perties of their brunuen, and established a series of balls, concerts, and other traps, for the summer birds of passage, our author feels assured that the fortunes of Nauheim would be solidly secured by this time. Well, it is never too late to mend, so let us hope that the directors will follow this well-meant advice at once.

Within two leagues of Frankfurt is the charming little spa of Wilhelinsbad, where casino, play-room, reading-room, lodgings, restaurateur, bath-house, and stables,are all contained in a vast and comfortable castle belonging to the Elector of Hesse Cassel, The proprietor is one M. Roger Caillat, whose demands are of a most moderate nature, for he only desires that the visitors should leave on his green cloth the paltry sum of thirty or forty thousand francs a year. Besides, there is plenty of amusement at this bath; but to enjoy oneself thoroughly, the visitor must have a liking for country life and platonic loves, for the female denizens of the pretty little nest are more than respectable; their only fault is that they blush at the sight of a soldier, and even more, on hearing a Frenchman, playing at dominoes, forget himself so far as to vociferate, "Mille tonnerres! quelle culotte!" On Sundays and holidays the salons of Wilhelmsbad are invaded by a joyous band; the mother can then take her daughter to the ball-room, and the father allow his son to risk a few florins. During the week the gamblers of Homburg and Wiesbaden come hither to rest from their labours, and grant themselves a truce for a few hours.

Ems is a succursale of Wiesbaden, the bank being managed by the same parties. A railway now runs from Lahnstein to Ems, and you reach the latter town in an hour. The first impression one feels in the Kursaal is very disagreeable, however. All the visitors appear sad, ill tempered, and wearied. The majority are patients or Quakers, which comes to the same thing. About two hundred families, nearly all English or Russian, visit Ems during the season, and as the blackest hypochondria is the order of the day, people play furiously to kill time, forgetting that they are at the same time destroying their health. With the exception of this slight disagreeable, the position of Ems is one of the finest of all the wateringplaces on the Rhine. Formerly, one of the most assiduous bathers was Mademoiselle Rachel, while last year there might still be seen the glorious author of "Robert le Diable," mounted on a donkey, and with an open umbrella in his hand. For ten years Meyerbeer spent the summer at Ems.

M. Briguiboul, the manager of the gambling-rooms, is an active and intelligent man, who spares nothing in trying to give this watering-place a development of which it stands greatly in need. Unfortunately his efforts are futile. Although he has ordered operatic companies expressly from Paris, the money was thrown away. The public know what they owe to themselves, and cannot be induced to laugh: the most they venture on is a frigid smile. The greatest profit made by the latter is from travellers proceeding into Belgium, who cannot pass the last gambling-place unvisited. The administration confesses that it counts more on these birds of passage than on the sedentary bathers, and calls them "casuals." Last year the profits were estimated at 150,000 francs, leaving a clear revenue of 100,000 to be divided among the fortunate shareholders.

Should ever the Germanic Diet carry out its menace and close the gambling-houses, one last refuge will be left to punters in Monaco. No tourist proceeding from Nice to Genoa but stops a day at Monaco, and each winter the foreign colony divides its time equally between Nice and the capital of Charles Honoré III. To be like the rest of the world, our author decided on going to Monaco too, which can be reached either by water or land. By sea it is only an affair of an hour: the steamers belong to the bank, and cross four times a day from Nice. By land the omnibus journey is long and very tiring, but the better plan is to take a carriage as far as Turbia, a small village on the Cornice road, and descend thence on foot to Monaco. As M. de Marancour had always believed that Monaco was a pseudonym for Lilliput, he was agreeably surprised at the first sight of the town. On a promontory which Virgil mentions, and which extends into the sea like the prow of a vessel, he saw a picturesque line of white houses-real houses-nestling round a real castle, defended by real ramparts and real guns. Fresh surprise at the sight of a port like other ports, where ships rode as ships usually do. Nothing up to this point diverged from natural proportions, but M. de Mazarade still entertained doubts as to the stature of the natives, and trembled lest invisible ladders might be suddenly rested against his legs, and pigmy warriors swarm up them to assault the man-mountain. this last illusion was dispersed by the appearance of a superb gendarme, some inches taller than himself.

But

The principality of Monaco is composed of an unbroken chain of rocks running in a horse-shoe form round a superb haven. On the left, upon a bare and desolated crest, the town hangs like an eagle's eyrie, with bastions, drawbridges, turrets; in a word, all the accessories of a feudal watering-place. On the right, on the flank of the mountain, rises a magnificent building, a sort of Temple of Plutus, whose terraces descend to the sea, and round which is grouped a multitude of charming villas. It is the Casino. Here a devouring activity prevails, and life may be felt pulsing feverishly. The most careless eye must notice the strange contrast offered by these two agglomerations of human abodes, standing opposite each other, and which seem to be the emblems-one of perpetual motion, the other of eternal repose.

