I wonder they do not lay down a railway here. No elevations required, no tunnels excepting through the Needles, and Obelisks, and Tombs; everything is as smooth as a billiard-table; it looks as if it had been laid down on purpose, ready ruled for a series of lines. One thing, however, is very plain, and that is, they do not catch me in the Great Desert again until there is a railway! [Illustration: MIND OVER MATTER. ] Cheapside at four o'clock, Gower Street on a Sunday, the Ancient Concerts, a Jury-box in the dog-days, a pantomime in July, a Blue-book on a wet Sunday—anything, confound it! is better than this Great Desert. On my word, I never saw, since I have travelled, a place with so little in it. "Here, Bou Maza, bring my camel to the door. I'm off to London." * * * * * UNPUBLISHED DOGMA OF DOCTOR JOHNSON.—"The man who wears a moustache has no right to eat vermicelli soup." CAPITAL OFFENDERS A woman who says "my love," and "my dear," and "my pet sweet," to her husband in public, and pulls his hair, probably, in private. A young man who is studying statistics, and tells you "the number of quarters of bonded corn there were in Hamburgh in 1835 was 10,000 more than any other year," and quotes voluminously about refined tallows and prime Muscovados from [Illustration: "PORTER'S PROGRESS." ] A woman of great intellect, and a young lady at supper who wishes to go into a convent. A man who is perpetually boasting of his "favourite old port that has been these fifteen years in bottle," and gives you nothing but British brandy. A woman of fifty years of age who dresses like a girl of nineteen. A woman who drops her pocket-handkerchief every five minutes at an evening party, in order to test the gallantry of the gentlemen. A man who gives a dinner party, and keeps saying to his guests, "You see your dinner, gentlemen." A woman who is always talking about her "delicate constitution." An old maid who doubts, during dessert, "if you could love _madly_," and then asks, "What is your _beau ideal_ of the tender passion?" A young man who quotes Latin at a social party, and proposes healths and toasts; or a German at the Opera who hums all the tunes, overture, and recitatives, stamps his feet, and takes snuff. A faded coxcomb who talks of his successes with "the dear creatures." An old fellow who is always recollecting a "capital thing he heard five-and-twenty years ago." An old play-goer who will insist "we haven't a single actor left," and then tells you, "You should have seen Dicky Suett." "A man who has seen better days," and will recollect the time he had "thirteen different sorts of wine on his table, and kept his mare and French cook, but no one cares _that_ for him now"—the _that_ being a snap of the fingers. AN EXTENSIVE ORDER. [Illustration: TO]