INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL

in

EGYPT, ARABIA PETRAEA,

And

The Holy Land

By An American (J. L. Stephens)

Based on the 2nd edition

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1837

CHAPTER I

Alexandria.- Pompeii's Pillar.-The Catacombs.-The Warwick Vase.-The Pacha's Canal.- Boats of the Nile.

On the afternoon of the - December, 1835, after a passage of five days from Malta, I was perched up in the rigging of an English schooner, spyglass in hand, and earnestly looking for the 11 Land of Egypt." The captain had never been there before; but we had been running several hours along the low coast of Barbary, and the chart and compass told us that we could not be far from the fallen city of Alexander. Night came on, however, without our seeing it. The ancient Pharos, the Lantern of Ptolemy, the eighth wonder of the world, no longer throws its light far over the bosom of the sea to guide the weary mariner. Morning came, and we found ourselves directly opposite the city, the shipping in the outward harbor, and the fleet of the pasha riding at anchor under the walls of the seraglio, carrying me back in imagination to the days of the Macedonian conqueror, of Cleopatra and the Ptolemies. Slowly we worked our way up the difficult and dangerous channel, unaided by a pilot, for none appeared to take us in charge. It is a fact worthy of note, that one of the monuments of Egypt's proudest days, the celebrated Pompeii's Pillar, is even now, after a lapse of more than two thousand years, one of the landmarks which -guide the sailor to her fallen capital. Just as Ave had passed the last reef pilots came out to meet us, their swarthy faces, their turbans, their large dresses streaming in the wind, and their little boat with its huge lateen sail, giving a strange wildness to their appearance, the effect of which was not a little heightened by their noise and confusion in attempting to come alongside. Failing in their first endeavor, our captain gave them no assistance; and when the came upon us again he refused to admit them on board. The last arrival at Malta had brought unfavorable accounts of the plague, and lie was unwilling to run any risk until be should have an opportunity of advising with his consignee. My servant was the only person on board who could speak Arabic; and telling the wild, fly-away looking Arabs to fasten on astern, we towed our pilots in, and at about eight o'clock came to anchor in the harbor. In half an hour I was ashore, and the moment I touched it, just as I had found at Constantinople, all the illusion of the distant view was gone.

Indeed, it would be difficult for any man who lives at all among the things of this world to dream of the departed glory of Egypt when first entering the fallen city of Alexander; the present and the things of the present are uppermost; and between ambling donkeys, loaded camels, dirty, half-naked, sore-eyed Arabs, swarms of flies, yelping dogs, and apprehensions of the plague, one thinks more of his own movements than of the pyramids. I groped my way through a long range of bazaars to the Frank quarter, and here, totally forgetting what I had come for, and that there were such things as obelisks, pyramids, and ruined temples, the genius of my native land broke out, and, with an eye that had had some experience in such matters at home, I contemplated the "improvements:" a whole street of shops, kept by Europeans and filled with European goods, ranges of fine buildings, fine country houses, and gardens growing upon barren sands, showed that strangers from a once barbarous land were repaying the debt which the world owes to the mother of arts, and raising her from the ruin into ,which she had been plunged by years of misrule and anarchy.

My first visit was to Mr. Gliddon, the American consul, whose reception of me was such that I felt already as one not alone in a strange land. While with him an English gentleman came in-a merchant in Alexandria-who was going that night to Cairo. Mr.Gliddon introduced us; and, telling him that I too was bound for Cairo, Mr. T. immediately proposed that I should accompany him, saying he had a boat and everything ready, and that I might save myself the trouble of making any preparations, and would have nothing to do but come on board with my luggage at sundown. Though rather a short notice, I did not hesitate to accept his offer. Besides the relief from trouble in fitting out, the plague was in every one's mouth, and I was not sorry to have so early an opportunity of escaping from a city where, above all others, "pestilence walketh in darkness, and destruction wasteth at noonday."

Having but a short time before me, I immediately mounted a donkey-an Egyptian donkey-being an animal entirely unknown to us, or even in Europe, and, accompanied by ray servant, with a sore-eyed Arab boy to drive us, I started off upon a full gallop to make a hasty survey of the ruins of Alexandria. The Frank quarter is the extreme part of the city, and a very short ride brought us into another world. It was not until now, riding in the suburbs upon burning sands and under a burning sun, that I felt myself really in the land of Egypt. It was not, in fact, till standing at the base of Pompeii's Pillar, that I felt myself among the ruins of one of the greatest cities of the world. Reaching it through long rows of Arab huts, where Poverty, and. misery, and famine, and nakedness stared me in the face, one glance at its majestic height told me that this was indeed the work of other men and other times. Standing an a gentle elevation, it rises a single shaft of ninety feet, and ten feet in diameter, surmounted by a Corinthian capital ten feet high, and, independent of its own monumental beauty, it is an interesting object as marking the center of the ancient city. It stands far outside the present walls, and from its base you may look over a barren waste of sand, running from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Lake Mareotis, the boundaries of Alexandria as it was of old.

All this intermediate space of sandy hills, alternating with hollows, was once covered with houses, palaces, and perhaps with monuments, equal in beauty to that at whose base I stood. Riding over that waste, the stranger sees broken columns, crumbling walls, and fragments of granite and marble, thrusting themselves above their sandy graves, as if struggling for resurrection; on one side he beholds a yawning chasm, in which forty or fifty naked Arabs are toiling to disentomb a column long buried in the sand; on another an excavated house, with all its walls and apartments almost as entire as when the ancient Egyptian left it. He is riding over a mighty sepulchre, the sepulchre of a ruined city, and at every step some telltale monument is staring at him from the grave.

Riding slowly among the ruins, I passed the celebrated wells built in the time of Alexander, at the very foundation of the city, at which generation after generation have continued to slake their thirst, and ended my ride at Cleopatra's Needle, a beautiful obelisk sixty feet high, full of mysterious hieroglyphics that mock the learning of the wise of our day. Time has dealt lightly with it; on one side the characters stand bold and clear as when it came from the hands of the sculptor, although, on the other, the dread sirocco, blowing upon it from the desert more than two thousand years, has effaced the sculptor's marks, and worn away the almost impenetrable granite. By its side, half buried in the sand, lies a fallen brother, of the same size and about the same age, said to have been taken down by the English many years ago for the purpose of being carried to England; but the pacha, prevented it, and since that time it has lain in fallen majesty, stretching across a deep chasm formed by excavations around it.

At six o'clock I was riding with my new friend, spurring my donkey to its utmost to get out of the city before the gate should close; and my reader will acquit me of all intention of writing a book when I tell him that, a little after dark of the same day on which I arrived at Alexandria, I was on my way to Cairo. Accident, however, very unexpectedly brought me again to Alexandria; and on my second visit, while waiting for an opportunity to return to Europe, I several times went over the same ground, more at my leisure, and visited the other objects of interest which my haste had before prevented me from seeing.

