the Cape men clepen of Good Hope, but that way unto Ynde is long and

the sea is weary. Wherefore men rather go by the Midland sea, and
Englishmen have taken many Yles in that sea.

For first they have taken an Yle that is clept Malta; and therein
built they great castles, to hold it against them of Fraunce, and

Italy, and of Spain. And from this Ile of Malta Men gon to Cipre.
And Cipre is right a good Yle, and a fair, and a great, and it hath

4 principal Cytees within him. And at Famagost is one of the
principal Havens of the sea that is in the world, and Englishmen

have but a lytel while gone won that Yle from the Sarazynes. Yet
say that sort of Englishmen where of I told you, that is puny and

sore adread, that the Lond is poisonous and barren and of no avail,
for that Lond is much more hotter than it is here. Yet the

Englishmen that ben werryoures dwell there in tents, and the skill
is that they may ben the more fresh.

From Cypre, Men gon to the Lond of Egypte, and in a Day and a Night
he that hath a good wind may come to the Haven of Alessandrie. Now

the Lond of Egypt longeth to the Soudan, yet the Soudan longeth not
to the Lond of Egypt. And when I say this, I do jape with words,

and may hap ye understond me not. Now Englishmen went in shippes to
Alessandrie, and brent it, and over ran the Lond, and their

soudyours warred agen the Bedoynes, and all to hold the way to Ynde.
For it is not long past since Frenchmen let dig a dyke, through the

narrow spit of lond, from the Midland sea to the Red sea, wherein
was Pharaoh drowned. So this is the shortest way to Ynde there may

be, to sail through that dyke, if men gon by sea.
But all the Lond of Egypt is clepen the Vale enchaunted; for no man

may do his business well that goes thither, but always fares he
evil, and therefore clepen they Egypt the Vale perilous, and the

sepulchre of reputations. And men say there that is one of the
entrees of Helle. In that Vale is plentiful lack of Gold and

Silver, for many misbelieving men, and many Christian men also, have
gone often time for to take of the Thresoure that there was of old,

and have pilled the Thresoure, wherefore there is none left. And
Englishmen have let carry thither great store of our Thresoure,

9,000,000 of Pounds sterling, and whether they will see it agen I
misdoubt me. For that Vale is alle fulle of Develes and Fiendes

that men clepen Bondholderes, for that Egypt from of olde is the
Lond of Bondage. And whatsoever Thresoure cometh into the Lond,

these Devyls of Bondholders grabben the same. Natheless by that
Vale do Englishmen go unto Ynde, and they gon by Aden, even to

Kurrachee, at the mouth of the Flood of Ynde. Thereby they send
their souldyours, when they are adread of them of Muscovy.

For, look you, there is another way into Ynde, and thereby the men
of Muscovy are fain to come, if the Englishmen let them not. That

way cometh by Desert and Wildernesse, from the sea that is clept
Caspian, even to Khiva, and so to Merv; and then come ye to Zulfikar

and Penjdeh, and anon to Herat, that is called the Key of the Gates
of Ynde. Then ye win the lond of the Emir of the Afghauns, a great

prince and a rich, and he hath in his Thresoure more crosses, and
stars, and coats that captains wearen, than any other man on earth.

For all they of Muscovy, and all Englishmen maken him gifts, and he
keepeth the gifts, and he keepeth his own counsel. For his lond

lieth between Ynde and the folk of Muscovy, wherefore both
Englishmen and men of Muscovy would fain have him friendly, yea, and

independent. Wherefore they of both parties give him clocks, and
watches, and stars, and crosses, and culverins, and now and again

they let cut the throats of his men some deal, and pill his country.
Thereby they both set up their rest that the Emir will be

independent, yea, and friendly. But his men love him not, neither
love they the English, nor the Muscovy folk, for they are

worshippers of Mahound, and endure not Christian men. And they love
not them that cut their throats, and burn their country.

