hands, and a vision of a compact volume immediately suggested itself. and China. Oh yes, you smile and ask why the Russians did not evacuate Manchuria as they had promised. Pouf! Have you even yet withdrawn from Egypt? Yes 1 Also you remark that we treated the Chinese badly! You speak of General Gribsky's massacre at "This case the one I saw -had already lasted for three days. Every one was tired. The jury? Ah! They tried very hard not to sleep. Yes!" And he reclined in his chair with a deep yawn to portray Blagovestchenska-some day I the truly British juryman. 66 66 may tell you a story of it. Justice," he resumed, you Yes ! We may also talk of portray as a figure who is who is what the English have done blindfold. Splendid! Because in some of your leetle wars. she is blindfold she must Pouf! Also the Tai-Ping restand still or walk very slow-bellion! Even your great and she cannot go quick if she good Gordon was very stern, tries. And she holds a pair of and did not spare. In war one scales to weigh out money for cannot spare. the advocates-who keep her blindfold, because if she were allowed to see and go quick, they would not get the bigwhat do you call it ?-yes! fees!" He threw the stump of his cigarette on the fire, lighted another, placed his forefinger on the side of his nose, leaned forward in his chair, and said impressively "Now, when I was a judge I took the bandage off the eyes of justice, and she went quick —yes, very quick. Splendid! "Ah, you look astonished? But all the same I tell you once I was a judge. No; I know nothing about the law. I am a soldier. I know how to fight a leetle. It is my work. But I was told to be a judge. I will explain to you. "It was years ago, when I was a young man, before our war with Japan broke out. Previously I was in Manchuria "But I must tell you. It happened like this. I was very much in want of some money. I had borrowed in advance on my pay, and was in debt. It is not good when one gets into the hands of a veterinary surgeon officer-it is he who often advances money. Ha, ha, ha! Some day I will tell you a funnee story about a surgeon, but not now. I was being pressed, and I had no money. "But, fortunately, my colonel was a friend. Splendid! He had nearly got into trouble at Petrograd over a question of contracts in which he put money into his pocket. Pouf ! You say all was bribery in Russia? Yes ? It may be true. But you-you are not always clean. Have I not heard of promotions in your Army of men who have friends among your nobles? Is it not that many of your Government offi steamers from Alicante (149 m.) and from Valencia (161 m.) pass, after 11-12 hours, between the mountainous island of Ibiza, culminating in the Atalayasa (1500 ft.), and the flat island of Formentera. They stop for a few hours at Ibiza (British vice-consulate), the capital of the former, a town with 6327 inhab., an old castle, and a cathedral (fine view), and reach Palma in 9 hrs. more." You see, you aren't really encour aged to do more than land for that "few hours" and visit the "old castle " (which does not exist), or to climb up to the cathedral (fine view)," which does. To the expert Baedekerite, the passage, being interpreted, means that there is absolutely no tourist traffic to Ibiza, and that the whole island does not contain one single inn or hotel which could truthfully be described even "moderate." If you are a The two or three main roads as thoroughly respectable person, with lots of suit-cases, trees for all your shoes, and wallets adequately lined with notes, you will take Mr Baedeker's broad hint. If, on the other hand, you belong to the baggytrousered impecunious kind of Continental tramp, you will take Mr Baedeker's subtle hint. Mr Baedeker knows his business. To the amateur of islands Ibiza has everything to recommend it. In size it is neither too large nor too small. At a rough calculation it is, I suppose, about twenty odd miles from end to end, and about a dozen miles broad. It is not mountainous, as Mr Baedeker states, but it is continuously up and down-ridge after ridge of low but steep hills, partially covered with pines. The island is fairly fertile and well cultivated. Its principal export now, as for the past two thousand years or more, is salt. The salinas, or salt-pans, are about four or five miles from the town of Ibiza, at the southern extremity of the island, and consist of a number of shallow basins, covering about six square miles. The principal villages are San Antonio on the west coast, Santa Eulalia on the east, and San Juan Bautista in the north. They are distant nine, ten, and fourteen miles respectively from Ibiza, and can all be reached very quickly by motor diligences, whose superstructures do not conceal the familiar outlines of the ubi quitous "flivver." of the island, legacies from the Roman period, are straight and good, but the lesser roads are scarcely possible for wheeled traffic. The island women make most of their journeys on donkey-back, and very pretty they look sailing slowly along the dusty carretara to do the day's marketing. They sit their asses with the utmost grace, and hold their umbrellas at a coquettish angle, with a natural chic of which a Parisian would not be ashamed. On either side of the donkeys are big basket panniers, into which innumerable articles can be safely stowed. The girls usually wear yellow handkerchiefs over the of their heads, and brown ow shawls. They have, ed with a charming simall the subtle graces women can acquire under orous sky. In Ibiza s are hot, and women they are greatly in the y-at a premium. When zan farmer's daughter a marriageable age, an cement is sent out to strict, and on an ap1 evening the ceremony tship takes place. The who turn up are each ten minutes or a quarter our in which to do their win the maiden's heart. etide the boy who outis allotted time by so s thirty seconds! The are hot-blooded, reare plentiful, and the find it wiser not to cate crimes passionels. the last of the suitors d his last compliment, makes her choice, the nent is announced, and doubt celebrated by a eal of eating and drinkdancing. good island for women. suppose they have votes, the household of Señor Tur, our host at the del Commercio, is anyo go by-they certainly ower. I used to find ks abroad with Teresita mbarrassing. On one afternoon, within two res of the city, she was no less than ten Es of wild flowers by iling youths. Alas! I carry them home for her