about the spring, who were very friendly, and
brought us a present of wild cucumbers, which
made a refreshing salad.

We started about nine in a north-west
direction, and immediately ascended a fearful
precipice, which brought us to the summit of
the cliffs. For several hours we rode across an
undulating expanse of barren hills, without any
adventure except meeting with a party of
Ta'amirah, who, as our escort had left us, seemed
inclined to fight; but the presence of Abu
Dahûk restrained them from further violence
than hurling a few stones at our muleteers.
Towards afternoon, we regained the green
mountains of Judæa. The Frank Mountain was
on our right, and before sunset the village of
Bethlehem came in view. Here we encamped on
the same ground as before, and reached
Jerusalem on the following day, in time to
witness the ceremony called the Miracle of the
Greek Fire.

MY NEWSPAPER.

THERE seems to be something in the mere
fact of a man's making a speech which prevents
his telling the truth. That language was given
us to conceal our thoughts, we know from
the subtle wisdom and biting wit of Talleyrand;
but it does appear passing strange that
while a man is erect on his two feet, his
left hand fingering his watch-chain, while his
right is tattooing on the tablecloth, he should
give utterance to a series of preposterous
untruths. Take my own case, for instance. Why
did I, last night, at the annual summer dinner
of the Most Worshipful Company of Leather
Breeches Makers, held at the Ship Tavern,
Greenwich—why did I, in returning thanks
for the toast of "the Visitors," declare that
that was the happiest moment of my life?
Seated next morning in the calm seclusion of
my villa at Dulwich, and recalling the exact
circumstances under which that assertion was
made, I find that rarely has it been my lot to
be more excessively wretched and uncomfortable.
I had "come down" on board an
overcrowded steamer, under the garish eye of a
very hot sun; I had occupied three inches of
the wooden arm of a wooden seat, with a
very scarlet soldier on my right, and a child
labouring under that painful and easily-caught
disease, "the mumps," on my left. Revelling
in the anticipation of the coming banquet, I
had been affronted by the constantly renewed
offer on the part of a boy, of "refreshment,"
consisting of two mouldy captain's biscuits and
three soft shiny cigars. I had been compelled to
use severe language to an old person who would
persist in offering me "Dawg Toby's Gallry o'
Fun," a halfpenny broadsheet of villanous
woodcuts, which spoke little for Dog Toby's
sense of humour or sense of decency. Further,
during dinner I had eaten more fish than I
ought: to say nothing of the enormity of duckling
and peas, Nesselrode pudding, and fondu.
I had taken wine with each of the worshipful
Leather Breeches Makers once, with Mr. Master
twice, and with myself a good many times. I
had drained a very deep goblet of claret to the
Leather Breeches Makers' Company, "root and
branch, may it flourish for ever" (what does that
mean?), and when I rose to my feet to respond
to the mention of my name, I was pale in the
face, parched in the mouth, shaky in the legs,
weak in the memory, quavery in the voice, and
frightened out of my senses. That was what I
called the happiest moment of my life! I
should be sorry to write the word with which,
in strict justice, I ought to stigmatise that
expression. I know when the happiest moment of
my life really comes off. Not when I receive
my dividends from those very abrupt gentlemen
who have, apparently, a natural hatred of their
customers, across the bank counter; not when
I go to my old wholesale grocery stores in
Lower Thames-street, and smell the tea and
taste the sugar, and dip my hand into the piled-
up rice, and learn from my sons of the yearly
increase of the business in which I still keep
my sleeping partner's share; not when that
fair-haired knickerbockered boy who calls me
"grandad," makes cock-horses of my knees,
and rides innumerable steeple-chases, clutching
at my watch-guard for a bridle; nor when his
sister, a fairy elf, makes a book-muslin glory on
my lap, and kisses me as her "dear dada"—
those are triumphs, if you like, but there is
something too exciting in them, they are not
the happiest moments of my life.

That blissful period is to me, so far as I can
judge, about ten A.M. I have had my comfortable
breakfast; my wife has gone down to see
to the domestic arrangements for the day; if it
be summer, I stroll on to the corner of my
garden; if it be winter, I shut myself into my
little snuggery; but, summer or winter, I find
laid ready for me a box of matches, my old
meerschaum bowl, ready filled, and my
newspaper. Then follows an hour composed of three
thousand six hundred of the happiest moments
of my life. I light my pipe, and take up my
paper, duly dried and cut, without which enjoyment
is to me impossible. I have seen men on
the outside of an omnibus attempt to fold a
newspaper in a high wind, reading to the bottom
of a column, and then suddenly becoming
enwrapped, swathed, smothered, in a tossing
crackling sheet. Call that reading the
newspaper! I like to read a bit, and puff my pipe
a bit, and ponder a bit; and my ponderings are
not about the machinations of the Emperor
Napoleon, not about the probable result of the
American war, not about the Conference, not
about the state of the money market, but about
that much-talked-of march of intellect, that
progress of progress, that extension of civilisation,
which have shown their product in my
newspaper lying before me.

In the interests of my newspaper, men who
have taken high collegiate honours have last
night wasted the midnight oil, and before me
lies the result of their deep thought, masterly