blow to the Polish cause, and was deplored by all the sympathising nations of Europe. How much was lost to Poland in this great General, was afterwards shown, when through the whole Polish army ran the universal la ment, "That with Dwernicki fortune had left the cause of Poland!"

VII.

It was not with vain and regretful tears that Julia called to mind the present position of'.er country, in which so many wives and mothers were compelled to the same sacrifice; remembering the duty which every Polish man and women were called upon to offer upon the altar of her native land, environed by the most imminent dangers, and in the midst of fatigues and privations of every kind, she at length reached Warsaw. Here, although she took not her place among the intrepid females who fought in the works with their sons and husbands, she nevertheless performed services in the national cause, not less useful, nor less beset with perils. It was in the centre of the hospitals of Warsaw that she proved herself a Polish heroine. Surrounded by the sick and the wounded, she forgot everything but the new duty which she had devoted herself to fulfil; and for five successive months thought of nothing save of binding up their wounds and of alleviating their sufferings. The daughter of O, the wife of S became a humble and an anxious nurse to the brave men of Poland.

When the day of misfortune arrived, the Countess accompanied the Polish army in their retreat to Modlin; and subsequently, taking advantage of the facility her sex afforded of passing through the enemy's army, she profited by it, and set out in search of her beloved children. At length she arrived, after a long and eventful absence, at the spot in which she had passed her happy youth. She had left it in the hope that she might still live to see her country delivered; she returned to it, beholding her country in stronger and closer chains; and as she looked once more upon the ruins of her paternal home, bitter tears gushed forth, and the remembrance of her sorrows returned to her soul in anguish almost too violent to bear.

But Almighty God, pitying her sufferings, rewarded her for her fortitude and for her untiring faith, by giving back her lost children. As she hurried distractedly through the woods surrounding L- which had once been her own, but which were now the property of the invading tyrant, she at length discovered her children under the care of Sophia their nurse, in the deep forests of B secluded from mankind, and at peace, if solitude

may be called peace! In the meanwhile, Count Edmund, sharing the fate of Dwernicki, entered Galicia with him; but, escaping from the Austrian guard, at length reached Warsaw. After fighting in the bloody battle of Ostrotzka, he marched with General Dembinski into Lithuania, and on the unhappy result of the Lithuanian insurrection, he was one in the famous retreat back to Poland. But determining to be ever in the face of the enemy, he entered the active corps of General Rozycki, with whom, after the fall of Warsaw, (his corps being surrounded by the six times greater strength of Rüdiger, and having lost almost half his force) he retreated to Galicia. And now, anxious concerning the fate of his sister, he disguised himself, and reached Podolia, designing to seek her. But here, beholding only the sad remains of fortune and greatness, -and lost in a reverie, whilst gazing upon the scattered ruins of his noble home, he perceived not that he was surrounded by a Russian patrol, who recognising and seizing him, he was sent to Bobouysk, a fortress in Lithuania, where he spent three months in the greatest tortures in the casemates. From thence he was sent on foot with other companions in misfortune to Siberia; but on the third day of his march, he succeeded in eluding the vigilance of his guard, and effected his escape.

Protected by the honest peasantry of Lithuania and Poland, though beset on all sides with the most imminent dangers, he arrived at last once more in Galicia, where, hearing nothing of his ill-fated sister, and fearful of arrest by the Austrian government, he made his escape to France, passing through Hungary, Austria, Italy, Piedmont and Savoy. Here he spent several months; but unable to tranquillize his mind respecting the fate of his beloved sister, he left that country and again entered Galicia in 1833, whence in disguise he proceeded to Podolia. More fortunate upon this occasion, while forced to conceal himself in the forest from the Russian spies, he accidentally discovered in the woods of B a solitary cottage, and recognised in its inmates his unfortunate sister and her children!

The mutual joy occasioned by this propitious meeting having subsided, Edmund taking Julia, her children, the faithful Sophia, and the veteran John, and passing miraculously through the Russian guards, reached Galicia; and having found a solitary but secure situation in the mountains of Carpathia, he placed his sister there, and began at last to repose in her society, after so many perils and misfortunes.

But Austrian policy, stimulated by Russian intrigue, did not long permit him to enjoy this tranquil retreat. Hunted by the police, he was compelled to leave his sister once more, and to flee to Carlsbad, disguised as a domestic in the service of a Polish family. There, again scented by the spies, and pursued like a wild beast, he escaped to Saxe; but the Russian Consul at that place offering a price for his head, compelled him to fly to Hamburgh, where, after living three months, he was again discovered by the Russian blood-hounds; and in fresh danger of being delivered up, he retired from that impotent city, and escaped to England.

Count Edmund has supported these almost unexampled trials with calmness and resignation, sustained by the conviction that fortitude under misfortune, and devotion to his native land, are duties which he owes to his country and to his God.

