term of years' apprenticeship to one of those privileged burgesses. Candidates are elected for life, and are entitled to vote for parliamentary representatives of the county, division, or borough, to which they belong.

In times past, when the franchise was confined to the aristocratic few, these Freemen were naturally held in high estimation. Then they were a power in the land, and, as they generally stood united, their "vote and interest" was of considerable importance at election-times.

To their credit be it said, they usually "plumped" on the side of liberty and reform, and in opposition to the conservative interests of the Tory lord of the manor. Historians have been too chary in according to these Freemen full credit for the part they played in patiently assisting the development of those great principles of parliamentary reform that England now enjoys. The names of great reform leaders naturally become household words, while the particular class of voters that sent them to St. James's is overlooked. The Greys of Northumberland, to take a single example, owed their seats in the House of Commons to the Freemen of Alnwick and Morpeth, who, in firm phalanx and with sometimes perilous perseverance, did battle against the Tory nominee of Percy, Duke of Northumberland. part that the Greys enacted during the great struggle that culminated in the Reform Bill of 1832 belongs to history; and many instances might be cited where the Freemen's vote turned the wavering balance against aristocratic despotism.

The

Inasmuch as the various charters of these Freemen date back to feudal times, it is not surprising that the act of bestowing immunities and privileges invariably involved some mortifying humiliation. Thus, in one town the candidate for freedom is led round certain streets like a horse with his head in a hempen halter. In another, he is swung feet and hands by and between two officers of the Freemen's Guild, and thus for half a score times has his hams brought into vigorous collision with a huge round bowlder on the town moor; while in Alnwick, as all the textbooks tell you, "the person who takes up his Freedom is obliged by a clause in the charter to jump into an adjacent bog, in which sometimes he must sink to his chin."

The subscriber jumped into this "bog " nearly a score of years since; and, on the 25th day of April, 1874, while revisiting old scenes in England, he again stood beside the Stygian mud-pool, and beheld a dozen candidates pass" through the Well." Here was a most grotesque and extraordinarily amusing rite celebrated on an extensive common, in the open daylight, and yet there was not a single reporter present. Imagine such a condition of affairs in enterprising America! Nor does it appear-and the memory of man serves not to the contrary-that a single member of that industrious fraternity ever witnessed the ceremony of making an Alnwick Freeman. Nothing approaching a description, so far as the present writer knows, has ever been printed. The following sketch, therefore, of the scenes witnessed last year on St. Mark's Day is hereby offered, as ingenious inventors say, to "supply a felt want."

Alnwick always awakes to unusual activity on this morning of St. Mark's Day. Around the White Swan, Black Swan, Turk's Head, and Star Hotels, groups of gossiping townsfolks are congregated, recalling" the glorious days of the old stage-coach," when Alnwick was a town of bustling importance on the route between London and Edinburgh. Every quaint little tavern has its knot of idlers, every tortuous alley-way has vomited its complement of spectators into the street, while around the Market Cross and St. Michael's Pant there are still larger knots of loungers speculating on the events of the day -who will be "first through," who will "win the boundaries," how many equestrian disasters will befall, and so on.

Meantime, sparse droves of country people are beginning to bustle along Bondgate, down Pottergate and Clayport, and up Watergate and the Peth, toward the centre of interest. Every one looks for the holly-bush as he walks along-for the huge holly at the door is the immemorial insignia of such as aspire to the Freedom of Alnwick on this auspicious day. At what time the great castleclock and Town-Hall clock agree in booming forth, stroke for stroke, the hour of ten, the excitement has reached fever-heat. Everybody is now in the market-place. The Freemen, in esse, gallantly mounted on all sorts of steeds colts, broken-down thorough-breds, shaggy-hoofed Belgians, and huge Cleveland roadsters-each man in his "Sunday claes," and his grandsire's sword clanking awkwardly by his side, are drawn up in front of the Town Hall. Their friends, some mounted, more afoot, surround them, and recount to button-holed listeners the memorable achievements of their several years. Presently emerge from the ancient portals of the Hall, and gravely descend the broad stone stairway, the four chamberlains, in cockedhat and flowing wig, enveloped in ample goldlaced cloaks, breeches, and silk stockings, and bearing proudly their white wands of office. Accompanying them is the castle bailiff, in equally conspicuous regalia, somewhat more austere bearing, and more pronounced withal about the calves. It is this high official's duty to see that the twelve candidates comply with every provision of the ancient charter; failing in any jot or tittle of which he will report to his noble master, the Duke of Northumberland, when there will certainly be trouble.

