XI.

Berde pia Giouaue.

I KNEW at Cairo, too, another youth, whom I was sure was a Verde. I thought him brother of the good Verde Giovane, but he denied all relationship, although I am convinced he was at least first cousin. Possibly, you know not the modesty of the Indian Englishman.

It was in the same dining-room, and the youth was expatiating to Major Pendennis upon his braving the desert dangers from Suez, of his exploits of heroism, and endurance upon the Nile voyage, which he had already made, and was again projecting, and generally of things innumerable, and to lesser men insuperable, undergone or overborne.

"And up the Nile, too," said he, "I carried no bed, and slept upon the bench; over the desert I go with one camel, and she carries every thing. Why will men travel with such retinues, caring for their abominable comfort;" and the young gentleman ordered his nargileh.

"But, my dear sir," said Major Pendennis, "why rough it here upon the Nile? It is harder to do that than to go comfortably. You might as well rough it through England. The bottle, if you please."

"Why, Major," returned the youth, smiling in his turn, and crowding his body into his chair, so that the back of his head rested upon the chair-back, "it is well enough for some of you, but we poor East India subalterns! Besides, you know, Major, discipline-not only military, which is in our way, but moral. For what says the American poet, who, I doubt not, lives ascetically in some retired cave:

"Know how sublime a thing it is

To suffer and be strong."

So saying, the young man clapped his hands, and a Hindoo boy in his native costume appeared. The youth addressed some words to him in an unknown tongue, which produced no effect until he pointed to his nargileh, and rising at the same time, the slave removed the nargileh a few steps toward his master, who curled up his feet and prepared to suffer and be strong in the sofa

corner.

By this time Galignani and the French news were entirely uninteresting to me. Who this was?-this personage who modestly styled himself we "poor East India subalterns," and summoned Hindoo servants to turn round his nargileh, and hob-nobbed with Major Pendennises, and who suffered and was strong in such pleasant ways.

Major Pendennis shoving his chair a little back, said, "When I was in the East," and compared experience of travel with his young friend.

The Major, truly a gallant gentleman, related the Roman hardihood of those British officers who advance into the heart of Hindostan and penetrate to Persia, reclining upon cushioned camels, resting upon piles of Persian carpets on elevated frameworks under silken tents, surrounded by a shining society of servants and retinue, so that, to every effective officer, every roaring and rampant British Lion of this caliber, go eight or ten attendant supernumeraries, who wait upon his nargileh, coffee, sherbet, and pale ale, and care generally for his suffering and strength.

In the dim dining-room, I listened wondering to these wild tales of military hardship sung by a soldier-poet. I fancied as the periods swelled, that I heard the hoary historian reciting the sparkling romance of Xerxes' marches and the shining advance of Persian arms. But no sooner had the Major ceased his story, than "we poor East India subalterns" "took up the wondrous tale."

The Howadji weltered then in a whirlpool of brilliant confusion. Names of fair fame bubbled up from the level tone of his speech, like sudden sun-seeking fountains from bloom-matted plains. I heard Bagdad, Damascus, Sinai, and farther and fairer, the Arabian Gulf, Pearls and Circassians. I knew that he was telling of where he had been, or might have been, or wished to have been. The rich romance reeled on. The fragrant smoke curled in heavier clouds. I felt that my experience was like a babe unborn, beside that of this mighty man, who knew several things, and had brushed the bloom from life with

D*

the idle sweep of his wings, and now tossed us the dull rind for our admiring.

The silence of the room was only more rapt by his voice meshing about our attention its folds of fascination, when the good Verde Giovane, who sat next to me, and who, I fear, was not lending that length of admiring ears, of which he was certainly capable, suddenly asked the subaltern, "Pray, is the tobacco you are smoking—”

"Pardon me, sir, this is not tobacco. I am smoking coffee leaves."

Unhappy Giovane! The subaltern looked upon him with eyes that said, "Unworthy fellow-countryman, do you imagine that men live a brace of years in the H. E. I. C.'s service and then smoke tobacco-talk of Arabia and pearls, and yet smoke tobacco-of Circassians and Lahore, and still smoke tobacco ?"

In the amazement of that interruption the last whiff of the smoke of coffee leaves curled scornfully away over Giovane's diminished head. Hands were clapped again, servants appeared and replaced with a chibouque the Persian nargileh of the disciplinarian.

The mere American Howadji was fascinated with the extent and variety of knowledge acquired by the "poor subalterns." "Never," mused he, in a certain querulousness of spirit, "never, until we too have an H. E. I. C., can we hope to rear, such youths as this. Happy country, im

perial England, that at home fosters

young men like my

excellent Verde Giovane, and in distant India, a race of

Verdes, piu Giovane.

The "poor subaltern" gradually melted, and at length even smiled benignly upon Giovane, as he suddenly clapped his hands again and summoned the Hindoo. Verde, do you smoke paper?" inquired he.

"Mr.

"No-why-yes, I should be very happy,” replied the appalled Giovane, who told me later, that he considered the subaltern a right "jolly" fellow, with a "stunning" way with him, in which latter half of praise I was entirely of Verde's opinion.

Turning to his servant, the youth said something probably in refined Hindostanee, which the boy, speaking only a patois, of course could not understand. But "make a cigarette" in pure English, resembled his patois to that degree that he understood at once, and rolled the cigarette, which the youth handed to Giovane with an air of majestic forgiveness, and then taking a candle, he left the room, wishing us good night, as who should say, "My Lords, farewell;" leaving the party still as champagne when the gas has bubbled briskly away.

And yet, with that unmistakable family likeness, he could deny that he was of the great Verde family!

The mental shock of subsiding into my own thoughts, at once, after that evening would have been too much. I therefore sought to let myself down by delicate degrees, and thinking that I had seized a volume of Hafiz, I stepped upon the balcony to read by moonlight songs of love and wine. But I found that I had a natural history by an unknown Arabian author. My finger was on this passage

"This is a species of the John Bull which now for the