CHAPTER VII.

Meanwhile the innkeeper's wife, Crispina, had appeared, and had led Aglais and her daughter through the group in the porch into the house, and passing by a little _zothecula_,[31] behind the curtain of which they heard the sound of flutes,[32] as the carvers carved, and many voices, loud and low, denoting the apartment called _dieta_ or public room of the inn, they soon arrived at the _compluvium_, an open space or small court, in the middle of which was a cistern, and in the middle of the cistern a splashing fountain. The cistern was railed by a circular wooden balustrade, against which some creeping plants grew. This cistern was supplied from the sky; for the whole space or court in which it lay was open and unroofed. Between the circular wooden balustrade and the walls of the house was, on every side, a large quadrangular walk, lightly gravelled, and flashing back under the lantern which Crispina carried, an almost metallic glint and sparkle. Of course this walk presented its quadrangular form on the outer edge, next the house only; the inside, next the cistern, was rounded away. This quadrangular walk was at one spot diminished in width by a staircase in the open air, (but under an awning,) which led up to the second story of the large brick building. Around the whole _compluvium_, or court, the four inner faces of the inn, which had four covered lights in sconces against the walls, were marked at irregular intervals by windows, some of which were mere holes, with trap-doors (in every case open at present;) others, lattice-work, like what, many centuries later, obtained the name of arabesque-work, having a curtain inside that could be drawn or undrawn. Others again with perforated slides; others stretched with linen which oil had rendered diaphanous; others fitted with thin scraped horn; one only, a tolerably large window, with some kind of mineral panes more translucent than transparent--a _lapis laminata specularis_.

At the back, or west of the inn, an irregular oblong wing extended, which of course could not open upon this court, but had its own means of light and ventilation north and south respectively.

Crispus had followed the group of women, and our friend Paulus had followed Crispus. In the _compluvium_, the innkeeper took the lantern from his wife, and begged Aglais and Agatha to follow him up the awning-covered staircase. As he began to ascend, it happened that Crispina, looking around, noticed Paulus, who had taken off his broad-rimmed hat, under one of the sconces. No sooner had her eyes rested on him than she started violently, and grasped the balustrade as if she would have fallen but for that support.

"Who are you?" said the woman.

"The brother of that young lady who is ill, and the son of the other lady."

"And you, too, must want lodgings?"

"Certainly."

The woman seized his arm with a vehement grip, and gazed at him.

"Are you ill?" said Paulus, "or--or--out of your mind? Why do you clutch my arm and look at me in that fashion?"

"Too young," said she, rather to herself than to him; "besides, I saw the last act with these eyes. Truly this is wonderful."

Then, like one waking from a dream, she added, "Well, if you want lodgings, you shall have them. You shall have the apartments of this king or pretender--the rooms prepared for the Jew Alexander. Come with me at once." And she unfastened the lamp in the nearest sconce, and led Paulus up the staircase.

Thus the wanderers, Aglais and her daughter, had the queen's room, with their Thracian slave Melana to wait upon them, while the prisoner Paulus had the king's, to which Crispina herself ordered old Philip, the freedman, to carry his luggage.

A few moments later, the innkeeper, who had returned to the more public parts of the house to attend to his usual duties, met Philip laden with parcels in one of the passages, and asked him what he was doing.

"Carrying young Master Paulus's things to his room."

"You can carry," said the innkeeper, "whatever the ladies require to _their_ room; but your young master has no room at all, my man, in this house. And why? For the same reason that will compel you to sleep in one of the lofts over the stables. There is no space for him in the inn. You must make him as comfortable as you can in the hay, just like yourself."

"Humanity is something," muttered Crispus; "but to make a queen one's enemy on that score, without adding a king, where no humane consideration intervenes at all, is enough for a poor innkeeper in a single night. These _tetrarchs_ and rich barbarians can do a poor man an ugly turn. Who knows but he might complain of my house to the emperor, or to one of the consuls, or the prætor, or even the quæstor, and presto! every thing is seized, and I am banished to the Tauric Chersonese, or to Tomos in Scythia, to drink mare's milk with the poet Ovid."[33]

"Go on, freedman, with your luggage," here said a peremptory voice, "and take it whither you have taken the rest."

"And in the name of all the gods, wife," cried Crispus, "whither may that be?"

"Go on, freedman," she repeated; and then taking her husband aside, she spoke to him in a low tone.

"Have you remarked this youth's face?" she asked; "and have you any idea who he is?"

"I know not who any of them are," replied Crispus.

"Look at him then; for here he comes."

Crispus looked, and as he looked his eyes grew bigger; and again he looked until Paulus noticed it, and smiled.

