In fact, the Oriental gamut differs from ours very essentially, as it contains quarter tones. Our ears, educated to the semitone as minimum interval, cannot seize any melodious meaning in the midst of these heteroclite sounds. However, the Turkish music, well suited to the dance, is not lacking in rhythm. The principal instruments used to mark the time are the _daul_, or great drum; the _tomboleh_, or small drum; the _kios_, a brass drum; the triangle, etc.... As for the other instruments, they are--the _sinekeman_, a violin of large dimensions; the _nei_, flute made of a reed; the _ghirif_, little flute; the _kânon_, a psalterion with strings of catgut, which is particularly in favor in the harems, etc.... In _Constantinople in 1828_ (by Farlane) we read: "The music to which the dervishes perform their ambulatory rotations is made up of tambourines, small drums and Turkish flutes.... The dervishes begin singing a soft and slow melody while turning around: then the movement is gradually accelerated until it becomes a giddy whirl, lasting twelve or fifteen minutes. After a brief pause a second dance begins, then a third, more rapid and more savage, and the cries, _Allah il Allah, la illa il Allah_, are given louder and sharper than before." If our readers have any curiosity about this strange art, they have but to open the score of _Oberon_: they will find there two authentic Turkish airs, noted down almost textually by Weber--namely, the march of the patrol which ends the first act, and the dizzy round that makes the dénoûment of the piece, dragging the pasha and his suite into a choreographic vortex with the force of a whirlwind.--_Condensed from an article by A. de Lasalle_. "LES NAUFRAGÉS DE CALAIS." After the restoration of the monarchy in France on the 22d of July, 1815, a royal decree ordained the banishment of thirty-eight ex-members of the Convention who had voted for the death of Louis XVI. These unhappy regicides took refuge in the Low Countries, but the French government demanded their expulsion, and King William of Holland was reluctantly compelled to obey. Among these persons was Merlin of Douai, who had been Minister of Justice in 1795. On being refused an asylum on Dutch soil, he took passage on board the brig Alice for New York. She was wrecked off Flushing before reaching the Channel. Her passengers were saved, and relanded on the coast of Belgium. In this situation how vividly must Merlin have recalled a parallel event in which he played the part of an unjust and cruel judge, while his victims were two hundred and fifty shipwrecked noblemen escaping from the government of the Reign of Terror!