"Kissore became gloomy and distracted, from the moment he heard of Elleelah's falling into the hands of the enemy. No longer was he to be found cheering on his comrades to the fight. He did not shun danger, however, but, when it crossed his path, met it with that apathy which he evinced to everything about him.

"On their entering the Company's territories, he one night suddenly quitted the Rajah Ghumbheer Sing's forces, and pushing into the country, had joined, it was said, a band of dacoits, or robbers, who infested the lower provinces of Bengal."

Such was the Subadar's story, and it made a deep impression on my mind at the time. When I thought of the unsettled state of her native country; that her father was no more; that Kissore was an outcast, perhaps a common robber, and fled no one knew whither, I was inclined to agree with the old man that Providence had been merciful in snatching Elleelah away from a world in which nothing was left for her to hope, but all was misery before her.

Some years had rolled over since Elleelah found a watery grave, and I was visiting, one cold season, the outposts of an extensive military command to which I had been nominated, when the native officer, after I had inspected his guard, gave me an account of a gang of marauders, then lodged in the jail over which he mounted guard, whom he had captured, under the instructions of the magistrate of the district, a few days before. "The dacoits," he said, "had entered a neighbouring town, in the middle of the day, disguised as a marriage procession, with a number of musicians, followed by two splendidly decorated palankins. That, on reaching the centre of the bazar, the whole cortège stopped, and suddenly throwing down their musical instruments, each individual snatched a sword or a spear from the palankins, and, rushing into the houses of the moneychangers and jewellers, swept off all the gold and silver in the place; wantonly murdering several of the unfortunate people they robbed.

"No traces of the robbers could be found by the civil authorities who visited the spot soon after; and it was generally supposed that they had effected their escape from the district, when one day an ill-looking native waited on the magistrate, and offered to deliver the chief, and the whole gang of dacoits, into his hands, on proviso of a free pardon for himself, and a considerable reward, which he named, being granted him. This was immediately agreed to, and the money stipulated for, promised to be doubled, in case the whole party should be captured.

"Accordingly, with the dacoit as his guide, Sumbheel Sing told me he had set out with a hundred men to apprehend the daring freebooters, and, after traversing an intricate jungle for some hours, they perceived the smoke of a small fire curling above the thicket. Here they halted, while the guide went on to make his observations. In a few minutes he returned, and informed them that the robbers were reposing themselves after their midday repast, and that their arms were piled in a heap behind the chief's head, who was also sleeping. The sepoys were formed into a crescent, and, at a given signal, sprang upon the robbers, and so well was the manœuvre executed, that the whole band were seized, and conveyed to prison without delay."

The Subadar concluded his account by requesting me to take a look at them, adding, "that these dacoits were well worth seeing."

I gladly acceded to Sumbheel Sing's proposal that I should accompany him through the gaol. The greater part of the dacoits were dark, savage

looking men, with nothing to distinguish them from the generality of natives, except a ferocity of countenance that spoke a familiarity with deeds of blood.

It was their chief who principally attracted my attention. He was a tall, powerfully built man, apparently between twenty-five and thirty years of age; and though there was something forbidding in the expression of his dark, fierce eye, he was much fairer, and from his whole appearance evidently of a race far superior to the common herd of his associates in crime, and I inquired of the Subadar if he had learnt anything of his history. But all he could tell me about him was that he had only joined the gang a few years before, and that, excepting the name of Kissore, which was engraved on his sword, and supposed to be his real one, though he called himself Ragabor, nothing of his former life was known to his companions.

The name of Kissore recalled scenes of the past to my mind. I thought it probable I beheld the husband of the unfortunate Elleelah before me, and I resolved to address this brigand of the East. To my questions as to whether his name was Kissore, and if he came from Munnipore, he replied, with considerable asperity, by asking me if I thought there was but one Kissore in the world, that I took him for some one I had seen before; and what was it to me, who he was or where he came from.

I felt reluctant to stir from the spot without making another effort to discover how far my surmise was well founded, and I abruptly asked him if he ever knew Elleelah, the daughter of Joolseroy. That sound dispelled the apathy he had previously evinced.

"Where is she, and what has become of her?" he eagerly exclaimed. With a slight preamble, I gave him an account of my meeting with her on the banks of the Soormarah, and of her melancholy and As I proceeded, the whole spirit of the stern freebooter seemed changed to woman's weakness, for his sobs became loud and audible.

Recovering himself, he observed that, "Elleelah never could have been anything to him again, after she fell into the hands of the Burmese; that he was thankful she was at rest, and neither dragging out a loathsome existence in the zenanas of her detested captors, nor pining away, a polluted thing, in her own country, without a friend or relation to soothe her afflictions."