"Do you know me?" says he.

"No, illustrious sir."

"Alas! I am not illustrious, good landlord, (_institor_,) but hungry I am. And I believe we all are, except my poor sister, who is not very strong, and for whom, by and by, I should like to procure the advice of a physician."

"The poor young thing," said Crispina, "is only tired with her journey; it is nothing. She will be well to-morrow. Supper you shall have presently in the ante-chamber of your mother's apartments; and your freedman and the female slave shall be cared for after they have waited upon you."

"All this is easy and shall be seen to forthwith," added Crispus; "but the doctor for your dear sister, _per omnes deos_, where shall we find him?"

"Understand," said Paulus, "my sister is not in immediate danger, such as would justify calling in any empiric at once rather than nobody. She has been ailing for some time, and it is of no use to send for the first common stupid practitioner that may be in the way. Is there not some famous doctor procurable in Italy?"

"The most famous in Italy is a Greek physician not five thousand paces from here at this moment," said the landlord. "But he would not come to every body; he is Tiberius Cæsar's own doctor."

"You mean Charicles," replied Paulus; "I almost think he would come; my mother is a Greek lady, and he will surely be glad to oblige his countrywoman."

"Then write you a note to him," said Crispina, "and I will send it instantly."

Paulus thanked her, said he would, and withdrew.

When he proposed to his mother to dispatch this message to Charicles, she hesitated much. Agatha was better, he found her in comparatively good spirits. It would do to send for the doctor next day. An urgent summons conveyed at night to the palace or residence of the Cæsar, where Charicles would probably of necessity be, would cause Tiberius to inquire into the matter, and would again draw his attention, and draw it still more persistently to them. He had already intimated that he would order his physician to attend Agatha. They did not desire to establish very close relations with the man in black purple.

It is wonderful even how that very intimation from Tiberius had diminished both mother's and daughter's anxiety to consult the celebrated practitioner, to whose advice and assistance they had previously looked forward. There were parties in the court and cabals in the political world; and among them, as it happened, was the Greek faction, at the head of which his ill-wishers alleged Germanicus to be. Græculus, or Greek coxcomb, was one of the names flung at him as a reproach by his enemies. What the Scotch, and subsequently the Irish interest may have been at various times in modern England, that the Greek interest was then in Roman society. Of all men, he who most needed to be cautious and discreet in such a case was an adventurer who, being himself a Greek, owed to his personal merit and abilities the position of emolument and credit which he enjoyed; who was tolerated for his individual qualities as a foreigner, but who, if suspected of using professional opportunities as a political partisan, would be of no service to others, and would merely lose his own advantages.

"Let Tiberius send Charicles to us," continued Aglais; "and our countryman and friend may be of service to us, even in the suit which we have to urge at court. But were we now to show the Cæsar that we confide in Charicles, we should only injure our countryman and not benefit ourselves."

"How injure him?"

"Thus," replied the Greek lady. "If your claim for the restitution of your father's estates be not granted for justice sake, I must make interest in order that it may be granted for favor's sake. As a Greek I shall be likely to induce no powerful person to take our claims under his protection except Germanicus, the friend of Athenians. Now, it is a fact which I have learned for certain that Tiberius hates Germanicus, whom he regards as his rival; and that whoever is patronized by Germanicus, him Tiberius would gladly destroy. Behold us in a short while the clients and retainers of this same Germanicus, and let Tiberius then remember that his own physician has been, and continues to be, intimate and confidential with this brood of the Germanicus faction. Would not Charicles be damaged, perhaps endangered? But if we wait until the Cæsar himself sends us the doctor, as he said he would, we may then gain by it, and our friend not lose."

"Mother, you are indeed Greek," said Paulus, laughing; "and as Agatha is in no actual danger, be it as you say. Do you know, sister, there is nothing the matter with you but fatigue and fright? I am sure of it. You will recover rapidly now, with rest, peace, and safety."

"Mother," says Agatha, smiling, "we have forgotten, amid all this consultation about my health, to tell brother the curious discovery I have just made."

"True," said Aglais; "your sister has explored a very odd fact indeed."

"Why, brother," says Agatha, "we found you in this large sitting-room, when we entered, though we had left you below-stairs, near the cistern."

"Found me?" said Paulus.

"Yes," added his mother; "found you concealed in this room by Tiberius."

"Concealed by Tiberius?"

"I will not leave you in suspense any longer," said the young girl, laughing. "Look here." And she led him to a table behind the bench on which she had been sitting, and directed his attention to a bust, or rather a head of Tiberius, modelled or moulded in some sort of pottery.

