deep trench-like trails, and were any to meet, the only possible plan is for the ascending animals to be backed down until a wider place is reached. There is little danger of the larger caravans being thus caught in these " traps for the unwary," since each can hear the other's approach and take precautions; but single horsemen and small parties must sometimes find themselves obliged to either give or take, in the depths of these queer highways of commerce. It is quite an awkward task to descend with the bicycle, as for much of the way the trail is not even wide enough to admit of trundling in the ordinary manner, and I have to adopt the same tactics in going down as in coming up the mountain, with the difference, that on the eastern slope I have to pull back quite as stoutly as I had to push forward on the western. In going down I meet a man with three donkeys, but fortunately I am able to scramble up the bank sufficiently to let him pass. His donkeys are loaded with half-ripe grapes, which he is perhaps taking all the way to Constantinople in this slow and laborious manner, and he offers me some as an inducement for me to ride for his benefit. Some wheelmen, being possessed of a sensitive nature, would undoubtedly think they had a right to feel aggrieved or insulted if offered a bunch of unripe grapes as an inducement to go ahead and break their necks; but these people here in Asia Minor are but simple-hearted, overgrown children; they will go straight to heaven when they die, every one of them. At six o'clock I roll into Tereklu, having found ridable road a mile or so before reaching town. After looking at the cyclometer I begin figuring up the number of days it is likely to take me to reach Teheran, if yesterday and to-day have been expository of the country ahead; forty and one-third miles yesterday and nineteen and a half to-day, thirty miles a day-rather slow progress for a wheelman, I mentally conclude; but, although I would rather ride from " Land's End to John O'Groat's " for a task, than bicycle over the ground I have traversed between here and Ismidt, I find the tough work interlarded with a sufficiency of novel and interesting phases to make the occupation congenial. Upon dismounting at Tereklu, I find myself but little fatigued with the day's exertions, and with a view to obtaining a little peace and freedom from importunities to ride after supper, I gratify Asiatic curiosity several times before undertaking to allay the pangs of hunger - a piece of self-denial quite commendable, even if taken in connection with the idea of self-protection, when one reflects that I had spent the day in severe exercise, and had eaten since morning only a piece of bread. Not long after my arrival at Tereklu I am introduced to another peculiar and not unknown phase of the character of these people, one that I have sometimes read of, but was scarcely prepared to encounter before being on Asian soil three days. From some of them having received medical favors from the medicine chest of travellers and missionaries, the Asiatics have come to regard every Frank who passes through their country as a skilful physician, capable of all sorts of wonderful things in the way of curing their ailments; and immediately after supper I am waited upon by my first patient, the mulazim of the Tereklu zaptiehs. He is a tall, pleasant-faced fellow, whom I remember as having been wonderfully courteous and considerate while I was riding for the people before supper, and he is suffering with neuralgia in his lower jaw. He comes and seats himself beside me, rolls a cigarette in silence, lights it, and hands it to me, and then, with the confident assurance of a child approaching its mother to be soothed and cured of some ailment, he requests me to cure his aching jaw, seemingly having not the slightest doubt of my ability to afford him instant relief. I ask him why he don't apply to the hakim (doctor) of his native town. He rolls another cigarette, makes me throw the half-consumed one away, and having thus ingratiated himself a trifle deeper into my affections, he tells me that the Tereklu hakim is "fenna; " in other words, no good, adding that there is a duz hakim at Gieveh, but Gieveh is over the Kara Su dagh. At this juncture he seems to arrive at the conclusion that perhaps I require a good deal of coaxing and good treatment, and, taking me by the hand, he leads me in that affectionate, brotherly manner down the street and into a coffee-Maw, and spends the next hour in pressing upon me coffee and cigarettes, and referring occasionally to his aching jaw. The poor fellow tries so hard to make himself agreeable and awaken my sympathies, that I really begin to feel myself quite an ingrate in not being able to afford him any relief, and slightly embarrassed by my inability to convince him that my failure to cure him is not the result of indifference to his sufferings. Casting about for some way of escape without sacrificing his good-will, and having in mind a box of pills I have brought along, I give him to understand that I am at the top of the medical profession as a stomach-ache hakim, but as for the jaw-ache I am, unfortunately, even worse than his compatriot over the way. Had I attempted to persuade him that I was not a doctor at all, he would not have believed me; his mind being unable to grasp the idea of a Frank totally unacquainted with the noble AEsculapian art; but he seems quite aware of the existence of specialists in the profession, and notwithstanding my inability to deal with his particular affliction, my modest confession of being unexcelled in another branch of medicine seems to satisfy him. My profound knowledge of stomachic disorders and their treatment excuses my ignorance of neuralgic remedies. There seems to be a larger proportion of superior dwelling-houses in Tereklu than in Gieveh, although, to the misguided mind of an unbeliever from the West, they have cast a sort of a funereal shadow over this otherwise desirable feature of their town by building their principal residences around a populous cemetery, which plays the part of a large central square. The houses are mostly two-story frame buildings, and the omnipresent balconies and all the windows are faced with close lattice-work, so that the Osmanli ladies can enjoy the luxury of gazing contemplatively out on the area of disorderly grave-stones without being subjected to the prying eyes of passers-by. In the matter of veiling their faces the women of these interior towns place no such liberal - not to say coquettish - interpretation upon the office of the yashmak as do their sisters of the same religion in and about Constantinople. The ladies of Tereklu, seemingly, have a holy horror of displaying any of their facial charms; the only possible opportunity offered of seeing anything, is to obtain an occasional glimpse of the one black eye with which they timidly survey you through a small opening in the folds of their shroud-like outer garment, that encases them from head to foot; and even this peeping window of their souls is frequently hidden behind the impenetrable yashmak. Mussulman women are the most gossipy and inquisitive creatures imaginable; a very natural result, I suppose, of having had their feminine rights divine under constant restraint and suppression by the peculiar social position women occupy in Mohammedan countries. When I have arrived in town and am surrounded and hidden from outside view by a solid wall of men, it is really quite painful to see the women standing in small groups at a distance trying to make out what all the excitement is about. Nobody seems to have a particle of sympathy for their very natural inquisitiveness, or even to take any notice of their presence. It is quite surprising to see how rapidly the arrival of the Frank with the wonderful araba becomes known among these women from one end of town to another; in an incredibly short space of time, groups of shrouded forms begin to appear on the housetops and other vantage-points, craning their necks to obtain a glimpse of whatever is going on. In the innocence of an unsophisticated nature, and a feeling of genuine sympathy for their position, I propose collecting these scattered groups of neglected females together and giving an exhibition for their especial benefit, but the men evidently regard the idea of going to any trouble out of consideration for them as quite ridiculous; indeed, I am inclined to think they regard it as evidence that I am nothing less than a gay Lothario, who is betraying altogether too much interest in their women; for the old school Osmanli encompasses those hapless mortals about with a green wall of jealousy, and regards with disapproval, even so much as a glance in their direction. While riding on one occasion, this evening, I noticed one over-inquisitive female become so absorbed in the proceedings as to quite forget herself, and approach nearer to the crowd than the Tereklu idea of propriety would seem to justify. In her absent-mindedness, while watching me ride slowly up and dismount, she allowed her yashmak to become disarranged and reveal her features. This awful indiscretion is instantly detected by an old Blue-beard standing by, who eyes the offender severely, but says nothing; if she is one of his own wives, or the wife of an intimate friend, the poor lady has perhaps earned for herself a chastisement with a stick later in the evening. Human nature is pretty much the same in the Orient as anywhere else; the degradation of woman to a position beneath her proper level has borne its legitimate fruits; the average Turkish woman is said to be as coarse and unchaste in her conversation as the lowest outcasts of Occidental society, and is given to assailing her lord and master, when angry, with language anything but choice. It is hardly six o'clock when I issue forth next morning, but there are at least fifty women congregated in the cemetery, alongside which my route leads. During the night they seem to have made up their minds to grasp the only opportunity of "seeing the elephant" by witnessing my departure; and as, "when a woman will she will," etc., applies to Turkish ladies as well as to any others, in their laudable determination not to be disappointed they have been patiently squatting among the gray tombstones since early dawn. The roadway is anything but smooth, nevertheless one could scarce be so dead to all feelings of commiseration as to remain unmoved by the sight of that patiently waiting crowd of shrouded females; accordingly I mount and pick my way along the street and out of town. Modest as is this performance, it is the most marvellous thing they have seen for many a day; not a sound escapes them as I wheel by, they remain as silent as though they were the ghostly population of the graveyard they occupy, for I which, indeed, shrouded as they are in white from head to foot, they might easily be mistaken by the superstitious. My road leads over an undulating depression between the higher hills, a region of small streams, wheat-fields, and irrigating ditches, among which several trails, leading from Tereklu to numerous villages scattered among the mountains and neighboring small valleys, make it quite difficult to keep the proper road. Once I wander off my proper course for several miles; finding out my mistake I determine upon regaining the Torbali trail by a short cut across the stubble-fields and uncultivated knolls of scrub oak. This brings me into an acquaintanceship with the shepherds and husbandmen, and the ways of their savage dogs, that proves more lively than agreeable. Here and there I find primitive threshing-floors; they are simply spots of level ground selected in a central position and made smooth and hard by the combined labors of the several owners of the adjoining fields, who use them in common. Rain in harvest is very unusual; therefore the trouble and expense of covering them is considered unnecessary. At each of these threshing-centres I find a merry gathering of villagers, some threshing out the grain, others winnowing it by tossing it aloft with wooden, flat-pronged forks; the wind blows the lighter chaff aside, while the grain falls back into the heap. When the soil is sandy, the grain is washed in a neighboring stream to take out most of the grit, and then spread out on sheets, in the sun to dry before being finally stored away in the granaries. The threshing is done chiefly by the boys and women, who ride on the same kind of broad sleigh-runner-shaped boards described in European Turkey. The sight of my approaching figure is, of course, the signal for a general suspension of operations, and a wondering as to what sort of being I am. If I am riding along some well-worn by-trail, the women and younger people invariably betray their apprehensions of my unusual appearance, and seldom fail to exhibit a disposition to flee at my approach, but the conduct of their dogs causes me not a little annoyance. They have a noble breed of canines throughout the Angora goat country - fine animals, as large as Newfoundlands, with a good deal the appearance of the mastiff; and they display their hostility to my intrusion by making straight at me, evidently considering me fair game. These dogs are invaluable friends, but as enemies and assailants they are not exactly calculated to win a 'cycler's esteem. In my unusual appearance they see a strange, undefinable enemy bearing down toward their friends and owners, arid, like good, faithful dogs, they hesitate not to commence the attack; sometimes there is a man among the threshers and winnowers who retains presence of mind enough to notice the dogs sallying forth to attack me, and to think of calling them back; but oftener I have to defend myself as best I can, while the gaping crowd, too dumfounded and overcome at my unaccountable appearance to think of anything else, simply stare as though expecting to see me sail up into space out of harm's way, or perform some other miraculous feat. My general tactics are to dismount if riding, and manoeuvre the machine- so as to keep it between myself and my savage assailant if there be but one; and if more than one, make feints with it at them alternately, not forgetting to caress them with a handy stone whenever occasion offers. There is a certain amount of cowardice about these animals notwithstanding their size and fierceness; they are afraid and suspicious of the bicycle as of some dreaded supernatural object; atnd although I am sometimes fairly at my wit's end to keep them at bay, I manage to avoid the necessity of shooting any of them. I have learned that to kill one of these dogs, no matter how great the provocation, would certainly get me into serious trouble with the natives, who value them very highly and consider the wilful killing of one little short of murder; hence my forbearance. When I arrive at a threshing-floor, and it is discovered that I am actually a human being and do not immediately encompass the destruction of those whose courage has been equal to awaiting my arrival, the women and children who have edged off to some distance now approach, quite timidly though, as if not quite certain of the prudence of trusting their eyesight as to the peaceful nature of my mission; and the men vie with each other in their eagerness to give me all desired information about my course; sometimes accompanying me a considerable distance to make sure of guiding me aright. But their contumacious canine friends seem anything but reassured of my character or willing to suspend hostilities; in spite of the friendly attitude of their masters and the peacefulness of the occasion generally, they make furtive dashes through the ranks of the spectators at me as I wheel round the small circular threshing-floor, and savagely snap at the revolving wheels. Sometimes, after being held in check until I am out of sight beyond a knoll, these vindictive and determined assailants will sneak around through the fields, and, overtaking me unseen, make stealthy onslaughts upon me from the brush; my only safety is in unremitting vigilance. Like the dogs of most semi-civilized peoples, they are but imperfectly trained to obey; and the natives dislike checking them in their attacks upon anybody, arguing that so doing interferes with the courage and ferocity of their attack when called upon for a legitimate occasion. It is very questionable, to say the least, if inoffensive wayfarers should be expected to quietly submit to the unprovoked attack of ferocious animals large enough to tear down a man, merely in view of possibly checking their ferocity at some other time. When capering wildly about in an unequal contest with three or four of these animals, while conscious of having the means at hand to give them all their quietus, one feels as though he were at that particular moment doing as the Romans do, with a vengeance; nevertheless, it has to be borne, and I manage to come through with nothing worse than a rent in the leg of my riding trousers. Finally, after fording several small streams, giving half a dozen threshing-floor exhibitions, and running the gauntlet of no end of warlike canines, I reach the lost Torbali trail, and, find it running parallel with a range of hills, intersecting numberless small streams, across which are sometimes found precarious foot-bridges consisting of a tree- trunk felled across it from bank to bank, the work of some enterprising peasant for his own particular benefit rather than the outcome of public spirit. Occasionally I bowl merrily along stretches of road which nature and the caravans together have made smooth enough even to justify a spurt; but like a fleeting dream, this favorable locality passes to the rearward, and is followed by another mountain-slope whose steep grade and rough surface reads " trundle only." They seem the most timid people hereabout I ever saw. Few of them but show unmistakable signs of being frightened at my approach, even when I am trundling-the nickel-plate glistening in the sunlight, I think, inspires them with awe even at a distance - and while climbing this hill I am the innocent cause of the ignominious flight of a youth riding a donkey. While yet two hundred yards away, he reins up and remains transfixed for one transitory moment, as if making sure that his eyes are not deceiving him, or that he is really awake, and then hastily turns tail and bolts across the country, belaboring his long-eared charger into quite a lively gallop in his wild anxiety to escape from my awe- inspiring presence; and as he vanishes across a field, he looks back anxiously to reassure himself that I am not giving chase. Ere kind friends and thoughtful well-wishers, with all their warnings of danger, are three days' journey behind, I find myself among people who run away at my approach. Shortly afterward I observe this bold donkey-rider half a mile to the left, trying to pass me and gain my rear unobserved. Others whom I meet this forenoon are more courageous; instead of resorting to flight, they keep boldly on their general course, simply edging off to a respectful distance from my road; some even venture to keep the road, taking care to give me a sufficiently large margin over and above my share of the way to insure against any possibility of giving offence; while others will even greet me with a feeble effort to smile, and a timid, hesitating look, as if undecided whether they are not venturing too far. Sometimes I stop and ask these lion-hearted specimens whether I am on the right road, when they give a hurried reply and immediately take themselves off, as if startled at their own temerity. These, of course, are lone individuals, with no companions to bolster up their courage or witness their cowardice; the conduct of a party is often quite the reverse. Sometimes they seem determined not to let me proceed without riding for them, whether rocky ridge, sandy depression, or mountain-slope characterizes our meeting-place, and it requires no small stock of forbearance and tact to get away from them without bringing on a serious quarrel. They take hold of the machine whenever I attempt to leave them, and give me to understand that nothing but a compliance with their wishes will secure my release; I have known them even try the effect of a little warlike demonstration, having vague ideas of gaining their object by intimidation; and this sort of thing is kept up until their own stock of patience is exhausted, or until some more reasonable member of the company becomes at last convinced that it really must be "mimkin deyil, " after all; whereupon they let me go, ending the whole annoying, and yet really amusing, performance by giving me the most minute particulars of the route ahead, and parting in the best of humor. To lose one's temper on these occasions, or to attempt to forcibly break away, is quickly discovered to be the height of folly; they themselves are brimful of good humor, and from beginning to end their countenances are wreathed in smiles; although they fairly detain me prisoner the while, they would never think of attempting any real injury to either myself or the bicycle. Some of the more enterprising even express their determination of trying to ride the machine themselves; but I always make a firm stand against any such liberties as this; and, rough, half-civilized fellows though they often are, armed, and fully understanding the advantage of numbers, they invariably yield this point when they find me seriously determined not to allow it. Descending into a narrow valley, I reach a road-side khan, adjoining a thrifty-looking melon-garden - this latter a welcome sight, since the day is warm and sultry; and a few minutes' quiet, soulful communion with a good ripe water-melon, I think to myself, will be just about the proper caper to indulge in after being worried with dogs, people, small streams, and unridable hills since six o'clock. "Carpoose ?" I inquire, addressing the proprietor of the khan, who issues forth from the stable. " Peefci, effendi," he answers, and goes off to the garden for the melon. Smiling sweetly at vacancy, in joyous anticipation of the coming feast and the soothing influence I feel sure of its exerting upon my feelings, somewhat ruffled by the many annoyances of the morning, I seek a quiet, shady corner, thoughtfully loosening my revolver-belt a couple of notches ere sitting down. In a minute the khan-jee returns, and hands me a "cucumber" about the size of a man's forearm. "That isn't a carpoose; I want a carpoose-a su carpoose." I explain. "Su carpoose, yoke" he replies; and as I have not yet reached that reckless disregard of possible consequences to which I afterward attain, I shrink from tempting Providence by trying conclusions with the overgrown and untrustworthy cucumber; so bidding the khan-jee adieu, I wheel off down the valley. I find a fair proportion of good road along this valley; the land is rich, and though but rudely tilled, it produces wonderfully heavy crops of grain when irrigated. Small villages, surrounded by neglected-looking orchards and vineyards, abound at frequent intervals. Wherever one finds an orchard, vineyard, or melon-patch, there is also almost certain to be seen a human being evidently doing nothing but sauntering about, or perhaps eating an unripe melon. This naturally creates an unfavorable impression upon a traveller's mind; it means either that the kleptomaniac tendencies of the people necessitate standing guard over all portable property, or that the Asiatic follows the practice of hovering around all summer, watching and waiting for nature to bestow her blessings upon his undeserving head. Along this valley I meet a Turk and his wife bestriding the same diminutive donkey, the woman riding in front and steering their long-eared craft by the terror of her tongue in lieu of a bridle. The fearless lady halts her steed as I approach, trundling my wheel, the ground being such that riding is possible but undesirable. "What is that for, effendi." inquires the man, who seems to be the more inquisitive of the two. "Why, to bin, of course! don't you see the saddle?" says the woman, without a moment's hesitation; and she bestows a glance of reproach upon her worse half for thus betraying his ignorance, twisting her neck round in order to send the glance straight at his unoffending head. This woman, I mentally conclude, is an extraordinary specimen of her race; I never saw a quicker-witted person anywhere; and I am not at all surprised to find her proving herself a phenomenon in other things. When a Turkish female meets a stranger on the road, and more especially a Frank, her first thought and most natural impulse is to make sure that no part of her features is visible - about other parts of her person she is less particular. This remarkable woman, however, flings custom to the winds, and instead of drawing the ample folds of her abbas about her, uncovers her face entirely, in order to obtain a better view; and, being unaware of my limited understanding, she begins discussing bicycle in quite a chatty manner. I fancy her poor husband looks a trifle shocked at this outrageous conduct of the partner of his joys and sorrows; but he remains quietly and discreetly in the background; whereupon I register a silent vow never more to be surprised at anything, for that long-suffering and submissive being, the hen-pecked husband, is evidently not unknown even in Asiatic Turkey. Another mountain-pass now has to be climbed; it is only a short distance- perhaps two miles - but all the way up I am subjected to the disagreeable experience of having my footsteps dogged by two armed villagers. There is nothing significant or exceptional about their being armed, it is true; but what their object is in stepping almost on my heels for the whole distance up the acclivity is beyond my comprehension. Uncertain whether their intentions are honest or not, it is anything but reassuring to have them following within sword's reach of one's back, especially when trundling a bicycle up a lonely mountain-trail. I have no right to order them back or forward, neither do I care to have them think I entertain suspicions of their intentions, for in all probability they are but honest villagers, satisfying their curiosity in their own peculiar manner, and doubtless deriving additional pleasure from seeing one of their fellow-mortals laboriously engaged while they leisurely follow. We all know how soul-satisfying it is for some people to sit around and watch their fellow-man saw wood. Whenever I halt for a breathing-spell they do likewise; when I continue on, they promptly take up their line of march, following as before in silence; and when the summit is reached, they seat themselves on a rock and watch my progress down the opposite slope. A couple of miles down grade brings me to Torbali, a place of several thousand inhabitants with a small covered bazaar and every appearance of a thriving interior town, as thrift goes in Asia Minor. It is high noon, and I immediately set about finding the wherewithal to make a substantial meal. I find that upon arriving at one of these towns, the best possible disposition to make of the bicycle is to deliver it into the hands of some respectable Turk, request him to preserve it from the meddlesome crowd, and then pay no further attention to it until ready to start. Attempting to keep watch over it oneself is sure to result in a dismal failure, whereas an Osmanli gray-beard becomes an ever-willing custodian, regards its safe-keeping as appealing to his honor, and will stand guard over it for hours if necessary, keeping the noisy and curious crowds of his townspeople at a respectful distance "by brandishing a thick stick at anyone who ventures to approach too near. These men will never accept payment for this highly appreciated service, it seems to appeal to the Osmanli's spirit of hospitality; they seem happy as clams at high tide while gratuitously protecting my property, and I have known them to unhesitatingly incur the displeasure of their own neighbors by officiously carrying the bicycle off into an inner room, not even granting the assembled people the harmless privilege of looking at it from a distance - for there might be some among the crowd possessed of the fenna ghuz (evil eye), and rather than have them fix their baleful gaze upon the important piece of property left under his charge by a stranger, he chivalrously braves the displeasure of his own people; smiling complacently at their shouts of disapproval, he triumphantly bears it out of their sight and from the fell influence of the possible fenna ghuz. Another strange and seemingly paradoxical phase of these occasions is that when the crowd is shouting out its noisiest protests against the withdrawal of the machine from popular inspection, any of the protestors will eagerly volunteer to help carry the machine inside, should the self-important personage having it in custody condescend to make the slightest intimation that such service would be acceptable. Handing over the bicycle, then, to the safe-keeping of a respectable kahuay-jee (coffee khan employee) I sally forth in quest of eatables. The kah vay-jee has it immediately carried inside and set up on one of the divans, in which elevated position he graciously permits it to be gazed upon by the people, who swarm into his khan in such numbers as to make it impossible for him to transact any business. "Under the guidance of another volunteer, who, besides acting the part of guide, takes particular care that I get lumping weight, etc., I proceed to the ett-jees and procure some very good mutton-chops, and from there to the ekmek-jees for bread. This latter person straightway volunteers to cook my chops. Sending to his residence for a tin dish, some chopped onions and butter, he puts them in his oven, and in a few minutes sets them before me, browned and buttered. Meanwhile, he has despatched a youth somewhere on another errand, who now returns and supplements the savory chops with a small dish of honey in the comb and some green figs. Seated on the generous-hearted ekmek-jee's dough-board, I make a dinner good enough for anybody. While discussing these acceptable viands, I am somewhat startled at hearing one of the worst "cuss-words " in the English language repeated several times by one of the two Turks engaged in the self-imposed duty of keeping people out of the place while I am eating - a kindly piece of courtesy that wins for them my warmest esteem. The old fellow proves to be a Crimean veteran, and, besides a much-prized medal he brought back with him, he somehow managed to acquire this discreditable, perhaps, but nevertheless unmistakable, memento of having at some time or other campaigned it with "Tommy Atkins." I try to engage him in conversation, but find that he doesn't know another solitary word of English. He simply repeats the profane expression alluded to in a parrot-like manner without knowing anything of its meaning; has, in fact, forgotten whether it is English, French, or Italian. He only knows it as a "Frank" expression, and in that he is perfectly right: it is a frank expression, a very frank expression indeed. As if determined to do something agreeable in return for the gratifying interest I seem to be taking in him on account of this profanity, he now disappears, and shortly returns with a young man, who turns out to be a Greek, and the only representative of Christendom in Torbali. The old Turk introduces him as a "Ka-ris-ti-ahn " (Christian) and then, in reply to questioners, explains to the interested on-lookers that, although an Englishman, and, unlike the Greeks, friendly to the Turks, I also am a " Ka-ris-ti-ahn; " one of those queer specimens of humanity whose perverse nature prevents them from embracing the religion of the Prophet, and thereby gaining an entrance into the promised land of the kara ghuz kiz (black-eyed houris). During this profound exposition of my merits and demerits, the wondering people stare at me with an expression on their faces that plainly betrays their inability to comprehend so queer an individual; they look as if they think me the oddest specimen they have ever met, and taking into due consideration my novel mode of conveyance, and that many Torbali people never before saw an Englishman, this is probably not far from a correct interpretation of their thoughts. Unfortunately, the streets and environments of Torbali are in a most wretched condition; to escape sprained ankles it is necessary to walk with a great deal of caution, and the idea of bicycling through them is simply absurd. Nevertheless the populace turns out in high glee, and their expectations run riot as I relieve the kahvay-jee of his faithful vigil and bring forth my wheel. They want me to bin in their stuffy little bazaar, crowded with people and donkeys; mere alley-ways with scarcely a twenty yard stretch from one angle to another; the surface is a disorganized mass of holes and stones over which the wary and hesitative donkey picks his way with the greatest care; and yet the popular clamor is "Bin, bin; bazaar, bazaar." The people who have been showing me how courteously and considerately it is possible for Turks to treat a stranger, now seem to have become filled with a determination not to be convinced by anything I say to the contrary; and one of the most importunate and headstrong among them sticks his bearded face almost up against my own placid countenance (I have already learned to wear an unruffled, martyr-like expression on these howling occasions) and fairly shrieks out, "Bin! bin!" as though determined to hoist me iuto the saddle, whether or no, by sheer force of his own desire to see me there. This person ought to know better, for he wears the green turban of holiness, proving him to have made a pilgrimage to Mecca, but the universal desire to see the bicycle ridden seems to level all distinctions. All this tumult, it must not be forgotten, is carried on in perfect good humor; but it is, nevertheless, very annoying to have it seem that I am too boorish to repay their kindness by letting them see me ride; even walking out of town to avoid gratifying them, as some of them doubtless think. These little embarrassments are some of the penalties of not knowing enough of the language to be able to enter into explanations. Learning that there is a piece of wagon-road immediately outside the town, I succeed in silencing the clamor to so mo extent by promising to ride when the araba yole is reached; whereupon hundreds come flocking out of town, following expectantly at my heels. Consoling myself with the thought that perhaps I will be able to mount and shake the clamorous multitude off by a spurt, the promised araba yole is announced; but the fates are plainly against me to-day, for I find this road leading up a mountain slope from the very beginning. The people cluster expectantly around, while I endeavor to explain that they are doomed to disappointment - that to be disappointed in their expectations to see the araba ridden is plainly their kismet, for the hill is too steep to be ridden. They laugh knowingly and give me to understand that they are not quite such simpletons as to think that an araba cannot be ridden along an araba yole. " This is an araba yole," they argue, "you are riding an araba; we have seen even our own clumsily-made arabas go up here time and again, therefore it is evident that you are not sincere," and they gather closer around and spend another ten minutes in coaxing. It is a ridiculous position to be in; these people use the most endearing terms imaginable; some of them kiss the bicycle and would get down and kiss my dust-begrimed moccasins if I would permit it; at coaxing they are the most persevering people I ever saw. To. convince them of the impossibility of riding up the hill I allow a muscular young Turk to climb into the saddle and try to propel himself forward while I hold him up. This has the desired effect, and they accompany me farther up the slope to where they fancy it to be somewhat less steep, a score of all too-willing hands being extended to assist in trundling the machine. Here again I am subjected to another interval of coaxing; and this same annoying programme is carried out several times before I obtain my release. They are the most headstrong, persistent people I have yet encountered; the natural pig- headed disposition of the "unspeakable Turk" seems to fairly run riot in this little valley, which at the point where Torbali is situated contracts to a mere ravine between rugged heights. For a full mile up the mountain road, and with a patient insistence quite commendable in itself, they persist in their aggravating attentions; aggravating, notwithstanding that they remain in the best of humor, and treat me with the greatest consideration in every other respect, promptly and severely checking any unruly conduct among the youngsters, which once or twice reveals itself in the shape of a stone pitched into the wheel, or some other pleasantry peculiar to the immature Turkish mind. At length one enterprising young man, with wild visions of a flying wheelman descending the mountain road with lightning-like velocity, comes prominently to the fore, and unblushingly announces that they have been bringing me along the wrong road; and, with something akin to exultation in his gestures, motions for me to turn about and ride back. Had the others seconded this brilliant idea there was nothing to prevent me from being misled by the statement; but his conduct is at once condemned; for though pig-headed, they are honest of heart, and have no idea of resorting to trickery to gain their object. It now occurs to me that perhaps if I turn round and ride down hill a short distance they will see that my trundling up hill is really a matter of necessity instead of choice, and thus rid me of their undesirable presence. Hitherto the slope has been too abrupt to admit of any such thought, but now it becomes more gradual. As I expected, the proposition is heralded with unanimous shouts of approval, and I take particular care to stipulate that after this they are to follow me no farther; any condition is acceptable to them as long as it includes seeing how the thing is ridden. It is not without certain misgivings that I mount and start cautiously down the declivity between two rows of turbaned and fez-bedecked heads, for I have not yet forgotten the disagreeable actions of the mob at Adrianople in running up behind and giving the bicycle vigorous forward pushes, a proceeding that would be not altogether devoid of danger here, for besides the gradient, one side of the road is a yawning chasm. These people, however, confine themselves solely to howling with delight, proving themselves to be well- meaning and comparatively well-behaved after all. Having performed my part of the compact, a few of the leading men shake hands, and express their gratitude and well-wishes; and after calling back several youngsters who seem unwilling to abide by the agreement forbidding them to follow any farther, the whole noisy company proceed along footpaths leading down the cliffs to town, which is in plain view almost immediately below. The entire distance between Torbali and Keshtobek, where tomorrow forenoon I cross over into the vilayet of Angora, is through a rough country for bicycling. Forest-clad mountains, rocky gorges, and rolling hills characterize the landscape; rocky passes lead over mountains where the caravans, engaged in the exportation of mohair ever since that valuable commodity first began to be exported, have worn ditch-like trails through ridges of solid rock three feet in depth; over the less rocky and precipitous hills beyond a comprehensive view is obtained of the country ahead, and these time-honored trails are seen leading in many directions, ramifying the country like veins of one common system, which are necessarily drawn together wherever there is but one pass. Parts of these commercial by-ways are frequently found to be roughly hedged with wild pear and other hardy shrubs indigenous to the country-the relics of by-gone days, planted when these now barren hills were cultivated, to protect the growing crops from depredation. Old mill-stones with depressions in the centre, formerly used for pounding corn in, and pieces of hewn masonry are occasionally seen as one traverses these ancient trails, marking the site of a village in days long past, when cultivation and centres of industry were more conspicuous features of Asia Minor than they are to- day; lone graves and graves in clusters, marked by rude unchiselled headstones or oblong mounds of bowlders, are frequently observed, completing the scene of general decay. While riding along these tortuous ways, the smooth-worn camel-paths sometimes affording excellent wheeling, the view ahead is often obstructed by the untrimmed hedges on either side, and one sometimes almost comes into collision, in turning a bend, with horsemen, wild-looking, armed formidably in the manner peculiar to the country, as though they were assassins stealing forth under cover. Occasionally a female bestriding a donkey suddenly appears but twenty or thirty yards ahead, the narrowness and the crookedness of the hedged-in trail favoring these abrupt meetings; shrouded perhaps in a white abbas, and not infrequently riding a white donkey, they seldom fail to inspire thoughts of ghostly equestriennes gliding silently along these now half- deserted pathways. Many a hasty but sincere appeal is made to Allah by these frightened ladies as they fancy themselves brought suddenly face to face with the evil one; more than once this afternoon I overhear that agonizing appeal for providential aid and protection of which I am the innocent cause. The second thought of the lady - as if it occurred to her that with any portion of her features visible she would be adjudged unworthy of divine interference in her behalf - is to make sure that her yashmak is not disarranged, and then comes a mute appeal to her attendant, if she have one, for some explanation of the strange apparition so suddenly and unexpectedly confronting them. In view of the nature of the country and the distance to Keshtobek, I have no idea of being able to reach that place to-night, and when I arrive at the ruins of an old mud-built khan, at dusk, I conclude to sup off the memories of my excellent dinner and a piece of bread I have in my pocket, and avail myself of its shelter for the night. While eating my frugal repast, up ride three mule-teers, who, after consulting among themselves some minutes, finally picket their animals and prepare to join my company; whether for all night or only to give their animals a feed of grass, I am unable to say. Anyhow, not liking the idea of spending the whole night, or any part of it, in these unfrequented hills with three ruffianly-looking natives, I again take up my line of march along mountain mule-paths for some three miles farther, when I descend into a small valley, and it being too dark to undertake the task of pitching my tent, I roll myself up in it instead. Soothed by the music of a babbling brook, I am almost asleep, when a glorious meteor shoots athwart the sky, lighting up the valley with startling vividness for one brief moment, and then the dusky pall of night descends, and I am gathered into the arms of Morpheus. Toward morning it grows chilly, and I am but fitfully dozing in the early gray, when I am awakened by the bleating and the pattering feet of a small sea of Angora goats. Starting up, I discover that I am at that moment the mysterious and interesting subject of conversation between four goatherds, who have apparently been quietly surveying my sleeping form for some minutes. Like our covetous friends beyond the Kara Su Pass, these early morning acquaintances are unlovely representatives of their profession; their sword-blades are half naked, the scabbards being rudely fashioned out of two sections of wood, roughly shaped to the blade, and bound together at top and bottom with twine; in addition to which are bell-mouthed pistols, half the size of a Queen Bess blunderbuss. This villainous-looking quartette does not make "a very reassuring picture in the foreground of one's waking moments, but they are probably the most harmless mortals imaginable; anyhow, after seeing me astir, they pass onl with their flocks and herds without even submitting me to the customary catechizing. The morning light reveals in my surroundings a most charming little valley, about half a mile wide, walled in on the south by towering mountains covered with a forest of pine and cedar, and on the north by low, brush-covered hills; a small brook dances along the middle, and thin pasturage and scattered clumps of willow fringe the stream. Three miles down the valley I arrive at a roadside khan, where I obtain some hard bread that requires soaking in water to make it eatable, and some wormy raisins; and from this choice assortment I attempt to fill the aching void of a ravenous appetite; with what success I leave to the reader's imagination. Here the khan-jee and another man deliver themselves of one of. those strange requests peculiar to the Asiatic Turk. They pool the contents of their respective treasuries, making in all perhaps, three medjedis, and, with the simplicity of children whose minds have not yet dawned upon the crooked ways of a wicked world, they offer me the money in exchange for my Whitehouse leather case with its contents. They have not the remotest idea of what the case contains; but their inquisitiveness apparently overcomes all other considerations. Perhaps, however, their seemingly innocent way of offering me the money may be their own peculiar deep scheme of inducing me to reveal the nature of its contents. For a short distance down the valley I find road that is generally ridable, when it contracts to a mere ravine, and the only road is the bowlder strewn bed of the stream, which is now nearly dry, but in the spring is evidently a raging torrent. An hour of this delectable exercise, and I emerge into a region of undulating hills, among which are scattered wheat-fields and clusters of mud-hovels which it would be a stretch of courtesy to term villages. Here the poverty of the soil, or of the water-supply, is heralded to every observant eye by the poverty-stricken appearance of , the villagers. As I wheel along, I observe that these poor half-naked wretches are gathering their scant harvest by the laborious process of pulling it up by the roots, and carrying it to their common threshing-floor on donkeys' backs. Here, also, I come to a camp of Turkish gypsies; they are dark- skinned, with an abundance of long black hair dangling about their shoulders, like our Indians; the women and larger girls are radiant in scarlet calico and other high-colored fabrics, and they wear a profusion of bead necklaces, armlets, anklets, and other ornaments dear to the semi-savage mind; the younger children are as wild and as innocent of clothing as their boon companions, the dogs. The men affect the fez and general Turkish style of dress, with many unorthodox trappings and embellishments, however; and with their own wild appearance, their high- colored females, naked youngsters, wolfish-looking dogs, picketed horses, and smoke-browned tents, they make a scene that, for picturesqueness, can give odds even to the wigwam-villages of Uncle Sam's Crow scouts, on the Little Big Horn River, Montana Territory, which is saying a good deal. Twelve miles from my last night's rendezvous, I pass through Keshtobek, a village that has evidently seen better days. The ruins of a large stone khan take up all the central portion of the place; massive gateways of hewn stone, ornamented by the sculptor's chisel, are still standing, eloquent monuments of a more prosperous era. The unenterprising descendants of the men who erected this substantial and commodious retreat for passing caravans and travellers are now content to house themselves and their families in tumble-down hovels, and to drift aimlessly and unambitiously along on wretched fare and worse clothes, from the cradle to the grave. The Keshtobek people seem principally interested to know why I am travelling without any zaptieh escort; a stranger travelling through these wooded mountains, without guard or guide, and not being able to converse with the natives, seems almost beyond their belief. When they ask me why I have no zaptieh, I tell them I have one, and show them the Smith & Wesson. They seem to regard this as a very witty remark, and say to each other: "He is right; an English effendi and an American revolver don't require any zapliehs to take care of them, they are quite able to look out for themselves." From Keshtobek my road leads down another small valley, and before long I find myself in the Angora vilayet, bowling briskly eastward over a most excellent road; not the mule-paths of an hour ago, but a broad, well-graded highway, as good, clear into Nalikhan, as the roads of any New England State. This sudden transition is not unnaturally productive of some astonishment on my part, and inquiries at Nalikhan result in the information that my supposed graded wagon-road is nothing less than the bed of a proposed railway, the preliminary grading for which has been finished between Keshtobek and Angora for some time. This valley seems to be the gateway into a country entirely different from what I have hitherto traversed. Unlike the forest-crowned mountains and shrubbery hills of this morning, the mountains towering aloft on every hand are now entirely destitute of vegetation; but they are in nowise objectionable to look upon on that account, for they have their own peculiar features of loveliness. Various colored rocks and clays enter into their composition; their giant sides are fantastically streaked and seamed with blue, yellow, green, and red; these variegated masses encompassing one round about on every side are a glorious sight-they are more interesting, more imposing, more grand and impressive even than the piny heights of Kodjaili. Many of these mountains bear evidence of mineral formation, and anywhere in the Occident would be the scene of busy operations. In Constantinople I heard an English mineralist, who has lived many years in the country, express the belief that there is more mineral buried in these Asia Minor hills than in a corresponding area in any other part of the world; that he knew people who for years have had their eye on certain localities of unusual promise waiting patiently for the advantages of mineral development to dawn upon the sluggish mind of Osmanli statesmen. At present it is useless to attempt prospecting, for there is no guarantee of security; no sooner is anything of value discovered than the finder is embarrassed by imperial taxes, local taxes, backsheesh, and all manner of demands on his resources, often ending in having everything coolly confiscated by the government; which, like the dog in the manger, will do nothing with it, and is perfectly contented and apathetic so long as no one else is reaping any benefit from it. The general ridableness of this chemin de fer, as the natives have been taught to call it, proves not to be without certain disadvantages, for during the afternoon I unwittingly manage to do considerable mischief. Suddenly meeting two horsemen, when bowling at a moderate pace around a bend, the horse of one takes violent exception to my intrusion, and, in spite of the excellent horsemanship of his rider, backs down into a small ravine, both horse and rider coming to grief in some water at the bottom. Fortunately, neither man nor horse sustained any more serious injury than a few scratches and bruises, though it might easily have resulted in broken bones. Soon after this affair, another donkey-rider takes to his heels, or rather to his donkey's heels across country, and his long- eared and generally sure-footed charger ingloriously comes to earth; but I feel quite certain that no damage is sustained in this case, for both steed and rider are instantly on their feet; the bold steeple-chaser looks wildly and apprehensively toward me, but observing that I am giving chase, it dawns upon his mind that I am perhaps after all a human being, whereupon he refrains from further flight. Wheeling down the gentle declivity of a broad, smooth road that almost deserves the title of boulevard, leading through the vineyards and gardens of Nalikhan's environments, at quite a rattling pace, I startle a quarry of four dears (deers) robed in white mantles, who, the moment they observe the strange apparition approaching them at so vengeful a speed, bolt across a neighboring vineyard like the all-possessed. The rapidity of their movements, notwithstanding the impedimenta of their flowing shrouds, readily suggests the idea of a quarry of dears (deer), but whether they are pretty dears or not, of course, their yashmaks fail to reveal; but in return for the beaming smile that lights up our usually solemn-looking countenance at their ridiculously hasty flight, as a reciprocation pure and simple, I suppose we ought to give them the benefit of the doubt. The evening at Nalikhan is a comparatively happy occasion; it is Friday, the Mussulman Sabbath; everybody seems fairly well-dressed for a Turkish interior town; and, more important than all, there is a good, smooth road on which to satisfy the popular curiosity; on 'this latter fact depends all the difference between an agreeable and a disagreeable time, and at Nalikhan everything passes off pleasantly for all concerned. Apart from the novelty of my conveyance, few Europeans have ever visited these interior places under the same conditions as myself. They have usually provided themselves beforehand with letters of introduction to the pashas and mudirs of the villages, who have entertained them as their guests during their stay. On the contrary, I have seen fit to provide myself with none of these way-smoothing missives, and, in consequence of my linguistic shortcomings, immediately upon reaching a town I have to surrender myself, as it were, to the intelligence and good-will of the common people; to their credit be it recorded, I can invariably count on their not lacking at least the latter qualification. The little khan I stop at is, of course, besieged by the usual crowd, but they are a happy-hearted, contented people, bent on lionizing me the best they know how; for have they not witnessed my marvellous performance of riding an araba, a beautiful web-like araba, more beautiful than any makina they ever saw before, and in a manner that upsets all their previous ideas of equilibrium. Have I not proved how much I esteem them by riding over and over again for fresh batches of new arrivals, until the whole population has seen the performance. And am I not hobnobbing and making myself accessible to the people, instead of being exclusive and going straightway to the pasha's, shutting myself up and permitting none but a few privileged persons to intrude upon my privacy . All these things appeal strongly to the better nature of the imaginative Turks, and not a moment during the whole evening am I suffered to be unconscious of their great appreciation of it all. A bountiful supper of scrambled eggs fried in butter, and then the miilazim of zaptiehs takes me under his special protection and shows me around the town. He shows me where but a few days ago the Nalikhan bazaar, with all its multifarious merchandise, was destroyed by fire, and points out the temporary stalls, among the black ruins, that have been erected by the pasha for the poor merchants who, with heavy hearts and doleful countenance, are trying to recuperate their shattered fortunes. He calls my attention to two-story wooden houses and other modest structures, which, in the simplicity of his Asiatic soul, he imagines are objects of interest; and then he takes me to the headquarters of his men, and sends out for coffee in order to make me literally his guest. Here, in his office, he calls my attention to a chromo hanging on the wall, which he says came from Stamboul - Stamboul, where the Asiatic Turk fondly imagines all wonderful things originate.This chromo is certainly a wonderful thing in its way. It represents an English trooper in the late Soudan expedition kneeling behind the shelter of a dead camel, and with a revolver in each hand keeping at bay a crowd of Arab spearmen. The soldier is badly wounded, but with smoking revolvers and an evident determination to die hard, he has checked, and is still checking, the advance of somewhere about ten thousand Arab troops. No wonder the people of Keshtobek thought an Englishman and a revolver quite safe in travelling without zaptiehs; some of them had probably been to Nalikhan and seen this same chromo. When it grows dark the mulazim takes me to the public coffee-garden, near the burned bazaar, a place which ia really no garden at all only some broad, rude benches encircling a round water-tank or fountain, and which is fenced in with a low, wabbly picket-fence. Seated crossed-legged on the benches are a score of sober-sided Turks, smoking nargilehs and cigarettes, and sipping coffee; the feeble light dispensed by a lantern on top of a pole in the centre of the tank makes the darkness of the "garden" barely visible; a continuous splashing of water, the result of the overflow from a pipe projecting three feet above the surface, furnishes the only music; the sole auricular indication of the presence of patrons is when some customer orders "kahvay" or "nargileh" in a scarcely audible tone of voice; and this is the Turk's idea of an evening's enjoyment. Returning to the khan, I find it full of happy people looking at the bicycle; commenting on the wonderful marifet (skill) apparent in its mechanism, and the no less marvellous marifet required in riding it. They ask me if I made it myself and hatch-lira ? (how many liras ?) and then requesting the privilege of looking at my teskeri they find rare amusement in comparing my personal charms with the description of my form and features as interpreted by the passport officer in Galata. Two men among them have in some manner picked up a sand from the sea-shore of the English language. One of them is a very small sand indeed, the solitary negative phrase, "no;" nevertheless, during the evening he inspires the attentive auditors with respect for his linguistic accomplishments by asking me numerous questions, and then, anticipating a negative reply, forestalls it himself by querying, "No?" The other "linguist" has in some unaccountable manner added the ability to say "Good morning " to his other accomplishments; and when about time to retire, and the crowd reluctantly bestirs itself to depart from the magnetic presence of the bicycle, I notice an extraordinary degree of mysterious whispering and suppressed amusement going on among them, and then they commence filing slowly out of the door with the "linguistic person" at their head; as that learned individual reaches the threshold he turns toward we, makes a salaam and says, "Good-morning," and everyone of the company, even down to the irrepressible youngster who was cuffed a minute ago for venturing to twirl a pedal, and who now forms the rear- guard of the column, likewise makes a salaam and says, "Good-morning." Quilts are provided for me, and I spend the night on the divan of the khan; a few roving mosquitoes wander in at the open window and sing their siren songs around my couch, a few entomological specimens sally forth from their permanent abode in the lining of the quilts to attack me and disturb my slumbers; but later experience teaches me to regard my slumbers to-night as comparatively peaceful and undisturbed. In the early morning I am awakened by the murmuring voices of visitors gathering to see me off; coffee is handed to me ere my eyes are fairly open, and the savory odor of eggs already sizzling in the pan assail my olfactory nerves. The khan-jee is an Osmanli and a good Mussulman, and when ready to depart I carelessly toss him my purse and motion for him to help himself-a thing I would not care to do with the keeper of a small tavern in any other country or of any other nation. Were he entertaining me in a private capacity he would feel injured at any hint of payment; but being a khan- jee, he opens the purse and extracts a cherik - twenty cents. CHAPTER XIII. BEY BAZAAR, ANGORA, AND EASTWARD. A Trundle of half an hour up the steep slopes leading out of another of those narrow valleys in which all these towns are situated, and then comes a gentle declivity extending with but little interruption for several miles, winding in and out among the inequalities of an elevated table-land. The mountain-breezes blow cool and exhilarating, and just before descending into the little Charkhan Valley I pass some interesting cliffs of castellated rocks, the sight of which immediately wafts my memory back across the thousands of miles of land and water to what they are almost a counterpart of the famous castellated rocks of Green River, Wyo. Ter. Another scary youth takes to his heels as I descend into the valley and halt at the village of Charkhan, a mere shapeless cluster of mud-hovels. Before one of these a ragged agriculturist solemnly presides over a small heap of what I unfortunately mistake at the time for pumpkins. I say "unfortunately," because after-knowledge makes it highly probable that they were the celebrated Charhkan musk-melons, famous far and wide for their exquisite flavor; the variety can be grown elsewhere, but, strange to say, the peculiar, delicate flavor which makes them so celebrated is absent when they vegetate anywhere outside this particular locality. It is supposed to be owing to some peculiar mineral properties of the soil. The Charkhan Valley is a wild, weird-looking region, looking as if it were habitually subjected to destructive downpourings of rain, that have washed the grand old mountains out of all resemblance to neighboring ranges round about. They are of a soft, shaly composition, and are worn by the elements into all manner of queer, fantastic shapes; this, together with the same variegated colors observed yesterday afternoon, gives them a distinctive appearance not easily forgotten. They are " grand, gloomy, and peculiar; " especially are they peculiar. The soil of the valley itself seems to be drift-mud from the surrounding hills; a stream furnishes water sufficient to irrigate a number of rice- fields, whose brilliant emerald hue loses none of its brightness from being surrounded by a framework of barren hills. Ascending from this interesting locality my road now traverses a dreary, monotonous district of whitish, sun-blistered hills, water-less and verdureless for fourteen miles. The cool, refreshing breezes of early morning have been dissipated by the growing heat of the sun; the road continues fairly good, and while riding I am unconscious of oppressive heat; but the fierce rays of the sun blisters my neck and the backs of my hands, turning them red and causing the skin to peel off a few days afterward, besides ruining a section of my gossamer coat exposed on top of the Lamson carrier. The air is dry and thirst-creating, there is considerable hill-climbing to be done, and long ere the fourteen miles are covered I become sufficiently warm and thirsty to have little thought of anything else but reaching the means of quenching thirst. Away off in the distance ahead is observed a dark object, whose character is indistinct through the shimmering radiation from the heated hills, but which, upon a nearer approach, proves to be a jujube-tree, a welcome sentinel in those arid regions, beckoning the thirsty traveller to a never-failing supply of water. At the jujube-tree I find a most magnificent fountain, pouring forth at least twenty gallons of delicious cold water to the minute. The spring has been walled up and a marble spout inserted, which gushes forth a round, crystal column, as though endeavoring to compensate for the prevailing aridness and to apologize to the thirsty wayfarer for the inhospitableness of its surroundings. Miles away to the northward, perched high up among the ravines of a sun-baked mountain-spur, one can see a circumscribed area of luxuriant foliage. This conspicuous oasis in the desert marks the source of the beautiful road-side fountain, which traverses a natural subterranean passage-way between these two distant points. These little isolated clumps of waving trees, rearing their green heads conspicuously above the surrounding barrenness, are an unerring indication of both water and human habitations. Often one sees them suddenly when least expected, nestling in a little depression high up some mountain-slope far away, the little dark-green area looking almost black in contrast with the whitish color of the hills. These are literally "oases in the desert," on a small scale, and although from a distance no sign of human habitations appeal, since they are but mud- hovels corresponding in color to the hills themselves, a closer examination invariably reveals well-worn donkey-trails leading from different directions to the spot, and perchance a white-turbaned donkey-rider slowly wending his way along a trail. The heat becomes almost unbearable; the region of treeless, shelterless hills continues to characterize my way, and when, at two o'clock P.M., I reach the town of Bey Bazaar, I conclude that the thirty-nine miles already covered is the limit of discretion to-day, considering the oppressive heat, and seek the friendly accommodation of a khan. There I find that while shelter from the fierce heat of the sun is obtainable, peace and quiet are altogether out of the question. Bey Bazaar is a place of eight thousand inhabitants, and the khan at once becomes the objective point of, it seems to me, half the population. I put the machine up on a barricaded yattack-divan, and climb up after it; here I am out of the meddlesome reach of the " madding crowd," but there is no escaping from the bedlam-like clamor of their voices, and not a few, yielding to their uncontrollable curiosity, undertake to invade my retreat; these invariably "skedaddle" respectfully at my request, but new-comers are continually intruding. The tumult is quite deafening, and I should certainly not be surprised to have the khan-jee request me to leave the place, on the reasonable ground that my presence is, under the circumstances, detrimental to his interests, since the crush is so great that transacting business is out of the question. The khan-jee, however, proves to be a speculative individual, and quite contrary thoughts are occupying his mind. His subordinate, the kahvay-jee, presents himself with mournful countenance and humble attitude, points with a perplexed air to the surging mass of fezzes, turbans, and upturned Turkish faces, and explains - what needs no explanation other than the evidence of one's own eyes - that he cannot transact his business of making coffee. "This is your khan," I reply; "why not turn them out." "Mashallah, effendi. I would, but for everyone I turned out, two others would come in-the sons of burnt fathers." he says, casting a reproachful look down at the straggling crowd of his fellow-countrymen. "What do you propose doing, then?" I inquire. "Katch para, effendi," he answers, smiling approvingly at his own suggestion. The enterprising kahvay-jee advocates charging them an admission fee of five paras (half a cent) each as a measure of protection, both for himself and me, proposing to make a "divvy" of the proceeds. Naturally enough the idea of making a farthing show of either myself or the bicycle is anything but an agreeable proposition, but it is plainly the only way of protecting the kahvay-jee and his khan from being mobbed all the afternoon and far into the night by a surging mass of inquisitive people; so I reluctantly give him permission to do whatever he pleases to protect himself. I have no idea of the financial outcome of the speculative khan- jee's expedient, but the arrangement secures me to some extent from the rabble, though not to any appreciable extent from being worried. The people nearly drive me out of my seven senses with their peculiar ideas of making themselves agreeable, and honoring me; they offer me cigarettes, coffee, mastic, cognac, fruit, raw cucumbers, melons, everything, in fact, but the one thing I should really appreciate - a few minutes quiet, undisturbed, enjoyment of my own company; this is not to be secured by locking one's self in a room, nor by any other expedient I have yet tried in Asia. After examining the bicycle, they want to see my "Alla Franga" watch and my revolver; then they want to know how much each thing costs, and scores of other things that appeal strongly to their excessively inquisitive natures. One old fellow, yearning for a closer acquaintance, asks me if I ever saw the wonderful "chu, chu, chu! chemin defer at Stamboul," adding that he has seen it and intends some day to ride on it; another hands me a Crimean medal, and says he fought against the Muscovs with the "Ingilis," while a third one solemnly introduces himself as a "makinis " (machinist), fancying, I suppose, that there is some fraternal connection between himself and me, on account of the bicycle being a makina. I begin to feel uncomfortably like a curiosity in a dime museum - a position not exactly congenial to my nature; so, after enduring this sort of thing for an hour, I appoint the kahvay-jee custodian of the bicycle and sally forth to meander