we forced our way through the narrow entrance and found ourselves in the usual square courtyard lined with dilapidated sheds. The whole enclosure, inches deep in mud and indescribable dirt, was crowded with camels and mules and haggard, desperate-looking, shivering men, with bare legs and feet and dripping ragged cloaks. The officer laid about him right and left with his riding-whip and ordered up the Khanji (the innkeeper). "You must find room for us," he said; "I am travelling with great English Pashas." The Khanji waved his hand over the seething, jostling mass of men and animals. "Effendi," he said, "it is impossible; I have already had to turn away one caravan; if we made way for the

Pashas there would still be no room for their men and horses. But they are welcome to what shelter there is." We gazed with dismay at the reeking

scene.

"How far is it to the next stage?" asked X.

"Two hours," was the answer.

"We had better get on to it, then," she said, and turned her horse's head outwards. We followed in silent dejection. The wretched animals, who had been pricking their ears at the prospect of aproaching food and rest, had literally to be thrashed out on the road again. We waded back through the mud and turned our faces once more to the biting blast and driving rain.

The track we followed was apparent only to the native eye; to the uninitiated we seemed to be going at random amongst the loose stones. One had not even the solace of being carried by an intelligent and surefooted beast who could be trusted to pick his own way. The hired Turkish horse has a mouth of stone and his brain resembles a rock. Left to himself, he deliberately chooses the most impossible path, until it becomes so impossible

that he will stop and gaze in front of him in stupid despair, and you have to rouse yourself into action and take the reins in your own hands once more. His one display of originality is a desire not to follow his companions, but to veer sideways until you are in danger of losing sight of the rest of the party and become hopelessly lost off the track. I struggled to keep straight and in pace with the others; weariness and disgust had made my stupid animal obstinate and more stupid, and I finally gave in and lagged behind, letting him go at his own pace. The officer pulled up and waited for me.

"We must push on, Khanem" (lady), he said, "or we shall not get in by sunset."

"My horse is tired," I answered, “and I am tired," and I showed him my broken whip; it was the third I had worn out over this obstinate brute's skin.

He called back one of the Zaptiehs and muttered to him unintelligibly in Turkish. The man crossed to the other side of the road and he and the officer, one on each side, urged my horse on with continual blows behind. I dropped the reins almost unconsciously, and, all necessity for action of mind or body being removed, sat between them numb, petrified, and hardly conscious of my surroundings.

Pitter, patter, came the rain on the saddles, click, clack, went the horses' hoofs on the stones; clank went the captain's sword; whack came the men's whips behind; each noise was hardly heard before it was rushed away in the driving wind.

Expectation of something better had made the present seem unbearable in the earlier part of the day; now that one no longer held any hope of alleviation, the general misery had not the same poignant effect. Or was it that weariness from long hours in the saddle and the pains consequent on expo

sure to cold and wet had numbed one's senses? Jog, jog, one was being jogged on somewhere, one did not care where and one did not care for how long.

The men were saying something; the sound fell vaguely on my ears, but the meaning did not travel on to my brain. Then we stopped suddenly, and the jerk threw me forward on the horse's neck; I felt two strong arms round me and was lifted bodily off the horse. "Brigands at last," I thought vaguely; "well, they are welcome to all my goods as long as they leave me to die comfortably in a heap."

It

"Geldik" ("We have arrived"). was Hassan's voice; we were at the door of the caravanserai. He deposited me on the floor of a bare black hole on one side of the courtyard and carefully arranged his wet cloak round me. I was conscious of a motionless heap in the dark corner opposite.

"X.?" I muttered interrogatively.
"Hm," came from the corner.
"Hm," I responded.

The muleteers came and flung the dripping baggage bales promiscuously about the floor. We were soon hemmed in by sopping saddles, bridles, saddlebags, wet cloaks, and muddy ridingboots.

Hassan sat on a pile of miscellaneous goods, smoking reflectively, and giving vent to great groans as he looked from one corner to the other where each of his charges lay in a heap. The cook cleared a small space in the middle of the room and tried to make a fire with dried camel-dung, the only fuel to be had. The whole place was soon filled with suffocating smoke; there was no window, no hole in the roof to let out the fumes. We opened the door until the fire had burnt up, and a sudden gust of wind tearing round the room and out again drove the smarting fumes into our eyes, causing the tears to roll down mercilessly.

