The Dover train would soon start-my bill at the Charing Cross was yet to be paid-still the German wrote on-still he smoked on; and presently another German stole in and whispered a few words and bade him send his greetings to the Stutgardt friend.

I began to feel uncomfortable, this letter I felt might compromise me either in France or in Germany; in fact, it might cost me my life, if it were a treasonable document, at a moment when life was in the hands of the first party of armed men that laid hold of you.

If I took it I was bound at all costs to deliver it. "Is the letter finished yet?" inquired I, rising. "Spare me a quarter of an hour." "Wollen sie sich nicht einen angenblich seizen?" "Well, then, you can call in again," as he saw me not accepting his invitation to sit down for a moment. "Now, be sure you call in again-be sure-and I'll have the letter ready for you," and he looked at me all over with those blue glasses of his. I sauntered out leisurely, strolled up the Strand, paid my bill at the Charing Cross Hotel, and you may be assured never called back for the German's letter. Even on the platform I expected every moment to see his conical felt hat, cherry pipe, blue spectacles, and long thin hand with mysterious letter for the gentleman in Stutgardt. The guard closes the door and we are off. What was he? a police agent, or a member of the Marianne? What was the letter? Where would I now be if I had taken it? Davus sum non Edipus!

The Calais boat was pitching fearfully alongside the pier, as for the tenth time I found myself on board. I must confess that my reflections were not of the most cheering type. The small boys who with ceaseless cries of "Echo, Echo," had seduced me into numberless fresh editions of that journal, had each in turn imparted somewhat of gloom to my mind. Paris!-ah! that was simply death, through the affinity of the crowds of the Boulevards for spies.

Germany-travelling through Fatherland was a sheer impossibility-the trains having been all appropriated for military uses; how I was to work my way into Würtemburg was to me a mystery profound; still, Calais seemed the first step towards arriving at a solution thereof. I had my ticket to Brussels, and soon a perturbed sleep yielded to the gloomy sound of passport, which I heard pronounced close by my ear.

"I am Whelan the jockey, and am engaged to ride a race at Chantilly," quoth a voice, "and you tell me I will not be allowed to land unless I have a passport?"

"Perfectly true," said the steward. "I saw myself three hundred excursionists turned back only yesterday; gloomy enough they looked, too, as their steamer had to put about and return to England; and they but a few minutes before all singing the Marseillaise in chorus as they came alongside the pier; only one of them who had a passport was allowed to land."

"I have an old passport," said a voice, “but I am afraid it would be unsafe to lend it to you, otherwise I should be very glad, as I have a new one also."

"This is pleasant," muttered Mr. Whelan; and as the tramping of feet, the cessation of rolling, and the shore lights told that the voyage was over, in my own anxiety to get ashore, and in the bustle of the scrutiny of passports, the flashing lamps held to the paper, and the searching glances cast upon one's own face, I quite forgot Mr. Whelan the jockey, and whether he ever landed or not is still unknown to me.

Although baggage was registered to Brussels, I succeeded in getting it with the mate's assistance, and passed the night in the hotel at the station. About six in the morning I telegraphed to Boulogne to ascertain if my old Sardinian friend Maud was stopping at the Hotel de Louvre. An ominous notice that private matters had to yield the pas to official business, gave me an anticipation of what was to follow.

Sauntering into the town, a proclamation of M. le Maire, calling upon his fellow citizens to respect strangers and desist from acts of violence towards them, gave me rather a vivid impression of the pleasure of wandering by night through Calais. One o'clock has arrived. I repair to the telegraph office. "Rien, m'sieur, rien pour M. Craig." A thought strikes me, I produce my card. "Oh! oui, oui, une depeche pour M. Duncan," and the clerk hands me the telegram. I found out afterwards that it is

safe to give only one's surname when sending a message.

"Delighted to see you come at once." I act upon the summons, and evening sees me in the comfortable Hotel de Louvre gazing upon the river's water, and viewing across the bridge the tricolor floating in the midst of a little band of moblots, who, led by a marvellously stout man with a faded black hat, are chanting the Marseillaise as they march across the bridge. Shade of Rouget de Lisle-how thy Marseillaise reverberates through France now. The first dawn of morning, it breaks upon the ear—at breakfast, it is thundered forth-at dinner, it is discordantly proclaimed by two aged fiddlers, who stand at the table d'hote-at night, it wakens me from slumber-it mingles with the screams of the locomotives it issues from the decks of shipping by the quay-small boys howl it-children render it in shrill falsetto-deep bass voices chant it, as those well set-up young Moblots march for the railway station, when, surrounded by weeping sisters, and wives, and mothers, these poor fellows strive to keep back the tears that fain must flow.

Apropos of the Marseillaise, it is asserted that in 1848 an avocat, who had brought up by hand two broods of blackbirds, succeeded in teaching them this tune, and then gave them their liberty. Soon the music of Rouget de l'Isle resounded through the groves of Mondaye in Calvados, the very blackbirds caught the strain-alas! France was not allowed to use its melody ere long-and the birds, faithful to

their proscribed chant, fell before the forest guards' fusils. One solitary survivor, oft in the green woods of Mondaye, thrilled still the prohibited chanson, but alas, grown white in plumage, it one day shared the sad fate of its companions.

The French fishing-luggers are truly fine nurseries for their war marine. I watched one of them rounding in the light-house pier, a powerful boat decked over, spreading three large lug sails from the taut yards that rose from the low masts. "These poor fellows," said my friend, "have only just returned from Scotland, where they have been engaged in herring fishing; they lost no time in starting as soon as they heard of the war being proclaimed; they thought to get clear away to their fishing grounds, but I fear they will soon be marched away to Paris."

The lugger ran alongside the quay, and soon a crowd of wives and children surrounded the men, who, as soon as they had placed their trains of coarse nets in a long waggon and seen them depart, left their craft in company with their wives, not, however, before a tall gendarme had come round to each, and gave him notice that his services would very soon be required at Paris.

At Kinsale during the spring and summer, from St. Patrick's day, till about the middle of July, we are visited by the French, Cornish, Jersey, and Manx fishing-luggers. The French boats lie farther out to sea, and only run into our beautiful little harbour whenever they want provisions, or are