an unusual occurrence when any one of them has built a handsome house, that he should be desired to turn out, and give it up to some Greek, Turk, or perhaps to an European consul, and should he not immediately obey, his head is the forfeit.

It is a curious fact, that no waterplants or weeds grow on the banks of the Nile; a sedgy margin is never to be met with in this country. The lotus, affecting fens and marshy places, can only flourish during the most propitious part of the year, when the overflowing of the Nile promotes its growth: hence it was so favourite a plant with the ancients; and is so generally coupled with all symbolic allusions to the river. This year the Nile has risen 17 pics or 34 ft.; this is called a good Nile. Last year it rose 18 pics, which produced a very plentiful crop. We went to the island of Rhoda to see the Mekias, but the column of graduation was wholly covered by the water; so that we might have spared ourselves the trouble. The appearance of the island, however, now a complete carpet of verdure, with splendid sycamore trees (ficus sycamorus of Linnæus), was beautiful. There are no barns in Egypt the peasant being sure of fair weather at harvest-home, the corn is immediately threshed, and the grain is piled up in immense hills, encircled by a wall. The birds are then freely allowed their share, though, during the time it is ripening, their claims are disputed by children, who are placed on elevated mud-hillocks, scattered in all directions throughout the plains; bawling, and flinging stones by means of a sling, to drive away the feathered robbers. The other day we went to Boulack, situated on the banks of the Nile. It is, properly speaking, the port of Cairo, and the busy scene it presents at this time of the year is not exceeded by any of our quays in Europe. The large dgerms, some of 40 and 50 tons, bring their owners immense profits during the overflowing of the Nile. The stream brings them down with great rapidity, and the strong north breeze takes them up

again with equal speed. It is said these boats sometimes clear half their original cost the first season; a great part of the year, when the Nile is in its bed, they are laid up in ordinary, as their great draught of water prevents their moving. Throughout Egypt we never met with the remains of anything like a pavement in their cities, with the exception of Antinoe, where we clearly made out that the streets had been paved in many places.

English travellers are now beginning to make their appearance in Egypt. A few days ago Captain Bennet, of the dragoons, and Mr.Jolliffe arrived from making the tour of Palestine. The former is gone up as high as Assuan, with Colonel Stratton and Mr. Fuller; the latter is obliged to return immediately to England. We start in a few days for the tour of Syria. Sheikh Ibrahim, who travels for the African Association, and who is mentioned in Mr. Legh's publication, has been of great assistance to us with his advice in tracing out our route, &c. This he also did for both the travellers mentioned above. Mr. Salt is very kind and attentive to us; we dine with him every day, and he has allowed us to copy his map of Syria. We intend to cross the desert on camels to Gaza ; to visit the whole sea-coast up to Latachia; from thence to cross over the mountains by Antioch to Aleppo; to go to Palmyra or Damascus, according to circumstances, and from Damascus to Jerusalem, visiting in our way all the objects of interest in the neighbourhood of our route. We calculate that the tour will occupy us till the middle of January, when we mean to embark at Alexandria for Smyrna and Constantinople. By the time we start for Syria (which will be in a few days), we shall have been fourteen months absent. We have supplied ourselves with provisions, clothes, and arms (viz., two muskets and a brace of pistols), and have, up to the present time, spent only one hundred and ninety pounds each, including our share of the boathire from Philæ up to the second cataract and back to Thebes, and also of the expenses at Abou-Simbel, except

ing the payment of the labourers and the presents to the cashiefs. Mr. Salt furnishes us with letters of introduction to Lady Hester Stanhope, Mr. Barker, the consul at Aleppo, and all the English agents in Syria. Lord and Lady Belmore arrived at Alexandria in their yacht on the eighth instant, and embarked for Cairo on the seventeenth; we expect them daily.

