ceased a singular phenomenon, occasioned, I presume, by intense moral emotion." On the 1st of October it however reappeared as bad as ever.

At first there was a general and confident feeling that the Russians would raise the siege as soon as they could carry off the wounded, but the besieged were soon undeceived; this, too, when famine and cholera were making simultaneous ravages, and, even with the hearty, hope deferred began to make the heart sick. At this period of the siege we find entries in the diary of the following description:

Oct. 21.-Swarms of vultures hover round our lines, preying on the corpses that the hungry dogs, which have forsaken the city, have scratched out of their graves. These wild dogs gorge themselves with their foul banquet, while within the city every man, woman, and child is searching for food. The grass is torn up in all the open spaces, and the roots eaten by the soldiers and people. Crowds of women besiege the public offices for bread, which is dealt out to them with a very sparing hand.

Oct. 23.-The misery of the townspeople is increasing visibly. A load of onions was brought last night into the city by an adventurous peasant, and sold at 60 piastres the oke (12s. for 24 lbs.). The most rigorous search is made for hidden stores of corn, and a good deal is found from time to time, buried deep under the houses. This is seized, a certain price paid to the owners; and it is distributed to the poor. The Cossacks frequently come within musket-shot of our lines. Desertions are frequent, and many poor fellows attempting to run are shot by drum-head court-martial; but the bulk of the army remains faithful, patient, and long-suffering.

Nov. 2.-We send fourteen wounded Russians to their camp. Our troops are put on 86 drachms of bread per diem. A large depôt of sugar and coffee has been found, and distributed to the troops, in order to increase the nutriment of their miserable rations. Unfortunately we have no fatty substance of any kind to mix with the soup, and without this the bread seems quite insufficient for nutrition. All the earth round about our works is grubbed up by the soldiers and population in their search for the roots of grass. Twenty men are brought into hospital, poisoned by eating the roots of the Hyoscyamus Niger. In consequence of the lateness of the season, the poison has lost much of its virulence, so none of these cases are mortal.

On the 4th of November numbers of soldiers entered the hospital, dying of starvation.

The emaciation is wonderful, yet in most no diarrhoea or other symptom of disease is observable. Their voices are excessively feeble, a clammy cold pervades the surface of the body, and they die without a struggle. Several of these men are recovered by the administration of horse-broth, with the application of warmth to the extremities. Surgeons are posted in every part of the camp, with broth of horse-flesh in the form and under the name of medicine. A search is made for surviving horses, and these are secured to make soup for the hospital.

At length, after unexampled suffering, borne with almost unparalleled resignation, when not a human being in the place but walked about with hollow cheeks, tottering gait, and that peculiar feebleness of voice which is so characteristic of famine; when all the mosques, khans, and large houses were full of invalids, and women were seen gathering the dust from before the flour-depôts to eat; when the people were exclaiming, almost in the language of Scripture, "In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us !" General Williams rode over with his aide-de-camp, Teesdale, under a flag of truce, to the Russian camp. This was on the 25th of November. They were well received by Mouravieff.

The general tells his chivalrous enemy that he has no wish to rob him of his laurels; the fortress contains a large train of artillery, with numerous standards, and a variety of arms, but the army has not yet surrendered, nor will it without certain articles of capitulation. "If you grant not these," exclaimed the general, "every gun shall be burst, every standard burnt, every trophy destroyed, and you may then work your will on a famished crowd." "I have no wish," answered Mouravieff, "to wreak an unworthy vengeance on a gallant and long-suffering army, which has covered itself with glory, and only yields to famine. Look here," he exclaimed, pointing to a lump of bread and a handful of roots, "what splendid troops must these be who can stand to their arms in this severe climate on food such as this! General Williams, you have made yourself a name in history, and posterity will stand amazed at the endurance, the courage, and the discipline which this siege has called forth in the remains of an army. Let us arrange a capitulation that will satisfy the demands of war without outraging humanity." I leave my readers to imagine anything more touching than the interview between these gallant leaders, whose eyes were suffused with tears, while their hearts were big with sentiments of high honour and graceful benevolence.

Needless to add that terms of capitulation were, under such extreme circumstances, readily arranged and agreed to. Generals Kmety and Kollman made good their escape to Erzrum during the night; to Dr. Sandwith the Russian commander granted unconditional liberty, on account of the services rendered by him to wounded Russians. Strange to say, that the Karslis and other Mussulmans, although reduced to the utmost by sickness and famine, rebelled against the idea of a capitulation.