about the bazaar a while, where I can at least have the advantage of being able to move about. Upon returning to the khan, an hour later, I find there a man whom I remember passing on the road; he was riding a donkey, the road was all that could be desired, and I swept past him at racing speed, purely on the impulse of the moment, in order to treat him to the abstract sensation of blank amazement. This impromptu action of mine is now bearing its legitimate fruit, for, surrounded by a most attentive audience, the wonder-struck donkey-rider is endeavoring, by word and gesture, to impress upon them some idea of the speed at which I swept past him and vanished round a bend. The kahvay-jee now approaches me, puffing his cheeks out like a penny balloon and jerking his thumb in the direction of the street door. Seeing that I don't quite comprehend the meaning of this mysterious facial contortion, he whispers confidentially aside, "pasha," and again goes through the highly interesting performance of puffing out his cheeks and winking in a knowing manner; he then says-also confidentially and aside - "lira," winking even more significantly than before. By all this theatrical by-play, the kahvay-jee means that the pasha - a man of extraordinary social, political, and, above all, financial importance - has expressed a wish to see the bicycle, and is now outside; and the kahvay-jee, with many significant winks and mysterious hints of " lira," advises me to take the machine outside and ride it for the pasha's special benefit. A portion of the street near by is " ridable under difficulties; " so I conclude to act on the kahvay-jee's suggestion, simply to see what comes of it. Nothing particular comes of it, whereupon the kahvay-jee and his patrons all express themselves as disgusted beyond measure because the Pasha failed-to give me a present. Shortly after this I find myself hobnobbing with a small company of ex-Mecca pilgrims, holy personages with huge green turbans and flowing gowns; one of them is evidently very holy indeed, almost too holy for human associations one would imagine, for in addition to his green turban he wears a broad green kammer bund and a green undergarment; he is in fact very green indeed. Then a crazy person pushes his way forward and wants me to cure him of his mental infirmity; at all events I cannot imagine what else he wants; the man is crazy as a loon, he cannot even give utterance to his own mother-tongue, but tries to express himself in a series of disjointed grunts beside which the soul-harrowing efforts of a broken-winded donkey are quite melodious. Someone has probably told him that I am a hakim, or a wonderful person on general principles, and the fellow is sufficiently conscious of his own condition to come forward and endeavor to grunt himself into my favorable consideration. Later in the evening a couple of young Turkish dandies come round to the khan and favor me with a serenade; one of them twangs a doleful melody on a small stringed instrument, something like the Slavonian tamborica, and the other one sings a doleful, melancholy song (nearly all songs and tunes in Mohammedan countries seem doleful and melancholy); afterwards an Arab camel-driver joins in with a dance, and furnishes some genuine amusement with his hip-play and bodily contortions; this would scarcely be considered dancing from our point of view, but it is according to the ideas of the East. The dandies are distinguishable from the common run of Turkish bipeds, like the same species in other countries, by the fearful and wonderful cut of their garments. The Turkish dandy wears a tassel to his fez about three times larger than the regulation size, and he binds it carefully down to the fez with a red and yellow silk handkerchief; he wears a jaunty-looking short jacket of bright blue cloth, cut behind so that it reaches but little below his shoulder-blades; the object of this is apparently to display the whole of the multifold kammerbund, a wonderful, colored waist-scarf that is wound round and round the waist many times, and which is held at one end by an assistant, while the wearer spins round like a dancing dervish, the assistant advancing gradually as the human bobbin takes up the length. The dandy wears knee-breeches corresponding in color to his jacket, woollen stockings of mingled red and black, and low, slipper-like shoes; he allows his hair to fall about his eyes a la negligee, and affects a reckless, love- lorn air. The last party of sight-seers for the day call around near midnight, some time after I have retired to sleep; they awaken me with their garrulous observations concerning the bicycle, which they are critically examining close to my head with a classic lamp; but I readily forgive them their nocturnal intrusion, since they awaken me to the first opportunity of hearing women wailing for the dead. A dozen or so of women are wailing forth their lamentations in the silent night but a short distance from the khan; I can look out of a small opening in the wall near my shake-down, and see them moving about the house and premises by the flickering glare of torches. I could never have believed the female form divine capable of producing such doleful, unearthly music; but there is no telling what these shrouded forms are really capable of doing, since the opportunity of passing one's judgment upon their accomplishments is confined solely to an occasional glimpse of a languishing eye. The kahvay-jee, who is acting the part of explanatory lecturer to these nocturnal visitors, explains the meaning of the wailing by pantomimically describing a corpse, and then goes on to explain that the smallest imaginable proportion of the lamentations that are making night hideous is genuine grief for the departed, most of the uproar being made by a body of professional mourners hired for the occasion. When I awake in the morning the unearthly wailing is still going vigorously forward, from which I infer they have been keeping it up all night. Though gradually becoming inured to all sorts of strange scenes and customs, the united wailing and lamentations of a houseful of women, awakening the echoes of the silent night, savor too much of things supernatural and unearthly not to jar unpleasantly on the senses; the custom is, however, on the eve of being relegated to the musty past by the Ottoman Government. In the larger cities where there are corpses to be wailed over every night, it has been found so objectionable to the expanding intellects of the more enlightened Turks that it has been prohibited as a public nuisance, and these days it is only in such conservative interior towns as Bey Bazaar that the custom still obtains. When about starting early on the following morning the khanjee begs me to be seated, and then several men who have been waiting around since before daybreak vanish hastily through the door-way; in a few minutes I am favored with a small company of leading citizens who, having for various reasons failed to swell yesterday's throng, have taken the precaution to post these messengers to watch my movements and report when I am ready to depart. Our grunting patient, the crazy man, likewise reappears upon the scene of my departure from the khan, and, in company with a small but eminently respectable following, accompanies me to the brow of a bluffy hill leading out of the depression in which Bey Bazaar snugly nestles. On the way up he constantly gives utterance to his feelings in guttural gruntings that make last night's lamentations seem quite earthly after all in comparison; and when the summit is reached, and I mount and glide noiselessly away down a gentle declivity, he uses his vocal organs in a manner that simply defies chirographical description or any known comparison; it is the despairing howl of a semi-lunatic at witnessing my departure without having exercised my supposed extraordinary powers in some miraculous manner in his behalf. The road continues as an artificial highway, but is not continuously ridable, owing to the rocky nature of the material used in its construction and the absence of vehicular traffic to wear it smooth; but it is highly acceptable in the main. From Bey Bazaar eastward it leads for several miles along a stony valley, and then through a region that differs little from yesterday's barren hills in general appearance, but which has the redeeming feature of being traversed here and there by deep canons or gorges, along which meander tiny streams, and whose wider spaces are areas of remarkably fertile soil. While wheeling merrily along the valley road I am favored with a "peace-offering" of a splendid bunch of grapes from a bold vintager en route, to Bey Bazaar with a grape-laden donkey. When within a few hundred yards the man evinces unmistakable signs of uneasiness concerning my character, and would probably follow the bent of his inclinations and ingloriously flee the field, but his donkey is too heavily laden to accompany him: he looks apprehensively at my rapidly approaching figure, and then, as if a happy thought suddenly occurs to him, he quickly takes the finest bunch of grapes ready to hand and holds them, out toward me while I am yet a good fifty yards away. The grapes are luscious, and the bunch weighs fully an oke, but I should feel uncomfortably like a highwayman, guilty of intimidating the man out of his property, were I to accept them in the spirit in which they are offered; as it is, the honest fellow will hardly fall to trembling in his tracks should he at any future time again descry the centaur-like form of a mounted wheelman approaching him in the distance. Later in the forenoon I descend into a canon-like valley where, among a few scattering vineyards and jujube-trees, nestles Ayash, a place which disputes with the neighboring village of Istanos the honor of being the theatre of Alexander the Great's celebrated exploit of cutting the Gordian knot that disentangled the harness of the Phrygian king. Ayash is to be congratulated upon having its historical reminiscence to recommend it to the notice of the outer world, since it has little to attract attention nowadays; it is merely the shapeless jumble of inferior dwellings that characterize the average Turkish village. As I trundle through the crooked, ill-paved alley-way that, out of respect to the historical association referred to, may be called its business thoroughfare, with forethought of the near approach of noon I obtain some pears, and hand an ekmek-jee a coin for some bread; he passes over a tough flat cake, abundantly sufficient for my purpose, together with the change. A zaptieh, looking on, observes that the man has retained a whole half-penny for the bread, and orders him to fork over another cake; I refuse to take it up, whereupon the zaptieh fulfils his ideas of justice by ordering the ekmek-jae to give it to a ragged youth among the spectators. Continuing on my way I am next halted by a young man of the better class, who, together with the zaptieh, endeavors to prevail upon me to stop, going through the pantomime of writing and reading, to express some idea that our mutual ignorance of each other's language prevents being expressed in words. The result is a rather curious intermezzo. Thinking they want to examine my teskeri merely to gratify their idle curiosity, I refuse to be thus bothered, and, dismissing them quite brusquely, hurry along over the rough cobble-stones in hopes of reaching ridable ground and escaping from the place ere the inevitable "madding crowd" become generally aware of my arrival. The young man disappears, while the zaptieh trots smilingly but determinedly by my side, several times endeavoring to coax me into making a halt; which is, however, promptly interpreted by myself into a paternal plea on behalf of the villagers - a desire to have me stop until they could be generally notified and collected - the very thing I am hurrying along to avoid, I am already clear of the village and trundling up the inevitable acclivity, the zaptieh and a small gathering still doggedly hanging on, when the young man reappears, hurriedly approaching from the rear, followed by half the village. The zaptieh pats me on the shoulder and points back with a triumphant smile; thinking he is referring to the rabble, I am rather inclined to be angry with him and chide him for dogging my footsteps, when I observe the young man waving aloft a letter, and at once understand that I have been guilty of an ungenerous misinterpretation of their determined attentions. The letter is from Mr. Binns, an English gentleman at Angora, engaged in the exportation of mohair, and contains an invitation to become his guest while at Angora. A well-deserved backsheesh to the good-natured zaptieh and a penitential shake of the young man's hand silence the self-accusations of a guilty conscience, and, after riding a short distance down the hill for the satisfaction of the people, I continue on my way, trundling up the varying gradations of a general acclivity for two miles. Away up the road ahead I now observe a number of queer, shapeless objects, moving about on the roadway, apparently descending the hill, and resembling nothing so much as animated clumps of brushwood. Upon a closer approach they turn out to be not so very far removed from this conception; they are a company of poor Ayash peasant-women, each carrying a bundle of camel-thorn shrubs several times larger than herself, which they have been scouring the neighboring hills all morning to obtain for fuel. This camel-thorn is a light, spriggy shrub, so that the size of their burthens is large in proportion to its weight. Instead of being borne on the head, they are carried in a way that forms a complete bushy background, against which the shrouded form of the woman is undistinguishable a few hundred yards away. Instead of keeping a straightforward course, the women seem to be doing an unnecessary amount of erratic wandering about over the road, which, until quite near, gives them the queer appearance of animated clumps of brush dodging about among each other. I ask them whether there is water ahead; they look frightened and hurry along faster, but one brave soul turns partly round and points mutely in the direction I am going. Two miles of good, ridable road now brings me to the spring, which is situated near a two-acre swamp of rank sword-grass and bulrushes six feet high and of almost inpenetrable thickness, which looks decidedly refreshing in its setting of barren, gray hills; and I eat my noon-tide meal of bread and pears to the cheery music of a thousand swamp-frog bands which commence croaking at my approach, and never cease for a moment to twang their tuneful lyre until I depart. The tortuous windings of the chemin de fer finally bring me to a cul-de-sac in the hills, terminating on the summit of a ridge overlooking a broad plain; and a horseman I meet informs me that I am now mid way between Bey Bazaar and Angora. While ascending this ridge I become thoroughly convinced of what has frequently occurred to me between here and Nalikhan - that if the road I am traversing is, as the people keep calling it, a chemin de fer, then the engineer who graded it must have been a youth of tender age, and inexperienced in railway matters, to imagine that trains can ever round his curve or climb his grades. There is something about this broad, artificial highway, and the tremendous amount of labor that has been expended upon it, when compared with the glaring poverty of the country it traverses, together with the wellnigh total absence of wheeled vehicles, that seem to preclude the possibility of its having been made for a wagon-road; and yet, notwithstanding the belief of the natives, it is evident that it can never be the road-bed of a railway. We must inquire about it at Angora. Descending into the Angora Plain, I enjoy the luxury of a continuous coast for nearly a mile, over a road that is simply perfect for the occasion, after which comes the less desirable performance of ploughing through a stretch of loose sand and gravel. While engaged in this latter occupation I overtake a zaptieh, also en route to Angora, who is letting his horse crawl leisurely along while he concentrates his energies upon a water-melon, evidently the spoils of a recent visitation to a melon-garden somewhere not far off; he hands me a portion of the booty, and then requests me to bin, and keeps on requesting me to bin at regular three- minute intervals for the next half-hour. At the end of that time the loose gravel terminates, and I find myself on a level and reasonably smooth dirt road, making a shorter cut across the plain to Angora than the chin de fer. The zaptieh is, of course, delighted at seeing me thus mount, and not doubting but that I will appreciate his company, gives me to understand that he will ride alongside to Angora. For nearly two miles that sanguine but unsuspecting minion of the Turkish Government spurs his noble steed alongside the bicycle in spite of my determined pedalling to shake him off; but the road improves; faster spins the whirling wheels; the zaptieh begins to lag behind a little, though still spurring his panting horse into keeping reasonably close behind; a bend now occurs in the road, and an intervening knoll hides iis from each other; I put on more steam, and at the same time the zaptieh evidently gives it up and relapses into his normal crawling pace, for when three miles or thereabout arc covered I look back and perceive him leisurely heaving in sight from behind the knoll. Part way across the plain I arrive at a fountain and make a short halt, for the day is unpleasantly warm, and the dirt-road is covered with dust; the government postaya araba is also halting here to rest and refresh the horses. I have not failed to notice the proneness of Asiatics to base their conclusions entirely on a person's apparel and general outward appearance, for the seeming incongruity of my "Ingilis" helmet and the Circassian moccasins has puzzled them not a little on more than one occasion. And now one wiseacre among this party at the road-side fountain stubbornly asserts that I cannot possibly be an Englishman because of my wearing a mustache without side whiskers-a feature that seems to have impressed upon his enlightened mind the unalterable conviction that I am an "Austrian," why an Austrian any more than a Frenchman or an inhabitant of the moon, I wonder ? and wondering, wonder in vain. Five P.M., August 16,1885, finds me seated on a rude stone slab, one of those ancient tombstones whose serried ranks constitute the suburban scenery of Angora, ruefully disburdening my nether garments of mud and water, the results of a slight miscalculation of my abilities at leaping irrigating ditches with the bicycle for a vaulting-pole. While engaged in this absorbing occupation several inquisitives mysteriously collect from somewhere, as they invariably do whenever I happen to halt for a minute, and following the instructions of the Ayash letter I inquire the way to the "Ingilisin Adam" (Englishman's man). They pilot me through a number of narrow, ill-paved streets leading up the sloping hill which Angora occupies - a situation that gives the supposed ancient capital of Galatia a striking appearance from a distance - and into the premises of an Armenian whom I find able to make himself intelligible in English, if allowed several minutes undisturbed possession of his own faculties of recollection between each word - the gentleman is slow but not quite sure. From him I learn that Mr. Binns and family reside during the summer months at a vineyard five miles out, and that Mr. Binns will not be in town before to-morrow morning; also that, "You are welcome to the humble hospitality of our poor family." This latter way of expressing it is a revelation to me, and the leaden-heeled and labored utterance, together with the general bearing of my volunteer host, is not less striking; if meekness, lowliness, and humbleness, permeating a person's every look, word, and action, constitute worthiness, then is our Armenian friend beyond a doubt the worthiest of men. Laboring under the impression that he is Mr. Binns' "Ingilisin Adam," I have no hesitation about accepting his proffered hospitality for the night; and storing the bicycle away, I proceed to make myself quite at home, in that easy manner peculiar to one accustomed to constant change. Later in the evening imagine my astonishment at learning that I have thus nonchalantly quartered myself, so to speak, not on Mr. Binns' man, but on an Armenian pastor who has acquired his slight acquaintance with my own language from being connected with the American Mission having headquarters at Kaisarieh. All the evening long, noisy crowds have been besieging the pastorate, worrying the poor man nearly out of his senses on my account; and what makes matters more annoying and lamentable, I learn afterward that his wife has departed this life but a short time ago, and the bereaved pastor is still bowed down with sorrow at the affliction - I feel like kicking myself unceremoniously out of his house. Following the Asiatic custom of welcoming a stranger, and influenced, we may reasonably suppose, as much by their eagerness to satisfy their consuming curiosity as anything else, the people come flocking in swarms to the pastorate again next morning, filling the house and grounds to overflowing, and endeavoring to find out all about me and my unheard - of mode of travelling, by questioning the poor pastor nearly to distraction. That excellent man's thoughts seem to run entirely on missionaries and mission enterprises; so much so, in fact, that several negative assertions from me fail to entirely disabuse his mind of an idea that I am in some way connected with the work of spreading the Gospel in Asia Minor; and coming into the room where I am engaged in the interesting occupation of returning the salaams and inquisitive gaze of fifty ceremonious visitors, in slow, measured words he asks, "Have you any words for these people?" as if quite expecting to see me rise up and solemnly call upon the assembled Mussulmans, Greeks, and Armenians to forsake the religion of the False Prophet in the one case, and mend the error of their ways in the other. I know well enough what they all want, though, and dismiss them in a highly satisfactory manner by promising them that they shall all have an opportunity of seeing the bicycle ridden before I leave Angora. About ten o'clock Mr. Binns arrives, and is highly amused at the ludicrous mistake that brought me to the Armenian pastor's instead of to his man, with whom he had left instructions concerning me, should I arrive after his departure in the evening for the vineyard; in return he has an amusing story to tell of the people waylaying him on his way to his office, telling him that an Englishman had arrived with a wonderful araba, which he had immediately locked up in a dark room and would allow nobody to look at it, and begging him to ask me if they might come and see it. We spend the remainder of the forenoon looking over the town and the bazaar, Mr. Binus kindly announcing himself as at my service for the day, and seemingly bent on pointing out everything of interest. One of the most curious sights, and one that is peculiar to Angora, owing to its situation on a hill where little or no water is obtainable, is the bewildering swarms of su-katirs (water donkeys) engaged in the transportation of that important necessary up into the city from a stream that flows near the base of the hill. These unhappy animals do nothing from one end of their working lives to the other but toil, with almost machine-like regularity and uneventfulness, up the crooked, stony streets with a dozen large earthen-ware jars of water, and down again with the empty jars. The donkey is sandwiched between two long wooden troughs suspended to a rude pack-saddle, and each trough accommodates six jars, each holding about two gallons of water; one can readily imagine the swarms of these novel and primitive conveyances required to supply a population of thirty- five thousand people. Upon inquiring what they do in case of a fire, I learn that they don't even think of fighting the devouring element with its natural enemy, but, collecting on the adjoining roofs, they smother the flames by pelting the burning building with the soft, crumbly bricks of which Angora is chiefly built; a house on fire, with a swarm of half- naked natives on the neighboring housetops bombarding the leaping flames with bricks, would certainly be an interesting sight. Other pity-exciting scenes besides the patient little water-carrying donkeys are not likely to be wanting on the streets of an Asiatic city; one case I notice merits particular mention. A youth with both arms amputated at the shoulder, having not so much as the stump of an arm, is riding a donkey, and persuading the unwilling animal along quite briskly - with a stick. All Christendom could never guess how a person thus afflicted could possibly wield a stick so as to make any impression upon a donkey; but this ingenious person holds it quite handily between his chin and right shoulder, and from constant practice has acquired the ability to visit his long-eared steed with quite vigorous thwacks. Near noon we repair to the government house to pay a visit to Sirra Pasha, the Vali or governor of the vilayet, who, having heard of my arrival, has expressed a wish to have us call on him. We happen to arrive while he is busily engaged with an important legal decision, but upon our being announced he begs us to wait a few minutes, promising to hurry through with the business. We are then requested to enter an adjoining apartment, where we find the Mayor, the Cadi, the Secretary of State, the Chief of the Angora zaptiehs, and several other functionaries, signing documents, affixing seals, and otherwise variously occupied. At our entrance, documents, pens, seals, and everything are relegated to temporary oblivion, coffee and cigarettes are produced, and the journey dunianin -athrafana (around the world) I am making with the wonderful araba becomes the all-absorbing subject. These wise men of state entertain queer, Asiatic notions concerning the probable object of my journey; they cannot bring themselves to believe it possible that I am performing so great a journey "merely as the Outing correspondent;" they think it more probable, they say, that my real incentive is to "spite an enemy" - that, having quarrelled with another wheelman about our comparative skill as riders, I am wheeling entirely around the globe in order to prove my superiority, and at the same time leave no opportunity for my hated rival to perform a greater feat - Asiatic reasoning, sure enough. Reasoning thus, and commenting in this wise among themselves, their curiosity becomes worked up to the highest possible pitch, and they commence plying Mr. Binns with questions concerning the mechanism and general appearance of the bicycle. To facilitate Mr. Binns in his task of elucidation, I produce from my inner coat-pocket a set of the earlier sketches illustrating the tour across America, and for the next few minutes the set of sketches are of more importance than all the State documents in the room. Curiously enough, the sketch entitled "A Fair Young Mormon " attracts more attention than any of the others. The Mayor is Suleiman Effendi, the same gentleman mentioned at some length by Colonel Burnaby in his "On Horseback Through Asia Minor," and one of his first questions is whether I am acquainted with "my friend Burnaby, whose tragic death in the Soudan will never cease to make me feel unhappy." Suleiman Effendi appears to be remarkably intelligent, compared with many Asiatics, and, moreover, of quite a practical turn of mind; he inquires what I should do in case of a serious break-down somewhere in the far interior, and his curiosity to see the bicycle is not a little increased by hearing that, notwithstanding the extreme airiness of my strange vehicle, I have had no serious mishap on the whole journey across two continents. Alluding to the bicycle as the latest product of that Western ingenuity that appears so marvellous to the Asiatic mind, he then remarks, with some animation, "The next thing we shall see will be Englishmen crossing over to India in balloons, and dropping down at Angora for refreshments." A uniformed servant now announces that the Vali is at liberty, and waiting to receive us in private audience. Following the attendant into another room, we find Sirra Pasha seated on a richly cushioned divan, and upon our entrance he rises smilingly to receive us, shaking us both cordially by the hand. As the distinguished visitor of the occasion, I am appointed to the place of honor next to the governor, while Mr. Binns, with whom, of course, as a resident of Angora, His Excellency is already quite well acquainted, graciously fills the office of interpreter, and enlightener of the Vali's understanding concerning bicycles in general, and my own wheel and wheel journey in particular. Sirra Pasha is a full-faced man of medium height, black-eyed, black-haired, and, like nearly all Turkish pashas, is rather inclined to corpulency. Like many prominent Turkish officials, he has discarded the Turkish costume, retaining only the national fez; a head- dress which, by the by, is without one single merit to recommend it save its picturesqueness. In sunny weather it affords no protection to the eyes, and in rainy weather its contour conducts the water in a trickling stream down one's spinal column. It is too thin to protect the scalp from the fierce sun-rays, and too close-fitting and close in texture to afford any ventilation, yet with all this formidable array of disadvantages it is universally worn. I have learned during the morning that I have to thank Sirra Pasha's energetic administration for the artificial highway from Keshtobek, and that he has constructed in the vilayet no less than two hundred and fifty miles' of this highway, broad and reasonably well made, and actually macadamized in localities where the necessary material is to be obtained. The amount of work done in constructing this road through so mountainous a country is, as before mentioned, plainly out of all proportion to the wealth and population of a second-grade vilayet like Angora, and its accomplishment has been possible only by the employment of forced labor. Every man in the whole vilayet is ordered out to work at the road-making a certain number of days every year, or provide a substitute; thus, during the present summer there have been as many as twenty thousand men, besides donkeys, working on the roads at one time. Unaccustomed to public improvements of this nature, and, no doubt, failing to see their advantages in a country practically without vehicles, the people have sometimes ventured to grumble at the rather arbitrary proceeding of making them work for nothing, and board themselves; and it has been found expedient to make them believe that they were doing the preliminary grading for a railway that was shortly coming to make them all prosperous and happy; beyond being credulous enough to swallow the latter part of the bait, few of them have the least idea of what sort of a looking thing a railroad would be. When the Vali hears that the people all along the road have been telling me it was a chemin de fer, he fairly shakes in his boots with laughter. Of course I point out that no one can possibly appreciate the road improvements any more than a wheelman, and explain the great difference I have found between the mule-paths of Kodjaili and the broad highways he has made through Angora, and I promise him the universal good opinion of the whole world of 'cyclers. In reply, His Excellency hopes this favorable opinion will not be jeopardized by the journey to Yuzgat, but expresses the fear that I shall find heavier wheeling in that direction, as the road is newly made, and there has been no vehicular traffic to pack it down. The Governor invites me to remain over until Thursday and witness the ceremony of laying the corner-stone of a new school, of the founding of which he has good reason to feel proud, and which ought to secure him the esteem of right-thinking people everywhere. He has determined it to be a common school in which no question of Mohammedan, Jew, or Christian, will be allowed to enter, but where the young ideas of Turkish, Christian, and Jewish youths shall be taught to shoot peacefully and harmoniously together. Begging to be excused from this, he then invites me to take dinner with him to-morrow evening: but this I also decline, excusing rnyself for having determined to remain over no longer than a day on account of the approaching rainy season and my anxiety to reach Teheran before it sets in. Yet a third time the pasha rallies to the charge, as though determined not to let me off without honoring me in some way; and this time he offers to furnish me a zaptieh escort, but I tell him of the zaptieh's inability to keep up yesterday, at which he is immensely amused. His Excellency then promises to be present at the starting-point to-morrow morning, asking me to name the time and place, after which we finish the cigarettes and coffee and take our leave. We next take a survey of the mohair caravansary, where buyers and sellers and exporters congregate to transact business, and I watch with some interest the corps of half-naked sorters seated before large heaps of mohair, assorting it into the several classes ready for exportation. Here Mr. Binns' office is situated, and we are waited upon by several of his business acquaintances; among them a member of the celebrated - celebrated in Asia Minor - Tif- ticjeeoghlou family, whose ancestors have been prominently engaged in the mohair business for so long that their very name is significatory of their profession - Tifticjee-oghlou, literally, "Mohair-dealer's son." The Smiths, Bakers, and Hunters of Occidental society are not a whit more significative than are many prominent names of the Orient. Prominent among the Angorians is a certain Mr. Altentopoghlou, the literal interpretation of which is, "Son of the golden ball," and the origin of whose family name Eastern tradition has surrounded by the following little interesting anecdote: Ages ago it pleased one of the Sultans to issue a proclamation throughout the empire, promising to present a golden ball to whichever among all his subjects should prove himself the biggest liar, giving it to be understood beforehand that no "merely improbable story" would stand the ghost of a chance of winning, since he himself was to be the judge, and nothing short of a story that was simply impossible would secure the prize. The proclamation naturally made quite a stir among the great prevaricators of the realm, and hundreds of stories came pouring in from competitors everywhere, some even surreptitiously borrowing "whoppers" from the Persians, who are well known as the greatest economizers of the truth in all Asia; but they were one and all adjudged by the astute monarch-who was himself a most experienced prevaricator - probably the noblest Roman of them all - as containing incidents that might under extraordinary circumstances have been true. The coveted golden ball still remained unawarded, when one day there appeared before the gate of the Sultan's palace, requesting an audience, an old man with travel-worn appearance, as though from a long pilgrimage, and bearing on his stooping shoulders an immense earthen-ware jar. The Sultan received the aged pilgrim kindly, and asked him what he could do for him. "Oh, Sultan, may you live forever!" exclaimed the old man, "for your Imperial Highness is loved and celebrated throughout all the empire for your many virtues, but most of all for your wellknown love of justice." "Inshallah!" replied the monarch, reverently. "May it please Your Imperial Majesty," continued the old man, calling the monarch's attention to the jar, "Your Highness' most excellent father - may his bones rest in peace! - borrowed from my father this jar full of gold coins, the conditions being that Your Majesty was to pay the same amount back to me." "Absurd, impossible!" exclaimed the astonished Sultan, eying the huge vessel in question. "If the story be true," gravely continued the pilgrim, "pay your father's debt; if it is as you say, impossible, I have fairly won the golden ball." And the Sultan immediately awarded him the prize. In the cool of the evening we ride out on horseback through vineyards and yellow-berry gardens to Mr. Binns' country residence, a place that formerly belonged to an old pasha, a veritable Bluebeard, who built the house and placed the windows of his harem, even closely latticed as they always are, in a position that would not command so much as a glimpse of passers-by on the road, hundreds of yards away. He planted trees and gardens, and erected marble fountains at great cost. Surrounding the whole with a wall, and purchasing three beautiful young wives, the old Turk fondly fancied he had created for himself an earthly paradise; but as love laughs at locksmiths, so did these three frisky damea laugh at latticed windows, and lay their heads together against being prevented from watching passers-by through the windows of the harem. With nothing else to do, they would scheme and plot all day long against their misguided husband's tranquillity and peace of mind. One day, while sunning himself in the garden, he discovered that they had managed to detach a section of the lattice-work from a window, and were in the habit of sticking out their heads - awful discovery. Flying into a righteous rage at this act of flagrant disobedience, he seized a thick stick and sought their apartments, only to find the lattice-work skilfully replaced, and to be confronted with a general denial of what he had witnessed with his own eyes. This did not prevent them from all three getting a severe chastisement; but as time wore on he found the life these three caged-up young women managed to lead him anything but the earthly paradise he thought he was creating, and, financial troubles overtaking him at the same time, the old fellow fairly died of a broken heart in less than twelve months after he had so hopefully installed himself in his self-created heaven. There is a moral in the story somewhere, I think, for anybody caring to analyze it. Mr. Binns says the old Mussulman was also an inveterate hater of unbelievers, and that the old fellow's bones would fairly rattle in his coffin were he conscious that a family of Christians are now actually occupying the house he built with such careful regard for the Mussulman's ideas of a material heaven, with trees and fountains and black-eyed houris. Near ten o'clock on Tuesday morning finds Angora the scene of more excitement than it has seen for some time. I am trundling through the narrow streets toward the appointed starting-place, which is at the commencement of a half-mile stretch of excellent level macadam, just beyond the tombstone-planted suburbs of the city. Mr. Binns is with me, and a squad of zaptiehs are engaged in the lively occupation of protecting us from the crush of people following us out; they are armed especially for the occasion with long switches, with which they unsparingly lay about them, seemingly only too delighted at the chance of making the dust fly from the shoulders of such unfortunate wights as the pressure of the throng forces anywhere near the magic cause of the commotion. The time and place of starting have been proclaimed by the Vali and have become generally noised abroad, and near three thousand people are already assembled when we arrive; among them is seen the genial face of Suleiman Effendi, who, in his capacity of mayor, is early on the ground with a force of zaptiehs to maintain order; and with a little knot of friends, behold, is also our humble friend the Armenian pastor, the irresistible attractions of the wicked bicycle having temporarily overcome his contempt of the pomps and vanities of secular displays. "Englishmen are always punctual!" says Suleiman Effendi, looking at his watch; and, upon consulting our own, sure enough we have happened to arrive precisely to the minute. An individual named Mustapha, a blacksmith who has acquired an enviable reputation for skill on account of the beautiful horseshoes he turns out, now presents himself and begs leave to examine the mechanism of the bicycle, and the question arises among the officers standing by as to whether Mustapha would be able to make one; Mustapha himself thinks he could, providing he had mine always at hand to copy from. "Yes," suggests the practical-minded Suleiman Effendi, "yes, Mustapha, you may have mariftt enough to make one; but when you have finished it, who among all of us will have marifet enough to ride it?" "True, effendi," solemnly assents another, "we would have to send for an Englishman to ride it for us, after Mustapha had turned it out. " The Mayor now requests me to ride along the road once or twice to appease the clamor of the multitude until the Vali arrives. The crowd along the road is tremendous, and on a neighboring knoll, commanding a view of the proceedings, are several carriageloads of ladies, the wives and female relatives of the officials. The Mayor is indulgent to his people, allowing them to throng the roadway, simply ordering the zaptiehs to keep my road through the surging mass open. While on the home-stretch from the second spin, up dashes the Vali in the state equipage with quite an imposing bodyguard of mounted zaptiehs, their chief being a fine military-looking Circassian in the picturesque military costume of the Caucasus. These horsemen the Governor at once orders to clear the people entirely off the road-way - an order no sooner given than executed; and after the customary interchange of salutations, I mount and wheel briskly up the broad, smooth macadam between two compact masses of delighted natives; excitement runs high, and the people clap their hands and howl approvingly at the performance, while the horsemen gallop briskly to and fro to keep them from intruding on the road after I have wheeled past, and obstructing the Governor's view. After riding back and forth a couple of times, I dismount at the Vali's carriage; a mutual interchange of adieus and well- wishes all around, and I take my departure, wheeling along at a ten-mile pace amid the vociferous plaudits of at least four thousand people, who watch my retreating figure until I disappear over the brow of a hill. At the upper end of the main crowd are stationed the "irregular cavalry" on horses, mules, and donkeys; and among the latter I notice our ingenious friend, the armless youth of yesterday, whom I now make happy by a nod of recognition, having scraped up a backsheesh acquaintance with him yesterday. For.some miles the way continues fairly smooth and hard, leading through a region of low vineyard-covered hills, but ere long I arrive at the newly made road mentioned by the Vali. After which, like the course of true love, my forward career seldom runs smooth for any length of time, though ridable donkey-trails occasionally run parallel with the bogus chemin defer. For mile after mile I now alternately ride and trundle along donkey-paths, by the side of an artificial highway that would be an enterprise worthy of a European State. The surface of the road is either gravelled or of broken rock, and well rounded for self-drain- age; it is graded over the mountains, and wooden bridges, with substantial rock supports, are built across the streams; nothing is lacking except the vehicles to utilize it. In the absence of these it would almost seem to have been an unnecessary and superfluous expenditure of the people's labor to make such a road through a country most of which is fit for little else but grazing goats and buffaloes. Aside from some half-dozen carriages at Angora, and a few light government postaya arabas - an innovation from horses for carrying the mail, recently introduced as a result of the improved roads, and which make weekly trips between such points as Angora, Yuzgat, and Tokat - the only vehicles in the country are the buffalo-carts of the larger farmers, rude home made arabas with solid wooden wheels, whose infernal creaking can be heard for a mile, and which they seldom take any distance from home, preferring their pack-donkeys and cross-country trails when going to town with produce. Perhaps in time vehicular traffic may appear as a result of suitable roads; but the natives are slow to adopt new improvements. About two hours from Angora I pass tbrough a swampy upland basin, containing several small lakes, and then emerge into a much less mountainous country, passing several mud villages, the inhabitants of which are a dark-skinned people-Turkoman refugees, I think-who look several degrees less particular about their personal cleanliness than the villagers west of Angora. Their wretched mud hovels would seem to indicate the last degree of poverty, but numerous flocks of goats and herds of buffalo grazing near apparently tell a somewhat different story. The women and children seem mostly engaged in manufacturing cakes of tezek (large flat cakes of buffalo manure mixed with chopped straw, which are "dobbed" on the outer walls to dry; it makes very good fuel, like the "buffalo chips" of the far West), and stacking it up on the house-tops, with provident forethought, for the approaching winter. Just as darkness is beginning to settle down over the landscape I arrive at one of these unpromising-looking clusters, which, it seems, are now peculiar to the country, and not characteristic of any particular race, for the one I arrive at is a purely Turkish village. After the usual preliminaries of pantomime and binning, I am conducted to a capacious flat roof, the common covering of several dwellings and stables bunched up together. This roof is as smooth and hard as a native threshing-floor, and well knowing, from recent experiences, the modus operandi of capturing the hearts of these bland and childlike villagers, I mount and straightway secure their universal admiration and applause by riding a few times round the roof. I obtain a supper of fried eggs and yaort (milk soured with rennet), eating it on the house-top, surrounded by the whole population of the village, on this and adjoining roofs, who watch my every movement with the most intense curiosity. It is the raggedest audience I have yet been favored with. There are not over half a dozen decently clad people among them all, and two of these are horsemen, simply remaining over night, like myself. Everybody has a fearfully flea- bitten appearance, which augurs ill for a refreshing night's repose. Here, likewise I am first introduced to a peculiar kind of bread, that I straightway condemn as the most execrable of the many varieties my everchanging experiences bring me in contact with, and which I find myself mentally, and half unconsciously, naming - " blotting-paper ekmek" -a not inappropriate title to convey its appearance to the civilized mind; but the sheets of blotting-paper must be of a wheaten color and in circular sheets about two feet in diameter. This peculiar kind of bread is, we may suppose, the natural result of a great scarcity of fuel, a handful of tezek, beneath the large, thin sheet-iron griddle, being sufficient to bake many cakes of this bread. At first I start eating it something like a Shanty town goat would set about consuming a political poster, if it - not the political poster, but the Shanty town goat - had a pair of hands. This outlandish performance creates no small merriment among the watchful on-lookers, who forthwith initiate me into the mode of eating it a la Turque, which is, to roll it up like a scroll of paper and bite mouthfuls off the end. I afterwards find this particular variety of ekmek quite handy when seated around a communal bowl of yaort with a dozen natives; instead of taking my turn with the one wooden spoon in common use, I would form pieces of the thin bread into small handleless scoops, and, dipping up the yaort, eat scoop and all. Besides sparing me from using the same greasy spoon in common with a dozen natives, none of them overly squeamish as regards personal cleanliness, this gave me the appreciable advantage of dipping into the dish as often as I choose, instead of waiting for my regular turn at the wooden spoon. Though they are Osmanli Turks, the women of these small villages appear to make little pretence of covering their faces. Among themselves they constitute, as it were, one large family gathering, and a stranger is but seldom seen. They are apparently simple-minded females, just a trifle shame-faced in their demeanor before a stranger, sitting apart by themselves while listening to the conversation between myself and the men. This, of course, is very edifying, even apart from its pantomimic and monosyllabic character, for I am now among a queer people, a people through the unoccupied chambers of whose unsophisticated minds wander strange, fantastic thoughts. One of the transient horsemen, a contemplative young man, the promising appearance of whose upper lip proclaims him something over twenty, announces that he likewise is on the way to Yuzgat; and after listening attentively to my explanations of how a wheelman climbs mountains and overcomes stretches of bad road, he solemnly inquires whether a 'cycler could scurry up a mountain slope all right if some one were to follow behind and touch him up occasionally with a whip, in the persuasive manner required in driving a horse. He then produces a rawhide "persuader," and ventures the opinion that if he followed close behind me to Yuzgat, and touched me up smartly with it whenever we came to a mountain, or a sandy road, there would be no necessity of trundling any of the way. He then asks, with the innocent simplicity of a child, whether in case he made the experiment, I would get angry and shoot him. The other transient appears of a more speculative turn of mind, and draws largely upon his own pantomimic powers and my limited knowledge of Turkish, to ascertain the difference between the katch lira of a bicycle at retail, and the hatch lira of its manufacture. From the amount of mental labor he voluntarily inflicts upon himself to acquire this particular item of information, I apprehend that nothing less than wild visions of acquiring a rapid fortune by starting a bicycle factory at Angora, are flitting through his imaginative mind. The villagers themselves seem to consider me chiefly from the standpoint of their own peculiar ideas concerning the nature of an Englishman's feelings toward a Russian. My performance on the roof has put them in the best of humor, and has evidently whetted their appetites for further amusement. Pointing to a stolid-looking individual, of an apparently taciturn disposition, and who is one of the respectably-dressed few, they accuse him of being a Eussiau; and then all eyes are turned towards me, as though they quite expect to see me rise up wrathfully and make some warlike demonstration against him. My undemonstrative disposition forbids so theatrical a proceeding, however, and I confine myself to making a pretence of falling into the trap, casting furtive glances of suspicion towards the supposed hated subject of the Czar, and making whispered inquiries of my immediate neighbors concerning the nature of his mission in Turkish territory. During this interesting comedy the "audience" are fairly shaking in their rags with suppressed merriment; and when the taciturn individual himself - who has thus far retained his habitual self-composure - growing restive under the hateful imputation of being a Muscov and my supposed bellicose sentiments toward him in consequence, finally repudiates the part thus summarily assigned him, the whole company bursts out into a boisterous roar of laughter. At this happy turn of sentiment I assume an air of intense relief, shake the taciturn man's hand, and, borrowing the speculative transient's fez, proclaim myself a Turk, an act that fairly "brings down the house." Thus the evening passes merrily away until about ten o'clock, when the people begin to slowly disperse to the roofs of their respective habitations, the whole population sleeping on the house-tops, with no roof over them save the star-spangled vault - the arched dome of the great mosque of the universe, so often adorned with the pale yellow, crescent-shaped emblem of their religion. Several families occupy the roof which has been the theatre of the evening's social gathering, and the men now consign me to a comfortable couch made up of several quilts, one of the transients thoughtfully cautioning me to put my moccasins under my pillow, as these articles were the object of almost universal covetousness during the evening. No sooner am I comfortably settled down, than a wordy warfare breaks out in my immediate vicinity, and an ancient female makes a determined dash at my coverlet, with the object of taking forcible possession; but she is seized and unceremoniously hustled away by the men who assigned me my quarters. It appears that, with an eye singly and disinterestedly to my own comfort, and regardless of anybody else's, they have, without taking the trouble to obtain her consent, appropriated to my use the old lady's bed, leaving her to shift for herself any way she can, a high-handed proceeding that naturally enough arouses her virtuous indignation to the pitch of resentment. Upon this fact occurring to me, I of course immediately vacate the property in dispute, and, with true Western gallantry, arraign myself on the rightful owner's side by carrying my wheel and other effects to another position; whereupon a satisfactory compromise is soon arranged between the disputants, by which another bed ia prepared for me, and the ancient dame takes triumphant possession of her own. Peace and tranquillity being thus established on a firm basis, the several families tenanting our roof settle themselves snugly down. The night is still and calm, and naught is heard save my nearer neighbors' scratching, scratching, scratching. This - not the scratching, but the quietness - doesn't last long, however, for it is customary to collect all the four-footed possessions of the village together every night and permit them to occupy the inter-spaces between the houses, while the humans are occupying the roofs, the horde of watch- dogs being depended upon to keep watch and ward over everything. The hovels are more underground than above the surface, and often, when the village occupies sloping ground, the upper edge of the roof is practically but a continuation of the solid ground, or at the most there is but a single step-up between them. The goats are of course permitted to wander whithersoever they will, and equally, of course, they abuse their privileges by preferring the roofs to the ground and wandering incessantly about among the sleepers. Where the roof comes too near the ground some temporary obstruction is erected, to guard against the intrusion of venturesome buffaloes. No sooner have the humans quieted down, than several goats promptly invade the roof, and commence their usual nocturnal promenade among the prostrate forms of their owners, and further indulge their well-known goatish propensities by nibbling away the edges of the roof. (They would, of course, prefer a square meal off a patchwork quilt, but from their earliest infancy they are taught that meddling with the bedclothes will bring severe punishment.) A buffalo occasionally gives utterance to a solemn, prolonged " m-o-o-o;" now and then a baby wails its infantile disapproval of the fleas, and frequent noisy squabbles occur among the dogs. Under these conditions, it is not surprising that one should woo in vain the drowsy goddess; and near midnight some person within a few yards of my couch begins groaning fearfully, as if in great pain - probably a case of the stomach-ache, I mentally conclude, though this hasty conclusion may not unnaturally result from an inner consciousness of being better equipped for curing that particular affliction than any other. From the position of the sufferer, I am inclined to think it is the same ancient party that ousted me out of her possessions two hours ago, and I lay here as far removed from the realms of unconsciousness as the moment I retired, expecting every minute to see her appear before me in a penitential mood, asking me to cure her, for the inevitable hakim question had been raised during the evening. She doesn't present herself, however; perhaps the self-accusations of her conscience, for having in the moment of her wrath attempted to appropriate my coverlet in so rude a manner, prevent her appealing to me now in the hour of distress. These people are early risers; the women are up milking the goats and buffaloes before daybreak, and the men hieing them away to the harvest fields and threshing-floors. I, likewise, bestir myself at daylight, intending to reach the next village before breakfast. CHAPTER XIV. ACROSS THE KIZIL IRMAK RIVER TO YUZGAT. The country continues much the same as yesterday, with the road indifferent for wheeling. Reaching the expected village about eight o'clock, I breakfast off ekmek and new buffalo milk, and at once continue on my way, meeting nothing particularly interesting, save a lively bout occasionally with goat-herds' dogs - the reminiscences of which are doubtless more vividly interesting to myself than they would be to the reader - until high noon, when I arrive at another village, larger, but equally wretched- looking, on the Kizil Irmak River, called Jas-chi-khan. On the west bank of the stream are some ancient ruins of quite massive architecture, and standing on the opposite side of the road, evidently having some time been removed from the ruins with a view to being transported elsewhere, is a couchant lion of heroic proportions, carved out of a solid block of white marble; the head is gone, as though its would-be possessors, having found it beyond their power to transport the whole animal, have made off with what they could. An old and curiously arched bridge of massive rock spans the river near its entrance to a wild, rocky gorge in the mountains; a primitive grist mill occupies a position to the left, near the entrance to the gorge, and a herd of camels are slaking their thirst or grazing near the water's edge to the right - a genuine Eastern picture, surely, and one not to be seen every day, even in the land where to see it occasionally is quite possible. Riding into Jas-chi-khan, I dismount at a building which, from the presence of several "do-nothings," I take to be a khan for the accommodation of travellers. In a partially open shed-like apartment are a number of demure looking maidens, industriously employed in weaving carpets by hand on a rude, upright frame, while two others, equally demure-looking, are seated on the ground cracking wheat for pillau, wheat being substituted for rice where the latter is not easily obtainable, or is too expensive. Waiving all considerations of whether I am welcome or not, I at once enter this abode of female industry, and after watching the interesting process of carpet-weaving for some minutes, turn my attention to the preparers of cracked wheat. The process is the same primitive one that has been employed among these people from time immemorial, and the same that is referred to in the passage of Scripture which says: "Two women were grinding corn in the field;" it consists of a small upper and nether millstone, the upper one being turned round by two women sitting facing each other; they both take hold of a perpendicular wooden handle with one hand, employing the other to feed the mill and rake away the cracked grain. These two young women have evidently been very industrious this morning; they have half-buried themselves in the product of their labors, and are still grinding away as though for their very lives, while the constant "click-clack " of the carpet weavers prove them likewise the embodiment of industry. They seem rather disconcerted by the abrupt intrusion and scrutinizing attentions of a Frank and a stranger; however, the fascinating search for bits of interesting experience forbids my retirement on that account, but rather urges me to make the most of fleeting opportunities. Picking up a handful of the cracked wheat, I inquire of one of the maidens if it is for pillau; the maiden blushes at being thus directly addressed, and with downcast eyes vouchsafes an affirmative nod in reply; at the same time an observant eye happens to discover a little brown big-toe peeping out of the heap of wheat, and belonging to the same demure maiden with the downcast eyes. I know full well that I am stretching a point of Mohammedan etiquette, even by coming among these industrious damsels in the manner I am doing, but the attention of the men is fully concentrated on the bicycle outside, and the temptation of trying the experiment of a little jocularity, just to see what comes of it, is under the circumstances irresistible. Conscious of venturing where angels fear to tread. I stoop down, and take hold of the peeping little brown big-toe, and addressing the demure maiden with the downcast eyes, inquire, "Is this also for pillau." This proves entirely too much for the risibilities of the industrious pillau grinders, and letting go the handle of the mill, they both give themselves up to uncontrollable laughter; the carpet-weavers have been watching me out of the corners of their bright, black eyes, and catching the infection, the click clack of the carpet-weaving machines instantly ceases, and several of the weavers hurriedly retreat into an adjoining room to avoid the awful and well-nigh unheard-of indiscretion of laughing in the presence of a stranger. Having thus yielded to the temptation and witnessed the results, I discreetly retire, meeting at the entrance a gray-bearded Turk coming to see what the merriment and the unaccountable stopping of the carpet-weaving frames is all about. A sheep has been slaughtered in Jas-chi-khan this morning, and I obtain a nice piece of mutton, which I hand to a bystander, asking him to go somewhere and cook it; in five minutes he returns with the meat burnt black outside and perfectly raw within. Seeing my evident disapproval of its condition, the same ancient person who recently appeared upon the scene of my jocular experiment and who has now squatted himself down close beside me, probably to make sure against any further indiscretions, takes the meat, slashes it across in several directions with his dagger, orders the afore-mentioned bystander to try it over again, and then coolly wipes his blackened and greasy fingers on my sheet of ekmek as though it were a table napkin. I obtain a few mouthfuls of eatable meat from the bystander's second culinary effort, and then buy a water-melon from a man happening along with a laden donkey; cutting iuto the melon I find it perfectly green all through, and toss it away; the men look surprised, and some youngsters straightway pick it up, eat the inside out until they can scoop out no more, and then, breaking the rind in pieces, they scrape it out with their teeth until it is of egg-shell thinness. They seem to do these things with impunity in Asia. The grade and the wind are united against me on leaving Jas-chi-khan, but it is ridable, and having made such a dismal failure about getting dinner, I push on toward a green area at the base of a rocky mountain spur, which I observed an hour ago from a point some distance west of the Kizil Irmak, and concluded to be a cluster of vineyards. This conjecture turns out quite correct, and, what is more, my experience upon arriving there would seem to indicate that the good genii detailed to arrange the daily programme of my journey had determined to recompense me to-day for having seen nothing of the feminine world of late but yashmaks and shrouds, and momentary monocular evidence; for here again am I thrown into the society of a bevy of maidens, more interesting, if anything, than the nymphs of industry at Jas-chi-khan. There is apparently some festive occasion at the little vineyard-environed village, which stands back a hundred yards or so from the road, and which ia approached by a narrow foot-way between thrifty-looking vineyards. Three blooming damsels, in all the bravery of holiday attire, with necklaces and pendants of jingling coins to distinguish them from the matrons, come hurrying down the pathway toward the road at my approach. Seeing me dismount, upon arriving opposite the village, the handsomest and gayest dressed of the three goes into one of the vineyards, and with charming grace of manner, presents herself before me with both hands overflowing with bunches of luscious black grapes. Their abundant black tresses are gathered in one long plait behind; they wear bracelets, necklaces, pendants, brow-bands, head ornaments, and all sorts of wonderful articles of jewelry, made out of the common silver and metallic coins of the country; they are small of stature and possess oval faces, large black eyes, and warm, dark complexions. Their manner and dress prove rather a puzzle in determining their nationality; they are not Turkish, nor Greek, nor Armenian, nor Circassian; they may possibly be sedentary Turkomans; but they possess rather a Jewish cast of countenance, and my first impression of them is, that they are "Bible people," the original inhabitants of the country, who have somehow managed to cling to their little possessions here, in spite of Greeks, Turks, and Persians, and other conquering races who have at times overrun the country; perhaps they have softened the hearts of everybody undertaking to oust them by their graceful manners. Other villagers soon collect, making a picturesque and interesting group around the bicycle; but the maiden with the grapes makes too pretty and complete a picture, for any of the others to attract more than passing notice. One of her two companions whisperingly calls her attention to the plainly evident fact that she is being regarded with admiration by the stranger. She blushes perceptibly through her nut-brown cheeks at hearing this, but she is also quite conscious of her claims to admiration, and likes to be admired; so she neither changes her attitude of respectful grace, nor raises her long drooping eyelashes, while I eat and eat grapes, taking them bunch after bunch from her overflowing hands, until ashamed to eat any more. I confess to almost falling in love with that maiden, her manners were so easy and graceful; and when, with ever-downcast eyes and a bewitching manner that leaves not the slightest room for considering the doing so a bold or forward action, she puts the remainder of the grapes in my coat pockets, a peculiar fluttering sensation - but I draw a veil over my feelings, they are too sacred for the garish pages of a book. I do not inquire about their nationality, I would rather it remain a mystery, and a matter for future conjecture; but before leaving I add something to her already conspicuous array of coins that have been increasing since her birth, and which will form her modest dowry at marriage. The road continues of excellent surface, but rather hilly for a few miles, when it descends into the Valley of the Delijeh Irmak, where the artificial highway again deteriorates into the unpacked condition of yesterday; the donkey trails are shallow trenches of dust, and are no longer to be depended upon as keeping my general course, but are rather cross-country trails leading from one mountain village to another. The well-defined caravan trail leading from Ismidt to Angora comes no farther eastward than the latter city, which is the central point where the one exportable commodity of the vilayet is collected for barter and transportation to the seaboard. The Delijeh Irmak Valley is under partial cultivation, and occasionally one passes through small areas of melon gardens far away from any permanent habitations; temporary huts or dug- outs are, however, an invariable adjunct to these isolated possession of the villagers, in which some one resides day and night during the melon season, guarding their property with gun and dog from unscrupulous wayfarers, who otherwise would not hesitate to make their visit to town profitable as well as pleasurable, by surreptitiously confiscating a donkey-load of salable melons from their neighbor's roadside garden. Sometimes I essay to purchase a musk-melon from these lone sentinels, but it is impossible to obtain one fit to eat; these wretched prayers on Nature's bounty evidently pluck and devour them the moment they develop from the bitterness of their earliest growth. No villages are passed on the road after leaving the vintagers' cluster at noon, but bunches of mud hovels are at intervals descried a few miles to the right, perched among the hills that form the southern boundary of the valley; being of the same color as the general surface about them, they are not easily distinguishable at a distance. There seems to be a decided propensity among the natives for choosing the hills as an habitation, even when their arable lands are miles away in the valley; the salubrity of the more elevated location may be the chief consideration, but a swiftly flowing mountain rivulet near his habitation is to the Mohammedan a source of perpetual satisfaction. I travel along for some time after nightfall, in hopes of reaching a village, but