and silence, would be thrilling. I had borrowed a second gun. I would need it.

I was up long before the others, and slipped out of my carriage to "eat the air." I picked my way abstractedly among the grain-bags, thinking of the rare duck I might shoot. A pinkhead or a scaup, perhaps! I had never shot either. I was trying to recall the coloured plate in Hume and Marshall, a rose-pink neck with a black bar at the throat, when I ran into a telegraphboy, who was carrying a brown envelope, and calling out my

name.

I opened and read the telegram, filled in the reply-paid form, slipped back into the carriage, and began to shave as if nothing unusual had happened. But in this abstracted interval I had become a war correspondent.

The metamorphosis, I repeat, was as wonderful as anything that happened to Alice. For when I went to bed I did not know that there was a war, or any likelihood of one; and if I had known, I should not have believed that The Daily Megaphone' Iwould have summoned me to go to it as their correspondent. If the Dalai Lama had sent a palanquin with a cortège of yellow-robed monks to escort me back to the Potala, if I had been chosen to expound the mysteries of the wheel to the assembled hierarchy at Lhasa, and if the said palanquin and cortège of monks had

fetched up at this wayside station, of which I have forgotten the name, I could not have been more astonished.

And why 'The Daily Megaphone'? I did not know them or any one connected with them. I had never sent them a contribution in my life, and I was quite sure that they would have rejected it if I had.

And talking about the Dalai Lama. This war was in Tibet. That was another dream come true.

Had I eaten of the magic mushroom! Allah certainly loved me. I felt like a kind of male Cinderella. Everybody wanted to be a war correspondent, and everybody wanted to go to Tibet. Every newspaper in London could summon scores of trained, qualified, and brilliant journalists, and hundreds untrained and unqualified like myself, who would have tumbled over each other to have exchanged Fleet Street for the most problematical glimpse of the Potala. And here was I, and there were they! For a very good and simple reason, of course. They were not on the spot. But what luck! I had walked into the preserves of the most coveted of professions by the sheer accident of proximity. In the month of January 1904 there were three English war correspondents on the active list, and I was one of them.

What a splendid thing it is to be free and uncovenanted. Now if I had been editor of

'The Times' or Chancellor of Cambridge University, I should never have seen Tibet. One of these days I must compose an "Ode to the Doorstep."

The agent of The Daily Megaphone 'in India must have been at his wit's end. Three correspondents had been officially conceded, and the organs and institution they represented stood for weight, noise, and universality. It was axiomatic, of course, that the first message to the British public from Tibet must be megaphonic; but it appeared that there was no detached journalist at the call of The Megaphone' within a thousand miles of Calcutta. Weight was already nearly on the spot, though happily impeded in his movements by his very virtue. Universality had packed and was ready to start. One might be sure that he would be as swift as a wire when the word was given. Only noise was wanting. The agent of The Daily Megaphone,' I believe, was considering the qualifications of his office staff when he ran into an acquaintance of mine, who told him he could put him on to the very man he wanted, and gave him my name and address. "He has travelled a good deal in an unconventional way," my friend said; "knows the borders of Tibet. He has written a book too.

I have forgotten the name of it, but it was very well received." Allah forgive my friend! But, of course, neither he nor the agent had read it. So "poor I" and the " "palimpsest" did not really matter after all. Perhaps it never matters what you have put inside the covers of a bookthree months after it is published. Elkington was right. "Stick to it, Tau. There's money in it." But this was better than a hundredth edition and a 25 per cent royaltybetter than Prince Hassan's carpet. Writing a book does not often take you to Tibet.

I shaved very badly that morning, but I shot remarkably well, with an absent-minded inspiration which I have never regained. I kept my counsel all day, though I could not resist saying to my friend in Waltair as we sat in his veranda by the sea before turning into bed, "I suppose you haven't got such a thingWe both smiled at this ingenuous idiom. "I suppose

you don't happen to have a particularly thick sweater that you want to get rid of. I am off to Tibet to-morrow by the Calcutta mail."

I had not time to break my journey at Devagiri; and, though I had packed to be away only two days, I was never to see my little Paradise again.

Of all the deplorable, fleainfested, old tubs that ply between the Mediterranean ports, I fancy the bad ship Canalejas must be one of the very worst. She is dirty, uncomfortable, and slow. Food and drink aboard of her are dear and bad, and the fares enormous. If she has a virtue, it is the negative one of acting as a deterrent to tourists. Indeed, her unwelcoming nastiness has proved an effective barricade against the encroachments of civilisation, at least in so far as the enchanting island of Ibiza is concerned. While the Canalejas remains its only link between Alicante on the one hand and Palma de Mallorca on the other, it is fairly safe to prophesy that the smallest and most picturesque of the Balearic Islands will never become a resort."

When I first looked at Ibiza on the large scale map-it was in the waiting-room of the Credito Balear in Palma-I had an intuition that I should have to go there, sooner or later. Really it was a case of love at first sight! Teresita was equally smitten, but our voyage had to be postponed for another fortnight, until she was well enough to travel.

The day so eagerly awaited came at last, and a perfect day it was-bright sunshine, clear

blue sky, and a clean cool breeze from the sea. We put our bags into the little yellow carreton, and drove down to the quay where the Canalejas was moored.

