noise of the waterfall prevented the hymns
these men sung being heard far beyond the
spot where they met. I sat looking at the
rock till I almost fancied I could see the
grim hard faces darken as the preacher
emptied the seven vials of Apocalyptic
terrors over the heads of the Scarlet Lady and
her adherents, the followers of the godless
Stuart. The day was too bright; the
trout would not rise even at my best
flies. I laid down my rod to wait for the
sunset, and as I lay there with my back to
a huge block of stone, sleep came creeping
towards her prey with velvet foot, and
cast her enchantment over me. When I
awoke the sun had set behind Moel Hebog,
and I found myself in a transformed world.
For the moment I felt like Abou Hassan,
who lay down at the gate of the city, and
awoke in the Caliph's Palace. That seemed
the true way to enjoy sleep — mountains
dim, vast, and mysterious for the walls of
one's bed-chamber, and a rippling stream
to lull one with its dreamy lullaby.

One of the strangest places to sleep in is
an American railway car. It seems so odd
to climb up on to a shelf, like an upper
berth in a steamer, and to go to sleep while
the train rushes and rattles on at the rate of
forty miles an hour. The panting of the
engine, the rumbling of the multitudinous
wheels, are sounds from which you cannot
easily divert your thoughts: if you do doze,
the stopping at the stations is sure to
awake you by the comparative quiet, and
then a half drowsy fear seizes you that
the train is perhaps being taken to
pieces, or that it has reached its final goal.
Then, again, you are apt to start at some
louder pulsation or scream of alarm from
the engine, and to imagine that a collision is
about to take place That alarm once
roused, away jangle all your nerves, and
there is no more sleep for you, my gentleman,
that night.

The same distrust and uneasiness
sometimes comes upon one when sleeping in a
steamer. You awake in a stivy cabin and
hear the screw gyrating in what you fancy
a peculiar and alarming way. The sea
was quiet when you took that last turn on
deck, now you can hear it spooming and
wallowing outside the porthole. It is raining,
too — raining violently — you can hear
it splash on deck. All at once some one
shouts an order, and there is a scamper of
feet over your head, a dragging at a chain,
an angry flap of some unwieldly and rebellious
sail. The vessel staggers as a big sea
strikes her, and seems for a moment almost
to stop. Not a doubt about it, the steamer
is going down; in a moment more you will
be drowned in your bed. This is a horrible
species of waking nightmare.

A terrible form of Black Hole of Calcutta
sleep is to be met with during a night in
an overcrowded diligence in winter,
especially when the windows must be kept
closed. I remember with a shudder such a
night. We were going over Mont Cenis in a
jumbling diligence, and four fat garlicky
priests, who snored intolerably. The dense
heat at first sent me asleep, but the hideous
cramp and sinuous entanglement of limbs
soon aroused me to the horrors of the situation;
the feather bed of a man to my right
was reposing against me with an amiable
but overwhelming confidence. Struggling
at last from under the doughy mountain that
threatened to overlay me, I drew out my
legs from the general herd in selfish but
irresistible rebellion. Swiftly but stealthily
my hand stole to the window; I slightly
raised it, the night air poured in with
delicious coolness. It brought with it fresh
life, but, alas! that very moment the hot
fat hand of the half-asleep man drew the
window down with mute but imperious
obstinacy, which repressed every future
effort of insurrection on my part. How I
survived that night I do not know, but
when those four sacerdotal monsters rolled
out next day at Susa, I breathed once more,
flung down both windows scornfully and
almost menacingly, and gave them my
benediction in expressive Saxon.

One more night of horrors and I have
done. In a walking tour through Germany,
I and my companion found ourselves one
evening entering a little village close to
the Lake of Constance. My companion,
who was half a German, knew every dialect
that was spoken from Dusseldorf to Prague.
We passed ourselves off as travelling pianoforte
makers. The common room of the
inn was full of queer, quaint people in odd
costumes, high boots, red waistcoats, and
a sort of cocked-hat. Many of them were
from the Black Forest. Stolid, boorish
people they were. Supper over, we went
up to bed in a large old-fashioned room, with
the usual stove in one corner. My friend
had taken into his head suspicions of the
place, and instituted a search round the
apartment before we betook ourselves to
our respective beds. All at once, as he felt
along the wainscot a sliding panel yielded to
his hand. It might have been only a
cupboard-door, but still he did not like it. He
proposed that we should watch by turns;