My studies kept pace with my pleasures, slowly. I knew, by heart, the Botanical Gardens of Athens; they were neither very beautiful nor very full; it was a subject soon mastered. The Royal Gardens offered far more to study: an intelligent Frenchman had collected for it all the riches of the vegetable kingdom, from the palms of the West Indies to the saxifrage of the North. I passed whole days there studying M. Barraud's collections. The garden is public only at certain hours; but I spoke Greek to the guards, and for love of the Greek, they permitted me to enter. M. Barraud did not seem to weary of my company; he took me everywhere for the pleasure of discussing Botany and speaking French. In his absence, I hunted up the head gardener and questioned him in German: it is well to be polyglot. I searched for plants every day in the surrounding country, but never as far from the city as I should like to have gone; there were many brigands around Athens. I am not a coward, the following story will prove it to you, but I love my life. It is a present which I received from my parents; I wish to preserve it as long as possible, in remembrance of my father and mother. In the month of April, 1856, it was dangerous to go far from the city: it was even imprudent to live outside. I did not venture upon the slopes of Lycabettus without thinking of poor Mme. Daraud who was robbed in broad daylight. The hills of Daphne recalled to me the capture of two French officers. Upon the road to Piraeus, I thought, involuntarily, of the band of brigands who traveled in six carriages as if on a pleasure tour, and who shot at passers by from the coach doors. The road to Pentelicus recalled the stopping of the Duchess de Plaisance, or the recent story of Harris and Lobster's adventure. They were returning from an excursion, on two Persian horses belonging to Harris, when they fell into an ambuscade. Two brigands, weapons in hand, stopped them in the middle of a bridge. They glanced all around and saw at their feet, in a ravine, a dozen rascals, armed to the teeth, who were guarding fifty or sixty prisoners. All who had passed that way since sunrise had been despoiled, then bound, so that no one could escape to give the alarm. Harris and his nephew were unarmed. Harris said to the young man in English: "Give up your money; it will not pay to be killed for twenty dollars." The brigands took the money, without letting go the bridles; they then showed the Americans the ravine and signed to them to descend. Harris now lost patience; it was repugnant to him to be bound; he was not the kind of wood of which one makes fagots. He looked at the little Lobster, and at the same instant, two fist blows like two chain-shots, struck the heads of the two brigands. William's adversary fell over on his back, at the same time, discharging his pistol; Harris' brigand, struck more forcibly, toppled over the cliff and fell among his comrades. Harris and