rillegiatura, where they sometimes get the chance of rubbing elbows with a real lord."

But snobbishness is, after all, a form of happiness, and these people are not to be pitied. Let us rather reserve our compassion for the melancholy tourists who have come out of their own place in the vain hope of finding one which will suit them better. These are the folk who carry their own irremediable ennui, by land-ways and water-ways from one end of the world to the other. They try the most varied modes of treat ment for their complaint: they compel it to behold blue skies and grey skies; to breathe the keen air of heaven-kissing peaks, and the salt breezes of ocean. They dose it with saki; they teach it to chew bétel, and smoke opium; they take it to all the casinos and all the caravanseries; the tea-houses and the flower-boats; and it comes out of them all with haggard eyes and leaden complexion, yawning with as deep a conviction as that with which it yawned in the cell.

There are others who suffer less from ennui because what they take with them all over the world, is their own self-satisfaction and contempt of others. Going by French steamers from Hongkong to Singapore, M. Seippel had for travelling-companion a certain Mr. Johnson who was. he assures us, a source of inexhaustible delight. He was a young English gentleman who had settled in Canada. He had remained two days at Hongkong; he proposed to pass four at Java, and two at Sydney and then return directly to Vancouver. A three months' voyage, with nine days ashore-such was his programme.

He was lately married and had with him his young wife who suffered cruelly from sea-sickness. She fainted before they were well out of port. They were a very devoted pair; always sat side by side, and never by any chance, spoke to one another. He smoked his short pipe, drank "whiskey-and-sodas," and read Murray's guide-book. Pale and exhausted, she lay on a heap of cushions and suffered with resignation. Mr.

Johnson was travelling for his own pleasure; which was, of course, more to him than the pleasure of his wife. But in what did the pleasure of Mr. Johnson consist? In discoursing the whole way on the superiority of the English to all other nations. Why then had Mr. Johnson deigned to take passage on a French steamer?

Because he was thereby enabled to stop at Saigon and convince himself, by personal observation, that all French colonies are all misery and lies. His pleasure was damped by the fact that Saigon, according to M. Seippel, is one of the pleasantest towns of the extreme east: with broad, well-kept streets, pretty white houses surrounded by gardens, fine shops and an hotel which has not its equal at Hongkong or Singapore, or anywhere in India. Mr. Johnson had some fried apples there, which he found so delicious, that after clearing the dish he asked for more. But he by no means lowered his crest on account of this transitory humiliation.

The born tourist, the only one who possesses eyes and can produce booksis a very different creature from the victims of boredom, the snobs, and the Johnsons. He is not very keen about science, he does not plume himself on possessing a profound knowledge of geography or history, and if he occasionally displays information, it is not his main object to do so. He is, above all, an impressionist, and what he is after in foreign lands are certain vibrations of his own nerves and brain which he would never have known if he had not quitted his cell. A man's impressions are worth just as much as he himself is worth. If they are to be interesting and noteworthy he must be one who both sees and feels things after a fashion of his own, and can impart what he sees and feels. Above all he must have delicate sensibility united to a keen and active imagination. M. Seippel ought to be satisfied with his own equipment in this regard. His wings quiver like those of a dragonfly, who soars to alight and alights only to soar again. It takes very little to

make him vibrate. Any pretext will do. At Macao he passed some hours of delightful dreaming in the deserted garden where Camoëns composed his "Lusiad," which has now become a consecrated wilderness, glowing with all the splendor of tropical vegetation. He received in that flowery desert an indefinable impression, the like of which had never visited him before in any foreign land. It seemed to him that Camoëns' garden had the majesty of a sanctuary. Strange power of a name over the brain of a poet! For-"Did you ever read the 'Lusiad'?" he asks his reader, "I must confess that I never did." Not only had he never read the "Lusiad" but he had rather dim notions about the hero of the poem, Vasco de Gama, whom he, makes double Cape Horn. But what signifies a trifle like this? A man and garden had captured his heart, and he vibrated.

Serious travellers are supposed never to start for distant countries without much learned preparation. They have read all there is to read, ordered all the authors to stand and deliver, despoiled all the documents, made out their lists of questions to be answered, and problems to be solved. The impressionist traveller makes his preparation too, but after another fashion. He tries to picture to himself the lands he is going to see, he will then have the pleasure of comparing his imaginations with the reality; while the reality serves him as a basis for other images and other dreams.

