its tendrils cling and twine like a creature
loving its prison. As I pick the fruit
the yellow and black-banded wasps follow
each grape to the very door of my teeth. I
hear the swallows speaking to me
inarticulately from the burnt-up tiles.

Last of all, at least in this day's visit,
Bensaken and my vivacious American friend,
who still persists that "it is nothing to what we
have in Bawst'n," drag me to the Hall of
Justice, with its three court-rooms or apses,
now blazoned with the royal Spanish badges
of the yoke and the bundle of arrows. These
three saloons are at the east end of the Court
of the Abencerrages which faces the Lion
Court, and indeed forms one side of it, with
its forest of marble pillars and pavement
channels for running water. Here, on the
ceiling, are the curious old frescoes, painted
on vellum in a rude sort of Byzantine
manner by some Christian renegades, it is
supposed; for the Moors think it impious to
draw the human figure.

Then, to learn our ground plan, we go all
round the Alhambra hill, which guide books
compare in shape to a grand-piano, the apex
of the triangle pointing towards Granada;
observe the square where the great mosque
once stood, that the plundering French blew
up, and the aqueduct that they all but
destroyed.

Then, as the blue of dusk gets deeper, and
the guide looks uneasily at his keys, I
descend through the long avenue walk of the
Alhambra, listening to the clatter of castanets
from the fonda dancing-booths, and descend
to my hotel, through winding, narrow defiles
of streets paved with black and white pebbles
arranged in scrolls and flowery branches.

COELEBS IN SEARCH OF A DINNER.

MY name is CÅ“lebs; I am a descendant of
Mrs. Hannah More; I am of a melancholy
turn of mind; I am rather an exemplary
character; my digestion is not strong; and
I resemble Doctor Johnson in being partial
to dinner: "Sir, I like to dine."

What is it, that can induce Topper and
myself, after the numerous failures we have
experienced in trying to make a satisfactory
excursion on a Sunday afternoon in the
neighbourhood of London,—what is it that can induce
us to go on with these experiments? It may
be, that being bound to pass the whole of the
week in the metropolis, our desire to get a
little change on our one guileless day of respite,
is natural and excusable. It may be that a
walk through the Regent's Park and up
Primrose Hill, though a source of infinite
gratification to all persons of well-regulated minds,
is apt to pall a little on the senses after too
frequent repetition. It may be that we have
not well-regulated minds, but, on the
contrary, very ill-regulated ones. At any rate,—
for there is no end of conjectures—there the
fact is, and it's no use disguising it—we are
continually in the habit, Topper and I, of
starting after church-time on Sunday, making
short journeys in the neighbourhood of
London, and coming back to dine together, at
some convenient place of public indigestion.

Topper is a family man, and is always wanting
me to dine on the domestic hearth, while
I am of such a tavernous disposition, that I
am for encouraging the British restaurant
whenever it can be done. Have we ever had
a wholly successful excursion, or a good
dinner, under these circumstances? What
recollections I have of unpropitious weather,
and long afternoons passed under porches
standing up. Rain! Why, I suppose I
should be met with statistics to prove that it
couldn't be, if I was to put down here the
number of rainy Sundays which I remember
in one single year. Now, I don't like rain.
No more does Topper; who, whenever we are
caught in it, takes the opportunity of inveighing
against those detestable agriculturists,
who, he says, are always clamouring for wet
weather, that they may grow a lot of turnips,
mangold wurzel, and things one takes no
interest in. O, heights of Hornsey! O, flats
of Hackney! O, hills of Hampstead and of
Highgate, how often have your alliterative
but watery regions been witnesses to the
discomfiture of us two wayfarers! How often
beneath your penthouse lids have we spent
our afternoons of sadness, listening to the
patter of the rain above our heads, and
observing the funerals, for which the bell was
clanging from the neighbouring church!

Having a thorough knowledge of all the
country, north, south, and west of London,
and being still tormented with that ever-
reviving thirst for something new—to which
allusion has already been made, and which
has been accounted for by the ill-regulated
nature of our minds—it entered into the
heads of both of us simultaneously one
Saturday night, that we would, though it did
not sound promising at all, extend our
researches due east on the next day, or perish
in the attempt.

"Stop," said Topper, suddenly, "I've got
a new idea."

"You don't mean to say that?" I answered,
eagerly.

"I have," said Topper, with emotion.
"Are you fond of ships?"

"Ships!" I exclaimed, kindling at the
mere sound of the word. "If there is one
thing in the world that interests me more
deeply than another, it is a ship." (Which
had never struck me, before, in all my life.)

"Then I'll tell you what we'll do," said
Topper, "we will go down to-morrow by
the Blackwall Railway to the East India
Docks, and spend the afternoon among the
vessels which are lying there. There shall
we see," continued Topper, much excited,
"there shall we behold the stately Indiaman,
so soon about to bid a long farewell to
England, calmly awaiting in those deep but