"That," said she, "when I first sat down, stood upon yonder table opposite to us. I recognized the face of the man who had spoken to me under the chestnut-trees, just before you assisted me back to the carriage. I abhor the wicked countenance; and not choosing to let it stare at me like a dream where it was, I rose and went to remove it to the stand where you now see it, behind my bench. Well, only think! I took it, so, with my hands, one under each ear, and lifted it; when, lo! it came away, and left your own dear face looking at us, thus!"

As she spoke, she again lifted the _terra cotta_ face, and beneath it a much smaller and more elegant piece of sculpture in white marble was disclosed, presenting the lineaments and image of Paulus himself. He started, and then his sister replaced the mask of Tiberius with a laugh.

"Was I not speaking true when I said that Tiberius had concealed you here?" said his mother.

"The Cæsar, very true, has me in his head, and well secured," said Paulus.

At that moment the door opened, and Crispina entered to ask whether the letter for the physician was ready. They told her they had changed their minds, and would not, at least that night, send any letter, Agatha felt and looked so much better.

"Then I will at once order your supper to be brought," said Crispina; "and as you are evidently people of distinction, would you like music while the meats are carved?"

"Certainly not," said the Greek lady.

"Not a carver neither, mother?" interposed Agatha; and, turning to the hostess, she begged that they might be treated as quietly and let alone as much as it was possible.

"That is indeed our desire," said the Greek lady.

"In that case," replied the hostess, "my own daughter, Benigna, shall attend to you. Nobody shall trouble you. You are in the rear or west wing of the house, far away from all the noise of our customers, who are sometimes, I confess, sufficiently uproarious. But Crispus is not afraid of them. When to-morrow's sun rises, you will be glad to find what a beautiful country extends beneath your windows, even to the waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea. You will behold, first, a garden and bee-hive; beyond these are orchards; beyond them fields of husbandry and pleasant pasture lands, with not a human figure to be seen except knots and dots of work-people, a few shepherds, and perhaps an angler amusing himself on the banks of the Liris in the distance."

"Oh!" said Agatha, "I wish soon to go to sleep, that we may set out quickly toward that beautiful country to-morrow morning."

"Will you not like a little bit of something very nice for supper first, my precious little lady?" quoth the good hostess; "and that will make you sleep all the better, and from the moment when you close your pretty eyes in rest and comfort under poor Crispina's roof, to the moment when you open them upon those lovely scenes, you won't be able to count one, two, three--but just only one--and presto! there's to-morrow morning for you!"

Agatha declared that this was very nice; and that supper would be nice; and that every thing was comfortable; the rooms particularly so.

"Then a delicious little supper shall be got ready at once," said Crispina. "I'll call my brisk Benigna to help me."

Before quitting the room, however, the landlady, whose glance had rested chiefly upon Paulus during the conversation, threw up her hands a little way. She then composed herself, and addressing Aglais, asked,

"What names, lady, shall I put down in my book?"

"I will tell you when you return," replied Aglais; and the landlady retired.

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Suetonius, Aug. 39. The forum, where gladiators had often bled, was becoming less and less used for that purpose.

[23] It is well known that Trajan exhibited shows in which ten thousand gladiators fought, but this monstrous development of cruelty came long after our date.

[24] A school of gladiators. Suet Jul. 26; Aug. 42; Tacit. Hist. ii. 88.

[25] This German expedition took the same direction as that of the Austrian armies which endeavored to dislodge Bonaparte from the siege of Mantua, and came pouring down both sides of Lake Guarda.

[26] Cic. Fam. xiii. 59; Dion. iii. 22; Cæsar. Bell. Cir. iii. 20.

[27] The malignant innkeepers mentioned by Horace, "Sat. lib. 1, Sat. 5," kept a low class of houses in comparison with this notable hostelry.

[28] Pliny, Ep. x. 14, 121.

[29] Cic. Qu. Fr. ii. 14; Plautus, Pœn. v. 1, 22, 2, 92; Cist. 2, 1, 27.

[30] _Libertus_, freedman of such or such a family; _libertinus_, freedman in general, or son of one.

[31] _Zothecula_, a small apartment, one side of which was formed by a curtain. Pliny, Epis. ii. 17; v. 6. Suetonius, Claud. 10.

[32] _Flutes_, etc. Juvenal v. 121; xi. 137.

[33] Something in this language may seem out of keeping. I would therefore remind the reader that the most learned, accomplished, studious, and highly-cultivated minds among the Romans were very frequently found in the class of slaves and freedmen.

A MAY CAROL.

