"We are now," said Dashall, "in the Holy Land." "Long life to your honors," exclaimed a ragged professor of mendicity: "give a poor fellow the price of a _shake down_, and may you never be without the comforts of an _upright_!" "What mean you," asked the Squire, "by a shake down and an upright ?" "Not the worse luck that you don't know that self same thing now; but sure enough a shake-down is a two-penny layer of straw, and saving the tatters on my back, not a covering at all at all; may the son of my father never have a worse birth any how." "And an upright ?" ~104~~ "Is it an upright your honor's spaking about ?--fait and troth, as to that same, may the devil fly away with Thady O'Flannagan, and that is myself sure, if he knows much about it at all at all, seeing as how he has not rested his old bones on such a thing, arrah, these many long years; but sure enough it is four stumps, with boards across, a good flock-bed, a blanket below and a sheet above, with a decent coverlet pieced and patched in a hundred places to boot;--may you never want the like of it, any how!" "Thanks for your good wishes, my friend," said Dashall; "and this for the information which you have given us." "By the powers of good luck!" exclaimed the itinerant philosopher, "a tirteener!--Now an Irishman's blessing upon you for two good-hearted gentlemen; may you live all the days of your lives in peace and prosperity both here and hereafter!"{1} 1 The many impoverished and deserted beings who daily wander the streets, trusting for the vegetative existence of the moment to eleemosynary occurrences, are incalculable.
Amongst these sons and daughters of misery, happy is the one who, after partially satisfying the cravings of hunger, possesses two-pence, the price of a shake down for the night, in Rainbridge or Buckeridge-street, St.Giles's!--The upright is a wretched semblance of a bed, at the rate of three-pence or four-pence; but the lofty aspirant to genteel accommodation, must put down a tester.

In this way there are frequently beds to the number of seventy in one house, made up for nocturnal visitants! Palestine in London, or the Holy Land, includes that portion of the parish of St.Giles, Bloomsbury, inhabited by the lower Irish, with whom it seems a favorite place of residence.

The Squire having expressed to his friend a desire of perambulating these boundaries, they proceeded, by the way of George street, to explore the sanctified labyrinths, the scenes of diurnal clamour, and hebdomadary conflict.
"Arrah now," exclaimed a voice of maternity, in the person of a legitimate daughter of Erin,--"Arrah now, you brat of the devil's own begetting, be after bowling along to your fader: bad luck to him, and be sure that you bring him home wid you, by the token that the murphies are cracking, the salt-herrings scalding, and the apple-dumplings tumbling about the pot,--d'ye mind me, you tief of the world, tell him that his dinner waits upon him."-- "I'll be after doing that same, moder;" and forth from the ground floor of a mean looking house in Buckeridge-street, sprang an urchin without hat, shoe or stocking, and the scanty tattered habiliment he wore, fluttering in ~105~~various hues, like pennants in the wind, with such heedless velocity, urged no doubt by the anticipated delicacies of the dinner-pot, that he came in furious, unexpected, and irresistible contact with Squire Tallyho, who borne forward by the shock, was precipitated into a stagnant collection of mud and water, to the total disfigurement of his Boots, which had that morning received the "matchlessly brilliant polish of Warren's inestimable Jet blacking." Not like many others in London, who will run you down and leave you to your fate, the heir of his fader's whimsicalities stopped short in the inauspicious set-out of his rapid career; and "dirty end," he exclaimed, "to the scavenger that didn't think of the gentleman's boots!" And at the same time the mother of this hopeful representative of the Mac Dermott family, made her appearance with the genuine warmth of Irish hospitality; and inviting the two strangers to walk in, consoled the bespattered Squire with the prospect of speedy and effectual reparation, for "fait and troth, (said she) his dinner is all of a heap in the pot there, praaties, salt-herrings, and apple-dumplings,{1} and that is my husband Thady Mac Dermott, who is neither more nor less than a bricklayer's laborer, is after amusing himself and obliging his neighbours, at a small outlay, of a Sunday morning, by claning their boots and shoes; so it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, they say." The accommodating hostess then producing a bottle of blacking, with the requisite brushing implements, applied herself assiduously to the operation of claning the Squire's boots, and restored them, in a few minutes, to the splendour of their pristine brilliancy.
Scarcely had this important operation been performed, when entered Thady Mac Dermott and his son, the origin of the accident.

"The devil burn your trampers, you imp of the Mac Dermotts," cried the father: "couldn't you run against the gentleman without dirtying his boots?
Never mind it at all at all; I'll be after giving you a walloping for it, any how." 1 The fastidious delicacy of English cookery, when contrasted with that of Irish culinary preparation in the Holy-land, is surprising.

The wife of an Irish laborer who is desirous of giving her husband a delectable meal, and of various description, bodders not her brain with a diversity of utensils; but from the same pot or pan will produce, as if by enchantment, potatoes, (without which an Irishman cannot possibly make a dinner,) salt-herrings, and apple- dumplings; nor, does this extraordinary union of opposites affect the appetite of those partaking the oglio.
~106~~ The first instrument of attack that comes to hand is an Irishman's weapon .-- Thady brandished in _terrorem_ a red hot poker, and his son with the agility of a cat took sanctuary under the bed, but at the intercession of the Squire was allowed to emerge with impunity, and admitted to a participation of the salt-herrings and apple-dumplings.
The two friends declining an invitation to taste of these dainties, now departed, Tallyho not forgetting the "outlay, and the ill-wind that blows nobody good." Winding the mazes of the holy land, which may not unaptly be considered a colony of Irish emigrants, our perambulators without further occurrence worthy of notice, threaded their way through streets, lanes, and alleys, until they emerged at the bottom of Tottenham-court Road, close by the extensive brewery of Read and Co.