Among these were the Catacombs, situated about two miles from the city, on the edge of the Libyan Desert, and near the shore of the sea. These great repositories of the dead are so little known, that we had some difficulty in finding them, although we inquired of everybody whom we met. Seeing an Arab brushing some horses near an opening in the side of the rock, we went to him to inquire, and found we were at the door of the Catacombs. The real entrance is now unknown, but was probably from above. The present is a rude forced breach, and the first chamber into which we entered, a chamber built with pious regard to the repose of the dead, we found occupied as a stable for the horses of one of the pacha's regiments. My donkey-boy had taken the precaution to bring with him candles, and a line to tie at the entrance, after the manner of Fair Rosamond's clew, to save us from being lost in the labyrinth of passages; but the latter was unnecessary, as the Arabs employed about the horses had explored them so thoroughly for purposes of plunder that they were sufficiently sure guides. Taking two of them into pay, we followed with our lighted torches through two chambers, which, to me, who had then seen the tombs in Thebes, Petra, and Jerusalem, contained noting remarkable, and came to what has been called the state chamber, a circular room about thirty feet in diameter, with three recesses, one at each side of the door and one opposite, a vaulted roof, and altogether admirably fine in its proportions. In each of the recesses were niches for the bodies of the dead, and in one of them skulls and smoldering bones were still lying on the ground. Following my guides, I passed through several chambers half filled with sand; but having by this time lost much of my ardor for wandering among tombs, and finding the pursuit unprofitable and unsatisfactory, I returned to the state chamber and left the Catacombs.

They are supposed to extend many miles under the surface, but how far will probably never be known. The excavations that have as yet been made are very trifling; and unless the enlightened pacha should need the state chamber for his horses, the sands of the desert may again creep upon them, and shut them forever from our eyes.

Near the door of the entrance, directly on the edge of the shore, are chambers cut in the rocks, which open to the sea, called by the imposing name of Cleopatra's Baths. It is rather an exposed situation, and, besides the view from the sea, there are several places where "peeping Tom" might have hidden himself, It is a rude place, too; and when I was there, the luxurious queen could hardly have got to her chambers without at least wetting her royal feet; in fact, not to be imposed upon by names, a lady of the present day can have a more desirable bath for a quarter of a dollar than ever the Queen of the East had in her life.

The present city of Alexandria, even after the dreadful ravages made by the plague last year, is still supposed to contain more than 50,000 inhabitants, and is decidedly growing. It stands outside the delta in the Libyan Desert, and, as Volney remarks, "It is only by the canal which conducts the waters of the Nile into the reservoirs in the time of inundation that Alexandria can be considered as connected with Egypt." Founded by the great Alexander, to secure his conquests in the East, being the only safe harbor along the coast of Syria or Africa, and possessing peculiar commercial advantages, it soon grew into a giant city. Fifteen miles in circumference, containing a population of 300,000 citizens and as many slaves, one magnificent street 2000 feet broad ran the whole length of the city, from the Gate of the Sea to the Canopy Gate, commanding a view, at each end, of the shipping, either in the Mediterranean or in the Mareotic Lake, and another of equal length intersected it at right angles; a spacious circus without the Canopie Gate for chariot-races and on the east a splendid gymnasium, more than six hundred feet in length, with theatres, baths, and all that could make it a desirable residence for a luxurious people. When it fell into the hands of the Saracens, according to the report of the Saracen general to the Calif Omar, "it was impossible to enumerate the variety of its riches and beauty;" and it is said to "have contained four thousand palaces, four thousand baths, four hundred theatres or public edifices, twelve thousand shops, and forty thousand tributary Jews." From that time, like everything else which falls into the hands of the Mussulman, it has been going to ruin, and the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope gave the deathblow to its commercial greatness. At present it stands a phenomenon in the history of a Turkish dominion. It appears once more to be raising its head from the dust. It remains to be seen whether this rise is the legitimate and permanent effect of a wise and politic government, combined with natural advantages, or whether the pacha is not forcing it to an unnatural elevation, at the expense, if not upon the ruins, of the rest of Egypt. It is almost presumptuous, on the threshold of my entrance into Egypt, to speculate upon the future condition of this interesting country; but it is clear that the pacha is determined to build up the city of Alexandria if he can: his fleet is here, his army, his arsenal, and his forts are here, and he has forced and centered here a commerce that was before divided between several places. Rosetta has lost more than two thirds of its population, Damietta has become a mere nothing, and even Cairo the Grand has become tributary to what is called the regenerated city.

Alexandria has also been the scene of interesting events in modern days. Here the long-cherished animosity of France and England sought a new battlefield, as if conscious that the soil of Europe had too often been moistened with human blood. Twice I visited the spot where the gallant Abercrombie fell, about two mile outside the Rosetta Gate; the country was covered with a beautiful verdure, and the Arab was turning up the ground with his plough; herds of buffalo were quietly grazing near, and a caravan of camels was slowly winding its way along the borders of a nameless lake, which empties into the Lake Mareotis. Farther on and near the sea is a large square, enclosure, by some called the ruins of the palace of Cleopatra, by others the camp of Caesar. This was the French position, and around it the battle was fought. All is quiet there now, though still the curious traveler may pick up from time to time balls, fragments of shells, or other instruments of death, which tell him that war, murderous and destructive war has been there.

My last ride was to Pompey's Pillar. Chateaubriand requested a friend to write his name upon the great pyramid, not being able to go to it himself, and considering this one of the duties of a pious pilgrim; but I imagine that sentimental traveller did not mean it in the sense in which "Hero" and "Beatrice," and the less romantic name of "Susannah Wilson," are printed in great black letters, six inches long, about half way up the shaft.

There can be no doubt that immense treasures are still buried under the ruins of Alexandria; but whether they will ever be discovered will depend upon the pacha's necessities, as he may need the ruins of ancient temples for building forts or bridges. New discoveries are constantly made, and between my first and second visit a beautiful vase had been discovered, pronounced to be the original of the celebrated Warwick vase found at Adrian's villa, near Tivoli. It was then in the hands of the French consul, who told me he would not take its weight in gold for it. I have since seen the vase at Warwick Castle; and if the one found at Alexandria is not the original, it is certainly remarkable that two sculptors, one in Egypt and the other in Italy, conceived and fashioned two separate works of art so exactly resembling each other.

But to return to the moment of my first leaving Alexandria. At dark I was on board a boat at the mouth of the Mahmoudie, the canal which connects Alexandria with the Nile; my companion had made all necessary provision for the voyage, and I had nothing to do but select a place and spread my mattress and coverlet. In a few minutes we had commenced our journey on the canal, our boat towed by our Arab boatmen, each with a rope across his breast. I have heard this canal spoken of as one of the greatest works of modern days, and I have seen it referred to as such in the books of modern travellers; and some even, as if determined to keep themselves under a delusion in regard to everything in Egypt, speak of it as they do of the pyramids, and obelisks, and mighty temples of the Upper Nile. The truth is, it is sixty miles in length, ninety feet in breadth, and eighteen in depth, through a perfectly level country. In regard to the time in which it was made it certainly is an extraordinary work, and it could only have been done in that time, in such a country as Egypt, where the government is an absolute despotism, and the will of one man is the supreme law. Every village was ordered to furnish a certain quota; 150,000 workmen were employed at once, and in a year from its commencement the whole excavation was made. As a great step in the march of public improvement, it certainly does honor to the pacha, though, in passing along its banks, our admiration of a barbarian struggling into civilization is checked by remembering his wanton disregard of human life, and the melancholy fact that it proved the grave of more than thirty thousand of his subjects.

We started in company with a Mr. Waghorn, formerly in the East India Company's service, now engaged in forwarding the mails from England to India by the Red Sea. He was one of the first projectors of that route, is a man of indefatigable activity and energy, and was the first courier sent from England with despatches over land. He traveled post to Trieste, took a Spanish vessel to Alexandria, and thence by dromedary to Cairo and Suez, where, not finding the vessel which had been ordered to meet him, and having with him a compass, his constant travelling companion, he hired an open Arab boat, and, to the astonishment of his Arab crew, struck out into the middle of the Red Sea. At night they wanted, as usual, to anchor near the shore; but he sat with the helm in one band and a cocked pistol in the other, threatening to shoot the first man that disobeyed his orders. On entering the harbor of Mocha he found an English government vessel on its way to meet him, and in the then uncommonly short time of fifty-five days, delivered his dispatches in Bombay.

