CHAPTER IV.
OF CERTAIN LEPERS; AND TWO BROTHERS, WHO, BEING MUCH ALIKE, LOVED THEIR SISTER, AND RECOMMENDED THE USE OF GLOBES.
I must here clear myself on a point which has no doubt caused the reader some indignation.

"We remarked," he or she will say, "that, some chapters back, the Admiral described Troy as a 'beautiful little town.' Why, then, have we had no description of it, no digressions on scenery, no word-painting ?" To this I answer--Dear sir, or madam, no one who has known Troy was ever yet capable of describing it.

If you doubt me, visit the town and see for yourself.

I will for the moment suppose you to do so.
What happens?
On the first day you take a boat and row about the harbour.
"Scenery!" you exclaim, "why, what could you have more?
Here is a lovely harbour flanked by bold hills to right and left; here are the ruined castles, witnesses of the great days when Troy sent ships to carry the English army to Agincourt; here axe grey houses huddled at the water's edge, hoary, battered walls and quay-doors coated with ooze and green weed.

Such is Troy, and on the further shore quaint Penpoodle faces it, where a silver creek, dividing, runs up to Lanbeg; further up, the harbour melts into a river where the old ferry-boat plies to and from the foot of a tiny village straggling up the hill; further yet, and the jetties mingle with the steep woods beside the roads, where the vessels lie thickest; ships of all builds and of all nations, from the trim Canadian timber-ship to the corpulent Billy-boy.