bring us up,' thought I. But no such thing on we rattled over great slabs of stone and pools of mud, whisked through the miserable gateway, and tore along narrow streets; the Soorajees leading, the Tatar following, 'yah-ullahing,' and flogging away; the horses sometimes on their feet, sometimes on their knees, splashing and flinging oceans of mire into the shops on either side, and over the vestments of the 'faithful,' until at length, with a shower of fire-sparks and an explosion of mud from their armed heels,' we all brought sharp up at the entrance of the posthouse of Sofia."

Having rested for a few days at Constantinople, Mr. Fraser again takes horse on the 16th of February, with a party consisting of Mr. Bonham (an English gentleman going to Tehran); Mehemet Aga, Tatar; two Soorajees or grooms; and an Armenian servant. Further provisions were made against the cold, and a stock of provant laid in, which it afterwards appeared was most essential, as the time being, unluckily, that of the Ramazan or Mohammedan lent, it was often impossible to procure food of any kind at the Turkish posthouses. Of these latter we have some amusing, though rather broad sketches:

"At five o'clock the snow-storm had thickened, and the Socrajees positively refused to proceed. It was certain destruction, they declared ;-to find the way would be impossible, and we were certain to perish, horse and man, if we attempted to pass the mountain at such a time. While we were talking the matter over, the evening gun, which gives signal of sun-set in the Ramazan, and permission for the hungry faithful to break their fast, gave forth its summons, and we had the appetizing whet of witnessing the postmaster and his myrmidons at their evening dejeune, and a capital one it was, I assure you. Dish after dish was present ed, and whipped aawy, as soon as the guests had done it honour, with as much rapidity and propriety as if it had been a meal of a pasha and his friends,and well did the greasy rogues bury their ugly fists in the contents of each. The humours of a Turkish posthouse, however original, are somewhat of the coarsest, and the company it introduces you to is not always the most choice; still, it is a chapter in the book of human character, and is worth the reading. I have already given you sketches of a Turkish coffeehouse and post; but I fear I should fail sadly in any attempt to convey to you an idea of the thousand strange scenes, and their grotesque actors,

that present themselves to view in such a journey as this. Language could not convey the various shades of difference, and you would be tired of seeming repetition without being amused. But were you to see the host of wild and indescribable fi gures that rush out on your arrival, and pull you from your horses; the multitude of the same species that, on entering the dirty stifling hole, you find stretched like beasts before the fire, or lounging in the corners on the squalid rugs that receive from day to day, and from year to year, the filth of these obscene animals, on which you also must stretch your weary limbs, or remain unrested: were you to see travellers, like ourselves, rushing in, snowcovered, mud-plastered, ice-clad, throwing themselves, "boots and all," upon these precious couches; were you to see the unclean, half-naked, greasy biped that fits about the fire-place, and proceeds to exercise one of the functions of his calling in the brewing of coffee; were you to watch this delicate process, and see the functionary himself licking his little spoon, after stirring the beverage in which you are to share, or wiping it on one of his own black rags before immerging it again in the pot; you might form some faint notion of the manner in which matters are carried on for the comfort of travellers in these admirable establishments.

"Nor would the sequel edify you less. As night comes on, and you may have made up your mind to remain a few hours to recruit your exhausted frame, you naturally hope to spend them in rest and quietness, Vain expectation! Having bolted your food with what appetite you may-and hunger is good sauce,-you lay yourself down resignedly on one of the aforesaid tempting heaps, and soon experience the composing effect of weariness and reple tion combined; but just as your eyes are closing in rush the whole posseé-postmaster and men, Soorajees, Cahwajess, aspirants, stable-boys and all, with any superannuated veterans, or unemployed individuals of the cast about the townwho look to having their repasts and comforts as you have had yours. This having been devoured, cum multo strepitu, and some of the understrappers having cleared away the wreck, with the trays on which it was served, you may see-for your eyes are by this time wide enough open-the artiste, who so respectfully served you with coffee, brewing a fresh breswt. This he hands in due form to the good company, himself taking the last rich cup, with all the grounds, and sipping it like any bey or pashab. This being performed, he fills and lights his own pipe, and squats down like a gentleman that has performed his duty, helping himself out of any bag

