and a man with a prospect of so much | tract is always a verbal one, and instances matrimony before him cannot afford the time and money generally devoted to such occasions by a European monogamist. Wife-stealing is common amongst the nomad tribes; though in excess of the male population, the supply of females is not equal to the demand, and constant skirmishes occur with neighboring tribes when a girl, or not unfrequently a matron,

tribes devote some of their time to charcoal-burning, and one and all they are frightfully destructive to the forests among which they wander. Acres of fine straight fir-trees, such as ship merchants would give good prices for for masts, are burnt annually by their fires; acres are cut down ruthlessly to secure pasturage for the flocks; and hundreds of trees are annually destroyed by tapping them just above the roots for turpentine.

Before aniline dyes were invented the Yourouks drove a good trade in colormaking from the herbs which grow on their mountain-sides; but now, alas! even for the purpose of dyeing their own wools for carpet-making, they purchase atrocious colors from Europe, with the result that their trade is gone, and with it the harmony in colors for which their carpets were once celebrated. Why they should have developed a taste for magenta, grassgreen, and kindred colors, which are so different from their own, is a mystery, but such is the melancholy fact.

across the object of our search namely, the capital of the district of Olba, where the priest-kings of the Cilician pirates held their court. Still we were always amongst Yourouks, who have converted the ruins. of this ancient capital on the hill of the castle of Djebel Hissar, as they call it, into the nearest approach to a village that the district contains. The inhabitants of this spot are perhaps the most sedentary of their race, inasmuch as the spot is thirty-eight hundred feet above the level of the sea. They can here remain all the year round, though how they pass the winter months in those miserable hovels amid ice and snow was a mystery to us. Even in April the snow had not long disappeared, and the cold, biting winds made us pile on logs to our fire, despite the blinding smoke which poured from it into our den.

The capital of the pirate district, even in its ruins, is very fine. It consists of two distinct parts one on the hill, where are the principal buildings, and one in the valley below, about one and a half miles distant; these towns were joined by a fine paved road, lined on both sides with rockcut tombs and ruined buildings. It was on an aqueduct which supplied the lower town with water that we found an inscription which settled the question as to the discovery of the object of our search:

Every household commodity is made at home. The women spin their husbands' clothes, and it is not an uncommon thing to see an old Yourouk man, whose days of active work are over, plying the distaff like his wife, or standing at his tent door with a spindle in his hands. Their shoes are made out of raw untanned hide, cut in a circle, and fastened round the instep by"The city of the Olbian Castles erected a thong. These are most excellent things this water-course." It was a late inscripfor adhering to their rocky paths-far tion of the Roman period, but for this we better than my boots when those rocks did not care—the site of the capital of were slippery. They put their shoes into the pirates was found. Up in the higher water every night to prevent their getting town the two chief buildings were a fort hard, and a pair will last about a fortnight. and the Temple of Jove. On the fort we They sow for themselves only just found an inscription which told us that it enough grain for domestic use, in the was erected under the priesthood of mountain valleys and in every tiny level Teucer, the son of Tarkyarios, and under space where there is an absence of rock, the direction of Tberemos, the son of and they are few and far between in Orbalaseta of Olba." Such a formula as rugged Cilicia. Their threshing-floors are this we found on the fortress at the lip of round, flat spaces constructed at the edge the Olbian cave, near the sea, and the of their fields round which they are accus statements of Strabo as to the dynasty and tomed to drive over the grain on pieces of priesthood of Teucer were substantially wood with bits of flint set in below most confirmed. The great temple was about probably bearing a striking resemblance half a mile from the fort. It owes its to the "new sharp threshing instrument preservation to the fact that it was subsehaving teeth" mentioned by Isaiah (xli. quently converted into a Christian church; 15). For grinding grain the wealthier the columns are all there, thirty-two in all, have the regular grindstones with two of the Corinthian order, and most of the handles, common in the East; but the wall enclosing the sacred precincts is still poorer are content to grind their grain in standing. This was the shrine where the holes or natural mortars in the rocks, with priest-kings of the Teucrid dynasty held a rounded stone for pestle. their sacerdotal court. A few hundred yards from the Temple of Jove were five elegant columns standing, with monolithic granite shafts and Corinthian capitals—