At length, upon the hospitable shores of Britain, he has begun to breathe the air of liberty; and at this moment, from his place of exile, his eye is turned towards the still gloomy aspect of Poland, and he only awaits the first signal to devote himself once more to her freedom.

His sister, the Countess Julia, buried in the mountains of Carpathia, far from the world, and unknown; scarce able to provide subsistence for herself and children, lingers out her days of privation and of grief. The duties of a mother may, perhaps, sometimes tranquillize the anguish of her soul; but the annihilation of her country's liberty, and the destruction of her dearest hopes have sunk into her heart, and saddened her existence for ever.

THE PILOT AND THE PRINCESS.

A SCENE IN THE BOSPHORUS.

FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF A TRAVELLER.

[From "The Forget-me-not," for 1835.

I HAD agreed for my passage with the captain of a Greek polacre, who was to sail in the evening for Odessa. The polacre was a remarkably pretty bark, but with what the sailors call a roguish look, and, unless I shrewdly misconceived appearances, had played her part among the islands in the days when the sabre did more than the invoice, and Greek captains traded in more matters than they would acknowledge at any custom-house in the Mediterranean. But all was now innocent. The polacre had been purified from all her pirate frolics; her destination was legitimate; and my baggage, valet, and leash of Anatoly greyhounds, were put on board. The cabin was sufficiently small, and I had taken it to myself, with the fair additional stipulation that neither more goods nor passengers should be taken on board than the vessel would be able to carry. The captain, a showy, bronzed, tail Greek, shook me by the hand, in token of being charmed with all my stipulations; pledged himself by the image of the Virgin, which hung prominent and propitious over his forecastle, to fulfil every condition with accuracy unequalled by any navigator of the seas; and finished by promising me a passage worthy of an emperor.

The evening was a June evening of the Mediterranean. This is saying enough for its beauty. But it was besides, an evening of the Ramazan. This, all the world knows, is the only thing wanting to make a Turkish summer evening the perfection of beauty. As I was standing on the quay of the Golden Horn, I heard the evening gun fire from the seraglio, and the whole famous exhibition rapidly followed. Mosque after mosque blazed out in light, as if it were roofed with jewels. Towers hitherto invisible suddenly shot up, like fixed flames of all heights, shapes, and colours. Broad sheets of lamps covered the chief structures of the city, and above them rose and shone the Santa Sophia, like the central coronet in a colossal jewelchamber. All was glittering, glowing, and magnificent. Above this, the sky was one vast expanse of the deepest violet. Nothing could be more fitted to show off the infinite lustres below. Nature never contrived a lovelier setting for the most brilliant display that could have been wrought by the powers of man.

The wind was now blowing right up the Bosphorus, and I became impatient to begin my voyage. But Captain Callistrato's impatience threw mine totally into the background. He ranted, raved, and flung out his whole vocabulary of sea names upon his crew, his passengers, and all things else within his memory. Yet, to my surprise, there lay our gallant vessel yet with her grapnels to the quay, and her anchor fast in the ooze. As I gazed at the reflection of the moonrise in the mirror of the waters, I hinted to the captain that the first preliminary to movement was connected with hoisting his anchor. He struck his ample forehead in utter astonishment at the stupidity of his crew, and gave instant orders for the handspikes to be in readiness. The orders were echoed and re-echoed round the deck.

Yet, by some singular mischance, neither grapnel nor anchor stirred. After observing his strange neglect to the captain, who instantly darted away to have it rectified, I went down to my cabin. Imagine my indignation. I found it half full already, my trunks occupied as ottomans, a pair of Greek ladies, one or both of whom were said to be dying of a fever, tenants of my cot, and half a dozen long-bearded Osmanlis quietly preparing their pipes for a final treat, before they lay down on their carpets. This was intolerable. It was now my turn to rave. I rushed upon deck, determined to abate the nuisance in the most summary manner, by compelling the captain to clear my cabin of every interloper at once, and to leave Turkish Effendis and Greek Venuses alike on shore. But I was too late for this part of the performance. I found the deck a pile of goods of every kind; the polacre overloaded to such a degree that the first gale would in all probability blow her over; and the captain wringing his hands at 'the trick which had been played upon him by the knavery of his crew.'

But by this time it was night; the grapnels were loose at last; and we were rapidly gliding up the Bosphorus. To put the intruders on shore was, of course, now out of the question. But it was quite another affair to prevent further accessions to their numbers. On the contrary, we had scarcely passed the seraglio half a league, when some confounded accident to our mast compelled the captain to shorten sail. This was instantly taken advantage of by some adventurers on shore; and we were boarded by a felucca containing Greeks enough to have founded a colony. The wrath of the unfortunate captain was boundless. But, by some means or other, all the live stock of the felucca made their footing good. Their bark dropped suddenly away; and we were forced to make the best of our misfortune by that patience which was the virtue of the unlucky.

