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low building surrounded by a high wall, or a high building with no wall, but what did it matter? For most of these men there would only be one escape-one door which was always open-death!

Was it destiny or was it the individual who was responsible for this terrible end, whilst others, possibly even of the same breed, might meet success at every turn. Those who are successful believe they make their fate, and those who are not blame the fate which made them. I stood there soliloquising on this vexed question, then forgetting my quest, started off homewards, deep in thought. I solved the problem at last that is, to my satisfaction.

I decided that we were free agents, but free only to carry out our destiny. A paradox, I know, but that's just what life is, a paradox every time.

I was

now close to the artillery barracks. The high wall frowned above me. Then I heard shrieks and wailing. I walked along the deserted street till opposite me was a brightly lighted room, and I took up my position against the high wall in the shadow of a buttress. A wake was in progress. The outer room was brilliantly lighted. The professional women shriekers sat in rows with the bereaved wife in the centre. In the inner room was the corpse, and the tall candles flickered round it in the gentle breeze. Never did I feel so utterly devoid of all religious fervour, because, of

VOL. CCXXI.-NO. MCCCXL.

course, there was none. These paid shriekers are mere shameless effrontery. When tired of screaming, they would whisper to each other, or toy with some ornament on their garment, and then suddenly remembering that they had not shrieked for some time, would let forth a hideous caterwauling. As I stood there gazing on what might be aptly termed a screaming farce, I could not conceive how anything that even made pretensions to being a religion at all could possibly countenance such a stupendous act of sacrilege. I studied carefully the expressions on the faces of these women-sheer boredom was written all over them. Their faces were not false. They did not lie. They saw no cause to. They did not know they were being watched. However, these countries worship the unreal. That is why they progress so slowly, and religious paraphernalia is able to keep its stranglehold of them. The rank hypocrisy of the spectacle sickened me, and I continued on my way home with the piercing screams getting fainter and fainter. If they must enact this drama of the quick and the dead in public, why not, I thought, that time-honoured one, the Punch and Judy show? It's a farce, too, but at least an honest one.

About ten days later Chatsworth returned from his trip, and we then made several journeys together to the western half of Salvador, one jour2 G2

ney by road from San Salvador to St Ana, through Quezalteque and Coatepeque, then on to Texistepeque and Puente, close to Lake Guija on the Guatemalan frontier, and another through Sitio del Nino, Armenia, Sonsonate, Tacuba, Ahuachapan, Antiquizaya, Chalchuapa, and back to St Ana. It was the rainy season, and in this part of Salvador it does rain. The roads were never properly made up or even graded, and consequently they became mires, sometimes ten feet deep, into which mules and carts slowly sank. Mud and rain were the only incidents on these journeys, for they blotted out everything else. Geological traverses under such circumstances are extremely difficult, as there are little or no exposures of rock visible.

Finally, Chatsworth left for Guatemala to make preparations for an expedition along the mosquito coast of Spanish Honduras, and not long afterwards it was arranged for me also to change the scene of my activities to the neighbouring republic of Guatemala.

The day before I was to leave Salvador for Guatemala, I was sitting in the office thinking, as one does when leaving one country for another, whether I had correctly performed all my social obligations in return for the very sincere hospitality which I had received, when the door suddenly opened and a man stood on the threshold. In silence I gazed at him. He eyed me somewhat suspiciously, but introduced himself.

"Señor, my name is Valencia. You will have heard of me?"

"Yes," I replied, "you have been negotiating in Spanish Honduras. Please be seated."

He came forward and sat down close to me. Another silence ensued. He was outwardly calm, but at times twitched nervously, a situation which demands tact and even considerable caution.

"Señor," he continued, after a nervous glance round the room, and looking somewhat disapprovingly at the open doors, "señor, you leave by the train to-morrow for Acajutla en route to Guatemala?"

I merely nodded assent.
"Can I come too? "

"The railway is," I suggested, "a public conveyance. I am not taking a special train. Only one modest seat."

When does it start? he urged eagerly.

"Seven-forty A.M. But you know this country better than I do," looking him straight in the eyes.

He, however, ignored my

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"I suppose you left him pretty soon afterwards?"

"At once. I had to flee the country. Good-bye until tomorrow," he said hurriedly, and glancing nervously round him, added: "but understand that I shall be at the station to-morrow morning to catch the 7.40."

"I understand only that you say you will," I countered.

I

He gave me one vicious glance, and disappeared. could see that he had no intention of really travelling by that train. He only wanted me to spread the news in order to put his enemies off the track, so that he could take another route, unmolested. I never saw him again, but heard the other side of that story, which did not coincide with his.

