We returned to Baku in the rain, more dead than alive. It was the eve of Easter. The next morning, as I was sitting on the sofa with the children, there came in a tall, meagre Hindoo, with gray hair; he was dressed in a white robe, and brought me white and red sugar on a silver plate. He was the chief priest from the temple of the Gebers, and had come to Baku to see the Easter festivities. We took a few grains of his sugar, and I laid a silver rouble on the plate. While he was making his bows for this, my husband came in and told him, partly in Tartar, partly in Russian, and partly in pantomime, that we had been to his temple the night before, and had prayers said there. He asked at once, with eagerness, how much we had given, and when he learned the sum, asked for a certificate to that effect, as, without it, the others would give him no part of the money. We sent him away without granting his request, for the two screamers of the night previous had earned all we gave them. We learned afterwards that the gifts of visitors occasioned quarrels, and often blows, in the romantic fire-castle. This disgusted me, and yet it is not the fault of these poor fellows. They must necessarily become covetous, since they profane their most sacred ceremonies as a means of living. They have neither fields nor gardens, and the only thing like vegetation that I saw was some lone boxes in the court yard, filled with shrubs and plants, remains, no doubt, from the time of the Indian nabob, who sought in vain to establish cultivation in a soil impregnated with inflammable gas. However, I learned to my sorrow that grass at least grows there, for, in going through it to the spring, my feet became perfectly wet. The air of the locality does not seem to be unwholesome for man. At least, the Geber priests, who had lived there for years, were perfect lions for health and vigor. A NEW PORTRAIT OF CICERO. In the third volume of his _History of the Romans under the Empire_, just published in London, Mr. MERIVALE gives some elaborate pieces of character writing, one of which has for its subject CICERO. It is not good for a man to think harshly of Cicero, and however easy it may seem to be to condemn manifest faults in his character, it is by no means easy to be fair in the estimate we make. Mr. Merivale sums up a character which has too often been roughly put down as that of a great writer and a little man, as follows: