my sincere friend and champion. * * * * * I think I had better at this point in my narrative offer a brief description of the average day that I spend, so as to afford the reader some notion of my duties, my pleasures and my occupations--that is, of course, after I had succeeded in mastering the language of my kingdom. The course of time being reckoned in Meleager after the old Italian mode of counting the twenty-four hours from the uprising of the sun, at the first streak of dawn watchers in the temple proclaim the new-born day, by firing a piece of ordnance. This is succeeded by loud trumpet calls in the barracks of the soldiery, and the whole city awakens. Every one leaps from bed, and kneeling repeats the following short prayer to the Sun: "O Sun, mighty King, Father of Lights, I bless thee and thank thee for another day! It is Thou alone that canst gladden our hearts, warm our homes, nourish our crops, sweeten our grass, ripen our fruits. By Thy Light alone Thy servants can live and adore Thee. Blessed be Thy Face once more appearing!" This simple formula is the universal morning prayer on Meleager, whose inhabitants are true sun-worshippers, in the sense that they attribute all good and all gifts to the sun's visible power and majesty that are daily revealed to them. As for myself, however, being deemed the Child of the Sun, I do not consider it incumbent on me to indulge in this matutinal act of worship, though each dawn I wake to see my servant lying prostrate on the floor with face turned reverently towards the east. The act of prayer performed, he approaches my couch with a goblet filled with some sort of mineral water of a slightly bitter flavour, that is invariably swallowed before arising. I then have a rather perfunctory bath in an adjoining room, submitting myself to a rapid ablution with water slightly perfumed with verbena, a scent that is reserved exclusively for the royal use. I dress in the manner previously described, and am then ready for my breakfast, which is usually set out in the open gallery that is already flooded by the warm early sunlight. My repast consists of coffee (which is extensively cultivated here), together with thick cream, a manchet of fine white bread, and a platter heaped with superb fruit. I leisurely enjoy these dainties and then (what on my first acquaintance afforded me equal pleasure and surprise) I proceed to smoke a cigar, or large cigarette, consisting of coarse granular tobacco rolled in maize leaf, like the type of cigarette affected by the natives of Brazil. For tobacco is largely grown here, and its leaves are put to many uses, including this last-mentioned agreeable purpose.