wheel to its former possessor and resumes his
walk.

Blessing the good fortune which has so
ordered it that English sea-terms have been sown
in all lands, and have taken root in many
languages, I rejoin my friend the master mariner,
and detail to him the fact that he has unknowingly
violated a special act, cap. i., sect. 14.
The mariner smiles composedly, and remarks,
as analogous to the subject, that when Chinese
merchants hire an English vessel, it is usual to
insert in the charterparty that the British master
shall not beat the Chinese supercargo. I
perceive the analogy, and reflect that I would
rather not be a Chinese supercargo. Meantime,
although Eurus and Zephyr with their lateral
noise, Libeccio and Scirocco, blow hard, the sky
is happily bright overhead, and as the Europa,
though over-engined and under-timbered so that
she wheezes and groans fearfully, is really a
smart well-built boat, I walk as steadily as the
playful skittishness of the deck will allow, and
listen to the mariner, who holds me, not with
glittering eye, but with friendly hand, when the
Europa is more playful than usual, and tells
tales almost as wild as those of his ancient
prototype. He corroborates fully all that I have
ever heard of Chinese craft and Chinese cruelty.
In all the narrow seas, he says, a man holds his
life on one simple condition—that of unceasing
watchfulness. Every man you meet is an
enemy, who will without scruple rob and
massacre the men with whom he has traded and
feasted a few hours before. Treachery, he
fairly enough remarks, can scarcely be predicated
of men who do not seem to comprehend the
notion of good faith. In the humbler walks of
cheating, too, they are renowned proficients.
Opium is never paid for but in bullion, and this
in small ingots of a defined weight, which, for
security, are fitted into wooden cases, and
screwed down to the floor of the captain's
cabin. A new skipper, on his first visit to the
opium buyer's after his promotion, was greatly
provoked by a stupid carpenter, who had made
the gold-boxes too small. The carpenter, a
Chinese, was sulky, vowed they were the right
size, enlarged them, however, at the express
desire of his captain, and all was right for a
day or two. Only for a day or two, for on
the next consignment of opium being delivered,
the carpenter had gone back to his old ways
and measures. Fresh indignation from the
captain, fresh protestations from the carpenter,
but the fact being patent that the cases are
too small, he is again compelled to yield. On
the captain's return, the mystery, which has
probably been obvious to the reader, is unveiled
to his astonished eyes, and the shroffs, whose
skill in estimating the proportions of alloy
scarcely needs the confirmation of the assayer,
inform him that two separate adulterations
have been effected, and that for the future he
must measure his gold as well as weigh it.
With such tales the day wears on, and dinner
is announced. The captain takes the head of
the table, and to ensure his keeping it, lashes
his own leg to the table's leg. Few, indeed,
are his guests. The Austrian consul from
Khartoum, who has astonished us by the magnificence
of his diamond mouthpieces to what he informs
us are only his travelling pipes, refuses to eat,
and reflects upon Vienna, where he intends to
drink—and as I subsequently learn from a
spectator, does actually ingurgitate—incredible
floods of beer. The German naturalist, whose
best days have been spent in the blazing plains
of Kordofan, and who has all but seen the
unicorn, in whose existence he is a firm believer,
fasts unwillingly, and comforts himself with a
prospective omelette, to be made when he lands
at Trieste, out of an egg fresh laid by Mr.
Larking's tame ostrich on the day of our
departure. Four courageous and hungry
passengers sit in the four corners of the cabin
floor, holding on as the vessel rolls, to prevent
themselves from playing an involuntary game
of Puss in the Corner, while the steward, an
active puss in pumps, waltzes round the
needlessly polished floor, and rapidly deals small
modicums of schinkel, kalbsbrater, and other
national delicacies. At night, our prudent
skipper lay to, under the lee of Scarpanto, and
all next day and night we proceeded with small
abatement of weather among the wind-swept
Cyclades, till early morning found us entering
the Gulf of Smyrna. Here, like our great
prototype, Lord Bateman, having "come to famed
Turkey, we was taken and put in prison."

For civilisation has made rapid progress, and
the Turks, like wise Feringhees, no longer trust
in Allah, but ameliorate a visitor's health by
shutting him up in a dirty jail, where his only
exercising-ground is the cemetery, thick with
gravestones of those who have died in the
lazaretto; his only prospect, the sky covered with
the streams of wild-fowl who gather round the
springs of Cayster even as they did in the days
of Homer. However, our travelling party
passed the days as merrily as might be, laughed
at the Italian doctor as he performed the daily
farce of inspection, and on the fifth morning
we "regained our freedom with a sigh," for we
were now to separate.

The Anglo-Indians started for Constantinople,
the youthful mariner for a small tour among the
islands, and the present writer for the Piræus,
where Greece, following suit to Turkey,
immediately locked us up again. But Greece
herself was at this date in quarantine. The
English steamer Firebrand lay in the
entrance of the harbour; Admiral Parker's
squadron was in the Gulf of Salamis; and
the Pacifico blockade was in full force. It
did not seem to produce any visible effects.
The people lounged about listlessly; did a
poverty-stricken sort of marketing in the
Azora; and chilled, perhaps, by an intensely
cold spring, left the street of the East Wind to
its legitimate proprietor. Athens seemed very
unreal. The city itself, an ill-assorted cross
between a German watering-place and a Scotch
fishing-village; the national dress, perhaps from
the intense consciousness of fine clothes which