against the rebels, was Brian Kavanagh, who was lucky enough to save his estate notwithstanding. His lineal male descendant, Thomas Kavanagh, sat for the city of Kilkenny in the last Irish Parliament, and for the County Carlow after the Union. He, too, stood a siege in '98, and was equally successful in raising it. He married for his second wife Lady Harriet Margaret Le Poer Trench, daughter of Richard, second Earl of Clancarty, and left three sons, of whom the youngest, Arthur, ultimately succeeded, in the year 1854, to the family estates.

Mrs Steele, who has now given his journals and correspondence to the world, was his first cousin, and she has executed her task with all that success which her knowledge of the man and her close connection with his family were calculated to ensure. Some

thing more might have been wished for of rather fuller detail as to the means whereby Kavanagh enabled himself to set organic imperfections at defiance which would have consigned the majority of

mankind to their arm-chairs for life. In following him through a series of exploits both as a traveller and a sportsman, which would have done credit to men of the most perfect physical conformation, we are puzzled at every step to understand how they were performed. That Mrs Steele should not have supplied this information ought not perhaps to surprise us, as the full interest of such particulars may only be apparent to those who themselves hunt, shoot, and fish. But, for the benefit of that large class of readers who would only be tantalised by Kavanagh's descriptions unless in possession of the key to them, we shall in due course supplement the narrative of our authoress with such explanations as are necessary.

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In every other respect the book is most interesting, written in an agreeable style, and full of picturesque effects: altogether worthy tribute to one of Ireland's best gentlemen. We have also, we presume, to congratulate Dr Steele, her husband, on the wealth of classical scholarship displayed in the headings of the chapters. His mottoes and allusions are always welcome and often felicitous.

Arthur, as we have seen, was born in 1831, and all that we hear about his bodily condition is told in a letter from Mrs Bruen to Mrs Steele, describing him as she remembers him in her childhood, when she first made his acquaintance in 1839. He was sent to school in that year to the Rev. Samuel Greer, curate of Celbridge, in Kildare,

"Partly in order to be within reach of the great Dublin surgeon, Sir Philip Crampton, whose rare professional skill it was hoped might devise some mechanism to make up for what had been denied him in physical development. This must have been a most trying ordeal to his fine unselfish nature, so lighthearted as he was, so grandly submissive in his sense of privation. Much pain, great discomfort, and continual disappointment were all that came of it, borne, however, so uncomplainingly that one must feel they sympathy from us his child-friends, so were not the only result; while the gladly and lovingly received by him, drew him nearer to us than aught else could have done."

As he could not go to a public school or university, travelling became his education, and thoroughly well the work was done. Accordingly in October 1846, the whole party, consisting of Arthur, his mother Lady Harriet, his sister Harriet, his brother Tom, and their tutor, the Rev. David Wood, set out for Egypt, intending to follow the track of the Israelites to the

Holy Land. Arthur was now only in his sixteenth year. But his letters show that, as is often the case with boys labouring under physical disabilities, he was older in mind than his contemporaries.

Riding was necessarily a part of his education as a child, and he was taught it, we believe, by the local doctor. But he had now also learned to shoot. "Lord Morton has lent Arthur a gun," his brother Tom writes home from Rhoda, "with which he has shot a great many wild geese, ducks, and snipe. He shoots much better than Mr Wood, who began about the same time he did, and can hit a bird flying quite well. His shooting is quite as wonderful as his riding. He is also the only one of the party who can speak Arabic, which he does perfectly."

Kavanagh was always extremely fond of animals, which showed itself in various ways. On the return journey they rode across the desert from Jerusalem to Cairo, and bought their horses at Beyrout. Kavanagh bought one for himself for seventeen hundred piastres, and thus describes him :

"He has a true Arab mark on his ear, and every one that I have shown him to says that, if not entirely, he is very nearly, pure Arab breed. He stands about fifteen hands, has a beautiful head and fine ear, long nose, almost a milk-white coat shining like glass, his limbs are fine without a puff, his eye and the expression of his countenance fiery, yet sweet-an odd phrase to use about a horse; but I do not know any other which expresses what I want so well. He is the admiration of everybody here. Mamma even thinks he will be worth taking home."

This, however, was not to be; and he sold him at Cairo.

"Poor beast!" he exclaims, "I cried the day I left him. He knew

me so well! He used to lick my face when I came out of the tent in the morning to see him; and at the lunwhen I used to sit under him for cheon-time, in the heat of the day, shade, he would put his head between his front legs to take a bit of bread, without moving, for fear of hurting me."

