thought I; but neither my position nor other circumstances permitted my communicating my suspicions to anybody, leastways to our

master.

"At last all formalities were completed; and about a week after our visit to the Nishanjee Pasha, we set out on our way for Bagdad. We crossed over to Scutari in boats; thence, passing through Ismid, Angora, Keer-Shahr, and many other towns, we pursued a long, and at times, a difficult route, till we reached Keysareeyah.' Winter had now fairly set in, and the highlands which we traversed were often covered with snow. Indeed at Keysareeyah itself we came to a dead halt; the mountains between that place and Khar

'The Cæsarea of the Byzantine Empire; a central town in Asia Minor, and still of importance. The inhabitants have been of all times noted for turbulence and sedition.

poot1 being, so the country people said, almost impassable.

"In Keysareeyah accordingly, we remained rather more than a month. We were lodged all together in a huge, straggling house, belonging to one of the turbulent city-Aghas, close by the old castle; and had little to do but to warm our hands over pans of charcoal, wander listlessly and well muffled up through the covered labyrinth of the interminable market place, and wish for the return of milder weather.

"The cold tried us all much, though not equally; the Pasha, wrapped in double furs, scarcely stirred from the fireside; the Bagdadees, negroes, and their like, kept the doors closed, huddled together, and whined. One, indeed, of the Bagdadees fell

1

The next large town easterly, on the Bagdad road.

ill and died. We buried him a bow-shot outside the town walls, in the old Turkoman cemetery, then deep in snow; I pitied him for having to lie in so cold a resting-place. The Dalmatian,-Michael had been his original name, but this had subsequently been changed to Ghalib,-and I, felt the climate least of all; Istrian and Carpathian winters had seasoned our boyhood to that which seemed to most of our comrades an unbearable severity of temperature. This circumstance proved a lucky one for me; as it enabled me to secure to myself, for ever after, the devoted friendship of the negro Sa'eed, by means of an opportune present which I here made him, of my sheepskin overcoat. the Pasha had provided each of us with one for the road; but Sa'eed, with the innate recklessness of his kind, had lost or sold,— he said the former, but I believe it was the

True,

latter, that given to him before he was out of Constantinople; for me, I could make tolerable shift without one.

"So passed our time, dully enough on the whole, till February brought a somewhat milder air, and we resumed our journey. So far as roads went, this second stage of our journey was, however, the roughest and the worst; the mountains were high, the paths desperate, and our beasts well nigh worn out with work and scarcity of provender. March was far advanced before we reached Diar-Bekr, its walls stood out particularly black against the mountains of Koordistan beyond, still streaked with snow.

1

"More than three months had now elapsed since we left Constantinople, six, since I had

1 Anciently Amida, a large and busy town on the right bank of the Tigris; the great valley leading down to the Persian Gulf commences here.

seen my last of Transylvania; and I had by this time really got to like my new life. Not that I had wholly lost the memory of my father and the rest of my family; on the contrary I often thought of them, and of my sister Mary in particular, with regret and anxiety. Still I was young; and all my homeward thoughts did not hinder me from taking very hearty interest and pleasure in the countries we traversed; in the noble scenery, the wooded crags, the rushing torrents, the wide plains, the dense forests, in the quaint quiet villages, the frequent ruins of unknown date, the vegetation and tillage,-such of it, that is, as was apparent even at this season of the year in sheltered spots,-new to my eyes; also in the strange customs and unwonted manners of the men; occasionally too, but that was a rare good fortune, in the pretty faces of the peasant girls. Now and then also we