the blindness of her self-sacrifice to honour and truth, and the memory of her mother. You may compel her to marry you, and you may break her heart, but never, living or dead, will I enrich' She ceased speaking, for now Violet Maybrook's tall and graceful form appeared on the threshold. If she had overheard the dowager's last words, her power of commanding her own features must have been very great, so absolute was the graceful calm with which she entered. There was a moment of dead silence. Violet looked from one face to another, and the evident agitation of all present seemed for the first time to impress itself upon her. 'I beg your pardon, Lady Livingston,' she said, 'for what I fear is an intrusion. I had better go.' And she turned to withdraw, but with a quiet dignity of demeanour that might have graced a princess. Lady Livingston's nerves, however, had by this time been strung to such a state of tension that she broke through that icy crust of social decorum which imprisons us all more or less, and spoke her mind. 'Don't go, my dear. We have not been talking secrets. At all events, I, for one, do not care how many know the truth. Here is Sir Frederick Dashwood, your old acquaintance in Canada, my kinsman, to my sorrow-you know what he is-in debt to whoever is fool enough to trust him, picking up what he can anyhow, without caring whether there are tears or blood on the gold he pockets at the play-table-yes, Fred Dashwood, I have heard of your cheating and robbing of beardless boys, though never did I "traduce" you to Beatrice, as you falsely said-and bad and black as badness and blackness can be. Well, it seems Beatrice Fleming's poor dear mother had a wish that her girl and her sister's boy should come together; and so-and so-in fact there was an engagement and a promise that binds Beatrice, as a steel handcuff might do, but sits very lightly_on yonder gentleman, I will be bound. Why, Violet, now I think of it, it is as likely as not he may have offered marriage, or something of the sort, to yourself across the sea there. You are a pretty girl, and it is possible.' "Possible!' Violet said no more; but her tone and the light in her kindling eye were such as awed the old peeress into momentary silence. Dashwood broke in with an oath and a stamp of his foot. 'In the fiend's name, madam,' he said to Lady Livingston, 'have you not done mischief enough? Was ever man worse treated when he came, honestly, to ask for his own? You always hated me-hated me when I was a boy no higher than that table, though I own I am under money obligations to you, and be hanged to them! I'm not ashamed of what I have done to-day; and since you choose to take Miss Maybrook into your counsels-well, all I can say is, you shall not have a monopoly of outspeaking. There is an old engagement between Beatrice and myself-that's true. It was her mother's wish that we should marry- -that's true too. I have come to claim the fulfilment of the promise, and I find myself received as if I were suspected of an intention to steal her ladyship's spoons. I'll be bound that I should have met with a different sort of greeting if I had been a smooth-faced, mealy-mouthed hypocrite like her ladyship's favourite, the model, the faultless man, that Oswald Charl' But now Beatrice, whose strength of nerve had been sorely tried, sank back, half-swooning, in her chair, and her deathly-white face and her emotion were as a revelation to the baronet. "That shot went home, did it!' he cried in coarse exultation. This, then, explains the meaning of this delicate creature's shuddering repugnance, forsooth, to a man whom handsomer women have not thought quite so badly of! So, she was philandering with yonder fellow, was she, when she pleaded to me so prettily to release her from her solemn promise! I see it all now.' Î 'So do I,' said Violet Maybrook, stepping proudly forward. Sir Frederick Dashwood, I congratulate you on the exquisite delicacy of your sense of honour, and on the exhibition of your noble nature with which you have kindly furnished us. At present, however, my best attention is due to Miss Fleming. You have reduced her to a fainting state, I see, and when she shall be fortunate enough to be Lady Dashwood, we can imagine, I should say, what sort of wedded happiness will be hers.' And without another word or look, she turned away, and took Beatrice's cold hands in hers, chafing them tenderly as she bent over her. Lady Livingston rang the bell sharply. 