undantly proves.

As a child of three he accompanied his parents to Constantinople, where
his father, the Hon. Sydney Montagu, was sent as our Ambassador; and
there he won a place in history at a very early age as the first English
child to be inoculated for the small-pox. Probably, too, it was his
boyish life in Turkey that inoculated him with the passion for all
things Eastern, that so largely influenced his later life.

His adventures began when his parents returned to London, and the boy
was sent as a pupil to Westminster. It was not long before he rebelled
against the discipline and trammels of school-boy life; and one day he
threw down his Euclid and Caesar and vanished as completely as if the
earth had swallowed him. Every street, court, and alley was searched in
vain for the truant; advertisements and handbills offering a reward for
his recovery were equally futile. Not a trace of the runaway was to be
found anywhere.

One day, a good twelve months after his family had concluded that the
lad was dead, or, at least, lost for ever, Mr Foster, a friend of his
father, chanced to be in Blackwall when he heard a familiar voice crying
fish. "That is the voice of young Montagu," he exclaimed, and promptly
despatched his servant to bring the boy to him. The fish-seller
innocently came back, his basket of plaice and flounders on his head,
and was at once recognised by Mr Foster as the truant son of Lady Mary.

For a time he denied his identity with the utmost coolness; then, seeing
that denial was useless, he flung away his basket and took to his heels.
It was not, however, difficult to trace him; he was tracked to his
master's shop, where it was found that he had been a model apprentice
and fish-hawker for a year; and he was induced to return to his parents
and to school. Thus ignominiously ended Edward's first adventure, the
precursor of a hundred others.

He had, however, only been back at his books a few months when he
vanished again--this time as apprentice on a vessel bound to Oporto, the
captain of which, a Quaker, treated the lad with all kindness and
consideration. Arrived at Portugal he ran away again, and, tramping into
the interior, begging food and shelter on the way, he found work in the
vineyards, where for two years or more he shared the life of the
peasants. One day, as good or ill luck would have it, he was ordered to
drive some asses to the nearest seaport, where he was recognised both by
the Engli