The night was magnificent, but the moon's horns portended a gale. I had been long enough learning my trade in one of his Britannic Majesty's frigates to know that a gale in the Euxine in an overloaded polacre, with a Greek captain and a deck full of the mongrel population of the suburbs of Constantinople, would be any thing but a matter of amusement. I communicated my notions on the subject to the captain, who received them with every mark of gratitude; was full of regrets, even almost up to the point of anguish, at the incursions which had been made into my cabin; and, on the whole, exhibited such overwhelming sorrow, that I thought it a matter of mere feeling to console him. This I found difficult. Yet he was not incapable of listening to reason; and, when we parted for the night, I left him loaded with obligations. My last advice was, that not another ounce of freightage should be suffered on the deck; for, the moment the vessel felt the wind at the chops of the Bosphorus, the result would probably be our turning mast-head over into the other world.

The dew and the gusts together at length overcame my repugnance to venture into the stifling atmosphere of my cabin, possessed as it was by interlopers; and down I plunged. But what was my astonishment to find that a new invasion had taken place during my absence! Whether the invaders had come through the port-holes or from the moon, they had come invisibly to me; and, as the captain, whom I now roundly tasked with this new infraction of our compact, swore, by all his saints, unexpectedly to him. On my proceeding to the length of telling him that I was not to be swindled by any scoundrel who wore a beard in the Mediterranean, and promising him that half an hour should not elapse from our arrival before the whole affair should be submitted to the consul I-a promise which argued nothing but my own absurdity, for it might have cost me a plunge into the bowels of the Black Sea-the gallant Callistrato only protested the more against the ill luck that constantly pursued him. But what could a Greek do with those brutes of Turks? If they boarded his vessel, any attempt to

Keep them out would be answered by a carbine full of bullets or a push o a poniard. He wished them from his soul, root and branch, in the bottom of the sea. Yet, what was to be done?' He aided his eloquence by wringing his hands, tearing his hair, and, above all, as an evidence of genuine affliction, promising to refund the passage-money the moment we touched the shore. What more could be done by man? From a Greek, whose soul is beyond that of all others on earth the temple of Mammon, it was miraculous. now tried the cabin again; was fortunate enough to reach the door, though not a step further; found a snoring Turk for my pillow; and, wrapping myself up in my cloak, waited to be trampled on by the next importation of the disastrous captain.

I might have lain about three hours in the most uneasy of all possible slumbers, dreaming of wrecks, skirmishes with Osmanlis, as tall as the sky, and with sabres flashing like the dog-star; when, in the midst of a furious sea-fight, in which I was performing prodigies of valour, I felt the imaginary deck quiver under me, and was hoisted into the clouds on a burst of fire, which shook my visonary ship into ten thousand fragments, and sent my gallant crew to the bottom of the blue sea. I awoke, heard a gun fire, and was instantly on my legs, delighted to find, like Clarence, that it was "but a dream," that my ship was but some half dozen Osmanlis, of whom I had made my bed in the dark, the tumult of the heady fight but the rattling of feet on the deck above my head, and the explosion but a musquet fired by some of the crew. But, to sleep was now impossible, and I left the Turks to settle the matter with each other, and went above. There what a scene met my eye! If I had seen the polacre overloaded before, what was I to make of her now! She was actually a pile of goods. Stem and stern were equally undistinguishable. The gale was increasing: in half an hour we must be in the Euxine; and in half a minute after that it was fifty chances to one but that our story was told.

My first business now was to find the captain. But he had, I suppose, exhausted all his pathetics, for he was not to be found. He had ensconsed himself among his bales, and he might as well have been looked for in the billows that were now beginning to tumble about us in a sufficient menacing style. As I was rather angrily continuing my search, the mate of the ship, a little Maltese, with shrewd eyes and the air of a humourist, addressed me. "You may as well give over your trouble for the night, sir," said he," for when the captain does not choose to be found, it will not be very easy to find him."-"Is the rascal hanged, drowned, or runaway?" was my impatient exclamation. "The last should be first," coolly replied the Maltese. "The others may come all in good time. But, if you expect to see Captain Callistrato until the moon is down, and we are fairly out of the Channel- -"The speech was concluded with a look which told me at once that the captain was a smuggler. "But this loading - where does it come from, and for what, when the polacre is already at the water's edge ?" was my question." Where it comes from," said the mate," those know best who brought it, honest fellows as they all are; where it goes to they probably think they know best, for the owners have taken good care to come along with their property. Some is intended for the mountains, some for the Danube, some for Sebastopol, some for Trebizond, but not the value of a piastre of it ever to pass through the hands of a custom-house officer."

The Maltese seemed to enjoy my surprise at this account of his cargo, and proceeded in his communication. "The passengers are as little pleased with the sight of daylight as the captain would now be pleased at the sight of your excellenza pricking him out of one of those bales yonder with the point of your sabre. Some are Jews, some Infidels, some Greeks, and some Italians; and I'll pledge the chance of my wages for the trip that no two of them differ more than any two galley-slaves in Marseilles; that if