'Shew Sir Frederick Dashwood to the door!' she said; he must never be allowed to pass it again; do you hear? He has insulted Miss Fleming-insulted me; and the servant who admits him forfeits his place as the penalty of disobedience. I wish you, Sir Frederick, good-morning and good-bye; and the dowager swept a courtesy in the grand old fashion of her youth. "While I live, you shall not cross this threshold.' "That While she lives!' snarled the baronet, as he strode savagely down the carriage-drive. would not be overlong, I know, if a wish could | kill! CHAPTER XXI. IN JEKYL STREET. The house which Sir Frederick Dashwood had inherited from his grandfather stood, it has been said, in Jekyl Street, and was a goodly mansion, though of somewhat of a gloomy order of architecture. Jekyl Street itself, once the favourite with men of rank and fortune, has sorely fallen from its high estate, nor do the bulk of its present inhabitants bear names familiar to the student of Dod or Debrett. But the houses remain, and they are spacious dwellings, with an allowance of elbow-room in their broad staircases and ample drawing-rooms that might provoke the envy of many a resident in districts sacred to the newest fashion. He Sir Frederick passed very much of his time at his club, and certainly his inducements to remain at home were few, but it so happened that on the morning of the day following Sir Frederick's visit to the Fountains, and his formal proposals to Beatrice, the master of the house in Jekyl Street found himself at home. was in low spirits, and soda and brandy,' though the soda-water was Schweppe's, and the brandy of the finest French vintage, had failed to drive dull care away. He had been trying to write; torn letters, or the commencement of letters, petulantly torn to shreds before six lines had been traced, strewed the table. He had been thinking, and that was worse, for there was little that was pleasant in his thoughts, whether of the been induced to own him as a cousin. But at this moment the lady entered, throwing up her veil as she did so. It was Violet Maybrook, whose stern, beautiful face was revealed. 'Oh, all right-didn't expect,' said Dashwood, hurriedly rising. You may shut the door, Buz past or of the present; and as for the future, that Surely all would be right in the end. The dowager had been very positive and very peremptory; but had he not often known instances when the most loudly avowed resolutions had come to nothing. Yes; there must be some available method of turning the enemy's flank, and of becoming ruler, in right of his wife, over Heavitree and all its adjuncts. Beatrice had admitted his pretensions too often, and too explicitly, to go back from her word now. Perhaps the intervention of a third person would have efficacy with the old peeress. There were certain friends of his mother's yet alive, and who gave him from their carriages a cold bow of recognition when he rode in the Park. Of these, the most distinguished was the Marchioness of Blunderbore, at whose house he had been a frequent guest, until he got to vote her parties slow; and she, the marchioness, was a soft-hearted woman, with the ordinary instincts of a matchmaker. Should he go to Brobdingnag Square, and enlist Lady Blunderbore on his side? With her for an ambassadress, he might bring the autocrat of the Fountains to hear reason. And she would help him, if he went frankly to her. He was sure of that. The marchioness was of more malleable stuff than was the Duchess of Snowdon. Her Grace of Snowdon was of another mould. Her, he would not have dared to approach. On his return from Canada, she had cut him dead, once and again, not in the nervous manner in which matrons of inferior station feign elaborately not to see a man whom they will know no longer, but without any sign of doubt in those cold, clear eyes of hers. No; the duchess and some other dames had weighed him, and condemned him, and nailed him, morally, to the social counter, as a bad shilling, a dull, useless, leaden impostor, whose base metal should pass current no longer. But good-natured Lady Blunderbore would give him another chance. 'A lady, Sir Frederick!' murmured the old butler, breaking in upon his master's reverie. 'A lady, you fool? What lady, and what does she want with me?' snapped out Dashwood. He was often rough with the old servitor, who had drawn so many corks for his grandfather, the founder of the Dashwood family, although it must be remembered that, through the race of Flemings to which his noble mother had belonged, Sir Frederick could count kindred with many magnates, who would scarcely, under the severest cross-examination, have But Violet did not take the chair which the baronet offered her, and put aside his proffered hand with a gesture of quiet contempt. Then she cast her eyes around, taking a cool and composed survey of every object in the roomthe pictures, the well-worn Turkey carpet, the heavy furniture, the cumbrous clock ticking on the black marble of the chimney-piece, the incredible monstrosities of Georgian porcelain that flanked it a brace of Arcadians in china tending impossible sheep in ridiculous attitudes, but which had once been lauded as 'equal to anything those French fellows could turn out from that Sèvres they brag so about'-the vat of an inkstand, the gilt-handled fire-irons, the Books of Beauty, the pistol-case, the torn letters. It is natural,' she said bitterly, that I should like to make myself acquainted with what should have been my home. The house may be shut against me, very probably, when Miss Fleming is your wife and its mistress. This is Pray, enlighten my colonial ignorance it is not a library, and hardly a drawing-room.' 'It's only the room in which the governor-Sir George-used to see his patients,' he replied, reddening, for he was not fond of being reminded of the medical origin of his title; and I sit here merely because I must be somewhere in this old prison of a house.' 