How many a lonely hermit maid Hath brightened like a dawn-touched isle When--on her breast in vision laid-- That Babe hath lit her with his smile!

How many an agèd saint hath felt, So graced, a second spring renew Her wintry breast; with Anna knelt, And trembled like the matin dew!

How oft the unbending monk, no thrall In youth of mortal smiles or tears, Hath felt that Infant's touch through all The armor of his hundred years!

But Mary's was no transient bliss; Nor hers a vision's phantom gleam; The hourly need, the voice, the kiss-- That child was hers! 'Twas not a dream!

At morning hers, and when the sheen Of moonrise crept the cliffs along; In silence hers, and hers between The pulses of the night-bird's song.

And as the Child, the love. Its growth Was, hour by hour, a growth in grace; That Child was God; and love for both Advanced perforce with equal pace.

AUBREY DE VERE.

SIR JOHN MAUNDEVILLE.

"Of Paradise I cannot speak properly, for I was not there. It is far beyond, and I repent not going there; but I was not worthy." So wrote, more than five hundred years ago, an honest English knight who had spent some ten years journeying through that "most worthy land, most excellent and lady and sovereign of all other lands," which was "blessed and hallowed with the most precious body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ;" visiting portions of Africa and Asia; and picking up from all accessible sources legends and marvels, and scraps of the geography and history of distant countries. For something like two centuries the travels of Sir John Maundeville enjoyed a tremendous popularity; and though time can hardly be said to have improved the good gentleman's reputation for veracity and judgment, it has perhaps heightened rather than diminished the interest of his narrative. Alas! we can never know such travellers again. Men who go to Palestine in a steamboat, and are whirled by locomotives into the very presence of the Sphinx, bring us back no wonderful stories of the mysterious East, with its dragons and enchanters, and its sacred places miraculously barred against profane footsteps. Travel has no mysteries now. What is the earthly paradise but a Turkish pashalic? What is Prester John but a petty negro chieftain? And for dragons and chimæras dire, has not any good museum of natural history specimens of them all, nicely stuffed and labelled, or bottled in alcohol? In the days of Sir John, however, wonders were plenty; and if he did not see very many himself, he heard of men who had seen no end of them, and he described them all the same. It was from hearsay, and not from personal observation, that he learned of the Lady of the Land, in the island of Cos, then called Lango. This wonderful lady was the daughter of Ypocras or Hippocrates, in form and likeness of a great dragon which is a hundred fathoms in length, "as they say," adds Sir John, "for I have not seen her." She lies in an old castle in a cave, appearing twice or thrice in a year, and condemned "by a goddess named Diana" to remain in that horrible shape until a knight shall come and kiss her on the mouth; then she shall resume her natural form, and the knight shall marry her and be lord of the isles. Many have tempted the adventure, but fled in affright when they have seen her. And every knight who once looks upon her and flees, must die anon.