At about eight o'clock next morning we were standing on the banks of the Nile, the eternal river, the river of Egypt, recalling the days of Pharaoh and Moses; from the earliest periods of recorded time watering and fertilizing a narrow strip of land in the middle of a sandy desert, rolling its solitary way more than a thousand miles without receiving a single tributary stream; the river which the Egyptians worshipped and the Arabs loved, and which, as the Mussulmans say, if Mohammed had tasted, "he would have prayed Heaven for terrestrial immortality, that he might continue to enjoy it for ever."

I cannot, however, join in the enthusiasm of the Mussulmans, for I have before me at this moment a vivid picture of myself and servant at Cairo, perched upon opposite divans covered with tawdry finery, in a huge barn of a room, with a ceiling thirty feet high, like two knights of the rueful countenance, comparing notes and bodily symptoms, and condoling with each other upon the corporeal miseries brought upon us by partaking too freely of the water of the Nile.

The appearance of the river at the mouth of the canal is worthy of its historic fame. I found it more than a mile wide, the current at that season full and strong; the banks on each side clothed with a beautiful verdure and groves of palm trees (the most striking feature in African scenery), and the village of Fouah, the stopping-place for boats coming up from Rosetta and Damietta, with its mosques, and minarets, and whitened domes, and groves of palms, forming a picturesque object in the view.

Upon entering the Nile we changed our boat, the new one being one of the largest and best on the river, of the class called canjiah, about seventy feet long, with two enormous lateen sails; these are triangular in form, and attached to two very tall spars more than a hundred feet long, heavy at the end, and tapering to a point; the spars or yards test upon two short masts, playing upon them as on pivots. The spar rests at an angle of about thirty degrees, and, carrying the sail to its tapering point, gives the boat when under way a peculiarly light and graceful appearance. In the stern a small place is housed over, which makes a very tolerable cabin, except that the ceiling is too low to admit of standing upright, being made to suit the cross-legged habits of the Eastern people. She was manned by ten Arabs, good stout fellows, and a rais or captain.

CHAPTER II

From Alexandria to Cairo.-Experience versus Travellers' Tales-An unintended Bath.-Iron Rule of the Pacha-Entrance into Cairo.-A Chat with a Pacha.

We commenced our voyage with that north wind which, books and travellers tell us, for nine months in the year continues to blow the same way, making it an easy matter to ascend from the Mediterranean to the Cataracts, even against the strong current of the river and I soon busied myself with meditating upon this extraordinary operation of nature, thus presenting itself to my observation at the very moment of my entrance into this wonderful country. It was a beautiful ordinance of Providence in regard to the feebleness and wants of man, that while the noble river rolled on eternally in one unbroken current, another agent of Almighty power should almost as constantly fill the flowing canvass, and enable navigators to stem the downward flow. I was particularly pleased with this train of reflection, inasmuch as at the moment we had the best of it. We were ascending against the current at the rate of six or seven miles an hour, with a noise an dash through the water that made it seem like nine or ten, while the descending boats, with their spars taken out and sails tied close, were crawling down almost imperceptibly, stern first, broadside first, not as the current carried them, but as the wind would let them. Our men had nothing to do; all day they lay strewed about on deck; towards evening they gathered around a large pilau of rice, and, as the sun was setting, one after the other, turning his face towards the tomb of the Prophet, kneeled down upon the deck and prayed. And thus passed my first night upon the Nile.

In the morning I found things not quite so well ordered; the wind seemed to be giving "premonitory symptoms" of an intention to chop about, and towards noon it came in dead ahead. After my self-complacent observations of yesterday, I would hardly credit it; but when it became so strong that we were obliged to haul alongside the bank and lie to, in order to avoid being driven down the stream I was perfectly satisfied and convinced. We saw no more of our friend Mr. Waghorn; he had a small boat rigged with oars, and while we were vainly struggling against the wind and tide, he kindly left us to our fate. My companion was a sportsman, and happened to have on board a couple of guns; we went on shore with them, and the principal incident of the day that I remember is, that, instead of fowler's, I had fisherman's luck. Rambling carelessly along, we found ourselves on the bank of a steam which it was necessary to cross; on the other side we saw a strapping Arab, and called to him to come and carry us over. Like most of his tribe, he was not troubled with any superfluous clothing, and slipping over his head the fragments of his frock, he was in a moment by our side, in all the majesty of nature. I started first mounted upon his slippery shoulders, and went along very will until we had got more than half way over, when I began to observe an irregular tottering movement, and heard behind me the smothered laugh of my companion. I felt my Arab slowly and deliberately lowering his head; my feet touched the water; but with one hand I held my gun above my head, and with the other griped him by the throat. I found myself going, going, deeper and deeper, let down with the most studied deliberation, till all at once he gave his neck a sudden toss, jerked his head from under me, and left me standing up to my middle in the stream. I turned round upon him, hardly knowing whether to laugh or to strike him with the butt end of my gun; but one glance at the poor fellow was enough; the sweat stood in large drops on his face and ran down his naked breast; his knees shook, and he was just ready to drop himself. He had supported me as long as he could; but, finding himself failing, and fearing we should both come down together with a splash, at full length, he had lowered me as gently as possible.

The banks of the Nile from here to Cairo furnish nothing interesting. On one side is the Delta, an extensive tract of low rich land, well cultivated and watered, and on the other a narrow strip of fertile land, and then the Libyan Desert. The ruined cities which attract the traveller into Egypt, their temples and tombs, the enduring monuments of its former greatness, do not yet present themselves. The modern villages are all built of mud or of unburnt bricks, and sometimes, at a distance, being surrounded by palm-trees, make a pleasing appearance but this vanishes the moment you approach them. The houses, or rather huts, are so low that a man can seldom stand up in them, with a hole in the front like the door of an oven, into which the miserable Arab crawls, more like a beast than a being made to walk in God's image. The same spectacle of misery and wretchedness, of poverty, famine, and nakedness, which I had seen in the suburbs of Alexandria, continued to meet me at every village on the Nile, and soon suggested the interesting consideration whether all this came from country and climate, from the character of the people, or from the government of the great reformer. At one place I saw on the banks of the river forty or fifty men, chained together with iron bands around their wrists, and iron collars around their necks. Yesterday they were peaceful Fellahs, cultivators of the god, earning their scanty bread by hard and toilsome labour, but eating it at home in peace. Another day, and the stillness of their life is for ever broken; chased, run down, and caught, torn from their homes, from the sacred threshold of the mosque, the sword and musket succeed the implements of their quiet profession; they are carried away to fight battles in a cause which does not concern them, and in which, if they conquer, they can never gain.