While they are organizing the departure to "the Well," it may not be amiss to glance briefly at the privileges these Freemen enjoy.

By grant of King John, “ Ayden Forest," or, as it is commonly called, Alnwick Moor, belongs to the Freemen forever; or, to speak more accurately, for so long as they strictly observe the conditions imposed. This "forest" consists of three thousand acres of land, rolling in a billowy slope westward from the town until it attains a considerable elevation, and its western boundary, at Lemington Ridge. It is mostly inferior land, more or less covered with purple heather and the yellow-blooming gorse; but it is "a fine sheepwalk," and a few hundred acres near Alnwick, and bounded on the north by the parkwall of the duke, is very superior soil. Of

the natural beauties of its landscape it is unnecessary to speak, except to remark that the ancient charter distinctly forbids any interference with them by any form of cultivation. The gorse or the heather may be burned, but not hoed or otherwise eradicated by any implement; while no crop whatsoever, except of Nature's original planting, shall be raised upon any portion of it. Each Freeman is allowed the pasturage of a stipulated number of sheep, oxen, cows, or horses, or he may sell his privilege from year to year; and, as no fences are permitted except at the boundaries, the flocks are cared for by shepherds. Thus, for centuries, the Freemen, closely watched by grasping lords of the house of Percy, maintained their moor intact. But, a quarter of a century since, an infusion of restless spirits was received into the hitherto staid and eminently cautious body. The old charter was torn from its sanctuary, examined, and learnedly criticised by these rash reformers. Meetings were held, speeches made, and resolutions passed to the effect that a certain portion of Alnwick Moor be straightway inclosed and cultivated as arable land for the use of said Freemen, etc. The duke sat in his castle hard by the silver Alne, and to these resolutions he gave no token of his approval or disapproval. But, when the ploughshare pierced the virgin soil of Ayden, the Percy made wassail in his hall; and his forester and his woodmen were directed to inclose one thousand acres of the moor that adjoined his park. It was the fairest portion of the tract, and it had been surveyed two centuries before in anticipation of that fatal ploughshare. This was the penalty imposed by a violation of the charter: 66 one third of the land to revert to the lord of the manor." And there it will remain, so far as the Freemen are concerned, till the crack of doom.

The duke's piper, mounted on a gayly-caparisoned horse, led by a groom, having now joined the high officials, the cavalcade is ready to move. Foremost rides the piper, skirling a merry tune, his attire apparently composed of bottle-green velvet, bespangled with huge silver buckles; then the bailiff, severe of mien, mounted on a noble charger, followed by the chamberlains, on substantial but excessively gentle steeds; then come the dozen aspirants for Freedom, riding in as many styles and degrees of awkwardness as might be imagined from their various pursuits and modes of life. A tailor, a hatter, a vintner, a tanner, a clogger, an eggler, a carrier, three farmers, and two of uncertain occupation, form the group; and chaff and criticism and laughter greet this group on every side. Through Narrowgate, along Bailiff gate, and up the shady "Rattan Raw," the piper leads the way, until a noble old Gothic archway is passed, and we are fairly on the moor-edge. The clayey road, stretching far up over the rolling hills of purple and green, looks like a huge saurian; and, as we ride down the steep declivity to the "Stocking Burn," we find that it is excessively slippery from recent rains. The eager pedestrians hail this as a joyful circumstance, and keep remarking, "There'll be fun on this hill on the way back."

Over the moor for five miles-now descending a brent bank, now ascending a stae brae-we finally reach Freemen's Hill, whereon is situated the drumlie Styx, through which these dozen have to pass. Every one Dow dismounts. The rabble, considerably thinned, gathers round. The chamberlains draw their silver-mounted horns, and toast the bailiff. The neophytes produce their flasks and toast their friends and each other, and the utmost good-humor prevails.

Imagine a tank one hundred and fifty feet square formed in the ground, brimful of intensely yellow-clayey colored water, and you have the surface idea of Freemen's Well. Beneath that non-committal surface, however, are mazes dire and pitfalls profound. | Earthen dikes, forming fantastic geometric figures, are run across the unseen depths. Strong straw ropes are deftly trained across angles and diameters to trap unwary feet. Here there is a mound of varying width, nearly level with the surface; close by there is a pitfall six feet deep, where a short man quietly plumps over head, to emerge like a clay figure fresh from the modeler, gasping, blowing, and flopping until, haply, another ridge or rope shall jerk him head-first into another miry lurking hole. Such is the "Well," and every one on its brink is aware of its character.

