whose brilliant purple beard was a joy to look upon.

Most of the elderly natives dye their beards with, I think, henna,
producing a fine orange effect, but purple...!

_Bottom_. What beard were I best to play it in?

_Quince_. Why, what you will.

_Bottom_. I will discharge it in either your straw-coloured beard, your
orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your
French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow

_Midsummer Night's Dream_,

Act I. Sc. 2.

"What _coloured beard_ comes next by the window?"

"A black man's, I think."

"I think a _red_: for that is most in fashion."

RAM ALLY.

Truly, until I beheld that tax-gatherer of the Orient, I had no idea that
the "purple-in-grain" beard existed outside a poet's fancy!

The road took us along the left bank of the river, whose soil-stained
waters churned their way through a wild and rocky gorge. On our left the