'It is not a cheerful dwelling-place,' said Miss Maybrook, continuing her survey; 'a very Temple, I should say, of Ugliness. Here, then, you and your cousin are to play at love in a cottage? May I be occasionally admitted to witness your domestic felicity?' 'Violet !' he exclaimed, fixing his eyes full upon her face. What could I do? Put yourself in my place for one instant. What could I do?' "You could keep your word, perhaps,' answered Miss Maybrook with cruel composure. You have had a lesson read to you on that point. Here is Beatrice, shuddering at your very touch, yet ready to go, like Iphigenia, to the sacrifice, from pure unselfish inability to face the consequences of a lie. Have you no pledge to bind you? Do you, in truth, belong to yourself? Is there in the world no woman who has bartered every hope of heaven for your love and your plighted faith, and who is scarcely one to allow herself to be cheated out of the price of what she has given up?' 'Be rational, Violet!' Dashwood began; but she silenced him by a wave of her hand. 'Be rational!' She repeated his words scornfully. 'Never does a man tender that advice to a woman save in extenuation of his own selfishness. It is not to our reason that you appeal when you would win us. The jilted love, the cast-off mistress, are bidden to be rational, to take a sensible view of the conduct of him who has grown tired of his toy, and would fling it behind him for ever! What is it to me that you would find Miss Fleming's fortune, when she gets it, a convenient lifebuoy to which to cling after the wreck of your own prospects; or how can you expect me gracefully to withdraw from the scene in your favour It is for you, Sir Frederick, to speak your mind upon these points. Mine you know already.' And you are welcome to the truth, if you will hear it,' said the baronet, walking slowly to and fro, with downcast eyes and knitted brow, as is the wont of many men when some unwonted emotion masters them. I'm bad enough, and too bad; but you are harder with me, Violet, about this matter than is quite fair. You don't suppose that I would not sooner marry you, if only I could, than fifty such girls as that pale little thing at the Fountains! It is sheer beggary, the worst beggary of all, that of a gentleman who never in his life learned to earn an honest sixpence, which goads me on. I sell myself for a maintenance. Women do that every day, and you don't judge your own sex so very harshly when they marry to secure a roof over their heads and bread to eat. It is only when a man does the same thing that you call him vile and mercenary. As for my promise to you, how am I to keep it? The announcement in the Morning Post of "Marriage in High"-no, but "Fashionable Life," as I am only a baronet-yes, of a wedding in which the principals were Fred Dashwood and Violet Maybrook, would be as fatal as a death-warrant. I do believe the Behemoth you don't know of whom I talk, a money-lending Jew Baron, to whom I belong as completely as this flower in my button-hole belongs to mewould have me arrested as we walked out of church, on the very steps of St George's, Hanover Square. Fellows can be tapped on the shoulder and clapped into jail on mesne process yet, in the old way, if a creditor chooses to swear that they are likely to flee the kingdom. And, grant that I am left at liberty, how would you enjoy your life as Lady Dashwood, without credit for a gown-piece or a hired brougham, dunned at one moment, denied at another, until you came at last to feel every "No, my lady," or "Sorry to refuse your ladyship," as a distinct insult, and grew to loathe the jingle of your useless title? I do, I know that. Nobody addresses me as Sir Frederick without something of a covert sneer at the pranked-out pauper whose very servants are his creditors, and who eats, drinks, and sleeps on sufferance.' He was very much in earnest now, and his very voice gave evidence of his sincerity. You should have thought of all this long ago,' she said reproachfully, but in a voice that was perceptibly softer than before. How could I?' retorted Dashwood sullenly. 'How could I guess that the doting old miser would leave nothing worth mentioning behind him? If I had only looked forward to this, one short year ago, I should not have been quite so eager about the succession, and Charley might' Hush! There are names that must not be spoken, lest they wake the dead!' interrupted Violet, so wildly that Dashwood stared at her aghast, as if doubtful whether her reason remained unshaken. You had better let me forget, if I can, the innocent face of the boy that loved me well; the sunny eyes that laughed as they met mine; the golden curls that lay, all drenched and wet, upon the pillow, when the searchers came home at last to lay their light burden in the little cot where he had slept in life! Your careless words, Frederick, conjure up more visions before me than it is good to remember.' 'You are agitated, Violet, and hardly know what you say, my girl,' said Sir Frederick, whose bronzed cheek had blanched to an unusual pallor. 