Returning to our boat on the brink of the river, a slight noise caught my ear; I turned, and saw a ragged mother kissing her naked child, while another of two years old, dirty and disgusting, was struggling to share its mother's embraces; their father I had just seen with an iron collar arund his neck; and she loved these miserable children, and they loved their miserable mother, as if they were ail clothed "in purple and fine raiment every day." But a few minutes after, a woman, knowing that we were "Franks," brought on board our boat a child, with a face and head so bloated with disease that it was disgusting to look at. The rais took the child in his arms and brought it up to us, the whole crew following with a friendly interest. My companion gave them a bottle of brandy, with which the rais carefully bathed the face and head of the child, all the crew leaning over to help; and when they had finished to their satisfaction, these kind-hearted but clumsy nurses kissed the miserable bawling infant, and passed it, with as much care as if it had been a basket of crockery, into the hands of the grateful mother. This scene was finely contrasted with one that immediately followed. The boat was aground, and in an instant, stripping their long gowns over their heads, a dozen large swarthy figures were standing naked on the deck; in a moment more they were splashing in the river, and with their brawny shoulders under the bottom of the vessel, heaved her oft the sand-bank. Near this we passed a long line of excavation, where several hundred men were then digging, being part of the gigantic work of irrigating the Delta lately undertaken by the pacha.

Towards the evening of the fourth day we came in sight of the "world's great wonder," the eternal pyramids, standing at the head of a long reach in the river directly in front of us, and almost darkening the horizon; solitary, grand, and gloomy, the only objects to be seen in the great desert before us. The sun was about setting in that cloudless sky known only in Egypt; for a few moments their lofty summits were lighted by a gleam of lurid red, and, as the glorious orb settled behind the mountains of the Libyan Desert, the atmosphere became dark and more indistinct, and their clear outline continued to be seen after the whole earth was shrouded in gloom.

The next morning at seven o'clock we were alongside the Island of Rhoda, as the Arab boatmen called it, where the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe and found the little Moses. We crossed over in a small boat to Boulac, the harbor of Cairo, breakfasted with Mr. T-, the brother-in-law of my friend, an engineer in the pacha's service, whose interesting wife is the only English lady there, and mounting a donkey, in half an hour I was within the walls of Grand Cairo. The traveller who goes there with the reminiscences of Arabian tales hanging about him, will nowhere see the Cairo of the califs; but before arriving there he will have seen a curious and striking spectacle. He will have seen, streaming from the gate among loaded camels and dromedaries, the dashing Turk with his glittering sabre, the wily Greek, the grave Armenian, and the despised Jew, with their long silk robes, their turbans, their solemm beards, and various and striking costumes; he will have seen the harem of more than one rich Turk, eight or ten women on horseback, completely enveloped in large black silk wrappers, perfectly hiding face and person, and preceded by that abomination of the East, a black eunuch; the miserable santon, the Arab saint, with a few scanty rags on his breast and shoulders, the rest of his body perfectly naked; the swarthy Bedouin of the desert, the haughty janizary, with a cocked gun in his hand, dashing furiously through the crowd, and perhaps bearing some bloody mandate of his royal master; and perhaps he will have seen and blushed at his own image in the person of some beggarly Italianrefugee. Entering the gate, guarded by Arab soldiers in a bastard European uniform, he will cross a large square filled with officere and soldiers, surrounded by what are called palaces, but seeing nothing that can interest him save the house in which the gallant Kleber, the hero of many a bloody field, died ingloriously by the hands of an assassin. Crossing, this square, he will plunge into the narrow streets of Cairo. Winding his doubtful and perilous way amoung tottering and ruined houses, justled by camels, dromedaries, horses, and donkeys, perhaps he will draw up against a wall, and, thinking of plague, hold his breath and screw himself into nothing, while he allows a corpse to pass, followed by a long train of howling women, dressed in black, with masks over their faces; and entering the large wooden gate which shuts in the Frank quarter, for protection against any sudden burst of popular fury, and seating himself in a miserable Italian locanda, he will ask himself, Where is the " Cairo of the califs, the superb town, the holy city, the delight of the imagination, greatest among the great, whose splendour and opulence made the Prophet smile?"

Almost immediately upon my arrival I called upon Mr. Gliddon, , our vice-consul, and upon Nubar Bey, an Armenian dragoman to the pacha, to whom I had a letter from a gentleman in Alexandria. The purport of my visit to the latter was to procure a presentation to the pacha. He told me that several English officers from India had been waiting several days for that purpose; that he thought the pacha would receive them the next day, and, if so, he would ask permission to present me. Having arranged this, and not being particularly pleased with the interior, and liking exceedingly the donkeys on which it is the custom there to mount on all occasions, for long and for short distances, I selected one that was particularly gay and sprightly, and followed by an Arab boy who had picked up a few Italian words, I told him to take me anywhere outside the city. He happened to take me out at the same gate by which I had entered, and I rode to Old Cairo.

Old Cairo is situated on the river, about four miles from Boulac. The road is pretty, and some of the points of view, particularly in returning, decidedly beautiful. The aqueduct which conveys water into the citadel at Cairo is a fine substantial piece of workmanship, and an item in the picture. The church and grotto in which, as tradition says, the Virgin Mary took refuge with the infant Saviour, when obliged to fly from the tetrarch of Judea, are among the few objects worthy of note in Old Cairo. The grotto, which is guarded with pious care by the Coptic priest, is a small excavation, the natural surface covered with smooth tiles; it is hardly large enough to allow one person to crawl in and sit upright. It is very doubtful whether this place was ever the refuge of the Virgin, but the craft or simplicity of the priests sustains the tradition; and a half dozen Coptic women, with their faces covered and their long blue dresses, followed me down into the vault and kneeled before the door of the grotto, with a devotion which showed that they at least believed the tale.

At my locanda this morning I made acquaintance with two English parties, a gentleman, his lady, and nephew, who had been travelling in their own yacht on the Mediterranean, and the party of English officers to whom I before referred, as returning from India by way of the Red Sea. They told me that they were expecting permission from the pacha to wait on him that day, and asked me to accompany them. This suited me better than to go alone, as I was not ambitious for a tete-a-tete with his highness, and merely wished to see him as one of the lions of the country. Soon after I received a note from the consul, telling me that his highness would receive me at half past three. This, too, was the hour appointed for the reception of the others, and I saw that his highness was disposed to make a lumping business of it, and get rid of us all at once. I accordingly suggested to Mr. Gliddon that we should all go together; but this did not suit him; he was determined that I should have the benefit of a special audience. I submitted myself to his directions, and in this, as in other things while at Cairo, found the benefit of his attentions and advice.

It is the custom of the pacha upon such occasions to send horses from his own stable, and servants from his own household, to wait upon the stranger. At half past three I left my hotel, mounted on a noble horse, finely caparisoned, with a dashing red cloth saddle, a bridle ornamented with shells, and all the decorations and equipments of a well-mounted Turkish horseman, and, preceded by the janizary, and escorted by the consul, with no small degree of pomp and circumstance I arrived at the gate of the citadel. Passing through a large yard, in which are several buildings connected with the different offices of government, we "stopped at the door of the palace, and, dismounting, ascended a broad flight of marble steps to a large or central hall, from which doors opened into the different apartments. There were three recesses fitted up with divans, where officers were lounging, smoking, and taking coffee. The door of the divan, or hall of audience, was open, at which a guard was stationed, and in going up to demand permission to enter, we saw the pacha at the farther end of the room, with four or five Turks standing before him.

Not being allowed to enter yet, we walked up and down the great hall, among lounging soldiers and officers of all ranks and grades, Turks, Arabs, and beggars, and went out upon the balcony. The view from this embraces the most interesting objects in the vicinity of Cairo, and there are few prospects in the world which include so many; the land of Goshen, the Nile, the obelisk at Heliopolis, the tombs of the Califs, the pyramids, and the deserts of eternal sands.