Il fait du miel de toute chose. Such, at all events, is M. Seippel's method. Before seeing the Far East in the flesh, he had seen it in vision; and, not being of an exacting disposition, he had few disappointments. Usually the reality seemed to him quite as beautiful as the dream, or even more so. He describes with enthusiasm the garden of the old Bouddhas; and recounts with equal spirit and charm his arrival amid pouring rain in the Island of Ceylon; his nocturnal promenade by moonlight, in the jungle which borders Lake Kandy, and all the emotions he expe

rienced in that strange forest, still hot from the day's sunshine, "Where swarms of fire-flies leaped in cheaves of light to the very tops of the trees," where confused murmurs come out of the depths, and there was a perfect riot of "those lascivious plants which are like philtres for secreting strong poisons-priestesses of passion, who spread their shameless corollas in the solitude of the sacred woods, and offer themselves to every passing breeze." Smothered in warm perfumes, his body bathed in sweat, he suffered himself to be caught and snared; he abandoned himself to the dangerous raptures of the great and terrible Maya. Unconscious whether he slept or woke he mingled with the mighty whole, he ceased to have a separate existence; he felt his me slipping away from him. Happily he found it again, and it would have been a great pity if he had not, for it is a bright, genial, refreshing sort of me which must often entertain him greatly.

The tourist is but a passer-by. but a passer-by with a keen and ready intelligence, and a gift and taste for observation does not confine himself to seeing. He comments upon his impressions. He reflects, and it would surprise me very much if the impressions of M. Seippel were not just. Visiting Salt Lake City he notes the decline of Mormonism, and remarks that "if Brigham Young has founded nothing durable in the spiritual order it is because this is the inevitable outcome of a doctrine devoid of ideals." He also went two hours by rail from San Francisco, to visit, in the smiling Sta Clara valley, the university recently created by an American millionaire, the late Leland Stanford, at one time governor of California, who devoted thirty millions of dollars to this foundation. The buildings are luxurious, the installation magnificent, but in this co-educational institution, it is chiefly the girls who study. The boys are keener for sport than for science. The library leaves nothing to be desired in the way of light, heat, and ventilation; the only trouble is that there are more empty shelves than books. Out of twenty

three thousand numbers in the catalogue, ten thousand come under the head of Railways. There is a complete collection of old railway guides: precious documents for a student who wanted to write a thesis on the comparative speed of trains in different parts of the globe. The Museum is an extravagant collection of rubbish acquired, and piously admired by Mr. Stanford. The principal hall contains his own relics, in glass cases, especially two umbrellas-one of alpacca-a humble witness to his laborious beginnings; another of twilled silk, with a gold handle a symbol of the greatness to which he subsequently attained. As he came away from Stanford University M. Seippel jotted down in his memorandum-book: "Nothing can be improvised in the intellectual order, or by the aid of dollars only,” a judicious reflection capable of consoling those idealists who have but a faint hope of ever becoming millionaires.

He saw boys and girls at Nippon going about the streets quite naked, and marvelled how the Japanese could unite so paradisiacal a simplicity of costume, to extreme refinement of manners. It proves, according to him, that the sentiment of modesty is everywhere in inverse ratio to the mean height of the thermometer; and that, all powerful in northern lands, it evaporates appreciably under southern suns, to disappear altogether in the tropics. He complains that these same Japanese laugh at everything, and that their dry and nervous cachinnation rings false to our ears and, in the end, becomes intolerable. He opines that the lachrymal gland must be atrophied among them, for he never saw a tear in all Japan: "Not one-not even in the pretty babies' eyes!" He complains, too, that these people, with their marvellous artistic endowment, ingenious, but too imitative, are going to lose their proper genius through contact with Europeans and replace it by the genius of counterfeit; that "they can make Swedish matches as nicely as the Belgians themselves; but that there is no longer an artist to be found, who can make a truly

beautiful box in gold-lacquer. Finally, he charges them with lack of great commercial qualities, in which respect he finds them inferior to their rivals of the Celestial Empire: says that they lack that fundamental good faith which is the basis of credit; and affirms on the testimony of traders in the Extreme East that the word of a respectable and well-known Chinaman is worth more than the bond of a Japanese, formally signed and sealed. He says that the poor Chinamen, so despised at the present time, have doubtless their little faults; but that China is a country where men respect their mothers and their dead-virtues which atone for a good many defects.