Another caravan was arriving, and the animals passed through the narrow passage by our open door, or into the courtyard beyond. Mules bearing bales of cloth or sacks of corn; camels laden with hard square boxes stamped with letters that suggested Manchester; donkeys carrying their owners" yorghans-quilts which form the native's bed, damp and muddy in spite of the protection afforded by a piece of ragged carpet thrown over them, the whole secured by a piece of rope, which also fastened on a cooking-pot and a live hen. The procession wound slowly through to the sound of tinkling bells, until the whole caravan had entered the enclosed yard, which now presented a chaotic scene of indescribable crush and dirt. Kneeling camels, waiting patiently for the removal of their loads, looked round beseechingly at their own burdened backs; mules munched the straw out of each other's bursting saddles; slouching yellow dogs sniffed about the fallen bundles. The theatre ladies, in gaudy plushes and silks covered with tinselled jewels, sat about on the piles of stage scenery flirting with the young men in the bright waistcoats; stern Mahomedans wrapped in long severe cloaks gazed with contemptuous disgust at these unveiled specimens of the unworthier race, while the short-coated and less particular muleteers and menials stared at them with open-mouthed grinning wonder. Our little captain sat unconcernedly in a sheltered corner deftly rolling up with his delicate, finely shaped fingers, endless piles of neat cigarettes. A Zaptieh, with his face to the wall bowed and murmured over the evening prayer. Each pursued his reflections and employments with that disregard of his neighbor's presence which is so impressive in any crowd in the East. Apart from these by-scenes, the dominating human note was one of quarrel, in strange contrast with the silent wait

ing of the dumb animals, for whose shelter in the limited accommodation their respective owners were fighting with clenched fists and discordant, strident voices. Then the hush of mealtime falls on all: men and animals side by side are busy satisfying their bodily needs.

It is a strange mingling of men and beasts, where the man, in his surroundings and mode of life, savors of the beast, and the beast, with his outward aspect of patience and beseeching pathos, is tinged with human elements. We had shut the door on the scene, finding smoke preferable to cold and publicity. It suddenly burst open, and a camel's hindquarters backed into the room, upsetting a pot of water on the fire; we had been anxiously waiting for its boiling-point with the open teapot ready to hand. The men threw themselves upon the animal and pushed; it backed; they pushed and hit and swore; it was ejected; the fire hissed itself out and the smoke cleared. A dishevelled looking official in uniform peeped through the door: "The Governor's salaams, and do the Princesses require anything?"

With

Hassan courteously returned his salute; he was now seated cross-legged by the dying fire, sorting nuts from tobacco which had been tied up together in a damp pocket-handkerchief. the air of a king on his throne he graciously waved his hand towards a slimy saddlebag. "Buyourun, Effendi, Oturun" ("Welcome, sit down"). The man sat down, carefully drawing his ragged cloak round his patched knees.

"The ladies' salaams to his Excellency; they are very pleased for his inquiry, and send many thanks. They have all they require."

The quiet dignity of Hassan's appearance and utterance seemed to dispel any sense of incongruity the visitor might have entertained as to the limitation of our wants and the methods of LIVING AGE. VOL. XXIV. 1245

our royal progress; he merely thought we were mad.

He departed, no doubt to glean information from the more communicative members of our escort. The cook came in with a pleasing expression: "What will you have for supper?" he said.

"What can we have?" we answered, with the caution arising from long experience of limited possibilities.

"What you wish," he said, with as much assurance and affability as if he was presenting a huge bill of fare. I knew what one could expect in these places.

"Get a fowl," I said.

"There is not one left here," he answered.

"Eggs, then," I suggested, with the humor of desperation.

"No fowl, how eggs?" he answered with pitying superiority. "Well, we will have what there is," I said faintly.

"There is nothing," he answered cheerfully.

"Miserable man!" I said, "how dared you begin by holding out hopes of lobster salad and maraschino croustades?" Was there nothing left of our stores? I rummaged in the box which held them. Everything was wet and slimy. A few bars of chocolate were soaked in bovril, emanating from a broken bottle; a sticky tin held the remains of pekmez, a native jam made with grape juice; two dirty linen bags contained respectively a little tea and rice; a disgusting-looking pasty mess in what had once been a cardboard box aroused my curiosity. Could it be—yes, it had once been protein flour, "eminently suitable for travellers and tourists, forming a delicious and sustaining meal when no other food is procurable." It had been the parting gift of our respective mothers, along with injunctions to air our clothes. I calmly thought the matter out.

"X.," I said, "will it be best to eat chocolate with the bovril thrown in, or to drink bovril with the chocolate thrown in ?"

"Don't talk about it," said X.; "cook everything up together and let us hope individual flavors will be merged beyond recognition."

We put a tin of water on the fire and threw in the rice and protein. The chocolate and bovril were added after carefully picking out the bits of broken bottle. Hassan fumbled in the wide leathern belt which he wore round his middle; the space between himself and the belt served as a pocket where he carried all his goods. With an air of unspeakable pride he produced a small, round, grimy object, which he held aloft in triumph.