We have been so fortunate as to discover an interesting tomb opposite to Mr. Brine's at Radimore; the sides are covered with paintings, amongst which are two groups, of a description |

very rarely, if ever, to be met with; one of them represents the removal of a colossus between 30 and 40 ft. high, seated on a chair; upwards of a hundred labourers are employed to move it. The other drawing represents an Egyptian garden, with exotics in flower-pots arranged on a terrace, near to which is an arbour, bee-hives, &c., &c. Mr. Bankes and Mr. Beechey are the only travellers who have visited this tomb since we discovered it: the former has made accurate drawings of all its contents.

On the 1st of October, at 8 A.M., we were without the walls of Cairo. We had made a bargain with an Arab to provide us with three camels, and to conduct us to Jaffa, for thirty dollars. About eleven, we passed, on our left, the obelisk of Mataria, the site of the ancient Heliopolis; and shortly afterwards we passed close to the ruins of another ancient city on the skirts of the desert, where the only object of interest was a statue in a sitting posture, mutilated, but originally well executed. Our road was in the desert, but close to the cultivated plains, which extend no further from the Nile than where the soil is benefited by the overflowings of the river, either by natural or artificial means. This causes a distinct line of separation between the barren sand and irrigated land, having the appearance of a sea beach. We had left Cairo with only one camel and three asses; the other two camels were to meet us at a village in the evening. We had enlisted in our service a Maltese interpreter, who mounted the third ass, while the camel carried our baggage. Arriving in the

evening at the village before mentioned, we parted with the asses, and, at eleven at night, set out again on the three camels, with their owner and his black slave. We heard the howling of wild beasts during the night, resembling the cries of human beings in distress.

October 2.-This morning we were joined by a man with a laden camel, who, seeing we were armed, was anxious to have our protection. As the Tarabeen Arabs of the desert through which we were to pass are notorious robbers, we were not sorry to see our number thus increased; the stranger was bound to a village near Gaza. To-day we passed occasionally through the skirts of the desert, as well as of the cultivated plains; the latter are rich beyond description; the crops of doura were the finest we had seen. The soil being saturated with water, and receiving at the same time the heat of an ardent sun, produces a very rapid vegetation. We slept this night in the desert; and on the following morning we halted at Selahieh, the last village on our road,

which is situated on the borders of the cultivated plains of Egypt. We remained here a few hours to lay in a stock of water and provisions. On leaving the village at 2 P.M., we were astonished at the picturesque appearance of the desert, which was covered with wild shrubs. The occasional hill and dale give a pleasing variety to the scene, very different from what we had been accustomed to in Nubia, where the desert deserves that appellation in the strictest sense, being nothing but a barren expanse of sand and rock, totally destitute of every sign of verdure or vegetation. This difference is to be attributed to the nightly dews in this more northern climate. Wells of brackish water are occasionally met with, which serve to sustain the numerous gazelles which we constantly see feeding in the distance. We frequently met with birds; and in some places the quail and partridge were in considerable numbers. We found that, although the camels are capable when grazing, and not in work, of going five, six, and even seven days without drinking, it is necessary that, when travelling, they should drink at least every third day; and our driver, whenever he met with water, even if they had drunk the day before, never failed to let them drink again, which always appeared to refresh them; for the heavy sand fatigues these animals greatly. They perspire but very little, which tends much to the retention of that moisture so necessary for their support: they were constantly feeding as they went along, the length of their necks allowing them easily to do so. We could not but notice the provident bounty of nature in planting the desert with vegetables of a succulent and nutritious kind. It is undoubtedly to the want of verdure in the Nubian desert, as well as throughout the interior of that of Lybia, that we are to ascribe the difficulty of exploring those parts of Africa, as every camel there must have another to carry provender. Our road, or rather our track, was tolerably good. At Selahieh we had been joined by several persons-a man with

asses, an Arab without a nose, a free negro, and six Muggrabins, one of whom was from Morocco, another from Algiers, and a third from Tunis, all bound on their pilgrimage to Mecca. By keeping with us they secured for themselves a supply of water, of which we had a good stock. They had separated from the great caravan from Morocco, consisting of 10,000 camels, which we met on our last expedition to the pyramids, when we learnt that the two sons of the emperor of Morocco were among the pilgrims. At the time we met it, this immense assemblage had been five months on its journey.