through the broiling sunshine. Ibiza is a town which looks very much larger than it really is, so effectively is it situated. It is divided into two halves. The lower town-La Marinagrew up outside the massive fortifications when the island lost its riches, and the Corsairs ceased to be a menace. In the upper town, La Ciudad, are the houses of the wealthier inhabitants-some quite seigneurial in their magnificence,-the Cathedral, the Bishop's palace, the Barracks, and a small but extremely interesting museum, containing relics of the many civilisations - Greek, Roman, Phoenician, Moorish - which have at different epochs established themselves upon the island. Just outside the walls of the city, on the hill-top, is the Phoenician necropolis of Ereso, which contains over two thousand tombs, which those who are sufficiently interested can enter. I was told that if I took a spade and dug, I should be almost certain to find something of interestbroken pottery, a statuette, perhaps coins. But I am no digger, particularly under a broiling sun, and I preferred, in the coolness of the museum, to admire the results of other people's toil. The cathedral, which has a grey and weatherbeaten appearance, is not really older than the seventeenth century. It stands on a site successively occupied by a Phonician temple of Baal, a Greek temple of Minerva, and a Moorish mosque. Inside, it is clean and cool, and decorated in a queer Baroque style, no doubt by island craftsmen, with naïve statues and pictures of the saints and painted altars mellowed by time into the most enchanting colour combinations. If La Ciudad evokes memories of the days when Ibiza was prosperous, when the export of its purple dyes, its terra-cotta figures, its salt and ore, attracted to it the embarrassing attentions of the pirates of the Mediterranean, there is at present, from the tourist's standpoint, not a great deal to be seen there. The principal charm of the upper town is the view. From the ramparts by the cathedral you can look down upon the harbour, with its picturesque shipping, and across the bay to the lighthouse, and the little hills beyond it, all bathed in sunlight. Then walking on under an archway, you find when you emerge an entirely fresh coup-d'œil in the opposite direction. Below you lies another enchanting stretch of coast-line. In the middle distance is an old stone tower standing on a small headland, and far away, on the horizon, is the dark outline of the cliffs of the island of Formentera. The stretch of sea here, as all round Ibiza, is studded with great solitary rocks and tiny [June islands, about which the water breaks in a glittering froth of foam. The view was so exquisite, with the sunshine sparkling on the yellow sands and the sapphire waters of the Mediterranean, that when Teresita and I first came upon it we found a comfortable place under a gnarled and twisted olive-tree, and stayed there, so full of sheer happiness that we did not want to speak. It was just too good to be true: the island of our dreams. After an hour or so, as I suffer, in sunshiny countries, from an inability to keep my clothes on, I made my way with difficulty down the hillside to the shore, and, finding a convenient cave, discarded the offending gar ments and slipped into the sea. The people of Ibiza are the very soul of kindness to the forastero. As a good host will treat an honoured guest, so The rocks were sharp, and cut my feet, and there were tiresome drifts of seaweed, but I did not care. I lay on my back, cradled in the clear sparkling water, and looked up at the sky, and could have found no unhappy thing to think about had I tried never so desperately. The trials and afflictions of this mortal life were simply washed out of my memory, and my heart sang inside me in sheer thankful. ness for a rapture of the senses which I had never expected to experience again. IV. they welcome the strangers who come among them. Their unaffected courtesy and friend. liness, and their unwillingness ploit the traveller finan-on occasions they even it difficult for him to e modest sum he owes, ch to convince one that dern commercialised civn is really as black as phers and poets love to it. On one occasion, we had completely lost ay, we came by chance a farmhouse. A group urers and a middle-aged ather better dressed than asants, were leaning over ud wall in front of the laughing and talking er in the cool of the g. Taking my courage h hands, I went up to nd asked them in French r they could tell me the Luckily, the superior ual, who turned out to owner of the farm, ood French, and could speak it a little. He came out to us and inpon guiding us through utifully cultivated farm tting us upon our road. time he carried on a of conversation, some1 Castilian for Teresita, es in French for me. ng the island custom, he is our Christian names, led us by them in the acious manner conceivNor did he part with we emerged from his on to the footpath. it visit a friend of his, ed, who had a wonderrium full of langostas. ly would not be denied. ne to the langosta XCXV. NO. MCCCIV. merchant's house, and were ushered into the yard at the back, and introduced to a very tall, very fat, and very cheerful old gentleman, and to his son, his daughter, and her young man. Before we were shown the lobsters, the boy of the house, a student at the "University" of Ibiza, was urged to display to us his knowledge of English. There followed a rather horrifying crossexamination. What is your name? What age have you? What does your father? What number peoples has city of Lon-don? Luckily, though he could pose these pulverising questions, his English did not enable him to understand our replies. After we had complimented Don Jaime on his son's proficiency in English, we were invited to go down on our knees and peer into a hole. Far below below us the innocent langostas, at present in ignorance of their ultimate fate, were moving about in considerable numbers. After this we were shown a strange HeathRobinson device of little canals, traps, pumps, and pulleys by which first the langostas were lured into their prison, and secondly, the water in it was kept continually in motion while they were there. It was a most baffling and complicated arrangement, and Teresita was so taken aback by it that it was four minutes before she could scrape together enough Castilian to tell our host how clever she thought it. She did so at last, however, and Don 2 I |