While standing upon the balcony, a janizary came to tell us that the pacha would receive us, or, in other words, that we must come to the pacha. The audience-chamber was a very large room, with a high ceiling-perhaps eighty feet long and thirty high-with Arabesque paintings on the wall, and a divan all around. The pacha was sitting near one corner at the extreme end, and had a long and full view of every one who approached him. I too had the same advantage, and in walking up I remarked him as a man about sixty-five, with a long and very white beard, strong features, of a somewhat vulgar cast, a short nose, red face, and rough skin, with an uncommonly fine dark eye, expressing a world of determination and energy. He wore a large turban and a long silk robe, and was smoking a long pipe with an amber mouthpiece. Altogether, he looked the Turk much better than his nominal master the sultan.

His dragoman, Nubar Bey, was there, and presented me. The pacha took his pipe from his mouth, motioned me to take a seat at his right hand on the divan, and with a courteous manner said I was welcome to Egypt. I told him he would soon have to welcome half the world there; he asked me why; and, without meaning to flatter the old Turk, I answered that everybody bad a great curiosity to visit that interesting country; that heretofore it had been very difficult to get there, and dangerous to travel in when there; but now the facilities of access were greatly increased, and travelling in Egypt had become so safe under his government, that strangers would soon come with as much confidence as they feel while travelling in Europe and I had no doubt there would be many Americans among them. He took his pipe from his mouth and bowed. I sipped my coffee with great complacency, perfectly satisfied with the manner in which, for the first time, I had played the courtier to royalty. Knowing his passion for new things, I went on, and told him that he ought to continue his good works, and introduce on the Nile a steamboat from Alexandria to Cairo. He took the pipe from his mouth again, and in the tone of "Let there be light, and there was light,' said he had ordered a couple. I knew he was fibbing, and I afterward heard from those through whom he transacted all his business in Europe that he had never given any such order. Considering that a steamboat was as appropriate weapon in the hands of an American, I followed up my blow by telling him that I had just seen mentioned, in a European paper, a project to run steamboats from New-York to Liverpool in twelve or fourteen days. He asked me the distance; I told him, and he said nothing and smoked on. He knew America, and particularly from a circumstance which, I afterward found, had done wonders in giving her a name and character in the East, the visit of Commodore Patterson in the ship Delaware. So far I had taken decidedly the lead in the conversation; but the constant repetition of "Son Altesse" by the dragoman began to remind me that I was in the presence of royalty, and that it was my duty to speak only when I was spoken to. I waited to give him a chance, and the first question he asked was as to the rate of speed of the steamboats on our rivers. Remembering an old, crazy, five or six mile an hour boat that I bad seen in Alexandria, I was afraid to tell him the whole truth, lest he should not believe me, and did not venture to go higher than fifteen miles an hour; and even then he looked as Ilderim may be supposed to have looked when the Knight of the Leopard told him of having crossed over a lake like the Dead Sea without wetting his horse's hoofs. I have no doubt, if he ever thought of me afterward, that it was as the lying American; and just at this moment, the party of English coming in, I rose and took my leave. Gibbon says, "When Persia was governed by the descendants of Sefis, a race of princes whose wanton cruelty often stained their divan, their table, and their bed with the blood of their favourites, there is a saying recorded of a young nobleman, that he never departed from the sultan's presence without satisfying himself whether his head was still on his shoulders." It was in somewhat of the same spirit that, in passing, one of the Englishmen whispered to me, "Are you sure of your legs?"

During my interview with the pacha, although my conversation and attention were directed towards him, I could not help remarking particularly his dragoman, Nubar Bey. He was an Armenian, perhaps a year or two over thirty, with an olive complexion, and a countenance like marble. He stood up before us, about half way between the pacha and me, his calm eye finely contrasted with the roving and unsettled glances of the pacha, a perfect picture of indifference, standing like a mere machine to translate words, without seeming to comprehend or take the least interest in their import; and though I had been particularly recommended to him, he did not give me a single glance to intimate that he had ever seen me before, or cared ever to see me again. He was an ambitious man,and was evidently acting, and acted well, a part suited to an Eastern court; the part necessary in his responsible and dangerous position, as the depositary of important secrets of government. He was in high favour with the pacha, and, when I left, was in a fair way of attaining any honor at which his ambitious spirit might aim. On my return to Alexandria, four months after, he was dead.

The life and character of Mohammed Aly are a study and a problem. Like Bernadotte of Sweden, he has risen from the rank of a common soldier, and now sits firmly and securely on a throne of his own making. He has risen by the usual road to greatness among the Turks: war, bloodshed, and treachery. In early life his bold and daring spirit attracted the attention of beys, pachas, and the sultan himself; and having attained a prominent position in the bloody wars that distracted Egypt under the Mamelukes, boldness, cruelty, intrigue, and treachery placed him on the throne of califs, and neither then nor since have these usual engines of Turkish government, these usual accompaniments greatness, for a moment deserted him. The ext4termination of the Mamelukes, the former lords of Egypt, as regards the number killed, is perhaps nothing in comparison with the thousands whose blood cries out from the earth against him; but the manner in which it was effected brands the pacha as the prince of traitors and murderers. Invited to the citadel on a friendly visit, while they were smoking the pipe of peace he was preparing to murder them and no sooner had they left his presence than they were pent up, fired upon, cut down and killed, bravely but hopelessly defending themselves to the last. This cruel deed must not be likened to the slaughter of the janizaries by the sultan, to which it is often compared, for the janizaries were a powerful body, insulting and defying the throne. The sultan staked his head upon the issue, and it was not till he had been driven to the desperate expedient of unfurling the sacred standard of the Prophet, and calling upon all good Mussulmans to rally round it; in a word, it was not till the dead bodies of thirty thousand janizaries were floating down the Bosphorus, that he became master in his own dominions. Not so with the pacha; the Mamelukes were reduced to a feeble band of four or five hundred men, and could effect nothing of importance against the pacha. His cruelty and treachery can neither be forgotten nor forgiven and when, in passing out of the citadel, the stranger is shown the place where the unhappy Mamelukes were penned up and slaughtered like beasts, one only leaping his gallant horse over the walls of the citadel, he feels that he has left the presence of a wholesale murderer. Since that time he has had Egypt quietly to himself; has attacked and destroyed the Wahabees on the Red Sea, and subdued the countries above the Cataracts of the Nile, to Sennaar and Dongola. He has been constantly aiming at introducing European improvements; has raised and disciplined an army according to European tactics; increased the revenues, particularly by introducing the culture of cotton, and has made Egypt, from the Mediterranean to the Cataracts, as safe for the traveller as the streets of New-York. It remains to be seen whether, after all, he has not done more harm than good, and whether the miserable and oppressed condition of his subjects does not more than counterbalance all the good that he has done for Egypt. One of the strongest evidences he gave of his civilizing inclinations is the tendency he once manifested to fall under petticoat government. He was passionately fond of his first wife, the sharer of his poverty and meridian greatness, and the mother of his two favourite children, Youssouff and Ibrahim Pacha; and whenever a request was preferred in her name, the enamoured despot would swear his favourite oath, "By my two eyes, if she wishes it, it shall be done." Fond of war, and having an eye to the islands of Candia and Cyprus, he sent a large fleet and army, commanded by his son Ibrahim Pacha, to aid the sultan in his war against Greece, and with his wild Egyptians turned the tide against that unhappy country, receiving as his reward the islands which he coveted. More recently, availing himself of a trifling dispute with the governor of Acre, he turned his arms against the sultan, invaded Syria, and, after a long siege, took and made himself master of Acre; his victorious armies under his son Ibrahim swept all Syria; Jerusalem, Damascus, and Aleppo fell into his hands; and beating the sultan's forces whenever he met them, in mid winter he led his Egyptians over mount Taurus, defeated the grand vizier with more than one hundred thousand men almost under the walls of Constantinople, and would have driven the sultan from the throne of his ancestors, if the Russians, the old enemies of the porte, had not come in to his relief. According to the policy of the Porte, that which is wrested from her and she cannot get back, she confirms in the possession of the rebel; and Palestine and Syria are now in the hands of Mohammed Aly, as the fruits of drawing his sword against his master. He still continues to pay tribute to the sultan, constrained doubtless to make the last payment by the crippled state in which he was left by the terrible plague of 1834; and without any enemy to fear, is at this moment draining the resources of his country to sustain a large army and navy. No one can fathom his intentions, and probably he does not know them himself, but will be governed, as the Turks always are, by caprice and circumstances.