none appearing, I finally decide to camp out. Choosing a position behind a convenient knoll, I pitch the tent where it will bo invisible from the road, using stones in lieu of tent-pegs; and inhabiting for the first time this unique contrivance, I sup off the grapes remaining over from the bountiful feast at noon-and, being without any covering, stretch myself without undressing beside the upturned bicycle; notwithstanding the gentle reminders of unsatisfied hunger, I am enjoying the legitimate reward of constant exercise in the open air ten minutes after pitching the tent. Soon after midnight I am awakened by the chilly influence of the "wee sma' hours," and recognizing the likelihood of the tent proving more beneficial as a coverlet than a roof, in the absence of rain, I take it down and roll myself up in it; the thin, oiled cambric is far from being a blanket, however, and at daybreak the bicycle and everything is drenched with one of the heavy dews of the country. Ten miles over an indifferent road is traversed next morning; the comfortless reflection that anything like a "square meal" seems out of the question anywhere between the larger towns scarcely tends to exert a soothing influence on the ravenous attacks of a most awful appetite; and I am beginning to think seriously of making a detour of several miles to reach a mountain village, when I meet a party of three horsemen, a Turkish Bey - with an escort of two zaptiehs. I am trundling at the time, and without a moment's hesitancy I make a dead set at the Bey, with the single object of satisfying to some extent my gastronomic requirements. "Bey Effendi, have you any ekmek?" I ask, pointing inquiringly to his saddle-bags on a zaptieh's horse, and at the same time giving him to understand by impressive pantomime the uncontrollable condition of my appetite. With what seems to me, under the circumstances, simply cold- blooded indifference to human suffering; the Bey ignores my inquiry altogether, and concentrating his whole attention on the bicycle, asks, "What is that?" "An Americanish araba, Effendi; have you any ekmek ?" toying suggestively with the tell-tale slack of my revolver belt. "Where have you come from?" "Stamboul; have you ekmek in the saddle- bags, Effendi." this time boldly beckoning the zaplieh with the Bey's effects to approach nearer. "Where are you going?" "Yuzgat! ekmek! ekmek!" tapping the saddle-bags in quite an imperative manner. This does not make any outward impression upon the Bey's aggravating imperturbability, however; he is not so indifferent to my side of the question as he pretends; aware of his inability to supply my want, and afraid that a negative answer would hasten my departure before he has fully satisfied his curiosity concerning me, he is playing a. little game of diplomacy in his own interests. "What is it for." he now asks, with soul-harrowing indifference to all my counter inquiries." To bin," I reply, desperately, curt and indifferent, beginning to see through his game. " Bin, bin! bacalem." he says; supplementing the request with a coaxing smile. At the same moment my long-suffering digestive apparatus favors me with an unusually savage reminder, and nettled beyond the point where forbearance ceases to be any longer a virtue, I return an answer not exactly complimentary to the Bey's ancestors, and continue my hungry way down the valley. A couple of miles after leaving the Bey, I intercept a party of peasants traversing a cross-country trail, with a number of pack-donkeys loaded with rock-salt, from whom I am fortunately able to obtain several thin sheets of ekmek, which I sit down and devour immediately, without even water to moisten the repast; it seems one of the most tasteful and soul-satisfying breakfasts I ever ate. Like misfortunes, blessings never seem to come singly, for, an hour after thus breaking my fast I happen upon a party of villagers working on an unfinished portion of the new road; some of them are eating their morning meal of ekmek and yaort, and no sooner do I appear upon the scene than I am straightway invited to partake, a seat in the ragged circle congregated around the large bowl of clabbered milk being especially prepared with a bunch of pulled grass for my benefit. The eager hospitality of these poor villagers is really touching; they are working without so much as "thank you" for payment, there is not a garment amongst the gang fit for a human covering; their unvarying daily fare is the "blotting-paper ekmek" and yaort, with a melon or a cucumber occasionally as a luxury; yet, the moment I approach, they assign me a place at their "table," and two of them immediately bestir themselves to make me a comfortable seat. Neither is there so much as a mercenary thought among them in connection with the invitation; these poor fellows, whose scant rags it would be a farce to call clothing, actually betray embarrassment at the barest mention of compensation; they fill my pockets with bread, apologize for the absence of coffee, and compare the quality of their respective pouches of native tobacco in order to make me a decent cigarette. Never, surely, was the reputation of Dame Fortune for fickleness so completely proved as in her treatment of me this morning - ten o'clock finds me seated on a pile of rugs in a capacious black tent, "wrassling" with a huge bowl of savory mutton pillau, flavored with green herbs, as the guest of a Koordish sheikh; shortly afterwards I meet a man taking a donkey-load of musk-melons to the Koordish camp, who insists on presenting me with the finest melon I have tasted since leaving Constantinople; and high noon finds me the guest of another Koordish sheikh; thus does a morning, which commenced with a fair prospect of no breakfast, following after yesterday's scant supply of unsuitable food, end in more hospitality than I know what to do with. These nomad tribes of the famous "black-tents " wander up toward Angora every summer with their flocks, in order to be near a market at shearing time; they are famed far and wide for their hospitality. Upon approaching the great open-faced tent of the Sheikh, there is a hurrying movement among the attendants to prepare a suitable raised seat, for they know at a glance that I am an Englishman, and likewise are aware that an Englishman cannot sit cross-legged like an Asiatic; at first, I am rather surprised at their evident ready recognition of my nationality, but I soon afterwards discover the reason. A hugh bowl of pillau, and another of excellent yaort is placed before me without asking any questions, while the dignified old Sheikh fulfils one's idea of a gray-bearded nomad patriarch to perfection, as he sits cross legged on a rug, solemnly smoking a nargileh, and watching to see that no letter of his generous code of hospitality toward strangers is overlooked by the attendants. These latter seem to be the picked young men of the tribe; fine, strapping fellows, well-dresed, six-footers, and of athletic proportions; perfect specimens of semi- civilized manhood, that would seem better employed in a grenadier regiment than in hovering about the old Sheikh's tent, attending to the filling and lighting of his nargileh, the arranging of his cushions by day and his bed at night, the serving of his food, and the proper reception of his guests; and yet it is an interesting sight to see these splendid young fellows waiting upon their beloved old chieftain, fairly bounding, like great affectionate mastiffs, at his merest look or suggestion. Most of the boys and young men are out with the flocks, but the older men, the women and children, gather in a curious crowd before the open tent; they maintain a respectful silence so long as I am their Sheikh's guest, but they gather about me without reserve when I leave the hospitable shelter of that respected person's quarters. After examining my helmet and sizing up my general appearance, they pronounce me an "English zaptieh," a distinction for which I am indebted to the circumstance of Col. N--, an English officer, having recently been engaged in Koordistan organizing a force of native zaptiehs. The women of this particular camp seem, on the whole, rather unprepossessing specimens; some of them are hooked-nosed old hags, with piercing black eyes, and hair dyed to a flaming "carrotty" hue with henna; this latter is supposed to render them beautiful, and enhance their personal appearance in the eyes of the men; they need something to enhance their personal appearance, certainly, but to the untutored and inartistic eye of the writer it produces a horrid, unnatural effect. According to our ideas, flaming red hair looks uncanny and of vulgar, uneducated taste, when associated with coal-black eyes and a complexion like gathering darkness. These vain mortals seem inclined to think that in me they have discovered something to be petted and made much of, treating me pretty much as a troop of affectionate little girls - would treat a wandering kitten that might unexpectedly appear in their midst. Giddy young things of about fifty summers cluster around me in a compact body, examining my clothes from helmet to moccasins, and critically feeling the texture of my coat and shirt, they take off my helmet, reach over each other's shoulders to stroke my hair, and pat my cheeks in the most affectionate manner; meanwhile expressing themselves in soft, purring comments, that require no linguistic abilities to interpret into such endearing remarks as, "Ain't he a darling, though?" "What nice soft hair and pretty blue eyes." "Don't you wish the dear old Sheikh would let us keep him. "Considering the source whence it comes, it requires very little of this to satisfy one, and as soon as I can prevail upon them to let me escape, I mount and wheel away, several huge dogs escorting me, for some minutes, in the peculiar manner Koordish dogs have of escorting stray 'cyclers. CHAPTER XV. FROM THE KOORDISH CAMP TO YUZGAT. >From the Koordish encampment my route leads over a low mountain spur by easy gradients, and by a winding, unridable trail down into the valley of the eastern fork of the Delijah Irmak. The road improves as this valley is reached, and noon finds me the wonder and admiration of another Koordish camp, where I remain a couple of hours in deference to the powers of the midday sun. One has no scruples about partaking of the hospitality of the nomad Koords, for they are the wealthiest people in the country, their flocks covering the hills in many localities; they are, as a general thing, fairly well dressed, are cleaner in their cooking than the villagers, and hospitable to the last degree. Like the rest of us, however, they have their faults as well as their virtues; they are born freebooters, and in unsettled times, when the Turkish Government, being handicapped by weightier considerations, is compelled to relax its control over them, they seldom fail to promptly respond to their plundering instincts and make no end of trouble. They still retain their hospitableness, but after making a traveller their guest for the night, and allowing him to depart with everything he has, they will intercept him on the road and rob him. They have some objectionable habits, even in these peaceful times, which will better appear when we reach their own Koordistan, where we shall, doubtless, have better opportunities for criticising them. Whatever their faults or virtues, I leave this camp, hoping that the termination of the day may find me the guest of another sheikh for the night An hour after leaving this camp I pass through an area of vineyards, out of which people come running with as many grapes among them as would feed a dozen people; the road is ridable, and I hurry along to avoid their bother. Verily it would seem that I am being hounded down by retributive justice for sundry evil thoughts and impatient remarks, associated with my hungry experiences of early morning; then I was wondering where the next mouthful of food was going to overtake me, this afternoon finds me pedalling determinedly to prevent being overtaken by it. The afternoon is hot and with scarcely a breath of air moving; the little valley terminates in a region of barren, red hills, on which the sun glares fiercely; some toughish climbing has to be accomplished in scaling a ridge, and then. I emerge into an upland lava plateau, where the only vegetation is sun-dried weeds and thistles. Here a herd of camels are contentedly browsing, munching the dry, thorny herbage with a satisfaction that is evident a mile away. From casual observations along the route, I am inclined to think a camel not far behind a goat in the depravity of its appetite; a camel will wander uneasily about over a greensward of moist, succulent grass, scanning his surroundings in search of giant thistles, frost-bitten tumble-weeds, tough, spriggy camel thorns, and odds and ends of unpalatable vegetation generally. Of course, the "ship of the desert" never sinks to such total depravity as to hanker after old gum overshoes and circus posters, but if permitted to forage around human habitations for a few generations, I think they would eventually degenerate to the goat's disreputable level. The expression of utter astonishment that overspreads the angular countenance of the camels browsing near the roadside, at my appearance, is one of the most ludicrous sights imaginable; they seem quite intelligent enough to recognize in a wheelman and his steed something inexplicable and foreign to their country, and their look of timid inquiry seems ridiculously unsuited to their size and the general ungainliness of their appearance, producing a comical effect that is worth going miles to see. It is approaching sun-down, when, ascending a ridge overlooking another valley, I am gratified at seeing it occupied by several Koordish camps, their clusters of black tents being a conspicuous feature of the landscape. With a fair prospect of hospitable quarters for the night before me, and there being no distinguishable signs of a road, I make my way across country toward one of the camps that seems to be nearest my proper course. I have arrived within a mile of my objective point, when I observe, at the base of a mountain about half the distance to my right, a large, white two-storied building, the most pretentious structure, by long odds, that has been seen since leaving Angora. My curiosity is, of course, aroused concerning its probable character; it looks like a bit of civilization that has in some unaccountable manner found its way to a region where no other human habitations are visible, save the tents of wild tribesmen, and I at once shape my course toward it. It turns out to be a rock-salt mine or quarry, that supplies the whole region for scores of miles around with salt, rock-salt being the only kind obtainable in the country; it was from this mine that the donkey party from whom I first obtained bread this morning fetched their loads. Here I am invited to remain over night, am provided with a substantial supper, the menu including boiled mutton, with cucumbers for desert. The managers and employees of the, quarry make their cucumbers tasteful by rubbing the end with a piece of rock-salt each time it is cut off or bitten, each person keeping a select little square for the purpose. The salt is sold at the mine, and owners of transportation facilities in the shape of pack animals make money by purchasing it here at six paras an oke, and selling it at a profit in distant towns. Two young men seem to have charge of transacting the business; one of them is inordinately inquisitive, he even wants to try and unstick the envelope containing a letter of introduction to Mr. Tifticjeeoghlou's father in Yuzgat, and read it out of pure curiosity to see what it says; and he offers me a lira for my Waterbury watch, notwithstanding its Alla Franga face is beyond his Turkish comprehension. The loud, confident tone in which the Waterbury ticks impresses the natives very favorably toward it, and the fact of its not opening at the back like other time- pieces, creates the impression that it is a watch that never gets cranky and out of order; quite different from the ones they carry, since their curiosity leads them to be always fooling with the works. American clocks are found all through Asia Minor, fitted with Oriental faces and there is little doubt but the Waterbury, with its resonant tick, if similiarly prepared, would find here a ready market. The other branch of the managerial staff is a specimen of humanity peculiarly Asiatic Turkish, a melancholy-faced, contemplative person, who spends nearly the whole evening in gazing in silent wonder at me and the bicycle; now and then giving expression to his utter inability to understand how such things can possibly be by shaking his head and giving utterance to a peculiar clucking of astonishment. He has heard me mention having come from Stamboul, which satisfies him to a certain extent; for, like a true Turk, he believes that at Stamboul all wonderful things originate; whether the bicycle was made there, or whether it originally came from somewhere else, doesn't seem to enter into his speculations; the simple knowledge that I have come from Stamboul is all-sufficient for him; so far as he is concerned, the bicycle is simply another wonder from Stamboul, another proof that the earthly paradise of the Mussulman world on the Bosphorus is all that he has been taught to believe it. When the contemplative young man ventures away from the dreamy realms of his own imaginations, and from the society of his inmost thoughts, far enough to make a remark, it is to ask me something about Stamboul; but being naturally taciturn and retiring, and moreover, anything but an adept at pantomimic language, he prefers mainly to draw his own conclusions in silence. He manages to make me understand, however, that he intends before long making a journey to see Stamboul for himself; like many another Turk from the barren hills of the interior, he will visit the Ottoman capital; he will recite from the Koran under the glorious mosaic dome of St. Sophia; wander about that wonder of the Orient, the Stamboul bazaar; gaze for hours on the matchless beauties of the Bosphorus ; ride on one of the steamboats; see the railway, the tramway, the Sultan's palaces, and the shipping, and return to his native hills thoroughly convinced that in all the world there is no place fit to be compared with Stamboul; no place so full of wonders; no place so beautiful; and wondering how even the land of the kara ghuz kiz, the material paradise of the Mohammedans, can possibly be more lovely. The contemplative young man is tall and slender, has large, dreamy, black eyes, a downy upper lip, a melancholy cast of countenance, and wears a long print wrapper of neat dotted pattern, gathered at the waist with a girdle a la dressing-gown. The inquisitive partner makes me up a comfortable bed of quilts on the divan of a large room, which is also occupied by several salt traders remaining over night, and into which their own small private apartments open. A few minutes after they have retired to their respective rooms, the contemplative young man reappears with silent tread, and with a scornful glance at my surroundings, both human and inanimate, gathers up my loose effects, and bids me bring bicycle and everything into his room; here, I find, he has already prepared for my reception quite a downy couch, having contributed, among other comfortable things, his wolf-skin overcoat; after seeing me comfortably established on a couch more appropriate to my importance as a person recently from Stamboul than the other, he takes a lingering look at the bicycle, shakes his head and clucks, and then extinguishes the light. Sunrise on the following morning finds me wheeling eastward from the salt quarry, over a trail well worn by salt caravans, to Yuzgat; the road leads for some distance down a grassy valley, covered with the flocks of the several Koordish camps round about; the wild herdsmen come galloping from all directions across the valley toward me, their uncivilized garb and long swords giving them more the appearance of a ferocious gang of cut-throats advancing to the attack than shepherds. Hitherto, nobody has seemed any way inclined to attack me; I have almost wished somebody would undertake a little devilment of some kind, for the sake of livening things up a little, and making my narrative more stirring; after venturing everything, I have so far nothing to tell but a story of being everywhere treated with the greatest consideration, and much of the time even petted. I have met armed men far away from any habitations, whose appearance was equal to our most ferocious conception of bashi bazouks, and merely from a disinclination to be bothered, perhaps being in a hurry at the time, have met their curious inquiries with imperious gestures to be gone; and have been guilty of really inconsiderate conduct on more than one occasion, but under no considerations have I yet found them guilty of anything worse than casting covetous glances at my effects. But there is an apparent churlishness of manner, and an overbearing demeanor, as of men chafing under the restraining influences that prevent them gratifying their natural free-booting instincts, about these Koordish herdsmen whom I encounter this morning, that forms quite a striking contrast to the almost childlike harmlessness and universal respect toward me observed in the disposition of the villagers. It requires no penetrating scrutiny of these fellows' countenances to ascertain that nothing could be more uncongenial to them than the state of affairs that prevents them stopping ine and looting me of everything I possess; a couple of them order me quite imperatively to make a detour from my road to avoid approaching too near their flock of sheep, and their general behavior is pretty much as though seeking to draw me into a quarrel, that would afford them an opportunity of plundering me. Continuing on the even tenor of my way, affecting a lofty unconsciousness of their existence, and wondering whether, in case of being molested, it would be advisable to use my Smith & Wesson in defending my effects, or taking the advice received in Constantinople, offer no resistance whatever, and trust to being able to recover them through the authorities, I finally emerge from their vicinity. Their behavior simply confirms what I have previously understood of their character; that while they will invariably extend hospitable treatment to a stranger visiting their camps, like unreliable explosives, they require to be handled quite "gingerly" when encountered on the road, to prevent disagreeable consequences. Passing through a low, marshy district, peopled with solemn-looking storks and croaking frogs, I meet a young sheikh and his personal attendants returning from a morning's outing at their favorite sport of hawking; they carry their falcons about on small perches, fastened by the leg with a tiny chain. I try to induce them to make a flight, but for some reason or other they refuse; an Osmanli Turk would have accommodated me in a minute. Soon I arrive at another Koordish camp, fording a stream in order to reach their tents, for I have not yet breakfasted, and know full well that no better opportunity of obtaining one will be likely to turn up. Entering the nearest tent, I make no ceremony of calling for refreshments, knowing well enough that a heaping dish of pillau will be forthcoming, and that the hospitable Koords will regard the ordering of it as the most natural thing in the world. The pillau is of rice, mutton, and green herbs, and is brought in a large pewter dish; and, together with sheet bread and a bowl of excellent yaort, is brought on a massive pewter tray, which has possibly belonged to the tribe for centuries. These tents are divided into several compartments; one end is a compartment where the men congregate in the daytime, and the younger men sleep at night, and where guests are received and entertained; the central space is the commissary and female industrial department; the others are female and family sleeping places. Each compartment is partitioned off with a hanging carpet partition; light portable railing of small, upright willow sticks bound closely together protects the central compartment from a horde of dogs hungrily nosing about the camp, and small "coops" of the same material are usually built inside as a further protection for bowls of milk, yaort, butter, cheese, and cooked food; they also obtain fowls from the villagers, which they keep cooped up in a similar manner, until the hapless prisoners are required to fulfil their destiny in chicken pillau; the capacious covering over all is strongly woven goats'-hair material of a black or smoky brown color. In a wealthy tribe, the tent of their sheikh is often a capacious affair, twenty-five by one hundred feet, containing, among other compartments, stabling and hay-room for the sheikh's horses in winter. My breakfast is brought in from the culinary department by a young woman of most striking appearance, certainly not less than six feet in height; she is of slender, willowy build, and straight as an arrow; a wealth of auburn hair is surmounted by a small, gay-colored turban; her complexion is fairer than common among Koordish woman, and her features are the queenly features of a Juno; the eyes are brown and lustrous, and, were the expression but of ordinary gentleness, the picture would be perfect; but they are the round, wild-looking orbs of a newly-caged panther- grimalkin eyes, that would, most assuredly, turn green and luminous in the dark. Other women come to take a look at the stranger, gathering around and staring at rne, while I eat, with all their eyes - and such eyes. I never before saw such an array of "wild-animal eyes;" no, not even in the Zoo. Many of them are magnificent types of womanhood in every other respect, tall, queenly, and symmetrically perfect; but the eyes-oh, those wild, tigress eyes. Travellers have told queer, queer stories about bands of these wild-eyed Koordish women waylaying and capturing them on the roads through Koordistan, and subjecting them to barbarous treatment. I have smiled, and thought them merely "travellers' tales;" but I can see plain enough, this morning, that there is no improbability in the stories, for, from a dozen pairs of female eyes, behold, there gleams not one single ray of tenderness: these women are capable of anything that tigresses are capable of, beyond a doubt. Almost the first question asked by the men of these camps is whether the English and Muscovs are fighting; they have either heard of the present (summer of 1885) crisis over the Afghan boundary question, or they imagine that the English and Russians maintain a sort of desultory warfare all the time. When I tell them that the Muscov is fenna (bad) they invariably express their approval of the sentiment by eagerly calling each other's attention to my expression. It is singular with what perfect faith and confidence these rude tribesmen accept any statement I choose to make, and how eagerly they seem to dwell on simple statements of facts that are known to every school-boy in Christendom. I entertain them with my map, showing them the position of Stamboul, Mecca, Erzeroum, and towns in their own Koordistan, which they recognize joyfully as I call them by name. They are profoundly impressed at the " extent of my knowledge," and some of the more deeply impressed stoop down and reverently kiss Stamboul and Mecca, as I point them out. While thus pleasantly engaged, an aged sheikh comes to the tent and straightway begins "kicking up a blooming row" about me. It seems that the others have been guilty of trespassing on the sheikh's prerogative, in entertaining me themselves, instead of conducting me to his own tent. After upbraiding them in unmeasured terms, he angrily orders several of the younger men to make themselves beautifully scarce forthwith. The culprits - some of them abundantly able to throw the old fellow over their shoulders - instinctively obey; but they move off at a snail's pace, with lowering brows, and muttering angry growls that betray fully their untamed, intractable dispositions. A two-hours' road experience among the constantly varying slopes of rolling hills, and then comes a fertile valley, abounding in villages, wheat-fields, orchards, and melon-gardens. These days I find it incumbent on me to turn washer-woman occasionally, and, halting at the first little stream in this valley, I take upon myself the onerous duties of Wall Lung in Sacramento City, having for an interested and interesting audience two evil-looking kleptomaniacs, buffalo-herders dressed in next to nothing, who eye my garments drying on the bushes with lingering covetousness. It is scarcely necessary to add that I watch them quite as interestingly myself; for, while I pity the scantiness of their wardrobe, I have nothing that I could possibly spare among mine. A network of irrigating ditches, many of them overflowed, render this valley difficult to traverse with a bicycle, and I reach a large village about noon, myself and wheel plastered with mud, after traversing a, section where the normal condition is three inches of dust. Bread and grapes are obtained here, a light, airy dinner, that is seasoned and made interesting by the unanimous worrying of the entire population. Once I make a desperate effort to silence their clamorous importunities, and obtain a little quiet, by attempting to ride over impossible ground, and reap the well-merited reward of permitting my equanimity to be thus disturbed in the shape of a header and a slightly-bent handle-bar. While I am eating, the gazing-stock of a wondering, commenting crowd, a respectably dressed man elbows his way through the compact mass of humans around me, and announces himself as having fought under Osman Pasha at Plevna. What this has to do with me is a puzzler; but the man himself, and every Turk of patriotic age in the crowd, is evidently expecting to see me make some demonstration of approval; so, not knowing what else to do, I shake the man cordially by the hand, and modestly inform my attentively listening audience that Osman Pasha and myself are brothers, that Osman yielded only when the overwhelming numbers of the Muscovs proved that it was his kismet to do so; and that the Russians would never be permitted to occupy Constantinople; a statement, that probably makes my simple auditors feel as though they were inheriting a new lease of national life; anyhow, they seem not a little gratified at what I am saying. After this the people seem to find material for no end of amusement among themselves, by contrasting the marifet of the bicycle with the marifet of their creaking arabas, of which there seems to be quite a number in this valley. They are used chiefly in harvesting, are roughly made, used, and worn out in these mountain-environed valleys without ever going beyond the hills that encompass them in on every side. From these villages the people begin to evince an alarming disposition to follow me out some distance on donkeys. This undesirable trait of their character is, of course, easily counteracted by a short spurt, where spurting is possible, but it is a soul-harrowing thing to trundle along a mile of unridable road, in company with twenty importuning katir-jees, their diminutive donkeys filling the air with suffocating clouds of dust. There is nothing on all this mundane sphere that will so effectually subdue the proud, haughty spirit of a wheelman, or that will so promptly and completely snuff out his last flickering ray of dignity; it is one of the pleasantries of 'cycling through a country where the people have been riding donkeys and camels since the flood. A few miles from the village I meet another candidate for medical treatment; this time it is a woman, among a merry company of donkey-riders, bound from Yuzgat to the salt-mines; they are laughing, singing, and otherwise enjoying themselves, after the manner of a New England berrying party. The woman's affliction, she says, is "fenna ghuz," which, it appears, is the term used to denote ophthalmia, as well as the "evil-eye;" but of course, not being a ghuz hakim, I can do nothing more than express my sympathy. The fertile valley gradually contracts to a narrow, rocky defile, leading up into a hilly region, and at five o'clock I reach Tuzgat, a city claiming a population of thirty thousand, that is situated in a depression among the mountains that can scarcely be called a valley. I have been three and a half days making the one hundred and thirty miles from Angora. Everybody in Yuzgat knows Youvanaki Effendi Tifticjeeoghlou, to whom I have brought a letter of introduction; and, shortly after reaching town, I find myself comfortably installed on the cushioned divan of honor in that worthy old gentleman's large reception room, while half a dozen serving-men are almost knocking each other over in their anxiety to furnish me coffee, vishnersu, cigarettes, etc. They seem determined upon interpreting the slightest motion of my hand or head into some want which I am unable to explain, and, fancying thus, they are constantly bobbing up before me with all sorts of surprising things. Tevfik Bey, general superintendent of the Eegie (a company having the monopoly of the tobacco trade in Turkey, for which they pay the government a fixed sum per annum), is also a guest of Tifticjeeoghlou Effendi's hospitable mansion, and he at once despatches a messenger to his Yuzgat agent, Mr. G. O. Tchetchian, a vivacious Greek, who speaks English quite fluently. After that gentleman's arrival, we soon come to a more perfect understanding of each other all round, and a very pleasant evening is spent in receiving crowds of visitors in a ceremonious manner, in which I really seem to be holding a sort of a levee, except that it is evening instead of morning. Open door is kept for everybody, and mine host's retinue of pages and serving men are kept pretty busy supplying coffee right and left; beggars in their rags are even allowed to penetrate into the reception-room, to sip a cup of coffee and take a curious peep at the Ingilisin and his wonderful araba, the fame of which has spread like wildfire through the city. Mine host himself is kept pretty well occupied in returning the salaams of the more distinguished visitors, besides keeping his eye on the servants, by way of keeping them well up to their task of dispensing coffee in a manner satisfactory to his own liberal ideas of hospitality; but he presides over all with a bearing of easy dignity that it is a pleasure to witness. The street in front of the Tifticjeeoghlou residence is swarmed with people next morning; keeping open house is, under the circumstances, no longer practicable; the entrance gate has to be guarded, and none permitted to enter but privileged persons. During the forenoon the Caimacan and several officials call round and ask me to favor them by riding along a smooth piece of road opposite the municipal konak; as I intend remaining over here today, I enter no objections, and accompany them forthwith. The rabble becomes wildly excited at seeing me emerge with the bicycle, in company with the Caimacan and his staff, for they know that their curiosity is probably on the eve of being gratified. It proves no easy task to traverse the streets, for, like in all Oriental cities, they are narrow, and are now jammed with people. Time and again the Caimacan is compelled to supplement the exertions of an inadequate force of zaptiehs with his authoritative voice, to keep down the excitement and the wild shouts of "Bin bacalem! bin bacalem." (Hide, so that we can see - an innovation on bin, bin, that has made itself manifest since crossing the Kizil Irmak Kiver) that are raised, gradually swelling into the tumultuous howl of a multitude. The uproar is deafening, and, long before reaching the place, the Caimacan repents having brought me out. As for myself, I certainly repent having come out, and have still better reasons for doing so before reaching the safe retreat of Tifticjeeo-ghlou Effendi's house, an hour afterward. The most that the inadequate squad of zaptiehs present can do, when we arrive opposite the muncipal konak, is to keep the crowd from pressing forward and overwhelming me and the bicycle. They attempt to keep open a narrow passage through the surging sea of humans blocking the street, for me to ride down; but ten yards ahead the lane terminates in a mass of fez-crowned heads. Under the impression that one can mount a bicycle on the stand, like mounting a horse, the Caimacan asks me to mount, saying that when the people see me mounted and ready to start, they will themselves yield a passage-way. Seeing the utter futility of attempting explanations under existing conditions, amid the defeaning clamor of " Bin bacalem! bin bacalem '" I mount and slowly pedal along a crooked "fissure" in the compact mass of people, which the zaptiehs manage to create by frantically flogging right and left before me. Gaining, at length, more open ground, and the smooth road continuing on, I speed away from the multitude, and the Caimacan sends one fleet-footed zaptieh after me, with instructions to pilot me back to Tifticjeeoghlou's by a roundabout way, so as to avoid returning through the crowds. The rabble are not to be so easily deceived and shook off as the Caimacan thinks, however; by taking various short cuts, they manage to intercept us, and, as though considering the having detected and overtaken us in attempting to elude them, justifies them in taking liberties, their "Bin bacalem!" now develops into the imperious cry of a domineering majority, determined upon doing pretty much as they please. It is the worst mob I have seen on the journey, so far; excitement runs high, and their shouts of "Bin bacalem!" can, most assuredly, be heard for miles. We are enveloped by clouds of dust, raised by the feet of the multitude; the hot sun glares down savagely upon us; the poor zaptieh, in heavy top-boots and a brand-new uniform, heavy enough for winter, works like a beaver to protect the bicycle, until, with perspiration and dust, his face is streaked and tattooed like a South Sea Islander's. Unable to proceed, we come to a stand-still, and simply occupy ourselves in protecting the bicycle from the crush, and reasoning. with the mob; but the only satisfaction we obtain in reply to anything we say is " Bin bacalem." One or two pig-headed, obstreperous young men near us, emboldened by our apparent helplessness, persist in handling the bicycle. After being pushed away several times, one of them even assumes a menacing attitude toward me the last time I thrust his meddlesome hand away. Under such circumstances retributive justice, prompt and impressive, is the only politic course to pursue; so, leaving the bicycle to the zaptieh a moment, in the absence of a stick, I feel justified in favoring the culprit with, a brief, pointed lesson in the noble art of self-defence, the first boxing lesson ever given in Tuzgat. In a Western mob this would have been anything but an act of discretion, probably, but with these people it has a salutary effect; the idea of attempting retaliation is the farthest of anything from their thoughts, and in all the obstreperous crowd there is, perhaps, not one but what is quite delighted at either seeing or hearing of me having thus chastised one of their number, and involuntarily thanks Allah that it didn't happen to be himself. It would be useless to attempt a description of how we finally managed, by the assistance of two more zaptiehs, to get back to Tifticjeeoghlou Effendi's, both myself and the zaptieh simply unrecognizable from dust and perspiration. The zaptieh, having first washed the streaks and tattooing off his face, now presents himself, with the broad, honest smile of one who knows he well deserves what he is asking for, and says, "Effendi, backsheesh." There is nothing more certain than that the honest fellow merits backsheesh from somebody; it is also equally certain that I am the only person from whom he stands the ghost of a chance of getting any; nevertheless, the idea of being appealed to for backsheesh, after what I have just undergone, merely as an act of accommodation, strikes me as just a trifle ridiculous, and the opportunity of engaging the grinning, good-humored zaptieh in a little banter concerning the abstract preposterousness of his expectations is too good to be lost. So, assuming an air of astonishment, I reply: "Backsheesh! where is my backsheesh. I should think it's me that deserves backsheesh if anybody does." This argument is entirely beyond the zaplieh's child-like comprehension, however; he only understands by my manner that there is a "hitch" somewhere; and never was there a more broadly good- humored countenance, or a smile more expressive of meritoriousness, nor an utterance more coaxing in its modulations than his "E-f-fendi, backsheesh." as he repeats the appeal; the smile and the modulation is well worth the backsheesh. In the afternoon, an officer appears with a note saying that the Mutaserif and a number of gentlemen would like to see me ride inside the municipal konak grounds. This I very naturally promise to do, only, under conditions that an adequate force of zaptiehs be provided. This the Mutaserif readily agrees to, and once more I venture into the streets, trundling along under a strong escort of zaptiehs who form a hollow square around me. The people accumulate rapidly, as we progress, and, by the time we arrive at the konak gate there is a regular crush. In spite of the frantic exertions of my escort, the mob press determinedly forward, in an attempt to rush inside when the gate is opened; instantly I find myself and bicycle wedged in among a struggling mass of natives; a cry of "Sakin araba! sakin araba!" (Take care! the bicycle!) is raised; the zapliehs make a supreme effort, the gate is opened, I am fairly carried in, and the gate is closed. A couple of dozen happy mortals have gained admittance in the rush. Hundreds of the better class natives are in the inclosure, and the walls and neighboring house-tops are swarming with an interested audience. There is a small plat of decently smooth ground, upon which I circle around for a few minutes, to as delighted an audience as ever collected in Bamum's circus. After the exhibition, the Mutaserif eyes the swarming multitude on the roofs and wall, and looks perplexed; some one suggests that the bicycle be locked up for the present, and, when the crowds have dispersed, it can be removed without further excitement. The Mutaserif then places the municipal chamber at my disposal, ordering an officer to lock it up and give me the key. Later in the afternoon I am visited by the Armenian pastor of Yuzgat, and another young Armenian, who can speak a little English, and together we take a strolling peep at the city. The American missionaries at Kaizarieh have a small book store here, and the pastor kindly offers me a New Testament to carry along. We drop in on several Armenian shopkeepers, who are introduced as converts of the mission. Coffee is supplied wherever we call. While sitting down a minute in a tailor's stall, a young Armenian peeps in, smiles, and indulges in the pantomime of rubbing his chin. Asking the meaning of this, I am informed by the interpreter that the fellow belongs to the barber shop next door, and is taking this method of reminding me that I stand in need of his professional attentions, not having shaved of late. There appears to be a large proportion of Circassians in town; a group of several wild-looking bipeds, armed a la Anatolia, ragged and unkempt-haired for Circassians, who are generally respectable in their personal appearance, approach us, and want me to show them the bicycle, on the strength of their having fought against the Russians in the late war. "I think they are liars," says the young Armenian, who speaks English; "they only say they fought against the Russians because you are an Englishman, and they think you will show them the bicycle." Some one comes to me with old coins for sale, another brings a stone with hieroglyphics on it, and the inevitable genius likewise appears; this time it is an Armenian; the tremendous ovation I have received has filled his mind with exaggerated ideas of making a fortune, by purchasing the bicycle and making a two-piastre show out of it. He wants to know how much I will take for it. Early daylight finds me astir on the following morning, for I have found it a desirable thing to escape from town ere the populace is out to crowd about me. Tifticjeeoghlou Effendi's better half has kindly risen at an unusually early hour, to see me off, and provides me with a dozen circular rolls of hard bread-rings the size of rope quoits aboard an Atlantic steamer, which I string on Igali's cerulean waist-scarf, and sling over one shoulder. The good lady lets me out of the gate, and says, "Bin bacalem, Effendi." She hasn't seen me ride yet. She is a motherly old creature, of Greek extraction, and I naturally feel like an ingrate of the meanest type, at my inability to grant her modest request. Stealing along the side streets, I manage to reach ridable ground, gathering by the way only a small following of worthy early risers, and two katir-jees, who essay to follow me on their long-eared chargers; but, the road being smooth and level from the beginning, I at once discourage them by a short spurt. A half-hour's trundling up a steep hill, and then comes a coastable descent into lower territory. A conscription party collected from the neighboring Mussulman villages, en route to Samsoon, the nearest Black Sea port, is met while riding down this declivity. In anticipation of the Sultan's new uniforms awaiting them at Constantinople, they have provided themselves for the journey with barely enough rags to cover their nakedness. They are in high glee at their departure for Stamboul, and favor me with considerable good-natured chaff as I wheel past. "Human nature is everywhere pretty much alike the world over," I think to myself. There is little difference between this regiment of ragamuffins chaffing me this morning and the well-dressed troopers of Kaiser William, bantering me the day I wheeled out of Strassburg. CHAPTER XVI. THROUGH THE SIVAS VILAYET INTO ARMENIA. It is six hours distant from Yuzgat to the large village of Koelme, as distance is measured here, or about twenty-three English miles; but the road is mostly ridable, and I roll into the village in about three hours and a half. Just beyond Koehne, the roads fork, and the mudir kindly sends a mounted zaptieh to guide me aright, for fear I shouldn't quite understand by his pantomimic explanations. I understand well enough, though, and the road just here happening to be excellent wheeling, to the delight of the whole village, I spurt ahead, outdistancing the zaptieh's not over sprightly animal, and bowling briskly along the right road within their range of vision, for over a mile. Soon after leaving Koehne my attention is attracted by a small cluster of civilized-looking tents, pitched on the bank of a running stream near the road, and from whence issues the joyous sounds of mirth and music. The road continues ridable, and I am wheeling leisurely along, hesitating about whether to go and investigate or not, when a number of persons, in holiday attire, present themselves outside the tents, and by shouting and gesturing, invite me to pay them a visit. It turns out to be a reunion of the Yuzgat branch of the Pampasian-Pamparsan family - an Armenian name whose representatives in Armenia and Anatolia, it appears, correspond in comparative numerical importance to the great and illustrious family of Smiths in the United States. Following - or doubtless, more properly, setting - a worthy example, they likewise have their periodical reunions, where they eat, drink, spin yarns, sing, and twang the tuneful lyre in frolicsome consciousness of always having a howling majority over their less prolific neighbors. Refreshments in abundance are tendered, and the usual pantomimic explanations exchanged between us; some of the men have been honoring the joyful occasion by a liberal patronage of the flowing bowl, and are already mildly hilarious; stringed instruments are twanged by the musical members of the great family, while several others, misinterpreting the inspiration of raki punch for terpsichorean talent are prancing wildly about the tent. Middle-aged matrons are here in plenty, housewifely persons, finding their chief enjoyment in catering to the gastronomic pleasures of the others; while a score or two of blooming maidens stand coyly aloof, watching the festive merry-makings of the men; their heads and necks are resplendent with bands and necklaces of gold coins, it still being a custom of the East to let the female members of a family wear the surplus wealth about them in the shape of gold ornaments and jewels, a custom resulting from the absence of safe investments and the unstability of national affairs. Yuzgat enjoys among neighboring cities a reputation for beautiful women, and this auspicious occasion gives me an excellent opportunity for drawing my own conclusions. It is not fair perhaps to pass judgment on Yuzgat's pretensions, by the damsels of one family connection, not even the great and numerous Pampasian-Pamparsan family, but still they ought to be at least a fair average. They have beautiful large black eyes, and usually a luxuriant head of hair; but their faces arc, on the whole, babyish and expressionless. The Yuzgat maiden of "sweet sixteen" is a coy, babyish creature, possessed of a certain doll-like prettiness, but at twenty-three is a rapidly fading flower, and at thirty is already beginning to get wrinkled and old. Happening to fall in with this festive gathering this morning is quite a gratifying and enlivening surprise; besides the music and dancing and a substantial breakfast of chicken, boiled mutton, and rice pillau, it gives me an opportunity of witnessing an Armenian family reunion under primitive conditions. Watching over this peaceful and gambolling flock of Armenian lambkins is a lone Circassian watchdog; he is of a stalwart, warlike appearance; and although wearing no arms - except a cavalry sword, a shorter broad-sword, a dragoon revolver, a two-foot horse-pistol, and a double-barrelled shot-gun slung at his back - the Armenians seem to feel perfectly safe under his protection. They probably don't require any such protection really; they are nevertheless wise in employing a Circassian to guard them, if for nothing else for the sake of freeing their own unwarlike minds of all disquieting apprehensions, and enjoying their family reunion in the calm atmosphere of perfect security; some lawless party passing along the road might peradventure drop in and abuse their hospitality, or partaking too freely of raki, make themselves obnoxious, were they unprotected; but with one Circassian patrolling the camp, they are doubly sure against anything of the kind. These people invite me to remain with them until to-morrow; but of course I excuse myself from this, and, after spending a very agreeable hour in their company, take my departure. The country develops into an undulating plateau, which is under general cultivation, as cultivation goes in Asiatic Turkey. A number of Circassian villages are scattered over this upland plain; most of them are distant from my road, but many horsemen are encountered; they ride the finest animals in the country, and one naturally falls to wondering how they manage to keep so well-dressed and well-mounted, while rags and poverty and diminutive donkeys seem to be the well-nigh universal rule among their neighbors. The Circassians betray more interest in my purely personal affairs - whether I am Russian or English, whither I am bound, etc.- and less interest in the bicycle, than either Turks or Armenians, and seem altogether of a more reserved disposition; I generally have as little conversation with them as possible, confining myself to letting them know I am English and not Russian, and replying "Turkchi binmus" (I don't understand) to other questions; they have a look about them that makes one apprehensive as to the disinterestedness of their wanting to know whither I am bound - apprehensive that their object is to find out where three or four of them could "see me later." I see but few Circassian women; what few I approach sufficiently near to observe are all more or less pleasant-faced, prepossessing females; many have blue eyes, which is very rare among their neighbors; the men average quite as handsome as the women, and they have a peculiar dare-devil expression of countenance that makes them distinguishable immediately from either Turk or Armenian; they look like men who wouldn't hesitate about undertaking any devilment they felt themselves equal to for the sake of plunder. They are very like their neighbors, however, in one respect; such among them as take any great interest in my extraordinary outfit find it entirely beyond their comprehension; the bicycle is a Gordian knot too intricate for their semi-civilized minds to unravel, and there are no Alexanders among them to think of cutting it. Before they recover from their first astonishment I have disappeared. The road continues for the most part ridable until about 2 P.M., when I arrive at a mountainous region of rocky ridges, covered chiefly with a growth of scrub-oak. Upon reaching the summit of one of these ridges, I observe some distance ahead what appears to be a tremendous field of large cabbages, stretching away in a northeasterly direction almost to the horizon of one's vision; the view presents the striking appearance of large compact cabbage-heads, thickly dotting a well-cultivated area of clean black loam, surrounded on all sides by rocky, uncultivatable wilds. Fifteen minutes later I am picking my way through this "cultivated field," which, upon closer acquaintance, proves to be a smooth lava-bed, and the "cabbages" are nothing more or less than boulders of singular uniformity; and what is equally curious, they are all covered with a growth of moss, while the volcanic bed they repose on is perfectly naked. Beyond this singular area, the country continues wild and mountainous, with no habitations near the road; and thus it continues until some time after night-fall, when I emerge upon a few scattering wheat-fields. The baying of dogs in the distance indicates the presence of a village somewhere around; but having plenty of bread on which to sup I once again determine upon studying astronomy behind a wheat-shock. It is a glorious moonlight night, but the altitude of the country hereabouts is not less than six thousand feet, and the chilliness of the atmosphere, already apparent, bodes ill for anything like a comfortable night; but I scarcely anticipate being disturbed by anything save atmospheric conditions. I am rolled up in my tent instead of under it, slumbering as lightly as men are wont to slumber under these unfavorable conditions, when, about eleven o'clock, the unearthly creaking of native arabas approaching arouses me from my lethargical condition. Judging from the sounds, they appear to be making a bee-line for my position; but not caring to voluntarily reveal my presence, I simply remain quiet and listen. It soon becomes evident that they are a party of villagers, coming to load up their buffalo arabas by moonlight with these very shocks of wheat. One of the arabas now approaches the shock which conceals my recumbent form, and where the pale moonbeams are coquettishly ogling the nickel-plated portions of my wheel, making it conspicuously sciutillant by their attentions. Hoping the araba may be going to pass by, and that my presence may escape the driver's notice, I hesitate even yet to reveal myself; but the araba stops, and I can observe the driver's frightened expression as he suddenly becomes aware of the presence of strange, supernatural objects. At the same moment I rise up in my winding-sheet-like covering; the man utters a wild yell, and abandoning the araba, vanishes like a deer in the direction of his companions. It is an unenviable situation to find one's self in; if I boldly approach them, these people, not being able to ascertain my character in the moonlight, would be quite likely to discharge their fire-arms at me in their fright; if, on the contrary, I remain under cover, they might also try the experiment of a shot before venturing to approach the deserted buffaloes, who are complacently chewing the cud on the spot where their chicken-hearted driver took to his heels. Under the circumstances I think it best to strike off toward the road, leaving them to draw their own conclusions as to whether I am Sheitan himself, or merely a plain, inoffensive hobgoblin. But while gathering up my effects, one heroic individual ventures to approach part way and open up a shouting inquiry; my answers, though unintelligible to him in the main, satisfy him that I am at all events a human being; there are six of them, and in a few minutes after the ignominious flight of the driver, they are all gathered around me, as much interested and nonplussed at the appearance of myself and bicycle as a party of Nebraska homesteaders might be had they, under similar circumstances, discovered a turbaned old Turk complacently enjoying a nargileh. No sooner do their apprehensions concerning my probable warlike character and capacity become allayed, than they get altogether too familiar and inquisitive about my packages; and I detect one venturesome kleptomaniac surreptitiously unfastening a strap when he fancies I am not noticing. Moreover, laboring under the impression that I don't understand a word they are saying, I observe they are commenting in language smacking unmistakably of covetousness, as to the probable contents of my Whitehouse leather case; some think it is sure to contain chokh para (much money), while others suggest that I am a postaya (courier), and that it contains letters. Under these alarming circumstances there is only one way to manage these overgrown children; that is, to make them afraid of you forthwith; so, shoving the strap-unfastener roughly away, I imperatively order the whole covetous crew to "haidi." Without a moment's hesitation they betake themselves off to their work, it being an inborn trait of their character to mechanically obey an authoritative command. Following them to their other arabas, I find that they have brought quilts along, intending, after loading up to sleep in the field until daylight. Selecting a good heavy quilt with as little ceremony as though it were my own property, I take it and the bicycle to another shock, and curl myself up warm and comfortable; once or twice the owner of the coverlet approaches quietly, just near enough to ascertain that I am not intending making off with his property, but there is not the slightest danger of being disturbed or molested in any way till morning; thus, in this curious round-about manner, does fortune provide me with the wherewithal to pass a comparatively comfortable night. "Rather arbitrary proceedings to take a quilt without asking permission," some might think; but the owner thinks nothing of the kind; it is quite customary for travellers of their own nation to help themselves in this way, and the villagers have come to regard it as quite a natural occurrence. At daylight I am again on the move, and sunrise finds me busy making an outline sketch of the ruins of an ancient castle, that occupies, I should imagine, one of the most impregnable positions in all Asia Minor; a regular Gibraltar. It occupies the summit of a precipitous detached mountain peak, which is accessible only from one point, all the other sides presenting a sheer precipice of rock; it forms a conspicuous feature of the landscape for many miles around, and situated as it is amid a wilderness of rugged brush-covered heights, admirably suited for ambuscades, it was doubtless a very important position at one time. It probably belongs to the Byzantine period, and if the number of old graves scattered among the hills indicate anything, it has in its day been the theatre of stirring tragedy. An hour after leaving the frowning battlements of the grim old relic behind, I arrive at a cluster of four rock houses, which are apparently occupied by a sort of a patriarchal family consisting of a turbaned old Turk and his two generations of descendants. The old fellow is seated on a rock, smoking a cigarette and endeavoring to coax a little comfort from the slanting rays of the morning sun, and I straightway approach him and broach the all-important subject of refreshments. He turns out to be a fanatical old gentleman, one of those old-school Mussulmans who have neither eye nor ear for anything but the Mohammedan religion; I have irreverently interrupted him in his morning meditations, it seems, and he administers a rebuke in the form of a sidewise glance, such as a Pharisee might be expected to bestow on a Cannibal Islander venturing to approach him, and delivers himself of two deep-fetched sighs of "Allah, Allah!" Anybody would think from his actions that the sanctimonious old man-ikin (five feet three) had made the pilgrimage to Mecca a dozen times, whereas he has evidently not even earned the privilege of wearing a green turban; he has neither been to Mecca himself during his whole unprofitable life nor sent a substitute, and he now thinks of gaining a nice numerous harem, and a walled-in garden, with trees and fountains, cucumbers and carpooses, in the land of the hara fjhuz kiz, by cultivating the spirit of fanaticism at the eleventh hour. I feel too independent this morning to sacrifice any of the wellnigh invisible remnant of dignity remaining from the respectable quantity with which I started into Asia, for I still have a couple of the wheaten " quoits" I brought from Yuzgat; so, leaving the ancient Mussulman to his meditations, I push on over the hills, when, coming to a spring, I eat my frugal breakfast, soaking the unbiteable "quoits" in the water. After getting beyond this hilly region, I emerge upon a level plateau of considerable extent, across which very fair wheeling is found; but before noon the inevitable mountains present themselves again, and some of the acclivities are trundleable only by repeating the stair-climbing process of the Kara Su Pass. Necessity forces me to seek dinner at a village where abject poverty, beyond anything hitherto encountered, seems to exist. A decently large fig-leaf, without anything else, would be eminently preferable to the tattered remnants hanging about these people, and among the smaller children puris naturalis is the rule. It is also quite evident that few of them ever take a bath; as there is plenty of water about them, this doubtless comes of the pure contrariness of human nature in the absence of social obligations. Their religion teaches these people that they ought to bathe every day; consequently, they never bathe at all. There is a small threshing-floor handy, and, taking pity on their wretched condition, I hesitate not to "drive dull care away" from them for a few minutes, by giving them an exhibition; not that there is any "dull care" among them, though, after all; for, in spite of desperate poverty, they know more contentment than the well-fed, respectably-dressed mechanic of the Western World. It is, however, the contentment born of not realizing their own condition, the bliss that comes of ignorance. They search the entire village for eatables, but nothing is readily obtainable but bread. A few gaunt, angular fowls are scratching about, but they have a beruffled, disreputable appearance, as though their lives had been a continuous struggle against being caught and devoured; moreover, I don't care to wait around three hours on purpose to pass judgment on these people's cooking. Eggs there are none; they are devoured, I fancy, almost before they are laid. Finally, while making the best of bread and water, which is hardly made more palatable by the appearance of the people watching me feed - a woman in an airy, fairy costume, that is little better than no costume at all, comes forward, and contributes a small bowl of yaort; but, unfortuntaely, this is old yaort, yaort that is in the sere and yellow stage of its usefulness as human food; and although these people doubtless consume it thus, I prefer to wait until something more acceptable and less odoriferous turns up. I miss the genial hospitality of the gentle Koords to-day. Instead of heaping plates of pillau, and bowls of wholesome new yaort, fickle fortune brings me nothing but an exclusive diet of bread and water. My road, this afternoon, is a tortuous donkey-trail, intersecting ravines with well-nigh perpendicular sides, and rocky ridges, covered with a stunted growth of cedar and scrub-oak. The higher mountains round about are heavily timbered with pine and cedar. A large forest on a mountain-slope is on fire, and I pass a camp of people who have been driven out of their permanent abode by the flames. Fortunately, they have saved everything except their naked houses and their grain. They can easily build new houses, and their neighbors will give or lend them sufficient grain to tide them over till another harvest. Toward sundown the hilly country terminates, and I descend into a broad cultivated valley, through which is a very good wagon-road; and I have the additional satisfaction of learning that it will so continue clear into Sivas, a wagon-road having been made from Sivas into this forest to enable the people to haul wood and building-timber on their arabas. Arriving at a good-sized and comparatively well-to-do Mussulman village, I obtain an ample supper of eggs and pillau, and, after binning over and over again until the most unconscionable Turk among them all can bring himself to importune me no more, I obtain a little peace. Supper for two, together with the tough hill-climbing to-day, and insufficient sleep last night, produces its natural effect; I quietly doze off to sleep while sitting on the divan of a small khan, which might very appropriately be called an open shed. Soon I am awakened; they want me to accommodate them by binning once more before they retire for the night. As the moon is shining brightly, I offer no objections, knowing that to grant the request will be the quickest way to get rid of their worry. They then provide me with quilts, and I spend the night in the khan alone. I am soon asleep, but one habitually sleeps lightly under these strange and ever-varying conditions, and several times I am awakened by dogs invading the khan and sniffing - about my couch. My daily experience among these people is teaching me the commendable habit of rising with the lark; not that I am an enthusiastic student, or even a willing one - be it observed that few people are - but it is a case of either turning out and sneaking off before the inhabitants are astir, or to be worried from one's waking moments to the departure from the village, and of the two evils one comes finally to prefer the early rising. One can always obtain something to eat before starting by waiting till an hour after sunrise, but I have had quite enough of these people's importunities to make breakfasting with them a secondary consideration, and so pull out at early daylight. The road is exceptionally good, but an east wind rises with the sun and quickly develops into a stiff breeze that renders riding against it anything but child's play; no rose is to be expected without a thorn, nevertheless it is rather aggravating to have the good road and the howling head-wind happen together, especially in traversing a country where good roads are the exception instead of the rule. About eight o'clock I reach a village situated at the entrance to a rocky defile, with a babbling brook dancing through the space between its two divisions. Upon inquiring for refreshments, a man immediately orders his wife to bring me pillau. For some reason or other - perhaps the poor woman has none prepared; who knows? - the woman, instead of obeying the command like a "guid wifey," enters upon a wordy demurrer, whereupon her husband borrows a hoe-handle from a bystander and advances to chastise her for daring to thus hesitate about obeying his orders; the woman retreats precipitately into the house, heaping Turkish epithets on her devoted husband's head. This woman is evidently a regular termagant, or she would never have used such violent language to her husband in the presence of a stranger and the whole village; some day, if she doesn't be more reasonable, her husband, instead of satisfying his outraged feelings by chastising her with a hoe-handle, will, in a moment of passion, bid her begone from his house, which in Turkish law constitutes a legal separation; if the command be given in the presence of a competent witness it is irrevocable. Seeing me thus placed, as it were, in an embarrassing situation, another woman - dear, thoughtful creature! - fetches me enough wheat piilau to feed a mule, and a nice bowl of yaort, off which I make a substantial breakfast. Near by where I am eating are five industrious maidens, preparing cracked or broken wheat by a novel and interesting process, that has hitherto failed to come under my observation; perhaps it is peculiar to the Sivas vilayet, which I have now entered. A large rock is hollowed out like a shallow druggist's mortar; wheat