comprehended what it was she wanted. I myself came in unwittingly for a share of the sport. For, as Faustula came bounding by me, I did as those are so apt to do who know little of children-I suddenly extended my arms and caught her. She, finding herself seized and in the arms of one she knew not, thought, as children will think, that she was already borne a thousand leagues from her home, and screamed; whereupon, at the instant, I felt myself taken round the legs by a force greater than that of a man, and which drew them together with such violence that instinctively I dropped the child, and at the same time cried out with pain. Julia, standing next to me, incontinently slapped the trunk of the elephantfor it was that twisted round me with her hand, at which, leaving me, he wound it lightly round the waist of the princess, and held her his close prisoner. Great laughter from the children and the slaves, testified their joy at seeing their elders, equally with themselves, in the power of the elephant. Milo being of the number, and in his foolish exhilaration and sportive approbation of Sapor's feats, having gone up to him, and patted him on his side, the beast, receiving as an affront that plebeian salutation, quickly turned upon him, and taking him by one of his feet, held him in that displeasing manner-his head hanging down-and paraded leisurely round the green, Milo, making the while hideous outcry, and the whole company, especially the slaves and menials, filling the air with screams of laughter. At length Vabalathus, thinking that Milo might be injured, called out to Sapor, who thereupon released him, and he, rising and adjusting his dress, was heard to affirm,

that it had never happened so while he was in the service of Gallienus,

These things for the little Gallus.

Satisfied now with the amusements of the evening and the pleasures of the day, we parted from one another, filled with quite different sentiments from those which had possessed us in the morning. Do members of this great human family ever meet each other in social converse, and freely open their hearts, without a new and better strength being given to the bonds which hold in their embrace the peace and happiness of society? To love each other, I think we chiefly need but to know each other. Ignorance begets suspicion, suspicion dislike or hatred, and so we live as strangers and enemies, when knowledge would have led to intimacy and friendship. Farewell

141

LETTER VI.

But

Many days have passed, my Curtius, since I last wrote, each bringing its own pleasures, and leaving its ineffaceable impressions upon the soul. though all have been in many things delightful, none has equalled that day and evening at the palace of the Queen. I have now mingled largely with the best society of Palmyra. The doors of the noble and the rich have been opened to me with a liberal hospitality. As the friend of Gracchus and Faustaand now I may add I believe without presumption-of Zenobia also, of Julia, and Longinus, I have been received with attentions, of which Aurelian himself might with reason have been proud. More and more do I love this people, more and more fervently do beg of the Being or Beings who rule over the affairs of men, to interpose and defend them from any threatening danger. I grieve that the rumours still reaching us from Rome tend so much to confirm the belief that our emperor is making preparations for an eastern expedition. Yet I cannot bring myself to think that he aims at Zenobia. If it were so, would there be first no communication with the Queen? Is it like Aurelian to plan and move so secretly? And against a woman, too?- and that woman Zenobia ? I'll not believe it. Your letters would not be what

they are, if there were any real purpose like that which is attributed to Aurelian. But time will make its revelations. Meanwhile, let me tell you where I now am, and what pleasures I am enjoying. This will be written under various dates.

I will write to you from what is called the Queen's Mountain Palace, being her summer residence occasionally either to avoid the greater heats of the city, or that she may divert herself with athletic sports or hunting, of which she is excessively fond, and in which she has few equals of her own or even of our sex. Roman women of the present day would be amazed, perhaps shocked, to be told what the sports and exercises are in which this great eastern Queen finds her pleasures. She is not more exalted above the women of Rome by genius, and the severer studies of the closet, than she is, in my judgment, by the manner and fashions of her recreations. Let not the dear Lucilia be offended. Were she here with me, her fair and generous mind would rest, I am sure, after due comparisons, in the very same conclusions. Fausta is in these respects, too, as in others, but her second self. There is not a feat of horsemanship or archery, nor an enterprise in the chase, but she will dare all and do all that is dared or done by Zenobia; not in the spirit of imitation or even rivalry, but from the native impulses of a soul that reaches at all things great and difficult. And even Julia, that being who seems too ethereal for earth, and as if by some strange chance she were misplaced, being here, even Julia has been trained in the same school, and, as I shall show you, can join in the chase, and draw the bow, with scarcely less of skill and vigour - with no less courage than either her

a

mother or Fausta. Although I have now seen it, I still can hardly associate such excess of beauty beauty both of form and face so truly belonging to this soft, Syrian clime, with a strength and dexterity at every exercise that might put to shame many a Roman who wears both a beard and a manly gown. But this, I need not say, is not after Julia's heart. She loves more the gentler encounters of social intercourse, where wit, and sense, and the affections have their full play, and the god-like that is within us asserts its supremacy.

But my purpose now is to tell you how and why it is I am here, and describe to you as well as I can this new Elysium; and how it is the happy spirits, whom the gods have permitted to dwell here, pass

their hours.

I am here by the invitation of the Queen. A few days after that which we had so highly enjoyed at the palace, she expressed her desire that Gracchus, Fausta, and myself would accompany her, with others of her select friends, to her retreat among the hills, there to indulge in perfect repose, or engage in the rural sports of the place, according to our pleasure. I was not slow, neither were Gracchus and Fausta, to accept so agreeable an invitation. 'I feared,' said Fausta, lest the troubled state of affairs would prevent the Queen from taking her usual vacation, where she loves best to be. But to say the truth, Lucius, I do not think the prospect of a rupture with Rome does give her very serious thought. The vision of a trial of arms with so renowned a soldier as Aurelian, is, I doubt, not wholly displeasing to her; there being especially so good reason to believe that what befel Heraclianus might befal Aure