He wag an old goat visaged Arab, on whose shaven pate the hot sun shone until it glistened like a ball of burnished copper. There he sat with his chin be neath his knees, telling his rosary in the mechanical way that is the result of usage ; for hia finger and thumb continued to roll each bead down the decades, while not a few Iraauus were forgotten between the nods and winks. This was in the middle of September in the Egyptian desert by Tel-el-Kebir. And the old m tu had that day begun his vigil among the dead. For on all sides of him lay dead men who had a few days before fallen beneath British bayonets and bullets. And the dead lay here and there in singles, twos and threes, ou their backs mostly, Mith their arms thrown out and their legs apart; while their dull orbs looked unbhnkingly at the sun in his noonday glory— looking heavenward to Allah, where their battle purged souls lad gone ; and their red blood had blackened in puddles in the sand, where it had oozed from ghastly bullet and bayonet wounds. Poor followers of the prophet, how unmeet you seem now for the blissful oaresaes of tho heavenly houris ! Azreal is a grim spoiler of manly beauty. Why, did those delilahs of the barrack atews but see you now, they would shudder into virtue. And among all the dead men squatted old goat-faced Ishmael, the dehabeeah man — squatted cloBe by his son Muhammud, the soldier. I dismounted, while nay pony eafc a walletful of ship's biscuits, and spoke to old Ishmael. " Father," said I, " salaam t"

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — Who is this peripatetic platform speaker, Mr E. T. Smith, who has no language of his own, but usurps the Linguae of greater men ? I am happy to say I do not know him oven by sight, and would not go the length of my foot either to see or hear him. I am informed he belongs to Birmingham, but I never liked Brummagem ware, for it is mostly tinsel. I defy anyone to point out a single word in any letter T have written on this subject to lead any sensible man — let alone fanatics — to infer thai I am a total abstainer. 