service worth 4000Z.; of course you know it, at the King of the Mountains'."

"Yes, yes; but you have not been introduced."

"But you cannot know that I exposed myself to a thousand deaths for my dear Mary Anne."

"Very good; but you have not been introduced."

"Lastly, sir, I am going to marry her: her mother has sanctioned it. Has she not told you that I am going to marry her?"

"Not before being introduced." "Introduce me yourself, then." "Yes, yes; but you must first be introduced to me." "Wait a minute."

I ran like a maniac through the ballroom; I upset more than six parties of waltzers. My sword got between my legs, I slipped along the floor, and fell scandalously my whole length. It was John Harris who picked me up.

"What are you looking for?" he said. "They are here; I have seen her. I am going to marry Mary Anne; but I must be first introduced to them. It is the English fashion. Help me; where are they? Have you not seen a tall woman wearing a bird of paradise ?"

"Yes; she has just left the room with a very pretty girl."

"Left the room! why, my friend, it is Mary Anne's mother."

"Calm yourself; we shall find her again. I will have you introduced by the American minister."

"That will do. I will point out to you my Uncle Sharper. I left him here. Where the deuce can he be got to? cannot be far away."

He

Uncle Edward had disappeared. I dragged poor Harris to the palace square, in front of the Strangers' Hotel. Mrs. Simons' apartments were lighted up. After a few minutes all the lights were extinguished, everybody was a-bed.

"Let us do as they do," Harris said; "sleep will calm you. To-morrow, between one and two, I will settle your

affair."

I passed a night worse than the worst nights of my captivity. Harris slept with me-that is to say, he did not sleep at all. He heard the carriages from the ball rolling along Hermes-street, with their cargoes of uniforms and toilets. At about four o'clock, fatigue closed my eyes. Three hours after, Dimitri entered my room, shouting:

"Great news!"

"What ?"

"Your English are off!" "Where to?"

For Trieste."

"Wretch are you sure of it ?" "Quite; for I conducted them to the vessel."

"My poor friend," Harris said, as he squeezed my hand," gratitude is a burden, but love cannot be dictated."

"Alas!" said Dimitri. There was an echo in the lad's heart.

From that day, sir, I have lived like the beasts, eating, drinking, and swallowing the air. I sent my collections to Hamburg without a single specimen of the Boryana invariabilis. My friends conveyed me to the French steamer on the day after the ball. They found it prudent to travel during the night, through fear of meeting Captain Pericles' soldiers. We arrived without opposition at the Piræus; but when twenty-five yards from the shore, half a dozen invisible muskets sung round our ears. It was the farewell of the pretty captain and his lovely country.

I visited the mountains of Malta, Sicily, and Italy, and my herbal is richer than I am. My father, who had the good sense to stick to his inn, let me know at Messina that my specimens are highly appreciated. Perhaps I shall find a situa tion on arriving; but I have laid it down as a rule never to count on anything in future.

Harris is on the way to Japan. In a year or two I hope to hear from him. Little Bobster wrote me at Rome that he still practises pistol-shooting. Giacomo continues to seal letters by day and crack nuts at night. Mr. Mérinay has found a new interpretation for his stone, far more ingenious than mine. His great work on Demosthenes may appear from the press any day.

The King of the Mountains has made his peace with the authorities. He is building a large house in the Pentelicanroad, with a lodge where twenty-four devoted Pallikars can reside. In the

meanwhile he has hired a small mansion in the modern city, on the banks of the great stream. He receives a great number of visitors, and is actively trying to obtain the appointment of Minister of Justice; but it will require time. Photini is his housekeeper; and Dimitri frequently goes there to sigh and sup in the kitchen.

I never heard anything more of Mrs.

Simons, Mary Anne, or Mr. Sharper. If this silence continues, I shall soon leave off thinking about them at all. At times, in the middle of the night, I dream that I am standing before her, and my long, thin face is reflected in her eyes. Then, I wake up, weep bitter tears, and bite my pillow furiously. What I regret, believe me, is not the lady, but the fortune and position that have slipped from my grasp. I had hard work not to surrender my heart, and I daily thank the stars for my natural coldness. What an object of pity I should be, my dear sir, had I by any misfortune fallen in love!

CHAPTER IX.

A LETTER FROM ATHENS.

