man, and General Sheridan. These houses are still known by the names of the illustrious persons who witnessed their excavation. General Grant's visit was known only to a few. The quarter selected was near the Forum. Chairs were arranged for the General, Mrs. Grant, and some of us, and there quietly, in a room that had known Pompeiian life seventeen centuries ago, we awaited the signal that was to dig up the ashes that had fallen from Vesuvius that terrible night in August. Our group was composed of the General, his wife and son, Mr. Duncan, the American Consul in Naples, Commander Robeson, of the "Vandalia," Lieutenants Strong, Miller and Rush, and Engineer Baird, of the same ship. We formed a group about the General, while the director gave the workmen the signal. The spades dived into the ashes, while with eager eyes we looked on. What story would be revealed of that day of agony and death? Perhaps a mother, almost in the fruition of a proud mother's hopes, lying in the calm repose of centuries, like the figure we had seen only an hour ago dug from these very ruins. Perhaps a miser hurrying with his coin only to fall in his doorway, there to rest in peace while seventeen centuries of the mighty world rolled over him, and to end at last in a museum. Perhaps a soldier fallen at his post, or a reveler stricken at the feast. All these things have been given us from Pompeii, and we stood watching the nimble spades and the tumbling ashes, watching with the greedy eyes of gamblers to see what chance would send. Nothing came of any startling import. There were two or three bronze ornaments, a loaf of bread wrapped in cloth, the grain of the bread and the fiber of the cloth as clearly marked as when the probable remnant of an humble meal was put aside by the careful housewife's hands. Beyond this, and some fragments which we could not understand, this was all that came from the excavation of Pompeii. The director was evidently disappointed. He expected a skeleton at the very least to come out of the cruel ashes and welcome our renowned guest, who had come so many thousand miles to this Roman entertainment. He proposed to open another ruin, but one of our "Vandalia " friends, a very practical gentleman, remembered that it was cold, and that he had been walking a good deal and was hungry, and when he proposed that, instead of excavating another ruin, we should "excavate a beefsteak " at the restaurant near the gate of the sea, there was an approval. The General, who had been leisurely smoking his cigar and studying the scene with deep interest, quietly assented, and thanking the director for his courtesy, said he would give him no more trouble. In Constantinople. Constantinople as seen from the Bosphorus is the most beautiful city in the world. When you land, however, all the illusion passes away. The Turks were very kind to General Grant. The Sultan, although he was at the time of the General's visit in the agony of signing a treaty of humiliation and dismemberment for his country, showed him great attention. General Grant did not visit the Russian headquarters, although he was anxious to do so. He thought, however, that having been the guest of the Sultan to a certain extent, it would be ungracious for him to go from the palace of his host to the headquarters of a conquering army encamped in the suburbs of the capital. There was some criticism at the time, some censure of General Grant for what was an apparent discourtesy in not |