is put in, and several girls (sometimes as many as eight, I am told by the American missionaries at Sivas) gather in a circle about it, and pound the wheat with light, long-headed mauls or beetles, striking in regular succession, as the reader has probably seen a gang of circus roustabouts driving tent-pins. When I first saw circus tent-pins driven in this manner, a few years ago, I remember hearing on-lookers remarking it as quite novel and wonderful how so many could be striking the same peg without their swinging sledges coming into collision; but that very same performance has been practised by the maidens hereabout, it seems, from time immemorial- another proof that there is nothing new under the sun. Ten miles of good riding, and I wheel into the considerable town of Yennikhan, a place sufficiently important to maintain a public coffee-khan and several small shops. Here I take aboard a pocketful of fine large pears, and after wheeling a couple of miles to a secluded spot, halt for the purpose of shifting the pears from my pocket to where they will be better appreciated. Ere I have finished the second pear, a gentle goatherd, who from an adjacent hill observed me alight, appears upon the scene and waits around, with the laudable intention of further enlightening his mind when I remount. He is carrying a musical instrument something akin to a flute; it is a mere hollow tube with the customary finger-holes, but it is blown at the end; having neither reed nor mouth-piece of any description, it requires a peculiar sidewise application of the lips, and is not to be blown readily by a novice. When properly played, it produces soft, melodious music that, to say nothing else, must exert a gentle soothing influence on the wild, turbulent souls of a herd of goats. The goatherd offers me a cake of ekmek out of his wallet, as a sort of a I peace - offering, but thanks to a generous breakfast, music hath more charms at present than dry ekmek, and handing him a pear, I strike up a bargain by which he is to entertain me with a solo until I am ready to start, when of course he will be amply recompensed by seeing me bin; the bargain is agreed to, and the solo duly played. East of Yennikhan, the road develops into an excellent macadamized highway, on which I find plenty of genuine amusement by electrifying the natives whom I chance to meet or overtake. Creeping noiselessly up behind an unsuspecting donkey-driver, until quite close, I suddenly reveal my presence. Looking round and observing a strange, unearthly combination, apparently swooping down upon him, the affrighted katir-jee's first impulse is to seek refuge in flight, not infrequently bolting clear off the roadway, before venturing upon taking a second look. Sometimes I simply put on a spurt, and whisk past at a fifteen mile pace. Looking back, the katir-jee generally seems rooted to the spot with astonishment, and his utter inability to comprehend. These men will have marvellous tales to tell in their respective villages concerning what they saw; unless other bicycles are introduced, the time the "Ingilisiu" went through the country with his wonderful araba will become a red-letter event in the memory of the people along my route through Asia Minor. Crossing the Yeldez Irmak Eiver, on a stone bridge, I follow along the valley of the head-waters of our old acquaintance, the Kizil Irmak, and at three o'clock in the afternoon, roll into Sivas, having wheeled nearly fifty miles to-day, the last forty of which will compare favorably in smoothness, though not in leveluess, with any forty- mile stretch I know of in the United States. Prom Angora I have brought a letter of introduction to Mr. Ernest Weakley, a young Englishman, engaged, together with Mr. Kodigas, a Belgian gentleman, for the Ottoman Government, in collecting the Sivas vilayet's proportion of the Russian indemnity; and I am soon installed in hospitable quarters. Sivas artisans enjoy a certain amount of celebrity among their compatriots of other Asia Minor cities for unusual skilfulness. particularly in making filigree silver work. Toward evening myself and Mr. Weakley take a stroll through the silversmiths' quarters. The quarters consist of twenty or thirty small wooden shops, surrounding an oblong court; spreading willows and a tiny rivulet running through it give the place a semi-rural appearance. In the little open-front workshops, which might more appropriately be called stalls, Armenian silversmiths are seated cross-legged, some working industriously at their trade, others gossiping and sipping coffee with friends or purchasers. "Doesn't it call up ideas of what you conceive the quarters of the old alchemists to have been hundreds of years ago." asks my companion. "Precisely what I was on the eve of suggesting to you," I reply, and then we drop into one of the shops, sip coffee with the old silversmith, and examine his filigree jewelry. There is nothing denoting remarkable skill about any of it; an intricate pattern of their jewelry simply represents a great expenditure of time and Asiatic patience, and the finishing of clasps, rivetting, etc., is conspicuously rough. Sivas was also formerly a seat of learning; the imposing gates, with portions of the fronts of the old Arabic universities are still standing, with sufficient beautiful arabesque designs in glazed tile-work still undestroyed, to proclaim eloquently of departed glories. The squalid mud hovels of refugees from the Caucasus now occupy the interior of these venerable edifices; ragged urchins romp with dogs and baby buffaloes where pashas' sons formerly congregated to learn wisdom from the teachings of their prophet, and now what remains of the intricate arabesque designs, worked out in small, bright-colored tiles, that once formed the glorious ceiling of the dome, seems to look down reproachfully, and yet sorrowfully, upon the wretched heaps of tezek placed beneath it for shelter. I am remaining over one day at Sivas, and in the morning we call on the American missionaries. Mr. Perry is at home, and hopes I am going to stay a week, so that they can "sort of make up for the discomforts of journeying through the country;" Mr. Hubbard and the ladies of the Mission are out of town, but will be back this evening. After dinner we go round to the government konak and call on the Vali, Hallil Eifaat Pasha, whom Mr. Weakley describes beforehand as a very practical man, fond of mechanical contrivances; and who would never forgive him if he allowed me to leave Sivas with the bicycle without paying him a visit. The usual rigmarole of salaams, cigarettes, coffee, compliments, and questioning are gone through with; the Vali is a jolly-faced, good-natured man, and is evidently much interested in my companion's description of the bicycle and my journey. Of course I don't forget to praise the excellence of the road from Yennikhan; I can conscientiously tell him that it is superior to anything I have wheeled over south of the Balkans; the Pasha is delighted at hearing this, and beaming joyously over his spectacles, his fat jolly face a rotund picture of satisfaction, he says to Mr. Weakley: "You see, he praises up our roads; and he ought to know, he has travelled on wagon roads half way round the world." The interview ends by the Vali inviting me to ride the bicycle out to his country residence this evening, giving the order for a squad of zaptiehs to escort me out of town at the appointed time. "The Vali is one of the most energetic pashas in Turkey," says Mr. Weakley, as we take our departure. "You would scarcely believe that he has established a small weekly newspaper here, and makes it self-supporting into the bargain, would you." "I confess I don't see how he manages it among these people," I reply, quite truthfully, for these are anything but newspaper- supporting people; "how does he manage to make it self-supporting?" Why, he makes every employe of the government subscribe for a certain number of copies, and the subscription price is kept back out of their salaries; for instance, the mulazim of zaptiehs would have to take half a dozen copies, the mutaserif a dozen, etc.; if from any unforeseen cause the current expenses are found to be more than the income, a few additional copies are saddled on each 'subscriber.' "Before leaving Sivas, I arrive at the conclusion that Hallil Eifaat Pasha knows just about what's what; while administering the affairs of the Sivas vilayet in a manner that has gained him the good-will of the population at large, he hasn't neglected his opportunities at the Constantinople end of the rope; more than one beautiful Circassian girl has, I am told, been forwarded to the Sultan's harem by the enterprising and sagacious Sivas Vali; consequently he holds "trump cards," so to speak, both in the province and the palace. Promptly at the hour appointed the squad of zaptiehs arrive; Mr. Weakley mounts his servant on a prancing Arab charger, and orders him to manoeuvre the horse so as to clear the way in front; the zaptiehs commence their flogging, and in the middle of the cleared space I trundle the bicycle. While making our way through the streets, Mr. Hubbard, who, with the ladies, has just returned to the city, is encountered on the way to invite Mr. Weakley and myself to supper; as he pushes his way through the crowd and reaches my side, he pronounces it the worst rabble he ever saw in the streets of Sivas, and he has been stationed here over twelve years. Once clear of the streets, I mount and soon outdistance the crowd, though still followed by a number of horsemen. Part way out we wait for the Vali's state carriage, in which he daily rides between the city and his residence. "While waiting, a terrific squall of wind and dust comes howling from the direction we are going, and while it is still blowing great guns, the Vali and his mounted escort arrive. His Excellency alights and examines the Columbia with much interest, and then requests me to ride on immediately in advance of the carriage. The grade is slightly against me, and the whistling wind seems to be shrieking a defiance; but by superhuman efforts, almost, I pedal ahead and manage to keep in front of his horses all the way. The distance from Sivas is four and a quarter miles by the cyclometer; this is the first time it has ever been measured. We are ushered into a room quite elegantly furnished, and light refreshments served. Observing my partiality for vishner-su, the Governor kindly offers me a flask of the syrup to take along; which I am, however, reluctantly compelled to refuse, owing to my inability to carry it. Here, also, we meet Djaved Bey, the Pasha's son, who has recently returned from Constantinople, and who says he saw me riding at Prinkipo. The Vali gets down on his hands and knees to examine the route of my journey on a map of the world which he spreads out on the carpet; he grows quite enthusiastic, and exclaims, "Wonderful." " Very wonderful!" says Djaved Bey; "when you get back to America they will-build you a statue." Mr. Hubbard has mounted a horse and followed us to the Vali's residence, and at the approach of dusk we take our departure; the wind is favorable for the return, as is also the gradient; ere my two friends have unhitched their horses, I mount and am scudding before the gale half a mile away. "Hi hi-hi-hi! you'll never overtake him." the Vali shouts enthusiastically to the two horsemen as they start at full gallop after me, and which they laughingly repeat to me shortly afterward. A very pleasant evening is spent at Mr. Hubbard's house; after supper the ladies sing "Sweet Bye and Bye," "Home, Sweet Home," and other melodious reminders of the land of liberty and song that gave them birth. Everything looks comfortable and homelike, and they have English ivy inside the dining-room trained up the walls and partly covering the ceiling, which produces a wonderfully pleasant effect. The usual extraordinary rumors of my wonderful speeding ability have circulated about the city during the day and evening, some of which have happened to come to the ears of the missionaries. One story is that I came from the port of Samsoon, a distance of nearly three hundred miles, in six hours, while an imaginative katir-jee, whom I whisked past on the road, has been telling the Sivas people an exaggerated story of how a genii had ridden past him with lightning-like speed on a shining wheel; but whether it was a good or an evil genii he said he didn't have time to determine, as I went past like a flash and vanished in the distance. The missionaries have four hundred scholars attending their school here at Sivas, which would seem to indicate a pretty flourishing state of affairs. Their recruiting ground is, of I course, among the Armenians, who, though professedly Christiana really stand in more need of regeneration than their Mohammedan neighbors. The characteristic condition of the average Armenian villager's mind is deep, dense ignorance and moral gloominess; it requires more patience and perseverance to ingraft a new idea on the unimpressionable trunk of an Armenian villager's intellect than it does to put up second-hand stove-pipe; and it is a generally admitted fact - i.e., west of the Missouri Elver - that anyone capable of setting up three joints of second-hand stove-pipe without using profane language deserves a seat in Paradise. "Come in here a minute," says Mr. Hubbard, just before our I departure for the night, leading the way into an adjoining room.; I "here's shirts, underclothing, socks, handkerchiefs-everything;.! help yourself to anything you require; I know something about I travelling through this country myself. " But not caring to impose too much on good nature, I content myself with merely pocketing a strong pair of socks, that I know will come in handy. I leave the bicycle at the mission over night, and in the morning, at Miss Chamberlain's request, I ride round the school-house yard a few times for the edification of the scholars. The greatest difficulty, I am informed, with Armenian pupils is to get them to take sufficient interest in anything to ask questions; it is mainly because the bicycle will be certain to awaken interest, and excite the spirit of inquiry among them, that I am requested to ride for their benefit. Thus is the bicycle fairly recognized as a valuable aid to missionary work. Moral: let the American and Episcopal boards provide their Asia Minor and Persian missionaries with nickel-plated bicycles; let them wheel their way into the empty wilderness of the Armenian mind, and. light up the impenetrable moral darkness lurking therein with the glowing and mist-dispelling orbs of cycle lamps. Messrs. Perry, Hubbard, and Weakley accompany me out some distance on horseback, and at parting I am commissioned to carry salaams to the brethren in China. This is the first opportunity that has ever presented of sending greetings overland to far-off China, they say, and such rare occasions are not to be lightly overlooked. They also promise to send word to the Erzeroum mission to expect me; the chances are, however, that I shall reach Erzeroum before their letter; there are no lightning mail trains in Asia Minor. The road eastward from Sivas is an artificial highway, and affords reasonably good wheeling, but is somewhat inferior to the road from Yennikhau. Before long I enter a region of low hills, dales, and small lakes, beyond which the road again descends into the valley of the Kizil Irmak. All day long the roadway averages better wheeling than I ever expected to find in Asiatic Turkey; but the prevailing east wind offers strenuous opposition to my progress every inch of the way along the hundred miles or so of ridable road from Yennikhan to Zara, a town at which I arrive near sundown. Zara is situated at the entrance to a narrow passage between two mountain spurs, and although the road is here a dead level and the surface smooth, the wind comes roaring from the gorge with such tremendous pressure that it is only by extraordinary exertions that I am able to keep the saddle. Tifticjeeoghlou Effendi was a gentleman of Greek descent. At Zara I have an opportunity of seeing and experiencing something of what hospitality is like among the better class Armenians, for I have brought from Sivas a letter of introduction to Kirkor-agha Tartarian, the most prominent Armenian gentleman in Zara. I have no difficulty whatever in finding the house, and am at once installed in the customary position of honor, while five serving-men hover about, ready to wait on me; some take a hand in the inevitable ceremony of preparing and serving coffee and lighting cigarettes, while others stand watchfully by awaiting word or look from myself or mine host, or from the privileged guests that immediately begin to arrive. The room is of cedar planking throughout, and is absolutely without furniture, save the carpeting and the cushioned divan on which I am seated. Mr. Tartarian sits crossed-legged on the carpet to my left, smoking a nargileh; his younger brother occupies a similar position on my right, rolling and smoking cigarettes; while the guests, as they arrive, squat themselves on the carpet in positions varying in distance from the divan, according to their respective rank and social importance. No one ventures to occupy the cushioned divan alongside myself, although the divan is fifteen feet long, and it makes me feel uncomfortably like the dog in the manger to occupy its whole length alone. In a farther corner, and off the slightly raised and carpeted floor on which are seated the guests, is a small brick fire-place, on which a charcoal fire is brightly burning, and here Mr. Vartarian's private kahvay-jee is kept busily employed in brewing tiny cups of strong black coffee; another servant constantly visits the fire to ferret out pieces of glowing charcoal with small pipe-lighting tongs, with which he circulates among the guests, supplying a light to the various smokers of cigarettes. A third youth is kept pretty tolerably busy performing the same office for Mr. Vartarian's nargileh, for the gentleman is an inveterate smoker, and in all Turkey there can scarcely be another nargileh requiring so much tinkering with as his. All the livelong evening something keeps getting wrong with that wretched pipe; mine host himself is continually rearranging the little pile of live coals on top of the dampened tobacco (the tobacco smoked in a nargileh is dampened, and live coals are placed on top), taking off the long coiled tube and blowing down it, or prying around in the tobacco receptacle with an awl-like instrument in his efforts to make it draw properly, but without making anything like a success; while his nargileh-boy is constantly hovering over it with a new supply of live coals. "Job himself could scarcely have been possessed of more patience," I think at first; but before the evening is over I come to the conclusion that my worthy host wouldn't exchange that particular hubble-bubble with its everlasting contrariness for the most perfectly drawing nargileh in Turkey: like certain devotees of the weed among ourselves, who never seem to be happier than when running a broom-straw down the stem of a pipe that chronically refuses to draw, so Kirkor-agha Vartarian finds his chief amusement in thus tinkering from one week's end to another with his nargileh. At the supper table mine host and his brother both lavish attentions upon me; knives and forks of course there are none, these things being seldom seen in Asia Minor, and to a cycler who has spent the day in pedalling against a stiff breeze, their absence is a matter of small moment. I am ravenously hungry, and they both win my warmest esteem by transferring choice morsels from their own plates into mine with their fingers. From what I know of strict haut ton Zaran etiquette, I think they should really pop these tid-bits in my mouth, and the reason they don't do so is, perhaps, because I fail to open it in the customary haut ton manner; however, it is a distasteful thing to be always sticking up for one's individual rights. A pile of quilts and mattresses, three feet thick, and feather pillows galore are prepared for me to sleep on. An attendant presents himself with a wonderful night- shirt, on the ample proportions of which are displayed bewildering colors and figures; and following the custom of the country, shapes himself for undressing me and assisting me into bed. This, however, I prefer to do without assistance, owing to a large stock of native modesty. I never fell among people more devoted in their attentions; their only thought during my stay is to make me comfortable; but they are very ceremonious and great sticklers for etiquette. I had intended making my usual early start, but mine host receives with open disapproval - I fancy even with a showing of displeasure - my proposition to depart without first partaking of refreshments, and it is nearly eight o'clock before I finally get started. Immediately after rising comes the inevitable coffee and early morning visitors; later an attendant arrives with breakfast for myself on a small wooden tray. Mr. Vartarian occupies precisely the same position, and is engaged in precisely the same occupation as yesterday evening, as is also his brother. No sooner does the hapless attendant make his appearance with the eatables than these two persons spring simultaneously to their feet, apparently in a towering rage, and chase him back out of the room, meanwhile pursuing him with a torrent of angry words; they then return to their respective positions and respective occupations. Ten minutes later the attendant reappears, but this time bringing a larger tray with an ample spread for three persons; this, it afterward appears, is not because mine host and his brother intends partaking of any, but because it is Armenian etiquette to do so, and Armenian etiquette therefore becomes responsible for the spectacle of a solitary feeder seated at breakfast with dishes and everything prepared for three, while of the other two, one is smoking a nargileh, the other cigarettes, and both of them regarding my evident relish of scrambled eggs and cold fowl with intense satisfaction. Having by this time determined to merely drift with the current of mine host's intentions concerning the time of my departure, I resume my position on the divan after breakfasting, simply hinting that I would like to depart as soon as possible. To this Mr. Vartarian complacently nods assent, and his brother, with equal complacency rolls me a cigarette, after which a good half-hour is consumed in preparing for me a letter of introduction to their friend Mudura Ghana in the village of Kachahurda, which I expect to reach somewhere near noon; mine host dictates while his brother writes. Visitors continue coming in, and I am beginning to get a trifle impatient about starting; am beginning in fact to wish all their nonsensical ceremoniousness at the bottom of tho deep blue sea or some equally unfathomable quarter, when, at a signal from Mr. Vartarian himself, his brother and tho whole roomful of visitors rise simultaneously to their feet, and equally simultaneously put their hands on their respective stomachs, and, turning toward me, salaam; mine host then comes forward, shakes hands, gives me the letter to Mudura Ghana, and permits me to depart. He has provided two zaptiehs to escort me outside the town, and in a few minutes I find myself bowling briskly along a beautiful little valley; the pellucid waters of a purling brook dance merrily alongside an excellent piece of road; birds are singing merrily in the willow-trees, and dark rocky crags tower skyward immediately around. The lovely little valley terminates all too soon, for in fifteen minutes I am footing it up another mountain; but it proves to be the entrance gate of a region containing grander pine-clad mountain scenery than anything encountered outside the Sierra Nevadas; in fact the famous scenery of Cape Horn, California, almost finds its counterpart at one particular point I traverse this morning; only instead of a Central Pacific Railway winding around the gray old crags and precipices, the enterprising Sivas Vali has built an araba road. One can scarce resist the temptation of wheeling down some of the less precipitous slopes, but it is sheer indiscretion, for the roadway makes sharp turns at points where to continue straight ahead a few feet too far would launch one into eternity; a broken brake, a wild "coast" of a thousand feet through mid-air into the dark depths of a rocky gorge, and the "tour around the world" would abruptly terminate. For a dozen miles I traverse a tortuous road winding its way among wild mountain gorges and dark pine forests; Circassian horsemen are occasionally encountered: it seems the most appropriate place imaginable for robbers, and I have again been cautioned against these freebooting mountaineers at Sivas. They eye me curiously, and generally halt after they have passed, and watch my progress for some minutes. Once I am overtaken by a couple of them; they follow close behind me up a mountain slope; they are heavily armed and look capable of anything, and I plod along, mentally calculating how to best encompass their destruction with the Smith & "Wesson, without coming to grief myself, should their intentions toward me prove criminal. It is not exactly comfortable or reassuring to have two armed horsemen, of a people who are regarded with universal fear and mistrust by everybody around them, following close upon one's heels, with the disadvantage of not being able to keep an eye on their movements; however, they have little to say; and as none of them attempt any interference, it is not for me to make insinuations against them on the barren testimony of their outward appearance and the voluntary opinions of their neighbors. My route now leads up a rocky ravine, the road being fairly under cover of over-arching rocks at times, thence over a billowy region of mountain summits-an elevated region of pine-clad ridges and rocky peaks-to descend again into a cultivated country of undulating hills and dales, checkered with fields of grain. These low rolling hills appear to be in a higher state of cultivation than any district I have traversed in Asia Minor; from points of vantage the whole country immediately around looks like a swelling sea of golden grain; harvesting is going merrily on; men and women are reaping side by side in the fields, and the songs of the women come floating through the air from all directions. They are Armenian peasants, for I am now in Armenia proper; the inhabitants of this particular locality impress me as a light hearted, industrious people; they have an abundant harvest, and it is a pleasure to stand and see them reap, and listen to the singing of the women; moreover they are more respectably clothed than the lower class natives round about them, barring, of course, our unfathomable acquaintances, the Circassians. Toward the eastern extremity of this peaceful, happy scene is the village of Kachahurda, which I reach soon after noon, and where resides Mfrdura Ghana, to whom I bring a letter. Picturesquely speaking, Kachahurda is a disgrace to the neighborhood in which it stands; its mud hovels are combined cow-pens, chicken-coops, and human habitations, and they are bunched up together without any pretence to order or regularity; yet the light-hearted, decently-clad people, whose songs come floating from the harvest-fields, live contentedly in this and other equally wretched villages round about. Mudura Ghana provides me with a repast of bread and yaort, and endeavors to make my brief halt comfortable. While I am discussing these refreshments, himself and another unwashed, unkempt old party come to high, angry words about me; but whatever it is about I haven't the slightest idea. Mine host seems a regular old savage when angry. He is the happy possessor of a pair of powerful lungs, which are ably seconded by a foghorn voice, and he howls at the other man like an enraged bull. The other man doesn't seem to mind it, though, and keeps up his end of the controversy - or whatever it is - in a comparatively cool and aggravating manner, that seems to feed Mudura Ghana's righteous wrath, until I quite expect to see that outraged person reach down one of the swords off the wall and hack his opponent into sausage-meat. Once I venture to inquire, as far as one can inquire by pantomime, what they are quarrelling so violently about me for, being really inquisitive to find out They both immediately cease hostilities to assure me that it is nothing for which I am in any way personally responsible; and then they straightway fall to glaring savagely at each other again, and renew their vocal warfare more vigorously, if anything, from having just drawn a peaceful breath. Mine host of Kachahurda can scarcely be called a very civilized or refined individual; he has neither the gentle kindliness of Kirkoragha Vartarian, nor the dignified, gentlemanly bearing of Tifticjeeoghlou Effendi; but he grabs a club, and roaring like the hoarse whistle of a Mississippi steamboat, chases a crowd of villagers out of the room who venture to come in on purpose to stare rudely at his guest; and for this charitable action alone he deserves much credit; nothing is so annoying as to have these unwashed crowds standing gazing and commenting while one is eating. A man is sent with me to direct me aright where the road forks, a mile or so from the village; from the forks it is a newly made road, in fact, unfinished; it resembles a ploughed field for looseness and I depth; and when, in addition to this, one has to climb a gradient of twenty metres to the hundred, a bicycle is anything but a comforting thing to possess. The country becomes broken and more mountainous than ever, and the road winds about fearfully. Often a part of the road that is but a mile away as the crow flies requires an hour's steady going to reach it; but the mountain scenery is glorious. Occasionally I round a point, or reach a summit, from whence a magnificent and comprehensive view bursts upon the vision, and it really requires an effort to tear one's self away, realizing that in all probability I shall never see it again. At one point I seem to be overlooking a vast amphitheatre which encompasses within itself the physical geography of a continent. It is traversed by whole mountain-ranges of lesser degree; it contains tracts of stony desert and fertile valley, lakes, and a river, not excepting even the completing element of a fine forest, and encompassing it round about, like an impenetrable palisade protecting it against invasion, are scores of grand old mountains - grim sentinels that nothing can overcome. The road, though still among the mountains, is now descending in a general way from the elevated divide, down toward Enderes and the valley of the Gevmeili Chai River; and toward evening I enter an Armenian village. The custom from here eastward appears to be to have the threshing-floors in or near the village; there are sometimes several different floors, and when they are winnowing the grain on windy days the whole village becomes covered with an inch or two of chaff. I am glad to find these threshing-floors in the villages, because they give me an excellent opportunity to ride and satisfy the people, thus saving me no end of worry and annoyance. The air becomes chilly after sundown, and I am shown into a close room containing one small air-hole, and am provided with a quilt and pillow. Later in the evening a Turkish Bey arrives with an escort of zaptiehs and occupies the same apartment, which would seem to be a room especially provided for the accommodation of travellers. The moment the officer arrives, behold, there is a hurrying to and fro of the villagers to sweep out the room, kindle a fire to brew his coffee, and to bring him water and a vessel for his ablutions before saying his evening prayers. Cringing senility characterizes the demeanor of these Armenian villagers toward the Turkish officer, and their hurrying hither and thither to supply him ere they are asked looks to me wonderfully like a "propitiating of the gods." The Bey himself seems to be a pretty good sort of a fellow, offering me a portion of his supper, consisting of bread, olives, and onions; which, however, I decline, having already ordered eggs and pillau of a villager. The Bey's company is highly acceptable, since it saves me from the annoyance of being surrounded by the usual ragged, unwashed crowd during the evening, and secures me a refreshing sleep, undisturbed by visions of purloined straps or moccasins. He appears to be a very pious Mussulman; after washing his head, hands, and feet, he kneels toward Mecca on the wet towel, and prays for nearly twenty minutes by my timepiece; and his sighs of Allah! are wonderfully deep-fetched, coming apparently from clear down in his stomach. While he is thus devotionally engaged, his two zaptiehs stand respectfully by, and divide their time between eying myself and the bicycle with wonder and the Bey with mingled reverence and awe. At early dawn I steal noiselessly away, to avoid disturbing the peaceful slumbers of the Bey. For several miles my road winds around among the foot-hills of the range I crossed yesterday, but following a gradually widening depression, which finally terminates in the Gevmeili Chai Valley; and directly ahead and below me lies the considerable town of Enderes, surrounded by a broad fringe of apple-orchards, and walnut and jujube groves. Here I obtain a substantial breakfast of Turkish kabobs (tid-bits of mutton, spitted on a skewer, and broiled over a charcoal fire) at a public eating khan, after which the mudir kindly undertakes to explain to me the best route to Erzingan, giving me the names of several villages to inquire for as a guidance. While talking to the mudir, Mr. Pronatti, an Italian engineer in the employ of the Sivas Vali, makes his appearance, shakes hands, reminds me that Italy has recently volunteered assistance to England in the Soudan campaign, and then conducts me to his quarters in another part of the town. Mr. Pronatti can speak almost any language but English; I speak next to nothing but English; nevertheless, we manage to converse quite readily, for, besides proficiency in pantomimic language acquired by daily practice, I have necessarily picked up a few scattering words of the vernacular of the several countries traversed on the tour. While discussing a nice ripe water-melon with this gentleman, several respectable- looking people enter and introduce themselves through Mr. Pronatti as Osmanli Turks, not Armenians, expecting me to regard them more favorably on that account. Soon afterward a party of Armenians arrive, and take labored pains to impress upon me that they are not Turks, but Christian Armenians. Both parties seem desirous of winning my favorable opinion. One party thinks the surest plan is to let me know that they are Turks; the others, to let me know that they are not Turks. "I have told both parties to go to Gehenna," says my Italian friend. "These people will worry you to death with their foolishness if you make the mistake of treating them with consideration." Donning an Indian pith-helmet that is three sizes too large, and wellnigh conceals his features, Mr. Pronatti orders his horse, and accompanies me some distance out, to put me on the proper course to Erzingan. My route from Enderes leads along a lovely fertile valley, between lofty mountain ranges; an intricate network of irrigating ditches, fed by, mountain streams, affords an abundance of water for wheat-fields, vineyards, and orchards; it is the best, and yet the worst watered valley I ever saw - the best, because the irrigating ditches are so numerous; the worst, because most of them are overflowing and converting my road into mud-holes and shallow pools. In the afternoon I reach somewhat higher ground, where the road becomes firmer, and I bowl merrily along eastward, interrupted by nothing save the necessity of dismounting and shedding my nether garments every few minutes to ford a broad, swift feeder to the lesser ditches lower down the valley. In this fructiferous vale my road sometimes leads through areas of vineyards surrounded by low mud walls, where grapes can be had for the reaching, and where the proprietor of an orchard will shake down a shower of delicious yellow pears for whatever you like to give him, or for nothing if one wants him to. I suppose these villagers have established prices for their commodities when dealing with each other, but they almost invariably refuse to charge me anything; some will absolutely refuse any payment, and my only plan of recompensing them is to give money to the children; others accept, with as great a show of gratitude as if I were simply giving it to them without having received an equivalent, whatever I choose to give. The numerous irrigating ditches have retarded my progress to an appreciable extent to-day, so that, notwithstanding the early start and the absence of mountain-climbing, my cyclometer registers but a gain of thirty-seven miles, when, having continued my eastward course for some time after nightfall, and failing to reach a village, I commence looking around for somewhere to spend the night. The valley of the Gevmeili Chai has been left behind, and I am again traversing a narrow, rocky pass between the hills. Among the rocks I discover a small open cave, in which I determine to spend the night. The region is elevated, and the night air chilly; so I gather together some dry weeds and rubbish and kindle a fire. With something to cook and eat, and a pair of blankets, I could have spent a reasonably comfortable night; but a pocketful of pears has to suffice for supper, and when the unsubstantial fuel is burned away, my airy chamber on the bleak mountain-side and the thin cambric tent affords little protection from the insinuating chilliness of the night air. Variety is said to be the spice of life; no doubt it is, under certain conditions, but I think it all depends on the conditions whether it is spicy or not spicy. For instance, the vicissitudes of fortune that favor me with bread and sour milk for dinner, a few pears for supper, and a wakeful night of shivering discomfort in a cave, as the reward of wading fifty irrigating ditches and traversing thirty miles of ditch-bedevilled donkey-trails during the day, may look spicy, and even romantic, from a distance; but when one wakes up in a cold shiver about 1.30A.M. and realizes that several hours of wretchedness are before him, his waking thoughts are apt to be anything but thoughts complimentary of the spiciness of the situation. Inshallah! fortune will favor me with better dues to- morrow; and if not to-morrow, then the next day, or the next. CHAPTER XVII. THROUGH ERZINGAN AND ERZEROUM. For mile after mile, on the following morning, my route leads through broad areas strewn with bowlders and masses of rock that appear to have been brought down from the adjacent mountains by the annual spring floods, caused by the melting winter's snows; scattering wheat-fields are observed here and there on the higher patches of ground, which look like small yellow oases amid the desert-like area of loose rocks surrounding them. Squads of diminutive donkeys are seen picking their weary way through the bowlders, toiling from the isolated fields to the village threshing-floors beneath small mountains of wheat-sheaves. Sometimes the donkeys themselves are invisible below the general level of the bowlders, and nothing is to be seen but the head and shoulders of a man, persuading before him several animated heaps of straw. Small lakes of accumulated surface-water are passed in depressions having no outlet; thickets and bulrushes are growing around the edges, and the surfaces of some are fairly black with multitudes of wild-ducks. Soon I reach an Armenian village; after satisfying the popular curiosity by riding around their threshing-floor, they bring me some excellent wheat-bread, thick, oval cakes that are quite acceptable, compared with the wafer-like sheets of the past several days, and five boiled eggs. The people providing these will not accept any direct payment, no doubt thinking my having provided them with the only real entertainment most of them ever saw, a fair equivalent for their breakfast; but it seems too much like robbing paupers to accept anything from these people without returning something, so I give money to the children. These villagers seem utterly destitute of manners, standing around and watching my efforts to eat soft-boiled eggs with a pocket-knife with undisguised merriment. I inquire for a spoon, but they evidently prefer to extract amusement from watching my interesting attempts with the pocket-knife. One of them finally fetches a clumsy wooden ladle, three times broader than an egg, which, of course is worse than nothing. I now traverse a mountainous country with a remarkably clear atmosphere. The mountains are of a light creamcolored shaly composition; wherever a living stream of water is found, there also is a village, with clusters of trees. From points where a comprehensive view is obtainable the effect of these dark-green spots, scattered here and there among the whitish hills, seen through the clear, rarefied atmosphere, is most beautiful. It seems a peculiar feature of everything in the East - not only the cities themselves, but even of the landscape - to look beautiful and enchanting at a distance; but upon a closer approach all its beauty vanishes like an illusory dream. Spots that from a distance look, amid their barren, sun-blistered surroundings, like lovely bits of fairyland, upon closer investigation degenerate into wretched habitations of a ragged, poverty-stricken people, having about them a few neglected orchards and vineyards, and a couple of dozen straggling willows and jujubes. For many hours again to-day I am traversing mountains, mountains, nothing but mountains; following tortuous camel-paths far up their giant slopes. Sometimes these camel-paths are splendidly smooth, and make most excellent riding. At one place, particularly, where they wind horizontally around the mountain-side, hundreds of feet above a village immediately below, it is as though the villagers were in the pit of a vast amphitheatre, and myself were wheeling around a semicircular platform, five hundred feet above them, but in plain view of them all. I can hear the wonder-struck villagers calling each other's attention to the strange apparition, and can observe them swarming upon the house-tops. What wonderful stories the inhabitants of this particular village will have to recount to their neighbors, of this marvellous sight, concerning which their own unaided minds can give no explanation! Noontide comes and goes without bringing me any dinner, when I emerge upon a small, cultivated plateau, and descry a coterie of industrious females reaping together in a field near by, and straightway turn my footsteps thitherward with a view of ascertaining whether they happen to have any eatables. No sooner do they observe me trundling toward them than they ingloriously flee the field, thoughtlessly leaving bag and baggage to the tender mercies of a ruthless invader. Among their effects I find some bread and a cucumber, which I forthwith confiscate, leaving a two and a half piastre metallique piece in its stead; the affrighted women are watching me from the safe distance of three hundred yards; when they return and discover the coin they will wish some 'cycler would happen along and frighten them away on similar conditions every day. Later in the afternoon I find myself wandering along the wrong trail; not a very unnatural occurrence hereabout, for since leaving the valley of the Gevmeili Chai, it has been difficult to distinguish the Erzingan trail from the numerous other trails intersecting the country in every direction. On such a journey as this one seems to acquire a certain amount of instinct concerning roads; certain it is, that I never traverse a wrong trail any distance these days ere, without any tangible evidence whatever, I feel instinctively that I am going astray. A party of camel- drivers direct me toward the lost Erzingan trail, and in an hour I am following a tributary of the ancient Lycus River, along a valley where everything looks marvellously green and refreshing; it is as though I have been suddenly transferred into an entirely different country. This innovation from barren rocks and sun-baked shale to a valley where the principal crops seem to be alfalfa and clover, and which is flanked on the south by dense forests of pine, encroaching downward from the mountain slopes clear on to the level greensward, is rather an agreeable surprise; the secret of the magic change does not remain a secret long; it reveals itself in the shape of sundry broad snow-patches still lingering on the summits of a higher mountain range beyond. These pine forests, the pleasant greensward, and the lingering snow-banks, tell an oft-repeated tale; they speak eloquently of forests preserved and the winter snow-fall thereby increased; they speak all the more eloquently because of being surrounded by barren, parched-up hills which, under like conditions, might produce similar happy results, but which now produce nothing. While traversing this smiling valley I meet a man asleep on a buffalo araba; an irrigating ditch runs parallel with the road and immediately alongside; the meek-eyed buffaloes swerve into the ditch in deference to their awe of tho bicycle, arid upset their drowsy driver into the water. The mail evidently stands in need of a bath, but somehow he doesn't seeiu to appreciate it; perhaps it happened a trifle too impromptu, as it were, to suit his easy-going Asiatic temperament. He returns my rude, unsympathetic smile with a prolonged stare of bewilderment, but says nothing. Soon I meet a boy riding on a donkey, and ask him the postaya distance to Erzingan; the youth looks frightened half out of his. senses, but manages to retain sufficient presence of mind to elevate one finger, by which I understand him to mean that it is one hour, or about four miles. Accordingly I pedal perseveringly ahead, hoping to reach the city before dusk, at the same time feeling rather surprised at finding it so near, as I haven't been expecting to reach there before to-morrow. Five miles beyond where I met the boy, and just after sundown, I overtake some katir-jees en route to Erzingan with donkey-loads of grain, and ask them the same question. From them I learn that instead of one, it is not less than twelve hours distant, also that the trail leads over a fearfully mountainous country. Nestling at the base of the mountains, a short distance to the northward, is the large village of Merriserriff, and not caring to tempt the fates into giving me another supper-less night in a cold, cheerless cave, I wend my way thither. Fortune throws me into the society of an Armenian whose chief anxiety seems to be, first, that I shall thoroughly understand that he is an Armenian, and not a Mussulman; and, secondly, to hasten me into the presence of the mudir, who is a Mussulman, and a Turkish Bey, in order that he may bring himself into the mudir's favorable notice by personally introducing me as a rare novelty on to his (the mudir's) threshing-floor. The official and a few friends are sipping coffee in one corner of the threshing floor, and, although I don't much relish my position of the Armenian's puppet-show, I give the mudir an exhibition of the bicycle's use, in the expectation that he will invite me to remain his guest over night. He proves uncourteous, however, not even inviting me to partake of coffee; evidently, he has become so thoroughly accustomed to the abject servility of the Armenians about him - who would never think of expecting reciprocating courtesies from a social superior - that he has unconsciously come to regard everybody else, save those whom he knows as his official superiors, as tarred, more or less, with the same feather. In consequence of this belief I am not a little gratified when, upon the point of leaving the threshing-floor, an occasion offers of teaching him different. Other friends of the mudir's appear upon the scene just as I am leaving, and he beckons me to come back and bin for the enlightenment of the new arrivals. The Armenian's countenance fairly beams with importance at thus being, as it were, encored, and the collected villagers murmur their approval; but I answer the mudir's beckoned invitation by a negative wave of the hand, signifying that I can't bother with him any further. The common herd around regard this self-assertive reply with open-mouthed astonishment, as though quite too incredible for belief; it seems to them an act of almost criminal discourtesy, and those immediately about me seem almost inclined to take me back to the threshing-floor like a culprit. But the mudir himself is not such a blockhead but that he realizes the mistake he has made. He is too proud to acknowledge it, though; consequently his friends miss, perhaps, the only opportunity in their uneventful lives of seeing a bicycle ridden. Owing to my ignorance of the vernacular, I am compelled to drift more or less with the tide of circumstances about me, upon entering one of these villages, for accommodation, and make the best of whatever capricious chance provides. My Armenian "manager " now delivers me into the hands of one of his compatriots, from whom I obtain supper and a quilt, sleeping, from a not over extensive choice, on some straw, beneath the broad eaves of a log granary adjoining the house. I am for once quite mistaken in making an early, breakfastless start, for it proves to be eighteen weary miles over a rocky mountain pass before another human habitation is reached, a region of jagged rocks, deep gorges, and scattered pines. Fortunately, however, I am not destined to travel the whole eighteen miles in a breakfastless condition-not quite a breakfastless condition. Perhaps half the distance is traversed, when, while trundling up the ascent, I meet a party of horsemen, a turbaned old Turk, with an escort of three zaptiehs, and another traveller, who is keeping pace with them for company and safety. The old Turk asks me to bin bacalem, supplementing the request by calling my attention to his turban, a gorgeously spangled affair that would seem to indicate the wearer to be a personage of some importance; I observe, also that the butt of his revolver is of pearl inlaid with gold, another indication of either rank or opulence. Having turned about and granted his request, I in turn call his attention to the fact that mountain climbing on an empty stomach is anything but satisfactory or agreeable, and give him a broad hint by inquiring how far it is before ekmek is obtainable. For reply, he orders a zaptieh to produce a wheaten cake from his saddle-bags, and the other traveller voluntarily contributes three apples, which he ferrets out from the ample folds of his kammerbund and off this I make a breakfast. Toward noon, the highest elevation of the pass is reached, and I commence the descent toward the Erzingan Valley, following for a number of miles the course of a tributary of the western fork of the Euphrates, known among the natives in a general sense as the "Frat;" this particular branch is locally termed the Kara Su, or black water. The stream and my road lead down a rocky defile between towering hills of rock and slaty formation, whose precipitous slopes vegetable nature seems to shun, and everything looks black and desolate, as though some blighting curse had fallen upon the place. Up this same rocky passage-way, eight summers ago, swarmed thousands of wretched refugees from the seat of war in Eastern Armenia; small oblong mounds of loose rocks and bowlders are frequently observed all down the ravine, mournful reminders of one of the most heartrending phases of the Armenian campaign; green lizards are scuttling about among the rude graves, making their habitations in the oblong mounds. About two o'clock I arrive at a road-side khan, where an ancient Osmanli dispenses feeds of grain for travellers' animals, and brews coffee for the travellers themselves, besides furnishing them with whatever he happens to possess in the way of eatables to such as are unfortunately obliged to patronize his cuisine or go without anything; among this latter class belongs, unhappily, my hungry self. Upon inquiring for refreshments the khan-jee conducts me to a rear apartment and exhibits for my inspection the contents of two jars, one containing the native idea of butter and the other the native conception of a soft variety of cheese; what difference is discoverable between these two kindred products is chiefly a difference in the degree of rancidity and odoriferousuess, in which respect the cheese plainly carries off the honors; in fact these venerable and esteemable qualities of the cheese are so remarkably developed that after one cautious peep into its receptacle I forbear to investigate their comparative excellencies any further; but obtaining some bread and a portion of the comparatively mild and inoffensive butter, I proceed to make the best of circumstances. The old khan-jee proves himself a thoughtful, considerate landlord, for as I eat he busies himself picking the most glaringly conspicuous hairs out of my butter with the point of his dagger. One is usually somewhat squeamish regarding hirsute butter, but all such little refinements of civilized life as hairless butter or strained milk have to be winked at to a greater or less extent in Asiatic travelling, especially when depending solely on what happens to turn up from one meal to another. The narrow, lonely defile continues for some miles eastward from the khan, and ere I emerge from it altogether I encounter a couple of ill- starred natives, who venture upon an effort to intimidate me into yielding up my purse. A certain Mahmoud Ali and his band of enterprising freebooters have been terrorizing the villagers and committing highway robberies of late around the country; but from the general appearance of these two, as they approach, I take them to be merely villagers returning home from Erzingan afoot. They are armed with Circassian guardless swords and flint-lock horse-pistols; upon meeting they address some question to me in Turkish, to which I make my customary reply of Tarkchi binmus; one of them then demands para (money) in a manner that leaves something of a doubt whether he means it for begging, or is ordering me to deliver. In order to the better discover their intentions, I pretend not to understand, whereupon the spokesman reveals their meaning plain enough by reiterating the demand in a tone meant to be intimidating, and half unsheatns his sword in a significant manner. Intuitively the precise situation of affairs seems to reveal itself in a moment; they are but ordinarily inoffensive villagers returning from Erzingan, where they have sold and squandered even the donkeys they rode to town; meeting me alone, and, as they think in the absence of outward evidence that I am unarmed, they have become possessed ot tue idea of retrieving their fortunes by intimidating me out of money. Never were men more astonished and taken aback at finding me armed, and they both turn pale and fairly shiver with fright as I produce the Smith & Wesson from its inconspicuous position at my hip, and hold it on a level with the bold spokesman's head; they both look as if they expected their last hour had arrived and both seem incapable either of utterance or of running away; in fact, their embarrassment is so ridiculous that it provokes a smile and it is with anything but a threatening or angry voice that I bid them haidy. The bold highwaymen seem only too thankful of a chance to "haidy," and they look quite confused, and I fancy even ashamed of themselves, as they betake themselves off up the ravine. I am quite as thankful as themselves at getting off without the necessity of using my revolver, for had I killed or badly wounded one of them it would probably have caused no end of trouble or vexatious delay, especially in case they prove to be what I take them for, instead of professional robbers; moreover, I might not have gotten off unscathed myself, for while their ancient flint-locks were in all probability not even loaded, being worn more for appearances by the native than anything else, these fellows sometimes do desperate work with their ugly and ever-handy swords when cornered up, in proof of which we have the late dastardly assault on the British Consul at Erzeroum, of which we shall doubtless hear the particulars upon reaching that city. Before long the ravine terminates, and I emerge upon the broad and smiling Erzingan Valley; at the lower extremity of the ravine the stream has cut its channel through an immense depth of conglomerate formation, a hundred feet of bowlders and pebbles cemented together by integrant particles which appear to have been washed down from the mountains-probably during the subsidence of the deluge, for even if that great catastrophe were a comparatively local occurrence, instead of a universal flood, as some profess to believe, we are now gradually creeping up toward Ararat, so that this particular region was undoubtedly submerged. What appear to be petrified chunks of wood are interspersed through the mass. There is nothing new under the sun, they say; peradventure they may be sticks of cooking-stove wood indignantly cast out of the kitchen window of the ark by Mrs. Noah, because the absent-minded patriarch habitually persisted in cutting them three inches too long for the stove; who knows. I now wheel along a smooth, level road leading through several orchard-environed villages; general cultivation and an atmosphere of peace and plenty seems to pervade the valley, which, with its scattering villages amid the foliage of their orchards, looks most charming upon emerging from the gloomy environments of the rock-ribbed and verdureless ravine; a fitting background is presented on the south by a mountain-chain of considerable elevation, upon the highest peaks of which still linger tardy patches of snow. Since the occupation of Ears by the Russians, the military mantle of that important fortress has fallen upon Erzeroum and Erzingan; the booming of cannon fired in honor of the Sultan's birthday is awakening the echoes of the rock-ribbed mountains as I wheel eastward down the valley, and within about three miles of the city I pass the headquarters of the garrison. Long rows of hundreds of white field-tents are ranged about the position on the level greensward; the place presents an animated scene, with the soldiers, some in the ordinary blue, trimmed with red, others in cool, white uniforms especially provided for the summer, but which they are not unlikely to be found also wearing in winter, owing to the ruinous state of the Ottoman exchequer, and one and all wearing the picturesque but uncomfortable fez; cannons are booming, drums beating, and bugles playing. From the military headquarters to the city is a splendid broad macadam, converted into a magnificent avenue by rows of trees; it is a general holiday with the military, and the avenue is alive with officers and soldiers going and returning between Erzingan and the camp. The astonishment of the valiant warriors of Islam as I wheel briskly down the thronged avenue can be better imagined than described; the soldiers whom I pass immediately commence yelling at their comrades ahead to call their attention, while epauletted officers forget for the moment their military dignity and reserve as they turn their affrighted chargers around and gaze after me, stupefied with astonishment; perhaps they are wondering whether I am not some supernatural being connected in some way with the celebration of the Sultan's birthday - a winged messenger, perhaps, from the Prophet. Upon reaching the city I repair at once to the large customhouse caravanserai and engage a room for the night. The proprietor of the rooms seems a sensible fellow, with nothing of the inordinate inquisitiveness of the average native about him, and instead of throwing the weight of his influence and his persuasive powers on the side of the importuning crowd, he authoritatively bids them "haidy!" locks the bicycle in my room, and gives me the key. The Erzingan caravanserai - and all these caravanserais are essentially similar - is a square court-yard surrounded by the four sides of a two-storied brick building; the ground- floor is occupied by the offices of the importers of foreign goods and the customhouse authorities; the upper floor is divided into small rooms for the accommodation of travellers and caravan men arriving with goods from Trebizond. Sallying forth in search of supper, I am taken in tow by a couple of Armenians, who volunteer the welcome information that there is an "Americanish hakim" in the city; this intelligence is an agreeable surprise, for Erzeroum is the nearest place in which I have been expecting to find an English-speaking person. While searching about for the hakim, we pass near the zaptieh headquarters; the officers are enjoying their nargileh in the cool evening air outside the building, and seeing an Englishman, beckon us over. They desire to examine my teskeri, the first occasion on which it has been officially demanded since landing at Ismidt, although I have voluntarily produced it on previous occasions, and at Sivas requested the Vali to attach his seal and signature; this is owing to the proximity of Erzingan to the Russian frontier, and the suspicions that any stranger may be a, subject of the Czar, visiting the military centres for sinister reasons. They send an officer with me to hunt up the resident pasha; that worthy and enlightened personage is found busily engaged in playing a game of chess with a military officer, and barely takes the trouble to glance at the proffered passport: "It is vised by the Sivas Vali," he says, and lackadaisically waves us adieu. Upon returning to the zaptieh station, a quiet, unassuming American comes forward and introduces himself as Dr. Van Nordan, a physician formerly connected with the Persian mission. The doctor is a spare-built and not over-robust man, and would perhaps be considered by most people as a trifle eccentric; instead of being connected with any missionary organization, he nowadays wanders hither and thither, acquiring knowledge and seeking whom he can persuade from the error of their ways, meanwhile supporting himself by the practice of his profession. Among other interesting things spoken of, he tells me something of his recent journey to Khiva (the doctor pronounces it "Heevah"); he was surprised, he says, at finding the Khivans a mild-mannered and harmless sort of people, among whom the carrying of weapons is as much the exception as it is the rule in Asiatic Turkey. Doubtless the fact of Khiva being under the Russian Government has something to do with the latter otherwise unaccountable fact. After supper we sit down on a newly arrived bale of Manchester calico in the caravanserai court, cross one knee and whittle chips like Michigan grangers at a cross-roads post-office, and spend two hours conversing on different topics. The good doctor's mind wanders as naturally into serious channels as water gravitates to its level; when I inquire if he has heard anything of the whereabout of Mahmoud Ali and his gang lately, the pious doctor replies chiefly by hinting what a glorious thing it is to feel prepared to yield up the ghost at any moment; and when I recount something of my experiences on the journey, instead of giving me credit for pluck, like other people, he merely inquires if I don't recognize the protecting hand of Providence; native modesty prevents me telling the doctor of my valuable missionary work at Sivas. After the doctor's departure I wander forth into the bazaar to see what it looks like after dark; many of the stalls are closed for the day, the principal places remaining open being kahvay-khans and Armenian wine-shops, and before these petroleum lamps are kept burning; the remainder of the bazaar is in darkness. I have not strolled about many minutes before I am corralled as usual by Armenians; they straightway send off for a youthful compatriot of theirs who has been to the missionary's school at Kaizareah and can speak a smattering of English. After the usual programme of questions, they suggest: "Being an Englishman, you are of course a Christian," by which they mean that I am not a Mussulman. "Certainly," I reply; whereupon they lug me into one of their wine-shops and tender me a glass of raki (a corruption of "arrack" - raw, fiery spirits of the kind known among the English soldiers in India by the suggestive pseudonym of "fixed bayonets"). Smelling the raki, I make a wry face and shove it away; thev look surprised and order the waiter to bring cognac; to save the waiter the trouble, I make another wry face, indicative of disapproval, and suggest that he bring vishner-su. "Vishner-su" two or three of them sing out in a chorus of blank amazement; "Ingilis. Christian? vishner-su." they exclaim, as though such a preposterous and unaccountable thing as a Christian partaking of a non- intoxicating beverage like vishner-su is altogether beyond their comprehension. The youth who has been to the Kaizareah school then explains to the others that the American missionaries never indulge in intoxicating beverages; this seems to clear away the clouds of their mystification to some extent, and they order vishner-su, eying me critically, however, as I taste it, as though expecting to observe me make yet another wry countenance and acknowledge that in refusing the fiery, throat-blistering raki I had made a mistake. Nothing in the way of bedding or furniture is provided in the caravanserai rooms, but the proprietor gets me plenty of quilts, and I pass a reasonably comfortable night. In the morning I obtain breakfast and manage to escape from town without attracting a crowd of more than a couple of hundred people; a remarkable occurrence in its way, since Erzingan contains a population of about twenty thousand. The road eastward from Erzingan is level, but heavy with dust, leading through a low portion of the valley that earlier in the season is swampy, and gives the city an unenviable reputation for malarial fevers. To prevent the travellers drinking the unwholesome water in this part of the valley, some benevolent Mussulman or public-spirited pasha has erected at intervals, by the road side, compact mud huts, and placed there in huge earthenware vessels, holding perhaps fifty gallons each; these are kept supplied with pure spring-water and provided with a wooden drinking-scoop. Fourteen miles from Erzingan, at the entrance to a ravine whence flows the boisterous stream that supplies a goodly proportion of the irrigating water for the valley, is situated a military outpost station. My road runs within two hundred yards of the building, and the officers, seeing me evidently intending to pass without stopping, motion for me to halt. I know well enough they want to examine my passport, and also to satisfy their curiosity concerning the bicycle, but determine upon spurting ahead and escaping their bother altogether. This movement at once arouses the official suspicion as to my being in the country without proper authority, and causes them to attach some mysterious significance to my strange vehicle, and several soldiers forthwith receive racing orders to intercept me. Unfortunately, my spurting receives a prompt check at the stream, which is not bridged, and here the doughty warriors intercept my progress, taking me into custody with broad grins of satisfaction, as though pretty certain of having made an important capture. Since there is no escaping, I conclude to have a little quiet amusement out of the affair, anyway, so I refuse point-blank to accompany my captors to their officer, knowing full well that any show of reluctance will have the very natural effect of arousing their suspicions still further. The bland and childlike soldiers of the Crescent receive this show of obstinacy quite complacently, their swarthy countenances wreathed in knowing smiles; but they make no attempt at compulsion, satisfying themselves with addressing me deferentially as "Effendi," and trying to coax me to accompany them. Seeing that there is some difficulty about bringing me, the two officers come down, and I at once affect righteous indignation of a mild order, and desire to know what they mean by arresting my progress. They demand my tesskeri in a manner that plainly shows their doubts of my having one. The teskeri is produced. One of the officers then whispers something to the other, and they both glance knowingly mysterious at the bicycle, apologize for having detained me, and want to shake hands. Having read the passport, and satisfied themselves of my nationality, they attach some deep mysterious significance to my journey in this incomprehensible manner up in this particular quarter; but they no longer wish to offer any impediment to my progress, but rather to render me assistance. Poor fellows! how suspicious they are of their great overgrown neighbor to the north. What good-humored fellows these Turkish soldiers are! what simple-hearted, overgrown children. What a pity that they are the victims of a criminally incompetent government that neither pays, feeds, nor clothes them a quarter as well as they deserve. In