love, invests it with the inviolability of the Islam he worships; and while acknowledging it in detail to be an ogre, reveres it in the whole as a God. fever; and during all that time not a single man or lad of the number had been brought before any kind of tribunal whatever, whether for investigation or trial. Meanwhile, God help their families. These were one and all Mahometans, from a Byzantine village about fifty miles distant from Trebizond. Few of Still the field of patience has not only extent but limits; and from time to time even the Mahometan "Koïlee," or "Fellah," or Peasant, of Pontus is fairly driven beyond them. He then takes to the Others again-and their number is mountains and as law, in the only sense large, much larger than the Osmanlee he knows it, has been his enemy, he be- Government suspects-quit the country; comes in his turn an enemy to law. Band some for the Russian Caucasus or Georafter band of such half fugitives, half out-gia, some for Constantinople, some for laws, has sprung up within the last few the larger towns of Syria or Egypt, there years among these forests; and did a pro- to pick up what living they may. vincial newspaper exist, its "sensation" them ever return. The emigration is secolumns would seldom need a topic. To- cret, for a reason little known, I believe, day it is a house broken into, and one or beyond the limits of the Ottoman Empire, more of the inmates mangled by a hatch- but which ought to be taken into account et; to-morrow some corn stacks burnt, or in forming an estimate of the vaunted the standing crops wantonly cut, trampled "progress "of its rulers. The Turkish. down, and destroyed in the dark; or a peasant is, on a principle which, so far as wayfarer has been found robbed and mur- I can discover, dates its origin from the dered, or a woman brutally ravished, or semi-feudal times of military tenure, but what not. It would be a painful, often a which has assumed its actual and much revolting, task to chronicle the crimes more galling form in the present century, committed in these lovely glens. considered as serf of the soil he tills, or ascriptus gleba in old phrase: and this principle is at once exemplified and enforced by a regulation forbidding him to quit his native village and district, except for a stated time, and then only after procuring an official "pass," for which a high fee has to be paid. The place too whither he intends going must be specified in the "pass;" and on any change of destination, a fresh one must be taken. For a "pass" to quit the country altogether, or for life, it would be vain to ask, as it would certainly be refused. Indeed, the bare appearance of a peasant at the "pass" office, asking for leave to emigrate to Russia, would be enough to make the clerk faint from the very impudence of the demand. But where a reasonable and advantageous thing is refused by authority, it is tolerably sure to be taken without authority; and every year the underhand emigration draws off larger and still larger numbers from this region. And the Government? Well; the Government, so long as individuals only, especially if of the poorer sort, are concerned, does simply nothing. But at last some person of consequence has, perhaps, been the sufferer; or a whole village or district has been injured; and a formal complaint and demand of redress, backed, of course, by a pre-payment of costs and good-will, not less necessary in a criminal than in a civil case before an Osmanlee tribunal, has been lodged at the official residence, where money received may have created a reasonable hope that more may be obtained from the same sources. A party of armed police, or, in extreme instances, of soldiers, are then sent at once to investigate and to punish; on whose approach, announced several days beforehand, the real criminals prudently make off. In their place, however, a few ready-to-hand persons are easily apprehended, and triumphantly carried off to be shut up in a jail, the like of which Mrs. Fry's worst nightmare never imaged; there to remain two, three, or more months, even years, their guilt or innocence being never examined into, till either death, or the presents thrown by their friends into the insatiate jaws of authority, procures them release. I have known as many as eighty thus dragged off to prison in a batch. By the end of four months several of them were dead and others like to die of jail Much more, however, is this the case with the "Greek" peasants; that is, with those who, in addition to their Byzantine descent, have maintained the Byzantine religion and social system. Sheltered under the protection liberally afforded by Russian consulates, they emigrate, not by individuals, or even families, but by whole bands. I have known as many as a hundred Pontic "Greeks" at a time, after receiving in the morning a flat refusal of the "passes requested from the Otto man authorities, together with a threat| that if they did not at once abandon their migratory intentions and return to their mountain villages, they should be packed off, not to Russia, but to prison, embark comfortably the same evening after dark on board the Russian steamer lying at their service in the harbour, and transfer themselves and theirs to the Muscovite allegiance. It would be hard to blame either the emigrants or those who helped them; it might be harder to defend those who maintain the status quo of Osmanlee rule. Ruins of nations, ruins of empires, uncemented fragments, built up into an empire itself already a crumbling ruin. Yet the land is still the same as when the Argonauts first gazed on it from the sea, and the Ten Thousand from the overtopping mountains: the same snowflecked heights, green pastures, luxuriant forests, full torrents, fertile soil; the very yellow blaze of wild flowers whence the bees in Xenophon's time drew their intoxicating honey, unchanged to this day, is still the same; it is the old sad story of the East Art, glory, freedom fail; but Nature still is fair. But if better days be yet in store for Pontus, they certainly will not dawn till the last rays of the Crescent have set from the verge of her western horizon, the seven hills of Stambool. Meanwhile we have emerged from the forest-gorge, left beneath us the wavelike billows of rolling mist, traversed the wide pasture slopes, crossed the bare jagged crest, whence, from a height of nearly nine thousand feet we have given a last backward look at the far-off dreamlike sketch of bay, headland, and sea; and have now by long windings descended into the great inland valley of the Chorok, the Harpasus of Xenophon, where, with the limits of Anatolian Gurgistan, begins another region and a different and better race. W. G. PALGRAVE. "THE PINE.”