and remembering her accomplishments, I ventured an overture, and looking straight in the daughter's eyes, remarked to the mother

"Fa bello oggi, Signora (It is a pleasant day, Madame)."

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Si, non capisco, Signore (Yes, I don't understand, sir)," returned the mother very graciously.

I was rather ashamed of such a morning-call remark to an Armenian lady upon the desert, and felt rebuked by her ignorance of conventional conversation. I tried again.

"Andate a Gerusalemme anche lei? (You are also going to Jerusalem?")

And I suspected the Italian was more imperfect than the old man knew.

But the beautiful daughter manifested an extreme interest in the conversation, and I fear was somewhat amused at the discrepancy between the splendor of the strangers' titles and that of their robes, which were far from royal.

So, in view of the eyes I began again. "Ela figlia non parla Italiano?" ("The daughter does not speak Italian?")

Si, non capisco, Signore," came graciously as ever from the maternal lips, and the caravans relapsed into

silence.

By three o'clock we began to think of encamping. Travellers complain of the short day's work upon the desert, but surely if you mount MacWhirter at five o'clock

in the morning, you will be ready by two or three o'clock to intermit the monotonous jerk of his gait, and stretch yourself upon the carpet over the soft sand. The camp was pitched not far from shore, for so seemed the green land to the west, and the door of our pavilion was arranged to command that of the grave Armenian.

Before sunset two great German Moguls came up, convoyed by a wretched party of Arabs, and a one-eyed Dragoman. They had an unhappy air, and stood in the way of the men who were pitching their tents, looking longingly at the palm-trees, and dismally toward the desert, as if the East were an "experience" which they must undergo. And while they stood there in the sunset, mentally moaning that they must sup without sauerkraut, and wishing that Goethe had never written the West-Oestlicher Divan nor Rückert his Ghazelles, a gay wind blew out of the desert, tossing sand in their faces, and running with low gusty laughter to play with the palms, and to carry back into the wilderness the Muezzin's cry.

It fled, and we watched the day gloriously dying. Then suddenly fell over the world the sable folds of the great tent of Night: the darkness was cool and sweet, and through myriads of points above, the gone glory of the day looked in and made the darkness gorgeous.

VII.

Romance.

"O GREAT American Mogul, are you awake?" asked I of the Pacha in the early starlight of the second day. "I am,” he said.

"This is the great Syrian desert-six hundred leagues in length, three hundred in breadth, extending from Aleppo to the Arabian Sea, from Egypt to the Persian Gulf"

"O great American Mogul," interrupted the Pacha, "are you awake?”

"Most certainly I am, and that strip of palm-land which begins to glimmer through the dying night is Egypt, of which a Turkish Pacha said, Egypt is the most beautiful farm, but Syria is a charming country-house.”

"Moreover," I continued, "Arab signifies in the original, solitude or desert. And this is the oldest and most estimable of lands❞—

"This sand?" inquired the Pacha.

"No; but this East which has mothered us all, sending out of its apparently sterile womb race after race whose wildness has been tamed into wisdom, and whose

C

genius, early fed with grandeur and simplicity on the luxuriant shores of this river, and in the solitude of the wilderness, has ripened into the Art and Literature and Religion which has made us, and which we cherish."

"Well!"

"Well, Pacha, eschewing the leathery tea which the Commander is getting ready, you shall breakfast upon the styles and titles of the Prince of this renowned land. You will agree that they become the dignity and character of the realm. They will not seem absurd to you in this tent, although they would seem so in the club and counting-house; and they will impart a fine flavor to your desert reveries. Pacha, perpend, 'I, by the infinite grace of the great, just, and omnipotent Creator, and by the innumerable miracles of the chief of Prophets, Emperor of powerful Emperors, the Refuge of Sovereigns, Distributor of Crowns to the Kings of the Earth, Servant of the thrice sacred cities, (Mecca and Medina,) Governor of the holy city of Jerusalem, Master of Europe, Asia, and Africa, conquered by our victorious sword and by our terrific lance, Lord of three seas (White, Black, and Red), of Damascus the odor of Paradise, of Bagdad, the seat of the Caliphs, of the fortresses of Belgrade, Agria, and a multitude of countries, islands, straits, nations, generations, and of so many victorious armies which repose beneath the shadow of our sublime Porte, I-the shadow of God on earth!"

That is the name of the King of this country, the style of the Sultan; and it is as sensible and sonorous as the » Defender of the Faith," applied to the English King

George the Fourth, or "Most Christian King" to the last Sovereigns of France.

I like these glittering shreds and patches, and remnants of magnificence. Despite the gentle Juliet, the melody of the name should accord with the sweetness of the odor, and the name of the Sultan ungarnished with these thundering tail-pieces would be as little agreeable as the prefix of "puissant" to our own President. The Sultan is the Lord of three seas, and of the odor of Paradise, and of the seat of the Caliphs; but what faith did George the Fourth ever defend, except that extraordinary creed of his being the first gentleman in Europe? And what were the shining "Christian" virtues of the Bourbon Kings of France?

-While we sat, pleasing fancy with this pompous prelude of the Sultan's laws, the sun rose through the morning vapors, like the full red moon. Khadra, the Armenian's beautiful daughter, stepped into her palanquin. The Germans who had paid specified piastres for the vision of the East, were already sea-sick upon their camels, and were disappearing toward the horizon with their one-eyed keeper; and the venerable-bearded Armenian paced up on his white mare to offer the morning salute to El Shiraz and MacWhirter.

The Commander had retired to a little distance, and was purposing to perform the Wudoo, or ablution for prayer, sprinkling sand upon his hands, for the Prophet permits sand to be used in a scarcity of water. The father of our Shekh ambled off upon his little donkey alone, over the hard, level desert, as naturally and unconcernedly as