The people and the army have now learned that they are to capitulate; the word teslim (capitulation) is in every mouth, and what a scene is this! The poor staggering soldiers obey their orders mechanically, but some there are who dash their muskets to pieces against the rocks, exclaiming, "Thus perish our pashas, and the curse of God be with them! may their mothers be outraged!" Some of the officers break their swords, and, caring not who hears them, heap curses on the Sultan and the whole government of the empire-awful words, which I had never heard even whispered before. The citizens gather together in groups, exclaiming, "God is great! and has it come to this? How is Islam fallen! Vai, vai! (alas, alas!) and do my eyes behold it? Would to God we had never been born! would to God we had died in battle! for then, had we been translated to heaven, then had we been purified and acceptable. The Ghiaours are coming, and our arms drop from our hands! God is God, and Mahomed is his prophet. How has the All-Merciful forsaken his children, and delivered us up to be a prey to the spoiler!"

Thus are the sounds of grief and indignation heard from each turbaned warrior, "while woman's softer soul in woe dissolves aloud." Let us draw a veil over this distressing scene; scarce was there a dry eye that witnessed it, while greybearded soldiers sobbed aloud.

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In the midst of these lamentations General Williams rode through the camp. At once the citizens crowded round him, kissing his stirrup, and praying for blessings on his head. Néréyé, néréyé" (Where, where are you going, pasha? they asked). "I am a prisoner," he answered. "Let us go with you; we will follow you," was the universal cry.

"Veeliams Pasha chock adam dur" (Williams Pasha is no end of a man), was the sententious remark of a greybeard, and he was voted quite right.

And thus ends the narrative of an ever-memorable siege.

THE RECOGNITION.

Think not that Satan is hideous, or that he wears horns, or that he is gifted with that appendage with which he is usually represented-a tail; but least of all that he has cloven feet. On the contrary, he is, I assure you, well grown, tall, slender, and of an elastic form, with finely-proportioned limbs. Ah! in all this he is not deficient. . . . . He is a most accomplished master of all the arts of deception, is fond of reading, and of having books read to him; above all, he enjoys the pleasure of appearing incog., and like all great men he is averse to being discomposed.-Original Portrait of the Devil, in the possession of Prince Puckler Muskau.

THERE are but few amongst us who, in the course of our own life experience, have not found occasion to confess that "fact is stranger than fiction," and yet we are not the less slow to criticise as exaggerated and overdrawn the printed records in which others reveal their experience of that time-honoured truth. I have little faith in the faith of my readers, and yet, gentle student of the boudoir, dread critic of the librarytable, and you, dear -! brilliant sceptic of the club, whose faith has been, and for aught I know still is, so horribly "used-up" on all possible points, the tale I tell is undeniably true, as the one surviving actor in its incidents could testify were it permitted to call him into court.

In a small fishing village on the south-west coast of Ireland resided about fifty years since a retired English naval officer, named Courtland, a widower, with an only daughter. He had been a man of some eminence in his profession; had seen battle and wreck, and survived the greater evils of family affliction; he had stood by the graves of a dearly loved wife and three sons, cut down in their early prime, and the sole ties which seemed to bind him yet to earth were centred in his last remaining child. Lucy Courtland was, at the time when my tale opens, the summer of 179-, a pretty and interesting girl of nineteen, whose naturally quick and graceful intellect had been cultivated under her father's guidance, himself-by taste and habit-a student; the dearth of anything like refined or polished society in the remote district where they resided rendered intellectual pursuits as much a resource as a pleasure alike to father and daughter; the walk through the mountain glen, or by the sea-shore, the communing with Nature in her fair varying aspect, the observation of her many wonderful works, the pleasant pages read in the winter evening or summer noon, pleasurably filled up their daily life, and barred out that unwelcome intruder on the presence of the great and gay-ennui.

The village of Lwas, at the period we write of, almost entirely inhabited by fishermen and peasantry of the humblest class; the "lord of the soil" was, as is alas! too frequently the case in the Emerald Island, an absentee; and though some "well-to-do" farmers, and a few agents and middlemen, who owed their position to no "good doing," occupied the most comfortable cottages on the surrounding hill-sides, neither nobility nor gentry visited the neighbourhood, save in the summer season, when the well-stocked moors and salmon streams held out attractions to the sportsman, or the picturesque scenery stayed a stray tourist of