On leaving the pacha, Mr. Gliddon proposed that we should call upon the governor of Cairo. We stopped at what would be called in France the "Palais de Justice," and mounting a dozen steps, entered a large hall, at one end of which stood the governor. He was a short stout man, of about fifty-five, with a long beard, handsomely dressed, and stood gently rubbing his hands, and constantly working his jaws like an ox chewing the cud. A crowd was gathered around him, and just as we were approaching the crowd fell back, and we saw an Arab lying on his face on the floor, with two men standing over him, one on each side, with whips, like cowskins, carrying into effect the judgment of the munching governor. The blows fell thickly and heavily, the poor fellow screamed piteously, and when the full number had been given he could not move; he was picked up by his friends and carried out of doors. It was precisely such a scene as realized the reference in the Scriptures to the manners of the East in the time of our Saviour, when a complaint was made to the judge, and the judge handed the offender over to justice; or the graphic accounts in the Arabian Nights, of summary justice administered by the cadi or other expounder of the law, without the intervention of lawyers or jury. The poor Arab was hardly removed before another complaint was entered; but not feeling particularly amiable towards the governor, and having seen enough of the great Turks for that day, I left the citadel and rode to my hotel.

CHAPTER III.

The Slave market at Cairo.-Tomb of the Pacha.-The Pyramid of Cheops.-Oppresive Attentions of the Arabs.-The Sphinx

NEARLY all the time I was at Cairo, Paul and myself were ill, and for a few days we were in a rather pitiable condition. Fortunately, a young English army surgeon was there, on his way to India, and hearing there was a sick traveller in the house, he with great kindness called upon me and prescribed for our ailments. If this book should ever meet the eye of Dr. Forbes, he will excuse my putting his name in print, as it is the only means I have of acknowledging his kindness in saving me from what would otherwise have been a severe and most inconvenient illness. At that time there was no English physician in Cairo, and I believe none at all, except some vile, half-bred Italian or French apothecaries, who held themselves fully qualified to practice, and were certainly very successful in relieving the sick from all their sufferings. On my return I found Dr. Walne, and though for his own sake I could wish him a better lot, I hope, for the benefit of sick travellers, that he is there still. (Note: I have seen with great pleasure, in a late English paper , that Dr. Walne has been appointed English vice-consul at Cairo. In the close relation now growing up between England and Egypt by means of the Red Sea passage to India, it is a matter of no small consequence to England to have at Cairo as her representative a man of character and talents; and I am sure I but express the opinion of all who know Dr. Walne when I say that a more proper appointment could not have been made.)

One of my first rambles in Cairo was to the slave-market. It is situated nearly in the centre of the city, as it appeared to me, although, after turning half a dozen corners in the narrow streets of a Turkish city, I will defy a man to tell 'where he is exactly. It is a large old building, enclosing a hollow square, with chambers all around, both above and below. There were probably five or six hundred slaves sitting on mats in groups of ten, twenty, or thirty, each belonging to a different proprietor. Most of them were entirely naked, though some, whose shivering forms evinced that even there they felt the want of their native burning sun, were covered with blankets. They were mostly from Dongola and Sennaar; but some were Abyssinians, with yellow complexions, fine eyes and teeth, and decidedly handsome. The Nubians were very dark, but with oval, regularly-formed, and handsome faces, mild and amiable expressions, and no mark of the African except the colour of their skin. The worst spectacle in the bazar was that of several lots of sick, who were separated from the rest and arranged on mats by themselves; their bodies thin and shrunken, their chins resting upon their knees, their long lank arms hanging helplessly by their sides, their faces haggard, their eyes fixed with a painful vacancy, and altogether presenting the image of man in his most abject condition. Meeting them on their native sands, their crouching attitudes, shrunken jaws, and rolling eyes might have led one to mistake them for those hideous animals the orangoutang and ape. Prices vary from twenty to a hundred dollars but the sick, as carrying within them the seeds of probable death, are coolly offered for almost nothing, as so much damaged merchandise which the seller is anxious to dispose of before it becomes utterly worthless on his hands. There was one, an Abyssinian, who had mind as well as beauty in her face; she was dressed in silk, and wore ornaments of gold and shells, and called me as I passed, and peeped from behind a curtain, smiling and coquetting, and wept and pouted when I went away; and she thrust out her tongue to show me that she was not like those I had just been looking at, but that her young blood ran pure and healthy in her veins.

Cairo is surrounded by a wall; the sands of the desert approach it on every side, and every gate, except that of Boulac, opens to a sandy waste. Passing out by the Victory Gate, the contrast between light and darkness is not greater than between the crowded streets and the stillness of the desert, separated from them only by a wall. Immediately without commences the great burial-place of the city. Among thousands and tens of thousands of Mussulmans' headstones, I searched in vain for the tomb of the lamented Burckhardt; there is no mark to distinguish the grave of the enterprising traveller from that of an Arabian camel-driver. At a short distance from the gate are the tombs of the califs, large and beautiful buildings, monuments of the taste and skill of the Saracens.

From hence, passing around outside the walls, I entered by the Gate of the Citadel, where I saw what goes by the name of Joseph's Well, perhaps better known as the Well of Saladin. It is forty-five feet wide at the mouth, and cut two hundred and seventy feet deep through the solid rock to a spring of saltish water, on a level with the Nile, whence the water is raised in buckets on a wheel, turned by a buffalo.

On the 25th, with a voice that belied my feelings, I wished Paul a merry Christmas; and, after breakfast, wishing to celebrate the day, mounted a donkey and rode to the site of the ancient Heliopolis, near the village of Matarea, about four miles from Cairo, on the borders of the rich land of Goshen. The geographer Strabo visited these ruins thirty years A. C., and describes them almost exactly as we see them now. A great temple of the sun once stood here. Hodotus and Plato studied philosophy in the schools of Heliopolis; "a barbarous Persian overturned her temples; a fanatic Arabian burnt her books;" and a single obelisk, sixty-seven feet high, in a field ploughed and cultivated to its very base, stands, a melancholy monument of former greatness and eternal ruin.