'I beg your pardon, I am sure, if I was inconsiderate in my speech. But I can't-no, hang it! I cannot pick my words at such a time as this, and baited and harried as I am. You see that pistol-case? Well, five minutes ago, I sat hesitating, with a revolver in my hand; and, on my word, I think I was a fool not to end my troubles by a touch of the trigger. What have you come here to do? Not, surely, to upbraid me? I am miserable enough without that. Or, perhaps, it was to threaten? You can ruin me, of course, and might not care very much for consequences; but I am getting so weary of my life, that I might as well lose it in one way as another.' 'As if the loss of life were all !? exclaimed Violet, with glittering eyes. How would you confront the ordeal that goes before death--the horror, the hate of all men; the pitiless stare of a crowd greedy of a new sensation; the curses of the mob, as a surging sea of human beings boils and seethes around the' I cannot bear this!' burst out Dashwood with an oath. Do you want to force me to marry you, under a direct menace to drag me down with you to despair and death, unless I yield up my own free choice in the matter? I may as well know it at once, if this be so. You have my promise'---- Your written promise, Sir Frederick,' said Violet more composedly than before; worded, as you know, at my dictation, and which is the talisman by which I can mould you to my will. If I like to hold you to your bargain, I can, by a fearful forfeiture, compel you to fulfil it. Why should I be content to wait, to remain what I am, Miss Maybrook, companion to the Right Honour able old woman by whose kind permission I have leave of absence for a few hours? You would fail to understand me, Fred, if I told you that it was my womanly pride that proved your staunchest safeguard, after all. I won't drag a husband to the altar. I will not say to a man--at least to-day, for women are variable in their moods, you know,' she added, with a laugh, of which the tone was not a mirthful one-you must own me as your wife, or die upon the scaffold. I hardly know now what was my purpose in coming here to-day. Had I found you as you once were, with your old air of languid, high-bred indifference to all earthly considerations but your own comfort, I might have been irritated into doing what I should afterwards have been sorry for. I do care for you a little, yet-often as I have striven to tear the imprint of your false, fair face from this ungoverned heart-often as ' She said no more, but there were bright tears shining in her proud eyes, and Dashwood felt some sparks of the old love rekindle in his own heart as he saw them. Look here, Violet, my darling!' he said, springing to her side, and passing his arm around her waist; if you'll take me as I am, I'll be as good as my word. The dowager, and the dowager's property, and Beatrice, and the Behemoth, may all be whistled down the wind, my girl, for aught I care. Come; we'll be married, and go abroad before the thing is blown, and trust to better luck and our own wits for the future. Who knows but-such things might be I might not become a decent fellow, with your help, at the last!' e Why did not Violet's good angel, if, indeed, as Asiatics dream, such a spirit were whispering in her ear, give her counsel that should override the advice of that other angel, armed by her pride, to whom she hearkened, or why did she not take the man at his word? For the moment, he was sincere. For the moment, he was scarcely selfish. Later on, no doubt, he would have repented of his sudden choice of poverty, and the companionship of this beautiful and daring girl, who had given such terrible proof of her fondness for him; but for the moment he was ready to give up all for her sake. But she was angry with him, angry with herself for the weakness she had displayed; and with the waywardness of her sex, she shook herself free from his hold. the Spaniards was the church of St John the Baptist, an edifice approached through a court of Cypress-trees, amid which rose a handsome fountain, covered with a canopy supported by eight marble pillars. The interior of the church excited the admiration of the visitors, its lofty walls and roof being lavishly decorated with very small stones, covered with gold, blue, red, white, and green The seats were of enamel, very beautiful to see. carved wood, and between each stood a brazier filled with ashes, for the convenience of expectorating worshippers. They were much disappointed at not seeing the treasures of the relic-house; the emperor had gone for a day's hunting, and taken the keys, of which he was custodian, with him. They were more fortunate upon a second occasion. As the envoys entered the church, the monks robed themselves, lighted candles innumerable, and received the keys with much ceremony. Then, ascend 'I came here for no dalliance,' she said, 'no love-passages. I meant to assert my rights, and to remind you of my power; and I have done both. Whether I shall exact the fulfilment of the bond, or release you from it, and leave you to ignoble ease as Beatrice Fleming's mate, and king-consorting to a sort of tower, they appeared preceded by of the Heavitree estate, rests with myself, and with me alone. And now I must go back to my dull round of daily duties.' And with scant ceremony of leave-taking, she departed. When she got back to the Fountains, she found a strange bustle and agitation prevailing in the old house, commonly so peaceful and well ordered. The door stood open; the servants' voices were loud in the hall. 