On the very day when I was sending Mr. Hermann Schultz's narrative to press, my honourable correspondent in Athens sent me back the manuscript with the following letter:

"SIR,-The history of the King of the Mountains is an invention of an enemy of truth and the gendarmes. None of the persons mentioned in it ever set foot on the soil of Greece. The police never countersigned any passport in the name of Mrs. Simons. The harbour-master at the Piræus never heard of the Fairy, or of Mr. John Harris. Philip Brothers do not remember having had a clerk of the name of Mr. W. Bobster. No diplomatic agent ever had in his office a Maltese of the name of Giacomo Fondi. National Bank of Greece may be reproached for many things, but it never received in trust funds resulting from brigandage. If it had received them it would have considered it a duty to confiscate them to its own profit.

The

"I send you herewith a list of our officers of gendarmes. You will not find

in it any trace of a M. Pericles. I only know two men of that name; one is an innkeeper in Athens, the other a grocer at Tripolitza. As for the famous Hadji Stavros, whose name I hear to-day for the first time, he is a fabulous being, who must be referred to the mythological era. I confess, with the utmost sincerity, that there were formerly a few brigands in the kingdom. The principal of them, however, were destroyed by Hercules and Theseus, who may be regarded as the founders of the Greek gendarmerie. Those who escaped the blows of these two heroes, fell beneath the attacks of our invincible army.

"The author of the romance you have done me the honour to send me has dis played as much ignorance as good faith in affecting to consider brigandage a contemporary fact. I would give a good deal to see his story published, either in France or England, with the name and portrait of Mr. Schultz. The work would at length know what clumsy artifices are employed to render us objects of suspicion to all the civilized nations.

"As for you, sir, who have always done us justice, I beg you to accept the assarance of all the good feeling with which I have the honour to be,

"Your very grateful servant,

"PATRIOTIS PSEFTIS,

"Author of a volume of dithyrambics on the regeneration of Greece, Editor of the Ho Journal, Member of the Archæological Society of Athens, Corresponding Member of the Academy of the Ionian Isles, and shareholder in the National Society of Pavlos the Spartan."

CHAPTER X.

IN WHICH THE AUTHOR RESUMES.

My worthy Athenian friend, the truest stories are not those which have really happened.

THE lap of ocean is full of mysteries; it contains an entire world, which the naturalist only knows superficially, and perhaps never will thoroughly investigate. It is comparatively an easy task to observe the habits of land animals, and accurately determine their specific varieties; but the element in which fish live removes them from human sight, and, in many cases, presents insurmountable difficulties to their accurate and continued investigation. Since the time of Pliny, who only catalogued seventy-four varieties, the number of species known to us has considerably increased. The ancients, who were only acquainted with the Mediterranean, and a small portion of the ocean, had no idea of the countless finny races which inhabit the tropical and arctic waters; but although later inquirers have already described and drawn eight thousand different sorts of fish, there cannot be the least doubt that, in the fathomless depths of ocean, as well as in the im mense seas rarely visited by the European navigator, many an unnamed fish swims about. How little, too, do we know of the special habits of the sea-fish already known to us; of the relations existing between them and the other marine creatures; of the laws which regulate their peculiar existence? There is a grand mystery even attaching to the herring, a fish we all know so well; for the question whence it comes, and whither it goes, still remains unanswered. If the entire economy of the piscine world was laid open before us, the magnificent picture would certainly give us fresh cause to admire the omniscience of the Creator; but that which is already revealed to us, suffices to convince us that the same harmony which presides

over the structure and external relations of the birds and mammalia, also prevails among the fish; and that these creatures are admirably formed for the peculiar element in which they move and have their being.

If we, in the first place, regard their external appearance, we find the majority of them formed on one fundamental plan: tapering towards the extremities, and swelling in the centre-a form which gives them the power of cutting through the waters rapidly. This peculiar shape, which nature has given fishes, man seeks to imitate in the construction of his ships; but in spite of all his skill, and the aid of sails and steam-power, their motion is extremely slow and clumsy, when compared with the velocity of fish. The arrow starting from the bow does not traverse the air at greater speed than the Salmon or Tunny shoots through the water. It has been calculated that the former, in one hour, covers a span of 86,000 feet; a speed which would enable it to make a circuit of the globe in a few weeks, if it thought fit to rival a Cook or a Magelhaens.

