crozier in the wall, four hundred years, for the
return of the Byzantine empire.

Alas! the Ottomans have prophets too;
they came to Byzantium under holy guidance.
Eyoob or Job, a follower of the prophet, himself
led the first attack on those triple walls, and
falling, left his body and the prophecy of the
apostle, as a pledge to those who were to
achieve success. By a vision granted to a holy
man, all this was revealed to Mahomet, and
little reck he and his successors of the bishop
of the idolaters. The tomb of Eyoob,
surrounded by the many sepulchres of sultans
and warriors, stands on its holy ground, a
monument to them of divine assurance.

But for their enemies, the bishop is not the
only testimony. In the monastery of Balukli,
outside the doomed walls, at the moment when
the last of the Constantines died like a warrior
on a mountain of slain, the monks of Balukli
were frying fish. And the fish, more sensible
to the events of this world than the monks,
jumped off the gridiron into a sacred tank,
where they still live to commemorate the dread
event, and keep up hope in faithful Greeks.
There they may be seen on their yearly festival;
and I have seen them at other times by the
offering of a silver coin. They still bear the
stripes of the gridiron, as any one can witness.
If a few fish can live for four hundred years,
why should not the shiekhs near Mekka live
twice that time!

Though the underground people are hidden,
their treasures are sometimes found. Treasure-
finding is a recognised way of attaining to
fortune. Just as every poor family in England
thinks an unknown uncle may bring them
sudden wealth from India, so the native, nay, the
European resident, in Turkey, never knows
but in his very garden the tent of some Lydian
king may give way to the mattock, and deliver
up its wealth of gold and jewels. Silver is
seldom expected, for it is better to have gold
and jewels. According to received notions, but
unrecorded by history, the old kings of these
countries had the peculiarity of burying with
them immense masses of treasure, jars upon
jars of gold. Why they did it, reason saith
not; but who knows who may have the luck
to find the store?

There are tales enough of these discovered
hoards received as profound truth. I have
seen the spots where the tombs were rifled, and
I have heard the names of the finders. I know
a beautiful pass, with clumps of poplars and
planes, called the Kavakli Dere, or Poplar
Dale, where a Hollander, in the last century,
is recorded by the universal popular voice to
have discovered a tomb and treasure. He went
back to the city, and, taking a negro slave as
an assistant, gradually and steadily carried off
the enormous prize. This he smuggled on
board the fleet in the bay, and, lest the secret
should leak out, he poisoned the black before
sail in; yet the full and authentic particulars
seem to be just as well known as if the dead
negro had revealed them. Perhaps he did, for
there is no want of ghosts in the East. There
was one in a well near my house that sorely
troubled the neighbourhood.

Treasure adventures are not of the past only.
I have been asked to join in more than one. It
is always necessary to begin by buying the piece
of ground in which the treasure is. I have lost
more than one certain fortune by neglecting this
preliminary step. One chance I lost, was very
strong. The lucky discoverer had made a
midnight venture on the ground, had opened a jar,
and had handled costly jewels. Fearful of being
discovered, he put them back again, and came
post haste to me, next morning, for fifty pounds
as an instalment on the land, and to get the
jewels out. He did not get the fifty pounds
from me, nor, I fear, from any one else; for he
died some years afterwards without
bequeathing gold, silver, or diamonds, to his heirs. The
secret died with him.

One is not limited to gold. Luck may turn
up in other ways. Statues are very good; for
a small investment you may come upon a find
like a Ballarat nugget  a thousand or two
thousand pounds being a small sum for an English
lord to pay for a statue. In my time the finds
have been few, and of limited value; though
fragments are being constantly turned up. One
man told me he had found, in a villa in the
interior, twelve statues as good as the Apollo
Belvidere, and he offered me a half share of the
find, on payment of a few hundred pounds
down. If any statues were found, I believe
they were garden images. A Turkish proprietor
told me I might dig for statues or bas-reliefs
on many parts of his property; and I believe
him, for he was owner of the site of a city as
large as Bristol or Norwich. It was, however,
an inconvenient spot to transport heavy
marbles from; and when it was not covered
with the winter floods, it was poisonous with
malaria. Such are the drawbacks, where there
are real chances!

Visions beset the Levantine of cities in the
interior, desolate, but with temples perfect and
statuary standing. Some will tell you that they
have found such places, when driven by brigands
off the beaten route: cities unmarked on the maps
and unnamed by the ancient geographers and
historians. They could not stay, and have
wished to return; but years have passed away,
and their business has not yet permitted. The
columns they saw were as polished as when
new, and gleaming in snowy white brightness.
Tombs are ever and anon said to be opened, in
which lamps were found burning, which only
went out when the fresh air entered. By the
last flicker of such a lamp, the king whose
body the light watched, visibly faded from
his life-like colour, and his solid flesh and
embroidered robes fell to dust.

All is fleeting, and all may perish. How
sweet is the small valley, with its vines and
figs and olives, its orange and citron trees yet
scenting the air, its gardened houses, its lanes
and hedgerows, the trickling stream and
flowering shrubs! How charming yonderstreet—
the palace, gaily painted, as a picture by itself;
the free fountain next its gate speaks of the