High up in the Taurus range, shortly before the passes into Karamania are reached, we archæological nomads came

all that is left of a temple of Tyche, which, | nominal price. If you don't indulge in from an inscription, we were able to name. these luxuries, but have the fear of Sir There stood, too, a Roman triumphal arch, Wilfrid before you, why then you can bask the remains of a long colonnade, a theatre, in the surf and literally wallow in peaches. and many other buildings on this hill of There the trammels of civilization utterly ruins, and as we contemplated them we decline to work, and Arcadia is revived. were full of admiration for the pirates who For the romantic, the shepherd and shephad erected them. In the district of Olba herdess life; for the more sordidly diswe found something like seventy inscrip- posed, air like champagne, and the Globe tions, giving us true glimpses of the his- and Pall Mall of the previous evening." tory of the pirates.

In the world's history it has been the fate of many men and many races who have not written their own history, to suffer, like authors who cannot review their own books, from the adverse criticism of the opposite side. Luckily for the Cilician pirates they have left ruins behind them, and decrees, inscriptions, and bas-reliefs on their rocks, which prove to us that they were no ruffian bandits, like those which now haunt Asia Minor, but a race of wealthy, civilized, and independent men, whose marauding was doubtless carried on in self-defence, and in resistance to that gigantic power which eventually crushed them in its iron grasp.

J. THEODORE BENT.

From Longman's Magazine.
SARK.

And I backed up my statement to a certain extent by a reference to "Caste." Who that witnessed the scene can ever forget Bancroft as he stood, with difficulty keeping Eccles at bay with his walkingstick, while he endeavored to impress on him the desirability of the Norman archipelago as a permanent residence?

However, while I importuned my friends, in season and out of season, to go to Sark, I steadily refrained from going there myself. I have noticed that in this respect I bear a strong resemblance to other people whose forte is advising.

Arriv

At last the propitious moment arrived. The summer, both in England and on the Continent, was in a hopeless condition. The Channel Islands, and therein more particularly Sark, Serk, or Sercq, presented an offchance of a higher tempera. ture within measurable distance. Accompanied by the faithful companion of my toils and sharer of my joys-"in short," as Mr. Micawber would say, by my wife -I took ship and so to Guernsey. I ONCE had a friend who made a fruit-ing there in early morning I had just time less attempt to induce me to accompany him to Copenhagen by representing to me that the cherry brandy was undeniable and as cheap as water, and that all the women were exactly like the Princess of Wales. Sixteen years ago I first set foot in Sark, and although my stay was limited to some six hours or so-in fact a day's trip from Guernsey - my life has ever since been more or less tinged with the romance of that visit, and many are the occasions on which I have burdened my friends with my reminiscences of that Summer isle of Eden, lying bosomed in deep

purple seas.

before breakfast to satisfy myself that one of my impressions of that sixteen years' old visit was not a delusion, and that Guernsey still possesses what is to my mind incomparably the best bathing-place in the world. Talk of Boveney and Sandford and the upper reaches of the Thames generally! they can't hold a candle to it; and the ordinary sea-bathing-place of commerce I consider to be utterly beneath contempt. Here you have what appears to be a large basin cut out of the rock, and protected seawards by a strong wall devised that you can suit yourselves with fitted with natural platforms so cunningly any depth of water from one to nine feet and any form of "header." The tide comes in over the wall, ensuring a complete change of water twice daily, and, when it is out, it leaves you the most perfect pool of still water to bathe in. If you prefer the open sea, you can always have it by diving off the wall at low tide or simply swimming over it at high water; but, to me, the absence of wave means perfection in bathing. I will only add that I am in

formed and believe that the ladies' bath- | than all, that the latter island can produce. ing-place is equally good.

