If any traveller took the trouble of going to Vesuvius
and look- ing down the crater, he would probablydiscern the boiling fire below; if he ascended Mount and then Hecht, and then Chimborazo, he would discover the fires ever at their duty, al- though retained in memory of the plains only by the vague sense of that which may be the vibration either of earth or sound. So it is with the political world : no stream of lava is yet running over ; the smoke in the Constantinopolitan crater has sunk almost out of sight ; but the menacing tremour goes on, and rumours fill the air. Menschikoff, after all, it is said, has not yet sent in his ultimatum to the Sultan. Russian officers have left the Turkish capital, to spread themselves over Montenegro, the Archipelago, Greece, and Asia Minor—to Broussa, the present abode of Abd-el- Kader. Meanwhile, Russia and Turkey are jointly granting a conge d'eJire for the new Hospodar of Moldavia.
Across the Adriatic, affairs are not in so promising a state as they presented last week : the " amnesty " at Mantua, which ex- torted by its surprise such hasty gratitude in Milan, proves to be a paltry pardon to some comparatively obscure prisoners, whose Austrian conviction had established their innocence to the Italians in 1851 ; and the illumination of the theatre at Milan was made the occasion for a new affront to the subjugated race. It is Spanish Naples over again. Lombardy is only awaiting her Tell; who is, however, a long time coming.
The actual conflict of a British armed steamer with the troops of the Honduras state appears to be confirmed ; and, considering the complicated relations of that quarter, between the Spaniards, the Spanish Americans, the Indians, the King, his English cus- toms-officers, his Yankee councillors, and his allies in the United States and Great Britain, this battle between a teapot and a boiler may be regarded as one of the little signs how far the subterranean fires are moved : it is a floating spark from an off-lying crater.
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