ing, a small steamer, paddle-wheeled, and of
great speed, swept round the extreme boundary
that closes our bay to the westward, and, darting
into the Gulf, dropped anchor. She carried an
Italian tricolor at her mizen, but the wiseheads
of Porto Stretto deemed that a mere device of
treachery, and thought she was French or
English—if the former, come for some purposes of
annexation; if the latter, with commercial intentions
to the full as dangerous and deep-minded.

We were all assembled on the beach as she
launched a six-oar boat, and with two men in the
stern-sheets rowed towards the shore. We had
but time to perceive that one wore the uniform of
a naval officer, as he sprang out and asked where
the sindaco could be found.

"I am the sindaco," said Signor Mordoni,
pale with terror, suspecting that his Mazzinism
had reached Turin, and that the authorities had
sent an armed force to capture him. "I am the
sindaco," said he, trembling; "but my fellow-
townsmen will bear me witness that I have
always upheld the Casa de Savoia. Viva il
Re!"

To which we all chorused "Viva il Re do
Statuto!"

"I am charmed to find myself amongst
gentlemen of such sentiments," said the officer,
who evidently had hard work to repress a smile,
"and I am proud to be the messenger of what
must be agreeable tidings to Porto Stretto. But,
first of all, may I visit your town?"

Not awaiting our cordial welcome, he assisted
his friend to land, and arm-in-arm they both
walked across the little pier and up the main
street.

We would have liked to have done the honours
of the place; to have shown them the monuments
of the Casati family in the Duomo, and
the two dogs in stone that form the crest and
the fountain in the Piazza, and the curious
excavations where the Romans used to make
salt; but they would not heed our suggestions.
They went prying and spying about of
themselves, and, whenever they saw a point of any
eminence, always getting upon it, to take a view
of the surrounding country.

At last, after scouring through every lane and
alley of the town for about two hours, they came
back into the Piazza, and, taking their stand on
the stone steps of the town-hall, the naval man
said, "I see nothing better than this!"

"I agree with you," replied the other; "here
there is ample space, a good rock foundation, and
apparently plenty of water."

"I have it," muttered little Crotta in my
ear.  "It is a summer palace for the king they
are going to build here." Nor did the guess seem
a bad one, as the strangers began to inquire
what were the ordinary wages of workmen—
masons, carpenters, and common labourers.
Where stones could be quarried, where sand and
lime procured. They next asked if the place
were salubrious. With one accord we declared
that illness was unknown amongst us; and
that our old people, when wearied out, often
went to Sestri or Nerai to die. His majesty
will take ten years off by his first summer here,"
said one of the bolder ones amongst us.

"It is not for his majesty's personal use the
building we are now projecting," said the man
in plain clothes.

"No," said the other. "We have come
down here by the orders of the minister of war,
who has heard much of your loyalty."

"We are loyal to the death," cried we together.

"He knows it," resumed he, " and the
extreme isolation of this spot, rarely invaded by
travellers, and secure from that movement of
traffic which would be injurious to our views, he
has fixed upon this spot."

Great excitement amongst the listeners.

"When a place," continued the officer, "has
not above half a dozen narrow streets, and a
few hundred inhabitants——"

"Three thousand two hundred and twelve, of
whom eleven hundred and fifty-four are males."

"And the remainder females, probably," said
the naval man. "And, as I said before, when
one can chance upon a little well-secured spot
like this, with no buildings of any great size or
value, it can't much matter to the rest of the
world, if, some fine day, you were to be blown
sky-high in the air. That is the reason we
have come here to lay the foundation of a
POWDER TOWER!"

If he had screamed out "Powder Mine," we
couldn't have fled more precipitately. We took
to our heels in various directions, and one who
by chance gained the shore, saw the ill-augured
little craft weigh anchor and steam away; and,
since that, we have heard no more of her.

WHITE ELEPHANTS.

WHEN the King of Siam has an enemy among
his lords whom he detests, but whom it would
not be polite to destroy publicly—one who must
be despatched without long delay, but whose
poison must be sweetened, and for whom the edge
of the axe must be gilded—he sends him a white
elephant. Not that the gift is one of either profit or
pleasure, for the brute must not be shot, nor given
away, nor put to mean uses of hire or labour; he
must not carry a howdah nor drag a plough; but
must be cared for and fed and pampered and
adulated, and kept, like a tough-skinned Apis as he
is, in the splendid idleness of a four-footed god.
He must have his body-guard and his palace;
his attendants and his flatterers; his huge feet
may trample down crops and vineyards if it
pleases him to walk that way, and his capacious
trunk may draw up the last drop of water in the
well for his morning bath, while human souls are
perishing from drought. All is permitted to him,
and he must be cared for and indulged first of
all the world; for lie is the white elephant of royal
favouring, to be received with gratitude and
maintained with cost. In the end, the cost is
so great that the receiver is ruined, and commits
suicide—the white elephant having proved as
efficacious for punishment as a bowstring or a
bowl of poison. All the better, indeed, because