your own perhaps that happens to be next him; a freedom in which he is followed by the rest and there they all sit enveloped in a thick cloud of tobaccosmoke, out of which, like the mutterings of thunder from a stormy sky, comes the incessant gabble of their tongues; one fellow swears, another roars out a good story a third contradicts him flatlythen up rises one, and, squatting himself alongside the fire, or close beside your lair, begins to put his foot-gear to rights, pulling off and putting on his boots and rags of stockings; another washes his hands and feet, Mussulman fashion, and squats him. self down to prayers at your very elbow; while a third holds a loud remonstrative altercation with the Tatar on some dis

puted point or fact. Then the sights, and the smells, and the oaths, and the brutal appearance and demeanour of the ugly gang,-who, after all, probably mean nothing offensive, but who all carry on the war like cocks upon their own dunghill, form a tout-ensemble somewhat too strong for nice stomachsa picture too broadly in the Ostade style to please most amateurs. And yet, in fact, it is they who are really at home, and you are the intruder. They are turned out to make room for you; it is their places you occupy, their beds you try to sleep upon, their fleas and crawlers which you are treacherously enticing away with your own fresh blood: so what right have you to complain ?"

This, however, was luxury, when compared with the accommodations of the Koordish villages

"The houses, burrowed in the ground on the side of a hill, were, covered with snow; the entrances were black-looking holes, into which we plunged darkling, after dismounting from our horses, and we found ourselves among a confused assemblage of buffaloes, horses and cows, men, women, and children, who were all mingled higgledy-piggledy in a cavern, the size of which, smoke, and the red glare of torches, and dust and uproar, prevented us from discovering, Dire indeed was the tumult: as when a wicked boy thrusts a stick into a wasp's hole, out they rushed in crowds, but not, as it appeared, with mischievous, but hospitable intent; and our horses were taken from us, and ourselves laid hold of, amidst a lowing and bleating of beasts, a crying of children, and a gabble of women, that might have made one fancy he had got into a sort of Noah's ark in a gale of wind.

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"After staring at us for a while, as usual, these good people left us for a little alone; but they soon returned, in greater numbers, and, after holding counsel together

in the "lower house," each man laid himself down where he chose or happened to be sitting, inside or outside of our apartment, and the whole floor was covered in a trice, thick as leaves in Valombrosa,' with snoring black heaps. What with the effluvia of men and beasts, and the remains of an ample fire, the heat became intense the air suffocating, To sleep in such an atmosphere was impossible to our unaccustomed natures; and even could weariness have triumphed over these annoyances, the multitude of fleas alone would have banished rest."

Our

Of the progress and measures of Russia Mr. Frazer saw ample evidence, both in Koordistan and Armenia. readers will agree with him that it is little matter of wonder if these unfortunate people "should hate their neighbours, one and all," and especially the Russians, as the authors of their most recent calamities. What was the nature and extent of them, we may judge from the following account :

"Erzeroom, until destroyed by the Russians in 1828-9, had been a flourishing place, and the great mart of trade, particularly for the purchase of European commodities by Persian traders, who used to come here for their investments instead

of proceeding to Constantinople. But when the Russians overran the country, they, by a specious pretence of deliverance from Mohammedan thraldom, partly prevailed on and partly forced all the Armenian families of this place, of Byaboot, and the neighbourhood, to leave their homes and enter the Russian territories. Upwards of ninety thousand souls are said to have been thus carried off from Turkish Armenia, of whom more than seven thousand were from Erzeroom and from what I afterwards heard and saw, I do not believe this estimate is beyond the truth. They were driven by orders of the Prince (then Count) Paskevitch into Russian Armenia, the population of which had become scanty under their mild parental sway, upon an understanding that they were to be distributed in towns and villages which required such a transfusion of human life, and were to be protected and encouraged in the exercise of their several trades and avocations; but by a singular and most heartless inconsistency, not only was this virtual promise broken, but the poor creatures were suffered to remain encamped and exposed to the severities of the weather, without even a provision of bread to eat, so that they died by hundreds of misery and want. At last they were sent to Akhiska and the provinces of the Black Sea, where they were disposed of in

