dently built by some epicure in landscape beauty, and occupying rather an elevated position above the water's edge, looked far away along the course of the channel. A garden, which might have been that of Epicurus himself, belonged to this charming little abode, and through the dark green foliage of the cypresses that lined its walks orange and lemon trees were seen, bearing their golden fruit, while quaint little rustic arbours, from which trailed garlands of vines, promised a refuge when necessary from the heat of the day. That part of the mainland exactly opposite the town took the form of a stern, mountainous-looking rock, formerly crowned by the Turkish castle and stronghold of Krababa, but now only marked by a few crumbling remains of masonry.

The first glimpse of Chalcis from the Mpourtzi side presents the Turkish quarter of the town to view, and impresses the spectator with a sense of poverty if not squalor ; but on landing and proceeding to the more modern part of the town this feeling is not confirmed, for if a trifle dirty, like most Greek towns are, it is far from gloomy, and there is much to be seen that is both novel and interesting.

Previously to our arrival at Chalcis we had found a knowledge of French to be most useful, it being spoken well and fluently by the majority of the Greeks; but as soon as we descended into the rowboat, which was to convey us to the wharf, our troubles commenced. The boatmen, two twin brothers, spoke nothing but their own tongue, but the volubility and fertility in expression with which they expressed themselves therein doubtless compensated, at least in their own estimation, for their deficiency in any other. This impediment to anything like a free intercourse existing between us, there was nothing for it but to repeat parrot-like the name of the village for which we were bound, and whose distance away from Chalcis we did not yet know. Having reached the shore, the Chalcis brothers made signs to us to wait where we were with the luggage, while they went off, as we thought, in search of a carriage; a most delusive idea, as it afterwards proved, for there was but one in the town. In the meantime a crowd of small boys and loungers had collected, gaping at us with open mouths, and criticising our, to them probably, outlandish appearance. At length, after a tedious wait, the brethren hove in sight, dragging behind them a dilapidated handcart at which we looked askance, and endeavoured afresh by means of more gesticulations to persuade them to bring a vehicle. All in vain; the deadlock still continued. Finally, in despair, a leaf was torn out of our pocket-book, and with talent endowed by the urgency of the situation, we depicted in lead pencil under their now

intensely excited eyes the object of our requirements. As the lines of a primitive vehicle grew under our eager fingers, a bland smile spread over their features, and they finally broke out into gleeful shouts of “ámaxa," which were taken up in chorus by the interested group around, and a series of "whirrs" with sundry revolutions of the arm showed us that they clearly understood what we wanted. We now, therefore, expected to see a dashing equipage roll up to us, and ourselves comfortably installed therein, to drive away in style from the scene of our dilemma. No such happy termination; instead of departing to obtain a vehicle, they proceeded to pile up the luggage on the hand-cart. Believing it possible that they wished to conduct us to someone who spoke French or English, we followed them through a little square, planted with stone pines and olives, and surrounded by two-storeyed houses with walls of a pink, blue, white, or green colour. Passing through this we came to a narrow street up which they proceeded a short way, and then turned into a courtyard where they came to a halt, and made signs that we should ascend a broad, rough, wooden staircase; nothing loth, up we went, fully expecting to meet somebody to whom we could communicate our wants; but disappointment awaited us at the top in the shape of a large, bare-looking room with a bar facing the staircase and various doors leading to the brothers only knew where. At the noise of our arrival several male individuals appeared in different stages of déshabillé, and gesticulations were again the order of the day, the only result of such calisthenic exercises being that we were conducted to a bedroom, whither our trunks followed in the twinkling of an eye. This was what we did not want, and we signified our disapproval in as forcible a manner as lay in our power. The arrival of a professor on the scene made us hope that some elucidation would be thrown on the matter, but his English was like our Greek, nil or almost so. After he, when discomfited, had retired, his place was taken by an odd little personage, who deserves a description to himself, and who afterwards proved a very kind friend. This individual was wearing a low-brimmed bowler hat, a seedy-looking black overcoat, and unmentionables of a very loud striped pattern, together with boots that appeared as if a little blacking would have been acceptable to them; he was rather below middle height, and of a nervous figure, with eyes so bright as to be almost feverish; for the rest he wore a good deal of hair on his face, and afterwards proved such a staunch ally, that in penning his not too prepossessing appearance, his memory calls forth the liveliest gratitude. He explained to us that we were at the Hotel

that the village to which we were bound

was distant twenty-five miles, and that if we did hire the sole vehicle of the town we should have to pay £5 for it, and even then that there was no certainty of our arriving there, as there was snow on the mountains and the driver did not know the way.

Quoth we, "What is to be done, then?"

"Wait till a boat sails for Limni to-morrow or the next day, and take mules from there to your destination."

"But why not go by mules from here?"

"You would not find your way, and snow lying deep on parts of the road, you would run the risk of taking cold, which is a serious matter in this climate."

Visions of an immediate termination to our journey being thus abruptly dissipated, and with them all ideas of comfort vanishing— for the interior of the place was cold and cheerless-we decided to make a virtue of necessity, and remain at the building yclept an hotel till we could obtain by hook or by crook a steamer for Limni.

Meanwhile, as it was bitterly cold, owing to the wind blowing straight from the snow-capped mountains, and there being no such thing as a fire or fireplace to be seen in the hotel, we thought the best thing to be done was to breakfast at a restaurant, whither our friend proudly escorted us. His manner whilst acting as interpreter became more fatherly than ever; he insisted upon ordering everything we required, informing us what we ought to pay, and making himself valuably useful in spite of his torrent of AngloAmerican-Hellenic diction.

