CRIMPING. 523 



what they were striving to become, " food for cannon ;" but there was 

 one among this group that powerfully attracted my attention. His air 

 and manner would have themselves announced the soldier, had not his 

 fine countenance been strongly marked by the bivouac and a tropical 

 sun, he was bald except on the sides of the head, and there the thin 

 hair was grey, his cheeks rather hollow, and his large and expressive 

 eyes, overshadowed by strongly marked brows. His dress was ex- 

 tremely clean, but worn out. 



When I gazed on him, I felt as if I had already learnt his history, 

 and beheld in him the ruins of a military gentleman, who destitute 

 both of interest and money, was now endeavouring to seek, in foreign 

 service, a subsistence denied to him in our own. 



" Lourent dans le camp un soldat honore, 

 Ramp aux cour des rois, et languit ignore." 



My heart bled for him as he rose and left the apartment to enter that 

 occupied by the crimp in person. 



At length it was my turn to be ushered in. Seated at a table covered 

 with papers and red tape, was the worthy himself ; there was nothing 

 remarkable in his appearance, save a coal black eye, which appeared 

 to have the power of reading one's most concealed thoughts ; there was 

 evidently an attempt to throw a " tournour militaire" into his appear- 

 ance ; he wore a black stock that reached up to his ears, his coat was 

 close buttoned up to his throat, and a pocket-handkerchief thrust into 

 the breast, in order to pad it out a, la prussiennc, while a dark line upon 

 the upper lip proclaimed an incipient moustachio. Again he assumed 

 the brusquerie of the Sabreur and interlarded his conversation with a 

 few set military phrases ; he was decidedly an old hand and up to his 

 business. Brilliant prospects he held out, but it was in vain, and I 

 tried him upon every tack, to elicit whom I was to have the honour 

 of serving. Was it Don Pedro? or, perhaps, his hopeful brother 

 Miguel? the Pacha of Egypt, or the more potent Sultan himself, whose 

 late reverses may have shewn him the necessity of a reinforcement of 

 Tacticoes ? or, lastly, was it his serene highness the ex Duke of Bruns- 

 wick ? Nothing could I elicit, beyond the assurance that all my con- 

 jectures were widely from the mark. I believe the fellow thought, 

 that so long as the pay was good and regularly paid, I should have 

 enlisted under the banners of old Nick himself. 



Piqued as was my curiosity, it was never fated to be gratified, for 

 two days afterwards I received a communication from this personage 

 informing me that all the appointments were filled up and with this 

 announcement vanished all my hopes. 



Can there be a finer commentary on the present social condition of 

 the people of this country, than the facilities which these men find in the 

 execution of their projects. With every walk in life overcrowded, there 

 is no floating at ease on the agitated waters of society ; and thus every 

 scheme, however chimerical, every enterprise, however perilous, is sure 

 to find in this country, encouragement and support. This, it must be 

 confessed, is no happy stage of society no wholesome state of things ; 

 yet we have now, more than ever, reason to hope and to look forward. 