—The fine sonnet, entitled "The Pine," which appeared in No. 1502 of THE LIVING AGE, was written several years ago by Alfred B. Street of Albany, N. Y. (By the way, the word "shine," in the fourth line of the sonnet, was originally written "gleam." The change, copied from the Dublin University Magazine, destroys the rhyme.) - ED. A LONG bare room, the walls painted in distemper, with a running border of leaves and flowers, and the same design running across the rafters overhead; three huge windows, with small panes, draped with old brocaded hangings round the top, but without either blinds or curtains to shut out the cloudy glimpses of the sky; very sparely furnished; some old cabinets and rococo tables by the walls, some old settees and chairs, which had once been handsome; the floor tiled with red triangular tiles, with pieces of carpet before the sofas. At one end a stove, which opened to show the little fire, erected upon a stone slab like a door-step, and with an ugly piece of black tube going almost horizontally into the wall, had been added for the advantage of the English Forestieri, who insisted-benighted northern peopleupon such accessories of what they called comfort. Another old rug, faded out of its natural brightness into sweet secondary tints of colour, had been laid before this impromptu fireplace; but the aspect of the place was cold, chilling the spectator to the bone. One or two dark portraits, painted on panels, hung on the walls; they were very grim and very old; for this was the terzo piano, let at a cheap rate, and with few elegancies to boast of. Near the stove, on a little marble-topped table stood the tall lamp, with its two unshaded wicks blazing somewhat wildly, for it had not been trimmed for some time. The oil in it, however, one good, cheap luxury, which even the poor may have in Italy, was so sweet and pure that the air was quite untainted. On a little tray was a long loaf of the brown, very dry bread of the country, a plate of green salad, and a thin flask of common red wine a pretty supper to look at, but appetite. scarcely appetizing fare for a delicate At the first glance there seemed to be no one in the room to benefit by these preparations, but after a while you could perceive in the recess of one of the windows a shadowy figure, leaning up in a corner, with its head against the pane looking out. All that could be seen from that window was the cloudy sky, and some occasional gleams -- "I want nothing," said the girl. She came out of the window, advancing a few steps, but still keeping quite out of the cheerful circle of the light. of moonlight, which threw silver lines | find you a little heap of cinders in the upon the dark floor, and when you morning, or fallen down in the window looked down, as into a well-the Arno, and frozen to death, Madonna Santisflowing far below, with the stars, and sima! without the power to raise yourclouds, and fitful moon, all reflected in self up. If you would but have Philoit; and on its very edge the little Church mena to stay with you, at least, in case of St. Maria della Spina, with all its tiny you should want anything." pinnacles tipped with silver. She who looked out from this high window could not be looking for any one; the people below were as specks hurrying along in the cold, with cloaks twisted over their shoulders. The watcher was nearer to the heavens than the earth. She stood there so long, and was so motionless, that gradually the blazing light, blown about softly by some draught from door or window, the little table with the salad and the wine-flask, became the centre of the still life, and the human shadow in the window counted for nothing. No breath or sound betrayed that something was there more alive than the light of the lamp or the glimmer of the wood embers, which, indeed, fell now and then in white ashes, and broke the utter silence of the place. This silence, however, was much more effectually broken by the entrance of a stout, middle-aged Italian, with a cloak over one of his shoulders, and the cachenez in his hand in which he was about to muffle his features when he went out. He looked round and round the large room, apparently unable to see the figure in the window, and then, with an impatient exclamation, went to the table, and snuffed the blazing wicks and trimmed the lamp. "Just like her, just like her," he said to himself, "gazing somewhere; never eating, never considering that one must live. If I were to add a slice of Salami - though the child is fastidious, she does not eat salami "I am here, Niccolo," said a voice from the window. 