Says he: "Trink dat vine; it gif you red cheeks." To which he added, as an additional attraction, that it was "good for tummick."

Our breakfast-or, as they call it here, yevma, for it was 12 A.M. -was not an expensive one, and was capitally cooked, although the preponderance of olive oil in most of the dishes might not have suited some palates. The menu consisted of white soup, chicken stewed in the above-mentioned oil, rosbif, cabbage, salad, and dessert. The charge, one drachma fifty lepta, equivalent to about 1s. 1d. After having done justice to this repast, our cicerone intimated to us that it was our bounden duty to go out and thoroughly explore the town under his wing; a suggestion which, being proposed to us when we were refreshed, met with our approbation.

One of the first places of interest we stumbled upon was the barracks, which were occupied by a considerable number of troops, mostly recruits, busily employed in their various evolutions and exercises. They were dressed in a uniform of lightish blue, and had, compared with the French piou-piou, a very soldier-like bear

ing and smart appearance. The manoeuvres were performed in a very creditable manner, considering that they were mostly twenty-one days' men.

But if the men were up to the mark, the barracks themselves were hardly so; for those sleeping-quarters which I visited consisted of simple lean-to sheds, with rough plank floors upon which the men slept in rows, on rough sacking. Doubtless, this sort of accommodation is good preparation for a campaign; but we fancy, from the high rate of mortality prevalent amongst the troops, that it is hardly conducive to health.

One of the officers, who spoke French with a remarkably good accent, offered to show us the civil prisons, which are situated on one side of the barrack square. Under his guidance we ascended some stone steps leading to the top of a wall, whence we were able to look down to a small courtyard, in which were forty or fifty prisoners, in the arious native costumes of Euboea and the neighbouring isles; sme were standing, doing nothing, others busy making little neckaces of shells, strung together with wire; whilst others, intent uponnaking little additions to their prison fare, offered them for sale, and r that purpose threw them up in the air for us to catch, and as sooras they fell back again, nothing disheartened, repeated the process. Although supervised by an armed gendarme walking up and down he narrow platform on which we were, there was, as may be inferred from this account, but little attempt at discipline, and the boon of;moking, which alone contrasted strangely when compared with ou English customs, was freely indulged in. Looking down upon thei upturned faces, their appearance was far from prepossessing, even fbidding, when we were informed of the various crimes, for which she of them were undergoing imprisonment for life, others shorter entences of from five to ten years. My attention was drawn to one othem by our Mentor, who said:

"Do you see that young flow, almost a boy, holding up a small paper-knife to you; it is not ng since he cut a Papa's (priest's) throat, and as he does not expt to have sufficient interest to be acquitted or escape with a minopunishment, he last night made a desperate attempt to get away, ir hich he and several others nearly succeeded. In the event of hisucceeding he would have made for Asia Minor, like most of the urderers about here in a similar position."

Imprisonment in the agriculturaistricts round about here is not looked upon as a disgrace, but rathes one of those disagreeable contingencies that may befall a man spite of himself, and which

therefore should not be looked upon with too unfriendly an eye. A sentence of imprisonment, therefore, and the ofttimes serious crime culminating in it, when viewed in this excessively broad-minded light, is no bar to a man's advancement in life after his term of imprisonment has expired.

Our volatile little friend appeared to take as great an interest as ourselves in the prison arrangements, and informed us that the ground on which we stood was formerly occupied by the Turke's, and that all the houses adjacent to the barracks were Turkey houses; and very quaint and dirty-looking these same Turkish houses appeared, in spite of their being each embowered amongst orange and lemon trees.

In this quarter of the town, and not so very far from the barracks, is to be seen the old Turkish mosque, with its muezzins tower standing like a sentinel by its side. In front of it lager more traces of the Mohammedan religion in these parts; a square, with once primly laid out gardens, surrounded now by low tumble-down cottages. A ruined marble font still marks t'e place where the Turks used to perform their ablutions befor entering the holy edifice. A melancholy, sickly-looking crescent surmounts the dome of the mosque, and seems inclined to fall fro its high estate and vanish like those who placed it there. To in ulge, however, in any sympathy for the disappearance of the Tukish power from hereabouts would be false sentiment, as a lile reflection on their barbarities when in power, their corrupt geernment, and the baneful influence exerted by them over the Greek clearly demonstrates.

By this time, what with the cold win that was blowing and the fatigue resulting from sight-seeing and t voyage of the night before, we felt extremely inclined to return to ur hotel and to indulge in a rest, even though it should be in a chiy room without the cheerful concomitants of a fire and a carpet, f in Chalcis there are few, if any fireplaces, the reason for thei absence being that wood is the only fuel used, and that, owing to te distance it has to be brought, it is a very expensive one. But n if our spirits were flagging and our zeal a trifle abated, those of o “guardian angel" were not, for he had worked himself up into t enthusiasm of sight-seeing, and decreed that we were to go and the old Venetian castle, or rather the remains of it, and a macaro,mill. Having conscientiously done these two rather dissimilar obets of interest, back to the hotel we would go. Little Npked slightly dejected at this, but brightened up when he betlight himself that he would go off to the restaurant and order our daer, with the proviso that we were not to be cheated because we weforeigners and did not know the language.