a Spaniard, he was something of a poet; and both the lover and the poet in him dictated that a victor should go not unadorned, bearing his spoils unto his lady. So he went straight to the hut of old Pedro.

Pedro was out, which was an agreeable omen at the outset. Having watered, fed, and groomed Lolita, Manuelo entered the little hut, washed away the dust of his six day's ride, donned his fiesta suit, knotted the gayest kerchief about his beautiful throat, and emerged as gallant a cavalier as heart could wish. Only he missed the guitar. But before his eyes stood the basket. Smiling he caught it up, and with the lightest heart resaddled the refreshed Lolita, and rode straight to Las Delicias.

It was evening. A superb southern moon flooded the quiet town with such light as one must go to California even to imagine. The wide casements and windows at Las Delicias all stood open, but there was no one on the porch when Manuelo made his way up the path with the basket in his hands. He looked inside. Still no one. Perhaps, thought Manuelo, they had strolled into the grove. He stood a moment, irresolute, beside the clump of over-reaching laurestinas, when all at once voices came to him, drifting across the still air from the lime-walks on the left; and at the same moment they-the voices-emerged into the moonlit space beyond. The mysterious silver glow made them visible like figures in a dream. Manuelo, sunk in the shadow, was in another world.

Elsa's white dress brushed her companion-why not, since his arm was about her?- and her sweet eyes were raised with infinite contentment to the strong, loving ones looking down at her.

"And so," said she, "all the time I have been hard at work for you; and while you were tramping about in search of beautiful scenes, I was hoarding beautiful things for you. There will be enough to fill the studio."

"All of which," answered the mellow voice, " was very naughty of you, my sweetheart! You were to do nothing but get well and strong for me."

“Oh, but I did that too!" answered Elsa, lightly. "So well and strong, all

the time I was riding, and climbing, and hunting up treasures. Only ask Manuelo."

"And who is Manuelo?"

"Manuelo is-Manuelo! My devoted cavalier, the dearest and most delightful fellow! He has been better than the sun and air to me; and, dear, you will not mind that I-gave him-my picture? Aunt Mary said, under the circumstances it was quite right. If I had not been betrothed, of course, I would not have done it. You are not displeased?"

"Displeased!-my beloved! Wait and see how I shall thank him for being good to you!"

"He has deserted us for some days -orange-picking, I suppose-but_you will see that he never forgets me; I am sure he will bring me a basket when he comes."

"Then," said the mellow voice, between mirth and regret, "I have lost my only chance of outrivalling him in his own line. You should have seen the basket I let slip through my hands the other day, Elsa!"

"Oh, Robert! but why?"

"Well, I had purchased it against my conscience, to begin with, at the rate of fifteen dollars; and it was a mighty one, a regular elephant for a poor pedestrian who was foolishly impatient to catch a certain train, in order to reach a certain little sweetheart of his! However," lightly, "I dare say I should have hung on to the basket in spite of qualms of conscience and legs, had I not encountered a basket-hunter who was madder than I, and who offered me the pretty sum of twenty-five dollars for it."

"And you let it go-oh!"

"Well, my darling, he did want it so very badly-and what right had an impecunious artist to luxuries of that market value? And then I did not know you were smitten with the basket craze, sweetheart, or I would have kept the basket, and gone without-say, coal."

But this mild sarcasm was thrown away. Elsa, the basket-bewitched, was dreaming of the lost one.

"What was it like?" was her meditative and irrelevant reply.

"Well," resignedly, "its majesty would stand, I think, about three feet

Unobserved, Manuelo led Lolita out into the road and leaped upon her back. He hesitated a moment-only a momentthen he turned her head away from the old mission and Pedro, and galloped straight into the open country, toward the mines of Esperanza.

It was only an hour later that Elsa, running up the steps with happy, unseeing eyes, stumbled over something, tripped, and would have fallen headlong, but for the arms about her.

"Why! what was that?" exclaimed Elsa.

Her lover stooped, fumbled in the uncertain dusk until his hand encountered the object; then he held it up in the moonlight.

There was an exclamation from both, then silence.

They had recognized, at the same moment, the upturned photograph in its depth, and the scarlet gleam of woodpecker's feathers about its rim. It was the basket of Anita.

E

VERYTHING relating to Mr. Stanley seems to possess a special and peculiar interest for a very large portion of the public of many nationalities. Such readers I have thought might be glad to know something about the method of writing, and the daily life, of the author of a work respecting the appearance of which they have already evinced such a very extraordinary interest, for probably no book has ever been more eagerly looked for in every part of the civilized world, and in many languages, than the one which Mr. Stanley lately finished.