'Something must have happened!' she said, as she hurried in. CONSTANTINOPLE IN BYZANTINE TIMES. CONSTANTINOPLE, now in the hands of the Turks, was, as is well known, once a Christian city; its capture by a Mohammedan power having taken place as lately as 1453. Of its actual condition previous to this change of character, not much is said in the usual accounts of the place. The subject, however, is historically interesting, and we purpose to offer a few particulars regarding the grand old place, gathered from a little known narrative, which was drawn up by certain envoys despatched on a friendly mission from the king of Castile and Leon, just fifty years before the unhappy conquest of the City. The Castilians were only a fortnight in Constantinople, but under the guidance of one of the emperor's sons-in-law, they made good use of their time, and saw much to interest and amuse them, as well as to excite their piety. Pera, in which they lodged, was not then a mere suburb, but a small detached city of handsome houses, owning allegiance to the Genoese, to whom its site had been granted by one of the emperors. Constantinople itself was, at this time, surrounded by a strong high wall, forming a triangle, measuring six miles from angle to angle, and protected by towers, two sides of the wall facing the sea. The parts of the city near the sea were thickly populated, but the more central portions were interspersed with open fields and gardens. The first place to which their cicerone conducted incense-bearers, chanting mournfully, with a chest, which they placed upon a high table covered with a silken cloth. Opening this chest, the officiating monks took out of it a white dimity-bag, from which they produced three golden caskets, containing various objects, described as sacred relics, that need not be particularised. In the church of St Mary's Peribilico, the strangers are said to have had the satisfaction of seeing the right arm of St John in a fresh and healthy condition, only wanting the thumb, the loss of which formed the subject of an entertaining legend. There was still much more to see in the way of relics. At a convent of old ladies,' the Castilians saw a stone of many colours, bearing upon it tears dropped from the eyes of St John and the three Maries, still as fresh as if newly fallen. At the church of Santa Maria de la Dessetria, the church of certain religious men who abstained from wine, the grease of meat, and fish containing blood, they saw a picture of the Virgin designed and made by the hands of St Luke. This treasure of ancient art was painted upon a square board about six 'palmos' in length and breadth, and was covered with silver, and inlaid with precious stones. Once every week this picture was carried by three or four men to the centre of the court in front of the church, for public edification. As Constantinople contained some three thousand churches and monasteries, not counting those in ruins, the visitors saw not a little of the relics enshrined there, but, considering the shortness of their stay, they had no reason to complain on this score. At Pera, their eyes were gladdened by beholding the bones of St Andrew, St Nicholas, St Catharine, St Louis of France, St Li of Genoa, and of the innocents slain by Herod's cruel edict; besides an arm of St Luke, of Mary Magdalene, and of St Stephen, the last minus the hand; three heads, once crowning the fair shoulders of three of the eleven hundred virgins; the head and arm of St Anne, the arm lacking a finger, stolen by one of the emperors in order to enrich his own collection of such curiosities; and many other things belonging to holy saints. At St Sophia, the believing Spaniards beheld the identical gridiron upon which St Lawrence was roasted, a fact which does not say much for the genuineness of the bar preserved in the Escurial, as taken from the saint's tomb at Tivoli by Pope Gregory. St Sophia is still one of the sights of Constantinople, but it has sadly fallen from its high estate. When Ruy de Clavijo and his companions saw it, it was in all its ancient splendour as the most honoured, most privileged church of the capital of a Christian empire. In a court in front of the church rose nine great pillars of white marble, once supporting a large palace in which the Patriarch was wont to meet his clergy. In the centre of this court stood a tall column, said to have been erected by Justinian, serving as pedestal to a colossal copper equestrian statue, four times the size of life. The horse was represented with one fore and one hind leg raised, and bore on its back a warrior, holding his right arm aloft, and carrying on his head a large plume resembling the tail of a peacock. The statue was secured to the column by iron chains passing round the body of the horse; an expedient that may have answered its purpose, but must have detracted somewhat from the artistic effect. Passing under an arch, sheltering a small, richly decorated chapel, standing upon four marble columns, the travellers came upon a great