the fearful winters of Erzeroum, they have been known to have no clothing to wear but the linen suits provided for the hot weather. Their pay, insignificant though it be, is as uncertain as gambling; but they never raise a murmur. Being by nature and religion fatalists, they cheerfully accept these undeserved hardships as the will of Allah. To-day is the hottest I have experienced in Asia Minor, and soon after leaving the outpost I once more encounter the everlasting mountains, following now the Trebizond and Erzingan caravan trail. Once again I get benighted in the mountains, and push ahead for some time after dark. I am beginning to think of camping out supperless again when I hear the creaking of a buffalo araba some distance ahead. Soon I overtake it, and, following it for half a mile off the trail, I find myself before an enclosure of several acres, surrounded by a high stone wall with quite imposing gateways. It is the walled village of Housseubegkhan, one of those places built especially for the accommodation of the Trebizond caravans in the winter. I am conducted into a large apartment, which appears to be set apart for the hospitable accommodation of travellers. The apartment is found already occupied by three travellers, who, from their outward appearance, might well be taken for cutthroats of the worst description; and the villagers swarming in, I am soon surrounded by the usual ragged, flea-bitten congregation. There are various arms and warlike accoutrements hanging on the wall, enough of one kind or other to arm a small company. They all belong to the three travellers, however; my modest little revolver seems really nothing compared with the warlike display of swords, daggers, pistols and guns hanging around; the place looks like a small armory. The first question is-as is usual of late - "Russ or Ingilis." Some of the younger and less experienced men essay to doubt my word, and, on their own supposition that I am a Russian, begin to take unwarrantable liberties with my person; one of them steals up behind and commences playing a tattoo on my helmet with two sticks of wood, by way of bravado, and showing his contempt for a subject of the Czar. Turning round, I take one of the sticks away and chastise him with it until he howls for Allah to protect him, and then, without attempting any sort of explanation to the others, resume my seat; one of the travellers then solemnly places his forefingers together and announces himself as kardash (my brother), at the same time pointing significantly to his choice assortment of ancient weapons. I shake hands, with him and remind him that I am somewhat hungry; whereupon he orders a villager to forthwith contribute six eggs, another butter to fry them in, and a third bread; a tezek fire is already burning, and with his own hands he fries the eggs, and makes my ragged audience stand at a respectful distance while I eat; if I were to ask him, he would probably clear the room of them instanter. About ten o'clock my impromptu friend and his companion order their horses, and buckle their arms and accoutrements about them to depart; my "brother" stands before me and loads up his flintlock rifle; it is a fearful and wonderful process; it takes him at least two minutes; he does not seem to know on which particular part of his wonderful paraphernalia to find the slugs, the powder, or the patching, and he finishes by tearing a piece of rag off a by-standing villager to place over the powder in the pan. While he is doing all this, and especially when ramming home the bullet, he looks at me as though expecting me to come and pat him approvingly on the shoulder. When they are gone, the third traveller, who is going to remain over night, edges up beside me, and pointing to his own imposing armory, likewise announces himself as my brother; thus do I unexpectedly acquire two brothers within the brief space of an evening. The villagers scatter to their respective quarters; quilts are provided for me, and a ghostly light is maintained by means of a cup of grease and a twisted rag. In one corner of the room is a paunchy youngster of ten or twelve summers, whom I noticed during the evening as being without a single garment to cover his nakedness; he has partly inserted himself into a largo, coarse, nose-bag, and lies curled up in that ridiculous position, probably imagining himself in quite comfortable quarters. "Oh, wretched youth." I mentally exclaim, "what will you do when that nose-bag has petered out?" and soon afterward I fall asleep, in happy consciousness of perfect security beneath the protecting shadow of brother number two and his formidable armament of ancient weapons. Ten miles of good ridable road from Houssenbegkhan, and I again descend into the valley of the west fork of the Euphrates, crossing the river on an ancient stone bridge; I left Houssenbegkhan without breakfasting, preferring to make my customary early start and trust to luck. I am beginning to doubt the propriety of having done so, and find myself casting involuntary glances toward a Koordish camp that is visible some miles to the north of my route, when, upon rounding a mountain-spur jutting out into the valley, I descry the minaret of Mamakhatoun in the distance ahead. A minaret hereabout is a sure indication of a town of sufficient importance to support a public eating-khan, where, if not a very elegant, at least a substantial meal is to be obtained. I obtain an acceptable breakfast of kabobs and boiled sheeps'- trotters; killing two birds with one stone by satisfying my own appetite and at the same time giving a first-class entertainment to a khan-full of wondering-eyed people, by eating with the khan-jee's carving-knife and fork in preference to my fingers. Here, as at Houssenbeg-khan, there is a splendid, large caravanserai; here it is built chiefly of hewn stone, and almost massive enough for a fortress; this is a mountainous, elevated region, where the winters are stormy and severe, and these commodious and substantial retreats are absolutely necessary for the safety of Erzingan and Trebizond caravans during the winter. The country now continues hilly rather than mountainous The road is generally too heavy with sand and dust, churned up by the Erzingan mule-caravans, to admit of riding wherever the grade is unfavorable; but much good wheeling surface is encountered on long, gentle declivities and comparatively level stretches. During the forenoon I meet a company of three splendidly armed and mounted Circassians; they remain speechless with astonishment until I have passed beyond their hearing; they then conclude among themselves that I am something needing investigation; they come galloping after me, and having caught up, their spokesman gravely delivers himself of the solitary monosyllable, "Russ?" "Ingilis," I reply, and they resume the even tenor of their way without questioning me further. Later in the day the hilly country develops into a mountainous region, where the trail intersects numerous deep ravines whose sides are all but perpendicular. Between the ravines the riding is ofttimes quite excellent, the composition being soft shale, that packs down hard and smooth beneath the animals' feet. Deliciously cool streams flow at the bottom of these ravines. At one crossing I find an old man washing his feet, and mournfully surveying sundry holes in the bottom of his sandals; the day is hot, and I likewise halt a few minutes to cool my pedal extremities in the crystal water. With that childlike simplicity I have so often mentioned, and which is nowhere encountered as in the Asiatic Turk, the old fellow blandly asks me to exchange my comparatively sound moccasins for his worn-out sandals, at the same time ruefully pointing out the dilapidated condition of the latter, and looking as dejected as though it were the only pair of sandals in the world. This afternoon I am passing along the same road where Mahmoud Ali's gang robbed a large party of Armenian harvesters who had been south to help harvest the wheat, and were returning home in a body with the wages earned during the summer. This happened but a few days before, and notwithstanding the well-known saying that lightning never strikes twice in the same place, one is scarcely so unimpressionable as not to find himself involuntarily scanning his surroundings, half expecting to be attacked. Nothing startling turns up, however, and at five o'clock I come to a village which is enveloped in clouds of wheat chaff; being a breezy evening, winnowing is going briskly forward On several threshing-floors. After duly binning, I am taken under the protecting wing of a prominent villager, who is walking about with his hand in a sling, the reason whereof is a crushed finger; he is a sensible, intelligent fellow, and accepts my reply that I am not a crushed-finger hakim with all reasonableness; he provides a substantial supper of bread and yaort, and then installs me in a small, windowless, unventilated apartment adjoining the buffalo- stall, provides me with quilts, lights a primitive grease-lamp, and retires. During the evening the entire female population visit my dimly- lighted quarters, to satisfy their feminine curiosity by taking a timid peep at their neighbor's strange guest and his wonderful araba. They imagine I am asleep and come on tiptoe part way across the room, craning their necks to obtain a view in the semi-darkness. An hour's journey from this village brings me yet again into the West Euphrates Valley. Just where I enter the valley the river spreads itself over a wide stony bed, coursing along in the form of several comparatively small streams. There is, of course, no bridge here, and in the chilly, almost frosty, morning I have to disrobe and carry clothes and bicycle across the several channels. Once across, I find myself on the great Trebizond and Persian caravan route, and in a few minutes am partaking of breakfast at a village thirty-five miles from Erzeroum, where I learn with no little satisfaction that my course follows along the Euphrates Valley, with an artificial wagon-road, the whole distance to the city. Not far from the village the Euphrates is recrossed on a new stone bridge. Just beyond the bridge is the camp of a road-engineer's party, who are putting the finishing touches to the bridge. A person issues from one of the tents as I approach and begins chattering away at me in French. The face and voice indicates a female, but the costume consists of jack- boots, tight-fitting broadcloth pantaloons, an ordinary pilot-jacket, and a fez. Notwithstanding the masculine apparel, however, it turns out not only to be a woman, but a Parisienne, the better half of the Erzeroum road engineer, a Frenchman, who now appears upon the scene. They are both astonished and delighted at seeing a "velocipede," a reminder of their own far-off France, on the Persian caravan trail, and they urge me to remain and partake of coffee. I now encounter the first really great camel caravans, en route to Persia with tea and sugar and general European merchandise; they are all camped for the day alongside the road, and the camels scattered about the neighboring hills in search of giant thistles and other outlandish vegetation, for which the patient ship of the desert entertains a partiality. Camel caravans travel entirely at night during the summer. Contrary to what, I think, is a common belief in the Occident, they can endure any amount of cold weather, but are comparatively distressed by the heat; still, this may not characterize all breeds of camels any more than the different breeds of other domesticated animals. During the summer, when the camels are required to find their own sustenance along the road, a large caravan travels but a wretched eight miles a day, the remainder of the time being occupied in filling his capacious thistle and camel-thorn receptacle; this comes of the scarcity of good grazing along the route, compared with the number of camels, and the consequent necessity of wandering far and wide in search of pasturage, rather than because of the camel's absorptive capacity, for he is a comparatively abstemious animal. In the winter they are fed on balls of barley flour, called nawalla; on this they keep fat and strong, and travel three times the distance. The average load of a full-grown camel is about seven hundred pounds. Before reaching Erzeroum I have a narrow escape from what might have proved a serious accident. I meet a buffalo araba carrying a long projecting stick of timber; the sleepy buffaloes pay no heed to the bicycle until I arrive opposite their heads, when they - give a sudden lurch side wise, swinging the stick of timber across my path; fortunately the road happens to be of good-width, and by a very quick swerve I avoid a collision, but the tail end of the timber just brushes the rear wheel as I wheel past. Soon after noon I roll into Erzeroum, or rather, up to the Trebizond gate, and dis-mount. Erzeroum is a fortified city of considerable importance, both from a commercial and a military point of view; it is surrounded by earthwork fortifications, from the parapets of which large siege guns frown forth upon the surrounding country, and forts are erected in several commanding positions round about, like watch-dogs stationed outside to guard the city. Patches of snow linger on the Palantokan Moiintains, a few miles to the south; the Deve Boyuu Hills, a spur of the greater Palantokans, look down on the city from the east; the broad valley of the West Euphrates stretches away westward and northward, terminating at the north in another mountain range. Repairing to the English consulate, I am gratified at finding several letters awaiting me, and furthermore by the cordial hospitality extended by Yusuph Effendi, an Assyrian gentleman, the charg'e d'affaires of the consulate for the time being, Colonel E--, the consul, having left recently for Trebizond and England, in consequence of numerous sword-wounds received at the hands of a desperado who invaded the consulate for plunder at midnight. The Colonel was a general favorite in Erzeroum, and is being tenderly carried (Thursday, September 3, 1885) to Trebizond on a stretcher by relays of willing natives, no less than forty accompanying him on the road. Yusuph Effendi tells me the story of the whole lamentable affair, pausing at intervals to heap imprecations on the head of the malefactor, and to bestow eulogies on the wounded consul's character. It seems that the door-keeper of the consulate, a native of a neighboring Armenian village, was awakened at midnight by an acquaintance from the same village, who begged to be allowed to share his quarters till morning. No sooner had the servant admitted him to his room than he attacked him with his sword, intending-as it afterward leaked out-to murder the whole family, rob the house, and escape. The servant's cries for assistance awakened Colonel E--, who came to his rescue without taking the trouble to provide himself with a weapon. The man, infuriated at the detection and the prospect of being captured and brought to justice, turned savagely on the consul, inflicting several severe wounds on the head, hands, and face. The consul closed with him and threw him down, and called for his wife to bring his revolver. The wretch now begged so piteously for his life, and made such specious promises, that the consul magnanimously let him up, neglecting-doubtless owing to his own dazed condition from the scalp wounds-to disarm him. Immediately he found himself released he commenced the attack again, cutting and slashing like a demon, knocking the revolver from the consul's already badly wounded hand while he yet hesitated to pull the trigger and take his treacherous assailant's life. The revolver went off as it struck the floor and wounded the consul himself in the leg-broke it. The servant now rallied sufficiently to come to his assistance, and together they succeeded in disarming the robber, who, however, escaped and bolted up-stairs, followed by the servant with the sword. The consul's wife, with praiseworthy presence of mind, now appeared with a second revolver, which her husband grasped in his left hand, the right being almost hacked to pieces. Dazed and faint with the loss of blood, and, moreover, blinded by the blood flowing from the scalp-wounds, it was only by sheer strength of will that he could keep from falling. At this juncture the servant unfortunately appeared on the stairs, returning from an unsuccessful pursuit of the robber. Mistaking the servant with the sword in his hand for the desperado returning to the attack, and realizing his own helpless condition, the consul fired two shots at him, wounding him with both shots. The would-be murderer is now (September 3,1885), captured and in durance vile; the servant lies here in a critical condition, and the consul and his sorrowing family are en route to England. Having determined upon resting here until Monday, I spend a good part of Friday looking about the city. The population is a mixture of Turks, Armenians, Russians, Persians, and Jews. Here. I first make the acquaintance of a Persian tchai-khan (tea-drinking shop). With the exception of the difference in the beverages, there is little difference between a tchai- khan and a Icahvay-lchan, although in the case of a swell establishment, the tchai-khan blossoms forth quite gaudily with scores of colored lamps. The tea is served scalding hot in tiny glasses, which are first half-filled with loaf-sugar. If the proprietor is desirous of honoring or pleasing a new or distinguished customer, he drops in lumps of sugar until it protrudes above the glass. The tea is made in a samovar-a brass vessel, holding perhaps a gallon of water, with a hollow receptacle in the centre for a charcoal fire. Strong tea is made in an ordinary queen's-ware teapot that fits into the hollow; a small portion of this is poured into the glass, which is then filled up with hot water from a tap in the samovar. There is a regular Persian quarter in Erzeroum, and I am not suffered to stroll through it without being initiated into the fundamental difference between the character of the Persians and the Turks. When an Osmanli is desirous of seeing me ride the bicycle, he goes honestly and straightforwardly to work at coaxing and worrying; except in very rare instances they have seemed incapable of resorting to deceit or sharp practice to gain their object. Not so childlike and honest, however, are our new acquaintances, the Persians. Several merchants gather round me, and pretty soon they cunningly begin asking me how much I will sell the bicycle for. " Fifty liras," I reply, seeing the deep, deep scheme hidden beneath the superficial fairness of their observations, and thinking this will quash all further commercial negotiations. But the wily Persians are not so easily disposed of as this. "Bring it round and let us see how it is ridden," they say, " and if we like it we will purchase it for fifty liras, and perhaps make you a present besides." A Persian would rather try to gain an end by deceit than by honest and above-board methods, even if the former were more trouble. Lying, cheating, and deception is the universal rule among them; honesty and straightforwardness are unknown virtues. Anyone whom they detect telling the truth or acting honestly they consider a simpleton unfit to transact business. The missionaries and their families are at present tenting out, five miles south of the city, in a romantic little ravine called Kirk-dagheman, or the place of the forty mills; and on Saturday morning I receive a pressing invitation to become their guest during the remainder of my stay. The Erzeroum mission is represented by Mr. Chambers, his brother-now absent on a tour-their respective families, and Miss Powers. Yusuph Effendi accompanies us out to the camp on a spendid Arab steed, that curvets gracefully the whole way. Myself and the-other missionary people (bicycle work at Sivas, and again at Erzeroum) ride more sober and deco-ous animals. Kirkdagheman is found to be near the entrance to a pass over the Palantokan Mountains. Half a dozen small tents are pitched beneath the only grove of trees for many a mile around. A dancing stream of crystal water furnishes the camp with an abundance of that necessary, as also a lavish supply of such music as babbling brooks coursing madly over pebbly beds are wont to furnish. To this particular section of the little stream legendary lore has attached a story which gives the locality its name, Kirkdagheman. " Once upon a time, a worthy widow found herself the happy possessor of no less than forty small grist-mills strung along this stream. Soon after her husband's death, the lady's amiable qualities-and not unlikely her forty mills into the bargain-attracted the admiration of a certain wealthy owner of flocks in the neighborhood, and he sought her hand in marriage. 'No,' said the lady, who, being a widow, had perhaps acquired wisdom; ' no; I have forty sons, each one faithfully laboring and contributing cheerfully toward my support; therefore, I have no use for a husband.' ' I will kill your forty sons, and compel you to become my wife,' replied the suitor, in a huff at being rejected. And he went and sheared all his sheep, and, with the multitudinous fleeces, dammed up the stream, caused the water to flow into other channels, and thereby rendered the widow's forty mills useless and unproductive. With nothing but ruination before her, and seeing no alternative, the widow's heart finally softened, and she suffered herself to be wooed and won. The fleeces were removed, the stream returned to its proper channel, and the merry whir of the forty mills henceforth mingled harmoniously with tlie bleating of the sheep." Two days are spent at the quiet missionary camp, and thoroughly enjoyed. It seems like an oasis of home life in the surrounding desert of uncongenial social conditions. I eagerly devour the contents of several American newspapers, and embrace the opportunities of the occasion, even to the extent of nursing the babies (missionaries seem rare folks for babies), of which there are three in camp. The altitude of Erzeroum is between six thousand and seven thousand feet; the September nights are delightfully cool, and there are no blood-thirsty mosquitoes. I am assigned a sleeping- tent close alongside a small waterfall, whose splashing music is a soporific that holds me in the bondage of beneficial repose until breakfast is announced both mornings; and on Monday morning I feel as though the hunger, the irregular sleep, and the rough-and-tumble dues generally of the past four weeks were but a troubled dream. Again the bicycle contributes its curiosity-quickening and question-exciting powers for the benefit of the sluggish-minded pupils of the mission school. The Persian consul and his sons come to see me ride ; he is highly interested upon learning that I am travelling on the wheel to the Persian capital, and he vises my passport and gives me a letter of introduction to the Pasha Khan of Ovahjik, the first village I shall come to beyond the frontier. It is nearly 3 P.M., September 7th, when I bid farewell to everybody, and wheel out through the Persian Gate, accompanied by Mr. Chambers on horseback, who rides part way to the Deve Boyun (camel's neck) Pass. On the way out he tells me that he has been intending taking a journey through the Caucasus this autumn, but the difficulties of obtaining permission, on account of his being a clergyman, are so great-a special permission having to be obtained from St. Petersburg-that he has about relinquished the idea for the present season. Deve Boyun Pass leads over a comparatively low range of hills. It was here where the Turkish army, in November, 1877, made their last gallant attempt to stem the tide of disaster that had, by the fortunes of war and the incompeteucy of their commanders, set in irresistibly against them, before taking refuge inside the walls of the city. An hour after parting from Mr. Chambers I am wheeling briskly down the same road on the eastern slope of the pass where Mukhtar Pasha's ill-fated column was drawn into the fatal ambuscade that suddenly turned the fortunes of the day against them. While rapidly gliding down the gentle gradient, I fancy I can see the Cossack regiments, advancing toward the Turkish position, the unwary and over-confident Osmanlis leaping from their intrenchments to advance along the road and drive them back; now I come to the Nabi Tchai ravines, where the concealed masses of Eussian infantry suddenly sprang up and cut off their retreat; I fancy I can see- chug! wh-u-u-p! thud!-stars, and see them pretty distinctly, too, for while gazing curiously about, locating the Russian ambushment, the bicycle strikes a sand-hole, and I am favored with the worst header I have experienced for many a day. I am-or rather was, a minute ago-bowling along quite briskly; the header treats me to a fearful shaking up; I arn sore all over the next morning, and present a sort of a stiff-necked, woe-begone appearance for the next four days. A bent handle-bar and a slightly twisted rear wheel fork likewise forcibly remind me that, while I am beyond the reach of repair shops, it will be Solomon-like wisdom on my part to henceforth survey battle-fields with a larger margin of regard for things more immediately interesting. From the pass, my road descends into the broad and cultivated valley of the Passin Su; the road is mostly ridable, though heavy with dust. Part way to Hassen Kaleh I am compelled to use considerable tact to avoid trouble with a gang of riotous kalir-jees whom I overtake; as I attempt to wheel past, one of them wantonly essays to thrust his stick into the wheel; as I spring from the saddle for sheer self-protection, they think I have dismounted to attack him, and his comrades rush forward to his protection, brandishing their sticks and swords in a menacing manner. Seeing himself reinforced, as it were, the bold aggressor raises his stick as though to strike me, and peremptorily orders me to bin and haidi. Very naturally I refuse to remount the bicycle while surrounded by this evidently mischievous crew; there are about twenty of them, and it requires much self-control to prevent a conflict, in which, I am persuaded, somebody would have been hurt; however, I finally manage to escape their undesirable company and ride off amid a fusillade of stones. This incident reminds me of Yusuph Effendi's warning, that even though I had come thus far without a zaptieh escort, I should require one now, owing to the more lawless disposition of the people near the frontier. Near dark I reach Hassan Kaleh, a large village nestling under the shadow of its former importance as a fortified town, and seek the accommodation of a Persian tchai-khan; it is not very elaborate or luxurious accommodation, consisting solely of tiny glasses of sweetened tea in the public room and a shake-down in a rough, unfurnished apartment over the stable; eatables have to be obtained elsewhere, but it matters little so long as they are obtainable somewhere. During the evening a Persian troubadour and story-teller entertains the patrons of the tchai-khan by singing ribaldish songs, twanging a tambourine-like instrument, and telling stories in a sing-song tone of voice. In deference to the mixed nationality of his audience, the sagacious troubadour wears a Turkish fez, a Persian coat, and a Eussian metallic-faced belt; the burden of his songs are of Erzeroum, Erzingan, and Ispahan; the Russians, it would appear, are too few and unpopular to justify risking the displeasure of the Turks by singing any Eussian songs. So far as my comprehension goes, the stories are chiefly of intrigue and love affairs among pashas, and would quickly bring the righteous retribution of the Lord Chamberlain down about his ears, were he telling them to an English audience. I have no small difficulty in getting the bicycle up the narrow and crooked stairway into my sleeping apartment; there is no fastening of any kind on the door, and the proprietor seems determined upon treating every subject of the Shah in Hassan Kaleh to a private confidential exhibition of myself and bicycle, after I have retired to bed. It must be near midnight, I think, when I am again awakened from my uneasy, oft-disturbed slumbers by murmuring voices and the shuffling of feet; examining the bicycle by the feeble glimmer of a classic lamp are a dozen meddlesome Persians. Annoyed at their unseemly midnight intrusion, and at being repeatedly awakened, I rise up and sing out at them rather authoratively; I have exhibited the marifet of my Smith & Wesson during the evening, and these intruders seem really afraid I might be going to practise on them with it. The Persians are apparently timid mortals; they evidently regard me as a strange being of unknown temperament, who might possibly break loose and encompass their destruction on the slightest provocation, and the proprietor and another equally intrepid individual hurriedly come to my couch, and pat me soothingly on the shoulders, after which they all retire, and I am disturbed no more till morning. The " rocky road to Dublin " is nothing compared to the road leading eastward from Hassan Kaleh for the first few miles, but afterward it improves into very fair wheeling. Eleven miles down the Passiu Su Valley brings me to the Armenian village of Kuipri Kui. Having breakfasted before starting I wheel on without halting, crossing the Araxes Eiver at the junction of the Passin Su, on a very ancient stone bridge known as the Tchebankerpi, or the bridge of pastures, said to be over a thousand years old. Nearing Dele Baba Pass, a notorious place for robbers, I pass through a village of sedentary Koords. Soon after leaving the village a wild-looking Koord, mounted on an angular sorrel, overtakes me and wants me to employ him as a guard while going through the pass, backing up the offer of his presumably valuable services by unsheathing a semi-rusty sword and waving it valiantly aloft. He intimates, by tragically graphic pantomime, that unless I traverse the pass under the protecting shadow of his ancient and rusty blade, I will be likely to pay the penalty of my rashness by having my throat cut. Yusuph Effendi and the Erzeroum missionaries have thoughtfully warned me against venturing through the Dele Baba Pass alone, advising me to wait and go through with a Persian caravan; but this Koord looks like anything but a protector; on the contrary, I am inclined to regard him as a suspicious character himself, interviewing me, perhaps, with ulterior ideas of a more objectionable character than that of faithfully guarding me through the Dele Baba Pass. Showing him the shell-extracting mechanism of my revolver, and explaining the rapidity with which it can be fired, I give him to understand that I feel quite capable of guarding myself, consequently have no earthly use for his services. A tea caravan of some two hundred camels are resting near the approach to the pass, affording me an excellent opportunity of having company through by waiting and journeying with them in the night; but warnings of danger have been repeated so often of late, and they have proved themselves groundless so invariably that I should feel the taunts of self-reproach were I to find myself hesitating to proceed on their account. Passing over a mountain spur, I descend into a rocky canon, with perpendicular walls of rock towering skyward like giant battlements, inclosing a space not over fifty yards wide; through this runs my road, and alongside it babbles the Dele Baba Su. The canon is a wild, lonely- looking spot, and looks quite appropriate to the reputation it bears. Professor Vambery, a recognized authority on Asiatic matters, and whose party encountered a gang of marauders here, says the Dele Baba Pass bore the same unsavory reputation that it bears to-day as far back as the time of Herodotus. However, suffice it to say, that I get through without molestation; mounted men, armed to the teeth, like almost everybody else hereabouts, are encountered in the pass; they invariably halt and look back after me as though endeavoring to comprehend who and what I am, but that is all. Emerging from the canon, I follow in a general course the tortuous windings of the Dele Baba Su through another ravine- riven battle-field of the late war, and up toward its source in a still more mountainous and elevated region beyond. CHAPTER XVIII. MOUNT ARARAT AND KOORDISTAN. The shades of evening are beginning to settle down over the wild mountainous country round about. It is growing uncomfortably chilly for this early in the evening, and the prospects look favorable for a supperless and most disagreeable night, when I descry a village perched in an opening among the mountains a mile or thereabouts off to the right. Repairing thither, I find it to be a Koordish village, where the hovels are more excavations than buildings; buffaloes, horses, goats, chickens, and human beings all find shelter under the same roof; their respective quarters are nothing but a mere railing of rough poles, and as the question of ventilation is never even thought of, the effect upon one's olfactory nerves upon entering is anything but reassuring. The filth and rags of these people is something abominable; on account of the chilliness of the evening they have donned their heavier raiment; these have evidently had rags patched on. top of other rags for years past until they have gradually developed into thick-quilted garments, in the innumerable seams of which the most disgusting entomological specimens, bred and engendered by their wretched mode of existence, live and perpetuate their kind. However, repulsive as the outlook most assuredly is, I have no alternative but to cast my lot among them till morning. I am conducted into the Sheikh's apartment, a small room partitioned off with a pole from a stable-full of horses and buffaloes, and where darkness is made visible by the sickly glimmer of a grease lamp. The Sheikh, a thin, sallow-faced man of about forty years, is reclining on a mattress in one corner smoking cigarettes; a dozen ill-conditioned ragamuffins are squatting about in various attitudes, while the rag, tag, and bobtail of the population crowd into the buffalo-stable and survey me and the bicycle from outside the partition-pole. A circular wooden tray containing an abundance of bread, a bowl of yaort, and a small quantity of peculiar stringy cheese that resembles chunks of dried codfish, warped and twisted in the drying, is brought in and placed in the middle of the floor. Everybody in the room at once gather round it and begin eating with as little formality as so many wild animals; the Sheikh silently motions for me to do the same. The yaort bowl contains one solitary wooden spoon, with which they take turns at eating mouthfuls. One is compelled to draw the line somewhere, even under the most uncompromising circumstances, and I naturally draw it against eating yaort with this same wooden spoon; making small scoops with pieces of bread, I dip up yaort and eat scoop and all together. These particular Koords seem absolutely ignorant of anything in the shape of mannerliness, or of consideration for each other at the table. When the yaort has been dipped into twice or thrice all round, the Sheikh coolly confiscates the bowl, eats part of what is left, pours water into the remainder, stirs it up with his hand, and deliberately drinks it all up; one or two others seize all the cheese, utterly regardless of the fact that nothing remains for myself and their companions, who, by the by, seem to regard it as a perfectly natural proceeding. After supper they return to their squatting attitudes around the room, and to a resumption of their never-ceasing occupation of scratching themselves. The eminent economist who lamented the wasted energy represented in the wagging of all the dogs' tails in the world, ought to have travelled through Asia on a bicycle and have been compelled to hob-nob with the villagers; he would undoubtedly have wept with sorrow at beholding the amount of this same wasted energy, represented by the above-mentioned occupation of the people. The most loathsome member of this interesting company is a wretched old hypocrite who rolls his eyes about and heaves a deep-drawn sigh of Allah! every few minutes, and then looks furtively at myself and the Sheikh to observe its effects; his sole garment is a round-about mantle that reaches to his knees, and which seems to have been manufactured out of the tattered remnants of other tattered remnants tacked carelessly together without regard to shape, size, color, or previous condition of cleanliness; his thin, scrawny legs are bare, his long black hair is matted and unkempt, his beard is stubby and unlovely to look upon, his small black eyes twinkle in the semi-darkness like ferret's eyes, while soap and water have to all appearances been altogether stricken from the category of his personal requirements. Probably it is nothing but the lively workings of my own imagination, but this wretch appears to me to entertain a decided preference for my society, constantly insinuating himself as near me as possible, necessitating constant watchfulness on my part to avoid actual contact with him; eternal vigilance is in this case the price of what it is unnecessary to expatiate upon, further than to say that self-preservation becomes, under such conditions, preeminently the first law of Occidental nature. Soon the sallow-faced Sheikh suddenly bethinks himself that he is in the august presence of a hakim, and beckoning me to his side, displays an ugly wound on his knee which has degenerated into a running sore, and which he says was done with a sword; of course he wants me to perform a cure. While examining the Sheikh's knee, another old party comes forward and unbares his arm, also wounded with a sword. This not unnaturally sets me to wondering what sort of company I have gotten into, and how they came by sword wounds in these peaceful times; but my inquisitivencss is compelled to remain in abeyance to my limited linguistic powers. Having nothing to give them for the wounds, I recommend an application of warm salt water twice a day; feeling pretty certain, however, that they will be too lazy and trifling to follow the advice. Before dispersing to their respective quarters, the occupants of the room range themselves in a row and go through a religious performance lasting fully half an hour; they make almost as much noise as howling dervishes, meanwhile exercising themselves quite violently. Having made themselves holier than ever by these exercises, some take their departure, others make up couches on the floor with sheepskins and quilts. Thin ice covers the still pools of water when I resume my toilsome route over the mountains at daybreak, a raw wind coines whistling from the east, and until the sun begins to warm things up a little, it is necessary to stop and buffet occasionally to prevent benumbed hands. Obtaining some small lumps of wheaten dough cooked crisp in hot grease, like unsweetened doughnuts, from a horseman on the road, I push ahead toward the summit and then down the eastern slope of the mountains; rounding an abutting hill about 9.30, the glorious snow-crowned peak of Ararat suddenly bursts upon my vision; it is a good forty leagues away, but even at this distance it dwarfs everything else in sight. Although surrounded by giant mountain chains that traverse the country at every conceivable angle, Ararat stands alone in its solitary grandeur, a glistening white cone rearing its giant height proudly and conspicuously above surrounding eminences; about mountains that are insignificant only in comparison with the white-robed monarch that has been a beacon-light of sacred history since sacred history has been in existence. Descending now toward the Alashgird Plain, a prominent theatre of action during the war, I encounter splendid wheeling for some miles; but once fairly down on the level, cultivated plain, the road becomes heavy with dust. Villages dot the broad, expansive plain in every direction; conical stacks of tezek are observable among the houses, piled high up above the roofs, speaking of commendable forethought for the approaching cold weather. In one of the Armenian villages I am not a little surprised at finding a lone German; he says he prefers an agricultural life in this country with all its disadvantages, to the hard, grinding struggle for existence, and the compulsory military service of the Fatherland. "Here," he goes on to explain, "there is no foamy lager, no money, no comfort, no amusement of any kind, but there is individual liberty, and it is very easy making a living; therefore it is for me a better country than Deutschland." " Everybody to their liking," I think, as I continue on across the plain; but for a European to be living in one of these little agricultural villages comes the nearest to being buried alive of anything I know of. The road improves in hardness as I proceed eastward, but the peculiar disadvantages of being a conspicuous and incomprehensible object on a populous level plain soon becomes manifest. Seeing the bicycle glistening in the sunlight as I ride along, horsemen come wildly galloping from villages miles away. Some of these wonderstricken people endeavor to pilot me along branch trails leading to their villages, but the main caravan trail is now too easily distinguishable for any little deceptiona of this kind to succeed. Here, on the Alashgird Plain, I first hear myself addressed as "Hamsherri," a term which now takes the place of Effendi for the next five hundred miles. Owing to the disgust engendered by my unsavory quarters in the wretched Dele Baba village last night, I have determined upon seeking the friendly shelter of a wheat-shock again to-night, preferring the chances of being frozen out at midnight to the entomological possibilities of village hovels. Accordingly, near sunset, I repair to a village not far from the road, for the purpose of obtaining something to eat before seeking out a rendezvous for the night. It turns out to be the Koordish village of Malosman, and the people are found to be so immeasurably superior in every particular to their kinsfolk of Dele Baba that I forthwith cancel my determination and accept their proffered hospitality. The Malosmanlis are comparatively clean and comfortable; are reasonably well-dressed, seem well-to-do, and both men and women are, on the average, handsomer than the people of any village I have seen for days past. Almost all possess a conspicuously beautiful set of teeth, pleasant, smiling countenances and good physique; they also seem to have, somehow, acquired easy, agreeable manners. The secret of the whole difference, I opine, is that, instead of being located among the inhospitable soil of barren hills they are cultivating the productive soil of the Alashgird Plain, and, being situated on the great Persian caravan trail, they find a ready market for their grain in supplying the caravans in winter. Their Sheikh is a handsome and good-natured young fellow, sporting white clothes trimmed profusely with red braid; he spends the evening in my company, examining the bicycle, revolver, telescopic pencil-case, L.A.W. badge, etc., and hands me his carved ivory case to select cigarettes from. It would have required considerable inducements to have trusted either my L.A.W. badge or the Smith & Wesson in the custody of any of our unsavory acquaintances of last night, notwithstanding their great outward show of piety. There are no deep-drawn sighs of Allah, nor ostentatious praying among the Malosmanlis, but they bear the stamp of superior trustworthiness plainly on their faces and their bearing. There appears to be far more jocularity than religion among these prosperous villagers, a trait that probably owes its development to their apparent security from want; it is no newly discovered trait of human character to cease all prayers and supplications whenever the granary is overflowing with plenty, and to commence devotional exercises again whenever the supply runs short. This rule would hold good among the childlike natives here, even more so than it does among our more enlightened selves. I sally forth into the chilly atmosphere of early morning from Maloaman, and wheel eastward over an excellent road for some miles; an obliging native, en route to the harvest field, turns his buffalo araba around and carts me over a bridgeless stream, but several others have to be forded ere reaching Kirakhan, where I obtain breakfast. Here I am required to show my teskeri to the mudir, and the zaptieh escorting me thither becomes greatly mystified over the circumstance that I am a Frank and yet am wearing a Mussulman head-band around my helmet (a new one I picked up on the road); this little fact appeals to him as something savoring of an attempt to disguise myself, and he grows amusingly mysterious while whisperingly bringing it to the mudir's notice. The habitual serenity and complacency of the corpulent mudir's mind, however, is not to be unduly disturbed by trifles, and the untutored zaptieh's disposition to attach some significant meaning to it, meets with nothing from his more enlightened superior but the silence of unconcern. More streams have to be forded ere I finally emerge on to higher ground; all along the Alashgird Plain, Ararat's glistening peak has been peeping over the mountain framework of the plain like a white beacon-light showing above a dark rocky shore; but approaching toward the eastern extremity of the plain, my road hugs the base of the intervening hills and it temporarily disappears from view. In this portion of the country, camels are frequently employed in bringing the harvest from field to village threshing-floor; it is a curious sight to see these awkwardly moving animals walking along beneath tremendous loads of straw, nothing visible but their heads and legs. Sometimes the meandering course of the Euphrates - now the eastern fork, and called the Moorad-Chai - brings it near the mountains, and my road leads over bluffs immediately above it; the historic river seems well supplied with trout hereabouts, I can look down from the bluffs and observe speckled beauties sporting about in its pellucid waters by the score. Toward noon I fool away fifteen minutes trying to beguile one of them into swallowing a grasshopper and a bent pin, but they are not the guileless creatures they seem to be when surveyed from an elevated bluff, so they steadily refuse whatever blandishments I offer. An hour later I reach the village of Daslische, inhabited by a mixed population of Turks and Persians. At a shop kept by one of the latter I obtain some bread and ghee (clarified butter), some tea, and a handful of wormy raisins for dessert; for these articles, besides building a fire especially to prepare the tea, the unconscionable Persian charges the awful sum of two piastres (ten cents); whereupon the Turks, who have been interested spectators of the whole nefarious proceeding, commence to abuse him roundly for overcharging a stranger unacquainted with the prices of the locality calling him the son of a burnt father, and other names that tino-je unpleasantly in the Persian ear, as though it was a matter of pounds sterling. Beyond Daslische, Ararat again becomes visible; the country immediately around is a ravine- riven plateau, covered with bowlders. An hour after leaving Daslische, while climbing the eastern slope of a ravine, four rough-looking footmen appear on the opposite side of the slope; they are following after me, and shouting "Kardash!" These people with their old swords and pistols conspicuously about them, always raise suspicions of brigands and evil characters under such circumstances as these, so I continue on up the slope without heeding their shouting until I observe two of them turn back; I then wait, out of curiosity, to see what they really want. They approach with broad grins of satisfaction at having overtaken me: they have run all the way from Daslische in order to overtake me and see the bicycle, having heard of it after I had left. I am now but a short distance from the Russian frontier on the north, and the first Turkish patrol is this afternoon patrolling the road; he takes a wondering interest in my wheel, but doesn't ask the oft-repeated question, "Russ or Ingiliz?" It is presumed that he is too familiar with the Muscovite "phiz" to make any such question necessary. About four o'clock I overtake a jack-booted horseman, who straightway proceeds to try and make himself agreeable; as his flowing remarks are mostly unintelligible, to spare him from wasting the sweetness of his eloquence on the desert air around me, I reply, "Turkchi binmus." Instead of checking the impetuous torrent of his remarks at hearing this, he canters companionably alongside, and chatters more persistently than ever. "T-u-r-k-chi b-i-n-m-u-s!" I repeat, becoming rather annoyed at his persistent garrulousness and his refusal to understand. This has the desired effect of reducing him to silence; but he canters doggedly behind, and, after a space creeps up alongside again, and, pointing to a large stone building which has now become visible at the base of a mountain on the other side of the Euphrates, timidly ventures upon the explanation that it is the Armenian Gregorian Monastery of Sup Ogwanis (St. John). Finding me more favorably disposed to listen than before, he explains that he himself is an Armenian, is acquainted with the priests of the monastery, and is going to remain there over night; he then proposes that I accompany him thither, and do likewise. I am, of course, only too pleased at the prospect of experiencing something out of the common, and gladly avail myself of the opportunity; moreover, monasteries and religious institutions in general, have somehow always been pleasantly associated in my thoughts as inseparable accompaniments of orderliness and cleanliness, and I smile serenely to myself at the happy prospect of snowy sheets, and scrupulously clean cooking. Crossing the Euphrates on a once substantial stone bridge, now in a sadly dilapidated condition, that was doubtless built when Armenian monasteries enjoyed palmier days than the present, we skirt the base of a compact mountain and in a few minutes alight at the monastery village. Exit immediately all visions of cleanliness; the village is in no wise different from any other cluster of mud hovels round about, and the rag-bedecked, flea-bitten objects that come outside to gaze at us, if such a thing were possible, compare unfavorably even with the Dele Baba Koords. There is apparent at once, however, a difference between the respective dispositions of the two peoples: the Koords are inclined to be pig-headed and obtrusive, as though possessed of their full share of the spirit of self-assertion; the Sup Ogwanis people, on the contrary, act like beings utterly destitute of anything of the kind, cowering beneath one's look and shunning immediate contact as though habitually overcome with a sense of their own inferiority. The two priests come out to see the bicycle ridden; they are stout, bushy-whiskered, greasy-looking old jokers, with small twinkling black eyes, whose expression would seem to betoken anything rather than saintliness, and, although the Euphrates flows hard by, they are evidently united in their enmity against soap and water, if in nothing else; in fact, judging from outward appearances, water is about the only thing concerning which they practise abstemiousness. The monastery itself is a massive structure of hewn stone, surrounded by a high wall loop-holed for defence; attached to the wall inside is a long row of small rooms or cells, the habitations of the monks in more prosperous days; a few of them are occupied at present by the older men.; At 5.30 P.M., the bell tolls for evening service, and I accompany my guide into the monastery; it is a large, empty-looking edifice of simple, massive architecture, and appears to have been built with a secondary purpose of withstanding a siege or an assault, and as a place of refuge for the people in troublous times; containing among other secular appliances a large brick oven for baking bread. During the last war, the place was actually bombarded by the Russiaus in an effort to dislodge a body of Koords who had taken possession of the monastery, and from behind its solid walls, harassed the Russian troops advancing toward Erzeroum. The patched up holes made by the Russians' shots are pointed out, as also some light earthworks thrown up on the Russian position across the river. In these degenerate days one portion of the building is utilized as a storehouse for grain; hundreds of pigeons are cooing and roosting on the crossbeams, making the place their permanent abode, passing in and out of narrow openings near the roof; and the whole interior is in a disgustingly filthy condition. Rude fresco representations of the different saints in the Gregorian calendar formerly adorned the walls, and bright colored tiles embellished the approach to the altar. Nothing is distinguishable these days but the crumbling and half-obliterated evidences of past glories; both priests and people seem hopelessly sunk in the quagmire of avariciousness and low cunning on the one hand, and of blind ignorance and superstition on the other. Clad in greasy and seedy-looking cowls, the priests go through a few nonsensical manosuvres, consisting chiefly of an ostentatious affectation of reverence toward an altar covered with tattered drapery, by never turning their backs toward it while they walk about, Bible in hand, mumbling and sighing. My self-constituted guide and myself comprise the whole congregation during the "services." Whenever the priests heave a particularly deep- fetched sigh or fall to mumbling their prayers on the double quick, they invariably cast a furtive glance toward me, to ascertain whether I am noticing the impenetrable depth of their holiness. They needn't be uneasy on that score, however; the most casual observer cannot fail to perceive that it is really and truly impenetrable - so impenetrable, in fact, that it will never be unearthed, not even at the day of judgment. In about ten minutes the priests quit mumbling, bestow a Pharisaical kiss on the tattered coverlet of their Bibles, graciously suffer my jack-booted companion to do likewise, as also two or three ragamuffins who have come sneaking in seemingly for that special purpose, and then retreat hastily behind a patch-work curtain; the next minute they reappear in a cowlless condition, their countenances wearing an expression of intense relief, as though happy at having gotten through with a disagreeable task that had been weighing heavily on their minds all day. We are invited to take supper with their Reverences in their cell beneath the walls, which they occupy in common. The repast consists of yaort and pillau, to which is added, by way of compliment to visitors, five salt fishes about the size of sardines. The most greasy-looking of the divines thoughtfully helps himself to a couple of the fishes as though they were a delicacy quite irresistible, leaving one apiece for us others. Having created a thirst with the salty fish, he then seizes what remains of the yaort, pours water into it, mixes it thoroughly together with his unwashed hand, and gulps down a full quart of the swill with far greater gusto than mannerliness. Soon the priests commence eructating aloud, which appears to be a well-understood signal that the limit of their respective absorptive capacities are reached, for three hungry-eyed laymen, who have been watching our repast with seemingly begrudging countenances, now carry the wooden tray bodily off into a corner and ravenously devour the remnants. Everything about the cell is abnormally filthy, and I am glad when the inevitable cigarettes are ended and we retire to the quarters assigned us in the village. Here my companion produces from some mysterious corner of his clothing a pinch of tea and a few lumps of sugar. A villager quickly kindles a fire and cooks the tea, performing the services eagerly, in anticipation of coming in for a modest share of what to him is an unwonted luxury. Being rewarded with a tiny glassful of tea and a lump of sugar, he places the sweet morsel in his mouth and sucks the tea through it with noisy satisfaction, prolonging the presumably delightful sensation thereby produced to fully a couple of minutes. During this brief indulgence of his palate, a score of his ragged co- religionists stand around and regard him with mingled envy and covetousness; but for two whole minutes he occupies his proud eminence in the lap of comparative luxury, and between slow, lingering sucks at the tea, regards their envious attention with studied indifference. One can scarcely conceive of a more utterly wretched people than the monastic community of Sup Ogwanis; one would not be surprised to find them envying even the pariah curs of the country. The wind blows raw and chilly from off the snowy slopes of Ararat next morning, and the shivering, half-clad-wretches shuffle off toward the fields and pastures, - with blue noses and unwilling faces, humping their backs and shrinking within themselves and wearing most lugubrious countenances; one naturally falls to wondering what they do in the winter. The independent villagers of the surrounding country have a tough enough time of it, worrying through the cheerless winters of a treeless and mountainous country; but they at least have no domestic authority to obey but their own personal and family necessities, and they consume the days huddled together in their unventilated hovels over a smouldering tezek fire; but these people seem but helpless dolts under the vassalage of a couple of crafty-looking, coarse-grained priests, who regard them with less consideration than they do the monastery buffaloes. Eleven miles over a mostly ridable trail brings me to the large village of Dyadin. Dyadin is marked on my map as quite an important place, consequently I approach it with every assurance of obtaining a good breakfast. My inquiries for refreshments are met with importunities of bin bacalem, from five hundred of the rag-tag and bobtail of the frontier, the rowdiest and most inconsiderate mob imaginable. In their eagerness and impatience to see me ride, and their exasperating indifference to my own pressing wants, some of them tell me bluntly there is no bread; others, more considerate, hurry away and bring enough bread to feed a dozen people, and one fellow contributes a couple of onions. Pocketing the onions and some of the bread, I mount and ride away from the madding crowd with whatever despatch is possible, and retire into a secluded dell near the road, a mile from town, to eat my frugal breakfast in peace and quietness. While thus engaged, it is with veritable savage delight that I hear a company of horsemen go furiously galloping past; they are Dyadin people endeavoring to overtake me for the kindly purpose of worrying me out of my senses, and to prevent me even eating a bite of bread unseasoned with their everlasting gabble. Although the road from Dyadin eastward leads steadily upward, they fancy that nothing less than a wild, sweeping gallop will enable them to accomplish their fell purpose; I listen to their clattering hoof-beats dying away in the dreamy distance, with a grin of positively malicious satisfaction, hoping sincerely that they will keep galloping onward for the next twenty miles. No such happy consummation of my wishes occurs, however; a couple of miles up the ascent I find them hobnobbing with some Persian caravan men and patiently awaiting my appearance, having learned from the Persians that I had not yet gone past. Mingled with the keen disappointment of overtaking them so quickly, is the pleasure of witnessing the Persians' camels regaling themselves on a patch of juicy thistles of most luxuriant growth; the avidity with which they attack the great prickly vegetation, and the expression of satisfaction, utter and peculiar, that characterizes a camel while munching a giant thistle stalk that protrudes two feet out of his mouth, is simply indescribable. >From this pass I descend into the Aras Plain, and, behold the gigantic form of Ararat rises up before me, seemingly but a few miles away; as a matter of fact it is about twenty miles distant, but with nothing intervening between myself and its tremendous proportions but the level plain, the distance is deceptive. No human habitations are visible save the now familiar black tents of Koordish tribesmen away off to the north, and as I ride along I am overtaken by a sensation of being all alone in the company of an overshadowing and awe-inspiring presence. One's attention seems irresistibly attracted toward the mighty snow-crowrned monarch, as though,the immutable law of attraction were sensibly exerting itself to draw lesser bodies to it, and all other objects around seemed dwarfed into insignificant proportions. One obtains a most comprehensive idea of Ararat's 17,325 feet when viewing it from the Aras Plain, as it rises sheer from the plain, and not from the shoulders of a range that constitutes of itself the greater part of the height, as do many mountain peaks. A few miles to the eastward is Little Ararat, an independent conical peak of 12,800 feet, without snow, but conspicuous and distinct from surrounding mountains; its proportions are completely dwarfed and overshadowed by the nearness and bulkiness of its big brother. The Aras Plain is lava-strewn and uncultivated for a number of miles; the spongy, spreading feet of innumerable camels have worn paths in the hard lava deposit that makes the wheeling equal to English roads, except for occasional stationary blocks of lava that the animals have systematically stepped over for centuries, and which not infrequently block the narrow trail and compel a dismount. Evidently Ararat was once a volcano; the lofty peak which now presents a wintry appearance even in the hottest summer weather, formerly belched forth lurid flames that lit up the surrounding country, and poured out fiery torrents of molten lava that stratified the abutting hills, and spread like an overwhelming flood over the Aras Plain. Abutting Ararat on the west are stratiform hills, the strata of which are plainly distinguishable from the Persian trail and which, were their inclination continued, would strike Ararat at or near the summit. This would seem to indicate the layers to be representations of the mountain's former volcanic overflowings. I am sitting on a block of lava making an outline sketch of Ararat, when a peasant happens along with a bullock-load of cucumbers which he is taking to the Koordish camps; he is pretty badly scared at finding himself all alone on the Aras Plain with such a nondescript and dangerous-looking object as a helmeted wheelman, and when I halt him with inquiries concerning the nature of his wares he turns pale and becomes almost speechless with fright. He would empty his sacks as a peace-offering at my feet without venturing upon a remonstrance, were he ordered to do so; and when I relieve him of but one solitary cucumber, and pay him more than he would obtain for it among the Koords, he becomes stupefied with astonishment; when he continues on his way he hardly knows whether he is on his head or his feet. An hour later I arrive at Kizil Dizah, the last village in Turkish territory, and an official station of considerable importance, where passports, caravan permits, etc., of everybody passing to or from Persia have to be examined. An officer here provides me with refreshments, and while generously permitting the population to come in and enjoy the extraordinary spectacle of seeing me fed, he thoughtfully stations a man with a stick to keep them at a respectful distance. A later hour in the afternoon finds me trundling up a long acclivity leading to the summit of a low mountain ridge; arriving at the summit I stand on the boundary-line between the dominions of the Sultan and the Shah, and I pause a minute to take a brief, retrospective glance. The cyclometer, affixed to the bicycle at Constantinople, now registers within a fraction of one thousand miles; it has been on the whole an arduous thousand miles, but those who in the foregoing pages have followed me through the strange and varied experiences of the journey will agree with me when I say that it has proved more interesting than arduous after all. I need not here express any blunt opinions of the different people encountered; it is enough that my observations concerning them have been jotted down as I have mingled with them and their characteristics from day to day; almost without exception, they have treated me the best they knew how; it is only natural that some should know how better than others. Bidding farewell, then, to the land of the Crescent and the home of the unspeakable Osmanli, I wheel down a gentle slope into a mountain-environed area of cultivated fields, where Persian peasants are busy gathering their harvest. The strange apparition observed descending from the summit of the boundary attracts universal attention; I can hear them calling out to each other, and can see horsemen come wildly galloping from every direction. In a few minutes the road in my immediate vicinity is alive with twenty prancing steeds; some are bestrode by men who, from the superior quality of their clothes and the gaudy trappings of their horses, are evidently in good circumstances; others by wild-looking, barelegged bipeds, whose horses' trappings consist of nothing but a bridle. The transformation brought about by crossing the mountain ridge is novel and complete; the fez, so omnipresent throughout the Ottoman dominions, has disappeared, as if by magic; the better class Persians wear tall, brimless black hats of Astrakan lamb's wool; some of the peasantry wear an unlovely, close- fitting skullcap of thick gray felt, that looks wonderfully like a bowl clapped on top of their heads, others sport a huge woolly head-dress like the Roumanians; this latter imparts to them a fierce, war-like appearance, that the meek-eyed Persian ryot (tiller of the soil) is far from feeling. The national garment is a sort of frock-coat gathered at the waist, and with a skirt of ample fulness, reaching nearly to the knees; among the wealthier class the material of this garment is usually cloth of a solid, dark color, and among the ryots or peasantry, of calico or any cheap fabric they can obtain. Loose-fitting pantaloons of European pattern, and sometimes top-boots, with tops ridiculously ample in their looseness, characterize the nether garments of the better classes; the ryots go mostly bare-legged in summer, and wear loose, slipper-like foot- gear; the soles of both boots and shoes are frequently pointed, and made to turn up and inwards, after the fashion in England centuries ago. Nightfall overtakes me as, after travelling several miles of variable road, I commence following a winding trail down into the valley of a tributary of the Arasces toward Ovahjik, where resides the Pasha Khan, to whom I have a letter; but the crescent-shaped moon sheds abroad a silvery glimmer that exerts a softening influence upon the mountains outlined against the ever-arching dome, from whence here and there a star begins to twinkle. It is one of those. beautiful, calm autumn evenings when all nature seems hushed in peaceful slumbers; when the stars seem to first peep cautiously from the impenetrable depths of their hiding-place, and then to commence blinking benignantly and approvingly upon the world; and when the moon looks almost as though fair Luna has been especially decorating herself to embellish a scene that without her lovely presence would be incomplete. Such is my first autumn evening beneath the cloudless skies of Persia. Soon the village of Ovahjik is reached, and some peasants guide me to the residence of the Pasha Khan. The servant who presents my letter of introduction fills the untutored mind of his master with wonderment concerning what the peasants have told him about the bicycle. The Pasha Khan makes his appearance without having taken the trouble to open the envelope. He is a dull-faced, unintellectual-lookiug personage, and without any preliminary palaver he says: "Bin bacalem," in a dictatorial tone of voice. "Bacalem yole lazim, bacalem saba," I reply, for it is too dark to ride on unknown ground this evening. " Bin bacalem, " repeats the Pasha Khan, even more dictatorial than before, ordering a servant to bring a tallow candle, so that I can have no excuse. There appears to be such a total absence of all consideration for myself that I am not disposed to regard very favorably or patiently the obtrusive meddlesomeness of two younger men-whom I afterward discover to be sons of the Pasha Khan - who seem almost inclined to take the bicycle out of my charge altogether, in their excessive impatience and inordinate inquisitiveness to examine everything about it. One of them, thinking the cyclometer to be a watch, puts his ear down to see if he can hear it tick, and then persists in fingering it about, to the imminent danger of the tally-pin. After telling him several times not to meddle with it, and receiving overbearing gestures in reply, I deliberately throw him backward into an irrigating ditch. A gleam of intelligence overspreads the stolid countenance of the Pasha Khan at seeing