veins. It thus becomes evident that turquoise
has either been at one time liquified like
malachite, or has been in a molten state by
heat. The mines belong to the Shah, and
he farms them out to the villagers who dig
for the turquoise. The produce is either sold
to travelling merchants who come to the
villages, or it is sent for sale to Meshed. The
lapidaries in that city cut and polish the
turquoise, and bring it into the various forms
fitted for ornamental use; and the gems thus
made find their way, by means of the
merchant caravans, to Herat, Candahar,
Turkey, Bokhara, and other countries. Such
at least used to be the case when Mr. Baillie
Fraser travelled and wrote; but Persia is
such an out-of-the-way place in these our
railway days, that it is difficult to know
what is doing there at present. We have
Shylock's authority that a turquoise, especially
if given by Leah to a bachelor, is worth
a "wilderness of monkeys;" but
notwithstanding this indefinitely large valuation,
turquoises are much less known in Europe
than in the East. Whatever may be the
analogies between the green Russian and the
blue Persian, however, there is this difference
—the malachite is used as a veneer, and the
turquoise is not.

TRUST AND NO TRUST.

I MEET my friend Claypaw once or twice
in the year, commonly in Cheapside; now
and then at a friend's house. When we meet
he shakes hands with me in a formal friendly
way, and looks round the corner of me for
the bits of shirt that ought to be apparent at
my elbows. They ought to be, but are not
yet apparent; and Claypaw is, I fear,
disgusted at the slowness with which I proceed
towards the verification of his prediction.
For Claypaw is a practical man, a man who
knows the world, and he has booked me for
a fast coach on the road to ruin. I am all
that he is not; if he, therefore, dubs himself
with justice practical, I must be fantastical.
Nevertheless I feed, and clothe, and house
myself, take care of Mrs. Green, and lay by
some provision for the future. Missing, no
doubt, many a pound, I hit upon a good deal
of pleasure: life is, indeed, much pleasanter
to me than Claypaw finds it. Claypaw,
should this meet your eye, you will know
that it is the writing of your cousin Phineas
Green, whose wife and seven children ought
long since to have rubbed all the nap out of
his coat; Green, the unpractical man, the
theorist—and here he beards you.

At the bottom of my worldly theorising lies
—as you know, Claypaw—the firm belief
that men and women are, in the main, good
fellows; and that because I happen never in
my life to have seen A. B. (one of the eight
hundred million, the pleasure of whose
acquaintance it has been unfortunately
impossible for me to make) I have no right to
set A. B. down as untrustworthy, fence about
when I hold communication with A. B., or
expect from A. B. any injury whatever.
You, Claypaw, tell me that by this theory I
lay myself open to be cheated right and left,
that I have been already seriously bitten
once or twice, and that I shall get a bite that
will be fatal presently. I am at issue with
you there.

Of course I do not mean to propose that, in
the present state of the world, men should
let any large stake depend too lightly on the
assumed credit of a stranger. Let it be
granted that I should not think it theoretically
proper to place the key of Mrs. Green's
pantry in the hands of the aforesaid A. B.,
without receiving from some X. Y. Z. of
known respectability assurance that A. B.
also was worthy of respect. Such proper
assurance could be sought in no distrustful
spirit. In all smaller matters I am
theoretically disposed until I see reason to the
contrary to take any man's good will and
honesty at once for granted.

Again, I should say that I approve heartily
of every business arrangement or strict habit
of oversight, which makes it difficult for a
dishonest action to escape discovery, because
in that way temptations to crime are much
lessened; and though we may be in the main
good folks, we are in grain also peccable.
We ought not to trust one another with our
eyes shut. Let us work cheerily; but let
every man have sense enough to know when
an undue advantage has been taken of his
confidence. We need not bite and ring
every coin we touch, and we may take to
ourselves, now and then, a bad one
unsuspiciously; but we ought, nevertheless, as
a rule, to know the look of a bad shilling.
Let us deal so with men in worldly
intercourse.

Before I show you by examples, my dear
cousin, how it is that I am not yet threadbare,
I must lay down as an abstract principle
another of my theories which you regard, I
know, as a finger-post to shame. I attempt
no mystifications, make no struggle to
surround myself with false appearances, let every
man know fairly and freely so much of my
ways, means, or opinions, as it may profit
him—not me—to be acquainted with, and
take my chance. You tell me that, as I get
no such candour in return (so, at least, you
believe), I expose all my weak points to
people prompt to take advantage of them,
throw away my armour to fight men who
come against me harnessed cap-a-pie. If you
be right, Claypaw, and if I do (as I don't)
live in a state of daily battle among folks who
have thrown truth aside, I think the fact
must be that they have cast off their armour,
not I mine.

Those are my two main theories, practical
friend. I am for a path through bright light
and free air, you for a burrow undergrornd:
I would be a lark; you would be a mole. I