But the twelve are now ready, and the "entrance" side of the Well is cleared. By common consent they retire a few paces from the brink, so that by a running leap they may clear as much of the muddy mystery as practicable. Whoop! there they go. Nine have kept their feet, but the bespangled hatter and the two Agricolas have come to sudden grief. Soon there is only one man, and that man the tailor, standing unbaptized. The churning, and floundering, and yelling, and laughing of the others are outrageously funny. Shouts of laughter burst from every throat. Every mouth, in the fringe of faces surrounding the pool, is wide open. Even the bailiff has surrendered his gravity, and joins in the mad "IIa! ha!" But the guffaw culminates in a paroxysmal roar when the tailor bobs clean out of sight in the deepest and muddiest limbo of the whole Avernus, and then erawls slowly to view with whole bucketfuls of slimy clay moving like an avalanche down his limbs. There, one fellow has found a bank, and is standing thereon to recover wind and collect his liquefied senses. Yonder four have rolled into the same strawroped cellar, and madly clutch each other in the frantic effort to be up and out, while they only manage to prolong their disastrous imprisonment and the roars of laughter that greet their wriggling contortions. Here the

tanner, with the sagacity to be expected of one whose business it is to soak his nether extremities in pits, keeps well behind the ruck of excited plungers, feels his way cautiously, and takes his disasters philosophically.

One and all, however, at length safely reach the opposite bank, but in such a condition as not to be recognizable by their nearest friends. Friends make haste to offer the welcome dram and dry clothes often to strangers, for neither spangles nor ribbons avail as helps to recognition. Every mother's son has precisely the same complexion-half an inch thick-of plastic yellow clay. Even the voice-if the clay soup have been gener. ously partaken of is not always to be immediately relied upon.

Soon, however, the new Freemen are purified without and fortified within. Everybody wants to shake hands with the tailor, inasmuch as he has won the "honors of the Well" by getting "first through." He is absurdly proud of his feat, and takes more "tastes" from offered flasks than are likely to be of use to him in view of the exhilarating ride home.

The chamberlains give the signal to mount. The twelve now ride in front along the south boundary of the moor, and at certain ancient stations dismount and place each a stone upon a cairn. When the last cairn has been thus honored, the twelve await, with breathless anxiety, the word "Go" from the bailiff.

There, at last! Off start the twelve horses devouring the road, and raising thick showers of sloppy mud. They are two good miles from the arch at the head of Rotton Row, and the track, at first, is up-hill. Every rider reaches the summit in good order, for every rider has been duly warned to save his horse till the Stocking Burn is crossed. Downhill, however, the fun now begins. For the tailor, prompted by a frenzied ambition to win both the great events of the day, grabs his steed by the mane and yells at him like a Comanche. The old roadster is still full of mischief. He cranes out his neck, lays down his ears, and bolts. In less than two minutes Snip is rolled ignominiously into the midst of an exceptionally well-armed furzebush, while Bucephalus drifts away down the long hill until he reaches the Burn, where he stoops to drink, and then turns quietly aside to graze.

Meantime, the eleven, fired by the tailor's daring, are enacting a side-splitting travesty of a fox-hunt. All England certainly could not produce eleven more clumsy exemplars of the glory of motion. The townfolks, en masse, have come up to the moor to see the fun, and banters and yells rend the skies, and totally demoralize the already distracted horsemen. When the foremost farmer crosses the Stocking Burn, five of the new Freemen have retired from the race, while the tailor is trying to capture his ancient roadster, but the exasperating brute knows too much, and dodges every attempt, amid the laughter and jeers of the rabble. The foremost farmer rides carefully up the last hill, and passes through the arch, amid the acclamations of the on-lookers, and "the boundaries" of 1874 are won.

At this "Rattan-Raw " Arch the respec. tive victors of the "Well" and the "boundaries" are presented with floral trophies by two young ladies-daughters of prominent Freemen designated for the purpose. The procession is then formed, as before, with the shrill "small-pipes" in the van. Sur. rounded by a demonstrative crowd, Watergate pump, as a Freeman's possession, is ridden round by the twelve; and Bailiffgate is traversed until the barbacan of the castle is reached. After certain antique ceremonials, the warden throws open the massive gates, and the chamberlains and the new Freemen are heralded through the outer, second, and into the inner ward. Here they are lavishly regaled with wines and potent twenty-yearsold ale; served in huge two-handled silver tankards, at the expense of the noble duke.