With respect to himself, he said, that shortly after he quitted his countrymen, the Cassayers, to whom he had become an object for the finger of scorn to point at, he had been obliged to sell his horse to procure the means of subsistence, and, finding the discipline of the British troops too strict for him to submit to, he had joined a band of dacoits, near Dacca, whose wandering life was more congenial to the habits he had acquired in his younger days. That a short time after he entered the association, their chief had been cut off in an attack they made upon a village, in which they were repulsed; and that from the courage and conduct he had displayed on the occasion in extricating the band from the perilous situation they were in, he had been chosen to succeed him, and had been their leader ever since.

Kissore expressed no contrition for the misery he had caused his own countrymen, or abhorrence of the scenes of rapine and murder he had since been so deeply engaged in; and I turned from him with the conviction that, whatever he might have been in his earlier days, he was now a villain hardened in crime beyond all hope of reclaim.

Scarcely had I returned to the head-quarters of the battalion, when I heard that the brigand chief, and one or two of his accomplices, had effected their escape from the gaol, and hitherto eluded pursuit.

About a month after this, Kissore was brought into the station where I was, by two of our sepoys, apparently in a dying state, having two bayonet wounds through his body. He was lodged in the gaol, and medical assistance immediately afforded him.

A large reward had been offered for his apprehension, and he had been betrayed by a woman in the city, with whom he had recently become acquainted. This Milnwood of the East, tempted by the price set on his head, took his sword while he was sleeping on her bed, and carrying it with her to the neighbouring thannah, or watch-house, gave information of his being concealed in an upper room of her dwelling.

There happened to be a haick, or corporal, and four sepoys present, and, together with the policemen, they surrounded the house; the head police officer, with a few others, ascending the narrow staircase to secure him. But, just as they reached the landing place, Kissore, whom the noise had awakened, darted from the window, about ten or twelve feet from the ground, and seizing a sword from one of the astounded police peons, with one blow severed the head from the body of the unfortunate corporal, who advanced, with his fixed bayonet, to oppose him; and then rushed down the street, followed by the whole posse.

He soon distanced them all, and they were despairing of overtaking him, when two of the sepoys who were returning from a tour of several miles they had made in search of him, were informed by a peasant who was working in a field through which they were passing, that a man was concealed in a small pond close at hand; and, on approaching it, they plainly saw the head of the robber chief above the weeds with which the surface of the water was covered. They called on him to come out and deliver himself up, threatening to shoot him instantly unless he complied.

Kissore agreed to give himself up; but, such was the dread of his prowess, that the instant he set his foot on dry ground, the sepoys, with one accord, sent their bayonets through his body, the one from the front, the other from behind his back.

Contrary to expectation, Kissore survived the severe wounds he had received, and was recovering so fast that it was daily expected he would suffer the sentence of the law still hanging over his head, when one evening, as I was about to retire to bed, intelligence was brought me that the prisoners in the gaol were attempting to escape. The prison was four miles from our lines, and, mounting my horse, I galloped there as quickly as possible. The affray, however, was over before I arrived; several sepoys had received severe contusions, and nearly thirty convicts were stretched lifeless in front of the building.

Taking a lantern in my hand, by its light I recognized amongst the slain, the features of Kissore the dacoit, still fierce in death; his body pierced by six balls, and many a bayonet wound.

THE FESTIVAL OF SANTA CROCE.

THERE yet remain not only nooks and corners of Europe, but of the very loveliest parts, where grow the fig, the vine, the olive, the chestnutthe deep blue sky, and colle ameni parts of Europe-which, if not wholly unvisited, are perfectly unexplored. Passing by, for the present, the little Duchy of Modena, that miniature China, in its exclusiveness and its inaccessibility to strangers, and the scarcely better known Duchies of Parma, &c., I invite you to accompany me on a Paul Pry excursion through the Duchy of LUCCA, that cup of beauty, whose sides embossed with mountains, which surely have fallen in lovely confusion from some brighter sphere, of which they still retain the tints and varied hues; lined as they are with the rich dark-green chestnut, in contrast with the pale-olive groves, until these give place in the vale (the bottom of the cup of beauty) to the clustering vines thrown in rich garlands from tree to tree over the whole plain or "piano," and interspersed with every sort of fruit-tree which this most productive climate can produce. It is to this earthly paradise, earthly, for on every hill we see vestiges of human grandeur, human strength, human passions and human iniquities, passed or passing away, that I would invite the reader.

