to be very soon felt; and I was as glad to divest myself of my cloak as I had been to put it on. On the top of the ridge we had been shivering with cold, whereas in half an hour, at a small spring where we halted to breakfast, the heat of the sun was so great that we were glad to creep under the shadow of a small rock. After an hour's rest we pushed on, and soon reached the plain; where, for the first time since leaving Beyrout, the poor horses got an even, smooth road, entirely devoid of stones, to travel upon; and their speed in walking was not a little increased, to the great comfort of the riders.

A pleasant ride of some two hours along the plain, at the foot and close to the mountain, brought us to the village of Kûb- Elias, where was encamped a considerable French force, consisting of two squadrons of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, one of the 1st Hussars, one of Spahis, or native Algerian Irregulars, two battalions of the 5th Infantry of the Line, and some mountain-guns; the whole being commanded by the colonel of the 5th Regiment. After riding into the village, and securing a room for the night in a native house, I walked over to the camp and presented my letter of introduction to the colonel, and asked leave to visit the various parts of the camp; to which he at once consented, sending a very intelligent non-commissioned officer of the Chasseurs d'Afrique with me as guide. Being myself an old cavalry officer, I was anxious to see the lines of the French horses, and how they managed their stable-duties in camp.

The whole of the cavalry-some 450 or 500 strong-was commanded by a lieutenant-colonel of the Chasseurs d'Afrique,-a tall, very gentlemanly, and very soldierlike-looking man, about forty or five-and-forty years of age, who had seen service in Algeria, in the Crimea, and, more recently, in Italy. He received me very kindly, and was good enough to walk over all the horse-lines with me, the men being at that moment at stable-duty. The horses were all from Algeria, and in breed, size, and general appearance, were very much like the "Gulf Arabs" on which our cavalry in India is mounted. The condition of the horses was not very good, and the grooming was worse than any thing I ever saw of the kind. The men had no curry combs on which to clean their horse-brushes, and, indeed, had no proper horse-brushes, but made a sort of pretence of cleaning the horses with what, in English stables, is called a waterbrush. Throughout the whole force, not a single man was what we call "putting elbow-grease" into his work; they merely wisped the animals over, as an English dragoon does after his nag is well cleaned, to take any little particles of dust off it, or as an English groom does when a horse is saddled and all ready for his master to mount. The saddles, bits, and other horse-gear of the Chasseurs appeared very clean, and neatly put together near each horse, so that the men could saddle them at a moment's notice. The stable-gear, too, I thought very imperfect, each horse being merely tied by the fore-leg to a long rope running from one end to the other of each squad of horses. Unlike our cavalry horses in India, these had their heads as well as their hind-legs free; the consequence was that, being stallions, they fought and hurt each other far

more than would have been the case had they been properly secured. In the lines of the 1st Hussars the horses were not even as clean as in the Chasseurs, and their saddlery appeared to be very little cared for. Altogether, their stable-duties appeared to be a very secondary consideration to what they are in the English service. With us, a detachment of cavalry in the field would have had all the officers present when the horses were being cleaned; but here there was but an officer of the week to look after the whole, and he only seemed to come and go in an off-handed way, and was dressed in a sort of light fancy cloak, not even in uniform. With us the orderly officer would have jacket, belt, and sword on, and have been with his eyes every where at once. A smart English cavalry adjutant would have gone demented on the spot had he seen such listless, apathetic work called by the name of "stable-duty." But, with all this, the Chasseurs d'Afrique have some excellent traits in the corps. They are certainly very rough, but they are also exceedingly ready, and seem to combine many of the best qualities of both regular and irregular cavalry. There are some curious features in this regiment, or rather in the three regiments,-for there are three regiments of Chasseurs d'Afrique, each corps consisting of six squadrons, and each squadron of a hundred and sixty horses,-namely, the great number of young men of good family that are to be found in its ranks. For some years past, whenever a young Frenchman has outrun his means, or when he fails to get through the Military College, he ends by joining the Chasseurs d'Afrique as a private trooper, hoping to rise in time to be an officer,-which he generally does. Even in the two squadrons of the corps which were in Syria, there were nearly a dozen young men with titles, some of them belonging to the oldest families in France, doing duty as privates and non-commissioned officers, whilst all the latter belonged to the middle and upper classes of French society. Those peasants who join the regiment as conscripts have very little chance of ever rising, there being so much better material to select from when a private has to be selected for non-commissioned officer. I was told that very few of these young penitents break down in the somewhat severe ordeal; most of them in time obtaining the epaulet, and some few rising to high rank in the army. Here, as or every occasion when I visited the French camps, nothing could exceed the civility and kindness that was shown me by the officers, nearly all of whom, although still young men, had risen from private, through the various ranks, to their present position. They all appeared to be thorough soldiers, and there were few amongst them who had not the Crimean or Italian medals on their jackets.