his offspring floundering about on his back in the mud and water, and he gives utterance to a chuckle of delight. The discomfited young man betrays nothing of the spirit of resentment upon recovering himself from the ditch, and the other son involuntarily retreats as though afraid his turn was coming next. The servant now arrives with the lighted candle, and the Pasha Kahn leads the way into his garden, where there is a wide brick-paved walk; the house occupies one side of the garden, the other three sides are inclosed by a high mud wall. After riding a few times along the brick-paved walk, and promising to do better in the morning. I naturally expect to be taken into the house, instead of which the Pasha Khan orders the people to show me the way to the caravanserai. Arriving at the caravanserai, and finding myself thus thrown unexpectedly upon my own resources, I inquire of some bystanders where I can obtain elcmek; some of them want to know how many liras I will give for ekmek. When it is reflected that a lira is nearly five dollars, one realizes from this something of the unconscionable possibilities of the Persian commercial mind. While this question is being mooted, a figure appears in the doorway, toward which the people one and all respectfully salaam and give way. It is the great Pasha Khan; he has bethought himself to open my letter of introduction, and having perused it and discovered who it was from and all about me, he now comes and squats down in the most friendly manner by my side for a minute, as though to remove any unfavorable impressions his inhospitable action in sending me here might have made, and then bids me accompany him back to his residence. After permitting him to eat a sufficiency of humble pie in the shape of coaxing, to atone for his former incivility, I agree to his proposal and accompany him back. Tea is at once provided, the now very friendly Pasha Khan putting extra lumps of sugar into my glass with his own hands and stirring it up; bread and cheese comes in with the tea, and under the mistaken impression that this constitutes the Persian evening meal I eat sufficient to satisfy my hunger. While thus partaking freely of the bread and cheese, I do not fail to notice that the others partake very sparingly, and that they seem to be rather astonished because I am not following their example. Being chiefly interested in satisfying my appetite, however, their silent observations have no effect save to further mystify my understanding of the Persian character. The secret of all this soon reveals itself in the form of an ample repast of savory chicken pillau, brought in immediately afterward; and while the Pasha Khan and his two sons proceed to do full justice to this highly acceptable dish, I have to content myself with nibbling at a piece of chicken, and ruminating on the unhappy and ludicrous mistake of having satisfied my hunger with dry bread and cheese. Thus does one pay the penalty of being unacquainted with the domestic customs of a country when first entering upon its experiences. There seems to be no material difference between the social position of the women here and in Turkey; they eat their meals by themselves, and occupy entirely separate apartments, which are unapproachable to members of the opposite sex save their husbands. The Pasha Khan of Ovahjik, however, seems to be a kind, indulgent husband and father, requesting me next morning to ride up and down the brick-paved walk for the benefit of his wives and daughters. In the seclusion of their own walled premises the Persian females are evidently not so particular about concealing their features, and I obtained a glimpse of some very pretty faces; oval faces with large dreamy black eyes, and a flush of warm sunset on brownish cheeks. The indoor costume of Persian women is but an inconsiderable improvement upon the costume of our ancestress in the garden of Eden, and over this they hastily don a flimsy shawl-like garment to come out and see me ride. They are always much less concerned about concealing their nether extremities than about their faces, and as they seem but little concerned about anything on this occasion save the bicycle, after riding for them I have to congratulate myself that, so far as sight-seeing is concerned, the ladies leave me rather under obligations than otherwise. After supper the Pasha Khan's falconer brings in several fine falcons for my inspection, and in reply to questions concerning one with his eyelids tied up in what appears to be a cruel manner, I am told that this is the customary way of breaking the spirits of the young falcons and rendering them tractable and submissive � the eyelids are pierced with a hole, a silk thread is then fastened to each eyelid and the ends tied together over the head, sufficiently tight to prevent them opening their eyes. Falconing is considered the chief out-door sport of the Persian nobility, but the average Persian is altogether too indolent for out-door sport, and the keeping of falcons is fashionable, because regarded as a sign of rank and nobility rather than for sport. In the morning the Pasha Khan is wonderfully agreeable, and appears anxious to atone as far as possible for the little incivility of yesterday evening, and to remove any unfavorable impressions I may perchance entertain of him on that account before I leave. His two sons and a couple of soldiers accompany me on horseback some distance up the valley. The valley is studded with villages, and at the second one we halt at the residence of a gentleman named Abbas Koola Khan, and partake of tea and light refreshments in his garden. Here I learn that the Pasha Khan has carried his good intentions to the extent of having made arrangements to provide me armed escort from point to point; how far ahead this well-meaning arrangement is to extend I am unable to understand; neither do I care to find out, being already pretty well convinced that the escort will prove an insufferable nuisance to be gotten rid of at the first favorable opportunity. Abbas Koola Khan now joins the company until we arrive at the summit of a knoll commanding an extensive view of my road ahead so they can stand and watch me when they all bid me farewell save the soldier who is to accompany me further on. As we shake hands, the young man whom I pushed into the irrigating ditch, points to a similar receptacle near by and shakes his head with amusing solemnity; whether this is expressive of his sorrow that I should have pushed him in, or that he should have annoyed me to the extent of having deserved it, I cannot say; probably the latter. My escort, though a soldier, is dressed but little different from the better-class villagers; he is an almond-eyed individual, with more of the Tartar cast of countenance than the Persian. Besides the short Persian sword, he is armed with a Martini Henry rifle of the 1862 pattern; numbers of these rifles having found their way into the hands of Turks, Koords and Persians, since the RussoTurkish war. My predictions concerning his turning out an insupportable nuisance are not suffered to remain long unverified, for he appears to consider it his chief duty to gallop ahead and notify the villagers of my approach, and to work them up to the highest expectations concerning my marvellous appearance. The result of all this is a swelling of his own importance at having so wonderful a person under his protection, and my own transformation from an unostentatious traveller to something akin to a free circus for crowds of barelegged ryots. I soon discover that, with characteristic Persian truthfulness, he has likewise been spreading the interesting report that I am journeying in this extraordinary manner to carry a message from the "Ingilis Shah " to the "Shah in Shah of Iran " (the Persians know their own country as Iran) thereby increasing his own importance and the wonderment of the people concerning myself. The Persian villages, so far, are little different from the Turkish, but such valuable property as melon-gardens, vineyards, etc., instead of being presided over by a watchman, are usually surrounded by substantial mud walls ten or twelve feet high. The villagers themselves, being less improvident and altogether more thoughtful of number one than the Turks, are on the whole, a trifle less ragged; but that is saying very little indeed, and their condition is anything but enviable. During the summer they fare comparatively well, needing but little clothing, and they are happy and contented in the absence of actual suffering; they are perfectly satisfied with a diet of bread and fruit and cucumbers, rarely tasting meat of any kind. But fuel is as scarce as in Asia Minor, and like the Turks and Armenians, in winter they have resource to a peculiar and economical arrangement to keep themselves warm; placing a pan of burning tezek beneath a low table, the whole family huddle around it, covering the table and themselves -save of course their heads-up with quilts; facing each other in this ridiculous manner, they chat and while away the dreary days of winter. At the third village after leaving the sons of the Pasha Khan, my Tartar- eyed escort, with much garrulous injunction to his successor, delivers me over to another soldier, himself returning back; this is my favorable opportunity, and soon after leaving the village I bid my valiant protector return. The man seems totally unable to comprehend why I should order him to leave me, and makes an elaborate display of his pantomimic abilities to impress upon me the information that the country ahead is full of very bad Koords, who will kill and rob me if I venture among them unprotected by a soldier. The expressive action of drawing the finger across the throat appears to be the favorite method of signifying personal danger among all these people; but I already understand that the Persians live in deadly fear of the nomad Koords. Consequently his warnings, although evidently sincere, fall on biased ears, and I peremptorily order him to depart. The Tabreez trail is now easily followed without a guide, and with a sense of perfect freedom and unrestraint, that is destroyed by having a horseman cantering alongside one, I push ahead, finding the roads variable, and passing through several villages during the day. The chief concern of the ryots is to detain me until they can bring the resident Khan to see me ride, evidently from a servile desire to cater to his pleasure. They gather around me and prevent my departure until he arrives. An appeal to the revolver will invariably secure my release, but one naturally gets ashamed of threatening people's lives even under the exasperating circumstances of a forcible detention. Once to-day I managed to outwit them beautifully. Pretending acquiescence in their proposition of waiting till the arrival of their Khan, I propose mounting and riding a few yards for their own edification while waiting; in their eagerness to see they readily fall into the trap, and the next minute sees me flying down the road with a swarm of bare-legged ryots in full chase after me, yelling for me to stop. Fortunately, they have no horses handy, but some of these lanky fellows can run like deer almost, and nothing but an excellent piece of road enables me to outdistance my pursuers. Wily as the Persians are, compared to the Osmanlis, one could play this game on them quite frequently, owing to their eagerness to see the bicycle ridden; but it is seldom that the road is sufficiently smooth to justify the attempt. I was gratified to learn from the Persian consul at Erzeroum that my stock of Turkish would answer me as far as Teheran, the people west of the capital speaking a dialect known as Tabreez Turkish; still, I find quite a difference. Almost every Persian points to the bicycle and says: "Boo; ndmi ndder. " ("This; what is it?") and it is several days ere I have an opportunity of finding out exactly what they mean. They are also exceedingly prolific in using the endearing term of kardash when accosting me. The distance is now reckoned by farsakhs (roughly, four miles) instead of hours; but, although the farsakh is a more tangible and comprehensive measurement than the Turkish hour, in reality it is almost as unreliable to go by. Towards evening I ascend into a more mountainous region, inhabited exclusively by nomad Koords; from points of vantage their tents are observable clustered here and there at the bases of the mountains. Descending into a grassy valley or depression, I find myself in close proximity to several different camps, and eagerly avail myself of the opportunity to pass a night among them. I am now in the heart of Northern Koordistan, which embraces both Persian and Turkish territory, and the occasion is most opportune for seeing something of these wild nomads in their own mountain pastures. The greensward is ridable, and I dismount before the Sheikh's tent in the presence of a highly interested and interesting audience. The half-wild dogs make themselves equally interesting in another and a less desirable sense as I approach, but the men pelt them with stones, and when I dismount they conduct me and the bicycle at once into the tent of their chieftain. The Sheikh's tent is capacious enough to shelter a regiment almost, and it is divided into compartments similar to a previous description; the Sheikh is a big, burly fellow, of about forty-five, wearing a turban the size of a half-bushel measure, and dressed pretty much like a well-to-do Turk; as a matter of fact, the Koords admire the Osmanlis and despise the Persians. The bicycle is reclined against a carpet partition, and after the customary interchange of questions, a splendid fellow, who must be six feet six inches tall, and broad-shouldered in proportion, squats himself cross-legged beside me, and proceeds to make himself agreeable, rolling me cigarettes, asking questions, and curiously investigating anything about me that strikes him as peculiar. I show them, among other things, a cabinet photograph of myself in all the glory of needle-pointed mustache and dress-parade apparel; after a critical examination and a brief conference among themselves they pronounce me an "English Pasha." I then hand the Sheikh a set of sketches, but they are not sufficiently civilized to appreciate the sketches; they hold them upside down and sidewise; and not being able to make anything out of them, the Sheikh holds them in his hand and looks quite embarrassed, like a person in possession of something he doesn't know what to do with. Noticing that the women are regarding these proceedings with much interest from behind a low partition, and not having yet become reconciled to the Mohammedan idea of women being habitually ignored and overlooked, I venture upon taking the photograph to them; they seem much confused at finding themselves the object of direct attention, and they appear several degrees wilder than the men, so far as comprehending such a product of civilization as a photograph is an indication. It requires more material objects than sketches and photos to meet the appreciation of these semi- civilized children of the desert. They bring me their guns and spears to look at and pronounce upon, and then my stalwart entertainer grows inquisitive about my revolver. First extracting the cartridges to prevent accident, I hand it to him, and he takes it for the Sheikh's inspection. The Sheikh examines the handsome little Smith & Wesson long and wistfully, and then toys with it several minutes, apparently reluctant about having to return it; finally he asks me to give him a cartridge and let him go out and test its accuracy. I am getting a trifle uneasy at his evident covetousness of the revolver, and in this request I see my opportunity of giving him to understand that it would be a useless weapon for him to possess, by telling him I have but a few cartridges and that others are not procurable in Koordistan or neighboring countries. Recognizing immediately its uselessness to him under such circumstances, he then returns it without remark; whether he would have confiscated it without this timely explanation, it is difficult to say. Shortly after the evening meal, an incident occurs which causes considerable amusement. Everything being unusually quiet, one sharp-eared youth happens to hear the obtrusive ticking of my Waterbury, and strikes a listening attitude, at which everybody else likewise begins listening; the tick, tick is plainly discernible to everybody in the compartment and they become highly interested and amused, and commence looking at me for an explanation. With a view to humoring the spirit of amusement thus awakened, I likewise smile, but affect ignorance and innocence concerning the origin of the mysterious ticking, and strike a listening attitude as well as the others. Presuming upon our interchange of familiarity, our six-foot-sixer then commences searching about my clothing for the watch, but being hidden away in a pantaloon fob, and minus a chain, it proves beyond his power of discovery. Nevertheless, by bending his head down and listening, he ascertains and announces it to be somewhere about my person; the Waterbury is then produced, and the loudness of its ticking awakes the wonder and admiration of the Koords, even to a greater extent than the Turks. During the evening, the inevitable question of Euss, Osmanli, and English crops up, and I win unanimous murmurs of approval by laying my forefingers together and stating that the English and the Osmanlis are kardash. I show them my Turkish teskeri, upon which several of them bestow fervent kisses, and when, by means of placing several stones here and there I explained to them how in 1877, the hated Muscov occupied different Mussulman cities one after the other, and was prevented by the English from occupying their dearly beloved Stamboul itself, their admiration knows no bounds. Along the trail, not over a mile from camp, a large Persian caravan has been halting during the day; late in the evening loud shouting and firing of guns announces them as prepared to start on their night's journey. It is customary when going through this part of Koordistan for the caravan men to fire guns and make as much noise as possible, in order to impress the Koords with exaggerated ideas concerning their strength and number; everybody in the Sheikh's tent thoroughly understands the meaning of the noisy demonstration, and the men exchange significant smiles. The firing and the shouting produce a truly magical effect upon a blood-thirsty youngster of ten or twelve summers; he becomes wildly hilarious, gamboling about the tent, and rolling over and kicking up his heels. He then goes to the Sheikh, points to me, and draws his finger across his throat, intimating that he would like the privilege of cutting somebody's throat, and why not let him cut mine. The Sheikh and others laugh at this, but instead of chiding him for his tragical demonstration, they favor him with the same admiring glances that grown people bestow upon precocious youngsters the world over. Under these circumstances of abject fear on the one hand, and inbred propensity for violence and plunder on the other, it is really surprising to find the Koords in Persian territory behaving themselves as well as they do. Quilts are provided for me, and I occupy this same compartment of the tent, in common with several of the younger men. In the morning, before departing, I am regaled with bread and rich, new cream, and when leaving the tent I pause a minute to watch the busy scene in the female department. Some are churning butter in sheep-skin churns which are suspended from poles and jerked back and forth; others are weaving carpets, preparing curds for cheese, baking bread, and otherwise industriously employed. I depart from the Koordish camp thoroughly satisfied with my experience of their hospitality, but the cerulean waist-scarf bestowed upon me by our Hungarian friend Igali, at Belgrade, no longer adds its embellishments to my personal adornments. Whenever a favorable opportunity presents, certain young men belonging to the noble army of hangers-on about the Sheikh's apartments invariably glide inside, and importune the guest from Frangistan for any article of his clothing that excites the admiration of their semi-civilized minds. This scarf, they were doubtless penetrating enough to observe, formed no necessary part of my wardrobe, and a dozen times in the evening, and again in the morning, I was worried to part with it, so I finally presented it to one of them. He hastily hid it away among his clothes and disappeared, as though fearful, either that the Sheikh might see it and make him return it, or that one of the chieftain's favorites might take a fancy to it and summarily appropriate it to his own use. Not more than five miles eastward from the camp, while trundling over a stretch of stony ground, I am accosted by a couple of Koordiah shepherds; but as the country immediately around is wild and unfrequented, save by Koords, and knowing something of their little weaknesses toward travellers under tempting, one-sided conditions, I deem it advisable to pay as little heed to them as possible. Seeing that I have no intention of halting, they come running up, and undertake to forcibly detain me by seizing hold of the bicycle, at the same time making no pretence of concealing their eager curiosity concerning the probable contents of my luggage. Naturally disapproving of this arbitrary conduct, I push them roughly away. With a growl more like the voice of a wild animal than of human beings, one draws his sword and the other picks up a thick knobbed stick that he had dropped in order to the better pinch and sound my packages. Without giving them time to reveal whether they seriously intend attacking me, or only to try intimidation, I have them nicely covered with the Smith & Wesson. They seem to comprehend in a moment that I have them at a disadvantage, and they hurriedly retreat a short distance, executing a series of gyral antics, as though expecting me to fire at their legs. They are accompanied by two dogs, tawny-coated monsters, larger than the largest mastiffs, who now proceed to make things lively and interesting around myself and the bicycle. Keeping the revolver in my hand, and threatening to shoot their dogs if they don't call them away, I continue my progress toward where the stony ground terminates in favor of smooth camel-paths, about' a hundred yards farther on. At this juncture I notice several other "gentle shepherds " coming racing down from the adjacent knolls; but whether to assist their comrades in catching and robbing me, or to prevent a conflict between us, will always remain an uncertainty. I am afraid, however, that with the advantage on their side, the Koordish herdsmen rarely trouble themselves about any such uncongenial task as peace-making. Reaching the smooth ground before any of the new-comers overtake me, I mount and speed away, followed by wild yells from a dozen Koordish throats, and chased by a dozen of their dogs. Upon sober second thought, when well away from the vicinity, I conclude this to have been a rather ticklish incident; had they attacked me in the absence of anything else to defend myself with, I should have been compelled to shoot them; the nearest Persian village is about ten miles distant; the absence of anything like continuously ridable road would have made it impossible to out-distance their horsemen, and a Persian village would have afforded small security against a party of enraged Koords, after all. The first village I arrive at to-day, I again attempt the "skedaddling" dodge on them that proved so successful on one occasion yesterday; but I am foiled by a rocky "jump-off" in the road to-day. The road is not so favorable for spurting as yesterday, and the racing ryots grab me amid much boisterous merriment ere * I overcome the obstruction; they take particular care not to give me another chance until the arrival of the Khan. The country hereabouts consists of gravelly, undulating plateaus between the mountains, and well-worn camel-paths afford some excellent wheeling. Near mid-day, while laboriously ascending a long but not altogether unridable ascent, I meet a couple of mounted soldiers; they obstruct my road, and proceed to deliver themselves of voluble Tabreez Turkish, by which I understand that they are the advance guard of a party in which there is a Ferenghi (the Persian term for an Occidental). While talking with them I am somewhat taken by surprise at seeing a lady on horseback and two children in a kajaveh (mule panier) appear over the slope, accompanied by about a dozen Persians. If I am surprised, the lady herself not unnaturally evinces even greater astonishment at the apparition of a lone wheelman here on the caravan roads of Persia; of course we are mutually delighted. With the assistance of her servant, the lady alights from the saddle and introduces herself as Mrs. E--, the wife of one of the Persian missionaries; her husband has lately returned home, and she is on the way to join him. The Persians accompanying her comprise her own servants, some soldiers procured of the Governor of Tabreez by the English consul to escort her as far as the Turkish frontier, and a couple of unattached travellers keeping with the party for company and society. A mule driver has charge of pack-mules carrying boxes containing, among other things, her husband's library. During the course of ten minutes' conversation the lady informs me that she is compelled to travel in this manner the whole distance to Trebizond, owing to the practical impossibility of passing through Bussian territory with the library. Were it not for this a comparatively short and easy journey would take them to Tiflis, from which point there would be steam communication with Europe. Ere the poor lady gets to Trebizond she will be likely to reflect that a government so civilized as the Czar's might relax its gloomy laws sufficiently to allow the affixing of official seals to a box of books, and permit its transportation through the country, on condition-if they will-that it should not be opened in transit; surely there would be no danger of the people's minds being enlightened -not even a little bit-by coming in contact with a library tightly boxed and sealed. At the frontier an escort of Turkish zaptiehs will take the place of the Persian soldiers, and at Erzeroum the missionaries will, of course, render her every assistance to Trebizond; but it is not without feelings of anxiety for the health of a lady travelling in this rough manner unaccompanied by her natural protector, that I reflect on the discomforts she must necessarily put up with between here and Erzeroum. She seems in good spirits, however, and says that meeting me here in this extraordinary manner is the "most romantic" incident in her whole experiences of missionary life in Persia. Like many another, she says, she can I scarcely conceive it possible that I am travelling without attendants and without being able to speak the languages. One of the unattached travellers gives me a note of introduction to Mohammed. Ali Khan, the Governor of Peri, a suburban village of Khoi, which I expect to reach some time this afternoon. CHAPTER XIX. PERSIA AND THE TABREEZ CARAVAN TRAIL. A SHORT trundle to the summit of a sloping pass, and then a winding descent of several miles brings me to a position commanding a view of an extensive valley that looks from this distance as lovely as a dreamy vision of Paradise. An hour later and I am bowling along beneath overhanging peach and mulberry trees, following a volunteer horseman to Mohammed Ali Khan's garden. Before reaching the garden a gang of bare-legged laborers engaged in patching up a mud wall favor me with a fusillade of stones, one of which caresses me on the ankle, and makes me limp like a Greenwich pensioner when I dismount a minute or two afterward. This is their peculiar way of complimenting a lone Ferenghi. Mohammed Ali Khan is found to be rather a moon-faced individual under thirty, who, together with his subordinate officials, are occupying tents in a large garden. Here, during the summer, they dispense justice to applicants for the same within their jurisdiction, and transact such other official business as is brought before them. In Persi, the distribution of justice consists chiefly in the officials ruthlessly looting the applicants of everything lootable, and the weightiest task of the officials is intriguing together against the pocket of the luckless wight who ventures upon seeking equity at their hands. A sorrowful-visaged husbandman is evidently experiencing the easy simplicity of Persian civil justice as I enter the garden; he wears the mournful expression of a man conscious of being irretrievably doomed, while the festive Kahn and his equally festive moonshi bashi (chief secretary) are laying their wicked heads together and whispering mysteriously, fifty paces away from everybody, ever and anon looking suspiciously around as though fearful of the presence of eavesdroppers. After duly binning, a young man called Abdullah, who seems to be at the beck and call of everybody, brings forth the samovar, and we drink the customary tea of good fellowship, after which they examine such of my modest effects as take their fancy. The moonshi bashi, as becomes a man of education, is quite infatuated with my pocket map of Persia; the fact that Persia occupies so great a space on the map in comparison with the small portions of adjoining countries visible around the edges makes a powerful appeal to his national vanity, and he regards me with increased affection every time I trace out for him the comprehensive boundary line of his native Iran. After nightfall we repair to the principal tent, and Mohammed Ali Khan and his secretary consume the evening hours in the joyous occupation of alternately smoking the kalian (Persian water-pipe, not unlike the Turkish nargileh, except that it has a straight stem instead of a coiled tube), and swallowing glasses of raw arrack every few minutes; they furthermore amuse themselves by trying to induce me to follow their noble example, and in poking fun at another young man because his conscientious scruples regarding the Mohammedan injunction against intoxicants forbids him indulging with them. About eight o'clock the Khan becomes a trifle sentimental and very patriotic. Producing a pair of silver-mounted horse-pistols from a corner of the tent, and waving them theatrically about, he proclaims aloud his mighty devotion to the Shah. At nine o'clock Abdullah brings in the supper. The Khan's vertebra has become too limp and willowy to enable him to sit upright, and he has become too indifferent to such coarse, un-spiritual things as stewed chicken and musk-melons to care about eating any, while the moonshi bashi's affection for me on account of the map has become so overwhelming that he deliberately empties all the chicken on to my sheet of bread, leaving none whatever for himself and the phenomenal young person with the conscientious scruples. When bedtime arrives it requires the united exertions of Abdullah and the phenomenal young man to partially undress Mohammed Ali Khan and drag him to his couch on the floor, the Kahn being limp as a dish-rag and a moderately bulky person. The moonshi bashi, as becomes an individual of lesser rank and superior mental attainments, is not quite so helpless as his official superior, but on retiring he humorously reposes his feet on the pillow and his head on nothing but the bare floor of the tent, and stubbornly refuses to permit Abdullah to alter either his pillow or his position. The phenomenal young man and myself likewise seek our respective pile of quilts, Abdullah removes the lamp, draws a curtain over the entrance of the tent, and retires. The Persians, as representing the Shiite division of the Mohammedan religion, consider themselves by long odds the holiest people on the earth, far holier than the Turks, whom they religiously despise as Sunnites and unworthy to loose the latchets of their shoes. The Koran strictly enjoins upon them great moderation in the use of intoxicating drinks, yet certain of the Persian nobility are given to drinking this raw intoxicant by the quart daily. When asked why they don't use it in moderation, they reply, " What is the good of drinking arrack unless one drinks enough to become drunk and happy. " Following this brilliant idea, many of them get " drank and happy " regularly every evening. They likewise frequently consume as much as a pint before each meal to create a false appetite and make themselves feel boozy while eating. In the morning the moonshi bashi, with a soldier for escort, accompanies me on horseback to Khoi, which is but about seven miles distant over a perfectly level road. Sad to say, the moonshi bashi, besides his yearning affection for fiery, untamed arrack, is a confirmed opium smoker, and after last night's debauch for supper and "hitting the pipe " this morning for breakfast, he doesn't feel very dashing in the saddle; consequently I have to accommodate myself to his pace. It is the slowest seven miles ever ridden on the road by a wheelman, I think; a funeral procession is a lively, rattling affair, beside our onward progress toward the mud battlements of Khoi, but there is no help for it. Whenever I venture to the fore a little the dreamy-eyed moonshi bashi regards me with a gaze of mild reproachfulness, and sings out in a gently-chide-the-erring tone of voice: "Kardash. Kardash." meaning " f we are brothers, why do you seem to want to leave me." Human nature could scarcely be proof against an appeal wherein endearment and reproach are so beautifully and harmoniously blended, and it always brings me back to a level with his horse. Reaching the suburbs of Khoi, I am initiated into a new departure - new to myself at this time - of Persian sanctimoniousness. Halting at a fountain to obtain a drink, the soldier shapes himself for pouring the water out of the earthenware drinking vessel into my hands; supposing this to be merely an indication of the Persian's own method of drinking, I motion my preference for drinking out of the jar itself. The soldier looks appealingly toward the moonshi bashi, who tells him to let me drink, and then orders him to smash the jar. It then dawns upon my unenlightened mind, that being a Ferenghi, I should have known better than to have touched my unhallowed lips to a drinking vessel at a public fountain, defiling it by so doing, so that it must be smashed in order that the sons of the "true prophet" may not unwittingly drink from it afterward and themselves become defiled. The moonshi bashi pilots me to the residence of a certain wealthy citizen outside the city walls; this person, a mild- mannered, purring-voiced man, is seated in a room with a couple of seyuds, or descendants of the prophet; they are helping themselves from a large platter of the finest, pears, peaches, and egg plums I ever saw anywhere. The room is carpeted with costly rugs and carpets in which one's feet sink perceptibly at every step; the walls and ceiling are artistically stuccoed, and the doors and windows are gay with stained glass. Abandoning myself to the guidance of the moonshi bashi, I ride around the garden-walks, show them the bicycle, revolver, map of Persia, etc.; like the moonshi bashi, they become deeply interested in the map, finding much amusement and satisfaction in having me point out the location of different Persian cities, seemingly regarding my ability to do so as evidence of exceeding cleverness and erudition. The untravelled Persians of the northern provinces regard Teheran as the grand idea of a large and important city; if there is any place in the whole world larger and more important, they think it may perhaps be Stamboul. The fact that Stamboul is not on my map while Teheran is, they regard as conclusive proof of the superiority of their own capital. The moonshi bashi's chief purpose in accompanying me hither has been to introduce me to the attention of the "hoikim"; although the pronunciation is a little different from hakim, I attribute this to local brogue, and have been surmising this personage to be some doctor, who, perhaps, having graduated at a Frangistan medical college, the moonshi bashi thinks will be able to converse with me. After partaking of fruit and tea we continue on our way to the nearest gate-way of the city proper, Khoi being surrounded by a ditch and battlemented mud wall. Arriving at a large, public inclosure, my guide sends in a letter, and shortly afterward delivers me over to some soldiers, who forthwith conduct me into the presence of - not a doctor, but Ali Khan, the Governor of the city, an officer who hereabouts rejoices in the title of the "hoikim." The Governor proves to be a man of superior intelligence; he has been Persian ambassador to France some time ago, and understands French fairly well; consequently we manage to understand each other after a fashion. Although he has never before seen a bicycle, his knowledge of the mechanical ingenuity of the Ferenghis causes him to regard it with more intelligence than an un-travelled native, and to better comprehend my journey and its object. Assisted by a dozen mollahs (priests) and officials in flowing gowns and henna-tinted beards and finger-nails, the Governor is transacting official business, and he invites me to come into the council chamber and be seated. In a few minutes the noon-tide meal is announced; the Governor invites me to dine with them, and then leads the way into the dining-room, followed by his counsellors, who form in line behind him according to their rank. The dining-room is a large, airy apartment, opening into an extensive garden; a bountiful repast is spread on yellow- checkered tablecloths on the carpeted floor; the Governor squats cross- legged at one end, the stately-looking wiseacres in flowing gowns range themselves along each side in a similar attitude, with much solemnity and show of dignity; they - at least so I fancy - evidently are anything but rejoiced at the prospect of eating with an infidel Ferenghi. The Governor, being a far more enlightened and consequently less bigoted personage, looks about him a trifle embarrassed, as if searching for some place where he can seat me in a position of becoming honor without offending the prejudices of his sanctimonious counsellors. Noticing this, I at once come to his relief by taking the position farthest from him, attempting to imitate them in their cross-legged attitude. My unhappy attempt to sit in this uncomfortable attitude - uncomfortable at least to anybody unaccustomed to it - provokes a smile from His Excellency, and he straightway orders an attendant to fetch in a chair and a small table; the counsellors look on in silence, but they are evidently too deeply impressed with their own dignity and holiness to commit themselves to any such display of levity as a smile. A portion of each dish is placed upon my table, together with a travellers' combination knife, fork and spoon, a relic, doubtless, of the Governor's Parisian experience. His Excellency having waited and kept the counsellors waiting until these preparations are finished, motions for me to commence eating, and then begins himself. The repast consists of boiled mutton, rice pillau with curry, mutton chops, hard-boiled eggs with lettuce, a pastry of sweetened rice-flour, musk-melons, water-melons, several kinds of fruit, and for beverage glasses of iced sherbet; of all the company I alone use knife, fork, and plates. Before each Persian is laid a broad sheet of bread; bending their heads over this they scoop up small handfuls of pillau, and toss it dextrously into their mouths; scattering particles missing the expectantly opened receptacle fall back on to the bread; this handy sheet of bread is used as a plate for placing a chop or anything else on, as a table-napkin for wiping finger-tips between courses, and now and then a piece is pulled off and eaten. When the meal is finished, an attendant waits on each guest with a brazen bowl, an ewer of water and a towel. After the meal is over the Governor is no longer handicapped by the religious prejudices of the mollahs, and leaving them he invites me into the garden to see his two little boys go through their gymnastic exercises. They are clever little fellows of about seven and nine, respectively, with large black eyes and clear olive complexions; all the time we are watching them the Governor's face is wreathed in a fond, parental smile. The exercises consist chiefly in climbing a thick rope dangling from a cross-beam. After seeing me ride the bicycle the Governor wants me to try my hand at gymnastics, but being nothing of a gymnast I respectfully beg to be excused. While thus enjoying a pleasant hour in the garden, a series of resounding thwacks are heard somewhere near by, and looking around some intervening shrubs I observe a couple of far-rashes bastinadoing a culprit; seeing me more interested in this novel method of administering justice than in looking at the youngsters trying to climb ropes, the Governor leads the way thither. The man, evidently a ryot, is lying on his back, his feet are lashed together and held soles uppermost by means of an horizontal pole, while the farrashes briskly belabor them with willow sticks. The soles of the ryot's feet are hard and thick as rhinoceros hide almost from habitually walking barefooted, and under these conditions his punishment is evidently anything but severe. The flagellation goes merrily and uninterruptedly forward until fifty sticks about five feet long and thicker than a person's thumb are broken over his feet without eliciting any signals of distress from the horny-hoofed ryot, except an occasional sorrowful groan of "A-l-l-ah." He is then loosed and limps painfully away, but it looks like a rather hypocritical limp, after all; fifty sticks, by the by, is a comparatively light punishment, several hundred sometimes being broken at a single punishment. Upon taking my leave the Governor kindly details a couple of soldiers to show me to the best caravanserai, and to remain and protect me from the worry and annoyance of the crowds until my departure from the city. Arriving at the caravanserai, my valiant protectors undertake to keep the following crowd from entering the courtyard; the crowd refuses to see the justice of this arbitrary proceeding, and a regular pitched battle ensues in the gateway. The caravanserai-jees reinforce the soldiers, and by laying on vigorously with thick sticks, they finally put the rabble to flight. They then close the caravanserai gates until the excitement has subsided. Khoi is a city of perhaps fifty thousand inhabitants, and among them all there is no one able to speak a word of English. Contemplating the surging mass of woolly-hatted Persians from the bala-khana (balcony; our word is taken from the Persian), of the caravanserai, and hearing nothing but unintelligible language, I detect myself unconsciously recalling the lines: " Oh it was pitiful; in a whole city full--." It is the first large city I have visited without finding somebody capable of speaking at least a few words of my own language. Locking the bicycle up, I repair to the bazaar, my watchful and zealous attendants making the dust fly from the shoulders of such unlucky wights whose eager inquisitiveness to obtain a good close look brings them within the reach of their handy staves. We are followed by immense crowds, a Ferenghi being a rara avis in Khoi, and the fame of the wonderful asp- i (horse of iron) has spread like wild-fire through the city. In the bazaar I obtain Russian silver money, which is the chief currency of the country as far east as Zendjan. Partly to escape from the worrying crowds, and partly to ascertain the way out next morning, as I intend making an early start, I get the soldiers to take me outside the city wall and show me the Tabreez road. A new caravanserai is in process of construction just outside the Tabreez gate, and I become an interested spectator of the Persian mode of building the walls of a house; these of the new caravanserai are nearly four feet thick. Parallel walls of mud bricks are built up, leaving an interspace of two feet or thereabouts; this is filled with stiff, well-worked mud, which is dumped in by bucketsful and continually tramped by barefooted laborers; harder bricks are used for the doorways and windows. The bricklayer uses mud for mortar and his hands for a trowel; he works without either level or plumb-line, and keeps up a doleful, melancholy chant from morning to night. The mortar is handed to him by an assistant by handsful; every workman is smeared and spattered with mud from head to foot, as though glorying in covering themselves with the trade-mark of their calling. Strolling away from the busy builders we encounter a man the "water boy of the gang"- bringing a three-gallon pitcher of water from a spring half a mile away. Being thirsty, the soldiers shout for him to bring the pitcher. Scarcely conceiving it possible that these humble mud-daubers would be so wretchedly sanctimonious, I drink from the jar, much to the disgust of the poor water-carrier, who forthwith empties the remainder away and returns with hurried trot to the spring for a fresh supply; he would doubtless have smashed the vessel had it been smaller and of lesser value. Naturally I feel a trifle conscience-stricken at having caused him so much trouble, for he is rather an elderly man, but the soldiers display no sympathy for him whatever, apparently regarding an humble water-carrier as a person of small consequence anyhow, and they laugh heartily at seeing him trotting briskly back half a mile for another load. Had he taken the first water after a Ferenghi had drank from it and allowed his fellow-workmen to unwittingly partake of the same, it would probably have fared badly with the old fellow had they found it out afterward. Returning cityward we meet our friend, the moonshi bashi, looking me up; he is accompanied by a dozen better-class Persians, scattering friends and acquaintances of his, whom he hag collected during the day chiefly to show them my map of Persia; the mechanical beauty of the bicycle and the apparent victory over the laws of equilibrium in riding it being, in the opinion of the scholarly moonshi bashi, quite overshadowed by a map which shows Teheran and Khoi, and doesn't show Stamboul, and which shows the whole broad expanse of Persia, and only small portions of other countries. This latter fact seems to have made a very deep impression upon the moonshi banhi's mind; it appears to have filled him with the unalterable conviction that all other countries are insignificant compared with Persia; in his own mind this patriotic person has always believed this to be the case, but he is overjoyed at finding his belief verified - as he fondly imagines - by the map of a Ferenghi. Returning to the caravanserai, we find the courtyard crowded with people, attracted by the fame of the bicycle. The moonshi bashi straightway ascends to the bala-khana, tenderly unfolds my map, and displays it for the inspection of the gaping multitude below; while five hundred pairs of eyes gaze wonderingly upon it, without having the slightest conception of what they are looking at, he proudly traces with his finger the outlines of Persia. It is one of the most amusing scenes imaginable; the moonshi bashi and myself, surrounded by his little company of friends, occupying the bala-khana, proudly displaying to a mixed crowd of fully five hundred people a shilling map as a thing to be wondered at and admired. After the departure of the moonshi bashi and his friends, by invitation I pay a visit of curiosity to a company of dervishes (they themselves pronounce it "darwish") occupying one of the caravanserai rooms. There are eight of them lolling about in one small room; their appearance is disgusting and yet interesting; they are all but naked in deference to the hot weather and to obtain a little relief from the lively tenants of their clothing. Prominent among their effects are panther or leopard skins which they use as cloaks, small steel battle-axes, and huge spiked clubs. Their whole appearance is most striking and extraordinary; their long black hair is dangling about their naked shoulders; they have the wild, haggard countenances of men whose lives are being spent in debauchery and excesses; nevertheless, most of them have a decidedly intellectual expression. The Persian dervishes are a strange and interesting people; they spend their whole lives in wandering from one end of the country to another, subsisting entirely by mendicancy; yet their cry, instead of a beggar's supplication for charity, is "huk, huk" (my right, my right); they affect the most wildly, picturesque and eccentric costumes, often wearing nothing whatever but white cotton drawers and a leopard or panther skin thrown, carelessly about their shoulders, besides which they carry a huge spiked club or steel battle-axe and an alms-receiver; this latter is usually made of an oval gourd, polished and suspended on small brass chains. Sometimes they wear an embroidered conical cap decorated with verses from the Koran, but often they wear no head-gear save the covering provided by nature. The better-class Persians have little respect for these wandering fakirs; but their wild, eccentric appearance makes a deep impression upon the simple-hearted villagers, and the dervishes, whose wits are sharpened by constant knocking about, live mostly by imposing on their good nature and credulity. A couple of these worthies, arriving at a small village, affect their wildest and most grotesque appearance and proceed to walk with stately, majestic tread through the streets, gracefully brandishing their clubs or battle- axes, gazing fixedly at vacancy and reciting aloud from the Koran with a peculiar and impressive intonation; they then walk about the village holding out their alms-receiver and shouting "huk yah huk! huk yah huk " Half afraid of incurring their displeasure, few of the villagers refuse to contribute a copper or portable cooked provisions. Most dervishes are addicted to the intemperate use of opium, bhang (a preparation of Indian hemp), arrack, and other baleful intoxicants, generally indulging to excess whenever they have collected sufficient money; they are likewise credited with all manner of debauchery; it is this that accounts for their pale, haggard appearance. The following quotation from "In the Land of the Lion and Sun," and which is translated from the Persian, is eloquently descriptive of the general appearance of the dervish: The dervish had the dullard air, The maddened look, the vacant stare, That bhang and contemplation give. He moved, but did not seem to live; His gaze was savage, and yet sad; What we should call stark, staring mad. All down his back, his tangled hair Flowed wild, unkempt; his head was bare; A leopard's skin was o'er him flung; Around his neck huge beads were hung, And in his hand-ah! there's the rub- He carried a portentous club. After visiting the dervishes I spend an hour in an adjacent tchai- khan drinking tea with my escort and treating them to sundry well-deserved kalians. Among the rabble collected about the doorway is a half-witted youngster of about ten or twelve summers with a suit of clothes consisting of a waist string and a piece of rag about the size of an ordinary pen- wiper. He is the unfortunate possessor of a stomach disproportionately large and which intrudes itself upon other people's notice like a prize pumpkin at an agricultural fair. This youth's chief occupation appears to be feeding melon-rinds to a pet sheep belonging to the tchai-khan and playing a resonant tattoo on his abnormally obtrusive paunch with the palms of his hands. This produces a hollow, echoing sound like striking an inflated bladder with a stuffed club; and considering that the youth also introduces a novel and peculiar squint into the performance, it is a remarkably edifying spectacle. Supper-time coming round, the soldiers show the way to an eating place, where we sup off delicious bazaar-kabobs, one of the most tasteful preparations of mutton one could well imagine. The mutton is minced to the consistency of paste and properly seasoned; it is then spread over flat iron skewers and grilled over a glowing charcoal fire; when nicely browned they are laid on a broad pliable sheet of bread in lieu of a plate, and the skewers withdrawn, leaving before the customer a dozen long flat fingers of nicely browned kabobs reposing side by side on the cake of wheaten bread-a most appetizing and digestible dish. Returning to the caravanserai, I dismiss my faithful soldiers with a suitable present, for which they loudly implore the blessings of Allah on my head, and for the third or fourth time impress upon the caravanseraijes the necessity of making my comfort for the night his special consideration. They fill that humble individual's mind with grandiloquent ideas of my personal importance by dwelling impressively on the circumstance of my having eaten with the Governor, a fact they likewise have lost no opportunity of heralding throughout the bazaar during the afternoon. The caravanserai-jee spreads quilts and a pillow for me on the open bala-khana, and I at once prepare for sleep. A gentle-eyed and youthful seyud wearing an enormous white turban and a flowing gown glides up to my couch and begins plying me with questions. The soldiers noticing this as they are about leaving the court-yard favor him with a torrent of imprecations for venturing to disturb my repose; a score of others yell fiercely at him in emulation of the soldiers, causing the dreamy-eyed youth to hastily scuttle away again. Nothing is now to be heard all around but the evening prayers of the caravanserai guests; listening to the multitudinous cries of Allah-il-Allah around me, I fall asleep. About midnight I happen to wake again; everything is quiet, the stars are shining brightly down into the court-yard, and a small grease lamp is flickering on the floor near my head, placed there by the caravan-serai-jee after I had fallen asleep. The past day has been one full of interesting experiences; from the time of leaving the garden of Mohammed Ali Khan this morning in company with the moonshi bashi, until lulled to sleep three hours ago by the deep-voiced prayers of fanatical Mohammedans the day has proved a series of surprises, and I seem more than ever before to have been the sport and plaything of fortune; however, if the fickle goddess never used anybody worse than she has used me to-day there would be little cause for complaining. As though to belie their general reputation of sanctimoniousness, a tall, stately seyud voluntarily poses as my guide and protector en route through the awakening bazaar toward the Tabreez gate next morning, cuffing obtrusive youngsters right and left, and chiding grown-up people whenever their inordinate curiosity appeals to him as being aggressive and impolite; one can only account for this strange condescension on the part of this holy man by attributing it to the marvellous civilizing and levelling influence of the bicycle. Arriving outside the gate, the crowd of followers are well repaid for their trouble by watching my progress for a couple of miles down a broad straight roadway admirably kept and shaded with thrifty chenars or plane-trees. Wheeling down this pleasant avenue I encounter mule-trains, the animals festooned with strings of merrily jingling bells, and camels gayly caparisoned, with huge, nodding tassels on their heads and pack-saddles, and deep-toned bells of sheet iron swinging at their throats and sides; likewise the omnipresent donkey heavily laden with all manner of village produce for the Khoi market. My road after leaving the avenue winds around the end of projecting hills, and for a dozen miles traverses a gravelly plain that ascends with a scarcely perceptible gradient to the summit of a ridge; it then descends by a precipitous trail into the valley of Lake Ooroomiah. Following along the northern shore of the lake I find fairly level roads, but nothing approaching continuous wheeling, owing to wash-outs and small streams leading from a range of mountains near by to the left, between which and the briny waters of the lake my route leads. Lake Ooroomiah is somewhere near the size of Salt Lake, Utah, and its waters are so heavily impregnated with saline matter that one can lie down on the surface and indulge in a quiet, comfortable snooze; at least, this is what I am told by a missionary at Tabreez who says he has tried it himself; and even allowing for the fact that missionaries are but human after all and this gentleman hails originally from somewhere out West, there is no reason for supposing the statement at all exaggerated. Had I heard of this beforehand I should certainly have gone far enough out of my course to try the experiment of being literally rocked on the cradle of the deep. Near midday I make a short circuit to the north, to investigate the edible possibilities of a village nestling in a cul-de-sac of the mountain foot-hills. The resident Khan turns out to be a regular jovial blade, sadly partial to the flowing bowl. When I arrive he is perseveringly working himself up to the proper pitch of booziness for enjoying his noontide repast by means of copious potations of arrack; he introduces himself as Hassan Khan, offers me arrack, and cordially invites me to dine with him. After dinner, when examining my revolver, map, etc., the Khan greatly admires a photograph of myself as a peculiar proof of Ferenghi skill in producing a person's physiognomy, and blandly asks me to "make him one of himself," doubtless thinking that a person capable of riding on a wheel is likewise possessed of miraculous all 'round abilities. The Khan consumes not less than a pint of raw arrack during the dinner hour, and, not unnaturally, finds himself at the end a trifle funny and venturesome. When preparing to take my departure he proposes that I give him a ride on the bicycle; nothing loath to humor him a little in return for his hospitality, I assist him to mount, and wheel him around for a few minutes, to the unconcealed delight of the whole population, who gather about to see the astonishing spectacle of their Khan riding on the Ferenghi's wonderful asp-i-awhan. The Khan being short and pudgy is unable to reach the pedals, and the confidence-inspiring fumes of arrack lead him to announce to the assembled villagers that if his legs were only a little longer he could certainly go it alone, a statement that evidently fills the simple-minded ryots with admiration for the Khan's alleged newly-discovered abilities. The road continues level but somewhat loose and sandy; the scenery around becomes strikingly beautiful, calling up thoughts of "Arabian Nights " entertainments, and the genii and troubadours of Persian song. The bright, blue waters of Lake Ooroomiah stretch away southward to where the dim outlines of mountains, a hundred miles away, mark the southern shore; rocky islets at a lesser distance, and consequently more pronounced in character and contour, rear their jagged and picturesque forms sheer from the azure surface of the liquid mirror, the face of which is unruffled by a single ripple and unspecked by a single animate or inanimate object; the beach is thickly incrusted with salt, white and glistening in the sunshine; the shore land is mingled sand and clay of a deep-red color, thus presenting the striking and beautiful phenomena of a lake shore painted red, white, and blue by the inimitable hand of nature. A range of rugged gray mountains run parallel with the shore but a few miles away; crystal streams come bubbling lake-ward over pebble-bedded channels from sources high up the mountain slopes; villages, hidden amid groves of spreading jujubes and graceful chenars, nestle here and there in the rocky gateways of ravines; orchards and vineyards are scattered about the plain. They are imprisoned within gloomy mud walls, but, like living creatures struggling for their liberty, the fruit-laden branches extend beyond their prison-walls, and the graceful tendrils of the vines find their way through the sun-cracks and fissures of decay, and trail over the top as though trying to cover with nature's charitable veil the unsightly works of man; and all is arched over with the cloudless Persian sky. Beaming the roads of this picturesque region in search of victims is a most persistent and pugnacious species of fly; rollicking as the blue- bottle, and the veritable double of the green-head horsefly of the Western prairies, he combines the dash and impetuosity of the one with the ferocity and persistency of the other; but he is happily possessed of one redeeming feature not possessed by either of the above-mentioned and well-known insects of the Western world. When either of these settles himself affectionately on the end of a person's nose, and the person, smarting under the indignity, hits himself viciously on that helpless and unoffending portion of his person, as a general thing it doesn't hurt the fly, simply because the fly doesn't wait long enough to be hurt; but the Lake Ooroomiah fly is a comparatively guileless insect, and quietly remains where he alights until it suits one's convenience to forcibly remove him; for this redeeming quality I bespeak for him the warmest encomiums of fly-harassed humans everywhere. Dusk is settling down over the broad expanse of lake, plain, and mountain when I encounter a number of villagers taking donkey-loads of fruit and almonds from an orchard to their village. They cordially invite me to accompany them and accept their hospitality for the night. They are travelling toward a large area of walled orchards but a short distance to the north, and I naturally expect to find their village located among them; so, not knowing how far ahead the next village may be, I gladly accept their kindly invitation, and follow along behind. It gets dusky, then duskier, then dark; the stars come peeping out thicker and thicker, and still I am trundling with these people slowly along up the dry and stone-strewn channel of spring-time freshets, expecting every minute to reach their village, only to be as often disappointed, for over an hour, during which we travel out of my proper course perhaps four miles. Finally, after crossing several little streams, or rather; one stream several times, we arrive at our destination, and I am installed, as the guest of a leading villager, beneath a sort of open porch attached to the house. Here, as usual, I quickly become the centre of attraction for a wondering and admiring audience of half-naked villagers. The villager whose guest I become brings forth bread and cheese, some bring me grapes, others newly gathered almonds, and then they squat around in the dim religious light of primitive grease-lamps and watch me feed, with the same wondering interest and the same unconcealed delight with which youthful Londoners at the Zoological Gardens regard a pet monkey devouring their offerings of nuts and ginger-snaps. I scarcely know what to make of these particular villagers; they seem strangely childlike and unsophisticated, and moreover, perfectly delighted at my unexpected presence in their midst. It is doubtful whether their unimportant little village among the foothills was ever before visited by a Ferenghi; consequently I am to them a rara avis to be petted and admired. I am inclined to think them a village of Yezeeds or devilworshippers; the Yezeeds believe that Allah, being by nature kind and merciful, would not injure anybody under any circumstances, consequently there is nothing to be gained by worshipping him. Sheitan (Satan), on the contrary, has both the power and the inclination to do people harm, therefore they think it politic to cultivate his good-will and to pursue a policy of conciliation toward him by worshipping him and revering his name. Thus they treat the name of Satan with even greater reverence than Christians and Mohammedans treat the name of God. Independent of their hospitable treatment of myself, these villagers seem but little advanced in their personal habits above mere animals; the women are half- naked, and seem possessed of little more sense of shame than our original ancestors before the fall. There is great talk of kardash among them in reference to myself. They are advocating hospitality of a nature altogether too profound for the consideration of a modest and discriminating Ferenghi - hospitable intentions that I deem it advisable to dissipate at once by affecting deep, dense ignorance of what they are discussing. In the morning they search the village over to find the wherewithal to prepare me some tea before my departure. Eight miles from the village I discover that four miles forward yesterday evening, instead of backward, would have brought me to a village containing a caravanserai. I naturally feel a trifle chagrined at the mistake of having journeyed eight unnecessary miles, but am, perhaps, amply repaid by learning something of the utter simplicity of the villagers before their character becomes influenced by intercourse with more enlightened people. My course now leads over a stony plain. The wheeling is reasonably good, and I gradually draw away from the shore of Lake Ooroomiah. Melon- gardens and vineyards are frequently found here and there across the plain; the only entrance to the garden is a hole about three feet by four in the high mud wall, and this is closed by a wooden door; an arm- hole is generally found in the wall to enable the owner to reach the fastening from the outside. Investigating one of these fastenings at a certain vineyard I discover a lock so primitive that it must have been invented by prehistoric man. A flat, wooden bar or bolt is drawn into a mortise-like receptacle of the wall, open at the top; the man then daubs a handful of wet clay over it; in a few minutes the clay hardens and the door is fast. This is not a burglar-proof lock, certainly, and is only depended upon for a fastening during the temporary absence of the owner in the day-time. During the summer the owner and family not infrequently live in the garden altogether. During the forenoon the bicycle is the innocent cause of two people being thrown from the backs of their respective steeds. One is a man carelessly sitting sidewise on his donkey; the meek-eyed jackass suddenly makes a pivot of his hind feet and wheels round, and the rider's legs as suddenly shoot upward. He frantically grips his fiery, untamed steed around the neck as he finds himself over- balanced, and comes up with a broad grin and an irrepressible chuckle of merriment over the unwonted spirit displayed by his meek and humble charger, that probably had never scared at anything before in all its life. The other case is unfortunately a lady whose horse literally springs from beneath her, treating her to a clean tumble. The poor lady sings out "Allah!" rather snappishly at finding herself on the ground, so snappishly that it leaves little room for doubt of its being an imprecation; but her rude, unsympathetic attendants laugh right merrily at seeing her floundering about in the sand; fortunately, she is uninjured. Although Turkish and Persian ladies ride a la Amazon, a position that is popularly supposed to be several times more secure than side-saddles, it is a noticeable fact that they seem perfectly helpless, and come to grief the moment their steed shies at anything or commences capering about with anything like violence. On a portion of road that is unridable from sand I am captured by a rowdyish company of donkey-drivers, returning with empty fruit-baskets from Tabreez. They will not be convinced that the road is unsuitable, and absolutely refuse to let me go without seeing the bicycle ridden. After detaining me until patience on my part ceases to be a virtue, and apparently as determined for their purpose as ever, I am finally compelled to produce the convincing argument with five chambers and rifled barrel. These crowds of donkey-men seem inclined to be rather lawless, and scarcely a day passes lately but what this same eloquent argument has to be advanced in the interest of individual liberty. Fortunately the mere sight of a revolver in the hands of a Ferenghi has the magical effect of transforming the roughest and most overbearing gang of ryots into peaceful, retiring citizens. The plain I am now traversing is a broad, gray-looking area surrounded by mountains, and stretching away eastward from Lake Ooroomiah for seventy-five miles. It presents the same peculiar aspect of Persian scenery nearly everywhere-a general verdureless and unproductive country, with the barren surface here and there relieved by small oases of cultivated fields and orchards. The villages being built solely of mud, and consequently of the same color as the general surface, are undistinguishable from a distance, unless rendered conspicuous by trees. Laboring under a slightly mistaken impression concerning the distance to Tabreez, I push ahead in the expectation of reaching there to-night; the plain becomes more generally cultivated; the caravan routes from different directions come to a focus on broad trails leading into the largest city in Persia, and which is the great centre of distribution for European goods arriving by caravan to Trebizond. Coming to a large, scattering village, some time in the afternoon, I