Passing out by another gate is another vast cemetery, ranges of tombs extending miles out into the desert. In Turkey I had admired the beauty of the graveyards, and often thought how calmly slept the dead under the thick shade of the mourning cypress. In Egypt I admired still more the solemn stillness and grandeur of a last resting-place among the eternal sands of the desert. In this great city of the dead stand the tombs of the Mamelukes, originally slaves from the foot of the Caucasus, then the lords and tyrants of Egypt, and now an exterminated race: the tombs are large, handsome buildings, with domes and minarets, the interior of the domes beautifully wrought, and windows of stained glass, all going to ruins. Here, too, is the tomb of the pacha. Fallen, changed, completely revolutionized as Egypt is, even to this day peculiar regard is paid to the structure of tombs and the burial-places of the dead. The tomb of the pacha is called the greatest structure of modern Egypt. It is a large stone building, with several domes, strongly but coarsely made. The interior, still, solemn, and imposing, is divided into two chambers; in the first, in a conspicuous situation, is the body of his favourite wife, and around are those of other members of his family; in the other chamber are several tombs, covered with large and valuable Cashmere shawls; several places yet unoccupied, and in one corner a large vacant place, reserved for the pacha himself. Both apartments are carpeted, and illuminated with lamps, with divans in the recesses, and little wicker chairs for the different members of the family who come to mourn and pray. Two ladies were there, sitting near one of the tombs, their faces completely covered; and, that I might not disturb their pious devotions, my guide led me in a different direction. During the time that I had passed in lounging about Cairo, I had repeatedly been down to Boulac in search of a boat for my intended voyage up the Nile; and going one Sunday to dine on the Island of Rhoda with Mr. Trail, a young Englishman who had charge of the palace and garden of Ibrahim Pacha, I again rode along the bank of the river for the same purpose. In coming up from Alexandria I had found the inconveniences of a large boat, and was looking for one of the smallest dimensions that could be at all comfortable. We were crossing over one more than half sunk in the water, which I remarked to Paul was about the right size; and while we stopped a moment, without the least idea that it could be made fit for use, an Arab came up and whispered to Paul that he could pump out the water in two hours, and had only sunk the boat to save it from the officers of the pacha, who would otherwise take it for the use of government. Upon this information I struck a bargain for the boat, eight men, a rais, and a pilot. The officers of the pacha were on the bank looking out for boats, and, notwithstanding my Arab's ingenious contriv4ncs, just when I had closed my agreement, they came on board and claimed possession. I refused to give up my right and sent to the agent of the consul for an American flag. He could not give me an American, but sent me an English flag, and I did not hesitate to put myself under its protection. I hoisted it with my own hands; but the rascally Turks paid no regard to its broad folds. The majesty of England did not suffer, however, in my hands, and Paul and I spent more than an hour in running from one officer to another, before we could procure the necessary order for the release of the boat. Leaving this with the rais, and the flag still flying, I went on to Rhoda, and spent the day there in decidedly the prettiest spot about Cairo. At the head of island is the celebrated Nilometer, which, for no one knows how long, has marked the annual rise and fall of the Nile.

I had been ten days in Cairo without going to the pyramids. I had seen them almost every day, but my doctor, who was to accompany me, had delayed my visit. He was obligated to leave Cairo, however, before I was ready to go; and as soon as he was off, like a schoolboy when the master is out of sight, I took advantage of his absence. My old friend from Alexandria had promised to go with me, and joining me at Old Cairo, we crossed over to Ghizeh. Almost from the gates of Cairo the pyramids are constantly in sight, and, after crossing the ferry, we at first rode directly towards them; but the waters were yet so high that we were obliged to diverge from the straight road. In about an hour we separated, my guide taking one route and my friend's another. With my eyes constantly fixed on the pyramids, I was not aware of our separation until I had gone too far to return, and my guide proved to be right. Standing alone. on an elevated mountainous range on the edge of the desert, without any object with which to compare them, the immense size of the pyramids did not strike me with full force. Arrived at the banks of a stream, twenty Arabs, more than half naked, and most of them blind of an eye, came running towards me, dashed through the stream, and pulling, hauling, and scuffling at each other, all laid hold of me to carry me over. All seemed bent upon having something to do with me, even if they carried me over piecemeal; but I selected two of the strongest, with little more than one eye between them, and keeping the rest off as well as I could, was borne over dryshod. Approaching, the three great pyramids and one small one are in view, towering higher and higher above the plain. I thought I was just upon them, and that I could almost touch them; yet I was more than a mile distant. The nearer I approached, the more their gigantic dimensions grew upon me, until, when I actually reached them, rode up to the first layer of stories, and saw how very small I was, and looked up their sloping sides to the lofty summits, they seemed to have grown to the size of mountains.

The base of the great pyramid is about eight hundred feet square, covering a surface of about eleven acres, according to the best measurement, and four hundred and sixty-one feet high; or, to give a clearer idea, starting from a base as large as Washington Parade Ground, it rises to a tapering point nearly three times as high as Trinity Church steeple. Even as I walked around it, and looked tip at it from the base, I did not feel its immensity until I commenced ascending; then, having climbed some distance up, when I stopped to breathe and look down upon my friend below, who was dwindled to insect size, and up at the great distance between me and the summit, then I realized in all their force the huge dimensions of this giant work. It took me twenty minutes to mount to the summit; about the same time that it had required to mount the cones of Etna and Vesuvius. The ascent is not particularly difficult, at least with the assistance of the Arabs. There are two hundred and six tiers of stone, from one to four feet in height, each two or three feet smaller than the one below, making what are called the steps. Very often the steps were so high that I could not reach them with my feet. Indeed, for the most part, I was obliged to climb with my knees, deriving great assistance from the step which one Arab made for me with his knee, and the helping hand of another above.

It is not what it once was to go to the pyramids. They become regular lions for the multitudes of travellers; but still, common as the journey has become, no man can stand on the top of the great pyramid of Cheops, and look out upon the dark mountains of Mokattam bordering the Arabian desert; upon the ancient cities of the Pharaohs, its domes, its mosques and minarets, glittering in the light of a sun; upon the rich valley of the Nile, and the "river of Egypt" rolling at his feet; the long range of pyramids and tombs extending along the edge of the desert, the ruined city of Memphis, and the boundless and eternal sands of Africa, without considering that moment an epoch not to be forgotten. Thousands of years roll through his mind, and thought recalls the men who built them, their mysterious uses, the poets, historians, philosophers, and warriors who have gazed upon them with wonder like his own.

For one who but yesterday was bustling in the streets of a busy city, it was a thing of strange and indescribable interest to be standing on the top of the great pyramid, surrounded by a dozen half-naked Arabs, forgetting, as completely as if they had never been, the stirring scenes of his distant home. But even here petty vexations followed me, and half the interest of the time and scene was destroyed by the clamour of my guides. The descent I found extremely easy; many persons complain of the dizziness caused by looking down from such a height, but I did not find myself so affected; and though the donkeys at the base looked like flies, I could almost have danced down the mighty sides.*

(*A few years ago an unfortunate accident happened at this pyramid. An English officer, Mr. M., who had come up the Red Sea from India with his friend, had mounted to the top, and, while his friend was looking another way, Mr. M. was walking around the upper layer of stones and fell; he rolled down eight or ten steps, and caught; for a moment he turned up his face with an expression that his friend spoke of as horrible beyond all description, when his head sunk, his grasp relaxed, and he pitched headlong, rolling over and over to the bottom of the pyramid. Every bone in his body was broken; his mangled corpse was sewed up in a sack, carried to Old Cairo and buried, and his friend returned the same day to Cairo. There were at the time, imputations that Mr. M. had premeditated this act, as he had left behind him his watch, money, and papers, and had been heard to say what a glorious death it would be to die by jumping from the top of a pyramid.)

