up the plague in an empty stable, but a stupid
slut would sleep in the stall in spite of all
warnings, arnd not only perished herself, but let
loose the malady. So large a space as a stable
was not required, for on another occasion the
same Finnish girl bored a hole in the door-post,
into which she thrust the pestilence, and then
stopped up the aperture with a peg of juniper,
which kept the prisoner fast for seven years,
seven months, and seven days. A certain emperor
seems to have driven the plague out of one of
the villages by a magnificent coup d'état. He
caused a ship, freighted with the sick and dead of
the plague, and with the living Death (!) as one
of the passengers, to sail upon the high seas,
there to be set on fire. Who this particular
emperor was we cannot say, but we suspect that
he flourished a little before 1710.

If the grey man or boy is only an agent, it
seems very clear that he likes his occupation.
When the corpses were carried to the churchyard
he was seen dancing about in the fields,
with his three-cornered hat in his hand, evidently
delighted with his own mischief.

Before taking leave of the strange goblins of
the Eibo-folk, we may remark that the ghosts
have a keen sense of the proper mode of wearing
one's apparel. A cowherd of Kertell, who had
been suddenly struck blind by a malignant spirit,
recovered his sight immediately by turning his
glove inside out. Similar stories are recorded
among the Russians proper, and it is said that if
one of these is assailed by the wood-spirit, and
thereby loses his way, he takes off all his clothes
and puts them on again with the inside out. If
this process is found too tedious, it seems that
a turned cap or stocking will answer every
purpose.

YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY IN INDIA.

JANUARY in the Red Sea. Noon. The Peninsular
and Oriental Company's steam-ship
Nemesis is making nine knots an hour through the
bluest water I ever beheld. We left Suez
yesterday, and begin to feel intensely Eastern, as
overland passengers always do at this point.
Those who had never made the journey before,
appeared to expect that their Indian experiences
would commence as soon as they left Southampton.
By much reading of guide-books they
brought their minds into a state which rendered
it impossible to call their lunch anything but
tiffin, or their cigars anything but cheroots; and
I believe that but for the ruthless prohibition
of the cold weather they would already have
begun to don their white clothing, of which
they had, with a prudence quite unnecessary,
kept out a supply for impossible contingencies.
By talking to the old Indians on board—who
gave themselves airs of superiority—they had
actually picked up whole phrases of Hindustanee
in the first few days, which they aired
remorselessly, to the confusion of appropriateness
and the bewilderment of comprehension. They
bought government Manillas (made in the
Minories) of the stewards, by way of training,
and realised in the beginning a no uncommon
end, by making themselves thoroughly sick of
the country to which they were bound.

It was by the second mail in December, 1853,
that I traversed the overland route for the first
time. In those days even the railway through
France was incomplete. The railway from Paris
dropped you at Châlons, and the steamer took
you up at that point, along the Saone, to Lyons.
The diligence carried you thence to Avignon,
where the railway began again, taking you in
triumphantly to Marseilles with the air of having
brought you all the way. This mixed mode of
travelling is certainly more picturesque and
pleasant than being propelled the whole way by
the same agency, with as few breaks as possible,
and no rest to speak of. There were
several English travellers making their way
to catch the same mail as myself. I had met
one of them before, at Dover, when he had
asked me if I was going any further than Calais,
and I had answered, "Just a little further—
towards Caubul." We now fraternised of
course, and the other overland people did the
same, making up a little party of their own, and
experiencing a foretaste of that strong
characteristic of "Indians," a sense of that bond of
union which, however they may quarrel among
themselves, seems to separate them from the
rest of mankind. Among those on board were
two young gentlemen going out in the Civil
Service; one free, the other in the custody of
his father. The former was ready to bet any
amount on anything, and play whist at impossible
points; the only serious care he condescended
to recognise, relating to the safety
of three boxes of saddlery—including, I believe,
a side-saddle or two for contingencies—which
he was taking out with him in anticipation of
that first-rate stud which he has probably found
out by this time costs a great deal of money
to keep, even in India. He presented a contrast
in most respects to the second griff, who,
besides being in custody, was treated like a
criminal. Not for him were the adventurous
bets, or the impossible points. For him no Mr.
Peat had provided saddles upon improved
principles, with English trees such as the
Indian-made article can never match, and sound
leather, such as even Cawnpore cannot supply;
bits adapted to every kind of mouth, Arab,
Caubul, Waler, or humble tattoo of Mofussil
life; bridles that will hold anything, and spurs
that are a delight to the heel. In the stead of
these indulgences he was furnished with plenty
of lectures upon the impropriety of gambling in
any shape, and the ruinous consequence of keeping
horses of luxury for any other purpose than
carrying their owner whither he may want to
go, for which object it must be admitted that
some ten or twenty of those animals does
seem an undue allowance. There was an
old major (majors were not minors then as
they sometimes are now) who had been
disappointed, as majors of the old school always are,
who scowled upon his young allies, said