Then he said much more which was private, and therefore sacred; but this he wished to be known, and therefore I have told it.

When I again rose to go, he pressed me by the hand in that affectionate way which is a second nature with his countrymen, and he began to inquire about my journey, gave me a good deal of advice, which I found very useful, and finally ordered one of his own couriers to see me to the frontier.

CHAPTER XLII.

The author takes an affectionate leave of the wise men of the East, and hints at his own pleasant philosophy. Happy effects of Eastern travel. Difference between the best men and the worst. Greek skopos. Character of the Orientals. The author wisely expresses his inability to say what is to be done with them after the most approved fashion of the greatest political writers.

ALAS! in taking leave of the East I am compelled to say, that the more I have seen of it, the more it has made me melancholy. I am not a melancholy man, either; I have seen quite enough of the world to have a tolerably wide toleration. I am not one of those, who Franklin told us in his charming essay are always looking at the ugly leg. The ugly leg must be insufferably intrusive, it must positively rise up and kick one's shins, before I or any one else who has reasoned fairly upon life, will examine it with the smallest attention. We know pretty well (I may speak of myself, as I am but a shadow), that a good many very disagreeable circumstances are inevitable in the character of nations, as well as individuals. Long before we leave college we begin to understand that our schoolboy dream of heroic virtue is as unreal for others as ourselves. We see that our judgments of men and things require a good deal of elbow-room; for it is prudent to grant the charity we shall be obliged to ask. We get a truer view of life, perhaps a sadder-perhaps a gayer, according to our dispositions; and as heroic virtue may formerly have appeared to us a dull business or otherwise.

But in any case the sentiments of men, who really do know the world, are large and liberal enough in all conscience. They are not easily shocked. We may raise our eyebrows, and forget to ask a man very often to dinner, if we fancy there is something shy about him; but ten to one if some prig runs a muck at him, we shall set that prig down as an offensive humbug, and give him a yawn, or a rap on the knuckles for his stupid tirade, as we may feel inclined. We certainly shall not pay serious attention to a word of it; and may very likely think we owe a more cordial shake of the hand to the man attacked for having even involuntarily listened to such nonsense about him.

But you cannot go about shaking the hands of the present generation in the East. It is positively too bad. It is no longer a question between the ugly and the handsome leg. Both legs are ugly; and both equally black. The very soul and spirit of a gentleman revoits from the contact of an Oriental. No matter how favourably disposed you may have been towards him,--no matter how frankly and kindly you may treat him, he will end by disgusting you. A lengthened residence in the East would ruin the heart, temper, and judgment of the gentlest and wisest philosopher. Every human being you meet is branded with the same indelible mark, and is made up of lies, tricks, and infamy. Let no humanity-monger attempt to deny this on the strength of a month at Constantinople, and half a dozen pipes with pashas. The East requires years of study before you will allow yourself to admit a truth which positively frightens and ashames you from its terrible generality. You struggle against the ungenerous thought as an enemy, but it leaves you ignominiously prostrate: you fly from it, but it overtakes you; you stubbornly shut your eyes against conviction, and they are forced open.

There is everywhere, and in all things, the same want of private honesty and public faith. The best men are liars and robbers. They rob as a provision for their family, or to acquire a snug independence for themselves. duty, as a right, or perquisite of office. Italian prisons are not so bad as the worst. where that infernal Greek" Skopos." No man has the

They rob as a The sweepings of There is every

smallest belief in himself or any one else. Words cease altogether to be symbols of things. Every man knows that his own acts, from childhood, have been cheats, coined by cunning herself, and he believes that the acts and deeds of all men are the same. Talk to his heart for hours, and you will find no response or healthy human feeling in it. He will be plausible, reasonable, moderate, enough; but he will most utterly dupe and despise you if you trust him. You may work on his pride and vanity up to a certain point, but there is nothing good even about them; and he will obey their dictates just so long, and no longer, as they absolutely do not interfere with the most petty object of the most passing and momentary interest. Directly you get him up to this point he stops short. The arguments of Wisdom herself would be lost upon him. He will try to deceive you with all his heart and soul, and with all his strength. He will succeed, to his own injury and eventual discomfiture of course; but here he is blind. He is a trickster, and therefore necessarily a dolt; the most exasperating dolt of all, a cunning dolt.