At Ephesus the traveller beheld the tomb of St. John the Evangelist, and heard the familiar story that the apostle had entered the sepulchre alive, and was still living, in accordance with the saying of our Lord, "So I will have him to remain till I come, what is that to thee?" "And men may see there the earth of the tomb many times openly stir and move, as though there were living things under." To say nothing else of this story, it is not fully consistent with Sir John's other statement, that the tomb contains nothing but manna, "which is called angels' meat," for the body was translated to paradise. Quite as great are the wonders of Joppa, "which is one of the oldest towns in the world; for it was founded _before Noah's flood_." Strangely confusing the legend of Perseus and Andromeda, our traveller relates that in a rock near Joppa may still be seen marks of the iron chains "wherewith Andromeda, a great giant, was bound and put in prison before Noah's flood; a rib of whose side, which is forty feet long, is still shown." Sir John spent a long time in the service of the sultan of Egypt, where he seems to have anticipated modern researches into the source of the Nile; for he confidently assures us that it rises in the garden of Eden, and after descending upon earth, flows through many extensive countries under ground, coming out beneath a high hill called Alothe, between India and Ethiopia, and encircling the whole of Ethiopia and Mauritania, before it enters the land of Egypt. To the best of our belief, the travels of Dr. Livingstone have not fully confirmed this interesting geographical statement. The sultan dwells at a city called Babylon, which is not, however, the great Babylon where the diversity of languages was first made by the miracle of God. That Babylon is forty days' journey across the desert, in the territory of the king of Persia. The Tower of Babel was ten miles square, and included many mansions and dwellings; "but it is full long since any man dare approach to the tower, for it is all desert, and full of dragons and great serpents, and infested by divers venomous beasts." Sir John, therefore, is probably not responsible for the extraordinary measurement of its walls. Whether his account of the phoenix is based upon his personal observations, we are not told; but it is highly interesting. There is only one phoenix in the world. It is a very handsome and glorious bird, with a yellow neck, blue beak, purple wings, and a red and yellow tail, and may often be seen flying about the country. It lives five hundred years, and at the end of that time comes to burn itself on the altar of the temple of Heliopolis, where the priests prepare for the occasion a fire of spices and sulphur. The next day they find in the ashes a worm. On the second day the worm becomes a live and perfect bird; and the third day it flies away. A plenty of fine things, indeed, Egypt could boast of in those days, far before any thing she has now. There were gardens bearing fruit seven times a year. There were the apples of paradise, which, cut them how you would, or as often as you would, always showed in the middle the figure of the holy cross. There was the apple-tree of Adam, whose fruit invariably had a mouthful bitten out of one side. There is a field containing seven wells, which the child Jesus made with one of his feet while at play with his companions. There are the granaries in which Joseph stored corn for the season of famine, (probably the Pyramids.) And passing out of Egypt across the desert of Arabia, Sir John tells of the wonderful monastery on Mount Sinai, whither the ravens, crows, and choughs and other fowls of that country, assembling in great flocks, come every year on pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Catharine, each bringing a branch of bays or olive, so that from these offerings the monks have enough to keep themselves constantly supplied with oil. There are no such foul venomous beasts as flies, toads, lizards, lice, or fleas in this monastery; for once upon a time, when the vermin had become too thick there to be endured, the good brethren made preparations to move away, whereupon our Lady commanded them to remain and no pest of that sort should ever again come near them. On Mount Mamre, near Hebron, Sir John saw an oak-tree which had been standing since the creation of the world. Oaks nowadays don't live to such a great age. This tree had borne no leaves since the crucifixion, (when all the trees in the world withered away,) but it had still so much virtue that a scrap of it healed the falling-sickness, and prevented founder in horses.

Armed with a letter under the sultan's great seal, Sir John went to Jerusalem, and was admitted to all the holy shrines from which Christians and Jews were usually excluded. He saw, or believed he saw, the spots sanctified by almost all the great events narrated in the Gospel; and though his credulity, as may be inferred from what we have already seen of his narrative, often got the better of his judgment, his piety, at any rate, deserves our genuine respect. We pass over his legends of this holy city, some of them poetical, some merely grotesque, and some really sanctioned by the general voice of the church, and go with him eastward to the valley of Jordan and the Dead Sea. Of this mysterious body of water he mentions that it casts out every day "a thing that is called asphalt in pieces as large as a horse," and neither man, nor beast, nor any thing that hath life may die in that sea, which hath been proved many times by the experiment of criminals condemned to death who have been left therein three or four days, and yet taken out alive. If any man cast iron therein, it will float; but a feather will sink to the bottom; "and these things," truly remarks Sir John, "are contrary to nature." Not more so, perhaps, than an incident of which he speaks at the city of Tiberias. In that city an unbeliever hurled a burning dart at our Lord, "and the head smote into the earth, and waxed green, and it grew to a great tree; and it grows still, and the bark thereof is all like coals." Then, near Damascus there is a church, and behind the altar, in the wall, "a table of black wood on which was formerly painted an image of our Lady which turns into flesh; but now the image appears but little." As a compensation, however, for its loss, a certain wonderful oil, as Sir John assures us, drops continually from the wood and heals many kinds of sickness, and if any one keep it cleanly for a year, after that year it turns to flesh and blood. In this same region of marvels he tells us of a river which runs only on Saturday, and stands still all the rest of the week, and another which freezes wonderfully fast every night, and is clear of ice in the morning. These rivers are not known nowadays, or at any rate must have changed their habits.