The town itself resembles a fossil curiosity preserved in an archæological museum. Grass grows freely in its streets-a yellow grass parched by the devastating sun. The narrow, dirty streets, adorned with gloomy arcades, exhale a rank perfume of feudalism. You walk through them cautiously, afraid every moment of coming on an oubliette, or seeing a gallows rise grimly before you. The human forms you meet have an automatic appearance about them that chills you to the marrow. They look like the phantoms of martyrs prowling about the catacombs.

Everything is grotesque in the town: This most serene monarch, who treats the great powers as an equal, coins money with his effigy, and calls emperors cousin; these ministers receiving a salary of 600 francs; this army of a dozen gendarmes performing the duties of soldiers, police, marines, custom-house officers, rural police, and schoolmaster; and, above all, the honest serfs, who are devoured by an epidemic, that of making a show. To be something is their motto. They are all more or less landowners, and could live comfortably under the cabbage-leaf which saw

VOL. LVI.

2 I

their birth. But they are mad for dignities, and love them for their own sake. Just as children love gold, not because it is gold, but because it glistens. They like to put on a smart uniform on holidays, and transform their plough-horse into a Bucephalus.

Fortunately, nature largely aided, we must add by the gamblinghousekeepers, offers a compensation. We enter the port and lean over the side to gaze at the azure sea surrounding us. The water is so transparent that we can see to a depth of nearly eighty feet. The first object that catches the eye ashore is the bathing-establishment, whose two wings, almost level with the beach, look remarkably comfortable. The bathing itself is incomparable, and it is exactly like walking on a velvet carpet. You can walk out for one hundred yards without getting out of your depth, and we may add that, owing to the beneficent temperature, it is possible to bathe all the year round.

Eight years ago his most serene highness authorised the establishment of a gambling-bank on his estates, but it was not till after numerous vicissitudes and successive ruin that the Casino of Monaco attained its present prosperity. Millions (of francs) were expended in building the Kursaal, the hotels, and the villas running along to Cape Martin. At the present day the bank is in the hands of a company, which does everything to attract visitors. The hotels are magnificent and reasonable, and a special feature of attraction is offered in the regattas, concerts, and balls. In short, the visitor to Monaco will find that health and gaiety are at least a step towards happiness.

THE TWIN-SISTERS OF MALTA.

FROM THE DUTCH OF MADAME BOSBOOM TOUSSAINT.*

How pleasantly are not the rocky shores of Malta still reflected on the calm blue surface of the Mediterranean sea, when the golden rays of the evening sun are dancing upon it!

Yet alas! This Malta, with its proud steps of granite, its threatening cannons, and its peaceful industry; with its simple flat roofs, and its fantastic balconies; with the blood-red oranges, and the sweetest grapes in the world; the aged orphan of the old chevaliers, which languishes in eternal minority under English guardianship; this Malta is no longer what it formerly was. One would be wronging it to call it the shadow

* Madame Bosboom Toussaint is considered one of the first female writers of the present age in Holland. Her historical tales are much admired for their truthfulness, the power with which her characters are delineated, and the religious and moral tone which pervades them. She has also written several shorter stories, in which she has adopted the light and graceful style so peculiar to France. This accomplished authoress was born at Alkmaar, at which town they are so proud of her that the magistracy have had her works and portrait placed in the archives of the city, along with a flattering tribute to her merits.-TRANS.

of its bygone splendour, for the shadow resembles the original, if even only in uncertain and faint outlines; but Malta has entirely lost its early forms. Perhaps here and there a single rare feature of its past lustre reminds one that the Malta of the nineteenth century as little resembles that of the time of Hugo de Payens, as the lords of the woolsack resemble the grand masters of old.

A totally different life now prevails there. The dreaded enemy of the Mussulman faith, who enthusiastically brandished the Cross against the Crescent, no longer claims tribute from Turk and Pagan; on the contrary, it has become a great Custom-house, while English toll-gatherers demand tribute from every sail which is hoisted on the wide navigable waters of the Mediterranean sea. The naked rocks, to which each Paladin brought a handful of earth, became a fruitful island, warmed by Africa's sun, and enlightened by European civilisation. The poetical abode of the pious knights has become the prosaic seat of extensive commerce; it is at once the blessed spot, where, with each breath one inhales renovated health, and whither the aristocracy of England, the bonne société of France, and fashionable travellers from every other nation, resort with pleasure. In short, Malta need not regret that it has kept pace with the times; it has not lost much of its consequence since it exchanged the white banner for the union jack of Great Britain.