Now they of Muscovy ben Devyls, and they ben subtle for to make a
thing seme otherwise than it is, for to deceive mankind. Wherefore

Englishmen putten no trust in them of Muscovy, save only the
Englishmen clept Radicals, for they make as if they loved these

Develes, out of the fear and dread of war wherein they go, and would
be slaves sooner than fight. But the folk of Ynde know not what

shall befall, nor whether they of Muscovy will take the Lond, or
Englishmen shall keep it, so that their hearts may not enduren for

drede. And methinks that soon shall Englishmen and Muscovy folk put
their bodies in adventure, and war one with another, and all for the

way to Ynde.
But St. George for Englond, I say, and so enough; and may the

Seyntes hele thee, Sir John, of thy Gowtes Artetykes, that thee
tormenten. But to thy Boke I list not to give no credence.

LETTER--To Alexandre Dumas
Sir,--There are moments when the wheels of life, even of such a life

as yours, run slow, and when mistrust and doubt overshadow even the
most intrepid disposition. In such a moment, towards the ending of

your days, you said to your son, M. Alexandre Dumas, "I seem to see
myself set on a pedestal which trembles as if it were founded on the

sands." These sands, your uncounted volumes, are all of gold, and
make a foundation more solid than the rock. As well might the

singer of Odysseus, or the authors of the "Arabian Nights," or the
first inventors of the stories of Boccaccio, believe that their

works were perishable (their names, indeed, have perished), as the
creator of "Les Trois Mousquetaires" alarm himself with the thought

that the world could ever forget Alexandre Dumas.
Than yours there has been no greater nor more kindly and beneficent

force in modern letters. To Scott, indeed, you owed the first
impulse of your genius; but, once set in motion, what miracles could

it not accomplish? Our dear Porthos was overcome, at last, by a
super-human burden; but your imaginative strength never found a task

too great for it. What an extraordinaryvigour, what health, what
an overflow of force was yours! It is good, in a day of small and

laborious ingenuities, to breathe the free air of your books, and
dwell in the company of Dumas's men--so gallant, so frank, so

indomitable, such swordsmen, and such trenchermen. Like M. de
Rochefort in "Vingt Ans Apres," like that prisoner of the Bastille,

your genius "n'est que d'un parti, c'est du parti du grand air."
There seems to radiate from you a still persistentenergy and

enjoyment; in that current of strength not only your characters
live, frolic, kindly, and sane, but even your very collaborators

were animated by the virtue which went out of you. How else can we
explain it, the drearycharge which feeble and envious tongues have

brought against you, in England and at home? They say you employed
in your novels and dramas that vicarious aid which, in the slang of

the studio, the "sculptor's ghost" is fabled to afford.
Well, let it be so; these ghosts, when uninspired by you, were faint

and impotent as "the strengthless tribes of the dead" in Homer's
Hades, before Odysseus had poured forth the blood that gave them a

momentary valour. It was from you and your inexhaustible vitality
that these collaborating spectres drew what life they possessed; and

when they parted from you they shuddered back into their
nothingness. Where are the plays, where the romances which Maquet

and the rest wrote in their own strength? They are forgotten with
last year's snows; they have passed into the wide waste-paper basket

of the world. You say of D'Artagnan, when severed from his three
friends--from Porthos, Athos, and Aramis--"he felt that he could do

nothing, save on the condition that each of these companions yielded
to him, if one may so speak, a share of that electric fluid which

was his gift from heaven."
No man of letters ever had so great a measure of that gift as you;

none gave of it more freely to all who came--to the chance associate
of the hour, as to the characters, all so burly and full-blooded,

who flocked from your brain. Thus it was that you failed when you
approached the supernatural. Your ghosts had too much flesh and

blood, more than the living persons of feebler fancies. A writer so
fertile, so rapid, so masterly in the ease with which he worked,

could not escape the reproaches of barren envy. Because you