from the western horizon at a pace that was terrific to behold. There was a sudden rush of feet across the bridge, for the people, men, women, and children, were flying in all directions, hoping to find shelter from the deluge which they supposed would, in a very short time, be pouring down upon the town from out of the midst of the ominous pillar of cloud that was building itself up so rapidly and with such magic speed in the west. Even an old Turk, who shot by us on his white donkey, wore a countenance perfectly alarmed and panic-stricken. I believe a Turk is the only man among men who looks wholly dignified and composed as he glides through the broad light of day perched on the back of a donkey. An Englishman on a donkey is not the "right man in the right place" by any means. He is either possessed with a fit of boisterous merriment, as his knees go poking at the backs of the crowd, or else with a nervous dread that sooner or later be must ride over and injure some man, woman, or helpless child. But your true Osmanlee, with the shuffling, humble quadruped beneath him, tilts at the crowd as if only intent as a ruthless Vandal upon destruction and injury, breathing scorn upon your infidel head should he happen to jostle you, and withal proud and defiant, as if he were astride a caparisoned elephant. But, Turk as he was, the Turk we saw that evening was not "equal to the occasion." He had no sooner passed us, his eye fixed on the darkening sky, and abject terror depicted in every line of his countenance, than he whirled his chibouque high aloft. The bowl flew heaven knows where, but the long cherry stick came down, like avenging fate, sure and swift upon the ribs of the poor donkey. A heavy gust of wind, the precursor of the storm, swept across the bridge, and burst irreverently upon the sacred beard of him that fled, and, as a squall

splits a light stun sail, split it into a thousand shreds that went streaming out over his shoulders behind.

We ourselves hurried home, for we saw plainly that the storm would be upon us in a few minutes. The appearance of this driving cloud from our verandah was grand in the extreme. We now were convinced that a sandstorm, and that one of no ordinary kind, was about to burst upon us in all its fury; for the cloud, now that we came to look at it, and into it, evidently held no rain in its lurid depths. The dark shades of it were of the deepest purple, and the edges, as it came boiling up from the westward, were tinted a glorious gold. Every instant, as the light played over the surface, we beheld colours varying from a brilliant orange to the deep, dark, sombre tones of red and purple. Birds of all descriptions, screaming wildly, were endeavouring, some by rapid flight, some by soaring high into the yet clear vault of heaven, to avoid the sand-laden atmosphere that was surging towards us in a way wondrous to behold. In less than fifteen minutes from the time we first observed it, the fiery breath of the storm was upon us. First came the moan of a rushing mighty wind as it swept angrily by. There were a few date-trees in the garden below. Their large sturdy leaves were for an instant strangely agitated; the next they were torn away with a crash, and then hurried along to leeward as are the light leaves of a beech before an autumn breeze. The stout trees themselves swayed to and fro, then bent down, and bowed humbly before the wrath of the gale. A few seconds more and the town was plunged into an utter darkness as of midnight. Though two of us were standing within a yard of each other, out in the open verandah, it was impossible to trace even the outline of the figure, so impenetrable was the gloom. There was a feeling that some kind of fine sand was pervading every sense

sore.

of the body. There was a peculiar taste in the atmosphere, and the eyes suddenly became painful and After the one furious gust of wind had passed on, there was a great stillness in the air, and immediately the darkness set in the buzz and the hum of the bazaars was completely hushed. Our servants thought the last day had come, and, as we heard afterwards, this was the general opinion throughout the town; for even the "oldest inhabitant" had never seen any dust-storm resembling this. In those moments of darkness more than one pious follower of the Prophet, as he felt himself choking with dust, thought that the hour in which he should find himself gliding to heaven and unbounded bliss had at length approached. Had he not prayed at all hours of the day and the night? Had he not fasted till he had become the mere ghost of his former self? Had he not rubbed his forehead on the black stone of the distant Mecca Had he not fairly won the joys of the faithful in that his hand had once been red with the blood of the Christian dog? or, as the case might be, did he not daily regret that no opportunity had presented itself of cutting some infidel throat? In about five minutes the darkness began to clear. Immediately we could see, we found ourselves and everything belonging to us covered with a fine impalpable dust of a reddish colour. There is no sand of this colour in any of these deserts; so the opinion was that the dust-laden cloud was a traveller straight from the Egyptian desert. As the darkness fled, a dull-red, luminous glare, the most aweinspiring part of the storm, I thought, succeeded, and steeped all surrounding objects. A hum from the bazaars suddenly arose, and soon swelled into a loud prolonged shout, in which it seemed that every breathing soul in the town that had a voice took rejoicing part. We saw no sun set that

evening: the sombre red glare that came streaming into the windows, and bathing everything around, was gradually lost in the darkness of night. By ten o'clock that night, as we smoked our evening pipe in the open verandah, we looked up at stars shining forth bright and brilliant, but in vain did we look for any trace of the evening's storm in the dark-blue vault of heaven.