But I have allowed myself to be too far carried away by my reflections, which are so little suited to my insignificant tale. I had much better have said a few words about the women of this charming island, those women so entirely peculiar, in whom the fire of the Arab females is so intimately blended with the captivating, languishing manners of those of Sicily, who, in gracefulness, yield precedence to none of their southern sisters. Above all, they recal to the observer that Africa is in the rear, and that there Europe begins.

Among these the twin sisters, Peppa and Magallon, deserved the prize of beauty. Richer and darker hair seldom adorned brows of more delicate transparency. Their blue-black eyes sparkled like bright cut steel, and between their lips, whose redness reminded one of fresh pomegranates, glittered teeth as white as the purest pearls of Coromandel. Their features bespoke oriental excitability, tempered by mildness, which, added to the tone of true amiability that pervaded their whole manner, lent a singular charm to their words and movements. Education and practice had made them both familiar with the first European languages, yet they preferred to speak the Maltese-Arabic, which still exists among the people, the agreeable sound of which, and the power of its expressions, cause one to forget that it is entirely wanting in literary cultivation.

It would be difficult to say which of the twin sisters was the handsomer, or in what Peppa's beauty differed from Magallon's. In form, face, voice, gait, and movement, they were entirely alike; and this resemblance was much increased by their dress being exactly the same. They wore the Maltese ouella, which was fastened to a little satin hat interwoven with gold thread, thus greatly heightening the shining blackness of their hair. Both wore bodices of cherry-coloured velvet, richly embroidered, and light blue over skirts of slight gauzy texture. Their sleeves, of Venetian silver gauze, by no means hid their beautiful rounded arms, with the delicate little hands, which played with fans the same in colour and size.

Peppa, however, had a bunch of flowers in her hat, without which precaution her own father, the worthy Paolo Paterno, would not have been able to distinguish the first-born from her sister. The same education, the same fate, always being together (they had never yet been separated for longer than an hour or so), could not fail to have effect upon their feelings and actions; and even their nurse declared that she had never met with exterior resemblance joined to such perfect similarity of disposition. They were sisters in every sense of the word.

Good Paolo Paterno, who had lost his wife in the bloom of her youth, and could never reconcile himself to a second marriage, found his only comfort in his lovely daughters, who but seldom caused him to regret that they were not sons, to whom he could have bequeathed his name and brigantine. He was owner of a merchantman, which, after performing for several years successful voyages, had made him one of the most wealthy inhabitants of La Valetta.

When Peppa and Magallon had attained their fourteenth year, the thoughts of his successor occupied Paolo more and more. He, therefore, took into his house the son of an only brother, who had fallen under Napoleon, and, although still very young, Matteo was betrothed to Peppa. Another and more brilliant match had offered for Magallon, the nephew and partner of one of the richest merchants in Malta, who was a Greek by birth, a Maltese by necessity, and a merchant with all his heart and soul.

The two damsels had not hesitated a moment to consent to their union with the gentlemen selected for them, and, without further thought, they calmly looked forward to the coming event, which each day brought

nearer.

One day Paolo, who was accustomed every year to take some excursion, accompanied by his children, proposed to them that they should go with him once more before their marriages on a trip to Algiers, which place, under the hands of its French conqueror, was undergoing such wonderful reforms.

The beautiful twins wished for nothing better, and they soon set out on their voyage. But in the way in which they took leave of their lovers, and in the manner in which they greeted them on their return, there was too striking a difference to escape the notice of the young

men.

Peppa treated Matteo more coldly and formally than she had ever done before, and Magallon's proud lover had to bear whims and violence. of which he had never suspected her capable. The former bore it patiently, as one who was painfully familiar with misfortune and suffering; the Greek, on the contrary, became irritated and suspicious. Notwithstanding that the father saw this change with great sorrow, he could not imagine what could be its cause; he could not understand what had so suddenly transformed his lively, gay daughters into such whimsical, morose girls; why these gentle dear ones were so capricious and cruel to those who had claims upon their love. The honest captain possessed, it is true, plenty of natural common sense for every-day life, but he understood nothing of the fine shades of the female heart, and he was not capable of discovering what lay behind the caprices which he daily encountered; this was beyond his power. The truth was, however, that