"Nonsense, Miss Manuel," said he, colouring
under this praise; "you will spoil me. He has
been abroad. Some little town in France. He
is in mourning, and has lost his wife; in great
grief, I suppose."

"And is he going back to France?" said
Pauline, eagerly.

"Dear no!" he said; "has just taken a house;
he told me his address; asked about you."

"He did?" said Pauline, with compressed
lips.

"O yes," said Young Brett; "and soon after
we parted at the corner of Pall-Mall. I was
going to the club, and he went to the
Irrefragable Insurance Company."

"Insurance company!" said Pauline;  "why,
what for?"

"I don't know," said Young Brett, in a little
distress at not having made this out; "but I
could ask, you know—find out— "

"No, no," said Pauline; "it is nothing. Thanks.
You are always good to me, and useful. Now,
hand the bishop his tea."

And to the bishop, whose turned ebony limbs
lay over each other like two miniature
gymnastic clubs reposing in a corner, he hurried
over, eagerly bearing a cup of tea.

HIS SABLE MAJESTY'S CUSTOMS.

THREE or four years ago that seasoned
traveller in strange lands, African and Asiatic,
Captain Richard F. Burton, offered to revisit
Abomey, or, as he spells it, Agbome, the capital
of Dahomey, or, as he spells it, Dahome.
About two years ago Commodore Wilmot, R.N.,
in command of her Majesty's naval forces on
the African coast, with Captain Luce and Dr.
Haran, did pay a visit to Abomey, and were
well received at the negro court of the slave
coast, infamous for the human sacrifices at its
bloody "customs." Friendly understanding of
some sort was then established; the necessity of
finding for Dahomey some lawful source of
industry and wealth to replace the slave trade was
discussed with King Gelele; the king offered to
encourage any settlement of English traders at
Whydah, and expected to be visited again, and
to receive divers presents from the English
government, including a carriage and horses that he
had particularly asked for. Commodore Wilmot
did not repeat his visit, but the British government,
half a year later, commissioned Captain
Burton (who desired the expedition, and as
consul at Fernando Po was living within five
hundred miles of the King of Dahomey's port
of Whydah) to go and do what he could. If
any civilised ideas had fallen as good seed upon
very thin soil at the court of Abomey, he might
encourage their growth; chiefly he was to aid
in the discouragement of the slave-trade, and do
anything that it might be possible to do in
mitigation of the barbarous "customs." He was
supplied with presents from England for the
King of Dahomey—a silk damask tent and pole,
a coat of mail and gauntlets, two embossed
silver belts, a silver embossed pipe, two silver-
gilt waiters, and other articles precious to
savage eyes.

It was a year ago, on the twenty-ninth of
November, last year, that Captain Burton left
Fernando Po upon this mission, which gave
him the three months in Dahomey, whereof he
has since told the story in the amusing book
from which we describe his experiences.
Anchoring off Whydah on the fifth of December,
her Majesty's Commissioner to Dahomey landed
ceremoniously amid song and shout, to be met
on the shore by the Reverend Peter W.
Bernasko, native teacher and principal of the
Wesleyan Mission at Whydah, and by an escort of
twenty men, who led the way from the shore to
the town, shouting, firing, singing, and dancing,
and stopping to exchange West African
courtesies with every "captain" of a village by the
way. A kruman marched in front of the landing
party, carrying the white and red crossed
flag of St. George, followed by five hammocks,
with an interpreter and six armed krumen from
the ships, brilliant in bargees, red nightcaps,
and gay pocket-handkerchiefs. By the lagoon
and custom-house the march inward to the
town of Whydah is over a couple of miles of the
swamps and sandy hillocks of the false coast,
by a road which the slave-dealers keep bad
for better discouragement of intruders. In
Whydah, after the ceremonies of entrance, the
new comers dismounted at the English fort,
and refreshed themselves, as well as the crowd
of visitors, the musket firing, and return
cannonading, would permit, in the trellised arbour
that forms the centre of each European
enclosure. Next day there were more ceremonies,
with exchange of gifts.

In Whydah, the head-quarters of the
demoralising slave-trade, where almost every man is
a rascal, crimes of violence are rare. The town
is a group of villages divided into five quarters,
each under its own cabboceer, and with a viceroy
over all. Its streets, which are mere
continuations of the bush-paths lined by the
outwardly ruinous walls of the compounds and
the windowless backs of the houses, are very
quiet of nights, and in charge of constables,
who squat in pairs, and rise suddenly to flash
their torches in the face of any wayfarer. If he
be a stranger who has lost his way, they courteously
conduct him to his quarters. At times,
the chief of the police goes round and lays his
stick upon the backs of all his subordinates who
are caught napping.

Whydah is a paradise for the pre-Raphaelite
colonist. It has a milky blue sky, verdigris-
green grass, and a bright-red clay soil. It stands
about a mile and a half in direct line from the
sea, parted from it by a broad leek-green swamp,
a narrow lagoon, and a high sand-bank tufted
with palms and palmyras of a deep green
approaching to black, over which only the masts
of shipping are to be seen shooting up above
the houses. The town is about two miles and a
half long by a mile broad, picturesque when