"Suwan!" ("Onion") we all shouted simultaneously in excited, ungovernable greed. He nodded ecstatically, and pulling the long, dagger-like knife out of his belt, he proceeded with great deliberation to cut the treasure into slices, and let them fall one by one into the bubbling pot. The cook sat stirring it altogether with a wooden spoon; he kept raising spoonfuls out of the pot, and as the thick liquid dribbled slowly back again he murmured complacently:

"Pirinje var, chocolad var, Inghiliz suppe var, Suwan var, su war" ("There is rice, there is chocolate, there is English soup, there is onion, there is water").

When the moment of complete mergence seemed to have arrived he lifted the pot off the fire and placed it between us. "Chok eyi, chok" ("Very good-very"), he said encouragingly, and handed us each a spoon. X. swallowed a few mouthfuls.

"We must leave some for the men," she said, with a look of apology as she put the spoon down. She picked up a piece of leathery native bread and started chewing it.

"Try a cigarette," I said sympathetically. I could not find it in my heart to tell her the history of that identical piece of bread, which I had been following with some interest for several days.

It was always turning up, and I recognized it by a black, burnt mark resembling a letter S. It had first appeared on the scene early in the week; we had been enjoying a lavish spread of chicken-legs and dried figs, and with wasteful squander I had rejected it as being less palatable than other bits. The men had tried it after me, pinching it with their grimy fingers, but, being unsatisfied with the consistency, they had thrown it, along with other scraps, into a bag containing miscellaneous cooking utensils. The next day it had appeared to swell the aspect of our diminishing supply, and had been left on the ground. But as we rode away Hassan's economical spirit overcame him; he dismounted again and slipped it into his pocket, where it lay in close proximity to various articles not calculated to increase the savoriness of its flavor. I was determined to see its end, and when X. laid down half-no doubt meaning it for my share-I threw it on the fire. "It's hardly the time to waste good food," said X.

The cook picked it out, blew the ashes off, and rubbed it with his greasy sleeve. He offered it to me.

"Eat it yourself," I said magnanimously, "I have had enough." But he wrapped it carefully in one of the dirty linen bags and put it on one side. "Yarin" ("To-morrow"), he said. And so we sit-a mass of wet clothes, saddles, cooking-pots, remains of food, ends of cigarettes, men; unable to move without treading on one or other of them; tears rolling down our cheeks from the fumes of the fire, thankful we cannot see what dirt we are sitting in, or what dirt we have been eating.

We roll our rugs round us and lie on

the sodden earth floor. Hassan turns the men out and stretches himself across the doorway. Dogs moan, men snore; outside the storm rages unceasingly.

In the middle of the night I wake Longman's Magazine.

with a start; something had hit me on the face and now lay in the angle of my neck. I knew what it was: a piece of plaster had fallen off the walls-and the plaster, like the fuel, is made of dried camel-dung.

Louisa Jebb.

I.

The Assistant Collector and Magistrate of the First-Class, aged twentyfour, tilted his crazy office-chair as far back as he knew to be compatible with safety, and dispassionately scrutinized the two hand-cuffed specimens of native humanity that stood before him. The evidence for the prosecution was complete. Caught red-handed stealing a goat from the village grazing-ground the two thieves could only offer a bare denial of the charge; and as the denial was not backed by a shred of probability, it only remained to award sentence.

The taller of the two criminals was whining in a dull monotone the usual platitudes indulged in by his class on such occasions, his shifty eye roaming round the office-tent as the monotone proceeded. "The police have thrown a net round me, an unfortunate and innocent man. These witnesses have all perjured themselves. We Ratias are hunters and trappers and junglefolk, and why should I steal a goat?" Here his glance fell on the Court Flogger untying a bundle of canes outside. Fascinated by the sight, he paused abruptly.

But at the word Ratia the smaller thief, a beady-eyed, cheerful-looking little man protested in a shrill cracked voice: "This is no Ratia but an outcaste of some city. If he be a Ratia,

let him show the Ratia mark. As for me, I am a Ratia indeed, and this son of shame is a liar also."

The Assistant Commissioner started from his reverie. This might be worth investigating, and further, he remembered with pride a lesson learned far back in the last rains when as yet he was new to the country. Riding out of some scrub-jungle onto the cultivated lands he had come upon a gang of brown beady-eyed little men busy setting snares for a herd of antelope feeding hard by. They worked silently, driving in their long pegs by thumps and blows with the palms of their right hands. An hour later, the sight of a fine black-buck kicking in the toils had enormously raised these children of Esau in the Englishman's estimation. "Hard on the hands, your trade," he had observed to a patriarch of the tribe. Whereupon, being simple folk and knowing a friend when they saw one, they had all pressed round his skewbald Arab to show how every male of the tribe bore in the right palm the hall-mark of the Ratia,-a horny gray callosity about the size of a shilling.

He had the hand-cuffs opened and examined the four perspiring palms held out for inspection. Those of the taller prisoner were plump and smooth, the hands of a thief. Delay in this case was superfluous; "Thirty stripes," the sentence rang out and the man was