Most of the next day was spent in the train, but this journey through western Salvador is interesting. Years ago the Salvador volcano did open up, and the people in the capital city thought their last hour was at hand, but for

The time passed rapidly with this ever-changing and fascinating scenery.

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Izalco," a fellow-passenger shouted, pointing to the volcano with the stab in its side, and the lava gushing out.

Truly a wonderful land, and all in miniature. It was not without regret that I was leaving it, perhaps for something bigger and even grander, but one gets attached to this little country. It grows on one.

We reached the port of Acajutla and walked on to the jetty, then down in the cage and amongst the luggage in a swaying lighter, now another cage, and all aboard. It was pitch dark when the siren sounded its warning, and the propeller began to churn the muddy waters.

To-morrow," I reflected as I leant over the side of the vessel, "to-morrow I shall wake up in Guatemala. Please Gahd, as the negroes say."

(To be continued.)

THE SALVING OF THE CHANG CHU.

BY SHALIMAR.

THERE was another reason besides the one of economy that induced me to take a passage from Hong Kong to Singapore on the steamer Chang Chu, which was Chinese owned but under the British flag. In the days of my youth, before I had taken to soldiering, I had been a sailor, had served an apprenticeship in a sailing vessel, and had been a certificated, though very junior, officer in the Merchant Service. Those youthful days, full of discomfort as they had been, were nevertheless good to look back to, and I had always found that the officers of tramps were more companionable and readier to yarn over old times than those of liners, who, after all, have so many different types of passengers to deal with that it is difficult to win even their short-lived friendship.

I.

I boarded the Chang Chu from a sampan in Hong Kong harbour about an hour before she was ready to sail. I was going on three months' leave to India, and had with me my Pathan orderly, Yakoub Khan, Afridi. She was a vessel of about 4000 tons deadweight, and rather old. In a very short space of time we had settled down. Although out

wardly the ship was dirty, for she was still loading cargo, I found that her saloon, which in the old-fashioned style was right aft, was clean and tidy. She had only a few cabins, for even in her palmy days she did not carry many passengers, and one of those, a two-berthed one, I had to myself. She had a long raised poop above the saloon, on which were a few invitinglooking deck-chairs, so, having a good stock of the latest novels to reach Hong Kong, I looked forward to a pleasant laze for the next six days.

In the short space of time before we sailed, such is the Freemasonry of the sea, I had become acquainted with the captain, an elderly man, and his two officers, had had tea with the former in his cabin below the bridge, and even been invited to go on that sacred edifice when we were moving out of the harbour.

"Now this is better than all your liners," I said to myself, as, having left my coat in my cabin and rolled up my shirt sleeves, for it was rather warm, I lit a pipe and loafed out of the saloon. In the companionway, however, my pipe came out of my mouth with a jerk, for coming down

the staircase was a lady, the insisted.
last thing in the world that
I had expected to see. She
glanced at me and passed on
down into the saloon, accom-
panied by the Chinese chief
steward, while I, not feeling
so comfortable now, moved
toward the bridge. Just as I
reached it the anchor was
being hove up.

We were anchored fairly close to the city, and now all my attention was taken up by the manœuvring of the vessel. With infinite skill the old skipper, now shaving a sampan, again altering his course slightly to avoid a lumbering junk under sail, gradually worked his way toward the more open channel. We passed the incoming P. & O. mail steamer, a real aristocrat of the sea, with her black hull and funnels and stone-coloured boats, deck houses, and fittings. She was crowded with passengers in all their shore-going finery, but I did not envy one of them as I lounged against the bridge rail, smoking my pipe, and enjoying every minute. Gradually the vista of Hong Kong's crowded harbour, with its thousands of Chinese junks and sampans, its coasting steamers, tramps, and liners, began to fade from view; we were dipping into the swell of the open sea, and I suddenly remembered the lady.

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Every little helps these days. Unfortunately all my old boys have gone; with the exception of the chief steward, they are an entirely new lot. I have told him off to look after the lady himself. By the way, if you see any slackness don't hesitate to let me know. Anyhow, the sun is just about gone, and the second officer can take her now for a bit. What about having one?"

We descended into his cabin, and over a whisky-and-soda he told me some more of his troubles.

It appeared that only two days ago some mysterious Trades Union, a secret society, had called out the whole of his crew. Sailors, firemen, cooks, boys, all had gone; only the British officers and Chinese chief steward remained. He was rather worried over the whole affair, but admitted that up till now neither the chief engineer nor himself had had any cause for complaint. The new crew had been obtained through some agency that was just about as mysterious as the one that had called out the old.

At dinner that evening I met my fellow passenger. We were alone, for the captain could not leave the bridge for long, and the other officers did not appear. As she entered the saloon I had time to

notice that she was slim and straight, rather above middle height, and I should say athletic. Her face, although distinctly beautiful, impressed me

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