secrecy and silence, but he may, if he fears me, stay quiet in the fort."

When the news of all this reached the king's ears, he ordered his wuzeer and generals to send a force, and bring back the delinquents either dead or alive. Then a party of horsemen rode through the gate. There was an embankment outside, upon which Byzad Khan made the princess and myself mount, and he himself charged the armed party. He ran into their midst, and cutting right and left scattered the whole force, as you would the green scum from a ditch. He killed several of the chief men, and the rest fled for their lives. Like chaff before the wind was the whole body scattered. When the chiefs were gone, the rest vanished like a vapour. Such was Byzad Khan's valour and strength, that even Roostum could not stand up before him. Victory belongs but to God, but it pleased Providence that he should be thus wonderfully victorious.

Then when he saw that all of them were dispersed, and that the coast was quite clear, he came up the embankment where the princess and I were staying, and together we proceeded to the port from which I was to embark to sail homewards, and there we took our passage along with him.

After making the voyage-which was a prosperous one-we soon arrived in the confines of my father's kingdom, and I sent a messenger on to his highness to give notice of my safe arrival. The king was exceedingly rejoiced, and went to thank God for it at the mosque. It was as if rain had fallen on a dry land parched with famine. There was a river between the king's palace and the road I was marching on along with the princess. But the king assembled all the noblemen in the country, and told them the joyful news; and he himself proceeded in state to the river, to be the first to welcome the young princess and myself upon our arrival in his dominions. Then the king had a large fleet of boats assembled, to cross over the river to meet me. When they all set sail, I was so eager to meet the king that I made my horse plunge into the stream, and just as his pinnace got up to the shore I rushed on board, and, leaving my horse in the water, embraced my father. But the horse I had ridden was foal to the mare which the princess was on, and the mare rushed after the foal into the water, with the princess seated on her back. Then my horse, frightened, dashed onwards, and the mare after her, and the princess, in confusion, pulled at the bridle. She had a soft mouth, and owing to her movements, on its being dragged at, she threw off the princess. The beautiful lady was thrown into the deep, and drowned; and as for the mare, she was carried downwards by the stream. Byzad Khan, when he saw what was

going on, dashed into the river after them, wishing to save the princess; but though he swam, and urged his horse onwards with very great force, he was unable to reach her, and came to a whirlpool in the river, and unable to get out of it, he was also drowned.

When the king saw the disasters which had happened, he sent his divers to search the river below for the bodies. They used every effort in their power, and were still unable to come at anything. Nothing but clay and sand could they find. Every seafaring man and sailor was offered a reward if he could come at the bodies, and all those who knew the river in the neighbourhood were had in requisition; but it was all in vain. No trace of the lady or the champion could come to hand. Oh, faqueers! when I witnessed all this I became as one insane. I kept crying out, "What a grief has befallen me! What have these eyes witnessed! I have seen it myself! I have become an eye-witness! If the princess had been lost, or even had she died, it would be more comfort; but to be thus drowned!" I became a faqueer. I wandered about the mountains and jungles, till at last the thought seized me that I should also drown myself, and end my griefs. One night I stood over a precipice that overhung that river, and was just about to cast myself into it, when a mounted hagee in a green veil came behind me, and seized me by the shoulder, and told me not to despair; that it was sinful to cut off one's own thread of life, and that I should meet companions in distress if I travelled to the country of Romania.

This, friends, is the true recital of my woes, which I have now told you.

THE LIBERAL PURSE.

WHAT matters it to men of sordid ruling,

Who trade with honour as they trade with dross,
Who think that conscience is but silly fooling,
And gold is all a nation's gain or loss;

What is to them a nation's generous feeling

Which hates the callous heart and griping hand,Hates cunning words, all niggard thoughts concealing, And acts that fitly would the miser brand?