On Mr. Stanley's arrival in Cairo he immediately telegraphed to me, inviting me to pay him a visit there, with a view to forward the progress of the great work he had in hand; and he suggested that I should bring an artist with me. I need not say that I accepted the invitation with the greatest possible pleasure. I arrived at Cairo at three o'clock on the morning of my sixty-sixth birthday. It would have been too much to expect the great man himself to meet me at the station at that unreasonable hour. I was very grateful to find that he had sent his courier and dragoman with two carriages; the carriages had been specially engaged some hours before, and were left outside while the men looked after me and my luggage; by the time we got through and out of the station, one had decamped, and the other was occupied by a stalwart foreigner who swore loudly that there he was and there he meant to remain in spite of any engagements to the contrary. Remonstrance or explanation in a tongue unknown to him was useless. Possession was the whole of the law here. There was not another

carriage to be found, but there were scores of screaming and fighting Arabs to carry our luggage, and we had to walk to our hotel. The affectionate warmth of Stanley's greeting when we met, at once made me quite at home, and I found myself the guest of a very remarkable man, whose name was ringing through the civilized and uncivilized world; a man whom everyone was longing to see as the hero of the day. To be so honored and so sought after was, as he one day said to me, "enough to turn his head, if he had not had much more serious matters to think about."

I think it may be looked upon as an almost unique thing in the history of authors and publishers for a publisher to be invited to travel so far to give practical assistance to an author in the preparation of his manuscript. The truth, however, was that a great book had to be written within a certain period of time, and if not completed by that time, there was every chance that it would never be completed at all.

To attain this end Mr. Stanley had very wisely decided not to proceed home, where to write his book in peace and quietness was out of the question; while in Egypt there was a possibility of comparative seclusion, and the advantages of a most delightful climate, where even confinement to the desk would not be so injurious as in the murky atmosphere of London at that period of the year. Those who know Cairo are well aware that its climate during the winter months is simply perfect. The dry and exhilarating air acts in itself as a tonic, and the almost complete absence of rain and fog and leaden skies, and the genial temperature, all combine to make life in Cairo, even to a recluse, thoroughly enjoyable.

Mr. Stanley, after his arrival, and after the first display of honors forced upon him by the Khedive and other dignitaries of the place, very wisely departed from the noise and bustle of Shephard's Hotel, and found a charming retreat in the Hotel Villa Victoria. This hotel is situated in the most beautiful part of Cairo, not far from the Ezbekiyeh Gardens, and is surrounded on all sides by fine and newly built mansions. It comprises three separate buildings which form three sides of a quadrangle, in the centre of which is a charming garden. Here are pleasant walks, shaded by huge palm, and orange trees laden with ripe fruit; one of the latter looked temptingly into Mr. Stanley's working-room. In the centre is a fountain surrounded by tropical and oriental plants, and the antics of a monkey tied to a tree give variety to the scene. The landlord of this hotel seems to fully appreciate the charms of his surroundings. How or when he conducts his business is a mystery. To me it seemed that most of his time was spent lolling luxuriously in a hammock, smoking a cigarette, or, for exercise, mildly swaying himself backward and forward on a rope swing-or reclining and complacently dozing in a bower under a canopy of yellow sweetscented roses. Life to him appeared like a pleasant dream. He reminded me of Tennyson's "mild-eyed, melancholy Lotos-eaters."

"With half-shut eyes ever to seem Falling asleep in a half-dream."

A sharp contrast to this lazy, happy lounger was the toiler in the room whose open windows looked out over a trellis of roses and ripe mandarins, on this idle garden, where doves and graybacked crows were familiar visitors. I must, however, do this good landlord the justice of saying that, notwithstanding the easy enjoyment he seems to get out of his life, his hotel is admirably managed. It is charmingly furnished throughout, the living is very good, the bedrooms are lofty, airy, and well looked after in every respect.

It was in that part of the hotel farthest removed from the street that Mr. Stanley took up his abode. Here he

had a fine suite of rooms on the ground floor, very handsomely furnished in the oriental style. A large, lofty receptionroom and an equally large and handsome dining-room. In these he received some of the most important or most persistent of his many callers; but as a rule he shut himself up in his bedroom, and there he wrote from early morning till late at night, and woe betide anyone who ventured unasked into this sanctum. He very rarely went out, even for a stroll round the garden. His whole heart and soul were centred on his work. He had set himself a certain task, and he had determined to complete it to the exclusion of every other object in life. He said of himself, "I have so many pages to write. I know that if I do not complete this work by a certain time, when other and imperative duties are imposed upon me, I shall never complete it at all. When my work is accomplished, then I will talk with you, laugh with you, and play with you, or ride with you to your heart's content; but let me alone now, for Heaven's sake."

