This "Voyage Round the World," from which we must now turn aside, does not sum up Lady Brassey's achievements as a traveller. She accompanied her husband, in 1874, on a cruise to the Arctic Circle, but has published no record of this enterprise. On their return, the indefatigable couple started on a voyage to the East, visiting Constantinople, the city of gilded palaces and mosques, of harems and romance; and skimming the sunny waters of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. In 1878 they made a second excursion to the Mediterranean, revisiting Constantinople, and seeing it in storm and shadow as they had previously seen it in sunshine; and exploring Cyprus, which then had been but recently brought under British dominion. Lady Brassey's narrative of her Mediterranean cruises and Oriental experiences has the distinctive merits of her former work--the same unpretending simplicity and clearness of style, the same quick appreciation of things that float upon the surface; but it necessarily lacks its interest and special value. It goes over familiar--nay, over hackneyed--ground, and thus inevitably comes into comparison with the works of preceding travellers, such as Miss Martineau and the author of "Eoethen," to whose high standard Lady Brassey would be the first to acknowledge that she has no pretensions to attain. There is a certain amount of freshness in the following brief sketch of Athens[36]:-- "We drove first to the Temple of Theseus, the most perfectly preserved temple of the ancient world. The situation has sheltered it from shot and shell; but, without doubt, it owes its escape from destruction in part to the circumstance that in the Middle Ages it was consecrated as a church. It is a beautiful building, with its double row of columns, bas-reliefs, and roof all perfect, and now contains an interesting collection of antiquities, gathered from its immediate neighbourhood. Thence we drove up the hill to the Acropolis, passing on our way the modern observatory on the Hill of the Nymphs. The Hill of Pnyx rose on our right, and the Areopagus, where St. Paul preached, on our left. We entered the gates, and, passing among ruins of all kinds--statues, bas-reliefs, columns, capitals, and friezes--soon approached the propylaea. Then we went to the little Temple of Victory, closed with iron gates, and full of most exquisite bits of statues and bas-reliefs, specially two dancing girls, graceful in attitude and full of life and action. After these preliminary peeps at loveliness and art, we went up the long flight of steps, past the Pinartheca, and soon stood on the top of the Hill of the Acropolis, and in full view of all its glories.