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Alas! how changed from the fair scene, When birds sang out their mellow lay, And winds were soft, and woods were green, And the song ceased not with the day.

But still wild music is abroad,

Pale, desert woods! within your crowd; And gathering winds, in hoarse accord, Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.

Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear
Has grown familiar with your song;
I hear it in the opening year,
I listen and it cheers me long.

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A TURKISH COFFEE-HOUSE.

had been a hot day in July, the hottest month of the year in Turkey, when we went forth, close upon sundown, to enjoy a cheerful ride in the suburbs of the town where we were residing, and to inhale a few mouthfuls of the pleasant evening breeze, which, as though infected with the general lassitude, crept languidly along the tops of trees and the surface of the river. The Moslem part of the population were rigidly observing their annual fast of the Ramadan, which precludes them for the space of a new moon from indulging, from sunrise to sundown, in even a drop of water to assuage their thirst. During the daytime, the streets had been deserted and noiseless; but now that the hour for breaking the fast was nigh at hand, everything was bustle and confusion. Shrill voices of angry and hungry women scolding within doors, famished children screaming without, sedate-looking long-bearded Turks hustling and jostling each other in the streets some running, some walking, and all talking-presented altogether a most ludicrous and novel spectacle, and one very much at variance with the ordinary decorum observed in oriental towns. Each man was as anxious as his neighbor to emerge from the confined and close streets into the open freshness of the suburbs, and there amuse himself until the warning cry from the minaret's top should apprise him of the agreeable fact that Sol had taken his departure for the day, and that he was consequently at liberty to eat, drink, and smoke as much as he liked till sunrise next morning.

On arriving at the gates of the town, the crowd was so dense as to impede for a few minutes our outward progress. Rushing forward, however, we galloped

into the open country, and, following the banks of a winding river, arrived in a few minutes at the desired point toward which the multitudes we had encountered were hastening with all possible speed. This was a noted Turkish coffee-house, celebrated among the Moslems for furnishing exquisite Mocha coffee and the very best procurable tobacco and timbuc-all three luxuries to the Turk, and articles of which he alone may be said to be a connoisseur. The keeper of this coffee-house was himself a strict hadji; he had twice performed the pilgrimage to the Prophet's tomb, and had consequently been dubbed with the title and assumed the garb to which such a pilgrimage entitled him, namely, a green turban and a green sash. Much respected was the hadji Achmet by all the Moslems, and very much dreaded by others. He was a thorough revolutionist, and at his coffee-house many had been the tumults planned and plotted. We, however, being Europeans, were rather held in terrorem by him than otherwise, for we could write, and had elchis (embassadors) at Stamboul. Although, therefore, his blind fanaticism caused him to detest us, fear made him pretend to love. He never, however, would open his coffee-house by day during the Ramadan, and declared he would not do so for a bagful of golden coins.

On the present occasion the doors had just been opened as we alighted, and some score of servants and hangers-on (who worked for the consideration of a cup of coffee) were busily occupied ranging all kinds of seats in front of the coffee-house for the anxious Mussulmans. Charcoal fires were being lit by dozens, to supply lights for the various smokers. Water, too, by caldronfuls, was boiling; while diminutive coffee-pots and firepans, brightly scoured up, were ranged in martial array upon all kinds of sideboards. Then came the important operation of loading some fifty or sixty pipes, so as to be prepared for the general assault that was expected in a very few minutes' time. While all this was going on, the open doors were barricaded with cross-bars, so as to prevent the castle being taken by storm, which it certainly would have been but for this precaution. Matters being thus arranged, the coffee-house keeper, after scrutinizing his citadel like a careful general, prepared water for his ablutions, and spread his carpet ready for his evening devotions.

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Meanwhile, the banks of an adjoining | Old gentlemen with long gray beards, and river were lined with an expectant people. As soon as the muezzin cry resounded from the minaret, giving the signal that the fast was over, a mighty splashing was heard in the stream, as though a dozen water-wheels had suddenly started into play. After this, all was silent for the space of ten minutes; but no sooner had the required forms been gone through, than the air was rent with such acclamations of delight as a parcel of schoolboys might evince on being suddenly let loose for a holiday. Having left the river, on they came helter-skelter, "first come, first served" being the pass-word for the day.

portly withal, ran as though their lives depended upon the race. The seats were soon rapidly filled, and every inch of ground occupied; those who were furthest off and last in the race beckoning frantically to their more fortunate friends to secure places for them. Meanwhile the coffeeshop keeper and his servants enjoyed anything but a sinecure. The demands of the guests were incessant. Some wanted fire, some coffee, some wished their pipes replenished; and as the crowd increased, so the noise and the shouting became more clamorous. Hemmed in on all sides, the servants, with extended pipes in hands,

would shout," Who wants this?" while a host of voices would quickly reply, "I do! I do!" "O! give it to me, Mustapha!" One would clamor for a preference on the score that he was a better patron of the coffee-house than others; another on account of his age; a third on the ground of his rank; while the scuffle usually terminated in the last-comer availing himself of the turmoil to whisper to some friend to hand him over the pipe, and so getting possession of the much-coveted delicacy. There was one very stout old gentleman who must have lived at the further end of the town, judging from his late arrival; but to see him running and puffing along the banks of the river was really, in connection with the rest of the scene, worthy of the pencil of a Hogarth. When he did arrive, however, he was more fortunate than his neighbors, for many of the firstcomers had satiated themselves and were returning to their wives and families, so that there was ample room for all. After smiling at this ludicrous spectacle, we remounted our nags and cantered into the town again, for the dark mists of night were rapidly gathering around.

