on which the castle stands; passing beneath a
ruined gate rudely built up again partly of
shattered marble columns bearing ancient
inscriptions, partly of unseasoned wood, which
gapes in great thirsty cracks from the heat, and
partly with rough blocks of the coarsest stone
—a melancholy type of ignorance and unthrift.
The Greeks sneer as they point at it: well
they may. The rest of the place, however,
looks military enough; having an orderly air,
with stones cleanly swept, and walls which are
of immense thickness. The guard turns out
and gives us a salute in a soldier-like way,
although the men's jackets do look as if they
were made of shaved blankets, or dried
sponge shrunk to half its size. We are conducted
towards the quarters of the Bin-Bashee:
they are situated in one of a nest of dreary
little houses, looking out on a dead wall.
Legions of blue devils must hover in the
gloomy atmosphere, and have quite an
established residence in every dark weary little
room. Our host receives us politely; and,
after a silent nargilly, prepares to accompany
us over the rest of the castle.

It is a strong place. Immense piles of
ammunition lie stored away in the magazines,
and arms are cunningly arranged
against the walls. Every rampart bristles
with guns, which appear to be kept constantly
ready for service. My Greek companions try
in vain to wrestle against the conviction of
the strength of the place, and wish to
sneer it off; but the attempt is a failure.
At last we come to a very strong
battery, which overlooks the town, which,
the Bin-Bashee informs us with sleepy
unconcern, he could lay in ruins in half an
hour. There is something almost ludicrous
in the haste with which the Greeks now
urge our departure: a panic has seized upon
them. But there is nothing ludicrous in their
dark plotting faces, if caught for a moment
in repose. Their eyes glare with an unhealthy
light on the Turkish philosopher; and I can
see they are writhing like wild cats in the
toils of the fowler. Well, the place has been
riotous lately; the visit will do them good,
and keep them quiet. They were evidently
not prepared to find out how utterly powerless
they would be in case of a rising. I hear no
more of the fifty youths who would have no
difficulty in seizing upon the fortress and
putting the garrison to the sword in a breath.
On the contrary, my friends have become all
at once the very essence of meekness and
compliment.

The fortress is perhaps five or six
hundred years old. It was built by the
Genoese, and has been four hundred years in
the hands of the Turks; yet the fetters
and uncouth instruments of torture used
in the middle ages still rust in the very
places where they lay when the place was
surrendered, by the last Christian governor,
to Mahomet the Second. The very drugs of
the physician to those grim forces are festering
in their ancient bottles. The very corn in
the granaries was never touched or cleared
out; and its mouldy dust, disturbed by our
tread, falls showering through the chinks
of the ceiling above us. I can fancy
all sorts of stories of forgotten treasure,
hidden in obscure parts of the vast
rambling building, or buried in the earth
upon the ramparts, by men who were struck
down suddenly during the siege, or hurled
from the walls by the Moslem soldiers, and
who so died a cruel death, and carried their
secrets with them. I can fancy the inhabitants
of the town having brought much of their
wealth there, as to a place of safety; and
finding, with angry sorrow, that they had only
collected it in a more convenient heap for the
pitiless victors. I can fancy it was here that
despairing patriotism made its last devoted
stand; and frantic beauty sprung in horror
from the walls.

Thus, musing upon war and warlike things,
I take a dreary farewell of the Bin-Bashee.

LEFT BEHIND.

No writers will ever exhaust the subjects
of interest contained in this vast human hive,
London. Like every other great capital,
it is a myriad-sided picture of life, with its
heavily brooding passions, and its airy
frivolities, its good and its evil.

One of its most interesting contrasts is
that presented by the mixture of old and
modern buildings—of the houses of dead
generations, with the fresh workmanship
of to-day. In many parts of London,
everything is so smooth, and sharp, and new,
that we might be walking, for anything the
edifices show to the contrary, in the newest
street of the newest city in Wisconsin or
South Australia; but in other parts we come
suddenly upon some relic of the London that
was left behind by the Great Fire, when there
was more wood than brick and mortar;
when there were lattice casements and
overhanging stories and more peaked roofs
than straight parapets.

Close to the brick and stucco house of
yesterday, is the quaint and quiet
tenement of three hundred years ago, with
its pyramidal roof and shadowy rooms,
lingering like a ghost amidst the loud vitality
that heaves and pulses round it. The trim
modern street elbows the street that
Shakespeare and Bacon might have walked
through. The clamorous thoroughfare, where the
pavement rings and glows with the perpetual
rush of modern vehicles, often intersects
some old paved court full of shadows and
brooding silence, where trees grow, and
birds sing, and the garrulous echoes talk
loudly, whenever you waken them by the
noise of your feet upon the damp green
flags. Such places left behind by the march
of Time, show you that you are in an old
city, and not in Melbourne or Victoria. They