burden of this theft upon their shoulders; but in examining all the circumstances of the transaction, I confess the idea that their ingenuity was concerned did present itself to me. Next morning the beams of the rising sun, gleaming upon a thousand slender minarets and lofty-swelling domes surmounted by gilded crescents, discovered to him the ancient city of the califs stretching away right and left to a vast distance over the plain, while the Tigris, like a huge serpent, rolled along, cutting the city into two parts, and losing itself among the sombre buildings which seemed to tremble over its waters. The camels were once more loaded, and the caravan, stretching itself out into one long, narrow column, toiled along over the plain, and soon entered the dusty, winding streets of Bagdad. Here Pietro, whose coming had been announced the evening before by his young commercial companion, was met by the father of the Assyrian beauty, a fine patriarchal-looking old man, who entreated him to be his guest during his stay in Mesopotamia. This favour Pietro declined, but at the same time he eagerly accepted of the permission to visit at his house; and was no sooner completely established in his own dwelling than he fully availed himself of this permission. The family to which he became thus suddenly known was originally of Mardin, but about fourteen years previously had been driven from thence by the Kurds, who sacked and plundered the city, and reduced such of the inhabitants as they could capture to slavery. They were Christians of the Nestorian sect; but Della Valle, who was a bigot in his way, seems to have regarded them as aliens from the church of Christ. However, this circumstance did not prevent the image of Sitti Maani, the eldest of the old man’s daughters, and the beauty of whom he had heard so glowing a description in the desert, from finding its way into his heart, though the idea of marrying having occurred to him at Aleppo, he had written home to his relations to provide him with a suitable wife against his return to Italy. Maani was now in her eighteenth year. Her mind had been as highly cultivated as the circumstances of the times and the country would allow; and her understanding enabled her to turn all her accomplishments to advantage. In person, she was a perfect oriental beauty; dark, even in the eyes of an Italian, with hair nearly black, and eyes of the same colour, shaded by lashes of unusual length, she possessed something of an imperial air. Pietro was completely smitten, and for the present every image but that of Maani seemed to be obliterated from his mind.