to my spectacles, 'why did
we enter upon this disastrous journey? Allah has forgotten us. Let us
return.' We were in two minds about it already, for the place was weird
to look at and the air was a slow poison; but the horses were tired, and
we ourselves had had almost enough of the day s march.

Suddenly I sighted a domestic rooster, walking with a certain air of
pensive reflection down the street. I rested my revolver on my left
arm, took careful aim and fired. The bird towered madly, executed a wild
waltz, and went round the corner. The noise of the shot disturbed some
members of his harem, and a hen fluttered into the branches of a tree
close by. Francis potted her, and she fell at our feet. Here, at least,
was supper; but at the first corner we turned, in search of a place in
which to camp for the night, we found the rest of the feathered brood
feeding on the carcase of a pig which literally heaved in waves of
vermin life. We were very hungry; but there was a good two to one chance
that our bird had enjoyed that uninviting diet, and we threw her over
the nearest wall into the cinders of a smoking cottage.

We were resigned to remain supperless, when, with a prodigious clatter
on the stony street, and a wild calling of voices, came down three
Turkish Cossacks, detached, to call us back, from a party of regular
troops which we had passed that morning. The news they brought was, that
the country was alive with every species of unconscionable blackguard
known to the time and region; and at their urgent advice we mounted
our tired beasts once more, and rode until a journey of some half-dozen
miles brought us to the camp. There we fed royally, and slept in safety.

X

There is a theory to the effect that every man or woman in the world
could write at least one readable and instructive novel out of his or
her own actual experience. There is a very apparent disposition to put
this idea to the test of practice, though, happily, not more than half
the world's population has been so far animated by it. An equally sage
idea is that anybody, and everybody, can take a part upon the stage.
To write a novel or to turn actor--to astonish the world with a new
Waverley, Esmond, or Copperfield, or to dazzle the mimic scene with a
novel Hamlet, Falstaff, Richelieu, or Othello--would seem the simplest
thing in the world to the apprehension of a good many excellent people.

Charles Dickens observed a great many years ago that t