vagabond boys and men.  But the rain now
comes down so smartly that I can walk about
uncovered no longer, and am making my way to
Streit's, when out of the Jungfernstieg I turn
into an arcade, full of such shops as in such
places are generally to be found, and here I
while away my time.  Jewellers, first; I do not
care to stare in at jewellers' windows in England;
I seem to myself like a hungry urchin at
a pastrycook's, longing after the tarts, but
that rule does not hold here, and so I stare my
fill, noticing all the curly snakes with ruby eyes
and turquoise tails, the rings and pins, the hairbrooches
(the Germans are tremendous at these,
and there were shoals of those very gummy
wavy hair-willow trees bent over little black
tombs, with the gilt wire adjustment plainly
visible), the thin little French watches, the fat
German turnips, the montres Chinoises (Chinese
watches, made in Geneva), with one long thin
hand perpetually turning round, and rendering
hopeless any attempt to tell the time; the earrings,
the enormous gold skewers, arrows, hoops,
arcs, shells and knobs for the hair.  Printsellers:
the place of honour occupied by the late Mr.
Luard's pictures of " Nearing Home " and the
"Welcome Arrival," and Mr. Brooks's pretty
sentimentalisms of empty cradles and watching
wives; close by these, and in excellent keeping,
a French artist's notion of the English in Paris:
English gentleman in a suit of whity-brown
paper, green plaid cloth tops to his boots, a
pointed moustache, and a very fluffy hat (how
they do catch our peculiarities in dress, don't
they?), saying to a lady, lovely, but perhaps a
trifle free:  " Voulez accepter le coeur de moa?"
in itself an excellent joke; many pictures of
encounters between the Prussians and the Danes
in 1848, in which the latter are always getting
the worst of it, and a notable print, "Seeschlacht
bei Eckenford" (Sea-fight at Eckenford),
which sea-fight apparently consists of a
Danish ship running aground, and the Germans
running away. Then, a bookseller's; covered all
over with their little copies of "Die Londoner
Vertrag" (the London Treaty of 1852), with
numerous French and German books, and some
gaudy coloured English works, one of which, I
am inclined to think by its title, "Daddy
Goriot, or Unrequited Affection," cannot be
entirely original, but may have some connexion
with a French gentleman, one Honoré de Balzac,
deceased.  Then a photographer's; where I am
refreshed at finding what I, of course, have never
seen in my own land–carte de visite portraits of
the Prince and Princess of Wales, also of Herr
von Bismark the great Prussian firebrand, also of
Fraulein Delia and Fraulein Lucca, great operatic
stars, in all kinds of costume; also the portrait of
a gentleman, with parti-coloured cheeks, a cock's-
comb head-dress and fantastic dress, with a
legend underneath, stating it to be the effigy of
"Herr Price, Clown, Circus Renz."

A lengthened tour of inspection of this arcade,
and a chat with the tobacconist of whom I buy
some cigars, brings me close to four o'clock, when
Streit rings his bell for table d'hôte, and I find
myself one of half a dozen civilians, all the rest
of the guests being Austrian and Prussian
officers.  When they find I am a foreigner (they
think I am a Russian) these gentlemen are very
polite, including me in their conversation, clinking
glasses with me, &c., while they scowl upon
the civilians of their own country, and take no
notice of them.  The conversation turns upon
the part played by England in this war, and
I have the satisfaction of hearing my country
and its ministers very roundly abused: so
roundly, that at length I declare my nationality
and receive all sorts of apologies from my friends,
who deprecate any idea of personality, but who
still decry our English policy, and who tell me
that the unpopularity of England throughout
Germany is terrible.  In due course after which,
I take my candle and go to bed, having to be
up at daybreak, to start once more on the public
service.

        THE MAGICIAN'S SERVANT.

Out by the Desert gate, a lonely part,
Hid among gardens and deserted fountains,
It stood, and from the roof-top you could plainly see
The Pyramids rising like sapphire mountains.

A great blind house with windows closely matted,
Save where the water-bottle was suspended,
To catch the outer air; how bare it crouched
In sunless twilight that was never ended.

Past a deserted mosque and drug bazaar,
Where the rich myrrh diffused a mystic fragrance,
And near a tall but shattered minaret,
From whence a vulture watched some sleeping vagrants.

The Leper Hospital was near its garden there,
The lolling gourds unheededly grew yellow,
And date-trees held beyond one's reach the fruit,
In bunches that all Egypt could not fellow.

And by its plaster wall a beggar sat—
Blind Hadji—droning o'er his Koran verses,
While his lean dog sat looking in his face,
Like critic at a poet who rehearses.

Hard by a fountain, bountiful as he
Who wrote above the tap those lines in Persian,
Half-naked urchins played at pilgrimage,
Or of the Nile-songs gave the newest version.

And no one but a half-crazed dervish passed,
Bowing to nothing; with a long cane flapping
Upon his bony shoulders, and a bowl
That with a broken flute he still kept rapping.

There were no women peeping from the roof,
No black slaves at the threshold grinned or cackled,
No sound of lute or hands that beat in time,
No rose-striped curtains o'er the court-yard tackled.

Only a dreary round of sullen rooms,
All bare but for a cushion or some matting;
A lamp before a niche, a bowl or two,
And piles of books in Syriac, Greek, and Latin—