The steward, in a dirty canvas coat, leered at us derisively as, stepping over recumbent islanders who had cast their cloaks on deck amidships and were being ritualistically sick, we made our way towards the cabins. They opened out of the saloon, and when we reached them, Teresita, who can rough it with anybody when she likes, murmured faintly, "My God!" Then she laughed. At that moment a middle-aged rather weather-beaten man, with one foot in a black boot, the other in an alpargata, came into the saloon and laughed too.

One of Teresita's principal advantages as a travelling-companion is a genius for picking people up. She picks up anything human-old men, young men, fat women, babies, children-which may conceivably amuse her. The new-comer was promptly secured, and proved an acquisition. He was an Irishman, who had lived most of his life in Singapore, and had now retired. He had bought a ticket to Alicante, because he liked its name. When he got there he would

just stop in some hotel until the spirit moved him to go somewhere else. He was agreeably in no hurry. After our midday comida, to which we sat down as the boat passed the old lighthouse at PortoPi, we found some decayed canvas-chairs, and loafed in the shade outside the deck house. While the Canalejas waddled slowly through the sea past the red Mallorcan cliffs, we lazily exchanged yarns, and the time passed pleasantly enough. The Spanish afternoon, such of it as is not spent in bed, is never a strenuous time of the day. If one has a comfortable stomach-and the steward, to save himself trouble, brought us a bottle of Domecq and a syphon, thus doing his best for us in this particular, it is a time for ease, for admiring contemplation of the beauties of nature, for a ripple of indifferent talk.

It was, I suppose, about seven hours after our departure from Palma that we first saw the black and sinister cliffs of our island. How frowning and romantic they looked in the slowly gathering twilight! Two hours more of growing excitement, and then the Canalejas turned her old snub-nose towards the narrow opening which leads into the lagoon-like harbour of Ibiza. The sight which met our eyes once we had passed the lighthouse made us all gasp with delight. Ibiza has the trick, possessed by so many Mediterranean towns, of looking unbelievably magnificent

from a certain distance. It was a flower-city, a city of dreams! Terraces of white houses gleaming in the fading light carried the eye up to a fortified citadel, surrounded by immense medieval walls. side the citadel were more houses, the whole culminating in a grey cathedral, flanked by a large pink palace. With what an unerring instinct for the spectacular had the place been built! How admirably adapted it was to give the last touch of romantic glamour to its unsurpassed situation!

When the wheezy Canalejas bumped at last against her moorings, the boat was stormed by a gang of most ferociouslooking bandits. Their eyes flashed. They were ominously black-hatted and black-trousered, and they swooped like vultures upon the luggage. Teresita made a lightning conquest of our particular bandit. As we discovered later, the Ibizans are naturally chivalrous to women, and they are certainly more courteous and hospitable to strangers than any other race I have ever encountered. Much kindliness may be concealed beneath a four-days' beard!

There are only two small fondas in the city of Ibiza, both of which are uninhabitable for all save the hardiest of travellers. One is presided over by a pompous individual, with a stomach which he carries about with him like a big drum, and points at you in a highly disconcerting manner; the other can scarcely be said

to be "presided over at all. A large and charming family, ranging in age from about nine months to about a century, inhabit the place, and are only too delighted when visitors elect to stay with them. That, at least, was the impression which we formed. Our bandit evidently liked them, and was overjoyed when, after investigating the Fonda Marina, we followed him next door into the Fonda del Commercio.

When we entered its long fly-blown café we found the señora-plump and brown-eyed -engaged in giving an evening meal from her ample bosom to Paquita, her youngest daughter. Round her were grouped her aunt; her mother-in-law; her husband; her son Pépé, aged ten; Maria, aged perhaps eight; Margarita, aged six; and the serving-maid, Catalina. The señor stood in the foreground of the family groupstatuesque, immobile, and silent, with black brooding eyes. He looked rather like a tamed and emasculated lion, defeated, shackled, overcome by his family and his womenfolk. His tiny pub was his own private mappin terrace, except that he was not allowed to roar in it.

would go, and gave us an enchanting smile. The señor bowed with gravity. Having but little Castilian between us, rather less Catalan, and not a word, as yet, of Ibicenca, we shook hands with our host, bowed to the company, and sat down at a marble-topped table.

If Teresita's knowledge of Spanish is not all it might be, her way with babies acts as a passe-partout among a people as devoted to children as are the Spaniards. Soon a gorged Paquita was being dandled in her arms, and pinched and petted, while the señor and I exchanged a knowing glance. These women! Margarita, meanwhile, had been conducting operations on her own account. She had dived under the table to inspect Teresita's underclothes. She stroked the silk of her stockings with a purr of pleasure; then, lifting up her frock, which was the colour of bull's blood, she found a petticoat with no less than seven lace flounces on it. With a cry of joy she counted them. Mira!" she cried. "Siente!" By this time the café had begun to fill up. A fat gentleman in shirt-sleeves, whose figure bulged in front over his leather belt and bulged to an even greater extent behind, gave the petticoat his earnest and admiring attention. Even the señor relaxed for a