The horsemanship of the unterrified Freemen is not improved as they are seen to sally from the barbacan an hour afterward; and on this occasion the tailor and the tanner prefer to "do it" on foot. The twelve proceed to the houses of such of their number as are within the town limits, and as each holly bush is reached decanters and glasses are produced, and a good deal of deep drinking is accomplished.

When the emancipated dozen retired to their respective pillows, to dream over their new-born privileges, it seemed to the writer an open question whether the filthy ablution in the "Well," or the bacchanalian orgies in the town subsequently, were the more objectionable. But he has not given an over-drawn picture of the process by which Freemen are made in Alnwick. JAMES WIGHT.

THE NEW EGYPT OF KHÉDIVE ISMAİL.

HA

I.

PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. AVING spent part of last winter in Egypt, I purpose giving your readers, from time to time, some sketches of what I saw there, and some idea of the immense changes wrought on place and people by the energetic efforts of one man-the Khédive Ismaïl-since I left the country a few years ago.

These changes are both external and internal, and it is no exaggeration to say that, since Czar Peter, no ruler has ever wrought so wonderful and radical a revolution in the character, habits, and training of a people, or in the march of an empire, as the Khédive of Egypt has already initiated, and is pressing to successful completion, into the very heart of Africa.

Passing by, for the moment, the outward evidences of material progress which now force themselves on the eye and attention of the latter-day tourist, at Alexandria, Cairo, and other great centres of population — as well as the vast acquisitions but recently made in Central Africa-the abolition of the internal slave-trade, and the establishment of the new mixed legal tribunals (each one of which is a revolution), I design to briefly state some facts in relation to the educa

tional progress made and making within the last ten years.

Never before in the history of mankind has the effort been made to educate an entire people all at once-to drag them up from utter ignorance into the light of culture and civilization through the instrumentality of absolute power; and the success is almost as wonderful as the attempt. Under Saïd Pasha's administration, in 1862, the government appropriations annually for educational purposes (then in the hands of the imaums, or priests) amounted to about twenty thousand dollars. In 1872 the government appropriated four hundred thousand dollars for that purpose, with large and liberal donations from the khédive and his sons, to the tune of many thousands more, to the private schools, native and foreign, Mussulman and Christian, male and female.

In Mehemet Ali's time there were but six thousand boys receiving public instruction; and this such as the native priests were capable of giving them-which, of course, was very little-they, as a class, being ignorant of all but the Koran and a little ciphering. The schools of the missionaries, established under his successors, very limited in means and extent, have only been useful to a few of the children of the native Christians handful of the population.

- a

-is to furnish a class fit to undertake those duties now confided to slaves, and elevate both employer and servant in the social scale and in civilized habits. The twin sisters,

be made to disappear; and the great work of extirpating the slave-trade of the Nile Basin, which he has successfully accomplished thus far by the expeditions of Baker and Gordon, is to be supplemented in Egypt itself-a grand idea, and one in a fair way of accomplishment, though, of course, it will take several years to carry it out thoroughly in a country and with a people so wedded to old ideas and customs.

schools for the instruction for the rank and file, numbering from thirty to forty thousand -all of whom are picked young men-the elder soldiers having been discharged and returned to field - labor in their native vil-polygamy and slavery, he believes can thus lages. Promotion, both of officers and soldiers, is now dependent on their educational progress, and even leave of absence is granted only to those able to apply for it in writing-which, I believe, is the case in no other army in the world-in most of which ignorance is the rule and intelligence the exception-the soldier regarded as a machine, not a man. Europe and America, in this matter, might well take a lesson from Egypt-since the horrors of war might be greatly lessened by educating and humanizing its tools, as the khédive is doing. If he can elevate the dumb drudges of the fields into intelligent beings, as well as his soldiers, even England may have cause to blush at the contrast with her rural population, for whom no such humanizing efforts are being made, and who, to-day, are scarcely more intelligent than the oxen they drive, as their fathers were before them, and their sons must be; and the same is the case in most of the Continental states.

As another proof of the importance he attaches to this matter, the khédive has put at the head of the Ministry of Public Instruction his son-in-law, Joussoum Pasha, son of the late viceroy, with able European subordinates.

The Arabs are naturally quick-witted and fond of study, and the progress made by the children is exceedingly rapid. In this they differ from the negro or woolly-headed race, who are chiefly employed as domestic servants. Although there are black regiments in the army, a black officer of high grade is an exception.