THE little town of Rock Abbey, county of Limerick, contains more curiosities, more things to be seen, than almost any place of its size in Ireland. There is the fine old abbey, from which it takes its name, a beautiful ruin situated in a green and quiet hollow, just beyond the straggling town; yet so sheltered and hidden by the green slopes, that when, half running, half sliding, you have descended the steep path which now forms the only practicable approach, you appear to have dropped suddenly from a region of smoke, dirt, curs, and children, into an enchanted ground, where the spirit of peace sitteth for ever. There is also the Round Tower, a fragment of a castle perched on the summit of a green acclivity, at the farther side of the babbling little stream which tumbles and brawls through groups of cabins, more picturesque as objects, than enviable as residences; and then, widening and growing smooth in its course, glides away through marsh and meadow, making, now and then, little bays, where "the speckled trout do haunt the shade." Then there is the mushroom-stone, a huge mass of rock, which, broad at the top and narrow at the base, bears some resemblance to a gigantic mushroom. It lies in the midst of a meadow; the soil around it is rich and fertile; and who may say how that vast fragment came there? Then there is the Fairy's Oak, and likewise the Goat's Leap, But my story is not of these; for though these and many other curious matters were examined by me during my three days' sojourn in that remote spot, not one appeared to me so great a curiosity as Jemmy Morrogh, the guide and attendant of my rambles. Many and strange were the tales Jemmy related to me: not a hill but had its history, not a stone but Jemmy had a legend connected with it. Some of these were scarcely worth remembering, though they amused me at the time; for Jemmy, with his rich brogue and inimitable manner, could give point and expression to relations other wise somewhat tedious and insipid. He was, or affected to be, a devout believer in fairies, witchcraft, and, as he himself expressed it, "all kinds of conjuration." He was by trade a shoemaker, but being devotedly attached to the sport of angling, and somewhat addicted to other recreations, he did not

give quite so much attention to his lawful calling as might have been desirable, for a man who had five children to support. His wife, a thrifty, industrious termagant, between the irritation she received from his indolence, and the whiskey she drank to allay it, bad, as he expressed it, "tuk the faver and departed in pace," four or five years before. His two eldest daughters, tall, slatternly girls of twelve and fifteen, might be seen all day gossipping from cabin to cabin, or amusing themselves flinging stones at the ducks in the lake of green water before the door. His third daughter, a child of ten, and her twin brother, were usually either romping or quarrelling together; while his own peculiar pet, the youngest boy, a miniature of himself, and called after his name, tramped every where at his heels, with the same quick, slouching gait; sat by his side for hours during his angling expeditions; mimicked his anxious gaze at his float, his knowing glance at the clouds, his brogue, and his peculiar turn of expression; and who gave promise, as the neighbours used to say, "that while young Jemmy Morrogh lived, ould Jemmy would never die."

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The said "ould Jemmy" was a man who might have passed his eight-andthirtieth year. He was rather below the middle height, and his limbs, though muscular and active, were loosely hung, so that, with considerable strength, they combined great flexibility. His face displayed that curious mixture of Italian contour and Hibernian shrewdness, which I never saw but in the sants of the south of Ireland, and but seldom amongst them. The outline of his face was even handsome; the acquiline nose, fine dark eyes, well-shaped mouth and broad forehead, were almost dignified; and yet, the expression which played everlastingly over them, the expression of careless drollery, the vagabond look, if I may so call it, which pervaded the face, totally destroyed their effect. There was something laughable in the man's countenance, but it was not prepossessing; you might be amused with Jemmy Morrogh, but you could scarcely respect him.

"That is a beautiful little spot," said I, pointing to a tiny bay on the farther side of the river. The bank rose ab