Like the rest of the French officers I had spoken to, they appeared very much disgusted with the inactive part they had to take in the Syrian business, and showed no great love of the Turks in their conversation. If ever the much-talked-of Eastern question is settled by an appeal to arms, the French army will go heart and hand into the business; and the slights which their leaders had to bear from the Ottoman officials during the Syrian expedition will not be forgotten in a hurry.

After going through the other cavalry lines, we visited those of the Spahis, or Irregular Algerian Cavalry, of whom there were some two hundred (a squadron) with the force. The Spahis, in many respects, might serve as a model on which to construct, by way of experiment, some of our Indian irregular corps, although they are utterly wanting in that soldier-like smartness which distinguishes our Hindostan cavalry: they have one or two excellent rules, which, if introduced into our service, would greatly strengthen the affection of these corps to their rulers. In the first place, the men in the Spahis can rise to the grade of first lieutenant, and as officers take rank with their French comrades; not as in India, where the native officer of thirty years' standing is commanded by the cornet or ensign who joined yesterday. The day I was in the camp I saw thirty or forty mounted men of the Spahis going on duty; the commander of the party was an Algerian first lieutenant, whilst under him. were one Algerian and one French sub-lieutenant. Another good rule in this corps is the mixing up of French soldiers with the natives. Of the privates one fourth, of the non-commissioned officers one third, and of the subaltern officers one half, are Frenchmen. All this tends to give a certain degree of European leaven to the corps, and would, I have no doubt, greatly diminish the chances of any thing like a mutiny, such as we have but too often witnessed in India. In fact, the corps is in all respects far more Europeanised than any of our Indian corps, although they still retain the wild fantastic dress, the heavy, cumbersome saddlery, and their awkward native arms of Algeria. When not on active service, the Spahis are used in Algeria as a native rural police-corps, each squadron being kept in the district where it was originally raised; so that the men are never very far from their families-another reason for the Eastern soldier to be always content with his lot.

After going through the various lines of the cavalry camp, and partaking of a cigar and some absinthe with some of the officers, I went back to the village of Kûb Elias, where I had left my horses; and making such a meal as my syce could cook, I lay down on my carpet, and took such an amount of sleep as the fleas would permit me, which was not much. Let no man, and still less any woman, who intends wandering in the East, attempt any journey, no matter how short, without a plentiful supply of flea-powder, and some sort of bedstead or cot on which to put his bedding. Don't be put off this by the consideration of weight or expense. You may learn to do without wine or beer, to live on badly-cooked food, and to ride any number of hours in the day; but no man can do without sleep and be in good health, far less enjoy himself as he goes through the fatigue of Oriental travelling. And if you attempt to sleep upon the ground, no matter how much or how good bedding you have under you, devoured by fleas you will be most certainly, as I was on the night I write of. It is true that the natives sleep on the ground, but fleas don't appear to annoy them, or, at any rate, not so much by a very long way indeed as they do us. And don't imagine that your experiences in Italian, no nor even in Spanish fourth-class inns can give you any idea

as to what fleas are in the East. In Southern Europe you may have fleas by tens, twenties, hundreds; but in the Levant, above all in Syria, you have them in thousands of thousands. Five times during this everto-be-remembered night I struck a light, and with a basin of water by my side, into which to put my game, had a hunt, or rather I picked them off my body as fast as I could, and until I was tired. But it was all of no use. Five minutes after I laid down to sleep, the fleas had returned as bad as ever, or even worse. As an old farmer in Somersetshire used to say of the rats, for each one I killed, a dozen seemed to come to his funeral. At last I could bear it no longer, but about two a.m. struck a light, lit my chibook, and, with the green volume which my irregular thought was a holy book, I waited for daylight. Then, getting out clean under-clothing from my saddle-bags, I went down to the river, and after a glorious but very cold bath, returned to breakfast as fresh as possible.