His habit of riding alone strapped to the saddle was not without its danger, as once on a runaway horse his girth gave way, and the saddle turned round with Kavanagh attached to it. Of course he could not disengage himself, and was found afterwards lying insensible by the side of the horse, which had providentially stopped. During the rebellion of 1848, when he was not quite eighteen, he used to ride out at night by himself and reconnoitre the rebel outposts. Once he was discovered, and only escaped from the enemy's cavalry by going straight across country at a speed which would soon have distanced his pursuers, even could they have jumped the fences which Kavanagh's hunter "Bunny" cleared like a bird. It was the same with hounds. He rode as hard as any man out, and once led the field over a fence at which they all craned.

But it is time we returned to his travels. He had hardly been at home twelve months when he and his brother Tom, who had just attained his majority, started off again, this time intending to travel in a south-easterly direction through Scandinavia and Russia via St Petersburg, down the Volga, and across the Caspian to Persia, and so by Kurdistan, the Tigris, and the Persian Gulf to Bombay. It is the journal kept by Kavanagh during this expedition which forms the most interesting part of Mrs Steele's volume, as it illustrates in the most graphic manner those

moral qualities and those acquired physical powers which are sure to excite the liveliest public curiosity. They sailed from Astrakhan in a Government steamer on the 27th of September, and landed at the village of Gazaw, on the south shore of the Caspian, on the 9th of October. After a perilous journey across the mountains, they descended into the plains again, and Kavanagh, taking a prowl with his gun, found some grouse, of which he got one. On the 22d they rode into Teheran, and were hospitably entertained at the British Embassy, Embassy, where they stayed for about three weeks. The discomforts they seem to have undergone on their journey -from dirt, scarcity of provisions, bad lodgings, and the hostility of the natives-must have been severe; and soon after their arrival at Teheran Kavanagh was attacked with fever, which he did not quite get rid of for more than a month. He got as far as Tabriz, about half-way on his road to Tiflis, and there was obliged to stop, being taken care of by a Persian prince, "A very nice fellow, quite civilised in all his ways and ideas, and a great sportsman." The first day he was well enough to go out hunting with him; but a capital European dinner, at which the champagne flowed like water, caused a relapse, and as the patient evidently required careful nursing, he was lodged in the harem under the care of an old black slave, who became very much attached to him, and introduced him to the ladies.

They seem to have been pleased with their young guest, whose society was perhaps an agreeable change for them; and they told him many stories of their early lives which he found deeply interesting. They described to him how they had been carried off;

and one- a beautiful fair-haired Armenian"-awoke in him that pity, which might soon have become more than pity, by the picture which she drew of her own home, and her longing to return to it. By the third week in January, however, he was enough to leave his Capua, and started with his brother for Urumiah en route for Bagdad. Crossing the lake of Urumiah, they stopped at an island for a day's shooting, being told that it swarmed with game. Why is it that this particular falsehood has such a fascination for liars in every part of the known world? Tom and his brother started in the snow, each taking different directions, and returning, half frozen, with empty bags. Arthur found a few coveys of red-legged partridges, but could not get near them. Quitting Urumiah, the travellers were now in Kurdistan, and at Vasje Bulah were entertained by the Khan, whom he describes as one of the handsomest men he ever saw. was much struck, indeed, with the fine persons and picturesque costumes of the men in general; but among the lower orders he found that plunder was the ruling motive. In fact they are a nation of freebooters, though standing in wholesome awe, says Kavanagh, of "a copper cap." While staying here he tried one of the tributaries of the Tigris for wild duck. After a long trot and a good freezing, he succeeded in bagging a couple.

He

On the 19th they set off again, through bitterly wintry weather, up and down steep hills, and every now and then tumbling into deep ravines hidden by the snow-drifts. Once they were obliged to pass the night in such a place, consoling themselves with a roast fowl and two bottles of port. The next day Tom and

Arthur take another tramp with their guns, and bring in a leash of snipe.

In this fashion they gradually made their way to the town or village of Riaz, where they found quarters at the inn. But the next morning when they were ready to set out they found the gate of the courtyard locked against them, the landlord refusing to open it till they had paid a large sum of money. The only reply of the two Irishmen was to draw their pistols and inform the gentleman that if he did not open the gate in five seconds they would blow his brains out. He then said he would take half. A pistol was levelled at his head, and the gate flew open at once. The glitter of those copper caps was too much for him. But they were not out of the wood, alias the village, yet. The armed villagers were now about to shut them in, when Kavanagh himself, suddenly pushing his horse into the open gateway, held it, rifle in hand, till the whole party had passed through.

On the road towards Mosul or Mosoul, the two brothers made a detour of eighteen miles to visit the ruins of Nineveh. They coursed and killed two hares on the plains once trodden by Semiramis, and Tom shot a brace of partridges near the bridge of Nimrod.

"Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris."

At Mosul the party dined with Mr Layard, and then dropped down the Tigris on a raft to Bagdad. While at Bagdad Kavanagh made an excursion to Babylon (Hillah), and then to the Tower of Babel, the seat of his ancestors. They cantered back to dine at their hotel in the city of Nebuchadnezzar, and reached Bagdad the next morning.

We need not follow the travellers step by step in their journey southward. They had at first intended to penetrate as far as Cashmere; but ultimately contented themselves with a sporting expedition in the neighbourhood of Aurangabad. They found plenty of smaller game, and made good bags of partridge, quail, hare, and peacock. In deer-stalking they were not very successful; but they had unusually good luck with the tigers. Kavanagh killed two. But as he was mounted on an elephant, there is less to wonder at in this than in his expeditions after smaller game.

Thomas Kavanagh, the "Tom" of the journal, died in 1852, and his next brother, Charles, in 1854, when Arthur, at the age of twentythree, succeeded to the family estate. In the following year he married his cousin, Miss Mary Leathley, daughter of the Rev. Joseph Inde Leathley, rector of Termonfeckin, County Louth, and took up his position as a country gentleman at Borris. Before, however, we enter upon a new phase of his career, it may be well to finish what we have already begun-the record, namely, of his life as a sportsman. After his marriage he paid more than one visit to the Mediterranean in his yacht for the sake of the shooting in Albania, and while there met with an accident which illustrates the strength of his nerves more powerfully than anything in the book. The story is told by his wife.

"At Avalona only one horse could be procured for him, and that a mere bag of bones. Starting on this wretched beast to a covert where pig were reported to be, he was accompanied by the Greek beater and the sailors, while I walked close behind him. It was most unusual for him to ride near the rest of the party, for generally he preferred to keep quite away from them, as by doing so he had a better

chance of shots. We had not gone far up a very steep mountain path, where every now and then the horse, ever responsive to his call, had to spring up rocky steps fit only for goats, when just as he reached a spot with a precipice at one side many hundred feet down to the sea, the horse attempted one of these jumps, failed, and rolled over the brink. A small cactus bush, about ten feet below, checked his farther fall, and Arthur quite calmly called to the sailors to unstrap him from the saddle. This they did, being able to climb down where few others could have ventured, and hoisted him up the path, while the poor horse rolled down and was instantaneously killed. This did not shake Arthur's nerve in the least, for next day he rode over a still more impracticable mountain, and distanced all his party, till at last I overtook him, though in doing so the sharp rocks had cut through the soles of my boots, and I was almost barefoot."

We have quoted this passage in order to show the extraordinary coolness and self-possession of the man; but his fishing and shooting are more remarkable than his riding. Thrashing a Norway river with a heavy salmon-rod for hours together must have taxed his powers most severely. But as the same delicate play of the wrist which is necessary to hook a trout is not required for a salmon, who will usually impale himself, Kavanagh's success on the Borris brook and the Westmeath lakes is even more strange than his achievements on the Pasvig. On this river he one day killed eight salmon to his own rod, averaging more than twenty pounds apiece. His largest was a thirty-six-pounder.

It is time, however, that we satisfied the reader's curiosity with regard to the mode in which Kavanagh executed these and other sporting feats. He could not only shoot: he was a very good and very quick shot-in cover as well as in the open. He was not

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only an angler, but an expert one, as well able to strike a trout as any fisherman on the Kennet or the Test. The secret of it was, that by constant practice he had trained limbs, which extended only a few inches from the shoulder, to do almost all the work of fullgrown arms and hands. Though a square-built man, he could make them meet across his chest, and so tightly that it was impossible to take a sixpence from between them. He had no hooks or other appliances whatever. In shooting he carried a gun without any trigger-guard, a most dangerous practice, it must be owned, though Kavanagh never had an accident. When he wanted to fire, he threw his gun across the left stump, and supported the stock and touched the trigger with his right. must have taken him a long time to acquire the knack of swinging himself round so as to get in line with a bird or a hare going straight from him. But his indomitable perseverance overcame this as it did all other difficulties. accounts which he himself gives of his shooting in Persia and Mesopotamia, we must always understand that he is shooting from horseback; and as this is the almost invariable custom of the natives, he would have had no difficulty in procuring a shooting pony. When fishing from the banks of a stream, he always rode, and the reader will now be able to comprehend how he managed to communicate that motion to his rod which is technically called striking, and is generally done with the wrist.

In riding and hunting, his saddle was a kind of basket in which he was properly secured, the bridlereins being lashed round what we may as well call his arms, and his hunting - whip thrust under the straps, close to his side; and such