Nothing worried him more than a tap at the door while he was writing; he sometimes glared even upon me like a tiger ready to spring, although I was of necessity a frequent and privileged intruder, and always with a view to forwarding the work in hand. He was a perfect terror to his courier and black boy. When his courier knocked tremblingly at his door, he would cry out, "Am I a prisoner in my own house? "I've brought you this telegram, sir." "Well, I detest telegrams; why do you persist in bringing them?"

Sali, the black boy who travelled with him throughout his long and perilous expedition, is a youth of some resource. Until this terrible book had got into his master's brain he had been accustomed to free access to him at all hours; but now things were different; every time he approached the den, the least thing he expected was that the inkstand would be thrown at his head. He no longer ventured therein. One day he originated a new way of saving his head; he had a telegram to deliver, so he ingeniously fixed it on the end of a long bamboo, and getting the door just ajar, he poked it into the room and bolted.

At luncheon and dinner Mr. Stanley was quite another man. He and I and his secretary generally messed together; occasionally a friend dropped in. Mr. Stanley is himself extremely abstemious. He drinks nothing but about a tablespoonful of brandy in a glass of water, and in this respect he is somewhat forgetful of his friends. One evening a friend came in to dinner, and we sat for about two hours smoking and listening to his stories, but it never once occurred to him to ask his friend to take anything with his cigar. At length his guest, who was growing thirsty, asked him before leaving if he might have a little whiskey and soda. "My dear fellow," said he, "why did you not ask for it before? I never once thought of it. I ask your pardon!" I frequently remonstrated with him for passing dish after dish without touching them. His invariable reply was, "How can I eat and work? You know well that yonder are several pages for me to complete before I sleep." "But," I replied, "you are killing your self, it is quite impossible for the strongest constitution to stand such a strain as this; when I came here ten days ago, you seemed to me to be in the most robust health; already I notice a difference in you; you complain of sundry aches and pains; beware of your old enemy, gastric fever!" His reply to "Ah! but the book! the book

this was, must be done."

On the day after my arrival Dr. Parke called and urged him, for his health's sake, to go out for a drive with him; but he steadily refused to move out of his

room.

One day I did succeed in getting him out for half an hour. We walked down to get a glimpse of the Nile. The air was sufficiently cool to be invigorating; it did him good. After contemplating the river for a few seconds he remarked, "Eight months ago I drank its waters at its eastern source, which I discovered years ago. On my recent expedition I discovered its western source in the no longer fabulous 'Mountains of the Moon '-that source water must have taken almost as long to travel here as I have done. Now that you have discovered the mouth let us go back to work." Except to dine out once or

twice in the evening, he was only once more outside the garden during my stay.

I may say that my own life while in Cairo was not one of indolence or leisure. I never worked more incessantly in my life, for I had determined not to leave Cairo without a very large proportion of the complete manuscript, and the whole of the sketches and maps in my portmanteau. First, there were Stanley's photographs to be developed by a local photographer, in order that we might see how they would come out. It is needless to say that these negatives, taken with infinite care, by Stanley himself, of scenes all through the journey, were regarded by him and by me with the utmost jealousy. I therefore took upon myself to watch the whole process from beginning to end, and I never lost sight of these precious negatives till I carried them back to the hotel. Alas! I am sorry to say that many of the pictures had almost disappeared from the glass, and at best could only serve to suggest valuable hints to our artist— these had been over-exposed or not sufficiently exposed in the blazing sun of the tropics; others I was delighted to find come out quite clearly, and represent scenes of the greatest value, artistically and geographically, as well as conveying accurate types of new races in the interior.

Again, knowing that I should have to convey with me a manuscript of very great value, which, if lost in transit, would not merely be a loss to myself but to a world of readers anxiously waiting for it, I determined to have a second copy made of the whole. One copy I determined to carry with me, and the other to send forward registered to London, in a separate trunk.

To accomplish this I obtained and set up a copying press in the secretary's room, but as much of Stanley's manuscript before I reached him had not been written in copying-ink, that portion I copied out myself, and for the remainder I worked away several hours at the copying-press, and obtained in this way about four hundred folios.

Mr. Stanley's memory of names, persons, and events is quite marvellous, but in the compilation of his book he by no means trusted to his memory. His con