concealed him in a little low-caste village of the Rajpoot country. There, it is as wonderful as true, he regained his health of body; but his memory was gone. For seventeen years he lived, harmless indeed, and venerated by the Hindoos of the village as a sacred person, and jealously guarded and supported by them as the source of their prosperity. At the end of those long dark years, an army doctor fell in with him, became interested in what he heard from the villagers about him, and by an operation restored him truly as from death to life. The seventeen years were a blank; but all that went before, down to the fight at Kolapore, was as the events of yesterday. He made He made himself known, and was recognised by many at Bombay; funds and every assistance were supplied, that he might regain his position. You know how opportunely he returned.

My grandfather died a few

days later, with my hand in his, and his head on his son's shoulder. Of course, his will was altered; but James, though left dependent upon my father's generosity, has had no cause to complain. We have never seen him since. It was Ainslie, who, driving over to make inquiries, fell in with my father, as he was trying to ascertain how things were at the park. They compared notes, and, knowing that I had arrived at the station, guessed pretty nearly the truth of the matter.

A few months later, Ainslie and I were married; and if my life before was a happy one, what shall I say of it now that I have gained both a father and a husband, whose only object seems to be to give me fresh cause for gratitude? I have two homes now, Ludford and the Park, and really it would be hard to say at which I am most happy. So I will not

At

A RECENT holiday tour led me, after some wanderings in the Channel Islands, to pay a flying visit to the famous French towns of Dinan and Dinard, on my way to Paris. All journeys lead to Paris, as once they all led to Rome. Dinan and Dinard are within a moderate distance of each other-a drive or a walk. They have some very interesting and distinctive social features. Dinan there is a permanent settled English colony; and Dinard is a great sea-bathing resort, whither the English, at certain seasons of the year, repair in considerable numbers. Of each of these places I shall have some notes to make. But let me strongly advise the intending tourist in Brittany, when he is crossing over, to visit the Channel Islands. Indeed, this is an experience which, at one time or another, ought to be that of every travelling Englishman. We had better leave Brittany alone than neglect the Channel Islands. Albeit so many have visited them, yet still, drawing upon one's own experience, it may be possible to say something fresh on them as an introduction to this paper, if only to exhort my readers to visit Guernsey and Jersey before they proceed to Dinan and Dinard.

For in doing so you have all the charm and excitement of foreign travel, while you are still practically in the old country. In a curious sort of way you go in and out from French ways into English ways. The experience is as fresh as any run to the Continent could prove. The scenic beauty of the Channel Islands is something

The social life

perfect and unique.
of the place is also something that
is extremely interesting and diver-
sified. First, a practical word or
two. As a rule, it is easier sailing
from Southampton than from Wey-
mouth, even at a sacrifice of time
and money. People will even go
from Weymouth to Southampton,
at an apparent sacrifice, on this
account. Make sure, in good
time, of your quarters on the
steamboat, especially as you may
be detained for hours in the
Southampton Water by fogs.
Especially take care that your at-
tention is called when you first
come within sight of the long line
of Alderney island and of the
Casquets. The lighthouse looms
grandly, and the islets and rocks
around you remind you of the
perils of those seas through a long
line of tragic histories from the
death of Henry I.'s favourite son,
after which the old king never
smiled again. We should get
some general idea of the Channel
Islands beyond Guernsey and
Jersey, of Sark, the wildest and
raggedest of them all, Herm, with
its splendid shell-beach, and little
Jethou, which has been lately pur-
chased by a Roman Catholic re-
ligious order, and Alderney, our
protection against the standing
threat of Cherbourg-Alderney,
with its grander name of Aurigny,
as Macaulay says in his ballad of
the Armada:

'Her crew hath seen Castile's black fleet
beyond Aurigny's isle,
At earliest twilight, on the waves lie
heaving many a mile.'
There is a summer way of touring
in these islands, which is eminently

sociable and economical, and might properly be extended to many places. There are pleasure-cars in which, for a florin, you may visit every place of interest in either island in succession. Two or three days will make you acquainted with every place in Guernsey, and a day or two in addition to that will carry you all over Jersey. You meet with a very sociable set of people on the car, and you ought to do your level best to increase the sociability. Some of the people are very nice, and I suppose that, in reality, everybody is very nice, if you only take people in the right way. Then there are pleasant hostels scattered over the islands, specially put in readiness for the car excursionists, where you have a capital dinner at two shillings a head. There is just one drawback in these excursions-the presence of the guide, who is part of the furniture of the car, and who indulges his gift of utterance sometimes to a preposterous extent. He is a sort of Bard or Rhapsodist for his island, and, in addition to singing its praises, if he is a Guernsey man he will abuse Jersey, and if he is a Jersey man he will abuse Guernsey. Both islands, if we accepted both accounts, are the haunt of rheumatism and low fever. But all over the world you have the ugly symptom that men can hardly do justice to what is really good without abusing and vilipending what may be supposed to come into competition with it.

