purchase—we all purchase—his faded and crumpled photographs, so as to be let off from buying his "antiquities," a forlorn collection of mouldy coins and broken bits of terra cotta, which he carries around in a handkerchief and hands down to us, one by one, when we are prisoners in our carriage, and cannot refuse to look at them. He is so pained at our giving them back again that we compromise on the photographs, though they are the most decrepit specimens I have ever beheld; almost as worn and flabby as the little letters of recommendation which are lent to us for perusal, and which state with monotonous amiability that the writer has employed Domenico Brocconi as guide and interpreter during a three days' stay in Syracuse, and has found him intelligent, capable, and obliging. I know I shall have to write one of these letters before I go away. Indeed, my conscience aches remorsefully when I think of the number of such testimonials I have strewn broadcast over the earth to be a delusion and a snare to my fellow man. It never occurred to me that any one would regard them seriously, until an acquaintance informed me,
