behind, sounds like those I had heard in the
spaces before me: the tramp of invisible feet,
the whirr of invisible wings, as if armies were
marching to aid against armies in march to
destroy.

"Look not in front nor around," said Ayesha.
"Look, like him, on the caldron below. The
circle and the lamps are yet bright; I will tell
thee when their light again fails."

I dropped my eyes on the caldron.

"See," whispered Margrave, " the sparkles, at
last, begin to arise, and the rose-hues to deepen;
signs that we near the last process."

TOLLS AND NO TOLLS.

You were born in Dover—we will suppose
for a moment—and you were never out of it.
You are possessed of a light, commodious, four-
wheel, a strong, sound, willing horse, and a
lovely bride. Now is the time to see the world,
and to enjoy seeing it. With these elements of
pleasure and happiness, you determine to take
a summer tour, in short stages, doing twenty,
thirty, occasionally even forty, miles a day.
You start northward, in travelling costume, to
traverse your beloved native land; but, onward
as you roll, up rises a disagreeable claim—the
toll. So frequently is that impost called for,
that you determine to devote to that payment
exclusively, for the demands of turnpikes only,
a toll-pocket, to which your hand soon finds its
way as naturally as a baby's fist to its dear little
mouth. When, after passing through Wales and
the Lake country, you arrive at last at John
o'Groat's House, you find that your outlay for
turnpikes, if you had it back again, would amount
to a nice little sum of money.

But the money payment is not all. You
discover that 'pikes are a most prolific source of
vexatious litigation. Your newspapers tell you
that sixty pounds sterling were spent in obtaining
the favourable decision that volunteers on
duty were not to pay toll. It is notorious to all
men how constantly the wisdom of our justices,
Shallow and Deep, is exercised on the legislation
of the Gate. The hermits who live in wayside
retirement levying black-mail on passing way-
farers, with wooden bars and iron keys for their
instruments of extortion, are ceaseless
contributors to the thousand-and-one tales of Petty
Sessions.

Sometimes, they appear as the injured
victims of stiff-necked and insubordinate travellers;
sometimes, it is they who drag the defrauder of
their rights before the bench. Sometimes, in
the dead of the night, they won't get up until it
pleases them; sometimes, they vindicate  (disinterestedly)
the honour of their cuckoo-clock,
which cannot possibly have mistaken half-past
eleven at night for twenty minutes to one in the
morning. Sometimes, for want of change, your
twopenny toll costs you half-a-crown; the
misanthropic gentlemen are 'pike keepers, not
money-dealers. Religious, political, and even
agricultural duties, are equally capable of raising
disputes about exemption; for it is seldom clear
whether the contents of a cart be manure, building
materials, or rubbish.

Next year, for variety, you proceed, again
with your willing horse, your four-wheeler, and
your lady; but starting from Dover this time,
southwards through France, after filling your
toll-pocket and laying in an extra stock of
forbearance to meet the caprices of foreign
'pikes. You drive out of Calais, in the direction
of Boulogne, prepared to meet every just
demand. You reach Boulogne, and, to your
astonishment, you have not seen the shadow
of a turnpike-gate. You think this must be
too good to last, and you continue your journey,
over an admirable road, to Montreuil, Abbeville,
and Amiens, when it is clear that there are not
likely to be any turnpikes on this side of Paris.
On the other side, it turns out to be the same;
you roll on smoothly, unobstructed. Soft and
steady is the way to go far. You catch sight
of the blue Mediterranean, and drive through
the archway of your inn at Montpellier, with
the contents of your toll-pocket still untouched.

The result is agreeable; hov is it effected?
Manifestly, the French system of highway
administration must be entirely different to our
own. You find out that France is a grand
Unity, whose elements are held together by
modes of cohesion very different to those by
which the once United States formed the
American Union, or even that by which the
counties of England, Scotland, and Ireland
combine to make a whole United Kingdom.
Secession, Volunteering, Corn Law or other
agitation, local self-government and Vestry
Meetings, are ideas which constitute but little
part of the Gallic legislative creed. No matter
what may be the central power, whether
Emperor, King, Dictator, or President, to that
centre all is referred, and from that centre all
action springs. Consequently, it is surprising
what little alteration in the details of
administration is produced by recent revolutions in
France. Our own modern reforms have effected
considerably more. With the first-class roads
of France, the only change is in name; they
are Imperial, Royal, or National Roads,
according to the position of the wheel of fortune;
the humbler highways change not at all.

France, before the annexation of Savoy and
Nice, consisted of eighty-six departments,
answering in a measure to our counties; but, as
the organisation of each department is exactly
the same in principle, a few departments more
or less make no difference in the administrative
system. The eighty-sixth department is the
Island of Corsica; being now connected with
the mainland by a submarine telegraph, it is
administered with nearly as much facility as if it
formed part of the Continent.

Each department is divided into a varying
number of arrondissements, answering to our
hundreds; and each arrondissement into several
cantons, or districts. Each canton is made up
of several communes, or villages, beyond which
territorial subdivision goes no further. Appended