October 4.-We passed, on our left, the great lake, which is situated to the east of Damietta, and were obliged to cross several rivers and pools of salt water, sometimes up to the bellies of the camels, the Arabs and asses swimming across. In the afternoon we saw, on our left, the ruins of Pelusium, but they were too far distant for us to visit them, and too many pools and lakes lay between. In the evening the desert became more hilly, with occasional clumps of palm-trees in the valleys. In one of these we remained for the night, near a well of brackish water.

October 5.-To-day we had much the same country; the palm-trees, however, had disappeared. We saw many carcases and detached bones of camels and asses, which had probably dropped with thirst and fatigue. We also passed a few wells of indifferent water. This evening, Mahomet, our camel-driver, made some bread. He kneaded the dough in a leathern napkin, and, mixing a good deal of salt with it, made a flat round cake about half an inch thick, and baked it on dried camel's dung. It was very good.

October 6.-In the morning we came near a bay on the sea-coast. On the right we saw some Bedouins. The sand now became heavier, and the shrubs less plentiful: we, however, occasionally passed through some long damp plains between the sand-hills. We met a small caravan laden with tobacco; the attendants were armed.

tridges, and a good many gerba, a sort of rat which jumps like the kangaroo. About four we passed a temple of considerable magnitude. Two pillars of grey granite are standing, with several prostrate fragments; and there is a large wall, constructed of antique remains. At sun-set we reached the village of Haneunis. It has a long square fortification, inclosing a mosque. The approach to this place is picturesque it is seated in a valley, and its environs are prettily laid out with gardens, trees, &c. There is but little land turned to agricultural purposes. We remarked both the houses and inhabitants to be cleaner and handsomer than those of Egypt. There are many marble fragments of columns, &c., which mark the site of a Roman town. We had often, before we left Cairo, inquired about the cheer we were likely to meet with in crossing the desert, and were always told of the hardships we should experience; such as want of water, the fatiguing motion of the camels, and the total privation of every accommodation. Bruce's narrative had also led us to expect very indifferent fare. With these unfavourable impressions, we were not a little surprised to find our journey a most pleasant one. The pace of the camels, though tedious, being little more than two miles an hour, we found very agreeable. The open air was the best sleeping-place during the night, and even then it was rather too warm; and as for water and provision, as we had taken care to lay in a good stock of both, we fared remarkably well. indeed, if I except the heat, which about noon is certainly a fraction more than is agreeable (the skin of our noses being blistered off by it), I can truly say, I never made a more pleasant trip in my life.

an

the village, scattered about over uncultivated plain, are some beautiful sycamore trees, similar to those in Egypt. We remained four hours under one of these trees for the purpose of drying all our things, which had been wetted by the salt water some days before, but we had not discovered it until now. While we were thus employed, a woman came hastily forth from the village, and seating herself on the ground, under a tree near us, bewailed most bitterly, throwing the sand over her head with frantic gesticulations which lasted about twenty minutes, when her husband, with whom we heard she had quarrelled, came, and with difficulty took her away.

There are some marble remains of

antiquity at Esdier. We thought we perceived a decided change in the climate; the dews for some nights past had been very heavy. This morning the N.E. wind blew keenly, but the sky was fine and clear. From Esdier to Gaza, which latter place we reached at 4 P. M., there are fine extensive plains prettily cultivated; and the neighbourhood of Gaza itself is richly wooded with the olive, sycamore, mulberry, cedar, fig, and other trees. The country is inclosed by hedges of prickly pears, the hills gently rising to the view beyond each other, and the whole has a beautiful appearance. Excepting the less perishable materials, with which the houses are constructedstone being substituted for mud-the town partakes of the wretched appearance of those in Egypt. The rains in winter have forced the natives to roof their houses, whereas in Upper Egypt they merely lay some canvas across to shade them from the sun, that being the only inconvenience they have to guard against. We remarked that the inhabitants here were better looking

in a white or blue shirt, and a white shawl thrown loosely over the head, with which those who have no other veil occasionally cover their faces. Being tired, and having nine days' beard, we did not visit the town; we were further discouraged by our servant having been scoffed at on account