The fellah is copper-colored, as dark as, or darker than, the American Indian, and with the same sparse beard and straight hair, the latter of which he shaves, the former he lets alone, reversing Western precedents.

At the Citadel at Cairo, which is now really a high-school for the instruction of officers, and central point for the dissemination of information, I saw native young men busily employed at type-setting, proof-correcting, book-publishing, lithographing, and map-making, and showing wonderful skill and aptitude at their work. They now issue a monthly magazine of science and literature, printed in the Arabic characters; and the number which I have contains diagrams of the transit of Venus, and much reading-matter. I have also some volumes of manuals of tactics, very prettily illustrated, all the work on which was done by native Egyptians.

The American officers, at the head of whom are Generals Loring and Stone (old and distinguished United States Army officers, both of whom rank as pashas), have initiated and are successfully carrying out these educational improvements under the intelligent administration of the khédive's second son, Hussein, who is Minister of Warhis eldest, Prince Tewfik, acting as Minister of the Interior, and filling that post to the great satisfaction of all. The khédive's idea in educating the children of the lower classeshitherto sunk in the depths of utter ignorance

He has struck a heavy blow at the habit of plural wives in his own household, by insisting that all his sons and daughters shall be the husbands and wives of but one spouse each, a most significant indication of his purpose and sentiments in this regard. All these sons and daughters, too, he has caused to be carefully educated in foreign languages, literature, and acquirements, and they are habitual attendants at the opera and theatre he has caused to be established at Cairo during the winter season-than which better performances cannot be found at Paris or London. The ladies, it is true, are but partially visible, the harem-boxes-six in numberbeing veiled with muslin curtains, through which flashing eyes and outlines of faces are alone visible to the other spectators. But this semi-publicity is a stride toward the abolition of the seclusion of women, which seems so ingrained in Eastern habitudes and sentiments.

When the door of the cage is left balfopened, the caged birds will be very apt to find a way out of their captivity sooner or later.

The heir apparent, Prince Tewfik, has ably seconded his father's efforts in this matter of education. Being a large landed proprietor, he owns numerous villages attached to his farms, and has founded a school in each one.

At all of these instruction is free.

In the neighborhood of his palace at Koubeh he has just finished a large school-house for boys-the children of the fellahs—and the day the school opened thirty-six boys attended, every subsequent day adding to their number. Every evening he himself inspected their progress for the first week. With admirable judgment, the furniture of these schools intended for peasant-children is of the simplest kind, though cleanliness is strenuously enforced. All the solid branches of primary instruction are taught by competent teachers; and, in addition to gardens attached to the school-building, the prince has given eight feddans (acres) of land to be used for teaching the pupils the modern improvements in agriculture. All this shows how zealously the son is treading in the footsteps of his father. The difficulties that environ the gigantic task of educating an entire people, plunged in the depths of ignorance and semi-barbarism, are enhanced by the peculiar character and moral and religious training of the Egyptian native population. Opposed by the passive resistance, the vis inertia of an obstinate and bigoted people, with whom custom and old prejudices have all the force of laws, and the idleness engendered by an enervating climate, the Khédive Ismail is reso

three gods of their old idolatry. He is compelling them to their good, and using abso

SUPER

STITIONS.*

to which that perilous privilege was ever applied. For he has had to create not only an empire, but to revive an apparently effete and exhausted people, generally supposed not only to be obstinately opposed to progress and enlightenment, but also to be incapable of receiving them.

If the East has turned a deaf ear to the West, and hugged its old idols closer to its bosom because of the efforts made to alienate her from them, on the other hand the West has done less than justice to the capacity and actual intelligence of her elder sister, from whose old stores so much of modern knowledge has been drawn.

The experiment of renewing intellectual

culture in the East has now been initiated in the old fields of Egypt, and Christendom cannot but watch with hope the spread of light into those dark places. At the coming Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia - for which the khédive is making ample preparation-Egypt will be represented, and it will probably surprise most Americans to see what her exhibition will be. Not only our agriculturists, but our manufacturers and draughtsmen, will have to look to their laurels, in the competition which she can now offer in these varied fields; and her portion of that great international show-ground will certainly prove not the least interesting.

we followed the course of the Minho to the sea, passing on the way the fortified town of Villa Nova da Cerveira, and the little harbor and town of Caminha, surrounded by flats and marshes, with its outlying island-fortress; then, again striking southward by the seashore, through a half-cultivated region which in former times was a royal forest, we reached a gloomy-looking fortress close to the sea, the first of a series which continues along the whole coast-line of the province of the Minho.

