far I don't feel inclined to engage a vehicle
now, and continue my journey through the
medium of what is idiomatically known as the
Marrowbone Stage. Which said stage takes
me for a further space of some twenty minutes
duration. Then I turn a corner and come
sudddenly upon the Fair.

There are no swings, roundabouts, fowls
in golden inexpressibles, penny shows,
theatres, or wax-works, or monstrosities. But
there is a fair; there are two fairs, indeed.
One to the right hand as you enter from the
Chertsey road, comprised in an area perhaps
two hundred feet square, and consisting of
drinking and dancing booths of every size
and description, and suited to every pocket;
grand marquees for lunch and dinner
purposes; humbler tents, where gingerbread,
apples, oranges, lemonade, and small beer are
vended; stands as at Epsom and Ascot for
the more convenient viewing the manœuvres
of the troops; barrels of gingerbread nuts,
perambulating kegs of cool drinks, and more
showy caravans containing the celebrated
gingerbeer from the fountain; hot pies,
raspberry-tarts, and kidney-puddings; fruit
barrows, nut baskets, and similar concomitants
to the mercantile conduct of a fair. The
second fair hath also booths; but its booths
are mostly of an uniform and pyramidal
shape. It has also marquees: but its
marquees are pitched with mathematical
exactitude, and are curiously bedizened with
scarlet daggers of flourishing conformation,
and broad arrows of dazzling blue.
Furthermore, Fair No. 2 is nearly two
miles-and-a-half in length; and with its canvas
stables and canvas hospitals, mess-marquees,
furze sentry-boxes, mud kitchens, straw-
covered women's huts, sutlers' booths, canteens,
guard-rooms—with the great Royal Pavilion
and its standard on the Magnet towering
above all—the homes of eight thousand
lighting men: but the rendezvous, this
present Tuesday, of some seventy thousand
additional spectators, who are all hopelessly
entangled, jumbled up and mixed together.
If the higgledepiggledys on the railway
platform and on the Chertsey road were to
be wondered at, the wonderful salmagundi
presented on Chobham Common is yet more
remarkable. The two fairs have become, in
a manner, mixed and commingled. Their
populations are the emptied contents of
barracks, mingled with the components of
the Derby, Ascot, Goodwood, Doncaster, and
Hampton race meetings; Greenwich fair, a
hanging morning at the Old Bailey, a cheap
Brighton excursion-train, and the Chiswick
horticultural show. Add to all these one of
Her Majesty's drawing-rooms, a very thirsty
fête at Vauxhall, a noisy public meeting
at Exeter Hall, the Stock Exchange, and
Tottenham Court Road on a Saturday. The
junction of all these dissonant elements; but
with a thousand times more discordance,
noise, bustle, laughter, shouting, and stamping,
will convey a pretty accurate notion of Battle
Fair, just after the termination of the great
show.

Fair equestrians in most delightful
varieties of Amazonian costume, some with hats,
and some with caps, and some with
charmingly nondescript combinations of felt, which
you would be puzzled to say were either the
one or the other—with such rosy cheeks—
such sunshiny looks of happiness and health
—such enchanting glances for the spruce
young cavaliers riding by their sides, for the
gay individuals in eccentrically-cut coats, and
opera-glasses in leathern cases, slung across
their shoulders by straps. These houris on
horseback prance by, managing their steeds
with gallant emphasis, and putting them
through their paces prettily. After them
come natty grooms, dressed and mounted
with the sober, grave, decorous elegance and
propriety of English grooms. Then there are
real Londoners a horseback, who, as is their
luck on all public occasions, are sadly taunted
by ribald boys who remind them that they are
"outside," and intreat them for safety sake to
"get inside and pull the blinds down." They
also inquire "'ow much a pound" they will
take for their steeds, barring the tail. These,
with the mob of pedestrians from magnificoes
to beggars, are mixed up with white-headed old
general officers in cumbersome cocked hats
and plumes, and loosely fitting blue surtouts;
dashing aide-de-camps, cantering guardsmen,
smart orderlies, stern troopers, looking
neither to the right nor left, but pushing on
doggedly. The carriages do not come this
way.

If I had come down to Chertsey by an
earlier train, I should have seen the review,
Her Majesty, the Duchess of Kent, and all
the Ladies, and then I should have been all
agog for glory, of course. As it is, being a
day after the Fair, I saunter moodily on the
Bagshot road, looking at the long line of
aristocratic carriages. Then I wander awhile
through the streets of the Camp, watching
the soldiers cleaning their accoutrements, and
cooking their victuals, or lounging wearily on
the soppy straw inside their tents; till, the
mess bugle sounding, and a pelting shower of
rain coming on, I also retire.

THE ROVING ENGLISHMAN.

A CANTER WITH POLYCHRONOPULOS.

UP and away after our respectable new
acquaintance, Elia Polychronopulos, the most
famous guide in Greece. He is riding about
three lengths ahead of us—a fine man, in the
Greek costume, sitting as if he grew out of
the back of his horse, although we are flying
over a roughish country. Polychronopulos
holds the bridle by the extreme end with
one hand, while he snaps the fingers of the
other; uttering every now and then a
peculiar wild shrill cry, which his little wiry
horse seems perfectly to understand; for he