While he was staying in the island of Ceylon among the tea-planters, he saw two Englishmen, tanned by tropic suns, pimpled with whiskey, and beginning to get grey, but stout fellows, who were earnest, impassioned systematic golfplayers. Every day at exactly the same hour, whether it were fine, or blowing a gale, or raining in floods, they got into their toggery-short trousers, long stockings, knitted jackets, and played their game for several hours; never opening their lips except to say damn! when they missed a stroke. M. Seippel has an open mind. He recognizes the fact that whether in labor, politics or sport the distinctive characteristic of the Englishman, is to throw himself wholly into what he is doing; and that this tenacity of purpose, this seriousness in small things no less than in great, this concentrated attention is the secret of their success in colonization, and the prosperity of their colossal empire. But he also notes the fact at Saigon, that while Great Britain treats her subjects like beings of an inferior caste, with gruff hauteur, the yoke of the French appears lighter and more agreeable to the governed.

"The genius of France." he says, "Is less practical doubtless, but more amiable. Let her pursue, at the cost of generous sacrifices, her purpose in the extreme Orient, to the end that a smile may occasionally arise to diminish the frightful distance between the white

man and the yellow!" Impressions like these are worth while, and whatever the glorious Unknown who wrote the "Imitation" may say, it is good sometimes to escape from one's cell.

M. Seippel, who is absolutely without pretension, does not flatter himself that he has penetrated all the secrets either of the Chinese or Japanese soul. To that end it would be needful to know both languages, and such knowledge is no light affair. And even if one had mastered those tongues, the sentiments of the yellow races would present an enigma most difficult to decipher. Consider what difficulty we have with our own! Passers-by see only the façade of the mansion. Its internal arrangements remain unknown. But wherever M. Seippel has found on open window, he has taken a peep inside, and the sketches of souls which he has snatched in this way, are finely touched, and do honor to his pencil.

Once upon Mount Nikko in the burialplace of a hero which had been converted into a garden-a silent, solitary place, he struck up a friendship with a little Japanese maiden who had a feeling heart. Her name was Oharouwhich means Spring. She had undertaken to repair a very small Bouddha which had lost its head. She had picked up the stone ball, put it back in place, and fastened it there with linen bands. To defend the sick Bouddha from the chill of the long rainy nights, she had wrapped it thickly in white cloth. But wishing it also to present a respectable appearance, she had adorned it with a sash, tied in a big bow behind like the one she wore herself. It was the impression of Mlle. Spring that the Bouddha would not be ungrateful for her care, and that in the future life, his nurse would be a great princess. She had very beautiful manners. She turned her toes in when she walked, and could make such fine bows that she touched the ground with the tip of her nose. She offered M. Seippel some late azaleas which she had gathered upon the mountain on purpose for him; and he, in return, presented her with cakes which she did not always finish. He

used to steal them at his hotel; for great friendships often suggest great crimes. He found Oharou exquisite; though he sometimes reproached her with standing too much upon ceremony amid all her springtime graces. She was eight years old; and he permits himself to believe that she was not compromised by their meetings. What a pretty silhouette, or subject for a poem!