But we must not be content with the car system. The solitary ramble and exploration exactly suit the Channel Isles. Perhaps nowhere within so limited a compass is there to be seen such a

variety of scenery. At this very moment I can close my eyes and let images of beauty pass before

VOL. XLIV. NO. COLX.

my mental vision. In procession we have ancient castles and vast caverns, lonely lighthouses on rocky headlands, smooth firm sands, delicious pastures with the famous Jersey cattle taking their mornings,' the green-arched water-lanes, the meadow- paths, the infinite variety of soft and stern in the coast scenery. St. Heliers is a most cosmopolitan sort of town. You find people from all Europe, with an unusual predominance of the political refugee element. You may distinguish especially the three elements of the French, the English, and the original Jersey element, of which the Jersey Lily' is a wellknown specimen. The human 'lily' abounds in Jersey, and as beautiful specimens abound in Jersey as have ever been transplanted. Indeed, the island is more Norman than English. Acts of Parliament do not run in Jersey, unless, indeed, there is a special mention that they should do so. The old Norman institutions still prevail. I believe it was one of the pet ideas of Napoleon III. that these islands should be reunited to France, to which, indeed, they geographically belong; but Lord Palmerston declined to commit England to any congress for the rectification of boundaries. St. Heliers, I am afraid, must plead guilty to the imputation of being slightly fast and rafish. You see, all the luxuries of life are cheap enough at St. Heliers. You may get a thousand cigars for fifteen shillings, and there is a great deal of smoking in a thousand cigars. Neither are there any alcoholic duties worth mentioning, one result of this state of things being that at St. Heliers some people have a tendency to smoke and drink more than is really good for them. There are fine markets, and if you take lodgings at St. Heliers, it is an amusing part of the day's pro

L

gramme to do one's own marketing. There is a fine new marketplace, and its slabs are heaped up high with the delicious products of its gardens. The climate of Jersey is six degrees milder than in England, and the show of grapes, fresh figs, and early vegetables is immense. The Jersey people, however, draw a very sharp line of distinction between visitors and residents. Of course there is always a desire to treat best those who have been their customers all the year round. The morality of a fish-market is always of a very dubious sort, and I would advise no inexperienced stranger to commit himself to the tender mercies of the Jersey fishwomen at the market. Really to enjoy the island one must get out of St. Heliers and go to one of the lonely bays, where you may enjoy some of the fairest of all natural sights afar from the hum of men. I found my own retreat beneath the magnificent ruins of Orgueil Castle, and, making friends with the humble folk around me, I lived mainly on fish diet, and the choicest of red mullet and lobster rarely exceeded a shilling.

There is one literary association which is especially interesting in these islands. As is well known, Victor Hugo resided both in Jersey and Guernsey. He first lived in a detached house in Marine-terrace. His little garden sloped down to the beach. He and his writings were proscribed in France, and he had partly to live by the sale of his furniture in Paris. The photographs of his Jersey rooms are now well known in Paris. The Jersey people treated him with much respect, not because he was a great genius, but because he was a peer of France. He did not get on with the Jersey people, and he expressed himself so disrespectfully about the Queen's relations with

the Emperor Napoleon, that the chief constable of the island informed him and others that he could no longer be permitted to reside there. Victor Hugo has done much for Jersey. He had described it as a bouquet as large as London, where all is perfume, light, and laughter. He has immortalised much of its scenery in his work, Les Travailleurs de la Mer. He then went to Guernsey, and took up his abode in a large empty place known as Hauteville House. This he fitted up and adorned with great taste. The house was full of splendid presents from his friends, and became a place of refuge for political exiles. It was in this house that he finished his greatest work, Les Misérables. It was published simultaneously in half a dozen of the principal cities of the world. One thing that will long be remembered to the credit of Victor Hugo was the weekly dinner which he gave to poor rickety children, and on whom it of course produced the most satisfactory results. The circumstance excited much attention in this country, and similar dinners were given at Westminster and elsewhere. The dedication of his Toilers of the Sea was: 'I dedicate this work to the rock of hospitality and liberty; to the corner of the old Norman country inhabited by the noble little people of the sea; to the isle of Guernsey, rugged, yet gentle, my refuge for the present, and probably my grave in the future.' Here, too, he wrote L'Homme qui Rit. As soon as the misfortunes of 1870 came to pass Victor Hugo hastened to Brussels; and after the capitulation of Sedan and the revolution he returned to Paris, where he was received with an ovation, and may be said to have lived ever afterwards in a chronic state of ovation.

At last I leave Jersey and go