Every hour produced some new, or rather ancient, object of interest as we ploughed the classic waters of the Ægean Sea, and no man among us, who had read and knew the past glories, traditions, and poetry of the shores we looked on, could hear uttered without deep interest the names of those isles and bays--that on yonder plain, as we skirted the mainland of Asia, stood the Troy of Priam; that yonder hill towering in the background, a purple cone against a golden sky, was Mount Ida capped with snow, Scamander flowing at its foot; Ida, where Paris, the princely shepherd, adjudged the prize of beauty to Venus, and whence the assembled gods beheld the Trojan strife; for every rock and peak we looked on was full of the memories of ancient days, and of that "bright land of battle and of song," which Byron loved with all a poet's enthusiasm. Dusk was closing as we entered the Hellespont; the castles of Europe and Asia were, however, distinctly visible, and we could see the red lights that shone in the Turkish fort, and the windmills whirling on the Sigean promontory, as we glided, with squared yards, before a fair and steady breeze, into those famous straits which Mohammed IV. fortified to secure his city and fleets against the fiery energy of the Venetians; and now, as I do not mean "to talk guide-book," our next chapter will find us in the land of strife and toil, of battle and the pest; in that Crim Tartary which, to so many among us, was to prove the land of death and doom. CHAPTER XXXI.-UNDER CANVAS.