the orange-trees; they have laid out the
park, and enclosed the hunting-grounds; they board, lodge, wash, and
tax the inhabitants; and I may say, without the slightest attempt at
punning, that the citizens are all _Kursed_.

'In the Kursaal is the ball or concert-room, at either end of which is
a gallery, supported by pillars of composition marble. The floors are
inlaid, and immense mirrors in sumptuous frames hang on the walls.
Vice can see her own image all over the establishment. The ceiling is
superbly decorated with bas-reliefs in _carton-pierre_, like those in
Mr Barry's new Covent Garden Theatre; and fresco paintings, executed by
Viotti, of Milan, and Conti, of Munich; whilst the whole is lighted
up by enormous and gorgeous chandeliers. The apartment to the right is
called the _Salle Japanese_, and is used as a dining-room for a monster
_table d'hote_, held twice a day, and served by the famous Chevet of
Paris.

'There is a huge Cafe Olympique, for smoking and imbibing purposes,
private cabinets for parties, the monster saloon, and two smaller ones,
where _FROM ELEVEN IN THE FORENOON TO ELEVEN AT NIGHT, SUNDAYS
NOT EXCEPTED, ALL THE YEAR ROUND_, and year after year--(the
"administration" have yet a "_jouissance_" of eighty-five years to run
out, guaranteed by the incoming dynasty of Hesse Darmstadt), knaves and
fools, from almost every corner of the world, gamble at the ingenious
and amusing games of _Roulette_, and _Rouge et Noir_, otherwise _Trente
et Quarante_.

'There is one table covered with green baize, tightly stretched as on a
billiard-field. In the midst of the table there is a circular pit,
coved inwards, but not bottomless, and containing the Roulette wheel, a
revolving disc, turning with an accurate momentum on a brass pillar,
and divided at its outer edge into thirty-seven narrow and shallow
pigeon-hole compartments, coloured alternately red and black, and
numbered--not consecutively--up to thirty-six. The last is a blank, and
stands for _Zero_, number _Nothing_. Round the upper edge, too, run a
series of little brass hoops, or bridges, to cause the ball to hop and
skip, and not at once into the nearest compartment. This is the regimen
of Roulette. The banker sits before the wheel,--a croupier, or payer-out
of winnings to and raker in of losses from the players, on either side.
Crying in a voice calmly sonorous, "_Faites le Jeu, Messieurs_,"--"Make
your game, gentlemen!" the banker gives the whe