After finishing the description of the Holy Land and Babylon, and reporting a conversation with the sultan, in which the vices of the Christians, such as drinking at taverns, and fighting, and perpetually changing the fashion of their clothes, were sharply satirized, and giving a synopsis of the Mohammedan creed, which we fear is not altogether authentic, our worthy traveller adds that now is the time, if it please us, to tell of the borders, and isles, and divers beasts, and of various peoples beyond these borders. Accepting his invitation, we bear him company first to the land of Lybia, which must have been a most uncomfortable region in those days, for the sea there was higher than the land, and the sun was so hot that the waters were always boiling. Why the country was not, therefore, soused in a steaming, hissing flood, we do not know; 'Sir John himself evidently thinks it strange. In Little Ermony which we take to be Armenia, he found something almost equally strange. That was the Castle of the Sparrow-hawk, where a sparrow-hawk perpetually sat upon a fair perch and a fair lady of fairie guarded it. Whoever will watch the bird seven days and seven nights without company and without sleep, shall be granted by the fairy the first earthly wish that he shall wish; but if sleep overcome him, he will never more be seen of men. This, adds the careful traveller, hath been proved oftentimes, and he mentions several persons who performed the long task and got their wishes. Mount Ararat is another marvellous feature in this wonderful region; for it is seven miles high, and Noah's ark still rests upon it, and in clear weather may be seen afar off. Some men say that they have been up and touched the ark, and even put their fingers in the parts where the devil went out when Noah said "Benedicite," (unfortunately we do not know the legend to which this refers;) but our traveller warns us not to believe such things, because they are not true! No man ever got up the mountain except one good monk; and he was miraculously favored, and brought down with him a plank which is still preserved in the monastery at the foot of the mountain. It is inexpressibly gratifying to observe that Sir John did not accept all the stories that were told him, but exercised a little judicious discrimination; and we shall therefore pay more respectful attention to the extraordinary things he tells us about the diamonds of India. They are found most commonly, he says, upon rocks of the sea, or else in connection with gold. They grow many together, male and female, and are nourished by the dew of heaven, so that they engender and bring forth small children that multiply and grow all the year. "I have oftentimes tried the experiment," he continues, "that if a man keep them with a little of the rock, and wet them with May-dew often, they shall grow every year, and the small will grow great.... And a man should carry the diamond on his left side, for it is of greater virtue than on the right side; for the strength of their growing is toward the north, that is the left side of the world; and the left part of man is, when he turns his face toward the east." Sir John was not by any means singular in his views of the nature of diamonds in his day, however much he may be at variance with modern authorities; and he is only repeating a popular superstition of the middle ages when he ascribes many wonderful virtues to this gem, which he says preserves the wearer from poison, and wild beasts, and the assaults of enemies, and the machinations of enchanters, gives courage to the heart and strength to the limbs, heals lunatics, and casts out devils. But it loses its virtue by sin.

From stories of eels thirty feet long, and people of an evil color, green and yellow, and the well of Perpetual Youth, from which Sir John avers that he drank, and rats as great as dogs, which they take with huge mastiffs, because the cats feel unable to manage them, we pass to a passage of a very different kind, which, considering the time when it was written, is certainly curious. One hundred and seventy years before the time of Columbus we find Sir John Maundeville arguing that "the land and sea are of round shape, because the part of the firmament appears in one country which is not seen in another country," and predicting that "if a man found passages by ships, he might go by ship all round the world, above and beneath." A rather elaborate essay is devoted to an estimate of the size of the world, and to the story of an Englishman--name unknown--who sailed around it once and never knew it; but coming to a country where the people spoke his own language, was so much amazed that he turned around and sailed all the way back again. After this, Sir John gets back without unnecessary delay to the rosy realms of eastern fable.

We next find him in Java and among the isles of the Indian Ocean, where he tells us of rich kings, and splendid palaces where all the steps are of gold and silver alternately, and the walls covered with plates of precious metals, and halls and chambers paved with the same; of trees which bear meal, and honey, and wine, and deadly poison wherewith the Jews once tried to poison all Christendom; of snails so big that many persons may lodge in their shells; of men who feed upon serpents, so that they speak naught, but hiss as serpents do; of men and women who have dogs' heads; and of a mountain in the island of Silha where Adam and Eve went and cried for one hundred years after they were driven out of paradise--cried so hard that their tears formed a deep lake, which may be seen there to this day, if any body doubts the story. He tells of giants having only one eye, which is in the middle of the forehead; people of foul stature and cursed nature who have no heads, but their eyes are in their shoulders; people who have neither noses nor mouths; people who have mouths so big that when they sleep in the sun they cover the whole face with the upper lip; people who have ears hanging down to their knees; people who have horses' feet; and feathered men who leap from tree to tree. Passing to India and China, Sir John describes the fair and fruitful land of Albany, where there are no poor people, and the men are of very pale complexion and have only about fifty hairs in their beards. He speaks of having personally visited these regions; but we are sorry to say that his narrative is palpably borrowed in many places from Pliny and Marco Polo. As the great town called Jamchay he seems to have found the prototype of Delmonico, and he gives an impressive account of the good custom that when a man will make a feast for his friends he goes to the host of a certain kind of inn, and says to him, "Array for me to-morrow a good dinner for so many people;" and says also, "Thus much will I spend, and no more." And Sir John adds, "Anon the host arrays for him, so fair, and so well, and so honestly that there shall lack nothing." Of the great Chan of Cathay, (Emperor of China,) and his wealth and magnificence, Sir John writes at considerable length, but with an evident expectation that men will not believe him. "My fellows and I," he says, "with our yeomen, served this emperor, and were his soldiers fifteen months against the King of Mancy, who was at war with him, because we had great desire to see his nobleness and the estate of his court, and all his government, to know if it were such as we heard say." How many his fellows were, or what route they followed in their eastern wanderings, we cannot tell. Sir John gives us no particulars; we only learn that he must have combined in curious perfection the characters of a pilgrim and a military adventurer; and how much of the world he saw, how much he described from hearsay, we can only determine from the internal evidence of his book. There is no reasonable doubt that he did spend some time in the dominions of the great chan; for his description of the country, the manners of the people, the magnificence of the sovereign and the ceremonies of the court, though exaggerated sometimes to the heights of the grotesque, if not of the sublime, keeps near enough to the probable truth. We cannot say that we are glad of it; for Sir John is vastly more entertaining when he does not know what he is talking about.

