***

A party of American literary and scientific gentlemen have obtained permission to visit Egypt on a mission of research.  In view of the American craze for souvenir-hunting it is anticipated that a special guard will be mounted over the Pyramids.

* * * * *

    “’I am being overwhelmed with letters offering services from
    all and sundry,’ Mr. Chamberlain said yesterday.

    ‘As I haven’t even appointed a private secretary at present,’
    he added, ’it is obviously impossible for me even to open
    them.’”—­Daily Sketch.

We suppose the Censor must have told him what they were about.

* * * * *

MUSCAT.

  An ancient castle crowns the hill
    That flanks our sunlit rockbound bay,
  Where, in the spacious days of old,
  Stout ALBUQUERQUE set his hold
  Dealing in slaves and silks and gold
    From Hormuz to Cathay.

  The Dom has passed, the Arab rules;
    Yet still there fronts the morning light
  Erect upon the crumbling wall
  The mast of some great Amiral,
  A trophy of the Portingall
    In some forgotten fight.

  The wind blows damp, the sun shines hot,
    And ever on the Eastern shore,
  Faint envoys from the far monsoon,
  There in the gap the breakers croon
  Their old unchanging rhythmic rune
    (The noise is such a bore).

  And week by week to climb that hill
    The SULTAN sends some sweating knave
  To scan the misty deep and hail
  With hoisted nag the smoky trail
  That means (hurrah!) the English mail,
    So we still rule the wave!

  Hurrah!—­and yet what tales of woe! 
    My home exposed to Zeppelin shocks,
  The long-drawn agony of strife,
  The daily toll of precious life,
  And a sad screed from my poor wife
    Of babes with chicken-pox.

  All this it brings—­yet brings therewith
    That which may help us bear and grin. 
  “Boy, when you hear the boat’s keel scrunch,
  Ask the mail officer to lunch;
  But give me time to peep at Punch
    Before you let him in.”

* * * * *

LONDON’S LITTLE SUNBEAMS.

THE TAXI-MEN.

What (writes a returned traveller) has happened to London’s taxi-drivers?  When I went away, not more than three months ago, they occasionally stopped when they were hailed and were not invariably unwilling to convey one hither and there.  But now ...  With flags defiantly up, they move disdainfully along, and no one can lure them aside.  Where on these occasions are they going?  How do they make a living if the flag never comes down?  Are they always on their way to lunch, even late at night?  Are they always out of petrol?  I can understand and admire the independence that follows upon overwork; but when was their overwork done?  The only tenable theory that I have evolved is that Lord NORTHCLIFFE (whose concurrent rise to absolutism is another phenomenon of my absence) has engaged them all to patrol the streets in his service.