The great pyramid is supposed to contain six millions of cubic feet of stone, and a hundred thousand men are said to have been employed twenty years in building it. The four angles stand exactly in the four points of the compass, inducing the belief that it was intended for other purposes than those of a sepulchre. The entrance is on the north side. The sands of the desert have encroached upon it, and, with the fallen stones and rubbish, have buried it to the sixteenth step. Climbing over this rubbish the entrance is reached, a narrow passage three and a half feet square, lined with broad blocks of polished granite, descending in the interior at an angle of twenty-seven degrees for about ninety-two feet; then the passage turns to the right, and winds upward to a steep ascent of eight or nine feet, and then falls into the natural passage, which is five feet high and one hundred feet long, forming a continued ascent to a sort of landing-place; in a small recess of this is the orifice or shaft called the well. Moving onward through a long passage, the explorer comes to what is called the Queen's Chambers, seventeen feet long, fourteen wide, and twelve high. I entered a hole opening from this crypt, and crawling on my hands and knees, came to a larger opening, not a regular chamber, and now cumbered with fallen stones. Immediately above this, ascending by an inclined plane lined with highly polished granite, and about one hundred and twenty feet in length, and mounting a short space by means of holes cut in the sides, I entered the King's Chamber, about thirty-seven feet long, seventeen feet wide, and twenty feet high. The walls of the chamber are of red granite, highly polished, each stone reaching from the floor to the ceiling; and the ceiling is formed of nine large slabs of polished granite, extending from wall to wall. It is not the least interesting part of a visit to the interior of the pyramids, as you are groping your way after your Arab guide to feel your hand running along the sides of an enormous shaft, smooth and polished as the finest marble, and to see by the light of the flaring torch chambers of red granite from the Cataracts of the Nile, the immense blocks standing around and above you, smooth and beautifully polished in places, where, if our notions of the pyramids be true, they were intended but for few mortal eyes. At one end of the chamber stands a sarcophagus, also of red granite; its length is seven feet six inches, depth three and a half, breadth three feet three inches. Here is supposed to have slept one of the great rulers of the earth, the king of the then greatest kingdom of the world, the proud mortal for whom this mighty structure was raised. Where is he now? Even his dry bones are gone, torn away by rude hands, and scattered by the winds of heaven.

There is something curious about this sarcophagus too. It is exactly the size of the orifice which forms the entrance of the pyramid, and could not have been conveyed to its place by any of the now known passages; consequently, must have been deposited during the building, or before the passage was finished in its present state. The interior of the pyramid is excessively hot, particularly when surrounded by a number of Arabs and flaring torches. Leaving the King's Chamber, I descended the inclined plane, and prepared to descend the well referred to by Pliny. The shaft is small; merely large enough to permit one to descend with the legs astride, the feet resting in little niches, and hands clinging to the same. Having no janizary with me to keep them off, I was very much annoyed by the Arabs following me. I had at first selected two as my guides, and told the others to go away; but it was of no use. They had nothing else to do; a few paras would satisfy them for their day's labour; and the chance of getting these, either from charity or by importunity, made them all follow. At the mouth of the well I again selected my two guides, and again told the others not to follow; and, sending the two before me, followed down the well, being myself quickly followed by two others. I shouted to them to go back, but they paid no regard to me; so, coming out again, I could not help giving the fellow next me a blow with a club, which sent him hounding among his companions. I then flourished my stick among them, and after a deal of expostulation and threatening gesticulation, I attempted the descent once more. A second time they followed me, and I came out perfectly furious. My friend was outside shooting, the pyramids being nothing new to him, and unfortunately I had been obliged to leave Paul at Cairo, and had no one with me but a little Nubian boy. Him I could not prevail upon to descend the well; he was frightened, and begged me not to go down; and when he saw them follow the second time, and me come out and lay about me with a club, he began to cry, and, before I could lay hold of him, ran away. I could do nothing without him, and was obliged to follow. There was no use in battling with the poor fellows, for they made no resistance; and I believe I might have brained the whole of them without one offering to strike a blow. Moreover, it was very hot and smothering; and as there was nothing particular to see, nor any discovery to make, I concluded to give it up; and calling my guides to return, in a few moments escaped from the hot and confined air of the pyramid.

At the base I found my friend sitting quietly with his gun in his hand, and brought upon him the hornet's nest which had so worried me within. The Arabs, considering their work done, gathered around me, clamorous for bucksheesh, and none were more importunate than the fellows who had followed me so pertinaciously. I gave them liberally, but this only whetted their appetites. There was no getting rid of them; a sweep of my club would send them away for a moment, but instantly they would reorganize and come on again, putting the women and children in the front rank. The sheik came ostensibly to our relief; but I had doubts he did not rather urge them on. He, however, protected us to a certain extent, while we went into one of the many tombs to eat our luncheon. For a great distance around there are large tombs which would of themselves attract the attention of the traveller, were they not lost in the overwhelming interest of the pyramids. That in which we lunched had a deep shaft in the centre, leading to the pit where the mummies had been piled one upon another. The Arabs had opened and rifled the graves, and bones and fragments were still lying scattered around. Our persecutors were sitting at the door of the tomb looking in upon us, and devouring with their eyes every morsel that we put into our months. We did not linger long over our meal; and, giving them the fragments, set off for a walk round the pyramid of Cephrenes, the second in grandeur.

This pyramid was opened at great labour and expense by the indefatigable Belzoni, and a chamber discovered containing a sarcophagus, as in that of Cheops. The passage, however, has now become choked up and hardly accessible. Though not so high, it is much more difficult to mount than the other, the outside being covered with a coat of hard and polished cement, at the top almost perfectly smooth and unbroken. Two English officers had mounted it a few days before, who told me that they had found the ascent both difficult and dangerous. One of the Arabs who accompanied them, after he had reached the top, became frightened, and, not daring to descend, remained hanging on there more than an hour, till his old father climbed up and inspired him with confidence to come down.

A new attempt is now making to explore the interior of this pyramid. Colonel Vyse, an English gentleman of fortune, has devoted the last six months to this most interesting work. He has for an associate in his labours the veteran Caviglia, who returns to the pyramids rich with the experience of twenty years in exploring the temples and tombs of Upper Egypt. By a detailed report and drawing received by Mr. Gliddon (now in this country) from Caviglia himself, and by private letters of later date, it appears that they have already discovered a new passage and another chamber containing on one of the walls a single hieroglyphic. This hieroglyphic was then under the consideration of the savans and pupils of the Champolion school in Egypt; and, whether they succeed in reading it or not, we cannot help promising ourselves the most interesting results from the enterprise and labours of Colonel Vyse and Caviglia.

The pyramids, like all the other works of the ancient Egyptians, are built with great regard to accuracy of proportion. The sepulchral chamber is not in the centre, but in an irregular and out-of-the-way position in the vast pile and some idea may be formed of the great ignorance which must exist in regard to the whole structure and its uses, from the fact that by computation, allowing an equal solid bulk for partition walls, there is sufficient space in the great pyramid for three thousand seven hundred chambers as large as that containing the sarcophagus.

Next to the pyramids, probably as old, and hardly inferior in interest is the celebrated Sphinx. Notwithstanding the great labours of Cariglia, it is now so covered with sand that it is difficult to realize the bulk of this gigantic monumat. Its head, neck, shoulders, and breast are still uncovered; its face, though worn and broken, is mild, amiable, and intelligent, seeming, among the tombs around it, like a divinity, guarding the dead.