e
acquaintance with the world. Meanwhile they could telegraph their plans
to Solomon John, as the English gentleman could give them the address of
his hotel.

And Mrs. Peterkin did not now shrink from another voyage. Her experience
on the Nile had made her forget her sufferings in crossing the Atlantic,
and she no longer dreaded entering another steamboat. Their delight in
river navigation, indeed, had been so great that the whole family had
listened with interest to the descriptions given by their Russian
fellow-traveller of steamboat navigation on the Volga--"the most
beautiful river in the world," as he declared. Elizabeth Eliza and Mr.
Peterkin were eager to try it, and Agamemnon remarked that such a trip
would give them an opportunity to visit the renowned fair at
Nijninovgorod. Even Mrs. Peterkin had consented to this expedition,
provided they should meet Solomon John and the other little boys.

She started, therefore, on a fresh voyage without any dread, forgetting
that the Mediterranean, if not so wide as the Atlantic, is still a sea,
and often as tempestuous and uncomfortably "choppy." Alas! she was soon
to be awakened from her forgetfulness: the sea was the same old enemy.

As they passed up among the Ionian Isles, and she heard Agamemnon and
Elizabeth Eliza and their Russian friend (who was accompanying them to
Constantinople) talking of the old gods of Greece, she fancied that they
were living still, and that Neptune and the classic waves were wreaking
their vengeance on them, and pounding and punishing them for venturing
to rule them with steam. She was fairly terrified. As they entered
Smyrna she declared she would never enter any kind of a boat again, and
that Mr. Peterkin must find some way by which they could reach home by
land.

How delightful it was to draw near the shore, on a calm afternoon,--even
to trust herself to the charge of the boatmen in leaving the ship, and
to reach land once more and meet the tumult of voices and people! Here
were the screaming and shouting usual in the East, and the same bright
array of turbans and costumes in the crowd awaiting them. But a
well-known voice reached them, and from the crowd rose a well-known
face. Even before they reached the land they had recognized its owner.
With his American dress, he looked almost foreign in contrast to the
otherwise universal Eastern color. A tall figure on either side seemed,
also, each to have a familiar air.

Were there thr