Whales and Dolphins beat the water downwards; fish, on the other hand, move by side-twists, and by extensions of the vertebræ. In some varieties (Eel, murana, &c.), the whole body is flexible; but the majority of fish strike the water with the tail, on the right and left in turn, and the resistance of the fluid impels them onwards. Hence we find the chief strength of the fish concentrated in the muscles that bend the backbone; and these are generally so developed, that they constitute the greater portion of the body.

The fins, affixed perpendicularly on the

eentral line of the fish, serve to increase the extension of the paddling uppersurface, and the rapidity of the movement; while the side, pectoral, and ventral fins, though helping but slightly in the forward movement, exercise a far greater influence on the direction of the movement, while keeping the body in equilibrium. By the aid of these organs, the fish can turn and twist in the water as it pleases; and it is remarkable to watch how, by extending or drawing in one or the other fin, it traverses the water in every direction.

Not less wonderful is it, to notice how perfectly the size and nature of the fins correspond to the wants of the different varieties of fish. Those which traverse large tracts of water have broad strong fins, with which they can contend against powerful waves and currents: on the other hand, these organs are weaker and smaller in the inhabitants of rivers and shallow water; and they are soft in those fish which rarely expose themselves to the fury of the wind, or remain in deep water, where the fiercest blast does not affect them.

By the aid of the natatory bladder, situated in the stomach, fishes can increase or lessen the specific gravity of their body at will, and thus rise or sink in the fluid element. When they compress this remarkable gasometer, and expel the air contained by means of the ventral muscles, the circumference of the body is reduced; they sink, and can swim with ease on the bottom of the sea. When they wish to rise again, they need only suspend the muscular contraction, and the bladder swells again; the body, increas ing in circuit, becomes lighter, and rises without any exertion to higher regions. Thus, we see the same physical law employed by the fish which is the basis of our aerostation. The same natural force

enables the inhabitants of the ocean to rise and sink in their denser element, which raises the aeronaut in the air, and brings him to earth again. In those fish which are designed to live on the bed of the sea, or conceal themselves in slimesuch as rays, flat-fish, eels, etc.—the natatory bladder is entirely absent, or is reduced to a very small size; for nature, in her wise economy, gives no animal any useless organ. Lastly, the slimy matter, which the skin of nearly all fish secretes, facilitates their motion: so admirably is everything calculated in them for increased speed.

Before we pass to a consideration of the internal structure of fish, we must bestow a moment on their external covering. In some few varieties, the skin is nearly naked, or merely covered by a simple scarf-skin; but, in the majority, it is protected by scales, which, in some cases, are rough and uneven, or form thick tubercles; but are usually thin plates, which lie on each other like the tiles on our roofs, and are bedded in the furrows of the skin like our nails. Above this scaly garb nature has expanded the lustre of beauty in many European varieties; but she displays her utmost splendour in the torrid zone. If, among the equatorial birds, some portions of the plumage sparkle like the most splendid jewels, the tropical fish display every colour of the rainbow; and no pencil can reproduce the beauty of the shading, and the mag nificent gold and silver reflections of certain families, whose every movement in the crystalline waters offers fresh charms to the delighted eye.

The most beautiful fish appear dwell among the coral-reefs. Where the zoophytes (which also glisten with every colour of the prism) build their sa marine palaces, live the brilliant Cho dons, the glistening Balistæ, azure Glyphysodontes.

and the

to

The atmospheric oxygen is as necessary for the existence of fish as for that of the land-animals; but as they do not hale it directly, but have to draw it from a denser element, which contains, at the most, only one thirty-fifth part of atmespheric air, their respiratory organs are necessarily formed differently from those of the mammals, birds, and reptiles.

Hence, gills take the place of lungs, which, in all bony fish, and the sturgeon among the cartilaginous fish, are con structed in the following way.

At the back part of the mouth are gene rally five fissured openings, separated from each other by four bone-arches, and opening into what is called the gill-cavity, which forms a space between the side of the mouth and the gill-flaps, which shat in the entire apparatus on the outside,

In this cavity are the gills, tender, cross-folded membranes, intersected by countless blood-vessels, one end being attached to the bone-arches, and the other free.

In breathing, the fresh air-impregnated water received into the mouth and swallowed, passes through the orifices into the gill-cavity, and flows out again