The price of fruit in Guernsey rules pretty nearly as high as, if not higher than, in London. A few raspberries and those in a tart - represented practically our fruit-supply during our stay, and the only outward and visible sign was a wild profusion of blackberry blossom.

Breakfast over, we had just time to embark ourselves and our belongings in one of the little steamers which run almost daily to Sark, a distance of seven miles or so, "weather permitting," and this is not an unimportant proviso on these shores. A rockbound, inhospitable coast, with Certainly, tobacco and strong waters are cliffs full of grim menace, it looks as if it cheap enough, especially for him who imhad been heaved up by some convulsion ports the latter from Guernsey for himself, of nature - just the picture of one of those as the retail price in Sark seems decidedly robber-strongholds in which Mr. R. L. high; and while mentioning this I have Stevenson delights — and the puzzle is to much pleasure in recording that during know how or where we can possibly land. | our sojourn we never encountered a single This is solved by our suddenly encoun- person, native or alien, who showed any tering a massive wall built out into the sea signs of liquor. Let the Good Templars for the purpose of forming a small har- take note of this, and the daughters of bor. Otherwise, landing-place there is Rechab be glad. Apropos of tobacco, none for a craft above the dimensions of although shag at tenpence per pound, rea cutter or lugger; for the bay in the north joices the heart of Tommy Atkins when of the island which formerly did duty can quartered in these regions, the prices of scarcely be called efficient. the higher classes of cigars and cigarettes, for some occult reason, does not show any material reduction on their values in England. But what need of such mundane comforts has one who breathes the glorious air of Sark, which is meat, drink, tobacco, and flannel waistcoats in itself?

On landing, our Stevensonian memories were freshly awakened by the appearance of sundry piratical-looking boatmen in red caps, by a drawbridge, and by a mighty frowning rock, a tunnel through which is the sole means of ingress to the island. Our modest luggage was packed into an ancient dogcart, and we ascended by a good road, fringed with banks of fern and gorse and fragrant with hedges of honeysuckle, to our destination. The ascent is steep and long, and it is a notable fact that all the houses stand high, and, for the most part, inland. No marine parades greet the eye here, and, thank goodness! the bathing-machine is as extinct as the moa. Bitter winter experiences and an occasional landslip have doubtless taught the islanders that a sea-view is not a thing to be desired, and the machine which will survive the Sark beach and the Sark breakers has yet to be invented. It will have to approximate in solidity to the build of an eighty-ton gun.

We were lodged and boarded in a clean and comfortable farmhouse, as is the custom here, there being but two inns, and those of not very large dimensions. Two small general shops supply the more immediate wants of the inhabitants, and, for the rest, they trust to the daily steamer from Guernsey and to occasional luggers which run across on emergency.

We were not long in discovering that my early impressions as to fruit were hope lessly wrong. There is little or no sign of a fruit-tree in Sark, and, although Guernsey could supply it, the remorseless maw of Covent Garden swallows all, and more

The inhabitants are most kindly disposed and glad to see visitors. Although, with the exception of the very old people, they are quite capable of talking English, and that language is taught in the schools, they prefer to converse among themselves in a strange lingo which we should call a French patois of the most provincial description were we not assured on the best authority that it is a survival of the old Norman-French, the language of kings, statesmen, and heroes, and that it is one of the most interesting relics in the pres ent day of the Langue d'oil.

The blood-thirsty pirate of the Middle Ages and the bold buccaneer of the last century have equally disappeared, and have left no trace behind them; for it cannot be supposed that the civil-spoken, quiet fisherman of to-day can trace his origin to the roaring blades who made this island their rendezvous. The caves and their traditions alone recall the days when the Jolly Roger had it all its own way.