Toward nightfall we overtook a farmer on horseback, and when, after riding on in friendly conversation with him for a mile or so, I asked him how far off I might be from an inn and shelter for the night, he good-humoredly laughed at the idea of my condescending to put up at any place nearer than Vianna. On my telling him that I was by no means particular, and that my guide's horse was too tired for farther traveling, he drew up his horse to a stand-still, and looked hard at me.

"There is a house about one mile from here," said the farmer; "you will get poor fare and poor shelter, but none better, I think, on this side of Vianna. I will show you the way," he added.

So saying, he trotted on, and soon, turning aside from the main road, guided us along a vile ox-cart road, the worst of all roads to ride over in a bad light. For about a mile we traveled up a narrow valley. On each side of the road grew pollarded oaks and chestnuts, whose branches were twisted so as to join overhead; and on these trees were trained vines, whose foliage, though it was only May, already gave a dense shade.

Presently this narrow road opened out into a square walled inclosure, which was also per

Surely the sympathy and moral support of all educated Americans ought to go with the great Eastern reformer, who has borrowed so much from American example, and is modeling his country as closely after theirs as the difference of place, people, and situation, will permit, even if, in the attainment of these ends, he must remove much rubbish, material and sentimental.

But the man and his works will survive, when the caviling critics-like the grasshopper filling the fields with its clamor-are unheard and forgotten. The poet lives in the past the statesman in the present and future. EDWIN DE LEON.

on stout rafters of wood, the whole supported by the side-walls and by five or six stone pillars in the centre, so that the place was like a huge room, the ceiling of which was of vineleaves. It was, in fact, the court-yard of a good-sized farm-house.

The farmer stopped at the door of the house, which opened on to this yard.

"It is the house of your excellency," said the farmer, as he stood uncovered, with the true courteous hospitality of an old-fashioned Portuguese.

It was, in truth, his own house; and presently a man appeared to take our horses, a dog came and licked the master's hand, children issued from the house and greeted their father, and the wife stood in the doorway and welcomed us.

"Cea! cea!" the farmer called out cheerfully, which, interpreted, is supper, a pleasant sound to a belated traveler. "Here is a gentleman who has eaten nothing since he was in Spain."

Looking round the room we entered, I saw much that I should have seen in a farmer's kitchen at home: the old single-barreled gun slung on the wall, the English willow-pattern plates ranged on the shelves, the well-polished, high-backed chairs, the sides of bacon hanging from the rafters. What was not like England

* From Travels in Portugal, by John Latouche. London, 1875.

was the quaint collection of colored prints of sacred subjects-pious daubs, fearful to the artistic eye-which hung about the walls.

Presently our supper was on the table, and let the reader take note that the table was not decked with a cloth "coarse, but of snowy whiteness." Indeed, for the matter of that, we did not even indulge in plates, but before each of us was placed a good-sized earthenware bowl and a wooden spoon. And if the reader should ask of what the meal consisted, let him know that there was one dish and a remove. The dish, sopa secca (literally "dry soup"), made of wheaten bread, beef, cabbage, and mint, almost a national dish in Portugal; and the remove, bacalhau, dried codfish, boiled-which is quite a national dishand the man who objects to such a bill of fare must, indeed, be an epicure.

I praised the fish for its tenderness, and my hostess explained to me that to make it so it was essential that the dried fish-which, indeed, is often, when cooked, as hard as a board-should be previously soaked for exactly eighteen hours in running water.

Then the host filled me a large tumbler of country wine, his own vintage, assuring me that wine never tastes so well as after bacalhau. It is a very remarkable drink, this 'green wine," as it is called. I have tasted the country wines of many lands, but never yet such a one as this. Perfectly sound, but possessing a fruitiness, astringency, and sharpness enough to take one's breath away, it has yet little more alcoholic strength than claret. So full is it of what may be called vinous matter that it is hardly ever clear; it is apparently, however, not liked the less for being quite thick and muddy. To an exhausted man, on a summer's day, I know no greater restorative than a full draught of this Minho wine.

When we had eaten and drunk, the dishes were pushed "below the salt," and one or two of the farm-servants fell to on the plentiful remainder, while we, wrapping ourselves in our cloaks, and leaning our elbows on the table, lighted our cigarettes, and proceeded to hold grave discourse.