trundle leisurely through the lanes inclosed between lofty and unsightly mud walls thinking I have reached the suburbs of Tabreez; finding my mistake upon emerging on the open plain again, I am yet again deceived by another spreading village, and about six o'clock find myself wheeling eastward across an uncultivated stretch of uncertain dimensions. The broad caravan trail is worn by the traffic of centuries considerably below the level of the general surface, and consists of a number of narrow, parallel trails, along which swarms of donkeys laden with produce from tributary villages daily plod, besides the mule and camel caravans from a greater distance. These narrow beaten paths afford excellent wheeling, and I bowl along quite briskly. As one approaches Tabreez, the country is found traversed by an intricate network of irrigating ditches, some of them works of considerable magnitude; the embankments on either side of the road are frequently high enough to obscure a horseman. These works are almost as old as the hills themselves, for the cultivation of the Tabreez plain has remained practically an unchanged system for three thousand years, as though, like the ancient laws of the Medes and Persians, it also were made unchangeable. About dusk I fall in with another riotous crowd of homeward-bound fruit carriers, who, not satisfied at seeing me ride past, want to stop me; one of them rushes up behind, grabs my package attached to the rear baggage-carrier, and nearly causes an overthrow; frightening him off, I spurt ahead, barely escaping two or three donkey cudgels hurled at me in pure wantonness, born of the courage inspired by a majority of twenty to one. There is no remedy for these unpleasant occurrences except travelling under escort, and the avoiding serious trouble or accident becomes a matter for every-day congratulation. At eighteen miles from the last village it becomes too dark to remain in the saddle without danger of headers, and a short trundle brings me, not to Tabreez even now, but to another village eight miles nearer. Here there is a large caravanserai. Near the entrance is a hole-in-the-wall sort of a shop wherein I espy a man presiding over a tempting assortment of cantaloupes, grapes, and pears. The whirligig of fortune has favored me today with tea, blotting-paper ekmek, and grapes for breakfast; later on two small watermelons, and at 2 P.M. blotting-paper ekmek and an infinitesimal quantity of yaort (now called mast). It is unnecessary to add that I arrive in this village with an appetite that will countenance no unnecessary delay. Two splendid ripe cantaloupes, several fine bunches of grapes, and some pears are devoured immediately, with a reckless disregard of consequences, justifiable only on the grounds of semi-starvation and a temporary barbarism born of surrounding circumstances. After this savage attack on the maivah-jee's stock, I learn that the village contains a small tchai-khan; repairing thither I stretch myself on the divan for an hour's repose, and afterward partake of tea, bread, and peaches. At bed-time the khan-jee makes me up a couch on the divan, locks the door inside, blows out the light, and then, afraid to occupy the same building with such a dangerous-looking individual as myself, climbs to the roof through a hole in the wall. Eager villagers carry both myself and wheel across a bridge-less stream upon resuming my journey to Tabreez next morning; the road is level and ridable, though a trifle deep with dust and sand, and in an hour I am threading the suburban lanes of the city. Along these eight miles I certainly pass not less than five hundred pack- donkeys en route to the Tabreez market with everything, from baskets of the choicest fruit in the world to huge bundles of prickly camel-thorn and sacks of tezek for fuel. No animals in all the world, I should think, stand in more urgent need of the kindly offices of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals than the thousands of miserable donkeys engaged in supplying Tabreez with fuel; their brutal drivers seem utterly callous and indifferent to the pitiful sufferings of these patient toilers. Numbers of instances are observed this morning where the rough, ill-fitting breech-straps and ropes have literally seesawed their way through the skin and deep into the flesh, and are still rasping deeper and deeper every day, no attempt whatever being made to remedy this evil; on the contrary, their pitiless drivers urge them on by prodding the raw sores with sharpened sticks, and by belaboring them unceasingly with an instrument of torture in the shape of whips with six inches of ordinary trace-chain for a lash. As if the noble army of Persian donkey drivers were not satisfied with the refinement of physical cruelty to which they have attained, they add insult to injury by talking constantly to their donkeys while driving them along, and accusing them of all the crimes in the calendar and of every kind of disreputable action. Fancy the bitter sense of humiliation that must overcome the proud, haughty spirit of a mouse-colored jackass at being prodded in an open wound with a sharp stick and hearing himself at the same time thus insultingly addressed: "Oh, thou son of a burnt father and murderer of thine own mother, would that I myself had died rather than my father should have lived to see me drive such a brute as thou art." yet this sort of talk is habitually indulged in by the barbarous drivers. While young, the donkeys' nostrils are slit open clear up to the bridge-bone; this is popularly supposed among the Persians to be an improvement upon nature in that it gives them greater freedom of respiration. Instead of the well known clucking sound used among ourselves as a persuasive, the Persian makes a sound not unlike the bleating of a sheep; a stranger, being within hearing and out of sight of a gang of donkey drivers in a hurry to reach their destination, would be more likely to imagine himself in the vicinity of a flock of sheep than anything else. As is usually the case, a volunteer guide bobs serenely up immediately I enter the city, and I follow confidently along, thinking he is piloting me to the English consulate, as I have requested; instead of this he steers me into the custom-house and turns me over to the officials. These worthy gentlemen, after asking me to ride around the custom-house yard, pretend to become altogether mystified about what they ought to do with the bicycle, and in the absence of any precedent to govern themselves by, finally conclude among themselves that the proper thing would be to confiscate it. Obtaining a guide to show me to the residence of Mr. Abbott, the English consul-general, that energetic representative of Her Majesty's government smiles audibly at the thoughts of their mystification, and then writes them a letter couched in terms of humorous reproachfulness, asking them what in the name of Allah and the Prophet they mean by confiscating a traveller's horse, his carriage, his camel, his everything on legs and wheels consolidated into the beautiful vehicle with which he is journeying to Teheran to see the Shah, and all around the world to see everybody and everything? - ending by telling them that he never in all his consular experiences heard of a proceeding so utterly atrocious. He sends the letter by the consulate dragoman, who accompanies me back to the custom-house. The officers at once see and acknowledge their mistake; but meanwhile they have been examining the bicycle, and some of them appear to have fallen violently in love with it; they yield it up, but it is with apparent reluctance, and one of the leading officials takes me into the stable, and showing me several splendid horses begs me to take my choice from among them and leave the bicycle behind. Mr. and Mrs. Abbott cordially invite me to become their guest while staying at Tabreez. To-day is Thursday, and although my original purpose was only to remain here a couple of days, the innovation from roughing it on the road, to roast duck for dinner, and breakfast in one's own room of a morning, coupled with warnings against travelling on the Sabbath and invitations to dinner from the American missionaries, proves a sufficient inducement for me to conclude to stay till Monday, satisfied at the prospect of reaching Teheran in good season. It is now something less than four hundred miles to Teheran, with the assurance of better roads than I have yet had in Persia, for the greater portion of the distance; besides this, the route is now a regular post route with chapar- khanas (post-houses) at distances of four to five farsakhs apart. On Friday night Tabreez experienced two slight shocks of an earthquake, and in the morning Mr. Abbott points out several fissures in the masonry of the consulate, caused by previous visitations of the same undesirable nature; the earthquakes here seem to resemble the earthquakes of California in that they come reasonably mild and often. The place likewise awakens memories of the Golden State in another and more appreciative particular nowhere, save perhaps in California, does one find such delicious grapes, peaches, and pears as at ancient Taurus, a specialty for which it has been justly celebrated from time immemorial. On Saturday I take dinner with Mr. Oldfather, one of the missionaries, and in the evening we all pay a visit to Mr. Whipple and family, the consulate link-boy lighting the way before us with a huge cylindrical lantern of transparent oiled muslin called a farnooze. These lanterns are always carried after night before people of wealth or social consequence, varying in size according to the person's idea of their own social importance. The size of the farmooze is supposed to be an index of the social position of the person or family, so that one can judge something of what sort of people are coming down the street, even on the darkest night, whenever the attendant link-boy heaves in sight with the farnooze. Some of these social indicators are the size of a Portland cement barrel, even in Persia; it is rather a smile-provoking thought to think what tremendous farnoozes would be seen lighting up the streets on gloomy evenings, were this same custom prevalent among ourselves; few of us but what could call to memory people whose farnoozes would be little smaller than brewery mash-tubs, and which would have to be carried between six-foot link-boys on a pole. Ameer-i-Nazan, the Valiat or heir apparent to the throne, and at present nominal governor of Tabreez, has seen a tricycle in Teheran, one having been imported some time ago by an English gentleman in the Shah's service; but the fame of the bicycle excites his curiosity and he sends an officer around to the consulate to examine and report upon the difference between bicycle and tricycle, and also to discover and explain the modus operandi of maintaining one's balance on two wheels. The officer returns with the report that my machine won't even stand up, without somebody holding it, and that nobody but a Ferenghi who is in league with Sheitan, could possibly hope to ride it. Perhaps it is this alarming report, and the fear of exciting the prejudices of the mollahs and fanatics about him, by having anything to do with a person reported on trustworthy authority to be in league with His Satanic Majesty, that prevents the Prince from requesting me to ride before him in Tabreez; but I have the pleasure of meeting him at Hadji Agha on the evening of the first day out. Mr. Whippie kindly makes out an itinerary of the villages and chapar-khanas I shall pass on the journey to Teheran; the superintendent of the Tabreez station of the Indo-European Telegraph Company voluntarily telegraphs to the agents at Miana and Zendjan when to expect rne, and also to Teheran; Mrs. Abbott fills my coat pockets with roast chicken, and thus equipped and prepared, at nine o'clock on Monday morning I am ready for the home-stretch of the season, before going into winter quarters. The Turkish consul-general, a corpulent gentleman whose avoirdupois I mentally jot down at four hundred pounds, comes around with several others to see me take a farewell spin on the bricked pavements of the consulate garden. Like all persons of four hundred pounds weight, the Effendi is a good-natured, jocose individual, and causes no end of merriment by pretending to be anxious to take a spin on the bicycle himself, whereas it requires no inconsiderable exertion on his part to waddle from his own residence hard by into the consulate. Three soldiers are detailed from the consulate staff to escort me through the city; en route through the streets the pressure of the rabble forces one unlucky individual into one of the dangerous narrow holes that abound in the streets, up to his neck; the crowd yell with delight at seeing him tumble in, and nobody stops to render him any assistance or to ascertain whether he is seriously hurt. Soon a poor old ryot on a donkey, happens amid the confusion to cross immediately in front of the bicycle; whack! whack! whack! come the ready staves of the zealous and vigilant soldiers across the shoulders of the offender; the crowd howls with renewed delight at this, and several hilarious hobble-de-hoys endeavor to shove one of their companions in the place vacated by the belabored ryot, in the hope that he likewise will come in for the visitation of the soldiers' o'er- willing staves. The broad suburban road, where the people have been fondly expecting to see the bicycle light out in earnest for Teheran at a marvellous rate of speed, is found to be nothing less than a bed of loose sand and stones, churned up by the narrow hoofs of multitudinous donkeys. Quite a number of better class Persians accompany me some distance further on horseback; when taking their departure, a gentleman on a splendid Arab charger, shakes hands and says: "Good-by, my dear," which apparently is all the English he knows. He has evidently kept his eyes and ears open when happening about the English consulate, and the happy thought striking him at the moment, he repeats, parrot-like, this term of endearment, all unsuspicious of the ridiculousness of its application in the present case. For several miles the road winds tortuously over a range of low, stony hills, the surface being generally loose and unridable. The water-supply of Tabreez is conducted from these hills by an ancient system of kanaats or underground water-ditches; occasionally one comes to a sloping cavern leading down to the water; on descending to the depth of from twenty to forty feet, a small, rapidly-coursing stream of delicious cold water is found, well rewarding the thirsty traveller for his trouble; sometimes these cavernous openings are simply sloping, bricked archways, provided with steps. The course of these subterranean water-ways can always be traced their entire length by uniform mounds of earth, piled up at short intervals on the surface; each mound represents the excavations from a perpendicular shaft, at the bottom of which the crystal water can be seen coursing along toward the city; they are merely man-holes for the purpose of readily cleaning out the channel of the kanaat. The water is conducted underground, chiefly to avoid the waste by evaporation and absorption in surface ditches. These kanaats are very extensive affairs in many places; the long rows of surface mounds are visible, stretching for mile after mile across the plain as far as eye can penetrate, or until losing themselves among the foot-hills of some distant mountain chain; they were excavated in the palmy days of the Persian Empire to bring pure mountain streams to the city fountains and to irrigate the thirsty plain; it is in the interest of self-preservation that the Persians now keep them from falling into decay. At noon, while seated on a grassy knoll discussing the before-mentioned contents of my pockets, I am favored with a free exhibition of what a physical misunderstanding is like among the Persian ryots. Two companies of katir-jees happen to get into an altercation about something, and from words it gradually develops into blows; not blows of the fist, for they know nothing of fisticuffs, but they belabor each other vigorously with their long, thick donkey persuaders, sticks that are anything but small and willowy; it is an amusing spectacle, and seated on the commanding knoll nibbling "drum-sticks" and wish-bones, I can almost fancy myself a Roman of old, eating peanuts and watching a gladiatorial contest in the amphitheatre. The similitude, however, is not at all striking, for thick as are their quarter-staffs the Persian ryots don't punish each other very severely. Whenever one of them works himself up to a fighting-pitch, he commences belaboring one of the others on the back, apparently always striking so that the blow produces a maximum of noise with a minimum of punishment; the person thus attacked never ventures to strike back, but retreats under the blows until his assailant's rage becomes spent and he desists. Meanwhile the war of words goes merrily forward; perchance in a few minutes the person recently attacked suddenly becomes possessed of a certain amount of rage-inspired courage, and he in turn commences a vigorous assault upon somebody, probably his late assailant; this worthy, having become a little cooler, has mysteriously lost his late pugnacity, and now likewise retreats without once attempting to raise his own stick in self-defence. The lower and commercial class Persians are pretty quarrelsome among themselves, but they quarrel chiefly with their tongues; when they fight without sticks it is an ear-pulling, clothes-tugging, wrestling sort of a scuffle, which continues without greater injury than a torn garment until they become exhausted if pretty evenly matched, or until separated by bystanders; they never, never hurt each other unless they are intoxicated, when they sometimes use their short swords; there is no intoxication, except in private drinking-parties. CHAPTER XX. TABREEZ TO TEHERAN. The wheeling improves in the afternoon, and alongside my road runs a bit of civilization in the shape of the splendid iron poles of the Indo-European Telegraph Company. Half a dozen times this afternoon I become the imaginary enemy of a couple of cavalrymen travelling in the same direction as myself; they swoop down upon me from the rear at a charging gallop, valiantly whooping and brandishing their Martini-Henrys; when they arrive within a few yards of my rear wheel they swerve off on either side and rein their fiery chargers up, allowing me to forge ahead; they amuse themselves by repeating this interesting performance over and over again. Being usually a good rider, the dash and courage of the Persian cavalryman is something extraordinary in time of peace; no more brilliant and intrepid cavalry charge on a small scale could be well imagined than I have witnessed several times this afternoon. But upon the outbreak of serious hostilities the average warrior in the Shah's service suddenly becomes filled with a wild, pathetic yearning after the peaceful and honorable calling of a katir-jee, an uncontrollable desire to become a humble, contented tiller of the soil, or handy-man about a tchaikhan, anything, in fact, of a strictly peaceful character. Were I a hostile trooper with a red jacket, and a general warlike appearance, and the bicycle a machine gun, though our whooping, charging cavalrymen were twenty instead of two, they would only charge once, and that would be with their horses' crimson-dyed tails streaming in the breeze toward me. The Shah's soldiers are gentle, unwarlike creatures at heart; there are probably no soldiers in the whole world that would acquit themselves less creditably in a pitched battle; they are, nevertheless, not without certain soldierly qualities, well adapted to their country; the cavalrymen are very good riders, and although the infantry does not present a very encouraging appearance on the parade-ground, they would meander across five hundred miles of country on half rations of blotting-paper ekmek without any vigorous remonstrance, and wait uncomplainingly for their pay until the middle of next year. About five o'clock I arrive at Hadji Agha, a large village forty miles from Tabreez; here, as soon as it is ascertained that I intend remaining over night, I am actually beset by rival khan-jees, who commence jabbering and gesticulating about the merits of their respective establishments, like hotel-runners in the United States; of course they are several degrees less rude and boisterous, and more considerate of one's personal inclinations than their prototypes in America, but they furnish yet another proof that there is nothing new under the sun. Hadji Agha is a village of seyuds, or descendants of the Prophet, these and the mollahs being the most bigoted class in Persia; when I drop into the tchai-khan for a glass or two of tea, the sanctimonious old joker with henna-tinted beard and finger-nails, presiding over the samovar, rolls up his eyes in holy horror at the thoughts of waiting upon an unhallowed Ferenghi, and it requires considerable pressure from the younger and less fanatical men to overcome his disinclination; he probably breaks the glass I drank from after my departure. About dusk the Valiat and his courtiers arrive on horseback from Tabreez; the Prince immediately seeks my quarters at the khan, and, after examining the bicycle, wants me to take it out and ride; it is getting rather dark, however, so I put him off till morning; he remains and smokes cigarettes with me for half an hour, and then retires to the residence of the local Khan for the night. The Prince seems an amiable, easy-going sort of a person; while in my company his countenance is wreathed in a pleasant smile continually, and I fancy he habitually wears that same expression. His youthful courtiers seem frivolous young bloods, putting in most of the half-hour in showing me their accomplishments in the way of making floating rings of their cigarette smoke. Later in the evening I stroll around to the tchai-khan again; it is the gossiping-place of the village, and I find our sanctimonious seyuds indulging in uncomplimentary comments regarding the Yaliat's conduct in hobnobbing with the Ferenghi; how bigoted these Persians are, and yet how utterly destitute of principle and moral character. In the morning the Prince sends me an invitation to come and drink tea with them before starting out; he bears the same perennial smile as yesterday evening. Although he is generally understood to be completely under the influence of the fanatical and bigoted seyuds and mollahs, who are strictly opposed to the Ferenghi and the Fereughi's ideas of progress and civilization, he seems withal an amiable, well-disposed young man, whom one could scarce help liking personally, arid feeling sorry at the troubles in store for him ahead. He has an elder brother, the Zil-es-Sultan, now governor of the Southern Provinces; but not being the son of a royal princess, the Shah has nominated Ameer-i-Nazan as his successor to the throne. The Zil-es-Sultan, although of a somewhat cruel disposition, has proved himself a far more capable and energetic person than the Valiat, and makes no secret of the fact that he intends disputing the succession with his brother, by force of arms if necessary, at the Shah's demise. He has, so at least it is currently reported, had his sword-blade engraved with the grim inscription, "This is for the Valiat's head," and has jocularly notified his inoffensive brother of the fact. The Zil-es-Sultau belongs to the party of progress; recks little of the opinions of priests and fanatics, is fond of Englishmen and European improvements, and keeps a kennel of English bull dogs. Should he become Shah of Persia, Baron Reuter's grand scheme of railways and commercial regeneration, which was foiled by the fanaticism of the seyuds and mollahs soon after the Shah's visit to England, may yet come to something, and the railroad rails now rusting in the swamps of the Caspian littoral may, after all, form part of a railway between the seaboard and the capital. The road for a short distance east of Hadji Agha is splendid wheeling, and the Prince and his courtiers accompany me for some two miles, finding much amusement in racing with me whenever the road permits of spurting. The country now develops into undulating upland, uncultivated and stone-strewn, except where an occasional stream, affording irrigating facilities, has rendered possible the permanent maintenance of a mud village and a circumscribed area of wheat-fields, melon-gardens, and vineyards. No sooner does one find himself launched upon the comparatively well-travelled post-route than a difference becomes manifest in the character of the people. Commercially speaking, the Persian is considerably more of a Jew than the Jew himself, and along a route frequented by travellers, the person possessing some little knowledge of the thievish ways of the country and of current prices, besides having plenty of small change, finds these advantages a matter for congratulation almost every hour of the day. The proprietor of a wretched little mud hovel, solemnly presiding over a few thin sheets of bread, a jar of rancid, hirsute butter, and a dozen half-ripe melons, affects a glum, sorrowful expression to think that he should happen to be without small change, and consequently obliged to accept the Hamsherri's fifty kopec piece for provisions of one-tenth the value; but the mysterious frequency of this same state of affairs and accompanying sorrowful expression, taken in connection with the actual plenitude of small change in Persia, awakens suspicions even in the mind of the most confiding and uninitiated person. A peculiar system of commercial mendicancy obtains among the proprietors of melon and cucumber gardens alongside the road of this particular part of the country; observing a likely-looking traveller approaching, they come running to him with a melon or cucumber that they know to be utterly worthless, and beg the traveller to accept it as a present; delighted, perhaps with their apparent simple-hearted hospitality, and, moreover, sufficiently thirsty to appreciate the gift of a melon, the unsuspecting wayfarer tenders the crafty proprietor of the garden a suitable present of money in return and accepts the proffered gift; upon cutting it open he finds the melon unfit for anything, and it gradually dawns upon him that he has just grown a trifle wiser concerning the inbred cunningness and utter dishonesty of the Persians than he was before. Ere the day is ended the same game will probably be attempted a dozen times. In addition to these artful customers, one occasionally comes across small colonies of lepers, who, being compelled to isolate themselves from their fellows, have taken up their abode in rude hovels or caves by the road-side, and sally forth in all their hideousness to beset the traveller with piteous cries for assistance. Some of these poor lepers are loathsome in appearance to the last degree; their scanty coverings of rags and tatters conceals nothing of the ravages of their dread disease; some sit at the entrance to their hovels, stretching out their hands and piteously appealing for alms; others drop down exhausted in the road while endeavoring to run and overtake the passer-by; there is nothing deceptive about these wretched outcasts, their condition is only too glaringly apparent. Toward sundown I arrive at Turcomanchai, a large village, where in 1828, was drawn up the Treaty of Peace between Persia and Russia, which transferred the remaining Persian territory of the Caucasus into the capacious maw of the Northern Bear. It is currently reported that after depriving the Persians of their rights to the navigation of the Caspian Sea the Czar coolly gave his amiable friend the Shah a practical lesson concerning the irony of fortune by presenting him with a yacht. Seeking the guidance of a native to the caravanserai, this quick-witted individual leads the way through tortuous alleyways to the other end of the village and pilots me to the camp of a tea caravan, pitched on the outskirts, thinking I had requested to be guided to a caravan; the caravan men direct me to the chapar-khana, where accommodations of the usual rude nature are provided. Sending into the village for eggs, sugar, and tea, the chapar- khana keeper and stablemen produce a battered samovar, and after frying my supper, they prepare tea; they are poor, ragged fellows, but they seem light-hearted and contented; the siren song of the steaming samovar seems to a waken in their semi-civilized breasts a sympathetic response, and they fall to singing and making merry over tiny glasses of sweetened tea quite as naturally as sailors in a seaport groggery, or Germans over a keg of lager. Jolly, happy-go-lucky fellows though they outwardly appear, they prove no exception, however, to the general run of their countrymen in the matter of petty dishonesty; although I gave them money enough to purchase twice the quantity of provisions they brought back, besides promising them the customary small present before leaving, in the morning they make a further attempt on my purse under pretence of purchasing more butter to cook the remainder of the eggs. These are trifling matters to discuss, but they serve to show the wide difference between the character of the peasant classes in Persia and Turkey. The chapar-khana usually consists of a walled enclosure containing stabling for a large number of horses and quarters for the stablemen and station- keeper. The quickest mode of travelling in Persia is by chapar, or, in other words, on horseback, obtaining fresh horses at each chapar-khana. The country east of Turcomanchai consists of rough, uninteresting upland, with nothing to vary the monotony of the journey, until noon, when after wheeling five farsakhs I reach the town of Miana, celebrated throughout the Shah's dominions for a certain poisonous bug which inhabits the mud walls of the houses, and is reputed to bite the inhabitants while they are sleeping. The bite is said to produce violent and prolonged fever, and to be even, dangerous to life. It is customary to warn travellers against remaining over night at Miana, and, of course, I have not by any means been forgotten. Like most of these alleged dreadful things, it is found upon close investigation to be a big bogey with just sufficient truthfulness about it to play upon the imaginative minds of the people. The "Miana bug-bear" would, I think, be a more appropriate name than Miana bug. The people here seem inclined to be rather rowdyish in their reception of a Ferenghi without an escort. While trundling through the bazaar toward the telegraph station I become the unhappy target for covertly thrown melon-rinds and other unwelcome missiles, for which there appears no remedy except the friendly shelter of the station. This is just outside the town, and before the gate is reached, stones are exchanged for melon-rinds, but fortunately without any serious damage being done. Mr. F--, a young German operator, has charge of the control-station here, and welcomes me most cordially to share his comfortable quarters, urging me to remain with him several days. I gladly accept his hospitality till tomorrow morning. Mr. F-- has a brother who has recently become a Mussulman, and married a couple of Persian wives; he is also residing temporarily at Miana. He soon comes around to the telegraph station, and turns out to be a wild harum-skarum sort of a person, who regards his transformation into a Mussulman and the setting up of a harem of his own as anything but a serious affair. As a reward for embracing the Mohammedan religion and becoming a Persian subject the Shah has given him a sum of money and a position in the Tabreez mint, besides bestowing upon him the sounding title of Mirza Ab-dul Karim Khan. It seems that inducements of a like substantial nature are held out to any Ferenghi of known respectability who formally embraces the Shiite branch of the Mohammedan religion, and becomes a Persian subject - a rare chance for chronic ne'er-do-wells among ourselves, one would think. This novel and festive convert to Islam readily gives me a mental peep behind the scenes of Persian domestic life, and would unhesitatingly have granted me a peep in person had such a thing been possible. Imagine the ordinary costume of an opera-bouffe artist, shorn of all regard for the difference between real indecency and the suggestiveness of indelicacy permissible behind the footlights, and we have the every-day costume of the Persian harem. In the dreamy eventide the lord of the harem usually betakes himself to that characteristic institution of the East and proceeds to drive dull care away by smoking the kalian and watching an exhibition of the terpsichorean talent of his wives or slaves. This does not consist of dancing, such as we are accustomed to understand the art, but of graceful posturing and bodily contortions, spinning round like a coryphee, with hand aloft, and snapping their fingers or clashing tiny brass cymbals; standing with feet motionless and wriggling the joints, or bending backward until their loose, flowing tresses touch the ground. Persians able to afford the luxury have their womens' apartment walled with mirrors, placed at appropriate angles, so that when enjoying these exhibitions of his wives' abilities he finds himself not merely in the presence of three or six wives, as the case may be, but surrounded on all sides by scores of airy-fairy nymphs, and amid the dreamy fumes and soothing bubble-bubbling of his kalian can imagine himself the happy - or one would naturally think, unhappy - possessor of a hundred. The effect of this mirror-work arrangement can be better imagined than described. "You haven't got one of those mirrored rooms, have you?" I inquire, beginning to get a trifle inquisitive, and perhaps rather impertinent. "You couldn't manage to smuggle a fellow inside, disguised as a seyud or--" "Nicht," replies Mirza Abdul Kaiim Khan, laughing, "I have not bothered about a mirror chamber yet, because I only remain here for another month; but if you happen to come to Tabreez any time after I get settled down there, look me up, and I'll-hello! here comes Prince Assabdulla to see your velocipede!" Fatteh - Ali Shah, the grandfather of the present monarch, had some seventy-two sons, besides no lack of daughters. As the son of a prince inherits his father's title in Persia, the numerous descendants of Fatteh-Ali Shah are scattered all over the empire, and royal princes bob serenely up in every town of any consequence in the country. They are frequently found occupying some snug, but not always lucrative, post under the Government. Prince Assabdulla has learned telegraphy, and has charge of the government control-station here, drawing a salary considerably less than the agent of the English company's line. The Persian Government telegraph line consists of one wire strung on tumble-down wooden poles. It is erected alongside the splendid English line of triple wires and substantial iron poles, and the control-stations are built adjacent to the English stations, as though the Persians were rather timid about their own abilities as telegraphists, and preferred to nestle, as it were, under the protecting shadow of the English line. Prince Assabdulla has an elder brother who is Governor of Miana, and who comes around to see the bicycle during the afternoon; they both seem pleasant and agreeable fellows. "When the heat of the day has given place to cooler eventide, and the moon comes peeping over the lofty Koflan Koo Mountains, near-by to the eastward, we proceed to a large fruit-garden on the outskirts of the town, and, sitting on the roof of a building, indulge in luscious purple grapes as large as walnuts, and pears that melt away in the mouth. Mirza Abdul Karim Khan plays a German accordeon, and Prince Assabdulla sings a Persian love-song; the leafy branches of poplar groves are whispering in response to a gentle breeze, and playing hide-and-seek across the golden face of the moon, and the mountains have assumed a shadowy, indistinct appearance. It is a scene of transcendental loveliness, characteristic of a Persian moonlight night. Afterward we repair to Mirza Abdul Kiirim Khan's house to smoke the kalian and drink tea. His favorite wife, whom he has taught to respond to the purely Frangistan name of " Eosie," replenishes and lights the kalian-giving it a few preliminary puffs herself by way of getting it under headway before handing it to her husband-and then serves us with glasses of sweetened tea from the samovar. In deference to her Ferenghi brother-in-law and myself, Eosie has donned a gauzy shroud over the above-mentioned in-door costume of the Persian female. "She is a beautiful dancer," says her husband, admiringly, "I wish it were possible for you to see her dance this evening; bat it isn't; Eosie herself wouldn't mind, but it would be pretty certain to leak out, and Miana being a rather fanatical place, my life wouldn't be worth that much," and the Khan carelessly snapped his fingers. Supper is brought up to the telegraph station. Prince Assabdulla is invited, and comes round with his servant bearing a number of cucumbers and a bottle of arrack; the Prince, being a genuine Mohammedan, is forbidden by his religion to indulge; consequently he consumes the fiery arrack in preference to some light and harmless native wine; such is the perversity of human nature. Two princes and a khan are cantering (not khan-tering) alongside the bicycle as I pull out eastward from Miana. They accompany me to the foot- hills approaching the Koflan Koo Pass, and wishing me a pleasant journey, turn their horses' heads homeward again. Reaching the pass proper, I find it to be an exceedingly steep trundle, but quite easy climbing compared with a score of mountain passes in Asia Minor, for the surface is reasonably smooth, and toward the summit is an ancient stone causeway. A new and delightful experience awaits me upon the summit of the pass; the view to the westward is a revelation of mountain scenery altogether new and novel in my experience, which can now scarcely be called unvaried. I seem to be elevated entirely above the surface of the earth, and gazing down through transparent, ethereal depths upon a scene of everchanging beauty. Fleecy cloudlets are floating lazily over the valley far below my position, producing on the landscape a panoramic scene of constantly changing shadows; through the ethery depths, so wonderfully transparent, the billowy gray foothills, the meandering streams fringed with green, and Miana with its blue-domed mosques and emerald gardens, present a phantasmagorical appearance, as though they themselves were floating about in the lower strata of space, and undergoing constant transformation. Perched on an apparently inaccessible crag to the north is an ancient robber stronghold commanding the pass; it is a natural fortress, requiring but a few finishing touches by man to render it impregnable in the days when the maintenance of robber strongholds were possible. Owing to its walls and battlements being chiefly erected by nature, the Persian peasantry call it the Perii-Kasr, believing it to have been built by fairies. While descending the eastern slope, I surprise a gray lizard almost as large as a rabbit, basking in the sunbeams; he briskly scuttles off into the rocks upon being disturbed. Crossing the Sefid Rud on a dilapidated brickwork bridge, I cross another range of low hills, among which I notice an abundance of mica cropping above the surface, and then descend on to a broad, level plain, extending eastward without any lofty elevation as far as eye can reach. On this shelterless plain I am overtaken by a furious equinoctial gale; it comes howling suddenly from the west, obscuring the recently vacated Koflan Koo Mountains behind an inky veil, filling the air with clouds of dust, and for some minutes rendering it necessary to lie down and fairly hang on to the ground to prevent being blown about. First it begins to rain, then to hail; heaven's artillery echoes and reverberates in the Koflan Koo Mountains, and rolls above the plain, seeming to shake the hailstones down like fruit from the branches of the clouds, and soon I am enveloped in a pelting, pitiless downpour of hailstones, plenty large enough to make themselves felt wherever they strike. To pitch my tent would have been impossible, owing to the wind and the suddenness of its appearance. In thirty minutes or less it is all over; the sun shines out warmly and dissipates the clouds, and converts the ground into an evaporator that envelops everything in steam. In an hour after it quits raining, the road is dry again, and across the plain it is for the most part excellent wheeling. About four o'clock the considerable village of Sercham is reached; here, as at Hadji Aghi, I at once become the bone of contention between rival khan-jees wanting to secure me for a guest, on the supposition that I am going to remain over night. Their anxiety is all unnecessary, however, for away off on the eastern horizon can be observed clusters of familiar black dots that awaken agreeable reflections of the night spent in the Koordish camp between Ovahjik and Khoi. I remain in Sercham long enough to eat a watermelon, ride, against my will, over rough ground to appease the crowd, and then pull out toward the Koordish camps which are evidently situated near my proper course. It seeins to have rained heavily in the mountains and not rained at all east of Sercham, for during the next hour I am compelled to disrobe, and ford several freshets coursing down ravines over beds that before the storm were inches deep in dust, the approaching slopes being still dusty; this little diversion causes me to thank fortune that I have been enabled to keep in advance of the regular rainy season, which commences a little later. Striking a Koordish camp adjacent to the trail I trundle toward one of the tents; before reaching it I am overhauled by a shepherd who hands me a handful of dried peaches from a wallet suspended from his waist. The evening air is cool with a suggestion of frostiness, and the occupants of the tent are found crouching around a smoking tezek fire; they are ragged and of rather unprepossessing appearance, but being instinctively hospitable, they shuffle around to make me welcome at the fire; at first I almost fancy myself mistaken in thinking them Koords, for there is nothing of the neatness and cleanliness of our late acquaintances about them; on the contrary, they are almost as repulsive as their sedentary relatives of Dele Baba-but a little questioning removes all doubt of their being Koords. They are simply an ill-conditioned tribe, without any idea whatever of thrift or good management. They have evidently been to Tabreez or somewhere lately, and invested most of the proceeds of the season's shearing in three-year-old dried peaches that are hard enough to rattle like pebbles; sacksful of these edibles are scattered all over the tent serving for seats, pillows, and general utility articles for the youngsters to roll about on, jump over, and throw around; everybody in the camp seems to be chewing these peaches and throwing them about in sheer wantonness because they are plentiful; every sack contains finger-holes from which one and all help themselves ad libitum in wanton disregard of the future. Nearly everybody seems to be suffering from ophthalmia, which is aggravated by crouching over the densely smoking tezek; and one miserable-looking old character is groaning and writhing with the pain of a severe stomach- ache. By loafing lazily about the tent all day, and chewing these flinty dried peaches, this hopeful old joker has well-nigh brought himself to the unhappy condition of the Yosemite valley mule, who broke into the tent and consumed half a bushel of dried peaches; when the hunters returned to camp and were wondering what marauder had visited their tent and stolen the peaches, they heard a loud explosion behind the tent; hastily going out they discover the remnants of the luckless mule scattered about in all directions. Of course I am appealed to for a remedy, and I am not sorry to have at last come across an applicant for my services as a hakim, for whose ailment I can prescribe with some degree of confidence; to make assurance doubly sure I give the sufferer a double dose, and in the morning have the satisfaction of finding him entirely relieved from his misery. There seems to be no order or sense of good manners whatever among these people; we have bread and half-stewed peaches for supper, and while they are cooking, ill-mannered youngsters are constantly fishing them from the kettles with weed-stalks, meeting with no sort of reproof from their elders for so doing; when bedtime arrives, everybody seizes quilts, peach-sacks, etc., and crawls wherever they can for warmth and comfort; three men, two women, and several children occupy the same compartment as myself, and gaunt dogs are nosing hungrily about among us. About midnight there is a general hallooballoo among the dogs, and the clatter of horses' hoofs is heard outside the tent; the occupants of the tent, including myself, spring up, wondering what the disturbance is all about. A group of horsemen are visible in the bright moonlight outside, and one of them has dismounted, and under the guidance of a shepherd, is about entering the tent; seeing me spring up, and being afraid lest perchance I might misinterpret their intentions and act accordingly, he sings out in a soothing voice, "Kardash, Hamsherri; Kardash, Kardash." thus assuring me of their peaceful intentions. These midnight visitors turn out to be a party of Persian travellers from Miana, from which it would appear they have less fear of the Koords here than in Koordistan near the frontier; having, somehow, found out my whereabouts, they have come to try and persuade me to leave the camp and join their company to Zenjan. Although my own unfavorable impressions of my entertainers are seconded by the visitors' reiterated assurances that these Koords are bad people, I decline to accompany them, knowing the folly of attempting to bicycle over these roads by moonlight in the company of horsemen who would be continually worrying me to ride, no matter what the condition of the road; after remaining in camp half an hour they take their departure. In the morning I discover that my mussulman hat-band has mysteriously disappeared, and when preparing to depart, a miscellaneous collection of females gather about me, seize the bicycle, and with much boisterous hilarity refuse to let me depart until I have given each one of them some money; their behavior is on the whole so outrageous, that I appeal to my patient of yesterday evening, in whose bosom I fancy I may perchance have kindled a spark of gratitude; but the old reprobate no longer has the stomach-ache, and he regards my unavailing efforts to break away from my hoi-denish tormentors with supreme indifference, as though there were nothing extraordinary in their conduct. The demeanor of these wild- eyed Koordish females on this occasion fully convinces me that the stories concerning their barbarous conduct toward travellers captured on the road is not an exaggeration, for while preventing my departure they seem to take a rude, boisterous delight in worrying me on all sides, like a gang of puppies barking and harassing anything they fancy powerless to do them harm. After I have finally bribed my freedom from the women, the men seize me and attempt to further detain me until they can send for their Sheikh to come from another camp miles away, to see me ride. After waiting a reasonable time, out of respect for their having accommodated me with quarters for the night, and no signs of the Sheikh appearing, I determine to submit to their impudence no longer; they gather around me as before, but presenting my revolver and assuming an angry expression, I threaten instant destruction to the next one laying hands on either myself or the bicycle; they then give way with lowering brows and sullen growls of displeasure. My rough treatment on this occasion compared with my former visit to a Koordish camp, proves that there is as much difference between the several tribes of nomad Koords, as between their sedentary relatives of Dele Baba and Malosman respectively; for their general reputation, it were better that I had spent the night in Sercham. A few miles from the camp, I am overtaken by four horsemen followed by several dogs and a pig; it proves to be the tardy Sheikh and his retainers, who have galloped several miles to catch me up; the Sheikh is a pleasant, intelligent fellow of thirty or thereabouts, and astonishes me by addressing me as "Monsieur;" they canter alongside for a mile or so, highly delighted, when the Sheikh cheerily sings out "Adieu, monsieur!" and they wheel about and return; had their Sheikh been in the camp I stayed at, my treatment would undoubtedly have been different. I am at the time rather puzzled to account for so strange a sight as a pig galloping briskly behind the horses, taking no notice of the dogs which continually gambol about him; but I afterward discover that a pet pig, trained to follow horses, is not an unusual thing among the Persians and Persian Koords; they are thin, wiry animals of a sandy color, and quite capable of following a horse for hours; they live in the stable with their equine companions, finding congenial occupation in rooting around for stray grains of barley; the horses and pig are said to become very much attached to each other; when on the road the pig is wont to signify its disapproval of a too rapid pace, by appealing squeaks and grunts, whereupon the horse responsively slacks its speed to a more accommodating speed for its porcine companion. The road now winds tortuously along the base of some low gravel hills, and the wheeling perceptibly improves; beyond Nikbey it strikes across the hilly country, and more trundling becomes necessary. At Nikbey I manage to leave the inhabitants in a profound puzzle by replying that I am not a Ferenghi, but an Englishman; this seems to mystify them not a little, and they commence inquiring among themselves for an explanation of the difference; they are probably inquiring yet. Fifty-eight miles are covered from the Koordish camp, and at three o'clock the blue-tiled domes of the Zendjan mosques appear in sight; these blue-tiled domes are more characteristic of Persian mosques, which are usually built of bricks, and have no lofty tapering minarets as in Turkey; the summons to prayers are called from the top of a wall or roof. When approaching the city gate, a half-crazy man becomes wildly excited at the spectacle of a man on a wheel, and, rushing up, seizes hold of the handle; as I spring from the saddle he rapidly takes to his heels; finding that I am not pursuing him, he plucks up courage, and timidly approaching, begs me to let him see me ride again. Zendjan is celebrated for the manufacture of copper vessels, and the rat-a-tat-tat of the workmen beating them out in the coppersmiths' quarters is heard fully a mile outside the gate; the hammering is sometimes deafening while trundling through these quarters, and my progress through it is indicated by what might perhaps be termed a sympathetic wave of silence following me along, the din ceasing at my approach and commencing again with renewed vigor after I have passed. Mr. F--, a Levantine gentleman in charge of the station here, fairly outdoes himself in the practical interpretation of genuine old-fashioned hospitality, which brooks no sort of interference with the comfort of his guest; understanding the perpetual worry a person travelling in so extraordinary a manner must be subject to among an excessively inquisitive people like the Persians, he kindly takes upon himself the duty of protecting me from anything of the kind during the day I remain over as his guest, and so manages to secure me much appreciated rest and quiet. The Governor of the city sends an officer around saying that himself and several prominent dignitaries would like very much to see the bicycle. "Very good, replies Mr. F--, "the bicycle is here, and Mr. Stevens will doubtless be pleased to receive His Excellency and the leading officials of Zendjan any time it suits their convenience to call, and will probably have no objections to showing them the bicycle." It is, perhaps, needless to explain that the Governor doesn't turn up; I, however, have an interesting visitor in the person of the Sheikh-ul-Islam (head of religious affairs in Zendjan), a venerable-looking old party in flowing gown and monster turban, whose hands and flowing beard are dyed to a ruddy yellow with henna. The Sheikh-ul-Islam is considered the holiest personage in Zendjan and his appearance and demeanor does not in the least belie his reputation; whatever may be his private opinion of himself, he makes far less display of sanctimoniousness than many of the common seyuds, who usually gather their garments about them whenever they pass a Ferenghi in the bazaar, for fear their clothing should become defiled by brushing against him. The Sheikh-ul-Islam fulfils one's idea of a gentle-bred, worthy-minded old patriarch; he examines the bicycle and listens to the account of my journey with much curiosity and interest, and bestows a flattering mead of praise on the wonderful ingenuity of the Ferenghis as exemplified in my wheel. >From Zeudjan eastward the road gradually improves, and after a dozen miles develops into the finest wheeling yet encountered in Asia; the country is a gravelly plain between a mountain chain on the left and a range of lesser hills to the right. Near noon I pass through Sultaneah, formerly a favorite country resort of the Persian monarchs; on the broad, grassy plain, during the autumn, the Shah was wont to find amusement in manoeuvring his cavalry regiments, and for several months an encampment near Sultaneah became the head-quarters of that arm of the service. The Shah's palace and the blue dome of a large mosque, now rapidly crumbling to decay, are visible many miles before reaching the village. The presence of the Shah and his court doesn't seem to have exerted much of a refining or civilizing influence on the common villagers; otherwise they have retrograded sadly toward barbarism again since Sultaneah has ceased to be a favorite resort. They appear to regard the spectacle of a lone Ferenghi meandering through their wretched village on a wheel, as an opportunity of doing something aggressive for the cause of Islam not to be overlooked; I am followed by a hooting mob of bare-legged wretches, who forthwith proceed to make things lively and interesting, by pelting me with stones and clods of dirt. One of these wantonly aimed missiles catches me square between the shoulders, with a force that, had it struck me fairly on the back of the neck, would in all probability have knocked me clean out of the saddle; unfortunately, several irrigating ditches crossing the road immediately ahead prevent escape by a spurt, and nothing remains but to dismount and proceed to make the best of it. There are only about fifty of them actively interested, and part of these being mere boys, they are anything but a formidable crowd of belligerents if one could only get in among them with a stuffed club; they seem but little more than human vermin in their rags and nakedness, and like vermin, the greatest difficulty is to get hold of them. Seeing me dismount, they immediately take to their heels, only to turn and commence throwing stones again at finding themselves unpursued; while I am retreating and actively dodging the showers of missiles, they gradually venture closer and closer, until things becoming too warm and dangerous, I drop the bicycle, and make a feint toward them; they then take to their heels, to return to the attack again as before, when I again commence retreating. Finally I try the experiment of a shot in the air, by way of notifying them of my ability to do them serious injury; this has the effect of keeping them at a more respectful distance, but they seem to understand that I am not intending serious shooting, and the more expert throwers manage to annoy me considerably until ridable ground is reached; seeing me mount, they all come racing pell-mell after me, hurling stones, and howling insulting epithets after me as a Ferenghi, but with smooth road ahead I am, of course, quickly beyond their reach. The villages east of Sultaneah are observed to be, almost without exception, surrounded by a high mud wall, a characteristic giving them the appearance of fortifications rather than mere agricultural villages; the original object of this was, doubtless, to secure themselves against surprises from wandering tribes; and as the Persians seldom think of changing anything, the custom is still maintained. Bushes are now occasionally observed near the roadside, from every twig of which a strip of rag is fluttering in the breeze; it is an ancient custom still kept up among the Persian peasantry when approaching any place they regard with reverence, as the ruined mosque and imperial palace at Sultaneah, to tear a strip of rag from their clothing and fasten it to some roadside bush; this is supposed to bring them good luck in their undertakings, and the bushes are literally covered with the variegated offerings of the superstitious ryots; where no bushes are handy, heaps of small stones are indicative of the same belief; every time he approaches the well-known heap, the peasant picks up a pebble, and adds it to the pile. Owing to a late start and a prevailing head-wind, but forty-six miles are covered to-day, when about sundown I seek the accommodation of the chapar-khana, at Heeya; but, providing the road continues good, I promise myself to polish off the sixty miles between here and Kasveen, to-morrow. The chaparkhana sleeping apartments at Heeya contain whitewashed walls and reed matting, and presents an appearance of neatness and cleanliness altogether foreign to these institutions previously patronized; here, also, first occurs the innovation from "Hamsherri" to "Sahib," when addressing me in a respectful manner; it will be Sahib, from this point clear to, through and beyond India; my various titles through the different countries thus far traversed have been; Monsieur, Herr, Effendi, Hamsherri, and now Sahib; one naturally wonders what new surprises are in store ahead. A bountiful supper of scrambled eggs (toke-mi-morgue) is obtained here, and the customary shake-down on the floor. After getting rid of the crowd I seek my rude couch, and am soon in the land of unconsciousness; an hour afterward I am awakened by the busy hum of conversation; and, behold, in the dim light of a primitive lamp, I become conscious of several pairs of eyes immediately above me, peering with scrutinizing inquisitiveness into my face; others are examining the bicycle standing against the wall at my head. Rising up, I find the chapar-lchana crowded with caravan teamsters, who, going past with a large camel caravan from the Caspian seaport of Eesht, have heard of the bicycle, and come flocking to my room; I can hear the unmelodious clanging of the big sheet-iron bells as their long string of camels file slowly past the building. Daylight finds me again on the road, determined to make the best of early morning, ere the stiff easterly wind, which seems inclined to prevail of late, commences blowing great guns against me. A short distance out, I meet a string of some three hundred laden camels that have not yet halted after the night's march; scores of large camel caravans have been encountered since leaving Erzeroum, but they have invariably been halting for the day; these camels regard the bicycle with a timid reserve, merely swerving a step or two off their course as I wheel past; they all seem about equally startled, so that my progress down the ranks simply causes a sort of a gentle ripple along the line, as though each successive camel were playing a game of follow-my leader. The road this morning is nearly perfect for wheeling, consisting of well-trodden camel-paths over a hard gravelled surface that of itself naturally makes excellent surface for cycling; there is no wind, and twenty-five miles are duly registered by the cyclometer when I halt to eat the breakfast of bread and a portion of yesterday evening's scrambled eggs which I have brought along. On past Seyudoon and approaching Kasveen, the plain widens to a considerable extent and becomes perfectly level; apparent distances become deceptive, and objects at a distance assume weird, fantastic shapes; beautiful mirages hold out their allurements from all directions; the sombre walls of villages present the appearance of battlemented fortresses rising up from the mirror-like surface of silvery lakes, and orchards and groves seem shadowy, undefinable objects floating motionless above the earth. The telegraph poles traversing the plain in a long, straight line until lost to view in the hazy distance, appear to be suspended in mid-air; camels, horses, and all moving objects more than a mile away, present the strange optical illusion of animals walking through the air many feet above the surface of the earth. Long rows of kanaat mounds traverse the plain in every direction, leading from the numerous villages to distant mountain chains. Descending one of the sloping cavernous entrances before mentioned, for a drink, I am rather surprised at observing numerous fishes disporting themselves in the water, which, on the comparatively level plain, flows but slowly; perhaps they are an eyeless variety similar to those found in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky; still they get a glimmering light from the numerous perpendicular shafts. Flocks of wild pigeons also frequent these underground water-courses, and the peasantry sometimes capture them by the hundred with nets placed over the shafts; the kanaats are not bricked archways, but merely tunnels burrowed through the ground. Three miles of loose sand and stones have to be trundled through before reaching Kasveen; nevertheless my promised sixty miles are overcome, and I enter the city gate at 2 P.M. A trundle through several narrow, crooked streets brings me to an inner gateway emerging upon a broad, smooth avenue; a short ride down this brings me to a large enclosure containing the custom-house offices and a fine brick caravanserai. Yet another prince appears here in the person of a custom-house official; I readily grant the requested privilege of seeing me ride, but the title of a Persian prince is no longer associated in my mind with greatness and importance; princes in Persia are as plentiful as counts in Italy or barons in Germany, yet it rather shocks one's dreams of the splendor of Oriental royalty to find princes manipulating the keys of a one wire telegraph control-station at a salary of about forty dollars a month (25 tomans), or attending to the prosy duties of a small custom-house. Kasveen is important as being the half-way station between Teheran and the Caspian port of Eesht, and on the highway of travel and commerce between Northern Persia and Europe; added importance is likewise derived from its being the terminus of a broad level road from the capital, and where travellers and the mail from Teheran have to be transferred from wheeled vehicles to the backs of horses for the passage over the rugged passes of the Elburz mountains leading to the Caspian slope, or vice versa when going the other way. Locking the bicycle up in a room of the caravanserai, I take a strolling peep at the nearest streets; a couple of lutis or professional buffoons, seeing me strolling leisurely about, come hurrying up; one is leading a baboon by a string around the neck, and the other is carrying a gourd drum. Reaching me, the man with the baboon commences making the most ludicrous grimaces and causes the baboon to caper wildly about by jerking the string, while the drummer proceeds to belabor the head of his drum, apparently with the single object of extracting as much noise from it as possible. Putting my fingers to my ears I turn away; ten minutes afterward I observe another similar combination making a bee-line for my person; waving them off I continue on down the street; soon afterward yet a third party attempts to secure me for an audience. It is the custom for these strolling buffoons to thus present themselves before persons on the street, and to visit houses whenever there is occasion for rejoicing, as at a wedding, or the birth of a son; the lutis are to the Persians what Italian organ-grinders are among ourselves; I fancy people give them money chiefly to get rid of their noise and annoyance, as we do to save ourselves from the soul-harrowing tones of a wheezy crank organ beneath the window. Among the novel conveyances observed in the courtyard of the caravanserai is the takhtrowan, a large sedan chair provided with shafts at either end, and carried between two mules or horses; another is the before-mentioned kajaveh, an arrangement not unlike a pair of canvas-covered dog kennels strapped across the back of an animal; these latter contrivances are chiefly used for carrying women and children. After riding around the courtyard several different times for crowds continually coming, I finally conclude that there must be a limit to this sort of thing anyhow, and refuse to ride again; the new-comers linger around, however, until evening, in the hopes that an opportunity of seeing me ride may present itself. A number of them then contribute a handful of coppers, which they give to the proprietor of a tributary tchai-khan to offer me as an inducement to ride again. The wily Persians know full well that while a Ferenghi would scorn to accept their handful of coppers, he would probably be sufficiently amused at the circumstance to reward their persistence by riding for nothing; telling the grinning khan-jee to pocket the coppers, I favor them with "positively the last entertainment this evening." An hour later the khan- jee meets me going toward the bazaar in search of something for supper; inquiring the object of my search, he takes me back to his tchai-khan, points significantly to an iron kettle simmering on a small charcoal fire, and bids me be seated; after waiting on a customer or two, and supplying me with tea, he quietly beckons me to the fire, removes the cover and reveals a savory dish of stewed chicken and onions: this he generously shares with me a few minutes later, refusing to accept any payment. As there are exceptions to every rule, so it seems there are individuals, even among the Persian commercial classes, capable of generous and worthy impulses; true the khan-jee obtained more than the value of the supper in the handful of coppers - but gratitude is generally understood to be an unknown commodity among the subjects of the Shah. Soon the obstreperous cries of "All Akbar, la-al-lah-il-allah" from the throats of numbers of the faithful perched upon the caravanserai steps, stable-roof, and other conspicuous soul-inspiring places, announces the approach of bedtime. My room is actually found to contain a towel and an old tooth-brush; the towel has evidently not been laundried for some time and a public toothbrush is hardly a joy-inspiring object to contemplate; nevertheless they are evidences that the proprietor of the caravanserai is possessed of vague, shadowy ideas of a Ferenghi's requirements. After a person has dried his face with the slanting sunbeams of early morning, or with his pocket-handkerchief for weeks, the bare possibility of soap, towels, etc., awakens agreeable reflections of coming comforts. At seven o'clock on the following morning I pull out toward Teheran, now but six chopar-stations distant. Running parallel with the road is the Elburz range of mountains, a lofty chain, separating the elevated plateau of Central Persia from the moist and wooded slopes of the Caspian Sea; south of this great dividing ridge the country is an arid and barren waste, a desert, in fact, save where irrigation redeems here and there a circumscribed area, and the mountain slopes are gray and rocky. Crossing over to the northern side of the divide, one immediately finds himself in a moist climate, and a country green almost as the British Isles, with dense boxwood forests covering the slopes of the mountains and hiding the foot-hills beneath an impenetrable mantle of green. The Elburz Mountains are a portion of the great water-shed of Central Asia, extending from the Himalayas up through Afghanistan and Persia into the Caucasus, and they perform very much the same office for the Caspian slope of Persia, as the Sierra Nevadas do for the Pacific slope of California, inasmuch as they cause the moisture-laden clouds rolling in from the sea to empty their burthens on the seaward, slopes instead of penetrating farther into the interior. The road continues fair wheeling, but nothing compared with the road between Zendjan and Kasveen; it is more of an artificial highway; the Persian government has been tinkering with it, improving it considerably in some respects, but leaving it somewhat lumpy and unfinished generally, and in places it is unridable from sand and loose material on the surface; it has the appreciable merit of levelness, however, and, for Persia, is a very creditable highway indeed. At four farsakhs from