gentler mood." It was in the early part of that same summer of 179-, that one of the former class arrived at "the hostelrie" in L, and deferred his departure beyond a period accountable to the most ardent disciple of Master Isaac Walton; but L- was too primitive for gossip-Captain Courtland was "a brother of the angle" and no one thought of connecting the stay of the gentleman sportsman with his frequent visits to Courtland Cottage. We have said that Lucy Courtland was a pretty and interesting girl, cultivated, and even accomplished for the place and time; since, be it remembered, that the era of ladies' colleges and ladylike diplomas had not yet "advanced" upon the world. But the heroine of our tale was something more than this, she was a girl of deep and earnest feeling, undemonstrative, like all her countrywomen-for Lucy was in heart as in race, English-but possessed of a strength and capability of affection as yet not wholly known to herself. Her nature and manner, when compared with those of the young women of her own age and rank in her adopted country, might seem cold and impassive; but if she was not as easily moved to sigh and smile, think and act as the impulsive Irish girls, her feelings when moved were at least as intense, and far more lasting. Deny it as much as you will— and doubtless that will be a great deal-my dear Irish countrywomen, it is true that you possess a fibre more in the brain and less in the heart than your English sisters. There was a quiet cheerfulness, a simple refinement in Lucy Courtland's manner which rendered her society very attractive to a man, who, like the stranger, had grown weary of the airs and graces of the fashionable world on the stage and off, and ere long Mr. Wilson Saville (for such was the name he bore in L- -) began to dream of "rural felicity," ," "love in a cottage," and all the thousand-andone flimsy webs of delight which men love to weave, sometimes as it seems for the mere pleasure of breaking through them. It was "irresistibly refreshing" to lounge all the summer noon, rod in hand, by the lonely mountain river, lulled by its murmurs into forgetfulness of the roar of Piccadilly, and still more so to sit through the long summer evening by the fuschia-shaded parlour window, gazing on that fair young face, listening to that clear young voice, and contrasting both with his remembrances of the "gallery of painted faces, the sound of the hollow brass and tinkling cymbal," in the Vanity Fair of the Modern Babylon; "irresistibly refreshing" he thought it. Lucy's feelings were more difficult to express; at first sight the air of refined distinction which hung round Mr. Saville, that perfection of high breeding impossible to describe, but which speaks in every look and tone, had caught her girlish eye and fascinated her girlish fancy; how must it have been afterwards, when the full charm of a mind and manner, such as she had never before held communion with, was laid before her ?-when she was subjected to its influence day by day, when her admiration for him kindled into attachment-into love, unexpressed indeed in words, but told by a thousand signs that spoke as plain. Lucy Courtland was not at all romantic, her father had carefully weeded from her reading the novels of the day, with their stock in trade of blighted hopes and passionate dénouements; her "library of fiction" had been Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton, kindling yet strengthening to the imagination; hence it was that she was totally free from "sentimental" tendencies.

Had it been otherwise, Mr. Wilson Saville, who had studied romantic and sentimental young ladyism in all its phases and developments, would never have wasted a thought upon her. She loved him truly and well, with a depth proportioned to the freshness of her unsophisticated young intellect and warm young heart, and looked forward longingly in her secret thoughts to the day, which she felt could not be far distant, when she would hear from his lips a declaration of his love for her. With such fond anticipations, fostered by the "pleasant intercourse" of each succeeding day, months passed swiftly by, and the "russet hues" of autumn had begun to clothe hill-side and valley, when on a bright September afternoon Wilson Saville walked over to Courtland Cottage; as he passed up the little lawn his eyes rested regretfully on the trim flowerbeds, gay with the dying glories of the season, and on the scarlet creeper mantling the low white walls, within which he had passed so many happy hours. Mr. Wilson Saville was, and is, equally fond of flowers and fair faces, so we cannot tell whether it was the sight of the former or a glimpse of Lucy's light dress in a shaded nook which caused the regretful glance to brighten into a gay, sparkling smile, as though he were mocking at his own moment of melancholy. He turned his steps towards the rustic chair where Lucy sat, and, after his usual inquiries for her father, and some passing remarks on the beauty of the evening, took a place beside her, and strove to enter upon topics they had oft before discussed at that same hour and place, in tones which tell

How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night.

But strive as he would, Mr. Wilson Saville was "not himself" upon the present occasion; frequent and abrupt pauses in his conversation showed that his thoughts were preoccupied and his mind not wholly at ease, and when at length Lucy noticed his unwonted abstraction, and affectionately urged on him to reveal the cause, he sorrowfully spoke of parting, and produced a letter which that day's post had brought him, urging his instant return to London on matters which admitted of no delay. Lucy had passed that morning alone, her thoughts full of him who now came before her to speak his farewell. Into that one moment crowded all the past, the long summer days of happiness, the twilights of music and song, all the hours which he had lightened with his gay, graceful converse and fascinating companionship, all were now to cease; and he who lent the charm was about to quit her-it might be for ever. Had Mr. Saville been the merest tyro in such scenes as the present he had known how to read that pale cheek and tearful glance, but he was an adept. Trembling, crimsoned with blushes of maidenly shame and womanly emotion, Lucy listened to her lover-for lover he assuredly at that moment was as he poured forth his sorrows at parting and his hopes of a speedy return, as he pressed her in his arms and kissed the soft lips that half shrinkingly met his own. Wilson Saville's whole soul was moved by the clinging love of the innocent girl, he longed to kneel at her feet, to ask her to be his own happy and honoured wife for ever, but a something-who knows what?-bade him hesitate, shrink, and refrain. He spoke not that which his better angel prompted, and thus they parted! "Femme trop sensible, voulez-vous savoir si vous êtes aimée, examinez votre amant sortant de vos bras." Ah! Maître Jean-Jacques,