He skips about with the most charming vivacity from Tartary to Persia, to Asia Minor, and back again to India, and sometimes it is certain that he tells us of wonders which he did not see with his own eyes. In Georgia, for instance, there is a marvellous province called Hanyson, where once upon a time a cursed Persian king named Saures overtook a multitude of Christians fleeing from persecution. The fugitives prayed to God for deliverance, and lo! a great cloud arose, covering the king's host with darkness, out of which they could not pass, and so the whole province remains dark to this hour, and no light shall shine there and no man shall enter it till the day of judgment. Voices may sometimes be heard coming out of the darkness, and the neighing of horses and crowing of cocks, and a great river issues from it bearing tokens of human life. Somewhat similar to this story is the account of a region on the borders of the Caspian Sea, where "the Jews of ten lineages who are called Gog and Magog"--namely, the lost tribes--have been shut up for ages behind impassable mountains. The legend is that King Alexander drove them in there, and prevailed upon his gods to close the mountains with immense stone gates. In the days of Antichrist a fox shall burrow through where Alexander made the gates, and the imprisoned Jews, who have never seen a fox, shall hunt him, and following the burrow break down the gates and come out into the world. Then they shall make great slaughter of the Christians; wherefore Jews all over the world learn the Hebrew language, so that in that day the ten tribes may recognize them by their speech. Somewhere in this part of the world Sir John saw and tasted "a kind of fruit like gourds, which, when they are ripe, men cut in two, and find within a little beast, in flesh, bone, and blood, as though it were a little lamb without wool." Both the fruit and the beast are good to eat. Sir John confesses that this was a great marvel; but not to be outdone, he told his entertainers that in England there were trees bearing a fruit which becomes flying birds, right good for man's meat, whereat, he says, his listeners had also great marvel, and some even thought the thing impossible. Sir John, however, was not purposely cramming the Persians; he only repeated the popular fable of the barnacle-goose, which was anciently believed to be hatched from the barnacles growing on ships' bottoms and logs of wood, just as an ordinary goose is hatched from an egg.