Knowing that my host must be curious to be told where I came from, and the purpose of my traveling, I thought it due to his hospitality to offer him a sketch of my proceedings, in which I was assisted by the horsedealer, who, after the manner of such squires, added fancy details illustrative of the magnificence, wisdom, and so forth, of his master. I ended by saying that I was going to travel through Portugal at my pleasure, and to see whatever was curious or worthy to be seen by a foreigner.

The farmer nodded his head slowly once or twice as I finished. The idea was too strange to him to be taken in at once; at last he got firm hold of it.

"Your country, I dare say, is very different from Portugal," he said.

66

Very different," I answered. "You may understand how much so when I tell you that our farmers neither grow maize nor make wine."

"Coitadinhos!" (poor devils!) said the man; "then what do they eat and drink?"

"Well," I said, "it is not so difficult as you may think. We can make all sorts of things in England, and sell them to all countries, and then buy what we want from them. For instance, there is the shirt you wear, it was made in England, and that gun, it was made there, too; so, you see, if we wanted to eat maize or drink wine, we should have something to offer in exchange."

"Wonderful!" cried the farmer, quite de

lighted. It was clear that he had never been lectured before on political economy.

We talked on many matters. At last I thought of questioning the farmer on a subject which has always had a great interest for me -the superstitious beliefs and tales of the peasantry.

twenty years ago; and, moreover, I was myself a witness of what I am going to relate, for I was then a young man living at a farm near Cabrasam, among the mountains of the Estrica, which is, as you know, as wild a country as any in Portugal."

The farmer filled up his own and my glass, and his wife and children and the servants gathered round us, and stood with solemn faces to listen to a tale which they had probaalready heard more than once:

I have long held a theory that, wherever the Romans have left permanent marks of their stay, there the superstitions have the peculiar gloomy stamp of the legendary myste-bly ries of ancient Italy. If this is true anywhere, it must be true in Portugal, where these people have left their vestiges not only in the language, which is nearer to Latin than any other known tongue, but even in the manner of cultivating the soil, which, to this day, is done in accordance with the precepts of Cato and Columella.

The type of Latin legend to which I refer is that well-known and most grizzly and hideous of all ghost-stories, the tale of the soldier in Petronius Arbiter. Now, the belief in the lobis-homen is very prevalent in parts of Northern Portugal. It is the legend of the loupgarou-the were-wolf-the periodical transformation of human beings into wolves, with all the savage instincts of that animal. It is a superstition whose existence in many countries has been too well investigated to need further description from me; suffice it to say, that nowhere is this belief invested with so many peculiar and gloomy circumstances as in Portugal.

I began to sound the farmer on the subject of folk-lore and popular superstitions rather cantiously, for people are apt to be reticent in talking of these matters to strangers, but the farmer was not shy at all.

66 Yes," he said; "he had known some strange things to happen, and in that very neighborhood, too!"

"Would he tell me what?"

"Well, he would," he said, "and with great pleasure; he would tell me one of the most singular things he ever heard of; but" -looking at me doubtfully-" you will hardly bring yourself to believe it; and, to tell the truth, no more should I, if it had not been related to me by one who saw it-no other than my own brother's son.

"You must know," said the farmer, with a grave air," that not many miles from this is a river in which are vast quantities of fish. Now, every year there comes a stranger to this river; he stands upon the bank, and, holding in his hand a magical fly (uma mosca encantada) tied to the end of a very long thread, he blows the fly away from him as far as a man can throw a stone: it falls upon the water, and no sooner does it touch the surface than a fish seizes it, and the stranger draws both fly and fish ashore by the thread which he holds in his hand. Now, what do you think of that?"

My host had given me this fancy description of fly-fishing with so very serious a face, that I was almost afraid to laugh, till I observed a sympathetic twinkle in his own eyes; but he nodded toward his servants as if to hint that I was not to betray the secret of the mysterious fisherman to them.

Then the farmer, perceiving that I was an attentive and by no means a captious listener, began another story.

"We are all good Christians here, and ought not to fear the malice of the evil spirit; nevertheless, we know that power is given him sometimes to work mischief in some mysterious manner which all the priests put together do not understand. In proof of this I will tell you of an event that happened not

"The farmer with whom I served was a young man, and his wife a young woman. He had just come on to the farm. Two or three other men besides myself worked with him, but there was no other woman in the place than his wife. Now she, being about to give birth to a child, desired to get another woman into the house to do such work as she would shortly not be able to perform herself. So the master went about the country to engage a woman, but, for some reason or other, he could not succeed. As time passed, he sent me to the nearest town, Ponte de Lima, with directions to inquire along the way, and engage the very first likely-looking young woman I should meet with.