Kasveen I reach the chapar-khana of Cawanda, where a breakfast is obtained of eggs and tea; these two things are among the most readily obtained refreshments in Persia. The country this morning is monotonous and uninteresting, being for the most part a stony, level plain, sparsely covered with gray camel-thorn shrubs. Occasionally one sees in the distance a camp of Eliauts, one of the wandering tribes of Persia; their tents are smaller and of an entirely different shape from the Koordish tents, partaking more of the nature of square-built movable huts than tents; these camps are too far off my road to justify paying them a visit, especially as I shall probably have abundant opportunities before leaving the Shah's dominions; but I intercept a straggling party of them crossing the road. They have a more docile look about them than the Koords, have more the general appearance of gypsies, and they dress but little different from the ryots of surrounding villages. At Kishlock, where I obtain a dinner of bread and grapes, I find the cyclometre has registered a gain of thirty-two miles from Kasveen; it has scarcely been an easy thirty-two miles, for I am again confronted by a discouraging head breeze. Keaching the Shah Abbas caravanserai of Yeng-Imam (all first-class caravanserais are called Shah Abbas caravanserais, in deference to so many having been built throughout Persia by that monarch) about five o'clock, I conclude to remain here over night, having wheeled fifty-three miles. Yeng-Imam is a splendid large brick serai, the finest I have yet seen in Persia; many travellers are putting up here, and the place presents quite a lively appearance. In the centre of the court-yard is a large covered spring; around this is a garden of rose-bushes, pomegranate trees, and flowers; surrounding the garden is a brick walk, and forming yet a larger square is the caravanserai building itself, consisting of a one-storied brick edifice, partitioned off into small rooms. The building is only one room deep, and each room opens upon a sort of covered porch containing a fireplace where a fire can be made and provisions cooked. Attached to the caravanserai, usually beneath the massive and roomy arched gateway, is a tchai-khan and a small store where bread, eggs, butter, fruit, charcoal, etc., are to be obtained. The traveller hires a room which is destitute of all furniture; provides his own bedding and cooking utensils, purchases provisions and a sufficiency of charcoal, and proceeds to make himself comfortable. On a pinch one can usually borrow a frying-pan or kettle of some kind, and in such first-class caravanserais as YengImam there is sometimes one furnished room, carpeted and provided with bedding", reserved for the accommodation of travellers of importance. After the customary programme of riding to allay the curiosity and excitement of the people, I obtain bread, fruit, eggs, butter to cook them in, and charcoal for a fire, the elements of a very good supper for a hungry traveller. Borrowing a handleless frying-pan, I am setting about preparing my own supper, when a respectable-looking Persian steps out from the crowd of curious on-lookers and voluntarily takes this rather onerous duty out of my hands. Readily obtaining my consent, he quickly kindles a fire, and scrambles and fries the eggs. While my volunteer cook is thus busily engaged, a company of distinguished travellers passing along the road halt at the tchai-khan to smoke a kalian and drink tea. The caravanserai proprietor approaches me, and winking mysteriously, intimates that by going outside and riding for the edification of the new arrivals I will be pretty certain to get a present of a keran (about twenty cents). As he appears anxious to have me accommodate them, I accordingly go out and favor them with a few turns on a level piece of ground outside. After they have departed the proprietor covertly offers me a half-keran piece in a manner so that everybody can observe him attempting to give me something without seeing the amount. The wily Persian had doubtless solicited a present from the travellers for me, obtained, perhaps, a couple of kerans, and watching a favorable opportunity, offers me the half-keran piece; the wily ways of these people are several degrees more ingenious even than the dark ways and vain tricks of Bret Harte's "Heathen Chinee." Occupying one of the rooms are two young noblemen travelling with their mother to visit the Governor of Zendjan; after I have eaten my supper, they invite me to their apartments for the evening; their mother has a samovar under full headway, and a number of hard boiled eggs. Her two hopeful sons are engaged in a drinking bout of arrack; they are already wildly hilarious and indulging in brotherly embraces and doubtful love-songs. Their fond mother regards them with approving smiles as they swallow glass after glass of the raw fiery spirit, and become gradually more intoxicated and hilarious. Instead of checking their tippling, as a fond and prudent Ferenghi mother would have done, this indulgent parent encourages them rather than otherwise, and the more deeply intoxicated and hilariously happy the sons become, the happier seems the mother. About nine o'clock they fall to weeping tears of affection for each other and for myself, and degenerate into such maudlin sentimentality generally, that I naturally become disgusted, accept a parting glass of tea, and bid them good-evening. The caravanserai-Jee assigns me the furnished chamber above referred to; the room is found to be well carpeted, contains a mattress and an abundance of flaming red quilts, and on a small table reposes a well-thumbed copy of the Koran with gilt lettering and illumined pages; for these really comfortable quarters I am charged the trifling sum of one keran. I am now within fifty miles of Teheran, my destination until spring-time comes around again and enables me to continue on eastward toward the Pacific; the wheeling continues fair, and in the cool of early morning good headway is made for several miles; as the sun peeps over the summit of a mountain spur jutting southward a short distance from the main Elburz Range, a wall of air comes rushing from the east as though the sun were making strenuous exertions to usher in the commencement of another day with a triumphant toot. Multitudes of donkeys are encountered on the road, the omnipresent carriers of the Persian peasantry, taking produce to the Teheran market; the only wheeled vehicle encountered between Kasveen and Teheran is a heavy-wheeled, cumbersome mail wagon, rattling briskly along behind four galloping horses driven abreast, and a newly imported carriage for some notable of the capital being dragged by hand, a distance of two hundred miles from Resht, by a company of soldiers. Pedalling laboriously against a stiff breeze I round the jutting mountain spur about eleven o'clock, and the conical snow-crowned peak of Mount Demavend looms up like a beacon-light from among the lesser heights of the Elburz Range about seventy-five miles ahead. De-niavend is a perfect cone, some twenty thousand feet in height, and is reputed to be the highest point of land north of the Himalayas. From the projecting mountain spur the road makes a bee-line across the intervening plain to the capital; a large willow-fringed irrigating ditch now traverses the stony plain for some distance parallel with the road, supplying the caravanserai of Shahabad and several adjacent villages with water. Teheran itself, being situated on the level plain, and without the tall minarets that render Turkish cities conspicuous from a distance, leaves one undecided as to its precise location until within a few miles of the gate; it occupies a position a dozen or more miles south of the base of the Elburz Mountains, and is flanked on the east by another jutting spur; to the southward is an extensive plain sparsely dotted with villages, and the walled gardens of the wealthier Teheranis. At one o'clock on the afternoon of September 30th, the sentinels at the Kasveen gate of the Shah's capital gaze with unutterable astonishment at the strange spectacle of a lone Ferenghi riding toward them astride an airy wheel that glints and glitters in the bright Persian sunbeams. They look still more wonder-stricken, and half-inclined to think me some supernatural being, as, without dismounting, I ride beneath the gaudily colored archway and down the suburban streets. A ride of a mile between dead mud walls and along an open business street, and I find myself surrounded by wondering soldiers and citizens in the great central top- maidan, or artillery square, and shortly afterward am endeavoring to eradicate some of the dust and soil of travel, in a room of a wretched apology for an hotel, kept by a Frenchman, formerly a pastry-cook to the Shah. My cyclometre has registered one thousand five hundred and seventy-six miles from Ismidt; from Liverpool to Constantinople, where I had no cyclometre, may be roughly estimated at two thousand five hundred, making a total from Liverpool to Teheran of four thousand and seventy-six miles. In the evening several young Englishmen belonging to the staff of the Indo-European Telegraph Company came round, and re-echoing my own above- mentioned sentiments concerning the hotel, generously invite mo to become a member of their comfortable bachelor establishment during my stay in Teheran. "How far do you reckon it from London to Teheran by your telegraph line." I inquire of them during our after-supper conversation. "Somewhere in the neighborhood of four thousand miles," is the reply. "What does your cyclometre say?" CHAPTER XXI. TEHERAN. There is sufficient similarity between the bazaar, the mosques, the residences, the suburban gardens, etc., of one Persian city, and the same features of another, to justify the assertion that the description of one is a description of them all. But the presence of the Shah and his court; the pomp and circumstance of Eastern royalty; the foreign ambassadors; the military; the improvements introduced from Europe; the royal palaces of the present sovereign; the palaces and reminiscences of former kings - all these things combine to effectually elevate Teheran above the somewhat dreary sameness of provincial cities. A person in the habit of taking daily strolls here and there about the city will scarcely fail of obtaining a glimpse of the Shah, incidentally, every few days. In this respect there is little comparison to be made between him and the Sultan of Turkey, who never emerges from the seclusion of the palace, except to visit the mosque, or on extraordinary occasions; he is then driven through streets between compact lines of soldiers, so that a glimpse of his imperial person is only to be obtained by taking considerable trouble. Since the Shah's narrow escape from assassination at the hands of the Baabi conspirators in 1867, he has exercised more caution than formerly about his personal safety. Previous to that affair, it was customary for him to ride on horseback well in advance of his body-guard; but nowadays, he never rides in advance any farther than etiquette requires him to, which is about the length of his horse's neck. When his frequent outings take him beyond the city fortifications, he is generally provided with, both saddle-horse and carriage, thus enabling him to change from one to the other at will. The Shah is evidently not indifferent to the fulsome flattery of the courtiers and sycophants about him, nor insensible of the pomp and vanity of his position; nevertheless he is not without a fair share of common-sense. Perhaps the worst that can be said of him is, that he seems content to prostitute his own more enlightened and progressive views to the prejudices of a bigoted and fanatical priesthood. He seems to have a generous desire to see the country opened up to the civilizing improvements of the West, and to give the people an opportunity of emancipating themselves from their present deplorable condition; but the mollahs set their faces firmly against all reform, and the Shah evidently lacks the strength of will to override their opposition. It was owing to this criminal weakness on his part that Baron Eeuter's scheme of railways and commercial regeneration for the country proved a failure. Persia is undoubtedly the worst priest-ridden country in the world; the mollaha influence everything and everybody, from the monarch downward, to such an extent that no progress is possible. Barring outside interference, Persia will remain in its present wretched condition until the advent of a monarch with sufficient force of character to deliver the ipeople from the incubus of their present power and influence: nothing short of a general massacre, however, will be likely to accomplish complete deliverance. Without compromising his dignity as "Shah-iri-shah," "The Asylum of the Universe," etc., when dealing with his own subjects, Nasr-e-deen Shall has profited by the experiences of his European tour to the extent of recognizing, with becoming toleration, the democratic independence of Ferenghis, whose deportment betrays the fact that they are not dazed by the contemplation of his greatness. The other evening myself and a friend encountered the Shah and his crowd of attendants on one of the streets leading to the winter palace; he was returning to the palace in state after a visit of ceremony to some dignitary. First came a squad of foot-runners in quaint scarlet coats, knee-breeches, white stockings, and low shoes, and with a most fantastic head-dress, not unlike a peacock's tail on dress-parade; each runner carried a silver staff; they, were clearing the street and shouting their warning for everybody to hide their faces. Behind them came a portion of the Shah's Khajar bodyguard, well mounted, and dressed in a gray uniform, braided with black: each of these also carries a silver staff, and besides sword and dagger, has a gun slung at his back in a red 'baize case. Next came the royal carriage, containing the Shah: the carriage is somewhat like a sheriffs coach of "ye olden tyme," and is drawn by six superb grays; mounted on the off horses are three postilions in gorgeous scarlet liveries. Immediately behind the Shah's carriage, came the higher dignitaries on horseback, and lastly a confused crowd of three or four hundred horsemen. As the royal procession approached, the Persians- one and all-either hid themselves, or backed themselves up against the wall, and remained with heads bowed half-way to the ground until it passed. Seeing that we had no intention of striking this very submissive and servile attitude, first the scarlet foot-runners, and then the advance of the Khajar guard, addressed themselves to us personally, shouting appealingly as though very anxious about it: "Sahib. Sahib!" and motioned for us to do as the natives were doing. These valiant guardians of the Shah's barbaric gloriousness cling tenaciously to the belief that it is the duty of everybody, whether Ferenghi or native, to prostrate themselves in this manner before him, although the monarch himself has long ceased to expect it, and is very well satisfied if the Ferenghi respectfully doffs his hat as he goes past. Much of the nonsensical glamour and superstitious awe that formerly surrounded the person of Oriental potentates has been dissipated of late years by the moral influence of European residents and travellers. But a few years ago, it was certain death for any luckless native who failed to immediately scuttle off somewhere out of sight, or to turn his face to the wall, whenever the carriages of the royal ladies passed by; and Europeans generally turned down a side street to avoid trouble when they heard the attending eunuchs shouting "gitchin, gitchin!" (begone, begone!) down the street. But things may be done with impunity now. that before the Shah's eye-opening visit to Frangistan would have been punished with instant death; and although the eunuchs shout "gitchin, gitchin!" as lustily as ever, they are now content if people will only avert their faces respectfully as the carriages drive past. An eccentric Austrian gentleman once saw fit to imitate the natives in turning their faces to the wall, and improved upon the time-honored custom to the extent of making salaams from the back of his head. This singular performance pleased the ladies immensely, and they reported it to the Shah. Sending for the Austrian, the Shah made him repeat the performance in his presence, and was so highly amused that he dismissed him with a handsome present. Prominent among the improvements that have been introduced in Teheran of late, may be mentioned gas and the electric light. "Were one to make this statement and enter into no further explanations, the impression created would doubtless be illusive; for although the fact remains that these things are in existence here, they could be more appropriately placed under the heading of toys for the gratification of the Shah's desire to gather about him some of the novel and interesting things he had seen in Europe, than improvements made with any idea of benefiting the condition of the city as a whole. Indeed, one might say without exaggeration, that nothing new or beneficial is ever introduced into Persia, except for the personal gratification or glorification of the Shah; hence it is, that, while a few European improvements are to be seen in Teheran, they are found nowhere else in Persia. Coal of an inferior quality is obtained in the Elburz Mountains, near Kasveen, and brought on the backs of camels to Teheran; and enough gas is manufactured to supply two rows of lamps leading from the lop-maidan to the palace front, two rows on the east side of the palace, and a dozen more in the top-maid.an itself. The gas is of the poorest quality, and the lamps glimmer faintly through the gloom of a moonless evening until half-past nine, giving about as much light, or rather making darkness about as visible as would the same number of tallow candles; at this hour they are extinguished, and any Persian found outside of his own house later than this, is liable to be arrested and fined. The electric light improvements consist of four lights, on ordinary gas-lamp posts, in the top-maidan, and a more ornamental and pretentious affair, immediately in front of the palace; these are only used on special occasions. The electric lights are a never-failing source of wonder and mystification to the common people of the city and the peasants coming in from the country. A stroll into the maidan any evening when the four electric lights are making the gas-lamps glimmer feebler than ever, reveals a small crowd of natives assembled about each post, gazing wonderingiy up at the globe, endeavoring to penetrate the secret of its brightness, and commenting freely among themselves in this wise: "Mashallah. Abdullah," says one, " here does all the light come from. They put no candles in, no naphtha, no anything; where does it come from?" "Mashallah!" replies Abdullah, "I don't know; it lights up 'biff!' all of a sudden, without anybody putting matches to it, or going anywhere near it; nobody knows how it comes about except Sheitan (Satan) and Sheitan's children, the Ferenghis." "Al-lah! it is wonderful." echoes another, "and our Shah is a wonderful being to give us such things to look at - Allah be praised!" All these strange innovations and incomprehensible things produce a deep impression on the unenlightened minds of the common Persians, and helps to deify the Shah in their imagination; for although they know these things come from Frangistan, it seems natural for them to sing the praises of the Shah in connection with them. They think these five electric lights in Teheran among the wonders of the world; the glimmering gas-lamps and the electric lights help to rivet their belief that their capital is the most wonderful city in the world, and their Shah the greatest monarch extant. These extreme ideas are, of course, considerably improved upon when we leave the ranks of illiteracy; but the Persians capable of forming anything like an intelligent comparison between themselves and a European nation, are confined to the Shah himself, the corps diplomatique, and a few prominent personages who have been abroad. Always on the lookout for something to please the Shah, the news of my arrival in Teheran on the bicycle no sooner reaches the ear of the court officials than the monarch hears of it himself. On the seventh day after my arrival an officer of the palace calls on behalf of the Shah, and requests that I favor them all, by following the soldiers who will be sent to-morrow morning, at eight o'clock, Ferenghi time, to conduct me to the palace, where it is appointed that I am to meet the "Shah-in-shah and King of kings," and ride with him, on the bicycle, to his summer palace at Doshan Tepe. "Yes, I shall, of course, be most happy to accommodate; and to be the means of introducing to the notice of His Majesty, the wonderful iron horse, the latest wonder from Frangistan," I reply; and the officer, after salaaming with more than French politeness, takes his departure. Promptly at the hour appointed the soldiers present themselves; and after waiting a few minutes for the horses of two young Englishmen who desire to accompany us part way, I mount the ever-ready bicycle, and together we follow my escort along several fairly ridable streets to the office of the foreign minister. The soldiers clear the way of pedestrians, donkeys, camels, and horses, driving them unceremoniously to the right, to the left, into the ditch - anywhere out of my road; for am I not for the time being under the Shah's special protection. I am as much the Shah's toy and plaything of the moment, as an electric light, a stop-watch, or as the big Krupp gun, the concussion of which nearly scared the soldiers out of their wits, by shaking down the little minars of one of the city gates, close to which they had unwittingly discharged it on first trial. The foreign office, like every building of pretension, whether public or private, in the land of the Lion and the Sun, is a substantial edifice of mud and brick, inclosing a square court-yard or garden, in which splashing fountains play amid a wealth of vegetation that springs, as if by waft of magician's wand, from the sandy soil of Persia wherever water is abundantly supplied. Tall, slender poplars are nodding in the morning breeze, the less lofty almond and pomegranate, sheltered from the breezes by the surrounding building, rustle never a leaf, but seem to be offering Pomona's choice products of nuts and rosy pomegranates, with modest mien and silence; whilst beds of rare exotics, peculiar to this sunny clime, imparts to the atmosphere of the cool shaded garden, a pleasing sense of being perfumed. Here, by means of the Shah's interpreter, I am introduced to Nasr-i-Mulk, the Persian foreign minister, a kindly-faced yet business-looking old gentleman, at whose request I mount and ride with some difficulty around the confined and quite unsuitable foot-walks of the garden; a crowd of officials and farrashes look on in unconcealed wonder and delight. True to their Persian characteristic of inquisitiveness, Nasr-i-Mulk and the officers catechise me unmercifully for some time concerning the mechanism and capabilities of the bicycle, and about the past and future of the journey around the world. In company with the interpreter, I now ride out to the Doshan Tepe gate, where we are to await the arrival of the Shah. From the Doshan Tepe gate is some four English miles of fairly good artificial road, leading to one of the royal summer palaces and gardens. His Majesty goes this morning to the mountains beyond Doshan Tepe on a shooting excursion, and wishes me to ride out with his party a few miles, thus giving him a good opportunity of seeing something of what bicycle travelling is like. The tardy monarch keeps myself and a large crowd of attendants waiting a full hour at the gate, ere he puts in an appearance. Among the crowd is the Shah's chief shikaree (hunter), a grizzled old veteran, beneath whose rifle many a forest prowler of the Caspian slope of Mazanderau has been laid low. The shikaree, upon seeing me ride, and not being able to comprehend how one can possibly maintain the equilibrium, exclaims: "Oh, ayab Ingilis." (Oh, the wonderful English!) Everybody's face is wreathed in smiles at the old shikaree's exclamation of wonderment, and when I jokingly advise him that he ought to do his hunting for the future on a bicycle, and again mount and ride with hands off handles to demonstrate the possibility of shooting from the saddle, the delighted crowd of horsemen burst out in hearty laughter, many of them exclaiming, "Bravo! bravo!" At length the word goes round that the Shah is coming. Everybody dismounts, and as the royal carriage drives up, every Persian bows his head nearly to the ground, remaining in that highly submissive attitude until the carriage halts and the Shah summons myself and the interpreter to his side. I am the only Ferenghi in the party, my two English companions having returned to the city, intending to rejoin me when I separate from the Shah. The Shah impresses one as being more intelligent than the average Persian of the higher class; and although they are, as a nation, inordinately inquisitive, no Persian has taken a more lively interest in the bicycle than His Majesty seems to take, as, through his interpreter, he plys me with all manner of questions. Among other questions he asks if the Koords didn't molest me when coming through Koordistan without an escort; and upon hearing the story of my adventure with the Koordish shepherds between Ovahjik and Khoi, he seems greatly amused. Another large party of horsemen arrived with the Shah, swelling the company to perhaps two hundred attendants. Pedaling alongside the carriage, in the best position for the Shah to see, we proceed toward Doshan Tepe, the crowd of horsemen following, some behind and others careering over the stony plain through which the Doshan Tepe highway leads. After covering about half a mile, the Shah leaves the carriage and mounts a saddle-horse, in order to the better "put me through some exercises." First he requests me to give him an exhibition of speed; then I have to ride a short distance over the rough stone-strewn plain, to demonstrate the possibility of traversing a rough country, after which he desires to see me ride at the slowest pace possible. All this evidently interests him not a little, and he seems even more amused than interested, laughing quite heartily several times as he rides alongside the bicycle. After awhile he again exchanges for the carriage, and at four miles from the city gate we arrive at the palace garden. Through this garden is a long, smooth walk, and here the Shah again requests an exhibition of my speeding abilities. The garden is traversed with a network of irrigating ditches; but I am assured there is nothing of the kind across the pathway along which he wishes me to ride as fast as possible. Two hundred yards from the spot where this solemn assurance is given, it is only by a lightning-like dismount that I avoid running into the very thing that I was assured did not exist-it was the narrowest possible escape from what might have proved a serious accident. Riding back toward the advancing party, I point out my good fortune in escaping the tumble. The Shah asks if people ever hurt themselves by falling off bicycles; and the answer that a fall such as I would have experienced by running full speed into the irrigating ditch, might possibly result in broken bones, appeared to strike him as extremely humorous; from the way he laughed I fancy the sending me flying toward the irrigating ditch was one of the practical jokes that he is sometimes not above indulging in. After mounting and forcing my way for a few yards through deep, loose gravel, to satisfy his curiosity as to what could be done in loose ground, I trundle along with him to a small menagerie he keeps at this place. On the way he inquires about the number of wheelmen there are in England and America; whether I am English or American; why they don't use iron tires on bicycles instead of rubber, and many other questions, proving the great interest aroused in him by the advent of the first bicycle to appear in his Capital. The menagerie consists of one cage of monkeys, about a dozen lions, and two or three tigers and leopards. We pass along from cage to cage, and as the keeper coaxes the animals to the bars, the Shah amuses himself by poking them with an umbrella. It was arranged in the original programme that I should accompany them up into their rendezvous in the foot-hills, about a mile beyond the palace, to take breakfast with the party; but seeing the difficulty of getting up there with the bicycle, and not caring to spoil the favorable impression already made, by having to trundle up, I ask permission to take my leave at this point, The request is granted, and the interpreter returns with me to the city - thus ends my memorable bicycle ride with the Shah of Persia. Soon after my ride with the Shah, the Naib-i-Sultan, the Governor of Teheran and commander-in-chief of the army, asked me to bring the bicycle down to the military maidan, and ride for the edification of himself and officers. Being busy at something or other when the invitation was received, I excused myself and requested that he make another appointment. I am in the habit of taking a constitutional spin every morning; by means of which I have figured as an object of interest, and have been stared at in blank amazement by full half the wonder-stricken population of the city. The fame of my journey, the knowledge of my appearance before the Shah, and my frequent appearance upon the streets, has had the effect of making me one of the most conspicuous characters in the Persian Capital; and the people have bestowed upon me the expressive and distinguishing title of "the aspi Sahib" (horse-of-iron Sahib). A few mornings after receiving the Naib-i-Sultan's invitation, I happened to be wheeling past the military maidan, and attracted by the sound of martial music inside, determined to wheel in and investigate. Perhaps in all the world there is no finer military parade ground than in Teheran; it consists of something over one hundred acres of perfectly level ground, forming a square that is walled completely in by alcoved walls and barracks, with gaily painted bala-kkanas over the gates. The delighted guards at the gate make way and present arms, as they see me approaching; wheeling inside, I am somewhat taken aback at finding a general review of the whole Teheran garrison in progress; about ten thousand men are manoeuvring in squads, companies, and regiments over the ground. Having, from previous experience on smaller occasions, discovered that my appearance on the incomprehensible "asp-i-awhan" would be pretty certain to temporarily demoralize the troops and create general disorder and inattention, I am for a moment undetermined about whether to advance or retreat. The acclamations of delight and approval from the nearest troopers at seeing me enter the gate, however, determines me to advance; and I start off at a rattling pace around the square, and then take a zig-zag course through the manoeuvring bodies of men. The sharp-shooters lying prostrate in the dust, mechanically rise up to gaze; forgetting their discipline, squares of soldiers change into confused companies of inattentive men; simultaneous confusion takes place in straight lines of marching troops, and the music of the bands degenerates into inharmonious toots and discordant squeaks, from the inattention of the musicians. All along the line the signal runs - not "every Persian is expected to do his duty," but "the asp-i-awhan Sahib! the asp-i-awhan Sahib!" the whole army is in direful commotion. In the midst of the general confusion, up dashes an orderly, who requests that I accompany him to the presence of the Commander-in-Chief and staff; which, of course, I readily do, though not without certain misgivings as to my probable reception under the circumstances. There is no occasion for misgivings, however; the Naib-i-Sultan, instead of being displeased at the interruption to the review, is as delighted at the appearance of "the asp-i-anhan, as is Abdul, the drummer-boy, and he has sent for me to obtain a closer acquaintance. After riding for their edification, and answering their multifarious questions, I suggest to the Commander-in-Chief that he ought to mount the Shah's favorite regiment of Cossacks on bicycles. The suggestion causes a general laugh among the company, and he replies: "Yes, asp-i-awhan Cossacks would look very splendid on our dress parade here in the maidan; but for scouting over our rough Persian mountains" - and the Naib-i-Sultan finished the sentence with a laugh and a negative shrug of his shoulders. Two mornings after this I take a spin out on the Doshan Tepe road, and, upon wheeling through the city gate, I find myself in the immediate presence of another grand review, again under the personal inspection of the Naibi-Sultan. Disturbing two grand reviews within "two days is, of course, more than I bargained for, and I would gladly have retreated through the gate; but coming full upon them unexpectedly, I find it impossible to prevent the inevitable result. The troops are drawn up in line about fifty yards from the road, and are for the moment standing at ease, awaiting the arrival of the Shah, while the Commander-in-chief and his staff are indulging in soothing whiffs at the seductive kalian. The cry of "asp-i-awhan Sahib!" breaks out all along the line, and scores of soldiers break ranks, and come running helter-skelter toward the road, regardless of the line-officers, who frantically endeavor to wave them back. Dashing ahead, I am soon beyond the lines, congratulating myself that the effects of my disturbing presence is quickly over; but ere long, I discover that there is no other ridable road back, and am consequently compelled to pass before them again on returning. Accordingly, I hasten to return, before the arrival of the Shah. Seeing me returning, the Naib-i-Sultan and his staff advance to the road, with kalians in hand, their oval faces wreathed in smiles of approbation; they extend cordial salutations as I wheel past. The Persians seem to do little more than play at soldiering; perhaps in no other army in the world could a lone cycler demoralize a general review twice within two days, and then be greeted with approving smiles and cordial salutations by the commander and his entire staff. Through November and the early part of December, the weather in Teheran continues, on the whole, quite agreeable, and suitable for short-distance wheeling; but mindful of the long distance yet before me, and the uncertainty of touching at any point where supplies could be forwarded, I deem it advisable to take my exercise afoot, and save my rubber tires for the more serious work of the journey to the Pacific. There are no green lanes down which to stroll, nor emerald meads through which to wander about the Persian capital, though what green things there are, retain much of their greenness until the early winter months. The fact of the existence of any green thing whatever - and even to a greater extent, its survival through the scorching summer months - depending almost wholly on irrigation, enables vegetation to retain its pristine freshness almost until suddenly pounced upon and surprised by the frost. There is no springy turf, no velvety greensward in the land of the Lion and the Sun. No sooner does one get beyond the vegetation, called into existence by the moisture of an irrigating ditch or a stream, than the bare, gray surface of the desert crunches beneath one's tread. There is an avenue leading part way from the city to the summer residence of the English Minister at Gulaek, that conjures up memories of an English lane; but the double row of chenars, poplars, and jujubes are kept alive by irrigation, and all outside is verdureless desert. Things are valued everywhere for their scarcity, and a patch of greensward large enough to recline on, a shady tree or shrub, and a rippling rivulet are appreciated in Persia at their proper value- appreciated more than broad, green pastures and waving groves of shade-trees in moister climes. Moreover, there is a peculiar charm in these bright emerald gems, set in sombre gray, be they never so small and insignificant in themselves, that is not to be experienced where the contrast is less marked. Scattered here and there about the stony plain between Teheran and the Elburz foot- hills, are many beautiful gardens-beautiful for Persia-where a pleasant hour can be spent wandering beneath the shady avenues and among the fountains. These gardens are simply patches redeemed from the desert plain, supplied with irrigating water, and surrounded with a high mud wall; leading through the garden are gravelled walks, shaded by rows of graceful chenars. The gardens are planted with fig, pomegranate, almond or apricot trees, grape-vines, melons, etc.; they are the property of wealthy Teheranis who derive an income from the sale of the fruit in the Teheran market. The ample space within the city ramparts includes a number of these delightful retreats, some of them presenting the additional charm of historic interest, from having been the property and, peradventure, the favorite summer residence of a former king. Such a one is an extensive garden in the northeast quarter of the city, in which was situated one of the favorite summer palaces of Fatteh-ali Shah, grandfather of Nasree. It was chiefly to satisfy my curiosity as to the truth of the current stories regarding that merry monarch, and his. exceedingly novel methods of entertaining himself, that I accepted the invitation of a friend to visit this garden one afternoon. My friend is the owner of a pair of white bull-dogs, who accompany us into the garden. After strolling about a little, we are shown into the summer palace; into the audience room, where we are astonished at the beautiful coloring and marvellously life- like representations in the old Persian frescoing on the walls and ceiling. Depicted in life-size are Fatteh-ali Shah and his courtiers, together with the European ambassadors, painted in the days when the Persian court was a scene of dazzling splendor. The monarch is portrayed as an exceedingly handsome man with a full, black beard, and is covered with a blaze of jewels that are so faithfully pictured as to appear almost like real gems on the walls. It seems strange - almost startling - to come in from contemplating the bare, unlovely mud walls of the city, and find one's self amid the life-like scenes of Fatteh-ali Shah's court; and, amid the scenes to find here and there an English face, an English figure, dressed in the triangular cockade, the long Hessian pigtail, the scarlet coat with fold-back tails, the knee-breeches, the yellow stockings, the low shoes, and the long, slender rapier of a George III. courtier. >From here we visit other rooms, glittering rooms, all mirror-work and white stucco. Into rooms we go whose walls consist of myriads of tiny squares of rich stained glass, worked into intricate patterns and geometrical designs, but which are now rapidly falling into decay; and then we go to see the most novel feature of the garden-Fatteh-ali Shah's marble slide, or shute. Passing along a sloping, arched vault beneath a roof of massive marble, we find ourselves in a small, subterranean court, through which a stream of pure spring water is flowing along a white marble channel, and where the atmosphere must be refreshingly cool even in the middle of summer. In the centre of the little court is a round tank about four feet deep, also of white marble, which can be filled at pleasure with water, clear as crystal, from the running stream. Leading from an upper chamber, and overlapping the tank, is a smooth-worn marble slide or shute, about twenty feet long and four broad, which is pitched at an angle that makes it imperative upon any one trusting themselves to attempt the descent, to slide helplessly into the tank. Here, on summer afternoons, with the chastened daylight peeping through a stained- glass window in the roof, and carpeting the white marble floor with rainbow hues, with the only entrance to the cool and massive marble court, guarded by armed retainers, who while guarding it were conscious of guarding their own precious lives, Fattehali Shah was wont to beguile the hours away by making merry with the bewitching nymphs of his anderoon, transforming them for the nonce into naiads. There are no nymphs nor naiads here now, nothing but the smoothly-worn marble shute to tell the tale of the merry past; but we obtain a realistic idea of their sportive games by taking the bulldogs to the upper chamber, and giving them a start down the slide. As they clutch and claw, and look scared, and appeal mutely for assistance, only to slide gradually down, down, down, and fall with a splash into the tank at last, we have only to imagine the bull-dogs transformed into Fatteh-ali Shah's naiads, to learn something of the truth of current stories. After we have slid the dogs down a few times, and they begin to realize that they are not sliding hopelessly down to destruction, they enjoy the sport as much as we, or as much as the naiads perhaps did a hundred years ago. That portion of the Teheran bazaar immediately behind the Shah's winter palace, is visited almost daily by Europeans, and their presence excites little comment or attention from the natives; but I had frequently heard the remark that a Ferenghi couldn't walk through the southern, or more exclusive native quarters, without being insulted. Determined to investigate, I sallied forth one afternoon alone, entering the bazaar on the east side of the palace wall, where I had entered it a dozen times before. The streets outside are sloppy with melting snow, and the roofed passages of the bazaar, being dry underfoot, are crowded with people to an unusual extent; albeit they are pretty well crowded at any time. Most of the dervishes in the city have been driven, by the inclemency of the weather, to seek shelter in the bazaar; these, added to the no small number who make the place their regular foraging ground, render them a greater nuisance than ever. They are encountered in such numbers, that no matter which way I turn, I am confronted by a rag-bedecked mendicant, with a wild, haggard countenance and grotesque costume, thrusting out his gourd alms-receiver, and muttering "huk yah huk!" each in his own peculiar way. The mollahs, with their flowing robes, and huge white turbans, likewise form no inconsiderable proportion of the moving throng; they are almost without exception scrupulously neat and clean in appearance, and their priestly costume and Pharisaical deportment gives them a certain air of stateliness. They wear the placid expression of men so utterly puffed up with the notion of their own sanctity, that their self-consciousness verily scorns to shine through their skins, and to impart to them a sleek, oily appearance. One finds himself involuntarily speculating on how they all manage to make a living; the mollah "toils not, neither does he spin," and almost every other person one meets is a mollah. The bazaar is a common thoroughfare for anything and everything that can make its way through. Donkey-riders, horsemen, and long strings of camels and pack-mules add their disturbing influence to the general confusion; and although hundreds of stalls are heaped up with every merchantable thing in the city, scores of donkeys laden with similar products are meandering about among the crowd, the venders shouting their wares with lusty lungs. In many places the din is quite deafening, and the odors anything but agreeable to European nostrils; but the natives are not over fastidious. The steam issuing from the cook-shops, from coppers of soup, pillau and sheeps'-trotters, and the less objectionable odors from places where busy men are roasting bazaar-kabobs for hungry customers all day long, mingle with the aromatic contributions from the spice and tobacco shops wedged in between them. The sleek-looking spice merchant, squatting contentedly beside a pan of glowing embers, smoking kalian after kalian in dreamy contemplation of his assistant waiting on customers, and also occasionally waiting on him to the extent of replenishing the fire on the kalian, is undoubtedly the happiest of mortals. With a kabob-shop on one hand, a sheeps'-trotter-shop on the other, and a bakery and a fruit-stand opposite, he indulges in tid-bits from either when he is hungry. With nothing to do but smoke kalians amid the fragrant aroma of his own spices, and keep a dreamy eye on what passes on around him, his Persian notions of a desirable life cause him to regard himself as blest beyond comparison with those whose avocations necessitate physical exertion. All the shops are open front places, like small fruit and cigar stands in an American city, the goods being arranged on boards or shelving, sloping down to the front, or otherwise exposed to the best advantage, according to the nature of the wares; the shops have no windows, but are protected at night by wooden shutters. The piping notes of the flute, or the sing-song voice of the troubadour or story-teller is heard behind the screened entrance of the tchai-khans, and now and then one happens across groups of angry men quarrelling violently over some trifling difference in a bargain; noise and confusion everywhere reign supreme. Here the road is blocked up by a crowd of idlers watching a trio of lutis, or buffoons, jerking a careless and indifferent-looking baboon about with a chain to make him dance; and a little farther along is another crowd surveying some more lutis with a small brown bear. Both the baboon and the bear look better fed than their owners, the contributions of the onlookers consisting chiefly of eatables, bestowed upon the animals for the purpose of seeing them feed. Half a mile, or thereabouts, from the entrance, an inferior quarter of the bazaar is reached; the crowds are less dense, the noise is not near so deafening, and the character of the shops undergoes a change for the worse. A good many of the shops are untenanted, and a good many others are occupied by artisans manufacturing the ruder articles of commerce, such as horseshoes, pack-saddles, and the trappings of camels. Such articles as kalians, che-bouks and other pipes, geivehs, slippers and leather shoes, hats, jewelry, etc., are generally manufactured on the premises in the better portions of the bazaar, where they are sold. Perched in among the rude cells of industry are cook-shops and tea-drinking establishments of an inferior grade; and the occupants of these places eye me curiously, and call one another's attention to the unusual circumstance of a Ferenghi passing through their quarter. After half a mile of this, my progress is abruptly terminated by a high mud wall, with a narrow passage leading to the right. I am now at the southern extremity of the bazaar, and turn to retrace my footsteps. So far I have encountered no particular disposition to insult anybody; only a little additional rudeness and simple inquisitive-ness, such as might very naturally have been expected. But ere I have retraced my way three hundred yards, I meet a couple of rowdyish young men of the charuadar class; no sooner have I passed them than one of them wantonly delivers himself of the promised insult - a peculiar noise with the mouth; they both start off at a run as though expecting to be pursued and punished. As I turn partially round to look, an old pomegranate vender stops his donkey, and with a broad grin of amusement motions me to give chase. When nearing the more respectable quarter again, I stroll up one of the numerous ramifications leading toward what looks, like a particularly rough and dingy quarter. Before going many steps I am halted by a friendly-faced sugar merchant, with "Sahib," and sundry significant shakes of the head, signifying, if he were me, he wouldn't go up there. And thus it is in the Teheran bazaar; where a Ferenghi will get insulted once, he will find a dozen ready to interpose with friendly officiousness between him and anything likely to lead to unpleasant consequences. On the whole, a European fares better than a Persian in his national costume would in an Occidental city, in spite of the difference between our excellent police regulations and next to no regulations at all; he fares better than a Chinaman does in New York. The Teheran bazaar, though nothing to compare to the world-famous bazaar at Stamboul, is wonderfully extensive. I was under the impression that I had been pretty much all through it at different times; but a few days after my visit to the "slummy " quarters, I follow a party of corpse-bearers down a passage-way hitherto unexplored, to try and be present at a Persian funeral, and they led the way past at least a mile of shops I had never yet seen. I followed the corpse-bearers through the dark passages and narrow alley-ways of the poorer native quarter, and in spite of the lowering brows of the followers, penetrated even into the house where they washed the corpses before burial; but here the officiating mollahs scowled with such unmistakable displeasure, and refused to proceed in my presence, so that I am forced to beat a retreat. The poorer native quarter of Teheran is a shapeless jumble of mud dwellings, and ruins of the same; the streets are narrow passages describing all manner of crooks and angles in and out among them. As I emerge from the vaulted bazaar the sun is almost setting, and the musicians in the bala-khanas of the palace gates are ushering in the close of another day with discordant blasts from ancient Persian trumpets, and belaboring hemispherical kettle- drums. These musicians are dressed in fantastic scarlet uniforms, not unlike the costume of a fifteen century jester, and every evening at sundown they repair to these balakhanas, and for the space of an hour dispense the most unearthly music imaginable. tubes of brass about five feet long, which respond to the efforts of a strong-winded person, with a diabolical basso-profundo shriek that puts a Newfoundland fog-horn entirely in the shade. When a dozen of these instruments are in full blast, without any attempt at harmony, it seems to shed a depressing shadow of barbarism over the whole city. This sunset music is, I think, a relic of very old times, and it jars on the nerves like the despairing howl of ancient Persia, protesting against the innovation from the pomp and din and glamour of her old pagan glories, to the present miserable era of mollah rule and feeble dependence for national existence on the forbearance or jealousy of other nations. Beneath the musicians' gate, and I emerge into a small square which is half taken up by a square tank of water; near the tank is a large bronze cannon. It is a huge, unwieldy piece, and a muzzle-loader, utterly useless to such a people as the Persians, except for ornament, or perhaps to help impress the masses with an idea of the Shah's unapproachable greatness. It is the special hour of prayer, and in every direction may be observed men, halting in whatever they may be doing, and kneeling down on some outer garment taken off for the purpose, repeatedly touch their foreheads to the ground, bending in the direction of Mecca. Passing beneath the second musicians' gate, I reach the artillery square just in time to see a company of army buglers formed in line at one end, and a company of musketeers at the other. As these more modern trumpeters proceed to toot, the company of musketeers opposite present arms, and then the music of the new buglers, and the hoarse, fog-horn-like blasts of the fantastic tooters on the bala-khanas dies away together in a concerted effort that would do credit to a troop of wild elephants. When the noisy trumpeting ceases, the ordinary noises round about seem like solemn silence in comparison, and above this comparative silence can be heard the voices of men here and there over the city, calling out "Al-lah-il-All-ah; Ali Ak-bar." (God is greatest; there is no god but one God! etc.) with stentorian voices. The men are perched on the roofs of the mosques, and on noblemen's walls and houses; the Shah has a strong- voiced muezzin that can be heard above all the others. The sun has just set; I can see the snowy cone of Mount Demavend, peeping apparently over the high barrack walls; it has just taken on a distinctive roseate tint, as it oftentimes does at sunset; the reason whereof becomes at once apparent upon turning toward the west, for the whole western sky is aglow with a gorgeous sunset-a sunset that paints the horizon a blood red, and spreads a warm, rich glow over half the heavens. The moon will be full to-night, and a far lovelier picture even than the glorious sunset and the rose-tinted mountain, awaits anyone curious enough to come out-doors and look. The Persian moonlight seems capable of surrounding the most commonplace objects with a halo of beauty, and of blending things that are nothing in themselves, into scenes of such transcendental loveliness that the mere casual contemplation of them sends a thrill of pleasure coursing through the system. There is no city of the same size (180,000) in England or America, but can boast of buildings infinitely superior to anything in Teheran; what trees there are in and about the city are nothing compared to what we are used to having about us; and although the gates with their short minars and their gaudy facings are certainly unique, they suffer greatly from a close investigation. Nevertheless, persons happening for the first time in the vicinity of one of these gates on a calm moonlight night, and perchance descrying "fair Luna "through one of the arches or between the minars, will most likely find themselves transfixed with astonishment at the marvellous beauty of the scene presented. By repairing to the artillery square, or to the short street between the square and the palace front, on a moonlight night, one can experience a new sense of nature's loveliness; the soft, chastening light of the Persian moon converts the gaudy gates, the dead mud-walls, the spraggling trees, and the background of snowy mountains nine miles away, into a picture that will photograph itself on one's memory forever. On the way home I meet one of the lady missionaries - which reminds me that I ought to mention something about the peculiar position of a Ferenghi lady in these Mohammedan countries, where it is considered highly improper for a woman to expose her face in public. The Persian lady on the streets is enveloped in a shroud-like garment that transforms her into a shapeless and ungraceful-looking bundle of dark-blue cotton stuff. This garment covers head and everything except the face; over the face is worn a white veil of ordinary sheeting, and opposite the eyes is inserted an oblong peep-hole of open needle-work, resembling a piece of perforated card-board. Not even a glimpse of the eye is visible, unless the lady happens to be handsome and coquettishly inclined; she will then manage to grant you a momentary peep at her face; but a wise and discreet Persian lady wouldn't let you see her face on the street - no, not for worlds and worlds! The European lady with her uncovered face is a conundrum and an object of intense curiosity, even in Teheran at the present day; and in provincial cities, the wife of the lone consul or telegraph employee finds it highly convenient to adopt the native costume, face-covering included, when venturing abroad. Here, in the capital, the wives and daughters of foreign ministers, European officers and telegraphists, have made uncovered female faces tolerably familiar to the natives; but they cannot quite understand but that there is something highly indecorous about it, and the more unenlightened Persians doubtless regard them as quite bold and forward creatures. Armenian women conceal their faces almost as completely as do the Persian, when they walk abroad; by so doing they avoid unpleasant criticism, and the rude, inquisitive gaze of the Persian men. Although the Persian readily recognizes the fact that a Sahib's wife or sister must be a superior person to an Armenian female, she is as much an object of interest to him when she appears with her face uncovered on the street, as his own wives in their highly sensational in-door costumes would be to some of us. In order to establish herself in the estimation of the average Persian, as all that a woman ought to be, the European lady would have to conceal her face and cover her shapely, tight-fitting dress with an inelegant, loose mantle, whenever she ventured outside her own doors. With something of a penchant for undertaking things never before accomplished, I proposed one morning to take a walk around the ramparts that encompass the Persian capital. The question arose as to the distance. Ali Akbar, the head fan-ash, said it was six farsakhs (about twenty-four miles); Meshedi Ab-dul said it was more. From the well-known Persian characteristic of exaggerating things, we concluded from this that perhaps it might be fifteen miles; and on this basis Mr. Meyrick, of the Indo- European Telegraph staff, agreed to bear me company. The ramparts consist of the earth excavated from a ditch some forty feet wide by twenty deep, banked up on the inner side of the ditch; and on top of this bank it is our purpose to encompass the city. Eight o'clock on the appointed morning finds us on the ramparts at the Gulaek Gate, on the north side of the city. A cold breeze is blowing off the snowy mountains to the northeast, and we decide to commence our novel walk toward the west. Following the zigzag configuration of the ramparts, we find it at first somewhat rough and stony to the feet; on our right we look down into the broad ditch, and beyond, over the sloping plain, our eyes follow the long, even rows of kanaat mounds stretching away to the rolling foothills; towering skyward in the background, but eight miles away, are the snowy masses of the Elburz Range. Forty miles away, at our back, the conical peak of Demavend peeps, white, spectral, and cold, above a bank of snow-clouds that are piled motionless against its giant sides, as though walling it completely off from the lower world. On our left lies the city, a curious conglomeration of dead mud-walls, flat-roofed houses, and poplar-peopled gardens. A thin haze of smoke hovers immediately above the streets, through which are visible the minarets and domes of the mosques, the square, illumined towers of the Shah's anderoon, the monster skeleton dome of the canvas theatre, beneath which the Shah gives once a year the royal tazzia (representation of the tragedy of "Hussein and Hassan"), and the tall chimney of the arsenal, from which a column of black smoke is issuing. Away in the distance, far beyond the confines of the city, to the southward, glittering like a mirror in the morning sun, is seen the dome of the great mosque at Shahabdullahzeen, said to be roofed with plates of pure gold. As we pass by we can see inside the walls of the English Legation grounds; a magnificent garden of shady avenues, asphalt walks, and dark-green banks of English ivy that trail over the ground and climb half-way up the trunks of the trees. A square-turreted clock-tower and a building that resembles some old ancestral manor, imparts to "the finest piece of property in Teheran" a home-like appearance; the representative of Her Majesty's Government, separated from the outer world by a twenty-four-foot brick wall, might well imagine himself within an hour's ride of London. Beyond the third gate, the character of the soil changes from the stone- strewn gravel of the northern side, to red stoneless earth, and both inside and outside the ramparts fields of winter wheat and hardy vegetables form a refreshing relief from the barren character of the surface generally. The Ispahan gate, on the southern side, appears the busiest and most important entrance to the city; by this gate enter the caravans from Bushire, bringing English goods, from Bagdad, Ispahan, Tezd, and all the cities of the southern provinces. Numbers of caravans are camped in the vicinity of the gate, completing their arrangements for entering the city or departing for some distant commercial centre; many of the waiting camels arc kneeling beneath their heavy loads and quietly feeding. They are kneeling in small, compact circles, a dozen camels in a circle with their heads facing inward. In the centre is placed a pile of chopped straw; as each camel ducks his head and takes a mouthful, and then elevates his head again while munching it with great gusto, wearing meanwhile an expression of intense satisfaction mingled with timidity, as though he thinks the enjoyment too good to last long, they look as cosey and fussy as a gathering of Puritanical grand-dames drinking tea and gossiping over the latest news. Within a mile of the Ispahan gate are two other gates, and between them is an area devoted entirely to the brick-making industry. Here among the clay-pits and abandoned kilns we obtain a momentary glimpse of a jackal, drinking from a ditch. He slinks off out of sight among the caves and ruins, as though conscious of acting an ungenerous part in seeking his living in a city already full of gaunt, half-starved pariahs, who pass their lives in wandering listlessly and hungrily about for stray morsels of offal. Several of these pariahs have been so unfortunate as to get down into the rampart ditch; we can see the places where they have repeatedly made frantic rushes for liberty up the almost perpendicular escarp, only to fall helplessly back to the bottom of their roofless dungeon, where they will gradually starve to death. The natives down in this part of the city greet us with curious looks; they are wondering at the sight of two Ferenghis promenading the ramparts, far away from the European quarter; we can hear them making remarks to that effect, and calling one another's attention. The sun gets warm, although it is January, as we pass the Doshan Tepe and the Meshed gates, remarking as we go past that the Shah's summer palace on the hill to the east compares favorably in whiteness with the snow on the neighboring mountains. As we again reach the Gulaek gate and descend from the ramparts at the place we started, the clock in the English Legation tower strikes twelve. "How many miles do you call it." asks my companion. "Just about twelve miles," I reply; "what do you make it?" "That's about it," he agrees; "twelve miles round, and eleven gates. We have walked or climbed over the archway of eight of the gates; and at the other three we had to climb off the ramparts and on again." As far as can be learned, this is the first time any Ferenghi has walked clear around the ramparts of Teheran. It is nothing worth boasting about; only a little tramp of a dozen miles, and there is little of anything new to be seen. All around the outside is the level plain, verdureless, except an occasional cultivated field, and the orchards of the tributary villages scattered here and there. In certain quarters of Teheran one happens across a few remaining families of guebres, or fire-worshippers; remnant representatives of the ancient Parsee religion, whose devotees bestowed their strange devotional offerings upon the fires whose devouring flames they constantly fed, and never allowed to be extinguished. These people are interesting as having kept their heads above the overwhelming flood of Mohammedanism that swept over their country, and clung to their ancient belief through thick and thin - or, at all events, to have steadfastly refused to embrace any other. Little evidence of their religion remains in Persia at the present day, except their "towers of silence" and the ruins of their old fire-temples. These latter were built chiefly of soft adobe bricks, and after the lapse of centuries, are nothing more than shapeless reminders of the past. A few miles southeast of Teheran, in a desolate, unfrequented spot, is the guebre "tower of silence," where they dispose of their dead. On top of the tower is a kind of balcony with an open grated floor; on this the naked corpses are placed until the carrion crows and the vultures pick the skeleton perfectly clean; the dry bones are then cast into a common receptacle in the tower. The guebre communities of Persia are too impecunious or too indifferent to keep up the ever-burning-fires nowadays; the fires of Zoroaster, which in olden and more prosperous times were fed with fuel night and day, are now extinguished forever, and the scattering survivors of this ancient form of worship form a unique item in the sum total of the population of Persia. The head-quarters - if they can be said to have any head-quarters - of the Persian guebres are at Yezd, a city that is but little known to Europeans, and which is all but isolated from the remainder of the country by the great central desert. One great result of this geographical isolation is to be observed to-day, in the fact that the guebres of Yezd held their own against the unsparing sword of Islam better than they did in more accessible quarters; consequently they are found in greater numbers there now than in other Persian cities. Curiously enough, the chief occupation - one might say the sole occupation - of the guebres throughout Persia, is taking care of the suburban gardens and premises of wealthy people. For this purpose I am told guebre families are in such demand, that if they were sufficiently numerous to go around, there would be scarcely a piece of valuable garden property in all Persia without a family of guebres in charge of it. They are said to be far more honest and trustworthy than the Persians, who, as Shiite Mohammedans, consider themselves the holiest people on earth; or the Armenians, who hug the flattering unction of being Christians and not Mohammedans to their souls, and expect all Christendom to regard them benignly on that account. It is doubtless owing to this invaluable trait of their character, that the guebres have naturally drifted to their level of guardians over the private property of their wealthy neighbors. The costume of the guebre female consists of Turkish trousers with very loose, baggy legs, the material of which is usually calico print, and a mantle of similar material is wrapped about the head and body. Unlike her Mohammedan neighbor, she 'makes no pretence of concealing her features; her face is usually a picture of pleasantness and good-nature rather than strikingly handsome or passively beautiful, as is the face of the Persian or Armenian belle. The costume of the men differs but little from the ordinary costume of the lower-class Persians. Like all the people in these Mohammedan countries, who realize the weakness of their position as a small body among a fanatical population, the Teheran guebres have long been accustomed to consider themselves as under the protecting shadow of the English Legation; whenever they meet a "Sahib" on the street, they seem to expect a nod of recognition. Among the people who awaken special interest in Europeans here, may be mentioned Ayoob Khan, and his little retinue of attendants, who may be seen on the streets almost any day. Ayoob Khan is in exile here at Teheran in accordance with some mutual arrangement between the English and Persian governments. On almost any afternoon, about four o'clock, he may be met with riding a fine, large chestnut stallion, accompanied by another Afghan on an iron gray. I have never seen them riding faster than a walk, and they are almost always accompanied by four foot-runners, also Afghans, two of whom walk behind their chieftain and two before. These runners carry stout staves with which to warn off mendicants, and with a view to making it uncomfortable for any irrepressible Persian rowdy who should offer any insults. Both Ayoob Khan and his attendants retain their national costume, the main distinguishing features being a huge turban with about two feet of the broad band left dangling down behind; besides this, they wear white cotton pantalettes even in mid-winter. They wear European shoes and overcoats, as though they had profited by their intercourse with Anglo-Indians to the extent of at least shoes and coat. The foot-runners have their legs below the knee bound tightly with strips of dark felt. Judging from outward appearances, Ayoob Khan wears his exile lightly, for his rotund countenance looks pleasant always, and I have never yet met him when he was not chatting gayly with his companion. Of the interesting scenes and characters to be seen every day on the streets of Teheran, their name is legion. The peregrinating tchai-venders, who, with their little cabinet of tea and sugar in one hand, and samovar with live charcoals in the other, wander about the city picking up stray customers, for whom they are prepared to make a glass of hot tea at one minute's notice; the scores of weird-looking mendicants and dervishes with their highly fantastic costumes, assailing you with " huk, yah huk," the barbers shaving the heads of their customers on the public streets - shaving their pates clean, save little tufts to enable Mohammed to pull them up to Paradise; and many others the description and enumeration of which would, of themselves, fill a good-sized volume.