For our visit to the Biers-Nimrood we hired some horses in the town. Our own poor beasts were in want of a day's rest, and this we proposed giving them before starting on our return-ride to Baghdad. On the morning after the storm, we were threading our way through narrow silent streets and covered-in bazaars, shortly after break of day. All was silent as the grave, and nothing moving but great wolfishlooking dogs, who glared at us, showed us a long white fang or two, and then suddenly disappeared. Early as it was, there was no greeting for us from the fresh pleasant air of morn. As we pushed along through the empty bazaars, a heavy close atmosphere stifled us with its various scents of all manners of spices and fruits and stores; all which, good things in their way, we knew were piled up behind the great badly-jointed boards that stretched across the counters of the stalls. Not till we issued out into the open plain, across which our road lay, did we drink in the pure morning air of the desert, and then it came to us like an invigorating draught. We coaxed the horses-which were small springy Arabs, not in the best condition certainly, but infinitely better in every respect than our Baghdad ones-into a cheering gallop. The Hillah Pasha had provided us with an escort of two men. These men, chosen from among his own retainers, were supposed to have some sort of mysterious information as to the movements of a plundering tribe of the Shammar Arabs, who had lately been seen in the vicinity of the ruin we were

about to visit. Whether it was the presence of these two formidablelooking horsemen with us or not, it was impossible to say; but no plundering Arabs molested us, nor did we see any, nor indeed any living thing during our ride, if I remember right, beyond some terribly mangylooking jackals, that slunk away at our approach as they say ghosts do at the approach of dawn. One of our two men was a Kurd, the other an Arab. Any national characteristic they might have had in early days had been completely obliterated by the levelling hand of the Pasha's service. The Kurd had little to distinguish him from the Arab, though he did certainly look rather the greater villain of the two. Had the question of cutting our throats arisen, the Arab would, no doubt, have seconded, but the Kurd most assuredly would have put the motion. They were both armed to the teeth, and had all sorts of strange contrivances fastened about their persons. Powder-flasks of various shapes and sizes, cartouche-boxes, and an odd contrivance for striking fire at an instant's notice, were among the numerous things that dangled around their hips. In addition to a whole girdleful of sidearms, one carried a lance, the other a long matchlock, with slow match kindled, ready for immediate action. When our gallop was over, and we were ambling along at a more sober pace, some premonitory signs given by our escort made us aware that they now thought a fit opportunity had arrived of giving us some idea of their martial prowess. The Kurd blew up his match, and gave a tug at his long wiry mustaches, with the air of a man prepared for some doughty deed. The Arab shook his lance, gave a yell-not an ordinary yell, let me add, but a yell that, going up somewhere above our heads, burst in the serene still air of early day, and shivered it into ragged reverberating fragmentstook his horse as tight by the head as he could hold him, and then sent

him bounding over the desert in large sweeping circles. The Kurd's tactics were different. He hung his reins dangling over the saddle-bow, seized his long matchlock with both hands, thumped lustily at the lean sides of his steed with the heavy iron stirrup, and in another moment horse and man were flying across the broad plain in a line of flight straight as that of a shooting star. They went through a variety of manœuvres. The Arab was the better mounted man of the two, and appeared to have his adversary completely under command as far as speed went, but from whichever side he approached, from the right or from the left, from the front or from the rear, the death-dealing tube of the Kurd, like the finger of destiny, was ever pointing straight upon him. I think it is a Russian proverb that says "no man attain to honour in the state, who is cursed with a stiff backbone." If it is fair to apply the proverb "au pied de la lettre," that poor Kurdish retainer who accompanied us that day ought by right to be a Pasha at least before he dies. The way he bent himself-his horse at gallop all the while-backwards and sideways and forwards, proved that he was possessed of a backbone of more than ordinarily supple capacity.

