as applying from the shoulders downwards. I
assent to his proposition, and he takes the air of
a philosopher who has just impressed me with a
profound truth beyond the range of ordinary
wisdom. He then observes, as a circumstance
which I ought to know, that he has a temporary
occasion for two tomauns. He alludes to this
fact several times with much point and emphasis,
but does not ask directly for the money. At
last I inquire, in a blunt English way, whether
he expects me to give them to him? "A good
action," replies the man, " is never lost. The
money which we bestow upon a friend in need
is like seed corn, and returns to us a hundred-
fold. Generosity," he adds, " is also the proof
of true greatness." I reply, " That the words
are those of wisdom, but they appear to me
rather general than particular. For instance,
friendship is a rare plant of slow growth and of
tardy blossom. A few hours ago we were
unknown to each other; how, then, can the flower
of friendship have had time to spring up
between us?"

"All men," returns the blacksmith, with
grave sententiousness, " are friends of the
good."

Not knowing whether the word "good"
applies to himself or to me, I feel under some
difficulty in dealing with this argument; and
thinking that so many fine speeches ought not
to go unrewarded, I tell him he shall have the
two tomauns, and he then makes me a speech
finer than ever. Placing the money in some
hidden receptacle about the breast of his robe,
he says serenely, " It will do you much good to
have given me this money, for Allah is always
filling an open hand."

The man is such a grave and august sort of
mountebank, that his words seem to have quite
a flavour of prophecy about them; and I feel
an absurd sort of satisfaction stealing over me,
as of one who has done a great and
magnanimous action. I should be puzzled to say in
what the greatness and magnanimity of it lies;
but the fact is, that the poetic grandeur of the
cheat has overpowered me, and in any case the
talk is worth all the money. It is the best
part of the romance of Eastern travel.

Having got my money, the blacksmith
proceeds to examine my travelling kit with much
dignity. He is especially attracted by a little
patent stove I have, and expressed himself as
vastly pleased with it. " This is, indeed," says
he, " a wonderful object. It is at once a
vapour-bath, a tea-urn, and a convenient pipe-
lighter." He treated me throughout our
intercourse, which he obligingly prolonged to a late
hour, as a person upon whom he had conferred
a favour of no common magnitude; and when
he departed he left me extremely edified, and,
as it were, dazed by his visit.

The moon has risen, and I go out to walk
before my tent by night. Everything around
me seems wondrous weird and strange. I am
living the life of the old Patriarchs amidst the
very scenes where Noah rested after he left the
ark, for yonder, bathed in a moonlight rainbow
shrouded in solemn mist and clouds, stands
sacred Ararat. Watch-dogs bay round the
encampment. A caravan of camels laden with
rich merchandise has halted near us. Swarthy
men, talking unknown tongues, are gathered
around our watch-fires.

By-and-by I creep, awed, and full of solemn
thoughts, back into my tent. Then the cheerful
voice of English Harry going to make the
horses comfortable for the night, the rattle of
his currycomb and jolly jargon, rouse me. I
clap my hands for a pipe and cup of tea. The
native servants come in to make my bed—an
air mattress and shawls for counterpanes—
placing a waterproof sheet beside me in case
of a wet night. But I soon glide back again to
dream-land; for English Harry comes in with
my reading lamp and the Arabian Nights, so
that I shall fall asleep dreaming of the talkative
barber and his seven brothers, moved perhaps
thereto by the eternal talk, talk, talk, of the
indefatigable Persian servants, who are just
sitting down to supper in their tent within hail.

Was there ever a book written which has
given a hundredth part of the pleasure that
mankind have derived from the Arabian Nights!

FALLEN FROM THE CLOUDS.

THE term Earth, the word-wise tell us, comes
from the Saxon verb erian, signifying arare, to
plough, to ere, or ear, or penetrate superficially—
the Earth being the name of the thing which
was ploughed. Tellus was called " the maist
noble god of Erd;" and of the ploughman our
forefathers said,

He that erith owith to ere in hope.

When men became star-wise, the Earth of the
ploughman became the name of a planet. In a
similar way Science has ennobled the word
Cloud. The words lid and clad are from the
same root, and by the clouds our forefathers
meant the covering or clothing of the Earth;
and of this clothing the weather-wise tells
us that it is a gaseous, glorious, and aërial
ocean. These definitions, curious enough of
themselves, are necessary preliminaries to a
gossip on a new theme: on strange showers, or
the principal of the unusual things which come
down, or fall down, upon the earth out of its
aërial covering.

From this covering we draw the breath of life.
The air fit for breathing is but a comparatively
thin layer upon the surface of the globe; a fact
amply proved by the men who have dug deep
down or mounted high up, albeit human plummet
has never yet sounded five miles deep, even
into the watery sea, nor had any man in a
balloon ever gone five miles up into the sky, until
Mr. Glaisher achieved lately a flight of six miles
above his native planet.

It is necessary to have a general conception
of our habitation, the planet Earth. A bold
describer once said in my hearing, the Earth is a
shell of quartz, holding in a sea of fire, two-
thirds overspread by a sea of water, and clad in
a sea of air. Quartz is, undoubtedly, the