"This is a strange method of doing penance-a curious picture of fasting and affliction," observed the friend who accompanied us, on once more regaining the gates of the town. "It is only the commencement," we replied, "of a series of amusements."

Accordingly, after partaking of our evening repast, we proceeded to the bazaar, where everything betokened festivity and mirth. As though ashamed that daylight should witness such gambols, the night was converted into the period for indulging in a variety of childish games. The streets were illuminated, and so were the mosque and the minarets. The coffee-houses resounded with discordant Arab music, and dances were a-foot. Amid the uncertain gloom a huge camel would protrude himself into the scene of revelry, and stretching out his long neck, commit a felony on some man's store of sugar-cane. Gaylycaparisoned horses and riders were numerous, and the vailed women thronged to and fro, talking, laughing, and commenting on all they saw or heard. Whirligigs, as they term them, and other swings, were not wanting, neither was there any lack of confectionery and good cheer. Thus the Moslems passed that night, and thus

they passed every night of the thirty constituting the Ramadan.

It often happens that the Ramadan, which is a moveable fast, falls on the very hottest month of the year, and then the sufferings of the more bigoted and strict Moslems must be intense, especially in places like Cairo, where the thermometer often stands at 1000 Fahrenheit in the shade. The more wealthy and rigorous observers of this fast usually confine themselves to the precincts of their houses, where they sleep away the livelong day, or else seek shelter in the dampest vaults and cellars in the neighborhood. Most acute, however, must be the agony of thirst suffered by the poorer classes, whom necessity compels to attend to their every-day avocations. These poor benighted creatures, especially in the larger towns inhabited by mixed populations, are exposed to momentary temptations to break through the rigid observance of the penance imposed upon them by their false prophet. They see the Christian population indulging themselves, while they are prohibited from taking relief till the sun has set.

When a Turk travels, or is sick, he is exempted from the observance of this fast, with the stipulation that when recovered, or when arrived at his journey's end, he shall make amends for the privilege enjoyed. Of late years, however, there are hundreds in every Moslem town who are hypocrites, and who, while they make every outward demonstration of a mind and body afflicted, secretly revel in all the indulgences of this life, at the same time that they are nothing loth to join in the nocturnal carousals already described.

The scene which we have thus painted from actual observation carries, we need hardly say, its own obvious lesson. It wants that which constitutes the element of a true religious fast-unfeigned sorrow for sin. How different in all respects is it from the ordinance which the pen of inspiration has drawn :—

"Is not this the fast that I have chosen?
To loose the bands of wickedness,
To undo the heavy burdens
And to let the oppress'd go free,
And that ye break every yoke?
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry,
And that thou bring the poor that are cast out
to thy house?

When thou seest the naked, that thou cover

him;

And that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

MILITARY STRATAGEMS.

THERE is preserved in

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the Imperial Library at Paris a manuscript entitled "Tractatus de re Militare et de Machinis Bellicis," written about A. D. 1630 or 1640, at the time when gunpowder was beginning to come into use. It is illustrated with pictures, and remained a long time unknown in the seraglio at Constantinople. It was sent to France in 1688 by M. de Girardin, embassador at the Porte. Among the stratagems of war which the author describes, there are two which are quite singular, one of which is a dog ringing a bell in an abandoned fortress. This stratagem was employed when one of the two sentinels who were guarding the place had died, and the other was pressed with hunger. The survivor, being obliged to abandon his post to procure food, tied a hungry dog to one end of a cord, the other end of which was connected with a bell of the tower. He then placed water and meat near him, but just beyond his reach. The efforts made by the dog to obtain the food ring the bell, and the sentinel takes the opportunity to go out and get provisions.

Another cut in this curious volume represents dogs employed against cavalry. "Mastiffs or bull-dogs," says the writer,

"are often trained for this purpose. They are taught to bite the enemy furiously. It is necessary that these dogs should be encased in leather, for two reasons: first, that the fire which they carry in a brazen vase may not injure themselves; and secondly, that they may be less exposed to the strokes of the soldiers when the horses have fled in their agony of pain. This brazen vase, daubed with a resinous substance, and furnished with a sponge filled with spirits of wine, produces a glowing fire. The horses, tormented by the bites of the dogs and the heat of this fire, flee in disorder."

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FALCONE

F_R2C

THE SHIPWRECK.

ALCONER was a sailor; but he has given us the finest poem in the language on the sea and its perils. He describes a real scene, and, alas for the poor mariner poet! it was to be exemplified again in his history, for he at last perished at sea. His description of the wreck is grand and powerful. We give its best passages. The scene is Cape Colonna, on the shores of Greece.

Foams the wild beach below with madd'ning

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| Her giant bulk the dread concussion feels, And, quivering with the wound, in torment reels:

So reels, convulsed with agonizing throes,
The bleeding bull beneath the murd'rer's
blows;-

Again she plunges! hark! a second shock
Tears her strong bottom on the marble rock:
Down on the vale of Death, with dismal cries,
The fated victims, shuddering, roll their eyes
In wild despair; while yet another stroke,
With deep convulsion, rends the solid oak:
Till like the mine, in whose infernal cell
The lurking demons of destruction dwell,
At length asunder torn, her frame divides,
And crashing spreads in ruin o'er the tides.

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