By seven o'clock my party was under way, commencing the ascent of Lebanon on the new Damascus carriage-road, which has lately been made by a French joint-stock company, and which, if the late outbreak had not taken place, would have opened out the resources of the country in a great degree. Up and up we went; the road being good and the ascent very gradual, made it delightful travelling for our horses. The novelty of meeting every now and then European carts, the drivers of which were also European, and to draw which there were horses harnessed in the European fashion, was, to say the least of it, a pleasing change from the usual monotony of a Syrian journey. These vehicles were employed in the making of this new road over the mountain, as were also large gangs of native workmen, superintended by French overseers, with whom we fell in every now and then. Nothing can exceed the solidity and care with which all the bridges, drains, watercourses, and the rest of the masonry, as well as the road itself, have been made. I could not help thinking as I rode over it, what a standing rebuke it must be to the Turks, who, after twenty years' possession of perhaps the most wealthy country in the world for its produce, are even now obliged to allow a foreign company to construct with foreign funds the only decent means of communication throughout this province, and one that connects Beyrout on the sea-coast with Damascus, their holy city.

Six hours' riding along the road brought us to the summit of Lebanon, where, after a short halt for refreshment at a small road-side inn, which a French camp-follower had set up, we commenced to descend for the last time, and with our faces towards the sea. Two hours more brought us to the village of Bhamdân, where, at the hospitable house of an American missionary, I got a hearty welcome, good fare, and, for the first time since I left Shemlin, where I slept on the first night of my journey, a good clean bed with sheets on it, into which I could get, and in which I could sleep, after the usual fashion of civilised man. On the morrow a five hours' ride brought me into Beyrout; thus ending my wanderings on the evening of the tenth day after I had left that town.

Breakfast in Bed;

OR, PHILOSOPHY BETWEEN THE SHEETS.

No. I.

ON A REMARKABLE DRAMATIC PERFORMANCE.

Do you know Hircius and Spungius, servants to Dorothea, in that curious old play by Massinger, the Virgin Martyr? I have always looked upon these two fellows as the perfection of scoundrelism. To steal pence off the tray of a blind man's dog is ordinarily esteemed the acmé of baseness; but Hircius and Spungius go far beyond this. They take the saintly Virgin's wages, but they are bondservants to Venus-La Venere de' ruffiani, and to Bacchus: head warden of Vintners' Hall, ale conner, mayor of all victualling houses; lanceprezade to red noses and invincible Adalantado over the armada of deep scarleted, rubified, and carbuncled faces. How they drink and gorge and swear and lie and bear false witness! When Dorothea sends them out with meat and medicines to comfort her almswomen, Hircius and Spungius convey the cates to a receiver of stolen goods, and spend the proceeds in foul riot. "For blood of grapes they sell the widow's food," and "snatch the meat out of the prisoner's mouth" to fatten the naughty. With vile hypocrisy they simulate devotion; but when the meek Angelo, who is always walking about with upturned eyes and a lighted taper, has gone on his way, Hircius and Spungius thrust their tongues into their cheeks, and reel into the nearest tavern, blaspheming. Finally, when Dorothea, their mistress, their benefactress, their Saint, is to be scourged, outraged, tortured, who but Hircius and Spungius are there to help the hangman? Faugh! There is but one merry passage in this mournful tragedy, and that is where the twin villains are dragged away by the heels to the gallows.

Every man who feels strongly, and works hard, and has made a name, and hates Rogues, is pestered with a Hircius and a Spungins. They begin by fawning upon and slavering him; and when they find that he will have none of their lip-service, they become his enemies. With one more ally, they would be a counterpart of the three Jews who put their three-hatted heads together to "devise devices against Jeremiah, and make his life a torment to him." Ever since I laid down pencil to take up pen, I have had my Hircius and my Spungius for ever carping, sneering, maligning, reviling. Hircius libels me in the Cud's Chronicle because I have declined to lend him three-and-sixpence; Spungius, who is reviewer-in-ordinary to the Gutterblood Gazette, essays to filch from me my good name because I would not insert his "New Scandal about Queen Elizabeth" in Temple Bar. Yet I honestly confess that the enmity of Hircius and Spungius does me good. It is better, O Sage, to wriggle on a cushion stuffed full of the thorns of abuse than to rest the