The great mystery and marvel of the age in which Sir John Maundeville wrote was the Christian empire of Prester John, supposed to extend over central India, and to be in reality a vast island, separated from other countries by great branching rivers which flowed out of Paradise. Many a traveller went in search of this mythical and magnificent potentate; many a doubtful story of his power and designs was brought back to Europe; and even a pretended letter from his majesty to the pope was widely published in Latin, French, and other languages. Except the Chan of Cathay, there was no other monarch in the world so great and so rich. The chan, therefore, always married the daughter of Prester John, and Prester John always married the daughter of the chan, which naturally made confusion in the genealogical records of the reigning families. Of course, Sir John Maundeville was too gallant a traveller to go home without a full account of the empire of Prester John. He says he went to it, and the catalogue of things he saw and the history of things he did are wonderful enough to satisfy the most exacting reader. As it is quite certain that no potentate ever existed who bore even a resemblence to the Prester John of mediæval legend, it is more than usually difficult to estimate the honesty of Sir John in these particular portions of his narrative, wherein fable and superstition seem to reach their climax. The glories of the Indian court are almost beyond enumeration. The precious stones are so large that plates, dishes, and cups are made of them. There is a river, rising in paradise, whose waves are entirely of jewels, without a drop of water, and it runs only three days of the week, flowing to the Gravelly Sea, where it is lost from sight. The Gravelly Sea has billows of sand without a drop of water. It ebbs and flows in great waves, like other seas, and contains very good fish; but, adds Sir John, "men cannot pass it in ships." The emperor lives in unspeakably gorgeous state, in a palace of gems and gold, and upon the top of the highest tower of the palace are two huge carbuncles which give great light by night to all people. He is served by seven kings, seventy-two dukes, and three hundred and sixty earls. Every day he entertains at dinner twelve archbishops and twenty bishops; and all the archbishops, bishops, and abbots in the country are kings. There is a gorgeous artificial paradise in the dominions of Prester John, the legend of which seems to have been used by Tasso long after Sir John's time in his famous description of the enchanted gardens of Armida. In this false Paradise "a rich man named Gatholonabes, who was full of tricks and subtle deceits," had placed the fairest trees, and fruits, and flowers, constructed the most beautiful halls and palaces, all painted with gold and azure, with youths and fair damsels attired like angels, birds which "sung full delectably and moved by craft," and artificial rivers of milk, and wine, and honey. When he had brought good and noble knights into this place, they were so captivated by the charming sights and sounds, so deceived by the fair speeches of Gatholonabes, and so inflamed with a certain drink which he gave them to drink that they became his willing henchmen, and at his bidding went out from the mountain where this garden stood and slew whomsoever the impostor marked out for slaughter. To the knights who lost their lives in his service, he promised a still fairer Paradise and still more enticing pleasures. Our readers will not fail to trace the resemblance between this fable and the history of the Old Man of the Mountain, with whose extraordinary fanatical sect of Assassins the crusaders had recently made Europe acquainted. Sir John's story is probably founded upon exaggerated accounts of this famous personage.

To his description of the perilous Vale of Devils we fear no such respectable origin can be attributed. "This vale," he says, "is full of devils, and has been always;" and horrible noises are heard in it day and night, as though Satan and his crew were holding an infernal feast. Many daring men have entered in quest of the gold and silver which are known to abound therein; but few have come out again, for the devils strangle the misbelieving. We regret to say that Sir John assures us that he actually saw this vale and went through it with several of his company. They heard mass first and confessed their sins, and, trusting in God, fourteen men marched into the valley; but when they came out at the other end they were only nine. Whether the five were strangled by devils or turned back, Sir John did not know; he never saw them again. The vale was full of horrible sights and sounds. Corpses covered the ground, storms filled the air. The face and shoulders of an appalling devil terrified them, belching forth smoke and stench from beneath a huge rock, and several times the travellers were cast down to the ground and buffeted by tempests. Our author unfortunately was afraid to pick up any of the treasures which strewed the way; he did not know what they might really be; for the devils are very cunning in getting up imitation gems and metals; and besides, he adds, "I would not be put out of my devotion; for I was more devout then than ever I was before or after."

When one has passed through the Vale of Devils, other marvels are encountered beyond. There are giants twenty-eight or thirty feet in height, and Sir John heard of others whose stature was as much as fifty feet; but he candidly avows that he "had no lust to go into those parts," because when the giants see a ship sailing by the island on which they live, they wade out to seize it, and bring the men to land, two in each hand, eating them all alive and raw as they walk. In another island toward the north are people quite as dangerous, but not quite so shocking; these are women who have precious stones in their eyes, and when they are angry they slay a man with a look. Still more marvellous and incredible than any of these tales is the account of that country, unnamed and undescribed, where kings are chosen for their virtue and ability alone, and justice is done in every cause to rich and poor alike, and no evil-doer, be he the king, himself, ever escapes punishment. There is an isle besides, called Bragman, or the Land of Faith, where all men eschew vice, and care not for money; where there is neither wrath, envy, lechery, nor deceit; where no man lies, or steals, or deceives his neighbor; where never a murder has been done since the beginning of time; where there is no poverty, no drunkenness, no pestilence, tempest, or sickness, no war, and no oppression. All these fine countries are under the sway of the magnificent Prester John.

Here, on the borders of that Land of Perpetual Darkness, which stretches away to the Terrestrial Paradise, we take leave of our good knight, now near the end of his travels. "Rheumatic gouts" began to torture his wandering limbs and warn him to go home. He has, indeed, a few more stories to tell; but they are dull in comparison with the wonders we have already recounted. Much more, indeed, he might have written; but he gives a truly ingenuous reason for checking his pen:

"And therefore, now that I have devised you of certain countries which I have spoken of before, I beseech your worthy and excellent nobleness that it suffice to you at this time; for if I told you all that is beyond the sea, another man perhaps, who would labor to go into those parts to seek those countries, might be blamed by my words in rehearsing many strange things; for he might not say any thing new, in which the hearers might have either solace or pleasure."

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