scene; for as the countless little fires streamed hither and thither in columns, or separated, and fell like drops of rain, or rose thick like the sparks of a furnace, the two Portuguese pilots whom our traveller had taken on board, imagined they were so many demons. To add to the effect of this exhibition of fireflies, for, as the reader will have foreseen, it was they who were the actors, the swampy soil sent up a number of those earthly meteors which often glide over large morasses, some in the form of globes, which rose and fell slowly, like enormous rockets, while others assumed the shape of a tree of fire.
From Bengal our traveller proceeded along the Coromandel coast to Masulipatam, and having visited the kingdoms of Golconda and Bejapore, quitted Hindostan, after a residence of twelve years, and returned by way of Persia and Mesopotamia to Europe. The exact date of his arrival in France I have not been able to discover, but it must have been somewhere in the latter end of the year 1669, or in the beginning of 1670; for the first two volumes of his "History of the Revolutions of the Mogul Empire," which would require some time to prepare them for the press, were published in the course of that year. The third and fourth volumes appeared in 1671, and so great was the reputation they acquired, that they obtained for our traveller the surname of "The Mogul." These works, which have frequently been reprinted under the title of "The Travels of M. François Bernier, containing the Description of the Mogul Empire, of Hindostan, of the Kingdom of Cashmere, &c.," were immediately translated into English, and appear to have been the means of introducing their author to the most distinguished individuals of his time. Among those most distinguished by his friendship were Ninon de l'Enclos, Madame de la Sabliere, St. Evremont, and Chapelle, whose Eloge he composed. To many of these his speculative opinions, which were any thing