What matters it if in the teeming city

The toiling millions breathe a fetid air?
Why should men squander e'en one pang of pity,
Who but for gold have not a sigh to spare?
What if the people from the turbid rolling

Of their broad stream have won a narrow space?
What if their toil, the loathsome shores controlling,
Has given the pent-up crowd a flowered place?
What if beyond the smoke, all light obscuring,
The beck'ning forest spreads its scented shades,
And calls the millions with a voice alluring

To drink in health amid its sunny glades?
The hungry ruler slurs the happy vision,

Denies the wants-the light, the air, the rest, Demands unrighteous gold with cold derision, And meets warm longings with a cynic jest. What if the many with a glad ambition

Are stirred their native honoured state to serve? Some are of high and some of low condition,

Yet none from duty would descend to swerve. They trust; but what awaits their proud confiding, Their faith in men that hold the nation's purse? The niggards meet it with a laugh deriding, And claim a credit from the muttered curse. What mattered it if Livingstone were lying, Abandoned, wounded, on the Afric plain; What mattered it if England's son were dying, His life expended for his country's gain? What mattered it that England's heart were grieving, If he among her noblest sons were lost, That through the land were felt a sad bereaving, As were his death to every heart a cost?

There jet him lie, that man of hero story;
What care the griping rulers for our fame?
For them but lucre gilds our country's glory;
What cares a huckster for a noble aim?

What was to them, immersed in sordid scheming,
A people's prayer to rescue and to save?
Let others save: our wealth it was but seeming;
The nation was too poor to love its brave.
In days gone by, among Judæa's mountains,
A people small and poor to greatness rose;
They drank their spirit from the holy fountains
Around whose marge the soul heroic grows.
The days went by; but gold its charms deceiving
Spread o'er the land and poisoned all the springs;
The heart that once was strong in high believing,
Now died to faith in all but gilded things.

The heart that erst had made a noble nation,
Sunk down from foes an abject peace t' implore;

Humbly with gold it sold its lofty station,
And bought a peace, and fell to rise no more.

Our day of shame has come.

We once were smiling-
A nation honoured o'er the boundless earth;
We feared no wrong, we feared no voice reviling,
And none but trusted in our stainless worth.

But abjects rule us. Now a foe insulting

Coins fancied wrongs, and seeks with threats redress;
Knocks at our gates, and in our fears exulting
Bids us these wrongs upon our knees confess.

We buy a peace, as did the Hebrews bending,
For one short day from war's alarms exempt;
We buy a peace, to Hebrew shame descending,
And with this peace we buy the world's contempt.

Dark is the day that rises on our sorrow;

We sit in ashes and our honour mourn;
We lift our eyes with trembling to to-morrow,
And fear the finger of the coming scorn.

There are no friends to men from honour shrinking,
Who smiling cower beneath th' insulting blow:
The strong despise the craven heart aye sinking,
And women spurn
the man that bribes the foe.
G. T. L.

( 149 )

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

EXPEDITIONS OF DISCOVERY.

LIBRARY

It is possible that when Livingstone learns that what he considers to be the Upper Nile is believed by almost all geographers to be the Upper Congo, that enterprising traveller may change his plans, but, according to the latest intelligence, what time he had devoted to further African exploration, was to be chiefly occupied in a detailed examination of the sources of, rather than in the prolongation of his two Lualabas-no doubt a generic name, like Wady for a river. The controversy, the nature of which we have before explained at length, as to the Lualabas being tributaries to the Nile, or the Congo, or being swamped in an unknown African Mediterranean, has, at all events, led to the irresistible desire for further exploration of the long neglected yet great African river, known as the Zaire and Congo.

Two important expeditions have been organised for this purpose. One by this country, which is under Lieutenant Grandy, R.N., another by Prussia under Dr. Güssfield, the glacier explorer. Success may be marred by the usual African impediments, more especially the well-known hostility of the natives on the Congo, who look upon Europeans as the forerunners of slavery, and the other difficulties inseparable from inland voyages of discovery, but it is quite certain that much additional information as to the course of the great river and the nature of Central Africa will be the result, even if the great desideratum, the watershed between the Nile, the Congo, and the Benuwe is not determined. As much may not be anticipated from the expedition under Lieutenant Cameron, which is to be forwarded by Sir Bartle Frere from Zanzibar, but laying aside the interest taken in affording aid and relief to Livingstone, much remains to be done even in that quarter, where we do not yet know if the great lake Tanganyika has an outlet to the south or west, or, as is conjectured by many, has an easterly flow to the Indian Ocean, or is, as there is every reason to believe, an inland sea without any outlet at all.

Two important Australian journeys of exploration are, it is pleasant to have to state, in progress, both engaged in examining the great area of unknown country between the line of telegraph (before described) and Swan River. One of the expeditions, despatched by the government of South Australia, is under the command of Mr. W. Gosse, the other is a private enterprise,