and gratitude. He had been prosperous in his trade and fortunate in his family. All his sons were doing well, all his daughters happily married. He had lost his wife many years ago, but time and religion had soothed that sorrow. He was going to Jerusalem now to offer there thanks to the Divine Being for the joys of a long and honourable existence, to pray for the soul of his departed wife, and for the salvation of all his children. He showed me a letter from his youngest daughter, in whose house the old man lived, and who had sent him this letter to Trieste. It was badly spelt, but most touching. She called upon the Holy Virgin and all the saints to take her dear father under their kind and powerful protection and bring him safely back to his home, which seemed desolate without him. The old sailor was of great use to me, he knew, as he called it, ‘every stone of the coast,‘ and was always willing and often able to tell me what I wanted to know about the places we passed. When we arrived at Corfù, he went on shore, but not from any curiosity, the place was well known to him, but in order to perform his devotions at the silver shrine of St. Spiridion, the patron saint of the island. At Sira, where there seemed to be no particular saint, he did not leave the boat; it is a new town, and in our times saints seem to have become scarce. But if the old sailor seemed to be intent upon nothing but praying to all the saints on the road, a little German master miller had apparently undertaken this pilgrimage in order only to buy photographs of all sizes and descriptions at every place we stopped at. Not knowing any other language but Viennese-German, he must have had sometimes great difficulty in accomplishing his object in places where people understood only Greek and Italian. But where there is a will there is a way. He seemed to find by instinct the places where photographs were to be got, and succeeded in buying some very nice ones in Corfù, where I, not being equally persevering, had failed in procuring any. When we arrived in Sira, the funny little man, as soon as he reached the land by means of a boat that had taken several of his companions ashore, left them who were satisfied with seeing in reality what he wanted on cardboard. While they were going up the hill, on which the Roman Catholic church stands, and from whence there is a fine view over the town, the harbour, and the sea, he remained in the town in search of photographs. This time, however, he was destined to be disappointed; for, although he found a place where they sold photographs, and where they showed him many, he found they were views of every place and country in the world, especially of Paris and Vienna; but not of so common a place as Sira, which every one there had always before his eyes. In looking over all the photographs in search of those he wished, the time must have passed more rapidly than he was aware of, for he was not at the “embarcader” when his travelling companions arrived there, in order to return to the boat. The wind that was fresh when they landed had much increased, and the boatmen told them they had better get on board the steamer as soon as possible, and after waiting a little while, they did as they were advised, and left the poor little miller behind. When he arrived at the place of embarcation, the Greeks somehow made him understand that the others had left Sira, and that he must take a boat for himself. By this time the wind had become very strong, and when we perceived the boat that carried the little miller, the waves were constantly breaking over it, wetting him to the skin, and what was worst of all, spoiling his new beaver hat, which he had put on to go to Sira in, for what reason is best known to himself. When the two boatmen at last boarded the vessel, the rapacious Greeks asked so exorbitant a price for their trouble that the little German, although in great fear and longing to get on board, would not pay it, when they pushed off from the steamer again, one thrusting his hand in the terrified traveller’s pocket with the intention of paying himself. At that moment one of the officers of the steamer observed the danger he was in, and came to his rescue by telling the Greeks in an imperious voice to put the poor man immediately on board.

The four young Americans that belonged to the party went to the Holy Land for the same purpose as they had visited England, France and Germany, viz. to see what the place was like. They were four modest and courteous young gentlemen; and if their Christian names had not been Lucius and Homer, and such like, and if they had not called the Russians “Rooshions” and America “Merico,” I should not have “guessed” where they came from. Homer was evidently smitten with Mdlle. S——, one of the lady travellers; and always on the watch for an opportunity of offering her his opera glass or fetch a chair for her. The worldliest of the worldly was Mr. St——, a painter from Düsseldorf, a young man with a satirical face and roguish disposition. He was as good a sailor as the Captain, and enjoyed his meals as if he worked with a spade instead of a brush and pencil. He tried to flirt with the ladies, and drew most charming sketches of land and people. The portraits of General T—— and the little Jew doctor of the ship, were wonderfully true and humorous. He was always either drawing or talking, and delighted in teasing the poor curé, who generally answered in a gentle and becoming manner.

Between the devotees and the worldlings, belonging to both and yet to neither, uniting in himself all their good qualities and apparently free from their faults, stood Mr. H——, a clergyman from Cologne. A man of most venerable looks, highly cultivated mind, and a warm pious heart. With him I spent some of the pleasantest hours of our journey to Smyrna. He told me that for thirty years a journey to the Holy Land had been his wish by day, and his dream by night. When at last it was to be realised, his wife from mistaken kindness had much opposed it; had used entreaties and tears to prevent what she considered a dangerous journey; but the wish had been all too strong, she had been obliged to let him go. His face had a bright look of happiness, softened by what seemed a stronger and deeper feeling still—gratitude. And that bright look did not vanish, even when between Corfu and Sira, the sea became very rough, and prostrated most of the company, that had been so lively till then. When I asked him how he was, he answered with a smile, “To be or not to be, that is the question”! When, as we neared Sira, the sea became calmer, and that troublesome question was satisfactorily settled, I enjoyed his conversation again. When he spoke, the land and islands we passed, became peopled with gods and heroes. He did not, like M. R——, from Paris, who came on board our boat at Sira, chill my heart by telling me that there never was a Homer; that at the time when the songs of the Iliad and Odyssey originated, hundreds could sing in that style, as in the 17th century almost everybody in France could write a good letter, while in the 18th, nobody could.

Mr. H—— was no sceptic, and when I declared myself in favour of Chio, as the birth-place of the great bard, he said it was not impossible that I was right.

But I shall never get to Smyrna, if I describe all my travelling companions on the way, so I must come to an end, not however before I have said a few words of the two ladies. Mme. de H——, a Hungarian lady, sister of the Archbishop of Carthage, and formerly a governess to some of the grand-children of Louis Philippe, was a strong minded woman. She had been a widow these twenty years, but not having been