Habitual intercourse with him is impossible; you may try it bravely, stubbornly, but you will give it up at last in despair. You might resolve to ignore the fact that your new acquaintance is a pirate, going out for a dishonest cruise, but if you do not retire he will inevitably get you into the same boat with him, and sail away with your colours impudently flying at his mast-head. You may fancy you have been out for a constitutional walk with him, and you will find to your dismay, that you have been party to a burglary. You may believe that you have stood up for him against an oppressor, and discover, too late, that you have aided him in sorely wronging the innocent and helpless; if you but open your lips as his friend, you will learn, in due season, that he has made you the seeming advocate of some foul and infamous design.

What is to be done with these unhappy men? I confess I tremble when I think of the ages of shame and degradation they are bringing on themselves. Hitherto the educated classes have been the worst; thought exhausts itself about them in vain, and the mind's eye strains itself to discover

some light in the East; but all is darkness. The responsibilities of bad governments are indeed heavy, if they can bring things at last to such a point as this. Sultans, czars, viziers, and stubble, behold your work, and tremble!

CHAPTER XLIII.

The

A chatty breakfast interrupted by preparations for the road. author prudently provides for emergencies, and lays in a tempting stock of provisions, in case he should be obliged to winter on the Russian frontiers. The author describes the beauties of the scenery with grace and pathos.

It is my last morning at Bucarest, and I am quite sorry when a chatty breakfast is disturbed by the arrival of a travelling chariot which I have been fortunate enough to buy, and ten wiry little horses which are to whisk me away towards Craiova and the frontier. Shortly afterwards, a Wallachian postcart, with four other ponies, rattles up. That is for the prince's courier, who will gallop on a post ahead always, to get my horses ready.

I am told there is a weary journey before me; but I am at all events well provided for most emergencies. I have an immense bearskin cloak over two other fur coats, high sheepskin boots, a sheepskin cap, and sheepskin gloves with the wool turned inwards and no divisions between the fingers. I have a snug close carriage with quite a library inside, a cold roast turkey, a large ham sausage, some bread, salt, sugar, tea, and several bottles of wine. A little colony of English is mustered to say good-bye, for fellow country people grow intimate in out-of-the-way places. Then after a warm shake of the hand from Mr. Colquhoun, a word of excellent parting advice, and a pleasant smile from Joe, my servant climbs heavily up into the rumble through a cloud of cloaks, and away we roll.

At first we go bumping through the streets in a sort of funeral procession, and the ten wiry little horses have much

difficulty in turning the carriage round the sharp angular corners, so that one of my lamps which Joe has garnished up so trimly is broken in no time. However, I take this merely as a playful pat of fortune; a sort of pleasant practical joke made to rally me about the absurdity of having lamps at all these pleasant moonlight nights.

When we get off the stones, however, and on to the wild trackless road beyond the town, the postillions (there are four of them) begin to yell like so many imps, and I am grateful to my springs, for I see that we are galloping over the frozen ground as fast as racing feet can carry us.

So away by yokes of oxen and patient serfs turning round to look at us with the deep-set sorrowful eyes of the Wallach. The sweet accents of their language, with its luxury of vowels, comes delightfully on the ear through the falling evening air, and mingles with the lowing of the cattle as they wander homeward.

On through the dark midnight, long after the veiled moon has left us; through the trackless snow, with the wolf's hustling gallop, and the jackal's howl behind, around, with the wild cat's eyes glaring from the bush, and the village dog prowling fearful and solitary. Past the lonely sledge of the humble wayfarer, who stands beside and unbonnets respectfully to the Viennese travelling chariot with its mysterious mails and imperials. On past the Austrian patrols, by the hoarse challenge of the awakened man at the barrier. Away, while the morning breaks greyly, and the snipe and the wild duck get up scared by the screeching of the postillions. On through the roused hamlet and the silent heath, through drift, and marsh, and endless plain-on, on, ever onwards—for, sweetheart, it is your lover hastening towards you.