three

Much less poetic is the figure of M. Nitchipoura, a kind of universal genius; lawyer, agitator, politician, man-ofletters, journalist, at one time the head of a department in the War Office, but now acting as guide and interpreter, with whom M. Seippel passed months. This lively and nervous little Japanese, with his sallow skin, his small and exceedingly bright black eyes, thin lips and crafty expression, is a man of fashion and of unfailing politeness. So much the better, for he is also hotheaded and high-tempered and it is only in Japan that a man may retain all his polish of manner, even amid transports of rage. This interpreter-guide can turn his hand to anything. His regular business is showing the country to globe-trotters; but in seasons of leisure, he keeps a school at Tokio, or deals in curios, or deals a little in the way of commissions, forwarding, and exportation. Otherwise he writes verses, squibs, or romances; and sometimes virulent articles which obtain him a few months in prison, but by no means sever his connection with the official world. This accomplished creature has a perfect genius for packing. He has not his equal in the art of folding a garment for a trunk; and since he is also well read, highly cultivated, skilled both in holding an argument and narrating an adventure, steeped in the history and legends of his country, his conversation is most Instructive. But one must not believe all he says. He is a boaster-a Gascon; there are a good many of them in Japan. He might say with the Jesuit missionary who had lost his own faith, but continued none the less to face death for the sake of converting savages: "You have no idea what a pleasure it is to

persuade people of what one does not believe oneself!"

In his character of ardent conservative, M. Nitchipoura demands the expulsion of all those foreigners on whom he lives. As a fierce patriot he abhors the Russians, who have compelled Japan to evacuate Corea, and taken the bread out of his mouth. He proposes one day to go and conquer Russia, and on M. Seippel's reminding him of the misadventure of Napoleon I. he replied, without the quiver of an eyelash: "Precisely. We shall avoid his mistake by going to Moscow in the summer."

But no one is perfect, and even M. Nitchipoura has his weakness. He is too fond of rice brandy. A husband and father, he finds pleasure in the society of agreeable mousmés, and of gueschas, or dancing-girls, whose virtue is not of the sternest. He has a passion for play and understands how to repair his fortunes. Once when he had taken a little too much saki, he remarked with a fatuous smile, that he was really too good a player ever to need to cheat. But a man always finds his master sooner or later, and one fine day he lost his last sou to two players better than himself. He was not angry. He never is angry. He only regarded his spoilers with a kind of mournful admiration, and made them endless bows, while promising to resume their little entertainment at no distant day.

Courteous even with men, M. Nitchipoura, who is both Shintoist and Bouddhist, is infinitely polite to all the gods. He never omits the smallest attention to those whose chapels he may chance to pass on the wayside or in the woods. He always carries in his pocket gummed labels, on which he inscribes brief prayers, and applies them after careful licking, to the faces of the gods of fountains, marriage, medicine, merchants, and thieves. What is it that he asks for? That is a secret between them and him. M. Seippel thinks that he adjures them, first to preserve him from cholera of which he has a mortal terror; then to grant him a good digestion, hard cash, the favor of the little gueschas, that of the Japanese Queen of Spades, and the extermination of all

foreigners. "Sometimes," says M. Seippel, "I have found myself gazing fixedly and with a certain anxiety, at this little man, with his exaggerated expression of deference, ready apparently to break himself in two for me. And I have asked myself, 'What sort of a maggot is it, really? It seems to me that the more I see of him the less I know him. Oh, how I should like to open him and look inside!" But he quitted Japan without opening M. Nitchipoura and discovering his secret, and perhaps after all, there was no secret to discover.

Japan, with its eternal smile, and Nitchipoura, cheating, boasting, perorating, praying, and incapable of tears, troubled the soul of M. Seippel. He was quieted, pacified, and reassured when he encountered at Cairo, in the Mussulman university attached to the flourishing-or once flourishing-mosque of El Azhar, Islam personified in a certain aged sheik, grown grey in his professorate, sitting on his heels, with his back against a column and a beautiful turban on his head, holding the Koran in one hand, and caressing with the other the long waves of his flowing beard. This austere doctor, grave and gentle, was expounding the mysteries of the one Book, the source of all knowledge, to a circle of attentive youth, squatted about him on the stones of the sacred pavement and drinking in his instructions with the same concentration with which a camel drinks from a well in the East. The old man would read a verse, comment upon it learnedly, compare it with its context, quote authorities, review controversies, set forth objections, and dispose of them on the authority of the Prophet.

Whenever he touched upon a delicate point, he would sink his voice almost to a whisper, while his eyes seemed to say: "Listen, for here we have the conclusion of the whole matter." And, “Oh, my aged master," says M. Seippel. "how can I ever thank you enough for the happy hours I have passed in listening to words of yours which I did not in the least understand, but of which the slow and solemn music lulled every anxious thought! From your voice,