can

To our right, the bare plain was dotted by a little patch of brake and jungle: our Kurd could speak a little Persian, and in answer to our inquiries he informed us that wild boar, as we had supposed, were sometimes the occupants of the little patch of covert. But the name of the unclean animal had no sooner passed the Kurd's lips, than such sonorous maledictions, such sweeping curses rolled from off his true believing tongue, that we at once saw the impropriety we had committed in mentioning an animal so distasteful, so utterly abhorrent to so orthodox a follower of the Prophet as our Kurd evidently professed himself to be. In our hearts, we knew this eloquent cur

sing of the Kurd's was simply a little bit of affectation. Had some grisly old boar been lying dead on the plains, with his throat properly cut, and turned towards Mecca the Holy, our Kurd would have walked away-though perhaps not openly -with a piece of the forbidden flesh, as well as the veriest Christian amongst us. After a ride of about eight miles, we were at the foot of the Biers-Nimrood. Our horses' feet were trampling upon the remains of bricks which showed here and there through the accumulated dust and rubbish of ages. Before our eyes uprose a great mound of earth, barren and bare. This was the BiersNimrood, the ruins of the Tower of Babel, by which the first buildders of the earth had vainly hoped to scale high heaven. Here also it was that Nebuchadnezzar built, for bricks bearing his name have been found in the ruins. At the top of the mound a great mass of brickwork pierces the accumulated soil. With your finger you touch the very bricks, large, square-shaped, and massive, that were "thoroughly" burned; the very mortar; the "slime," now hard as granite, handled more

than four thousand years ago by earth's impious people. From the summit of the mound, far away over the plain, we could see glistening, brilliant as a star, the gilded dome of a mosque, that caught and reflected the bright rays of the morning sun. This glittering speck was the tomb of the holy Aly, and to pray before this at some period of his life, to kiss the sacred dust of the earth around, there at some time or other to bend his body and count his beads, is the daily desire of every devout Mohammedan.

We were back from the BiersNimrood and under our Hillah roof again by ten o'clock. By four that evening we had turned our faces to the north, and were riding for Baghdad. The distance from Hillah to the gates of Baghdad is called sixty miles. We were actually in the saddle on our returnride, never going beyond a walk's pace, 18 hours, viz:

Hillah to Mohawul 4 hours. Mohawul to Iskandria 4 Iskandria to Kanezad 5 Kanezad to Baghdad 5

18

33

As I am about to offer a few non-medical observations on certain matters connected with medicine, I beg leave to open the subject by stating the grounds on which I presume to express an opinion on this class of topics.

I studied medicine, and walked the hospitals; and though ill-health prevented my becoming a practitioner, I have ever retained, not only a high respect and a cordial affection for the medical profession, but such an amount of medical knowledge as to be able to render occasional service to invalids. When, indeed, my opinion is sought by parties who are medically ill, I merely tell them to "take advice." The responsibility of treating their complaints would in that case be too serious; and the best counsel I can offer is, "call in a doctor in whom you place confidence; tell him your whole case, be sure you conceal nothing; and, mind you, take his prescriptions." The man that is medically ill must be medically treated.

There are, however, many cases with which a medical man of good standing and extensive practice does not like to be troubled. Call in a practitioner of this class for a fever, for an attack of bronchitis, or for a fit of the gout, and he will do his best to set you right. But go to him looking about as well as usual, and without having any indication that you are really ill; and though you tell him a long story about your sensations and your symptoms, a man of your penetration will soon make the discovery that he takes no very profound interest in your case. The doctor, in fact, in order to cure, must have something that needs curing; there must be something on which he can lay his hand; then he is your man-not else. I refer, of course, to the practitioner who has a deserved position in his profession, and in whom integrity

is combined with skill. No doubt there are some who are glad to see a patient in every one that comes to them; if yours is no case, they will make it one; and if you sleep well, look well, and have the best of appetites, perhaps they will give you something that will very soon rid you of all such alarming symptoms.

And yet among those persons who have nothing to show in the way of real illness, there are many who are far from enjoying the full consciousness of health. According to their own impressions they are sufferers, grievous sufferers; sufferers, though medicine ignore their sufferings. On this class of persons I occasionally bestow the extramedical benefit of my best advice, and in some instances I have done good. In that numerous class who, without being medically ill, never think themselves well, there are many who have taken up, perhaps excogitated for themselves,some idea which they deem hygienic, though it be wholly without foundation in medical science or in medical experience-to speak plainly, some crotchet; and by this crotchet, as a rule of health, they manage, or think to manage, themselves, their own constitution, their own digestion. These I find a most untractable class of patients. Some persons, again, "study the wholesomes;" and, wonderful, generally speaking, are their feats of knife and fork! Just as there are some persons who ruin themselves with buying bargains, so are there others who make themselves sick with eating wholesome things. To all such persons I think I could give good advice, without feeling their pulses or taking a fee. But let us pass on from these general remarks to the particular subject now to be considered-"Constitutional Tendencies."

There are, no doubt, such things as constitutional tendencies; con