66 "So I supposed, Signorina; I knew you must be in some corner. May I be permitted to remark that life is not supported by the eyes, but by the mouth? If you will not eat the cena I have prepared for you, what can I do? I cannot take you on my knees and feed you like a baby. Oh, I have done it; I have been obliged to do it, when I had the poor padrone's authority to sustain me, before "No, the Signorina wants nothing, the Signorina will soon not want anything but a hole in the heretic cemetery beside her father; and when one goes sinfully out of the world by one's own wickedness, besides being a Protestant and believing nothing, what can one look for? If I were the Signorina I should take very good care as long as I could, not to die, and put myself in the power of those beings with the prongs that you see in the Campo Santo. I should take very great trouble for my part not to die." Upon this she came out altogether out of the darkness, and approached the fire. "Do you think that not eating kills people? " she asked. "I cannot eat, I have no appetite, but I do not wish to die." "At least, under any circumstances one can drink a little wine," said Niccolo, with disapproving dignity; "no effort is necessary to swallow a little wine. Signorina, I have put everything in order. I will leave the key with Luigi downstairs, that Philomena may enter in the morning without disturbing you. I now only wait to bid you a felicissimina notte. Buona notte, my little mistress-sleep well; and the Madonna and the saints take care of you, poor child!" This little outburst was not unusual. The girl extended her hand to him with a smile, and Niccolo kissed it. Then throwing his cloak over his other shoulder, and wrapping it round him, he left her in her solitude. The guests at the Casa Piccolomini were dispersing at the same time, escorting each other, and escorted by their servants, through the still streets. As Niccolo closed the great door after him, the sound seemed to reverberate through the blackness of the great staircase, down which he plunged, darkling, groping his way by the wall. Mr. Worsley, who lived on the first floor, had a coil of green wax-taper in his pocket, which he lighted, to guide himself and his daughter to the door. They were a little afraid when they heard the footsteps Oh, yes, I may go," said Niccolo fret-stumbling down, not having been able to fully, "not knowing whether I may not divest themselves of the idea that stiletto now." 66 Niccolo," said the voice, "I shall not want anything more to-night. If you are ready you may go." thrusts were the natural accompaniments I am afraid I am describing too much, of a dark staircase. And with his cloak which is a fatal weakness for a historian over his left shoulder and his red cache- to fall into; but yet, of course, the gennez hiding his countenance, Niccolo tle reader who does not scorn that delooked dangerous, more like killing his man in a corner than watching with the tenderness of a woman over the wayward child whom he had just left with an ache in his honest heart. lightful title would prefer to hear what this solitary girl was like. She had a straight, slim figure, too slim for beauty, though that defect of youth is one which it is easy to forgive. Her hair was dark All alone in the house! The apparta- and soft, and hung about her face, frammento was not so large as that of Mr. ing it with a soft fold, very slightly unWorsley downstairs, for it was divided dulating at the ends, though not in any into two, as being adapted for cheaper thing that could be called a curl. I must lodgers. Besides this large salone, how- warn my dear friend and gentlest audiever, there was an ante-chamber, of tor, that this sounds a great deal better which while Mr. Vane was alive he made in words, and looks a great deal better in a dining-room; and then a long lone pas- a picture, than it does in reality; for a sage, echoing and dreary, through which girl of sixteen with hair thus hanging the solitary girl had to pass to her bed- about her, neither curled nor dressed, is room, another terrible stone room, floored apt to be an objectionable young person, with tiles, at the other end of the house. inclining to untidiness, and to look like a She had to pass her father's room by the colt, unkempt and untrimmed. But Inway, and another gaping empty chamber, nocent was a neglected girl, who had full of the furniture which, with Italian never known any better. She did not superstition, had been turned out of the strike you at the first glance as beautiful. chamber of death. She was not afraid. She had no colour, and even had been She had been used to such constant soli- called sallow by some observers. The tude that it seemed natural to her. While chief beauty that struck the beholder her father was alive she had been as soli- was the perfect shape of her face, a pure tary as she was now, and it did not seem oval, with the chin somewhat accentuto her, as it did to everybody else, that his ated, as in the pictures of Leonardo da mere presence in the house made so Vinci, and the eyes somewhat long in much difference. She had been brought shape. Miss Bolding was right when she up in a Spartan Italian fashion, to bear called the girl a Leonardo. She wanted the cold and heat as things inevitable. the crisped hair, and that subtle sidelong She put her feet upon the stone slab, sweetness in the eyes, which is so charwhich did duty as a hearth, more from acteristic of that great master; but othercustom than for the warmth, which she wise the character of her face was the scarcely thought of. A small scaldino same-somewhat long, and with all the stood under the table, full of fresh em- softness of youth in the prolonged and bers, which Niccolo had brought with perfect curve of the colourless cheek. him from the kitchen; but though she The eyes were heavy-lidded; they were was cold she did not take it up and warm not " well-opened eyes." Only in moher hands over it as a thorough Italian ments of emotion did she raise the heavy would have done. She was half Italian lids freely, and flash the full light of her only, and half English, rejecting many look upon you. At the present moment habits of both nations. She had a small these lids