brass-covered door, opening into a small terraced court, ending in another door of the same kind, leading into a broad and lofty timber-roofed nave, having on the left side large well-built cloisters, adorned with slabs of coloured jasper and marble; then, ushered through one of five brazen doors, they found themselves in the body of the church, the loftiest, richest, and most beautiful to be seen in the whole world.' De Clavijo says: 'It is surrounded by three large and broad naves, which are joined to it, so that mass may be heard in all parts of the church. The arches of the naves are of green jasper, and unite the roofs of the naves with that of the body of the church, but the summit of the latter rises much higher. It is domeshaped, and very high, and the church is one hundred and five paces long, by ninety-three broad. The dome is supported by four pillars, very large and thick, covered with flags of many-coloured jaspers; and from pillar to pillar there are arches of green jasper, which are very high, and sustain the dome. In the arches there are four very large slabs, two on the right hand, and two on the left, coloured with a substance made from a powder, and called porphyry. The dome is covered with rich mosaic-work, and over the high-altar the image of God the Father, very large, is wrought in mosaics of many colours; but it is so high up that it only looks the size of a man, or a little larger, though really it is so large that it measures three palmos between the eyes.' Under the dome, upon four jasper columns, stood the pulpit, surmounted by a capital,' raised upon eight large jasper pillars, and its sides covered with flags of the same. The arched roofs of the naves, and the wall-spaces between the arches, were alike inlaid with mosaic-work. The floor was formed of flags of jasper, and the walls lined with slabs of the same material. On the left wall was a large white slab, bearing, among many other figures, a drawing, without any human artifice of sculpture her arms, and St John the Baptist; not drawn, or or painting,' of the Virgin, with the Saviour in painted, or inlaid, but the stone itself gave birth to this picture with its veins.' St Sophia had two other things belonging to it strange and wonderful to see, in its vaults, subterraneous chambers and cisterns, one of the lastnamed being capable of floating ten galleys! Another cistern in Constantinople, called the cistern of Mohammed, was very beautiful to behold, being vaulted with cement, paved with marble, and having its ceiling supported by four hundred and ninety very great pillars. But for a discrepancy in the number of pillars, we should suppose this to be the Palace of the Thousand and One Pillars' of modern Constantinople, the roof of which is upheld by four hundred and twenty-four columns, each formed of three separate pillars, placed one on the top of another. Imperial Conwater, by means of fountains and cisterns, to say stantinople was apparently well supplied with nothing of a bridge, reaching from one valley to another, over houses and gardens, by which water used to come for the irrigation of these gardens.' The Ad-Meidan, or horse-course of to-day, although interesting as the scene of the massacre of the Janizaries, is but a poor representative of the magnificent Hippodrome, devoted to warlike exercises and martial games. In 1403, the limits of the lists were marked by thirty-seven white marble columns, two lances high, and so thick that three men could only just span them, springing from enormous marble bases, and connected with each other by arches, so that it was possible to walk all round the Hippodrome on the tops of the pillars. Breast-high battlements of white marble formed galleries for the use of maidens and dames of high degree; the commonalty being accommodated below with stone seats, Coliseum fashion, running round the plain, just behind the 'houses' in which the competitors prepared themselves for the mimic fray. If we understand our author rightly, the fashion of pillar on pillar was followed here, for he tells us that in front of the battlements stood 'a row of pillars, on which is a high seat, raised on four marble pillars, surrounded by other seats, and at each corner there are four images of white marble, the size of a man, and the emperor is accustomed to sit here when he views the tournament.' Near the imperial station, our Castilians saw two blocks of white marble, each one a lance high, set one upon another, and surmounted with an immense stone, at least six lances high, and sharp at the end. This could be seen from the sea, and was erected in memory of some great event; but what that event was they failed to learn, as the inscription recording it was in Greek, and they could not stay to have it read to them. This mysterious memorial was evidently an obelisk, but could hardly have been the red granite one yet in existence, for that, we believe, bears no inscription in Greek. Near this, says a modern writer, is the fragment of the wreathed column of bronze which Mohammed II. shattered with his battle-axe, and which, according to an old tradition, supported the golden tripod of Delphi. This relic of antiquity was perfect when De Clavijo saw it, and |