One of our first proceedings was to perambulate the boundaries of our kingdom, which is effected by going round the island in a boat-a work of some five hours. This is eminently necessary for the purpose of generally getting one's bearings, and thereby guiding one's footsteps in future land-explorations; and the

Thus in the morning we might lie bask

endless panorama which the rugged shores | or bay from which you may chance to be supply is unequalled by any coast scenery viewing them. we know elsewhere. One bay succeeds another, each with its own particular fea-ing in the sunlight above the Port du tures; mighty caves, some accessible only Moulin - the road to which lies through a by water; rocks, single, and in groups, miniature forest, past fuchsia-laden cotstanding out in every sort of fantastic tages with the gulls and cormorants shape, full of suggestions of Titanic cathe- wheeling and barking round our heads drals and palaces, and bearing terrible from their roosting-places on the inaccestestimony to the dangers of these shores sible strongholds of Les Autelets, with (one was shown to us almost cloven in the islands of Herm, its far-famed shelltwain by a ship which ran on to it about beach always a conspicuous landmark, and sixty years ago and went down with all Jethou shimmering in the haze, and hands); and everywhere the crystal clear Guernsey lying outstretched beyond them; water with luxuriant forests of seaweed and in the afternoon we would shift our floating far beneath us. We came ashore, position to the Banquette pointa bathfully understanding that it requires a life-ing-place to be remembered - and look time to know these coasts, and that none out over the coast line of Normandy but a Sark boatman can be trusted to pilot clearly defined, with Jersey lying far away a vessel in Sark waters. on our right; and again in the evening we We were now in a position to survey might take up our position in the north of the island by land, and in this we were the island above the ancient landing-place, greatly aided by quite the best and most L'Eperquerie, where all around us seemed practical little guide-book that it has ever redolent of the old smuggling days, and been my good fortune to come across. It the never ceasing surf boils round the Bec sticks close to the point and tells you ex-du Nez, and fancy ourselves in Amyas actly what you want to know and no more. Leigh's position, addressing poor Don The joint authors, who prefer to remain Guzman that most ill-used of beings anonymous on the cover of their work, engulfed far below. Or we might sit at deserve something are perennius from all the foot of the column at Longue Pointe, visitors; and it is possible that that some- which records the sad fate of Mr. Pilcher thing will be the said guide-book, which and his comrades, with the quaint harbor will probably be reproduced in successive of Havre Gosselin most difficult of aceditions as roads change and gates alter, cess and its flotilla of fishing-boats until time with Sark shall be no more. tossing beneath us, watching the rays of the declining sun gilding the outline of the island of Brecqhou, as it stretched away in front of us; while towards the south. west something like six thousand miles of sea faded away into the infinite.

Of course we traversed the Coupée, that most awesome neck of land which connects Great and Little Sark, with its narrow road of five feet or so in width and a clear drop of a hundred yards on either

It is not my intention to trench on their province, and for anything approaching a detailed reference to the beauties of Sark I must refer all intending visitors to their pages; the work only costs sixpence. I merely content myself with annexing one statement of theirs, namely, that although the island is only one and a half miles across at the broadest part and three miles long, he who fancies that it takes a short time to see it never made a greater mis-side, and reflected that it was not the place take in his life. The story of the man who came for a day and spent the remainder of his existence here is quite credible. After weeks spent in exploring the bays, in scrambling over the rocks, and in trying to devise new means of penetrating the caverns, one is quite ready to begin all over again; and its great superiority over the ordinary seaside place lies in this, that each morning and each afternoon, at the cost of the shortest of strolls, you can get an impression of the sea perfectly fresh and distinct from any which you may have had previously. Its aspects at high and low tides differ in toto, and are qualified in accordance with the particular cliff

which we should select when driving a jibbing horse on a starless night. Equally of course we explored the Gouliot caves, studded with anemones closely resembling, to the poetic eye, rubies and emeralds to the ordinary observer, cherries and greengages - and bristling with the uncanny "dead men's fingers," and shuddered meanwhile at the gruesome thought of being cut off by the tide. There was, as a matter of fact, very little chance of that, as we always kept a sharp lookout. Still, any accident which caused delay might put one in a nasty plight, and we always had a feeling of relief when we were clear of them. The same remark