were doubly heavy with dreams. cloak of faded velvet drawn round her The lips, which were thin, and rather shoulders, old and cut after no fashion straight, without curves, were closed that had prevailed within the memory of upon each other with the closeness of man. It had come, I believe, originally meditation; her hair fell into the hollow from a painter's studio, but it was warm of her neck on either side, and lay in a and kept her alive in the penetrating cold. half ring and careless twist upon her Kind Mrs. Eastwood, in her luxurious shoulders. A very simple black dress, chamber, was wondering at that moment without trimmings, appeared under the how the poor child would brave an Eng- velvet cloak; these were the days before lish winter, and if "the little room" the Watteau fashion became popular, would be warm enough, with its soft car- when dresses were made with but one pets and close drawn curtains, and cheery skirt, and long, sweeping over the wearfire. If she could have seen the Italian er's feet. Such was her costume and her girl with her old mantle on her shoulders, appearance. She took a little of the wine and the scaldino at the foot of her chair! from the flask, and a morsel of the dry 80 LIVING AGE. VOL. II. brown bread, and swallowed them as it seemed with great difficulty, bending over the fire in the stove, which began to sink in white ashes. Silence, cold, solitude, all around; and here in the empty house, in the empty world, this solitary creature, so young and forlorn. But she was not afraid. After a while she rose quite calmly, and lifted the long stalk of the lamp, and went away through the long echoing ghostly passage. She saw nothing, feared nothing; her imagination was not at liberty, it was absorbed about other things. Next morning it was more cheerful in the great salone; there was light, at least, which was much, and I think there was sunshine; but the gentle reader will forgive me if I confess that I have forgotten whether the Palazzo Scaramucci was on the sunny or the shady side. At all events, there was daylight, and a blue, clear, shining sky, and the sight of sunshine outside, if not actual presence. When Mrs. Drainham, who was really concerned about the girl, came to see her before twelve next morning, she found her seated by the same little table which had held her lamp on the previous night, with a little dish of polenta before her, and again the dry brown bread and the small flask of wine. It seemed the strangest, most distasteful breakfast to the Englishwoman. "Oh, my dear," she cried, "do send away that mess, and have a nice cup of tea. Wouldn't you enjoy a nice cup of tea? If you will come with me, my maid will make you one directly-and perhaps an egg and a little delicate bread and butter. don't wonder that you have no appetite, my poor child." "I like polenta," said Innocent, playing with her spoon, "and I don't like tea." This seemed immoral to Mrs. Drainham. "If you go to England, my dear, you must not say you have been in the habit of having wine for breakfast," she said. "It would be thought so very strange for a young girl." Innocent made no immediate answer. With a perverse impulse she poured out a little of the nostralé wine, the commonest and cheapest, and diluted it with water. I do not, I confess, think it was an attractive beverage. Probably I shall never be in England," she said in a very low tone. 66 "Oh you must go to England; that is one thing there can be no doubt of. What are you to do here, poor child? Friends have been raised up to you here, but it is not likely that people who are not connected with you would continue — and the apartment, you know," continued Mrs. Drainham, in her eagerness to prove what was self-apparent, 66 must be let. The Marchese is very poor, and he could not be expected to lie out of his money, and Niccolo must find another situation. Everything, in short, is at a standstill until you go away." Something hot rushed to the girl's eyes - but if they were tears it was so unusual to shed them, that they rushed back again after an ineffectual effort to get forth. She made no answer. She had learned ere now, young as she was, the benefit of taking refuge in silence. Mrs. Drainham had drawn a chair near her, and sat looking at her, with eyes full of a curiosity not unmixed with disapproval. Mrs. Drainham, in short, disapproved of everything about her, her loose hair, her odd dress, her old velvet cloak, even the polenta on the tray before her, and the coloured water she was drinking. "What will they do with her in England?" she asked herself in dismay; but then her responsibility, at least, would be over, and her mind relieved. "You have never been at school, my dear, I suppose?" "No." But you "Nor learned anything? must have had some resources; you must be able to do something? Needlework at least, or tapestry, or something to amuse yourself with? You must have been very lonely in your papa's time, as I hear he never saw any one. And you could not sit all the day with your hands before you; you must have been able to do something?" Mrs. Drainham cried, impressed almost against her will by the silence of her companion. "I can read," said Innocent. "And no more? I hope your aunt, Mrs. Eastwood, is well off. It would be dreadful indeed if your relations were not well off. Girls in your position frequently have to go out as governesses. I don't want to be unkind; but, my dear, it is for your advantage that you should look your circumstances in the face. Most girls of your age (you are past sixteen?) would have thought of that already. Suppose, for instance, that you were compelled to try and work for your own living. Now, what would you do?" The suggestion was so strange that Innocent lifted her eyelids, and turned a wondering look upon her questioner; but apparently perceiving that nothing was to |