Nay, nay, I know that the "baths of Lucca" is a migratory colony of English, and I know moreover that a very clever lady has written a very clever book called the " By-ways of Italy," which chiefly treats of Lucca, but yet, and notwithstanding all this, I repeat my invitation; for it is neither to "the baths," nor to the "by-ways," that I shall conduct my companions; it is, on the contrary, to the public streets of the capital of the Duchy; streets which, though all must rattle through them on their way to "the baths," have scarcely been trod by English foot. It is to the high-roads leading to those old strongholds and castles which crown the hills; and not only to every one of which, but almost to every stone of every one of which is attached some legend of historical accuracy, which would rival our most portentous romance.

For the present, however, we must lay aside all preliminary or bygone matters, and confine ourselves strictly within the city walls; for it is the time of the great national religious ceremony of the "Santa Croce," or Volto Santo; and although the subject necessarily excludes all idea of diverting or romantic adventure or anecdote, I think the faithful description of a fête of that nature, still held in a part of Europe where the English have what is here called "a colony," not more than fifteen miles distant, will to the reflective mind be, in itself, a proof that proximity, in this case, has not produced congeniality of sentiment or blending of habits; and that a community capable of holding such a fête at this stage of the world, in all its solemnity, must retain other and unbounded stores of interest for those who might be permitted to unlock them.

"The baths" in fact are in Lucca, but not of Lucca-they were built and embellished expressly for the English, as a pecuniary speculation; and although, probably with the same view, the late sovereign, Carlo Ludovico, made it a point to spend part of every summer there until either they were sufficiently established to do without that sacrifice on

his part, or that a fatal duel really did, as it is said, render the scene abhorrent to his very kindly feelings, he went there as he might have gone to any town in England, conforming much more to English habits and ideas, than attempting to introduce those of his native subjects; and the consequence is that the Lucchese and the English, with perhaps less than the usual exceptions, are as much strangers to each other, as if the "baths of Lucca" never had been in existence.

The festival was particularly brilliant this year, on account of the new sovereign, Leopold II. of Tuscany, with his family and Court, being for the first time established for the occasion, in the rich, antique, and interesting palace of Lucca. The ceremonies of this most important national festival consist in the exposition of the Volto Santo; the procession, or its visit to what was once the cathedral; the grand high mass in its honour; the races; the opera, and the fair. In this enumeration it may be perceived that interesting matter for almost every different country, class, and taste, seems to be provided for.

With regard to the origin of this festival, it is said that when Nicodemus received the body of our Lord from the Cross, previous to laying it in the sepulchre, in which never yet had man been laid, he conceived the idea of carving the likeness of his beloved Master, which should tend to counteract the effects produced by time upon the fondest memory. Accordingly, after gazing upon the sacred original as long as the predestined course of events admitted of, and consigning it to its temporary resting-place, he hewed down a cedar of Lebanon, upon which he commenced his operations. For some time they proceeded to his satisfaction; but when he came to the divine countenance, that emanation of the God-inan, a sense of his incapacity to do it justice came upon him, and, placing the headless trunk beside him, he sought in sleep a temporary oblivion of his disappointment. It would appear, however, as if that sleep, unconsciously to himself, had been sent for a farther object; for, upon awaking, and turning his longing eyes to the object of his anxiety, he beheld it furnished with a head and countenance surpassing in beauty and resemblance, aught to which his hopes had ventured to aspire. There was but one solution to such a mystery, and accordingly he fell down and worshipped it.* At the death of Nicodemus he consigned the sacred gift to a friend; and when he also was called upon to pay the universal debt of nature, for reasons with which I am unacquainted, the image seems to have lain unappreciated, and I believe unknown for about seven hundred years. At the end of that time a certain holy bishop named Galfrido, having gone on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, was rewarded by dreaming of the existence and locality of the image; receiving orders at the same time to have it transported forthwith to Italy-in consequence, as is supposed, of the persecution at that time prevailing elsewhere, against what was called image-worship, and all that tended to encourage such. Galfrido obeyed, and conveyed it as far as Joppa, or Jaffa; where observing a boat adapted at all points for its reception, and giving I know not exactly what tokens of being competent to take charge of and advance it on its journey, without human aid or intervention, the holy man recognized the farther miracle, placed the image carefully within the boat,

"Stupefatto cadde inocchioni sul suolo, l'adoro profondamente, &c." Discorso sul Volto Santo, detto dall' Abate Telesforo Bini nella Chiesa della Santa Trinità di Lucca, il dì 13 Settembre, 1835.