"I started next morning before daylight, and I had not gone more than a mile on the road before I saw, sitting by the wayside, one of the queerest-looking girls my eyes ever fell on. She was wrapped up, head and all, in a brown cloak, such as we never see in this part of the country. The sun had just risen, and she was stretching out her hands as if to warm them in its rays. The oddest thing about her was that her hair was cut close to her head, like a man's. Now, this is common enough with our women when they get old and do not care to be troubled with long hair; but for a young and handsome girl like her to bechamorra"" (crop-haired), was a thing I have never seen before or since. So I stood still and stared at her like a fool as I was.

66

"Well, Santinho,' said the girl, 'you are wondering to see me warm my hands in the sunbeams?'

"I think you would get warm quicker,' I answered, if you went on your way, instead of sitting still in this cold wind.'

"And what if I am tired as well as cold?' she said, sharply.

"Have you been traveling all the night?' "Indeed I have,' said the girl, and many a one before that.'

"Then you come from a long way off?' "I come from Tarouca, in the mountains of Beira, and that is a long journey from here.' And, if it is not a secret, what have you come so far from home for?'

666

"No secret at all,' she replied. 'My name is Joana, and I am looking for a place as servant at a farm. Do you know any one who requires one?'

66

Now, it struck me here was the very thing I was looking for- a strong, heartylooking girl who wished to be a servant; so I told her I was out with the object of engaging such a person as herself, and, if she would come with me to my master's, she might find the place she wanted. The girl expressed her readiness, and we started homeward.

"I left her outside the house while I went in. The farmer did not much like the idea of having so strange a being for a servant; but his wife, hearing that she was a chamorra, insisted upon engaging her; for we have a saying that chamorras make the best of workers.

Literally, "Little Saint"-a common form of address, among the peasantry, from one stranger to another.

"Very soon after this the child was born, and the new girl took the mistress's place-cooked for us, and so forth.

"Now, the newly- born infant was a remarkably fine and healthy one. Everybody said so, except one old woman, a neighbor, who was thought to be a wise woman.' This person looked rather put out the moment she saw the child, and said it was bewitched. The father and mother laughed heartily at this, seeing how well the child looked. Then the woman said she was mistaken if the child had not the devil's mark somewhere on its skin; and, sure enough, so it had-a mark on its shoulder, exactly as if the pattern of a small crescent or half-inoon had been pricked upon the skin with a pin. Then we all began to get frightened, but the woman said there was no cause for alarm except during the time of the new moon, and then the child must be watched all the night through.

"When the old woman passed out of the house, the new servant was sitting on the floor with her brown cloak pulled right over her face, and, though the old woman spoke to her, she made her no answer, pretending to be asleep.

"Nothing particular occurred for some months. The servant Joana was very useful in the house, and both master and mistress congratulated themselves on having engaged a chamorra to work. However, we, her fellowservants, did not much like her. She was very sharp in her speech, and, whenever she was angry, her eyes, which were long and narrow in shape, seemed almost to emit fire and gave her a terribly savage aspect. However, when not out of temper, she was a handsome girl. She seldom spoke much, but she very soon got into the confidence of her master and mistress; and, one day, when the latter mentioned to her what had been told her by the old woman, she said:

666 Ah, yes! I have known it a long time, but I was afraid to tell you. Children with that mark grow into lobis-homems before they get to be sixteen, unless something is done to stop it.'

"And what can be done?' said my mis

tress.

"You must cover the evil mark with the blood of a white pigeon, strip the child naked, and lay it on a blanket on the mountain-side the very first time the moon rises in the heavens after midnight. Then the moon will draw the mark up through the blood, just as sho draws the waters of the sea up at full tide, and the child will be saved.'

"The farmer and his wife agreed to do this, to save their child from becoming a lobishomem, and, it happening to be a new moon late in the night a day or two afterward, the needful preparations were made, and when the night came the child was laid on the mountain-side, near the house, while the moon was still below the horizon. This done, we all returned to the house, for it was essential that no eye should be upon the child until the moon had risen. The farmer began to be uneasy, thinking that there might be wolves near, but the men reassured him, saying that a wolf had not been seen in the neighborhood for many years. Nevertheless, he loaded his gun, putting into it, for want of other ammunition, five or six rusty nails.

"He had hardly done so when, to our horror, we heard the most piercing screams from where the child was lying. In an instant we had all rushed out-the screams increasing as we neared the spot. At this very instant the moon rose, and we saw a huge brown wolf standing over the body of the child, his fangs