out his leas to their fullest
extent, and although he continued at long intervals to evolve a blue
curl of smoke from the corner of his mouth, it was evident he was lost
in the land of dreams.

In two hours afterwards we were on our way back to Dublin, bearing with
us the oaken box, which, however, it is but justice to ourselves to say,
we felt as a sad exchange for our own carefully-written manuscript. On
reaching home, our first care was to examine these papers, and see
if anything could be made of them, which might prove readable;
unfortunately, however, the mass consisted of brief memoranda, setting
forth how many miles Mr. O'Leary had walked on a certain day in the
November of 1803, and how he had supped on camel's milk with an amiable
family of Bedouins, who had just robbed a caravan in the desert. His
correspondence, was for the most part an angry one with washerwomen and
hotel-keepers, and some rather curious hieroglyphic replies to dinner
invitations from certain people of rank in the Sandwich Islands.
Occasionally, however, we chanced on little bits of narrative, fragments
of stories, some of which his fellow-travellers had contributed, and
brief sketches of places and people that were rather amusing; but so
disjointed, broken up, and unconnected were they all, it was almost
impossible to give them anything like an arrangement, much less anything
like consecutive interest.

All that lay in our power was to select from the whole, certain
portions, which, from their length, promised more of care than the mere
fragments about them, and present them to our readers with this brief
notice of the mode in which we obtained them--our only excuse for a
most irregular and unprecedented liberty in the practice of literature.
With this apology for the incompleteness and abruptness of "the O'Leary
Papers"--which happily we are enabled to make freely, as our friend
Arthur has taken his departure--we offer them to our readers, only
adding, that in proof of their genuine origin, the manuscript can be
seen by any one so desiring it, on application to our publishers; while,
for all their follies, faults, and inaccuracies, we desire to plead
our irresponsibility, as freely, as we wish to attribute any favour the
world may show them, to their real author: and with this last assurance,
we beg to remain, your ever devoted and obedient servant,

ARTHUR O'LEARY.

CHAPTER I. THE "ATTWOOD."

Old Woodcock says, that if