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barren sandy deserts; here and there a little corn trying to grow, as sparse and as weak as the hairs on a Chinaman's chin. The few olives one saw were kept down to the size of shrubs, and the ilex and cork trees all pollarded, and looked sore and bleeding, being skinned of their bark; in fact, they have used up all their trees, until the fierce sun has so pulverised the soil, that the rains have washed and are washing all that is good away into the rivers and sea : there has been no rain for a year in the Castilles. It is melancholy to see so fine a land and climate thrown away. Portugal is better-more trees, more fences, pretty gardens, and more cleanliness at the stations. English ideas and examples have done them good, and they are, I should think, a more improvable people than their neighbours. Well, I have spun you a yarn, and must now get to sermonising, and only hope I shan't fall asleep over it. With best love and kisses to all,

'Ever your loving husband,

'F. T. LABUAN.'

In the letter from Bordeaux to which he refers he says: 'I Ι find the French very civil, and curiously enough they put me down for a Missionaire Vicaire Apostolique-I suppose from my ring and my cassock-and they say the beard is a sign also. Of course I accept the compliment, for I am a missionary apostolic in its true sense.'

'I have had some difficulty in persuading some of my compagnons de voyage that I am English, because they say that I have not got the unmistakable English twang in speaking -they think me Italian. I do not think that a compliment, but their politeness to the missionary must balance that. Two Englishwomen sat next to me at breakfast this morning, and I tried hard to be civil, but both mother and daughter were as rude as only English demi-swells can be.'

On his return, writing on May 13 from Madrid, he says: 'I think that my visit will have done good in a Church point

of view for our own people in Lisbon, and in a missionary point of view also, for there was a crowded attendance of Portuguese to see the English Bishop confirm and consecrate the Eucharist, and they say that they were contented to believe me to be a real bishop, which they did not think that the English Church had. There is a great and growing idea of reformation in the Portuguese Church, which is much in advance of the Spanish in liberality—e.g., there is no objection to the circulation of the Bible, which would not be allowed in Spain at any price.'

It was at some place on this tour, possibly at Madrid or Seville, that he made a slight acquaintance with an American gentleman at his hotel, and, as his eldest daughter tells the story, the following incident occurred. They went out walking together, and the Bishop saw a brown-paper parcel lying in the road and exclaimed, 'What is that?' The American picked it up, and found it to contain a case with some beautiful diamond ornaments, and a slip of paper within 'From Don

to

Doña -,' but no address or surname. 'Oh,' said the American, 'this is delightful-these will just suit my wife, who has been longing for some diamonds.' 'Indeed, no, my dear fellow,' said the Bishop, 'what are you thinking of? we must take them to the police.' 'Now, look here,' said his companion : 'don't you say anything about it, and your wife shall have half.' The Bishop laughed and took him by the arm. 'Come along with me,' he said, 'and you will think differently,' and he drew him into a church. Down they knelt together, and when they came out the Bishop took possession of the diamonds without any resistance on the part of his companion, and they took them together to the police. He never heard anything more about them. Let us hope that the police were equally honest and discovered and handed them over to the rightful owner.

Homeward bound, he writes to his wife from Paris: This place is much changed since we were here together. I wish you were with me now. It is close upon five-and-twenty years

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since we honeymooned it in the Rue de Rivoli. I shall go out presently and walk by the old lodging and look up at the windows we used to occupy. I am impatient to be back with you. God bless you all.'

Many of his letters to her remain-written during his short absences-mostly of private interest only, but religiously preserved by her. In his later years he used to address her by the old-world title of 'My sweetest heart,' which he said, 'in addition to its significance,' had the further merit that heart was itself the diminutive of her name.

This was not the only confirmation tour which he took upon the Continent. In June and July 1871 he visited the North of Europe, confirming at Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin, Copenhagen, Christiania, Gothenburg, Stockholm, and Riga. Another year he held confirmations at Arcachon and Pau. On these occasions he of course acted by virtue of commissions under seal from the Bishop of London, within whose spiritual jurisdiction all members of the Church of England not within the diocese of any bishop of the English Church were supposed to be.

In his visit to Arcachon he was accompanied by Mrs. McDougall, and while there they were the guests of their friend Mr. Paul Tidman, who has been mentioned as having been with them at Sarawak during the Chinese insurrection. His father, Mrs. McDougall wrote of him, was head of the Wesleyan Missionary Society-a grand old man. Paul as a youth was a High Churchman, but has grown broader and broader. Such a lovely soul! He has written a little book for his children, "Our Father's Love," which is beautiful. His religion is one of praise and joy, and he is so clear and bright that it does one good to be with him.' He became an East India merchant of some importance, but, with so many others, died while these pages were in preparation.

CHAPTER XII.

GODMANCHESTER AND ELY.

THE vicarage of Godmanchester as a preferment had some important recommendations when accepted by the Bishop. It had a fixed and reliable endowment of about two hundred acres of land, which were let to one gentleman, the vicar's agent, at a rent of nearly 500l. a year. The county and other rates, which fall so heavily, and as some people think so unfairly, upon tithes, did not therefore touch the vicar, who received his income without deduction, and was never even through an agent brought into a contest with his parishioners for its collection. Agricultural distress had not then affected the farmers, who seemed all well off, and most of them to keep their hunters. There was a noble church, and a friendly neighbourhood, with many agreeable people, affording, as the clerical agents say, 'excellent society.' The vicarage was not attractive. A long low building of some antiquity, probably built in detachments, it looked as if fit for division into a beershop and two cottages. On one occasion it is related that two drovers did walk in by mistake, and asked for refreshments, but this must have been during the celebration of the annual fair, which, greatly to the discomfort of the inhabitants of the vicarage, was held under its windows-or perhaps they took the vicarage for part of the adjoining tenement, then as now known as the 'Pig and Whistle.' It faced the river Ouse, which in time of floods not rarely visited the rooms on the ground floor, and, pouring over the low land in front on the

opposite bank, appeared like a great lake for weeks together. As low in many parts as the bed of the river, the land did not admit of drainage, and indeed it was to the mania for draining during the first half of this century that the floods were attributed. In former days the country might have been one great fen and held the water, but when drains became universal as a part of high farming, the rain was carried off with such rapidity that the main water-courses became insufficient, and the low lands were flooded. Between the river and the vicarage ran the road to Huntingdon, and into it at right angles, and touching the dwelling-house, ran the road from Cambridge. Vicarage or Freshman's Corner was well known to the youthful Jehus of the University as the only difficult place on the road between it and Huntingdon. It required very careful driving. If the charioteer was not quick enough in turning his leaders they were into the river, or if he was too rapid, he ran the risk of paying a visit himself to the vicarage bedrooms. There was not, however, so far as can be remembered, any record of any great harm having been done, although there had been accidents, and in one case the Bishop seems to have picked up an unlucky freshman who had knocked some bricks out of the vicarage wall, but, although bruised about the head, was not himself seriously damaged. The misty atmosphere was certainly not that which would have been chosen by their medical advisers for invalids suffering from the damp of Sarawak and the ailments entailed by it, which constantly reappeared in severe attacks of bronchitis and asthma; but they determined to make the best of the situation, and a boat upon the river, which was charming in the summer, was a delight to the Bishop, reminding him as well of the Isis as of the rivers of Borneo. There for the last time he had his boat, and what he called his crew-his three little girls in blue serge uniform, with himself as coxswain. 'Once,' they say, 'we had the Dean of Ely with us-like father, an old University oar-and they took us for a row, and then